Public Fruit

I just posted some pictures too; http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001279&l=fd945&id=1161480074

One thing that I really love about being back in the tropics is great access to fresh, local fruit. Fruit is often public here. There are guayaba trees ripe with fruit that line the road in places, just waiting for a traveler to take a bite. Behind the guayaba trees are fences or walls which attempt to hide lush ayote (squash) vines, corn stalks, banana, orange, lemon, and mango trees. Basically everyone in rural areas produces their own food either right next to their house or somewhere nearby.

Yesterday I went paseando (a favorite past time involving walking to friends houses to sit, talk, and enjoy some coffee with bread) with Cristina, the jefa of CASM, La Campa. We hitched a ride up the hill to her cousin`s house. After briefly catching up, Cristina asked about their land, so we went to take a tour. We saw the chickens, the orange, mandarin, and lemon trees, and Cristina asked for an ayote. My culture would consider that rude, but here produce is given freely. So we were given a 10kg (22lbs) squash, which we took with us paseando back down the hill. On the way down, we took a side road and repeated this surprisingly quick (less than 15 minutes?) paseando ritual with a green pepper farmer. This time, Cristina bought 7 for a 20 Lempiras ($1). The farmer walked around among thousands finding 6 quickly, then spending a few minutes searching for the 7^th and once he finally had it, he carefully placed two extra smaller ones in the bag. The seven that were being bought had to be of the highest quality, the two extra were separate from the purchase.

Siguiendo, Cristina showed me a beautiful piece of land that they are hoping to buy. She dreams of producing public fruit to give away to people who are paseando, having different animals, and occupying her children with things other than TV. She wants to have trees that will attract birds, so their shockingly bright feathers become familiar.

The culture of gifted produce is not confined to local people. I go paseando myself pretty often now and I am always offered coffee and bread. Generally before I leave I am gifted something else too, like a Christmas nacatamale (tamale with meat), oranges, lemons, or bananas. While I was visiting my co-worker Dago, his neighbor gave me a bag of bananas, to which Dago added lemons. Two days later, I am paseando again and the same neighbor invites me in for some coffee and bread, plus (surprise!) 5 more bananas! Her daughter jokes about going mojada (wet or illegally) to the US so that she can get a higher paid job. I try to explain that things are different in the US and among a host of wonderful Honduran things, we don`t know what paseando is. She seems doubtful.

That seems to be the attitude. Plenty of people want to go to the US, probably because American TV displays the ludicrous, normally unattainable wealth with which capitalism tempts. I find myself often telling Hondurans about how beautiful, fresh, sweet, and wonderful their country is. Then again, I don`t really understand where they are coming from, I know nothing of their struggles.

On the other hand, I do know is that in my culture nothing, not even fruit, is free, and farmers are anonymous. I was thinking about how so few things in the US are public, rarely do people take time to breathe, and there is so much forbidden fruit, unless you have money or can run fast. In contrast, this place looks like the Garden of Eden, where you can breathe deeply and walk slowly in the cool evening breeze loaded down with free fruit, so long as you are in good relationship with the people and land around you.

Reflecíon de Vuelta

I have been in Copan Ruinas the last couple of days, giving a tagteam tour and cultural experience with Liz to Katie and Laura, Liz`s friends who came to visit. Its been really fun to come back to Copan after I know more Spanish and I`ve seen other parts of the country and I understand the people a little more.

But Copan is a ridiculous town. There is exajerado tourism here that brings in exajerado amounts of money. The number of cars in Copan are a clear sign of their wealth! And so many coffeeshops, bars, restaurants, tourist attractions, its insane! And my host family, who we stayed with this time, seems now to be extremely well-off as compared to 4 months ago, when I thought they were more middle-class. But really, they are comparable to the American `middle class´ because like the rest of the world, there are a very small percentage of people who own a massive amount of the capital. In Copan, its two or three families who own about half of the businesses. I think the American statistics are around 1 percent owning 40%. The flip side of this is that you have a large amount of the population who owns very, very little.

There are several volunteers who live in this town and benefit from the high level of activities and fun that the tourism promotes. On Saturday night, Arte Acción (about which I wrote in August) put on a cultural festival in the park. Really it was just a bunch of really talented kids on stilts walking around and dancing to a bunch of hippie drummers while several hippies took their turn at whipping flaming kerosene soaked pads in circles around their bodies in a mesmerizing lightshow. Quite entertaining. During that time, there was a really good flautist with awesome sound and light equipment who was amplifing his flute to a pre-fab drum rhythm. It was really good, we had listened to him for a while the night before. Later that night, a local, pretty sketchy bar hosted a chest-thumping (five high quality 20 inch speakers with the bass cranked!) dance party in the street, where 50 men watched while 5 or 6 couples danced in the middle. A little strange and uncomfortable, but quite the party! I commented that it would be pretty exciting to live (...volunteer?) in a town that had this level of free entertainment. Liz reminded me that our experience would just really be one of a tourist (inactive, superficial, complacent) painted with a veneer of Honduras. Shes got a point, and while it may be fun to have a weekend once in a while that has this much entertainment, I really appreciate the value and truth and humanity of my experience in La Campa.

Tradición de Té Tremendo

Hondurans make tea. It used to be that when I thought of tea, I would think of looking at a selection of boxes all with artistic yet hopelessly foggy names (like Lavender Sunrise or Evening Breeze) and picking one, hoping that it would be good. Hondurans pick a spice or a fruit and throw it in boiling water for 5 minutes, add sugar, then serve. It’s the best tea I´ve ever had. My host mom makes tea with cloves, pineapple, cinnamon, rosemary, and probably a ton of other things. I recently bought some spices so I could make my own tea. I broke up a stick of cinnamon the other day fir tea and it ended up so rich with cinnamon, it was almost black. Then I scraped some of a block of La Campa processed dulce de caña (sugar cane) into my tea. ¡Que rrrrico, va!

I´ve been reading a bunch of the Biblioteca del Campo books at the CASM library, books to educate campesinos on food production and appropriate technology. One of the books is on medicinal plants, what plants are good for what pain and what parts of the plant to use in the medicinal tea. While I am clueless about what 95% of the plants I see around La Campa are, I can still appreciate how wonderful it is to be surrounded by a tradition that knows, uses, and makes tea out of its plants.

a few more pictures

I`m just writing to say that I posted some more (just a few, not 200 :) pictures and hopefully you can get chance to check them out. Some of them are from thanksgiving (I have a picture of Jesus posted too!), the later ones are from when I helped butcher a cow, so viewers, please use discretion!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001244&l=a427d&id=1161480074

Giving Thanks

I celebrated Thanksgiving with a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers and some English teachers from the US recently. For the celebration I travelled to San Marcos de Ocotepeque, a fairly large town in an expansive, gorgeous valley. The view on the way there and in the town itself is absolutely breathtaking. We had quite a few passionate cooks present and they prepared quite the feast. There were 19 of us there and we packed the food down well. After most people left, the rest of us went on a short hike to a waterfall to swim.

That night, despite our prodigious leftovers, we went to get pizza and as we were waiting, a short crippled man walked up and signaled hello. This was unusual because normally someone in his state would be asking for money and he was not. It was apparent by his speech that he was severely mentally disabled. I decided to sit and relax with him while my new friends went to hang out across the street. This man shook my hand and laughed hysterically. Then he gestured at my friends and laughed some more. Because of his mental state, I decided not to be offended and enjoy a few good long random laughs with him. Conversation was pretty difficult and it proceeded a lot like 20 questions, with me asking questions and him enthusiastically bobbing or shaking his head and stringing together indecipherable syllables. The beginning, the middle, or the end of any string of communication was infused with a huge smile and a body-quaking laugh. He very clearly said ´fresco!´ which means pop or normally coke, and I decided I would indulge him. When I didn´t get one for myself, he refused to take it. After a lot of pleading, he decided he could hold it. He still didn´t drink it until I was gone, he couldn´t enjoy it if I didn´t also have one. After we had been sitting for a while, I noticed the hat that he was wearing said ´Jesus´ on it. I hung out with Jesus talking and laughing like crazy until the pizza was ready and my friends were ready to leave.

I was struck by seeing this crippled man labeled Jesus right in front of me, coming up not to beg, but to say hi, hang out and laugh. I was reminded of Jesus´ words that whatever we do to the least of these, we do to him. This man was not just materially poor, he was socially destitute. He always waved, made noises, and smiled enthusiastically when people walked or drove past, but most completely ignored him. I´ve been trying recently to recognize God in all of the people around me, no matter who they are or what they are doing. It was very powerful to be reminded that this man is also a child of God and to experience his wonderful humanity.

And in case you´re wondering, the box of bananas was finished with gusto in the preparation of banana bread, which I ate for breakfast J

The Dogs Eat Well

Honduras is having another cold front pass through it right now. A couple nights ago it supposedly got down to 7 C, 45 F. The days before and after weren´t quite that cold, but they were pretty windy and definitely uncomfortable. It wouldn´t be that bad in the US, but we have heated buildings and good insulation. You get really cold when you have no escape to warmth and you don´t have well-insulated clothes. Cristina at the office (boss-lady) said that she had never been so cold at night. The news said the cold is supposed to last for another 5 days and then hopefully we´ll be back to our really nice weather. ....Sorry if your cold weather isn´t going to end for a few months.

This morning as I was eating breakfast (milk, oat meal, some granola, a chopped banana, and a Honduran portion of sugar) and drinking coffee (with its own generous portion of sugar), I noticed that the dog bowls were full of a familiar mix of rice. A few weeks ago the mountain of clothes that showed up came with 5 pretty big boxes labelled ´Kids Against Hunger.´ The boxes were full of one pound bags of pre-mixed rice and spices complete with cooking instructions and nutrition information (in English). The boxes have been slowly disappearing. Recently when I was coming home from CASM I saw an unusually large pile of something burning outside of my house. I didn´t think too much of it because that is where they usually burn their trash. As un-cool as burning trash is, I´ve half-ways accepted it as a compromise when the only other option (and where plenty of trash ends up) is spread out on the road, in the river, or on some gorgeous field. Ellen, my Peace Corps neighbor, informed me that they were burning the pile of clothes that had come in a few weeks before. The clothes had come in to the mayor´s house and since there was a massive excess (read: too much for the mayor and his family to wear) he decided to give a truck load to the church, which my host-dad happens to be the pastor of. After my family had sorted through a fraction of the clothes, the 30ish church members came over and each took as much as they could carry home. Of the mountain that was left, they burned a significant amount. I was going to try to rescue some, but when I asked they said that they had burned the clothes with stains (I hadn´t previously noticed any stains) and they were saving the good clothes. Saving for what? I don´t know, but I do know there are plenty of very poor villagers within 15 km of La Campa whose clothes are much more stained than whatever was burnt.

Its sad to see that kind of waste. Being Mennonite, I think about the blankets that could have been made with the ´stained´ clothes. I think about the kids who raised money to send those boxes of rice, doubtless with the best of intentions. And I think about how similar some things are here and in the US, with our ridiculous amount of resources that routinely go to waste. Kinda like the untouched 20+ pound trays of pork loin, chicken, spagetti sauce, or anything else that Purdue dumps every day. It just hits me harder here because I see the need so clearly every day.

That being said, my family is very nice and they treat me very well. They buy me food that they think white people eat, like apples, peanut butter, and this factory-made toast that really is just a huge waste of energy. Haha I think they also maintain their fruit abundance for my benefit, and I really appreciate it. The current massive surplus is of bananas, so I´m doing my part in eating at least 4 (or ...6?) every day. Will we get to the bottom of the box?!??!?! Find out next time!

Bastante fotos!

Pictures from La Campa, San Manuel, San Sebastien, and when I visited Liz and Rachel in Teguc. ---And now, when Liz, Rachel, Gaby, Amanda and Andrew came to visit and pictures from the minor mudslides in San Manuel, a neighboring municipality.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001199&l=023a7&id=1161480074

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001200&l=addeb&id=1161480074

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001201&l=8a2f9&id=1161480074

I'll post more some other time I have a decent internet connection. Probably about a month.
Nevermind, actually. I had more internet time so I loaded them all up, enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001203&l=1596f&id=1161480074

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001202&l=c50cc&id=1161480074

SALT report one!

I was supposed to write this thing for MCC describing my goals for this year and since it inspired some reflection, I thought it might be cool to post here. Apparently I was supposed to follow a format, but I managed to not see the attachment(happens fairly often), so I just wrote it out.

Coming into this year of service with SALT, I had little direction. I knew that I wanted to do work in the development of local, sustainable agriculture and other appropriate technologies. I had no formal education in either field, in fact all I knew was that the projects that I had heard of sounded exciting and seemed to mesh with my beliefs. Now that I have been in Honduras for nearly three months, I have come to understand that my role here is different than what I had originally hoped. I now see great value in immersing myself in Honduran culture, bringing the best of my culture to this one, and learning as much as I can about sustainable farming and appropriate technology.

I believe that by immersing myself in Honduran culture, it`s struggles and joys, I will be able to develop an alternate thought process and worldview. I want to acquaint myself with the struggles that many Hondurans regularly encounter in an effort to become more compassionate. A few of these are food insecurity, fragility of life, and lack of access to health care, transportation, and the world outside of their immediate community. While I view all of these as struggles, there are joys that come out of them as well. Some of these are the celebrations of life, death, and the harvest, the ability to focus on people and relationships as opposed to time or task, and the joys of community life that come from the development of networks of strong relationships.

I would never describe myself as patriotic, but Honduras has helped me appreciate my culture in different ways. Most children and adults here have never known a time free of obligation that is known in the United States as childhood. I have a desire to bless my community here with the practice of the American notion of childhood, a time to have fun and practice social and practical skills through rejuvenation and community building group games. Individuality is one thing that my culture can stress beyond what is healthy; however, a stronger endorsement of individuality, empowerment, and equality in this culture could go a very long ways. I also hope to develop compassionate leadership skills in both youth and adult groups. My ambitious goal with community groups is to inspire autonomous community based action that will empower individuals to bless their communities both socially and materially.

My last current major goals are to learn about local agriculture and sustainable farming and to encourage development of appropriate technologies. Since I know very little of these things, I can only try my hardest to soak up knowledge and provide humble suggestions. I want to learn about herbs, vegetables, animal care and meat production so that I can understand more of what it takes to sustain a community on healthy diets.

My attitude toward and understanding of these goals (and surely more that I don`t know yet) are prone to change as I attempt and am continuously frustrated by the challenges presented by each one. I will do my best to seek out the joys of the journey and keep the ultimate goal of Kingdom building steadily in mind.

¡El Grito Lenca!

There is a scream that runs in the blood of many Hondurans, those of Lencan descent. It is a passionate, full-bodied, and jubilant call that reminds people of this area of their shared lineage. I was recently told of the Lencan scream and how it sounds. You really can´t do it without laughing! When I ask people at my office to do it, they pass it off on someone else, saying that the other person can do it better. It sounds like ¡Oh-ee! or ¡Ee-oh! and it often changes pitch between sylables. Some people start low and go high, others start high and go low (this kind souns really strange, but I love it, so its the kind I do). My host dad starts high and goes higher with the Oh-ee version. Its a sound that has so much culture tied to it, you can´t help but love it.

Now that I know what it sounds like, I hear it all the time. I was on my way to Gracias the other day and I saw a woman outside of her house. I gave el grito Lenga a go and much to my amazement and joy, she replied with her own. On my way back from Gracias a couple days ago, the truck I was in had some nice rollbars so I was standing the whole way (much more comfortable and fun, I think). I saw a couple people I knew along the way and I gave them my proud grito Lenca. My parents claim I don´t have any Lencan heritage, but when throw my voice into that scream, my blood begs to differ.

Helado

Now Honduras is getting into its winter. Up in La Campa, you can feel the difference. Its really cold! Actually I think its probably only getting down into the 50s, if that, but its a big change from the 80s and 90s I had been used to. My co-workers at CASM keep talking about how ´exagagerado´ this cold weather is. They say its helado, which means frozen. Some mornings you can see clouds flying a hundred meters or less above La Campa. I was coming into Gracias this morning in the back of a pickup loaded with green peppers (they smelled wonderful). My campesino travel buddy commented that it was going to be cold in Gracias because there was ice in the air, signaling to a layer of fine mist that we could see over the city.

Earlier this week I went into a village on top of a mountain ridge for the building of a chicken coop. The wind was blowing crazy strong and whipping clouds over and through the house that some of us were hiding behind. In defiance of the icy winds, we build the chicken coop out of really cold mud and adobe. It was nice to be able to throw some mud around with the campesinos and get a little bit of labor in, though my hands were freezing afterwards. When we stopped for lunch, we ate some hot, fresh-ground corn tortillas with lunch. Wonderful :D

I think my body is in denial that Honduras can actually be this cold. I think one of my selfish goals for coming to Honduras was that I would be able to life for a year in hot weather. These last few days I`ve been wearing a couple of shirts, a sweater, and my one thin Goshen College sweatshirt so I can stay warm. Isn´t it ironic, don`t you think?

Innundaciones!

Honduras is flooding. The south coast has some really serious flooding going on. San Manuel, a municipality an hour away from La Campa has had some small mudslides that have damaged a lot and destroyed a few houses. This week has been pretty crazy because we´ve been running back and forth from San Manuel meeting with campesinos (as) and trying to reassure them. Currently I think the count is around 300 displaced people in San Manuel, which is a really big deal, about the size of a whole community. What needs to happen is people need to be given some land to live on and set up new lives with new cornfields and livestock and all that.

Moving like that is a really huge deal for people here. They are so connected to their communities. They don´t really know people outside of their communities and they rarely travel. Its interesting to think of the huge cultural importance that we put on travelling in the US, but how we miss out on close community life. Then again, there are plenty of American people who have never really travelled either. Anyway, for these people a move signifies massive change in their lives, even if it is only a few kilometers. It means new people, new land (which has likely been in their families for a long time) and a whole lot of uncertainty. The amount of land that I´ve heard people talking about for all of these people seems very small, definitely not enough to do more than have a house. These people rely so much on subsistence farming, I don´t know how that is going to be a realistic option for a new life.

All of this has been brought on by the now 43 tropical waves, they call them, that have brought rain into Honduras. The normal number of tropical waves was about 15 five years ago, but recently its been climbing.

This post is pretty rushed, but I´ll try to post some pictures soon!

¡Que le vayan bien!

That Ranchero Rythm

In La Campa we listen to an aweful lot of this music. It goes a lot like this.... one chord once, a second chord twice. Repeat. :) Its really fun to listen to sometimes because every song tells a new, culturally insightful story. Out of curiousity, I looked at the tape-cassette cover and the songs were listed. Seven of the 19 songs appeared to be about different caballos (horses) :) I listen to ranchero music for extended periods of time during my commutes to neighboring communities. Generally I only catch a line or two before a boulder or a pothole in the road jars my brain. It can get a little old after an hour and a half of more-or-less continuous potholes and boulders.

I brought my MP3 player into the office today to charge it and thought about how nice it would be to get some varied music mixed in with the ranchero. So once my MP3 player had charged a little, I got a pair of computer speakers and plugged them in at my desk. Its a wonderful thing. I started getting all nostalgic, listening to songs that remind me of different people, places, and events. Some merengue, bachata, and salsa music came on too and I got all excited because I could actually understand the words! I`ve had those songs for a few years and listened to them a whole lot, but it added a whole new dimention being able to understand them.

I want to teach my co-workers some songs. We have little Bible-studies on Monday mornings and we always sing. A few songs have english translations and its really interesting to look at the difference in word choice. Its that way with Bible verses too. It makes me wonder what the originally intended feeling was. Anyway I have some songs that I love that are in Swahili I think. Si-zo ham ba na ye, wo wo wo! and Hakuna wakaita sa Jesu (from SALT orientation). I figure since they`re not in English, everything should be cheque (good). I made working spanish translations so they can understand it. Then they want to learn english too, so maybe we`ll sing them in three languages.

Anyway tonight is another selection game for the World Cup in 2010. Its against Jamaica, in Kingston. I went down to the municipal building last game to watch it and I had a good time, so Í`m looking forward to doing it again.

Words can´t do it Justice

My back itches. I can hear water running in the kitchen. The lights went out a few minutes ago, and a candle casts oversized shadows of Lencan pottery on the wall. Richly spiced hot chocolate pours delicious steam into my face from a spherical hard squash gourd.

I´m at the Rinconcito Graciano which, as I have just learned, is the only restaurant in Honduras listed on National Geographic´s list of resaurants http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/extras/geotourism/honduras.html. This praise is well deserved, and not just for the quality of the food. The passionate chef and owner, Lizeth Perdomo, explains the value she places on culture, environment, and people. She cooks only with Lenca pottery, serves only local organic food, and builds relationships with local families to provide a place to sell their products.

The food comes out from the dark kitchen and even though either of us can barely see, I can tell that its extravagant arrangement on the plate is only trumped by the river of savoury, salty, and spicy flavor that each tiny bite has to offer. As I eat my food, Lizeth explains her philosophy that the best food is made with love and a real committment of time. The food that I´m eating has gotten an extra dose of time because the power outage slowed her down to one hand, the other being used to hold a candle, she tells me.

Lizeth keeps the wisdom coming by telling me that for her, she is content in her business. For her, money is a means, not an end. This couldn´t be more apparent as I am the only person in her restaurant, she has been talking to me for at least an hour, and the tab is only coming to $3, cheap even by Honduran standards. Among other things, she has told me stories of the people who bring food and goods to her to sell, the old woman who makes wine but can´t make much because she is tired and has many responsibilies and the woman who makes fresh corn tortillas and walks with them a half hour every day to sell on the streets of Gracias. She has told me of her hatred of chemical fertilizers. And she has told me of her dreams. To show her people, the villagers, how to live and farm sustainably. To attach a hotel with a few rooms onto her restaurant, so that her family can build relationships with the families who come to visit her. To show the world the wonders of the work of her people by expanding the trade of local art and products.

This woman has a genuine passion that is hard to miss. This woman has found life in its purest, rawest, truest sense.

Sing Some Menno Song

Recently I was in the tasty, bustling, and exciting 25k population city of Gracias and I met up with a Peace Corps Volunteer. Turns out she graduated from Goshen College in ´06. Its a small world. Anyway, she lent me her blue Hymnal, and I´ve been enjoying it greatly.

A couple of times, I´ve gotten up at around 5ish and hiked up the mountain with the hymnal, some camp songs, and a couple of yellow (but very sweet) oranges. I have a lovely sitting spot around the side of the mountain and up a ways, where theres a good view of the area. I sit on a bed of dried pine needles (Honduras´national tree). I peel my orange and eat a section or two of it between songs. The sun starts to rise at around 5:30, running the sky through shades of purple, red, pink, and yellow. Once there was a horse eating on the slope of another mountain and it made some sighing noises. I was shocked that I could hear it as well as I could since it looked like it was about a half mile away. So I took a deep breath and, at the top of my lungs, joined creation in its morning song with ´What Is This Place?´, imagining it weave all over the valley.

Global Warming Action in La Campa

Yesterday I went to a little meeting where a guy from Chile gave a presentation about global warming and what can be done about it. It was a great presentation, it even had some technical/chemical explaination. The community leaders present were really excited and really thoughtful about what they could do to combat the situation, namely not chop down their forests. The whole time I was sitting there I felt guilty about how I had just recently on my flights to Honduras burned more fossil fuels than they ever will in their whole lives. And yet I´m the one who knew about global warming and had the background to understand at least some of the presentation.


These people already live locally. Most of them grow their own food, use very little electricity and they don´t travel. It seems like anything that they can do to change their lifestyle will only reduce their already small carbon footprint to zero. They´ll probably be taking net carbon out of the atmosphere if they reforest. Nonetheless, it seems that my role in CASM is going to attempt to deal with this by way of appropriate technologies. Among other things, I want to work on introducing ´biodigesters´that capture natural gas for cooking produced by the decomposition of plant and animal matter. These systems would help to make the ´integral farms´(farms with diversified production aimed at supplying all a family´s food needs) that CASM promotes be less reliant on industry and fossil fuels.


Consequences of global warming include plenty of natural disasters. Hurricanes and torrential rains are some of them that occasionally pass through La Campa. Yesterday we went to San Manuel, a nearby town, and were shown the effect of recent mudslides. The guy who showed us around was showing us houses that had been abandonded when people came home and saw that the wall had shifted 10 cm (4 in). He said over a short time last year, a road had sunk a meter (3 ft) and had blocked off a few communities. He then told about one time about a month ago when he had heard a slide and ran to check it out. He said it took out a house and killed a little boy on the way. On our way back into town, he said, ¨These days, life is complicated.¨ The whole experience hit me pretty hard.


I was frustrated by the fact that the tropical countries (third world) are going to be the ones that try the hardest to deal with global warming. It makes sense that they would because when a mudslide kills people you know, you´re motivated to act. The third world has been exploited for so long for so many of its resources, and now it is being asked to deal with the sins of consumption of the first world. The sick part is that while asking the third world to change, I doubt consumerism will change that much in the US. People will probably keep going on huge road trips in monstrous vehicles, eating food thats been flown in from as far away as Chile, and building huge houses that use energy produced by burning coal. Its my hypocracy too, and now I´m going to be asking these people to deal with it.

Ayyyy chile!

Recently I´ve been discovering the joys of Honduran chilies. I was at La Campa´s only comedor (restaurant) the other day and I thought I recognized pickled vegetables in a jar, so I took some. My co-workers assured me that they were ´muy rico´ or very sweet, which didn´t sound so crazy since I don´t recognize a lot of the vegetables that I see here. I ate the little round red one and it burnt like anything! Then today I was at our office and I found a bush in the back that had plenty of black things on it and a few red ones. I picked a red one and squeezed it and much to my delight it smelled really hot, which I confirmed shortly thereafter. So I picked the red ones and I´m going to try to make some sort of mad hot sauce for my frijoles...mmmmmm.

I´ve been discovering a little bit of the local economy here. Since its such a small place, not much is marked, you just have to know that this house sells ´pan de mujer´ or woman´s bread on saturdays and that house up the hill repairs shoes and sells sandals. The house on the corner sells bananas and pineapples when the boys break from studying (I´m sure) long enough to go and get them.

Life is wonderful here in La Campa. And despite the opinions of a couple of local gringos and a Peace Corps volunteer or two, Honduraños (as) are very awesome people. Come visit, soon :)

Food and Fasting

I´ve read a couple of books recently that have made me think about food, that it should be connected a lot closer to religion, our worldview, and our life than we tend to think of it. What are a few things that occupy the most time in our day? Working, probably. Hopefully spending time with loved ones. Buying, preparing, and eating food. Now compare this to the time we spend doing devotions, praying, or joining in fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ.

It made me realize how big of a deal food is compared with what should be taking a big part of our lives. What we turn eating into with our hurried meals and food out of a can is an experience in consumption. Our interactions with our food, planting, watering, and harvesting plants, raising and butchering animals, then cooking and eating our food can and should be a spiritual experience. Food has the potential to connect us very closely to God´s creation, God´s providence and the people around us. A Central African word, Ubuntu comes to mind, meaning ´I am only human to the extent of my interactions with my environment´.

I´ve read some books recently that have advocated fasting as a way to fight consumerism and get us thinking about what we actually need and sharing with each other. I also have thought recently as I´ve felt like all I do is eat some days that I really don´t appreciate the food that I´m given. I mean, I love the way it tastes, but the biggest thought in my head when I get a big plate of food that I´m in no way hungry for is ok, how can I manage to eat this food to convey to the people who gave it to me that I really do like it a lot and appreciate their hospitality? Its good to make sure people know you appreciate what they´re doing for you, but I realized that I don´t think of food as sustenance, as something that is a wonderful gift from God.

I read another book that recommended fasting to think about how much we use that we actually need and what we can do with our excess if we lived with less. It said maybe we could fast for one day a week and give the saved money (or food) to people who could use it and would appreciate it greatly. This book also advocated volutary poverty as a way to connect with people who are hungry, homeless, or otherwise. In a word, solidarity.

I did a kinda-not-really fast at EMU in early ´07. I say kinda-not-really because we ate two meals a day of rice and beans in which portions were unlimited and the food was very nicely spiced=absoloutly delicious. It was still really hard to go to bed late at night feeling a little hungry and looking at the food I had on my dresser. It made me think how difficult that must be to go to sleep hungry and not having assurance that you will have food to eat the next day. Even though the experience was far shy of the real thing, it helped me to think about how it must be to actually be hungry.

Today I´m fasting for the first time ever. Not a kinda-not-really fast, I considered it making one but then it would feel wrong. So all I´m doing is drinking water. I´m going to make it something I do once a week for all of the reasons above plus as a way to practice self-control which, I´m finding, I have very little of. My mind keeps drifting and I keep thinking about how I should probably walk across the street and buy a Chocobanana or maybe a couple of muffins from the bakery at my house until I remember that I´m fasting today and I cannot live by bread alone.

Address! and a long update

Believe it or not, I have an address now. Its sweet too, it reveals how community and people oriented this country is. No numbers or anything, mail can be sent to Gracias (a 25k people town 30 min away) at

Michael Wiebe-Johnson
Voluntario con CASM
La Campa
Gracias, LEMPIRA
Honduras, C.A.

There are couple of Peace Corps people I work with who said that they´ve never really lost anything in the mail, not even packages. It just takes a while.

Anyway I´m in La Campa now! I´ve been here on my own for over a week and I´m getting used to the town, making some friends, and visiting a bunch of communities in the area which are generally about 40 minutes away (going really fast!) on pretty bumpy, hilly roads with the most gorgeous view I´ve ever seen.

My host family is really nice too. I have two brothers and three sisters here, but one sister is in University on the north coast, so I probably won´t see her for a while. Another sister is Elena, a Peace Corps worker who is finishing up her 3rd year here. Its nice to be able to hang out with her sometimes. The other siblings I know are pretty fun, its nice to be able to sit and talk with kids. My host dad is the pastor at the church in La Campa as well as a nurse. We have a medicine shop and a bakery in house. The bakery is part of what the Peace Corps worker at my house has been working on and the baked goods there are wonderful. My spanish is coming along, but its still not so easy sometimes. I just need to work on vocabulary....actually I think I need to work on grammar a lot too hahaha.

Village life is proving to be pretty nice. There are four or five little convenience store things with mostly packaged snacks and candy, but one sells Chocobananos (bananas with a coating of waxy chocolate on a stick) and another is a bakery. La Campa is laid out in a 4x4 square of rocky or dirt roads on the side of a hill looking at a pretty big rock wall. There is a sign painted high on the rock wall that says ´Bienvenidos a La Campa.´ The people here are happy about living in La Campa and they ask a lot how I´m liking it.

Travelling to the little tiny villages (communities) in the area is a lot of fun because people are so proud of the work they´ve done and and so happy to have visitors. At one house we saw the result of a whole lot of CASM work (my organization, Comision Acción Social Menonita). One project is where they put a chimeny onto the indoor cooking fire so that it burns less firewood, burns longer, and the smoke doesn´t cause respiratory illness for their kids. They had a grain silo for storing up for the less productive seasons too. This house also had a chicken pen for producing eggs and they were growing most of their food (even coffee!) for their own family´s consumption. Its great that they have the chance to enjoy the crops that they work so hard to grow. In other places they are building latrines and farming Tilapia fish.

It is so encouraging to see how community organizing and help with simple, practical projects has empowered them to be able to support their own families and take so much pide in the work that they do. I´ve heard of other projects with small scale hydroelectrics and natural gas capture from farm animals that I think would be really good to check out and could be benefitial for other communities in the area.

I´m getting used to being here. The adjustment to the food is a slow one, but I have faith. Thats all for now, internet access is sporadic, but at least it exists in La Campa so I´ll do my best to keep you updated. On the left you can see links for the other Honduras SALTers Rachel and Liz´s blogs. They are both very thoughtful and very awesome people, so you should check them out and leave them comments :) Thank you all for keeping me in your prayers!

Por fin, fotos!

This site isn´t so photo-upload friendly as far as I can tell so I made an album on facebook that you can check out. It has pictures of Copan, the Ruins, local flora, coffee, friends....and probably some other stuff :) Enjoy, and you´re more than welcome to comment on here!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001074&l=f933b&id=1161480074

And these are pictures from the week of orientation in Akron, Pennsylvania.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001075&l=4f84c&id=1161480074

Another student we met at the language school in Copan, Megan, said that she is going to set up a webshots account that we can all load pictures onto if you ever want to look at a whole ton of pictures. Once that link comes I´ll post it, then repost it whenever I add stuff to it.

Arte Acción

This morning we were walking around Copan and we walked into a little store that looked like it had cards and maybe little gifts we could get for our families here. The guy working there told us that the place was started to help local Copaneco kids experience Mayan culture and essentially build community with each other through art and sports. They had all kinds of really cool illustrated stories about animals with a passion for social action. I was pretty excited :D so I got two of them, one is about Bobo Basura (a creature made from trash, hence the last name) who was abused as a child and who doesn´t want people to fight because it only makes everyone sad. Another is called the Trash Fighting Frog. I haven´t read that one yet, but I´m looking forward to sharing them with the kids in La Campa.

If you want to check out their site, it is www.arteaccionhonduras.org

La Vista

I´m in the town of Copan Ruinas in western Honduras. It is named for the nearby Mayan ruins that date to around 2000 yrs ago. The town is on a hill surrounded by densely forested small mountains. I love the bright and joyful community that I see all around. People look at me when I walk down the street, so I smile and say buenos and they always respond with a smile and their own buenos. People often hang out in groups on the side of the street talking and laughing until around 9, when most people go to bed.

I´m amazed every time I walk around the town because of the incredible view of the mountains that the streets offer. Everything here is so colorful! Liz noticed that the amazing patters and colors of flowers and plants that we see everywhere are replicated by the culture. You can look at necklaces and bracelets on a table on the street then look up and see the same color and shape about 100 times the size. Its so beautiful how Hondurans embrace the nature around them.

At the same time, I see a lot of American influence. Apparently a TV store opened up recently and everyone went and bought one. Or three in the case of my host family. They have a lot of TV channels showing a lot of American programming. It made me pretty uneasy to see the Simpsons in Spanish playing during dinner. At least it wasn´t South Park, but its still pretty scary. My family generally sits around and watches TV when they´re at home and all I can do is hope that they aren´t taking too much away from the experience.

En-theos

This summer I've learned and been able to practice something life-changing. At camp we would always encourage our kids to choose to be positive and enthusiastic. When kids would make that choice, we would have great weeks and a cabin full of brothers. Sometimes you have to be a little crazy to get your kids to smile and have a good time, but its always worth it, especially when you refuse to be embarrassed. :)

Here at orientation we have some really enthusiastic people, like Passionate from Zimbabwe. Smiling ear to ear, he taught all of us a song at devotions one day that had some awesome running, spinning, and searching actions to it. It made me really miss church in Africa, where everyone dances around for at least 15 minutes every week. I think if I went back now I would really really appreciate that kind of church. Right now Passionate is sitting one row in front of me talking and laughing, doubled over most of the time.

Reading Jesus for President, they wrote that the root of enthusiasm is en-theos, which means 'in God'. So when someone in enthusiastic, that is God showing through them. Maybe it is hysterical laughing, like my friend Passionate. It could also look like passion for a cause, compassion for people, or sheer joy in life. Many people lack enthusiasm in any of its forms, a tragedy of a magnitude that I can't bear to imagine.

This summer I've been able to live with a lot of enthusiasm. Not just breathe, eat, drink, work, and sleep, but really live! Its a wonderful thing, and I'm looking forward to a life full of living. :)

Multicultural Mingling

This week I'm at SALT/IVEP/YAMEN! orientation in Akron, PA. The last week of camp and the week at home were really good. It was great to be able to hang out a little bit with the Jubilee house folks. They had their communal dinner one night and 41 people showed up! Normally turnout was more in the 2-5 range. It was awesome to see that they've connected with a fair group of people during their year. A bunch of us helped Jason advertise for an event at the Roosevelt Community Center. We walked around and talked to a bunch of people and told them about the event and I was really surprised, most people seemed interested and really friendly and said they would come. Camp got me more used to being friendly with strangers and walking around really made me think about doing a year at the VS house because I could get to work with all of that potential in the community.

Anyway at orientation here we have 50 American/Canadian SALTers and about the same number of IVEP/YAMEN people who come from all over the world. The cultural mix is fascinating. On the first day I felt badly when I would see an African brother or sister because I knew that they wanted to sit and have long talks to get to know people, but I was really tired and I didn't have enough energy to talk with more than a couple of them. That night, I saw one woman from Jordan getting some cake. I commented something worthless like "Oh, you have cake!" and she right away asked if I wanted any. I said no, I didn't, to which she asked again. I said no again then she said, here, I'll get you a piece of cake. I was so confused, I thought she hadn't understood me but her english was good and I was sure I had spoken clearly. Then it dawned on me that the norm in Arab culture is to decline offers of hospitality until the host does it anyway. I knew this because MCC had sent me a little book about cultures before I came. Realizing that resistance was indeed futile, I accepted when she offered me juice, forgetting that accepting an offer immediately is perceived as being forward. Oops. We ended up having a nice chat while we slowly ate our cake and drank our juice.

These last two days have been full of this kind of confusion, all around, I'm sure. The awkwardness is quickly wearing off and everyone seems to be quite comfortable with each other.

Transition Weeks

These next few weeks will be full of transition for me. Next week is my last at Camp Tecumseh, then I'm home for a week to get ready to go to Honduras. After that, I have a week of orientation with SALT and some other MCC volunteer programs in Akron, Pennsylvania, then I go to Honduras. And then who knows what! I've been thinking about it more recently since its pretty much on top of me now.

Camp has been a wonderful experience. Its really fatiguing sometimes, but then there are other times that it is completely awesome. This week was pretty much incredible. The guys were all well-mannered and got along great. They got to know each other right away and on Sunday evening they were already calling themselves brothers. Gumby likes to call the really awesome campers 'stand-up guys,' on our good weeks we've had maybe 3 of them, this week we had 10. Often the way they talked and the fun we had reminded me of college. Put those guys in a hall and you would have my freshman year of college, plus or minus a few. So now I only have one week of camp left and however it goes, this summer has been awesome with the campers and the counselors too. Depending on how much time I have back in the US next summer, I might come back and work a week of camp.

I'm really looking forward to the week at home too. Its always great when I get to hang out with my parents for any amount of time. It'll be great to see Elkhart people again. Well, I guess church people, I doubt I'll see too many other people I know. I want to have some more time to hang out at the Jubilee house too because I think spending some more time with them would really be good. There are some wonderful conversations there. As well as my hammock, I need to go lay in that a little too I think. Drink some yerba mate maybe. Sounds incredible. I'm so used to being insanely busy and doing ten different activities everyday where I have ten kids to watch, so it'll be nice to have some time to relax.

Then comes orientation. I'm thinking orientation is going to be like another week of staff training for camp (incredible) but probably a lot more fun. So pretty much, I can't wait. I've emailed another SALTer whos going to be in Honduras but thats only been a couple times. She seems really cool though and I'm sure the rest of the SALTers and the volunteers from other programs are nothing short of the coolest group of people I've ever met. Counselors currently hold that title, but we'll see.

Honduras next. There's a couple that I'm going to be in contact with in Honduras who's blog I found. It was a good blog, and Morgan told me they're cool, so I have some pretty high expectations. ;) They said they have a 7 person community of American/Canadian volunteers whom they get together with and I'm sure I'm going to be really glad for that. I think in the village I'm going to be the only American, so it'll be immersion and that volunteer community will be nice to hook up with every once in a while. I still really don't know at all what to expect. I feel like I'm dropping into Honduras blind and uneducated but I'm supposed to be educating the people there. Sounds audacious.

I see a lot of 'lost and found' clothes at camp and I've taken to looking at the tags on them. Even though I haven't been to Honduras yet I know there are a lot of the sweatshop variety of factory there. Whenever I see 'Hecho en Honduras' written on shirts, I feel a moment of connection with those people in Honduras whom I will soon know and work with. I'm sure I'll get to see plenty of that dark underbelly of global capitalism, aka the beast. Can't wait.

We Need New Heroes

Its another night off here at camp. I'm pretty tired, especially this week. Some of that could have to do with my part of camp doing the 'man up challenge' all week. Its a ridiculous event but its a lot of fun. About half of the male staff plus a few campers are walking around camp shirtless (but not inside or at chapels), wearing hats or headbands, eating all of their meals with knives or fork handles, and laughing hysterically at how we all look. Well, maybe that last part is just me and a few really cool counselors. Originally I thought the challenge had a component where you had to wear short shorts but apparently that isn't the case. Essien (my half Nigerian partner who also goes by Gumby) has been doing pretty well with that part of the challenge by wearing a nice pair of blue running shorts.

My cabin isn't so wonderful this week. Some of their parents thought it would be genius to send their kids who are friends to camp together, so they got here and since we've been trying to get them make friends with the rest of the cabin so we can all get to know each other. I think its getting a lot better but Essien isn't as optimistic. I don't think Mike is either, but he isn't as vocal about it.

Anyway tonight I went to the staff Bible study. We went over Esther's story, a fascinating one. The leader of the study talked about how all the women were pretty much just there as objects for the emperor. The part I found to be most interesting was that a Jew named Mordecai wasn't kneeling down and honoring one of the emperor's officials. The official then decided to kill all of the Jews because Mordecai wasn't respecting his authority and as a people group, the Jews acted differently, they set themselves apart. I find it encouraging that they lived 'in this world, but not of this world' in a very apparent way. I was also struck by the parallel of kneeling down and honoring an official with standing up, doing the 'camp hand salute', and saying the pledge of allegiance to the American flag. Both are symbols of government and worldly power and in both cases, we are expected to stand and honor them. I stand for the flag stuff, but I stand to pray. Unfortunately, Mordecai ends up being promoted to second in the empire and he makes a special day for the Jews to go out and kill all of their enemies, which they do. My explanation is that he didn't have integrity and the massive power of the empire corrupted him. At any rate, he wasn't loving his enemies and praying for those who persecuted him.

I can only pray that I would have the faith and courage that Mordecai must have had to stand up for what he believed in the face of death. The title of this entry comes from Jesus for President, where it encourages us to look for the heroes who are around us every day and are normal people. I'm looking. If you know of any, please let me know. ;)

Counseling the Boys of Comanche

This summer I am working as a counselor at the YMCA Camp Tecumseh in central Indiana. It is a really good time. During the staff training week I got to know a whole ton (at least!) of really cool people. The other counselors are all really open and excited about life and ready to meet people. A bunch of them try to read with at least some of their spare time, which is impressive concerning how short it is. I've never met a group that has had such a high concentration of really interesting, open, artistic, friendly, and happy people. So pretty much, the week and a half that I was here before camp started was nothing short of awesome.

My cabin was a little bit rough the first two weeks, mostly because two of my campers took so much of our time that we couldn't spend much time with the rest of the kids trying to get them to know each other. I was originally paired with Mike Lang, a junior at IU who is from Kokomo, Indiana. At the end of the first week we got a third counselor in our cabin named Essian Ukanna, a Dartmouth graduate who is half Georgian and half Nigerian. The three of us together work very well and we have a ton of fun. This week all of my campers have been great kids who have listened to and respected us. It has made a world of difference and I can tell by how even the depressed, unsociable campers are having a great time and are feeling comfortable enough to jump in to activities.

I think this summer is really going to be a great one. For one, I have the privilege of getting to know all kinds of really awesome people. I get to learn how to deal with plenty of different kinds of kids from all kinds of backgrounds. I've learned how to make pens on a lathe!!! I also get a lot of experience leading and observing devotions and discussions for adolescents. I have plenty of time to think about Biblical stories and what they mean. And I'll be spending some time writing new devotions and chapels with another counselor.

I'm excited about that part because I feel like it could have an impact on people's faith. So many of the devotions and the chapels are modern adaptations of stories where Jesus comes and is rejected by people or all that they experience of Jesus is that he takes the physical and mental anguish that they have experienced on himself and experiences it all himself. An example is a story about a couple who gets a phone call from God saying that God is going to come to dinner, then the couple makes preparations and turns away a beggar, a man in need of help, and a sick little girl in their anxiousness. Or another where Jesus walks around and takes a weeping woman's sorrow onto himself as well as trading a Vietnam veteran's stump of an arm for his own strong one. I think these messages are mostly good but are also depressing because we constantly watch Jesus being rejected and suffering. Jesus did suffer in his life and on the cross, but he also preached a gospel of love, acceptance, and community that leads to a very fulfilling life. Everyone at camp experiences all of these things and they say that they feel closer to God here, yet for some reason camp lifestyle is not connected with Jesus. I hope to build that connection. Not to say that I think camp is the Kingdom of God, but I think we would do well to live some of the camp culture.

What a Wonderful Aurora

I was just in Elkhart for three and a half weeks, and it was incredible. I biked around 350 miles, I did a bunch of yard work, and I made a lot of new friends. Most of the biking was to and from Goshen to visit some new and old friends. I stayed at Morgan's house at Goshen College. Stayed is a pretty weak word, I think lived is much more appropriate.

What a life it was! For one, it was really reviving to be in a Mennonite college context again. It was nice to be accepted and loved the way I came. After all the biking, I'm sure I didn't smell good whenever I was there and I generally didn't have clean clothes for the time I spent sitting around all of the next day talking, reading, eating and sleeping. The most amazing part about Aurora House was that my lovely house mates expressed their affection for each other very easily and openly. I think the physical closeness and acceptance that they showed each other is one of the most powerful tools around for building community. I think physical contact is directly related to trust and, obviously, love. It was great to see their honesty in sharing joys and sorrows and how they relied on their house community when they had things to deal with. Apparently they had house meals almost every day during the school year. The one that I got to be a part of was a perfect time for them to build relationships and identity as a group. That kind of life, the kind where you're living every day, is an blessing that is worth so much.

When there was a Critical Mass bike ride in Elkhart, seven of the Aurora community showed up. We went to my house and had a bonfire with Jubilee House (the Mennonite Voluntary Service House in Elkhart) members. I experienced another great community builder there as we sat around the fire and sang all of the good singing songs we could remember. Like my opening post on this blog, I want to fill beautiful and ugly places with powerful and weak voices joining in song. Acceptance, belonging, physical contact, group meals, singing.... all of that is a dream, one that feels like heaven to me.

Silly Cars

I ran some errands today on my bike. The agility and precision that I have on my bike makes car-watching hilarious by comparison. Cars have to run through all kinds of complex maneuvers to get out of tight spots, sometimes people even do all the maneuvers for spots that aren't that tight. Thats because the driver generally doesn't have a good understanding of how long or wide their vehicle is, so they end up cranking on their steering wheel for a couple minutes doing 20 point turns, 15 cm (6 in) forward or backward at a time. Whenever I see cars driving slowly they always remind me of stupid animals. I had to laugh when I saw a Neon or something like it that looked completely bovine as I was going through a neighborhood. It only makes the analogy better when you see the faces of drivers sitting at stop lights or rolling slowly through neighborhoods because they always look really bored and a fair bit bovine themselves. Occasionally I get the people who see me on my bike and then sit frightened at the stop signs from when they spot me until I pass since I'm not driving a car and therefore must be insane. That behavior reminds me of cows too.

That being said, I have nothing against drivers. I do my fair share of the bovine driving and parking thing as well. I think its tragic that we've all become accustomed to traveling 30 km (19 miles) to find friendly people to eat dinner with. Not that long ago, travel was a time that you spent your days outside and had plenty of time to look at and appreciate nature. At nights, you would stop and spend the evening sitting or meeting people. Now our cars cut us off from all of that. We travel in climate controlled boxes playing canned noise to counteract the noise from our vehicles. We stare at the stripes in the road as they fly by. If we're not on highways, we might even catch glimpses of the communities that we thunder past. Cars are another example of the paradox of technology, they are meant to connect us with each other and increase our quality of life, but they actually disconnect us from and often destroy our communities and the nature around them.

Welcome to Tent Town

This week has been hands down the best week of my college career so far. Last sunday night about 30 people went and set up tents on the Memorial Mall in the middle of campus. The people came from different campus groups for labor equality, atheism, anarchy, marijuana legalization, probably some others, and a lot good number of people just showed up. That night we hung out and drew everywhere on the walkways with sidewalk chalk. Everyone had their own message encouraging people to question things in their lives and to rely on each other. I was up that night until 6:30 when I went back to my apartment so I could sleep for a few hours.

The next morning activity planners from Purdue came and told the police that we had to go. Many of us had different methods of dealing with the police but a few people from the anarchist group set up meetings with the dean of students and the other people who needed to approve it. Unfortunately we didn't get our approval signed for Monday night but we continued Tent Town elsewhere. On Tuesday we got it approved and so we set up tents and kept them up for the rest of the week, even though the administration pushed us around a few times and tried to complicate things for us. A troubadour and his friend spent the week with us and shared his incredible stories and music every day, so much that his voice was always hoarse and raspy. If you want to hear a little bit of Tent Town, check out his myspace page and you can listen to his music with the box on the upper right, although I hear that his voice isn't raspy in those songs.

The most amazing thing to me about Tent Town was the sense of community that we all felt. Few of us knew each other when we got there but after living together for a little while we felt like family. The beauty of the whole thing explodes for me when I realize that for many of the people who were at Tent Town, it is their community. These people had no other community and likely not that many friends since Purdue is a very isolating place. We were all able to build a web of friendship that we know can support us. Our bonds of friendship moved Tent Town as a community three times over this week to camp out, listen to Ryan and Snorlax (our troubadours), and have a camp fire.

Along with the community feel, we all contributed what we could to feed, clothe, and watch out for each other this week. I left notebooks that were important to me, my bike, my camera, my hammock, and other possessions out at Tent Town all week and people took care of them for me. The hours we all spent chalking, singing and talking brought us very close to each other and helped to make last week many of our best weeks of college ever. Hands down.

I'll leave you with the pictures I took this week (this link works, sorry about that) check them out :D

Freedom, oh Freedom

There's this song I like to sing where I got the blog title from. I think it might be one I learned in Ghana way back in the day. Anyway this morning I was in an empty parking garage and I heard an echo and I thought to myself how perfect of a place this would be to sing. So I belted it out and sang my Freedom song and any hymns I could remember until my voice cracked.

I was thinking about how incredible it would be to fill a gray cement place like that, an empty parking garage or the walkways of Purdue, with loud unashamed singing. Its all part of the 'in this world but not of this world idea' to make our depressing surroundings uplifting. Shane said Mother Teresa called it finding the Calcuttas around us. Even at this university where people are for the most part provided for, the Calcutta is in their loneliness and depression. The bond that group singing makes, the community, love, and solidarity that can be felt is beyond this world.