Sharing a room with 7 girls is hard. Seeing so many people after 5 minutes of being awake is stressful. Back home, I like to be able to walk around the house before anyone is up. Here, I’m awake at the same time as everyone else and we’re expected to be ready for breakfast. I eat breakfast in my pajamas because I have enough time to get dressed after devo time. Other teams who leave at 7:30 have to be ready to go. I am a morning person, but I would rather not talk to someone immediately when I hop out of bed. I like to be up early if I’m not exhausted, but that is basically a given here. We have devos right after breakfast. Sometimes it’s difficult because I may still be slightly asleep, but otherwise it’s good. Using outdoor bathrooms isn’t terrible, but it’s annoying to walk down stairs when you’ve just woken up. My room has to use the outdoor bathrooms because the indoor ones are the boys’. Even the leaders have to use the outside bathrooms. Now when I say outdoor bathrooms, I mean we have 3 stalls to choose from of both toilet and shower. There’s also 2 sinks. Anyway, we have to walk out the back door, walk downstairs, and then we have the bathrooms.
We all have chores to do, which is nothing new. Doing it with people always walking around you is. This week, my team had breakfast cleanup. This is hand washing all of the breakfast dishes and whatever was used to make it, wiping down the tables, cleaning off the counter tops, and a couple other things. We form an assembly line for washing and drying the dishes, but sometimes people didn’t wash their dishes from the previous night, so that’s left for us. Leadership has told us to do our own dishes if it’s outside of the meal times, but sometimes they still forget. Honestly, if I’m doing dishes by myself, I feel like I’m at home. During the summer, one of the things expected was to empty the dishwasher (if needed) and load it. Doing dishes here while listening to music makes me feel comfortable. It is honestly one of the only “alone time”s I get here.
Being with so many people at once day after day gets very draining. My introverted self would love to disappear, but that’s impossible. As I’m typing this now, there are only 3 other people in the house this morning. This never happens. However, in the evenings, everyone is here, so you literally can’t get away unless you go to the bathroom. I can’t barricade myself in my bed because I have a top bunk so I see everything. If I had a bottom bunk, I could put up a towel to at least visually block out the outside world.
Learning to live in community living has been difficult no doubt. There are some advantages, but it’s hard to see them sometimes. One of them is how much our squad does together. We throw together poetry nights, dance parties, church services, and a lot more. These said events are enjoyable, but when nothing is planned, it is still hard to get away from people. We have freedom to do whatever. That could be running to the store 3 minutes away only for 1 person to get something. We have to go in groups of 4 after 6pm, so that can be annoying at times. I like to get away from people outside of the house after dark, but it has to be with a group, not just one other person. I know it’s for safety reasons, but sometimes I just want to walk down the street by myself.
I know all of this probably sounds like I’m not enjoying life here, but I really am. It can get frustrating, but I’m learning to accept it. I’m reminding myself that when we get to South Africa, our squad will split up into our teams at our ministries and we won’t be together in one central location. That’ll be nicer because we won’t have so many people to encounter day-in and day-out. The point is all of this newness is still challenging. However, that’s how you know you’re growing. This is just a glimpse into what my life has looked like for the past two months. It’s been rewarding and difficult. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.
I am grateful for the time that I’ve spent here. I’ve learned to manage my problems using my own discretion and knowledge as well as learn to rely on the Father much more. I am blessed to have all of these people around me. They would literally drop what they’re doing just to check up on me. Listening to music from Lillian or Trevor on their guitars always adds a sense of peace to the house. Watching movies with friends on Saturday nights has been a blast. It’s been a great two months. Here’s to seven more!
Thanks for reading! God bless!
