Leaving Tanzania | Amy Medina

All year, we’ve been planning a family trip back to Tanzania in June–the precise window of time when our kids’ new school would be finished and Haven of Peace Academy would still be in session. We had such a traumatic ending last March. All year, our family has talked about going back and finishing better.

But U.S. immigration won’t let us leave the country with Johnny. So that means Grace, Lily, and I will still go to Tanzania this June–only half of us. I’m excited to go, but this is not what I wanted. So I lament.

Yet this isn’t my first struggle with U.S. immigration. It’s been going on for fifteen years.

I think part of the reason why I have compassion for immigrants is because I have four of them in my family. Maybe this is news to some, but children adopted internationally by Americans don’t automatically become U.S. citizens. In the fifteen years I’ve had my children, I’ve often been prevented from bringing them into the United States. And now I’m being prevented from taking one out.

This has been a theme of our lives. Here’s one example (of many that could be told):

I still remember the day so clearly: Josiah was two years old. By this time, he had been in our home since he was nine months old and had just been officially adopted. In order to start his U.S. citizenship process, he had to be in our custody for two years. Since we hadn’t met that mark yet, if we wanted to visit the States, we needed to get him a tourist visa.

One Year Ago March

By Amy Medina

On March 7, 2021

In Leaving Tanzania, Re-Entry to America

March 2020: Corona virus comes to Tanzania

Grace, who is 15, told me about a conversation she had with an old friend. “She asked me how my year had been going,” Grace said. “And I told her about all the new things in my life and the things that have changed.” Suddenly her face crumpled. “And I realized, I’ve been through a lot, haven’t I?”

Yes, my girl, you have been through a lot.

The earth has made its way around the entirety of the sun since last March, which means we are headed towards all the anniversaries. March 13–the last day I was on campus with my students. March 19–the day we were told we had to leave. March 25–the day we left Tanzania. The emotional impact of each of those days left a yawning hole that has yet to be filled.

I don’t like remembering it. I’ve related the story of March 2020 to friends several times; I’ve re-read the account I wrote. It doesn’t take much to pull me back into the grief and bewilderment and shock all over again. I wonder how long it will take before I can think about it without feeling it.

Writing In Past Tense About My Missionary Life

By Amy Medina

On February 10, 2021

In Leaving Tanzania, Re-Entry to America

I thought I was doing fine, and then I watched The Office episode in Season 7 when Michael leaves, and found tears leaking out of my eyes all over the place. And Gil looked at me bewildered, and I choked, “I had to say goodbye to an office too!” So I guess I’m not always doing fine.

I didn’t just inhabit Tanzania; it inhabited me. The humidity settled in my hair, frizzing it out, it dwelt in my skin; I never needed lotion. The tropical sun beat down on me most days of the year; I look at my wrists and neck now, places I didn’t regularly wear sunscreen, and I see that my skin has aged more than my 44 years deem appropriate. My legs and feet were accustomed to sandals and skirts almost every day, not jeans and socks like today. The words I spoke were different–not just when I used Swahili, but my English vocabulary too. My muscles were trained in different patterns; the rough ground I walked on, the way I drove, my routine in the grocery store.

I suppose it’s understandable, then, why I have felt disoriented for so long. My body was yanked out of Tanzania, but for a long while, Tanzania still dwelt in me. It’s not just my mind that has needed reorienting, but my body as well.

In Tanzania, I spent many hours at my tiny kitchen sink, washing dishes. I would stare out the screened window into our backyard watching the dogs and the crows and the occasional chicken. There wasn’t much of a view, mostly just the top of the underground water tank and a cement wall that surrounded the yard. But fuchsia bougainvillea grew on that wall, and several coconut trees towered behind it, their papery leaves rustling in the wind.

It was such a very, very familiar sight to me for many years. I looked out that window when Josiah was two years old, whining at my knee, and when he was twelve years old, making a peanut butter sandwich next to me. Last year, I can remember looking out that window and wondering what it would be like to not look out of it anymore. It was hard to imagine.

My life in Tanzania went on for so long that for a long time, I couldn’t visualize the end of it. Life beyond Tanzania seemed like a fuzzy black hole, out of focus.

I Never Thought I Would Miss the Spiders

By Amy Medina

On November 16, 2020

In A Life Overseas, Leaving Tanzania, Re-Entry to America

Earlier this year, my kids and I were still in Tanzania, and while driving home, we stopped at a roadside fruit stand.

I asked for a huge bunch of bananas, handed the seller my money, and she passed the bananas through the window to my pre-teen son, sitting in the passenger seat. This was routine; we did it several times a week.

I pulled back onto the street and had driven just a few yards when I heard my son give a horrified yell. Alarmed, I looked over and saw an enormous spider, about the size of a silver dollar, crawling on top of the bananas in his lap. The yell turned into a guttural yelping, as my son stood up, dropped the bananas on the seat and proceeded to clamber over all of the seats and into the trunk of our minivan.

Meanwhile, I was still driving, and meanwhile, the spider was also running for his life in my direction, so I joined in with the cacophony of noise in the car. The spider then decided that hiding underneath my seat was a safe place to get away from all the screaming.

I Don’t Want to Waste This Emptiness

By Amy Medina

On November 7, 2020

In Book Recommendations, Leaving Tanzania, Re-Entry to America

Every morning I would step out under the East African sun onto the piece of heaven called Haven of Peace Academy. I could look out past the palm trees onto the expanse of the Indian Ocean, enveloped in that beauty. Everywhere I walked I was surrounded by children; everywhere I turned there was someone to talk to, a parent, a teacher, a bouncing, dancing first grader. I ate lunch with a Brit and a Dane and a Zimbabwean; every conversation was alive with culture and rich diversity and perspective. My days were full of problems to solve and noise and laughter and light.

Now every day I wake up in my small apartment and take the kids to school. I sit on my couch and am bombarded by the silence. I face the computer all day and my only interactions with other people are through that screen. I fix myself lunch and eat with a magazine. I go to the grocery store and never recognize anyone. I go to church and few know my name. I am alone, and I am unknown. And inside is a yawning emptiness.

The deaths in my life this year line up like tombstones. The death of my self-respect; being forced to leave Tanzania early engulfed my head in shame. The death of feeling competent, knowledgeable, relevant; starting a new job is like becoming a toddler again. The death of being known; the wealth of my relationships in Tanzania took twenty years to build. I lift my weary eyes to climbing that mountain over again and it feels insurmountable.

Category: Leaving Tanzania Page 2 of 5

Johnny Can’t Travel With Us: A Lament Over U.S. Immigration

One Year Ago March

Writing In Past Tense About My Missionary Life

I Never Thought I Would Miss the Spiders

I Don’t Want to Waste This Emptiness