Stranger No More
I hit it last week sometime. I'm not really sure when or how it happened, but it happened. I crossed the subtle threshold in the back of my mind that says i'm no longer a stranger here. The 'amazing' and 'fantastic' sights of my first few weeks are now ordinary and commonplace, part of the everyday fabric of my life instead of some extra embellishment. There wasn't an event that precipitated this shift . . . it isn't like i woke up one morning and said 'today is the day i make mombasa my own' . . . it just kind of enveloped me.
This isn't to say that i'm not aware of the fact that for all intents and purposes i am still an outsider. Walking through town, I know I look like all the other Watalii pouring off of the luxury tour buses now that high-season is kicking in. I am indeed just visiting. While I've nearly finished a year's worth of Kiswahili, I'm sure I sound like a foreigner. From the outside, nothing has changed -except for the scruffy face. It is an internal shift in how I see myself relating to this world.
This also doesn't mean that noteworthy things haven't been happening either. In fact I have a back-log of 'new spectacles' to share with people. In the past few weeks I've been traveling up and down the coast on the weekends with others in the program -hampering my opportunity to work with the local mombasa parish of the kelc, but giving me a better survey and understanding of the Swahili Coast. In the past few weeks I've sailed on a dhow in the ocean, cruised upstream to a village laden with coconuts, gone slogging through a swamp, fallen asleep in distant villages and been involved with the purchase of a dog for roughly 50 cents. There has been Konyagi, Kahawa, and the wearing of Kikoys, not to mention the impromptu trip last weekend to crash a wedding Malindi.
I hope to get to tell those stories here eventually, perhaps as classes wind down I'll have the chance, but the imperative to do so isn't quite as strong. The extraordinary stories that have been begging to be told somehow seem quite ordinary. Palm wine sold in a cooking oil bottle and topped off with a corn cob? How could it be any other way?!?!
The unfortunate part of this shift coming when it did is that things are wrapping up here. Class ends on Friday the 27th. My friends are starting to talk about their reutrn flights and purchasing last minute gifts. We have a farwell dinner this coming Wednesday. I've been starting to make my preparations for the journey to Tanzania. I should be leaving for Dar on Monday the 30th and from there it'll be on to Iringa for the next phase of my journey.
While I'm saddened about the prospect of leaving this place, I'm looking forward to settling further into relationships I've been growing for five years now. . . five years. No wonder this place, this culture, this way of life feels so very much like home.
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