Younger Days: Far Flung Housemates
Germany, Tunisia, and Atlanta
After my numerous college dorm and housemate experiences, and a year and a half with my father and brother (first in a tiny home that resembled a card house, and then in the house where my husband and I live now and raised our sons), I had a long stretch of apartment living on my own. Living solo was lonely on occasion, but mostly it was blissful: private, creative, and full of unfettered time that was entirely mine to do with as I pleased. After completing my undergraduate degree, a year of work, and two years to get my masters degree, I was ready for a break. I sublet my apartment, left my tenant detailed instructions on how to care for the cactus collection (to no avail: she killed every last one, including an immense barrel cactus), and departed for nine months combining study, visits to scattered relatives and friends, and journeys to points unknown. This was followed by several years of research work that included a project in North Africa, and a return to school to get my doctoral degree with a couple of years in Atlanta conducting my dissertation research. Below are three memorable housemate situations from this period.
Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Germany
In the autumn of 1983, I landed in Freiburg-im-Breisgau in Southern Germany. I enrolled in intensive German language instruction at the Goethe Institut in the hopes that the program would finally polish my wanting grammar and poor writing skills (see my essay: Crossing Cultures: C’est La Vie). I was assigned to a small two-bedroom apartment in a nondescript concrete high-rise where I lived with Jan, a young woman who hailed from Texas. Jan and I had nothing in common, save that we were both studying at the Institut and were female. She was a stocky short blond who always sported jeans and a flannel work shirt, conversed with me hardly at all, and went out nightly to drink beer with newly befriended classmates. We shared the apartment, but barely interacted. There was one peculiar exception to what was an otherwise unremarkable few months of living together.
I had visited the health clinic in town to get immunizations and medications for a subsequent trip to India and had had difficulty conveying my request for a typhoid vaccination. The nurse kept saying “Typhus” and stamped my small vaccination booklet accordingly. I was concerned that I had received the wrong vaccination. All these years later I discovered that both typhoid and typhus, although different infections, go by the same name in German. To this day, I don’t know which vaccination I was given. About six hours after my clinic visit, and roughly an hour after having eaten dinner, I began to feel woozy. By the time I went to brush my teeth I was nauseated and unsteady. I braced myself against the sink in the closet-like bathroom and subsequently threw up and passed out. Hours later I awoke, confused, cramped, and cold, wedged between the sink pedestal and toilet, like a marionette whose puppeteer had fled. I extricated myself and wondered if I had had food poisoning or a reaction to one of the vaccines. (A few years ago, my younger son had a violent reaction quite similar to mine after receiving a typhoid shot.) It was around 11pm, and I could hear my housemate bustling about. With difficulty, I stood up, cleaned myself, mopped the bathroom, brushed my teeth again, and went to bed, completely spent. The next morning, I mentioned to Jan that I had been quite ill. She barely reacted. It would have been impossible for her to miss seeing me crumpled up in the bathroom. Where had she brushed her teeth? Perhaps she thought I had simply had one drink too many.
Tunis, Tunisia
Two years later, it would be my turn to ignore a housemate’s health. I was doing research in Tunisia, a long-term follow-up study of trachoma* in several villages in the Sahara. The principal investigator, a fellow researcher, and I were ensconced in a Sheraton set in the brown arid hills outside Tunis (the capital). At a distance I could see a few hovels in the folds of the landscape and at night a chorus of dogs would bark until daybreak. We spent our days meeting with Tunisian collaborators, preparing what would be needed in the field, and inventorying supplies. A tray arrived at my door every few days with pastel-colored confections that looked like Persian-influenced petits-fours. There was plenty of free time in the late afternoons and evenings and, out of sheer boredom, I would saw off a tiny corner of the tantalizing sweets and nibble, hoping they would taste as delicious as they looked. Sadly, they were inedible, a gritty mouthful of sugar with the slight flavor almonds. I didn’t have the heart to throw them out, so I added them to the next delivery. After a week it was time for the principal investigator and my colleague to leave the country. I felt like a caged animal in the hotel, far from the office where I worked at the Institute of Ophthalmology in the center of Tunis. I found a room in the medina (the old town) after calling the number on an index card tacked to a bulletin board at the office of USAID (United States Agency for International Development).
Thus began my cohabitation with LeeAnn, a woman in her fifties from, as she said in a molasses-like Southern drawl, “Red Stick, Looosiana” (Baton Rouge). The house, likely the former home of a prosperous merchant, was two stories high, sandwiched between similarly historic buildings on one of the many cobblestoned alleys in the old part of the city. It had a massive wooden front door and giant brass knocker, soaring ceilings, and palatial rooms that had seen better days. Downstairs lived a mother and her grown daughter, both of African descent (and thus lower down on the Tunisian totem pole than the light-skinned Tunisians of Arab descent). They minded the property for the absentee owner and were the gatekeepers, letting us in when we knocked. They were polite but distant and, I imagine, disapproving of all the visitors who came to call for LeeAnn.
LeeAnn was short and feisty, with a head of dyed dirty blond curls. She played den mother to a disparate and motley crew of much younger volunteers. She never rose before 10 or 11 in the morning from her queen-sized wrought iron bed festooned with pillows and a fluffy duvet. LeeAnn’s routine was unvarying: after waking she padded about the apartment in her terrycloth bathrobe and slippers and prepared French toast with powdered sugar. In the early afternoon clear through the evening, she held court, serving drinks, telling long stories, complaining volubly about her various aches and pains, and cackling loudly. Occasionally, LeeAnn and the others had a few hours of work. They all spoke impeccable Tunisian Arabic that included a considerable lexicon of curse words.
My room arched across the alley below, connecting our building to the house opposite. It was fantastically cold once autumn gave way to winter, having no insulation and empty space below. In addition, it was unbelievably noisy due to the daytime commerce and nighttime socializing; this left only a few hours of quiet before the dawn call to prayer. At nightfall young men would gather under the archway of my room where there was both a streetlamp and shelter from inclement weather. They smoked, laughed, held hands, yelled to one another, and were greeted by friends roaring through on motorcycles or mopeds. LeeAnn’s room faced the alley. With some regularity, unable to sleep or awoken by the noise, she would fling open her heavy wooden shutters, lean far out over the windowsill, her cleavage deliberately spilling from her nightgown, and address the men below. LeeAnn adopted a gravelly voice and chided the young men for disrespecting her, an old woman, depriving her of needed sleep, who (as they could see) had shriveled breasts from suckling so many babies. She cupped her breasts and hoisted them at the men for effect. The message was delivered in expletive-laden argot. Occasionally her act resulted in a short period of silence, at other times the men laughed or ignored her entirely. By dawn, multiple mosques in the area would broadcast the call to prayer, the crackling megaphones and muezzin’s chants vying for attention. Soon thereafter, the metal shutters of the shops below would clatter up and the proprietors would blare Reggae or Oum Kalsoum, the legendary Egyptian chanteuse. I did not get much rest.
One day as LeeAnn began her usual morning routine she complained of extreme pain in her lower abdomen. She took to her bed rather than getting dressed and called several members of her coterie to regale them with her woes. I told her I hoped she would feel better, dismissed her lamentations as no more than the usual litany of complaints, and left for work. When I returned in the late afternoon, LeeAnn was gone. She returned later that evening, accompanied by several friends, smiling and full of new stories. LeeAnn had had a kidney stone. I was surprised and ashamed that I had not been more sympathetic, unable to distinguish the routine from the exceptional.
*The leading cause of preventable blindness in the world, caused by ocular chlamydial infection.
Atlanta, GA
On my third and final round of degrees at UC Berkeley, after completing two years of doctoral coursework in Epidemiology, I left for a 1988 summer internship in Atlanta at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This was the best place to conduct my thesis research on behavioral aspects of sexually transmitted disease (STDs). After relentlessly cold-calling the doyenne in the field, I finally reached her on the phone to inquire after the possibility of working at the CDC. She was baffled, haughty, and dismissive. Out of options, I determined that the only way to get a foot in the door was to apply for a CDC summer internship on any project. I applied and received an internship working in the Division of STDs on a project focused on HIV testing. Although it was not the topic I wanted to study, I was pleased to be posted to the correct office.
Cheryl was another CDC summer intern from UC Berkeley and we set out together 10 days before we were due to report for work. We took our time driving cross-country, camping and staying in cheap motels, exploring the southwest and the south (see my essay: Crossing Cultures: Racism in Atlanta). We were assigned to live in the homes of CDC researchers. I dropped Cheryl off in the sleepy suburbs and drove to my appointed spot.
My place was on a quiet side street in what passed as a funky neighborhood in Atlanta (Little Five Points). I was renting a room from my internship supervisor, Suzanne. Both she and her husband were CDC employees and had two young girls (ages 4 & 6). My room belonged to the children but had been vacated for the summer to provide rental income. It was directly off the entry hall and living room, with a second door leading to a hallway across from the shared household bathroom. It was impossible not to be acutely aware of nearly everything going on. The daughters routinely entered my room to locate a toy or article of clothing, eyeing me suspiciously. The atmosphere was chaotic and unhappy. Belongings were strewn about and dishes remained piled in the sink and on the countertops. The air in the house was stultifying and temperatures cloyingly warm, typical of many Atlanta homes lacking AC and seemingly built for other climes. The children were in constant motion while the parents seemed overwhelmed and wrung out. Suzanne and her husband argued loudly and frequently with each other, accusing one another of not taking the children or some other wrongdoing, the animosity between them palpable.
I spent as little time as possible in the house to minimize interaction with the family. I ventured out on walks and drives, familiarizing myself with the city and attempting to appreciate my new surroundings. Awkwardly, I had to interact with my landlady at work. She exhibited little interest in the project I had been assigned, was vague and inconsistent in her direction, and was often unavailable. I heard she was having an affair with one of the top administrators. It seemed to explain some of the ugliness at home.
Suzanne’s husband was disheveled and frumpy and seemed to need a friend. He engaged me in conversation that hinted at a lack of satisfying social discourse with other adults. It made me sad. One afternoon, I left work early, first frozen by the arctic AC in the office and then cooked in my car that lacked AC, manufactured for the frigid winters of Sweden. I went to my room to recuperate for a while, then opened the door to the hall to use the bathroom. There, with the door agape, was my landlord, sitting on the toilet and bouncing his legs up and down like a very young child, grunting loudly and rhythmically. He was as shocked to see me as I was to see him and quickly swung the door shut. Thereafter, we both pretended nothing had happened and avoided eye contact, but I was perpetually uncomfortable in his presence.
I departed several weeks early, desperate to get out, and moved in for the last portion of my internship with Connie, a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officer I had befriended. I slept on the enclosed sun porch, stacked nearly to the ceiling with Connie’s belongings, with just enough room for an old wrought iron bed. I was uncomfortable, but grateful. Connie was in her mid-thirties and rail-thin. She went on extremely long jogs and ate little. She was obsessively focused on finding a man, a frequent topic of conversation. Connie had two enormous Persian cats she would gather in her arms, first one and then the other. The cats would latch on to her earlobe and nurse. Much to my astonishment, she seemed to enjoy this activity immensely, giggling and murmuring to them.
Over the course of that miserable summer I successfully convinced the division where I’d dreamt of working to hire me. In the fall, I packed up some of my personal belongings in Berkeley, shipped them out by Greyhound, and moved back to Atlanta. As it happened, Connie was being posted overseas for a number of weeks and invited me to house sit while I searched for permanent lodging. She and I lived together for a few days prior to her departure so she could give me detailed instructions on how to care for her cats, plants, and garden. The tasks were seemingly straightforward.
The first day on my own, I entered the kitchen to give the cats food and water, and was attacked. One cat jumped down from the counter, the other ran toward me from further back in the kitchen, both of them hissing and yowling. One bit my ankle, the other latched onto my forearm when I tried to put food in their bowls. The kitchen was long and extremely narrow and it was challenging to maneuver in the tight space. I flailed about to free myself from the cats and beat a hasty retreat. I was terrified. I’d always loved cats. They had transformed from obese earlobe nursing babies to demons. I couldn’t wait for Connie to come home. Not long after she returned, I moved out to housesit for another friend.
It was proving difficult to find an affordable and comfortable apartment that was centrally located, safe, and had AC. After considerable searching, I took a place well beyond my budget. I was desperate, and I was also miserable living in Atlanta. I figured having a great place to live might compensate in some small measure. My apartment was on the top floor of a sprawling old home in Lullwater, the gracious historic neighborhood surrounding Emory University. An incredibly nice devout Christian family had renovated the home. They had two children: the seven year old daughter, Lila Jean, lived down the hall from me. Her brother, Carter, was born not long after I moved in and lived downstairs with the parents.
I had more space than I knew what to do with and not a stick of furniture. I frequented yard sales and dragged home chairs that had been put out for garbage pick up. I filled my drawers with the few items I had shipped from home. Lila Jean was a sweet, talkative, and curious girl. She could not contain her excitement over having me move into the apartment, much needed company in the far upper reaches of the home. Her mother gently and repeatedly instructed her to give me privacy and leave me to my own devices, but Lila Jean just couldn’t do it. On weekend mornings, evenings, and late afternoons there would be a soft knock on my door. It was Lila Jean, eager as a puppy to come in and check out my rooms, look at my things, converse. After a few weeks, I began turning her away. It was feeling more like a babysitting gig than I had anticipated. She was always disappointed and uncomprehending.
One day I opened my desk drawer to get out an eraser and noted considerable disturbance to the drawer contents. I had a collection of miniscule cute and brightly colored Japanese erasers shaped like fruit, lipstick, and animals. Several of the two part erasers had been separated and some erasers had deep bite marks on them. The door to my apartment did not lock and Lila Jean, clearly unable to resist, had entered in my absence and explored. It was a different housemate experience altogether. The erasers still have bite marks on them. Lila Jean has, in the interim, married, moved overseas, and divorced. I wonder if she remembers.
