In Joy and In Sorrow

In the hotel where we'd stayed for our retreat last week...

“Uhm.  Hi!  Have you found a wallet or some earrings in any of the rooms?”

The receptionist dug around in a cardboard box of lost-and-found items, murmuring that the daytime receptionist had found some earrings...

“Uhm.  Maybe they're in that matchbox?”
“Nooo...”  It's a box for matches, you silly foreign twit was heavily implied.

A Semi-Charmed Kind of Life

In Burundi, we met a hippo and Cinderella's uncle (in no particular order of importance).  Both were very nice, though Uncle was rather more talkative and fun-loving; the hippo mainly... breathed.  Which was good.  We loved him for breathing close to us.

I mainly loved Bujumbura for the humidity – which did beautiful things to my limp hair and bloody nose (Jai Hind) - but the people were lovely as well.  No one felt the need to publicly identify me as a muzungu!  They still stared, but it was as if - for the short time between leaving and re-entering the DRC - I was just a normal person.

A Real Trip - Part II

Note:  Still more a summary (honestly) of events rather than an entertaining flow.  

Upon arriving in Kigali, I learned the horrifying news of the kidnapping of a UN worker in the DRC and found it hard to settle down for thoughts of what this much-admired man and his friends might be going through.

I finally managed to pass out for a few hours on 'Big Bertha' – a tiny air mattress that I eventually just rolled off because it was easier – at our Area Directors' home.  After a dry breakfast and a pleasant conversation during which I prayed that I would not follow in my mother's footsteps after nearly thirty years of devoutly avoiding nausea, I was driven in style to the bus station, where I pretended I could take care of myself.

A Real Trip - Part I

Note:  This is less a coherent essay and more a catalogue of the madness of the past month so I don't forget.  Proceed at your own risk.  

India, as usual, was a trip.  Being a young, innocent, demure dame sellin' this dress (or something), I was forbidden on pain of death to travel to my family's house – 3 hours away from the international airport in Mumbai – alone.

(I fully I plan to do this next time.)

Let('s) Go!

The DRC didn't quit even after my last post.  On the way home from an evangelisation course offered at our church, I was forthrightly propositioned by a woman who somehow cleverly planned our meeting.

“Can I walk with you?”

Thinking she didn't want to walk alone in the dark when I – a big, strong, protectress - was striding along with my cellphone flashlight, I responded, “Sure!  My house is nearby, so we can walk together for a while.”