Oops, I did it again.

Hello again friends.

Eight years ago this month I embarked upon an adventure that changed my life. Of course at the time there was no possible way I could have known that my somewhat impulsive six month stay in Rwanda would completely transform my life. I had countless experiences – both good and bad – that I had never dreamed of, met amazing people from incredibly diverse backgrounds, and in the process had nearly every perception I ever had about the world turned upside down. Along the way I crossed paths with a plucky gal from south London, and along with a couple of four-legged characters we started a life together.

Back then I catalogued and shared my new life with friends and family on a nearly weekly basis on a blog I called The Jones Experience. After about a year and a half I stopped writing new articles. Running the Rwandan Orphans Project became my top priority, life got busy and, well, I didn’t really feel like I had anything new and interesting to share (but really it was just laziness). After some time I decided to give it another go, but I found that my website had been hacked and all the blog posts from those early months were erased. Honestly it made me quite sad and it sucked away any enthusiasm I had built in my mind to start it up again. But thankfully not all was lost. Fortunately for me my mother had printed out each and every article had I ever posted, photos included, and put them in binders for safe keeping. Thanks to her I will always be able to look back and see how I perceived things, albeit with great naivety, during those early days in Africa.

Okay so now I will finally cut to the chase.

I’ve decided to start blogging once again. Why? First of all I do miss writing, and I have for some time. I enjoy it, so why not? Second, I like sharing my experiences and the thoughts and feelings they inspire with my friends and loved ones, and frankly I’m too busy and lazy to write you all emails regularly. Finally, my mother has been bugging me about restarting it since 2011, and god dammit I can’t take it anymore.

Be warned, there won’t really be any theme to this blog. As I’m writing this post I have yet to think about a single topic I will actually write about. I imagine there will be some Rwanda stories, anecdotes about being an American trying to settle into British culture and other bits and bobs (see, I’m already picking up the lingo) that I think might be worthy of pondering and sharing publicly. I’m not even sure if people read blogs anymore, but I guess there’s only one way to find out.

So, welcome to the new Jones Experience. If it sucks blame my mother.

SJ