Introduction

[With apologies to those who already received my email. You can skip ahead to the next entry whenever it appears. Do not pass Go, but feel free to collect $200]

Dearest family and friends --

As some of you may or may not know, I'm leaving for seven weeks in Africa next Tuesday (yes, in four days). My boyfriend Brian and I will be traveling to Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. In Kenya, we'll be visiting Brian's college roommate who is living there; in Uganda, we'll be working with Missionaries of the Poor for a week and visiting my buddy Stu from college who lives in Kampala; and in South Africa we'll be going to the WORLD CUP (and meeting my undergrad thesis adviser for an Argentina game in Johannesburg). The idea kinda came out of nowhere back in January when we both decided to quit our jobs and travel for the summer and became much more concrete when we realized we were both serious. Needless to say, we're very excited. At this point, I'm just hoping to make it to our airplane without being kidnapped by my older brother and hidden in the crawl space beneath our house so that I will be unable to travel to the third world (actual threat. My father's response? "Yeah, I'd be okay with that.")

Anyways, we'll be keeping a blog while we're gone (as much as possible -- unclear what kind of internet access we'll have, but I'm hoping to be able to write "still alive" at least once a week. Mainly for my parents' sanity) and I thought I'd pass it along: sbafrica.blogspot.com, "Sharon and Brian Go to AFRICA". [You might note that typical rules of etiquette and humility would demand that I name our literary masterpiece "Brian and Sharon..." but that lends itself to a rather unfortunate abbreviation so I dispensed with tradition for that reason. That and "sbafrica" sounds like a word that could really catch on. Brian is also getting quite annoyed with my singing of "Sbaaaaaafrica," a la Toto in 1982, every 15 minutes]

Hopefully this blog will be filled with our many adventures and misadventures. If we find ourselves faced with complete internet fail, I promise to update it at least briefly (and probably with pictures!) when we return.

For those of you who I really haven't talked to in a while, I'll be going to medical school in August at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, so if you're in the area in the next four years, definitely holler!

[Princeton friends: this sadly means I will be missing this year's festivities. Don't even say the r-word around me, I can't bear the pain. Have fun for me and see you at homecoming in the fall. And apologies to Integrated Science kids who might be getting this twice....]

Hope all is well with you and yours,

-Sharon