“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” It’s a line from a song in the musical, Porgy and Bess, and it was also the theme of both our Toastmasters meeting this week, and the Table Topics portion of the meeting. During Table Topics, one person will ask a question or make a comment, and then call on another member to respond. That person has to talk on the subject for 1-2 minutes. Table Topics gives us all a chance to practice thinking on our feet, and [...]
We’re finishing up laundry and leftovers after a lovely visit from my sister and nephew last weekend. Now I’m packing and preparing for a weekend at the coast with three fantastic friends whom I haven’t seen in person in almost ten years. So I’m not going to write much this week, other than to say how wonderful it is to spend time relaxing and having fun with family and friends who mean the world to us. And that I hope you are able to enjoy [...]
The weather was sunny and dry when we left home, but clouded up on our way to the grocery store. It was drizzling when we went in, and pouring when we came out. People were racing to and from the store holding umbrellas over their grocery carts and themselves. “You wait here,” my husband said. “I’ll go get the car.” There was a long line of people with full grocery carts waiting near the entrance to the store, and I joined them. There was also [...]
242. That's the number of candles on America’s birthday cake this year. If America made a wish before blowing out the candles, don’t you wonder what it might have been? After giving it some thought, I have a few ideas. If it were me, I would wish for fewer headlines about the people who are most in the news these days, and more about people like the man who returned my nephew’s lost wallet a few weeks ago. My nephew figured it must have fallen [...]
Sometimes I felt like a rock star. Other times, like a zoo exhibit. It all depended on the looks on their faces. Surprise was always first. Then curiosity. And often, delight. The children usually smiled and waved. Some of the adults did, too. Or they glanced up and nodded, before looking away. Some stared. A few winked. “Muzungu!” I heard often when I was in Uganda. Mostly from the children, especially if we were driving very slowly due to traffic or potholes. Which is to [...]
This column was first published in the Chanhassen Villager on 11/17/11, shortly after I returned from my first trip to Uganda. The young women I wrote about have become the focus of most of our work in Uganda; our goal is to help them build a better life for themselves and their children. You'll hear more about them after I return from this trip. They are beautiful young women. Girls, actually, with many of them between the ages of 18 and 25, and some even younger. They [...]
As you read this week's blog post (unless you had set it aside for later), I am on my way to Uganda. While I'm gone, I'll be posting some of my favorite columns about previous trips to Uganda. I wrote the following column as I was preparing for my first trip there in 2011. The column was first published in the Chanhassen Villager on 9/29/11. “If anybody offers you sambusa, take it.” That’s one piece of advice that was given to me recently regarding my upcoming trip [...]
This will be my last “live” blog post for a while. Next week at this time I’ll be on a plane, somewhere between Amsterdam and Entebbe, preparing for almost a month in Uganda. We work pretty much sunup to sundown when in Uganda, and email and internet service can be spotty at best, so I know better than to even try to post anything while I’m gone. Instead, if I have my act together and get everything done that I need to do before I [...]
106. That’s the number of railway cars there were in the freight train we got stopped by during a recent two-day drive to Chicago. We arrived too early to check into the hotel where we were spending the first night, so we drove around for a bit. It was a small town, much like the one I grew up in, and it took us only a few minutes driving down Main Street to get to the edge of town. We enjoyed noting the various types [...]