Missed the Simple Life I Enjoyed as a Kid

This is me in an evening Computer Science class. Majority of
students didn't attend.

In 2009, after a week on Bellona, I fulfilled one of my wishes - to go down to Tapuna and spend a whole day there before leaving the Island, again, for a few more years abroad. I can't believe its already four years since that time. I remember emerging from a long walk up the bush track to the highest point and started down the Tapuna trail. The familiar sound of the waves crashing against the rocks. I could smell the surrounding vegetation bringing back memories of my childhood running up and down the historic Tapuna caves. The sound of waves and birds greeted us as we made our final descend to the resting area. It was wonderful. The sea was calm. The breeze bounced off the rocky cliffs cooled us off as we prepared to take another half a mile walk to Tehutu'ungi.

My knees were shaking and I realized I'd been gone for so long and getting heavier haha. We navigated our way safely there. I took a long dip in the water; the brackish water of Tehatu'ungi. I laid my head back on the rocks as my mind raced through time. I spent most of my childhood days up and down this area, and particularly when drought hit the Island.
Later we started a fire as as waited for Mike and another guy who went before us and started off from Tingoa to where we were. The sun was extremely hot but we found shelter under the coconut trees, overlooking the crystal clear waters. I put my head back, using a green coconut fruit as a pillow, with the sound of the sea, and the rather warm breeze, I took a nap. A few minutes later I woke up to the sound of chattering guys beside me. The guys already arrived with fishes of all kinds.
I've been in Virginia for the last seven years, life is so different. Time is everything; school, shopping, children, laundry, cooking - basically everything is moving in an overwhelmingly fast phase. No wonder many Americans live on anti-stress pills to calm their nerves down. As part of this society, I got to do things that are necessary for my survival here. Besides the daily home chores and out in the city errands, is my never ending urge to complete my studies. After a whole year off I decided its time to finish my studies.
The other day I was sitting in class and the lecturer spent the first hour talking about the different techniques of writing programs using certain libraries inside the computer. I was simply day dreaming of home. The simple daily routines. I never thought I would trade this life to an American life where training to survive is of tremendous importance. I traded everything I know to move to here, to this more advanced society where neighbors hardly know each other; where people walked pass you without a single smile. Where drivers lost their minds over simple things, and where money determines whether you'll eat in the evening or not. I soon arrived at reality - I was in the middle of a lecture on how to manipulate or create a complex function that calculates complex numbers and guess random numbers, and square-roots.
But the worst thing about living here is the long enduring four seasons. I love this song "Four Seasons of Loneliness" by Boys II Men; it paints the exact picture of the kind of season we having now. We woke up last Friday to a couple of inches of snow on the ground. While my kids enjoyed it, I didn't. The cold chilling Winter weather is reason why Winter can be described as the loneliest time of the year; not so much the chilling weather, but the changes in the natural settings around the cities. The leafless trees, dried up grass, etc. altogether forming a very sad lonely picture. It's desolation!
Today, after a long night reviewing class works and other stuff till 3 am, I woke up to find my internet, telephone, and TV all disconnected. It disrupts my morning daily activities. I am so lost, I thought; who's writing to me on FB? how about my emails? I wanna look up something but damnit, why now? My misery ended just an hour when everything is reconnected. My life has been highly digitalized and computerized, and for all the necessary reasons; I am living in a world where simple conversations hardly come and social interactions now confined to the internet and so-called smartphones. This morning, all I could do with the computer is browsing photos and reading past writings. My only connection to the rest of the world was unfairly, unjustly disrupted! haha. I browsed through my photos from the external hard-drive and came across a folder of my trip home in early 2009. Looking at them just warmed my heart, and certainly put a smile on my face. I could imagine what the people of my village were doing at that very moment. Its not hard to imagine; I know they were all over the place in the morning, cooling off under the coconut trees at noon, and gathered for Touch Rugby in the evening. How simple!
Every thought of my simple home suddenly disappeared as everything reconnected and alas returned my American way of life; internet, TV, telephones. It's time to suspend all the memories of home back and send them to the back of my head! Till my next lonely moment, I am going to do what I do best in America: check my facebook and email.