They say animals become restless before birth. There doesn’t seem to be a soft enough space to lie or right enough place to make a home. Everything is uncomfortable, wrong, and the places that should feel familiar don’t offer the reprieve they used to. When I was retreating in Mbale I saw the most precious […]
This blog has become a kind of relationship. I’ve had fights with it (why won’t the $#%^ upload my photos!) and I’ve had moments of intimacy and connection reading the comments you’ve left for me and knowing that somewhere out there you care enough to read through a million paragraphs of my journey. It’s humbling
July 18, 2006 Every once in a while you have to risk something, do something that scares the be-jesus out of you so you know you’re alive, so you know you can. The more fears I face in this life the more I realize that
July 27, 2006 I spent my last full week in Gulu interviewing child mothers–girls who were abducted by the LRA and were impregnated through rape. Nearly all of them have been rejected by their communities and their children are called “killers” because they were born to commanders and are thought to carry that evil spirit
(A view of from inside an IDP Camp) Malaria or Unidentifiable Bacterial Infection that feels strangely like Malaria—or what I imagine to feel like malaria—ie—worst flu I’ve ever had. Hmm, so which would you rather have? It’s kind of like that game “would you rather?” Like would you rather be burned alive
We as Americans we come to foreign lands in search of something, something like our own heartbeat, something slippery and indefinable, but with presence, tinged with a certain energy. For any wanderer, traveling is the high, but everyone wants to belong somewhere–to feel a place, in a slow turning, become home. We want something of
The north of Uganda is better than I dreamed in many ways, and worse in ways I had not imagined. Everywhere there are fields of sunflowers that make you want to run through them like Maria in the Sound of Music. I didn’t expect the green. Green trees, green wispy grass, and green cornfields taller
Pictures of me at an IDP camp in Northern Uganda. I’m totally Angelina Jolie. I think this baby peed on me, but it was totally worth it. She belonged to one of the women I sat and talked to (sort of. 🙂 Me with corn that the
So this is Mary, the little girl I want to steal and bring back to the US with me…along with the six other kids who live with her. I know, I know, highly illegal. But still. You met them earlier in my blog…part of Jonathan’s orphans.
(one of the many beautiful orphans you can come to hold if you visit Uganda) A lot of exciting things are happening. First of all, I don’t want you guys to worry about me, I sort of realized after a mini-lecture by a loving person who will remain
Girls at an orphanage called St. Mary Kevin in Kampala dancing their traditional ceremonial dance in honor of our coming to visit last week. The original rump-shakers. Never seen anything like it. And no ladies, I can’t quite move like that. The things attached to them that look
The things I do for internet. I decided to walk from my retreat center along the Nile, Mto Moyoni, which by the way I would highly recommend. I’m staying in this adorable little hut–straight out of Swiss Family Robinson and loving life. With all my running around like crazy trying to save the world, I
