A Christmas Card

Sorry I haven't posted much lately again. But I've been too busy relaxing inside a Christmas card. Yes, that's right, a Christmas card. I feel like I have landed in a Christmas movie somewhere. When we got here, I strapped on the snowshoes and went foraging in the forest for a tree to chop down. We found a lovely tree, dragged it through the snow back to the cabin and decorated it with strung popcorn. All the while, Cocoa the dog was bounding through the snow drifts and in general, being a dog. Somehow, it just seems like there should be a dog in all the scenes where you drag the Christmas tree home through the snow.
Cocoa was being rather un-cooperative in the posing department, so this is the best photo I have of him (this is for you, Bridger Halland!):
There was even skating on the frozen pond at night!

We've been eating amazing food as part of the celebration of Christ's birth, including this most amazing turkey with all the trimmings.

Um, hmmm.... I'm trying to post more photos, and the internet out here in the Christmas card forest isn't cooperating. So. More photos tomorrow, or maybe you'll have to wait until I get back to civilization :) In the meantime, I just wanted ya'll to know that I'm really enjoying living in a Christmas card for these few days! I hope you've all been having wonderful Christmas-es of your own!

A bit of fun

It's so nice to have friends and to have places to go to meet those friends! I went bowling with some friends tonight! Unfortunately, all my Wii bowling practice hasn't paid off much. I didn't do so good. But we had fun, and that's what counts :) We then went to a restaurant for snacks and drinks. It kinda felt like I was in high school again - we spent countless hours bowling and drinking coke and snacking at the very same bowling ally and the very same restaurant! The only thing that's changed is that none of it is smokey and stinky anymore. I quite like those new-fangled rules that outlaw smoking indoors!

Tomorrow I finally get to see my sister and her family! I can't believe I've been home a week already and haven't gotten to see them yet. Definitely too long to wait. But I'm looking forward to a wonderful Christmas in the woods with the family. Maybe I'll finally find something interesting to take some pictures of and post them. We'll be staying in a cabin in the forest... but thankfully, there's wireless internet there :) What a wonderful world we live in, eh?

If I don't get a chance to post tomorrow, let me wish you all a wonderful and peaceful Christmas!

The joys of home

So here I am, sitting on a real squishy couch (as opposed to my wicker and foam furniture in Jb), enjoying the fire in the fireplace, the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree, the hum of the furnace (though my nose and toes are still a bit on the chilly side) and having a full belly from a very nice dinner with friends (beautifully soft grilled meat kabobs, baby tomato salad with mint leaves and rice). And I realized that I haven't blogged in a few days. I warned you that I might disappear... anyways, there's not too much going on that's very exciting. I have, however, been a bit surprised again by a few things back here in my home and native land.

• I had a problem recieving text messages on the cell phone that my mom uses while I'm away (and I use when I come home!), so I called the customer service line. I was chatting away with the guy on the other end who was walking me through reprogramming and updating the phone... turns out he was sitting in the Philippines. He seemed truly surprised that I knew where Manila was, and even more surprised that I've actually been there. What a strange world - imagine this guy in the Philippines sits and chats with people in Canada the whole day, making small talk about the weather and trying to trouble-shoot phones with Canadians all day ... and yet he's probably never set foot in Canada. It's a wierd world.
• My fingers can't take the cold - each time I come in from being outside (even though I've been wearing my mittens!), my fingers get all swollen. It's wierd. In fact, I can't type as fast as normal tonight because I've just come from my friends' place, and my fingers are still swollen from the drive home.
• There's a lot of stuff for sale here. So much choice. And really, how much do you really need? You can spend a lot of money. And people do. I've been in a lot of malls and shops in the last few days. And there's a lot of money being spent. But wow, there are some really nice things in the shops. I've just been enjoying looking at all the sparkly things in the stores.
  
• Everything is so clean! Squeaky clean. There's no dust. There's no pestilence. It's just clean. I almost wonder why people take showers here. I probably wouldn't take a shower every day here... except for the fact that it's so wonderfully warm! What a treat to get all sudsy and smelling all clean and fresh and to do it all in amazingly hot water. Wow. The only time of the day that my whole body feels truly warm! So don't worry, I'm not in danger of stopping my showering, but I certainly don't feel like I'm dirty when I step into the shower, like I do in Jb!
• The internet is really fast. I can watch YouTube videos without pausing and waiting for for the little catch up thing. Really amazing. It's practically instant!
  
• You can watch "Friends", "Seinfeld" or "Frasier" at pretty much any hour of the day or night on TV.

I think I'm getting used to life back here at home, though I already miss Jb a bit more than I thought I might... but Christmas is coming and I'll be seeing my nephews the day after tomorrow, so it's all good :)

I'm home!

Yup, I'm home! And jet-lag hasn't really hit yet... so here's hoping it won't!

It's a seriously small world because in London, when I got on the plane, I found myself sitting next to a young woman, a bit younger than me. She had a friendly face, so I struck up the usual conversation... "You going home for Christmas...?" She happened to mention that she was in Cameroon doing some linguistic research, working on an alphabet and a dictionary. I said, "Um, you don't happen to work for [insert name of the organization I work for here], do you?" Sure enough, she was there for a 2 year intern with the same organization that I work for!

She worked with a lot of the folks that I studied with and know from other bits of work I've done with my organization! How crazy is that? So we ended up having a really nice chat, and just chatted about our work, and about going home and all that. Really neat. I couldn't believe that of all the planes going back to N. America, on all the days, and with all the seats on that plane... there we were, sitting next to each other!

Anyways, at about 6pm, we landed at home, I got through customs no problem, my bag came quite quickly, and I was out the door, searching the sea of expectant faces for my parents. Good thing my dad's a big guy - pretty easy to spot him in a crowd! My parents wanted to go straight to a restaurant for supper, but considering I hadn't had a shower in a few days and was pretty tired, I asked to go home for a shower first. So we did - and I had the most wonderful (but quick - we were all quite hungry!) hot shower. Then it was off to Swiss Chalet for some yummy chicken (man, I had forgotten just how fat the chickens are in these parts!).

I managed to stay awake until almost 11pm! I woke up feeling SO thirsty at about 2:30am. And unfortunately, I was pretty wide awake, so after finding some water from the water bottle I had in my carry-on (which hadn't gotten unpacked yet!), I read for about 15 minutes... and quickly fell right back to sleep. My eyelids didn't flutter again until 9am! Today, I stayed awake the entire day, and am only now starting to feel sleepy... but it's almost 10pm again, so I'm allowed to start feeling sleepy now! So I'm just going to have a cup of tea (mmm... Earl Grey!), a bit of chocolate and then tumble back into bed.

Tomorrow morning I get to go see my hair-dressing buddy who will hopefully transform me into a vision of beauty once again. I'm so sick and tired of wearing my "missionary" style hair in a ponytail every day! I'm feeling rather desperate for a real haircut, so I'm really looking forward to tomorrow morning! If all goes well, I'll post a photo of my new do tomorrow so you can see just how beautiful I have become :)

So this is what high speed is...

I'm sitting wearing two pairs of socks, my trousers, a t-shirt and a jumper (that would be a "sweater") in Terminal 5 at London Heathrow. My nose is absolutely frozen! The elastic band holding my greasy static-y hair already broke - probably because it became brittle in the cold. But hey, the internet is cruising like greased lightening :) I'm sitting overlooking the runway and taking advantage of some free internet! I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be using free internet (something about the "BA Lounge" access point that I seem to be connected to, and I'm certainly not sitting in the lounge!), but hey, if it's on, I'll certainly take advantage of it!

So far, so good on the travels. Small world, but I ran into a fellow Canadian I know from Jb on the plane here! He's staying in the UK for a few days of work before continuing on to home for Christmas.

I had a great time in Uganda with Grace! We went to the zoo, we read books to the kids, and just had a great time puttering around with the kids, eating some good food (I always look forward to Grace's fried potatoes and sausage, and I devoured an entire avocado on my own), and having a couple of hot showers. Of course, the night I was there, the power went off! And they don't have a generator, so we sat in the quiet dark house and read books and chatted by candle-light. It was very relaxing. And it's always good to spend a day "debriefing" after being in Jb - especially good when you're staying with someone who lived there for a while with me!

And it was great to meet her new son, Frankie. What a hoot he is - he has this serious face all the time, and he's so chubby! But when he warms up to you, his face just lights up into this beautiful smile. And he's so chubby and soft and snuggly... I got lots of hugs and kisses from both Frankie and Ella, which was wonderful! It's just so refreshing and good for the soul to spend some time with little kids now and again. And somehow, it just feels good to have a day out of Jb in a less "extreme" sort of environment to aid in my transition back to North American life again.

Now I'm sitting and freezing my poor little nose in Terminal 5. What a posh place. It's actually a bit disappointing, because all the shops are so posh. I don't even want to go into them, because it's no fun to shop in place where you feel like you'll make everything dirty just by looking at it... and I certainly can't afford to buy anything I happen to mess up! I just don't want to put any of my fingerprints on any of the glass cases or anything! Everything is so shiny and sparkly and clean... maybe this is just part of reverse-culture shock again?!

Anyways, I plan to have a nice lunch with something turkey-ish, bacon-ish and cheese-ish. I also saw a place with a nice chicken ceasar salad (something I've also been craving for a while), and then will wash it all down with a hazelnut or eggnog latte. But I'm trying to do things slowly and pace myself, since I have a few more hours to sit here and freeze in the airport...

If all goes well, 15 hours from now I should be home! Too bad my computer battery will only last for another 1 hour!

On my way!

Apparently I forgot to blog on the weekend.

Anyways, I'm on my way. Currently sitting in Uganda, and will fly out to London, then on to Canada tonight! We're going to the zoo today with my little buddies here today, so maybe I'll get some photos of some of the exotic animals in the wilds of Africa before coming home...

Weather is perfect here - in the high 20s in the afternoon, but cool in the evenings. Nothing like the -30C that I'm going to!

Let Christmas Begin!

I've listened to my Bony M and Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton Christmas music, I've planned the food for the Christmas party tomorrow, and I've heard some amazing carols and readings for Advent. I even got to sing my little heart out to "O Come O Come Emmanuel" (one of my all-time favourite Christmas songs - the whole idea of Emmanuel. God with us. Never ceases to amaze me. My pastor at my church preached on this whole idea on Christmas Eve a few years ago, and amazingly enough, it stuck with me. He just kept repeating the phrase, "God stepped in". That's Emmanuel. God is with us. No matter what. No matter where. Even in the midst of the messes that we make. In the midst of our joys. In the midst of poverty, pestilence, and sorrow. God stepped into that. Among the stinky cows and goats in a stable. God stepped in. And he still steps in. He's with us. Amazing.).

Anyways, I now officially feel in the Christmas "spirit". I am celebrating Advent in my own little way. Until tonight, I don't think I quite was in the advent mood. But tonight at the Anglican Cathedral in town, a small chior led us in "Songs and Readings" for Advent. It was an amazing evening. This small group normally does a service for Lent and Easter and then again for Advent and Christmas. And it's always such a wonderful time of beautiful voices, reflective readings, and just a time to rest in the presence of the Word. The Word who came to be with us. Emmanuel.

Tonight there was the added chior of some of the street children that I mentioned a few weeks ago. It was so wonderful to see these children up there singing their little hearts out - you can bet none of them have ever sung in front of the church to a big crowd like that before! They had such beautiful voices and do so well singing Christmas carols in English - when few of them know much English at all. They started with a song in the local Arabic, though, which I didn't get ALL the words of. But the words I caught were so sad - they were singing "I'm tired, but there's no rest. I'm sick, but there's no medicine. My mother is not there. My sister is not there..." But there was hope in it. And that Hope is... yup, you guessed it. Emmanuel. God with us.

So Christmas has come. Even though it still really hot. I still have an unending list of things to get done before I fly out on Monday. But it's Christmas. Time to prepare myself for the celebration of God coming to be with us!

My love-hate relationships

The number one love-hate relationship in my life at the moment is the Internet. Me and the Internet. We've spent a lot of quality time together over the years. But this week... he was making my life miserable. He's been up. He's been down. He's been faithful. He's been playing around. He's been listening. He's been ignoring my questions and commands (mainly those "ipconfig" commands). But then, 30 seconds later, he'll turn around and respond to everything and everything I tell him.

So what's the deal?!

I love the internet. Because it keeps me connected to the outside world. But I hate the internet because it sucks my time and makes me feel a bit stressed when he doesn't work as he should and everyone else on the compound complains to me about him.

But for now, thanks to my faithful back-up team up North and in the UK (I'm fondly referring to them now as "the Andies"), we're back up and running. And hopefully will stay that way. But I realized that it's been giving me quite a bit of stress lately - I think mainly because it's time that I didn't "budget" for in my last few days here!

Yes, that's right. I said, "My last few days here!" I leave this town on Monday. And won't be back for another 3 months! I'm going to a rat free land full of ice and snow. So I'm afraid this blog will be rather boring for a few months. Sorry 'bout that.

But it brings me to my other current love-hate relationship. I love it that I get to go home and see my family and my friends and my church and just be in my place. I love it that I will get to wear different clothes, drive my little car, hang out in the Second Cup with a good book that I chose for free at the library. I love it that I will be able to walk down the street without people yelling at me because I stick out like a sore white (well, actually, normally rather pink and sweaty while walking down the street) thumb. I love it that I will get to meet my baby nephew for the first time ever and hang out with my other nephews who are all growing up into such amazing young men!

But I hate it that I have to leave my life here for a while. I hate it that so many of my dear friends are going to be gone by the time I get back (they're also moving on to different pastures - some maybe greener, some maybe less green!). I hate it that I'll miss out on so much here while I'm away. I just really wish I could be in both places at once. Or that Canada was just a bit closer to here, so I could, say, go home on the weekends and live here during the week. You know, like having a cottage at the lake that you go to for refreshment and rest, but close enough to commute to your other life.

Tonight I had such a good time with my friends. I should have taken some photos tonight, but I must admit, I depended on Annamarie to be the photographer - otherwise, I'd post some photos of us all stuffing our faces with chicken, guacamole, and the most amazing mango cake and even home made ice cream! But most of all, we just had a really good time being together. I like those people. It's a bit tough to find good friends in a place like this - so many transitions, and everyone is so busy and wrapped up in their work. So I feel extra specially blessed to have found so many good people who I really have come to love. So I know I'm going to miss them when I go. And when I come back, everything will be different again.

So you see, I'm already thinking about "transitions"! I don't usually start thinking about it until I get on the plane, but this time, I've got a whole week to think about it - in one week, I will be just stepping on the plane in Uganda, bound for London, and then for home. I leave this place in 5 days, spend a day with my friend in Uganda, and then, it's on the plane home!

Phew, it's going to be a week, I can already tell!

The impromptu speech

I'm becoming a pro at the impromptu speech by living in this country. For some reason, people here LOVE speeches. The longer, the better. Even though during the long speeches, everyone starts to nod off, or starts calling people on their cell phones, or examining their soda cans closely... anything to not have to listen to the long speech. So why everyone always insists on having these long speeches is a complete mystery to me. But I have sat through my fair share of long speeches. I'm still at the point where I at least try to feign interest. I just can't quite let myself be quite as obviously bored as some of the others in the audience!

But no one seems to get too bored when I stand up to start speaking :) Mostly because I keep it pretty short, because most of the speeches I do are completely impromptu, and I haven't had enough time to think of anything clever or witty or even boring to say!

It happened to me again on Friday afternoon. I thought I was going along to simply observe the closing ceremony of a Scripture Use workshop that one of the translation teams was holding here in town. The team mentioned to me that I was invited, so I thought, well, it would be a good opportunity to go and show my face, and to show one of our short-term workers what a closing ceremony is all about.

Little did I know, though I should have guessed, that I would be one of the "keynote" speakers. Of course, I had to sit in the front, in the special chair (which was covered in "pleather" so made my backside sweat like anything), lead the opening prayer, hand out certificates and then make the keynote address! As soon as I got seated in the front of the crowd, my mind started wondering... hmmmm.... am I going to have to make a remark or two here? But after the opening prayer and handing out the certificates, I really thought I was off the hook for any further participation in the proceedings.

However, the team leader then stood up and started to introduce me. Great. An impromptu speech to close a workshop that, quite truthfully, I hadn't paid too much attention to the specific topics of the workshop or even knew too much about who the participants were (I don't work in the Scripture Use "department", and had been busy with my own Primer development workshop the past week!). Anyway, as soon as the team leader started introducing me, I realized I'd better start composing a speech... and fast!

So I did an on the spot impromptu speech, representing my organization and encouraging the participants to use the Scripture portions that have been translated and to encourage the use of the mother tongue Bible in their churches and communities. So hopefully the Lord used my lack of preparation and that I was able to come up with something that was encouraging and that were the right words to speak at that time.

At least it was a short speech. So that must count for something?!

The United Nations

Last night was a classic example of one of the reasons I love living overseas.

We had yet another one of our fabulous Friday dinner parties. Around our table were seated: 1 Canadian, 1 Brit, 1 Belgi... um, what do you call someone from Belgium?!, 1 Kenyan, 1 American, 1 Ghanaian, and 3 South Africans (and at the risk of being un-politically correct, I will mention the fact that the South African contingent was a beautiful mosaic of rainbow colours, ranging from pasty white to creamy chocolatey.).

And we all just really enjoyed each other's company! A true mix of nationalities, coming from three different continents, somehow thrown together in this crazy place, and able to have a great time together. And once again, it was a blessing to be able to open our home to people who aren't used to getting too many home-cooked meals in this town. We might not be the best cooks this side of the Nile, but we try to make up for it in hospitality and good conversation :)

Then this afternoon we were able to bless some more folks around here. One of our friends (who happens to be a Ugandan woman married to a Dutch man - another example of the wonderful mix of cultures to be found in these parts!) runs an NGO that works with street children, and especially with girls and young women who are living on the streets in this city. There are more than you might think. They also help some children who don't have anyone responsible enough to care for them - for instance, a little girl (around 8 years old) named Sbla whos father is living, but isn't responsible enough to make sure she is fed or goes to school.

We cleared out our closests of some of the clothes and shoes that we weren't using anymore (it's truly amazing what I've collected over here!), and then went to the shops and picked up a bunch of soap, juice, toothpaste and toothbrushes and all that sort of thing. And we dropped it all off at the NGO, where the girls hang out during the day.

We met some of the girls - they're all very friendly and were just having a great time relaxing on a Saturday afternoon with each other and with the staff at their center. Such friendly faces, but when you hear some of their stories and some of the things that have happened to them as they live on the streets... really heartbreaking. So passing along some clothes and spending some money on a few necessities seems like so little. But at least it's something.

If you think to pray, you can pray for Cathy (the woman who's heading up the program) and the children and young women who she works with, to try to teach them the lifeskills they need to make sure they get their education and make good choices for their lives, as well as have the basic necessities like a safe place to sleep, water to bathe with, and some nourishing food to eat... all in the name of Christ who created them, gave them life and wants them to have the opportunity to glorify Him in those lives.

The difference

As I'm laying on my bed (not IN my bed, because it's too hot to have anything covering over oneself tonight), I'm thinking about the difference in my world here and my world back in Canada. I don't think I could sleep if it was below, say, 24C in my room. Back at home, if you keep the thermostat above, say, 21C, you're roasting alive in the house. What am I going to do?

Over here, I generally wear skirts and sandals. How am I going to cope with wearing, get this, JEANS, with socks and shoes (or even boots!) for the next three months? How do you keep your toes from shrivelling up when they're confined in real shoes and socks all the time?

I'm just hoping my body remembers how to deal with winter and all that involves as soon as I step off the plane! Ten more days. Ten more days. That only includes 6 more working days (officially). I probably have about 15 working days worth of stuff to get done in those 6 days! So why am I sitting here blogging and spending the evening watching an episode of Life on Mars? Well, I guess 'cause otherwise, I don't think I would make it through the next ten days! Ten more days. That's it. Ten more days!

By the way, I'm not quite finished Series 2 of Life on Mars, so don't you dare mention anything in the comments that might give the ending away! I'm getting a bit obsessed about it, though. Even the voice in my head has put on a Manchester accent - "Hey Guv, pu' the ke'el on. I need a cuppa tea..."

My day

Today was a pretty good day. Better than yesterday, where I spent over 4 hours locked in the IT room, trying to switch us over to a new Internet system! The internet itself was working fine, but our own network was having some issues. And it's still having issues. Of course, the switch over to the new system, in theory, was going to just take a few minutes. 4 hours later (ending after 7pm), me and my computer geek buddy in a different city were pretty tired and frustrated. Thank the Lord, though, for things like Skype and even for cell phones, so I could Skype and talk on the cell phone when the internet was misbehaving! Anyways, at least we got something up and running so everyone could get back online last night!

Today started off better - went to a meeting with reps from a bunch of different NGOs in this town. I learned today that there are over 750 international/relocatable staff working with NGOs in this town! Three years ago, there were 150. Amazing.

I also had the treat of going out to lunch with Annamarie and our friend from up North who's been in town for a while. We went to Central Pub - nothing "pub-ish" about it, though. It serves Lebanese food - so I had a lovely dish of hummous with freshly baked pita bread! No steak and kidney pies to be found anywhere!

The rest of the day was spent formatting and typing up one of the primers that one of the teams drafted last week. It's quite a lot of fun - I don't know any of the words in the language, but I can at least type what they've written and break words apart into syllables and have some fun with that. Plus, I get to make it all look pretty on the computer screen :) I checked in with one of the other teams, and they have a team member who's really good on the computer, and he's doing a great job in making it look nice! I also started writing the report for the workshop and tying up a bunch of loose ends that have been floating for a while.

We also all got to go out for dinner tonight, because it was Becka's 12th birthday today! I'm sure I'll have some photos tomorrow, since Jennie took a whole bunch, but we had a really good time. There were 15 of us, so it was a good size for a party! And Becka was the center of attention, which I think she really enjoyed, since it is, after all, her 12th birthday! It's just nice to have a good excuse to get together with all the folks on the compound (plus some other 'external' friends!) and spend some time together over some good food. There's nothing like sharing a meal together to encourage "community"! And now, since my belly is full of noodles, I'm off to sleep.