Escorts!!

While we are in SAFI we have been getting escorted almost everywhere, sometimes by two or three...little boys. They are adorable and have been really good escorts. These little boys run up to us once they see us leaving a building, and they put their hands in ours and walk with us wherever we are going. Even if they were in the middle of playing soccer, these boys are dedicated and stop playing soccer to come take us to the next building. And they know that they are not supposed to go into the girls building, so we start slowing down and saying goodbye and they let go of our hands and wave. It is probably my favorite part of the trip so far!

We have a meeting with the SAFI nutritionist tomorrow and later this week we will be doing anthropomorphic measurements and helping other students do research with a baseline survey. I do not know much about that, but I will find out soon I am sure.

Pictures will be coming soon! I'm just dying from jet lag and am supposed to stay up until we actually need to go to bed so that I can get over the jet lag faster.

Okay! I'm off!!

Leavin' On a Jet Plane

Oh boy, I have to go fly out to Africa soon!! Wow! I still feel like it isn't going to happen even though it is hours away until I start my flights and layovers. Everything I need is in my possession. I'm not stressed, just nervous. Really nervous. I'm no international traveller, but hopefully people understand that and give us some instruction as to what we are supposed to do.
Since I was in Tennessee, I got to fly back to Utah to meet up with a friend so that we could go to Africa together. Coming back to Utah made it so that I could see my sisters and brother-in-law again before I go as well as my friends.
Off to see my friends! I texted Kenzi asking if she was at her apartment, and she figured out real fast why I was asking. It was so fun to see my friends again! Kenzi told me that she was supposed to work later tonight, but she had a feeling that she should come back home. Then shortly after, she got my text!! How cool is that!?! I missed out on seeing Kristi though. :( I got to see the wonderful friends that I have, sent my last snapchat, last instagram, the works.
I gotta say, I have been pretty active with my phone lately, unusually active because I know I won't be using it at all for three months!
Then I was able to eat out with my sisters and my brother-in-law at Malawi's Pizza!!! It was so fun!

Oh, and when I was riding in the shuttle to fly back to Utah, our driver had an awesome rough voice...and he is Russian (his last name proved that). When he was driving, I kept imagining us in a car chase or something because he is really undercover. We even had a guy in the army in our car, and the Russian driver could be a double agent or something! So sweet. Great car chasing scenes were speeding through my head, and then the guy in the army was asleep and slowly falling on me. Not cool. I had my ear buds in listening to music and he wakes up and then starts talking to me as if I could hear him. Well, I could hear him, so I obviously talked to him. But he was breaking social norms by talking to someone with ear buds in, for reals! Anyway, he found out that I went to BYU and mentioned LDS in conversation. And then I wondered what religion he is. I was curious, but couldn't get the courage to ask. He ended up mentioning that he is Baptist...oh boy. Baptist people really do not like LDS people generally speaking. At that point I was scared that I was going to get Bible bashed or possibly physically bashed by this man. Anyway, so with help from the Spirit for courage, I asked if he had ever read the Book of Mormon (which I had one in my backpack). He said that he had looked at parts of it and compared them to the Bible and that they did not agree in many ways. He kept talking about that and seemed like he was getting a bit worked up...so I did not push it. I really haven't had a lot of experiences like that, but it was cool to have one even though it did not turn out amazingly or anything. I know that it helped me along in talking to others in general about religion. Looking back, maybe I could have replied and asked if he would be interested in reading it the whole way through with prayer and through the help of the Spirit. But I guess I did not think quickly enough. I am grateful for that experience. So grateful. Hopefully I will be able to have more experiences of that sort.

T9 word keypad example (in case you forgot)

Right now my sister is helping to change my phone from the iPhone to the Chocolate so that my iPhone stays safe in the US, but so I can still text or call while I am in the airport leaving and coming back to the US. Brings me back to memory lane...I haven't used T9 in FOREVER!!

Well, I can't wait to tell you guys about Africa!!

'Hamstars' and 'Murder She Wrote'

Went to Pier 1 Imports today. That was pretty great, especially since I noticed a car that looked like...

THIS!

A good old Kia Soul. That right there on the hood...it says 'Hamstar'. That's right everybody, it was on the hood, and it was on the rear. My Mom and I ventured into the store and found one of the employees to help us out. She had noticed me taking a picture of the car, and said that I should have seen the other identical one that was parked right next to it earlier. I was pretty shocked...TWO Kia Souls with the same wording on the hood and rear! Then the woman mentioned how it is hers and the other is her sister's. Whoa...really good thing I did NOT make fun of the cleverness of the car because not only would I have offended her, but I would have offended her sister too! Double whammy right there. Anyway, she was saying how lots of people don't understand why she has the 'hamstar' on the car, but I told her I definitely knew that she was referring to the hamster commercials advertising for the Kia Soul and that I had her back. I definitely remember that advertisement as one of the strangest advertisements for a car that I had ever seen. Who wants to feel like they're the hamster in the car just like in the commercial when they drive the car. Sure, maybe they're free compared to the ones running in their hamster wheels...but by golly, they are still hairy, and still hamsters whether their hamstars or hamsters, it makes no difference to me. Though the commercials are pretty ridiculous, I gotta say, the 'hamstar' is really creative. Props lady. Props.

Moving on to another topic...

Murder She Wrote

Jessica Fletcher--best female detective

Murder She Wrote is known in my family as the most effective sleeping pill cable can buy. Something about the thrilling mystery has a way of causing heavy breathing and occasional snoring, depending on who is watching. My parents and I were watching some TV tonight and the movie ended that we were watching and lo and behold Murder She Wrote came on. Unlike many families, we fight to NOT have the remote so that we don't have to pick the next show or channel to watch. This was one of those moments. The remote was closest to me and so I put it near my Dad so that he could pick the next show even though he was playing an intense, timed game of solitaire. He finished the game, but didn't grab the remote so I told him to hurry up and change the channel or else we would all be asleep in 20 minutes! My parents got a kick out of that one, and agreed. They know Murder She Wrote is proven to cause them to fall asleep 98% of the time, every time.

So if you're ever in need of a good way to fall asleep, try it out! And if you need some testimonials, I can always get my parents to type something up on here too.

The Havasupai Trip...

How do I even start explaining how awesome this trip was? Great friends. Beautiful water. High hikes. Invigorating sun. Wicked wounds. Hungry animals. Whelp, actually, that pretty much sums it all up!
Alright, you're right, I do have some stories.

Let's get to it.

The hike down to Havasupai was incredible. It was beautiful, really. Sometimes we had to remind ourselves that we were actually in the Grand Canyon. We arrived at Havasupai in the morning and was the first group that had arrived all day because we had left so early. Since we beat the mules carrying our tents and such, we decided to play around in the incredibly clear water. Waterfalls were in abundance, and there were good spots to jump in.

At one point, we travelled downstream, and I was catching up to the group and thought body rafting would be a quick method to get to my friends. The only thing was that I did not check what the rocks were like at one high water flow area. Needless to say, I had really good form, but that did not help me out too much with such rough rocks. High up on my left leg, I got some pretty good scratches, and let me tell you, it was a bumpy ride. My feet even got some scratches. I got out and tried to pretend like nothing happened, which is understandable because it was pretty dumb on my part not to check the rocks. Honestly. *Open palm to forehead*

Ya thirsty?

After the mules arrived, the tents were set up and we put our food up high in order to keep the animals out of it. Those animals though, their pretty sneaky. When we got back from more water fun, we hear a scream! Kenzi had seen a squirrel in our food bag! I hurried over and then took the bag down and opened it up to find a squirrel jumping out latching onto my face! (Okay, there really wasn't a squirrel in the food bag, but it was a worry of ours.) That squirrel got into my trail mix dang it! Turns out they don't like raisins so much. That's understandable I guess.

After a short night of rest, Kenzi, Carolyn, and I woke up to find Kristi by the bags of food hanging on a rope...with a horse. It had been eating Richard's food! We hurried over and Sparkers (yes we named the horse) was eating his trail mix. So I made squirrel trail mix, and Richard must have made horse trail mix. Since everyone else was still asleep, we were trying to be quiet and to get it to go away at the same time. Carolyn ended up getting a stick and tapping at the horses bum, and that got it going. Richard's trail mix must have been the best Sparkers has ever had, because she ended up coming back for more.

Chillin' in the water

There was a sweet cliff jumping spot. I used to not get scared of heights at all, but going for this jump actually scared me. It was about 30 feet high. I was at the edge, psyching myself out and could not get myself to do it. My friends were yelling and cheering for me to go, but I was just so nervous. Then, I looked down at Alan, he was cheering too, and then all of the sudden I saw him giving me a count with his fingers. 1-2-and on 3 I jumped. It was so freeing, so great to jump, to go for it and pencil in the water.

We went on a long hike one day that was really fun too. Up a bunch of ladders, climbing up rocks. There was one moment that was one of the funniest moments of the trip. Alan and I got a picture by a cliff. There was a tree that angled to have branches hanging over the cliff, and we called Steven over to be a part of the picture. The tree was sturdy enough for him to hang onto, but not completely reliable. So Steven was hanging a little bit over the cliff hanging onto the tree, and he was shaking the tree a bit to be funny. All of the sudden something started scurrying down the tree and crawled over Steven's hand and down to the trunk of the tree and then ran in between my feet and down the cliff behind me. The best part was that Steven did not know that it was a lizard running down the tree and over his hand, so he was pretty freaked out. His eyes were huge, and his face was just priceless. I was pretty scared for a second too, mostly because I did not want him to let go of the tree and fall down. Right after it happened I started cracking up though! It was so hilarious! I'll never get over how funny that was.

The Men

The Women

The hike back out seemed so fast. I stayed behind with Alan and Steven to have the mules take our bags up. Since we were the last wave out, we were booking it hiking out to catch up to everyone. Steven and I ended up catching up to Richard and so we hiked quickly together. They ended up having a faster pace than I did, so they kept it up while I kept my pace. Then we had the long uphill hike...really uphill. The change in motion of my legs felt strange and was really hard. I was surprised at the difficulty. And I thought I was in shape! I made a deal that I would not stop on the switchbacks, and so I didn't. It was like the tortoise and the hare, except I was probably slower than the tortoise, and there wasn't really a hare that I beat...So maybe I was just a snail. Yeah, we'll go with that.

Everybody finished the hike safe and sound! Load up and head out!

First Stop...Havasupai

Goin' to Havasupai! So I needed a test post first, so there ya go! More to come!!