February 22, 2010 - finding one's self

When people go off on their own to a new place, it is usually given a cheesy image of finding oneself. It is the soul searchers who run off to foreign countries and return to treaded hair or some new person in their lives to introduce to the family. I have picked up neither of those two things, but self discovery is certainly on the top of my daily activities list. In a recent letter to my mother I attempted to tell her who I have become, or at least where I see myself without the outsider's perspective. I truly believe that too much of a person's personality is compromised by who they are surrounded by, and for that reason it is only through solitude that our true personalities come out to be seen. So, while I am not completely alone (the little boy who lives next door has chosen to take up my house as his day time play area) I am more in a solitary condition than I have ever been before in life.

So this is the person I see myself as having become in the last ten months and in the nearly 23 years which I have been roaming through life:

I am always striving to be independent, but deep down I love to have someone to tell my day to in the evening and lay around the house with on a rainy day. I miss living with people, but when I am in an area with a crowd I feel claustrophobic and am always looking for an exit route. I wanted to run off to Africa and join the Peace Corps, but I see myself counting down the days till I get to return to the states. I guess I am never happy where I reside and am looking for greener pastures when I fought so hard to get to the field I am currently in. I always fall for the 'pretty boy' and while sometimes this works out, other times leave me wondering where my head was at the whole time. I hate when people don't like me and will break my pride to get them back into my good graces. I am always thinking about the past and how it played out, but preaching to others that regret is one of the worst things to live with. I have a pride in the image I portray and for that reason I regret drinking every time I do it because something less than that image would come out for the public to see. I wish I could cry more, but have not done so since my grandmother's death a year ago. I wish I were smarter and could debate politics and philosophy on strong ground, but I can't seem to remember enough information to stand up to the tests. I want to be the hippie activist who goes to protests and fights city hall, but I fear confrontation and can never seem to stick to my guns when push comes to shove. I am growing older each day as I can see changes in my reflection. This is a large development for me as I have never been able to feel older than my teens. I want to have a big family and raise children like I was- on the farm with two of every animal and summer pool parties. At the same time, however, I want to travel the world and speak tons of languages, can I do both? I don't know where I will be in five years, but I know the people from my past are the best people who I will ever have in my life, and I want to live closer to them one day again soon. I also want to get to know my Grandma Cynthia more because she is my last grandparent, and because I fear that I don't know her as well as I could. I want to get along with my father the way I did when I was his little girl, and I want to spend more time with my brother. Life is complicated, and I am more complicated than I ever let myself believe. Heck I want the freaking fairy tale, but don't want to be feminine. In fact, I have avoided being a woman since before I could even call myself one. I say that I don't care about appearances, but I judge people when I first meet them, and I spend too much time looking at my reflection. I want to wear makeup and be a head turner on the street, but I don't want to compromise my values so I never do. I pinch body fat that is barely there because the magazines say it should not exist, and I swoon over movie stars without telling anyone. So that is the nitty gritty me, and I will add more is any revelations occur. For now I will hide out in my village and search for more of who I am so that when I go back to the states I am the person I have always wanted to become.

Wine and the Moon (February 29, 2010)

I just had one of the most awakening nights of my life, so listen up. I have found myself in a bit of a hole in recent months. I was like "lord of the flies" meets Jack Nicholson in one of his weird psycho analytical movies. I was trying to impress all the wrong people and worrying too much about my image in the eyes of people who I have known only a few months. Here's the thing I realized, and while it sounds a bit like a pot-head comment, that it's only about the cosmos. It is about how you present yourself to the connective nature of everyone else. It is not the opinion of one person, but rather the whole idea of who you are/were while on earth. I want to leave a positive impact but it is not because I want a statue made or some guy to think of me as amazing, but rather because it is my duty to Karma. And I must say that Karma is something I believe in more with each passing day.

I am moving on, I am becoming more of the person who I thought I was and am only just now finding. I am spending more time looking at the moon rise over water and speaking to people because it is just good to let others know you care. And I am a hippie (whatever that word may really mean) because I amthe reincarnation of a soul which died too young or simply because I refuse to believe that life is only as we see it. I want to get caught in a rainstorm with people I don't know and spend the afternoon in shelter talking about their lives. I want to meet 'Cosmo Neil' and know why we are all here and how we can be one with it all. I want to drink a bottle of wine and not worry about consequences.

Life is short, and you realize this when you hear the weeping of mourners all to regularly in the villages here. Don't for a second regret or believe things which society tells you is incorrect. Dig into the soul of all that surrounds you. There are spirits, there is something else which the books can't find surroundingus. However, we can only find these things when we get back to simplicity like our ancestors did. We lost our connection with the greater being, the whole which we are connected to. That being said, slowly, in my time here I am getting back. I am making mistakes along the way, but I am getting to a point where I can live my life and know that this is exactly where I should be at this moment.

TonightI was meant to be on the beach by Lake Malawi sharing a bottle of wine with a woman who I one day hope to be comparable to. I am where I should be. While this place is far from everyone I love, and I spend too many hours thinking of other places. I need to be here now, because only through this time will I find who I will become.

March 5th, 2010

The clouds were on the move, but the direction of their storm was as unknown as the location they were currently presiding over. The funny thing about weather here is that you never know from which direction it is coming, whereas I come from a place that has the wind plotted on a regular path. Thus, storms were always known about long before they hit. If my friend down the road was getting rain then it was surely heading my way. Without the ability to predict oncoming rain I have taken to just walking out into anything and always knowing that this time of the year there should be an umbrella handy at a moment's notice. The rainy season is funny like that, just one more quirk I am getting used to.

So, on this particular day I was walking to meet with the Traditional Authority with a lovely woman who is running the only NGO in my village. We were chatting like old friends, as I seem to do with people from Northern cultures around here, and the wind began to pick up. The menacing clouds and quickly approaching down pour sent us in search of shelter, and thus interrupting our journey. I am frequently at a loss for words when secluded with the local people, so this was not a welcomed development as we crowded on a thatched porch with a family I have only known casually in passing. Joanna, my traveling companion, was used to these scenarios, however, as she has been in and out of the country since the early 90's. Instinctively she pulled out a camera and we had the group entertained for most of our stay. I served as translator as we got them to one side and snapped away.

The thing about this particular encounter is that it opened me up to something I have not been able to grasp since I arrived, almost a year ago. While I cannot always think of the right words or even subjects for discussion, there are always little things that cross cultures. We all love to smile for a photo and when it turns out that we don't look our best we ask for a better one to be taken. The women giggled to see themselves in the digital image as the children sat patiently waiting for the rain to stop so they would be free to return to their football game. We are different in so many ways, socially it is usually a struggle to find common grounds for discussion (usually limited to plants and social activities in the village); but we share human characteristics which I am finding more of daily.

As the rain slowed back down we parted ways in broken Chitumbuka and agreed to return to visit again. I can't always remember everyone's name that I have met (although they all know 'Nyausisya' the white woman who lives at the health center) but I will never forget their faces or their kindness. I love my village more with each passing day, and if it weren't for the purchasing of food I would probably not ever leave it for the hectic towns. This is the Peace Corps experience which I have dreamed about for years, life works out and I love it.

6 March 2010

Africa Time

30 seconds to greet each individual in a room,times 10 people… it adds up(because greeting is essential in the culture)

1 minute to start sweating after a bath (sometimes I don't see the point in bathing)

10 minutes to bike to the lake J

20 minutes to bike back (all up hill)

25 minutes to make a fire and boil rice

40 minutes to collect water from the well when the health center runs out (which is too frequent)

45 minutes to teach a class at the secondary school

1 hour to open a coconut, and 5 minutes to get tired of eating the coconut.

1 hour- the allotted amount of time that people can be late for meetings (sometimes more than an hour)

2 hours to get to the closest grocery store or market

3 hours to take a boat to the second closest grocery which is necessary during the raining season

4 hours to make rows for corn

5 hours of non-stop rain to make the road impassable

6 hours to have a training with health workers just on gender issues in the community.

1 day for vegetables to go bad without a refrigerator

2 days to get to the capital for trainings

3 days to finish a book which in other places you would never have even started cause it's too big

1 month for a letter to make it across the ocean

2 months for a package to make it across the ocean from family and friends in the states.

10 months to finally have everyone in the community refer to you as your name and not 'white person'

1 year to finally understand what development can happen in the community

2 years to actually accomplish anything worth the government's money to send you here.

9 March 2010

Every place I have lived has a world full of stereotypes which its fighting. I grew up on a farm in the hills of West Virginia where there are 'rednecks' and people playing banjos in stories older than the state itself. There is an image that people in the rest of the world have decided to place on the backwoods areas of the Appalachia, and even across oceans that image rests in people's minds. Those that have never been there believe what others say and decide to take the scenic by-way through Virginia rather than get caught up in some Hatfield and McCoy feud. However, when I think of home I picture its beauty with such massive nostalgia that is hurts too much to continue letting my mind wonder. I see the rolling hills back-dropped by sunrises and sunsets (too many to count), I place myself back in fields with fireflies and crickets, I am floating down a river with friends or getting lost on an old dirt road. Of course there were bad days, they rest in the back of my mind but never seem to surface quite as quickly as the good times. So, I wonder, as I am in another place of backward global images, what do the people here remember at the end of the day. The lucky few who get scholarship to study abroad or travel to other parts of the world for work or love, do they remember only the good? Do they sit in a new place picturing the corn fields at harvest time, the clear blue sky over the escarpment, and their family gathering over traditional food at the end of each day? There are more bad days here than the people deserve, I even fear to think that there are more of them than the happier parts. So, at the end of the day when someone asks them about where they come from, do they talk about the poverty or do they speak of plenty? I hope that as time passes the beauty of these places will come out, but till then I like to consider them as gems hidden behind centuries of lies and misunderstandings. I am okay with the world not invading, but eventually when it comes to Africa and to WV I just hope it's with an understanding of culture and a preservation of those beautiful memories which those born from it hold so close to our hearts and vivid in our minds.

12 March 2010

In response to all the messages I've been receiving about, "should I join Peace Corps". I know many people are deciding their next ramp in life, and it seems I have been chosen as the director. This is a decision that each person needs to make on their own, however, and I can only give a bit or directional advice. Peace Corps is as they say it is… it is living in a rural setting for twenty-seven months. That is the summary in one short and quick sentence. The question that needs to be asked here is- are you one of those people who can be alone in an unfamiliar country and do some significant community development while learning culture and language. Each country is different, and even programs within Malawi vary (you are more likely to get a nicer house if you are a health worker than if you are an environment volunteer). So, I am unable to say what it is like elsewhere in the world. However, there is a support from the Peace Corps office and other volunteers which I don't believe you get if you are working abroad through another program. When I am having a bad day I SMS another volunteer and head to the closest city to vent or just get a bit of the home culture. We have gatherings about every other month and really look out for each other. Of course there is PC drama as there would be when any group is thrown together, but even with their faults I love all the people I've been tossed into the mix with.

I guess what I am trying to say is, I do not regret my decision to come here (even on the bad days). I have made great friends in my community and with other volunteers. I have learned a new culture and language which I will carry back with me, and I have a beautiful little home in a rural African village (got to remind myself where I am from time to time). Peace Corps is not for everyone, they tell you that at the training before we even left the States… it was for me and the 120 other kids I am sharing Malawi with… but there have been people who have left hear early because they could not handle the experience. In fact there was someone once at my site a few years back who actually decided that it was too far out and returned but the America. Whereas I am perfectly happy and don't mind getting stuck at site when the road washes out. I hope that all those people who have asked me would be able to have the experience I am so lucky to be having, but there are other roads and you should go with your heart down the correct one.

March 16, 2010

Happy Birthday to me…. Well as usual I have put high expectations on a day that would not live up to the dream I put it in. My neighbor, Mrs. Kalua, and only nurse at the health center; died yesterday of Malaria. For most people you can treat the patient and there are no lasting effects. However, with her age and high blood pressure her condition quickly worsened she passed away before I even knew what was happening. So, I did what my family does… we run. I ran for about 2 hours around Usisya/ walked in highly populated areasto avoid explaining myself. It felt good to be moving like that again, and I no longer felt like all the emotional build up of the last few months was going to explode out of me. I was friends with Mrs. Kalua but not close enough for the emotions that was trying to fight down. I think being out here you got to cry from time to time, but I have always denied sadness to appear. Had Sarah been here with the hug that always lets me let lose things may have been different, but I couldn't walk to the next bedroom this time. I miss home, I miss the people who would have been there for me, and I miss being able to pick up a phone and let you all know that something reminded me of you. Anyhow…all that built up and I ran…

This morning I woke up to the harmonious voices of the women next door welcoming the family from Mzuzu. It was beautiful, but carried so much pain. Soon the music turned to sobs and then wailing. They feel such great pain with each funeral, and this being the sixth one in the last week I don't know how they stay whole. I saw Mr. Kalua this morning and he had so much pain in his eyes, a normally jovial character was of course broken down by the untimely death. With the rains come sickness and hunger, the people suffer when you think there should be a renewal of life. And so my 23rd birthday has been spent as any other day.

However, there was a light note to the day… phone calls from home. Sarah, Chrissy, Sandye, Sergei, Boris (Emily), you all rock my world and gave me the best present I could have asked for. Otherwise it would have passed by without any recognition (birthdays are not really a big thing here). I love you all and can't wait till I get to see you all again. We'll drink wine in Atlanta, go out for coffee in G'boro, and play in Cape Town … now now (sono sono)