At last.....Japan

I've been so caught up in this crazy whirlwind, also known as, my life in Japan. To all my faithful blog followers, sorry to have left you high and dry with no news to date BUT I have finally received enough motivation and coercion from my loved ones to get dust off my dear old blog-spot page and begin to try to keep everyone updated on my life.

I find it somewhat difficult to pick up where I left off, considering my circumstances are very different than those of my last travels. Maybe I secretly want to be able to make it as exciting and interesting as when I had written while in Egypt, Uganda and Rwanda....but, I have finally realized that its not going to be the same. I mean, why should it be? Living in a 'developed' country such as Japan is not going to lend itself to be similar to those in Africa BUT I've realized that my difference in circumstances does not make them less exciting or interesting...just different. So, in honor of a certain small crowd of people (most of whom are related to me) who have very 'subtly' encouraged me to get my butt in gear and write something....here is my peace offering....

Like I said at the beginning, I feel like my life has just be a whirlwind since arriving here in Japan a little over 2 months ago. I really can't believe I'm already working on my third month here! I was warned of this 'time-flying-by-quickly' feeling from many of the other English teachers I've met here and now I think I know what they're talking about. A week of teaching goes by rather too quickly and before I know it, it's already the weekend. I guess some would consider that a good work situation to find myself in. I personally think the reason the week goes by so quickly is because I get to sing "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" about 50 times (on average) every week and who WOULDN'T love their job and be happy all the time after singing those songs that many times :)

Seriously though, I really do LOVE my job! I mean, I don't think I could be a kindergarten teacher for the rest of my life or anything, but for right now, it is the perfect job for me. I mean come on, I get to teach 3-5 year-old Japanese kids (most ADORABLE kids in the world!) all day and basically act silly, sing songs, and be the cool foreigner who kind of looks like them. Granted, I won't plant a false image in your head that all little Japanese kids are precious angels whose purposes in life are to look cute, be obedient, and throw up their little peace signs whenever there's a camera in sight. Oh no sir. I have my fair share of challenging students as well. I like to refer to them as my "special students" as to refrain from using any other explicit terms to describe them and their actions. Luckily, I'm learning (slowly but surely) how to counteract these behavioral issues and apply correct discipline and establish myself as the one in charge and not just be the new foreign teacher that they think they can just walk all over. Let me tell you, the "mom" face has never before been so useful to me :)

Along with teaching comes my fair share of learning experiences. Mostly via making mistakes. For instance, one day a couple weeks ago, I was teaching my students the words 'girl' and 'boy' and which gender each term applies to. So, I was going around the room and would point at a student and say either 'boy' or 'girl', whichever gender applied to that specific child. Well, I pointed at one student (who, in my defense, was wearing a hat and hat very short hair) and shouted out 'BOY!'.....I got kind of a strange reaction from the other kids and they kind of all just stared at me with confused looks on their faces. So I point at the child again and shouted 'BOY!'....you see, normally the kids would just repeat after what I say, but yet again, they just stared at me with utter confusion etched on their faces. At this point, the little girl who I had been shouting 'BOY!' at started bawling......yes, bawling. So what do I do? I lift up the child's hat only to discover the very sweet and feminine (and now wet) face of the little girl I had embarrassed in front of the rest of the class. So what did I do to remedy? You know, a sticker can solve anything I've found. And don't worry, that little girl doesn't hate my guts....anymore :) No, she's actually one of my best students. But lesson learned. Don't assume you know the gender of a child because it may just come back and bite you in the butt.

Last week in Uganda....

This last week has been full of debriefing and trying to mentally prepare ourselves for the return home and all the things that await us there. The Director of International Academics for Food for the Hungry, Michael Pucci, flew over here to conduct the debriefing sessions (which have been AAAmazing). This last week has also consisted of presenting our final Oral Literature projects with were culminated during our various practicums and also a little presentation of each of our different practicums. Our final practicum presentations were tonight that was the final aspect of our academia here in East Africa. Here is a little snippet of what I presented...enjoy (you may want to grap a Coke and a bag of popcorn...hehe!)

A Rwandan Thanksgiving

Oh to be a tree. What do I mean by this? Well, just to add to the abnormality of spending Thanksgiving in Rwanda and having chicken instead of turkey, no cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie and it being over 80 degrees...my fellow students and I created our own tradition and dressed like trees. Our "Wear a Tree Outfit Day" to be commemorated and recognized on every Thanksgiving for the rest of our lives. Well, maybe that's stretching it a little, but at least i hope every year for the rest of my life, I'll at least remember that one time I spent Thanksgiving in Rwanda, Africa and my 12 fellow classmates and I dressed in the colors green, brown, tan and any other leafy colors to try out best to resemble trees. This epic day is marked and remembered by the photo shoot beautifully representing our "treeness".

AND it wouldn't be a proper holiday without the typical family portrait...awkward smiles, head tilts, hand placements and of course, a crying baby....

Being the Love

So Eric Robbins, (my pastor from Sacred Journey Church in Kirkland, WA where I attend regularly during the school-year) has been doing a series of sermons at church entitled "Feel the Love." I have been listening regularly to the podcasts from the church so I can still try to be connected to them even though I'm here in East Africa.  This series is about how as Christians, we are to "be" Love. He emailed me and asked me if I could write about how I am being the Love while here in Africa.  I just thought I would share a few of my thoughts about how I view myself as "being" Love while here (you can listen to the podcast at: http://www.sacredjourneychurch.com/messages/112308.mp3) :  

How am I sharing or being the Love while here in Africa.  How am I sharing or being the Love?  Maybe I am when I'm playing soccer with some kids on the street or changing diapers at an orphanage.  Maybe.  Surely that is showing Love...but how am I being Love?  Seems like I should have an easy answer or tear-jerking example of this since I am in Africa, but I seriously wrestled with this question for a long time.  Do I even know what it is to 'be' the Love? I first asked myself what it is that motivates me to love.  I hoped it wasn't just to take the stereotypical National Geographic pictures of half-starved, naked, scabies children with snot running down their faces in the middle of a garbage heap.  The child would provide me a great photo opportunity to who my friends and family how 'hard' life is in Africa and how much I am 'suffering' for God...but in that moment would I have been love to that child or been simply declaring my love of self?  Could I be so ignorant as to only see the filth and scabies and not recognize the beauty of the creation made by a loving Father? I would like to say no.

I am currently in Rwanda and will be for the next 5 weeks studying about issues surrounding the genocide hat happened here in 1994.  Prior to this trip, my knowledge of this ethnic massacre was limited to what I saw in the movie 'Hotel Rwanda' since the event took place when I was only 8 and all I cared about were Barbies and 'Little House on the Prairie'.  Of course when this happened, I don't think many Americans realized the severity of this situation in Rwanda either.  Not with all the media directing its attention on much more important issues...like the OJ Simpson trial.  Talk about a reality check.  It's easy to deny reality, until perhaps you find yourself one day having a cup of tea with one of the survivors.  You can still see the pain in his eyes as he struggles to retell his stories, even after 14 years.  He was only 10 years old when this 'ethnic cleansing' took place and he vividly recalls an instance when he witnessed two of his Tutsi neighbors get slaughtered by machetes as he hid in the bushes...fearing for his own life.  And that is just one of the stories.

What is it to be Love? 1 John 4.8 says, "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."  So if I understand this correctly, if God is love, then being Love to others is being Christ to them in a sense.  Everyday I have the opportunity to be Christ in every situation whether I'm in Africa or in Montesano, Washington.  I have just as many, if not more, chances to put this into practice at home.  I have to make it a daily conscious effort.  It doesn't matter whether I love on neglected children, listen to a genocide victim, obey my parents, or simply smile at a stranger.  If I am choosing to be like Christ, then I am choosing to be the Love.  I am being Love.

An October in Kapchorwa

Scene : *Just imagine the scene at the end of the Sound of Music when the Von Trapp family is coming over the hill in the Swiss Alps or the book Heidi also taking place in the Alps.....Kapchorwa greatly resembled those scenes and I often found myself tempted to go frolicking through the fields singing away.*
Mornings were filled with the sound of a particular cock crowing starting at 5am and continuing for the rest of the day and gravel crunching outside my door as the voices of Juliet (our cook/housekeeper/mother) and James (our security guard) began to speak loudly about something or another, all in Kubsabiny Me, finally getting out of bed continuing to concoct my plan for murdering the rooster, but never actually following through...alternatively, just 'gently' throwing a couple of rocks at it without actually hitting the intended target....at least not every time:) As I would be brushing my teeth, I could see Juliet in the corner of my eye with a bucket full of steaming water rushing toward the bathroom. As she emerged from the bathroom I instinctly knew what would happen next..."Sarah! Bath!!" and she would jut out her index finger in the direction of the bathroom as my forced daily bucket bath awaited me. I would pout to myself and grumble "I'm coming" as I drug my feet all the way to the bathroom. What if I wanted to be dirty and smelly? Just one day??? Nope. Not a chance. Juliet may not have known much English, but she definitely knew how to communicate what she wanted and trust me...she was not one to be reckoned with. So I just took the bath. One day I will look back and thank her, I'm sure. My mother would appreciate the fact that I was well looked after and she very much has Juliet to thank.

I was setting a HUGE fashion statement up there in the mountains as well...and I must say. I've grown rather fond of the combination of flannel + skirt (cultural thing...apparently I would be seen as a prostitute if I wore trousers and I definitely wouldn't want that) +leggings + rubber boots and I'm thinking of trying to start it up in Washington...I could be a trend setter.....or possibly end up in the 'worst dress' edition of the Seattle Weekly. Anyway, it was necessary for the flannel and leggings because the climate up there was significantly colder and rainier than most of Uganda. The weather was so predictable though because since we were at the top of the mountain, we could see the dark ominous clouds of death coming up over the hills towards us tauting us with their gifts of destruction (okay, I may be just a slight overdramatic). Thus, we knew we probably had about a half hour to an hour before we would would get bombarded with rain pellets the size of spit wads and wind that would surely direct them right in our faces. Often we even received intense electrical storms with these clouds of death...just a great packaged deal....you get spit wad rain AND thunder and lightening striking every 10 seconds and only being 1/4 mile away. Many times did we contemplate whether the huge water tank standing only 20 feet from us would ever be the recipient of stuck a bolt....unfortunately nothing in our perimeter was zapped. The previous definition of the weather should definitely give reason for my daily footwear. Now these are not those dainty little rubber boots that apparently all the rage in the Pacific Northwest pink with polka dots that girls wear even when its NOT raining...no....these are hard-core black, up-to-your-knees, with the same tread on the soles as hiking boots. Yes. I was that cool.

Following breakfast, I would proceed to participate in the daily Food for the Hungry staff devotions. This would always include singing a few songs from a songbook called 'Uganda Youth Praise' to start out devotions. Various renditions of hymns sung in slightly different time, beat and pronunciation than I was used to..."burdens are lifted at Cal-E-vary", et al. Even their own rendition and multiple verses of 'Kumbaya' was often a top favorite and often picked. The first time we sang it, I started giggling like a little girl and peeked up at Kyle only to find his reaction the same as mine. We glanced at each other wondering if we were really singing this song for serious. I eventually grew very fond of the song that is often thought of as being sung around the campfire. It actually is such a spiritially impacting song...don't believe me, go look up the other verses to it. I promise it will change your life :)

It got dark around 7pm and having no electricity, we were forced to use laterns (oh darn...). I felt oh-so-like Laura Ingles Wilder as I used it to light my way to the outdoor latrine (okay it wasn't completely out of necessity though because we had a perfeclty good working Western flushing toilet inside the office...honestly I just felt more hard-core...squatty-potty style:)). It was a nightly ritual for me to bring my latern to Kyle's room and we had our little lanterns sitting on a table between our chairs. Very quaint. I must say I felt quite like an old British couple...the only thing missing was the tea and crumpets. Oh, and of course the accent (minor detail). Periodically, we would hear the whistling and singing of teenage girls and boys as they practiced their ritual dances for the upcoming circumcision ceremonies in December. Often we would sneak ouside in the pitch black and try to spy on the dances going on around us, but all we could see were the outlines of dark shadows from which loud voices seemed to be coming from as they passed by right along the road in front of us. Didn't help that it was so dark we couldn't even see our hands in front of our faces and were frequently running into large objects (like the water barrel or the truck) or each other....where's the night vision goggles when you really need them? Our friend the donkey (affectionately known as Mr. Jackass) provided our nightly background music to soothe us to sleep. There is nothing quite like the loud (and might I add, tone deaf) braying of a donkey to send you off to dreamland in peace (or just to scare the bejeebers out of you when you are trying to spy on dancing people in the road and you don't realize the donkey is there until you hear the loud and unnerving noise causing you to check pants to make sure you haven't wet yourself). I think he was in cohorts with the rooster. Sheesh, it was just a couple rocks....a day:)

Yes, these were my routine (well not necessarily 'routine' because I didn't plan them, they just sort of happened everyday) daily happenings during my month in Kapchorwa and they were ever so endearing by the end of my time. You are probably wondering..."so, what were you actually doing in Kapchorwa besides vacationing and hiking up in the mountains?". Well, let me tell you, it was one of the most amazing months I've ever experienced and it wasn't just because of my trendy outfits either:) I was actually doing research for Food for the Hungry up there in the area of AgroForestry. One of the volunteer staff, Alex, was assigned to help me in my research and he definitely DID help me greatly. I was researching crops and fruits in the area, energy-saving stoves, coffee trees, soil erosion and ideas for sustainability in Kapchorwa. So basically I was going around to different farmers everday and researching what crops they are growing, their yields, challenges, farming strategies, etc. See, all the people there are all displaced people and were placed in this area after being moved down from the National Park or others were forced up the mountain, to this area, because of the Karamajong who are violent cattle raiders near the area. Most of these tribes were pastoralists and were faced with having to start cultivating without having the appropriate knowledge of farming. So, they chopped down most of the trees in the area and burned them so they could plant fields of crops. This happened about 25 years ago and as a result of this deforestation, there is significant soil erosion occuring causing rivers to become polluted and when it rains heavily, landslides often occur which usually kill cattle and destroy crops. Also because of the lack of trees, there is not enough wood for building and for using to cook. Now, women and children have to go deeper into the National Park forest to get firewood and often times are abused, fined, or sometimes raped by the park rangers up there.

These are reasons I was doing research. The possibility of families installing energy-saving stoves would reduce the use of firewood significantly and also prevent many respiratory problems caused by open fire pits used for cooking in the huts. Also I was able to research and suggest ways for these farmers to generate more income for their crops and give suggestions about which crops would bring in the most cash and also provide food for the family. It was so, so interesting and I absolutely LOVED it....it was nice to know that what I was researching is actually going to be used by FHI as far as their involvement in assisting these farmers. My eyes were definitely opened up greatly to the realities of life and raised a lot of questions and spurred some ideas in myself. Such an amazing learning experience and I met some beautiful people in the process that I will be erased from my memory. Since it was such a long month packed full of great stories, I decided that I'll spread them out over a couple weeks or so that way I won't have written a book in the process of writing this one blog post....so stay tuned for further stories from the mountains.......

Kapchorwa

So, I am heading to a place called Kapchorwa tomorrow morning and which is at the base of Mt. Elgon here in Uganda and will be gone until the end of October.  It is also right by the border of Kenya.  It is pretty much a rural village and will take about 5 hours to reach from where I am staying here in Kampala.  I will be doing a practicum for the program I'm with and I applied to do the agro-forestry practicum in Kapchorwa and that is the one I was selected for so I was really excited!!  I will be pretty much shadowing and working with the Food for the Hungry staff who are currently working with the agro-forestry and local farmers in that area.  All of the FHI staff are Ugandan so it will be really awesome to interact with them and get to know them. 

I will not have internet access except for maybe once every couple of weeks....so when I do I will make sure I keep my blog updated so I can relay my exciting experiences up on the mountain of isolation :) Along with no internet includes no electricity or warm water (luckily we do have a western toilet...don't know how i lucked out with that commodity), and more often than not non-working cell-phone service.  I am going along with one of my fellow classmates, Kyle, and he will be doing research for the Child Development Program that Food for the Hungry has in Kapchorwa.  They sent us all out in pairs so that is nice that I won't be completely by myself.  So, if you think of me keep me in your prayers!! 

Uganda....green again!!

So I arrived here in the beautiful country of Uganda on August 24th at 3:45am. The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the airport was that there was mist in the air and I wasn't struck by an intense wave of heat the instant of first contact. I certainly wasn't in Egypt anymore. So, I went through the immigration and visa line and went and looked for someone holding my name on a sign. And there was no one. There was no one hardly waiting in the arrivals lobby. I was just thinking "Oh no...the airport taxi guy forgot about me." Luckily I had the phone number of the taxi driver that was supposed to be picking me up and one of the other taxi drivers let me use his cell phone to call him. So I called Godfrey (taxi man) and with a thick African accent he said "Oh yes madam...I am so sorry...I will be there in 10 minutes madam." Yep....an hour later (approx 5am) he showed up and drove me from Entebbe to Kampala which is about an hour away. So I arrived at the Food for the Hungry compound around 6am Sunday morning. I wasn't too tired because there is no time difference from Egypt to Uganda and I just slept for most of the flight. So, unlike my classmates who had flown the day before from the States, I was fortunate enough not to get jet lag.

I should tell you what I'm doing here in Uganda and where I'm living, with whom, what I'm eating, assurance that I'm brushing my teeth every day, drinking enough water, etc:) So I am doing a semester abroad program here in Kampala, Uganda with a Christian organization called Food for the Hungry. They are an NGO that is here working to develop sustainable living and education for people throughout Eastern Africa and many other parts of the world. They have a compound here with an office and a guest house on it and my fellow classmates and I are living in the guest house. There are 12 of us college students from various colleges around the States and there is only 1 guy. Lucky guy:) Yeah so we have class for 5 weeks through Uganda Christian University here in Kampala, then we all leave September 29th for our practicums which are for 4 weeks. During our practicums we are all sent out to various villages and towns in either Uganda, Rwanda or Ethiopia to work with Food for the Hungry field workers. So I will be without communication for that month I am doing my practicum so pray for my mother that she survives this lack of communication period:)

After we are done with our practicums at the end of October, we are heading off to Rwanda where we will study there for another 5 weeks. Then, we come back to Kampala on December 6th and we will have one week here before I leave to go back home on December 14th. I am really excited for all of the things we get to do!!! I have a feeling time will go by really fast and before I know it, I will be home and it will be Christmas!!

I've already had a pretty exciting time here so far as I went white water rafting down the Nile on Saturday (feel free to ask me about because I can't possibly describe this experience properly on this blog). It was soooooo amazing...probably the most amazing adrenaline rush/experience I have ever had. Then, on Sunday we were able to go to this cultural dance and that was a really cool experience too. Well, I promise I will stay more faithful in updating this blog since I had a long stretch between posts even though so much has gone on. If you have more questions about Egypt or Uganda feel free to ask me!! I love to talk about my experiences thus far!!