Big little things

A friend of mine, also serving here in South Africa, once said he sometimes wakes up in the morning and thinks  “Man, I'm in the Peace Corps!...It gives me a really cool feeling.” I couldn’t agree more.  Without a doubt, being in the Peace Corps is a really awesome thing. When people back home hear I’m working for two years as a volunteer in Africa I’m pretty sure the first thing that comes to their minds is lions, loin cloths, and life in a thatched hut. This invariably fills one with a sense of awe and either pity or respect for the soul who has ventured to do such a thing. I always hope for the latter of the two reactions…but whatever ones persuasion may be, it is always seen as a really BIG deal. (For those inquiring minds: No, the people here DO NOT wear loin cloths and the most impressive wildlife I’ve seen around the village as of yet are baboons and Gila monsters.)  Living and working in Africa is indeed an amazing experience. Ironically enough, however, I have been realizing that it is not big things like confronting carnivores 3 times your weight  or living without running water that make it so remarkable…it’s a lot of little things that happen to be a really big deal…

It’s the way the flatness of the land and vast horizon makes me feel a bit taller somehow.

It’s the way the Kindergarteners flock around the village after me, smiling, chanting and swinging on my arms.

It’s that feeling of electrified stillness in the air just before a severe thunderstorm… and the deafening, yet somehow comforting, cacophony of rain on the tin roof.

It’s when a tenth grade students writing assignment this week looks twice as good as last week’s.

Or when that teacher looks to me with grateful eyes and says she doesn’t know what she’d do without me.

It’s the brilliant dance of colors—from indigo to sapphire to turquoise to gold-- that chase the sun across the evening sky and beyond the horizon.

And it’s the crisp cool of the night air in the desert with its navy blanket of stars.

It’s the teenagers who come to me looking for guidance or just a listening ear and the wide excited eyes if grade 1 students whenever I enter the classroom.

It the majesty of towering thunder heads that march along the horizon--their faces catching the white rays of sunlight and the grey rain curtains beneath them trailing rainbows.

It’s sitting outside of my humble brick house having language-barrier-ridden conversations with my host mom and the way her dark eyes twinkle above her round cheeks every time I say something in my bad Setswana.

And what more can I say? The list could go on. All these are things that seem so small—everyday things most locals wouldn’t give a second though--but to me the very things that make life in Africa the big deal that it is. These are the things that I savor and cling to…the things I love most and that make me feel most loved.