“Karibu Sana!” “Feel at home!”

Today (Monday, December 10th), we visited Gonzaga Primary School for the first time. I was so grateful to be surrounded by the energetic children and the welcoming faculty and staff. While this will not be my full time work placement, I will be visiting here occasionally with students from Loyola High School as part of their service requirement. One of the phrases repeated with each introduction was, “Karibu sana! (very welcome) Feel at home!”  I love this phrase because it is indicative of the welcoming spirit of the people of Tanzania and my JV community in Dar and Dodoma. As crazy as it sounds and as much as I miss everyone already, I do feel like I could be at home here. Granted, I have to learn A LOT more Kiswahili and cultural norms before I truly feel at ease in this new place, but the important part is that the 2nd year JV’s and all of our neighbors, parishioners and students want us to ‘feel at home’ and the sentiment alone is enough to ease some homesickness. So, rest assured, I have been welcomed with loving and patient arms!

Making My Bed

Every year I moved into a new dorm at P.C., the first thing my mom would ask was, “Can I please make your bed?” At times, this idea really bothered me, I thought, “There are more important things to do. There’s still more to move out of the car. There are groceries to buy. I can always make my bed later,” but I knew that at the root of her question was a desire to know that I had a place to sleep that night: a place to rest my head and take refuge. I always let her do it, from freshman year through senior year, but I never imagined I, too, would see making my bed in a new home as a priority. Now that I have been settling into my new home in Dar es Salaam so very far away from my 6 person apartment with two bathrooms, running water, heat/AC, a full kitchen, ‘free’ wireless and cable, I found deep comfort in the act of making my bed and securing my mosquito net to the posts which surround it. In fact, it was one of the first things I did upon arriving, just before posting pictures and cards from friends and family. I’m still new to simple living, but it is really remarkable how much less stuff I brought with me to a new country for two years as compared to the carloads of junk I brought with me to P.C. each semester.

When I was awakened this morning by the call to prayer, a rooster, a neighbor’s baby crying and the sun shining through my window around 5:30, I picked up a book I had started this summer. The book I picked up was The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything* and the next chapter was titled “The Simple Life,” in which Fr. Jim Martin discusses simple living as a part of Jesuit spirituality. He gives examples from different theologians, scholars and cultures which illustrate the idea that possessions are not inherently bad, but their use as a distraction or an obsession keeps us from focusing on more important things. This morning, for example, I woke up at the crack of dawn rested and ready for the day- I did yoga, read part of a great book,  the readings for yesterday’s Mass (which I heard in Swahili and therefore did not understand), todays’ readings and a daily meditation. I can’t think of a day I’ve been that ‘spiritually productive’ before 7:00 a.m.

I do realize that it’s easy for me to romanticize simple living now, because it’s still a bit of a novel idea, but I am glad that this is a core value of  J.V.C.

*I recommend this book to anyone looking to learn a little more about the Jesuits, or really to anyone who is hoping to develop her spirituality with a comical and practical companion!

My Two Year Long Vacation

Yesterday, one of the children I babysit bombarded me with questions about my fast approaching departure. Now, I have become accustomed to a series of about 6 questions from every adult I meet regarding my journey, they are usually the following: 

“How many shots do you have to get?” 

“How long is the flight?/Where do you transfer?”

“Will you have running water?”

“What about malaria?”

“Can you come home at all?” 

“How much sunscreen are YOU packing?”

So, I was ready for those questions with carefully detailed answers which would reassure the worried party that I was competent enough to handle this. But did the five year old ask any of those questions? Nope. She did not. She didn’t yet have an image of Africa as a scary far off place that required shots, sunscreen and bed nets. All she knew was that I would be gone for two years, for some reason that she didn’t quite understand. So, she asked the questions I’ve been asking myself for the past few months. She asked the questions for which my answers were much more candid, far less reassuring, and probably more revealing. She asked these simple questions:

“Do you really have to leave us for TWO whole years? I’m really going to miss you.”

“Who made you do this? Was it your mom? Did your mom want you to go?” 

“Then it was your dad, your dad wanted you to do this?”

“I just don’t understand why you have to go on a two year long vacation!! By the time you’re home, I’ll be 7!”

Maggie asked me questions about my purpose. When most others asked me questions about logistics, my five year old friend asked me who ‘made me do this’? Well, it was my choice, which is hard for a five year old to understand, but this journey was something I discerned as the most fitting next step for my life. Of course, my parents, family and friends were all at the forefront of my mind in the discernment process and they all journeyed with me at different points along the way, starting from last August when I returned from Kenya, but at the end of the day it was my choice. I chose this as a pathway for me to share and become my authentic self with my family and friends at home and the family and friends I will meet in Dar es Salaam.

Maggie also got me thinking about the concept of a vacation, what it means and how this might really be something like a ‘simple living style vacation’. So, I did what my mom always taught me to do when I didn’t quite understand a word, I looked it up in the dictionary and found this: “Vacation n. : 1. an interlude, usu. of several days or weeks, from one’s customary duties, as for recreation or rest.  . . . 4. the act of vacating”. In some ways these definitions do fit- I will be taking an ‘interlude’ from my customary duties and I will be ‘vacating’ my very comfortable room in my parents’ home, but I guess it’s the difference in purpose that is most important to note. I’m not ‘vacating’ for personal relaxation or rest, I’m really challenging myself to live without the everyday comforts of my American lifestyle in order to learn- to learn about the way I live and the way others live and the ways we can live together in harmony.  

The most liberating part of my discernment process was when my dad said to me in a phone conversation, “Katie, you know Mommy and I are your parents and are naturally worried about your safety, but in the end, you are an adult and you are the one who will live most intimately with the consequences of your choices. We would never dare hold you back.” So, Maggie, I made this choice and I will be living with it, in it, and through it for the next two years and I am so happy I did.

one month

One month from today I will be on a 10:55 p.m. flight from JFK to Heathrow, then to Dar es Salaam, the place I will call home for the next two years. This realization brings with it a variety of emotions, especially given the recent devastation of the state I have called home for 22 years. The question of domestic vs. international service has been one with which I have grappled for a while. Obviously there will always be a great need for movers and shakers right here at home, but that's not really what these next two years are going to be about. For the first time in all of my service experiences, I will be attempting to live among and in solidarity with those whom I am 'serving'. I will be attempting to live simply and in community with my fellow JVs and my neighbors in the Mabibo area of Dar es Salaam. I will be struggling through my first year as a high school teacher. I will be adjusting to a new culture, new foods, new forms of transportation, new concepts of time and efficiency, new measures of 'success.' I will be doing all of these things and many more away from my primary support system.

Perhaps most importantly, I won't necessarily be 'doing' service in the way we traditionally think of it in our results-centered culture. I will be trying (despite my task-oriented, go-getter, list-making self) to simply be- to be in relationship, in solidarity and in Christ with my new community so far away from these Sandy ravaged shores.

This blog will be my main form of communication with many people over the next two years. One of the presenters at JVC orientation this summer described the JVC International experience as one of 'dying our little deaths along the way in order to be reborn on the side of the oppressed.' I will most definitely change during the next two years, but I believe it to be for the better. I apologize now for a lack of regular communication, but please do know that you will be with me always in my thoughts and prayers. I thank you in advance for your loving support, kind thoughts and care packages of nutella!

Amani (peace),
Katie

"When you understand the situation of the other person, when you understand the nature of suffering, anger will vanish, because it is transformed into compassion."

 -Thich Nhat Hanh