Notes...

Some things I've noticed:
-I love kangas
-Swahili sounds similar in a lot of ways to Chinese (dad is baba in both!)
-It's usually better to walk on the side of the road in the 'foot-traffic' area rather than the middle, because in the dry season at least, you won't kick up mushroom clouds of dust with each step
-Although I thought I would miss Mango season, I'm catching the start of it! And pineapples, avocados, teensy bananas...
-I'm not a natural when it comes to clumping rice with sauce. Sauceless, I'm alright, but sauce really throws me.
-I'm so glad Africans here drink milk!
-The chai here is uber-sweet and very tasty to my palate, but so hot that my tongue rebels and most teachers have finished their full cups before I'm halfway. I usually end up gulping that last bit, when the temperature has finally reached a level that I normally would begin drinking it.
-Tanzanian mamas and babis (mothers/grandmothers) are awesome.
-There are tons of types of bananas...
-crusty boogers. yech.
-electricity is here one minute, gone the next. such is life :)
-British Airways and Kenya Airways serve amazing food! For dinner on BA, I was asked 'red or white wine?' which has never happened to me on an american airline. Sure, they serve wines and such, but it was interesting to me that it's just assumed you'll have wine with your dinner.
-Even out here, 2 1/2 hours bus from the nearest city, Mbeya, it seems like everyone follows American news. I've been asked by many about my thoughts on Obama and McCain.

Pole pole ndiyo mwendo

slowly, slowly is the method.

That's how I got here... after a long night in Nairobi's fine 4am air conditioned airport (really, 4-5am was the air condition time..) and many modes of transportation, my more than able guide got me to her home in Tanzania's mountains!

It's good to be here and studying a new language.

Adios!

no pictures

because I look like a melting mess. The heat coupled with emotional woes and technology breakdowns...

the night in the nairobi airport sans the checked bag would have been fine. Or making it not onto the 8am but the 8:30 am flight to tanzania.

but really, leaving my bag in London after saying they'd have it in nairobi? I could have made the flight last night if not for that blasted bag.

So yeah. I'm still in nairobi. But checked in for a flight to tanzania. Oh yeah. Had to buy that ticket.

This is Africa.

As it gets worse progressively, my hopes for reunion in Tanzania rise.

I might just melt into a slobbering mess.

egads. I hate these stupid emotions...sleeping a few hours out of the past 30 I know is in part to blame.

So yeah. There's an update for you all, my dear friends who I miss and wish that one of you were here with me.

Misery loves company...and even though I've run into dozens of people extremely aggitated at flight situations, I'm still jealous of those that have been able to face it all with a friend at their elbow.

That's not a good enough reason to get married, is it? Because if it is, sign me up!

:)

52.

Today, in 1956, my grandfather was staying at the Conrad Hilton in Chicago so that he could accept an award for having built 100 homes.

Meanwhile, his wife was in labor a trainride away in Mishawaka, Indiana, giving birth to their 3rd child, a son.

They named him...

Conrad.

International Travel, Straight Ahead!

Now that I've been able to do some real-life shopping (internet shopping from Cedarville is much better...less distracting from the privacy of your own pc) in the big city of South Bend, got some pre-travel travel out of the way, and almost have the kinks of getting ready taken care of, it really feels like I'll be in Tanzania next weekend. Less than 2 weeks. 9 days (if no delays from London...)

If you can really feel like you're actually going to be in a place, a city, a continent, you've never been before...

I wonder how it will feel to transfer from connectedness online to my many friends (gotta love the facebook phenomenon) into one-person connectedness in the flesh...and this in a culture whose language I do not speak, customs I do not know, and land I have not seen before. Poor Amber! I'll be overwhelming her with my news from the states, my fast English-speaking, and my own overwhelmedness by it all. I do hope that our excitement in seeing one another after 27 months' absence tempers the storms.

Yeah, I know, you may say, "Sarah, how can someone be overwhelmed by you? You're such a calming person..." to which I can only raise my shoulders and smirk. You got me there. And I guess Amber will be the better judge in all this.

So, you may wonder about some of the specifics...well without going into much detail for those of you stalkers out there, I'll be at site with Amber in southwest Africa for about 4 weeks, then traveling a bit with Katherine (we've heard of one another and talked via email but not met...) including Zanzibar for a couple weeks; then we'll fly to Morocco for Thanksgiving with some friends that I don't know yet...after that the details get sketchy for me, but tentatively we'll visit a friend or two of mine from Cedar as we go through Spain and France, as well as a monastery; finishing up the trip with some time in Luxembourg with a friend of Amber's. Who knows, we might hit up my sister city Wiesloch while we're at it...or maybe just Heidelberg?

Let the jealousy continue...I'll put up pictures for you when I can :)


I leave you with a pre-travel travel pic - at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where Erica and I saw Hazel Dickens tell some stories with spunk :)

Think.

>

Post 101!

And an homage to Jim Henson... I found out this week that Fraggle Rock was actually a microcosm to mimic people and interactions between different people and groups of people! Jim had some big thoughts about the world. I'm so glad to have watched Sesame Street, the Muppets, and Fraggle Rock as a kid...

Ramblin'

That's what I'm doing now that I'm unemployed. Ramblin' along. Glad not to be in Greenland (get it? Unemployed..in Greenland! Yes. A little too much Princess Bride has influenced my life)

Let me tell ya though, it's great to be able to travel and visit some friends again. Yes, I did have to travel hours to get here; and will be going many more hours in 3 weeks (THREE WEEKS, PEOPLE!) to visit dear Amber..

But some dreams are being fulfilled. Seeing places and people I've longed to see. Usually we want to do things that we don't have the time for. Or at least this is my perception...we don't percieve that we have the time. And now, at present, I have the time. I don't have much money with which to do it (thank you non-profit world that met my financial needs adequately- not to diss that in any way shape or form because of money) but as they say, Carpe Diem, my friends.

Not to say that working and waiting for things is bad :)

At present, now is simply the time.

Hope you're enjoying it too!

In Memory

This is a little of what's going on in my life lately - one of our new staff at UW-Whitewater just died after being hit by a car a couple weeks ago. Mike sure could make people laugh and smile. I was only able to have a few meals with him over the past couple summers when he was here at Cedar, but I know there will be a lot of people at his memorial service, and wanting to be there, that have been touched by his love.

See the following links for more details...

Mike's Progress

UW-Whitewater's Royal Purple

InterVarsity

Reach

Mary, originally uploaded by sarah_laughingguts.

The sky was just perfect on this day. And I love this image. Something about the way Mary stands in front of the clouds, not even aware of how ... beautiful a shot she's making!

Thanks Mary :)

--your old roommate

odd.

Just now, as I was updating my blog list, it occurred to me that there are three Lauras in three very different countries! Laura in Niger, Laura in China, and Laura in Indonesia! I met Niger Laura at an intervarsity training event (I think?) and we applied to the peace corps months apart from one another, I spent an amazing crazy summer in China with China Laura, and I spent a summer at Cedar Campus with Indonesia Laura! How cool is that?

It's very interesting to me how we surround ourselves with similar people. And the more you go down one path, the more people you see are right beside you in the same grooves. They've been some of the same places, have similar dreams, and encourage you along the way with stories of how their journey has been crazy too.

I love the way community brings that out of people.

edit: Make that four Lauras. Laura in Costa Rica, who I worked with one summer at Pleasant Vineyard, and see occasionally up here in the UP! And here I thought the name Sarah was common. Laura takes the cake right now :)

I'd like a star

Yesterday I was on the line with customer service for an hour. Tonight is going to exceed that, although I was told yesterday that the problem would be dealt with. The problem? A little flight cancellation with a small airline in Tanzania, that's what. Last week(?) I received an email that my flight had been cancelled. Wrote Expedia to see what had happened, and they wrote me a nice wordy email that said "you need to call us in order to resolve this matter". Apparently my flight is still happening, but my place on it has been taken away?

I'm wondering if it's because my country of origin is the USA. Or perhaps because I'm merely a rich foreigner, maybe I won't notice? Maybe they want to upgrade me to a more direct flight?

In truth, though, it's probably because there was a 'glitch in the system' as we like to say nowadays. Oh how familiar I am with glitches in the system! Currently I haven't returned a book to interlibrary loan that is severely overdue (while I am capable of this, it has indeed been returned!) and I can't tell you how many times I've had to get off CampBrain so that another glitch in that system could be fixed.

One thing I am glad for - even though it's been annoying and I'm currently going on 55 minutes with a few different Expedia personnel, they do seem to have learned the kindness skill. Thanking me for waiting, thanking me for my patience, apologizing for the wait...

Too bad they don't give gold stars when you're 24.

:)

Glass

Glass, originally uploaded by sarah_laughingguts.

yep.

Wrapping Up!

Oh my. This year's Olympics are an odd combination for me. Watching some events and stories from China, most of them glorious tales of an emerging China, juxtaposed against a backdrop of having left that culture behind and with the addition of Cedar's summer (and my time there) drawing to an end.

Tonight several international and american crew will be watching the closing ceremony together. I wonder if any of them will feel as I do, that this will last as a sign of the end of an age. The end of summer 2008. A few last sails, some special meals, some movies on the big screen, a last ride to the dunes, popping in to the library for internet access, marvelling at the clouds rushing by in the changing season, and counting the days before we get to go back.

Looks like I'll be here 3 more weeks. Wrapping up program, making notes for next year, dreaming big while on the tails of summer, and in slight disbelief that the summer has truly come and gone.

I need to use more content words...the main words in my blog here are fillers! I have always had this problem - saying what I was saying with more words than necessary, and not always using words that counted. Or perhaps the words here are so varied there isn't much repetition?

Right.

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Deeply. Excitedly. Smiling!

If you know, then you know...it's because in less than 2 months I'm leaving for 2 months for foreign lands!

There are so many questions in my mind about that time.
Will it be an amazing vacation?
Will I find out some really super-important things about the world, God, and myself?
Will it merely (and a good merely, mind you) be a good time of kicking back and playing around with a dear friend?

One thing's for sure. Change is inevitable. And so I know at the least that will happen. Somehow.

But how do I prepare myself for that? Do I just do what I've been, and take it as it comes to me? Should I be reading up more, studying the language more, (yeah, with all the freetime I have here at the end of summer camping season. Pshaw.) networking with people to see who I should seek out?

I'm of a mind that what happens will happen and I'm just going to roll with the punches, enjoy the ride, not expect big things but be open to them (like meeting kindred spirits, possible future job leads, and witnessing breathtaking vistas).

The main thing I have been doing is looking at the working world out there. I'd love to work overseas, to live overseas, to take in those different worlds. But there's a big part of me that sees that as selfishness, and that it's jumping ahead of where I am. Rather than doing that, I'm at a point where I'll be needing a break. Those of you in camping world or who have worked in ministry know exactly what I mean! We don't have seminars and books on burnout at Christian, camping, and the nonprofit world for nothing. Stupid Americans.

I've been reading the series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and I hear mother Africa calling me to herself. To love her people, to lie on the land, to see the lives...

She calls.

Anyone out there think I should do different things in preparation?

Waaaaah!

Summer's end is upon us. August is here. That last month of summer.

And here in the UP, that means Lake Huron might hit 70 in the bay one of these days!

Somehow my feet are cleaner than they were yesterday. Apparently in order to prevent fungus, one must keep their feet clean and dry. That seems difficult.

I haven't anything more that should be said just now, except yes, I would love to try twitter, once I get more regular internet access in higher doses. It doesn't look like that will happen until 2009, however.

I think that's called biding time.

:)

Silly.

I just typed "mackinac fairy costs" thinking 'fairy' looked a little odd, but oddly right.

Duh.

Really?

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a different country up here. For a month or so this summer, I did a pretty good job keeping up on the news, getting BBC daily updates, and in general hearing what's going on in the states too.

But as of late, I have missed most of the news about fires in California (all the poor rich people whose well-insuranced homes are in firepaths...), flooding in the Ohio/Mississippi watershed of Southern Illinois and beyond, and apparently now it's hurricane season?

Wow.

Up here in camp-land, we're gearing up for the busiest time activity-wise. Since it's Pastors Seminar this week, that means they leave Friday morning and we have the place to ourselves for a delightful night! We'll be having out annual international dinner (there are 22 AMAZING recipes planned) and after that the Chatterbox (featuring our local international talent- in our very own Lundgren Hall!)



And that also means we have only 3 more weeks of all-out summer programming. Then the last Chapter Focus Week, a weeks' relative quiet, then Empty Nesters Camp!

Sometime after that is my own departure from this place. That's very weird. The past year and a half, it's gotten comfortable seeing people come and go. And soon I'll be the one going. Nice to have this shift in thought. This has definitely played a good role in my over-the-slumpness of the past few days.

How to make it time that will last, leave the effect it should, and yet still remain in the moment?

Thoughts for the days.

Hey you.

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It's been a good week. Seeing cousins, aunts, an uncle, and a couple dear friends.

Then it's gone so soon.

Has me thinking of those people that live for the weekend. And how I don't exactly want to go back to work after this 'weekend' either.