For the last 76 days I’ve been waiting. Waiting and praying for something to happen. For peace to reign over Kenya, perhaps? To return to my little village and my little house with the tin roof that leaks. To play with my little kitten who by now is no longer a kitten and is probably actually catching those chickens she enjoyed chasing so much. I dreamed and prayed of returning to this place but today I made a decision that means I will not be returning to this place and will most likely travel to another location still unknown to me.
Most likely it will be Lesotho/South Africa because my friend Jen; smart woman that she is did a little internet search while I was having my nervous breakdown about the Peace Corps making me make the decision between being reinstated into Kenya and re-enrollment into a new country yet to be named. And of course they wouldn’t tell me the name of the country I could potentially go to. That; ladies and gentlemen would have been way too easy.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah; Jen she went into searchenjen mode and found someone’s blog who is leaving for Peace Corps on June 2nd; the date that they gave me and they are going to Lesotho so it is logical to make the assumption that that's where I'd be going. Now; of course there still is the chance of this not being the location I end up going to but I’m going with it for now.
I guess my decision to go somewhere else; instead of continuing to wait for Kenya had a lot to do with the fact that I know going back to Kenya won’t be all of those things I prayed for and dreamed about. The experience will be so far from my dreams; that to be honest the idea of going back depresses me. The chances of me going back to my site are pretty much non-existent and the chance of violence erupting again still exists and reading articles online makes that fact clearer to me everyday. I really don’t want to put my family and friends through thinking something terrible might happen to me again. I know they want me to be happy and continue on with what I want but despite the fact that I was fine while in Kenya I was in fact one decision away from being one of those people that had to be evacuated by helicopter. And who knows; had I been at the center of the violence like so many of my friends were; I may not be so gung-ho about going back now. I definitely left a piece of my heart…and my kitten in Kenya but now I guess it’s time for me to move on.
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