One week from today, I will be back in Norway. And… I don’t even know what to say. I am about to leave the place where we have lived for a year, and I really don’t have to much to say about it.
Maybe that is a reflection of how things are for me. Maybe I am truly done living here. In every way. The city of Montecristi and its surrounds are thoroughly explored at this point. What else is there to do? to say?
I’ve eaten more or less the same boring five dishes for an entire year. I have sweated my way through the days and the nights. Sat in front of a fan on full blast, I have donned earplugs and cursed the inventors of Merengue, the amplifier, the motorbike and especially that asshat who decided roaming bands of untrained, starving, barking dogs was a smart form of burglary protection.
I have lamented the lack of any decent dairy, bread and lunchmeat. I have raised my fist at mentally deranged drivers who have almost killed me, and at suicidal cows, dogs, goats, sheep and chickens who nobody seems interested in keeping out of the highway. All the time swerving around potholes the size of baby hippos that nobody finds it important to fix.
I have planted my face in my palms at the lack of education and ambition. At the complacency with corruption and unfairness. At the racism, violence and the stupid shortsighted solutions and explanations put forward by everyone from the rich expat to the poor farmworker.
It is melodramatic, but in some ways, I feel as if I have survived something epic, as if it is an achievement that I am still here. Sincerely.
And then once again I remember that this is normal for everybody who lives here. And in fact I am just some privileged gringo with money to burn on an apartment, “fancy" foods, electricity and running water. Who am I to judge, to complain?
No… I don’t feel like I fit in here. I am glad I don’t to be totally honest. It wears you down I think, being here. It sharpens your edges, and makes you a meaner, more direct person. Seriously, I think everyone who stays here for an extended period of time with anything more on their agenda then drinking mimosas on the beach will have to man up and become some version of a rude asshole at some point.
So, anything nice to say you ask… Well, yes.. of course, lots. Mostly, it is beautiful here, it’s beautiful being here. Honestly, amazingly so. And I don’t just mean that in a “postcard look at the amazing beach” kind of way. It is also beautiful in ways sad songs are beautiful. The trash along the highway, the drunks and beggars, the school kids walking home at sunset, the ramshackle houses, the live goat tied up next to it’s dead brother, the Haitians walking miles and miles to get to work or get home. It is a hauntingly beautiful slice of life. Driving through the country listening to Bon Iver makes complete sense for some reason. Everything around you is just so rich in life, destinies, joy and sadness. It can be completely magical.
There are all the other things you all know too. The weather is good, there are the beaches, beer, latin rythms, yada yada. But honestly, that really is not what I will think of when I think back at my time here.
I will think of Jefnaika, a severely malnourished little Haitian baby girl in “our” batey. Of Luz Maria, the warmest most friendly neighbor anyone could ask for. Of Martha, our Creole translator who is also fluent in sass and has a heart of gold. Of Sijo who was murdered for 16,000 pesos. Of Miguel and Raphael who helped us with everything. Of Claire, Matt and Lydia who made me feel so much better about feeling bad. Of buttman the village drunk with no pants, wolfman the mysterious hairy biker. Cholera the cutest little haitiana and her little clever smile. I’ll think of the Haitians posing for my camera. Running home to get changed into their good clothes, and bringing the cell phone for the shot. In the future, when I am back home. I’ll occasionally think back and I’ll miss all these people. I’ll feel a small sting in my chest when I reflect on where they might be now. Because I’ll know where they will be. And I will feel bad, not because it’s all bad there, but because they don’t have the privilege to sit and judge like I am now doing.
I was recently asked what is the one thing I have learned this year. It was hard to find a good answer, but I have thought about it, and maybe it is something close to this:
Life is terribly unfair, but beautiful.