Doubts and Identity Dilemas

Since returning from La Paz, I have experienced a couple of very difficult weeks. I have now been in Santa Cruz for what has seemed like one of the longest months of my life. It is difficult to know what your strengths and weaknesses are until you have tested them and been forced to recognize your own failures.

I wouldn't call my experience here to date a failure, but it has been a disappointment. One of my principle goals before coming to Bolivia was to integrate myself fulling into the culture - to walk along side the people and to live as they do. However, accompaniment requires an invitation and after a month I'm still waiting for that invitation. A month is a very short period of time, but even after years I'm doubtful the invitation would be fully offered.

The culture here is a closed culture, people are quick to greet you, but anything beyond a superficial greeting is uncommon. As such I find myself feeling excluded and alone most of the time. In addition there is a "couple culture" here - if you don't have a significant other there is no "in" - and people are quick to find you one.

This has been frustrating for me and has made me question what my purpose was in wanting to do service and what my reality here is and the two do not fit. My vision for service was to share of myself, my gifts and my time and to become a part of a community and to share in that community's struggles. I hoped to fully immerse myself in the culture.

Here I speak more English than I do Spanish and my job is being a support person for North Americans, a very necessary job, but not one I believe utilizes my strengths - something I should have recognized before hand, but because I knew I could do the job I overlooked the fact that being able to do a job and being passionate about a job are not the same thing.

And so I find myself in a situation I didn't anticipate, and I'm surprised by my reaction to it and who I find myself to be in this context. It is disconcerting how much I rely on context for identity - I don't know who I am here or where I fit or if I fit at all. So now I am faced with a question: Do I abandon my original vision for service and develop a new one to fit this context or do I continue seeking the fulfilment of that vision? Can I be content, satisfied - can I thrive in a context that does not nurture that vision?