Monday, July 11, 2011

Whirlwind

July 7, 2011

Where am I? Ok, I'm in bed and it's one solid matress so that means I'm not in Madagascar. In Mada we had two twin beds next to each other with a gap in between us. I'm not in Durban we were each sleeping in single beds. I can stretch my legs so I'm not on an airplane. Not sure what I'm going to find I open my eyes slowly. No bars on the window. I know this place. It's familiar. As my eyes become less blurry from a night of deep sleep I slowly realize that I'm in my in-law's house. Oh, yeah. I remember coming here. Not quite thinking clearly, though I'm awake I begin to wonder. Have I been dreaming this whole time? Were we really in Madagascar? Only one way to test the reality of this while still in bed. I start to speak to myself in Malagasy. Wow. That sounds convincing. I guess we really were there.

Choose to be fully present each moment of the day, Megan. Before you know it your time here will be done and it will only feel like a wonderful dream.” I told myself this every day that I was in Mada, and I think I did a good job of being fully present. It does however, still feel like a dream.

It's been good to spend a few days here with our Gehlert parents. I think it's just been another nice step into transitioning back home. Pop, Randy, and I went yesterday to get Randy's drivers licence. I was in culture shock just driving on the road. Nice houses everywhere, grass that was soft, roads that were smooth, and.......LOTS of white people. While Randy was working on his license Pop and I went to Target to pick up some underwear, since ours was all stretched out to kingdom-come from being hand washed. I about fell over with sensory overload as I entered the store. Bright lights, HUGE shopping carts, more clothes then I've seen in a year on the streats of Madagascar, a whole section of the store was for underwear, choices of size, color, style. And the really weird thing? No one was staring at me. I went the entire time in the store without one person staring at me. I wasn't on exhibit here in Target. We were on exhibit EVERYWHERE in Madagascar: people would stop what they were doing, point, stare, and say “Vaza!”/”Foreigner”. I literally didn't know what to make of it. I wasn't being noticed here in Target. Strange.

3 comments:

  1. Keep thinking, blogging, praying, and observing! You will gain so much from these very minute differences and experiences. Looking forward to seeing you again, sister.

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  2. if you're looking for people to stare at you maybe you should head over to Q-Mart.

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  3. Good to hear that you made it back safe and sound. Say hi to the boys for Judah, I know he is going to miss them once we return. Hi to Randy as well.

    Josh

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