I love to see the green, but my city is one big concrete jungle, so it is very very strange to have this "real jungle" outside my new apartment!
Increasingly, I want my life to be like that little plot of land calm, green, and with the trees waving their palms to the heavens. The roads and skyscrapers with all the work and maintenance entailed are not nearly as beautiful. So leaving the jobs, ministries, and relationships to God I'll focus on the Father and Creator of this life in midst of a parched land.
Sometimes everything here feels just perfectly normal. Then there are days like today, taking a 4 hour journey to another city and seeing the dessert sand dunes on one side and palms along the Nile on the other side while riding in a station wagon with 8 others that I think not everyone experiences this.
What are things that might be a little different? We have power cuts at some time during most days. The water supply is low and many people I know are going a large part of the day with no water (very thankful not to have this problem yet in my apartment). I get the thumbs up sign in my face and am called names like sugar, honey, moon, yellow hair and foreigner. I wear long sleeve shirts and long pants in 100F°+ weather. I have an air conditioner but only use a fan. There was a fight in the micro bus which led to the guy behind me sliding backwards out of the window while we were moving. The first night I left my windows open, I woke up to thinking the mosque was meeting in my room with their call to prayer at 3:00am. Some of my best friends are those I've met in various modes of transportation. I eat mostly with my fingers (ok, I've always done that but now I'm not scolded for it). The streets are very crowded and safe until at least 12am. There are friends I can call until 2am with no worries of waking them.
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