In case anyone is still reading this...

Things I now realize are not critical to survival:

• My hair dryer
• Pizza
• Constant entertainment
• Perfectly composed wardrobes
• High heeled shoes
• Text messaging
• Wal-mart

Things I now have a much greater appreciation for:

• Consistent internet
• Drinking water
• Comfortable beds that don't require mosquito nets
• Spring and Fall
• Microwave popcorn
• Silence
• Daily contact with people for whom English is their first spoken language
• The calmness of knowing I'm in the American society with a civilized government and that I'm not likely to get kidnapped on the back of a motorcycle
• Traffic lights
• Traffic laws
• Stop signs
• Dramamine
• Reptiles and amphibians that eat mosquitos
• Light-colored dirt
• Nice bathrooms with western world-style toilets
• White socks

Things I will never ever forget:

• Jonah's smile
• "Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy MZUNGU!"
• "Mzungu Baby, you have such a nice camera, why don't you give it to me?"
• The smell of being coated in DEET
• Greasy Skin(for the first time in my life)
• African Rain
• "Auntie! Auntie! Auntie Taylor!!!"
• Mebra pinching me
• Isaac always crying
• Singing the Wiggle Waggle
• Hearing Arabic, German, Dutch, French and English all on the same flight
• Thinking of the ultimate peril of a boda boda accident
• Story Time
• Seeing Steven's face light up when he wrote his name
• Being in a society and a culture and a place where survival is literal, not a far off imaginative or simply a dramatic adjective.

In case you, like my sister, didn't realize or didn't know, I'm home. Or at least physically.

I'm torn..

In these last few hours of being here, I ever so frequently have the sudden desire to postpone my flight and stay longer. Just a little longer, my heart keeps telling me. At the same time, I miss my family and friends and daily aquaintances so very very much and all I want to do is see them and wrap my arms around them. Is it possible to want and love two things so strongly yet so equally you seriously don't know which to choose? This is how my mind is working today. If I could bring all of you here with me, I wouldn't have to leave. Wouldn't have to make that choice. Would never even have to come home. My mind is so muddled, I don't even know where home is. I don't feel it's Cleburne, or Texas or America, I just feel like it should be here, on the condition that my loved ones are here with me. All I can say is Lord, provide the way, because my heart is willing.

What else can I say?

I feel like anything I say is completely inadequate to describing this place and these people and their culture. It's just so vastly different. I say different, because in some ways I believe it's better than our American culture and in many ways, it's far worse. There is no drama here, no cliques, so petty gossip that is focused on while people go hungry and lives are lost. How I wish that was not a part of my life in any way. At the same time, the people here have daily choices to make for survival. There is no such thing as convenience here, literally. I would say about 80% of the things Wal-mart sells, you can't get here. These people are also raised into a culture where they do even choose to feed and house and clothe their children, they do not show their children affection. It isn't a part of them to love and to nurture. They are taught that keeping a child healthy and educated is enough for their well-being. That basic needs are all children need to turn them into well-behaved adults with jobs and futures. Even in the baby home here, where it is impressed upon the Ugandan staff here to love and care for these children with a heart full of joy, very few of them actually choose to accept this and have it become a part of their being. It has been very hard for me the past three weeks to watch the way these children are treated, even here at Amani. And while Amani is so wonderful for what it is and for what it does, it could be so much better. There are two babies in my group, Isaac and Mebra who are twins, and they have a father who comes and visits them every week on his day off, spending as much time as he can with them. He cares for his babies so very much and it breaks my heart to see these children having to live in an orphanage when they have a parent who loves them so much. Their mother bled to death at their birth in the hospital, and their father cannot take care of them because he has to work to survive. Honestly, how can anything I say even measure up to this society? I can't think of a single word that I could say, with any amount of enthusiasm or passion that could even possibly begin to impress upon anyone the beating of the heart of Africa. It can't truly be told, it's something one must see and touch and live for oneself to even truly begin to envision Africa.