We are leaving for
Thailand in a week, and I thought it would be appropriate to recap the things that have become normal to us after three months in
Africa that would otherwise be very different and probably raise our eyebrows. We have coined the phrase, “T.I.A”…”This is
Africa”. Here goes.
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When you see an American guy struggling to carry a heavy bucket of water, and then a little African girl walks up to him and takes the water bucket, puts it on her head, and walks on as if nothing has happened.
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When your mode of transportation has become the bed of a truck, and it doesn’t even bother you to hit your head on the black poles that hang precariously low overhead, while driving down unpaved dirt roads.
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When you can’t remember the natural color of your feet.
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When you ask people to send you toilet paper in your care packages, and get overly excited when you also receive duct tape and ziplock bags.
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When it appears from a distance that your nails are painted black, when really it’s just the dirt from three different countries that you’ve been toting around under your nails.
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When you can’t drive down the road at all without tons of kids waving to you, running after the car or truck, and dancing in the streets at the sign of white people.
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When you contemplate getting a “Welcome Home” sign for the foot of your tent.
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When you have started to name the stars in the Milky Way that you have never been able to see before.
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When you hear someone yell in excitement, “There they are!” and you poke your head out of your tent to find the zebras are grazing in the backyard again.
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When your hands smell like lion after a brief but amazing petting time.
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When you find yourself whistling as you give yourself a bucket bath right in the middle of the bush, and you think to yourself that the breeze is actually nice!
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When your thigh muscles get a work out because you have learned to squat over the hole in the ground as you go to the bathroom. You also learn not to look down!
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When your head lamp becomes something you can’t remember living without.
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When you get excited to have bread for dinner…just bread!
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When campfire smoke is your new perfume.
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When you see people selling the most random things at intersections and stop signs, such as hangers and big poster-size diagrams of the human heart!
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When you check back with people you have prayed over and find out that they continue to be set free and healed to an even greater degree. The lame walking is something to be expected.
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When you set up a huge projector on the side of the road in between three bars at night and hundreds of people show up to watch the movie “The Passion of the Christ” with such intensity that you can hear a pin drop.
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When you see a goat tied to the roof of a bus and you don’t even blink.
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When you are in a wooden boat in the middle of the
Indian Ocean and the motor breaks, so you just drift aimlessly with no worries until you hit land…any land.
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When you watch a woman walk down the street with an entire hay bale on her head…and she’s not even holding on to it with her hands!
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When you see 5 year old kids carrying their brothers and sisters on their backs, who are no older than 2. Their parents are nowhere to be found.
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When you walk on to a homestead in the bush and you can sense the spiritual atmosphere change as you pray over the family. The darkness is almost tangible in parts.
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When you take a 12-hour bus ride that leaves at 3 am, and is so packed that at one point in the trip you will inevitably have a stranger sitting on your lap or straddling your leg, and/or you will have to climb over seats and passengers to get on or off.
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When you eat things you can’t pronounce or identify and ask for seconds.
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When you can stare directly into the sun as it sets.
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When you are in a country that still functions as a kingdom, with its own king.
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When you flip through a little coloring book and find witchcraft pictures that need to be ripped out before they can be distributed to the orphans.
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When you play with kids who have strange strings around their bellies, which turn out to be healing cords given to them by the local witch doctor.
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When roosters roam around outside your tent and you envision yourself killing them at least three times a day without remorse!
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When your malaria pills have made your skin crazy sensitive to the sun and now one day out equals a week at the beach back home.
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When climbing in a pen with once-wild water buffalo and almost being stampeded is the thing to do on a Saturday night.
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When you can look back over the last three months and sigh, knowing so much in you has changed forever.
We have one more week left in this amazing continent, and I have nothing but appreciation in my heart for our time spent here. So much has been different than what I expected, and so much has surpassed my expectations completely. I know one thing…to live in Africa is to be a student of a whole new way of life. I have enjoyed every minute of it.
