T.I.A. (This is Africa)

It’s been 5 months since I returned from Africa. I still dream of going back to Europe, but some of my London obsession has now been replaced with frequent urges to return to Tanzania. I miss the kids I worked with in the orphanage. I miss Sara- I hate to admit it, but every volunteer had a favorite orphan and she was mine.

*Sara*

I find myself skimming over my pictures and wishing I could be back there in the dust and heat, in the tarp lined walls of the hut that served as an orphanage with those kids.

*My kids- Glorious Orphanage- Arusha, Tanzania*

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed with the University of Washington Medical School (...rejected) and was asked about my experience in Tanzania. Since returning I haven’t spoken much about my time in Africa, so I was somewhat surprised by what I related.

I don’t think that you can come back from Africa without a sense of gratitude for the country we live in and the luxuries that we as Americans are afforded. The children I worked with wore the same single set of dirty clothes each day- a mod podge array of mismatched hand-me-downs clearly sent from developed nations like the U.S. They played in the mud and learned their lessons on a curved and weather-warped chalkboard, but I have never seen happier kids. Lunch at the orphanage was cooked in an old pot suspended on two cinder blocks over a fire. It usually consisted of rice and beans or ugali ( a flour-based porridge, thick like dough and not remotely appetizing). When it was time to eat, the children crowded around two big serving bowls and ate their lunch with their hands, each child reaching into the same bowl as the next.

It was this that I related at my interview- the things we take for granted. Clean clothes, paved roads and sidewalks, actual schoolrooms, a functioning chalkboard, running water, and even a fork are luxuries.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot… It's easy to take the small things for granted when so much is given. I miss it, Africa, the kids, but I'm glad I have those memories to help maintain perspective. Think about it.