Although we have been in Dar for over two months, more often than not I find myself thinking back to the first night we arrived and drove through campus for the first time. As we wound around the new environment that has become a new home away from home, it wasn't until our guides began pointing out the administrative building, the technology building, the math and sciences block, the library, one of the four cafeterias on campus that it really hit me how not prepared I was for any of this, at least in terms of actually attending UDSM as if it were Luther. School here is very different from my Luther experience in more ways than the obvious. Additionally, I felt like I was sprinting into a dark tunnel of the unknown, seeing as I had no information, brochures or even a helpful website to check out the UDSM campus before coming here. Instead, our introduction to the university was comprised of the formal paperwork and occasional browsing of the faculty links on the UDSM website. So that first night as we drove around campus, I just sat there for a few moments in disbelief, realizing all of this. I kept asking myself, “What was I thinking?!”
Even two months into it, there are times when I find myself still asking that same question and still being unable to answer it. However, as each day passes, I find more and more reasons to justify my contentment with not having an answer. I will not be able to "figure out" Tanzania in a short five month stay and certainly not in two months of observations, so why should I expect to “discern a purpose” for my being here or spell out exactly what I'm “seeking while in Tanzania”? There is such a touch-and-go, go with the flow rhythm in everything Tanzanian that I've experienced already, such that it is ok to not know where you're going, to get on the wrong bus, to joke for but a few minutes with a complete stranger, to watch other people's interactions and appreciate the fact that they're actually interacting instead of just getting to the point (I'm totally guilty of that). With the newness of everything surrounding me, why would I even have a hint of a clue as to what I am seeking on this trip?
No, I'm here to absorb. To learn, to see, to feel, to ask, to struggle, to respect, to enjoy. If opportunities arise, maybe I'll take them, maybe I won't. But my answers are open-ended. I am a sponge, already becoming saturated in this strange but exciting new world. And even then, I still have moments that hit me, and I take a look at myself and my thoughts, ideas and expectations. It's then that I shake my head in wonder, in overwhelmed exasperation and sometimes even in fun, telling myself, “Kate, you really have no idea. Not even a clue.” And I kind of like it.
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