Aftershock

Now that I have my feet somewhat firmly planted on American soil, I can allow the re-entry shock to tackle me down. Re-entry has side effects unlike the typical culture shock of arriving in a foreign country. Re-entry grants time for reflection. Those “re” prefixes tend to cultivate a bleary-eyed reminiscent effect. After the bittersweet conditions of my departure, which excluded the sweet, some interesting memories resurfaced that I am just getting to write about now.
As a prelude to this story, let me just say that my friend Kat is a survivor. Not only did she spend her vacation time and money to visit me in a third world country, but also she endured the most ridiculous endeavors with laughter. In summation, I believe we could win the Amazing Race due to our perseverance through both Ghana and Guyana.
The Sunset International Hotel will be our first stop. The legitimacy of this hotel was slightly discredited with the hourly rate posted on the check-in window. Why would a hotel need an hourly rate you ask? To that I say, go ask your mother. The second alarming signal was the hotel room itself. We lugged our suitcases up to the second floor—anyone who is surprised by the lack of handicap accessible buildings is unprepared to continue reading the remainder of this recap.
We entered our disgustingly dank, dingy room. I decided to use only “d” word to describe it, and diabolical almost made the cut.
We still maintained high spirits until our broken fan, quickly and ironically, blew them away. No fan. We can manage. Then we tested the water in the shower. Mud brown. We cannot mange. I explained the situation to the receptionist, and she attempted a half-hearted argument for staying in the room.
For clarification, I still had every intention of staying in the hotel. Volunteer pay conditioned me to have incredibly high standards for being deterred from forms of shelter. Or would that be incredibly low standards? Irregardless, Kat became a victim by default of being my guest.
Room change back to the first floor. We hesitantly peered down to the end of the hallway. When the rooms stopped being rooms and turned into a storage closet. “Is that our room?, Why is the door the same color as the wall?-None of the other doors are like that. Let’s take a look inside.”
Our previously sketchy second room floor scoffed at this room. My oh my, how I grossly overestimated what fifteen dollars a night can get you. That is the lesson I learned. The closet space we ended up staying in consisted of a bed with shuffle space to the shower. We did have a working shower—with one towel that could not pass as clean even with the Snuggle bear cuddled in it. The toilet flushed, but we had to provide our own toilet paper. The one barred window in the room was located above the bed in prison fashion that you could not see out unless you stood on the bed. In this hotel you do not need a black light to see all the dirt and germs on the bed, you simply have to look at it with the naked eye. Upside, they sold Redbull.

I dreamed I was back in Guyana

Surrounded by all the familiar faces and places that I came to love in the eight months I spent there. Except, dreams are dreams because of their oddity. Distortion of reality that you do not recognize until you are awake. The VSO, who had returned to Canada, had never actually got on the plane. Rather, she had stayed in Guyana and painted her face as a mime and her arms were painted black. Even in the dream I could not quite understand her strange appearance. Friends who have not spoken to me since I left were casually greeting me and admiring my new tattoos. Throughout the dream I was basking in the sun. How warm. How sweet to feel the warmth of the world again.

Then the dream turned nightmarish. I walked up a hill to find two more volunteers. On the hill there were penguins. “Penguins!” I exclaimed. Only to have them transform to vultures and begin to attack me. “Luckily I covered my eyes first,” I thought, as I ran from the vicious beak that had hooked onto my face. My friend reprimanded my fear of the vulture-penguins and simply shooed them away from me. I felt foolish for being so afraid of them.

In the dream I knew I had only a day or two to reunite with the friends that I left so suddenly two months ago. For some reason, there was no rush or anxiety. Just a serene feeling of belonging and purpose. “I could just stay,” I kept persuading myself, “I don’t have to leave again.” The dream has interesting timing too. Today is the day I was supposed to be coming home. I was going to get on a flight to come home for Christmas for two weeks. Instead, I am dreaming of what life would be like to visit Guyana. Guess it is time to finish reading Fraud’s psychology of dreams.