Coming home - the foreigner/readjustment syndrome

Nameless the confused dog

Steve Jobs was perhaps the greatest innovator our generation will see for a while (that’s if you exclude Julius malema for political reasons), but that trick that he did to knock out BBM and its systems from the grave was his greatest yet.  I remember when I was young and went to the village for the holidays the kids there always looked and treated me differently. Basically I was an outsider/foreigner but once they got the ball to me on the dusty field all that changed, we got along after that. When I went back to town, my friends all said that I was different (probably because village soccer made faster than them), they would then proceed to treat me like a foreigner because I was suddenly speaking hard core otshikwambi and my ongwedivarish, which is Oshiwambo slang from the north = [English (American accent)+ Oshiwambo (Kwambi +ndonga+ kwanyama) +broken afrikaans ]was slightly diluted. But I still looked the same and behaved myself as usual.

So lately since my much heralded return to Namibia I have been getting that a lot, apparently I changed (me, changed: no ways, I still speak otshikwambi). But that particular elephant keeps popping up, so I had to analyse my behaviour, I mean have I really changed? I mean I still look the same (Tall, Smart and handsome). A friend even went to the point of asking me to go back and bring back her friend “I don’t know you, go back and don’t return till you find my friend Malima” were her exact words. Yep, I am now royally confused; because I have people telling me left right and centre that I have changed but they attached a lot of negativity to it. So I’m a foreigner again (I smell the onset of afro-pessimism), shunned by own flock. Should I go back to Europe, am I damaged? Before we start a panic, let me call for calm. This is perfectly normal, how long will it last this time? I don’t know.

Namibia is still very much the same as I left it, it has not changed much. Except for a few new buildings, it’s still very much the same (although I had forgotten how to recharge credit with MTC, the guy at the mobile home looked at me like a foreigner). I am not even bothered by the busy hustle and bustle of Windhoek, I have seen worse. But the people have changed of course, my little nephew is in school, his little brother talks and walks (when I left he had to be assisted just to crawl). My cousin is a dad; most of my boys are driving very nice cars now. Little sisters are all going to be in high school next year and in general my people have grown and progressed. To them they have not changed they have stayed the same (a light bulb should appear above your head, right about now).

It is easy to point out to someone that they have changed, while ignoring that you have done the same (Namibians just love judging, name calling and stereotyping). To me it’s simple, I ask people to tell me what is new and they tell me “nothing has changed”, but to my eyes a lot has changed, I just choose to highlight the positive change over the negative. My re-integration back into Namibian society and my re-acquaintance with its geography has been less than smooth. To spell it out “THIS S**T IS HARDER THAN I THOUGHT!” remarks like the one above really don’t help, because all I craved while in France was to return home, now I’m finding out that I don’t fit in anymore. Victoria would say that I have become irrelevant, I go to bed convincing myself I made the right choice to come back and that this is where I belong, because if I don’t then insomnia will make me its bitch again.

What I know is that birds of a feather flock together, so if a certain flock that you used to fly with rejects you (now I know how the Dalai Lama felt), then they are doing you a favour because they are pushing you towards the flock to which you rightfully belong. So I’m not going to lose sleep over this (I won’t throw a Tutu over such nonsense), I will just go hang out with the other coconuts who understand me better, why I tried to fit in to those other flocks in the first place I have no idea *little voice in head goes “Peer pressure is what?”*. 

So maybe I changed but people change all the time, you can’t stay stationary in a world that is constantly in motion and will someone please pick me up in their new car and take me to Kapana (what happened to sharing blessings, yaa’ll have no idea how long I have waited to taste meat that tastes like meat).

Kid sister meggie, she's glad i'm home