All better

Last night I had a wonderful sleep in the seventh (yes, that's 7th) different bed I've slept in since leaving home less than a month ago.  Am I ready to go and sleep in my own bed?  Um, yes.

But that being said, it's been SO nice to see so many old friends and see some new places and even get a little work done and learn a few things in between all the moving hither and yon.

It seems the election fun is over back in Jb, so I just bought a ticket today to fly out on Friday.  So today, I'll get caught up on reading some emails that I've been ignoring for the past few weeks, and sort out some things from the office here.  Tomorrow, I'll, um, well, I guess I'll do more of the same :)

And then Friday, I fly!  I can't wait to get home!

Since I actually have an internet connection here in the office, I thought I might post a few photo highlights from the past few weeks of travel.

First, it was to our "board" meetings in Nairobi.  For some odd reason, I didn't take any photos until we were leaving.  Here's our luggage, getting all ready to be loaded up on the bus:

 And here's the bus, when it broke down on the side of the road as we were travelling to the next stop - a beautiful conference center in the middle of a bunch of tea fields in the hills above Nairobi.

 Of course, the rat had to come. He liked the Dinning room the best.  I did, too. Good food, let me tell ya.  Good, good food.

 When we weren't sitting in meetings or hanging out with long lost colleagues, we got to go for walks through the fields.  We didn't have nearly enough time to walk, since we had a lot, and I do mean a lot, of meetings.

 However, after the meetings were done, it was time to hit the beach!  Since we couldn't go back "home" to Jb anyways, might as well enjoy some seriously good group rates down at the beach!

 We took a boat ride, which was great!  I got to go snorkling and we found a nice little bay to explore the sea creatures and mangrove groves.  Lovely.  All around lovely.

 This is where I also spent a lot of my time, along with a good book.  I read "Cutting for Stone", by um, hmmm... can't remember how to spell the author's name.  Interesting read, though. 

 And of course, I spent a lot of time just wandering along the beach and enjoying peering into the depths for creatures :)  I think because it's the start of the rainy season, though, there was quite a lot of seaweed on the beach, especially during low tide.

 After a few days of resort living - buffets, fresh fruit juice, air conditioned bedrooms with hot showers... it was time to take a little matatu to a city up the coast to visit one of my dear friends from home!  It was a bit of an adventure taking the little mini-bus on my own.  I got a taxi from the resort and he was great in installing me in the front seat of the mini-bus and making sure I was on the right bus.

The guy was, um, well, a very quick driver, so I got to the town a lot quicker than my friend anticipated.  And then it turns out that I missed the place I was supposed to get off the bus, and ended up getting a nice tour around the city!  The matatu driver had to go back to the same place anyway, though, so he dropped me off exactly where I was supposed to be.  And then I still had some time to wait for my friend.  Interesting place to wait, those bus stations.  Interesting people.  Thankfully, I didn't get married off to the khat chewing guy waiting on the bench next to me.  He did start crooning love songs to me, though.  I think it was the only English he knew!

Anyway, my friend came along soon enough, and it was so wonderful to see her again!  She took me to her place where she works with a small Christian organization.  Such a great little place she lives - but definitely different than the resort that I was staying at!  Her room is the one with the white door on the left, and I stayed next door in the guest room on the right.  We hauled our water for our little bucket baths and ate chapatis, rice, lentils and stew.  I finally felt like I was back in Africa :)  And I LOVED it!  I could have stood it to be a bit cooler, though, since I was just sweating away the WHOLE time I was there.  Sweat.  Sweat.  Sweat.  Not so fun.  But when everyone else is sweaty, too, you just kinda blend into the glistening crowd!

I stayed a few days, and we had a great time, going here and there and everywhere in the town.  My friend knows the town well, and knows all the public transportation systems.  So we walked, ferried, rickshawed, and matatued all over and had a fabulous time poking our heads into various shops and restaurants.  Really just had a wonderful time together.  And I love cities.  I really, really love cities.  The bustle, the noise, the craziness of all the people everywhere.  Really great!  I can't wait for a chance to go back and visit again soon!  What a blessing it was to just be together with someone from home, too, and to be with someone who knows me from my other life, too.

And then from my friend's place, I went back to Nairobi, where I stayed with another dear friend from here.  She is a bit of a mentor for me in my work and just in life in general.  She's a bit younger than my own mom, and has two grown daughters of her own.  But she just does some fantastic work in linguistics and literacy and multilingual education.  And I so much enjoy just sitting over a cup of coffee and hearing about her latest projects and how God is doing things in her life, and just soaking it all in!  That is, after I got over my little illness, which passed me by quickly, thankfully!

Last night, I got back to Grace's house in EBB.  Our plane arrived just behind a KLM flight, so I was stuck in the slowest possible line to get through immigration, surrounded by Dutch people.  I've never taken so long to get through the Entebbe airport, but anyway, Grace and Ella and Frankie were waiting for me when I got there.  And once again, it's great to see them again!

One more day, and I'm finally going to get home for good!