A Different Pace of Life

My life is different here in Liberia.  Yes, I suddenly find myself teaching junior high schoolers, I think toilets that flush are mildly humorous, and I consider a rolled up peanut butter and jelly wrap a perfectly normal (and totally delicious) lunch.  But overall, these things are not the main difference.  For me, one of the biggest differences - one of the biggest adjustments I've had to make - is the pace of life. 

I am chronically over-committed.  There are too many fun or worthwhile or just plain interesting things to do in life, and I find it exceedingly difficult to pass up any opportunity (although I have been improving in this area over the past 2 years, I still need some work!).  Although at times I love this about myself, this quality has also left me constantly busy.  Each day is scheduled, and the unscheduled days are good times for me to find something to do.  Of course I'll have the occasional day spent losing brain cells in front of a TV, usually on a school break of some kind.  But for the most part, my life has been constantly going, running from place to place, and filling every open hour I could with something to do. 

That does not describe my life here in Liberia.  Sure, I am staying busy, and there is some scheduling in my life.  I am at school each day from 7:30 AM to somewhere between 11 AM and 3 PM.  I have lesson plans to make each night, usually some grading and other record-keeping to do.  But when I'm done with that, I'm done with the things on my "to-do list."  There's this strange phenomenon I'm discovering where there's a time for work, and then a time when work is done.  This never happened to me in college or graduate school, and it's taking some getting used to.

Liberians also have a different sense of time than Americans.  The school day always starts on time.  Aside from that, many things are said to start on a particular day at a particular time (as I dutifully write down in my plan book), but end up happening later, or perhaps even another day.  There have been a few times where I have prepped for a meeting or gone to the school for something to happen, only to find that the precise time stated is not, in fact, set in stone.  For example, yesterday I was told to meet with my advisory group (about 15 students I serve as adviser for).  After pressing for a time and place, I was told 1:00 in the chapel.  I showed up, waited, no one ever came.  The students seemed to be just hanging out around the school, not going to meetings.  I asked another teacher what was happening, and she advised me to find one student I knew from my life (I don't know them all), and have that person help me find the others.  Needless to say, I only ended up talking to about 5 of my advisees, and I just told them where and when to meet me next week.  My plan to take their pictures and play some name games had to be abandoned.  Yes, there are moments when this is frustrating.  But I'm trying to embrace this different pace of life.  I'm trying, instead, to view it as freeing.  I'm trying to see it as an opportunity to practice patience, to practice spontaneity, and to learn from being still. 

One thing I am learning... despite some obsessive-compulsive tendencies I have, here's the bottom line: you can't be OCD in Africa!