The Good Life & its Demons

I’m driving home today, after a bikram yoga workout, sipping on coffee and listening to the radio. The sun is smiling brilliantly on what could otherwise be a dreary November day in the Pacific Northwest. A top 40 hit comes on, positive and upbeat, urging me to consider how amazing life is. My life.

Automatically I think about Lesotho. I recall how little people have there materially compared to the states and how much that didn’t seem to matter. I think about how beautiful and normal life seemed there, and how I stopped noticing the material poverty that I am much more aware of now that I have the shining streets of America to compare it with.

So why do we have so many demons in our daily lives here? Demons in the form of doubts, self-consciousness, stress, fear, isolation, that never seem to give us a break from questioning even the smallest decisions.

The inertia of any society pulls people along in the collective direction of their culture. Perhaps in societies like the one in Lesotho, where people don’t have much and are never taught to question the status quo, its easier to go along with the pull of the current, simply because people don’t have the skills to swim against it.

So, what’s so different about America?

We have many different currents to choose from, for starters. Our culture is just as adept at creating rules and people are fantastic at self-policing themselves and others to adhere to the many different sets of status quos. We have the opportunities for learning different skills that let us swim around and find a place for ourselves, it’s not easy though. Our ocean is polluted with really, really pretty lifeboats. It’s filled with shiny, comfortable junk that is easy to hold onto, grow attached to and just float on for the rest of our lives.

This is where I think the mind demons come in and do their work. Right now I’m hanging onto a particularly comfortable, yet not terribly exciting lifeboat. It’s free, spacious and demands very little from me in terms of taking risks or facing my fears. The biggest of which is that I was swimming for a really long time, and felt like I was EXACTLY where I needed to be in my life, and now that it’s finished, I’m lost. I was fulfilling a long-standing goal in my life to live and work overseas, and I can honestly say I’ve never felt more free and honest to myself as I did in the last few years in Lesotho.

I have no idea where to go from here. I want to take things one day at a time, but I feel totally overwhelmed in this spacious and junk filled ocean that is life in America. So the mind demons have had free reign over the last few weeks, constantly sneaking up on me, trying to distract me from the most obvious, new aspect of my life. Which is, that I’m extremely, extremely lucky to have fulfilled so many of my goals. That I have a lifeboat to hold onto while I decide which way to swim next, and most importantly, that I come from a privileged place and have the choices open to me to take me to even more amazing places and adventures in life.

The health dangers of thoughtfulness

19/10/11

It’s a dreary Monday afternoon in the glorious state of Washington. Mondays are terrible even if you happen to be unemployed. Perhaps its something in the water. Whatever the cosmic reason for zapping all sense of hope, joy and satisfaction out of life and replacing it with a granite boulder in the pit of your stomach and an ugly, gray veil over your eyes, it happens to the best of us.

So it was with me, fresh off the plane from Lesotho and travels abroad and back in the land of my middle class suburban upbringing. One week in, and I find myself having coffee with a friend I had met while in Lesotho. This part of the day goes splendidly, and for a few hours Seattle seems to brighten. Soon the afternoon hour approaches and I find myself alone in my car without any other plans for the day.

My muscle memory directs me back to the freeway, onto the on ramp, and without so much as a conscious decision I’m hurtling north towards my parents suburbs at 60 mph. Immediately I balk at the trajectory Monday has deposited me on, and pull off at the next exit, determined to not let this day go to waste, by doing one of the things mankind is known best for; sitting and smoking or smoking and sitting. I’ll be damned if I let this opportunity for a cig and a calm thought pass me by. I’m not really much of a smoker, but everything has its time and place, including a Marlboro light.

Anybody who has ever smoked a cigarette knows that there is something magical about finding the right spot for the cig break. Often this place might include steps to perch on, a friend’s kitchen table, or a quiet spot in nature. I was heading for the latter, seeing as I had no interest in loitering, have no smoking friends in the area of America, and needed to gather my thoughts.

I drove straight to Greenlake, the closest body of water and natural spot that I was aware of. Maybe I’ll even stroll for a few minutes, I thought as I parked my car and began gathering my things. Getting out of the car, I take a glance at the lake that I vaguely recall from my childhood Sunday afternoons.

One pair of joggers goes by, then a man with a dog, followed by a herd of teenagers. All jogging. The scene begins to repeat itself with intensifying horror as more and more teenagers, moms, university students and countless single men of undeterminable age jog by with their canines. The entire lake is literally overrun by runners. This is not conducive at all to my puff-puff mood. I can feel their collective hate at my Marlboro Light from two blocks away.

I slink into the back streets, where I had seen a bench. The bench was in a roundabout I had passed and was set in front of a cow sculpture of sorts. I skip up to the bench, cig and lighter in hand, finally ready for my perfect moment of thought gathering. The bench is completely wet, Monday, it seems, has pissed all over everything that isn’t being jogged next to. Also there is a man in a yard facing me that has stopped doing his yard work and looks like he is about to either yell at me or yell a lot at me. I have no choice but to leave the “art cow” and her unusable bench in the roundabout, and take a walk instead. I light my cigarette and stroll unsatisfactorily up and around the block back to my car. The smoke burns and doesn’t inspire, it tastes toxic instead of sweet and restful. I finish my cigarette earlier than I had wanted, and throw it onto the ground to stomp it out. Just as I stomp it, I’m overwhelmed by a sense of paranoia that someone is watching me and is about to call the police, or at least chastise me for littering. I hastily pick up the cigarette butt and look around for an appropriate area of filth to toss it into. The sidewalks are spanking clean, and I’m almost at my car when the opportunity presents itself in the form of a piece of plastic and one other cigarette butt.

I drive on, finding myself at a mall. As I walk up to the main entrance I feel a stir of acceptance when I come across a mother smoking in front of her stroller. I walk into the mall, turn around and walk right out wrestling with the morality of feeling at home with the sight of baby second-hand smoke, and Monday takes over.

Window War

My ‘me’ has hired a new girl to help with her housework, the last girl quit in November saying she cant stand living under such a mean woman who zaps the happiness out of life. I totally agree. So this poor new victim has been here about one month. The water taps are still dysfunctional, so luckily, my ‘me’ had just installed a giant water container that collects rainwater from the gutters, unluckily its right next to my window.
This means that the dozen or so times a day (often more) that someone needs water they come and stand three feet from my window. Most people politely avert their gaze and focus on the banal task of collecting water, but some take their chances and peer into the depths of my rondaval.
This new girl has taken an almost religious reverence to glancing into my home. It must be done without fail every time my window is approached. I’m not sure what she’s looking for, whether to see what kind of fancy “stuff” the American has or to see what the hell it is I DO all day inside. Either way it drives me crazy to be sitting and having coffee, gazing out the window thoughtfully, only to be startled by a pair of searching eyes, which invariably reminds me that I haven’t moved in hours. Then I am flooded with guilt at the realization that this young girl has been staking me out for some time and has no doubt concluded that I’m the laziest blob of white meat she’s ever seen.
It pains me that she’s reached this conclusion without considering the buzzing amount of mental activity I could be involved in. There’s thinking, and lots of it. Mostly about myself. Like, “What outfit am I going to wear when my family shows up to visit…” run scenario… “I wonder when I’m going to get to go to the Bloem mall again? I really need new sunglasses…aviators this time…” “I’m hungry” “It’s too early for lunch. Well what else are you gonna do all day? Ok, fine I’ll make lunch, after I’m done thinking about all the different clubs and social activities I’m going to join in America, like a salsa class, and how we’ll have public fundraisers, and I wonder what color and length dress I should wear for my lead part?...”
And so on. Fascinating right? So anyway, in order to save this new girl from making anymore erroneous conclusions on my behalf and the fact that having anybody staring into my home is more than a bit irritating, I erected a screen. This screen is a thinly stitched white curtain that lets in plenty of light and allows me to continue gazing out the window in a thoughtful manner, while compromising a peekers ability to ascertain the interior situation. Viola! Problem solved.
I’ve happily cut off all possibility for the new girl to entertain herself in the slightest when she fetches water. The tiny, American kingdom that is my home has closed off its last immigration window to the bored and curious masses of Lesotho.
However, I’m sure there is someone holding an accordion nearby, ready to pollute the air with shouting and sound noise, eager to entertain the Basotho in the same way they’ve been entertained for the last hundred years. And do they enjoy it. Makes me want to grab a razor and pull off a double van Gogh, but to everyone their own taste. Plus, I’m going to need my ears in a few months, when my life doesn’t resemble the top portion of a list entitled: Things I Wouldn't Really Want To Do.

To Whom It May Concern

Friends, family, random strangers;
I hereby renew my commitment to updating this blog. It has been neglected over the last year and a half (ok, almost two years), not for lack of material or desire to write and inform, but because of my utter lack of patience with computers here in Lesotho. Or maybe my inablity to wait a minute for a post to be uploaded. Therefore I've devoted my entire morning to updating my blog with posts that were previously seen only on facebook (I will no longer be posting on fb).

I have some new stories as well, and if i ever find my thumb drive I'll upload them.
-ciao

Old Post; Dec, 2010 Polish Christmas

Its that time of year again. Heat waves are surging through the country, fields of legal and illegal green crops are springing to life, flies and mosquitoes are provoking temporary madness and angry Afrikaners are protesting the black Santa at the Pioneer mall. Yes, my Peace Corps family, its starting to feel a lot like Christmas. Except it‘s not.

Orange county and swampy retirement communities aside, as Americans we have clear expectations of the holiday season. Snow, for starters, fat Santa’s and elves,decorated trees, itchy ugly sweaters, overly played ultra commercialized Christmas songs, the happy act of blowing ones budget on countless shopping sprees, and a vague notion of some Jewish guy named Jesus, whose barnyard themed birthday party has morphed into the colossal event that is Christmas.

Christmas in Lesotho can be tough, in that, besides the abundance of manger livestock, it feels and looks so wrong as to almost not exist. Last year in a desperate attempt to inject some holiday cheer into my life, I decorated an entire corner of my rondaval (just deal with it) with snowflakes, a plastic tree, Christmas cards and a Christmas themed pillowcase. It dawned on me one afternoon, as I lay sweating and staring at the paper and plastic display that it all looked like one of those curios shops that sells Christmas trinkets all year round; cheap and inauthentic.

I’ve never had a soft spot for the holidays before, but living a self-imposed exile life in a mountain desert prison can alter ones perspective and needs. And I needed Christmas. So I reached for something that was neither American (since I had no chance of drowning myself in retail therapy) nor Basotho (feasting on stamp, boiled chicken and black label could be saved for another day) and picked something better. A Polish Christmas.

A Polish Christmas contains all the necessary ingredients for a jolly good time.Gourmet cuisine (think borscht and potato pierogis), fine spirits (bulk-purchased vodka),the entertainingly intoxicated relative (probably all of them) and of course Santa arriving on Christmas eve to deliver presents while everyone partakes in eating the holy Jesus wafer (more on that later). Yet, I digress, the main point is that this mind-numbing cultural awesomeness was such a success last year in bringing Christmas cheer to ablistering hot Dec 24th ,that I’ve decided to share some key pointers to brighten your Christmas in Lesotho.

TIP #1

A burgundy colored beet soup must be present at the Christmas Eve dinner table, and each and every guest is obliged to savor it while proclaiming its deliciousness. Refer yourself to the Peace Corps cookbook for the excellent 5 spice beetroot soup recipe.

TIP #2

Download the latest Christmas songs from the #1 Polish Hits iTunes store (such as Rzeczkiewicz the Abdominal Snowman Goes to Warsaw, and Natasha and Boris hunt Rudolph the Red Nosed Moose Deer) and proceed to play them as loudly as possible in order to drown out any and all naysayers. Conversation may not be possible at this point, since many if not most of your uncultured guests will be complainers.

TIP#3

Never, under any circumstances should you allow guests shot glasses to remain empty.The key here is pouring half shots every fifteen minutes, and feel free to bully the light weights into drinking with friendly holiday taunts. The downing of the glasses should be done together with heartfelt shouts of “Na Zdrowie” (to your health) until everyone’s cheeks are glowing as red as the neglected bowls of borscht.

TIP#4

You must obtain a Jesus Wafer (doesn’t need to be holy) from an authentic source, preferably a Polish grandmother, and share it with all present. Bypassing the more complex and manipulative custom of hanging a mistletoe in order to seduce a potential love interest, the traditional Polish custom of sharing the wafer requires each person be approached, embraced and kissed. Thus allowing all interested parties to cop a feel, guilt free, and Jesus wafer sanctioned.

TIP#5

If you are feeling particularly authentic, feel free to throw in a few verbal jabs at any guest sporting either a German or Soviet heritage. However, make sure to keep a trusted multi-generational American nearby in case the calculative German or ill-trustworthy Comrade is tempted to overrun your fledgling Polish democracy, ehr, I mean dinner party.

TIP#6

Santa must deliver the presents on Christmas Eve. No exceptions. I’m sorry but I don’t make the rules.

So this year PC Lesotho, when you’re feeling down and aren’t quite sure how to boost your holiday spirit, take my advice and choose the best Christmas traditions for a most memorable 2010. Here’s wishing you all a very merry Polish Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Old Posts: Nov 2010, On Lesotho n Smell

Hello esteemed friends and others, i wrote an article for our Peace Corps Lesotho publication and wanted to share it with you. The following is a true story.


MAY 2009
“You know, when I was living abroad, I bought a certain kind of perfume, and wore it while I lived there. Now, every time I smell it it brings back my memories of living in France. I think it’d be great if you did the same thing!”
I nod eagerly at my worldly and wise Fragrance Friend. That is exactly what I need for my upcoming crazy, life-changing adventure to Lesotho (oh, great small land of mystery!).
I am quick to take her advice, yet my tight budget and even tighter schedual before departure in June force me through the open doors of a RiteAid. Choices here range between Whiff of Brittney and Musk of Old Lady. After an agonizing hour of countless spray ‘n sniffs I’m starting to panic. My sense of smell has been completely obliterated and I’ve chosen nothing. Finally, my mother, tired of my indecisiveness picks out something along the lines of “Cool Woman” a fresh mature scent for the professionally minded. “Prepare yourself Lesotho”, I think as we drive away, “Cool Woman is coming!”

SEPT 2009
Three months in country, one month at site, and only TWO misty sprays of “Cool Woman” utilized to date. I hate the mature, fresh alcoholic perfume that leaves me smelling more like a cheap magazine than anything its label promises. This can only be described as a disaster. How am I suppose to remember my experience here in Lesotho without a personalized scent?! I’ve been agonizing over it for weeks now. Every time I look at my calendar, another day is lost to the unrelenting haziness of unscented memories. I test run “Cool Woman” one last time. The following week I give up on my RiteAid purchase and hand the hateful blue bottle over to my inquisitive ausi. Now I’m left with nothing, and a deep melancholy depression sets in. I bake bohobe-ba-metsi to appease my soul, and my new found carb-addiction.

MANY EVENTFUL MONTHS LATER, 2010
I embark on a journey back to the homeland. Great land of evergreens, Starbucks, the Pacific Ocean and some *expletive deleted* good food. Between stuffing my face full of spicy Thai food, drowning myself in micro-brews and eating a local pastry shop back into business, I find time to visit my Fragrance friend.
As I walk through her door, I am met by a lightly floral and citrusy aroma that is sweet, feminine yet delicate. Before I even see her a huge grin starts to spread across my face, as the happy memories of the time we lived together are triggered. Fragrance Friend is one of my besties and this new home of hers smells exactly like our old one.
Later on that day, over an expansive meal of sushi and wine, my mind wanders back to the conversation I had with my friend about perfumes and secured memories. Something I’d deliberately put out of my mind in the preceding months. I quickly realize that I’ve let an entire year slide by, and maybe now is my chance to save the second one. Once again, I’m semi-obsessed over giving my time in Lesotho a tangible scent connection. This time, however, I have a solid plan. I ask my Fragrance friend what kind of perfume she uses, because it really is quite exquisite. Turns out, it’s Dior, and comes with its own exquisite price tag. While I come with a rustic Peace Corps living allowance. I feel defeated once again.

***

I enjoyed the rest of my visit with Dior Fragrance friend and drove my barely functioning (yet still totally awesome) Suzuki Sidekick back to my parents house. On the way there, I decide to stop by an Albertsons, to purchase some candy, and was browsing the isles when I came to a dead stop in isle 7 (lotions/shampoos/feminine hygiene needs). A huge grin plasters itself across my face while realization dawns on me. I never needed a “special fragrance” for Lesotho, it already comes with a host of its own, one of which was wafting towards me in isle 7; cocoa butter lotion.
For those PCV’s unfamiliar with the cocoa butter craze of Berea district (and perhaps others as well, I wouldn’t really know I don’t leave mine), I plead with you to direct yourself to the nearest Machaena/Indian/local Shoppong and purchase a container of “Clere” brand (with a picture of PCV’s Irena’s face on it) cocoa butter. You and your changed life can thank me later.
From that isle 7 moment on, I’ve catalogued many different scents of Lesotho that are deeply intertwined into my (and hopefully your own) psyche. Of those, one of the most prominent is the musky, cool scent of the dining/classroom building in the T-center. Not much in life compares to the intensiveness of pre-service training and the rich smell of that building always brings me back to those first few weeks. There are some smells that will remind me of Lesotho, no matter where I am. The strong, sharp odor of a paraffin lamp, or the distinct reek of a gas stove will bring back images of reading and or/eating late at night, tucked cozily inside a rondaval.
The pungent, offensive and highly toxic smell of plastic set ablaze will never fail to pull at my heartstrings. As memories of gleeful trash burnings on a cool summer night are recycled to the surface of my awareness. I believe that if papa had a more discernable “food” smell, then I have no doubt that henceforth, anytime I’d come into contact with it, Lesotho would be on my mind.
These were some of the reassuring thoughts flooding my brain as I left the Albertsons that day. The matter felt finished, I had no more need to agonize over scents, memories and neural connections.

This story would’ve ended there had I not been an avid reader of free in-flight magazines. For better or worse, my stint in ‘Merica (oh great land of wonder and goodness) was over for the time being and I was on my way back to the land of my calling; Lesotho. Sitting in an expansive Boeing 7-something or other, I flipped through the pages of the duty free ‘Sky’ magazine. A carefully placed ad caught my eye, a set of the top-five best selling Dior fragrances for women, on sale now (special Atlantic routes only)! It took me only the better half of three minutes to fully scrutinize the ad. Did I qualify for this unbelievable offer? Woman? Yes. Atlantic route? (pause for map check) YES! That was the defining moment when I began to feel my new credit card burning a hole in my pocket.
Turns out these new planes come with a credit card machine built right into the entertainment system. I just wish that duty free purchases came with a complimentary phone call home, to alert ones significant financial other (in my case my parents, whose money I was now liberally spending) of ones high altitude impulse buys. For my part, I blamed it on the free beverage service, amongst other reasons (“but mom I’m going back to Lesotho!”).
So as these things go, Lesotho, you DO have an array of your own charming smells that will forever hold me close to you. However, just in case cow patties fail to wriggle themselves into my memory, I have a backup plan, five in fact. So far, this month has been colored by the smoky, yet deliciously sweet aroma of Dior’s Hypnotic Poison. Next month is looking pretty good for debuting Dior’s Addict.
Now that I have spent so much of my time (and yours too reader) obsessing over memories, I believe that I’ve compiled an impressive ‘sense memory’ package, in addition to smell that I’m inclined to gift to you.
I believe this mountain kingdom first and foremost tastes like papa, braii pork, Squadron and ginger beer, sounds like lil ‘Wayne, famu and electricity snapping through the air, feels like a crowded hot taxi speeding down a potholed road, or the lethargy that sets in after an especially long meditative stint staring at my wall, it most definitely looks like a khobo wrapped Mosotho, or a rewarding KFC sign, and it smells without a doubt, like duty free Dior.

Old Posts; Good Morning! True story

Saturday Morning, 6:30 a.m.:

Riiiiiiing, Riiiiiiing, Riiiiiing!!! My phone is going crazy. As I groggily roll over to grab the call I make two mental notes. “Damn! I forgot to turn off my phone last night” and “Ooo I hope its someone from America calling me, cause who else would call at this time?”.

“Hello?” I mutter.
“Hiiiiiiii. Its Tebello, remember me?” the voice squeaks. Oh no. random Mosotho morning caller. I’m still half asleep and not thinking straight. If I had I would have ended the conversations quickly.
“Noooo….” I draw out.
“Oh, well we meet in Ty, remember? Listen I need a job, please I need you to give me a job.” The caller is very earnest that I find her a job. I look again at the clock, 6:30? On a Saturday morning? Really? So I reply that I have no job for them, never will have a job for them and so on. She asks, “What are you doing right now?”
“Sleeping”
“What?”
“Sleeping”
“What?!”
“I’m SLEEPING, sleeping sleeping sleeping sleeping!”
Then there is a pause on the on the end.
“Why?” she asks.
I really should have hung up by that point. This went on for some time longer, her asking me why I would be sleeping (I must be a very lazy person) and me explaining the basic mechanisms of being “tired”. Finally she realized she was wasting her money on the phone call, and muttered something once more about a job and hung up. I rolled over, and did not go back to sleep. Thank you Lesotho.