Amazing

My taxi brusse ride stopped for awhile last night and when it came back these animals were on top of the van.  As we began moving they would sometimes scream.  It reminded me of The Silence of the Lambs.  Goats have a very specific scream.  Like a woman about to be murdered.

As I sat there, looking at the stars and listening to Malagasy soft rock, I felt so lucky to be there.   It is like there are several worlds and before I only had seen one.

Back in Madagascar!

After two months in Niger, one year in Madagascar and then six months in the USA....I am back in Madagascar!   I am here six weeks--one month of teaching and two weeks of vacation/karaoke.

It is truly a gift to be able to go back and forth between cultures.   It allows my mind to integrate the information from both cultures in a more meaningful way.   More to come.   But I will say this:  the longer I am here (three weeks so far) the less I want to go back (to the USA).   There are people I want to go back to, but culturally I feel nervous.   

The flow of life is much more natural here, it feels more human and that is something I find difficult to part with.

Motherhood in the United States

At some point in my early twenties I realized that I didn't have to have kids--that it wasn't required--and since then I have been thinking it over.  It was in Madagascar that I decided having kids was for me.........yet after only four months in the United States I find myself feeling afraid of having children.   Why the change of heart?   

Let's see....

In the United States you have to carry toys, food, clothes, car seat and so on every where you go.

In Madagascar your baby is on your back.

In the United States you are judged if your baby cries for more than two seconds.

In Madagascar babies cry sometimes.   

In the United States you must breastfeed in secret because boobs are just too pornographic to show.

In Madagascar you can breastfeed anywhere around anyone as it is the most natural thing in the world and clearly nonsexual.

In the United States you have to explain to your children why you are saying no.

In Madagascar you have authority over your children and no is no.

In the United States you watch your children alone in your house and are a wimp if you need help.

In Madagascar you raise your children with the neighborhood women.

In the United States you leave your child at daycare when you work or you stay home alone with them all day.

In Madagascar you take your child with you (at a fruit stand) and spend the day with other women who also have babies.   

In the United States you have to pay for a babysitter and you aren't supposed to rely on other people much to raise your children.

In Madagascar you can expect the full support of your family and friends including free 'babysitting'.

In the United States you can't physically discipline your children you must politely verbalize everything.

In Madagascar you can swat your kids to show them you are serious.   (It works too).

In the United States you treat your kids like siblings.

In Madagascar you are allowed to be the alpha dog of your kids.

In the United States kids have adult supervision at all times.

In Madagascar it is OK to leave kids alone with each other even at young ages.  

Having kids seems a lot natural in Madagascar than it does in the United States.

Even my cat looks different to me.....

This last weekend I reunited with my cat Daisy Face.   I had not seen her in 18 months.   During the ten years that I have had Daisy she has slept on my feet--so we are quite close in that odd cat-human way.   One might say that we love each other.   Indeed, I have composed songs for her and use a voice with her that I do not use for humans or even babies.

I missed Daisy quite a bit but I think it is now safe to say that she missed me more.  Last night I woke up several times to cat kisses (sand paper) on my arm.  At one point she was holding my hand (no lie) with her little paw.  She refuses to go outside and only wants to sleep on my bed.   When I first picked her up from the lovely people who were watching her she ran to me from the driveway dramatically!

She may also be feeling a little bit insecure these past couple of days because I think my general vibe toward animals is a little bit more Malagasy than it used to be.  Stores like Petco don't make as much sense to me.   I say things like, "She'll eat it if she's hungry" about toddlers, let alone animals.   Malagasy people certainly have pets and love their pets but it isn't quite to the psychological heights that we often understand pets in the US.   It is a bit more like a farm cat or farm dog.

That said, I still love Daisy Face and she still loves me.  It was a very sweet reunion and I am sure our love with only grow stronger with time as I remember the joys of snuggly sweet loving Daisy Face!

Readjustment Reflections...

They say that readjusting to life in the United States is actually
harder than adjusting to life in Peace Corps. I disagree. I
suppose it is harder if you are expecting it to be seamless--which is
what many volunteers expect. I think it is also harder if you are a
younger volunteer--because you come back and find that your friends
are now in mid-adulthood and when you left they were l playing video
games and cramming for finals. Essentially you are thrown into a
period of life that is weird no matter what (the few years after
college graduation). In my case I am finding this process much
easier, though less gratifying, than adjusting to life in Madagascar.

One important thing to note is that the Peace Corps volunteer fantasy
of talking nonstop about your experiences does not happen. Don't
expect it. It won't happen. And just know that it will be a weird
process full of mind blowing trips to seven eleven. It is a good idea
to have a job and living situation set up before you return to the
United States. I'm sure the readjustment process is harder depending
on how long you are in Peace Corps as well as how rural your post was.
But if you plan a few months to take it easy (not work too much) and
integrate your Peace Corps life with your US life--you'll be fine!

It has been over two months for me and although I still don't feel
normal, I feel fine. It's more the sense that I don't fit in as well
as I used to (and let's face it, I never fit in that well). I'm okay
with that. In the words of Gertrude Stein, "We grow neither better
nor worse as we grow old, but more like ourselves."

What Not To Wear Challenge: Is White Skin Is The Most Powerful Accessory?

DRESSING SHABBILY IN PEACE CORPS!  I FEEL SO FREE!  AND SO WHITE?
Peace Corps volunteers, generally speaking, experience aesthetic freedom abroad.  We wander around the host countries dressed like shit.  We shouldn't.  It is considered disrespectful and we just don't realize it.  But we do.  We feel so free without the pressures of American appearance.  We don't have movies, friends, magazines and billboards constantly telling us we need to look this way or that way.  Another significant reason we look so shabby is that we are adjusting to doing laundry by hand and to shopping from second hand piles of clothes.  This is really a factor.  (Most) Malagasy people know how to frip shop and do laundry by hand.  Indeed, washing clothes by hand is part of our technical training.  I was a very slow learner.  It is harder than it sounds.  Finally, it must be said, having white skin connotes status in many (all?) countries and we rely on that (whether we admit it or realize it) to counteract our pathetic appearance--if we happen to be white.  So like most volunteers, I was pretty shabby looking in Peace Corps.  It is all true.  The freedom from feeling judged by the US culture aesthetically.  The disorientation of buying and cleaning clothes.  The reliance on skin color to communicate professionalism (wow).

MINIMALIST LEANINGS IN THE US!   WAIT, BUT ARE THESE PANTS A GOOD REPRESENTATION OF WHO I AM?
When I first returned to the US, and to this day, I have simply asked friends if they have extra clothes they want to get rid of.  Of course, in the United States, everyone has a garbage bag or two of clothes they don't care about.   I have been wearing these rejects and feeling like I look great.  My clothes are newish, freshly laundered and so on.   I marveled at the laundry machine.  It has been two months since I got back.  My perception of my garbage bag wardrobe is slowly changing.  I am starting to think about how the clothes represent who I am.  "Is this shirt me?"  No.  It is a shirt.  You are you.  Material goods will never represent who I am nor do they need to.   They simply need to function.   

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

It says something that I want to dress more nicely in the United States than in Madagascar.  I certainly think the United States culture prizes physical appearance and encourages the spending of money on appearance.  This pressure affects all of us.   But I also must wonder, who is it that I want to impress here that I didn't want to impress in Madagascar?  I wonder, was it a latent show of disrespect that I dressed so shabbily?  I don't like thinking that but not liking it doesn't make it false.  Even more so, and certainly true, it was a conscious understanding of how much power my skin held.  I didn't have to dress to impress.  I was white.  Being white connoted wealth, education and intelligence.  It also connoted snobbery, arrogance and pompousness.  Either way--it was nonstop specialty treatment.  I am still white but it feels more secondary now.   In Madagascar I felt white all day long.  Even in my dreams I knew I was white.  I relied on the status my skin color.  I used it.  I totally did.  It is rude to use your skin color as an accessory.

Adjustments (To the US of A)

I can't squat here, it is considered rude.  My first week at work (in a bookstore) I found myself squatting--I mean really squatting down to the ground--to shelf the books and I realized that squatting isn't acceptable in the United States.   i could just kind of feel that I was doing something culturally weird.  You also can't sit on the floor unless you are a child or a teenager.  I am short.  Chairs are too tall for me.  I like to sit on the floor.  I like to sit low down, squatting or on a low step.  I like to squat.  Chairs are smaller in Madagascar.  I am smaller too and it fit me better.

 

It is freezing cold.  When I am outside, my entire body seizes up as if to say, "Get inside now you are going to die."   I often think of how societies, technologies and cultures have evolved based on the weather.   It is something I can consider for hours.

 

We become outraged if we have to wait but in actuality everything in the US happens very quickly.   The odd part is that even though everything is quite efficient I absolutely feel that I have less time in the United States.  I find myself running errands that don't make sense but are part of life.  For example, I had to reschedule a standardized test I am taking because I was sick and on pain medication (the kind that makes you foggy).   In order to reschedule my test I had to go to the doctor (again), get a note and then fax it to the testing center in some other state.   Why?  In Madagascar I once ran out of money because I didn't realize that there was a 10,000 ariary minimum in your bank account.  I was planning to use that 10,000 until my pay day.   So there I was--no money and out of food.   I met with the manager of the bank and told him I needed the money (that was mine--the 10,000) because I needed to buy food and didn't know about that rule.  He puffed on his cigarette, listened to me (probably in shock to see a foreigner in financial distress) and gave it to me.  I thanked him.  Both were annoying errands--but in Madagascar I was taken at my word.  I think a lot of errands in the US are ridiculous side effects of our rigidity. 

 

I took an online personality test for a job I applied to.  One of the trick questions was about whether or not you like to nap.  I am pretty sure you were supposed to say that you don't like naps, or at least you shouldn't strongly agree that napping is awesome.   Really? 

 

The bus is never full.   And in Utah people don't use public transportation like they do in bigger cities.  It is often considered low class.   So there I am on a super fancy heated 40 seat bus with three other people. 

 

In Madagascar I had this delusional feeling that I was more in touch with the poor (or regular) people.  I guess when you join Peace Corps you are just picturing it that way--that you will be working with the regular people and not with the people who are 'better off.'  For a long time, I specifically avoided making friends with higher class Malagasy people.  What misguided sense of reality or duty fostered this I cannot say.  I did like the openness it created inside of me--the desire to connect and to not judge people based on their income.   I really didn't judge people because they were poor.  It felt beautiful and it changed the way I interacted.  The judging of higher class people is something I look back on and sigh--because they often reached out to me more, I think because in a country like Madagascar educated people feel a certain togetherness.  I see nothing wrong with this now.  In the United States I make no effort whatsoever to be in touch with the poor (or regular) people.  Somehow in my mind it made sense to me in Madagascar but in my own country I feel distant from people who I can tell are really poor.   Why?  I am polite, sure, but I feel distant.   I judged higher class Malagasy people for distancing themselves from "the countryside" or the more poor people (which, it must be said, was a more compassionate judging than in the US because people don't tend to see poverty as self determined).  I judged people for seeking me out because I was foreign and educated.   And yet here I am in my own country doing the same thing.  How many judgements will it take for me to realize that judging someone is like throwing a blanket on top of them.  You only see your blanket.  You don't see the person at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE TRUTH COMES OUT.......Peace Corps Journal Entries

I thought it could be interesting to share some of my journal entries from my Peace Corps service to give a sense of what it is I wrote while I sat at epiceries around the country drinking cold cokes all afternoon. Don't worry, I won't share anything that should make you uncomfortable—I'll keep the extra juicy stuff to myself!  Oh, and pay no attention to how dramatic I am.  I was born that way. :)

August 21, 2009

I got my invitation.  Niger. October 17th.  What have I gotten myself into? I wish I was jealous of someone else doing this—Niger. What was I thinking?  I'm terrified.  I need to do some mega thinking about this. I need to find a way to think about this that calms me down. This is the wildest thing I've ever done BY FAR. This is the grand prize winner for Monica's outward manifestations of her inners. This is totally insane and unreal and unthinkable. And it is 100% totally real. I'm going to Niger in less than two months.  I must go and fetch the water, 'til the day that I am grown.

November 16, 2009

When I can finally speak Hausa (the language) what pray tell will the millet woman and I talk about?  Maybe I need to stop looking for a friend and start just trying to help because I've been through 18th grade and if I can't do something meaningful with that much education then what on earth is it for?  I saw a chariot spider today. It is the biggest spider I have ever seen in my entire life that was not in a cage. And I imagine them everywhere. In my bed, for example.

December 31, 2009

My face is growing wings.

February 21 2010

Today I tried to walk around the town and the smells of the city made me sick. It's ugly to me all of the sudden. Like I am seeing it for the first time. It's so poor. There is garbage all over. There are people everywhere in tattered clothes with no shoes on. This is my new home for the next two years. It's so poor. I fantasize about the United States sometimes. How clean and nice everything is. I had no idea. The way I see the world has been permanently altered.  I need to be open and aware so that I can process the million things I have seen in the past few months that I have never seen before. It's overwhelming. I feel like a spy from the first world. I feel like I felt when I left for college—seeing a whole new world and feeling the destruction on my previous world view. Maybe that's why I am shaky because I am between beliefs. I am totally confused. I know nothing and experience things everyday that are unknown to me.

February 21 2010

What am I doing here? Tomorrow I will wake up again. Things will be better.

March 18, 2010

Not much time on this laptop battery. No electricity or running water for me nowadays. Living in a new house in a smaller town, on the outskirts of the city I was just living in.  I have been in Peace Corps for almost five months and have not actually worked yet. Not really. It feels weird. The idea of being in the Peace Corps is so much more exciting than actually being in the Peace Corps in some ways. It is a good thing. But I am not helping anyone. Yet?  I hope it is a matter of it just not happening yet.  There is a leper colony nearby where I live. There is an albino woman and child in this town.  When I first saw them I gave them a "we are both white" look and the boy knew I looked at him that way, I can tell he isn't sure why white people look at him that way. People live in houses that are ten feet by ten feet. People are barefoot everywhere. Strangers say my name and greet me like I am a celebrity.  Although the other night, while cooking by candle light, I danced to music and felt total joy. I danced around the house in a way that I have not done since I was in early Jr. High. I did ballet moves. Things you would never do if anyone was there. Things that happen when you are seriously by yourself.

March 27, 2010

I can't believe this is my life. It is really not working for me at the moment but I have a special department in my psyche whose primary duties are to talk me out of quitting the Peace Corps. So their committee, as you can imagine, infiltrates any skepticism I feel for Peace Corps.   I have no privacy whatsoever. None.  I feel like I am at work all the time. Always.  I cannot speak Malagasy and it is a problem.  I could do so much here, already, I would be working—but I can't talk.  I do nothing.

April 13, 2010

I have read many books since I came to my own 'village' in Peace Corps. Yesterday I read a book that was six hundred pages. I am not a fast reader (because I say the words out loud in my head as I am reading) (because I like words).  Out of uncertainty about what else to do, and an intense desire to escape my environment, I read almost nonstop. This reading, which reached its apex last night, is excessive to the point of making me wonder if I oughtn't either study literature or become a novelist. I have, of course, never even come close to writing a novel. My writing skills have improved over the years due to academic papers and exhaustive and private journal entries. I have never even come close to creating a character—unless you would consider that character me. And on that note sometimes I think that is exactly what journals are—a presentation of myself as a character to myself so that I can understand what on earth is going on.  In other words, I have been reading a lot. Some would say too much.

April 20, 2010

A few days are all I will remember when I am 100 years old. Some of those days will be among the most despairing and devastating of my life. Other days will be sweet candle lit soft smelling memories like snuggling with my dog as a teenager. There will be brightly lit memories too—of 3am falafel in New York City. There will also be memories of my dreams. Things I never did but wished to do. It is this 100 year old woman that I answer to. If I concentrate I can hear her voice telling me what to do.

April 29, 2010

I got so depressed in the capital city, Antananarivo, this last visit there that no part of me wanted to come back to my "town." The imagined stress that return would incur was just too much. And I wasn't wrong. Even in the dark, as the sun was gone, children called to me through my window and scared me to death. "Monica" emphasis moe-knee-kah.  I am starting to hate my name.

At this point I do these things in Peace Corps:  Read novels (very little nonfiction), pull water from a well, pee and poop in a chamber pot, shower with a bucket in a wooden enclosure covered in bird shit, cook…. I guess it sounds nice but I admit to this day I find almost all of it utterly disorienting.

August 14 2010

This is why I love to move and travel. Since October my mind, soul and heart have—like the Grinch—expanded to the point where they do not fit inside of my body anymore. At ever life stage I see new things because I am at a different level of maturity. It is a blessing that I feel so happy now.

August 26 2010

Today the students begged me to stay for four years so I could help them get masters degrees by being an advisor. I guess they don't really have advisors—or the ones they have only come up a few times a year. Apparently there is a waiting list of some kind.

September 3 2010

The world is as small or as big as I am.

My hope can be silent, shy, overwhelmed, humiliated

It can also be a marching band downtown

I have been disappointed in my intellect and my heart

When they are confused

When they cannot integrate the data sets

Of my soul

And what my eyes simply see

It's too big and too small

Too complicated and too simple

The evolutionary history of planets

The what and the why

My whole self

A traced and trained psychology

Feeling so deeply and so clearly at times

Ultimately confused

I wake up thinking every morning

Aftertaste of dreams

Some times anxious

31 years old

When I was 22 I knew almost nothing

The space between my mind and my experience

Was more expansive than the multiverse

The feeings, so primal, from my upbringing

Were tightly tucked together

Hidden even from me

My sensitivity has peaked, I am more alive now

I can see now the size of my own history

September 13 2010

A guy just bought a beer, opened it, got in his car, took a drink and drove off beer in hand. Ah, Madagascar. The US is so…………..legislated.

(Later that day)

I get to thinking sometimes that nothing matters when the opposite is true. Everything matters. And, the world changes every day. I know I am not brilliant. I know I am just a regular person. But I have education and have been empowered. I have wealth and freedom and am obligated to give back. 

September 25 2010

I made a baby cry in the market today. I smiled at the baby and it started to cry. I am certain it was my skin color.  Maybe that's how racism starts.  Disoriented babies.

October 23 2010

Short term job ideas:  African bike tour cook, Antarctica sous chef, something with scientists, teaching English somewhere like the middle east, backpacking tour guide, African or middle eastern NGO, supervisor for study abroad

November 1st 2010

I feel like I could eat a house.

October 8 2010

I never write about Madagascar. So how is Madagascar? Madagascar is good. I feel largely useless here or confused about 'helping' or sharing culture. Is it just my 'white guilt'? I wonder what it feels like to be 3rd world. I wonder. Life is always complicated. No matter where you live or what you believe. Madagascar doesn't need me. Neither does the US. But here I am, born nonetheless with an adventuresome spirit living a life.

October 20 2010

I picture my facebook lists of music and books

I picture myself shopping at target

I picture myself judging republicans

I picture myself

In the united states

Watching oprah at the gym

I have compassion for the woman I picture

But she is a stranger

Forgotten

In the absence of the united states

My opinions are soft now, baby birds

Their roots exposed

My preferences are meaningless now, little buds

My decisions, my divisions, my traits, my personality

Irrelevant now

Simplified, filtered, clarified

In the absence of the united states

My borders are open now

My opinions are like memories

Or half remembered dreams

I had it all organized in the united states

A cohesive intellectual and emotional

Sequence

Everything in its place

Solidified

Now I can't find anything

My judgments feel like paper tigers

In the wake

Of so much

My limits are not what I thought

Like skin they stretch

Pregnant by experience

People will politely ask me someday

What was peace corps like?

I will say

It was neat and I will wonder

Can they see the stretch marks on my eyes?

The knowing that on the deepest level

My only response

My only judgment

My only opinion is

Confusion and awe

Discovered at an epicerie in Madagascar and under a Nigerien sky

My sense that at my root

That is who I am

And that the only feeling I trust

Is love