Adaptation is a funny thing. A primary goal in Peace Corps is integration. Yet one of the things that becomes difficult to grapple with is becoming accustomed to life and no longer feeling as though everything is exciting and new. There's not even sides, this is just the same coin.
A friend of a friend served in Senegal years ago and before I left the States, she wrote me a wonderful heartfelt letter of advice and thoughts on two years of service in a foreign culture. One of the things that she wrote is that one day I would likely wake up and find that things that used to be mysterious and exhilarating would feel normal, and it may result in feeling like I've fallen in a slump. I have to say that this part of service has been true for me. As it is with everything, really. But the great thing is that occasionally unexpected things happen that can puncture the mundane when I find myself slipping into routine.
A good example was this past week, when I was slowly trudging up the hill to my house, explaining to a student once again that I wasn't going to leave him my computer when I leave, nor my Ipod, and no, not all Americans are rich. It was getting tiring; the smiles and friendly gestures from this kid had been replaced by constant requests for electronics or food. He used to be my favorite, until he called me a bitch. But the point is that I was feeling a little disheartened, and more than a bit disrespected.
About halfway to my house, we noticed a little piglet standing in the street. Patrick, my student, asked me if it was mine, which of course it was not, and a few steps later the piglet noticed us coming. There was a brief moment of panic and it started to run in different directions to find which way to go. At this section of cobblestone street there are high walls to either side, and it couldn't duck into the crispy tall grass that has yellowed along the sides of most stretches of road. It turned around to run away from us, and I realized that its front and hind legs on the left side had been tied together to keep it in place, which evidently didn't do the trick. So the best it really accomplished was a ridiculous lopsided sprint.
As we continued up the hill, looking around to see who it could belong to, I saw my friend Junior running down the length of the wall on my right side. He disappeared for a moment and I wondered if he was out for a jog or if he even knew about the lost piglet in the road, when all of a sudden he burst out from the bushes and landed a few feet below in the middle of the street. Both he and the piglet paused for a brief second and locked eyes before the piglet turned toward us and hobbled past with a frantic squeal. Junior took off after it. The piglet started swerving in all directions to try to outmaneuver him, and after a few failed attempts to catch it, Junior jumped over the animal, landing on his left foot and simultaneously reaching back to tap it with his right in a perfect stop that would make Benfica proud.
Of course, Patrick and I had stopped to watch all of this. We were close enough to have been considered involved in the chaos but neither Junior nor the piglet seemed to notice us. The piglet stayed in the patch of grass he'd been stopped in and, victorious, Junior picked up the little pig by the front legs and stopped for quick greeting and kiss on the cheeks before heroically returning the lost livestock to an elderly woman who was still gushing her gratitude as Patrick and I turned the corner. It caught me completely off guard. As soon as I feel as though I "get used to" this place, something happens that I can almost not even react to it's so absurd, and I remember where I am.
I've been taking more notice of the strange little things that knock me on my ass and place me back on my little isolated island when I've allowed myself to forget where I am: an epic piglet chase, sitting on a rock heated by the sun and shelling peanuts with a friend, stumbling on a fisherman friend fishing from the divider of a road and stopping for a moment just to talk, long Hiace rides crammed between a fish lady and a young mother with her child. The part that really strikes me is that now I have the weird passive, float-away-from-reality experience about the life I used to have, and when I find myself whirling back to reality, I find myself ending up grounded in the place that I used to dream of going to. That part is still surreal.
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