I'm waiting...

I realize now that I have grown up in a fast paced, results based society. The Internet is getting faster and faster, we have drive through ATMs, and Starbuck has introduced an instant coffee that rivals its drip. Patience is definitely not a Western virtue.

I am using this blog post is a means of passing the time. I am waiting for the Internet to come back online, I am waiting for a phone call from a carpenter with an estimate and I am waiting for Lyn to become available. I sometimes feel that I spend more of my time waiting impatiently than actually doing.

Even yesterday, a day that I consider a complete success had its time of waiting. I was waiting in line at Kivu Market trying to buy the food in my hand. Kivu market was going through some renovations, it had introduced a new computer system and my check out line was the fortunate one to be blessed with a trainee cashier. I don’t speak the language and I feel that I could have made things run smoother if I had mustered the courage to jump the counter. What made the situation even more ridiculous was the fast paced club music pounding loudly in the background. Then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse the unreliable city power decided to cut out. We just had to be patient and wait.

Its difficult to apply my results based form of success to this slow moving patient world. In an email exchange with Richard Anderson of HEAL U.S.A. he helped me understand that I needed to be glad with the small victories of a day. I cannot always grumble and grown over how “unproductive” I was. In a more hippy way of putting it, I need to be happy with just being. My productivity, like many things here in Goma, needs to be viewed relative to my setting. I can no longer compare my successes back at home with my successes here.

I need to be patient.