So it's midnight on a Saturday night. And I'm not tired yet. I just read my journal from Kenya because I was trying to remember a word in Swahili. Got it. Lots and lots of good memories. And lots and lots of hard memories. It still amazes me that I was there for only two months. The things I saw... I feel like I was there for years. At one point I wrote, "No-one will understand". You can't understand what happens in Africa until you are willing to see it for yourself, really see it.
Today I went to two villages to teach English with some friends. In the first village, we taught 6 kids in a church. I asked around (it is amazing to finally be able to ask just about anything to just about anyone in Indonesian) and found out that there ARE Christians in that village. Usually the small villages are 100% Muslim. That particular church has 11 people in its congregation and the pastor comes from the city every Sunday morning. In the second village, we taught about 30 kids in the front room of the village leader's home. I never saw a church there, and when I asked, I found out that there are only 2 Christians in that entire village - an old man and his wife.
Sometimes I have this crazy thought that I just want to walk away from the life I have now and move into a village. Leave all my American-ness and my American things and my Westernized house here in the city and go live like a villager. No laptop, no Blackberry, no shower and no toilet, no fridge and no stove. I would have wooden walls chewed up by termites and dirt floors. I might have $70 a month if I get a full time job. I'd sleep on a thin pad on the floor. No tampons. No mousse for my curly hair. I'd bathe in my underwear at the village well in buckets of freezing cold water. I would only eat meat on special occasions. I'd cook on a propane burner if I ever cooked at all. And of course, I'd have to learn Javanese if I want to have any chance of surviving out there.
I was thinking about that again today while we were teaching. White people go out into some of those villages and teach English and do what they can. But let's face it - rich white people coming in their expensive cars for 45 minutes every week or two doesn't reach people or change hearts.
Sometimes I get excited when I think about doing that. Then I think about the future. And kids. And I want mine to be able to Skype with their grandparents in America. So I'll need my laptop and wireless internet. And I want them to have a good education, so I'm going to need to cough up $4000 a year or so for them to go to an international school. And I want them to have Fred Flintstone vitamins and toothbrushes. And I want them to have a balanced diet and table manners and to know how to use silverware. I want them to be able to go to college in America if they want to. I already feel stressed when I think about how on earth I'm going to pay for that, just ask Aswan - he knows. I don't want to deprive them of what they could have because of a choice that they had no say in.
Maybe village life is for me. But I don't want it for my kids. So now I feel conflicted. At 12:18 AM. This is probably a sign that I should go to bed, right? Right. Goodnight 24% of full waxing crescent moon.
No comments:
Post a Comment