Peaceful Pathway☮

“Come, my friends. ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world For my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset And though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven That which we are, We are. One equal temper of heroic hearts Made weak by time and fate But strong in will To strive To seek To find And not to yield.”                              -Alfred Lord Tennyson                 With each passing day, I’m faced with more opportunities to seize the world in new ways. Yesterday, I ate lunch with President Sir Ian Keretse Khama.   It was wonderful, and flattering to feel so important, but the most inspiring thing was the president’s willingness to listen to the citizens.   During both ward meetings (bot...

I awoke this morning from a splendid night of sleep and opened my curtains to a stunningly sunny morning.   Ceasar, my growing puppy, stuck his nose under the mosquito net hovering over my bed, and looked at me eagerly to take him out.   I made a quick breakfast of earl grey tea (thousands of thanks to my wonderfully generous mom) and set off to the primary school down the road. I arrived just in time for the morning assembly, in which the children line up according to shapes outlined by rocks in the ground, and sing a medley of songs.   I followed the standard 6 teacher to his classroom and got a brief summary of what they were learning.   As we approached the front door of his classroom, he turned to me and said “So if you could teach about the present continuous tense, that would be great.   You have an hour until the next class comes in…there will be three classes total.” I stared at him blankly, caught my composure and said, “Well, how about yo...

Before I left, many people parted some words of wisdom with me that have kept with me very well.   Though I appreciated and accepted each word with eagerness and open ears, none have resonated better or have made more sense to me than those shared by my dad: “You will feel the loneliest you’ve ever felt and learn more about yourself and the world than you had ever truly anticipated.   But take it with a grain of salt, and live it to its fullest, ‘cuz it’s only going to happen once.   Once it’s over you’ll think, wow that went by fast” You know, I’ve held a lot of animosity towards my dad for moving away when I was younger, and more recently for opting to move to the Middle East for a second time.   More and more, I’m discovering that in an ironic turn of events he has been one of the individuals in my life that has understood what this process feels like.   As a result, I’m discovering a sense of guilt about making him feel blameworthy for all these years....

The Goat Incident: This afternoon I walked home from the clinic and found a single white baby goat trapped inside my compound.   Eyes wide, the poor little goat trotted around aimlessly searching for a way out.   I smiled to myself and opened the gate thinking I would just be able to chase the little guy out so he could go find his mom. What I thought would be a simple task turned into a 20 minute fiasco.   The stupid goat wouldn’t even let me get near it without scampering off in the wrong direction.   After sprinting around my yard, having the neighbor children laugh at me, and clapping and jumping at the goat, I watched as it FINALLY scuttled outside the gate.   I wiped a drip of sweat off my forehead and couldn’t help but feel a small sense of accomplishment. I smiled, as the one word that swirled around my head was, “FREEDOM!” Just a normal afternoon in Gobojango. ---------------------------------- Doing Laundry: I’m not sure if I’v...

Today has been such a great day! Which is pretty odd..considering it’s a Monday.   Let me fill you in a bit on what’s been going on in Gobojango this past week: My counterpart is still on leave, which makes me sad, because I usually just sit in the consulting room with him during the day and talk and joke. But it’s given me an opportunity to actually accomplish some work in the clinic.   I scheduled a series of health talks to begin today (which they did) and also arranged an aerobics class (to begin tomorrow). I’ve met with the Village Development Committee, the Social & Community Development Officer, and Primary school and have begun to make arrangements with them to focus on some goals to accomplish during my two years here.   Near-sightedly thinking, I am hoping to build shade for the Primary School’s new recreational park, and in the future, I would love to begin the arrangements of applying for funding for a new Library in Gobojango. This would not only...

You can kiss your family & friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time, you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world, but a world lives in you. -Frederick Buechner There have been a few times since I’ve arrived that I wish more than anything I could be back home with my family, sitting on my comfortable bed in my wonderfully-smelling house with Geoffrey playing games in the room next to me, my mom watching Ellen downstairs, and my dad cooking a delicious dinner.   This moment is out shadowing all of those times. The shooting in Colorado only makes it more real how far away I really am.   I’ve spent the majority of the day pondering the episode in my mind, and it hasn’t really hit me until now that it really happened.   I can’t stop thinking about my poor cousins, what they’ve seen, the unfortunate families who have suffered losses, the pain everyone must be feeling, and...

I’m discovering that oftentimes the smallest things make the biggest impact on this whole experience.   It’s a process of learning to cherish those minute details that I probably would have overlooked before, and overlooking the big details that probably would have bothered me before.   As I walked to work, I was surprised to find Gobojango bustling with more people than usual (normally there are 1800 people here.   Today there were about 1850 people haha).   I later discovered the reason was that there are to be two weddings in Gobas this weekend.   An entire herd (?) of cattle had been rounded up in the local kraal to be offered both as lobola (dowry paid by the groom to the bride’s family) or to be slaughtered for the ceremonies.   An old woman wearing a toothless smile approached me, grabbed my hand, and walked with me half way to the clinic, passionately telling me this grand story in Setswana that I could hardly understand.   Once at th...