Year 2 - Week 50: I'm Ready For What's Next

There’s not much sense in writing a play-by-play for my time in Maputo because it’s pretty much a cycle of eating, reintroducing myself to the internet (what do you people do on this thing all day?!), and sleeping. It’s been boring. More than anything, the anxiety about coming home – both good anxiety and bad – has been building for the last couple days.

I’ve felt like I’ve been saying goodbye for six weeks now. There has always been something else coming to its conclusion: school, exams, leaving Machanga, leaving Inhassoro, leaving Vilanculos, and on and on. Things have been ending bit by bit. People have been trickling out of the country week by week. I must have said goodbye a hundred to a hundred people. It has felt like it was never going to end.

But it finally hit me on Sunday night that I was actually leaving Mozambique this week. Two years, one month and three weeks later, it’s over. This didn’t hit me when I said goodbye to other Volunteer, nor did it hit me I left Machanga or arrived in Maputo. It hit me a couple hours after I spoke with my parents for the last time from home.

The finality of the phone call – the fact that it was the last phone call – didn’t do it for me. In fact, that phone call was immediately followed by a call from my grandmother. What did it for me was the last sentence at the end of our conversation: “See you on Thursday.” Not “Talk to you soon” or “Talk to you on Thursday.” “See you on Thursday.”

And even this was different from the last “See you on Thursday”, or whatever day my family arrived here in Mozambique. Sure, there was anxiety with my family coming here. After all, my family was not built for Africa – they were built for Hawaii and Caribbean cruises. I had no idea how they were going to handle the madness that is Mozambique. But that was different anxiety. That anxiety was because of them. It wasn’t their fault of course. But there was a huge sense of responsibility – at least I felt there was, anyway – that I had to keep my family safe here, that things had to go well, or as well as things can go. And maybe most importantly, it was a different kind of stress because I wasn’t going anywhere. I was “at home” in Mozambique. Everything was familiar.

Now, there’s going to be a whole new kind of stress. I’m coming home to a place that, for many reasons, I’m not going to recognize. A lot changes in two years, though it probably doesn’t feel like it when you live with it on a day-to-day basis. Remember that when I left America, there was no such thing as a mysterious piece of technology called “iPad”, “tweet” wasn’t a verb, Barack Obama wasn’t president, I didn’t have a niece, and the San Jose Sharks weren’t pathetic (oh wait, some things don’t change). Additionally, the house where I’ll be living has been moderately remodeled. I’m going to need a tour of my own house! Everything has changed.

Me included. If nothing else has happened, two years of living in the bush in Mozambique has certainly given me a fair amount of perspective. I’ve learned that I don’t really need a lot to get by, or thrive for that matter. “We’ll make it work” became a mantra that nearly killed my sister in the two weeks she was here visiting. I’ve gained a monstrous appreciation for a hot shower – especially the variety that doesn’t include a cup and a bucket. I came to enjoy wearing a sweatshirt during the few months of cold weather (relatively speaking). As I quickly found out, especially after the hot months, you can pile on as many layers as you need during the cold months, but you can only get so naked in the hot months. The list goes on and on, long enough to fit a book’s worth of lessons.

But most importantly, I figured out what I really need in my life. I guess that when you’ve stripped everything down to its bare minimum, life will give you that kind of lesson. I don’t need to be constantly connected to the internet. I don’t need a refrigerator, or twenty-four hour electricity or running water – although life certainly is better and easier with these things. I don’t need an iPad, although you can be damn sure that I’m going to at least consider buying one. What I need – really need – is a short list that all the money in the world can’t buy: family, friends, health and happiness. That’s exactly what I’m coming home to.

It’s been quite the adventure. Sometimes great, sometimes awful, occasionally exciting and often boring. That said, at the end of the day, Peace Corps life is just like America, except under slightly more extraordinary circumstances. We cook, we eat, we work, we drink, and we make friends. We laugh a lot, cry occasionally, and often want to punch a wall – until we realize that they’re either made of concrete, which would result in a broken hand; or built of bamboo, which would result in a whole in the wall.

What’s incredible– in the most literal definition of the word – is that it’s in the past tense. It’s over. It’s done. That wobbly tree-trunk canoe is pushing away from the shore toward a horizon of uncertainty. Whatever it is that’s out there, though, I know I’ll be ready for it, I know that I’ll make it work. There will most certainly be challenges along the way and frustrations that will make me long for the good old days in Mozambique, even the good old days that weren’t so good.

But it’s time. It’s time to come home. It’s time for America. It’s time for turkey and hockey and seven-dollar beers. It’s time for comfortable beds and timeliness and seeing my niece Gia for the first time. It’s time for reconnecting with old friends, both from home and American friends from here. It’s time for punctuality. It’s time to share stories and answer questions from the curious.

It’s time. I’m ready. I’m ready for what’s next.