It’s hard to imagine that six months ago we said our final farewells, boarded our airplane, and began our trip to Africa. It’s hard to imagine in that six months of time that we would see, smell, hear, feel, and taste a slew of experiences that would shape us physically (we did a lot of walking and sweating), mentally, and spiritually. It’s hard to imagine the large expanse of emotions we felt in our time here; joy when a watering-well was finished that would supply cheap and clean water, anger at the injustice to the weak, or sadness at the extreme poverty. Its hard to imagine what our lives would have been had we not taken this opportunity to visit Africa. We learned much; experienced more, and can only hope we gave as much as we received. On reflection, this was more than a brief outing to some foreign land before we settle down into our “real” lives; in fact, it’s the beginning of living a life that encompasses our time here and builds upon it.
I’ll be honest, when we first arrived I wasn’t too gung-ho on the entire outlook (I can’t say the same for Sarah, she was a regular champ). The streets were a mess, there was garbage in every nook and cranny along the streets, and the simple creature comforts that I took for granted back home in the states were made extremely evident – good toilet paper and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese being on top. However, I swallowed that negative line of thought quickly, because who am I to complain when the majority of people have to walk several hours a day to get clean water and are just scraping by on survival. When further observing the people of Tanzania, it became obvious that one of their best strengths – and one of our biggest lessons – was their suffering. In Africa, suffering is like the air, its everywhere, and one can either give in and blame the government, blame the stupid taxi driver, blame the weather, blame God, blame the mosquitoes, blame, blame, blame. Or, they can endure, they can persevere through the pain in hope that one day something good will come, that one day all their suffering will pay off for a shot at a better future; whether that future be a honest president, a reliable source of clean water, better infrastructure, security, medicine, and on and on the list goes. The people of Africa have been persevering longer than history can go back. They make the troubles of student loans, career searches, and starting a family look like heaven. Their attitude about life is awesome, cool, super-dooper, amazing (feel free to insert any elementary joyful adjective here)!!! They will walk ten kilometers a day for a chance at clean water, arrive at the dispensary and find no water that day, proceed to shrug it off, and return again tomorrow, because they have hope that water will be there. They have hope that tomorrow will be a better day; they have hope that next year, next decade, next century their children’s children’s children won’t have to worry about whether they will have shelter above their heads’, food in their stomachs, or clean water. Instead they hope their worries will revolve around something as simple as student loans, choosing a career path, and looking for that perfect plot of land to settle down in.
So we learned, we adapted, we’ve become more patient, more understanding, and more forgiving. We’ve gone days at a time without full knowledge of exactly where our next meal would be, where we would sleep for the night, if we would even be able to sleep. We’ve suffered, but persevered, we’ve seen some horrendous situations morph into great triumphs, we’ve experienced some tough scenarios, but we’re still alive, still kicking, and able to share our adventures with everyone. We’ve learned to endure through the tougher times like the Tanzanians do; with patience, persistence, and grace. We hope all involved have taken from this Tanzanian lesson as well. Thank you for joining us on our adventure, and we hope you can continue to be apart of our lifelong adventure as well. Until next time, Kwaheri!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment