2:07am

I am not sure if I awoke from she shrill rhythmic screams of agony or my heart beating out of its chest. Perhaps both. Once on my feet, I listened again thinking perhaps it was a hurt animal caught in a trap set by the hunters. I do not remember the moments between waking and standing out in front of the gate to our base. Staring into the jungle of the most absolute darkness, my chest pounded throughout my whole body. The open wailing of funerals here are some of the most harrowing guttural cries, buffered, thankfully, only by the circles of drums and shakers and chanters echoing back and forth exchanging rhythms through the trees.

This is now the fourth and final night of mourning for Gabriel's brother, who was nearly 80 years old in a village where life expectancy is about 47 years. The woman has calmed now, her whooping and shrieking has turned to weeping and crying out a phrase that sounds similar to the French word for 'beans'. The drums and chanting are growing louder now, in tune with the crickets and calls of the birds in the night. My heart has reached a normal waking pace.

May there never be a time I can sleep though the sounds of such raw human suffering.

Lost in Assumed Translation

While waiting at the airstrip for Avions Sans Frontiers to come, I had a shot at some small dialogue in Lingala with some local kids who did not speak any French...

Me: Mboté
Kids: Mboté
Me: Sango Nini?
Kid: *something I did not understand but assumed it was a standard answer to my question*
Me: Malamo
Kids look confused then sad.

I turned to one of our staff who was there, laughing at me. I asked him what they said...

Me: Hi
Kids: Hi
Me: How are you?
Kid: We are hungry.
Me: OK, fine.
Kids look confused then sad.

Compassion at its finest right there. You're welcome, world. 

If home is where the heart is, mine is not here.

As I approach year 10 of seemingly constant transitional living, I find myself more and more disillusioned with where and what “home” is. However, on the same breath, I can tell you I have come more and more into what I know is and is not “home”. 

I go back and forth between these polarities at least several times a day, no matter where on earth I am. 

On a recent trip home, I felt the sunshine penetrate my every cell, the ocean filter through my hair and my clothes smelled of my mother’s laundry soap. I found, though, that by week two, I was wanting to be back to work, and was happy to return back to what has become my newest home - even though it is lacking in comforts I have always associated with home. Apparently my subconscious' definition is malleable. 

What I have come to is a state of recognizing that if I am just a sojourner in this life and my home is in heaven, the only place my soul will ever feel at rest or content – if home is where the heart is and my heart is not tied to earth, but drawn to Jesus – then wherever I am on this planet is just as much not-home as the next place. So, really, as it is all temporary, it does not matter what sense of home I do and do not have. I am free to live and love anywhere, wherever I am called. Some people feel "called" to one place or another, I never have and it has taken me some time to work out how that manifests in my life.

Earlier this year an Utmost for His Highest entry spoke of Psalm 139 and bent it in a fashion that revealed a soul longing for what was beyond the hopes of the horizon and for a love that was more vast than the depths of the seas. We were not made to be content with the things of this earth. 

Even as I write this I feel a struggle within me. One part is saying if I keep looking, one more assignment in one more land then perhaps I will find it. The other side evokes a near physical lifting sensation in my heat and gut that reminds me that, no, I will never find it here. It is not here.

My longing and lack of satisfaction is by design, it seems. 

Hebrews 11 ¹³ These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. ¹⁴ For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

Matthew 8 ¹⁹ Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” ²⁰ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Acts 7:49 “‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be?

Quote of the day:

"Did I hear Celine Dion at 4 in the morning? Was that you?"

My co-worker asks me this morning, confused as to how she could have woken up early in the AM to hear Celine seeping from somewhere in the Ituri Forest. Mmm... nope, wasn't me.

Sweet Dreams

Last night I had a dream about food. I have never had a dream about food in my life.

I was sampling frozen yogurt with a friend, and though he had already ordered and was eating his carrot cake and vanilla flavored swirl. Me? I was struggling. I could not choose between hops flavor (yeah, I know, right?) and another I can't recall. I ended up going for the carrot cake and vanilla swirl to avoid the panic of choice, but then the toppings... I went for vanilla wafer cookies, but regretted not getting fudge brownies though they would only go well with the vanilla. Apparently my logic works exactly the same in my dreams.

I headed for the table to meet my friend.

Then it switched to an image of a hot dog, not just any hot dog, but a big ball park dog getting all plump and black and blistery on the grill, just like I like them.

And then I woke up.

Needless to say, I was disappointed at the reality of my consciousness.  

Feminism in a Land where that's not a Word

I am one of the lucky generations of American girls turned women in a world where it was expected I go to college, I get a good job, I live a self-sustaining life of non-dependency on a man until I choose to partner with one and then when we make the decision together to have children, I would have maternity leave and flexibility in how and where to raise our children. It all seemed so natural.

My mother’s generation was close to it. 

My grandmother’s generation? 

Forget it. 

But - aside from singing along and throwing my hands up in the air with Destiny’s Child at the age of 16 - it wasn’t until university that I discovered that feminism was even really a thing. Perhaps this late blooming of my own ideas feminism was product of a sheltered upbringing, though more likely it was the lack of necessity. 

As an adult, I have spent my fair share of time in countries and cultures where being a female is a disadvantage at best. The vastly different take on gender roles and opportunities available to women in these areas has shifted my perspective of my place in the world as a woman and my posture in life relative to the women around me. 

I did not grow up cooking much, I have learned what I know of making meals from time spent sitting in kitchens with women in West Africa, India and Mexico. In many of the rural areas these places have to offer, if you don’t want to be the only female hanging out in the sitting room or in the office, you go to where the women are – in the kitchen. What an honour to be able to sit and laugh, head scarves off, restraint ebbed and free of social norms dictating every word and movement. 

All this background blabber brings me to my point – or, if I do not have a point, it brings me to the most recent social issue that has been churning in my mind and heart. As a young female base manager in a small village which has not seen many women with authority over men, where being told “you work like a man” is a high complement, were eight months ago I did not see any women wearing pants or driving motor bikes, etc... 

I stick out for more reasons than my skin and thickly accented French. 

In a balancing act between the extremes of enforcing my cultural ideals on people and making space for gender equality in our workplace I have slowly been feeling my way through the culture and how an independent woman such as myself can influence the community here in a positive way without being a home wrecker. 

You have already met Charlotte, but she is an easier case, being young, unmarried and from a family who valued education for all of their children regardless of gender (she is doing great by the way). Now lets take the mamans in the kitchen, for an example. Maman Suzanne just had a little baby a few months ago.When we were looking for her replacement for maternity leave, one of my (male) staff members made a comment, something to the tune of, “This is why it is not good to hire women, they get pregnant. Do you see the women in the kitchen? They are all pregnant. We should hire old women or young single girls only. It is not good to hire women.” 

I got to thinking about women’s rights more so than usual. Discriminating against hiring women because they have a fertile womb sucks. Not that is not perfect Stateside, but at least has been identified as an issue that needs addressing. Aside from the recent introduction of condoms (since Medair's arrival), there is no birth control available and of what is, usage is the man's choice. Then, what to do with the baby while she works? There is no baby formula available here, you cannot leave a young child in the care of anyone but their mother. So, now there is someone right outside the base who takes care of the baby until it cries then Suzanne goes out and feeds him.



Will Ango's next generation of girls see and feel a difference?
Will their rights and opportunities shift as I have seen mine shift from what my mother and her mother have known?






We are working around all our ideals and needs, which are far from compatible in the environment here. But you talk it out, you make it work, you see how it goes and readjust where necessary. 

Ango is a land where your ideals detach from your reason and float around as you watch them from all angles - sometimes with scrutiny, sometimes in awe and sometimes feeling just as detached from said ideal as it has become from the reason and logic you thought it was born from. 

How did I come to that particular ideal? 

When did I decided that was important? 

On what basis did I ground that
world view? 

What now?

I Feel it All

It is hot and needs to rain.When I asked the question if this was the beginning of dry season I was told "no", that this was in fact "the end of rainy season". So, that cleared that up.

The thing with Ango is it becomes so unbearably hot and then the sky relents and releases torrents of rain and wind flavored with thunder and lightning that keeps your eyes glued to the sky for hours on end. Though rainy season wreaks havoc on the roads here and you have to allow hours more for travel between point A and point B, it does keep you from going insane in the humid jungle heat and the monotony of soul penetrating sun which, I mist point out, is a far cry from the healing sun I always knew growing up in California. My California sun was welcoming and wrapped its arms around you. The sun here is menacing and you just do what you can to hide from it like a playground bully.

These are two different suns, without a doubt. 

What makes the sun feel even crueler is the 101F/38C fever I am running due to my immune system frantically trying to figure out what to do about my red blood cells exploding one by one. 

You go to bed feeling fine after an evening of bitching about life then laughing about it over whisky before calling it a night at 9:37 because you are all exhausted and can't believe it is only Wednesday. 

Then, you wake up at 2am with terrible stomach cramps and think again about the latest batch of homemade yogurt from powdered milk but fall back asleep... until 3am when you scramble for your headlamp and make your way in the chilly clear skyed night to the pit latrines. This pattern continues twice an hour until you have a headache and are so exhausted you just sleep in the paillot (mud hut half-way point between bed and bathroom) between the excitement. 

Around 5am Ellen is there, working. Our health projects are needing lots of report writing these days. Being the good nurse she is, she asks how I am in all sorts of other details that I will spare you.

Ellen: I'll get you some orals.

Me: I get Oreos!?!

By 11am I can't walk to the bathroom without needing to stop and rest, which is problematic considering the urgency of the situation. A rapid result malaria test says negative, but the way those work is that if it says you are positive, you are, but if it says you are negative, you might or might not be. 1pm we pricked another finger for the blood and got a clear positive result. I started on malaria meds that have just as exciting side effects as malaria itself has to offer.

I can feel each individual cell, I swear. They have all turned into tiny sandbags and I can barely move. I give up on Skyping because it is nearly impossible to lay next to my computer and exert the energy required to lift a hand and 4 fingers as typing requires one key being hit at a time and thoughts are less clearly conveyed when your hand just lays on the keyboard with the weight of a thousand sandbags. I fall asleep and wake up in the exact same position, because even my subconscious cannot move me in this state.

Woke up this morning after two heavy doses of meds feeling half way decent. Well, maybe not halfway, but I am sitting upright and typing with two hands and that is a major improvement. I even ate a piece of bread. Miraculous.


While I can no longer say I am the only one in Ango who has not gotten malaria since being here any longer, I am happy it didn't require a medevac like two of the other expats here or just straight up kill me like a lot of the population because they don't have access to the right meds. Malaria kills more people a year than AIDS. Not cool.

Of course I got to thinking of the sick people around Ango. So many of them ride with their sick family members on the back of their bikes for miles and miles to get medical treatment, often waiting till it is nearly too late because of what a hard journey it would be and the questionable treatment they could receive. Recently a story came through of a lady from Ango taking her sick husband on a bicycle to a health center that was 15km away. He died en route so she had to turn around and take his body back home to be buried. 


Its a tough life, no matter what way you look at it. 

Anyway, that's the news from Ango. 
I am never leaving my mosquito net again.