Listserve Post Wednesday, January 30, 2008 05:18 PM
I'm writing from the Richmond, Indiana library right now. Early Monday morning our team flew back to Bogota, and after lunch we divided up to visit 2 embassies. I went to the U.S.A. embassy to meet with their one and ONLY human rights officer in Colombia. It was an interesting conversation. Too short, but we had to leave to get to another meeting w/a human rights organization. We all thought that final meeting was quite helpful in drawing things together and helping us begin thinking about how to present our experiences to our elected officials and others. I still have much to sort out, but it was a nice way to end.
We had an absolutely wonderful, healthy, delicious farewell dinner and spent the evening just having fun together, dancing to drummers in a park, and laughing. 6 of us said good-bye to the others Tuesday morning and headed back to Atlanta. We got
separated in customs, but searched each other out again for our final farewells. Sad to leave them (and very sad to leave the mountains), but nice to get home to people I love!
The temperature was in the 50's in Indianapolis when I arrived yesterday evening to be met by Friends. In downtown Indi. we heard a tornado siren. We got to a contradance hall just before the sheets of rain and high winds arrived. When we left later, the temperature had dropped way down and the high winds were bitter. A bit of a shock for my system!
The contradance was a nice way to come home, with friendly people and nice music to
listen to. My body decided it wasn't ready for spinning around, so I sat down the hall and journaled and listened -- just what I needed! It was a much gentler way to ease back into the U.S.A. than some of my past homecomings.
Today I was back to a minimum of 3 layers on every part of my body for our weekly Wednesday prayer vigil for peace, w/wind-chill factor of 15 below at times, but it's been a very sunny, beautiful day and this afternoon the wind slowed down quite a bit. I appreciated another chance to publicly witness for peace and remind Richmondites that our current reality is not the only possibility.
Thank you SO much for all of your thoughts and prayers and phone calls before I left and e-mail notes to welcome me home! Since I haven't slept much for two weeks, I decided it must be lots of love keeping me going! :) Praise God!
Now, time to go home and cuddle with my dog and cat. :)
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