Muddled Thoughts...

I finally got around to calling CV once, earlier last week. I was told that I "sounded weird" which I am sure is due to the fact that I haven't spoken Kriolu for months now so my mouth is out of practice. But anyway, I actually have a list of people to call there, but am finding it hard to drudge up the will to call them. After this first conversation, I am worried that I won't have a lot to say, and will sound silly on the phone.

Being in Wisc at my mother's has been pretty relaxing and somewhat introspective. There is no TV here, so I am actually reading and thinking. I started "The Village of Waiting," which, even though Packer was in Togo back in the early 80s, a lot of the things he went through and things that he felt, also applied to me in CV. So, good to know I don't have to write my own book about my time in PC, I can just refer people to his!

I wish I had read a bunch of books by RPCVs about their time in PC before I went to CV. It would have been an interesting perspective shift, to have heard their stories before I had been a part of it all, and then to reread them once I had lived through it.

I feel a bit more certain now about the idea of going to Taiwan for a spell, in order to improve my Chinese. I find it funny that going to Africa would make me more interested about Asia, especially considering before PC, I had no real interest in the latter. And right now, I am not even sure if I really am interested, or if I just find it the easy way out. But my time in CV has made me more aware of issues surrounding race, identity and society, and it's made me think a lot more what it means to be Asian in a White society.

My time in CV has also made me more paranoid about being in America, and now I assume whenever someone hears me speaking in Chinese, they assume that I am some FOB immigrant here to do dishes. Of course, is it just that I've become paranoid after getting stared at for two years, or is it just that I'm more aware of all of this for the first time????