post from dec #2

Of Loneliness --early December
1) I’m usually not the one who is homesick. I have traveled much in my life, and I love it. I am used to being away from home, and loved ones. Distance does change things. I remember being in Tanzania, and realizing there (just about literally half the world away from home) that distance does make a difference. Somehow, though it seems like it shouldn’t, you miss folks more. Well, time makes a difference too. Yes, I saw this coming. But its still somewhat unexpected… or rather, what I miss is unexpected. My family of course, but also places. Seeing the sunset from my parents’ house, the Havens’ Homestead (sorry guys, but you do have that sign! And you know I love it), Madeline Island, Hope Community Church and my alma mater, Macalester. And then other places even less expected: Dar es Salaam, my research campsite by the Serengeti, the Boundary Waters, the flippin’ highway between certain places… I think I miss green. And sunsets. Though I have really come to appreciate the beauty of the clouds reflecting the suns light as it finally sinks behind the horizon hidden by the huge mountains surrounding the village. Sometimes the light somehow comes around the backside of the mountain and turns the snow up there the same color as the clouds. It’s so beautiful!! I love these mountains, denuded and forbidding though they are. You could also say bold and majestic in their simplicity and starkness.
2) Intellectual isolation caught me off guard. A lifetime of listening to my father talk about physics, politics and whatever else catches his eye, of reading good books and talking them over with family and friends, the blessing of smart and creative people as my friends, 4 rich years surrounded by intelligent and caring people at Macalester, and then finally a similar situation during training here… how little I realized how much value that had in my life! Not to say that people here are not intelligent, not at all!! There are some super sharp cookies here! But relatively few have ventured into high school, and far fewer into higher education, fewer still have seen other cultures and places. Especially women, those who I spend most of my time with. Conversation is gossip, clothes, the cost of food, the weather, and family. All worthy topics to be sure, but sometimes I just wish for more! Yes, I know, that’s what cell phones and other PCVs are for. And truly, I do call and talk to them every now and then. Every now and then.
3) "Lonely for a doe." Watership Down, anyone? Maybe it’s the constant (and I mean CONSTANT) questions about whether I’m married, when I will be married, and to whom, or maybe it’s just the lack of males I am close to physically around me. I have lived almost my entire life in a co-ed situation. I grew up with my brother. I always lived on mixed gender floors or in a mixed gender house during college. I have had pretty close male friends almost constantly since high school. Thus, to have no men to hang with, talk with, mix with is… strange and not exactly to my liking. I can’t help thinking we were made male and female to complement each other. Nope, I don’t need a man, as people here sometimes put it, but gee, it sure would be nice!
4) The act of being alone. Strange to say, at the same time I feel lonely here, I often feel the need to be alone here. Go for a walk with the trees for company. Or rocks and aromatic bushes as the case may be… hole myself up in my house and work on my mending, or my shelves, or read books. Tolstoy right now, and lots of him. People here don’t do alone. They don’t sleep alone, don’t walk alone, don’t work alone if they can help it. It’s great, because if I want to I can just drop in and hang out (provided there is the proper ratio of male to female adults around). But that means I am constantly on alert, working hard to understand what is said around me, to respond in the context of their culture and language, to represent my culture, religion, country and organization (well) and to be alert to opportunities for educational/work-related conversations. It’s a bit tiring. So I retreat to my (cold) house with my (warm and mischievous) kittens to let myself just be myself. Or I pick a direction and start walking.