Stage Two

By Ashwini Manohar

Inside the Tuck Shop

Lying in bed on my second night in Malawi, I decide that I had spent all five weeks of my last trip here in the honeymoon stage of culture shock, because it occurs to me that this is what disintegration feels like. I am officially in stage two of culture shock, and unequivocally miserable.
So listless I am, in fact, that words like ‘excited’ and ‘happy’ and ‘hopeful’ have been expunged from my vocabulary. Everything is grey. My limbs weigh a ton. I kick dust when I walk, not because I want to, but because I’d rather drag my feet around than lift them. The mattress I slept on last year (which I loved) is now too thin, and I wake up with my shoulders and hips aching. The food is now too greasy. Why is everything fried? My feet, perpetually caged in hiking boots, are hot and damp and entirely uncomfortable. I break the rules and walk around with flip flops in the hostel one evening. I sigh a lot. I frown a lot. I worry about impending wrinkles from all the frowning and UV damage. I slather my skin in more sunscreen than I need, more times during the day than necessary. I’m a quarter of a century old. I think about Botox. I feel sad. My stomach makes awful noises. I dig out my makeup case from my luggage and spend fifteen minutes every morning putting on foundation, mascara, lipstick and filling in my eyebrows. I feel a little better. Temporarily. I’m bloated and gassy.
I’m such a walking caricature of privileged misery that even in the depths of it, I realize how ridiculous I must look to someone on the outside. This is like the anguish Kim Kardashian must feel when she breaks a fake fingernail. Or so I imagine.
I walk around to the tuck shop the very same day we arrive on campus. This was my project last year.
The shelves are gnarly and twisted, and there is barely anything on them. The walls look like someone has trickled watery poop all over it. The counter is half the size it used to be.
There was heavy wind and rain I was told and the roof tore off. We had termites everywhere, it was so humid in here that things started spoiling. We fixed the roof and I spent my own money to buy termite repellent to spray everywhere. Then I was told people said, “Asha’s coming, we’ll wait, she’ll fix it.”
No, I almost scream. This is your community tuck shop. Why were you waiting for me? What if I hadn’t come back this year?
Smiles but there is no answer at this point

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