The last stop on my West Africa trip in April was Liberia, and anyone who has ever been there will recognize the photo above as most certainly a regular sighting in that country.
I lived in Monrovia, Liberia in 2018 for about eight months; it was intended to be a long-term move, but as I got integrated into the work and life in Monrovia, it was clear that the job wasn’t right, and I wasn’t right, and things in general just weren’t set up in a way that would promote flourishing for any of us. I’m grateful for that experience and I learned a lot, but I was also anxious about returning to Liberia and facing some of those really hard things again; thankfully, while I did manage some stressful situations, overall the trip was a success!
I was relieved, after many days in Francophone countries, to be returning to a place where communication was easier, and I was also relieved when the three flights it took for me to get from Dakar to Monrovia all went on without disruption. The apartment I was staying at was next door to an old friend and my colleague from Ethiopia was already there, and thankfully all of this trip was in the same time zone so I was well acclimated upon arrival and able to jump right in to the action. So many things to be grateful for from day one!
This was my first NeuroKids trip to actually see and participate in a surgeon training. Similarly to our previous trip to Kijabe, Kenya, Meski, my colleague from Ethiopia, was there to train our new coordinator, and we had both arrived a few days before the surgeon training was supposed to start. I’m so glad we planned it that way, because upon arrival, we realized that we didn’t have the right cleaning materials for the equipment and we hadn’t gotten an patient files for training, among other random things that needed sorting, so I spent some time trying to figure out those things while also meeting with and making critical connections with people at the Ministry of Health, without whom we could not run our programs!
It was a busy few days with more surprises than I would generally like to experience, but we managed to get what we needed, some at the very last minute. The next few days were surgeon training, where more surprises awaited us – the cautery tool didn’t work as intended, the sterilizing processes was new to everyone, and the anesthesia team struggled to get intravenous lines into the patients. BUT, thankfully, we were able to accomplish much of what we intended to accomplish; patients got surgery, the surgeon and the coordinator learned a lot, and we as a programs team also came away with many different ideas of how we can improve the training and prevent some of these issues in the future.
The next stop on my West Africa trip was a quick trip to Senegal. NeuroKids is considering building a program in Senegal, which is a hub in Francophone Africa for the training of surgeons and medical staff, so I wanted to pop in and meet the potential partners and try to understand a bit better the situation there along with the training system.
I haven’t spent much time in Senegal but it’s always been high on my list of places to spend more time, and this short trip only whetted my appetite for more! It’s a big hospital with a huge potential impact, and definitely a place I’m recommending for further program expansion.
I ended up having a free day here on a weekend, which was a much welcomed pause in what had been a crazy week of travel and long days. I was able to stretch my legs and walk along the Corniche while enjoying some cooler breezes and a stop for Lebanese food. Enjoy!
I love airplane sunsets – flying over West Africa from Abidjan to Dakar.The Atlantic from in front of my hotelPlace du Souvenir AfricainPlace du Souvenir AfricainLebanese food in West Africa just slays. Some of my favorite food memories in this region are while eating shawarmas and moutabal. A cool mosaic on the side of a building at the University.A valiant effort at hiding a cell towerBaobab juice! If you ever have the chance to try it, do! It’s just kind of sweet and fruity but really good for you and I love when I find it on travels! Beauty.
I’m back in West Africa, a region my heart loves almost more than any other in the world. My global wanderer era began here as a Peace Corps Volunteer, posted for two years in a small village in the middle of Benin. The Peace Corps experience of immersion in culture, language, and living was one of the hardest and most rewarding experiences of my life. In the time since then, I have spent additional significant time in West Africa and somehow always keep coming back to this region, though it’s been quite awhile since my last visit.
First stop on this trip: Cote D’Ivoire. One of the few countries in this region I’ve never been to, and was honestly a little anxious about. I haven’t spoken French in awhile, would it come back to me sufficiently? I don’t know this particular country, cultural nuances, expectations, or particular safety issues, would that be a problem? Would I feel as comfortable here as have felt elsewhere?
Street art in Bouake
I need not have worried. The terre rouge, the bright fabrics, the warm kindness and humid air and French greetings welcomed me like an old friend.
The purpose of my trip was to, very simply, understand what is going on with our site here. NeuroKids has supported programming here for about two years, but have struggled a bit with communication, language, collaboration, and understanding of context. I came in with some preconceived ideas of what I would find, and based on what I knew about the program, I honestly wasn’t even really sure we should be continuing it. So, my primary objective was to learn and better understand the people, context, and situation on the ground, and determine how we can best support (or not) the continuation of a successful program here.
Along the road.
The hospital NeuroKids has partnered with is in Bouake, in the middle of the country, about a five-hour drive north from Abidjan, which is the largest city and international airport on the coast. The ride was uneventful, the road was mostly smooth, surrounded by lush greenery and palm oil plantations occasionally pierced by a towering baobab tree. My hosts greeted me enthusiastically upon my arrival at the University Hospital of Bouake, and as we chatted about their work, the hospital, the processes and supplies and patients and the expansive story behind the numbers, my entire perspective shifted from the communication issues to feelings of awe at the dedication and commitment of the team even through challenging circumstances.
Some of the hospital leadership and neurosurgical team
One surgical resident is currently in rotation in an entirely different unit, but after putting in her working hours there, she’ll come over to the neurosurgical unit to support NeuroKids work and data collection, just because she’s so passionate about neurosurgery and the kids receiving care. Another surgeon spends literally all his days off raising support from generous organizations, donors, and societies, to ensure every child that needs hydrocephalus treatment can get it even if they can’t afford it. You see, in the public hospital system, surgery is free, but the patient still must pay for supplies and medication, and this can be prohibitively expensive for a huge part of the population. Thanks to this surgeon working hard to promote awareness, many children who wouldn’t be able to access the surgery otherwise are granted the hope of a long, healthy life. Surgeries like this are held during ‘camps’ where the neurosurgical team, along with nurses and other necessary providers, volunteer to care for patients while still managing their ‘regular’ workloads. It really is an incredible show of unified support for the patients and their families.
Another special person I met was Angelique*, a two-year-old girl with an unusually large head for her tiny body, the result of untreated hydrocephalus. Too much fluid in the brain forced the head to grow to accommodate; if treated while the baby is still small and the skull bones haven’t fused yet, oftentimes the body will catch up to the head and the child will appear normal, but Angelique’s mother didn’t have the means to travel with her across the country and see a specialist until recently. I had the privilege of watching the surgical team in action performing an endoscopic third ventriculostomy, or ETV, which will help the excess fluid to drain away and relieve the pressure in Angelique’s brain without needing to depend on a shunt. A shunt is a tube inserted in the brain that drains the fluid, and it is widely used around the world but can lead to a lot of potential complications requiring additional surgery. Angelique’s mother was scared but hopeful, and thrilled when the team was able to tell her the surgery went very well. The next day Angelique was alert and eating, which was a huge milestone, as the pressure in her brain had made it difficult for her to keep food down. It was such an honor to meet Angelique and her mother, and to know her child has the opportunity now for a much longer, fuller life because of the incredible skill and dedication of the surgical team in Bouake and the provision of necessary tools thanks to NeuroKids.
Performing the ETV
One of the things I love about this job I get to do is I often have to manage unexpected challenges, to a varying level of success. This time? I was handed a computer that NeuroKids had provided to the team a few years ago but it had become so slow it was basically unusable. We must collect data to really know if our work is successful, so a computer is necessary to be able to submit surgical information to NeuroKids. It took a lot of time and a few pleas for support from my tech-savvy husband back home, but I got it working again and I am still proud I was able to do it!! I’m certainly never bored on trips like this, that’s for sure!
So proud I got a completely unusable french computer to a usable state!
As I’m writing this, I’m watching Cote D’Ivoire fade into the distance out my window as I jet to the next destination on my itinerary. I’m just so grateful I get to do this. I’m grateful I have gotten to spend so much of my life in West Africa that it feels like home. I’m grateful I speak French and the cobwebs in the language center of my brain were quickly brushed out, ensuring mutual understanding and trust. I’m grateful the team has become not only people I work with across the globe but friends, who I now feel I have a much better ability to support so they can continue this important, needed work that can change and save lives. We talked about all the ways we can work well together moving forward, and I take with me a long list of action items we can pursue to continue to expand and offer more and more kids with hydrocephalus and spina bifida hope and growth and longer, healthier lives in Cote D’Ivoire. May it be so.
*Name changed
The Basilica in YamoussoukroMerry Christmas and Happy New Year! (taken on April 4)Sunset over a quiet hospital
Blue skies and sunshine greeted me upon landing in Zambia, a welcome change from the rain in Kenya. Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, is the home to University Teaching Hospital (UTH), the largest hospital in the country and home to one of NeuroKids’ newer programs. The program here has been regularly referred to as one of our high performing programs, with a large patient volume and a coordinator who was collecting a ton of good data. This visit was for me to learn and determine both how we can replicate these successes in other sites as well as explore opportunities for expanding our patient and family care programs in the future. I was expecting to learn a lot about the processes, systems, and practices used in the whole patient surgery and care continuum; what I didn’t expect was to be so touched by the heart and actions of the staff and the patients.
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The Zambia program began just over six months ago and the neurosurgical unit at UTH serves patients from all over Zambia and into surrounding nations. I was overwhelmed by the physical size of the hospital as I was led through the maze of buildings filled not only with patients but nursing students, medical students, residents, and all the other staff critical to support such a large healthcare and teaching institution. My host assured me everyone gets lost in the first few visits.
I had three days with our coordinator there, doing a lot of expected things like collecting patient data and making follow-up calls to patients who had surgery weeks or months ago. She did all of these things with excellence, of course, but I also got to witness her extraordinary commitment to patients and families as she went above and beyond these expectations.
For example, a four-day-old infant who had been born with a myelomeningocele, a type of spina bifida where the spinal cord didn’t grow correctly and ended up in a bubble on her lower back. She was tiny but healthy, and was waiting to be evaluated by the surgical team to close the defect on her back as well as be evaluated for hydrocephalus (too much fluid in the brain), which often occurs with this type of spina bifida. The baby was fussy and not sleeping well, so our coordinator gently asked the mother a few questions. She was just 18 years old, this was her first baby, and she was alone in the hospital, where bedside nursing is not what it is in the United States, and family members are expected to provide care like food and bathing. This young mother was afraid to bathe her child; she didn’t know how, her baby had this big spinal malformation that was scary, and mom didn’t have a basin to hold the water. Our coordinator went down the hallway in the ward and explained the situation to an older mother who had cared for many babies and grandbabies. She was very happy to help this young mother, gathered the necessary materials, and showed her how to bathe the baby safely. The baby fell right to sleep afterwards. Our coordinator, who is a qualified nurse, also took some time to check the mothers’ cesarean wound and give her guidance on how to manage pain and to keep it clean. What a gift to offer this young mother, support and care in what I am sure was a scary, exhausting time.
A bit later down the hall, we chatted with two young moms whose babies were referred for hydrocephalus. They were scared and had lots of questions, as they had only just been admitted and hadn’t yet seen the doctor. What was wrong with their children? How would this affect their lives? Were they really cursed like so many people believe? Our coordinator quickly walked down the hallway a bit further and asked an 8 year old boy she knew named Daniel* to come down and speak to these scared moms. Daniel had a shunt, the most common treatment for hydrocephalus, that had been inserted when he was an infant and drained the extra fluid in his brain down into his abdominal cavity. He explained that he can’t carry water on his head or play aggressive sports in the field behind his school, but he helps around the house in other ways, is a good student, and hopes to become a doctor one day. The mothers were visibly relieved and grateful.
It was in these conversations and throughout my time in the wards that I saw the true gift of hope that our incredible coordinator tossed like confetti all around her.
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Tuesday is clinic day, when dozens of patients come to the outpatient department as part of their regular follow-up from surgery or if they’ve been referred for a neurosurgical consult that doesn’t merit an urgent admission to the ward. Patients had begun lining up well before sunrise; some were from Lusaka while others had travelled for days to get there.
I was especially touched by Natalie, a five-year-old girl who had spina bifida and hydrocephalus and danced her way around the office like any rambunctious five-year-old would. She and I had full conversations in two entirely different languages but somehow, when the language is joy and play and dancing, the words don’t really matter.
Samuel was a 12 year old boy with hydrocephalus who was studying hard and wants to be a civil engineer when he grows up. Ellee was a six year old girl who was a bit slow to speak and had one foot and ankle that didn’t quite work as well as the other kids’, but she did her best to get around and keep up with her siblings and friends. These kids and their parents triumphed over some incredibly challenging situations to get where they were. There were also a few babies who had not yet been named; children of fathers who had abandoned them when their heads had started to grow out of proportion to their bodies; whose mothers’ didn’t want to name them until they were assured a future. Those babies simultaneously broke my heart and reaffirmed my commitment to the work I’m passionate about, where we hope to expand our advocacy efforts and give hope to these mommas who don’t feel they have any.
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ChildHelp runs a House of Hope just a few blocks from UTH and we stopped by for a visit. The house is a place for mommas and children who live far away to have a place to stay while waiting for their surgery or care or follow-up appointment. They also offer these mommas training on how to care for some of the special needs that kids with spina bifida may have, and marketable skills like sewing and baking and gardening, for so many of the children’s fathers leave them due to the stigma of a child with special needs. It’s an incredible program with an inspiring staff and we’re exploring ways we can support this type of work in Zambia and beyond.
I learned so much in Zambia, about spina bifida and hydrocephalus care of course, but even more so, about the inspiring mothers, children, and healthcare workers who do the tireless work of spreading guidance, support, and hope for every mother and child. What an honor to be able to witness this small glimpse into their lives and commit to doing everything we can as an organization to support children (and their families) to live long, healthy lives with spina bifida and hydrocephalus.
It is Thursday night, and I had hoped to capture a beautiful photo of the sunset, concluding an incredible visit to Kenya. Unfortunately, the rain derailed this plan, as it has all week. Despite the rain and mud, my time in Kenya has been remarkable. Although I am new to my job now with a very cool organization called NeuroKids, I am obviously not new to the continent of Africa nor global surgery, and stepping into Kijabe Hospital felt a bit like returning home again.
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I joined NeuroKids three months ago as the Program Director. If you’re reading this, you’re probably not new to my wandering, as my career has taken me to dozens of countries through decades of service, ever committed to seeing a day when quality healthcare is accessible and affordable regardless of one’s birthplace. I’m so grateful and honored join with NeuroKids as we work together with incredible partners to improve the lives of children with hydrocephalus and spina bifida.
This trip to Kenya was a learning opportunity for me, to meet some of our dedicated staff and partners and experience the work, challenges, and opportunities firsthand. We’re just ramping up our program in Kijabe, a small community about an hour outside of Nairobi just on the edge of the great Rift Valley. Which, as a side note, I never did see thanks to the constant clouds and rain throughout my time there, though I’m told it’s beautiful. I guess I’ll just have to come back to confirm for myself.
In most countries where NeuroKids works we hire a coordinator; usually a nurse or other healthcare worker familiar with the clinical setting who also has an aptitude for data collection and coordination. This individual collects patient information, coordinates patient care, communicates with families, surgeons, and other specialists, and ensures ongoing care if needed. Training these coordinators is usually done remotely, but we seized this opportunity to bring our Senior Program Coordinator who lives in Ethiopia, our Data Manager who lives in Uganda, and myself together to onboard our new coordinator for Kijabe, in-person while testing a new training platform we’ve recently developed. It was also a great opportunity for me to meet Brian and Meski, and get to know the Kijabe Hospital staff and our phenomenal partner organizations BethanyKids and ChildHelp, who have worked tirelessly in this community and elsewhere to support pediatric patients for decades.
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Over the years, I have spent considerable time in hospitals like Kijabe, and I am always impressed by the staff’s commitment and dedication to providing the best care possible, even in environments where resources such as electricity, critical supplies and equipment, and even salaries are not always reliable. I felt this dedication to patients the moment I stepped into Kijabe Hospital, and even more than that, I felt hope. Hope is something many of these patients don’t have, in the midst of scary diagnoses and surgeries and uncertainty. But it’s what we all have to offer; though surgery and care, these children and their families can have hope for a brighter future.
The days were busy; the team was diligent as they effectively condensed weeks of learning into hours, along with organizing medical equipment in preparation for upcoming surgeon training. I learned a great deal about how the programs function, and we brainstormed ways to make them even more efficient and effective. We also shared much laughter, enjoyed the warm hospitality of our Kenyan colleagues, and introduced some of our staff to tacos for the first time.
Relationships are paramount, particularly in this context. Throughout my career in international development, I have attended numerous meetings emphasizing the importance of building relationships before work can commence, which is not often the American way. During my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, my first intercultural working experience, I was advised by another volunteer that the only way to be taken seriously by community supporters is to share a beverage under a mango tree first. This has proven true repeatedly in my fifteen-plus years of international development work. While the context varies, the essence remains the same: relationship precedes work. I am grateful to have had this time in Kijabe to connect with the exceptional people at BethanyKids, ChildHelp, Kijabe Hospital, and our own NeuroKids staff.
As I prepare to leave, I am filled with gratitude for these individuals and experiences and the shared dream of supporting children with hydrocephalus and spina bifida in leading long, full, joyous, hope-filled lives. It is an honor to be part of this endeavor. I look forward to returning, and hopefully viewing the elusive Rift Valley and sunset in Kenya.
Suddenly there was a flurry of activity all around the hotel. I was sitting on the bed doing whatever I was doing, when Gideon poked his head in from the balcony and said get out here, now! I could hear other people exclaiming from their balconies and the sound of quick footsteps around us.
The mountains were making an appearance. And it was breathtaking.
This picture does NOT do this justice, at all.
We are spending a couple days in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal. A place that was never on my bucket list, but when work decides to hold a conference in Kathmandu, one doesn’t argue! We arrived a few days early in hopes of catching a glimpse of a few snow-capped peaks, along with some fresh air and quiet away from the city. It’s not really the right time of year; we’re just at the end of the rainy season and its steady, pervasive cloud cover, but worth a try, especially if we don’t think it’s likely we’ll ever get back to this part of the world.
Well, it’s been pretty cloudy, to the extent that it was hard to see out past the end of our small balcony from time to time as we are literally sitting in the clouds, but for a brief space on Thursday night, the clouds parted just enough to get all the guests excited and all the cameras snapping like crazy.
Taken off our balcony when we are actually in the clouds.
And then we got doubly lucky to get a beautiful sunrise the next morning, the cover photo for this post. It has made these extra two days and the long, windy road through the mountains worth it!
This has been our view most of the time we’ve been here.
I’m sitting on the balcony of my waterfall villa; a grandiose name for what would more accurately be called a cabin, and spread before me are acres and acres of tea plantations and forests, culminating in mountain peaks hidden by low clouds holding hope of a much-needed rain shower. From the next hill over the jubilant melodies from a Hindu temple loudspeaker echo throughout the valley. An occasional spat between what I presume are street dogs sends yelps and growls up into the air occasionally; there is some kind of cicada-like buzz that comes and goes with the very pleasant high-country cool breeze, and birds are chirping everywhere. The low, vibrating hum of the waterfalls for which this cabin/villa was named rumbles from deep in the valley and occasionally a bird call so different from others draws my attention as my eyes scan feverishly through the tree branches looking for the little soloist before they zip away. A train whistle sounds and it’s as if all of nature holds it’s breath for a few seconds while the train barrels through, letting a slow exhale as the train curves around in to the next valley over and the peaks block any further disruption, at least until the next train.
It’s a welcome break from the city. Colombo is, objectively, a great place to live, but clean air and being surrounded by greenery has a way of reviving my weary heart better than anything else can.
A path through the tea bushes.
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We moved from South Africa to Sri Lanka almost a year ago now, which seems simultaneously insanely short and also like we’ve lived here for ages. And I’ve struggled to write for so many reasons… my story is not just my story anymore. People can be cruel. The internet can be a horrible place, and my mental health and physical safety are of increasing importance as I decide who and how I’m putting myself out into the world. But I’ve missed it, this is my art; working with the words, massaging them until they express just exactly what I want them to express, it releases something in me that I feel I’ve been missing. And also? When I was home this summer visiting family in the States, I was reminded through their questioning that my life is one of curiosity and adventure and I do want to share that with those who want to join me here. So, let us begin… again.
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The office of the local equivalent of the mayor of this area
I’m here in tea country for a week of site visits; visiting schools and communities where we intend to place Volunteers. Gideon and Jay are keeping each other company back home; Jay always gets clingy when he sees my suitcase come out. As we drove up into the high country, I kept exclaiming, probably irritatingly so, to my colleagues about how it just kept getting more and more beautiful the higher up and further in we drove. I feel more alive out here, somehow, but really, travel of any kind does that for me. The anticipation and excitement that comes with exploring a new place is, actually, my favorite thing in the world, alongside Lake Hubert in summer. Thanks for joining me on the way.
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Sri Lankan food, as a whole, is delicious; the liberal use of warming spices like turmeric, cardamom, and cumin, alongside coconut milk and chilis leads to a really lovely spicy, sweet, salty combination and a variety of textures, which is quite enjoyable overall, if my mouth isn’t actually on fire. My spice tolerance has definitely increased since being here, and most of the time my digestive system can handle it.
Lunch after one of our community meetings
The place we are staying in offers an American breakfast, and while I do love a good Sri Lankan breakfast, I’m taking them up on their offer of eggs and toast as lunch will most certainly be a very spicy curry and rice. So far, my body has thanked me for this decision.
My American breakfast, with the Sri Lankan breakfast of my colleagues.
One thing I’ve learned in over fifteen years of world travel, is to always bring my own coffee, regardless of where I am going. On this trip, I even brought my trusty collapsible teakettle and a coffee cup, too. Any hotel or restaurant will give you hot water if you ask for it, but I really love my coffee before I have to interact with other humans, and I am pretty sure they would appreciate that too, if they knew what the alternative was. Only one cup, though, because I want to need a bathroom as little as possible when travelling!
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The roads out here can be an adventure! We’re cruising around in very large Toyotas that can handle pretty much anything thrown at them, but there still are moments my heart is in my throat.
A typical road through a tea plantationAnother road into the green.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a few tidbits from tea country. I’m not sure how often I’ll write here, but feel free to ‘follow’ on the right hand side, and you’ll be notified whenever I post something new.
My feet first touched African soil on July 23, 2009, when I arrived in Cotonou, Benin, to start my 27-month service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I had left my job in corporate America and couldn’t wait to experience whatever was in waiting for me.
I was placed in a small village in west-central Benin called Agoua. I worked in a health center and a school and learned the language and tried to make a difference. That experience was harder than I could have ever imagined. I was desperately lonely, sick, harassed all the time, confused a lot, hot and sweaty, and wondered if I would make it. I also learned so much, found my passion in global health, made lifelong friends, and helped a few people, hopefully. I learned I was much stronger than I ever thought I was, and when I finished, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life trying to make the world just a little bit better and never stop exploring, learning, growing, and serving. The people of Agoua gave me so much of themselves, and for that, I’m forever grateful.
In the last few months, I’ve gotten in touch with other former Volunteers who have served in Agoua. I was the first, but not the last, and after some social searching four of us managed to have our first Zoom call about a year ago. We were deep in Covid, the Peace Corps Volunteers had been evacuated worldwide, and basically, we all just wanted to chat about our shared connection to that little village in the middle of the cashew orchards. Our stories have diverged dramatically; we live in three different countries working in a variety of fields, but we realized when we were chatting that Agoua was really central to all of our stories and wondered out loud how we could give back or continue to help this little place dear to our hearts.
We were able to connect pretty easily with our primary counterpart in Agoua, the chief of the arrondisement (small group of villages) and a trusted friend to all of us, and asked if there was anything we could do to help, what would he choose? He came back pretty quickly with what seems like an obvious ask: what they really need is a source of clean water in the health center. And this was definitely a project we could get behind! To ensure things in the health center are as sanitary as possible, especially in the age of COVID, we were all really happy to come around this community and provide something so very basic and critical to quality health care. It’s such a gift to have the opportunity to give back to this community!
We are asking for our families and friends to donate in the place of gifts this holiday season. We are donating ourselves. We are asking you, friends, families, communities, connections, to consider giving to this project. Agoua is an incredibly special place, and clean water is a basic necessity, can you help us to bring that to the health center?
Here is the link that provides more of the story, info about the former Volunteers who are a part of this project, and how you can help the people of Agoua have access to clean water when they are most in need!
After we had spent the majority of three and a half years on opposite sides of the Atlantic, as soon as he came to South Africa it was pretty clear, pretty quickly, that we didn’t ever want to be apart like that again. We knew we belonged together. Of all the big decisions we have made, this one felt like one of the most obvious!
The thought of a big wedding, or even a small one, with people, and opinions, and expectations, and so much money, during a devastating global pandemic, where at least half the potential guests would have to travel? The whole thing honestly made me nauseous. No shade to any single one of the beautiful, magical weddings I’ve seen in my feed in the last few months – you’re all gorgeous and I hope it was perfection! – but it’s just not for me. We knew we wanted to elope, and we tossed around several different countries and locations, but we decided that things are complicated enough, let’s not add a foreign government process to the list!
Gideon left his car in Boston, so we knew we wanted to go somewhere on the east coast. I’d never been to Maine and it’s beautiful and rugged, and we were able to find an online friend who could officiate it and help us navigate the paperwork and location and the details we had to sort out from across the ocean. She was a saint and in today’s divided, angry world, those types of people renew my faith in humanity.
Anyway, we each invited a friend to be witness to our promises to each other, which we wrote on the plane on the way across the ocean. Here’s a little bit of it:
Mine: I promise to always choose us. I promise to choose love, to believe the best, to be generous, to be kind, and never try to change who you are. I promise to love you more tomorrow than I do today. I promise to not get too grouchy when you beat me at board games or bowling, and to take care of you even when we are old, smelly, and senile. I promise to always laugh with you, to be honest, to tell you when you’ve missed a spot when shaving or when your clothes don’t match. I promise to be responsible for my own happiness and not put that on you, and to always dream together and do everything we can to achieve those dreams. I take you now as my husband, for as long as we have on earth, together.
His: I promise to love you, hold you closer with every hug, and live to fill our days with smiles and laughter. I promise to say yes to adventures, test my comfort zone, trust in your experience, and appreciate your willingness to share your joy of travel. I promise to be by your side through any challenge you may come up against, we’ll face life’s challenges together, especially if it’s finishing desert in bed. I promise to do the dishes when you’re cooking, be your sous chef, chief taste tester, and I promise to always tell you when you’ve got something stuck in your teeth. I promise to be your lifetime tech support and will put an end to any faulty electronics that stand in your way including the clock on the oven. I promise to care for Jay, your dog, as if he was my own, and cherish every moment we have as a family together. I take you now as my wife, for as long as we have on earth, together.
We put together a ceremony with all the bits and pieces we loved, including an exchange of rings, and went to a pretty place in Cape Elizabeth with our two best friends and an officiant and her friend who snapped a few photos with an iphone, where we said I Do, Forever. It was absolutely perfect.
The ‘wedding’ party – our should that be our elopement party?
Then we made it official at City Hall.
Then we made quick visits to upstate New York for his family and Minnesota for mine, before jetting back to South Africa and this loving monster.
Jay got a lobster toy as a wedding gift.
So we’re back in South Africa, heading into summer, and enjoying our lives together as a family! We decided early on in our relationship to keep it private, i.e., not for public consumption, and we know it was a surprise for a lot of people! Hopefully, you see it as a good surprise. I certainly do!
To answer a few common questions:
I’m not changing my name.
We aren’t doing a honeymoon right now because every day is a honeymoon with this guy 😉 and, this whole flying across the planet to elope and rings and everything was a bit of an unplanned expense, so we’ll take a trip somewhere exotic and call it a honeymoon sometime later on.
He’s working remotely from SA at the same job he had in Boston, and it’s working out great.
My contract limit in South Africa is still two and a half years away, so we’ll be here awhile longer before looking at where the next job might take us
I had just moved to Boston the month before. Having moved to a new place, city, and/or country about a dozen times in my adult life before then, I did what I needed to do: put on my brave face and go alone to social events and activities and try to figure out who my people were in this new city.
One of those activities was ultimate frisbee. I found a pick-up game on Meetup (a great app for finding those aforementioned social events and activities in a new city!) not too far from where I lived and I thought why not, it’s worth a try! I don’t remember if we met at the first game I played with them, or maybe it was the second, but I was sitting alone on the lowest bench of the bleacher seats waiting for a critical mass of participants to arrive so we could start the game. About five seats up the bleachers from me a guy was explaining to some other guys the rules of the game. I wish I could remember the smart-aleck thing he said that caused me to turn around and reply with an equally smart-aleck response, but after that unmemorable but clearly transformational exchange, we all introduced each other, and a friendship was born.
I remember chatting on and off throughout that game; I made comments about being new to the area, and shared I had ridden my bike to the game, so he told me about a biking event that happens about once a month in Boston called the Boston Bike Party. I’m pretty sure we played frisbee again the next week, and said hi to each other, but it’s all hazy until a few days later, when another friend invited me to go on the bike party with her. I showed up, and she didn’t, but this guy from Frisbee found me looking lost and alone in a sea of strangers, and gallantly rode alongside me for the majority of the bike party route! I kept telling him he can go bike with other people, but he didn’t, or wouldn’t, and he’s since told me he knew if he did that I would leave (which is true). At that point I think we found each other on one of the socials and kept in touch, mostly around frisbee and bike stuff, while he traveled to a bike trip in Maine and I traveled on work trips to New York and Tanzania.
Boston Bike Party ride – September 8, 2017 (I’m so grateful my photos are dated!) This was before he found me looking lost in this huge sea of people.
A few weeks later we did an event called the Ramen Ride together. It was simply a large bike ride where participants rode from one ramen restaurant to another to try all the different options. It was a super fun event, and Gideon and I rode together the whole time, along with a few other friends in our group.
(For some reason I can’t add a caption under a slide show – these are photos from that Ramen Ride! November 4, 2017)
During the Ramen Ride I remember talking about how, after so much salty broth and delicious ramen, I needed some chocolate. I’ve got SUCH a sweet tooth which will be no surprise to anyone who knows me! Anyway, he suggested we go to Burdicks because they have some really, really delicious drinking chocolate. Of course! So we went, and Burdicks goes down as our first ‘date’ or, at least, the first place we intentionally went together, without other friends with us.
Burdick drinking chocolate really is straight-up divine nectar from heaven!
Gosh, it’s fun going through my old photos! After the Burdicks night, I don’t have pics for quite awhile… We went to the JFK museum together, we went to a live music event in Cambridge, we chatted a lot, we played Frisbee, we biked, it snowed and I put my bike away for the year, I traveled the country a bit and went home for Christmas that year, and we kept chatting.
It was after New Years of 2018 we sort of became a thing – we started going out a lot, and spending a lot of time together. The thing was, I knew at that point I was moving back over to Africa in April. And neither of us wanted to commit to a long-term relationship across an ocean! So this time was especially sweet, in that there wasn’t any “I wonder if this guy is the one?” thoughts – there was only really the fact that we really enjoyed spending time together, so we did, without the pressure of trying to figure out if it was meant to be forever. Because it wasn’t, it was only meant to be a few months! It was such a fun time, without the pressure of commitment, and certainly one of the most fun seasons of my life up to that point!
The night before I left to go to Colorado and then Seattle before moving to Liberia we watched the sunset together, and I cried – I so loved what we had, and at the same time, knew this was the right thing to do, to say goodbye, with the understanding and belief that I would never see him again.
Fast forward a few months – I was living in Liberia, and he in Boston. I had stopped chatting to him for awhile, wanting it to be a clean break, but after some time we were chatty again on the socials. Life in Liberia was challenging, especially during the rainy season, so somehow, and I can’t even really remember how, we decided to meet up in Paris for a week in August! It was the first time we traveled together, and I wasn’t sure how it was going to go…. and it was absolutely magical. Even through food poisoning and falling off a ladder (crying while laughing emoji!).
The Eiffel Tower is behind us – August 15, 2018
When we said goodbye, I managed to not cry in front of him but cried afterwards – it felt so magical, but I didn’t think I’d ever see him again after that. He didn’t want my life, and I didn’t want his; long-distance, across an ocean, just wasn’t an option, and I expected he’d meet someone else and I would be happy for him – I always told him, I wanted him to be happy more than I wanted him to be with me, so when he met someone else special, to please just let me know, and I’ll wish him all the best in the world.
But time marches on, and neither of us found anyone else, and I made plans to travel the States in November – I attended a fundraising gala for the Liberian organization I was working for in Seattle, visited friends in Colorado, and went home for Thanksgiving for the first time in almost a decade. When looking at flights, we figured out the best place for us to meet up was Detroit (how romantic!) so we did! and it was. We ate cider donuts and enjoyed the fall colors and stumbled upon the largest food-truck rally ever. Every place is an adventure with this guy!
A cider mill somewhere near Detroit – November 3, 2018
I went back to Liberia to finish up my work there, and had by then been offered the job in South Africa. I spent Christmas in France, and then we planned a really fun New Years in Montreal! Canadians sure know how to have fun in the middle of the freezing cold winter!
Montreal – New Years 2019
At this point I still very much said goodbye every time as if it was the very last time we’d see each other. We both agreed we’d be dating other people (and we both did) and also just agreed that if/when we met someone special, or started to talk about commitment, that we’d tell each other, and be happy for each other, and wish each other the very best. I knew I was heading to South Africa for the foreseeable future, and he wasn’t interested. It wasn’t yet meant to be. And I was fine with that – but also, every single time we were together, it felt magical. And it was, to some extent – we got to see the very best of each other, to be together for short periods where we had 100% of the others’ attention, often in romantic or new exciting places, and didn’t ever need to care what day-to-day life looked like, because we weren’t living it.
I traveled a lot in early 2019, while I was waiting for my new job to get the paperwork sorted so I could start (there was an extended government shutdown you might recall) and in between Costa Rica and Seattle and Minnesota and Hawaii and DC, I stopped in Boston a few times.
February 10, 2019
When I was in Costa Rica I got to know a really cool couple who were staying in the same place as I was (I was alone). I remember, for the first time, seeing them and really thinking, wow, how great it would be to have someone to share this with. Until then, I was quite happy to travel solo and explore the world, but something shifted in that moment. I think it was around then, or as a result of that experience, that I decided once I got settled in South Africa, I was going to be a bit more purposeful and intentional about dating, as I hadn’t really given it much effort until then.
Anyway, one of the trips of that season was to the Congo to run an anesthesia training, and on the way back I had a long weekend layover in New York City! It was glorious in spring, and we both love Broadway, so saw two shows in two nights! Magical.
Central Park, NYC – April 14, 2019
When I was finally able to go to DC in preparation and training for my new job, I also had a visitor. I can’t find a single photo of the two of us from that time in DC but we did go for cocktails at the restaurant on the roof of the Watergate hotel and snapped this photo of the sunset.
The Watergate Hotel – August 18, 2019
Then I moved to South Africa for good, and as I mentioned we both started dating, but after a few months of regular life on opposite sides of the Atlantic, we both had a hankering for another adventure, so we met up in Rome!
At the Coliseum, Rome, Italy – November 21, 2019
That was the last time we saw each other for quite a long time. Honestly, I really thought after that trip, I’d never see him again. I was dating in South Africa and settling into life there, and I knew he wasn’t interested in joining me. But by the end of 2020 we were both single, covid-weary, and desperate for another adventure, so we ended up in Costa Rica. This was the place I first distinctly remember thinking I wish I had someone special to share this with, and so it was extra special to share it with him.
Tamarindo, Costa Rica – December 18, 2020
After not being together for over a year, it was such a wonderful trip, and when I was back in South Africa I was determined to figure out how to convince him to join me – except I knew, deep inside, it needed to be him wanting to join me, not me convincing him somehow. So I just hoped.
A few months later, after wallowing a bit in loneliness, I started dating a South African guy that got pretty serious pretty quickly – to the point where we were talking about commitment. I knew I had to tell Gideon, as this had always been our agreement. Somehow I knew at that point I couldn’t do the long distance thing anymore, and was fully invested in seeing if this other thing would work. It was great, for awhile, as all new relationships are, but, unfortunately to me at the time but fortunately for all of us now, it didn’t last long.
I was a bit heartbroken at that point, having really thought maybe finally I had found my person to share life adventures with, and he turned out to be awful. After awhile I knew Gideon would never make me feel like this other guy did, and I missed him so much, and what did I have to lose anyway? We were basically broken up, so I might as well try. His work was in an upheaval, so I texted him:
The text I sent him end of April, 2021
And well, as you might have guessed, his answer was yes!
He almost immediately started getting rid of stuff and making plans to move to South Africa to be with me. I was already planning on being home in the States for a bit in May, as well as a surf trip to Costa Rica, so he joined me on that trip to talk through all the things we needed to talk through, and then when I came back to South Africa, he came with me.
Pan Dulce, Costa Rica – June 1, 2021
And for those who wondered, Jay loves him too.
My two best guys – June, 2021
Shortly after that, we decided it was time to say I Do, Forever. So this blog post has already gotten wayyyyyyy too long, so I’m going to save the actual wedding story, including answers to the most commonly asked questions, for the next blog post.
Let us begin 