Medically Complex and the Stories of Our Lives

I will never forget what it felt like to walk in darkness so dark my mind could not grasp up or down, right or left, forwards or backwards. With hands outstretched I felt for every limb, every leaf, trying to navigate through brush and around trees without smacking into or tripping over them.  I was terrified.  I knew that if I got turned around I would get lost, or much worse: I would come across an animal that was only too happy to have me for a late night snack.  I hadn’t lived in East Africa very long, and those National Geographic documentaries I had seen as a youngster played in my mind.  Most kids in the boarding school had lived overseas for most of their lives and didn’t think twice about wandering around in the endless blackness of an African night. But I was 14 when we moved to the DRC: I was an unseasoned MK. As insidious as sunburn on a cloudy day the process of ‘seasoning’ takes place whether you welcome it or not. In many ways I feel like I am being seasoned