My Decomposition

I borrow steal take the title for this entry from a tenth grade student named Aliasse Silvano. Who in response to the assignment, ‘write a short composition (minimum of ten sentences) telling your life story’, experienced a stroke of genius, or maybe a careless mistake, and boldly slapped the heading in badly formed caps, MY DECOMPOSITION, at the top of the paper.
By which I was moved. Not just by the second, and seemingly more important of the two words, which indeed struck a chord in my own heart, but also by the earlier possessive adjective which gave ownership, and hence, true meaning to the decomposing.
The work itself was mostly crap, a bunch of discordant sentences he had rushedly copied out of his notebook, but I nevertheless scribbled a √+ over his name, thus rewarding and thanking him for his stroke of genius, or careless mistake.
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My own decomposition has been slow and deliberate. No breakdowns, no outbreaks, no grand revelations; minimal drama. Just a gradual come down, after the rising rising, of a significant life experience. But before I start to talk above myself, better to put it plainly: This is about my time in Mozambique, my time as a Peace Corps volunteer, as a foreign language teacher, as a foreigner, an oddity, a recluse, coming to an end; and about me being ready, rather, experiencing the come down, the decomposition of all of it.
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A very quick recap: almost three years ago I left for Chad as a very green straight out of college fit the mold type peace corps volunteer. I won’t forget the night time drive from the airport to our lodging in N’djamena, when I simultaneously felt chills and heat radiating through my body, and my eyes reflected the trash can fires of the night. That was the start of the rising rising. From there it was newness and excitement, boule and snot-sauce, turbans and camels, new family and finally rebels with guns. Even the drawn out evacuation over the river in a neglected row boat fit into the composition. As did the ‘transition conference’ because that was just a bridge, and promises of continuation, which it did.
So a quick five months hanging out at home and I’m back to Africa, feeling less green, but still fit the mold type. Mozambique is different than Chad was, fancy hotels and a myriad of seafood, but still new and exciting, still part of the rise. My own home, a real job, a drop of paradise. To try to truly sum up my past two years would be foolish, it would either read as extremely boring or melodramatic, neither of which will do. Suffice to say: it has been an intensely introspective period of my life that I have both loved and hated in a somewhat haphazard pattern of emotion.
That is the recap, and that brings me to and past the point where my decomposition began. Not that there is a point which I can confidently point to, but I can approximate a time. I will call it the two thirds mark, a year and then some into my two year service.
After about a year in, the newness and excitement had begun to fall away. This was not necessarily a bad thing, in fact the fall of the newness and excitement was new and exciting unto itself… but even that had its limits of appeal. And it was at about this time that I started to really begrudge the job. Chalk it up to the maddening absurdity of the Mozambican education system, or maybe to teaching the present perfect verb tense for the tenth time, to my own shortcomings as a teacher, or maybe it can simply be chalked up to the cheap chalk the school buys that all but crumbles when you press it to the board. But anyway, nothing got the decomposition going like starting to really feel the daily grind. And it was also about then that I started to feel a subtle distancing between me and my community. As much as I’ve enjoyed ‘living locally’, getting to know my neighbors, drinking with teachers and chefes and drunks at the local bar, being a teacher kind of just like the other teachers; there came a point when I had to accept that we just couldn’t completely relate. That at least here in this small village of Mossuril it was going to be me and them, them and me. Our life experiences, as well as our future opportunities could not truly be understood one by the other. This started to make me feel closed off and lonely. And then there is the finish line. An end mark looming larger and larger by the day, that I look forward to in the bittersweet way that one awaits a graduation. This too has pushed along my decomposition.
All of this, and more (I will say, vaguely) has brought me to the point where I can say, proudly, healthily even, that I am spent, I am used up, I am ready to be done; almost.
I feel that my personal potential at this time and place, has reached its upper limit. This is not to say that there aren’t a hundred new projects I could should take on, or that there aren’t a million new things I could should learn from those around me; it’s not to say that.
But at this point I’m here to finish something I started, which I don’t think is an unworthy reason to be somewhere. My finish date is in early December, after which I’ll be returning home.
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Don’t be feeling like I’m in a bad place, because I’m not. I really think Aliasse was on to something when he labeled his life story ‘My Decomposition’, at least as much as all the students who went with ‘My Composition’. It’s an important side of the story. I’m learning a lot as I come down.