It's funny how life can get really busy and I don't have time to write, and then when I have an evening free I can't remember the phantom blogs I've written in my head. There are a variety of topics that I've been thinking on in the last while, one of them is homesickness, and another is poverty. Why? They are things I've experienced in the last while.
Just over a week ago, for a few days, I felt extremely homesick. Not sure what triggers it, and how to alleviate it, but I do know that as I am in it, the weirdest thing happens. I see my brothers everywhere here in Indonesia. I saw Darren, my big bro, in a mall, as an actor in a sitcom and a movie, heard him talking behind me in public. I see Tyler, my baby bro (36 and still my baby bro) in an Indonesian driver, on the local golf course during a tournament, and when I look at my sons legs (identical!). Why that is, I do not know. If you think about it, it's weird. These are two people I lived with for less than 1/2 of my lifetime (Darren about 12 years, TJ about 18) and who I didn't always particularly like when I was in the same room with them for at least half of that time. I'm pretty sure, and would bet money on it, that they didn't particularly always like me either {Note: I'll never forget, when I was little, I'd be so angry at Darren and all I could think of was to yell "I hate you!" at him, and he'd make me even madder by saying "I love you, Kimmie" right back at me. Can you believe the jerk??}. It must be that although as we age we spend less and less time together (rather difficult to do so when I live halfway across the earth), their lives have impacted me. Things they've said, choices they've made and things they've done have influenced my life, making it so that no matter where I live, I will never forget that they are eating, sleeping, living, working and playing on the other side of this globe. I miss them. I like that.
Completely unrelated, the other day I headed into the slums with my camera, able to take photos much more freely than usual because I was with an Indonesian woman who goes into the area regularly, and she was also toting HER camera. I just followed her around like a goose and stopped when she stopped. It was an extremely bright day and so the photos are all quite shadowy, yet we were able to capture some pretty incredible shots. Incredible because they were of newly dug graves sitting right next to a person's home (not their family's grave...that of strangers), of a woman trying to boil water in a large pot using garbage wood for fuel (pressboard, plywood, glue-based wood products, painted wood), sitting out in the open with a tree as her kitchen wall. On it hung her fry-pan, string, and cooking utensils. A large, brown river was her backdrop, as was a crystal blue sky. On the river men in rickety catamarans were plunging poled baskets into the river, fishing for whatever they could scoop. Often what they came up with was plastic or mud...I didn't see many fish. Across the trail from her were piles upon piles of plastic, already sorted, and more graves. I do not have these photos up yet, as my own computer is still "down," but I hope to show a few at least, later.
What is really apparent to me is that if I was to move home, back to Canada, it's these kinds of settings that I will miss. I'm not really sure why because they're dirty, uncomfortable, challenging and quite sad, really. I think it's because they have impacted me so deeply, and I love being there. I love the kids, I love the potential photos (most I don't take, I just store in my personal memory-bank), I hate the lifestyles that these people are forced to live and it makes me think of what I can do to impact others, either them or someone else, in some way. It inspires me--although inspiration and actually DOING are two different things--and I love living where I'm forced to feel deeply. It's kind of weird to admit, but sitting in a graveyard, next to a river, surrounded by tropical trees and grasses, I feel like I'm closer to nature than in my own world here, too. Yes, reading it over, it does sound weird.
O well.
Thanks for reading.
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