Viscerotonic

Viscerotonic (adj)- having a comfort-loving personality

Having been in my village for six weeks straight, I am definitely ready to not be here. I don’t want to feel like that- it implies this life is a temporary one, that can be escaped from when I’m ready to press “pause.” For everyone around me, this is life. There is no pause button. Life here isn’t so, so difficult but there are certainly discomforts to which I’m not sure I would ever grow accustomed. 

In town this week, I’m looking forward to eating whichever fruits and vegetables I choose (within reason: we’re still in Zambia), being able to contact my friends and family at any hour of the day, not having the wrong amount of sunlight to charge my devices, not having to fix my bicycle, and sleeping well because NO MICE. They have been rustling around in my thatch roof for nights on end, keeping me from getting any worthwhile sleep. Plus, eating through my vegetables, toiletries, papers, and leaving messes for me to clean up. I think they are purposefully knocking down spice bottles off my shelf to try and wake me up. One even decided to enter my bed and woke me up while it was sitting on my pillow, even though my mosquito net was tucked in.  

Are all these complaints things to which I would adjust if I didn’t have the memory and option of living without them? I think of a Scottish couple that runs a bible school in my neighboring district. They have lived in Zambia for thirteen years and have Scottish blankets and Scottish coffee mugs at their school.

 I don’t think we ever forget the comforts of home. If someone from here were to be transplaced, I imagine they would miss the pleasures of bathing in the river, calling out to friends in the next village, or the smell of cassava drying in the sun. Home is not only a time and a place but a set of things that make up our culture.

Work here is also challenging, to be constantly trying to engage people, wrangle people, and converse with people. Maybe especially as a self-identified introvert (currently in reform), I need a few days with permission to not be actively working with people or struggling to communicate. I don’t feel like I need a break from work though. In contrast, I feel like I’m not doing nearly enough in my village. It’s the everyday hassles of life in a rural village from which I could use a temporary reprieve. 

31 October 2017

Philopatridomania

Philopatridomania (n)- homesickness

Being in a radically different place like this, it’s bound to happen that I would be missing home. I have days like today, where I just ache with wanting the comfort, familiarity, confidence, ease, and surroundings of home. I especially want to be with my family and with Stephen, or at very least to be able to talk with them. Ah! My heart is hurting. These feelings swell and shrink, especially when I’m able to touch base with my people, when I’m actively engaged with my community, or when new events happen (magpie brain).

Other times, the feeling of homesickness is not a chronic ache but an acute, specific longing for a particular time, place, or thing. The onset and specificity or these ones surprises me! I think I should write them down, both so I can laugh at myself but also so I can appreciate these things in an entirely new way when I have them close at hand. They’re mostly food, which embarrasses me.

What I have missed acutely so far:

-making tea with an electric tea kettle

-a chocolate croissant, preferably from the one café in Valley Fair mall

-Tumblr

-a mai tai

-seashells

-cheese quesadillas

-curling up with a movie after a hot shower

-gooey American style pizza

-spinach salads

-a fresh-picked strawberry

-writing surfaces (desks, tables, chairs of the appropriate height)

-perfume 

Remeant

Remeant (adj)- coming back, returning

Being in Port Elizabeth again was staggering. Each view brought waves and waves of nostalgia, of places I didn’t know I remembered and of memories long buried. Many, many of the memories were with Stephen, so a remeant trip in that city with him made the nostalgia even grander. 

It was overwhelming how much of the city stayed the same while it was me that had changed. I remember the Walmer township being one of the first views from the plane and in 2012, I thought to myself, “THIS is the real face of poverty.” This time, I was amazed to see how NICE the township looked, in comparison to villages and some parts of Lusaka, I presume. The houses have plaster walls, are painted bright colours, have electricity and metal roofs, and have communal water sources. I’m remembering the Cape Town township I stayed in had running water inside the house, too. 

Throughout PE, nice houses and businesses accent their gazebos and braais with thatched roofing for an authentic African look (in my external opinion). In stark contrast, thatched roofing is used in the village setting because it is free to grow, harvest, and build. 

Things I remember being dowdy in South Africa looked outright luxurious this time around. Paved streets with curbs, planted flower gardens, numbers on houses, even roundabouts on small streets: all just exclaimed development! People dress nicely, the taxis are still new and appear solid (I rode in one in Lusaka that had loose wooden planks as a floor and you could see the road underneath), and people have options. 

The economic and racial disparities were still shocking to me. I guess, this time I could see how much wealth is present in the municipality, if not in the society as a whole. There are ritzy cafes, security details, billboards, traffic control measures, and active construction works. What is lacking is support infrastructure: there were still hungry, homeless people on street corners, without shelters or social welfare available to offer help. 

Maybe a city inures us to collectivism. Here in Zambia, even lazy drunkards belong to families, are tolerated and fed, because where else could they belong? In the city, we assume SOMEONE ELSE will take care of them. In some cities, that may even be true. 

7 September 2017