A day in this life...

So much happens so quickly here, it's very hard to keep up with blogging everything.  I am sorry about this!

I will start a few weeks back and try to catch up over the next week to where we are now. 

The week of Dec 5th to Dec 12th was CORNERSTONE WEEK!!   Why do I say this?  I did an enormous amount with the organization I volunteer for.  I know this sounds funny, but I technically only work from their offices 3 days a week, as my job is the Outreach Coordinator...so I am often outreaching.  :) 

It was a fantastic week of getting to know the family better.  At Cornerstone Development we call ourselves a family of friends, which indeed we are.

But before I get into everything that happened with the Cornerstone crew, I should tell you about my other adventures.

We had a meeting for head teachers for Cornerstone schools at Emmaus Center. To be efficient, I decided to travel out to Emmaus a day early, and have some meetings.  I was suppose to travel with Javis, my workmate, but he got caught up by other work.

I left early, and got a taxi to Matugga, I had never stopped there.  I managed to find my way to where I was going, thankfully the place was on the main road.  After wandering around a construction site for a while, I found my way up a narrow stair case build into a large wall.  I felt like I was going to fall off of it as I waited for the door in the wall to open. 

Eventually it was opened and I was instructed where to wait.  I was there to meet the local parish priest, a friar from Poland.  He pulled up in a bit of a hurry, as they were moving into the house that day!  He made some time for me, and I explained that we would like him to be involved at the Cornerstone girl's school.  He was very receptive and kind.  I think we'll be friends.

By 10 am I was done with that meeting!  Miracles do happen... and in an overloaded taxi out to Emmaus.  The taxi almost missed my stop, and found me shouting for it to stop.  Sigh. 

As soon as I had reached, I got a phone call from Gabriel who I had planned to meet with in the afternoon.  He said that Peter, the community leader, couldn't meet in the afternoon, and could we meet now?  I literally walked up to him as we talked on the phone and he burst out laughing.

I was ready to go right then and meet with them... but that's not the way in Africa.  Someone took off with my backpack (not stolen, but helping me to put it somewhere so I don't have to carry) and Clara hustled me to the dinning area for a "cup of tea", where she instructed the girl serving to give me baby bananas and more ground nuts than I could eat in a year.

After sufficently eating my food and drinking my (wonderful) milk tea, I was allowed to go meet with Gabriel and Peter.  This was an "outreach" meeting... We're hoping to do the 10 principles of Leadership at Emmaus this coming year, so it was planning for that.  Also, we are trying to straighten the connection between Emmaus and Cornerstone... so far so good.

Once the meeting was over, I had the rest of the day visiting, reading and resting.  I was really tired.  I spent most of the afternoon hours with Clementine (said Clementina), I love that lady!  I ordered some crafts from her to take to Ireland with me.

Life is always an adventure here... this was a miraculously productive day, and it felt good to actually accomplish something in relation to others! 

Next stop... coffee.  :)

some beautiful sky photos... due to the lack of photos in this post!