Pictures and Necklaces

I remember our Professor telling us that coming home from Tanzania would be a slow transition. I think I missed mine, somehow. Maybe it was the travelling in the Netherlands afterwards, or the whole move to Langley, or I just haven't been thinking about it enough. Probably the latter. So here I go:
If I try to pinpoint how the experience has enriched my life, my first thoughts are: 1) I saw freakin LIONS and ZEBRAS. 2) I now know I have the ability to pee in the wild without assistance. 3) All fruit here is tasteless compared to the fresh mangoes, baby bananas, pineapple and guava we ate there. 4) My suspicion that all Africans are born with an innate sense of dance has been confirmed. 5) There is no such thing as social awkwardness. Either you laugh or you help 6) I'm not sure what poverty is anymore.
The program was full of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and I know I can't repeat it. It showed my ignorance and forced a new perspective, for which I'm grateful. But how does one incorporate such a different world into the rest of their life? This is what I've been avoiding thinking about, and struggling with. When I come home from college, I enter my Vancouver/family life and focus on what happens here. When I go to college, I focus on those relationships and events. It's almost like living two different lives, be it good or bad. Tanzania doesn't fit into either... and yet it has to. It can't just be pictures and necklaces, or like a vacation that leaves you more tired. My time there has a purpose, even though I'm not quite what that means for my 'two lives'.

Living in western culture can make me feel that nothing changed. I still use my laptop, I still drink Starbucks (trying to break that habit- I bought coffee grounds), I still waste money on things I don't need. It's like being an adult and still living at home. It's a tension of the 'not yet'. There are things I have learned that I can't quite put into practice. For instance, my desire to help medically. Gotta finish school first.
If our Professor meant a slow transition, then he means more than just a week of culture shock. He means years of understanding how God is going to use this. Hm. That's kind of comforting.