I went to two stores tonight and bought many things on my Africa shopping list including vitamins, a lock, various bathroom travel bottles, antiseptic ointment, stuff like that. I feel quite a bit more prepared than I did before. The safari is set, I’ve reserved my space at the hostel, and a local Friend from Nairobi is willing to take me into the Kibera slum, the densest slum in all of Africa. It will be eye opening to say the very least. I even got the tevas I ordered in the mail today.
One piece of good news for all of you is that the whole delegation might be staying at the hostel I will be at before my safari. They will all come in after I get back and this lovely hostel has computers I can get on and use the internet so you will be able to read how the trip to Nairobi went, what it is like in the slums, and what it was like for me on the safari. I don’t know what access I’ll have after that, but at least in Nairobi, I’ll be able to let you know I’m alive and well.
My life is changing right now and I don’t know what it’s changing into. It’s nerve wracking and I don’t particularly like it. But as one student observed today, change does come and we have no choice in the matter. But, as I pointed out to him, we do have a choice in how we react to it. We have a choice to despair or to look at it all as a new adventure. There are so many questions I have right now and few answers. As Rilke says, I’m just going to have to live the question.
365-09 #313