Living in Africa was not as romantic as the movies depict it. Africa is hard, in every sense of the word. This being said and I didn't have my plantation burned down or my lover die in a freak plane crash, but I do understand what Merely Streep means when she whimsically said, "Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road." Africa is wildly unpredictable, unorganized and mesmerizing all at the same time. I have never seen poverty this severe, I have never seen want this enormous and I have never seen wilderness this pristine. Africa is heartbreakingly beautiful and dismally depressing all at once.
My last few weeks in Africa seemed like a blur. I attended the weirdest Christmas fair on the planet where "father Christmas" was flown in on a plane to Kilimanjaro airport, cannoned on a possessed lake, slept on the top of a crater, saw the first known footsteps of human kind, and lastly saw a lion pee on a car. Needless to say these three months have been like a robatussin induced hallucination. After sleeping for over 15hrs upon my return to the states I swore that I had dreamt the whole thing only to realize that it is was in fact a reality.
So here I am sitting in my parent’s living room freezing my butt off, baking cookies, listening to Christmas carols and watching the snow fall. But, in the back of my mind I'm waiting for the tembelaya trucks to drive by playing their loud marching band wedding songs or for the power to go just as the cookies are in the oven.( I actually have an oven now!) I took a bath yesterday which seemed to throw me into an exstistential crisis; I kept thinking...how do we have so much water? I'm mesmerized by the constant grey skies, the leafless trees, and the lack of people or animals on the streets. The United States seems like a ghost town. There are no wild chickens or dogs, no toddlers running up to you and asking for candy, and no street salesmen pestering you to buy worn bracelets or last months batiks. The US is oddly calm and restless. However, I am surprised despite al ofl this how quickly I have fallen into my old American habits of drinking endless amounts of water from the tap, lounging around in my pjs, and driving cars! I feel like I need to go out and explore and see everything through my new Africa colored lenses. I can honestly say this has been a life changing experience...but I just don't know how yet. But I know despite all the hardships, illnesses, frustrations, and infections Africa has a special place in my heart. So I will end this note with a quote that best sums how I feel; "If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"
-Out of Africa-