September 12, 2016
Today marks the end of week 1! (As you can see, I have already abandoned the numbering the days I’ve been in Mozambique system… I’m a pretty perseverant person.) This week definitely made me question the space time continuum because it felt both like a month, and two seconds.
This week has been a week of accomplishment. I can sweep, mop, iron, and wash clothes (by hand) the Mozambiquan way. (Honestly, sweeping and mopping are exactly the same as the American way. It just makes me feel nicer to have a longer list. J) I’m much more comfortable with basic sentences in Portuguese, but I am nowhere close to where I want to be before I step foot in the classroom as a teacher. This week has marked the longest time since before Facebook was invented that I have been disconnected from the western hemisphere. That feels pretty liberating. I’ve made some great friends in my language-learning group. (KAJDAJ 4 LYFE!) My homestay family had an older aunt pass away, and we were introduced to our one-week-old new niece. In other words, this was a very busy week.
To honor the completion of what has been one of the most transitional weeks of my life, a couple of my Moz27 cohort and I (*cough* minus Dylan *cough*) hiked almost 4 miles to the top of a mountain to see Tres Puntes (three points). This is the intersection of the borders of Swaziland, South Africa, and, home sweet home, Mozambique. The view up the mountain was nothing short of amazing: the ability to look at all three countries at the same time. I felt adventurous. I felt small.
(On a side note, it really made me feel like I was in the international, Peace Corps version of A Walk to Remember. All I needed was someone to fall in love with me and to whisk me around trying to fulfill all the other things on my list of things to do before I die. I’m still waiting on that part… Anyways, back to the feelings part that inspired this blog post.)
This is a mirror image of the feeling that I used to get when I would drive up to the lookout atop a hill in Birmingham, Alabama. I could go up there to escape whenever I felt to preoccupied by the obligations of college life. I could look down on the hustle and bustle of the city and take a minute to breath and think about whatever thought wandered into my mind. I could be reminded that I am but one small, sentient being in the grand scheme of existence. I could remember that these problems that seemed so big to me at the time were much smaller when put into perspective of the bigger picture of this city.
I loved this feeling. It reminds me to be humble. It reminds me that it is okay to take life slowly sometimes. But, most importantly it reminds me to look around and be thankful just to be alive.
And, one week into this journey, atop a mountain mere inches away from three countries borders, I saturated myself in this same feeling.
MOZ likely to sunburn 