“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.” – Arthur Conan Doyle
As I reach the milestone of being in Kosovo for 6 months, I’ve found myself learning to appreciate the little things.
I’ve always approached life, and now my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer, in segments. Some longer than others, some just brief moments in time. But, when looking back at how far I’ve come and the accomplishments (and failures) that are the building blocks to the larger narrative of my life, I find that the milestones are made meaningful by the small happenings of daily life.
In my service, I’ve found that breaking things down into manageable chunks is an amazingly effective way at approaching everything from projects to goals, hardships, relationships and everything in between.
These segments are both large and small. The largest being the 27-month clock relentlessly ticking down by the second, which serves as a constant reminder that, while I am here in Kosovo for more than 2 years that time is quickly slipping through my fingers. Sometimes those seconds can feel like an eternity, believe me. But when they converge into the spontaneous interactions, or events, or successful classes, what becomes clear is that it truly is the little things within the context of milestones that makes this Peace Corps experience completely worth it.
The little things in our day-to-day lives are the key to finding meaning in the chaos of it all.
For me, some of the highlights have been:
The time I took a small group of students to a English proficiency exam along with 500+ students from surrounding schools. While none of my students moved on to the next round (though their English levels truly are remarkable for their age), it was spending the day laughing and joking in English with them, grabbing coffee afterwards and seeing them be their true selves outside of class that I will always remember.
The times when I’m walking the 45+ minutes to the gym and a Kosovar pulls over to offer me a ride and insist on driving out of their way to get me to my destination. This happens for more often now that I’m known in my village and each time opens the door to a new connection, a new friendship, in my new home.
It’s the breakthroughs in my own language learning where all of a sudden something magically falls into place and I’m holding conversations long enough and well enough to get the ego-boosting response, “Hang on, you’re not Albanian?!”
It’s the friendships I’ve built from day one when we arrived at staging in Philadelphia and fostered through the turbulence of PST and seen blossom now that we’re all at our sites. There’s nothing quite like the bond one builds with those in their cohort and I think the KOS4 group is a truly special example of how diverse and close a cohort can become.
It’s the time spent over coffee with these newfound friends venting about life. Taking a brief moment to step back and express ourselves honestly and realize how lucky we are to be serving the people of this remarkably unique place.
It’s in the ongoing afterschool course I’ve started that I’ve used to reorganize students into learning levels that fit their skills and needs, thereby allowing them to improve exponentially. I feared students would only show up to socialize rather than actually seek improvement, but in fact have been blessed to experience the complete opposite. I am most proud of the successes that have arisen from this course than anything else thus far in my service.
All in all, it’s truly the little things. Yes, I’m approaching the major milestone of being in Kosovo for 6 months. Yes, there are still plenty of milestones to go before I can even think about the end of my service. Yes, looking back, the entirety of these 27 months will be just another chapter in the narrative of my life. But, at the end of the day it’s the little things that make up my day-to-day life here that makes it a truly meaningful and life changing experience. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know what my service will look like a year from now. But I’m remaining present, I’m letting myself live fully in the moment and am opening myself to those experiences that I will fondly look back on and say, “Yes, that was so completely and overwhelmingly worth it.”
April’s note: This will be the last guest blog post of 2017. Read posts by other guest bloggers:
Hello from Kosovo 