…this blog has been resurrected from the dead. Or maybe it’s been salvaged, like scrap metal from a junkyard. Whatever the simile, my blog nearly joined the millions of blogs in the virtual graveyard of the blogosphere: neglected, stagnant, waiting to be updated but doomed to exist in a permanent and unchanging state, like Dorian Gray.
No more promises of updating this blog on any sort of regular basis, because whenever I make such a promise, my subconscious subverts me at every turn. But let’s also blame it on the teeth-grindingly slow and inconsistent internet that a small town/rural village in Africa has to offer. Often, it takes entire minutes to load a single webpage, and when it finally loads, numerous graphics are marked by empty boxes with x’s in them. It’s enough to incite a violent desire to throw my laptop at the nearest chicken.
Finding myself deprived of the traditional forms of amusement available in the developed world (e.g., television, internet, blockbuster movies), I spend my evenings watching the goats in my backyard, chuckling out loud as they scratch their bellies against the concrete gutter. Who knew goats had such comic timing?
But I jest. The truth is, this has been an extraordinary, life-changing experience for me. I know, I know, it’s such a cliche. Naive girl from developed country spends a period of time in a developing country and comes back with her eyes opened to worldwide suffering and poverty and all that jazz. But my experience is distinctly unusual, for a few reasons. Over the past few months, I sent out several email dispatches to family and friends chronicling my adventures. I’ll post them here over the next week for posterity.
