Musings on Material Culture

Since returning to Hometown to continue with treatment, I’ve been studying le décor of my childhood home. My parents remodel, renovate and update on a fairly regular basis it looks far more stylish and livable than when we first moved in 20+ years ago. Each time I return home, there are new features à gogo (galore). Furthermore, as a homeowner back in Host Country, I’ve been pondering what furnishings to get when (not if) I return. We don’t have a picture wall where the ghosts of family portraits past cast their chilling gaze upon us. Rather, family members have a set of objects that are repeated in many rooms. Par exemple, my mother LOVES scented candles and places a few in each room (mine was spared due to intense pyrophobia). My contribution is books – lots of them. Books in English, books in French, coffee table books, novels, old textbooks, books I loved, books I was never able to finish. Taken individually they look like your typical bric-à-brac, but in small ensembles create visually and intellectually intriguing arrangements. I’ve been using my Kindle for PC the last few months due to space restrictions on travel. While I enjoy the cheaper price of books and increased storage capacity, I’m reluctant to abandon material books for many reasons (importance of print culture, easy annotation, impracticality of traveling in bush taxis with laptops, etc.) Now I have another: it’s very satisfying to have a record of where my intellectual interests and whims have taken me. Books that fit into a themed collection (my 17th century French biographies from later high school), a genre (travel guidebooks) or are just interesting outliers (Jon Hein’s Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad) illustrate a lot more of who I am than I’m usually willing to admit.

Frustrations

The Unbloggable EventsTM Saga has taken yet another turn and I’ll be leaving Unbloggable Events Land to continue my treatment. D’un côté (on the one hand), I’m frustrated. I’d hoped to have returned to my post and started my duties as a Volunteer by now. I keep thinking about my fellow stagiaires who are integrating into their communities and experiencing the ups and downs of personal growth. De l’autre côté, I want to be completely healed before returning to the field. There’s no point in going through the struggles involved in being a PCV if I’m also in constant physical pain. At least I’m making progress! In the meantime, guess which bird has been annoying me for the past few weeks in UEL.

Infernal racket reaching new heights
Beak aglow in sun, moonlights
Iridescent plumage plucked from skies
Screeching whenever it flies

A Change of Heart

Due to the Unbloggable EventsTM, I have been receiving physical therapy. My therapist is a wonderful lady named A. Normally, we chat about the differences between our two countries, les activités quotidiennes (daily activities), and wild animals (she and her husband love to go camping). Though A is quite petite, she purposefully applies pressure and we’ve been seeing good results. Our sessions usually involve resistance activities, ultrasound and a “pins and needles” machine for pain relief. All was well.

But today, dear readers, today was different. Teeth were gnashed, garments rent and mercy demanded. For you see, previous appointments had cleared me for more intensive physical therapy. Instead of a nice kneading of the affected muscles and joints, A pushed me further than I thought possible. Rather than chat about dolphin sightings or lion attacks, I had to turn my head and close my eyes to avoid cussing her out. Such betrayal! To make matters worse, I caught an episode of “The Tudors” last night. Katherine Howard, the “rose without a thorn,” met her bloody end after her lover was tortured in the Tower of London. Great images to have stuck in your mind…

However, I can withstand pain as long as I know that there’s a good reason for it. I am excited that we’re making progress and that I will soon be able to return to my country of service. All of my stage-mates are already hard at work and I can’t wait to join them.

Life-Art Imitation

One of my favorite soap operas in Unbloggable EventsTM Land (henceforth UEL) is broadcast in another language with English subtitles. UEL is a pays multilingue with a high degree of personal plurilingualism (the ability of one person to speak several different languages at varying levels). One of the minor characters on this soap opera is a female native English speaker who is dating a male native speaker of the broadcast language. In order to better convey her awkwardness with the broadcast language, the subtitle writers translate her literal phrases into English. Thus, while the other characters appear to speak fluidly and gracefully, her phrases resemble those of many L2 (second language) learners. Par exemple, she uses anglicismes (English words in place of the correct words in the target language), omits or improperly conjugates verbs (“I happy to see you…I going coffee shop.”) and misuses prepositions (“I am on the car.”). I point out these errors not to mock the character, but because I have made these same and many others numerous times.

Turning to the world of film and fairytales, one of the great mysteries for me was how everyone in Disney movies spoke the same language even if they were from different worlds. Pocahontas “magically” learned English immediately after meeting John Smith. Moreover, one major issue I had with The Little Mermaid (H.C. Anderson and Disney) is the unlikelihood that an undersea form of communication would be roughly comparable to the language of landlubbers. So what if she sold her voice – would they have been able to talk or understand each other anyways? I do realize that yes, this is where the “magic” force of “true love” comes in and how clunky the plot would be if we had to go through a language-learning sequence in a movie ostensibly made for children. Yet, I did appreciate the scenes in Avatar explaining the English language school and how Neytiri teaches Jake her language. It adds a deeper level of commitment and understanding to their relationship as we see them work together towards a goal rather than be driven by sheer emotion and the vagaries of fate. And I often feel like both participants in that dinner table scene where Ariel combs her hair with a fork and Eric looks perplexed. Not angry, just…confused. Part of the fun of cross-cultural living!

D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T

I’ve taken increasing steps towards physical, intellectual and financial independence in the past few years. To wit, I’ve lived abroad, held steady paying jobs and don’t feel the rush of possessing books/movies/DVDs without having told my parents about each and every purchase. On the other hand, I’ve grown more dependent in other ways. I faithfully phone/Skype my family every weekend which helps me remember that the Peace Corps identity need not overwhelm the other parts of Steven. Furthermore, CARE PACKAGES! They’re absolutely wonderful, but it means disclosing one’s needs/wishes to one’s parents in a way that one has not done since one turned 16 and had disposable income and access to a car. Thankfully, my parents don’t bat an eye at any of my food/entertainment requests – mostly they just say “You wouldn’t eat that at home!” or “Huh, we’ll have to watch that.” Same for the Kindle for PC (gracious thanks to our friends at Amazon) – we have a joint account so my parents can see what I bought and read the books as well. We’ve all finished at least a few books in the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson and are also working our way through the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. They also really seem to like The Tudors. We’ve moved beyond “That’s…interesting,” which just made me realize how terribly aggravating the polite “Fine” is in response to “How was your day?” when repeated ad nauseam. I’m glad that we don’t share every interest, but that my parents are engaged in my life and want to know what I’m reading/watching/doing. However, if they really want to know about ma vie intellectuelle, il faut qu’ils apprennent le français (they must learn French). Another great reason to learn foreign languages!

A (Climate-Controlled) Room of One’s Own*: Modernity and Creativity

Think back to any historical representation (documentary/popular film/YouTube) you may have seen depicting the lives of medieval people. Really, any. What do you remember about the medieval priests? They’re always scribbling on parchment by the light of a tallow candle and wrapped up in cloaks. Sounds romantic doesn’t it – devoting one’s life to the pursuit of knowledge, malgré (despite) the elements? Think again.
Since coming to Unbloggable EventsTM location, I’ve had access to electricity, running water and climate control. Throw in lots of unstructured time for strolls and reflection and you have a winning combination for creativity. As my fellow stagiaires (now volontaires) can attest, burning heat and a lack of fans didn’t deter my desire to write, be read and adored. I filled pages of my notebook with short stories, poems and drawings in any number of styles and languages. True, I’d had a lot of practice in college – I preferred to keep my hands busy in large survey courses with snippets of creative writing rather than struggle to fill in the 2-star Sudoku as was the fate for so many.
But, I digress. My new temporary home provides me with all of the conditions for good writing: comfort, a good balance between witty conversation and reflective solitude, a destabilizing effect (center to periphery as we say in postcolonial studies)which creates wonder and mystery, laundry machines. Still, these same qualities will lead to stagnation after awhile. Meditation and reflection are fine when one has DONE something, otherwise it just isn’t terribly interesting. At my site, I’ll have a) many new experiences each and every day (new people, new words/ideas, new things to bake in a home-made Dutch oven) and b) a generous amount of time in which to process them. Some of my friends can dash off a piece of creative writing whenever inspiration strikes – I usually need to help it along by reading and prewriting. Oh, and revising. I have one short story and a few poems that need my attention for the moment…
*Shout out to Virginia Woolf, modernist feminist essayist extraordinaire. I highly recommend A Room of Own’s Own, To the Lighthouse and Orlando.