It can be a dangerous thing, I think, to go somewhere like Tanzania. Not so much in the sense that I’m in much physical danger (although don’t worry Mom and Dad, I’m always on the lookout for potential crooks), but more in the sense that it can mess up your life.

I realized this the first time I came home from here in 2005. Before that, I was a normal American teenager. I loved going to the mall, buying new clothes, and eating at fancy restaurants. And then I went to Tanzania. Not only did I see people who had very little, but I became friends with some of them. And then I grew to love some of those friends.

When I returned to the U.S. after my first trip to Tanzania, I couldn’t be a normal teenager anymore. I couldn’t buy new clothes without thinking of my friends who hadn’t had new clothes in years. I couldn’t eat at fancy restaurants without thinking of people in Tanzania, the members of my human family, who might not know when their next meal would be. I couldn’t handle the coldness and cleanliness of the American mall in contrast to the heat and dustiness of the Tanzanian market.

Since then, in some ways the transition has gotten easier. But there are still parts of me that I think will never again fit quite right into the “normal” American way of life.
I am learning to be ok with that.

Over the months that I’ve been here, I have been amazed by how normal my life seems to me. I’ll spend a Saturday buying fruits and vegetables at the market. I forget that I’m speaking a language that is not my own and that I’m the only white person there. I’ll walk home on a dirt road holding the hands of African children I don’t know. And it all just seems normal, like I’ve been doing this my whole life.

But as a Westerner, or “mzungu,” as the Tanzanians say, I will never fit quite right into the “normal” Tanzanian way of life, either. I’m not good at washing my clothes by hand, for one thing. And I kind of stand out in a crowd.

I’m learning to be ok with that, too.

Over the past few years, I’ve felt like I’ve been living in somewhat of an “in between,” place, not quite at home anywhere but never ready to leave wherever I am. To be honest, it’s been a bit unsettling. Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be a place where I’ll fit just exactly right.

On Saturday, I’ll be going back to Tennessee to spend the holidays with my family, and I know I’ll be feeling lots of in-betweenness. Because while I am so excited to see my mom and dad and lay on my bed for hours talking to my sister and spend time with my grandparents and talk to my best friends and eat salad and have ice in my drinks and use the washing machine and drive my cute little car, I don’t know if I’m ready for all that. Am I going to be able to go see Harry Potter at the movie theater or out for a nice birthday dinner or eat a million Christmas cookies or lay under my beautiful down comforter knowing that, at that very moment, children who I KNOW are living on the streets?

Will I be ready for that? Will I EVER be ready for all that? Like I said, dangerous business.

******

I’ve been attending the Catholic Church here every almost every Sunday. Partly because they have a service that is in English, and partly because it makes me feel close to my family knowing they are hearing the same readings and saying the same prayers on that very same day. I always get chills when I kneel at the altar to receive communion as I try to take in the magnificence of a God who could create such a big and beautiful world.

One of the readings from my first time there back in June has been in my head ever since. It is from the book of Hebrews, and the author describes people throughout the Bible who have had great faith, from Abel, to Noah, to Abraham. And then he says this about them:

“And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.”

It has been a comfort to me to remember this reading. To find out that my life might not be so completely messed up after all. Or that having a messed up life isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it’s not so weird that nowhere feels just exactly right—maybe it’s actually a good thing. Because maybe we are not meant to get too settled on this earth.

I cling to this hope. And with it, I will try my best to live joyfully in every day and in every moment, whether I’m riding my bike on the dirt roads or driving my little car on the interstate, whether I’m working on physics with Baraka or watching Harry Potter at the movie theater with my sister, whether I’ve got my arm around Salim or my arm around my Grandma. And while, in my head, I’m sure I’ll still feel in-between lots of the time, in my heart I’ll be reminding myself that this whole world is really just one big in-between. That’s the way it was meant to be. Because if it wasn’t, we would have no reason to be longing for somewhere better.

Ever since I have been here, I’ve been dreaming of a big bowl of cereal. It’s kind of sad to admit actually, but almost every time I stop by the grocery store to grab a jar of peanut butter or a box of teabags, I take a stroll down the cereal aisle to dream about which one I would buy if I ever actually had $10 I wanted to spend on a box of crunched-up imported cereal. So when my mom came to visit in October, I was overjoyed when she pulled 3 boxes out of her suitcase: kashi heart to heart, honey bunches of oats, and cocoa crispies (which I had never actually had before, but for some reason are always my top pick during my imagine-you-could-buy-one-box cereal aisle visits). I was oh so happy and placed the boxes prominently in our kitchen.

But then a funny thing happened. I realized I don’t really like cereal that much anymore. Sorry to say Kashi, but heart to heart kind of tastes like cardboard.

There is a little boy at Amani named Salim. He is ten years old and in our starters class. He arrived at Amani this year and had never been to school before. When I got here in June, he didn’t know the alphabet or 2+2 or even how to hold a pencil. But his social skills were even more lacking. He had no idea about even simple things, like how to sit in class or how to make a friend or how to get someone’s attention without hitting them. In what I’m sure will not win me any teaching awards, I actually started moving him to the back of class during English because he was so distracting sitting up front.

Then, a couple of months ago, an interesting thing happened: Salim got a little taste of success.

The teachers decided to split up the starters class into two groups so that the struggling readers could get some extra attention. Salim started to learn to read and write and add. And since then, his transformation has been incredible. He is now one of my best students and actually the only one in his group to make a 100% on his English examination last week. And, even more than that, he has become a genuinely loving little kid. He’ll come find me and wrap my arm around him, or he’ll catch my eye in the dining hall and smile until I smile back.

Last week, we were sitting outside in the shade, and I was drilling him on his addition facts. And out of the blue, just after I gave him a tough one, he said, “You love me, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think I do,” I replied, a bit taken aback.
“I love you too, and three plus four is seven.”

Oh, my dear heart.

It’s times like these when it all comes together, when I realize why my favorite cereal doesn’t taste as good anymore. Because I get to eat fresh mango and pineapple every day. And drink milk literally straight from the cow. And those things are real, way more real than even healthy American cereal. I also get to experience real moments like these with little Salim. Moments that make missing my favorite American things seem silly. I am a very lucky girl.

Did I say it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas? Well, maybe not...here was the excitement we had today...