Alive

Yes, I am. Barely keeping my head above water, but alive. I wish I could say that the interminable wait for Part 2 of the Lesbos adventure was worth it; that you'd been sitting around cooling your heels for a damn good reason because the next installment is going to be jaw-droppingly good, full of suspense and unexpected plot twists. Sadly, this is not the case. We did indeed have an adventure on Lesbos, but not a jaw-dropping, wait-two-months-to-hear-the-stunning-finale kind of adventure.

I've just been busy. Really busy. Loving my job and all the young souls I am helping to mould, melting over the shine in their eyes and the arms wrapped around me on some emotional days, the whispered 'I love you, Ms. Toews', feeling my life is amazingly full because of these small people -- nonetheless, staggeringly busy. And on those few moments when not busy, priority generally goes to the fatigue that flattens me to the couch, or the desire to escape the confines of manmade structures and get out in the open air...hence, the lack of blog entries.

To briefly catch up on recent events:
- we went on an afternoon hike and wound up coming back in the dark, in a military zone (we later discovered), crawling through a drainage ditch and hiking along the highway, finally hitchhiking home with two guys in a low-rider with those custom blue-glowing lights mounted on the undercarriage.
- we may be moving to a new apartment soon
- we met a street kitten whom we fell in love with, named 'Fıstık', resolved to take her home, but couldn't find her again...very sad.
- my class put on a very entertaining show for the whole school in celebration of human rights week. A lot of work, but oh so worth it.
- The Muslim holiday of the Kurban Bayram -- the feast of the sacrifice -- is coming next week. We get four and half days off on this holiday where it is customary to slaughter a sheep and give the meat to the poor. In these more civilized parts, you can order your sheep pre-slaughtered.
Monday is Christmas Eve, and we have to work. Tuesday, Christmas Day, is fortunately a holiday for the foreign staff.
- We have been blessed with bountiful rain in the last few weeks, much needed in this drought-stricken region. The hills are turning a marvelous shade of green, and everything looks clean and shiny and lovely.

That's about all the news that's fit to print. Lesbos Part 2 coming soon, I swear.