I'm drowning in great stuff to be involved in, which is fantastic. Telling lots of stories with lots of great people, using stories to teach English…great stuff.
And, on the less great side, the deadline for overseas filers is June 15th. I count as an overseas filer, so I have had the marvelous opportunity to put off doing my tax return until now.
So, not much posting here lately. Probably more after June 15th…
I hereby resolve to never again go to bed with three digits worth of emails in my inbox.
Happy day! I am down to 192 emails in my inbox to answer.
There were over 300 last week.
Just wanted to share the joy.
And explain why you haven’t heard from me.
For a long time.
The other thing is that Micromeanies let me delete my mailing lists in November.
Yeah, it’s all their fault.
Blah blah blah…
I’ve been tagged by Lingamish with Eddie Arthur’s impossible dream meme. (Wordy post about memes and meme etiquette here.)
So, here are my dreams, serious and less so. It’s kind of a stream of consciousness list that I left in the order that I first jotted them down.
Libraries in every town in Benin, fully stocked with books in French and the local language. Mobile libraries that visit all the villages.
Every kid in Benin in school with all the books, supplies, vaccinations, and food they need.
Everyone in Benin with enough to eat and enough leisure time to read.
Moringa an everyday part of all Beninese meals.
God’s story told, retold, discussed, and lived out under trees, on the
radio, in homes, everywhere and in every language in Benin.
Whole Bibles in all the languages in Benin.
Being a part of lots of people’s stories of how they became friends of God, and how they made other people his friends too.
Everyone in my church family out of their seat and into God’s story. (Catchy phrase from Granger)
Standing between Missie and Dan, singing our hearts out to God forever.
Now for the deep part:
My dream job-musical theatre on Broadway. Since we’re dreaming, I’ll
get to be the romantic lead that sings the pretty songs, not that other
girl that sings the funny songs like I was in high school. Not Ado
Annie again, for instance.
Ok, now to tag a few more. Hmmm. I tag Dennis, Matt and Sarah, Kelly, and Phil.
It’s so nice to leave Africa in the dry season when there’s hardly anything green, and come back here with all the pretty birdies singing and flowers blooming.
Flowers blooming, nose running, head throbbing, me wheezing, allergies flaring.
Misery.
Enter new air
purifier. Aaah.
In completely unrelated news, this is a girly blog according to David Ker because I write
about flowers, and my cat. Since David writes a far better blog than I do, I guess I have to take his word for it. Maybe it will be less girly if I talk more about my machete?
So, last week I’m out in a village, sitting under a tree and testing a story, watching people go by. First, about 30 guys straggle past with their hunting sticks-they’d just spent a day on the mountain hunting perdrix, some pheasantish ground bird. I am a little puzzled as to how you hunt birds with sticks, and don’t really understand the explanation, but that’s a usual thing for me, not understanding much at all.
We get back going on the testing, and then this guy drives up on his motorbike, greets everyone, and takes this baby from this young woman and starts playing with it and kissing it. Not the usual thing you see around here.
I thought to myself that if I were in the States, I’d think this guy was a politician, kissing babies and shaking hands in his campaign.
Then the guy lets these five little kids sit with him on the moto. Also not usual behavior. He was very happy for me to take this picture, which I showed to a friend of mine when I got back to my house-yep, this man is indeed a politician, and the elections are coming up soon.
Never a boring moment in mmm-BELLY-may land. Hunters and politicians abound.