One Year! Ahhhhh!

Luctor et Emergo.  I Struggle BUT Emerge!

So it has been a year you say!?  Huh.  This is a weird feeling.  Now that it has passed it seems like it has gone by really fast.   On the flipside of that, I’m thinking…Wait; I still have 14 more months of this.  Don’t get me wrong I am completely enjoying myself (mostly).  BUT and it is a big BUT (sing with me…I like big Butts and I cannot lie) I really should have someone proof read before I post.  What I am getting at is the PC is a rollercoaster…and it only knows extremes.  When things are going great, you own the world.  But when they aren’t you question everything about your decision to be here and what in the world are you doing, if anything besides watching way more tv (on your laptop) than you ever did in the States.  I knew coming into this that it would be hard.  PC tells you it is hard.  Full disclosure…it is.  (I wouldn't enjoy it if it were easy.)

You miss holidays and traditions with your family, you miss funerals of incredibly important people in your life, you miss important moments in your friend’s lives, and you miss the comforts and luxuries that we as Americans wouldn’t even call luxuries.  You see things here you wish you hadn’t.  You hear things you wish you could un-hear.  You witness students being hit with a stick.  You read statistics and then walk around your village knowing that horrible things like disease and rape are happening to your community members you see on a daily basis. 

Last week the mama that brings me water was digging through my trash when I walked in the kitchen.  It had scraps of old food.  She tied my trash bag up and took it home.  I sat in a daze for the next hour not even knowing how to process that. 

There are days that I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else in the world.  And then there are days that I would rather be doing anything but this.  Work is frustrating when people show up to meetings 2 hours late, you order mosquito nets and they arrive 3 months later after endless badgering.  (I am told my nets are en route and will be here today, but I’ve been told that before.)  It is frustrating when you get excuses like…we are Africans, we are so confused, we are lazy, and this is just how we are.  My American ideology has a difficult time with this.  Because things are on such a different pace here it makes doing the smallest amount of work a very productive day.  After filling out a report and sending 3 emails I have to give myself a pat on the back and say job well done.  When I have to go back to having a job in the States, I feel like ‘job well done’ will not be my boss’s sentiments to packing up and calling it a day after I send a few emails. 

The one-year mark is a great accomplishment, but with it I am jaded and I think that is what you are getting in this blog.  Sorry for that.

For the past month I’ve been having dreams about food.  Last night I had a dream about Chick-Fil-A, Taco Bell, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and KFC.  It was like a progressive dinner with my family and friends.  The great thing about these dreams is they actually seem real.  I wake up feeling like I really ate the dozen donuts, a #1, #9, #12, and the family feast and that I hung out with my people back home.  The bad part is it will be a while until it actually is real.  But believe me that progressive dinner will be happening!

I have about 15 empty jars of peanut butter and jelly on my kitchen shelf at the moment.  I need to figure out what to do with them other than throwing them in the burn pile. 

I’ve read 32 books and am in the middle of 5 more. 

At a year in this is my life. 

I’ve been writing some classes back home about Kenya and my experience.  One of the teachers, who is also a friend of mine, told me that her kids asked, why I am in Kenya?  It made me laugh because I ask myself this as well. 

All kidding aside, even though I am living without some things I’ve grown accustomed to, I have and am so much more because of this experience. 

I wouldn’t trade this.  

So here’s to the 365 days that have gone and here’s to the next 83 jars of pb&j.  To the next 12 books I start and never finish, the next trillion episodes of Parks & Rec. New Girl. MadMen. How I Met Your Mother. And every other show I get my hands on. 

Shall we go for another 14 months, Kenya!

***My nets arrived today, with another shipment arriving next week!!!  So I am on top of the world!