Epilogue

A full month has passed since I came home from Africa. Reverse culture shock went pretty well I'd say. I still get a little uncomfortable and anxious when I'm in a large group though. I attribute it to my brain tuning into so many conversations that I can understand versus before when 99% of talk was in various other languages. But other than that, I feel fairly OK.

The whole experience has taken on a very surreal quality though. I feel like I had some sort of a time warp on another planet. Not a single thing in my surroundings now is anything like it was there. And, nothing has really changed back in my usual world. I look at the pictures I took (quite often) and ask myself, "did that really happen?"

I think of my kids often...wondering how many of them are still in school, and hoping that they found a good math teacher. I should be getting the grade reports from the principal soon I hope.

I'm regularly getting the "what next?" question. For sake of completeness, you should know that Matt and I parted ways as friends at the end of the year. So now I'm without a job, place to live, or relationship. I'm about 95% sure that I want to spend some time sailing before I make any career commitments. In about a month I plan to fly down to either La Paz or Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. From there I will "walk the docks" and see about finding a boat headed across the Pacific in need of crew.

I will continue to maintain this blog if that adventure materializes........stay tuned...............