Nostalgia

And it begins...

I got into my office this morning, and after the requisite saying hello to everyone, spending 10 minutes getting my ever-aging computer working, and making a cup of tea, I sat down to get to work. But instead of diving into emails, I first turned my head and looked outside; to the green hills of the Uluguru Mountains and the clouds hanging just below them that are visible from my office window, and felt the first pangs of sadness at the thought of leaving this place.

Morogoro and I have had our differences. But like a long-negotiated relationship of necessity, over time we've come to first respect each other, then appreciate and finally enjoy one another. It's taken along time, but I finally feel like I have a life here. I have taxi drivers I know, someone at the market to buy my vegetables from, people to call when I get locked into my office (like I did on Monday night), I have friends.

And Morogoro may be it's own small, quirky world, but me and the people in my life here have made it home for the here and now. We've thrown house parties and dinner parties, and held movie nights and pizza nights, we've gone 'shopping' for new clothes at the market, cut each other's hair, climbed up mountains and swam in waterfalls. We've gone on yogurt runs and beer runs and out for Indian food. And we've become a little community because we all know that we're all we've got here. And I will miss this.

I will miss Karen. And Dimitri. And Matema, and the little Norway's, and the Madoffe's and Clement, and Grace and Onesmo. I will miss little kids saying "Good morning teacher" to me on my way home from work at 6pm. And I will miss some of the ease and simplicity that life in a very small community with very limited options affords you.

As me and a few of my friends here look towards the close of our time in Morogoro, it feels like there is some sort of centrifugal force pulling us together and to this place. We all will be excited to go onto what's next in our lives, but we all will be sad to leave. So in the time we have left, we hold on to one another and enjoy our strange, crazy, sometimes frustrating, sometimes amazing, life in Morogoro.