dawn: adventures of a journeywoman

Yes I'm alive and in mostly one piece in Africa. Unfortunately, this is the first computer I've seen since I've arrived and it has now taken 30 minutes to load this page to start blogging-this may a little more difficult than anticipated. I will try to include some highlight pictures from the week. I began my time in Kenya without my luggage. On the one hand, it was nice to travel light but I did miss wearing clean underwear. I went to 3 national parks-Massai Mara, Lake Nakuru, and Samburu. In Massai Mara we had Massai guards to scare away the lions, elephants, and hyenas from our tents. The Massai people are incredibly unique and intent on maintaining their culture. They dislike foreigners (their name for outsiders is "one who confines their farts") but I did get the opportunity to talk to several of them. They showed me their dances and told the stories of their life-they live as nomads herding the cattle they believe God has entrusted them with. The women are circumcised around 13, build the houses every 9 years, raise the children, cook, and make the jewelry. The men are circumcised around 15, become warriers for 4 years hunting lions and protecting their people, marry as many wives as money will allow, and herd the animals. If my pictures upload, you can see how the men stretch their earlobes, pierce the top of the ears, and remove their bottom middle tooth. The animals/game was incredible. We spent the week driving around in a van where the roof popped off and we saw leopards, lions, zebras, rhinos, flamingoes, elephants, warthogs, cheetahs (there are only 200 left in the world!), giraffes, vultures, storks, wildebeasts, heartebeasts, gerenuks, baboons, blue-balled monkeys, and so on. In Nakuru the lake has 2 million flamingos-the lake looks neon pink. In Samburu, we slept on tents inside the park and had to watch for crocodiles when going to the bathroom and elephants and tigers from getting in our tents at night. The monkeys would jump on our tables when we were eating and try to take our food. It was a riot. I spent the week with Francis Minor our Kikuyu expert driver an Joos and Sara from Belgium. Driving around the parks, you learn much about the elegance of stillness, observation, and solitude. Never in my life have I felt more alone with myself and so close to God at the same time. Seeing the diversity and the beauty of creation makes you think about our distinction from other animals and life. I think it is our need for intimacy-every other animal seems content to survive for him/herself but we desire not just to reproduce but to be known by other humans and completely by God.