Five of the reasons I put myself through all this.
It is now fifteen weeks and five days and eight hours since I waved a tearful goodbye to my family on Camborne station. To disappear half way round the world to work and build something for our futures.
The sight of my families saddened, tearful, faces gazing up the platform after me as I disappeared from their lives for four months, haunted me then, as it has every night I have been apart from them.
It made me want to get off the train at Redruth station and come straight home again. But I just kept going further and further away knowing I was not going to see them again for far too long. It was horrible. The one thing that kept me going was the fact that I knew I could make things happen in Africa, I could change lives, build futures and deliver the goods, and by doing so build a better life for my family too.
Sharon and I had discussed it all at great length, involving the children in as many of the decisions as we felt fair. It was going to put a tremendous strain on Sharon, holding down a full time job, looking after four children and having to deal with me being away. (Which may have been the one saving grace, but I’d like to think not) We also realised that it would also affect the children in ways that we would not see at first. We did not realise just how close and tight we were as a family, until we took it apart. We had decided that whilst this was going to be a ridiculously difficult year, if things worked as we hoped they would, it should all be worth it. So we buckled down and got on with it.
For me it has been easier, my life has been full, with new challenges every day, new experiences to keep me busy and a nose to keep firmly to the grindstone to prove my worth. Sharon has had to battle on through the same routines that she has faced for the past two years, in a house too small and weather that only seems to know shades of grey. Now though she did not have the support she used to have, and to compound it, she also had twice the workload.
It’s funny looking back at it, when I first left to come out I thought that things were pretty well cast in stone and I knew what I would be doing and where based. Since that moment things have been turned on their head, changed around I have taken on much more diverse and interesting roles, Greater responsibilities. I am travelling much more than I imagined and as such am seeing more of this country and its people, I would also to mention the plethora wildlife, but I can’t, as they appear to have eaten it all.
I feel that I am now winning, the first three months were a fairly relentless banging of one’s head on the proverbial wall, but in the last month the foundations that I laid in the first three have finally held firm and we are now building, and it feels good. I now know that we made the right decision, I know that we are building a stable future for the family and it was not just a final fatal ego trip before I gave up hope and sank into the abyss of menial work in grey England.
I have learned probably more about myself this past four months than I have learned about Zambia, I have had many good times and a few shit ones. Most of the shit ones however have been down to me not being prepared, or me just missing my family too much than I could cope with at the time. The good ones however have been spectacular, only tainted by the fact that I am experiencing them on my own and not sharing them with those I love most dearly. I have tried to put down my experiences down in print but I am unable to communicate fully the true magic I feel and have experienced. I also did not start from the beginning. It’s too late to go back now as the moment has passed and the details have faded.
There is however much more to come as it going to get a lot more exciting as things escalate and more than likely get a bit more out of hand.
Within five days the hurt that I have been feeling over the past months will all evaporate, to be replaced by the overwhelming joy of seeing and holding my family again.
We will make the most of every moment that we are together not wasting a word by making it a harsh one, or a thought that may turn into a bad one. For all too soon the festive period with be over, the children back to school, Sharon back at work and I once again will be standing leaning out of the carriage window hating the moment when we are torn apart again.
At least it will not be for so long this time as I really don’t think I could bear that.
Denzil Bark.
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