I promised myself I would keep up with this blog . I’m not even sure if anyone is reading it anymore, as it was something I decided to do upon finding out I would be living for two years in the African bush and needed some sort of semi-consistent mode of communication with my friends and family back here in America. Yet in writing about my experiences and recording my thoughts and reflections, I have found a great outlet. The two years I spent in Africa have essentially changed me in ways that I am still only beginning to understand. Writing about what I am feeling and experiencing as I adjust back to life in a developed country helps me to understand how and why I have changed. So if anyone is still out there following my rants… great! If not, that’s ok too. I’ll still send out my thoughts into cyberspace every so often. ☺

When it was getting down to the end of my service in Zambia, I began to hear the term ‘readjustment’ more and more; all the reverse culture shock I would experience; how no one would care about the experiences I had or even ‘get it’; how I would be so excited to get back to the states, only to find myself praying for one more day in Zambia. I guess at this point I am still waiting for all of these emotions to hit, yet after three months I find it to be a slim possibility. I guess I consider myself lucky that I haven’t experienced an incredibly difficult transition period, and I realize that everyone deals with the transition differently and adjusts back to living in a completely different world at a different pace. Yet I’m starting to believe that a lot of the potential hardships of readjustment are fed to us before we leave. We are told exactly how we should expect to feel as if there is no alternative. I don’t mean to detract from or devalue in any way the different ways in which people adjust returning to the States after living abroad. I only want to shed light on an alternative to feeling depressed, overwhelmed, and unhappy. For me, it was time to come home. But the relative ease of my transition doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a major life change. I have internalized the changes I know I need to make in my life after living in Zambia. I make a conscious effort to not waste time sitting in front of the television. I notice portion sizes at restaurants and try to get two meals out of one. I turn off lights when I leave the room. I spend as much time outdoors as I can. I make an effort to limit my wardrobe to clothes I actually wear. I appreciate the positive and real relationships in my life and try to let those people know how important they are to me on a more regular basis. I try to stay true to my soul and appreciate the simple things in life. The key word here is try; I’m trying. Although I know I stray and easily get caught up in what can be an incredibly overwhelming fast pace of life filled with responsibilities and obligations, I try to stay grounded.

In April, I was asked to be the key note speaker at Eastview High School’s National Honor Society Induction Ceremony. Although I dread public speaking, writing the speech really gave me the opportunity to address my transition from the village to Minneapolis. The speech actually evolved into a sort of personal mission statement. I’ve copied it here:

Good evening inductees, current members, families, friends, and staff. Honestly I’m not one to jump at the opportunity to speak publicly. Frankly I find it a bit scary and intimidating. So when Mr. Beach asked me to address you tonight I thought back to my own induction into Eastview National Honor society almost ten years ago. Looking back, I can tell you truthfully that I don’t have the faintest recollection of who the honorary speaker was. And to be honest, this truth gives me a bit of comfort tonight. So why have I decided to speak in front of an entire auditorium of people who probably won’t remember my name in a week, let alone ten years from now? Well, although I don’t remember the theme of the speech or who delivered it, I remember feeling inspired as I sat where you sit now and began to become aware of the potential I held. It is a privilege that you have all earned to be a part of NHS. Through your dedication to scholarship, character, leadership, and service you have basically proven that you rock. But it is all too easy at this time in your life to become so entrenched in obligations to your family, your friends, your teachers, your coaches, that you forget your obligation to yourself. I am honored to address you fine people tonight, but most of all I feel honored to remind you that even as you go on to more education, your career, the military, traveling… whatever you choose, all you need to do is be aware of who you are at this exact moment and what got you to this point. If you always remember to return to the simplicity of your being, to the basics of your personality and what you know yourself to be, you will always be a rock star. You can’t know the world until you know yourself, and service to others begins with self-awareness. If two years living in the African bush taught me anything, it is that what is simple is what matters most, and to never let yourself go broke believing the simple should be hard.

I often woke with the crowing roosters at 4 a.m. to load up my bike (I still wish I could list ‘strapping things to bikes’ as a marketable skill on my resume) and start off on the two and a half hour cycle to the nearest main road before the sun got to a scorchingly hot point in the sky. One particular morning I remember feeling especially stressed about certain meetings I had in town, and what seemed to be the constant failure of my recent project efforts in the village. Although an incredible inconvenience, the bike-ride to the main road often became a necessity for my mental and emotional health. In other words, I had a lot of deep thoughts while cycling through the African bush. Approximately thirty minutes into the ride, without fail, I would pass by the token village eccentric, a very strange man I like to refer to as both the village welcoming and farewell committee combined into one human being. Most days he would be pacing back and forth on the bike path outside his home like a soldier, stopping to salute the morning sun every so often, all the while chatting away to himself. However, one morning I didn’t notice him in his usual spot. As I continued on my way, I began to notice a dark figure moving among the branches of a tree fifty meters ahead and figured it to be some sort of animal. Yet upon closer inspection, I quickly realized that the same crazy man had climbed and was perched in the tree, wearing nothing but a loincloth and some sort of cape. He had a large fruit in one hand, and was determinedly pounding it against a tree branch. I yelled out the standard morning greeting up to him, “Mwashibukeni Mukwai!” and I’ll never be sure exactly what he yelled back to me as I passed by, for I was desperately trying to keep my pace with the Black-Eyed Peas pounding through my iPod. But the fact is it doesn’t matter what he said. I proceeded to have the best bike ride of my whole two years, as the reality that yes, that did just happen, sunk in over and over again.

So you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you the story of a scantily-clad tree climber making music with fruit as you are about to be inducted into National Honor Society. It is because this story, with all its hilarity and ridiculousness, never failed to bring me back me back down to earth. Through all the crazy ups and downs, the moments of sheer frustration, the triumphs, the big failures, the small successes… when I remembered to just laugh and not take myself or life too seriously, it was doing so that kept me grounded and allowed me to learn what it means to serve. It helped me return to the simple things; the small stuff, because it’s all small stuff. And if you get too wrapped up in complexities and formulas, returning to the small stuff can never fail to save you.

Throughout my time as a student at St. Olaf College, learning about all the different ways to serve others was nothing if not overwhelming. I traveled to Mexico twice in those four years; once to aid in building houses in the border town of Juarez, and another time to study social programs and medical care in central Mexico. For the first time in my life, I saw real need. I was an eyewitness to dire poverty, to the clear reality of living on less than a dollar a day. I remember returning from one of these trips and breaking down emotionally from the seeming unfairness of it all. As a middle child, I desperately cling to my belief that life should be fair, and to see such black and white in life was both eye opening and heart wrenching. How can a small flowing stream, namely the Rio Grande, divide a haven of wealth and economic success from abject poverty and houses made of recycled tin? Why was life going to be unquestionably more difficult and full of economic hardship for those growing up on the ‘wrong’ side of the river? Although the answers to these questions are exceedingly more complicated than the questions that create them, I began to feel a desire and drive to search for an answer; an answer not only to why we have such need in this world, but the ultimate answer as to what can be done to create some sort of global balance. Returning to my eternal concept of fairness, I wanted to know what those who were born on third base could do for those who were struggling to make it to first, or even out of the dug-out. What is the best way that I can be of service to others? I saw need, and I felt compelled to understand it.

As citizens of a developed country, I viewed our specified role as that of a giver. I decided to join the Peace Corps because, in my eyes, it was the best way to begin to fulfill this role. But I would be lying if I didn’t also admit that my sense of adventure factored heavily into my decision to apply to live in a mud hut for two years. I graduated from St. Olaf having just begun to ask the big questions, just beginning to ask what it means to serve and how I can best be of service to others. I was about to find out that what I needed wasn’t answers, but merely the ability to ask the right questions.


When you take a look outside of yourself; when you step outside of your own beliefs, notions, and way of life, put on some else’s shoes and walk around in them for awhile, you are gaining a worldview that can only enhance your introspection. When you look at the world through someone else’s eyes, your own life is illuminated. My two years of service in Zambia can be summed up essentially as a return to the basics. Waking up every morning in a mud hut with a grass roof over your head can really cause one to appreciate the simple things in life; ultimately you don’t have a choice but to appreciate them. I fetched my water at the nearby river, carrying it over my back to my hut every day, being careful to conserve every drop, ever mindful of the amount used for drinking, dishes, and bathing. I started a fire every morning in order to make the necessary cup of coffee. I swept. I walked everywhere. Often times it felt as if half my day was spent greeting my neighbors in the village, as any social interaction not involving ten minutes of greetings was considered incredibly rude. I knew when the moon would be full and the children would stay up late serenading the night sky that never failed to show off the spanning Milky Way. I gave away my watch and told time by the constancy of the sun. I owned not a single mirror, and entertained myself by reading and writing. Irony is traveling to Africa to give of yourself to others, and in turn receiving the gift of finding yourself.

There is a quote by John Steinbeck that sheds light on the fine line between giving and receiving. He said to a friend once, “It is so easy to give, so exquisitely rewarding. Receiving on the other hand, if it be well done, requires a fine balance of self-knowledge and kindness. It requires humility and tact and great understanding of relationships. In receiving you cannot appear, even to yourself, better or stronger or wiser than the giver, although you must be wiser to do it well". Through the restructuring of my every day life, the true definition of service began to reveal itself. As I was peeling back the layers of my life and returning to the basics, I was in turn peeling back the layers of what it means to serve others so that, through all the facets and complexities, I arrived at a very primitive definition of service. The simplicity of my life began to parallel what I saw as a return to the simplistic nature of serving. I was realizing that my greatest successes in Zambia, the times when I was happiest, stemmed directly from the intangible. It was in the realization of empowerment on a clinic worker’s face when they knew they could facilitate healthcare education sessions completely on their own. It was in the gradual growing comfort those in the village felt around me the longer I was a part of their community. It was in the smile on a child’s face paired with slight confusion as they colored a picture of Mickey Mouse with a crayon for the first time on my doorstep. I realized that for me, service was becoming not just an act of giving, but an act of receiving as well.

When I saw the peculiar man in the tree that morning, I began to realize that in focusing all of my efforts on giving, I had forgotten the other half of service; the ability to receive. It is not our responsibility as citizens of the western world to ‘save’ those of developing countries. They don’t need our ‘saving’. The best type of service we can give them is one that comes from a combination of understanding and empathy. The best service we can give is service that is both informed and aware. When you put yourself out there, really open yourself up to other experiences, other cultures, the crazy ‘gong show’ (as I like to call it) of life on what all too often seems like another planet, it is then that you serve. When you remember that God has a sense of humor, when you stop taking yourself too seriously, when you take a moment to remember what makes you come alive and inspires your soul, it is then that you serve. So essentially it all becomes about awareness not only of the world around you, but of yourself.

You don’t need to move to a developing country for two years in order to become aware of the world. You don’t need to renounce your possessions, or live in a mud-brick hut with a thatched roof to have empathy for those living in poverty. Honestly it kind of just makes everyone think you are a bit ‘off your rocker’. All you need to do is be aware. Not only of the different ways in which people live their lives, but of how the way you live your life fits into the great puzzle. Being a member of NHS is testament to your character and potential to play significant roles in the course of the world’s future. You demonstrate the four pillars in your lives every day: scholarship, leadership, character, and service. Tonight I’ve focused mainly on service, yet the linking of all four pillars is not a secret. In the words of Howard Thurman, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Never lose your spirit or compromise your soul. Live your life aware of who exactly it is you are, and you will live a life of service. Thank you, and congratulations on your induction into Eastview High School’s National Honor Society.