Three Years In

I can’t get rid of a faded brown pair of socks that I got in Arusha at language school in 2016. Arusha is much colder than Dar es Salaam (where I hardly ever wore socks), so I bought them at an open-air market. 

I’m not sure why I even brought these socks back to the States with me, except that we left with five days’ notice, so not all my packing decisions made sense. I knew it would be sock-weather in California in March. Maybe I thought the pandemic would make socks scarce. 

In three years, I haven’t worn them. But I can’t get rid of them. 

Gil is not as sentimental as me. I recently found his Tevas in the trash, his favorite ones, the ones he had re-soled on a Dar es Salaam street corner – the Maasai way, with old tires. Which meant that he walked with tire tread marks instead of shoe prints. I fished them out of the trash and protested loudly but they were indeed kind of gross. So I took a picture instead. Still, a piece of my heart went into the trash with them.

It’s been three years this month. 

In California, I don’t feel like a party crasher anymore, but I do often feel like I am late to the party. It was so much easier to start a new life when I was young and my kids were young. So much history is here that doesn’t include me. I will never be able to catch up. And it makes me tired. Sometimes I don’t want to try; I just want to be a hermit. 

My biggest hole is community. Sometimes I think, “It’s been three years, and this is all I’ve got to show for it?” The people I’ve met here are friendly and kind, but it just takes a ridiculously long time to get to know them. We’ve been so intentional – we host a Home Group; we’ve had dozens over for dinner. But Americans are so busy and perhaps even more significant – so independent. 

After three years in Tanzania, I had friends I would have donated a kidney to. Or at least my rationed chocolate chips, which was almost as noteworthy. After three years, we would have vacationed together and planned a summer camp together and probably lived through a snake, a riot, a case of amoebic dysentery, a robbery, three flat tires, and a flood. I threw myself on the mercy of others and they on me. In America, I have Yelp and Google Maps and English. I don’t need help. I love independence, but I also hate it. 

Of course, we still have our beloved Snyder family who is just 10 minutes away from us. Often I marvel at the miraculous, extraordinary gift from God that allowed us to live in the same city. Having friends in our lives who share our history has made everything sweeter. But I have tasted what a true interdependent community can be like, and I am restless without it.  

The things I enjoy about America are all intertwined with the things I miss. Last month, I called nine pharmacies before I found a kid’s medication. Then I drove a half hour to pick it up, and when I arrived, their computer system had just crashed and they didn’t know when it would be fixed, so I would have to come back the next day. I grumbled for three seconds before it struck me that this kind of scenario happened to me weekly in Tanzania, yet this was the first time it had ever happened in America. I realized how much less stressful my life is now. 

Less stressful, but also, less rich. 

Everything I could ever want is always at the grocery store; I never have to wonder what will be on the shelves. But that means I miss the thrill of finding Craisins, root beer, or expired cream cheese (which meant it was on sale). I’m thankful that here I don’t stand out in a crowd, my skin color and my clothes indicate sameness. But also, I crave the complexity and depth of my multicultural life. Ironically, I stood out, but I fit in.

There’s a little park a block from my house and there’s a little cement path around that park. I walk it often, just me and my dog Mzungu, enjoying the birds and the light filtering through the knarled olive trees. I can see the snow-covered mountains from that park, and the silence is peaceful and soul-filling. Dar es Salaam was never peaceful (despite its name); it was always noisy and chaotic. But after a while, I am all filled up with solitude, and I start longing for a neighborhood that is full of noise, life, poetry.  

It’s only now, at Year Three, that my kids are circling back to where they came from. I think they needed to get past the survival phase in order to begin processing their Tanzanian childhoods. One said to me, “Mom, I realize now that America’s not that amazing after all. I always thought it was, back when we would visit. But now that I’ve lived here a while, I realize it’s not all that great.”

Another, for the first time in three years, called me into the bedroom late at night and begged for a chance to visit Tanzania this summer. This was the child who told me a year ago, “I don’t even think about Tanzania anymore.” They are starting to integrate all the parts of their complicated lives. Which is why I keep prompting them: Remember. Remember. Remember. 

Our desire was for our kids to adjust to America before they became adults. Grace is now 17, will very soon get her driver’s license, and will graduate next year. I think, How did I imagine that four years would be enough time for her to adapt? But then I think, I would never have wanted to pull her from her life in Tanzania any earlier than we did. This dichotomy, this tension, will always remain.

For all of us six Medinas, our lives will forever be divided in two: Before we left. After we left. The part that is American. The part that is Tanzanian. Both sides hold beauty and sorrow. The more time passes, the more facets reflect the light.

Related:

The End of Part One
One Year Later
Two Years In
Metamorphosis