2 years in Kenya. Did that. Now What?

I’ve been in America for 11 days and jetlag is still owning me.  Everything is surreal.  I don’t really know how to answer people’s questions at the moment.  I’m on overload every time I open my bedroom door.  T.V.’s, refrigerators, faucets all over the place with clean running water.  Hopping in a car and driving somewhere is insane.  Restaurants, entertainment, shopping centers where you can get everything.  It’s panic inducing.  Anything and everything is available.  It would sometimes take me weeks to find what I needed, if I was even able to get it, and that was only carrots.

Dust, trees, dirt paths, and women carrying buckets of water on their head is what I’m used to. 

I have this overwhelming sense of feeling lost all the time.  And I don’t really know what I’m doing here.  I don’t quite have a sense of purpose here anymore like I did in Kenya.

It’s dumbfounding to me what I’m experiencing right now.  I have lived nearly 28 years in America and only 2 in Kenya.  I should be able to transition back to what I know without this much difficulty and anxiety.

America makes me feel like such an infant.  I’m having to relearn how to live here.

I didn’t know how to use the swipe your card machine at the register.  I asked for a refill at McDonalds and they told me they didn’t do that anymore and gave me a look like where have you been.  Um, Kenya.  That’s where I’ve been.  Over and over America is shaming me and making me feel like an idiot with even the simplest of things.

I wouldn’t take back my time in Kenya but currently where I am in life I felt better off at 18.  I had a car, insurance, a job, a place to live that wasn’t my parent’s house.

I need a job so I can afford a car but I need that car to get me to that job.  Not sure how I get there from here.

I didn’t really think about this part of coming back from the Peace Corps.

I also didn’t really realize there would be a sort of grieving process upon returning home.  Why didn’t I see this coming?  I just spent 2 years developing relationships with so many people that I will never see or even ever be able to communicate with ever again.

But here I am.

So what’s next?

I’m probably going to freak out about the direction of my life for the next week and a half.  Spend time with my family/ Brother’s Wedding.  Then spend the next 2 months on a road trip.  Hopefully readjusting better than I am now. 

I have a couple of posts that I wanted to post but ran out of time in Kenya to flesh them out.  Since my schedule is wide open at the moment I may make a couple more posts before shutting the blog down.  

I'm Retiring

Well, from the Peace Corps, that is. 

Sometimes the pictures that get posted to facebook can be misleading and you may wonder if I get any work done or if it's all just play.  All the play is what keeps me sane and in the village sweating and working like mad.  I managed to squeeze in quite a bit of work in my last week.  I held one last re-usable sanitary pads training.  I introduced and briefly showed the Orphan and Vulnerable Children Association how to use solar cookers and was able to give them 10 as an income generating project for the group.  I helped a fellow PCV with a Health day and taught on malaria, of course.  And I was able to secure and hang LLIN’s (Long Lasting Insecticide-treated Nets) for all the boarding students at Namboboto Secondary School. 

I'm feeling good about going out.  

If you had told me 2 years ago this is what my days would be filled with I would've been like wait, what.  I don't know anything about any of that.  Now, I'm finding it hard to imagine my life without nets, malaria talks, and cutting sanitary pad materials to the point I bruise my knuckles where the scissors lie.  I am grateful for new experiences and all that I never thought I could do that I was able to have my hands in the past 2 years.  

Sanitary Pad Making - They are in the Zone!

Solar Cookers

I ran out of rope to hang nets from the rafters.  So ya, on the spot, I decided to recycle an old dirty torn net for rope.  Boom!

Using old net rope to hang across the rafters.  (I'm still in awe at how brilliant this was.)  

I really am going to miss my life of nets.  

BEFORE

AFTER!

The students have been sleeping under their nets for 3 nights now.  When I went to visit today I was bombarded with so many 'thank you's and 'you must really care about us.'  'You have saved our lives.'  'We can sleep better now.'

The workday doesn't get much better.