I dream of cherry pies
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
You’ve got it, you’ve got it
We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
You’ve got it, you’ve got it
There was a discount store
Now it’s turned into a cornfield
You’ve got it, you’ve got it
Don’t leave me standing here
I can’t get used to this lifestyle!
"Nothing But Flowers" - The Talking Heads
He licks his lips: “Oh man. I would get a steak, cooked medium rare, smothered in garlic butter, with scallops and creamy spinach as my sides”.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
His face lights up: “Ooooh I forgot about scallops, damn I love scallops. What about dessert? I would get a chocolate cheesecake with whipping cream but not regular whipped cream from the tube, I mean the good stuff, you know?”
Why, God? Why hast thou forsakeneth me?
She says with fervor: “Look! if we’re talking about our last meal you have to go fancy! It has to be seafood! I’m talking about lump crab cake or a really good smoked salmon with all the good stuff on it”
Cruel and unusual punishment! I invoke the Geneva Convention! Treaty of Westphalia! The Paris Accords!
Her eyes narrow, grow cold: “I would have bacon wrapped blue cheese stuffed dates as an appetizer. I would have surf and turf with roasted vegetables as the main course. With it, I want smoky smooth bourbon on the rocks as a drink. Finally, a flourless chocolate cake to top it all off”.
The excruciating details…The ruthlessness…The savagery
Then the hungry eyes of my friends fall on me. “What about you Jonesy, what would your Death Row final meal be?”. Everyone has had their turn, explaining their meal of perfect ecstasy. All while we sit in a restaurant in Rwamagana that is called “Trust” - a suggestion to its customers that can only be heeded if they do not look in the kitchen or use the bathroom. The red dust from the road outside hangs in the air, made visible by the streaks of sunlight that snake their way through the holes in the tin roof.
Despite the fact that we are doomed to eat a protein-deficient “Melange” plate, which is a mix of Rwandan staple foods and one solitary and bony chunk of beef, and we are dining in a place that has neither the ingredients nor the capacity to deliver on our food fantasies, we have chosen out of boredom to indulge this torturous topic. Each person gets lost in their own mind as they project the food they can not have onto the table in front of them. Seeing that I never eat more than a piece of bread and two pieces of fruit for breakfast every morning, by the time I get to lunch my hunger transforms from a slight pang to a solid kick in my gastric machinery. And I know from experience that one of the things you can not “Trust” this restaurant to do is deliver your meal in a timely fashion. It’s been an hour since we put in our orders. I’m melting down like Chernobyl.
I don’t want to play this game; it is voluntary misery infliction. But, alas, being a poor sport would be more trouble than its worth. Everyone else has had their turn, and now I have to as well. The damage has been done anyway, I have already been transported on my friends food fantasies, so I might as well go on my own - even though the specificity of it will be so deeply painful. Of courseI know what I want but can’t have, what is the purpose of saying it out loud? Oh well, maybe they will get a laugh from my misery. A deep sigh, and I contribute.
“Well… You guys know me. I’m a simple man. A steak man. But a medium rare pepper crusted steak with a nice bearnaise sauce is where it’s really at…”
Christ what am I doing to myself!?
Disclaimers
I will preface all of this by saying that, of the things I miss and can not currently enjoy, my friends and loved ones top the list. Being here in Africa has been great, but there really isn't any substitute for being with the people you love. But luckily, there are plenty of resources to allow me to trick my brain into feeling like I am still hanging out with them, namely my cell phone and the shreds of mobile internet that I am very lucky to have access to. As my friend Leah (frequent guest on the show) and I often joke about - “Yes, we are alone in our houses. But we are fake alone. Only when your phone dies do you know true loneliness”.
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and regular cell service all provide the 21st Century means of communication that we have all grown to love and eventually take for granted. The fact that I can call my older brother, who is currently deployed on a boat floating about the Mediterranean sea - and we can talk back and forth and joke about nonsense, is truly remarkable when you stop to consider it. It makes me think about the bravery of people who went to join the Peace Corps decades ago, before the advent of the internet and global communication. I wonder what they did if they were not filling their days with chitchatting their friends and family. Lord only knows how much I am reliant on my phone for news and chats from my people.
But while I can virtually hang out as much as I want with the people at home in America, there are so many things that I love that I just simply can not have. I can’t FaceTime with a highway. I can’t text back and forth with American infrastructure. I can’t call fast wifi internet and ask it how it is doing.
As our lunch conversation and my summarily depressed reaction to it illustrated - food is at the top of the list for many of my friends and colleagues. But there are many other things that I miss about being home. And, since I have always taken them for granted having been born in the wonderful country of America, when I sit here and think about them it feels as though I’ve never had them in my whole life. I have been here in Rwanda for almost six months. I lived in America for 26 years, enjoying all of the little luxuries every day - often every second of every day. But here I am, lamenting The Things That I Miss, as if I never knew them.
A friend of mine from Maryland happened to spend several weeks in Kigali while I was training in Rwamagana. She was nice enough to make the effort to come to hang out with me and our group at our local bar on her final weekend in the country. After we cracked our beer, she casually mentioned that the next day she would be flying back to America. “To stay forever?” I asked her. “Yes, you fool” she characteristically retorted, “We are from there, remember?”. The color drained from my face. My eyes went wide. “Wooooow,” I exclaimed. “Ameeedeeekaaa…” My transformation into a Rwandan was beginning to take hold.
When you’re spoiled, you just have to face facts. Let’s get into just a few of the things I truly miss.
1. Baseball
Growing up in the lacrosse playing state of Maryland, we naturally favored our little niche sport with odd sticks with baskets on the ends and hard rubber balls. Lacrosse is a spring sport, and everyone who loves the game would agree that there is nothing better than watching a great game on a warm spring day.
The problem is, people who love baseball think the exact same thing. Ah just another great day to play ball. America’s past time, they say to themselves. Since baseball for student athletes has to fit within the confines of the school year, and couldn’t be done over the summer the way we are used to with the MLB season, it has to be done in the spring alongside lacrosse.
As young, lacrosse playing men, this could not be had. Participating in the classic ideological unnecessary distinction of us v. them - we felt the need, imposed by absolutely no one, to stand our ground against the baseball scourge that was not happening. We derided baseball and all those who played it as the Spring Unbelievers, heretics of the wonderful game of lacrosse. It was boring we said. They don’t do anything, they’re all fatties, we chided with glee. I carried this silly bias with me up until late high school and early college.
There was one problem with my decision to hate baseball. Baseball is an awesome sport. While I would go to a few games a year at Camden Yards with friends to enjoy cheap professional sports, I began to follow the Baltimore Orioles more closely when Buck Showalter began to manage the team and they climbed their way out of the bottom of the AL East and became competitive in the division. The game was almost entirely foreign to me, but I enjoyed trying to figure out the myriad statistics, learning the different styles of pitchers and hitters, getting a frame of reference for what constituted a good At Bat, and the like.
With time I found myself fully engaged in almost all of the 162 games of the season. I loved the chess match between pitcher and batter - the subtle battle for power and advantage between them in their pas de deux. The crack of the bat on a pure connection. In a validation of my own irrational superstitions, I loved that baseball is so difficult that the players resort to the pagan practices of respecting The Baseball Gods, and The Game itself, lest they be stricken by the deities they humbly serve. I love that the best players can go on a streak of not being able to miss the ball, then inexplicably become mired in months-long slumps that utterly confound them.
Before I knew it I had adopted the game so thoroughly that I began speaking in baseball metaphors to explain life situations, despite the fact that I never played the game past tee-ball and I didn’t have any first hand experience of them.
“You can’t strike out looking man, you gotta go talk to her!”
“Yeah their first album was a no-doubt homer, the second one I would say was a sliding double”
“You’re hot at the plate right now, good for you!”
“Jeez, life really threw you a nasty curveball huh?”
“Well, you tried, ya know? All you can do is put a good swing on it”
But, as I’m sure you can guess, Rwandans don’t quite feel the same way about the Game I’ve Grown to Love. No one is paying for MLB network in the Southern Province, so I’m relegated to box scores and short video highlights on my phone. Anyone passing by my house in the middle of the day while I’m on my lunch break would likely be able to hear me talking to myself as I stare at my phone.
Mowed down at the plate! Brooooo that was a sick throw!
Giancarlo Stanton, just cruuuuushing it
Filthy pitch. Nasty. Disgusting. Unhittable
A baby came in to the health center to have his measurements taken, and his mother had dressed him in a Chicago Cubs onesie - one that no doubt made an unlikely journey through space-time from Chicago, Illinois to the Southern Province of Rwanda. I found it to be a good time for cross-cultural exchange. I pointed to his shirt smiling, saying in Kinyarwanda, “American team! I know it!”. My counterpart was delighted - “A football team?” I shook my head and began to grab my imaginary bat and swing it from my shoulder across my chest in a miming motion. “No, baseball. Bays-boll. In America, do you know it?”. Blank stares. I sat down. Next child please.
2. Listening to Music, Completely Alone
I love driving. But not because of the actual act of driving. One of the greatest regrets of my career in Manliness is that I never really got into cars, and I do not know how they work on any level. Back home I pushed a Silver 2005 Toyota Camry, voted First-Ballot Hall of Fame for generic cars by the general public, for over 5 years. Thank the Lord that it never broke down on me, because I wouldn’t have known what to do with it if it did. I have been told that Toyotas “run forever”, I have accepted this fact but I have no clue as to why.
Driving to me is not about speed or grip or suspension or chassis (whatever that is). It’s about jamming. When I drive, I get after it. The car offers a private little world, if you decide to close the windows, and a semi private little world that also includes unsuspecting strangers if you want to keep them open. The make and model of your speakers doesn’t quite matter when you're in the car alone because the point of the exercise is that you are entirely by yourself and can therefore fully indulge in whatever music stirs your pot.
So it is with great pleasure that I roll the windows and crank the volume until I can no longer hear myself singing and pretend like I’m on stage crushing it with the band. For my esteemed bandmates (I love those guys) I bring to bear a full suite of Air Instruments that I have mastered over the years. Air guitar was my first mastery and indeed my first love. Next came the Air Drums, although it was more difficult to figure out because my right foot was always engaged with the pedals so I had to move the Air Bass Drum/High Hat combo over to my left foot. My fingers are the sticks, the wheel is my rig - and no matter where I hit it, boy does it sound crisp! The Air Horn section includes the Trumpet and my personal favorite the Trombone, though sometimes I have a hard time remembering which one I need to slide with my right hand while holding the wheel with my left, and which one has the three little push buttons on top. No matter, it is all powered by my whistling and I always hit my notes, or at least I assume I do since I always have the volume cranked so loud I can’t hear myself.
I can’t quite replicate this feeling of aloneness when I’m here in my house. Of course, I can always put my headphones in and play some music, but some songs must be enjoyed over the airwaves, strutting and singing and playing along. But in the back of my mind I’m worried about neighbors hearing me sing in an off key falsetto that “There are dreams that can not be! And there are storms we can not weather!” or hear Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes command them to Give Her all of their Love. Or Gary Clark Jr telling them that he will be Ready When His Train Pulls in, followed by a face melting, multi-pedaled, wall to wall absolute shred session with me Air Guitaring along looking like I’m having a stroke. I want to teach my neighbors about America but I don’t want them to think that they live near a person with a disturbed mind. These are things better suited for the aloneness of the car.
Peace Corps policy says I can’t drive a car here in Rwanda because I’ll get “automatically Administratively Separated from the country”. Just a technicality that I’m sure can be worked around! Maybe if they saw how much I enjoy a good jam, I could change their mind and go for a nice Sunday cruise through the Rwandan hills.
3. Ice Cream & Milkshakes
As I was telling my friends at the table of our morbid (in more ways than one) conversation, when it comes to food I am a simple man. And when it comes to the desserts I like, I am even simpler. One would think that I grew up in the 50’s with my taste in sweets. You can keep your highfalutin cakes and fruit tartettles and pastries and cream puffs. You can have your extravagant cupcakes, and raspberry tiramisus and nougat reductions. Go ahead, trust me I don’t mind.
When it comes to what I really like, it comes down to three things: a soft and home baked chocolate chip cookie, a similarly gooey and chocolatey brownie, and a nice simple rich ice cream or milkshake. Here in Rwanda I can get a cookie-like thing or what technically constitutes as a brownie or chocolate substitute every now and then, which is enough to keep me sane. But the infrastructure in most places, and especially where I live, is not developed enough to sustain a high powered freezer that can support good ice creams. And obviously, even if they did, the companies that make the treats that I like probably don’t have Rwanda circled on their map as their most profitable market.
So it is no surprise that here in Rwanda I often pine over my all time favorite ice cream - the Haagen Dazs Cookie Dough flavor. My people at Haagen Dazs read my mind and changed the game when they broke age-old cookie dough convention and removed the chocolate chips from the dough itself, leaving pure hunks of delicious dough. Like the invention of the wheel or the innovation of the steam engine, the solution to a better world was sitting right in front of us for years, but us common-folk could never see the way forward. In the case of this ice cream, it wasn’t until the geniuses at Haagen Dazs removed the chocolate-chip barriers and pushed us into a new era that the world truly changed. Indeed, things will never be the same.
There are many ways to eat this ice cream. If you are a normal human being, you will simply get a spoon and consume it as a normal human being would. If you are an 8 year old trapped in the body of a large, 26 year old black man, you will work around the cookie dough chunks, eating only the ice cream and chocolate chips en route to a high cookie dough-to ice cream ratio Grand Finale. You will do this under the impression that you are engaging in the responsible practice of Delayed Satisfaction, thereby congratulating yourself for your toddler-like gluttony rather than being disgusted with it. It’s the way to go.
Wrap It Up
At my house in my site, we have somewhat of an actual shower that sits outside in a shack with a wasp nest in it. The water that comes out of it is so cold that I have to shimmy into it, accepting a unwelcome watery slap in the face every morning around 6:30am.
It is so cold that I have to do the a version of the Hokey-Pokey every morning just to try to get my body wet enough to soap up: I put my left shoulder in, I put my left shoulder out, I put my right shoulder in, and I groan and scream and shout...
After about a month of enduring this every day, I decided to just take the time to warm up some hot water and take a regular hot bucket bath. The results were extraordinary. I never thought I would appreciate hot water so much. I never thought I would be so happy to take a bucket bath. I swore I would never take hot water for granted again, in any form, and so far since that day, I haven’t.
This is part of what this Peace Corps experience has been about for me, and part of the reason why I wanted to come here. We have so many things in America. Not all of the little luxuries are enjoyed by everyone, but it isn’t until all of your personal “little things” are no longer available to you that you realize what you had and what you miss. The good news is, even though you day dream about them, you will eventually get used to not having them. And the better news is that when you get them back, you will appreciate them all the more.