I cried as I dropped my mom at the airport. She just left Fiji. She had a great visit and even managed to adapt to village life for 3 days and 4 nights. She didn't freak out in the village at all even though she had a cockroach crawl on her back one night! We had a great time talking, cooking, and wandering aimlessly around Suva and the village. Thanks for the visit, ma.
Saturday July 25th was my one year anniversary in the village. This is good news. It means I've completed one full year! It also means I only have one left.
I have mixed feelings about this time epiphany. I am ready to come home to America more than anything. I also want to stay and finish my last year more than anything. Having my mom here was a total (excuse my language) mind fuck. I don't know how else to put it. My mom is one of the oldest feelings of home I have. Obviously, she was my home for my first 9 months of existence and I lived with her for 19 years of my life (outside her body thankfully). So then to have a feeling of home that does not include her at all is messing with me, especially since I didn't notice it until she came to visit.
I have been struggling with these ideas of identity and home for a long time now. I don't fit in anywhere. I'm not American. I'm not Fijian. I am something in the middle. It reminds me of a book I read in college (shout out to Cole Farrell and Debbie Mix), "Borderlands", where a Latina-American woman explains how it feels to be trapped in two identities, never fully feeling American or Latina. Always wrestling with one aspect of her personality or the other. Feeling her cultural duality in every decision she makes and in all social circumstances.
Enter an American in a Fijian village. Having other Americans around forces me to see the differences that I have so brilliantly learned to accept as normal for the past 12 months. No, it's not weird that my grandma comes over every 5 minutes and sits and watches me do whatever I'm doing without talking. No, it's not weird to freeze myself out with every shower I take. No, it's not weird for small children to call my name every 10 seconds even though they don't want anything. No, Fijian food is not weird. No, it's not hot or humid here, the weather is actually quite mild this month. No, grog is not gross. No, I don't mind having spiders in my shower.
But these aspects of life are all different to us as Americans and should be different for me. However, I've been Fijianized. This is how adaptive humans can become. I watched my mother adapt to camping-like conditions in 3 days. I never thought this would happen, but when forced, she did it (with grace and humility I might add). I've had 14 months to become an adapted human being and that's exactly what I've done. I don't love everything about Fijian culture. In fact, all the things I previously mentioned get on my nerves sometimes to the degree that I have small mental breakdowns resulting in chocolate binges and the completing of a 600-page book about Dracula in a day. I am not proud of these moments, but they are inevitable. I have changed. Mostly internally. Everyone who has visited says I'm the same I've always been. So why do I feel so different then?
Will my identity ever be whole? Will I ever feel like I am home? Do I fit in anywhere? Will anyone ever understand me? Am I understandable? Is it possible to have 2 different homes with 2 different identities in 2 different countries? Should I need to split my soul into 2 horcruxes, say a Bell's Oberon bottle and a tanoa (grog bowl)? Does this mean I have a split-personality? Should I see a psychiatrist?
Really I've done a bunch of babbling about myself and said nothing. I guess I just want to say that I am counting down the days until my trip home in December, when I will be on a plane home. Instead of watching my loved ones leave, I will be coming home to them. As for now, I will continue to wrestle with the idea of home, and remain in my state of suspended homelessness for awhile longer. Maybe time will reveal these answers to me. Yes, only time will tell.
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No...you did say quite a lot in this post! You aptly described the dichotomy you feel - the "two in one" you have become from spending a whole year as a non-native in a very foreign culture. Wasn't that part of why you went to Fiji - beside wanting to empower women and help them make a difference - but also to see how it changed you, to see how you would respond to the sustained cultural difference? When you do come home, that is what I want to hear about...how the experience (and Fiji) changed you and what that teaches you about yourself and about us who have only known American culture. As one who can only experience two years in a foreign land vicariously through others/you, I think you will have some lessons to teach us. Thanks for sharing the introspection. I hope more is to follow!
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