Words of Wisdom...

That I chew up and spit out in an attempt to digest them?


"Open your doors and windows....And your heart….Allow whatever you can to come in..."

His words have more meaning than just in reference to the bugs, lizards, creatures, mice and men that have shown up on my door step, in my bathroom, in my sheets.

"And give yourself credit for all that you allow in, and compassion for that which you are not yet ready to allow in, and the grace to allow it in tomorrow.”




“Savor each day, each moment. Strive for contentment, even if it lasts for just one second.”

The words she wrote, comforting me as yet another heartbreak commenced.


“Growth and change are seldom easy or pretty. Of course it’s messy. What did you expect? It’ll all only make sense once it’s over.”

From the mouth of someone who can only know because she’s living it herself, in a parallel life, in a village in a small African country called Botswana.

I sink into these words often, and have tried to do so even more lately.
I fight against and overlook these words.
I remember them and smile.
I write over them in the notebook of my mind.
I try to live by them.
I ignore them and reject them.
I comprehend them.
I struggle. I resist. I forget. On purpose?
Of late I haven’t been having my proudest of moments.

Recently I’ve “readjusted” to the shock of lights and electricity and pavement and white faces, people who literally speak my language. I’ve embraced the beauty of an easy camaraderie not fraught with constant explanations and cultural misinterpretations. I’ve enjoyed myself immensely, and had a fun and memorable time. Reality resumes, and bites, and I’ve pouted my way through the inevitable loss and disappointment of having it all taken away from me again. I struggle and curse and tantrum against the reality I thought I’d come to terms with.

Since being back in Seronga after being away "in civilization" so long, I find myself struggling to relax back into the life I’ve created here. Some of the smaller children have forgotten my name, and its back to "Lekgowa". It's much hotter than when I left and I find myself besieged by the heat. The dust swirls around me, choking me, suffocating me, coating my constantly sweaty body in a thin layer of grime. My house, the place that I had begun to think of as a sanctuary is hotter than the air outside and brings no relief- it has become my kiln. The constant English is pretty gone again, as is the cheese, and the shops, and treated, clear drinkable tap water, and reliable electricity. I often find myself resenting volunteers in other placements, their reality made much clearer to me both through their recent descriptions and my witnessing of it. I feel that nasty sense of entitlement creeping up on me, "Why can't I just have electricity to run a fricken fan? Why isn’t the water running, or clean? Why doesn’t the mail come reliably, or the internet work ever? Why couldn't the district replace the fridge that clearly wasn't working when Kagiso left so that I could have a consistently working fridge, rather than one that is consistently inconsistent,?” This leaves me with one more thing to question whether it will be working when I get home from a day of increasing sweat and frustration. All the questions whose answers I thought I had come to terms with swirl around me in a taunting haze of heat and blowing sand.

I am disgusted with myself and the mentality I am operating under. I struggle to recall their words, to embrace their meaning.

I had spent much of my time in “civilization” at training feeling inadequate, stuck between feeling like I had done nothing and furthermore had no hope of doing anything in this place I’ve come to call “the place God (or at least the government of Botswana) forgot.” I scoffed at the suggestions of well meaning friends, colleagues and experts, silently railing on them and raging against their attempts to help or give perspective. I began to feel an entitled sense of superiority, an earned helplessness. “I live at the toughest site, no one understands me, these people from Gabs have never spent any amount of time in a place like Seronga, and all their grandiose ideas are stupid and inapplicable. They shouldn’t expect anything of me because there’s nothing to be done. All I can do is to continue to struggle to get by. All the work I have to do collecting and purifying my water, and scheming to get groceries, washing my clothes, finding transport to do my banking, tracking down my mail, or trying to get to the internet for an inadequate amount of time to do anything is all I have time for.”

It slowly dawned on me that the hopelessness and the helplessness I witness and have come to consider unfortunate trademarks of the village had transposed themselves onto me; they had enveloped me without me necessarily noticing. All the empowerment and inspiration I was always yammering about the village lacking was also completely absent in me. My motivation for the things I was supposed to or could be trying to do at site was lacking terribly. I was acting like a spoiled child. The “can-do” had become the “can’t,” or worse, the “don’t wanna even try.”

These pleasant realizations were followed by their comrades guilt and doubt. As with everything here, or maybe it’s in my life, once I notice one chink in the armor of my self concept I question everything I thought I've ever known as fact. Am I just lazy, am I running around trying to empower people so that I don't have to empower myself? Do I truly believe that I am capable of the things I am trying to convince them they are capable of? Which of these harebrained schemes or ideas will I follow through to make a reality, if any? Where is all of this going? And the ever popular “What am I doing here?”

The question and emotions that consume me, which I label in my heart as ugly, yet are likely a necessary part of the changes I’m undergoing, are strong. I fight them. They grow. I resent them. I feel weighed down and heavy, stuck in the mud and muck of my own self pity and helplessness. The one who thought she had all the answers is apparently at a loss for words. So I try to fall back on theirs. I recite them in my unwilling mind like a mantra or a prayer. I pace and scream and rock back and forth in a ball. I cry until I exhaust myself. I lay on my bed, finally drained of my rage and my anger and my guilt and doubt and hopelessness and helplessness, anything that could vaguely resemble an emotion or an unanswerable question, or that could be carried as a weight in my body. My former arrogance is abated. My confusion remains, although subdued. I’ve reached such a state of complete ambivalence that anything is possible.

I squeeze my eyes shut to stem the flow of tears. I feel a breeze touch my face and turn my head and open my eyes. And I gaze up from my misery to glimpse the prayer flags. A set is strung above my door, and one in front of my window. They flap gently, silently in the wind enters through these gates thrown open wide. I realized this action had been performed by the very person I was now despising and pitying, myself. In my frustration I had unwittingly done it. I had reopened my doors and windows up in an attempt to do something, to begin again. To regain my motivation, my vision, my drive. To forgive and accept and appreciate. To start over and move forward.

To live their words, to accept them in my heart, to use them in my actions.

I look to find a reason to believe.