On Blogging

Just so "my readers" know, I write these blogs not as someone who has something more important to say than the general population. I'm rather a private journalist, a tourist writing home, a girl on an adventure. My hope is that these reflectings are read like a newspaper or periodical of interest- fascinating one's imagination with yet un-travelled horizons.

I am doing some work that needs to be done here in Saharan Africa, just like you're doing wherever you are. Suddenly since I am in Niger, sanitizing my water bottles and all the novelties of daily living becomes an item to write about. Admittedly, that is one of the reasons I came!-for the buzz that I get from variety (the spice of life). But it is just as interesting as you boiling baby bottles or picking up your kids or searching for the root of a problem at a meeting, or working for the best of your clients at work. I just consider myself lucky to get to be doing the daily stuff in a setting that gives me some thrills, and quenches (and whets) some appetite I have.

The funny thing is, I could have written a blog for the last 5 years with stories one might gasp at and think, oh how noble, or what suffering she encounters, how important the work! But it was happening in our own back yard, where we are often numbed to the art and earnestness of life, by quotidian realities.

Here, I encounter the same things we all do—resistance to change, lazy motivation, "murphy's law" at every turn, daily routine that becomes normal and then annoying, and also brilliant ideas, generous collaboration, and things that actually work! I surmise that, the world over, our lives are all baffling and beautiful, and very often, that in the very same moment.

Besides being an outlet of reflection for my own soul, I hope this "journal" (French for "newspaper") can be an uplift to those who read.

A lifting of the eyes, to notice surroundings, piquing curiosity of the Divine
A lift of the heart, to take courage for living
A lift of the hand, in partnership with others
And a lift of the spirit, to ponder all these things like treasures in the heart.