calling card

the apoto in this photo is hillary, and she is one of the funniest people i know. we were on the same servant team in 2005, and i am honestly having a hard time imagining life in sierra leone without her. we had a good long talk last night in which i laughed hard enough that my brother came from the basement to the front porch to find out what was wrong with me. we were just finalizing some plans for our upcoming entertainment venture, The Bachelorette; West Africa. i'll spare you the details for now.

i got a call from my buddy kwame today. i can't believe that he'll be 12 (or maybe even 13?) when i see him again. so sad. i feel like i've missed so much! anyway, i was quite excited to hear his voice and then the connection cut out. of course. so i spent the following 2 hours buying a calling card online (which is much more complicated than it should be) and then trying to get through to noah's phone. i never did get through but managed to get in touch with faye who said she would tell the boys that i had been trying to call. i'll try again tomorrow.

the last few weeks have been full and fun. i took a road trip with my mom, grandma, aunt, cousin, and cousin's daughter to alabama to visit my grandma's sister and her kids and grandkids. it was a riot. my brother and i have taken to referring to said adventure as "mosley girls gone wild."

a few hours after arriving home from alabama, i hopped a plane to nebraska for the WMF retreat/conference. it was incredible. it felt a bit like going home. i think i always forget how amazing these people are, and i really feel like i'm a fraud or something that i get to be a part of them and call them my friends. like maybe someday they will find out that i've fooled them all and they'll kick me out. but they are such beautiful and gracious and thoughtful people... i have much to learn from every single one of them. it was a really fun and special time. i laughed, cried, prayed, felt, and sat in awe of God more than i have in a long time. i was also violently ill for a couple of days, but my wonderful roomie, jara, took good care of me and i recovered quickly. you don't want the details on those days. trust me.

after the retreat i spent a couple of days in omaha with the smyths, grays, leslie, and others. love them all. hate that they're so far away. spent a day at home, then drove to eastern ohio to see some old-school friends at hollow rock camp. i hadn't been there in a couple of years, and i kinda had some holiness movement culture shock, but i was surrounded by good people who understand and help me work through the funk when it is too much to laugh about. but mostly we just laugh about it.

now i'm back in circleville. working on the details. rabies vaccines. writing a will (!?!?!?!?!). watching the price of plane tickets rise. hoping to leave the first week in september. i'll let you know when the ticket has been purchased. love to all.

all-stars

2 nights ago i woke up at 3:45 AM after a creepy dream. the house was really quiet, which i hate, and i couldn't seem to stabilize the creepy feeling. i finally got out of bed to turn on the TV just for some white noise so i could fall asleep again. the TV was on PBS (because i am a raging dork and i must watch 'as time goes by' every night before i go to sleep) and they were playing the documentary "Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars". it is about a group of sierra leonean refugees (obviously) who meet at a camp in guinea and form a band. it is truly a story of hope and peace, as these people find a way to rise above their context and surroundings to LOVE each other and CREATE something. beautiful!

i missed the first half hour, but stayed awake to watch the part where UNHCR flies the band members back to freetown from guinea to record an album. it was crazy to hear what they each had to say upon re-entry to their hometown. i have only seen the post-conflict version of freetown, so it was enlightening to watch the initial reactions from people who only knew the place before it blew up. grace, the female member of the band, expressed my favorite quote- "o, freetown" -said in the way that only a sierra leonean can say it, but i think anyone who heard her tone would have understood the mixed bag of emotions that those words contained. among many other things i heard a longing to be home, twinged with doubt that such a place any longer exhists. that angst must be one of the most difficult parts of life as a refugee.

i'm so SO excited about the upcoming move, but in all honesty, i'm feeling a little discouraged lately. sometimes in the midst of all the details - large and small - it feels like i may never get there. i'm sure it's good for me. i've never experienced such a lack of control over my own circumstances - or at least i've never been aware or concerned when i have... but i'm wound pretty tightly these days. :) just remember me. i'll try to loosen up in the meanwhile.

act justly, love mercy

the trial of Charles Taylor was scheduled to begin on Monday, but the defendant didn't show up! Taylor was the president of Liberia during the war in Sierra Leone, and he was a major source of funding for rebel groups in Sierra Leone. they had some complicated agreement involving diamonds and weapons. i don't fully understand, but Taylor is on trial for crimes against humanity at the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. this is a very significant trial for Sierra Leone and for all of post-conflict Africa. Here is a great article from the Washington Post that says it a lot better than i can.

bats, bikes, & bo

this is a view from the balcony of the padgetts'/eichorns' old apartment in downtown freetown. the building at the far left is the old US embassy - when i was there they were in the process of building a bigger one outside of town - i don't know why. the big tree beyond the embassy is The Cotton Tree, a historic landmark at the center of town, which is said to have been growing there since the 1700s. it is huge and beautiful, but is home to an offensive number of bats... they are huge and gross. in this picture you can barely see in the sky little black flecks of evil in the form of bats. i hate them. yeah, they eat malaria-carrying mosquitos, but i have 3 words for you; vampires, rabies, guano. ummm, anxiety. i think i need to talk about something fun now. let me find another picture...

i love this picture. our team took a trip to a nature sanctuary called Tiwai Island, and the 12 hour journey required that we travel through Sierra Leone's second city, Bo. there were many things that made Bo a nice break from big crazy freetown, but my 2 favorite things were 24-hour electricity and 'honda taxis.' as i climbed on with my big back-pack and a tote full of food and cooking supplies i said out loud, "my mom would be so ticked about this." but then i forgot all about the dangers involved in this mode of public transportation because it was so fun and FUNNY. i was the last in a line of 6 bikes, each carrying an american girl with too much luggage. you should have seen the looks we got. hilarious. erin is the very excited one looking at the camera. hillary and sarah are in front of her, and i'm sure they were laughing just as hard as we were.

boxing

so we're having a garage sale this weekend. it should be a pretty big one, but i have a lot more to accomplish before we're even close to making it happen.

i've been digging through boxes for the last couple of days. i have managed to refrain from accumulating much in the 4 years since college, but this process is still trying. i am literally evaluating the necessity of every single thing that i own. is it going to africa? is it worth storing for X number years? if it doesn't meet one of these 2 criteria, i will no longer own it within a week.

it has been an emotional process as i come across mementos and memories, but it really is so freeing. i don't even like 'stuff'. it ties you down, and i certainly am not one to be tied down. at this point in my life i absolutely dread the thought of owning my own home, and i'm thrilled, thrilled, by the idea of not owning a car. (mine is for sale. anyone want it?)

i've come to believe that the purpose of things should be to simply enable us to carry out the indispensible movements and relationships of life. in an attempt to conserve our own time and individuality, we work so hard and acquire so much that we eventually lose the whole point... and we end up wasting some important things as a result; natural resources are one thing, but community and simplicity are even more detrimental sacrifices that we make.

so, we're having a garage sale, and i'll be glad to be rid of this stuff. but i remember that 'law of conservation of mass/matter' thing i learned in high school. matter can change form, but cannot be created or destroyed. and i'm strangely sad about that little bear figurine with the graduation cap and gown. it used to be something else, maybe even something useful, but someone decided to make it into 'stuff'. and while it won't be my stuff anymore, it will be someone else's. what a waste.

blepharoplasty

please excuse the constant changes to the face of this blog. i keep revisioning and revising, but the nagging perfectionist that lives in my head won't let me leave things alone. i promise i will stop soon. maybe not.

GOOD NEWS!

this is a typical saturday afternoon. 300 kids packed into the little church in kroo bay. the 'good news club' is always stressful and entirely exhausting, but SO MUCH FUN! my friend noah runs the club and my friends from the lighthouse program help lead singing and do a lot of the teaching. after the lesson they pass out boiled eggs and biscuits and then take care of minor first aid needs - or try and find help for people with more serious health issues. there are a lot of things i appreciate about freetown, but this little church is where it's at. when you come visit me you'll understand.

choitram market

this photo was taken at an indian-owned grocery near the 'kroo bay' part of town. you will hear me talk a lot about kroo bay because it is where some of my favorite people live, including these 3 rascals. they make up half of the 6 kids who i tutored in the afternoons. this grocery is one of only a few places where you can find soft-serve ice cream, and it is a bit of a luxury, so we only splurged on the very roughest of days.

aberdeen sunset

this is the view from the front veranda of the home i lived in. it is in an area of freetown called 'aberdeen.' the sunsets during the rain-season are incredible! the water you see is a warf that fills up during high tide. at low tide you can walk across it on dry sand, and it becomes a soccer field for the village on its bank. beyond the tree-line is the atlantic. you may notice that there are no lights on despite it being dusk. freetown operates power on a grid system, and our part of town didn't make it into the rotation very often. but who can complain with a view like this?

a de go bak!

just wanted to post a quick update. two weeks ago I was in omaha for an interview with word made flesh, and it is now official; I’M GOING BACK TO SIERRA LEONE! i signed a 3-year contract as servant team coordinator, which means that a big part of my job will be to lead teams like the one i participated on in 2005. the goal is to leave for freetown in august, but this will largely depend on how quickly i can raise financial support. i do know that it will cost at least $2000 just to get there, and i will have to raise that money plus 3 months salary before i can purchase my tickets, so that will all need to happen pretty quickly. feel free to ask about details in that area. i’ll post more when i know more.

now that blogger is more user-friendly and i’m all excited about returning to freetown, i figured it was about time to post some old pictures and attempt to give everyone some idea of what i’m getting into. i've been trying all evening to post some photos, but i'm having issues. maybe blogger isn't so user-friendly... i'll try to be more creative with my posts as i have time. thanks for checking in!