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?