Well, It’s time for an overdue blog post about an overdue topic. This word document has been started so many times but just couldn’t figure
out how to get into what I’ve wanted to write about for so long. But today, I’m
doing it! Be warned, as I reread this post I think it feels a bit negative,
but I’m okay with that. Not every minute of every day here is happy. I don’t
love everything about Arusha, just almost everything. Every day has really high
highs and really low lows. I don't like to tell y'all that, but I think it's time to dive a little bit deeper.
You all know by now how much I love being in Tanzania, how
happy my kids make me and how excited about the project I am. I glow in
pictures here, and I know that I am a completely different level of happy than
I had ever experienced before I came here. Overall, I am happiest when I’m
consumed by chaos and dirt, and wrapped up in sweet hugs from my Hill Crest
kids. But I have my bad days here; my sad and/or angry days. It’s hard to
explain just how physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting it can be to
live in a developing country, so I tend to keep that part of my life to myself.
Physically, because there’s just a lot of walking. A lot of walking. And if it’s a Thursday night, then there’s a lot of
dancing. A lot of dancing. Okay,
maybe that wasn’t so hard. But bear with me for the other two.
As I walk through town or the village during the day, I’m
constantly scanning the people around me. I watch the shadows of passersby and
people behind me, listen to the speed of people taking steps behind me, I hear
the tones of conversation and listen for whispering behind me, constantly
keeping my guard up and minding the side of my body that my purse hangs on. I
calculate every step before I take it, trying to eliminate as much risk as
possible. Arusha isn’t a dangerous town
and I don’t feel threatened at all, but I’m paranoid. On these daily walks
through town or the village to school, these precautionary thoughts have become
routine and stay on repeat in the back of my mind. At the front of my mind is
the “x” in a math equation, a variable that I can’t avoid; an unknown I have to
solve. How am I going to give these kids the best future possible? Trailing x is y
and z. How can I make a difference,
truly make a difference, a sustainable, lasting difference, to not only my kids
but to these people? Will things here ever change? Between the precautionary
thoughts and the unsolvable equation are the observations. The deep, beautiful wrinkles on an old man and how interesting his life
story must be. That thirsty dog, the emaciated, tied up cow, those guys who
just sit outside a vegetable stand all day, every day. How much I love Mama
Junior yelling my name from across the dirt path as she comes to greet me with
a huge hug and drags me to her house for a small cup of tea. Those poor women
who have to sit and crack rocks into gravel all day. I hope those kids running
in the streets can go to school someday. These observations always take me back to the
equation; it’s a vicious cycle that has consumed me for over two years. My mind
never gets a rest.
As someone who doesn’t process emotions well to begin with, who
either feels too much or not at all, who has no “grey area,” this is an
incredibly difficult part of the life that I’ve committed myself to. And even more
difficult to write about, I realize now, as I’ve spent the four hours
downloading music, playing on my phone, reading about Zanzibar, and walking
around while trying to figure out the words that will do justice to the daily
emotional roller coaster. Little things, a kid saying the respectful greeting
to an elder, someone giving me their seat on the public transportation van so I
don’t have to stand, Noella’s sister running to me with her sandals on the
wrong feet, a little kid carrying a toddler on his/her back, hearing kids
laugh, someone helping me find the right van to my house when I’m at the
station, or the guy who helped me when I got lost on the way to my second day
at Hill Crest yelling “you’re still here!” every time he sees me. These are the
small things that give me so much joy, daily, that I never want to give up my
life here. They have played an integral part in my happiness in Arusha. And then
there are my friends here who take me in and always know how to keep me smiling.
I think the joy Hill Crest gives me is a given, so I won’t bore you with that
again ;) If you could physically see how happy these little things make me, you
would think it would all be enough to counter what makes me sad or angry, but
every day I am tested. Whether it be someone trying to rip me off, or walking a
Hill Crest student home to their small and/or empty house. Usually empty of
belongings, people, food. Sometimes it is finding out that the father of a
student who abandoned the family years ago has returned for a few days and beat
his wife and who knows what else before leaving again. Sometimes it’s seeing
the kids in their after school clothes, tattered and torn, so dirty that the
picture or pattern on the clothes can barely be seen anymore. Then there is going
to town and being constantly touched, stared at, over charged, or yelled at.
These are all things that build up inside me over time and eventually make me
explode. When this happens, I have to take a day or a couple of days to myself.
I let myself be upset about what people here endure on a day to day basis. I
let myself be angry and annoyed that I can’t take two steps without someone
yelling “mzungu” (white person) at me. I cry for my kids while I lock myself in
my house and dread the thought of even stepping out of my gate, wishing I could
snap my fingers and be back in the US. It’s times like this that having no
washing machine benefits me because hand washing my clothes is surprisingly
therapeutic. I also have come to understand why people like to have a cold beer
after a long day. For someone who spent years joking about not having feelings
or emotions, in the last two years, I’ve realized that is far from the truth.
Life in Arusha is exhausting, but I really do love it.
There was an article trending a few months ago about the
part of travelling that nobody talks about, which is coming home. This is the
hardest part. It’s a completely different kind of hard when you have two homes.
When your heart is cut right down the middle, when you’re with your family but
missing your family. When you’re home and longing for home. Are you confused? I
am. There is a constant weight on my shoulders that I know is here to stay. It’s
loving being in Arusha but having a little voice in my head reminding me how
much I miss North Carolina, then getting back to North Carolina and the little
voice reminding me how much I miss Arusha. It’s being in Arusha when my family
members have passed, some friends have battled and are battling huge illnesses,
my family has been together, or far away college friends were a little bit
closer so we could meet after so long, things I want to be there for, then being in North Carolina when the
project that I’ve missed these “events” for is finally coming together and I am
wanting to be there to finish it so all my absences haven’t been for naught. Coming
home is the hardest part of travelling, especially when by coming home, you’re
simultaneously leaving it. But leaving home means I’m always going home. I
leave my family only to be greeted by my family. I know it doesn’t get better
than that. I love my homes and I love my families. Winnie the Pooh says it best, "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." I’m the luckiest person.
