Coming Home

Now I know what I’m supposed to be doing.  I’m in graduate school and I have a paper due tomorrow.  And naturally, because I basically work two full-time jobs, am owned by a loyal dog (who also deserves more time...and athleticism...than I ever have), and a drinking problem social life, I’m starting said paper the night before it’s due, after a long Monday at work, and an even busier weekend (albeit intellectually unproductive).  I’m in that dreadful stage of feeling simultaneous guilt and disappointment in my own lack of self-motivation, whilst also fully acknowledging that this paper is likely to be incomplete by the time class rolls around tomorrow afternoon.  And wondering if the first assignment of the class was really the best one to fuck up?  Probably not.

Somehow it never fails that these moments of sitting with my laptop amidst open books and notes inspires me to do nothing else but think about what I’d write if I were blogging instead of writing something intellectual, researched, and/or grammatically correct.  Oh and to think about things that have nothing to do with “education”, “at-risk youth”, or “best-practice”.

It’s been a while since I’ve dedicated much time and effort to this blog and I'm not entirely sold that I'll be posting more than one or two posts per month for a while.  And it has nothing to do with not wanting to write.  It just hasn’t been happening.  Which is partly a result of the day-to-day of my life and partly a result of the amount of processing I appear to be doing about my life and my future and all the things you think about when you begin the steady approach to the end of your “twenties”.  Most of which I'd rather not share with the intrawebs, for now.

And I keep going to Africa.  Which just disrupts everything.

I started this post the other morning at the ass-crack of dawn (I was still experiencing jet-lag), and am just getting around to finishing it (and posting it).

I'm awake early. Again.  I just want to sleep.  And not just the act of sleeping, but the other parts, too.  Where your body slows down and your shoulders relax and you sink deeply into the bed and take a deep breath.  That’s what I want, too.

As much as I labor over getting ready for these trips, and spend hours shopping and packing and evaluating my color-coded and coordinated lists, coming home has become the hardest part of these adventures.

The first time I went to Ghana, it took me months to "recover".  Within a week, my sleep had returned to its normal pattern, but there are other things, deeper things, that can’t possibly escape your system that quickly or that easily.  Things you can't shake from your psyche immediately.  And each trip, I expect it will get easier.  And for the most part, yes, the emotional readjustment has become more manageable.  Now a culture-shock veteran, I know what I need to do to feel better when I get back.  I know what to avoid; which conversations to ignore; places I shouldn’t go within three weeks of coming home.  I know how to take care of myself.  But I can’t help but cling to the experience for as long as possible and feel overwhelmed by everyone and everything. 

While we were traveling, I wrote a few letters to my students.  I followed the blogging tradition of so many of my "mommy blog" idols and wrote them letters that contained bits and pieces of my own experiences over the years, mixed in with some motherly advice and some suggestions on how not to panic.  I know it sounds unbelievably nauseating to think that I wrote a group of eighteen adults “mommy letters” while we were traveling, but you gotta understand a few things about how emotionally draining these experiences can be; how utterly exhausted one can get while simply trying to experience everyday life, let alone process it in any intellectual capacity.  And how much I really can't help but mother the shit out of anyone and anything I encounter.

A few nights before we left I wrote them this: 
As we come to a close, take the time to absorb what you've seen and felt and heard and smelled. Bring it all home with you. Unpack your suitcase slowly. Save some of the dirt.  Don't try to make sense of it too quickly. As best you can, allow yourself some space before you jump back into real life. 

And I’m finding myself struggling to take my own advice.  Unfortunately, the reality of my life mandates that I re-immerse myself as quickly and efficiently as possible, despite my own natural resistance to such nonsense.  Despite my hostility towards this place I call “home” where everything seems unnecessarily large and shiny and clean and the food tastes bland and sweet and like chemicals.

It's almost become comical with my family and friends.  They've learned to handle me carefully in these tender weeks, knowing that I'm at risk of crying or bursting into laughter, or some insane combination of both, at any moment.  Almost to the point that I feel mildly abandoned.  Why aren't they calling me!?

And while I work hard to not be too obnoxious about the whole thing, I’m just not sure there is anything I can really do about it.  At this point, this place has become a part of me. It's in my blood now.  Literally.  The Red Cross won't even look at me.  What I've seen and felt and tasted and explored in Ghana and Benin is an inescapable part of who I am as a person.  I've been traveling back and forth to these places since I was 19.  The person I've become at almost 28 has most definitely been shaped by my experiences abroad; by the people, the food, and the customs.  

Despite my love of using words to describe impossible situations, I can rarely find the words I need to describe these trips.  Sure, I could (and probably will) tell you stories about football games where riots break out and feeding monkeys bananas and walking to waterfalls that are enormous; I can share experiences about feeling overwhelmed by my own identity as a white American or the way that my curves are celebrated, and not feared, by the locals, but without knowing the sting of the pepper sauce on your pounded cassava or the way the heat seeps into your bones as you sink low into your hips and dance and sweat until you can barely breathe, I sometimes find it requires too much explanation.  The quick exchanges in the market; the expressions of strangers that sear into your heart; the small hands of children exploring your face or hands or arms, curious to see if you feel as different as you look.  These are the experiences I can’t quite name.  I can't put these thousands of moments into simple enough terms to truly do any of them justice for just how meaningful they all become as you begin to unpack your suitcase.

So my desire for sleep is deeper than a REM cycle.  It's about really resting.  Really absorbing.  Really transitioning back to life in Baltimore.  And though several days have passed since I began this post, and my sleep pattern has returned to normal, I still have those moments where I don’t really even believe the things I was doing two weeks ago.  Where I say, "Hey, I was in Africa last week."  Where I can’t even make sense of the things I'm doing from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep because it all seems so mundane and routine in comparison to where I've been and how alive I felt.  And it's more than just answering the "how was your trip" question.  It's bigger than that.

Tonight I met with a large group of our students who have just returned from being abroad for a semester and I couldn't help but feel at home with this group of "displaced souls".  Resonating with their stories about being uncomfortable and unaware of the silent social cues of a new culture.  Listening to them share stories about foods they'd kill to be eating from the dining hall again or people they wish they could see again.  This room full of young people who have just found themselves and lost themselves all over again.  Who have just tested their boundaries more than they had ever imagined to be possible.  And lived to tell the tale.  Well, if they could find just the right words to tell it.


And I could see the bags under their eyes, because I have them too.  The lack of "sleep".  The resistence they had towards the "routine".  The hesitation in their voice when they answered that question we all ask with, "it was amazing.  Really."  Not because it wasn't, but because it's just too hard to explain.

Paradise Lost and Found

My next few blogposts are going to be about Ghana and Benin.  Because, well, it's whats on my mind.  And my friends won't let me talk about it with them anymore, so deal with it.  And isn't that the whole point of a blog?  To write about the things people don't want to hear you talk about anymore?

….
Keta, Ghana
August 3, 2010

K. and I have been on the road for several hours.  The rainy season has just ended and as a result the seasonal rains have left the roads in terrible shape.  Our car pivots around man-shaped holes in the just-barely paved highway.  Near the smaller villages, they return to dirt.  The merchants and markets on the side of the road are veiled in a thin layer of red-brown dust.  I’m always shocked by how dusty the air can be; by how much I’ve been spoiled by paved roadways (and I live in Baltimore City, the land of potholes).  When the pavement ends, it just ends.  There is no transition or sign.  Like most things in Africa, you just roll with it.

The dusty red road, once smooth, has become a series of ridges and dips compacted by the enormous trucks that take this route.  Trucks from Benin, Togo, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, loaded twenty feet high with goods and fuel cans and anything else they can cram into these enormous vehicles, navigate these small dirt roads as if they were four-lane highways, barely slowing to avoid the women and children selling bread and food from baskets precariously perched on top of their incredibly balanced heads.  You drive behind them praying that they won’t hit a bump at the wrong angle and flip over entirely.  And on occasion you see the aftermath of the flip; they’re on the roadside, turned completely upside down, tomatoes and okra and ears of corn spread everywhere as if an explosion has gone off inside the bed of the truck.  Our little car feels like the little man out.  Our driver struggles with the roads.  It’s obvious he is being careful with us—I want to tell him, “Just drive!  Stop breaking!  We can take it!”  Although I’m not entirely sure I mean this.  It’s easy to forget how bad the roads really are once you’re gone and back on the smoothness of the Baltimore beltway.  Right now I’m aching from my center, because my body has been bouncing and swerving and unintentionally bracing itself since we landed.  I’m exhausted just from sitting.

What once was a one hour car ride has become three because of these roads.  We’ve decided our final destination is truthfully too far to travel today.  We’ll be crossing the borders soon to Togo and then onto Benin and we know you should never do the border crossings too late.  You would never want to get stuck in between the borders at night.  The space between Ghana and Togo that has been declared No Man’s Land is a place I’d never want to spend the night.  I hardly want to be there as we’re walking through the borders, navigating through all the insanity that happens here—the border agents who want your cash for lunch, or your hand in marriage (or both), the young men selling cassette tapes of Whitney Houston, hand luggage, bubble gum, and white dress shirts (from the same cart), the disabled children wheeling around begging for money, or the guys who want to “help you” get through the border (and to make some quick cash).  The borders are overwhelming to all the senses and the worst part is that you can’t take any pictures to prove it.  You gotta rely on your words and your memory to replicate the experience.  From Aflao, Ghana to Cotonou, Benin you have to go through four major borders, each stop taking anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour, depending on the moods of the agents.  Not to mention you have to drive through Togo to get to the last two borders.  And it seems such a shame to just drive through Togo without stopping and doing something.  If you don’t start early enough in the day, you don’t arrive at the final borders until dusk.

Night driving, in general, is a risk.  I’ve heard terrible stories about night robbers, although I think most of these tales stem from urban legends and a tale told to small children about the “bush-men” taking you in the night, to prevent children from going outside alone at night.  But the six year old girl inside me believes the stories because as soon as the day is over, the landscape goes black.  Once the sun goes down, you lose your visibility of anything beyond 10-20 feet in front of you.  The lack of streetlamps and only limited indoor electricity keeps the whole place pretty dim.  And when the power blacks out, something that happens often because the power grids lack infrastructure and proper engineering, you’re dependent on a combination of fire and flashlights (if you’ve remembered to bring one).  The child in everyone sort of wakes up, keenly aware of our lack of darkness in the US (because how often do we find ourselves somewhere that actually goes pitch black at night?), and all the pre-adolescent fears about darkness emerge into your consciousness and you realize what a wimp you’ve become and how much you’d suck if you ever found yourself on Survivor.

K. and I have decided to stop in a small village near the Togo border.  This district is known as Keta, but this smaller, more residential area is known as Dzelukope.  This is the home village of my dear friend, C.  I’ve been here several times with C to visit her father and to take a necessary bathroom break on the way to the border crossings.  But I’ve never really paid too much attention.

The area is really quite beautiful.  We’re driving East and the Gulf of Guinea is on my right, smashing itself over and over again into a rocky, but beautiful coastline.  But to my left is another vast body of water, the Keta Lagoon.  I’m told this is one of the largest lagoons and wetlands in Ghana, covering about 1200 square kilometers.  The roads leading to Keta are lined by small plots of land growing shallots, an interesting crop that supports this entire region.  Local methods of irrigation are used and it’s pretty fascinating to watch.  Being a coastal village, this is also an area for a lot of fishing and salt production.  Early in the morning you hear it before you see it—the chanting and the singing and the rhythmic pulling in of the nets and the late afternoon dragging out of the nets.  And the middle of the day drying out of the nets.  It's quite a process and involves a lot of people.

Fishing in Grand Popo, Benin

 

Over the last few years, I've taken to reading everything I can get my hands on about West Africa.  I waiver somewhere in between being disgusted by the blogs and memoirs I read to feeling homesick and wishing I could be exactly where the author has taken me.  There is an arrogance that even I have about these places; I can leave.  I have big, fat US dollars in my pocket and a credit card with me in case something happens.  Even in the spaces that I “rough it”, I can’t help but feel arrogant about my observations.  How much space do I really have to comment?  To pass judgment?

Almost all of these writers talk about the fishing villages.  It’s really something incredible to watch.  But it’s hard for me to ignore that this isn’t just a show for the tourists—these fishermen (and women) do this five, sometimes six, times a day, and it’s a part of the reality of life here.  There is no shortage of hard work and it seems the fish, although keeping these small villages alive on market day, couldn’t possibly make anyone as much money as they’d like.

The beaches here are breathtaking.  It’s hard not to think, for a moment, that you’ve discovered paradise.     The beaches in the US are covered in crappy stores and neon signs and rental houses with fancy amenities.  Even the most noncommercial beach towns have found a way to be commercial.  Beaches sell.  People love to sit on beaches for hours, burning our skin to a beautiful dark brown, and then lazily eating our weight in deep-fried fish and shrimp.  But here, there is less room for luxury.  And there is something very refreshing about that.  I mean, there are certainly beaches in Ghana that have picked up on this idea of commercializing the beachfront.  There are small shops selling shark teeth and seashells and beaded necklaces.  There are bars on beaches and restaurants that overlook the sea.  But even with those things, this area and the beach still serve a legitimate purpose.  The beach is used for fishing and a stark contrast exists between the tourists on holiday, stretched out in the sand, while the locals pull in the nets.  It's almost uncomfortable.  It would be like putting million dollar condominiums in the middle of the inner city and telling the local people not to touch it (oh wait...Baltimore...didn't you already do that?).

It's also hard to ignore the history of these beaches.  Most of these small coastal villages are dotted with three to six hundred year old trading forts, built by the Europeans, to trade gold and spices and slaves.  Some of these structures are better survived than others and the ones that are still standing, and still open to the public, are dark and intense experiences.  In most of these forts you can still the dungeons and caves where slaves were bound to each other and bolted to the walls.  You can almost smell the death that happened within these structures.  These realities, coupled with the white-girl-guilt-complex I seem to carry in my purse, can make these days emotional and exhausting.      

As we're driving to our lodge for the night, we hit a point in the road where the lagoon merges with the sea.  I’m fairly certain some kind of magic happens in these spots—these places where one thing becomes another.  We ask W, our driver, to pull over so we can just sit and watch for a moment.  The entire coastline is rather stunning.  Hand-carved boats perch on the almost pink sand.   Fishermen and women speckle the coast. 

I mutter, "I think I've discovered Paradise."  I quickly take my words back, watching a woman in the distance carry a giant bowl of water on her head.  A woman in a small boat makes her way to the shore with the back half of her boat filled with reeds and palm fronds, I'm sure on their way to be dried and woven into something useful.  A group of small children play around on the beach, singing to me in Ewe.  I've been around Ewe-speaking people long enough, but the language is difficult to learn and there are tones used that my tongue has never attempted.  I've mastered a handful of courtesy phrases, like "thank you" and "how are you?" but I only recognize one phrase in their singing: "Yevo".  "White person".  I remember feeling so offended by this on my first visit to the Volta region, thinking, how dare they call me out for being a white person!?  Now I know the word is a harmless greeting, a humorous and sincere word and as far from rude as can be.  If you want to get some giggles out of the children, you respond with "Amebo".  "Black person".  I always think to myself,  What would happen to me if I did something like this in my own "village" in Baltimore City?  I already know the answer to that and I laugh at my two divergent white girl roles in my two divergent worlds and how seriously we Americans take our words.

Behind me in a small shed built from scrap metal, an exhausted motor grinds cassava roots into a fine powder.  Bags of sea salt line the road, collected and harvested by humans, not machines.  Four or five people are bent over entirely, harvesting shallots from a small plot of land.  I rethink my statement, embarassed to have been so boldly arrogant.  Paradise for who, exactly?  Paradise for me, the exhausted American woman who is tired of the pretention and novelty of the beaches along the East Coast?  Paradise for the adventurer who wants to see and feel something really different and new?  Who wants to immerse themselves in local African culture?  Paradise for tourists on holiday who can afford the luxury of laying around in the sand, watching the locals work harder than I've ever had to work ever in my life?   

We head towards our lodge, a really lovely spot to spend the night.  The whole place has been westernized to keep the tourists comfortable and secure.  I laugh at the inconsistencies and thoroughly enjoy my evening, sitting pool side, drinking local beer, eating freshly grilled chicken and jolloff rice (a delicious spicy rice made with tomatoes and peppers).  A local man has dragged a television outside so that he can watch his "stories" poolside, too, while drinking local beer and making quick demands of the bar girl.  This makes me laugh almost more than any of it.

The lodge itself is enormous; a series of long hallways connected like an octopus with a central front desk and restaurant adjacent to a pool and an outdoor bar.  The rooms are actually very good for the price.  A simple room with a small desk and chair, and a television that plays only two channels: the news and the African soap operas (dramas that are easy to follow and even easier to become addicted to because they play everywhere and in every hotel).  A giant poster of Jesus is over my bed, along with a small chandelier, but the room is filled with mosquitoes, and I've had to cover myself from head to toe to avoid the bites that could be carrying all kinds of things that I probably don't want.

There is an air conditioner, a real luxury in these parts, but the room has been left open for however long the room has been unoccupied (which I suspect has been a while) and the small unit struggles to catch up, and I frankly would prefer the natural air, if it weren't for the mosquitoes. The bathroom has been tiled with outrageously fancy tile, creating an almost absurd affect to the traveler who has become accustomed to the basic amenities of a simple toilet, a large bucket, a water line running straight into the bathroom, and a drain in the corner of the room so that you can sponge bathe your way to clean.  The bathtub is equally funny because it has been built almost like a tomb, nearly five feet high in the air, seperated from the rest of the bathroom by a shower curtain (another non-existent amenity in most hotels and lodges) and covered in the same absurd replication of an expensive Italian tile.  A very expensive looking shower head is perched along the edge of the tub and I smile for a moment, imagining the bubble bath I might take later to soothe my aching center, and to process all the things I've been seeing and feeling these last few days.  Not to mention, I might actually be able to shave my legs without falling over.  There is still a large bucket in the room, which I will end up using to bathe myself in the morning (and to shave my legs) because the fancy looking shower head doesn't work and the tub doesn't appear to actually hold water for long, but I find the efforts of the lodge to be charming and I refuse to complain about it to anyone because who has the right to complain about such things?

K. and I decide we like this place.  A lot.  And that we're coming back with our students in January.  And we're hoping that they experience all the things that we have and that they appreciate all the things that we do.  And can laugh at all the same inconsistencies.  And can feel heartbroken at all the same grave realities.  And that they have the same moment of finding paradise here and losing it again, somewhere between the ocean and the lagoon.

Somewhere that looks an awful lot like this:

Seeing is Believing

I’ve been back from my adventures in West Africa for just over a week now.  I keep saying that this “culture shock” thing keeps getting easier each time I take one of these trips.  Considering I talk to my students about culture shock all the time, it always comes as a surprise when I still experience it.  And I guess in some sense it does actually get easier, but in others, I find it harder and harder to cope.  I’m less jarred by the transition from the shiny, sanitized, orderly United States of America to the dusty, noisy, unruly ways of the developing world.  I'm already prepared for the noises and the smells and the tastes.  I know what I want to do as soon as I land and I have a list of things and places and people I want to see before I leave (just like a visit home).  I'm ready for the "Africa Time" and the waiting and the endless marriage proposals.  I can recognize phrases in local languages and navigate the borders with a confidence you only get from experience.  So in this sense, yeah, the culture shock is “easier” because I’ve done it more.  I know what to expect.  In fact, I’ve come to anticipate it—to enjoy the mere chaos of it all. 

But because of this I see more.  On my first trip to Ghana I was so overwhelmed with what I was seeing—thatched roofs and mud huts and half-naked children running around—that I could barely understand these things.  I couldn't recognize the details and the defining characteristics of each of these villages.  I didn’t notice the subtle differences in the tribal scars on men’ and women’s faces.  I didn’t notice the road signs and the names of towns as we went in and out of them.  I wasn’t paying attention to the commerce—this village sells tomatoes, that one sells fish, etc.  But this time around I almost felt overwhelmed by all the pieces I was seeing. I’m not spending so much of my energy just trying to see everything.  I'm now working on processing it.  Which is way harder, for the record. 

But it also gets harder to leave.  Coming back to the United States pretty much just makes me angry.  Standing in the Kotoka airport (in Ghana) before departure, I actually considered getting out of line.  I thought up approximately one hundred and one reasons why I couldn’t go back just yet.   I was already beginning to craft the email in my head to my office explaining what happened (see there was this goat...and a flat tire…and an unexpected funeral party…and a marriage) and why I was going to need a few more hundred dollars wired to me.  Knowing this was absurd and that I already had appointments on my calendar back in Baltimore, I continued to stand in the longest line ever, feeling sorry for myself.

There are always a lot of Americans in Ghana.  I guess Ghana has become a fairly easy place to navigate, being all Anglophonic and politically stable and democratic and what not, and the missionaries come in by the boatload (although I’m not sure there are many people left to convert).  Standing in this bulging, unruly queue, I hear a familiar sound behind me.  American accents.  I turn to the small group of Americans who were looking around Kotoka for signs on what to do—because airports in developing countries have hundred of unspoken rules and approximately three signs, and those are usually in another language, despite being English speaking and politically stable and democratic and what not. 

This group behind me is southern (I'm guessing Texas or maybe Alabama, based on the tone) and I’m also guessing, based on their monogrammed backpacks, gold cross necklaces, and rolling floral suitcases, that they’ve been here charged with God’s work.  And I'm not hating on the work these good people do (or did), but at some point you get tired of congratulating people on their "hard work" when you don't see a place as desperate anymore.  It's like when people do mission work in Baltimore.  I get it.  I just don't necessarily like it. 

I’m usually dead on with these American spottings—the random Peace Corps volunteer, the best-of-intentions-missionary, the curious professors, the overly-zealous ex-pats, etc., each time becoming more and more conscious of my growing irritation towards the “American” in “Africa” (kindly ignoring that I, too, am American).  This is sometimes easy to forget when you’ve convinced yourself you aren't really American.

Standing and waiting and moving up a few feet every 20-30 minutes, I'm growing anxious about leaving Ghana.  I just left my "family" and giant plates of food and 3 beers I didn't have time to finish.  I didn't get enough time with my "big sisters" Christine or Skinny or my "niece" Woewoe.  I'm already thinking of the things I didn't scratch off my list in the eleven days I was there.  I decide to be chatty instead of being depressed.  I casually ask the group, “How long have you been here? Have you loved your visit?”  Inside my head I’m not really listening, and frankly I’m not sure why I even asked because I can’t say that I really particularly cared to know when and where and why this group has been traveling in this place I’ve become almost protective of; ready to attack anyone who dare say they had a miserable time in West Africa.  I learn that the group has been visiting the Volta region of Ghana, and as I suspected, working with a mission group.  One gentleman in particular says, “It’s been great but I’m sure ready to get home!”  His statement is simple enough, and completely innocent, but I translate it to: “Get me the hell out of this uncivilized place!”  I resist the snarling noise that seems to come from inside me, like a rabid dog, and I forcefully smile at him, nodding in a sympathetic way, hoping he can’t sense that I’m struggling to empathize.  And the fact that I completely put words in his mouth that he didn't say (because he probably wouldn't say hell).

And it’s not that I'm upset with these people who have probably been doing really good work.  It's not that I resent the missionaries.  These communities have embraced Christianity with a zealousness that's almost unnerving.  God has done his work in Ghana.  Churches from around the world have built schools and they support hospitals and provide medical care throughout this continent.  But if you really spend some time here, you start to see the gaps.  You start to see the thousands of unfinished projects started by people with good intentions.  You start to see the false hope spread by people with valid passports and multiple entry visas that allow them to travel in and out of these communities, when the going gets tough.  You start to see the loss of tradition at the hand of western dominance.  Which is not to suggest that Africa shouldn't be allowed to have things like potable water, Facebook, and Blackberrys.  This statement is merely to suggest that development and globalization comes at a cost.

So his eagerness to get home leads me to believe that he hasn't seen this place yet.  And I'm not holding that against him.  In fact, I’ve had that feeling standing in this airport.  My body drained from a week-long bout of traveler’s diarrhea and some bizarre stomach bug I can’t seem to shake; my soul shaken from what I’ve seen and felt and heard, desperate for some kind of normalcy, like a McDonalds or a grocery store or a flushing toilet.  But this time, I couldn’t be further from understanding his emotion.  I mean, I love a good flushing toilet, and I could kill a McChicken sandwich right about now, but I’d rather stay, frankly.  I’m sure I can find a chicken later, kill it, clean it, and make it into a sandwich.

When we land in the US, the Americans from the line wave at me in passing, and I can sense that they’re beaming to be back in the shiny, sanitized, orderly United States.  I, on the other hand, am grumbling at the sparkling floors and the big, clean windows and the excessive signs in English (I get it! I can read it!).  The shiny brushed nickel barricades that force everyone to get in neat, orderly lines (whether I like it or not) are making me irritable.  I’m mad at the petulant Customs agents for not smiling ever and for yelling at a group of Ghanaian teenagers who are in the US for the first time (welcome, kids).  I’m irritated that I can probably safely sit down on the toilet seat, because it has probably been cleaned and sanitized, on an orderly schedule, every 2 hours, since it was made functional.  I’m looking at the rotating luggage belt with disdain—what makes YOU so special!?  So what?  You go round and round.  Want a shiny, clean American award? Grumpy.  Like as if I were in DisneyWorld kind of Grumpy. 

I’m feeling cross and tired and missing the sounds of goats and chickens and a sea of languages I don’t understand.  There is no one standing outside of the airport waiting to haggle me.   There is nothing exciting happening.  There is no ocean and no fishermen and no singing and no obnoxiously loud gospel music playing 200 decibels too high.  `Just a lot of boring, expressionless people yelling at their kids to walk faster while they play their handheld video games.  I guess I won't be singing any patriotic songs today.

Each time I take this journey, I get more and more attached.  Each time I become less and less afraid of what makes this place so different.  Each time I push myself a bit further outside of my comfort zone.  And today I’m having one of those moments where I think to myself, I could maybe do this.  Like for real.  Because this airport is freaking bananas.  (Did I mention that bananas are better in West Africa, too?) 

Do you ever have those moments where you’re staring at something, and you’re questioning yourself and God: Is this a sign?  Am I supposed to DO something right now?

Since I’ve been back I’ve been looking around my life wondering, what holds me to this place?  What is it about my job that I love?  What about Baltimore?  My friends?  What would happen if I just took a giant leap?  Not for a lifetime, but maybe a year or two.  What would happen if I actually moved to West Africa?

Because something happens to me over there that I can’t quite describe.  It’s like the restless part of me settles down and I get downright spiritual.  The “things” I think I need to be happy are challenged and I always find myself opening my heart a bit wider with each person I meet and each experience I have.  And it’s not all peaches and roses and flowering bushes.  Africa is Hell.  I remember.  I get it.  Cities lack infrastructure, governments lack decency, the economy lacks liquidity.  People suffer from hunger and poverty.  HIV/AIDS and other diseases are rampant.  Health education and women's rights are generations behind the West.  But it’s like reminding me that Baltimore’s murder rate is high.  Yeah.  I know.  I heard a gunshot last night.  What of it? 

I guess we'll wait and see where life takes me.  But for now, when I dream, this is what I see:

 

Africa is Hell

Since I was a little girl I’ve had this bubbling desire to do something—to help people and to make things right.  I remember the first time I recognized class:  I was a little girl and went home with one of my classmates after school.  Being a kid, I didn’t really know the difference yet between new furniture and old; I didn’t know what to look for in a kitchen or a bathroom for signs of new-improvements.  I didn’t even know the difference between a house and an apartment.  I was focused on the Barbie dolls and the glue sticks and the make believe.  I guess I didn’t really comprehend it, but it was something I felt—this place was different than my house.  When I got home and started asking questions about the difference I quickly was told to be thankful and polite—furthering my suspicions that something other existed.  I suddenly felt overwhelmed with this new knowledge and uncomfortable about how to deal with it.

Throughout my childhood, my father was the director of Social Services in my small, southern, mountain town.  I would go to his office and see people I knew in the lobby.  Years later I would understand what this meant—friends of mine that were in the lobby because their parents were applying for food stamps or welfare.  I didn’t understand how lucky I was.  As I become more conscious of this lucky place I had landed in life, I also learned how to feel guilty about it.

When I got to college, this only exacerbated itself.  I discovered not only my guilt about class—but my guilt about race, as well.  I suddenly become aware of what it meant to be white and privileged.  I read book after book about how evil I was—an honorary white, female member of this budding bourgeoisie class coming from the small, private, liberal arts colleges of the world.

And in my sophomore year, I decided to go on a three-week study abroad program to Ghana.  That first trip rocked my world.  I experienced these things every day, all day for a month.  I felt my white skin, for the first time, as a minority.  I was questioned, out right, about my class and my guilt—didn’t I feel horrible for what had happened to the African man?

On this first trip, walking through the slave castles, a young Ghanaian stops me and asks: Don’t you feel terrible for what your people did to us?  His question is so blunt and so forthright that I stumble on my words and can’t answer him.  Here I am, walking around feeling heavy about this whole experience, and this total stranger pins the whole thing on me.  I'd never thought to ask myself if I felt responsible for slavery.  He walks away with a smirk on his face.  He had won.

I searched my soul for a response to the young man's question.  I sought some kind of a reaction that would illicit some large scale change in myself.  I arrived home with a false sense of simplicity.  I threw away clothing, I scaled down my possessions—seeking solace in a temporary reduction of the stuff I felt cluttered my life and my vision.  I felt almost pious about these acts.  As if these reductions had somehow made me a better person.  In truth, the possessions crept back in to my life, over time.  After all, it was never really the possessions that bothered me in the first place.  It just seemed like the simplest place to start.  The least messy place to begin.  If I didn’t start with my stuff first, I’d have to actually look into myself for answers.

But the question, and the thousands of new questions that stem from that first one, have sat on me for eight years.  Don’t I feel like I need to do something?  Is there something I can do to help?  To make amends?  To change things?

On each of my trips, I watch children with distended bellies reaching out for my hand.  Grown men and women beg for money.  Young men run scams for the tourists, desperate for American dollars or something from our luggage.  Women in markets offer you their children (mostly as a joke, but some not so much), begging you to take them to America.  Posters in shack-like store fronts proudly display images of America—red sports cars in front of McMansions—referencing the American Dream.

And each time I struggle with myself.  How can I have so much and be here with people who have so little?  And most of all, how do I even begin to understand—to empathize—what this space is about?  How do I cope with who I am?  How could I sit comfortably with myself, knowing what I now know about how wrong the white man did Africa?  And even worse, I'm always met with questions when I come home that I don't know how to answer.  Why do you like it there so much?  Why doesn't it scare you?  Questions that make me angry and I don't always know why.

My work with urban youth in Baltimore has helped; these kids have taught me an awful lot about the realities of race and class in America.  And I’ve learned a lot about my own skin.  I’ve become sensitive to the way people talk about others, as if somehow ethnicity, class, and race affect a person’s humanity.  I haven’t just read about poverty in textbooks—I’ve seen these things.  I’ve felt it.  It’s a different beast all together to feel these things.

So today while I'm packing a bag with my designer white jeans and my malaria pills and my expensive arch-supportive sandals, I’m struck by how far I’ve come since that first trip.  How much more comfortable I’ve become with my status.  I guess I’ve become more comfortable with myself, in general, and most importantly I think I’ve gotten over the self-righteousness that comes with being a “do-gooder”.  I spent too many years of my early twenties feeling really, really proud.  It wasn't doing me any good.

I feel a distinct difference in my heart from the first empty hand I turned away.  I feel that my guilt has shifted to a new space.  I still feel like shit, at times, but I have a different understanding of things like community and wealth and race.  I’ve come to love these communities—these places I travel.  I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons about history and a human’s capacity for forgiveness.

I also have a new understanding, and perhaps appreciation, for what my role is while I’m traveling through these communities.  I’ve become more okay with who I am. I am a white woman of privilege.  I am American.  I remember on my first trip wanting so desperately to be somewhere where I didn’t stick out.  Where I wasn’t the subject of everyone’s conversation.   Where I wasn’t the white girl.  It was another first encounter with other.  I didn’t know what to do with the feelings I was having.  I couldn’t find words to explain myself.  I didn’t know how to get over myself.

When I was working in the Baltimore City Schools, I had hundreds of moments where I felt like this.  Where I wanted to be liked.  Where I wanted to blend in.  To not be the white lady.  To not carry the baggage of all the horrible things the “white people” seem to do around here.  And I learned, as most of my friends who teach in schools where they are the minority, that this was, fundamentally, my issue.  The kids didn’t really understand what it really meant—they barely recognized me as a white woman.  It was me who recognized myself as a white woman.  As a contrast.  And I had to sit on it.  I had to feel uncomfortable for a few months.  And it eventually changed--but I think it was me who changed.  Not the situation.

And the kids helped me cope with myself.  One afternoon, a small child, we’ll call her Jada, was sitting next to me in the cafeteria.  For some reason she’d been calling me “Godmama” all week.

She asks, “Godmama, can I have another cookie?

“No, Jada,” I reply, “only one for every one.

Another child walks by, sucking his teeth, “Man, she can’t be your godmama! SHE WHITE!"

Jada, without skipping a beat, replies to him without the slightest bit of hesitation, “SHE NOT WHITE! SHE LIGHT-SKINNED!"

She then quickly and innocently turns to me, places her hands on my face and says, “When people call you white, it hurts your feelings.” 

Breakthrough.  Not white, light-skinned.  All about perspective.

And I’ve had to dig deep on what these things mean.  And I’ve learned that I’m not afraid to feel hurt or scared or to get my hands dirty.  I crave to understand.  Yeah, those things suck when they’re happening but what comes out on the other end is something that I often can’t name (although I’ll probably try).

And yes, I still have moments when I feel terrible, but I am who I am.  I must start from this point.  I can’t be anyone but who I am and I cannot continue to make excuses for where I come from.  We all have a role to play in this world—the question becomes: what do we do with the power we have?

I know now that I'll never really save the world, despite all the liberal idealism I once had for myself.  I've learned too much.  I've had to get over myself.  These last few years of traveling back and forth, I know I’ve been taught a lot more than what I’ve brought with me.  I’ve seen more in these small self-sufficient villages that will educate me about community, about living, about humanity, than I would ever get from a lesson in a classroom.  But it doesn’t make turning away those hands any easier.

I recently flipped through a travel book preparing for my site visit.  Stuck between a paragraph on volunteering in Africa and safety tips was a sub-chapter entitled “Africa is Hell”.  At first I read the short paragraphs waiting for the punch line—for the intended joke.  There wasn’t one.  The author was being genuine.  He wanted to remind his readers not to get caught up in the fantasy of Africa.  He wanted to include a reality check—a remember the-AIDS-rate-and-the-fact-that-civil-wars-erupt-overnight message.  As if anyone whose ever really gone and known what it feels like could forget that.  I'm not sure the editor really read this book before it went to print.  Or maybe he did because he fundamentally believes this. 

I've spent weeks laughing about this "Africa is Hell" chapter.  And just today, as I'm packing and thinking and anxiously blogging, have I really processed what it means.  I guess I can't blame the guy for including the chapter.  I've seen the hellish parts.  I've walked past people in such unfortunate situations that will permanently sit on my heart; I've seen images that I'll never shake.  The place has changed me.  The Africa is Hell message ringing true.  And there are so many Americans who buy into the fantasy.  Who go to "Africa" (a place to many think is a country) to find their roots and to go on Safari and to dance with other just long enough to feel excited but not really digging deep or asking questions.  Africa is Hell, he wants to tell these people.  Don't go.  Don't ruin it.  Don't exploit it.

I can't ignore the facts.  No amount of sugar coating can take away the simple truths of what poverty really looks like.  Hunger does horrible things to someone’s eyes.  But I can’t shake this feeling that there is something more important happening under the surface of this pain and devastation.  If Africa is Hell, why do I feel changed?  Different?

And I struggle with myself.  Am I one of those Americans?  I don't feel like I am, but can I possibly be anything but that American?  I feel like I've got an exemption pass.  That I've earned my place here.  I've asked all the questions and I've cried and I've kept myself awake at night riddled with guilt.  I feel like I've had breakthrough.  Perhaps in this space, I'm light-skinned.  Because I've also seen the opposite.

Crashing parties is West Africa has become one of my favorite activities.  Between shots of local gin, and the hundreds of libations made to the gods (and to the elders), my liquor-soaked eyes observe smiling faces and joyful dances.  Women proudly prepare mounds and mounds of food, asking you to help and teaching you generations-old lessons on pounding yams, and everyone happily shares.  Small children hold onto your thumb and giggle when you repeat words in your terrible Twi and Yoruba.  This couldn't possibly be Hell.   

And of course all of this rationalization serves one purpose: to make me feel better about what I’m doing.  To make me feel more comfortable in my expensive jeans and pearl earrings.

As I'm packing, I'm remaining positive.  I'm looking forward to another few weeks in this place I've come to consider a second home.  I'm packing the gifts I'll bring to the people I've come to consider family.  The children I've watched grow-up.  The women I've become sisters with.  But the guilt never subsides for long.  It creeps back in with a mighty fist, demanding answers.  Questions that I’m not sure I know just yet how to answer.

Like nothing I'd known before, until I knew it better

People ask me now, 'What was Africa like?'  I tell them that the place I came to know is laughing yet troubled, strong yet crippled, and dancing.  Africa was like nothing I had known before, until I knew it better.  But to really explain it, I have to start from the beginning. -Sarah Erdman

In flipping my calendar this morning to the bright and shiny month of July, several things happened. 

One:  I relished in the fact that June was over.  Normally I don’t feel this way about June—such a sweet, warm, school-ending month.  But this June was an exception; a terrible month of car accidents, driving rental cars, and bad feelings in the pit of my stomach over stupid things like money and material possessions. 

Two: I sighed that my one week of vacation had come and gone so quickly and that although I am tan, and relaxed, it never seems to be enough time to do all the things I think about when I’m drafting those “things I’ll do on vacation” mental lists. 

Three:  I glanced down at the bright purple note on July 28th that I depart from Dulles Airport at 11 pm for Accra, Ghana.  My fifth (FIFTH) trip to West Africa since 2002.

Four:  I crapped my pants because I haven’t even started thinking about my 10 day site visit to the motherland.  Or the malaria pills I’ll need.  Or located my yellow fever vaccination card.

(Sidenote:  However, I do use my annual trip to West Africa as a year-round excuse to buy cool, light-weight, earthy/artsy looking clothing, insisting, "…this will be just PERFECT for Benin!” and then promptly losing said clothing to the great abyss that is my closet and dirty laundry pile and going to Target three days before my trip and cursing why Target doesn’t sell short skirts and tank tops during December.)

For those of you who don’t know me, perhaps you’ll find this fascination of mine with West Africa charming.  Or perhaps even kitsch.  You’ll probably assume I’m way cooler than I really am and that I’m so well-traveled and probably really smart.  You’d, for the most part, be pretty wrong on all fronts.  You probably also think I’m the luckiest girl on the planet that I get to travel so much for work—and well, I can’t argue you on that one.  Working in higher education has its perks.  This is definitely one of them.

For those of you who do know me, however, you’ve probably already stopped reading because you just can’t stand to hear me talk about it anymore.  And that’s okay.  I understand.  I’d hate me too.  But I can’t help but talk about it.  And think about it.  And find ways to weave it into stories.  I’m starting to understand how the fundamental religion-nuts feel.

I remember in middle school, so sick and tired of being asked had I been “saved” and did I go to church—saying, yes, I was baptized as a baby and, yes, I go to the Presbyterian church on Main Street, and being met with “well have you considered OUR church?”—I finally cracked and blew up.  WHY THE HELL IS IT SO IMPORTANT THAT I BE SAVED IF I PRAY AND TALK TO GOD AND GO TO SUNDAY SCHOOL ALL ON MY OWN!?  I was met with a response: “I just want to make sure you make it to heaven, that’s all.  It’s like I know how to get free passes to DisneyWorld and I want to make sure you get ‘em too.”  Jesus.  I’m starting to perhaps make connections on why I hate DisneyWorld, too. 

I’m like this with West Africa: “Have you been?  Wanna hear a story? You should go…maybe your trip to Europe wasn’t enough…ever considered West Africa?”

And since blogs are entirely self-indulgent, this is my time to do just that.  And even though they’re pretty much like diaries that are read by anyone with an intrawebs browser, something about my blog feels cozy.  Like if you’re taking the time to read this stuff every few weeks, you might actually like me.  Or enjoy my ranting and raving about the world.  Or think I have something intelligent to say.  Or you’re just someone who accidentally stumbled across it and is now obsessed (this is my secret hope that you’re all strangers out there building a cult following of me.  In reality, I know it’s just you guys).

I decided to start blogging last fall because I was sad.  My grandmother was dying and I was filled with sleepless angst.  I’d sit in my living room at three in the morning wondering how I’d make it through my 8 hour work day (9, let’s be honest) and my grad class, and still manage to be the bubbly, happy Lindsay that my friends and colleagues know me to be.  I started writing.  Tons of it.  Ever since I learned how to write sentences this has been my coping mechanism.  When shit hits the fan, I start writing about the shit.  And the fan.  And the people who get hit with the shit from the fan. 

When my parents divorced.  I wrote.
When my siblings got married.  I wrote.
When I graduated high school.  I wrote.
When I had my heart broken.  I wrote.
When I lost myself.  I wrote.
When I found myself.  I wrote.
When I lost myself, again.  I wrote.

You get the picture.  So I thought I’d give this “sharing it” thing a go, as I’m pretty sure my friends were tired of waking up to word documents in their inboxes with headlines like “couldn’t sleep…read this and tell me what you think.”

So when I studied abroad for the first time in Ghana, I wrote.  I wrote things that were appallingly self-righteous and myopic; things that now, frankly, embarrass me to read (even in my head, where things are safe).  But I was doing what we all do as humans—I was shifting from one place to another.  From a smaller circle to a bigger one; one with bigger ideas, harder realities, and steeper consequences.  We learn.  We grow.  We change.  Amen, hallelujah.  

Some part of me has always desired to become a famous writer.  I have a fantasy that someone will discover me—think I’m brilliant—and offer me a lot of money to sit at small café tables and write what I think about the world.  That I’ll be given travel allowances and take off for weeks at a time with a laptop in my leather satchel (you know, the one I'll buy when I can afford it?) and a big fat expense account.  What a dream—to be someone who gets paid to be a person with things to say; someone who others look to for advice and support.  Someone who can churn out words that carry meaning and weight and power in the most challenging of moments.  Someone who can sense silent words, too. 

But this fantasy also carries a fear—a fear about what this kind of writing can do to you.  Does it lose its cathartic value when it’s being demanded by an editor or a greater public?  Would I ever really want to ruin what I've got here for myself?  I’m thinking about all the times I’ve used my insomnia to process the things I see and hear into short stories or pieces of poetry; all the times I’ve taken my deepest fears and insecurities into a leather-bound journal and written sentences that make no sense and follow no rules of grammar but translate everything I need to say into letters and words and spaces on paper so that I can feel better about tomorrow. 

Unfortunately, I’m not sure the journals and journals of angst-ridden writing, processing my own adolescent and post-adolescent struggles with racism and classism and “finding myself” are quite worth the read.  It’s mostly a lot of garbled words struggling to describe this feeling I’ve had for most of my life—this desire to do more, learn more, and understand.  To embed myself in really hard places and think my way out of them.  Crying and cursing all the way out.

And this thing with West Africa was in me from day one (I feel sure of it).  It’s not that I just woke up one day, watched the Lion King, and decided to become obsessed with Africa.  No.  In typical Lindsay fashion, it was a much more long-winded, complicated story.  With a lot more dips and bends and uncanny coincidences.  I didn’t dream of going on safari as a child or hold onto some colonized vision of traveling to an uncultured, uneducated land and teaching the masses of my great knowledge and heritage.  No.  It was more a whisper.  A thread that seems to have woven itself into parts of my life that I’m just now beginning to recognize.  A rhythm in my day-to-day that I can’t ignore.

An opportunity to go for the first time and three weeks of walking around with my mouth hanging wide open.  And seven years of processing and going back again and again and learning more and growing.  And finding deeper roots. 

And it isn’t really Africa itself, so much as how life is enacted there.  The way people live.  The culture.  Which I suppose is inescapably connected to “being African”. But from my limited scope, it’s about music.  And struggle.  And community.  And pain.  And beauty.  How communities celebrate together and mourn together.  How people find ways to sustain despite access to critical resources like clean water and nutritious food.  How people can learn about things like astronomy and mathematics and biology from working fields and harvesting crops and raising livestock.  How family means everything and how much corruption can damage a person’s sense of themselves.  How powerful wealth is and just how dangerous power can be.  How little we know about the rest of the world.  How intolerant we’ve all become to darkness and anything “other”.  And what this all means to me.  In my heart.  In my life here in Baltimore.  In my work with urban youth.  In my work with college students who are just beginning to lose themselves and find themselves again.   

Mostly I think it’s been about how me going to Africa doesn’t mean anything to the universe at all.  This journey is mostly about me and me learning how to strike the balance between “this is what I can do” and “that’s bigger than I am”.  Learning to bite my tongue as much I love using it.  Learning how to just watch and observe before offering suggestions for change.  Learning how to be uncomfortable.  Learning how to be faithful, honest, and humble.  Or perhaps just learning how to do those things better than I did before.

Feeling heat in places you didn’t think you could feel it.  The sound of drums reverberating up your spine and around your heart, coupled with the exquisite preservation of tradition lingering in formal ceremonies.  The hair on your arms standing up straight because you’ve never seen something so beautiful—something so simple and so pure.  Witnessing poverty in a staggeringly real way but in a way that doesn’t leave you feeling empty like it does here in Baltimore.  Feeling scared and unsure, stripped of all my usual defenses.  The adventure of it all.  The realness.        

In flipping that calendar, I’m allowing my brain to go places I don’t normally allow it to go on a workday.  And even though I’m working while I’m traveling, I can’t help but take it somewhere deeper, somewhere more powerful.  Seven years ago I woke something up inside of me and I can’t get her to sit down and shut up.  Something inside of me that make me feel anxious and excited and scared and thrilled all at the same time.  Something that I can’t seem to quit.  

I started this entry with a quote that I love because I was feeling reminiscent, but I realize now that maybe I only love it because I get what she means.  I’ve felt it.  I read this book by Sarah Erdman in between my first two visits to West Africa.  She spent a year in Mali with the Peace Corps, came back and wrote a book about it.  Her book, along with several others in the same genre, have been enormously useful in helping me frame what I think about what I’ve seen and felt and experienced.  She’s no New York Times bestseller, but she wrote this book as she was going from a smaller circle to a larger one; as she was growing and processing and starting to understand better who she really was in the wake of feeling all these things you feel when you spend a lot of time in what the big fancy sociologists call a “collective society”. 

She summarized all the things I’ve been trying to say for years about my time in West Africa in just a few succinct sentences. 

People ask me now, 'What was Africa like?'  I tell them that the place I came to know is laughing yet troubled, strong yet crippled, and dancing.  Africa was like nothing I had known before, until I knew it better.  But to really explain it, I have to start from the beginning. 

I’d make one quick change to this statement.  I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to explain it.  And I'm not sure anyone else really cares as much as we do.  And I’m pretty sure that’s okay.

Me Big Chief

On Saturday night I took the opportunity to use my sunburn as an excuse to stay home on a Saturday night and do homework.   (You know, the sunburn I got while I was making myself walk the dog, which turned into running into college buddies, which turned into watching ultimate frisbee for a few hours without sunscreen, which turned into drinking a couple beers in the middle of the day, which turned into an exhausted sun-burnt nap, which made me wake up cranky and incapable of social activities, which made me ignore any and all of my said social engagements in exchange for a quiet night at home).

And because I don’t nap (I’m like a freak of nature with the sleeping), this 45 minute slip into a REM cycle apparently made me incapable of rational, intellectual thought.   Realizing my research paper on Erich Fromm, the tantalizing German Jew psychoanalyst who I’m sure has amazing things to say, was NOT going to happen, I caved and did what all grown folks who work full-time while in graduate school do: REPRESS FEELINGS OF GUILT ABOUT NOT DOING HOMEWORK ON THE ONE NIGHT YOU HAVE FREE AND PROCRASTINATE.

Instead, I ordered a pizza and decided to park my happy ass on the couch with the dog and catch up on the new HBO show Treme.

I’m an admitted David Simon stalker admirer.  I pretty much watched the entire series of The Wire over a series of a few weeks and found myself so involved with the characters that I still refer to them on a first-name basis as if they’re real people in my life.  You know, Stringer Bell? Lives down the block?

The invention of the television show on DVD really did wonders for my social life.  At one point, I was so involved in watching the entire series of Six Feet Under that I began thinking I might actually be in an episode.  Every episode of this show starts with someone dying in some kind of freak accident.  I’d be walking down the block and envision a hammer being accidentally dropped from the top floor of the building and then in my head I’d cue the opening music and flash forward to a view of my own tombstone.  Thank God I finished that series before I developed schizophrenia.

And don’t get me started on the L-Word.  I think I actually craved lesbian drama in my life just because I felt so entitled to it after watching all that melodrama betwixt the ladies.  Which, for the record, is never drama ANYONE should crave.

Okay, back to Treme.  (Sorry, I’m over-caffeinated).

I had the chance to meet David Simon through my job last year and almost urinated down my pretty little dress with excitement.  And he, in person, is just exactly what I suspected him to be: slightly neurotic, totally depressing, and simultaneously one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.  You know how you meet people and you just know they’re smart?  They got that pretty talk and yuns know they can ‘cipher good? Yeah, well.  He did.

So when I heard David Simon would begin working on a show about post-Katrina New Orleans I started emotionally cumming all over myself.  Because, you know, us geeky liberal arts college graduates LOVE television shows that blur the line between fiction and fact—especially when it involves things like sexuality, racism, and poverty.  I’m getting chills just thinking about all the cultural and sociological implications I’ll inevitably try to sneak into a classroom discussion someday.  Sidenote: We also love reading the Atlantic Monthly and pretending to be smarter than everyone else.  And posting clever, biting, intellectually snarky comments on each other’s Facebook pages, ESPECIALLY when we get to reference our favorite NY Times op-ed columnist as if we know them personally (umm, duh, Gail).  And of course wrapping it all up by finding a way to connect it all to some obscure Always Sunny in Philadelphia scene.

So here I am on a Saturday night watching this new show on HBO about New Orleans.  And the storyline isn’t great—it’s fairly predictable.  I see all the usual suspects—about half of the cast from The Wire (which is like running into old friends with guns) and I’m trying to get used to their new character names and disconnecting them from their darker, more addicted (and definitely better armed) Baltimore alter-egos.

But there is this music.  And the second line gets warmed up on the screen.  Without warrant, my feet start tapping.  And I notice I can’t help but rock my hips.  And my head starts moving.  And I’m not even thinking about it but I’m shifting around to wiggle my little (okay big) white girl ass around like I got some rhythm.  And before I know it my head is in a million places at once and I’m flashing through all these moments.

Then the character puts on his Mardi Gras Indian costume.

And I'm thinking about the first time I saw a real-live Mardi Gras Indian.  And how hot it was.  And the smell of those feathers.  And the sounds that came from his mouth.  Raw, guttural noises that were something in between song and prayer.  And how it almost scared me.

Then he is playing his tambourine.

And my brain is thinking about three years ago in Winneba, Ghana when I stumbled across something that looked vaguely familiar: a parade in the middle of a village with a line of people marching down the middle of the street with horns and drums and dancing and singing and bright colors.  Handkerchiefs were twirled in my face.  I was so hot but so enthralled in the procession that I didn't care about the sweat dripping from my face.

And then I’m back in New Orleans, thinking about the taste of that po’boy and wondering if the shop we used to go to survived the storm and if it didn’t if they’ve reopened somewhere else.  And thinking about how delicious those crawfish Zapp’s potato chips are and the time I saved all my money to buy myself a kitten watch (with a ball of yarn as the seconds hand) from a flimsy booth in the French Market.  And how good those beignets tasted.

And what it felt like to see a real, live voodoo ceremony in Benin.  

And to hear a goat be sacrificed.  

And to run into Quint Davis, the freakin’ godfather of the Jazz Fest, in a random village in Benin because he was trying to find artists to bring from West Africa to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest.  To bring the music full circle.

And I’m thinking about Katrina and how angry it made me.  And how obvious it is to me that no matter what you try and tell me, if you're poor in this country, you've probably been fucked over by somebody.  And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and blame a system (although I won't narrow it down to just one).

And then I'm thinking about how much I wouldn’t get this shit if I’d never moved to Baltimore.  And never taken that first job in the Baltimore City Schools.  And never felt all the things I’ve felt.  And been in the places I've been.  And felt, first-hand, what my skin color affords me. 

And here is how I know David Simon is brilliant.  Because all of this happened to me on a Saturday night on my couch.  In yoga pants.  And I only watched like three episodes.

This is also how I know I’m Presbyterian.  I’ve found myself in this life of mine, where all these things make sense to me.  And I find it strangely normal.  Like it's the path I was always intended to be on.  With all these experiences connecting and merging and overlapping.

And I do believe in magic.  And I think sometimes we're given special knowledge from our ancestors that lets us in on some pretty big secrets about the universe.  When I was a kid, my dad would tell me I was part gypsy.  He told me all kinds of wacky things, but this was my favorite.  Well, no, the Easter Monkey was (is) my favorite.  But I've always liked to think about my totally-made-up fantasy gene pool (as if you couldn't tell from my sunburn that I'm totally Scotch-Irish-German-English and like 1/32 Cherokee).

Once upon a time, there was some rumor that up that magical family tree of ours was a Spanish bear trainer in the circus.  Naturally, I've embellished and blown up this story in my extra-fancy tree and Great-Great-Great Granddaddy who tamed the bears and wooed the ladies is this central figure in my family's history.  I'm assuming this is probably the way people feel when they are related to someone famous like a Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln.  In this fantasy family tree I can't help but feel like I've got connections to these places that I love so much.  And this gypsy grandfather of mine probably traveled around a lot.  And maybe procreated in New Orleans.  And I probably have cousins there. 

And maybe in West Africa, too.  Because it only makes sense.

And of course, I like to think I make him proud.

Landing

Sometimes you just can’t sleep. Sometimes you feel things you just can’t explain. Sometimes you are so overtaken by emotions that you can’t quite pinpoint why you’re feeling so uncomfortable in your own skin. You find your eyes are welling up with tears at the simplest thing; crying for no real good reason.

I’m having one of those days today. Today I woke up feeling like I wasn’t supposed to be here today; like I should be somewhere else.

I can’t help but feel like my heart is burning a bit, missing Africa.

A journal entry from January, 2005:

After a grueling plane ride, we land. It’s like any other landing—they give the same speech, some protocol—I could be in New York, London, or Los Angeles. It’s not until I step outside that I realize: Shit, this is Africa. Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana.

The heat immediately seeps into my skin, an abrupt change from the cold, artificial air my body had gotten used to for the last ten hours. I breathe in the air. I smell the faint scent of burning and a strong smell of earth; a smell I’ve come to love and know as Ghana. Sometimes it seems like the earth itself is sweating from the heat; a sweet, dark odor seeping from the pores of the red clay. It wraps around you quickly and quietly.

After stepping onto the tarmac, we walk a short distance to the terminal—a large concrete building. The building has been painted, Akwaaba, “welcome”. Just inside the doorway, people rest on mats in the hallway. Flying for this many hours always confuses my body; I have no idea what time it is or how long these people have been waiting for our flight to arrive. There seem to be people lingering everywhere. The airport is a good place to wait. Outside the front doors, people stand in large groups waiting to see who arrives. Families gather in anticipation; young, hopeful men stand around in hopes that someone will hire them to transport luggage or drive a taxi.

But indoors, the air seems stagnant and hot. There are bags stacked everywhere. A barely rotating luggage belt clanks around awkwardly, as bags pour in through the open hole that leads directly outside. Large metal carts rapidly move around and fill up by locals and Ghanaian-Americans who seem to know exactly what to do. There are very few signs and even less machines—no computers, no digitized screens, no moving walkways. If this weren't my third time here, I'd be lost. In America, this would be chaos. Here, it seems strangely under control. Calm, even.

The first time I came here, I didn’t know what to expect. I stepped off those steps, felt that heat hit my skin for the first time, and walked into the unknown—a whirlwind month of my early college years. I spent three weeks wandering West Africa with my eyes wide open, trying my damndest to absorb everything in sight. I attempted, feebly, to process what I was hearing and feeling with every ounce of myself. To look at everything with as many lenses as I had the capacity—to do my best to simply participate and observe.

I’ve learned, over the years, just how hard this is to do—to simply blend into the background, participate and observe. I was naïve to think it would be so easy, that I could just show up in West Africa and not be seen by everyone as a white, American obroni college student. Besides, our western brains are highly skilled to pick out imperfections. We’re well-trained in cynicism, sarcasm, and despair. It has taken me many years to begin to quiet those thoughts—to push them to the side—so that I can truly hear the music. So that I can really dance. So that I can be okay with darkness.

And here I am back again, landing in this beautiful land and preparing myself for a new adventure—a new learning curve. I’m so happy to be back. As soon as the dusty smoky heat hits my nostrils I can feel it. That it that changed my life two years ago. That it that has left me dumbfounded, heartbroken, and filled to the brim with curiosity, joy, and light. That it that has made everyone I know who doesn’t know Africa hate me for loving this place so much.

We’re met on the other end of the terminal by my dear friend Christine. I can hear her laughter as soon as I come through customs. She cries out with joy, as if in pain, and releases the most excruciatingly beautiful smile that no one could possibly stay upset or angry in her presence. The hug that follows this grin is even more joyful and suddenly the hours and hours on an airplane are non-existent. The heat is beginning to set into my bones and I’m so excited to be here—to be home. She squeezes me tight and says, “Welcome home, junior sister”, and lets out an outrageous cackle that lets me know she sincerely means it. I feel like I can’t contain my words; I ramble in circles asking how everyone is doing, checking in on her love life, her family’s health, etc.

There is a distinct feeling I get when I travel to a place that feels like home. Everywhere I walk, I hear the local greeting: “You are welcome.” This time, I feel that in the deepest of places.