Saturday, October 30, 2010

Anatomy of a Day

Ev’ning

Beautiful sunset glows
Time has wast’d away
Soon there’ll be winter snows
Outdoors I shan’t stay
Copyright BurkinaSciSteven 2010

I’ve been trying to take advantage of the natural beauty available off my lovely back porch during these past few weeks. While on my site visit, I spent 7 hours a day reading on my front porch, surrounded by animal noises and the green espoir (hope) of freshly planted crops. Now that I’m back in AmericaLand, I have a tendency to spend most of my day indoors surrounded by Wi-Fi and climate control. I don’t feel that I’m wasting my days, but I do miss that extra dimension. Sure, I catch a few minutes of time here when I let the cats out, there when I walk to my car but it can hardly compare.

I usually get up around 8 am, spend some time drinking coffee, reading the newspaper and easing into the day. Next, I spend a few hours on la Red (the Net en español) reading blog posts and newspaper stories – I hit up the New York Times, Le Monde, El País and amuse myself by attempting to read a few headlines from Die Welt. Lunch comes all too soon and is a pleasant interruption. Maman comes home to chat about the day so far, what we’ll do that afternoon and how spoiled the cats are. My last few PT appointments have been in the early afternoon which gives me a chance to stretch out a bit.

Une fois rentré (once home), I read a few chapters from An American Tragedy(Dreiser), Half Broke Horses (Jeannette Walls) or Lettres philosophiques (Voltaire). Normally I enjoy the comfort of my bed, but reading works as a pleasant outdoor activity for me. The antics of birds and rabbits are still fun to watch, though remarkably less so now that they’ve figured out that the cat is too spoiled and fat to pose any serious danger. Then that 5 minute Facebook break has turned into an hour of snooping and clicking on various Wikipedia links. A few days a week before dinner, I like to me promener (walk around, stroll) with my mother in our local park. Birds call, soccer moms power-walk and youth unencumbered by jobs or homework congregate in the street to conduct loud bonding rituals (yelling, chasing, posturing).

Evening is a time of reckoning, when we stop and take stock of our day. Was it joyful/sad/productive/restorative/unsatisfying? When you don’t have a lot of scheduled activities, it’s easy to while the day away and then feel guilty at its bittersweet end. Twenty minutes of outdoor time is my minimum requirement for “fine day,” as the status quo around here is luckily “good day.”

Wishing you all "fine days" and Happy Halloween!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

De l’opacité à la transparence

The further I go in my study of languages, the clearer things become for awhile. It’s as if I’m polishing a glass window with a rag. It starts out completely opaque and I have no idea where to start. Sure of my ability to turn challenges into opportunities, I pick a spot and start polishing. Books and classes are my WindexTM, daily practice is my cleaning rag. This récemment-trouvé (new-found ) translucence is usually just clear enough for me to see just how much more work there is to do. But, whatever, I’m feeling pretty confident in my abilities and tackle a large swathe. Ooomf! I overreach and feel more lost than before. Then I remember how hard it was to make that first tache claire (clear patch) and go back to books, classes and speaking. Eventually, I get this spot clear and continue. Une fois terminé (once finished), I wipe the whole window again to turn translucence into transparence. I’m currently at different stages of this process for different language. Par exemple, the French window is mostly transparent with a few stubborn spots of translucence and some opaque blotches I have yet to encounter. I’d say that my English window is quite clean with a few specks, my Spanish window is getting more translucent by the day and that my Local Language window is mostly opaque with a few spots of clarity. I don’t need all of the windows to be perfectly clear all of the time – I’d simply like to be able to see what’s going on outside.

One domaine in which I’m currently trying to improve my vocabulary is biology. As the title of this blog explains, I’ll be teaching Sciences de la Vie et de la Terre in French once I return to Host Country. This is a challenge which puts me on equal footing with all of the other co-stagiaires since I don’t have a large scientific vocabulary in any language other than English. My language classes centered on daily activities (what kinds of fruit to buy, how to express that one would like to ski) and literary interpretation. These skills come in handy when trying to explain the reproduction cycle of flowering plants and climates of the Earth, but don’t give much clue as to the "proper" scientific terms. Last year in Nancy, I used to wander through the aquarium/natural history museum and gaze at the beautiful names for the exhibited wonders. Some corresponded directly to their English counterparts: une étoile de mer (literally “sea star”) is a starfish. Others had chosen different characteristics to highlight, but were still recognizable: une méduse is a jellyfish, which as a cnidarian goes through a life cycle of polyp and medusa stages. Still others had seemingly no connection: un scalaire is an angelfish, un escargot is (you guessed it) a snail.

Back in the States, I’ve been watching nature documentaries in French and Spanish. Clips from the BBC’s award-winning series “Planet Earth” and “Blue Planet” are available on YouTube in various dubiously-legal formats. Furthermore, I watched the French film “Océans,” a spinoff of the BBC idea condensed into one 1.5 hour film instead of several episodes. I learned that a walrus is un morse (una morsa in Spanish) and une baleine à bosse is quite literally a humpback whale. Granted, while living in a landlocked Sahelian country it’s unlikely that I’ll see any of these creatures, it’s still interesting to think about how language influences the way we think about the natural world. Since eighth grade my teachers and professors have expounded on the miracle of binomial nomenclature as a universal naming system. As more and more scientific articles are published in English rather than in French, German or Russian, what shifts are yet to come?

Speaking of shifts, I had a pleasant conversation with Host Country administrators this week and we’ll hopefully work with Peace Corps HQ to create a return plan for me in the coming months. À bientôt (see you soon)!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Je Suis D'Ici et D'Ailleurs, Entre Deux Vies*

News from the orthopedic surgeon today: good progress, waiting for the Brace that Will Hold Up the WorldTM, follow-up appointment in six weeks. Yes, my Kansas detour will last a bit longer than expected. I’ve recently suffered a few bouts of le syndrome de l’imposteur. All passed by quickly, alxamdulilaay, but still provided opportunities for self-reflection.

- Peace Corps – I have received a lot of support from friends/colleagues and am waiting to return, but I am no longer like the others. They have had many shared experiences and I don't know if I can les rattraper (catch up to them). Like many tightly-knit groups, the Peace Corps has its own idea of “age” based on length of service. In some countries, it’s not uncommon to hear “Are you from Host Country 20 or 21? When will the 20s have their training?” Will I still be in ma cohorte, in generation 1.5 or in another situation entirely?
- Grad School – As part of the great process of se tourner vers l’avenir (looking to the future), I’ve been researching graduate schools and comparing applications. Bien que (although) I’ll have great recommendations from faculty, I still started panicking when I saw the Personal Statement where I’m asked to define what led me to the field and what I hope to do with my education. Other concerns from web browsing: hard to refocus on “one” goal after relishing diverse experiences and reading selon mes envies (according to my urges/cravings) , comparisons with Everyone Else Who Is Wildly Successful (speaks/reads seven languages, has received super-fancy fellowships, etc).

In addition to moments of self-doubt and tortured self-reflection, I’ve had some very positive experiences as well. Not surprisingly, most of these deal with human interaction. Though I’ m an introvert most of the time, human contact and relationships sustain my emotional life and keep me from being listening too closely to the doubts swirling around my mind. That, and le sport – nothing like a nice walk on a sunny day to turn your mood around!

- Peace Corps - I’ve received a lot of encouraging mail and hope to speak to the administration team in Host Country in the near future about logistics, which should put most of these questions to rest. En outre, I’ll always have those strong connections with my group no matter what I’m called. This week, I gave presentations to sixth graders about the goals of the Peace Corps and what my all-to-brief journey to Burkina was like. This activated a positive feedback loop of performance and adrenaline and reminded me of the joy of teaching and why I joined the Peace Corps.
- Grad School - While stressing out, I glanced over my CV and some common themes jumped out (l’Afrique, la Francophonie, l’identité). I was able to type up a shitty first draft with some ideas, which went a LONG way towards calming me down. De plus, I reviewed some of my old papers and my spirits rose while rereading my own bright insights and encouraging comments from respected professors. While I have some fields that interest me more than others, I don’t have to actually be ready to write a dissertation/commit to a topic RIGHT THIS MINUTE!!!

*Sheryfa Luna

Monday, October 18, 2010

Age Ain't Nothin' But A Number (And a Host of Socially-Agreed Upon Conventions)

One large difference between cultures is the definition of stages of the life cycle. While in one context adolescence might extend until age 18, it may not be unusual to see 15 year olds with jobs and families. The very markers we use to define age classes also differ: what roles do academic achievement, independent living, childbearing, working full-time play in determining who is and who isn’t an adult? And how has the recent global recession changed the significance of these markers? If someone holds a full-time job and pays rent to his/her parents for a room in the family home, is s/he “self-sufficient”?

Much of this reflection was spurred after I had read this article from Newsweek while waiting for my physical therapy appointment. Clients at HomeTown physical therapy practice run the gamut from chatty octogenarians (J rides the bicycle next to me and compares progress and thoughts about the weather) to stoic jeunes from the local high schools in for sport injuries. During a recent appointment, I needed to do some exercises in the common room rather than in one of the intime (cozy) examination rooms. Suddenly, I was in view and within earshot of eight other patients and their therapists. Conversations regarding dog breeds, newly released films and best restaurants for a cheap date combined to form a cacophonie chaotique.

Though I’ve been out of college for awhile, I’m still used to being in age-segregated spaces. The majority of my fellow stagiaires in Host Country are between the ages of 23 and 26, with a few wonderful outliers. Last year in France, I lived with other twentysomethings in a dorm-type situation. At work, however, I interacted with two age diverse groups. As I’d expected, the faculty ranged in age from 23 to 60 but the more striking gamme was that of the students’ ages. Within one class, I worked with 14 year olds to 24 year olds and every age in between. Part of this is symptomatic of high rates of redoubler (repeating a year) at my particular établissement and in France in general. Redoublants can also be found in Host Country, the USA and many other countries, especially those that have strict promotion requirements and exams between primary, lower secondary and upper secondary schools.

From my observations, adolescence seemed to be the most variable state in Host Country life. The peoples of Host Country, like many around the world, believe that elders should be revered, due in part to their acquired wisdom. Children were given fewer responsibilities and accordingly fewer privileges. Adolescence, cependant, lasted five years for some people and ten for others. Some grew up faster due to external circumstances, such as the loss of a family member. Others, however, made conscious choices about how long they stayed in school, when they started asking for more adult clothing, when they became romantically involved.

Many of my working friends have independently arrived at the same conclusion: “adulthood” encompasses far more ages and stages than “childhood” or “adolescence.” This is not to suggest that the latter two phases are less important (or fraught with less drama!), but rather to make sense of the sudden shift from being surrounded primarily by age peers to making friends at different stages of life. There are many positive aspects to this change: opportunities for less formalized mentorship than could be found in an academic setting, less angst as everyone approaches the same transition phases. On the other hand, it can be hard as a freshly minted graduate to search for age peers, especially if most of your colleagues are 4+ years older and in different romantic/familial situations than yourself. Of course, this assumes that “you” were a traditional undergraduate who was not working more than 15+ hours per week, was not supporting a family and was 18-23 at the time.

While I had fun in college (thanks especially to R, K and P), life after graduation is wonderful as well. Thankfully most of my friends have found their way into medical/law/graduate schools which are good fits or have managed to find a job vaguely related to one or more of their interests. My parents aren’t the most *ahem* exciting people on the planet, but they make adulthood look like it’s not all tears and pain. Perhaps that’s one reason why I never felt the need to go overboard at université: I knew that there would be more waiting afterwards. Add this to the list of issues that I would like to investigate further dès mon retour (upon my return) to Host Country. Orthopedics appointment this week!
*Hat tip to Pretty Ricky and Aaliyah!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Donne-moi un signe, aucun signe!

Before leaving Host Country, we had a session on local superstitions and legends in Host Country. For a wonderful list, check out Valerie at Exit Anytime. According to the All-Knowing Mind (aka Wikipedia), Rules of Three exist in the fields of medicine, Wicca, mathematics, writing, economics, programming et beaucoup d’autres (and many more). With respect to writing, things often come in threes to suggest the building up and release of dramatic tension, to emphasize certain traits and to establish patterns. In the past few weeks, I’ve been searching for signs that I will indeed return to Host Country. To wit:

1) The NBC Nightly News ran a story about the Peace Corps reentering Sierra Leone after a 16-year absence. Many questions ensued from family and community members as to the veracity of this portrayal. Verdict: Accurate
2) The Amazing Race participants left Accra, Ghana to voyager to a rural village.My mother commented that she is now able to identify several West African countries on a map. Yeah Goal 3: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
3) Walking up my driveway, I noticed a spider web with a central gap that looked almost precisely like Africa. It was glittering in the mid-afternoon sun and I meant to take a photograph of it before the rain came down. No citation, but I have a very reliable witness.

And if you still think that those occurrences are due to the random hand of La Fortune ou les lubies (the whims) of national television and local arachnids, I submit the greatest sign of all: great messages from friends, family and community members. Thank you/Merci/Barka/Gracias/Obrigado/Jerejef/Danke.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

To everything - turn, turn, turn - there is a season..

Life this past week has been quite hectic. I’ve had to fill out a lot of paperwork and attend many rendez-vous at my excellent new physical therapy practice. Since I’ll be at HomeBase for awhile, I’ve also started reconnecting with college friends and researching prospective graduate programs while I have Internet. A few days a week, my mother and I take a turn about the local park for exercise and conversation. Furthermore, my bed presents too many temptations of sleep and reality TV for me to do any work there. Thus, I decamp to the kitchen island or the deck in order to draft these bloggy delights. Gazing out into my backyard or observing squirrels in the park’s pine trees, I’ve noticed signs that winter doth approach. The leaves are changing color, the rabbits are becoming bolder in their search for food and the shorts/flip flop combination I’ve been wearing is no longer sufficient to stave off chilly breezes. Growing up in the Midwest, I usually experience a few seasons every day and didn’t think much about the different climes presented in my schoolbooks. Having survived a tour de force European winter and more than a few blistering hot days in Africa, I can now better understand the importance of seasons in literature and film. Not only do places like South Africa have the opposite pattern of seasons from the US (spring starts in early September), but places like Host Country have an entirely different alternation of seasons (rainy season, hot season, not-too-hot-or-rainy season). In Western literature, autumn usually symbolizes decay, abundant harvest or some combination thereof (cf Keats, To Autumn). What if your home doesn’t have an autumn? One of the challenges for postcolonial nations is translating Northern Hemisphere experiences such as skiing to their own cultural realities. Mentions of senses that are supposed to remind us of shared experiences (a brisk autumn breeze, songbirds singing amongst melting snow) instead inspire exclusion. The phenomenon works both ways – I didn’t understand why so many peoples of the world took siestas until I lived in a subtropical climate for four months. But there was a key difference. As an American, I had access to a rich (in terms of sheer quantity and in cultural capital) literature relating experiences similar to my own. Works from their own cultures do exist, but they often aren’t widely distributed and are predominately written in world (colonial) languages. Things are starting to look up as more authors from the Global South are published and postcolonial studies gains more respect as an intellectual field of inquiry. Until then, Host Country pupils will still grow up surrounded by literature that speaks of falling autumn leaves and princesses with peau blanche comme neige (skin as white as snow).

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Escapism

Since my return to the US for further treatment of problems caused during Unbloggable EventsTM, I have been torn between wanting to learn as much as I can about Host Country from afar (reviewing language notes, reading journal articles, etc) and ignoring it so as not to dwell on my absence. At the same time, I’ve become more plugged into American culture (reading a Theodore Dreiser novel set in Kansas City, listening to popular music and checking Facebook a lot) but since I hope this will be a short detour rather than a long-term séjour (stay), I’m reluctant to completely engage with this culture. As a compromise, while I’m in this “liminal” state (shoutout to law student P and his diatribe against this term!), I’ve been focusing on European culture. This provides a good balance between America and Africa – I can maintain my French and Spanish language skills and already possess most of the cultural capital to understand phenomena in Western Europe. However, it’s still “different” enough to attract my curiosity and spur meditations on cultural diversity.

I’ve been listening to popular music that I come across on YouTube. One song that piqued my interest was Jena Lee’s Victime idéale. The singer asks a 13 year old girl if carelessly flaunting all of the material attributes of womanhood really makes her happy. First verse (with off-the-cuff translation):

Treize ans à peine, t’as peur de rien Barely thirteen, you fear nothing
Tu te sens femme, et tu la joues bien
You feel like a woman and you play the role well
T’as le lipstick et les piercings
You’ve got the lipstick and the piercings
Et sur ton blog, ton corps est en vitrine
And on your blog, your body is on display

Later references include “low-cut miniskirt,” “g-string,” “belly-button ring” and “mascara.” Having grown up in America during the 90s, I saw this phénomène at middle school and high school (according to reliable sources, it still exists). Would young women in Host Country villages identify with this material display of adulthood? Perhaps. Adolescents all over the world desire to be treated more like adults. Young ladies may not all have blogs and miniskirts, but they also find ways to express their maturity, such as by taking on different roles within the family, wearing more womanly outfits or dating. Gender roles are complex in both America and Host Country, involving styles of dress and speech, family composition and duties and educational/professional success. Not only does culture play a role, so does affluence – young ladies in Host Country cities have more access to good than their cousines villageoises.

A final escapist indulgence has been [limited quantities of] American reality TV. I’ve been watching a few episodes of “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” – reminders that in many cultures motherhood brings with it adult privileges and responsibilities. I’m not sure what direct and indirect cultural equivalents exist, but I’m excited to find out upon my return. Thanks to all of my stage-mates who have left comments – wend na ko-d nindaare (may God grant that we shall each other again one of these days)!