As I sit in Orange County, driving on familiar streets, eating at familiar restaurants, and surrounded by familiar faces, I wonder if the last year really happened. Did I really see the splendid Victoria Falls, or go camping amidst the larger mammalian species on this planet, the ones that have no problem eating you? Were all those visits to rural clinics, and the impressions they continually made on me a fiction? What about the friends I have made in the past year? The potholes I have become intimately acquainted with? The culture? The people? My home?
Sipping a Chai Latte, hearing airplanes cruise overhead and cars drive by, Africa seems a world away. I work in a familiar office, driven by all too familiar goals. All those experiences of afar seem - well, far away. I know they are there, not too deep below the surface. They have been internalized, and shaped my into a slightly different version of the person I was when I was last here.
I am here in Southern California, halfway through a three week stint as a contractor for Boeing. My old boss gave me a call, and was convincing enough to drag me out of Zambia. Is my time in Africa done? Far from it. I go back in a little over a weeks time. My aim is to work part time for both companies, and see if that lifestyle is sustainable. I can have my cake and eat it too, can't I? That luscious cake of convenience, sushi, cheese and ice cream in America, sprinkled with a bit of adventure, challenge and culture in Zambia. I hope it tastes as delicious as it sounds.
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