Blog to Blog 2

Bekah has been busy at her blog, which feels like a friendly nudge to me to do that same!

Here are her two latest posts from Nairobi. The first called "The Bubble Bursts" and the second, "Chizifreshi." You'll have to read the blog to find out what that means! Maybe I'll ask Bekah for a Swahili pronunciation guide. My slim recollection is that it's pretty straightforward--my guess is that chizifreshi would be pronounced "cheezy-freshy." Any Swahili speaker-readers out there?

I love the way my daughters inspire me to do stuff--I played off some of Anna's artistic ideas when I made valentines earlier this week. And now I will let Bekah's blogging activity spur some of my own.

Bekah in Kenya 1

I said I'd link blog to blog with my daughter Bekah who is spending the semester in Kenya, and then I promptly forgot to do that when she posted her first entry from Nairobi! It's a great one--informative and entertaining. If only she had included a photo or two--like up close and personal with a giraffe? Maybe next time.

Here's a link to it. Her blog is called: Bekah in Kenya. Go figure! (Actually, go read it!)

Blog to blog

Seems I've been a bit focused on things other than this blog of late. Among other things, helping Bekah to get ready for her semester in Kenya (with SIT, studying Health and Community Development) and taking her to Boston for her flight to Paris and on to Nairobi. Then it was fielding her phone calls and skype connections when her first flight to Nairobi was cancelled due to two flat tires.

We went to bed Saturday night knowing that she had set at least four different alarms in her hotel room at Charles de Gaulle in order to be sure to make it back to the airport for her second try at getting to Nairobi. When our phone rang at 5:30 a.m. Sunday finding me largely still asleep, I was awake enough to know that this was not a good sign. She should have been in the air to Nairobi.

No such luck. Her flight had been postponed again--this time because the crew was late arriving at the airport and the aircraft had not yet been checked for flight readiness. How reassuring.

I spent the next few hours repeatedly checking the Air France flight status website, watching as the the flight's scheduled departure got moved later and later in 10 minute increments, feeling powerless and fretful. At one point, I found myself thinking, "What if I considered the possibility that somehow it's better that this flight leaves late? What if I didn't chafe at this reality?" I don't know if this marked a step forward in maturity and wisdom, but it did open up a bit of open space.

Bekah did eventually get take off from Paris on Sunday. After calling SIT's headquarters in Vermont to be sure that someone would meet her in Nairobi, I did my best to get on with my day.

For some odd reason, neither Air France's website nor www.flightsarriving.com was able to confirm that her plane ever landed in Nairobi! We simply chose to assume that no news really was good news--that had something unthinkable happened, we would have heard, and that Bekah was fine and had connected with her SIT group in Nairobi.

How wonderful for David to receive an unexpected phone call from Bekah today, using a borrowed cell phone as the one she had just purchased was not working! And later my phone rang out with the sound of an arriving text--"Hi. Are you getting this? This is a test."

She's still far away, and for four months. But she's fine. And with the wondrous connecting thread of technology an option at least some of the time. I am grateful.

So now it's time to link blog to blog. One of Bekah's study abroad scholarship grants requires her to keep a blog, posting at least once a week. Here's the link for Bekah in Kenya. Enjoy!