the middle

With this post I hope to launch a third season of this blog. When it first began in 2006, I had just quit my full-time job to become a freelance photographer and writer. I was headed to Uganda for two months and wanted to keep in touch with family and friends. Two years later I picked up where I’d left off, this time newly engaged, arriving in Rwanda for a three-year stint. But as time went on, between motherhood and moving continents and my father’s death, the blog fell by the wayside.

Uganda 2006

Rwanda 2008

For a while I’ve been thinking of returning to my writing, starting to put down on “paper” once again the thoughts, dreams, ideas, questions running through my head. What new adventure has prompted the desire this time? There isn’t one. Which seems appropriate given the fact that I don’t feel like I’m at the beginning of anything. In fact, I feel like I’m right smack-dab in the middle. Of everything. I will turn 40 in four months. The very definition of mid-life. My days consist of work and meals and bedtimes and gymnastics lessons and travel and friends and laughter and tears and anger and contentment. Some days seem like such a fabulous adventure and others are very very ordinary. But most days are somewhere in the middle of all these things. A big messy mix.

The hardest part

After years away from it, I started running again about a year ago. I decided to run a 10K with a friend and then realized I should probably do some training, since even back in the day when I did run, I was a sprinter and thought a 5K was a long way. So I started training. Sometimes I barely had time to squeeze in two miles, but other days I started increasing my distance. Four miles. Five miles. Six miles.

Victorious with my dear friend Jen
who inspired me to start running again.

And I noticed something. I hated the middle. If I planned to run two miles, the one-mile mark was miserable. If I was running five miles, I started to feel like life was over around two and a half. If I was running the full 10K distance, I was ready to give up at the 5K mark. No matter the distance the middle was just hard. Too far along to go back, not far enough along to see the finish line. So easy to get lost or give up or question myself or change my mind. And clearly I’m not just describing running anymore. I’m talking about life.

Years ago, I heard someone say, “Life is good, but life is also hard. And the truth is most of us live somewhere in the middle.” By turns I find this statement comforting and infuriating. But always I find it true. Sometimes the middle feels like a balanced, ideal place to be. Not too complacent but not too extreme either. Other days the middle feels so hard, not to say hopeless.

So here I am, friends, somewhere in the middle. Some days victoriously moving “further up and further in”, other days wandering lost or sitting down in a huff refusing to go on.

"The story of who I am"

Given my in-the-middle-of-everything existence at the moment, this space is bound to be a little all over the place. That messy mix I mentioned earlier means that some days I’m passionate about my work, about the world, about the “important things” while others I just want to spend the day on Pinterest and Facebook. Some days I am all about my newest DIY project while others I feel like I can barely get out of bed. Sometimes I am super mom, somehow having plenty of time to do crafts and play games with my children while still getting a healthy, delicious meal on the table. While other days require lots of TV time as I grit my teeth waiting for bedtime to come.

I have always written about where I am, whether Uganda or Rwanda – or somewhere in the middle of all this. Why am I planning to drag people through it with me? I guess I hope there are others who can commiserate – er, I mean relate. I think it is sometimes comforting to know we are not alone as we stumble along.

But I also have a somewhat selfish motivation. Brandi Carlile’s song, “The Story,” is among my very favorites. It begins: “All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am. So many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am.” As 40 looms and more lines appear I embrace this idea. And I do love to tell a good story.

The main players in my story these days.
Photo credit: Allison Dubois Photography

And then the song says this: “But these stories don’t mean anything if you’ve got no one to tell them to.” I desperately believe as humans we were designed to be in community. William Nicholson, in his screenplay for “Shadowlands,” wrote this line for C S Lewis, “We read to know we are not alone.”

Maybe some of us also write to know we are not alone?

the long defeat

It has been 1 year, 3 months and 14 days since I last wrote something here. The last sentence I wrote was “I will do my best to update this blog again before June.” I didn’t say which June…

I could say that I’ve been so silent because I’ve been busy doing things like becoming a mother. But the silence probably has more to do with a year-long feeling of writer’s block. For someone who once wrote “I write because I can’t not write,” this dry spell has felt very long. I can’t say whether that spell is really over, but for today at least, I am back. This is going to get a bit long, but I want to ask you now to please stick with me to the end.

**************************

vivian. have you seen more amazing eyes?

I logged onto facebook today to find that a friend had posted this link: In Uganda, AIDS War is Falling Apart. This caught my attention immediately for two reasons. Not only is Uganda a country I know and dearly love, but I feel personally invested in the “AIDS War” in Uganda. Over the past 7 years, I’ve spent weeks at a time living with and loving and photographing the beautiful children at my friend Nathaniel’s incredible organization, Aidchild, and I’ve spent many hours interviewing and photographing brave and resilient families in Compassion International’s AIDS Initiative.

jack, one of my adorable friends from aidchild

According to the article’s author and the sources he quotes, there is little good news regarding AIDS in Uganda. While 200,000 are on treatments, there are 300,000 more who need treatment and can’t get it. The ABC (abstinence, be faithful, use a condom) prevention approach is, in their words, “flopping”. Globally, it is believed that 14 million people need treatment, while fewer than 4 million are receiving it.

I won’t rewrite the whole article here, but suffice to say that as I read I became increasingly discouraged. And then I came to the part that really scared me. In a nutshell, the author suggests that donors are giving up on the fight against AIDS. “Donors have decided … that more lives can be saved by concentrating on child-killers like stillbirth, pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles and tetanus.”

He goes on to state that President Obama’s administration, the British government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have all decided that they will focus their efforts on mother-child health, rather than the AIDS pandemic. Before I go on, let me say that I am all for globally focusing more attention on the health of mothers and children. Spend a few hours with mamas and babies in programs like Compassion’s Child Survival Program and you cannot deny a) the need or b) the incredible positive impact such interventions can make.

a mother and baby i met in a child survival program in uganda

But as I read, I thought, does it have to be either the AIDS crisis or mothers and children? Can’t it be both/and? Then came this quote from the author of one of the discouraging reports: “I think world leaders feel the heat is off [regarding the fight against AIDS] and they’re fatigued.”

That hit me hard. Especially that word “fatigued.” I understand fatigue. As the mother of a 6-month-old infant, I really understand fatigue.

I have been traveling to Africa for nine years and have lived here full time for two and a half. And the longer I’m here, the more often I seem to find myself feeling discouraged about the realities here. The long line of corrupt leaders, past and present, who stunt the continent’s growth and development. The wars. The abuses. The vast need that always outweighs the resources. The “if only they would listen to me, everything would be perfect” mentality of so many of us expats (and I do include myself here), wearing the titles we’ve given ourselves -- NGO/aid/development workers, missionaries, diplomats -- with arrogance and self-importance. Fearing the answers to the constant questions in the back of my mind: “Is this working? Is there really hope? Can things really change?”

abraham, whom i've watched grow up for the last 7 years

The fatigue doesn’t matter

So I understand this other kind of fatigue as well. The kind that isn't just physical but is emotional, spiritual. But then I think of Abraham and Vivian and Jack. Of Mary (not her real name) and her daughters. And the dozens of other names and faces of the incredible individuals I have spent time with over the past seven years, listening to their stories, playing games with the children in the late afternoon, admiring the roses that mothers so proudly planted. I love these people.

"mary" and her daughters

In the past I would have said these stories make the fatigue melt away. I don’t know if I can honestly say that now. I still feel the weariness. But I can say that these amazing people help me remember that the fatigue doesn’t matter. In the end, we shouldn’t have entered this war against AIDS because we thought we could win. We should be here because it is the right thing to do.

I have read and reread J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy numerous times through the years. There are points along the way as Frodo and Sam struggle to continue on their path to Mordor where I struggle to keep reading. The weariness, the sheer fatigue, the discouragement is so palpable that I have to take a break to catch my breath.

And I am always struck by the bittersweet realization that they are pushing on simply because it is the right thing to do. It is what they have been called to. So they keep going even though they have no idea whether they will make it. In fact, they keep going even though they’re pretty sure they won’t make it. And it is beautiful. And for me, in the end, the fact that they do make it is almost beside the point.

A shot in the arm

A personal hero of mine is Paul Farmer. He is a doctor who was responsible for practically eradicating tuberculosis in a rural area of Haiti when everyone said it could not happen. And now his organization Partners in Health is also doing a great work here in Rwanda. In the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, Farmer talks about the long road of bringing health care to the people and communities to whom he has dedicated his life.

“I have fought the long defeat,” he says, “and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don’t dislike victory.... We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat.”

(Only today, as I researched it again, did I realize that he uses this term “long defeat” in homage to The Lord of the Rings, where the phrase was coined. So perhaps it was reading about Paul Farmer that first connected these ideas in my own mind and I had just forgotten.)

Reading that article today, I realized that I have grown lazy. In recent years, the West has engaged in a love affair with Africa. Money and attention have poured this direction in an unprecedented way. Much of both the money and the attention have been aimed directly at the AIDS pandemic. Fighting AIDS in Africa became trendy. There are lots of famous faces and Beautiful People whose names have been tied to the cause. And perhaps some of the urgency I had felt in earlier years -- when it was so difficult to get people to pay attention, when no one seemed to care -- had gone. I got distracted and busy with other things.

But the time was bound to come when something else would grab the attention of the public. It is the nature of trends that they come and go and are replaced with something new. Sadly it seems like that day might be coming. So what happens then?

I have no idea how this “War on AIDS” will end. One of the reports from the article mentioned at the beginning of this post stated that it’s likely that “a major [AIDS] epidemic will still be with us in 2031.” And that is discouraging. Heavy. Fatiguing.

the beautiful diana

But you know what? Statistics and predictions don’t take into account my little friend Abraham, who was given 6 weeks to live about 9 years ago and today is a healthy, happy, energetic boy who excels in school. They don’t consider the fact that Mary’s two daughters should be orphans by now but instead still have a loving mother who can care for them. They don’t even take into consideration little Diana who enjoyed several years of health and happy childhood and love and life before she succumbed to the disease.

So I needed this shot in the arm today. To remind me that we can't stop. Friends, we can't give up because it's hard, or because we're tired. Or because we think someone else will or should take care of it. Or even because we think we might lose.

on salmon, geckos and not being a closer

Two trios: Since I did not get photos of the gecko or my dinner, I just decided to add a couple of favorite photos from my most recent visit to Uganda...

















We’ll start with the last one first. Yes, my name is Phoebe and I’m not a closer.

“Closer to what?” you ask. Or at least that is what I would be asking. There is a television show called “The Closer.” I don’t believe I’ve ever watched it on TV but I do sometimes see it on airplanes when the flight is long and there are no better options with which to pass the time. It’s a crime drama about a woman who is especially good at solving (or closing) cases that no one else can figure out.

I always get the feeling that the title is supposed to be quite dramatic and impressive, and yet every time I see it written somewhere, I think “closer to what?” and then realize, “Ohhhhh, The Clozer.” Which takes away from the intended impact a bit, I'm sure.

Anyway, whatever you think of the word, I am coming to the realization more and more that I am not one. In baseball (not that I’m by any means an expert) I think they give this title to the pitcher who finishes out the game. If I were a pitcher, I would not be this guy. I might be the one who starts out the game, or even the one who cleans up the mess of the one who starts out, when he’s having a bad day. But I would not be the closer.

I can easily and quickly complete 99% of almost any task. It’s that last one percent that nearly does me in. Take, for instance, this very blog. Two years ago the last entry I made was that I would be back with a last update "in the next few days." The next entry was when I was getting ready to move to Rwanda.

More recently, I turn to the example of unpacking my boxes. For those who may not have heard yet, my shipping container finally arrived in June and I have been having a wonderful time unpacking everything -- or at least most of it. I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 different items, boxes, bins, etc, to unpack. I sailed through the first 120 in record time in spite of interruptions like trips to Kenya, Ghana, and just plain old having to go to work. The final 20 have been sitting mostly untouched for over a week now.

It’s because I moved on to curtains. I had been collecting fabric from various countries during the months that I didn’t have anything in my house and once I had unpacked things like beds and the sofa and dishes and some decorations, I decided it was much more important (or should I say interesting) to do something about the faded peach drapes I’ve been living with since March.

The good news is that I’ve finished everything except the last two windows so I can now move on to the next project. You may think I’m joking, but already I’m beginning to rub my hands in anticipation of drilling holes in the walls as I look at all items propped on tables and against floorboards that need to be hung.

moving on to geckos

Geckos crack me up. They truly seem to believe that regardless of their color or where they're sitting, if they just sit still enough for long enough, no one/nothing will know they are there. In other words, all geckos believe they are chameleons.

It’s probably good that I had been traveling into warm climates for several years before moving here. Staying in many places where buildings are not sealed tight and doors and windows are often open and walls sometimes only go halfway up had long ago cured me of the mentality that only human beings and select, chosen pets should be allowed inside buildings.

For instance, there are these funny little worm-type creatures that continually find their way into the house. They like to curl themselves up sort of like those little roly bugs we played with as kids. The first couple times I did pause and think, “Hmm, I wonder what could be done about keeping those out of the house.” But 4.5 months and several dozen worms later, I just laugh at the various odd places I find them curled up.

(Before I pat myself on the back too many times I have to admit that there was a mouse who had decided to make himself at home in my kitchen a while back and no matter how many geckos and worms I'm willing to put up with, that was not okay with me.)

And then of course there are the geckos. Lest some of you are beginning to think twice about ever coming to visit me, be assured that neither the worms nor the geckos are overrunning the house. They’re just around, here and there. They say that geckos catch bugs, and so I don't mind a few of them running up and down the walls now and then.

Last night there was one in an upper corner of the dining room. He was especially small, and these I find particularly cute. He sat there for ages and ages and I got the distinct impression that he was humming to himself, “She can’t see me, she can’t see me, she can’t see me.” Finally he told me to turn on some music. Okay, not really but I sat watching him for long enough that I became very aware of the silence and said to him, “You’re right, we do need some music,” and turned it on.

and then there is the salmon

I was reading my friend Dara’s blog yesterday (by the way, she and I had a fun couple days wondering around Accra, Ghana, at the beginning of July) and she inspired me. It was an entry she had written a couple months ago, talking about the various things she has learned to cook and bake in rural Ghana with unusual ingredients and challenging cooking situations. It made me realize I had gotten into a rut with my cooking.

It's mostly because certain foods last longer. Cabbage and green beans, for instance, last a long tine. Since I moved here, I don’t believe I’ve ever thrown out green beans or cabbage because they spoiled. Avocados, on the other hand, one must eat within a couple of days. I don’t throw them out either, by the by, but I do suddenly find myself eating two or three in a day sometimes in order to keep from doing so. Thankfully I really love avocados so this isn't a big problem.

Because of my recurring travel during the last 6 months, these food facts have been driving my buying decisions, since I need food that holds up well. And last night I was feeling rather tired of everything I’ve been eating. I started rummaging around to see what new combination I might come up with and before I knew it had a regular gourmet meal for one in the works.

The menu? In fancy restaurantese: Salmon Cakes on a Bed of Steamed Cabbage with Toasted Gouda Crostini Bites Complemented by a Tree Tomato & Tonic Spritzer. In plain English, it was tasty.

When I was buying things for my shipping container my friend Erin encouraged me to get some canned salmon. I bought a few cans, but I will admit that I was a little skeptical. While I love fresh salmon, I wasn’t sure if canned salmon was something that would particularly excite me. Erin, I was wrong. After six months of no salmon at all, these little salmon cakes tonight were one of the nicest treats I’ve had since I got here.

And so, my friends, I ate happily in the company of my friend the gecko and finished 100%, while contemplating about 5 of the boxes that I haven’t gotten round to opening and admiring one of the windows that I did get round to making curtains for.


postscript--
In case anyone is interested in recreating my little meal, to the salmon I added egg, some crushed crackers that I can buy here that are sort of like soda crackers, garlic, dill, parsley and a touch of cayenne. Once they were formed into cakes I lightly coated them in flour so they would brown nicely in the olive oil. (I cooked them on very low heat so they would firm up a bit on the inside.)

For the greens, I sautéed a few onions in a bit of butter before adding the cabbage and steaming it till it was cooked but not limp.

The little “crostinis” were actually a plain white bread I can get here. It’s frankly dried out within a couple hours of getting it home, but it’s very cheap and I’ve noticed that it makes really nice toast, grilled cheese, etc. So I cut these into quarters, put a bit of butter on the under side and gouda on the top and very slowly toasted them in a covered pan so they would brown on the bottom while also melting the cheese (a locally made gouda is almost the only cheese you can find here...).

As for the tree tomatoes, I don’t know if you can get your hands on in North America. Which is too bad because they’re the most brilliant color inside and after a little pureeing with a hand blender and mixing them with tonic water, they made a beautiful drink and added nice color to an otherwise somewhat pale meal. If you happen to live in Ecuador, if I remember correctly tree tomatoes do grow there!

a few photos

Thought I'd share some favorite photos from my two recent trips to Kenya. Enjoy!













This may be my new favorite picture. Their smiles and laughter were amazing. During the week I was camping, I got to spend much of my time with these mamas as we worked together to prepare food for the group (I have never chopped so many vegetables in my life!). The middle one is called Jerusha, which is my middle name. When they discovered this, I ceased to be Phoebe and was Jerusha for the rest of the week.

the children








































































the masai mara








































For some reason, this trek into the Mara was marked by frequent cheetah viewings. I've never seen so many nor had them come so close to us. It was stunning:

hopefully you haven’t given up on me completely yet

The little girl whose family I met in rural Kenya (see more about their story below)

I can hardly believe it has been two full months since I last wrote. There has been so much going on! And the truth is that the more that happens, the more I procrastinate because I know it will take even longer to catch everyone up. And the longer I wait, the more there is to tell, etc. So that I’ve got myself in quite the vicious cycle.

Before I get so far behind that I give up all together, I shall try to let you know what has been happening.

First, Joe came! In addition to the fact that he is somewhat distracting for me anyway, it also meant I was out of the office, so no internet connection and no update. Then I spent the following week trying to catch up on all the work I didn’t do while I enjoyed Joe’s visit, while simultaneously attending meetings at Akagera, about 1.5 hours from Kigali. So no update.

Then I began a solid month of travel to Kenya, then Uganda, then back to Kenya, which resulted in my being home only 2 days between May 16 and June 15. I was helping to host visitors to these countries and was flung back into the 16-hour work days of my old tour leader schedule -- and so no update. For eight of those days, I was actually camping in rural Kenya with no electricity or running water, let alone internet. And so definitely no update.

Miraculously, one of the two days that I was home, my shipping container finally arrived. I won’t go into all the details here, but after I tagged along with my clearing agent for eight and a half hours, we were finally loading my things into a truck and driving them to my house!

In all, the journey of my container from Colorado to Kigali (via New York, India and Tanzania) took exactly 136 days. Upon my return from my second Kenya stay, I started unpacking boxes with the help of Baptiste and both of us have hardly stopped to take a breath since, except that sometimes I have to come into the office for work. And so again, no update.

Obviously, with all that’s been happening, there are so many things I could talk about -- and I will try to get some of those written down in the next few weeks. But for now I will settle for telling a few stories from several weeks ago that have stuck with me.

the love of mothers and children

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that most people have an interesting story if we can just be bothered to hear it. For certain, the majority of the people I work with here in Africa have incredible stories. Many come from very poor backgrounds -- which is partly why they have chosen to work with Compassion. In an area of the world where few things come easily, most have gone to amazing lengths to get to where they currently are.

Recently I heard the story of one of my female colleagues who grew up in rural Tanzania. She told of living with an abusive, alcoholic father. He became more and more violent until one day he repeatedly threatened that when the children’s mother came home, he was going to kill her. The daughter went quickly to find her mother, begging her not to come home.

The mother went into hiding and over the coming weeks, my friend quietly brought belongings to her -- once a shirt, another time a khanga (the multipurpose cloth worn by women throughout East Africa), first one shoe and then the other, so her father wouldn’t realize what she was doing. For some time they existed this way, until the father could finally be talked out of killing the mother.

We have worked together for several years but somehow I’d never known about this amazing woman’s past. As she told this story -- successful, happy, beautiful, intelligent -- I tried to picture her 20 years earlier, a young girl trying to keep her mother alive and safe.

Later that same day I was talking to one of my coworkers who lives here in Rwanda. Like many people here, he actually grew up outside Rwanda. Many families fled to Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Congo and Burundi starting at least as far back as the 1960s. The problems had begun long before the 1994 genocide.

This gentleman grew up in Uganda. I asked if he was born in Uganda and his answer was, “Somehow.” This is an expression people use to answer questions when they’re not really sure of the answer. Another friend was sitting with us -- also a Rwandan who grew up in Uganda -- and he laughed. “How can you be somehow born in Uganda?” he asked. “Don’t you know?”

As it turned out, the man didn’t know. “My family was escaping at the time,” he explained. “We were somewhere along the border when I was born. My parents don’t know which side we were on.” Again I found myself looking at this gentleman, trying to picture his 9-months-pregnant mother fleeing for her life and that of her unborn child, pausing along the way to give birth.

These stories amaze me. These individuals are my colleagues, my peers, my friends, my “age mates” as they say here. And these are the stories of their lives.

With these two stories still fresh in my mind I headed to Kenya. We visited several Compassion centers, including one in an area predominately settled by the Maasai people. With a small group, I visited the nearby home of a sponsored child.














All these people live together in the small home behind them. The girl on the left is now sponsored in Compassion's program and the family sleeps on mattresses for the first time in their lives.

In this tiny home live a grandmother, a mother and her three children, and the child of the woman’s oldest daughter. This daughter/young mother is perhaps 18 and has numerous health issues due to epilepsy. Her child, a little girl about 2 years old, is malnourished and small for her age. She was somewhat scared of me when I arrived but after a few minutes decided I was okay and raised her arms to be picked up. Light as a feather, I carried her around with me for the rest of our visit. Her mother was proud and pleased and would come and give me hugs from time to time.














The grandmother was especially friendly and happy to have us. Her great granddaughter is standing in the door of their home.














My little friend -- she was not sure what to think of me when we first arrived.

Finally it was time to leave and so I started to set the little girl down. Her mother began talking rapidly and gesturing. Even before the translator interpreted, I knew what she was saying. She was asking if I would take her daughter.

It is not the first time I’ve been asked to do this, and it is always heartbreaking. Though I would love to say yes almost every time, there are countless reasons why it’s not actually possible.

I explained that the little girl should stay with her mother, that the child would miss her too much. And all the time in the back of my mind, I was picturing what life has probably been like up to now. It was clear that this young mother loved her little girl -- and so I could only imagine how desperate she must feel in order to be willing to give the child up to a stranger.

The family’s situation has already improved in the brief time since the middle child (the sister of this young mother) was enrolled into Compassion’s program. They have mattresses to sleep on for the first time in their lives. They have a small garden from which they can feed themselves. The family is encouraged and hopeful.

I think of my friends with their incredible stories and know that it is possible that this tiny girl might also be sharing her own story one day, smiling and healthy and thriving. But I also know it will be a very long road.

you belong among the wildflowers

I spent last Saturday at Ngorongoro Crater in northern Tanzania and it was incredible. And even more incredible for me to think of was that this was my third visit to this amazing spot.

Hands down, among the biggest “perks” of my job are these kinds of opportunities. Some people enjoy company cars or airplanes, memberships at clubs or season passes to famous ski resorts as a result of their jobs. For me, because much of my work at Compassion has included hosting visitors to the countries where we work, I get to see some of the great sights our world has to offer.

I’ve gone fishing for piranhas on the Amazon, wandered through Mayan, Aztec and Incan ruins, seen the sights of world cities like Bangkok and Calcutta, rummaged through the stalls at dozens of interesting local markets, and seen the ocean from numerous beaches on both sides of Latin America, as well as in the Caribbean, Asia, and East and West Africa. Perhaps my favorite though, I’ve been able to see Africa’s animals up close and personal on several occasions. (On a day in 2005 after an especially close encounter with a cluster of giraffes, I returned to the hotel to find an email from my dad, who knew I was on safari, entitled “Have you kissed a giraffe?” I wrote back, “I didn’t, but I could have.”)

And I get to do all this in the name of work.

After a week of all-day meetings, as we headed to the Crater this time, I looked forward to the day with expectation, knowing how gorgeous that spot of earth is. But adding to my enjoyment was the fact that I had a special guest along this time -- my Compassion sponsored child, Godlisten. Fast approaching his 14th birthday now, Godlisten was just seven years old when he and I met on my first trip to Africa in 2001 a few weeks after I became his sponsor. We’ve managed to see each other a few times through the years, meeting for dinner or a day at a park or ice cream or, when all else failed, for a few minutes together at the Compassion office in Tanzania.



















Phoebe & Godlisten -- this is, if I remember correctly, our fifth visit together. Godlisten doesn't realize that most Compassion children never have an opportunity to meet their sponsor. For him, it's just normal for me to show up every 12-18 months.

A few years ago, Godlisten had gotten to spend a few hours on a short safari close to home that Compassion arranged for his entire student center, and in the intervening years at various points in his letters he had mentioned how much he liked seeing the animals of his homeland. So when I realized I had an opportunity to take him with me to the Crater, I jumped on it. Early as it was when we departed Arusha, Godlisten headed out on this new adventure with his big beautiful eyes wide open, ready not to miss a thing.














A very happy Godlisten looks out the top of our safari vehicle moments after we got to the bottom of the Crater.

And what a view we got. In my opinion, Ngorongoro is a stunning place in any weather and at any time of year. But this particular visit may have spoiled me forever. As we began to descend into the 100-square-mile Crater, we were at first swallowed in a fog that kept us from seeing much beyond the deep green of the very closest trees and plants. But turning a bend, we were suddenly met with sunshine and very soon after, the sight of an incredible landscape below us. Tanzania is coming to the end of its rainy season, and so every surface was lush and green from the moisture.

What I did not know until this visit, though, was that at this time of year most of the valley boasts mile upon mile of wildflowers. Yellow, royal blue, pink, white -- it was absolutely incredible. And then among all the flowers, there were countless gazelles, zebras, wildebeests, hartebeests, buffalo, elephants, ostriches and numerous other types of birds. The lakeshore was so densely populated with flamingoes that there were stretches of solid pink, broken up only by the occasional flapping of the birds’ large wings. All this made it easy to understand why Ngorongoro has been nicknamed the Garden of Eden.














There were lots of babies everywhere -- zebras, baboons, wildebeests and more -- trying to keep up with the rest of their families and herds.

In a day filled with breathtaking sights however, two stood out. In six years of safaris, I had previously never seen a rhino, save for a black dot I once viewed through binoculars while a guide said “that’s a rhino.” But on this day, as we were driving along we suddenly came on a massive rhino, perhaps 60 meters from the road, nonchalantly munching on the wildflowers and paying us no mind at all.














My first rhino sighting! They have a reputation for staying far away from people in Ngorongoro, but this one was not at all phased by our presence.

Not long after, we came across two different pairs of lions, even closer to us than the rhino. In each case, a male and female lion lounged together among the flowers, for all the world looking as though they were enjoying a lazy afternoon on holiday. The moment we spotted the first pair was perfected as Godlisten, with eyes wide and jaw dropped, said “simba” (Swahili for lion) under his breath. He told me later it was his favorite sight of the day.














Mr & Mrs Lion on holiday... I know I have a lot of lion photos here, but I just couldn't get over the scene and wanted to include as many as possible.














From the first day I met Godlisten, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up he always answered “a driver.” He has always been fascinated with cars, but coming from a very poor background has ridden in them only a few times. I still remember that when I headed out for a day of story gathering on that 2001 trip and invited Godlisten to come along, he was ecstatic. Not because he was going to spend the day with me so much as because we would be going from place to place in a taxi, and it was his first time in a car.

During his years at the student center, Godlisten has been encouraged to continue his education for as long as he can and to dream big about what he might do with his life. He has listened to this advice, but it has never changed his love of cars, and somewhere along the way, perhaps two years ago, he began saying that he would study tourism so he could become a safari driver -- quite a good career in an area of his country termed the Safari Capital for East Africa.

I think our day together, bumping along in an old Land Cruiser with the sun and the wind and all that incredible beauty all around us, only solidified his dream. When I asked if, perhaps 15 years from now, I could count on him to take me and my family on safari, he didn’t even have to wait for my question to be translated into Swahili. With his big wide smile he said -- in English -- a resounding “yes.”















Two Phoebes! For the first time in my life, I have another Phoebe around. Up to now, at no point had I ever shared my name with anyone at school, university or any job I've had. But now that I've moved to Africa, there is another Phoebe working with me in the region. She is from Burkina Faso and is such a dramatic, smiling, laughing person and I love to be around her. Though after years of never writing my last name on anything and always knowing that if someone said "Phoebe" it was me they meant, I will confess that it's an adjustment to stop and confirm which Phoebe is being spoken to at times.

five cups, three plates, two bowls, and a couple spoons and forks

This picture is one I took a few years ago in Uganda, but I thought it was an appropriate introduction to this post. For today's purposes I'll call it "Practicing"...

Yesterday, as I was driving to work I saw a man hauling a fairly good-sized bundle of wood by resting it on the seat of his bicycle and walking beside it steering the bike. I’m not talking short lengths of firewood either. I’m talking full-size lengths of something along the lines of 2x4s. He was obviously working hard, and I was impressed.

This type of transportation is very typical. In fact, in Uganda, where bicycles are the most ubiquitous of any African country I have visited, I have either seen personally or been told about by friends who witnessed it, a myriad of (impossibly) large, heavy objects being hauled by bicycle. Among the things that have made it into what I will call my “bicycle haul of fame” are a washing machine and a sofa -- put on end, so it reached far into the air.














Another photo from Uganda a few years ago. Of all the bundles I've seen hauled on bikes over the years, this was by far the cutest. Don't be too alarmed -- he wasn't actually sitting there while his dad pedaled the bike. Instead, he somehow shared the seat with his father (which is perhaps equally incredible). This was just where he waited while his father conducted his business.

In Ethiopia, I’ve witnessed similar hauling projects by taxis. Although usually pretty rickety-looking, these vehicles should obviously be able to carry more than a bicycle, and so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see furniture, stoves, refrigerators, etc, strapped to the tops of these cars. I think what I find interesting is that the taxi drivers agree to it! Can you imagine, in New York City or London, or Colorado Springs, for that matter, hailing a cab only to tell the driver you’d like to load your new washing machine on top to take it home?

The fact is that in the West, we’ve been conditioned to believe that every project or task must have it’s own special process, tool, gadget or gizmo. No taxi driver would ever agree to haul a refrigerator because we all know that businesses offer delivery on these things, right? Never mind that we will usually pay an additional $50-$100 for this service.

I lived in dormitories, townhomes and apartment buildings for nearly 15 years before moving here. It had been a long time since I had a lawn or trees or plants to take care of. Now I have this beautiful little lawn and garden and I found myself worrying for a couple of days because in addition to being very difficult to come by, things like lawn mowers are prohibitively expensive.

So I was greatly relieved to find out that Baptiste, who helps me at my house, is actually not only willing to use a simple hand-held tool (called a “slasher” in Uganda, but I’m not sure of its name here) for cutting the grass but actually prefers it. Nor do we need a rake. A short, handmade stick broom is more than adequate for tidying up both the grass and the brick areas of the property. I think all in all we spent less than $50 getting the various tools for cutting, trimming and cleaning my little lawn and garden.

Let’s move to the kitchen. Contrast me, who sliced my hand open just trying to use a knife rather than scissors to get into a package, with Baptiste who easily opened two cans of tomato paste for me with that same knife without a second thought. I come from the world of Williams-Sonoma and Crate & Barrel, where I’ve learned that one should have a special tool for slicing tomatoes, eggs, mangoes, avocados, grapefruit, etc. Now I live in a place where mangoes and avocados are often coming out our ears, and if I showed one of those gadgets to Baptiste, I have a feeling he would laugh.

Lest you think I’m demonizing those types of stores I mentioned above, let me pause to assure you that I’m absolutely not. I love wandering around kitchen gadget shops and seeing all the new fun things that can make cooking and baking easier. Before I moved I made more than one Crate & Barrel run and spent lots of time in Target’s kitchen utensil aisle.

Many of the cool gizmos available are actually pretty practical. There’s a lot to be said for having just the right tool for the job. All I’m saying is that it’s easy to start thinking of those things as necessities, when in fact they’re luxuries. One can do a lot with fairly basic items. A bicycle. A taxi. A slasher. A stick broom. A knife.

I love having people over for dinner. I enjoy cooking but am much less likely to do more than grilled cheese or the occasional pot of soup when I have only myself to feed. However, at the moment I’ve been reticent to invite people over. Literally the only piece of furniture in my house other than the bed has been a chair that I borrowed from Chantal.

It was one thing to tell someone like Mandi who was here volunteering that she could join me for a floor picnic on Easter Sunday. She was young and game and far from home and it was Easter and having dinner with someone on the floor was better than spending the day alone. But saying “Hey, I’d like to have you over, but, um, do you mind sitting on the floor?” to someone who lives here and could enjoy dinner in the comfort of their own home where they actually have … well … furniture -- that’s a different matter.

Still, tired of spending most evenings alone, I decided to go ahead and make this funny invitation to Chantal and Mbanda, who have been so kind and hospitable to me since I arrived. Rather than laughing at me when I extended the invitation, they even postponed plans they had for Wednesday evening to say yes. And they offered to bring over a couple folding chairs so we could be really radical and not sit on the floor.

We had fajitas, and let me just say that I was very proud of how my first attempt to make tortillas by myself turned out! The food was tasty -- having all three lived in Colorado for a long time, we regularly crave Mexican food -- but what I want to talk about was the funny and fun process of maneuvering the pans and dishes in order to prepare and serve everything.

First, make the tortillas. That’s an easy decision. They can be kept warm in the oven while other things are cooking. Then wash that pan because it’s the same one needed to cook the meat and vegetables in. Cut up tomatoes and cheese and put them into two coffee mugs. Mash up the avocado in a bowl, then transfer it to a little saucer because that bowl will be needed for dessert. Melt a little chocolate bar I splurged on and add some milk so we could have the sauce over ice cream (another splurge but it was a special occasion -- my first “dinner party”).

Having no serving dishes, we served ourselves off the stove and carried our food on trays -- I have one and Chantal brought two more -- to the dining room. I only have 2 sets of flatware, but thankfully because it was fajitas, I could offer those to the guests and if they noticed that I was only using my hands they were polite and didn’t point it out.

Chantal and Mbanda were gracious and complimentary and lingered over their meal as though we had all the normal comforts of things like tables. Dessert time came and I used my two bowls to serve up their ice cream. I even offered to make coffee in the coffee press Joe brought me when he came to Uganda (coffee, I must admit, is one of the staples of my breakfast diet and my noble intentions of doing without it till my belongings arrived faded away quickly) and Mbanda accepted the offer. But all the mugs and glasses were tied up at the moment so I took quick stock. The cheese was almost all eaten. I transferred what was left onto the cutting board, washed the mug, and voila!

“Aren’t you having dessert?” Chantal asked as I delivered the coffee. I told her yes I was, returned to the kitchen to wash the mug I’d been drinking from, and served myself. She smiled big when I returned eating my ice cream from the same mug that had held my juice moments earlier.

We had a nice visit and eventually they said goodnight and headed home, generously telling me to hold onto the folding chairs until my furniture arrives. It was a very fulfilling evening and I was very happy I’d gone ahead and extended the invitation rather than waiting until I could entertain “properly”.

Don’t get me wrong. I will be absolutely thrilled when my things arrive -- hopefully in another three weeks or so. But I also appreciated the reminder this week that I don’t actually need them. I have a bed. I have a stove and refrigerator and washing machine. I now have three chairs. I have a few pots and pans, plus five cups, two plates (I borrowed the third one), two bowls and a handful of flatware. And all of that is more than enough to actually live on -- and even entertain company!