Consequences of boredom

Now in dual-post on blogger.com! Wow, okay, more excitement than strictly necessary.

Fundza has become enjoyable; I wrote up a grant today, and now I need to find someone or a plural amount of someone to fund a debate competition. Friday will be devoted to getting those sent out, and starting on the next focused grant. It's the second day I've worked with them, and today's problem was: someone (not Nonkululeko) forgot to pay the phone bill, so, no phone, no internet. Internet hasn't been especially reliable at S.'s, but I honestly am not complaining about that: means I have time to do Yoga instead.


The sunset is not a long, drawn out affair here. The sun takes longer in its decent behind the mountains here than it would at the equator, but instead of painting the clouds in a spectrum of colors, the sun casts a comforting (dangerous) glow of orange and red as it sinks from sight. Almost immediately upon the sun disappearing behind the mountains, the sound of birds is conspicuously absent--only the sounds of insects and lizards can be heard for maybe a few moments--and then the dogs begin to bark with a greater ferocity than they did during the day. Or perhaps it is just more noticeable, since aside from the insects and wind, there are no other sounds aside from a car occasionally passing by on the main road.


The wind seems to be constantly blowing here, sometimes just brushing the top-most leaves of the palm trees in the back yard. When the trees with stronger branches with leaves are still, the palms still move, as if there is a wind that only they experience. The sound of the wind, insects and lizards are the only noises that come from within the gilded cage that is S.’s house. I am quite grateful for being able to stay here, but the traveler in me compares it to going to Cancun. You’re in Mexico, but in name only; you might as well be in a Holiday Inn with a "Mexican Theme Night". S. is wonderful and encourages me to do what I can to get out into the community, but as long as I have her house to run back to, I do not know how well I will get over my culture shock. I haven’t been stuck in the “irritation and hostility” stage, luckily, aside from the occasional bouts of irritability. Aside from Nonkululeko, Thembi, and some of the guards, I know relatively few people.


I'm at least acquainted now with the NGO community here, but it only goes so far for getting a feel for the culture here. In meetings like the one on the Sexual Abuse and Domestic Violence bill, I only get abstracts, not the actual experience. The best way I can think to explain it is that it is like doing book work but never getting hands-on experience. My walks do help to some degree, but the language barrier presents some problems. Hopefully Thembi will be able to help me some more with it all. The hi-jacked Peace Corps language materials help, but it's only the pre-departure version. I will have to see if S. can help me gakk more of the materials.

Tomorrow I will be paying a Khambi driver to let me ride around with them on their runs--just for the sake of seeing more of the countryside. There is something drawing me to areas outside Mbabane. It may be the same inexplicable impulse that is slowly but vehemently insisting that I go towards Northern Africa and the Arabic-speaking world. And if it isn’t the same thing, they must at least be intrinsically woven together.

It is related to the impulse that has always told me to avoid the hotel and tourist bars and find the expat and local ones. The impulse that urges me to do things like go off with the group of young writers in Cuba, or explore old Town Quito on my own. The impulse that draws me away from the familiar and plunges me into the adventures and near-mishaps that characterize my travel experiences. And no, it’s not a death wish, nor is it a little voice telling me to do things. I know that it comes from somewhere within me, it is the craving to experience, learn, and understand.

It is impossible, many times, to understand anything on the same level as someone who has lived in a place all their lives. But there is that moment, after you take a risk with something new, be it an idea, a person, a place, when you are granted that small insight, that flash of understanding that is as close as you, and outside, can get to the real thing. You can find it through experiences and feelings that can’t ever truly be described; like in watching a sunset that you want to take a picture of, but you know the picture will never give people the same feeling as you have when you watch it. Sometimes it is there when you are standing in or looking at something that you can just feel the history radiating off of. It is that flash, jolt or realization is there when instead of driving through a quaint little village, you impulsively stop and go into a shop or restaurant. It's there when you are looking at craggy mountains covered in mist, and it is there when you join in an impromptu soccer game on a dirt field with laughing children. It's there when you share a meal with a family that you didn’t know until they saw you sitting alone and invited you to dinner, let you into their lives.

And it isn't always a positive experience that lends this understanding to you. Sometimes it comes from being mistaken or making a blunder, or being so incredibly bored out of your mind that you have to do something...something! to keep the boredom at bay. Sometimes it comes from seeing a poverty so severe that the only word you can think of is "wretched," and understanding that you could never completely understand it.


And sometimes, you never find it. That's what scares me the most--I fear the day when I become so jaded, or so distracted that I can't make time for those moments. That fear is what will make me stick it out in Swaziland for a while longer, I do not like to think that there is any place on earth that I cannot feel like I could learn like I would live forever. (Even if that place is Dover, DE or Kingston, NY). It's also possible I just don't like living Swaziland, though.


That got a bit more intense that I had meant it to. But after a certain point, boredom can lead to more introspection than strictly necessary. In any case, will update on the more concrete aspects of life at another point.

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