Finally!

Wow. I can not express the lesson in patience that is getting online here. Wow. I have been in this very hot little internet cafe for the past half. I have not been able to get into my email, have only now opened up the page to post on my blog, and am drenched in sweat. But thus is life here.
First, i would like to say hi to everyone at my old job. Good to know that you guys are all reading my blog! I can't tell you how much i miss all of you (cough cough).
There are times during my travels when I expierence a place or a thing that i can not even begin to describe. I remember that my first day in Israel and my trip to The DMZ were both days that i caught myself saying, "Wow. This is amazing." There was something different about those places. Instead of seeing something from history that was long since gone, or seeing somthing that was put there to make money off of you, you are instead living something real.
Last sunday i had another one of those days...
Since we got to Adeta (the little town where i live) i kept hearing about a "cascade" (waterfall) a little outside of town. Last sunday 8 of us Peace Corps people and a group of 10 - 15 local children guides walked there. To get to the water falls you first turn off the main road (any paved road is a main road... there aint very many of them around here). After turning off the main road we walked for about 15 minutes through a picture perfect African landscape of thick brush with the occasional tree. There is something about the trees here. I'm not 100% sure what it is. They just seem so... i don't know... african. They are all very tall, 20 - 30 feet maybe. The lower section of the trees are bare of leaves and branches. Then towards the tops the trees spread out into a wonderful canopy of leaves spread out perfectly to catch the sun. Love them!
We eventually entered the jungle. I was in the true African jungle. The entire time we were there i kept asking myself, "how the heck am i going to describe this in my blog (i'm a talker. Not a writer... anyone who knows me will understand that.)" Imagine what you think an african jungle should look like: stream running besides you, plants thick all around, tall trees with vines, a heavy moist air, green everywhere. Your perfect image is exactly what it was like. I need to go back because i missed so much. I felt like as soon as i would focus on one thing and soak in one sensory expierence 10 more would be distracting me (and i get distracted in DC when a bird flies by!). It was truly amazing. We finally walked into a clearing with the first waterfall. I can't even tell you how amazing it was to stand on the rocks around the water and watch it fall the 30 or so feet to the ground. It was amazing, beautiful, wonderful, breathtaking, EVERYTHING all wrapped into one. Our tour guide friends all stripped down to their underwear and jumped in the cold water. Scared about getting Shchisto (look it up online. They scared the CRAP out of us the other day at a health presentation. It's one of the many many fun tropical diseases that i could get. There are TONS of them!) we didn't get in.
After the first water fall we climbed to a second that was higher up on the moutain. This one was even more amazing rising probably 50 - 70 feet in the air. I can't tell you how amazing it was to stand there and watch the water make its long fall down. It fell so far that by the time it was close to the ground it had turned from a solid droplet to a fine mist.
I was somewhere real. This wasn't for tourists, this wasn't something that existed in the past and is now a shell of its former self, no. I was somewhere that was alive. That is the reason i travel.
Amazing!