Long, arduous, yet surreally circuitous journey to West Africa

It seems that nothing is simple when it comes to seeing my husband.  While I know that we will have many hurdles/obstacles to overcome when he is here and adjusting to life in the US, at least we will both be in one location and able to plan together.  I can't tell you how tired I am of not being able to do that.  

So here's the saga of the trip I'm currently planning.  The original plan was for me to go to Niger to visit my husband and stepchildren.  The journey involves at least three, if not four, flights, and usually takes two full days.  It costs anywhere from $1500-2200.  And while Niger is a culturally rich country, it is not by any means an easy place to visit.  Temperatures from March-May can spike up to 130 degrees, and there is little comfort or infrastructure to ensure the smooth execution of even the simplest daily tasks.  But I haven't seen my husband since November and my stepchildren since last August: the trip is about seeing them. 

Our first roadblock came courtesy of Al Quaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM for short.  Most of Northern Niger is sparsely inhabited desert, the southern edge of the Sahara, in fact.  Al Quaeda often sets up camp in remote and under-policed areas of the world, so the Northern area of Niger and its neighbor Mali was a perfect candidate.  In the last year, the number of foreigners kidnapped by AQIM has increased significantly, but up until January, the kidnappings mostly took place in the north, where European-run uranium plants are setting up shop, or at the Niger-Mali border.  On January 7th, armed militants walked into an open-air restaurant popular with foreigners in Niamey, the capital, and abducted two young Frenchmen.  Both men were killed either before or during a botched joint rescue mission by French and Nigerien security forces.  One of the young men was working for an aid organization operating in Niger; he was about to be married to a Nigerien woman and his friend had come to Niger for the wedding.  In other words, these two poor young men were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And Niger's capital city was no longer immune to these kidnappings.

So after much internet research, personal reflection and discussions with my husband weighing the risk, we decided that it wasn't safe for me to come to Niger.  Our alternate plan was hatched:  I would travel instead to Burkina Faso, which is next door to Niger, and more stable and secure, and my husband and stepchildren would meet me there.  This plan made perfect sense, given that the NGO my husband works for has an office in Burkina that he works closely with, so this could be a work trip for him.  And Ouagadougou (usually just called Ouaga to prevent having to spit out that mouthful), Burkina's capital, is an 8 hour drive from Niamey.

Things were looking up for us.  I bought my plane ticket from San Francisco to London, and my husband was preparing to buy my ticket from London to Ouaga...on one of the few affordable yet reliable carriers that flies between Europe and West Africa:  Afriquiyah Airlines, which is based in Tripoli, Libya.  For those of you who don't listen to the news or like to hide under rocks, there's some stuff going down in Libya currently.  And sadly, it's not of the life-affirming and inspiring show of collective humanity variety we were so privileged to witness in Egypt.  It's more along the lines of a  megalomaniac leader who is willing to slaughter his own people to stay in power. 

So after a scramble to find a remotely affordable flight that didn't involve a transfer in a North African country currently experiencing an uprising (in other words, avoiding North Africa altogether), we came up with a ticket routed through Paris.  So now all flight arrangements are made, a mere three weeks before my departure date.

But the thing is, I fully expect additional wrinkles in our plans, probably right up to the moment I step on the first flight out of the US.  Because this is what travel to and from third world countries seems to entail.  It is never, ever simple.  At some point I will write another post about the horrible experiences my husband has had coming to the US to visit me, which boils down to the fact that those of us with European or American passports have absolutely no idea how hard it is to travel without one.  European countries--and in our case, France specifically--treat people from the global south traveling through their country like dirt.  I won't get into it right now because it's late and I'll get angry just thinking about it.

Instead, it's time to watch some Jon Stewart and remind myself that there are many things I so appreciate about the United States, especially when faced with the alternatives. 

This valentine's day...don't take your loved one for granted

I'm not an advocate of using a blog to kvetch...but I'm going to a little.  But primarily to make a point, I promise.  I had a meltdown last night, the result of Friday evening fatigue that hampered my ability to hold all of the things that were causing stress and anxiety.   And one of the biggest things is the slow pace with which my immigration lawyer appears to be handling my husband's paperwork.  We are in the stage of the process where we are being asked to submit a whole new packet of documents, including my financial documentation and the Affidavit of Support, within which I commit to supporting my husband financially until he has a) worked for 10 years in the US; b) left the US permanently or c) died.  But, I digress.  Essentially, this stage required some work on my part and some on my husband's, including him mailing a second set of signed documents to the US, which costs him $150 through Chronopost because the regular mail service in Niger basically doesn't work. 

So what I'm saying is that, while we are busting our butts, our lawyer does not appear to be demonstrating the same kind of commitment.  Despite having weeks (like the entire month of January) to pull together our packet while the two of us were getting our stuff together, the packet still didn't go out until yesterday.  Very frustrating.  In the grand scheme of things, a few weeks is nothing, but for a couple who has been separated for THREE YEARS now, any delay just starts to feel cruel.

Which leads me to the meltdown and the point of this post.  Last night I was driving home from work, mulling over this frustrating delay, the implications this may have for the planning of our US wedding, the extra contract work I have to do this weekend, and that I have to do every weekend, to pay for the lawyer who is not prioritizing us and the cost of bringing my husband to the US, and passed by an improvised valentine's day flower display set up at the corner of a gas station parking lot.  Little bouquets of flowers with white plastic wrap festooned with hearts.  Not the type of valentine's gift I go for.  But no matter, it was just the push I needed to break down sobbing.  Because, on top of all of this anxiety, the ultimate implication is that, on Valentine's day, a holiday that I don't put much stock in regardless of my marital status, or even just on an ordinary Friday night when I'm exhausted from a long week, I don't have the luxury of going home to a spouse who loves me and will listen to me talk about my day or will just relax with me or pour me a glass of wine or give me the loving affection that I need to forget all of the stress and fatigue. 

And I am so incredibly tired of not having that luxury.  I know that we don't have much longer to wait, but this is a process that wears on the psyche and soul.  I also know that so many other people are separated from their loved ones for a variety of reasons, and my heart goes out to them. 

So, finally, the point.  If you have a spouse/partner/significant other/loved one with you (whether that's in the same living space or same city, within driving/bus/train distance), DO NOT TAKE THEM FOR GRANTED.   You probably don't know how lucky you are.

Happy Valentine's Day! 

Inch'Allah...and Impermanence

In the last few months I have started to regularly attend meditation groups at the East Bay Meditation Center, and have begun a meditation practice.  I grew up without organized religion (and with significant skepticism of it), but always been interested in meditation and Buddhism, and last fall, my interest became a need.  I was looking for a full-time job and starting the immigration process for my husband and was focusing entirely on a vague future, one with several key outcomes that I couldn't truly control.  I was scrambling for a way to stay in the present and breath into it. 

Now, thankfully, I have a full time job and the immigration process is moving along relatively smoothly.  But it also seems to me that the ideas and practices that I am learning through meditation and the dharma talks are starting to seep in.

This evening, the dharma talk focused on the tension between pushing oneself to develop one's practice (and really, one's movement through daily life) while also being able to let go.  Sounds antithetical, right?  It's a delicate balance, and a particularly difficult one to strike in a culture that is so outcomes-driven.  I do feel that much of what I've accomplished in my life has been due to a strong will, sense of purpose, and ability to set and reach goals.  But I have also struggled with accepting that I can't always control the outcome and that I need to let go, and give myself a break, when things don't go exactly as planned. 

This dichotomy became more clear with the job search and immigration process:  while I certainly could be proactive about both, the ultimate result was beyond my sphere of influence.

So this is where Allah comes in.  My husband is Muslim, born into Islam, as are upwards of 90% of Nigeriens.   I cannot profess to have a deep understanding of his faith, although he has shared his perspective on it with me.  He has an incredible ability to see much of life through a reflective and philosophical prism,  and approaches religion as a spiritual practice but also a set of rhetorical, sociological questions.  I have not known very many Muslims in my life but he is, without a doubt, the most open-minded one I've ever met.  It's pretty astounding given my observations of the cultural context he has come from. 

So, one of the most common expressions I hear in daily conversation in Niger is Inch'Allah, which basically means, God willing.  It took me a long time to wrap my head around the use of this phrase.  Because, as someone who does not believe in God, I consequently don't believe that God is directing our lives and thereby controlling the outcomes.  In fact, most of my life I have been a pretty firm believer in the power of human will as the ultimate shaper of outcomes and destinies.  So, to be brutally honest, when confronted with a constant barrage of so-and-so will get married, Inch'Allah or he'll get that task done, Inch'Allah, I started to see it as a cop out.  If you just leave everything to God, you're not taking responsibility! 

But the dharma has started to shift my thinking on this idea.  I still don't believe in leaving things up to God, but I do believe that it's a constant negotiation to determine when some will-power and determination is useful and even needed to bring about happiness and fulfillment, and when ceasing to be attached to a certain outcome and thereby accepting the impermanence of things can bring about similar results.  So I'm working on it, and in that work seeing the parallels between Inch'Allah and the Buddhist concept of attachment leading to suffering.  And my meditation practice is a great test case:  I don't have a particular outcome, except to keep growing and learning while knowing that I have no idea what that will look or feel like.  It's a journey, not a destination. 

What marriage means and thoughts confronting polygamy

I am constantly reminded how much my experience of this "waiting period" until my husband gets here differs from his experience does in Niger.  I've already talked about my side of things, so here's his, from what I understand:  he got married and his wife, instead of moving in with him to run a household and begin having lots of children, went back to the US and got a job, and has no intention of living in Niger.  So he is alone with full custody of three children.  This makes absolutely no sense to most of his family there.  Being married does not equate to being alone--it's just not how they do it.  And the fact that his wife is working hard to help cover the costs of his immigration process and that of his children doesn't matter.  She's not by his side.  So, logically, in their eyes, he should marry a second wife.

Yes, polygamy is legal in Niger.  It's becoming less and less of a common practice, but second marriages are often proposed as a solution to various "challenges":  the first wife not bearing any children, for example.  Don't get me wrong:  all of the above makes me furious.  I'm busting my ass for him and his family is trying to get him another wife.  My husband is obviously not on board with this plan, but I am still confronted with the fact that members of his family are.  It's a huge cultural difference that is walking up to me and slapping me in the face.

But I'm trying my best to wrap my head around it.  And at the root it boils down to the incredibly different conceptions of marriage in our two cultures.  Marriage, in the United States, for the most part, is a choice made by two individuals to form a partnership, ideally based on mutual respect, love, intimacy, and shared responsibility.  Sure, many marriages fall short of this ideal, but I think that most couples aspire to some form of it.  And from my conversations with older women, and a healthy dose of Mad Men, it's clear to me that this conception is, even for us, relatively recent. 

So, to go back to Niger.  It's a communitarian, mostly Muslim society.  The urban population of Niger is very small:  most of the country lives in rural villages or smaller towns.  The shift from an agrarian-based society to a professional-based society is only in its infancy, even in the capital city, and in the countryside you don't see it at all.  And in an agrarian, communitarian society, the social norms of the group are of primary importance--in fact, they're essential for survival.  To fall outside of the social norms is like tearing at that society's fabric.

One of the most important norms of Nigerien society is marriage.  Simply put, you have to do it.  If you don't, there is something wrong with you.  That said, in urban areas, society is in the midst of a shift from arranged marriages to marriages for love.  But it's a transition that will take a long time and the interim result is the obligation of marriage without the obligation of marrying your distant cousin or your parents' friends's daughter/niece/friend.  So in my brief experience in Niger I've witnessed a number of hasty marriages for, in my opinion, the worst reasons.  And I've also experienced women who have had to accept their husband marrying a second wife.  There's a lot of suffering. 

There is no way I can ever understand this conception of marriage:  it has nothing to do the idea that I've grown up with and see all around me.  But I can try my best not to fault my in-laws for doing what they think is right to preserve their culture, even if ultimately I believe (and my husband does too, for the record) that marriage in Niger will eventually be more and more a choice of two individuals who want to build a life together, as partners.  That may look very different than it does here, but to truly preserve itself, culture does have to evolve.

In the meantime, I have to release my frustration about this situation in whatever way I can and feel thankful that I'm not in a position where I'd feel obligated to be one of two wives or the young wife of some older relative or condemned to be a homemaker and birth a half dozen children.  How incredibly lucky I am.

Reflections on the weekend of an immigration wife

I came up with "immigration wife" as a riff on "army wife".  I want to be very clear that, as opposed as I am to war and the US's unnecessary military interventions, it is totally inappropriate to compare my situation to that of someone with a spouse or partner in a far-off place, with little or no contact, and no guarantee that they'll ever see them again.  That said, there are some parallels.  There is no way for me to know with any degree of certainty when my husband will get his visa and be able to come to the United States to live with me.  The process has gone pretty smoothly so far, but it is completely unpredictable.  And for the last three years, I have had to live with separations of two to five months interspersed with visits of 2-3 weeks.  The one exception was the three months I spent in Niger last year, which represented the most continuous time that my husband (then fiancé) and I have been able to spend together.  That trip was no picnic, but what kept me going through the myriad of challenges thrown my way was the awareness of what a gift it was to be with him and not have to separate again.

The last time we saw each other was on our honeymoon in November.  We said goodbye in public, like we are often forced to do, at a train station in Casablanca, realizing that it was the seventh time we'd had to say goodbye.  So let me say this:  I don't wish that experience on anyone.  For lack of a better descriptive word, it SUCKS, in the largest type I can select.

But then I get back to the Bay Area and life continues, a day to day that has never included my husband.  I love my life here--so many aspects of it are so incredibly fulfilling--and I am used to living it alone.  Here, I'm effectively single.  I don't have to check in with anyone, I don't have to be home at a certain time, I can eat weird concoctions when I'm too lazy to go to the grocery store, I can watch crappy TV or waste a ton of time on Facebook when I choose, I can accept social invitations on a whim, be spontaneous, have plenty of "me time"...you get the picture.  So there are definitely times when I worry a bit about what it'll be like to integrate a partner into this life I've put together for myself.   And which compromises will go unnoticed and which will be hard to swallow.

But then (and these "but then's" are intentional, because for every aspect of this experience there is one of of them...) I have a weekend such as this one, a quiet, lazy weekend where the main objective is to catch up on sleep, do some chores and cooking, and relax.  And then I'm not functionally single, I'm just alone when I should have the person I love next to me.  And that's when I alternate between feeling sorry for myself, angry at the situation, and jealous of other people who take for granted the fact that they can just be with their spouse any time they want.

Today in the check out line at Oakland's Lakeshore Avenue Trader Joe's, one of my favorite people watching locations (this grocery store's clientele reflects Oakland's incredible cultural and racial diversity, and makes me feel so fortunate to live here), I saw a West African family ahead of me (or at least, a French-speaking family from the African diaspora).  They had three children with them, younger than my stepchildren, their girls' hair braided like my stepdaughters, in full-on American kid gear, and I was filled with longing.  How long will I have to wait until I get to dress my stepkids in fun American gear and take them to Trader Joe's?  When people that should be by your side--your spouse or partner, your children, biological or not--are not there, the most banal aspects of everyday life smack you in the face the most.  It's a reminder of how you're not lucky enough to simply experience the mundane aspects of family life.

So, ironically enough, it's lovely to have a lazy weekend, but going back to work on Monday, where I am engaged and distracted and reminded how full my life is, is not at all a bad prospect.