las sen~oras at the ridvan celebration

not quite sure what was going on before they put their smiles on when they realized someone was taking their picture :D

all three have gone home now... missing them way too much...

more wedding pics :)

can't quite disguise mi deseo de casarme en costa rica... jejeje... somehow turned a chilly desert setting into a tropical-ish location! :D
mami and mormor, giddy, coming up the stairs to the terrace... sweet sweet yas and patrik's casi-brother charles

*happy sigh*
helen, la mujer mas tierna del mundo, and dear shiva, muppet enthusiast who i somehow convinced to take our wedding photos! (muchisimas gracias, chiva shiva!)
aah, peter, the coolest swede i know and wedding planner extraordinaire... his terrace will soon become the most saught-after bwc wedding spot...

mormor and mr. mcjeres, who came all the way from costamcrica!la familia en bahji after the wedding :)

~*~ le mariage ~*~

there were a million steps leading up to the terrace where the ceremony took place...
and we were half an hour late, so the guests waited and waited...
the vows...
the signing...mon belle-mère... tres leches como wedding cake...

la familia... ferdinand & rebecca (patrik's parents), the newlyweds, mormor, mamita, carole&matthew (patrik's sister and brother-in-law)....
my "bridesmaids" joanna and sherri...
le bouquet...we're married!!!
fotos en bahji...





exhausted...

several days without writing.... jejeje... i'm such as bad about blogging as i am about writing...

~*~

a lot to tell, though! the wedding is just five days away (eek!) and so all the last minute things are getting done... flowers and plates and food and program (jejjee... haven't even figured out the program yet... what prayers to say, who to say them, when to do rings and vows and signing adn all that good stuff...) i get these little moments of freaking out about not having enough time, but then i realize it's all very simple and there's no reason to worry :)

~*~

saturday i moved into our new flat at the bottom of the mountain, with a beautiful view of the shrine and a very very squeeky bed. and a barking dog next door. (ha!) still unpacking, and need to get everything cleaned up and beautiful before mommy and mormor get here, or else they'll be tripping over my luggage and random bits of stuff that hasn't found a place yet... oh, and must get the hot water turned on! (hopefully today...).

~*~

and then saturday night i had my big blow out bachelorette party, complete with games and sappy advice from all the ladies and sexy lingerie (woohoo!)... i had a stomach ache when i got there, but laughed it off with all my friends... someone was taking photos, so maybe i'll be able to post them soon...

~*~

and last night i met my suegros!!!

~*~

why why WHY don't i ever think to take out my camera?...

~*~

they are very sweet and funny, and brought lots of gifts, big bright beautiful cameroonian clothes for me and patrik (and a little something for my mommy and daddy!) and some house decorating stuff and big big hugs... it's nice to see where patrik comes from :) and to see who he might turn into in thirty years! ;)

~*~

and, my days of flying under the radar and being pretty much anonymous at the BWC are over... now that i'm part of this family, there are lunches and dinners and meetings planned with house members and itc members... the whole works... i've gotten used to being an unknown face and name... no longer :)

~*~

wish my seesters were here...

inside myself

with all the excitement and planning and soon-ness of the wedding, i've found that i spend a lot of time inside myself, not necessarily worrying, but definitely thinking... trying to grasp what this new life will be like, what it implies, how it will all come together. a wedding is just a day, a really nice day filled with people who love you wishing you well, but what comes after is huge. it's joining your life with someone else's, with all that implies. it's a radical change, you know? and it's so bizarre that i'm doing this for the second time.

*

and at the same time, it's such an easy thing. to decide to live with someone you love, that you admire and respect, to make a family, to just stick around to see what happens, no matter what. it's almost as if, if there wasn't this ritual, this ceremony, to mark the difference between before and after, that the change would just be this transitional, easy, softflowing thing.

*

maybe, too, it's that i've delegated so much of the wedding to friends :) it makes for a stress free existence! i just have the image of how i want that morning to be, very calm, very beautiful, very simple, and i know that if i start worrying about how many vegetable platters to get or how many chairs we need to borrow, i'll arrive that morning much too aware of the silly details and not aware enough of how unimportant those details are! :) it also means, tho, that i feel like a guest at my own wedding, which is an interesting feeling... highly recommend it!

*

new flat :)

the (quite short) search is over -- we chose our new flat friday night... 137 hameginim will be our new home, at least for a while... we had three other choices, one of which nice with three bedrooms but was about an hour away, two on the street where patrik lives now and that were a little, mmm, strange (one was three floors DOWN, which kind of freaks me out), so the last one we looked at way at the bottom of the mountain was the nicest of all.... it has one bedroom and isn't very big, but it feels very open and has a nice view of the shrine... plus, there's an elevator (sigh of relief) as opposed to hundreds of stairs to walk up and down! :)

i'll send photos once i move in this saturday... patrik gets a key to the place the day of our wedding... hehehe

it should be nice, at least for now. hopefully we'll be able to move to a bigger or at least more centrally-located place soon... :)

and now the planning begins...

so exciting! everything has been flowing really well so far... we have the date (saturday 15 april), the time (11 in the morning), the location (our friend's terrace, overlooking the mediterranean and the shrine of the bab), the invitations (on handmade paper with dried flowers... sent in the last couple days), the rings (simple white gold bands, thick and heavy), my dress (you'll see in the photos!), the food (a little bit of everything, but i'm sure delicious)... it's all falling into place... i think it's going to be a simple, peaceful, beautiful day, and one of the mellowest weddings ever... i'm really happy, very exciting, wishing for the day to come soon, and praying for a marriage that will allow us to serve, that will bring many children (gots to have da bebes!), that will last until we've got grey hair and wrinkly skin in this world, and that will continue to be a strong connection in all the coming worlds... i wish my sisters were here, so much laughing and planning and talking to be done... i miss you!

here's to a mellow morning ceremony... :)

anoche tuve una devocional en mi casa en honor a pancho... fue muy linda, con mas o menos 20 personas, con una cena de tortellini con pesto, jamon, y queso ricotta, y muchas oraciones... varias personas cantaron, y fue una noche muy especial....

pase la tarde recordando a pancho en los santuarios sagrados, y llorando un poco, pero acordandome de momentos felices que pasamos, y conversando espiritualmente con el. siento que el esta bien, contento, en paz. lo siento cerca, pero a la vez en una realidad completamente separada a la de este mundo... hmm.

la pena que siento y la pena que siente su familia es tan grande, pero el tiempo ha influendiado la intensidad de los llantos, la profundidad de la tristeza... de a poco nos vamos acercando a un estado de paz.

cuatro an~os

en un dia como hoy hace cuatro an~os, pancho se subio a su camioneta camino al trabajo... un martes normal, llovia con ganas y cuando salio de la casa me dijo "te le amo, chica" en ese acento cubano que le encantaba imitar... y esa fue la ultima que lo vi. se fue manejando, dejo a mi papa en su trabajo, y empezo su ruta en la autopista 11 al invernadero donde trabajaba, y a unos pocos kilometros del trabajo, perdio control de la camioneta y lo chocaron de ambos lados, matandolo instantaneamente.

esa es la historia de hoy, la historia que cambio el significado del 26 de marzo para siempre.

hay dias en que, incluso tanto tiempo despues, no me lo creo. no puedo creer que todo termino tan rapido, en un instante. mi amor, no puedo creer que ya no estas.

no puedo creer que el mundo no dejo de girar ese dia, que el sol siguiera amaneciendo, que todos nosotros siguieramos respirando...

pancho, mi amor, te extran~o tanto...

we're getting married!!!!!!

aleluya!!!!

i just got a call saying that we were granted permission to marry in the holy land and for our service to continue until february 2008! i am so excited, i can barely think straight!!!!!!!!!

:D

and now all the preparations begin!!! woohoo!!!!!!!!!!

*grin*

:)

matthew & carole, my soon-to-be cun~ados!

sweet!

happy naw ruz!

enjoy the llegada of the spring!

(and coffee breaks during daylight hours...

and lunch...

and sleeping in...)

: : 24 : :

my eyes are all crossed and my mind completely fried, and yet i'm going back for more tonight! we got the tv show "24" on dvd, and i never watched it before, but it is so addicitive... and knowing that you can watch the next episode right away just gets you into this neverending tv-staring state... people have literally stayed in front of their tvs for 24 hours straight watching this thing... i'm taking it in four hour bursts, but even so, my mind is fried....

~*~ les presento una nueva sobrinita! ~*~

~*~ annisa valentina, hija de mis amigos roberto y dominga ~*~

now that my dreams have come back, i keep wishing for dreams that will give me answers to questions, for dreams where i can see certain people and talk to them, for dreams that tell me more about what is going on... but i've always wished that, i guess... to be psychic somehow in the dream world... jejjee... it's been nice, though, to even have everyday-type dreams though, the kind where when you wake up you're not sure if it really happened or not... the kind that give you a false memory of events that never really happened ;)

~*~

the fast is almost over, and it's gone by really quickly... it's funny how about halfway through my body just accepts the fact that there is no eating throughout the day, and goes about its normal routine como si nada... the first few days i would get these hunger pangs and these intese munchies, and now it's just like a familiar emptiness...

~*~

hable con mi suegra anoche, y fue tan rico conectar con ella despues de varias semanas... hablamos de muchas cosas, pero mas que nada de los sentimientos encontrados de la familia en relacion a mi compromiso con patrik... se que es dificil para todos pensar que estare continuando con mi vida, empezando algo nuevo, pero siempre con pancho en mi corazon, en mi mente... todavia no hayo como encontrar el balance entre la felicidad de mi matrimonio con pancho y la pena de viuda, entre tenerlo siempre en mi y empezar algo nuevo... pero de a poco creo que todo va ser mas claro, y con el tiempo las heridas se van cerrando.... nunca sanan, pero si cicatrizan...

mi deseo es que me sigan considerando parte de la familia, como yo los considero a ellos, y que puedan aceptar mi decision...

~*~

i haven't posted in a few days... i think that the combination of fasting and waiting for any news from the house of justice has put me into frozen-time-mode!

friday was a big day of acquiring wedding things-- patrik and i got our rings from the jeweler, and, joyofjoys i got a dress!!!! after going into all these fancy (and kind of freaky) bridal shops (some of the dresses are outrageous... mesh netting held together by huge safety pins over a sheer bustier.... interesting...), so i went to the mall and searched for anything white... mostly there was a lot of nothing, but eventually i found the perfect thing! :D just a simple cotton strapless top and long skirt, very comfy, very dancing-naked-in-the-moonlight... makes me happy! now i can get married... jejeje

and saturday, having accomplished so much (ha!) on friday, i stayed in bed until noon and then watched the muppet show on dvd all afternoon... sigh... lazy days are dabest...

saturday night there was this really nice event organized by the africa study group here, where people spoke about enoch olinga and mr. dunbar told stories of the time he spent with him.... lots of laughing... really really nice :) plus, lots of good food :)

... missing the beach...

happy happy, aria!

hope you had a great day with lots of hugs and laughter and smooches from sashita!

i love you!!!!

hints of spring

blossoms are popping up on bare tress... white almond blossoms raining down with the breeze on my way to work and these bright pink crabapple blossoms dancing outside the seat...

*

~just hints that spring is on its way~

*

this fasting season will be very healing.

ayyam-i-ha celebration

last night, carole and matthew (patrik's sister and brother-in-law) had an ayyam-i-ha celebration at their flat... i wish i had remembered to take pictures! i'm so terrible at remembering to take my camera out-- almost every photo i've posted so far was taken by someone else and emailed to me! ~ it was a really nice night, about 39 people from all over, including some pilgrims from cameroon, so there was a lot of singing and drumming... very fun :) everyone brought lots of food (we're all stocking up for the fast, it seems like! i've had 4 different types of dessert as presents today!) and a mr. hall, a counsellor from australia, gave a little talk on the meditation during the fast. afterwards, as we were cleaning up, patrik and carole started singing to pass the time as they did the dishes, and it was so beautiful... perfect harmonies... all songs written by their family... i hope maybe one of patrik's brothers will come to the wedding, and that way there will be some amazing music surrounding us that day... there's no way to describe it until you hear it for yourself...