Sent from my iPhone

Apparently losing my computer just means I (may) be more edited since it takes 4x as long to get anything out. This is not necessarily a bad thing…

|on tethering|
I have two months left here. I find I’m growing restless. Despite my proclivity toward procrastination, I really hate wasting time. I reached my required 30 teaching hours a few weeks ago, but my computer crashed before I could submit a new application to the Peace Corps to move forward in that process. I need to get home and get a job so I can start making money instead of spending it, buy a new computer and get things going again. I feel like I’m wasting time. Really, I’m gaining above and beyond my teaching requirement which will put me in better standing when my application does go in, so why is that itchy, anxious restlessness creeping back?

I think it’s because deep down I know that two more months will only bring more tethers. I always feel untethered until I try to leave a place, then suddenly the ropes tighten and stretch painfully.

“Don’t forget me, Miss. When you go back.”
He’s a weasely little brat, and 87% of our conversations end with me hitting him. We throw around an odd, playful banter of quirky broken English and American slang learned from tv and the Internet. Most of what he says draws mockery and eye rolls, as any conversation with any 16-year-old will, but for just an instant he’d gotten a little wistful. He has a flair for melodrama and he was slathering it on pretty thick, but there was a small, cold lump of truth at its core that flashed for just an instant and struck. Truthfully, I’d like nothing better than to go home with a few photos and anecdotes and forget the rest. I don’t want to tether here. It’s six months. Barely a deep breath. But, for as much as I tease him about great white sharks with a particular taste for skinny Sri Lankan boys, in my heart of hearts I’m secretly terrified he isn’t kidding–that he really will climb on a boat. And disappear.
His family has already been denied their first appeal for refugee status and you can only apply 3 times. A second rejection is often enough for many to take matters into their own hands. The fact that I care unsettles me–not that I care in a that’s-tragic-for-the-world kind of way, rather in the I’ve-taken-you-into-my-heart-as-one-of-my-children-and-if-anything-happens-to-you-I-will-lose-part-of-myself kind of way. Tethered.

I’ve turned down and accepted 10x as many meal and party invitations in 2 1/2 months here than in 4 years of ministry. I even made a hospital visit when my livelihood was in no way hanging in the balance! I am truly terrible at hospitality: offering it and receiving it. Miserably frantic to fill any 15 seconds of silence that stretches on to an endlessly bleak eternity of awkwardness. Not that anyone would ever guess. I’ve nearly perfected an easy and relaxed manner to mask my panic, but nine times out of ten I would rather jump out of airplanes than accept dinner invitations. Here, language and cultural gaps are too wide to be bridged with excuses about being tired or being an introvert or “No seriously, I really just hate *everyone.* It’s nothing personal.” I have no way to communicate value and care and also decline their insistence on feeding me.

So I go. I eat. I laugh and exclaim over the things they show me. I ask as many questions as I can think of that won’t provoke language frustration. I eat more. I hide my profuse sweating behind a calm and pleasant smile when I’ve run out of questions and so have they and there is still so much food. And more often than not, I enjoy myself. Never enough to not dread the next invitation, but enough to feel tethered. They are beautiful and generous and graceful and they pour and pour out blessings on us. I am awkward and sweaty and selfish and grateful. Despite my better judgement and best efforts, I am falling in love. Over and over and over again. Each evening spent in each new living room, each carefully prepared lavish new flavor, each hand shake and kiss, each story is a new thread stitching me to this place.

I know how it feels to tear out those stitches. I’ve done it before. Quite a few times actually. I don’t relish the thought.

On hiatus…

So….my computer is dead. Again. Internal hard drive #3 has saluted me with the click of death and gone belly up. The white start-up screen with the blinking image of a gray folder with a question mark is the Mac equivalent of a cartoon character with x’s for eyes.

Needless to say, my blogging has come to a semi-permanent screeching halt. I’m writing this brief post from my iPhone (which is keeping me from completely losing my mind in my suddenly computer-less world) but I’m already *hugely* annoyed, and it’s been like 3 minutes. Touch screen keyboards are just not suited to my floweringly excessive verbosity. I promise lengthy reflections rife with photos when I get back to the states and can scrape together a new computer…or at least another new hard drive.

Thankfully, since this is my third (count them: one….two….bloody hell, THREE!?!) drive to crash (tastes like lemon,) I’ve become obsessive about backing things up. In this current crash, I’ve lost a few photos from this trip, but not all (once again, thank you iPhone, and none that can’t be replaced by the other girls here,) and a bit of music and media that can easily be re-downloaded. I’m mostly just irritated and crippled (I’ll have to do my lesson plans with this thing I’m told is called “a pen”) but hardly devastated.

So until next computer, farewell, Dear Reader. We shall tweet valiantly on, 140 characters at a time! I’m counting this as blogging.