Who would have thought one year from today
I’d be Skyping with loved ones so far away?
Gone for a year, miss friends, pizza and treats.
But so much I’ve learned biking these dirt streets.
Who would have thought one year from today
I’d be conversing in Bambara, making mud stoves from hay?
Bike 15 miles to get all my groceries,
Love stopping at the 7-11 for ice-cold Slurpees (not!)
Who would have thought I’d make dinner by car battery, solar charged light?
Making dinner on a gas stove and sleeping under the stars each night.
I filter and bleach hand pulled well water to drink,
Such a different lifestyle but people are the same is what I think.
Who would have thought I’d devour People magazines and pop culture?
Eating treats from packages like a Sahelian vulture.
New American and Malian friends making me laugh every day,
Who would have thought my time here would slip so quickly away?
Easy to carry cute babies on your back
July 5th, 2008 in Virginia Beach,VA
July 6th, 2008 at Regino's in Virginia Beach
How to make a mud stove (I know you've been wanting to learn!)
The final product
3 comments:
Oh baby cuz, what excellent pictures! I wish that you had a 7-11 to stop at. I wish I had one too here in Mississippi!
Just FYI, I feel left out from the pictures on July 5, 2008, (even tho I wasn't there!) and would like to request that you cut/paste my face into the picture Memaw-style.
Thanks =)
this first picture is so so cute of you!
I sensed all the sacrifice you did by leaving VA Beach and coming in Mali, and all the emotion you've struggled with to put it into words as I read "Who would have thought?". I recalled those words, President Bill Clinton wrote in his Autobiography : My Life, The Presidential Years : "To the memory of my grandfather, who thaught me to look up to people others looked down on, because we're not so different after all." You did it Jennifer, thank you a lot.
Manzo.
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