Alone in my Home

(written 7 June 2012)

I really like being alone.  A lot.  Maybe too much.  I’ve written before that I like hearing the sounds of Masamba—of life around me, wherever I am, really—from the perimeter, without always taking part directly.  I think this is a good thing, in general, but I wonder why I choose to be on the perimeter.  For one thing, I love my house.
It’s my sanctuary, and though there’s nothing fancy about it, I’ve poured hours of work into personal touches here and there (including a spare room curtain that took six or more hours of hand-sewing today).  One imagines an African mud-and-thatch hut to be simple, uninviting even—a place used for shelter when necessary, to be protected from the rain and the darkness of night.  For many Zambians, that’s fairly accurate.  Homes are often shockingly sparsely furnished, and life is lived out of doors.  Vegetables are chopped, dinner is eaten, clothes
are washed, time is frittered away—all outdoors.  It’s not uncommon to visit someone, even a good friend, and never enter his or her home.  Houses are a necessity, but sometimes not much more.

My house would probably seen by most Americans as “improved” over village standards: windows with locking shutters, cement floor, limed walls, plastic lining the roof to minimize the dust.  And it has far more stuff than the average home.  Partly because I’m not as financially strapped as some, partly because I’m a packrat, and partly
because as an American I take both pride and refuge in my home.  I want it to be comfortable, warm, personal.  Many of the decorations and things that I (and other Peace Corps Volunteers) have made are not spendy.  Any Zambian could use scraps of fabric and other such locally available materials as well as I.  But in a village setting, my desire to decorate sometimes seems almost singular.

So I wonder if it isn’t a bit negative, this desire I have to be alone.  I wonder if it’s a problem that the person I most enjoy being with is…myself.  Of course, when I’m out I’m always on display.  Even if I’ve been around for a year, I’m still the fairest-skinned person most of my neighbors know, and anything I do invites observation.  A task as simple as getting produce from the market less than ¼ kilometer away can take more than half an hour with countless greetings and exchanges.  Home for me—unlike for my neighbors—is the only place I can settle in and be fully, truly myself.  And of course, home isn’t synonymous with solitude; more often than not I have siblings or a crew of small children over, be it for studying or conversation or simply to play in my yard because it is an extension of their own.  People ask me, “Don’t you feel scared living alone?”  On the contrary, I love it.  A fair number of Peace Corps Volunteers have someone—generally a teenager—live with them, and they find the
experience very enriching.  If the opportunity presents itself, I may do the same in my last 6-9 months, after my biological sister leaves from her summer visit.  In the meanwhile, I’m very grateful for the solitude provided by the haven of my home, even if--and perhaps indeed because--being there sometimes means being alone.