The Journey of Azzedine Downes - Peace Corps Online

Sunday Morning Stares
Daniel Laboe, PCV/Papua New Guinea
The Sunday morning walk to St. Gregory
the Great Catholic Church otsogeri
is two kilometers from my little red house
on the larowari High School grounds.
Today is Palm Sunday. I'm walking the
Sogeri road. The weight of the sun is like
an invisible heat blanket bleaching my
hair, trying to set it ablaze.
Tall kunai grass rowers on both sides.
Wild bushes sprouting magnificent,
colored flowersclimb the hills on the right
side. Strange, crooked, randomly spiraling
palm trees eerily lookdown on the tar like
the background of a Salvador Dali painting.
An unseen stream rolls over its rocky
bed then remindsmeofi~ presence down
below the grassy hill on the left.
As I turn the comer coming up near the
school rugby oval, 1 get the leeling. Unavoidable.
It will stay with me until I'm
backin my little red house. Some people
are sitting on a fallen tree on the hill
overloolnng the rugby fieldandsome more
are walking my way. A woman and three
children. I'm onsraw. - I'm
a showpiece, a curiosity, a
foreigner. Painfully aware,
I'm a white man in Papua
New Guinea. I don't mean
to say that the Papua New
Guineansneverseewhites.
But one who lives amongst
them? A man who walks
the same road as they do,
cats thesame food, teaches
their children? A white
man who doesn't live in
some expensive palace in
Moresby going about his
day beyond the barbed
wire, acting as if he were
back in his own country?
The stares come. They
come from all directions. I
pass the people on the
fallen tree, but 1 still feel
their looks on my back.
The women and children pass me. A
greeting of "moning nau" is exchanged.
bur the children gawk. 1 gve a smile and
happily receive one back.
Where 1 came from (a small Midwest-
em town) did not prepare me to be at
center stage, every moment of each day. 1
am the middle ofnine children. At college
I was a study in average. Comfortably
packedinwith the rest, aperfectly capable
student, but one that never racked his
brains with school. I sailed on the wave of
the fat section of the bell curve. Last year,
1 remember thinking. "I don't want to get
ajob, inafewyears-awife. 1 want to see
the world! 1 want to be different!" Good
Lord, I'm different now.
The stares keep coming and tor some
unknown reason a lonely feeling creeps
in. The "I wish 1 could talk to my
lamily" feeling. The "far away in the
middle of nowhere feeling." I fight it
back down my throat. 1 want to sit. 1
want to close my eyes and imagine.
Imagine that Icanlose myselfinacrowd,
that I can looklike everyoneelse. I want
my hair to curl up into tight little dark
balls and my skin to rum brown. I want
to sit somewhere and have people walk
by without staring, without even notic-
ing. This spotlight is as bright and
constant as thesun that has now reached
every part of my body. Sweat drips
down off my nose and makes a dark wet
spot on my shirt.
I'm passing the community school
nowand twoofmy students have caught
up with me. They give me a happy look
and prepare to absorb some of thestares.
Mostly they get staresof their ownwhich
say, "You two are with him, huh?" To
which they smile and nod, "That'sright,
he's aTaubada, but he's O.K., he's with
us." I nod as if to affirm the silent
conversation. 1 feel as accepted as 1'11
ever be. An appreciated stranger.
We pass an old man who has found a
nice piece of shade. 1 recognize him.