A Fish Out of Water

It’s been a while. In some ways many things have happened, in others very little has. The rains have stopped for the year, and the harsh sun of the equator has dried up what little water had not yet found its way underground. With each step a cloud of red dust rises from the ground coating whatever surface it can find to land on. And I am still here. Half a year has passed since I packed myself into three bags, left behind comfort for uncertainty, blending in for standing out, and complacency for adventure.

Most days I still feel like I am drowning. Kicking wildly in some last attempt to find footing in unknown soil. There are days, weeks even, where the thought of the suitcases stuffed under my bed draws me in. That I could so easily fill them once again and stand by the dusty roadside waiting for a bus to come and drag me back into the comforts of life I once took for granted. But yet something keeps me here. Some magnetic force pulls me out of bed each morning before the sun has risen, nudges me to school, into the classrooms with the children who I’m not sure have understood a single word I have uttered to them the past three months. Maybe it’s pride, maybe it’s the overwhelming fear of failure that has followed me for much of my life, but I hope it’s much more than either of those things.

There is too much still to know about myself in this place to leave now. The mango trees and the okro plants have so much more to teach me about thriving where you find yourself planted. The students, the small children who roam the village in the late afternoon once the heat finally begins to subside, the women at market who take me in each week, these people have more to show me about who I can be and what I can become.

At times I’m not sure I have changed for the better. I fear I have become bitter and jaded, my perceptions skewed by my own bias. I am faced with the pungent reality of every emotion that runs through my veins over the course of the day. Good or bad, positive or negative, emotion demands to be felt here. They cannot be pushed away, forced down somewhere to decompose into the mild mannered half-dead feelings of my life before I set foot in this country. Over time though, I will learn not to be scared by the emotions that burst into the spaces in my body somewhere between my brain and my heart. And I’ve come to realize that it’s okay if this is the only thing I feel I have achieved here. We are not superheroes, we are not saviors. We have been tasked with one job, to show up every day, to put a foot forward (whether it be our best or our worst, whichever will do), and to open our ears and eyes to the world around us.

In the end the only change we may see in our new small world might be when we look in the mirror. And regardless of what others will tell you, that’s ok. We are not measured by the things we create. They are temporary. We are not measured by what others perceive as our success. It doesn’t have to make sense, to feel right, to look different, to anyone but you.

And if we do this, if we keep this in mind, there is no way that we haven’t left some small mark on these our temporary, but eternal, new homes.

Riding Bicycles Downhill and Other Fonts of Happiness

The sun is getting stronger as the rains recede back into their far away hiding places until the next time they will come to soak the dusty ground. Early afternoon has become plagued with heat like a heavy blanket which the small winds that whisper through the dry leaves on the trees cannot hope to lift. My eyes try to memorize the greenery of the landscape outside my door before it falls prey to the scalding power of the ray’s from our mother star and turn to orange dust like the rest of the town.

It is easy to lose sight of the green in all the dust sometimes. There are moments when the clouds of red Earth become so thick you feel you can’t walk forward without waving your hands wildly in front of you, trying to create a break for sunlight to stream through and light your way. It is easy sometimes to lose sight of what is to come. To be stuck in the muddy water of the moment, unsure of which way to turn, or how you ended up in this unfortunately damp place to begin with.

But as I fumble through each day, sometimes feeling lost, sometimes feeling on my way to being found there come moments that blow away the dust from my vision and my mind. They appear out of nowhere, I can’t seek them out, but these springs of joy in the desert, my small oases of happiness take as many forms as they can find.

Here is a short list of the fonts of happiness that have taken me by surprise:

1. Finding a fruit at market besides oranges and bananas (hello mangoes, papayas, and pineapple)

2. A child calling me by my name and not “siliminga”, the generic term for a white person

3. My students bringing me a giant bag of spicy peppers that I could never use all of in my two years here

4. My puppy chasing goats on wet concrete and sliding off the end of the school veranda when he can’t stop

5. Riding my bicycle fast enough downhill that I can physically feel my anxietes flying away

6. The electric blue birds that sometimes fly overhead when I am walking Alfie outside

7. The one woman at market who speaks no english but is always excited to see me wall by her small store

8. The small girls who work at my favorite store in the district capital who like to play math and spelling games with me when I stop by

9. Understanding and being able to respond to most of a conversation with anyone in my town in Dagbani and seeing how happy it makes them

10. Waking up to my puppy curled up in the bend of my knee in the morning

11. Cold water

12. Sunsets

From Under the Nim Tree

Just over the wall at the far end of my compound sits a red and yellow color-block building. The doors are held shut with silver padlocks, but the windows blow open with the slightest breeze. I don’t know who they aim to keep out of the concrete walls of the three large rooms and one smaller which smells strongly of the black mold which peeks out of the falling down ceiling. This small room is filled with books and papers, marking the years past in some sort of organizational system that my eyes fail to follow if ever I am to step inside the office. This is the schoolhouse. Its steps have crumbled and the aluminum sheets which make up the slanted roof let the sun shine through leaving the concrete floor freckled as well as dimpled. Three wires and a tall pole bring electricity to each of the classrooms where sockets hang empty from the ceilings without bulbs to brighten the days when the storm clouds hide the sun.

This building is where I spend most of my days.

During the week I sit at the small wooden table in the shade of the branching Nim tree watching the students park their bicycles in rows before squeezing themselves into desks which they outnumber 4:1. On these days the school house lives and breathes, it’s heart beating in time to the sound of the cowbell-like instrument the one boy with a watch beats to signal the start and end of classes. It is hopeful and vibrant and though I don’t speak the language these children let flow easily from their tongues, we sit content in our confusion trying to figure each other out.

On the weekends however, this same building seems to let out a sigh it has been holding in all week long. Its doors are shut leaving only the windows to get in or out. The bugs and birds use this option more often than not. The goats and sheep sleep soundly on the small verandas which they will soil over the course of the two days where there are no students to shoo them away and clean up their mess. These are my favorite days in some ways.

There is a small spot on the back corner of the school, where the aluminum roof has peeled away letting the rain wash the concrete underneath whenever the clouds open and soak the town. It is here I like to sit. In the morning the shade from what remains of the roof covers where my bag and my body take up space. From this vantage point I can see out over the fields of groundnuts, through the scattered trees, and to the horizon line that cuts the green from the blue.

It is a quiet place. Sometimes made noisy by a passing herd of cattle with sagging skin and giant horns, the small boys who lead them onwards following closely behind them. Some days these boys will sit with me, speaking no words, listening to the soft sounds that flow from the phone which sits atop my small bag. Other days they break out their makeshift soccer ball, a lopsided creation made of materials I cannot decipher. Drawing lines in the sand and moving rocks to mark goalposts they play while the herds of great beasts they control stand just off the dirt schoolyard in the thick green, a silent and uninterested audience. I watch them out of the corner of my eye, slowly turning the pages of the book which sits in my lap. Someday I may help them even out their teams, fumbling my footwork, trying to dance the dance they seem to be born knowing.

The hours I spend sitting on and around this building, constantly shifting to escape the sun which turns my darkened arms to red far outnumber the hours I have spent anywhere else. It is the hub of my time here, the nucleus my purpose revolves slowly around. Four rooms of concrete walls with concrete floors, dimpled with holes wider than the desks the students squeeze themselves into everyday after they sing together while marching in place, waiting for their class’ turn to jump up the broken stairs into their classrooms.

It’s not much.

But also, it’s everything.

Flashbulbs

I’m currently working on writing several new posts but with school starting and a new puppy time is limited! So in the meantime please enjoy a few photos of how my days generally look!