I'll be home for Christmas

I've been gone, on the road again, for over 3 weeks. My passport's gotten quite a workout and I'm ready, once again, to settle back in to American life.

Here's a brief rundown of my past few holiday seasons:
In 2010, I spent Christmas on a beach in Moz with fellow PCV's. We rented a beach house in Xai Xai and drank beer and reminisced about America, over 100 degree weather. I also attended a Mozambican neighbor's Christmas party.

In 2011, I spent Christmas in Taiwan with my sister and relatives. We gorged ourselves on seafood buffets and celebrated my sister's 20th birthday over tiramisu. I got bronchitis.

This year, 2012, I spent Christmas in LA with my fiancé and his family. I even had a stocking with my name on it! We played games, drank wine, went to church, and opened presents on Christmas morning.

Mozambique, Taiwan, USA. Each of these places has been home to me at some point in my life, and has become a part of me. In each of these places I find people I call my family. Aside from blood relations, "friends are the family we choose" and I'm never alone.

I'm lucky to have roots in different places and be able to see and experience so many things.
My heart is scattered to the East, to the West, to the North, to the South. The world is mine and I am the world's and no matter where I am, as long as I'm with people I care about, I'm always home for Christmas.

Visiting abroad and Peace Corps Goal 3

Much to the surprise of some of my friends, I am abroad once again, less than two months after my return from Africa. This time, I find myself on the delicious continent of Asia visiting friends and family.

I have so far spent four days in South Korea with an old roommate, Natalie, who is teaching English in Seoul. The next leg of my journey is Jakarta, Indonesia, where I will be visiting a Japanese friend named Yoko who was once my neighbor in Chibuto, Mozambique. (So you see, the world is not so vast and it's possible to transcend cultural and linguistic distances to keep up friendships.) The 3rd leg of my journey will be a visit to my motherland, Taiwan, where my little sister is studying Chinese.

Going from "residing abroad" to "visiting abroad" definitely has its differences.

During my two years in Mozambique, I only hosted one American visitor, my boyfriend (now fiance) Kevin, who actually came twice. I feel like it really made a difference in our relationship, because he was able to understand so much better the things I was experiencing in Africa. It was an amazing opportunity for me, to be able to show him a country that would otherwise not have been so accessible to him, and have him see it through my eyes instead of just written in a blog or posted onto Facebook via status updates and photos.
And that's what Peace Corps is about too, Goal 3: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

I really think that visiting friends abroad is a nice way of bringing a bit of "home" to them, bridging the distance, showing you support their work and are interested in their life. Living abroad for an extended period of time can be super challenging and lonely. (I personally would have loved to have more visitors in Moz.)

And travel costs aside, why wouldn't you take advantage of local connections who can, through their insight and recommendations, take you beyond the normal tourist experience and help you understand better the cultural aspects of what you're seeing? And take you to eat yummy local food.

So anyway. Get out of America and go visit someone who lives in a  cool place!

American Thanksgiving

I've always had a lot to be grateful for, but this year especially. After two years abroad, I was able to come home and spend Thanksgiving in America and ohmigosh, was it GLORIOUS.

Here's a quick breakdown of Mozambique Thanksgiving vs. American Thanksgiving:

Traveling 3 hours by crowded chapa and slow boleia to get to Chokwe vs. 2 hours in a private, air-conditioned car to get to LA
Sweaty 110+ degrees F  vs. Balmy 70 degrees F
Small charcoal one-burner stove to cook with  vs.  Oven and four stove-top burners (oh the possibilities!)
The power keeps going out (cutting off the fan)  vs.  Having an iPhone, laptop, iPad, and TV going at the same time
Dubious packaged turkey meat  vs.  Two full turkeys cooked two ways (fried and oven cooked!)
Cheap wine and liquor   vs.  Fancy vodka/ cranberry / champagne cocktails
Washing the dishes in two buckets of water  vs.  Throwing them in the dishwasher
Playing homemade Apples to Apples (Moz relevant topics)   vs.   Playing 10-Days-In-Africa, a board game [ I have to say, Moz Thanksgiving wins this category ]
Cold bucket baths  vs.  Hot, steamy showers
Sleeping on a straw mat, batting away mosquitoes all night   vs.  Snuggling in a big bed with a room heater and no mosquito net

What I really did appreciate about holidays as a PCV was seeing the determination of Americans to get together, despite distance and other obstacles. Both years we managed to have turkey feasts on Thanksgiving, despite having seen no existence of turkeys in Moz. Which just goes to show, you can always "make it work" even without electricity, running water, or grocery stores.

Of course, two years in Africa has  taught me to really, really appreciate the variety and abundance of food and flavors in America. I can recall countless times in which other PCV's and I sat around drooling while talking about foods that we missed from back home. And this year, Thanksgiving did not disappoint with a delicious home cooked meal of turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, grilled asparagus, cranberry sauce, Kev's chopped veggie salad, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and ice cream.

But of course, the best part was being with my fiancé, friends, and family during this festive time of year. The holidays would be a sad, lonely time if I didn't have them.
I thank God every day that I do.

One month

It's been exactly one month since I returned to the United States. Since then, here's what's changed:

- I don't get carsick anymore. Strangely enough, when I first got back I was feeling nauseous in the car ... because the roads were so smooth. I'm not even kidding. Any fast acceleration would leave me feeling sick; I guess I was used to the bumpy roads in Moz.
- Portuguese feels weird on the tongue, now that I am speaking it maybe once a week instead of all day every day. So I've joined a weekly language meetup group, but mainly they speak Brazilian Portuguese and call me out on my Moz accent.
- I don't wake up in the middle of the night and wonder where I am or where my mosquito net is.
- I've eaten about 80% of the things on my "Foods I Want When I Go Home" list.
- Kevin says my butt got bigger...
- ... So I'm working out again.
- All the other 15ers are steadily trickling home! It felt weird being here while they were all still there.
- One of my dogs in Chicumbane passed away. (See previous post)
- I've begun the job search, which may eventually lead me to the East Coast.
- I've started studying for the FSOT in February.
- I have re-learned the concept of personal space as it applies to standing in line.
- Winter in San Diego has arrived, but who are we kidding. 60's and 70's are nothing to complain about.
- I've not only gotten caught up on Facebook, Pinterest, LivingSocial, and Gangnam Style, I am now addicted to my iPhone. And Instagram. Thanks, Kev.
- I was finally approved for LASIK surgery and am getting it done this Friday :)
- I've made further plans to travel. In December, I will be heading to South Korea, Indonesia, and Taiwan to see friends and family.

Here's what hasn't changed:
- The president. (Boy, was I tired of election stuff by the end of it.)
- I still automatically place one hand under my elbow when shaking people's hands, a sign of respect in Moz culture.
- I still, when inebriated, run off into the bushes to tinkle. But at least I don't have the urge to do it when sober. (Anymore.)
- I still constantly marvel at how "expensive" everything is in the States and how easy it is to spend money.
- Grocery stores still intimidate me, with their absurd amount of options for everything.
- I continue to get offended when people don't greet me or acknowledge me when they walk by. Rude.
- I still haven't started driving, which makes living in California a bit inconvenient.
- I still miss Moz every day.

Magorducha

Today, I found out that one of my dogs in Chicumbane died.

His name was Magorducha and he was the sweetest. When he was a fluffly little puppy, he used to sleep against my front door every day and I'd have to warn him to get out of the way when I needed to go out.  Actually, he still did that occasionally when he was full grown, mainly in the evenings, I think just to let me know he was there to protect me.

No one loved this dog like I did. He was my baby.

I can't help but feel guilty, because I wasn't there in his final moments. It breaks my heart to think that he crawled into the house in his final moments and didn't find me.

Life goes on, everywhere, and that's a hard fact to face. But in my mind I'll always see him running up to greet me whenever I came home, digging holes in the quintal, chasing chickens, sneakily following me to work,  trying to come into the house when it rained, pulling my trash out of the trash pit, all the things that made him happy (and usually annoyed me). He was such a huge part of my life in Chicumbane, and I'll always love him for that.

I hope you're in doggy heaven, Magorducha, where you won't need to settle for maggoty goat parts anymore, and you can chase all the chickens you want. You deserve it.

The spider

It's been almost a month and I just saw my first spider. It seemed strangely, horrifyingly out of place in my first world kitchen.
I went out to dinner with a friend this week and she was complaining about crickets in her house. Crickets! Who is terrified of crickets? I laughed and regaled her with my Peace Corps horror stories. In Mozambique, not a day went by without at least one encounter with a creepy critter: spiders, ants, wasps, geckos, snails, cockroaches, scorpions, bats, rats, you name it.
"I would have left Africa immediately," she replies, and I try to convince her that it wasn't that bad. Honestly, it wasn't. It was just a part of life.
But then I see the tiny 8-legged guy in my kitchen sink and for some reason, it really disturbs me. I guess things like that are contextually out of place in America. I don't live in a reed house with a tin roof anymore, I don't have to sleep under a mosquito net, I don't have to be completely independent and self-sufficient. If I there were a rat scuttling around in my house here, I'm not sure I could just pick up a broom and beat it to death, and then go back to sleep. I don't think I could just poke the bat hanging in the corner of my kitchen, until it crawled back into the hole it came from. I probably wouldn't crawl under the bed to chase down a white camel spider the size of my hand.
In a lot of ways, African Viv is so different from American Viv. How do I reconcile the two?

Missing person's in the window / Staring at me / Saying things I can't hear / A missing person's in the window / Staring at me / Haven't seen them in years - Onerepublic

Just a matter of time

Time moves differently here. 

I felt it almost the moment I arrived.

Americans live in a monochronic culture, which means that they see time pass linearly, in quadrants that can be organized, quantified, controlled, and scheduled. Monochronic cultures are obsessed with making lists, following schedules, being on time.

But for the past two years I've been living in a polychronic culture, in which time is seen as fluid, infinite, continuous. There's always "more time" to do things. It's not even important to finish one thing before starting another. Relationships are more important than tasks.

I get back to the U.S. and I immediately feel the pressures of time. People run around from appointment to appointment, to and from their structured 9 to 5 jobs. There's no such thing as just sitting outside and visiting with your friends. Most people don't even know their neighbors.

A whole day can go by while I'm sitting in front of the computer, sucked into the internet. I'll make dinner dates and be completely caught off guard when my friends show up on time. I'll step outside and be astounded by the weather. Sometimes when I'm standing in line I'll casually lurk over the person in front of me's shoulder. I still get the urge to just toss my trash on the ground.

But mostly I feel panicked, like I need to jump aboard the train before it takes off without me. Everyone's got "real jobs" and "life goals" ... and all I  really want to do is sit under a mango tree and read a book. But you see, that just wouldn't be "productive," right? Right?

Sitting, waiting, wishing

When you live in a third world country, it can be kind of hard to keep up with worldwide happenings - like a U.S. election, for instance. Tonight, faced with the decision to watch the final presidential debate, Monday night football, or the Giants-Cardinals game, I really had the urge to just turn off the TV.
In the end, I sat through the debate but I wasn't impressed with any of it. My vote goes to the moderator Bob Schieffer for not telling them both to shut up. Politics will never change. It will always be divisive, full of lies, he-said-she-said. I'm already tired of it.

I forgot how terrible television is. I sit on the couch and scroll through the channels, and I'm disappointed every time by the crap that Americans watch. There's a show called Cheaters, which is all about people cheating on other people and having huge dramatic confrontations. People care about the strangest things.

Sometimes... I feel like I haven't missed much. Sometimes I wish I were back on my veranda in Mozambique, without the barulho of advertisements, political arguments, sports fanaticism, MTV... just me and my Mozambican dogs, and maybe a mango or two.

New day, new adventure.

So far so good.
Every day is a new adventure.

The grocery store.
I'm overwhelmed the moment I walk in. Too much of everything. Over 10 types of apples, are you kidding me?
The banana bunches freak me out because they're three times the size of the Mozambican bananas I'm used to buying.
I guess it's not acceptable to ask for a bacela when I'm checking out?
Kev and I make a bet at the checkout counter, he says the total is $110, I say it's $130. In the end, it's $110 and I pay for everything. How much produce would I have to buy to spend that much in Mozambique? (I have to stop trying to convert everything to meticais in my head...)
























The bank.
What? Everyone is so nice! The banker shakes my hand, introduces himself, calls me by name, and  is just so helpful. He keeps apologizing for the wait, ha ha. What wait? Twenty minutes later, he has everything taken care of. And then he walks me out and wishes me a nice day.
I'm pretty sure that in Moz, the same bank errands would have taken three hours, which means that I just saved 2.5 hours of my life! Wheee!!! This calls for a celebration, and a Starbucks passion tea lemonade.

Target.
This place is nuts! Just rows and rows of  brightly lit everything. I'm glad I'm with Kevin because he seems to know what we're looking for and where it is; I just follow him and try not to get whiplash from the speed my head is turning as I "apreciar" as much as I can. (Aaaand another $100 dropped here)

The laudromat.

I haven't seen a washing machine in two years. How convenient is just tossing a few quarters into a slot and letting it do all the work for you? I could probably sit in front of the dryer and watch clothes spin for days. 

Foods, foods, foods.

Yeah. Can we talk about spiced salmon tacos, lox and bagel, bacon, brisket and gravy, root beer floats, sushi, bleu cheese burgers, coconut shrimp, peppercorn steak medallions, spinach omelettes, arugula salad, and carne asada burritos? 

Except everything sort of makes my stomach hurts. And I keep forgetting that I'm lactose intolerant until I've already ordered something with tons of cream in it. 
Oh well.
Doesn't. stop. me. 

The Journey Home

Three planes (Maputo -> Johannesburg -> Dubai -> LA) and 34 hours in transit finally brought me home to the U.S. of A...
My last few hours in Moz (which included being late to the airport, bribing a cop, having a problem with my visa, and getting harassed by airport personnel) sent me sprinting on to the plane, ready to get the hell out. Nonetheless, I cried when we took off and I got my last glimpses of Mozambique. I also cried when I re-read the poem one of my jovens wrote me, and when I opened the letter I'd written to myself two years ago the day I swore in as a Peace Corps volunteer, and when the U.S. immigration officer told me, "Welcome home, little lady!" and when the Customs official said, "Welcome home and thank you for your service" and when I hugged Kevin for the first time. Basically, I spent a lot of time crying. And I'm sure there will be plenty more times to come.
As the plane descended upon LA, all I kept thinking was how beautiful America is... the sky was amazingly blue, the Pacific Ocean so vast, the city so organized and developed with clear highways and tall buildings. Even from miles up in the air, you can see such a huge difference.Over Africa, the red sand and spaced out clusters of rusted tin roofs. Over Dubai, the endless sand dunes of the desert. Over LA, the city so gray and geometric. The cars on the freeway looked like ants zipping around the anthill. Everything is picture perfect, nothing is out of place, even the trees are manicured. I think the guy next to me on the plane was laughing at me because I pretty much had my nose pressed to the window pane until we were on the ground.
Seeing my fiancé Kevin was surreal; he had a bouquet of flowers for me and a shiny new iPhone which I wasted no time playing with. There was a moment in which I became very disoriented, when we got to the car and I realized the steering wheel wasn't on the right side. 
Aside from that, everything's been great so far. I do miss Mozambique but I'm still high on the euphoria of being home, eating tons of good food (last night: asparagus and spiced salmon tacos, and German apple cake and this morning: bacon and eggs, lox and everything bagels). Next week I'll be back in San Diego, where all I have on the agenda is unpacking and catching up with old friends. It'll be nice to just relax for a while and get used to the idea of being home.

"Well, congratulations. Parabens! Here opens a new chapter of your life just as today, in the past, a new chapter will open up as well. Here's to hoping that you and I are not complete strangers, that even if we are, one day far down the line we'll both see, that our struggles were made worthwhile and that everything turned out exactly the way it's supposed to be."
- In a letter to myself for the end of my Peace Corps service, written December 03, 2010

I'm coming home / I'm coming home / Tell the world I'm coming home

I am the first of my Peace Corps Mozambique group to COS (shout-out to MOZ15!!!) and as I close out my service, I keep hearing talk of “Reverse culture shock”- that complicated phenomenon that hits expatriates upon return to the homeland. Contrary to popular belief, returning home is not as easy as just picking up where things were left off. Time has elapsed, people have changed, everything isn't the same.

In a way, going to Africa was easy because I was mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared for something completely new and different. On the other hand, I don't know that I'm prepared to feel like a stranger in my own country.

I kept a weekly blog during my two years abroad (Musings from Mozambique). Now as I enter the next phase of this crazy adventure, I'll be writing about my experience coming home and re-joining American society.

Some of the blog names I considered in creating this blog:

• Life Without Mel (my dog)
• Menos Moz (“without Moz”)
• No More Lanche (a reference to the Mozambican custom of having snack time between meals)
• De lá para L.A. (which would work if I actually lived in Los Angeles and not San Diego)
• Voltando (“returning”)
• Embora (“away”)

In the end I chose USAmbique, which I felt encompassed the sentiment of being stuck in the middle, neither here nor there, in limbo. I loved my time in Mozambique and I'm sooo excited to be home but I anticipate that the next few months will be a challenging and emotional adjustment.

Join me on my journey of re-entry, as I re-learn what it means to be American and come to terms with being, finally, an RPCV.

Viv