I’ve been travelling the developing world since I was an undergraduate in college… As such, I’ve been lucky enough to witness poverty and suffering, in many forms. It’s an experience that changes me anew every time. It never gets easier. After each trip abroad, whether to South America or Africa, I’d return home and begin the not-so-easy process of shifting through conflicting emotions about my life and the injustice of the world. Back at home, ensconced in the safety and comfort of the western world, I would find myself in tears as I took a hot shower, or feel wracked by guilt when I had to throw away uneaten food. I’d shuffle through my life, for weeks or months afterwards, wondering why I rolled a winning hand in the great lottery of life.
So when I bought my plane tickets to travel home to visit my family after 16 months of living in Lesotho, I was understandably nervous. My previous trips, only weeks to months in length, had always had an extreme affect on my emotional and psychological states afterwards- But this experience had far surpassed all of those in term of challenges, realizations, joys, failures, and triumphs. Lesotho was, and is, so much more than all those previous experiences put together. Yet I wanted my brief time home to be joyous- full of love and laughter- not wracked with guilt. I had no idea what I would feel like going home again… Or if I ever could “go home” again.
When I stepped off the plane at Dulles International Airport in mid-December, I walked right past my father. I didn’t even recognize him. Several months of retirement has transformed him from stern-faced, buzz-cut-military, to jolly, rotund, and relaxed, with a giant-graying beard. My sister, nearly tackled me from behind in a giant bear hug, that immediately convinced me that, despite being an 18 year old college student now, some things never change. My mother wrapped me in a tearful hug that never seemed to end- A moment I’d imagined again and again on my loneliest nights in the Maluti Mountains. “You look so well! You look SO well!” I heard her whisper repeatedly under her breath, a half-prayer and half-praise. My brother’s face lit up in a laughing, ear-to-ear smile, as he proudly showed me his new car: his first step into adulthood after graduating from college the previous May. And then there was Casey… Our comical, and slightly chubby, yellow lab had joined my entire family for the four-hour car-trip up to the airport in DC. She valiantly competed with my siblings for who was the happiest to see me.
On the way home, we stopped at a Chick-Fil-A to grab a late 10pm, mid-trip snack. As we squished all five of us into the red plastic booth, that was probably meant for a much smaller family than our large, boistrous bunch, the joy was palpable. I felt complete again… Perhaps for the first time in 16 months. As we sat there, all-smiles, tripping over each other for control of the conversation, I knew the feeling of completion was mutual. At that Chick-Fil-A, somewhere on the interstate between Fredricksburg and Richmond, I finally felt it again… Home.
The next 3 weeks were a chaotic, joyful, lazy, beautiful, and loud amalgamate of family visits, Christmas parties, long walks through the country, Christmas caroling, crackling wood fires, too much good food, afternoons spent curled up in pajamas watching movies with my siblings, all-to-brief visits with friends, and late night talks with my mom over puzzles. It was exactly what it should have been. It was home.
I was simply happy. I felt myself relax in a way that I realized, perhaps I hadn’t in my entire time living in Lesotho. I wasn’t self-conscious. I reveled in the anonimity of walking around a town where people didn’t stare, point, or interrogate me out of curiosity. I relaxed in the comfort of social interactions I understood, conversations I could have without frantically translating between languages in my head, or situations where I knew how to behave. It was liberating.
On Christmas morning, my family and I sat around on the big, fluffy-red couches in my parent’s living room, under the spectacle of our sparkling Christmas tree, the floor strewn with half opened gifts and piles of wrapping paper… And I found myself thinking about my kids in Ha Selomo. And my thoughts were nothing but happy. I found myself smiling, thinking about Mokhoo and Nthatisi tearfully hugging me goodbye as I prepared to leave, waving frantically and chasing the taxi down the dirt-road out of village. I didn’t feel sad for their absence. I didn’t wish they were here. I didn’t pity them, waking up in Ha Selomo. I didn’t feel guilty at my being in America while they were 8000 miles away. Because in that moment I realized…
Everyone deserves home.
Home for me happens to be the Shenandoah Valley, and the smell of homemade macaroni and cheese. It’s a hug from my mom, and the sound of Drayton’s laugh. It’s rolling around on the floor with my dog, until we’re both happily exhausted. It’s a quiet walk to check on the cows with my Dad, and snuggling up in bed with my sister in the early morning, when she’s still half-asleep. It’s Christmas morning: with a tree, presents, and the feel of playing Christmas carols on the piano from my grandmother’s old sheet-music. But for my kids, this wouldn’t feel like home. And I know… I know because I’ve spent the last 16 months living in a place, country, and culture that I love. But Lesotho will never feel like this for me.
And on Christmas, my kids deserve home, too. THEIR home.
They deserve waking up in the rondaval where they were born, to the smell of their mother cooking fresh papa le lebese (maize meal with warm milk) over an open fire. They deserve to celebrate Christmas in a church overflowing with the beautiful sounds of Sesotho hymns, where their grandmother will reach over to hold their hand halfway through the sermon. They deserve to spend the day running about village, in the afternoon heat. Playing with friends they’ve spent their whole lives with. Enjoying an ice-guava from the shopong, or running with wild laughter and abandon, down the hill to take a chilling plunge in the river.
Everyone deserves home.
After my trip back to America this past Christmas, I realize that I don’t have to feel guilty that I enjoy, love, and often miss my home. I need home. Everyone does. Every human being deserves a place in this world where they feel safe, secure, and loved. I don’t pity my children. I don’t pity Basotho. Our homes are simply very different, but I respect that we don’t always get to pick what feels like home. Mine might be in a big, white farmhouse, while theirs is a cozy, dirt-floored rondaval. Yet I would never do them the disrespect of thinking less of theirs, or assuming that they would feel the same way I do were they to magically awake in mine.
Every deserves home. Their OWN home.
With Love from Lesotho… –Mary E.
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