Familiarity

“Hello!!”
I looked up and saw somebody walking towards me that recognized me, and what’s even more exciting, I RECOGNIZED HER TOO!!! Laurel and I have gone with some of the doctors and nurses when they go out and do free medical outreaches in nearby villages where evangelistic meetings are also being held. This lady was one that had been at both and I worked with her taking people’s blood pressures. Though we really did not talk to each other besides, “Hello, how are you?” we knew who the other was. As I saw her on the street she gave me a very warm, Malawian greeting, and it felt so great. SO GREAT. 
Another day we was walking through town to a store to buy butter and a lady in a car was driving down the street and waved at us, and I knew exactly who she was!!!!! Yes, we did wave back, rather enthusiastically.

Reading what I just wrote, it sounds like no big deal at all. Come on, Talea, get over it. That’s no BIG deal. 
NO!! It IS a big deal, it IS exciting. More than five weeks ago I arrived in a place where I knew nobody - not a soul - besides Laurel. We know our students and their families and a few other people from the hospital here, but not a lot of people. So finally recognizing somebody when we were were merely walking down the street? I was so excited one might have thought it was Christmas morning and it had just snowed two feet. As we’ve been adjusting to the culture over here, it has often felt like everything about every moment of every day was something completely new. But now I’m starting to know what to expect in certain places and EVERYTHING isn’t quite so new. Some things are becoming familiar. Familiarity is a powerful thing. It makes living easier, it makes interactions more meaningful, and it just helps life overall. It is so wonderful.


Yes, I still am finding many, many things that are not familiar to me at all due to still more culture shock, but at least bits of life are becoming familiar.



These pictures are from the second free medical clinic that we helped with. It was in Khola, a village about 45 minutes from Blantyre. At the medical clinics, the doctors assess what the problem is and prescribe medicine for whatever they need. We provide the medicines too. This particular day we served around 200 people (we don't have an exact number, we served a lot of people that did not sign up).

Waiting for the Medical Clinic to begin

Taking blood pressures!!!