Grand Finale Part 3 - Transitions

I thought I would do two things with this final (at least for now) blog post. The first is to describe my physical journey from Lusaka back to Seattle, including the farewells and other activities. The second is to describe the psychological transition, to the best of my abilities. So here goes.

The first stage of my journey back to Seattle was the farewell parties in Lusaka. These parties were a wonderful opportunity for me to connect with the folks that I was leaving behind and also give the people I worked with a chance to thank me for the work that I had done. I ended up also through these events being very aware of the impact that various friends and coworkers had had on me, and very grateful for the connections we made. These events also, of course, made me very sad about leaving even though I felt I had made a good decision to do so. The photos here (two from each event, in-order, except three photos from the last one) are from the various farewell events held in my honor: 1. A luncheon with the computer lab managers that I worked with, hosted by The New Guy. 2. A trip with various friends to a lodge just outside Lusaka for a walk, a big buffet and a game drive. 3. A crazy karaoke party with friends at a Lusaka restaurant. 4. A thank-you tea at one of the schools I worked with and 5. A farewell party with the kids at the educational center where my friend Michele works. By the end of all these events I felt quite celebrated and quite exhausted!

The second stage of my journey back was the packing, which I had left mostly for my last night in Lusaka due to all of the events mentioned above and in the last post. Oops. It turns out that it’s not as easy to pack for the big journey home as it is to pack for a short trip home. I had acquired through local purchases and trips back and forth to the states more stuff than I had realized. Luckily Michele helped me with the packing and volunteered to “babysit” the items that didn’t fit. My housemates also benefited some from my excesses, although they did end up being stuck with some orphaned items of more dubious value. After packing there was stage three, the actual trip itself, which went smoothly as far as London. While there for a few days of socializing and sightseeing, I instead had an episode of bad back pain and ended up lying around the house of two friends I had met in Zambia. I was really grateful that they were there to help me out. This experience points out another wonderful aspect of my experience in Zambia: all the great people I have now met from so many parts of the world!

I think the back pain I suffered was a result of the abuses of the busy time winding up my work in Zambia: less exercise, more time sitting on bad chairs and then the packing and carrying. While it certainly hampered my visit to London and my family vacation on the coast just after I arrived in Seattle, it was also good to have some enforced rest and reflection time. As my back has been improving over the last six weeks (it’s pretty much better now – let’s hope I can behave well and keep it that way!) I have been “nesting” by organizing and cleaning my house, investigating nearby exercise opportunities, reconnecting with friends, family and neighbors, and preparing for consulting work. I have been surprised with how much energy I have wanted to put into this nesting. I guess this is part of defining how I want to live my life in Seattle, now that I am not just a visitor passing through. I have also put a significant amount of mental energy into a combination of reflecting on what my Zambia time has meant to me and thinking about how I am going to put all these new connections and bits of knowledge to use in the future – both in a personal and a professional way. The thought processes are ongoing.

While I have been missing the company of friends and coworkers in Lusaka, I also have been reflecting on cultural comparisons and the pros and cons of living in Lusaka vs. living in Seattle. Here’s one example of this sort of comparison: I am very glad to be home in Seattle where, even though I am living in community, I do not feel that my life is under observation in the same way as it was in Lusaka. People in Seattle are not curious about what this strange white person eats for dinner, and I am not considered an oddity because I don’t wear dresses and don’t have children. I also am enjoying having more entertainment choices in Seattle: movies, parks, baseball, bowling, and yummy restaurants. On the other hand, I had built up a culture of (mostly ex-pat) friends in Lusaka, many of whom were also without spouses, children or extended family obligations and thus had the time and interest to go find and take advantage of the entertainment choices that Lusaka did offer! I also enjoyed having an opportunity while in Lusaka to take risks and reinvent myself in whatever way I wanted to, without there being people around with a long history with me to be surprised by the changes. Contradictory stuff, huh?

Here’s another comparison example: I am very glad to be back in a land where most people put a priority on keeping time. In Seattle if you go to an event that is supposed to start at 7, you can be relatively sure that it will start promptly and you should get there on time. If a shop is supposed to open at 9, you can also rest assured that the shop will open then and you can do your business. On the other hand this ability to keep time has meant that people in Seattle can schedule their lives awfully tightly. I have to make sure that I plan in events to see friends and family. Those times to just sit and chat don’t appear as readily here as they did in Zambia.

And one more comparison: I absolutely LOVE having access to chai tea lattes, sushi, and Vietnamese sandwiches, to name a few indulgences. It is great to be able to decide that I am in the mood for a burrito and then making it happen. In Lusaka I often missed these little treats. However there is a dark side to this: it is a lot easier to spend money and eat poorly in Seattle. Let’s hope I can figure out some “rules” to help me control these impulses!

Having had this amazing experience of living in Zambia, I think I will always continue to compare the cultures and pine for what I have left behind. I am hoping now that I can avoid leaving Zambia completely behind by traveling there some. The strategy I am working on is to become a consultant in IT in Education in developing countries and see if I can therefore put the wonderful free education I had over the last three years to good use. I now need to update my resume and start networking with various organizations working in this field, starting with those based in Seattle. Meanwhile, it looks like the sponsor I was working for in Zambia is going to give me my first project: helping to develop a training course for computer lab managers. So I am off to a good start!

In closing let me just thank everyone who has read and commented on my blog over the last few years and supported me in so many ways. The encouragement was always appreciated. I encourage all of you to also have and adventure and try something new when the opportunity presents itself!