Home for the Holidays

I was very blessed to come home to America for the holidays. I spent a total of 19 days in the states and stayed moving the entire time. Before the wheels of the plane touched down in Ohio, I had already traveled 24 hours; so when I step foot on American soil, I was both emotionally exhausted and tired. So much so, that I cried during my first meal, this consisted of soup, salad, breadsticks, and peach tea at Olive Garden.  Yes, I was a mess. My trip home was great, but I was disappointed in some aspects. For starters, I realized I am missing my “bear fat”. When I left Swaziland, it was high 90’s, and for my time in America, it was as cold as -6! Although I longed for the cold weather that an Ohio winter brings, my body was rejecting the freezing temperatures. As a result, I didn’t enjoy the weather as much as I had anticipated. The second thing was that the time was too short. I didn’t get to see nearly as many people as I had hoped for. I was really only limited to a few family members. So any of my friends reading this, just know that I love you, and I will definitely make a plan to see all of you when I am back, that is if you haven’t forgotten about me. This leads me to my next point.

I was surprised by how no one really asked about my life over here. I shared very little about my experience, aside for the 30 minutes I presented in church. Sure people asked how I was, and how I like it over there. But my response was “fine” and “a lot”. I felt like once people realized I was ok and I wasn’t getting chased by lions, they were satisfied. I honestly was never asked to go into detail about what was going on over there. Sure, people know I volunteer and teach at a school, and they may have been somewhat informed by reading my blog. However, there is so much more I wanted to share in person with everyone, which could never be expressed on the blog. It was simple things that I wanted to share really, the detailed information of Swazi culture, personal stories of people who have affected my life here, and what the places I’ve traveled to look like. I had been warned to be prepared for this- people not wanting to listen to “swazi this” and “swazi that” all the time, but I feel like I really didn’t do much of that anyways. It’s true; this is really my own experience.

Now that I got that out of the way, I can say that I did have an enjoyable time. The biggest shocker was how big my niece and nephews have gotten. I need them to stop growing, like right now. I’m glad I got to spend time with them. I took the two oldest ones bowling and for ice cream, and I had the youngest one the majority of the time. I was also fortunate to see one of my spiritual mentors’ for coffee and chat for a few hours about our different ministries. After a week in Ohio, I went to North Carolina for three days, and then spent another day in Virginia visiting my old stomping grounds at Liberty University.  Then finally beating the snow storm that was on our heels, made it back safely to Ohio.

There were some things that I really missed about both places, because I am a PCV, most of these are food related. I missed buying Starbucks coffee from a convenience store, Chipotle, and proper customer service. What I missed from Swaziland was the fresh food. I looked in my mom’s freezer to find frozen dehydrated eggs. Like seriously?? I guess I am so use to everyone having a chicken, including me, that lay fresh eggs.  When I went to Sam’s Club, I had to take a picture at how much they charge for mangos! True to fashion, the final day was spent we me frantically packing and doing all the last minute shopping. I swear procrastination suits me. I will say that I successfully packed everything, except for my camera charger. Ncesi, no pictures to post anytime soon.