Okay, okay, I get it.

To all of the volunteers who came before who told me about the seamlessly-endless time spans in which you were lost, bored, and without anything to do—I get it.

To all of the blogs and articles I have read about the paradoxical and complicated lifestyle of a Peace Corps volunteer who leaves their country with high aspirations to change the world and came across hurdles and walls they never imagined existed—I get it.

I thought I understood before, but apparently everything before now was just child’s play.

In my first year of service I have had some pretty frustrating times. People warned me that I would do everything in my power to make a difference-- hell, I would do everything in my power just to hold a meeting-- and things would still not work out. And I did have those moments when youth didn’t show up to meetings, when counterparts in my community made promises they couldn’t keep, and when even both of those things weren’t a problem a Peruvian holiday would magically pop up and, “Well, whad’ya know? We can’t do anything for the next week because we’re celebrating the anniversary of a flood, and then the anniversary of the day the water receded.”

Things like that happen, and as frustrating as they are, they are just part of living in Peru. I was not without anything to do. In fact, in the last couple months I became quite busy as I had started an escuela de padres (parent school—classes for parents on how to better communicate with their teen), a health promoters group, an English Club with my host mom, and I helped in different events in both my town and with other Peace Corps volunteers. Time was flying by, all of my hard work integrating into my community paid off, and I felt like I was getting somewhere.

And then the strikes happened.

The public school teachers have been on strike for 3 weeks now. They are marching in the regional capital demanding a pay increase, as they have not had a raise in something like 15 years.

So, the school is shut down. Kids are out of class. My health promoters group, which was held within the school, has not met in a month. English club, also held in the school, has not met either. Escuela de padres…you get the jist.

All of my youth groups I was once in charge that were outside of school have been on indefinite hold ever since my municipality went under construction in late May, leaving us with no location to hold our meetings.

I’ve gone around town talking to all of my counterparts and everyone I’ve built relationships with over the last 11 months and all of them tell me the same thing: “You’re not going to be able to get kids together to do anything. They won’t come. Just wait until this is over.”

I’ve heard so many rumors about when this will be over, I will lose my mind if it really takes that long. Some people say August 20^th. My host mom told me in the past these strikes have lasted 3 months.

I know what many people are going to say. They’re going to tell me to get out there and pull kids out of their homes and do just about anything, just as long as I’m doing something. Believe me I want to, but where? With who? It took months for my other projects to get off the ground, and I worked really hard to get those projects together. And, I really believed in those projects. I don’t have it in me to start something from scratch again.

I wrote project plans, financial plans, pestered people, organized committees, made presentations, wrote countless solicitudes, went through every bureaucratic hoop and stroked everyone’s egos and pestered people some more. And then things got moving, and they were going great.

I just can’t do that again. I can’t push and shove and put my heart into more projects that I know aren’t going to go anywhere. I want to stick with the projects I started, and I want the teachers to go back to school, and I want to continue the amazing work that we started on together.

I used to think those times volunteers talked about when they spent endless days with nothing to do were under special circumstances. It was rainy season and everyone moved away. Their community didn’t understand their purpose as a Peace Corps Volunteer and didn’t utilize them. Their skill-set didn’t match the needs of the community. I thought I hit the jackpot and could maybe live out my second year of service in a much more productive and efficient way. I thought, “Hold on boys and girls! This second year is going to fly by!”

I learned in my first year of service that there are things that happen outside of my control, and no matter how much I want to accomplish certain things I can’t always succeed. But I’m realizing now I had no idea to what extent I could be held back from accomplishing anything. I didn’t realize that even when people do support you and do want to work with you, there will still be times when you can’t get anything done. There will be days when the best you can accomplish is stepping outside your front door, when the most fulfilling activity will be completing a workout (BTW, P90X may be the only thing saving my sanity right now). There will be days when you think you’ve hit rock bottom of feeling worthless, and then you get a little lower.

So RPCV’s and volunteers alike, I finally get it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go finish my P90X workout of the day and read a book, because at least I still have control of that.