Where Am I?

A question in my head that seems to be morphing itself into words lately. I asked it at a house party on Saturday night, where a small coupe had pulled up, opened its trunk, and began blasting "Soulja Boy" from speakers the size of my head. I asked it this morning as I entered my first class, Critical Issues in Modern African Literature, and the lecturer wasn't present. I ask it now as I sit in my room looking out onto the bustling University of Botswana campus. No matter how settled I become, no matter how diligently I build my own nest with sticks, memories and open spaces, my mouth will continue to form shapes and release that conundrum of a question: Where. Am. I?

What does it mean to be in a completely new place? I've had a lot of questions from Batswana students about what expectations I had before coming here. They always seem to break into laughter mid-question imagining my presuppositions about Botswana : lions roaming freely down the street, dirt roads, water out of the communal well. The truth is I had no expectations. It's hard to come into a new place with a clean, polished whiteboard of a mind. I feel like I have done so, for better or for worse. How do you create expectations about a place you really know close to nothing about? You can't, and in the tradition of double-edged swords throughout our lives, here we run point-blank into another one. I haven't quite figured out what it means to be here. In fact, as that mind-bombarding question implicates, I haven't quite figured out where the hell I even am? This floating in the dark leaves me a little lost and feeling a little light, but I'm levitating and that's exciting, right?

As I use this post as a way to sort my own mind, burrow through the layers and layers of fresh produce on my mental shelves, I ask you to bear with me and maybe even think a little bit about what it really means to be somewhere. The transience of this journey, the bell that's going to ring in six months and send me spinning back into Philadelphia surely plays a part. To really be somewhere, to really understand that I am in Botswana, does it mean I have to spend every second of every day seeing as much as I can, galavanting around the continent with a camera glued to my face? Or is it just as important to spend a good amount of time doing nothing? Sitting, watching, thinking. Is dynamism, movement, kinetics really superior to statis? Perhaps it's one of those 'balance' things. Of course I want to see as much as I can, I've always been one who runs into the arms of new experience. I'm just afraid it will all go zipping past in front of me too fast for me to reach out and grab hold of, let alone see. I'm perfectly okay with pulling the reigns and ambling through the new. The new is far too precious and delicate to just recklessly sprint through.

Another question relating to that huge, looming, umbrella of a one, is how did I end up here with two people I love immensely and find wonderful, entertaining, and amazing in every single way? How did Ilana, Daniel, and I (three people with completely different lives) end up going to Botswana together? It's totally nuts and impossible to wrap one's head around. The best Ilana and I could do to try and formulate an answer was bring back a hazy memory of a Saturday night at The Body when I slurred to Ilana, "Hey. I'm going to Botswana. Daniel might come too. Wanna come?" "YESSSSSS!" was her, as usual, grinning, smiley response.

About five months later and here we are at the University of Botswana refrectory lining up for pap, salty beef, and bug juice. It's wild, it's ridiculous, it's impossible, it's silly, but most of all, it's absolutely beautiful.

***

So, as I mentioned, I had my first class today. No, let me rephrase that. I was supposed to have my first class. It's been a while since I've had first day jitters, but as I stumbled through the puzzling lay out of UB trying to find Block 232 with an equally-confused Ilana by my side, the Monarch butterflies in my stomach through a rave. That proverbial blank whiteboard that I've entered this new environment with is itching to be covered with ink. Alas, as we were warned the professor did not show up (this is normal for the first week parents, do not fret). So Ilana and I collectively remembered the beautiful, often embarrassing innocence of elementary school for a few minutes and then made our way back to the Graduate Village. Our impressive herd of frustrated and enthusiastic exchange students will be meeting in about an hour with Charity, our communal mother here, and registration should be completed and classes should be sorted out. As I've learned here, however, "should" isn't a word that holds a lot of weight, so I'm not expecting much.

In the meantime, I will just reiterate how new and exciting it all is. It hits me the most when I look up and see the endless Southern African sky, cloudless and blue until the sun sets and everything explodes into hues of purple, red, orange, and yellow. Then the famous Botswana diamonds show their glory, and the black blanket above gets littered with a thousand and one tiny glowing specks, sometimes fusing to form mysterious stretches of milky waves. The wide, open spaces stretching in every direction dwarf me, and there's comfort in that tininess not brought about by the sheer number of people around me at any moment (something I'm far too used to) but rather the sheer amount of nothingness that envelops me. All I can really do is ask myself "where am I?" and start trying to put together an appropriate answer.

***

I'm all about sharing whats making its way through people's eyes and ears so I'll give occasional updates, and please do the same. Especially my music people - I fear I'll be a little behind what's happening upon my return.

Listening:
Colin McPhee - Symphony #2
Stomu Yamash'ta - Music of the Future, Vol. 2
Alkaline Trio - Agony and Irony
Propagandhi - Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes

Reading:
Tintin and the Secret of Literature, Tom McCarthy