April 21, 2015
Home. I’ve been back a little over a month and I’m still
full of awe and gratitude. Friends invited me to stay with them, and helped me
through the first phases of transition – incoherence, interrupted circadian
rhythms resulting in odd sleeping and eating habits, difficulty focusing,
feeling overwhelmed by the smallest things. Lynda and Bill were great – using humor
and patience to help me adjust.
I left Swaziland several months early. I left a part of
myself there. And I brought a bit of Swaziland home with me - in whatsapp texts
and facebook messages and emails with folks there. And much more, I am sure. It
has been hard to write, and even now, it’s difficult to know what to say.
Much is still overwhelming – the full grocery store aisles
(both sides, floor to ceiling) of breakfast cereals. So much of everything.
Libraries that are well-lit and have new books and current reference books. So
very many paved roads. Counter space. Remembering how to cook using my own
recipe books. Forests and rivers. Spring time, Northwest style. Being
connected. Sometimes I have a whatsapp, text message, email message and voice
mail – all at the same time – or so it seems. Mindboggling. There’s TV, though
I don’t really watch it. Streaming radio.
I visit friends – at their homes. Homes they have lived in
for decades, homes they have put their love, hard work, passion, energy and
time into making their own. Into expressing their own beauty. And the beauty is
bone deep. What a contrast to a third world country, where only the rich have
such luxury, and that resides behind walls topped with glass and protected by
guards. My friends aren’t “well-to-do” by many standards – but so very rich
in the splendor they have created.
People talk of traveling – and all I want to do is nest and
stay here. I had all these dreams of going to see friends, maybe a road trip –
but all I really want to do is stay in my own space for a while.
I have found a place to live where I open my windows and
doors to hear the river, where I have “my things” from storage, a place with treasures
from my life. Here, my toiletries are not in bags for the first time in so very
long. I have 2, count them, 2 sinks – one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom.
No more using a latrine.
And NO ROOSTERS crowing at 3:00 am. And no little kids
saying, “Knock, knock. May I have a book?” No Nomile, seeing me and breaking
into a run, her arms held wide, knowing I will catch her when she launches
herself into my arms. No walking home from school, holding hands with 3 or 4
little kids, skipping and laughing and hustling to the side of the road to
avoid traffic. No mangoes off the trees, and no church folks greeting me on
their way to and from services. No calf butting Siyabonga, asking for his
bottle, and no Liyana running up, purring, to be petted.
No khumbis to town – now I just drive, and oh, I do not miss
the crowded busses and khumbis, the long waits, the dust and heat. But I don’t
take the car for granted, and I’m much more patient with slow drivers.
I read some of my journal from before I left, and I sense a
deep difference, but I don’t know how to describe it. And I am coming to terms
with some of the things that were so very difficult for me while living in a
culture so very different from my own. Slowly, slowly, I am working towards
becoming the me I want to be.
I may start another blog – one of “my kids”, Wandile, is
corresponding with me, and continuing to ask difficult questions – the ones
that really make me think – and then make him articulate his ideas more
clearly. I think, as I absorb and integrate what I have learned, I may want to
share ideas in a blog.
For now, I think this one is complete. Thanks for
accompanying me on my journey. Salani Kahle.
~Michele
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