and, suddenly, i'm getting ready to come home. the decision to move my
ticket up has been made rather hastily; i needed to move it up a little
to make it back to interview for jobs, but all of early april was booked,
so it was now or a month from now. so i did it and have two more days,
which is a shocking thought.
however, life here is so full and there's been so much to wrap up, that i
don't think it has even really hit me. though there are little
indicators that its begining to sink in. a lingering with people and
places, a family dinner, after a class. my students swarming to braid my
hair again. a push to fit in trips around the business of the week. a
decreasing desire to sleep, making time for stary nights and, now - more
and more - the elusive play of dawn. i've got to be up by 5am to catch
the later and, somehow, it can hold my full attention even more than the
sunsets i meet every day. for almost two hours, there is this quiet
hanging on every change as you are consistently given more and more, more
colors, more warmth, the first few streaks that light up the lake, the
bath which, when it looks straight on at all the trees and flowers, makes
them glow, and then its "day"; an ending so much more sudden and stark
than sunset into night....
and, suddenly, i'm getting ready to come home. the decision to move my
ticket up has been made rather hastily; i needed to move it up a little
to make it back to interview for jobs, but all of early april was booked,
so it was now or a month from now. so i did it and have two more days,
which is a shocking thought.
however, life here is so full and there's been so much to wrap up, that i
don't think it has even really hit me. though there are little
indicators that its begining to sink in. a lingering with people and
places, a family dinner, after a class. my students swarming to braid my
hair again. a push to fit in trips around the business of the week. a
decreasing desire to sleep, making time for stary nights and, now - more
and more - the elusive play of dawn. i've got to be up by 5am to catch
the later and, somehow, it can hold my full attention even more than the
sunsets i meet every day. for almost two hours, there is this quiet
hanging on every change as you are consistently given more and more, more
colors, more warmth, the first few streaks that light up the lake, the
bath which, when it looks straight on at all the trees and flowers, makes
them glow, and then its "day"; an ending so much more sudden and stark
than sunset into night....
this week, amongst finishing paperwork, upteen meetings, teaching, and
training a new teacher to take over after me (which is the biggest
present anyone could give me right now - i don't know how lyn found the
money but it was impossible to imagine leaving them without a teacher),
i've gotten to squeeze in day trips to a bush hospital in rwanda and
masisi, the area where virtually all the women i work with are from (i
went up with the UN to pick up a rape victim, 17 years old, who couldn't
be brought down by the bus because her leg was gangrenous from wounds
from being tied to a tree.) if you are allowed to compare beauty, masisi
was even more gorgeous than rwanda the day before. maybe its just all
that i carried with me, driving through the hills covered in fields, the
villages, across rivers, through the bush, up to health clinics, past
destroyed houses and schools - all places and things that i have heard
about from their stories, both fearfully and fondly remembered. and the
people.... i've hunkered myself down so well in my little communities
here that these two excurstions were a floodgate of newness, most
significantlythe people. my nights and mornings have been spent in a
meditating-remembering of each one that i can recall individually, a face
i smiled at, someone that i passed on the road carrying their huge heavy
loads, that i spoke to at the market, that i saw working in the fields,
at the hospital, that i gave some peice of clothing or a present i'd
brought to. and with each man, woman, and child that i can carry with
me, then to drop down for a moment into their shoes, to feel that huge
wash of fear and sadness and disbelief that makes me almost cry, and then
to fill that little space created for another with my own desire for joy
and my understanding of the complexities of living a human life. i will
take these people with me, i think, i hope, even though i refused to take
any pictures of people - a few of which i do regret - but i didn't want
that relationship to be a part of me being there with them, this time.
though i have a million others. and a load of histories i still have to
write up. i've finally started posting them on my blog:
jifunze.mindtangle.net but there will be more when i get home. and
there is so much else to say; some wonderful things, other horrible,
others definitionless.
an amazing team of peds came from UCSF general today - one is a friend of
mine who has also started a nonprofit in much the way this one has come
about, organically, with a tiny team but lots of friend support, with not
enough funding to even pay for the trip here, but big plans. mine for
GSF keep growing...i may wish i'd chosen a more inclusive name. i have
so many thoughts about the visitors that come through here but right now
the feeling that falls out is sheer inspiration; every type of person
finding a way to come and do some work that fits them. its never enough
but, at the same time, each individual can accomplish such an incredible
amount, there is potential and hope underneath the waves of being
overwhelemed or uncomprehending.
i'm flying through this; i don't really want to touch down on any one
thing - the time for reflection will be when i get home. but i did want
to let folks know that that would be sooner than i thought.
i love you guys. right now my mind revolts whenever i get to close to
thinking about leaving, but i know it will be so incredible to see you
all. that's what home is.