Tag Archives: Travel

Concert at the Elementary School

Our first full day in Mohales Hoek started with Will and Sam giving a concert to over 450 elementary students. This was a huge act of courage for these two young men. Sam and Will have been in a rock band for the last 2 years and have performed quite a bit with the band. Before leaving for Lesotho, the 2 of them had only performed alone 2 times. Once before they were in the band, they performed 2 songs at an open mike at our local frozen yogurt shop to a handful of people. Two weeks before we left for Lesotho they performed at a fundraiser we organized to raise money for the St. Camillus Center. They learned from that performance that it is much more difficult and vulnerable to perform as a duo then it is to perform with the band. Now today they stood on a stage in front of all these beautiful Basotho children and performed without any back up or any kind of sound system.

Of course the children and faculty responded to them with kindness and jumped into the novelty of the moment. It isn’t often that they have 2 white boys from the United States show up to do a concert for them. Just the fact that together Sam and Will had access to and played not only a drum, but a guitar and a ukulele was a novelty in a culture where even the most basic school supplies are not accessible.

Sam and Will Teach at Mary’s School

As soon as we were settled in Mary’s home, the first thing she asked Sam and Will was “Are you ready to teach my class tomorrow?” She then gave them her teacher’s manual and told them to go and prepare their lesson plan.

Mary is a high school science teacher. The students in her classroom are between 13 and 18 years of age. Sam and Will took on her challenge with amazing grace and determination.

Niko and I stood in the back of the room as Sam and Will stood before 50 Besotho young people and taught them about heat conduction. As I watched them, I was full of awe and I wondered, how is this experience going to impact their life? How will standing before 5 different classrooms of students today and teaching, impact the way they see their own teachers, or the way they see themselves? Will this plant a seed for them to pursue teaching one day? How does it feel to them to be the minority? There was not another white face in the school, nor had we seen another white person since arriving in Lesotho. This was the first time in their life that they experienced being the minority. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be 16 or 17 and to have such an experience. I was filled with awe at how well they were prepared and at their incredible willingness and spirit of adventure in taking this on.

We are in Dubai! We had an amazing flight. I felt like I was back in time 30 years ago to how flying used to be. The flight was long…14 hours, but Emerates is an amazing airlines and they treated us so well that our flight was a lot of fun. As soon as we took off, a flight attendant came around with hot, moist, lemon scented towels for each of us. At our seats we found a little travel case with socks, eye covers for sleeping and a toothbrush.

The food was delicious. They fed us lunch as if we were already on Dubai time to help us restart our inner clocks. It included an appetizer of crackers and dips, a salad of black eyed beans and corn, a main dish of lamb or chicken a delicious dessert of toffee pudding, followed by a cup,of tea and a piece of chocolate. We were also fed a snack of an individual pizza and a breakfast of eggs with various side dishes.

Niko and I watched 3 movies together that we missed seeing at the Grand Cinema: the 2nd Best Grand Budapest Hotel, Woman in Gold and Still Alice. Will learned some Arabic on the plane from a boy, sitting across the aisle form him. He and Sam are having a blast!

>We have a 3 hour layover in the Dubai airport. Sam and Will are off exploring the mall in the airport while Niko and I sit with the bags. Then we will fly another 8 hours on Emerates and arrive in Johannesburg at 9pm, ready to rest at the Blue Mango Lodge.

A Message from St. Camillus

Last Sunday, I woke up early motivated to get my self packed for our trip. I gently woke up Niko and said, “Let’s get up and get packed before we go to Church.” As we worked on our personal packing, I was overwhelmed with the amount of donations we still had yet to pack. I would not know how much space we would have available for these donations until we each had our personal items packed. Anxiety began to fill me as I looked at the great feat ahead of me.
As we headed off to Church, Niko was almost all packed and I was well on my way, but the stress of all those donations, still loomed large in my consciousness.
It was Fr. Jim’s last Mass at St. Leo’s. He had been assigned to a new parish. I was grateful to be there to send him off and to infuse myself with the energy of this community as we prepared for our journey to southern Africa in just 6 more days.
To my surprise and delight Fr. Jim’s sermon was about St. Camillus. I have been a Catholic for over 55 years and never before have a heard a talk, a sermon or a story about St. Camillus. I knew nothing about him. And it is the name of the orphanage that we are going to in Lesotho. Coincidence? I think not.
St. Camillus is the patron saint of the sick and of those who care for the sick. He was a friend of St. Ignatius. Fr. Jim shared the story of St. Camillus being overwhelmed by his calling to create an order of religious dedicated for caring for the sick. There was so much that needed to be done. He had no idea how he could possibly do it. In the midst of his overwhelm, he heard the voice of God say, “Why do you worry, don’t you know that this is my plan.”
As Fr. Jim repeated God’s words. “Why do you worry, don’t you know that this is my plan?” I heard God speaking to me. I felt my breath deepen and my shoulders relax. I have known from the beginning that this trip was a calling from God. I knew it was God’s plan, God’s trip, directed by Spirit. My job was to say, “Yes.”, listen to the voice of my spirit, respond to it’s urging and all would be well. All of those donations would get to Lesotho. All I needed to do was trust.

The Seed of a Dream is Planted

Thula Thula Game Reserve, South Africa

Kim, Mary, Sam and Niko 2010

St. Julianna, Founder of the St. Camillus Center

In 2004, I went to South Africa to study the AIDs pandemic with a delegation of 16 women from the United States. We spent 2 of our 16 days in South Africa on a game reserve. Upon returning my then 6 year old, Sam, who is an animal enthusiast, made me promise that I would not go back to Africa without him. I made that promise and set my intention to go back to South Africa with Sam and Niko one day and to spend time on at a game reserve.

In 2009, a young woman, Mary, came to Tacoma from Lesotho Africa to work in L’Arche for a year. We were her host family. Mary walked into our home and took up permanent residence in our hearts. She returned to Lesotho in the summer of 2010. By the summer of 2011, Mary had married her longtime boyfriend, Paul and she had given birth to their son. They named their son after her brother… Sammy. Our family’s dream to visit her and to meet Paul and our grandson, Sammy became more than a dream. It became a clear intention.

I served on the board of The Lesotho Connection for 3 years from 2006-2009. Lesotho is a small mountainous country surrounded by South Africa. One out of four children, in Lesotho, is orphaned by AIDs. A Holy Names, Besotho, nun named Sr. Julianna has devoted her life to caring for the orphaned children in Mohales Hoek, Lesotho. One of the goals of the Lesotho Connection has been to raise the funds needed to build a home for the orphaned and vulnerable children in Sr. Julianna’s Care. This dream was fulfilled and the children moved into their new home, the St. Camillus Center, in December of 2014. I wanted to see this center, which had been just a seedling of a dream when I was on the board and I wanted to spend time with Sr. Julianna and these beautiful children.

This dream of returning to Southern Africa, which started in 2004, continued to grow in me as our love for Mary developed, the St. Camillus Center was built and Sam grew into a young man. The dream expanded to include Sam’s best friend, Will, in this adventure. Sam and Will have been friends since birth. Their friendship has been nurtured by their deep loves of animals, music and community.

In the autumn of 2014, I felt a voice inside me say “The time is now! You must begin to prepare and plan to go to Southern Africa this upcoming summer.” It would be the summer before Sam’s junior year of high school and Will’s senior year. If we waited any longer, the opportunity for all of us to go together could be lost. And so we began to plan.

What ‘s Next?

Each year I spend part of my New Year’s at a Korean Women’s Spa. I spend my time soaking in mineral pools, resting in heated salt and sand rooms. and eating delicious and healthy Korean stir fry. The day culminates with receiving a skin scrub to get rid of the old and a skin moisturizing massage to bless the new.

This New Year’s Eve as I lived this treasured ritual, a sadness walked with me. I tried to breathe into it, but questions kept badgering me. What’s next? What was this trip all about?

This experience was such a big surprise and huge gift, I think I expected it to lead lead to something else big. I have this inner mantra that tells me that each life experience is a stepping stone to something else, so this huge experience must lead to some huge change in me or for me and my family. But it didn’t. We came home to the same lovely home, to the same loving community, to our same good work and this haunting question, What’s next?

After my scrub and moisturizing massage at the spa, I went to the salt room and curled up on the floor, soaking in the heat, breathing in the smell of herbs, and resting in the womb like darkness of the room. I prayed. I asked God, “What’s next? What am I supposed to do with this experience? What am I missing here?” What I heard back is this:

You are missing the gift. Just breath in the experience. You do not have to do anything with it, except accept the joy of it. You did not take Sam to the Beatles experience expecting him to come home and become a rock star. You gave him the experience because you knew he would love it and that you would love watching his delight. So it is with you. You were given this experience because I knew you would love every second of it and that I would love watching your delight. That is it. That is the gift. Relax now and enjoy the memory and let it take root in you however it will.

The sadness began to lift and my weariness subsided. I got up, got dressed and went home to enjoy my life and to welcome the New Year.

We’re Home

We made it home without incident. This was a small miracle considering the snow that shut down airports all along our route. On our way to Norway, we had a layover in Amsterdam. When we were going through customs, the agent asked me, “How long have you been here?” I looked at him with confusion and said, “5 minutes.” He then told me that they had people stuck there all night. We cleared customs and there were hundreds of cots lining the walkways. Our plane left, right on time. We left Liverpool for Dublin and the very next day the major airports in England were closed because of snow and ice. Throughout our time in Ireland the Dublin airport was closed on and off because of weather. Even on Christmas Day, it was closed for a few hours. We got out just fine on the 26th. We flew through Atlanta, when all up and down the east coast, thousands were stranded at airports, and gratefully we only had an hour delay.

We had an amazing time. And there is so much to digest. We have spent much of our week sleeping and hanging out in our pj’s, slowly reconnecting with friends and family.

People ask about our time and wonder what the highlights were. Trying to come up with an answer fells a bit like having a gaggle of children and having someone ask which is your favorite. Each experience was so amazing and unique. It is hard to pick one or two and say this was my favorite. So I will say this, the highlight for me was living this experience with Niko and Sam. 22 days together, 24 hours a day, it is a wonder to me, how much we enjoyed each other and how well we traveled together. What could be better than that?

Christmas in Dublin

We arrived back in Dublin to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day with Rhona. We set out into the cold dark night to walk to her college for Christmas Eve Mass. A small group of us gathered around the alter, leaving the main body of the Church empty. There we sang and prayed and welcomed the light into our lives. We returned home to the warmth of Rhona’s apartment and while Niko and Sam snuggled into bed, Santa went to work wrapping gifts and setting them under the Christmas decorations in the living room.

It is a simple Christmas. A few small gifts for each of us. Nothing more. No big Santa surprise gift or extravagant gifts for each other. Small gifts that fit our overstuffed luggage and that allow us a little surprise to open on this day of giving. The real gift for all of us has been spending this cold, dark season in the light of this amazing experience. No physical gift can begin to compare. So we sit by the electric fire and sip our whiskey or hot cocoa and watch the Polar Express and smell the turkey in the oven and give thanks for the sweet gifts of home here together.

Christmas Day: Dublin, Ireland

Hill of Tara

From County Cavan, we drove to the Hill of Tara. I had told Niko we probably would only need to stop for a few minutes, as it is so cold outside and the day is getting late and we want to get to Dublin before Sunset. I guess I wasn’t expecting much. We found the town of Tara, parked the car and went into a small shop to finish our Christmas shopping and to ask for directions. As we left the shop, dusk was settling in. We followed the path behind the shop and up the hill and there it was, the Hill of Tara. The view was amazing. The sun was setting and the sky was pink, purple, red, yellow and orange. Sam climbed up and slid down the Hill of Hostages. We were delighted in this unexpected winter wonderland and the expanse of sky and snow and beauty. Sheep grazed nearby and Niko and Sam were silhoutted against the sky as we wandered back to the car, totally satisfied by this final tourist adventure in Ireland.