red-eye mutatus and good decisions.

so - transportation here in uganda is dangerous. always. every single time i board any mode of transport (even my own two legs), i am sincerely risking my life. i'm not saying this to be dramatic, i'm saying it because it's a fact.


now, sure, some vehicles are safer than others. people (of the white variety) often vehemently curse boda-bodas...which happen to be my very favorite way of getting from point a to point b. i use them on an almost daily basis (who wouldn't?! it's a buck for a crazy motorcycle ride!) and i have never been in an accident. i've been in an almost accident about 100 times, but that's neither here nor there.

i would say the most risky traveling experience i've had has been on what i like to call the 'red-eye mutatu'. as i've said before, mutatus (also called taxis) are 15 passenger vans and there are HUNDREDS of them in uganda. they travel all over the country. the drivers are infamously crazy and i have been now hit (more like bumped aggressively) by two of them whilst strolling on the streets of kampala. they are equally annoying, convenient, and cheap.


the red-eye is a special breed of mutatu though. i like to think of it as more underground and i feel more african having experienced it and even just knowing about it (you can now add two cool points to your mental assessment of me). my first time traveling on it was when i went to kapchorwa. i didn't want to pay to stay overnight in an expensive lodge that my friends were staying in, but it was already 10:00 p.m. and the normal taxis had stopped running. the person driving me to the lodge mentioned that he 'knew a guy' who made trips from kapchorwa to kampala every saturday morning, leaving around 2:00 a.m. instant fear and excitement struck me which channeled itself as a laugh. he said, 'i'm serious!' and i said, 'so - am i, what's his number?' in true african style, we just so happened to be close to this guy's house so we pulled over and i met him, exchanged numbers, and he agreed to pick me up in about 4 hours.


sure enough, 2 a.m. rolls around and i get a phone call from andrew, the taxi driver. 'rachel - i am outside the lodge! are you coming??' i rolled out of the bed i was so graciously offered by my roomie and went outside. i climbed in and assessed the situation. 15 passenger van, 12 people - this is a miracle in uganda. i've never been in one that wasn't crammed! my excitement was premature. about every fifteen minutes for the next hour, the taxi would slow and a figure would step out from the shadows along the side of the road and into the (pitiful) beams of the headlights. the driver inevitably stopped and we added another sardine to the can. my spacious seat vanished before my eyes and i found myself sharing a space made for one person with at least two others. with my heavy backpack on my lap and a woman singing in luganda at the top of her lungs in my ear, i somehow fell asleep. when i woke up an hour later, there was a live chicken right next to my foot and the singing woman was claiming my shoulder as her pillow. what i wouldn't have given to have a photo at that moment. the rest of that trip consisted of me drifting in and out of non-productive sleep. i dreamt about more singing and a man clapping and a chicken flapping my sandaled feet with it's wings. then i realized i wasn't dreaming, :).


we got to kampala around 6:30 a.m. and of course, a trusty boda was waiting at the stage where i got dropped off. i hopped on with no greeting and simply said, 'muyenga/bukasa sabo...and hurry, i need to sleep' he said, 'mzungu - you are tired! you give me 6,000 shillings!' i said, 'i'll give you 4,000 - take it or i jump off' he drove me home very safely.


the second time i got the red-eye was last weekend. i was in mbale for the week and i wanted to stay until friday night for the proctor's christmas party - best people and food ever, why would i leave?! but i know that traveling to kampala on a saturday is ridiculous and traffic is awful. so...i called andrew and asked him to pick me up saturday morning at 3:00. he told me it would be no problem. so, after some great food and fun with the proctor's and my mbale friends, i hung out in the CURE guest house until andrew came. like clockwork, he called at 3...'rachel!!!! i am at the CURE place. are you coming or i go?' me - 'coming andrew, hang on.' i ran outside the gate and the guard giggled at my sweatpants and luggage that i was dragging behind me. before i could stop them, they threw my bag on top of the taxi (thank goodness it made it to kampala with me!). i still had my backpack and crawled into the front row. i had my ipod in and was grooving for about an hour. i didn't even get annoyed when my seat partner snuggled up against me for a nap. john mayer was in my ears and i wasn't squished! an hour and a half into the four hour journey, we picked up a small family. for some reason, two of the children decided to sit in the front row with me, my snuggle buddy, and the conductor (guy who collects money for the driver). that means five people in three seats. i instantly got annoyed and started sweating. i now had a child asleep in my armpit and a man's arm hooked through mine while sleeping on my other shoulder. i put up with it quite well in my opinion until the young chap behind me decided to puke all over the floor. then i said, 'right peeps...let's get some windows open.' ugandans hate wind therefore they hate having the windows open. after a brief fight with my comrade to the right, i won and sat gripping the window open for fresh air. my feet were now up on the seat with me. for at least an hour i sat with a butt cramp. never have i been happier to see a boda. he didn't even argue with me for my price. i got dropped off at home around 7 and slept til noon.


i'm aware that traveling four hours through dark bushland is probably not the safest endeavor in the world. but that's why you're hearing about it now and not before i did it. i didn't want pat to worry about anything for no reason - now she knows i make intelligent decisions, :).

six months...and counting.

buckle up - this here's gonna be a long one.

we're back to the lowercase letters.  it's easier to type this way and also, i'm not in college and i'm not writing a paper so whatever, i do what i want, :).

i don't even know where to begin.  it feels like sooo much has happened since i last posted.  some worth writing about, some not - i'll probably include some of both.

i recently tried to write a poem about why i'll never make a great poet.  the reason i couldn't write it is because my reasoning for why i'll never make a great poet is so true.  you see, when i write, i can't narrow things down.  i tend to beat things/ideas/concepts/trains of thought until they are completely dead.  i like to really nail down what i'm saying using parentheses, ellipses, back slashes,  brackets, hyphens - really, i'll use anything that lets me keep adding descriptive words.  poetry is about vague references and succinct phrases.  i'm all about run-on sentences.  the more the better.  

anyway - i'm saying all this because i was just in ethiopia and trying to explain it to all of you is gonna be a headache.  i'll try but it's gonna be cliche, long, inundated with adjectives, and probably confusing.  here goes...

ethiopia was a place of D.R.A.M.A.  everything seemed exaggerated there.  the gap between the poor and the rich was huge - much bigger and much easier to see than in the other countries i've been in.  the patients at the hospital were literally among the craziest cases i've seen here.  i felt more blessed there than i have in maybe my entire life and a stronger sense of injustice than anywhere else as well.  i'll explain...

first, there were the gokcen's, a family from yardley (right outside philadelphia!).  eric is the medical director at CURE ethiopia.  he and his wife, corinne, live in addis and serve - they are amazing.  they had me over to their place for dinner, t.v., and games practically every night.  i was unbelievably lucky to have been in their care and their generosity left me humbly overwhelmed.  great (home-cooked) food, the philadelphia eagles, and rook...i could have cried i was so happy.  they also have a son, curt, who is my age and it was so nice to have a youngin around while i was traveling.  it's usually just me and whoever works at the hospital.  i could go on and on - just know that the gokcen's are good people.  great people.  all the staff were fantastic at the ethiopia hospital.  so kind, so friendly, sooo helpful.  i feel like i got so much accomplished there (work-wise) and i'm really starting to feel 'in the groove' of what i'm doing.

then, there were the patients.  ethiopia had some incredible stories.  mohammed is a boy that has lived at the hospital since february.  he was badly burned in a fire when he was 8 months old and his leg healed with his right heel stuck to his right butt cheek.  so, he hasn't ever walked and he is 12 years old!  they operated on him and 'unstuck' (pardon my lack of medical terminology) his leg and he is now in therapy, learning how to walk for the first time.  this kid has a killer smile and would melt hearts all across the world if he traveled, :).  tarikwa was the little girl that i e-mailed everyone in my life about.  if you didn't get an email, sorry.  quick explanation: she lives in a REMOTE part of ethiopia and finally made it to the CURE hospital.  she had a benign tumor growing in her nasal cavity that would have suffocated her within the next three months.  it just so happened that less than a month after she got to the hospital, there were two amazing german surgeons scheduled to come to some operations.  they were this girl's only chance of survival and they removed the tumor and saved her life!  it was nothing short of a miracle!  in addition to these two gems, there were three different patients that literally had their faces bitten off by hyenas.  the plastic surgeon reconstructed what was left - incredible.  last one:  there were 10-15 patients there that were suffering from a disease called 'noma.'  wikipedia it if you want an explanation.  basically, a lot of these people were missing sections of their faces.  no nose, missing an eye, or missing a cheek.  shocking, humbling, and if you don't mind me saying, UNFAIR.

in all of these things, i found the richest fulfillment and the most heart-wrenching pangs of anger.  the fulfillment came from the satisfaction of knowing that lives were being changed dramatically and that i got to witness it.  i got to stand in on surgeries, play with some of the sweetest children in the world, and photograph every part of it.  the anger came from wondering why?  why these people?  honestly, i've been here six months and i've never felt emotions that strong.  part of it has been because i'm constantly counting down the days til i get to see my family and be home.  i forget to look back at what i've seen and where i've been.  the LORD has given me a protective kind of eye in all of this.  i've gone to the hospitals and thought, 'look at all the good being done.  look at all the people truly living out their vocations in life.'  and i felt that more than ever at the hospital.  but at least once a day, different thoughts would creep into my consciousness.  i would think - but why?  why is this necessary?  why do horrible things/accidents/tumors/diseases exist in the world so that hospitals like CURE are necessary?  it seems like a simple question.  it's one that we ask about any type of pain - why does it happen?  but i just don't know - i can't begin to answer it, i'm not even really looking for answers.  i just know that i asked it genuinely for the first time at the hospital.

so i left ethiopia on friday and my head was spinning - i cried a little on the plane.  for lots of reasons.  i really didn't feel ready to leave ethiopia, i got pretty attached to most of the patients there and a lot of the staff to be honest.  i wanted the plane to be flying to philadelphia, not kampala.  i was ready to see my family.  it's not like i need to stay there, but i needed to see my momma.  i was also pretty sick and my ears were popping.  AND there was a kenyan man sitting next to me that was def hogging the arm rest and i really wanted it!  i was pissed that i was pitying myself after seeing actual problems (you know, like missing a nose).  all these factors made me all snotty and teary the whole way back.  then the taxi was late picking me up and it took almost 3 hours to drive back to my house from the airport.  i was crabby.  thank goodness my roomie was there to salvage the night with an episode of the office, :).

so i have been in kampala, reorganizing life, hanging out with some friends (watching a lot of 'its always sunny in philadelphia' and 'greys' - also went to a spinning class last night...50 cent and faith hill on the track list, haha), eating good food, etc.  life is good there.  but you all know this.  

anyway, i came to mbale today to get some footage for the u.s.  this place is also great.  i get to see the proctor's, hang out with derek, and enjoy jack fruit (i will miss that so much when i get home).  i don't have many interesting things to post.  nothing funny that i can think of.  i'll try to get some pics on here or a story soon!  miss you all and love you!  (countdown: 88 days!)

'this week...i want america.

I have had many requests for proper punctuation/capitalization so I'm obliging you gripers. This is 'so not my m.o.' but whatevs... :).

I have a laundry list of complaints about why I wish I could have been in America this past week. Let's take this paragraph to get it out there, then we'll move on to bigger and better things. First things first...Mattie got engaged. Woop woop! There are certain events in my sister's lives that I think I should be present for - this was one of them. I understand the complications with me being in Africa, but I still wish I could have been home to give her a hug. Second, the Phils were in the World Series. I understand that their performance was sub-par, but it would have been so fun to be in PA in the fall, watching the best team in the nation compete against the Yankees. Third, Messiah Soccer (men's and women's...oh yeah, that get's another woop woop!) start national play-offs this weekend. Being in Africa prevents me from being the loser ex-athlete that goes to all the games, but I still wish I could be home to catch one of them.

Oops, we're starting paragraph two of complaining! Yes, I was able to quasi - participate in all of these events via Skype, mlb.com/livetv, and Interactive Brackets on the NCAA Website, but those things were teases at best. The good news is that all of this was happening and I didn't hate my life - not at all. Sure, I really missed home, but I was still content with my daily activities...points for Uganda on that one.

I've gotten to do some cool things since my last post. I got back from a great trip in Kenya, relaxed for a week or so (sidenote: in this time my hard drive malfunctioned making all of my photos
inaccessible...BAH! The data recovery guy here couldn't find them, but my boss in the States just got the hard drive today and is hopeful that we can figure it out...keep prayin though!), then I went to
Kapchorwa to take photographs of a water project. My roommate, Jill, works from e.m.i. (Engineering Ministries International) and they have a project they are helping with, supplying and maintaining water pumps all over Kapchorwa, in the eastern part of Uganda. It was really fun and funny, I wish my words could even remotely bring light to the hilarity of it...we'll have a go though.

My original interest in the project came almost two months ago when I met Paul, a man that works with Jill. He has this sweet invention to purify water (it's a contraption that has this bacteria killing light in it and is powered by a hand crank). He is working on a bigger output and wants to hook it up to a bike eventually so that gallons of water can be purified at a time instead of just a couple cups. Sorry Paul, for oversimplifying something so cool - also, my apologies if I didn't explain it incorrectly! Though the invention wasn't a part of the trip, I still wanted to go and see Paul in action and get some more photos to pad my portfolio, :). I was lucky to have Travis, an intern who also works with Jill, come along and provide some much needed comic relief in times of awkwardness (stories below, also see tgreiman.wordpress.com for a more intellectual account of life inAfrica). The three of us met up with the people funding the project, Reverend Rusty and Co. from Alabama. I knew it was gonna be a great trip when we met Rusty, Bill, Bubba and Corky in Kampala the morning we left. They introduced themselves with southern drawls nothing short of fabulous and said, 'Hi - we're from L.A...Lower Alabama!'

The two days were fascinating. Me, knowing nothing about water or the science-y things that Paul, Rusty, and Travis discussed, was fascinated by it all and got to take some photos. We spent our days driving throughout the valley, visiting the pumps, talking with thelocals, and eating too much chapati (which is NEVER a bad thing). We spent the first night with the Anglican bishop, eating dinner and sharing our life stories. This is the night I learned what I later dubbed 'Corky-isms'. K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple...Stupid. B.I.B.L.E. - Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. These are just a couple
spoilers seeing as Corky and I have decided to get together and write his memoir. I want to spend 6 months in Alabama with him, then he can come to Philly for 6 months. Titled: 'Corky Comes To Philadelphia.'

I've got plans, people.

Speaking of plans - announcement: I'm engaged..ish. Rusty and Paul thought that Travis (also known as the gentle giant due to his 6'5" frame that caused one of two reactions from children: absolute terror or fascination) and I made a great couple. We think it may have had to do with the fact that we were the only 'youths' on the trip - but we won't speculate or play with fate, :). We have yet to set a date but we're thinking the year 2015 holds a certain charm...I'll keep you all updated. Sorry to rain on your parade Mattie.

I also spent a weekend in Jinja, being hosted by some amazing people who also work for e.m.i. Their names were Phil and Emily and they had two adorable toddlers, Jonathan and Evelyn. They gave us the royal treatment - pizza, beds, card games, and a laptop to watch some episodes of Scrubs. All of that AND they live right on the Nile so I woke up right when the sun was rising and sat in a hammock in a beautiful garden as the sun came up over the river. Talk about breathtaking. I couldn't get enough. If you guys ever read this, thank you!! It was one of my favorite weekends ever! We spent all morning that Sunday hanging out at the source of the Nile with all the e.m.i. interns from Kampala and then me, Jill, and our friends Jen and Jacklyn capped off the evening by going to Cafe Jafe in Kampala - comparable to any hip coffee shop in the States. It just opened and it's going to be deadly for my wallet!

I just got to Ethiopia yesterday and have not had a thing to complain about. I'm in a super nice hotel with fast internet, a great shower,TV, and a comfy bed. Life's not too shabby at the moment. Tomorrow I get to go to a patient's village (approx. 6 hours away) and shoot some footage of her at home. She had bilateral club foot and is currently recovering from her surgery on her second foot.

A quick story (not funny at all) from the hospital today. CURE Ethiopia has a program running, headed up by an American I met today named Judy, where they try to get babies to gain weight by teaching
the mothers how to breast feed. Judy told me one of the most horrifying stories I have heard here. If you don't wanna be bummed out, don't read on. If you want to know the reality of the places I
work, please do...

One young mother had just been brought to the hospital by her sister. The baby is 3 weeks old and severely underweight, but Judy beamed while telling me he was steadily gaining. The mother conceived the baby because she was raped - he was born with a cleft palate and the mother had no money to take him to a hospital. She starved the baby for four days so she wouldn't have to deal with it, when the sister found out what was happening and brought them both to CURE. Judy finished the story by telling me that the mother did not smile at all when she first came and then introduced me to a woman (far too young for the 3 week old in her arms) with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. It was one of many moments that I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath. The brutality and reality of situations like these literally suffocate me. The emotions I feel at those moments are usually too strong for tears and simply limit my capacity for normal, everyday actions - specifically, breathing.

I don't have a really funny story to end with, but I do have a semi-funny one.

There is a man that cuts up pineapples with a machete and sells them for about 1 dollar. It's really one of my favorite things about Kampala. He has a little cart full of them right next to the grocery
store I always shop at. I usually stop by his cart on a run and buy one. One day about a month ago, I stopped by and a boda driver pulled up next to me and said, 'Mzungu, will you please marry me?' After an affirmative no, he requested that I at least buy him a pineapple. I, laughing to hard to respond audibly, just shook my head no. The pineapple man (who does in fact have a great smile) saved the day and said, 'How dare you talk to my wife that way?' I was astonished and overly grateful and said, 'Yes - with my husband standing here...how rude!'
The boda driver, equally astonished, said, 'You are married?!' Pineapple man (handing me my freshly cut fruit): See you at home sweetheart! The boda driver sped off and I laughed and ran home.

But the story does not end here. You see, I thought I had found a Ugandan man that would not hit on me but simply fend off OTHER creepers. Alas, I'm still searching for that man.

Last week, I approached the pineapple man in my sweaty, post- 5 mile run glow, and as he readied my pineapple asked the innocent but dangerous question that I've heard approximately a million times in the past 6 months: 'So, are you married?' There is a five second window after this question is thrown out there where you can choose to lie or simply reject a man. I go 50/50 on this one...they are equally disappointing to the man. This was one of the times I chose to lie...
Me: Yes, I do!
Pineapple Man: Are you sure?
Me: Yes...haven't you seen the giant mzungu?
Pineapple Man: No, I haven't...do you have any children?
Me (sticking out my stomach to it's fattest glory and patting it like a proud mother to be with a sarcastic smile): Not yet, but soon...see?
Pineapple Man: Ah, yes I see - you are growing!

Crap. It was funny until that moment. Then I walked the mile and a half back to my house with unusual fervor. Gotsta work off those pounds...

Oh, and the photos are funny ones from Kapchorwa (photo credit: t. greiman). I will post others later...

soda, boogies, and plastic bags...

i am in kenya...yeah.

so, when i'm at hospitals, my main duty is to go out to the other areas surrounding the hospitals (anywhere from 1-6 hours away) and follow-up on patients that we have footage of from previous years. yesterday, we went to an area outside nairobi to talk to a patient named abigail. she had bilateral club foot and had many plasters and a small operation to fix it. she is 3 yrs old and can walk without any problems. it was a great story and a good day, but unfortunately, abby was extremely sick. every photo i got was her either crying or on the verge of tears. there are one or two where she is just solemn faced, hopefully those will work!!

anyway, after we got some shots of her and her momma at home, we went to a local government hospital to get abby some medication. on the way there, her momma hopped in the backseat with me and had a soda. sidenote: almost all sodas here are in glass bottles - i think we should do this in the states, it's waaaay cooler to drink things out of a glass, :). anyway, she looks at me and says, 'i am sooo thirsty' i smile and then gawk in amazement as she OPENS THE BOTTLETOP WITH HER TEETH! it was unreal. she just pops it off as if she didn't just bend metal WITH HER TEETH. i laughed and she giggled, but i have a feeling our amusement wasn't stemming from the same thing.

then we get to the hospital. we are waiting in a long line of mommas and babies. the kid across from me has a serious case of crusty nose. the boogs looked like they had been building up for days. the mommma reached down to scrape (more like chisel) off some of the build-up with her tissue and when that didn't work, proceeding to LICK THE SAME FINGER that she was just digging around in his nose with!! then she went right back to the task at hand. she licked that same finger multiple times until (most of) the crusties were gone.

while all this was going on, there was a child sitting next to the booger one who was having a greeeat time just chillen with a plastic bag. for some reason, kids with plasic bags always scare me. i know the chance of suffocation is quite small, but it's engrained in me to be nervous about it. i started playing peek a boo with the kid - big mistake. he mimicked the game back to me but instead of hiding behind his hands, he would shove his entire head inside the plastic bag for minutes at a time. alternating between laughing and freaking out, i tried to get him to stop. thankfully, both booger child and plastic head were both safe when i left the hospital.

oh, and one more thing that i found funny but probably shouldn't. we were driving through a little town and this girl was wearing a shirt that said, 'i'm a virgin, but this shirt is really old.' i know i shouldn't think that's funny, but, well, you laughed, didn't you??

seinfeld always applies.

jerry seinfeld does this one bit in his stand up where he talks about grocery shopping. it's pretty hilarious. the whole thing is basically about being overwhelmed in a grocery store...all the products, options. at one point, he is talking about trying to decide what to buy. he says, 'i'll just go up to people and say...you look good, what are you eating?'

that's how i feel about my life right now. i know, i'm comparing my life to stand-up, but seriously. i just kinda walk around, wandering from place to place (country to country) and think, 'well, you look happy. what are YOU doing?' it's not that i'm not happy, i feel pretty happy. it's that i worry. i feel like i've been waiting for this monumental moment - some call it 'arriving.' i know people don't arrive, but most people sure act like they have. i'm not blaming/condemning them - i'm jealous of them. i want to feel certain about things, about myself. i want to know what it is that i love and what i'm supposed to 'end up' doing. i look at the people that seem to know those things and i desperately want to ask...'so when did you figure this out? at what point did you say, yep - this.is.it.?' there are so many things that aren't temporary decisions. career paths. religion. spouses. location. sure, everything can be changed and 'tweeked,' but seriously. a lot of those things, you have to sell out to make them count. you can never really establish yourself in something unless you're committed to it - jobs, faith, husbands, community. those are all things that i want (pipe down, i'm not saying i want to be married). but they are so permanent in my mind. i don't like it when people tell me we can always change our minds, we can always go a different route. NO. i don't wanna change things around. i wanna settle. not settle down. but settle. i want to feel committed to something to the point where my other decisions are based on that one constant. for instance, where i end up living. let's say i love a place enough that i will create a life that is only sustainable in that location. or a job that i would be willing to go anywhere on the planet for. why do i want such definites? why do i need things so exact? i just feel like i've been floating for a while between things. i haven't been in a secure place/location since high school. i know that was less than 5 years ago, but it feels like a long time. i don't want to be the person whose life is scattered all over the place, whose relationships get put on hold because i'm inaccessible or just not around. i did the two colleges every year thing and i hated leaving my life behind at the end of every semester just to go piece it back together with my 'other' friends who i left 8 months before that. i loved having the benefits of messiah and temple, but it's hard to constantly leave things you love. whether it's just 2 hours down the turnpike or living on a different continent, i'm just ready to have some consistency. guaranteed two months after i get home, i get bored and wanna do something else...what is wrong with me? :)

i had a great conversation with the proctor's last weekend (a southern family who lives in mbale - orthodox presbyterians who make fabulous food). phil is a pastor, i thought he would have some wise words about this stuff, and he did. i was just trying to prioritize. obviously, i have my stressors broken down into a few points: career, faith, marriage, dwelling place...haha. but which of those decisions are contingent on others? which ones get made first? what do i love more than anything and what am i willing to compromise on? don't tell me that if i love jesus enough it will all come together. i know that. the point of me writing this isn't to get answers, it's to fill you all in on the crazy that is my mind and to de-stress myself. writing it out makes it less pressing on my thoughts - it's like writing angry letters that never get sent, somehow it's therapeutic.

anyway...we were talking about how i just can't seem to pick a denomination. i have some of the basics of what i want as a doctrine/theology for my life, but i've been piddling with this for at least 3 years. i just wanna pick one and commit, sell out. i'm afraid of the legalism of some churches and cynical of the emotion in others. i want something that makes me feel good, but also something that is biblically accurate. i don't wanna 'pick' mennonite because i'm afraid of not questioning things and having my reasoning always be 'well, that's just the way it is' - but i don't wanna run away from it because there is so much of it engrained in me. mennonites shave their heads, right? kidding vern. phil guided me to figure out what aspects are most important to me and explore churches that way. look at what type of church government agrees with me. figure out what i think about baptism. that means i have to read...fiiiiiiiine.

i never thought about prioritizing decisions before though. i just kinda thought they were gonna be easy. like when i graduated college i would all of sudden just know exactly what i believed, where i wanted to live, what i wanted to do, and there would be a perfect man on his knee asking to come along for the ride. my brain was supposed to be this pocket of never ending knowledge and my mind was supposed to have morphed into ultra-decisive mode by now. meredith (phil's wife) and i continued the conversation to marriage. i was saying that i don't feel a specific vocation on my life that would prevent me from 'following' a man if he did feel a vocation on his. i want to take pictures (maybe) and help some peeps. i don't want to put limits on my life. i don't want to say, 'well, i'll never do this' because i feel like that's where i would end up. (dear LORD, please don't let me fall in love with a man who wants to live in russia!!) phil happened to preach that morning and had said, 'i think that the issue most young people wrestle with these days is who is going to be their life parter. well, at least girls do. guys wrestle with who is going to be their tonite partner.' haha - he was mostly joking, but it brought a lot of good conversation. i would be lying if i said that i didn't wrestle with that. i wrestle with becoming a wife, giving up my own life to blend it with someone else's. on the other hand, i wrestle with the idea of being content and being single for the next 10 years. this is supposed to be the fun part...the part before the ball and chain. the carefree stage where i have no responsibility and life just kinda rolls. but the decisions i make now will impact my life. the goals i set for myself and the faith i choose narrows down my playing field. not with men, haha, but with possibility. i see the possibilities i have right now. grad school, more traveling, getting a job, pursuing soccer coaching. picking one eliminates others. i'm not about elimination right now, i'm about gleaning, :). gleaning information, skill sets, relationships - basically, i wanna take from the world right now. i want to be selfish. eliminating possibilities means cutting myself off from things i love, it means compromise. but i just wanna be selfish...is that ok? probably not. for now, i'll just keep looking for the 6'0" philadelphia sports fan down on his knee, offering a decision free life. or perhaps the 5'6" chapatti man with the missing front teeth. he'll do. ;).

how does africa fit into all of this? i have NO idea. this experience has only given me more questions about myself and provided absolutely no answers. but it has been a place where i can sit back and examine - reflecting on my college experience and daring me to look ahead to when i get home. i have had time to heal some things that america (or the people that live there) have made impossible to face. it has shown me weaknesses about myself that america couldn't and it has shown me the capability we have as humans to endure, to love, and to make a hot mess of life. speaking of which, i should probably go experience some more things because it seems i've wasted a lot of time in africa thinking about my life that isn't here. wherever i end up living, whatever i end up doing to make the monies, whether i attend a baptist or nondenominational church, and whether i end up living with a husband or 50 stray cats... it doesn't REALLY matter right now. right now, i'm in africa. yesterday i made a kid cry cuz he never saw a white person. i ate moldy bread for breakfast this morning. and right now, i'm about to go take some pics of kids whose feet are backwards.

oh, one more thing: how have all of YOU been lately? :)

white people and trap doors.

'back' when i was in college (about four months ago), i would pass my time (and/or just procrastinate) reading all sorts of blogs. nothing like this one, more like these:
failblog.org
mylifeisaverage.com
peopleofwalmart.com (this is a new personal favorite)
and one of the best...
stuffwhitepeoplelike.com

my 6th street family in philly just recently reminded me of the latter and i spent an hour catching up on all the entries i missed. after a while, i wanted desperately to add my own entry to the list of things that white people like: africa. white people LOVE africa. we love to talk about it, we love to give money to it, and we love love LOVE to visit. if i could lose a pound for every time i've heard the phrase, 'africa has stolen my heart' come out of a white girl's mouth - i could fit into my jeans from middle school. seriously.

and it's not that i don't like africa or being here - i would say that i am enjoying myself a solid 75% of the time. but i would so be lying if i said i didn't think about home all the time or that the majority of my 'heart' was here. this place is special - obviously. it offers PLENTY of things that the western world doesn't (100% hospitality, people who are genuinely content, bodas, and the best fruit in the world). but home is home. my african friends that have been to the west say that they wouldn't give up their home in africa for one we where are. why do white people so often act like this is better than home? different, yes. have i learned more lessons here? well sure. but everyone should love their home - i don't trust people that don't.

meeting white people here has begun to exhaust me. it starts with the casual once over. if my clothes are too clean or i'm not wearing my ugandan paper beads, i already have a couple strikes against me. i obviously haven't lived here long enough to have ruined all my clothes and invested in the local merchandise. and opening questions which seem harmless are actually just a quest for superiority. 'how long have you been here' is not a simple inquiry, but a challenge. whoever has been here the longest obviously wins. once you beat around the bush long enough, eventually the question, 'what are you doing here?' comes right out in the open. if we're being honest, this can be directly translated as 'are you helping africans more or less than i am?' if you work for an n.g.o. - two points. if you work with kids - at least three points...disabled kids - 10. if you are STARTING an n.g.o. - you win, hands down. i am exaggerating, but still - it can get a little intense.

sometimes, when meeting a white person here, i feel so scrutinized/judged that i'm tempted to say, 'hi - my name is rachel. i've been here four months, i work for a great organization, but i will never come to africa alone again. if i'm honest i would give my right to have children to fly home for the weekend and eat one of my mother's cookies.' it would just take a lot of the mystery away. it's like it's an eternal competition - who is doing more for africa? who knows more about africa? who is better at living in africa? and more importantly...who LOVES africa the most? i just want to let all the other people here know, you win. you love africa the most and you win the best white person in africa award.

again, i am exaggerating. i have a lot of white friends here that i love - most of the white people i meet here are great people that are dedicated to their mission and are passionate about helping people. but the intensity of the type of white people i described above can be so daunting that it overwhelms the goodness that has happened here.

on a similar, yet different, note - i read a book recently that really just made sense. the shackled continent by robert guest. he takes a fairly conservative viewpoint and walks through the history of some of the worst corruption in different african governments and his opinion on why things are the way they are and how they can get better. his overall view is that africa won't change and it can't develop until africans decide it needs to. other nations have been giving foreign aid (billions of dollars of foreign aid) for decades. and there are small victories here and there - but facts remain. civil wars are still happening, governmental corruption is still more commonplace than not, and AIDS and malaria still take lives every single day.

this brings me to another point - i may have written about it here before, but it's worth mentioning again. who am i to tell africans that their lives are difficult? one time, i was in zambia. we traveled for hours out to this remote part of the bush (see the posts from about a month ago for photos). we pulled up to this hut - literally, a hut. there was a skinny cow and some chickens. and harold, my translator and spiritual director from the CURE hospital said, 'now rachel...these people are very poor. but they don't know that. so let's not tell them.' we both giggled, but i instantly became very self conscious about the thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment i was toting around for the day. then i realized the magnitude of what harold said and it changed my entire view of africa. it is NOT my responsibility to 'fix' the lives of these people. they do not need my pity. they do not need my money. they don't need anything from me. but they deserve it.

there are the obvious things like clean water and food and shelter that i think that we should go out of our way to provide if at all possible. duh. but i'm just speaking about quality of life. it is not my job to judge someone's quality of life - ever. i don't say this to remove responsibility from myself. but - it is what it is. i hate that phrase. i used to think that people used it as a cop out. or just because they were really inarticulate. but sometimes i don't have anything else to say. there are still kids begging on the street. there are still riots and deaths because of disagreements between tribes. people are still living on pennies a day. and my running shoes still get stolen when i leave them outside. from the big stuff to the little stuff - it is what it is.

what was i talking about? oh yeah - white people. we.so.crazy.

story-time...this one as usual, is more fun for you guys than it was for me.

i live in what is called a 'compound.' there are four houses including mine and we live inside a fenced area and there is a gated entrance. we have a guard that 'stands duty' (or at least is supposed to) 24/7. i have gotten a little comfortable and a little too trusting lately. it's pretty muddy around where i live and my running shoes are often caked with dirt when i get back from a run. i got into the habit of leaving them outside and letting them dry out for a couple hours. some nights i would leave them out overnight, but it shouldn't be a problem. i assumed that the families i live next to wouldn't dare take my shoes, and there shouldn't be anyone else on the compound besides those of us who live there. wrong-zo. i left them out a couple weeks ago and in the morning, i had my ipod in, running clothes on, and keys in my hand, ready to lace up. i opened the door, and the shoes were just...gone. not there, not even a little. not even one. i brought my guard over and realized for the first time just how little english he speaks. i put my sambas on the porch and demonstrated someone sneaking up and taking them. miming thievery was a lot harder than i thought it would be. he didn't get it and i just looked like an idiot. it was 6:30 in the morning, both of us were tired, it was still a little dark out...bad combo. so - i stole my roomie's shoes and went on the run.

we're not even halfway done with this story yet...stick with me peeps.

a couple days later, i came to the realization that i was never going to see my shoes again and my roomie graciously gave me an extra pair that had been left behind by a former volunteer. they fit really well actually and i was super grateful that the replacement was that easy. but you know when you get a new pair of shoes and it takes a little to get the feel for them? you may do that almost trip move a couple times while you figure out the exact size of the shoe. i had a couple of those experiences the first two weeks, but me and the shoes are pretty well acquainted by now. i had a confident run yesterday - one of those where every song on the ipod is just right and you really find the groove.

i'm a firm believer in ending runs strongly. no matter how much donkey-trotting i do during the actual run - no matter how slow i take it up the hills, i always try to end with a bang. it's easy here cuz i run DOWN a massive hill to get to my house. it's nice to always feel like a champion at the end, and trust me - i take advantage of that hill to give me an ego boost, :). anyway...

so i always run fast down the hill and take a left into our little driveway. our gate to enter the compound is fairly large and a pain to open. they have conveniently designed it with a little trap door for people who just wanna walk through instead of drive. this trap door is what i use as my finish line for my runs and it's about 4 feet tall. i crouch down and run right through it (the guard kindly always leaves it open) and then i get to stop and huff and puff for about 10 minutes.

again, yesterday was a good run. it was one where you feel like you are the main character in a movie and the songs playing in your ears are the soundtrack to your life. john legend was blasting as i confidently turned into our lane and about 5 yards from the aforementioned trap door, crouched down to my entry stance. the crouch + the speed at which i was attempting + the new shoes i thought i knew = disaster. there is a small, miniscule even, mound of dirt outside the gate that proved itself worthy of recognition from now on. my shoe caught the top of this mound sending me straight into the ground hands first. i was surprised and hit the ground at a horribly awkward angle, resulting in a front somersault. i would have kept rolling had the aluminum gate not been there to stop be. i hit the gate head first, body to follow making a noise that sounded like really loud thunder...to round out the fall, an obscenely long string of snot shot out my nose and onto the ground (i'm still recovering from the flu). this all transpired in less than five seconds. as soon as i was in a sitting position and realized i wasn't actually hurt, i said out loud, 'did anyone see that?!' i looked around, there was no one. it was one of those times when i really wished someone could just laugh with me...there wasn't anyone so i just laughed by myself.

as i type this i have both my hands doused in neosporin and bandaged on the open gashes. tomorrow i plan to take on the mound of dirt for round two. i'll let ya know how it turns out...

meet chunk.

sometimes, i meet kids that need to be called chunk. so i hang out with them a lot and call them that. i think that they like it...i know i do, :). here are a few of my favorites...