“Fiddler on the Roof of Africa”: A Peace Corps reflection ...Middle East

Catharsis 

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.” — Henry David Thoreau 

“Catharsis is about cleansing and healing at one and the same time — healing memories and attitudes, healing the spirit and the heart.” — Desmond Tutu 

The grass was cool and wet from the day’s rains, and the fire cast a ring of rising fog around itself as the dew fled. I laid down on the grass about ten feet from the fire, propping myself up on an elbow. Pulling sheets of paper from a stack beside me, I crumpled each piece and tossed them one by one into the fire.

The flaming pile of paper, cardboard, and spent candle stubs cast a noiseless, shadowless light over the entire compound. There were no snaps or pops of smoldering twigs like a campfire would have. The flames were completely silent. Cinni, the last puppy of Titi’s last litter was curled in a tight ball next to me. His mother was in California with one of our gelada monkey researcher friends, his sister was in Michigan with another researcher friend, and his brother was in Colorado with my mother.

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All his other siblings, past and present, were dead. He lazily raised an eyelid every time I moved to throw something into the fire. He did not know that this fire meant he would be left behind to live as a street dog, reliant on the kindness or indifference of Ethiopians or foreign trekkers to survive. People in town knew him, and he had a reputation of a well-behaved ferenj dog. He had a chance. 

The papers were torn from more than a dozen Peace Corps manuals, reports, and information packets that we accumulated over our two years as PCVs. It was our last night in Debark, and we had been cleaning our house all day to get ready for our departure in the morning.

“Fiddler on the Roof of Africa”

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I was burning all our non-plastic trash to prepare for the new Volunteer who was going to move into the house next. Due to the difficulties that the Volunteer before us had had, and the challenges Claire and I had faced, this new Volunteer could be the last Volunteer Debark would have. That didn’t bother me. I was just happy that we had done as much as we could.

As I laid there thinking back on the past two years, I only regretted that I came to Ethiopia with such unrealistic expectations; with such delusions of optimism. I was throwing paper into the fire too slowly, and it was beginning to die down, so I walked over and dumped a stack of forms into the compost pit, now impromptu fire ring. I watched the sheets burn, blackening and peeling back from the upper corner as if the fire were reading them. 

Our neighbor Selam had apparently been watching me for several minutes through the crude fence of eucalyptus poles that separated the compounds. I heard and understood her questions in Amharic as easily as if she said them in English. I allowed myself a quiet, sardonic chuckle before answering. And now I’m leaving. 

“What’s the problem?” 

“There’s no problem.” 

“OK…what are you doing?” 

“Nothing…it’s just a bonfire.” 

She inhaled sharply in acknowledgement and cast a confused glance over her shoulder as she turned and left. I’m sure it was strange seeing a lone, white guy staring into a fire in the middle of the night. My use of demera—the Amharic word for a celebratory fire—for a trash fire likely did nothing to ease her confusion. My vocabulary was admittedly questionable, but I knew that word. And I meant it. 

I didn’t question why she assumed there was a problem. Yet there was no problem—I felt great. It was one of the best moments of my life. I burned away the scraps of the bureaucracy that we had navigated the previous two years, in a garden that I had built from scratch, with a tragically loyal dog curled next to me, on a cool night at the Roof of Africa.

Claire, my wife and best friend, was packing our bags just inside. We would leave our home in Ethiopia the next day. Despite wanting to visit, we would probably never return. It was just too far, too expensive, and too difficult to come back—not only because of the logistics. 

The world was far from perfect while I was lying on the grass outside my Ethiopian home. After spending more than two years here, I had been robbed, punched, kicked, cursed, bitten, and pelted with rocks.

However, I had also been hugged, kissed, laughed with, and stuffed full of delicious food and honey wine on countless occasions. I had had faith because I trusted that no matter what misfortune happened to us, we would get the help we needed and our American and Ethiopian friends would rally around us.

Despite our dogs being hit by canes on our way to the main road, we could walk to Negash’s café where they would be given fresh bread and treated like family. Despite coming home disheartened from a fruitless meeting at the park office, I could always share a meal with friends. 

That half hour spent lying on the grass enjoying the signal fire of our departure was one of the most cathartic moments of my life. It was a pregnant pause that separated what life had been and what it would be. I was not scared, disappointed, sad, or conflicted. Nor was I happy.

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I was content. I felt like my life had meaning. I was mindful of the moment’s importance, and I felt it passing without anxiety. I didn’t try to prolong it or end it prematurely. When the fire had burned out, I simply stood up, patted the dog goodnight, and walked inside. 

Going home. We were told for months before we left Ethiopia that moving back to the USA after living in another culture can be more difficult than adjusting to that new culture initially. Stories of depressed and jobless RPCVs sitting on parents’ couches littered our minds like empty fast-food cartons.

Peace Corps staff, expats, and returned Volunteers hoped to give us realistic expectations of what life would be like when we stepped foot in the States. However, this often resulted in horror stories that ended with, “But I’m sure that won’t happen to you.” 

The strength of this reverse culture-shock is highly individualized. It depends on the culture returning from, the length of time spent in that culture, the events that transpired in that country and in the individual’s home country, the personality of the individual, and numerous other factors. For RPCVs, the effect is compounded by the realities of being unemployed and couch surfing into the sunset. 

Returned Volunteers can be hesitant to speak negatively about their service with people who have not experienced Peace Corps, yet will complain for hours about how much they hated their host town when with other Volunteers. This code-switching is often intended to make Peace Corps service sound better to both the people listening and the Volunteers themselves.

Also, Volunteers can more easily talk about their service with people who have gone through similar experiences. Many things can be left unsaid and more meaningful dialogues can take place when a Peace Corps elevator pitch isn’t required as an introduction to any overseas story. But before we could talk about our service with people back home, we had to get home. 

After sleepless flights from Addis Ababa to Rome, to Bangkok, to Tokyo, to Dallas, and finally Denver, we were home. Despite all the layovers, I would still take a day of connecting flights than a day spent in a crowded, close-windowed Ethiopian bus with livestock both inside and tied to the roof.

With equal parts gratitude and grogginess, we let the Jetsonian horizontal escalators carry us through the Denver International Airport. The escalators moved just slightly faster than a disgruntled Ethiopian cow weaving through the dense traffic of Addis Ababa. We were restless after our flights, but let the moving walkway set our pace. 

We arrived in Denver late in the morning on Friday, December 14th, and I realized why so many returning Volunteers sink into a stupor. Two years of thoughts of home had romanticized the USA. As soon as we got off the plane, we were slapped in the face by the news of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that had taken place just hours before.

Really? This is the America I am coming back to? Mass shootings, the 2012 fiscal cliff, and the looming December 21st Mayan Doomsday prediction. Reality didn’t reflect the end of the tunnel that returning to America was supposed to be.

Derek Lowstuter graduated with a B.S. degree in Natural Resource Management, with minors in Horticulture, Forestry, and History. He obtained his M.S. degree in Forest Sciences in collaboration with the Peace Corps Master’s International Program. He is currently a doctoral student at Colorado State University, where he works as an Agricultural and Natural Resource Specialist at Colorado State University Extension. He has directed agricultural and natural resource management projects on four continents, but now calls Colorado Springs, Colorado, home with his wife, Claire, their daughter, and a menagerie of animals and houseplants.

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