Cross-Country Cruisin' 2019 - Day 1

If you read my blog but don't follow me on Facebook, you may not already know that the kids and I are moving to Fairfax, VA, in the greater DC area, for a year or two. We're currently on our way across the country, seeing what and whom we can along the way!

Day 1: Bakersfield, California, to St. George, Utah
Miles: 412
States: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah

Here's Timothy's take on our first day of traveling.

Day 1: Driving (July 4)

After days of packing, the day came. We left just before 10:30 this morning. We had to do multiple sweeps before we were sure that we were good to go. I had made a playlist to listen to on the way to Utah. We had just started driving and listening to the playlist when Grandpa told us that there was a 6.6 earthquake in the Mojave Desert. We were heading there and had just missed it. The trip was going to take around six hours and for the first few hours, I was fine just listening to the music, but then the playlist ended, and I didn’t want to eat all of our food in one drive. After the playlist ended, it started to get boring because nobody wanted to play the games I wanted to play. We couldn’t find the visitors center going into Nevada, so we decided to try the one leaving Nevada. Unfortunately, it was closed for the 4th of July. We had just gotten back on the road when we realized we were now in Arizona. We hadn’t realized that we had to go through a little bit of Arizona to get to Utah. The scenery in Arizona was beautiful!! We passed through a mountain river gorge, and the view was remarkable.

Virgin River Gorge, AZ

We got to our hotel and went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. After that, we went swimming! We weren’t there for very long (Anna got cold), so we went to bed.

Broken-hearted

I want to be real. I want to be authentic. Today that means being raw and bleeding. I am caught amid anger and frustration and pain beyond description.

I used to be one of many white middle-class Americans who could afford to be apolitical. I didn't vote for Obama because I thought being pro-life was too important, but I couldn't vote against him because I knew he was a good president. Oh, what I would give to go back and vote for him not once but twice! I used to be able to afford to ignore the issues and go on living a quiet, unobtrusive life. That was before Trayvon Martin, before Weinstein, before a racist misogynist became president. The more time goes by, the less apolitical I can be, and the more angry and deeply wounded I become.

I wish I could put on a thick skin and ignore it all. I wish all of the events on the news didn't trigger the fire of emotion in me. I wish I were not terrified about my son's being the victim of police brutality. I wish I were not terrified of my daughter's being the victim of sexual assault from an acquaintance. But I am terrified.

I wish I could dismiss the stories of children being separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. I wish I could ignore the stories of people fighting for survival in Syria, where the U.S. has denied funding and aid. I wish I didn't care. But I do care.

I feel helpless and hopeless. I'm only one person, and the darkness around me is closing in, trapping me. Every conversation I have seems to deepen the despair. I've been called disrespectful, irrational, overemotional, rude, hypocritical, curt, sharp. It is true that I am most offensive when I am hurting most.

I admit I can't see it from your perspective. I don't want to. Even trying to think the way you do makes me feel physically ill. I am hard-headed and stubborn. I don't want to understand why you support our president. I don't want to understand why you loathe Colin Kaepernick. I don't want to understand how you can rationalize owning semi-automatic weapons. I don't want to understand how you can justify the confirmation of Kavanaugh. It's true; I don't want to understand. I don't want to climb inside your head and find common ground. How can there be any?

And I'm tired of the trite admonition to pray for peace, to let Jesus handle it all, to give it to God. As if that actually solved anything, as though Jesus were a fairy godmother brandishing a wand so we could all marry a rich prince. Praying for peace doesn't keep bad things from happening. Trusting in God won't keep Tim from getting shot by a cop for doing absolutely nothing wrong, or keep Anna from being assaulted by a drunk boy from school. Leaving it in God's hands means we are either despairing at effecting change or admitting we don't care enough to say or do anything.

My heart is full of despair, but I don't want to give up, and I do care. I want to be active. I don't know how yet, but if I don't get off my sorry little butt and get involved, I will continue to spiral down into the darkness of despair.

As for this blog, maybe it is time for it to die. Everything I want to say John Pavlovitz or Jen Hatmaker has pretty much already said. I can't be eloquent when I am so discouraged. Everything else in my life seems petty compared to the Big Picture. My words are gone. They've all dried up, and all I am left with is ashes.

Staying put

In the past 13 years, I have moved a lot. Really, a lot. I have said many farewells. I grew up on farewells, so in some ways, they're just a part of the life I've always known - more so than for most people, I think. But for the past 13 years, I've usually been the one doing the leaving. Somehow this has made goodbyes much more bearable, less traumatic. I couldn't say why, but it's much easier to say goodbye when I'm the one leaving, when the departure is at least partially my own choice.

For the first time in over a decade - maybe even since college - I'm saying farewells because I am being left behind. This time, the people I hold dear are moving on to bigger and better things, and I am stuck here without them. Don't misunderstand me: I am thrilled that the ones I love and respect have opportunities to grow and enrich their lives. I am thankful and excited for them. I would not want them to stay here without room to grow. But the moving on, as always, is bittersweet. And because if has been so long since I've been the one left behind, my heart is beginning to break in a way that had become almost entirely unfamiliar to me. It has been so long that I honestly don't know how I'm going to cope.

Until the final farewells are said, I will just have to treasure each moment, each laugh, and steel myself for the coming emptiness, the impending silence.

For silence will fall.

A taxi to market

One Saturday, Mom tells Lisa and me that we're going downtown to the market to buy cloth to make us each a Nigerian outfit. We have to put on long skirts and sneakers, she says, because we'll be doing a lot of walking. 

"Are we walking all the way downtown?" I ask, my eyes wide. Mom smiles and shakes her head. 

"No," she says, "Aunt Janne is going to show us how to get a taxi." I have never ridden in a taxi before and start to skip around the house, putting a long skirt on over my shorts and tying on a pair of sneakers. I hate skirts, but I must wear one whenever I leave the compound—except when we go to school. The sneakers are still mostly new, and I wonder if they will need to last me for the next four years until we return to the U.S. 

Aunt Janne knocks on the screen door, and we grab umbrellas and start down the dirt road toward the compound gate. Aunt Janne isn't my aunt; she is our Australian neighbour, Shelley's mum. But here, the children call all adults except teachers "aunt" and "uncle." Shelley and Kimmie are going downtown with us, too. It's a 10-minute walk to the gate, skirting potholes and puddles, and I am hot by the time we greet the guards in Hausa and move onto the road that passes by the hospital compound where we live.  

We turn left, and my senses are assailed from all sides. Horns honk from passing cars and trucks. Reggae music blares from a shop across the street. (The electricity must have come back on since we left our house.) Exhaust clouds around us as we walk along the muddy shoulder toward the roundabout where our road meets the road that runs south into town. Cars here don't have to do emissions tests, apparently, and I cough on the fumes. There is colour everywhere: grass greener than I ever saw in California, brilliant azure sky, and vivid—even garish—patterns in women's clothing.We veer left at the roundabout, and I see a gaggle of green cars parked in a grassy area, each with a wide yellow stripe painted horizontally all the way around the car below the door handle. I'm reminded of making a similar stripe while dyeing Easter eggs by putting a rubber band around the egg before dipping it. Aunt Janne tells us that taxis from different states have different colour patterns. Taxis from Kano, for example, are blue with a white stripe. 

Aunt Janne walks up to a parked taxi, an old Peugeot 504 station wagon, and negotiates with the driver. I hear her say, "Terminus" but am not sure if that's a place or a price. The taxi looks a lot like the station wagon we used to own in California, except it's more beat-up. The paint is scratched in numerous places, and I see dents along the passenger side. The back bumper is twisted and rusty. Aunt Janne gives the driver a few notes of currency—naira—and we clamber in. There is a row of seats behind the bench seat that I would normally call "the back seat." One of the back seats pushes forward with the lifting of a little handle, and Shelley and I climb in the way back. Aunt Janne sits in the front seat, and Mom, Lisa, and Kimmie sit in the middle seat. Aunt Janne explains that normally the taxi driver would stop along the way to pick up more clients, but she has paid up-front for a direct ride to the centre of town, Terminus. 

The taxi looks older on the inside than it does on the outside. The seat cushions beneath us are torn in several places, and I can see the springs inside. The windows are cracked—the windshield looks almost shattered over in the lower right corner. The doors are missing panels to cover their innards, leaving metal rods and gears exposed. The driver's side back door has no handle on the inside at all. The upholstery smells odd. Kimmie scrunches up her nose and tells me it's a goat smell. Aunt Janne shushes her as the driver shifts gears and we leave the car park. 

It isn't a long ride, but I have never been this direction in town before. Most of the women we pass—even the young girls my age or smaller—wear a head-covering that covers all but the face. In other parts of town where I've been, the women cover their hair with an elaborately tied piece of colourful cloth. Here, however, the women's heads and shoulders are completely covered by a single draped solid-colour cloth—grey or white. It reminds me of pictures I've seen of girls in Saudi Arabia, except the girls' faces are visible. I wonder about this but am too shy to ask. We pass a man pushing a wheelbarrow that is full to nearly overflowing with huge white sacks. Another man pulls a two-wheeled cart filled with 10-gallon plastic water jugs. At an intersection we are passed by a motorcycle carrying a man and two children—one in front of him and one behind. None of them are wearing helmets. I can't believe how many people are on the streets. I'm sure there are more people on foot than there are in cars. 

And then we are at the roundabout they call Terminus. It's jam-packed with vehicles—taxis like ours, vans big and small, bicycles, big trucks, motorcycles, and private vehicles. The driver pulls over, blocking two other cars, and Aunt Janne gets out and opens the back door. We clamber out, and she hands the driver another note.  

"Mun gode," she says, nodding her head, and we move back from the taxi. 

"That's Main Market over there," Aunt Janne tells us, gesturing with her chin towards a huge multi-story building to our left. "Stay together." We start walking in that direction, Shelley, Kimmie, and I linking arms as we follow our moms and Lisa through the crowds. There are just so many people—men, women, children, old people, young people, all shifting and cutting each other off. I've lived in Los Angeles, but I've never been downtown, and this is new to me.  

We walk a short way and then turn to cross the intersection diagonally, first to the roundabout and then to the market building corner. There is no traffic light, no crosswalk, no policeman to direct traffic. It is a free-for-all, every-man-for-himself fight against traffic. Fortunately, Aunt Janne is a pro and makes sure we all cross safely amid the tide of people and push of cars. The traffic is actually an advantage, as it's easier to pick our way between cars going only 5 miles an hour than dashing between speeding cars. Still, I'm relieved when we reach the opposite corner without injury.  

This is where the fun really begins. 

Dear Jenny - September 28, 1991

September 28, 1991

Dear Jenny,

How are you? Did you get my last letter? We haven't gotten any mail yet, but Mom says it may be weeks before we get letters. I hope one is from you!

Ruth, Shelley, and Jessica took me exploring around the compound today. Our houses are all pretty close together. There isn't a street like in the States. It's just a dirt road all the way from the front gate back into where the houses are. Right now the road is awful because of the rainy season making potholes, but Jessica says it's not so bad in the dry season.

So first they took me around all the houses, which we've done before. But, like, I never knew the Truxtons had a little pool! It's like a cement wading pool. I wonder if the kids used to play in it when they were little. They're all too big now. Ryan is the youngest, and he's in 6th grade. They have a lot of pine trees in their yard, which is huge. We've played hide-and-seek in there a couple times. But we have to make sure not to trample the flowers. All the other houses have yards, too, but no one has fences. There's a wall around the whole compound, but that's it. That wall is weird because it has broken glass on the top of it--I guess to keep people from jumping over. But the girls showed me where there's no glass. They said sometime when there's a polo game, maybe we can climb up and watch. (I don't know what polo is, but one wall of our compound is up against the polo field.) There's a mango tree on this side and another one on the other side, and they said sometimes they climb over that way.

Some of the neighbors have chickens. We didn't get close, but I could hear them clucking. The girls told me that the other people who live in our row of apartments are Nigerian doctors or other medical people who work at the hospital. I'm sure I've met them but don't remember any of their names except someone named Mary.

You have to cross a tennis court (or go around it) to get to our new house from the others' houses. It's a duplex like our last apartment in L.A., but the houses are side-by-side instead of one on top of the other. Our neighbors are the Yohannas, and they're Nigerian. The dad is a doctor, and the mom is a nurse. Their little boy is a nightmare. He's a bit younger than us girls and teases us all the time. I don't know many of the other neighbors. Their kids don't play with us, and they don't go to Hillcrest. One of them has a dog named Bingo, like in the song. His ears are always bloody and chewed up, and there's flies around him all the time.

There's a big field away from all the houses, and on the other side is where the wrecked car is. It was a white VW bug, and it's all squashed up in the front. It's just sitting there, and weeds are growing around it and stuff. Shelley says the lady driving it was killed, and she was pregnant, and they have her baby in a jar in the lab in the hospital. Yuck. She said she'll take me to see it sometime, but I don't think I want to see it.

Near the wrecked car are a couple buildings that are like ghost buildings. There isn't any roof, just walls and empty windows. There's broken bits of wall and stuff on the ground, no furniture or anything. But it's quiet. And there's plants growing inside the buildings. It was super creepy.

Then we walked down to the hospital, but we didn't go into any buildings. It smells funny down there anyway.

We had to run home because it started to rain while we were at the hospital. Man, the rain here is really hard! One time it even hailed! There were little balls of ice on the grass, and the pounding on the roof was even louder than usual. I'd never seen hail before!

Mom is calling me to go set the table. Write back soon!

Love,
Sara

P.S. Dad says I can't go play in the field anymore or go down to the abandoned building. He says there could be snakes. The grass in the field is really tall, like past my knees. I don't want to get bitten by a snake, that's for sure.

April

It's the middle of the afternoon, but I sit in a darkness that has moved in, creeping like a spider in the shadows. The brilliant sunlight from earlier has dissipated, dimmed, diminished, and the darkness is here. I sit as still as possible, holding my breath. The teacher lectures on, writing on the chalkboard, explaining the lesson, but we are all still, waiting. An all-too-familiar aroma wafts in through the open windows and door. It is the aroma of expectation, of hope. The teacher pauses, breathes it in, and smiles. He walks to the open door and peers out. In two more steps, he is at the edge of the cement veranda. I cannot see his face, but I expect it looks a great deal like mine, like all of our faces.

The sheer curtains start to dance, feather-light, to the exotic melody we can only hear with our eyes. Goosebumps rise on my arms. A pile of quizzes on the teacher's desk begin to flutter at the edges. He steps back inside and moves a book on top of the pile just as the top quiz begins to blow across the desk. He returns to the black board and places the chalk back in the board gutter. As he begins speaking again, we hear the subtle difference in his voice: a hesitancy, a faltering. A waiting.

Then we hear the single tap over our heads. Just one tap. Then another and another, slowly at first, then tapping a rhythm above us. The teacher stops talking, and his smile becomes more pronounced. We are not listening to him anymore. Some of us look out the windows and door; others just look up. I let out my breath and intake a fresh, deep breath. 

"Go on then," the teacher says. We leave our seats in a jumble, crashing into each other and spilling out of the open door. Some stand tentatively on the edge of the veranda, holding their hands out to where the roof edge overhangs several inches. Their eyes light up as their hands become splashed with random drops. I jump off the veranda onto the grass and raise my face to the sky. I remove my splattered glasses and open my mouth, stick out my tongue. One drop, two, three. I close my mouth, satisfied. 

From the doorway, our teacher calls us back inside. The tap-tap on the roof is becoming louder as we file back in, laughing and chatting. Within seconds of our taking our seats, the teacher can barely be heard over the pounding on the roof. He turns on the overhead lights and loudly asks us to read an assignment in our textbooks.

Ten minutes later, the pounding has ceased. There is no longer even a steady tap-tap. As the bell rings, we gather our belongings and file outside. Small puddles have formed on the sidewalks, and the grass is wet and sparkles in the breaking sunlight. But the parched soil still remains parched, waiting to receive its libation in coming months. 

It could be days or even weeks before another rain, and probably two months or so before daily thunderstorms. But we smile and inhale deeply, as though a curse has been lifted. The first rain signals soccer season, the last quarter of the school year, and upcoming summer vacation. But it also signals a season of green and growing things, mangoes and roasted corn, new life. And we all feel just a bit more alive today.

Dear Jenny - August 30, 1991

August 30, 1991 

Dear Jenny, 

Sorry, I meant to write earlier, but I just forgot. It's Friday, and I've been in Nigeria a whole week now! We're not in our new house yet, but it still feels like home here. Right now we're staying for a few weeks in an apartment-kind-of-place that's at the end of a low row of houses. It even has a back door, which is really cool. Shelley calls it "Auntie Lenora's house" because another lady missionary named Lenora used to live here. Shelley said that one day a man came in the back door and stole Auntie Lenora's hot iron. She said Auntie Lenora ran after the guy but couldn't catch him, that he jumped over the wall. But the next day someone came in to the hospital with a burn on his hand from an iron!  

We had chapel at school today. Chapel is when all the kids in the elementary school go to the auditorium—which is shaped like a church, and they call it the chapel—for a Bible lesson. There's a man who's kind of like the pastor except they call him the chaplain. His name is Chaplain Smart (seriously), and his son Jeffrey is in the other 4th grade class. Anyway, we sang some songs, and Chaplain Smart gave a little Bible lesson. The singing was fun, but the lesson was kind of boring. I guess we do it every Friday, but Shelley says sometimes they do something different, like a skit, so it's not always boring. 

Oh, and we also have Bible class at school. Isn't that weird? We have to memorize Bible verses and have to know all the books of the Bible in the right order and everything. It's like Sunday school except during the week, and you get graded on the work! Mom says it's because it's a Christian school. She says we have to actually pay to go to school, not like in California. She says only the rich Nigerians can send their kids to our school (which is called Hillcrest, by the way), which is why there aren't as many Nigerian kids as other kids. We do have a bunch of Nigerian kids, but none of our neighbors from our compound go to Hillcrest. It's funny because we're not rich, but I guess compared to a lot of people here, we seem rich. 

In my grade there are people from all over the world. It's so cool! Shelley is from Australia. Louisa is from Denmark. Debbie is from Ireland. Sophia is from, I think, Lebanon. (Mom says that's in the Middle East, where they speak Arabic.) Sunipa is from India. Laura B. is from Canada. (There is another Laura, and she is from America. There is also another Sara—can you believe it? Without an H! She's half-Canadian and half-American.) Shelley says sometimes they have a food fair later in the year, when they have people bring food from their countries. It sounds gross, but she says people dress up in clothes from their countries, too, which is really pretty. 

Another weird thing I found out this week is that some of the kids in my class don't live with their parents. I mean, that happened in L.A., too, but here I mean some kids live in hostels. Ruth says they're like college dorms, except for kids. They call it boarding. Have you heard of that before? So their parents live hours and hours away, and the kids only see their parents on vacation and for special occasions and then for the summer. Can you believe it? I can't imagine not living at home. Becky is a new girl in my class who lives in a hostel with her brother and sister, who are in 6th grade and 8th grade. Her hostel is called Mountain View, and the people who take care of her and the other kids are called houseparents. She says it's not so bad. But I don't think I would like it. There are lots of hostels, I guess. One of them is here on the compound, but all the others are somewhere else in town, and they're run by different missions. Our mission doesn't really have one, I don't think. Meaghan lives in a building that used to be a hostel, but her family is the only one there right now. It's called Niger Creek. 

Oh, I forgot to tell you last time that Lisa, Jon, and I all go to the same school! It's one big school for everyone, 1st grade to 12th grade. We're in different buildings, but it's all one school. Isn't that funny? So when you drive on the compound, there's a big parking lot on the left. The chapel is way up the hill on the left. The basketball courts and the playground are kind of in the middle. There's a swingset and see-saws by the music building, and that's by the 1st- and 2nd-grade building. Our building's on the other side of the playground. Then the 5th grade building is way off on the left. They have their own four-square and tetherball and a volleyball net—oh and a little soccer field or something. Behind our building is the middle school building, which is two stories tall. That's where Jon goes to school. The high school building is all the way on the other side of the basketball courts. I haven't been over there yet. And there's a gym, which is on your right when you drive onto the compound. And a big track. Ruth and Shelley say we have to run a mile for P.E. every semester. Can you believe it? A mile?! 

Do you know what a compound is? I didn't until this week! A compound is a group of buildings all surrounded by like a fence or a wall. We live on the hospital compound, which is really big and has the whole hospital and a bunch of houses for the doctors and other people who work there. There's one main gate where we go in and out. There's another gate, too, closer to the houses, but it's locked all the time. Jessica says it used to be open sometimes, but it isn't anymore. The girls are going to take me exploring this weekend. They told me about an old car wreck where a lady died a long time ago. Sounds spooky. 

My hand is getting tired. The pencils here aren't very good. They keep breaking. Oh, and Mom says letters I mail may take a month to reach you. So when you get this one, don't worry if the next one takes a long time. I've written my address on the back of this paper. I don't know what PMB stands for, but I guess it's like a P.O. box. Your letters may take forever to get here, too. I won't worry, but please write! 

Love, 
Sara 

Dear Jenny - August 26, 1991

August 26, 1991 

Dear Jenny, 

I wanted to write to you as soon as I got home from school. I started 4th grade today. School started a couple weeks ago, so I'm a little behind. My teacher is Miss Greenshields. She is super tall and is from Scotland! I don't think I've ever met anyone from Scotland before. She seems okay – kind of strict but nice. My class is bigger than Mrs. Ferrin's last year, but I don't know how many of us there are. Maybe 20? The desks are wood, and they open up just like the ones you see in movies of those one-room school-houses! People have scratched names and initials in the desk top. There's no one at the desk next to mine. Ruth said that there's a boy supposed to be coming back from furlough soon. His name is Micah, and he's going to sit there. She says I’m lucky because he's cute.  

We had corn flakes for breakfast, but they tasted different from American corn flakes. The milk is the same, though; it's the powdered stuff Mom sometimes made at home. They don't have a lot of cereals here, Ruth said, so I don't know what we're going to eat for breakfast. Oh, and someone gave us some oranges to eat for breakfast, and they were green, not orange – and sour! Ugh. I miss oranges. 

Anyway, Ruth came this morning to get me to come wait for the bus. It sure wasn't like the bus Jon and I rode to school last year! It was just a big van, and it looked like it was falling apart. But I thought it was super cool! Shelley says sometimes the big kids ride to school earlier, but today we all rode together. There was Jenny, Martha, Ryan, Jessica, Seth, Claire, Simon, Jodi, Shelley, Ruth, Ellen, Lisa, Jon, and me, so it was pretty full. Simon gets to sit in front because he's the oldest boy and pretty tall. (He's in 9th grade and has long hair. It's really pretty, but he's a boy, so it's kind of weird. Oh, and he has an Australian flag painted on a whole wall in his room. It's so cool!) There are no seatbelts in the bus, just rows of seats. And something called a jump seat that collapses and is pushed up so people can climb in the back. And Claire sat facing the back of the bus, right behind the driver's seat. I think she's in first grade, and she is just like the Energizer bunny – bouncing and talking all the time. She's really cheerful. I like her. 

It takes about 15 minutes to get to school. (Jon timed it on his new watch.) First we have to drive down to the hospital gate, where Claire says she waves at the guards every time. (There's a metal pole the guards can pull down or let go up to open so cars can go in and out.) She says they don't really speak much English. Oh, and when we were all in the bus, one of the big kids told the driver "let's go" in Hausa. It sounded like "moo tah fee." I guess the driver doesn't speak much English either. 

There are no sidewalks on the way to school, so it would be hard to walk. But there are people walking anyway, just in the mud. I guess it rains a lot here because there are puddles everywhere, and it's rained every day since we came. I feel bad for the people walking in the mud and getting splashed by cars. I wonder why there are no sidewalks. There's only two traffic lights between home and school, but I don't think they work. Or maybe there was no electricity. Shelley says there's no electricity a lot. She says sometimes there's a policeman who stands in the intersection and directs traffic, but there was no one there today. Just a lot of cars. 

Anyway, maybe tomorrow I'll tell you more about that drive. I wasn't really paying attention today. I was too excited to go to school. 

There are two 4th grade classes, and they're right next to each other in a building with the 3rd grade class. It's so weird being at this new school compared to last year! You know how 74th Street was just one big building and a blacktop playground, all surrounded by a fence? My new school is so different!! There are all sorts of little buildings spread out over a big area, with lots of grass and trees. There's a big playground and basketball courts, and even a cement ping pong table with a little roof over it! In my building the 4th grades are on the left, and the 3rd grade is on the right, and there's a computer room. The other 4th grade teacher is Miss Lewan, and she's from Canada. The bathrooms aren't gross like at home – no spit wads and no graffiti. And there's an actual towel to dry your hands on instead of paper towels! 

I don't know most of the kids in my class still, but they seem nice. There's a girl in the other 4th grade who is also in our mission, and Shelley and Ruth introduced me today. Her name is Meaghan. She used to live in Liberia but had to leave because there was a war. Do you know where Liberia is? I didn't, so I had to ask my mom. It's also in Africa, not too far away. Anyway, Meaghan is the youngest in her family like me, and she's from Ohio.  

There isn't a cafeteria at my new school. I found out at lunch. There are some picnic tables and stuff, kinda spread out, but most of the kids just eat on the steps or the sidewalk. There's a little wall thing near the 4th grade building where we ate lunch before we played on the playground. I guess everyone has to bring their own lunch because the school doesn't sell lunches like at home. Shelley gave me a candy to try called a Buttermint. It's really yummy, not like anything in America. I had peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and a banana. I guess bananas grow here, but they're smaller than American bananas. Taste just as good. 

Let's see, what else? Oh, we have P.E.! Last year I think we maybe had P.E. once all year with Mrs. Ferrin. We just went outside and played dodgeball or something. But this year we have an actual P.E. teacher, Mrs. Seabourne, and you have to wear different clothes on P.E. days. I didn't know that, so I was just in my regular clothes. You're supposed to wear a white shirt and red shorts. Shelley says those are the school colors. And we have to actually do sports and stuff. I'm already dreading our next P.E. day. I hate sports. 

There was a big storm after lunch, with lightning and thunder and everything. Miss Greenshields had to be really loud for us to hear her because the roof is tin, and the rain makes a huge banging noise. And the windows aren't like windows in America, so some rain gets in. They're rectangle pieces of glass that overlap a little bit and can be opened or closed. Mom calls them "louvered," but I don't know what that means. Anyway, even when they're closed all the way, they're not really closed, so the rain can come in when the wind blows.  

Anyway, I've got to do my spelling homework before Mom will let me go out and play. Bye for now. 

Love, 
Sara