Yesterday afternoon the internet went out. It didn't come back up until around lunchtime today. At first we all panicked and thought the world was coming to an end, but as the hours went on I felt oddly good. I realize this post is not necessarily about Africa and is not about the culture of the people here, but it is an experience none the less.
In a way it has been an "ah-ha" moment. I was enlightened by my conscience that I have become prisoner to the internet. I am not saying that I should liberate myself completely from it and not send out letters and things and post blogs, but I need to seriously cut back. Part of a study abroad experience is to learn something about yourself, and I have learned that I become dependent on communication. What is going down? When is it going down? Who's going? Where? I need to just stop. I know full well why I have attached myself to this little white keyboard. I have been afraid to stop and face reality.
It is understandable that someone turns to find out what is going on at home while they are here for their first month. There is nothing really to do. You don't have a whole lot of money to splurge on things (or you don't want to splurge) so that cuts out reasons to pay for a bus to go to town and then pay for a bus to come back. Riding the bus here is not really that enjoyable of an experience. We can't go out to anywhere at night, so that keeps us on the seminary. We are in class most of the day and then after class we study, and if we don't do that we walk around. Sometimes you just don't want to walk around, or it is to hot to walk around for very long. We are drawn like flies to a dirty dirty choo (Swahili...look it up) when it comes to the internet. It is our gateway of escape from this place, if only for an instant. Not that we want to leave, but we want to shut off our brains for a while and just go back to what we do at home. For the four of us that is surf the net.
Because of all this surfing I think that I, at times, forget one of the main reasons why I am here. To find out who Peter Hathaway Watters, Esq. is. I can completely avoid facing that question when I go online. This is a problem that needs to be remedied. Starting today I am going to start pulling back on my internet time, not that anyone will really notice. I will still post blogs and I will be checking my mail everyday, but I am not going to be online for that long, unless I have a good reason to. I need to find myself here, and I started to yesterday as the internet went down. Even though I have had longer periods of not being online while I was here, I had to take a step back yesterday and really take a look at my priorities. The internet should not be nearly as high as I have put it, though it appears that everybody else here would seem to argue with me.
Anywho...I'm out.
Peace,
Peter
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