you start, bob. i'll sing the harmony.

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse." That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

that's such a lovely quote. and so true and so real. poetry, beauty, romance, love. these aren't what we live for. they are what we stay alive for.

staying alive. it's nearly an entity of its own. p.s. i hate the bee gees. and i hate even more what they have to say about staying alive. trying to get high. trying to get low. trying to understand the new york times' effect on man. why? why try so hard to make things more than what they are? life is complicated enough. a mongoose is not a goose. it's not even a bird. lynyrd skynyrd is not a man's name. ring around the rosy is about the plague. progeria syndrome makes children grow old and kills them too young. people get fat and their neighbors starve to death. things don't make sense as it is. why rage against it all?

we've all been in situations and heard stories that have sucked the wonder right out of our bones. i've visited orphan villages. i've watched men dying of AIDS. i've heard testimonies that have made my palms sweat. and it's in these moments that my faith is that of a cynical old chain smoker suffering from insomnia and not a wide eyed child who dreams of sugar plum fairies. and i feel weighed down. yes, weighed down. but not always hopeless. it takes poets like dylan thomas and painters like william bouguereau to bring me back to life. it takes mountains like the rwenzori and theologians like g.k. chesterton to remind me that loveliness is essential to life and sugar plum fairies will set you free.

it's a relief to learn that my periodic childishness is part of living. it's ok to be creative. it's ok to think in iambic pentameter and remember faces in 3x5. it's all part of staying alive. yes people get sick. yes parents get divorced. yes buildings burn down. but sometimes even doctors learn to sketch. moms and dads make funny jokes. neighbors come together and build a new barn. life is good. even when it's not. and this goodness, these surprises, the poetry and beauty and love, this is why we stay alive. and wherever this all ends, wherever it goes and wherever it stops or starts over, i will be happy to have lived through it.

thank you for sticking with me, those of you who keep reading this. i wish you were here. and hey aunt beth, how can i get ahold of you?? i keep visiting your phantom blogspot and still have no way of saying hi!

all my love
peace on earth
hope in hearts
food on tables,
annie

on you i just can't rely

i'm sick these days. a chesty, feverish, sneezing, coughing, nose-blowing kind of sick. it's pretty much par for the course at this point. stress, sleeplessness and an unwillingness to take a day off will usually knock you off your feet at some point.

other than that, i don't have too much to say today. maybe it's because the sloshing in my head has me thinking slower. i will say this: i love my job and i love this place. but i can say with utter certainty that this would be a nearly impossible position to hold for longer than a year and it makes me admire my boss and this office staff all the more. how on earth would you survive taking 30 or so lovely and dynamic people in your arms for 4 months only to let them go into the great unknown and have a whole new group come in to love and invest in before, yet again, having them taken from you? or maybe i just know myself well enough to know that i couldn't survive like that. it's only been about 3 and a half weeks since the students got here and i'm already madly in love with all of them. and i don't think it's natural to fall in and out of love so often.

on a car ride at 1 in the morning, someone once said, 

i do believe that the community of humanity has the singular purpose of existing for each other. for other people and their joy and survival. and if you're not existing for someone else, then you're just... existing. 

in the clarity of daylight, i can see the potential melodrama of a statement like that. however, i don't think the concept is false. man was not meant to be left alone. and for those of us who have gotten accustom to running away from home, i think we each have a moment when we look up into the sky over yet another temporary world wide travel destination and say, 

when do i get to claim a community of my own? when do i get an apartment whose walls i can paint and a neighbor who shouts at his dog? when do i get a diner down the street and a church with a steeple? 

and although i don't regret for a moment where i am now, i have started to wonder, when will i finally be content sitting still?

and do you know what makes that question so difficult to answer? it's that everywhere i go, i see a glimpse contentment there. i find a hill with a shady tree where i can watch the sun set. i find a coffee shop with free wireless internet and delicious monkey bread. i find a friend who can make me laugh or even let me cry. i find Grace. and Joy. and i learn a few more chords on the guitar. for me it has never come down to choosing between devils and angels. it's always come down to plane tickets and restlessness. and while the beginnings are exciting, the endings are just a bunch of goodbyes. i don't know when i'll be content sitting still. but i do know that i'm tired of saying goodbye. 

the thief he kindly spoke

i've just got back from rwanda. i love it enough to never leave. but that place is almost too much to take. the hills too beautiful. the people too generous. the death too rancid. all of it just so much. 

driving back to uganda, i recalled a memory i had not thought of for nearly 15 years. it was a sunday and i was wearing a dress. i was very young. or at least i remember being very short. i could only see the first two pie shelves in the glass display case. my family and i were waiting at a tippin's restaurant for sunday lunch. on our way to the lobby doors, there was a man alone outside. he looked tired and dirty. his hair was unwashed and his beard untrimmed. he was not wearing sunday clothes. i watched him with round childhood eyes as he staggered to and from the families outside, asking for money. before i could have much of a reaction, the restaurateur came out and made him leave. in the lobby, i sat down on a bench by the window. i had the strangest feeling. i wasn't sure what i was thinking or why i had to sit down. i was very young. but in a few minutes, my mom came over and sat by me.

what's wrong annie? why so quiet?

in the next instant, surprising both my mother and myself, i burst into tears. and through choking little girl sobs, i asked,

why couldn't we give him something? even 50 cents?

i don't remember what my mother said. it must have been comforting because i soon stopped crying and ate some pie. but i do remember that she held me. i remember her rubbing my back. i remember my face on her neck. and i remember for the first time being miserable because the world was unjust. did this man have a mother to hold him? why didn't he have any money? what was going to happen to him when he left? and why couldn't i help him?

murambi is a schoolhouse on a hill in butare, rwanda. 50,000 people were massacred there in 1994. since then, they've exhumed the bodies from the pile of mass graves that the killers left. they have reburied most of them in coffins and the rest they have preserved with lime. these bodies are laid out on picnic tables in the school rooms. you can't imagine the smell.

leaving murambi, i sat on the bus watching rwanda out my window wondering how many of the people i passed on the street didn't have families any more. no aunts, no fathers, no mothers. do they have enough money to eat these days? what's going to happen here in the next few years? and why, o God, couldn't we have helped them? i wished my mother were there. i wanted her to hold me so i could bury my face in her neck. instead, i put my head against the window and slept. i was just so tired.

close encounters of the roach kind

i was cleaning up my desktop today. i started emptying and editing old school folders and assignments. in the process, i came across the following senior-year assignments. a paragraph about how to behave in an interview: "When asked about yourself, give good clues and information concerning how you function at work, interact with others, things that make you happy. But don’t go on and on about your cats and your kitchen and your great aunt Edna. This is an interview, not a first date."

followed up by a response to what role economics is going to play in my future: "I am going to have to start doing my own taxes next year and I desperately need to make sure that I don’t get hosed by the government."

what?? who the criz let me graduate??

while contemplating this and other mysteries of life, i had a sudden shock. i was sitting on my bed, swathed in mosquito netting, when i heard a noise from against the wall. i paused the ryan adams tunes blasting from my laptop and listened for it again. and there it came. from behind my trash can i heard a rustle rustle. hmm, a mouse, i think to myself. now how will be the best way to usher the little guy out the room? i sit still and wait for him to emerge. in a few seconds, he does emerge. but to my surprise and horror, what comes creeping out is not a mouse, but a roach roughly the size of a large breakfast sausage. lucky for the other residence of my hall, i didn't scream out-loud like i was inside. paralyzed by shock, i just dropped my mouth open and sat with my eyes bugging out like a kid choking on a marble. (it happened to me once. another story for another time)

oh jumpin jehosaphat. i didn't move. i watched him make his way from behind my trash can to the door and then, with a crinkly noise of his wings, he squeezed through the door and out into the hall. i wanted to be relieved, but all i could think of was all those irritating statistics people throw around when they're not actually in the presence of a huge bug. "where you see one, there's a hundred." "every year, at least 53,005 spiders crawl in and out of your mouth while you sleep," or whatever the in-vogue number at that moment might be. i got out of bed and tip toed across the floor to the trash can. with one swift and expertly aimed toss, i dumped all of the contents into an empty plastic grocery bag and tied it off. that would need to go out to the dumpster asap. next would be yet another treacherous trip to the bathroom down the hall to wash up so i could get to bed. 

with various soaps in hand and protective footwear on, i unlocked my door and slowly crept out into the hall, watching in all directions for any roach-y sneak attack. i got to the bathroom, tip toed to the sinks, and when i finally decided it was all clear, i set about washing up. well, it's uncanny. with the next glance at my feet, i see none other but the fat sausage roach scurrying toward my protective footwear. i jump back aghast, only to be seen by two of my hall mates coming in for a shower.

um, sorry, there's a... this bug is in here and... what should we do?

one of the ladies crouched down next to him where he was cowering against the floor board, and she casually asked her friend, 

is this the kind that bite?

no, her friend said. and then she stood up straight again and asked me,

do you fear it?

well, no, it's just, i mean, he's big and gross, you know? and...

ah, screw all this coy bunk.

yes. i'm afraid of it.

mmm.

and then she stomped on it with her flimsy shower shoes and in one triumphant crunch he was dead.

the ugandan mmm is, in these parts, the equivalent of the lebowski dude. entire conversations can be had with just this noise depending on inflection, context, and eyebrow raise. it can be a question, a reprimand, an exclamation, an agreement, or el duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing. 

mmm?

mmm.

mmm!

mmm.

mmm.

i've come to use it primarily in conversations i've zoned out of or questions i don't understand. i dunt noo ifa you wunt un to woosh de clothe ez?

mmm. 

i thanked the ladies and instantly felt ridiculous. they said, mmm. none the less, the next day i went straight into town and bought some 'doom,' the liquid-death aerosol that kills roaches, ants, beetles, scorpions, house cats, and humans who don't wear a nurse's mask. i mean, come on. roaches? in my bedroom? this is a private residence, man!

domo arigato

i've got a secret. tonight i walked into the men's bathroom accidentally. i've never done that before in my life. never even as the little girl following her dad, or the school kid tricked by mean classmates. and leave it to me to kick things off right by wondering in at 10:30 at night, in my pajamas, onto an african man by himself trying to urinate in peace. allow me to explain.

so i've been house sitting for this couple. well it gives me the creeps. it's this big house on a hill with lots of bedrooms and closed doors and i'm there all by myself with some cats. so sometimes i stay the night there and sometimes i go back to my dorm room. i stay on the nights i feel like watching a dvd or cooking myself dinner. the other nights i high-tail it back down the hill in the dark, waving my flashlight around and singing hymns. well today left me in a bit of a pickle. i slept in really late after staying up to watch 'forever young' with adeline and phil. classic film. mel gibson in his prime, and playing a pilot no less. anyway, so i slept in and was woken up by a text from phil reminding me that we were leaving at 11 to go to entebbe with the honours college gang. 10:25. oops. so i get up and get ready all quick and then on the walk to the taxi park, remember that i hadn't fed the animals. well, whatever, i'll feed them when i get back.

so we hang out at entebbe beach all day, laying in the sun, playing frisbee, eavesdropping on south africans speaking afrikaans. and by the time we head back it's already dark. not a great idea for road travel as it is and now we'll be getting back late and i'm hungry and sunburned and have to pee and can't wait to get back to my bed and read. and then i remember the cats. well i was specifically told that if the day should come when i couldn't feed them, don't worry, they wont die from one day. so great, this is my one day.

so i get back to my room, get in my jammies and go to pee. someones in the bathroom. i go back to my room and wait. a few minutes later i go back to the bathroom, the door is still shut. i really have to pee, so i bend down and look under the door. no one's there! great, so i start to open the door, all the while wondering why someone would shut the door with the light on and no one in it. as i open the door, i hear a funny rustling sound. naturally, i immediately think: black mamba hiding in the toilet. so i quickly shut the door and run back to my room. well this isn't gonna work at all. i've got to pee and its hitting critical mass.

then i have a brilliant idea! i'll just walk up to the house, feed the cats, pee, get something cold to drink from the fridge, and then come back to my room. i get to pee without fear of black mambas and sleep guilt-free after feeding the cats. so i head out right then and there, not worrying about my pajamas because surely i wont run into someone at this hour of the night. and so i'm off for the long, dark walk to the big house on the hill.

well half way there, i remember that there are outdoor bathrooms near my dorm, next to the classrooms. this is even better. forget the cats, i'll pee and head back. it's too dark anyway. all of this is running through my head as i'm shuffling sleepily along, up the dirt path to the classrooms and into... the men's bathroom. i round the corner, wondering when they redecorated with this grey paint, and run right into a man mid-pee in what appears to be one tiny room for a urinary free-for-all. 'oh my! sorry!' and then i jog all the way up the hill to the big empty house.

when i got back to my dorm, the bathroom door was open and there were no snakes anywhere. someone had just taken a dump and was trying to keep the smell out of the hall.

sometimes by step

"A Spell to Make Hidden Things Visible. She read it through to make sure of all the hard words and then said it out loud. And she knew at once that it was working because as she spoke the colors came into the capital letters at the top of the page and the pictures began appearing in the margins. They were odd pictures and contained many figures that Lucy did not much like the look of. And then she thought, 'I suppose I've made everything visible. There might be lots of invisible things hanging about a place like this. I'm not sure that I want to see them all.'

At that moment she heard soft, heavy footfalls coming along the corridor behind her; and of course she remembered what she had been told about the Magician walking in his bare feet and making no more noise than a cat. It is always better to turn around than to have anything creeping up behind your back. Lucy did so.

Then her face lit up, and she ran forward with a little cry of delight and with her arms stretched out. For what stood in the doorway was Aslan himself, The Lion, the highest of all High Kings. And he was solid and real and warm and he let her kiss him and bury herself in his shining mane. And from the low, earthquake-like sound that came from inside him, Lucy even dared to think that he was purring.

'Oh, Aslan,' said she, 'it was kind of you to come.'

'I have been here all the time,' said he, 'but you have just made me visible.'

'Aslan!' said Lucy almost a little reproachfully. 'Don't make fun of me. As if anything I could do would make you visible!'

'It did,' said Aslan. 'Do you think I wouldn't obey my own rules?'

Lucy followed the great Lion out into the passage and at once she saw coming toward them an old man, barefoot, dressed in a red robe. His white hair was crowned with a chaplet of oak leaves. When he saw Aslan he bowed low and said,

'Welcome, Sir, to the least of your houses.'

'Do you grow weary, Coriakin, of ruling such foolish subjects as I have given you here?'

'No,' said the Magician, 'they are very stupid but there is no real harm in them. Sometimes, perhaps, I am a little impatient, waiting for the day when they can be governed by wisdom instead of this rough magic.'

'All in good time, Coriakin.' said Aslan. 'Now, today I must visit Trumpkin the Dwarf. I will tell him all your story, Lucy. Do not look so sad. We shall meet soon again.'

'Please, Aslan,' said Lucy, 'what do you call soon?'

'I call all times soon,' said Aslan; and instantly he was vanished away and Lucy was alone with the Magician.

- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis

and we're back...

ahem, where was i... i'm actually not sure where i was headed with all that. so i'll just move along. suffice it to say, the trip over was exhaustingly long. long long long. but once i landed i really felt much better. i was greeted by adeline and vincent (two UCU folks i knew from last year) and phil, the other intern. it was so refreshing to see familiar faces and phil could not have been more kind. i felt very much embraced. and back on campus, it was odd actually. i was here only a few short months ago so it reallt feels like i just went on vacation and now am back. nothing much has changed.

i've seen a few of the students that i was in class with. neo and jones and esseza. but it is really strange to be here without my usp group. i keep expecting to run into shannon or will, seth or kari, just around the corner. but it's just me. that's gonna take some getting used to. it's funny, i don't think i gave enough credit to the fact that i would be here on my own, essentially. i sat next to the sweetest woman on my flight into nairobi. she was headed to the congo for mission work and she asked me what i was off to. when i explained it to her she said, 'wow, that's neat! and how many are with you?' and then i told her it was just me and she said, 'oh my! that's very impressive. really, it shows that you don't need someone holding your hand the whole way, you know?' i think it was a compliment. but then it just got me thinking, what's so great about not having someone hold your hand? sometimes that's all it takes to make a sad day feel better. just someone to hold your hand.

i'm house sitting for an american professor and his english wife this week. they live in a lovely house with some rare luxuries. ie. a dvd player, hot showers, cats, and wireless internet. the dvd player will come in handy since movies on my laptop seem to be all that can get me to sleep these nights. as you can imagine, hot showers for a week will be an incredible treat. i'm a little nervous about the pets. they have cats, fish, and a hampster. all have to be fed at various intervals throughout the day. if the power goes out the fish tank needs to be uncovered. if the hampster bottle quits working he needs a separate bowl, if the cats wont go out at night just beat them out with a pillow (???). but apparently, of all the creatures in the house, it's the hampster that has to be payed special attention to. i was told that it really doesn't matter if the fish die or the cats run off into the african bush. it's the hampster that matters. their daughter is border line in love with it. no pressure or anything... so wish me luck! and hop on your skype around mid-day your time! i'll (hopefully) be able to use mine about that time while i'm at the house.

as far as other excitement is concerned, debbie and justin got married yesterday! usp gang, you'll remember them. debbie was a student here and justin was a usp alum. and now they're married! the wedding was lovely. a mix of africa and america. there was a really lovely sermon and some delicious food and speech after speech after speech. i forgot about that part of ugandan culture. :) speeches. it was a fun experience.

and now on to tomorrow. my first real work day. i'm ready to get busy. to feel purposeful. i send all my love in all your directions!! i hope everyone is happy and healthy and having an excellent life! please keep me updated. post comments. send emails. (anniebegins@gmail.com) letters even.

annie carter
uganda christian university
usp
box 4
mukono, uganda

or CALL me!! or text even. :) 774280059. it works like so: dial your calling card number first. then 011-256-774280059. YAY! i love voices.

and i love you all!! everybody off adventuring in their various directions, in and out of doors, on and off of airplanes, starting and finishing school. our lives just like the pevensies. and i pray we all of us get to look Aslan in the face. just every once and a while. just enough to not believe that we're on our own.

have a happy day! talk to you later...