Take it away, Mr. Trowbridge

I realize it has been quite some time since my last update.
For this I do apologize.
Things have been a bit busy. Not quite hectic like they were in Cape Town, but still busy nonetheless. This is mainly due to an immediate and steady influx of homework. Essentially we are trying to squeeze an entire semester’s worth of classes into five short weeks. My two courses here in Pietermaritzburg are far more intensive than they work in Cape Town and each assignment falls right on top of another.
I have more or less been doing schoolwork since we got off the bus here five weeks ago.
With the little bit of down time I have had, I’ve spent it completely absorbed in my beautiful surroundings here.
Basically what I’m getting at is this:
Climbing trees is far more important to me right now than any of you are.

In all seriousness though, the campus here at the African Enterprise Center is absolutely unbelievable. Anytime girls are showing up to class out of breath after being chased by a troupe of monkeys, you know you are in a special place.

I will have much more to say on Maritzburg soon.
But for now there is still too much to be said about Cape Town and my time there.

Several weeks ago our group went on a tour of the Cape Peninsula. Though it had certainly been highly advertised, at the time, we had still seen very little of the natural beauty surrounding Cape Town. In fact, aside from our historical excursion downtown and brief trips with Tom to Llandudno Beach and Kalk Bay, all of my time had been spent within a two-mile radius of Lansdowne, the industrial area in the Cape Flats home to Cornerstone.
That all changed on that Thursday afternoon.
By days end, we had seen over 150 kilometers of beautiful coastline highway, a half dozen whales, two oceans, and countless signs reminding us of the dangers of baboons.

Because Adam’s creativity with a camera lens is far superior—and more concise at that—to my long and painful butchering of the English language, I will let his talent narrate the journey:


Camps Bay. Just on the other side of Table Mountain. Simply gorgeous. We were to return.


Ostrich. We splurged a little. About half of the fries were consumed by birds. Apparently they are faster fliers than we are eaters. Seeing as we are not only Americans but also college students, this says a lot.


The clouds disappear at Cape Point and with bellies full of overpriced food we hike the trail to the lighthouse and the furthest corner of the African continent.


It was pretty—kind of.


After a bit of whale sighting we set our sights northward for Simon’s Town to see some penguins


Hey now.
I’ve seen Batman Returns.*
Lesson learned Tim Burton.
Lesson learned.
For me, this was close enough.


This, unfortunately, was not.


The day concludes in Kirstenbosch, a botanical gardens in Cape Town. Things didn’t look so bad there either.


Oh, Adam. I bet you just ate up all of Al Gore’s silly leftist propaganda.

Well folks, that’s all the visual stimulation I have for you now. I will soon be back to assault you all with the usual trite metaphors and obscure references to pop culture.

You will be begging for more pictures in no time.

*quote courtesy of Jordan Blackmer, 13 Oct. 2008.

The powers that be: Corey Taylor and gravity

Because, mother, I know you are wondering, yes, my sickness is gone.

About forty percent of my body’s recovery I attribute to the human immune system.
But the other sixty belongs to Corey Taylor.
Corey has been one of my closer companions on the trip thus far. Her friendship has been one of the many unexpected blessings here in South Africa.
Incidentally, she is also a walking pharmacy.
As one of the twelve nursing majors on the trip this semester, she comes fully armed with an arsenal of antibiotics, vitamin C, and an insatiable impulse to care for anyone who has the slightest bit of congestion. In fact, all of the nursing majors with us in South Africa—about a month removed from any sort of clinical work—have all been more than eager to scratch a similar itch. Never in my life have I had so many of my peers so interested in the color of my phlegm—which, by the way was for some time a disconcerting shade of yellow-green.
All of this to say, I have been very well taken care of.
So rest assured, my dear mother.

And now for something that is sure to make you a little uneasy all over again:

Two days ago I jumped off the largest bridge in Africa.

Yes.
I went bungee jumping.
Not just any bungee jumping though—the tallest bungee jump in the entire world.

216 meters.
Or for those of you who don’t speak metric,
705 feet—over twice the length of a football field—
The equivalent of diving off a seventy-story building
And living to tell the tale.

The decision to do so was actually rather impulsive. It was Wednesday morning sometime, the first day of our journey from Cape Town to Pietermarizburg. As we neared our destination for the night, the option to bungee jump was presented to the group. Like most spontaneous activities on the trip thus far (such as shark diving and abseiling at Table Mountain), the bungee excursion promised to be a once in a lifetime experience, yet also sorely out of my price range. With transportation, estimated costs were just under R800 or—for those of you who also don’t speak South African currency—somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred American dollars.
Because I have a bit of a guilt complex when it comes to spending any amount of money on myself, and because the exchange rate inflates prices—however reasonable—to daunting figures, without much deliberation, I quickly resigned to the fact that bungee jumping simply was not in the cards for me.

But then I figured, what the hell.
I’ll play the hand anyways.

The next day we woke up early to a beautiful sunrise on the coastline. After an amazing breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee, about a dozen or so of us piled in a van and headed for the continent's tallest bridge.
The drive alone is worth telling of.
The stretch between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, better known as the Garden Route, might well be the most beautiful span of road that this world has to offer. With a mountainous, sun kissed forest—dare I even say jungle—on our left and a powerful shoreline on our right, we snaked our eastward along the coast, bound for the infamous Bloukrans Bridge.

Just driving over the bridge can be intimidating enough.
But jumping is an entirely different thing all together.

Feet laced together, you approach the edge of the bridge with the most reluctant and cautious of steps. With toes resting just beyond the cold, familiar concrete and your arms outstretched to each side, the countdown begins.

Five seconds.
Five short seconds.
Perhaps, the five shortest seconds of your life.

Five seconds to summon every ounce of courage—or rather, lunacy—in your body.
Five seconds to abandon every natural human impulse to remain on solid ground.
Five seconds to lose your mind.

And then.
Despite your legs’ stubborn protest, you do it.
You hurl yourself head long into an 800 foot deep gorge.

The freefall defies any sort of explanation.
Imagine if you will, the feeling your stomach gets when you miss the last step on a flight of stairs...
Got it?
Now imagine missing five thousand steps in a row.
That may give you some idea.

The fall of course was exhilarating.
There is no denying that.
But because the feeling was so indescribable, so incredibly foreign, and in many ways a blur altogether, I find recalling the jump with any sort of accuracy more or less impossible.
And it’s only been three days.
Rather, for me, it is the ninety seconds I spent suspended alone above the Bloukrans River that will forever be ingrained in my memory:

Above me, through the rich vegetation at the bottom of the gorge runs, walks—no, crawls—the Bloukrans River, the espresso colored author of the beautiful canyon. On one end, the gorge gives way to the sea. On the other, it winds its way uphill, to the river’s source—a beautiful mountain range dipping downward into an ominous sky. As I dangle by my feet, the rope slowly untwists, giving me a panoramic view of everything—the gorge, the mountains, the sea, the river, and the sky. Despite the building flow of blood to my head, I cannot help but be completely absorbed by my immense and beautiful surroundings.
And I feel remarkably at peace.
As my momentum yet again overcompensates for the rope, it untangles once more, treating me to the same wonderful panorama over and over and over again:
The sky, the sea, the creek, and the gorge.
From the mouth of the river
To the delta.
Again to the mouth.
And back again.

You know, the world does not seem quite so strange upside down.
If anything, it is all strangely fitting.
Somehow.

Colors and my inability to describe them

I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Or when we hit Maritzburg.

About a week ago, it sounded like a good plan.
My body, however, has begged to differ.
And it’s begged hard.

To the best of my knowledge, I have a sinus infection.
It’s been pretty rough as of late. Antarctica’s still giving the coast a hell of a time, and the cold weather makes it increasingly difficult to get better. This last Thursday, for example, we had an all day excursion to Stellenbosch, a world-renowned wine country two hours outside of Cape Town, and supposedly one of the most beautiful places on the entire continent. Not that we would know. With another cold front and wall of heavy storms, Mother Nature decided to keep us guessing.

We did, however, have the privilege of dining at Moyo, one of the nicest, most famous restaurants in all of South Africa…

For future notice, unless I note otherwise, phrases such as “world-renowned” or “famous” should be understood as “places that rich white people from America or Western Europe in search of some authentic African experience come to be served and entertained by locals working to support families off of meager incomes.”
Just to clarify.

…Although either my state of health or guilty conscious kept me from indulging too much, the food was undeniably marvelous. There were so many new things to try—ostrich, springbok, some fish whose name eludes me—and so little room in my stomach. Curses to you, mile-long five-star buffet line! There was even a show to boot.

Just my luck, though, Moyo was outdoors. In all fairness, we were underneath a large tent, with heaters and blankets. But to someone with a fever and chattering teeth, it might as well be the Yukon.

You see, the thing about the cold here is that there is virtually no escaping it. Everywhere you go is cold. Inside. Outside. It’s all the same. In many cases, like mornings at Cornerstone, it is actually much colder inside than out. There are two contributing factors to this nation-wide phenomenon.

1. Every South African I have met is obsessed with air circulation. And I mean obsessed. It can be raining and freezing with brutal winds and every window in the house will be opened. At my home stay the difference between my bed and room temperature was just short of a thousand degrees. It took Jordan and I about a week to figure out that Denise had been re-opening our windows every night. I tell you the truth; South Africa will not rest until every single hallway in the country is a certified wind tunnel.
2. Heaters. It’s not that people don’t have them. They do. In fact, most every house I’ve been in has had the same little white heating unit in the living room. It’s as if the product became immensely popular at some point in the mid-nineties, sold in record numbers, and then suddenly everyone realized that they had no idea how to use it—like the old wooden Nordic Track skier that hid out in our garage until about 2004.

And its not like we’re just being California sunshine-spoiled babies about this whole thing. Denise and Jacob have both told me on numerous occasions that this winter has been the absolute worst they can ever remember. And they both have dentures!
I mean I hear people everywhere complaining about the weather.
And then they go home, open their windows, and invite sister winter and all her friends over for tea.
I tell you it makes no sense.

All of this to say that its been a bit of a struggle to get better. Being out al day in the bitter wind and rain on Thursday certainly didn’t help. I have more or less been shivering, sweating, and coughing up my lungs since Wednesday night.

There is however, a silver lining:
Although my dependency upon blankets has forced me to spend my last Friday and Saturday night in Cape Town cooped up in the dorms, it has finally given me the time to give you all a long-overdue update on life in Cape Town.

And I promise it is not all as grim as I have made it sound.
Actually, far from it.

There have been so many good things going on down here. Unfortunately, much more than I have time for. If there is one flaw about the Cape Town portion of our trip, it’s that there are so many things to do and see and so little time to do them all.
I have only three full days left in Cape Town.
Three big papers to complete.
About five people—including Tom—to spend time with before we go.
And dozens upon dozens of places and things that I am still dying to experience.

You understand how sleep could become such a low priority?

There are so many things to bring you up to date on: beach days, Cape Town nights, home brews in the townships, climbing Table Mountain, cross-dressing political comedians, penguins, more time with Denise and Japie, and a trip to the tip of Africa.

Things will slow down in Pietermaritzburg.
I promise.
I will do my best to catch up on everything.

But for now I will leave you with this:

A week of rain and wind and cold in Cape Town is absolutely, positively worth one day of spring and sunshine.
A million times over.
This morning I felt well enough to drive with Tom and some others through Cape Town to Camps Bay. The drive, which I have taken several times now, never ceases to amaze me. Though any type of description I give will be little more than cheap, trite substitute, for now these words are the best I have to offer. Please bear with them:
Colors are never so vibrant in any city in the world as they are in Cape Town. Of that I am convinced. When you take the road into town, hugging and climbing the short side of Table Mountain and Devil’s peak, it starts to hit you. The mountains are an incredible green—no, about six different shades of it. The sky ahead is the kind of clear and unadulterated blue that no other city in the world has the privilege of owning, and the wind has kept it that way. Table Bay appears on the right, where new fishing boats sit atop old shipwrecks and a rich yet violent history of world trade and colonization. The distant view of the western coast of Africa certainly doesn’t disappoint, but this early in the morning, with the glare of the sun, the water does not strike you just yet. Instead, as you round one final curb and descend, the skyline appears. Nestled between the bay and the mountains, downtown Cape Town is almost completely detached from the surrounding metropolis. Intimate, yet bustling, the dynamic reds, yellows, pinks, oranges, blues, and greens of the cityscape demand one’s attention, especially against its beautiful natural setting. Modest homes (in stature mind you, not price) ambitiously scale the side of Lion’s Head and Rump, painting the earth like Jackson Pollock on a green canvas. You drive through the city streets and climb once more through these neighborhoods, the sun batting her eyes at us like a love struck Minnie Mouse as we pass through the trees…

Now you have to understand that to fully experience the beauty of Cape Town, you must have absolutely zero idea of where you are. I’ll put it to you this way—exploring the landscape of Cape Town is a bit like watching a visually and emotionally provocative movie that you can’t look away from; the ending is heartwarming, fulfilling, and thought provoking, yet somehow completely unexpected (It’s a shallow comparison, I know, but it’s 1 AM here so work with me). The gist is this. Because the city is built on a mountainous peninsula, there is absolutely no telling, no way of predicting when the story will end and when you’ll meet the mighty Atlantic—or Indian—Ocean.

…So you’re winding through the trees and between the mountains, completely absorbed in the beautiful land and colors: the green of the trees and mountains, the blue of the sky, the God-knows-what-color of the homes. And then something else stops you dead in your tracks.
It is the ocean.
But not just the ocean.
The purest and deepest blue ocean you have ever seen in your life.
This is no Caribbean blue, mind you.
This is no South Pacific blue.
This is no warm water, snorkeling, Carnival Cruise Line, blue
This is a deep and mighty and majestic ocean blue.
The kind of blue the ocean would wear if he were a Crip.
Now I respect the work of the good people at Crayola, but even they have nothing on this blue.
It is something far beyond anything my limited vocabulary has the ability to describe.
Come to think of it, not even Webster himself could do it justice,

And so this is where I stop trying.

I apologize for my long-windedness.
But for those of you who know me well, it should hardly come as ay sort of surprise.

I will do my best to get back to you all in the next few days.

Love you all.

Tom from Durban

In case you all were wondering,
Yes, I do have some free time down here in Cape Town.
It’s all been a little complicated, however.
You see, the school has been extremely cautious—even paranoid—about our safety since we arrived last Saturday evening. That night, groups of students were each assigned a cultural mentor, a local student who is more or less paid to hang out with us Americans while we are in Cape Town.
Now don’t get me wrong.
All of them have been great.
Many of them are from countries all throughout Africa—Tanzania, Lesotho, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and others—and it has been so great to get to know a little of each of them.
It’s just that Cornerstone (the school where we are staying) has essentially used them as an excuse to not let us go anywhere on our own.
And I mean anywhere.
For the entire first week, Cornerstone was extremely uptight about Americans never being outside school grounds without a cultural mentor.
And I’m talking not even across the street.
For the time being, it was understandable.
We were all in completely foreign territory.
Knew absolutely nothing about the city.
And of course, being Americans, we stand out like Stephen Hawking in a barbershop quartet.

Yes.
I did spend a good five minutes finding a workable alterative to the tired sore-thumb-analogy.
I must say I am quite pleased with the result.

But back to cultural mentors.
By now, the time for handholding has come and gone.
We have been in the city for nearly two weeks and are fairly acquainted with the do’s and don’ts of South African culture.
But most importantly, we are all grown, at least semi-responsible adults.
Over half of the students on the trip are 21 or older.
And ages range all the way to 27.

I do understand, respect, and even—to an extent—appreciate Cornerstone’s concern for our safety.
But there comes a point where caution and over-protectiveness can become damaging to one’s experience.
And that’s been the story of Cape Town so far.
Well, maybe not the whole story.
Just an interesting subplot.

Still the results have been rather frustrating.
It forces us to travel most places in extremely large groups (sometimes as many as fifty strong), making the already-difficult task of inconspicuous living downright impossible.
And it has a habit of turning the smallest trip to a restaurant into a two-hour long headache.

All venting aside, I have been rather fortunate through this whole situation.
I—along with a small group of other APU students—have hit it off rather well with one of the cultural mentors here at Cornerstone, Tom.A native South African born in Johannesburg, Tom hails from Durban, and has the kind of accent that instantly renders him forty times more attractive to every American girl that crosses his path.
Luckily for Tom—as a cultural mentor—this path is crossed often.

Anyways, in addition to being great company, Tom has been an ambassador of sorts to world outside of Cornerstone College.
And let me tell you.
It is absolutely gorgeous.

Because of the amount of time I spend with Denise and Jacob—or as Jordan and I prefer to call him, Japie—I only have two excursions worth noting:

1. Kalk Bay:
My first sighting of the ocean came on Wednesday afternoon with the first decent day we had in Cape Town. It was a green, beautiful drive to this small town just south of the city. With only two hours of time, we meandered through small strip of antique stores right on the bay before ruining dinner with an ice cream cone that was impossibly out of season, yet delicious all the same. Adam took some great pictures of the scenery, and we all resolved to return on Saturday for a longer visit. These plans, however, altered as plans often do, and instead on Saturday we found ourselves at…

2. Llandudno beach:
Simply put, more beautiful than words can describe. The drive itself was breathtaking. Climbing a mountain road through beautiful wine country. Winding and falling and climbing once more. Around a bend. Nestled between two mountains. Just over a hill. You see it. The most beautiful blue ocean—the furthest corner of the earth.
As I said earlier, words cannot do it justice.
And nor could a picture.

In regards to the latter, however, I will try.
As I said earlier, Adam has been taking some pretty solid pictures.
I would love to be able to upload them to the website, but with the internet being so slow here, it does take quite some time.
But I will have them up as soon as I get the chance.

Talk to you all soon.

School (for lack of a better word)

After another busy day of meetings and cricket (not Jiminy but the sport) on Monday, Tuesday in Cape Town was an opportunity to settle into a far more familiar routine:

School.

Yes, at some point between time zones, amidst all my anticipation and excitement about the upcoming semester, a profound realization surfaced somewhere in my consciousness.
I might actually have to do a little bit of work.
Yes ladies and gentlemen. Unfortunately, the $30K worth of IOUs I pay APU every year isn’t enough to get you the kind of units that come pre-completed.
But in South Africa, where the dollar goes a little further, it comes pretty damn close.

So far, my classes this semester in Cape Town have been far different from anything that I have experienced in the States. Courses are very interactive, with professors preferring discussion format to lectures. Emphasis is placed on practical learning rather than mindless production—a very foreign concept to us American students.

It is quite an amusing process to see us operate in such an environment.
Quinton—our History of South Africa professor—will inevitably be assaulted with questions at the end of each class session:
Should the paper be single or double-spaced?
What font size?
Does it have to be Times New Roman?
How many pages?
How many sources do we need?
It seems to perplex him a bit.
To see us so obsessed with every little detail of every little assignment.
To see us displace learning and application because we are entirely consumed with our performance.
With our production.
With our grades.

Thank you America.

Anyways.
Another great thing about my coursework thus far is how much time we get to spend out of the classroom. All day Tuesday and Thursday every week is spent on excursions into the surrounding Cape Town area, seeing the sights and taking in the beautiful scenery.
This last Thursday, our group took the train into the city for guided tours of historical Cape Town. By then, the storms had cleared and the air had warmed, making for an absolutely gorgeous day in town.

Beautiful architecture.
Beautiful landscape.
Beautiful skies.
And although I usually prefer to explore on my own, the tour was actually highly informative and very helpful in gaining a more comprehensive view of South African history and culture.

The following day in the classroom, we had an opportunity to unpack our experiences in the city.
We discussed our observations on the culture, problems with poverty and inequality, and the role of race in South Africa, both past and present.
Gradually, it occurred to me just how much I had learned on our excursion.
That is, once we took the time to slow down and really talk it all over.

It was perhaps the most satisfying and inspiring class session I have ever attended.

While I certainly have a few minor qualms about the trip so far, all things considered, I am incredibly encouraged by the program they have running down here. There is a handful of really great people working very hard to organize something that has so much potential to be an amazing, one-of-a-kind experience.

That is, if we put forth the effort.

I think I just might.

Rain, Denise, and that man she calls "Japie"

As I may have already mentioned, Cape Town might well be the most beautiful city in the world.
If so, the reality escaped us entirely for our first three days here.
From the moment we stepped foot onto a soaked runway Saturday, the skies of Cape Town did absolutely nothing but
Rain
Rain
Rain.
As a rule of thumb, winters in Cape Town are usually wet and windy. But the storms that rolled through the coast this last weekend were particularly brutal, accompanied by the worst cold front the city has seen in years.

So long, summer.

However, because APU-sanctioned itineraries yield to no one—not even the most bitter of Cape Town winters—our program pressed on every bit as frantically as it began.

Within twelve hours, I was packed up again and headed for my home stay with an older couple in the area—the van Der Heydes.

Though I entered the van Der Heyde residence a bit nervous and uncertain of what to expect, both Denise and Jacob soon made Jordan (the other student I am staying with) and I feel right at home. In fact, it became apparent to us both soon after our first Sunday afternoon teatime with Denise that the following twelve evenings at home were to be a refreshing departure from the ever-chaotic large-group dynamic back at the college.

The change of pace has made all the difference.
I’ve been getting to sleep early.
I’ve been afforded a handful of essential alone time every day.
And I’ve been downright spoiled by Denise:

Every morning I have woken up to breakfast.
Every evening I have come home to a hot dinner.
And every night I go to sleep in a warm, cozy bed.

In addition to being unbelievably hospitable, my home stay parents each have their share of endearing qualities: Denise is the owner of a mysterious, elusive ethnicity and rolls her “r”s like there’s no tomorrow, and Jacob—who his wife lovingly refers to as “Japie”—has a habit of repeating things and clicking the gold retainer of sorts that sits behind his front teeth.

In all seriousness though, dinnertime conversations with Denise and Jacob have often been the most encouraging moments in my hectic, event-filled days. I cannot say enough good things about the two of them, or the entire home stay experience.

Much more on Denise and Japie later.

From LAX to Soweto

Before anything else happens, I must thank you all.
For all the encouragement
For all the affirmation
And for all the love
I have received from every one you—in one way or another—this past year or three or more.
Without it none of what I am about to tell you would be possible.
It has meant a thousand times more to me than I could ever tell you.
So thank you.
Every last one of you.

Now where to begin?

I am in South Africa.

I will be spending the next month or so in Cape Town, which may be just about the most gorgeous city in all the world.
Then I will be heading to the African Enterprise Center in Pietermaritzburg to carry out the semester through December 10.

Needless to say, it is all very exciting.
Even borderline overwhelming.

The journey began just last Thursday, with a 4 am bus ride to LAX. I said my goodbye to the states in typical American fashion with one last caffeine fix at Starbucks and boarded my first of three planes in two days en route to Cape Town. In part because my memory is hazy and in part because air travel is bad enough on its own without someone giving a painfully boring account of it, I will spare you all of the gruesome details of my travels. The gist is this: Twenty hours of flight, nine time zones, and one short layover later, my body surfaced somewhere in Johannesburg International Airport on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday, after a much-needed shower and night of quality rest, our group quickly repacked and headed for a day of sight seeing before catching an evening flight to Cape Town. With the Apartheid Museum and Soweto—a poor black township in the Johannesburg area famous for its role in the fight against the apartheid—on the list of destinations, the tour promised to be a rather solemn one. And of course, it delivered. It also, however, was far too brief to do any sort of justice to the apartheid’s indescribable significance in South Africa. In fact, it was ten minutes into a very inspiring short documentary about black civil uprisings in the 1980s that I was told we needed to get a move on for the airport.

It’s kind of like subtly mentioning to an eight-year-old during his surprise birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese boy that his favorite dog has died.

I mean, it’s really great to be playing Ski Ball and everything, but I wouldn’t mind addressing this whole dead pet business.

But I’m sure I’ll have all semester for that.

Another word on Soweto though before I move on:

Though some parts of the township have certainly improved since the end of apartheid, a great deal of the community still lives in extreme poverty. Crammed into tiny shacks, the poorest sections of Soweto are breeding grounds for infection and disease. HIV/AIDS blazes through the poorest townships in South Africa. As far as percentages are concerned, I have heard a wide range of numbers thrown into the conversation (anywhere between 30% and 75% of them will contract HIV). But no matter what the statistics, the notion of a growing AIDS pandemic in Africa is soon becoming a concrete reality in my mind.

And all I did was drive by in a cushy, air conditioned, tour bus.

It really speaks volumes to our disconnection with the level of poverty, disease, and injustice around the world doesn’t it? That we can come face to face with living hell in Africa and still be more or less consumed in our own little amenity-filled world.

It is a revelation, no, a reality that—I pray—will continue to confront me and even, at times, haunt me throughout my time here.

There of course, is still much more to write.

But I will save that for a later post.