The Newest Love in My Life

She’s a beauty…and she likes to wear yellow – what more could I ask for right?? Yes, I have found love in Sudan. She’s petite, but knows how to handle the harsh realities of living in Sudan and seems to be the perfect match for me. Her name is Senke and she shouldn’t be confused with the thousands of other Senkes in Sudan because, unlike the other Senkes, she has probably seen more miles of Sudan than most. She was left here by some missionaries that were passing through, and I have quite enjoyed her company over the last couple of days. Here are some pictures…









On a different, more serious and somewhat less psychotic sounding note…I’ve been thinking quite a bit about change lately. It is April and I can hardly believe it. We have already had our first rain of the new year and it doesn’t seem possible that in a few months we’ll be digging ourselves out of the mud again around here.
A year ago I was scrambling to finish up my classes at Wake; writing papers, finishing drawings and scrambling to study Arabic vocab words. Now, that world is quite literally, a world away. I wake up to a Muslim call to prayer and roosters crowing outside my mud and thatch hut and I can’t even seem to remember what an alarm clock sounds like or what air-conditioning is. I bounce and bang our four-wheel drive pick-up truck down the road and I have forgotten that there are places that have painted marks designating lanes on multi-lane highways. My Sudanese colleague tells me, “I am forgetting to tell you, I dropped my keys down the latrine by way of accident” and I to am forgetting that I took one or two English classes and there are places where proper grammar is important…plus, who needs a flushing toilet when you can dig a hole in the ground!
Sometimes it scares me, the different worlds I have lived in – the worlds that taste, smell, sound and reverberate with such distinct differences that it is a wonder they cohabitate on this small spinning ball called Earth. It scares me most of all because I cannot connect the worlds although they have each played such important roles in my life. It is difficult at times knowing where exactly I fit because I have fit in all the worlds I have lived in.
Change comes and the world is turned upside down. I go from a North Carolina springtime to a Sudanese rainy season and in each it is a wonder that the other world exists. It is scary, but also exciting because I have had the great chance to live in such different worlds. Each place is unique and, most importantly, filled with very unique people that make that place special to me. Wherever I go I am surrounded by such great people it makes being there worth it. It is quite the place…this world we live in.