Construction

It's Spring, time for awakening, new experiments, and the dusting off of hobbies. For me, this spring will consist of preparation, preparation for a range of new endeavors I plan to undertake this year, with one of the first being the renovation of my in laws garage. I'm excited about this as my mother in law has offered us the opportunity to use the garage as a place to store our things and even to stay temporarily as we begin to travel. I say "rent-free" but the reality is that we would never accept such a generous offer without at least offering something in return. It's an exciting time.

Laos

My mother in law thinks its odd that I want to work on a farm. I've had this desire to do so for about 7 or so years now. To plant, harvest, interact with the farming community, to witness life outside of what has become my norm. A few years ago, I became really interested in the idea of organic farming and signed up to be a WOOFer or a member of the World Organization of Organic Farmers. Its a collective of sorts that links those who desire to participate in farming with those who own or operate organic farms world wide. WOOF has many chapters, I joined the chapter in Japan, having long decided that I would like to experience how farming is carried out in Asia, and in Japan specifically..

The realization of this has not quite come into being yet, but it is a plan still on the back burner, so to speak. As I orient myself into a profession (teaching) which provides me with the summer season off, I'll have more of a chance to take part in these types of activities. As I grow older, I've become content with things happening gradually and in their time.

In any event, farming. In conversation the other evening, my mother in law began to tell me of her family in Laos and how her mother was growing older and will need help to operate the farm as she is very attached to it, to the animals and to the land. With the majority of her children dispersed throughout Laos or overseas, there is some uncertainty as to the future of the farm. Impasse and opportunity.

So to this end..

Six years ago, I had half the story. And what an interesting story it was...in the course of several years, I'd spanned nearly every geographic region in the world - mostly just getting to know how other folks thought. I conversed with the San in Namibia, sitting outside buildings charred by neglect and a war of independence, trying to muddle through the issues of the day. I witnessed ritual animal sacrifice, festivals, happiness, abject poverty, and the horror of no way out. I sat and discussed HIV issues with an ambassador, talked shop with a half racist Afrikaner in Kwa Zulu Natal, saw incredible vistas and snowcapped mountain ranges in Lesotho, soaked up the bustle and noise of Dakar, slipped in and out of railway cars in Tokyo, slept in long range haulers through the Japanese lowlands, sat in ramen booths in Osaka, recorded beautiful music in Shinsaibashi, cried and marveled with the homeless in Nicaragua, swayed in the streets of Seoul, slept in the cramped apartments of Hongdae, walked among the cobblestones of East London...loved the beautiful patchwork quilt of creation set before me.

What has changed in six years? Mainly me. The way that I approach life is quite different than before. I settled into what was expected. Funds dried up, doors closed, and abroad - for a time, seemed so very far away. But when all hope seemed lost, I met my other half and became a whole being...and she spoke softly, of things I'd forgotten, of pictures I'd packed away or lost, of dreams deferred and of a heart that was growing sick with self-denial. This began two years ago.

So I began to pick up and dust off my dreams. I began to save, and I began to plan...

Words are a tricky thing..

I'm finding it very difficult to verbalize my experiences in Africa. I wonder if that's normal. It'd be nice to get a second opinion on that.

What I mean is that when people ask me "How was your trip?" I find my self just saying that it was "incredible" or "life changing" or something else that seems to be drab, expressionless and typical. But see that's just it. For probably the first time I really mean those words in their entirety. This trip, this working experience was absolutely incredible. It changed my life. It made me look at things completely differently. And by things I mean EVERY aspect of my life. The last couple of days I've found my self doing things in the house, the normal daily tasks that I do, reading, playing with my dog and throughout these tasks, I've been noticing just how many things I waste. Water, paper towels, plastic bags, electricity. But what's so wonderful and I'm excited even typing this is that for the first time I'm not just saying "Well, I'll try harder next time" , but I'm actually stopping what ever it is that I am doing to waste. Turning off the water while I brush my teeth, bringing my on bag to the store, small things but they mean something to me now. Being concerned about the rise in global warming and changing your life to make a difference is a noble thing. But to be concerned about PEOPLE and how your actions on on side of the world off set peoples lives on the other is how I want to live. Sure, maybe turning the water off isn't going to do much for someone who doesn't have water, but on the same level, conserving electricity lead to me paying less money every month, which will lead to me having more money for travel, which in turn will allow to go back to Africa and DO something for those who need help the most. If it means no a/c for a little while, I can live with that.

I think I should begin by saying that this is going to take me a little while. Decompressing I mean. I don't fully feel that I am in the united states yet. When I arrived at JFK after the 24 hr. long flight, I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues about the feeling that we don't really belong here (the united states). I've done a fair bit of travelling and each time I come back, I feel less and less a part of the ethos and 'beat' of the U.S., and of New York specifically. I think there's a Minor Threat song called 'Out of Step" actually. I should know that, they were one of my favorite bands growing up. But that's besides that point. On arriving in JFK friday and walking down the corridors towards Immigration, I feel less and less like this is my final destination. It's just a feeling of course but impossible to ignore all the same. That probably doesn't make any sense, but I'm just spitting out the thoughts as they go.

I think I left of in my last blog with preparations to leave Namibia, so I'll briefly continue there. We were not able to finish the construction of all of the houses we wanted to build. We had wanted to build houses for 20 San families and we finished about 16. The whole job was beset by problems. But that wasn't a deterrent. If anything it showed just how similar things are. I mean in the U.S. you will always have problem on a job site. The problems we were experiencing were simply relative to the area that we were working in. Electricity was a constant problem. Due mostly to the fact that we were working in the bush. we were powered my a single generator, which meant that certain jobs could only be done one at a time. We coped with this by doing the majority of our jobs manually. In fact the only machine driven jobs were roofing, and concrete mixing. Well, i should say that concrete mixing started out as machine driven and soon turned in to manual. the mixing machine gave out on us about 2/3 of the way into the job. Which lead to mixing the concrete with spades (Note: I've chosen to use the local terms for machinery and tools to save time and point out differences in construction colloquialisms. A spade is a shovel). No easy task, especially given that the winter in Namibia is decieving. The day would usually start out pretty cold and warm up fairly quickly. This was ok, however, everyday at about 14:00, flies would appear out of no where. Not the type of flies that just move away with a swat, but the type that crawl on your face and fly around your ears incessantly. But it was great to engage the mind and see how we could work around these. In fact that was one of the most interesting aspects of this experience. How to work with what you have when you have nothing else. There were times when we simply had no water because the town had shut of water for construction or modification to the main. This happened several times during construction. And it was very frustrating for the head foreman, Mwrarii. Understandably so, this project was very personal to him. The town that we were working in, Eenhanna is in Northern Namibia and Mwrarii had fought on the side of SWAPO (South West African Peoples Organization, a resistance group) in that very town during Namibia's independence struggle. Specifically in the aspect of guerilla warfare. I was able to work very closely with him during the construction and he told me that there was once nothing in the town but military bases and several large battles were fought on the very ground that we stood on...

On this thought, I will continue later.

Back again..

Back in Windhoek again. No proper grammer again, I'm tired..but i want to get this blog out. Alot has happened in the last 2 weeks...alot. Man, I can't explain how intriging africa is. Namibia especially. I've been doing alot of construction and infrastructure work here and it is just insane to note how new of a country this is. I suppose that the people here have wanted to make ths an independant country for some time now, but to hear the stories from former soldiers here is incredible. Just the depth of how personal their country is to them is completly foreign to me. I love my country as well, even through all of the mistakes and miscalculations we make as a people I love it but I will never know how it feels to fight a battle in a field that later becomes a town you live in. I will never know how it feels to stand and cry when the national anthem is sung...I have seen these things and it is absolutly incredible.

So I'm here now trying to download my thoughts from the first half of this job. It's going to take a while. I think I need to have some more dialog with people before I am able to talk about what I have seen and experienced. The absolute poverty and hopelesness of the people that I have worked with is something that I cannot fathom. I have tried to understand why a pair of shoes would be so important to someone and why they would cry over recieving clothing. I just don't understand it.

But, I've decided that I want to continue to do work here. As much as possible and as often as possible. Not that I am some american knight in shining armor here to save the people from themselves. Not that at all. I just want to help, with my own hands, in the most relevant and sustainable way possible. Thats all I want to do.

The U.S. ambassador was at the closing ceremony on friday and I was completly surprised and honored that she brought me a gift. It was a packet of information regarding the Foreign Service test that she thought I might find useful. I was blown away. To think that some one is such a position of power and authority would remember a conversation and bring me information that I had not even aked for was incredible.

I'm going to stop this entry here and process my thoughts a bit more. I still have much to write about my time in Namibia and I will definatly return to it. I have an afternoon flight to South Africa tommorrow for some more work and I am excited and ready for the new challanges that I will get there.

This trip is really just a whole lot of "Wow". More on that later...

The real thing..

So we have finally arrived in namibia..I'm not going to shoot for proper pronunciation or grammer in this text, I only have a few minutes at this internet booth. The time seems to count down quickly on this internet connection.

Anyhow, we arrived yesterday. When we were flying over South Africa, the ladscape was beautiful. Alot of open and vast spaces. Cities aren't as prevelant and there was lots of sand and brush. I love that sort of setting. When we flew in to Namibian airspace the change in topography was immediatly apparent. I started to see more red clay, and mountains and the sorts of things that you expect to see when you think of africa. I can't get over how big the sky is here. It's so difficult to describe, but out in the bush you can see for miles...the sky is extremely blue and cloudless. This might have something to do with the fact that it is winter. No rain in sight for miles. The sky is absolutly incredible.

We landed about 30 km. from Windhoek (the capital) because the mountains are too large and random to land closer to the city. The drive from the airport to our lodging was about 45 min, although it seemed longer because we got held up in the airport. There was a minor problem at immigration with our visa's. As I am learning I need to be extremely flexible here. Things just tend to move differently. In any event, on the way to our lodging, it was interesting to see gazelles and other animals on the roads.

Today we actually had a meeting with USAID, UNESCO and the U.S ambassador to Namibia. I'm, glad I had on some clean clothes because I was seated right next to the ambassador. I had no idea I was going to sit next to her until I was seated according to the chart. A wonderful woman, we had a really good conversation about issues that affect the Namibian population. I was amazed to hear that out of a population of 2 million, 20% is known to have AIDS or HIV. That is a staggering number and it truly is of epic proportions. I also had a conversation with the Minister of Gender Issues and Education, she was also seated next to me and we discussed how this rate of infection is affecting the teachers as well. As they are not immune to the virus, the more teachers that die the less kids that can be taught in this new country. New is relative, the country has been in existence for 18 years. So many problems are affecting this country, and I believe I will be back here to do as much work as I can in the future.

Today has been an eventful day, it's not often you have dinner with an ambassador and other governmental officials...especially me.

We drive to northern Namibia tommorrow, we'll be leaving at 6am, and we arrive at about 5 or 6 pm. It's a long drive.

We also officially start work in the field the day after that, up until now our time has been spent in meetings.

I probably won't have a chance to update this blog when I get up there, we'll see what the internet connection looks like when I get up there. Until then..

Getting used to the time change..

I slept well last night actually, alot less pain and I am starting to get used to the time change. It's not that bad, NY is 6 hrs. behind. I woke up and my lip was killing me again, but it's to be expected..nothing a few advil cant kill. The good thing is that I was able to eat different kinds of food today and I didn't have to cut it up to crazy small pieces. The last few days I have felt as if I was cutting for a baby. The meals in the morning have been great...really good fruits and meats. The best breakfast I have had in a while. We sat outside and talked for a long while, everything from John Mccain to the enviornment. It's really nice to sit and talk with a small group of people that are so diverse. By the way it's considered to be winter time here in SA but it's really nice outside, I mean winter is like 67 or so during the day and 40 at night. It feels like October in the states. And the sky...there is nothing like it. It is so blue and big, there's hardly any smog here and the air just smells and tastes so much better.

Yesterday, we were waiting in the our lodgings lobby area and I had to use the bathroom, so I went naturally. Now my face looks pretty crazy still, like I got dragged by a truck..and though it is healing nicely, it still draws some sympathetic stares..There was one african gentleman in the bathroom and he asked me what happened to my face. I explained how my stupidity and laziness lead to me not changing something that could have been easily changed and therefore I fell off my bike and he seemed genuinely sad that i was in such bad shape. We talked for a moment more and I said, "But that's ok because I am just glad to be in Africa." His face lit up and he said, "Is this your first time in Africa?" to which I replied yes. He then smiled larger and said "Welcome Brother."

Wow...