Between...

Trying to adjust myself to different time zones Chicago (CST) and Gambia (GMT) is difficult to master. I’m not talking about traveling to one time zone while leaving the other behind, I’m talking about living in them both at the same time. One foot on the continent of the USA and the other on the continent of Africa, my two worlds!   

It affects every aspect of my life and trying to create a balance is likened to a juggling act. I have become so much more aware of this on holidays and the time changes in the spring and fall in the states.

Gambia celebrates Christian as well as Muslim Holidays, plus their (our) own national holidays. This is a long weekend in Gambia due to the Muslim Holiday of Eid al-Adha also called the Feast of the Sacrifice along with the time change in the states heightened my awareness of this fact this weekend.  I’m in a work and holiday mode, all happening simultaneously in my mind and body. 

Preparations have been on the way here for this holiday for weeks before the actual holiday. Work slows, staff is short and offices closed early Thursday and some will not reopen till Tuesdays. Not so in the states so that part of my work has to continue even though my mind and body is in a long holiday weekend state. So I have to focus on the things that need to be taken care of state side, but since I’m here some things are connected and I can’t separate me. Huh, what? Yep, it’s like that! 

On top of that, I woke up this morning with the birds singing, sun shining brightly, but the time on my cell phone read 6:15AM. Huh, what, no way I thought! It felt like I had been sleep longer than that, I was confused. I checked my second phone; yes most people here carry more than one cell due to the multiple networks in the country. Like I was saying, I checked my other phone and it read 7:15AM, huh, what! I went to my iPod for the tie breaker; yep it was 7:15AM, the seasonal time change in the states that my 1^st phone had kept up with had reset itself back one hour for CST.  To help people remember there’s a slogan: fall back, spring ahead. For those of you unfamiliar with this system the last weekend in October time is adjusted back one hour and in the spring it is adjusted ahead one hour. You’ll have to do your own research to find out why. It had it’s concept in farming, that’s all I’m going to tell you. So now my mind and body has to stay with the same GMT where my roots are, but adjust to the hour difference in Chicago where my roots lay.    

Two church homes; never leave home without one! I’m a member of two churches; Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, with Reverend James T. Meeks and Abiding Word Ministries of The Gambia with Pastor Frances Soska Forbes so that means I  tithe at two churches. When I’m away from one I miss the other! Geez! 

I have not fully been in one place in almost 9 years. Some may call it fate, others destiny; I say it’s HIS guidance and purpose for my life and pray I’ve done what I’ve been called to do and that I’m learning all that there is to go to greater heights! My heart is torn to pieces to be away from my family, especially my grans, but GOD has placed me on this journey with my heart and mind and I’m not ready to reap the consequences of not following HIS direction.

To be at peace at where I’m at, but miss where I’m not. When I’m fed up and say I want to go and get excited about going, I get sad because of where I’m leaving. I wish I was there, but don’t want to be away from here.   The heres, theres and wheres are all interchangeable, because I’m either here or there.   

Here or there?

It’s just that kind of day! 

Oh wow, I just realized it when I looked at my computer clock that time has not changed. So now not only am I here and there, but ahead of myself as well or at least my clock says so!