death, corruption, and bears

so it's been an eventful couple of weeks for me!

First i'll start off with my Grandpa. I think all of you know he passed away. It was bitter sweet because i really was needing a trip to oklahoma to calm some of my nerves.

The wake and funeral were very sad. Honestly the hardest part for me was watching my mother, aunts, uncles, and grandma hurting so much. I mean obviously i was very hurt too, but for them it must've been a lot worse. 7 of my grandma's 8 kids came to the funeral, it was the most of the family that has been together in a really really long time. I met some more of my family on my grandpa's side too that i'd never met before. It was a great visit to woodward and was really nice to get to see so much family. My niece is shooting up like a weed. She's saying a few words and walks around the house like she owns the place.

I went back to okc on monday so i could do a couple things and see some people! I went and bought a bunch of dogfood and took it over to beth's for boris. Happy to say he didn't forget who i was! haha i was honestly a little worried!

i spent about an hour over there playing with the pups, then i went out to eat lunch with aquanita. was really good to see her and get caught up on all the work drama/gossip. after that i left and headed to norman where i met up with Josh my gay friend. I wanted an oklahoma shirt so we went shopping. (i think i got the same one you have tracy) then at 5 i met blake delao, laura, jess, and clarence at the library!

We ate a lot and drank too, had a great time! After a bit, jess, blake and josh all had to leave so laura clarence and i went to the mont for a couple swirls! afterwards we went back to the house and laid in carolyns bed talking for a while before going to bed to catch my early flight!

All in all the trip was great. I'm sad for the reason that it happened but grateful to have the opportunity to visit.

ok now on to the elections. So once again, they were rigged. The guy who "won" the presidency is the son of the first ever president of kenya after their liberation. He is also awaiting trial with the international court for war crimes, things having to do with organizing a ton of the post-election violence that took place last election.

Well anyway his party won literally every election. meaning one party will run the entire government....

A lot of people are taking their opponents to court to try to get justice, but this is a very timely and very very expensive endeavor. Something we don't have the money, or time for that matter, to even attempt. So what this means is Meitamei will not be in parliament.

What's this mean for me? well basically we have to work really really hard now to have funds for me to continue working here for more than 3 more months. It's something that i'm optimistic about, but at the same time i need to be realistic. It's hard enough to get grants and raise enough money for just our projects. Adding my salary on top of that isn't going to be easy.

ok enough sad talk, fun talk time.

This past friday in Phoenix was the Bearracuda event! Something that happens once every 3 months. Just a big ole bear gathering! I went down early friday morning and worked out with bartender in the afternoon. We were going to go jock strap shopping for something to wear to the bar that night but instead bartender just told me i could wear one of his, so went to the store and cooked us a nice big lunch. That evening they invited over a bunch of guys to pre-party before going out. There were about 30 people there. It was a lot of fun. I drank a lot there, probably enough to last me the whole night haha. After some random making out there we left and went to the bar. It was a ton of fun. At some point in the night i didn't have my shirt on. I thought someone stole it but apparently it was tucked into my waistband on the back side of my shorts hahaha!

I danced a ton and made out a ton and had an all together great time there! We left there probably around 1am and went to charlies the western bar to do some more dancing! I don't think i've talked about it, but there is an amazing taco/mexican food truck that parks right outside charlie's and everyone eats there after. It's always the best tasting burrito of my life!

The next morning we all slept in till noon trying to sleep off the night before. Then bartender and i got up and went to the gym again to try to sweat some of it out. While we were lifting though i kept feeling like i was about to throw up, but i made it though! That evening we went to bartenders sisters house to help her and his brother move some big heavy things. He's not out to his family (his family is mormon) so i was "a friend of bf's" to his sister and other family there. Then his sister cooked some polynesian food for us to thank us and it was amazing! she's opening a catering business and wants to start a restaurant. After that we went home and watched a couple movies just relaxing.

Then sunday, st patty's day we woke up kind of late again and went to charlies because they have an amazing drink deal on sundays. We didn't get trashed or anything, just kinda relaxed drinking most of the afternoon. Then in the evening we ordered some pizza and got some frozen yogurt from a little place.

Then i came back to prescott to find this lovely surprise!!! 

thanks for the card laura! i know you sent it ages ago, but it just now got to me! might have been the zipcode confusion!

I think i have a lot of work i'll be doing this week so that will be nice to occupy a lot of my time. I'm sorry there aren't a ton of pictures in this blog but i guess we didn't take as many this time!

Love you guys!