Debriefing

I attended a week-long debriefing in Colorado last week. I was really excited and anxious to attend but it was soooo worth it. I really picked out two or three things that touched me most. Two or three things that I learned that I will share with you over the next week or so. I hope you can relate.

Relating. That was certainly a highlight of the week. I was surrounded by people who relate to my experience of the past two years because they have been living something simliar in various places around the world. Several have even been in Nairobi off and on which was fun (one gal wore her Java House t-shirt once!).

I didin’t realize how important it is to celebrate and comissurate with fellow missionaries. What a gift.

To help you understand why this important, let me share a few stories with you.

I ws on the road back to KS talking with a dear friend who has adopted and recently moved into a new neighborhood. As I was explaining this sense of relief at not having to choose my words or think of the right ones at all, she immediately understood. She feels the same way. Her new neighborhood is filled with families who have also adopted and there are things that they just ‘get.’ Because these families have adopted they have a similar experience and can better relate on some levels.

Another example is that whilst at the debriefing I was talking to a gal who was going to be driving with her family home to IN via I70 through KS. We were talking about where they might stay and she mentioned Salina, pronouncing it Sah-lee-nah. I offered her the correct pronounciation and she laughed saying “Thanks! I don’t want to offend the nationals!” We continued our conversation a moment before she corrected herself, “Not nationals, I mean locals!” We thought it was pretty funny as neither had realize she had used the ‘wrong’ term. No one looked at us funny. No one made fun of us for using the wrong term. No one rolled their eyes as we tried to think of the correct term or mentioned our host country ‘one more time.’

Africa was my host country and it was my world for two years. It is my perspective on all that happened in that time. Just as when I lived in MN for four years and that was my perspective, I often pull on that experience when in conversation. I am not trying too show off or be weird. Africa was just my world and it only makes sense to me to incorporate that into my life now. I cannot eliminate it and I shouldn’t have to try.

So if you see me in town with some mail and I say I’m heading to the ‘posta’ for stamps or I can’t think of a word and say ‘nini’ instead of perhaps ‘thingy’ or maybe even say ’sawa sawa’ instead of ‘alright’ or ‘ok’ please cut me some slack. Feel free to ask me about it or just ignore it as a part of who I am now. But please don’t harass me. It hurts my feelings and makes me feel like the last two years of my life are invalidated and should be forgotten.

I have no desire to spend the rest of my life living sequestered with other missionaries or people who have lived internationally. I love my family and friends and desire to be near them, in dialogue with them, on new adventures with them and sharing past adventures with them. However, there will always be something special about getting together with my fellow missionaries. I hope you all understand.

Travel Clinic

The results are in and I’m clean.  Nothing that was uninvited (and for which I was tested) came back to America with me.  I will still need to be aware of malaria anytime I get a fever in the next couple of years, but should be fine otherwise.  Now the only thing work related left is the debriefing in Colorado Springs the second week of August.  I’m really looking forward to that.

crying

I am weepy lately.  I find that I cry easier than before I came back from Kenya.  I guess it’s part of my re-entry transition.  This morning I went to Kiwanis at 630.  I almost cried when people were giving a presentation on our local school system.  Now I’m home doing some web stuff and watching CMT.  I’ve cried twice.  Cried.  Not got teary or sentimental. I cried.  

It does make my dry eyes feel better, but hmmm.  I’m glad that I’ve warned my family about it so they don’t think I’m more crazy than normal.  

Things are going well though.  I had a wonderful trip to and from the Cities this past week.  It was a beautiful wedding and time well-spent with friends and docs.  I went to the travel clinic to make sure I didn’t bring back any unwanted visitors.  I don’t have TB, that’s always good news to hear, I think.  I am still waiting to hear about my other tests.  I also learned of several other places to look for jobs.  More transition ahead.  It’s exciting, scarey, and tiring.  

We start moving my folks this weekend.  Then we go pick Adam next week.  I’m so excited!  I can hardly wait!  It’s going to be so much fun having him around.  

Off to the posta as soon as they open to mail a few things and get some stamps and then over to the bank.  Good times, huh.

My Country or the Queen’s song

Did you know that My Country Tis of Thee is the same tune as God Save the Queen?  Why is that?  Anyone know?

Need cash for your non-profit?

Although the title of this post sounds like something you’d get in your spam box, it isn’t, I promise.

I found this great fundraising org I thought I’d share with you all.  It’s the alternative to selling what can end up to be wasteful, non-eco-friendly, non-sustainable, non-fair trade items.  If you are working with a school, church or org that is looking for a new fundraiser, I suggest you try this one.  (Be sure to tell me when you do so that my purchases can benefit your cause!)

Safari in Minnesota?

I was up north outside Park Rapids a few weeks ago with some of my Minni friends.  It was awesome!  We rested, we relaxed, we BBQ’d, we boated, we read on the beach, we napped in the hammocks. 

The first night as I slipped away from the fire to swing in the hammock a bit I suddenly thought to ask if there were any dangerous animals that I needed to be on the look out for at all.  I was assured that there were none.  I knew that, I really did, but sometimes coming back is a bit different and you forget things that you once knew. 

We also were on a mini-safari.  We saw, deer, beaver, otter, muscrat, wild turkey, turtles and loons.  Ahhhh, the safari never ends.

Conservation Agriculture

I’ve mentioned Care Creation Kenya before and here’s a great article on line.  I just want include a snippit to help you understand the importance of taking care of what we have.

 

“In God’s fields rats are the problem. They crawled under the old maize stalks that Paul Kiongo Thuo carefully placed on his soil as mulch, as the missionary had shown him, and ate the seeds he had planted in neat rows the day after the rains came. Thuo killed seven of the rodents, but more have moved in. Perhaps it is best to let the seeds germinate first before laying down the mulch, his wife Grace suggests as they stand in the middle of their four-acre farm, where they also grow beans, bananas and cabbage. Thuo bobs his white beanie in agreement. Craig Sorley, a 6ft 3in American with a shaved head, Levis, a lumberjack shirt and muddy boots, listens and thinks for a moment. He has already sought advice on the rat problem from Christian colleagues in Zimbabwe who pioneered Farming God’s Way, which uses biblical teachings to encourage a practice known as conservation agriculture. In reply, his colleagues had asked why raptors had not eaten the rats. But here, on the eastern edge of the Great Rift Valley in central Kenya, where small-scale farmers have traditionally struggled to grow enough food even to feed their families, virtually all the indigenous trees have been chopped down for firewood. The few exotic eucalyptus trees scattered around the farms are not suitable for nesting.

‘You mess with one part of God’s creation and you’ll pay for it another,’ Sorley says, examining a handful of soil from Thuo’s bean patch.”

I sometimes feel like I’m talking to people about this type of thing and people’s eyes are glazing over and their ears are stopping-up.  ‘oh, she’s talking all tree-hugger, granola person again.’  I’m not and I think this article puts things into better words than I have been able to do lately.

Happy Trails

I couldn’t resist. 

Today is my final day with CRWRC.  I do not know what’s next but I am applying all over the US and would love to work with international students. 

So, there you have it.  Until I find something I will be based with my folks here in Liberal KS and would love to hear from you.

I’ll keep blogging, never fear!

on the road AGAIN!

I am having Willie Nelson attacks.  I’ve been on the road since Monday and loving it.  I’ve stopped in Colorado Springs, all over Denver, Greeley, driven through Nebraska and South Dakota (just missing a turtle on I-90) and am now warming myself on the sun porch in Brookings SD.

I love the opportunity to travel and see my friends and catch up.  I’ve met children, heard of moves, jobs, surguries, new homes and new boyfriends.  I’m sharing my photos and stories and just loving sitting on a friends couch in a sweatshirt having tea.  I am being renewed as I spend time up late nights with my friends.  It warms my heart.

So if you see me over the next few weeks and hear me humming under my breath, you can be sure it’s a little bit of Willie.  Well, Willie or Wicked, that’s almost always in the cd player these days.

photos

I have a variety of new albums online now for your perusal.