on isolation (or "the village within the village")

i am lonely, so i have a strong need to reach out. rather than text a thousand people a thousand times, here i am.

i have spent the last two weeks living with a small village of people as we served a larger village. the rhythms of waking and sleeping, meals and feasting and working and resting all happened together. and now i am alone, and i feel the loss of my village. no silent companionship, no toasting to a days work well done, no commiserating over cold showers (or no showers)... it's lonely. so my visceral experience of Malawi can be summed up in this: i need a village.