Travel

Linnea Ashley on November 12th, 2011

Reconciling my own feelings about working overseas in development is difficult enough. Is there harm done? To what extent? Is there good? Does it make up for the bad? I don’t believe good intentions are enough, that something is always better than nothing. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease. But how do […]

Continue reading about Multitudes

Linnea Ashley on November 6th, 2011

At the time I didn’t realize it was a race. In my mind the canoe was simply a lazy way to enjoy the beaming sun as we waited for the border between South Africa and Botswana to open. And so the Orange river was my personal chauffer. I flung one long brown leg over the […]

Continue reading about #3 Music*

Linnea Ashley on December 26th, 2010

I felt the bump. Once. Twice. Maybe three times. I even looked around, irritated and my mind vaguely thinking about someone trying to pick my pocket. But downtown Kampala at dusk, sticking close to my BLB (big little brother) and I didn’t feel unsafe. Even so, something made me feel my bag, run my fingers […]

Continue reading about holiday of faith

Linnea Ashley on November 29th, 2010

Jeganda isn’t the brightest bird in the nest. When TQ, my roommate, brought her home we blamed it on the traumatic ride. After all, she’d been hung upside-down by her legs on the back of a bicycle. You can imagine she’d be a little off kilter. We tied her to our mango tree in the […]

Continue reading about coming home to roost

Linnea Ashley on November 11th, 2010

Two years living in rural South Africa, where the lucky pulled their water from a bore hole and the unlucky walked miles away to gather theirs from a questionable open source, I began to realize the luxury of potable water. And as my eyes and my habits adjusted to village life, I began to understand […]

Continue reading about Give Water Give Health

Linnea Ashley on November 9th, 2010

I was returned to my college days, my peace corps ones. returned to the joy that a tiny slip of paper in my mailbox can conjure. Yesterday I got a package from my parents. And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, a day more in need of pepping. I almost didn’t trudge down to […]

Continue reading about packages of care

Linnea Ashley on October 27th, 2010

Iganga Town, Uganda October 27, 2010 Mickey was cute…at first. Funny in his lack of fear and disregard of anyone sitting and watching him meander across the concrete floor, climb the book shelf, and nestle there like we were all pals. He was Ralph S. Mouse minus the motorcycle.  Ralph S. Mouse with the added […]

Continue reading about rodent roommates

Linnea Ashley on October 26th, 2010

Happily ensconced in skype, I didn’t hear anything until my roommate knocked on my closed bedroom door. I looked up, distracted by my friend talking on the other side of the world. “the guard has caught someone and he’s holding him in the yard.” I smiled and nodded at her. I’m unsure why. It wasn’t […]

Continue reading about safe for the night

Linnea Ashley on October 24th, 2010

Kampala, Uganda October 7, 2010 “I haven’t even been proposed to here, I think I’m insulted.” I was half joking but in retrospect I can hear how it must have sounded. No knowledge of my constant proposals in South Africa, no context for “love at first sight” in Liberia, it must have sounded absurd. James, […]

Continue reading about no beauty lost peace

Linnea Ashley on October 13th, 2010

She lay there. Still. Mechanical breath raising and lowering her chest with a slight pause – a stutter in the system. The monitors flashed green and red, moaned indecipherably, whirs and screeches that – unmet by rushing attendants – were usual sounds. T’s head bandaged tightly at the crown, odd pinkish coloring against her soft […]

Continue reading about ICU lament