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Sylvia's Africa Diaries: Kruger, Part 1 [25 Jun 2011|09:34am]
Day 1: Sunday, June 19, 2011

First of all, let me just say how wonderful it is to be back in this country! I have been away for so long, and to feel the cool winter breezes on my face and see the acacia trees glistening in the blue, cloudless skies makes me smile. But sadly, today was probably the longest and worst day I’ve ever had in Africa. What a way to welcome me home!
Let me explain. The mission for today was simple enough: make all the right transfers, arrive with all my luggage, get a rental car, get a cell phone, get my money changed over, make it to Kruger through the main gate, arrive in the Skukuza reception center and then check into the place where I was to be staying, buy some food and get ready for work in the morning. Simple enough, right? Is ANYTHING EVER simple enough?

Thank the LORD, my flight went off without any problems. All FIVE transfers. Yes, five. Africa is pretty far away, after all. I went from Roanoke to Washington to New York (JFK) to Johannesburg to Nelspruit/Kruger International Airport. And there were no problems, no hurries to catch a flight, and no strip searches along the way. And after arriving in Nelspruit, I was so delighted with the airport I almost couldn’t contain myself! It was a small, very tiny building that was built with thatched roof and wood to look like a traditional South African hut. It was gorgeous in every way and I had no trouble finding a phone and finding where I should get my money changed and car rented. So great! All three checked off my list, right?

Now here’s where I talk about what a scary experience it is to drive on the wrong side of the road. Many people have told me that in a car that’s built for left-sided driving, it’s much easier and you get the hang of it quickly. Maybe. I did not however expect the shifter to be on the left side of me. Every time I wanted to shift the car I grabbed frantically at the door of the car with my right hand before finally remembering that, oh yeah…it’s not on that side! And another thing – here in South Africa, common motor courtesy is to pull off to the side of the road if you are going slower than someone else so that they can pass you. Even if it’s a 2-way street, with little room, people will want to and try to pass you. They don’t have yellow lines in the middle of the road either. They are dashed white lines. So it’s easy to forget when you’re turning which side of the road you are supposed to be turning onto. >_<

Thankfully, I picked it up easily enough to get out of the airport and onto the highway. But then I encountered a new problem: getting to where I was going. Now, thank goodness Sue from Brothers Safaris had left me detailed directions of how to get to Skukuza in Kruger. All I had to do was follow them. And then she even left me a number of a friend of hers in the area that would be on hand to assist with directions if I got lost. Thank goodness she was there, because get lost I did. Multiple times. I mean, unlike here in America, the road signs here are terrible and the roads are hard to tell if they are going to a highway or to a dead end. And finding yourself in an unknown part of a city can be nerve wracking when alone and by yourself. So I called her many times and eventually she got me out of the town of White River and onto the road to Hazyview.
And that’s where everything went wrong.

I’m driving along the R40 highway, excited to be getting to Kruger relatively on-time (the gates close at 5:30pm, which is sundown here) and I was getting the hang of driving on the highway. Then, suddenly, there’s a loud bump on my left side and suddenly the car seems to have shifted lower to the ground on the left side. I pull off to the side of the road and my stomach turned a knot as I got out of the car and saw – you guessed it – my tire was completely flat. In a panic, I called Sue’s friend again who gave me the directions and pleaded my case to her. And she called up someone she knew to come out and fix it for me. Waiting alone on the side of that highway was one of the most nerve-wracking things I’ve ever done. And then, I got another call as the minutes ticked on – THEY COULDN’T FIND ME. I glance at the clock and it’s getting dangerously close to 3:00, with Kruger still being about an hour and a half away. Finally, after about 15 more agonizing minutes, the couple found me and helped me change my tire. They were so wonderful and sweet and were the best things to happen to me over here because I don’t know what I would have done without them!
After the spare tire was put on, or “biscuit tire” as the locals call it here, I sped as fast as I could (80 kph, because my tire will not go above that safely) and made it to the main Paul Kruger gate JUST in time. But I still had to go about 15 km or so to Skukuza and they closed soon after dark as well. I made it to Skukuza and breathed a sigh of relief. Really, I should have waited, because Africa wasn’t done with me yet.

Reception didn’t know what in the world to do with me! They asked for the reservation number, and I of course didn’t have one because I was supposed to be working with the vets in a separate part of the camp that they took care of. But when I tried to explain that, and showed them the letter of acceptance, they didn’t know what to do with me. So I frantically phoned Wisani who made the arrangements, but she wasn’t answering her phone. So I called Dr. Peter Buss, and HE wasn’t answering either. So I left him a frantic message and just waited, hoping somehow that something would happen because at this point, after dark, I’m NOT ALLOWED to leave the area unless I have a place to stay. Finally, after a few minutes, I get a call from Dr. Buss who tells me that he was supposed to meet me at the reception area, but he’s not in Kruger. So he’d send someone else to come and get me.

Well, they did after a few minutes, and by now it’s completely dark and all the shops are closed. So I can’t buy food or water or anything. I was introduced to the two other students – both local South African fourth-year vet students also doing this program – and they kindly offered me their Brai. Brai is traditional South African fare – it’s gobs and gobs of meat barbequed over a roaring fire. I told them I didn’t eat meat, and they were like, “No worries…have some of our beer then, at least!” And I told them once again that no, I didn’t drink. So the girl (Karen) looked at the guy (Neil) and said, “Well, let’s throw a potatoe on there for her then!” I will tell you, after 2 days of plane food and hardly anything to eat, that fire-roasted potato was the best thing I had ever eaten! And honestly, I would have been fine with just collapsing in bed. Which is very nearly what I did.

Day 2: Monday, June 20, 2011

Today it was up early to meet the vets at 7am for our first day of capture work! It was light when I woke up, and I had time to inspect the camp a bit before having to rush off to morning duties. We are currently staying at the veterinary camp, which is just a 1 minute walk from the veterinary wildlife services building near Skukuza rest camp. Our little compound, like all places that house people overnight here, is surrounded by a 15 ft tall electrified fence to keep out those nasty pests (animal, human, or otherwise) that might want to invade our camp. We’ve heard rumors that the monkeys love to come in and steel our things, so we are advised to keep all our doors closed and/or locked during the day. The compound is made up of several separate buildings, each one serving its own unique purpose that when put together would form one very large and impressive house. One building by the main gate consists of nothing but tiny rooms – even tinier than my spare bedroom in foxridge. In fact, they are tinier than most dorm rooms I’ve seen, with enough room for a bed, a desk, a cabinet, and about 5 floor tiles of empty space where you can put a suitcase or turn around in. But really, who needs much when you’re out in the veld?  Leading out from this building, we have a stone walkway leading to another building with more rooms. These are nicer and bigger, and are reserved for more distinguished guests (researchers, medical students, etc.). This building is connected to another building that is not but a maze of bathrooms and showers poking out of all directions. Across from this building is our beautiful fire pit, made out of a ring of wood piled up about 10 feet high surrounding a dirt area with a big stone circular center piece on which you build your fire. This is where most of the action occurs at night. It’s a lot like primitive camping, and I love it! It’s so nice to sit and stare at the fire lazily and wonder where the energy to get up in the morning is going to come from.

A little ways away from this building, across the garden, is our kitchen building. It doesn’t have much, but it’s enough to function in any way we could want. I have big plans to cook things here when I actually get to go down to the shop and buy food. At the moment, I’m still living on sweet potatoes, corn flakes, and fire-roasted potatoes, which isn’t so bad really. Across from the kitchen is a covered dining area as well that we used during the day for lunch. To be honest, this little camp is so charming and beautiful that it makes me feel cozy inside. I have always thought how cool it would be to have a house like this – where it’s basically a big plot of land with little houses separate from one another that each contain a different part of your house that you have to walk outside to reach. It reminds me of living in Rivendell actually, without the water or the big shady trees…or the elves. This style works well because we have warm weather here all the time…even in the winter, so there’s no need to really keep things closed off or extremely close together.

After meeting at the vet camp early in the morning, we were taken to where they load the darts and they went over how they do it for capture. They use the dan-inject system, thankfully, which is the one I’m most familiar with. They explained some of the drugs they used and what the procedure would be for the white rhino we’d be catching this morning. We’re going to be doing two of them, and I’m anxious to see how Kruger does it differently from Dr. Brothers. As we bounce along in the veld, we begin following the chopper. Now, the chopper is a marvelous creature that is extremely intelligent and very very helpful when capturing game. The pilot, if he knows his stuff, can herd the animals right where he wants them to go with speed and accuracy. And this pilot knew his stuff. They managed to herd the animal after he was darted RIGHT to the side of the road for easy pick-up by us. How marvelous!!! And while Dr. Brothers relies on man-power to move his animals, we use etorphine, butorphanol, antipamazol, and cattle prodders in combination to move our animals. This combination of drugs is fabulous because with just a cattle prodder and a few big men pushing or pulling to guide the rhino, we can get him to walk himself into the crate instead, then load the crate onto the truck! Things went very smoothly and we were back in the lab soon, running the blood, making smears, and fixing the skin and tissue samples we took from the rhino. Not a bad first day, I must say!

Tonight they braied again and this time, we had visitors. I had heard their strange voices the night before, taunting us with their eerie lullabyes, but this time they were louder, noisier, and easily seen just outside the fence. Our flashlights would catch the tapetum lucidum of their eyes, making them shine in the darkness around the perimeter of the fence. Hyenas. They smelled the meat and had come to see tasty morsels cooking tasty morsels. And later, as the night wore on and I was asleep in my bed, I heard the familiar deep, guttural groans that signaled the arrival of my favorite predator – the lion. Though we could not see them, we knew that somewhere out there, in the African darkness, they waited.

Day 3: Wednesday, June 21, 2011

People at the vet school seem to think that getting up for 7:00 rounds and treatments is early. Huh. In this line of work, that’s sleeping in. We had to be up at 3:00am to be ready to leave the vet camp at 4:15am. Yes, in the morning. The sun was not up yet, and as I made my way to the shower at 3am I shivered in the winter air. The hardest part of my day seems to be those few seconds in the early morning between taking off my pjs and jumping into the warm shower. I am grateful every morning that I have hot water (and electricity, as power outages are extremely common here). I’m also grateful that the water here can be drunk straight from the tap – a luxury here in Africa, really. The American girl that we are with from Oregon state does nothing but complain about the things we have here, but honestly, I am perfectly content.

The four of us did our rhino captures this morning and everything went off without a hitch. No problems, no injuries, and a great communication among all party members made today run smoothly. We also met another student who came out to help us who is in the middle of specializing in wildlife and exotic medicine at the university of Florida. I didn’t realize you COULD specifically specialize in that area. Something to look into when I get back to the states. Perhaps there will be some more school in my future after all…
In my notebook, where I keep a daily diary and devotional, there’s a quote for today’s date that, as I read it tonight, seemed rather fitting:

“God never promises to remove us from our struggles. He does, however, to change the way we look at them.” ~ Max Lucado.

Today I faced a very interesting struggle that I wasn’t expecting to face here. The three other students decided to go on a run together through the golf course and around the little town near Skukuza. There was only about 30 minutes left of daylight so they assured me that a 30 minute run was all they had time for and it wouldn’t be long. Being a runner myself, I said that I would love to go. All the others were adamant that they ran super slow, so I shouldn’t be upset if they didn’t keep up. I smiled and assured them that I would probably be running in the back of the pack and would never leave anyone behind. We parked our car near the community center and pool and then started off from there. What they said would be about 3 miles or so around the town soon became about 5 miles in and out of the veld.

I also learned an important lesson that day: NEVER ever trust runners that claim that they are slow. EVER. They are not. There seems to be, among runners, three speeds. I call them horse, hare, and turtle. When runners say “I’m slow”, they mean, “I’m a hare”. While those that are turtles like me tend to give up easily and quit running because the hares make them feel like they are lower than dirt when they run. Hence what happened with me. I remember the girl from the US calling to me from the front, “Hey, you okay back there, Sylvia?” I didn’t say anything because I was huffing and puffing to keep them in sight, when suddenly she just turned and sped off around a corner and out of my line of vision. I suddenly realized that I was alone, running through an unfamiliar town in the bush, where elephants and leopards and lions were often seen. And it was getting dark. Every time something would rustle the bushes beside me, my heart would race a little faster and I would remember the words of Neil from earlier that day: Even if you’re the fastest runner ever, you still look like the slowest thing a leopard’s ever seen.

I think if it wasn’t for that fear pushing me on, and not knowing where I was, I would have long since stopped running. But my fear pushed me on. Karen was the one saving grace that I had. She waited and slowed for me just enough so that I could still remain in her sights. Soon, she slowed even farther and threw up her hands. Then I noticed that there was a split in the path and the others were completely gone. We had no clue where to turn. Karen called back, “Okay, we’re making our own way around now.” And we did. We probably ran about a mile or so more than they did, because when we finally got back, the sun was just starting to set…and the car was gone. Yes, my friends, they left without us. And Karen was pissed. I asked if we should walk home because it really wasn’t that far from there. But she looked at me and said, “Not when there are bloody elephants roaming around these parts that they’ve had to shoot at because they’re being troublesome. I know…let’s go check out the pool while we wait for them.”

This was, in fact, a very brilliant strategic idea. The pool was completely fenced in, even if it was a little further back from the main road where the others would likely be driving by to try and find us. We sat at the edge of the water and talked about our lives in our respective countries and how things have changed. When they finally picked us up again, they were apologetic, claiming to have just missed us and been looking around for us a long time. But those 15 long minutes we spent in the fading light waiting for their car to come around were terrifying. At least for me. Karen never lost her cool for a moment. I thank God for her often.

Day 4: Wednesday, June 22, 2011

I once watched a special on the national geographic channel about mass capture in Kruger with Wildebeests. I remember learning about the technique from Dr. Brothers in his Immobilization class here last year, and the use of make-shift bomas to funnel massive numbers of animals into a tiny shoot where they could be worked and loaded easily without darting. But not being used very often, I figured I would never have the opportunity to partake in such a venture.

But God had a surprise up His sleeve today for me. In Kruger, they do mass captures only about once every 5 years. The last one they did was the wildebeest that was filmed. And today, they did it again. This time, with about 40 zebra. We had a briefing before the mission started, to make sure everyone knew what was going to happen. The crew had painstakingly built these bomas out of wire, poles, and movable curtains over the span of two days, making sure that they accounted for the most probable wind direction and other natural features of the land in their construction. They made sure that all the ground crew knew the drill, because one small mis-step and we would have to break down the entire thing and move it all about 100 km over and try again.

The procedure involved a series of curtains that made up gates that would close at specific times, as soon as the zebra were herded into the area with the helicopter. The helicopter would give us a signal with a long siren, and the first gate would close. People would run as fast as they could, pulling curtains attached to rods hanging above them, and close them before the animals could turn around and bite, kick, or run back in their direction. The curtains were each tested, making sure that they didn’t snag on anything while we were running them. One snagged curtain would leave a hole that the zebra would find and run through, and then all would be completely lost. I was working in the second gate, and at the second long helicopter siren, Marcus, our boss, would blow a long, low whistle, and we were to run as fast as we could across the gap to close the curtain.

The first group of zebras came in. The copter zoomed above us, and I sat for a split second and took in the situation around me. Poised and ready to spring to action from a shout and a whistle. Knowing that there was a good chance that one of us could be kicked, bitt, or attacked by scared zebra trying to break through and find freedom. They said we should attempt to look big and scary if they turned toward us and looked like they were going to attack. The whole situation was scary and thrilling at the same time. I suppose this is what recruits find joyous about the military, and war games – in a way, it’s very similar.

We ran the curtains four separate times, each time getting family groups of zebras anywhere from 17 to 5 in number. We made sure to load the trucks specifically so that family groups would be held together and not mixed. Individuals unlucky enough to be put in the wrong family group would be mutilated to death by the other zebra. As we worked, only two male zebras gave us trouble. While in the trucks, they began mercilessly biting and kicking one of the young foals. They were being such a huge nuisance that we decided to immobilize them and release them back into the veld.

The rest of the day was spent working these zebra through the makeshift shoots, much as we would work cattle on PMM back at the vet school in America. Finally when we were done, we drove back to the camp, all of us sore and tired, but so happy to be a part of this experience.

I was finally able to go to the camp store and get some things today. Yesterday I visited the small staff shop to pick up bread, apples, and corn flakes. But the tourist shop in Skukuza had more things to choose from, and so I bought what I could. I was elated when I saw they had some ready made tomato and cheese sandwitches. This is their veggie option here in South Africa, and sometimes they even add eggs to them. What a delight!!! It’s the simple pleasures that you really learn to love when you have so little. I bought some that I planned to use as a special Sabbath treat when the weekend comes. And I looked for cheese, but alas, it is an expensive and rare commodity at the shops here. So I got some laughing cow spreadable cheese and have been using that as my sandwitch filling. I also bought some eggs and was amazed when I opened them up to look at them in the store, how filthy they were. Covered in feathers, dirt, and chicken poop. I smiled. These were definitely farm fresh eggs all right.  I also bought what I thought was a can of tomato sauce in hopes of making corn flake patties tonight for my fellow vet students, especially those who were so nice in sharing their food with me when I didn’t have any. I figured out how to light the gas oven and began mixing the ingredients. I opened the can of tomato sauce, and realized that this wasn’t quite what I thought it was. It was…well…chopped tomatoes. Whoops! So my corn flake patties didn’t have as great of a tomato flavor as I would have liked, but that’s okay. I made a big batch of them and saved the rest to reheat and have for later days. I also bought some mac and cheese and other noodle types to make some night that I have time out here. It’s the little comforts like these that make the veld home.

Day 5: Thursday, June 23, 2011

Of all the animals to dart, there are two species that give us the greatest difficulty. Giraffe are one, because their extreme size and fragile bodies make it very hard to get them loaded into trailers or on the ground safely. The other is the elephant. Not only because of its massive size, but the anatomy of its respiratory system makes them unable to breathe out their mouth, and air having to travel such a vast distance from the end of the trunk to the mouth makes hypoxia a very real risk. This is aside from their extreme aggression (which I know of all too well by this time). So when the calendar for today mentioned elephant capture, I grew excited. Another once in a lifetime opportunity! Not many crews have the facilities and manpower to be able to handle an elephant capture. And we were going to do two of them! Fantastic!

I was thoroughly surprised at how well everything went. The first elephant was a breeze, as the chopper was able to maneuver the elephant straight to the road where it sat down (nothing stranger than seeing an elephant sitting like a dog). We covered its eyes with a blindfold and placed a small stick in-between the lips of the trunk to hold it open so the elephant could breathe – a little elephant intubation, if you will. My job was to get a fecal and temperature from this massive beast. But I couldn’t accomplish this while it was sitting down. Being in a sternal position for a long time is massively hard on most of these animals because of their ginormous size and the weight of their organs pushing on their diaphragm. And since elephants and rhinos are hind-gut fermenters, they don’t have a rumen to worry about filling up with gas if placed in lateral, so it’s a much better position to work them in. After getting about 10 people to heave and roll the elephant over, I was finally able to bend down and stick my arm inside the massive elephant rectum. I felt around, making most of the opportunity (Dr. Wittier, eat your heart out!) and trying to see if I could feel anything. Sadly, I couldn’t. It was still rather hard to get far in to the elephant when it was in lateral, so I did the best that I could and then came out again. I must say, I think I’m one of the only students at VMRCVM to say that they have rectally examined an elephant. :)

After the elephant, Brittany and I got to get a special lift back to the vet building via the chopper. I had flown in one of these many times before, but each time I do I still get that feeling of awe and wonder. To see the world pass below you like a child’s toy set is such a thrill. We soared above the earth, zooming over rivers, dry watering holes, and above the spreading acacia trees. We spotted wart hog, cape buffalo, elephant, and rhino from the air. I can’t wait to be able to ride in one again, and perhaps dart something from the side with Dr. Brothers. Yes, this is my job. Be jealous. :)

Upon returning to camp, we waited for the others to arrive and then made a mad dash to the bomas to treat a sick rhino who had some lacerations on her. By this time, we were all running along smoothly with our jobs and working like a well-oiled machine. If only blocks here were three weeks, not two! Then I could stay here longer.

Day 6: Friday, June 24, 2011

Would that I had been able to come in late August or October to Kruger instead! Then I could be immobilizing lions all day and every day! But instead, this is all Rhino. And it will be all elephant and rhino for the rest of the time I’m here in Kruger. This time, we got a bit of a test of our skills. We were divided into two groups – Karen and Brittany together and I with Neil – and each of us was to deal with a rhino. They were knocking them down in pairs – a cow and calf. The first cow and calf were knocked down away from the road and very far apart from one another. I was told my job would be to bleed the rhino cow – and not having drawn blood before for them yet, I was slightly nervous. They need a LOT of blood from these guys for all the various studies and data bases that they are doing in Kruger, so I popped a vacutainer into an ear vein and filled tube after tube with blood. It took quite a long time and by the time I was done Neil had done everything else already by himself. The other group was in charge of her calf on the other side of the road about 100 meters or so away.

Once they loaded her into the crate, the seller asked if we could determine her status for him – in other words, was she pregnant, open, or in heat? So they cleaned her out thoroughly of any feces in her system, and then used a portable ultrasound device to check for a fetus. I’d seen these machines in the states – Dr. Currin likes to use them a lot when he has to do herd pregnancy checks. They are extremely handy units; a small probe fits in your hand while the image is transmitted to a set of goggles that you wear on your eyes. It was sad that we didn’t get to see it ourselves, but the thought of preg-checking a rhino made me smile.

The chopper took off again in search of another cow-calf pair. But an hour or so went by and they still had not found one. The seller had been very specific in what he wanted and the age of the female and calf. But finding a pair that met those exact descriptions was proving to be very difficult. So we changed tactics and went for the other animal we needed – a rhino bull. We found him and knocked him down in the middle of the wood. Not an ideal place to say the least. So he had to be walked with the cattle prodder all the way down to where the trucks were. As we drove further and further out, we still had not found a cow and calf pair, and we were wondering what to do about it. Finally they found one about a two hour drive away, and we had no choice but to zoom through the veld and find it. By the time we’d reached it, it was late in the afternoon and my water was back in the car, not on the buggie (Land Cruiser). Riding around the veld in an open land cruiser truck bed takes its toll on you, and the sun started beating down on my head mercilessly. When we got to the cow and calf pair, we waited for the first responders to check the animals and make sure they were down and put blindfolds and ropes on them, in case they start to wake up. As we approached the calf, we noticed it had gone down, but the cow was still up, and charging through the bush half-awake (the etorphine was making her prance like a tenessee walking horse). Not wanting to get in the way in case she charged for us, we hung back with the equipment in our hands.

Suddenly, Marius screams at the top of his lungs at us to get the hell over there. With one last glance at the rhino cow still thundering through the bush, we drop our equipment and race over to the calf where a crew of strong men are desperately pulling on a rope attached to its head. Only then did we realize what we could not see before – the calf had gone down right on the edge of a steep embankment, and was rapidly falling off the edge. With a huge heave, the crew pulls on the rope as hard as we can, and the calf does not budge forward one bit. I wished then that I was so much stronger than I was, for I felt more like a burden than a help to the crew as we desperately tried to save the calf. If it were to tip over the embankment, we would never be able to get it up there again and would have to reverse the mother and set her free with the calf, if the calf even survived the fall. Finally we succeeded in pulling the calf enough out of harm’s way that it ceased to slide down the cliff and we could work on it. At this point, the mother crashed onto her side in the bush and we began to work on her just as the first one.

After all samples were taken, we then ran into another problem. Though the mother and calf were a lot closer together this time than the first pair had been, we needed to take them back to the trucks…a very VERY long way away, and through thick bush. Ever tried to drag a drugged rhino? It doesn’t work very well. And its very very tiring. With the cattle prod and a bunch of big, hefty guys (oh yeah, and me) we eventually walked the cow through the bush and into the truck where she was preg-checked and finally loaded with the other one.
By this time, I was thoroughly dehydrated and it was getting even later in the day. As the land rover started off, we went even further down the road, looking for a cutoff that would circle back to where we were before. After about half an hour, a concerning message came onto the radio – one of the trucks was MIA. In the African veld, that’s not a good thing! How could a large truck with a freakin’ rhino disappear? So we hurried back to where the other trucks were and tried to guide them on the radios with directions. But as it was getting late, the vet students were told to take their car and drive it and a few of the vet techs back with them to start processing samples. That meant that one person had to stay behind in the hot sun for a few more hours with the vet until the truck came. And guess who that was?

Hey, how’d you guess???

Thankfully it didn’t take too long before the truck was back on the right road and all five elephants were loaded onto the same truck and it was speeding on its way. We had a long drive back to the vet building where more work had to be done, and finally we got back home to our little camp just as the sun was setting – just enough time for me to run and grab my new rental car. Seems they couldn’t find an appropriate tire to fix the one that was flattened on my car, so they decided to just give me a new rental car.  Thank goodness that mess seems to be done with!

And now, the only thing that is left hanging over my head is my next destination. I’m supposed to be working with Dr. Tordiffe at the Pretoria zoo. And I will be. But he was supposed to make arrangements for my stay at the zoo and he didn’t. And while that wouldn’t be so bad normally as I could just get a hotel or something, the zoo is in the worst section of Pretoria. NOT a safe place outside of their gated walls. So instead, it appears I might be staying with the vet at HIS house! But I don’t know where that is, and I don’t know if I should get my own food, be dining with them, if it’s a room in their house or a separate chalet, or what the deal is. So I’m putting it all in Sue’s capable hands and just winging it (that seems to be the theme of my adventure here…just wing it and God will provide).

To all my friends at home that might be reading this: I miss you lots, and I hope that someday you can come with me back to Africa and I can show you all the many reasons why I’m in love with this place! The sunsets every night make me cry with their beauty. The animals sing to my heart and remind me of a fabulous God who has such a vivid imagination and cares for all living things. The people remind me what friendship is, and are a great example of kindness, sincerity, and friendliness that is unmatched in the states.
Until next time, via dankie for reading this. I hope it was lakur (awesome, cool, nice) to read. God bless each and every one of you, and warmest wishes from Skukuza, Kruger National Park, South Africa.
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Two Things: [22 Oct 2009|06:20am]
1. You know there's something wrong when your classmates feel the need every day to go out to a bar at lunch and drink. I can't tell you how awkward it is to come in to lab or class and find someone drunk or hung over. Do you really feel the need to go drink? It's so frustrating that people can skip class, be outright hostile to the instructor ("I don't need to know about heart worm because I'm going to be an equine vet, so I am not going to retain this information or answer your question you just asked me." ~ YES, this actually happened yesterday) and not remember things a day after the test and yet still pass vet school with flying colors and I've got one foot in the grade grave. Frustrating.

2. We had an interesting listening exercise. One part of it, we were instructed to write these five words:

Boy
Egg
Rug
Team
Sex

We were then told to cross out the wrong word. A few crossed out egg because they had a feeling about it. A few crossed out "Boy" because as they put it, "We don't like boys". A few crossed out Rug, because according to them, rugs had the least to do with sex. Most of us (including me) picked the right word: Team, because it has three letters. However, as one girl put it, the correct word to cross out should be sex, and here's why:

You can beat a boy, you can beat an egg, you can beat a rug, you can beat a team, but YOU CAN'T BEAT SEX.
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In Memory of Appa: August 2008 - September 24, 2009 [25 Sep 2009|04:57pm]
I only had you for a little while, but you were my first pet. And those are always the hardest to lose. I remember when I first reached my hand out towards you. Momo cowered in the back of her cage while you came over and placed your nose right next to my hand. You didn't bite it, but you touched it lightly, almost as if to say, "Yes, you'll do. Come take me."

It was that small, tiny gesture that led me to take you and Momo into my home. At first I worried about you, because you were so viscious and nasty with me whenever I tried to reach out for you. I tried everything I could think of to make you happy, but you just weren't interested in making friends. Then, one day, as if by magic, you decided to let me into your heart. And ever since, I knew I had a special attraction to you. You would always eagerly come to the cage door when I walked by, begging for a treat. When I gave you one, you would munch on it eagerly, and bounce quickly back to my hand, looking for more. With you, unlike Momo, I could trust to know the difference between "skin" and "Food". Only you had the courage to crawl along my arm and up to my elbow to get treats, and only you would enjoy being held and taken on short trips around the room, staring down at the world below you with contempt.

When you fell of the table, I knew something was wrong. It wasn't like you - the smart little girl that could balance herself on my skinny little arm while getting food. When you forgot how to use your hands to eat, and couldn't stand up on your hind legs, I grew very concerned. And my heart melted as I watched you try to climb down from the lowest level of your cage and tumble head over heals, landing with a bump and a squeel of pain each time.

Your eyes, once so full of love and life, had dulled. You began to waste away, skin sagging and bones protruding. We tried antibiotics, hoping against hope that it was just an infection and not the dreaded word: Cancer. But you didn't get better. And as time went by, I knew it was time to say goodbye. As the days drew closer, I couldn't bear to leave you, but I knew I had to. Every day it pained me to see you groveling on the floor, trying to eat but not remembering how. And even though you were starving, you violently refused any attempts to syringe feed you. "Even in the face of death", you seemed to say, "a girl HAS to keep her dignity."

The hardest thing I've ever had to do was leave you with Dr. Sponenburg and then walk away, knowing I was sending you to your death. I must have taken a quiz afterwards, but for me, time passed by so agonizingly slow knowing you were taking your last breaths, seeing your last sunrise, and lonely and scared without me there. But there was nothing I could do to save you.

In the necropsy room, it was so strange to see you so cold and stiff, but somehow it was also a healing process. As I stared into your cold eyes, and watched them take you appart, I knew you were giving your life to teach others. The fourth years and the professors in necropsy brought me to the table and I watched as they searched for clues as to why you died. It didn't take long to find it. A massive tumor in your brain was easily spotted: A pituitary adenoma. Ironically, something we had JUST learned about in pathology. Common in rats it was indeed.

Today was the last time I shall get to see her. They used her for rounds that week of interesting cases that they had been given. Many of my friends were there to see her and to also pay their last respects. And after a short history and diagnosis were given and all got to see the massive tumor in her head, they all gave me hugs and told me that she was a wonderful rattie. And she was.

Just before I left, they told me that they were going to make microscopic slides of Appa and the adenoma that took her life. Not only did she get a wonderful funeral full of onlooking friends, but she will always have a legacy among the freshmen of the vet school in their pathology microscopic slides. Appa's memory will live on. I couldn't have asked for a better funeral, or a better tombstone.

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes
How could you close and fail?
How could the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly turn so pale?
Bright eyes
~Art Garfunkle
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Things I did today: [01 Sep 2009|09:24pm]
Things I did today:

1. Wrestled a pig
2. Placed my first catheter in the ear vein of a pig
3. Got my hands covered in pig blood
4. Used a 4 inch needle to bleed a pig from its vena cava...successfully.

So, pretty much, I rocked today!!!!!!
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Awesome Quote [30 Aug 2009|08:31am]
"If we are blessed with the unremitting mercy and compassion of Christ, then our belief in His true teaching must constantly be tested and tempered by reason. The word of God rests separately in the heart of every man. Each must consciously decide what His will is for himself and not blindly accept the dogma of the Church. True faith is not for the lazy and complient - it is a vigorous and strengthening habit practiced by a thinking mind, nourished by the heart, and tempered by the spirit." ~ Bryce Courtenay, "Sylvia"
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[14 Aug 2009|11:45pm]
I just met Barlow Girl for the second time tonight after their concert. They are such a great group, and their concert was wonderful. It was a small, personal concert done for a new concert hall in West VA, but they made the place rock like no other. They were funny, charming, and great musicians...Melissa rocked the stage when she played both the electric keyboard and the electric guitar at the same time. And as the concert closed, instead of making a grand show with an encore and shouting/attention grabbing like many bands do, they slipped into a prayer and had us singing our own prayers to God while they quietly walked off the stage. When we opened our eyes after the prayer, they had left the stage, and we were just struck with the awe of God and His grace, rather than the awe of Barlow Girl and their music. It was WONDERFUL. And it left such a great impression with me.

And then, to discover that they were so cheerful and loving off the stage too was awesome. They signed my ticket for me and saw my shirt and asked if I went to college at Virginia-Maryland, and I said I went to Tech at their Vet School. The three sister's eyes opened wide and they said, "NO WAY! That's such a great calling...are you ready for it? Is it hard? What's it like?" They were genuinely impressed at my being in vet school. Such nice girls, and so devoted to God, yet they know how to rock it out.

Oh, why do I let myself let go
Of hands that painted the stars
And hold tears that fall?
And the pride of my heart makes me forget
It's not me but You
Who makes the heart beat.
I'm lost without You
And dying from me

So tell me
What is our ending?
Will it be beautiful,
So beautiful?
Will my life
Find me by Your side?
Your love is beautiful.
So beautiful.

At the end of it all,
I wanna be in Your arms.
~Beautiful Ending, Barlow Girl
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[08 Aug 2009|07:34pm]
The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions:
Copy this into your NOTES. Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. Tag other book nerds.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Total: 4

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

Total: 7

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X

Total: 11

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X

Total: 14

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

Total: 15

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Total: 16

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Total: 18

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

Total: 19

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

Total: 21

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Total: 25

A fourth of them isn't bad at all. There's so many books I wanna read, and so little time....
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I'm not a princess...this ain't a fairy tale. [24 Jul 2009|11:06am]
I never liked Taylor Swift because all I'd heard from her was the song "Love Story" which I despised completely. But after hearing her new song which really identifies with me (You Belong With Me) and this one (White Horse) which pretty much describes my view of men for the rest of my life I'm sure, I have much newfound respect for her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySqz4USHA4Y&NR=1

P.S., Africa pictures coming soon, I promise.
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Shooting in Radford today [03 Apr 2009|12:21am]
Just found out that there was a shooting in Radford. The killer ran into one of the buildings at the university. The entire university may be locked down according to one student I know attending there, and the cops are looking EVERYWHERE trying to find the killer. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. Please keep them in your throughts and prayers, and show Radford your support in this trying time.
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Dressing business casual today...just kidding. WHEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! Streaking naked throug the house [31 Mar 2009|09:10pm]
Sockington the Cat, on Twitter. It's the best time I ever spent not studying. For all you cat lovers...this is just to die for funny.

http://twitter.com/sockington
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Disturbing... [22 Mar 2009|06:49am]
I had another one of those really interesting dreams. I dreampt I was looking at people's AIM profiles online, and I came across Paul's. He had a link there to a cartoon movie that was posted on youtube from an actual movie. When I looked at the link, I saw some scenes of a girl that looked JUST LIKE ME in cartoon form. And I was wearing the green princess dress from Halloween. I had just faught against some evil villain and I was dancing with this really handsome prince around and around in circles to some beautiful classical music in a bright forest.

Well, the dream then shifted. It appears, as I was going about my regular routine duties, I found two dogs that I had known in my life. I found, strangely enough, that I could talk to them, and began to converse with them. They were both labs...a female chocolate lab and another was a male black lab. When I saw them, it was on my way to vet school. When I got there, one of my professors had summoned me into necropsy lab and showed me a dog that they had cut open. Inside were these things that looked like giant bot worms...or like butter beans all strung together in multiple "hive-like things" throughout the core of the dog's body. He was talking about this new type of parasitic cancer that goes throughout the body, consumes and individual, becomes too much for the dog to handle, and then as it grows, it eventually bursts out of one of its prison-like coccoons and kills the host.

As I watched the cancer, in my mind I suddenly began to grow uneasy. The professor said that vets around the world were watching this disease, hoping that it didn't become zoonotic and start effecting humans. As time progressed, I found one day a knock on my door. Someone dressed as a Jehova's Witness (or Mormon, I couldn't tell) was at my door, but somehow instinctively I knew this man was not from God, and not right in the head. When my friends let him in, he immediately attacked me. I knew instinctively that he was the eminence of the cancer going "zoonotic", and he was trying to find a human host to infect. He glared at me as he pinned me to the ground, saying, "You are my closest target, since you already share a special connection with animals. But you're also the only one who can stop me."

I fought him hard, but my blows and kicks never seemed to do more than delay his coming after me. If he touched me, he would draw blood, and then I just knew he would travel into my blood stream and become infective. So, as I raced out into the nearbye forest, the brown lab came rushing up to me telling me that the black lab was dying from the cancer. I ran up to him and caught a few last words of encouragement to stop the cancer before it destroyed all of mankind.

Unfortunately, he caught up with me rather quickly and began to fight me. I suddenly saw that I was in a green dress, in the forest, battling this amazing villain. I instantly discovered that the movie I watched from Paul's IM was, in fact, my OWN TRUE STORY told in cartoon...like a disney movie! I remember thinking to myself, "well, if that's the case, then someone knew this would end okay and therefore I shouldn't worry. But then I remembered other stories like Pocahontas and the Little Mermaid that Disney doctored and made into a happy ending that there wasn't one for, and I grew really nervous. I hoped desperately that whomever that prince was on the screen that I was dancing with would come and help me. But alas, to no avail. No prince came, and my dream mercifully ended when he began to grab me and slash at me violently.

Kinda a weird dream. Perhaps some day I'll turn it into a good story. Or hollywood will use it as a movie and make lots of money on it.
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Sabbath in Space [01 Mar 2009|09:17pm]
At the memorial at the Kennedy Space Center for the destruction of the Columbia space shuttle, Rabbi Zvi Konikov described his quandry at Ilan Ramon's question. The Israeli astronaut wanted to observe the sabbath of his poeople. "How does one mark the Sabbath in space, with every 90 minutes another sunset; every 10 and a half hours a Sabbath? Jerusalem, we have a problem!" he quipped.

Ramon's answer to his own query was a deep one. "No matter how fast we're going, no matter how important our work, we need to pause and think about why we're here on Earth."

That's amazingly inspirational, on so many levels. When I get caught up in the rush of vet school, it's easy to get bogged down and stressed. I don't ever want to lose the bigger picture, what's really important in life...my reason for being here.
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Wedding Bells are in the air...!!!!!!!! [25 Feb 2009|11:17pm]
My friend from high school and freshman roommate, Rebekah Maddox, just called me and announced that she is getting married on April 18th! Wow. Congratulations to my wonderful inspirational gift from God. She and Tom make SUCH a great, supportive, and godly couple. I still remember our late night talks about boys and how every guy in the entire university seemed to have a crush on her. And to think that she's getting married...wow...

And sadly, I was not asked to be in the wedding. And if one of my closest friends doesn't ask me to be in the wedding, well...I have a feeling that I'm never going to know what it feels like to be in a wedding, lol. ;) Most of my other friends are not even interested in getting married at all, let alone having me a part of it. ^_~ But hey, I'm going to move heaven and earth to see it. Even though that means leaving in the middle of a HUGE test time period. Oh well. It's all about priorities. ^_^

Congratulations to Rebekah and Tom. God bless you both. And good luck planning a wedding in...5 weeks. o.0
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The Eye Has It [15 Feb 2009|04:13pm]
My heart was broken today by a beautiful, one-eyed stranger.

She was a 14 week old, grey striped DSH. She had one beautiful brown eye and one blue lifeless bulp that stood in place of the left eye.

Now, I always look at the cats when I go into Petsmart. I enjoy watching them and trying to assess their personalities as I watch them through the glass. But this little kitten caught my eye in an unusual way. She walked up to the glass, meowing softly at me. She tried to sniff my hand and threw herself against the glass, trying desperately to rub her fur against my hand. I felt a little tug in my chest, but I kept walking down one of the isles, still in view of her, but at the other end of the store. As I walked, she mewed to me louder and louder. I turned to look, and she was still watching me, her eyes never leaving me even when other people came up to her cage and tried to get her attention. She completely ignored them and looked around them to try and find me again. I approached again once the people left, and she immediately threw herself against the glass again, purring up a storm.

I called my parents and begged and pleaded for them to let me have a cat. But they refused. As I expected they would. But tearing myself away from her hurt so bad...as if a piece of my soul was being ripped from my chest. I came home and cried. I'm still crying. I can still see her face, hear her calls...

She was from the Montgomery County Animal Shelter. If anyone goes there, or even goes to Petsmart, please let me know if she's been adopted. I want her to go to a great home. I think I'd die if she had to be put down.
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Hilarious! [01 Feb 2009|08:49am]


PCR: Who's your daddy? ^_~
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[30 Jan 2009|09:36am]
Rules: It's harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag 10 people. Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be
Have Fun!!

1. What is your name: Sylvia

2. A four Letter Word: Soil

3. A Boy's Name: Sam

4. A girl's Name: Sharen

5. An occupation: Snake charmer

6. A color: Salmon

7. Something you wear: Shirt

8. A food: Sloppy Joe

9. Something found in the bathroom: Shampoo

10. A place: South Africa ^_^

11. A reason for being late: Sleeping in.

12. Something you shout: Shaboopie!!!

13. A movie title: Stardust

14. Something you drink: Soda

15. A musical group: Skillet

16. An animal: Sea Otter

17. A street name: Silver Leaf Lane

18. A type of car: Subaru
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[28 Jan 2009|10:27pm]
I wish I wasn't so completely exhausted all the time. I get enough sleep...a good 7 hours on average every night of the week. But when I get up in the morning I feel like I haven't slept at all, and by the time night comes around I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open to study. I'm eating plenty, I'm not active anymore unfortunately...but that shouldn't be it, because I'm not this tired when I'm at home, and I get more exercise here than at home. I mean, as I sit here, I can hardly even find the energy to type on the keyboard. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?????
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Pay it forward... [24 Jan 2009|08:52pm]
Just so you guys know, I'm playing your little game, but I'm putting it up in facebook. So, if you wanna get something, be one of the first few to comment there. Since you're all closer to me, I'll give you a head's start. ^_^
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[24 Jan 2009|08:32am]
So, I just found out today that a friend of mine from the Vienna SDA church back home in No. VA, Eric Witteborg, was the OFFICIAL interpreter for the Obama Inauguration. How SWEET IS THAT??? That's what being fluent in sign language can do for you!!!
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Running from "God", or lack thereof. [19 Dec 2008|09:54pm]
Interesting discussion tonight at ACF. And it really really got me to thinking.

Let me explain.

I'm not afraid of Aliens from outer space, or giant ants invading the earth and eating all human kind. I don't go around every day worried that I'm going to be abducted. And if someone tells me that I should avoid 81 because a spaceship landed, I'm not going to take route 11 instead, just in case. Why? Because if you don't believe in something, there's no reason to be scared of it. There's no reason to avoid ghosts, goblins, vampires, or giant killer bugs because I don't believe they exist. In fact, I have proof that they can never exist. And so, there's no reason to be scared or avoid these things because, well...they don't exist. And I have no question that they don't exist.

This, I think, is where I'm starting to see a difference between agnostics and atheists. A true atheist would say, "You want me to come to church with you? You want to talk to me about God? Sure, why not? I know He doesn't exist, I have no fear of changing what I believe because I am so deeply convinced that God does not exist that I have nothing to fear by going to these things." This is generally seen as someone who likes to talk about the idea of God, likes to meditate on the concept, and doesn't mind it if their friends believe it.

Yet meanwhile, there are a number of people who claim to be 100% sure that God does not exist, and yet, they go out of their way to not have anything even remotely to do with God. They completely avoid anything and anyone that reminds them of God, or in which they feel God has the potential to come up (in conversations, actions, etc.). I have even been ostricized because I'm too much like God, and therefore I should be avoided. Someone like that CANNOT disbelieve in God! Why are you avoiding Something you don't believe in? It makes no sense. Why should something you have no belief in scare you to the point of utter avoidance and hatred? You can't hate something that doesn't exist.

From what I see, someone who is actively avoiding God in their life is showing proof (whether they consciously know it or not) that they believe in Him. At this point, their avoidance and ill will toward Him is merely due to spiritual warfare rather than a lack of spiritual belief. How can you be struggling against something you don't believe exists?

Granted, I understand that you can be adament about your belief in the non-existance of God so that you are pained or even annoyed if someone who DOES believe in God mentions the idea you retaliate. But, when you see someone actively avoiding and taking great pains to remove something out of their life that they claim to not believe in at all, it has me wondering.

And on the other hand, I think that's partly why I don't mind getting into discussions with atheists/agnostics about why God does or doesn't exist. And why I don't mind hearing about and going to conventions and lectures about evolution. Seriously, I don't believe in it. And to me, there's overwhelming evidence against it. So, why should I avoid it? Why should I be scared of it? Why should I try to distance myself from it? So many Christians that ostricize those around them that believe differently and get so offensive when they are approached with the theory and/or idea that God does not exist, or creation is a joke, lash out severely or withdraw completely, showing seemingly that they have their own doubts as to what they believe themselves.

Great discussion. This is what ACF is all about...
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