Since I am officially on vacation I will probably have a lot of time to write. I've been thinking about all the things worth mentioning and a few that are not. I've been determining how to express clarity and purpose and most of all interest.
I am hyper aware that, having been in Abidjan for a year now, most of my posts have been all about me, me and more me. I am not sure if I have captured the spirit of life in Ivory Coast. I am pretty sure I haven't yet discovered the spirit in order to accurately share it with you, but surely I could have done a better job at points.
The thing is, writing is hard. I agonize over posts and struggle with capturing my exact sentiments about a situation or an observation. It can be a painful process- all the more so as it ends up like a Thanksgiving meal- hours and hours to create and mere seconds to devour. Kind of like that film I shared from my class.
We spent months creating the story line, plot interests and resolution. Even more time went into designing the background and adding characters. The final pieces, thinking about how movement would occur and making characters to fit, nearly derailed us. Only one or two scenes actually acheived this. I struggled to remain firm in my conviction that it should be 100% student work and ideas as I watched the weeks pass without much progress happening. In the end, I am the one who chose and added the sound effects. We'd run out of time. Just before the final presentation to students, one boy raised his hand to ask how many hours our film was. Hours? I laughed and reminded him of the warning I'd given them all in the beginning. We would put in months of work and most likely end up with a film under 5 minutes. In the end our production was less than 2 minutes.
That is how writing a blog post can feel. Agonizing, full of lost direction, changes and stalled creativity. Hours of searching for the right links, the perfect photos (or even mediocre photos,) an interesting beginning and a full closure. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it's a miss. But it always takes less time to read and appears deceptively more simple than it really is. The results not guaranteed to be satisfying.
With 'summer' on my horizon however, it's certain that one of my goals is to write daily. Hopefully that means a more diverse view of what life is like here- and maybe some of those words will hit close to home, proving that life is life across the globe and as humans we share the essentials. (Unless my point is actually that life is life across the globe and humans are beautifully different. You see how hard this is?)
I tend to read a lot in my spare time as well and lately this means a lot of bad crime stories. I've been evaluating these books on writing and content (and thoroughness of diner scenes- American novels tend to include a lot of coffee drinking. Which always makes me thirsty for a cup, or 7.) In the end, I am realizing, whatever the writing quality, what I have just read represents someone's time and effort and perseverance. It's not easy to commit a couple thousand words to print in a coherent manner. I imagine that to be the base. Fluidity and beauty of language are the struggling points that come after, extending the process for years. Years? Agggh.
While I miss reading beautiful written novels that grapple with the human condition, one thing I have gained from these stories is completeness. They've done it. They've written a book from beginning to end. And it's out there for others to read- strangers like myself. I am starting to be convinced if they can do it- I can too. Another summer goal. Get those somewhat hazy and slightly too obscure ideas for my novels firmly committed to paper. My own NaNoWriMo. (I guess in my case it would be InNoWriMo- Independent novel writing month, in July as opposed to November. Anyone want to join in...? Options for changing the acronym are endless.....PaNoWriMo for paired novel writing month....TeNoWriMo for team novel writing month....you get the idea.)
"Good enough to discuss" is one tip I learned when preparing for teaching team meetings. Never go in cold but go in with a draft of something that teams could discuss, edit, and perfect. I imagine writing a book is similar in that you must first get those ideas down on paper- in a form that is at least good enough to revisit. So, while I will be struggling with how to get the flavor of life in one small African town accurately expressed here for your reading pleasure, I hope to also be undertaking another kind of struggle- getting my inside words outside. (Yes, I've been rereading myself - so interesting to see how far I have travelled, or have not travelled as the case may sometimes be.)
This post about our first arrival in Congo elicited some bittersweet laughter. I distincly remember our collective terror and uncertainty at finding ourselves suddenly immersed in the midnight of a new country, a new continent, a new culture. When I shared the moment with Mohamed (- you patted Nabih's back and told him it was ok, we would go back to America in the morning.-) we shared a chuckle, and the realization that there isn't really any other place we'd rather be.
I am super grateful for our life in Africa and all the holes it's filled. I guess it is time to take some of this journey and make some kind of beautiful mess of it on paper.
