Dearest Readers of WorkingDefinition,
A few things:
1st – Pictures from Uzbekistan have been placed in the photo gallery section. Enjoy! When you click on a thumbnail, you’ll see a medium sized version. This should be fine for most images. However, if you’d like to download the image in its full size (usually a little bigger,) click the icon that shows a floppy disk in front of a folder to the right of where you can rate the photo. I didn’t have time to add captions, but will happily answer any questions on the photos.
2nd – I have received my site placement. As of April 5th, I will be living in the Qashqadaryo (Kash – ka – dar – i – o) region, in a town south of Shakrisabz. This should be a unique challenge, as I hear from other current volunteers that this is one of the most challeging regions in the entire country.
3rd – Dreams. Of late there have been a few re-occuring themes. I’d love to share, and given that this is my blog, I think I shall. The two major themes, which really come as no great surprise, are people and travel. I recall an interesting dream where I was in some cold remote castle like structure with people from high school. Venturing outside, I found that there were railroad tracks that ran beside, and under the building. I peered over a ledge at the tracks below, but was scared that I’d fall, so I retreated. Then somehow I found myself near a platform as the train rushed by. I recall the locomotive bearing the insignia of the New Haven Rail Road, the first two cars were old passenger ones and the rest of the train was freight.
That’s it for that first one. In others, less memorable, people, both those I’ve known, and others, who I only know by their faces, re-appear in different situations. They are either part of a large group in which I find myself, or chatting away with attractive people of the opposite sex.
Another particularly interesting development in my dream life is that of the double wake-up. I’m sure you are all familiar with being in a dream which you want out of and willing yourself to wake up. This usually works for me, but of late instead of waking up, I am cast into a 2nd dream. This 2nd dream at first resembles my surroundings had I indeed awaken, but is not quite right and quickly becomes stranger and stranger until I am forced to bail out again. What’s interesting about this phenomenon is that instead of happening now and then, this is the rule rather than the exception.
So junior scouts, care to analyze my situation?
Thanks for keeping up!
not sure why you were looking for lucy, but it’s fun to know you were poking on my site. 🙂
I’ve never had a double wake up, but then, I sleepwalk. Supposedly both indicate you’re not sleeping heavily enough.
What is so challenging about the new place? The people? Government? etc?
I’ll be dropping you a proper mail soon.
Thank you for those beautiful pictures. Have you lost weight? I have been trying to figure out where it is that you will be going….Qashqadaryo, Qarshi, Karshi, Shakrisabz….You will be about 210 miles from Afhanistan and over 300 miles from where you are now. Will you be taking the train???? As I understand it this region is known for its cotton fields and carpets; it is over 1,000 years old and part of the ancient silk road. If I may echo Kellen, what makes the assignment challanging???? Please don’t join up with the Northern Alliance. 🙁
The dreams are anxiety about change, moving on etc. It is natural to feel anxiety about leaving a strange place where you have developed some comfort now only to have to go to another strange place. Will there be others traveling to the same region? What will your living situation be?
Please try to call before you move on.
XXXXXOOOOOGQ
Hi Sweetie I forgot to comment on the double wake up. My guess is that this has to do with altered reality vs an expected reality. That is that usually when you bail out after the first situation that puts you in a safer, secure place; but what if the bailout place is not safe, secure? You then look for another place. But that place turns out not to offer much security either. Please mention this to the PC staff and see if they have any suggestions.
After reading the more learned explanations of your dreams i wont try any of my own, but i will say that once i awaken i can very rarely remember the complete dream.
When you speak of a challenge i surmise you meaqn a challenge to your expertise as a budding teacher of english–and not the surroundings.
Gm wants to know if any of the pc people that have been around where you are now wil be going along to your new destination.
Please take care of yourself and stay well, your ever loving Bobo&GM.
P.S.—Great pictures Matthew, lost a little weight, dindnt you—g&g
Allright, Dream interpretation is not my speciality, but I will take a stab at it. Normally I would need to know a lot more baout stuff in your life, but I will do this based off what I know and some extrapolation.
You refer to the castle as a “cold remote structure” filled with people you knew from highschool. This can be looked at as a a sterile type of enviornment filled with people you do not know. The castle while cold and remote offers some protection against that which is uncertain. You mention the castle being filled with people from highschool. The people from highschool can represent a transiotnary element, as you might not see them now, but they have certain meaning to you. Also depending which people from highschool are in the castle might be signifigiant as each person is a representation of some part of the unconscious. Just extrapolating now, the highschool people are your fellow Peace Corps people. You have known them for just a few months, but really dont know that muc about them. The high school people you might not have seen for years, and thus you dont really know them either.
The railroad tracks in my mind are fairly obvious: they represent moving to your new local. There are tracks beside the castle and under it. Two sets of tracks to send people one way and bring people in another. Now the part of the people in t he castle makes more sense, as they are now being gathered together, to be sent to their specifc regions. The castle is reminiesnt of a train station, and you refer to the “New Haven Rail Road insignia” telling me you are associaitng the train with a specific one. I cannot tell you why but the New Haven Rail Road has a certain signifigance for you in some way.
As you look over the side of the track is a ledge and you think you will fall. This is a classic anxiety provoking fear response. It represents fear of the unknown. The last image you present is that of the train with the two passenger cars and mostly freight. This can be seen as a realization of the situation. Clearly you are there to visit, and get to know the country, but you are also there to work. The passnger cars means that you realize that you will still be able to get out and see more parts of the country, but you will be doing a more heavy work schedule(as seen by the freight cars).
So in essence the first dream is very much involved with your moving and leaving of the PC people you know, and the exploration and the anxiety of moving on.
Ok, for the double dreams. First of all, hene ver we think something has become the rule, it typically isnt. For example if you are on a campus, and you see tons of people being loud, rowdy, etc, you might say that the majority of people are rowdy when it is really a very vocal minority. Also, whenever we notice a particular behavior within ourselves that behavior will rise.
So, what can I say about the double wakeup? This is a tough one for me. I think it also has something to do with your move. You are uneasy and a little anxious about the move. You yourself said that it was the” most challeging regions in the entire country”, so clearly there would be some anxiety moving there. You dont know anyone there, you do not know what to expect, and you are worried to a certain extent over your saftey. These are all very reasonable thoughts. This might sound strange but go with me on it: the dream you refer to as your secondary dream is really your primary dream. Your primary dream is that of you dreaming. Your secondary dream is the dream from the primary dream. You feel you need to wake up, so you will yourself up, But you are still dreaming in the primary dream. Your primary dream takes you to a familiar yet distant place in order to allow yourself to work through certain apprehensions. The primary dream gets stranger becuase its not real, it isnt reality. The strangeness comes from your percpetions of certain things. Again, I think it has to do with your moving and should stop once the move has taken place.
If what I said wasnt clear, just say something, and I will try to be more clear.
Enjoy your move, and your time in the new region.
-BT
Hey Matt-
It sounds like you have a lot of thoughts racing through your mind and that can only be expected considering the events in your life right now. I know you must be nervous and excited at the same time for this big move and I am certain that you will handle everything fine. I am anxious to hear more about your destination and the new people you will meet there. All of us in NJ miss you and love you very much. Best wishes as you start this new chapter in your incredible journey! Stay in touch!
Love, Bette
Hey Matt:
Looks like you are adjusting quite well!!! The pictures look great. So are you ready for the big move down South? I talked with Lola-hon on the phone over the weekend and she said that she met you. I bet she is happy to have another sitemate finally. She is extremely excited that you are coming. Make sure she gives you my CD player if you need it when she leaves. We are trying to keep it passed down. HA!
Wow, well good luck and keep me posted on your new move. You’ll will have a great time. The scenery down there is great. It’s beautiful in the winter and even better in the hot months of summer, ujus!!! Much better than Tashkent!
Ok chat with you soon.
Best of luck.
Adam
I agree with Tex that the castle probably represents a fear or anticipation of the unknown. I think that dreaming about people you used to know is related to this – on some level, you wish you were in a more familiar environment, so your mind tries to reconstruct one when you sleep. I had dreams about college all the time, both after graduation and when I finally moved to NY and officially “flew the coop”, as they say. I still have these dreams, and I think it’s because I’m not completely comfortable with where I am yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the train with the New Haven RR logo was a part of trying to find something familiar, too, and perhaps the castle was an example of an unfamiliar environment.
I’ve never known how much stock to put in dreams. I like to think of them as mental underground newspapers, tossing back in your face the stuff you don’t want to think about during the day. At the same time, I don’t think you can always extrapolate deep personal meanings from dreams – while they may contain them, I think our minds are sufficiently advanced that they get bored at night when there’s little to manage, and maybe they start grabbing at random memories and ideas so they’ll have something to do. Mental screensaver mode, if you want to look at it that way.
I’m especially interested by your double wakeup experiences. I don’t know what to say about that – that rarely happens to me. I’ve heard that some dreams are the result of your mind trying to solve some unconscious problem, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Don’t forget to email me your new address. And sweet dreams. Heh heh.
Vanity Fair Essay by a PCV Sleepless in Togo
My American Home
By LIZ RICHARDSON
Last summer, V.F. launched its first-ever essay contest with these instructions: “Explain the character of the American people to the rest of the world.” Apparently, that’s precisely the question that’s kept our grand-prize winner up late at night
I wonder sometimes what I was thinking, coming here. Usually this happens late at night when for one reason or another I can’t sleep. Sometimes it is too hot for sleep, and so I lie under my mosquito net and let the sweat trickle off me, waiting for sheer exhaustion to win out. Sometimes my day is so across-the-board awful that I can do nothing but think about it, worry it like a loose tooth until I drop off into the bizarre dreams that my malaria prophylaxis brings. I have been a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa for about 10 months now, and even after all this time, all those sleepless nights, I still can’t really explain why I came, nor do I have any clear idea of why I remain. I have, however, had ample time to reflect on my American life, the good and the bad, the lovely and the very, very ugly. This is a job, an experience, which lends itself to introspection, to self-doubt, to late-night examinations of the day’s choices. I serve in Togo, a thin sliver of a country wedged between Benin and Ghana. Before coming here, not only could I not point it out on a map, I couldn’t even tell you what continent it was on. Now that it is my home, it has become the center of my own private universe. Tokpli, my village, is fairly small, with only about 2,000 to 3,000 people (depending on whom you ask). It is situated just on the Benin border, where the two countries are separated by the narrow Mono River, a turbid, filthy body of water from which most of the villagers drink and in which they bathe.
Like most volunteers, I live without electricity and running water, luxuries I do not miss nearly as much as I thought I would. I do miss many things, some with an intensity that knots my stomach. I miss the confidence I once had, in myself and in my mission. I miss the smell of brewing coffee and frying bacon. But really what I miss most of all is my anonymity. I am the only white person in my village, and nearly every movement and action of mine is scrutinized. Groups of children gather just to watch me buy tomatoes. I chafe under their gaze, the pressure building until, inevitably, I explode, usually at someone who does not deserve it. I have never known such rage.
But I don’t want to mislead. All is not misery and despair. There are moments in the village that are nothing short of sublime, moments that feel like spiritual epiphany. Even with all the problems, all the frustrations, all the times I am sick to death of the poverty and the unhappiness, I love my village. How else could it break my heart so consistently?
I have never known such hospitality. Unlike a growing number of people, the Togolese love America. For the people of Tokpli, my home is a shining El Dorado, the same land of dreams and prosperity that has drawn immigrants for centuries. Many here dream of emigrating, and as a result I am plagued by requests for visas, something I know almost nothing about. Not all want to go, and not all of those who would go would stay, but almost everyone agrees that here in Togo opportunities are as scarce as the elephants that once roamed the land. There are days when Togo seems to be a country without hope.
Even for those who don’t wish to leave, America is nothing short of fascinating. In talks with patients at the dispensary, in conversations around the communal bowl of mashed yams, I am often subjected to an intense and exasperating question-and-answer period. I am the resident expert on all things American, the final word on a subject that almost never loses its appeal. “Why are American families so small?” (Four or 5 rather than 8 or 11 or 16.) “Why don’t you know how to farm?” “Why do you feed your dog so much? Are you going to eat her like the Kabye do up north?” And, more poignantly, “Why is Africa so poor?” “Why do we suffer more than other places?” “Why is AIDS so prevalent here?”
I stumble through my answers, groping clumsily for the right words in French, a language that is native to none of us, wanting so badly to explain but rarely knowing how. At night, exhausted but sleepless, I listen to the BBC with one ear and continue to search for answers, any answers. These midnight agonies rarely rise above navel-gazing. If it seems profound in the pitch black of night, by morning it is about as deep as the puddles that form in my front yard. I find myself hedging, qualifying. “Well, this is true for some Americans …” and “Well, that depends … ” I wonder sometimes if my friends grow tired of my constant evasions and revisions, if my refusal to give absolutes is more confusing to them than if I had said nothing.
In essence, I am saying clumsily what Whitman said so well: “Do I contradict myself? / Very well, then, I contradict myself; / (I am large—I contain multitudes).” I am tempted to say simply that America is like that, too. Like any other nation, it is built upon a motley assortment of oppositions. We champion civil liberties and deny them to those we perceive as enemies. We celebrate peace while we wage a costly and perhaps unjustifiable war in Iraq. We value racial and gender equality but do not yet enjoy it. We lament the busyness and complexity of our lives but seem to go out of our way to complicate our schedules. We fret constantly about our health and appearance but keep getting fatter. So, really, how can I explain my country, myself?
But I am not satisfied with this response. I believe it to be true, it should be obvious to anyone, but it isn’t enough somehow. Surely there is something that makes me an American. Truth be told, I still have only the barest of notions, and can state with certainty only what stands in opposition to that which surrounds me. I cannot offer statistics or studies or expert testimony—I don’t have access to those things here. I speak only for myself, from my 23 years of experience as an American. Do with it what you will.
First, foremost, and most evident is our enduring attachment to the Rugged Individual, that paragon of strength and fortitude, he or she of the inventive mind and creative spirit. The one who isn’t afraid to stand alone, who refuses to back down from a fight that is worth the struggle. Witness the modern-day admiration for Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Edison, every character that John Wayne ever played. (And is that what brought me to Togo? Some half-baked notion of me against an unjust world?) From this notion of independence springs our deep love of our freedoms, our resentment of any perceived infringements. We tolerate diversity and difference better than most countries, though not as well as we’d like to think. We do not trust our government, but we do trust in the power of the law to solve our problems (from this, perhaps, comes our tendency to sue just about anyone for any reason). We trust also in a better tomorrow, and our ability to bring it to the rest of the world. We are in love with the idea of the happy family, and as a result are somewhat absurdly centered on our children. Our idealism is perhaps unmatched anywhere else in the world. We worship youth, celebrity, convenience, the almighty dollar, and God, though not necessarily in that order. Accustomed to a fast-paced life, we have little patience. We want it to happen now, today, this minute, if possible. We believe in science, in its ability to deliver us from our ills. We are, for better or worse, firmly convinced of the superiority of our popular culture, but we welcome the best of what other countries have to offer. We are by no means blind to our faults and mistakes, but remain for the most part certain that the United States is the finest country on earth. Why else would we be so powerful, so emulated, so despised by the kind of people who fly planes into buildings? Our much-cited arrogance is that of any powerful nation, and though it grieves me to see what horrors we have wrought in the name of security, I still don’t think I’d want to live anywhere else.
So, please, take this summary for what it is—a plea for understanding from a somewhat reluctant patriot. There is much to admire and much to hope for as of yet. As for me, I continue to toss and turn, sleepless, waiting only for daybreak.
Liz Richardson, 23, is from Raleigh, North Carolina. She is a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa.
Thanks for all of the comments at the cusp of this crucial moment of my service.
Kellen: The worry I have is certainly not panic, but they do not send female volunteers to this region any more because they were harassed too much. So definitely it is a more conservative region of the country (whereas Tashkent for instance is quite liberal.)
GQ: I can’t say exactaly where my site it – that’s on a need to know basis only – 🙂 There are a few other people in the region but not many. So I’ll have to forge on my own and keep connected with my fellow vols in other cities – a challenge certainly, but one which will be aided by my acquisition of a cell phone in a few months.
Grandpa: Two other volunteers from this current group will be in a nearby city but I will be the only one in my particular town. Glad you enjoyed the pictures! I’ll have more as the days go by.
BT: Thanks for the analysis. I think you have hit onto something as you mention the likenesses between the high school people and my fellow PCVs. It’s odd, that is, we have been together for almost three months, but we’re expected to be best friends. Those who know me know that it takes a while for me to really warm up to most people (aside from the few I immediately click with.) This situation here is no different, there are a few in the inner circle, but the rest are for the most part faces and brief fragments of personalities. The castle might be the fact that for this time we have all been together, so even though we might not really know each other, there is some psychological safety in numbers. I’m waiting for Nate to comment on the NHRR emblasoned locomotive.
Bette: Thanks for commenting and keeping up! I have a question for Uncle Rich that maybe you can pass on. I’m thinking about buying a short wave radio. What features should I look for and what should I avoid? BBC World and VOA are very good time fillers here 😛
Adam: Thanks for the good words. I have now met both Lola and Teressa who seem cool. Glad to know that a CD player might be available – I can imagine myself listening to Modern Talking on perpetual repeat while making piles of doughnuts in my little room….
Chris: Isn’t it messed up to mix and match people from all parts of your life in one place. Ya know, high school, college, grade school, that guy you saw once crossing the street, all in the same place for some unknown reason. Your comment about an overly excited brain interests me. Do you think that less, shall we say, intellectually committed individuals, are subject to this? Is it thanks to that damn liberal arts education that I’m having multiple levels of dreamlife. Where can I write Dick and complain!
You can’t write to Dick, he’s not there anymore! It’s Jim Jones now!
I acutally did a google search on him the other day because I was curious. He’s a fellow at some research institute that’s connected with the RAND corporation. Any by the way, his personal email is RHHersh@sbcglobal.net.
Glad to hear that everything is going well for you, and congrats on the assignment.
Hi Kashkadariya and shockrazobs is great – as long as you are a guy. It is home to some of the prettiest areas in the great UZ. much better than being stuck in the middle of the desert…
good luck
Well, well, Mr. Hersh’s email address. That’s great news, because I just got two shipments of Viagra and Rolex watches, and I heard he might be interested. Maybe he’ll also be willing to help this guy I know in Nigeria – an oil exec on the run – dispose of his millions, too. Thanks Andrew! 🙂
Matt, that’s an interesting question about whether intellect affects dreams. At first thought, I wouldn’t be surprised if people who think and study a lot have more mixed-up dreams, because they have more thoughts/memories to pull from and their minds are used to being active.
But I really don’t know. I’ve been surprised by occasionally seeing a more complex side to people I thought were stupid or boring – like Trin meatheads, whose mental activity is stereotyped to be on the low side – and I’m starting to suspect that there’s a lot more to people than meets the eye (um, duh). It’s interesting to note that little kids with limited social and literary experience can have very complex dreams.
I suspect that, no matter how intelligent we are, our minds are designed to be constantly working on things, and it’s this constant thinking that leads to dreams. So while your liberal arts education might give you more interesting dreams, you’d probably still be experiencing messed-up scenarios while you sleep if you’d never even gone to high school.
If you’d still like to send an indignant letter to Hersh, though, be my guest. It’ll probably be the first of its kind that he’s ever gotten: “Dear Dick, you made me so smart I can’t sleep at night! Curses on you!”
Or, you could just try to sell him Viagra.
I found some pictures of the Qashqadaryo region. It looks truely beautiful but it is very rustic. It is in a fertile valley. This should be a wonderful time of year to go. I am sure it will get very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. I am under the impression that the winters are not that long? Let me know if a heating blanket would be useful. Great to have the input from the prior PCVs. It helps us tremendously to have their insight. XXXXOOOOGQ