Independence Day

written 7/4/10

Today, I cleaned my house, had friends over for the afternoon, grilled burgers, ate junk food, and drank wine. Sounds like a fairly typical low-key 4th of July doesn't it? If you can overlook that we were the only 4 people celebrating the 4th for miles and miles, the burgers were grilled and eaten indoors, we were all wearing sweaters and fleeces, and there were certainly no fireworks, I guess it was. It was actually a pretty nice day, overall. I love having people over, and can't wait until I have my house really set up the way I want it- with a table and chairs and maybe an area rug- so I can do it more often. I also can't wait until we all have the freedom to visit each other whenever we want. Ironically, our Independence Day plans centered on our very lack of independence. Our Peace Corps group is currently on lock-down, which is the 2-3 month period between the end of pre-service training and the beginning of in-service training when we are not allowed to leave our sites unless it's for official Peace Corps business. We are supposed to be spending all of our time integrating into our communities, which I can understand, but it also leads to a lot of volunteers going a little stir- crazy, especially on weekends, and especially, especially on holiday weekends. There's only so much community integration a person can handle, and only so much community integration the locals will tolerate before they start thinking we're a little strange. Thank goodness my village has 3 other Peace Corps volunteers so we can visit each other without ever leaving site.
While we all reminisced and talked wistfully about firework shows we were missing back home, I couldn't help but think that here in Botswana, we have a pretty impressive show in the sky every night. Last night I was outside my house after dark (which almost never happens), and happened to glance up. In Molepolole, I often stared into the night sky, mesmerized by the stars that could never be seen a mere hour away from New York City, prompting my host mother to shake her head at the crazy American- apparently star-gazing is not a popular activity here. Last night, however, I found that the night sky in Molepolole was nothing compared to the night sky here. I'm sure the show is even better in the tiny villages without any electricity, but there are no streetlights in my part of town, and no one uses their outdoor lights around here, so there was very little to pollute the view. I said before that I find the dark oppressive here, and I do. It wraps around me like a blanket- some nights I can almost touch it. The stars, then, are all the more powerful, their light piercing through the tangible darkness and reaching down to the earth from the heavens. They are strong, and they are many. People are always talking about the African sky in some romantic way, imagining an bright orange sun setting over a wide, hazy savannah, perhaps with a giraffe off in the horizon. Or maybe they imagine a deep blue sky spread over a vast landscape of foreign trees and dirt roads, with white clouds far off above them. These images catch my imagination, too, and they certainly exist here. The sky here has a personality and moods of its own, reflecting the people and the lands it covers. The cheerful, solid blue the sky takes on nearly every day here certainly matches the attitudes of the Batswana I meet every day. Despite poverty, HIV, unemployment, and other hardships people face here, I have never seen a Motswana greet without a smile and a handshake, and the music people play is unfailingly upbeat and optimistic. And indeed, how can you wallow or mourn with the bright blue sky looking down on you every day? It's no coincidence that their flag is the same color as their sky.
No matter how beautiful or how symbolic the daytime sky can be, however, it is the night sky that captivates me and draws me in with its mystery. The African sky is no less impressive after its majestic sunset. Without tall buildings and trees to obstruct the view, the sky stretches up from every corner of the earth. It's easy to see how the ancient people believed the sky to be a dome over the land, separating the heavens from the earth, the point at which mortal meets immortal, and time meets eternity. In a way, the night sky is where time meets eternity: we see the stars today as they were millions of years ago. We see light from the past, even from the beginnings of the universe when it all began. Millions of years from now, the light our own star gives off today, the light that we see and work and play by, will be seen lightyears away. Our time on this earth will have long past, but in that moment, something of it will live on. The stars are countless, forming pictures across the sky. Some of these pictures are familiar from the northern sky despite their strange new positions, but some are new and nameless to me. They converge in a great bright strip, the Milky Way, clearly visible to me for the first time in my life. I stare straight into the center, trying to imagine the innumerable far-off planets and solar systems that must accompany each distant star, then look away, off into deep space, picturing new galaxies in the darkest patches of sky, where the stars are too far away to be seen with the naked eye.
Somehow, I don't think I'll miss fireworks too much while I'm here.