The Shire

Tel Lachish

2010-02-08T21:56:00.003Z

I’m back in the blog saddle, trying to paint a bit of my trip to Israel for posterity and the World Wide Web. To be clear, I’m writing about it 5 months after the trip. Experiences are fuzzy in my memory, but with any luck what remains has hung on for some reason. The memories have marinated for a good, long time.

Tel Lachish

On July 24 we went to the ancient city Lachish where kings upon kings came year after year and usurped other kings. Lachish tended to be the final barrier to marauders before they invaded Jerusalem. As such it paid to protect it – and it paid, perhaps more, to take it.

The Assyrians took it from the Jews around 701 BC by building a ramp from the ground to the top of the city wall. Upon completing the ramp I suppose they ran up it and hurled themselves into the town – or else they ran up it and then climbed down the wall using ropes, maybe at night, while the Lachishites slept soundly on their stone beds. I don’t know how long it took to build that ramp, and I don’t know what Lachish citizens did during its construction. Maybe lads hocked spit on the Assyrians from the top of the wall, or poured olive oil on them or worse. Whatever happened, it must have irked the Assyrians so much that they found slaughtering their opponents a suitable retaliation. Wikipedia tells me that 1,500 skulls were found in a nearby cave – don’t mess with Assyrians.

Today little Lachish lacks the grandeur that ought to accompany it. What used to be the city is covered in cactus, whiskery bushes, overgrown grass, like Boothill in Dodge City without the cokes and video games. The base of the Lachish palace and the foundation of a temple and some white stones from the wall remain, but most structures have crumbled to dust or are buried like an ancient corpse beneath manky prairie.

The consensus of my travel companions (save our Roman scholar who put it on the itinerary) was that Tel Lachish didn’t deserve our time. It reminded me of a mound of used tires and Michael believes the drinking water at the base of the city made him sick.

Lachish. I wonder if the people who lived there ever thought that their palace and their temple and their city would one day be compared to a mound of used tires?

What will become of our White House? Of our New York, our San Francisco? Of Parliament, the Bellagio, of NASA ? Not to be preachy, but keeping in mind all of human history it seems ignorant to think that our fancy buildings will last. What will do them in – climate change, Simon Cowell, nuclear war, manmade ramps built to the tops of walls, earthquakes, fires, giant ants – it could be almost anything.

This doesn’t keep me up at night but it has me thinking.

Maybe that Lachish visit was worth our time. Thanks Jonathan.

C'est Moi

2009-06-21T21:51:00.009+01:00

Hi.

I’m Alive!

I miss you!

Here is a taste of last week.

Tyson, Dad and Mom came to visit for my graduation. To dispel confusion, I did graduate last fall, but we booked the ceremony several months later because we thought a June ceremony would have better weather than a November one.

The ceremony was Saturday and we went to London Sunday for a whirlwind two days of tours - The Big Bus Site Seeing Tour, the Rock N Roll Tour of London, and a tour in the Tower of London. We saw Sister Act in the Palladium and were amazed by dazzling costumes and huge glitzy sets. Mom and I were a little disappointed that a few actors appeared to be lip syncing; Tyson swears they were above board.

Tuesday morning, Tyson, Dad and I took a cab to St. Pancras where we caught the Euro Star to Paris.

Tyson took four years of French in school and remembers little beyond the couple phrases he learned watching Home Alone (e.g. "You're what the French call 'les incompenant'"). I have been taking a class this term, but don't know much beyond "Bonjour" and "Merci". Dad knows one word in a language other than English: "Gracias."

With a tiny book of French phrases and a French Menu reader, we took to the city. One might have foreseen cultural clash when in the taxi line at the train station Dad took a Euro from the hand of a beggar who, Dad thought, was offering it to him as a gift of hospitality.

Days one and two we saw several masterpieces of art and architecture and took a few more tours - Le Tour Paris and one in the Louvre. We ate well and had nice wine. I am not exaggerating when I say I nearly killed myself on a Bicycle when, confused and a bit to proud, I cycled into a huge intersection as the green light came on for oncoming traffic. Tyson bellowed "What are you DOOING?" but it was too late. He said everybody waiting at the crosswalk gasped as I screamed and attempted to weave in and out of the cars that were barreling towards me at light speed. I recovered and lived to rent a bike the next day - but admittedly did more walking the bike than riding it.

One highlight of Paris for me this time was visiting a famous, English language bookshop across from Notre Dame. I have never been in a bookshop that got is so, so right. There were reading corners with soft chairs tucked around, they had a cool old piano and new and used books for sale, shelved to the ceiling. There was a lending library on the top floor with little cubby spaces for writers, one complete with an antique typewriter. I've read they let writers sleep there for free. I bought an antique copy of The Power and the Glory and an Updike novel called Couples.

We left Paris for London on Friday.

Saturday I moved house from 29 Norham road to 12 St Margaret's road. My new room is big and bright with three tall windows that look out onto a leafy, sleepy street and a Catholic church. It took me the entire day to put stuff away and I am relishing in the order of it all right now. Every shoe, scarf, and book is in its place.

Shots from the new place:

Final note, I am currently reading The End of the Affair by Graham Greene and am blown away! I haven't been so captivated by a novel in a while.

Lucky Readers

2008-12-02T21:09:00.006Z

I could not be more thrilled that my mom agreed to be a guest blogger on The Shire to recount her first trip to the UK. Here are days 1 to 3. You, readers, are in for a treat!

Here it comes…..gnawing at me like the need for water after a 12 hour fast. Subtle at first, it starts with an anxious heart rate, the welling of tears, a heaviness that makes breathing a bit difficult. It’s called the night-before blues, and it’s as familiar to me as an old friend.
While it’s no surprise, I would have thought I could have staved it off until tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day before I’m going home.

I came to Oxford 5 days ago. Tenelle met me at the Heathrow airport, her face popping up amid a sea of unfamiliar faces in the area where all foreigner air travelers enter. In my excitement to see her, I had failed to zip the compartment that housed my beloved passport, and it fell on the cement floor. Tenelle grabbed it up and told me to put it somewhere safe. That was the first of many times that the parent-child role would be reversed in the days to come.
We boarded a bus that was equipped with luggage storage underneath; a pleasant bus driver tucked in my two large black bags weighing 49.5 and 48 pounds respectively, quipping that I must be intending to stay for a while. “Only a week,” I said.

The bus brought us through the English countryside under a gray sky. It was chilly, and I wondered how the pastures stayed so green. Old brick barns, sheep grazing in meadows, a well-maintained highway with an absence of billboards are things I remember about the 90 minute ride.

Upon arrival to Oxford, we exited the bus, gathered my luggage, and summoned a taxi to take us to Norham Road. It was a quarter till 9 am, and I had been traveling since 4:05 the day before. I glanced at my watch. It was 2:47 am in Houston.

The cab wove its way through a maze of streets lined with beautiful stone buildings. While I couldn’t totally take it in because we were driving too fast on the wrong side of the street and my seatbelt didn’t work, it was evident that I was in an incredibly unique and magnificent place.
The driver collected his fare from Tenelle, and we drug my bags though a stone path, plowing our way as we went. There were 5 stone steps leading to a green wooden door with a heavy tarnished brass knob situated right in its center. On the other side was a hallway and a narrow staircase covered with a brown and beige hounds-tooth carpet that had seen better days. She must have sensed my weariness, because Tenelle suggested that I just leave the luggage and she would lug it up the stairs later. I didn’t argue.

We entered the flat where Tenelle shares a bathroom & kitchen with Wanda from Poland and Heinrika from Germany. The walls are painted bright white, and what it lacks in new sparkle it makes up in cozy and solid. Tenelle oriented me to the place. “These are my shelves in the cabinet. (Only two, which seemed a bit unfair, but I didn’t mention it.) This is my shelf in the refrigerator, and we can use all the pots, pans, and dishes that are on these shelves.” In the bathroom, she showed me where her toilet paper lived and warned me that the water isn’t that warm. “Be sure to squeegee off the shower door after you take your shower,” she added.
We unpacked the 49.5 pound bag that carried a plethora of food products from the US mostly requested by her friends, along with a new wool coat. Heinrika had offered space in her bedroom for empty bags, as her room is about 3 times as large as Tenelle’s.

Her little nest of a bedroom is about the size of half a dorm room; two wooden steps lead down to a light hard-wood floor. A raw wood shelf above a glass top desk houses a row of favorite books and CDs; Malcolm Gladwell, Marilynne Robinson, and Anne Lamott’s work are represented there. An upholstered chair covered with muted animals and other shapes, a small lamp table, a guitar on a stand, and a space heater round out that half of the room. The other is filled with a loft bed and closet/cabinet that houses her clothes. Everything was neat and tidy; I knew the entrance of my stuff would complicate the order.

I climbed the ladder to the loft; the puffy down-filled comforter was calling my name. Tenelle went to work, leaving a note on the white board telling me to ‘make myself at home and to put my clothes in the bottom drawer’ that had been vacated for my visit. After dozing a bit, I climbed back down, drank a glass of water and logged on to my hotmail account. I wondered what it would be like to be in a strange land without the internet.

When Tenelle got home we got ready to go to the Barretts’ for a Thanksgiving eve dinner. I had a mix between bed-head & chair-hair, but passed on a full-blown shower. We loaded a bag of US goodies, summoned a cab, and headed their direction. Dr. Justin is Tenelle’s boss. Along with his gregarious wife Sherry and their two kids Skylar and Sierra, he has been a source of counsel and strength since her arrival at Oxford, not to mention the provider of such necessities as blankets, towels and a bicycle. The dinner was a traditional one complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberries; I got to meet Tenelle’s small group friends Caroline and Lindsey and an American couple with 2 young children who just came to Oxford. (They had previously worked in Washington DC, and were displaced after the election). It was a wonderful affair, and a great way to start my visit.

Caroline drove us home, Tenelle blew up an air mattress that covered the floor space of her room, and we went to bed. It was ten minutes till midnight……Houston time- 5:50 pm. Day one at Oxford was over.

The next couple days seemed to fly by. Thanksgiving Day was spent visiting Tenelle’s office, eating at the infamous Eagle & Child pub, soaking up the sights in downtown Oxford, and preparing cornbread stuffing w/ dried cherries & almonds to take to a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. We had intended to take a gourmet green bean casserole but the lack of fresh green beans at the market forced us to change course. Green College was the location of the dinner, and a large room known simply as the bar had been transformed into the banquet hall. A large table stretched down the center of the room, and smaller tables and couches were placed around the side. Matt and his sister had baked two large turkeys, and the 35-40 student-guests filled in the remainder of the feast. I got to meet Shayak and Matt, the travel buddies who went with Tenelle to Morocco & Africa. It was a pleasant event filled with interesting conversation and good food. The students seemed of good cheer.

Friday we awoke early as Tenelle had a dr’s appointment. The brisk 25 minute walk was filled with sights and sounds of Oxford… children bundled up like little mummies being lead to school by their moms and traffic sounds typical of people going to work. Double-decker buses were everywhere, swishing next to the curb so closely that it made walkers take a step to the inside of the sidewalk. At the doctor’s office she checked in, waited in a fairly large comfortable waiting room, and was soon called in to see the doc. I had a pleasant conversation with a British accountant whose appointment followed Tenelle’s. It struck me that he knew much more about American politics than I knew about those in the UK. Tenelle emerged from her exam room with a prescription for her inhaler. The consult was free and she would pay $7 for the medication.

On our way home we stopped by a small café that featured breakfast baps. They were soft roll sandwiches with a fried egg, cheddar cheese, and sliced tomato. Very tasty. In the late afternoon we attended an Evensong service at New College chapel where a choir of young boys and men sang traditional Lutheran-like hymns accapella, in perfect harmony. It was a magnificent experience as the chapel was lighted by tall chunky candles, and the music lilted through the ancient structure.

Our next stop was a formal dinner at the college of one of Tenelle’s friends. The meal was served by waiters in formal dress and many of the guests were dressed in fancy dresses and suits/ties. The first course was a croissant surrounded by a bed of greens. Venison prepared like a stew with carrots and potatoes was served as the main course. I was pleasantly surprised that, with the addition of plenty of salt, it was warm and tasty. The final course was an individual plate of cheeses and grapes. Good, although I would have liked a touch of chocolate.

We walked the long way home to see the Christmas lights in the middle of the village. Carolers were singing traditional Christmas songs, and a large Christmas tree donned with bluish clear lights was a focal point. Large decorations of the earth, sun, and moon were puzzling but ok. Our walk home was in a fog as thick as a cumulus cloud, softening light from the street lamps.

We tucked in Friday night with visions of London floating in our head.

Happy Birthday Mom

2008-11-24T21:40:00.003Z

Eddi Porter was born Edna Gail Anderson November 24, 19**. The daughter of Chester David and Cora Eileen Anderson, Edna Gail was the second born of three daughters, the oldest Susan and the youngest, Rebecca, all freckled brunettes with different permutations of curly hair. Edna Gail was named after her aunts Edna and Gail, but changed her name to Eddi (rhymes with steady though is commonly mispronounced edy like the ice cream) when she went to college. She remains Edna Gail to an uncle and some cousins and occasionally goes by Edwina, Weena, Ed, Gigi, and Mrs. Porter to certain friends and relatives.

Edna Gail grew up on a farm near Woodston, KS, current population 116 according to the year 2000 census.

As a child she heard mice scratch and scuttle in the attic above her room and developed a fear of the creatures that persists to this day. She loves chocolate-covered cherries and was once duped by her older sister Sue (pictured below with Edna Gail) into trading a brand new doll for one cherry cordial. When her parents caught wind of the un-cordial deed they ordered the doll be returned to Edna Gail who had already consumed the candy and who, according to Sue, suffered no repercussions from the ordeal other than the brief grief that accompanied the temporary loss of the doll.

In junior high PE class Edna saw classmate Lucille Dibble hurl a baseball bat that smacked teacher Pauline Jones in the forehead and knocked her all the way out.

In high school she participated in 4-H, marching band (baton twirler), cheerleading, track and field (long jump), drama, debate, and choir, among other activities. She was named homecoming queen of Woodston High in 19**, homecoming queen candidate of Fort Hays State University 19**, President of Alpha Gamma Delta 19**, Golden Apple Teacher of the Year in 19**, and National Geographic Kansas Delegate 19**.

In her lifetime she has survived one drive-by shooting, one blow to the head with a golf club - delivered by her daughter who accidentally swung too high with a putter on a particularly long hole of mini-golf in Estes Park, Colorado causing the course owner to erect a permanent sign cautioning golfers to keep their swings below the knee - one hoard of stampeding circus elephants that nearly trampled her and son Tyson before a heroic clown tackled them to safety, 3 cesarean births, one Women of Faith conference, countless years as an elementary school teacher, at least one year on the Grant County Library Board, several nights in a mice infested cabin in the Colorado Rockies, one ride on the Megatron (AKA Vomitron, AKA Death Spinner) at the Grant County Fair, two Wichita Eagle Medallion hunts, one Eclipse, two Trans-Ams, one ankle breaking fall down the stairs and one toe stubbing that left her slightly if not permanently crippled.

She will soon, in two days, take her first transatlantic flight to visit her only daughter, that is me, in Oxford England.

Today is her birthday!

Happy birthday, Mom. As you know, ‘I’ll like you forever, I’ll love you for always, as long as Im livin my momma you’ll be.’

What it means to come home

2008-11-10T20:26:00.003Z

I finished Marilynne Robinson’s novel Home. A friend of a friend told me about an interview with the author recently published in the Paris Review, which you may read here: http://www.theparisreview.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5863

The interview is more about Robinson’s routine as an author than the book, but if you are a writer and a Marilynne Robinson fan, and I cannot imagine you being the first and not the last, my hunch is that you will enjoy taking time to read it.

In another interview Robinson says (of Home) “In a way the book is about yearning, you know. It’s as if we have some sort of very, very primordial notion. But, in fact, home is the place people leave, but the word is only implied in the sense that either you regret it or you will return to it. It’s a sort of pole.” I misused the word ‘primordial’ in a sentence today.

I like using the author’s words to describe the book because Im concerned that mine will do it no justice (I have in mind Sarah Palin’s apology if she (hypothetically) cost John McCain even one vote). For whatever it’s worth I think Home is full of beautiful prose that is best read meditatively; it’s like a long, lovely Midwestern rendering of Luke’s, or rather Jesus’ Prodigal Son. I was taken aback by all the dialogue in it and missed the intimate connection I had with narrators from her previous novels (Housekeeping and Gilead), all the same, Home is graceful, emotionally resonant, believable and tender and I, having just finished it, am ready to read it again.

Robinson poses some questions throughout like the one in this passage (my italics):

“All bread is the bread of heaven, her father used to say. It expresses the will of God to sustain us in this flesh, in this life. Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.
What does it mean to come home? Glory had always thought home would be a house less cluttered and ungainly than this one, in a town larger than Gilead, or a city, where someone would be her intimate friend and the father of her children, of whom she would have no more than three. Then she could learn what her own tastes were, within the limits of their means, of course.”

What does it mean to come home? What does it mean to leave? What is home and why is it? Where is home? How do you find it?

I don’t mean to channel Jack Handey or an eighth grade English teacher by posing this string of possibly irrelevant rhetorical questions. I will pose two more : Why does Home matter? Who cares about home?

Obviously I do.

Im sitting in England (tiny bedroom, flat 1, 29 Norham Road, Oxford) where the sun set at 4:30 PM today. Right now raindrops like silver worms slide down the glass door to the balcony in my room; raindrops clink against the sky light above my bed and sound like gravel ticking off the hubcaps and panels of a car, or like baby teeth clicking around inside a tin can. The wind roars like ocean waves through leaves that have turned gold from green and hang on the branches. My flatmates, Wanda from Poland and Heinrike from Germany, are sleeping. We share a little kitchen, a refrigerator the size of the one I had as a freshman in the dorm, a bathroom and two DVD collections, Wanda’s and Heinrike’s. I drive a short purple bike that a friend pulled out of a dumpster and refurbished.

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “you’re not in Kansas anymore”…

Maybe home is not a place at all. Maybe home is something more portable, more nimble, less visible and strangely more concrete and durable. Maybe it goes wherever you go as long as you let it.

Still when I think of home I see white sheets, fat feather mattresses and billowing feather comforters that rise like cumulous clouds from the tops of double beds. I taste ‘the smell of Christmas’, the potpourri that blends cloves, cinnamon, apples and pine and sells for 75% off at Dillard’s come Dec 26. I think of playing Pitch, the unofficial card game of the family, and of reading novels in bed and drinking cranberry tea and eating lots of chips, cheese and hummus. Home seems like a comfortable place where a rocking chair might sit next to an open window, where a breeze breathes into a transparent curtain and makes it expand like a delicate lung, where framed pictures sit on dresser tops and old journals collect dust in the closet and the closet collects every yearbook, love letter and ticket stub too precious to discard. Home feels warm and has natural light and plenty of lamps and soft blankets.

Maybe the point is that still, though I like it here, and I do, sometimes, these days, I miss home.

Britionary

2008-10-26T08:24:00.002Z

I have picked up some new vocab whilst living in the UK and I intend to celebrate it here in a recurring post called “Britionary”.

If you live outside of the UK, perhaps you could try to assimilate these words into your daily repartee and let me know how it goes.

1. Nackered: (adj, pronounce : n-ăă-ked) tired, exhausted, usually as a result of strenuous work
“Im to’ally nackered after running 8 miles in the rain.”

2. Twat: (noun, pronounce: twăt) twit, bumbler, fool
“What sor’ of twat comes ‘round at 7 in the morning to check the fire alarm and forgets the key to turn it off?”

3. Blimey: (?, prounounce : bl-eye-mēē) expresses befuddlement, disbelief, awe or amazement
“Wha’d you fink? Fe washin’ up would do itself? Blimey!”

4. Wee: (adj, pronounce: w-ēē) diminutive in stature, young, small, small and adorable
“She left the wee dog alone all day. Blimey!”

5. Queue: (noun or verb, pronounce: kew) a line or waiting in a line
“The queue at li’le Sainsbury’s goes out the door.”
“We queued one hour before they let us into the ball.”

CPR

2008-10-19T11:16:00.001+01:00

Blogging, as it turns out, is difficult. It may be as difficult (or more difficult) than exercising regularly or dieting or studying or keeping one’s room clean or keeping up with the laundry or keeping up with pets or keeping up with plants or keeping up with anything that requires regular, repetitive, disciplined attention.

I’m glad my blog is NOT a pet or a plant because if it were, it would have probably died by now as a result of neglect. I am hoping to resuscitate it, though I am reluctant to make lofty, new years-y resolutions about the amount of blogging I will do per week so as not to feel so foolish if (when) I fall short of the goal.

I can think of a few reasons for my blog hiatus:

1) Thesis writing: I poured writing energy into my thesis for most of the summer. Time spent writing the thing and time spent procrastinating writing the thing (procrastination included travelling to Barcelona, long distance running, joining Facebook, devoting regular attention to online newspapers, not usually my thing) sucked time and energy from blog writing. I guess I only have so much writing energy to go around. My thesis title was ‘Systematic Review of Remote Support as an Adjunct to Media-delivered (self-help) Cognitive Behavioural or Behavioural Therapies for Anxiety and Depression in Adults’. Bottom line? Evidence suggests that adding brief, scheduled telephone support to self-help therapies for anxiety and depression makes the self-help significantly more effective. Surprising? Not really. Don’t we already know that accountability counts for a lot (SEE ITEM 4)?

2) Hello America: After finishing the thesis, I travelled around The States in August and September. Travel usually provides ample fodder for writing, but I spent more time thinking about fast food and shopping than anything else. Special trips outside of Kansas City, Houston and Wichita included a visit to Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, a quaint town situated along the Appalachian Trail with plenty of trees and corn fields and fly fishermen. My cousin Dustin and a lovely lady named Jennifer tied the knot there and we celebrated at Allenberry Resort, a place famous for its Sticky Buns and live entertainment. One highlight from the wedding was the Groom/Mother- of-the-Groom dance set to ‘Forever Young’ as performed by Joan Baez (?), which had most people in tears from the onset. After Boiling Springs I went with family to DC where we saw the monuments (by night!) and, being so moved by the vigour and inspiring commentary of the tour guides, took not one, but TWO bus tours around Arlington National Cemetery.

3) Moving etc.: I came back to Oxford 7 Sept and had to tend to a number of administrative tasks (e.g. moving, replacing a desk that I accidentally ruined in my old house, applying for a work visa, settling into a new job). All of this kept me busy and away from the blog.

4) Sans Accountability: I don’t have any accountability to keep me writing regularly, and, as we know from the thesis and general life experience, accountability counts for a lot.

5) Arrested Development: I am so, so the last to fall in love with this TV show, but it has been a delightful time sucker the last couple weeks.

I’m settling into a life rhythm now, what with a 9 to 5 job and all, and am not too busy or too spent to write. I still lack accountability – are there any bloggers out there wanting a transatlantic writing accountability partner? Do let me know.

My Thesis: In a Word

2008-08-14T11:40:00.002+01:00

pe·dan·tic
[puh-dan-tik]
–adjective
1.
ostentatious in one's learning.
2.
overly concerned with minute details or formalisms

Resurrecting Peace: Rebuilding Liberia

2008-07-11T13:15:00.002+01:00

I wrote this article for The Oxford Forum. The topic was something unfathomably broad - like "post war education and reconstruction of the military in Liberia". I gave it my best shot and have been promised that it will be in print before the end of 2010.

I stepped off a cool plane into the Liberian night, hot and thick as soup. Waiting for entry clearance under a pavilion ablaze with fluorescent lights, a UN peacekeeping troop from Ukraine brushed mosquitoes off of my back. “The bugs like you” he said.

The bugs liked everyone. I saw them land, fat as flies, on the necks and backs of travelers around me.

Outside the airport I loaded two suitcases, one heavy with research surveys and supplies, into a rusted sedan. The driver laid on the horn and a half chorus of La Cucaracha peeled through the night, parting a curious crowd and allowing us to pass.

From the airport to Monrovia we snaked over a dark, two-lane road through candle lit shanty towns where nearly invisible people walked along the road’s grassy shoulder. Thick air blowing in the windows smelled like roasting meat.

At one point the driver told me we were passing God Bless You Corner. That sounded harmless until he explained that rebels, who had routinely ransacked travelers on the road, named it that because if you passed it and survived it meant that God had blessed you. “How did you go to the airport?” I asked. “You didn’t,” he said.

We drove past The White Flower, a crumbling compound that was the palace of former president Charles Taylor. Taylor is currently on trial for war crimes in The Hauge. We passed two military bases and clusters of faded billboards with blunt drawings and imperatives: “Stop Crime!”, “Mine and Trade our Diamonds Legally,” “Stop Rape!”

Other billboards pictured a smiling George Bush shaking hands with Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf above the line “America Supports Liberia.” Bush had visited Liberia the day before I arrived and the driver said Liberians lined the streets to welcome him. Bush stayed in the country for a few hours to meet with Johnson-Sirleaf and deliver a ten minute speech to new military recruits.

Bush’s visit is one of a few indicators that Liberia is recovering from recent war.

An estimated 300,000 people died in the Liberian civil wars, the first from 1989 until 1996, the second from 1999 until 2003. Both wars were fueled by a complex amalgam of tribal conflicts, political vendettas and struggles for economic and political power.

In the first President Samuel Doe, who is said to have abused civilians with his military, was rooted out of office and tortured to death by rebels. In the second President Charles Taylor, Doe’s former minister, was overthrown and fled the country to Nigeria.

As conflict quelled in 2003 UN forces intervened. One goal of their intervention was to disarm the entire country. By 2005, approximately 103,000 fighters had been disarmed. Of those, roughly 12,000 were children.

Of the disarmed, adult combatants were invited to participate in year-long rehabilitation programs that included education, social reintegration services and vocational training. Child combatants were disarmed, reunited with their families and some, having been out of school for several years, were enrolled in an Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) which condensed six years of primary school into three.[1]

Five years after the end of the wars the effectiveness of the Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration programs (DDRR) is debatable. The UNDP claims “solid empirical evidence that the DDRR program in Liberia has indeed enabled a much better life for ex-combatants,[2]” but they are conspicuously silent about their research methods and do not report quantitative outcomes.

What is more, national unemployment and illiteracy rates are at eighty percent. A recent UN report raises concerns about high numbers of unemployed youth including former combatants who continue to pose a potential threat to stability in the country.[3]

I spoke with James Davis, a Liberian social worker who assisted with the rehabilitation and reintegration of child combatants. James leads a team of volunteers working to build lasting relationships with former child soldiers because he believes rehabilitation camps did not provide them with adequate support.

“Kids were brought to the camp for counseling and documentation for only three to four days or sometimes a week,” he said. As soon as their parents or relatives were located they were sent home. Davis said many never returned to school and some became petty thieves and instigators of violence in their communities.

In some ways the post-war situation in Liberia is not unique. Nevertheless, facets of the wars make the task of reconstruction in Liberia particularly complex. The fledgling government is trying to educate a multitude of ex-combatants, resurrect a military and convince an abused public that the new armed forces are capable of deploying justice.

This is no small task especially considering that both government and rebel troops committed many human rights violations during the wars. Both raped, murdered, tortured and stole from civilians. Both kidnapped children and trained them to be soldiers. Both, as one Liberian editorialist put it, contained “predators…who gunned down their own people.”

I met with Colonel Craig Bailey, Senior US Defense Advisor in Liberia, to learn about the Liberian government’s plans to rebuild the military. Colonel Bailey explained that all new recruits were strictly vetted. They had to pass an aptitude test, HIV test, literacy test, health and fitness test and a drug and alcohol test and underwent a background check. They were rejected if they had a criminal record or a history of committing human rights violations. Photographs of eligible recruits were put in newspapers and posters throughout Monrovia. Civilians were invited to turn-in any recruit that had committed human rights violations.

According to Colonel Bailey only about twenty percent of potential recruits advanced to military training.

The US and UN have funded the training of 2,000 military personnel and hope that Liberia will be able to fund another 2,000 troops. About 1,000 troops have already been trained and five hundred began training in March 2008.

Presently there are only twelve US military officials stationed in Liberia to assist with training. “The Liberian army is doing really well,” Colonel Bailey reported, “we’ve seen strong leadership emerge…they aren’t dependant on our help.” The hope is that stringent vetting policies will not only lay the foundation for the development of a just military but also for the fostering of public trust in the government and its armed forces.

The attitudes of some civilians reflect that the strategy might be working. Several young people I spoke with aspire to join the new Armed Forces of Liberia. Other civilians are optimistic about the military’s future. James Davis believes the armed forces are “being reorganized to reflect a professional code of ethics.” “I am confident,” he said, “that the new army will regain the trust and confidence of the Liberian people.”

To this day physical reminders of the war in Liberia are as obvious as gaping wounds. Buildings damaged during the war sit like tombstones, baking in the sun. Tangled coils of barbed wire stick out of the tops of fences guarding schools, restaurants and houses. There is no centralized electricity. UN peacekeepers patrol the streets and keep watch in outposts along Monrovia’s major roads.

Recovery is slow, and yet the sense I gleaned from the Liberian people is that they yearn for restoration in their country. “We are a peaceful people,” said Mary Sargbeh of Monrovia, “we just want to keep peace.”

[1] http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/241361/LiberiaALPPPTpresentation.pdf
[2] http://www.lr.undp.org/Ex-combatants%20Nationwide%20Survey%20-%20Key%20Findings.pdf
[3] http://unmil.org/documents/sgreports/sg16pr.pdf

A Birthday Poem

2008-06-29T01:32:00.003+01:00

The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

2008-06-26T15:50:00.003+01:00

This abstract reads like a bad episode of 20/20. I shouldn't post it, but something about the quirky details he gives (ie The serial killer's med school nickname) and the fact that this article is in an academic journal makes it shamefully entertaining.

MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW: MEDICAL SERIAL KILLERS

The disturbing careers of Harold Shipman and Michael Swango.

The phenomenon of medical serial killers is not new and goes back at least 150 years.

The murderous activities of Dr Harold Shipman [now credited with over 300 deaths] and, to a lesser extent, Dr Michael Swango [thought to have killed up to 60 people] have added a new dimension to the phenomenon.

Dr Shipman was regarded as a dedicated general practitioner who was always available to his elderly patients. Yet when Shipman wanted to get rid of a patient, he simply injected them with a lethal dose of diamorphine, told the relatives they had died unexpectedly of complications and altered the case records on his computer.

The conviction of Dr Shipman for murder of 15 patients caused a sensation in the UK and prompted calls for more regulation of medical practitioners. A subsequent epidemiological study estimated that he was responsible for at least 300 deaths during his career, making him one of the world's most successful serial killers.

Michael Swango, the son of a Viet Nam veteran who collected photos of car accidents, was known to medical student colleagues as “OO7 licence to kill”. Swango had a penchant for poisons, which he tried out on his friends and ambulance colleagues. Several patients died under highly suspicious circumstances during his internship. Despite serving a prison sentence for several years, he was able to continue to train in neurosurgery and later psychiatry. As the net closed on him, he moved to a mission hospital in Zimbabwe. He was only arrested through a slip-up when changing planes on his way to work in Saudi Arabia. After serving a three-year sentence, Swango pleaded guilty to several murders to avoid the death penalty and now faces life in prison.

Serial killers are usually motivated by two factors: money and sex. With Shipman and Swango, neither factor was implicated and it must be assumed that both were psychopathic personalities who relished their power over life or death.

It is suggested that there are elements of the Munchausen Syndrome in reverse occurring with medical serial killers.

If there is one certainty, it is that medical serial killers will present in future, although hopefully not too frequently

1,000 words

2008-06-25T15:37:00.002+01:00

The day before we left for Marrakech my digital camera (formerly known as the reliable olympus) broke. These pictures were taken with a disposable camera (except for the one of Shayak and me in turbans which was taken with Shayak's Casio).

Sweet Old World

2008-06-16T16:39:00.003+01:00

It may be easier to gallivant to exotic locations from London than from Kansas City. (Though I admit, recently I have been wondering why I have not traveled more around the states and Latin America (for goodness sakes!)).

Last Wednesday my friend Shayak and I left green- grey, soggy England for terra cotta-blue Marrakech. Marrakech is the most populated city in Morocco, a north African country that almost touches Spain in the north.

We landed and Marrakech was sunny and Marrakech stayed sunny.

Here’s what Mary Oliver asks about the sun ”do you think there is anywhere, in any language, a word billowing enough for the pleasure that fills you, as the sun reaches out, as it warms you as you stand there, empty-handed –“

Our first day Shayak and I walked around the dusty media, weaving in and out of peach allies, by a palace or two, through the labyrinthine souks (merchant’s booths) heaped with slippery green olives, sequined slippers, spices, shiny silver tea pots, aromatic oranges and trays of Amber, frankenscents and myrrh.

That first day we also got lost but it all turned out alright.

We ate on the roof of our Riad (inn) - cooked eggplant seasoned with cilantro and something salty, and a smooth avocado salad and orange jam and raspberry jam and sweet mint tea and fresh orange juice and warm bread and chicken cooked in lemons and olives and sweet vanilla ice cream with tart, firm slices of peach.

In the morning we had a view of the sun sliding up the horizon and at night we saw the moon and the stars burning hot as coals in the sky.

The second day we rode camels through a chalky land full of palm trees and gravel that represented, to us, the Sahara. Our camels took their time and smelled like camels, and grunted like camels and stopped to chew on yellow patches of grass while we discussed any number of things. A man in a pink shirt walked us along pulling the camels, as though they were elderly labradors, on a whiskery blue rope. He plucked a palm leaf from a bush and from that wove me a camel shaped necklace.

After the camel ride, we took a cab outside the city into the Atlas Mountains, past old Berber villages full of shops like the ones you see in the Rockies with stripped, whooly rugs hanging from the eaves and carvings proudly displayed on the lawns.

In flip flops we climbed a treacherous stretch of slippery stones, and at least one vertical rock wall, to an excited, white waterfall that pounded on swimmers who delighted in the cool of its deep dark pool. We heard baby mountain goats cry and I heard my own shrill whoop echo through the valley.

Our last night we wandered around the Big Square and listed to drummers and a banjo player and saw a couple belly dancers and a magician in a long red coat with a pet hawk. Before evening came, we saw a snake charmer.

Human Trafficking Article

2008-06-03T12:50:00.004+01:00

Here's an article I wrote on human trafficking for a student publication. The article should be online someday complete with an illustration and fancy formatting.

The headline:

ADA's STORY
TENELLE PORTER relates the story of a woman trafficked from Sierra Leone to London, and draws wider lessons for public policy

How do you tell a story that shames you? That causes you to bury your head in your hands or to look up to heaven and sigh; a story that burns all you knew or thought you knew about humankind to ashes? How do you tell a story like Ada’s?

I have not met Ada. I do not even know her real name. I have not looked into her eyes for signs of death or life, despair or hope. What I know are the bones of her story. The skeleton. I know just enough to know nothing much at all.

Ada was born in Sierra Leon. Her father physically and verbally abused her so she ran away from home and moved in with a friend. Life with her friend was difficult and when her boyfriend asked her to marry him and move with him to London she accepted. This was the opportunity of a lifetime.

He bought her a ticket and they flew to London,. Three men met Ada and her boyfriend at the airport and took them to a house. Before she had her bearings, Ada’s boyfriend disappeared. Ada, twenty-three years old and completely alone, was raped by one of the men.

Her boyfriend never returned and the men drove her to a brothel where she was forced to work as a prostitute, servicing two to three men a day. She was beaten and held captive, armed guards threatened to kill her if she tried to escape.

Maybe stories like Ada’s are so difficult to tell, they remain untold.

Yet stories of individuals who are forced, conned or coerced into the sex industry are disturbingly common. Human trafficking, officially defined by the UN in 2002, is thought to be the third largest and the fastest growing criminal activity in the world[1].

Trafficking statistics are grim. Though difficult to compile because of the covert nature of the crime, data suggests that two and a half million people are trafficked each year; about 80 percent of those trafficked are women and girls[2]. An estimated 90 percent of trafficking in Europe feeds the sex industry[3].

The International Labor Organization estimates that global profits from sexual exploitation of women and children reach $28 billion a year[4]. Though the profits are big, the sex is usually cheap. It sells for as little as $5 and is free from all relational obligations[5]. Regardless of how much sex costs, workers are rarely, if ever, paid.

Women and children trafficked into sex work are exploited not only by traffickers but also by consumers who drive the demand. Flourishing markets for cheap sex resemble markets for cheap clothes, cheap foods, cheap appliances, cheap life. Plump consumers with sticky fingers glut at the smorgasbord of these cheap goods at laborers’ expense; consumer appetites never ebb.

Against all odds, many trafficked women possess a degree of resilience. Six months after being forced into prostitution, Ada escaped. She fled during a New Years Eve party when distracted guards accidentally left a door unlocked. She ended up at The Poppy Project.

Located in London, the Poppy Project provides accommodation and support for women trafficked into the sex industry in the UK; most women referred to Poppy are from Southeast Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Without the support of organizations like Poppy, many women find themselves in trouble even after they are “rescued” from traffickers. Traumatized and threadbare, women sit for interviews with immigration authorities. Women may be arrested and detained for breaking immigration laws; some are treated as criminals instead of as victims of violent crimes[6].

Poppy lobbies for policies designed to decriminalize trafficking victims and punish traffickers. Before 2004, the UK had no specific anti-trafficking laws. Traffickers, if convicted at all, were detained for committing immigration related crimes instead of crimes against victims. Specific anti-trafficking laws are now in place but penalties for trafficking are still less severe than penalties for rape[7].

Along with prosecuting offenders, curbing the demand for sex workers also plays an integral part in combating trafficking. Prostitution related policy is currently being debated in Parliament and some argue that legalizing prostitution could reduce trafficking by providing legal and regulated channels for sex workers.

Evidence collected from countries where prostitution is legal does not support this argument. In fact, it is likely that legalizing prostitution only fuels the demand for sex workers and that trying to curb trafficking by legalizing prostitution is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline[8]

Not all trafficking stories have happy endings. Some women return home only to be re-trafficked. Some live with STD’s including HIV for the rest of their lives. Many develop chronic psychological problems like post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. I do not know how Ada’s story ends but with public support, she has hope of rising from the ashes of her past.

If you would like to find out how to support the Poppy Project and Projects like it, please contact Victoria Samuel - 0207 840 7132 victoria.samuel@eaveshousing.co.uk. Poppy is hosting a conference about Policy and Prostitution 7 March, for more information please visit http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/.

[1] Montgomery, Heather; Kropiwnicki, Zosa de Sas & Evans, Roz. Trafficking Women and Children: Overcoming the Illegal Sex Trade. (2005) Refugee studies center, department of International development University of Oxofrd. ; US State department TIP report 2007
[2] UNODC perspectives publication, TIP report 2007, IOM statistics, http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=7701
[3] Miron Varouhakis “Trafficked women are Victims,” Global Outlook (Center for research on Globalization, July 26 2002)
[4] Montgomery, Heather; Kropiwnicki, Zosa de Sas & Evans, Roz. Trafficking Women and Children: Overcoming the Illegal Sex Trade. (2005) Refugee studies center, department of International development University of Oxford pp 7.; ILO(2005) http://www.ilo.org/dyn/declaris/DECLARATIONWEB.DOWNLOAD_BLOB?Var_DocumentID=5059
[5] Figure on cost of sex from US State department TIP report 2007
[6] Poppy Project response to the UK Action Plan for Tackling Human Trafficking, April 2006 http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/POPPY_Project/Documents/Recent_Reports/POPPY%20ACTION%20PLAN%20RESPONSE06.pdf
[7] TIP report 2007
[8] http://www.nordicbaltic-assistwomen.net/IMG/pdf/The_Links_between_Prostitution_and_Sex_Trafficking_A_Brief_Handbook.pdf

The Boxcar Children (For What its Worth)

2008-05-12T20:21:00.001+01:00

So fun.

The Boxcar Children (Tall Buildings)

2008-05-12T20:19:00.001+01:00

Pictures

2008-05-10T23:10:00.002+01:00

I added pictures from the Jolly Wedding of Holly and Jarrod, more shots from the ball, etc.

See Flicker link over there ------------------------------->

Three Things

2008-05-10T22:38:00.003+01:00

My return to Oxford after Spring Break has been marked by three significant events.
In chronological order : 1) The Appendectomy of flat mate Carolina Osorio 2) The Keble Ball 3) The Debut of Porter, Kimball, Burdett, the Band

Appendix
Three weeks ago Carolina and I took a taxi up and over a series of steep hills to the John Radcliffe Hospital where we found out Carolina’s appendix was inflamed.
We experienced the glory and gloom of NHS. No hospital bills – Hooray! Mayo and butter sandwiches – Hiss!
I rode my brakeless bike up and down the steep hills to the hospital all week to visit Carolina. There were no individual rooms in the hospital. Several beds were lined up in one large room like the beds in an orphanage. Except there were thin curtains like sheets cabled to the ceiling that one could pull around the bed to create the illusion of privacy.
One effect of the orphanage style accommodation was that we knew in some detail about the ailments of everyone else in the room. By the end of the week Carolina was offering advice to the nurses about her neighbor’s condition based on the knowledge she gleaned from overhearing the doctor’s report delivered earlier in the day.
Carolina and I laughed at the polite, medical phrases for intestinal functions, namely “passing water”, “moving bowels”, and our personal favorite “passing wind.” One nurse, realizing that Carolina did not know what “pass wind” meant, decided to act it out as though he were playing charades at a company Christmas party. He wiggled his fingers behind his rear and said “You know, flatulence? Pass Wind?”
Later that night one of Carolina’s neighbor’s died. We had seen her son earlier and heard her struggling the night before. The death felt eerie and close.
Carolina is home now and recovering well. She had a birthday on Friday. We celebrated with a decadent chocolate cake and our own version of charades.

Ball

One result of Carolina’s surgery was that I became better friends with Carolina’s Ukrainian friend Anna. Last weekend Anna had an extra ticket to the Keble College Ball and, since Carolina was in no shape to dance, Anna offered the ticket to me.
What you should know about the Ball is that it was much less like a Ball and much more like After Prom with a lot of alcohol. There was no ballroom, no ballroom dancing. Instead they had a giant version of connect four, a ring for sumo wrestling and a white circus tent aptly named “The Imperial Palace” where bands played.
The food was tasty, but again, more like Project Graduation than Top Chef. Culinary delights included a chocolate fountain, Champaign, Pimms, Asian-style noodles, hamburgers and hotdogs. In a way the lack of pretention was refreshing. I had no qualms about kicking off my heels and scampering around barefoot in a dress from The Gap.

Band
Three weeks ago Michael, Trevor and I met for our first band practice. Michael plays lead guitar and writes lovely instrumentals, Trevor is The Man on the cello, I sing, play rhythm guitar and write songs.
This Wednesday we decided to take our tunes to the stage at The Temple Bar’s open mic night. A loyal group of friends turned up to watch the show and help fill in the sparse crowd of middle aged locals.
Ah, the rush of the stage. I stamped around in high heels and schmoozed with the crowd, giving them my best Susanna Hoffs eyes (The Bengals, remember?). Perhaps because they liked us or perhaps because we had the largest cohort of fans in the audience, they invited us up for an encore.
Currently the boys are working on securing a busking license. You may hear us playing in the subways around London.
We still do not have a band name. I liked “The Rubies,” the boys thought it was too girly. Michael suggested “Dissapointing Rainbows,” which conjured images of Kermit playing a guitar. We liked “Sub Fusc” for a while, but not anymore. Michael really likes “The Box Car Children.” I have come to believe it is far too clunky a name to carry around.
All suggestions are welcome.
The next several weeks will be full of exam prep, thesis writing and punting (a fourth significant event that would have made this list had I chosen to include four events). The weather is unimaginably beautiful, everything is in bloom, I am warm in bare legs.

Hair

2008-03-28T21:13:00.005Z

I went to London for a free haircut a few weeks ago. A free "Razor Bob" to be exact.

Before the cutting started, I sat in the black swivel chair and admired my long, soft curls in the mirror. I noticed that everyone else who came for the free bob already had short hair. Then, the woman next to me said "You're not cuttin' all that off are you?"

My stylist , a trainee from Liverpool, was not three years out of high school. She gathered her hair to one side in a shiny black banana clip. She wore a thick purple belt around her torso, a floral pirate's blouse, hot pink lipstick and purple eyeshadow. She hardly spoke and when she did, she was as quiet as someone asking for gum at a funeral. Her hands shook and clearly, she was nervous. Ok, we were both nervous.

People are weird about hair. There are websites dedicated to mullets. TV ratings rise and fall with new styles (exhibit A: Felicity). Rogaine is big business.

I wish I were not weird too, but I am. I have cried many tears over haircuts. I have cursed stylists. I have spent hundreds of dollars on hair products, read books about curly hair, mocked others' bad hair, tracked celebrity hair - I even own a crimper.

All that to say, I like the new cut. I look like Velma from Scoobie Doo when it's straight, and Frodo when it's curly. It's messy and nimble and weighs almost nothing at all.

One foot in Liberia

2008-03-05T16:55:00.004Z

I landed in London at 7:30 AM Tuesday morning.

Still feels like I have one foot in Liberia.

Here are a few pictures. There are over one hundred more on Flickr if you would like to see them.

Reading at the Radcliffe Camera

2008-02-20T22:35:00.002Z

All days are 24 hours. Or 8 hours – do you count the night as day?

Some days seem longer.

Yesterday, when evening came on a long day, I went to meet a book inside the Radcliffe Camera.

I spun around spiral stairs to the upper reading room. Inside I found more stairs. Staircases that twirled to and from the highest reading room, the Last Supper room. Staircases like single strands of DNA, lovely, twirling identity codes. I stepped up and round and around and off one at the very top.

The floor was smooth, soft and brown like leather. I sat in an old wooden chair at an old wooden desk. I looked out the window at the University Church steeple. Sharp, proud and feminine, that steeple. It was grey and turned orange, then pink, then deep blue, like the sky. Chameleon Steeple. Chameleon sky.

The book I went to meet is called Wild Geese. I bought it brand new at Blackwell’s after my long day. Oh indulgence!

I watched other readers curled over their books, some pulling their hair, some picking their faces, some tapping, tapping, tapping the leather ground.

Then I settled.

Then I read the introduction.

“{Foxes} have one responsibility – to stay alive, if they can, and be foxes.”

Tenelle To Africa (2)

2008-02-18T18:10:00.004Z

A few weeks ago Dr. JL Barrett, my boss and former colleague in YL, came into my little office in Oxford, an office that doubles as the anthropology library annex, and told me that YL Liberia camp was a few weeks away.

Justin is doing research on character development in adolescents who participate in YL. As part of the project, he has kids take surveys before, immediately after and a year after camp.
He tells me YL Liberia is participating in the project, as well as areas from all over the world.

Light bulb

What if I went to Liberia and helped administer surveys so as to gain experience doing research in the developing world, see YL camp in a completely different setting and visit an(other) African country – for free

After a couple irritating weeks of waiting for University permission to do this fieldwork, an Oxford travel agent booked my tickets last Wednesday. I leave this Friday (22 Feb), fly through Brussels to Monrovia and come home to Oxford 7AM, Tuesday, March 4. I proceed to class 11 AM, Tuesday March 4 – cry me a river, I know.

Fun Facts about Liberia. (“facts” defined very loosely)

Liberia is the old US Ex- Slave state.

Liberia has a woman president. The civil war ended a few years ago (maybe in 03?). Liberia has the most UN peacekeeping troops of any country in the world (ok, I cannot remember my source on this. Probably Wikipedia…). Children were recruited as soldiers during the war.
All electricity is generator-based. There is no running water at the camp (camp director has asked for water prayers so we can take showers). They do not accept debit or credit cards in Liberia – only cash. I am not to be alone on the street after 6PM. (Not to worry mom, I will be safe at YL camp almost the entire trip. )

Finally, from the UK Foreign Office, “Liberia has many beautiful beaches”

It's just that - I mean - it's really - I just -

I can't belive I'm going to Africa. Again.

Amazing.

Uganda Day 5

2008-02-16T23:48:00.003Z

Ema and James

We were up early. I put on dirty clothes. We wanted to see the Genocide museum before our bus left for Kampala and were pressed for time. Matt, Emmanuel (Ema for short. from Rwanda), James (visiting Rwanda from Uganda) and I loaded in a taxi.

The museum was on a hill above Kigali. It was white and surrounded by green plants – palm trees, banana trees, bushes with pink flowers. We sat in the parking lot dust and waited thirty minutes for the museum to open. Ema told us about the war, about Genocide memorials in the villages where piles of bones sat in open places as unmarked graves.

I thought I knew what to expect from the museum. I have been to Ground Zero and to the Holocaust Museum in DC.

I visited the Oklahoma City bombing memorial in high school with my family – Dad, Mom, brothers, grandparents . It was a warm evening and I could not stop crying. I was embarrassed.
It’s feminine and sweet to cry one or two tears at a sad movie; more tears are acceptable and expected at funerals. But it’s out of control and batty to sob in public. In Oklahoma City I tried to keep from crying loudly, I hid from my family, I tried to get control, but tears came faster than I could dry them.

I have been leery of raging tears ever since – I was leery that morning in Rwanda.
The museum opened and we were the first to enter. It was beautiful. Shiny floors, stained glass windows, track lighting. It was quiet inside. Reverent. An employee explained the layout to us in a whisper.

It is difficult to know what to say about the museum – what to leave in and what to leave out. Half-way through our time I left the boys, went back to the beginning and started to take notes.
I couldn’t write down everything. So I had to pick and choose:
Colonization set stage for the conflict – Belgians make Hutu/Tutsi ID cards mandatory. 80% Hutu.
Focus on recruiting children and adolescents to army
Tutsi’s tricked even by Priests who invited them to take refuge in churches – churches then locked and bulldozed. Father Seromba, Father Wenceslas give order to bulldoze. There are pictures of the churches before and after.
10,000 people murdered in church.
10 Hutu commandments - Commandment 7: The Rwandan Army must be exclusively Hutu…No soldier may marry a Tutsi woman. Commandment 8:Hutu must stop taking pity on the Tutsi.
UN does not deploy troops. Dallaire asks for 5,500 but UN reduces troops to 250. US acts too late. Most NGO’s flee.
Weapons in a glass case: blunt wooden mallets, small brown ax, machete covered in red dust, spears with blades shaped like feathers, long brown rifles, rusted chains used to tie people together before they were thrown into septic tanks or buried alive.
Heros:
Father Celestin Hakizimana, hid people in St Paul’s Pastoral Church.
Yahaya Nsengiyuma, a Muslim, took in Tutsi’s : Quoted “He who saves a single life saves the world entire”
Sula Karuhimbi – 72 year old widow. Said to be possessed by evil spirits. Protected 17 people.
Sifa and Odette – housed wounded and treated them
Damas Mutezintare – helped rescue about 400 orphans
Upstairs in the Exhibit on Children:
“I did not make myself an orphan.”
Pictures of children with lists of their favorite foods and activities and causes of death:
Hubert, age 2, shot dead. Sarah, age 2, smashed against a wall. Mikael, 9 months, machete in his mother’s arms. Peter age 12, last words “mum, where can I run to”
List of Genocides: Armenia 1915-18. Herero People 1904-05. Holocaust 1939-45. Cambodia 1975-79. The Balkans 1990’s. Rwanda 1994.

I will never forget what happened after we watched a video of a Gacaca trial – the restorative justice system implemented in Rwanda. In the video a man who murdered during the Genocide stands in a pink jumpsuit in front of a crowd of people from his village. The people sit on folding chairs under rainbow colored umbrellas. The man is asked to tell the crowd who he killed. At first he speaks too softly and someone asks him to speak louder.
Ema told me the Gacaca trial happens after a murderer has served time in prison and done some community service.

Now for the part I will never forget.

I asked Ema what happened after Gacaca. Was the prisoner taken back to jail? Did the villagers vote on a new sentence? Did the prisoner leave the village?
Ema looked at me, a man whose sister and brother-in-law were killed in the Genocide, and said “Forgiveness.”
“Oh,” I said.
“There are too many who killed,” he said slowly, “We could not keep them in prison forever. We could not kill them all – We must forgive”

That afternoon Matt and I caught the bus to Kampala. It was oversold again. This time I was the one without a seat. I sat in the aisle on a tiny wooden stool, 9 hours, my head in the armpit of the man in the adjacent seat. A Kung-fu movie that oscillated between French, English and an African language played at the front of the bus. To his credit, Matt and I took turns sitting on the stool. He even managed to fall asleep there.

At the border, I was almost denied entry to Uganda because I tried to pay the re-entry fee with a $10 that had a tiny tear in it.
“It’s Ripped,” said the large man behind the glass.
“It’s fine,” I said “I don’t have any more money” (which was the truth – I had no more USD).
“You Go Get,” he said.
“I DON’T HAVE,” I said
“GO GET,” he said.
At this point people began to shove me out of line. Matt was already on the bus. I heard the bus engine start. I’m was about to be stuck at the Rwanda-Uganda border alone with nothing but a ripped 10 dollar bill. I dug in the pockets of my wallet and found some pounds. God Save the Queen. I slipped a pristine bill under the glass, smiled and cooed
“It is the same. It is the same amount.”
The man looked at the money and then at me and then at the money. He stamped my passport and I ran out to the bus as it was pulling away. I hopped on it while it was MOVING (I am not making this up), and shimmied my way down the skinny aisle to the stool in the back.

At night we drove through a shanty town of silver metal Teepee’s with bright lights shining on them and trash fires throwing flames and smoke into the air. The atmosphere vibrated with insects, they clinked against the sides of the bus. Some flew in the windows. I saw children with nets swatting at the air.

It was grasshopper season. Everyone was trying to catch as many as possible.
“They eat them,” Kristen told me later. “they put salt on them and cook them until they’re crispy. They’re good. You should try one.”

House of Hope

2008-01-24T22:02:00.000Z

The kids at Voice of Hope have a new home! I visited the Voice of Hope orphanage when I was in Uganda (see Uganda days 2 and 3 on this blog). To see pictures of the house and kids and to read a great account of move-in day, check out Kristen Vogel's blog @ http://www.kristenuganda.blogspot.com

Ort.

2008-01-22T23:22:00.001Z

I like this video for so many reasons.

Uganda Day 4

2008-01-22T22:37:00.000Z

1 AM. We leave Kalolo for the bus station, five people in a four person taxi. We compare bus tickets on the ride - Matt bought our tickets at 10PM. They are printed on scraps of flimsy receipt paper. “They had exactly two seats left on the overnight bus!” Matt says, his eyes smiling as wide as good fortune. Our travel companions, Eric ,Bobby and Jessica booked their seats three days earlier and have large glossy tickets, like airplane boarding passes. We start to wonder if we haven’t been hoodwinked out of twenty thousand shillings.

The bus stop looks like a refugee camp – women and children snuggled together, layered in scarves like gypsies sitting among muddy puddles on the ground. The flat face of our bus has mean yellow headlights and the word “JAGUAR” written across the top. The bus is maroon with teal and purple accents. Inside the bus sea foam green fleece covers the seats and red plastic curtains woven like lanyards cover the windows. It is dimly lit and reminds me of a brothel or a place in one of Quentin Tarantino’s more disturbing films. The aisle is just wide enough for my hips. There are three seats on one side and two on the other and we shove and push and shimmy our way to the back of the bus. We have assigned seats. Someone is sitting in Matt’s seat so the conductor tells him to find another seat, which he does. Soon a lady appears and begins to yell at Matt for taking her seat. “I go outside to use de telephone and I come back in to dis!” Matt explains in his best Ugandan English, slowly, loudly, that she will have to talk to the conductor; that the conductor told him to sit in that seat. It becomes clear that the bus has been oversold by about five seats. The journey to Rwanda is 9 hours and people without seats will have to squat in the aisle or lean on armrests the entire trip. I am lucky to be seated next to a petite African woman, one of the few women in the back of the bus. Her head is wrapped in a silky white blanket like The Virgin Mary’s in all those icons. I am on the aisle. I curl around my backpack like a snail and try to sleep.

Odors on the bus come in waves; some are benign and others are so pungent, like BO and rotting meat. I do not breathe deeply. Because the bus is oversold there is considerable shifting, migrating, and raucous in the aisle. A rump rubs against my arm or head every time someone walks by. I feel bumped and nudged and shoved and a man without a seat has his hand on my headrest and keeps pulling my hair. I sleep in snatches; every time the bus stops for a short call or gas, the bumping and shoving and nudging down the aisle comes. I am sick of being touched. The temperature on the bus rises and I begin to think I am suffocating in all the odors. I start to channel my first grade bus driver and fantasize about yelling at everyone. SIT DOWN!
At the Uganda Rwanda border I see fog on fuzzy green hills, like a scene from Gorillas in the Mist. We get off the bus to go through customs. It is cooler than Kampala, overcast and comfortable. Round green mounds lay flat against grey sky. Is this Africa or England?

Border terrain breaks up the nature - metal posts and barbed wire fences and red muddy roads. Tiny birds dip and dive at our heads as we stand in line. Signs about Ebola written in marker on pieces of poster board are taped to the Immigration office. Ebola’s incubation period is 5 to 10 days, it says. I feel a fever coming on. The people stamping our passports wear gloves. Entrepreneurs sell juice and gum and crackers and pens and money changers promise good rates. I pay to use the bathroom. The stall has a wet cement floor and no toilet but a “shit filled hole” in the ground (sarah’s perfect description). I try to keep from peeing on my feet.

We board The Jaguar again to go from the border to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city. It occurs to me that it is Sunday when the driver begins playing music videos of African Praise and Worship songs on the bus’s TV. The rhythm is upbeat and the melody is tropical and happy. I am told the songs are in Swahili. The fog has cleared and we drive past soft tea fields, rolling up and over Rwanda’s thousand green hills.

Kigali’s roads are paved and clean. All boda boda drivers and passengers wear helmets. The city, aside from the dusty taxi park, feels like it has been scrubbed and shined like an old pair of leather shoes. There are banana trees and flowers and landscaped yards and signs of development like construction sites and new buildings. It has been twelve years since the genocide; such a short time to rebuild after such a devastating loss. Matt and I meet Emanuel, a Rwandan who lives in the Cornerstone Youth Core house. The Youth Core house is a place where likeminded university guys live together to encourage and support one another. The house is clean – much more clean than the college boy houses I have visited in the states. The common room has a TV, two floppy couches and a sturdy coffee table. The yard is lush, with two blooming rose bushes and other fragrant floral plants and vines. The boys shake our hands and ask me what I think of Africa. They teach us an African card game. We watch a TV show about Rwandan gorillas. We share stories and eat buttered rolls, potatoes and g-nut sauce and drink African tea with milk and so much sugar. Then we sing and pray together. At the end of the night I am exhausted and dusty and content. I stretch out my legs under cool sheets and fall asleep.

Uganda Day 3

2008-01-14T23:56:00.001Z

8 dec 07
I didn’t write about our trip to Lake Victoria with the orphans from Voice of Hope in my journal so I’ll try to sum it up here. I have so many pictures from this day (all on flickr) that the memories are still vivid.
To celebrate the end of school Voice of Hope organized a surprise beach day for the kids. Kristen, Keith, Julia and I took 2 bodas across town to the orphanage. The kids gave us a royal welcome, offered to carry our bags and posed for pictures. The orphanage was one small room with a cement floor and a few windows. Bunches of blankets, t-shirts and knickknacks were piled against the walls. The kids slept in this room together and shared an outhouse and shower. We ate jack fruit and posho while our lunch cooked over a campfire. Two hours behind schedule, we (forty+ kids and adults) wiggled into a Partridge Familyish bus and sang all di way to di beach. Five minutes outside of Kampala the bus stopped for a “short call”. Everyone who had to use the bathroom, (boys, girls, women and men), got off the bus and went in the tall grass by the side of the road.
We saw monkeys in the trees near the shore of Lake Victoria. They squawked and screamed and swung from branches just like they do in the zoo. It was warm and sunny and the kids swam in their clothes, flipping and kicking around a tipsy old boat that must have been there since the days of Amin. I was warned about the parasites in Lake Victoria so I sat, pink and freckled as a walrus, on a crumbly rock and watched the kids swim. For lunch, we ate cake first, a beautiful frosted heart that tasted like ginger flavored dust , and then, matoque, meat, sweet potato, rice and beans and soda from glass bottles.
The beach became more crowded as the day went on. Several vans parked on the grass near the shore and blared African pop music. Groups had picnics and played soccer and one high-tech group sang karaoke to reggae. I was walking through the crowds when a little boy, black and chubby as a baby seal, began to scream (high pitched, laugh cry) and run towards me as though I were his dear friend returned from the dead (Gandalf the white). I was speechless. He wrapped his arms around my leg and hollered until an older lady took his hand and led him away. This was one of the most bizarre encounters I had the entire trip.
Kristen struggled the whole day with what she diagnosed as Giardia, an intestinal parasite. We came home from the beach tired, dirty and happy. That night the Kreuters treated us to a rooftop bbq at their house near the cornerstone office. We ate until stuffed, told stories and laughed under the stars until late. Jon told the story of the time he had Malaria and decided to ride the bus from Kampala to Gulu and back again. The ride is notorious for being bumpy and perilous. On the last leg of his trip, the guy sitting next to him brought a chicken on the bus and somehow the feathers ended up in Jon’s face for most of the ride. Kristen told about the time she fell asleep on the bus with her ipod on. When she woke up the woman sitting next to her had taken the headphones and put them in her own ears. When Kristen looked at her she said “We-ah’s Dee Mew-sik?” Kristen played Damien Rice for the lady the rest of the ride.
Matt and I decided to go to Rwanda at the last minute with Jessica and Eric Kreuter and their friend Bobby Brown (no joke). We would leave on the 1AM bus – that begins Day 4.

Uganda Day 2

2008-01-07T04:25:00.000Z

27 Dec 2007
Day 2 in Uganda.

Setting
I am on the roof of the Cornerstone office – Kampala.
I hear the Shhh of cars, chirping birds and there is a breeze. It smells like flowers and cooking and California. It’s warm. I can see Kampala’s hills and trees from here – some are palm trees, some evergreens. My soul begins to unwind – it smoothes out and fills in my body from the crown of my head to the ends of my toes.

Food
We shopped at the grocery store this morning – nice place with big aisles, fluorescent lighting, carts. A step up from Tescoe. Kristen calls it the Mazoongoo (gringo) grocery. We bought peanut butter, granola, milk (comes in a box – not refrigerated until after opened) and a bunch of little bananas, half the length of regular bananas. We bought bottles of water – you shouldn’t drink tap water.

Transportation
We rode a Boda Boda home from the store. A Boda boda is like a motorcycle or a mo-ped - some look circa 1971. They are Kampala’s taxi’s and I was warned by Ugandans that they are ‘too dangerous” to take especially at night. Outside the grocery store we were practically on the boda before I knew what was happening. Clutching grocery sacks and two gallons of water I squeezed behind Kristen who was sandwiched between me and the driver. She told me you don’t hang on but I grabbed her shoulder with my free hand and we rode off, wind in our faces, plastic sacks crackling. The Boda weaved through traffic with no regard for lanes or laws. I tucked in my elbows again. We bounced toward Acacia Ave and climbed a hill where I was sure the boda would buckle under our weight and roll back down. We made it and paid the driver 1000 shillings ($0.60). Felt riskier than any roller coaster or tilt-a-whirl. I enjoyed the ride.

Feeling
I woke in the middle of the night sweating but too afraid to expose my naked limbs to malarial mosquitoes. I kept the blankets on and sweat, staring at the ceiling in the dark. The familiar sunken homesick feeling came. When I fell back asleep I dreamt of my friends. I don’t remember what we did, I only know they were with me. This morning when I woke I felt refreshed, calmed and comforted. Not homesick.

Matt
Im trying to figure out how I will describe Matt to people at home. He’s natural and seamless in conversation. He affirms often. He’s more fluid than anyone his age I have ever met. When he speaks he says things that would have taken me hours to prepare. He leads effortlessly.

Kristen and the Orphans
Kristen showed me pictures of the orphans she works with at Voice of Hope. There are about 35, ages 3-16. They live in one room. She says they have to practically sleep on top of each other – sometimes she sleeps there too. The orphans cook Posho (flour and water) in a vat over a fire and that is most of what they eat every day, sometimes with beans. Ugandan volunteers started and run the orphanage . They do outreach in one of Kampala’s slums once a week –playing soccer and getting to know the kids that live there. Kristen tells me kids from the slums carry a petrol soaked rag - they cover their faces with it and inhale to get high and curb hunger. The slums resemble landfills.

Arrive in Uganda

2008-01-04T20:14:00.000Z

I decided the best way to tell about Uganda is to copy entries direct from my journal onto this blog.

Because I have to start the telling somehow.

If it’s boring to you, don’t read it. I completely understand. These are first drafts – they aren’t supposed to be good.

(I have added some things in parenthesis)

6 Dec 2007
(On the airplane from Dubai to Entebbe)
Another pilot pen lost to inflight explosion. See next page for evidence (there are a bunch of ugly black blotches on the next page).
We will be in Entebbe, where the high temp is 27C, in 1.5 hours. I expected the airplane and fellow passengers to be more Amtrackish in the negative sense – but this has been good. I have scum on my teeth but I feel more rested than I thought I would.
We spent 4 hours in Dubai’s glossy airport. Twice we heard a call to prayer played over speakers in the food court. A chant in half steps – a strange melody with spooky intervals. We walked off the airplane in Dubai to a balmy night and an orange moon. The sun rose while we sat in the airport and the sky turned from black to blue haze. Matt says they grow skyscrapers like weeds in Dubai and he tells me they have one third of the world’s cranes (building cranes). I just watched an episode of The Office on Emirates T.V. and Matt continues to dose, his head flopping round like a rag doll’s.
Matthew 5. The Sermon on the Mount
There is a welling up of emotion in me reading the Beatitudes. I am tired. That’s part of it. But also – I expect to see this. In Africa I expect to see the Beatitudes with skin on.
6 Dec 2007
Im sitting in a room with blue tile in the Cornerstone guest house. It’s night and I’m writing by the light of one bulb with the shadow of my hand cast hard across the paper. A little girl named Shikaina is sleeping now in this room. She has black skin and wears a white night gown, one tiny foot with a pink sole kicks out from under the blanket. I hear crickets.
Red dirt covered the dash and floor of the pick-up truck we took from the airport. Our friend and driver tied our bags in the bed with a whiskery piece of rope. I sat in the front and three boys sat in the back. We drove on the left side of the road through villages where chickens and goats roamed free. Some pieces of meat hung from hooks in front of butchers shops. There were furry green hills. We passed Lake Victoria and I stuck my elbow out the window until we got to Kampala where the traffic was so dense I thought we would crash.

Tonight we ate at Garden City mall’s food court. Once we sat down proprietors of each restaurant swarmed around our table with menus. Phillip and Alfred talked about the vision of Cornerstone, wanting to transform kids’ characters from high school to college and after college. During dinner Sarah, Phillip’s wife, got a text from a friend who had just been robbed while walking in front of the Cornerstone office. I ate a chicken shwarma roll – flavorful.
Amazingly there are two Americans living where we’ll be staying. Julia from Virginia, here working for IJM, dates an Area director from GA. Kristen, from MO, is here working for HALO with an orphanage called Voice of Hope. Hattie (my good friend from YL) was her young life leader. What are the odds? To end up in Uganda with someone who knows someone I know. God is good.
I am feeling uncomfortable and shy – Im exhausted. I will sleep now and not fear waking in the morning. My heart aches for home. Abba, I need a touch from you.

Tenelle to Africa?

2007-12-04T01:25:00.000Z

Last Thursday my classmate sent me an email with the subject line “Tenelle to Africa?”
Intrigued, I opened it and read an invitation to join Matt on a 10 day trip to Uganda. We would visit a group of non-profit organizations in the country. We would leave in six days. His original travel partner was unable to make it. Could I come?

No, not really. To come, I would have to reschedule my flight home, which would be expensive. I would have to buy a ticket to Uganda, also expensive. What about vaccinations? Malaria? What about the fact that I know next to nothing about Africa outside of what I’ve seen in the movies Blood Diamond and Hotel Rwanda? (The last I am particularly embarrassed to admit. Among you reading this, there are plenty who are more deserving of this invitation than me).

A few nights prior to receiving Matt’s email I had read a chapter in David Batstone’s book Not For Sale about the abduction of children in Northern Uganda. Rebel forces abducted (and still do) boys and girls, forcing them respectively to join the army or become sex slaves. Tens of thousands of children have been abducted – entire schools and villages have been raided and ransacked. (You may have seen the film Invisible Children and know about this.)

Timing is a mysterious force. Despite the obvious roadblocks, something about the timing of Matt’s offer made it difficult to dismiss. Within five minutes of reading the email, thoughts of going started to gnaw on me like termites – or, perhaps it was the other way around; I set to gnawing on the idea like Wilbur on one of his bones. Though going would be tight, it was possible.

I am of the opinion that acting impulsively is foolish. I value calculation, preparedness, deliberation, analysis. I prefer luxurious margins of time for making decisions. I like being “All set” before acting.

Mercifully, I also have an Internal Executive Branch of Spontaneity, the headquarters of which is located somewhere near my gut. The Executive branch has the power to override my judgments and, from time to time, deploys me into action, as it did in this case. What began with “I’ll call to see if it would be possible to change my flight home,” turned into “I have a ticket to Uganda and I leave on Wednesday - please will you vaccinate me for yellow fever?”

It’s Monday night and I feel a bit like a kid on the YL ropes course standing with my toes to the edge of the last platform, waiting to jump for the trapeze. We fly out of London Wednesday afternoon and return December 18th. The 19th I fly to Houston and then to Kansas for Christmas.

Please send prayers for travel mercies our way – and, in case you’re wondering, I was able to get a box of anti-Malaria pills and a Yellow Fever vaccination today. Also, Matt has been to Uganda before and knows the ropes.

St. Hilda (614 - 18 November 680)

2007-11-18T20:42:00.000Z

Today is Saint Hilda day according the The Daily Office website. I am a member of St. Hilda’s college– this means that our lives, Hilda’s and mine, have mysteriously crossed paths. Serendipitous? I can only wonder.

I cobbled together a truncated version of her life story secretly hoping that in the process I would find some direction for my own. My sources include the St. Hilda’s college website, The Daily Office website and, of course, the venerable Wikipedia.

Hilda’s dad was murdered when she was an infant – he was poisoned while living in exile. Her great uncle Edwin, King of Northumbria, adopted her and she grew up in his court. Edwin hastily converted to Christianity in 627 and his whole court, including Hilda, was baptized on Easter of the same year. When Edwin was killed in battle in 633, Hilda most likely went to live with her sister. In 647 she was approached by St. Aidan who asked her to move back to Northumbria and become a nun. She ‘followed the call,’ and became an abbess and founder of a number of monasteries.

The last monastery she established was at Whitby. It housed men and women in separate quarters and had a chapel where everyone worshiped together. Whitby, under Hilda’s governance, produced several Bishops and the famous songwriter Caedmon, who went from stable-boy to poet, in part because of Hilda’s encouragement. Kings, princes and bishops from far and wide came to seek Hilda’s counsel and wisdom. When she died, at least one nun reported seeing her soul being “born to heaven by angels.”

She is considered the patron saint of culture and learning.

Evensong

2007-11-18T00:57:00.000Z

On cloudless nights I look at stars. I prop myself by the window like a sentinel pug and stare into the sky. I mostly watch for movement. When I feel daring I watch from outside; the cobblestone road in front of Merton is a prime spot. Last night I walked across the bridge, craning my neck to look for Comet Holmes. It recently exploded and is now larger than the sun. Holmes is in the northeast near Perseus, just below Mirfak. I never did see it.

I was on my way to New College to meet Caroline for Evensong. Caroline is Canadian and teaches third grade at New College Boys’ school. She is also a choir tutor for the young choristers who, she tells me, have ten times their body weight in personality. We walked into the college yard by piles of bicycles. We breathed into our scarves to keep warm. New College is one of the oldest in Oxford; we passed the original city wall on our way to chapel.

The first thing I saw entering the chapel was a wall of stone statues of Biblical heroes. Rows and rows of them stacked from the ground to the ceiling. Moses with two tablets, and Mary and baby Jesus, and the apostles, and Isaiah, Ezekiel and John the Baptist were all there. The wall was behind the altar and at the end of a long shiny aisle. I looked up and found the ceiling full of wooden angels, wings spread straight out like gliding birds. Caroline and I sat among candles on the left side of the chapel. I noticed the kneeling bench at my feet.

Soon the choir entered. The boys wore white collars, like coffee filters cinched at the neck with red ribbon, and long robes. Once in place, they nodded in unison to the altar and sat. The old seats creaked and popped under their weight. The director blew into his pitch pipe and gave them a cue to begin. Their voices filled the old chapel like incense. Sound bounced off the ground and the wooden angels and the saints and pushed cold air out of the room. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the music had turned the stone statues to flesh. Stranger things have happened in my own heart. The boys sang and sang. I mostly could not understand the words. One phrase I did pick out, which was repeated several times, was: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.” Liturgical people probably know the name of this phrase. I wish I did.

That night I walked home, still scouring the sky for Comet Holmes. Some heavenly bodies are more elusive than others.

On another note, I am happy to report that I have my first visitor! My dad arrived this afternoon, safe and sound from a nonstop flight out of Denver. He survived several brushes with death while driving – driving on the opposite side of the road in a foreign land while jet lagged is an equation for danger. You’ll find new pictures from our time around town on Flickr.

Opera Singing Phone Salesman

2007-11-07T18:03:00.001Z

This is a clip from the show Britain's Got Talent. I watched it after reading about it on Tim Keel's blog. I, like Tim and an assortment of people he mentions, had tears streaming down my face by the end of the performance. What makes it so moving?

Sdoof

2007-11-05T20:36:00.000Z

You, all of you, told me about English food.

Some of you told me indirectly. “What about the food,” you asked , scrunching up your nose and shaking your head. You had heard things. Some of you told me straight, like older brothers prophesying about church camp – “The food is bad,” you said. No frills, no apologies, no nonsense.

I did not want to believe you - I did not believe you. As far as I was concerned, you, all of you, had picky palettes.

At the last minute I removed most foods from my suitcase. I put jars of peanut butter and boxes of crackers with other castoffs labeled unnecessary or impractical: a denim miniskirt, fuchsia nail polish, high heeled shoes, a collection of hardback books, a full bottle of eye makeup remover, all left over like black jellybeans at Easter. Naturally, I decided to keep three essential foods for the journey: Tea, Splenda and Extra peppermint gum. This leads me to believe that had I been traveling to Antarctica, I would have packed ice.

Everything you told me about the food is true – take comfort in your cleverness.

To be fair, I have found some tasty items:
1. Cheese. English cheese tickles the taste buds. It is salty, comes in many varieties and is creatively named (Buxton Blue, Red Leicester, Cornish Yarg)
2. Mint Sauce. This is a green, glumpy sauce made of mint and other herbs traditionally served with lamb. I heap it on everything from potatoes to sausage.
3. Curries. Chicken and vegetable curries from the can taste wonderful.
4. Pesto. Pesto on spaghetti, pesto mixed with hummus, pesto on bagels, pesto on baguettes. It is becoming my new favorite condiment.
5. Lattes. Not because they taste better – but because they are served in slender glass mugs.
6. Mulled wine. Remeber when the Glass Man serves it to Amelie? It tastes better than hot chocolate - especially comforting on cold days.
7. Crisps. Crisps = US Chips. Crisps, like cheeses, come in many flavours. I always have salt and vinegar on hand. I also like the Marks and Spencer 'Sweet Thai Chili and Coriander' ones.

Pictures from a walk around town

2007-10-27T12:54:00.000+01:00

I added new pictures to Flickr today

Do have a look!

The story of two ordinary events from the same day

2007-10-26T00:09:00.000+01:00

Just as I drifted into a dream, a dreadful sound woke me like cold water to the face. “Somebody burnt their toast,” I thought, lugging my inert body out of bed.

Half conscious and confused, I shuffled outside where I saw two women in black coats breathing white clouds into the air. The shorter of the two had a clipboard. She gave me a reproachful look to which I said “I did something wrong didn’t I?” My words turned to white mist.

They said I hadn’t done anything wrong – except, I had left Gloria upstairs to perish in the fire. Gloria finally emerged from the house, barefoot and dazed, and the clipboard carrier began a perfunctory scolding.

“This is a FIRE drill. When you hear the alarm, you have to leave the house immediately. You don’t get dressed. You don’t get your things. You just get out.”

She spoke over the bellowing alarm that spilled into the streets and through the cracks in the neighbors’ houses. She then gave permission to a plump man in a blue jumpsuit to turn it off. He went inside, fiddled with some buttons and riffled through his pockets. I heard him say, simply, “shit.” He came back outside.

“They didn’t give me the right key. I’ll have to go get it.”

This seemed as logical to me as addition or gravity. Of course he had forgotten the key. Of course we had to stand in England on frosty ground in flip flops and pajama pants with the high siren of the fire alarm piercing the air and waking the neighbors while he hurried to retrieve it. We had to stand – so we stood. We did not complain. We discussed, of all things, the best way to get from Alma Place to the department of social policy on a bicycle.

The man came back on a red scooter. He scurried inside and turned off the alarm. The officers said “sorry about that,” and we said “that’s okay,” and went inside and laughed all the way up the stairs. Gloria thought the college was “unreasonable” for giving us no warning about the drill. “What they expect - people to come outside in their underwear?” I huffed in agreement.

Awake, I put on long underwear, running shoes and gloves and jogged back outside. I plodded like an cranky ogre across Magdalene Bridge, lumbering amongst crowds of walkers bundled in scarves and hats.

I turned onto Rose Lane, passed Merton’s stone house (where a burnt piece of toast set off the fire alarm last week), and entered the black iron gates into Christ Church Meadow. A Christian boy once told me that St Hilda’s is the most beautiful college in Oxford – I can’t imagine that he actually meant it. Not that St Hilda’s is ugly – it is not. It is beautiful – but it’s not as beautiful as Christ College.

Along the dirt path that surrounds the meadow, I came beside a stream at the perfect moment. Looking towards the sun, mist rising off the water refracted the light so that thick beams shot between tree branches like white comets. These spotlights flooded the space between the leafy canopy and the ground, highlighting their stars: patent leather leafs that fell one at a time, spinning like ice skaters to the ground; a magpie that flew a daring horseshoe from the sky to the surface of the water and back up. I happened to be there to watch it all. The light swallowed me whole and I started to cry.

My second lap around the meadow, the light had changed and the effect was gone. “Now you see it, now you don’t.”

In high school, my friend Kacie told me that when she sees light refracted in the sky she thinks of God. Beams of light look like fingers from heaven, reaching down to touch the earth. The image has stuck with me ever since. Today it reminds me of that line in Julie Miller’s song: “your love for me must be the speed of light.”

The Cambridge-Somerville Study

2007-10-17T23:53:00.000+01:00

Imagine you are a social worker in south Boston (remember Goodwill Hunting?). You work with adolescent boys who steal, sell drugs, use drugs, skip school, commit assaults - you work with delinquents. You lucky dog.

To help them, you implement the following intervention: The boys are assigned a mentor who meets with them several times a week for several years. A grant pays for the boys' medical care and fees for extra-curricular activities (guitar lessons, soccer teams, summer camps, etc). The boys are followed into adulthood to measure the effectiveness of the intervention. Voila.

This is what social scientists in the Cambridge-Somerville study did. From a large pool of high-risk boys they randomly selected half to receive the intervention. They stayed in touch with the ment-ees and their non-mentored peers and, amazingly, tracked 98% of the boys until they were 47. Intermitently they measured both groups (mentored and not) for delinquent behavior.

What do you think they discovered? (You ought to guess – it is more fun if you do).

Maybe you hypothesized that the mentored boys engaged in less delinquent behavior than the non-mentored boys: that the intervention worked. Maybe you thought the mentored and non-mentored boys engaged in equal amounts of delinquent behavior: that the intervention didn’t make a difference.

In fact, the mentored boys ended up MORE delinquent than the boys who never received the intervention. Mentored boys died more, were incarcerated more and were more delinquent than their non-mentored peers. The intervention actually HURT them.

Huh?

Scientists have tried to make sense of Cambridge-Somerville. They have found no problems with the study’s research methods or delivery. Interestingly, they did find that boys who went to summer camp were particularly delinquent and those who went to camp multiple times were the most delinquent. They guessed that boys who went to summer camp fraternized with miscreants from different areas, which increased their access to delinquent activities. Essentially, networking at camp increased their opportunities for delinquency when they came home.

This is not an easy post to wrap up - I have been a mentor - I have a mentor - I still believe in the goodness of mentoring programs. I had never considered that unintended consequences can poison the well.

If you would like to read the study, here it is: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-7732(196003)38%3A3%3C283%3AOOCANE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 (sorry, it's not free).

Baby

2007-10-15T22:39:00.000+01:00

I recently became an aunt and here is my proof - Trip David Porter, 9lbs 4oz, trademark Porter hands. He left the hospital in a navy blue Broncos onesy and matching Bronco booties. Look for him in the NFL draft, 2027.

Top Chef Miami Finale Eater Exclusive Preview

2007-10-08T23:12:00.001+01:00

Why Oxford is like Top Chef

2007-10-08T23:01:00.000+01:00

Perhaps you do not watch Top Chef. I didn’t either until a combination of idle time and a penchant for BRAVO TV lured me in halfway through season 2 (The Era of Marcel). I have been an outsider to several cultural phenomena ( Harry Potter, 24, Lost, American Idol) and as an outsider I understand you do not want to be bored with the nuances of the show. Here is all you need to know:
1. Chefs are given challenges each week. Challenges involve cooking strange things under stingy conditions.
2. Judges taste the chefs’ food and vote on who is best and who should “pack their knives and go.” Judges are experts in the culinary arts and very difficult to please. The chef remaining at the end of the season is Top Chef.

My first day of class contained a textbook Top Chef challenge.

28 students from eleven different countries filed into a classroom. We were given a large pink marker and told to create clear name tags. “So Tutors can call on you by name.” Great. ( Not like a name tag could help them in my case – so far I have been called TENyl, Ten-elle, Tiara, Ten-el-y,and Janelle. My name has given them more trouble than some of the Asian and Indian names - but I digress).

“We have an introduct’ry exercise for you – You have three minutes to come up with a social problem – preferably something you know a lot about. After 3 minutes we’ll put you in groups. Your group will choose one of your social problems and have for’y-five minutes to define the problem thoroughly, design an inte’vention, design a way to measure the inte’vention’s efficacy and comment on the potential weaknesses of the study. After for’y-five minutes, you will present your proposal to the class and field questions from classmates and tutors.”

The following is a list of Top Chef Challenge Ingredients contained in this “introduct’ry exercise”
1. Surprise! Who expects work on the first day of class? The oldest trick in the book still works.
2. Chopping Block. After forty five minutes of prep, we got the Guillotine – time was up. Understandable as we were working to solve complex problems that have puzzled societies for decades.
3. Fruitcakes. Soak up more time by navigating the awkward waters of working with people you don’t know. Organize yourselves, cooperate, delegate, GO!
4. Rotten Tomatoes. Not prepared to present? Doesn't matter. Go with what you have even if it wouldn’t pass in Jr. High social studies. Stammer, ramble, fake it.

Several Top achievers emerged from our exercise. Lucky for me, this was not an elimination round.

Into Cold Water

2007-10-04T23:54:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my first blog!

I sat down to describe my feelings about moving to Oxford - and this is what happened.

I was born in Ulysses, KS eight days after the summer solstice in 1981. A few days later the temperature hit 109 while I lay sweating in blankets. 109 holds the record high for that day in the area, but all the same, Ulysses typically resembles Death Valley from June to August. The sun, like The Law, searches the Prairie and scorches most of what it finds. Heat rises, wobbling from black roads and brown grass towards white hot sky. Creek beds run dry; lakes turn to sand pits. The only remaining oasis within 500 miles is the Grant County Public Pool.

Inevitably Ulysses kids, like most kids, face the daunting task of learning to swim. An uncertified swimmer lives an exiled existence in the baby pool. They can't go down the slide, jump off the diving board or so much as stick a big toe in the deep end.

Why not take lessons?

I'll tell you why not. Swimming lessons start at 7:15AM. If that is not reason enough, they consist of numerous uncomfortable, frightening, even embarrassing tests. Before the sun has cooked the pool and the last strokes of pink have faded from the morning sky, swimming students must de-towel and wade like penguins into cold water, forsaking their fears of any number of ferocious creatures they believe to be living in the deep. Once certified, older brother types pressure young swimmers to jump off the board, go head-first down the slide, swim to the bottom of the deep end and touch the drain. In some respects the real trouble for swimmers comes after certification.

Before my first lesson I fidgeted on blue feet by the snack bar; I chewed tiny holes in my stringy towel. I was nauseated by the smell of chlorine and my over active nerves. Naturally, I took to sizing up the other kids in the class. As I saw it they had better suits and better towels and darker tans (honest to goodness, for as long as I can remember I have been self conscious about my pale skin). None of them looked uncomfortable or worried or afraid. It occurs to me now that perhaps they had neither felt the water nor seen the movie Jaws. It occurred to me then that perhaps I was well suited for a life in the baby pool.

CS Lewis supposed that, had we been given the choice, none of us would have left the womb. It goes without saying that womb life is safe - womb dwellers drift in warm fluids and dream in the fetal position. They float curled up like shrimp. As shrimp they are content to never be born.

But I learned to swim in cold water. Cold water came up my nose and into my ears. Cold water washed over my eyes and slid down my throat. I glided through cold water like ice across ice. Cold water turned my lips blue and dripped off my skin making cold puddles on the concrete. Soon I learned to dive in cold water and to kick and twist and flip.

These days I am content to float - to, as Mary Oliver says, let the soft animal of my body love what it loves. But this has always been. These days I am also content to swim. I am even content to swim in cold water with kids who have better suits. I am content though uncomfortable. I am a swimmer; I wouldn't have it any other way.