It's a simple summation to say 'I'm
home'. The experience was two years of my life. Being back feels good
though. I enjoy the food diversity and seeing friends and family.
Didn't expect to find myself wanting to be back there so quickly.
Driving around thoughts of my hut and biking drift through my head
and I want it again. The cool mornings under a mango tree and days
that had so much potential. Not that days here lack potential, but it
felt like there was far more potential for crazy adventures to happen
over there. As with anything the transition brings hard times and
joy, here are some highlights.
The first things uttered by most are
introductory questions along the lines of; how was it? What was it
like? Do you miss it? Was it worth it? Well it was wonderful,
grueling and fantastic at times, I do miss it, and it was extremely
worth while. The less glamorous part of this question is that most
people don't have two days for me give a brief overview of two years
of my life, so all responses feel shallow and the questions not
completely answered. The polite question ends up frustrating the
person to whom it is directed. I'm not really one to feel a need for
talking about my experiences and thus more indifferent to this
frustration than most of my peers. When you ask someone how their
vacation was they have a reasonable and relate-able response because
the time-frame is short. We, however, can't cram all the information
into such small increments. That people can't relate to the scenario
is also difficult. I can't really tell a story to it's full effect
when the audience lacks a basic understanding of all the characters
and underlying mindsets involved. Every story has other stories and
pieces of information needed for it to make sense and that isn't
concise enough for most audiences. If I start talking about how there
are three kids named Mamadou in my compound, and how it was an
entertaining realization that the mother's name is added to the end
of the child's for distinguishing, I have to explain that there's
only a handful of first names in the country and it muddles the
point. As MTV demonstrates anything not easy to follow and brightly
colored is no fun to pay attention to. Then you just feel guilty for
boring people.
To live and integrate into a foreign
culture gives one the marvelous opportunity to examine both cultures
through the eyes of the other. The very frustrating element to this
ability is few people have it, and fewer want it. I want to describe
individual people like my very kind and patient and hard working
community counterpart Mama Saliu Balde, but people don't hear it.
People have this idea in their head of a third world country poor
African village, and for all I wish to try and undo the
simplification, I never feel like I have made progress. Affirming
that my village was poor with no electricity is about the only thing
that ears absorb. The things people expect to hear undermine the
things I want them to hear. I want to portray a people that laugh and
go to parties and have weddings and funerals and go to religious
gatherings, I want to portray a relate-able people whom I enjoyed
living alongside. The motivation to categorize in one's head a group
of sad, impoverished, uneducated, and sick, essentially faceless
group of people, is hurtful. It is hurtful because instead of seeing
the relate-able characteristics that might promote a desire to
connect, the group is written off as 'those poor people who deserve
pity and help, but you know........ not right now because they're
different'. Simplifying a group of people makes them easier to
process, and it's comical seeing Americans aren't the only ones who
do this. Many of the Senegalese I lived with thought Americans were
all very rich people and I had to work hard explaining things like
college loans and relative prices of goods before some few began to
understand(although I'm not sure if they believed) the truth. I ask
readers to beware their own perceptions, while images of destitution
and sad undernourished children with distended stomachs immediately
enter your head, and these things do exist, it doesn't mean those
same children never smile or have fun, that the adults never stop
working or are constantly struggling. People are people, and one of
the most profound realizations I had over there was that even
thousands of miles from home with people who were very different, we
always understood each others facial expressions.
Some do not understand or wish to
understand that I am different. Pieces of the first two big
paragraphs combine to make speaking about the experience rather
unpleasant. Lacking understanding and time required to learn the
subject to the depth I have means most references to my experience
have a tendency to move listeners into a disinterested glaze. So I
feel like 'that guy' trying to convince people to become vegan or
condescendingly describing why micro-brews are the only good beers.
I'm motivated more to simply not speak about two years of my life,
and two years that were colossal for my advancement as a human being.
I recognize all this is rather disheartening so I'll give a shout out
to everybody who has talked with me in an engaging and attentive
manner. I'm also not angry with everybody else, I understand my life
isn't on the top of your concerns list.
Anyway...(<-Elipsis hehe)Some other
notes I have had since departing Senegal. We took a week vacation in
London before returning to the U.S. I had spent a week in the huge
city of Dakar so was fairly accustomed to western food. One thing I
wasn't ready for was STROLLERS. In all of Senegal women use a towel
sized piece of cloth to tie a baby onto their backs. When we arrived
in London and I saw women with one tiny baby taking up so much room
on trams and trains during rush hour, I was agitated at the
uneconomical use of space. On the plus side the trams, trains, and
buses of London are fantastic. If you go just grab an oyster pass and
you can use all three to get around London.
Food. A constant daydream in the
African bush for expats raised elsewhere is a more diverse dinner
spread. I recall spending some time on the return plane contemplating
pizza, corn-dogs, and toaster strudels. Returning in the midst of
holidays meant food was abundant and less than health conscious. I
indulged though and reversed some of the work parasites had done.
Unfortunately gastronomical discomfort has become a familiarity. I
noticed shifting my diet to fairly healthy for several days with even
a small lapse into the more hedonistic tendencies resulted in an
overall general discomfort. So I've started to eat; mixed nuts,
cheese, avocados, small portions of meat, potatoes, rice, green
beans, asparagus, oatmeal. That's pretty much it. I will eat other
stuff and part of this selection is due to its cost . Curiosity drove
me to research why so many people are developing gluten allergies and
that lead me to learn most flour has almost zero nutritional value.
So I try to eat as little bread/flour as possible. It works the same
with diet soda. When you eat or drink something (flour/artificial
sweetener) your body gets ready to process it, then when you do not
get the respective nutrients or sugar, you WANT IT MORE! Diet soda is
terrible because it makes you CRAVE SUGAR MORE. Most flour based
foods provide a short term full feeling but having very little
nutritional content then make you wish to eat more food shortly
after. I don't care in the slightest that this turned into a healthy
eating guide. I try to eat this way because I buy some Ben and Jer's
Ice cream now and again and then the next day feel like my physical
potential has decreased by 15-20%. I like feeling unburdened and
ready, so I try to do it this way.
I have been home 8 months, in many
ways the experience is like an old book I read. The realities that
were, are slipping into the fictional seeming memories that are. I'm
greatly saddened by this process. The joys of the adventure are
fading. Close friends are beginning to feel less like people and more
like body-less messenger names that respond to my messages. I suppose
the way to combat such feelings would be socialization but a disdain
for beer, loud noises, (most)live music, and generally things
associated with socialization have acted as strong inhibitors. I
spend time reading about social issues and trying to keep up on the
state of the world. Some things are inspiring and bring hope here and
there, many induce a pessimistic view of the way the world is
heading. I pulled down some thick walls I used to have at the end of
service and am trying to incorporate these new elements into my
interactions. I've found a job merchandising plants for local
Walmarts. Pleasant to be around plants and continue with something I
feel knowledgeable about.
The end to an adventure feels like the
end of a great TV show. You were so involved and each pull or push
impacted you. Then it's over and what the hell are you supposed to do
now? Where are the adventures and the novelties? What happened to the
probability of each day being bizarre and fantastic? The essence of
such a life of difficulty is each obstacle demands a new solution.
Being pushed forces one to improve makes me feel so alive. Peace
Corps made me feel like I was growing as a human being in leaps and
bounds, and returning home is almost stagnant by comparison. I'm
finding ways to compensate. Began rock climbing and I keep pushing
myself and training to do harder climbs. Apparently I went too hard
and put on a bunch of muscle but tendons are more slow to build and
heal so I have to cut back, but I found the bounds of my capacity to
move forward. Started going on hikes and reading and drinking tea.
I'm trying to do what everybody tries to do, find some joy in life.
Yeah I would do it again, and again and again and again......
