wonderfully lazy friday.

I've been in my room practically all day---and its been delightful.  I woke up this morning with a runny nose, a scratchy throat and a heavy head, and that marvelously gave me enough of an excuse to continue sleeping in my bed.   For the last several hours, I've been sitting in my roommate's chair, in this cold windowed alcove bundled in blankets.  I've been wanting to do this ever since I first arrived here...but our schedule hasn't allowed it.  I'm so glad I decided to ditch the schedule today to sit here, to talk to a good friend on the phone, to read and gather my thoughts.  It's been so wonderful and though my head still feels ache-y, I feel much refreshed!  So strange...such a solitary, immobile thing can be so restful.   It's reminds me of one of those Desert Father sayings; here's my awful paraphrase...stay in your cell because it will teach you everything you need to know...

Terrorist threat?

So, we have all been checking the web about the terrorist scare in London....and some of us freaked out, but so far, I've been okay because my flight isn't until Tuesday....though I am flying out of London Heathrow to New York JFK.   I am hoping the restrictions and the security issues will lesson by then.  It would be nice to bring more than my passport on the plane, but it still looks like no lotions, eye drops, Ipods, computers, even books!  Yikes!   I've got almost 10 hours in the air!

Basel: Regent Reunion

Sorry this post is a bit late...but as promised (to some of you)...I got to hang out this weekend with Cornelia, Angela (who drove in from Lake Konstanz), Ursula (who trained from Tubingen) and Sara (who flew in from the UK).


We stayed at Cornelia's which was just wonderful! She and her family were exceptional hosts considering Cornelia and her mom had only flown in from the US only less than 24 hours before. They fed us well. We ate a lovely apricot tart, raclette (which is like fondue backwards), and yummy chocolate. Sara also managed to make sure we had plenty of potato chips. It was awesome seeing everyone and quite sad to leave.

Sadly, I forgot to bring an extra camera battery...so my pictures are exceptionally paltry. But I like this one. Here we are, in Basel staring at something on the Basel Munster. (Erasmus is buried here.)


And oh yeah, it rained the whole weekend. We got soaked in Basel. But it was very fun!

on nothing in particular...

It's tea time, a fixed part of our schedule here----a wonderful part of
our schedule that I haven't really taken advantage of; perhaps I've made
it to tea less than 30% of the time. It's tea time, and I'm sitting out
here on the patio where it is wonderfully sunny and I'm literally
watching the swiss flag flying not too far away. It's my last week here
and I have only just discovered that the wireless signal reaches out
here!

I'm working on a workshop right now; my group is currently taking a
break. We're doing a workshop tomorrow on how Western media portrays
Africa as part of the conference that's going on right now for a "clean
and just" Africa. Which has been pretty interesting....though today
we've taking a break. Today is Global Indigeneous People's day, and
there's a group meeting about that here too. So there are indigeneous
folks here and Africans...and then there's me....and I am exhausted and
wanting to reflect on the things that are already going on in my very
full head....