The dawn began to whiten
the sky, slowly. However, before I knew, the bright morning had always come. As
I was determined last night, I went jogging. Everywhere was unfamiliar but
Mundemu office; I followed meandering dirt road but I suddenly lost interest in
running in the new place. I was a little bit nervous of getting lost, and
little students who were already going to school at 6:30am (Wait, where are you
really going in this early morning wearing school uniform?) and stopped their step
and staring at me. It was hard for me to avoid their eyes and skip greeting in
this unfamiliar rural area, so I returned to the Mundemu ADP compound. I went
jogging only for 10 minutes. I went inside of my room, and grabbed a push-up
bar; this portable and light sports equipment is my necessity whenever I go
somewhere. I normally do non-stop 50 push-ups every morning, but I did 70 for
today. It took within a minute, but I always get bored of bending and
straightening arms within 60 seconds! As I planned, I asked Eva to have two
bucket of hot water for taking a shower. I successfully managed those abundant
amount of water to complete morning shower by sprinkling a scoop of water from
the over my head. Those precious water rolled down from my hair to my foot and
wash off soapy water on my body.
I got out of washroom. The
warm morning sunlight kissed my forehead. The sun became already glaring, so I
made haste to come inside of my room (It was 10 step distance…). I changed my
clothes and came to the office (It was 20 step distance…). Yeah, this is the
compound. I do not have to walk too far.
To be honest, I feel great
pressure to renew daily life. Well, it cannot be actually new every day. It was
my misjudgment that life in Africa would be always new and exciting. People do
live in Africa with their own culture and lifestyle, but I should not say it is
marvelous or amazing. It is just slightly different type of human living style.
What I am saying is that staying in Africa for internship should not be
considered as special experience, and I do not want to look like some piece of
work only because I am in some mysterious place. I believe that the fundamental
characteristic of human beings is all the same wherever they are.
Coming to Africa is cool?
Many people still alarm themselves to come to Africa. For me, living in the
U.S. and living in Africa is not different. I am careful in uploading pictures
in Africa on the blog or Facebook. Even before choosing what picture would be
good for being opened to the public, I am always reluctant to take picture of
their life style. They have to be respected with the equal value, abandoning
the thought of exoticness. All pictures are just Africans’ normal life, so
there is no special to them, but I may feel cool to see those because it is
just new to me. Uploading Africa pictures to gain exponential interests from
people out of Africa is somewhat uncomfortable for me.
So I write. I originally
thought that there would be many interesting stories to say everyday on the
blog. Actually, it is not easy to write a journal every day. Sometimes, I am so
tired of thinking what I should write, or I really have nothing to say. But I
promised myself that I would write anything everyday to keep my head up every
moment and maintain feeling of tension. That makes me look around carefully what
is going on around me. People’s full name and every word from their saying
would be my writing material, so I always prick up my ears.
I cannot say that I have a
normal life in Tanzania because I am frequently in the new surrounding
environment and new situation. If I would feel that ‘Oh, I am mostly likely to settle down in Tanzania,’ I simultaneously
would meet the timing to leave Tanzania. Time to stay in Tanzania is short, so
becoming fully stable may not be possible. I have to do my internship
concurrently with taking online class as well as preparing for moving into my
next internship.
Tanzania people also wonder
my routine life in South Korea or in the U.S., as much as I am interested in
knowing everything what is happening around me in Tanzania. Mr. Mazengo asked
me about my daily life in the U.S. this morning.
“I wake up in the morning… And then… breakfast… go
to school… lunch… come back to home… rest… exercise… what else… go to bed…”
I recited my routine. Is it
that different from what I am doing in Africa? People live in a similar way.
There is nothing new. So, there is nothing to feel absurd or interesting. In
other words, I can say life in Africa is a little bit unfamiliar to me, instead
of saying it is new to me. Like we meet new people and do ice-breaking to get
friendly, this unfamiliarity will become my habituation soon. Between settlement with familiarity and frequent moving with different
energy, I am thinking what lifestyle suits me. There are Maasai, semi-nomadic
people in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. You can even see Maasai people
wearing red-checkered clothes often on the street, in Dodoma. Their unique
tradition has become indistinct nowadays, and some young Maasai people come to
the city, far away from their nomadic life. It would be nonsense if I say settling nomad. The word nomad itself connote that moving from
one place to another, so settling nomad
does not make sense. It would be just an awkward expression.
Everyday New Face! Nonetheless,
that is always what I pursue. No matter what happened – how bad I was or how
good I was - yesterday, it has already passed, and today is the new 24-hour
that I have to spend with fresh mind. Even if I fall into habituating myself to
routine life, I want to see the things with a different perspective of view. I consider
from now that new does not actually
exist; though something is unfamiliar to me, that would be routine for other
people. I would rather say ignorance.
I want to uncover my widespread ignorance from daily conversation, daily food,
daily weather, and daily rest. I am certainly tired of packing my luggages, but
I have to move on. I want to exert full energy for the present to make daily
routine reveal my unfamiliarity. Like a nomad, I keep moving to find my everyday
new face.
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| 밤새 뒤척이다 동이 튼다. 동이 튼다. |
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