9 days to go

I love the ocean. I never get tired of looking at it. When I took this picture the water was going in every direction with a million different types of movement. It is never the same. It wasn't even the time of day or type of day I particularly like to be outside. The white ship with all the reflective water and bright sun makes mid day hard to stand outside but we were just underway and it was nice to feel the breeze and watch El Sal recede in the distance and watch the butterflies. It surprises me how many come out so far from land. You'd think butterflies wouldn't stray very far from flowers, or land for that matter.



I had high hopes that I would morph wolverine style into something stronger than myself out here. Not unlike a high bred version of the old me. Some humanitarian wonder child. But I'm still just me, sans metallic skeletal additions, and while I know this was an excellent chance to serve and in so doing, grow, I don't feel any huge difference like I was hoping for. I do feel like I can come home with a stronger appreciation for human frailty and the inner battles worth fighting to be a better person, even if I don't get a nice tidy boxed up conclusions at the end of my self appointed 'learning experience'.

I guess that is one of the joys about life never being easily summed up.



RP3 Strother, Margarette and me



the tres amigitos. {the 3 little friends if I got that right} me {LDS Charities}, Tracy {Project Hope} and Rowan {UCSD}. The 3 captains of the ship call themselves the tres amigos. Rowan, Tracy and I {the 3 NGO Leads on board} call ourselves the 3 little friends. We have had fun entertaining each other at all the ceremonies and dignitary functions we've attended together. Our last scheduled dinner was a couple nights ago and I was looking forward to one last shindig for us to go to together. It was canceled because the captains and the DV's were all still stuck on shore due to the afternoon storms. Nicaragua has been a difficult country for movements all around. So we had dinner together anyway with the other foreign nationals and it was nice having the regular crowd together without the formality of an actual event. The main topic of conversation was the different plans for when we all go home. A nice thought was that we'll be home in time for the last part of summer, just in time for fall.

I'm looking forward to finding silence. I haven't heard {or not heard} it since I got here. When I think it is quiet I can still identify creaking/banging/whooshing air somewhere near by.