Last week after discovering 17 strange bites on my face I started Googling "strange facial bites west africa" and Thank God I did because I discovered an amazing blog chronicling the author's travels through Mali. What Possessed Me's trials and tribulations throughout this unique country are comedic genius. I needed these laughs on numerous occasions while here in Mali! It was this quote though that has really stuck with me...
As for the recognition of hard travel as rewarding, the feeling is mainly retrospective, since it is only in looking back that we see how we have been enriched.
These 22 days in Mali have been amazing, extremely difficult, tiring, dirty, frustrating, long, dirty again, eye-opening, beautiful, happy, and sad. When I left everyone said "have such an amazing trip, have so much fun, find beautiful things"...these things happened but so did the other things. It will be interesting to see how those "other things" resonate in my life once I'm back.