The Chronicles of Janie

Okay, maybe not holy sod. Even I'm not fangirl enough to quite be able to believe that the places I visited are sacred. However, I will say that over the last few days I have definitely walked in the footsteps of some of the greatest literary figures of all time. Let me elaborate: 1588 - Shakespeare writes his first play. 1599 - The Globe theater is built by the company in which Shakespeare has a stake.  Somewhere around 1600 - 1605 - Shakespeare writes the play All's Well That Ends Well. 2011 - I am standing in the Globe theater, watching a performance of All's Well That Ends Well. Yep, it's me. Standing in the Globe. The place Shakespeare helped build. The place where countless noblemen-and-women have come to watch plays. The place where the Bard himself stood. Admittedly, I was in the cheapest area, a place that used to go by the lovely name of the 'the pit'. This was where the common folk could pay their penny for standing room at a...

No, I didn't write this. I copied it from an awesome t-shirt belonging to one of the ladies at the Dondo base. In spite of this fact, the following describes my thoughts and feelings quite well, and is a far better piece of writing than I would probably be able to accomplish. When I think of Africa, the following images immediately come to mind: Starvation. AIDS. Child soldiers. Genocide. Sex slaves. Orphans. From there, my thoughts naturally turn to how I can help, how I can make a difference.  "I am needed there," I think.  "They have so little, and I have so much." It's true, there are great tragedies playing out in Africa every day. There is often a level of suffering here that is unimaginable until you have seen it, and then it is difficult to believe. But what is even harder is reconciling the challenges that many Africans face with the joy I see in those same people. It's a joy that comes from somewhere I cannot fathom, not within the frame...

I choked back the sobs, trying not to make a scene. I clutched my capulana tightly in both fists as I felt tears rising behind my closed eyelids. 'Don't cry, don't cry. Do not cry '. I repeated that mantra over and over in my mind. It wasn't working. I knew that any minute I would start sobbing, and once I start the crying process I can't exactly turn off the waterworks. Thankfully, someone took the microphone and started talking. That gave me something to focus on. By exerting every ounce of my willpower, I was able to convince my emotions to hold off for awhile. Whew! Saved! I don't consider myself a very emotional person. I don't cry often, I don't even get upset that frequently. But because some unknown Mozambican (I never even saw enough of them to know whether they were male or female) had laid their hand on my back and prayed over me for a few seconds, I narrowly escaped making a big sob scene in the middle of church. It wasn't until se...