Sunday, April 6, 2008

Top of the Roller Coaster

As I have tried to expand on before, Africa has a way of taking one on a ride....there are high highs and low lows...it is a continent of extreme beauty and wide open spaces juxtaposed to searing poverty and corruption. The daily ups and downs...give and take...learning and relearning can be both exhilarating an exhausting. Before coming to Lamu I had had it...with everything and everyone...down on America and the possibility of taking my girls back, down on Tanzania and the idea that I had to be there one more day....just tired and over it all. NOW, I feel so utterly refreshed and ready to reface the challenges and adjustments of daily life here on this continent. I have been able to take a relaxed look at our time here thus far and think deeply about what we have learned and gained from our time here. It has been such an amazing life changing time...
Lamu is gorgeous...put it on your must visit in this lifetime list...it is an island filled with wonderful characters. I have been so enjoying Carol the owner of Peponi Hotel where I am staying...we went snorkeling with her girls (15 and 17) and she cooked fresh fish on the beach while we drank "shandy's" ( Sprite and Tusker Beer) all the while the baboons peering at us waiting for the leftovers. The sea was filled with bright blue and green irridescent eggs implanted in the many colored coral...I have never seen this before and still can't get a answer as to what kind of eggs they are...but just beautiful. I have missed my girls this week but am so glad they are spending time with their dad on Zanzibar....a lucky lucky life we are leading. I look forward to getting back to Tanzania...several trips are coming in the next two months (hard to believe that is all that is left of our time here). The girls will continue at their wonderful school with field trips and many interesting units still to come....the rainy season will continue there for the next two weeks ( it is a month later here in Kenya) so we can continue to watch the fields and trees transform themselves from their parched states.
Peace...
Sarah