One of my favorite songs is 'Blessed Be Your Name'. It's been a fav for a while now, but this morning it took on a whole new meaning. Standing in a hot & humid room in the middle of Africa with over 100 fellow desert workers singing 'Blessed be your name, when I'm found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name' I realized that I'm actually living this and I'm not alone in it either.
On a lighter note, last night we were hit with a swarm of termites. Only these aren't termites like we have in the States. They were bigger than any dragonfly that I've seen. It was so strange. The power was out during dinner (so we ended up with a candlelit dinner which wasn't so bad) and when the power came back on they bugs came. They were everywhere and it was crazy! Little kids were running around screaming and it was just gross. But then the wierdness happened. All of the sudden the bugs were gone and their wings were all over the ground. It was then that we realized the bugs dropped their wings and were now crawling all over the floor. Then, the Africans ran outside and started picking them up and eating them. I thought about trying one....well not really. It was pretty much one of the grossest things that I've seen since I got here!
18 April 2006
14 April 2006
Living in the Sandbox
After about 30 hours of traveling I safely arrived at my destination and with all 5 of my bags. For security reasons, from this point I will lovingly refer to my new home as 'the Sandbox'. Desert living is definitely different than anything I'm used to, but I think that eventually I'll get used to it. Right now there are some semester girls that are living in my apartment, so I am staying with another lady right now until mid-May when I will move into my own place. I don't have any pictures yet, as I haven't purchased my photo permit, but hopefully soon we'll get around to that.
Right now I am actually out of country. We are having a sub-regional meeting at a beautiful camp in the mountains. Funny story though. I have a visa from the Sandbox in my passport but no exit permit, meaning that I should have been stuck there. You would think that this might create some problems when I tried to leave for the meeting, but surprisingly it did not. On the suggestion of one of the nationals that works at the travel agency, I paperclipped the page of my passport that I did not want security to see to the next page. Amazingly enough, I went through a 17-step process to leave the Sandbox and my passport was actually scrutinized page by page 3 separate times but no one ever noticed that there were paperclipped pages. Maybe the Boss was just blinding their eyes? I don't know. All I do know is that I have now illegally exited the country and we don't really know how I will get back in. They say it shouldn't be a problem but with all the difficulties that I had getting in the first time I can't imagine that it won't be. I guess we'll just have to see! Wish I had some pictures for ya'll. Hopefully soon!
Right now I am actually out of country. We are having a sub-regional meeting at a beautiful camp in the mountains. Funny story though. I have a visa from the Sandbox in my passport but no exit permit, meaning that I should have been stuck there. You would think that this might create some problems when I tried to leave for the meeting, but surprisingly it did not. On the suggestion of one of the nationals that works at the travel agency, I paperclipped the page of my passport that I did not want security to see to the next page. Amazingly enough, I went through a 17-step process to leave the Sandbox and my passport was actually scrutinized page by page 3 separate times but no one ever noticed that there were paperclipped pages. Maybe the Boss was just blinding their eyes? I don't know. All I do know is that I have now illegally exited the country and we don't really know how I will get back in. They say it shouldn't be a problem but with all the difficulties that I had getting in the first time I can't imagine that it won't be. I guess we'll just have to see! Wish I had some pictures for ya'll. Hopefully soon!
