Constants and Change (and Eid Mubarak!)

My life here is drastically different in almost every way possible from life in San Francisco. The polarity is stark. In most cases the observations are obvious: rich and poor, urban and rural, cold and hot, white and black. In other cases, the contra-positional nature of what you have and don’t in one place or the other doesn’t hit you for a while, and the significance of the juxtaposition is only realized after a bit time.

In SF, you have refrigeration. In Meheba you have three day old cheese that still tastes delicious because it’s cheese, and you spent four dollars on it in Solwezi (the same amount you spend on food for the whole week in the camp). In SF you have MUNI. Never thought I would tout the glory of public transport in that city, but here you have one hour bike rides, uphill, both ways, in the heat (can’t wait to tell my kids about it). In SF you have organic, free-trade, non-fat, extra hot, sugar-free vanilla skim lattes. In Meheba, you have powdered instant hazelnut flavored “Ricoffy,” and “SupaMilk”- it’s “Supa” because it somehow doesn’t need to be refrigerated (yeah, don’t know how that works). In SF you have carpeting. In Meheba you don’t take your shoes off, ever. And speaking of shoes, I miss my stilettos. Surprisingly, the things I miss less than expected are the things I initially thought would be the hardest to adjust to—lack of cell phone reception, television, internet, H&M, and hamburgers.

But one thing that never changes is the constant comfort that lies in the universally identical practice of being Muslim. The month of Ramadan is one I look forward to every year, and it has just ended- Eid Mubarak! Even here, it offers the gifts of mental clarity, a sense of purpose, peace, and this year, more than ever, a connection to the global suffering of the billions of people who simply just have less. This is a feeling that universally arises wherever I am when fasting. It is a thread that connects my existence here, or anywhere, to my own being, and at the same time, to the world at large.

Living in the very population that American Muslims are presumably trying to remember during this month is extraordinarily moving. Being hungry and thirsty while living in a hungry and thirsty community and praying together through that discomfort with miners from Arab countries, refugees from Buruni, Rwanda, Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Angola, and a UNHCR Program Officer from Bangladesh highlighted for me that my work here exposes me to far more than the differences that exist between us, which are many, but to the more profuse commonalities that range from the mundane to the profound.

Parents walk their kids to school and hope education will improve their lives, young adults would do anything for love, sharing stories around dinner and a bonfire is always fun, whatever line you pick at the grocery store will be the slowest, everybody enjoys watching and playing soccer, more people will attend your meeting if you serve biscuits, babies smell like Vaseline and talcum powder, bureaucrats can’t really help you, girls like braiding each others hair, whoever you sit next to on the bus will be the smelliest, music makes people happy, everyone puts off doing laundry until Sunday, old people are wise, and we all brush our teeth in the morning and start everyday hoping to do the best we can.