squatters and sadness

Some of you have heard me talk about the Mechanics' Park next to our compound. Technically, the land surrounding our house has been set aside for a city park (a treeless, grassless park, but I digress...). Instead of cultivating some kind of welcoming oasis, the city has allowed the park to remain vacant, and as the story goes, squatters moved in, erecting tiny shacks made of plywood and corrugated tin roofs. The little village has really expanded, and is home to a dozen or more little homes, which belong mostly to taxi drivers and car mechanics.

I've gotten used to the sights (but mostly sounds) of my neighbors. Car horns, dogs, and crying babies are the most audible, but my favorite is the Sunday morning soccer game I hear while getting ready for church. There was a traditional wedding there a couple weeks ago, and they were singing until 3am! Have I mentioned that Nigerians know how to celebrate?! Even though I don't know my neighbors individually, I see them often: when I take out the garbage, when I walk over to buy phone credit, when I go to church. There's a food stand as well, and I've had really good pounded yam and egusi soup from there.

We arrived home this afternoon to see 5 huge transport vehicles full of armed policemen. Our driver asked a bystander (in Hausa) what was going on, and he translated it back to us: The police arrived with a demolition crew and tore down the entire park. Every house, every shop, every little building is gone. The residents were more or less chased off the grounds.

I stood on our back step and sneaked pictures of the aftermath. Some of the women just stood off to the side and watched. (The lack of outward emotion of Nigerian women is very intriguing to me, but probably a topic for another day.)

It has been eerily quiet around here since yesterday afternoon. I don't know where the residents will move to now that their homes have been destroyed. This Sunday, I won't hear the soccer game, and it really grieves me.

Part of me hopes that if the city bothered to tear everything down, they'll now make an effort to actually build a city park. Part of me hopes that the squatters return and rebuild.

wheaton, bubbles, and the experience formerly known as graduation

A year ago tomorrow, I wore a ridiculous hat, walked across a platform chanting internally "don't trip, don't trip, don't trip," shook the hand of a man I'd never met before, and received a piece of paper covered with a whole bunch of cursive writing.

Graduation sounds so absurd when you put it that way.

I've had a lot of time to reflect on the end of my time at Wheaton...a whole year, in fact. As grateful as I am that I had 4 years there to grow and mature, I wish I'd had the wisdom to anticipate the transition out.

"The Wheaton Bubble" is what we named the insular nature of our college. I'm sure other Christian colleges had their own bubbles, so we're not special in that regard. Wheaton doesn't have a monopoly on community, either, but there's something about the Wheaton Bubble and the Wheaton Community that alums carry with them.

While I was still a part of both, they were simply punch lines. What does one do on a Friday night? The options are pretty limited, thanks to the Wheaton bubble. And good luck keeping secrets in the Wheaton community.

Except now that I've left, they aren't punch lines anymore. I genuinely miss belonging to both the bubble and the community. I find myself willing to overlook all the unhealthy habits, all the backbiting, all the gossip, all the ways we ignore and hurt one another when we (women in particular) live together in community. Dwelling on the negatives helps me feel better about being out and very very far away from the people that defined "Wheaton Community" for me. Remembering the positive, helpful, beautiful things about the Wheaton community stirs up an intense longing, though.

The truth is, I don't do transitions well. Had I chosen a college closer to home, I probably would have shown up for high school drama performances and home basketball games until someone gave me a weird look and said, "What are you doing here?" Except not basketball because I hate basketball. Given the chance, I definitely would have been that kid.

So it's good that I chose an out of state college, and it is also good that I spent my first year out of college on another continent. It forced me to transition (the "over-and-done-with" verb, not the "complicated-and-lengthy-process" noun), and while I've experienced the full spectrum of feelings from "Screw community who needs it" to "Please I need some place to belong," I think I've learned how to be an adult, not because I had the option, but because I did not.

As the class of 2010 walks tomorrow, I wish them both a peaceful transition out of Wheaton and another source of community, and the wisdom to tell the difference.