family time and first impressions

(The climate of Alaska is slightly different from the climate where I’ve been living the last 16 months.)

I’ve been in the U.S. for a week now, and it has been quite the treat.  Spending time with family is so valuable.  As is the simple experience of daily life in this setting.  As I’m eating a grilled turkey & cheese sandwich with homemade broccoli cheddar soup on the side, I can’t help but say, “God bless America.”  Or as I’m eating clam chowder.  Or as I’m eating my belated Thanksgiving feast of turkey and stuffing.  What an enjoyable vacation.

Some of the people reading this blog have expressed an interest in what I notice about life here after having lived in Sub-Saharan Africa for over a year.  To be honest, one of the first things that comes to mind is what I see as a lot of waste.  I might not have picked up on that prior to living in an area where you have to conserve every precious resource.  I cringe at how a paper napkin gives a quick swipe and then gets thrown away.  I feel guilty using toilet paper that resembles a quilted blanket.  I almost cried when I tried to print double-sided and the printer ended up spewing out all sorts of extra messed-up pages.  It is so easy to take resources for granted, and I guess I feel newly sensitive to that.

It was the easiest thing in the world for someone to make a copy of choir music for me to join in their singing.  It was so easy.  When I go to make a copy, I first scrounge around for one-sided pages, so I can print on the back side.  And I might shrink whatever I’m going to print, to fit more pages on one paper.  Here there was none of that.  I flipped through the one-sided pages and felt guilty.  The original choir music was smaller than a regular piece of paper, so there was a big black border where the copy machine didn’t have anything to copy.  I felt guilty, wasting so much ink.

Gee…there seems to be a trend here.  Guilt.

Well, that’s just one aspect of this transition, and that’s just for the first week.  That emotion doesn’t define my entire stay.  I am making a conscious effort to appreciate the small moments here and take everything in.  We’ll see how the rest of the visit plays out.

Stay tuned!