Text Message received from Raz on July 5th at 6 24PM:
Random Monday Poll! Which is the better transportation anachronism: dirigibles or steamboats?
Text Message sent from me, to Raz:
Dirigibles, for sure. Because it sounds like a Russian breakfast cereal with small, furry, cute rodents as mascots. Follow their adventures on the back of the box! In post-Soviet Russia, Dirigibles eat YOU!
Test Message received from Raz:
This why I will someday qualify my life into the pre-Severns years and the post-Severns years.

My landlady once asked me if I was lonely. I still don’t even know how to begin to even think about answering that question.

There are a few possible answers. Yes, all the time, is one of them. No, not really, is another. Well, sometimes, but only when I make dinner. Yes, especially when surrounded by other other people. It goes on.

Jamaica is “developed” enough, and technology has advanced to the point where almost everyone here has a cellphone. Everywhere you go (bus stops, hospital parking lots, roadside stands) vendors are hawking phone credit, since Jamaicans, weary of being scammed into paying for a monthly minute allotment they might not use, use a “pre-paid” system. Digicel is by far the largest cell company here, followed closely by Latin American telecomm giant Claro. Last is Lime, which seems to make most of its money on internet services. It’s not unusual to see Jamaicans carrying multiple phones, each from a different service provider. My supervisor has three phones herself, to maximize all the free minutes/texting/bonus whatevers that each company uses to get more people to sign up.

Every Peace Corps volunteer on island has a cellphone, and we are part of a “closed user group” that allows us to call each other and the Peace Corps staff for free. This means that Raz can send his weekly Monday Poll to 80 or so other people every Monday afternoon. And it means that we can all have absurd, day-long texting marathons to ease the boredoms associated with waiting for Jamaicans to arrive at a meeting, or for a taxi to fill enough for the driver to finally depart for his destination.

It’s hard to qualify yourself as lonely when, as Raz and I did today, a period o an hour or two is spent making fun of the mind-numbing, senseless beauracracy inheirant in any post-colonial society.

Me: The ghosts of Ghandi and Garvey are banging their heads on a wall right now.
Raz: They are not allowed to bang their heads against the wall- they don’t have the right form.
Me: Stamped and signed in triplicate, presented to the big JC, who will then hold a meeting that will start an hour late, where everyone will complain about the shortcomings of the free lunch and talk about West Indies cricket and the state of education. Then everyone will go home, feeling like they’ve really accomplished something, and leaving the form, stamped and signed in
triplicate, on the table covered in Milo powder and biscuit crumbs, untouched.

It was decided that an Alice’s Restaurant-style song was needed to be written to fully express the ridiculousness of it all, and then the convention of organic farmers Raz was attending ended and there was no need to text any more.

So yes, it’s hard to be lonely when you have the comfort of like-minded people literally at your finger-tips.
And yet, we all are in varying degrees for various reasons.
We spend so much time in bubbles. The Peace Corps bubble of other volunteers, the bubble of our communities and the bubble of our jobs within our communities. Then there’s the bubble of one. Lots of volunteers talk about just how much time is spent in your head.

There’s a line from Breakfast At Tiffany’s, which sums it up beautifully:
“No matter where you go, you’ll always end up running into yourself.”

Alone or accompanied, your head space is with you. And in the Peace Corps, you’re left to stew in your own thoughts ALOT. As someone who has always led a fairly extensive internal life, this is nothing new, and I’m in familiar territory. I spend alot of time thinking about very random, silly things, like should I get my hair cut?
I spend alot of time thinking about how I’m going to write about the crazy, insane things I encounter everyday.
I spend alot of time thinking about what I’m going to eat that day.
But mostly I spend alot of time just trying very hard to be very present. All you are at any given point in life is exactly…where…YOU…are. On a sidewalk, or in a car, or at a job, or with a loved one. You are just there, with all your thoughts. And here I am in Jamaica.

The problem with being very comfortable in the bubble is that it can be hard break out. This is where I am now. My supervisor has been gone, and with school being done for the summer, I’m left to myself for another week, and I’m deep in a self-imposed fortress of solitude. Whereas usually I call my parents multiple times a week, I can’t bring myself to talk to them about whatever it is thats been going on in my life. My landlady has had alot of family over to the house today, and I’ve just stayed in my room, holed up with a book, waiting till the kitchen is empty before venturing out for a glass of water or granola bar.
I just don’t want to have to explain myself.

Which is why my landlady asks if I’m lonely. I think she thinks that I’m a little depressed. I’m not, but it’s very hard to get Jamaican’s to understand the need to shut-out the world. I’ll emerge in a day or two. But don’t bother calling. I won’t answer the phone. Better send a text message instead.