Photo proof that Katherine is going to be the best mom everrrrrr

This family was made for loving each other:

She's got a fantastic group of women (missing: Mimi, Shirley, Ashley, Erica, & Ruthie) in her family to help her out:

She's joyful and loves to jump for special occasions like birthdays, graduations, baby showers, Tuesdays:

She's smart and supportive:

This guy is pretty great... and he's the other half:

She sees all, knows all:
She has excellent taste in shoulder pads:
She'll raise her babies to be Tar Heels!
Perhaps you have not seen rhymeswithsmile.blogspot.com? And she's a published cookbook author:

She's not afraid of a stinky diaper:

Picky eating doesn't run in her genes (yes, that's a French snail):

Hygiene is a priority:
She has EVERYTHING in her purse... and I mean everything:
She can put up with me:
Katherine's going to be a great mom, but I obviously already knew that from 25 years of cousin love.

New Year's Day in review

New babies born into my family: 1

Baby Gonzo has a Name: Ellis Ann

Time she was born: 7:43 AM

Pounds she weighs: 8 lb 9.5 oz

Inches she is long: 22

Status of mommy/my favorite girl cousin: faaaaaaaaabulous

Number of times I've thought about carrying her on my back in a kanga: 23,304

Congratulations Katherine & Jesse! We'll be bloggin from Bburg in a few weeks when I come to play with my new favorite nugget!

United State of Happy New Year!

Happy New Year townies! I'm off to Mac's New Year's Eve Carrburrito party before heading downtown to party like it's... well... 2010. I hope everyone has a safe and celebration and helps ring in 2011 with sequins and glitter!

You obviously know my love of music videos and my secret love of the top 40 (shout out to my fellow love Toewsy!). This is the culmination of 2010's best music in a mashup by DJ Earworm called "Don't Stop the Pop".



New Year's cheers to all those friends in different time zones who aren't celebrating on Eastern Standard Time: Costa Rica, Tanzania, Hawaii, and somewhere in middle America road trip.

Bring it on 2011!

Em & Aud's Excellent Adventure

Two of my classmates from Duke have just arrived in my old stomping grounds of Moshi, Tanzania. They took my place in the pediatric clinics, living on the compound, and exploring the greater Kilimanjaro area. Since I was the first student to go from our primary care program, I had a lot of kinks to work out and spent much time "trail blazing" to figure out how to survive in TZ and make the academic portion of our program a success. Their blog is www.emandaudintz.blogspot.com and you can follow their journey there. This was their post to say asante to all of my help in preparing them for this adventure... Hope ya'll have a great time! Safari njema!

Two brave PNP students, Becky and Kelly, embarked on this same experience previously on their own. These girls established relationships and set precedents for future nurse practitioner students to gain global health experiences at KCMC. A wise professor once said, “trailblazers experience the most bumps in the road!” Well, Becky and Kelly sure had their share of potholes to deal with, but handled them with poise thus paving the way for our time here in TZ. To you we are extremely grateful! Your advice, resources, packing lists, cell phones, and long Q & A sessions have helped us immensely. You are amazing… we will be saluting you from the top of Kili!

Becky the Superstar!

Merry Christmas from Local Townie!

In lieu of a traditional Christmas card (because my life has been anything but traditional this year) and in order to save the planet, I blogged my Christmas card.

This was my Christmas tree in Tanzania. The closest I got to a white Christmas in Africa was seeing the glistening snow on Kilimanjaro. It's good to be home for Christmas.

This is our family picture from Christmas morning. We were obviously in the spirit.

I was lucky enough to get down to Birmingham to celebrate Christmas with Richard and his family. In addition to celebrating the Christmas season, we celebrated finishing my Master's degree at Duke. It was a whirlwind to get everything finished in time, but I'm done and graduated! Definitely deserved a celebration!

Merry Christmas to everyone! I wish you a happy holiday and a wonderful 2011...

it's going to be a big year with babies, new jobs, fun destinations, and lots of friends and family. I can't wait see what it brings. Love.

By popular request: Tanzanian superlatives

Top 10 reasons why I am (or am not) returning to Tanzania:

Am-
1. Karibu is the first word you hear. Welcome.
2. Summer year round? Ndio, asante sana.

3. Why drink water with parasites when you can drink Cokes all day?!
4. I could get used to Africa time: 4 hours of work, a nap every day, in bed by 10 pm.
5. I want to carry my baby in a kanga.
6. Bartering is really fun, even if you still get mzungu prices.
7. A fruit salad to feed a small army costs about $2 and you can buy everything from the mamas right outside your house.
8. There's a lot of work that needs to be done.
9. Swahili is a beautiful language.
10. I am a millionaire in Tanzania! ($1=1500 Tsh)

Am not-
(above: some of my favorite nurses at my "going away" party at The Station in Carrboro)
1. It's really hard to get hugs across the Atlantic Ocean.
2. Being a nurse is a difficult battle in Africa, and being a nurse practitioner is unheard of.

3. I love all 4 seasons.
4. I prefer to sit... not squat.
5. I'm spoiled and appreciate electricity... especially when it's dark.
6. Dala dalas make Carolina's U bus on a rainy Monday in August seem like a limosine.
7. The amount of cereal I eat in a month would cost $24 (36,000 Tsh) and I like it better when it crunches because it's fresh... not because it has ants in it..

8. I like wearing dresses, skirts, and shorts that are quite scandalous... the stop above my knees.

9. It's annoying to have your skin color be associated with wealth and therefore be harassed because of it.
10. White girl of Irish descent in Tanzania = sunburn

Before & after: What I had in my suitcase upon arrival and departure:
Before- (See the previous post on how ridiculously unprepared I was.) In short, a few medical supplies, 7 shirts, 4 pants/skirts, 3 tubes of sunscreen, 1 towel, 3 pairs of shoes, 2 packs of Skittles, my laptop and ipod
After- 5 pounds of coffee, countless bags of tea, 6 kangas (the wrap skirts that the women wear), 4 pairs of shoes (please note I came home with more shoes than I left with despite having left my hiking boots in TZ), antibiotics/antiparasitics/antifungals from the duka la dawa, very few clothes

5 foods I dreamed about while I was gone:
1. All things Mexican
2. Cinnamon buns
3. Tar Heel pie
4. Thanksgiving stuffing
5. cereal

Ways I grew that I never expected:
- I cannot have much sympathy for people in Tanzania because I don't actually have any idea what they go through on a daily basis. My capacity for empathy grew exponentially as I saw their situations, listened to their stories, and helped them deal with the circumstances of their lives.
- My passion drove my career to work with children because they are so dependent and vulnerable to insults against their health. Imagine how I felt when you add economic disparity, a resource-limited health care setting, and a country that has twice the health risks.
- I know that I am enormously blessed to be an American. I had no idea how blessed I was to be an American woman, have value in my family, to befrom a middle class family, to have an education at the graduate level, and never worry where my next meal will come from. I do not take so much for granted anymore.

Embarrassing moments a la East Africa:
-Messing up the greetings (which are very important) on my first day and having a room full of Tanzanians literally laugh at me.
-Hosting a dinner party at my house in the doctor's compound and having our ever-leaking toilet water run into the living room. Classy.

-Getting caught with my thighs exposed.

Bert asked me to use 3 adjectives to describe my experience in Africa:
welcoming, slow, delicious

One A Day: 50 days of daily humor by Cousin Katherine

Katherine is my favorite girl cousin and she is one of the most special people in this world. I told you that she made me a One-a-day note for me while I was in Tanzania and it made my day to read her quips every day. She dated the front of the card and wrote a saying, a verse, a past time, or a joke on the back. The days were numbered in the corner so I could know exactly how long I'd been gone. It certainly got me through some of the more difficult times and seemed to be right on track with exactly what I was thinking! I wanted to share some of the best ones with you:

October 25: YAY! The grand-Becky-"I'm spending seven weeks in Tanzania with five pairs of panties"-adventure begins! I love you! (Oh yea... save some babies too!)
October 27: Two silkworms were in a race. The result: a tie. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love, and got married. The wedding wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.
October 28: Think of all of us here-- family & friends-- who love you so much and wish you the best of times. Now, enjoy your day! You are loved! SIDE NOTE: This was taped to my mirror in my room for the next six weeks. I looked at it every day and smiled.
November 2: Psalm 24:1
November 6: Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Fly high Becky!
November 7: You've been gone two weeks. Biggest adventure so far? (The answer is YES!)
November 13: Happy, happy, happy, happy birthday, dear sweet cousin Becky! I love you so much! Enjoy celebrating--this will most definitely be a birthday to remember, and a year to remember! For your birthday, you'll have to wait a few weeks but I decided to get you a nephew or neice. I thought you might like it--only it won't be ready until the end of December...
November 22: Some cosmic questions for you to ponder: If the elderly are called "old people" how come children aren't called "new people"? If it's true that we're here to help others, then what are the others here for? How come when asked what things they'd bring to a desert island, no one ever says "a boat"?
November 27: Ten things you can do with a coconut...
November 28: According to statistics, approximately 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets every year. My imagination runs wild...
December 7: Q: What's brown and on the ground and sticky? A: A stick. Eww. Where did your mind go? Clean yourself up. I mean really. SIDE NOTE: I laughed out loud and wrote what I had been thinking on the bottom of the card. You can tell where my mind was: "I was totally thinking it was a cinnamon bun that fell off the table. Guess I was wrong, but now I really want a cinnamon bun."
December 9: Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance? SIDE NOTE: You have no idea how true that statement is in Africa.
December 10: Psalm 23:1-3, I pray that your time in Africa has been a time of fullness, of rest, and of quiet restoration (on top of being an adventure).
December 13: Welcome home! Yay! Feel LOVED! SIDE NOTE: I do!