East Coast USA

July 13, 2010


Our travels to visit friends and family before leaving for Uganda are finished. We arrived in Akron, PA yesterday evening to begin our leadership orientation with the Mennonite Central Committee. The air, heated to 84 degrees, was thick with moisture and draped itself across our skin and under every seam of clothing. The humidity increased until the air, no longer able to contain it, released it in the form of streaming rainfall complete with lightening and thunder… a good start for our orientation to Uganda which is one of the lightening capitals of the world.
We are staying at the “Welcoming Place” http://mcc.org/welcomingplace  at MCC in Akron. It is a very peaceful place with rolling, landscaped grounds and themed “houses. We are staying in the Mid-east/Europe house which has enough rooms to house 8-10 couples or families. There are four houses with the same floor plan, which includes a large community space with a kitchen, dining room and living room arrangement, and laundry facilities. There are outdoor or indoor fireplaces, also inviting community to gather. We share meals with people from the other houses at a central dining hall, and have our meetings in a large building with rooms to house various numbers of people.
We shared breakfast this morning with other guests from Indonesia, Nepal, Jordan, Iran and the Ukraine. Oh yes, there was also a guy from Ohio. We are so excited to be among such a diversity of people and languages again!

Our time with friends and family on the East coast was wonderful. Among the highlights were a visit to a Smithsonian Aeronautical Museum outside of D.C, a historic walk along the Freedom Trail http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/  in Boston, a weekend gathering in Brattleboro, VT for the Strolling of the Heifers http://www.strollingoftheheifers.com/v2/ , and a sailing trip on the U.S. Brig Niagra http://www.hnsa.org/ships/niagara.htm , an old Navy square-sailed ship that won a decisive battle in the War of 1812 with the British on Lake Erie. It was the same type of ship they used in the movie, Master and Commander…very cool! It goes without saying that the best part of the travels were visiting with friends and family in each of these places. It was a rushed agenda with just a day or two in each place, but what a wonderful way to spend our last weeks in the U.S. before leaving for Uganda. Our next entry to this blog will likely be from Kampala.