minor ravings of the good kind

I’ve been reading a book by Eduardo Galeano called Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World. He’s from Uruguay and the book is a wild, hallucinogenic trip through modern and ancient history under the lens of the southern continent. It’s provocative, disturbing, inflammatory, and thought-provoking. To me, there aren’t a lot of better reasons to read something...the only thing that could make this book better (or worse, depending on your point of view) is if all he said was true. But that, too, depends on your point of view. If you can find it, it's worth a try...but I think it's out of print now, so good luck.

I got back from Chicago with a stack of things to do. (Read about Chicago below, if you're interested.) In just two days, that’s been greatly reduced. So here’s what I’ve got so far: the work visa is out, the missionary visa attempt is in. The bad news is that I’ll have to go to Chicago again and then on to Miami...the good news is that this visa doesn’t have the wait the other did, so they should issue it within two days once I apply. I need my YWAM transcripts though, so I have to wait for those to come in...

Over the past week, I’ve been almost paralyzed by the fear of not being able to get back on a reasonable schedule, of being in Indiana for a much longer amount of time. The thought of six months or more in the States is abhorrent. Not because it is terrible here, or because I hate my family, but because it makes me such an alien (in the not-fitting-in sense). I have to start things all over that I thought I was done with...among other things, life’s just too complicated to do in multiple continents.

And then I remember all the little things I tend to forget, like how much I appreciate green. There just isn’t this much color in the city. It’s about six-thirty here, and the sun is low enough that it is backlighting the hills and trees. There’s so much humidity in the air, it hangs like fog, a mist shading the woods, which are lit up in about fifteen different shades of verde. It’s very pleasant. I’ll miss this when I’m gone. And hummingbirds...two of them just went flirting by about five feet from my face a second ago. Startling. Lovely. You don't get hummingbirds in the favelas!