Somewhere in the middle

There is a song written by Casting Crowns. I think it sums up the spirit of my heart and mind at present. If you get a chance to listen to it, it's a fantastic song. '

. . . deep water faith in the shallow end, and we are caught in the middle . . . The God we want and the God who is, but will we trade our dreams for His, or are we caught in the middle . . .'

. . .

I have 1 week left before leaving. Despite the craziness, I've finally found a few moments to simply reflect. Although, really, I'm tired of thinking. A job like this, with so few clarifications (it seems) has made me pretty tired.

It seems like the greatest point of frustration for me over the past 6 months boils down to a feeling of not having been given sufficient feedback from the people I would have expected it to come from. Freedom created a lot of problems for me because I had very little sense of 'what is supposed to be' or 'what I'm supposed to find out'. With so little feedback, I don't think I ever found myself believing that what I was doing was going in the right direction.

I understand very clearly now what is meant by 'institutional arrangements, norms, perceptions, and behaviours' towards the environment. I have less of an idea of whether or not that is even what World Vision Senegal wanted me to find out and whether or not it's good enough.

Some of the hardest points have been times when I feel people are really excited about knowing about what I've learned, and yet I've never really believed that much of what I was doing was going to be bringing anything new to the table. It comes down to a sense of people's expectations towards you being higher than you believe possible to fulfill. You might want to, but the time you have to work with just doesn't feel long enough to get beyond everything that was difficult in order to show some quality work at the end of the day.

It's hard to explain exactly to what extent I believe I 'figured things out'. This has certainly been an internship where it was what I made it. Just, I think I've learned more about what not to do. . . .

. . .

All this said, there are a lot of things that I'm very proud of. I am proud of having taken charge of my own internship part way through the month of August. Most of my village level work was done, however, around that time. So, that will look oddly in the end.

I am proud to look back and realize some things that I do and don't like. I am much more aware of my own needs while overseas. I am proud of some of the ways that I positively started to respond to the culture that I found myself in. That positive response, mind you, was built on a few factors, and factors which remain as clues to me: funky clothes, having some cool conversations with people in the city, being in the city, having a lot more structure built into my work (looking to others for answers instead of having to find them myself), and relating better to a few co workers - also linked with simply engaging the language a bit more (the language really helped facilitate some things, and I see it as a key to engaging any culture I might tackle in the future).

I'm proud of whatever it is that I figured out on my own. I'm proud for having accomplished simple things like arranging my own schedule for the workshops, of creating the translated template of the workshop exercise, of learning through the workshops, of working on the fly for the report of 1 of the 2 workshops. I have no idea, mind you, of whether the report template is the one I was supposed to use . . . and neither is there yet a report for the 1st workshop. It'll come.

I'm proud of taking charge of arranging things like my own transportation when World Vision was not able to do it for me. I'm proud of having worked on many days that World Vision staff were not.

I'm proud of sticking to a schedule because my work required me to, even while the rest of the staff enjoyed a few days of a "Stress Management" workshop! I know I should have been there! . . . ah ha ha.

Essentially, it took me a long time to get over being too frustrated with my work. The ambiguity was killing me. Still is, but I adjusted at least somewhat to it so as to at least try to start to make some concrete decisions. I was still left with the problem of whether or not the questions I was asking, and the ways that I was doing things was effective or appropriate. But, I eventually stopped caring as much about that as well, blaming it on a lack of feedback. There comes a point, basically, where you stop blaming yourself and simply try to move on. I can say I'm mostly there. There are a lot of things with which I just raise my hands and say, 'I'm just learning, I guess'.

Just, to me, that's not the best way to learn. At least, I don't think so. Another big thing is that I never expected work to be so much about, 'Here, do this, but we won't tell you how it's supposed to happen'. Examples: the workshops, the report writing to the workshops, the follow up to the workshops. Essentially, I'm just making stuff up as I go. And I don't ever believed myself to be doing that in university. Thus, my work was justified. I've found myself needing to justify my work, and then simply assuming that it is therefore justified.

Again though, to be fair, part of it has to do with the scheduling, circumstances, and lack of time. November has been crazy, October was all over the place, and then there wasn't enough time to prepare for the workshops, it seems. July and August I was mostly on my own, so that by September I made myself be on my own.

Whatever. For all the things I've worked through, I just think life and work can be done better than that. And believing that, I judged my work inadequate. I did. No one else. And I think I still will on a certain level. But, apparently, I'm not sure how much I need to feel personally responsable for poor performance if there are never any indicators to work with or not enough feedback.

Meh, whatever. I'm sure most of you don't care. I'm just processing. Bear with me.

I'll see you guys in a week.