Two-Week Countdown & Personal Reflection
I sat squished between two people on our multi-hour plane ride to Kenya and tried to finally sleep. However, this was difficult, not only from the turbulence, the flight attendants wanting to feed us breakfast despite having given us dinner only 2 hours before, and my elbow constantly hitting the person next to me, but from all the thoughts buzzing in my head. I was so worried, with my past inclination to being devastatingly homesick, that I’d get anxious and sick while I was out the country. I kept running down the list of the adjustment steps from our orientation to ensure I had them memorized. First was the “Honeymoon” phase, where everything in the country was new and fun; next was the culture shock phase, where noticeable cultural differences from home to here would be apparent and possibly overwhelming; next was initial adjustment, finally getting used to things; next was the “mental isolation” phase, or needing time to mentally comprehend what was happening; next was acceptance, and starting to assimilate into the culture; finally, was the reverse culture shock when we get home. If I had the steps ingrained in my brain, I’d be well prepared to handle them if they hit, and could remind myself it was completely normal. Even if I was only one state over, I’ve been very prone to homesickness and even hated the place, despite how fun it seemed, I’d be as a result. If that were to happen in Kenya, it would render null my ambitions and passions for being there. It just had to happen to me, right? The culture shock would hit me and I’d feel it’d be unbearable.
It never happened.
I’ll admit I might’ve felt a little culture shock at first. Although dinner offered American foods like wings and burgers, foods for breakfast and lunch were quite different, and the first week I craved maybe a bagel or pancakes. Also, the portion sizes were gigantic; I felt terrible for not being able to finish everything on my plate, with the ironic shame that I was wasting food as a hunger-fighting ambassador. The vast difference in atmosphere was a bit difficult to adjust to also; the first week, my respiratory allergies were a mess! But it felt like the honeymoon phase stretched into almost a nesting phase. As I walked down the sidewalks and streets to the laboratory, looking over at the view of Nairobi that stretched farther than the eyes can see, skyline meeting faint mountain ridges barely painted against the sky, as the cool air smelling of new wildlife and trees kissed my face, I felt nothing but a sense of belonging, almost as if I was home.
I flew from miles away when? I’ve always been here. My past life was nothing but a hazy hallucination. I’ve lived, breathed, every moment I spent here.
I can’t believe I only have one full week here left. The time flew by. I thought two months would feel like an overabundant amount of time; that eventually I’d get sick of it like I do with two months of school or even a summer vacation. But it never happened; in fact, it felt like the two months weren’t nearly enough an amount of time. I didn’t even realize that time was passing until my friend casually mentioned to me, “Oh, we have two weeks left.”
My friend, Jacob, and I have different ways of handling an approaching deadline of time. He was counting down, day by day, while I prefer to completely ignore the passage of time and squeeze every drop of enjoyment out every moment, down to the last minute before I step on the plane. (Planning wise, his methods are probably far smarter!) I can’t picture leaving this place. I worried I’d want nothing but to leave, overwhelmed by missing my country, missing my home — but it’s the opposite. Waking up early to run to the laboratory to test DNA for animal pathogens, making data and analyses of things we found, throwing on a lab coat and latex gloves before we run a gel electrophoresis, it’s a living dream.
I almost felt as if I was a piece of a puzzle that snugly fit in. There was nowhere else I could picture being, nothing else I could picture doing; this was my home. Turns out my aches for home came from the fear of leaving it, not the want to return to it. In my time here, I never grew to hate Kenya, I never questioned coming here, I never had trouble sleeping because I wanted to go home, like how I’ve been any other time I was away from home. There was something about stepping into Kenya that touched me in a certain way. Something that beckoned me in, and enveloped me. Something about how the sun sets here, something about the wildlife running down the street, or how the livestock graze, a world so foreign yet familiar, a home or identity I couldn’t consciously remember. I love it here.
I’ve also reflected on another thing they mentioned at orientation: the person we’d be going into our host sites would not be the same person coming out. I don’t know how true that is for me. I’m not even sure how to compare how I was coming in. Perhaps I’m more mellow, more driven for passion, but as for a complete maturity transformation I don’t know. I’d hoped this experience would help shape me more as an adult as I’m 18 and this was my first time being on my own. Perhaps it is. I found myself relying less and less on my parent’s advice, scolding myself to not buy a bunch of sugar from the grocery store, managing my schedule. If this is my right of passage, my coming of age story, I cannot express how happy I am that it involved doing something impactful. Doing something to serve, help others. If this sets the path of my adulthood, to become a woman who cares about the world and has enough ambition to put her hands into the problem to help someone else, then I’m beyond proud, and I’m happy for whatever path I’m meant to take in life. This experience has meant so much, it’s so much of an impact I feel like every youth, every person who anxiously fidgets in their seat, hearing terrible things of the world but not knowing what they can do, deserves to feel.
My time here has more than confirmed that fighting hunger, through a OneHealth perspective, is exactly what I want to do with my life, and I’m sure I’m definitely not the only one!
