The Definition of Success

After three quick days of language and culture training, we were shipped off to the host families we would be staying with for the duration of our training. As the car pulled up to my new house, I could feel the butterflies swirling in my stomach. How was I supposed to talk to these people? I was used to being a talkative, outgoing person, but I could only say two sentences in Khmer. What would they be like? Would they like me?

I walked up to the house and was introduced to my host mother, father and younger sister. Everyone's eyes came to rest on me as I awkwardly pressed my hands together in the traditional Khmer greeting and barely managed to stutter out my name in Khmer. My Khmer Language and Cultural Facilitator (LCF) swept me into the house and showed me the bathroom, the kitchen, and my room in quick succession. After asking if I had any questions, he rushed out of the house to deliver the next volunteer to her awaiting family; I clearly remember the pause as he left the room. My family and I stared at each other as we tried to figure out what to do next. I had already exhausted all my Khmer and my family didn't know any English, so more conversation was not an option.

Luckily, my family moved on to practical matters and began to help me set up my mosquito net. Once finished, my host mom and dad drifted out of the room, leaving my younger sister to watch as I opened my suitcases that contained the trappings of my life. From these suitcases, my books, clothes, and toiletries tumbled out. I reached in and pulled out a photo album my mom had made me to show my new Khmer family and friends. Opening it, I showed it to my sister, explaining who everyone was and what my life was like in America.

And all of a sudden... it hit me.

Like an unexpected rush of wind from a passing semi-truck, like a mid-afternoon rainstorm during the wet season, it struck with a suddenness and vengeance that surprised me.

I was crying... and I couldn't stop. All of the emotion that had been bottled up since the moment I accepted my invitation came pouring out. My host sister was mortified. Only babies cry; as my host sister later told me, in Cambodia that is how you differentiate between a baby and a toddler. Needless to say, my host sister had no idea what to do. She tentatively patted my back and tried to console me while yelling for my host mom to come help. My host mom hurried in, thinking I had died on my first night in her home. She took in the situation and did something I never would have expected given my recently-acquired Khmer cultural knowledge.

She hugged me. She wrapped me in her arms and patted my back murmuring, “Stop, stop, stop.”

In my emotional state, the only thing I could remember to say in my new language was mother. “Mom, my mom, miss mom.”

“Stop crying, I am your mother now,” she replied. Eventually, I stopped crying as she continued to calm me. It was at that moment that I knew I was actually in the Peace Corps, and things were about to change.

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Someone recently asked me if I felt my time in Cambodia had been successful.

My first thought on hearing that was, how do we determine success? In number of bathrooms built at the local primary school? In students taught the ABCs? In number of new mothers educated about breastfeeding? While doing my needs assessments for my community where I would be working for the next two years, I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to point to something and say “That's what I did. That's what I built.” My community had infrastructure covered; they didn't need a library or bathrooms. So, I was faced with the question: without those typical markers of success, how can I justify my feeling that I have in fact been successful thus far?

Peace Corps and the concept of success is a tricky thing. Any Peace Corps Volunteer, past or present, knows the three goals of Peace Corps. One, to help the people of interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men and women. Two, to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served. And three, to help promote a better understand of other peoples on the part of Americans. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we don't arrive in country with the stated purpose of building some physical structure; we may help in the construction of libraries, bathrooms, or sports courts, but that isn't our mission. Our true job is less tangible, but equally (if not more) important. Our true job is to connect, communicate, understand, empower, support... and these things cannot easily be measured.

Despite our American desire to measure success, to quantify and logically justify our experience for ourselves or for others, serving in the Peace Corps is an intensely personal, unique, and non-quantifiable experience. In truth, no one can decide if you succeeded but you. As this became clear to me, as someone used to checklists, to clearly defined goals and objectives, to “do A and B will follow”, the ideas was quite frankly terrifying.

As I started to think about my definition of success, I kept thinking about my emotional episode the night I met my training host family. While it isn't a moment I would have initially categorized as successful, it was. It was a moment where I was vulnerable and a human connection between two people and two cultures was formed. That is success. To paraphrase someone famous, “I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.” I might not be able to define what success in my service is, but I know it when I see it.

I see success when I bond with my students about missing my family, just like they do sometimes. I see it when I share in the joy of a wedding or in the sorrow of a relative passing. I see success when my sisters and cousins have a living example of a strong woman working in the world, a woman more concerned about her education and career than about her weight or skin color. I see it when my students, who will be primary school teachers when they graduate, have a teacher role model that doesn't miss class and comes on time with a smile. I see it when my counterparts feel encouraged to practice their English despite pronunciation or grammar mistakes.

In my service thus far, the thing I am most proud of is my courage in re-defining what success during my service looks like. Before Peace Corps, I would have insisted on a quantified, step-by-step definition of success. If I reached this destination, I would be successful; there is something comforting in this formulaic approach. For me, success during service is now a little vague. Typically, the clearer goals and objectives are, the better. However, my new definition of success lives and thrives in this ambiguity. This new definition doesn't tie me to infrastructure, number of people reached, or even knowledge passed on. It allows things like crying in front of your host mom to be a success. It's about messy, non-quantifiable things: people, connections, and understanding.

So, what is success for me? When I am on the plane home, how will I know if I succeeded? When people ask me about my time in Cambodia, how will I justify my experience here?

I'm not sure yet, but I'll let you know when I see it.