Miniature Wonders

Lift up your hearts!

Today, a post in honor of our grand, healthy, newest love — the aptly named Eliza Joy. Congratulations Danielle and Jordan! We are dancing for you!

So folks, Ireland. What can we say? Not much. Too exhausted. But briefly...

My college (and soon to be grad school) roommate R and I are hiking the Wicklow Mountains. We have just completed our second of three days. Today, 14 miles and 1900 feet of ascent. Not bad.

But for all the big views, what makes Ireland feel like Ireland is the micro scenery: peaks into mossy groves; water trickling over rocks; sun sparking on schist, crumbling beneath your feet; and grass in as many shades of green as you care to count. It makes you feel like a leprechaun could show up at any second. Magical, mystical, fairy tale. This is a very special place.

Loves, raise your glass of Guinness. Here's to the miniature wonders of the world!

Whales and Harbors

When I returned to Paris from Taize– just for one day, before I set off again to the south–M and I discussed young people and old people.

He explained what a priest had once told him. That young people are like whales in the ocean. They move a lot of water. You can hear their cries from miles away. They are an enormous presence, they cross oceans, they move in groups. They are entire ecosystems unto themselves. (I don't know if the priest said that last part but I think it's true.)

But whales, for all their motion, need harbors. Places they can come back to, that don't move. Safe places. M said, older people can be like harbors for young people.

Whales and harbors.

After turning around in Paris, I spent three days this week in Dordogne visiting M and B, friends of my parents. They live in a hamlet, a small group of houses in the middle of French countryside. The region (and most of France I think) is organized by small villages each about a day's walk from each other.

Every village has a church, a town hall, some have small schools.

The region is covered in forest and agriculture. There are layers and layers of history to be found– prehistoric caves next to 16th century churches built on medieval ruins, etc. The churches are amazing, each one beautiful and different in its own way.

M and B got a kick out of showing me around their favorite places, and I was very happy to be shown. They keep a garden, flowers and fruit trees. Each breakfast we had B's freshly made jam with fig bread and coffee. A homegrown and homemade kind of place.

Then back to Paris for my last three nights. I have been lucky that two good friends from home are also here, so it has been wonderful to connect with them and enjoy the city. We mostly wandered by foot and stopped to eat as often as we could justify.

And of course, I spent time with the lovely M and V and their daughters, being comfortable in their home, laughing at everything and anything. Their way of speaking to each other reminds me of a sitcom. (It helps that I don't understand French.)

As M drove me to the airport this morning before 5am, I shared my realization with him that he is a harbor for a lot of people, not just his own daughters. Yes, he said, for priests and artists and Spitzes too.

So I said, eeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooouuuuuaaaaaeeeeeoooooaoaaaaaeeeeeoooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh!

Which is whale-speak for "thank you."

With my Work (in Kenya) and Staying With Friends (in Uganda and France) chapters now complete, I am now entering the Purely Tourist chapter. This enormous fish has just arrived in Ireland.

To you and yours, friends– the time is going to fly, and soon we will see each other again!

PSA #4-6

4. When making a train transfer, please pay attention both to the platform AND the exact departure time. Or else, friend, you will realize in a few stops that you are not headed to Paris as planned.

5. If you ARE taking the scenic route, it would be convenient if there is also a national train strike going. Because: you will fit in with your confusion; It is unlikely someone will ask for your ticket; Being extremely late is now in fashion.

6. In such cases it is advisable that you purchase a baguette sandwich as soon as possible, to heighten your enjoyment of "the ride."

Taizé, Part Two

Loves,

Here is part of a letter I wrote during this past week in silence. The week, in short, was boring, a bit maddening, and profound.

Enjoy.

...

I'm writing on my fourth of five full days of silence. We are about 15 girls altogether, living in a beautiful old house with an enormous garden in the tidy French countryside.

It has been a week to send my best friend Skepticism away on vacation. A week to suspend disbelief, and fall into a world of faith.

The most challenging part has been not lack of communication (maybe because I've broken that rule) but lack of mental distraction. No music, podcasts, books, nothing to pull me out of the present moment. That's the thing. The silence is supposed to be internal.

But quiet is rarely ever quiet. It's more a chance for the shy feelings in me to come out and have their say - the ones I usually drown out with Beyonce. (Bless her.)

What I've been feeling is longing. For Tiffany. For my love. For my future.

In think in some way, we are all longing, that it's part of being human. Longing for people, for places, for futures, but most of all longing to be loved.

I think God is in the longing.

Not that one necessarily longs for God— but that as we long, God is there.

There is a song here that goes, "I am sure I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." I find that one very hard to sing. It reminds me of the reception center in Kakuma.

It's not that there was no hope or goodness there, but I didn't sense God in the goodness. I sensed God in the desperation.

At the moment there are hundreds of German teenagers in Taizé for essentially a week of bible camp. (Lord help us.) Too many of the girls appear unhealthily skinny. I saw one girl in short shorts with straight scars in rows up her thigh. There is desperation here too.

It reminds me of Jesus showing his scars to the disciples, to prove that he was the same person who had suffered and died on the cross.

What matters is not that God is good.

But that God is God.

Which somehow feels like something I can hold onto. It's enough.

Even when Skepticism comes back from holiday, refreshed and rejuvenated- it will still be enough.

I have one and a half days of silence to go, so if Jesus comes to me in a ray of light, or if any woodland creatures start talking to me, I'll be sure to let you know.

...

There were no woodland creatures.

This morning we broke silence - it was really fun to finally learn the names of the girls in the house, who I had come to know as "the one with the beautiful soprano voice" or "the one who doesn't eat cheese." I learned that I was "the one who laughs out loud during bible study."

Now - onward. Back to Paris then to the Southwest for a few days. Yet another chapter of travels waits ahead!

Taizé, Part One

Friends,

It's been one week in Taizé and I'm already losing words. You would think that spending hours each day in song, silence and reflection would give rise to beautiful formulated thoughts. But at least so far, this has been a time of unwinding, undoing, unthinking. Letting words fall away.

In prayer, I try to focus on listening to the soundscape surrounding me, whether it be a chorus of sniffles and coughs or wind in the trees. I learned in high school choir to listen to the group as a whole rather than only my voice or section. I'm finding that philosophy applies to any moment when I have the wherewithal to pay attention.

In more concrete terms, my week at Taizé has consisted of attending morning, midday and evening services, a daily chore, a bible study with one of the brothers, eating, walking, hiking, running, and getting to know people here from around the world. The schedule is simple, the place is clean, the scenery is beautiful, and the people are friendly.

It's a place just to be for a while. To remember that every moment is a gift.

This coming week I will be in silence, staying with the sisters in the next town over. I'm hoping I will be a good time to process this journey that is suddenly mostly over. How did that happen?

Until soon loves.

From South to West

The train station at terminal two of Charles de Gaulles buzzes with efficiency and self-sufficiency. The schedule is on the board. The tickets are at self-serve kiosks. Figure it out, move quickly, don't ask questions. But if you must, ask the man at the information booth.

When I went to the information booth, of course, the man rolled his eyes when I started with "How are you?" Maybe I should have asked, "Where are we?"

Contrast this train station to the bus park in Kampala, where I arrived with  D four days ago to get a ride to Fort Portal in western Uganda.

Downtown Kampala, crammed with people and public taxis and trucks spewing smoke. I mean crammed. Every inch of space is fair game for the next person or object who cares to squeeze into it. I follow D as we weave through crowds, him often grabbing me as we cross the street to be sure I stay out of the path of motorcycles. As we near the bus park, three or four men hurriedly approach to guide us to their respective companies. D has an exchange with one—at the time I think he's telling the man to leave us alone, but he's actually agreed for us follow him.

We head in. I hold on. Buses are parked tightly next to each other, a mere one or two feet between, enough for one person to pass through and board the bus.

Once on board, the aisle is packed, if not with passengers getting on and off, then vendors hawking watches, socks, toys, electronics, drinks, snacks, and full meals on plastic plates.

The bus does not have a schedule. It will leave when every seat is full. We wait for an hour before heading out.

Kampala's bus park is chaotic, unnavigable without my companion. The place demands intuition, dependency on friends and strangers.

In Charles de Gaulles, you could be a robot and find your way without a hitch. In fact, I doubt people would notice a robot getting on the train as long as it didn't bother anyone.

Friends, I have arrived in the land of earbuds and wifi and automatically flushing toilets. People relate to their gadgets, to maps, to systems. You do you, I'll do me over here. Mind your own business.

Uganda is relational. Your business is my business is our business is his business over there. We are in this together.

This comes with a sense of moral imperative, too. Mob justice and sweeping social policies. I once heard an argument break out on a public taxi, about whether the passengers wanted to squeeze in more people and each pay a lower price. Eventually one woman turned to another and said, "You are the source of conflict here. Get out." She did.

Despite their differences, both places work. People get where they want to go. The man at the information booth in Charles de Gaulles let me know that I had been trying to swipe my receipt rather than my ticket. Ah yes. Thank you, I'm on my way. To Paris.

Paris!

Please don't get me wrong.

All of my culture shocked griping aside, I love Paris. Really. Wow. Although I'm not sure if I was more excited about eating a croissant or drinking tap water. It's going to take a while for this all to sink in.

Just two hours after my plane landed, I walked up to the door of V and M, family friends who are kindly hosting me as home base for the next three weeks. M is an artist who became friends with my mom at business school in Chicago many years ago. He and V have four daughters. They live in a beautiful home.

V fed me breakfast, helped me get a SIM card, showed me where to get my hair cut, taught me how to use the laundry machine. I sauntered around in the one clean piece of clothing I had—a dress that was too short to wear in Uganda. In a house full of petit French women, V lent me the biggest sweatshirt she could find to keep me warm.

I have arrived.

I am on my way.

I am writing from the train—a very fast, clean train that left on time—eating the last peanuts from a bag that D and I bought for the bus ride back to Kampala, after two days of hiking and dancing and marveling at sunsets in Fort Portal.

This train is taking me to Macon Loche, where I board a bus to Taizé - a Christian community where I will spend the next two weeks. If you read about it on Wikipedia you will know more than me. All I expect is that I will be spending a lot of time singing and praying.

Which leads me to a last thought - an anecdote that has stuck with me for the past few weeks.

Someone asked Mother Theresa what she says when she prays to God. She said, "I listen." Then, she was asked, what does God say?

"God listens."

Thank you for listening to me, loves. Here's to our open ears and minds and hearts. On we go.

*note this was posted a day after it was written!

Aesthetically Speaking: Budondo

Friends, this is overdue. Blame it on a lack of wifi in the past three weeks. I write today from Paris, but Paris will have to wait. First, Budondo.

In the past I have obsessed over finding purpose for my trips to the village. Research, workshops, discussion, whatever justified the time. This trip was different. I had little to no agenda and relaxed into the day to day with the family. Moments between moments. Time moved slowly but the days flew by.

Budondo is a tiny corner of the world, and yet a world within itself.

Bukoko, baby chicks, picking for bits of food around the front yard, sleeping in heaps in the smoky kitchen after dark, running over my bare feet screaming chio chio chio!;

Impassible sugarcane fields, thick gardens of bananas, vegetables and wildflowers, sweet potatoes growing in neatly lined heaps of dirt, passion fruit seedlings creeping up banana fiber ropes;

Water warmed over wood fires, mixed with cool water in a plastic bin for your shower, splashed with your hands over your shoulders, stomach, knees, hair, feet, in that order;

Squat toilets, cleaned meticulously, daily, smelling fresh, haunted by the occasional lonely fly. Look up and spot the biggest spider you've ever seen, who diligently keeps the pests away;

Drinking and cooking water pumped and hefted home in jerrycans from the nearby borehole. Note that yours truly has set a personal record of carrying two 3/4-full cans in one go;

Clothes washed by hand in plastic bins with bubbly detergent and bar soap. Scrub twice, rinse once. 

Fabric on fabric. Let the boys clean the towels and the jeans, tough on the hands. With enough sun, it's all dry by evening;

Early morning runs around the village, followed by pointing and screams of children, Mzungu Mzungu, white person white person!;

Morning greetings followed by humming call and response: "wasuzeotia sebo, bulungi, kale, wena wasuzeoyia nyabo, bulungi, kale, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm...";

"Alikuega lusoga". Yes, I'm learning lusoga. "Eeeeeh benange, my god...";

Schedules follow meals and weather rather than clocks. For instance: "We will go after we take breakfast, which is after we fetch fresh chapati, which is after the chapati making lady finishes 10 pieces, but it's raining this morning so she started late. So maybe we'll go after lunch";

When it rains, it roars. Tin roof turns deafening. In my room, mice nest in the rafters. Mornings after the rain I find a baby fallen on the floor, to take outside and throw into the banana plants. Sad day, but that's life;

Mama and Betty cook on three stones over a wood fire in a closed room. I love to sit, listen, chop veg and laugh along, but when the smoke gets too much I have to leave;

Sometime I just sit close by and touch my hand to mama's shoulder, to show I'm paying attention and appreciating;

Tea with every meal. And when I'm lucky, hot, fresh, whole milk boiled with ginger. With a spoonful of sukali, sugar;

For breakfast lunch or dinner, matoke, mutiere, cassava, posho, beef stew, beans, eggs, greens, cabbage. Served with hot sauce, my personal contribution to the meal;

Evening stories from Mukisa, Dad, whose every thought is animated with a smile, punctuated first with "Ah ha! You see:" and concluded with a sigh, a chuckle... then "Yes";

The night still with crickets and wind blowing in the sugarcane, every bed creak and footstep echoing, then before I know it the rooster crowing, then dishes clanging, and voices murmuring. Morning;

And more and more and more.