Surreal

Over the course of this trip, I’ve had a lot of different feelings about or dispositions towards home.  I’ve missed it, yearned for it, contemplated it, been proud of it.  It has seemed terribly distant, or right around the corner. It has at times even been frightening.

But sitting here in the kitchen at the ranch a mere two mornings before I will be on a plane for home it seems mainly… surreal.

I had a little bit of this sense when Kelly and I first arrived at the luxury resort where we spent her last night.  As I walked in the lobby I was actually slowed by a sense of un-reality.  Was this place where everything was shiny and clean and expensive looking really still in the country I’ve been in for three months?  It happened again when I went to the high-end mall with Cameroun.  No dirt, no bare feet, clean clothes, the Spanish equivalent to Muzak playing over the speakers…..

Weird.

And now I’m going back to a whole culture/world of “weird”.  I mean hell, I haven’t driven a vehicle in three months.  I haven’t woken up to an alarm in three months.  I haven’t used a dryer, or microwave in three months.  Most of the roads I’ve been on have been dirt, and everything has been at least a little bit dirty.  I haven’t lived with the consistent sounds of traffic, haven’t heard car alarms or sirens, haven’t shopped in a grocery store where you could get anything, haven’t seen a layer of smog hanging in the sky…

It’s gonna be weird.

I’m tremendously glad I’m headed home from the ranch, and not leaving directly from the first farm.  At least here I’ve been online consistently, and we’ve watched movies, and have some neighbors. I think if I’d gone home straight from the farm I’d have fainted from the culture shock of it all.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to go home.  Excited to see the people I love, excited not to be alone when I go to bed at night, excited to see the daffodils and all of spring, excited to have a wider variety of food choices, reliable internet, an income…

But it really seems quite a bit unreal still.  And, odd as this may sound, I’m going to miss the… inconvenience of many things.  If that makes any sense.

Only two more days…