First, the thought crossed my mind: maybe I should start gatherings for Mozambican mothers. So that we could support one another. But within two seconds, I already knew. They have it better than I do.
My husband left for two days and one night. Into the bush. To tell people about Jesus.
It terrified me. My everyday reality is being alone with three children. But my husband is always just a phone call away. Not this time. It’s not as though one of the children hasn’t started running a fever, vomiting, or having severe diarrhea before. It’s not as though I haven’t felt so unwell myself that I’ve called him and asked him to come home.
And someone might say these are just ordinary situations. Yes. But here in Mozambique, I am completely alone. I don’t have anyone here who could watch the children for a little while. I can’t just go anywhere. I can’t even exchange a few words with someone. Just enough to feel like a human being. When I’m alone. At home.
Sometimes I find myself longing for those villages that some people have. And I remember the one and only life in which I actually lived that way. Back then, though, I didn’t have children. I was a child myself. It was in Jeziorany. Where you would just drop by for coffee because you happened to be passing by. Where you knew every person working in every little shop. Where you could say, “I’ll bring you the 10 PLN when I go out for bread later.”
Although I never felt that I was raised by a village. Maybe that’s exactly why this is so hard for me now.
But in Poland, I have family and friends. Everyone is tired and busy, but I have this thought in the back of my mind: I can ask for help. Here, I have my husband. We have each other. And that is still an enormous thing. Not everyone has that.
I’m writing all this because I’m looking for my own way to a village. And I don’t know which way to go.
Do you have to be the kind of person who starts conversations with the neighbors? Well, I’m not that person. Not even in Poland.
Do you have to be the one who initiates contact? I don’t know how to do that. It takes an enormous amount of energy from me.
Do you have to go to every gathering just to meet people? I don’t have the energy for that. Besides, I don’t click with people that easily. And without that click, I don’t know how to do it.
I’m trying to invite people into our home. Slowly.
How many people have told me over the years that they feel lonely too. That people don’t remember about them. That they are always the ones reaching out first. That they are surrounded by people, and yet somehow no real connections are being made.
I wish I could break out of this. Build our own small, real world, where the words “How are you?” and “We really must get together” actually mean what they say.
I got carried away dreaming.
What about you? Do you have your own villages? And how did you become part of them?
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