Trying to process
It's the middle of the night. But I love being awake at night. I've been talking on the "phone" and slowly processing out loud with various friends and family. I don't know why I'm having such a difficult time processing Africa- but there it is...I just don't know what to say and even the distance isn't helping. I'm finding pictures help alot. If you want to look at pictures just leave me a note on here and I'll give you the link where I put them. Or if we are facebook friends you can just go look at them on there. They all have extensive captions so they are pretty self explanatory.
It's just that already several people who know better have asked me the question, "how was Africa?" as though I could sum up three months of my life in a short answer: "good" "bad". What do you want me to say?
It seems like it's just going to have to slowly leak out. The problem is we are moving on - we are back in Asia and it's onward and upward from here on out. We are racing towards the end of our time and things have to come out or the time will pass and no one will want to know.
Here is the long answer:
Life shapes you. Living in Africa shaved off little more bits of who I thought I was and who I am becoming. I was in the airplane heading away from my early 2008 "home" and was struck by the oddity of seeing my entire face in the bathroom mirror. I hadn't seen more than two inches of my face at a time in three months. I was struck by the fact that I could leave. I was buried in the realization that I can never just go home and pretend that, THAT world doesn't exist. Children who should be in school wake up at dawn and walk a mile carrying an empty water container to the nearest bore hole. They pump water out of the ground into the container and carry it a mile back on their heads so that their family will have water. They laugh and play with the other kids at the bore hole and are quick to offer to help me when I get tired pumping my water (which I will put in a wheel barrow to move it the 100 yards back to my house...before I grew strong enough to carry it on my head). They will eat next to nothing of nutritional value and then in the afternoons their mothers will come to the seminars we offer on mother/child healthcare. In these seminars we will tell them what every mother (I believe) instinctively knows...children and pregnant women need to eat more veggies. And they will smile and agree with me and then think where will I get the money for these things?
I don't have the answers.
I know that we offered a one month course with a certificate in mother/child healthcare at the end and that 45 women took the afternoons "off" to come and learn.
I know that this probably meant their families didn't eat dinner until late (or at all?) and that they probably simply worked later into the night.
I know that some of these women have been able to go on for further training and that it seems like the knowledge they gained is making a positive difference.
I know that the women say they love us because we took time to come and teach them.
I know they are forever etched into my heart.
I know that we prayed with woman, we laughed with woman, we cried with woman.
I know that God is in that place and that those are his children and they are beautiful.
and yet, when someone asked me today, would you go back? I hesitated. There is work to be done. But it's hard work. There is work to be done - but the conditions to work in are terrible.
Why do I get to choose this?
Why do I get to fly away?
I am no better - and in their eyes...I certainly need a lot of help and training also. I'm terrible at washing my own clothes in a bucket. When I arrived I couldn't carry water. I barely know how to start coals in their cookers. I have no idea how to make bricks from mud and it took me weeks to become decent at sweeping with a stick broom.
How do you measure the worth of a woman or a man?
Like I said...I'm processing...it's coming out...slowly but surely. Ask me questions...it helps.
It's just that already several people who know better have asked me the question, "how was Africa?" as though I could sum up three months of my life in a short answer: "good" "bad". What do you want me to say?
It seems like it's just going to have to slowly leak out. The problem is we are moving on - we are back in Asia and it's onward and upward from here on out. We are racing towards the end of our time and things have to come out or the time will pass and no one will want to know.
Here is the long answer:
Life shapes you. Living in Africa shaved off little more bits of who I thought I was and who I am becoming. I was in the airplane heading away from my early 2008 "home" and was struck by the oddity of seeing my entire face in the bathroom mirror. I hadn't seen more than two inches of my face at a time in three months. I was struck by the fact that I could leave. I was buried in the realization that I can never just go home and pretend that, THAT world doesn't exist. Children who should be in school wake up at dawn and walk a mile carrying an empty water container to the nearest bore hole. They pump water out of the ground into the container and carry it a mile back on their heads so that their family will have water. They laugh and play with the other kids at the bore hole and are quick to offer to help me when I get tired pumping my water (which I will put in a wheel barrow to move it the 100 yards back to my house...before I grew strong enough to carry it on my head). They will eat next to nothing of nutritional value and then in the afternoons their mothers will come to the seminars we offer on mother/child healthcare. In these seminars we will tell them what every mother (I believe) instinctively knows...children and pregnant women need to eat more veggies. And they will smile and agree with me and then think where will I get the money for these things?
I don't have the answers.
I know that we offered a one month course with a certificate in mother/child healthcare at the end and that 45 women took the afternoons "off" to come and learn.
I know that this probably meant their families didn't eat dinner until late (or at all?) and that they probably simply worked later into the night.
I know that some of these women have been able to go on for further training and that it seems like the knowledge they gained is making a positive difference.
I know that the women say they love us because we took time to come and teach them.
I know they are forever etched into my heart.
I know that we prayed with woman, we laughed with woman, we cried with woman.
I know that God is in that place and that those are his children and they are beautiful.
and yet, when someone asked me today, would you go back? I hesitated. There is work to be done. But it's hard work. There is work to be done - but the conditions to work in are terrible.
Why do I get to choose this?
Why do I get to fly away?
I am no better - and in their eyes...I certainly need a lot of help and training also. I'm terrible at washing my own clothes in a bucket. When I arrived I couldn't carry water. I barely know how to start coals in their cookers. I have no idea how to make bricks from mud and it took me weeks to become decent at sweeping with a stick broom.
How do you measure the worth of a woman or a man?
Like I said...I'm processing...it's coming out...slowly but surely. Ask me questions...it helps.