Monthly Archives: October 2010

October 30, 2010 · 3:24 pm

Of Getting the Heck Out of Oz. [And the Munchkins Who Make Me Want to Stay.]

Ben with the "murse" I gave him to carry onto our plane to Dakar...full of stuff I couldn't fit into my luggage.

Can I just brag on my team?

Thursday was a hard day. The “why” is entirely irrelevant- the point is that at approximately five fifteen PM, just as I ought to have been crossing the street towards the beach for my daily run, [both the most blissfully relaxing AND the most stressful part of my day-go figure], I instead found myself laying in the middle of my bedroom floor, sweaty and dirty, crying like a small, emotionally disturbed child.

Attractive.

I desperately wanted to make like Dorothy, click my glitzy, fire-engine red heels together, and get the heck out of Oz. Unfortunately, in the name of practicality [and in an effort to garner some street cred after last year’s foolish packing fiasco], I left my red heels at home this time around. [Along with, for those of you that have been reading for a while, the polka-dotted rain boots and practical stilettos that once made me the laughing stock of Dakar.] It’s really too bad Dorothy couldn’t have rocked a pair of enchanted flip flops instead.

 And so there I was, as shadows chased away the last remnants of  sunshine outside my window-curled up in the middle of the floor in my puddle of proverbial lemon juice, crying crocodile tears and feeling very sorry for myself indeed.

 Not cute.

I don’t know how long I was down there, but once dusk had softly fallen and my eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, I heard a quiet knock on my door. It was Christy, who knew that something had to be wrong because I never miss a run. We’ve been living together for four years now, and it took her about a third of a second to appraise the situation and sprawl out onto the floor with me. [Note: those are the friends you keep. The get-on-the-floor-with-you friends.] Christy met my silly tears with an exquisite blend of truth and co-misery, and after about an hour she pried me up off the tile and we shuffled into the kitchen.

Cue Michelle, who understanding that sometimes you just have to eat your feelings, was channeling her inner Asian and pouring coconut milk into a steaming pan of chicken curry that made our apartment smell divine. Michelle has a way of knowing exactly what you need when you need it-and has this beautiful tendency to always put other people before herself. Seriously-she will make you feel like your trivial thoughts and imaginary problems are the weightiest, most critical things in her life.

The train station in Chicago.

Well as Michelle was cheerfully throwing curry and red peppers around our drab little kitchen, I saw Dayton quietly walk by with a hand full of tools. In typical Dayton fashion, he was fixing yet another thing we’ve managed to break in our apartment-our toilet. [Again with STINT setting me up with unrealistic expectations of marriage!] And so I found myself sitting at my computer, talking on skype, Christy and Michelle finishing dinner while Dayton clanked away in the bathroom-and all of the sudden, Ben burst through the door. “I heard you CRIED!” And then, the sweet kid threw his arms around my neck. [In a twist of irony, I told him that I really wanted to keep talking to the boy I was talking with and I’d have to catch him after dinner. To which he very sweetly replied, “that’s fine-as long as you know I want to hear about it!” Bless. Him. He’s adjusting very well to being my second favorite Dukie. ;)]

We sat around eating the most fantastic chicken curry and singing ridiculous veggie tales songs for probably an hour and a half. [Dinner theatre.] In the middle of dinner, Ted told me to close my eyes and hold out my hands-which I did with an excited laugh. It turns out that once they figured out I was having a rough day, he and Ben had run to my favorite French bakery to pick me up a chocolate cream puff. Which was wrapped in a happy pink box with a Carolina blue ribbon.

Be still my beating heart.

 What’s incredible about that story-and my team-is that there IS nothing incredible about that story. That was nothing unordinary-it’s just how those people interact with each other every single day. Where on earth do I get off pretending to have a bad day when I get to live with the five of them? There are hard things about life in Senegal-and there are days when like Dorothy, I am entirely convinced that there’s no place like home and I’d give anything to click my dirty Nike running shoes together three times and wake up in North Carolina. But, if you’re going to move to Oz, you want to move with the munchkins that I brought here with me. :) [Though I’m going to get it when the boys read this and see

Christy and I at a museum in Paris.

that I referred to them as “munchkins”…]

In other news, we’re figuring out how to celebrate Halloween tomorrow! Or goodness, at least fall-it might be hotter than six hells, but I’ll be darned if I don’t pretend that the leaves are turning [or rather, that there ARE leaves], the temperature is dropping, and it’s time for bright scarves and caramel apple cider. We’re kicking off our “fall” celebration with pancake night tonight, and Michelle and I are in the midst of a debate about how gross it would be to bob for apples in Senegal. [The verdict? Pretty darn.] I have a pumpkin spice Yankee candle that I’m dying to light, and Michelle is trying to figure out how we can sucker a Senegalese man into taking us for a “hay ride” on his trash cart. Ghetto. Fabulous. In the spirit of the season, I can’t stop listening to this song-…it’s about as Halloweeny as I get. I just stuck it into my running mix-and on that note, I’m off to run with Dayton. :)

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Filed under God's faithfulness, Holidays other than Christmas, Joy, Team

October 27, 2010 · 8:04 pm

My Beef With the Baby Downstairs.

My little cousin Julianna and I. I adore this child. This baby, we'll keep. ;)

I’m not that girl.

That girl that sits around planning her wedding and naming her children? That’s not me-it never has been. Those girls have food names like “Candy” or “Muffin”. They wear pearls to pick the newspaper up off their front porch at 6:30 AM and spend their spare time knitting and collecting little faceless Amish dolls. I can’t even sew a button. I have two puppy names picked out, if that counts [Friday and Latte-how cute are those names?]-but it’s going to be a while before I have any desire to create a mini-me.

…especially now.

Apparently, there’s a sort of understood chain of events that occurs once you fall hopelessly in love and decide to link your life to somebody else’s forever amen. A test, so to speak, to determine whether or not you’re ready to slap pastel paint all over the room in your house that formerly functioned as an office, and toss any longing thought of sleep out the window. For the purposes of our discussion today, we’ll call it the “Can you keep a living thing alive?” test.

 The test begins with houseplants. This is tragic news for me, given that I can’t so much as keep a cactus alive. It’s like plants see me coming and simply give up! I get my black thumb from my Mom-whose line of cheerfully colored dirtpots  flowerpots on our windowsill back home has been affectionately nicknamed “death row” by my snarky brothers.

 I digress. The theory is that if you can keep a plant on the greener side, you’re ready to try and keep a fish from turning some sickly variant of that same color. If your fish survives, you graduate to a puppy, and once you’ve kept Rover alive for a significant amount of time, you’re ready for los bebes. Basically, if we do some simple math, thus far in my life I’m at about a 36% success rate. If I were a goldfish, I’d be hoarding food flakes and cowering in my plastic castle while contemplating leaping over the bowl walls and braving the outside world.

 Given the fact that I’m far, far away from needing to pass the “Can you keep a living thing alive?” test, I’m

Other kids in my family I love! So I suppose they're not all bad...

rather indifferent at this point in my life. The past three weeks, however, have caused me to seriously consider purposefully committing fish genocide and FLUNKING said test to ensure that I never have to deal with anything that won’t swim quietly in a tank.

…ladies and gentlemen: I give you my beef with the baby downstairs.

It can’t be more than two years old, and I know I ought to be far more understanding. Let’s keep in mind, though, that I live in the midst of a deafeningly loud city. It’s not as though I’m asking for silence and solitude, here-the call to prayer starts at 5:00 AM, and I sleep straight through it. I sleep through the hustle of traffic, the incessant haggling of vendors on the street outside my bedroom window, and our neighbor’s rap music. [And by the way, Rihanna needs a full psychiatric work-up for “liking the way it hurts”.] The point is, I’ve learned to tune out the dull roar of my noisy city.

 What I can’t tune out is that blasted rugrat downstairs! Like clockwork every bright and early morning, the thing starts wailing like a banshee. Screaming, hollering at the top of it’s little lungs like it’s on fire-and to my great chagrin, it never actually is.

 It’s just sitting there. If you ask me, I think it’s just bored. And what’s more, it’s brilliant, enabling parents love to yell back at it-creating a daily ruckus that will leave you contemplating gnawing off your right arm.

 I think, if it’s all the same to you, in a couple years I’ll just take up collecting those faceless Amish voodoo dolls and call it a day.

[The fish might need some friends.]

 

[Note: Fine, you caught me, I don't actually hate ALL babies.]

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Filed under Cross cultural moments, My ghetto-fab life, The daily grind

October 23, 2010 · 9:40 pm

Beauty From Bedlam. [Of Lemons.]

“Forgive me for being so ordinary while claiming to know an extraordinary God.” –Jim Elliot

Dayton's surprise birthday party last night.

Sometimes, Senegal feels like lemons.

I know. It’s the thing I’m not supposed to say. And trust me, I really wish I could be the girl that adores third-world life in a Muslim African country and always loves every second of campus ministry. I do.

 …but sometimes, I just don’t. Life in Senegal can feel like a load of lemons. A heap of dirty, worm-ridden, discolored, sickly Senegalese lemons. Trying to no avail to fall asleep on the dirty floor, feeling nauseous more often than not, rubbing my hands raw doing laundry in the bathtub, eating endless piles of oily rice, having heart-shattering conversations I feel like I’ve had a thousand times over with Muslim students that are entirely convinced that they can save themselves, trudging around the filthy city in the scorching heat under the suffocating, leering gazes of every man around…

With Ian and Em before her Nutcracker recital.

…sometimes, it feels like lemons. It’s been two shorts weeks and I am already certifiably exhausted.

Laundry today. This was a two hour process!

 It’s the thing I’m not supposed to say-but sometimes I just want to be home. I want to watch the leaves in North Carolina turn a myriad of brilliant shades of orange and red during Pumpkin Spice Latte season at Starbucks. I want to sit in the front row at my little sister’s Christmas ballet recital and cheer when I’m not supposed to. I want long coffee dates in overstuffed coffee-shop arm chairs with friends that can finish my sentences. I want the beautifully orchestrated life that  flows with the exquisite fluidity of running water-the one I left a lifetime  two weeks ago.

They say when life hands you lemons, to make lemonade. Between the two of us, I think it’s okay not to make lemonade sometimes. Or lemon meringue pie. Or lemon squares. Or any other mouth puckeringly sweet confection that ought to be cheerfully served in a hazy cloud of powdered sugar with a perfectly lipsticked smile, pearls and an apron. Maybe, just maybe, it’s okay every once in a while to look questioningly at your rancid pile of lemons, holler in utter,

Just before one of Em's ballet recitals. How cute is she!?

deliriously frustrated exhaustion, and crumple to the floor in a sticky, sour puddle.

You can’t live on the floor, though. The floor offers a rather bleak perspective, I must say-…and it’s a hot mess down there. Believe it or not, I’m not telling you all of this to whine. I am simply convinced that it’s really important for you to understand that when it comes to walking with Jesus, I’m so far from perfect. You might think that because I’m living in Africa, I am somehow more “together” when it comes to God. The truth is, I get frustrated and react childishly and short-sightedly. I am quite possibly the single most selfish person that I know-and there are days in Africa when I crave the creature comforts that in light of eternity, are entirely meaningless. Following Jesus to Africa is not easy for me, nor am I always cheerful about it. I know some of you read my stories and think “I could never do that”. Trust me-I’m that girl that you’d never expect to “do that”. I’m a pencil skirt and heels, not sweaty t-shirts and dirty feet. I naturally love myself much more than other people-there is nothing organic in me that is well-suited to do what I’m doing. I am currently sweating in an apartment on the coast of Africa only because Jesus is good and worth following, and gives me just enough grace moment-by-moment to continue following Him in this unfamiliar place.

I really am excited that God that cares more about my character than my comfort. He has taken me where I never

The day I decorated the tree with my family, my senior year of college. Really looking forward to doing this again in just over a year. :)

 intended to go to produce in me what I could never achieve on my own. He allows bedlam into my life and makes it beautiful by showing me that in the midst of sleeplessness and heat, sickness and loneliness, when I miss home and rain and caramel lattes and Christmas, He is good and He is enough. My delight must, must, must be in Jesus! Jesus is worth following-of that, I am entirely, unwaveringly convinced. There is an unshakable joy and deep-rooted satisfaction found in Him that can be found in nothing else-and I can promise you that in the midst of dearly missing the life I left behind. Jesus is infinitely more valuable than the people and things that I miss.

He might call you to something hard. It might be across the street or across the world-and it might feel like lemons. But sometimes we need lemons. We’ve got to learn to savor the good gifts God gives us-even when at first glance, they don’t feel wonderful. How might all of our lives be dramatically, forever changed if we really believed that to live is Christ?

If you pray, I’d love it if you’d ask God to cause me to follow Him that way over the next eight and a half months-to believe at a heart level that He is

Em on Christmas morning. It's my blog, and I get to post pictures of the things I love and miss-...and really, have you EVER seen anything this cute?

infinitely more valuable than Christmas with my family, caramel lattes and being comfortable.

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Filed under God's faithfulness, Musings

October 17, 2010 · 6:19 pm

Of Tissue Snowstorms and Caramel Latte Coups.

A picture from the "Amazing Race" our team did the other day. These two are keeping me alive!

I’ve spent the past couple of days in bed.

Clearly, by “in bed”,  what I actually mean is that I’ve alternated between sprawling out on the blissfully cool tile in the living room, and curling up on the mat masquerading as my bed while the drunken lullaby drifting from the mosque sings me to sleep.

If you ask me, I think my body is simply staging a coup until I succumb to its demands for a venti skinny caramel latte and an onion bagel. It’s decided to reject all other foods-and after the Great Ant Incident of last week, who can blame it?

Given that I haven’t been able to retain nutrients for four days, I’ve also got a dizzying cold. [Yes, a cold. The irony isn’t escaping any of us, over here.] My apartment is covered by what looks like a delicate layer of snow-but sadly, upon closer inspection turns out to simply be layers upon layers of wadded up tissues.

 Ho, ho, ho.

 I’m taking enough cold medicine to kill a baby elephant and thus cannot be entirely certain, but in my doped-up stupor I seem to recall arguing with an exceedingly patient Christy for a solid twenty minutes over whether or not I was going to drink grape Gatorade. Apparently I wanted raspberry lemonade crystal light, and in an effort to “get some electrolytes into

Food like this is part of the problem. My stomach needs to man up.

 me”, my favorite force-to-be-reckoned-with was determined to force a grape Gatorade packet into a very unwilling me.

 Two valuable lessons from this afternoon. First: cold medicine turns me into a five year old. Second: Christy always wins.

 She, Michelle, and all the men have been fantastic. I haven’t done a thing for myself in four days-in between whipping up chicken soup [Chicken. Soup. In Dakar!], making me drink enough tea and Gatorade to fill no less than three kiddie-pools, [you know I’m sick when coffee stops appealing to me], and keeping me on a strict schedule of vitamins and cold medicine that would make the changing of the guards look sloppy and lackadaisical, it’s really a wonder I’m still sick.

I have the most fantastic team. :)

 We’re starting our “normal” schedules tomorrow morning-please pray that my body cooperates! I’m excited about this year. :) I’m excited for the myriad of ways it will be different from last year-for old relationships and new ones, for all of the men and  women that desperately need Jesus and are about to discover who He is. I’m also really intrigued to discover how the girl that gets on a plane to fly home in July will be different from the girl that’s typing this right now.

 So, here we go. STINT: the Remix. I hope you’re excited for the stories!

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Filed under God's faithfulness, Team, The daily grind

October 12, 2010 · 9:44 pm

In Which I Ate Bugs.

Are you ready for this one?

Christy, Michelle and I back when we were a little less ghetto-fab.

Earlier today, Ben went to the street meat sandwich guy to pick up lunch for my team and I. For those of you currently lounging in an air-conditioned Starbucks sipping a pumpkin spice latte and wondering who on earth would ever eat something called “street meat”, I should clarify that last year, my team loved street meat sandwiches. I know, I know, a year ago I would have pointed up my jaunty little western nose and judged me too-but I promise that if you lived here, you would quickly tire of fish and rice and there would come a day when you too, would find yourself making your way over to the street meat man.

Street-meat-man has a makeshift grill precariously positioned in the sand outside of a decrepit lean-to, in which he keeps giant bags of French baguettes and buckets of meat on sticks.

 …I am uneasily uncertain as to what kind of meat it is, but in Africa you learn to say “merci” and keep your questions to yourself. 

 Street-meat-man speaks no French and only a bit of broken Wolof, and so through a series of highly amusing hand motions and those priceless affirmative and negative grunts that cannot possibly translate on paper but are universally understood, you communicate what you would like on your baguette. How many sticks of meat he should throw on the “grill”, whether or not you would like onions and hot sauce, etc. With the practiced of ease of one who has spent his entire life doing exactly that, vegetables and sauces start to fly through the air as Street-meat-man slides thin, heavily seasoned chunks of mystery meat off of thin, wooden kabob sticks and onto your dauntingly large baguette, wraps crude brown paper around his completed tour de force, and with a flourish gives both ends a quick twist and hands you your lunch.

It’s difficult to spend more than two dollars at the street meat stand. To my knowledge, in fact, it’s never been done!

Michelle, Dayton, Ted, Christy and I gave Ben our sandwich orders several hours ago, and sent him over to Street-meat-man. Upon Ben’s return, we all sat around the men’s kitchen table, and hungrily unwrapped our lunches. To my dismay, after I’d already devoured several bites of my third-world piece of heaven, I heard Michelle gasp quietly.

 Now, background. About five days ago, Michelle was a vegetarian. Understanding that maintaining that lifestyle in Senegal would be impractical, she’s been hesitantly easing back into the carnivore world. She’s had a remarkably positive attitude about the whole thing!

Back to our story. In the midst of chewing my third or fourth bite of mystery meat, I heard Michelle gasp quietly

Michelle with the vanilla Ben and Jerry's that accompanied her and she boarded our flight to Dakar. Little did she know what she'd be eating days later...

and exclaim, “There are ANTS on my sandwich!” The poor girl. Mere days into her journey back to meat-heaven, and she found herself eating unidentifiable, ant-covered chunks.

Disconcerted to say the least, I looked down at my baguette and noticed several of the devious little creatures crawling around my sandwich like they owned the place!

What’s a girl to do? We all brushed off as many ants as we could, and kept on trucking. Thanks to Street-meat-man’s failure to keep a lid on the meat bucket, there was an added dirt crunch with every bite that enhanced the whole ant-eating experience.

 Oh, Africa.

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Filed under Cross cultural moments, My ghetto-fab life, Team, The daily grind