Lifelong Friends…

I can't believe we live in the digital age. If you are reading this, I will most likely know you my whole life. Many years from now, we may indeed still be facebooking each other, and where status updates used to read "Toughest midterm of my life, anyone for drinks?" will someday read "Toughest bowel movement of my life, anyone for some prune juice?" Therefore, I will never say goodbye. There will always be words scrawling across the page, and our fingers diligently picking our way into each other's lives. Certainly there is no way to have an intimate interaction in key strokes, but it is my hope that our typing keys will continue to connect across the bounds of oceans, continents, and time. I feel there is something valuable to be translated across the keyboard and through the lens. I will do everything I can to fight the barriers and constrictions that are about to enter into my relationship with you, and I hope we touch each other's lives in the coming years. I plan on this being my primary journal of experience and expression; as well as my attempt to connect you to a life you can only experience on a screen. So for as long as this lasts, I will live in your computer… and then on to prune juice!!!

The Gambia

The Gambia. It inspires certain awe, specifically because it has earned the title THE, entering it into some special class reserved for names like The Rock, The King, and The Clap. It is the smallest and one of the poorest countries in Africa, and upon reading my orientation material, I found that running water, electricity and a bath room were all things I would most likely not have. I now wonder if a blog is even possible under these conditions or if I should resign myself to old fashioned snail mail. This will be a developing story. As I feel I should have the ability to write letters and blog posts on my computer via a solar charging kit and then transfer them to a flash drive and send them out in batch when I journey into a larger town on perhaps a biweekly basis.

I have accepted this invitation without question. This is certainly the next step in my journey. I depart January 3^rd or 4^th