The Lonely Hut

For the first time, resting in my bed by myself, it all hit me like a tsunami. “I am in rural South Africa.” I don’t have a friend in sight, my mom can’t cook for me, and Krista can’t laugh with me. My excitement dwindled to complete loneliness and fear. Up to this point, I have been given crumbs of misinformation and now I lost all sense of what to expect the next 2 months. Would I be in misery, be a lone, be an outcast, be forgotten? Am I to run an entire ward of the hospital with my lack of medical knowledge? Am I going to have enough money in my bank account to just live? I wanted to cry, but nothing came out. I only shivered. I stared at the television numb and lethargic. I wanted to go home and be in my soft bed wrapped in my warm blanket. The loneliness soaked into my bones. I had nothing.

And so I slept and never left my shack once I entered it.