Last Night in Africa

Hello All!

I know it's been forever since I've written but luckily for me, this is my last day of dead slow internet. I'm going home tomorrow!!! I know, I was supposed to stay in Africa until January, but due to an unexpected fiscal situation (I'm broke), my fam helped me change my ticket so I am actually leaving tomorrow. Honestly, I am so happy to be going home. The last six and a half months have been fantastic. I've learned, seen, and done a lot of things that I never expected and I will never forget the experience. However, I have without a doubt learned that, while I love to travel and still want to see the world, my heart and ambition lie in America, and I feel guilty every minute that I am working to change things abroad rather than at home. This is an excellent revelation for me to have, and at the appropriate time. Before I left I was torn between my dual goals, the same Teach For America vs. Peace Corps debate that I had in college. I didn't want to stay home and not see the world but I knew that while I was out seeing the world I would feel guilty about not working to better things here. This trip was designed to challenge that and help me decide once and for all what I wanted. And it worked. I love experiencing new things but I am not the Jane Goodall I thought I was. I'm an American girl and my future lies in my own country. Now I can go back and very happily find a job and a life at home.

Not that I'm giving up and making it too easy. I mean, I am moving to Detroit. And all by myself with no friends or connections or any idea of where my life is headed. My family will still be far away and I'll still have plenty of challenging work ahead of me. Besides, being domesticated will be a new adventure. I haven't lived in one place for a whole year since high school. In fact, I've had so many addresses in the last nine years that my Amazon.com account has over two pages just for shipping addresses alone! Moving to Detroit means I'll actually get an apartment and sign a lease! This is a novelty for me. The last time I signed a lease for a year a hurricane broke it for me. This will be the first time I have to get a new driver's license since I got a 45-year Arizona one when I was in college (I'm pretty sad about that actually. I love my license that expires in 2048). It will be the first time I actually buy a couch (my last apartment was strictly BYOS- Bring Your Own Seat). Plus it will be the first place I've ever lived without an expiration date (Ft. X until we get transferred, Seattle through high school, Massachusetts until graduation, Louisiana through the Corps years, Michigan until the bar exam...). My whole life has been about moving on. Pretty soon it will be about settling in. Sigh. There's something sad about a girl going from Wide Open Spaces to A Home. But I guess it happens to everyone. And besides, it's not over yet. The Dixie Chicks have yet to sing Bitter End for me!

Tomorrow I fly back to Seattle, to see the 'rents, meet my niece Bella, and get a job to make up for all of the money I've spent this year. I also have two very big papers to write that I haven't even thought about starting yet. And I'll be applying for a lot of jobs. Happy Christmas to me. I hope to get to AZ to see ma grand-mère but we'll see if that works out. Then, back to Ann Arbor (yaay!) for my very last semester of law school ever. Thank goodness. I don't know what classes I'm taking and I don't care. I'm just going to barrel my way through to the end. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it's not a train coming towards me.

So that's my life in a nutshell. Thrilling, I know. :-/ When I get back I'll add slide shows of the millions of pictures that I took and couldn't load while I was here. I'll also try to put up that post about Robben Island. I wish I had some profound closing thoughts about South Africa but really I'm just very, very worried about where they're going. And so are they, but not enough to change anything. If I have learned anything from Cambodia and SA it's that the world is not as stable as it should be on the verge of 2010. Nations that look precarious are and nations that look stable and modern are often anything but. Everything teeters on the edge of disaster. And it's always the same people who pay.

Happy thoughts to end the post.

Ciao,
k