The Things You Get Used To

 

By Glory Guy 

Hi friends, Glory here. Forever an English major at heart, sharing words about life in our wonderful Kibuye brings me joy. This past month has been filled to the brim with everything from bedbugs, a trip to Kenya for vaccines, a new passport, a GI parasite, and a middle school running club. The way I grasp all the scenarios that we process in every-day life here in Burundi is through words. Over the past two months I had the opportunity to participate in a virtual weekly writing workshop, and it has been such a blessing. After booking it home from class at the school in the middle of the loudest rainstorm I have ever experienced, I crash landed in our kitchen, and ended up sharing this piece of writing with my roommates. I was given the prompt "write about a realization," and what came out was this piece called "The Things You Get Used To." Jenny and Erica suggested I share it here with you because it articulates a little of what the mundane looks like here in our Beautiful Burundi. Sometimes the hardest things to explain about our life here is what goes on in the everyday, because it is a constantly interwoven mess of simple and complex, decisions to be made, and mostly prayer for the Lord's faithfulness in all of the things we don't know. Hope you enjoy this little window into daily life in Kibuye.

"The Things You Get Used To" 

When the potholes in the red dirt felt familiar, I knew. When the rain sounded like a waltz, a lullaby in time, with some movements louder than others. There are things you get used to, mud determined to stick under your toenails, the echo of crickets having conversations back and forth from your adjacent bedroom windows, the desire for a child's slingshot to silence the bird crafting a reggae tune at 5am, and barefoot children, in varying stages of dirt-caked, over age 2 showing up at your door without supervision in search of apple juice. Some things will never feel normal I think, the sickly-sweet smell of milk boiling on the stove, in hopes and prayers of pasteurization, the triumph of hearing the high-pitched squeal of the mosquito desperate for a bite, and realizing it buzzes outside the confines of the net and not from between the sheets. The feeling of utter defeat when the internet returns after several days of disconnection from outside our stone walls, to find that the power leaves, as if in spite. Candles are peaceful and lovely, in their dance on our mantle, but not so much when you're angry and can't boil hot water for a lifeline in the form of a cup of tea. Things oscillate between kindness and rain, and I learn to laugh in the everyday breaths of making a home. 

(Feat. Student Adventurer at Kibuye Rock)