Confusion

What season follows the cold, dreary months when you want to do nothing but hunker down in front of the fireplace with a hot cup of some beverage (coffee for you rebels, green tea for you tree-huggers, cider for you who reminisce of the good old days, and chocolate for the rest)? Spring, right? The season of endless rain, blossoming flowers, and the return of geese and geriatrics from the southern portions of North America. Also, what holidays do you enjoy in those dark and dank days of depression and despondency we call winter? Christmas, New Year's, Groundhog, and Valentine's?

This is where I keep getting confused. I stumbled into Africa over a year ago (as of last week) and the disorientation is getting worse. The season that follows the cold season is the hot and dry season, not spring. The seasons go more like spring, winter, then summer (fall doesn't really exist, it reminds us that it exists elsewhere by having blustery, leaf-filled days occasionally and unpredictably). Even then, our descriptions of seasons don't entirely apply. More than that, July 4th (here, it's July 6th because that's Malawian Independence Day) will probably require a jacket whereas you'd want to meander about in your birthday suit over Veteran's Day. It's not even backwards. The days and months, holidays and seasons, temperatures and calenders just don't match. It's like someone took the year, cut it into cubes, then played Boggle and couldn't find any words in the puzzle.

My first year felt like a course entitled, "Intro to Africa: Welcome to the well-meaning heart of wrong assumptions." Don't think for one femtosecond that I am now the final authority on all things African. I still wonder why Malawians are visibly scared of dogs even though many people have them and want them. I am curious how people adjust to leaving their wife and children for years in order to advance their education and possibilities for their children. More than those, I am astounded at locals' faith in a Being they cannot see when they don't even believe their biology teachers until they look at cells through a microscope (which almost never happens). Not only have I learned of some unexpected ways of things, some of my expectations that have been utterly obliterated. I assumed that donations and foreign aid would be more like a gift than a recurring nightmare because they are intended for the benefit of the people, that the difference between engineer and mechanic and general contractor was obvious, and that I would embrace the local way of life as much as I loathe the Western waste.

After having stumbled through round one, what do I want to do and where do I want to aim? What are my "new year's" resolutions? I want to spend more time in the wards (working as well as socializing), take more walks through the villages and tea fields, and better appreciate the "spring" even if it comes in summer or winter. Maybe this list will get even longer.