As a physical therapist, I see a lot of patients in the hospital who have undergone a knee replacement, had a stroke or have simply been too sick to get out of bed and have become weak. What do they all have in common? They all have to learn how to walk again. It's such an odd thing to think about because walking is something that for most of us comes so naturally and we do it without having to think through every minute process. However once you start thinking about all the biomechanics of simply taking a step, you start to understand the difficulties people have who have had some part of their biomechanics altered.
That is the best way I can describe my initial week back in Cameroon. I drove up to Mbingo thinking that I wouldn't have an initial culture shock because I've been here before. I've already learned to walk here before. Yet, I forgot all those intricate biomechanics of 'walking'. I forgot the smells, the feel of the air, the way the mud feels between my toes when I walk anywhere in sandals on the crooked roads. While stepping out of the car and bringing my luggage out to my house it all hit me at once. Most patients think that walking again will be easy because they've done it all their lives and once they take that first step after surgery with too much confidence, they stumble or fall back-and that's what I did. I stumbled, this overwhelming feeling of forgetting so many things about a place that I called home was over powerfully confusing.
But I am learning now to take baby steps and I am learning how to walk African style once again. My house is unpacked. I have gone shopping and have basic food to start cooking. I have gone to the hospital and started organizing my focus of ministry in teaching and started treating patients. I have been welcomed by the missionary community and welcomed back by my Cameroonian family. It will take time, but I am starting to walk again.
