Random.

If you take the main dirt road in Danita, the road with the Macedonian Child Outreach Project sign, the road my little Nora lives on, it will take you to the little road the Suubi building is on. If you walk past the building and take a left at the fork and past the rows of tall banana trees, you will most likely see Nikoleena and one of her ten children.
I really like walking to Nikoleena’s because of the tall banana trees; it reminds me of when I was a little girl living in New Orleans.
I felt so exotic when I would play in those trees in my back yard. I used to pretend the leaves were elephant’s ears, or boats, looking back, neither one of those makes sense to me, but at the time, they fit perfectly.
Sometimes it makes me want to cry, when I think about my adventures in my backyard, when I was a child. My dreams were unlimited; I knew nothing of distance, language barriers, currency exchange rates, diseases, corrupt governments, daunting statistics, rebel armies, heart break. All I knew was that I needed to be free, but then again, I had no idea what it meant to be free.

Yesterday I was sitting in Betty’s (Betty in Suubi, not Betty our house keeper) little home, Mary, her daughter was on my lap, amusing herself by devouring the bananas she managed to steal out of my bag. Her laugh brings me so much joy, maybe because I know her story, of abandonment, forgiveness, love. Mary isn’t Betty’s daughter. Betty’s husband got another woman pregnant, the woman abandoned Mary, Betty took her in as her own. I was asking her some questions needed for the new Suubi website, you know, how long has she been married, where is she from, how many children does she have etc. We got on the subject of the North, the war, what she’s been through.
Her son, Junior, told me about how the rebels would pad lock peoples lips shut, cut their arms off and boil them only to force them to eat their own flesh. He told me about how they would beat and rape women and force them to carry all of their things for miles, heavy heavy things, and if you could not carry them, you would be shot. I have sort of become desensitized to stories like these; unfortunately, most of our women in Suubi have seen and been through the same thing.

One of the questions I had to ask her was how Suubi has brought her and her family hope. Her response was, “I can now live free.”

Freedom.

“Freedom is love with out condition, with out a beginning or an end.”
-Five Iron Frenzy

I still don’t really know what it means to be free.
I am still a child.
I am still playing below the tall banana trees.

You know, I’ve truly learned so much here, but I couldn’t really tell you a thing.
I can only imagine how awkward it will be when my dear dear friends ask me with excitement to tell me about Africa, it’s simply unexplainable. I do hope no one will be let down when all I can really do in response is look into my coffee cup and say something vague.

“It was amazing” or something along the lines of that, or perhaps, “Beautiful”.


I can’t remember who I was before I left.
I mean, I was me, but not me, it’s weird, and sort of freaks me out sometimes.
I look into the mirror and I’m wondering who the hell this person is, looking back at me, who is she, this girl?
I always thought I would be taller.
I guess that’s normal for girls my age, but for some reason I feel like it’s different in my case, don’t ask me to tell you why I think that, I don’t know.

This place has changed me.
God has changed me.
These women have changed me.
This huge blue sky has changed me.

Maybe I haven’t really CHANGED, perhaps I’m just closer to who I am supposed to be, who He made me to be.
Maybe I’m closer to being free.

There’s something spiritual about riding on the back of a piki.
It sounds so silly, I know, I know.
But honestly, I feel so close to Jesus, when I’m on my way to the village, and the wind is running it’s fingers through my hair, and my little eyes are overwhelmed with the beauty that surrounds me.

I feel so close to Jesus when Nora runs to me from her house on the road to Danita.
I don’t really know what I’m writing about anymore.
I don’t really know where this blog is going, which will frustrate me, that there wont really be resolution to this.

God has smashed my view of everything here.
What it means to be a Christian.
What it means to be a woman.
What it means to be a human.
What it mean to have hope, to be free.
What it means to love.

In a lot of my other blogs on this thing, I talk about wanting to learn what it means to love. I’m not about to say “Aha! I have learned it!” by no means, but I have come closer to what love is, Christ.

See, I have no direction to this blog.
No direction and no resolution, I started out so good with the whole banana trees bit!
Oh dear, my brain is mush.

I can’t believe I only have 20 days left here.
It has gone by so fast.
There is so much to say yet such a lack for words.
But then again, Id rather show you than tell you.
Action and truth vs. simple words.