Leaving

Light in the wallet but heavy of heart,
Its time to go home and make a fresh start.
The months felt like days, our heads are still spinning
Is this the end of a chapter or the next one’s beginning?

Are we different people from those that left in November?
It seems a lifetime ago, can you even remember
The cucumber salads, the jelly bean games,
The inability to remember everyone’s names.

The awkward conversations that plagued every table
Did you really think we’d make it? Were you sure you were able?
So now that it’s done and we’ve proven our worth
Will they welcome us back to the land of our birth?

Or will they look at us strangely if we eat with our hands
And grow weary of our tales of far off lands.
Will we fit back into the grooves from which we came?
Even though our grasp on reality may never be the same.

Of course they’ll have us back, even if we bore them to tears
And life will resume to just the same as it has been for years
Cause there’s no place like OZ, the home of your heart,
No more fitting place to end then back at the start.

But the kids won’t know the words to Resham Phiriri
And I doubt any will ask for your family tree,
And in those quiet moments when you allow yourself to sit and reminisce
You may well find it’s us and Nepal that you miss!

Written Feb 2008, for the girls I volunteered with as we headed home.