Catching Up With An Old Friend

Just this week, I emailed someone from my childhood--Niki, an old friend from boarding school in Burundi. We used to get up to mischief together and often had to write 500 times in neat cursive, " I will do my jobs on time and remember to check with Mrs. Caine before I go out to play..." (something like that). Now, consider that we were only seven and eight years old, and also homesick off and on--our schedule was similar to a college calendar, three months at school, one month at home. I wish the dorm parents had shown more empathy. But I guess maybe they weren't all that happy to be put in the position of "mothering" a bunch of kids who didn't belong to them. Nowadays, I think most missions concentrate on finding dormparents who are nurturing and skilled at relating to children.

Here's what Niki's up to these days. Among other things, surviving a cape buffalo attack and making films about Africa.