A Memento of Weakness

I need to mention that my face is a mess of zits.  Part of this is genetic (thanks, Mom), but I prefer to blame the soap.  No one believes in facewash here; it’s soap all the way, and though I’ve even tried the more expensive brands, I feel like my face is channeling either Jadis or Exxon Valdez.    

I have no idea why this is so important, but it came to me last night: I realised I’d never shared how hideous I feel and thus have been living a lie. 

There.

I feel better now.

Our regional directors have arrived and are settling in nicely into our old apartment (though they keep talking about America and children, families, grandbabies, love – I dunno how long they’ll last).  They came to see our new place – due to my vitriol, I vaguely suspect - but possibly just to explore and inspect our security.  I subtly hinted that lecturing Butters to keep the front door locked would do a lot more for our security - and for a cheaper price - than putting padlocks on our doors, but I’m no expert. 

Here’s another admission:  I’m at a vulnerable point in my life where my face is constantly angry, but my heart is melty and in a direct feedback loop that connects to my tear ducts.  I don’t think I am very cranky, or that I will cry, but then suddenly – there it is. 

***

Butters makes one too many silly remarks and I’m wishing for a Fortress of Solitude.  BFG and Carrottop chose to love each other, but Butters and I can only manage vague tolerance before he jumps down my throat over semantics or I nag him about locking the door. 

Sometimes I even go so far as to think about  divorce before remembering to take a step back because he’s a lovely person and I... just need some alone time with peanut butter and music. 

***

I need a knife to cut an orange; we only have one and it’s sitting on the stove, dirty; we have very little water. 

I just want to eat an orange.  Not plan a Blue’s Clues episode of how to share with each other. 

I should also mention that I do the same thing, but it’s infinitely worse when it’s done to me.

***

I want to cook, but we have very few pots, very little water, and my tomatoes are melting because the fridge is non-functional.  However, Butters and I keep faithfully putting food items into it as though it will one day come to its senses:  Ohhhh, they want me to keep it cold to retard bacterial growth!  How novel – I’ll give it a tr-- oops, there goes the power!

***

I try to find a new Egg Lady (i.e. one who’ll cut me a deal) and everyone laughs at me.  I’m in the largest market in the city – a warren of vendors who would chew me up and spit me out as soon as look at me, and I can’t handle touching people at this delicate time. 

I find an Egg Man who keeps asking me “These eggs?!  These eggs?!  These eggs?!” 

So I may have bought painted rocks or crocodile eggs that are hatching in my room as we speak. 

***

I think I’ll be going to a new Bible study group.  As a coping mechanism, I cave and buy the good (expensive) peanut butter.  I have  no  very little regret. 

[Update:  This Bible study group is da bomb.  God loves me and gives me great family wherever I go.  It’s horrible because then I love Him even more and I’m reminded all over again how inadequate my offerings are.  Fortunately, the Peanut Butter Method is versatile.]

***

The downstairs neighbours realise that we are three people who have received no water since Saturday, and leave two bidons outside our door.  [Update:  Now four every morning.  They’re like the shoemaker’s elves, but more life-giving.]

They are not expecting anything in return (yet).  Just.  Doing this wonderful thing.  Possibly because they don’t want a virulent outbreak of cholera, nor do they want to discover three skeletons in the apartment in two weeks.

I mean, by that time, I’d already taken a bath in filthy water (REGIDESO has again decided that materials to build a nest are a better option than water).  But at least tonight I can wash my hair.  [Update:  Washed my hair.  My next dream is piles of clean underclothing.]

I was so thankful that I slept like the dead again, oblivious to the cold (this may be partly due to depression).  Of course, we still haven’t received much water through the taps for four days.  This during the rainy season – so dry season on the third floor promises to be a bouncy castle of joy and scintillation - but at least it all seems bearable now.

***

I heard from two different people (most of the others have cleverly kept their mouths shut) that I am both cynical and negative, which is difficult to hear (though, uh, very true).  Can't we say I’m... differently abled?  I find it offensive that we have nomenclature for LGBTQIA+ and nothing for people who have a clear view of a negative world and look forward to a new Kingdom. 

Hypothetically speaking, what should my tone sound like when I live in a world that contains a Gabonese election crisis, Hurricane Matthew in Haiti, and Somalia, Colombia, and Venezuela – all while I have difficulty talking to the leader of a new Bible study group because I’m a generally awkward person?  I rejoice in my salvation daily, and I’m thankful I’m not entirely existentially crippled by my Knowledge of Evil and Slightly Less Evil (yet), but I guess I’m not too good at balancing blessed li’l ole me in a very big, mostly uncaring world...     

...There I go, being negative again.

Another facet of this move has been my retreat into helplessness – small events like being unable to go on a field visit with my team and not having much of a choice in our apartment have already put me in a mindset that there’s nothing I can do to change things, so I should just accept them.

While this may be a good outlook for me as a foreign member of an 8-person mission team in Central Africa, I don’t like its reverberations.  Since moving away from my parents, I have come to the realisation that if something has the power to affect me, I also have the power to affect it – whether it’s in changing a situation, accessing resources to change a facet of it, or taking myself out of it entirely – there is always an option, though it will involve sacrifice. 

If I, as an individual raised in Canada, feel that there’s nothing I can do about my apartment, about the lack of water, about my living/work situation, what about a generation of people born into a war with and against their own politicians, neighbours, and armed forces?

The presence of systemic violence in this area in the form of robbery, rape, abductions, and murder have instilled a sense of learned helplessness even in the new generation, which demands money in return for statistics of victimization and a photoshoot of tears and flies.  Uprisings are violently subdued, but long-term planning in the current context is not only impractical, but impossible. 

And - like any exchange, any relationship - a hierarchy is formed where some people are strong, others are weak, and the demand and struggle begin.  The West is seen as strong – it owes care and resources to the weak.  And this implicit understanding is easily conveyed in the convoys of white land cruisers speeding by human pack mules lugging wood and charcoal to the city.  It’s conveyed in vaguely embarrassed handouts to beggars, to orphans, to survivors of rape, to refugees, and those who claim to be all of the above because admitting weakness means rewards.  Strength, imagination, and innovation, on the other hand, are dangerous and have been given up long ago.    

Where is the hope in this?

I see it in a personal admission of weakness.  I not only try to live on a minimal budget every month, I also tell people that sometimes I have to give up one luxury to fulfil a need, that I wear old hand-me-downs, that I may not be able to afford something this month. 

They look at me in surprise - probably expecting that I’m lying.  But this is my contribution to relationships: weakness.  Not embarrassment because I have so much and don’t want to give it away (though this is the truth); weakness because I live on some and still try to give where I see need.  Not that donors in the West have a right to control how ‘missionaries’ live or how they should be spending their money; admitting that Westerners are blessed, have more than enough, and need to live like that – but not consume and waste like that.    

I see it in our downstairs neighbours bringing four large bidons of water to our door for the past two days – though they have no small amount of daily laundry and cooking for the apparent village of people who live there. 

I don’t like this.  Because I’m strong, you know.  If REGIDESO just sent water to my taps, I could easily develop a plan for water conservation, even bringing Butters on board (unconscious, if necessary).  Depending on people is so... needy.  Especially when I have money and they don’t – I’m strong and they’re... they’re sharing water with me.     

I see it in four new babies in the past two months at my place of work. 

Life, and life in abundance; as though in the midst of strife - where resources are scarce and fear is rampant - there is sharing in scarcity and joy in closeness.    

So maybe my cynicism and negativity are a problem.  Maybe I do struggle to see the world as always caring and generous when I look at the West and its demands, and then at Africa and its demands.  Maybe I need to work on daily joy and my tone of voice, even when I find a situation awkward.  Maybe I need to be less embarrassed and guilty for having lived a privileged life.  Maybe I need to learn about healthy dependence.   

And maybe I have to seek and accept weakness now.