Feeling at home

How important is cutting up a pineapple? On first reflection I would say not so, other than the purely practical need to actually succeed if you are to enjoy eating it. However as we have reflected a little more on life here, I have thought how clear an indicator the small task of preparing a pineapple can be of our homeliness here.

We have now been in Tanzania for 8 months and I am an expert pineapple cutter! I have perfected the process – got it down to a fine art! I remove the top and bottom first so it stands nicely on the board. Then I carefully chop down, following the contour of the fruit, until I get to the bottom. I then turn the fruit a small amount and do the same, this time using my last cut as a guide for how close to the skin to cut to maximise fruit but still minimise wastage. So I work my way round until I removed all the skin. Then I cut it in half lengthways, and taking each half in turn I cut it 4 times lengthways and as many times as necessary widthways, creating perfect little cubes. Hey presto – pineapple prepared!

So yes I had prepared pineapples in England a handful of times, however I’ve always found it a messy, frustrating, time consuming task! I’ve not enjoyed it and its felt frustrating when you reach the end and feel like you’ve wasted so much. However over the last 8 months here I have had to do it more and more. Pineapples are a cheap fruit here and so they are a staple part of our diet. At the beginning it was hard work and not a task I looked forward, however now it is! I volunteer for it when visiting friends, and I look forward to it when at home. The satisfaction of doing the task, and doing it well, is great.

And so as we sit back and think about our time here I reflect on how difficult it can be to really know whether you are ‘at home’ somewhere or not. Whether really you feel settled and comfortable. Feelings come and go as quickly as you can register them, one day feeling happy about things, another feeling stressed and misunderstood. However it is the little things, the things that we just have to get on and do in our daily lives, that really betray our satisfaction in a given situation. I listened to a sermon the other day and it was talking about how our faith can be classified into 3 categories: 1 – the faith we show outwardly (whether or not we really believe it inside), 2 – the faith we believe inside right in that moment (but that can change depending on the circumstances), 3 – the faith we well and truly believe deep down (our fundamental beliefs of how things work). It is the 3rd category of faith which the speaker goes on to say is demonstrated through our actions. The things we do every day, without often thinking about them, are guided by our fundamental beliefs.

So, as I think about life here, I realise that the only real way to measure whether we are feeling at home here is to look at the little everyday things that we do…. like preparing a pineapple! Are the little things starting to become normal? Are they becoming less stressful? Are they becoming normal? Am I becoming more accustom to them? It does not mean they will always be easy, always enjoyable. Rather they are less of a big deal now… they are more of the norm. They are not something I dread or am wary of, they are just everyday things we do. So, just like the filtering of water, the washing of fruit and veg, the visits to the market, and the chopping of a pineapple – life here is becoming just that… life!