Ginas in Sudan: One last thought...

Well, I finally washed the last of my clothes (twice) this week, unpacked random gear that I am now not sure what to do with, and eaten every single item of food that I have been craving for the past few months. I take long hot showers and revel in the coziness of my down comforter/ air conditioner combination at night, and use the internet for any conceivable reason. I am officially back. Some people have warned me about “culture shock” and everyone asks if it is weird to be back in the States with traffic and fast food and houses with flush toilets. No, it’s not. This is where I am from and this is what I am used to and I have only been gone a few months. I have definitely decided that I enjoy being comfortable and here in America, life is just that.

But yesterday morning I scrubbed the bottom of my Carolina blue Crocs free of the dirt from Sudan. As I etched out each groove, it occurred me that I was washing off the last remnants of the place I had just come from. All week long I have been distancing myself from life there. The further away I get, the more removed I feel from my job and the people I have met. They are still getting up every morning and pumping water from the borehole to water the plants, still attending their adult education classes, still moving around the mountain on the bad roads to train water source committees and do household assessments…and I am here doing nothing close to any of that. Heck, I don’t even think about it a lot of the time. Sure, I have tons of pictures and email addresses, I have lifelong friendships and memories to get lost in, but something about washing my shoes made me so sad. It was like I was saying, “Ok, I had a nice time, but now I have to move on and I am busy here, and I need these shoes to wear to the mall today.” I wanted to stop washing and just leave them dirty. I wanted to scrape off the dirt and put it in a Ziploc bag so that I wouldn’t lose it. So that I wouldn’t forget what it looked like. I want to hold on to anything about that place that I can right now. I truly miss my life there.

When Jeff used to return from long stints in Africa he would tell me how much he missed the way of life there. I used to get so offended, but now I can see what he meant. Life in Sudan, though full of challenges, was so basic…so straightforward…so not cluttered. The appreciation for small joys we had in finding chicken on the dinner table or having had enough heat from the sun that day to warm the water in the shower at night. The victory of making from point A to point B without getting stuck in the mud so that we could visit a community. I’m not sure that I have had a substantial little victory since I returned. Life gets so filled with “things” and “stuff” and “busy” here but I am never sure just what I have accomplished in a day. Maybe I am just being nostalgic. Life in Isohe was full of frustrations and everyday annoyances, but it’s almost like those things were more innocent offenses. Here everything seems so big and flashy and luxurious and expensive. So in-your-face lavish and wastefully offensive that it sometimes makes me long for my little green tent and the quiet, starry nights where there’s no neon or all night grocery stores. It’s so easy to live here and so easy to get fat and so easy to sit in front of the TV all day in the AC and not even step out into the world. We don’t have to cook food here if we don’t want to, we don’t have to collect firewood or fetch water...we don’t go to bed when the sun goes down and read by candle light and wake up to that damn rooster when the sun rises…we don’t spend hours just talking to each other cause there is nothing else to do…and I can’t help but thinking we are missing out on some of life’s secret joys that God blessed us with. I feel like my life these days is cluttered with errands and tasks that make the day rush by and leave me wondering how I have just wasted those last 12 hours…days that leave me longing for something more substantial.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to be back…I am so happy to be with my family and to be reconnecting with my good friends. I’m happy to be in a place with good medical care and safe water and no mosquitoes. Very happy for the hot showers and Super Targets. I think I am just sad to be moving on. Sad that I am too busy and do have too many other commitments to still be there. I hate change and always have. I just miss the simplicity of the place and the friendliness of the people and the substance of the work and the idea that I knew I was doing something good. I think that I need to figure out how to find that here. The two worlds can’t be so dichotomous that our experiences in both are completely at odds with each other…that one could never exists within the framework of the other. I think it must be hard to achieve this balance, especially here with all the things that can so easily lure us in the name of comfort and convenience. But here’s to trying…

I am so grateful for this time. For the people that made it interesting and rewarding and for the perspective gained from the experience.

It’s now 7 in the morning here in Albuquerque (where I am spending Labor Day with my college roommates at a spa in Santa Fe…yea, I know what you are thinking - such a struggle to be back to the creature comforts of the U.S.) and of course I am on East Coast time and wide awake. Coming west is always such a struggle for my body for some reason. Rebecca is snoring like a champ beside me…I don’t know what my deal is. Like that time I was out in Spokane and got up just in time to have coffee with you, Dr. D. at 5am. Great bonding moment for us, I think. Jeff began his 2nd year of med school on Monday and is already getting back into the rigors of life as an overachieving student. My brother is getting married next weekend, and then I head to DC for a training week, so the program these days is all go go go. It’s good though. I mean, at least I get to spend my days in NC. People are SO nice in NC. Talk about culture shock. Going from DC to Boston and then back to Concord. So nice to be back in a place where people like each other. So, there’s there skinny. Jeff keeps saying that he is going to write a blog, but we’ll see. I think he’s just intimidated by my clear intellectual superiority when it comes to these things…

So until then, I think that Ginas In Sudan is signing off. Thanks for reading friends…and thanks for all of the words of support, prayers for safety, and wonderful wishes of a joyous time away. We really are so grateful to have such good family and friends back home. For those of you who didn’t get enough, random pictures of our time are below…we hope to see you all so soon.

Cooking lessons - Barbara and i learned to make a cake from scratch with the nuns.

Me with a baby goat on the hike back from Lomohidon (the tallest peak in the region).

Jeff teaching me to squat in the middle of the street in Kitgum...I was under the impression that I was supposed to stand up over the hole until I was told otherwise...oops.

Sweet baby we met up in the mountain village above Lobira.

The baby monkey I rescued...he was biting me here, but pay no attention to that...

Jeff teaching in the school in Lobira.

The entire village showed up at the Father's place to watch the final match of the World Cup. It was pretty funny. We projected it onto a huge wall but when we opened the doors, everyone rushed in a crowded around the small TV. It was super amusing.