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via IFTTT Perspective – Jinja —

From our walk around the neighborhood last evening… this woman was taking a pause from tilling the land (with the post still in her hand) by gazing out over Lake Victoria.

So many stories to share, even just from that walk. Kids playing soccer in the gathering dusk, rusty red roads, the bats and birds, boda ride offers… Then this morning seeing the Computer Training Center and walking a bit more in town. But now, back to work…

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via IFTTT Gathering stories — Jinja “What is your passion?” Zach asked me with a heartfelt, shy smile, “what is it you love to do?”

“What is your passion?” Zach asked me with a heartfelt, shy smile, “what is it you love to do?”

Stunned again by this bilingual potato farmer who uses the “magical” power of Google to help his local corner of the world.

“This is what I love to do,” seemed like an inadequate answer. It was a morning of information sharing, of asking questions and problem solving together, of being a fly on the wall to three people discussing powerful, life altering simplicities. Watching as the history of technology unfolded in miniature: building from power (110 or 220?); to information sharing through voice to written to digital back to person to person; printing (ink or laser?); and old information gathering to new (gps, sms and pics or it didn’t happen). Our batteries died and memory cards filled as our appreciation for what these two gentlemen — true gentle men — wanted to accomplish in the most simple and humble ways.

I was reminded how difficult it is to appreciate another’s problem until you see if for yourself, especially if you have no point of reference. (read: I was reminded why I love travel) Questions were asked that I wouldn’t have thought to start from and they were just as interested in us as we are in them — true mutual learning and understanding. I even had my own moment of insight where I said to Zach, as he explained that he travels around by bicycle and google’s people’s problems, that basically he is a mobile librarian.

I have hours of video and 100’s of pictures to process but the power is out… so instead I sit to write and ponder Zach’s question: What is your passion, Jo? Simplistically: today, now, I am living it.

Thankful. Have I mentioned how thankful I am?

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via IFTTT Love is Universal — Jinja

Arrived safely and trying to take it all in but having to dose myself. Between the jetlag and sensory overload, I’m already fatigued and it isn’t quite 3 here. We made the drive from Entebbe to Jinja and our home base for the next week. A fantastic meal at The Keep in town and now unpacking and hanging out. So happy and thankful. Oh, and kitten love of GORUCK gear is universal.

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via IFTTT I’m off then — JFK (to LHR to EBB)

I have my passport, 2 cameras and 5 empty memory cards packed up in Betty (holding on with busted zipper, I couldn’t leave her out of this adventure). Duffle with liquids is checked and KnightRider also sits by my side, ready for departure into the very unknown.

I’ve taken a similar photo in many an airport but rarely with as much nervous, excited, wondrous energy. I am concentrating on gratitude. Thankful, deep breaths fill my lungs, squeezing against my already full heart. I finally understand the phrase “fit to burst.”

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via IFTTT Packing up — NYC

Excited. Nervous. Excited.

Checking items off lists mental and physical while dealing with the emotional apprehension of venturing into the unknown. Betty and Knight Rider have adventured a great deal with me for the last year and a half, yet this will be outside even my norms. Funny as I set up the blog again that I wrote so long ago about laying down to sleep in the US and waking up in Uganda. More likely England and Uganda over long flight connections tomorrow but I anticipate it to be much the same bleary-eyed wonder waking in a wonderfully strange (to me) world. Yep, mostly excited. Stay tuned.