Bees

Yesterday I went to the field with a few of my co-workers. We have traveled many kilometer’s together over the past few months as these individuals are my usual field-traveling companions. The depth of our relationships is due to the countless hours we have spent traversing Madagascar’s countryside.

On our journey yesterday, one of my closest friends who calls me his little sister, Faly, shared a Malagasy proverb with me. He told me that I am like a bee. Initially, I thought I am a bee in the sense that I fly from one flower to another never landing anywhere very long. Faly told me that isn’t what the proverbs means. Instead, when someone calls you a bee it means that you leave sweet things behind you.

My final days in Madagascar are slipping through my fingers. It seems like each day is full trying to make the best of the last few moments. I get asked daily when exactly I am leaving Madagascar and it is with bittersweet feelings I respond – “2 weeks.” I am eager to go home and see family and friends but that is at the cost of saying ‘good-bye’ to those that I have come to love here.

One of the hardest things for me living overseas is that I can only share a limited amount of my experiences with those abroad. Unless you have had the emotions connected to walking the dirt paths, the holiday dinner at my friend’s table, or listening to the sweet melodies of worship, it is understandably hard to fully relate. Sometimes it feels like I live two separate lives and due to the distance, it is impossible to merge the two. In both worlds there are people I love and long to spend time with. I wish you could look into the precious face of my friend’s little girl, gaze across the limitless mountains, or watch the cattle herders drive zebu down Main Street and feel the connectedness to this country that I have come to know. More than my own selfish reasons to share this with you so then I could have someone to relate to and the end here wouldn’t feel so raw and final, I sincerely want to share the joy, which also comes with pain but makes life only that much more sweeter.

In many ways I wish I could just transport my life here and the people in it across the ocean and just continue living what I have known for the past six months as if nothing changed. Looking back over the past few years of my life, I have always been the one to leave. Very rarely have I been the one who is left behind. I cannot really understand what my friends here feel faced with my soon departure. Perhaps it is easier for them because expatriates have this reputation of coming and going and never staying. Regardless, I know how I feel. More than sadness or even wishing for this moment to last, I feel love.

This morning I made breakfast for the guys I play basketball with. This motley group of men, and random girls, has become very special to me. Aside from the fact that they are all funny, amazing people, the time I have spent playing ball with them I have felt like a normal person. I wasn’t viewed as the foreigner, the person who can’t speak Malagasy but rather someone with a mutual passion. I belong.

Prior to any formal event, such as this breakfast, a speech is expected. I avoided this tradition this morning. My friends stepped in and gave their own speech to me instead, which I think was harder on my emotions then if I had just sucked it up and done it myself. They told me they loved me and it was hard to see me go. My heart overflowed because there is no question they meant every broken English word. ‘My guys,’ as I like to call them, are definitely bees that have brought something sweet into my life.