The Rural Homestay: Days 1 and 2, Synthesized

3/9/10 (Day 2)
22:41, Rural homestay time

“You say you want a revolution, well you know – we all wanna change the world...”
-The Beatles

I can’t tell what’s safe and what’s unsafe here. We’re supposed to feel a little out of our comfort zones and yet not feel threatened. Well...how does one tell the difference? I mean...I’m afraid to go to sleep because it’s a home that’s so incredibly and deeply different from mine (both in Windhoek and NYC): Is that uncomfortable or threatened? I never feel like any of my stuff is safe, but only because for the past month or so it’s been under lock and key and that’s not true here: is that uncomfortable or threatening? I don’t know how to make myself clear and I never know what’s going on: Uncomfy or threatening?

Because I can see both sides for all questions...and yet I’m laying here totally exhausted by thinking and trekking and talking and LISTENING and learning and loving and laughing and teaching (we did English today!) and on top of it all I haven’t been home for longer than a month in about oh, just about half a year. Now, that’s not 1 year or 5 years or 10 years...but ‘member that time when the longest I’d been truly away from them was like a month and a half? ‘Member how that time was RIGHT before I left for PRAGUE in the Fall?!

I’m in such an awful mood because of this too. I’m snapping at everyone like a snapping turtle. It could be cuz everyone else is like, “I wanna stay here forever” or it’s that time in the trip (month) when people start grating on you. Anyway, hoping tomorrow will be better.

"Did somebody sit her down and say Claudia, get ready, to leave behind everything you know? Everything I know. What do I know?" - In The Heights