Life as it is has not allowed my mind much time to consider these things. The end of my work is like a tsunami, everything thought or read or discussed accumulating into a thick wall, pushing forward, consuming everything else. I leave the house before the kids are ready, come home in the darkness when they're already back in their pajamas. I wish I had more to show for all the hours I put in. It's slow, but I am past the biggest procrastination station, full steam ahead for the next six days. Driving me is the real desire for product and the letting go.
Next are the logistics for leaving: material and personal. Sorting out the household: give away (what to whom), sell, pack the bags to take on the flight, pack the bag to ship, arrange to have other things professionally wrapped and sent. Spend time with people: one-on-one, in couples, a tea party for Eliza's friends, an early German Christmas party. Buy things native for people that they will not think too odd to utilize. DHL them to the States for mom to wrap as our xmas gifts in absentia. Meet with teachers for a preschool semester summary. Make skype phone calls in anticipation that we will not have a good enough connection in Harare. Buy children's toothpaste and other items we imagine we might not find there.
Then I'm hoping there will be time for reflection. Two years is long enough to expect you might know something about a place, if only a stronger feeling of it than when you arrived. It's also good-bye to the Arab world which we've lived in for most of the last five years (Alhamdaleila!). It's not that I've got real problems with the place. I'm just looking forward to seeing how my life will be different in a non-majority Muslim area...and to seeing something other than marble, stone, sand and thorny bushes they call "trees" here.
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