kinda hating everyone

You all know the feeling, like when you’ve received several phone calls and know you need to call people back and you want to talk to the people but you just really don’t feel like it at the moment and you’d rather sit on the couch. It’s kinda like that, only multiplied by 1,000 because here in West Africa you can’t ‘screen your calls’ when people are continually showing up on your doorstep. And it’s sent me into a place where I just kinda hate everyone! No one person has done anything, I’m just tired of there always being people around. I never had this problem in the States, usually it was quite the opposite – I kept very busy making sure that I was busy and had plenty of people to hang out with and knew that if I was at my home I could just be there relatively undisturbed. But here, my house is a disturbance! The compound has been getting noisier as more random kids have moved in with the families that live here. My understanding is that it goes something like this: in Liberia if you’re doing well economically you are expected to take responsibility for the children of your family members. So the kids keep coming and they aren’t getting any quieter as they multiply and they run and chase and shriek at all hours of the day (my favourite is Saturday at 7:30am when they scream and run all around my house). I’m starting to feel like a grouchy old lady!

The ‘youth hostel’ is just beginning to settle down but now a few of my neighbors have started just coming over. (not to mention my house is now a bit of a 'day care' center because Nelly keeps randomly bringing over the babies of our neighbors and feeding 3-4 at a time on the front porch - don't judge me for hating this, their families are upperclass and the children eat plenty so it's not that i've become heartless!) The Poppy came over for 4 evenings in a row and just sat on my couch. It would be fine if he made conversation but he never does and I feel obligated to be polite and not simply ignore him so it gets awkward real quick as I try to have small talk. And I’ve realized that I still don’t enjoy the company of a certain repeat-visitor. I’ve determined that approximately 75-80% of the time he’s here ‘lecturing’ with me I strongly dislike him! And the remaining 20-25% of the time isn’t that great, my feelings are of mere tolerance. I find myself speaking quite harshly to him (a bad habit I’ve picked up from the Liberian culture) a majority of the time and still he keeps coming back. It’s exhausting! And things have not been coming on well with Nelly and I so there’s much frustration in that arena as well. I’ve found that on the weekends if she’s out I’m compelled to just lock the front door and hang out inside or on the back porch, hoping that the neighbors will think I’m not home! I honestly think that if I could get some quality alone time when I didn’t feel like I was hiding out and racing the clock to gather ‘alone power’ before someone walked into my house THEN I would be ready to socialize again!

It’s very amusing to me that when I first arrived I was freaked out by all the alone time that I felt forced into, but now all I want is to be left alone. I think this is a prime example of how the power of choice can drastically change how a situation is perceived as enjoyable or not! While expressing my need for alone time to James and Terrence the other day they agreed that all the kids running around this place is no good (especially when they randomly play on my front porch, did I mention how loud they are!?). Then Terrence added that this is Liberia and how things are done (meaning all the people always being around – an African thing that I anticipated) and he asked me when I was going to adapt to the local ways! I laughed out loud at that question because all I’ve done since I arrived is ‘adapt to local ways’ and it’s become clear that my ‘American ways’ still are underlying and express themselves in certain needs (i.e. alone time and food that doesn’t give me diarhea!). I just don’t think that people always bothering me is going to turn into something I enjoy, nor do I plan to start having multiple boyfriends secretly and simultaneously to buy me stuff (as is the mentality of the young, upperclass women here). Some things are worth adapting to (bucket baths, killing giant spiders, excessive rice consumption, occasional use of ‘country English’ to make a point, being perpetually covered in clay dust), others just equate to compromising my true self!