FUNdraising

a huge THANK YOU again to all of you who have been able to donate to my volunteer adventure fund! and i am still seeking more donations to guarantee that I will be able to eat, sleep and live in Liberia for the next ~9 months! so if you have a couple bucks to spare i would certainly appreciate it.

and to make donating even more FUN i've decided to take customized photographs to share...i know, i know, it sounds lame at first but it's FUN i promise! here's how it will work...when you donate (via the button on the right of this page) you'll complete a wee bit of info about yourself including email address, and then in the comments section you can request what pose, scenery, objects, etc you would like to see in a photo with/without me - which i will email to you individually as proof that your money is being used to do a little good in Africa! for example, maybe you want a picture of me eating a mango (local fruit in Liberia), a picture of kids playing a game, a picture of a local market, or me working extremely hard hand washing my dusty clothes. the requests can be silly or practical - the sky is the limit, so be creative!

dancing with a diplomatic

This past Saturday AYDAP held an auction event to fundraise for the Liberian Peace Festival we're developing for February 2008. It was a wonderful event that successfully raised £1800 and the Liberian Ambassador and his Deputy quite enjoyed the whole thing! The real fun came later that evening when Julie and I hosted them at her home for a wee bit before their flight. With music playing and toasts being made we found ourselves dancing around the living room! Here's a highlight!

5 cups of tea

I reached a new record today...i drank 5 cups of tea! oh the british influence is so strong in scotland it's a crack up! i'm backing off though, i think 2-3 per day is more appropriate - i guess i got a little carried away and every time someone offered i accepted! haha good thing it's just tea that they're pushing :)

there are a few things i've had to overcome to live successfully in scotland...
1) lightswitches are never where you think they'll be
2) riding as a passenger in the front on the left side of the car is tricky! not too mention the roads are windy and intersections make no sense to my 'western mind'
3) the trash can is called the 'bin'. children judge you when you forget this simple fact!

it's not all Scottish fun and games! there's a lot to wrap my mind around before arriving in Liberia. i've been absorbing much information and learning/scheming more and more about programming possibilities for AYDAP as we work toward the peace festival in february.

1 point Scotland, 1 point Ewell

1 point for Scotland: Sterling
Scotland uses the British pound as their currency...I assumed they had joined the European Union and were onboard with the Euro. silly me, I converted dollars into Euros at the airport!

1 point for Ewell: Taxi
I had to take a taxi alone yesterday and made the correct choice to ride in the back...I did pause and consider that since the Glaswegians are so friendly perhaps I should ride up front, but used my best judgement and hopped in the back appropriately!

Fun fact of the moment: You can use the word 'wee' in almost every sentence - i.e. have a wee snack, take a wee nap, enjoy a wee rest, would you like a wee bit of tea?

Abbe's Adventures in Scotland!

I'm here in Glasgow where I'll be for about 2 weeks meeting the AYDAP team that does fundraising from the UK and mixing and mingling with some wonderful people! My flights went well (all 3 of them) and I got here a lot jet-lagged at 10:40 local time Thursday...yep that was a rough 5:40am eastern standard time so my mind was hurting!

Today the Liberian Ambassador arrives, AYDAP made the arrangements so that the auction fundraising event they're hosting tomorrow will be even more exciting. The line-up also includes a gospel choir performance, local soap opera star appearance, and I think they mentioned a comdedian..sometimes with all the accents I get a bit confused! haha But everything is going really well, I'm learning so much about the state of affairs in Glasgow with regard to the large refugee population brought here from all parts of Africa. I also got to meet a great group of high school girls last night that are part of drama workshop program offered for refugees. The group of 7 girls performed at a youth theatre festival in july and we viewed the DVD of their performance last night. It was amazing! Through the workshop they wrote the play and it was about life as asylum seeker...powerful material that they handled with a balance of humor and grace.

Just got a call that I must catch a taxi to the city center for the reception with the Ambassador...more later!

this week

many changes are brewing...only a couple days until my departure and a seemingly endless list of things to do. my bed net to protect me from the mosquitoes arrived in the mail a couple days ago and my Liberian visa showed up today! I'm really looking forward to having everything wrapped up and getting on a plane Wednesday. after so much dreaming and planning I'm ready to just do this crazy thing!

bye bye couches!

I SOLD MY COUCHES!!!

yes, this is what i'm shouting as i dance around my living room! because when you're leaving all that you know and all the people you like to move to a developing country and not have an income, life's joy comes in the little victories! because selling my couches doesn't just mean that my roommate finally gets her way - she's wanted me to ditch the lovely plaid pair since she moved in 1.5 years ago - it also means that i'll be able to eat and live and function in Africa for a couple more weeks!

so even though it's been cloudy all day and the street maintenance people decided that they should repave my street today (when i'm supposed to be parked out front loading my belongings into my car) i'm going to continue to dance around my living room because THE COUCHES ARE SOLD!!!

the month is OCTOBER

I know many of you probably already realized that we're in the month of October, but I've found that certain things process more easily when I say them out loud..or type them as in this case! So this is it, my last day at work was Wednesday (peace out ChiCares! miss you already...just a bit) and I'm in the thick of packing my apartment, shipping stuff to ohio and determining just what exactly i can fit in my hiking pack. Got my final vaccination (yellow fever) last week and mailed my Liberian visa paperwork yesterday.

Everything is coming together pretty well! I'm still hustling to get everything done before the move to oHIo on the 17th but things are looking good :) as I left work 2 days ago and rode the beloved Jackson bus one last time, I couldn't help but consider: do I feel liberated, or just plain unemployed? either way, this is it. the month that I move to Africa. I'm all over this!