Boredom

The subject is difficult to write about. Lingering in the back of my mind, I have spent time thinking about writing something about it. But among the abstract, inchoate thoughts that rise to the surface, the one that clearly doubts the project is always the loudest. Really? You want to write about boredom? How boring! The new arrivals in the province are having a hard with it, and ask questions like, “How on earth have you survived here for more than a year?” that have provoked responses from myself that are bland and meaningless. So I suppose this entry makes up for that.

It is easy to understand what their situation is like. All people in this situation go through a similar experience. It goes something like this: Imagine for a moment that you are an American living in America. Your life is full of appointments, meetings, presentations, dinners, classes, accompanied by a regular seasonal change and surrounded with friends and family. Suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a small Southeast Asian nation surrounded with unfamiliar people and having none of the things that keep you busy. You also find that life moves at a much slower pace. So what do you do? You can throw yourself into your teaching work, but that is often not the best idea. I did that during my first year, and it really left me too exhausted to anything else. (I am doing much more outside the classroom this year, and I am much happier for it) Apart from work, which may be interrupted by unforeseeable events or holidays for weeks at a time, there is not a whole lot you can do. A lot of volunteers read, exercise, and socialize with people in the market in their spare time, which are good ways to unwind. However, these can only keep you busy for so long. You might wonder what Khmer people do for fun, and why I am not out doing what they do. As far as I can tell, entertainment options in the village for the locals include playing cards, gambling, volleyball, gossiping with neighbors, watching TV soap operas, and consuming huge amounts of rice wine or canned beer. (Sometimes starting as early as breakfast) Since I am good at none of those things, my options are very limited. And so I continually face the prospect of boredom on the onset of a long, hot afternoon.

Consider the example of what I did last Saturday. While Saturday is technically a school day, the Peace Corps largely discourages us from teaching on that day. So it is a day off. I rolled out of bed at something like 8:00. (This is the equivalent of something like 10:45 in American time, way too late) I looked at the pile of laundry near the bathroom door, and said to myself, “No…tomorrow.” Took a bath, dressed, unlocked the door and walked outside into the bright sunshine. From the couple of minutes it took to towel off and walk around, I had already started sweating already. Bought two waffles from the breakfast stand in front of the house and walked down the street to the café. Ordered a coffee and sat down with a book for about two hours. I also started to compose this little letter on the back of some paper I recently found behind my bamboo bookshelf. Mr. Breadman came by at 8:45, and I bought my usual loaf of bread from him. We chatted about the weather. At 11:00 I went down to the market to buy some eggs and tomatoes. The eight-year-old girl who sells them to me always screams with laughter every time I come to buy them, for some reason. Went back to the house and made myself a hard boiled egg and tomato sandwich with a little olive oil I brought back from Siem Reap. The host mother laughed as I sat down at the family table with the sandwich, and asked if it tasted good. We have the same exchange nearly every other day. After lunch I pulled out the GRE book and studied math problems. After this, I went to visit the Guppy Farm for an hour, and started off on a long bicycle ride. Came back at 6:00, showered, dressed, ate dinner, practiced the violin, read a book, took another shower, and finally made my way to bed. And that was my entire day off. It really does not get any better than that.

Everyone who comes and lives in this part of the world experiences boredom of some kind. It is mentioned through all the colonial literature you can find. (Conrad, Orwell, and Maugham describe it particularly well. Kipling never mentions it) The mornings are usually okay. If there is no school, you can wake up a little later. You can also visit the market, go out to breakfast, or lesson plan while it is still cool out. However, the after lunch period is particularly dreadful. There is nothing worse than slowly realizing you have nothing to do until the hour when you have to go to bed. The sun is strong, and it takes a strong amount of will power not to roll up in the hammock and sleep the afternoon off. Some people like the siesta, but I find it dreadful. I feel tired for the rest of the day, and so I relegate the worst part of the day to studying the GRE’s.
When you settle into a routine, many of the days seem the same. You retreat into the world of books or pirated DVD’s in order to kill the monotony of life. Every couple of weeks, you escape to the provincial town for a little conversation and western food. But even still with this, there are no plays or concerts to attend, no movie theaters to go to, and while going to a bar or nightclub might sound appealing you can only go to a few that are not packed with bored looking prostitutes. Your only real source of entertainment remains chiefly books and DVD’s.

There is nothing that shows you how much your life now is different from your previous one when you talk to people in America. While you have an infinitive amount of time to sit around and swap yarns, they do not. They are Americans! They have things to do, and people to see instead of listening to, “Well this one time in the village…” over the telephone. And it is incredibly frustrating when you realize that.

So how do you keep your mind from going dull? Anything you can. The new arrivals have only just discovered this, and I wish them luck in the weeks and months to come.