Transitioning with out forgetting...

Well, I'm now well and truly back. Today marks the 2 week marker of me being back at home. I have an unbelievable amount of work to finish before the new year, (my research to finish and a huge paper for the HNGR programme to turn in). And instead of doing that right now, I decided it would be a good time to reflect on my first two weeks here.

I really believed that coming back would be much more difficult than it has been. I suppose part of it is that I'm a person who's used to transition and jumping between countries and cultures, but I thought it would be different after such an experience in one of the most broken countries in the world. I thought the wealth and materialism would be more shocking and that I would be more cynical, but instead I am finding myself falling into the temptations of such comfort.

That's not to say it's been a completely smooth change from a Cambodian slum to my life in South Dublin. My first few days especially I did have quite a few experiences of how strange it was to be drinking water from a tap, or to have warm water and a shower. The sensation of being in an airtight room was unnerving (but welcome in the freezing weather) and the realization of living in an 11 room house with just 3 people from a 5 room house with 17 people has been almost scary in the silence and aloness of the place.

The temptation I'm finding with myself is to just try and not think about my time in Cambodia, to imagine it was a dream. This is because acknowledging the reality of both places co-existing at the same time is a bit too painful and difficult to allow. I know though, that I have a responsability NOT to forget. If I don't change my life, my habits, as a result of this experience, is there any hope for the rest of us who haven't gone and who haven't seen?

Part of the difficulty is that again I'm in transition (I only have a month left in this current place), I also have all this academic work to get done (or to avoid as the case may be) which is impinging on the free time that I could be using this time of year. I look forward to getting back to Wheaton where there is a community of people who will keep me accountable to living the life that I have chosen and where I have a certain amount of stability and place in my school, church and (hopefully, if they take me back) job.

If you believe life, and God's plan, is all about relationship, it's difficult to begin something new when you have such a short time in a place.