Those of you who have been reading
this blog from the very beginning will remember that my original
title was Abita to Africa.
I've since changed it to better fit my experiences. The original
title was meant to reflect the transition from New Orleanian to Peace
Crop Volunteer living in Namibia (yes, there was a gap in between
where I moved back to DC for a few months, but it really never felt
like home, since I've barely lived there as an adult). However, I
think it would be appropriate to take a time and reflect on the
shift. After all, it's football season, and trying to explain to my
co-workers why every Friday and Saturday I wear a green shirt and
gold hat with that weird black shape on it (the fleur-de-lis on my
Saints cap, which I wear the day before every Tulane game).
I'm
currently sitting in my room, eating some leftover red beans and rice
(the main staple of my diet on a Peace Corps budget largely revolves
around different takes on that dish and mashed pumpkin/carrots) and
watching Treme for the
God-knows-how-many-th time, I can't help but think about how hard
it's been to try and explain what New Orleans was like. Sure, I can
show them pictures, share my stories, play the music, and hand out
Mardi Gras beads to people, but, like trying to explain what Khorixas
(or even Namibia as a whole) to my family and friends back home, New
Orleans, to people who have never been there (or, in many cases, even
heard of it), is something that can never been effectively captured
in words or photos.
Telling
them about DC has been easier. Most people know of it (and unlike in
Israel, people here don't just think of the US in relation to New
York City). They know who Barack Obama is, they've seen pictures of
the White House, they've heard some of our Congressmen and Senators
speak on CNN (NBC shows it in the afternoon), and seen many movies
and TV hows that depict the Washington Monument. New Orleans is a
different story. In the US, it's one of our most famous cities, as
well known as NYC, DC, Boston, LA, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, or any
other major city. We all know about Katrina (even if, and I
recognize this is a cheap shot, the majority of Louisiana Republicans
clearly don't remember the details, given the recent poll that says
more of them blame Obama than Bush, a mockable and shameful fact to
anyone who can do basic math or has even the slightest memory).
Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras, and the French Quarter are the stuff of
legends, even if many are grossly skewed and misrepresented in “Girls
Gone Wild” videos and movies by people who clearly only know what
the legends say, having never really experienced it themselves. It's
Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, the Nevilles, Rebirth, Kermit, Shorty,
Galactic, Dr. John and hundreds of great musicians who the city has
spawned. It's jambalaya, gumbo, po-boys, blackened cat fish,
Antoine's, Galatoire's, Jacques Imo's, Mothers, Tujague's (despite my
poor experience there last time I ate there), Hand Grenades,
Hurricanes (both the drink and the storms), Abita, Dat Dog, Du Monde,
the Brennans, Emeril, and Paul Prudhomme. It's Indians on Mardi Gras
day and St. Joseph's. It's Jackson Square, the river front, the Fly,
the Garden District, the CBD, Uptown, Mag street, and Audubon Park.
It's “Tigah Bait” and “Roll Wave” on Saturdays, and “Who
Dat?!” on Sundays. It's marching bands and brass bands. It'
Tabasco sauce on everything. It's starring East at the “West
Bank.” It's Voodoo fest, JazzFest, French Quarter Fest, and all
the other celebrations. It's plastic beads, great food, the people,
and a culture of its own. My dad once referred to New Orleans as one
of the most unique cities in the US. Having spent the majority of my
adult life in the city, I can truly attest to that fact.
But
it's that uniqueness that also makes it hard to explain. There
really are very few places like it in the world, and that makes
comparisons hard to find. DC may be a special place with a lot of
interesting history and people, but it's history, the fact that it
takes a lot of influences form ancient Rome and has a lot in common
in personality to other major capitals, means that while it certainly
has a unique quality that sets it aside from other cities in the US,
it still has things it can be compared to. But, in many ways, living
in New Orleans helped prepare me for my life in Khorixas. It’s
Voodoo fest, JazzFest, French Quarter Fest, and all the other
celebrations.
No,
Khorixas has never been nearly wiped out by a hurricane (in fact, no
matter how many YouTube videos I show them, my co-workers still can't
comprehend hurricanes and how a bunch of wind and rain can completely
change a city), but in many ways, the houses here are in a similar
state of disrepair to those in New Orleans. You can see many of them
were once really nice, but years of people not being able to repair
them, coupled with all the dust, has a lot of them looking worn
(never mind the shacks put together with scrap metal). The roads
also remind me of the ones in New Orleans; worn, uneven, and often
not wide enough. I won't say the government here is corrupt (and no,
this isn't an “I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'” kind of thing,
I'm just using the term for lack of anything that can truly sum it
up), but politics and knowing the right people are honestly more
important in getting something done often than what it is you are
trying to get done. As I've mentioned previously, part of this stems
from the issues between the parties at the national level, and part
of it is how things get done in this world, but living in New Orleans
really highlighted this fact.
There
is also no place in the US where alcohol and drinking are so
ingrained in the day-to-day life and culture. Sure, people in other
parts of the US drink. I'm sure New York has more bars than New
Orleans. But in New Orleans, often, alcohol is what you do. No, I'm
not saying people in New Orleans don't do anything but drink, but
drinking is a big part of how we celebrate there. Similarly,
drinking is what you do here. Don't have a job? Hang at the
shebeens. Have a job? Grab a beer during lunch or after work. When
Khorixas had its big cultural celebration, you can bet you @$$ that
people were drinking sunrise to sunset, and then flowing into the
bars/shebeens as soon as they finished eating. Drinking is arguably
the country's biggest problem, being the root of most, if not all, of
its other major societal issues, just like it is in New Orleans.
You
can't walk down the street without being hit by 2 things. The first
is the smell of meat on the grills, being sold by the many street
meat vendors, whose only source of income that is. They have their
spots and get out early, selling fat cakes in the morning, and by
lunch are competing for customers by trying to have the best selling
meat. If you've ever been to Mardi Gras, you know exactly how
similar this is to streets during the parades, with people selling
grilled chicken, gumbo, and other yummy selling foods to those
intoxicated by the smells (and drinking). And, as a side note, in
both places, people often won't eat a meal without meat and see
vegetables as something that can be done without. Plus, bbqs in New
Orleans and braais in New Orleans are a year-round thing, something I
truly love. The other thing that hits you here is all the trash on
the street. However, years of Mardi Gras, walks down Bourbon, and
festivals in the crescent city had left me immune to this until a
friend commented on it.
Infrastructure
is another area where New Orleans and Khorixas see parallels. Slow
and sometimes unreliable mail service mark both cities. Anyone
finding a working bathroom can be an issue in bot New Orleans and in
all of Namibia. Unreliable water supply in both cities can cause
many problems (though a 2+ year drought and water treatment plant
failing may not be the same thing). In Khorixas, when we had our
cultural celebration, the phone lines were jammed because they
couldn't handle the number of people in the town. There is no real
recycling in either and trash pick-up is non-existent here, while in
New Orleans, they just sometimes forget. And there's public
transportation, which is unreliable at best in New Orleans and
completely non-existent in Khorixas, though getting a quick ride
around town here often isn't too hard, unless you're trying to carry
a grill from Grace's to my new place, by yourself, and going to any
other town requires a taxi or a “hike.”
Of
course, there's the heat and sudden weather changes, something the
Big Easy is a great prep for.
We
like to deny it in the US, but racism is still very much alive in
Uncle Sam's nation. Likewise, many people in Namibia like to pretend
apartheid is a thing of the past. That may be true, officially at
least, but race relations are certainly far from perfect. There's a
very visible difference between whites and blacks in both places
(though Khorixas, like New Orleans, has seen its are of “white
flight”). The size of the houses, the shape they're in, the jobs
they have, the cars, etc. I could go on forever. And while it's
often subtle, in both cases, you can often hear a degree of racism in
the way people talk. And like the tribalism we have in the US
between our religions and what part of the city you live in (like ow
New Orleans blacks view the Vietnamese and all), hearing Namibians
talk about what tribe they are from and what they think of other
tribes can be flat out disgusting. Of course, to some degree, this
is just human nature, and it's certainly no worse here than anything
from the US. Tribalism goes back as far as man as existed, and far
be it for me to criticize Namibians for something I myself am
certainly guilty of at times, whether intentional or subconscious.
People here, like in the South, also wear their church on their
sleeves, making sure to include what church they attend is on their
resume and sometimes judging people for what church they see people
in front of.
There's
also the issues of unemployment and poor schools. Both cities have
very high numbers of people without jobs (admittedly, a problem all
over Namibia and, to a lesser extent, the US, post-2007). These
problems are made worse by the schools. Khorixas' schools, while
probably not bad by this country's standards, certainly leave a lot
to be desired, and it often comes out in my learners being shocked by
my not simply passing them for showing up, but actually requiring
that they pass their exams. Likewise, in New Orleans, when I would
volunteer at some of the schools, some of the classrooms had the most
recent test scores of students on display, and, as anyone who knows
much about New Orleans public schools would expect, many of the
scores were sub-par. In both cases, you see similar problems: lack
of materials, not enough qualified teachers (though that is
supposedly slowly changing in Namibia), high drop-out rates, and lack
of supervision for the youth after classes end. Of course, in
Namibia, that's what brought Peace Corps into the country in the
first place, and, from what I've been told, the situation, while not
good yet, is much better now. Plus, Namlish is honestly no worse
than the “English” spoken by many people in New Orleans.
During
my time in New Orleans, despite its many flaws (or, maybe because of
them), I found myself fall in love with the city. I truly understand
why the character of Sunny in Treme
wanted to come from Amsterdam to that city, becoming fascinated
before ever going there. I understand the personality of Davis and
why he acts and talks about the city they way does. Why so many have
moved back or tried to since the storm. How the city as inspired so
many artists, musicians, authors, and the imaginations of so many
Americans. I also understand why, during my IDEV 101 class, the
former president of the university remarked so often that anyone who
wanted to visit a “3rd
World Country” (despite my dislike of is using the term so
incorrectly) without a passport or paying a lot of money could simply
leave Uptown. And, likewise, I am very quickly falling in love with
Khorixas, the people, and the life here. I've been told I'm a true
“citizen of Khorixas” by several people here, and this weekend,
as I was walking to the supermarket to buy ingredients to make a
potato salad for a braai I was throwing, a women remarked that she ad
grown up in Khorixas and had never seen a white person so comfortable
in the town, walking down the street, enjoying my music and saying
“hi” or “matisa” to everyone I passed. It really does feel
like home now, especially since I finally got my own place to live.
I
could go on forever, and I doubt this will be the last time I make
reference to Khorixas in terms of New Orleans, but I think this is
enough for now. Honestly, as much as I want to use New Orleans to
put things into perspective for my readers back home trying to
understand my life and experiences here, I am falling into the common
trap of trying to compare experiences and sort of wedging patterns
into place to cope, I think. But it does go to help you understand,
I hope, my challenge of helping people here understand my life there.
And
what better way to try than to put on a Mardi Gras party. It's a
ways off, but planning as to start now. I'm working on getting some
beads (and a baby to put into a King Cake I'm hoping to make) sent
over. On that note, if anyone from New Orleans has any interest in
sending me a care package, I could really use some beads or a King
Cake baby or 2 (not that I expect many of you are interested in doing
that). I got plenty of the music on my iPod, and beer, while not
Abita, is super easy to get. I may have to “Nami-fy” things a
bit, but gumbo, red beans and rice, jambalaya, and beignets are foods
I can make. I might even be able to do blackened catfish, if my boss
is still working for us (he's working on finishing his law degree to
help defend youths with legal problems) and takes a trip to Terrace
Bay around that time. If nobody steals the power cable for it, I can
even use our internet to stream Zulu and Rex from Nola.com. And I
certainly have enough photos and videos to show people. Could make
for a fun cultural exchange, I think. Would certainly be a lot of
fun, anyway. I'm also working on arranging a form of tailgate and
college football experience for my co-workers.
I'm
working on a new post about things I'm going to have to get used to
here/getting used to/will never get used to but am going to have to
live with. Expect that in a week or 2. I am also thinking of
putting something up about the music here, but that might not be for
a while, since I'm hoping to go t a jazz festival in Windhoek in
October (which will likely see a return of the New Orleans
comparisons). I'm also working on a project for which I am applying
for a PCPP grant (which is basically a grant where you all donate
money and I only get the grant once my amount is reached). It's a
project I'm partnering on with Grace, the other volunteer in my town,
and I'll plenty more details once I get my grant approved and am
ready to start begging and guilt-tripping you all into giving me
money to fight AIDS in Africa. I also want to have something about
PEPFAR, since it is often an overlooked part of George W. Bush's
legacy, and arguably one of the best things to come out of his 8
years in office, and plays a big role in my work here, and as such
think it warrants its own post. And, as a treat, I'm working on a
book about development and aid, partially to kill time without doing
the cliche “my story” Peace Corps book (though my experiences
here and in New Orleans will certainly work their way in at times),
and I'm thinking that once I have the intro written, I might post it
ere for y'all to get feedback. So, that's some of what's coming down
the pipeline, along with some possible upcoming travels I'm planning
and picture to go along with them. But that's for the future. Now,
it's time to get some rest before a new week of work. Enjoy.
