Recently I was asked what I do to cope with stress and rough
days here in Africa. Off the top of my head I couldn’t come up with an answer.
Over the years of being in college and being an athlete I learned how to deal
with my emotional ups and downs, but the level of stress that I experience on a
daily basis here is extremely different than anything else. When I was asked
how I’m dealing it made me really think about how I handled my emotions at home
versus here, and I thought the comparisons were quite entertaining.
At home I would say my number one coping mechanism was food.
That whole idea of eating your feelings is pretty valid. Is it the healthiest
thing, no, but is eating an entire carton of Ben and Jerry’s fulfilling,
absolutely. During college my go to bad day cure was either Starbucks or an
evening ice cream run. Based on my bank account those trips happened more often
than I care to admit. Here in Africa, neither of those options are possible.
First of all, there isn’t a single Starbucks in this whole country, I checked. Second,
a trip to town takes at least three hours, regardless of how long you want to
be there. In college my roommate and I would frequently take trips to Safeway
at 8pm just because we were too lazy to cook something we already had. There is
was easy to stop at a store and pick something up that you had been craving.
Here you have to plan that out days in advance, which kind of cuts the craving
part out of the mix. Then, even if they had Ben and Jerry’s here, which they don’t,
by the time you spent an hour to four hours waiting for a taxi to fill you
would get home to some soupy sweat cream mixture that probably spilt all over
your bags.
My other favorite bad day remedy was Beauty and the Beast.
Yes, I am 23 years old and my favorite movie is still Beauty and the Beast, and
that will never change. Anytime my mom would call and I would tell her I was
watching that movie she automatically knew I was either sick or sad. Normally I
would turn it off before the Beast turns back into the creepy blond man-woman because
he just creeps me out, but something about those songs could always put a smile
on my face. So of course I brought a copy of the DVD with me to Africa, and
watched on average once a week for the first 9 months or so. Then disaster
struck, the DVD broke! In a panic I informed my mother of this heart breaking
event and begged her to send me another copy. Come to find out Disney really
likes to just stop all over my hopes and dreams and had already put the DVD
back in that stupid vault of theirs. Why they only release the classics for a
limited time is just beyond me, but I’m starting to think it’s because they are
just mean. You can now buy the movie on Amazon for like $40! I love the movie,
but seriously $40 is pushing things a little far.
So now that both of my favorite stress release strategies
are out of the picture, how do I handle the daily emotional roller coaster that
is my Peace Corps service? Strategy number one, I hide. I spend some quality time
in my hut, because sometimes I just can’t handle seeing people or trying to
figure out what on earth they are saying to me. Once a week I get to have a
face to face conversation with my closest volunteer when we meet up to get
groceries. Once a week I get to talk with someone in person that actually
understands what I’m saying and how hard it is to be here sometimes. As much as
I love the fact that I can text my friends and family back home through WhatsApp
and Facebook, it’s not the same as talking with someone, and having broken conversations
with people who always ask me how much I’m loving Africa is pretty stressful.
So since it is basically impossible to go outside and not have to interact with
someone, I just don’t go outside, like ever. Like most volunteers in South
Africa I have even stopped going outside to pee. When I first arrived in my
village I was informed that it is unsafe to go to the pit latrine at night and
that I would need to get a pee bucket. At first I thought that was gross and
did everything I could to not have to use it, but over the past few months it
had become my new best friend. Some volunteers have taken it to an extreme and
even go number two in their buckets, but that’s a line I’m not about to cross.
I like to think of it as just a different form of indoor plumbing and it saves
me the super awkward moments while I try to explain to my neighbors that I don’t
want to talk right now, I just want to go to the pit latrine. So now rather
than being an emotional eater I just hide in my room like a hermit.
Previously I would have filled my time hiding in my room
with happy upbeat Disney songs, but since that dream was crushed I have
recently been filling my time by day dreaming. I think a huge part of surviving
the emotions of being extremely homesick, lonely, and pissed off is being able
to mentally escape sometimes. Recently I like to escape by thinking about all
of the delicious food I'm going to eat when I get home! Ask any volunteer, the number
one thing on the list of things we want to do when we get home has to do with
food. Family and friends are always involved, but it usually revolves around
going to this restaurant with them, or having your mom make a full Thanksgiving
dinner in the middle of August just because you can. When you eat the same five
meals every week you end up fantasizing about food…a lot. The second thing I'm going
to do when I get home, after I go to Starbucks, is get a gym membership, because
I my plans for the first month of being home all involve eating. So when I'm super
homesick or pissed off at my school for starting exams three weeks before the
end of term, I come home, pee in my bucket, and lay in bed thinking of all the
amazing food I'm going to consume when I get back home. It’s kind of hard to be
mad when you’re thinking about Cassie’s warm homemade cinnamon rolls, or sushi
dates with mom and dad. Hell, at this point I would even take deer tacos over
the quarter jar a peanut butter I ate for lunch today! In college I was able to
actually eat my feelings, in Africa I fantasize about eating my feelings, it’s
possible that there is something wrong with me, but after almost a year of
being away from home I'm relatively ok with where my coping mechanisms are.
So the next time anyone is wondering how I'm dealing with
missing my friends or family, or how I'm handling the stress of being in Africa
know that I'm probably either on the floor or in my bed thinking about pumpkin
curry and endless Olive Garden breadsticks so that I can distract myself from
how hard this experience is sometimes.
