The Ocean

“If I get out of this, I’ll never live again in the limits of a lake. Next time, the ocean! I’ll make the infinite my home.” – Rumi

I’ve had writer’s block since November, which has meant both an empty blog and a sparsely filled journal during this time. On one hand, I feel like I have nothing new to say. On the other, I feel so incredibly overwhelmed with new stories and thoughts that I don’t know where to begin. Someday, a book may suffice.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure, self-determined, self-motivated, often risky, forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world, the world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way, you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind, and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black and white.” - Mark Jenkins

I think it will take many years to fully wrap my head around what these past 25 months have meant, how my Self has been transformed, and how my previous perceptions of the world, of people, of relationships, of culture, and of international aid work have exploded. In these current moments, I simply don’t have the words to express most of it. It . . . seems more complex than anything I have ever known.

For now, I can say that my time living in Botswana has made me stronger, in part because it has redefined several terms for me:


Boredom is NOT the feeling of having little to do or an inability to choose among the options.


Boredom is having no more than five options of what to do with your time, and you have explored those five options so often that those activities are no longer exciting, interesting or even mildly appealing. Boredom is the longing for more options.


Loneliness is NOT being physically alone or aching to fall in love with someone who cares as deeply for you.


Loneliness is caused by the inability to connect. Cultural barriers are so thick and so tall that they are impenetrable and impossible to see over. Loneliness comes when you feel so isolated because no matter how you try to interact with others, you feel like you just can’t connect.


Indecisiveness is NOT indifference or ambivalence about a decision.


Indecisiveness is the inability to choose between two options because what you really want is option number three. Option number three is never available. You can’t choose between pasta and rice because what you really want is green vegetables. You can’t choose between 11 hours on a bus or 9 hours in a car because what you really want is to be able to afford the 45-minute flight. Decisiveness and triumph arrives when we work with what we have.


Burnout is NOT wanting something different or being ready for something different.


Burnout is completely shutting down. It is a version of post-traumatic stress disorder. It is the complete lack of any capacity to take on any new projects, to talk about what you’ve been doing, to talk about anything related to your work or your “exotic” life.


Living in the moment is NOT about being spontaneous and making lemonade out of lemons that life has given you.



Living in the moment means being grateful for silence and solitude, accepting situations completely as they are without any interest to change them or any frustration. Living in the moment is wrestling with demons you thought you chased away long ago. Living in the moment is looking within your Self instead of pointing fingers.


Expectations are not the things you hope and dream for. Expectations are not the big assumptions we make about how things will turn out or what will be provided to us.


Expectations are all of the little things we take for granted within our cultural norm. I cannot expect people to understand the words coming out of my mouth, whether I speak English or Setswana. I cannot expect the internet to work. I cannot expect my phone network to be operating. I cannot expect the post office to have stamps. I cannot expect my co-workers to fulfill any of the duties in their job description. I cannot expect people to care - about anything - from good customer service to a dying baby - because I will never understand centuries of culture that has made people who they are in their home country or the innermost priorities of their lives.


The only things I can expect is that gravity still exists, that the sun will rise and set, and that I will continue breathing through every moment.

“When you travel, remember that foreign countries are not designed to make you comfortable. They are designed to make their own people comfortable.” - Clifton Fadiman

I have never felt more patriotic in my life. America means having options, and I miss having a plethora of options, in every context, more than anything. There are several parts of my life in Botswana that I will miss, but I long for America, and all of its complicated, messy, imperfect glory. In many ways, I got exactly what I wanted, and so much more, in my experience abroad. I can’t express enough how grateful I am for that. However, I am eager for next steps in my life.

My last day in Botswana is May 18th. From there, I travel to Madagascar, Egypt and Berlin. I land in Los Angeles June 21st, and from there I move to New York for graduate school sometime mid to late July.

As I think about this transitional phase of re-entry back into the States, I am excited, but I know it will also be a challenge. I try to reflect on who I was, but my life pre-Peace Corps seems like a hazy and distant reverie. My friendships, past relationships, and love interests have faded into a far-off memory that feels like someone else’s life.

To those of you who want to know how I’ve changed or what it was like, I don’t know how to answer those questions, and I don’t know when I will. The very thought of trying to answer those questions feels incredibly overwhelming, in part because the full answers have yet to be revealed to me.

For now, this Rumi poem sums up how I feel after this experience and time away from everything that is familiar, both identity-less and one with humankind in a way I could never understand before I took this journey.

“Not Christian or Jew or
Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen.
Not any religion

or cultural system. I am
not from the east
or the west, not
out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not
natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all.
I do not exist,

am not an entity in this
world or the next,
did not descend from
Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is
the placeless, a trace
of the traceless.
Neither body nor soul.

I belong to the beloved,
have seen the two
worlds as one and
that one
call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath breathing

human being.”

-Rumi

Despite feeling a bit unsettled due to an inability to express, I am so incredibly happy. I wouldn’t have traded this experience for the world, and I am beyond ecstatic about where my life is headed. My time in this land-locked African country is coming to a close.

I’m ready for a different sense of freedom. I’m ready for the next steps that will lead me to something bigger. I’m ready for America. I’m ready for the ocean.

“Do you think water is strong? The river? What about the ocean? When you find yourself facing the ocean, the question of whether or not it’s strong doesn’t really matter anymore. Water is water no matter where it is. That’s the nature of who we are. Our true value is not in being the water but in that we could be the ocean. Can you be the ocean?” - Kohei Azano