Homecoming

"Well, my heart's in the highlands, wherever I roam. That's where I'll be, where I call home."
- Bob Dylan

January 25, 2009

After two weeks away from site for IST it is time to go home. My car is leaving Njombe three hours late, so in Tanzania that is on time. I think of how much I have left to accomplish in my village. It seems overwhelming. We bounce and bump over the uneven muddy terrain at five miles an hour and I realize that I am actually happy to be returning home- weird. As we slowly creep I feel impatient with the progress of our trip. And I think to myself that I wish I had worn a sports bra and a helmet. About the fourth time we get stuck in the mud and I stand there calf deep, I think what I always think when I am going to my village. "Brienne, you are such an idiot." I think back to that day in training when PC met with each of us to ask what we wanted in our village. They actually suggested more of a town setting for me. "Oh, no," I said idealistically, "I want to be remote. I want to see 'real' Africa." So here I am swimming in muck. What an idiot. Boy, did they give me what I wanted. No real transport, no phone service, water in a ravine, no amenities of any kind, people unfamiliar with westerners... isolation. So I kick myself again for this decision as the villagers push the truck. But, eventually, I get home.

I push through the spiderwebs and once the door is closed I do a little happiness dance in the dark, like you do when you first live alone, which I had done before, but somehow a house in the African continent is a bit different. Am I actually happy to be here? Cannot be. I just spent two weeks with 30 other PCVs, who are my best friends and my family. But somehow I feel home in this filthy house in the middle of nowhere. After the dance it is time for checks. Check #1: Snake Check: I think I should explain... I began doing snake checks as soon as I came to Africa in my host family's home. Once I got to site I stopped, thinking that the highlands were too cold for snakes. I once jokingly told Zummi about them. "You don't check for snakes?" he asked me totally straight faced. Then he proceeded to tell me horror stories about all the Puff Adders he has had to kill around the flower farm. There was even one story about one under the covers of a bed... ummm... yeah, still trying to erase that image too. So to say the least, the snake checks are back on. I feel like a kid looking for monsters under my bed. Tentatively shaking the covers of my bed. Still not sure what I would do if there was actually one. I guess run to Mzee Ngoda's house, my wizard neighbor, and see if he can make it disappear. No snakes this time.

Check #2: Burglary Check: This basically involves making sure my powdered milk is still there. My one commodity that is worth stealing, everything else got taken already in Dar. Still have powdered milk- thank you villagers for respecting me and my need for this in my coffee tomorrow. Candles are now lit and I sit down with my three month old TIME magazine and a box of Ranch Wheat Thins (Thank you, Mariel!) It starts to pour outside and thunder and lightning rage. I may be the only PCV who does not complain about the rain- it is so cozy. In bed I listen to the crickets and all the noises that I pretend are in my head because I can't explain what is making the sounds, so it is nicer to think that they don't exist. I watch the lightning flash and feel content.

The next morning I awake at sunrise and get ready to go greet the village. They need a little face time after my two week's absence. I plan to walk through each sub village (6) to their ends- this will take me all day to stop and talk with everyone and my village is super hilly and spread out. I leave my house. "My" cow is in my yard munching grass. I look over the ravines into the other sub villages and am struck speechless. My village might be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been (and I have seen a lot of PC villages.) The houses run along the ridges with deep ravines in between. From my bedroom window I can see the sub village, Mlangali- my favorite sub village. My mud huts glint in the sun as the mist rises from the depths of the valleys and I look to the rolling green hills beyond. I realize for all the crap I put up with for being in the middle of nowhere, all the isolation, I have something so special, so unique, so removed. My village might be lacking in the modern world but nothing is lacking in it's picturesque splendor.

I walk and walk and greet and greet. I enquire about homes, work, health, babies, school and I am greeted with the usual stares but smiles. And there is always the expected, "Karibu" (Welcome). My heart becomes filled with Tanzania and her people. Bibis (Grandmothers) walk with me babbling away in Kibena that I cannot understand. Primary School students bow and greet me respectfully. Women on the farms stop work to hold my hand and tell me to come visit them. I stop to sit in the dirt with small children who have been busying themselves with sticks and leaves, so that they can paw through my foreign hair with dirty fingers. And I walk and walk. Eventually I come across a child alone. This is not surprising anywhere in Africa, once you can walk you are on your own. She is eating a mango, juice dripping off her tiny elbows. She can be no more than five. I smile at her as I pass, but she reaches one sticky hand toward me and catches my own. We walk together holding hands. I think how odd we must look, both in gold dresses- hers ragged and mine just made. Her beautiful dark skin and smoothly shaved head. My splotchy whiteness and dirty blonde hair. But we walk together down a dirt road just the same. I close my eyes and for a second am fully in the moment. There is nowhere I would rather be than in Africa, in my village, sun beating on my back, wind in the trees, walking down a dirt road holding the hand of a small sticky fingered child. Life is short, moments like these are simple, but they are what is real in my life. What I will not forget. I open my eyes and look down at her pretty face staring up at me, and I know that these are moments she will not forget either.