Through the Wire
Tomorrow is the day! My wires come off at 9:30 AM and I’ll be able to open my mouth for the first time in four weeks. I probably won’t be able to open more than a few centimeters at first,…
Category Stories
A Warm Welcome
Indians laugh when I tell them about our green, fenced-in pastures particularly sectioned out for our american cows. It is no joke: there are so many cows roaming the local streets and highways in India. My new favorite scent is…
How to Travel across the Atlantic Ocean with a Broken Jaw
Exactly a week from today, the wires come off, and I will finally be able to open my mouth! Soft foods are in my future! I cannot wait to be able to touch my tongue again. I’ll still have rubber bands…
Hello, India!
Due to wifi issues, I’m a few days late. This is my first post, written three days ago on my layover in Mumbai. Enjoy! After many delays and cancelations, people and consulates, approval letters and stamps, 24 hours of travel…
The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men…
I haven’t written in two weeks. This is only because every time I thought about writing this post, I imagined myself sobbing while typing. Two weeks ago, I broke my jaw in Bethlehem. Now, I’m back in Nashville with my…
Sakni fi Betlahim
This past Monday, I started my “Spoken Arabic for Foreigners” class at Bethlehem University. I go to class Monday and Wednesday afternoons from 5:00 to 6:30. It’s right after work and the university is even on my route home. The class…
Mission in Action.
Before coming down to Honduras, I heard over and over again how noble, how selfless, how kind my heart was to sacrifice my summer and energy to come down here and serve. It really built me up, like in the…
Normalization of Suffering
“Normal” is a subjective word; one person’s normal may look different than another’s. In Palestine, “normal” looks a lot different than it does in the States. Normal often means suffering; to suffer is normal. I was inspired to write this post…
Stars
Last Wednesday, I celebrated my twenty-second birthday here in Honduras with the sweetest second family. Birthdays have always been moments of pause for me, where you think about everything that has happened in the last year, and you dream about…
Inshallah
The idea of writing this final post has been, in a word, overwhelming. I have certainly struggled throughout this experience with how to best articulate all of the complex experiences I’ve had into accessible and engaging posts for this blog,…