With Thanks

When I reflect on my past nine months in Juba, I have a lot to be thankful for. I am grateful to be in a setting where I’m consistently tested, challenged, and forced to grow—that my work doesn’t lend itself to stagnancy, laziness or complacency. I wake up every morning with the opportunity to present my best self, my most giving, accepting, kind self, or the alternative of allowing my worst self to rear its grotesquely ugly head. I probably see more of the worst days than I care to admit, but there’s something about the vulnerability, the exposure, the rawness—of feeling such extremes with such consistency—that it feels like a gift somehow, an opportunity to become a better person. I’m grateful for the passage of time in healing old wounds and allowing myself forgiveness. I am thankful for the patience of our national staff, who after all they’ve experienced and witnessed and suffered through, have the ability to accept the shortcomings of their khawaja office mates and gracefully manage my ever-changing moods. I am grateful for my colleagues and housemates who have become my proxy family—and like most families—we have grown to appreciate and accept the flaws and weaknesses in one another, as much as we enjoy and welcome the good. Regardless of our individual stresses and differences of opinion, we set aside our own needs to offer up generosity, compassion, and understanding time and time again. I’m appreciative for the inexhaustible support of my parents—their loyalty in remaining engaged in my life given other obligations and the challenges of time and distance; without them, I would not be capable of sustaining this lifestyle. I am thankful for the friends that despite the years of absence in their worlds are committed to staying a part of mine. I have reconnected with friends I assumed were gone from my life this year, and am amazed by the significance they continue to hold, and the acknowledgement that those complex, complicated pieces of our stories haven’t been minimized by time or life experience. I am forever grateful for these people to remind me of who I was, and how they’ve contributed to the woman that I now am. I even hesitate to say I’m thankful for the modern technologies of Facebook and Skype-without which I would not be able to watch my nieces grow or hear my mother’s laugh. I feel blessed to have been born an American woman, born into privilege that I have in no way earned but benefit from no matter where I am on the globe. It is thanks to this privilege that I’ve been granted the opportunities I have, and been witness to a side of the human condition I never dreamed imaginable. It’s through this lens that I try to be mindful to never take things for granted. I’m appreciative to observe this period of South Sudanese history and participate in the transition of a new nation. I’m grateful to have seen new corners of the world this year, the opportunity to be reminded why the world is such a complex, incredibly beautiful place. I’m thankful for the unexpected joys that arise in the most hectic of days; I’m encouraged with the possibility of new friendships and the meaning they hold. I am thankful that my nieces and nephew have all been born in good health, and their mothers continue to have the strength and dedication to nourish them into beautiful little human beings. I am opening myself up to the possibility of something new—giving myself over to the space of not knowing and believing in myself enough to give myself completely. I am thankful for the daily brilliance of the Juba sunset. I am blessed that my family stays strong in mind and body, and that regardless of how much time has passed, home will always be home.

A Merging of Worlds

I should have known that Istanbul was a magical place, after hearing from absolutely everyone what an incredible city it was. Doesn’t take much to drink the Kool-Aid in a place like this. But more than its unique reputation of being the perfect blend of contemporary and tradition, Europe and Asia, Islam and Christianity—Istanbul was precisely everything I needed it to be—a completely different world from anything I’d ever experienced, with little to no agenda guiding my days. And nights filled with sleep—glorious, uninterrupted, deep, magnificent sleep. For a directionally challenged, single white female, Istanbul was the perfect backdrop to reconnect with my nomadic, traveling self. The constant flattery from men half my size was comical, with endearing comments like “Your eyes are doing crazy things to my head,” and “You are strong woman, like German!” I oddly welcomed the engagement, if nothing else to have a seemingly informative conversation about Turkish culture and their undying commitment to blue eyed women travelling alone. I find Turks to be honest, humorous, incredibly hard working, and eager to please. The narrow streets are filled with short, round men with tobacco-stained teeth sipping apple tea, with equally round women donning head scarves ushering small children down the sidewalk. Fat street cats harassing restaurant goers, young boys with insanely hip hairdos, the smell of apple tobacco wafting from hookahs. Istanbul is a beautiful place.

My days usually began with a vague idea of what I’d like to do (after a breakfast of olives, cheese, and homemade jams), but basically led to a lot of wandering, random encounters, assistance on public transportation, standing in long lines for seemingly critical historical landmarks (the Blue Mosque actually blew me away, even though the smell of tourists’ feet was particularly distracting), and fumbling through conversations with people who speak little to no English. Spent hours looking for the Grand Bazaar, only to find it’s closed on Sundays; hopped on and off the tram, only to find out I was not even travelling in the right direction; arrived at the hamam with no bathing suit, where a very large Turkish woman in a red lace bra gave me the scrub down of my life, a slap on the cheek, called me Lady Gaga, and our cackles echoed from every tile in the place. I met some wonderful people—shared meals and honest conversation, giggled over my own insecurity and cultural faux-pas, and learned about the culture over countless beers with strangers. Each afternoon, the city came alive with call to prayer, echoing from mosques from the seven hills, with minarets poking through the skyline, and it was something that always forced me to take pause and recognize where I was. Along the same street, you are passing a woman in full burqa, a young girl in the latest styles with sexy boots and tight jeans, an old man puffing apple tobacco from a nargileh, a young business man draining a draft beer. It is tolerance; it is Istanbul both old and new, in its most beautiful forms.

There were many moments in the past few days where I found myself wishing I had someone to experience these misadventures with, yet I recognize that if I hadn’t been alone, my experience would have been completely different; the perspective would have shifted to something shared, not completely mine, consumed by my own thoughts and observations and impressions. What I love about travelling solo, and always fail to remember it until I’m doing it again, is how it connects us as humans on a very basic level; it reminds me of the good in people, the commonality of humor and kindness that makes us who we are. And it’s refreshing and world-opening and somehow life giving—that I’m leaving here feeling this distinct possibility of something new—that the energy in my world is finally starting to shift. I feel ready to get back to Juba and appreciate what I have there, focus on making things better for myself, hopefully starting with a plate of baklava on my lap.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

It’s a rainy Sunday in the field. I just woke up in my tent, am sipping Nescafe, and sitting here preparing for a donor visit, wondering how so much time has passed without writing. Much of me knows that while writing has always been therapeutic for me, lately I just haven’t had the energy to put down in words what has been going on. I’m feeling a bit misguided and flustered, to be honest. I’ve been travelling a lot. In the past two months, I’ve flown across the pond twice—once for home leave to visit family and friends, and most recently, for a health conference at headquarters.

Both visits have been timely, in that work has felt consistently overwhelming and stressful, relentlessly exhausting, and six months into my time in Juba, most days I feel like I’m still trying to find my feet, and while I feel I’ve built up some confidence with work, I often feel like most days are spent trying to keep myself afloat. I still find myself navigating the social scene here, and still have days of loneliness, lack of fulfillment, undeniable fatigue. And while I don’t know that I’ve found a healthy routine or manageable way to pass through the weeks, time is somehow flying by at record speed. It’s incredible to compare my time here to the six months I spent in Tanzania, and how my experience unfolded in such a distinctly different way. I want to love Juba, I really do. I see other expats thriving in this environment and I wonder what it is I’m missing, or doing wrong, or lacking in my own, freakishly bizarre existence here, and I can’t seem to put my finger on it. I enjoy my work; I love my colleagues; I feel inspired by the country and the people that have struggled for decades to be where they are. But most days, I just wonder where I would be if I had made different choices, and wondering how much longer I can maintain this lifestyle.

The irony is that I’ve been doing this long enough that when I’m home, I also don’t feel like I “fit” there anymore. The creature comforts of home feel somehow too accessible, too easy. My siblings and friends are parents and home owners and measure the happiness and success of their worlds in such different ways than I do. And while it was amazing to reconnect with friends and have treasured time with family, I found myself oddly craving aspects of my strange world across the sea. Home felt simultaneously bizarre and familiar, and in the time it takes me to readjust to being there, I’m back in Africa again. Seeing my family and friends was rejuvenating in a way that only being around people that know you well can be—their support and understanding, their patience, thoughtfulness, acknowledgement of my quirks and need for space. And while I cherished that time with them, I accept in myself that a world surrounded by my own kids and 9-5 job is unlikely and simply not part of who I am or what I want right now…and I found that conclusion to be strange, and slightly contradictory to what I expected to feel.

Being home also made me realize that as much as my life seems to be changing—yes, I’ve moved to a number of different countries on the continent of Africa in recent years—that overall, my life feels static, stagnant, perhaps even a bit stale. That while my lifestyle lends itself to steep learning curves and new experiences, that not much feels all that different than it did. And yet my friends and family are finding great partners, getting married, having babies, and I sadly find myself resentful of that—that I’m still alone and can’t figure out just what I’m doing wrong. I discovered that an ex of mine just recently got married and is having a baby, yet I haven’t been in a relationship that has lasted longer than a few months in years. Years, people. I don’t want to feel bitterness towards people I care about because they’ve been able to find companionship and I haven’t. It feels horrible, and I find myself retreating from those relationships because I am envious of what they have. And so it seems that I don’t want life at home and I don’t want life here. So, I’m basically humming a tune in my head, days away from my 33^rd birthday, singing, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with…me.”

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

"Travelers who put their homesickness behind them, who explore a place thoroughly, may find upon returning home that they experience a new kind of homesickness, a benign kind, that which comes only to those who travel well: homesickness for a place once visited, even if only briefly -- the sense that only in the western Highlands of Scotland, the beaches of the Lesser Antilles, the markets of Marrakesh, did some deep and very real part of their soul feel completely and exhilaratingly at home." W. D. Wetherell

I wish someone had told me when I was like eight years old that there’s absolutely no way to plan for your life. No matter how much mental energy you put into making decisions, weighing your options, determining next steps, people are still consistently shocked by the paths their lives take, and where we all end up, and how the hell we got here. This has been consuming a lot of my thoughts lately, not for some complicated, existential reason, but mainly for the mere fact that I’m lonely, dreadfully so. One of my dear friends from undergrad is getting married this month; my sister just gave birth to her fourth child; my parents just celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary—and here I am, living in group housing in Africa’s soon-to-be newest nation, and I’m wondering if I had made different choices if I’d still be alone, or be like one of those friends that is buying their first home, or celebrating their child’s third birthday, or taking a weekend away with my partner of five or six years.

What I do know is that no matter how much I didn’t plan for love or marriage or kids, I also guess I never pictured myself still single at 32—a profound single with no potential partners in sight. I feel like I’ve been meandering down a long and winding road of false-starts, flawed expectations, failed attempts. And while the longer I’m away from the conventionality of marriage and a permanent address, I do feel the gentle tugs of wanting some sense of “normalcy”, commitment, companionship in my life. I’m dying for it honestly. I think of my friends and how some of the most successful relationships I know are nothing slightly resembling the daydreams we had as young girls of who we’d end up with or how. Friends who have fallen for partners ten years older than them, divorced, with kids, from different countries speaking different languages, partners with complex pasts and even more complicated presents. All the complexities of juggling careers and culture and step-children—it’s nothing we anticipate when we’re sixteen and imagining our lives…but it is the reality of our world and if nothing else, love seems to surface when we least expect it, and allows us to lose all ability to rationalize or think clearly, and we are utterly and hopelessly consumed by it. That’s what I want. That’s what I’m waiting for.

Yet, the longer I’m away, the more frightening those conventions become to me. I’m not sure I’m capable of settling down, not sure I have the tools in my kit to manage that existence anymore. As difficult as my lifestyle is on most days—familiar aches about disconnection from family and friends back home creeping in and craving that stability—it’s mine, and at some point I became more comfortable with living out of a backpack, hand-washing my underwear in the sink, and eating beans and rice every dog gone day of my life. Thinking about moving back to the states results in anxiety bubbling to the surface—finding an apartment, a car, a job that will pay my bills, finally having a permanent address on record that is NOT my parent’s. It’s overwhelming and scary, and then I’m back to where I started. And that’s when I wonder—do we ever find a moment where we find ourselves thinking this is exactly what we pictured, exactly what we wanted, sitting cozily next to the perfect partner that we hadn’t even known we were searching for, who turns out to be everything we ever wanted, and nothing we could have ever possibly dreamed?

Destinazione Firenze

The last time I was in Florence, it was coming off a week-long sailing trip (slash bender) through the Greek Isles with fifty of my soon-to-be closest classmates that I would be studying abroad with in Luxembourg for a semester. What I remember about Florence is I smoked a lot of cigarettes, consumed a frightening amount of gelato, waited in an endless line for the Uffizi attempting to look cultured, and shaved my head at the barber shop. It’s amazing what thirteen years will do to a person’s perspective.

I loved everything about Florence—talk about people who appreciate life—I am so envious of the Italian lifestyle and found that the slow pace, absence of timely bus departures, and three hour shop closings for lunch was slightly reminiscent of the continent I am so fond of—Italy is like the Africa of Europe! Mom and Dad were great travel companions…they have become well-accustomed to my weird habits like hand-washing my clothes in the bathroom sink and still wearing flip-flops in the shower (you can take the girl out of the village…), and most importantly, are in strong support of my daily afternoon naps. As much as my father and I tend towards the tightly wound, obsessive planning end of the spectrum, my mother presents a nice balance and we ended up having a relatively spontaneous, laid back itinerary. We’d wake up every morning to a lovely breakfast and spend the day exploring. I had forgotten what it feels like to be surrounded by art and history, architecture and culture. We wandered through art museums, meandered through blossoming gardens, visited ancient churches, and hopped buses to Tuscan towns with incredible views of the countryside. The pace, the style, the long lunches at outdoor trattorias, the lovers laying in the grass in the park, the rhythm of the language, people zipping by on their Vespas with a cigarette dangling from their mouth—it was beauty in its simplest forms…and I did my best to appreciate every last moment of it.

Dad and I were basically having an unspoken contest on who could consume the most food, and I earnestly enjoyed participating in said activity: pigeon ravioli (um, yes please), zesty soups, salty boar meat, juicy steaks, melt-in-your-mouth mozzarella, homemade pastas, vegetables roasted in olive oil, tiramisu, cheesecake, cappuccino and wine, wine, wine. Gosh, I miss marvelous, glorious food. It seemed like each and every meal somehow outshined the last. And just when I thought I couldn’t get enough, I’d have a scoop of gelato that would really put me over the edge. Luckily, I was not feeling even slightly compelled to adopt the style and swagger of Italian women, and wore the same outfit the entire week, so it was well-stretched and comfortable to account for my caloric intake.

The best part about the trip was seeing my parents—just having uninterrupted time together to chat and share, unload my frustrations and doubts about my future to two people that know me better than anyone in the world—and who support me regardless of the circumstances. It was exactly the therapy I needed to come back to Juba feeling refreshed and inspired to work harder, do better, live fuller. I mean, who better than your mom and dad to convince you that your world is not self-destructing? It’s part of their job description to give us kids hope. And let’s be honest, the backdrop of rolling hills and historic picturesque towns, engulfed in amazing food and drink made it all the better. So, huge thanks to the best folks around, for dragging me out of my lingering shit storm normal people refer to as transitioning, and for understanding me and accepting me without hesitation. Onward and upward for the next three months in Juba!

Where electronics go to die

If you want to experience a place that seriously tests your tolerance and patience for things before 8am, I’d highly recommend the Juba International Airport. As far as African airports go, I’d rank this one pretty far down on the list. At least Mwanza had hot pink hot dogs, samosas, and cold beers while you wait…Juba basically has a wall of various and sundry types of glucose biscuits, Nescafe, and overpriced Pringles. I’m not even entirely convinced there’s a bathroom. Not yet residing in South Sudan for an extended period of time, it’s hard to guess why the Sudanese seem to have no concept of lines. Add to the equation that most people are carry make-shift, oversized luggage jerry-rigged with tape and ropes and are on average over 6’5” and you’ve got a lot going on.

So, the airport doesn’t actually open until 8am, yet airlines consistently give a reporting time of 7:30, so it’s a lot of tall people outside milling about on their cell phones, wondering which glucose biscuits they are going to purchase inside. Eventually, the door is unchained, and people start pushing and shoving their way to the one conveyor belt for security. Both Mwanza and Juba share the sad state of all antiquated electronic devices, including the security conveyor and x-ray machine. I’m beginning to wonder if airports around the world ponder, “Humphf. This 30 year old conveyor belt needs a new home. Let’s send it to East Africa!”

There’s basically not much room to move, and with before mentioned lack of lines, it’s kind of a melee of hilarity once you enter the “departures area”. You get laminated boarding cards that are not even for your destination, and the scale to weigh your luggage looks like it may have been the very apparatus to weigh suitcases at Ellis Island. What makes this airport international (besides the destinations) is the man behind the counter that looks at your work permit and makes you write your name down on a sheet of paper. He sits right next to the 20 year old photocopy machine in case anything hand written needs a duplicate.

Then there’s the security line. Lines are conveniently divided by gender, and there’s a very regimented man who stands in front of a room made of curtains that fits approximately 4 people at one time, housing a table in the center. You place your carry-ons on said table, and a female or male goes through every possible inch of your luggage. It would feel violating if it wasn’t so amusing. I mean, this woman goes through every sleeve of your wallet, looks through your notebooks, is basically trying on your chapstick and making phone calls on your cell. Her thoroughness is matched only by the other security woman who basically gives you a free full-body grope, and again, if it hadn’t been so long, I’d probably find this violating as well, but I find the human contact creepily comforting.

You get to the “other side” and it’s a large room with some cushioned chairs and a whole hell of a lot of white plastic ones. Whoever manufactures those things must be a kajillionaire. I was lucky enough this morning to score a cushioned seat next to one of the AC units-again frightfully old yet seemingly functional. Later on I will realize this assumption to be untrue, as I got up from my seat after almost 2 hours and found that my entire carry-on was soaking wet and realized that the AC was leaking. Sweet. I don’t mean for any of this to sound callous. South Sudan is trying. They are. They are facing some pretty serious constraints and doing their very best to make Juba International Airport comfortable and a pleasant experience for all. The staff are kind and good-natured (minus the cranky Russian UN pilots). But is it so much to ask to get a little wireless internet and macchiato action up in here?

Keep on Keepin' On

I learned a few things in the field this week. One: it’s fly season in the Sudan. I have never seen so many flies in my life. If Alfred Hitchcock were still alive and interested in making some sort of sequel to that bird movie, Sudan would be the place to do it. They are disgusting, pesky, and everywhere you don’t want them to be—in your latrine for instance, or at the breakfast table, or in the car buzzing around your face. Two: Sudan brings an entirely new appreciation to the word “inaccessible”. I feel like I’ve seen enough of Africa in the past few years to have a pretty accurate understanding of how remote villages can be, how difficult it is to access water, health care, education. Well, let me just say a thing or two about Southern Sudan. It’s large—enormously large. We spent the majority of the week visiting health facilities and attending meetings in Duk County, which consistently suffers from frequent insecurity between tribes, flooding and poor roads, making it virtually inaccessible for roughly six months out of the year. We made these site visits just on the tail end of dry season, often travelling three hours in one direction to reach our destination. It was a lot of time in the car. Calling the roads “bad” would be comparable to making a statement like, “Americans like reality television.” It’s comically understated and doesn’t come close to grasping the reality of the situation. Goats, cattle, the occasional acacia tree and tukuls dot the landscape as far as the eye can see, on some of the flattest, driest, unforgiving land I have ever seen…land that will be flooded in another month, and will remain this way until October or November. I simply can’t comprehend how the Sudanese live the way they do.

I’m continuously amazed at how incredibly hopeful and wonderful the Sudanese are, after decades of conflict and a completely devastated infrastructure. They greet us at community meetings with soft drinks and smiles, using utterly charming English phrases like “Yes, this is well and good” or in response to a statement, “Ah, correctly” or “What say you?” I really, really like the Sudanese. The frustrations bubble to the surface when you realize how little we as humanitarian organizations are capable of doing, how overwhelming vast the needs are, how we are barely scratching the surface. I sat at meetings this week where people are “footing” 5 hours to reach a health clinic that has one community health worker and one traditional birth attendant. No midwife, no clinical officer, no lab technician. They are sharing a stethoscope, have no access to sanitation facilities, receive medications months late due to impassable roads and lack of transportation.

And yet we sit, meeting after meeting, day after day, listening to dedicated staff at each facility list their challenges and requests calmly and without criticism, making requests for things as basic as soap or buckets for deliveries, kerosene for the vaccination fridge, uniforms for the staff. It’s heartbreaking and defeating, yet we do the best that we can. The meetings always start late and last way too long. The available food typically makes us sick. The heat leads to restless nights. The bumpy car ride gives us pounding headaches. Yet we’re still here. We write more proposals. We try to fill gaps. We work longer days. Somehow, this peek into the other side of the human condition—the struggle, the commitment, the resilience and capacity to keep going—to strive for better, to remain hopeful, is what we need to push on.

Asante sana Axl Rose

As I continue to adjust to life in Juba, I recognize how the complexity of the human condition is alive and well in a setting like Sudan. I readily identify with my colleagues and the ups and downs they encounter and empathize with those who are overwhelmed, stressed or missing family. I realize how nonplussed I am when people are on the verge of tears or snapping out, seemingly over-reacting or completely shutting down. Gloom and stress and the demands of the job manifest differently in everyone, and it’s just something we grow to expect and understand in one another. The daily frustrations of living in an extremely under-developed and highly restrictive city can quickly wear on one’s mental health—this was no surprise. Some days we fare better than others; some days we struggle to make it through the day; some days we can’t imagine being anywhere else. Yet, what I discovered in the past few weeks is that while I easily recognize this in others, I haven’t turned inward to accept it in myself. Give myself some space. Be gentle. Instead of focusing on the easy, I’m fixating on the difficult. I’m wallowing in the scarcity instead of reveling in the abundance. This came into consciousness the other night when I was showering and Guns n’ Roses popped in my head, and has been on replay ever since. Said woman, take it slow. It’ll work itself out fine…all we need is just a little patience.

And just like that, things seem to have shifted. I spent some time with a classmate from grad school. I made some new friends. I spent a Sunday at the pool. I spent three days in the field visiting our health projects. And just as clearly as I saw all the hard, the challenging, the impossible, I see how remarkable Sudan is, and the people here, and their resilience and optimism and unbelievable kindness. I giggle at the names of counties like Yei (yay!), Wau (wow!) and Bor (yawn). I am touched by the tenderness of mothers with their infants at vaccination outreach, curious of the kawaja in the red muumuu and marvel at the simplicity and deprivation of village life. I am amazed at the dedication and commitment of our local partners—the decades of conflict they’ve survived, the positive attitudes and pride they feel for their nation. I love the intentionally bad teeth of the Dinkans, and their over-zealous hand-shaking. I have flashbacks of Peace Corps taking bucket baths under the full moon. And hopefully, just possibly, my life has settled in yet again to an existence I can manage and feel really happy about.

Like a Blister in the Sun

My “Fat Tuesday” this year consisted of me wolfing down four starches with a side of fried beef for lunch at the office, sweating through my shirt, and feeling like my eyeballs were burning out of my skull from proposal writing. Hard to imagine that last year on Mardi Gras day, I was waltzing down the streets of New Orleans decked head to toe in psychedelic blue peacock feathers, rounded out by a snazzy, silver sequined mini skirt that caught the sunlight while I shimmied. Drinking white wine out of a plastic egg drop soup container at 7am on the Zulu parade route, making my way across town to the French Quarter, you can’t help but become incredibly overtaken by the freakiness and beauty that is Mardi Gras season in the Big Easy-the subcultures and traditions in pockets of the city and neighborhoods all over town. It’s parading and costuming and fake eyelashing and boa seduction on the dance floor. It’s meeting the early light of morning as you emerge from the dinginess of Tipitinas after having your mind blown by your favorite brass band. It’s king cake and barbeques, street parties, afro wigs and bead-catching; cheering on of high school bands and connecting with strangers in the crowd. It’s marveling at the unbelievable creativity people possess. It’s turning the ordinary into the dazzling, astonishing, spontaneously wonderful extraordinary.

After living there, it’s torture being outside of New Orleans during Mardi Gras and not have it eating away at your brain. Even more agonizing is being two weeks into your early recovery and humanitarian aid post in Southern Sudan and not have Mardi Gras eating away at your brain. I was caught between worlds-craving the debauchery of New Orleans while also desperately trying to remain present and wrap my head around my new and equally bizarre environment. In a nutshell, I was homesick. And bordering on serious depression.

What can I say about Juba? Um, it’s hot. Damn hot. Remember as kids when we used to take magnifying glasses and burn insects in the sun? That’s what Juba feels like. Minus the restrictive movement-curfew and carpooling and group housing with a dozen male colleagues; dust that miraculously finds its way into everything, and feeling like I’m essentially living on the sun, things have actually been surprisingly great. The people here are incredibly kind and welcoming. They are also unbelievably tall and unbelievably dark. The staff are good-natured and exceptionally hard working. Our projects feel relevant and inspiring and the mood of optimism lingers as Southern Sudan transitions into independence. The cast of characters, both international and national, are sarcastic, quirky, full of sass, and totally committed to their work. We work long hours. Really long hours. We rely on one another for support and strength. We ease our stress through humor and alcohol and sleep. And so while the adjustment has been a bit strange, it also somehow feels ok. The initial weeks feel good. I feel inspired. Encouraged. So, as I crawl into bed at an early hour tonight, exhausted from sun and work, aching for the familiar and shaking off the Mardi Gras melancholies, I will close my eyes and dream of the rebirth of New Orleans, and awaken in the morning to the birth of a new African nation.

Abundance

My time in Nairobi has felt incredibly lonely after an emotionally draining few weeks. In a way, I guess it’s good that I’m here by myself. The solitary time has provided the canvas needed to mentally prepare for Juba, sleep off some of the sadness I’m feeling, stuff my gills with culinary delights that only Nairobi can offer, and get myself on track for the challenges ahead in Sudan.

My last weeks in Mwanza were brimming with goodness, in the way I guess most things do when you are about to leave a place-you make a checklist of all the things you’ve been taking for granted, become more present to the small joys you appreciate every day, and realize and recognize just how happy you really are and how wonderful the people surrounding your world can truly be. Parallel to this was the elusive departure date for Juba-trying to make time for myself to process through the transition but also spending time with the important people in my life; trying to let go of my attachments and start saying goodbyes; attempting to create some healthy mind space for my post in Sudan. It seemed the more I reveled in my Mwanza world, the less of a reality Juba felt. The ever-changing departure was mentally a bit difficult to manage. I felt jerked around. Overwhelmed. Stressed. Frustrated. I was treading water at work to finalize projects, only to find out that my start date had been delayed by another week or so. Per usual during looming times of transition, I felt like I was hanging from the proverbial mental thread.

This anxious state was easily remedied with a long weekend to Zanzibar for the annual music festival with some great friends. It was the perfect mix of ocean and sand; great company, good food, fantastic music. That island is just such an intoxicating place–you get off the plane and exhale and realize you’ve been holding your breath for months. The anxiety evaporates instantly. Your shoulders drop. It was a perfectly-timed weekend away of sunshine and afrobeats and great memories.

Otherwise, my goodbyes in Mwanza felt impossibly hard. One would think that by now, the constant uprooting would make leaving more manageable, more natural…that we grow accustomed to these goodbyes as part of the expat lifestyle, and we adjust and adapt and move on and we’re fine. But what I realized this past week was how the bizarre world that we function in as expats replaces a lot of the milestones we’d typically share if we had a more conventional life. Friendships fast-forward at an unbelievable pace, replacing first homes and weddings and first babies. These friendships shape our reality, form our temporary worlds. We form attachments to people that are probably more characteristic with adolescence. Our relationships shape our entire experience and serve as a mirror into who we are at that moment in our lives; they are a snapshot into our existence. They reflect the person we have grown to become.

People you’ve known for only a few short months suddenly fill the voids of family and friends back home; they understand you in a way most people can’t simply because they can relate in a unique and genuine and ever-so-real way. This connection, this security you feel. It’s the support that keeps you going, that keeps you sane. It’s relationships of unconditional acceptance, never-ending patience, tolerance, kindness and honesty. And when you are forced to cut the cord from these people in your life, move on to your next assignment, the enormity of the loss seems crushing; a part of yourself that you’ve grown so dependent on…a bond you never expected to feel…is ending. And that is what makes leaving so difficult. Walking away from these people that you’ve grown to love and need in your life-people that have exited your world just as quickly as they’ve entered it.

So, as I sit at a coffee shop, drinking my third delicious cappuccino of the day, I reflect on my time in Mwanza with incredible tenderness and love and know that I’m an unbelievably blessed person to have those people in my life. They showed me a world that was filled with beauty and kindness and love, and it’s those sentiments I will pack away with the rest of my luggage and carry with me as I embark on this next adventure, and know that no matter where I am on the globe, I am never alone.