Camping Trip-Day 4 & 5

I have to finish writing up the camping trip, otherwise I'll never do it! And we've been home over a week now. Here's the last installment:

On the last morning at our little camp ground it was so windy it's hard to believe that we didn't just completely blow away. Like on the previous days we started with Mass. But it was too windy to do it outside, so we all squeezed into a tent. Can't say I've ever attended Mass in a tent before.


Poor Mike was trying to concentrate and the wind kept whipping the tent and hitting him in the head.

After Mass and breakfast we took down our camp and began the journey out of the bush. First, we stopped at a family's house to visit and pick up their daughter for school. There is a school for children in nomadic families out toward one of the cities. Fr. Dan has 3 girls that he helps with school fees and transportation to this school. Their break was over so he wanted to bring the 3 girls back with us while we were headed in that direction. Unfortunately, the girl at the first house wasn't able to go back to school just yet. Not exactly sure why, but hopefully she'll return in the future.


Mike visits with a baby while we wait for the girl, who ended up not going with us.

Since we had some time to spare we took a detour and went to the salt flats. The people use the salt from Lake Eyasi and harvest it to sell. They dam the water in some places and when the water evaporates, you've got salt! Scrape it up and you're ready to go.


Mike and John and seemingly endless space beyond.


It was so windy Mike had to hold his hat on.


Where the workers are scraping salt from the dammed areas.

After the salt flats we picked up the other 2 girls who were returning to school and went to a small town where Fr. Dan works.


You can't just pick up one person. Their family has to come along too.

Dan works in the small town of Magalata doing Pastoral work and beekeeping. He has a 1 room house, a place to say Mass, and a small yard. It was really great to visit here because many of the members of the small Christian community came out to say hello. They visited a while, cooked dinner for us, and said prayers. They were a really amazing bunch of people! I wish I was able to communicate more with them.


Some houses around Magalata.


Sitting outside Dan's house inside his compound with members of the community. The girl on the far left in the blue dress and the other girl on the far right in the red shirt were the 2 girls going back to school.






Esther is sort of a matriarch in the community. She was so nice and really chatty. And so pretty! I was memorized by her facial scars.

That night we slept out under the stars in Dan's compound. I was so tired and my eyes were so swollen and sore from the dust and sun, I had to work hard to really appreciate it. But we saw a few shooting stars and I slept more soundly than I ever would've thought I could have in the outdoors.



The next morning we started bright and early again with Mass. The community came back to join us and Mass was said in their local language.



After Mass we ate the most delicious breakfast ever--mandazis and chai.


A ton of the community came by and it was great to see that everyone was fed, no matter whether they were Christian or not.

We headed out from Magalata fairly quickly because we had a long journey ahead of us. We first had to drop Dan, Hong, and John in Ndoleleji. Then we had to drop the 2 schoolgirls off at the tarmac before heading to Mwanza. Poor Liz and Mike had even further to go, as they had to drive from Mwanza to Musoma, another couple of hours. Luckily, Mike had the joy of hugging a baobab to sustain him for the remainder of the journey.



A big thank you to Liz and Dan without whom this trip would never have happened. And big ups to Dan and John. I hope I'm still going this strong when I'm in my 80's!

Introducing

Sprocket.


There were 3 puppies living in the pile of coal next to our gate. We just had to take one.


One person is happy. One dog is not. She was so scared!

Her brother climbed the gate today too. So for the night (and hopefully just the night) we have 2 puppies! We're not naming the boy because we're not keeping him. For reals.



What does Smokey think? She's super happy! But we're keeping them separated right now because Smokey was playing too rough.

Analogy for Marriage?

Earlier this week a few of us new missioners went to the International Language School in town to register for Swahili tutoring. We had to take a test to assess where we are so they could accurately place us in a class. Chris and I went back the next day and met the woman who will be our teacher. Upon introducing ourselves she said to me, "OH! I know you!" I was all, "Huh? Have we met?"And then she said that when she graded our tests I had made a mistake that made her laugh and she'd never forget me. Great, I thought. One of the questions asked us to tell our life story. I briefly wrote about my age and where I was from. And I said I was married in 2003. Well, I thought I'd said that at least. Turns out I said something like in 2003 I was swept into a pile of garbage. Nice!

*I was going to just post this as-is. But then I felt like I needed to add a comment clarify that I do not, in fact, feel like I was swept into a pile of garbage when I was married in 2003. I love my marriage and my husband and don't feel like I'm trash. So, there. The record is straight. Still a funny mistake, though.

Mailing Stuff to TZ

Many of you in the past have asked about mailing things to us in Tanzania. If you've ever gotten instructions from me with our mailing addresses please read this update on mailing instructions.

Today there was a confrontation between customs and Liz (the MK missioner up there) over a package that was sent for me. They opened a box and found that what was sent was not what was written on the customs form. The box was confiscated and Liz was subjected to a verbal lashing about what liars we are. Apparently they already had their eye on Liz and Marion for something someone else had sent in their name (not for me). So, in light of today's episode I'm going to ask people to NOT send to the Musoma address anymore. If you send anything to us from now on, please use the Mwanza address for all boxes, envelopes, everything.

Also, please be vague on customs forms but do not outright misrepresent or lie. We don't want it to be a shopping list for custom officials to see and take what they want, but we also don't want to get in trouble with them for being dishonest if they happen to open it.

I know some of you may have already sent some things to this address. That's fine. Hopefully we'll be able to get them without any problems. I just want to minimize any issues that Liz or Sr. Marion needs to deal with in the future.

Thanks so much for all the things you guys send. I know it's a major pain in the butt and we so appreciate you going through the hassle to give us a little piece of home. The outpouring of love and support we get from everyone, whether it's through snail mail, email, Facebook messages, phone calls, whatever, is so so so special to us. It makes us feel closer to you all and allows us to continue on the roughest days. Thank you.

Camping Trip-Day 3

We started out Wednesday morning bright and early with the sunrise.

I was amazed at how well I slept! No bump-bump-bumping of the neighborhood duka sampling the music of CDs they sell. No cockle-doodle-do of the neighborhood roosters. No mosque calling Muslims to prayer. Over the past few months I've learned to sleep through all of these noises, but it was so nice to not have that! I didn't realize how much I've been missing quiet.


As the sun continued to rise we celebrated Mass together. Visitors started coming right away, so they sat down and joined in.


We carbed it up on a pancake breakfast. It was so windy that as soon as I'd put the batter into the pan it'd be covered in a layer of dust. I kept saying that as new residents in TZ we needed to breath, eat and taste the country.

After breakfast we headed out on what we thought was going to be a 1 mile hike. We wanted to visit what we affectionately referred to as "the baboon pools." They are a series of pools with cool mountain water where herders bring their cattle to drink and baboons sometimes sit on the edges. We had different intentions, though. We wanted to swim! We'd gone a few dusty days without showers, so even a cattle trough sounded good to me.


As soon as we set out we saw these guys by our campsite. Maybe they were headed to the pools themselves!

It was a hot, dry, dusty walk. And it ended up being more like 3 miles instead of 1 mile, which was tough because we'd not brought enough water. We also had an older MK priest with us and there was some concern about whether he'd make it. But I'll tell you what, those MK priests are the real deal! John hung in there like a champ and even lead the pack at times. One of our visitors from the morning, a young man named Thomas, took it upon himself to be our guide. I was grateful for his guidance because on the way back he took a shortcut through the plains and it shaved off about 20 minutes off our 2 hour walk!


Headed to the mountains in the distance. We should've known it was more than 1 mile!

Along the walk we saw lots of cattle being corralled by their herders. We also saw 2 snakes, a huge jackrabbit and a dik-dik.


We finally reached the pools, hot and sweaty. I was ready for a swim!


We walked along the rock-face to get to the highest pool. It was a little cleaner than the others and we the cattle couldn't get up there, so we wouldn't have to worry about them coming up while we were swimming.

Only me, Liz, Caitlin and Mike took the opportunity to swim. The water was freezing cold, but after the hot walk it felt great. Liz even thought to bring soap so I could get a little sudzed up!

It was a long walk back but it was great to see how everyone helped each other out, slowing down when someone was falling behind. We had plans to do some more hiking around afterwards, but by the time we got back to camp it was mid-afternoon and everyone was spent. So we just napped, chilled and got a bite to eat.

That night we had another great meal on the fire, told stories, and helped pop each other's blisters.

Lake Eyasi Camping Trip-Day 1 & 2

We headed out from Mwanza on Monday after lunch and drove several hours to a village called Ndoleleji. There are several MK priests out there and we were to meet up with them, spend the night and then head into the bush on Tuesday. Unfortunately, we experienced several car problems along the way.


I didn't get a shot of our first issue, an empty radiator! But just after getting that problem fixed and setting off again we were flagged down by a nice man who told us our headlight was hanging off!

Because of the car trouble, we were a little late getting to Ndoleleji. But in true MK fashion, the fathers had a great spread ready for us so we could have a "sun downer" and enjoy tasty libations while watching the sunset in their back yard. What a great way to recover from the stressful journey.



The next morning after Mass in the yard, we took a brief tour of one of Fr. Dan's projects-BEEKEEPING!


Fr. Dan prior to Mass.


"Killer Bee" Honey. They're NOT killer bees. Don't get me started on that rant. It's just a name.

After packing up the trucks with necessities like M&M/granola snack mix, beer, and water, we set out.


Portable fridge for drinks...we know how to "rough it."




Fr. Mike warming up for the campfire songs.

We spent most of Tuesday driving. It was a dusty, long journey and I drove one of the trucks the whole way. I was proud of my navigating through dry river beds and getting the truck in and out of 4-wheel drive.


This is lush compared to where we ended up going.


We made a few stops along the way. Here we had lunch under a tree. It was great to get a little break from the dusty roads. I made hummus and we brought it out. Happy to say that it's now an international favorite. Thanks, Bo.


Fr. Dan's truck stops to make sure the other trucks get through the dry riverbed without sticking. I'm driving the middle truck. You can see we've picked up a traveler along the way. Can't imagine riding in the back of the truck, it was so dusty!


We made another stop at a village to visit another MK priest who is building a huge church.

After a day of driving we arrived at our destination. We did some searching and found a nice place to camp right along a dry riverbed. It's the rainy season, so there was little to worry about in the way of being carried away by flood.


You can see, we're along the rift escarpment, so there are mountains/hills in the background. We were close to Lake Eyasi at this point but couldn't see if from where we were camping.

By the time we found a campsite the sun was settling pretty quickly. So we hastily set up camp and went about the business of making dinner. We were with such a great group of people. Everyone pitched in to help with whatever tasks needed to be done. I never felt like anyone was slacking on helping out. There were 9 of us altogether, 5 lay missioners and 4 MK priests (1 priest from Musoma, 2 from Ndoleleji, and 1 from Nairobi).


Some of the guys setting up Chris's and my home-away-from-home.


The people who live in this area have some crazy telepathic social networking ability or something because word of our arrival spread like wildfire and people were stopping by before we even made camp. They just came to say hello and welcome. They were curious about who we were and what we were doing there. Oh, and they wanted to share in our food and whatever else we had to offer.


Fathers Dan and Hong setting up camp.


We were all pretty tuckered out that night from the long drive. But we enjoyed a great meal, some tasty drinks, good music, fun stories and lots of laughs before heading off to bed.

A Different Sense of Homesickness

For the past few days, ever since we returned from our trip to Lake Eyasi, I've been thinking about how to write up my experience there. I just don't think there's any way to adequately convey my experience of camping in the bush and visiting the nomadic peoples of this area. I think I will hold this as one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

Before we left on the trip I expected that it would be a difficult week, but that afterwards I would look back on it as an interesting and worthwhile adventure. I also expected that I would experience a feeling of "home-sweet-home" when I returned back to our house in Mwanza. And now that I think about it, I wonder if I was looking forward to that feeling upon returning because for the past year I've not had a home and maybe in some way I wanted to appreciate being finally settled.

Now that I've gone and come back I'm having quite a mix of emotions. I was accurate when I anticipated it being a difficult week. But it was difficult in ways I'd not expected (the dust and dirt were really hard on my eyes, for one). And yet, I enjoyed it way more than I anticipated. The beauty of the land, the great MK company along the way, the warm welcome and abundant curiosity of the people. All of these things far exceeded any difficulties we encountered. Also, I wasn't as ready to return to Mwanza as I thought I'd be. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to get a shower and be clean, it was nice to see our little doggie again, and our home is quite nice here. But all throughout this weekend I keep feeling a sense of homesickness instead of the "home-sweet-home" feeling I anticipated experiencing. It's similar to the feelings I had when I came back to the States after our first trip to Tanzania in 2006. After that trip both Chris and I felt a sense of homesickness for a place we'd only briefly known. And that's how I feel right now. I long to go back to live and work with the people in this area. Unfortunately, it's not a possibility right now because all MK Lay Missioners are being asked by the powers-that-be to live and work in and around the city of Mwanza. But as soon as that restriction is lifted, I could definitely see me and Chris uprooting again and moving out a little closer to work with this community.

I'm still in the process of uploading our pictures from the trip, but I'll post some along with stories soon.

We're back!

Just returned from an wonderful adventure! We're a bit tired, but what a life-changing experience! I can't wait to share so many amazing stories and pictures. But for now, here's a teaser:


Some friends who stopped by our campground to say hi one morning.


Lucia is a woman from the small Christian community that a MK Father works with in Magalata. Can you spot the little kiddie toes that are sticking out from behind her back? Baby Regina (born in April) was happily hanging out on her momma's back. Regina peed on me a lot over the past few days.

Photos from Our Life

I noticed the other day that I haven’t been posting many pictures on the web lately and I realized that’s because I’ve moved into the day-to-day stuff of regular life and most people don’t take pictures of that. But because our life isn’t really much like “regular life” to those at home, I’m trying to make a conscious effort to take some shots to help you see a little of what we see on a daily basis.

Without a vacuum, this is how we have to clean the rugs. Chris hates this rug, not only because it has to be cleaned in this way, but also because I don't think he wants to admit to owning a tiger skin patterned rug. But, hey, it gets the dirt off our feet before we get into bed. And that, my friends, is why there was SOOOOO much dirt on/under it! Amazing how much dirt piles up so quickly here.

We have locks on our gate, then another lock on our gate to our porch, then a lock on our door. Takes about 5 minutes just to get in or out of our house.

Got together with some Americans for 4th of July. This was what was being discussed in the corner at the party. It was just too funny to me. 

Saw these monkeys playing around Fr. Jim's car at the Church in Mabatini. What's even crazier about this picture is that Mabatini is a very congested area. It's highly populated and incredibly dense. So to see monkeys in such a place seemed really odd to me.

Speaking of Mabatini, I've been spending a lot of time in the parish there. The MK fathers run this parish so there's lots of opportunity to get involved. I've been spending time with their parish women's group. They make and sell chapati and tea after each Mass, so for the past few weeks I've been sitting with them, watching and listening. They like to pretend that I'm helping them, but really I'm just sitting watching and trying to understand little bits of Swahili as they chat to each other. I'm also going on home visits to the women's houses. It's an invaluable experience to see where the people live and meet their families. My hope is to slowly understand more about their needs and the challenges the women's group faces so that I can eventually help them a little bit. Right now it sounds like they struggle to break even with their post-church sales and the group doesn't really have much of a function other than that.

Tomorrow we head out into the bush for the week. We are going to visit a community of nomadic people that the MK fathers work with and where a MK lay missioner had her first mission several decades ago. We'll be "roughing it" for the week and camping, while we visit with the people and hike around. It's going to be so beautiful! I can't wait. I tested out the tent, made hummus, granola and brownies and everything is ready to go! We'll be offline for the week while we're away. But hopefully we'll have some spectacular pictures when we return.

Happy 4th Peops!

A slight diversion from my family tradition, rhubarb pie, I think this mango pie might do the trick!

Home Ec

This past weekend I made my first attempt at making cheese. I say "attempt" because that's what it was. And it was unsuccessful.


I bought fresh milk from a lady down the street. She only sells it in the early morning and evening, right after she's milked the cows. I brought water bottles down to her and she filled them right up with warm milk!


I was so excited! Look how prepared I was. I sterilized and laid out everything we'd need to make mozzarella.



Caitlin came over to help. We carefully measured everything and put the milk into a warm water bath to slowly raise its temperature.


Unfortunately, the curds never formed! We tried to raise the temperature more, let it sit more. But still, the mixture was as watery as milk. No curds. So after a while we just gave up. Still not sure what happened. It could be that the milk is not good for cheese-making. Or it could be that the citric acid we used wasn't straight citric acid; it had some other things in it. Or it could be the water.

Next time I try it I'm going to use real citric acid and bottled water. I don't think I can do much about the milk because milk is milk here. There's only one kind (outside of powdered and boxed milk). So if that doesn't work, then I might need to change to sheep's milk.

Another project I've been working on for months is my curtain making. I finally was able to finish them up this past Sunday.


The trundle machine was actually really easy to use and I enjoyed it. Thanks to Joanne, my Regional Coordinator, for helping me out through the whole process!


Chris was pleased with the finished product.

Kilio

Tanzanians have a custom called "kilio" or mourning, whereby neighbors, friends, family, etc visit the family of a diseased person. The kilio can last a few days and people just stop by, sit with the family, perhaps offer a condolence gift of money and pay their respects to the family.

I had the honor to attend my first kilio yesterday. A member of one of Caritas's village groups lost their child last week. The family said the child died of malaria, but when the father described how his son died, it sounded like it might've been something else. Of course, I'm no doctor, and I don't speak Swahili well. So I totally could've misread the situation.

It was a beautiful day, with a soft cool breeze (it's winter here) and, in the shade of the mango tree under which we sat, it sort of felt like a picnic. The village was quiet, with the exception of the sound of chickens and baby chicks wandering around in the surrounding grass. The view was spectacular, with fields of corn and other vegetables in the foreground to the rocky hills which surround the Mwanza region. It felt strange to be in such a beautiful, peaceful place under such sad circumstances.

I found myself thinking about how if I lost a child, or any loved one for that matter, I wouldn't want people stopping by. I wouldn't want the obligation of pretending everything is okay or trying to make conversation. The parents and siblings of this child were visibly upset, and they kept getting up from the tarp where we sat to walk away under another bush or behind the house for a minute and then they would return. Yet, at the same time, I didn't feel like we were unwanted and nothing felt forced. The family seemed genuinely grateful that people cared enough to come by. They also didn't seem to hide their sorrow. At one point, the father (who was quite old) sat down between his wife, children and daughter-in-law and recounted the story of his child's death. As everyone listened quietly I wondered how many times this sad story had already been told, even though the child died less than a week ago. When the father finished his story, people shook their head, uttered words of sympathy, or questioned why the doctors didn't do more for the child.

I've been thinking a lot about this experience. And I don't have any profound words or thoughts. I don't know whether Americans handle loss better or worse than Tanzanians. I'm sure it's mostly an individual thing. Sorrow is sorrow, no matter how you slice it. But I feel like there was some healing happening yesterday, just by the presence of family and friends who listened but didn't push, who offered company but didn't judge. Just a shared experience with little fan-fair. I wasn't the one who lost a child or a brother or a friend, so I feel a little sheepish in saying this. But I felt there was a sense of peace there and I feel privileged to be have been present.

Because I Haven't Posted Pictures in a While

Two pictures from this week that I love.

Long Way to Go

Today I attended a meeting of community activists from Kivulini. In their SASA! program, Kivulini trains 40 community members to take active roles in their districts to prevent, mitigate and resolve domestic and other forms of violence as it concerns women and children. The community activists meet each month to report on their progress and give feedback to Kivulini.

I really enjoyed the meeting today, even though I could only understand bits and pieces. I learned a lot of new words that I wouldn't normally hear in general conversations (i.e. court, resolution, cases, successes, referral), which is always good for my language acquisition. More than that, though, I was struck by how universal these issues are. The challenges that confronted me in my violence prevention work in the States are the same as those here. Admittedly, it's a totally different scale and there are greater hurdles here. But I just felt so at home in the meeting because I understood what the activists were talking about, even if I didn't understand all the words they were using.

Today I also found myself thinking about the skills that are necessary to be a good group facilitator. I often have a hard time pin-pointing what I'm good at because as a social worker my skills are so broad. I'm not an engineer or a doctor who is trained in a specific skill set. So I think I tend to overlook the skills that I have acquired through training and practice. Today I realized that I think I'm a pretty good facilitator. I have the ability to bring groups of people together, tease out various ideas, and bring it all toward a common concept. As a facilitator, I try to utilize the thoughts and ideas of my participants and keep the conversation interesting to them. I crack jokes, bring in relevant news or media, and just try to have fun with it.

I say all this because I was sitting in the meeting today realizing that I'm a hell of a long way from being able to be a competent facilitator here in Tanzania. In fact, I don't know if I'll ever be competent enough in Swahili to be even an adequate facilitator. The thought of this saddens me a little because I get such joy out of it. So, I continue to pray about and wait to see how my skills will be used here in this place that is so different and yet so similar to my own.

Medical Update and Some Other Random Things

I went back to the doctor today and got 1/2 of a clean bill of health. The pesky amoeba has been successfully evicted (good riddance) but the UTI is hanging on. I've already been treated for it twice, so I have to get a urine scan to find out which drug to use going forward. This required me to go to 2 doctors today in 2 separate clinics. The 2nd doctor told me I could avoid future UTIs if I cleaned my hands with hand sanitizer once inside the bathroom but prior to "going" because I could pick it up on the door handle going in. I'm not really sure how transmission in that manner could be possible, especially if I'm using toilet paper. But, yeah, okay. Either way, we will continue to work on getting me totally clean, but I'm at least happy the amoeba is done with.

I've spent many years over the course of my life thinking about what life in Africa would be like. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be on my way home from work and enjoying a double rock block of Milli Vanilli and TLC on the radio. That happened today. Good times.

If you've ever had a conversation with an employee about days off, paychecks, and any other manner of employment issues, you know how touchy those topics can be. Imagine doing that in another language. I just did that tonight with our guard. I was trying to convey to him that we will be out of town in a few weeks and wanted to check if he could work every night that week. I also was trying to work out payment with him because he will get paid at the end of the month. I hope we understood each other! God bless the Tanzanian people who have to put up with my butchering of their language every day.

Out and About a Little

I'm 1/2 way into my new round of medicine and so far I've been nowhere near as sick as I was on the other stuff. The only side effects that I can tell are very vivid dreams and slight depression. So, I've been a bit down in the dumps and emotional. But hopefully the medicine is working and I won't need to go through this much more! I know there is an end in sight.

The up-side of not feeling completely yucky is that I'm able to get out of the house a little bit. A few weeks ago I mentioned briefly that I was going to start visiting other organizations in order to help facilitate my learning. Well, today I started my first day at Kivulini, an organization that does great work on issues related to gender based violence. I've known about Kivulini for years, even in the States, so I'm super excited to get my feet wet there. I'm not certain what I will exactly be doing , but it's definitely up my alley! Everyone was very nice and welcoming today so I look forward to making it part of my regular routine.

I'll take that "to go"

Headed out to the doctor (again) this morning with my stool and urine samples in a little doggie bag. This is the recipe for so many "to go" jokes, but I don't really have the energy to make them.

Here's hoping I have no more visitors in my gut.

UPDATE: Well, just got back from the doctor. Inexplicably, despite waging nuclear war inside my stomach for the past week, I still have amoeba and a UTI. The doctor was baffled, but she was really sharp. So we're trying a third round of meds on my amoeba friend and a second dose of meds on the UTI. I'm to go back in a week to test again and if I'm not cleared up she said she'd refer me to a gastroenterologist.

Hatari

Should I be concerned that I need to look up the definition of the words on the insect spray bottle in order to be sure I'm not going to poison myself when I use it?*

*Don't worry, I'm just using the spray to get rid of mosquitoes. We don't have any crazy infestation yet.

UPDATE: I think the bug spray made the mosquitoes more mad because I'm sitting on the couch (which I just sprayed) and there's more mosquitoes buzzing around me than there were before. Sheesh.

"Don't Bite Your Nails"

That's what my mom said to me on a daily basis when I was growing up. But I continued to do it out of habit and nothing bad ever came from it. At 34 years old, I still bite my nails and am not ashamed. I even tell my niece, who is also a nail biter, that there's nothing wrong with biting your nails.

That is, until I moved to Tanzania.

I've been pretty good here at not biting my nails. I've kept them clipped short so I'm not as tempted. But I've reverted to biting my cuticles instead. And that, my friends, I'm fairly certain, is what has given me amoeba. Remember, I mentioned a couple times over the past month that I had it? Well, it's still here. That little bugger just doesn't want to go away. And along with it I've now gotten my first ever urinary track infection. Yippee for me!

I'm not sure which sucks more, the UTI or the amoeba, but they're both pretty miserable. I think the UTI in itself is bad. Yesterday I was in a pretty severe amount of pain and had trouble sleeping or doing anything because of the ache in my back and stomach. Plus, I would vomit anytime I tried to walk around. Luckily, I started feeling significantly better last night once I'd taken a few doses of antibiotics. Also luckily, the amoeba itself isn't very painful. But the medicine for it totally knocks me out. So just as I'm starting to feel better from the UTI, the meds for the other will make me sleep for days.

So, this week I'm waylaid at home, mostly relegated to the bed. Too bad, too, because I was super excited to start working at Kivulini, the organization that does work on issues related gender based violence. But I guess that'll wait until next week.

In the meantime, I've bought the Bloggess's book, Let's Pretend this Never Happened, via Kindle to keep me company when I'm not passed out.

Wading into Uncharted Relationship Territory

I asked (read that, begged) my husband to cut my hair this weekend. He was a little freaked, but I think he did a good job. I don't have a shot yet but maybe I'll take one soon just to show the evidence that it doesn't look messed up. It's nothing dramatic anyway so you might not even notice the difference.

On a completely unrelated note, here's another shot of our living room. Like it?



This one does.



She takes every opportunity to run into the room whenever the front door is left slightly ajar.

And here's a shot of our nighttime guard, Josephat.


He's a nice guy. Very quiet. We've just caught him sweeping the front yard. Yep.