Hello everyone!

 So, Kenya and Tanzania. People keep asking me "how was your trip?!" It's so sweet and feels nice when people ask but I'm having a hard time answering them. I have so many answers to the question. I often find myself wanting to say "How much do you want to know?" or "How much time do you have?" or "Do you want the feel-good version or are you really asking?" It was everything. All the feelings happened. It was amazing, challenging, exhausting, fun, scary, incredible sense of community, deeply sad, inspiring, tiring, emotional, everything. You name it, I felt it.  This post will be like an overview of the trip and then subsequent posts will be more specific. My own processing of everything is still happening so the content and how I categorize them is likely to shift as I sift through my thoughts :) You have been warned.

  We did a lot of moving around on this trip. The longest we stayed in one place was 4 nights, most places we stayed for only 1 or 2 nights. We didn't stay in every place we visited, some places we were there for just the day. In Kenya we landed in Nairobi and visited Karen, Naivasha, Kibera, Namanga, and Amboseli National Park. In Tanzania we were in Arusha, Moshi, Dar es Salaam, and Bagamoyo. Some days we traveled the whole day but not many. Most days consisted of workshops in the morning and skill shares in the afternoon. Twice we worked children from the community. Workshops mainly involved the group from the states and the 6 Kenyan and Tanzanian partners.
 Some of the skill shares were bookmaking, dyeing with natural dyes, printmaking, and break dancing. Some of the workshops were mandalas and engaging with art, violence against women, grief and loss and creative writing, intro to dance therapy...there were several more but those are what come to mind right now. 

At night we would go to dinner and after dinner we usually hung around the hotel and talked, drank, and enjoyed each other's company. Sometimes people would turn in early or want to have some alone time. I found myself doing both. I had a very difficult time emotionally keeping up with everything that was happening. I tend to be a deep processor and need the time and space to do that, but usually that was just not something I could fit in. It was a challenge to manage everything. I was going a lot of writing and a lot of drawing. Looking back I don't think I was really processing though, I think I was just trying to contain it all so I didn't have an avalanche of epic meltdowns.

Whether you choose to or not, you get really close to the people you are traveling with. I have found this to be one of the many gifts of this trip but also one of the things that made me have a really hard time. I made several friends who I am really excited to be colleagues with and see over the years at conferences or trip reunions and stuff. There is definitely something to be said for a shared experience of a trip like this one.

 Well, I think that's what I have right now. There will be a series of posts on the trip so follow along if you're interested. I'll end with some pictures :)

Somehow this girl and I managed to almost miss several flights over the course of the trip, including our very first one from STL to Chicago. I'm still not sure how we made it all the way there and back. 

Great Rift Valley 

Great Rift Valley 

STL girls at the Great Rift Valley 

My first daytime view of the Indian Ocean from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 

Bagamoyo, Tanzania 

Due to her youngest sibling status, we called her baby Hannah. Best anthropologist I know! 

Victor. 

Beach photo op. Love everyone pictured. 

Grace. A force to be reckoned with, easily! 

Just trying not to lose our boarding passes. 

Too much fun at the airport and on the plane from Dar to Kilimanjaro. 

Namanga, Tanzania. This is a really typical picture of us. 

Walk to dinner (roasted goat, it was delicious) in Arusha. 

Amboseli National Park 

Amboseli National Park 

  So for the last two days of the trip there was an optional safari. Not everyone from our group took the option but many did! Here are some pictures and stories from that! We saw lots of animals, here some of my better pictures. These are from Amboseli National Park in Kenya. It was absolutely beautiful there. I've said this before (and probably will continue to say it) but the pictures don't do it justice, the capture about 2% of what the actual experience was like. Bundi, our driver, did an awesome job driving us and finding animals. He is really knowledgable and I enjoyed listening to his factoids!

These are elephants! (From really far away)

This guy turned and gave me a great shot! 

Elephant family! 

The elephants were amazing and so fun to watch. It felt almost magical to be so near them.

The giraffes were very cool also. They seem to very curious animals. When we pulled up they all got very still and just kind of watched us for several minutes. If you look closely on the left you can see a little guy peeking out from behind his mom/dad. He was my favorite! 

This baboon had a little baboon baby, he was sooooooo cute! 

This baboon baby was slightly older but still super cute!

Hippo!

I don't remember what this is, but I thought the face he or she was making was hilarious. 

Ali in her Safari muumuu and hat, ready to see some animals. 

Katie and Ali cracked me up pretty much the whole time :)

And the fierce lion made me laugh as well. 

Ali spotted a lion. 

Meeting this one was one of the highlights of the trip! 

We rocked the back seat! 

Partner in crime (: 

Victor came on the safari too!

  And finally, here's Kilimanjaro. It is difficult to see but it's there. So the clouds in the center of the photo about cut the mountain in half. That teeny strip of white in the center but near the top is the snow-capped peak. That safari was amazing, we had so much fun and it was a really great way to end the trip. More about the beginning and middle of the trip in later posts! 

    Lately I've been thinking a lot about grad school and how being an art therapy grad student specifically defines my time and my thoughts. It's occurred to me on multiple occasions that grad school for AT and preschool aren't all that different. If you don't understand satire we can't be friends, it just won't work. 

So, here are 5 ways that my experience right now is similar to that of a preschooler. 

1. Bringing home artwork you made at school 
We do a lot of art work during class. Either because someone included an experiential in their presentation, one of our professors planned an experiential, or the fact that a lot of us are visual learners and we draw and color stuff out a lot. Or maybe we did a guided meditation just to chill before starting class. You better believe some of it goes on my fridge. The rest I tape on my wall. 

2. Equal chance of regression among AT grad students and preschoolers  
There's lots of talk around which materials to use and avoid with certain populations. A common one is not using glitter with younger kids cause they'll get excited and make a mess and get it everywhere. I'm here to tell you that I too will get excited, and make a mess, and get it everywhere. Another example, particularly for my cohort, is the day we did shaving cream print making. Let's just say some folks got a little carried away. I won't post them here but there are some great pictures of this out there. 

3. Use of timers 
On Tuesdays, my cohort has a break from 3-6, some of us 2-6. During this time we often attempt to catch up on readings and other homework. I have to set a timer on my phone for us or we'll just sit there and talk to each other the whole time. For every 15 minutes of quiet work we get to talk for 5 minutes. Some days it's more effective than others, but no matter how well it's working it seems like we all wait for the 15 minute quiet time to do things like go to the bathroom, refill water bottles, and generally leave the room. I set timers for my Head Start clients. We are all 20 + years their senior and still need them apparently. 

4. Oversharing 
When you're trying to learn how to help someone navigate their own stuff while you're also navigating your own stuff, you're going to overshare. It's going to happen and it's okay. Preschoolers tend to overshare about all kinds of family stuff, Mommy's wine habit, Daddy's bad words and what color their poop was this morning. We do it too. I've agreed to forgive everyone, I wouldn't be surprised if they've agreed to forgive me too. Also, a little different from oversharing is how much I know about some of the people in my cohort is really insane but that's what happens when you're together as much as we are. 

5. Crying to your teacher 
My personal favorite and maybe the most accurate-nobody cries to their teacher like preschoolers and AT grad students. I've been in this program 6 months and already lost count of how many times this has happened. Sometimes I go in one of their offices and cry for several minutes before I even say any words. Also, crying in general applies here too. Two weeks ago at the grocery store they didn't have my sushi, I cried. I'm serious, I was really upset. Last week when they did it, I cried then too. I'm not even really sure why. I was just so excited and I was remembering how sad I'd been two weeks prior. 

Well, there you have it. I'm open to suggestions and expanding the list! Leave me comments if you think of something I missed! 

Hello all! 
  It has been a long time since I've written anything. Graduate school and all of my feelings keep me quite busy. In this post I'm going to talk about my experience with Ferguson. I'll give you some back story and then go into why this is relevant right now. 

  Through my professor who is connected to some other people and organizations in Ferguson, I was given the opportunity to volunteer and paint murals on some of the boarded up buildings in Ferguson. I'd been looking for a way to serve Ferguson in some way and this just felt right. Prior to this, I really struggled to find a way to be part of what was happening in Ferguson. On the one hand, rioting seemed appropriate to me. A child is dead. His life matters. And he'd be alive if he weren't black. On the other hand, destroying someone's home and/or business is not an act of progressive politics. On the theoretical level it does, it totally does. But my theory went flying out the window when I heard the stories of the people who were truly terrified for their safety because of the violence happening around them. I didn't know know where I fit, if any where. What right did I have to be part of this? I'm not even from here. I'd lived in St. Louis all of 24 hours when Michael Brown was killed. 

  Painting murals was an incredible experience. I did a lot of volunteer work in back home and I really hadn't done any since moving. It felt good to be doing that again. To read more about it and see pictures, switch over to the blog I keep for our art therapy club at school by clicking here.  I'll also add some pictures to the bottom. 

  Tonight I went to a reception at Ferguson Brewing Company for all of the volunteers who had participated in efforts in Ferguson. Shortly after the day that I painted, a woman started collecting photos from volunteers for a book she was putting together. The book is out and available for purchase, click here.  Anyway, they were selling books at the reception. I thumbed through a copy of someone's book and decided that instant that I needed my own even though I'm trying not to spend any money right now. As I was reading the book and looking through the pictures I really started getting choked up. I can't even recount all my thoughts to you because there were so many and they were coming so fast. I felt deeply burdened by a young man's death. I was also simultaneously moved by how many people had come together to make Ferguson not look so desolate and devastated after all the rioting. I saw people around the room that I painted with or near and felt so connected to them. We shared a unique moment in time, aligning our hearts and hands to better this little community. I didn't know any of them, yet I knew so much about them, and we shared this profound moment. It was a strange, sacred feeling. This feeling, this feeling exactly, is why I'm interested in community art. 

  There was also a camera and camera chick set up in the corner of the room who was recording people talking about their experiences. I got choked up for that too. I know I cry all the time but how could I not? I spoke about how it felt strange to me that people in the community were so grateful for what we were doing and so thankful and that that was strange because I felt like I was there for them, but they were thanking me. 

  It was a lovely evening being back in my feelings for Ferguson. My feelings are strong and often contradictory, but just like the day when we painted I was left with the overwhelming certainty that life is often tragic but good people are always around.