9 months ago...

A celebratory lunch at the Hlohlowe Drop-in Centre. I love me some beans and porridge.

Mma and Rra Motupa (he's on my NGO's Board of Directors) and their son, Innocent, who is also celebrating 9 months living in South Africa (he was born right around the time I came here)

9 months ago today a Megan, a slightly different Megan than this one here typin', left Austin, Texas to start the beginning of a new adventure. Woohoo, Peace Corps South Africa!
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how far I've come, both in physical distance and as a person. I've been in a good, but strange place. Last week or the week before, things shifted and I find that, now, I seem to know more about/identify more with South Africa than I do about/with the States. A lot of things have happened in 9 months. Births, deaths, weddings, new pets have been acquired, new buildings have gone up, skylines have changed, birthdays have passed, bars closed, new albums have come out, people signed mortgages, new cars have been bought, and people started dating people I've never met... don't know at all. It's a weird feeling. It's especially weird when you know all these people who have lived these things...they're important to you, you want to hang on to them, and you're so far removed. You know? I know it's expensive and the time difference makes it difficult to call me. I know it's expensive to visit me. I know writing is hard. I know what it's like to be busy... it's just I've never known it so much from this side... the side where people have moved on from the novelty of me being gone... me being gone in Africa.... and I haven't moved on. It's still big to me. Still changing for me. While it's a weird feeling, it also feels really good. This is where I'm living right now, this is my home, and to feel more settled, more at ease, means I'm lighter and I'm more ok with the day to day punches that occur. Being able to shrug off all the little things, the differences that once bugged me so much, I'm able to focus on things like, oh I don't know... work! I can start getting excited about different project ideas and figure out how I can think them out with people I've spent the last months networking with.
I just wrote a long overdue letter (along with the shift, the writer's block I was suffering from the last few months has finally been knocked down) to a good friend talking about how I felt 9 months ago. I can't pinpoint one single emotion. I know in the weeks leading up to leaving I was nervous and excited, but more than anything I was numb. While in the States it never quite sunk in how serious this move was, how different everything was going to be. (Two days before I left, when I still had all my packing to do, I went and saw the latest Harry Potter movie because that was a priority). Saying goodbyes, packing, stressing. More than anything I was in survival and coping mode, there wasn't a lot of emotion, I had to get done what I needed to get done, whatever was right in front of me, and that didn't leave a lot of room for any reflection or reaction. When people would ask why I was doing this, I couldn't give them a clear answer. I couldn't really say anything that captured everything I felt and accurately described my decision making process. In February, in the middle of weeks of being low, it hit me.... the answer. I do this, I am in the Peace Corps, because I believe this is what I need to do. It's not a hippie thing. It's a people thing. I believe that as a human being, one of my duties on this planet is to help others, bridge some gaps, make peace, smile, shake someone's hand, share food under a tree, hug a kid, laugh with a gogo, do what I can to make information, resources, and options more accessible. It's a people thing.