The Sweet Here After

2/12/2011

The Sweet Here After


She takes a long pull from her cigarette, her lips pursed, she holds the smoke in. A pause, a long exhale, and she tells me, “I told you if I was harassed one more time I was going to ET (Early Termination).” The words come out in smoke. “I’m ETing.” She says. Two letters that cause a mix of emotions for any volunteer. And much like what she’s going through I feel sadness and joy. It hurts to say goodbye. But I'm proud of her for doing what it takes to be happy. It’s hard to push aside your pride as a volunteer in order to be happy.

She waves the smoke from my face then leans back, her arms crossed, “You know, all you group seven volunteers do is bitch about the conditions here and now you’re just counting down the days until you leave. I don’t want that.” One never really knows what to say in these moments. So I hug and tell her I’m proud of her because I know no one else will. “You know what I miss the most?” She asks me. “That taste of crisp cold water from the garden hose. Metallic and smooth on a hot summer’s day.” “Yeahhhhh.” I say. “Well. You’ll be home soon enough and you can find the nearest hose and enjoy it on a hot day.” She laughs, “Mere. It’s the middle of winter back home.” The days, months, years have all meshed together. How long have I been here? “Please don’t tell anyone.” She’s pleads with seriousness. “I leave Wednesday and I’d just like to go without the goodbyes. You’re the only one who knows and I want it to stay that way.”

And here’s where you might be confused. For many, the best part about leaving is the heart-felt goodbyes that follow. We all experienced this our last few weeks in the States. Parties and cards. Pats on the back. Free drinks. MORE free drinks.

But for a volunteer whose leaving service early (not for medical reasons) they fear they won’t experience this. Some project their guilt onto other volunteers. The fear of judgment. Are they thinking, “Oh she couldn’t cut it”? A volunteer’s pride has such a tight grip on us all. “If it weren’t for my pride, I would have left a long time ago.” She tells me. Of course none of us would ever say these things. But once she had gone, there were those who questioned what she might have done wrong. “Wasn’t there a volunteer living there before her? She made it work, why couldn’t she?” They ask.

My Swazi friend, who I have become close with over the past few months, he’s known many Peace Corps, Finish, Canadian, Australian volunteers over the years and his knowledge of the Swazi world has been a great light for me in times of confusing darkness. His father was Minister of Agriculture and close friends with the previous King. It’s a small country and a big family. I can’t go anywhere with him without him greeting every single person that passes. We shall call him: Mamba. “It’s just selfish!” He protests. “To leave everyone without saying goodbye.” He flips his long dreads over his shoulder and shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

Going home is a HUGE ordeal for anyone. No matter how long they’ve been here. The things you’ve seen, the bonds you’ve made. No one will understand that back home. Even your closest friends won’t see you in the way they once did. Everything fast-forwards when you travel with strangers. Weeks move like years, and years become a lifetime.

I’ve been in this situation before. I found myself at the bottom of the world a few years ago, Antarctica, with my boyfriend at the time, and we had made ourselves a little family with the people down there. Only together 5 months, but felt like a lifetime, it was time to say goodbye. Everyone huddled together, penguin-like, and we’re saying our tearful goodbyes. Hugs are being passed. Tears wiped off each other’s faces. Emails being scribbled down. “Who’s got a pen!? Paper?!” I turn to say goodbye to one friend, but she is no where to be found. She’s gone. The door is open and I know she has already left. I run down the street to find her. But it’s too late. She couldn’t bear saying goodbye to all of us. Now imagine, having to do this with almost 70 people and for some, being with them for over two years.

Mamba continues to insist, however, that not saying goodbye is selfish. “What if I wanted to say goodbye to her?! If you just left without saying goodbye Mere. I’d be incredibly hurt!” I laugh, “It’s not about YOU. It’s about the person leaving. Most of the volunteers who leave, seem to just vanish, and most of us understand.” Like an animal ready to die. He knows his time is up. My first cat, crawling into the dog house my dog never used, taking his last few breaths- preferring solitude over company.

“I’ll see you on the other side.” I tell her. She goes to speak and we are interrupted by another volunteer who has spotted us outside this café. “Oh man!” She exclaims barreling in for a landing at our table. She flings her bags down on the ground. A typical Peace Corps prop: backpacks and bags. “My butthole is on fire!” She shouts. We laugh. “The shits again huh?” I ask. Doesn’t matter what the topic of conversation is, the discussion of poo always manages to slide (ha) its way in. “What’s the consistency this week?” We ask her. She plops down and tells us in detail. The sophisticated white give us the dirty glare and shift in their seats, with horror, sipping their filtered coffees. I keep quiet. I keep this volunteer’s secret to myself, occasionally a sympathetic glance her way every now and then.

That night I sleep at a backpackers. A volunteer from the previous group (Group 6) is finally COSing (Completion of Service). She’s been here well over two years and now, is going home. But like many, she won’t go straight home. She has a one-way ticket to Spain and from there she will see where the road takes her. I reek of jealousy. There are five Peace Corps volunteers seated outside with us, sipping our glasses of cheap boxed wine. The Last Supper. We’re surrounded by a handful of girls from Finland- fresh off the plane- bright eyed and blonde; bubbly and bright.

We are Yin and Yang.

Our friend COSing,Victoria, sits and stares at her plate of food her friend has made her. She stares, chain-smoking, “I can’t eat.” She tells us. Her friend, from her group and will be leaving in a few weeks herself, smiles,” You need to eat Victoria.” She’s on her fifth cigarette in ten minutes. Hands shaking. “I’ve got too much anxiety.” She says. The bright eyed bushy tailed Fin giggles, “But you’re going to SPAIN! How can you have anxiety about that?!” Peace Corps volunteers look down. We take Victoria’s hand now. “I don’t know what I’ll do.” Victoria continues. “ I don’t know where home is. What home is. I’ve invested SO much here. It was just starting to feel like home.” We nod in agreement. I lean in and ask her friend if she went to her host family today to say goodbye. She whispers back, “No. I don’t think she did. It’s too difficult. They were very close.”

All these transitions I’ve witnessed of previous volunteers, I know what is in store for me now.

I get an email from a group 6 volunteer, Jenn. She writes, “ I got a job at the Grateful Bread where you worked in Seattle. I think I only got it though because you used to work here. Lots of them have put it together that we were in Swaziland together. They really loved you there. It’s all going ok, being back, but it’s just weird. I’m different now. I enjoyed traveling after service. But it’s so hard to come back. What will you do next? Time is coming to come back home for you guys. Good luck.”

Another Group 6 volunteer writes: “I went through two weeks of depression when I came home. I didn’t eat at all. It all started when I went into Target for the first time and walked through the Breast Feeding aisle. A whole aisle for breast feeding! I think of the women back in Swaziland. The babies. Their life. My life back there. Good luck. Home is waiting for you, but man is it rough.”

I remember, three months into service, a group six volunteer telling me aid is killing this country. “We need to pull out!” She exclaims to me in her little hut. Her mannerisms exaggerated by candlelight. Angry shadows. What a jerk, I thought. What is she doing in the Peace Corps then? I watched another group six volunteer scowl at the attention from men and roll her eyes at the pushy gogos. God, I’ll never be that bad. I once thought. It seems like a lifetime ago now, but here I am rolling my eyes and scowling at “them”.

I know now what’s ahead for me. I’m right on track. I wake up angry. I go to sleep angry. I taunt the Swazi man. I tease the Swazi police. They spend their days in the city profiling. Targeting white, Indian, and Asian who may jaywalk and then demand a payment of 60R. You watch them put the money into their pockets and move onto their next target. One day, feeling rather dull, I just wanted to feel something again. I spot two police officers across the street. And so I decide to do it. Right there. I jaywalk. Right in front of two bored scrawny officers. They stop me and my friend. (My poor friend didn’t see the cops and followed blindly). They shout. I refuse to pay. They get angry. I get angry back. They threaten. I welcome it. “Fine.” I say. “I’ll spend the night in jail. But I am NOT paying you.” My friend apologizes on my behalf and they let us go.

It’s been since August since I’ve left this tiny country. I need a break before I get myself into serious trouble. With two other volunteers we catch a ride to Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. All I’ve heard is how “American” this place is. We enter the streets of this city, an actual city. We’re refugees of the techno Swazi world. The first thing I spot, pinecones. Pinecones! I pick one up from the ground, fascinated. I cradle it and bring it to my nose. One of the best parts of being away from home, is re-entering it all over again with a different perspective and a different appreciation. It’s like being on drugs (or so I imagine). Home in my hands.

Our first stop is to the Peace Corps office for Peace Corps volunteers in South Africa. We arrive and greet other volunteers. We shake with gentility, a firm handshake, and eye contact that says, “I’m American.” We introduce ourselves by country of service first, then our names. Morocco, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana.

Tonight I’m sharing a room with another volunteer at a backpackers. “We thought you two would get along, being that you’re both Peace Corps, so I put you in a room with him” The receptionist tells me. “Him?” I ask. “Yes. Him.” She repeats. “Is he cute?” I joke. She takes me to the room and I catch him watching, Everybody Loves Raymond. How embarrassing. “Swaziland.” I say. “Lesetho.” He responds. And handshakes follow. We’re brothers in South Africa, both in landlocked countries inside here. We share a few beers outside. The Afrikaners surround us. Silly language, we tell each other. We tell our stories and nod in agreement. He gets it. We have a shared view of this world now and so too a special bond. “I’m never coming back to Lesotho.” He tells me. “There’s no culture. No compassion. No curiosity on their end. All of sub-Saharan Africa, I am told, is this way. I’m never coming back.” He shares my disenchantment for Sub-Saharan life. Every Peace Corps volunteer has heard about the volunteer in Lesotho that was shot last year and killed. And I’ve had just enough beers to finally ask the question,
“Did you know him?”
“Tom?” He clarifies.“Yeah. I knew him. I held him in my arms as he took his last breath.”
And again, one never really knows what to say in these moments. We’re all growing up, these experiences, these tragedies, shaping who we become. Twenty something year olds being slapped with the cold bitter bare hand of the outside world.

It’s the next morning, and I find him eating his muesli. I shake his hand, “It was a pleasure.” I tell him. “I have to go.” He stands, “Ah. I should get your contact!” The more you travel, the more people you meet, the less you feel the urgency to hold onto every single person you bump into along the way. I feel now, more than ever, more comfort with the goodbyes. Appreciating these brief encounters and the stories we’ve shared and just leaving it at that. I avoid the searching for scrap paper and pen dance. I tell him my name. “You can find me on facebook.” A new appreciation for this Social Network.

Back home now, I walk the streets of Manzini. A dramatic repository of skeletons and piss. Simple buildings. A dispassionate smell and light. Goiters, people walking around with bulbous growths on their necks. The crippled drag their bodies along these busy streets. The crowd, a surging shoulder to shoulder mass, has become more comfort to me now.

I stand on the side of the road waving down anyone who will give me a free ride home. A car pulls over and inside, a papery skin little old white lady sits behind the wheel. “Get in.” She says. American? I wonder. She holds out her hand, “I’m Brenda.” “Meredith” I say back, rarely going by Simphiwe anymore. Brenda immediately dives into who she is and where she’s from. It’s incredible how easily someone can open up once they find one similarity with you. Ours: white. I soon find more similarities between us. Brenda was a Canadian volunteer in Zambia for two years, in her twenties. She served two years then traveled the world. “I didn’t start this new life of settling down until I was 31. When I had my first child. And I’ve got four now. Don’t worry Meredith, you’ve got plenty of time for that life.” When Brenda finally returned home, to Canada, after serving in Zambia for two years, she longed for that “African connection” again. She went to libraries and centers searching for any Zambians in her country through the net. She ended up finding 4 Zimbabweans. Eventually, she married one. They moved to Zimbabwe then to Swaziland, where she has been living with him and her four children for 26 years now. “I love my life!” She exclaims. “I love your life.” I laugh.

I envy her drive to come back. Her passion for this world here.


Will I fly out of here with my one- way ticket, with no regrets? Will I ever set foot on this country again? Or, like my Lesotho friend, will I say, “Fuck it. I have no wish to come back.” When I fly back to the fancy café’s with their edgy urban chatter, will I, like Brenda, search my home country for my “African Connection”? Will I fly back home, seated at my father’s dinning room table, he at the head, proud of the food he has just prepared for his family (even though we all know it’s my step mother whose done most of the cooking). My grandmother will slap the table and say, “Welcome home Meredith! Tell us, what have you learned on this journey of yours?” I’ll take a deep breath in, turn to my father and he’ll ask me (like he always does when I return home from a journey), “So, tell me, how much MORE do you appreciate America now?” What will I say? All the faces I’ve met, all the words I’ve spread, the ideas we’ve expressed, the tears we’ve shared. Does it make me love my country more? Does it make me love Swaziland less?


Just like Victoria, we’ve acclimatized to the noise down here, to the old gogo shrieking at the ten or so grandchildren on her homestead, to the sound of the corrugated iron expanding and moving with the midday heat, to the young boys wacking their cattle home against the backdrop of another warm and fire-breathing sunset. These are the things we’ve come to know as “home”. But suddenly, a sudden pause in this noise, and you’re gone before you know it.