Why am I here?

My weekend was nothing short of insane. However my idea of insane has certainly changed. When I read other people's blogs who are abroad they are traveling all over, and being crazy living the AIESEC way. But my TN is a lot different. I have no desire to drink while I am here or party or be crazy. I do travel a lot but it's not to just have fun. It's crazy to me how much I have changed since I've been here. I know that once I go back to America I will be the same person who likes to have fun, but here it's different for me. This whole weekend I stayed at home or at least around the 5 mile radius of my house, but it was the best time. Most of the kids I live with are relatively my age, so we all just sat and talked and ate mangoes (haha) the entire weekend and it was absolutely lovely. My friend Edvish also came over so we all hung out together. If someone would have said to me before I left, "When you go to Cote d'Ivoire you are going to spend your weekends at your house and not go party with AIESECers" I would have been like, excuse me? But now that I am here it's so great! I think I finally know the meaning of relaxation on the weekends now. The weekends are also when I speak the most French. Everyone in my house who is older than 7 has taken many years of English in school but none of them want to speak it with me so we speak only in French. Ahmed and I also bonded over the fact that we both wanted Spain to win the game against Italy last night so we stayed up late to watch it together.

Last night was a different story all together. After the game I went into my room to sleep and as soon as I got into my bed I noticed the biggest bug ever was on the wall above my head staring at me. I freaked out for probably 5 minutes while Sabine and Ami laughed hysterically at me. Then we all tried to get it out of the room but it kept running away every time we would try and swat it. I can't even write this right now because I am laughing so hard thinking about how idiotic we probably all looked running around the room trying to hit the wall with various objects. We finally got it after probably 15 minutes but by then we were so wound up that we couldn't sleep so we ended up telling stories for half the night. I also got up and performed what I saw at church that day, which was people being overcome with God's love and falling on the ground screaming and crying. Sabine informed me this does not happen at her church, so I think I will go there next time.
At about 2 am we finally were tired enough to say goodnight and turn off the light, but the wheels in my head kept turning. I thought about the people at church and how I can't understand that at all. I thought about Ahmed, Sabine, and Ami and I how much I am going to miss them when I leave. I thought about why the world is the way it is, with some countries rolling in the doe, and some countries rolling in dirt. I thought about how the hell I am going to be able to change all the things I want to change being just one person. It's so discouraging to think that your ideas my never be heard because your voice is too small. And even here, I go around and talk to all these kids about HIV/AIDS, but are they listening? My NGO helps people who are dying from HIV/AIDS, but is it really helping that much when they still die in the end and we move on to the next patient? The medicine here isn't advanced enough to keep anyone alive for very long. It is the worst feeling in the world to get to know someone so well and then watch them die right before your eyes and there is nothing you can do about it. Will people ever listen? I can tell these kids over and over, but I was their age once too and I remember everything going in one ear and out the other. How am I going to get through to these kids? How am I going to stop people from dying? How can one America girl do anything that's going to mean something? Why am I here? Just to observe? Or do I actually have a purpose?