This week, I just can’t shake the homesick for Africa feeling.
It’s like it’s just in the air. Everything has made me think of it, everything has made me long to be back.
I went back and read pages from my journal while I was there, and it was rough. Clearly, the writing was awful, but that’s not what I mean. I had a rough time, I felt very alone amongst a pretty large group of people, and I wrote about that a lot. But when I think about the times there, I don’t remember that.
I vaguely remember being hurt by various people, and being unable to spend time with the people that I bonded with, because they were of the opposite sex, and spending time together wasn’t allowed.
What I really remember is Swaziland. It was so beautiful, absolutely breathtaking natural beauty. The joy of the people there, even those suffering, was so incredible… Seemingly so much more pure joy than I’d ever seen.
I don’t know what it would be like to live there with a family as a permanent commitment, and my time there couldn’t tell me that because it was nothing like what life would be if we really lived there. I understand that…
Maybe I’d hate it.
I imagine I’d get tired of having orange skin from the red dirt caked onto my skin.. I imagine that I’d get tired of walking to pump water, carrying 25 gallons back and forth to be able to cook on a fire. I imagine I’d get tired of no electricity. I imagine I’d tire of “bucket baths” and “squatty potty” holes in the ground.
But, still, my heart longs for it.
Longs for that discomfort, longs for that place, those people, and of course…
My heart longs for glorified memories of a time in my life that changed everything.
Maybe what my heart is really longing for is everything to change again.
