Free!

I feel like most of this blog has been me talking about myself. It's weird, though, because most of the stuff I have learned has been about myself. That could be because being in a new place lets you see things you have never noticed before, or because the other stuff I am learning is so intense that I can't process it fast enough to really know what I am learning yet (that's pretty likely). This may sound like a lesson I should have learned in the seventh grade, but really, I am the only person I have to deal with for the rest of my life. My opinion of myself is the only one that is going to follow me around. I'm realizing that I actually have opinions and I'm fairly assertive - both qualities that I for some reason used to think didn't work with being "the nice girl" all the time. But my actions usually don't affect people as much as I think and their opinions don't follow me around. What I am getting at is that I think it's important to have a moral code that you don't compromise because you are afraid of what other people think of you. That sounds simplistic but I doubt that most people have ever really sat down and thought about what beliefs they have that they don't want to compromise for anything. I don't even know if most people (or if I) have things that they don't compromise. But...Midterms are over so I have time to think too much about stuff!

The other day I was riding the dala-dala watching everything go by out the window, and it hit me that people in the US (including myself) have this picture in their minds about poor children in Africa. I was watching the kids playing in the mud with ripped clothes and no shoes and realized, why would they wear nicer clothes or shoes while they were playing outside? Aid commercials show videos of kids playing in the mud and getting all dirty and we think, "Look at those poor uncivilized kids," but thats what kids do. They don't wear shoes or nicer clothes because it's hot out and it doesn't make sense if they are playing outside in the mud.

Midterms are over and we are going on our trip tomorrow!
Sarah