Home

It was my first day back in West Africa after 5 months away, and my first car drive to run some essential errands.  I greeted my neighbors, successfully explained my plan to our guard, checked the seat and mirror settings on the car, and set off on my own. My confidence was pretty high. I pushed my way into the first two traffic circles, swerving around the taxi trying to play chicken with me with a smile and thought, "I've got this".  My first mission, get some phone credit.  I saw a phone card salesman and rolled my window down, pulling over to the side.  "Bonjour!  Une carte de credit pour cinq mille, se il vous plait!" I said as I put my SUV into park and promptly squirted the guy in the face with wiper fluid, the car jolting forward and almost running over his feet.

"OH MY GOD!  I'm so sorry!  You see, I have been driving my mom's Dodge Caravan for the past few months and forgot where the gear shift was!  I mean, Entschuldigung.  Shit.  Pardon!  Excusez-moi!  Shit."

I purchased my card completely embarrassed, and headed to the next stop, officially reminded that I am a bit out of my element and thrown off balance just about everywhere I am.

We've been home for two weeks now.  Home.  It is a difficult concept to pin down at this stage in our lives.  Is home in the States, where my mom and I spend afternoons full of laughter hitting all the thrift shops?  Where my grandma patiently prepares for our visit all year, and we arrive to a fridge full of all our favorite foods and Bean and Sprout spend calms weeks cuddled up with her reading books, baking cookies, playing cars and dolls with her on the carpet (carpet!  wall to wall carpet!), and rushing off to their baths so they are out in time to watch Wheel of Fortune before bed?  I have this perfect image of Bean running naked from my grandma's bathroom, where the big tub is, yelling to me over her shoulder, "Hurry up mama!  Let's see what Vanna is wearing tonight!"  Or is it in Germany, where Opa is in the middle of his jam making season but still takes the kids on daily three hour walks into the next village and they come home exhausted and flushed, rattling off all the animals they saw in cute, if imperfect German?   Where our Christmas was full of snowmen, warm fires and mulled wine?  Or is it here in West Africa, where we have, for the time being at least, built a life of our own?  This crazy, cross-cultural smorgasbord life where we have friends we've missed and a routine that makes sense for us and our own pictures on the wall.

I keep getting the same question from everyone, "How does it feel to be back?", which I answer with as much enthusiasm and honesty as "How is your dissertation coming?".  I always say, with a halfhearted smile, "I am adjusting.  We are getting there.  Only one bag left to unpack!" because the truth is as complicated as my graduate school career.  I have zero inspiration and motivation to finish my dissertation, but am excited by the prospects and fleeting ideas I get about it.  I miss my family so much I can't look at a picture of my grandma yet, but I like being able to make a cup of coffee in my underwear.  I miss every day life being easy, but I like it being just the four of us, together.

I always have a period of adjustment coming home, where I muddle through language and learn to fall in love with the culture again.  I try to focus on the not so perfect things back at our other home(s), like that horrible jet lag when traveling to and from the States, and the lamp in my father in law's guest room.  Oh that f-ing lamp.

This lamp.  Oh this lamp.  Fifteen years ago it hung over a 

coffee table.  Now it hangs, at brow height, over the outside 

corner of the guest bed.I have hit my head on it, at least once, every 

time we have visited for eight consecutive years.

And then, I do what I always do when I return after a long absence.  I tear up a room in our house and completely redo it.  I think it is a kind of renewal for me, making this my home again.  I give away things with a frenzy, move everything around, sell furniture just to buy something different.  It drives the German nuts.  This time, I'm moving my office back down to the guest room in case professional inspiration strikes.  I'm choosing optimistic return to nomal.  One day, I will finish my dissertation and live the perfect balance of work, family, friends and place.  Home.  I am adjusting.  Anyone want to buy a full sized bed?

Renewal.  New nail polish, a new tattoo, and a new 

coffee cup from a sweet friend.