It has been said that coming home is the hardest part. The assimilation back to the reality of everyday life is not for the faint of heart. Most of us come back from the developing world with cracks and fractures, we sometimes aren’t even aware of until something sets us off. Sitting in an office chair and staring at the familiar four walls of my office tricks me into thinking things will be like always. Unexpectedly something reminds me of the presence of those cracks and just how deep they are. Those who love me wonder at the things that set me off. Those things are not predictable, even to me. I look the same, I sound the same, heck I’m even wearing the same clothes as I was before I left. But I struggle to understand just how it is that I have changed. To quote Dr. James Maskalyk from his book Six Months in Sudan “People who do this type of work talk about the rupture we feel on our return, an irreconcilable invisible distance between us and others. We talk about how difficult it is to assimilate, to assume routine, to sample familiar pleasures. . . The rift, of course, is not in the world: it is within us. . . Just as our friends wonder at our distance from their familiar world, we marvel at theirs from the real one. We feel inhabited by it. We plan our return.”
Sometimes I sit and think. What comes to my mind is the little girl who shyly came up to me in Haiti and told me in Creole that she loved me. I had been in the developing world for 3 days, for the first time in my life. I wonder about that girl with her colourful dress and pretty white bows in her hair. She lived in Carrefour, which suffered some of the greatest damage in the 2010 earthquake. I hope she is still around to tell unsuspecting foreigners and anyone else she comes across that she loves them. Or I think about being in Northern Uganda and seeing the vacant, empty eyes of a former child soldier. The pain in those eyes still haunt me and I don’t even know the story behind them. Some of the stories I heard in Rwanda, I don’t talk about because it’s still too hard. Sometimes I wonder why I am drawn to such places. Why am I so willing to feel pain? But then again, why not? A relative of mine reminded me that the difficulty of returning verifies we have a heart. Hearing such stories and meeting the people behind them reminds me to feel, to feel deeply and I like that, even if it’s hard.
Being in Uganda reminded me that life is a gift. The Ugandan’s I know often give thanks for the gift of life. One of my Ugandan friends told me he had a good week because he was alive and not sick. How many people in the West have a good week simply because they were granted another week of life? I’m reminded that though the world is a hard place, it also is a place of joy. The children who stole my heart taught me that. They are no longer just faces on a pamphlet. They are children I love, I know their names and favourite colours. In every country I have visited, the children have captivated and loved me and in turn kept part of who I am.
As I continue to wrestle with many things and wonder how home can feel so familiar and yet so foreign, I’m reminded that there are many people to love here too. Even as part of me lives across the ocean, I can work to be fully engaged in the community I have here. To love, to give of myself, and to build relationships that mean something. Not an easy task, but one I can strive to achieve. I would be jesting you if I told you I’m not thinking of going back. Going back where? I don’t know, somewhere I can love the people and experience the culture. Somewhere I’m a total outsider and yet fully immersed. Until then, there’s a whole lot for me to do here and I’m reminded of just how much there is to love about where I’m at. Even as I miss the African savannah, the last few weeks have reminded me how much I love the Canadian Wilderness with the towering trees and rustling leaves, the wide open skies of the prairies and the majesty of the Rocky Mountains. I’m reminded how privileged I am to be able to love so many parts of the world so very deeply. Life is good.
