I. Heart. Alice.

do you hate blocked numbers as much as i do? that fear of who is going to be breathing down the other end. you toy with answering the call or not. i always do. my curiosity gets the better of me.

a blocked call came through at 10:30 last night. upon my hello? i was greeted with silence. and then in a thick African accent that has become a sweet tune to my ears, "Beeeeetttt. How are you? It's Alice".

Alice Achan. my hero. the women who is changing the world she lives in.

we fell in love with Alice. she is at least 6'2" and walks with strength and graciousness. she is the daughter of the chief of the Acholi tribe. the tribe who has been oppressed and attacked by LRA activity. she is the women our church connects with. her school, CCF takes in girls who are ex-LRA child brides and other girls at risk in their communities and villages. many of them with babies.

i feel incredibly privilege to have spent just a few weeks with her. you can't help but grow in wisdom and conviction for the freedom of the Acholi people.

Alice Achan

Alice asked us girls to cook
dinner on our last night in her home.
We spent the day walking through the markets

and learning how to cook over hot coals.

MTN. official world cup sponsor. we watched the game this morning, at 4am. Aus vs. Germany. i won't even bother commenting. 

surrounding the field however were the letters MTN. completely meaningless to most of the spectators cramped into the tiny lounge room covered in blankets. to three of us girls it  meant so much.

connecting people. the mobile company throughout the continent of Africa everyone relied on. and the provider that almost had us stuck in Pader an extra weekend because it's server was down the morning we needed to call and confirm our flight out. (i've either already blogged about that, or will at a later date).

so there we were, in an apartment in Sydney, rugged up and with our friends again, remembering the war-torn village we spent 2 weeks in and the MTN huts that had popped up everywhere. 

tin doors and chapatti

our comings and goings seem far gone.

the moment our tiny tin plane landed on the dirt dessert run way, avoiding goats.

our first toilet experience. out the back of a cafe. 3 squats with tin doors. i'm pretty sure i got the number 2's toilet.

the first hour in pader feels years ago. looking back i feel like i was still wearing a blindfold.

suddenly i am here. at a desk. in the city. wishing for a baby in my arms. or to be pumping water with the girls. or to (and i never thought i would say these words) be eating beans and chapatti in a black out.

friday night lights (and thunder)

i’d rather wait and have the darkness than run into an ambush of broken dreams.

it is raining today. it has been raining for two weeks. on Monday I had a sick day. i lay in bed with candles and Vampire Diaries as i watched the sheets of rain torrent down. i felt safe.

this week marks my 5th week back. it went fast. it was this long since i left Sydney and found myself at the end of my London adventures.

the holding pattern i’ve succumbed to is more like a gentle, slow lullaby of boredom. rocking my brain and heart to sleep.

we slope quickly into winter and seasonal depression sneaks upon us. i won't loose my joy this winter. i will in the face of sadness.

soy chai in hand i will read Victor Hugo's Les Miz. standing under my umbrella i will watch the lights of the harbour twinkle against the water.

weheartit

i'll eventually find fairy lights (they're actually really hard to find) and hang them round my room. i will buy cool frames and continue filling up my point rooved walls with vintage pictures and Paris.

i'll debut my play at a commercial theatre and get a standing ovation. i will take my lomo off my desk and capture sponteneaty. i will stop wishing for Camden markets and Basel days.

i will remember my African sisters and son. x

my dreams are the confussion and sadness imbedded behind my trying-to-forgetness.

adventures between countries trying to prolong the 18th of April. the preparation of leaving. and then the not. the unpacking. the trying to find a headscraf or clean bra in the deep bag. the trying to process where we have been. and how we can go so quickly from a place still drenched in war and blood to a place shrouded in romance and art.

this is the contradiction of life. and the developed and developing world. we war between ourselves trying to justify why and how.

for a moment atop a snow mountian in Germany I glimpsed peace. reconsiliation. understanding. as quickly as I ran down that powdery mountian to the car, it was gone. the war we left seems to have snuck into my heart. it is a raging silent war (please read this).

the mark of greatness is brokeness. someone great once said this.

maybe it's the greatness that somehow comes from humility and we will never understand it. this brokeness doesn't feel like greatness.