4.27.2009

Zambia: part 3

Arrival in Africa was the death of traditional academics this last semester, from which I haven’t recovered.

From Day 1 I knew that Zambia was where I would lose myself and start to find myself again. The first thing I wrote in my Zambia journal was How am I perceived by others? I started off making the trip about me. Maybe that was the result of cultural orientation, a sudden strong self-awareness—that has not ended.

Just as I am self-aware today, you don’t necessarily see it. For I often keep my thoughts to myself. Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations. Only occasionally do I find I have to break my peace: shout or be lost in the shuffle. But mostly I am lost in the shuffle. You don't know me the way that I do.

I don’t know me the way that you do. It keeps us balanced, dancing this dance. But how I wish sometimes that you would tell me who I am, what I mean to you. Tell me what sympathy I deserve.

I never meant for my silence to be my strength. It’s the power through which I can keep secrets and deceive. Given a voice, I now have no secrets.

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