Do we miss what we have only when we lose it?

I realized that I may leave Voinjama and Liberia very soon . For the moment it's still up to me. Next month I will take a long leave and then when I come back I may check out after 20 days. In this case, I still have only 5-6 weeks of work to go. If I want. Then....maybe long vacations, maybe another mission, maybe I will be lost in my own country and in my own life. I may be lost in the same things I am missing here and that I'm looking forward to rebuilt once I go back.

So, when I think I may really leave, I feel sad and I imagine myself missing Voinjama, the people I met here, even the ones who gave me hard time, just because I feel that I will have nothing while here I was part of something. When I'm having a very nice time with my friends, when we are planning our next days here, when we are sharing a smile, a word, a way of saying that can only be shared and understood here, I wonder: will I miss so hardly my life here only because I won't have it anymore? Is my flatmate feeling strange to be out of "Voinjama gang" just because he is not in Voinjama anymore? Was he, are we, so happy with what we have when is there everyday? Do we really live it all, with joy and intensity when we have it? Knowing that I may have a bad time in missing what I have now, as if it was the best life I could have ever had, makes me doubt sometimes of my decision. Leaving a mission, a place, an experience that was so much part of our lives, but that also gave us very difficult moments, gives you at first some kind of adrenaline, the freedom and comfort of being somewhere else. But then, when this feeling settles down, a bitter taste may come and I will end up divided again in too many different worlds.

Compared to what I experienced when I left my first mission, I think this kind of work and life has taught me how to manage attachment to places and persons you feel so deep in your life and all of a sudden are not there anymore. Especially when you put in everything you do a big part of you. We did not change what we are, but we have always knows from the beginning that we are living a kind of parallel life, it's our life and will always be our. There are always, somewhere in us, already new horizons and space for new persons. And there is always, present, the perspective of what really counts and what we really want to bring with us. We know what makes us come back. We are somehow prepared to the sadnss that leaving a mission can involve, at the same time we know that we will manage to keep in touch with real friends. I've no doubt that, if I leave, I will see again some special persons I met here.

But still, jumping into the unknown it's not easy.

Strange

Well you have many experience in life, some are forgettable, some are unforgettable and than there are experiences that change your life, you life those experiences every day. It safe to say it becomes your life. Same goes for people in your life, some are forgettable, some are unforgettable, and some change your life- it can be nice or it can me worst- but they surely leave something that makes you change the way you are. Many people have come across and almost every body has left something especially the people I become close to me as friends. Sometimes unsaid things and fine line between saying it out or keeping it gives the whole experience a different perspective. Well that is how things are whether you like it or not.

Well meeting voinjama gang here in Monrovia, gave me a different experience. They were planning different things and I can not be there, it kinda sucks. I felt strange and stranger among Voinjama gang, I was once part.

I'm in a bad mood and I've no word

Vahun

Field trips are really one of the best moment of my mission. Especially when a lot of us join a field trip. It may look a bit as a sunday-trip, but it's lovely, interesting, sometimes challenging and fun. I know that I won't ever regret to have been based in Voinjama, if I had to be in Liberia. When we go around reaching inaccesible places, getting to new villages, talking to different people, considering needs, exchanging views, assessing reality (it always look very different from what a lot of people have told), I always feel that I really like this choice and I don't want to give up with the field trips life.

What shall we do?

It’s a quit popular song for Liberian and to be honest they tend to think like that to. Well usually for every thing they always look towards you with this look, what shall we do?. Some times it becomes increasingly annoying. Anyways, I think the music represents the intellectual level and thought process. As far as Liberia goes, they always sings what shall we do and follows the same.

wait starts again

Well, as painful as it may seems, but i was waiting to say good bye to Voinjama. It saddens me deeply to leave good friends, but if I look back at my two years in Voinjama I see my self frustrated and depressed. As far as job was concern it was not difficult at all neither faced much challenge, but the most difficult of all was Voinjama it self. You may disagree with it, but every thing about Voinjama was difficult. Transportation, living conditions, rains, roads, etc when ever we think of doing something in a Voinjama, first thing comes to mind was how are we going to get things!!!!!.......

Well they say that elephant has passed only tail has stuck, that is the dilemma I am in. I have passed the elephant (Voinjama) now my tail is stuck in Liberia, sooner or later day will come to say good bye to Liberia, the wait starts again.

At your own risk

In my working environment everything it's at your own risk. And this means that everybody else can wash his hands on your situation and keep his job safe.
Flexibility, understanding, cooperation, sound too risky. And in this way the system maintain itself and feed incompetence, preserving the status quo and just pissing off people with innovative ideas, motivation, and enthusiasm.
Doing things at my own risk is becoming my favorite motto. At least I can do what I feel I have to do, once I discharge the system from any responsibility. Infact, the system does not care if what we do it's right or wrong; the important is that we are not endangering the system in itself. That's exactly why it's at YOUR OWN RISK (and not at the system risk). So a development- humanitarian structure, supposed to step on high ideals internally is nothing more than a continuous passing the hot potato to somebody else. And so nothing is done and everything remains as it is.
I took a lot of risks in many of my actions professionally and personally and I don't regret them.
I think I'll also take the risk to step out of this system.

Memories

A simple word with end less meanings, its time for me to depart Voinjama. They say it’s always difficult to leave some thing you hold dearly. Well believe it or not there are few things about voinjama I hold close to my heart. The friendship I got here is like a treasure which no body can steal from me. Well, I have to admit that I was away from this blog for long time, but there is a reason. I started walking on this streak of depression of uncertainty and with a thought that my friends won’t be that close to me to listen to me wallowing over and over about difficulties of mission life. Not to forget, that my endless efforts to piss me mates off…… Memories, I shall miss all dearly.

Rain drops

The smell of the rain always reminded me of Toscana. The summers, winters, Christmas and falling stars nights I spent there. When everything on the hill glows and the sky is blue again. With the last rain drops still in the air, we used to go out again, trying not to fall on the slippery streets still wet, calling each other house by house and arrange another plan.

In Voinjama the rain is flooding my room and big drops slip along the glass of the window. I turn up the volume of my ipod, the noise of the rain on the zinc roof enters anyway in my hears and get mixed with the notes. So I feel in a sort of isolation, no other sound can break in, no person around, no movement from outside, no perception of what is going on. And the rain smell, still the same.

The words we did not say (but we think??)

Since I've been left alone in this blog, I've a lot of lonely arguments to populate my mind. One of them is the words I don't say (but I think). Sometimes is an act of intelligence and sensitivity not to say everything we think, and I totally agree with that. Better the silence than an embarassment. Furthermore there are different contexts and even if we are not shy, we may be totally closed in some situations.

But I just wonder what the effect would be, if I just say what I think in these occasions when instead I really feel I've to keep my mouth shut. When, even if I want to say something, the voice does not come out. Silence is also a missunderstanding sometimes.