I got some white walls

So I sent my sucker punch, sad, out of the blue, incredibly honest email one week and a day ago. I know it was out of the blue because I haven't sent a mass email out in awhile and all my blogs have been at least somewhat upbeat. The thing is, it's hard to write anything when I'm in a negative headspace. I don't want to paint a negative picture of where I am or what I'm doing... I don't want people to worry.. and in following that reasoning I have done a good job of (in some ways, unconsciously) steering clear of certain aspects of my life.. until my email last week. Last week was hard. It was the kind of week where your chest feels heavy. Where it's hard to breathe, hard to think about much besides just going through the motions. I left Pretoria on Friday and it was more than time to leave. I saw off another volunteer who was leaving, I sat in the Country Director's office and cried (hi Gene!), I just couldn't get myself to calm down. I wasn't thinking about leaving Peace Corps or South Africa. I was thinking about how the hell I was going to make sense of everything. How I was going to keep pushing to get myself back to the village where I knew my head and heart, my body, my environment, would at least calm down a little. My last morning in Pretoria I was going to take a koombi to the taxi rank, but splurged, because of exhaustion (and skittishness), on a private taxi. My taxi from Pretoria to Tzaneen was pulled over at a police check point... all passengers were asked in Sotho to exit the minibus and bring our baggage with us to be searched. Really?! As if I needed anything else to fuel the paranoia and heaviness that had been building. It didn't take long and I'm still not sure what the purpose was. When I finally made it back to the village I was greeted warmly by my host mother and then by Tanya, Austin (visiting from the States), and Christy (all of whom were participating in the slaughtering of two chickens that we ate about an hour later, chased with beer from the bottle shop and Marula wine (from the fruit of the Marula tree... it has a kind of sour taste). It felt more like home than anything else I had experienced the whole week. People were excited to see me, wanted to hear how I was doing.
I'm still recovering. This week has been better, uneventful really, which is what I need right now. I can't say I'm feeling totally inspired or motivated, but I'm here and feeling more even. I give credit to the following things for helping my mood: Dominique calling me from the States, Kevin calling from the States, the endless emails I've gotten sending me love and support, flying a kite with Tanya, Austin, Christy, and a group of kids from the village, going to Elayna's village just down the road for a braai, going to a meeting in Tzaneen with Synett (which may lead to future projects), getting a letter from Amber, feeling my PC group getting stronger and more tightly knit because everyone seems to be having a hard time right now, sitting under a tree at 1 in the afternoon drinking Marula wine out of an old mayonaise jar (with a gogo next to me taking it out of my hand to sneak sips) and then going back to work kind of tipsy (it's powerful!), having part of the staff meeting yesterday be dedicated to brainstorming ideas to help Mmapula not be bored in the office, getting a chance to catch up with people on gmail, talking to the country director on the phone to share my concerns about how people in our PC group are feeling and feeling HEARD.
I spent the whole of yesterday working and it felt so good. I miss any sort of manual labor, the kind of work that makes you sweat, your back creak a little, and physically exhausts you. The last few months I've had plenty of exhaustion, but I'm so tired of my mind and heart doing all the work. I actually ended up taking a mental health day from work and getting some stuff done . Stuff that I had been putting off because the motivation wasn't there. I filled my water barrel, which took about 8 trips with my water bucket to and from the rainwater tap. I washed my clothes, which took about 2-3 of those buckets of water (wash and rinse). I washed my dishes. Boiled and filtered my water. Drank tea. And mid-morning started the huge process of painting my walls. Yes! They're all white. Clean. My room feels bigger. My shoulders are sore from constantly reaching up. It was meditative. It is meditative. I feel like it's starting to, slowly but surely, become more and more of my room.
It's about 6:40am... the rooster outside has been crowing for a good half hour and Kori just came and knocked on my door looking for a magazine. It just a short amount of time, after my room is set up for leaving and popcorn is made, I'll be on a taxi going to meet up with some friends.... we're going to Kruger! Kruger National Park. The place where you can see the Big 5....lions, leopards, buffalo, rhinos, and elephants! In the wild and up close! I'm excited... well, beyond excited... this is what I need right now.