Mindy Woodhead
 
 
 
Well well well. I am back! Figuratively speaking, that is, as I am currently not anywhere descript. I have had a hard time keeping track of which continent I am on and therefore have lacked appropriate narrative abilities to be able to share. Africa, Asia, and roughly the middle east are the locals; full disclosure could put your lives at risk. Merely rest assured that I have not been lazy in my idle penmanship, but was spanning 8000 miles (16k r/t) to bring nascent tales to light with my literary oeuvre. Now, our journey begins again. A new September has passed and with it a tide of change. Let me share the new places I will be taking you, and then we shall stop in on my recent past. Ahead, ladies and gentlemen, in the next few weeks, we will be returning to Morocco, going to Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Oregon, and landing at a new lieu for adventure and enlightenment in GOA, INDIA! That's right, we are moving to India! I will be running marketing and on a staff of teachers at a Yoga retreat specially geared toward artists, writers, and dancers on the shores of the beautiful Indian ocean in paradise: yogagoaindia.com. I look forward to drinking fruity concoctions and doing yoga twice daily. Aside from that I know little of what awaits, nor do I know how long we will be there. Who's with me? Now, we shall look back. To celebrate my anniversary of a Year In Africa, I decided to go see "AFRICA." Subsaharan, Baby! Sitting alone in my Moroccan apartment I wondered if sane women plan trips by themselves into Sub-Saharan Africa. My response to myself was tied with reasons both for and against, so I booked it. 18 days to be spent in Kenya and Uganda. I was able to find an organization on-line called Theatre Without Borders, and contacted a plethora of performing and producing artists in the two countries. I figured they would be good contacts to meet up with and everyone was so enthusiastic about my visit that I was able to organize several workshops and invited to many rehearsals of groups and troupes in the two countries. The cultural attache for the American Embassy in Kenya is also a lovely, lovely woman and was very positive about this cross-cultural thing that was taking on a life of its own. To add to the people-connecting festival that this was turning into, I also arranged most of my accommodations with people on Couchsurfing.com, which is a site where people post profiles if they are willing to let visitors who are passing through their town stay on their couch. It is a charming alternative to hostels for the lone-traveler (being fastidious with safety precautions, of course) and I hosted several people from England, America, and Canada while they backpacked around Morocco. I liked the idea that I could stay with other women in these countries, and see the towns through local-eyes while learning some local cooking. The intro was long, the story itself is a downer, so I will make it quick. I flew into Kenya, took a bus right into Uganda where I spent a few days beholden unto the most gorgeous landscapes I have ever witnessed on this green earth. My third day in Uganda I was riding along in a van called a "mutatu" stuffed full with 18 people and an infant, on my way from the mouth of the Nile to the country's capitol when we got a flat tire, veered, started to roll over and over, went off the road, down a hill, and was one of the minority of occupants to walk away. Yes, a fatal, shocking plunge into the jungle at 70 miles per hour. SO grateful to be one of the survivors, SO grateful to have nothing permanently physically altered! So grateful to know such gratitude. Some of you were on email lists, and some were gracious enough to call my 24-hour nurse's cell phone and talk to a very groggy and scared Mindy. After the first few days, though, I bounced back sharp and fine. God Bless America; due to Uganda being a Peace Corps country I received ridiculously doting care and concern from the staff of Peace Corps Uganda, and as my vacation turned into long-term medical observation, I got to know the staff in Uganda better than I know my own. It was so reassuring when I felt poorly. As I started to get better, it got a little suffocating, and the last week there I was desperate to get them to let me leave the country. It is amazing how that arc unfolds. Many days of being so grateful for life, then really glad I had all my teeth and no permanent changes to appearance, then I started to bemoan my lost vacation and missing all the new theatre connections I had planned to make. I think taking things for granted and sweating the small stuff ! is clinically a good sign after trauma. I do still find myself looking forward to my Africa trip of theatre and merriment, then I remember with a flash of bending metal and broken glass that it happened, just not the way I'd planned it. I did get to recover in a house with a lovely couple and a PET MONKEY! Who completely debunks all the excuses my mother always gave for why you don't want a pet monkey. It was great fun and well worth the trouble (which is incidentally the monkey's name; the word for trouble in Swahili, "Sheeda"). India: check. Bus accident: check. Best pet monkey in the world: check. So that skims the surface and brings you all a bit closer to my bosom. I will fill in more gaps in the next few weeks. For now I am still in transit. Thousands of miles away from anything and yet right in the heart of adventure. Stay tuned as we've got a lot of living to do!http://www.yogagoaindia.comshapeimage_2_link_0
Where the Day Took Me
Monday, October 6, 2008