Last night after returning from dinner I found a small snake hiding under my mat that was rolled up and leaning against the wall. Snakes don’t really scare me, and though I was sort of subconsciously aware that snakes are generally poisonous in Niger, I managed to get the snake into a can and dump it a ways from my house without problems. Then on the way back I realized that people around here generally kill all snakes on sight, and maybe I had just deposited a very poisonous snake in my village where someone could get bit. Hopefully it heads to someplace else or someone kills it. But its funny that my reaction automatically reverted to what my behavior would have been in the states, when I might have been better off chopping it to bits with my machete. I think the bureau recommends calling villagers to do that part for you.

Anyway, today was insanely busy, and I am sitting inside my very warm house now about to drink some (hot) tea and am very content. I have been thinking about shells. Maybe all of life is about expanding outside your shell. Peace Corps is sort of like a mini-life. When you arrive you have a tiny shell because everything seems new and overwhelming. Trash on the streets, the state of people’s clothes, the food, the buildings, everything seems odd and new and unpleasant. Little by little your shell expands and, though I am usually not happy in the process, you reach a place where you are comfortable in a larger variety of situations. The thing is that it is easy to stop doing that, to reach a place that is sufficient but not extraordinary, and to coast through the rest of what is needed without expanding much. This isn’t bad really, but you might never make friends with the guy who is less enthusiastic about you than others. Thing is, he might be less enthusiastic because he is a good guy who doesn’t want the white person to take him to America and so it isn’t a big deal to him to be your friend. Yet he could be one of your best friends.

And of course we are always hard on ourselves for not extending even more beyond our shells, but extending is exhausting, and so its understandable that we stop at some point. I have always sought to extend by changing situations, but now I am starting to wonder how you go about extending without changing things. I don’t want to have to start a new relationship, find a new job, or move to a new city every time a feel stuck in the old one. My challenge now and in the future is to find ways to extend with my current committments instead of seeking new ones. I can see the sorts of shapes that that will take, and it seems like a whole new aspect of myself that I haven’t spent much time with. I expect that to change in the coming years, which seems about right (or a little late) given my age.

So to those of you putting yourself out there, fonda kokari (greetings on your motivation). I think it is worth it.