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When I last wrote to you I was leaving. I was moving to Mozambique to start a vocational school. I had just experienced a blissful 8 weeks living back in my hometown. It was glorious, wonderful, amazing, beautiful, and inspiring. After 6 months of blazing heat, high humidity, limited water, electricity, and food varieties and general lack of all necessities, including the internet, I came home, to rest and renew my visa. It had been a hard 6 months but I didn't even know it until I began to look back. I had jumped in with both feet and started something from nothing. A beautiful little English school is now in existence and Baptista and John have jobs and internships are in progress and two small businesses are beginning to take shape. I would rise early and days were always full on, with little room for breaks or rest. The need around me intense. The poverty extreme. The great lack apparent. Yet the opportunity endless. I love what I do.
I flew into the ATL and every fiber of my being was elated to be home. I had not said two words in 16 hours to the lady beside me, but when we got in view of the Atlanta skyline I beamed when I told her, "I'm coming home". I strained to see little East Point (where I lived in Atlanta) and spotted the Gold Dome. I rushed to the nearest bathroom at the baggage claim inside the terminal to brush my teeth and change clothes. I knew I smelled. And not like Chanel. I anticipated my parents being at the arrival gate awaiting me with open arms, but they were late. No offense, but Hartwellians don't know how to drive in Atlanta. All the lanes intimidate them and even at 7am on a Sunday morning they were late. I waited impatiently, but immediately forgave them when I saw my dad's bald head bobbing toward Delta Baggage Carousel 5 and my mother's face with tears in her eyes.
I then got to spend the next 6 weeks in absolute heaven. Hartwell, which I often described as a little cardboard town, suddenly seemed like New York City with all it's buildings, air-conditioning, performing arts center, shops, paved roads and vegetable market. Christine came over with Whoopie Pies. Dad gave me the keys to his little semi-retirement reward, The Convertible and I got to scoot all over Hart County with the top down in perfect Spring weather. My old college roommate came to visit and we hiked along the trails at Watson Mill Bridge. We went into the little coffee shop on the square in Bowman where I was "recognized" as "the girl in Africa". My friend and I walked out giggling. I am not used to being a celebrity. I was flattered. Laura was impressed.
I was blessed and welcomed home with open arms by the community of Hartwell once again. I loved going to Ingle's to get most anything one could ever want, although they didn't have arugula! But I was elated, leaning on my buggy filling it with dairy products and berries which are non-existent at the Pemba market. I loved not having to bargain or speak a foreign language, just hand over Mama's Ingles Advantage card and Voila! a discount. There, I got to see Hank and Derek. Little boys I once read bedtime stories, now charming young men. I ordered TakeAway regularly from the Thai place, coconut, ginger and tofu are among my favorite things. I recommend the Panang Curry. I scoured Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree and Home Depot for all the must have items that I simply cannot get in my world; duct tape, drawer pulls, tacks, Ziplock bags and containers, Starbucks Coffee, a shower curtain, and a can opener. I got to see my very best friends from high school, including Nathalie from France, as we all gathered at the Glenn's for a girls' weekend and picked up where we left off somewhere around 1995.
I loved being able to share my life with the Bible Study Women, Hartwell First United Methodist Church, Cokesbury United Methodist Church, and Hart County High School. So much more has happened since then and I am excited to come home and share new updates on the school, our businesses and our students. Your words of encouragement keep me going. Knowing that I have you to come home to brings me peace. My story is quite simple, I am just doing what I feel I am supposed to do. I simply said yes and everything else fell into place and very suddenly I find myself sitting at my tiny kitchen table in the semi dark, waiting on the electricity to return, during my lunch break in Africa, barefooted, writing you.
The longer I live here the harder it is to come home and back into a life in the Western world, but Hartwell could not be more gentle and patient and kind. I hope you will bear with me when you see me walking barefoot in public places or greeting you in Makua or Portuguese or eating with my hands or sniffing your neck because you smell so incredibly good. I am no longer used to exchanging pleasantries and would be an utter failure at small talk. My knowledge of recent news is that the white man with the salt and pepper hair who ran for president the last time is running again and recently picked a kinda cute guy as a running mate. I tried to download his bio online but the internet was too slow. The news in my community is that the witch doctor came into our primary school and was wreaking havoc. Sophia is her name. It was all just a rumor and apparently it wasn't so but evidently Sophia does exist and so does the fact that she is notorious for terrorizing children in really horrific ways. The other news is that the road is out again and you have to drive all the way around the town to get to any place and that has halted traffic and is keeping me homebound as my scooter barely makes it out of the driveway as it is and would never make it all the way around or up the hill to town.
The little vocational school is bustling, in spite of my still not really having a clue what I am doing. Today we are working on our new restaurant and will be painting and planting flowers and building a bamboo fence. I am working with the sewing girls on making cloth napkins and tablecloths for the restaurant and working on creating a menu. I took two of the students with me to buy paint yesterday. Neither student had ever been in the large hardware store in town. It is full of made in China junk but they gawked and peered and starred. I gave them 500 mets in the village market called Natete and told them to go buy grass mats and they did. On the way home, Twyfa told me she wanted to come to America. I thought, "Honey, America would chew you up and spit you out". Earlier that day Twyfa didn't even know how to unlock the car door. America would rock her little village world. I tried to let her down easy by saying, "America is not as beautiful as this place". I am not saying that her coming to America would never happen. I would love for her to see my country. I just don't want these kids to see America and Americans as the answer to their problems, but to stand proudly in their role as Mozambicans. But then I thought about Hartwell and I thought, Hartwell would welcome you. They'd put you on the front page of the paper and your arrival would be news. Ingles would forego their "No Shirt. No Shoes. No Entry." Prohibition and let the little dark Mozambican girl shop to hearts' content in her brightly colored capalana. And as we rode up the big hill, the long way around the city, Amelcar in the bed of the pickup, me shifting gears, left-handed, windows down, the sea of Indian Ocean behind a sea of mud huts flying past us, I got a little homesick. I smiled at Twyfa. She, oblivious to all the thoughts in my head and me, oblivious to hers. She, oblivious of the world from which I come and I, despite living here, completely clueless about hers. She lives my grandmother's life of cooking and cleaning and walking to school. In a few short years she will have babies under foot. I don't know what I can do with her, in these short moments of her life that our lives intertwine, to help. I know she loves to hug. I remember in 1st Grade at Hartwell Elementary how much I loved to hug Ms. Black. She pronounced her last name with two syllables instead of one. We all stood in line in the morning to do so. She smelled amazing. Twyfa loves for me to hug her. I am really honestly not much of a hugger anymore. But I can do it. I can wear perfume. I can hug.
As of now I plan to be arriving in the ATL quite early on the morning of November 11th. At one time I would have felt like a dweeb, standing somewhere waiting on my parents! But at 35, you grow up and get over all that, and I couldn't be more honored. I reckon we will continue to ritual of Ria's Blue Bird Cafe for the best breakfast in the world. Despite the jet lag and not having driven on the right side of the road or left side of the car in 6 months, Dad will hand me the keys and we will head northeast for 90 miles into beloved Hart County, Georgia. I am very much looking forward to it.
Many thanks and much love,
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