English Imperialism - a reflection on unintentional solitude

I'm feeling a little deceived. Actually, I'm feeling overwhelmingly under prepared for what I am supposed to be doing here. This feeling is rooted in a few things, only one of which I'll treat in this post.

1) I am without the previous resource map.

2) Not having a car is really a hinderance to getting things done in a timely manner. My patience with Malawian time is starting to run thin - what was charming, and bearable in the beginning stages is starting to be a hinderance. I want to get things done, and move somewhere without having to be crammed in with strangers who sometimes smell pungently of the day's work, or the km's of walking.

3) Sometimes I feel like my task is nebulous. If I have boundaries, I can ignore them or change them as necessary. Not having any bounds, or few pointers as to what I am to do with my time actually makes it hard to know when to say no or yes, and why. What good reason do I have to refuse a trip to pray for the sick? Am I supposed to be doing something else with this time? Who knows?

4) Getting adjusted to the different personalities all around me - recognizing moods appear and disappear is interesting. When a culture's seeming homogeneity melts away is when the real relationship building happens.

5) This former British protectorate (as they say of themselves) has done a poor job of leaving a proper legacy of English learning.

As I have been informed, although English is the language in which most subjects (aside from the language courses, Chichewa or French or whatever) are taught, most people do not use English at home. And even if they do teach "in English" at school, it is often broken English, and the students learn just enough to get by on exams. So, although most people who make it through secondary school, and especially university, know English well enough to write and read, they are not comfortable speaking it. Mostly because socially they have no need to.

This has created a problem on several fronts for me.

• I cannot always count on being able to do my job effectively because I have to rely on a more experienced English speaker to translate for me.
• I cannot always go off on my own because I don't know who I will encounter, and to get around town in a reasonable amount of time (read: by taxi, and NOT on foot), therefore the encouraged community walks have been a bit of a challenge. (Side note, but very impt.: most streets, like 98% of them, are not named. Houses do not have names and numbers either. So um... how will I make sense of any map? Neighborhoods aren't even labeled.)
• I cannot get to know people on my own time, and personally - besides some older persons who are more learned for various reasons. This has two effects: it makes me cling to those who can communicate easily with me, usually the "adults", and it drives a wedge between me and the youth.
• Sometimes the youth do not want to speak English with me. I know, it must be daunting to feel that you will get it wrong. But how can I even begin to express that I'd rather speak broken English with someone than not be able to communicate at all with someone my own age. So I have had very few meaningful conversations with young people here.
• Sometimes the youth are (from my perspective) downright rude about their refusal to speak English when I'm around. And I'm getting tired of sitting in a room and being absolutely ignored, both by not having the ability to understand Tumbuka (the local lang), and by knowing that many of the older kids have had enough school to hold a level of conversation that is meaningful. How else do they make it through classes?

That last one brings me some mixed feelings.

One, that I, in my good ol American way, want to be appeased. So, I contend with that reality - my culture has conditioned me to expect that I will be allowed access anywhere I wish to have access.

Two, I reflect upon the feelings of the Korean and African students that come to Drew. I wonder if they feel as left out as I am feeling sometimes. I tell myself that if I were able to speak Korean, or French, I would do my best to include someone else in the English conversation. Because I understand now, just how lonely it is when you know someone has the ability to help you be in community, but for whatever reason they choose not to.

I have to pretend that I understand almost everywhere I go. And I have to live with the fact that most people don't want to be bothered to expose their inadequate (or so they feel) handle on English, or bothered to at least include me on the conversations. I deal with it as I try to manage my Shalom responsibilities, and I have to deal with it when I'm at church on Sundays. Today, even though the message was in English (and I appreciated that part, even if the message was ho-hum and predictable), all the fun collective parts (the singing) was in Tumbuka, and I couldn't get into it. So, my Sunday morning was spent reviewing the past few days in my diary. I have to check out a lot, in order to avoid being hurt, or assuming that I'm just not important enough to make the effort for.

Tonight was the first time I've just gotten up and walked out. After defending the President's American citizenship, by explaining that he was born in Hawaii, and that some racist blokes are just unhappy with a black man being President, I played Solitaire on my phone until I couldn't compose myself anymore. One person, the quietest adopted member of the Nkhata family tried to insist on English for me, but he was smartly ignored. I could see the others process his words, and I could see them pass a look between themselves that said "okay, no". (I read in the Crossing Cultures book, just today, that some cultures express "no" by simply refusing to do something. So, I read the message loud and clear.)

I've felt like walking out a couple of times, but today I just did it. I didn't feel like pretending that I was comfortable in a cloud of words that I could not understand. I was tired of pretending that I cared whether I looked like I was having fun or being a hospitable guest. I just ran out of patience, and the novelty of it all just lost it's charm.

I'm at the point of just walking out when I can't understand anything, and when it's obvious that nobody is going to make an effort to include me. It's a formality that I am around, but it seems a decided move not to even try. And that is actually more bothersome than some of the other factors I mentioned. I can't make people be nice, and I can't insist on having my way. So what I'm on the losing end of this game? It's not the end of the world, and it kinda serves as a lesson to my arrogant assumption that I should be allowed in. "Not every door is going to open for you, simply because you knock" and "not everybody is going to be your friend".

Well, now that I've wrung my brain clear of these things, I can face tomorrow. Perhaps in the sleeping hours, some revelation on the subject will come to me.

*this entry was supposed to be short! egad!!*

Full Moon

When I came to Mzuzu, it was a moonless night. Pitch black, except for the open fires, the few lit homes, and the stars above. Yet people were walking the main road between Lilongwe (the capital) and the northern region, no flash light or "torch", they walked in the dark. I wondered if the people were scared to walk in the dark, but I didn't ask.

In the past two weeks, I have watched the moon grow and noted how some things have changed.

So far, I have gained some extended family from the pastor's house. There are four adopted girls (some blood related, some are children of church members) and some adopted boys who appear and disappear and reappear. We have dinners and lunches together. I have exchanged some dollars for kwacha. I have eaten nsima (a kind of finely ground corn meal, just think of the taste of grits, but the consistency is more like a dough than the chewiness of grits. it's eaten with the hands, like bread - it's their main staple food, much like bread is for American homes). I have cooked some American foods for my Malawian family. I've even managed to get either food poisoning or water contamination - that made me call my mom at 2am (eastern time) crying because I was in so much pain. It sent me to a clinic, twice. As the moon as grown to full term, I have even experienced some unwanted attentions (you know what they say about people's behavior under a full moon), and have had to stand my ground. A lot has happened in the past two weeks while the moon grew larger.

I think my natural self was watching the interaction between the earth and the sky this whole time. I have felt the weather and the earth's rhythms effect even my mood. I'm listening to my body more than I ever have - it's amazing what your body will tell you if you actually have the time, space, and external silence to listen to it. I have come to understand that Americans don't listen to their bodies because we have so many other inputs, and there's no time to note our feelings, both emotional and physical. We also miss out on seeing the beauty of a constantly changing, but wonderfully familiar world. Crickets will always chirp, rain will always be wet, the sunshine will always be warm, ants will always find a way into the food supply, the laughter of children will always melt a stony heart, and a full moon will always be beautiful.

I took some time to just be in awe of the supernaturally lit sky. The sky is so pristine, and the moon was so brilliant (brighter than truck headlights turned on bright), that the sky around it looked like daytime. Even the most bright colors in the day were visible against the darker shades. The tin roofs of the homes glistened like they were pure silver, and not rusted, unimportant tin. The silver sky jewel is so brilliant that people walk about without a torch, (the light from a flashlight or a cellphone) and speak at a normal volume rather than hushed tones.

All in all, the full moon tells me that two weeks have passed. It tells me that time is going on without much effort on my part, and what is happening is meant to happen WHEN it's meant to happen. I'm grateful for this illumination.

So long, Sayonara, See ya later

Before I went to sleep last night, I went through a mental check list of things left to do. Somewhere along the way my mind settled on that day. June 11th. A knot of fear, sadness, anxiety raced right up to my throat - how in the world am I going to say good bye knowing I'm flying halfway across the globe? (Good googilymoogly!, as Grandma would say)

My brain immediately started flipping through the other goodbyes ("so longs") in recent life. Saying "so long" to my grandmother at her funeral, saying so long to my dear brother in Christ who was moving as far west as I was east, saying so long to my beloved Columbus, saying so long to my parents when they dropped me off on my move-in day in college...

Move in day was so exciting. There was the long car ride up with my parents, and the brain-dead time-space of them helping me move in. But once the sheets were on my bed, and my lamp and radio were plugged in there was nothing left to do but say... "so long". Just thinking about it now... my mother doesn't really cry. But she fought back some tears. And I waved to my parents as they walked down the hall... away they went. Gone, they were. So long. I must've cried for all of 20 minutes or so. Then the freezing air blasting out of the AC took over most of my worries, so did the rumble in my tummy. Hungry and cold, I spent my first night alone, as far away from home as I'd ever been. The next days were much better. I met my co-workers, my RA (who showed me how to turn the dang AC off), and eventually my roomie, no tears.

I remembered that well... and it brought me some comfort. I'd said plenty of "see you laters" and "so longs", even some "good byes" before. Some of them, I said with ease, some with utter relief, some with great difficulty and sadness. This one might be hard, and I might even cry a little (because apparently, tears work better than words), but eventually I'll acclimate to being on an airplane over the big ol ocean, eventually I'll enjoy the beauty of flying backward in time, eventually I'll be excited about landing. I might even cry when I have to spend my first night alone, without TV, without a cell phone, without übertwitter to keep me company during the day - in fact, I might cry at the lack of toilet paper in public toilets. But I will also eventually smile, be angry, be content, be hungry, be very full, be awestruck, be disappointed... all the range of emotions that mean I'm just living life, instead of just being sad.

Beyond those thoughts, I began to look forward to my return. Saying so long to new friends, packing up a summer full of memories and accomplishments and stories, and LOVE! Saying "It's so good to see your face, and hear your voice" to the ones who are keeping my place at the table here at home. So I have that to look forward to as well - and I do love reunions.

*the picture: me, our RA who lived next door to us, and the roomie. good times!*