Joy x 2

I posted a couple of days ago about how it feels to always be saying goodbye and missing people on the other side of the world from wherever I seem to find myself. There's actually a term for it. It's called "separation and loss" and I sometimes get to speak on it when I'm called on to help with seminars on international living, transition-shock and the like.

Here's the flip side: there's also multiplied joy.

I'm sitting at my desk in Tanzania and the bird chatter outside my window is bright. I can hear Byron laughing in the kitchen with the women of the fruit drying project. The banter between them is constant. Yes, he's been pulling his hair out today overseeing several things at once, but he's generally jovial because he knows he's where he should be. We're a part of small efforts making incremental differences on a vast continent. The key phrase is "making a difference."

Shortly before leaving the States I found myself considering all the things I wasn't looking forward to about being back in this home, lovely as it appears. I thought about power rationing and cockroaches and rats and showers that don't work and other things I'm prone to whine about. Each of them seemed worthy of complaint as I enjoyed the very clean, very orderly, very comfortable home of my parents where going for a walk is calming, cheering and easy in the lovely neighborhood of their setting and where there are two Trader Joe's nearby! Two! I admit to feeling a little grim about some of the downsides of this African town.

Just a few days after this pondering, I sat at Mom's perfect little table looking out from her astonishingly clean kitchen to their very tidy garden. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but a fat rat just a-waddling down my parents drive way. What on earth? In the middle of the afternoon he was just strolling along as if he owned the place!

The humor of it was not lost on me.

Turns out, there is no perfect place. There is only my choice to find the joy wherever I am.

And there's a good plenty here.

Truth be told, I am overwhelmed with happiness when I get back to my parents' home and I cry when I leave. But I cried when I got back to Africa, as well; hello tears that reminded me how much I love it here.

I believe I am blessed to get to hold so much joy.

This is How it Works... or Doesn't (the joys of transition shock)

So I was in the States for about 3 weeks and WOW!

What I just couldn't get over was just how nice everything was and, maybe mostly, how everything just works there. Smooth roads, wide sidewalks, easy shopping, hot water, cold water, electricity, street lights, the postal system... you name it!

Funny, eh? I mean, I do carry an American passport and I do go there about every 2 years and I have lived there plenty and I am 48 and fairly bright... But I just found the whole experience so surprising and kind of overwhelming.

For instance...

I was borrowing my parents little old grey Volvo ( I love that thing!) for a couple of days while I was up to Santa Barbara and a girlfriend decided we needed to go shopping to pick up a birthday gift for me. (Nice idea!) We finished and I jumped in the car and found that it wouldn't start. Turned over but wouldn't fire up. So I called my dad and the call went straight through because there were absolutely no problems with the network. I asked him to listen as I tried to start the car and he decided it sounded like the fuel wasn't getting where it needed to go.

Dad called AAA and they said OF COURSE they would come help me immediately because it was Dad's car and he's been a member for 30 years. The AAA guy was there in about 20 minutes and he was so nice and I never once worried that he might be incompetent or untrustworthy. He cheerfully hauled the car away to a mechanic across town who specializes in Volvos with whom I'd just spoken and who came with the highest recommendations. (I immediately regretted having not told the AAA guy that his tattoos were beautiful. Sheesh. How could I let him get away without that?)

My dad called his Volvo guy down in Pasadena and described the situation. He said it sounded like the fuel pump relay. It wasn't too long before the SB Volvo guy had listened to the car and he told my dad that it sounded like the fuel pump relay. All these phones working and intelligent diagnostics confirming each other and efficient systems! It just boggled me. But that wasn't enough. The car was repaired quickly and for a reasonable price and I got it back in a matter of just a few hours. I just couldn't get over it. It was so simple and safe and honest and well done.

Now, I'm not going to complain about how things are here in East Africa. I love Africa and there is plenty here to cherish. But this simple efficiency, proficiency and trustworthiness surrounding my little Volvo scene, well, that's not how things go when we have car issues here. My word. The number of places Byron has to go to just to get a spark plug that will actually spark... The days spent chasing spares... The mechanics that have made him almost lose his mind... Let's just say that Africa has other strengths to enjoy.

You might say that landing home again in Tanzania has felt a little bumpy in some ways. Transition is always harder when I'm not expecting it to be anything but easy. And it's the funniest little things that get to me. But I came up with a symbolic gesture to help me embrace it all...

I hadn't cut my nails short for the last couple of weeks before I left Tanzania for the wedding in North Carolina and, on the day before the ceremony, I joined Tait and her mom and the other bridesmaids for a manicure. (A manicure!) I had a bit of length to my nails and, I must say, I liked the way my hands prettied up. Over the course of my visit, I managed to keep them nice and I returned to Africa with hands that don't really go with the circumstances of this life. You know, I chop my nails short here, don't put anything on them at all, and try to remember lotion from time to time.. That's what works for me and I'm happy with it.

So, after a few days of bumping into the roughness of transition every time I turned around, I sat down with finger nail polish remover and my nail clippers. Back to reality-- the reality of the life I've chosen. I smiled with every snip, snip.

Hello, Africa... I'm home :-)

The First Goodbye

My friend Pam leaves Arusha on the Tuesday night KLM flight.

I'm not happy about this.

Don't get me wrong--I'm happy for Pam. I'm happy for the things (though yet unseen) that are opening up ahead of her. I'm happy about a certain boy who would like to have her nearer. I'm happy that there is a conviction that this is right. But I'm not happy that Pam is leaving.

I think of all the teaching I have done on cross-cultural adjustment, international living, staying healthy as a family through global re-settling, getting beyond the just surviving to the actual thriving. I think about all those words I have spoken, read, written or taught on it all and I remember that one of the most important words is "Goodbye."

I think of Gwen, the sweet-faced hostess with the mostess who lived many years in a remote little corner of Maasai, on the bend of a river where the big fig trees grow. Gwen said that when she left her homeland she thought she had said all her goodbyes. What surprised my friend the most was the constant cycle of goodbyes that came her way once she had begun this international life. Ruth Van Reken, gifted author and speaker on these topics, calls it the continuing cycle of separation and loss.

I have a lot more I could say on this but there will be people arriving to my (messy) house in 90 mins for a quiet little send-off for Pam. We want to spend the evening worshiping God together and then praying our friend on her way.

Let me just say this: Pam's departure is my first goodbye from Arusha (besides our boys leaving for college) and I know it will not be the last. Pam welcomed us to the this town with kind words and dinner invitations and times of laughing together. I am thankful for these short 8 months of having her as a neighbor across town. I am thankful that she has been in our lives. I am thankful that somewhere along the way, this international life has taught us to open our hearts quickly to each other. I am just plain thankful for Pam.

Go well, Pam.
Be blessed.
We will miss you.