The Importance of Doing Laundry

Thursday 2/6/08
Hi everyone! I apologize for the long delay in updating you on my activities here. I'm sure you are all anxiously awaiting the details from my safari, and I will tell you that I had an amazing time and have much to say on the subject. I am working on transcribing each day's activities from my journal, but it will likely take me another day or two. As of right now, I should be writing my 5-page literature review for my research paper, but I encountered a turning point today that I feel compelled to write about while it is still fresh in my mind.
I will begin by telling you a story. For the last two days, a mysterious young girl (roughly twelve years old) has been living in Leish's room (same roommate who temporarily housed her two sons a few weeks ago after their father died). She did not speak to us, nor we (Alyssa and I) to her so we mused that it must be another one of Leish's children staying with her for some unknown reason. Things have been particularly strained between Leish and Alyssa and I for the past four days for reasons that are now too trivial to discuss, so it wasn't until this morning when Leish apologized to me (she woke me up last night blowing up an air mattress outside my door for the little girl) that I found out the real story. Apparently, this thirteen-year-old girl is Leish's niece, and was kicked out of her home by her mother because the mother got married and decided she no longer wanted the child. Furthermore, the mother was extremely abusive towards the girl even going so far as to beat her with a pot that was hot off the stove. The girl's grandmother is on her way today to bring the girl to live with her, but Leish is worried because the girl's mother is now expressing an interest in getting her back. As the legal guardian, there is nothing Leish or the grandmother can do to stop the mother from taking the girl back, and Leish has no idea what kind of child protection services are available to forcibly remove the child from the situation. She asked me whether or not that kind of thing happens in the U.S. and I gave her the example of some people I met who had been kicked out onto the streets for telling their parents that they were homosexual. I did say, however, that there were definitely systems in place to keep the mother from being able to reclaim the little girl given probable cause of abuse.
I was very affected by this story, and as I went up to do my laundry in the bathtub, I began to realize something that is not new to me conceptually, but when seen in reality is very very different. Growing up, we as Americans are taught that we are privileged and that most people in the rest of the world have nothing compared to us, and I would have considered myself to be very conscious of this fact prior to coming to Botswana. I even anticipated the fact that seeing this concept in person would be especially shocking.
What I realized today was that for the last two months, I have not allowed myself to see this age-old concept in real life. Instead I have been wrapped up in the fact that I am a victim of the third world. I've seen the injustices that people here deal with every day, but I have seen it in the context of my own well-being when in reality, my presence here is fleeting and I will soon return to my comfortable lifestyle with all the resources and support I need to realize my dreams.
What I have refused to let myself see is this reality in the context of the faces I encounter every day. Leish is a perfect example. Her way of dealing with conflict in the apartment has resulted in a lot of tension between her and Alyssa specifically, but I too have been extremely frustrated at times with the way in which she has handled these issues. What I never stopped to think about was the reason behind her actions. My father attempted to illuminate this in an email yesterday, but I was unwilling to listen through my frustration. In listening to her talk about this poor little abused girl, however, I suddenly was able to acknowledge the hardship Leish must be going through to finish her graduate studies on top of working three jobs and being intimately involved in the problems of her family because she knows that the only way to find a better life for herself and her family (maybe) is by getting as educated as she can. Even then, there are only so many jobs and so many opportunities for advancement. It's like one of the doctors from the clinic was saying yesterday. She and her husband are here from India, and her husband doesn't want to go back to India, because here he doesn't have to worry about working hard to get a promotion because there are none.
The reality is this: where I grew up, life was fair and I was rarely met with a situation that stood in the way of my future that I couldn't work through. Life was not full of little injustices that couldn't be rectified. Obviously this isn't something that applies to all of America, but it certainly applies to many of the people reading this blog. What I am seeing in a way that learning about it can never illustrate, is that all the struggles that I have encountered and complained about here at UB are everywhere in life in Botswana, and instead of four months of being "inconvenienced" by them, people here have to deal with them and overcome them in order to survive. Life isn't fair, and as cliche as that sounds, I don't know how many people can really grasp at the fact that life really is not fair. I certainly didn't until I was here.
What I am left with as of now are a few things:
- guilt at how self-pitying I have been
- guilt at how I have come to treat men in order to "fend" them off
- guilt at how I have failed to understand the meaning of, "you guys are lucky to live in the
U.S."
- uncertainty as to how to proceed from here
- fear that reverse culture shock is going to be very difficult for me to deal with
What I can conclude from all these musings is that there's a lot to be said for the fact that people can deal with all that they must in life and still have the courage to put a smile on their face. That's the biggest lesson I can learn from this, and something I hope to apply to life here in Botswana as well as at home. My response to all the attention my skin color attracts has been to shut down almost completely and isolate myself from the people on the street or walking around campus. I realize now, that's been a major source of stress for me because that's not who I am. I should be rejoicing in the fact that I can say hi to everyone I see without getting weird looks like I would in the U.S. Instead I have become reserved and even bitter towards people who stare at me constantly (or men who want to stop and talk to me). I have allowed myself to get caught up in seeing the negative side of things and that's going to stop right now. If it means that I am inviting more attention than I want because I'm being myself, then I will learn to deal with that in the context of who I am. It's also an important lesson in love and compassion for all people. When I get home, I will be thrown back into a very different lifestyle with very different problems, and there are two ways I can respond. I can be righteous and put people down for being trivial, or I can acknowledge that in that person's reality, that issue is significant and I can serve them best by empathizing with them while still keeping in mind that for every problem, there is another problem that is graver, or more trivial than it and you can drive yourself crazy by letting every problem be earth-shattering, or you can take them in stride.
This was a pretty heavy entry, and I apologize for that, but it is something that I feel is very significant to my experiences and if I don't share it, I am withholding things that will have a marked impact on who I am and become in the future. Thanks for reading. I will send out a much more exciting and happy blog tomorrow. TTFN!