Re entry

I'm not sure how the astronauts do it.

Maybe they, like me, sit at the kitchen table before dawn, sip strong coffee and read a three-day-old newspaper.
Maybe they, like me, marvel at the feel of carpet on their bare feet and a warm shower on their backs.
Maybe they, like me, get overwhelmed by dozens of unopened email.
Maybe they, like me, can't find the words to describe the other world they experienced.
Maybe they, like me, have learned that the hardest transitions take place on the inside.

I'm back in the northern hemisphere. I got back two days after graduate school started back. Nothing like showing up at the last minute, or, rather, after it.

I saw rain only twice in the past two months. Once in Mozambique and once in my short stay in the Netherlands, I mean Cape Town, South Africa. And now it's raining here, in Columbia, Missouri, a land of grass and paved roads, Starbucks and Target.

Friends and family have asked me if I feel guilty for the excess in America.
Strangely, I do not.
Maybe I am too busy feeling grateful.
I'm sure I'll take it all in stride soon, too soon.
Till then, I'll head back to the kitchen to fill my cup with cold filtered water from the refrigerator and I'll realize what a gift it is.

Big-mouthed bass

Early tomorrow morning I will fly up to Chimoio, farther north in Mozambique, to see Habitat's other main build site. I am eager to experience another part of the country, both regarding terrain and people. I have heard that the poverty is greater there. At least in Massaca the children are not malnourished.

I don't even know where to begin telling stories. I have so many they are fighting for airtime like the big-mouthed bass at Indian Beach greedily gaping for smelly fish pellets. (I imagine only my immediate family will get this reference, unless you've actually been to the amusement park in Monticello, Indiana and seen the spectacle of over-fed fish at the lake's edge. I found it fascinating as a kid ... more disgusting as an adult).

I continue to be healthy and safe and in good company. I have finished my time in Massaca and moved out of the home where I was living. I am currently in Maputo, will spend this week in Chimoio and then my last week back in Maputo to somehow enter on a computer a fraction of what has entered my heart and mind these past six weeks.

I'll leave Mozambique early Friday, August 17 and head down to Cape Town, South Africa to visit a couple of friends who have just moved there. Then I'll head back to the U.S.