Nuba tales

"It's better to have to pee all the time than have a headache" (why we drink a lot on the road)

This week, I had the chance to travel with the Appropriate Technology team to villages. Classes I & II of the same name were my favorites in undergrad. I joined a Kenyan man, Sudanese man, and Sudanese mother and baby to travel for three days. We met with mixed, men's, and women's community groups who work on projects from bee keeping to simsim (sesame) seed oil pressing to nutrition. It was a lot of bouncing along on the rutty roads in the Land Cruisers with hitching villagers throwing up out the back windows, a lot of sitting and waiting for people to meander in for group, but also a lot of learning on what it is to teach people who haven't necessarily learned the value of learning - whereby the Holy Spirit must prepare the way. I loved it.

Herrman's Fat Camp and No More Sweet Tea

Out here, there are very few sweets besides the terrible tea which is probably 2 Tablespoons sugar to the half cup. There is also very little cheese, previously the staple protein and favorite food of my diet, or other social carbohydrates which do not constitute my diet but which find their way in. Combined with Kari and my Koulats Running Club (motto: Modesty First), and Kari's palates cum yoga mat, I am enjoying the sort of fitness which has eluded me since California last spring.

Kawadja

Gringo. Ang Mor. White person. Whom all the little black babies have been told will eat them. I do not prefer interacting with people on this basis. But so it is. And though there are a few Kwadja men running around, none garnered so many peals of laugher as me and my bad moves self at a local church worship meeting or stomp-in-the-dust dance.

Special Edition Palindrome

28/1/82 - my birthday in every country but the USA. Back in my home and native land, it was a palindrome too but this is the first time since then I've spent it abroad. We climbed the highest local mountain on that day, about 4,000 feet of bushwhacking. The thorniest, viniest, boulderiest, long grassiest, but fortunately not snakiest climb of my life. We were sore for three days after. But very proud of ourselves.

#9

My sister just wrote me of her engagement to one Ben Rasmussen. It sounded lovely, very "them," with calla lilies and Sundance ring. Wedding set for August, I wouldn't miss it.