Shake It Off

A lot has been written about waiting. We wait to become the perfect version of ourselves. To find true love. To get our dream job. For something, anything to happen.

A lot of waiting happens in the Peace Corps, too. It begins with a lengthy application process and upwards of a year or more of waiting to be accepted. Then we wait for the myriad test results to come back from the doctor, giving us a clean bill of health to travel overseas. We wait for background checks and visas, passport photos and vaccination appointments. But all of this waiting is nothing compared to the waiting when the plane touches down, at last, in your country of service.

Things are great, but things are terrible (you see, all grand adventures have at least a pinch of both). Sure, you’re sharing a room with five other people and there’s no water to be found and volunteers are dropping left and right from dysentery and giardia, but just wait! It will be over soon. And yes, you haven’t slept well in days and there are cockroaches climbing all over your clothes and you’re sweating like a fat man in a sauna, but just wait! Training will end. You’ll get your own place. Things will get better.

And things do, my friend, get better. They get much, much better. Your grand adventure becomes less and less about surviving and more and more about thriving. You snuggle right into your new, happy life and find great comfort and joy in it. But still, even then, the waiting continues. This is because waiting isn’t tied to misery or contentment. Waiting just is.

Everyone experiences waiting every single day. But waiting in Uganda becomes an art form. You wait hours for a taxi to fill while your much-too-heavy backpack presses into your lap and your knees press into the metal bar in front of you. You wait for lengthy faculty meetings held in 90% local language to end. You wait for 6 hours for your first cake to bake on the sigiri. You wait 10 months for your house to be wired for electricity. You wait, anxiously, for your paycheck to FINALLY COME. You wait, and wait, and wait.

But contrary to what you’re probably thinking, all of this waiting is not a bad thing. In fact, I will argue that it’s one of the best things I’ve done in country. Let’s take a detour, shall we?

I recently came to the U.S. for a visit. On the way to the U.S. I experienced, in chronological order: 1) a 4 hour delay at the airport, 2) a 7 hour flight, 3) a 3 hour layover, 4) a two hour delay, 5) an additional two hour delay on the airplane and without air conditioning, 6) being deplaned, 7) a two hour wait in a line to get a voucher to stay overnight. This was all before I finally got on a plane that worked and had another 8 hour flight, 5 hour layover, plus another 6 hour flight. Can I get a what, what?!

Ah, but this isn’t all! On the way back from the U.S. to Uganda I experienced, in chronological order: 1) a 6 hour flight, 2) a 5 hour layover, 3) a 2 hour delay on the airplane while someone was arrested for bringing a knife on board followed by 4) another 3 hour delay due to a mechanical malfunction, 5) being deplaned, 6) a 1 hour wait in line to get a voucher to stay overnight, 7) an 8 hour wait after being kicked out of the hotel and before the flight left, 8) an 8 hour flight, 9) a 1 hour layover, 10) a 6 hour flight, 11) a 1 hour layover, 12) a 1 hour delay to get someone in a stretcher on board, 13) a 2 hour flight, and 14) luggage lost for days.

Now, if you stuck with me through those lists upon lists of tragically comic delays or maybe even tried to do the math, you discovered that waiting I did. Boy, oh boy did I wait! But here’s the thing…I DIDN’T GET ANGRY. I’m not lying to you. Unlike the Spanish woman who got hauled off by the police for angrily and repeatedly yelling at the flight attendants, unlike the hundreds of people sighing loudly and arguing with veritable steam coming out of their reddened ears, I didn’t get mad. Instead, I simply waited.

At one point, when the masses on the return flight home were their closest to grabbing pitchforks and storming the castle, I stood in the aisle, turned up my music, and danced. Literally. I smiled and danced to none other than Ms. Swift. “But the people gonna yell, yell, yell, yell, yell and the babies gonna cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, but I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, baby. Shake it off! Shake, shake it off!” I sang in my head. (Don’t judge. You know you secretly love that song.)

And that, my friends, is the beauty of knowing how to wait. The art of accepting what is, regardless of what you want. The art of acting instead of reacting. The glorious art of waiting.

I can feel this art slowly transferring to the other areas of my life too, the ones that really matter. None of us can escape the really hard kind of waiting. I know people who are waiting to finally feel at home somewhere or with someone. People who are waiting to get pregnant after years of trying. People who are waiting to heal after experiencing life-changing grief. People who are waiting for sick loved ones to get better. People who are waiting for themselves to be ready to change, to move, to grow. I’m waiting too…for lots of things. Lucky for me, I’ve got Ugandan-strength waiting power running through my veins. I have “acceptance of what is” stamped on my soul. So I’m just gonna wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, baby. (And when the frustrations and impatience creep up…) Shake them off! Shake, shake them off!