The Culture of Travel

I feel like a brat for saying this, as many cowgirls don’t get the luxury of travel I have had, but I am so tired of being in motion.  I am tired of airports, traffic jams, and being enclosed for hours in planes, cars, and trains.  The act of traveling is usually my favorite activity.  Completely alone but in the midst of many strangers, I find my best thinking, writing, and reading get’s done. 

The thinking is promoted by the combination of whatever is stressing me out at the current time combined with an engaging podcast flowing through my ears.  To me, there is nothing like a good podcast.  I am of course, a proud member of NPR nation.  Can’t go a day without some snippets of Morning Edition, Terry Gross’s soothing interviews, or the nerdy humor of Wait Wait Don’t Tell me.  With eclectic shows sharing random information about the week, I find myself connected to the places I am moving in and out of.  I find that traveling is the best time to catch up on shows that I don’t have enough time to listen to during the week.  This past week, stuck in the Nairobi airport waiting for my flight to Kigali, I listened to an excellent This American Life based about sacrificing animals.  It’s more than it seems: check it out. 

The over thinking combined with the more relaxed activity of podcast listening lends itself to filling up a notebook.  I always feel like I am at a stage of transition when I am traveling; heading to the next place where I will spend some juncture of my life.  It is therefore a great time to put down what has been going on and generate hopes for what might come.  When I am having serious writer’s block, which I have suffered through a lot in the last four years, I just start writing lists.  I can make a list about anything really.  “Best meals I’ve cooked in the last year” “Jobs I might be surprisingly good at” or on the more pessimistic side “People who I once felt completely bonded to and now no longer-and why”.  I try to keep it upbeat because nobody likes to sit next to a sobbing cowgirl on the plane.  They still serve wine on international flights, after all. 

Reading, I suppose, is a given.  Everyone reads when they are traveling.  I find that when I am going through a phase of non-reading a trip is the best way to get me into a book.  After Peace Corps, for example, I was so tired of reading.  Too much time had been spent alone in my hut devouring books one after another.  It started to feel like just another lonesome activity, and I was tired of being alone all of the time.  But when I met up with Ross in Kigali for my papa’s wedding, he brought my mom’s Christmas gift of a Kindle loaded up with his new favorite author.  I didn't read at all while I had time to spend with him, but the minute I was back in an airport flying away from them there was nothing so soothing as Hiroko Murakami’s Dance, Dance, Dance.  Books are another way I can track my life transitions it seems. 

I am not in a reading mood right now.  Not much in a writing mood, though I am trying to keep this up to date.  And amazingly, my head feels too full to even engage with much NPR.  For the first time in a long time, I just want to ease into one place.  My new apartment, cooking at night next to my homeboy, and waking up in the morning to a job that expands my language and ag extention skills.  Is that too much to ask?  Absurdly, it might be exactly how I get to spend the next couple of years in my life.  Could I be so lucky? 

Two weeks in Kigali than back on the old travel-routine.  Then we shall see. 

holdin' hands

Logan doesn’t much like to hold my hand.  That’s okay though: the entire rest of the country seems up for it.  Something I find most difficult living in Benin is trying to cross the street.  The other day, after standing for awhile worrying over the right moment to step, a not-too-sketchy and very nice young man grabbed my hand and pulled me safely across.  Upon arrival, all he asked for return was my hand in marriage!

You would think after living in other African countries and in India for so long I would be used to the way traffic moves here, but I just can’t seem to figure it out.  Luckily I have plenty of observation time to do so now, as it takes me between 7 and 13 minutes to get the courage up to sprint from one side of the street to other.  

First you have the regular cars.  Mostly tinny old box-like cars that have been running for decades and will continue to run for the next couple.  They cruise around effortlessly, owning the road.  It is certainly a status symbol to have a set of four wheels here.  

But the cars are not what throw me.  It’s the so called “zems”, or moto’s, chasing each other around that make me nervous.  In a seemingly endless race they swerve in and out of any lane, sidewalk, or parking lot they think will get them wherever they are going the quickest.  They are also my main source of transportation.  Instead of hailing a taxi, the easiest way to get around Cotonou is jumping on the back of some dude’s moto.  Party of two?  He’ll take you both.  Geared up in florescent yellow jerseys, these zem drivers are everywhere, and for 60 cents he will take you just about anywhere, quickly.  You better have your wits about you though.  Just because they are your hired ride doesn’t mean they are going to keep you comfortable.  I spend my rides with one hand clutching the bike and the other firmly holding my driver’s shoulder.  I’m not sure if that is correct fomba (culture…gotta keep some ‘gasy in here), but that is my method.  In fact, Cotonou is the only place I have ever been in a vehicular accident (knock knock knock).  It was my first day in Cotonou (ten months ago) ago and first thing, Logan throws me on a moto by myself and, whilst trying to pass me, let’s his driver hit mine.  Maybe not his fault, but all I am saying is that a city so full of roundabouts should not be filling them with motorcycles that don’t believe in lanes.  

Don’t worry Mom, I am wearing my helmet.  

So all of these vehicles rage the streets of Cotonou and have no sense of pedestrian rights.  The walker is at the bottom of the caste here.  There is really no place for the self-righteous pedestrian, something that most Americans inherently are.  I forget this sometime and will continue walking expecting cars or motos to yield to me.  As a starkly white woman, this does work better in my favor than it would for someone who does not stick out so much.  But I am growing more and more aware that this will not keep working out in my favor.  I either need to join the world on wheels or be ever-so-thoughtful about where I place my boots.  

Which is why I hesitated slightly when proposed to the other day.  Perhaps all I need is a good-lookin’ Beninese dude to walk me across streets for the rest of my time here.  I don’t much like giving up such an independence as walking on my own, but for the sake of stayin’ on my feet it might be worth it. 

Gettin' Rid of the Blues

One of my favorite books is about a girl who is born with thumbs so large they promote a love, nay NEED for hitchhiking.  This hobby turns into a deep affection that is representative not only of her over-sized thumbs but of an innate need to keep on moving.  It is one of my favorite books because, despite having small stubby thumbs, I relate far too well with Sissy Hancock in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.   I have been in many places and in each one found love, friendship, and comfort but always wind up scratching that itch to keep on moving.  

Until about a month ago, I'd been living in plenty of places for various amounts of time.  All of these places were premeditated, all revolving around jobs and schools.  But now I am, for the first time, jumping out into the world with no real plan except to find something, someone, or someplace that feels like contentedness.  I suppose that is an outlandish goal, but it is mine at the moment.  I am a runaway cowgirl that has let go of previous perceived law and order in my life.  

I am moving to move.  I will do all that I can to make ends meet, to keep on farming, and as noted before, to find things that make me feel happy.  Today I am on my 17^th hour on an airplane heading to Cotonou, Benin.  There is a tiny Beninese child sitting beside me who is just loving my version of peak-a-boo.  There’s a bit of happiness right there.  FOUND IT.  

I was watching Lonesome Dove last night, amazingly for the first time considering my four-year-old-boy-like interest in cowboys, and easily fell for these dudes pushing cattle from one side of the country to the other.  Through sandstorms and water snake-ridden rivers, there is a constant feeling of urgently pushing forward.  I think for a long time I have felt like that.  I hope that I can come to a place where I don't.