The Expat Bourgeoisie

            

Main Entry:	expatriate  [v. eks-pey-tree-eyt or, especially Brit., -pa-tree-; adj., n. eks-pey-tree-it, -eyt or, especially Brit., -pa-tree-]  Show IPA
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	person thrown out of a country
Synonyms:	departer, deportee, displaced person, emigrant,evacuee, exile, expellee, migrant, outcast,refugee, émigré (courtesy of thesaurus.com)

            
              
              I am stuck, uninvited, in someones home as the rain pours down in lightweight sheets and I wait for my mother to make her way to us, already 20 minutes late.  I have been in close quarters with this woman over the last six weeks, during rehearsals, but that is not the same as being "welcomed" in her home. Uganda has taught me to be weary of such boundaries of intimacy, so tricky to navigate since they are never mentioned, but so very apparent when you feel you've crossed one.


            This is one of the few expat homes I've been in, and my eyes paw through the things trying to asses if we measure up, making note of where we fall short.  Well, of course there is the location-it is always about location, but we know this is a temporary miscue on our part; we will fix that.  


            The forested garden outside must be almost an acre; the grill on the deck alongside cushioned, hand crafted lounge chairs, mock our isolated existence (a remnant of Ugandan life that we must lose if we mean to survive here). The children play on the computer, the parents sort through old photo albums, a task they have "been meaning to get to for ages".  


             Out of the corner of my eye, a woman rushes by the window, ducking the rain, clinging to clothes picked off the line.  My mother was right to hire a housekeeper; I breath a sigh of relief; we are not so badly off; we belong.


             Being in the play has given me a taste of the Dar Expat community.  Anyone who doesn't understand the homogenized nature of expatriate communities in third world countries, should just wait for the reality t.v series (they call 'em documentaries in the U.K innit); I'm sure there'll be one along shortly.  It is a fascinating community: people whose lives would look very different were they in their "home" countries (some expats live abroad for 20 years or more so this term gets.....tricky) all adopt the same laissez faire, privileged/humble, sheltered/exposed, paradoxical lifestyle that comes with the expatriate position.  It is a class that is at once peripheral to and the apex of mainstream society; the former being in regards to responsibility (and vulnerability), the latter in regards to privilege (and security).  Sort of like celebrities (this analogy can also help describe the difference between immigrant or Diaspora populations and expats; there are actors and then there are celebrities).


               It isn't really about the help:  the drivers, cooks, baby-raisers, always in the background, always an assumed aspect of life, even in speech: I get offered rides from rehearsal only to find they have to call up the driver and wait for him to come (though they live, "just around the corner").  During the tsunami scare my mother's colleague was also out of town at the conference; her husband was in town in a meeting, and didn't not make it home until 10 p.m.  The children were with their caretakers, the oldest is five.


              Though western (white) expats do it on a grander scale, having help is ironically common in developing countries.  Much of the population, across income levels, relies on some form of hired hands (even if it is more of an exchange for room and board, a barter, as opposed to a direct salary) to assist in daily living.  To me, the irony is the casual, easy way that those who were raised in societies were this is a privilege for the absurdly rich, adapt to this type of lifestyle.  Expats are experts when it comes to living the good life.


             In Uganda, I was trying so hard to claim my identity that I was willing to part with large part of my Self for the chance to be accepted as a Ugandan.  I spent three years proclaiming I was, for the first time in my life, a local.  I lived my life ignoring all that exists in Kampala in terms of expatriate life-and it, in turn, ignored me. But in many ways, so did the locals; they rejected my application to the fraternity. In my attempts to assimilate,  I failed wholeheartedly. At times I have thought I was ruthlessly punished for my false claim, but maybe it was more of tough love; maybe it was meant as an encouragement to really embrace who I am.  I was not born in Uganda; I was not raised in Uganda; why did I feel I should be a local? I am, born and raised, an outsider; I am an Expat.  I used to say I was a retired expat, well, I've come out of retirement.  I am me again.  It's funny how quickly you revert to those forgotten habits of comfortable disconnection, luxury, ease, and humble exclusivity:


             The door bell rings; I wrap my exposed legs and run to let Ana in.  She comes here three times a week, just enough for me to not feel invaded.  She can barely speak English.  I know where she lives, not far.  My mother tells me she has a child; I have not asked her its name; and I will not make a point of it.   I don't know her mother-tongue, or where her village is.  I have never met her parents; I do not know if she has siblings, how many, what they are doing.  She knows nothing about me except that I like to eat chocolate and stuff the wrappers under my bed.  She cannot claim a part of my history; she cannot claim to know my grandparents and their home better than I do. I am a stranger to her and she to me; both of us like it this way; it makes more sense this way. 

Bonding Over Body Bits

              A few nights ago, I arrived home from rehearsal like a walking zombie (due to a previous late night youtube marathon of My Big Fat Gypsy's Wedding).  Ms V was wide awake still, having decided to wait up for me.  I sat on her bed and she blurted a question she had clearly been deeply ruminating in my absence:


              "What is this???" (points to her bellybutton) 


              Her angelic sincerity snapped me out of my lethargy.  I impishly tired to convince her that the bellybuttons sole reason for existence was to make that trumpet sound when someone blows on it (I demonstrated).  She protested my claim amidst much giggling, but her perceptiveness couldn't hold out to my insistence, especially as I had shown that neither the elbow, cheek, or shoulder were adequate places to make said trumpet sound.  And when she tried it on me, she could find no tangible fault with my irrational argument.  


            I could not bring myself to leave her so deluded and eventually admitted my treachery then gave a brief lesson on the true purpose behind the bellybutton, using her doll and a lamp plugged into the wall as props. Unexpectedly the conversation turned;  Never play with a child's imagination, unless you're in the mood for a trip: 


            "I wish I could see a woman with a woman or a man with a man; oh, I wish I could see how that looks like!" 


            (Uhmmmmmm, Pardon the Fuck?) "What? Why??"


            "Mukaka says they are there! Like in America or what.....I just want to see how they get a baby....or what....."


            We had, a couple of months ago, been forced (thank you much progressive parenting 101) to honestly respond to Ms V's classic "where do babies come from?" question with a brief synopsis of the biology behind procreation; we smartly used the broader example of the entire animal kingdom to keep things safely scientific (frankly, one would expect trying to imagine ostriches, giraffes, and lizards making babies would be overwhelming enough that there wouldn't be the time or imagination left to ponder same sex coupling-bah!).  Apparently Ms V's imagination had used these scientific basics as a diving board into the deep dark depths of Adult Content!


            I still felt myself in somewhat familiar territory.  When I was her age there was a couple who lived across the street from us; a gay couple.  I used to sit in my living room and keep watch at the window hoping for a glimpse of the fabled pair. Once during my vigil I "caught" them in an intimate moment: they were both outside trying to change the bulb on a floodlight at the side of the house.  One man climbed a short ladder to reach it, and the other reached up and put his hands around his partners waist to brace him (to protect him).  I felt I'd caught a glimpse of exactly what I'd been looking for: evidence that, despite the negative connotation when the gay couple was ever mentioned in the neighborhood, there was nothing at all negative or mysterious about them.  They were good; they were right; they were Love.  This notion was amplified by the contradicting fact that the rest of the neighborhood, including my home, held dysfunctional, lonesome, and sometimes violent families in which Love was a barely contrived facade.


           In any case, wherever my curiosity led, from the lofty ideals of universal romance to the more carnal realms of Danielle Steel imagery (I was a young and avid reader) I had the prudishness, fear, and wherewithal to keep my musings to myself; the Little One has no such filters:


            "I also want to know how they put their cho-chos (vagina) together, or..... what. And they have like holes-?"


            "Vannesa!! Where did you get these ideas from?!"


            "Eh! But you said I should tell you all what's on my mind!"


            "Ah, yesss," (damn you psychobabble degree) "but who told you all these things? Why are you even thinking of them?"


            "Uhmm, I think television or something." (we don't have a t.v-hmph!) "So do you have a hole in your cho-cho?"


            "Oh for Gods sake!" (For FUCKS SAKE!!)   


            I then launched into a Progressive Parent 101 spiel which supported her right and desire to be curious, affirmed my commitment to be honest and open with her, and redirected all such detailed-oriented questioning for when she will be old enough to understand the answers. (Whew!)

ARTEMIS (DIANA) OF EPHESUS

http://thequeenofheaven.files.wordpress.com

   


     Ms. V also has a running joke (that only she finds amusing) that slightly varies each time but basically involves my acquiring (sometimes at through her direct effort) an extra set of "buttocks", one or two extra sets of "bleasts", and (of course) a spare "cho-cho".  Sometimes though, she is the one (usually by taking mine) who gets a secondary set of female fertility organs (Yes, in Africa this most definitely includes the buttocks!).  She will choose the most innocuous conversations to intercept with this imagery, and will giggle adoringly at her fantasy.  At which point I thank God for my highly pretentious academic background which is steeped in the social sciences.  In these instances, images of ancient (and not so ancient, depending on the source) fertility God and Goddess statues come to mind; the classic Greek tragic hero, Oedipus also occurs to me (but that's probably my psychobabble training reminding me of Freud's say in such matters).  In the end, though, my daughters "joke"  seems more a ritual in which she uses these images to substitute our bodies having never been joined in organic creation; in mother-daughter coupling (a thing, I'm afraid, dear Freud would never have been able to understand).  


            Lucky for me, I do.  My daughter is my muse, and I use her stories, her words, her ways of seeing the world to guide me on my path as a storyteller; it is an odd thing to do; though she does not fully understand this ritual of mine, she accepts that it is my way of learning her, knowing her, and thus knowing myself.  It warms me to think that this ritual she has developed, of amplifying my femininity and then (rightly) claiming it for herself, is her way of learning me, knowing me, and thus knowing herself...... 


            Or maybe she thinks she's gay. Either way, works for me.  

My "Happy Birthday" Was Very Happy!

            The big 3-0.  I made it through a lot better than I would've thought, to be honest.  Let's not go into all the reasons I should be besieged with torment that, despite my age, I have nothing in the way of functioning adulthood, to show for myself (even my existential angst is seeming a tad dated now-hmph!).  But let's NOT going into details, or I may in fact fall into a delayed pit of despair.  However, this little exchange between an old(er....as in hag-hmph!) neighbor lady and I, that happened on my birthday, pretty much symbolically captures whatever torment I may be carrying:


            Me: Shikamoo. (respectful Swahili greeting towards elders)


            Nice Hag: Marahaba. ( appropriate response) Blahblahblah (more Swahili)


            Me: Uhmmmm......(that's all I got Lady!)


            Nice Hag: Hahaha. How have you been? How was your vacation?


            Me: It was very good. Are you coming or going?


            Nice Hag: Going. I just arrived last night, and now I'm going out of town again.


            Me: Oh, well safe journey then......


            Nice Hag: How is your.....is that your sister or...?


            Me: (thinking she is referring to Ms V) daughter.


            Nice Hag: YOU are that Lady's daughter?!?


            Me: Oh! Uhmmm, yeah.....


            Nice Hag: Oh my Goodness. But she looks SO young! What is she doing with herself? You must be the first born then yes?


            Me: Ha-ah-yes she looks very young. No, not the first.


            Nice Hag: Second?


            Me: Nooooo, I'm the third.


            Incredibly old, surely half-blind, doesn't know how to mind her own business Hag: Wow! She must take very good care of herself!......You know YOU should take care of yourself too.


            Me: Haha. Okay, thanks, safe journey then....(fucked up thing is, I totally saw this coming; I've had this exact conversation several times since moving back to Africa.)




            Other than that lovely reminder that, along with generally sucking at adulthood, apparently I fail to even look like a daughter, my birthday was Momentously Marvelous.  The first one with my daughter, you know.  Ms. V has the endearingly ironic habit (one of many) that instead of saying "Birthday", she says "Happy Birthday" as in, she does not recognize that the former is the noun referring to the anniversay of one's birth, and the latter is merely a suggestion.  So in lamenting not having got me the present she wanted because she'd wanted to get in Uganda where it would be a fifth the price of here, she said, "....but I forgot that it was going to be your Happy Birthday...." In lamenting that I didn't have a cake to cut (which I ended up getting to my surprise) and that it was a boring work Monday, she said, "Ohhhh sorry, you're Happy Birthday is just working, and you are not cutting a cake on your Happy Birthday!" And so forth.  It trips you out to see the "Happy" as a necessary part of the "Birthday"; I like it; I think I shall take up this habit for good.


             Speaking of habits, I'm currently off the sauce. In actuality these extra pounds I've put on are starting to weigh on me (ahahahahaha-whatever! I thought it was funny) I haven't been this big for years and years, since I originally lost a shitload of weight and totally transformed my body/lifestyle.  I'm thick; like high school thick. But as Old Lady Hagsville reminded me, this shit doesn't not hang so well on my tri-decade-been through the ringer-body.  So, though I would love to go all Rocky and shit, hit the gym and run my ass off (literally-hehe-see above) that's just not going to happen.  Firstly, there's too much pressure in trying to be fit again after you've been out of it for awhile. It's like, you can still remember how cool and svelte you felt (and how big your Ego was) but you're also very aware of the specific differences between your body now and then, and the amount of excruciating effort it will take to go back to then.  Secondly, uhmmmm, I don't remember the second part, I'm still distracted by the thought of all that effort (ugh).


              My only alternative, to at least kick start my weight loss, is to cut back on my caloric intake.  Now, back in my most recent old life, I was a swinging (as in hip not kinky) bachelorette living on my own, and as such had no time for eating much more than takeaway chicken, beer, and chocolate.  I would go to my mama's house cause the house girl made some mean greens, so all in all, it was a wonderfully balanced diet for both body and soul.  But in this life, I am a caretaker and cannot very well give my child beer for lunch (I am way to pretentiously pious for that) though I'm sure she'd go in for the chicken and chocolate.  So the booze has got to go on hiatus from my blood stream (however I have now just tripled my chocolate intake so I dunno how well this is working, though I have lost the beer bloat).


              And though alcohol is not the problem.....per se (What are you, a lie detector?? Pffft) it won't hurt to keep away until I can really sink my mental health roots back into fertile ground.  However, it surely won't last (the sobriety, not the good mental health) cause frankly, I'm way to humbly harebrained for that (Teetotalism, like Veganism, takes SO much dogmatic Ego to maintain IMHO).  And here are two articles that say I'm right.


               Okay, okay, those articles said no such thing, but definitely interesting reads re: a different perspective. And how cool is psychology for affirming even the worst behaviors as being understandable vis a vis "human nature".


               Speaking of which, I gotta go stuff a chocolate Easter egg into a shot glass for my mid-morning fix.

willowcottagegarden.wordpress.com

           

A Run For The Hills (2)

            You know that scene in disaster movies, when everyone is trapped in traffic trying to calmly save themselves, while being thoroughly perplexed by the fact that everyone else is doing the exact same thing, thus making all attempts futile?  Well, it turns out, that is EXACTLY what happens in real life as well.  

latimesblogs.latimes.com

chrisrrau.wordpress.com

           Had the Tsunami actually 

hit, we would have been like panicking, flailing, cannibalistic ducks, sitting in a barrel filled with petrol. 

            We'd a been fucked, and looked damn stupid on top.


             Gotta support the local press, but what I hate about the above link (and really all post-tsunami scare journalistic rhetoric) is the blahblahblah, "our government isn't doing enough to prepare for a safe evacuation."  WTF?? The above pictures are from disaster movies, but try googling "disaster movie traffic jam scene" like I first did, and you will be overwhelmed by the pictures of REAL LIFE TRAFFIC JAMS, on an ordinary day, taken in cities all over the world.  Dar-ahem-is a city.  And BY DEFINITION (especially in this day and age) a city is an overcrowded, condensed locale, usually daily inundated with a large mass of migrating persons from nearby towns and suburbs.  Exactly what is the government-ANY government- supposed to do, call Batman? And why are we so surprised that a set of emergency only highways did not pop out of the ground and form into evacuating bridges over our swarming selves to lead us into safety (where OF COURSE there would be jack-in-the-box like five star hotels ready to pop up and receive the masses with free complimentary drinks and extra towels)?

                 I did what everybody else did; I tried to get out and protect my baby; but if shit had gone down, I damn sure wouldn't have wasted what little breath I had trying to blame someone else for it (hence Natural Disaster).  Then again, I'm the protagonist in this fairytale so we all know I would have made it out alive and heroically saved all sorts of people along the way (bumping into my True Love who was is also a hero-like super hot b-.....but I digress).

         
                So-well-I mean-maybe I did indulge a TAD in some melodramatics when my mother initially called me with the news that we were on alert for a possible Tsunami as a result of the recent Earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, but nothing compares to my Little One's propensity for hysterics:  I once misplaced one of my favorite rings; upon mentioning this and starting to casually look for it, Ms V began hysterically crying out to the Lord: "Oh Jesus! Sweet Jesus help!! Help, where is the RING?? Where is it? Oh God, oh Jesus, you LOST your RING!!" and so forth.  To her (and the Lord's) credit, she found it some five minutes later.


        
               We spent about an hour flitting around the house, straining our eyes in the dying light trying to pack, "anything you feel is important to you" in the off chance that we would come home to....well.....no home.  The Little One did not go into hysterics exactly, but her voice did get really high, and soft, and fragile; her eyes, which are already as large as my Owl gizomo-thingy, managed to grow even larger, and she kept apologizing for the oddest things, "I'm sorry I startled you just now; I'm really, really sorry you were startled." and such.  I kept my Zen cool thing and, in the end, she was freakin AMAZING; she even reminded me to close all the windows (wait, when was the last time she was in a Tsunami???) 


             It wasn't until we emerged outside to grab a taxi, that I begun realizing the enormity of what was going on.  It was bright out, but with a consistent rain falling; it was about 6-ish so naturally people were trying to go home anyway.  Swarms of people chose to march down the road to get home on foot, while the rest of us sat in traffic with a barely constrained panic; some poor souls (many hugely pregnant) stood waiting for the public bus-like there was a chance in hell they be home before midnight if they even had the luck of catching one.  Much like my earlier greeting when my daughter arrived, we were all trying to be very adult about the whole thing, and secretly hating it.

THAILAND- novinite.com

             The epiphany of the anticlimactic great escape is finding yourself, after two hours in traffic, some 700 feet away from your house.  And to add insult to injury, while sitting in traffic, all our prized possessions safely stowed in the back of the ghetto van turned taxi we have heroically secured, we watched the rain stop and the streets lights and power come back on.  

INDIA- cdn-wac.emirates247.com

              








               All the while, we'd been communicating with my mother who had (after much scolding mind you) dutifully turned around and was now waiting for us just outside of town to continue the trip with her.    I found myself thinking (.....hoping? I know, terrible) that this was just the calm before the storm and shit was about to get crazzzzy any minute now, but eventually even I had to beg the driver to turn around. Luckily Unfortunately, he didn't speak any English and was stoically determined to complete his drop-off.


              All in all, the hectic frenzy of the failed escape was the final deciding factor.  After all that panic, we needed a little R&R. So to the hills we went.

morogorofamily.blogspot.com

              
              Though her workshop ended Friday, we decided to stick around and go exploring.  My mother and I are kindred spirits in our LOVE for a NATURAL

BEWARE, BEWARE, 

THE CLOUDS ARE FALLING;

ADVENTURE.  








           The Little One is a big sissy spoil-sport......but we tried to not let it get on our nerves too much.  She has a lot to learn.

BE AWARE

              Most notably, on that note, her willful rejection of studying English is still in full effect! I decided, despite my upcoming birthday, the next week would have to begin Operation Boarding School Boot camp!! Spell DISCIPLINE!  

Is That The Planets Shifting, Then?

        Last night was my first night ALONE since moving to Dar.  The Little One accompanied my mother on a trip out of town; I had to stay behind for rehearsals for the play.  I thought I would be anxious about it, but for the first time in forever, I feel safe....safe, for the first time in too long.  It's sad though, in her absence, my heart can only now feel the full expression of my love for my daughter.  


        They say time flies when you're having fun, I would argue the opposite and say time slips through your fingers when your struggling to hold on to your sanity.  When everything's falling apart, the clock seems to tick faster and faster, like sand through an hourglass. Joy actually freezes time, in my experience.  When I am so content with the moment that nothing else matters, no future, no past, no wants, no unfulfilled needs, in those moments time does not exist.


         March came and went like a roller coaster ride through anxiety and tension, with brief moments of holding it together.  There was too little joy in March, and the struggle to figure out what the fuck was going wrong sucked all the grains of time down until, suddenly, the month was over.  It is now April, my birthday month.


         I find myself here, now, as if finally coming out of a really bad hangover.  I am still amazed at the loss of time, still confused by how it happened, but feeling, at least, like I can breath.  The air is different, infused with a cleansing agent; the light is clearer, showing me things I did not see before. Is that the planets talking, then? Can this be explained with by a shift in the Cosmos, a change in the weather? Or is it just my Faith in these things that somehow survived the pressure of melancholy and the onslaught of worry so that with the shift in time and a new rising sun, like magic, the curse seems lifted? Is it so simple, then? Planets move and shift, time slips by, and suddenly even my trivial mortal circumstances have shed the weight of futility and regained the lightness of hope.


         My breath is slow and steady. And the small achievements that did occur now rise up into my consciousnesses having previously been suppressed and drowned in such heavy, damning, despair.  I have my health back, a good 20 lbs heavier unfortunately, but strong and vital and myself again.  


         My blood work confirmed no more anemia and all other organs are functioning (at least organically speaking) with full vitality.  While doing my check up, I managed to finally find a proficient dentist and go through the first of several stages of treatment to my damaged mouth. Having done it and survived, having found a doctor who actually understood how terrifying these procedures have become for me, and having had my mother go full on warrior by my side through the whole affair-all of this is still hard to believe, to internalize.  It has been this running commentary between my mother and I, "what are we going to do about your teeth??"; the frequent days of pulsing pain and the inability to chew properly have just become a part of my life. Now, just like that, it is all gone; I am healed.  


         A small, physical example symbolizing a much, much larger affair: The Stumble Out of the Path of Light and Peace. It always begins with a simple slip and fall, a wrong turn, a misplaced move; then the initial denial of trauma or danger, the attempt to ignore and the hope if you just keep moving all will be well; finally the awareness that you are in fact wounded, you are limping and scared that you have forever lost your way. And then one day, you are safe; you are healed; the process is over; those scary moments are gone. You will only ever understand only parts and pieces of how you were healed.  Some things you remember, others you will never know. Like did the planets quietly shift in your favor? Did the moon tilt to help you see a way you hadn't seen before?


         I shouldn't regret the loss of time, when so much of it was filled with hurt and worry; I am glad for the speed with which it seeped through me, though there are still residual aches.  I am not even looking forward yet.  I am here, now, on this day, and it feels safe.  Let the planets move me at their will, let the moments settle down and take on new shapes. I think I see my Path up ahead; it is there still, waiting for me.

        I will not look for the bliss and joy just yet, but I will not stop them from coming either. This is my silent day. I am alone (but full of love); I am MINDFUL; I am healing.  


        My breath is slow and steady.

Your Mother Has Been Caught (2)

        The thing about playing Visitor in a world such as this, is that it is very easy to forget this is not a game for the people who inhabit it; they are not playing; for them, this is real.


        It didn't take long for reality of living in a mud hut with one mother, one younger brother, one best friend, a handyman/driver, and several village rats, to grate on my apparently fragile nerves.  I thought 48 hours was heroic, but the troop was nonplussed by my decision to beg off the trip to the market and instead bask in some much needed alone time.


        Even alone (save for the rats), being cooped up in a mud hut was not appealing; instead I chose to sit beneath the big tree, drinking leftover tea from the large saucepan.  I am not sure what advanced form of technology was used to divine that I had stayed behind, alone, but as soon as the message was received an executive guard was sent to awkwardly stand on centurion duty in my best interest.  The guard came in the form of an 13 year old boy named Ham.  Ham, ironically, was made up of not much more than bone-thin, malnourished arms, and a great wide smile; he looked to be about 9, such as it goes.  But I have mispoken; among those superficial qualties, he also possesed a valuable gift: the unyielding sense of duty to protect and look after me.  I was willful, desperate, and in my defense, thoroughly Americanized; I could not understand this gift or why I should need protection and set about making myself wholy unagreeable and put off until I chased him away.


       Shortly thereafter, a man came down the path that seperated our compound with that of our host.  He was carrying a jerrycan for fetching water and not far behind him followed 3 young girls doing the same.  It was then that I realized, this path was the main access to the well at the bottom of the hill in the lower fields.  In chasing away my centurion I had left myself utterly exposed to be gawked at by pretty much ninety percent of the village, who would all need to fetch water at some point for their household duties.

And gawk they did.  They were not going to waste this jewel of an opportunity to have a real live Black Mzungu sitting on display before them whilst they carried out one of the more gruesome tasks of village life.  The tableaux I painted, with skin bursting at the seems with extra flesh, legs long and heavy, feet soft, fingers carelessly adorned with rusted jewels, would have been aptly labeled "La Negresse En Chomage". It would have been considered a provokingly ironic piece of art, should the gawkers have had the time, language, or inclination to articulate what they saw.


     Needless to say, I soon scrambled to the safety of the hut, to commiserate my humilation with the sympathetic rats and peer through the small wooden windows, my hubris tucked between my legs. I could hear Aesop's ghost laughing in the treetops. At one point, I watched a man come down the path on his bicycle, pause, and look directly, or so it felt, at my hidden form. He watched and waited; I watched and waited. In a sudden show of bravado, he threw his bicycle to the ground and walked with swagger to the hut that resembled a dog's house. It was not a dog's house; it was, in fact, our outhouse; and this man was now defecating in what I could only assume was a luxury: the privacy of a privy.  He came out and took one more cocky glance my way before resuming his journey. I squealed at this affront, and ducked down into my mattress, having lost all interest in the scenic view. 


     In time, I feel asleep, only to wake to the troop of children surrounding my mud castle with chants for me to come and play. Perhaps the messenger service, realizing my aversion to Ham, had decided to appeal to my maternal nature while still securing adequate watch over me.  It didn't work. At first I sat up in fear, feeling as if the Wolf himself was at my doorstep, daring to blow my house in; my three little hairs were at an end. But soon enough, as I realized the rusty nail that was my bolt was doing much to keep the children in check, I sat back and listened with amusement to their lilting, sing-song chants heroically made in broken English, while the leader of the pack futilely scolded them: "move off, she's asleep, move off!" By the proximity of her voice, I knew she, herself, was too enchanted with my possible emergence to mean what she said. 


       I must have drifted off again. I awoke, the second time, with a Snow White resolve to cheerfully adapt to my novel, rural life. With virtuous humming, I looked out at the setting sun and proclaimed:


       "I will go and light the fire."......

Show Em How It's Done

(Update) The last post took a lot out of me to write.  It literally felt like a piece of me was pulled out of my guts and lain bare in the form of words.   I think that's not such a bad thing at all, but perhaps I am needing to save my guts at the moment, so the follow up post-My Daughter's Mother will have to stay on hold for now.  It's written, but it's still attached to me, can't afford the blood loss at the moment.


        In other news, I got a quite large role in the play (so all my posts will thus take on a necessarily Victorian accent-quite Victorian in fact....m'i'bad).  


       The Little One has learned to skip rope, and she's quickly become an expert performer, even when no one is around.  I think its great she has pushed herself with such discipline. Watch out Beyonce; I'm gonna make some $cashmoney$ off of that One....


        I don't think I've had such an excrutiatingly humiliating day as the one I had today, in a long, long while.  But then on the way home, sitting in lunchtime office traffic, under a blazing sun and a shockingly blue ocean to my right, I watched a grown man (not exactly mad looking, but not in top form I suppose) lean down over a pile of sand/dirt (like from a construction site) scoop up a handful, and pour it into his mouth.  Everybody's got issues, yeah? But why is it so fascinating when you are watching someone else face theirs? 






        People are such SHITS sometimes!

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

      




        My under-used toilet brush would concur, and frankly this link goes to a blog who says it all way better than I could at the moment. She seems to have found a way, to spill blood and guts, not just in words, but in pretty, safe, rainbow colored pictures.  Amazing.




          As would a certain Californian marketing-gone-wrong-poster child who has recently found a crack in his glass world.  All I will say about that: having a conscious does not mean you always do the right thing, it just means when you do the wrong thing it can hurt your head...really, really bad. And that video was pretty wrong, but not for the reasons some would think; not for the "ill intentions" of a young man who is really just trying to live a life with meaning the best way he knows how.






         Aren't we all in exactly the same boat? Reaching out for help and being laughed at; creatively displaying our journeys through the ups, and downs, and unicorns; selling dirt; eating dirt; skipping; and fucking play a part like the whole world is watching.  Because they fucking are. And sometimes they're gaping, and pointing, and acting like total shits. 




          So fuck it, give em a show, or at least a pretty picture and a few simple words.

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/26700000/
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           "And try to keep it clean," adds my neglected toilet; "unless  it gets a little messy," I respond (with uppity accent).....








       
   

We do not Choose the Families we Have NOR the Families we Make

        We went to the mall on Saturday.  I feel so restless with this anemia shit; I haven't been anemic in years and I forgot how....insidious it can be.  I talked of biorhythms with regards to my Cycling/Spiraling theory, but really, I tend to turn every experience I have into a bout of psychoanalytic, intellectual introspection: "I have no thoughts, I just need quiet and grey (?)" It's not always mental Lady! Did a bit of research, turns out these are all Grade A symptoms of anemia (including the heart palpitations I mistook for anxiety over possible past, present, and future failures). My particular kind of anemia-there's like a BUNCH with obnoxious names all with different causes but similar symptoms (the one caused by heavy prolonged drinking did lead to some serious anxiety re: past/present/future-bah!)-but I'm pretty sure, my particular kind of anemia is due to the malaria meds I had to take last month and a change of diet that is now absent of leafy greens (I do not cook leafy greens, alas....)
         Well, good to know; there's something else to blame in my body other than my mind for once (stupid blood) but since I am now so out of it physically I have nothing to do but think, let the introspection begin continue...
       
         The mall idea was with the hopes of finding some really good vitamins till mama returns with the hard stuff (check!), but also to give Ms. V an outing.  But all the while I was just so TIRED, and it bothered me that she should have to make do with a tired mama. It also made me realize how attached she is, not just to me, but to my every single movement.  I watched other children her age and younger play around but she clung to my each and every step and breath, mirroring them with her own.  If I didn't find something interesting, neither did (could) she. When I finally begged to sit down, children played and looked and moved around us-she looked with her eyes, but her body stayed right next to me; so close, as if she wanted (needed) to know if even the hairs on my arms moved, so hers could do likewise.
         I struggled with being frustrated by this, by trying to will her independence, because the fact is: just as I'm getting the hang of this, just as I'm getting accustomed to that attachment, she will be an adolescent, and her previously suppressed autonomy will burst forth, probably with fierce expression. I will shudder to think how I once lamented that all I have to do sometimes to get her to keep still is hold my breath.
     
         At night, I watched her play with a toy I found for her and I thought about families; I thought about my own and the one I'm creating.  One of the noticeable differences with other people in the mall and us, was they were all families with siblings, and we are just a pair.  This is beyond rare in Africa; it is so freakish that the waitresses where we lunched couldn't help but interrogate us throughout the meal with smiles of suspicion (a total of 3 different women at least 8 different times came and asked probing, personal questions we were forced to mumble awkward answers to through half chewed bites of chicken*); it must have killed their minds to wonder how we came to exist-a question I couldn't really answer.  Coming from a family of six, I had heard of only children, but what that must have actually looked like was beyond my imagination-sorta like Pluto maybe?
          Later she told me of a dream she had where her doll turned into a baby, and we adopted her and gave her a new name, and she was ours (but I refused to breastfeed-ha!). Oh poor Little One, she wants a family so badly (liking freakin Penny or Annie) but all she's got is me; no amusing characters seem to be coming forth to fill in the blanks.

http://www.aveleyman.com

        I do think about my future children and how easy they will have it compared to her: there is no way I will be able to exert this much demand and training on a future child, especially one I've raised from birth. I will have learnt some and given up some; but Ms. V must take the brunt of that learning.
         But it is give and take: when we do evolve into a "proper" family, I will be distracted by a husband (!), a potentially unruly adolescent, and other Life things; my future child will not get the benefit (?) of the intense and sacred study I give to Vannesa. I know her; I know her by a twitch of her shapely eyebrows, a hand movement, a pull of her mouth that even she doesn't know is happening, a change in her voice. And I usually know what's causing the shift (physical, emotional, circumstantial) and in which direction (negative/positive). Of course I encourage her, sometimes push her to articulate her needs and feelings for herself. Sometimes I let her in on my knowing-power and she looks at me like I'm magical. That's a special thing, to be known so intimately; being the third child, I can attest to an awareness of the absence of such Knowing in my upbringing; I still long for my mother to know me and I am perplexed by how much she does not.  But that's just it: I was the third child and Life's distractions were a bit more....demanding during my childhood.


        People always mention how I was my mothers "purse" because I was always attached to her (I like to joke I now live in her purse, and then I cry inside) but my memories of her are of absence and longing. I clung to her because she was always disappearing; I still do; she still does.
         People also remember me as the epitome of the incorrigible, in-suppressible, fully expressed, egocentric monster: "I want what I want when I want it"; I threw horrifying tantrums of such grandiose proportions, I would have undoubtedly been severely medicated had I been raised in today's America.  My sister is the first born and I think she took the brunt of my unimaginably young mother's parental learning, much like the Little One (except my sister had the benefit of a sibling who came just after her and was the obedient and willing follower to her adventures). She resents me terribly for my insisted recognition of Self. She doesn't get that it's give and take:
         When my siblings were younger they lived in a country and culture they knew and felt safe in; they had two mostly functioning parents, friends that looked like them and thought they were normal, RELATIVES, activities....they had a family.  By the time I was old enough to remember we lived in isolated seclusion within and without our home; our house was a place of fear and loneliness and absence (Lord, it would be terribly pathetic to try and paint my childhood so mono-chromatically, but I'm try to make a point, there was a very real distinction from before and after the big move) There was a suppressed and congested dysfunction (confusion? trauma?) that filled our home like a cloud; everything I saw was perceived through that thick and weightless presence (that part is true, totally true, that's what so pathetic about all the good memories).
          I think of my mother choosing my father though the implication of darkness was present even before her first child; I think how she would do it again, and again, and again....But of course it was not as she intended; she did not intend on a family broken and shut down, on moments and memories of having to escape in bare feet and having to choose between younger and youngest who would escape with her (I was younger, and so it goes....), and of all the effects and results (there are good and bad damn it, this is a story NOT a fairy tale) of that family we had.


           I think of my future children, of my future adolescent, and I wonder how long it will take before she realizes that whatever place we are in, it will not have been by intention- well, certainly not mine. If she questions-if there are uncomfortable repercussions and she demands to know what I was thinking taking this on, cleaving her into my life, I will answer: It was not a thought or conception of the future, I just chose you because, in that moment, it made sense....


           And I would do it again, and again, and again.....

Swallowing a Chicken and Choking on a few Bones: The highs and Lows of this Weekend (2)

           Yeah, I can be a cool caretaker sometimes, and I'm pretty hip to the whole yoga = bonding, discipline, rhythm, and fitness thing.  Namaste and whatnot. Which works out oooookkkay, except for the fact that Vannesa is convinvced everyone but she is "very, verrrry FAT." See, she thinks this of everyone, get it? So clearly, you know, she is not an objective, you know, person to ask about whether or not I am FAT. Cause. I. Am. Not.  I'm just rocking the whole sloppy mummy look right now, getting into character and whatnot.  ANNNND, I gotta feed this child 3 freakin square meals a day, and unlike my recent previous existence, a bag of crisps and 6 beers does not count as 2 of those meals. ANNNND, I watch cartoons and fall asleep at 930, instead of going out dancing till 6. ANNNND, I maybe sneak a few extra chocolate bars just because I am sick and tired of having to share everything I eat or justify why I should get more. IT'S A LOOK, you get? 


            Wait......right, right,cool caretaker/yoga mom thing. So sometimes the Little One can get a little distracted staring at all my various body parts, in my half dressed, suedo-yoga-no I'm not wearing a bra or underwear-outfits, as it contorts and gracefully flops into various asanas (I am NOT doing one of those mommy blogger things where they use motherhood as a reason to feel insecure about things they were probably always insecure about-my shit's tight.....wow-fine, not tight, but I've always been stretchy and soft and obvi kids have nothing to do with it, so I'm just saying this is different).  This is not helped by the 3 emmaciated mzungu chics that are on the video we follow (again I have always thought they looked emmaciated, but defintely living in Africa highlights the differences between our bodies and mzungu (white) women's bodies) and apparently when living with an 8year old, we lose, they win.  
             So Friday's yoga was going great, GREAT, like Zen-I think I see God-were soooo in tune-great, when the Little One starts in:
             
            "Eh! But when you a do-ing (bridge pose) it's as if you are plegnant (no american r's yet, too cute.....punk). Your stomach is like this.....your bleasts a like....."(whatevs, not so cute now)
            "Yeah...that's the way it's supposed to look" Okay, yes, zen, breathing, releasing-
            "But why when you a do-ing...(bridge pose) and you come out, yo buttocks a like wata (water) like......and mine a like, mmhmm, like just normal?"
            "Whatever, just do your breathing and leave my body alone. I don't even know what that means." (Like what does that mean? Like water?? Are they??? Grrr....)
            We are now just coming out of Savasana, into "blissful" awareness:
            "But you, you're like fat. You are sooo fat. Your like, I think it's time you had a babbyyyyy. You're fat like for having a babbbyyy. Becuase you have bleasts like what, you have butttooocks. I think you are ready, not so? You better find a husband before you get tooooooo OLD." (Did she need to add the sing-song to get her point across? I think not.)


              But that's okay...I bid my time, and later that day I got that little chicken-eater good. 


              After we left the clinic, it was late and we were all grumpy with hunger so we dashed off to an idyllic seaside restaurant that is so breathtaking and magical, one shouldn't really be able to "dash off" there on the whim; one should have to solve a riddle from a troll, give an ugly hag a pedicure, at the very least sit in traffic for a good hour. But not these Goddesses, it took us longer to grumble about where to go, than it took to get there and be seated by the water, just in time to see the moon rise and the tide come in.  I enjoyed it but was a bit perturbed about how matter fact Ms. V is about this treat (my mother has broken all semblance of her self-imposed, one big outing per month, rule to take the Little One here willy-nilly, whenever she is too lazy to think of something else.)  So the two of them even know by heart what they are going to order.  For the Little One, this can only mean one thing: CHICKEN.  Lord Almighty, this girl o' mine may seem like a little Owl, but when it comes to food, she is all Chicken Hawk. 

adarkwingedangel.deviantart.com

          
            It must be noted that when the Little One first found herself in our home she had the same big spirit I've grown to know and love but in a body that had not seen brighter days; it had seen days of enjoying a cup of tea for dinner; enjoying white porridge for breakfast and lunch both; enjoying the smallest sweet like it was a feast; always enjoying, always appreciating what she had, but never getting much, and most definitely not enough chicken.  So when we first met her, her tiny little tummy could hardly eat a whole leg and thigh before becoming stuffed.  But in just a few months of over-indulgence, our girl has expanded, mostly in height and bright skin, but has also developed an enormous capacity to consume her favorite foods.  She actually gets drunk on them. 
           As I witnessed this 8 year old polish off an entire 1/2 of a rotisserie chicken plus 3 serving of fries in about 40 minutes give or take, before getting up and staggering-and I mean staggering-off to wash her hands, I thought, 'I think we've created a monster'. She would have kept going, but my horror was hard to contain, and I begged to her to cease and desist. Well-actually-I regaled her with horror stories of snotty skinny girls who thought they could eat that way forever until they hit puberty and became obese beyond even..... ME . Ahahaha-I mean, of course, this was all out of concern, you know, for her well-being and whatnot.....hmph.


          We only managed to take some leftovers home because my mother saved hers for me (I'd had the seafood pizza and Ms. V is seriously freaked out by seafood).  Throughout the next day, as we walked around looking for bodas, Ms. V, with eyes glazed over in withdrawal, had to waddle from side to side with her belly pushing out in front of her and her hand on her lower back for support.  She looked like she would give birth any minute to something with feathers and beady eyes; this thought must have occurred to her as well, because at dinner, when I pulled the leftover chicken out and cut it in half, immediately serving a piece to Vannesa, her eyes got large with trepidation and she could all but murmur, "no thank you, I don't eat the bleast, hehe." (yeah right, I thought, I've seen her eat everything but the beak and feet in one sitting) But it looked like someone had choked on her words and was swallowing her fears-hehehe.


         The chicken incident had lead to a very serious discussion with my mother about the need for restraint in the amount of her "favorite foods" we allow her to consume at once; thus far we've been riding on the "she needs to catch up" theory, but seeing the emotional pleasure and compulsive behavior developing in her eating habits led me to offer the contrary theory that we could just be developing a fatty-muck-fat-fat eater who she will be skinny forever (this has often been seen with previously stunted or malnourished children who then get the benefits of unlimited eating). This discussion led to a screaming match after for some inexplicable, irrational, completely unnecessary...okay, anyhow, one thing led to another and my mother reneged her previous rule that the Little One was never to eat ice cream in Dar, leading the Little One to waddle her drooling self over into the ice cream store-which I cancelled at once.  The screaming match was held off until at home, in the car, with Vannesa in the house getting ready for bed. Perhaps my anemia and my mother's high blood pressure caused us both to go for blood-it was messy and may have very likely led to the Pretty. Shitty. Sunday.....


         But what I learnt, as I sobbed and typed and tried to grapple with the enormous DRAMA of my woes, what I learnt as I read another bloggers light words of a dark pain so much more unbearable than anything I was trying to contrive, is that not everything has to be so serious-even when it is;  not everything has to be so real, just because it happened.  


          As for my liquid ass and her chicken fetish, we were both forced into humility by that harshness of anothers perspective.  The truth hurts, but only if you choke on it, so just swallow, breath, and move on....