Some Changes

Some Changes

So here are some changes that I’ve noticed in myself since coming here. Some are the product of necessity, others I’ve culturally osmosized, others are unexplainable.

1) I bathe only once every couple or three days. At home I used to take 2 showers a day, sometimes 3 if I was at the gym. Now I wait till I notice that I’m dirty or stinky. In much the same way, I am now (trips to Sao Vicente aside) eating mostly only when I am hungry, rather than the 3 or 4 times a day I ate and snacked at home. It’s weird, but smaller portions of less tasty (and more healthy) food have become more filling and satisfying than 3 big meals a day were for me in the states. (This is not to say however, that I wouldn’t murder someone for a plate of BarBQ right now.)

2) My eyebrows have turned red. Noticeably red. People are pointing it out to me. It’s very weird, but I seem to be getting simultaneously both more Irish and more Cape Verdian at the same time.

3) I make all my decisions on my own, with no help from others. In the past I always had a very unintentional yet meticulous way of bouncing my emotions and questions and ideas and decisions off various members of my family, thereby forming my thoughts and actions in a sort of communal way. Here I’m deprived, more or less, of that opportunity. I miss their counsel.

4) I frequently urinate outdoors. I actually loved to do that at home a lot as well (its fun to pee outside, and back in Austin, many a morning I could be seen drinking my coffee and having a piss out on the back porch), but lack of population density and a negative number of per capita bathrooms here in Cape Verde make it much more acceptable. Guys here are pretty much at liberty to pee where they want.

5) I cook every night. I liked to cook at home, but not as much as I liked Golden Chick or Pei Wei or Austin’s Pizza or Clay Pit. Now I make my own delicious fried chicken and stir fry and pineapple pesto pizza and curried chicken.

6) In cases of extreme relaxation and/or solitude, I have the capacity to “zone out” and lose time. Example: The other day at the beach, I was sitting where I thought was well above the highest water line, where I made my little camp. About 10 minutes later, completely enveloped in an Ian McEwan novel, I was suddenly swamped with salt water. 50 or 100 waves must have lapped the shore before one came anywhere near me, much less got me wet, and so I moved my things and began to wonder about the cadence of the ocean. Was it a rogue wave that soaked me or was there a rhythm or a number between bigger breaks? I started counting them, trying to remember which ones broke big out on the bar, which ones made it up the beach, which ones petered out. I counted and counted and I think I accidentally hypnotized myself because I snapped out of it about 45 minutes later when a sand crab walked across my toes and I immediately registered the burn of the sun on my back, and the passed time. An hour of my life gone in an unregistered instant, and I’m pretty sure if someone would have come along and suggested I tapdance on the beach I would have gone all Bojangles right then and there. But it wasn’t a bad thing. Except for the sunburn, I felt great…rested, like I had taken a 2 hour nap. Possibly the yogis and the meditating weirdos have got something going on after all.

7) I am no longer slatternly. I sweep and mop and dust and wipe the counter and do the dishes and wash my clothes daily, and keep a good house.

8) I am easily entertained. These next 2 sort of go along with number 6 I guess but whatever. At home I needed more things to occupy less time. There I always needed movies and functions and activities and new music and magazines and happy hours and plans and Things, and Things To Look Forward To. Although I still crave the movies, I now find that conversation, a good (or even pretty bad) book, chores, walking, my camera and my guitar are sufficient to pass all the ample free time that I have here. Similarly, here, conversation is an activity in and of itself. It seems to me in the States, we require an auxiliary function in order to facilitate conversation with people. Happy hour to talk with our friends, a lunch to talk shop with our co-workers, an evening walk to chat with our neighbors, a game of handball to gossip with our friends. Here, no such occasion is requisite. It is enough to drop by one’s home, at whatever hour, just to say hello or ask about the family…even just to sit and pass the time. I think we Americans have a much more difficult time with this notion, and see such things as an intrusion on our privacy, or an invasion of our personal boundaries.

9)I can do with less. Here I have no TV, no hot water, no new books or movies, little or no internet, no restaurants or bookshops or clubs or bars, frequently no power, often no choices about things to do really. And yet I am, for the most part, content. Similarly, after a day spent lesson planning, teaching, working out, swimming, playing basketball with 19 year-olds and hiking, the thought of a big fat bowl of rice and some water is enough to get my mouth watering.

10)I never knew how much I needed my friends and family. When I was at home, I took them, their counsel, and my time with them for granted. Now they are in my thoughts every single day. Literally, there isn’t a single day that goes by that I don’t think about them, or wish that I could talk to them, or just pass some time with them. It seems that in the States, we are, so many of us, cynical about our friends and families. We all claim to come from “a fucked up family,” and we hear people “talk shit” about others we know. We make movies and write books and tell our friends how much we dread Going Home for Christmas, or going to the Jones’ for diner, or how my asshole brother is drunk again, or about what a shit the guy in the cubicle across form us at work is. This time away from my loved ones has convinced me, despite all imperfections, Family is the most important thing, with friendship right behind.