Readjustment

People keep asking me "hows America?"

And what is a poor fresh RPCV like myself supposed to say?

Truth is, its a little over rated, but still #1.

While sitting in my hut I exaggerated the wonderful nature of the U.S. of A. The food was better in my mind, the convenience of driving more fun, the juices and snacks more plentiful. The idea of America was an incredibly powerful part of my Peace Corps experience.

Shortly before I came home I had a vivid dream. At the time I had a big, bushy, mountain man beard which could have hidden away any number of small woodland creatures. In my dream, and it was one of those drams you think is absolutely and utterly real, I found myself in front of a plate piled high with Buffalo Wings.

The poor guys didn't have a chance!

I recall eating one wing in particular, one of the little two bone guys, and I was intently trying to get all the succulent meat out from between the two bones, working it this way and that, hot sauce and chicken bits smearing across and into and around my beard and face and hands.

It was glorious!

When I woke up I had to wash my face several times. I was convinced that I had wing remains all over me.

A few days ago myself and a handful of friends hit up Buffalo Wild Wings, that chain place which specializes in providing the ultimate in televised entertainment and fifty million sauces for your wings. Being the over zealous individual that I am, I ordered 18 wings in three sauces.

A few things I learned;

1. American hot sauce is not as hot as I recall.

2. There is such a thing as too many wings

3. An individual who has been a defacto vegetarian for two years should never, ever, ever, ever, eat a meal that is 99% meat and 1% spicy hot sauce.

4. Dont chase your dreams.

The wings were good, dont get me wrong. But it was at that moment, perhaps 12 wings in, when I realized I was attempting to achieve something that was impossible. The concept and the idea of America that had sustained me in Lesotho was non transferable to the real U. S. of A.

As a PCV I needed the idea. I needed to build america up as a land of dreams, a land where anything was possible, a place of both milk and honey. Those cold lonely nights in my hut were bearable because I could imagine a place with heat, I could imagine a place where iced coffee was just $5 away (and I suppose a place where I had $5, another myth).

Yet despite the disappointment, I wouldnt trade those days of fantasy for any reality that resembled it. I'm glad I'm disappointed. I'm happy that America isn't all I'd imagined. It reminds me that the world is a real place, America is a real place, and I have a place in that.

Abstract, wandering, not entirely clear, I know, but important none the less.

On a side note: I enjoy blogging. The hubris that I spoke of in my first post is still there. I enjoy a certain comfort in thinking that someone out there might read what I write. The egoism of thinking my ideas are worth publication, which is the disease of my generation, is incubating nicely within me.

The blog will stay, my self gratifying posts will (if I'm not as lazy) continue to appear.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane!

Thats what your supposed to write in posts like these.

I'm sitting here in the Johannesburg Airport waiting for my flight. Its 7pm and my flight doesnt leave until 10. So I have some time.

I suppose you all want to hear about how I feel about leaving, what my service meant to me, or a few words on the state of mankind.

Sorry, you wont get it.

Not yet anyway.

Instead I present for your consideration:

Wavin' Flag

Walkin'

I’ve taken to pacing in the evening. Once the sun dips down below the opposite ridge of the valley I put on my wool hat, turn on my iPod, and walk 33 paces down my “lawn”, turn around, and walk 33 paces back the other way to my pit-latrine. I’ve been known to do this for up to an hour and a half (until it gets too dark to see anything, and I get too hungry to think anything.)

The Bo-Me’ have taken to calling me “the Chicken”, because I look like a chicken looking for food I guess.

The children always ask me what I’m doing.

I don’t have much of an answer for them. I tell them, “I’m thinking” and they ask “about what?” and that’s where the language barrier slams down between us.

Even if I had the words I’m not sure I’d be able to explain.

When I graduated High School I was at a bit of a crossroads. I’d just been cut free from the life I’d known since I was 5. Wake up, go to school, explain why I was late, learn some, come home, do anything but homework, and repeat. After High School we’re lead to believe that the entire world is before us. Truth be told, I knew that at least the next few years would hold much the same.

College was another routine and more of the same. Throw in a job and you more or less have the same thing. Even after College I knew the general direction I wanted to go.

Cross roads isn’t the right analogy. With a cross roads you can go left, right, or straight. Maybe its one of those crazy five point crossroads that everyone panics a bit when they come too. You still have clear options. Now I have a feeling that its more like the road has come to an end at the ocean.

I can do anything.

I can do nothing.

While I pace I think about all my options. Professional options; I could get a job, go back into politics, try to find something else I believe in. Educational options; law school, grad school, technical school, language school… And personal options; time with family, time with friends, places to live, girls, girls, girls…

I attempted to explain this to a girl of 12 who has particularly good English. She didn’t understand at all.

Take all this, the ending of the road, the open sea, the possibilities of life all spread out before me, and then add in that nagging question, that question you cant help when answering truthfully but sound a little conceited, cliché, hokey or foolish.

What has the last two years been?

So I just walk. Thirty three steps this way, followed by thirty three that way. One slow step at a time the questions come and the questions go.

A Ramble on Romance

Valentines Day is looming. My calendar calls it “St. Valentines Day”, but I don’t see anything saintly about it. It sucks. Mostly it sucks because it brutally reminds the lonely hearted just how lonely their hearts really are.

I’ve never been good at Valentines Day. I think if you were to poll my past girlfriends you would realize that I’m not a terribly romantic person. You would also likely hear a few other choice things, which is why I do not advise you to poll my past girlfriends.

Valentines Day is a lot of pressure. You have to take all kinds of things into consideration. What she likes, what has meaning, what she wants, what you’ve given in the past, blah, blah, blah. I recall one instance (I don’t even think it was Valentines Day, it was an anniversary or some other important thing like that, but the point still stands) where I thought to myself “self, we should really try to be romantic this time around” and that sounded like a rather good idea at the time. So we (Self and I) went out and got a dozen roses. That’s twelve. Apparently roses are five bucks a pop.

I was going to say “I’ll let you do the math” but I wont. $5 x 12 = $60.

I know, I know, you can’t put a price on love. The depths of the heart cannot be judged by the depth of the wallet. All I want is a rational, grounded, understanding of what $60 could be! The sacrifice that $60 represented, at that stage of my life, was quite significant. But I digress.

Upon presentation of said floral arrangement I was shocked to hear “oh, flowers again…” Apparently this girl was wise to my ticks. More appropriately my one trick. For when it comes to affairs of romance and the such I’m really a one trick horse.

I lack creativity. I have no sense of the meaningful, what ever that is. I’m not spontaneous.

I am deficient in romance.

Unromantic.

Romance is too much pressure. If it’s the thought that counts its gotta be a good thought. And I’m kinda dumb.

And another thing! Spontaneous?! How the hell is a guy supposed to be spontaneous? Valentines day is right there on the calendar! Its hardly spontaneous if its scheduled.

So what’s to blame? Why is Romance so hard?

Movies.

That’s why. All these silly girls watch silly romantic comedies where all the silly guys are nothing but kind and loving and spontaneous and thoughtful and romantic. Some hunk or another does the right thing at the right time and always knows what to say. Well you know what? Most guys don’t know this stuff. Most guys have trouble figuring out their own feelings. How are they supposed to know how girls feel?

Why is all the pressure on the guy anyway? Isn’t love a two way street? A girl can get away with a DVD but a guy’s gotta do something meaningful and sweet.

I got on a little rant there.

Anyway, here’s to Valentines Day.

A Cultural Exchange

I don’t dance

I have never been known for my dancing abilities. I have that unfortunate combination of genes that both obliterate rhythm and coordination. Add to that a complete disconnect from what music is “hip” and “cool” and you get someone who, for the greater good and a love of humanity, stays away from the dance floor.

This was fine and good for the first 24 years of my life. I was able to fake it enough, bob my head when I needed too, shuffle my feet when asked, and rock back and forth. I could shimmy my way across the dance floor to the place where others with my unfortunate condition congregate. Couches, kitchens, tables, and porches. These were my sanctuaries.

In Peace Corps when you get four or more volunteers in the same place with anything resembling a beat or sounds that are close to music (and I’ve noticed the sounds don’t have to sound much like music) you suddenly have a gathering that falls into the category of “Dance Party”. I’m not sure what happened to good ol’ fashioned parties, but they appear to have gone the way of the dodo, being completely replaced with what the trendy folk call a “DP”.

It became clear that my old tricks and strategies were of no use. In a one room rondaval the kitchen is the dance floor, there are no couches, the two chairs have been pushed aside, no group of smokers to hide in. Its all DP all the time. No sanctuary, no hope.

So you dance.

And I've danced.

When Peace Corps asked me if I was ready for new cultural experiences I never imagined this. What is someone like myself supposed to do? I’m not entirely sure what’s supposed to happen when you’re on the dance floor. Frank Sinatra led me to believe that dancing was “making love to music”, but if that’s the case, the love making going on here wouldn’t have a place on Showtime. It’s the kind that would exist behind the little black curtain in the video store. “Bumping” and “Grinding” looks like a high risk behavior, something where you call up your doctor the day after.

Yet I dance.

I change.

I adapt.

For I am human.

But don’t for a second think I like it.

Fightin'

I’m itchin’ for a fight. I have been for a while.

We just received three new volunteers here in Butha-Buthe. They’re all nice, optimistic, hopeful young kids. They’ll undoubtedly change the world (and Africa along the way!). To an old veteran like me it’s nice to see the fresh energy, the new faces, the hope and pleasure of being a volunteer.

It reminds me why I came and how I felt at first.

I’ve spent some time with these newbies, showed them around town a bit, tried to convey some of the finer points of life and travel in Lesotho. The difficulty is in keeping my jaded bitter old thoughts to myself. Last night one of the newbies asked me what the hardest part of Peace Corps has been. I gave the usual answers, missing friends, family, projects falling apart, lack of motivation in myself and others, ect, ect, bullshit, bullshit…

Then a thought occurred to me. Something I had had a feeling of for some time but never put to words. Something that had been festering under the skin for the past year or so, growing and breeding and lead to a lot of my frustrations.

I wanted a fight.

I didn’t want to lay my sudden insight on the poor guy, so here I am, laying it on you. You’re the outlet for keeping hope and optimism alive as long as possible.

Here in Lesotho I act as a facilitator. That’s a fancy way of saying I don’t “own” the projects I work on. None of them are “mine”, and that’s the point. They should be “owned” by the Basotho. The ideas should be community driven, initiated, and executed while I just sit there and give them the ability to achieve their goals. Skill transfer, an idea sounding board, maybe just a little bit of money. I’m the tool box, they’re the carpenters.

This Sucks. Nothing is mine. I don’t feel the passionate need to “go to the mattresses”. I don’t say up at night worrying about success or failure. So much of it is out of my hands that its hard to get worked up over it. I miss the days of really fighting the good fight. I miss applying myself to a task, which was in my own hands to achieve, and really working out the short and long of it. In short, I miss the conflict, the struggle, the challenge.

I’m itchin’ for a fight.

Watch out.