Dear Mom,
I hope everything has gone / is going smoothly, and that you're
reading this from your newly installed old computer in your
bedroom/study in your freshly refurbished Mund apartment. Say Hi to
Paul if he's just gotten the WiFi working! ;) And to Huub, who may be
monitoring progress over your shoulder ;) Seriously -- I'm wishing
you a second (third? fourth?) wind in this process, and hope the week
at Jim's afforded you the opportunity to catch up on sleep (as well as
take care of all sorts of admin, rent a car, etc), and that you
managed to do the household shopping you wanted to do prior to move
in.
How are you feeling? Or is that a luxury for later?
As for me -- I just spent the day cleaning (up) Wren's house together
with her friend Karen, who will be house-sitting the three months Wren
is in Mali. It's a smallish house with a largish amount of clutter.
And hasn't been cleaned in months, maybe years.
This evening Anna and Sabrina came over for dinner -- part of the
reason I came up with Wren from London on Monday, even though I've got
to be back in London for a doctor's appointment on Thursday. Anna is
flying to Mali on Dec 17th and will be driving back to the UK with
Wren in February. Wren had mooted that Sabrina would be driving to
Mali with us, but it turns out she's not up to it for various reasons
(including MS). So it looks like it'll be just Wren and me driving
south. I thought we'd be spreading out maps and talking packing
tips...but we had dinner and watched a slideshow of Wren's photos from
her last trip and exhibit at the Segou Festival...which did get my
head back 'in the game' a bit, so to speak. I feel a certain energy
around being in Mali (quite undefined, I admit -- both the energy and
the picture of Mali it inhabits) -- even though I didn't feel a
sympathetic vibration to the 'Oooh, how beautiful' crooning over the
sluggish Niger river, or bone dry Dogon villages, or the dusty single
road that is 'downtown' Segou.
Brief recap of the days since my last email:
Fri - got into London, had dinner with Susan, stayed overnight at
Susan's over the weekend
Sat - 'Wealth Propulsion Intensive' seminar with Wren and her friend
Carol (and 500 or so other enthusiastic people); home late and caught
up with Susan
Sun - nosed around Southwark with Susan and noted the changes
(improvements); went to the Gaugin exhibit at the Tate Modern
Mon - drove up to Shrewsbury with Wren; visited David (another friend
from the Mali trip) on the way
Tues - cleaned house with Karen; dinner at Wren's with Anna and Sabrina
And preview of the coming days:
Wed - Critical Friends dinner at Wren's
Thurs - back to London, doctor's appt; staying at Susan's
Fri - dentist appt
Weekend - hope to see Lucy and Sharon (Susan is going to Paris for the weekend)
Btw - Ensign emailed, and I emailed back with the youth hostel
suggestion and my mobile number. I hope we'll connect while he's in
town.
Ok, and the important stuff I have to do:
- apply for KIVA fellows program
- get an international driver's license
- lookup ESL teacher trainings... Susan has a friend in the ESL world
who I can talk to to get the lay of the land re: certifications
- as for a visa for Mali, they can be had at the border now (so no
need to send my passport off to Brussels, thankfully)
- my yellow fever shot is still valid, and I think I'm covered on the
rest (Tetanus, Hep C, etc) but need to double check with a doctor; and
then there are the malaria pills to be got
Right ho, thanks for 'listening' to all that :) It's nice talking to
you (in my mind) -- but hope to catch you 'live' some day SOON.
Thinking of you, wishing you veel sterkte, and trusting this phase of
your transition is being cushioned by the love, dedication and
resourcefulness of Jim and Paul (and associates ;)
Heel veel liefs,
Marlies
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