Arose by another name.
I have an unfortunate tic that comes up from time to time: self-sabotage. If you surveyed the dozen or more people who know me best, they would most likely universally label me as a very stubborn individual (I like to reframe it as my “passionate persistence”, but oh well). So, once I have accepted that any given situation stands to end poorly, I do whatever I can to ensure that outcome.
The information that the Peace Corps gives you about your experience in-country, at best, resembles a jar of pond water — murky, floating with tiny lifeforms, and certainly something you should exercise caution wading into. The mind tends to fill-in the darkness, and leading up to the initial days of our Stage process my thoughts obsessed over what life would resemble in a Malian village once I got dropped off and left all alone. However, the imaginary trials that my brain conjured turned out not to equal the paralysis that homesickness (which I hadn’t anticipated) borne in the middle of my chest. Up until then, throughout my youth, I’d spent time away from my friends and family for extended periods — college, hockey camps, religious retreats — and I never drew a tear at their absence. If anything, I relished their invisibility. This however crept up on me the 2nd week in-country, crushing my ribcage with a vice of unknown power and intent. Obsessively, I cycled through all that I’d miss, the comforts, the landscape, the weather, and the faces, collectively warping my mouth into a twisted moan.
During our training period (aka Stage: <stahj>), we spent a great deal of time sitting in the open air tent classroom learning about the culture, languages and religions of Mali. As someone who minored in African studies, this part felt refreshing and validating. Finally, I had some amount of authority on a topic over my fellow volunteers what with their law degrees, their medical credentials, their engineering prowess. This period of elevation lasted for a scant moment and came crashing down when they explained the “naming ritual” you underwent with your host family. Firstly, you don’t choose which family hosts you. In fact, it’s a rather competitive process, where (the richest) families in the village jockey for the right to have the Peace Corps fellow situated within their family collective. Those interested in consideration for their own American idol had to build a brand new hut, outfitted with a concrete floor, metal window frames and a door with a lock on it — no even the high chieftain’s living quarters had all of these amenities. Once you’ve settled with your family, they perform a rather elaborate ceremony wherein they graft upon you your new name, one different than your current moniker. From that point forward, everyone in your village would use this name, you would use it yourself, and oddly so would other volunteers when you encountered them back in the capital. I feared that it would create a very strange and deep amputation from the identity I’d known my whole life . Adding to my already high levels of discomfort, I began to scattershot all sorts of internal questions:
Do I want to be a completely different person?
Am I making a bigger deal out of this than I should?
What if I don’t like my name?
After all, this is my “family”, the only source of physical comfort I will receive over the next 2 years and change. But, must this solace come at such a heavy price? This naming ceremony petrified me — as something no one ever mentioned during any of the screening process, orientation, or pep-talks we sat through. And instead of the U.S. government paying this tariff, the burden shifted to those of us who had signed up to represent the Land of the Free. Frantically, I recoiled into a desperate, immature survival mode where I fabricated illnesses, mimed afflictions and appropriated mental struggles.
Shortly, the fabrication would catch up with the boy who had bawled wolf with a mixture of cruelty and humor.