madrid
i’m sitting in parque de madrid, writing my last entry before i arrive in ghana. the park has become my favorite place in madrid. this is the most charming park i’ve ever visited. its slender, verdant trees, classical fountains, and meandering roads feeds the romantic soul in my heart.
when traveling alone, i realized that music becomes your best friend. and because i had much time to spare, i walked everywhere, listening to whatever tune enhanced my experience of a particular place or time. for example, when i first arrived to the center of parque de madrid, where there is a huge lake with people rowing boats, i listened to frank sinatra singing “moon river.” or when i was walking back to my hostel around sunset, i turned to the eels to wind down the day. or sondre lerche to add some bounce in my step at the beginning of the day. today, i’ve been listening to praise songs, just to prepare my heart for this weekend.
it’s passion week- after visiting three museums here, i must have seen more than thirty images of christ’s cruxifixion and even more of His glorified birth. christ used to be the most important subject matter to artists and patrons of the arts. i wonder what art would look like if that held true today. seeing those images really helped me gain a better grasp of what physically had to take place in order for me to live a saved life.
as i have shared with you my interest in photojournalism and where i hope to take my own career, i was able to visit an exhibit that showed me how effective, potent and relavant the field is in terms of revealing the unknown and the unseen. there was a photojournalism exhibit of contemporary spanish photographers that was so well done, i went to see it twice. one photographer, emilio morenatti, took beautiful portraits of pakistani women who were victims of acid attacks by men. some their faces were so mutilated and deformed, i didn’t want to get closer because it was so gruesome to look at. it moved me to tears- i wondered what hope they had in the world to remain alive. i wonder if women in similar situations of a male-dominated hierarchy believe that God loves them the same as the men. it’s a question that i hope to find some answers to.
im ready to go friends. i have been living bountifully off of the hospitality and generosity of others during my travels and i think ghana will be no different. but i am also ready to share my heart all for love’s sake.
