I’ve been back at home in London now for about 36 hours.  Most definitely still recovering… if you could see the team today, it must be said that none of us are really looking at our sprightly best!  But we’ll all bounce back soon - a lot of sleep, a little TLC, and it will be as if the last two weeks was just a dream…

… and how sad will that be.  Sometimes I really wish that time could stand still, that you could capture the moment beyond a photo, beyond video… but the sounds, the smells, the heat, the environment… but I guess we haven’t invented the media to allow us to do that, quite yet.

I was talking to my friend on the phone yesterday; she’d been following the blog and my tweets, and was keen to find out much much more.  But one thing she said really stuck with me: “it must have been such a culture shock coming home”.  And I thought about it and realised that no, not really… I seem to have slipped back into my ‘normal’ life with such ease; breakfast for Covi (my son), our usual rush to get him to school on time… missing my train into the office.  And I realised that when I was away, I had promised myself that when I got back home and washed my hands under warm running water, and sat on the toilet… and flushed the toilet… that I would remember just how damn privileged we all are.  And how much for granted we all take a tap and a toilet, every single day of our lives.

So I want to leave you with these two simple thoughts:

*  Your problems are your own problems, but don’t forget that there are way too many people in the world who don’t have the simple privileges of a ‘developed’ life that we do… access to water, food, roofs over our heads, windows to open and close (and that’s obviously not a complete list!).

*  And that the three Staying Alive Foundation grantees that we have had the incredible opportunity to meet on this trip are just three out of 60 grantees that the Foundation supports.  And I promise you, each of the grantees are just as incredible and inspiring and dynamic as Bulelani, Alex and Mandakini.

I want to personally urge you that if you have been moved in any way by what Travis & I have been blogging over the last couple of weeks, please please go to our donation page and support our work.  We don’t need huge amounts of money from you to do what we do… but we do need your support.