Ups & Downs

A lot of times it's fun - or surprising, shocking, laugh-out-loud funny, pleasant, or generally happy - to be here. I'm starting to do some things that are satisfying. For instance, I have a bed and shelves in my bedroom, which means I at least have one room that feels pleasantly like home. Yesterday, my bartender/landlord presented me with a table from the bar downstairs, which I think is entertaining on so many levels but mostly because I had joked with some other volunteers about stealing a bar table as furniture. Today, I went to a school competition and was asked to give an on the spot speech and the one joke I managed to throw in (in French, of course) didn't get so much as a lone laugh, but the story threw my lady neighbors into fits of giggles afterwards. Next week I start teaching sex ed classes at a nearby school. And a school girl where I'll hopefully be re-starting a girl's club after Christmas break brought me a pineapple and three of her younger siblings tonight, for no reason as far as I can tell other than kindness.

But a lot of times it's really tough. I'm the only person who looks, dresses, acts, and speaks likes me in this town, and that gets pretty lonely. Recently, I read The Places In Between, which the author wrote after walking across Afghanistan. (Nonsequitor: I'm currently on my thirteenth and fourteenth books since leaving the U.S. and feeling pretty impressed with myself about it…) At the end of the book, he comments:

"…almost every morning, regrets and anxieties had run through my mind like a cheap tune - often repeated, revealing nothing. But as I kept moving, no thoughts came. Instead, I became aware of the landscape…" (p. 288)

And while his trigger is so different from my own, that pretty clearly expresses the confusion I feel every day. Almost every day, I wonder, Can I really do this for two years? And it's usually when I wake up at 6 or 7 am with no idea of how the day will go, if it will be good or bad, how hard it will be to leave the house. Because it is hard to leave the apartment most days, knowing I'll be stared at and offered marriage proposals and commanded to "vient me saluer!" (Come greet me!).

But I do leave the house, and without fail something good happens. Like Larissa bringing me a pineapple and her siblings. Or my neighbor stopping by just to say goodnight. Or the thrilling beauty of the deep green, mountainous land spreading before my eyes as my moto climbs to the top of the road and the wind pounds my face. Or my successfully finding my way to the lycée technique de Penka Michel… where I'd never been before… all by myself… without recourse to Google Maps or Apple maps or even regular maps for that matter.

For the most part, those good parts outweigh the bad parts every single day, and that's pretty awesome. But that doesn't make this easy.