Regarding: November 8th - November 9th, 2016
Ok, this is embarrassing because this post is now almost exactly 4 months after the fact, but I'm going to try and type out what I remember from travel day.
At the time, travel day was exciting; in hindsight, travel day was exhausting.
Our itinerary was as follows:
08 November 2016 - Tuesday
4:30 AM - Check out of Hotel
5:00 AM - Bus arrives for loading and departure to the airport
10:30 AM - Leave Washington Dulles for a non-stop flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Flight time: 12 hours 45 minutes
Airline: Air Ethiopian Airlines
09 November 2016 - Wednesday
7:15 AM - Arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Terminal 2
10:10 AM - Leave Addis Ababa for Entebbe, Uganda
Flight time: 2 hours 2 minutes
Airline: Air Ethiopian Airlines
12:15 PM - Arrive in Entebbe, Uganda
2:00 PM (ish)* - Arrive at Peace Corps' Training Center
*6:00 AM (ish) Eastern Standard Time
So, yeah. ~24 hour travel time. How's that for a commute?
But let's start from the beginning and work our way through. As you may remember from the "Jumping Off Stage", I had spent the entire night re-packing and re-weighing all of my luggage, so 4:30 AM found me sleepless in… well in Washington. I remember we had been told several times that we needed to be able to carry ALL of our luggage OURSELVES.
Lol. K.
I had a backpack, a carry-on and 2 bags as big as me; there was no way I was carrying those myself -- not gracefully anyway. I remember thinking all this effort I'd put in to make myself seem cool at staging was about to go out of the window, because exiting my hotel room I looked absolutely ridiculous. I'm shuffling down the hotel hall literally herding my luggage: carry the backpack, roll the carry-on, kick one big bag, double back, kick the second big bag, repeat. It was a most ungraceful progression.
This routine was embarrassing enough in the privacy of the hotel hallway (I forgot to insert "trip + stumble every 3rd repeat"), but the real challenge was thinking about having to maneuver my entourage onto the bus, off the bus, through the airport, and, ultimately, to the training site.
Ughh. That is a lot of ungainly hobbling.
Luckily, I wasn't alone. That's something I've found throughout my time here: No matter how bad, awkward, or embarrassing things get, I'm never alone. I really think that's one reason why Peace Corps members become so close; it's unique to have all of your most embarrassing moments take place with the same people.
Back to me, I made it down the hotel elevator, out the doors, and I found myself surrounded by ungainly hobblers. #TogetherWeStand. We loaded up a school bus, our staging trainers told us "goodbye" and "good luck", and we were off.
The bus ride was dark and peaceful. I listened to my iPod and reflected on how this first small hiccup of Peace Corps was going. Staging had been fine; it was rushed, but interesting, and now I was heading out of America on a bus full of strangers. So that was something.
Once at the airport, I think a feeling of wonder began to settle over everything. We approached Ethiopian Airlines (look at that script! That's not English! We're going to a foreign land! Whoaaa I'm at an airline counter that is not Delta or Spirit). We panicked about whether or not our luggage would be overweight (mine barely passed). Then the cohort turned into a loosely corralled mob of people moving through various checkpoints of the airport. I think we were all running on fumes, some residual adrenaline, and introspection as the point of no return became more imminent; hence an immediate mobbing of Dunkin' Donuts. Coffee and comfort food, a traveler's best friend.
(On the point of "comfort food", do you know how many "last meals" I had in America? I must have had 1 a day for 2 weeks preceding my departure. Every outing for 2 weeks involved a goodbye and a last meal, which meant they were all really depressing but also really delicious. Sorry, back to the Dunkin'…)
Before anyone knew it, we were boarding the plane. We were committed.
The plane was massive. It was like traveling on a cruise ship that could fly. We could move around freely, were fed several decent meals, and had unlimited alcohol and movies, so, all in all, not really a bad way to pass ~13 hours.
Despite that, about 5 hours in, I wrote the following:
"My overriding emotion right now is sad, and I'm not really sure why. I guess just kind of it's all hitting me what I'm leaving behind for so long. But, even though it sucked saying goodbye… it means that going to Africa all of my loose ends are truly tied up, and that's a really liberating feeling."
Yeah, I think the plane ride was a lot of alternating between feeling homesick about what I'd left behind and excited about what I was about to encounter.
(Disclaimer: The following paragraphs go into a discussion of privilege specifically as it relates to American media. If you're here to read my story develop and not my philosophy, please stop reading here and enjoy the post!)
I did have one cultural development on the plane, perhaps my first conscious "horizon broadening" moment. I looked up after journaling and noticed the man in front of me was watching a movie, and every character I saw was black. In that moment I realized that I had never, or maybe a once or twice, seen a movie with all, or even the majority, of characters being any other demographic than white. That was fascinating and embarrassing to acknowledge.
I think it's important not to be afraid to acknowledge my own shortcomings in terms of awareness. As a white, Protestant, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied (the list could continue, but I'll leave it at that) American, I've spent a lot of my time being squarely in the majority. Consequently, I've spent a lot of time being ignorant of how much privilege I have. I am female though, so incidentally, while I never really think how my skin color has impacted my life, I spend a lot of time thinking about my gender.
Acknowledging that I have power because of factors I can't control (skin color, etc.) is uncomfortable. It makes me feel guilty, which makes me angry because I didn't choose to be white any more than any one chooses their skin color; and, I'm not racist, so why should I bear guilt for a system that doesn't seem racist to me (I don't know anyone who's openly racist, so is the system racist? Isn't racism dead?)? It seems monstrously unfair and possibly made up. I want to think this idea of "privilege" is just a fancy buzzword made up by people who can't get their act together and are blaming the "system" instead of working harder or being better.
But I don't believe that. I think a lot of my experience, both here and at home, have shown me that racism exists and is prevalent in America just as sexism, homophobia, etc. exist and are prevalent in America. Yes, I think we have made a lot of progress, but I think there is a lot of work left to be done. I've linked some videos that I think do a wonderful job of explaining and advocating for the idea of unequal power and privilege in America (and, though I've only linked 3, I recommend the whole "Cracking the Codes" series to be worth watching).
So, if I think that inequality does exist, whether or not it's my fault, whether or not I created or perpetuate it, it's my job to address it. And I think the best way I can best help address the inequality in America is to acknowledge it; but, in order to acknowledge my privilege or that inequality, I have to be aware of it. I need to be aware of the ways in which American society caters to my skin color. Sometimes that's the hardest part, because an aspect of life can seem so natural to me that I don't even notice it would impact someone who wasn't white differently than it impacts me. This blindness to my own privilege reminds me of the parable "This is Water": a thing can be so ubiquitous, it's impossible to see.
So, how does this entire schpeal relate to Uganda and seeing that movie on the plane?
Well, being in Uganda has really helped me see more of "the water". One privilege I've been able to see more clearly is that it is easy to find myself in the media. To be more plain, that moment on the plane helped me see the lack of diversity in American media. I never thought about the fact that characters in movies and TV shows (almost) always look like me. Frankly, if most people in a TV show or movie don't look like me, I generally choose not to watch it. Would I have that option if the vast majority of popular TV shows and movies only starred non-white actors?
This doesn't only apply to movies, another example of this lack of diversity: my mom sends me Sunday morning comics from home. I've asked her to, and it's a nice way for me to feel "at home" away from home. The other day, some of the kids from my neighborhood came over, and I gave them the comics I'd finished for them to read. As they began to read, I became so aware of the lack of characters that look like them. In the entire paper, there must be close to 30 comic strips. Only 1 features a black cast. Only 2 feature a majority of characters that are not Caucasian. Most strips don't involve any non-Caucasian characters at all.
This is an issue with books sent to Uganda as well; it is laughable how tone-deaf our inordinately large "Barbie section" looks to me. Don't get me wrong, books are sent with the best of intentions, but the pupils are sent books about children and lifestyles that aren't them or theirs. Growing up, I took it for granted that the books I read and the movies I watched would feature people who looked like me. It's truly hard for me to imagine growing up in a world where the teachers in the books don't sound like my teachers. The friends I see on TV don't look like my friends. The families in movies don't look like my family looks. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to be reminded that I am different even when reading or watching TV.
I say this is an issue with books sent to Uganda, but for minorities in America my recent realization is nothing profound. My skin color has never been something I've thought about, because it's never challenged as the status quo. It's so natural that (almost) everyone would look like me.
Right?
Maybe this would be an appropriate time to mention that I had just landed in Africa.
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes,
"What the Hell is Water?"
- Taken from David Foster Wallace's 2005 Kenyon Commencement Speech
