What are you doing right now? Um, I’m driving. Tell me what
you see – what you’re looking at right now.
Oh, okay. It’s just started getting dark. I’m pulling up to
a road block. I’m staring at the giant metal spikes in the middle of the road
ready to puncture my tires. As a private vehicle, I can just go around and
don’t have to stop at the police check to pay a bribe like the matatus (public
minibuses). Now I’m turning off the highway and onto a dirt road towards my
friend’s house. I see a guy in uniform with an AK47 hanging off his shoulder.
He must be a guard or solider. And now there are three teenage schoolgirls
walking towards me. It just rained so it smells like wet dirt – that earthy
smell that hits you as soon as you arrive in Africa but slowly fades into the
background until it rains and reminds you. Now I’m turning down a really bad
road to my friend’s house so I have to hang up and pay attention to my driving.
It all seems so normal to me now. I don’t notice how a
snapshot of my life here in Kenya is so far removed from my life back in the
U.S. until a friend from thousands of miles away points it out to me with the
simple request that I describe what I see one random evening.
I’m returning to the U.S. in a couple days. It’s been eight
months. I just assumed that the transition back would be easy. I’ve gone back
and forth between the U.S. and East Africa for eight years now. I should be
used to the culture and reverse-culture shock by now, right? But maybe I’m not.
In fact, maybe it’s getting harder. The toggling between two
lives in some ways makes it increasingly difficult to fit in anywhere. After
living in Tanzania for two years, I was able to see how I could carve out a
life in East Africa. Now, after living
in Kenya for another several months, I am able to see how that life will always
be on the periphery. I will always be an expat and treated as such by the
people here – no matter how long I stay here, no matter how much I try to
assimilate. That doesn’t mean I don’t belong but I have to recognize that this
is not my home. But then I go home, and I’m again relegated to the periphery.
I’m the girl who runs off to Africa. I’m not going to settle down into a
stable, normal life, job, or relationship. My regular stints in Africa make me
“interesting” but set me apart and awkwardly interrupt my American life.
As I prepare to return ‘home’ again, I’m preparing for the
happiness of seeing my friends and family again, but I’m also preparing for the
sadness of seeing how much I missed while I was away. I gain so much by coming
to Africa but I also lose a lot. It’s invigorating and it’s painful. That’s
what I see. That’s what I’m looking at right now.
