Choices

20 April, 2018

For people who know me, you know I like to do what I like to do, and I’m surely not going to do anything I don’t want to do. In fact, doing something I don’t like doing feels like it’s scratching against every grain of my being - from going to bars when I’m tired to bowing to Buddha statues in temples. Luckily for me, I have usually had the choice to bow out of situations I’m not particularly fond of or in the mood for. Peace Corps is the exception. Since my time in the Peace Corps, I have felt as if many parts of my independence have been torn from me. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been told what to wear and eat, when to be home, when I can leave home, where I’m allowed to sit in a vehicle and what vehicles I’m allowed to sit in, and multiple other things*. Now, I love the Peace Corps and am 100% in, but this is just the reality of things, and honestly, it has been something I’ve struggled with. Recently, I had the opportunity to be aquatinted with multiple people who have very few choices in life, and this has got me thinking…

It’s actually amazing how many people in this world have such little choice. Many of the people I’ve met recently (and many I’ve met through trips like Uganda) seem to have had their lives chosen for them. As I met and talked to these people, I wondered what it felt like to have a person like me standing in front of them. A person who has an education, has traveled around the world, has always had food on the table (has almost always had a table, for that matter), but most of all, has ALWAYS had a choice. I’ve always had the ability to move around or leave a situation if I wasn’t happy with it. What do these people think of me when the only thing they can really change in their life is their attitude? 

Over the Songkran Holiday (the Thai New Year, which was this last weekend), we visited all the elders’ homes in the village. This is a tradition to honor the elders and allow them to bless us for the new year. Since I’m not 100% sure what was going on the whole time, I don’t feel educated enough to really talk about what was happened during our visits, but one thing I do know is they would take offerings that people of the village had brought them, hold them up and pray over them. During this time, I found myself watching them. Some of them reminded me of my own grandparents in how they talked and moved. I started longing to know what their lives had been like. Aching to have them tell me stories of their childhood and dying to hear if they had ever had any aspirations to be anything different from everyone else in the village. 

Most of all I wondered… Did they ever have a choice? Did they have a choice to go to school? Did they have a choice to be a farmer or own a store? Did they have a choice in their partner? Did they have a choice in their religious beliefs? Did they have a choice to have kids or not? Did they have a choice to leave?

Honestly, something I love most about being in non-westernized countries is the limited amount of choices. I personally feel like I have way too many choices, and it gets overwhelming. But sitting around these beautiful people, I realized how truly blessed I am to have been born in a country where I have choices. You can grow up dirt poor and still have more choices than almost all the people I’ve met here. Now, I want you to not misunderstand me and think everyone in Thailand is dirt poor and in need of saving. I have met many amazing Thais who have done amazing things, and a handful of people from this village who have been educated elsewhere and then have come back or work in other places around the world. 

I just hope in these next two years, I can get answers to some of my questions and maybe even find solutions on how to help those without choices (education is always the best place to start!). In the meantime, I will try my best not to complain about the lack of choices I have in some areas of life and use this to help me better understand what the realities of many people’s lives are outside of the United States.

*Most of these rules I am referring to were during Pre-Service Training, and I have many more freedoms now. 

Below are some pictures from Songkran in my village.