Five days to go
We're down to the wire. We have two suitcases packed, and piles of clothes, diapers, and bottles of Advil, bug spray, and sun screen scattered all over. It looks as though a Walmart vomited in our room!!! And I'm excited, and I'm in shock. Every time I pack a cloth diaper, my stomach does a flip-flop. I'm not sure why the cloth diapers hold so much power over my psyche. I used cloth for Anya, my first, here in the US. It could be because I also tried to use cloth for my second, and it only lasted 3 weeks before I collapsed in fatigue and overwhelmed-ness (is that a word?).
It also could be that those soft, white innocent diapers represent all the ways that life in Africa will be more challenging. Cooking from scratch, for example, as in no seasoning packets or cans of beans. How on earth is my family going to survive if I have to think ahead enough to soak beans for 24 hours before I can make chili??? It should be an interesting first month of cooking again. I foresee lots of peanut butter sandwiches!
But truth be known, I also feel lots of excitement. What an opportunity, living overseas, raising my children to understand global issues, meeting people from all over. I was going through my purse the other day and found my key-chain. It's a simple key-chain; a piece of mahogany with my name carved in it, given to me in high-school by a shopkeeper on the Mombasa coast. It's been empty for the last 4 months. No car keys. No house keys. No work keys. It's time to fill it back up again, I say. Time to get back into real grown-up life again, even if that means cloth diapers and soaking beans!
It also could be that those soft, white innocent diapers represent all the ways that life in Africa will be more challenging. Cooking from scratch, for example, as in no seasoning packets or cans of beans. How on earth is my family going to survive if I have to think ahead enough to soak beans for 24 hours before I can make chili??? It should be an interesting first month of cooking again. I foresee lots of peanut butter sandwiches!
But truth be known, I also feel lots of excitement. What an opportunity, living overseas, raising my children to understand global issues, meeting people from all over. I was going through my purse the other day and found my key-chain. It's a simple key-chain; a piece of mahogany with my name carved in it, given to me in high-school by a shopkeeper on the Mombasa coast. It's been empty for the last 4 months. No car keys. No house keys. No work keys. It's time to fill it back up again, I say. Time to get back into real grown-up life again, even if that means cloth diapers and soaking beans!
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