All is well

I had an amazing day!  But let me start at the beginning.  Last night and this morning were tough.  Watching the election results come in while I sat in my office all alone was not a fun experience.  It's the first time I've felt homesick since I got here.  I'm not even sure what I needed from home. I think mostly just to hear the actual voices of the people I love so I could be reassured that there are still lots of great things in the world and everything will be okay. Yeah...  I took the elections results pretty hard.  In fact, I woke up today feeling that sort-of deadness you feel when you're too sad to even know what to do with yourself.  

Sangeeta and I had some school visits planned for the day, so I got in the car in a daze.  We passed this road sign and I thought that it described my feelings perfectly.  I made the driver stop so I could take this pic (and I almost got nailed by a car in the act).

 Then, this amazing thing happened!  Sangeeta decided that we should make a quick change of plans so we could randomly stop by her old school. It was not great timing given how much we had to do today but I just went along with it.   When I first saw the place I realized that her old school was not any ordinary Fijian kindergarten.  This place was going to mean something very special to Samara, my Nepal student-travel partner in crime. I won't go into all of the details other than to say that this school is the reason why Samara needs to come to Fiji!  And our beautiful friend Gayle who lives in India as well.  The timing and place and all of the things surrounding the moment didn't happen by chance. Sangeeta had no idea that anything about the school would matter to me or anyone else.  And on such a day as this; God took the time to make sure to get me exactly to that place at that time.

After I took 5 million pictures and we talked to the Head-Teacher (principal), and made plans for placing some of our interns there in 2018, we headed off to our planned destinations for the morning.  Our drive took us right by the ocean and up into the mountain areas that I love so much.  In that moment I was filled with peace.

Disclaimer for my non-religious friends:  This is going to delve a bit into matters of faith, but I promise I won't stay there too long.

I had just been given a gentle reminder that a power much greater than us is still in charge, and not only that, but knows us individually and works in small ways in our lives every day. AND additionally, works through us to make some really beautiful things happen for each other. Too many things have happened too many times in my life for me to deny it.  Mary Oliver - the greatest poet in the history of EVER, who found a way in her amazing career to put words to all of the high and exalted feelings I feel when I am in the mountains - wrote this in one of her poems,

This is not fact;

this is the other part of knowing something,

when there is no proof,

but neither is there any way toward disbelief.

Thanks, Mary, for saying it better than I ever could always. Don't ask me to explain how this relates exactly to Donald Trump being the new President of the United States.  I'm not clever enough tonight to tie up all of those loose ends.  But, I do think it relates to the pic below.  This was the theme for the week in the second kindergarten we visited today. 

They teach this stuff in schools here!  I love it and I sure needed it today.  The icing on my attitude readjustment cake was just spending time with kids and the people who are willing to spend their lives broke and underappreciated just to teach them.  

I don't have any answers, but I can at least send you all my Love from Fiji!  

All is well!