Goodbye Bagamoyo

“It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed, is you.”

You can prepare yourself for the culture shock, for the days when you miss home, for the moments of frustration, and for the times when you feel like you have absolutely no clue what you’re doing.  But the part that you can’t (or at least that I didn’t) prepare for is how a place can turn into your home in such a short time, the people your family, and the way of life something you never want to give up.  Bagamoyo has become my home, a place where I have learned way more than I could have ever hoped to have taught, about myself, about others, about the world.  

I’ve learned that its okay to not be what everyone expects you to be, in general people are friendly but sometimes you have to be the one to say hello, embracing your flaws and shortcomings is much more becoming than pretending they don’t exist, forgiveness isn’t something that can be earned but must be granted and is one of the hardest things to give, sometimes it’s better to compromise than to rock the boat, there is something wonderful and good in everyone and its our job as individuals to find that, self-love is more important than all other kinds, children have so much power and potential to either completely make your day or destroy it, not everyone is going to like you all the time but as long as you stay true to yourself they will at least appreciate the fact that you are who you are, life isn’t worth living if you’re living based on other peoples expectations, choosing the scary path is always worth the ride, true friendship is timeless and limitless, its the little things in life that are worth appreciating because they occur so much more often then the perfect big things I daydream about in my head, I can fit my entire life into one carry on suitcase, and people will always disappoint/frustrate/irritate you but in the end its important to love them anyway.

The part that scares me the most about going home is how nothing will have changed there and I’m going to have to figure out a way to fit this new me into my old life...seems like a very round hole square peg combination but I’m sure that my important people will ease the transition....