reflection

looking back. thinking. curious.

What would life be like if I had just stayed in Goma? I am in the throws of midterm paper season here at school and it doesn't help that majority of my classes have a great lakes region focus right now. We are watching movie clips and flipping through images of the flourishing rolling green hills and the still waters of lake kivu contrasted by the black roads and faces of suffering. It's gripping. I smile at the images, they are familiar. BUT (there is always a but) am I romanticizing it? I know that I had my days in Goma where I wondered what the hell I was doing there, where all I wanted to do was book it to the border and make a run for the Kigali airport. Yet I also had those days where I couldn't wipe a smile off my face as I was goofing around sorting through medical equipment, holding someone's hand, or having a primus at the African Queen.

I guess I feel unsettled because those strangers who became friends over in Goma are heading back, and I'm not. Part of me wants to drop everything, put a plane ticket on the ol' visa and show up back pack in hand. But, instead, I am here in the library, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and it all seems so far away. who knows when i will return next?

A theme that jumps out at me from the rest of my writing is my emphasis on patience. So, to take advice from the younger level headed version of Samo, I will wait, I will be patient. Because some day I will be arguing with a border guard and wondering why I am doing it all over again.