mumkin...I'm still in Africa

Ok, updates...what to say? After a week of sub-Saharan Africa I have a few more insights into this new "cross-cultural" experience I've found myself in. It's wierd because I feel like I'm not just looking at the African animist culture, but I've also found myself examining the missionary culture very closely and wondering how exactly I fit into it. I also find that I cannot separate all the experiences that we had together from this place, when I hear my doctor this morning respond "ilhamdulilleh" when my friend asked him in french how his family is doing, I can't help but think back to my smiling host mom praising God every other word. It's weird because there is a different sort of Islam here. Instead of "popular" Islam, it's animist Islam, with fetishes and tribalism and this strange new culture war that I was completely unprepared to join. Here I came, armed with my anti-Western, let's go human development, anti-evangelical attitude, and found a society that is warring not against the west, but against itself. Anyway, I don't really have any conclusions, but, once again, all my preconceptions have been stripped away. On the bright side, after visiting the doctor, I've realized that a friendly Egyptian bacteria decided to follow me all the way from Cairo and burrow himself (and all his spawn) into my skin, making me appear and very much feel like I have the chicken pox. Bother, so even though every time I itch I think of Egypt, I also have been forgetting it as new experiences and new prejudices have been invading my consciousness. AND I guess Boulder got 33 inches of snow. And I'm still in the flipping desert. Which makes me sort of sad. Oh well, life goes on I suppose. I hope life in America (and Israel and Turkey and Egypt) is going well and that God is still teaching you loads. Love you all and miss you all and can't wait to hear more of your stories. Oh you all will appreciate, my friend and her family is making dinner and they just made me hummus! As our dear friend Abbie says, "Whoot." Amen.