does africa know a song of me?

Two more things I should mention: Keep checking back, because it might take me a bit to get all my photos up on the site. Secondly, I can't take credit for all of these pictures... Yewo taonga chomene to medical students that passed through Ekwendeni while I was there and allowed me to download their photos.

Not all of them, of course... but some of them are now available at photos.yahoo.com/lauracakes1. So peruse and enjoy! Sorry that I can't put captions with them; you'll just have to figure it out yourself :).

How strange it is to be home again! So many people, so many cars, so many lights, so many buildings. But... so many friends, so many hugs, so many smiles. My friend Heather told me, during my last week in Malawi, that my emotions must be feeling raw... And indeed, I think that is the perfect word to describe it. I cannot even begin to put into words the things I have felt in the last few weeks. But I know that I am glad to be home and that I miss Malawi. One of the strangest realisations I had was that very little has changed around Toronto in the past 10 months, but a lot has changed within me. I think the challenge for me will be not just fitting back into the place that I held in this part of the world 10 months ago, but using the things that I have learned in Malawi to live more consciously here. Hard!

Yes, I arrived yesterday safe and sound (with all of my luggage, even!), but I must say that I am not very impressed with the snow that is falling right now :). But it is nice to be back in my home and native land.