never go back

“Sometimes I think I’ll never go back to the US. The words are seductive, and once in a while I play with them in my head, a tantalizing refrain: never go back, never go back. Of course it’s all drama, because what do you fill that “never” with. You still have to spend the rest of your life somewhere.”

There is a bookshelf here in the guest house with tattered, worn books that have been left here by all the students before.  I flipped open the book Someone’s Heart Is Burning to the page with that quote.  And that is exactly where my head has been for the last month or so.  A few weeks ago, after I got past the halfway funk (I’ve spared you all that post), I started to feel like I didn’t want to go home. There is too much to do and too much to see here to leave right now.  Burundi or Rwanda would be a pretty easy plane ride from here and Eastern Congo would just be a thrilling motorcycle ride from the border there.  I started to look at how much money I have sitting in my bank account and fantasizing about how long I could wander before reality would set in and I would have to start paying on school loans.  The more I have a camera in my hand the more I realize that it is all I want to do.  And the more I realize that I’m in grad school because I didn’t have to balls to just do what I wanted to do in the first place.  It’s not that I don’t love public health – I do. And you can believe I still occasionally contemplate medical school – maybe in another life.  But I’m having a hard time convincing myself that another year – and a lot more in school loans – is worth it right now.  I’ve spent hours thinking in the last couple of weeks.  Ultimately I bet I’ll cave and find my way back to Chapel Hill.  I’ll spend the year doing what I want and need to do. Focusing on my photography/journalism classes, yoga, running, rock climbing in my free time (if there is any). I’ll have plenty of other classes to do too.  And a good deal of work work in the office, but I’m going to take the advice I was given last year to heart.  Take what you need and leave the rest.  If I can manage it I’ll travel again over Christmas and then it’ll be time to look for a job abroad.  I’m a wanderer.  That much will never change. But maybe it’s time to go back to home base for a little while.