Instant Gratification

I love the weekly emails I get from Urbana.org. I went to the conference in 2003 and have been getting their emails every Wednesday ever since. They are all about missions around the world, and gaining a Christian world perspective of young and old people, males and females, everywhere. You should check it out!
Anyway, one article I read a year or so back was about the instant gratification we have available to us in the United States. At the time, I didn’t agree. I was living in North Carolina, was fairly careful with what I bought, and tried not to indulge in everything I wanted all the time. “That applies to the regular culture,” I thought, “but not to me.”

Now that I’m living in Tanzania, however, I am beginning to grasp what the author meant. It’s not so much that we get everything we want materially in the States, although that often happens, too. It’s that we are used to having everything we need at our fingertips. It was so easy in the States to make a quick Walmart run (or Meijer, which is so much better, in MI…), or shoot off a quick email to my personnel person online. If you’ve read my most recent post, you’ll realize why this just isn’t possible in Dar. Running to the store (besides the duka across the street) is way more complicated and time consuming with transportation issues and everything so spread out. Walmart-like stores don’t necessarily exist – at least in terms of selection, availability, and prices. Shooting off a quick email involves crossing the crazy street to get to school, the power to be on, and the internet to actually be working at the time you get there. That’s a lot of “ifs” on any given day.

The things I’ve taken for granted are definitely not always available in the same way in Tanzania. Perhaps if and as I get more settled, I will find better ways to handle things. And I do know that everything is available for a price… including getting a printer that actually prints, or a spatula for about 15 bucks at Shoppers yesterday (no thanks!). But I think it’s good, too, to realize that what someone said to me when I first got here is very true. “Daily life just seems to take longer here.” It’s not so much that getting on the internet takes longer – or getting a glass of water. But it’s the in-between things that seem to make everything slower. (Making the trip to school and finding out the internet is actually on… or boiling the water, letting it cool, scooping it with a pan into the water filter, waiting for it to filter, then putting it into a water bottle in the fridge to get cold.)

I think what I’m learning during this process is a lot about who God made me to be. And about how it’s ok not to be able to do everything all the time. That I’m not going to be “perfectly” able to do everything I want or think I should be able to do. That it’s ok to take one or two things a day in the midst of daily life. And that worrying about time spent waiting or doing this and that is going to get me nowhere. It’s going to look different here, and crossing off every item on my to-do list may not be the most critical thing for me to get done every day. I’m learning to enjoy the times like this evening, when our power was out. Several of our neighbors were sitting on our front steps as we chatted in the brilliant orange moonlight for over an hour (with the silhouettes of palm trees in the foreground). Yes, I had reader’s response journals that I could have been grading by the light of my headlamp. But at that moment, a few other life-moments were much more important. Like learning more about the life-stories of my new friends, laughing over our calling Tanesco (the power company) and realizing that they weren’t answering their phones at all an hour after they had said the power would be coming on (turns out the whole city was out of power!), and having one of my students sit on my lap as we discussed her flexibility while her parents went to a meeting at the generator-powered house next door. These are moments that I will remember, and half-treasure when there’s not such a threat of the power going off again any moment. They are good bonding moments, and opportunities to chill, grow, share, and learn from a culture that treasures relationships and spending time with others way above the task-oriented perspective we hold tight to in America.

It’s true what my housemate Elaine said earlier today – that she’s glad the power goes off so she can appreciate it that much more when it’s back on. I’d like to think that, too. Part of me, though, thinks that the wires in the walls of our house were made to carry electricity, and that it’s sure nice when they do. Back to my “instant gratification” mentality, I guess!