Thoughts in Between

I feel like I’m running out of time here. Of course, that is all in my head. I have two weeks until Dad comes to visit for a week. Then I only have three weeks left. Then Alec graduates. Then we have a big party where I cook everyone Ugali (yes, you're invited). Then it is my last summer as I have known them to be for the past 15 years. One more year of college. The time between now and when I was 12 is the same amount of time between now and when I will be 30. And I’m not fluent in Swahili.

I can’t believe I’m in Tanzania. Sometimes when I am walking around the city alone I try to focus on really being here. I so easily get in the mode of looking straight ahead and trying not to attract more attention than I already do that I sometimes just see the streets as a transit point that I am trying to make it through, not be in. In the beginning I learned so much because I felt so ‘other’ in some ways and such solidarity in others. Now I hardly think about it and I don’t know if it’s because I am used to it or because I have been in my own little world.

Everything that happened last week really shook me up. For the record, the woman (I won’t say her name even though I realized I did in a way earlier post) from Arcadia is following up and helping us (we are having a mediator come in and help us and Martha…that will be interesting). It may be because she was going to anyway, or it may be because a certain father called the president of a certain school and got s*** done (thanks Dad). Either way, I’m trying not to define what happened or what I think about all of it because I want to leave space for me to discover new things about it as I’m mulling over it in the future.

I feel really grateful for a lot of stuff, but especially for having come here this particular semester. Last semester was really hard in a lot of ways, and so was this one, but I learned things that I probably wouldn’t have learned otherwise. I was kind of lecturing Melendy the other day about her desire to take care of people. She feels bad for not being home while her family and her boyfriend are having a hard time. I have thought a lot about that this year while half my friends were gone last semester and half of us are gone this semester (plus I’m away from my family). Of course, as soon as I lectured her about it I started worrying about people at home and really wishing I could be there for them. What could I really do, though? I think it probably has more to do with a desire to feel needed than truly thinking I can help anyone.

I love it here, but I really can’t wait to get home. It’s not that I want to leave - in fact now that I am here I think 4 months is a really short amount of time to live somewhere. Still, though, it will be good to be home and be with the people that I really, really miss. And I can’t wait to dance. And I miss my guitar so much. Oh, and Jewish people – new found appreciation. Alec and Beth’s sense of humor. Mine and Abby’s designated complaining time. Dan’s bro talk. Becca’s horribly offensive metaphors. Purple rain. Surfing. Fish tacos even though I’m going to be a vegetarian again when I get home. Being outside at night. Driving stick. Manual labor. Cynthia Terry. The kids I babysitt. I’m so privileged…

It has definitely been good to establish myself as a person without everything that usually defines me at home. No one here likes me because I’m good at swing dancing or because I have a pool or because I listen to such-and-such band. I’m the oldest, and at home I am usually the baby of groups. I don’t have much of a choice about what clothes I wear because the ones I brought are all falling apart. I don’t have much makeup. I can’t walk around with my ipod and my phone doesn’t have a varied selection of Sam Cooke ring tones. We don’t have spontaneous dance parties. There are no underwear parties. I didn’t really even have much of a choice in who my friends are. Not that those things were ever what I considered to be me, but I definitely play different roles here than I did at home.

It will be weird to go home and see when I fall into normal patterns and when I don’t. I am definitely going to be really, really different this summer than I was last summer. I call french-fries chips and I expect cars to drive on the left. I have opinions and I voice them. I’m cool with moments being fleeting.