Communal Living

For the past three nights, I have been participating in preparing group meals for over 30 people. We all chip in about $1.75 for dinner and dessert. We have groups of contributors: team shop, team chop, team drink, team cook, team clean-up, and team collect payment.

Evening one: Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread and flan
Evening two: Pancakes, hash browns, eggs, fruit salad,
and chocolate mousse
Evening three: Three different types of rice, beans, guacamole, salsa, a corn tomato salad, tortillas, brownies, chocolate cake, and fudge.

I have always been interested in community living and in living in a communal type of lifestyle.

However these three nights of cooking have taught me some interesting lessons about communal living.

In theory if everyone contributed to the whole, to the meal, to the project there would be an overall feeling of accomplishment and success amongst the group, but in practice things are very different.

People are under-appreciated.

During Peace Corps training, there are so many people who contribute to our learning and who contribute to helping us move into our new homes. This whole weekend in Conakry has been a group effort: community dinners, organizing the purchase of 29 stoves, tanks of gas, and trunks, showing us how to shop and move around in this city with public taxis, buying bulk herbs to divide, buying mosquito mesh for everyone, collecting and photocopying all of the chemistry lesson plans we did during practice school and distributing them, and living under one roof.

We all have a common goal of getting prepared and ready to move to site, to move to our villages. It is easier to accomplish this if we work as a team, if we divi up the work and spread the responsibilities.

It is a group effort and at the end of it one would hope that we would all feel a sense of accomplishment and a sense of appreciation for our fellow volunteers.

However there are several problematic issues with communal living, a few issues with a group effort trying to accomplish something:

1. Negativity overpowers any positivity. It breeds fast. One voice of negativity is amplified 100 fold and the positive voice is completely lost.

Negativity can be manifested with resentment towards others for how little they contributed or with negative gossip. The negativity doesn't always even have to manifest itself publicly but often starts internally leading to an overall unhappy ending.

2. Judging the value of one's work is another issue.

If the community was made up for positive hard-working people would communal living work? In other words, if the community was made up of Jennifers would it lead to success? *teasing grin*

Today I did some shopping for the desserts we were preparing for the house. I kept the cook company as he mixed up some frosted brownies and fudge. I washed a few dishes. I chopped many many items tonight for our feast of Latin food. And in the middle of chopping I went outside and helped load up all of the baggage for the Fouta region into Peace Corps cars. (I like lifting.) I contributed to tonight's meal. I contributed to our goal of moving to our villages. I do not feel like I need a thank you or an acknowledgement because I know that I contributed to tonight's meal, to our departure and feel good about what I contributed. I deserved to eat because I worked hard for it.

But what if there was another Jennifer who felt the exact same way but only cut one tomato yet felt good about her contribution felt like she deserved to eat because she too worked hard for it. She contributed less but in her belief system feels she is equally deserving.

Here lies the dilemma. Once we start putting value on each other's work communal living goes to pot. Both problematic issues feed off each other. Judging each other's work leads to negativity.

What has your experience been with communal living and are there ways around these issues?