My Africa Coping Mechanisms

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.