Little Life

My mom made me write this post. She said I should write so that “people know it doesn’t just end when it ends.” I kind of thought that was clear with the last five posts, but okay.

So my life right now is…
-living in a DC suburb.
-mastering the Metro.
-trying to get into grad school (for Journalism, not Public Health, like some of you might have heard… that phase lasted, like, 5 minutes).
-wondering why my car is making so many funny noises.
-trying to manage my salary that is only meager because I live in such an exorbitantly expensive city.
-Netflix.
-hanging out in my styled-by-Salvation-Army-and-Craigslist apartment.
-marveling at how fast I can kill a goldfish. (I’m on my fourth one right now, and fingers crossed, he’s hanging in there.)
-working. And working. And working.
-still not getting haircuts as often as I should.
-hanging out with my (much older than me) French club.
-wholly independent.
-volunteering with the SPCA as an adoption counselor and giving fools the boot when I think they don’t deserve a puppy.
-really, really, really enjoying Michaels, AC Moore, and JoAnn Fabrics way too much and being way too crafty again.
-wishing I could wear my Chacos when I have to wear sensible office shoes.
-going to the Cameroonian restaurant in Silver Spring.
-still catching up with friends all over the mid-Atlantic region on weekends.
-figuring things out.
-no, that’s a lie… I’m more often wondering what I have to do to force myself to figure things out, but not really doing it.

Regarding Cameroon…
-I miss it. A lot. I wish I could be there. A lot.
-I talk to Carine almost weekly. I’m very sad that I can’t see her through her pregnancy and the baby when it is born this summer. And I’m very sad every time she puts Hope-Mah on the phone and she says, “Auntie Lindsay, good afta-noooon,” in her almost 3-year-old voice. She only had a 2½-year-old voice when I left her.
-I accosted a woman at a gas station when I heard her accent. She was one pump over, talking on the phone, and I went up to her and (maniacally) asked her where she’s from. When she said, “Cameroon,” I said, “Oh! Me TOO!” She thought I was nuts, but then we talked about how much Paul Biya blows and then she hugged me and now we’re friends. Awesome.
-I go to Roger Miller, the Cameroonian restaurant here, way too much, but I love the people. When I walk in, they say, “Ah-ah! Mbengwi! C’est ma soeur Camerounaise!” That’s worth paying $10 for fufu.
-When I call my friend Elizabeth in Douala, she says, “When will you come home?” And when I say, “I have to be here to make money before I can return,” she says, “What money? Find the airfare and you will never need a franc again! Myself, all of Guneku, you know we’re ready to house you. Just come back and you will need no thing.” She’s serious. She has a plan about how, as soon as I pay off my student loans, I can go back there and, “Relaaax. Just enjoy yourselllf. Enjoy Gunekuuu… You know, Lindsay.” (Have I said how much I love her?)

Regarding America...
-I get frustrated. A lot.
-I get the urge to slash the tires of every pretentious, shiny, nauseatingly oversized monstrosity (I mean Hummers) that I see on the road. Imagine my reaction when I saw a stretch Hummer limo driving through Georgetown last week.
-I love seeing old friends.
-I love mocha frappuccinos.
-I hate drying my hair. So I don’t. Even though I should. Glossy-haired J. Crew wearers who try to make me feel inferior can suck it. So can the people at Patagonia who charge $30 for a t-shirt that says "Live Simply." Stupid. People who really live simply get their t-shirts within the price range of 50¢ to free. (Do you see how America makes me frustrated?)

Okay, I’m going to pause from the list because I’m starting to get onto a (bitter) tangent, and I don’t want things to seem like that, so let me explain myself. Reintegration encompasses a lot of different things. Some are more magnified than others on certain days, but for me, the experience has gone something like this:

- Initial joy.

I survived Peace Corps! I’m back in America! I didn’t lose an eye! (That was one of my irrational phobias in Cameroon.) I have a spring mattress! Hot showers! Chipotle! No haggling! I’m pretty again when I scrub the dirt off and put on some mascara!

This phase burns bright but fast, and then…

- Panic/Overwhelm.

I have LOANS to pay. Lots and lots of LOANS. And I have to buy a car. And I have to find a job. And I HAVE TO GET OUT OF MY PARENTS’ HOUSE NOW. I have to wear close-toed shoes. And I have to wear mascara because I have to be pretty because America says I have to and I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SURVIVE HERE. And all Peace Corps gave me was this lousy $6 grand before taxes. Which makes way for…

- Hatred of "The Man."

All Peace Corps gave me was this lousy $6 grand before taxes and I have to buy a car and find an apartment and pay my loans and get out of my parents’ house. Oh, and my loans are a lot higher now because Peace Corps told me not to consolidate before I left because they forgive 30% of Perkins loans. But when I got home, interest rates had jumped from 3% to 8% and I accrued $5,000 on my Stafford loans because I didn’t consolidate when interest was low and I just found out that my Perkins loan was only worth $900, which means the agency saved me $300 but cost me $5,000 and counting because I’m now stuck indefinitely with this shitty interest rate. And… neat. Peace Corps, you’re really neat. No, no. No thanks necessary for the 27 months I spent chewing on cow bones and bettering the image of America abroad.

To be fair, this phase is really a combination of frustration with America, Peace Corps, and myself. America because, really, it's just too much. Peace Corps because yep, it is a government agency, and, yep, it sucks. And myself because prior to leaving, I was not aware enough of my situation to know that, BFD, it would only be $300. But in my case, as time went on, I came to resent Peace Corps more and more. During my COS medical exams, Nurse Ann screwed something up, so when I got home, PC/Washington called me and said I needed to re-do this exam. They gave me a voucher, but I was denied by all 57 doctors in Peace Corps’ insurance provider’s directory. And two of them turned out to be fertility specialists, which is not what I needed at all… No one at Peace Corps would talk to me about it, and the insurance company just kept referring me back to the directory, so as far as I’m concerned, if they want to do this test/take my body parts or secretions or whatever so they can close out my file, then they can come get it. A-holes.

So, hatred of the man lasts a little while, but in the meantime, the transition into missing your country settles in.

- Missing the Motherland.

Eventually things fall into place. I get a car—with some finagling finesse and by casually mentioning that I did just SERVE MY COUNTRY (whatever, it sounds good) for more than 2 years for no compensation, so I totally deserve a huge discount—and I find a job. It’s not necessarily a job I like, but it’s a job and it’s enough that I can live by myself. I settle. I get some furniture. (And am nearly struck by a police officer and have my windshield cracked on two separate occasions involving two separate pieces of furniture, but those stories are neither here nor there…) I sign up for Netflix. I get a birdfeeder and I have lovely Saturday mornings, taking long slow showers then lazing in my bathrobe for an hour, sipping orange juice out of my ceramic juice cup that I save just for Saturdays, watching Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal peck at the feeder, and I think, “How sweet, they mate for life.” Then I sob because I can’t ride a moto to Bamenda today. Does that transition seem irrational? Good, because it is. It happens and it happens often with no provocation and I don’t know why.

Flashbacks come a lot. I turn a combination lock on a box filled with death review folders at work and think about how I’d wake up and sit on my cold tile floor every morning in front of my trunk, spinning my combination locks to get out my laptop. I put on my Chacos and think about how the dirt that’s still stuck in the crevices was picked up on one of my hikes on the dusty roads behind my house. I think about the sun on my face. I think about how the mornings smelled. I think about how any time I sat down, Wee-Mah would stand between my legs and lean against my chest and stay there just like that for my entire visit. I think about the way the 4 o’clock sun looked coming in through my parlor curtains. I think about the sound of the vibration of my front window bars when my cat jumped through them to come inside. I think about how rough most women’s hands felt whenever they touched me because they were worn from a lifetime of farming. I think about feeling nauseous and overheated in taxis. I think about cold showers. I think about bad macaroni and cheese made with powdered milk. I think about everything. I miss everything. I regret not extending. I pray that the mediocrity of my middle-of-the-road office job doesn’t ever become comfortable.

- Normalcy.

After a while, the smoke begins to clear. Life isn’t always happy and it isn’t always exciting, but it is what it is. This is where I am now, and it’s taken nearly 5 months to get here, and I say it a lot: “It is what it is.” I have a schedule, and I’m used to getting up at 6:50 everyday, showering, eating my breakfast, getting in my car, going to work. Much of my life at this point is lived in memories; even when I’m with friends, I make many references to my time in Africa. I miss Cameroon actively everyday, but it’s not as sore as it used to be. I hate America, sometimes, often, but only parts. Parts like giant SUVs, Kaiser Permanente, George W. Bush. I hate that I feel less free here. If I wanted to run away and live in a cave, I couldn’t. I have bills to pay, so I have to work, and I have to do what I have to do, and I’m not the one deciding. I hate that it’s so hard to live simply here. I hate that it’s weird that I don’t have cable or internet (more so that I don’t want cable or internet). I hate that I can’t go out to dinner for less than $20. I hate that I can’t walk to work. I hate that I pass a thousand people each day and talk to none of them. I miss Cameroon. I miss being abroad.

I have fantasies of running away to Normandy, living in a one-room house on a hill with little rounded doorways and a small wood-burner in one corner and my straw bed in the other, and in the morning an old man in suspenders will knock on my door to bring me fresh cream and I’ll answer wearing a long-sleeve, high-neck cotton night gown, and I’ll sleepily say, “Grand merci, pa.” Wasn’t that like… The Sound of Music or something? If it wasn’t it was borne from it. The grass is always greener. I know that. I miss the best things about Cameroon and forget about the bad, just like when I was there I missed the best things about America.

I’m not quite sure what the next phase is. I think I may just sink deeper into normalcy. Make more friends, go back to school, find a different job, fall in love for real for once. Live my little life. I don’t think it’ll always be here. I’d like to ultimately get out of America again. The world to see, you know. But I thank God that I finally know it’s out there.

Anyway, the whole point of this is that it’s a slow process back into the “first world.” It’s a slow solitary journey into Peace Corps and then back out again. It takes a lot of time to figure out how to melange two very different parts of your life, and in some cases, how to merge the very different person you've become in Africa with your new/old life in America. It’s studded with some amazing and some wretched (mostly amazing) people along the way, but it is, primarily, a very personal path to travel. At least it’s been that way for me. I had to take care of me and be strong for me and I was. That’s a power and a confidence that no one can take. And even now in my little Netflix-petting-abandoned-puppies-talking-to-my-goldfish-working-on-a-cancer-study-Lean-Cuisine-for-one phase, I'm still okay. Because I have to be okay. Because I was okay in a situation often more trying than this. Because I have faith that good things are ahead. Because everything will be okay.

Mohamad Chakaki was a PCV in Wum, Northwest Province 2001-2003. He’s retroactively posting the journal he kept to a blog now. A while ago, he posted a quote that his mother had sent him, and I keep it on a Post-It in my office now:

Travel, you will find recompense for what you’ve left behind
Struggle, for the sweetness of life is in struggle
-Imam Shafi’i