The chai is steaming in the cup beside my chair, my wool socks are pulled up over my leggings, and as I look outside my window, snow is darting around in the pine trees.  A quick glance at my calendar reassures me that it actually is May 27th.
I've been in the mountains for just about 3 days now, after re-packing my suitcase and backpack and flying to Jackson Hole Wyoming to spend the summer in Grand Teton National Park to work housekeeping and volunteer with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (creative title, right?)
Adventures already?  Absolutely.  I watched a baby black bear scramble his way across the road....from the safety of the car, met an Ashland-er who graduated from my high school and who also works in the Tetons, took a snowy hike on a day off, welcomed a roommate from Moscow (she's skyping in Russian right now...music to my English-weary ears), and passed last night talking with the Jamaicans in the dorms.
The snow is really not my cup of tea.  But I've just today covered my wall with pictures from Tanzania, Prague, and home, to remind me of how places have changed me:
The picture of my dear Wheaton roommates and friends, who have shown me love and joy
The picture of a cafe in Switzerland where I learned that conversation can be just as adventurous as a hike in the mountains
The picture of Karlene in Tanzania who showed me how to be a servant
The picture of the Zanzibar Red Bishop who taught me how to absolutely delight in creation
The picture of my dear backpacking friends in Prague who remind me of the grace of Jesus and the joys of friendship
The picture of my last days in Africa with Megs who reminds me to talk in Sid-the-Sloth voices and never hide my humor
The picture of my family who remind me of the nearness of Jesus
and the picture of the village girls who remind me that an hour can be spent in laughter.


Last night, I met Oliver from Jamaica.  Over a game of dominoes, Oliver looked up with a smile and said "salvation is the best."  Part of me couldn't help but laugh at this childish-sounding superlative, but in truth, Oliver's statement sums up all that I have come to learn over these past few years in these past few adventures.  Sure, traveling is incredible, coming home to my family is incredible, the dreams I'm forming are exciting, but in the end, knowing Jesus Christ is the best.  Knowing Jesus means that I also know who messed up I am.  Don't go looking at me or any other human being to get an accurate representation of Christianity, because part of understanding the Gospel is understanding that I am not good and not capable of saving myself.  But also understand that the Gospel is not a message of guilt.  I had a conversation with a guy on MegaBus last week who didn't like the fact that Christianity was all about guilt, as he said.  But if you look at the mission of Jesus, we see clearly that He did not come to give us a life steeped in guilt.  He came to free us from sin and to free us from guilt.  He came so that we would have life and life to the fullest.  And if you ask me, a life lived in guilt is no live at all, certainly not life to the fullest.  Yes, knowing Jesus means that I acknowledge my sinfulness.  But above all, I know that when the Lord looks at me, He doesn't see guilt, shame, sinfulness, mistakes, rebellion.  He see Jesus who knew that I would never be able to free myself from guilt and sin, who knew that I could never be "good enough", and who loved me so much that He could not let me continue that way.  And He did the same for the rest of humanity.
I write this as much for myself as for anyone else, for it's truth that I always need to remind myself of.  I feel like I should have a picture on my wall of Oliver to remind me that "salvation is the best".

These mountains are my new home, these people - Russian, Jamaican, American - are my new community, and this all is a place where I have been brought to learn much.  But what I have learned, what has shaped me, what I know to be Truth - it's all taped in a grid on my wall, for me to survey daily, remember often, be thankful for always, and to practice in all circumstances.  

Karibu Tanzania!

The beatiful Agamma Lizard

Church at Bagamoyo - considered to be the first church on Africa's East Coast

Baobabs in Ruaha National Park

Safari refreshments!

The remnants of our Asante Sana! (Thank You!) party for our Tanzanian workers on campus

Lichen and well-dressed Critters

Beautiful Safwa children!



A place of joy
http://foxesngo.blogspot.com/

Journeys

The exquisite European Bee-Eater

My little friend who brought joy and mud to campus!

Facials at Lake Malawi



My sweet sweet brother on village homestay...discovering stickers

Giraffe spine...found at our lunch stop in Ruaha...it wasn't our lunch

African Hoopoe

The best nesters in my opinion...I introduce to you the Golden-Backed Weavers

A vista of Jacaranda trees

Kindergarten!

The blues of Lake Malawi

Planting beans with Mama



Cooking up some beans with Mama

Masaai Women

Megan pointing out the lion tracks just outside our Banda at Ruaha...22 paces outside to be exact

The end of a beautiful day in Ruaha

Early morning bird walks on campus

When there's rain, there's mud.  And when there's mud, you just have to play.

Dancing Murani (Masaai warriors)



LILAC-BREASTER ROLLER!



My dear sister, Salvena, at our home in the village



Our carnivorous guest in Ruaha



Showing some sass in Dar Es Salaam

"Tea Bags"
The first step in processing
(At Mufindi Tea Factory)

Decorating with Khangas for our staff tea party

Tea - finished, ready to ship and drink!

The most beautiful Safari
(Ruaha)

Tori the birder

Watercolors for friends back home

Wildflowers

Our blackbelt on the trip

Another sort of bird

The first African bird I remember being captured by
The Zanzibar Red Bishop...like a little tomatoe in the grass

Best butts in the Savannah

...some of my recent writings...

3.12.12 Ruaha National Park
And I know why this day was brought to me to live.  Or perhaps it was that I was ushered toward this day to live it.  I lived perhaps the most beautiful day of my life - the sights I saw today can only be aptly described using EE Cummings' words: 'Everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes!' I saw mountains in the distance that were blue, purple, and beginning to block a descending red sun.
Oh my goodness, the beauty I was permitted to see today!  And the great joy I have in using these beautiful words to describe it!  During our evening safari, I was struck by how beautiful the people around me are.  And even though we seemed out of place in the midst of these open plains, we somehow fit so perfectly - creation in creation,and both looked overwhelmingly beautiful.  We turned off the vehicles to watch foxes at one point, and I sat there, palms open, listening to the powerful stillness that coursed through me - and I felt that this was the sound of peace.  The whole day the engines and sound of the road had stopped up the background, but for a few brief moments all I could hear was stillness - the plains of Africa as the Lord must hear them.  How powerful, healing, and majestic is this silence.  For it is not an absence of sound, but the filling of something most wonderful and natural, and holy.  The mountains here, the yellow and purple wild flowers that are only great proof that the Lord is Beauty - I saw the clouds and the flowers, and the flashes of color from birds taking flight as signs of how majestic an artist and creator the Lord is - everything about today was holy and deeply majestic.
 And as the trees faded to black sillouetes and Orion's Belt pushed through the clouds, my heart was screaming 'holy holy holy art thou!  For this is your creation for the day - this gentle coming on of night which was different yesterday and will be different tomorrow - and oh to know that I am your creation for eternity, and you have filled every inch of this place with beauty that hurts to take in, and yet you cherish me above all this.'

3.13.12 Ruaha Morning bird walk
I slipped through the tent's opening and walked the sand path alone.  In the morning, everything, including the river whose banks preserved the lion prints, was gold.  The wind dared not move for fear of breaking the glory of the moment, and I wrapped my waist in a kanga, feeling Africa on my skin, in the intimate spaces between my hair which fell forward into my face as I knelt in submission before the white flower which opened around as the skirt of a whirling dervish.

3.14.12 Second morning in Ruaha
I can only walk with my palms turned upwards.
Somehow my hands must be connected to my soul.
I tried to absorb the feeling of this morning,
tried to gather this holiness through my eyes,
but they would not open wide enough, could not translate
the language this ground only speaks in the mornings.
And so my palms drifted up.
The creases on them must be how it gets in -
how this morning seeped in and reached my soul,
to be stored there in the category of 'Holiness.'
For it was only when my hands turned upward and each step in this Eden
was taken in worship,
that my soul could feel creation.

This past week we took in a lecture on a current political topic of great unrest in Sudan.  My professor - Bwana Jon - and his wife lived as anthropologists with the Murle people of southern Sudan for 8 years and now Bwana is being looked to as the only person who can speak in defense of the Murle as they suffer in  Sudan.
Here's the situation unfolding:
The Murle tribe is being attacked by other south Sudanese tribes - the Nuer and the Dinka.  The Murle are seen as traitors because they aligned themselves temporarily with the North before Sudan split into north and south.  (The Murle did this, however, because they were being unjustly ruled by the Dinkas.)  In South Sudan, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, comprised of Nuer and Dinka, run the land and want to annihilate the Murle.  In just the last 3 weeks, in a Nuer attack, 300-3000 people died and 96000 Murle temporarily fled their land.  But no where is safe for them - in the last hospital the Murle were in, Murle patients were killed in their beds by machine gun fire. 
These attacks are being led by Nuer youth who have created the White Army.  These youth have never known peace - they grew up during civil war - and have organized into an army with no proclaimed leader, have distributed radical memos, and are designed to annihilate the Murle.  The youth are refusing to listen to anyone, including the church, and have even threatened the Sudan government that if they don't back them, they will take down the Sudanese president and kill him.
The international community is only hearing the Nuer side, which has portrayed the Nuer as warriors and on the defense, and the Murle as traitors.
No one is speaking up for the Murle.  Only one man knows Murle history and culture enought to speak for them.  Jon Arensen - Bwana as we call him - has been contacted by the UN to present the Murle side to a council in Nairobi in March.
While he can speak for them, we can pray for them.
Pray for the Nuer youth, that they would learn war no more.
Pray for the Nuer Christians who have remained silent (both Nuer and Murle believers are Presbyterian)
Pray for the Sudan Council of Churches
Pray for Bwana Jon as he prepares and presents
Pray for Bwana's son as we works directly with Nuer youth in his homeland of Sudan

When I step out of my hut, I often look in the direction of other countries and pray against their sufferings
to the North West, Rwanda healing from genocide
turning to the far North East in Somalia with their political unrest
and a bit to the North West is Sudan...and it is in this direction that I direct my prayers.  This suffering is closer to me than it has ever been, but this situation has shown how powerfully anthropology can be used in reconciliation.
And, we serve the Prince of Peace, who one day will bring about ultimate reconciliation.
'there was a great multitude, from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages, standing before the throne...'

Things I've managed to avoid while here but others haven't:
painful sunburn
scorpions falling on your head
broken sandals
kanga skirts falling off in public
constapation/diahhrea

Things I haven't managed to avoid here but other's have:
getting an entire congregation to laugh at your miscommunications

My family knows how often I butcher the pronunciation of words, but until now, that's only held for English words:
On Sunday, we piled into and on top of our land-rovers and drove to a pentacostal village church nearby.  I so wish I could upload pictures to show you the landscape of this trip, but my mere words will have to suffice.  The red dirt roads brought us past mud houses that spilled forth children waving and shouting 'Mazungu!', and check out these colors: short vibrant green stalks of maize cut through by rich red dirt paths, contained by pure blue skies (mom...these are the types of skies you've always wanted), surrounded by navy blue mountains in the distance and green, boulder spotted hills in the foreground.  Breathtaking. 
It's amidst this beauty that I prefer to make my blunders.
Walking into the church, I was the last female student and I quickly observed that the left side of benches was quickly filling up, so I bravely and intrepidly thought  I'd start my own row on the right side.  Sitting down by myself, excited for the service and the prospect of sitting by Tanzanians, I eventually clued into the fact that my friends were all motioning to me that I had plopped down in the middle of the men's section...quickly sinking over to the female side, I thought any major blunder had been avoided.
I was in the back, loving listening to my brothers and sisters praise the Lord in Swahili (Dad, you say Methodists used to be known for their singing...you've got to come hear the Africans), loved watching the dancing and the curious children who surrounded us.  Then the pastor announced that we, the Americans...and one Canadian...would stand up and introduce ourselves and say where we were from, in Swahili.  The scenario was perfect - I was the last female and had plenty of time to practice, so as 20 some girls stood up before me, I ran the phrases over and over in my head, feeling super confident...not a trace of nerves.
'Jina langu ni Liz, na nimetoka Ohio'  (My name is Liz and I've just come from Ohio.)
Simple.
Standing up, with all eyes on me, I confidently proclaimed, loudly, to the congregation that 'I come from Liz, and my name is Ohio'
Thinking I had aced it, I started to sit back down.  Halfway down, I caught on to the laughter that errupted from the whole church and, realizing something must have gone wrong, I too began laughing. Once safely sitting down, I realized my mistake and lost it, laughing so had that tears were streaming down my face. 
OH-IO I guess :)
At the end of the service, everyone filed out and shook one anothers' hand as the congregation formed a circle outside.  Making my way through the lines, I shook my friends' hands as they greeted me with 'Hey Ohio' or 'Nice going Ohio', which only threw me into more fits of tearful laughter.
...the joy of the Lord seems to have followed me here in the form of tearful laughter.
As if that wasn't enough of an adventure, a group of us headed out at 2 am this morning, taking a walk through the coffee fields along the river, to a nearby campsite to watch the Super Bowl.  I went for the commercials only to realize they don't air the American commercial here.  So, I fell asleep in the fourth quarter after that bizarre half time show.  But I do know, dad, it was a football game, Giants won, and you all got more sleep than I did, but the walk back to campus in the early morning was worth every touchdown...even the ones they weren't supposed to make.

Who knew rainboots would come in handy in Africa?  The rain today, I've been told, is a 'female' rain - gentle on the earth, soaking deep into the ground to nurture it.  The Africans rejoice, but the students who wished for their laundry to dry on the line may not have the same reaction.
We hit the books this week, taking in lectures on Africa's slave history, cultural context and it's implications for religion, history of the Swahili people, Ethology, and today, to our great excitement...ungulates!
Mornings here are early, as are our nights.  The electricity comes on around  7 pm and turns off around 10 pm, so late nights don't really tempt any of us.  I wake up to the birds and have found myself chanting the pneumonic devices Eli (our wildlife professor and avid birder) has taught us for different bird calls.  While I love how my ears are tuning in to this music of African mornings, hearing things I never would have caught on ton, EVERY TIME I hear a red-eyed dove, my mind starts chanting along with it's call 'I am a red-eyed dove'. 
On that note, I embarked on my first bird walk on Sunday morning, only to realize that I am distracted by the trees here and forget to focus on the birds.  The trunks of trees here seem to always be a twisting of several smaller trunks which then shoot up into incredible leaf shapes.  I should learn to appreciate birds more - which is why I'm grateful to be surrounded by people who are so passionate about them - but my eye is attracted more to color, and the colors of bark, leaves, and Tanzania's red dirt, trumps brown birds. 
Later on Sunday, we joined the ex-pat community for Iringa's Rugby Fest, hosted on a local farm.  With no rugby skills to offer, i joined the children and was quickly leading around British girls looking for their 'mummy' (it's a struggle no to talk back to them in an accent) and throwing my African buddy Akim around on the blow up slide.  But I soon noticed a group of village children gathering just out side of the festivities, watching the other children.  I attempted a Swahili conversation but realized my actions would communicate better than words.  I kicked a soccer ball to the oldest boy and soon we were off in the field for over an hour playing soccer.  The smallest boy, who looked to be 4 or 5 but must be more like 7, was enthralled with the game, even though his dirty sweater kept slipping off one shoulder and he had only one sandal to wear.  And he never broke a smile.  When we ended for lunch, my feet were dirtied beyond recognitions of ever having been white.
After our break, I wandered back to find more village children had gathered.  As they stood, arms around shoulders, a baby on the hip of a 7 year old, I couldn't help but take in the clothing.  Some literally had rags assembled as clothing.  The baby wore a sweater, young girls wore old 'sunday' dresses - one with a huge hole torn so that her swollen belly showed - and the smallest boy who loved to show me how he could slide down the slide, wore pajama pants that were split in the front and back.  Hardly would you call this clothing.
But I'm grateful that my time with these children didn't end with me feeling broken hearted because of their poverty.  That hour we spent in the field filled me with such joy - to see their excitement and their smiles was almost enough to make me forget the rags.
Perhaps the birds here haven't captured my heart because the children have.

My shoulders have a slight sunburn from swimming in the Indian Ocean, I've fallen asleep under mosquito nets to the sound of waves, can properly identify a mango tree, and have marvelled at how wrinkly an elephant really is up close. 
We've finally made it to Iringa after spending a few days along the coast,getting to know eachother and to shake off the jet-lag.  We now live in the shire...or at least in a beautiful campus which houses us in small, thatched-roofed bungalows that all certainly look like the shire.  One of my friends even brought a tin whistle to play the shire song for us in the mornings.
Driving through several towns on our way to Iringa, I've watched Africa through the car windows, and am amazed at the rich colors of this place. The red dirt is a deep teracotta color, the women's Kangas are vibrant and mismatched, and the skin of these African people is such a beautiful and rich darkness.  It's been interesting to be a minority, really for the first time in my life.  Here, I am known by my color.  When we drive by, women stare out of their doorways, children pause their play, and men look up from their work to notice the truck of white students driving by.  Never before have I been known for my color, but here that is exactly what identifies me.  (how about that for an anthropological concept to contemplate?!)
I've already been on my first safari and saw just about every African animal you'd hope to see, except a lion.  Elephants came right beside our window and cut us off from the road as they crossed to be with their family. (did you know that an elephant have 105,000 muscles in it's trunk?)  And my fingers and ankles have trails of bug bites crawling along - I try not to think about what this means when I sleep.
Speaking of sleep...the night sky here is incredible.  With hardly any light pollution, Orion's Belt is the clearest I've ever seen it, and every inch of the sky seems to be covered by stars.  It's quite breathtaking really.
I realize this update jumps around...my mind is quite distracted what with the 20 other students typing away in the cafe.  But to finish, let me share one quick insight:  I worried for a bit that I made a mistake coming here.  Some of the other students on the trip have wanted to come to Africa for years, and cried upon landing in Dar...and I found that this isn't me at all.  So the first few days on campus I coulnd't figure out what I was doing in Africa.  Of course I'm here to study, but that simply didn't have enough purposefullness to satisfy me.  I work off of vision, and I didn't have a clear vision for my time here.  But I was meditating on  a passage in  Isaiah...Isaiah 43:18-19 to be exact   'Do not remember the former things, or consider the  things of old.  I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?'
This part about a new thing really gets me going.  Even hough I function off vision, the Lord still had promised to do a new thing in me here even though I don't perceive what this will be.  And even though this ambiguousness can be frustrating at times - because it can look like purposelessness - I rest in the assurance that this patience and dependency of the Lord will be worth it.
So I continue to walk the dirt roads and hike the mountains here, unsure of why this semester is happening, but certain that a new thing is springing forth.