Abita to Africa

  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 “3^rd 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.