A Closeness

Sometimes I feel super close to the people here and other times my heart is at home in Seattle.

Everyday I am confronted with a choice: hold on or let go. It is natural to hold onto home, what I found comfort in and what I expected of my time here. Not only does it feel natural to hang onto the familiar or ‘comfortable’ but in many ways it is easier. It is easy to hold onto happy memories and times of joy, strong friendships and family celebrations. It is easy to hold onto past dreams, past places and past perceptions. The longer that I am here and through the struggles that I face, there is always the idea that home is home and there is so much good waiting for me there. It is easy to idealize it. As happy as I can be here, as loving as my students are and as engaging as friends are, there is still a slight tinge of pain as I remember and hold onto the good that I left twenty months ago. Again and again I have to tell myself to not compare. Like I said though, it is easy to hold onto that which is familiar and comfortable.

What is not easy is letting go. I find that I hold onto expectations. I hold up walls. I hold onto fears, frustrations and fragmented fantasies. The strange thing is that letting go is usually an unconscious action most of the time. I go through my days sucked into a routine and a schedule that I predict will have a certain outcome. Then while I am anticipating, all of the sudden I am overwhelmed with one emotion, then another thought and then an entirely different emotion. One moment, one interaction and one reaction shocks me out of one thought or expectation. Then I have let go of one thing and found myself in a totally different mindset or perspective. I am going, going, going, working, listening or interacting and then out of nowhere a student is opening his or her heart or a community mate is making my sides ache with laughter. Whatever I was doing, was feeling or was expecting is uprooted and I am somewhere else.

Unaware and unknowingly, I have let go.

Letting go is hard, yes, but it is also inevitable. Now, I am not saying that I have let go of that which I love or miss about home but I am trying to let go of that daily expectation of predicting the events or experiences that awaits me once I start my day. I am working on this. I am working on being present and more open to that which is directly in front of me!

Goodness is close and far. It is here and it is there. It is back then and right now.

The Beginning of the End

*Updating this blog has not been a priority of mine for a long time. Yes, it has been many… many months since my last entry. However, as my months here draw to a close,  I realize that I have a lot on my mind and that it is time to start using this as an outlet for some of those ponderings.

Moral of the story, get ready for round two of Shea-blogging.

The BEGINning of the END

The weather is cool and I am in the house soaking up a slight breeze accompanied by the shrieks of children, passersby and salesmen announcing fresh fish and peas by the bag full. This is the last ‘break’ or vacation before I head home. This is the last time to just be and embrace this place before the tornado of classes, terminal exams and goodbyes thrust me into whatever lies next.

The first week of my break started off with the end of my family’s visit to Tanzania. A few days away in Zanzibar’s Stone Town was wonderfully rich in culture and equally eye opening during the Muslim island’s month of Ramadan and in the midst of political unrest as they try to gain independence from mainland Tanzania. Halfway through that week, I said goodbye to Mama and Kaka (brother). Saying goodbye this second time proved to be much harder than expected which is surprising because… if I can live through twenty months without seeing them, then surely four more months seems doable. It has, however, proved to be harder than I had thought!

My second week of break was spent lost in thought. What have I been doing? Did I do enough? Why do I miss my students so much? Why is Tanzania so good and so frustrating at the same time? What can I say is mine, accomplished by me or something that I can be proud of? What about me has changed?

That week was also spent watching movies, reading, tutoring students in English, entertaining a few guests, visiting friends at work and a few trips into town. It was nothing too exciting but peaceful and full of rest nonetheless.

The third week (of this five week break) was kicked off with a visit from a fellow JV visiting from Moshi, Tanzania (up by Mt Kilimanjaro). We visited co-workers in their homes, went to town for delicious Indian food, cooked together and just enjoyed each other’s company. It is always great hearing the different perspectives and experiences of fellow JVs in their respective worksites. Tanzania has over 120 tribes and each region has something different to explore. It is easy to lump Tanzania as one place or one entity but that is like saying Hawaii and Texas are the same!

The end of that visit and reaching the halfway point of the break time flooded my thoughts with a panicked sense of:  I GOTTA LIVE IT UP WHILE I AM STILL HERE! This started and then solidified the desire to travel. All of the sudden I wanted to get out, explore and see as much as possible.

It is easy to get stuck in a bubble and my life has become pretty predictable. It has been a routine combination of teaching, visiting people, questioning and digesting all that I do and see. At some point though, I lost the excitement and drive to go forth and explore.

Moral of the story, my fourth week of this break will be spent in Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is the center of the East African Jesuit Province and we have been invited on many occasions to visit. So, two roommates and I are headed there tomorrow. Here’s to exploring again! 

Stuck in Place

It is as if this rainy season in Dar es Salaam has clouded my mind.

The rains have fallen and as I have tried to walk through them, my feet feel stuck in the mud and the rain pounds down over me.

Part of me would like to think that I am stuck in the mud and I am standing still being washed by the freshness of the rain. However, I am just standing here. I am soaking wet in cultural confusion and personal reflection. It is like I am waiting for something to get me moving again.

I keep asking myself, what are you waiting for? Maybe I am waiting for my family to visit. Maybe this low key, standstill is teaching me some lesson that has yet to reveal itself. Maybe I am waiting to go home. Maybe I am waiting for the rain to stop.

Whatever it is, this Tanzanian life has got me stuck. There is so much to think about, reflect upon, challenge, accept, stomach, feel, see and do. I have seen Tanzanians in times of happy. I have seen death, watched mourning and prayed for those in pain. I have taught and I have learned. I have accepted hospitality and attempted to repay it. I have felt fulfilled. I have felt out of place. I have felt ‘in it’ and I do not know when that stopped but things seem to move slower now, fewer things excite my passions and the fire that urged me to get here and to be here is not burning as fiercely.

Tanzania is a wild place. It is not wild in the ways the TV and movies make it to look but it is wildly diverse, wildly dynamic and wildly interesting. Ideas of justice, fairness, work ethic, accountability, generosity, cooperation, community, gender, race, politics, food, religion, ‘The West’ and various other topics cloud my mind. How I defined these things 17 months ago have changed. I know I have changed. Most interestingly though, the question of: what do I do with this creeps up. Maybe this slower time is my chance to take inventory of the things I have witnessed, people I have encountered and emotions I have felt. I know that we all have ups and downs at every stage, in many places and at different times.

So I will stay for now, sloshing in the mud and waiting for that fire to engulf me into another rush of adventure. 

RAIN

As the rain pounds down onto the roof above me and I pull me blanket up over my shoulder, I take in a breath of cool damp air and remind myself how lucky I am. Eleven times zones away, back in Seattle, rain means something very different to me. Seattle rain is constant, enriching and relentless. It creates the beautiful environment of the Pacific Northwest. It shapes the land and determines how, when and where we can access that land. It decides what we wear. It keeps things fresh and green. It cleans, it calms and it is just always there. Rain is a part of life in Seattle. Growing up in the Northwest rain meant recess indoors and damp socks sloshing in my shoes. Walking briskly through soft mist wrapped in a raincoat with hot coffee in my hand are parts of home that I miss. The start of the rainy season in Dar es Salaam brings me back to those memories, habits and cold, wet comforts.

                                                                                                                           

In the early hours of a Monday morning thunder, lightning and sheets of rain creep over the unsuspecting district of Dar in which I live. Here, the rains are less welcomed and despised by those dwelling. This morning the lightning flashes through a greyish-orange sky producing a glow that in unexpected and haunting. The thunder thumps rhythmically as it trumps the morning’s usual sounds of a rooster’s call or a mosque’s call to prayer. The rain wisps its way onto the tin roves in a comforting tap dance echoed above and beyond. It cascades down and slaps the pavement, dust, brush and debris below in a percussive pattern that is deafening and engaging to the senses.

Laying in bed surrounded by, surrendered to and sensing the drowning environment outside, I think about the change that rains bring. The rain changes the weather, the air and the sensation of breathing.

My evening started as an average night of shifting in a light sleep entombed by my mosquito net and beneath a humming ceiling fan circulating a thick embrace of humidity. Drifting in and out of a distracted slumber, the heat and sounds out on the streets beyond my bedroom keep me half asleep and constantly coaxing myself to fall back to sleep. I wake up once, hot and sweating. I wake up again, roll over. I wake up yet again, there is a loud car driving past our house. I wake. I Snooze.

Then I wake up not by sound, not by sweat, not by an alarm clock ushering me up and out. I am not jolted awake. Instead, I slowly regain consciousness in a cold(ish), humming, thundering and pounding storm. The rainy season’s force has set in.

My sleepy thoughts of home, refreshing rain and a life that feels far away drift back into this life as I think about what rains mean in this space. Thinking about this city, my friends, students and coworkers, I realize that this storm is destructive and devastating for countless others. Rains mean water and lots of it in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, that water has no where to go in this city.

Dar es Salaam is a city with no formal garbage collecting system, there are very few drains and rivers are not reinforced with retention walls. Houses consist of tin roofs, open screened windows and shallow septic system. Then of course there is the unorganized, overcrowded system of roads. Infrastructure, or lack there of, is the main issue here. Lack of planning, corners cut and questionable city planning has set up Dar es Salaam situations that hurt people, harm surroundings and hinder development.

The rains are bittersweet. I long for cold afternoons back home but I feel deeply for humid downpours over the homes of my friends, co-workers and life-giving students here. Just as I have oftentimes felt torn between my worlds both here and there, I am torn between my initial emotional reaction to rain and the sad lived reality that it brings to this space and these lives lived here.  

we go, we do and we go to the next

In the states we are programmed and encouraged to seek spaces, places and experiences that can benefit us or provide us with some sort of an outlet. Maybe we seek an outlet to showcase a specific talent or it is a group of people that open our minds or maybe it is something that guides our heart to some kind of fulfilling experience. Whatever it is or who or where it is, we are on the move.

We travel to a classroom to learn. We go to the office to do our work. The church is for praying. The soccer field is for playing. Our friends are for venting to and our families give us stories to tell. We go to a theater to see movies or shows that provide a brief escape from our daily lives. We plug ourselves into iPods or step into art galleries to embrace something beautiful, expressive and creative. We go on vacations for something new and we seek reunions to remember the past.

We go, we do and we go again. The next space, the next place, the next experience.

When I was at Seattle University, I was always on the move. I was working in three different offices, learning various skills in each and balancing it all with the goal of being well rounded and grounded to the many skills, people and places. I worked in the admissions office to better understand professionalism. I went to the orientation office to work with people concerned about the process of transitioning. Then I would travel to the campus ministry office to plan prayers, to engage in discussions or to put together large scale retreats. Add other clubs, campus events, a social life and… academics and you can see how my college experience was about involvement and the going to and coming from all of the spaces. All of that fired my passions and challenged my evolving sense of self.

I do not think that I am alone in this either nor is it a phenomenon found only at the collegiate level. We are always going somewhere to get something, to see someone or to feel some way. As a child it was soccer practice, fieldtrip permission slips, brownie making for bake sales, safety patrol, play dates and Irish dancing competitions. What’s next? Where to? Are we running late? What time does it end? How much longer until we get there? What is the purpose of this? Did you read the invitation?

It would be silly to say that this train of thought did not follow me here to Tanzania. I jumped into my first year with hopes, agendas and idealistic plans. What did I find? The spaces felt different, the places looked different and the people reacted differently. Waking up in the morning, I was out the door and heading full force into my day of lessons, classroom drama mitigation, coworkers questioning, communities discussing and navigating Tanzania and me, then me and Tanzania. I was going, going quickly, looking left and running right toward that space where I could pour out my energy, invest my love into and strive to find that fit.

Did the planets align? Did my ‘going toward’ or make-it-happen-American-attitude manifest itself in the ways that I had expected it to? Nope. Well, in some ways it did. Hard work, a lot of planning, order and structure was a success in the classroom. On the other hand, fast walking, goal setting and scheduling did not foster many deep relationships. I attribute my love for and connections with my students to be at the heart of this contrast. My methodology was successful in the classroom but not necessarily in my life outside of Loyola.

I have been blessed with some wonderful relationships here in Dar es Salaam. They did not come about through the means that I had expected to make them. So, getting back to my original point, I found that my strongest relationships formed in the spaces between my going to and from. Taking the time to stop, say yes to a conversation, meal, cold soda or seat under the shade of a great palm tree, I was embraced unexpectedly by Tanzania.

On my way to school, stopping to speak to an elder, I gained a friend. Heading home from using the internet and saying yes to eating a meal with an acquaintance, I gained a friend. Going the market and inviting someone I encountered on my walk there to join me, I gained a friend. Sharing meals with neighbors enriched those friendships and diving into conversations in Kiswahili that were too advanced humbled me but then empowered my companions to teach, share more and… mostly, something for them to giggle at.

With ten more months to go, I hope to see the beauty in the spaces in between. A breath of fresh air on my walk to school, a greeting here and a phone call there sheds light onto the little moments of peace and an authentic presence here that make sense. I expect Tanzania will continue to open my mind to these spaces. I hope that this lesson stay with me and I take it home with me. I look to home, the space there and the space between, with appreciation, excitement and anticipation while I keep living into this very different, oddly refreshing way of existence.

I do not know what is in the space between Dar es Salaam and Seattle but I keep going, I will keep doing and then I will do whatever that is, next. 

The transition of a community.

As many of you know, I am here in Tanzania working through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. One of the many things that makes this program great and one of the top reasons I decided to apply to this specific program is the two-year mixed communities for first years and second years. JVC International is set up in a way that allows part of the community of volunteers to welcome, incorporate and share what they have learned in their first years with a fresh group of new JVs joining midway through the experience. Last December marked a pretty significant transition.

Yes, I hit the one year mark. One down, one to go. That day of accomplishment was not celebrated by cake or fireworks (shocking, I  know) but it was instead focused on the arrival of two, new members to my community, my life here and the vast network of Jesuit Volunteers.

Bethany Killian and Caitlin O’Donnell arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on December 5^th, 2011. These two wonderful young women have refreshed this space, my reality with new perspectives, excitement and a willingness to join and enrich my life here. While much of my time here has felt unreal and extreme, the work schedules and expectations of JVs in Dar are based on a long tradition of young men and women serving this small section of Dar es Salaam, namely, Mabibo. That said, I fell into a routine and a way of existing that was both beautiful and challenging.

The things, people and situations that challenged me most last year came at me from unexpected places and I expect new challenges to arise in my second year. It is, however, nice looking forward into the months to come and knowing that those things that weighed me down in the past have been liberated in a way, with time. With more time, the effects of living here will become clearer to me, I hope. I still am unsure as to what I am ‘doing’. What does my post-Tanzania life look like?  What will I put on my resume, for example? Life skills include: a little Kiswahili, taking bucket showers successfully, baking chocolate cakes from scratch, creating lesson plans about basic English or St. Ignatius, sitting on 10 hour bus rides and the ever useful skill of sweating profusely.

I guess the answer lies in the wait. I will wait to see where this second year, this second chance takes me. I will wait to see my family, my friends, my dog and cheap Chinese food. I will wait to understand my place here in Tanzania. Heck, I will wait to see where I truly fit in America. I will wait for employment in the States next year. I will wait to see what this puzzling life I have constructed for myself will look like in one week, one month and especially in one year!

Until then, I will be here in the small section of Dar es Salaam with my new community living into the newness that is this second year.

Think. Fikiri. Hope. Tumaini. Question. Uliza. Wait. Subiri.

I am days away from the one year mark.

I think. I hope. I question. I wait.

Thoughts and reflections from the past year flood my mind. Thoughts of disappointment, struggle, fear, shock and worry overwhelm me. Have I accomplished what I came here for? What have I accomplished and what did I even want to gain from all of this? Am I so blinded by my American desire to gain, achieve and grow that I am missing the day to day successes that confront, challenge and change me for the good?

It is true that my students LOVE me and their English is improving daily. I have friends here. I laugh everyday. I am still fascinated by my Tanzanian host culture. I am learning a new language, seeing a completely different side of the world and getting to know more about myself.

I still find that everyday I hear that small inner voice inviting me home, home stateside.

I think about the people, places and comforts of home constantly. I think about grabbing a beer with my brother and sending my sister a silly text message whenever I want. I think about brisk fall weather and swaying evergreen trees. I think about the holidays up ahead and a world that feels for far away from my current reality.

I think about joys in the waiting. I wait to discover new joys. I wait to receive new joys. I wait to construct new joys.

I think about my new JV community saying goodbye to their families and preparing to join me here. I think about another Christmas away from home. I think about the family dog, Coco. I think about family, their ups and downs, struggles and triumphs. I think about communication, cross-culturally, cross-continentally, criss-crossed and continuously interesting.

I think about constantly learning and the new lessons that a second year has to teach me.

I think, maybe too much, about the future and the evolving sense of home that awaits me in one year from now.

Then I think about the fact that I am here. I remain here while my heart balances gently between a home of raincoats and coffee cups and this space of unending thoughts, hopes, questions, waiting and an ever so slightly, changing Shea Patrick Meehan.

Think. Fikiri. Hope. Tumaini. Question. Uliza. Wait. Subiri.