Ready

Imagine someone came to visit you from a far off land, one you had never and would never have the opportunity to visit. All you’ve heard of this far off land is that it is much better in every way than where you come from. Only the luckiest of people from your home will ever travel to these far off lands and you would be so blessed to hear first hand stories of the land of the free and home of the brave. Now imagine that this person said something to the extent of… “I suppose I’ll leave this place you call home whenever I’m ready to go back to the greatest place on earth and leave you in the dust.”

That is essentially what I did. On my first day. In my first hour of arriving.

The conversation went a bit like this…

Eva (Who, need I remind you, was vomiting and very ill with Malaria when I arrived): How long will you be at JBFC? ((Janada Batchelor Foundation for Children: www.jbfc-online.org))

Elisa: Mmmm… About 6 months total. I’ll leave at the end of December for a month to travel with a friend and then I plan to spend a few more months at JBFC before returning to the states. I may or may not travel for another month of the end of the trip. Just depends… I may just be “READY” to go home.

There it is. There’s that word. Ready.

Eva: Ummm… ??? Oh. You mean. You might be READY to go home because my home is so different and not so cushy as your home and you might be over it and READY to return to your perfect little life? Oh I understand… Ya. Peace out Africa. That must be nice. To just leave whenever you are READY.

Okay, so Eva didn’t say that. But she should have. And she should have slapped me across the face, too. But she didn’t do that either. Maybe Eva didn’t even notice because she is the assistant guest coordinator. Maybe she is so used to people coming and going and leaving when they are “ready”. But holy insert foot in mouth batman.

Its been 34 days since I said that to Eva and not one day has gone by that I haven’t thought of that moronic comment I made and felt guilty about it. Every moment I cringe over a snake skin in my bedroom, a lizard in the shower, a slug on my ceiling, a spider in my living room, a mouse in the oven, the heat of the day, the smelly green lake water in the shower, or the slaughtering of the weekend feast I remember that this is home. This is home to a lot of people. They’re not READY to leave because they don’t want to leave.