thank-you l'annee de l'amusement

i have been delying the end of this year as long as i could. i have considered just having l'vie de l'amusement but that seems silly. so i am going to hold to my commitment to make this l'annee de l'amusement stand on her own.

this means that this silly blog will have to go to sleep. if you go to teabelly.blogspot.com you can stay updated on my life. learn what the theme of 2008 is and get all my recipes ;). i think this new blog address will be easier for everyone to type...

bisous mon couer

OBAMA!!!!!

too lazy to blog

i am too burnt out and lazy to get these photos up on my blog. they will come. but great things take time. i have a letter to write to delta (i will share it here), a house to clean, bills to pay, parking tickets to fight, relaxing to do, jetlag to recover from, and I NEED SUSHI! and instead of doing all these things i have been catching up on my friend's blogs.

this awesome video below comes from lilypea. it is dedicated to all those who have struggled through trans-lingual love...

dianna reporting from des moines

Election 2008

GOP's Des Moines Headquarters Flooded with Calls

by Dianna Douglas

Listen Now [2 min 45 sec] add to playlist

Morning Edition, December 27, 2007 · At GOP headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa the phone rings off the hook. Iowa's caucuses are next week and calls are coming from people wanting to participate, comment, or just rant. Calls have even come from Canada, where people are apparently watching election closely.

false promises

so, the internet in mozambique is as slow as namibia and slower than the when it worked in zambia. so photos from the trip will be up christmas week. sorry for the delay. i know you all are on baited breath.

in other news, i think hillary is full of malarkey. as the staff of l'annee de l'amusement struggle with the final wrestle over who to endorse for '08 it is becoming clearer and clearer that it is NOT hillary. be ready for an endorsement before the iowa caucus.

here is some helpful video for those of you who think hillary is a straight talker and a uniter.

back from the internetless...briefly

so i am back from namibia (which was beautiful! kinda like a more wild and rugged arizona. or arizona meets the sahara?) anyway... i am in jo'burg with mikki and it is nice to be where the internet is fast.

i have a million photos to upload and share, so hopefully mozambique will do me better than zambia or namibia. i am very ready for downtime and time with framily. it will be awesome. so hopefully there will be more soon.

here's to awesome internet service!

meetings of all sorts, a giraffe, and a charging baby elephant

the view from my hotel room

the first day was meeting the VIPs. the US amb and US team, the zambian ministers

introducing the delegation... r to l
the permanent secretary for sport, youth, and children; praya; me; mike; minister of sport, youth and children; and susan

after a couple more meetings we were off to a candlelight vigil for people living with HIV/AIDS
(sat was world aids day, so this was the eve of world aids day)

the choir

this is ester. she told us about being married off at age 14 to a 41 year old man. how he would rape her and infected her with HIV and also other STDs. she got away from the marriage, and is now getting treatment for he disease and is back in school

the candlelight vigil

you can tell this guy was once an alter boy

my candle was more like a torch

saturday we went to the big World AIDS Day event.

there was traditional dancing

you can't really tell here, but traditional dancing is all about the booty

we had a break to get some errands done and then we were off for a gala celebrating good HIV/AIDS journalism

we waited for a long time for the awards ceremony to start.
we got there at 19:00 for and event that started at 18:30
it sat empty like this for another hour and a half

the lights in the lusaka convention center

we wandered around, hoping to discover something fun.
we did
this is art
art with dumpsters spewing out corn

who knew?

the gala finally started
it was not as exciting and you would imagine
the annual

photo essay:
boredom


after suffering through many official meetings
we decided that on our day off
we would take a safari
below is some of what we saw
the internet is shifty and i have to be up really early
i am catching a 6:am charter flight to luapula
so forgive the lack of captions

there is a warthog in the middle and the others are impala

mike and the impala

water buck

impala

cape buffalo

HOORAY GIRAFFE!
i got really really really excited

can you see him?

praya and the giraffe

this is the aftermath of me chasing the girafffe.
we had to leave and i LOVE to see these guys run so i asked if i could chase them
i ran like the wind in crocs
it was beautiful and super fun!

these are called zebra

this elephant started walking towards me and africa (our fearless driver) and i got scared

then the whole family arrived

the baby elephant decided it wanted to trapple over me.
i would squat down and look it
he would move his head up and down
and then come really close
this little guy was 300 kgs
about 800 lbs

this is not zoomed

a beautiful end to a wonderful sunday