Home in Africa

 Thursday, March 22, 2012  Day

It’s funny how quickly I’m already learning to adapt to things. Every day when I go to write the date here, I have to think really hard in trying to remember how NOT to write in the British format of day/month/year the way we do for work. I was actually thinking about that earlier. I was beginning to miss home a little and then my train of thought led me to how different and weird things will be after we return. I’m wondering if it will take me less time to forget about Africa than it did to get accustomed to it? I hope not…

I’m so glad that our stay is a full eight weeks. I feel like I am just now starting to catch the hang of things. I can’t imagine if it were half way over already. And to think that two weeks ago when we got here, I was worried that eight weeks may be too long!! It’s starting to feel a little like home already- which was also a strange thought for me, because I realized today that we spent the last few weeks trying to make Point Pleasant feel like home. Than I stopped to ponder the reasoning behind it…what was the point? It dawned on me: I will never be going back to Point Pleasant. No, I realize that and I suppose the reason I did not let that stop me is because I don’t really have anywhere else to make feel like home, so why not here?

I guess that person that said; “home is where the heart is” really knew what they were talking about all along, because my heart is here. I guess I never put much thought into that statement either because I always looked at it the other way around and like every good pessimist/optimist argument there’s always two sides.

I always used to translate that to mean that your home will always hold a special place in you heart and no matter where you physically go, a piece of your heart will always be there. Now as every other outlook I have on life is being challenged in some way, I realize that even my interpretation of meaningless sayings has become more insightful. But, yes, I have found that throughout this year, no matter where I have gone I have tried to put my heart and soul into every place I work, house I live in, life I touch. Therefore where my heart is found there also will be my home and until May 2nd, my home is Africa and I will continue to make the most of it.