Last night was really amazing and insightful. Going uptown for five minutes and then ending up spending the night with a bunch of friends in my own living room talking about things I feel only adults talk about makes me somewhat certain that I really am one now. The thrill of going out 4 nights a week and getting sloshed and acting like a fool has gradually lost its appeal. That feeling of goofiness pales in comparison to the feeling of real connection with people found in intimate conversation. Is that being grown up? If so, I kind of like it. Though, it definitely has its downsides.
Things like, understanding how the world really works. How money truly is the root of all evil and how it permeates every aspect of our existence. To understand the astounding greed that motivates so much of politics is heartbreaking. The weight of America's happiness is on the shoulders of the rest of the world and it seems that no one is doing anything about it.
Last week I was asked to come talk about my experience in Senegal in front of some first year students in the Global Leadership program I'm in. I was really happy to go back in time and attempt to put myself there again. Yet, I felt so limited. Given countless hours it would be difficult to summarize, giving credit to everything, the experience I had there. I want to not just describe the experience but open people's eyes to the grave injustices I witnessed. Babies who are numbers, women who are nearly slaves to their families, men who work so hard for nearly nothing. Maybe this is why I am so thrown off when people ask me, "how was Senegal?". What do you say to that? It was the most incredible, wild, eye-opening, exhilarating, heartbreaking three and a half months of my life. But every one of those words has so many stories and faces behind it. There's absolutely no way to summarize it. What's more, Senegal is one of the most stable countries in the whole of Africa, considered to be "doing well", and I myself can be there and take bucket showers and live among them but I will always be American and no matter how much I strive to put myself on their level, if I am injured, I will never end up at the Post de sante of Ouakam where I watched so many people receive inadequate health care.
A part of me feels like I'm still in the air, in limbo. When you're on the plane you're someplace in between. You're not really anywhere. I feel like I never actually landed, I'm still someplace 34,000 feet above ground floating in between the US and Senegal. I've been home over a month- I wonder when that'll stop.
Alex still calls me on a regular basis and I get messages and e-mails from him all the time. My heart is so apart from him now and I am consumed with guilt. How can I explain to him that I will probably never be his again? I don't want to have to do that. I feel like I did something destructive. When I was there and with him I was so in it. Part of me missed home but overall I felt right where I should be. Now that I'm back it's clear to me that I could never marry a person who doesn't challenge me. Challenge me to grow and educate myself. Someone who doesn't stimulate me on an intellectual level. I don't know why, I don't understand it. I'm so angry with myself for being so detached from someone I love and who seems ready to never stop loving me. He just turned 29; what did I do to this person? I was his hope for something more, something better than that life. Looking back I'm so furious with myself for things I said to him, things to give him that hope. I meant them then, I really did. There was some innocent part of me that was naive enough to believe that this love was just. I wanted to be in love and I was but it was some completely other me. I feel that I did something selfish and unfair. In the beginning I kept telling him I would leave and it would be over but I fell so hard that stopped feeling like an option. I felt that I had to see him again and that he was the only person I'd ever met who really deserved my love. Perhaps it's true that he is the most deserving but somehow you cannot align your heart and your head to always love the one you know you should love.
When I came back I realized how terrified I am of commitment. I've worked incredibly hard to do what I'm striving to do and I always promised myself I wouldn't sacrifice my dreams for any man. I don't know if sacrificing love for dreams will find me happy in the end but that's life. I know I'm going to be a workaholic because I'm already obsessed with being almost a professional. Like everyone I'm floating through hoping to bump into another person going my direction and it's horrifying to think that maybe we will miss one another somehow but in the meantime all I can do is live and love myself and keep hoping.
My head is absolutely spinning lately. I can't get my thoughts straight for five minutes. It's like I've gone completely mad. I'm left, I'm right, I'm all over the board in between... I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I feel so overwhelmed by the fact that I'm practically finished with the four lightyears of college that just passed.
I have not stopped thinking for a single day about going back to Senegal. I can't stop imagining those little brown eyes in that classroom which should be mine. I can't stop thinking of Ousseynou and what an amazing friend he is and how I need back to him. I keep seeing myself on the beach,and in the hot sun, and walking through the damn sand that I hated every single day there. I can't stop imagining cooking eggs with Alex in the apartment that we talked so much about having together.
I sent the woman who offered me the job a confirmation that I had accepted. I don't like to be dishonest but she wanted a decision before I was capable of making one. I really want my acceptance to be true. I just want to say that's that and go back. The day after I told her I was coming, though, I got a perfect job offer in China to do the same thing. Contrary to the Senegal job, this one offers me airfare, visa fees, stipend, food allowances, a fully-furnished apartment, and Chinese language and culture lessons. Not to mention the obvious perk of being in China. This is the exact opposite of the life I would be having in Senegal making around $300 a month and being entirely responsible for my living costs, airfare, and somehow working to scrape through my loan repayments... all $28,000 of them.
Plus, I'm getting invitations to friends' weddings, or seeing so many of my friends in at least semi-serious relationships and I'm scared of never finding that myself. When I do a reality check I know that I'm super young and totally don't need to be worried but what's it going to feel like when my best friends have children and I'm still single?
I went to a lecture entitled, "The Many Avenues of Development". I was somewhat dissatisfied to find that the director of the African Studies department (whom I have never met, by the way) and professor of development here at OU seemed practically oblivious to the criticisms of Development work. When I posed the question of what organizations he knew which were not helping to perpetuate the problem of dependency he really found no answer for me. He responded that the organizations work like a business and why would they want all those employees to lose their jobs by not being needed? Well Mr. Walker, I kind of thought that was the point and that's the life that development workers commit themselves to. Why get involved if you are in it for a job and not for the honest betterment of mankind?
What worried me much more than that, though, is when he went in to describing his past graduates who had lived in as many as ten diverse countries before settling into a real career. Does that mean that I am facing the possibility of sacrificing a family for my career? I am utterly in love with what I'm striving to do. I, in fact, cannot even imagine myself doing any other thing in the world. Yet, is it really worth it to sacrifice my own reality for the bleak discovery that the difference I can make in this world is so minute?
Before Senegal I had never wanted to visit the same place twice. At least not until I had stepped foot onto every continent and numerous countries around the globe. Only under those conditions would I allow myself to start visiting old homes. Leipzig never took hold of my heart like Dakar did, though. I loved Leipzig absolutely but it just never touched me the same way. The people never made me see myself in an entirely different way. I never felt so myself in Germany. In Africa I felt at my most genuine.
Now, maybe I should go to China. Take the job that it makes sense to take. Explore a new opportunity. I've never been one to back down from a challenge. Both jobs would be one. Going to China would be a whole new start after just having one in September and coming back to have basically another, and with another running closer with graduation in June. It's practically certain that I will be out of the country again within the next 9 months. But, where in the world will I be?
Everyone else says China, my heart says Senegal, but my brain just cannot decide.
Growing up is like a constant state of hallucination. When you begin to widen your horizons and see the world for exactly what it is at this very moment, you have to pinch yourself. How can that be reality? Maybe a lot of people have the luxury of never delving into these things but as a student of development, a student of world issues, sociology, political science, and anthropology, you are forced to swallow reality whole.
The thing that most people don't realize about the world is what a strange state it's in. They're so adjusted to life as it is today and haven't ever thought of how that came to be.
Yesterday my political anthropology professor said, "You might think that the police are your friends..." Most of the class had to laugh at this because we are taught from a very young age to believe that the police are in fact our friends. As she further explained, they come to your house when the crazy robber is breaking through your window. They make us less afraid, they protect us. Sure, this is all true. Yet, at the same time, the very reason that they exist is to maintain control over society and prevent rebellion. They make certain that you're not breaking any of their rules.They protect society as it has come to be known.
The next point she brought up was how this society we have come to know is so stratified. This means that say, someone sees a starving child in the road in the city of New York and walks on by without even a second glance. Then that person goes to their nice high rise apartment where the starving child's father tries to break in so that his child can eat. The woman then calls the police to protect her from this man. He is arrested, his crime- wanting his daughter to eat? What about the woman's crime, letting the child starve.
Of course, we must consider that maybe some of these people who beg want to take our money and buy a bottle of Jim Beam, but, that's not the point. The point is that our society is in place to keep some people starving while others strive to protect their wealth, and it is they who are protected.
My prof explained that these are the things imposed on world order by the new international organization, and the concept of states. I felt during class that I was only hearing one point of view, but the more I listened the more I realized that it was one point of view, but though there may be benefits to the state system, the reality is, more than half the world suffers because of it. My father thinks I'm way too liberal. He thinks it's my professors and that I can't think for myself. He's wrong.
When I was in Senegal I didn't really see many cops. They really didn't seem to be there to protect you. In my three months there I never saw a cop doing anything other than directing traffic or escorting a politician. There is this real sense of freedom there. No one in the US would ever believe me that Senegal is more free than it is here.
There is of course the argument that maybe life is better here. For some people that's definitely true. Don't get me wrong either, Senegal is definitely stratified as well. There aren't many societies left which aren't. I don't know of any myself.
There are so many things about the world that you could never possibly understand if you never leave the United States, or even if you travel within Europe. In fact, to make it even more complicated, you could never understand if you took a tourist agency's 21 day tour of the underdeveloped world. There's nothing you could see or know from the window of a bus, or from private beaches and 5 star hotels, or guided tours, even with a native tour guide.
There is no way to believe these people could be happier than we are, or know things that we don't know. They are struggling, but they are struggling from systems that were IMPOSED on them by another world, our world. A world that made them forget egalitarianism and strive for money and power in everything. The United States has become the world capital of those pursuits. Our government will do anything and everything- humane, inhumane, and even unimaginable to adjust the rest of the world to our hegemony. Realizing this really is like being on drugs. It doesn't seem real, it doesn't seem possible, you can't imagine it, and that's exactly how they get away with it. Most of the world, especially our world, chooses to ignore these structures because it's easier, it's more convenient, and because they wouldn't even be able to believe it if they tried. They're far too brainwashed to ever accept it.
The United States is the best place in the world to live. It's the freest country in the world. We're the top because we're the best there is and no one else is doing it any better. ...Really? Are you sure about that? Why do you know, because that's what you've been taught? Well, I wouldn't be so sure if I were you... maybe you should do a little of your own investigating.
This view is incredibly liberal, that's true. I don't like that label, "very left wing"... Liberal means to be free, right? What is it about liberalism that gives it the bad connotations? I don't understand conservatism, is that the desire to be less free? To tell people that they have to wear their seat belts in their cars or that they aren't allowed to smoke marijuana.
Why is marijuana illegal? This may seem silly but honestly ask yourself. It doesn't hurt anyone else if you decide to smoke marijuana. I've never heard of anyone dying from smoking it, or killing someone else. It's natural just like tobacco. It kills brain cells supposedly, but so does playing football and that's not illegal. In fact, it's supported by millions and millions of dollars. It seems to me that alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana. At least you can think straight if you're high, it's a different story if you're drunk, and drunk people hurt other people sort of often.
Yet, my views are crazy to the average person. It's silly for me to think of terrible marijuana being condoned or allowed by the government, why would they let us do something so crazy? If you smoke pot you're automatically labeled differently. Maybe some people think you're irresponsible, or crazy, or stupid, a bad person, or a loser. Why do we not think all of those things when we see someone smoking a cigarette, or drinking a glass of wine? Well, I think it's because we're taught to think all these things. The truth is that not being allowed to smoke marijuana is just another way for the government to control people. So, maybe you'll think I've become the craziest extreme of left-wingers now. Well, whatever that means, this is the way I see it.
I pretty much despise girly magazines that have practically the same material in them every single edition. There are always the same stick thin women on the covers in virtually the same poses with their only distinguishing feature being a different colored top. Every month they offer the same topics- "How to have the best sex of your life", "lose belly fat in 10 days flat", get organized by tomorrow", "how to know when he wants to dump you", "how to fake an orgasm" and so on like that. Somehow these journalists have the DL on just about everything imaginable AND it comes fresh every month. Who knew the best sex of your life could keep on getting better? Exhibit A- Cosmo.
Yesterday at work, however, I found an article amidst this sleaze-filled crap that really hit home. In fact, I might even go as far as to say it was the most satisfying and relieving thing I've read since being back in the States. The article was entitled "Life in Your 20s" and it basically hit on (and made normal) every fear I can come up with about growing up and about refusing to.
Point number 1: "I have no idea what my calling is"- Ok, so actually, this isn't a real problem for me. When I first got to Senegal I went through a major period of doubting that I had chosen the right field to enter. African Studies isn't very flexible to begin with and I just spent almost four years of my life working towards that degree. A degree that can get you probably to about exactly no where except just where I want to be. Thus, the scary part was not being sure about wanting to be there. After some adjusting to Senegal the answer turned out to be yes, more than anything. Now though the question is, how do I follow through and end up to that exactly where I want to be place? How many secretarial jobs will I have to take, or errand boy positions, with waiting or bar tending on the side, before I can reach that point of being secure? And why, after four years of college and all these experiences is that so hard to get to?
Which leads to another scary point: "I've never been in a long-term relationship"- The example given, "Zoe, 26, has tons of experience under the covers, but her longest romance lasted just three months." Average life expectancy for my relationships: almost exactly 3 months. When I was in Senegal I felt certain that I wanted to marry Alex, no matter how crazy that may seem to most people in the US. I was sure that I was absolutely in love with him. Now, after less than a month in the States I've broken things off with him in an effort to understand how I feel. I don't think I want to marry Alex. The very thought of marriage scares the living hell out of me. Picking just one person that you're going to spend the rest of your entire life with. That's kinda crazy anyway. Yet, the alternatives are even more terrifying, like being alone, for instance. Why, at the age of 21 am I combating the fear of ending up that way? Most of my girlfriends aren't in serious relationships or relationships at all. That's changing a lot all the sudden but many of them still aren't. Pretty much all of the men I know would consider the thought of settling down right now ridiculous and I think I almost agree with them. Yet, here I am, worrying that soon it's going to be painful as hell still being alone and hard as hell to find someone. But, I don't have any idea if that's really true. And, after what happened with Alex, how am I really supposed to know who to settle down with? I could find that with a little time in another country I can forget my feelings for just about anyone. Love is so elusive. At the same time I'm so angry with myself for not absolutely loving the one person who loves me that way. A person I know would make an amazing husband and the perfect dad and a phenomenal person to pass a lifetime with, but who just doesn't give me the butterflies I still crave. Maybe the butterflies are only in the challenge and that means that settling down ends all of that. Maybe the point where I'm ready to sacrifice the butterflies is the point in which I've really grown up.
Point 3: "How long will I be emotionally dependent on my parents?"- Well, I wouldn't really say that I'm emotionally dependent on them, that would've made being in Africa pretty hard. I am however incredibly financially dependent on them. I pay for hardly anything myself and yet I'm struggling to pay off a $700 credit card bill. I feel like I work and work and before I know it everything is gone. I'm so incredibly grateful for not having to fall into great depths of debt because my family would never let that happen, but I am tired of being dependent. I want to be able to buy them dinner at a nice restaurant for once- all of them. My brother's 25 and he's never done that.
Related to that is point 4: "Paying the bills keeps me in a constant state of panic"- The worst part is imagining that you're doing so well then somehow managing to only scrape by when you had anticipated a surplus. This week for me was as if everything was against me meeting my goals. I got a parking ticket, my books cost a fortune, and I incredibly impulsively ordered something off ebay that wasn't even what I had intended to buy. I feel like I'm back at square one. Now I'm thinking about finishing school in March and wondering what other job I will be able to take on to attempt to finally get ahead with these bills. Those loans worth almost 30 grand are certainly going to come up quick.
Finally, point 5, and I think the overall point: "Am I ever going to have the life of a real adult?"- Honestly, it seems as though our generation has really managed to suspend that life for quite a long time. Am I going to be having kids all through my 30s? The quote in the magazine is, "My parents got married, bought a house, and had two kids by the time they were 30. They even had real furniture, like couches. My boyfriend and I live in a rental, don't feel ready to tie the knot, and all we can afford is a futon." Well I say at least this girl's got a boyfriend; she's off to a better start than I am. But like her, I wonder how and when I'll ever be able to afford a car that I don't have to constantly worry about breaking down in, or a real house with something other than Guinness posters on the living room walls in a grungy apartment that I have to share with friends, and of course, a couch (that didn't come from the thrift store). Is it always going to be one loan right after the other right until I die, only ever owning the things my dead relatives have left to me?
Growing up scares the shit out of me. I don't feel ready to be an adult, but I don't want to be a child anymore either. The fears of being alone, being poor, or being unsuccessful are so real. There's so much pressure from society it's amazing. Apparently nowadays all these things I'm feeling are known as the quarter-life crisis. Well, whatever you want to call it, I hope it's over soon.
Well, reverse culture shock is a definite but sometimes it's very subtle. For the most part I just keep asking myself- did any of that really happen or was it just all a dream? Today, actually, has been my very first day completely to myself to actually ponder over that. From the time I've gotten home I've gone from one holiday party to another, spent time with family and friends, talked about my grandma's cancer like it was an object you could see or touch while looking at her and barely even noticing an ailment and gave the robotic answers countless times the questions about my trip. Before I left I couldn't wait to sit down with my family and friends and banter endlessly about the experience without being able to stop, boring everyone to tears. Yet, coming home the truth is, I have no idea what to say about any of it because it's completely surreal. Do I really have a boyfriend on the other side of the Atlantic? Did I really work in that clinic? Can I actually speak French? And worst of all, am I going to go back in September and start it all over again?
For the most part everything here is the same. The same feelings, the same thoughts, the same people, the same sights and sounds and life. Yet now I'm totally conflicted about all of it. In my room linger memories of my time with Benny. My best friend is no longer in Athens and I don't even feel like going out, let alone do I have the tolerance for it. My grandma might be dying. I see how tired my family is. On Christmas my three year-old niece opened all her presents, paid no attention to them and just kept saying, "I want more presents". Before I left I would've found that behavior hilarious and typical of children but now I just find it disgusting. Even children in this country are materialistic. I came back to my room at my parents' place and I realized that I have so many outfits and so many things and I wanted to cry out of frustration because I have so much excess that I'm not even sure what to do with it all. I just feel like I'm drowning in things, literally.
I'm not allowed to mention my boyfriend in front of my grandfather; he's racist. My family is actually afraid that my talking about my boyfriend could be bad for his health. My mom told me that if Alex and I got married and had children it would be kind of selfish. Selfish for two people who love each other to make a family just because our children would fall into the "other" box for the question of race. I realize that life would be very difficult for them but how could that be selfish? It's not my fault that people are ignorant, and even knowing that they are and that my children wouldn't have it as easily as someone totally white or even totally black I don't feel it'd ever be selfish for me to want children with my husband, regardless of the color of his skin.
I feel like going back to Senegal is the best thing for my future. I loved it there so much and I honestly left feeling like I wouldn't have to miss it because I'd just be right back. Teaching would help build my resume, get me into grad school. I could see where things could possible go with Alex or finish things in person if that's what needed to be done. I would have the opportunity to volunteer at some NGOs and start getting some real career experience and I could research and see a lot of things I didn't have time for before. On the other hand, I'd be totally poor and struggling like hell to make ends meet, probably living worse than in the dorms and eating rice every meal of the day but it'd be all a part of the experience.
I feel like I have so much on my plate right now. Alex doesn't understand that if I come back it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to marry him. I don't understand what it does mean myself. I'm scared that I'll make a mistake. It was so easy when I was there to think about marrying Alex and having a million beautiful babies with him. It seemed unquestionable, why not? It was a fairy tale. Now I've been home for two weeks and the whole thing sounds a little ridiculous to me. How am I going to have a boyfriend who is so far away for at least the next 9 months? Do I even really love him or was he just the first guy to ever treat me the way I deserve? I'm terrified of marriage now that I'm back here. I'm too young and I'm too unsettled and I have no idea what I even want out of life.
I'm graduating so soon and time has gone so fast these past four years. I love that I've had the opportunity to pursue everything that I've ever wanted to and I believe there is still a lot more to come for me. Which is maybe why I'm afraid of tying myself down now or of tying myself into a relationship that would be a constant struggle to survive and a constant fight against society and a tough melange of cultures. At the same time I'm scared to death of hurting this person who's done absolutely everything right and who deserves no pain. Yet, you can't marry someone just so not to hurt them. It's so complicated.
I'm not ready to go out, I'm scared to walk around in streets I used to walk alone in all the time. I hear people talk about stupid drama and it disgusts me. I can't even think straight and I don't really feel anything at all. All I know is that time feels like it's standing still but in reality it's moving faster than I can even imagine and I just don't know if there is life after Senegal.
