I’m home. I’m back. It’s been two weeks now and I still stare. My feet are firmly planted in a developed land. I’m surrounded by family and those who know me true. This aspect is refreshing. I become easily confused these days though as I’m confronted by the question “How was your trip?” or “How was Africa?”. I’m confused in a sense. There are times I feel alone. This is a normal reaction, I suppose, but it leaves me, sometimes, wishing badly to be back living that hot, uncomfortable life. And not because it would release me from the questions or the pressure to answer perfectly so that you may get an accurate glimpse - but so I might be back living that “simple” life. So that I may be back living amongst those who counted every breath a blessing. And yes, it sounds cliché, but there’s truth as well. Living amongst those who were daily confronted by the idea and reality of death only caused me to daily live amongst that as well. I found certain things falling away. I found my own preferences falling away. I found myself questioning not only myself and what I’ve held important these past 18 years but I found myself questioning my God as well. I was sitting in a doctor’s office last week. It was a perfectly square room. The walls were blue and the chair I sat in was sturdy. It was cushioned. It had arm rests. There was a trash can in the corner of the room with a clean white, plastic bag lining it. I’m barely accustomed to these things but quickly getting used to them. There was a table beside me that was home to a green plant. The plant seemed to be living a healthy life. It was given water at least once a day, I’m sure. More than a liberian boy I knew named Francis. On the coffee table in front of me laid countless issues of National Geographic and Relevant. An issue of Relevant caught my eye. I pulled it from the rest and smiled to see this continent on the front where I had just come from. The headline read “New Hope For Africa; A Frontline Look at a Solvable Crisis.” I flipped immediately to the article and read it like food. An american girl, Jena Lee, had written of her experience living 30 days in Kenya, West Africa. Though her and I lived in two different parts of this continent and for two different lengths of time, her opening paragraph explained, to a tee, what I’ve been feeling as I’ve reentered...
"I thought, how can I tell you about a land so beautiful in it’s environment and, more importantly, in it’s people and yet so tragically broken? It’s hard to unpack. It’s all wrinkled and smelly in my mind as I try to iron it out, clean it up and present it to you. I am hesitant to focus on the devastation of poverty. I feel that you will label Africans as victims or you will run and try to fix the problem yourself without considering the consequences of what happens when we are compulsively stirred by our need to immediately alleviate a problem. And I hesitate to focus on the joy and richness that are rooted in the lives of so many in Africa because I fear you will hear that and justify their suffering with the 'even though they have so little, they are so happy' statement and that you will make it an excuse for our inaction."
Jena Lee has captured my feeling of complete inability to reflect on this experience and then somehow present it to you without scratch or blemish. She has put into words both my fears. And yet, at the same time, I want nothing more than to process my thoughts through words and for you to be the recipient. So bear with me as my thoughts may seem scrambled and annoyingly cliché at times.
It is all wrinkled in my mind. It smells as well. It is hard to iron out. It is confusing as I find myself forgetting how devastatingly hard it was living there and sort of idealize the whole experience. I do know that as humans it is not only our nature to quickly adapt but to begin, immediately, taking for granted the moment that we live in. We tend to wish for what we had or what’s to come, instead of saturating ourselves in our moments. Our present moments. I did this in Africa. I do it now. Though I may idealize my past 7 months to some degree, through this idealizing, I am able to somehow objectively look at what I had, how I lived, and what I learned. I was used to my new life by last November. I took it for granted right on through March. It became my way of life instead of one I only knew of. I miss it terribly. 
I miss living in a community where so much was unacceptable. It was a rather unrealistic community. A good one to live in for a small chapter of your life and then leave and spread the love. I knew a man, Charles Dodgen, on the ship who had stumbled across a community in Liberia of disabled adults living and sleeping on concrete floors with barely anything to eat or drink. When he came back to the ship that night, he stood before the Anastasis community explaining what he had found and of how it was unacceptable to him. We took an offering. Over $3000 was raised. Another evening one of my dear friends, Corinna, stood before us explaining of a local school she was involved in. “They have nothing to write on and no chairs to sit in.” She explained. “There is only a board where the teacher will write.” Corinna desired something more for these children. No pencil and paper, no chairs or desks was unacceptable to her. Corinna handed out pens that night to each of us to motivate us to give. We actually had to be motivated. It was normal to hear of schools with no materials and concrete buildings where dozens of disabled lived with only the clothes on their back. These situations were daily brought before us and we could daily make a noticable and immediate difference. It was a way of life. We got used to it.
Within this community, this ship community, I was surrounded by people paying to work. Not working to be paid but paying to work. I was surrounded by many who sacrificed home, career and the privilege of living near those who knew them true. There were others living on the Anastasis who came because they didn’t know what else to do with their lives. They came to “live in Africa” for awhile. They came to fill this space of their life with something “worth while” for lack of better ideas. I could be classed in that last group, I suppose. I went because I didn’t want to go to college but still wanted this 19th year of my life to be sort of productive and somehow useful to others. I miss that unique usefulness that living on the Anastasis had to offer, a usefullness that I did not anticipate or expect. So I sit in a waiting room this day reflecting of my time spent away. Away from what I’ve known for the last 18 years of my life. A computer sits on my lap. A bottle of clean water and a cell phone lay on the table beside me. Music plays from a decent looking stereo towards the back of the room. The atmosphere is comfortable, thanks to an air condition unit. There is a light switch on the wall that when flipped on, always works. There’s a purse sitting on the floor below me with enough money inside it to send a child in Liberia to school for a year. And keep in mind, I am the poorest in my family. There is barely any money in that purse. There’s a magazine laying beside me that I’ve just read an article from. I can read. I can drink. I can feel cool even though it’s hot outside. These are aspects of life that my liberian friends did not know.
I met Francis when I was walking on the dock, in Monrovia, Liberia, one evening. He called out to me and we started talking. He was 15. He had no parents. Both had been displaced during the war two years ago. He’d never attended school, but longed too. The sandals on his feet were his only pair of shoes. He lived about 5 or 6 miles from the ship with an older man in some worn down building. He walked everyday to our port wondering if this day one of the crew members of the Anastasis would give him a piece of bread. I walked on our dock 3 evenings a week for the exercise. Francis was there waiting for me each time. He’d call out..”heeeey Sienna..Sienna!”. I'd pull my headphones from my ears and look behind me, towards the yell. There was something about Francis that intrigued me. He loved learning. He’d tell me about different animals and countries. He longed to sit in a classroom. One day he humbly asked for my help. Two of my friends from the ship helped pay his tuition and I provided the money for a pair of new school shoes, ones that were mandatory in order for him to attend. I remember when Francis came to see me after his first day of school. He was so excited. He just looked at me with this incredible smile, one I’d never seen from a school boy of 15.
That’s not happily ever after for Francis. I know that. It overwhelms me how much Francis doesn't have that I wish I could give him. Parents. Home. Food. Peace. Sleep. Safety. I miss talking with him and learning from him. I miss being able to just be there for him 3 nights a week, to offer him some sort solace or love. I hate that my leaving the mercyship meant leaving Francis. It meant leaving Koolah. It meant leaving Blessing. It meant leaving those I had only begun to understand and relate with after months of knowing.
Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird” said “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” New shoes won’t change Francis’s life. Neither will a whole year of school. But I believe that people who take an interest in him and who take the time to understand his life and walk around in his skin and through this, offer him hope...I believe that this is what might change Francis’s life. I miss being a part of that. A small part of that.
I’m glad I was able to go to Africa and walk around a bit. I hope one day I can really climb inside their skin and be able to help them more than I did the first time around. It is my goal. For now, I must learn to be content here and apply these insights to those beside me.
When I think about Francis, when I think about Koolah or her small niece, Blessing, I am worried for their souls. I hate that I can’t get to them. I hate that I’m not there for them. I pray they will find a peace and comfort that will help them rise above each of their unfathomable situations. This passage from Ezekial gives me hope...
"For this is what the sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down...I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak..."I believe that.
This is Blessing and her brother, Christian. I miss them.
