I am bodily here in Kenya but my personality and thinking self got lost somewhere on the plane ride over. While this trip has been astounding, traveling to a place with a seven hours time difference has been the most disorienting experience in my life. I don’t know what day it is, I am exhausted when the sun is high in the sky and wide awake when it is pitch black out. As we drive around (btw…the roads out here are a blog post in themselves) it is a constant fight to stay awake.

Speech is even difficult when your body is this thrown off. Words won’t come when I am trying to converse with others. There are even times when people are talking to me that my mind simply checks out and I can’t even take in the fact that the person in front of me is trying to communicate with me.

All of us have felt off these first few days. That coupled with the dry climate and quick dehydration have lead to vomit making a return appearance on our trip (don’t worry, we caught it all in a bucket) and my children falling asleep as soon as we sat down somewhere. On the plus side my body’s inability to sleep past four am Kenyan time has allowed me to enjoy my favorite time of the day at a leisurely pace.

It has taken about four days for all of us to achieve a tolerable adjustment to our new time zone. For me personally however, I feel like I am still waiting for my real self to show up. The set of responses, thought patterns and communication styles that make up who I am only seem to show up a few hours out of the day. While this does interfere slightly when engaging with others, I am grateful I still retain the ability to absorb everything around me. This foreign environment offers much to absorb.