Mango Madness

Yo Yo party people.  It’s Mango Madness around here.  Those of you who live in the States are in the thick of March Madness (by the way I have North Carolina going all the way, and I still have 15 of the sweet sixteen in my bracket, thank you very much), well we have Mango Madness.  I have never been one to make-out with Mangos, but my oh my, do i want to kiss these sloppy fruits all over!  Oh, did I just say that, I may have stepped over the line, but you know me, I step over that line now and again.  Anyway, I was fearing Mango season around here, because everyone tells me the flies are insane, and they’re right, they have increased in population, but so have the mangoes and the flies, my friend, are a very necessary evil.  I do not have the ability to eat or cut them without a terrific mess...  but even the locals say that it’s best to eat them with juice running down your arms.  

On Monday @ 5:30 p.m., I was in the midst of a thigh-burning Jazzercise routine when it hit me that I had forgotten to take the family in for their Rabies shots that morning.  These vaccinations were started the day after Ani got scratched by an unknown cat, which was just after we got the lecture that Rabies is a very awful way to die... We needed to get the shots on day 1,7 & 21.  If we do not follow that exactly, we have to start all over.  So, Monday was to be our last shot and we had to find an alternate hospital to go to at 7 p.m. (our doctor was out of town), not an easy task in the States, let alone in a developing town in India.  But with the help of Bec, we found a hospital to go to (it was an OBGYN clinic, but don’t tell Jayson that :) ).  It had nurses, nurses that actually wore white little hats, white uniform and white shoes... it was like the storybooks.  I am digressing.  We hauled all the family in there, it was quite dark, a woman was roaming the halls in labor, and I had a slight fear we are going to wait for hours to get these stupid shots.  It wasn’t but half an hour and we were out of there.  The nurses didn’t charge us at all, so we went and bought them a box of chocolates for their speedy service.  Don’t you wish you could pay your Dr. visits in chocolates?

I have been quite contemplative these days...thinking about a few things.  I have unsuccessfully tried to write about it three times now, and I am coming up with nothing but incoherency.  Maybe that’s a clue that I need to wait for a week or two to share about it.  I do know that it’s about relationships, living in community (when everyone is a bit at their end), where I am putting most of my efforts and what to do when my normal comforts are no longer available.  Now can you understand why I can’t put my thoughts in a paragraph - like the Mangoes, it may be a bit messy, but hey, that’s life, so lets just get messy.

I am now going to hand the blog over to Jayson, he has got some news related to his job that he would like to share...  its all yours Jayson.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been avoiding writing my first blog entry. Tarrah’s been nothing shy of brilliant in her writing and frankly, I’m intimidated. But here it goes, since I have some news. So Freedom Firm fired me. Okay, so they didn’t fire me, but the director’s asked me to take a different role. They’ve been searching carefully to fill the Director of Operations role for 18 months now. Knowing that it’s a vital role to the future of FF, I was honored, not to mention  floored, when they asked me to fill it. Side note: Two days earlier I had told someone applying for the Communications position (still displayed as “open” on the website, a sure sign they needed someone to fill that job!) that it was no longer open, only to email them again to let them know we’d like them to apply! As my first act as the new operations guy, Tarrah and I are having the FF staff over for Sunday dinner. (It was Tarrah’s idea, so if she asks me at 11:30 p.m. Saturday night, elbows-deep in potato salad, why we decided to have 25 people over for a meal, I’ll have a bit of ammo.) So, I’ll continue working on the priority communications projects that I’ve already started, while helping to search for a new communications person (staffing’s now part of my job...), and transitioning into my new operations role. 

Me again, isn’t he so great?  I think he is going to be fabulous in the operations role.  A few things to wrap up... We have a great story to share with you next time about one of the newly graduated Freedom Firm girls that went back to her village and family last week to visit after ten years...  beautiful story.  On a very different note, I have a bit of beef with you all... I put a terrific picture in our blog last time of Obi’s dog food (chicken feet and innards, remember?) and I did not get one comment on it... not even ONE!  What the heck!  I am hoping I just rendered you all speechless...

Warm regards from the Rabies-proof Palms