Home is where the xxx is, tips for taking/surviving/enjoying home leave

After two and a half weeks in America, I was ready to get back to Mauritania, get back to work. Don’t get me wrong: I thoroughly enjoyed bowls of chili with old family friends, coneys and baseball games with my brother, swimming with young cousins, grilled chicken sandwiches, coffee with cayenne pepper and cream, family reunions, barbecue dinners, putting faces to emailed names, empty dance clubs and cardboard box warehouses, cold beers and fireworks, pancakes and goetta, omlettes and salsa, triscuits and apples and cheese. Few things beat hugs from my brother (kid’s built like a fridge) and my step dad (warmest, most generous man I’ll ever meet). Hula hoops and giggles with Frances made up for strange nights on the Northside. And killing time with my mom, even if we were just watching bad TV and eating ham sandwiches, was lovely.

These delights notwithstanding, being back in Cincy was… exhausting. Nostalgic? Poisonous? Old faces from a past that won’t stay passed, memories from haunts that I no longer frequent, attitudes and mindsets I had long since forgotten… I had launched from Atar with incredible momentum: integrated, comfortable, fluent (80% French, 15% Hassaniye), productive, happy. Imagine my surprise, in no less than three days, I was incapacitated and uninspired as I had been pre-departure. I had taken twelve months forward, and immediately eighteen months back.

In my distress, I made the mistake of calling Mauritania “home.” Upon further reflection, however, I realized it was not necessarily a mistake my tongue made despite my brain. Home is such a curious concept. Is it where you were born? Where you spent most of your life? Where your family lives? What if your family is splintered all over the country? Or the world? Is it where you are happiest? Most comfortable? Where your work is? Your bed? Your heart? Twenty four hours of transatlantic flight was not enough time to sort these questions, much less answer them.

I do know that, since I sold my father’s house, and maybe even before then, I have been unable to pinpoint “home.” Usually, where I’m going merits the title. In college, going to visit for Thanksgiving made Cincinnati home. Just after holiday in Cincinnati, returning to school: Chicago. Taking a quick Halloween vacation in the states: Cleveland. Returning to my flat in the cinquième: Paris. Buying tickets in Atar: Cincinnati again. Two weeks later: Mauritania. It is simply too fluid a concept to nail down geographically, permanently. Much to the chagrin of family, neighbors, and credit card companies trying to offer 0% APR.

In any case, on June 17th, I was absolutely ready to hop the Atlantic, hunker down in West Africa, and get back to work (home). Now that I’m settled in Mauritania (still on the road, but no longer in the air), I offer advice for those taking “home” leave.

To Plan
Buy your ticket, call your folks, and move on. It is so easy to spend time counting down days, trading anticipation for work. This will result in at least several unproductive months and unrealistic expectations for your vacation. Don’t overhype the trip and don’t forget obligations on the ground. Work like a dog up until the moment you take off and you won’t have time to fret, second-guess, or repack for the 10th time.

To Do
Write a To Do list. Consult it often. Worship it. Enforce it. So many items on my “to do,” “to buy” and “to eat” list were abandoned for the sake of being polite and easygoing. Going home is for your family, for your lover, for your friend. It is also for you. Your time is limited, your desires are many, so be egotistical. Plan to eat sushi, Indian, Thai, and spicy chicken sandwiches at Wendy’s. Go to the local amusement park. Copy music on your iPod, burn DVDs. Go shopping for earrings, cliff bars and dried cherries. If your friends want to see you, they can meet you there.

To Socialize
Inform family, friends, etc. when you will be home. Surprises and last minute trips lead to hurt feelings and forgotten lunches. Your time is limited, their desires are many, so be practical. Plan a huge party; invite everyone. If your friends want to see you, they can meet you there.

To Apologize
Two weeks, two months, it will not be enough. You will not see as many people as much as you (or they) wanted. Your time is limited, your unintentional faux-pas are many, so be apologetic. Before, during and after, seek forgiveness of those with whom you would spend 24-7 if only you could self-replicate. Then, let go of the guilt, and enjoy your vacation.

To Eat
Once in the states, you will forget how badly you wanted that steak. Or strawberry rhubarb pie. Or grilled cheese sandwich. Eat these things, savor each bite, and write off the pounds gained as collateral damage for a vacation well spent.

To Pack
Once in the states, you will forget how badly you wanted those Reese’s Pieces. Or skittles. Or Cliff bars. Or beef jerky. Buy these things even if you aren’t in the mood, put them in a suitcase or a care package (from you to you, ingenious!), and revel in the treats once you are home. Er, back in country. You know what I mean.

And finally…

To Re-enter
How is it that you need a vacation from a vacation? Best not to dilly dally with re-entry. Hit the ground running and cram your schedule full of conferences, work projects, and assignments. This way, you remember your trip fondly but aren’t incapacitated or dazed with the temporal/geographical/cultural shift.


I was only able to follow the first and last recommendations; the other middle bits were lessons by failure, trials by fire. Good luck to those hopping the pond and congratulations to those who already survived the trip. My next ETA stateside: September 2008, inshallah. Length of stay: undetermined.

peace corps perfect: improving atar one school at a time

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Since my arrival in September 2006, I have given Atar my sweat, tears, enthusiasm, and ideas. The contributions I've made have been with my hands, not my wallet. And I have emphasized time and time again: I'm not a bank. I don't have money.

So what's this about a huge funded project you ask? Read on.

You can read a detailed report here, but the skinny is: my schools are public health and education nightmares. Latrines are caving in, chalkboards are peeling off walls. The kids are taught to wash their hands in facilities with no running water. And these shameful conditions are flaunted before NGOs to solicit funds (read: handouts) that never quite make it to local schools.

The Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP) is different. PCPP provides funding assistance for community-initiated projects and surpasses traditional international aid mechanisms in several ways.

First, an NGO is not dispersing funds from a distant office building. The design, construction, timing, and funding is determined by local stakeholders. Second, money is spent according to a predetermined project plan or returned to the donors, avoiding any "redirecting of funds." Third, because PCPP requires local funding, approved projects are collaborative accomplishments and sources of pride for the community.

In September 2007, with PCPP funding, my community will begin a School Improvement Project. Plans include renovated latrines and chalkboards, running water faucets, hand washing stations and school gardens. Small donations are welcomed and in fact preferred. Many people contributing small amounts is an indicator of a successful project (according to Peace Corps Washington and grassroots common sense). With your contributions, we can fund improvements conceived, budgeted, and built with Mauritanian minds and hands. You and I facilitate locally-driven development. It's capacity building, it's sustainable, it's Peace Corps perfect.

Interested?
Please donate here.
And thank you. From me, my kids, Atar, and Mauritania.

Carryon knives: thwarting kindness at a checkpoint near you

I touched down in Cincinnati, finally, after 24 hours in the air and 6 on the ground for a sleepy Paris layover. Unbelievably, the last security checkpoint nearly kept me from home. Northern Kentucky/Covington Airport (CVG) does not differentiate between passengers who are arriving in Cincinnati and those who are catching connecting flights; we all go through the same security. After scanning my luggage for containers of liquid for at least the third time, I stepped up to the x-ray machine.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes,” I responded, still unsteady speaking in English.
“Is this your bag?” she asked, tired as I was and certainly more peevish.
She rummaged through my purse, a small carryon that had gone through security once in Nouakchott and twice in Charles de Gaulle. What she was looking for was beyond my guess.
“Is this your knife?”
I was speechless. One of the many knives I usually carry in Atar was hanging from her gloved fingers. I hadn’t found it when packing for the states, neither had three rounds of security checkpoints and guards. I stammered out an apology and explained that I was arriving in Cincinnati after a day of travel, could we just pass the knife through and I could go home no problem?

Anger better intended for negligent security across the ocean lashed out: she was furious I had “smuggled” a weapon onto two flights. “You wanna keep this?” she spat. I had to backtrack to customs, miraculously find my checked luggage before they sent it to baggage claim, and ask a guard to place the knife inside. Inside a bag that would travel 30 feet on a conveyor belt and immediately back into my possession. I could see baggage claim through the glass doors. I imagined my mother standing on the other side of those doors, waiting. I petitioned again, to no avail. I looked at the small pocket knife, a beautiful, compact blade that had weathered bush taxis and desert hiking and Mauritanian cooking and then looked back at the glass doors. The promise of a shower and a nap was too strong. “Just keep it,” I sighed, gathering the scattered contents of my bag. “It’s just not worth the hassle.”

The security agent should have been pleased that the system worked. Here was an unsuspecting passenger robbed of her unintentionally packed weapon, too tired to protest. Instead, she looked all the more perturbed that I wasn’t willing to endure the system 20 minutes longer to keep my knife. She seemed defeated, unable to (further) impede my progress through the maze of airport security. I slipped my toes into Mauritanian shower sandals and stepped through the glass doors, in search of my mom, her air conditioned car, and a nap between crisp sheets.