To make this sound as dramatic as possible…Tonight, for me, begins the process of processing again through writing. I can’t say exactly why I stopped. I could perhaps just say that I’m altogether too busy (which in reality might be the truest lie I’ve ever told); it might have something to do with me being so entirely confused a large majority of the time about the types of things you can probably assume I would be confused by that I’m too dumbfounded to find a pen ; or it could just be that I’m so scared of not processing my daily life enough, or from quite another angle – processing it wrongly that I’ve become selfish with my own heart and mind which has had the knock on effect of me hiding myself from myself. What I’d like to think it is, and this might be a bit more true but then again it might just be a bit more valiant sounding, is that I haven’t wanted to write from the place or from the perspective of a tourist, a sightseer, a short term volunteer, or even a development worker (which, btw, I am wholly not). In this beginning of the time I have here I would like to think that I care more about the people, this country, and the work of myself and my colleagues that those elements of where I am also become a little bit of whom I am; as to not downplay, belittle, over associate, assume, or inadvertently leave out too much or for that matter too little. I wanted to be a part of this particular patch of the planet before I started to be your eyes and ears into said patch, where I and many, many others are slowly by slowly making home. At least that’s what I’d like to think. I suppose you can make up your mind for yourself. That said, a small disclaimer here, it would be altogether unfair of you to assume of me that I think I am entirely a part. I’m just as much a part as you would be if you found yourself living here for the last six months. What it might just boil down to is I’m just tired of not thinking, writing, communicating and processing in this method. In the past I’ve made promises to very many a people to do such things as keep in touch, to write life down or to finish off adventures in sentence form that quite frankly were never kept. My intention here then is to not make you believe that the last six months of comings and goings will suddenly be documented on this particular platform. Although I have many thoughts on, among other things… the riots I witnessed at a distance of meters in the central part of the country; the concept of everyone having a village no matter how domesticated we might proclaim to be; sitting next to one thousand hatchling chickens on a bus for multiple hours and why this is an absolutely beautiful thing; how I love hanging fabric and papyrus mats on walls; the ability or inability to be necessarily whole while living at a distance from someone who has a part of your heart, eating millet porridge for lunch; what it’s like to live across from a discotheque in northern Uganda (if you were wondering and I’m certain you were, ladies nights are not only always on Wednesdays they are also always the most raucous); the gamut of distractions we as the western world have created for ourselves in our absolute material wealth and quite ignorantly exported into the global south;; making friends with fish farmers, and beekeepers and fish farmers/beekeepers; why mango pie could revolutionize your taste buds; the reality of much of the worlds existence in the realm of taking choices as opposed to making choices; how ox plows, oxen and adequate training could make the landscape of Acholiland something to really move out of IDP (Internally Displaced Peoples) camps for; how you shouldn’t steal chickens in the village because one of two realities could very well happen to you: getting your head chopped clean off or getting your tongue bitten out by a bird made out of lightning (its science); the delicious taste of edible rat and how I can’t decide whether it was that or the copious amounts of pork (also quite delicious sans hair) which may or may not be making me lose kgs due to an all too likely intestinal parasite; how old men everywhere are somehow practically the same and how your grandpa would absolutely love Obote too if he were Ugandan; and I can’t forget about this one, the false economies created by well meaning aid…I don’t believe it would be right of me to tell the lie that those thoughts are ever coming, let alone soon. You have to remember that this isn’t a box office and you wouldn’t buy this drivel anyway so let’s move forward and sometimes backwards starting with today.

The journey I’m starting today marks the beginning of something new, exciting and promising. But if we were to look back, timeline style, today is simply a signpost with a caption which says something to the effect of, “This is the point in which Zach left home - as planned.” If life does happen to be a string of events connected at one end to the idea of something and at the other to the fruition, to the coming together, to the reuniting of that long lost but never forgotten idea with its tangible outcome (and I’m strongly inclined to believe that that’s what life is) I’d be somewhere in the middle (not unlike the rest of you). Tonight that middle point looks like a hotel room in the historic district of downtown Philadelphia where I’m resting up from a day of airport layovers and Peace Corps staging meetings. I have to admit though; this rest does not come easy. After meeting my Peace Corps (PC) training cohort and being briefed on PC service the anxiousness of the two day affair that travelling to Entebbe, Uganda through Brussels is has begun to set in and the thoughts, ponderings and general wondering of what is to come in the next twenty seven months are not far behind. Strangely enough me and the unknown have a peaceable existence…

Salamanca friends, is a beautiful city, perhaps the most awe inspiring urban landscape we have yet encountered. I can’t fully put into to words why I find it so pleasing to the eye, to the mind, and to the heart. The atmosphere, the location, and the people are so wholly new, fresh and exciting that the experience in its entirety leaves me breathless, speechless and yes yes, that’s right, hopelessly romantic. * Earlier this evening as the sun was preparing us all for its retreat over the horizon with the long shadows and the telltale shades of another day gone by I toured the city, really a glorified college campus, on foot, and parts of me fell in love with its endless cobblestone streets, statues of old dudes long forgot, plazas galore, countless academic buildings tucked away between city blocks, and cathedrals in mass. But what really struck me, and don't miss this, were the swallows; thousands upon thousands of them, swooping from rooftop to rooftop above my head in the twilight, earning their daily bread like they have done for centuries now. Making they're homes in the shingles and gutters and nooks and crannies of the cities` finest architects` work. It’s quite amazing really, where some choose to settle down. My expertise as a budding biologist tells me that for these swallows, its simple really, a matter of resources, of home ranges, of breeding cycles, of genetics, of environmental factors, of the stochasticity of natures delicate balance.

But tonight, because you must remember, I can’t help but be romantic, I think the dance these swallows do with nooks and crannies and life and death is quite remarkable. It’s a dance I have to admit I haven’t quite figured out yet, maybe not so much the bit about life and death, but more so the nooks and crannies part. And those of you who know me best are quite tired of this dialogue, of hearing me talk about this dance we do with home, of watching my tireless search for a place and a people and a purpose to settle into. And I feel as if the story of Jacob resonates so completely in my heart not only because he is a grandfather in the family line of my creator, but because his story foreshadows the story of every man. A story that changed his name and broke his hip. We must wrestle, and on some days I feel as if this adventure Nick and I are on across a foreign continent is more about fighting with life and with the meaning of love and with our God than it is about exploring. But it wouldn't be an adventure without a few broken hips, huh.

Nick and I didn't originally write this leg of the trip into the script, but the blueprint for this little adventure of ours was never really more than a joke of a first draft anyway. What convinced us of the change in trains was a group of people in this city who facilitate a place where students from Salamanca University and God can connect, a place of worship, a place of fellowship, and a place where it seems to me that walls get broken down. They call themselves En Vivo, and they're connected to the states and ourselves by way of a mission’s organization, CMF. Nick and I, both at one point or another being interested in ministry on college campuses on an international scale had some questions and they were more than happy to provide not only answers, but also beds, a ping pong table, and a little company. Our first night here we had the pleasure of attending a benefit concert in one of the many local hangouts. Have you ever had the feeling that all in one instant you wanted to attack a windmill with the likes of Don Quijote, make hemp anklets around a fire with Buddhist monks in a small Thai village, and save the children. Probably not, but I have, the music was that gall darn good. Nicely done En Vivo, nicely done. But seriously, these people are great and our time here has been more than excellent.

If you’ve been paying attention, in the last page of text I've sneakily deleted the memory of June 11-18th from your psyches. To be honest it really wasn't all that glamorous and we don't have much to say about it. What it boiled down to was Nick and I helping a group of entirely too burnt 40 year olds renovate an old chicken coop into a coffee shop-esk meeting place. The work really wasn't difficult at all and we spent most of every day on the Atlantic Coast of Spain on a beach between a lighthouse and a coral reef, but Nick was sick (something about drinking Morroccan water) and we weren’t able to connect with the people we were living with very well (something about loosing themselves in a haze of illicit narcotics). Bottom line- don’t do drugs, especially if you’re old and have a faith system revolving around the existence of evil being a creation of our minds. Pluses of the week included being able to get some good reading in, including the auto-biography Shantaram, which we would both highly suggest, and So Shall We Reap, an expose of current food systems of the world. Which is quite good if you’re interested in that sort of thing. We were also able to watch a few good American movies, which reminded us of home and made us miss friends and family all the more. Needless to say, finding Salamanca so beautiful and inviting was a blessing and we feel as if it has refocused us for the rest of the trip.

Next stop…Rome. Get ready.

* its true that those close to me, in similar situations, have described myself as a romantic comedy. it also happens to be true that in this condition I may or may not be a combination of humorous, sad, and like the main characters of many romantic comedies, really really good looking. but as some others have been quick to point out, entirely too quick i might add, i’ll just make you cry at the end, so those naysayers would suggest that you probably shouldn’t bother. you can make up your minds for yourself.

Just kidding, but seriously. Morroco: some say that it is deadly, but I say that it is deadly too. We'll get back to this.

Goodbyes at the eco-friendly building project proved to be bitter sweet. As Nick and I, late to the train station, rode through the foothills of the Pyrenees at breakneck speeds we quickly came to realize that we would miss the place, the people, and the ability to be set down. Chalabre, a small French village with its beautiful views of mountains and water had soon become home to not just us but also a growing number of traveling friends, of people just passing through. But even in this state of movement we all had found the common bond of basic needs met and had celebrated this find around the dinner table, around the workbench, around the setting sun and we had found all of this to be good. A friend of mine has this favorite line in a Ray Lamontagne song that goes something like this, "A man needs something he can hold on to, a 9 pound hammer or a woman like you..." and during our work at Jean Phillipe's a 9 pound hammer did just fine. but for every good vagabond there comes a time to move on, to cover more ground, to experience more life and for Nick and I the time had come.

Do you remember that seen in almost every movie, not the one where Arnold Swartchzeneger dives into a pool of water to avoid the explosion, but that other one where the characters are running after a train and throwing their luggage on piece by piece hoping beyond all hope that their legs can take that last leap to get them safely on board. It's not as entertaining when you're the one doing it. And this is how the next leg, the leg that would take us from Limoux to Asilah, from the south of France, to the Atlantic coast of Morroco began. We did make that train. (And just as before, you'll have to picture the miles flying by, by the words on the page, not by the lines on a map, so bear with me.) It took us as far as Carcassone, where we once again camped in the shadow of a castle, only to leave early the next morning. This next train took us to Barcelona, where we transfered to go to Madrid, where Nick sweet talked our way onto a train to Malaga. At this point we'd made it to the south of Spain, to the Meditteranean coast in fact, and although the day had been exhausting, the views at 300 kph had been absolutely breathtaking. Spain is a beautiful place, even when just passing through, with its vast expanses of vineyards in the east, various ranges of peak and valley, and mile upon mile of tree plantation. Needless to say we are looking forward to being back there. But back to Malaga. We tent camped literally on the Mediterranean, woke up refreshed, caught our train to Algeciras, had a series of very heartbreaking mishaps on the way, eventually made it there, caught our ferry in the knick of time to Tanger, and now we're back at the beginning.

Its amazing how situations can change as soon as you step off of a boat, but TIA mate, this is Africa. I won't say much more than the former international zone, a previous hotbed for spies, writers, musicians and hashish has not changed much since the 1970s and getting into its port at 9:00 pm, looking back, was a bad idea.* No worries though, just because Morroco is an Islamic state does not mean that grace does not abound for those who knock. *listening to any red eyed, no teethed individual who is trying to get you to close your eyes and open your heart is always a bad idea.

So after 2 very full days of trains, sites, busses, boats and schedules we had made it to Asilah. At the moment, its 11:00 pm on a Friday night. I'm sitting at a cafe right outside the medina walls enjoying a Cafe au lait, reflecting on the time gone by, missing old friends, catching bits of conversation in Arabic, in French, in Spanish, in English and most of all happily watching life go by. In a place where the streets are designed for the people and not the automobile, for the marketplace and not the happy meal, for community and not self check outs life walks by at times quietly and at others quite noisily, at all times begging to be pondered. So as I ponder I will tell you that there are similarities and differences between this place and my home place, between this place and every other place, between these peoples and every other peoples, that we pick out what we want to pick out. That as I sit here I see only the similarities and only the differences that I want to see. But thats all a jumbled mess in my head right now, travel has a way of moving not just the body, but the mind and at the moment I liken the waves in the Atlantic that are clearly heard and a 100 meter walk away to the movements of my thought, so I won't bother you with all of that.

What's clear, whats certain is the realization that life cannot be lived without an undelicate, an unmeasured, an unplanned balance of some conversation and some silence, of some closeness and of some distance, of some going and of some being and of some coming back. And I can't help but remember the end of James 4 which reminds us all that the only certain thing we have is the ability of the One who sent us to move mountains. Nick and I will be moving on soon. Our hope is that we are still living lifes bounded by equal measures of sincerity, fire, love and mischief, lifes in tune with the spirit.

Asilah has been good to us, our hotel, for 7 dollars a night, gives us rooftop views to the ocean, the beaches are a nice respet from travel and the sunsets, the sunsets friends, are celebrations of color, of light, of time gone by...

We are now in the motherland and it is magnaminous. If I could draw you a map of our comings and goings of the last week I would, but not only is the technology not available in Chalabre for something as futuristic as scanning, more importantly, what I’d like to get across with more clarity is the realness of our journey. A realness that the pen drawing a line on the paper would not hold a candle to. Some say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and yes this is true, but I’ve never been a poignant person. So, you’re map is below. After being graciously escorted to the Chicago O’Hare airport by a couple of incredibly beautiful people who happen to be my parents Nick and I started our first leg ; the one that took us across the ocean. That flight seems so long ago. For some reason that happens when there is a lot of happenings in between the now and the then. Anyhow, We landed in Manchester at 8 :55 am real time with a ticking clock for 4 hours later in the form of a bus ticket to London. So, we proceded to take the citybus to the city center, explore the Museum of Science and Industry, get a charming one half hour lecture/timeline on the history of technology by a retired chap by the name of David (Bonkers Britches). Nick and I have added the last bit of his name for comedic emphasis, some would call it comedic genius. After the timeline by the before mentioned Bonkers Britches we checked out some gnarly Roman Ruins whilst eating lunch from fair we scored in a local grocery store. Because you see, the USD is absolute rubbish compared to European currencies, particularly the Queens Pound, and we’re not about to waste our cash on fish and chips. I could tell you a little bit about why the dollar is used as toilet paper in most poor English villages, but I’ll spare you my babblings about economic incentive checks, subsidies to crap for fuel (ethanol), and a general lack of macroeconomic know how in the US senate.

Anyways, we managed to somehow catch the bus to London, arrive safely and get punched in the kibbles and bits by a nights stay in the cheapest hostel in town . The next day we met up with a friend of Nicks and wore our jet lagged bodies out to the max by catching some long and some short views of Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abby, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, St. Pauls Cathedral, The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Millenium Bridge, and the Tate Art Plaza. After our full day of sightseeing we hopped on yet another bus to Cirencester and then drove to Tetbury where we stayed two absolutely lovely days with the Mannheims. To sum them up, they’re some really great people with some really big hearts and to top it all off, some really tasty cooking. In the midst of this great eating and getting taken care of we took a day trip to Stonehenge. It really is just a big pile of rocks, kind of like the Grand Canyon is just a big whole in the ground, but right proper dandy to see. Nick and I came up with a new theory to explain its construction and elaborate wit, but the people with the fancy vests and the walkie talkies weren’t having any of our Gigantipithicus hypothesis. They’ll be sorry, someday.

Sadly, we left the Mannheims early Friday morning to catch yet another bus to London, where we caught, yes yes thats right, another bus to Dover. At this point the plans were to catch a ferry from the port of Dover to Calais, the train to Paris, and then the overnight highspeed train to Toulouse. Apparently the Fishermans Union who lit a fire to the tracks didn’t like that idea. No worries though. We ended tenting for free in a legit ( yes mom, it was safe and we didn’t get taken to French prison) campground that overlooked the majestic if not a wee bit chilly English Channel. In the end those fisherman did us a favor. On the ferry we met a group of French students, Clemence, Jerome and Augustine, who really wanted to give us a ride to the train station. It was nice chatting with them and it made us get the sense that yes, we are taken care of and no we don’t need to worry. Those sweeties. After our night in Calais we somehow ended up in Paris with enough time to get lost on the public transport system, get found, and stumble onto the lawn of the Eiffel tower long enough to sit down for 15 minutes and then get back onto a train which took us around some French mountains, through Bordeaux, past Toulouse and volais ! We’re in Carcassone. Seems like a good time to walk one and a half hours in the rain at 10 : 30 at night to find a camground, right. Thats what I said, sarcastically, but Nick thought I was serious. So, two hours later we were dripping wet setting up our tent and thanking Jesus for another free night of semi dry accomadation. The next morning it was dry and we came to realize that the cob webed streets of Carcasonne encircle a castle. At this point we gave the statue of the Virgin Mary a high five (may or may not have happened) stormed the castle walls and did some exploring. General consensus, castles are sweet but get bonus points for moats.

After catching some hot fresh bread and the meat of the day while watching a locke let a few boats through we snagged a bus to Limoux where we have been currently working with Jean Philippe for the last 4 days now. And I myself have to say I can't tell you how amazing the experience has been. There are in total now 6 fellow travelers from France, England, America, the Czech Republic, and Holland working to restore an ancient building into a livible space, whilst living in it, eating together, biking to the lake with views of the snow capped Pyrenees, and sharing stories of home with each other. Tonight Nick and I cooked up some delicious flap jacks from scratch for the group and fun was had by all. Somehow we led everyone to believe that nowhere in America or wait, may'be nowhere in the world were they going to find flap jacks as good as we were cooking up in front of their very eyes.

We will be leaving here soon but I know we wont forget this town, these people, and most of all the incredibly multicultural / multilingual conversations, which I admit I only partly understand. But thats all a part of it. Nick and I are learning as we go and getting helped out in very real ways along the way.

Almost a year and a half ago now I was flying back from Kenya, where this all started. On the flight between Britain and New York I wrote this in my journal...

"In seat 44D somewhere between London and New York I find myself postulating the significance or insignificance really of my state of mind at this moment in time and find it to be quite untidy. Tomorrow I will be home, where I am headed and things will be different. Looking out the porthole of a window at 37,000 feet, where we’re past the clouds I have convinced myself that what I am seeing is the big blue Atlantic down there. Boiling, churning into whitecaps that bounce up and down mocking the turbulence of this ride. Making a performance out of the veracity of itself and all the life it contains. The views telling me I’m going somewhere, but at the moment I have no sense of time or positioning. Just of going. Just of being in one place one instant and another the next. Just fragments of time and place. KT Tunstall plays on British Airways radio channel 10. She, in one way or another tells me that in this place of broken sense I can find common ground in noise, and that’s comforting. That the part of me that loves listening to KT Tunstall in one instant, in one place loves listening to KT Tunstall in the next instant, the next place. I like common ground because it gives you a place to start, but also because it is only the beginning of a relationship you have with what or whom you have the common ground with. Common ground implies going and changing and growing and it also implies that this common ground will in one way or another involve whomever you started with. It tells me and you that a relationship is forming and that it’s different in one instant than it is the next. I like that about common ground. That it starts out of comfortability and is constantly moving towards a place that is not necessarily comfortable. Because comfortable is about staying in one place, in all realms of consciousness, and common ground is about going. Somewhere unknown..."

I still like listening to KT Tunstall, but thats not why I shared this passage with you. This is; tomorrow a very very good friend, Nick Dunn, and I will be flying back over that big blue abyss and landing in Manchester, England. For the next 59 days we'll be backpacking through England, France, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Greece, Germany, and wherever else we find the door open and the time right. We're excited. Nick and I have been working on our common ground for about 23 years now, we just figured it was time to shake things up a little bit, eh. Earlier this year we were working on a creedo to give the trip some height and some depth, to give us some direction. Here's an excerpt... "To gaze upon the mysts of a thousand rivers before the sun crests the horizon and the moon abandons the night. To grasp the feel of a dirty face, a hungry belly, and a satiated soul. " It goes on like this, but I'll spare you. What I will share is our conclusion: equal measures of sincerity, fire, love, and mischief will ideally be what everyone comes across when they come across Nick and I. And we're excited about that.

Drop by the blog every once in a while and hopefully you'll find a new post from us. A post about working on a farm on the coast of Spain, or shopping in the open air markets of Tangiers, or spending a few days with monks in Italy, or meeting an old friend and exploring the castles of Germany. We'll see you when we get back, but for now, enjoy.

Now that I'm back in the states I'm starting to realize that its going to take awhile for Kenya to wear off. Some days the realization that I was once there and now I'm here is written all over my face. Regardless, I'm moving forward with new realizations and perspectives and that in itself, moving, is good. In light of this move I've made a move to finalize this bit of webspace to make room for something different someday soon I hope. You'll notice I've added a web album made possible by Google Picasa on the sidebar labeled "Mwakaribishwa". This word maintains a status in the kiswahili language, a language of Kenya, as meaning "Welcome all." I mean it. In a few weeks I'll be adding some final thoughts, some journaled on the plane back home and some yet to be thought onto paper. If you'd cared enough to follow me this far I thank you. Go and Be.

I know its been a long time since many of you have heard from me. In light of this I decided that with my limited time on the internet I could piece together a few of the things I've written in journals and to friends real quick so you could have some semblance of an update. Before I do that let me catch you up on at least my whereabouts. I think the last time I updated I had just gotten back from an expedition to Tsavo-West National Park. Since then I've been in southwestern kenya for a few weeks in the Amboseli ecosystem, in and around Nairobi National park and nairobi proper, and camped in Masai-Mara National Reserve. Long story short. I've been out of the office. Today I am finishing up on three papers that will mark the end of one part of the semester and the beginning of another. Academics here have a lot to do with writing. I like writing, but it takes me a long time to put comprehensive thought into comprehensive writing. I've been busy and stressed. Thats neither here nor there. I'm happy about it. In the next week I will enbark on the next part of the semester, which is directed research. It hasn't been decided yet, but I will most likely be using PRA techniques to conduct surveys and group meetings with the local communities surrounding Amboseli national park with a focus on human wildlife conflict perceptions, problems, and solutions. I'm still excited to be waking up to Kilimanjaro every morning and to be participating in community based natural resource management. Kenya has been good to me.

Heres some other stuff.

End of October...

I’m not even kidding. I’ve figured out a way to make communism and the invisible hand work together. I signed the patent rights yesterday. So get this. In East Africa 82% of the land is arid to semi arid land. This means that the best way to utilize it is to graze livestock. If you do anything else, like grow corn and beans, the whole ecosystem gets out of whack and people die and you have to start over. So, East Africa is in the process of starting over. The World Bank has done many good things, but they have also had some very shortsighted moments. In 1968 they decided that they would set up a system of communal lands called Group Ranches in Kenya. This was supposed to solve all of the problems of land use and land tenure and sustainability and be a one size fits all fit. It didn’t work.

note: alright, mayb'e communism comes with certain connotations that nobody wants to deal with, you know what I mean

But that’s neither here nor there. Tomorrow I am leaving for two weeks. I will be living in Nairobi National Park and The Mara. Today marked the end of one section of my time here and tomorrow marks the beginning of another. At the moment I feel as if I am either burnt or dead. Probably because today I took three essay exams that were comprehensive for what I’ve learnt thus far. They were each an hour and a half long and for each of them I was writing for an hour and a half.

Lately I’ve been thinking about putting things in the right places. Some of you know this and most of you don’t. So, let me fill you in. Putting things in the right places is about honesty, reciprocity, and house cleaning. If we put things in the right places our friends know what we think about them and the situational happenings of life, our dirty dishes get clean, and nobody gets hurt. All I’m saying is that it works and it’s abstract and I like it.

I wrote this among other things to the house I live in at school...

...And then I realized that everybody else doesn’t know what they think about Jesus and things like dishes not mattering and nothing really being a big deal, because nothing was ours in the first place and it made me sad, but it also made me curious. I like being curious because it makes for good conversation, in and out of yourself. So this takes me to now when I’m having conversations with all these different people that I live with and some of them are about how that one song by Sufjan Stevens is really sad, and some of them are about how I like to eat bananas but they like them better with crunchy, not plain peanut butter, and some of them are about how that time I barked at a dog in the market and all the mamas selling bananas laughed was funny, and some of them are about how I used to live in this place called Joshua house that is both similar and different to the place I live in now and the difference is at Joshua House we’re trying to love each other and learn how to do that by loving Jesus...

I’m excited about getting back, but I’m also excited about continuing my time here. I’m excited that I can relate the two and make both places better in that way. I’m excited that our story is not over and that you have things to tell me when I get back that I’ve never heard of in the realms of faith, school and life. I’ve been learning a little bit of the language here and it seems to me that when you start to get a language, which I haven’t by any means, the indicator of that is thinking in that language. That’s weird to me, not only do people have different languages they think in different languages. I don’t know why I think that’s weird, I just do. So, I was thinking about that and then I wondered what it will be like when we think in God’s language and that got me so excited. It seems to me that in general I’m excited about lots of things. I hope you are too.

November 6...

Today I had RAP again. Today, I got inspiration on what I should do for this RAP. This inspiration came in the form of a sprite. The sprite tasted funny. At least I thought it did, but Ally tasted it and she said that it tasted like regular sprite. So, I was left sitting there with this sprite that was neither different than the sprite I have had before or the same than I have had before. The sprite was the same, but my taste buds have changed. I guess after two months of getting used to some things you start to forget what others are like. I think that this is a good thing. When I get back to America I know that there will be a process of tasting things that are very much the same, but in the same sense, very much different. When I say taste I am not trying to convey one sense, I’m trying to celebrate the whole collection of senses that we, as humans, have been endowed with. My home will taste different, my school will taste different, burritos will taste different, my friends will taste different, church will taste different, my cell phone will tast different…

Dear friends,

Before we get serious let me inform you of a few truths I have discovered since I was last in contact with you. Truth number one: no matter how hard I try I cannot post pictures on this blog because of my slow internet connection. I am not complaining, its Africa, what can you do. All I’m saying is that’s how it is and your gonna miss my pretty face while I’m gone. I’ve got pictures of lions and cheetahs and elephants and mountains and London and people from different places and an orphan named Serenketi and over 100 pictures that Serenketi took after he temporarily commandeered my camera and videos of baboons and one really super one of me holding a baby goat, but your just going to have to wait until I get back. Shucks huh. Call me and we’ll do lunch…in three months. Let us move on to truth number two: there are a lot of people reading this who I would have never expected. This brings two thoughts directly to the forefront of my mind. I best write better entries than the one you are reading at the moment and I better say what I mean and mean what I say.

The other day my friend, Nick, gave a sermon on words and how they don’t mean much without actions. I wasn’t there, but I heard about it and it touched me from across the Atlantic. I am in Kenya and no matter what I write home on postcards or letters or blogs or e-mails and no matter what I will ever say while I am here or when I get home;

what I am doing,

my actions,

right now,

in this existential moment,

are what really matters.

Did you get all that? It’s not about writing home. It’s about going home, moment by moment, step by step, day by day. And taking people with me. I have to realize that I have a lot to give people, and most of that isn’t about me. Most of that is about them. Getting to know yourself by getting to know your Savior, by getting to know you’re surroundings, by getting to know the people you come across in those surroundings, and where they come from. I read a good deal of Schaeffer this summer. One of his over encompassing themes is that we as people have to put things back together, together. Its not that we live in a gigantic puzzle, its not that the pieces are all there, and its not that we know how to do it. But we have some clues and we have some pieces and we have Jesus and we have each other and we have enough beauty surrounding us in each other and in this blessing of a planet to instill substantial healing wherever we go. Pretty cool huh.

I like to take the things I learn in class and incorporate them into my everyday life and into things I can talk about with regular people who aren’t excited about the insatiable spread of sustainable conservation ideologies. This brings me to…Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). This is a set of decision making concepts used in Africa and all over the globe that in its basic precepts involves the local peoples. It is not about politicians enacting laws that will never get enforced, it is not about PhDs coming into an impoverished area and deciding what the problem is and making the local people do whatever they think will fix the problem, and it is not about a group a college students moving in and thinking in one semester they can change the world. What it is about is community. Imagine that. Community is so universally incredible and healing. How PRA ideally works is educated people who can relate to impoverished communities move in, learn the language if they don’t already know it, live like their less fortunate neighbors and they all decide and live out a mutually beneficial solution together. Hmm, sounds ground breaking. But is it really? We’ll get to this in a second. When I think about PRA I think about all kinds of issues we, as people, have with each other and all kinds of solutions that all kinds of people have that would undoubtedly solve all kinds of problems if we would just work together and be together. I have to admit that I’m an idealist at heart. This predisposition is probably my greatest flaw and strength at the same time. My mom likes to call me a communist for it. But can you really blame me? Long story short, this semester my peers and I will be using some of the ideas and techniques of PRA. We’ll only be here for three months, but our professors and the next group of students will continue what we’re doing and I’m happy I have the chance to at least be a part of some kind of solution. Long story short, I’m excited about PRA.

Back to the originality of PRA. When I think about things like community and PRA I also think about how about everything Jesus did was a metaphor on how we should live. Whether you believe or not you must know that Jesus became a man so he could live with us and be with us. So he could show us a mutually beneficial solution that we all could work out together. Faith gets a lot easier when Jesus shows up in unexpected places. Like socioeconomic classes. There are so many manifestations of God’s love literally engrained in what we are, where we live, what we love, and what makes life for us work best. Long story short, I’m pretty excited about Jesus.

I know none of this is groundbreaking or original or even probably put into a new subset of words and phrases. But for me it’s new and I like it. At some points this trip seems as if I have put everything I think about life and God and living and stuffed it into a laptop size carry-on. Somehow I managed to get it all through customs and security and now I’m unpacking it and its coming out in different but good ways. There’s a lot of possibilities for the things that are about to happen and I don’t think I’ll be able to fit everything into my laptop size carry-on on the journey home, maybe I’ll just have to get a few new bags.

Kwa heri,

Love,

Zachary Paul

p.s. Seems as if I got caught up in words again. I just proofread this piece of work and realized that in a stuffed to the gills page of arial narrow size 10 font I managed to write absolutely nothing about what I have been actually doing. I guess I should probably take some of my own advice about the whole words v actions thing. So here it is. Action.

Since the beginning of the program we’ve had three days off. Today is one of those days. Today is a good day. After going to bed at 2 to feel like I was actually in college I woke up at 7, or 1 if you want to go by Swahili time, was a part of making breakfast for the gang, and then went back to bed until 11 or 5. Breakfast and sleeping was delicious. The plan for the day is to finish up a paper on some PRA interviews that were done this past week, get you this entry, play soccer at the local high school, and sit by the fire and talk about truth. The last two non-program days we were busy exploring Kenya. It’s good to have some time to relax and reflect. Today is a day for that. Since my last update I’ve been busy as a bee with classes, reports, people, reading, more classes, surveying and calculating population and diversity estimates for Amboseli National Park, staring at Mt. Kilimanjaro with a stupid look on my face, eating lots and lots of beans, lentels, ugali, potatoes, and toast, and drinking lots and lots of delicious Kenyan chai. Last Wednesday the group of us went to a local primary school and fenced in some trees they had planted, started to clear a potential soccer field of rocks and played soccer with the kids. Those little rascals almost beat us. We’ve been to Amboseli several times, one of those to survey transect style. While there I saw a cheetah, lions, black-backed jackals, warthogs, wilda beests, giraffes, baboons, hippos, elephants, water buffalos, secretary birds, ostriches and zebras. Amboseli is a pretty unsustainable protected area because it is so insularized and therefore overgrazed and trampled by the over-abundance of animals that live in it. Nevertheless, to see all those mega fauna in one place is quite incredible and I’m glad I got the chance. Last Saturday we got to go to the orphanage in Loitokitok. It’s run by a saint of a woman by the name of Phylis Ndivo. We provided them with some food stuffs and a soccer ball in exchange for some play time. There are about 25 kids who live and learn there. Initially they all introduced themselves to us, sang and danced, then stole our cameras. Priceless shots. After awhile we reverted to a hearty game of their version of duck- duck- goose, cymba -cymba -twiga. Then we all drank some fruit type drink and held hands. Fun was had by all. We will be back.

p.s.s.

To those of you who are praying. Thank you. Apparently you believe that it’s doing something, because it is. We can talk about it when I get back. What I’ll tell you now is that things here are clearer than they have been for awhile. So far nothing is really stopping me from being with God and people and studying and quiet time in balanced amounts. It seems like nothing is really in the way of good things that have been planned for a long time that none of us knew about. I like it. And to clarify its not that I’m doing much, it’s that my community is doing much.

p.s.s.s.

Dear Mom, I’ve been taking my vitamins and my malaria medicine and getting too close to dangerous animals. I haven’t gotten sick or mauled yet. I love you and the family a lot and contrary to popular belief do miss you. I’m glad I didn’t bring Rascal with me; he probably would have gotten eaten by something already. Thanks for believing that I could do this and helping me out along the way. It means a lot. Tell dad I got him something for Christmas that he can use to kill rabid wild animals that get inside of the fence. Tell the foreign exchange student that she can stay as long as she wants as long as she takes her vitamins and tell Hannah that she rocks the metaphorical casbah. This morning we made drop biscuits per your recipe and they reminded me a little bit of home.

Dearest warafiki,

I feel really good today. Mzuri sana. After traveling for over two straight days (53 hours) I think I am finally getting over the jet lag and the motion of moving and the no sleep part. This is why I feel good. I am whole to the point where I can semi-realize where I am at and what I am doing. This is important when you wake up and find yourself in Africa, with all new people in all new situations. I have never traveled outside of the United States before. Since last Wednesday I have been through 4 airports in 3 different continents. I have traveled to New York, over the Atlantic Ocean, to and through London with a few hours of visiting the city in between (and yes Bryce I did stop in a Pub and it had mahogany on the walls and it was delicious.) I saw Big Ben, the Parliament Buildings, Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard, Tony Blair’s house, and countless other incredible old buildings. I hadn’t slept on the plane the night before, so the pictures aren’t that great, but the experience was good. As I took the Tube back to Heathrow I thought to myself that this was the first time I had been out of my home country and the place I was at was just a stopover for the things to come.

And then I was in Kenya. Restlessness pays off. This place makes my heart jump. I have been here for less than a week and living here continually draws me in. Into something I have never experienced but always knew about in those places where desire comes from. Yesterday along with turning the solar panels I was responsible for accessing the mood of my classmates and faculty here at the Kilimanjaro Bush Camp and saying something about it at the end of day. A good friend and roommate of mine suggested a book that I should read during my trip, “Through Painted Deserts.” Last night Donald Miller did me a great favor in summarizing what I needed to say, I’ll share an excerpt with you.

“I want to keep myself fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently. Only the good stories have the characters different at the end than they were at the beginning. And the closest thing I can liken life to is a book, the way it stretches out on paper, page after page; as if to trick the mind into thinking it isn’t all happening at once. Time has pressed you and me into a book too. This tiny chapter we share together, this vapor of a scene, pulling our seconds into minutes and minutes into hours. Everything we were is no more, and everything we will become, will become what was. This is from where story stems, the stuff of its construction lying at our feet like cut strips of philosophy. I sometimes look into the endless heavens, the cosmos of which we can’t find the edge, and ask God what it means. Did you really do all of this to dazzle us? Do you really keep it shifting, rolling round the pinions to stave off boredom? God forbid your glory would be our distraction. And God forbid we would ignore your glory.

Our little band of college kids seeking adventure, something different, more things on the list of life, a story to tell their grandchildren, and for some of us the “why” questions of life is just beginning on a three month journey that will take us together to places we have never seen before and may never see again. I’m excited to be doing this in community. You all know how much of an advocate of camaraderie I am. You can just imagine how excited I am to experience life in totality with these people. 28 students, 5 professors, 2 teachers assistants, a cook and the Maasai people all around us. The professors at the School for Field Studies, Center for Wildlife Management are all native Kenyans, most Maasai. They have all been to universities here in Kenya and over in the states. They grew up with this land and they know what the conflicts, problems, and benefits of it are. I couldn’t ask for better real world and book expertise than what these men have to offer. The students who are attending the program are from all across the United States and not of one of them is from Indiana other than me. I think I’ll have a lot of places to visit when we all get back from here. The other day I was given a new name by the staff and faculty here, “Mrefu,” this means tall one in Swahili. I think its kind of catchy and apparently so does everyone else here. I get it instead of Zach about half the time now. This group has gotten along great so far and I’m sure we will have our disputes, but I think this can be a really good thing for the next three months. And now that I can successfully throw the Maasai spear nobodies gonna mess with me:)

My computer batteries about to run out and all the outlets are taken at the moment, but I want to tell you a little bit of what I have experienced in the culture here so far. I am living in a town by the name of Kimana in southeastern Kenya. It is four hours drive from Nairobi and smack dab in the middle of Maasai land. Roads are places where more than one person has driven, no more no less. The dirt doesn’t stick, it comes up in big red clouds with any hint of a wind. It doesn’t rain often and the rocks come up out of the ground to remind us. The water buffalo is more dangerous than any other animal and biodiversity is surprisingly abundant when you think about what the harsh land has to offer. When I am standing in the cold outdoor shower in the morning I can see Kilimanjaro being illuminated by the morning sun over the stall door. Most people you happen to meet have faces of joy and a happy greeting to offer. The children are beautiful. I went into the main part of town for the first time on Saturday and our group got overtaken by a seemingly angry mob of children. Turns out all they wanted to do was hold our hands and play soccer (mpira) with us. At one point me and Julius, another guy on the trip had like 3 kids per hand. Pretty fun. But then when it was time for us to leave we said the usual Swahili goodbye, kwa heri, and they asked us for money. We found out later that until recently kids in this area have never begged for money. The drought has done bad things for everyone involved.

And this is where things get discouraging. I said earlier that the land here is harsh. Thorns protrude form every plant you come across. The ground doesn’t give you anything here. Copious amounts of fertilizer, work and prayer are all that these people have. What does grow birds, elephants, water buffalo, and many other animals can come and destroy in a day. I guess this is a big reason why I am here. The people of this area want people to know of their hardships so more can be involved in how to make it better. Many of them want to preserve the wildlife, but they can’t even think about sustainability when their kids don’t have the next meal. The Maasai have traditionally been pastoral nomadic people. Moving around grazing their livestock and believing that God has given them these things as a gift, not to mess up. They have lived like this for almost 3000 years. There is even evidence that the land and the plants and the wildlife have adapted along with the Maasai. When the water and the animals move, the Maasai move and back and forth like that. Since colonialism the Maasai have had increasing pressure to not be nomadic, to settle down, raise crops, and be like everyone else. Some have and some haven’t and the debate as to whether their culture can and should be preserved can go on and on, but what I am being taught is that the Maasai in one form or another were really good at living in harmony with the natural world around them and when they were forced to settle the idea of conservation of wildlife became necessary in this region because things were suddenly out of whack. I’m not saying that the Maasai had everything right or that there weren’t and aren’t other problems like overpopulation and habitat fragmentation and continual bushmeat poaching and sale and insularized wildlife, but this is the problem I am working with. The other students and I and this school is here first to understand the problem, let Africa change us and then maybe we can offer a helping hand. I’m here to do many things. Be with God, be with people like me and unlike me, ponder what’s next, learn a new language and use it in its native habitat, see experience and work with mega fauna that before last year I would have never dreamed of getting this close too, learn how to be without many things including the things that feel like home, smile at lots of people, and continue loving life.

Tuesday my group and I had our day off for the week, (we do school 6 days a week and have some random day off depending on the schedule and what the weathers like.) We decided to go first to Loitokitok to visit a waterfall and drive through an area of the country we haven’t been before, then to go to the market which happens in Kimana on every Tuesday. The waterfall was all dried up, but just on the other side of it was Tanzania. I stuck my foot across the border. The market was incredible. As a group we all walked around for a while like a bunch of dumb white kids who knew three words in Swahili and then split up. When most people had dispersed and headed to the bar I decided to stick around and see what I could see. I bought a few things. Buying things here is much different than in the states. If you’re really cheap you can barter with whoever’s selling your desired item, walk away a few times and mayb’e come to an agreement on the price. Bartering is a lot of fun. I decided to barter for a pair of sandals made out of tires and decorated with beading and a backpack. Altogether I spent 800 Ksh. About eleven US dollars for albeit cheap 4000 cubic inch backpack and a pair of sandals that will make me look like I’ve been here for longer than I actually have been. I also learned a few new Swahili words and made a lot of people laugh in the process. Then I joined the rest of the group that had stayed in town in the bar, got offered a drug called Mira and learned some more Swahili. Some situations like that one feel a little bit sketchy, but I was in a group and a few words of Swahili can go a long way. By the end of the day I was comfortable in town and will hopefully be visiting there more often.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit a Maasai boma and watch the Mamas traditional song and dance. Maasai song is a lot like harmonized chant and there dancing is a lot like jumping in a line. Fun was had by all. They demanded that we sing them an American song. Yankee Doodle Dandy was our choice and we did it in rounds. We are ridiculous, but they liked it. After that we all split up and they invited us into their homes to see what those are like. This opportunity is really rare and without our native professors it would have never happened. A Maasai house is about 5 foot tall at the peak of the roof, made of sticks, smoothed out cow manure, grasses and mud. It has three rooms and sometimes a garage. The women stay on one side, the young boys and men stay on the other side and there is a room in the middle with a fire pit and small sitting area. These people live incredibly simple lives and seem to be really happy with it. They know how to make milk keep for up to forty days with a type of charcoal, they can track and kill nuisance wildlife, they know all the uses of the medicinal plants of the area, and one of their main diet staples is cow’s blood. I am looking forward to more interactions with them.

Over the next few months I will be visiting five of Kenya’s wildlife parks, Amboseli, Nairobi, Tsavo West, Chuylu hills, and the Maasai Mara. I will be getting to know a whole new lifestyle with a whole new group of people and it makes me excited. Mayb’e by the time I leave here I can say I contributed something to Africa; right now all I can say is that what I have to learn from it and its people will stay with me for the rest of my life. Some things that are really on my mind and in my prayers lately are about relationships, language learning, balance, and decisions. With relationships I pray that I can get to know these people and that they can get to know me well enough that we change each others lives and we do it patiently, but quickly enough to see its fruit in three months; with language learning I pray that I can just soak up this language like a sponge just because I’d like to and it’d give me something more to talk about with the people around here than hellos and goodbyes; with balance I pray that with all I am doing I can see the big picture and focus my greatest efforts on my greatest needs, balance between people, learning, reading, understanding, play...; with decisions I have started to realize that I’m growing up and my life is about to take shape in front of me whether I’m ready for it or not, I want to be ready and willing and listening for whatever God has next. For the next three months if you pray please pray that my heart and ears and hands are open for the work God has in mind. Pray that this time is not about just Zach, but about Zach being in the place and with the people God has set Zach aside to be in and with. While here know that I remember and long for those I will be coming back to see in three months. Although my access to messages is infrequent let me know how life for you is.

Kwa Heri,

Love,

Zachary (Mrefu)

I am officially beginning my journey into weblogtivity and I'd like you to join me. Whether this small morsel of intarweb will end up being a journal, a glorified picture frame, or an outlet for mine and yours wordsmithing enjoyment is yet to be decided. What I do know is that it will be scrumptious and that I will feast upon its possibilities. I invite you to do the same.

Friends, Family, Brothers, Sisters...

Enjoy,

Love,

Zachary