I was sitting in the back of
Corine’s car looking out the window at a hazy, yet breathtaking Swaziland
landscape, allowing my mind to wander to whatever it wanted to for the next 40
minutes. As mountains and “pride rock-esqu” rocks raced by, my mind replayed
several past experiences in my life…random weeknights in college at home with
my roommates just watching T.V. and talking about nothing or, pulling
all-nighters with them so I could get a paper handed in right on time, the
summer before I left for the race, coffee dates, good-bye parties, regular
parties, sleepovers, movies dates, pretty much everything until my mind flashed
forward to the present moment. Here I was, in Swaziland, on my way to a
preschool filled with 40 some children waiting to play with me and two cooks
who couldn’t wait to teach me a thing or two about the way “real Swazi ladies
cook.” This is my life…for now.
I’ve had lots of moments like this
on the race in which I turn to a teammate and ask the question that poor little
drugged up boy coming home from the dentist asks, “Is this real life?” And then
get confirmation that yes, yes this is our life. But today was different.
Instead of looking at the herd of oxen and cattle crossing the street followed
by a Swazi man dressed in all green herding them off the road and laughing at
the fact that I’ve gotten so used to it already. I found myself wondering what
I am even doing anymore? Well, I was on my way to a preschool. “Yea but do you
realize you’ve been in Africa for almost three whole months now and all you can
think about is home?” I felt my mind rebuttal. So, I turned my thoughts away
from home and back to the past couple months in Africa…which was a mistake.
It hit me all at once. I’ve waited
over a year to be here. I’ve heard the horror stories of orphaned kids who have
nowhere to go, the statistic that one out of every three people in Swaziland
have AIDS and therefore, if nothing changes, the population will end up dying
out in 50 some years, among other startling statistics when looking at them at
face value. And I wanted to change it. I guess I had some kind of elaborate
dream of rescuing a child from his or her abusive parents or healing someone of
AIDS or something ridiculous like that and actually quite impossible. And here
I was, appearing to do nothing.
What was I doing? Did the past
three months of my life make any difference whatsoever? Did I give up my
friends, family, internship, life and even my appearance to simply “see what
Africa was all about?” If I’m going to be completely honest, South Africa was
like a dream vacation. Mozambique was great but at the end, I feel like more
pain was caused than love because of the strong bond we had formed with the
boys and then cut off in one day. Now, in Swaziland, I’ve realized I can’t DO
anything! I am not going to be able to adopt anyone from here even if I want to
because it’s closed off to Americans (not that I would even know how to go
about that) And I can’t just rip a child from his or her home after
understanding more about Swazi culture because I know, in the end, it would do
way more harm than good. And I STILL can’t do ANYTHING about the AIDS.
I think I know the answer to why I
am in Swaziland so I guess my question is what am I even doing anymore?
