Here I Am

Here I am.

I am Jacqueline Brennan coming from your small town USA and embracing a world that is different, yet not so different than my own. Over the course of the trip, I find myself asking what will happen when I get home?  How will people react to me and my adventures?  What will I say to them?  How do I explain everything in one simple email?  I can't even say that what I have for you now is sufficient. 

Life exposes the superficial and thoughtful ideas to those it controls. Some things need to be realized by an individual through their passion, while other things need to be realized through their faults.  Life takes our hands and drags us through thickets of deception and pulls us through mogs of our biggest fears...for what?  From a recent movie, I heard a cool quote, "I am glad people can't tell the future; otherwise, we would never get out of bed."  Life can be the childhood monster under your bed and hiding behind the door of your darkened closet. Those thickets and mogs become so overbearing and derailing at times, we just try to hold on tight to whatever strip of our own identities we have left in our possession. We become brave.  We become resilient.  We become the cliche version of ourselves.

I can sit here and explain what a life changing experience Tanzania was for me, and how much I gained from it, but I would hate to bore. Truthfully, upon arriving in the Amsterdam airport, I realized one thing, I become just another face in the crowd.  I am not saying this cynically, but the simple idea is that no one knows what I have learned and done in Tanzania, and no one really cares. The truth is, people want to hear, "It was a life changing experience, and I wouldn't trade it for the world." 

However, a short turn of events also made me realize that Tanzania has not left me with a constrained view of human nature. I witnessed our Dutch captain of our KLM flight come to my friend, Kristin, in the wee hours of the morning and presented her with a book.  It was book number 6 actually, for passengers to write their aspirations and wishes of their lives, and it carried the most valuable and priceless treasures that answer many of life's most daunting questions. The book revealed the human resilience, courage, and the significance of the various personal identities contained in the borders of the world. 

This was our chance to either embrace being another face in the crowd, or fight it.  Writing down these things in a book of dreams does not necessarily make us change this inevitability, but it does make our lessons learned seem more official because other people will be seeing them. It was fate that Kristin was randomly selected out of all the passengers to do this, and I witnessed it.  I began thinking about what my entry would've looked like.  Something like this:

"It is easy to let life scare you. People all over the world, rich or poor, big or small, young or old, continue to get up and press on with the day, believing that tomorrow has a better future. What are these people looking for?  That's easy...Happiness. Success is not defined by material wealth, or the quantity of relationships you have, or how many places you've been, but rather a new definition of success is by being truly honest with yourself about your personal happiness. 

In Tanzania, I experienced and witnessed many things, but one of them is that it is a place that carries dreams in the light of a Tanzanian eye. I have seen it. Whether you (but mostly I) have learned that a shampoo bottle can last longer than 4 months, a scrap of toilet paper can go a long way, a bucket of bathing water could be more than you asked for, and eating with your hands can save doing the dishes, you never want to take ANYTHING for granted. Tanzanians most certainly do not underestimate their faith (nor the will of God), and as a result, Tanzanians have an imploding faith that allows them to never stop dreaming and fighting for their happiness. They exemplify the human resilience in their daily life. They have more to teach America than for us Westerners to try to teach them.

In accordance, you realize the world and its dreams, including your own, get that much bigger (and sometimes even more confusing), so find your Africanness."

There is my tribute.  Truth is, I care about Tanzania and the love, the relationships, the views, and smiles it has so kindly offered to me. I am returning home carrying on my back life-created wings from the superficial and thoughtful lessons I have learned. My cliche version of myself is my better self, and honestly, it is up to you all to observe the mark and impression Tanzania has left on me. You all don't have to care about all these life lessons I have learned, but promise yourselves that you never take for granted all the places you will go in search of your happiness. 

Thank you all for reading up on my journey, and this won't be my last adventure. Study abroad trips ruin you with restlessness (in a good way of course) for something else exciting just around the corner.

I bid thee adieu. 

Sending my love from around the world.  I am home.

Jax