I went for a walk today and no one yelled Mzungu. Maybe that's because there was no one around! No one. No little kids on the sidewalk, no one selling goods from the side of the road, no one riding their bike and then almost falling off when they do a double take to see the white girl. No one.
Everything else seems quite normal if I don't think about where I was earlier this week. I can go through the day with relative normalcy. If feels natural to sit around the table with my family or stop in to Starbucks or drive around town. But only until I think about my friends, and my weeks prior to this one and my students and my boys in Nigeria. Then it all seems a bit odd that it's 35 degrees outside and I really can have ANYTHING I want to eat and all of these really great people I've been missing for the last year are now around to meet and greet. It seems really odd to walk into a store and not have everyone stare, to not have the random person strike up a conversation and to snuggle under loads of blankets at night.
I think my normal may just have been redefined.
Everything else seems quite normal if I don't think about where I was earlier this week. I can go through the day with relative normalcy. If feels natural to sit around the table with my family or stop in to Starbucks or drive around town. But only until I think about my friends, and my weeks prior to this one and my students and my boys in Nigeria. Then it all seems a bit odd that it's 35 degrees outside and I really can have ANYTHING I want to eat and all of these really great people I've been missing for the last year are now around to meet and greet. It seems really odd to walk into a store and not have everyone stare, to not have the random person strike up a conversation and to snuggle under loads of blankets at night.
I think my normal may just have been redefined.
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