AMSTERDAM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT..10.10am.Dutch time...11 am Tanzania..and Toronto, 6 hours back..4am...home in 12 hours!...4pm this afternoon, it seems impossible...tired, sleepy, lost in a haze of sitting up most of last night, cramped and dazed...tickets, passports, endless heaving, shuffling along with my life right now, a series of black bags - purse, backpack, the ever present camera case Jim told me never to let out of my sight! all squished in and on top of each other on the airport cart with two incredible paintings Tiko gave me yesterday - wrapped and rolled and tied at each end with surgery tape, oh Africa...

But before the goodbyes, and my little kids, and Charles and Emanuel and Peter, and breakfast with Marva and Norbert, and the story that rocked our week and quite suddenly, in the last four days, a second orphanage - the first, sadly, a tale of corruption, betrayal, lies -

I whisper a big hello to a beautiful new friend Professor Richard Odingo..justlast night, Nairobi - 10pm in the lounge filling with people, just before boarding, deep in thought, I AM LEAVING AFRICA...hurting and remembering my boys: Elia, Justin, Zack, Stefoni, Jackson, the last day at the pool, we stop at the Masai market a little way down from the orphanage, and in a little circle on the side of the road, we say goodbye...they know i am leaving, their little heads are down, i bend over and kiss them, one by one. i tell them NAPENDA, each one NAPENDA with their name, I love you. I pray they will be okay....Wilfed is with them, with me, we shake hands and say goodbye, it is time to go. I am heading into the Masai shop to run away, to hide my tears, to buy a necklace, broken, tears surging, I can't help it, the shop guys are distressed, POLE..sorry...pole, they dont' know what to do....

Dotto comes along on his bike as if by chance...i hop on the back, hold onto him tight and we make our way slowly POLE POLE, back into town. For a moment the wrenching calms.

And now, in another country, Professor Richard, sits down next to me, his dark blue winter coat thrown over his knees, a big smile, "they had snow in Europe these last days, did you know?", shrugging the coat. And as if by magic, here we are, two strangers bound by that smile on the road, in the air...travelling, opening ripe with possibilites, slipping in and out of lives together, moving silently through time, space, night and day in unison, like a symphony if you just let it, so now, when i'm feeling badly, there is this man out of the blue, sitting next to me. He works in the Environmental field, he says and with a bit of probing, Climate Change. Wow, i say, you must not be too pleased with Canada these days, the powers that be following like limpid lemmings down the road along with their boy GWB - Professor Richard is the Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the same group of international scientists who shared the Nobel prize with Al Gore several years ago. It wasn't until today, reading the Harold Tribune article, front page, Guardian too, the situation much scarier, worse than they thought, that i realized that this was his group they were writing about, and that this man from Nairobi who has given his life to it for over 20 years - world wide, is sitting next to me. He is a little tired - Ethiopia yesterday, Nairobi today, Amsterdam, Budapest tomorrow -back home Friday, conferences, workshops, meetings...he loves Toronto, Montreal,he loves Canada, he could imagine living there..we are into full conversation, India, China, that great article about China's change, economy, manufacturing of stuff,in the Atlantic - cars, trucks, pollution, rampant.. Peru and a water project where they collected dew from hovering clouds circling the top of a mountain, mist and rain, to harness for irrigation..incredible. We move onto the plane, our seats are close, we arrange to sit together, the woman next to me offers him her seat, and once again i thank God for this mystical meeting with this wonderful human being - Does this just happen when we travel? Our seemingly chance encounters, the phone rings, someone shows up, exactly the right person, the right time, the job gets done, the information passed along... uncanny,mystical..i watch with delight, trusting the universe, of letting things happen...that all will be well.....

I hope to keep writing this blog from Canada if i can..there is so much to say, but at home, I remember well from last year, i couldn't do it. Nothing came, no inspiration, nothing. I read over the blog i had written - the strength, emotion, power, experience,memory, gone. It felt as though someone else had written it, someone else had been there. Not me..
But now,
So many things to tell..ecstatic with filming we did Saturday. Charles, me, Peter - a gorgeous student completing high school in Uganda - Manyara Secondary School, an outdoor classroom of about 40 kids...with PETER acting as host, Charles on the camera, i just sit down on the grass and watch...
My goal to get a few interviews with kids, in English about their feelings,what they know about HIV AIDs....it was incredible, over two hours of tape, poignant, stories, of a mama being sick and dying, of the daddy, baba, running away...of the Masai and their sexual practices, of prevention, condoms, viginity, everything..you can't imagine this conversation in Canada..and all on tape, with Charles wearing a ROOTS CANADA shirt, you bet i will be taking it to Michael Budman..watch out!

and that last harrowing four days....the orphanage story, the new orphanage, meeting, interviewing, taking photographs..the house down the road next to the Catholic church, available to rent, to move them in..so much to tell....and i will, promise,when i figure out, how,
big hugs, see you in Canada....wow..just a few hours away....can't wait....