On Our Way Back Home

Recently our work has slowed down, and that's given us time to think about the future (what on earth are we going to do now?!?!), but also to think about the past (what have we accomplished?  what have we learned?).  I started writing in my journal the other day about all these ruminations, thinking I might also post those thoughts here.  When I read back through it, though, I was a little shocked by what I had written, and doubted I would post it.  Our blog would probably suggest to most people that the last three years of our lives consisted of just a long string of festivals.  But when I showed these paragraphs to Andy, he replied, "Well, it's definitely honest," and I decided it would be good to set things straight.  So here ya go.

"We left Oklahoma for Bolivia a couple months shy of three years ago.  I remember feeling sad as I hugged my dad and Andy’s parents at the Tulsa airport and told them goodbye.  I also remember that, as soon as we had gone through security and were on our way, we looked at each other and laughed with excitement.  We charged on toward our gate, ready to get started on all the great things we would do.  We both felt a little nervous, a little shocked that we were actually going through with it, and really tired after weeks of preparation and emotional goodbyes.  But propelling us forward and pushing that all out of mind was a feeling of bountiful optimism: something near certainty that we would be awesome development workers; that we would master Spanish in weeks; that people would love us; that, while we would certainly go through this thing called “culture shock,” we would learn to love our Bolivian lives and take all the differences in stride.  We were confident of being two smart, energetic, flexible young people, driven (mostly) by the goodness inside of us and a genuine desire to help the poor while learning wisdom from their perspective.

In the last few weeks, we have begun the process of wrapping up our time here.  All the people we have interacted with in this process seem to confirm that our optimistic expectations of three years ago were accurate.  Our supervisors and co-workers express their gratitude for all our hard work, tell us we've done a good job, and say they respect how we’ve handled ourselves in cross-cultural relationships.  It is hard to deny that the people love us: our neighbors and those who participated in projects with us express good-natured outrage upon hearing we’re leaving soon, offering to sell us a piece of their land so we can stay and farm, promising to pray that God will bless us with lots of money so we can afford to travel back to Bolivia often to visit them, and affectionately presenting us with handmade gifts so we remember them and this place.  Our Spanish skills have developed enough that Bolivians occasionally get confused about our origins: “Did you say you’re from the United States?  No, you must mean Spain.”

On one hand, then, I guess we’ve done alright.  Yet, I feel anything but pride and satisfaction when I think about what I’ve done here.  It’s not that I worry that “I could have done more,” or “I should have done this or that differently.”  It’s deeper than that.  I look back on these past three years and see myself stumbling through life and work, falling over and over again, crawling, and only getting back up to keep up the appearance of knowing what I was about.  I feel pushed around, beat up, worn out, and uncertain of who I am and what I believe.

So when I think of our optimism of three years ago, I know we were wrong, in spite of having done all that others expected of us.  I suppose where we were most wrong was in our confidence that, just like everything we’d undertaken so far in life, this would be easy.  That it would just come to us.  That we would love it.  I suppose it was natural to ignore those feelings that would have just made life harder for us: self-doubt, homesickness, the voice from somewhere saying “maybe I’m not cut out for this.”  But not long ago, when we first began to let ourselves think about going home, I stopped being able to pretend that things have been okay here, that I don’t miss my family and friends that much, that I’m courageous and smart enough to do great work in a place that’s not my own; that the two us can withstand constant physical, emotional, and spiritual trials without support from the people who know and love us best.  No one can.  I’m not cut out for this.  I miss my people.  I want to go home."

To close, I’m including a link to a song that we heard for the first time recently.  A co-worker put it on while she was visiting us, and since then it has felt like the theme song of these few months.  Check it out if you like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI0ekIPIdp8&ob=av2e