So this week brought a lot of good things. My mate and I traveled to some remote regions of this country, visiting a few special villages and a beautiful serene ice-water lake 3 km above sea level, stuck way back in the mountains. We touched base with some friends my mate had met before and our relationship with our driver deepened a little as we talked about his daughter who died and what’s truly valuable in life, just to sort of really quickly sum up some conversations. You can read a little more about the trip here and see more pictures here.

This week also brought a few other good surprises:

• My mate and I finally scored a place to live, so when we move in in 3 weeks, I will be able to unpack finally
• I’m now teaching not only the directorate of the Ministry of Public Health for this province but also one of the few female parliament candidates
• My team’s two main current projects, the village maternal health trainings and a booklet project to go along with the trainings, have had success lately with the addition of a few trainers to help us do the trainings and a good visit to a village where some people were interested in participating in the making of the booklets (we are getting everything written, illustrated and printed by the locals)
• Small but good conversations have occurred in the villages and with friends
  I am supervising 3 students from the local university as they write their monographs to finish the fourth and final year of their English literature degree; hoping for relationships to build through that

• And today brought a bomb attack. My teammate was in the vicinity buying some fried chicken for lunch when it happened. He saw a vehicle or two with injured bodies rushing from the scene. The bomb exploded at a mosque really close to where one of my local friends lives. Nobody I know was hurt but we fear some university students may have been since the mosque was also close to the hostel where many students stay during the semester.

Well there’s a lot more to life here but I don’t really know how to communicate it, besides saying that I’m really grateful to be here and things are coming together and starting to feel normal. Thanks for everything and for your thoughts. We appreciate them.

E

[Photo by evanistan @ Flickr]