coming home


Malagasy huts are meant to be lived in.  I know this now because mine was left to it’s own devices for a month and it did not fare well.  It was my first vacation of the year, I hadn’t taken any time off at my new site because I had so much re-committed myself to Peace Corps in this village that was motivated, friendly, and welcoming to me.  Alas, I had planned this trip to the states since before I had left it in the first place, knowing that my best friend from high school, Wally was going to propose to my best friend from college, Shannon and that a wedding was sure to follow.  That is the kind of wedding you don’t miss.  So despite my attempts to truly be integrated and not use my privileges to leave whenever I want, come mid-September it was time for me to go.  

And for my hut to be eased the stomping of my large foreigner feet.  I thought it’d be good for it; the floors were starting to stretch after all!  I had packed away all my stuff, brought my valuables to the Peace Corps bureau, and asked friends and small children to water my plants and keep my yard looking decent so to deter pangalatras (thieves) from thinking that the items in there were up for grabs.  

I still believe this was a good plan in theory.  And maybe in part it worked.  For example, the young boy that I had hired to keep my yard weeded and cleaned definitely made appearences in my house.  When I got there, the front and one side of the hut (what you can see from the road) had absolutely no trash and the dirt was smooth from spikey weeds.  Unfortunately, the fact that the yard had been swept was hard to notice because there were two giants holes in my fence, the wood crumbling down in disastrous piles.  Apparently a couple of drunk dudes had been walking home from a balle (dance) and drunkenly fell into my fence.  And didn’t remember to come put it back together afterwards.  On the other side of my hut where the fence was also bashed in it was surmised that the neighbor’s cows must have been led astray.  Into my yard.  That explains the lack of any vegetation growing in the space where had recently bloomed tomatoes and eggplants.  And I thought my friends had just forgotten to water.

So this was my first site upon getting off the taxi-brousse.  Of course, coming in I had a parade of children traipsing behind me, my little sister Sheila already clamoring to have a piggy-back.  I was happy to see them, so I brushed off my irritation that no one had thought to at least make-shiftily put my fence back together.  They were stoked to see me and that was the most important thing.  I threw my belongings, already filthy anways, to the ground and pulled out my key.  And with 13 little nuggets surrounding me I opened my door to find that a bomb had clearly gone off in my hut.  My mattress was shredded (thank you mice), my furniture gnawed to sawdust (thank you termites), and a thick layer of dust covering every surface (thank you vertatraza (windy season)).  

One could hardly breathe in there, which helped a little bit because it dissuaded the tribe of children from entering.  It’s always quite overwhelming when you are trying to clean or arrange your hut and there are a bunch of children trying to get in and look your pictures/touch everything.  My best friends’ little sister and I spent the next two hours sweeping, wiping, and shaking out everything in the house and it still had the kind of vintage smell you aren’t looking for in second-hand stores.

Now that I have been back to site for a few days with windows and doors letting the sweet end of the veratraza rush through my house it is starting to feel like home again.  I was nervous to come back after being gone for so long, but it turns out that the people in my village, no matter if they give me a hard time about where I was, seem to genuinely be happy when I come back.  I think its going to be hard to leave. 

Home is where I rest my oversized straw purse

After two years of living in Madagascar, I thought that I finally had somewhere to call home.  It is the first place that I’ve lived completely on my own, without roommates, housemates, or parents.  It’s the first place I have had to completely start anew with friendships and relationships.  Overall, I have had to work hard to feel comfortable here.  Especially after my first year of constant disappointments, let-downs, and overall feeling very discouraged, I felt like I was finally at ease and settled in my new home. 

So much so, that I figured after two weeks of traveling to the states for my best friends’ wedding, I would be very ready to get back to my new stomping grounds.  That I would be so overwhelmed by America’s food, stimulation, and all the English they speak over there that I would be thrilled to step onto a plane and come home. 

Of course, this is not how it went.  I don’t know why I thought it would be so difficult to get back into my relationships and friendships (perhaps it is because none of my friends back home are very good at keeping in touch when I’m gone *cough cough*), but it wasn’t.  The minute Zoe picked me up from the airport we were the same high-pitched, squeaky little girls that we’ve always been.  By the time we got to the valley I was already pretty good at not mixing Malagasy words into my sentences, and being with my long-time best buddies and former housemates Shannon and Wally (the now married couple) felt exactly like being at home.  Wally and I went to a Red Sox game, and I could still remember each word to “Sweet Caroline” and almost all of them to the “Star Spangled Banner” (though to be fair, I don’t think I ever knew all of them).  I fell right back in love with each and every one of my friends, back in love with the bike trails going through Northhampton, my old farm looked great and it was wonderful to see Farmer Bob and his beautiful family.  I could see how easily I could re-emerge in this area and feel not like the undergrad I once was, but like the grown-up that perhaps I have become.  Okay, maybe not go that far.   But still, I could feel like a real person. 

And now I am headed back to my other homeland.  A place, mind you, that has not only been my Peace Corps site but also where I grew up through elementary and middle-school.  I got deep mems here man; me and Madagascar go way back.  But now my mindset has completely switched, and to be honest, it was very difficult to get back on that plane.  Maybe that is normal: whenever you go on vacation it should be hard to leave right?  But I had hoped it wouldn’t be.  I had hoped I would say a light adieu to all of my buddies and be on my way.  Instead, I had to fight back (and in some cases failed to fight back) tears at each goodbye and felt like I was losing something that I had forgotten I had.  When Caitlin dropped me off at the airport it took a lot to not tell her to turn south towards Mexico (as I believe was her initial plan anyways).

So now I am heading back, stuck temporarily (I hope) in a place that does NOT feel like home.  And to be honest I am kind of freaking out.  I want to go back and re-integrate easily and happily into my village and my other relationships that I have over there.  And likely I will once again feel at home there.  But really, how many homes can a girl have?  And when will one of them actually win out and get me away from this gnawing feeling like eventually I will have to leave any home I create?

Reason's it's not so bad to travel alone

  • When things aren’t going well, you may not have someone to look to for advice or to calm you down, but you also don’t have someone looking at you for the same thing.  On your own, you can make as many mistakes and have as many mishaps without anyone being there to get frustrated with or at you.  You can also sit down for a hamburger, piece of cheese, or bowl of rice (depending on where you are traveling) whenever you need a pick-me-up.  Even if it takes doing that four-five times. 

  • Carrying on with the previous point, when traveling alone you can eat and drink as often and as much as you please.  Personally, eating is my main reason for traveling.  I am therefore not interested in holding off on the calories or back with the glasses of wine.  Rather, I’d like to sample as many different delicious food items a place has to offer me.  Yesterday, for example, I sat down at three different cafĂ©’s for the dinner hour, trying a different cheese and kind of wine at each.  Place number 1 had the best cheese while number 2’s wine was bangin’.  Its kind of my own version of Top Chef Paris.  Or Anthony Bourdain. 

  • I can blow as much or as little money in a day as I want (funding allowed, of course).  The first day I came into Paris I felt awful because I had just spent two weeks eating everything I could in America.  My stomach still suffering from this feat, I skipped the usual eating frenzy of the first day, and walked for a couple of hours instead.  That day I hardly spent any money, but the next day I woke up and had my three restaurant dinner.  When you are with someone, it’s harder to break routine like this. 

  • You can avoid doing things you don’t care to do.  For me, that is anything touristy.  Sure, I’ve seen some of the famous sites in Paris before, such as the Eifel Tower and Notre Dame.  But to be honest, I’d rather spend my money on a delicious dinner (or three) than for the entrance fee to one of these places.  Perhaps this makes me come off as uncultured or unsophisticated, and I suppose that is okay.  I’d rather take the train out to a ramdom little village and walk around, enjoy a local meal, and yes, a house pitcher of wine while trying to get to know some people. 

  • You can get utterly lost but still be fine because you have no one and nothing to report back to.  I do this by matter of walking.  You would think I’d have figure out how to navigate a map by now.  Or at least start using landmarks to get me back. 

  • There is no pressure to stop reading.  I know that traveling maybe shouldn’t be about having my nose in a book, but I find it a very relaxing way to lose yourself.  If it weren’t for books I don’t know how I’d have gotten through these past two years.  And I still feel like I have gotten my share of conversation in.  But overall, it’s nice to have something to turn back to when you are out of things to say. 

All that said, traveling alone can be a bit lonely at times.  But I think its always a good experience and you can grow a lot from it.  Not grow in the way that I would actually check my itinerary before I left so I wasn’t stuck somewhere after a missed connecting flight.  No, no, never.