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Yesterday I panted across aqua painted arrows...
December 24, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
 Yesterday I panted across aqua painted arrows on a rock mountain upwards, following arrows through rainy season trees, imagining one orange painted antelope encased in plastic, ass all rock painting in the states might be. One imagines a million snotty-nosed parents and their neurotic children taking the same picture of the same little embossed hunter every august. But my scepticism is only true in America.
The trek up rolling yellow and orange lichen-covered granite was a allignment of all things perfect- the sweat, sky, wind, water from an unkown source streaming down hills I've painted all my life. The paintings were a human manifestation of this increadible place. I came to them alone, parents ten minutes behind, and there I was, facing the rain cerimony's remembered praise songs in ochre images. as alive as my own eyes on a smooth arching upward cave of 15 feet.
The hills were equally important. I've always had artists look over my working shoulder and say- ah, O'keefe- as though I'm repeating one woman's hands in her own self-portrait. Art is not a history of one generation's memory of the last. Art is an open mainline to something in our communal blood.
We returned home and as always the police stopped us, but we avoided showing the usual licsence and permit, and the trunk as well. We are all tired from being opened to this place's beauty and broken by its realities. What do you do in a place where milk is 110 zim dollars, fourty cets to you (on the illegal market) but so much to everyone still living in the houses their grandparents lived in outside the white suburbs into the townships.
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If anyone feels compelled to find Miles' wher...
December 18, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
If anyone feels compelled to find Miles' whereabouts, I can't check my e-mail to see if he did not combust before J.burg. His e-mail is milopimp@hotmail.com (yes, it's embarassing for me to even type it). Many thanks my well-connected loved ones.
Sadie-o
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We are all safe and sound in Gaborone
December 17, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
We are all safe and sound in Gaborone. We stayed in a 'bed and breakfast,' which in Botswana context means we had a seventies-style room with a big orange bathroom and a large air conditioner which did nothing for the mosquitoes. I'm glad to give them the real thing, as comparison to 'Ceasar's Casino and Hotel' in South Africa. Good to be out of there, that's for sure. Unfortunately, we missed Miles at the airport. Today is the see everyone day, so we're headed off to Kanye then back at three to visit my Gaborone family. It's their 35th anniversary today. Driving, too, is a bit less stressful on this side of the border, as there is only one road to choose from. We stay here one more night then to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary. I'm trying to teach mom and Dick some Setswana, but to no avail. Dick's already been called a Lakgoa- also so glad to introduce them to race relations in Botswana. I'm hoping their fluency in Setswana from our short breakfast lesson will help with that... we'll see, won't we. I'm straddling cultural shock of living with the 'rents again and being a traveller in a place I called home fro four months. I hope not the self-combust in the next two weeks. Mom and Dick are trying their damndest to make things comfortable emotionally for this fragile half-American daughter.
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I've been asked what I do every day, and this...
December 12, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
I've been asked what I do every day, and this was last weeks reply: I walk out the door with a new painting under my arm for my DYO (design your own) part of my fieldbook, which is due. I catch a kombi to town and walk through wet waist high grass, through a red dirt soccer field and behind the concrete walls surrounding every city house. The wind rushes in now that the rainy season is apon us, and its crispness is much like a cool east coast fall, before it gets too cold. It rained last night in torrents, and the mosquitoes are out with a vengance. After dropping off my assignment I walk to work and facilitate a meeting for my outreach project- a youth drug abuse prevention programme. Thats what I do for my internship.
I just read the family news- congratulations on the new munchkin, Jamie! And Adam too, I suppose. I hope you ride through the first trimester with flying colours. Thrilled to see you so soon- so much love and thoughts from me to all ya'all.
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Yes, no news is good newss
November 23, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
Yes, no news is good newss. I'm with a new family I love.
I knocked off early to prepare thanksgiving for my family and Daniso's family, my programme assistant who invited herself over, but as she's my third mother, it was all good. Miles and I made two turkeys, rediculous amounts of mashed potatoes and squash and salad and Daniso even made apple pie, which was nice even though I've never even tasted anything like it before. Just Miles and I cooked the whole thing (cept the pie) and we cooked until 7:30, and then we ate until 10:30. My papa prayed so nice he said afterward he thought I was going to cry. I was going to- I was damn tired by that time, and setswana prayers always get me right there, you know? I wish you could have seen it. I love you all and your love came through, and I'm most thankful.
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I expected a house in a city with a lawn and ...
October 31, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
I expected a house in a city with a lawn and a carpet would be like a house in an American city with a lawn and a carpet. My mother in Gaborone and I speak the same language, but somehow the rules are different. More taboos, restrictions, and guidelines. On a good day, she is teaching me the gestures of her culture, and on tired day her demands near vindictively obsessive-compulsive. Not the type one would ask to help with oneÆs wedding, or invite to a wind-down Friday get together.
Our struggle is palpable. I imagine her words thicken the air and my replies stiffen layers of walled miscommunication. Her testing accusations- did you use the wrong washcloth to wipe out the sink? - are blocked by a dayÆs trauma, and (like a dogs bark or sighting another Lakgoa) I jerk up my head and say- Hmm?
Sigh. Shit. We both know I broke the most important rule. R-e-s-p-e-c-t. Not the Aretha Franklin love me or leave me type, but the obligatory, language based type.
-Mma? Mma? Her voice turns sour and disappointed. The space between us receives curdled words and I swallow them and repeat her, dulled but apologetic. ûMma?
My intentions are ruined by the truth of my emotions filtered though culture. I am white and will never say Mma as second nature. I like raw vegetables and rice, and I canÆt change my feelings on unskinned red meats, no matter how rude it is. Not when shell shocked from a hard day. Not when I tense at road crossings for fear IÆll let bad timing and letting go carry me to Princess Marina.
She makes that disappointed face when my language doesnÆt connect with her interpretation of my language. Like the day I woke at 7 without an alarm (nurses orders) and twisted my shoulders away from hips to test how my half dose of codeine lasted during sleep. Not as well as the injection from the nurse who pulled down the waist of my skirt, tapped the needle and said, ôSo you came before or after September 11th?ö I picked out my nicest linen with the intention of faking the entire day. If I donÆt say it, IÆm not hurt, right? I hide from my motherÆs morning rhythm and eat my tea and bread like the day was the day before and the day before that.
ôNext time you are sick, donÆt call MmaMokwate. I will take you to the hospital.ö
ôI told you I was sick.ö She made that look, rolled back her eyes and huffed like I could never understand the true meaning of any situation.
ôI donÆt blame you for calling MmaMokwate. I couldnÆt even walk. I donÆt blame you for calling.ö On the ride to Gaborone Private Hospital, Martin told me about singing and dancing in the ZCC church. ôHigh as this,ö he said, lifting his flattened palm to his chin, as though ZCC men became acrobats by the spirit of God alone. I try to imagine the woman who complains about sweeping the dirt outside in rhythmic waves jumping all weekend in Swaziland. She isnÆt partial to cooking- too much standing. But what am I to know about the power of the Lord?
ôYou didnÆt hear me come in?ö You didnÆt hear me slam the door and sob for 45 minutes? I was so loud the neighbors went quiet. How did you sleep when I sobbed in need for you?
She paused as if to choose between truths.
ôI didnÆt even hear Gopo come in. I was so sick.ö
ôSo was I.ö
ôIÆm not blaming you foràö Things started to repeat themselves here, because I wanted her to know how lonely it was thinking I was hurt and alone, without a phone or family to help. And how hard it was to find strength under muscle spasms to get up and walk to the tuck shop, only to realize I wasnÆt alone in the house. But my mother, that name of love and respect that we call the women who love us, abdicated her name to roll over and sleep. But she couldnÆt hear my exaggerated pronunciations of loneliness. I canÆt speak the right language. So I cried again, right there in my Five Roses unfiltered tea and ultrapasturized milk.
My motherÆs language is unraveled and opened in counter moves by my sister. She is long limbed and upward shaped, cr
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This is a little poem I'm writing for my Disi...
October 17, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
This is a little poem I'm writing for my Disign your own part of the fieldbook. For those computer science majors, Botswana as a country is personified as "my love." Just think "My country."
My love, you have forsaken me, and I wail, slack-jawed and weeping for your village touch
My love, where is your deep, sweet village touch?
Where is your clear village dialect?
Where are the sweet names you gave me five weeks ago?
Why canÆt you absorb me in your arms?
Why canÆt you keep me safe from pluralized accusations and the morning migration?
My love, I bleed for you, and yet you forsake me
I come to you from the wrong way on a one way strip
I come in twenties without seatbelts
I come open armed and I smile with your tongue
Yet you cut my exposed wrists with laughter
You hate me on your roads
The roads you develop in my name
You pound down my skin in the name of spreading my language
You forsake me though development plans are stamped in my praise
You spit names in my ruts until palm-sized water holes appear
You will not hold me on the street
And even as I wear your skirts you taunt its low slung waist and lick its ill-fitted gaps
You, my only African love, distract me from my point
By ordering me into restriction taboos
I cannot even touch you on kombis
Today you write me love songs
Tomorrow you will disappear
You turn me back and forth between daisy petals
I whistle our secret names, but you stopped listening with population growth
My love, why canÆt you scrape open my wooden door and kiss my forehead as for the first time?
Where is the soft dirt between my toes?
Where is the dirt and smokey smell in your hair?
Why have you gone cold in with the asphalt?
Why do you make me cold with neglect?
I try so hard and you will never see my effort.
I cannot take your distance on the kombi
I cannot drink night rain alone
But I will not return to you as a woman returns to her perpetrator
So I wail and leave my tears to disappear in your forgetting air.
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ôYou didnÆt wipe the basin
October 16, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
 ôYou didnÆt wipe the basin. You have to wipe the sink and the floor with this and then take it outside to dry.ö
ôEe, mme.ö
This is my fifth double checked mistake since she woke up this morning. 1. Close your window. 2. Wipe the kitchen basin and the kitchen floor if you use the kitchen faucet. 3. No sugar in the teapot- it doesnÆt dissolve completely. 4. Eat with a tray and a doily. 5. Water droplets adhering to porcelain are dirty.
Most of these cleansing rituals are executed with the cloth that hangs stiff on the plastic bath basin. We also soak up shower water with this cloth, for the tucked up shower curtain is purely a cosmetic covering of our sunken concrete cube of a shower. Clean, closed, and dry. With a cherry on top and a doily too. I feel seven, pushing the toothpaste up in its capped tube and brushing the toothbrush against my leg. I feign hygiene, making the motions of showering twice a day in icy water, avoiding full body submersion at the risk of ridiculousness. I shave frequently to fulfill splashing sound requirements, but only one leg a day. My body is clean by seven in the evening, but with the lower half thirteen hours dirtier than the upper. Yet she seems content enough with the show, and I am motivated to run in the evenings, to warm up for the chill night cleaning.
However, it is my wet hair that shivers her back and opens the white of her eyes. On Sunday morning I was particularly careful with cleaning the upper half, soaping up ears and scalp until I shone with pinkie exfoliated cheeks. Two more minutes of such vigor and IÆd have martyred my skin for the sake of my motherÆs policy of cleanliness above godliness. I didnÆt know how right I was. A man from the ZCC church visited, and caught us three womens breaking the bible with our bare-headedness. My mother scrambled for a scarf. I leaned in, wet hair curling up in stubborn resistance. ôSo IÆm disrespecting men and God for not covering my hair?ö He nodded and laughed, eyes darting to my mother and the dead TV.
I am culturally sensitive. I will allow his religion to arrest my hair into a kept peace. I will tie my dyke bandana around my head and smile. He drinks my tea and leaves without his hat.
After his parting, my mother promptly took a three-hour nap. Sure needed it, with a week watching my hair loosen itself in the sitting room. Obsessive-compulsive thoughts are exhausting. Imported colonial cleanliness and patriarchal taboo traditions must be too. Oh, for the quiet of a motherÆs nap. The air is not clean, not ordered, but undone and softened with its undoing. I could paint an hourÆs eyeful in this sweet quiet. I try.
ôLorato?ö (When did love become an order?) ôWhere do you wash your panties?ö (Possibly my favorite tone, word, and question all in the same accusing exhale.) I choose to avoid and deny the existence of underwear.
ôMme, your garden is too beautiful. LetÆs go out and sit.ö
Our bedroom-sized square of grass flaunts itself to the desert dirt at its side. My feet breathe in yielding blades; they are in love. I would like very much to learn to stand on my head, to tangle my hair with green and yell into its watered roots. Sitting on white lawn chairs is only a few centimeters from the initial knee-jerk plan, so IÆm happily sedated. We are so perfect at this moment, sitting together without orders or niceties. Groomed hedges lock in green and cut the sunset into filtered pink and undefined shades of purple sunset blue. We breathe out a Sunday confined in corners.
My mother (oh, my beloved mother) crosses her legs with the stiff bath cloth on one knee, holding a mirror. She tilts her face (sweet soft black skin illuminated in greening light) and looks carefully. Squints. Begins to squeeze.
Flooding back are Sassy Seventeen Commandments on Skin Care: Never, Ever Pop a Zit. Never gonna kiss that cutie boy if youÆve got zit sca
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Yeah! I love you sooo much- friends and famil...
October 15, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
Yeah! I love you sooo much- friends and family who turned out in such amazing and thoughtful numbers to give all of Ja's lovin to me so far away in this little desert country. And vote's tallied (wieghed slightly in favor of my own personal intuition ballot), I'm comming home next semester. It was, yes indeed, a bit more guidence from Miles David Nolte, the scout leader of this here A-team of seven, than I'll admit (wait, did I just admit that?), but mostly it was remebering how hard I love ya'll and how much sweeter the next two months will be if I such the marrow out of them as the last. ah, I'm gonna cry if I don't stop. You are Amazing to me...Sniff.
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Group vote needed on should I stay or should I go
October 12, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
Group vote needed on should I stay or should I go. I want your opinion and your support, but mostly I just want you to think about if you want me far or real far. Its not like I'll see you more, or be more safe, or any of that. no passive agressive 'its your decision' bullcrap. my e-mail is the same, voting ends on monday morning. Thank you thank you my most loving family.
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New letter from Sadie, dated 9/21/01
October 10, 2001 by Adam in Sadie & Greg
New letter from Sadie, dated 9/21/01.
Mom
 I pass over unblemished skin and forget uniformity in the memory numonics of banality. Every day is neatly filed in the Department of Nothing's grey metal cabinets, and is as good as forgotten. We only remember the rough patches, the unusual compared to the ordinary. As with the cold showers before my boiling bath water is tempered (the Botswanan Power Corporation promises electricity any day), extremes bring awareness. Zen Kicks. Which is why it might be so easy to forget this little house in Palapya, which is not so poor or dirty as my house in Kanya. Comparitively, I'm living the easy life, and I should not scratch the healing scabs from last week's wounds. But I am not rested. I still scratch at old tick bites until they bleed and leave red residue under my nails. I rip apart my simple covering of pinkish tan cells as soon as I can find a tear. I dig into my own imperfections. Do I hope to actually find something new or revealing hidden underneath opened skin? Will I find the Me under my face, under what all of Palopye stares at, even the few white doctors? I'm living the easy life again, and complacency, the ease of being satisfied with every meal, is making me morose. Or perhaps I was naturally greiving, still tired from all the war dreams and losing you, and distracted so well in Kanye that I had no room for outside problems. With a girl younger than me waxing our floors, there isn't much room for imperfection, so I must focus in on more interesting material. I also find myself looking carefully at trash, watching crumpled paper butterflies flutter and crash on grit and asphault. I feel empty without the dead animals by the road, or just more anxious. What one doesn't have to face, one can't overcome and let go. This is the first principle of behavior therapy concerning anxiety and phobia. Exposure brings peace, and at the moment I am insulated from Kanye and American hardships. So I am tired from them without letting them go, for they are not mine to let go of. Last night I dreamt I could only receive news through the comics, and had to decipher that we bombed Afghanistan through jokes made in Beetle Bailey. I worry about getting a flight back to Botswana, and want you to call the Council Travel in Claremont to see how it will work. Don't worry, I'll get full credit and graduate on time - Smith likes students to go abroad all year. I'm glad I'll get a bit of a break to see the fam, though. God, I love and miss you more than chocolate. Do you want to go to Mozambique, which is a more successful version of Zimbabwe? Check out archeology sites and write if you want to.
Thanks for listening to me vent mama. Many hugs and kisses. - Sadie
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hey guys
October 04, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
hey guys. I'm not homesick, really. too much excitement her is margaritaville, aka kasane. lots of afrikaaner tourists and proplr who can't even say dumela to the african waitresses- and they look just like me. whiteness is strange to be seperated from for a month and a half and then thrown back into, like being thrown back into the water you came from and realizing how suffocating it was all along. very interesting. cheers, Sadie
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Sadie just called my mom
October 03, 2001 by Adam in Sadie & Greg
Sadie just called my mom.
She's at the Chobe Safari Lodge in Kasane. Her phone number is 011-267-650-336 in room 206. She should be there after 9 pm Botwasna time (between noon and 8 PM PST) in the evenings and it's fine to call late.
She's homesick, but doing good. Supposedly she's learning amazing things, including cooking. She'll be there until the 10th or so. She did get food poisoning and had to run into the ER, but I think she's feeling a lot better.
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We got a new letter from Sadie
September 19, 2001 by Adam in Sadie & Greg
We got a new letter from Sadie. It's addressed:
The K.W.M.B.C. Family
And on the back is:
Yeah, you all have to get together to read this, so nya, nya, nya - S.
(Editor: I guess she hasn't learned about the Internet yet.)
The rest of the letter continues:
 Every day breaks and rebuilds me, and it's only the sheer pain of monotony that pulls days into weeks in some accelerated generalization of Kanye. "Very big. China" The joke we would roll around when no words or logic could encapsulate an experience. But if I could distill my daily experience to the first two hours of daybreak, it would describe the making of the fire. Gosa Molelo. The alarm dreams that I used to sleep through but now anticipate at 5:58 every morning. Wake for ten guilty minutes, hoping to hear the pata pata of bed shoes bringing wood and matches, and hearing none. Pull on Dick's old wool sweater, one arm above manufactured fabric at a time, or pulled into my sleeping bag before fresh air hits my skin. Sandal straps crusted with God knows I can't tell browns apart, and wash hands with last night's saline. Then balancing sticky contacts on a finger tip, tilting at candle light to make sure the 123 lines up so my eyes don't tickle with backwards plastic all day. Pull up the door so it doesn't scrape, scrape it closed. Look for wood - yesterday from our stick fence and straw from the thatched roof. I wish I knew how real women warm water without tearing down the house. The first week I brought a big box of matches so when the fire sputtered out there wasn't any fumbling in the house, perhaps waking the old women and the fucking rooster. (Editor: there goes our family-friendly rating)
I can't explain without succumbing to the actual monotony of the task, and had it not hurt, had I never cried in my life until my body was black and lungs coated with mogobe soot, I'd pass it over. Instead, I'd disect the pit latrine with its glossy shelled cockroaches and pretty pattern of flies that make flowers like my bedroom wallpaper before Martha Stewart. But the real shit is in the work outside of laminated living and matching green enamel.
 So I start the fire with sticks and ends of yesterday's successes. The most important thing is fanning so hard it goes dead 'cept the gwoosh gwoosh sounds of oxygen and fuel. Last weeks mistake was not enough panting. I took the plastic bucket top and waved it a bit, but molelo needs good hard slaps. And don't look at the sun 'till the fire's steady, because once I forgot my carbon tears and lost the whole fire on account of the sky. The it's smoke and cold all over again. But the smoke in my skin and the clouds that are too perfect for personification bring reference for the rest of my day. I don't envy the sleeping grandmother on the sitting room floor, sinking through a chicken coop patress and aching ten babies full. In sleep I can't own the memory of morning. I can't stick my flag in and claim the elusive time which could pass easy like old family jokes about China.
I wish I could really explain the chalky yellow paint or the way it drips on concrete, the way dirt brings out age and fingertips on fair skin, or the sunburnt exhaustion that is freeze framed and catalogued without cross references for translation. I wish I could write you volumes of untranslated beat haikus straight out of my diseased dog Lazarus, written on soot stained hands and copied to the margins of my journal pages. Rain on corrogated roofs. Desert at the edge of water. The nights that are too beautiful and grotesque for our native tongue. I am still trying to fail every day until I let go of my access and bullshit and the things I didn't
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here i am in gabarone, after the most incread...
September 14, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
 here i am in gabarone, after the most increadible month. if i could hold these stars in my hands and send them, sweeping constilations and planets at a time, you know i would. my mother brought me into my room this morning and we held each other and she prayed for me, in setswana and english and i know you would have cried at least as much as i did. its hard to leave candlelight conversations, mogobe (think cream of wheat morning noon and night at various viscosities), and the most increadible language teachers, all either under three or over fifty and with glittering eyes that show a sense of the world untouched by what we might consider to be absolute poverty. i am at a strange edge, jumping into the small town research on monday, excited but in love with my place in kanye, and feeling more than I ever havehave, all at once and overlapping- that dumb adjustment curve they sent was not scaled right- \i do all that every day. yesterday was one of the most difficult days yet, for I had the delight to receive a few letters (thank you thank you thank you) and got to call home, all on top of finally hearing the news and watching cnn for a terrifying moment or two. i want to be with you so much, to hunker like the welsh should and touch all of you on the shoulder, just to remember my own place as well as yours. But I'm not alone here, and you are not alone there, and everything has a way of working out... so i hope. please send on letters, though i can't get them frequently, i'll write nevertheless and love you all the more. kisses to Noah.
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Another letter from Sadie came in (slightly e...
August 31, 2001 by Adam in Sadie & Greg
Another letter from Sadie came in (slightly edited for content):
I headed off to 'le toilet', which my mme showed me before I put down my bags and gave mpo (gifts). I pulled open the door, and cocking its hair little head was a huge cockroach. "I will not be afraid of bugs, I will not be afraid of bugs," I told myself, and swept a few away. That night I dreamt of having to venture off to the latrine, perching on the toilet, and being covered in those not so little animals. However, by morning I had overcome my feelings and made friends with the furry things. The dog who I believe has tetnus, is still alive, but no one has a name for him. If any unusual meat comes my way after the atsa passes, I'll be sure to write.
I bathe as much as I eat, so I am quite squeaky and full. My family is interesting, and intent on teaching me Setswana. I plucked a chicken and made dumplins. No vegitables yet. We sit by a paraphin lamp at night and talk (or rather, they talk), and go to bed by 8. The language lessons are from 8 am until 7 pm, and although I know nothing now, in a few weeks I might hold my own in a conversation without saying "gobe?" every sentence.
Too new to be sad or overjoyed - just experiencing, responding, and always aware. No worries, and all my kisses to the new one.
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Got a letter from Sadie in Africa I thought I...
August 29, 2001 by Adam in Sadie & Greg
Got a letter from Sadie in Africa I thought I'd share:
Family!
Please kiss the new baby for me! Last night I fell asleep to the sound of a Zioniut choir - The Power of One soundtrack couldn't hold a candle to the real thing. Everyone on the trip is amazing. No annoying Smithies in sight. [Ed: to any Smithies reading this web site, she's referring to the other ones.] On Sunday we are going into our first village homestay. My first Setswanna lesson was today - an uphill battle at best, but nothing that can't be laughed off. I'm sure to fail and humiliate myself terribly for the first month. Oh well. Batsi, one of the program assistants, was going to write Thomas Mapfuomo's biography - loves Chimerenga Mulie. I'm doing very well Love you all tons. SADIE
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Hello from amsterdam! I am writing from a ve...
August 14, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
Hello from amsterdam! I am writing from a very flat screened hp, with a melodic but indiscernable language in the background. The flight over was quite nice, and Takei met me in Detroit with a cheek kiss and the warmest of affections to get me through the long flight over the Atlantic. I hope Noah is healthy and kicking as I write this. I love you all so much, and if you do not here from me within the next month, it is not because I do not love you, but because dsl connections are few and far between in the third world. But in amsterdam, ah amsterdam...
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Sadie asked that I take and post this picture...
August 11, 2001 by Adam in Sadie & Greg
 Sadie asked that I take and post this picture of the bruise on her arm. Why, I have no idea. I'm thinking of starting up a contest. Is Sadie posting this because:
A) She hopes to sue someone at a later date.
B) She wants proof of something personally embarrasing.
C) Sadie thinks it's cool and wants to share it.
D) She hopes to embarrass someone else.
One entry per day. Family and friends aren't eligible. Winners will recieve a congratulatory, "Woo hoo! You win!"
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Ah, this is my last week of researching the M...
July 25, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
Ah, this is my last week of researching the Mozambican revolution. Sending two months with my family was amazing, but I'm anxious to go to Africa. Somehow I can always feel two opposite things at the same time... letting go of everything- most of my clothes, my language, food, fresh water- is my goal for next semester. Yet I'd be equally happy finishing up school quietly, returning to the west coast, and reveling in the everyday indulgances of having a home. Such is life, I suppose.
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So, I'm back at home and enjoying the company...
July 13, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
So, I'm back at home and enjoying the company of family more than anyone can imagine, unless one has seen me in the euphoric stupor I wander around in after family gatherings. John Foran, my favorite sociology of revolutions professor, offered me up a research assistantship, so I'm reading about the Mozambican revolution right now. Thrilling. Sadly, one of my residents at smith died last week, and I'm still down from the news. Grief therapy was becoming a very real occupational interest, but I'm a bit uncertain now. We'll see. Preparing to head off to Botswana in a month... wish me luck.
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The weather has suddenly turned from sunny su...
May 17, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
The weather has suddenly turned from sunny summer to blustery gray. My last week in Northampton will be rocky; not one dull day in the midst of finals, moves, fights and friends. The sort of things that make me miss home. I will be arriving in Eugene by Memorial day, and I demand to see all of you in some wholesome family debauchery of love. There's not a day goes by when I don't miss all of you...
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Hmmm
February 25, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
Hmmm.. another snowy sunday spend working on psychology and thinking about sweet rainy eugene. The strains of communal living will hopefully subside in the next week, with a little help from the administrative powers that be. I've decided that the only way to master statistics is to rip it to its most basic level and methodically reconstruct every dull therorem. Megan is reading Hamlet, which reminded me of my own experience with the play. Somehow I was so passionate about my personal and academic life that they intermingled to create a monsterous, all-consuming lifestyle of poetric turmoil. I think I need that cathartic angst to really get into probability.
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Well, I guess dying of cancer means there...
February 10, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
Well, I guess dying of cancer means there's an end called death when that person can't be there next year,
but I wasn't ready yet.
I wanted another two weeks to get some room in my head cleaned out, so I could label it "grieving" and have someplace to go when I needed to. That's not the way it works, though, so I feel sort of discombobulated, like there's this mathematical concept I can't get my mind around. I sent another letter to Dorthy and Franklin two days ago, priority mail, but I don't know if it got there in time. I should have sent it express. I don't know if I'm too tired to cry or if I've been pushing it back because of all of the other things I've been pushing back, and now there's a block so I just feel numb and perplexed. I want to be with everyone who ever loved him, I want to sing his praises and wail out loud. I want to sit quietly and smile at the commings and goings of life, as I saw Franklin doing in my childhood. Mostly I want my life to be something he might smile for, and for the warmth of his smile to be reflected in the lives of his children and grand children and great grandchildren.
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Really, so many exciting things happening in ...
January 12, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
 Really, so many exciting things happening in my life, I can hardly stand it. Best of all, I'm still at home with my family and most lovely pseudo boyfriend. After a gourmet breakfast and Turkish coffee with the one and only Alan Bergland, Sam and I played all day. Sara Spettel just got her wisdom teeth out, so Jenny Minnity Shippey and I might go over with ice cream and a trashy movie later this evening. All in all, life is as relaxing and cultured as ever, with frequent visits to the art museum for Russian avante garde painting, home town galleries for local wonders, and, as always, Eugene lovin'.
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