I am tenatively going to continue this blog... For myself mostly, as a record, and of course for all the other thousands of regular readers. I just took a look at it for the first time in a long time and I just it- I like the way it looks, my words all layed out on top of pretty lime green background! And I like the way it reads, quick and casual, capturing my thoughts and experiences in a way that fading memories are proving to be inadequate. Now, five months after being back, I still miss my life in The Gambia in a way that springs tears to my eyes everytime! But, the memory is vague and my Woolof is fading and increasingly, what I miss is justan impression of a peaceful life... long ago in a galaxy far far away... a mud hut at night surrounded by giggling kids...

Anyway, I do miss it madly and am trying set myself up to go back, inshallah (God willing). I just got accepted to NAU's (in Flagstaff, AZ) forestry and natural resource management program, studying international forestry under a very cool professor. The stars seem to be lining up a bit for me, after months of anxious limbo. The professor that will be my advisor, Dr. Mike Wagner, does research in Ghana and has established a sustainable forestry center there in partnership with a university there. AND, he's currently seeking funding for re-forestation projects spanning all the way up through the Gambia into northern Senegal. When he told me that in an office meeting, I almost shouted at him "REALLY??? That's PERFEFCT!"

Other pluses, Karissa my fellow RPCV Gambia is moving to Flagstaff and starting the same program, and living with me!!! I need a hiking buddy so bad and I can't wait for her move. Meanwhile, I'm waiting tables, enjoying this extended vacation, meeting people, trying my hand at high altitude gardening and enjoying the first days of spring! I tried to go shorts shopping the other day, feeling so excited by the prospect of wearing short shorts and not being totally radical (in the Gambia, ankle-length is the style of the season and that's a trend that ain't goin away). Not having worn anything shorter than mid-calf in three years, I cautiously tried some on in the dressing room... and whoa, I gasped at how much skin was showing down there. I opted for below the knee "shorts" and got outta there, promising myself that I'd work into it. My whole re-adjustment experience has been like that short shorts experience, too much too fast. My desire to hold on to the theme of the past two years still dominates; "slowly slowly, you catch the baby monkey in the bush"- the slow, the peaceful, the simple things... too bad they don't really have much place in this busy busy world. So, I hold onto lessons from the past and jump into the new, which has a beauty and an energy all of its own!