The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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Hi everybody. I'm back from Rwanda, and this lump on my lap is my granddaughter.
Postpaleo, Boojum trees are cool! Also endangered.
Some months ago I went whalewatching out of Depoe Bay (Alaskan current, so cold, cold, cold) I finally felt good in shirtsleeves and stood in the bow urging the pilot to go faster! Everyone else stood huddled in coats. My husband went into the cabin to warm up and later told me there were people throwing up while I was shouting "Faster! Faster!" Then we got off the boat and I got hot again. Serotonin problem I think.
Anyway, I would love a tour of the boojum trees. I love walking among the redwoods.

Nan! Did you take that picture?

Hey Leila, what were you doing in Rwanda?

Oh, man, I had so much fun in Rwanda. I went with www.comeandseeafrica.org where you can see some pictures of what I did. I gave several kinds of mushroom kits to David Nahayo at Butare Christian Mission and lots of seeds. The abiu tree seeds I had sent him a few months earlier were six inches tall and so healthy looking! Marie Jeanne, who is getting a PhD in medicinal plants took several of my seeds too and showed me the demonstration garden and the University of Rwanda. I donated some books to her department (such as Mycelium Running and Edible Forest Garden and Work of Nature etc) and the grateful professors asked me to find information about jatropha and medicinal orchids and aromatic plants, and I got so excited because I love finding out such stuff. Then I got appalled. Why don't they already have that information? Because they don't have many books! and the internet costs over 200 dollars a month and is dial up and often interrupted. Why, why don't universities and organizations give them the books they need? So now I'm trying to rustle up 12,000 dollars to give to Books For Africa and they will ship a forty foot container of donated college books to Rwanda. I want to do it through www.africamissionalliance.com though I have trouble seeing how a forty foot long container is going to make it down that rutted dirt path. I can include the primary school books I've been collecting all year for that school and they will donate some books to other schools and the college books to the university and earn community goodwill.
Anyway, as we were walking through the garden, I bent down to pluck a nasturtium leaf to eat and Marie Jeanne screamed, "No! No!" She knew I was going to eat it because she had watched me eat the weed purslane. I got another leaf and said, Now, you're going to eat this one, and she ran away. I caught her and she ate it and did not die. Then she had an epiphany about how people in her country were starving and they were surrounded by food they did not recognize as food.
I saw the library I donated to one of two primary schools I am supporting there and they told me they were going to implement my idea of a library night for the community once a month and they hired a lady who had been trained in running Bible Clubs to do it. Whoa. After five kids I'm used to being ignored when I proffer ideas. So that was fun. Then David and I planted some moringa trees at the school grounds. David and I went to a number of widows' houses to see if they had correctly planted the moringa and orange trees he had given them earlier.
And I got to eat dinner with the foreign minister of Rwanda after the international student conference. And, and, and.... I had so much fun. I hope more people will come with me next time. Nobody has to do what I did, one can simply sit and smile through the student conference as I did last year and get to know some of the students and local pastors. Knowing them is how I did what I did this year. Oh, and I had some of my little books translated so I hope to publish the tiny tri-lingual primers this year. For some reason, there are no tri-lingual books in the tri-lingual nation of Rwanda. So I have lots to work on this year. Whoo hoo!

and the link says makes excellent banzai..damn, can't I ever have an original thought? The Wife says we have to get some seeds, which translates to we'll actually get some and I won't procrastinate over it for the rest of my life. Thanks Nan, I think I saw those in a little trip I took one time..and I never left my room, wild looking things they are, I like em.

Oh! And the boojum seeds are affordable. Well. But do they sprout? Keep us posted postpaleo.

BRAVO!! ! lelia, a wonderful story!! ! It's just plain heart warming to see someone put their money (figuritivly and not so figuritivly) where their mouth is. You rock and by god if there was a Cafe trophy for doing good deeds, you'd get my vote. You're a damn good good deed doer of most excellent proportions and that's all I have to say about that.

Oops. Xyia is being a baby and I need to take care of some wetness. Bye.

Hi, Leila! Hi, lump!

Loved reading about your Rwanda trip, Lelia.

Sartorial advice for duncansbass. My two bob's worth:

The bedsheets, even the designer ones, are best avoided because they will get caught on the edges of the Stargate as you are bolting through it.

Lip balm instead of lipstick. Way cheaper, and the better ones have sunblock in them.

could always go with "bullfrog" sunblock. that comes in a ton of neon colors these days, too.

"bullfrog" sunblock? They the same ones that made Tree Frog Beer?

Get caught on the Stargate? Do like the loggers do, cut the hem out of the bottom of your jeans. Remember when the frayed look for jean bottoms was the thing to do? That's were it came from. They get their britches stuck on a branch they could get killed, so they cut em out so they could get the leg free. Apply said technology to bed sheets, even the designer kind. Then of course it's kinda fun to just pop through the Stargate in all my splendid and not so splendid glory and just shout...HERE I IS!! It's good to at least carry your sheets with you when you do this, some places frown on that stuff and you still need em to get out that damned window again.

I defer to Postie's superior wisdom.

Wow Leila, what a great time you had in Africa. It looks like you have a busy time in front of you too, packing containers.

Jim (my husband) is involved in Rotary and they send containers to some very remote places. The locals carry the contents up steep rutted tracks to get to the villages.

Wait, there's a Stargate?

Where's mine?