Tuesday, June 30, 2015

From Camarillo To Cameroon



I am T- just a few days, and I think it's safe to say my house is a disaster. My ambition is ever so slightly ahead of me. For instance, "A memory quilt won't take us that long"... Note that it is still sitting unfinished on the dining room table. Alas, ambition, you shall not get the jump on me this time! All of my water treatment gear, toiletries, miscellaneous stuff (including my sketch books) weigh in at just under sixty pounds, the quilt is in the finishing stages, my clothes are washed and being pressed, and the pot roast is in the oven. See, ambition, I've got this! 
Everyone keeps asking me if I'm freaking out yet... The short answer: yes. The long answer: my life is changing. I'm giving up my world. I am packing my life into 150 pounds, ready to leave in just a few days, and I don't even know what I am teaching or where in Bamenda I will be living. I have faith that it will all work out. This is an adventure, but no adventure is without trepidation. That's part of it. 

My mom, my grandmother, my aunts and I celebrated my adventure with a weekend to Avalon, Catalina Island. It was three days of laughter and relaxation. Part of going on mission is connecting and making lasting memories with those that you love. Three years is a long time, but it isn't a goodbye. It's a "see you again on the shores of Avalon". It's a promise that even though everything changes, the relationships will still be there, the connections still very much alive. So in three years, we will once again travel to Avalon (hopefully for longer than three days) for laughter, relaxation and reconnection. 

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
-Ashley