Reasons you should live in Africa...
If you:
- don't enjoy air conditioning
- like slugs in your sink at night
- like ants crawling on your food
- like spiders/snakes/bugs/creepy crawlers of all sorts in every room of the house including your shower
- don't enjoy your blood and want to share it with mosquitos
- want to kill bugs on the screen of your laptop while staying up at night to blog bc the generator is only on for a couple more hours
- don't mind not having power, because said generator broke
- don't get hot sleeping at night
- want to tuck a mosquito net around your bed every night
- like to step on lizard poop in your house
- want a snake skin hanging in your bedroom
- don't need fast internet EVER
- like being primitive
- aren't scared of ABD’s (African Brown Dogs)
- aren't racist
- want to be a Mzungu
- don't want to get in the lake and would rather just look at it (Unless of course you like brain eating amoeba)
- want to meet a lamb or cow, befriend it, love it, then witness it being slaughtered
You should also live in Africa if you:
- like adventure
- want to see the most amazing night skies/sunsets/sunrises of your life
- want to meet people who truly exemplify “salt of the earth”
- want to meet people who know what humility really means
- like the warmth of the sunshine
- like seeing smiling beautiful children
- like fresh tropical fruit
- like eating the worlds largest avocados
- like learning new languages
- like running and playing soccer with really ridiculously cute kids
- want to meet people with a similar passion for kids and helping alleviate poverty
Listen, heres the deal... A good majority of that stuff was me being a bit sarcastic... If you didn't notice. But for real... as my good friend Jacques says, "Africa is not for sissies."
Well, because... Life in Africa is hard.
But couldn't life in America be hard? or life in Asia? or life in Antarctica?
Is it hard for me? Not really. Not if I'm being honest with myself.
and maybe its not that life in Africa is hard, but that a life of poverty is hard.
I am so spoiled.
Everything is so easy back home in my nice little life in beautiful San Diego, California. I want to go to the store? I get in a car and drive 5 minutes down the road to get all the things I need from one place. (Target, duh!) I want to listen to music? I stream pandora through my tv. I want to watch movies? I want to use my computer for more than 2 hours without it dying and then not having electricity to charge it? I want to FaceTime my friends or family on the other side of the country? I want to run to In and Out for a burger and fries? I want to do pretty much anything... I can do it without much stress. The biggest "problems" I have while being in America are probably dealing with traffic, long red lights, long lines in the store, slow servers, cable going out, food being cold, ignorant people...
I mean, do you hear me?
Almost everything I complain about at home is impatience. and everything is a convenience. A convenience that people in Africa and almost everywhere else in the world know nothing of. It took me 10 minutes to even remember things I complain about when I'm back home, because it seems so silly that I would ever complain about anything. I mean seriously? Think about your life... What do you have to complain about? Your boss is a jerk. Your iPhone is cracked. Your car ran out of gas. Your boyfriend won't do the dishes.
Now, I'm not saying these aren't things to be upset about. I'm just saying... Lets look at the bigger picture. and try not to sweat the small stuff. and isn't almost all of it SMALL stuff??
Even here... Right here in Kitongo, Mwanza, Tanzania. Isn't it still small stuff?
I complain about not having electricity, hot water, a comfortable bed, a fan to keep me cool at night, a microwave, a washer and dryer, among other American conveniences.
Here at JBFC we are transitioning to solar power, but still working out the kinks, so sometimes it works and sometimes we have no power for days. I complain about having to walk to the school 1/2 a mile away to plug in my Mac Laptop and my iPhone to charge. I complain about the ice cold showers. I complain about sweating in my bed under my mosquito net in my private bedroom in the guesthouse at night. I complain about having to use the gas stove and oven and lighting it with a match and always almost blowing up the house when I have to warm up my food. I complain about doing my laundry in the heat of the day outside with buckets and detergent and water from a hose and hanging my clothes to dry.
#firstworldproblems to the max.
So even here, I have to remind myself that I STILL live a very cushy life. Although its tin and so loud when it rains that I cant sleep, I have a roof over my head, and although my mattress is made of foam and I sink to the bottom and always roll to the middle, I have a bed to sleep in, and although the water is cold, green, and smelly lake water, I have running water. Life is good.
But how about the life of poverty outside this cushy world I live in?
How about real life problems... illness, disease, lack of hygiene, lack of knowledge, science, and technogology that saves lives, HIV AIDS, Malaria, starving children, 18 month old babies dying in Tanzania and not ever knowing why they were "just sick" their whole very very short life, kids walking miles barefoot in sweltering heat, child prostitution, no running water... and the list goes on and on.
Thats heavy stuff. Thats real stuff.
And even though I'm right here in Africa I still feel so far away from that.
It's happening all around me. I can't fathom dealing with problems like those. I'm still spoiled. I'm still sheltered from the real reasons why Africa is not for sissies.
Africa isn't not for sissies because I have a foam mattress and cold water. Boo hoo.
Living a life of poverty is not for sissies. No matter where in the world you are.
Women that walk miles to a community water pump at 6am and then carry jugs of water on their head back to their families every day. They are not sissies.
Men that walk cows for 4 days over night, a distance that would take 12 hours in a car from Mwanza to Arusha are not sissies.
Kids that wake up and work the streets all day selling anything they can, including their bodies, to help feed their parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins are not sissies.
Orphans that couch surf after their parents die and just live to survive are not sissies.
Cleaning up after wealthy wazungu every day of your life and being treated like you are the help living in Jackson, Mississippi in the year 1960 is not for sissies.
I started writing this blog with the idea that I would discuss why Africa is not for sissies and how life here is hard and tell all about my experience, and then I realized that I have never lived a hard life. I have never known a hard life. and that no matter where I travel I will still never know a hard life, like those that are poverty stricken.
Forget Africa not being for sissies...
The real issue here is that poverty is not for sissies.
