Finding balance

I've been home from Kenya for three weeks now.  Most days it feels like it's been longer, like time is trying to see how slowly it can pass before I lose my mind.  But some days it's as close as the air in my lungs, a part of me that I can never really be far removed from.

I stopped by Wegmans for a couple of things after work today.  As I walked down the stairs to the parking garage after making my purchases, a family with two small children made their way down behind me.  "How many steps are there?" one of the kids asked the other.  They found their answer the obvious way:  jumping down one stair at a time, counting each as they went.  One, two, three, four...

My heart stopped for a moment as I was transported to another set of stairs and another pair of preschoolers pondering the number of steps.  In my mind, I saw Elijah and Kanje, two of the children at the Tania Centre who loved hanging out with me, but didn't know much English yet.  We spent a good part of one afternoon at the school store, which had a staircase on the back, running up to the top of the steps, and counting each in English as they hopped back down.  My heart was bursting with pride to hear those itty-bitties counting the whole way to 13 without my help, and the whole way to 20 with just a little help on those pesky teens.  We must have counted those stairs a hundred times, until I was begging them to do something, ANYTHING else but count the stairs again.

I've almost found my balance of enjoying my life here, while still missing Kenya.  It gets easier every day to understand that I can be happy here, and still love and miss Kenya without feeling guilty about being happy.  And I'm usually able to look through my Kenya pictures without many tears, remembering how much I love those kids and how much love they gave me, and still move on with my day.

But some days I just really want to be counting stairs with Elijah and Kanje again.

(There were 20 stairs in Wegmans, too.)