Day 4 and I have not gotten my luggage yet. I just had to say that. Grrr.

Three other things to comment upon:
1. Carter Via articulated a mission statement from Cross Cultural Thresholds today that I find very inspiring and want to share. CCT is committed to finding grassroots leaders in countries such as Kenya who have a vision, a cause, and who know what to do about their cause and then CCT will do whatever they can do to help them achieve that vision. They wouldn’t presume to come into another area’s problems and tell them what they need or how to accomplish it. I wish our whole country operated upon such a principle.

2. At the Daphne Sheldrick Animal Orphanage that we visited today, we saw baby elephants and rhinos who have been rescued after poachers killed their parents. One of the men who explained how they found the elephants and how they care for them stood in the midst of several babies. One of the baby elephants kept sucking on his fingers as he spoke. The man would get distracted and use his hands for talking. The little elephant then would wind his trunk around the man’s torso and around his arm until he pulled his hand back again so he could suck on his fingers. I felt like crying watching this. I want to be something like that to big nature that needs rescuing. Something to comfort and help it as we humans unconsciously cause such losses for them.

3. On a personal level, I have had a sensation since arriving here that I had collapsed internally because of traumas experienced over the last decade or so. Suddenly I feel energy coming back into the area that has collapsed, like there is space and oxygen entering and I am breathing again. A folded flower ready to re-bloom.

Africa.