Reentry Rummaging

It's cold. Whenever anyone asks me how it feels to be home, that's the first thing to come to mind. Obviously it's not the most important thing, but it is foremost in my mind because it is the difference that I can comprehend without much thought at all. It was warm in Arusha for four months straight. It is cold here. Simple enough.

And beyond that I'm still processing. I think. Tanzania already feels like such a distant experience because that life is just so opposite of the life I lead here. Sure there are reminders of it every so often, but despite that it feels like months, if not years ago, that I was wandering the streets of Arusha and sweltering on the bus on the way back from Zanzibar. There is no way that is less than a month ago. But alas, it was, and somehow I feel as though my brain will never really be able to grasp that. Really in the scheme of things, hopefully, four months will be just the blink of eye and just a chapter of my life, but at this point my brain doesn't know whether those four months felt like four years or four weeks. As I said, more processing is in order.

Apparently, though, I'm dealing with reentry culture shock by compulsively giving away things. The night that I got back from London I opened my closet, stared for a moment and almost said aloud, "there is so much stuff!" I wore the same clothes for four months and needless to say, saw people with next to nothing in their possession, so seeing a closet full of stuff just felt odd. I proceeded to give away a garbage bag full of things starting the next day. It was an ongoing process that took about a week and took me to literally every surface of my room. I now have a lot less stuff partially because I feel like I know what I don't actually need, and partially because I know that if those "just in case" situations have not occurred since I went to college two and half years ago, then they're probably never going to happen. And so, like I said, reentry culture shock seems to have manifested itself in me purging my room of excess. Not so bad I guess.

So since I've been home I've started working again at the office where I worked this summer. I was able to go back for about two weeks, which has been great. It's always nice to have an opportunity to make some money, even if it is only for a while. I'm looking forward to Christmas at home and then Virginia for New Years. I go back to school January 9 and will be starting an internship this semester at a human rights NGO that I'm really excited about. So life back in the US has been good and it's been nice to not have to really jump back into anything too hectic.

Besides the cold, the things that I have been extra alert to are: the fast internet, the fast pace of life and of walking, being in the (overwhelming) racial majority in Minnesota, and the pronounced lack of Swahili being spoken. Not too bad, really. I haven't become an American-hating elitist, nor was I absolutely dying to get my feet back on US soil. Tanzania has changed me but to be honest, I'm still not quite sure how.

Look! Look! Fast Internet!

I'm home safe and sound with amazingly fast internet! I'm definitely still in the processing phase of reentry so I don't have a very coherent post at the moment but I decided some pictures were in order just to show off how many things I can upload! I promise I'll write some more entries eventually, though. Keenan and I went into London Friday from Egham, where Royal Holloway University is. This is the Eye of London, built for the millennium, next to Big Ben and the House of Parliament. Friday night we went to Wicked at the Apollo Victoria for 15 pounds apiece - not bad! It was absolutely astonishing The picturesque Zanzibar beaches. Like I said, Paradise. Local women on the beach cleaning the fish they just caught and that we're about to eat :) The House of Wonders in Stone Town - second largest doors in Africa! It also held its own during the shortest war in history (45 minutes vs. Britain)This is inside a cathedral built by freed slaves on the site of the slave market in Stone Town. The supervisor left for a week and the slaves, unclear about how the pillars were supposed to look, installed all of them upside down. They're perfectly sturdy and really look normal until you know their flaw. A poignant monument to the slaves that were bought, sold and killed at this site during the slave trade. The chain around their necks was actually found in the ocean off the shore of Bagamoyo from a sunken slave ship. During our spice tour - a man climbing up a coconut tree to retrieve coconuts for us. It was incredible how fast he scurried up there! Our trusty Cupcake! This is the dala dala that we took to the hot springs and that promptly died the morning we tried to leave. Also, you can't see it here, but he most definitely had leopard print upholstery. My birthday dinner at the Arusha hotel - Christina, Jan and I Momma and baby when we visited a home in Lake Eyasi in October. Adorable, right?