Revelations of a rogue travel writer, part I

This year, my Christmas gift to myself was a package of three CDs and three books sent via Amazon to a house in Florida owned by a woman I don't know. Fortunately, that woman happened to be the mother of one of my JHR colleagues, Kari, who then delivered said package to my house in Freetown after her holiday back home. Pretty convenient, no?

Thus far, though Jurassic 5, The Hold Steady and Bloc Party have dominated my playlist in '09, I've read only one of the books: Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer by Chuck Thompson.

The praise on the back cover invokes comparisons to another Thompson and another Chuck, namely Hunter S. and Klosterman, who himself has to be the writer most commonly compared to the late, great Gonzo king.

In fact, if the book shelf at 19 Smartfarm Rd. is any indication, anyone who dares to write in a blunt, truthful yet entertaining matter can pretty much bank on comparisons to the man who made the phrase "Fear and Loathing" famous.

This Thompson's searing indictment of the travel industry, and the drones that typically spew uninspired prose about it, is a quick and enjoyable read, and I breezed through it. But I have since returned to portions frequently, especially in the highly relatable fourth chapter, entitled "Lost Among Expats: The Shiftless, Debauched, Tedious, and Necessary Existence of Americans Abroad."

Consider this the first of many posts inspired by the writing of a man whose insights into life abroad are far more prescient than anything original at ol' fortytwopointsix. And so it begins ...

Like most institutionalized instruction, teaching English in a foreign country is "easy" because by and large the requirements and expectations are so low, but it's also "hard" because it's nearly impossible to remain interested in the task. It's like trying to stay intellectually engaged for an entire afternoon with someone else's six-year-old. Then going home to a dingy apartment and wondering what the hell you're doing wasting your life in a country where no one will ever really know you. Then popping a beer at four even though you promised yourself that today you were going to wait until four thirty.

Glasser and Shanghai Bob were good to have around because they'd usually start drinking by three thirty, which took a little of the sting out of my descent into a primary form of recreation that traced its roots to a distillery somewhere outside London. (Pg. 100-101)

It's not important that you know who Glasser and Shanghai Bob are - only that you know my roommates Kevin and Patrick are my equivalents, although we start drinking closer to 8 or 9 and consume significantly less. But I can nonetheless relate to my boy Chuck's sentiment.

Today was "one of those days", to employ hideously non-descript yet somehow common parlance. The expat life has a knack for bringing the highs and lows of one's existence into even sharper focus, and it's always nice to read paragraphs like the ones excerpted above, to recall that trials of sanity are endemic to my current lifestyle and not a unique character flaw.

I left the house at 8:15 this morning, my eyelids still lethargic after a short night's sleep. When I arrived home 12.5 hours later, my eyelids were doing fine, but the rest of my being was sapped.

In between, I endured seven losses of power at the office, almost all of them occurring amidst unsaved script-writing, and watched a very promising broadcast deteriorate into one that was simply miraculous to have been completed at all. I think I ground three years worth of enamel from my teeth in a single day.

Then, of course, whereas catching a poda-poda at 7:30 p.m. is usually as difficult as standing out as the only cracker on a street rammed full of Sierra Leoneans, it seemed there wasn't an empty seat in the city on this night. My frustration must've been palpable, as when I finally did catch a taxi (willing at this point to shell out the extra $0.40), the driver took me right to my street without an extra charge, saving me a half-hour walk.

Though I don't often drink here, I knew long before I got home that I'd be indulging in a couple Beck's tonight to unwind. Just minutes ago, Kevin pushed back his chair and headed for the fridge, saying "I shouldn't have another beer, but I want to." Without thinking, I heard myself say, "Can you grab me one too?" It was my third, and last, of the night, so I think Mr. Thompson had me beat, but I could certainly relate to the urgency he intimates.

Actually, more than a lot of the excerpts I imagine I'll draw out in the future, this one is simultaneously stupidly accurate and rather far off base in summing up my experience. Perhaps that's because he's describing teaching ESL and not teaching journalism, and most ESL teachers probably aren't as passionate about the language as I am about journalism.

Either way, I find his constant derision of ESL teachers hilarious, in part because I know and love so many people that have taught or are currently teaching ESL. I suspect they'd all chuckle at his observations too.

But while I do not find it impossible to stay interested in the task at Kalleone, I completely relate to what he says about expectations being so low they could stultify the ambitions of even the most enthusiastic trainer.

For example, I've uploaded only one story to the JHR site since New Year's even though my job requires me to do one a week, and I haven't once been questioned about this fact.

Of course, at least in my case, that's more a function of working too hard than of slacking; I've been very busy and haven't found time to upload the many stories I have been working on. But while I appreciate JHR's understanding and realistic expectations, I nonetheless wonder if 'realistic' is merely a more pleasant way of saying 'non-existent'.

Lastly, while I've never felt like I was "wasting" my life, I also don't feel as though many people 'get' me here. And I don't mean that in an emo way.

Rather, I mean it in the completely understandable way that living in a place where no one knows my personal history, which is immensely instructive to who I am, necessarily means I'm not surrounded by a social circle that can toss off stunningly on-point insights about me with the casual efficacy of Jeff Hornacek at the free throw stripe circa 1999.

Hell, most people I encounter don't even have a working knowledge of the immense land of my birth, let alone understanding anything about my specific place in it.

Anyway, my meandering observations notwithstanding, the main point of this post is that, if you've ever lived abroad, I highly recommend checking out Smile When You're Lying - not because it will necessarily teach you a whole lot, but because it will make you think, "Oh, man. Totally. TOTALLY!" way more often than most books. And I'm seeing the value in that more and more with each passing day.


Editor's note: Please don't misinterpret this post as me being anything less than ecstatic to be where I am right now, doing precisely what I'm doing. It's all part of the experience, and it merely came to my attention recently that I had a tendency not to blog about the low points as much. I want to remember them too. But I've already moved beyond the long day and will readily embrace the challenges waiting to greet me on the morrow.