Thursday, February 08, 2007

Talk some sense into me, please!


English class
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.
I've had crazy thoughts of extending my service lately. Last year I would've sold a family member for a trip to the US, to get to a sushi restaurant, a grocery store, a school with pencils. I came to realize that you trade one set of annnoyances (scraping windshields, junk mail) and joys (New England hikes, pubs) for another....I'm not sure I really want another year of walking down the street to screams of "toubab" and popping out of the crowd like a headlamp on a dark village night. I could live without neighbors believing that I'm a doctor who can miraculously cure a clawed hand or dissolve a goiter with the touch of my finger. The thought of another year of poking peanut sauce and rice into my mouth almost makes me angry. On the other hand I have this sense, just as time winds down here, that I may be just getting started here, that there's so much more to do. I love the little successes here, Ebi's reading coming along, Sibo writing her name. I'm finding out how great it can be to be here in this chaos and still feel like myself. Staying: a powerful, distracting, and altogether illogical thought, so someone please talk me out of it.