1MARCH

1 mars 2009
(written in all caps and with little sparks flying off the i’s and dots around the numbers)

Its March! It is Sunday March 1st 2009! Its all happening and I am here and now and alive and in Africa and in love and its not stopping for anyone anywhere!

I’m sick as a dog but elated because Ryan’s face will be in my callaoused, loving
...
I’m reading more now than before, escaping from the trials, daily tribulations of this life. I’m told that “its normal” and even “healthy” but it feels foreign and strange. Alas, what doesn’t here as a white American lady in a tiny West African village.
Today, although the first of March, a seemingly exciting day, was from the beginning, a continuous letdown. The only 3 people, count’em one two three, that I actually dislike in my village met me at the pump today and mocked every move I made, sound I uttered, to the point brimming on tears when I triumphantly walked away with a 20gal bucket perched atop my head. “Ne be se” (yes I can).
A little later my nearly-blind host father came with his one-eyed friend and two able bodied sons to clean my house. Uncomfortable doesn’t begin to describe it. When an African offers something you almost always take it. It is polite to do so, even if it causes you a bit of trouble. They swept, they moved things around and left me with a bigger mess and more awkward take on life than before. At least I had something to fill a few hours… cleaning up their clean-up.
...
I’m distancing myself, I can feel myself pulling away from my friends and host family here. Is it fear? Of death? Of loss? Of future pains? I’m pulling away from the most welcoming thing I know and I cannot stop myself. But I must. They are my family. They care for me, feed me, help me, smile for me and pray, in whatever way, for my safety, for my (American) family’s safety and for the happiness of my children. They are good, solidly good people and here I am in flee mode. What is that all about?

It is March 1, 2009. I need to – nay – I am going to sleep better tonight, be healthier today and happier by ways currently unbeknown to me. They will show themselves. I’m going to do as the O’Briens do – I’m going to make a change in the only thing that I have true power over: Myself.