What the Pig Should Learn from the Dog
Lessons big and small from the year of the dog, 2006
Years like this do not come very often in a lifetime. I'm not talking about in politics or world affairs (Go Dems, Boo to Bush and his war, Sudan suffers and Africa's on everyone's mind) or culture (the internet and youtube are king, but my media vices are tv on dvd - Arrested Development and Weeds – and myspace/facebook) or science (I was crushed to find Pluto demoted), although the world was rocked in all of those arenas. No, I'm talking about this year as a milestone for many reasons in my life and for my family. Maya is born. Julia and I graduate (high school and university respectively). I move to Uganda with Will for 6 months. I begin to figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life. And beyond these calendar moments lie the lessons: small, shining flecks of truth in the matte, hard slab of life we are handed. Here are 2006's brightest…
On being an outsider
If you look like me at all and come from America, living in East Africa is an experience loaded with expectation (You take me with you. You give me money.), misinformation (Is she 'a China'? Is she rich?) and a depressing, undeserved admiration (I don't think I need to elaborate here). While judgement based on color or race is not new to me (like it is to many whites in Africa for the first time) it has awakened me to the importance of identity and what you can mean to other people in the world. While I didn't choose my heritage, economic background or citizenship – I have to own it, and own up to it at times. The personal is always political, and not just to our benefit.
Yes, my thighs touch and doesn't it feel good to say so
Finally, and I mean finally, I think I am okay with me just as I am. My neo-feminist persona would suggest I am already this well-adjusted (ha!) but a childhood full of fat jokes dies hard (no hard feelings Big Bro). But being around hyper body-conscious women (not Ugandans) has paradoxically tamed my insecurities. In this crazy world who really has time to worry about that anymore?
Keepin' on Keepin' On
The strength of human life is astounding. In Uganda (where the life expectancy is a paltry 47) nothing is guaranteed. People live in a constant state of discomfort not to mention in all shades of poverty. Life is always on the edge. But the incredible scarcity of security does not make people more brutal, indeed it is quite the opposite in most cases. Human life is resilient. People here have breathless gratitude for life itself and many have remarkable faith in heavens of all kinds. Humanity must survive somehow and this is how. Life's only purpose is to continue. (…We were reminded of this beauty by the arrival of our Maya Therese.)
You made it! Who cares.
Graduating college is a necessary hurdle but it does not give you a damn thing (you'd think I would have figured this out by then!). There are no bells, no whistles, no six-figure job offers knocking at the door. However, you do get a decorative $50,000+ wall hanging. Woo hoo. Except no one tells you what happens if you can't afford the frame...
Stay away from these. Enough said.
Confessions of a globe trotter
Okay, I have long been the prodigal daughter – coming and going and coming again. But being so far away has taught me the importance of having a place to call home. The farther I get away from home, the more I long to shrink the size of the globe. If only I could run home to Michigan for dinner then jet back to East Africa to address AIDS and poverty among rural women the next morning. The more I expand my worldview, the more useful of a person I become, but, and here's the rub, the farther I go away the closer I long to be. (I seem to be subconsciously aware of the globe's spherical reality, perhaps I'll be forever chasing myself around it). Growing up as the bored teenager of the suburbs who resented her uninspiring hometown, I longed to escape what I viewed as bondage to mediocrity. Well as it turns out you can trump that mediocrity and still come home to your glamour-less, familiar and quirky home, and still love it.
Now as the pig is reigning I'm thinking of what 2007 may have in store. More challenges? Sure. More lessons? Certainly. Big changes? Yep - I'm movin with Will to NYC to teach inner city kids. But other than that I have no idea what I'll find on the other side of ' 07.When the rural women I work with learn something new (like about how to keep their children healthy or about their own reproductive freedom) their eyes light up and you can almost see a little fire starting that no one else can put out. And while I don't know what the future holds, I see a fleck of it in their eyes. They tell me there is something on the other side, something to hope for despite all odds, always.
Years like this do not come very often in a lifetime. I'm not talking about in politics or world affairs (Go Dems, Boo to Bush and his war, Sudan suffers and Africa's on everyone's mind) or culture (the internet and youtube are king, but my media vices are tv on dvd - Arrested Development and Weeds – and myspace/facebook) or science (I was crushed to find Pluto demoted), although the world was rocked in all of those arenas. No, I'm talking about this year as a milestone for many reasons in my life and for my family. Maya is born. Julia and I graduate (high school and university respectively). I move to Uganda with Will for 6 months. I begin to figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life. And beyond these calendar moments lie the lessons: small, shining flecks of truth in the matte, hard slab of life we are handed. Here are 2006's brightest…
On being an outsider
If you look like me at all and come from America, living in East Africa is an experience loaded with expectation (You take me with you. You give me money.), misinformation (Is she 'a China'? Is she rich?) and a depressing, undeserved admiration (I don't think I need to elaborate here). While judgement based on color or race is not new to me (like it is to many whites in Africa for the first time) it has awakened me to the importance of identity and what you can mean to other people in the world. While I didn't choose my heritage, economic background or citizenship – I have to own it, and own up to it at times. The personal is always political, and not just to our benefit.
Yes, my thighs touch and doesn't it feel good to say so
Finally, and I mean finally, I think I am okay with me just as I am. My neo-feminist persona would suggest I am already this well-adjusted (ha!) but a childhood full of fat jokes dies hard (no hard feelings Big Bro). But being around hyper body-conscious women (not Ugandans) has paradoxically tamed my insecurities. In this crazy world who really has time to worry about that anymore?
Keepin' on Keepin' On
The strength of human life is astounding. In Uganda (where the life expectancy is a paltry 47) nothing is guaranteed. People live in a constant state of discomfort not to mention in all shades of poverty. Life is always on the edge. But the incredible scarcity of security does not make people more brutal, indeed it is quite the opposite in most cases. Human life is resilient. People here have breathless gratitude for life itself and many have remarkable faith in heavens of all kinds. Humanity must survive somehow and this is how. Life's only purpose is to continue. (…We were reminded of this beauty by the arrival of our Maya Therese.)
You made it! Who cares.
Graduating college is a necessary hurdle but it does not give you a damn thing (you'd think I would have figured this out by then!). There are no bells, no whistles, no six-figure job offers knocking at the door. However, you do get a decorative $50,000+ wall hanging. Woo hoo. Except no one tells you what happens if you can't afford the frame...
Stay away from these. Enough said.
Confessions of a globe trotter
Okay, I have long been the prodigal daughter – coming and going and coming again. But being so far away has taught me the importance of having a place to call home. The farther I get away from home, the more I long to shrink the size of the globe. If only I could run home to Michigan for dinner then jet back to East Africa to address AIDS and poverty among rural women the next morning. The more I expand my worldview, the more useful of a person I become, but, and here's the rub, the farther I go away the closer I long to be. (I seem to be subconsciously aware of the globe's spherical reality, perhaps I'll be forever chasing myself around it). Growing up as the bored teenager of the suburbs who resented her uninspiring hometown, I longed to escape what I viewed as bondage to mediocrity. Well as it turns out you can trump that mediocrity and still come home to your glamour-less, familiar and quirky home, and still love it.
Now as the pig is reigning I'm thinking of what 2007 may have in store. More challenges? Sure. More lessons? Certainly. Big changes? Yep - I'm movin with Will to NYC to teach inner city kids. But other than that I have no idea what I'll find on the other side of ' 07.When the rural women I work with learn something new (like about how to keep their children healthy or about their own reproductive freedom) their eyes light up and you can almost see a little fire starting that no one else can put out. And while I don't know what the future holds, I see a fleck of it in their eyes. They tell me there is something on the other side, something to hope for despite all odds, always.
posted by Sarah at 10:38 AM
1 Comments:
Well written article.
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