From There to
Here
Anton Zuiker
Cleveland, Ohio
Coming home was easy, but
leaving was difficult.
Even after two wonderful
years as a Peace Corps Volunteer
in the South Pacific, I still wanted to come home to walk among the shelves
of a bookstore, shiver in the aisles of a supermarket and sit back in stadium-style
seating at a Cineplex. America, I always thought, has what I relish: great
choices of books, music, movies, food and family. One day on Paama, the
small island where Erin and I served, I had had an irresistible urge to
be in an American airport, a place of confluence that reflects our freedom
of travel and opportunity. I just wanted to float amiably among the crowds.
But once I was back from
Vanuatu, other emotions collided with that sense of largesse. I was walking
among the crowds crossing the street to Chicago's Water Tower Place, and
I wanted to scream out, "I just want to be recognized!" All these people,
coming and going and rubbing elbows with me, but not one stops and greets
me.
On Paama, most mornings before
school I would walk up the hill to the Lironessa Village cooperative store,
a few hundred yards from Liro Village where Erin and I lived. Our dog Geo
led the way, and sometimes Pima the "puscat" would follow us. On my way
up, and on my way down the rutty dirt road, I was greeted by the villagers.
We would come face to face, stop, shake hands with one pump down, and repeat
the same refrain.
"Anton, yu go long stoa nao?"
(Anton, you're going to the store.)
"Si. Mi pem bread." (Yes,
I'm going to buy bread.)
"Ale. Yu go. Mi go long
solwata." (OK, go ahead. I'm going to the ocean to bathe.)
The villagers knew me. They
knew my whereabouts, and my comings and goings. They knew when I stayed
up late reading, and when I brought a shipment of tomato sauce and pasta
from the capital, Port Vila. They knew when our parents called on the phone,
and when a pile of packages arrived at the postal desk. And when they knew
these things, they stated so.
Shake. "Anton, daddy blong
yu i ring." (Your dad is on the phone. Hurry up.)
Shake. "Anton, yu bin walkabout
long night tudak." (You were up late last night, huh?)
Shake. "Anton mo Erin, yutufala
gat wan bigfala carton we i kam long USA." (You two received a big package
from home.)
The handshake became routine.
In a communal society where physical intimacy is never public, the handshake
was an important bond. Even this could last. I'll always remember Noel
matter-of-factly holding my hand as he and I walked up the road to the
store together.
Noel was my brother. To him
and to me, and to the village of Liro, we were true brothers. Sure I was
white-skinned and he was black, but from the moment Erin and I arrived
on Paama for our training (the nine weeks before we were sworn in as volunteers
and sent back to serve Liro), we were family through and through. We shared
meals and exchanged gifts, talked about our cultures and laughed about
our foibles. Noel's children Terry, Enna and Mereva became our children,
and spent nearly as much time at their own home as they did at ours. They
were the village that raised Erin and me to an understanding of community.
We gathered at the Tavie
airstrip on a rainy October afternoon. That simple cement structure, for
a few hours, was more airport than sprawling O'Hare might ever be for me.
Among the crowd, I was recognized -- as servant, as envoy, as friend and
as family member. I climbed aboard the tiny Twin Otter airplane and began
the journey home.
On the plane, banking past
Paama, I was too tired for tears. What I thought about was Idaho, when
I was 10 years old. My father, Joseph, took all of the sofa cushions and
created a hockey rink in the living room. We played a version of floor
hockey with wooden spatulas and spoons and a whiffle ball. By then, I'd
already wanted to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. In that same living room
dad regularly showed his Peace Corps photos on the bare white walls, using
a finicky slide projector and a Zuiker penchant for storytelling. The Peace
Corps never had so good a recruiter.
Down Under to Cyberspace
Courtesy of Uncle Sam, Erin
and I continued our circumnavigation of the planet, traveling home by hopscotching
through a dozen countries. In many of these places, we had friends and
family generous enough to be our hosts and tour guides. A hearty "thank
you" to each of them. Here are highlights of the trip:
North and South Islands,
New Zealand
We started with a few days
of shopping in Auckland, and stayed at the home of a Vanuatu acquaintance,
Erin Crowley. We then toured the country in a campervan. New Zealand even
in winter was inviting, the people friendly and the scenery spectacular.
We kayaked in the Marlborough sounds (Sea Kayaking
Adventure Tours guide Roger was great); swam with 1000 dusky dolphins
in the chilly waters off Kaikoura;
soaked in the cauldrons of Rotorua's hot springs; and toured the respectable
wineries
of Hawkes Bay (best was Huthlee Estate Merlot, unavailable in U.S). A great
destination, especially for outdoor enthusiasts; summer, North American
winter, is much more expensive than the off-season winter.
Sydney and Cairns, Australia
Alison Todd, who once served
as a nurse on Paama for 17 years, hosted us in Sydney. She drove us up
to the scenic Blue Mountains, and gave us terrific instructions for navigating
Sydney, where we toured the Olympic
Stadium complex, caught an opera, "Turandot", at the famous Sydney
Opera House, and napped on Bondi
Beach. From Sydney we flew to Brisbane, where we met some koala
and kangaroo. I later ate a kangaroo steak at the eccentric Going Bananas
restaurant in Port Douglas; the kangaroo meat was unique, but what is most
memorable from that meal was the prawn-filled lychee appetizer! In Cairns
we caught a day-sail out to the Great Barrier Reef, a must-see with a stunning
display of coral and fish. I saw my first shark ever, a black-tipped reef
shark that lazily swam beneath me. The hostels
in Australia are cheap, clean, friendly and fun.
Bangkok, Thailand
This was to have been a
12-hour layover, but we extended it to a full four days. Bangkok is huge,
loud, busy and polluted. But we loved it. We took a fabulous day tour north
to the ancient ruins of Ayuthaya
and at one point cruised the main river in a long-tail taxi boat. In Bangkok
we learned to bargain at the Khao San Road area, where backpackers from
around the world converge. One day, Erin and I took a taxi to an off-the-main
neighborhood and wandered until we found a noodle shop, where we slurped
multiple bowls of noodles and bottles of Coca-Cola, all for under a buck.
Thailand is super cheap. Go, but spend your time out of Bangkok.
Roskilde, Denmark
Our good friend Charles
McCarthy, the Franciscan friar who married us in Cleveland in 1996, met
us at the Copenhagen airport? he recognized us!? and took us to his friary
in nearby Roskilde. Denmark was frightfully cold, but we loved the Scandinavian
reserve and the country's clean design sense. We enjoyed the simple pleasures
of shopping in the cobblestone streets of Roskilde and Copenhagen. One
afternoon we took a ferry to Sweden, passing the Kronborg
Castle, which Shakespeare used for Elsinor Castle in Hamlet. The hospitality
of Charlie and his fellow friars was truly special.
Bergen, Norway
In Vanuatu, we had met Knut
Rio and Annelin Eriksen and their two daughters, Anna and Oline; Anna,
Oline and Erin all shared the same doctor when the three had malaria. In
Bergen, we celebrated the good health of all of us. Norway was even colder
than Denmark, but we barely noticed since the scenery was so spectacular.
Knut and Annelin guided us past fjords, into the mountains, and around
traditional Norwegian cuisine? such as smalahove,
boiled smoked sheep's head that is a delicacy in the mountain village of
Voss where we stayed in a quaint cottage on Knut's family's farm. Around
the same time I determined I would be a Peace Corps Volunteer, I began
my fascination with Norway. So, visiting Knut and Annelin was a dream come
true.
(Read
my essay.)
Bilbao, Spain
A more recent dream was
my desire to visit the modern-day cathedral-like museum built by architect
Frank Gehry in this northern Spanish city. This was a fantastic experience,
and the Guggenheim
museum is truly a masterpiece of modern art and architecture. We were in
Bilbao for two nights only, but that was long enough for me to practice
some Spanish. We must return to sample more of the famous Basque cuisine.
We missed out because we walked the streets from 5 to 9 looking for an
open restaurant, when if we'd bought a guide book and read the print we'd
have known that dinner isn't served until after 9. Next time.
Paris, France
Ahh, Paris. We relied on
Erin's cousin, opera singer Julie Braun, and Julie's journalist boyfriend
Tom B. to guide us. And they did a fabulous job showing us Paris. We visited
the Louvre,
the Eiffel Tower, a handful of restaurants, and the subways. We celebrated
an American Thanksgiving with Greg Frost and Paige Bradley, friends of
Julie and Tom. I can't wait to get back to that city.
Geneva, Switzerland
Here we stayed with a good
friend of Erin's sister, Mary. Libby Reicard landed a great internship
with a Fransiscan organization that advises the United
Nations Human Rights Commission. Libby was new to Geneva, but was a
good guide nonetheless, and showed us the Hall of Nations that was once
the forum for the League of Nations. Of course, Erin and I bought watches.
Good ones, too.
London, Great Britain
And we finished in England.
Barbara and Steve Watson (Barbara is the sister of Dot, my father's wife)
hosted us on their 1909 Belgian houseboat on the Thames. Barbara drove
us to Stonehenge and then to a nearby but much-less-crowded presentation
of stone monoliths at Avesbury. Erin and I saw the play "Art" in London's
West End theatre district, and the new James Bond film and "Eyes Wide Shut."
For the first time in months, Erin and I split up for the day: she visited
the historical Westminster Abbey and I went on an architectural tour of
London's Canary Wharf development. One afternoon we enjoyed brunch at the
home of Alex Frater, the grandson of the first missionaries to Paama. Alex,
an accomplished travel writer
and journalist, visited Paama in late 1998 and suggested that my goal of
being editor of National
Geographic Magazine isn't so far-fetched after all. Thank you, Alex.
By mid-December Erin
and I were home in the Midwest United States. We had a mini Zuiker reunion
with my mother and brothers in DeKalb. I'd missed both Joel and Tracey's
wedding and Christopher and ElizabethÕs wedding, and now for an
early Christmas they brought babies. Our family does continue to grow.
Only a few weeks after
returning to Cleveland I was offered a job, recruited by a former mentor
to join an Internet start-up company creating a how-to website. In the
four months since I joined PlanetKnowHow.com, I've had a crash course on
the world wide web? I went from living on a technology-simple island
to relying on a handheld
computer to keep track of my busy life. Erin, too, is working on a
website. Hers is a university- and government-funded project to create
an online tool for helping people of low income or high debt find the tools
for owning a home.
And
that's where we'll leave off. I'm home now, and happy to be here. "Yu stap
gud nomo?" Let's shake on it. 
