Pin the Tail

I sat by the window in the dimly lit room. It was a chilly Oklahoma winter morning and my hands shook as I shoved fundraising letters into envelopes. Sitting by the window was my attempt at warmth; mentally willing the sun’s energy to penetrate me like a ray burning ants through a magnifying glass.
I wasn’t in deep thought. Rather my mind was as numb as my fingers. Routinely performing my job at the homeless shelter. And when I stopped to stare out the window my eyes took in an event that at another point in time would have disturbed me.
Two men were walking the corners of the intersection. Both with steely stares focused like lasers out of their empty eyes. One dressed in an armor suit of denim. The other mirrored my own style of black peacoat over sweats.
I waited for the impending clash.
The denim man gripped the pipe with both hands. The other held up a baseball bat.
Do you know the sound of cracking bone?
I sighed and went back to stuffing envelopes. This time, oddly enough, with steady hands. Because sometimes images are filed away. Along with all the emotions. Everything is rushed to be stored in the dusty part of the brain. These moments are sleeping demons. Monsters that erupt into reality when the dusty files are accidentally accessed. This is the truth of the fact that you cant stop life from happening to you. The decisions and words and actions of another will always impact our lives; even if they’re only stored as sleeping demons.
To escape my demons I run to a special spot shaded by a circle of trees. Sometimes I bring a book. This was one of those times.
I was thankful for the cooling shade as the beginning of hot season had dawned that morning when my nightmares became day dreams. Everyone wonders how they’ll react when thrown into moments of injustice. But nobody knows because we are all slaves to our defenses. These days I live amongst peaceful people so my fantasies of tragedy have become schematics for conversations of ignorance.
And under the shade of trees I read to escape my mind. But soon a curious driver stopped his truck to talk to the lonely white woman.
After I gave the now scripted explanation of why I’m here; this obviously educated man spoke to me about what he called “myths of HIV” that I quickly deduced meant more to him than any “fact” he had heard. The term “myth” doesn’t scare Africans (an extremely spiritual people) like it does fact focused Americans.
He began, “you see, Americans have created AIDS to kill us Africans so that they can steal the natural resources from our beautiful land.” Mistakenly I argued from a practical point of view. Trying to show logically that all these American NGOs and government funds would not search to be a solution to the problem they created. He ended, “you are merely a blindfold. Sent here by your government to blind my people from the reality of that disease which kills them. You have the cure! You are a blindfold.”
Flashback to a week earlier when I ran into a group of girls that attended my same small college. They are here for a few months working at the clinic of the local mission. Their eyes betrayed their admiration of my work and they commented on my “fun” lifestyle. I’ve never felt so different than who I once was than at that moment.
I’ve talked a lot with PCVs about the people we’ve become because our time here. I’ve talked a little about the person I was before I came. I was a very spiritual person frustrated with the shortcomings of what I refer to as ‘Consumer Christianity’. So I made decisions that led me into a more ‘social gospel,’ a hands-on application of those values I claimed.
Talking with that man awakened sleeping demons. Because my reaction was to steady shaking hands and file it numbly into dusty envelopes.
Because while I may not be blindfolding others, I couldn’t deny that sometimes I wear the blindfold.
Living immersed in another culture I struggle with the Coldplay lyric: “Am I a part of the curse or a part of the disease”.
Some may say that the fact that I still recognize problems means I’m on track to my bigger purpose.
But the thing is, I was more disgusted with the cheerful girls than with the man in the truck.
The obvious support of each other’s relationships made my blood boil with jealousy. The ease with which they can connect with their love ones back home that saves them from missing life altering celebrations. The convenience of electricity that saves them from bruised egos attained while faceplanting under the weight of a large bundle of firewood. The honesty achieved through the ease of common language conversations that saves them from being the joke of every mis-translation. The assurance of future plans that mirror the people they were before.
I envy their remembrance of before.
Do you know the sound of cracking bone?
Because I run to escape my demons by blindfolding myself as I purposely pin the tail on an asinine life of altruistic consumption.