Tag: abroad

What’s in a Name

They have given me a new name. A name that slips easily from their native tongues. A name full of hope and promise for the next two years, and I fear I will constantly be racing to try and hold up my end of the unsaid promise my presence has brought. The chief decided upon it. Passed it on to me like it was another egg in the basket he had gifted me when I first arrived in this place.

Tanteeya.

I don’t know if she is replacing my current self, or if somehow my two names can learn to ebb and flow, working together, letting whichever needs to be present take the reins.

In short, it means “prosper”. But the long story, the truer story in my eyes, is about the branching vines of the squash plant. Green vines that spread out over the Earth, taking root wherever they touch, holding together the soil and blossoming to create something bountiful. I am not this squash plant. I am not the one coming to hold this town together, or to branch out and make it thrive. The plant was already here. Its vines are the trails through the brush leading to fields of corn. Its leaves are the houses with colorful laundry hanging on the bushes, trying to dry between the rains. The squashes themselves are the people who call this place home, who shout good morning through windows and from the backs of bicycles, who carry buckets of firewood on their heads and spend their days laying under the shady trees.

This village is the plant. I am just one blossom on a new branching vine, trying desperately to plant my roots.

***

And now, just as this community has given me a name, I have been tasked with giving two back. In the late afternoon, just before the sun began it’s quick descent behind the flat horizon, a man brought me to one of the tiny houses that are peppered across the landscape I can view out my window. There, lying one a mound of blankets, wearing outfits meant for someone twice their size, were a set of twins, born no more than three days before.

One after the other they were passes into my arms, protesting ever so slightly before falling back into whatever kind of peaceful slumber only those who know nothing about the world can have.

As the smallest wind blew through the open doorway, trying to cut the heat which only intensified the not-all-that-unpleasant smell of life and living which permeated every inch of the room, one of the women prepared two small sets of gold earrings. The twins were girls you see, and so even though they could not yet hold their heads high, or utter anything more than a cry, it was time for their ear lobes to shine. Just as every other woman in this town, just as those girls who came before them and those who will come after.

As we went to leave, hunched over to avoid hitting our heads on the low door frame, while trying to pick out two matching shoes from among the many scattered pairs outside, I was given a task. Just as the chief named me when I came to this place, now I was to name these two new souls who have just stepped foot on the dusty ground of this town.

I have not yet done it.

I’ll let you know when I do.

Sickness and the Stars

I walked outside the other night and saw Orion. The three bright stars making up his belt twinkled brighter than I’ve ever seen. They seemed almost to scream at me, trying to catch my attention so that I would look up and see that they had followed me all the way to the other side of the world.

The piece of my body that is made up of star dust has always seemed to pull me forward, guiding me through the nights where nothing seems to be real or make sense. I blame my mother in the most highly regarded sense, because when I was small and sick, she brought me out to the stars. She is a firm believer in starlight, just like me. Wrapped tightly in a blanket, my feverish forehead bare to the cold winter evening, we sat on the front stoop and looked up. Craning our necks to see ever last bit of light beaming down from the sky, wondering how far it had traveled and if the journey had been easy. That’s when I started learning the sky, by following my mothers outstretched finger as she named the shapes the cosmos had made completely by accident and that humans had named after their myths.

Today I have laid half-asleep on my bed for the majority of the day. I’ve been struck by the kind of sickness that I’m sure I’ll experience more often than not in this unfamiliar climate. While the knives twisted in my gut, and my stomach churned bile over and over since I had not fed it yet, my mind wanders to every corner of the Earth my feet and hands have ever touched. Remembering each green mountainside or dark grey-blue ocean lapping at my toes. Places I plan to return to time and time again once I have outstayed my welcome in my beautiful, tiny town. I hope this place eventually joins these others and that I will return to walk the dusty road again. My dry mouth cracks as I open my lips to take the smallest sip of water, trying to trick my body into thinking nothing of the cool liquid dripping down the back of my throat.

I stare up at the netting several feet above my face, I notice it is covered in the small bugs which were overpowered by the chemicals it holds in its fibers, they remind me of the stars. While they spell out no pattern, I can’t find a hunter or a mother bear amongst them, they give my tired eyes something to try to focus on besides the window calling me to step outside into the fresh air. There is a herd of cattle moving outside the same window, the small boys who control the beasts shouting short chirps at them which they obey despite weighing more than the boys several times over. The sun is beginning to fall, so I can only assume they are returning to whatever mud and clay home they rest their eyes in each evening, listening to the sounds of mice in the thatched roof that keeps it cool enough to rest well.

My body is weak and my legs are heavy from the weight of the sickness. It holds me down, pulling me back to horizontal quickly if I ever try to sit much less stand. I am tired and shaken but not discouraged. Slowly I will heal. My feet will once again stand firmly where I plant them, and I will hold my arms high above my head. It will be some sort of victory, mind over matter, proving to myself once again that I am stronger than I had once thought. Step by step, bit by bit, just as the rest of this adventure has gone. Just as the rest of my life has gone.

Tonight, I may go out and see the stars. Wrapped in several yards of fabric I’ll turn my glazed eyes towards the heaven, searching for three bright stars that have always guided me home.