stand still.

Spent an afternoon on the beach by the worthington pier. Bundled in sweaters, casting long shadows across the sand. It always feels late in the day here, what with sunlight shifting horizontal along the ground. We watched the rising tide, with sneakers dug into beach and talked about regrets. I aim to regret little. If anything i concede to reconsider.

I have determined that I like to watch the water crash into shore. There is something enternally familiar about it, regardless of where you find yourself in the world. I am instantly grounded. I felt the same in Watamu, despite the difference in temperature and colour of sand. Miles of white vs. fields of weather beaten pebbles. I am home.

I think I am going to live in Brighton.

London has yet to win me over. It is like a friend of a friend that i know i should get along with, but don't. Someone I share much in common with, but cannot seem to make small talk. A city I need to gain approval from. Yet a city that also needs to win my affection. And I don't think either of us are up for it.

We are at a stand still, London and I.

(Also, the fact the metro costs 4£ each ride, doesn't help things. Oh, how i miss the TTC).

So, while I make up my mind, I get to run about the english countryside with Rosalie.



(i guess i lied about the no more pictures. go friends with digital cameras!)

xo
l.

my favourite viewfinder.

The last few weeks have been an ongoing shift of new cities and consquential adventures. It has been holding a viewfinder up to my eyes and slowly dragging down that black arm. The scrape against red plastic. A rotating wheel of slides. A click and you are somewhere brand new.

Holland. Belgium. France. Switzerland.

I have decided that travelling alone induces good conversation. And while i tend not to be an advocate for small talk, i have found myself making friends along the way. Allowing myself to be open, when I usually tend to be withdrawn in new surroundings. My hostel in Brugge was an immediate family. It was a continuous pasta boiling, tea drinking, card playing marathon. Along with being a beautiful village, i loved having a sense of community.
Brussels was beautiful, but isolating.
Lyon had a gritty sort of charm.

But in the end, I think my favourite place was Chamonix. The heart of the French Alps. Albeit touristy, it was a town the carbon-copy-banff-whistler-blue-mountain-villages could only dream of one day replicating. My hostel was rugged at best. But I was happy with the metal frame bed, ancient lumpy mattresses, petrol burners in the kitchen, and a resident cocker spaniel. Belle-amie. (Yes, I miss my dog.) And the combination of people present, was more than entertaining. Marriage proposals, to drinking red wine out of bowls, to lazy afternoons of "planet earth" in snowpants.

Yet, more importantly, snowboarding the alps was unbelieveable. And even that is an understatement.

White peaks. Deep vallies lined with enormous pines. A thick blanket of snow. A post card never-ending. During my first cable car ride up Mt. Brement, I definitely said "this. is. crazy." an embarrassing number of times. But it was.

The entire week I felt as though i was on the most elaborate movie set. With one light tap of my fingertips, the scerary would topple over. Two-dimensional high peaked dominoes. All the while under a barrage of fat snowflakes.

I loved it.

I did not however, love sleeping in the Geneva aiport. Concrete floors are officially the devil.

But, back in Holland now.

I have spent the last few days soaring around the dutch countryside on a borrowed bicycle. Much too big for me, my tip toes grazing the pedals. A little kid attempting to ride her older sibling's bike. Teetering along, swerving down back streets. White knuckles, three sweaters and countless back roads. It has been nice.

I have drank endless cups of tea, read even more, and contemplated cutting off my hair.

I travelled to Kettle on the weekend, and found the house my dad was born in. A crooked little brick duplex. A house leaning precariously overhead, playing chicken with the ground. It helps to make my father's history feel a little more real. This part of his life has always been difficult to grasp. The first seven years, in a fabricated place i could never relate to. Flat open spaces and family bicycle trips.

My dad immigrated to Canada on a ship in 1953. He once told me, his first orange was on that ship. He liked it so much he didn't eat it, and it finally went bad. I have always liked that image. A little blonde version of my father, cradling a fruit he refused to eat.

Tomorrow i go to Friesland. The place my grandparents met during the war. Teenagers. The farmlands where my grandma grew up. The area my grandfather entered into the underground.

Now the challenge will be nagivating the non existant transit system of the north. Then off to London.

xo.
l.

one warzone to another.

We left flew out of Nairobi the day of the presidential elections at 11 o clock pm. Spent most of the day indoors, glued to BBC. The streets of nairobi were dead as we drove across the city to the airport. And now only nine days later the city is littered with riot teams, and families burying their dead.

From the bustling city i nagivated not even two weeks ago, it is something incredibly hard to believe.

The worst i experienced during my time in Kenya comes no where close to what is currently taking place. Although i think i recieved my first taste of injustice.


We bribed two corrupt security guards to get Kathryn's camera back. Apparently, a photo of a palm tree = compromising national security, and a camera constitutes "evidence." I have never been more livid in my entire life, and never more aware of my inability to reason with an irrational giant clutching an ak-47 in my direction.


So it looks as if i exchanged the escalating warzone of Nairobi for the visual one of Amsterdam on new years. A strange trade off.


Dam square and the surrounding area is a complete battle field. Thousands of people set off endless fireworks for hours after midnight. Littering the cobblestone and canals of an old city. The streets a solid wall of smoke. Shifting red, engulfing. Dodging fire crackers tossed carelessly or deliberately in our direction.


So the night was spent wandering the canal system watching fireworks bloom above the silouetted row houses in the rain. Arm in arm with two of my oldest and closest friends.


And now i have put them both on trains to the airport. I feel as though i may be a little lost in the days to come. I begin the new year alone. But it is a challenge i am ready for.


So I have filled my backpack full of sweaters, clementines and delicious dutch cheese. Bought a slew of used books at a market the other day, and am mapping out my next route.


(i raise your vintage 'as i lay dying' with a 1st run graham greene).


Also, i think that only an obscenely long train ride, with no friends, could possibly motivate me to read the grapes of wrath.

Otherwise i will just look out the window at pretty windmills.

l.

(By the way, with my friends gone, this is the last of the pictures you will see till i get home. Go film!)

christmasss.

well. first off. merry belated christmas. i feel as though i have fallen behind in my blogging, with little to no hope of catching up, in any sort of accurate way. so we will pretend as if the past month or so has not occurred, and we will continue from here. There is much to tell, but to be honest i dont particularly feel up to the task. i dont really even know where to begin. how to sum up my experiences in africa, when i cant even quite grasp them myself.

i am currently sitting bundled in sweaters in the ywam residences in Epe, Holland. It is here that we are visiting with my dad's cousin Carla. We arrived from Nairobi this morning, i barely slept on our red eye, and now i find myself slightly disoriented. Flip flops to winter boots. Slums to quaint villages.

In the past week, i have swam in the indian ocean, and camped outside the masai mara. On December 25th, i woke up in a tent, watched crazy amounts of animals, and then our van broke down in the rift valley. We stood on the side of the road befriending police officers at a check point, holding up a makeshift "merry christmas" sign to passing cars and cattle trucks. If that doesnt feel festive, i dont know what does.

happy holidays.

l.

leaving.

this is us being happy in rwanda...

again...

and again...
and lots more too.

and now we are leaving tomorrow and i am not so happy.

l.

canned hotdogs = christmas time.

So my mom emailed me the other day that there is snow on the ground in Toronto. Something hard to believe when I spend my days here running about in a sundress and flip flops, trying my hardest not to get a sunburn, this close to the equator. If it wasn't for the fake christmas trees on sale downtown, between leftover halloween masks and canned hotdogs, I would have difficulty believing it at all.

I only have a week and a 1/2 left in rwanda. Christmas will be in kenya. New years in amsterdam. And if how quickly the past three months have gone is any indication, this will be over before i know it. I feel as though it was only last week i stepped through the metal detectors at pearson, as my dad attempted to take photos and was stopped by airport security. It is hard to know where the past few months have gone. Yet in the same vein, it feels like yesterday that i was sitting on the wooden steps down to a frozen dock, ringing in the new year all alone. The lake an expanse of slate and quiet. I had escaped just after sunrise, tiptoeing between my sleeping comrades to make the drive between haliburton and severn bridge. The first morning of 2007 spent speeding down abandoned highways in northern ontario. the radio up and the windows down despite the cold. Where has the past year gone.

I am conflicted on leaving. at the moment kigali is making me feel unbelievably clausterphobic. part of me thinks that this is yet another round of feeling overwhelmed here. Of surveying the work i have done, but having difficulty seeing its affect to the larger picture of this country. Of witnessing the intense poverty here, and wondering if there really is a solution to such a complex sitation. and so i want to run, because i do not know how to process all of this. Four months, and i still cannot. Although i am of the mind that if i were to spend four years here, and i would still have no better grasp on things than i do at the moment. I cannot quite explain it.

On the other hand, perhaps this merely a defense mechanism kicking in. That I intentionally make myself dissatisfied with a place, because i know in reality it is going to be excrtiating to leave. This way, by feeling closed in upon, leaving will feel like a realease. And then when the time comes to go, it will be positive instead of negative.

I think this is all combined with the fact that part of me resents that kathryn is going home. And yet at the same time i don't. Part of me knows that once the novelty of seeing everyonehas worn off, i would wish i was still far far away. I suppose the uncertainty of the next few months is getting to me . And yet i love the uncertain. Perhaps that is the real problem. That life in kigali has become perdictable. even the unexpected ridiculous events, are to be expected. I am ready for a change.

And then i remind myself, when i am jealous of kathryn's soon to be triumphant return to canada, that toronto is not that change that is nee. At this point it is still reverting.

I suppose it is simply a strange time of year to be away from home. And despite my nerosis, it is going to be hard to leave Africa. I am not used to saying permanent good-byes.

l.

ethiopian food vs. the bad place

(...too much is happening. hence oldish news. old = 2 weeks.)


This is a culture of apology. Or perhaps one of concern lost in translation. I trip on the bricks infront of my house, my guard says he is sorry. I drop a pot of water preparing tea for some students of mine, they are both sorry too. I sneeze, sorry. I forget my keys, sorry.

Or the other night, when Kathryn and I ventured to an Ethiopian restaurant in Remera. Mistaking an entire hot pepper for a green one, she begins involuntarily crying, and the old men two tables over are…sorry. I wasn’t sorry, I just laughed. I am a bad friend. That is why I swallowed a hot pepper accidently a few minutes later too. Serves me right.

The incessant burning resulted in a trek across town to find ice cream, our moto drivers thinking us completely insane.

Fitting for the week. Try explaining why white water rafting is fun to Rwandans who don’t like the rain. Chalk that up there with explaining the purpose of Halloween. Pure insanity. And while we might not have celebrated Halloween this weekend (that was two weeks ago), we did go rafting.

So, last Thursday we left for Uganda. After an eight hour bus ride, we arrived in Kampala. A large grimy city, which oddly reminded me of Toronto. Perhaps the sheer size of if, rather than the cows eating from garbage piles. But, I awoke the next morning to rain on the roof of our banda and monkies in the trees, so I was happy enough.

(said monkey in tree)

We spent the morning visiting the Kasumi Tombs for the Bugandan Kings. Where we had to wear makeshift skirts, and discuss Idi Amin with a primary class, along with our favourite foods, and whether or not boys actually wet the bed. However, in afternoon, we headed to chill and raft in Jinja for a few days. A town on the shores of Lake Victoria, and home to the source of the White Nile River.

Four days after the fact and I was still incredibly stiff and sore. It is like a morning after snowboarding, when you wake up and all your muscles seem to cry out at once. All I wanted was a hot bath, and yet I was greeted only by a bucket of cold water. Yet, despite this, the sunburns and sore muscles, it was entirely worth it.

Two rafts. Our raft was eight in total; three serbians in teeny scarring bathing suits, three canadians (including Kathryn and i), one brit with two black eyes face planting the water when bungee jumping, and one kiwi, our guide Ruben. A funny fowl mouthed burly blonde boy who clearly thought the world of himself, but seemed to think the world of you too. So it was more endearing then anything else. Add five Ugandan safety kayakers, one more in a safety raft.and set us adrift on grade 5 rapids. A motley crew to say the least.

The entire experience was unbelievable. I think that is the most accurate way to describe it. You would descend these giant walls of water, to be greeted by another rising ominously in the other side. But first you would hover above, as if in slow motion. Everything quiet, deafened by the roar of the rapids. And for this split second you could watch these fields of churning water. Waves braiding themselves down the river. Tying themselves in knots then slowly unravelling and unfurling into massive pools. This moment amidst beauty with your heart in your throat. And then the moment would pass, time would resume itself, and you would begin sliding swiftly forward, as the walls came crashing down on all sides.

Sometimes we would tip. Sometimes we would not, raising our paddles in the air, an act of triumph. However, the times we tipped were more frequent then the times we did not.

One instant it was blue skies, the next churning white, and then black. Two invisible hands grasping at your ankles, pulling you further and further into the depths. A twisting tunnel, forcing you forward through the muffled roar and out the other side. Alice in her rabbit hole. I would resurface choking & grinning.

This process quickly became par for the course.

One time only the boys fell out. Another instance (over a sixteen foot waterfall), it was only Ruben who went shooting over our heads. Grimacing, he swam his way back to our laughing raft. But most often, we all went tumbling over the red sides into the frothing mass below. After one such instance, I made it onto the safety raft with nearly all of our paddles. Hauled up by the operator, an entertaining Ugandan boy named Peter (who told me that he had been a mzungu from Vancouver in a past life). We were too close to the next rapid to return me or our gear. So peter and I laughed and laughed as we watched my raft attempt to navigate the next rapid with only two paddles. Miraculously they made it out in one piece.

But, the last rapid was the most intimidating. Itanda Falls, otherwise known as “the bad place.” And as we soon learned, aptly named. Although, as of the other night, we have concluded that Ethiopian food is more painful then the bad place.

The river was lined with locals, watering long horned cows, washing clothes, or simply observing the spectacles that are the Jinja rafting companies. We had to portage around the first part; a grade six rapid. But it was enormous so setting ourselves adrift part way through was terrifying enough. We flipped in the middle of the river, and were promptly pulled under. A downwards spiral of liquid fists and actual limbs. I cannot tell you how long I was under the first time. But my lungs were screaming by the time I surfaced, only to be pulled immediately under again. This pattern repeated itself another two or three times before I finally found myself disoriented and downstream.

So…rafting in Ottawa next summer? Or the rockies? Anyone? Because I am so in. Seriously.

The ride back to camp from Itanda Falls was close to fourty minutes along dirt roads in rural Uganda. Red dust, mud huts and naked babies in the late day sun. I spent the trip perched atop the back of a converted cattle truck, clutching the metal bars. A wooden bust on a sailing vessel, perhaps with messier hair. A moment I wish I could repeat over and over.

The night occurred sprawled on red lit couches in an open building. A thatched roof, a sand floor, and a spectacular view of Bujagali falls (the first grade 5 of the day!). Two rafts clinking glasses to a job well done. I even got the Ugandan bartenders to play my ipod over the speaker system for a good few hours. Eventually we retired, not to bed, but rather to the field to rehash the day and star gaze. Or more accurately, befriend three friendly camp dogs and play our infamous scenario-digital-camera-game. Something long ago perfected in Kathryn’s Etobicoke basement with the likes of one lovely Katie Hamilton.

For instance, what would you do if…

…suddenly everyone on the raft is wearing scandelously small serbian speedos…
…suddenly you come out of a rapid and all of your clothes have been ripped off in the process (apparently Kathryn would be happy. haha)…
…if you involuntarily swallow way too much water, (which later became known as ‘sips of the nile’)…
… if you could ride on the top of a cattle truck all day every day…

...etc etc...

So yeah. In conclusion, Uganda = Amazing.

...Depite our last taxi driver at 5 am taking us to the bus station. He had to shake the car back in forth to keep it from running out of gas. Kathryn and I flailing around the back seat in the dark. But I got to watch the sun rise on our bus back to kampala.

I feel as though significant moments in my life (if only internally) are always tied to either sitting in cars, rainstorms, the early mroning or some combination of the three.

Either way, I routinely forget how pretty it is.

l.