Hello world!

I was very tentative to start a blog because I am uncomfortable with a website entirely devoted to me.  It seems strangely egotistical. However, I figured it was time to upgrade from the mass e-mails I used the last time I was in Africa, which although fascinating, may have provoked guilt if you did not read them. With a blog, you are free to come and go as you please.

Also, this blog is much less about me and much more about what is happening in Ethiopia. I hope to share the stories of people who are unable to share their lives with you themselves, and give you a window into the beauty, heart, optimism, and complexity of Africa. It is for this reason that I have titled my blog “Ubuntu,” as UBUNTU is a Bantu word from South Africa that means “I am because you are.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu explains Ubuntu with the following:

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

It is my hope that you may find yourself in deeper solidarity with those across the world from you as you read.