Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Back At It!

It's been one week since my return from Africa and I miss the kids at Kasisi terribly. I am so fortunate to have had the African experience that I did-- everything from the miles and miles of land that I saw, 3,700 kilometers to be exact, the people, the smells, the culture and yes even the bugs. I miss the "TIA" (this is Africa) moments and the moto "In Zanzibar" anything is possible! One of the things I learned from my trip was that all a kid truly needs to be happy is unconditional love and structure. The 200+ kids at Kasisi was hands down the largest group of happy kids I had ever seen and let me add well behaved! In the world that I live in, parents often give their kids what money can buy vs. something that is priceless: their time. The second thing I learned is about relationships. There was a guy on our trip named Rudy. We called him the International Man of Mystery. He is, I would say in his mid 60s, he is married with children but travels all over the world on his own. One rainy day in Malawi, Brittany asked Rudy about his wife and life. In telling his story, Rudy was praising how wonderful his wife is and then he went into a story about how his wide used to drive him nuts over how she dug into the butter. Rudy likes to shave it with a knife smoothly from the top and his wife would take chunks from it. Rudy would often make comments about it to his wife and finally one day, his wife asked, "does it really matter?" A light bulb went into Rudy's head and at the end of the day, it does not. I think anytime there is a conflict of some sort, that is a great question to ask! The third thing is more of an amazing discovery.. I had no idea how much influence and development China had over and in Africa. Billboards written in Chinese were pretty prominent in the main cities of Africa!

While I was in Africa in Vic Falls more specifically, I was going to bungee jump off the Vic Falls Bridge over the Zambezi River. I think it's the third highest bungee jump in the world. By the time we arrived in Vic Falls, I had changed my mind about the jump mainly because throughout the entire 2 weeks we have been overlanding in Africa, I've yet to see a big hospital or treatment center anywhere!! Fast forward to this week.. just read an article and saw a video about an Aussie girl who bungee jumped off that exact same bridge and fell into the river because her bungee snapped!! They had to air her into South Africa for treatment. Point proven.. I made the right choice- phew!

Anyway, back on the training wagon!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Happy 2012!!

Happy New Year, everybody!

I spent most of December in Africa... you can read about it here on my travel blog. Cheers!

http://www.theworldaccordingtoyi.blogspot.com/