many reasons to be jazzed on life right now, but for the sake of time, i will only share two here:

1. GENDERLESS STRANGERS! here's the explanation: while traveling this past year, there would be many, many days where i would come across a word in speech or literature i didn't know. since i didn't have access to dictionary.com, i decided to invest in a used American Heritage Dictionary purchased from the main street of richmond, nelson, new zealand near carolyn's house. in said dictionary i found a random address for some person in washington state named "gil." being a big fan of sending and receiving mail, i wrote gil a letter in april sending warm wishes and stranger hellos from me. carolyn, thomas, robin, and i each developed our own version of who and what gender gil may be. thomas even had a dream that gil was a he and that he was stalking me. what's interesting here is that if anything, i'm stalking gil. anyway, flash forward six months to a few days ago - i get a package and letter from gil! gil wrote me back explaining why he/she (still no insight into gil's gender, although the handwriting suggests male and no hint of sociopath tendencies) was in new zealand and included a book that changed his life! gil will clearly be getting a reply. thank you, gil!

2. FACELESS STRANGERS! a few nights ago with a time stamp of at least 1:30 am, caroline, eva, and i were downstairs in our wellington house girltalking (how do we still have things to talk about?!) as we do, and i saw a young man walk through our back yard and start to climb over our fence into the neighbor's garden. in the capitals of most nations, this would incite some level of fear. in the capital of sweet little new zealand, however, incidents like these are met with "meh" and mild curiosity. [mom and dad: don't worry, my neighborhood is very safe. this is merely an anecdote.] ha! wonder what he was doing?! gil?

let's all raise our glasses to strangers! don't have a glass? make a little cup shape with your hand. that will do.

love,
maggie

p.s. robin put up new pictures, some of which are from the cook islands! enjoy!

i'm going to confide in the worldwideweb and say that right now i'm an illegal immigrant living in new zealand. it's an interesting situation, trying to get my visa sorted out and has definitely shed a new light on the struggle hundreds of thousands of people are facing in the US. like my situation in new zealand, i assume many of these people are not living illegally in the US under malevolent or seedy intentions but are only living in the US truly for the opportunities that outweigh their home country. i hope, if nothing else, when anyone who knows me imagines an illegal immigrant, they see my face, and take an ounce of pity on the people whose plight i currently share. let me just say, thank god i'm not illegal in arizona.

love,
maggie

ahhhhhhhh! so i am back from the cook islands after a lovely (although rather cloudy) ten day stint on rarotonga! big things happened. well, big thing happened: ANDREW CAME ALL THE WAY TO RAROTONGA TO SURPRISE ROBIN AND ME! robin and i got to rarotonga a few days earlier than caroline and eva's scheduled arrival, so on the second morning as we were half-way waking up to the glorious south pacific day, we heard a definitive but quiet knock at the door. i get up, open the door, and my jaw drops. it's andrew! he had been conspiring with caroline and eva for months planning to surprise us! i had no, no, NO IDEA! this was the ultimate surprise probably of my life. that's right. topped, right there.

it was so wonderful to see andrew after a year (almost to the day!) of skype-only contact. man oh man! it makes me grin to think about seeing him! aren't friendships wonderful when you can go so long without that hug or touch that reminds us we are human and then, bam! there's your friend again, no longer bound by screen size or pixels, but here! blood and 98.6 degrees (we hope) and full of humor and love and challenges!

the five of us had our own house on the beach in front of an ocean where we saw whales no more than 30 or so yards from the shore! i say house here, but i mean mansion, as we had so much room in our rented house that there was a whole extra bedroom we relegated to holding luggage. this is probably the first and last time i will ever, ever get to have a luggage room. we rented bikes to get around the 35ish kilometer circumference of the island, although mine got a flat tire on day one, so i hitchhiked everywhere! my first time hitchhiking and what a way to start a habit! all of these wonderfully kind island people would pick me up, drive slowly, sometimes we would stop by their house and wave to a sister or stop by an autoshop to pick up a spark plug, but thankfully, i always got where i needed to go - safely and quickly!

rarotonga has not a single stoplight, and i, myself, never came across a stop sign. i so very much like what that implies - go, go, go! this seems counterintuitive given the island culture that, like many places where the sun turns you beautifully brown, moves at a snail's pace. we made lots of "we're on island time, mon" jokes when one of us would notice that it was 4 pm and no one had left the house. i think this trip truly qualified as a vacation.

we did, however, go on an accidental mountain climb. one morning the five of us set out for what we assumed would be a light trek through the jungle-Lost-looking mountains of inner rarotonga, but turned out to be a hike. like the kind of hike where the trail isn't marked, you just know you're supposed to keep going up, up, up. at three different points during the hike we found ourselves facing a rock wall with a questionable looking chain hanging from the top of it. up we went. so yeah, i mean a hike. five hours later we made it back to the house with only a few scrapes and bumps to show for it.

rarotonga reminded me the most of ghana out of anywhere i have been. the papaya trees growing wild, the pleasantly stifling heat, the ubiquitous collar-less seemingly owner-less dogs (seriously, why are there always dogs around?!), the easy manner with which everyone says hello. i would suggest going to rarotonga. yes i would! make it your next destination! and if you do, pick up my leopard print sunglasses. i think i left them there.

i was very tired once i got back to wellington, but also very glad to be home. caroline and eva came back to wellington three days after i did, and we have been reminiscing about our raro trip and watching our tan lines fade. it's wonderful to share a few more weeks with them in wellie. MY GOD DO WE LAUGH TOGETHER. what a gift to always have funny people around me! wellington has been uncharacteristically warm and sunny coercing me into staying here and making me itch for the summer.

now i am back at marocka for day-two-back-to-work using the internet to compose this small update. it feels completely normal to be back at work and easy, easy as pie. i am very lucky to have kind and understanding owners who work with me! i know that this job is my first foray into "work," but i'm afraid it's still much too breezy. smiling with teeth is what i'm doing! i hope y'all are, too!

love,
maggie

leaving for the cook islands in two hours, but thought i should let you all know (thank you for the concerned texts!):

i am a-okay. the 7.4 earthquake that hit new zealand near christchurch on the south island early this morning went entirely unnoticed by me. although, apparently wellington felt the aftershocks. i really hugo-ed this thing. slept like a baby.

love,

maggie

dr. blog, i presume? oh, hello. it's been a while, yes. two months, even. let's hope this isn't awkward.

INTERJECTION - the one, the only katie (for you, dad: scarlett o'hara) johnson just called me while at work (i've got the internet now at marocka. having the internet is like magic, father time has no control over my day anymore! ha! eight hours fly!)! i've got to get to australia ASAP. good lord, that girl makes me laugh.

it's seems like there is so much of life's little nothings with which to fill this blog entry. life in wellington is still great and the winter is quickly moving out. hallelujah, here comes the sun! with all the rain the winter poured onto us - and now with the springtime sun - wellington has turned green. all over! even these stone retainer walls that i walk by on my way to work are giant canvases of sweet green moss! it certainly gives a new meaning to living in a "concrete jungle!" lush, lively new zealand!

i can't believe that it's almost been a whole year since i left for new zealand. i think right around this time in 2009, i was at andrew and josh's new york apartment realizing more and more that it was the right decision for me to not be in new york this year. the moment i stepped foot into gilly and greg's welcoming home, though, i knew new zealand was right. thank surprising Life that things keep seeming "right."

there have been almost too many good lessons this year on how i want to be living and what kind of person i want to grow into. one of them that i keep going back to is the issue of politeness. i am incredibly lucky that i was born to parents who value being polite, so much so that i spent enough time at cotillion that i'm sure i could fold a napkin swan if a gun was held to my head. but i have learned about a new kind of politeness this year, one that i think is more lasting and one that has no boundaries.

it's a politeness that i suppose is what kept me so very happy in the less-than-ideal living circumstances of both china and ghana. that is to have absolutely no "manners." what i have learned to be polite, what i have learned from my most gracious hosts, is that the easiest way to make someone feel like they are at home is to actually act like you are, indeed, at home. i loved the first night at gilly and greg's how robin and i walked into their very lived-in home and we were warmly shown towels and coffee, but from then on, it was like being at home. since gilly and greg don't very often use napkins, neither did i, and it made everyone comfortable. they were living in their own home the way they like to, and so was i.

in ghana it would have been more improper to eat my meal with a fork in my left hand than to eat with my fingers on my right. in china choosing to use a "sit down" toilet was met with looks of disapproval and questions of one's cleanliness - you want to actually sit on that thing? being polite is entirely relative, and i hope a lesson that i can continue to learn wherever i am. having been graced with now a year's worth of what i believe to be the most incredible hosts in new zealand, i know that part of being polite is being a good guest and making your host feel like you are at home.

as always, homes seem to appear in whichever direction i walk, and for this, i am always, always grateful. this past week i was hosting a german 16 year old in wellington who is a family friend of carolyn's. during much of this week, i - for the first time in, uhh, a year?! - was feeling a bit stressed out, and i very much wanted to throw my hosting abilities under a rug. let the kid figure out where the grocery store is on his own, you know? i mean, he's a child and doesn't speak english in a city he's never been to. he'll be fine. but once i pulled my head out of my butt and repeated the mantra i have decided to live by (WWGoCD? What Would Gilly or Carolyn Do?), i tried to channel all the people who have welcomed me. and i tell ya, the mantra works.

tomorrow morning i wake up and head to a new (albeit very temporary) home - the cook islands! finally, after six months of dreaming about it, caroline, eva, robin and i will reunite tomorrow in our own beach house on rarotonga (google image search. please. just do it.) for a glorious ten day vacation (from what - i'm not sure). it's way past time for my skin to rekindle its relationship with melanin.

love,

maggie

i looked at a lot of my pictures from ghana today and missed it SO MUCH! it's probably the frosty bite of the wellington winter that is making me crave the equatorial heat of west africa. i mean, forgive this for being uncouth, but it's so cold in my house that my pee steams in the toilet! where is all this global warming? thank you not very much, new zealand clean energy scheme. come on now, do your part in obliterating winters.

so the black stars lost which only makes me pine even more for ghana. if there is one thing ghanaians know how to do joyfully - it's everything. win or lose in the soccer world cup, i am sure there was dancing and singing. and warmth! and constant sunshine! and black people! i miss all of those things.

job is still going well, and it's funny how clearly un-adult i am at doing this. for example, last week i bought a whole chicken, thinking it was the more economical way to get protein into my diet, only to have to call my dad about it and google the method to carving a raw chicken. i also had to wikipedia search what an "invoice" is after getting an email from a manufacturer using that term. it was one of those situations where i would have never thought i didn't know what "invoice" means, but when doing business, it seemed better to be safe than sorry. i kind of take one step forward and then two steps back on this road to being self-sufficient.

one of the more unusual aspects of wellington culture is how many transexuals live here. i suppose with the political atmosphere of a liberal country's capital, it makes sense that many would congregate here, but the percentage is almost alarming. a few weeks ago i saw two obvious men half-heartedly dressed in woman's earrings and make-up. not stellar efforts on their parts, but still. who knew trany could be trendy? bob dylan is probably loving how much the times are a-changin'.

this past week a man who was wearing a carolina tshirt came in. i was hesitant to strike up a conversation with someone who was maybe only sporting a 2nd hand thrift shop find, but turns out he went to undergrad and law school at UNC. i had missed southern accents! home always is everywhere!

love,

maggie

go, black stars!

i very much ♥ ghana.

love,
maggie