There’s an old-fashioned bell on the wall in Haven of Peace Academy’s office building. We would ring it on special occasions, like when we recruited a new teacher or got a batch of approved work permits, or when Zawadi was finally adopted.
The moment I walked into that building on Monday afternoon, June 7th, after fourteen months of being away, my friend Trudie saw me and ran over and rang that bell. The faces of old friends appeared out of office doors and some clapped and some cheered and all of them surrounded me at once. They engulfed me with love and I held onto them for dear life, and I broke down with joy and sorrow and relief and a whole lot of jetlag. For fourteen months I had longed for this moment and not known if it would ever come. But it did.
What was it like to go back? It felt like Lucy going through the wardrobe, like Harry passing through Platform 9 ¾. I got off the plane and was in a different universe, one that instantly felt very familiar, like no time at all had passed.
June in Dar es Salaam is technically winter, but my face was abruptly shiny again from the humidity. My ankles were perpetually itchy from mosquito bites. Monkeys danced on the roof in the mornings, I ate rice and beans for lunch, I haggled over taxi prices, and I hollered for the house guard when the water pump stopped working. My duffle bag arrived with a large rip, and I fretted over finding a needle and thread until it dawned on me, Duh, I’m in Dar. I can walk out the gate and find a tailor who will fix it up good as new, licketly split. And so I did.
I have spent the last fourteen months trying to force my soul into ill-fitting clothes, so being back felt ordinary and effortless and right.
