I’m BAAAAAACK!!!

Yes, that’s right. Jake (me) is now back to terrorize the United States like never before. I’ve been back home for almost a full day now, dealing with new things such as smooth roads, traffic lights, constant electricity and internet, hot water, and a worrying dearth of goats. How then, you must be asking, is Jake getting along with all the convieneces of Western life?

Is he burning his skin as he steps into a hot shower for the first time in four months? Have his fingers and toes frozen off in the sub-70 degree weather? What’s it like adjusting to central heating? How about orange juice and milk of the non-powdered varieties? How is he holding up without the evil hoards of evil goats?

Truth be told: just fine, thank you very much (well, everything but the goats…but we’ll get to that later).

Perhaps (or more precisely Definitely) the biggest fear I had about coming home was how was I going to adjust from the African tropical climate, where it’s considered cold when its 70 degrees (that’s in the shade), to the blustering winters of New England, where after hitting an average of the mid-40s, the weatherman is complaining about how this winter has been unseasonably mild. What was I going to say when I stepped off the plane in Paris (and then New York) and the temperature was exactly (maybe more than) half of what it was when I got on?

The answer: “This feels really, really nice!” I swear it.

Stepping off the plane in Paris, the only thing that myself and my fellow CIEE comrades could say was how astonished we were that the cold actually felt…good. It didn’t feel alright, like we could deal with it if we had to, but it actually felt refreshing. There was something clear about the cold – not oppressive like the heat in Dakar which surrounds you and blankets you in a carcinogenic cocktail of sunlight, dust, and car exhaust. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to find that my lungs didn’t freeze instantly upon taking my first breath in the cold Parisian air. Nor did they on my second or third, or any breaths after that.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have any run-ins with the northern/western/developed world (or whatever you want to call it). I’ve got this little story of cultural reintroduction, which should be fun. It's true, I swear to it.

I stayed the day in Paris to visit and catch up with some old friends that I knew from when we lived there. Naturally, I needed a place to stay, and my toubaba friend Ana (from Dakar) was kind enough to let me crash with her and her grandmother Monday night. In return for allowing me to sleep on her floor, Ana’s grandmother asked me to figure out how to turn on the TV and internet in the apartment she’s renting. Simple enough, right?

Well, if I’ve learned one thing in Africa, it’s that things are usually NOT as simple as they seem. What I didn’t realize is how much that applies for everywhere else.

Turning on the TV involved two pages of instructions, four remotes, turning on three different boxes, and then pushing 4325789 different buttons, in an intricate combination of X’s and O’s that you only got one chance to do because if you're supposed to cut the green wire and you cut the blue wire then this whole place blows up, but if you cut the orange wire (who makes orange wires anyways) then the cops come and the whole plan is foiled. What’s a boy fresh off the plane from Africa (where, it might be noted, he only had 1 TV set that, due to some conflagration involving the Senegalese government and the evil hoard of evil goats that roamed the streets of Dakar as they plotted to take over the world, only received 2 channels. And one of them was the TV guide channel) anyways, what’s this boy to do?

The only thing I could do: follow the instructions. I turned on the first TV with the 2^nd remote. Then I used the first remote to turn on the third box from the 8^th wall on the left. When I had finished that, I stood on my head, put my left foot on green and my right hand on yellow, and pushed the 23^rd button from the top on the 3^rd remote. The TV screen turned on, but it turned to face us. This is getting weird. Oh well, I thought. At least the TV was on. Now for the cable box.

I then pushed the power button on the remote control marked clearly “CABLE BOX” like the instructions said. Clearly the simplest part of the whole process.

Nothing.

I pushed the power button again, this time harder thinking maybe after being in Africa for 4 months without a remote control, my pointer finger had somehow lost some of its power strength. Still nothing. The grey screen of the TV mocked me in its…um greyness. I called Ana over. The two of us stood there in front of the TV for a good 10-15 minutes trying to figure out how to turn on the cable box. We were like cavemen suddenly shoved in front of a car and told that we had to drive it to the nearest restaurant if we wanted our cheeseburgers. It was all quite frustrating.

After 10-15 minutes, Ana finally managed to get the right combination of strength and dexterity in her pointer fingers, and the cable box flashed to life. The TV screen started dancing in high definition with um, dancers dancing to some band or something. Then Ana’s grandmother calls from the next room: “OK kids, time to go out. Turn the TV off and we’ll get going.”

Only one problem, the TV didn’t turn off. The “OFF” button on the TV remote didn’t work. The “POWER” button on the cable box remote didn’t work. There was no two-page set of instructions how to turn the TV off accompanying the two pages on how to turn it on. We sat there for another 15 minutes trying to turn the TV off. In the end, we had to leave it on. We were in a hurry. What else could we do?

My backyard could use an evil hoard of evil goats…what happens if the eviler flock of eviler pelicans attack?

Love,
Jake

PS – I know that I’m done with the whole Dakar thing…but I’m going to keep posting because, well because I really like writing (go to Africa, learn I love to write…go figure). So keep reading if you’re so inclined, and if you’re not well then too bad because, you might be missing out on something sweet…like for example the Melville’s greatest contribution to world Literature since Moby Dick. I’m not giving anything away, but suffice to say it involves goats, pelicans, and some not so rapide car rapides…stay tuned. Same bat time, same bat channel…