Life in Africa

Wow...


That's all I've got!
My mind can't seem to get past the incredible reality that I am in Africa.
Not only am I in Africa, but I am staying.
I don't have to leave just as things start to feel normal; I get to stay!

I'm not sure if I'll be able to get much more out of my heart/mind right now. That's honestly as far as I've processed so far, which is kind of sad seeing as I've been here for 4 weeks.

Well, I'll cut myself some slack. The majority of my time these last few weeks has been focused on survival. For example, if I'm thirsty (which is basically a constant state of being here) I can't just grab a glass of cold water from the tap, unless I want to spend the rest of internship in the bathroom. First we have to boil water on this charcoal stove called a jiko, then the water has to cool overnight, then we pour it into a filter that takes another day to get the floaties out. The result is a glass of funky smelling warm water that you end up sweating out in the process of making more purified water! Things have improved recently in this area with the arrival of katadyne filters which take out the boiling step of purification (thank you Lord!), but you get my point. Just living here takes a lot of energy, especially at first. I'm sure we'll become accustomed to most of these things soon.

So I suppose I should start forcing myself to journal every day so I start thinking further than my next meal or task.
Then maybe I'll have something exciting to write about on here other than the surfacy stuff (like the fact that there's either a monkey, a rat or a mongoose living in the ceiling above my bed).
Guess that's all for now!

oh if you want to see some pictures, I put some on my facebook and you can see them here.