correspondence

My appologies for missing our phone date, life was a bit too crazy but that's a poor excuse.
My heart really went out to you as I read your email. Coming back is hard, I'm going through it right now. What holds me together is something my Academic Director told us: take the same cultural understanding and openmindedness you had while in Kenya/Ghana and apply it to your home culture. It's helped me immensely. The materialism, hedonism, superficiality, are hard to deal with but I have to understand that these are parts of my culture and are coping mechanisms to wider social/cultural/economic issues. They are not random but have a history and it's helped I know that history. Does this make sense? I struggled with my gut attraction to materialism. New things, bright things, bigger things, things things things. I felt so guilty for wanting when I'd just come from a place where people had so little. How could I want that shirt? I have enough shirts. It was even worse with books. Books were so hard to find and so expensive in Kenya, most people couldn't afford them. Yet here I was in a store, one of many on the same street, being able to get anything I wanted. All this knowledge, which is of course a form of empowerment, being denied those who could use it most. Libraries! A place to find books for nearly FREE. It just killed me inside.

I too felt a new type of happiness and contentment while in Kenya. Shedding myself of my materialism (to the best of my ability), being reduced to the bare resources/necessities, connecting on such a human level with perfect strangers was a powerful experience. It's confusing finding yourself caring about things you may not have 2 months ago. But don't be too hard on yourself. We are socialized and programed to think a certain way, it's hard to break out of that pattern. What is important is to understand how that pattern effects us and what we can do to change it. I'm also forgeting many of the resolutions and promises I made in Kenya and hurts to see this is happening. But I feel it's a psychological way of coping with a changing environment. People tend to want to fit in wherever they are, adapting as best they can to the new culture; perhaps even comprimising some of their previous ideals just to feel connected. Still spending emotional energy on him is human, so is the temptation of drugs. In emotionally fraught situations reverting to old habits, regardless of how detrimental they may be, is reassuring if only for the familiarity. Why do I want to smoke cigarettes? Because it reminds me of the life I had before and because it's addictive. Why drink? It makes me feel connected to people, sharing their experience, when I'm having a hard time connecting to those I was closest to. Yet everything feels so surreal. Being at a party, drinking, watching young men and women flirt with each other, watching the games they play - all so unreal, so different. I find it difficult not screaming at them about the pain I witnessed, about the suffering they are ignoring, about how they don't understand. Why are they damaging their bodies for pleasure? Shouldn't they be thankful for everything they have? Every breath they take is blessed because they are able to breathe without worrying. Such rantings would be hypocritical, for I destroy my body and will eventually play the games they play. The only hope I can have for myself and for you is to somehow find a balance between my life here and my life in Kenya. One is not better than the other, only different. So I admired the way elderly were treated in Kenya? Should I just complain about how we ignore or grandmothers and grandfathers, sending them to homes to die alone? No. I refuse to give up. Instead why don't I work at a hospice or a nursing home giving the love, attention and breath of youth many elderly crave. There is power in the small things we can do to change our lives and the lives around us.