Toilets, Tea and Development

Today I found myself eating lunch in the district headquarters in Vinh Phuc, one of the provinces MCC works in. We had moved from the food table to the tea table for very bitter green tea and some delicious fruit. We were discussing the benefits of what was translated as “two-hole toilets” versus flush toilets. Two holed toilets might better be translated as composting toilets, or dry latrines or a variety of other nice sounding ways of describing a process which takes human “waste” and makes it usable for agriculture as well as taking away the issue of waste being sent to road-side canals or the main village water system. I’ve learned a lot about water and sanitation this week, which has contributed to a lot of other things I’ve been thinking about recently.

For some reason that moment at the tea table added to this bank in my head of things I’ve been thinking about. A lot of it has to do with development. Community development might even more specific, but also bigger than that. Big Picture Development. National development. Personal development. Development even when you think you're in a "developed" place. A person's role in development. A person's responsibility in development. What it really comes to, is that I've been thinking a lot recently about life and what I want from it. Ha, one might say it's kind of a big subject :) It's been overwhelming; some moments really exciting, some really stressful.

Below are a few loosely connected thoughts. I normally try to avoid posts like this, but today I felt like sharing. Feel free to stop reading now :)

The reason water has been discussed a lot this week is that Dan, Dan the water man as I like to refer to him, from MCC was here. He is a very interesting person. He has done and seen a lot. He has been with MCC both in Haiti and Africa, but considers himself a sustainable farmer from Canada. He obviously thinks very intentionally about the things he does and has been very purposeful with his choices throughout his life. He is also a very verbal man and he shared a lot of his thoughts with us. He talked about very diverse things, from government and it’s role, to philosophy of development and business, to very logistical business practices, to North Korea—which it may be my new goal to someday go to—and life there, etc. etc. So interesting.

A friend recommended a book that has some short biographies of different people who have worked at different levels of development (grass roots, policy, etc). It's fascinating. Reading about the things people did, the way they moved in and out of various positions in the academic world, non-profit realm, international work, etc is exhilarating to me. There is so much going on in the world that I would love to be a part of! It reminds me that no dream is too big. That to try to figure out where I’m headed would be limiting because the world and its possibilities are endless.

Over the last few months I’ve met a couple different women here that have inspired similar feelings. There is this moment, when I’m talking to someone, where I’m almost in tears because I feel so overwhelmed by what life could be. I walk away feeling like I’m simply bursting with excitement, but about things that I am nowhere near articulating. It is again, that reminder, that so much is possible. I can think of times I felt that same way at home. I love hearing the stories of people’s lives, the places they’ve gone and the choices they’ve made.

Recently I’ve also been dreaming about grad school a lot. I’d love a chance to truly study, from an academic perspective, the things that are happening in the world. What better way then sociology?! So I spend a good deal of time researching schools and programs and day dreaming about where I could be.

You might ask, what is the point of all this thinking? And particularly, what is the point of the horrible articulating of it that I’ve just done in this post? Well, really, there is no point. Just dreaming. Dreaming about what life is and what it could be. About where I see myself, and where I don’t see myself. About what comes next. About the fact that maybe I don’t need to be thinking so hard about what to do next and start simply LIVING right now. Step by step, that is how life comes together.

PS This is a truly an awful post. If I hadn't just spent so long trying to find a way to articulate these things I probably wouldn't post it. But, it's written, so I guess I might as well. Think of it as a picture into my brain right now--a lot of incomplete thoughts about a lot of things that seem to mean both nothing and everything at the same time.