To borrow from that great thinker, raconteur and wit, Jon Bon Jovi, we’re halfway there. That is at the time of writing - by the time this is published we will have completed seven of the twelve weeks and thus will be 58.3% of the way there. Who ever said that pedantic arithmetical accuracy does not good lyricism make?
Twelve weeks does not seem an insurmountable gauntlet of time and indeed that’s how it seemed when we started out on the project. When viewed in comparison with the lifespan of our universe (or - perhaps more sensibly - with each of our hopefully lengthy lives) this twelve-week cycle should seem like the most miniscule drop in a vast ocean.
“It’s enough time to experience Nicaragua but no so long that the finish line isn’t always in sight”, I would parrot ad nauseum to well-wishing friends and family, the sheer volume and lovely well-intentionedness of whom, I’m ashamed to say, rendered me incapable of conjuring up original things to say to each of them about my upcoming experience.
And yet something extraordinary has happened (extraordinary for someone whose toe has seldom dipped in in waters other than the River Wey - experienced globe-trotters will hopefully pardon any upcoming hyperbole). I feel like I have been here a lifetime. That finish line that I promised my loved ones would always be within reach proved very quickly to be merely a mirage of an oasis that faded from view upon more rigorous inspection. At this halfway point, I feel as far away from home as I had ever dreamed possible and perhaps even further still.
Not that this is a negative thing. It is all part of that sacred central tenet of Progressio ICS: personal development.
Prior to departure I was sceptical about this mystical notion. Eager though I was to help the people of El Bramadero, I was unsure how much I could help myself in twelve weeks; how possible it was in such a relatively short space of time to develop a character that had been sculpted - for better or for worse - over 24 years.
But here is what I was referring to as extraordinary: these twelve weeks have become an entire lifespan of their own, comparable only to their own duration and not to anything external or bigger. I don’t just feel I have been here a lifetime. I have been here a lifetime (or at least 58.3% of one). Suddenly, in comparison, a few days rendered useless by violent diarrhoea become an agonising frittering away of precious time; suddenly a crash course in eco-stove construction becomes a lifelong dedication to this pursuit; suddenly the slightest internal change that might have slipped by unnoticed before can be perceived as the earth-shuddering movement of the mightiest mountain. And as you sense and watch these changes happening within you - at first in spite of yourself; before long because of yourself - you are compelled to feel, to hope, even to fear that these are changes that can last.
Perhaps I am still the person whose New Year’s resolutions fall just short of February. Perhaps I will return home and contribute another addition to my tomes upon tomes of first chapters of novels. Perhaps my future attempts at sculpting that six pack will follow the example of their past counterparts and breathe their last in their infancy.
But I was arrogant and wrong to think that I was immune to the pull of personal development. We all exist as changeable beings. And we are all changing.
Written by ICS volunteer John Payne
