First Two months back, long overdue

Well, I was hoping to write faithfully about what reentry is like, since it seems to be just as hard as going away and far sneakier. Alas, I have not done so. Regardless, I will try to write a bit on what it's been like thus far.

To clarify, this is about reverse culture-shock from an American perspective.

Month one: Disorientation. Thank goodness I've been traveling for 5 months, successfully getting used to being disoriented. How can it take only 30 minutes to travel 30 miles? How can I just choose the time I leave, and go? How come we don't all carpool everywhere? Why are the roads so clean, so wide, so smooth? And, I cannot believe, CANNOT BELIEVE how much stuff I have. How much stuff everyone has. I begin going through my room, something I haven't properly done since high school. I set a goal to clean out my whole room, and my whole closet (holy terror...), and get rid of as close to half of this stuff as I can. The flip side is that I am enjoying rediscovering my clothes. It's like going shopping for free, and I like everything!

After two weeks of being home, restlessness is already setting in. Not that I want to move on again, no, I just want to DO something useful! I've been traveling and vacationing for months (well, we worked where we could, and I feel a few months off after 27 months straight on is only fair). Regardless of the rationalization in the parentheses, I reallyreallyreally want to do something useful with myself!! Get a job... take classes... volunteer... something. I'm also overwhelmed by living with people, and lonely because I can't just walk up to a neighbor and join them for tea. I'm wishing for my own home and missing having a community at the same time. Weird.

I go to wedding number one, and enjoy Portland greatly! I see many, many Macalester alumnus. So good to see old friends, catching up, and (best of all) seeing my closest neighbor in Morocco in her new, delightful apartment. We reminisce, and eat Moroccan food, and talk about finding a job and getting used to the US. She (now back in the states for some 6 months, reminds me of the best thing I can do for myself: give myself the gift of patience. I just need to wait and let myself adjust slowly. As always, I find her practical sanity grounding.

When I get home I make a few phone calls... a few emails... and an interview... and get a job on contract... hooray!!! Sadly, my paycheck is not forthcoming for several weeks. This is both my fault and theirs. I buy a computer with the very, very last of my money from Peace Corps and my savings from the summer after college. It's fast. My old computer was over 10 yrs old, and still going strong... at a slow, slow pace. I say a prayer in hopes that my new computer lasts so long! I start in on work, and quickly quickly learn something: I HAVE to get my life organized in some type of planner or calendar. No longer will the "list of to do's for the week" suffice. I need to micro-manage my time again. I've not done this since... three years ago. It's frustrating and hard to do. I want to rebel, and just live and let live like I used to, but that means letting opportunities slip by. And seizing opportunity is one of the most valuable lessons I learned in Peace Corps. So I open Google Calendar, and start in on it.

Month 2: New Years, and the Bachelorette Party, and a I get used to driving long distances alone again. It used to be empowering, and it is again. The party is amazing, and even better is seeing my housemates again! L I saw in Morocco. A I haven't seen since I left, though, and she's the one getting married. I meet J, her fiance. One of the... 4 friends who has met someone and gotten engaged while I've been away. I approve of him. I have (so far) approved of all of my friends choices. :) Smart chicas! I bring my friend L home with me, and we relax a bit talk A LOT, waiting to return to KC for the actual wedding. During that week my first paycheck arrives! L heads north to catch up with family, and I head south to see my boyfriend. It's warmish and rainy, but it's lovely to see him after months apart. He's been traveling through some of the dangerous parts of Africa, alone. Good thing he's good at blending in and being creative and making do, and having fun while at it! I'm glad he's back, all the same. I know a little of how my mother must feel now.

A's wedding is awesome. More Macalester people, and I get to meet another's friend's chosen. Another winner. My boyfriend comes, and I'm so, so, SO glad I went to see him before this. I'm absorbed in making the wedding happen, and in maximizing friend time. I know I'm neglecting him, but hope he understands. These girls are heart friends, my souls helpers, the lights that point me to the real Light. I can't give them less than my best. When we go our separate ways, I'm crying in his arms trying to convince myself that life without my girlfriends will still be full of laughter. I think I'm a sap, but the next day one of them sends us all an Excel spreadsheet detailing why we need to live closer to each other. Guess I'm not the only one.

I drop off my boyfriend at the airport, and start another long drive.

Classes start. I switch out of Econ 101 to 111 because it's too slow for me, and because I want to get the most out of this spring. I'm behind before I begin, am late for the first class, and my phone goes off in the second. I knuckle down, and (as always) pull through, though slowly. Work is grinding on... I'm learning Excel and Word like I never have before. Winter is cold, cold, cold, but I'm loving the snow. Blizzards! Our driveway covered in 4 foot drifts! So beautiful, so otherworldly. Especially to me, and my Africa-thin blood. I'm used to wearing Islam-appropriate garb in 100+ heat, or tramping through Dar es Salaam humidity with a heavy pack. Now it's -20 Farenheit and I need a fleece blanket, 3 quilts and a down comforter to sleep comfortably. And I still wear a sweatshirt to bed.

But I love the snow. Cross-country skiing every day, either in our backyard or at the park. The air is crisp, sharp, clean. The snow makes everything new every time it falls. It makes me want to dance, just like it always did when I was a child.

After some time, life finds a rhythm. I discover I'm more of a fighter than I used to be, that I'm less willing to roll over when someone wants to walk on me. This leads to some unpleasantness, especially paired with the self-centeredness that can only come with living by oneself in a village where you are a rockstar of sorts for two years. I'm working on it. Present tense. My family shuffles, cracks, shifts, apologizes, and we keep going.

reentry

Reentry. That word stared me down right from the beginning of Peace Corps. I think most volunteers assume that the transition back to homelife will be easy, but I have experienced it before, and easy it is NOT!

After a mere 5.5 months in Tanzania (study abroad, Associated Colleges of the Midwest) I was knocked completely off balance, and it took months for me to settle in again. It doesn't help that, after such times abroad, everyone you know has inevitably moved on with their lives. That first time, my support network that had got me through the ups and downs of sophomore and junior year had... graduated. Mostly, that is. Those that were still there had made some decisions that were good for them and their mental health, and ended up being not so great for mine. I hold no grudges, for they are not my keepers, but I now recognize that I ended up in a vulnerable position. It's a struggle.

No change. It's a struggle. You depend on friends, and they are away, married, mothers, at school, self-absorbed, sympathetic, distant, but... not there like you are used to. Like the 10 Moroccan mothers I had, the 15 sisters, the handful of real friends. You depend on family, but they expect much of you, and you dare not disappoint. You depend on yourself, but who is that, in this new place where people do not look up to you automatically, where you do not know your next pay check, or next schooling, or path... I don't even know for sure my dream to follow.

I have many dreams.

So I'm taking classes, readjusting, soaking up the good food and the good company (whenever I'm lucky enough to have it!), and the good family (it's AWESOME to be close to them again).

And the language muddles, and I miss the mountains like I missed the lakes and the trees, and I miss the tajine and the couscous, so I try to cook it and miraculously it tastes good! I miss friends from home who were my lifelines abroad, and I miss the travels afterwards.

I'm at a home though. It is a quiet place, and thus is worth quite a bit.

From Here on Out

I'm back Stateside. I actually arrived a while ago (Nov. 13) but I went to visit family in the Denver area for a few days first, and then home to Wisconsin. The transition from the Far East to the Midwest's time zone is difficult. First off, it's 13 hours ahead, or 11 hours behind only actually tomorrow... and it's just as good at bending your inner time as it is at bending your mind. I had done it in relatively small jumps--except for the South Korea to Denver jump--over a 2 week period, but it was still affecting me only a week ago. I just now feel like time makes sense to me again.

Except for how dark it gets, and how early! After the lovely monotony of tropical days (sun up at about 6, down at about 6, give or take an bit, 365 days per year) the sunset at 4:30 pm gets me. And the dark at 7 pm might be 11 at night for all I can tell.

Anyway. What I really am writing this about is: what I will write about from Here on Out. I have some stories I haven't told, some thoughts I have been meaning to share yet from both Peace Corps and from my "COS trip" afterwards (that's right, you still haven't escaped the acronyms!!). Spaced in with those will be my daily life here in the US, and probably my adjustment to it.

It looks like I'll be here for a while, Figuring Things Out. Things include jobs, further schooling, location of said jobs, schooling and therefore self... etc.

It also looks like I'll be living through my third winter in a row (albeit interspersed with a delightful but cruelly short visit to Wisconsin summer and a much longer travel through the warmth/heat of Southern and East Africa... but still... three in a row??? Two of which did not involve central heating...). Sigh.

The end, for now!

Arusha, Old friends, and Expats

I spent a lot of my time in Arusha staying at the house of a dear friend of mine from college, Eli. He is one of those third-culture kids, parents from different places and raised in a third. They are always interesting ones, having had somewhat unusual life experiences, and having been born to wider worldview than the most of us ever achieve.

One never really gets to know someone without stepping onto their home turf. I gained a much greater understanding of two other college friends by traveling to North Dakota and Kansas City. And one friend once remarked that "meeting your parents, Jeannie, well, it explains a lot about you." In this case, it was amusing, sometimes hilarious to watch four quiet, reserved men living together. They care deeply for each other. Anyway, I really enjoyed my time relaxing at Eli's house, even though the majority of the time he wasn't even there--he has always had a powerful work ethic, and was working. What time we did get to spend together was very nice, just catching up.

Just as interesting in a totally different way, was seeing the firmly entrenched expat culture of Northern Tanzania. For many, many years now (probably approaching 50 years) the world's NGOs have descended up on Tanzania. Poor, destitute Tanzania with it's amazing natural beauty and animal life is a charismatic place. You can't hardly go there and not feel the tug of the land, and the people. They are a very hospitable, kind people generally, and those that are more pushy, the Maasai, are flat out fascinating to most travelers. These NGO workers stayed, befriended and married the ex-Europeans who owned coffee and tea plantations, and made their home there. And what a home! Often leaning towards the luxurious, with domestic workers, gardeners, tenants... and beautiful, always beautiful.

Now, the younger generations move to the cities, renting apartments and frequenting the bars and night clubs. And also, often doing brilliant work with the NGOs they work for. More young, motivated, smart, resourceful people get pulled into the web of the expat community all the time. Oddly, or perhaps not so odd, is that very few of the "native" Tanzanians (how to say... ethnically African Tanzanians might be the most P.C.) have joined into this culture-within-a-culture. The expat community in Morocco tends to be more of a mix, but then it's also been there for a lot longer, and in a different way. The French started out completely insulated, but over time there has been enough inter-marriage, and migration back and forth between Morocco and France that bunches of half-and-half children have sprung up. I wish there were more of a mix between Tanzanians and the expats who are there to serve them, and usually end up being served by them. I think it would be much healthier, and help the cultures to understand each other in a more nuanced way.

Altitude

The air is thin up there. I have always loved the taste and feel of mountain air in my mouth and lungs. When I was a child I used to look forward to visiting the "Denver cousins" with great anticipation. I remember jumping out of a car on the heights of the rockies and bounding about like a young horse; like a distracted puppy.

My first time up high was Pike's Peak. I don't remember it much, but I've seen pictures of me in a borrowed sweatshirt that went down past my knees. My second was a little known fourteener in southern Colorado called Mt. San Luis. It was also my first encounter with and altitude headache.

The past three weeks have seen me on two volcanoes, high in a mountain range, and well over 18,000 amsl. I didn't ever think I would ever go that high into the atmosphere. Actually, it was really easy, right up until it was really hard.

We had been at sea level for two weeks, the four of us (Ants, LTool, Al, and I). And below sea level, actually, scuba diving. So, in the run up to Kili, we planned to increase elevation gradually. Actually, I just wanted to go the Usambara Mountains to see the butterflies and the rainforests, and to climb Mount Meru because it is a lovely and beguiling mountain. It so happened that if we did those in that order before Kili, we would give ourselves plenty of time to adjust to the height needed.

Most people climb Kili, and maybe see Mt. Meru as a largish peak poking out above the cloud layer, keeping the peaks of the "big one" company. They are missing out. Meru is gorgeous! A half-destroyed rim of a steep and high volcano, it rises gently at first on one side, then steeply to where the ash cone declares the volcanic life below, then by enormous sheer cliffs to the summit high above. The other side drops steeply down, down, down, down all the way back to those gentle, forested slopes surrounding the base. When I first saw Meru peek demurely out from the mists and clouds, I was struck by the jagged rock and precipice of the peak, and it's contrast with the green forest below. It called my name, and 4 years later I was excited to answer!

The rest of my group was willing to trek along with me, but Ants and Al were both itching to get on top of Kili. Just to do it, but also, I think, to test themselves against the altitude. Before you do it, there is no real way to know how your body will react. Some people feel barely a headache, some cannot pass 5000 m without life-threatening consequences. Cerebral and pulmonary altitude sickness take lives around the world every year. So, we prepared as best we could.

Meru was fantastic. The views, amazing. The mountain full of character, the forests full of life, the weather, perfect. It wasn't easy, but it was quick, and the altitude gave me nary a problem. I loved it.

Kili was a challenge. A 4-day trek to summit base camp up and down and up and down at necessarily slow paces. Much less scenery to exalt, but when the peak did show itself, it humbled me to think I might stand atop it. Barranco Wall and the cliffs atop it to the glaciers melting down in gigantic icicles stopped me in my tracks. The final bid for the summit wasn't so steep, or rocky, or anything, but it took us up and up and up... Al was the first to feel the altitude. It slowed him down. Waaaaaayyyy down. If he weren't a person of great mental strength he wouldn't have made it. Once I got to the top, I hurt. Headache, nausea, fatigue were all present. But we made it. Which was satisfying, except for the overwhelming desire to descend. And DOWN I went, as quickly as I could. Past the beautiful view of Mawenzi Peak, past the glaciers I came to see, past the spot Al almost gave up, down down down. And all was well.

I still love mountain air. But it's hard to breathe enough of it.

big mountains...

Mount Meru is still the most beautiful single mountain I have ever climbed or hiked on.

Kilimajaro is awesome in it's size and massive-ness.

Mount Mulanje is special in it's self-contained wilderness and beauty.

Oldoinyo Lengai is completely otherworldly, full of dust, ash, sulphur and lava flows.

I wasn't planning on making this mountain climbing thing a habit, but it seems to be becoming one. Ah well!
:)

Changing of the travelers

Tomorrow afternoon, my brother is going to fly out of Dar to Vietnam. Three days ago, a young Englishwoman (Lz) arrived. In theory, they are switching places, although I'm beginning to think that we may end up splitting up a bit more now that it's two couples, instead of me, my boyfriend, my brother and a friend from Peace Corps. Before, we didn't split up for side trips hardly ever. Not since South Africa and the reconvening after the departure of Whit have we been apart for more than a few hours. Until Tz.

A. and I went to visit a friend of his, Jn, and her husband in a small town called Isangati. My brother and Al. went to Dar to start on embassies, visas, and to meet up with Lz. The village was delightful! How wonderful to spend time with people who have no designs upon your money and/or posessions. Who are rather happily living their lives as farmers, fix-it men, cobblers, or all three. It was nice to sleep in a bed that belongs to someone instead of a hotel. It was wonderful to help our hosts with their garden, and go on a walk. We found and ate wild bananas. They are bright orange. They are full of large, black seeds. They taste more like bland papayas than bananas. They are called ndizi pori here, and the kids love them. I learned that banana trees are full of water, and are not actually trees but plants.

Meanwhile, Dar is still Dar, and the bureaucracy continues to be unpenetrable. Thus, I try very hard to be productive... hence the blogging. I'm a bit behind. :)

I'll miss my brother. I'm so glad he came! It was wonderful hanging out a bunch, and awesome to go to the World Cup with him. It's been fun to be there to see him become aquainted with Africa, and it's ways. I hope he values it, like I do.

And now, onward. And northward.