"Joy is a net of love...

...with which we can catch souls."

One of my favorite quotes by Mother Teresa, which I wrote down in my quote journal at least five years ago. But seeing it written on a chalkboard that's being hung up by a Missionary of Charity Sister at the Mama T-founded House for the Destitute & Dying is a WHOLE different story.

Today was another amazing, humbling experience, guys. Since we only had one day in Calcutta, we tried to fit a lot in. We started off "touring" a Hindu temple, where we had to take off our shoes, received red dot blessings on our foreheads & were handed lots of red flowers for praying, were shown the goat sacrifice area (with a goat waiting in line & blood pouring down the drain (sorry if that's too graphic!)), etc. Like Eric said, even if he could have taken a picture (no cameras allowed!), no pictures could describe this incredible cultural experience...we're both still processing it...

especially because that was immediately (i.e. next door) followed by another intense experience, visiting Mother Teresa's House for the Destitute & Dying. Hard, hard, hard. It's right in your face the moment you step in, beds everywhere, people with bandages on the backs of their heads, casts, super skinny, etc. It was really hard, but inspiring to see a huge diversity of volunteers helping out.

We also got to go to the Mother House, where the sisters live & where M.T.'s tomb is. Just resting & praying there (esp. as a quiet refuge from a really crazy city!) was wonderful & peaceful. And we walked through an exhibit that had her life story posted, & cool personal items, like her last handbag, last pair of shoes, several of her writings, including a journal entry on who Jesus is to her (about 25 descriptions on her list...it was like I could FEEL how much love she had for Jesus ("I am His & He is mine"..."I am for Jesus & only Jesus," etc.) & her work with the poor. Seriously. SO inspiring!)

Definitely a life-marker to be able to do all of these things. We're so lucky.

India itinerary

Ok, I lied. This is the for real last post from Africa. We're at a ridiculously cheap internet place right now (50 Kenya cents/min = 35 US cents/hour), so I figured I might as well post our itinerary for the next 19days in India, so yall can keep tabs on us till we get back to the US in mid-December. Here it is so far: (SUPER subject to change)

Nov. 27
Arrive Mumbai, 5am
Flight (SpiceJet) to Calcutta, 2pm

Nov. 28
Walk around Calcutta, visit Mother Theresa's house
Train to Darjeeling

Nov. 29
Sunrise view of the Himalayas
Walk around Darjeeling (Tea, Tibetan refugee center, Buddhist temples)

Nov. 30
Darjeeling to Cherrapunjee (the wettest place on earth)
Walk through a rubber tree forest

Dec. 1
Cherrapunjee to Nepal border

Dec. 2
Kathmandu

Dec. 3
Kathmandu
Daytrip to see Mt. Everest?

Dec. 4
Kathmandu to Varanasi

Dec. 5
Varanasi, one of the holiest Hindu cities
Morning boatride on the Ganges River to watch people pray near the river

Dec. 6
Daytrip to Gaya, the "Vatican of Buddhism" with temples from all major Buddhist countries (I made up the thing about the Vatican...)

Dec. 7
Varanasi to Delhi (SpiceJet - $25!)
Delhi to Dharamsala

Dec. 8
Sangla Valley
Tour of traditional himalayan villages

Dec. 9
Sangla Valley

Dec. 10
McLeod Ganj - home of the Dalai Lama
Himalayan International Festival

Dec. 11
McLeod Ganj

Dec. 12
Amristar (Pakistan Border)

Dec. 13
Agra - Taj Mahal

Dec. 14
Delhi

Dec. 15
Delhi - Moscow - Atlanta!!

Last post from Africa!

It's so bittersweet, but tomorrow afternoon we're leaving Africa. We're in Nairobi now, after a 2-day overland haul from Dar (16hrs on a bus and 2 matatus). Our time in Zanzibar was unforgettable, and the trip back wasn't too taxing (plus I got this awesome sunset shot of Kilimanjaro before we arrived in Arusha last night). This evening we're just relaxing, hoping to meet up with a few friends we know here in town but otherwise planning our India trip and soaking up the last moments of acacia trees, ugali, and Tusker.

We'll miss you, Africa.

Our Thanksgiving: the beach and seafood

Meg and I spent probably the most relaxing Thanksgiving of our lives (no offense to our families) yesterday relaxing on beach, looking out at the beautiful turquoise colored sea, and feeling the cool breeze of the Indian Ocean blowing on our faces. For awhile, we didn't even know if it was Thanksgiving... we knew it was always on a Thursday, but the last or 2nd to last one... we didn't know! So just in case, we thought about what we were thankful for, and thought about our families at home celebrating the traditional way.

Wrapping up our time in Uganda

We're down to hours folks.

We're flying out of Entebbe tomorrow morning at 10:20am, heading to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar for about 5 days on the beach (yeah, I know....) and checking out a few contacts for crafts along the way. After next week, we'll be making the 11+ hour bus ride up to Nairobi, where we fly out for Mumbai and points east on the 26th.

On an interesting note, we're flying Air Uganda to Dar, which was just launched for the first commercial flight on Thursday (tomorrow is day 4!). We'll give you a review of our experience on Uganda's new national airline when we arrive in Dar. I'm sure everything will go fine (the guy I bought our tickets from told me so!), and the woman that helped us get the 50% off promotional fare (yes, 50% off!) remembered Megan's name when we came back to purchase, so we already have a nice family-run feel about things.

In about a half-hour we're also conducting our first Connect-related job interview, to hopefully find a coordinating and shipping agent based in Kampala that can perform as a Megan-and-Eric-stand-in here in Uganda indefinitely. We're so excited!

Signing off from Uganda-
Peace and Thanksgiving blessings to all.
Eric

Top 10 Moments in Africa

If you would've asked me a year ago if I'd be writing a "Top 10 Africa Memories" list on Nov. 11th, 2007, I would've slapped you in the face! Or maybe just said "No I won't." But whattya know, here we are, nearly at the end of our 3-ish months in Africa. Our favorite times here are a-plenty; we won't bore you with those (for now :)). Instead, here are 10 times--some specific moments/days, some consistent happenings that count, we think, as one--that won't be leaving our memories! Of course, no particular order. Enjoy!

1. Total Oprah moment. Being surrounded by 50+ 6/7/8 year old school kids, grabbing our hands & singing a song for us.
2. On our 2nd day in Uganda, seeing a national performance group, the Ndere Troupe, and dancing on stage at the end, with people from all over the world.
3. We both got to go to my first women's group discussion. Afterwards, the women did a traditional song & dance for us...a very different, authentic feel compared to the stage performance of #2.
4. Having dinner with Hanifah (formerly known to us as Hatifah...sorry!) and her family, and picking out our first set of Connect goods afterwards! Their gratefulness was man, just beautiful.
5. When we were on the dhow in Lamu, and neither of us had bathing suits on, we asked if the boat could drive us closer to the shore. Not wanting to be viewed as lazy Americans (termed here as "fat Wisconsinians"), Eric noted that this instance definitely landed us in that category and I found it pretty hilarious...and still do. Every time.
6. The recent wedding-cake-cutting escapade. Did that really happen??? (Scroll down a bit if you don't know about this one). HILARIOUS.
7. Spending time with, and often imitating, Gabula, one of our favorite friends here; he is a VERY competitive card player and a big fan of beginning his comments to me with, "Madame Megan..." in his very Gabula-ized Ugandan accent.
8. Seeing the chimpanzees in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
9. Daphine, Esther's daughter, looks away any time we say her name, look at her when she's following us, or simply acknowledge that she exists. Apparently she thinks this makes her invisible...we don't mind; it's super cute & funny!
10. Last but not least (although this will be least missed), when attempting to order at a restaurant, we always have to ask what they have, instead of just assuming they have what's on the menu (why would they do that?)...this has saved us ungodly amounts of time from having to say, "I'll have the egg sandwich. Oh, no? The pumpkin and vegetables? Oh, not that either? Okay, rice and beans, please. Matooke then. Matooke and beans is fine."

it's almost that time...

So, we've grudgingly set our exit date from Uganda - next Tuesday Nov 13. It's come SO fast... and so hard to believe. We've learned and experienced so much in our short 10 weeks... I'm smiling just thinking about it all! We've been drafting a "best memories" post that we'll share soon!

A Prayer

I feel blessed. Very blessed, by the green grass, by the soft rain drops, by the dirt road, by the mothers and their babies, by the endless fields of bananas, by the fog, by the earth itself. And those songs - hearing the women, children, aand men singing - singing loudly, with their hearts. The drum beats, the clapping, the harmonization, the joy of forgetting what's outside and being thankful for now. The smiles of belonging to a community. In one glance, seeing children, innocent, blue clouds and green banana trees outside, the red dirt road - sticky with lifegiving rains. And us here, not you and me, but us, on simple wooden benches in this simple building giving thanks for life.

C-O-N-N-E-C-T, find out what it means to me...er...us!

As many of you know, Eric and I are both big fans of fair trade. When we came to Africa, we began to discover a HUGE array of beautiful Ugandan/Kenyan/everythingAfrican crafts, and were hoping to somehow link folks up with fair trade programs in the U.S. We had no idea, at that time, that the owners of that fair trade program would be us (us in the U.S., selling U.S. (Ugandan Stuff), that is).

That's right...we've decided to pursue opening a non-profit fair trade store in none other than New Orleans! You also may know that we've been through about a hundred different plans at this point, but we're thinking (and hoping, funds-pending) that this one's the real deal! We're in touch with lots of artisans (those are easy to find in these parts), an email account, lots of contacts, and a potential sponsor in Millennium Villages. It's coming along!

The name of it is/will be Connect. Connect with the artisan(s), connect with the owners/workers, connect with Africa, connect the struggles in Africa to those in New Orleans, connect with local (N.O./NY/my sister) artists...in a disconnected world, let's connect. You get the picture.

The birth of this idea was on October 5th (perhaps over pizza & beer in Kampala ;)), and it has been growing ever since (you should see it crawl; and it's starting college in December (that's a bit ahead of Harper, right Julia?!)).

Anyway, we're both really excited about this & wanted to share in that with you. We'll keep you "posted!"

Update: an article was recently published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on the emergence of local fair trade stores. Sounds like a great time to join in on the fun!

Our First Wedding Cake!

It's not what you think. It's hard to believe it happened. And it's pretty freaking ridiculous.

Saturday afternoon, we were excited to dress up (which meant a skirt-turned dress for me & a tucked-in shirt and belt for Eric) & make the 5 minute trek over to Esther's house. Her brother was getting married...a cultural experience we had not partaken in yet.

So we go around 4:00 (1 hour past the original invite time of 3:00; we had been told to wait a while as people weren't showing up yet). We get seated, of course, in special chairs...almost everyone else sitting in benches. We get brought local porridge (Eric's description of it as "warm puke" was unfortunately fitting) in ceramic mugs, everyone else's plastic, and eat dinner amidst the toilet-paper covered banana trees, serving as posts to hold up the tent (coffee-drying fabrics), subtle African grooves playing in the background. It looked beautiful & we were happy to be there; the only question was where are the bride & groom...

...a question that lingered on for about 4 hours. It was so odd to be celebrating this occasion without the guests of honor present. Well, around 8:00 they showed up, and walked around the tent to some not-so-subtle (to be honest, it never was) music. But wait a second, why does the bride look so sad? She never looked up, only at the ground, as they walked together. We even started to wonder if she was disabled because she really didn't seem like she knew what was going on, & it seemed that people were helping her walk. We had heard that her parents didn't approve of the marriage, so maybe she had been arguing/struggling to leave her house all day?



Well, that question had to remain unanswered for a while. In the meantime, we "muzungus" were thanked for being there (why we're VIPs is hard to understand), a goat was brought out to basically pay the dowery to the wife's family, and we were told that when the cake was cut, we were welcome to have some. Or so we thought.

The knife is brought out, the 3 cakes put onto plates, and in a blur Eric and I are placed on either side of the bride & groom (he by the groom and me by the bride..note the use of "bride" and "groom" as an indication that we don't even know their names). We are told to place our hands on theirs & help them cut the cake! WHAT???????!!!!!!!!!! I felt SOOOO bad b/c I was just CRACKING UP laughing~I couldn't help it! I kept looking at Eric & he just looked so confused. It was totally surreal...sad too b/c this all happened b/c we're white & they wanted to have us in their pictures, but just super super surreal & hilarious.

As for the bride, it turns out that she didn't want to be married, not at that time, not to that man. That is why she looked SOOO sad. Gosh, to know that hurts. The next day at church, I wondered how many women had that experience as their reality.

We had a lot of laughs, and the cake was good, but I'm not sure if this young woman tasted it.

Some recent photos (by some, I mean a lot!)

Ok, we apologize for not doing our photo-sharing duty lately... but here goes our attempt to make up for it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9877602@N04/



Also, there's a surprise involving something one of us happened to see but weren't supposed to in Rwanda... here's a hint:


More later.


Flickr photos are updated. And now time for "the great gorilla story of 2007", which is what I like to call it.

1961, 1963, 1969, 2151, 2177 (also, fyi, these numbers are just reminders for me of pictures I want to post... when blogger messes up and won't post pictures right! which is often... bear with me!)

Rwanda, un pays bel

Yes...it is such a beautiful country! I think we're safe to call it the "Florida of Africa," honestly. Apparently many countries have LOADED on the foreign aid in the past 13 years, as a consequence of their guilt from ignoring the 1994 genocide there. The roads are paved SO nicely (seriously like a well-paved road in the US), there are even guard rails on the sides of them, and it's very very clean, and there are palm trees planted on the medians in Kigali, the capital. It is also very mountainous, and people speak french there, which was just plain fun to TRY to speak with them!! One of the assistants at our hotel had a unique name too: Frank O. Fone. Neat, huh?!

Our main reason for going there was to go to the mountains in the west, where the gorillas live (also what Gorillas in the Mist was based off of, and where Diane Fossey's grave is). We decided not to track them this time around, as it is SUPER expensive, but we were going to just climb a mountain/volcano...much more feasible for our budget! Well, if you plan to do the same thing, two pieces of advice: bring enough money, and don't do it in the rainy season! I ended up having a relaxing day lounging around at our retreat center/hotel (which smelled like flowers everywhere!), meditating, reading, etc., and eric basically did the exact opposite, by spending almost 12 (instead of the expected 6) hours on a really really really muddy mountain. Craziness!

After our time there, we went to Kigali. It's probably my favorite big/capital city in Africa so far. very spread out, but surrounded by hills, and like I said, very clean. Just being there in itself was intense, wondering what it was like 13 years ago...if there were dead bodies on the road you're driving on, if the person you're talking with lost a family member/friend/neighbor/or was injured themselves. and the answer, more often than not, is likely yes. We went to the Kigali Memorial Center, which is devoted to honoring those affected by the genocide, which was interesting & heart-breaking & stomach-wrenching to learn more about. It is just unbelievable what happened, & the background leading up to it...believe it or not, the killing of 1 million people did NOT just come out of nowhere, as I thought before this weekend! If you have not seen Hotel Rwanda, please do...it gives a great account of the situation. we also saw The Hotel des Milles Colines, which the movie is based on. so hard to believe.

we also went to some craft shops & had pizza & coffee at "Bourbon Coffee" (yeah N.O.!), which was nice. Overall, I'm really thankful that we got to go there, to learn more about the situation and to honor the innocent people who have lived through something I'm not sure I could. Pray for peace.

You're not gonna believe this...

This weekend Meg and I took a short 2 1/2 day trip to Queen Elizabeth National Park, just about 2 hours northwest of Mbarara. The Queen herself will be visiting the park later this year for CHOGM - the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting that Uganda is hosting this year (signs everywhere - esp. in Kampala - "Are YOU ready for CHOGM?!?"). Apparently she plans to "dedicate" the park, a full 50 years after her first visit to Uganda as a young woman. Everyone is freaking out about her visit, and many a street, runway, or building from here to Kampala is in the process of renovation and touch-ups to make everything as beautiful as possible. It's led to a real boom in development around the country - although arguably only for middle and upper class Ugandans.

But anyway, the REAL point of my story is that we got to go see the national park of her namesake. And it was so worth it. By far the highlight of our trip was the opportunity to track chimpanzees in Chambura Gorge. I'll speak for both of us when I say that it was probably one of the wildlife highlights of my life (our lives)... we got to see two males, and the video below speaks for itself.



The human resemblence, watching them in the wild - scratching their arms and looking right at you - is unbelievable. I'm so lucky and thankful for this experience!

Update: Sox win WS!!

ALCS Game 7 Tonight...
Man, I can't stand it. Somehow I HAVE to watch Red Sox-Indians tonight... probably though it will be the archived version on MLB.TV, so PLEASE(!) no one tell me who won till I say it's ok!!!!


Update:
Sox win game 7!!! Although the game was much closer than the score... the Sox pretty much cleaned house over the last 3 games. I got to watch the game on our friend Anthony's satellite TV - ESPN carried the game on MLB International - with Rick Sutcliffe and Dave O'Brien announcing. A far cry from Joe Buck - and they paused several times during the game to explain baseball rules, etc. - but it was nice to watch a real baseball game on a real TV. Totally worth waking up at 3am for!

So the Red Sox will be playing the Rockies, starting Wednesday, in the World Series. First game: Fenway Park. It should be a great series, with the Rockies as hot as any team could be, and the Red Sox with lots of playoff experience. Can't wait!

Update:
Sox win the World Series!! Meg and I were gone in Rwanda the whole weekend, so I didn't get to see any of the games, but just reading the game recaps, looks pretty familiar to 2004 when the Sox used my Cardinals as a speedbump on their way to their first WS in 86 years. This time, it was the Rockies. Different team, same outcome. Congrats to the Sox... I bet Amherst is going crazy right now (along with the rest of New England!!) I'd be wearing my Schilling T-shirt today if it was here with me!

The Rockies are going to the World Series!

From the AP, about 6 minutes ago...:

Rockies beat Arizona 6-4 to sweep NLCS, Colorado heads to first World Series

Preview - Box Score - Recap

By ARNIE STAPLETON, AP Sports Writer
October 16, 2007

AP - Oct 16, 1:10 am EDT
More Photos



DENVER (AP) -- Riding a Rocky Mountain High like none other, Colorado is heading to its first World Series.

With their 21st win in 22 games, the relentless Rockies beat the rattled Arizona Diamondbacks 6-4 Monday night to sweep the NL championship series at a chilly Coors Field.

Matt Holliday's three-run, 452-foot shot into the pine-filled rock pile in center field capped a six-run outburst in the fourth inning, and the Rockies were on their way.

To where, they have a record eight days' rest before opening the World Series at either Cleveland or Boston on Oct. 24. The Indians lead the ALCS 2-1.

The wild-card Rockies joined the 1976 Big Red Machine as the only teams to start a postseason with seven straight wins. Colorado has won 10 in row overall and lost only once since Sept. 16.

Just one strike away from postseason elimination on the final weekend of the season, the Rockies have become a charmed team that seemingly cannot lose.

Colorado had never won more than 83 games before going 90-73 this season and sneaking into the playoffs with a 9-8, 13-inning win over San Diego in the wild-card tiebreaker. After sweeping Philadelphia in the first round of the playoffs, the Rockies put a purple pummeling on a D-backs club that led the league with 90 victories.

Oh yeah!