This party signified détente.  All the international staffers were in attendance, me included.  I had been invited–of course.  I was, after all, a member of the High Commissioner for Refugees international staff, however unpaid and informal.  As the intern, unpaid (as I mentioned) intern, I was at the bottom of the staffing totem pole, but I was still on it.  I hadn’t yet garnered any respect for my work, or, certainly, any appreciation of it, but I was recognized as a member of the staff. 

                Here I stood, on the back patio, watching the servants bustle out with more food and drink.  Not many more moons until I was for home.  Home was California, where my friends were, where perhaps I could earn money again.  I wasn’t eager to leave Africa, but I was thrilled to put behind me what had been a tiring war with Anita and her crazy jealousy wrapped in her explosive temperament. 

                Anita had turned my first two and a half months here into an embarrassing playground fight.   I kept envisioning us as those two girls, so mismatched, standing in the woods by the school surrounded by their friends and foes.  Playground fights are always so one-sided and no one ever really wins because the bully achieves nothing but further infamy and the ‘fraidy cat ends up even more insecure.  You know the fights I’m talking about: between the skinny kid with no chin and big ears (me) and the well developed bully, who is kinda pretty and boys would like if she just weren’t so damn scary (her).

                It’s one thing to face off in elementary school, or heaven forbid, middle school, but when you’re between thirty and forty, it’s just disgraceful.  Anita had shamed and humiliated me with her blatant mistreatment of me.  She used her status in the office to keep me from office parties, (an egregious move in the expat community where overt politeness, however feigned and phony, is the most highly valued asset), and refused to speak to me or to allow those beneath her, whose careers she influenced, to speak to me.  I didn’t want the rest of the world to be party to our squabbles.  I’m an essentially private person and like to suffer behind closed doors.  But Anita’s passionate personality threw our battle out for the entire community to judge, as she stomped around in anger, sending me evil glares and rolling her eyes every time I spoke.