And now for my final thought...

I’ve never been good at summarizing. Which is pretty strange because I’ve read lots and lots of summaries (most often in textbooks to probe for buzzwords and easy answers before tests when I haven’t read the chapter). And so here I am, on my last day in Africa, waiting to go to the airport, and I really haven’t got a way to sum this all up.

Maybe it’s because where I am doesn’t feel like Africa. It feels like Florida. It feels like Generic Vacation Spot. I'm at SeaCliff, some expensive hotel that some foreigners built here so other foreigners can visit Tanzania and not have it feel so… foreign. They have a foreign supermarket where you can buy Oreos and Dr Pepper (which I just did, without hesitation.) You can eat at restaurants and sip lattes in coffee shops that feel just like the ones back home, and visit a book store to browse the same selection of books you’d see at a Borders or Barnes and Noble, and buy educational crap for your kids at one of those “Learning is FUN” type places that seem to be in every mall in the USA. But, I have already ranted about all of this before. I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like places like this – it’s a nice and necessary step toward my own culture. And I’m sitting here anyway, so who am I to judge? It’s just not a place where I’ll say, “Yeah, this is what I’ll remember about Africa.”

This is the point of the post where, if I were in some pleasant, nostalgic writing mood, I’d break into some poetic essay on how serene the landscape is and how God must have surely saved His best ideas when he crafted Tanzania’s mountains and filled its pristine lakes, and how breathtakingly deep and full the night sky is, and how the church choirs sound like the choicest angels plucked from Heaven’s School of Music. All of those things struck me and you kind of need to come here and see them. Or hear them.

And if I had the time, I’d take a moment to summarize all the stuff I did or, if I were to rephrase it with modesty, the stuff “God did through me.” I readily admit that he had a role in everything that happened to, with, from, over, under, around, inside, or despite me while I’ve been here. The truth is, most of my impressions came not from the perspective of a giver or a doer or even a servant, but of a wide-eyed guy who just wanted to see how this part of the world works, one that hoped to be an instrument and did his best not to get in the way. I have had a wonderful time and I have no intention of downplaying it with sarcasm or cynicism. I love Africa and I would love to come back and maybe someday I will.

For now, though, I miss my home and my family and friends*, and in a few hours I’m going to get on a plane and go home and see them and shower them with hugs and lavish African gifts upon them. I am thinking more about there than I am about here. I have been on the road almost constantly for the last 35 days, and I’m almost back to my own bed, to my own home. I can tell you about what I will miss when I begin to miss it. Trust me, it will sound better then. It will be more poetic.

So I will conclude with the one nugget of information that seems to stand out more than any other right now, and that is this: If you go to Africa, and you ride the bus, and if the bus makes a bathroom stop, please please please watch your step.

See you soon.

jim

*Note: Not all friends will be lavished with gifts. Offer restricted to those who made specific requests. Must have replied by 31 Oct 2008. Must be 18 or older, excepting those warranted by executor of offer or by tribal council. Offer not valid in Puerto Rico or New Jersey.