We are starting to receive e-mails pertaining to the end of the year.
Shocking. It feels as though we just began our second year at GWA; and yet we are now faced with the reality that there only five weeks left to our school year. Five weeks until we officially start our endeavor toward year
three!!
David, since he has lived overseas for his entire life, was asked to speak at the "leaving well" dinner tonight. The purpose of the dinner is to support those staff members who are leaving GWA in their transition back to America. Each one of them will likely face reverse culture shock upon their return "home". That's right...culture shock does not end when you go back to what was formerly so familiar to you.
David shared this quote with me once & and I don't think I ever truly understood it until recently:
"Now...they resolved to go back to their own land; because the years have a kind of emptiness when we spend too many of them on a foreign shore. But... if we do return, we find that the native air has lost its invigorating quality, and that life has shifted its reality to the spot where we have deemed ourselves only temporary residents. Thus, between two countries, we have none at all..." -Hawthorne
We are truly torn between countries. As a result of living overseas, we have allowed ourselves to fall in love with multiple cultures, and we have "homes" in more than one place. I always used to get annoyed with David when he referred to his college dorm room or hotel room as "home". Now, I have grown to accept his more fluid definition of the term. "Home" is wherever you are and it encompasses whoever you're with.
As harsh as this might sound, we hardly noticed that 20+ staff members left our "home" last year. Most of the staff members who left last year were not in our circle of friends and/or they didn't start this Moroccan adventure at the same time as us. This year it's very different. All of a sudden we are forced to reckon with the fact that some of the individuals who are leaving are our friends. They are people who came here with us, people who we've grown close to, and people who we interact with daily. Not all of our friends are leaving (We are actually very fortunate to have more friends who are staying next year), but those who are leaving have unknowingly driven us downward on this emotional roller coaster which we stepped onto the moment we chose to live abroad.
Looking forward, we realize that it's only a matter of time before we may be "left behind" entirely.The friendships that we have formed are seemingly hinged on the fact that we are living overseas together and are sharing all of the same experiences that coincide with our lives abroad. Our friendships also play a huge role in making Morocco our "home". This years "leaving" staff members have brought into perspective the fact that we will not always live overseas together with our friends. We have no way of knowing when our current friends will leave; but we know that when they do we will suddenly be left with no more dinner dates, Sunday meetings, familiar faces, inside jokes, etc.
It takes a lot of work to make new friends and I've never been particularly good at it, unfortunately. While David seems to ease into friendships effortlessly through soccer, it takes a lot more individual effort on my part. I need to learn how to increase that effort under the new circumstances that I'm faced with. Staff turnover is an inevitable aspect of our life here. Selfishly, I want to ask you to pray for staff longevity. Realistically, however, I
need you to pray for us next year (and each subsequent year) as we learn how to start all over again with new friends.
-Nicole
