Hospital Stories

The new year is upon us! One year ending and a new year beginning, there is always so much potential. I have not been a very faithful updater and while I feel slightly guilty for that I really don't feel that bad. Most people who read this have the ability to message or email me so if they *really* wanted updates, they would do one of those two things.
December was an interesting month. I spent a lot of time at the hospital. Part of that was observing surgeries and part of that was a disgusting staph infection. The surgeries I observed included a man who needed most of his small intestine removed. That was an interesting case because of the story that accompanied it. Here it is:
The story of this man began one Saturday night when me, my co workers, and some visitors were driving to the UN for a gathering. We were going through town when we noticed a huge crowd forming in front of a bar on the side of the road. It looked like chaos. Women were wailing and acting in the traditional way a woman acts when a family member dies. Most of the crowd was carrying sticks or other things they would use to beat someone. They were beating on the door of the bar and it also looked like they were beating someone on the ground. There was also a large fire. We wanted to stop but a car full of white people stopping to intervene during a mob scene is probably one of the most horrible ideas you could have around here so we just kept driving. When we got back to the compound, we checked to see if anyone had been brought for an emergency and found that one man had. He had been stabbed in his side and he arrived at the hospital with his intestines coming out the wound. He had emergency surgery that night. The next day, the doctor found the swelling in his abdomen was considerable and suspected there was another problem.
Meanwhile, in town where the chaos had been last night, there continued to be fighting. It seemed that at that bar, the night we drove by, a Maban man (the county we live in) and a Nuer man (another local tribe) had a disagreement over who the land belonged to. They were both drunk and it escalated quickly. It should also be noted that these people groups have had conflict for years so having a drunken fight has the potential to explode pretty easily. The Nuer man was so upset, he left the bar, returned with a knife, and stabbed the Maban man. Of course, this erupted into a brawl. This brawl continued into the next day as the Maban man's family wanted revenge badly. However, since the maban man hadn't died yet, things were just tense and hadn't gotten out of hand.
Once the doctor realized there may be another problem, he decided to open the man back up to look around. I observed this surgery. Once he opened him up he found almost his entire small intestine had died. The stabbing had cut the vein that supplied blood to that portion and they had been out of his body for too long the night before. The doctor re-sectioned his intestines but the damage was too extensive and the man died. I didn't stay for the whole surgery and was taking a shower when I heard gunshots close by. They sounded like they were at the market. There were a lot of gunshots though so I wasn't sure what was happening. Later, I found out once the family heard the man had died, they rioted in front of the bar he was stabbed at and the house of the man who killed him. They set fire to both places and beat people. The police had fired gunshots into the air to disperse the crowd. If they hadn't, who knows how far those people would have gone. Luckily, after the family felt they got revenge, the fighting stopped.
That is the story behind the man whose intestines were the first I ever saw in person.
Before I got to observe that surgery, I got to learn how to do stitches. That man's story was also funny. The cut was on his right thigh. He said his friend's wife had stabbed him there and it looked suspiciously as if she could have stabbed him from an angle which makes me think this man was trying to rape her. The hospital here is a very interesting place.
After both those things, I developed a horrible infection on my leg. In 24 hours it went from just a normal skin irritation to a full blown oozing, disgusting, painful, abscess. I got IV antibiotics and had it drained. It is just now healing completely. It took a couple weeks for there not to be a hole in the side of my leg. Infections are easy to get around here and dust gets into everything.

2012 has been an insane year. Beginning with frustration, love, and hope and ending with joy, satisfaction, and complete heartbreak. Life truly can be a roller coaster. Living in South Sudan has brought me more joy than almost anything else I have done in life. South Sudan has been the redeeming thing about 2012. In contrast, relationships have been the low point of 2012. I feel like I got betrayed a lot in 2012. It was a very disappointing year in terms of relationships, not just romantic but friendships as well. I can't say I think 2013 will be any better but I can say I will try to be more cautious. I think I tend to be reckless when it comes to relationships. People are flawed and I understand but I allow people to treat me badly quite often. I hope I am brave enough to change that in 2013.   

My favorite prayer

The prayer I have been wanting to pray lately begins like this: "God, you are fucking awesome." Really, every time I think about praying, this is what I think. I understand it is not quite proper and to some it would definitely be offensive but it is absolutely true.
I don't really swear but sometimes it feels appropriate. Sometimes, whatever you are saying needs a little extra emphasis. This is one of those times. God is fucking awesome.
When everything falls apart, when everything is going well, when I am sad, when I am happy, when everything is everything....God is really, really, awesome. He is always who He is. It is simple and it is comforting. He knows my path, He knows. I have to trust that He will put it all together the way it should go and my only job is to follow the peace.

Everything becomes part of you

Even when you remove yourself from your normal life, life still goes on. Even when you are living in a hard place, working in difficult circumstances, dealing with things you never planned on needing to face, life still happens. Everything you left behind is still with you, nothing ever actually gets left behind. I have had to learn this so many times.
November has been very difficult for me. I think when things are difficult people look for reasons, we always want to justify any pain we have to endure. Especially if it's pain we can't do anything about.
Everybody dies and that I can deal with, I can work through the cycle of mourning and knowing that whoever died was in my life for a reason and that is something to celebrate. My grandma was a feisty woman and I always admired that about her. She definitely had a fire to her that I think I inherited. She always spoke her mind but really tried to be kind to people. As much as she could insult people (and she could!), practically, she was kind to everyone she met. I can be happy remembering she was my grandma.
Every relationship does not have to die. It's hard to watch someone go from being absolutely in love with you to hating you in a very short amount of time. There is no cycle of mourning for that, there is no procedure to remembering them. You're not even supposed to remember them. They are still alive, their love is not unconditional, they took whatever you gave and shattered it. It doesn't matter what you promised each other, what plans you made, the words you said, the love that was exchanged, none of that matters. When one person decides that the relationship is over, the other person just has to...let it die. They are supposed to forget the promises, pretend love is still real, and try to find someone else.
Falling in love is like being on drugs, everything is beautiful and happy. Every day is euphoric. It doesn't matter when you fight because you know you'll make up because that person loves  you and that is sacred, such a special thing. Love deserves to be protected and fought for. Falling out of love is hell. It feels like your insides are breaking, literally. Like you can't breathe normally anymore, it's difficult to really think clearly, everything you hear sounds like a lie, and everything seems unjust.
Regardless, as I said before, life goes on. Life will not always be like this, it will go on. More people will com into my life and more people will die. More people will hurt me and more things will remind me that I cannot escape life. Life has good things and bad things, it is a crazy mix. It is all life.
This reminds me of an excerpt from The Brother's Karamazov which says, "Do you know I've been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced, in fact, that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment- still I should want to live and, having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it!" That is what I believe. Life is too precious to want to stop. Life is too amazing to let someone or something ruin it all. People are people. No matter what, they will betray you, lie to you, disappoint you, and amaze you.

Give me hope in the darkness, that I will see the light

I haven't written in a month and the past month has been insanity. Absolute insanity. So emotional I am pretty sure I no longer feel emotion. Or perhaps feel too much? Hard to say.

I went on R&R which is two weeks off after ten weeks of work. I went to Italy, as I had planned. I ended up going by myself even though I had originally planned on going with a very special person. That didn't work out so I did the trip alone. At first it was really horrible. Traveling alone and not sharing the experience with anyone has never been something I've enjoyed. I did visit a friend in Florence but that place was kind of sad so I decided to go back to Rome. Rome felt magical, so amazing. Everywhere I went there was something old that had a story attached to it. So many stories, so many possibilities, it felt magical! I became so obsessed with the Coliseum that I dragged someone I just met there at 3 am. (I thought going alone was too dangerous) It was incredible. I ended up meeting a bunch of great travelers in the hostel I was staying at, The Yellow, and they made the second half of my trip really amazing and happy. If I ever go back to Rome I would definitely spend a weekend at The Yellow.

Coming back to South Sudan I expected to feel refreshed, rested, and ready to get back to work! However, I felt completely drained. Like all my feeling had been taken away and my ability to care was severely handicapped. I had a lot going on during my R&R and it all came to horrible end right before I had to get back to work. It got even worse about a week into work. Because of everything that happened, I feel like I don't care about my work like I used to. If this is a super intense way of teaching me what to value, I don't appreciate the lesson at all. I have a lot of questions, doubts, confusion, and I'm really unsure of the way forward. As cliche as it may sound, the only thing I can do is trust that God doesn't have questions, doubts, or confusion and is the One guiding me. He knows. Those two words help me a lot and I have to keep remembering them: He knows.

I can say for sure doing relief work makes you question a lot of things. Too many to list. I don't know if this is what I will do long term, I don't know how much longer I will do it at all. I can say I am excited to see what this leads to. As cool as this job is and as much as I am loving doing this, I don't think this is my career. I think this is a stepping stone. I wonder where it will lead....

The other day I finally got to see my first C-section! I was initially quite nervous that seeing them cut would make me queasy or seeing them yank out the uterus would cause me to pass out but I didn't even feel dizzy. It was pretty incredible. They made a few cuts and then pulled a baby out! The most surprising parts were that once the baby was out I couldn't believe it had ever fit in that small space and there wasn't as much blood as I thought there would be. It was awesome, though. Hearing the baby cry was so amazing somehow. I've heard babies cry before but this cry was a sign of health and life. It was awesome.

With the good comes bad (somehow) and today I learned of something that always saddens me. One of my favorite workers couldn't work recently because she was "sick" and today I found out that she had actually been beaten so badly by her husband that she couldn't work. I felt so angry and helpless all at once. It was like the incident in Korea all over again. The wife is her husband's property here, he has every right to hit her. If you involve the police, they will probably do nothing if the woman doesn't demand it. And even if she did do something, her husband would probably abandon her and then who would care for her and protect her? Maybe he doesn't beat her often and it's better to stay with him than try and do anything. Realizing this reality is more than sad, it is sickening. I hope one day this society can realize the value of it's women and work towards equality. I don't mean for that to sound like I want them to embrace the American idea of equality but I also don't want women to continue to be men's property. The women here are truly incredible and deserve better.

I am sure more happened than this

Wow. I am really horrible at consistently updating my friends and family about life. Things change really quickly around here and it feels like time flies by....really. I can't believe where I am now and where I started!

I shouldn't write about everything in detail since that would make for an extremely long entry. For purposes of updating those I don't get a chance to speak with, here are some bullet points.

• In addition to doing logistics, I am covering the nutrition program while the manager is away. It is a very satisfying experience and makes me think I should look into how I could become more qualified to do relief work. Maybe that is a strange sentence but I think getting some sort of credential to do work here, even a certificate, could be helpful. 
• At the nutrition center, one of the community volunteers refuses to speak English so I have been learning Arabic. I learn really quickly when I HAVE to speak to her in Arabic. It's still coming along slowly but I can out together some very basic sentences and understand her better than when I began. Things like this make me absolutely love the work I do.
• I've been holding tons of babies! It makes me SO so happy when a mother hands me a fat baby because it means we are giving them food they need to make those babies HEALTHY. Skinny babies make me sad. 
• I'm not sure if I wrote about this but one of our driver's accidentally ran over a pig. Where I am, you have to pay for a pig when you run it over but then you get to keep the pig. I went to the neighbor's house to butcher it and was so satisfied to watch that pig's head get chopped off. I think the pig's around here are super annoying and we even had to slam on our brakes yesterday to avoid one in the middle of the road.
• We baked a cake last week in our oven. It doesn't look like an oven by western standards and you still have to put coals in it, but it made a very delicious cake. This sounds like a stupid bullet point, I know, but I haven't made a cake yet over here and baking it over coals was cool. I would never do that back home!
• There was recently come conflict in a nearby camp between the refugees and the host community. Some men got seriously injured and were brought to our hospital. We don't have a blood bank at our hospital but one of the men needed blood. Me and my co worker are O negative, so we donated to this man. It was great being able to give something since I don't have medical knowledge and couldn't help in that way. The man ended up dying early the next morning which was a very serious reminder of how fragile the relationship is between the locals and the refugees in this area. It reminded me that different things are important to different people and everyone will defend what they feel is most important. Even to death. 
• I found out an old friend was found dead back home. I haven't spoken to this person in awhile but we had been close at one time in my life. It was very strange finding out he was dead because it didn't seem real, it didn't seem like something that was possible. I am still trying to grasp the reality of death...I realize it is part of life but it's strange to really come to terms with someone being gone. I can't ever talk to that person again. 

Those are the main things that have been going on. A lot of death lately. I have recently been very exhausted and can't WAIT to go on R & R. If anyone finds themselves in Italy or Brussels...let me know!

Sheikh lessons

I turned 27 a week ago. My birthday was so great and I think right after that life took a bad turn.

It all started when the day before my birthday I noticed myself getting really tired for no reason. Always a bad sign but sometimes I can just rest and not get sick. I wasn't really sick on my birthday but the beginnings of sickness were present. After my birthday, I couldn't stop it...full blown cold/flu/virus. I know it could have been so so so much worse considering what kind of diseases can be caught where I am but...it was not enjoyable.

In the midst of me being sick, one of the most important relationships in my life took a horrible turn. The thing I think I ruined, I most definitely ruined now. I can't tell if I'm the one being unreasonable or if I am demanding what I deserve. I am so bad at judging such things.

In work news, I have begun learning the nutrition program. It's very interesting stuff. Lots of acronyms and procedures to learn but it gives me an opportunity to be in the community doing something and I love that. We have a distribution coming up and I will get to learn how it all works. It's all a bit strange to explain and I don't understand it all yet but basically, nutrition is the program we use to help feed children and pregnant and lactating women. We screen for malnourished children and do our best to help them. That is the simplest way I can put it.

Since I mentioned being in the community, some people on my compound have been going out on the quads on Sundays. We go to this nearby village on the river...the name of it I can't quite remember. On the way there is this amazing tree whose roots grow DOWN from the branches. I need to take a photo and post it here even though every photo takes so so long to upload. It's a really amazing tree. We have been there twice and each time a crowd forms to see why we stopped there and asks, "Do you have trees like this where you're from?" The answer is no, we don't. I think they are glad to show us something we don't know about. There is always a crowd of children and some of them are scared of white people. I'm not quite sure where the fear comes from but I know we look different. It's pretty funny to just step towards them and have them run away but it is also a little sad. Sometimes I just want to say hello to a baby and the kid holding it will not let me get near! I don't think I'm THAT scary.

I've been reading "They Poured Fire on us from the Sky" and it is really sad. They were not treated well when they went to refugee camps and it makes me wonder how the people here are really treated. I don't get out in the camps much and I was reminded of that when I went to a Sheikh meeting before our latest food distribution. We always meet with the sheikh's before a food distribution since they organize their tribes to make the distribution smoother. Sheikh's are like community leaders, they help solve their tribes issues and are great at organizing their people and giving them information. They can also bring up questions and issues so we can work together and help them. They have been having an issue with getting everyone registered so they can get a ration card and they are complaining that because of this, people are having to share their food with others and it is not enough. Ration cards are given to refugees who are registered and the family size is recorded on the card. Some people haven't had ration cards in months meaning that families are stretching their food quit thin because it is being shared among more people than it was meant for. They wanted help in solving the issue of not everyone having a ration card. The answer someone gave was, in summary: "I have been a refugee and I know it is hard but if your neighbor comes to you and asks for food, do you give it to him thinking he will return it? No, you give it to him freely as a gift. We should all help each other and not try to get more. Some things only God can pay." This answer made me angry because it didn't answer the question at all! So one of my co-workers gave the guy a normal answer saying he should speak with the correct agency about registering and getting ration cards. Later, this same man asked another question and said, in summary: "How can you know what the real situation is when you are in your office? I am in the camp, I know what my people need, you don't know." This really hit me because I barely spend any time in the camps and I sincerely don't know what they need. I still believe it's good that we give them food but I think it's horrible the politics game that goes on behind the scenes. I don't think what we do is any sort of long term solution but I am not going to pretend I know what a long term solution would be. I wonder if there is a better way to do relief work. I think there has to be.

Are we really helping?

*sigh* I could not kill a goat. I didn't even really try. I was really going to, I was pumped about it, so ready to kill that goat and appreciate my food. The morning of the party I walked to the bathroom and there, laying in the path, was one of the goats. We had bought three to be slaughtered and eaten. It was just sleeping on the path to the bathroom. I looked to the right and there was another goat just standing there, tied to a tree. This goat wouldn't even lift it's head to look at me. I looked to the left and that goat was totally oblivious that death was near and was eating some unidentified object totally happily. I probably would have killed that goat. The other two though....they looked so sad. As if they KNEW they were about to die. I decided then that there was no way I would be the one to kill them. I avoided the goats all day until I heard them start to make lots of noise and then no noise at all. This was one of the only times in my life I considered becoming a vegetarian. I unconsidered it when I started smelling the goat being grilled, it was a fantastic smell. I was so hungry, I wandered over to the grill and got a piece of goat and completely appreciated the sacrifice of the goat's life as I ate the meat. It was soooooo good. They really know how to grill their goats around here.

I finally got to see a food distribution. I have been meaning to see one and have just never had time to go. It was a pretty cool thing to see. The stack up the food in front of the warehouses and give it out to groups of people as they punch families ration cards. The groups then divide up the food among the families. Cool system. It seems to work well and I am obviously leaving out tons of details but in short, it was really cool to see something being done. A lot of my job so far has been figuring out how things should go or helping our staff but I haven't gotten to do much to help people. At the food distribution, I got to see our team helping people in the form of food aid. Then again...are we helping?

I've been thinking about the question for awhile now, are we helping? Is the assistance we give the refugees really helping, or are we helping to fuel the conflict? Helping them become dependent on us? Arrogantly believing we are really doing any good at all when we are not? I really don't know. I think there are probably many different opinion on this, just like every other issue, I just have not figured out what my opinion is. I just kept wondering, as I was watching people walk away with sacks of Sorghum on their heads, what did refugees do before NGO's existed? There has always been conflict, how did the victim's of conflict's past survive without food assistance? Did they survive? Our aid doesn't help groups solve conflict and doesn't help people get over tribalism, so what did they do in the past when there was a "humanitarian crisis?" Who decided it was a good idea to give millions of dollars to feed people? I know on the surface it seems like such a simple thing: people are starving, give them food. It really isn't that simple though, it is much more complex. This simply complex question has been rolling around my head for the past couple of weeks. If anyone has any thoughts, feel free to share.

I finally went for a morning run a couple days ago to cure my lardish feeling. It was amazing but I'm not sure how consistent I can be with it.

In addition to feeling bad about killing a goat, I just found a sizable spider on my suitcase...pretty sure I brushed it with my hand, and I even felt bad killing THAT! What is wrong with me?! I felt bad because the spider wasn't aggressive, it was very timid. I wanted to try and put it outside but honestly didn't know how to accomplish that and it was really big so I didn't want it to bite me. So I squished it. And then I wanted to apologize to it. I should probably get over this hyper sensitivity to death.

Sentences are hard

I've been having really disconnected thoughts lately and haven't been able to form sentences well today so....I think this post will be in bullet points. The bullet points probably won't be related. I'll do my best.

• Lately, whenever a bug bites me I am pretty sure I just contracted a disease. Because of this, I am super jumpy and look like a scared little girl everywhere I go. It makes people laugh but I also know they are judging me. I don't like this.
• My feet got ridiculously muddy yesterday. Solution? Paint my toes today so that if they get muddy in the future, I can't really tell how dirty they are. I'm not sure if this can actually be counted as a solution...but I've been in a lot of denial lately.
• I have been feeling really sad lately. I'm not sure who I can actually tell about this besides my friends back in America since I don't want people here thinking I want to give up. I don't want to give up, I just want to talk about being sad. Not sure how to deal with this one.
• We got some goats today and since I like to eat goat, I'm thinking I should kill one. Just to understand where my food comes from. Don't worry, I will post pictures on facebook.
• I love and hate it here all at once. Actually, I experience those emotions at different moments but sometimes in the same hour. I love when I can understand someone but I hate when I can't. OR when people laugh at me...I really hate that. I don't know why they are laughing. I just know that I am always being watched because I'm different. I'm getting very annoyed with this despite knowing it cannot be avoided.
• I feel so guilty knowing I will not be home when someone I love gets there. I wish I didn't feel guilty but I feel like maybe I ruined it. And maybe I did.
• I am having a hard time understanding why things are how they are. Why do people need more than one wife? Why would someone hate another person because they look different? Why is war a solution? Why hasn't anyone built ROADS here?! The questions of life.
• Sometimes, when I speak, I find myself saying words I don't even think or believe. That is frustrating. And everyone knows, once the word vomit starts...it is hard to stop.
• I feel like a lard.
• I think love is a difficult thing. It makes people feel amazing, like life will never get any better. There is no feeling like it. It also makes people feel horrible, like a part of them is missing when they can't be with someone they love. I think it can be the best and worst thing in the world.

These are some random Sunday thoughts. Sorry this isn't really an update. I would say nothing has happened but of course things have happened. There wasn't enough food to distribute, there were crazy amounts of bugs, we got an awesome visitor...but those aren't things I particularly cared to write about. Maybe next time. 

Lesson's Learned

There are so many lessons for me to learn here. Just starting out, it's really hard to tell what is normal and what is not. It's even more difficult when people are looking to you with help in making decisions.

One thing that has been really difficult is getting accurate information. Classic example: Someone calls me to tell me they have a certain thing I had requested to come to my town. They literally say they have this thing in their hands. Great. Their co worker calls back and asks ME how much it weighs (so they can record how much weight is on the plane). I obviously don't know and ask why they didn't weigh it. Apparently, it is already at the airport. Okay. I get an email the next morning saying the item never got on the plane because it arrived too late. It's confusing that it arrived "too late" because they said it was at the airport. Turns out, this person didn't actually have the item in his hands when they said they did and the item never actually went to the airport. So they said these things....because...??? I am often confused.

Another thing is people here are always trying to get more than you told them they could have. Example: We had given permission for four people from an important partner to ride on our plane back to the capital. They show up, I ask them who will be flying, they give me four names. Awesome. We have nine people total flying out that day so we have nine seats. It comes time to load passengers so everyone gets on...and we are short one seat. Hmmm....someone has more people than they said they were bringing. Turns out this important partner thought they could just have another person fly even though they never told us AND didn't even ask when I asked them who was flying that day. I kicked them off the flight. I was not happy. This is apparently very common, they think they can just demand things and those things will be given. It makes it difficult to feel merciful sometimes.

And then there are the police. I love them because I think their job is so essential. I hate them because you're never really sure they are doing their job. I understand there needs to be laws and punishments for breaking these laws. However, it would be great if everyone actually knew what the punishment should be and for what violation instead of people just making it up. It's really hard to tell if they are just trying to get money for things or are actually enforcing a law. Since I never know, I just kind of avoid dealing with them or try to walk away when I can.

I still haven't seen a birth but really really want to! I'm getting annoyed at being called a kawaja all the time. I wish everyone knew my name so they could call me that.

Babt Steps

This week has been a little crazy. I write this knowing full well every week will be a little crazy. The person who was training me on how to do my job left for R&R and I was left with the task of doing my job...which I honestly felt very confused about. I don't fault the person who left, though, since they definitely deserved to take their R&R.Slowly I am understanding how to do what I need to do but it is slow. I'm not the most patient person, especially when it comes to myself, so it's kind of sucked. If I can be blunt and not eloquent.

I'm the kind of person who really likes to know what's expected of them and then do my best to meet or exceed expectation. Here...I don't have a clear idea of expectations. I am a firm believer that disappointment comes form unmet expectations and I really hate to be a disappointment. It's even more tricky because the person who may be considered my supervisor, also left for R&R. Hmmm....so I think these next two weeks (that's how long R&R is) will be about me understanding where I am and how things work. SO much unknown! I know a lot of it will be me jumping in, asking tons and tons of questions, and making mistakes. Even though I have "making mistakes" as part of my blog title, I hate to do it. It's part of life though, I should embrace it. :)

I haven't been able to have much interaction with the community this week since I've been pretty absorbed with figuring things out so I don't have many stories. I did try and watch a birth but that didn't work out. It was her first baby so the delivery took longer and she didn't end up delivering until around 2 am...and I was asleep by then. I will see one soon, though!

I taught one of the new midwives how to play angry birds on my phone and they loved it! That was funny to see. The area I'm in loves their pigs and is known for raising them. The game is all about killing pigs and it was pretty funny to see this guy playing the game and saying, "ugh, the pig won't die! I gotta kill this pig!" That's kinda how I feel every time we are driving and a tiny pig just casually saunters in front of our car and we have to wait for it or find a way around. Those pigs are annoying. I know it sounds easy to just go around the pig but it's really not. Especially if it's rained recently, the roads are nearly impossible and going around a pig can mean getting stuck. Not. Cool. Pig.

I met all our cooks recently and they kept asking me where my husband was. I told them multiple times that I didn't have one but they couldn't accept this answer. They decided they were probably using the wrong word and started asking me where my father was, I told them he was in America and this made sense to them. I still can't decide if they think I'm married or not. I should learn more Arabic and figure it out.

This week I'm going to try and go see a food distribution. I've never seen one before and am really curious how it works. Hopefully this week all the baby steps towards understanding my job add up!

life, life, life

I think this post can add some balance to my angry/frustrated posts that I've written lately. Honestly, I am really just trying to balance myself as I get thrown into a new world. I'm not using this blog as a place to attack people but I am using it as a place to work out my thoughts and feelings through talking about what I do in Africa. As you read this, if you read this, just remember it's a very personal thing and I don't really think about others as I write. This means I am not sending positive or negative messages to anyone and I rarely have anyone in mind as I write. Maybe I can sum this up in a few words: don't be offended by what you read, understand I am just trying to process life. With that being said, I am honest here. I try my best not to sugar coat things.

Since my last post I rode a camel, made cookies, and saw death for the first time. Two great things and one thing that is just reality.

A volunteer (Chelseas) here is leaving on Friday and one of the things she wanted to do is ride a camel. There is a tribe that comes through here (as I understand it) who are nomadic and have camels. I think they are technically displaced because they are usually in Blue Nile but I don't know for sure. Anyways, she had seen some camels in the market and really wanted to ride one. First, as we were walking to the market another NGO stopped their truck to ask if we wanted a ride to the market. We, of course, said yes and climbed in the back of his truck, stood up in the bed of his truck, and held on to a rail. It looked like we were in a parade! The funniest part were the people who saw us go by thought it was funny and we could hear, "Kawaja!" as we drove past. Once we got to the market we just walked until we saw camels and it didn't take long. We caught up to the camels and one of my co workers made small talk with a camel owner. Eventually, he just said the word, "girl" and pointed to the camel's back and said, "there". The camel owner was amused by this and immediately put the camel down so my friend could get on. Then she told me to get on, too! Haha, I've ridden a camel before but wasn't expecting to ride one this time! I did it anyways, of course. Why say no to a good camel ride? As we rode through...I don't know how to describe the area we went through...everyone would point and laugh and some people even followed us. It was really fun until we got off the camel. Getting on and off a camel is an adventure in itself but that is not the part that was un-fun. Once we got off some policemen or something were angry with us for something. I am actually really unclear about what happened because they were speaking Arabic and I can only understand very limited Arabic. They wanted money for something but we just kind of smiled, nodded, and walked away. They looked confused.

That night, Chelsea and I decided to make cookies. I got a recipe sent to me from a friend in Zambia. She understands the challenges of cooking with charcoal and sent me a recipe for no bake cookies. I understand no bake cookies are eaten everywhere but I have never had them before. They are very easy to make but since me and my partner in baking waited until night to make them, that made for an interesting time. The "kitchen" or mud hut we cooked them in has no lights. She had a head lamp but I had a flashlight that was a little difficult to maneuver. At one point I was shining it in my face and wondering why I couldn't see something. I clearly felt out of my element. We also realized that the kitchen is probably a great place for snakes since it's so warm and all the baby chicks like to hang out there. We kept an eye out for those snakes the whole time we were boiling ingredients! All the effort was worth it, though! They were gone in a day. I need to make a double batch next time and REALLY make the effort worth it.

Monday was technically a National Holiday for us, Martyr's Day. This holiday is to remember all those that died during the 21-year civil war between South Sudan and Sudan. I didn't really get to celebrate, I worked instead. I DID get to sleep in a little but had a meeting to go to a reports to finish before the meeting. Since all my reporting focuses on the hospital, I went to the hospital to collect the reports. While there, I went into the maternity clinic to get a report from someone and stumbled upon an emergency. A woman had come in with her premature twins. She had delivered both at home, I can't remember how long ago, and had recently noticed one was having a very hard time. Both had a skin infection which she had treated with some home remedy. One baby had a very bad infection and the home remedy had only made it worse and probably infected the blood. The other was getting worse but was nowhere near as bad. The baby with the bad infection had started gasping for breath, so the mother decided to bring the twins to the hospital. When I walked in, a health care worker was trying to get the baby to breathe. He had already started an IV so he could give it antibiotics to fight the infection but soon after it stopped breathing. The mother was holding the other twin and just sitting next to the baby that was being treated. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. The baby was so tiny, it didn't seem real. In the same room there were healthy babies, some born just half an hour earlier. As we watched, the clinic workers wrapped the baby in white cloth, told her they were sorry, and went on to treat the other twin. The mother cried but attended to her other baby. What else can you do? Life has to go on.

I've never seen anything like it before. It didn't make sense to me, this tiny baby dying. I have heard so many times before that death is part of life and life is a struggle from the moment you take your first breath but this was a very harsh reminder of how true those statements are. I have been far removed from many realities of life by growing up where I did. I still don't completely realize how sheltered I've been.

All in all, I am happy to be here. I am slowly learning what I need to know. Separating my new reality from my old one and realizing they cannot be compared. This is much different from that. I'm still getting used to the bucket "shower" but at least I have a way to get clean! A lot of great things are being done here and soon I will write about those things! For now, you have to deal with all my personal stories and emotional struggles. :)

A day off to reflect

Sunday here means a day off and it's a great time to reflect. For the past couple of days I have just been experiencing and not really processing. I was able to write a friend of mine an email last night and found myself beginning to work through some things I have seen. It's very easy to see things and know things but it's so different to really understand what is happening and come to terms with reality. I think I am a little too good and pretending reality is what it isn't. Here is some of what I wrote my friend:

Before I came, I really didn't know how I was going to react to refugees, death, suffering, hunger...all that. In my county, and all the refugee camps we serve, there is no more food. The refugees coming in are hungrier and sicker than the first wave that came. This either means they couldn't come with the first wave and had to wait, or the fighting is intensifying where they are, they were forced to flee, and have been without food longer. There are lots of hard parts to this but I feel like I don't feel any of it. Until I get on facebook.
 

 I cannot deal with the endless facebook posts about ending animal suffering. I cannot. Every time I see a picture posted of a stupid pig who can't roll around in his metal cage because fat americans want fatter pigs with a caption about how horrible this is...I want to post a picture of a malnourished child who is going to die because his government decided they would systematically kill him and all his relatives because they're black. I don't care about the pig. I don't care if my food is organic. I don't care if my chicken has been grass fed. I care about people, human beings. Maybe I wouldn't mind these posts if I EVER saw the same people advocate on behalf of their own species, but I never see those posts. It really frustrates me.

I know they are ignorant, live in a different world, have different pressing needs in their life, etc. I just have a difficult time being in both worlds: the world where 120,000 refugees are fighting to stay alive and the world where the people of facebook are crying out on behalf of a pig. I think the pig might have a better deal than some of the people here. At least he gets fed.

I know the media is the only source of information (sadly) for people far away so I know the world has forgotten about Sudan. The conflict isn't over, though, and it's disgusting what has taken over news channels instead. It should be a sign when two runners from Sudan get to the Olympics and immediately request asylum. Maybe something is happening in Sudan? I don't know. I am starting to work through some things and finding it difficult to even go on facebook without getting worked up.

That is the bulk of what I wrote on my frustration. I have only been here a few days but it is long enough to realize the situation here is bad. It makes me wish people could turn their attention to real issues that are going on in the world instead of focusing on such small things. I know America is having a rough time right now and I understand the need for them to be focusing on domestic issues but I really do wish more attention would be paid to the abuse of humans. 

When I lived in America I never really tried to help homeless people. Maybe once or twice but not regularly. So regrettable. I don't want to waste my energy on thinking about suffering pigs when my own people are suffering and going hungry on the streets of my own nation!It is a bad sign for the world if we as people have already given up on each other. A pig, cow, chicken, whatever, cannot help us unite and prosper. It is so important that we take care of each other.

Other than my little mind trying to come to terms with my new reality, I am going to try making cookies today. We only have a fire to use for cooking but I got a recipe for no bake cookies that just need a fire for boiling, should be interesting! I also got to hold a chick today! It was soooo itty bitty and looked like it had hatched recently. So cute. Once I get a little more settled I think I will have tons of POSITIVE adventures to write about along with all the challenges. This blog needs some balance!

Learning at the hospital

Today is not over yet but enough has happened that I want to write about.

There were some changes to the day that happened very early this morning which changed the day around a little. I didn't know anything had changed and I hadn't really been told yesterday what to do. However, I had been told I was going to be learning the Hospital Administrator's job so I could cover for him. He is going to medical school and they haven't hired his replacement yet so I get to learn his job for now. Because I knew this, I decided to tag along with our medical team to the hospital in the morning so I could see what it was all about.

We walked to the hospital, which is only a couple minutes away, and I got the pleasure of being able to greet a bunch of locals on the way. There is apparently a regular crew of kids that live nearby and play right outside our compound. They love to greet the staff as they walk by. It's always great to hear a bunch of kids yelling, "white person! (of course that is me translating the word they actually use since they don't speak english)" at you as you walk by. :) Once we arrived I was given a short tour of the grounds. It consists of several buildings set aside for different things, separated by gender. For example, we have a female ward for surgical patients and a male ward for surgical patients. The buildings are very basic cement buildings with beds inside. Each building can accommodate a different number of beds. I spent most of my morning in the maternity ward.

The maternity ward is the newest building and was very clean. It was interesting to see how they ran it. I don't have any experience in health care and can't really compare it to what a western system looks like but I can draw from the knowledge I do have. Most women here don't really have a primary care physician and I'm still unclear how they decide to visit our clinic when they're pregnant. It's unclear to me how they decide because women in all stages of pregnancy may show up. Today, a woman that was (estimated) 15 years old showed up for her first visit but may have been roughly 5 months along (she thought she was 7 months). She was surprising to me because she was so young, borderline SAM (severe acute malnourished), and positive for malaria. I think she may have also had a slight UTI. If I am remembering correctly, her only complaint was a headache. I couldn't believe it. Since I can't compare it to a western system I don't know how terrible all of this is on the scale of terribleness during pregnancy. I just assume it is rare for a woman to go to her doctor for a checkup and present all these symptoms. In fact, in America I always got the impression that pregnancy was very fragile. Here, life is hard to begin with and you have to be pretty tough to be thriving and pregnant. I did discover they have a pretty high miscarriage rate. Although, this is hard to confirm since it is nearly impossible to track due to most patients miscarrying at home and not coming to the hospital unless they can't stop the bleeding or other complications occur. 

I was really impressed with the sort of care we are able to provide them. We test them for diseases, we give helpful supplements and vaccines, and we listen for the heartbeat, among other things. I also learned how to check for the positioning of the baby, that was cool! I should have guessed it was possible to feel the bump and figure out where the baby was but I had never really thought about it before. I will also admit I got a little teary eyed when I heard the heartbeat of a baby for the first time. Something I know is quite different from the western symptom is that they have no epidural or pain relief for women during labor. I understand a lot of women in the west opt out of an epidural but here it isn't even an option. In addition, they traditionally make no noise during labor. Very interesting. A funny aspect of this is a woman will react horribly to a needle prick for a blood test and remain silent throughout labor. I can most definitely say in just two hours in the maternity ward I learned a ton.

After my hospital visit, I was able to learn a lot from the person I'll be covering until they hire someone else. This meant going through a ton of spreadsheets that are used to track what we do in the hospital. These reports then get used to track grants and budgets. Lots of reporting and tracking. Even though it seems mundane and boring, I think it is an amazing opportunity for me to learn how to manage a program. I also think it is interesting to track activities, notice health trends, and see on paper what sort of difference is being made.

Even though I didn't get to be very hands on today I felt as if I learned A TON. I know I still have loads to learn but I felt today was successful.

Fears

Finally, an update from Africa. I have only been here four days and feel like not much has happened. This feeling is totally wrong though because things have been weird ever since I got on African soil.

To begin with, I packed all my suitcases fully realizing one or more would be overweight. I accepted this and didn't care because I was moving somewhere for a year. The amazing part was when I got to the airport and one of the bags came out to be 56.5 pounds, 6.5 pounds over the limit, the gate agent ended up not charging me anything. That started my trip on a very positive note.

Then, two things happened that gave me an idea of how Africa might be. First, on my flight to Addis the man sitting in the middle asked to switch seats with me since I was in the aisle. I've never had anyone just ask like that since it's pretty common knowledge that aisle or window are preferred. No one wants the middle seat so I told him no. Second, at Addis airport some man demanded my recliner chair because I was on the computer and not sleeping yet so I didn't need it. Of course I told him no, too. After the second incident I noticed this pattern of communication, people thinking they could just have something is they asked me. Good thing I have no problem with saying no.

Once I got to Juba, no one had been told I would be there so I had to hang out awhile. This airport was a really interesting thing to see. It is itty bitty, there is no real order to how things happen, no baggage claim like I've ever seen, and people clamoring to get everywhere all at once. It was pretty amusing. I used an airport staff's phone and got in contact with someone so I could get out of there but not before the airport staff started getting worried for my well being. I guess they noticed the lonely American just hanging out. They kept asking me if someone was coming which ended up working out for me because they had no problem calling someone for me. Sometimes it works out to look helpless.

Juba itself was funny, it is the newest capital city in the world but I would never use the word "city" to describe it. It's just a mass of stores that sell things and I could never quite tell what they are selling. I stayed at a hotel in Juba and while the room was clean, the shower was quite cold. One night, there was this homeless and probably mentally ill woman standing near the entrance of my hotel. (The entrance was a big metal sliding door over dirt, by the way. I just didn't want anyone imagining a holiday inn or something. This was nothing like that.) I thought nothing of her and walked by but as I was walking by, she jabbed me really hard in the shoulder kind of pushing me. It caught me totally off guard! The people sitting at the entryway thought it was hilarious and I just kind of shrugged it off.

This morning was the experience that prompted the blog title. Recently, as in about a year ago, I started to develop a fear of flying. I guess it was the last bit of fear attached to the earthquake. I'm not exactly sure where the fear came from but it has been quite present for roughly a year. It hasn't stopped me from flying but it does make things a bit more tense. WELL funny thing is, the only way to get to my new work site is to fly in a tiny ass plane for 2 1/2 hours. Awesome. I was feeling a little anxiety last night but though that whatever is meant to be will be. What can I do in an airplane if it is crashing? Nothing, so why be so scared? I prayed and felt quite peaceful. The next morning, I still had peace about everything so I loaded up and went on my way. It was kind of cool to go to the airport to get on a private plane! The plane ride itself was actually really cool, not scary. I could feel the plane being pushed around a little but the ride was smooth and I could see everything!

Once we got close to my site, I could see the refugee camp from the air. It was huge. I saw all the plastic covering people's houses and was surprised at how many houses I saw. When I say houses, please understand I mean huts, tents, structures like this, not houses like we would find in America. We landed on a murram airstrip and my first itty bitty plane ride was over. I am so so happy it wasn't 2 1/2 hours of anxiety! It was a very peaceful ride.

This is already a long post, so I won't go into much detail about the day. I was able to walk through the refugee camp and see what we had going on here as well as attend a coordination meeting to give me an idea of which ngo's were doing what. Both things were incredible experiences in different ways.

Walking through the refugee camp was different than I thought it would be. In my mind, refugee camps are a place of suffering, disease, and death. That isn't really what I saw, though. I had never really thought through what the purpose of a refugee camp was: to find safety. Even though people are away from their homes and there is suffering and disease and death may happen, they are just trying to get on with life the best they can while they wait for their homes to be safe. The camp just looked like a huge village with lots of mud. I could say so much more about this but I will leave my thoughts on the camp here. I'll explore it more some other time.

The meeting was the first time I have ever been able to actually hear what goes into arranging services for people who have nothing. Food, health, nutrition, access...so many things go into trying to help the people get through what they are going through. It was so interesting to hear about it all.

I will end there. Much more happened and I'm not sure I really hit on all the highlights but this should give you an idea of what life has been like lately. I'm having so many new experiences daily...it will be difficult to write about it all!

Peace

I've known for about a month that I will be moving to Sudan. I've known but I haven't really put much thought into it. To me, it just was what it was, I was moving to Africa and that was my next step. Once that decision was made and that job was accepted I stopped wondering if this was right.

Rewind to one year ago.

I was AGONIZING over my decision to leave Japan. I couldn't decide what was right for me and why.

Why such a difference?

I sincerely believe this is what I am supposed to be doing and I can see a chain of events in my life that led me to this. I haven't been so sure of anything in a very long time. I feel joyful, at peace, and truly happy. Of course there are specific things and people I am very sad to leave behind or not have with me while I am there but I can't say no to this. Which leads me to this odd, nagging, negative thought I have sometimes: what if this ends up not working out?

I don't have an answer for that. I honestly don't. All I know is that I need to go.

I don't think I am a great writer nor do I think I am able to clearly express how I feel about things when they are happening. I have just completed my second day of orientation and the thought that keeps running through my head is, "HOW did I get this job?!" I feel so overwhelmed by how amazing this opportunity is and honored that I get to be a part of it. There have been so many moments when I want to cry because I can't believe I get to do what I am about to do. I know it is not about me but the reality is: I am about to be in the midst of a very intense, real, humanitarian disaster. And I get to do something about it. I am sure I won't be able to do all I want to and at first I won't know what to do at all but eventually, I will do something.

I cannot possibly put into words everything I am processing right now but I can say I am excited, clueless, amazed, a little nervous, and ready. I think I'm ready. We will see.

I'm moving again!

I know I need to start blogging more regularly. I should probably also improve my writing. Maybe both will come with time.

I hinted earlier that I might be moving to Africa but it is now a reality. I move to South Sudan in a couple of weeks and I couldn't be more excited/I don't know how to feel. I feel sure it is the right thing for me but it is a big change that I'm doing my best to deal with.

For the past 3 weeks, I have been living in Boston for work. I haven't had an entire day off for those three weeks and have been trying to complete all my pre-departure paperwork and loose ends at the same time. It has been a little overwhelming at times. Really strange things have made me tear up a little.

I don't have much time to write now but I wanted to update this in case people still read it. Hopefully, more people will read it in the future so I have a way of updating my friends on how I am. I hope everyone will leave me messages and not let me get lost in Africa. :)

Military reality

I really did think I could be in a relationship with someone in the military and never have to deal with a deployment. I got spoiled by him being stationed overseas where he would never be deployed from. I knew when he took his new job he would get deployed because that's part of it.

But it feels horrible.

We have been apart before. I left Japan a little more than four months before he could come to America. We've taken trips without the other for work, to see family, see friends in different countries. We are not strangers to a long distance relationship. So what's different? Apparently, a lot and he feels so GONE.

I have always been a very independent person, I have never been afraid to take on life by myself. I don't know what has changed but I currently hate this deployment. It has only been 3 days and I hate it. I don't think I will ever even mildly like it. There is no silver lining.

This sucks.

disconnected thoughts

I have this green notebook that I wrote in when I went to Niger/Nigeria for a month. I co-led the trip and it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I found the notebook while I was moving a few months back and really wanted to read it, knowing that I had written a lot about what I was going through during the entire trip. I haven't read it yet, it seems too intimidating, kind of scary. It would probably be important at this point to add some perspective to why it may seem more scary to me now: I am thinking about the possibility of moving to Africa. The stay would be longer than a month but no more than one year.

There are times it feels like I am considering having a dream come true, living in Africa, and other times it feels like the timing is off. Then again, thinking back on every amazing thing I've done I can easily see the timing is usually "off" but ends up being perfect. Honestly, I often think about if I am ready to give up being comfortable in America to adjust to a different country, a country that would most likely not be comfortable for a lot of reasons. It's a very selfish thought but it is real. I also wonder if moving there would be my way of escaping where I am now.

There are a lot of questions.... Which is WHY I decided to not deeply explore any answers, apply for the job, and deal with things as they came. Not many companies in America are willing to hire me so I figure if this company wants to give me a chance maybe it's God telling me this is the right way. As I was editing my resume and writing a cover letter for the job I realized I have cultivated more experience for a job like this than any other job I have been applying for, as if I was moving towards this my whole life. That also felt scary.

I feel like lately there have been a lot of life decisions to make. When I was younger, these decisions seemed so easy. I knew what I wanted, I worked, and I got it. Now I feel like things are a bit cloudier, I'm not exactly sure what I want and there is much more at stake when I accept or chase certain opportunities.

I probably should read that notebook. I think it would help me remember why I feel so passionate about a continent I only spent a grand total of two months in my entire life. Remembering my passion would make the decision a lot easier.

The day the earth shifted

March 11 is only a few days away and it will mark one year since a tsunami and 9.0 earthquake struck the East coast of Japan. I know I was far enough south to be safe, but I cannot say I was far enough away to be completely unaffected. The past couple of days I have found myself thinking about that event a lot.

I know I will never forget it. It was a very warm, spring day. I was two weeks away from finishing my job at the pre-school and starting my job at the middle school. Lots of transition was going on and I was just beginning to feel like I was getting the hang of living in Japan. I had routines, friends, and I was even speaking and understanding Japanese enough to feel comfortable! I felt so optimistic about my future there and was hoping my upward trend would continue. It was the end of the school day, 2:45 pm, so all of our students were assembled into one room to wait for their parents. A few parents had already come to pick up their children, the other teacher's and I were waiting in the doorway to call for the child to gather their things as we saw their parents arrive. Dora the Explorer was playing on the tv. At 2:46 pm, in the middle of laughing with a co-teacher, we started to feel a little shaking. I remember thinking it felt larger than normal, but I told my co-worker it was no big deal anyways and just to wait it out. Of course, the students looked at us and we said it was okay, just stay sitting. There were no desks in that classroom and, luckily, the school was designed to always be close to the outdoors by being built in the midst of a bamboo forest. The shaking did not stop. Instead, it got increasingly more violent to the point that we decided it was safer to not be in our school anymore. The eraser board was slamming back and forth against the wall, a teacher ran to make sure the tv didn't fall on any students, and we scooped up children too scared to walk as we made our way to the playground.

Watching the building sway was absolutely surreal. I felt like my mind was videotaping it all the while thinking, "no way is this real." Everything shook. Even after the earthquake itself finished, everything continued to shake. I can remember thinking the Earth was furious with us for some reason. It actually felt like that Earth was so angry it shook and afterwards, it trembled. I know that a lot of people may not think this experience was traumatizing for me or maybe think it should not have been traumatizing, but I look back and still know it was horrible. Who do you turn to after something like that?

There are many things about that day I will never forget. Being one of the very few foreigners in my town never bothered me until the earthquake. I felt so lost and isolated, unable to understand most of the public messages being blared every few minutes throughout the town. I heard rumors of tsunami's but it wasn't until I went to a friend's apartment and saw live footage of the tsunami sweeping across Northeastern Japan that I understood exactly what everyone was talking about. I had no idea there was also a tsunami miles away from where I lived. While many seemed calm, others just looked as if they were waiting for something even worse to happen. I was so thankful for at least one friend who kept me company while aftershocks made sure the night was never still for more than a few minutes. Every foreigner I knew was making plans to go back home. If they weren't making plans to move, they were making plans to at least get as far south as they could. Looking back, I am glad I didn't let my emotions take over completely. If that had been the case, I would have found a flight home within a week or taken an offer to get on a government flight.

The entire experience was shocking. There is no other word for it. Whether anyone knew it or not, I had never felt like Japan was a home for me and this event put me over the edge of feeling like my time in Japan was finished. For a few weeks after the earthquake I was looking for reasons to either stay or leave. One week I would be convinced I should stay and then the next week I would think it was a good time to leave. After a series of unfortunate events involving someone I thought I could rely on turning on me, my bike getting stolen, and the chance that I'd have to move apartments presenting itself, I decided my time in Japan had indeed come to an end.

In the past I have relied quite heavily on intuition and how I feel about the future help me make decisions. Experiencing this disaster taught me that I could never predict what will happen and my emotions are a terrible indicator of anything to come. There are times intuition helps, but those times are usually laced with solid logic to back up that "feeling" one has. I thought my life was going awesome, so much better than the year before. I thought everything was finally working out, I was finally progressing and my plans would work. And then the Earth literally shifted.

I got angry for awhile. I felt like life was being so unfair. Then I started my new job at the middle school and found out some of the orphans from the tsunami were new students. I believe we had one student whose family moved to our town to start over and ove student was sent there with no family. I guess life had not been that unfair to me, I was still alive and my family was very safe back in America.

One thing I noticed about the Japanese throughout the entire crisis was the taboo nature of discussing your feelings. Everyone knew this disaster was horrible and stress expressed itself in physical ways, especially in children, but no one talked about how devastating it made them feel. I suppose feelings are irrelevant in situations like this, but I am sure this society norm of silence being forced on some traumatized children did not help their recovery. It was strange to me that it was almost as if the earthquake had never happened...except for the occasional earthquake alarm (indicating an approaching aftershock), helmets handed out for safety drills, and inspections of new cracks in the school building. I do remember a comical happening starting to become routine: I would be in the school office, which was a big room where all the teachers did lesson plans and other work, and suddenly hear an alarm screeching from someone's cell phone. Then, many Japanese teachers would stand up and go stand near the doorway leading outside or just look as if they were bracing themselves. The first time it happened I had no idea what was going on and if I was supposed to go somewhere or not. It was then explained to me that screeching was an earthquake alarm. It couldn't tell us how strong the quake would be, but it could tell us one had just happened close enough that we could expect to feel it. I started to hate that screeching sound and of course, heard it everywhere from then on.

There are so many things I could write about remembering March 11, 2011 at 2:46 pm and beyond. I know I had a great experience compared to so many who lived farther North. If you watch anything about what happened, this documentary is narrated by children. There is no better perspective to understand it all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_AxnoNrr_8&context=C3043f09ADOEgsToPDskLs7TnOWlrtO6A6Hjz0VQJW

Conclusion

A friend once told me even if she got married she would still want to live in separate places. After much thought in study I have concluded: I agree.

Loving someone with a little distance involved makes things spicy and different. Surprises are easier and alone time is easier to find. It might sound a little selfish but in so many ways it seems less selfish if it's what is needed to add a little spark.

I love to work

I love to work. I don't hear a lot of people say this but I can honestly say I love to work. I love feeling like I accomplished something, helped someone, furthered my own financial cause (pay off debt!!), and completed a task. I love to learn, I love to help, I LOVE to work. The problem with this is: nobody wants me to work for them.

I think there could be an assortment of reasons for this, a different reason for every job that has rejected me. However, I can safely say a minimum of 50 jobs have rejected me since December. That's a lot. The one person they all have in common as an applicant being me...so what am I doing wrong? There has GOT to be something. The one thing about at least half of them that I cannot get past is: I am over qualified. WHY would they not want to hire someone that has MORE than enough experience and school for the job?!?!?! WHY?!?!?! And that might also be the problem. Maybe I should leave out that I have a Bachelor's and downgrade it to an Associate's degree to make people feel better.

Or MAYBE I am not friendly enough. I need to get out in the community and meet everyone until someone wants to give me a job.

This city is the worst city I have ever lived in. Hands down.

musings of the unemployed

Oh my, unemployment...we meet again!

I had a job but I quit. Normally I would not be quitting jobs so quickly when I have felt the pain of unemployment before, but this time...I just had to quit. It was actually a very hard decision and just as I felt like I was getting my financial life back on track, I took a steady paycheck out of the equation and it wasn't so on track anymore. Now I'm grappling with getting any job I can for any amount of income I can get and tracking down the job that is just right for me. I'm not sure that just right job exists in this so not right town.

This all leads me to thinking about that day I took the picture of Omar and that old man riding bikes. I had just returned from a trip to see my family back in America and Omar and I had decided to ride bikes in a town near Narita. We wanted to see something new and needed a little adventure. This old man befriended us on the bike trail and after he beckoned us to follow him he led us to his house to share homemade liquor and strange stories in broken Japanese. He did not know a single word of English. It sounds really creepy...especially if I add details like his birdcages filled with beetles and no trace of an indoor toilet...but at the time it was so magical! Days like that helped me believe life was so full of surprises and God was active in making sure I understood what joy could mean on a daily basis. I need a day like that. It was a silly day but worry was absent so it was a good day.

I know I took a risk moving to North Carolina, especially to a city where opportunity is lacking, but the hope is with the risk will come reward. I need to GROW in whatever way this city can offer. For now, maybe I will just take whatever job I can.

Barbeque

Right before I graduated college I was introduced to an awesome band by a hippy friend of mine. They are called Animal Liberation Orchestra. I have no idea why they are called this and I never researched it, I just found myself drawn in by a song they have called, "Barbeque". SUCH a great song. It's about realizing that dreaming does not equal living your dream and it's okay to destroy old dreams, dream new dreams, and not let life get you down with it's winding roads and detours--that's all part of it! The reason I'm telling this paragraph long story in the beginning of an entry: this song is exactly what I'm learning now.

Life can seem really hard and ridiculous sometimes and other times it seems so ridiculously easy. I'm in the seemingly hard and ridiculous stage at the moment. I foolishly thought it would be easy to transition back into American life since I had transitioned into Asian life...and forgot how difficult THAT was. Moving back to your home country and realizing your worth (as far as human capital goes) has drastically dropped since you last resided there is really depressing. I've been much too slowly realizing that it is time to re-evaluate where I see myself in five years and how I can aggressively work my way into that position. Which means I need to barbeque those old dreams an dream up some new dreams!

I also need to figure out how to resize my photo so you don't have to scroll down to see my entries.

...do I live??

Based on my lack of activity, I don't live at all! I've been dormant for months but lately I've been feeling that I should start this blog back up. Although, after looking at it, I think I need to re-think the design and make it more interesting. Even if this is just a place to write about life I want it to be fun to read and look at (like life itself)!

To get this blog up to speed on life lately all I can really say is I have been going through an intense series of pros and cons. Trying to realize the balance in everyday life. Any situation will bring pros and cons, my job in life lately has been realizing this and searching for the opportunities.

I'm adjusting to small town American life and I can't say it's for me but my journey has just begun! I still dream of earthquakes sometimes but the dreams are rare now and I'm not anxious. *sigh of relief*

SO...on a happier note, some things I have discovered/re-discovered....

Ever since I stopped biting my nails two years ago I have never left them unpolished/done. I

FINALLY picked up some of Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail color. It is so easy to use and gives your nails a design you would otherwise not be able to do in the amount of time it takes to stick these on! I think it's fun. Definitely worth a try.

They come in patterns like what you see on the left but you can also get solid colors. I was afraid they would peel off or chip quickly but as far as I can tell, they work just like nail polish and you remove them with nail polish remover. They're a fun alternative to nail polish and I can do patterns!

I found my strengths finder book! I finally got to unpack all the boxes I packed up so I could move to Asia and I found this little gem with my top five strengths stuck to the cover. :) VERY fun to look back and re-read this book. I originally got this book after feeling a bit lost after graduating University. I think it actually helped me see myself and realize what my strengths were good for. In any case, it's fun to read and realize how to use whatever strengths come out on top.

Even if small town life isn't for me, I know I can learn a lot here and hopefully keep up with this blog...for once. Even if no one reads this I do enjoy looking back on it and seeing how I've grown. 2012 will be an exciting year!