It is 10:30 pm, June 30 2010, and I'm sitting on my living room floor. I chat on the phone with a good friend as I pack the last of my things into my suitcase. For the past week, the living room has been sacrificed to piles of my things as I finalize my packing list. I tell my friend that I should focus on packing, that I'm almost done. At 1:30, I tear myself away from obsessing over a computer that's coming with me anyways and crash into my bed.
Somewhere around 3:00 am, my alarm bites into sleep that was fragile and superficial at best. I drag my body out of bed, knowing my mom will be upstairs in 5 minutes to make sure I've gotten up and didn't just hit the snooze again. (I ignore the thought that she won't be there to do that for the next two years.) Downstairs, we get ready mutely, both of us exhausted physically and emotionally. I wander the house frantically, bordering on manic as I pick up things only to cast them aside the next minute, opening and closing rooms, shuffling through methodically packed bags. Our "by the latest" mark comes and I'm not any closer to walking out.
"Elyse, we have to go," my mom's voice is hoarse but firm, and I pick up my backpack to follow her down the hall. She stops and turns abruptly, pulling me in tight. My sobs surprise me. She gently pulls away and tugs me out the door. The world is dark, quiet as we slice through it, echoing its silence. I will myself not to scream at her to stop at least 10 times, fearful I'd forgotten something or other. The bagel I'd bought the day before sticks in my throat. It takes a lot of swallowing and coughing for me to realize that the lump I feel is a mass of emotion, not bagel.
At the airport, I hesitantly ask the man printing my ticket if my mother can come to the gate, ever the polite Iowan. Waiting to board, we sit quietly, holding each other. There's a group of people my age laughing and joking in the terminal, no doubt about to embark on some adventure. I couldn't feel farther away from them in that moment. The last boarding call comes over the intercom and my mom and I embrace, a word too carefree and happy for our actions. We mumble "be safe's" and "I love you's", our tears mixing on our cheeks. It's my turn to pull away and give her a smile, stay strong. As they check my ticket and I step into the flyway, I don't look back. I know she'll be standing there, crying, and I don't think I'm strong enough to walk away from that. I tune into my iPod after I take my seat and my mind skirts around its only thought: What am I doing here?
My fear and uncertainty were overwhelmed by excitement with each step. O'Hare, Philly, JFK, Charles de Gaulle, and finally the dingy rooms of the Bamako airport. Hard to believe that was a year ago. Parts of the preparations and the beginning, conversations, are hazy, but parts stand out bright, tangible, my mom at the center. I'm fortunate to have a really good relationship with her, and going from talking to her almost every day to this was one of the hardest adjustments, a void.
As this past June ambled on, I've compared the dates with their twins from the previous year, the contrast of comfort, certainty, and understanding. I keep going back to that hug in the hallway, so many thoughts and emotions tumbling in me that I felt like a washing machine, and all that came out was a sob. A few days ago, I sat in the maternity, knees to my chest, rocking slightly. With no women coming in to vaccinate their infants, the 2 women I was working with were chatting. I stared into space, cocooned in my thoughts, once again dominated by a simple, "what am I doing here?"
My village likes to remind me that the last year has slipped through my fingers, quick as sand though there were many days that inched forward, and that this next year will pass by me even more swiftly. I shush them, well aware that my time here is now "downhill." 1 year is starting to look so small, I can't figure out if I'm happy about that or not. Days, weeks, even months pass before I realize, busy just living here. Looking around, I feel comfortable, content. This is my village and these are my people. Yet that does not quell my nerves, my inner proddings of what I am doing here and, past that, why did I come here?
I create plans, schedules (guidelines, really) for the coming months, searching out what information is missing in my community, what needs to be reiterated, always with the maternity well they so want held in my mind's eye. But still my questions, questions that seem ancient, new, and eternal simultaneously, remain unanswered. For now, I ignore them, incapable of fully answering myself. They will return, pop up like a jack in the box - always surprising, even when you know it's coming. I hope blindly that by this time next year, I'll have some sort of answer.
Some Things I've Learned (AM Learning) in a Year
- 8 glasses of water a day isn't actually that much water
-Don't let pride and vanity keep you from letting kids - or anyone - help you. And sometimes you're going to have to ask for that help.
- Large mice and 10" lizards are amusing. Scorpions as small as your thumbnail, however, should be beaten to a pulp and dropped down the nyegen.
- If you give a mouse a cookie...
- Saying "I can't" or "I won't give you that" in relation to both personal and project items is healthy for everyone involved. This won't make people hate you.
- Explaining 'why' is even better.
- Not buying something small you want - like that fluffy towel - because no one in your village has it, they might judge you, and really you don't need it isn't always reason enough. It's the little things that make all the difference.
- Share, be generous, it will make everything brighter and taste better. On the same token, don't feel guilty for keeping that whole bag of M&Ms to yourself.
- Yes, it's hot, and yes, you're tired, but it's rarely too hot and you're rarely too tired.
- When they laugh at you, laugh with them. Don't take it so personally.
- Donkeys are some of the loudest, most wily, and most annoying creatures. But they have some of the cutest babies.
The More You Know (6/17)
While at Knox, I spent a little time volunteering with the Boys & Girls Club. There was a woman who came once in a while to give health lessons - how to properly brush your teeth and floss, hand washing with that cool blacklight soap. I always cringed a bit when she came, imagined talking to kids who clamored to be the special helper, who asked and answered questions for attention, only to forget the point of the lesson immediately after. Ironically fitting, I suppose, that I now do and go through those same things here.
I prepared for this last lesson with pictures carefully inked onto sketchbook sheets - like the woman at the B&GC, I was attempting to use something novel to grab the kids' attention (note that novel here is a story with cartoon pictures, not a sweet blacklight machine or giant teeth). Though I could read through my presentation in 10-15 minutes, I anticipated it would take much longer - it took about 45 minutes all together. Again, I could see my own language improvements - instead of the teachers interpreting and repeating me line for line, the kids repeated my lesson back to me (except for the really confusing parts, like the pictures of blood cells fighting malaria cells).
With these kids, the hardest part is helping them connect parts of the message to make a whole - explanation and understanding rather than automatic, hollow memorization. If you were to empty a child's "backpack" here, you'd often find a pen, a notebook, and maybe a flimsy workbook. No binders full of notebooks and colorful folders, or 20 lost pens at the bottom, mixed with tattered notices intended for parents, nor planners, rulers, and markers. More importantly, no schoolbooks. Because of the lack of books, everything is learned through rote memorization. The kids turn into squawking parrots at a very young age and learn to avoid in depth investigations of anything, or to really just ask "why?" After every sentence of my animation, I paused, knowing the teachers would ask what I'd said. If a student had the right idea but not my exact wording, another child was asked. I wondered if they'd get bonus points for using the same tone and inflection as me, but I never found out - students physically leaned forward to force the words out faster. Stutterers where shamed and left behind.
I'm still trying to puzzle out how to get across a message and create behavior change from that message in both children and adults. While I cannot change the whole school system and it would be almost unthinkably rude to contradict a teacher for their "help" during my animations, I can ask questions throughout the talk, requiring at least a few students to link together ideas. And I can (carefully) talk to the teachers about their methods while we talk after my animations.
"Are there any questions?" I asked at the end of my malaria animation, hoping to wrap things up. The director took this too literally, forcing the kids to come up with bad questions that elicited bad, exasperated responses from me (Ex: What sicknesses can kill you? What if someone doesn't have enough for malaria medicines? How do you cure sickness?) and little help from the director. They're on vacation now, but I'm hoping to be better armed with materials, ideas, and answers for them in October. It's a learning process.
Peace & Love
Elyse
