Failing, repeating, and the future

During one episode of my De Anza college automotive technology class, the instructor passed around, for the sake of demonstration, a piece of an engine. A “piece of an engine” is still the best I can identify the object as. When the piece was passed to me, I touched something I should not have touched, for when it made it back to the instructor, it was broken. Well not broken, exactly, but stuck. The instructor, who had no qualms at all, systematically went through the rows of students asking who had done it until a gentleman in the row ahead of mine falsely admitted to it. The class however, did not doubt the abilities of this aspiring mechanic. They may have wondered, rather, what this 18-year old woman with a horrified look on her face was doing in a night class for people whose profession would be fixing cars.

When I inevitably failed the class with a “No Pass,” I went to the instructor and asked if he could change it to a “Withdrawl.”
He didn’t grant my request, but he gave me some advice. “You know,” he told me, “sometimes you just have to learn when to quit.”

While I do not disagree with this advice, I do not often follow it. I don’t usually quit. And I also almost never repeat. Sometimes this means suffering through something to the end and then forever turning my back on it. Or sometimes it means enjoying something through the end and then decisively moving on from it. I never repeated the same activities during any of the summers of my five-year college career. No one who ever sent brochures to recruit me back for a second year of camp counseling or program assisting succeeded.

In the end, I feel that this means that nothing but a disaster could make me leave Peace Corps early, and Mozambique certainly doesn’t seem like a country prone to disaster. Yet as the end of my contract nears, I will become restless and not at all interested in the suggestion of a colleague that he could help me find a paid position teaching here a third year. “Why would I do again what I have already done?” I would reason, and would therefore also never apply to Berkeley for a graduate program after having done undergrad there. I am not excited about moving back to San Jose, after having grown up there. Nor do I feel right trying to reinsert myself into the same group of friends after having left them. The preservation of individual relationships, of course, is different.

I am very torn, however, between resisting stagnancy (coming to land in a comfortable place and being afraid to ever move out if it) and avoiding rootlessness (never being content or fully satisfied by anything, not buying into it, investing in it, and letting it become part of your identity and sense of place.) In one moment I criticized the boringness of people who thought they would never move on and in the next envied them for the amount of happiness they must be experiencing to arrive at that kind of certainty.

“If there is one thing I’ve learned from flying across the Atlantic,” I wrote to a friend in a letter, “it’s that I want roots.” And what I want about roots is the absolutely most mundane things, like knowing how to take public transportation around the city and where to find everything in the grocery store, having a friend to spend the night with when it’s too far to make it back home and knowing you won’t ever celebrate your birthday alone. And what I want about the ability to fly is simply the capacity to not be forced to disappointment by reliving something that’s not as good as the first time, nor being stuck in something that wasn’t even good the first time.

My Italian neighbors have given me the idea to teach English in Italy. My friend Sara thinks I should move close to her in Sacramento. I’ve talked with my friend Jen about living with her in Cambridge. The only “rooty” thing I have considered is moving close to my parents to help my mother take car of my immobile grandparents. “Maybe I could help you drive Grandpa to the hospital,” I told her. But on second thought I considered the time to dedicate my life to supporting my family will be when I must take care of my own ailing parents, not when I’m 23. Only such a heroic thing could attract me to home and even that likely will not. I may go back to community college to take math or business courses, but not definitely not my first community college, simply because it was my first my community college. I adore my successful friends but fear being the least accomplished of all of them. I am motivated to the new and the different out fear as much as curiosity.

Sand

When you lie down in water and get up, the place closes over as it if never was. But if you lie down in sand, your indentation will still be there when you leave, for sand remembers. This comparison came to me in the last few moments of a dream, and when I woke I didn’t know what it meant, except that I would prefer to lie down in sand.

When I left for Africa I was far more attached to things in the United States than anyone leaving for a far place for a long time should ever be. The things I had there were very pleasant and very satisfying, and it’s very difficult to abandon such things without knowledge of what their replacements may be. It was a trade of known good for unknown good, and the unknown good may in fact involve a lot of bad.

The bad may be the superfluous bad, like the passing sickness and unusual accidents that in the end are worth it for the spellbinding stories they result in, or the bad may be the sort of more integral displacement and doubt that makes you wonder who you are and how good this person may be. It was in this sentiment of dissatisfaction, then that I missed my old life with all my heart, hoping that much of it would still be there when I returned, and feeling crushed when parts of it broke apart. When what I thought was sand turned out to be water, I felt betrayed. Many melancholy months passed.

But I discovered, eventually, (for everything always happens eventually), that my destiny in life is to be happy. It’s a childish sort of happiness, promoted by commonplace things like black and white butterflies that somehow seem like flying zebras or my full moons that look like they were plucked from movie sets. When I buy sausage, I am not only buying sausage, but tapping into world full of wonderful things to eat. And when I sit in church wearing a new dress, I remain giddy over this fact all throughout a two and a half hour service. Sending international letters is not only sending international letters, but proving that oceans can be crossed and distances can be surmounted, and kissing black-eyed children is realizing all the joy that human beings can bring each other.

I am relatively unaccomplished and untalented and have no certainty for the future nor reason to believe that it will be shiny and smooth. I wish I have done things I haven’t and sometimes wish I were someone I’m not. I admire and sometimes resent the souls that never have believed anything other than that they are wonderful human beings destined for adoration and success, and with this belief, follow through to be exactly what they think they are. I don’t face difficulties with the certainty that everything will work out, sometimes I worry that they won’t.

“How long have you been in Africa? How much longer will you stay?” I’m questioned almost weekly by a new acquaintance. “It’s been about a year and a half,” I respond. “I finish my contract in December.” And in December I will either return to my roots and all of the things I prayed would remember me for these years, or myself turn into water and fall into something new.

White High Heels

Mozambique, is, for many days of the year, hot. Hot is where people say “37 today” as they open their windows for a breeze and refuse to touch you when they great you because they are sweating. Hot is rolling out of bed and onto the floor to sleep because the tile is a cooler than a mattress. Hot is sweat droplets appearing above your lips as you sit quietly in church and salt stains appearing on your clothing. Hot is taking a shower immediately after waking up after having soaked the sheets in the night and noticing that your hair is always wet, even on days when you don’t wash it. Hot is garlic growing white mold and pineapples quickly fermenting despite their hard skin. In the summer, every day is what people in the States would call 90, 100, or 105. But if it’s not 105, it’s hardly worth the trouble to say it’s hot, since it’s just another day.

Mozambique is, in many places, dirty. Dirty because dirt is the natural state of the earth and if you want something other than dirt, you have to pave. Paving costs money and who has many to pave? Except for the national highway, the major roads in the capital city, and the corridors of our Japanese designed school, almost everywhere I walk is through dirt. The dirt is deeper when tractors go through it, stickier during mango season, worse after it rains. Drainage systems don’t always exist, so sometimes dirty water sits on the road until a car passes and launches the water into the air.

Mozambique is, in many aspects, poor. The limited economy provides very few jobs in even fewer sectors, so except the lucky few who have foreign roots, capital, or education, most people don’t have money to buy things. When people don’t have money to buy things, the low demand results in high prices. New clothes can only be afforded at the cost of good food.

All of these factors seem to point to one conclusion: Africa is not the place for fashion. Even if you can afford it, it is too hot to wear it, and even if you wear it, it will quickly become dirty in a place where it cannot be dry cleaned. Peace Corps Volunteers, therefore, arrive in the country with shaved heads, water proof pants, and one all-purpose pair of quality sandals. The leave behind nonsense like perfume and jewelry, dress shoes and button-down shirts.

Mozambicans, however, see it differently. The woman augment their hair with heavy extensions despite the heat. They would not wear flats if they had heels, would not wear plain things if they had colorful things, would not go without jewelry if you could perhaps match your green blouse with green earrings. The men only wear well-ironed dress pants and meticulously scrubbed cleaned shoes.

It took me a great many months to fully adopt what I saw as a sign of self-esteem. Looking nice is not a result of an environment, it is a result of an attitude, a personal standard. It is always something you can control to some extent. I have never been the type of volunteer to consider going to Africa a chance to climb Kilaminjaro, so from the beginning, I left behind the mountaineer’s gear (or rather never had) in favor of two pairs of high heel shoes. When told to pack “business casual,” I never envisioned this as pants that did not reach the ankles with shoes that can double to exercise in. It took me a while, however, to actually wear the heels enough to buy a third pair. (White, when my black or brown wouldn’t do.)

Eventually I added daily eyeliner to the mix, decided I could arrange my own eyebrows with a good pair of teasers, but stopped cutting my own hair, which was never good news. I still didn’t feel I have money to go to a white person salon in the capital, however, which are designed for wealthy ex-pats, so I trusted my head once to an outdoor barber beneath a tin roof at the bus terminal. I had confidence in him since he could actually see what he was doing. The huge man was so nervous, however, that he cut off almost nothing with the gigantic shears that are probably meant for flowers and not hair.

I hunted through used clothes piles for pencil skirts and bargained on the street over the price of belts. Seventy Metecais ($2.30) was so expensive! How about 60? ($2.00). I gave in, at least partially, to the idea of monochromatic. I would wear a purple skirt with a purple t-shirt but stop at adding purple earrings or purple shoes. Or I put on purple earrings along with a purple tank-top, but that was the end of the purple. I was sold nearly completely on culture of color, however, and began to fill my closet with $1 finds in blight blues, all shades of green, and splashes of orange. I began to wonder how a perfectly happy person could wear all black, and even hesitated to buy one black shirt even though it fit perfectly. I realized most of my pants were too loose so I took them to the tailor.

Dressing in the morning became fun. I began to find approval in the all-seeing and all-saying eyes of Mozambicans. They liked my eyebrows. They asked for my makeup. They thought I was" chic." They still thought my jeans needed a belt. And so I did what Mozambicans do, which is to combat the circumstances and end out on top.

Anna Loves Africa

If I were asked to define love as a single emotion or force of motivation, I could not do it. I could nothing more than to list a general set of correlating characteristics, supporting the definition only in a vague and insuccinct manner. It was with this same level of understanding that in the Summer of 2008, I put the word “love” as the center of my e-mail address, my own name as the subject, and “Africa” as the object. “Anna loves Africa.” A few months later I left everything and boarded a South African Airways flight departing from the JFK airport in New York City to take me 10,000 miles away to the African country of Mozambique. I was not going for a safari, for study abroad semester, or for a brief internship. I would be staying for over two years, rebuilding my life there and sacrificing any certainty of what would be left for me in the United States when I returned.

My friend Eliza looks a little bit like the Grinch, but only in the very cutest way. She has very long eyelashes and very wide eyebrows and little nose that makes her eyes look bigger and her eyelashes longer. On one extremely hot day in Southern-Hemisphere February I noticed her mother. Eliza’s mother cannot walk so she crawls, her knees wrapped it fabric, one foot falling behind her, the other bent towards the left. This makes her arms and shoulders disproportionately muscled, and her hands exceptionally calloused. Her back is severely arched and her full stature is only two feet. Eliza’s mother was sitting near the gutter as I passed, on my way to the village market to buy potatoes and carrots, and I did not consider it appropriate to stare at a crippled woman. I wouldn’t have stopped if it weren’t for Eliza, standing nearby in a sun hat and a flowered skirt. I smiled at her because she was too cute not to smile at. I bent down and greeted her. “It’s a very sad story,” said the man standing near us, to me in English which no one else understands. “Her mother was sexually harassed.”

The next week at the market I saw a woman give Eliza one Metecal to buy a Popsicle. A passing man thrust 20 Metecais at her mother. I picked up Eliza, calling her “my little sweetheart” in Portuguese, and helped her open her Popsicle. When I put her down, she held on to my legs, so picked her up again, orange Popsicle juice dripping onto us. I was so busy helping my little friend enjoy her treat that I didn’t notice a fifteen or twenty person crowd had gathered to gawk at the interesting trio: a disabled mother, a little girl, and a young white woman. I put Eliza down. Her sucking was becoming less fruitful as she has reached the very frozen center of the Popsicle. Some people walked away. I bent down, patted her sun hat covered head, and told Eliza that I will visit her next week.

And that is how I love Africa. Not by writing policy, developing programs or by donating funds. I teach English. And I feed Popsicles to a little girl whose father is a rapist and whose mother can’t pick her up. It’s so simple, it’s almost trivial. No one could call it “saving the world” and no one will give me any sort of prize for doing what I mostly do, which is talk to people, visit their houses, and adore their children.

If love is defined as ongoing dedication, a sustained commitment, than I do not love Africa. My time here will be enough to show me that development work is not for me; it is not for most people. It is filled with infinite frustrations and roadblocks that make work difficult and disappointing. I have neither the spirit of Pollyanna nor the single-minded drive of Attila the Hun that could make survive in this kind of work forever. Love for me at the moment is passing moments of warmth, small encounters, fleeting and sweet connections.

Only the Good Things

The instant a moment passes, it becomes only two things: a force for the future and a memory. Some moments are too inconsequential for long time memory, and only are useful for the short-term future. Washing clothes on Friday gives you clean underwear on Saturday. Eating lunch at noon prevents you from feeling uncomfortably hungry at 3:00 PM. Other events are both memorable and consequential. Asking for the phone number of that attractive stranger could result in the meeting of your spouse. The day at the doctor where you discover you have colon cancer could also be the day that saves your life.

Yet in the convoluted set of circumstances that determine decisions, preferences, and life outcomes, many days could not be considered particularly significant, leading to no specific end. They serve, therefore, primarily as memories. There is the girl you dated that you didn’t marry. She did not scar you against women nor did she lead to your life partner. There was that summer job that didn’t end up being your calling in life, nor did it lead to the contacts that would fulfill your calling in life. There was that conversation with a friend, or maybe a stranger, that only the two of you witnessed. A broken arm that healed with no permanent damage. The summer you tried mango sorbet. The view of a valley from the edge of a cliff.

So many things are only memories.

Memories remain in the control of the mind, for that is the world in which they exist. This is a manageable world, where things can be preserved or thrown out, according to choice. On the same day it took four hours to get home a stranger chased after you with your purse, which you had left behind. So was that the day of terrible transport or of the kind stranger? On the hike to cliff with the beautiful view, you encountered biting ants that crawled up your legs. So was that the day of the picturesque valley or of the horrible insects? An hour before you dropped your cellphone in the toilet, an old friend called to remind you of how much you mean to her. Was that the day of the lost cellphone or the sweet call? Whatever you remember becomes the record for what happened. A string of bad memories is a series of bad days, a collection of good memories is a life prone to luck.

A mind full of bad memories is nearly the same as having nothing good happen at all. A mind full of good ones negates the importance of any unfortunate occurrences.

“You only remember the good things,” my student Elisa told me once, as if this were a general truth for human kind. For me, I decided it would be.