bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1992) — Winter 1992 // Hiver 1992, pp. 10–11
“Memsahib!” “Señora!” “Fraülein!” “Madame!” “Lady!” “’ey, Meester!”
“Wan’ change dollar?” “I look car, yes?” “Whud you wan’?” “yes we ’ave; sorry is finish.”
“Sorry, this stamp is missing. Please, you go the long line over there.” “We are not giving this stamp today. Next week is Holy Week; you wait and come back after.”
“Good Morning. We have more passengers than seats on this flight; we can offer you…
Stop! In Canada, this would not happen. In Canada, this would be so simple to do. In Canada, no one will stare at me. In Canada, I could… I want to go home.
Home. Where is home? What is home anyway? Wherever it is, it probably is not in Walton’s Mountain, so why this overwhelming urge to go there? More than a physical place, it is a place where one is protected from the stress of being faced with the unfamiliar or the threatening. It is a place where one knows what is expected and what to expect, where one can bask in the comfort of a common culture, or sub-culture at least, and language.
The elastic apron strings of the maternal hearth loosen with the approach of independence and stretch apparently endlessly during the early flush of adulthood. The onset of stiffening joints and shoulder twinges, however, seems to coincide with a tautening of the ties to the sights and sounds of youth. The apron strings start twitching again and the pursuit of what was, or what should have been, begins.
A few people find this early in life; others never leave home in the first place. Not so in the Foreign Service. For whatever reasons, this group of people succumbs to the lure of exotic places and a wandering life. Eventually though, even the most peripatetic succumb to the homing instinct and begin nesting, surrounding themselves with these objects, services and people which bring about feelings of familiarity and belonging that create a home.
The Foreign Service is not the only wandering tribe. Every consular officer has dealt with at least one member of the frustratingly eccentric Canadian expatriate community. In their search for home, they fled the irritation of government regulation by investing in bureaucratically moribund Costa Rica; escaped the pressures of bilingualism by retiring to a condo in Puerto Rico; or fled the discomfort of increased immigration by becoming an immigrant themselves. Embassy staff avoid looking too closely at this latter group lest they find themselves looking into a mirror.
The energy required to adjust to constant change becomes harder to generate after a while. Despite the acquisition of skills at cultural adaptation and language learning, the desire to live in a familiar milieu, to speak a familiar language, to be oneself, to have a shared and accepted history with one’s community all coalesce into the decision to settle down at “home”
Whether it is marriage, money, divorce or retirement that initiates this homing instinct, the motivation is the same. Humans are social creatures with a fundamental need to belong to a group, to know their place in it, and to seek to participate in the activities of that group. The group provides security. On a personal level, it is the security of familiar ways; on a larger scale, it provides security from outside threat.
Life in the Foreign Service brings a refinement in this dynamic that borders on the absurd. Once removed from the broader Canadian social context and shoved into a revolving-door system of home again — gone again, the group to which one belongs becomes very small. So small, in fact, it takes on aspects of a pre-industrial tribe in which adherence to artificial codes and mores becomes essential to survival, and in which habit becomes law. This group, with its artificial homogeneity, becomes, over the course of a thirty-year career, the one in which Foreign Service people are most comfortable.
The irony is twofold. Although the Foreign Service does offer the comfort of familiarity, it no longer provides protection from outside threat. As a respected segment of the public service, members of the Foreign Service used to be secure in their job prospects, could reasonably expect regular advancement and were able to retire on an adequate pension. This is no longer true. The group is divided, demoralized and at odds with itself, intent on individual survival and vulnerable to outside manipulation. Group members are not so comfortable anymore. Nevertheless, any decision to remain at home means leaving the group to which one belongs.
Secondly, a career of roaming the globe peering through someone else’s cultural glasses tends to warp one’s eyesight and skew one’s thinking.
How many times did you have to bite your tongue on your last home leave? If you did not, how many times did you put your foot in your mouth? Going home can cause grievous bodily harm to the unwary. Granted, there are those who can spend half a lifetime abroad and then return home to Lower Shubenacadi, NS, without blinking an eye or feeling an intellectual pinch. Of course, they do not belong to the Foreign Service.
Thus, when the homing instinct strikes, people of the Foreign Service find themselves hoist on their own petard. Seeking a life of change, that is what they have achieved. Unlike our goods in storage, although even there time is inexorable, everything we left behind went about changing, too. While our books acquired silverfish and our carpets grew mildew, relatives and friends moved away, the old neighbourhood expanded and the corner grocery closed.
Not all these changes are minor or perceptual. Great size does not protect Canada from the realities of global dynamics — migration, armed conflict, depleted resources, natural catastrophes, economic dependency — and modern information services make sure everyone shares the good news. Even the mind-numbing balm of CNN cannot prevent the spread of information. This is bad news for those who want to stop the world and get off: they cannot out-run their Visa card. Neither can you avoid the consequences of being in the Foreign Service. Those who never leave home will always be wary of those who do. No one, except other colleagues or your Mother, wants to hear your stories. You can go home, but you can not turn back time. I went home recently. Nothing was changed; yet all was changed. The price of food was shocking. The GST/PST combination was a nasty surprise. There were more street beggars. During a walk through the old neighbourhood, I did not meet anyone I knew. The sweaters on sale were made in Ecuador, just as they are in the market in San José. The Food Bank Drive had come up short and yet expected increased demands.
Colleagues at home wanted to be abroad; colleagues abroad dreamt of the easy life at home. The clerks in Eaton’s still hid behind the ties; the lines at Boko Bakery had grown longer. The Commissionaires at the front desk were strangers, while tellers in the bank only remembered one as “Oh, yeah. Costa Rica.” There was not a familiar soul in the lobby of EAITC.
Last week, we had a house guest; the culmination of an apparently random series of events. First, the earthquake. Not the one that ripped apart the residence; the next one, the one that raised the east coast of Costa Rica by a meter and a half. One of the groups affected was the students of a small school in which the computer room was destroyed. As it happened, these students were paired through electronic mail and the good graces of the Fundación Omar Dengi with a Canadian school. And where is this Canadian school? In the village where close family lives. And who happens to be the Canadian teacher? A woman from New Delhi with whom we have acquaintances in common.
And then what happened? The myriad of previously invisible threads began to come together. The Canadian children raised money to help the Costa Rican students; the Canada Fund gave money to help the school; the Canadian teacher came to visit Costa Rica; and the Costa Rican teacher came to San José. We all got together one afternoon to walk around the city. I was struck by a sense of déjà vu. I had done this very thing in every city I ever called home — whether in Ottawa or Nairobi.
If I were at “home”, that is if I were in Canada, what would be different? Would I know the streets any better? Could I speak to people any easier? Would more people know me? Would I fit in any better? Would life be any different? Would going home now solve problems or merely replace old ones?
I may come home a stranger, but put an October-blue sky over my head, or a spring crocus under my window sill, and I know where I belong. Moving home will not solve problems nor bring an end to daily irritations, but I am very glad it is there waiting for me — not just yet, but someday. And if there is at least one gray-haired colleague to swap stories with, I will be content.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1992) — Winter 1992 // Hiver 1992, pp. 10–11. Read the rest of this issue →
