I have been back in New Zealand for four weeks and away from Africa for seven. Being home is strange. Everything looks familiar and feels familiar, but it also feels strange at the same time. It was odd to think that I had been away for so long and yet virtually nothing had changed. Sure there were little things - the road that I have driven most days for years had a change in layout and was almost unrecognisable in parts, and my little brother had grown to be almost as tall as me. But really? Not much was different.
It's still strange to be honest. My family is the same. Church is the same. My house is the same. I have the same bed and my closet is filled with clothes that are familiar but that I haven't seen for months. Now that I have started work again, that too is the same. I wear the same uniform as I did before, I drive the same roads, I have the same colleagues, I do the exact same work. Sometimes it feels as if the last nine months of my life were just deleted, they didn't exist or I imagined them somehow.
Nothing has changed. Everything has changed.
While I was in Africa, my world here went on without me. I don't know what I expected it to be like when I got home, but it wasn't like this. I am different now. I might be looking at the world with the same eyes as I was before, touching it with the same hands, but it feels different, and as kind as people are, nobody really understands that.
And all the time I am thinking about Africa. About Tanzania. About the babies. About Angel and Angelous. I miss Africa with every part of my being and there's not a time in the day that I don't wish that I was there. I think about them all the time. I wonder how much Maxine weighs now, if Riziki can walk yet, if Ibrahim is still a biter, if anybody calls Gian "Baby Gi" anymore.
Everything I see and do and hear is covered in Africa. Swahili words slip into my head uninvited, when English words are what I need. Several times I've accidentally referred to Tanzania as, "back home." Some days even ugali and mboga sound appetising.
I knew I would miss it when I left, but I didn't realise how deeply. I didn't realise that Tanzania would become a part of me, something that I'm constantly longing for. I didn't realise that 23 years of life in New Zealand would give way to eight months on the other side of the world. I didn't realise that your heart could have a different home to your head, to your history.
And the longer I'm away the worse it gets. The more often I cry. The more I sleep, hoping that I'll dream of it. Even if it's only a dream, I can still feel their little arms around my neck, kiss them before they go to sleep. And more and more I struggle, sinking into myself, unsure of anything anymore.
Most nights I cry. Every night I pray. For the children. For my babies. For the African mamas and my local friends. The only thing I can hold onto at the moment is that God is here. He's just as much in the mundane routine of daily life, as He was there in the big things in Africa. He's just as near to me when I'm driving to work as He was when I was feeding orphans. That's what comforts me most right now.
xoxo,
-Hannah
