Roaming in Search of Pasture

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Great public health campaign idea

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When I taught English in Guadeloupe, my students thought I was dabbing. I had to explain that the dab is actually the most hygienic way to sneeze (and cough). 

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A tentative attempt to get my life back together

It seems like every year, around the same time, I have a fucking meltdown and spin out into a whirlwind made of rash decisions and tears.

November is the cursed month, usually. The range goes from late September to early January. These annual calamities have probably been happening most of my life, but for brevity and relevance, I’m going to concentrate on the years after university.

2011 - I ran back to France for my TEFL certificate, but then chickened out of staying for a job, like a fool. Came home to work shit part-time temp jobs. I know I was unhappy, but the time between has made me forget the intensity of that year’s particular misery.

2012 - Ah, yes. This year was more about barely contained rage than sadness. I decided to move in with my best friends despite the fact that I made almost no money. I also adopted a dog so that I would have someone who loved me the most.

2013 - I love my best friends, but living with them made me pick up smoking again to deal with the stress. I had quit over a year and a half before. I had a full-time job, but still couldn’t afford my own place. No way was I moving back home so soon. Stuck.

2014 - This year’s super fun breakdown sent me to a new psychiatrist who gave me old drugs. Between two family members dying, almost one right after the other, I decided that next year, I had to be far away.

2015 - Far away became a temporary teaching job in the French Caribbean. The job was fine, but I was stressed about the housing and isolated. I started looking for new places in Guadeloupe, even saw one, but decided that moving was too much effort. I could always cope with the stress in my normal way: crying silent screams into a pillow, curled up on the floor of my room. It’s the only real way to have an emotional breakdown.

So what is happening during my annual calamity of 2016? Much the same. Back in Guadeloupe, enjoying it a lot less, encountering the perennial money problems, car problems, housing problems, technology problems, health (insurance) problems. In 2016, I almost just called it quits and went home. Instead, I decided to stay out my temp job again, and spend the next few months crying silent screams into a pillow, curled up on the floor of my room. 

For those who read this and thought “me too,” I have a few tips that I wish I’d thought of at least five years ago.

1. Don’t buy anything, especially plane tickets. I’ve paid the equivilant of an international plane ticket in fees for changed dates. This also applies, to a lesser extent, to boat tickets. Really, any expensive transportation.

2. If you are also drunk on tears of grief, just don’t touch your credit cards. Don’t even look at them. This ties in with number one, but it’s worth a second mention.

3. Seriously, don’t buy anything but chocolate and other comfort foods.

4. You can try asking friends and family members for advice on what to do. You can run your ideas past them. As well-meaning or selfish as their advice might be, the decision will still come down to you. This has always been the crux of my dilemma. Asking other people has always just added a layer of effort in deciphering the motives behind the advice.

In summation: if you move around and still find a pattern of unwelcome emotional responses following you, the issue is something to do with you, and not even a tropical sunset can disappear all your problems.

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Guadeloupe: Round Two

Friends and Fam, you know varying amounts of details about Operation Return to Guadeloupe. Let me catch y’all up.

I made a mistake. When I applied to renew my contract, I forgot to submit a form. Erp a derp derp. So I was waitlisted. Then started the Summer of Waiting. But it worked out, and I was accepted back into the teaching assistant program.

Then the Summer of Waiting continued. Each day I checked the mail, practically yanking envelopes from the mailperson’s hands, hoping that my certificate of employment was in the pile. It never came. I emailed people, was told to wait, waited, emailed more people, got no response, and finally, got a form to submit, and got my certificate of employment.

The details are incredible drab, but suspense of not knowing my future nearly caused ulcers. When August hit, I went into full panic mode, started applying to jobs online again. Level of desperation was maximum. Just when I was beginning to give up hope, I received the one document I needed to return to the island of beautiful waters.

This Monday I have a visa application appointment. With luck, I’ll be settling back in the Caribbean by the end of this month. I’m so ready, I even have a list of goals for round two.

Victory Lap Gwada Goals:

Learn Gwo-Ka dancing

Learn Créole

Get into the literary scene

Find out the story behind those Carnival monkey masks and whips

Eat more traditional Guadeloupian food and actually learn their names and history

Be a better teaching assistant (don’t forget to bring Taboo!)

Now that my goals are public, I have at least a semblance of accountability. The key to getting out more and participating in cultural events is a car. At the end of last school year, I taught myself how to drive a manual transmission. And since a lot of last year’s earnings were trapped in my French bank account, I should have enough to rent one. This year, I am prepared.

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Black From Abroad

The Bahamas recently issued a travel warning for its citizens traveling to the United States. The notice advises against participating in protests, encourages caution when interacting with police, suggests avoiding cities where frequent clashes between cops and protesters are occurring. These are not unreasonable points to mention in a travel warning. One writer for Slate, however, wrote an article on how compared to the rate of violent crimes at home, Bahamians are safer in America. I’m not linking the article because I think it’s a disgusting derailment of the point. Travel notices exist to warn people about potential risks and dangers they may not think about. Countries with large Black populations need to consider interactions with police in America as a risk of travel here. 

When my students in Guadeloupe asked me if America is racist, I said yes. When they asked what I liked about living in Guadeloupe, one of my top answers was that I felt safe there. I told them there were few places in America I could say that about. It felt urgent to me to tell these children that being Black in the USA carries a danger unknown in contemporary Guadeloupe.

Even other American teaching assistants on the island showed surprise and concern when I told them I was from Texas. “Isn’t Texas an extremely racist place?” Without a doubt. 

I was actually surprised how pervasive the image of rednecks toting confederate flags was as a representation of my state. I’m so used to my liberal circle in Houston: representing a diversity I have never seen in a film, frequent library patrons, working with non-profits. But when asked about Texas’ racism, my mind catapulted to cross-country road-trips with my family. I remembered passing through small towns in East Texas, more flags with “stars and bars” than “stars and stripes.” Then I thought of the murder of Sandra Bland. I remembered the teenage girl in a swimsuit who was slammed to the ground by a cop. I am no longer surprised.

After the murder of Dallas police officers at a protest, one of the teachers I worked with in Guadeloupe sent me an email. She asked if I was alright, if my family was safe. It was a privilege to reply that me and mine were alright. 

It is important that countries like the Bahamas consider how their citizens may be treated in other countries, even if offends some people’s American pride. For any of us walking down the street, living our Black lives, it won’t matter if we are from the Caribbean or Africa, African-American or multiracial, or any other combination under the sun. When it comes to law and order on this large swath of land, we are all Negros. 

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So this amazing woman, Deidre Mathis, is establishing a hostel in Houston. She would be the first African-American woman hostel owner in the US. 

If this sounds like a cause you’d like to support, click the link to donate to her Indiegogo campaign. 

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28 Days Later...

It’s been four weeks.

Four weeks since I saw the ocean, felt powerful winds brush salt through my hair, laid out for a nap under broad-leafed trees on a beach.

It’s been four weeks since I smoked my last cigarette, outside the Miami International Airport at 3:30 am. 

I miss the ocean more.

And it’s only been four weeks.

I forget, for just seconds, that I’ve left Guadeloupe. Sometimes, I rise from my desk chair, deciding I’ll go take more pictures of the island from Fort Fleur d’Epée or window shop on Rue Frébault in Pointe-à-Pitre. I stare at my Karu’lis bus pass with longing. 

Reverse culture shock can mess you up.

I track the time that’s passed since I returned home. Imagining, what did I do this time last week, last month, two months ago? When I returned from studying abroad in Nantes six years ago, I kept the calendar I hung on my wall there. During the summer I returned, I would flip through the months, reliving my life abroad. It’s hard to let go of an extraordinary experience even if it was only meant to be temporary. I’m definitely coping better than I did six years ago, but it’s a constant process.

If you’re experiencing reverse culture shock after a long stay overseas, here are some tips to help you cope with American reintegration. Some of the things that I’ll recommend are the same tips you’ll read on any mental health blog:

Pet a dog

Find and talk to people who’ve had similar experiences

Don’t force yourself to resume your life as if nothing special has happened to you

Write about your experiences

Try to avoid consuming too much American news. It’s mostly sad, and will just make you wish you were back on a beach.

Watch funny animal videos (Do cats still rule the internet?)

Pet a cat

Pet a bunny

Pet any fluffy domestic animal you can access

Seriously, the best salve for my homesickness in Guadeloupe was this cutie:

And my greatest joy back in Texas is cuddling with this clown:

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Reblog if your blog is safe for the LGBTQIA community.

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People on such short trips usually don’t stick around long enough to realize how ineffective they are being.  In Uganda, I got used to seeing groups of young people come for week-long visits at the orphanage where taught English. They would play with the kids, give them a bracelet or something, and then leave all-smiles, thinking they just saved Africa. I was surprised when the day after the first group left, exactly zero of the kids were wearing the bracelet they had received the day prior. The voluntourists  left thinking they gave the kids something they didn’t have before (and with bragging rights for life). But the kids didn’t care, because what they really wanted was school uniforms, their school fees to be paid, guaranteed meals, basic healthcare, and the like — the basics.   Worse, they can even be harmful to children who struggle with abandonment issues.  This should not be understated; have you ever considered the negative impact it routinely has on kids after they bond with someone for a week, and then that person disappears from their life? If your justification for going on these trips is “seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces”, then you’re part of the problem.

7 Reasons Why Your Two Week Trip To Haiti Doesn’t Matter: Calling Bull on “Service Trips” - The Almost Doctor’s Channel (via shinyandloud)

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Do not apologize to me for your bad English. There is nothing to be sorry about for learning to speak English. It’s hard. You are trying your best and I’m proud of you.

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Learning a new language is difficult. What’s important is that you understand and are understood.

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Guadeloupe Travel Tips: Ima’s Take on Health, Romance and Safety - Pink Pangea: Travel Writing & Retreats for Women

Ima's Guadeloupe travel tips: everything from how to purchase contraceptives, to what to expect from men in this French Caribbean territory.

I wrote a thing! Or, rather, I filled out a form!

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I’m just an expat, in love with the archipelago, sharing some of places in Guadeloupe that I enjoyed the most.

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What are you: a catalog

Today I was told that I look Somalian. That was a new one. It got me thinking about all the ethnicities/nationalities strangers have attributed to me.

Latina (Mexican specifically, South American generally)

Tunisian/Algerian, North Sudanese, Egyptian (or generally Arab)

Indian (from one of the Eastern states)

Trinidadian/Dominican (DR) (West Indian, generally)

East Asian, partly, around the eyes, maybe Japanese

I’m sure I’ve forgotten some other from left field guess, and I’ll update this post as more accumulate. ‘Cause all around the world, people just can’t let an ambiguously brown girl live!

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The n-word abroad

Today, I did a lesson about American slang today for one of my 2eme classes (11th grade?). Several students raised their hands and named a slang word and then a white student raised her hand and said the n-word. I think my brain actually made a scratched vinyl sound.

Turns out, some people outside of America think the n-word is just slang for "friend." They only hear it in music. They don't know the history or significance it has in America. I encountered a similar situation with some Spanish teaching assistants.

From the bewildered face I'm sure I made, she and the other students must have realized it was not a good word. So I patiently explained some of the history and significance, and how some Black Americans want to reclaim the word, which is why she hears it in some of our music. 

In America, we don’t get a lot of information about other cultures. It’s easy for us to take for granted that everyone else in the world has the same cultural touchstones we do. 

I’m just glad I got to explain the meaning of that word before she went to the States, tried to greet someone as “my n-” and got popped upside the head. 

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My latest article for Pink Pangea.

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My first article on Pink Pangea about my experiences living in Guadeloupe

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Fully about this Gosier night market. I got mad mangos, y'all!

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The time has almost come. We are only days away from Valentine’s Day, the holiday where the world around us falsely promotes love in the form of balloons and teddy bears. This Valentine’s Day feels like we are on the cusp of doom. My single friends don’t even want to leave the house that night given the fact that it falls ...

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