a holiday

It is a holiday in Mozambique and my brother-in-law’s birthday. October 4th. According to my students we are celebrating a day of peace. We had a holiday last week too. I love Mozambican holidays. I think they have more than the State of Georgia and that’s a lot. 

I am on my way to my tennis friend’s house on the sea for a day of R&R. I have stopped at a little local backpacker lodge to sit and write and for a change of scenery. 

Something about being here makes me crave the creative. I devour anything beautiful, artistic, unique. I daydream about maybe becoming a designer or writer and moving back to America to work for Ann Mashburn (Atlanta clothing designer) and just create beautiful things.  I wanted to be surrounded my color and linen, Egyptian cotton, Dupioni, gingham and seersucker. I am shocked at how badly I miss the South. Of course I miss my family and my friends on a level I could never truly explain but I miss the South in a way I never knew. I didn’t realize how closely I was attached to her. I never knew how Southern I really am. I miss all the flavors at her table. I miss her voice and her hospitality. When I was just in Cape Town a guy asked me about where I was from and 30 minutes later, when I had finished my monologue said, “Wow. I didn’t realize Georgia was that amazing. You should write about all that”.  It is hard to write about it when you are not there, so I escape when I can via a Southern Living magazine. I only have 6 and I have read 3 and am saving the others for the next national holiday or Sunday afternoon on the beach. 

I asked my kids the other day about the whole Congress thing. About how they spent the reported $4 million dollars on a conference. I got blank stares back at me. I asked if they agreed with this decision. I got silence. Then I got a head nod, yes and a head nod, no and asked them to explain but they just cocked their heads at me with looks of confusion on their faces. Maybe it was my broken, rubbish Portuguese or maybe they don’t know that they can have an opinion. Or maybe they don’t know how poor they really are. They don’t know their schools are bad and their hospitals decrepit. 

So I have absolutely no plans to return to the Western world and work in a job to make someone else's dream come true. I am living right in the middle of my own. My students need me and I need them. I take pleasure in teaching them about my world as they teach me about theirs. Every day they make me appreciate every blessing. In just one year they have made me different. I hope they can say the same.