This is the last of my blog.. besides the next and final entry... which I will write as I travel home. My contract has been terminated by the partner due to many illogical reasons.. and thus the university wants me to come home immediately. I will find out in about 3 hours why this is... and whether i can convince them to at least let me stay and take my later flight... which I'm sure they won't.
Whatever the reasons for this I have learned that sometimes people just hate you.. and there's nothing you can do. Sometimes you just don't have control over the situation. life throws you lemons, make lemonade. So i'm leaving Botswana... not really any detriment to me, besides emotional... and I now have so many friends here that if i wanted to return really I could... and maybe I will. But first I've realized that without God I am just floating... no I'm drowning. I need to float along with him in his spirit and find out who I really am, where I'm going and what he has in store for me.
i think that saying 'the world is my oyster' applies to me. there are so many things that i kind of would like to do.. nothing i desperately want to do. i think i may have rushed through life.. thinking i would die early and now i'm at that point where i just want to be enjoying the environment..animals and family.
i'm coming home. home to my Father in heaven. if home is where the heart is that is where my heart and my home should be. my roots should be in him.
why does this seem so simple for so many people? i keep waiting for what God is preparing me for.. he must be preparing me for something right? or am i just so hardheaded that i don't learn the simple things he's trying to teach me... that is much more likely i would think. lol.
i have taken many good things out of this trip. I've realized that i want to know God in the way i used to, to follow His heart, because my plans fall apart... and that i want love, i want to give love to someone who wants it.. i think that although it causes grief and pain it's the most beautiful things. i know that nature is what i love to be surrounded by.. i had convinced myself i could love the city.. but it's all a facade. i don't... it's just exciting and distracting. here i'm able to think... to begin to dream again.. i even wanted to paint!
i learned again that God is always faithful. and... i learned that i do need to grow up. i'm running from something.. myself maybe? i don't know.. but i do know that i'm not thinking logically... and i need to focus and follow after something.
so i'm coming home.
Nov 15th
I’m avoiding life right now... then colliding with it. Today I let life take me where it wanted but I was still productive, especially considering that I didn’t sleep last night. Yet again my brain thinks too much.. about nothing ... and solves nothing. I ended up doing my washing since we had water yea! and then got my tire fixed again since it was flat... had a nice conversation with Raja and found out his number so that I can get Indian food...or pizza! lol and then headed to Samochima. My car just kind of took me there ...
. it’s funny. it’s funny that I can have an eloquant soliloquy in my mind and when i go to put it to pen and paper it turns to gibberish. or an irate rant demanding respect and attention but if i try to type it the wind just blows it out of my mind...gone.
Just now I got my laptop out to write out ...something.. a rant, explanation.... something.. i can’t even remember about what.. and that was about 5 min ago. Now all that’s in my mind is an Ingrid Michaelson song playing a few lines over and over again... and the emotion of exhaustion... and how I wish I had a really good friend to talk to right now. i feel like sigur ros would be a really good friend to talk to.
I hate CIDA right now. As my facebook status so plainly put. Yes I do. Personally, all emotion removed (if such an act is possible), I feel that this ‘new’ policy they have infringes on my basic constitutional rights... doesn’t it? Did I ever sign in my contract that I would agree to returning whenever they’d like, even if I chose NOT to take their free flight? Can they actually force you to take the flight they paid for ??? That seems a little ethically wrong.... maybe I should do my thesis on that! The ethics of development - are organizations dictators? What are the ethical principals underlying what we call a development organization???? Should these entities even be calling the shots? Are they any better than NIKE or WalMart ? What makes them better than corporate organizations... don’t they too have a bottom line??? (ie. case in point we leave a woman on the side of the road...”it’s not in our mandate”) Helping people doesn’t have rules!!!! It’s messy.. .and love is unpredictable~
Love is the only thing that can drive out fear. and perfect love at that... God’s love. Unless we’re filled with that unpredictable Holy Spirit craziness we’ll never be able to achieve ‘development’. All we’ll accomplish is floundering around, rearranging and controlling people into the method we think is best at the time... oppressing some for now, others later.. as someone is always oppressed... who is it today?
i guess i have noting much else to say. i finally heard from the university... my research advisor and the coop supervisor in the span of one hour...! Wow .. parents seriously know how to light some people’s pants on fire. anyways one conversation was fairly encouraging, even a little hopeful and inspiring. the other yet another lecture... which really i don’t respond to at all... in fact i think it’s a little like spraying me with doom....i shrivel. So that was that. Watched some nice lightning. ...actually i went to the bar but it was closed... at 9:30 lol... sad right. guess no one was there.. that should be a good thing.. but it’s not it just means everyone who’s poor.. and has reason to drink is down at the shabeen.. drinking disgusting homemade beer. ew. so i sat on the chairs for a while and watched the lightning for a bit...
. listening to classical music makes me think of Calla .. :( i miss you!!! maybe i will take up cello..no violin when i get back to canada... if i don’t die of gloom beforehand.
this is what i think of when i let myself believe I’ll be home in january. ... “great. i have to have a birthday at home. i have no money. no clothes. sigh i don’t want to go shopping. THE MALL. shudder. *tear. the mall...... cars. lights. people. screaming. order. lines. cars. money. lights.blinking lights. open signs. music. house. houses. houses. houses.....will you read these as good? or bad? reading in my room... until 4 am. not sleeping. food banks. walking to the grocery stores. cold cold cold. snow. wind. cold. no friends. alone. basement dungeon. stress. plans. goals. ambition. get a job. pay rent. build debt. buy things. buy more things. have no friends. stretch my mind. turn off my mind. watch tv. watch more tv. movies.slush. READJUSTMENT. no one understands. leaving. leaving it all behind again. nothing gained. WHY am i so pessimistic ! why is it so easy to see all the bad things and have to dig for the good.??
but maybe these aren’t things just in canada.. maybe it’s just life and here i happen to be able to escape them. i have a job where things are taken care of.. i live close to the store.. so maybe it all just seems bad because i’m going to have to readjust again. erg. i don’t know if i’d rather not go back.. or go back to leave again.. or go back and stay for at least two years.. in one place.. can i even do that? Man i need a psychologist. or some better alcohol.
tomorrow i’ll be positive. no i’ll try to be.
November 17th
It’s raining lightly and I’m sitting by the river at Drotsky’s working on my research proposal and permission letters. It feels kind of like home. I’m warm in a sweater of Ali’s and sipping my tea. I don’t think I could be any happier right now really. Yet it’s laced with the bittersweet understanding that this is almost gone. Ten days till the guys and Ali leave. Then we’re off for Christmas, down to S.A. and then off to Canada. I don’t know if I love it here. I don’t think I do. It’s not like Haiti.... but at the same time I’m content. I can take care of myself here.. I’m managing and I don’t feel like I’m struggling to keep my head above water. I don’t know if it’s the birth control I’m on or if I really am this emotional right now but lately every so often I just cry. A little tear.. some just standing in my eyes...I was on the phone the other day with Monica (the new co-op supervisor) and she said everything will be fine... well that just set me off, I couldn’t speak lest I cry.
Strange days.
Nov 18th
I saw the most morbid and beautiful thing in the shower today. There was a spider that kind of looked like a daddy long legs, but nicer and it was spining some poor bug between it’s delicate little legs to cocoon it .. i’m guess for food later. It was so cool! I’ve never actually seen that with my own eyes. There’s so much life happening here right in front of you, I wonder if it’s like that at home but we just don’t notice or appreciate it. I was baking today and I guess I touched the fridge without washing my hands, well i went to sweep a bit later and glanced at the fridge when i walked past it and it was covered with flying ants ! What ? Where did they come from ? I guess a little rain makes everything come alive. :)
November 25th
Well Movember is nearly passed.. as is my stay at TOCaDI. My contract was terminated early by the coordinator and I have until Nov 30th to move. At first this was quite a shock but I think I very quickly realized what a blessing this is. I am very likely able to stay and finish my WUSC contract and my research which hopefully means I won’t have to cancel my S.A vacation :) I must say though that I will miss this house, the fact that I can sit out my front door and watch birds try to peck at their reflection in the side mirrors of my car... or maybe fly through it... lol. But I think that’s Botswana .. well the Delta for the most part so I’m sure wherever I go now it’ll be the same. This really is a wild place, I wish I could go in to the Delta and experience all those stories I keep hearing. Hide from elephants and dodge wildebeest, swim with crocs and see the most amazing sunsets.
We celebrated American thanksgiving yesterday, my first, and it was great! I love that you can travel across the world and eat a meal with a bunch of people you’ve known for a few months and they’re like family, that is a beautiful thing.
My research has taken quite the shift, from TB incentives to looking into San resettlement issues. We’ll see lol... but I KNOW that I am not a researcher... investigative journalist maybe.. documentary photographer likely....not researcher. You know I think that you should never doubt what you know about yourself. Why on earth do I trust other people about myself more than me !? I am me lol.
Today I will hear from the University, from Roger, the VP of student affairs... which is a little worrying to say the least.... Uniterra and WUSC have seemed so supportive about me staying I hope that my bubble of hope isn’t popped. Today I will enjoy today to the fullest, thankfully it’s a beautiful blue sky day, which is lovely after all of the rain we’ve been having. I will visit Drotsky’s talk with friends and celebrate a wonderful day and adventure into Bots.. then we’ll see what happens. Either way things will work out.
p.s. i think Alistair is right and i should stick to photos... ;)
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