You can learn things from small children. I was an ear witness to the following:
Them1: I promise you it works.
Them2: I don’t think it can, but it would be SO cool if it did.
Them1: I promise you I tried it and it works.
Me: What works?
Them1: If you drink a Coke really fast and hold your burp until it hurts, it will be three times louder than normal.
Me: How do you know?
Them1: I have...
I like to walk in the mornings. We are in a very rural area of Africa, so I get to see all varieties of birds and animals, including monkeys and baboons. I have learned proper baboon etiquette, which I am sure will be useful the next time you run across one.
First of all, it is unusual to run across one baboon at a time. Baboons travel in families, or packs. When I am walking, I usually notice a branch in...
This wasn’t an easy move this time. It is one thing to go to Africa for one year, and rent out your house to one of your best friends, and come back to the same neighborhood and same church and same friends.
It’s another thing to leave a house you love, a church you cherished, friends and neighbors who have been so part of your life, a great job, good income and stuff.
Some stuff you are anxious to get rid of....
The last day of school started interestingly. Two little girls asked me to help them get a foot long lizard out of a tree because they wanted him for a pet. I couldn’t reach him, so I put one of the girls on my shoulders and she got him. As she was getting him, we had the following conversation:
Me: Do you have him yet?
Her: I’m so close.
Me: Do you have him yet?
Her: Oops.
Me: What do you mean?
Her: I had him...
I am doing a really bad thing this week, and I can’t quite get myself to stop.
This is alumni week, and grads of RVA are coming from all over the world to come back to campus for a week. There is really quite an attachment between the students and this place, and it is easy to tell who is an alum.
I can’t stop finding out names of alums, and then going over and saying `MIKE! How the heck are you?...
How do you sum up a year like this?
I don’t even know where to start! In some ways, I feel like a teenage boy who grew 8 inches in one year and nothing fits anymore. I’ve seen so much that I’ve never seen before. I’ve done so many things that I’ve never done before and some that I didn’t think I could do. I’ve changed some of my ideas about myself, my family, my country, the world and God. So...
Many of the children at the hospital have their mothers stay in the room with them. And African culture is much different than American culture in many ways, but perhaps in no way more different than breast-feeding.
My experience with many African women is that they think nothing of having a conversation with you, and in the midst of that conversation, drop their blouse and began feeding their child. And that is fine; I am grateful for the differences in cultures.
But...
Did you ever have a dream that you didn’t even know you had until it came true? When I was in high school, I had a gym teacher who began every class period with the phrase `Line up maggots!’
RVA is a kind of place where you might be asked to do different things at different times. As our time here draws to an end, I have come to a place where I have been asked to use my special skills...
