mzungu!

Portfolio Web Site

2010-01-15T19:46:00.002-05:00

I've put together a portfolio Web site with a collection of my photography, multimedia projects and texts. I am all ears for your comments and suggestions.

Check out http://mypage.iu.edu/~anhbatch/index.htm!

Ugandan mystics

2009-10-06T21:56:00.003-04:00

When I was in Uganda, I went with a reporter to cover the 'Uganda Convention for Community Development,' a religious sect based in Kampala and often charged with witchcraft. I wrote about it earlier on my blog, but also developed my photos into an audio slideshow... Your comments most welcome!

back to the roots

2009-08-06T09:47:00.002-04:00

Even for wanderlust souls like mine, there's nothing like going home.

Home to America.
Home to New York.
Home to Rabbit College Road.

I think it's about roots, about history seeped with memories. I can have the craziest experiences abroad, chasing rhinos through the bush or photographing Congolese refugees in a narrow city alleyway, but in my 'village,' I've walked through this field a thousand times and watched that tree flower and bloom season after season. My family has tilled this rich but rocky brown earth and I have eaten its bounty.

Now instead of news about child sacrifice and sodomy charges, the headlines scream "Gladioli are back in Berlin" and "Petersburgh to get new ambulance" (front page, no joke).

It's good to be home.

Off the beaten trail: North to Karamoja

2009-07-31T02:08:00.014-04:00

Before I left for Karamoja, my friends and editors had dire warnings for me: “Be careful, it’s a war zone up there.” “They don’t wear clothes in Karamoja, you know. Are you ready?” “You’re going to Karamoja by yourself? Don’t you know how long that trip is?”

And so it was with much curiosity that I left the busy streets of Kampala on a 5am bus and set my face towards an area that was once forbidden to American citizens.

As we went further north, the food options at bus stops dwindled considerably. The chapattis disappeared, then the bananas left, followed by the gonja and maize. After Soroti, only long tubes of cassava remained, and vendors were replaced with people crowding around the bus windows begging for food or money and crying out for empty water bottles.

As the food options diminished, the landscape also changed dramatically, becoming flat and dry. Young boys walked with herds of cows on their way to protected kraals for the night. We were somewhere between Soroti and Moroto on a deserted stretch of road when the bus slowed down and stopped. The engine had overheated and everyone got off to wait for a replacement bus.

Now, I have studied what a semi-arid desert is. I have seen it on television and read about it in books. But I have never sat and waited in the short grasses, felt the ants crawl down my pants, gotten the dust in my eyes, or answered nature’s call in a semi-arid desert.

"Beauty Queen" reads the bus bumper as men crawl underneath to fix the engine.

After an hour and a half, a replacement bus can roaring down the road in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes to rescue us and take us to Kotido.

I arrived in Kotido in the late evening and the next morning we took a private car north to Kaabong town, then on to Lokwakoromai, a small Ik village. The Ik, also called the Teuso, live in small villages nestled in the mountains, their huts surrounded by a tall stick fence that is entered by one small opening. We went inside and saw short round huts to store food, women cooking on small fires, and young kids playing quietly. Everyone was extraordinarily friendly and curious about their visitors with cameras and notebooks.

When I took a picture of Komol Tubo, a woman grinding tobacco, and showed her the photo on my digital camera, her face broke into a wide grin and others gathered around, asking me to take their photos as well.

The next day in Kaabong town as I waited for a meeting to begin, I saw a small group of Karamojan in bright costumes dance down the street and proceed to the secondary school. All the sub-counties in Kaabong were gathering for a music, dance, and drama festival. Each sub-county had a representative group, most clad in colourful plaid skirts, beads bouncing on their waists and necks, whistles to direct the dance, and quick smiles.

This Karamoja “war zone” was not between raiders and soldiers but between dance troupes and drama performances. They slung beads over their shoulders instead of guns, and pounded the ground with gravity-defying jumps instead of marching steps. Their bullets were smiles and their arrows were dramatic songs as they competed in culture. The insecurity warnings I heard in Kampala felt light years away.

Back in Kotido, which now felt like a big town, I went with some friends to “sliding rock,” a giant rock slab that slanted sharply down into a pool of green-brown water. A deep but narrow path led straight down the rock, as smooth as glass after thousands of little and big bottoms slid down in glee. My friends and I put a cloth underneath us and sped down the hill, stopping just before the water as we laughed in delight. I have been sliding in snow many times, but sliding down this smooth rock was surprisingly fast and fun.

As the sun set over the low hills in the distance, two young boys climbed the rock, took off their shirts, and used them like a surfboard to cruise down the smooth rock slide. These guys kept their balance as they sped all the way to the bottom as I stared in amazement.

Instead of the insecurity, danger, and threats I expected in Karamoja, I found people working passionately for peace, people with quick laughs, beautiful clothes and beads, and people with a playful spirit despite the existing difficulties.

Beading for beauty

2009-07-30T02:52:00.005-04:00

Whistles blow, feet stomp, and an old woman jumps high into the air as a group of Karamoja people gather for a traditional dance in northeastern Uganda. Central to the atmosphere of the energetic circle are colorful beads gracing every waist, forehead, arm, and neck. In Karamoja, beads are beauty. Beads are tradition. And for Safia Nakwang, beads are livelihood.

Nakwang runs a beading shop in Kotido, where she has lived for more than 15 years after moving from Kaabong. She cannot remember when she first started beading, but says she learned it growing up. “It’s my life,” she says. “I just know it. It is a traditional thing. All young warriors how to make beads.” Villagers buy plain beads from her, but town people who don’t know how to sew the beads buy her finished products.

Nakwang’s daughter, Arupei Hindy, is eight years old and walks to her mother’s bead shop after school to make a few items. She started making the beads about a year ago and already knows many designs. Although she doesn’t get paid for her work, her beads that are sold help provide books and food for her and her siblings. “This is what they eat,” Nakwang says metaphorically.

The small shop is full of colourful necklaces, waistbands, earrings, headpieces, tablemats, and other items all carefully made from small seed beads imported from Kenya or Mbale and often sold by Somalis. When business is busy, Nakwang can hire up to 20 people, but when it is slow, she can only afford three to five beaders. Nakwang’s profit follows the seasons and provides for her, her seven children, and eight children from her deceased co-wife. “When hunger is there, nobody buys,” she says. And this year, there is hunger.

To design the beads, Nakwang says she looks for colours that match and patterns that prove popular. “It’s about just being creative. If I put this and that, it will be good,” she says as she points to a bag full of beads. If people buy a particular pattern, she makes more of it.

Some belts feature the colours of Uganda, with vibrant black, yellow and red stripes. Other belts have the black, red and green of Kenya or the red, white and black of Egypt. One large belt even features green, yellow and black with “Jamaika” spelled out in large letters.

Different tribes and clans have their own particular methods of making the bead products. The Dodoth sew the beads onto materials like plastic from jerry cans or Blue Band tubs. The Jie tend to make designs in loose strands. Some tribes form triangle patterns, while others prefer stripes.

Most people in Karamoja wear beads—at least small waist strands—every day. “Even on newborn babies they put some lines,” says Nakwang. “They cannot carry a child without the beads.” When girls are 14 or 15, she says they start wearing beads to attract men so that “the man with cows will come and carry her.”

For special occasions like weddings and dances, individuals wear a full set of beads, which includes earrings, a double necklace and a single small necklace, a head piece, a wide belt, single waist strands in solid colours, arm bands above the elbow, and leg bands on the ankle or calf.

Making the items can be quite time-consuming. Nakwang says a wide waist belt can take up to four whole days, with an entire day spent pricking the plastic bits that separate bead sections. “This work is difficult,” she says. “If you’re in a group, the work is easier. But when you’re alone, it’s tiresome.”

But the long hours pay off when dancers don the beads and display their skills. These beautiful beads capture the essence of a vibrant and proud tradition.

Let the poet come out! - The Lantern Meet of Poets

2009-07-16T05:00:00.007-04:00

On a sleepy Sunday afternoon, 30 young people pull their chairs in a large circle at the National Theatre. One man leans forward in his chair and reads a poem called “The Greatest Love Story.” People watch him quietly and listen raptly to a story about a man who tried to love a beautiful woman but wasn’t satisfied.

Mouths drop open in shock as he reads the last line: “He concluded he preferred someone similar to him. / He preferred his own sex.”

This is a meeting of the Lantern Meet of Poets, and the author of this poem, Esther Semakula, says she wrote the poem to play with people’s expectations. “I’m a person who loves to dwell on controversial things,” she says. “Poetry is an expression of people’s thoughts and feelings.”

The Lantern Meet of Poets began meeting in April 2007 with four poets who were passionate about raising the level of writing in Uganda and restoring the value of writers. Now their membership numbers over 60 young poets from different walks of life, and more keep coming every meet.

For the bimonthly meetings, poets bring original poems either based on a theme like identity, love, poverty, or war; or based on a specific structure like sonnets, metaphorical poems, or a specific rhyming scheme. The poems are mixed up and passed out to readers anonymously. A reader recites the poem while the others listen carefully, they critique it with detailed comments, then the moderator asks the poet to come out, and he or she makes final comments on the piece.

“There’s a tendency to be soft on yourself,” says member Gome Emmanuel. “Critique helps you to grow as a writer.” Gome started coming to the meets two years ago and is now a core member. “My poetry has grown,” he says. “I’ve learned to challenge myself. It’s like a crucible—forcing you to get the best out of yourself.”

Peter Kagayi joined the group six months ago and also says his poetry has changed by “leaps and bounds” since then. Before, the only audience for his writing was his family. He had no other avenue. But now he realizes how much he loves poetry. “I understand poetry. It was a hidden talent,” he says. “From that day I’ve never missed a single meet.”

But it’s not just the poetry that changes. Members say writing and reading poetry together also affects their personal beliefs. “When we come and talk about it, my mind is affected and I change the way I think,” says Kagayi. “There’s this general aura of acceptance.” Semakula adds that the meeting on Sunday opened her eyes to different perspectives on the topic sex and sexuality. “It is sex, but we all perceive it in so many different ways,” she explains.

When members bring up harsh critiques, they are able to separate the content of the poem and its stylistic attributes. “I think I like it,” says one member. “It makes all the senses come alive.” Another adds, “The author is writing from very powerful Greek illusions that give it that epic, ancient feel.” Some talk about the structure of the poem while others consider how the audience will react to the work.

The Lantern Meet of Poets occasionally takes its work beyond the Sunday circle of chairs. They are compiling an anthology of their best poems that they hope to publish within a year at a major publishing house. They hope to reach out to schools with poetry workshops and public readings. They also hold free recitals for the public at the National Theatre.

The recitals highlight the best work of these young poets, and show us all that, as Gome says, “Poetry is the thing of the future.”

Land eviction

2009-07-13T09:47:00.003-04:00

This is Atono Lovince. Her husband died in 2003, leaving her with six children. She lives in a Kampala suburb and had a small store to sell small fruits, vegetables, airtime, biscuits, etc. The problem is, a developer claims that he owns the right to the land she rents. They gave her about $35 to move, but that's not enough, so she stayed. Last night a group of armed men came at midnight. They broke into her store, beat up her children, stole all the goods, broke down the walls, and told her she has to get out now.

"Pray for me because now I have nothing," she said.

They say you can't understand someone's situation until you've walked in their shoes. But what if they don't have shoes?

Dancing away the pain: refugees sing their stories

2009-07-08T07:30:00.000-04:00

In the midst of heart-breaking stories and difficult journeys, music, dance and drama often bubble to the surface in Kyaka II refugee camp. A woman walking down a red dirt road bursts into song in the morning mist. A young woman pounding papyrus keeps the beat with a simple melody. And a group of Congolese men and women gather under a simple shelter to sing and dance their experiences.

This is the Amakemi group, which means “rise up” in Swahili. As a crowd of elderly, young girls, men and women of all ages gather under the shade of trees to listen, the 10 members of the group sing “we are refugees, we have problems. In Africa, people are suffering.”

Charlotte Burungi, the leader of the group, lifts her hands in the air as they continue the song to the beat of a single drum: “We are asking all people to pray so war and torturing is stopped and refugees can return to their motherland.”

Burungi, mother of four children at age 26, fled Congo six years ago after rebels came to her village, burned houses, and slaughtered her neighbors. She began singing when she was six years old, and sang in a church choir in Congo. Although her entire life has been uprooted, she holds onto song and dance.

“When I’m singing, I’m happy,” she says with a slight smile. “But sometimes I’m sad because it reminds us of what’s still happening in Congo.”

The Amakemi group, founded two years ago, composes their own music and centers the lyrics around love. Because war is caused by lack of love, they say, they use their songs to ask people to love each other. If you love, Amakemi sings, you can’t steal, you can’t kill, and you will always have friends. They sing about change, asking their rapt listeners to leave their old violent ways and forget revenge.

This is not the only music and dance group in the camp. Travel along the bumpy red dirt roads, through many green gardens, and past mud huts with plastic and grass roofs, and the Buliti Drama Group comes into sight.

Three young men vigorously beat drums in the centre of a circle of colourfully-clothed women. The women dance around the circle with banana leaves strapped to their waists, stamping their feet, singing with strong voices, and calling out “ai-i-i-i-i-i-!” Babies strapped to some of their backs bounce along with the dance, young children run in and out of the circle as they also play with sticks and tire rims, and men fall in and out of the circle.

Like the Amakemi group, these Congolese are singing about their troubles in Congo, but how happy they are to be in the refugee camp now. They feel peaceful and happy in the camp and are grateful to be there.

The leader is Love, a 42-year-old woman who explains that the group sings and dances together every week for over an hour. Most of them have been in Kyaka for four or five years, and they are not yet ready to return to Congo because the land is still unsettled. They feel good and happy when they sing and dance, she says. It gives them a space to express their joint experiences as refugees. They don’t listen to other kinds of music, because this traditional music is an integral part of their identity. It is a place to show their gratitude, express their emotions, and share their experiences.

So as babies bounce to their mothers’ dances in Buliti Drama Group, and as young and old gather together under the trees to listen to Amakemi, the music and dance in Kyaka refugee camp—a place for the homeless and rejected—rings out loud and clear.

Milégé Afro Jazz Band: Proud to sound Ugandan

2009-07-08T02:38:00.000-04:00

Seven young new faces graced the stage at the Bayimba Festival this year under the banner of Milégé Afro Jazz Band. With an energy that pulled the crowd to its feet, the band filled the air with African pulses, jazz chords, and a fusion of Ugandan sounds.

This is what they call “Afro-traditional music with a bias to jazz,” says manager and guitarist Manana Birabi Francis. “It has the basics of jazz music, but you feel the influence of our Africanness, our African cultural sounds.”

The band’s name “Milégé” comes from an ankle rattle from the Luo people. The band centers their sound on this bell-like and airy sound from the north, but adds in jazz elements and other Ugandan sounds.

Humble beginnings
Milégé is a new group still planning the path before them. It all started when Francis caught a “crazy obsession with guitar,” he explains. After performing with only basic chords in a festival, he says, “I got this interest in music, and I started playing every day of my life, up until now.” Friends gave him tips, he watched shows, joined a church band, and practiced obsessively. Little lessons every day culminated to substantial growth each year, and he began playing in various bands.

But the life of a musician is not an easy one, and he found a cold shoulder from professional groups. He spoke with three other friends who had similar experiences, and they decided to form their own ensemble. Together as partners, they found the freedom to play whatever music they like and make their own rules.

“I’ve found a home in the band,” says Francis. “It’s not just a band. It’s family. It’s not just playing music or making money. We believe in cultivating good relationships amongst each other as a band.”

The four partners spent two months talking through the details and laying the groundwork for Milégé Afro Jazz Band. Although the original vision was for an all-girls band, Francis found that women instrumentalists were not easy to find. The four formed a structure that allowed for new members to join and work their way into the band based on their level of commitment and dedication. They talked through the importance of maintaining family relationships and allowing absences due to family functions. They discussed how to minimize discrimination so that everyone has an equal chance.

They all agreed that they wanted Milégé to be one band and one brand. Instead of being centered around a vocalist and pulling in instrumentalists from other bands, guitarist Elaine Alowo Obbo explains that they “came up with a structure to build a brand and a product, to grow as a family.” They are more than individual musicians who happen to play on the same stage; they are a partnership, a band as a single entity.

At the same time, they make sure that members can pursue their own professions in order to support themselves outside of the band. “We have to hold on to our professions so we can determine what kind of music to play,” Elaine says. They did not want the pressure of the market to mold them into a particular genre.

Instead of being a weakness, the band’s side jobs have become a strength. Elaine, a lawyer for Shonubi Musoki & Co., develops the band’s contracts. Dinah Oundo, studying commerce and ACCA, organizes the band’s finance and accounts. Assimwe Paul, studying fine art, develops the band’s media and brand management. Their individual talents work together as a single unit.

The sound
Milégé Afro Jazz Band is after a new, creative sound. They compose their own pieces, slowly working through new combinations—jazz piano solo first, perhaps some vocal improvisation, Muganda drumming next, or maybe a bass solo before that—blending together each member’s unique contributions. Elaine says it’s like baking a cookie. “Everyone has this cookie that they can make,” she says. “And they all have these special ingredients that they bring. Everybody just puts your special ingredient in the pot.” The resulting pieces are infused with jazz, African rhythms, Ugandan languages, and an improvisational feel.

Their musical influences range from Geoffrey Oryeem to Hugh Maseka, Jonathan Butler, Soul Beat, and Erik Clapton. Above all, they want to create a change and show people the pride and beauty of Ugandan sounds.

“We want to create a change,” says Elaine. “For Ugandans to sing and be proud to sound Ugandan. Why aren’t we proud to sell that sound to the world? We need to do that.”

Herman Ssewanyana, the founder of African fusion band Percussion Discussion, says there are challenges for new bands to “do more for the world to understand,” but he says that Ugandans should get to hear jazz and listen to original music. “I support Milégé, and I’d like them to go far,” he says.

Milégé Afro Jazz Band may be just getting their feet wet in the East African musical community, but if the Bayimba Festival is any indicator, they are one band that will rock the music scene and push creative Ugandan fusion music to new heights.

Four wheels, no gas, and ruts galore

2009-07-06T05:05:00.001-04:00

Every day I take at least four matatus—15-passenger vans/taxis that often squeeze in 20 people on the bench seat—from home in Kanyanya to work in Namuwongo. It’s about an 80 minute commute in the morning, and up to 100 minute commute on the way home, depending on the traffic jams. So in that time, there’s a lot that can happen. Like…

--I was riding home one night when we hit a rut or something and ka-THUNK! it sounds like the floor dropped out of the matatu. The conductor was concerned, and you know when he’s concerned, that’s trouble. We limped back to the road under a warning—mpola, mpola (slowly, slowly). I thought surely we would stop for a fix-it job, but we continued on the main road with the floor rattling like hell underneath. I laughed with the others as we all rolled our eyes.

--One afternoon I was in a taxi with some friends. We were going along fine when the driver pulled over and stopped. No one was getting out, but the conductor pulled half a water bottle out of a little hole in the floor, walked back and stuck it in the gas task, then opened the back of the taxi and brought out a yellow jerry can of gas. He poured the gas through the water bottle funnel, put it all back, and off we went again.

--Late one evening I was riding a boda boda (motorcycle taxi which I ride frequently), going up a hill, when we started slowing down and finally came to a stop. It was dark and on a quiet stretch of road, and I didn’t know what was going on. The driver unscrewed the gas tank and peeped in. He jiggled the bike some and tried to start it up again. No luck. Then he asked me to get off. He laid the bike on its side and jostled it around, trying to get the last drips of gas. After righting it, we both got on, it started flawlessly, and we were off again. Perfect.

The commute is quite exhausting, but I do see a lot of LIFE happen as we go by. I can’t read because the roads are too bumpy, so I look out the window at little kids brushing their teeth, men selling chapatti at little tables by the road, and women sweeping the dust out of their yards.

Tales from a refugee camp

2009-07-06T04:44:00.002-04:00

Last week I traveled to a refugee camp in western Uganda with a reporter. We were there to document "MakaPads," a project of refugees that makes sanitary pads from all-natural materials for women in the camps. I took over 700 photos in two days, and was overwhelmed with stories from people we met. These are not easy, light stories either.

Ibrahim is from Congo. He fled from the war after his father, mother, and whole family was killed. He’s been in the camp for five years now, and has no plans to return home since Congo is still conflict-ridden. He’s trained as a carpenter, but there’s no market for expensive furniture in a refugee camp, and no jobs outside. He used to dig a garden to keep his wife and child fed, but the school fees he’d like to complete his secondary education are just not attainable. Now he’s working at MakaPads, but that doesn’t pay particularly well.

Then there’s the family of Rwandan refugees who were just leaving the camp to be repatriated in Rwanda. They were going through medical checks and loading their few possessions into a huge UNHCR truck. The prime minister recently gave an ultimatum for all Rwandan refugees to return to their homeland by July 31. Last chance, people. But they’ve been here since the genocide in 1994 and have built up their lives on the fertile soil of Western Uganda. Fifteen years away from your land in such a small country as Rwanda, who knows if you’ll be able to reclaim the land you had before? And last time you were there, your tribe was hacking to death thousands of people with pangas (machetes)… Now the victims are in power, seeking justice, maybe revenge, and will be your neighbors.

And there’s Love, an older Congolese refugee who’s the leader of a music and dance troupe. She composed the songs they danced for us last week, singing about the horrors of Congo and how grateful they are to be in this peaceful land where they can settle and dig.

I’ve heard stories like these before, but the thing is, I’ve never shaken their hands or danced and laughed with them. I’ve never looked the 20,000 refugees in this one camp in the eye and asked if they have a family here. Or, had. And I’ve never walked the red dirt roads of a refugee camp, breathed in the dust, and seen the mud and wood houses. I’ve never eaten their food and pooped in their latrines.

It’s strange to be in the midst of the camp, hearing all these stories, with my snazzy camera, little notebook and pen that jots down names and observations, and my tidy attire. Because at the end of the day, I can drive away and return to the land of freedom, of choice. I go back to a hotel with electricity and choice of clothes for tomorrow. Then at the end of this month, I'm going to fly away to a land that is an utmost dream for so many here, and I can struggle with a decision to go for a PhD or get a job writing about music in the city of my choosing.

I think freedom is really about choice. I’m grateful for this freedom. I truly am. I’m not going to ditch my degree and go live in Kyaka refugee camp in order to identify with these people. No. But I am going to use my skills and freedoms for others, to help others. I don’t know how, but I’m going to start by taking good pictures that tell the stories well, and writing interesting stories that convey the dignity of the people.

[Pictures coming once I sort them all out!]

Sculptural Expressions on HIV/AIDS

2009-07-02T10:53:00.003-04:00

Dr. Lilian Nabulime has been creating art every since she was a young girl, studying sculpture, drawing and painting from primary school all the way to a PhD at the University of Newcastle in the UK. Her exhibition Sculptural Expressions: Women and HIV/AIDS is on display at the Makerere Fine Arts Gallery from May 19 until July 31. I interviewed her about the driving force behind her artwork and what alights her passions.

What inspires your art?
It is the interest. I love sculpture. I love modeling. I love using my hands, to touch, to feel. I think I enjoy coming up with new ideas, transforming them. I really like that. I enjoy doing things. Even when there are challenges, then that helps me find out ways to overcome them.

What drives your theme for this exhibit?
I think at one time I was going through an experience. I was sad. When I went to Newcastle University, the first thing I said was, ‘let me read about men and HIV/AIDS.’ And when I read about men and HIV/AIDS, I realized I had been affected. My husband had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1998, and then it was tough caring for him. He was in denial. It was tough. And then I remember seeking help and I wasn’t getting the right help. I realized it was our own problem, me and him. No one would come out and help us...

So I thought let me do my research on women and HIV/AIDS and infections, to develop sculpture that could warm women on HIV/AIDS infections and encourage them to talk to avoid becoming victims. Or even if they are not infected, at least to warn their children. There is need for mothers to know how to bring up this subject to their children. It’s not easy to talk about such issues with children. So I thought it would be good to develop sculptures that would encourage women to talk.

What challenges do you face as an artist in Uganda?
This is the first time I’m exposing my work. When I was developing my research, because it was people living with HIV/AIDS and the vulnerable and poor people, they were very receptive. But the ones who are educated, I think they feel shy. They are not very receptive like the other group of people. Either they are shy or they just don’t feel like talking. Most of my subjects are very direct, regarding infection. And as a taboo, people don’t find it very comfortable to talk, to discuss. But at the same time the work is interesting, so by the time you’re drawn into it, you enjoy the work, and afterwards you realize you’re on subjects which are not easy to talk about.

What’s the future of HIV/AIDS in Uganda?
I think you keep on wondering why these infections are going on, are increasing. For me, it is having direct messages and being open and frank. Why don’t you come with the direct messages which show the reality of HIV/AIDS? So that people are threatened and reminded that this is a killer disease. People need strong messages which hit them right up and they see this is a destructive disease.

What life lessons have you learned as an artist?
Through art you can express your feelings, and through art you can touch other people’s lives. People don’t necessarily have to be educated. Once the work object is there and if it is attractive, it draws in people and they start asking questions. As they are asking, the information is being passed on and they are also giving you ideas. So it is not a one-way track.

You are able to learn about other people’s lives and experiences. And for me, I was able to learn about lives and experiences of vulnerable people, and especially those who have been infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Through my art I was able to draw feelings and experiences of these people’s experiences, and that also made my work become stronger.

Even when I was in the UK, much as I had the influence of Western artists, but inside me, still I knew I was doing the work for the African. I was carrying my cultural knowledge and beliefs within the work I was doing. So much as I was getting those ideas, I still had to add on my African cultures because I knew the work was for Africans.

What’s in your future?
I still have an obligation. Because when I was doing that research, I realized the women were poor. Without fighting poverty, HIV cannot end. If women are poor, they will still be exposed to the vulnerable factors…

All I know is I have to give something to the women I did research with. Because they talk about their children--they worry too much about their children, their school fees. So honestly, I feel that it’s not right if I’m selling and I don’t remember their problems. And at the same time they also made contributions to my research. So I can give back when I sell some of my work.

[I'm having trouble uploading photos, but there are some of Dr. Nabulime in the slideshow to the left.]

Jjaja Ndawula sect

2009-06-17T02:52:00.008-04:00

The Uganda Convention for Community Development may seem like another nongovernmental organization at first glance. They have a school for the community, women who sew uniforms for the children, a community bank, a hospital, training sessions to learn math and science, and a large security business.

But ask a few questions and a deeper spiritual force rises to the surface. These are the followers of Jjaja Ndawula, a spirit who has shown its followers a new way: a path of miraculous healing, religious rituals, and intellectual empowerment.

“Most people come when they’re sick, then they’re mad,” says follower Roushitrah Matovu. “When you pray, he heals our sickness… The messenger of God may come in different forms. For us we combine and say they are all spirits. We understand what’s good.”

Below are pictures of the community base in Kampala where there are small shrines, training centers, and housing. There are also pictures from “Maureen City,” a compound a bumpy half hour’s drive out of the city, where followers of the sect gather every Monday evening for an all-night ceremony at the large central shrine.

[Note: This story is a work in progress and will be published in the Monitor when completed. I’m working with another journalist who is doing most of the story, while I do the photos. Please click here to be directed to the Picasa site for photo captions.]

media, representation, and bazungu

2009-06-16T08:48:00.003-04:00

My last blog entry was actually written for a column in the Daily Monitor. It was published on their Web site and got a few interesting comments. This one from "Nyanzi" is my favorite:

"A mzungu taking pictures in Africa means that he or she is going to report negatives,lies about Africa.That has been the order of the the day ever since.No wonder people do not want that no more.
With your experience, do we have any thing good in Africa?.
-Do Africans laugh?
-Do Africans have names?
-Do Africans reason?
Africa deserves a better represantation."

This comment expresses a prevailing attitude that I've heard a number of times. The media that is given to Western [read mzungu] audiences often portrays the starving, nameless African child or the widow dying of AIDS or the mobs of angry black men killing each other with machetes.

This is precisely one of the reasons I'm studying journalism. Journalists are mediators, as an elderly man told me yesterday, and I want to illustrate a different side of Africa. When I'm here, I know there is poverty and corruption and all that, but I don't see it in the people around me. I see smiles. I hear joking. I meet passionate people who are striving to report the truth and work for peace.

Yes, Africans laugh. A lot.
Yes, Africans have names. Awesome ones.
Yes, Africans reason. Reason with intellect and passion.

And yes, Africa deserves better representation.

Ugandan Martyrs' Day

2009-06-04T07:43:00.002-04:00

Prelude: Thousands of Ugandans gathered in Namugongo, Kampala yesterday in commemoration of Martyrs' Day, a public holiday that remembers the death of 26 Christians killed in 1886. Pilgrims from across the country and surrounding nations convened for Catholic and Protestant services, many of them walking from faraway towns in solidarity with the sufferings the martyrs endured. The services featured choirs, dancing, prayers, serving Holy Communion and a speech by President Museveni.
----------------------
The Daily Monitor team arrived in Namugongo in the morning, ready to face the crowds. As a photographer for the paper, my task was to capture the festival of senses that lay outside the security gates of the official services.

Looking around me, this first seemed like a daunting request. The roads were packed with pilgrims on their way to the shrine and it was difficult to walk through the crowds. I spotted a man making rolexes (fried egg rolled in a chapatti), which seemed to be a good place to start. Once I made my way over to him, I held up my camera and started to take photos.

But the man and his friend started waving their hands and complaining about the camera. Who was this mzungu?, this white person, they wondered, and where will she take our faces? I was surprised at their reaction, but explained that I’m a journalist. Yes, I’m a mzungu. And yes, I work for the Daily Monitor. They suddenly relaxed and smiled, telling that me I could take any pictures I wanted. Another vendor nearby overheard our conversation and asked me to take photos there too.

I do not know what negative experiences people have had with mzungus taking pictures, but I quickly learned that clipping a big red sign that read “PRESS” to the front of my bag made people relax and welcome my camera aimed at them.

The variety of food vendors and hawkers was truly amazing. There were people selling Martyrs’ Day calendars, crosses, DVDs, books, clothes, fabric, toy bikes, paintings, chapattis, fried white ants, pineapples, mangos, bananas, piles of sugar cane, pork, ice cream, watches, bags and so much more. It was as if the streets of Namugongo turned into a giant market, a carnival of delights.

In the midst of the chaos, I saw a small crowd gathered around a man who, I was told, was performing miracles. He had a stick on fire that he stuck down his pants, put in his mouth and touched with his bare hands. Miracles! He also performed a trick on an envelope and paper with much drama and waving, proving to the growing crowd that he had special powers. A man selling photographs, who introduced himself as John, thanked me the mzungu for being there and wanted me to stay. “When the people see you,” he said, “they are like, ‘eh! Wow!’ So stay around because we are making money.”

Indeed, everywhere I went the crowd seemed to grow bigger. I stepped inside a tent where there was music and soon there were many more people inside. I stopped at a cell phone tent to take pictures of a woman dancing, and when I looked behind me there was a circle of young people watching us. As a mzungu, it is impossible to disappear in a crowd. You always feel like people are watching you, because they are.

Over the buzz of the crowd I picked out a familiar melody that reminded me of the US. It came from an ice cream bicycle, and I could sing along: “Santa Claus is coming to town.” In the middle of the Martyrs’ Day crowd, in the middle of Kampala, in the middle of Africa, these Christmas medleys seemed both out of place and strangely familiar and comfortable. I stopped, raised my camera, and clicked the shutter.

Story in the Indiana Daily Student
Daily Monitor coverage
Daily Monitor

The King and I

2009-06-02T10:24:00.003-04:00

Today I met the king of Busoga, one of the kingdoms in Uganda. At least, he claimed to be the king. Sadat Nkuutu is only 13 years old and still speaks with a high voice. I asked him why he wants to be king.

"Why do I want to be a king?" he asked, surprised. "Because I am a king."

How do you know you are a king?

"Kings have to be born with two umbilical cords and the millet seeds."

Millet seeds?, I asked, getting back "duh" stares. Apparently kings are born with millet seeds in both hands. The father of the "king" was also there and even produced two dried-out umbilical cords. Proof!

But there is opposition to the king in Busoga, with others also claiming royalty. "I don't know what will be done," Nkuutu said. "Justice will be done."

Today I also photographed the Minister for Relief Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, and met the ambassadors of Egypt, Sudan, Algeria and Burundi. Tomorrow is a huge public holiday -- Martyrs Day. More to come!

mzungu-land

2009-05-31T10:10:00.002-04:00

I was walking home the other day, up a hill in the suburbs of Kampala, when some kids spotted me. They started chanting together, "mzungu, mzungu, mzungu!" [white person]

Me: "Siri mzungu. Mzungu ali wa?" [I'm not a mzungu. Where is the mzungu?]
Kids: "Mzungu?" ... confused looks.
Me: "Siri mzungu. Nze Anna." [I'm not a mzungu. I'm Anna.]
Kids, chanting again: "Anna, bye-i, bye-i Anna!"

I walked on with a smile. These kids are cute, but imagine this kind of conversation (mzungu!) happening countless times every day, almost everywhere I walk. The anonyminity that one might expect in cities has evaporated into cries of mzungu!

But my Luganda language skills are coming back and it's fun to surprise people with the little that I know. These kinds of random conversation, while sometimes frustrating, make every day an adventure. I never know what's around the corner (literally -- could be cows in the road or burning tires or a roadside markets).

I begin work at the Daily Monitor newspaper tomorrow morning and am really excited. More to come!

shifting gears

2009-05-22T10:46:00.001-04:00

You may notice some changes to this blog. Instead of starting an entirely new site, I’m switching gears on this one as I head to Uganda for an internship at the Daily Monitor newspaper. I plan to update this blog with stories I write for the paper as well as with experiences of daily life.

I lived in Uganda in 2006, so I’m excited to return, see my dear friends again, and see how Kampala has changed in my absence. More coming…

Snapshot of Little 5 crazies

2009-04-27T16:20:00.008-04:00

This past weekend I shot DJ and rapper Fatman Scoop at Jake's Nightclub in downtown Bloomington. Shot in the photographic sense of the word, of course, for the Indiana Daily Student. It was the end of Little 500 week, when the campus is basically wasted the entire week in the name of a bicycle race.

When I first biked over at 11:30 p.m., it was far too early and the place could have been a graveyard. I biked home, worked on a paper for an hour, and when I biked back the mood was picking up a bit.

I walked around outside, shooting the lines at Kilroy's Sports Bar that wrapped around the corner and disappeared down the alley. I shot the line of students at the ATM across the street. I shot the police cars outside the bar, and a policeman helping some girl whose foot was bleeding.

"Are you a photographer?" a girl asked as she stumbled into me. "Who are you shooting for? I'm a journalism major, ahahaha." I gave her a look that said, "I don't want to talk with you," and she teetered away. I turned to shoot a street vendor selling hot dogs.

I went back to Jake's in hopes that Fatman would be doing his thing so I could shoot him and go home. The first thing he said to announce his presence was, "This looks like a motherfuckin high school party. None of you fuckers are dancing. And turn the damn light off - no one wants to see me." Oh shat, I do! Have a little love for photographers.

Then the music kicked up a notch, I gave thanks to the Lord Almighty for my earplugs, and Fatman was rapping, "Put your hands in the air, motherfuckers. Put your hands in the air, motherfuckers." The place throbbed with the beat, with undergrads grinding into each other, with beer spilling onto my sandals. I put my eye to the box of my viewfinder and tried to coax my camera into focusing despite the flashing lights and jostles. I shot what I needed, then headed back into the warm night to take a shower and go to bed like the old grad student that I am.

People thought I was crazy to sign up for this event. "How'd you get into that gig?," a friend asked. I wonder the same myself. I think it's the same reason I'm addicted to traveling and put myself in all kinds of new and awkward situations. It's about the experience. It's about the awkwardess and seeing, feeling and breathing someone else's world. Call me crazy, but I love this stuff. I thrive on awkwardness. I laugh when I'm uncomfortable. And I put my motherlovin hands in the air.

meanwhile...

2009-03-29T22:17:00.002-04:00

This blog has lain dormant for over a month, an unfortunate demise due to living a full grad school life. Here's some of what I've been up to...

A video on Hungarian Dance that I shot and edited
An article on an ethnomusicology professor for the Indiana Daily Student
Some photography for IDS (my photo)
An article on honors for local Bloomington women
A short article on Earth Hour

And the return of Xiaoshi Wei and the Jagermeisters!

"Elenore" (The Turtles)

"Toxic / Womanizer" (the one & only B.S.)

"Don't You Want Me" (The Human League)

"How Bizarre" (OMC)
(coming soon)

on museums that live & breathe (or used to)

2009-02-20T09:56:00.003-05:00

(I wrote this piece--a "museum feature"--for a journalism class, but in an effort to write for more than my professor and a grade, I thought it could also make good blog material. You have the right to be offended at this article. Your comments most welcome.)

----

One summer during college I lived in a tiny village on a small river in Papua New Guinea, just north of Australia. There was no running water or electricity, but there was a lot of life. Games and music, food and laughter abounded. I learned about the “garamut,” a huge wooden slit-log drum that sent its resounding beats over the river’s surface to far-off huts, sending messages through specific rhythms.

That experience was about four years ago, so I was excited when I learned that Indiana University’s art museum has a South Pacific gallery. I went eagerly, anticipating that the art would evoke memories long buried.

I was not disappointed. As soon as I walked in the exhibit (and after the guard scolded me for having a backpack and writing with a pen), my eyes spotted a huge garamut. “Papua New Guinea, Murik peoples,” its placard read. “Slit gong. Wood, traces of pigment.” I could imagine its huge low sound carry over the waters. But here in the museum, it was silent and looked sad, its wood cracked and voice gagged.

That instrument used to be alive, but now it is an object of curiosity for the majority of visitors.

Feigning ignorance, I asked the gallery guard if he knew anything about it. “It sounds good,” he said. How does he know that? “I caught a few people playing.” Caught them and scolded them. This is an object of curiosity, remember? It’s a museum piece, not an instrument to send messages.

As I continued on through the gallery, my feelings of discontinuity increased. Those pieces were made by villagers for daily use—for games and music, food and even sacred rituals. And there in the museum they were caged behind glass walls with no indication of how they lived and breathed in their original contexts. When you change the context, the meaning and value of a piece shifts radically. The articles become authoritative and stuck in time, as if those earrings were “the” jewelry in the Solomon Islands in the 19th century.

I came across a “figure for a sacred flute” from Papua New Guinea. When I was in the village, flutes were sacred instruments, only played by men, and usually taken out at night in the cover of darkness. Played in pairs of five or six, they had an ethereal sound that my western-trained musical ears never completely understood. They were mysterious and sacred. And there in the museum, bright lights exposed the mystery and cast away the sacredness. “Figure for a sacred flute,” visitors read as they pass by.

I also passed by, my heart getting heavier, and found a placard that read, “Alamblak people, Kariwari River.” Alamblak! Those are my friends! I still remember the Alamblak-language greetings. I lived on the Kariwari River. The “war and hunting spirit figure” looked familiar with its smooth carving and pointed features. A friend had given me a similar object when I left the village. There, those objects are actually used. And here in Indiana, they are behind glass.

I left the gallery with mixed emotions. I am glad that visitors can be exposed to other cultures and their objects. Yet when those pieces are behind glass panels with no contextual information to inform the visitor, they become “artifacts” and “objects” instead of necessary tools. They become secular and exposed instead of sacred and hidden. They become silenced instead of booming over the waters.

If you go to this exhibit, please learn about the culture at least a little first. Please take your time and imagine those artifacts in their place of origin. Close your eyes and listen for the garamut’s low beats pulsing across the river, sending messages that the “waitskins,” the anthropologists, were on their way to collect artifacts for the world to see.

On lingo gibberish and plain English

2009-01-28T17:52:00.000-05:00

Every discipline has its own lingo, its own private language. There is ethnomusicologish, folklorese, birdlish (just ask my sister), Christianese, and so on. It takes a certain insider’s knowledge to follow the conversation and contribute to it. I can talk about emic and etic, transcription of pentatonic scales, and the differences between “the public,” “a public” and “publics,” but not communicate anything at all to my sister. She, in the meantime, can talk about twitching her nemesis the BUOR and talk on while I'm completely lost. Likewise, Christians have their own catch phrases like being “sanctified by the blood of Christ” and “listening to the spirit to discern answers to prayer.” These lingos are gibberish to someone unfamiliar with the discipline or the faith.

In-grown lingos are not a bad thing. In fact, they are quite necessary and come in great use when, say, ethnomusicologists are talking to each at a conference or in class, or when birders meet together for a 24-hour birding survey. There’s a certain comradeship that comes in speaking a lingo learned through the hard work of reading disciplinary histories and theories and spending time with the people you enjoy being with.

However. There is also a danger involved in the insular nature of these lingos. The lingo can be a crutch for a concept that isn’t actually understood. When the time comes to talk to an Outsider about your passions, you’re left with unintelligible phrases and theories that you can’t distill into plain English.

Say I’m doing a research project and want to ask a question that will address a complex theory. Do I understand ethnomusicologish well enough to ask it in plain English? The danger of lingos is that they can leave us (ok, at least this happens to me) stammering for another way to explain complex esoteric issues we don’t actually understand in the first place.

Then try explaining it to someone who’s just learning English. I was constantly confronted with this in Vietnam. If I used those big words that sound so impressive, all I’d get back would be stares and more questions. How do you explain something like “atonement”? I found that I didn’t actually understand it myself. Ouch.

If we don’t truly understand the language, it’s pretty easy to fake it within the in-group. When I talked with people in Vietnamese, I found I could keep a conversation up pretty well by just repeating the last few words of what someone told me.
Friend: “The market is just up the road to the right, after the light.”
To myself: “I didn’t understand a word of that.”
Out loud: “Oh ok, after the light.”
And, done.

But the trouble came when I was asked to explain something in my own words. In Vietnam, this came with questions.
Friend: “Do you know what’s to the right?”
To myself: “Uh-oh, that sounds like a question that needs a response.”
Out loud: “No, but I’d like to know where the market is.”
And then a look of confusion.
To myself: “Oh crap, wrong answer.”
Out loud: “I mean, yes, I know, thanks for your help.”

I’m drawn to journalism (and fieldwork) because it challenges me to write (and, therefore, to think) in plain English. It forces me to write articles and reviews in ways that avoids the in-grown language of my disciplines. To do that, I cannot pretend like I understand. I actually have to get inside the theories well enough to explain them simply.

I could go off on a rant on the writing style of academics who don’t seem to know the difference between their lingo and "plain English," but I’m afraid I sometimes do the same myself. Like this blog post, which upon re-reading seems a bit academic itself. Did you, my dear reader, even make it this far?

2008 in Review: A Year in Pictures

2009-01-10T16:46:00.000-05:00

2008 was quite the year, full of new experiences, travel, challenges, goofy fun, and big transitions. I started it living in Hanoi and ended in Bloomington, but there was a whole lot of living in between. Enjoy this selection of pictures!

JANUARY

Working on a photography exhibition at Action for the City, the creative urban living organization I worked for in Hanoi.

After my knee finally healed, I couldn’t be happier to be back on my bike, even in crazy Hanoi traffic.

FEBRUARY

Tết is the biggest holiday of the year and is like three American holidays put together. Here’s my wonderful host family (minus Em Thuy, who is driving me on a motorbike) on our way to an extended family gathering.

Tết is all about getting together with friends and family and, therefore, eating a lot. My good friend Cường invited me to his countryside home.

MARCH

Taking lessons on the Vietnamese flute was challenging but really fun, especially when I got to play along with other superb musicians.

Naps after lunch are a wonderful, wonderful Vietnamese tradition. Here are my MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) mat buddies!

APRIL

My mom and dad came to Viet Nam for a visit and braved the traffic on bikes! We visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, where his (real) body is on display.
Hanoi International Church had a women’s retreat in a beautiful town outside of Ha Noi. It was so good to play flute.

MAY

Laos was an amazing, beautiful country that I highly recommend for anyone traveling to SE Asia. Thank you MCC for sending us on a retreat there!
23rd birthday party with many dear friends at my host family’s home.

JUNE

The beauty of Sa Pa, in northern Viet Nam, rendered me speechless. I traveled there for a few days with some dear friends.
My lovely host sisters at an aquarium in Nha Trang.

JULY

Back on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, where everything you need to know about life can be learned on a sailboat.
Friends old and new in Liverpool.

AUGUST

The Batcheller cousins with grandparents. Long Island, New York.
The Bloomington, IN move-in squad. Ready for grad school!

SEPTEMBER

The first-year MA and PhD students in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. The School of Journalism is much bigger, and it’s fun being a part of both groups.
Kneeling together in prayer at Bethel AME Church, where I’ve been going to services.

OCTOBER

There’s a group that contradances every Wednesday night. “Swing your partner, allemande your neighbor, and do-si-do!"
The band Funkadesi performed at Bloomington’s Lotus World Music Festival. I helped work backstage.

NOVEMBER

I did a photojournalism project with a woman who teaches old-time square and line dancing in public schools in Indianapolis.
A fun reunion with Wheaton HNGR housemates in Portland, Orgeon for Thanksgiving.

DECEMBER

This Christmas was quite different from my last one in Hanoi! Here, making gingerbread cookies with my niece Lily.
The whole family together for Christmas!

ethno what?

2008-12-07T09:44:00.000-05:00

When meeting new people, I often have a conversation something like this:

NP: Oh, you're a grad student! What are you studying?
AB: I'm doing a dual master's in journalism and ethnomusicology [always "journalism" first so people get through that before being tripped up].
NP: Ethno... what?
AB: Ethno.music.ology. It's like a combination of music and anthropology.
NP: Right, anthropolani.
AB: Um, like the study of music in culture.
NP: Oh, ok. And journalism. Well that's an... interesting... combination. What do you plan to do with that?
AB: Well [see previous blog post], I'll find out in three years...

It's a peculiar feeling to devote myself to a discipline (or idea) that most people have never heard of before. They can't say, "Right on, ethnomusicology. My great aunt Bertha was a ethnomusicologist. One day she..."

It's even more disconcerting when that discipline doesn't even know what to call itself. I just read an article titled, "Ethnomusicology, Alterity, and Disciplinary Identity; or, 'Do We Still Need an Ethno-?' 'Do We Still Need an -ology?'" Scholars say maybe we're actually all musicologists. Or maybe we truly belong in anthropology. Or maybe just "music scholars." I wrote in the margins, "And we take ourselves way too seriously." Some of this writing is so convoluted it's like reading words through the church potluck fruit Jell-O. If I ever wrote like that for a newspaper article, I think I'd be fired.

So who are we, anyway, these so-called (ethno)(music)(ologists)? Let me take a stab:

We study how music is used in cultures.
We do a lot of research--usually first-hand, primary information gathering--in places that we find interesting (sometimes a foreign country, sometimes home communities).
We are not necessarily musicians. We can spew out a great deal of theory on musical practices, but don't ask us to actually perform them. That said, many do learn new instruments and styles in the process.
An example: if you say you like folk music, an ethnomusicologists might ask, "Who (what?) are (is?) the 'folk'? What prompted the emergence of this music? Who practices it and why? What impact does folk music have on the way people think about politics or religion?" The questions could go on and on.

And about me, specifically?

I'm interested in two major areas: medical ethnomusicology (health and healing with music, especially in the HIV/AIDS crises) and applied ethnomusicology (working outside academia and using my knowledge and skills to help people, otherwise known as advocacy).
I want to research in, I think, Uganda (where I lived in 2006).
The journalism angle gives me practical skills in addition to the more theoretical and prepares me to, say, write for an arts column or create documentaries on musical practices.

So next time you meet someone who says they're an ethnomusicologist, you can say, "Right on. That's cool. So what's your research in?"

window reflections

2008-11-29T22:39:00.000-05:00

I was driving up to Hood River in Oregon last week with some dear ol' Wheaton housemates, past gorgeous mountains and rushing rivers. I began looking out the window silently and was transported to another time and another place. It was a land of memories, a place of unanswered questions, where I wander, lost in a forest of uncertain decisions. Looking out windows tends to take me to this place. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

But then the car stopped at a glorious overlook and when I climbed out, the wind blew straight into me, as if singing--Anna, you are HERE, here in Oregon, in this beautiful creation, here at this time with your lovely companions, and it is beautiful and it is good.

I was snapped back to the moment, back to Oregon, and it was beautiful and it was good. It was good to be me, be there, at that moment.

Our next stop was at a winery. We took small sips of 14 different wines, all unique in their flavors, smells, and even colors. It was a spiritual experience, in a way. Each day brings its own flavors--here a sweet cherry, there a smokey oak. They mix together and present the palette with a rich aroma and full flavor. I sip and try to taste each ingredient, each moment of this crazy life. Sometimes life gets confusing and the flavors of the wine are too strong and bitter. Yet I bring the glass to my lips and drink.

My companions seemed to be living full lives, enjoying the richness each day brings. I began thinking about how future-focused I am, constantly planning the Next Step and asking other people what their plans are. This is how I grew up--just ask my dad. And people ask me all the time what my plans are after this grad school deal. But truth is, I don't know. I give a different answer to each person, hoping that I'll verbally stumble onto something that sounds perfect and then have a definite goal to work towards. But hell, I simply don't know where I'll be three years from now, and I'm not sure I want to know. I'm enjoying school, here and now, and that's sufficient. Maybe I don't need answers about the future. This is what I'm doing now and, well, that's that.

"Be patient towards all that is unsolved. Try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, not seek the answers that cannot be given because you would not be able to live with them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer." (Rilke)

"to remove a wrinkle or not" (or, "ethics of light and photoshop")

2008-10-15T18:04:00.001-04:00

Here are two examples of photography ethical dilemmas which border the ridiculous and the hilarious (brought up in my photojournalism class):

The first: You'd think people would be upset for magazine covers being over-manipulated. But here Fox is infuriated with Newsweek not touching up its cover of Sarah Palin:

The second: Photographer Jill Greenburg gets grilled for unprofessional behavior at a photoshoot with John McCain for The Atlantic, where she manipulated lighting to cast McCain with horror movie shadows. Again, Fox reports:

Sorry to overuse Fox... I'm not such a fan of their reporting, but find the ethical issues wrapped up in these interviews fascinating.

"I take photo? It ok?" (or, "Ethics and Photography Methodology")

2008-10-11T02:10:00.000-04:00

It seems that photographers often disregard the living and breathing context around them and do whatever it takes to get the shot that they are looking for, that they 'need.' In the name of publication, in the name of a demanding editor, in the name of promotion, regular social rules are broken and the photographer points a metal box into someone’s face. The outcome is, usually, beautiful pictures that could not be taken if social rules had been adhered to. But I wonder, is it ethical?

Let me give an example. I was at a performance tonight of two well-known musicians from New York. A photographer from the university paper walked up to the stage during the performance, in his gym shorts and bright orange t-shirt, and started snapping pictures of the instruments and the performers. I’m sure they were great pictures, but it was very distracting for the audience, never mind the musicians.

I respect performance space. I’ve had a definite sense of boundaries ever since I gave a piano recital in 4th grade and a boy my age put his chin on the edge, staring straight at my lanky fingers. I wanted to play a scale up the piano and smack him in the face! Performance space is sacred. A photographer breaks the charm and draws attention away from the central space.

The ethics of space becomes messier when placed in a context of poverty. When I lived in Uganda, we would walk around the slums and visit widows and orphans with HIV/AIDS. These people are noble and beautiful, broken and hungry all at the same time. Perfect photographing opportunities, right? When those slick and glossy pictures from World Vision are walking and breathing and living around you, there is an urge to pull out the camera and begin snapping. This is exactly what some western visitors did when they visited the slums. After a brief 'agreement' of a nod from Victim Exhibit A, snap snap! their face is stuck in a metal box. I admit: I’ve done this. But my boss asked me one day, "You are taking away their voice, their face, and what are you giving back?" I began to see this kind of photography as a type of exploitation. Here’s the rich white westerner going into poor dirty slum with fancy camera, capturing images in boxes, and going back home to showcase a brilliant portfolio. What does the "subject" receive? Nothing. "Exploitation: to use unfairly for one’s own advantage." Hm.

This issue of ethics and fieldwork methodology seems to be a fundamental difference between my two degrees--journalism and ethnomusicology. In journalism, you get the shot no matter what that means. Capture the moment, we’re told. Be there. Do what it takes to get a clean background, a neat shot. Ethnomusicology, on the other hand, espouses more of a participant-observation approach. You become part of the scene. Listen. Stay out of the way. Make notes and interact with people, but don’t let your presence affect the scene in any way.

I know that a good argument can be given for the purposes of either side. I know the output of both professions are much appreciated, by different audiences and for different purposes. But how do I be an excellent photographer without being a jerk? I have not yet found a balance that I am comfortable with.

Your comments most welcome!

honeymooning grad school

2008-09-21T23:07:00.000-04:00

These days are full of meeting new people, trying to remember names, figuring out exactly how many minutes it takes to bike to class, delving into subjects I've wanted to study for a long time (like ethnomusicology and photography), discovering places to dance!, and beginning to commit to a few things beyond the basics. Basically, I'm having a great time and am not nearly as overwhelmed as I anticipated (but maybe I'm speaking too soon? or maybe it's just the glorious fact that everything is in English and I understand what's going on?).

They say the first stage of cross-cultural adjustment is like a honeymoon--everything is great; there are some emotional highs and lows, but the sun is shining and life is good. Bloomington isn't exactly cross-cultural, but whatever you want to call it, I'll ride this honeymoon as long as I can. It will probably change with the weather, haha... check back here in about two months.

The Church talks a lot about a theology of suffering, a theology of going through the rough times. We memorize the Phil. 4:13 and Ps. 23 passages. But what about a theology of joy, even a theology of monotony, when everything is going along smoothly? I'm convinced that at the center of this theology must lay an outpouring of thanksgiving and appreciation. By my door, I have this verse posted:

Rejoice always
Pray without ceasing
In everything give thanks.

Then next to that, I've put up a sheet where I write things I'm thankful for. Some bits up there now: Baganda music in the archives, the smell of wet earth after long fall rains, tired green leaves ready to burst into color, blue skies, audio transformers, recognizing familiar faces at new places, bike brakes that work in the rain, and new friends over coffee. This kind of conscious daily thanksgiving helps, well, helps the honeymoon last. Of course I'm far from having this a 24/7 life attitude, but hey, it's a start right?

On another not-so-holy note, I got hit by a car the other day. Notice how I wrote that. I *got hit by* a car. It was clearly all the car's fault. Never mind that I was crossing a street during (the wrong direction's) green light, onto a one-way (the wrong way) street. Oh no, that $&#*@ car swiped my front tire and drove off. I didn't fall but the speed at which it happened certainly took me by surprise and I gave my best "what the hell?!" glare to the fading outline of the driver. Damn car. Ok, and stupid me. I really have got to let go of the aggressive riding style I adopted in Viet Nam. There are a lot of cars here and they go fast and stay in their lanes (imagine that!), leaving little space for bikers. I think it should be a requirement for drivers (and pedestrians, for that matter) to live for at least a month in a place like Viet Nam to understand the marvelous riverlike flow of traffic. In Viet Nam, when someone crosses a street, they just start walking and the traffic flows beautifully around them. But here, crossing pedestrians look at me speeding towards them and stop in their tracks, like "oa! that bike is headed right towards me." It's more like a cement wall than a river. See, one month in Hanoi would solve so many problems.

Ok, off my stump. Another week awaits me and I must begin it with sleep.

new horizons

2008-09-03T12:37:00.001-04:00

After a whirl of traveling, seeing old friends and family, and packing or unpacking many times, I have learned that it's not natural for the body to travel over 16,000 miles in the span of a month. Someone once said that the body is not meant to travel faster than an oxcart, and I certainly see the wisdom of that now! But I've landed in Bloomington, Indiana and have permanently unpacked my boxes and bags, breathing a sigh of relief--"ah, now I can relax in grad school!"

Well, maybe not. I have registered for 12 credits, which I've heard is a dangerous amount. Oh, plus my job. The thing is, I'm really excited about everything I'm doing, so while I may burn up this semester, at least the fire will be a energizing, exciting one. I'm taking "The Study of Ethnomusicology" (lots of reading), "Intensive Reporting, Writing, and Editing" (lots of writing), "Photojournalism" (lots of visual work), and "Ghanaian Performance and Culture" (lots of singing and dancing!). So the hope is that the diversity of assignments will balance out the sheer mass of it all.

I'm working 15 hrs/week as a GA at the Archives of Traditional Music, mostly digitizing old analog field recordings. My introductory training included this defensive quote: "The field of audiovisual archiving rarely shares the glamour or profile of the industries whose output it protects. It is neither well funded nor well known, and is often very demanding of time and energy. It attracts and holds motivated individuals with a sense of vocation, for whom the achievements of their work are their own reward." Motivated--yes; sense of vocation--hmm? But I'm excited to get my hands back on audio equipment!

I would be remiss in this blog if I didn't give a shout out to my wonderful family for helping me move in and settle into my new house. Together we did in just one day what would have taken me over a month... unpacking, decorating, cleaning, shopping, etc etc. We even managed to squeeze in a picnic dinner and lots of good conversations. I should also note that my house has plenty of space for visitors, so my doors are open to you, my friends...

"Oh! Right..." -initial impressions and reactions-

2008-07-21T09:33:00.000-04:00

I'm writing now from Akron, Pennsylvania, after traveling nearly 40 hours from Hanoi, through Hong Kong and LA, to Philadelphia. It's been 11 months since leaving this place I think I call "home," and I've been keeping a list of things that surprise me or that I've forgotten about:

water fountains. Public water. For. Free. Too bads it tastes like chlorine.
bottled water for $5. $5!!! That much would buy about 10 bottles in Hanoi...
informality between officials, store clerks, and me. Maybe it's just because I can actually understand what they're saying now, but I'm taken back by how friendly and chatty people are here.
cool, dry air that smells amazing. I was trying to figure out what it is that smells so wonderful and fresh, but I'm pretty sure it's just the lack of exhaust fumes and pollution. Whatever it is, it smells and feels like HOME.
diversity. Standing in the "US-passport holders" line, I was amazed at the diversity of people standing with me.
passing money with one hand. In Vietnam, it's polite to give money or other items with two hands. Not so here.
overhearing conversations in English-! I was expecting this, but it really is an amazing thing to be waiting in a line (and LINES themselves are another blessed surprise) and understand the people around me. Too bad they're complaining.
cheese. Gobs of it on my pizza.
gallons of real skim milk rolling by in a cart (at the airport). Skim milk!
I'm no longer a giant. Looking in a mirror, I'm not conspicuous. People are big here. This also means that I loose my birds-eye perspective in big crowds.

I'm sure more surprises will come. I've only been here a day, after all. But it feels real good. All the SALTers are together for a re-entry retreat, so we're doing lots of story-swapping, laughing, and sleeping. Good times...

motorbikes to the market!

2008-07-10T04:53:00.000-04:00

Come to Vietnam and you will be astounded by what Vietnamese can fit on their motor scooters. When I first came I was continually surprised at the huge loads of vegetables on motos, a man driving and a woman crouched down in front of him with her head just barely visible; or nine bird cages (yes I counted) precariously hanging behind the driver, the birds twittering along in the traffic; or long metal poles five times the length of the moto being transported to some construction site; or a family of five crammed on one moto. These things amazed me.

But I've been here almost one year by now. Not much fazes me any more. I hardly look twice at the 3-foot stack of eggs breezing by me.

This morning, however, I nearly fell off my bike as a moto pulled past me with a full cow laid on the back, its skinned hide bright and white, its nose bouncing off the pavement on one side, its tail flying in the wind on the other, its legs flopping around with every bump, and its eyes staring...straight at me. I guess you have to get your goods to the market somehow and if all you have is a moto, well, moto it is.

...on entering the boundary waters...

2008-07-06T21:45:00.000-04:00

"What do we leave behind when we cross a frontier? Each moment seems split in two: meloncholy for what is left behind, and the excitement of entering a new land." (Che Guevara, Motorcycle Diaries)

Exactly.

It is now July and I'm entering those boundary waters between Vietnam and USA. My calendar tells me the jump is on July 19th, when I embark on travels to PA, NH, UK, NY, and finally IN to begin grad school. Each moment indeed seems split in two...

Melancholy...

...For dear friends, coworkers, and host family that I have grown close to here. While this year has been challenging in some ways, these people are the ones who keep the laugh in my heart and joy in my steps.
...For a go-with-the-flow lifestyle. I often have no idea about the agenda of a given day, but have learned to take things as they come (or don't come). I eat what's put in my bowl. I go where the van takes me. I have few expectations so I'm not upset by changes.
...For fresh fruits and veggies, every day, year-round. When it's mango season, we eat mangos (and lots of them). When it's lychee season, we eat lychee every day. My food comes from the same country I eat it in, and probably just outside of town. As my fellow SALTer Rachel put it, eating local isn't a movement here, it's life.
...For rice. If it's true that you are what you eat, I may resemble a giant grain of rice when I return. Sticky rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice for dinner, and rice noodles thrown in for variation. I've grown so accustomed to it that a meal without rice just doesn't quite seem complete A rice cooker is at the top of my shopping list for grad school!
...For language. I've spent nearly a year working so hard on learning Vietnamese--language school, private study, working with my host sister, hours with friends over coffee (or mango smoothies)--and I've come to the point where I can understand quite a bit. I can strike a hard bargain in Vietnamese and make people laugh with simple stories. When I return, all that hard work will be complete jibberish to everyone I know. Fun sayings like "ơi giời ơi," and "ăn cơm chưa?" will be as void of meaning as they were for me a year ago. If I bow my head to you, consider that a greeting or a thank you. If I wave my fingers with my palm down, please come to closer. Work with me--I've lost track of what's Vietnamese, what's American, and what's Ugandan.

Excitement...

...For dear friends and family who I haven't seen in far too long. Big hugs and long chats coming your way... :)
...For fresh air and grass between my toes. These are both unattainable in Hanoi.
...For eavesdropping. To be able to understand fast, quiet conversations around me without any effort may leave me overstimulated for some weeks. Newspapers and radio in English. One-liners and language puns that used to be a large part of my joking around.
...For big family gatherings where I know everyone, everyone knows me, and I can understand and contribute to conversations without feeling dumb. It's the simple things in life.
...For libraries with shelves and shelves of books in English that I can borrow for free. Whoever invented this concept was a genius.
...For autonomy. Being able to make decisions about what to cook and cooking it myself without being told I'm peeling the wrong way or using not enough MSG, where to go, who to meet, etc. Being an adult, basically.
...For grad school--both terrifying and exciting. Mostly exciting, if I don't think of the stress of papers and long readings. Ethnomusicology and journalism is pretty much my dream degree.

Right-o, that's enough for now. As each moment is split in two, I grieve for what is left behind and push forward to what is ahead, fully embracing the contradictions and ironies as I navigate the boundary waters.

Fun in the Sun

2008-06-30T02:53:00.000-04:00

Pictures from April, May & June... a little of work, a lot of play (this ratio is more proportionate to the times I had a camera and wanted to take pictures than to how my time was actually spent).

Green Transport Day

2008-06-29T23:10:00.000-04:00

The last project of Action for the City that I want to highlight is Green Transport Day. This film explains it well (can you spot me?):

Photovoice: river pollution through fresh lenses

2008-06-18T03:23:00.000-04:00

Another major project that I've been involved with this year is a photography exhibition called, "Mirror? If the river could speak." But it's not just an exhibition. Here's a press release that I helped write for the Museum of Ethnology, one of the most prominent museums in Hà Nội:

"On 1 June 2008, Mirror? If the river could speak will open at the outdoor exhibition area of the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. This photography exhibition is the result of a project that brings together community, environment, youth, and creativity. 19 young photographers from the Youth Union of Thinh Quang ward in Hanoi worked under the guidance of Paul Zetter, director of Ensemble Creative Training and Development, and Action for the City, a local NGO with a passion for the city. The project was funded by the SIDA Environmental Fund.

"Mirror? uses the technique of photovoice, a community-building methodology that aims to deepen and enrich a person’s engagement with their community at different levels, both personal and social. The end product of mainstream photography projects—the photographs—becomes secondary in photovoice where a renewed sense of engagement in the community, the making of new relationships and personal growth are the primary goals.

"The project focused on building the participant’s confidence, self esteem and self expression so they feel confident to use basic cameras as a tool of inquiry—a mirror for their new awareness and interest to rediscover their community. The cameras were basic and the photography training rudimentary to minimize pressure to take ‘beautiful’ photographs at the expense of full engagement with the community.

"60 photographs will be displayed at the exhibition. The main subject of Mirror? is the To Lich River, famous for its past beauty and present pollution. Some pictures in this exhibition expose the raw and filthy aspects of the river while others depict hope and humor. The questions asked by all of them are, 'If the river could speak, what would it say? Is the river a reflection of our lives?' The exhibition invites the viewers to reflect on issues that face the city.

"Before this exhibition, Mirror? was displayed at the Thinh Quang Primary School, Thai Thinh Junior Secondary School, and a teacher's conference put on by UNESCO. The current exhibition has been redesigned and reprinted for display at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology."

We began this project back in September and it is still going. I helped document the workshops in photos and notes, helped design the exhibition, and did a lot of the behind-the-scenes tasks along with the other staff at Action for the City. This project has been especially exciting for me, to see an alternative and creative approach to development and to use stories and photos for a potentially heavy and dry topic like river pollution.

Just Massage: Empowerment, Opportunity, Dignity

2008-06-02T13:30:00.000-04:00

Just Massage is the longest-term and most involved project of Action for the City. Instead of trying to explain everything, let me just post an article that I wrote for a women's magazine in Hanoi:

"A young woman kneels in a gently-lit room and pours oil into her hands. After making sure it is warm, she spreads it onto the back that is resting before her and begins to work the oil in, up the spine and over the shoulder blades. The only sound in the room is meditative music and soft breathing. The woman is centered and mindful of her movements but at the same time beams from the inside out.

"This is Nguyễn Thị Hè and she is proud of her work at Just Massage. 'When I do this job,' she says, 'I can give pleasure and relaxation to the clients, to the other people—this is my happiness. Other people’s happiness means my happiness. When clients feel stressed and troubled, they come here and I can help them release the tensions.'

"Hè was born in 1986 in Gia Lam district, Hanoi. As a visually-impaired youth, however, she had few opportunities for employment and little chance for a fair wage. Along with four other visually-impaired youth, she has found a home at Just Massage. She explains, 'At first my family also didn’t like the idea of massage, but after I expressed my feelings and opinions about my job, they understood and changed their opinion. Now they feel very happy because I finally found a stable and well-paid job.'

"Just Massage began as a collaborative effort between Action for the City (a local non-profit organization) and Maryknoll (an American Catholic mission organization in Vietnam). A professional massage therapist from the USA worked for months with the youth, teaching them Shiatsu and Swedish Therapeutic massage, human anatomy, hygiene, English, and business and marketing skills. This will eventually enable the youth to run their own business without external help. In order to deeply understand the ritual of massage, the therapists also spend time meditating and learning to focus. Just Massage opened in December 2007 and has been steadily attracting more clients.

"In a city where being visually-impaired is a serious handicap, Just Massage is a kind of haven for both therapists and clients. When asked what her favorite aspect of massage is, Hè responded, 'The most interesting thing when I do massage for the clients is that I can help them relieve tensions and help them become happier. After finishing the massage, I usually ask them, "How do you feel?" And often they say, "Very good," and I feel happy. I feel the most important thing is to concentrate hard on doing massage for the client to help them relax a lot.'"

This is Just Massage. This is a place of empowerment, opportunity, and dignity. What is my specific role here? I write articles such as the one above, design flyers, update the website, take photos for promotional use (or recruit others with better cameras to take photos--thanks Brent), teach English (back in the Fall), offer my body for massage practice (so sacrificial, I know), and work together on marketing strategies. Now that our funder has pulled out, we are working hard to break even and be self-sufficient. It's exciting for me to write an article, have it published in a popular in-flight magazine, then hear of people coming to Just Massage from the airport. Hey, this real-world stuff is pretty great! :) If you're ever in Hanoi, you know where to come for a Just Massage...

an overdue introduction: Action for the City

2008-05-08T04:39:00.000-04:00

I realized that I haven't adequately described the NGO I work for on this blog. Since I just spent four hours speaking about Action for the City to middle-schoolers at the UN International School, now seems a good time to remedy the silence. If it sounds like I'm giving an infomercial, it's because, well, that's my job as the "communications officer."

Action for the City was started in 2006 by a small group of Vietnamese with a passion for the city. They saw many problems in this capital--traffic, pollution, loss of green space, discrimination--and had a vision of a green, clean city, 'where the livin' is easy.' But everyone has dreams and we can all make up visions. The difference is that this group acted on their passions and founded Action for the City, a local NGO committed to "bringing people together for livable cities," committed to integrity as an NGO, and committed to creativity and playfulness. We recently had a workshop to re-evaluate the goals and values after being in operation for two years and to renew our friendships. We drew pictures of our dreams, we shared with each other on a personal level (the first question I was asked: "So how about your boyfriend?" -!-), we lay on the grass with our heads together and stared up at the unusually blue skies... and we clarified our mission:

"Our mission is to improve the quality of life for all in Hanoi and other cities by increasing community participation, bringing common voices to policy-makers, and using a variety of creative forms and media as tools for social change. We focus on three main areas:
Environment: We work to slow down the process of climate change and create a healthy environment for all.
Social development: We work to reduce urban poverty, promote equal access to social services, and advocate for disadvantaged groups.
Creative urban living: We work to bring out and celebrate the creativity of individuals and communities for a sustainable lifestyle."

It all sounds pretty lofty, especially when you realize there's only five staff and two volunteers, and when you see our tiny one-room office with one octagonal table and little loft area. But we're all about bringing people together and as such have an extended networking system. There are always visitors coming in the office and emails fly around faster than you can say, "Tôi yêu Hà Nội" (I love Hanoi). And, my coworkers are simply amazing people who inspire me with their passion, creativity, and dedication. Being able to work alongside them has made this entire year worth it. Sometimes I come in to work discouraged or depressed, and they greet me warmly and simply love me. Once a week we have a "Buddhist lunch," where we eat vegetarian food in meditative silence, focusing on eating slowly and being fully aware of where our food comes from. Doing this together adds a kind of spiritual bond between us. I should also add that we rent our small room from the History Museum which has an amazing, quiet courtyard filled with blossoming trees and ancient artifacts (and occasional drunk karaoke parties and military drills).
So now, what do we actually do and what is my specific role in it all? We have a number of projects running concurrently, funded by different agencies (like the Worldbank or a Swedish environmental group) and working with different people and issues. In future blog entries, I will write specifically about Just Massage, Photovoice, and Green Transport Day. My role as communications officer is to develop PR--flyers, brochures, website material, writing articles, photography, etc--but I end up doing a lot more, including English editing, tech support, office interior design, English teaching, evaluations, massage tester (my favorite! :), receptionist, and many other odds and ends. I have a great deal of variety every day, which keeps life interesting. Because it's a small office, I can be part of discussions on new proposals, meet many people, and work on my Vietnamese! Action for the City has become my second (or third?) home, my little family...

elephants, monks, & hymn-sings: adventures in Laos

2008-05-06T22:46:00.000-04:00

As our car pulled away from the airport in Vientiane, Laos, we passed quiet streets and spread-out houses. "When will we reach downtown?" I asked as we came to a small town. "This is it. This IS the downtown of the capital city." "Oh wow, I like this place! So quiet and peaceful."

And indeed, that feeling didn't leave me the whole time I was in Laos, a small communist country that nests snugly between Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and China. I was there for a regional SE Asia MCC retreat along with about 40 other expat volunteers, many of them on the same 1-year SALT program. The last time I saw these fun friends was in August during orientation, so we had a lot to catch up on and a lot of stories to share.
Before the retreat actually started, we took a very long, bumpy, curvy bus ride up to Luang Prabang, hugging the curves of steep mountains, catching glimpses of bamboo stilt houses balancing between road and cliff, and trying to avoid drips of condensed AC water falling from above our heads. Luang Prabang is a tourist town, and for good reason. It's nestled among spectacular mountains with the Mekong River flowing through its heart and old French architecture and wats gracing its streets. We had a chance to ride elephants (if only I was wearing white clothes and a pith helmet, I could be one of those colonialist "explorers" one sees in old photos), kayak through rapids and past fishermen throwing their nets in perfect circles (in pouring rain), hike up and over a gorgeous waterfall (in flip-flips and skirt--whoops!, bad choice for jungles Anna), jump fully-clothed in a pool at the bottom of the falls, greet monks with a small bow as they walked by in bright orange robes, walk around a night market with colorful ethnic patterns, sip fresh fruit shakes, and generally relax and be full-blown tourists. Good times.
Back in Vientiane, our retreat started with communion and me giving a short homily about drinking the cups of our lives to the dregs (an image from Nouwen's "Can You Drink the Cup?" which I highly recommend). Sometimes the cup is bitter and sorrowful, sometimes it's sweet and joyful, but no matter what it is we are called to hold it and embrace all the flavors, lift it to one another in community, and drink it to the bottom. Later on, each country shared what MCC is doing and we got to experience first hand some of the work in Laos, like teaching English to kids and translating women's health books. A Mennonite retreat wouldn't be complete without singing hymns in beautiful 4-part a capela harmony, so we definitely had a few good hours of harmonic bliss. :)
Laos is a beautiful, quiet, relaxing country, reminding me more of Papua New Guinea than anything in Vietnam. But now I'm back in the chaos of Hanoi, trying to be fully present and content, trying to drink my cup slowly and fully...

(note: more pictures are on Facebook; I'll get them up here before long...)

photo slideshow

2008-04-21T05:25:00.000-04:00

Pictures as (not) promised... As usual, click on the photo to be directed to the Picasa page for detailed captions.

Click here for pictures my parents took on their visit here.

through the eyes of mom

2008-04-20T06:52:00.000-04:00

A post written by my mom (click here for related pictures)...

I'd like to tell about our boat trip at Ba Be National Park, in northern Vietnam. On April 3^rd, 2008, we drove 6 hours north to Ba Be with a hired driver and car. We weren't far from China when we got there! The next morning we gathered a few things, and were driven to a boat launch with our new guide, whose name sounded like Chip. He spoke very little English, and Anna had to do lots of translating! We climbed into our 20' open boat with tarp/thatch awning. Our pilot cranked the handle of the engine, and we were off down the Nang River. How exciting to see wild countryside, mountains, and rice paddies chugging by us! After awhile the river disappeared around a corner and into a gaping hole in the hillside. We went right into a cave!

There were stalactites coming down from the ceiling, and flowstone in places. Swifts zoomed in and out of the high chamber, disappearing up a ceiling hole. Our boat docked, and we got out, walking along the wide ledge on one bank. When we got farthest back in the cave, we stared into a black cavern. There must've been a kajillion bats in there, by the sounds of their chippering and the smell of their droppings. When I took a picture, there were eye-shines here and there in the flash. Too bad we didn't have a flashlight! These flitter-mice would've been fascinating to see, especially pouring out of the cave at dusk!

We continued down the river, stopping at a Tay minority village to walk around. We felt like we were the local clown show as villagers watched us try to negotiate 8" wide rice paddy dikes! At one point, 3 men had to pass me going in the opposite direction. They scootched down and passed behind by legs as I stood sideways. They commented in Vietnamese "so big" according to Anna…little did they know she could understand! They only came up to my shoulder , but I'm not sure that was the "big" they were commenting on! We saw water buffalo, and a woman with a shoulder pole with rice seedlings to be transplanted. We walked the village paths, and the dogs barked and growled at us in the same dog language they use back home! I liked trying to imagine what it was like to live there, with the rice fields, mountains, and river around me. How secluded! Yet what community they must have!

Back on the boat, we continued downstream past mountain views and wonderful smells of flowering trees. We disembarked at another Tay village, and walked to a waterfall. The water really rushed and pounded through the rocks, and both the guide and Butch grew alarmed when Anna ventured down close in her flip-flops. Later I read that there had been tourist fatalities there, so no wonder the guide was worried!

We trekked back to the village, and stopped at a house for lunch. It was just the 3 of us and our guide there. I watched as the woman of the house and her daughter chopped cabbage and potatoes on a wooden counter. They cooked over a cement hearth, fed with bamboo trunks. We sat at a table, looking up at the thatched roof and the bamboo gutter pipes. The room was fairly spacious, with a hard bed in one corner, about 5 tables, and a little "store" counter at the front. We drank tea from small ceramic cups with the guide. We really enjoyed being in the hut and having the village experience, even if only for an hour.

Boating up-river after lunch, we snuck over to Ba Be Lake on a connector canal. We landed on a shore of the lake and took a quick hike to a small pond. It was great to get away for the noise of the diesel engine, and hear strange bird songs across the water. I'd read about this pond too: "Ao Tien is a small lake on the top of the mountain. The climate around here is very cool and fresh. Legend said that the fairies above always go down in this place to swim and play chess. Therefore, people name this place Ao Tien (the lake of fairy)." There were no fairies, no swimming, and no chess, but it was a wonderful place nevertheless!

Our next stop was at a pagoda on an island. Climbing to the top of the hill, we arrived in an open area with a temple on one side and a house on another. We visited the pagoda first, an open building with a huge drum at the end. The priest greeted us, and was quite intrigued that Anna could speak Vietnamese. They rattled on about what she was doing there and that we were her folks from the U.S. We took some pictures of the elaborate and colorful altar with statues of Confucius (complete with beard hairs, so you could tell it wasn't Buddha!). Then the priest invited us to the house for tea! We sat overlooking Lake Ba Be, and visiting. All Vietnamese want to know how old you are, so they know how to address you properly. It turns out that our host was only 5 months older than Butch. I ruminated about how their lives were so different, and yet about the same length. What an experience to have that shared moment of juncture. If the Vietnamese war had lasted longer, these 2 might have been enemy combatants, but here they sat drinking tea together in peace. Ahhh, peace is good.

We finished our boat trip with a chug around Widow's Island and landed at the boat launch. The vendors were ready for us, and moved in to sell us local tea, sesame candies, and clothes. We drove back to our bungalow at park headquarters for a long snooze. We finished the day with dinner at the park restaurant (accompanied by a French woman traveling by herself and a Vietnamese Karaoke party). The skinny kitchen kitty gladly helped us finish our meal of rice and lake fish. What a long and wonderful day we'd had, experiencing so many aspects of rural Vietnam!

Vietnam through the eyes of dad

2008-04-14T06:22:00.000-04:00

A blog post written by my dad after visiting earlier this month...

"There is nothing subtle about Ha Noi. It is a complete sensory experience--overwhelming sounds, sights, and smells. First and foremost is the traffic, unlike anything seen or heard before: Motor scooters zigging and zagging in apparent chaos; the occasional car weaving in and out; and the lumbering bus clearing through all. A bit unsettling is the fact that everyone uses their horn to signal presence. It's as if there was a consensus to dispose with rear view mirrors and over-the-shoulder-checks before changing 'lanes.' For a Westerner used to vehicular order, this was a challenge to say the least. But it quickly became apparent that there actually was a set of rules that everyone seemed to be following, and one could indeed adapt and survive. For the pedestrian trying to cross the road, this meant disposing with the time honored practice of looking both ways, and only walking when clear in all directions. Instead, one simply walks....right through it all, and like the water around a stone in a chaotic rapid, everyone moves around you and the system actually works. One must have the courage to take the plunge through the traffic in a deliberate and predictable manner, or risk a true collision if one hesitates, causing confusion among oncoming traffic. A great confidence builder for first-time tourists is the firm hand-hold of our experienced daughter, Anna, guiding her parents through the chaos. If you want to see Ha Noi, you have no choice than to adapt to these unaccustomed rules.

"Ha Noi is a maze of streets and I never did figure any of it out. I had brought my running gear thinking I would explore the city on foot during early morning runs. Nothing doing. I know I would have been lost within a half mile of our hotel. Once you venture off the main roads, especially in the so-called 'Old Quarter,' the roads go every which way. It is on these smaller roads where one really experiences Ha Noi. There are people everywhere and most of them seem to be taking in a meal or a cup of tea or a warm beer. As one walks through these narrow roads, the sensory experiences becomes mostly one of diverse smells, primarily of various cooked foods.

"There was one particular smell that I couldn't quite put an identity to until about mid-week, and it turned out to be the burning of their coal stoves used to fire nearly all street-side dishes. Everyone seemed to have a specialty--One restaurant would serve 'Phở,' a type of stew/soup very famous in Ha Noi; another would serve up pork; still another might specialize in fish dishes. Customers would sit around a tiny plastic table with tiny chairs, almost play-like in appearance, and take their meal. It seemed that meals were served at all hours of the day, from early morning to late at night, and there were always peddlers walking around with fresh produce to supply their customers.

"This was one of the enduring visions of Ha Noi--the stooped woman (always a woman) bearing a heavy load over her shoulder: two dangling baskets balanced at either end of a bamboo strut supported by first a left, than a right shoulder. Where do this woman come from and how long and far have they walked bearing these burdens? While Ha Noi appears to be on the cusp of becoming a modern city with all the trappings that Westerners seem to expect (five star hotels, posh restaurants), these woman seem to be guardians of the old ways, and are just one element of the great charm that one feels in Ha Noi."

While on a trip to Hạ Long Bay, Dad asked our tour guide, "I wonder how many caves haven't been discovered yet?" The reply: "21."

meanwhile...

2008-04-13T08:17:00.000-04:00

Oh right, I have a blog. Good thing I didn't make that New Years' resolution to write here every other week because I'd be feeling really guilty right now. Some of my fellow SALTers have the excuse of little internet access or funky connections, while here in Hanoi I'm on a wireless connections all day every day at work. Truth is, this winter has been a bit rough and I find myself staring at a blank page thinking, "what can I write that people would want to read?"

The cold, damp winter that overstayed its visit has finally been shooed out the door by Mr. Humidity and Mrs. Heat. This is the month where windows drip with condensation and towels never dry. Some weeks ago I thought I'd be all cool and artsy and hang up some roses to dry. I guess I forgot that "dry" isn't in vocabulary usage here, for my lovely roses have sprouted fuzzy, white and green hair and have now been laid to rest in the waste bin.

I've had the fun of hosting and/or meeting several visitors lately, including Tim and Dale from The Mennonite (check out Tim's blog here), friends I met in Indonesia at the Indigenous Spirituality conference, and, most recently, my parents. It's refreshing to see Hanoi through their eyes and realize how far I've come in navigating traffic to ensure survival, conversing in Vietnamese (I even set up our Vietnamese-speaking driver on a date with a friend of mine), eating with chopsticks correctly, and understanding some underlying values that lay the foundation for once-unfamiliar customs. See future blog posts for first-person accounts from my parents (hear that mom and dad? you now have people waiting for your entries).

I guess the big news for me is that I've decided to attend Indiana University (Bloomington) this fall for a dual MA in ethnomusicology and journalism. Part of me (most of me actually) is really excited for this next turn in the pilgrimage, but part of me is dreading moving yet again--to midwest suburbia at that. I'm thinking of putting an ad in the "wanted" section for a home that reminds me of Hanoi: "Looking for crowded, narrow, loud apartment. Honking motorbikes, crowing roosters, barking dogs, and a locked gateway are requirements. Bonuses include nearby walking peddlers with singsong cries, street vendors with $1 lunches, fresh fruit markets year-round, and potted green plants gracing every courtyard. Only basic facilities and furniture needed, but these include rice cooker, wash basin, mattress pad, mosquito net, gas stove top, electric hot pot, and TV playing movies with monotone, emotionless Vietnamese overdubbing. Please call with openings at +84947404086. Loving host family should be included." I'll be waiting.

Ok, xin chào for now. Pictures coming soon (but no promises).

happy new year!

2008-02-22T03:21:00.000-05:00

We have just finished Tet, the lunar new year celebration, and I finally realized what they meant when they said it's like Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. Pictures up now, more to come...

day of celebration

2008-02-21T17:15:00.000-05:00

Today is a day of celebration. Why? Because for the first time in over a month and half, the sun is shining and the sky shows hues of blue!!!! Shadows! Warmth! An end to the perpetual gray and cold of the winter! Spring fragrances! It does wonders to my attitude and general outlook on life in Vietnam. Even though I got a flat tire on my way to work and forgot about a meeting, "zippy-di-do-da" is bursting from my heart. Everything's gonna be a-ok.

from Niu y ooc to Phi lip pin

2008-02-04T02:04:00.000-05:00

There's a wonderful, big, pacific-centered map in my room with countries like Papua New Guinea and Vietnam dead center and all the words in Vietnamese. I look it over while I brush my teeth and try not to gag on my toothpaste while I figure out the phonetically-spelled names. It's kind of like the game "Mad Gab" if that means anything to you. So I thought I'd share a few with you... If anyone posts a comment with them all correct, I'll send you something. Really. :-)

(pronunciation hint: â - "uh," d & r - "z," x - "s," ô - "oh," o - "aw," and ơ - "uoh".. or something)

US cities:
Xin xin nơ ti
Oa sinh tôn
Bo xtân
Niu y ooc
Giăc xân
Niu o liên
Hơ xtân
Lôt an giơ let
Pooc lân
Xi a tơn
Fac gô
Mi ni ơ pô lit
Si ca gô
Uyn stân xa lem
Bât tơ
Fi la đen fi a

World countries:
Phi lip pin
Ô xtrây li a
Mi an ma
Ka dắc xtan
Mô dăm bích
Ca mơ run
Cốt di voa
Hôn đu rat
Ác hen ti na
Ê cu a đo
Vê nê duy ê la
Mông cổ
Tác dích ki xtan
Dam bi a
Ma rốc
Ai len

in the bleak midwinter

2008-01-27T20:15:00.000-05:00

Before I came to Hanoi I was told that winters can be quite cold and rainy. I didn't really realize what that meant until now... It means temperatures down in the 50's (10 deg C), a light mist all day, no indoor heating, biking through puddles with my face mask and helmet hiding all but my eyes, dodging under umbrellas as I bike narrow alleys, weeks without sunshine, clothes that never dry, cold fingers that are still supposed type all day, feet that never warm up, and getting tired quickly. They've even closed the schools (not a snow day, but a "cold day"?). Blech. Sound like I'm complaining? I am. My bad. My friends here think it's funny that I--the American who's used to worse winters--am so cold. My family in the States thinks it's funny that I'm complaining about 50 deg weather when it's below 0 at home. But you try setting your thermastat at 55, biking in the rain, and eating in the cold. At least I have a huge blanket for my bed that keeps me toasty. Maybe I should start carrying it around to work with me.

I've been following the news in Kenya closely and am blown away with how quickly and seriously the violence has escalated. I was just there last year and didn't see anything that would prompt this kind of killing. It seems there are a lot of ethnic/economic tensions lying just under the surface that erupted when the election set things off-balance. But "vengence is a lazy form of grief." My prayer is that the Church will be a prophetic voice of reconciliation and a place of togetherness amidst the strife.

On a happier note, my work is generally going well and keeps me busy. We just had a photography exhibition called, "Mirror? If the river could speak"... more on that later. Tet--the lunar new year--is coming up in early February and is a huge holiday here. They say it's like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter all rolled into one. People have been talking about it since I arrived, so I'm excited to see what it's all about!

December photos

2007-12-31T04:50:00.000-05:00

Here are a number of photos from December, including pictures from my trip to Thailand and from Christmas festivities in Ha Noi. Click here to go to the Picasa page where I've written captions and you can see one movie. Enjoy!

snapshots of Ha Noi

2007-12-30T04:04:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've written here and a lot has happened. What follows are a few quotes from my journal, like little snapshots into my life here. I realize there's a danger in posting these that you'll think my life is full of these kinds of stories, all the time. It's not. My daily life mostly involves going to work and back, but within that mundane-ness sometimes strange things happen...

"Today when I was looking to buy baking powder to make pancakes, the woman told me that what I needed was 'poudre pour panification.' Panifi-what? She said it makes bread rise, and I guess my pancakes DID go up like they’re supposed to, so panification powder it is. Nice."

"My host mother showed me the opera program, and basically told me, though a lot of pointing, going through my clothes (see these jeans? No go), and repeating Vietnamese, to look hott. The concert was one of the biggest of the year and I thoroughly enjoyed it with my host cousin."

"This morning I went to the Massage Center to pick up our flyers. There were two big bundles of flyers. It’s really exciting to see my work in actual paper form. My hours on a computer does not just result in a letter grade at the top of a paper, but something concrete to give to people so that these kids have clients and a job. If this is what the real world is, I kinda like it."

"A highlight of today was going out with a coworker and a video camera to capture construction, traffic, and the old/new dichotomy of Hanoi for a movie we’re making. Looking for a traffic jam, now that’s a new one! Hai drove while I worked the camera. We found some 'good' construction (that I usually curse on my bicycle) and drove in through a little door to get a better image. Action for the City spies! I learned that it’s really, really hard to get footage on the back of a bike that doesn’t make you queasy when you watch it."

"Today I filled in as receptionist at Just Massage, which was funny when it came time to answer the phone. 'Tôi không nói tiếng Việt. Anh chờ một phút.' ('I don’t speak Vietnamese. Wait a minute.') Then I would run to get someone to help me. Later on, they asked me if I wanted a massage—business was slow and I wasn’t being that helpful anyway. Sure! It was like a private Vietnamese/English language session for both me and the therapist. Now that’s the way to study language!"

"Yesterday, I joined MCC in going to an HIV/AIDS music and dance competition in a commune outside of Hanoi. It was really interesting to compare it with the competitions at Meeting Point in Kampala. Here, AIDS isn’t such a big deal (yet) and it seemed that the kids didn’t have the same kind of personal, real experience with AIDS as those in Uganda—is was more of a school subject. But they had some creative skits, art, and songs. One group did a rap and their costumes were the traditional long shirts but over tight jeans with stiletto boots. Old meets new! Afterwards we went out to lunch with the organizers. They had these little shot glasses and poured water from a water bottle into them, then toasted. 'Oh ha!,' I thought—'water. No problem to knock back this one.' Except… I quickly discovered that it was not water. No way. That stuff had some serious power. They call it rice wine."

Other highlights in this past month were going to Thailand to visit my dear Wheaton friends Sarah and Sophia, Christmas parties with MCC and church friends, playing my flute and singing in candlelight at the Christmas Eve service with the two international churches, finishing most of my grad school applications, and biking 60K through the Vietnamese countryside for a fundraiser. It's been a good month. Pictures coming soon.

November pictures

2007-12-08T02:25:00.000-05:00

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Click here for detailed captions.

wedding, Vietnamese style

2007-12-03T09:57:00.000-05:00

My host uncle got married the other week. Come and experience a Vietnamese wedding through this foreigner's eyes:

8:45am--I button up my áo dài (traditional Vietnamese dress) and hop on the back of my host sister's motorbike to scoot off to her grandparents' house and wait the arrival of the bride. As we wait, one of the aunts takes me into a room with a TV and starts talking with me...or to me rather. I try to explain that I'm just learning Vietnamese and if she speaks slowly I might understand, but it seems "speak slowly" doesn't mean much. So I mostly listen and grasp words here and there. The worst is when I recognize question words--uh oh, requires a response from me! I try nodding my head. She asks the question again (hm, must not be a yes/no question). I try repeating the last few words, as in affirming that she just asked a question. That doesn't work either. So then I try responding to what I guess the question is, but she looks really surprised. "Thé ạ!" (Oh really?) No, no, no--my answer is not supposed to be surprising, whatever I just said! So then I resort to "không hiẻu" (I don't understand), but that also feels awkward because it seems like she's telling me some really cool things and I want to understand. Note to self: Learn to say, "please speak to me like you would a 3-year old. I won't be offended, I promise. It'll actually make me feel less stupid."

10:00am--The bride and party finally arrive. They go into the room that holds the ancestor altar, light some incense, inform the ancestors what is going on and let them meet the bride, then exchange rings together in front of the two oldest women of the family. And that is that. The whole thing, maybe five minutes.

10:10am--A few speeches are given by both sides in the dining room while (of course) sipping green tea. Then we head off to a restaurant.

10:30am--Party time! When we get to the reception, there are many people and I see a bride--but wait, that's the wrong one. Then I see another--but she's not the one either. There must be 5-6 wedding receptions going on here. We are directed to the 2nd floor where tables are laid out. There are a few speeches, the food is served (mostly meat), and then lots of picture-taking. We are there no more than two hours.

12:00pm--I return home, change into comfy clothes, and take a nice, long Sunday afternoon nap.

And that is a wedding, Vietnamese style. I was surprised how short the whole thing was. Someone asked me if I felt awkward--yes, of course! I didn't know many of the people, couldn't understand what was being said, and was the only foreigner in the whole place. But I've gotten rather used to this kind of ignorant awkwardness, so it was ok (and it was interesting to see their customs). But what I'd give sometimes for a good hardy Hall gathering... Or for some dancing to loosen people up. I guess the plethora of beer and cigarettes did that sufficiently for most...

on giving thanks

2007-11-22T03:10:00.000-05:00

Last Thanksgiving I was in Kampala, Uganda, trying to hang on to the last days of my HNGR internship before Mother Africa whispered it was time to go home. If I knew then that before a year passed I would be in Viet Nam, I think I might have hid myself away somewhere deep in the African bush. But here I am in another capital city and on this Thanksgiving find myself grateful for many things:

1) Host Family. While our communication is limited to my stuttering Vietnamese, I always look forward to going home after a long day of work. My host mom has realized that I love orange juice, so when I got back late last night, there was a full cup of freshly-squeezed juice waiting for me. Host mom, I love you. Em Ngoc (younger sister, 15) is especially patient in helping me with language. Em Thuy (older sister, 19) is fluent in English and fun to talk with, but she's currently away at a training course.

2) Co-workers. Both at MCC and Action for the City, my co-workers have become good friends whom I can talk to about language, family, development work, and various cultural issues. The MCC reps, Lowell & Ruth, are open, hopitable, and encouraging. Brent, Rachel (fellow SALTers), and I have had many fun experiences together. :-)

3) Bamboo flute. I've been taking lessons every week on this traditional Vietnamese instrument and thoroughly enjoy both the lessons and the practicing. I have taken to practicing in what is the closest I could find to a conserv practice cubicle--the (toilet-less) bathroom next to my room. The acoustics are great and I can shut the door and just bury myself in the music. This may surprise some of you, but practicing here is a kind of therapy for me--it's the one time that I don't have to think about language, don't worry about offending people with some cultural faux pas, and actually have that rare, rare thing called Privacy. And I think the people who hear me enjoy that this foreigner is playing their traditional music.

4) Traffic. Biking to work and back home in crowded Hanoi traffic is one of the highlights of my day. I just love it when a motorbike cuts me off and gives me the opportunity to quicken my reflexes, or when a bus behind me blasts the horn for 10 seconds straight and lets me practice solfege using its pitch as the tonic, or when the motorbike in front of me puffs its exhaust straight into my face, or when my tire goes flat for the fourth time that day. But oh wait, this was supposed to be a post on giving thanks, not on sarcasm (well, the solfege part wasn't sarcasm, I really do that). So moving on...

5) Street life. Hanoi is one of those cities that is lived outside on the sidewalks and spills into the streets. While this makes bicycling through narrow alleys a maze between fruit stands, roasting beef, racks of scarves, and pigs feet taunting passerbys, it gives a certain dynamism that keeps life exciting. There's always something new to see! Just yesterday, I saw a motorbike carrying a cage with five large pigs stacked together. Not a bike I want to have an accident with...

6) You. Getting an email from a friend at home, hearing my cell phone ring in the middle of the night from those in far-flung time zones, or seeing a real letter in my box from my family totally makes my day. Thanks for keeping me connected.

I hope you also are finding much to give thanks for this day. Happy Thanksgiving!

pictures from October

2007-11-19T16:51:00.000-05:00

Click here to see captions.

on indigenous spirituality

2007-11-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

I had the opportunity to travel to Medan, Indonesia last month for a conference on Indigenous Spirituality. Over 20 participants from around Asia gathered together to discuss spirituality, the environment, and conflict/peace issues from the perspective of indigenous communities. While there is much that I could write about my time there, let me share with you one story of the Chepang people of Nepal.

While there are about 60 indigenous people groups in Nepal, the Chepang are one of the most deprived and discriminated against. Traditionally, they lived nomadic lives deep in the jungle in central Nepal, sustained by the fruit of the land. As they say, "The jungle is our supermarket." They believe in supernatural powers that inhabit the forest and rivers, and worship at the base of old sacred trees as a symbol of God's power. They don't cut these old trees because that is their worship place. They live harmoniously with the earth--she sustains them and they respect her.

The Chepang believe that land is not an entity to be bought or sold, and because of this belief the government can easily give ownership of the land to outside groups without legal battles. In fact, 85% of Chepangs don't even have citizenship, so they have no way to defend themselves. The outsiders come in and cut the forest down for exporting profits. The natural rights of the Chepang are gradually stripped away as deforestation increases, as the rivers becomes too polluted to fish, and as construction constricts their nomadic lifestyle. The government has declared slash-and-burn agriculture illegal and the Chepang are blamed for destroying the forest, while this is how they have survived for years and it is the outside companies that are actually destroying the land. Essentially they have become displaced in their own homeland in the name of development.

This is the kind of story that we in the West rarely hear about. When you buy something that says, "Made in Nepal" or "Made in Vietnam," the stories behind that item are shut up. The tears of the people run dry and their weeping is silent. I wonder when the drive of consumerism will listen and feel? I wonder when development will be more than economics? There is certainly a deep richness in the lives and cultures of indigenous peoples.

"America America" Indian movie

2007-11-16T03:09:00.000-05:00

Here's a video I got in Indonesia, made in India. I'm not (necessarily) posting it here to make some political commentary, but rather to show how some (many?) people view America.

Tok Spanluvietish

2007-11-09T23:50:00.000-05:00

So I've decided to invent a new language. It's called Tok Spanluvietish and includes a select mishmash of Tok Pisin, Spanish, Luganda, Vietnamese, and English. It goes something like this:

"Hola amigos, ogamba ki?"
"Chúng tôi khỏe. And you?"
"Mi amamas tru. Dispela tok está rât dẹp."

Tok Spanluvietish will come in very useful whenever I'm speaking to a group consisting of Papua New Guineans, Latinos, Ugandans, Vietnamese, and Americans. Too bad that will likely, um... never happen. hm. Instead it mostly confuses. The other day I was eating lunch (phỏ gà, mmm!) at a little restaurant near Hanoi University when I saw a girl pull out a Spanish dictionary. A Vietnamese learning Spanish! Super! We talked in a mix of Spanish, English, and Vietnamese, but then a Luganda word would pop out of my mouth and it was only her confused look that made me realize I was speaking another language. Thus the need to invent and promote Tok Spanluvietish. It may very well solve the world's problems by bringing people from multiple continents together. I think I'm on to something. '-)

(ps--more to come soon on my recent trip to Indonesia as well as pictures from October)

September pictures

2007-10-05T13:02:00.000-04:00

Drum roll please... announcing pictures from September! Click here to go to the Picasa web album, where you can read the accompanying captions and stories.

a lunchtime adventure

2007-10-02T02:08:00.000-04:00

I usually eat lunch with co-workers from Action for the City. We go out to a local restaurant and have a full meal with rice, meat, vegetables and peanuts that costs about 75 cents. Today, however, everyone else was away in meetings so I was on my own. I set off with 30,000/ dong, about $2 to find some food. I tried going to the place that's close to the office, but they were nearly out of food. Then I tried a more Western-looking place, but the food cost more than I had in my pocket (it was maybe $5 for lunch--what a rip-off!). But then I remembered a "bun" (noodles with springrolls or meat--they serve a watery soup that you put the noodles and some greens in, then use chopsticks to slurp it up) restaurant that I went to last week. Well, I remembered that the place exists, but I didn't remember exactly where it was. As I was wondering around, I walked by some cyclo-drivers who are used to working with tourists. Ah, perfect, I thought--they'll know where the bun place is! This is what I understood of the conversation:

Me: "I eat not yet. Bun cha is where?"
Group of men: "It is far. We can take you (pointing to cyclo)."
Me: "I don't have money. Bun nem is where? (pointing to nearby shops)
Men: "You have how many years? Your name is what?"
Me: "22 years, I am Anna. Bun is where?"
Men: (discussing among themselves) "There is a place there." "No, they don't have bun." "Yes, they have it." (then to me, pointing down a small ally) "Go there."

So off I went, not really sure where I was going. I saw a small low table set up on the side of the road with people eating around it and a woman serving white wavy noodles... bun! Yes! The sign behind her said "bun a;sdlkj." Yes! The lid to the soup came off and the woman pointed to its contents, then pinched her skin. hm, ok.. She had already served me a full bowl when I realized that the "a;sdlkj" was chunks of bones and skin. I'm not really sure what animal it came from, but I'm guessing a chicken. It's not the right time of month for dog. It tasted like the goat intestine I ate in Uganda. mmm When I finished, I asked how much it was. 20,000/, she said. When I handed her my two 10,000/ bills, she looked surprised and showed me that my 10,000 was actually 100,000. Whoops! Too many 0's on these bills. I gave her the right amount and hurried back up the street, laughing at this little lunchtime outing. It is precisely this kind of adventure that makes living life overseas exciting and gives it the unpredictability that I love. I've become an expert at laughing at myself--I certainly have plenty of practice!

oh the streets they are changing

2007-09-25T23:30:00.000-04:00

Many people here have commented on the rapid changes in Hanoi. Since I've only been here five weeks and have no "old Hanoi" to compare with the "new Hanoi," I must rely on what I hear to form my perspectives. So open your ears with me...

--Many people have commented on the traffic this year, that it is the worse they have ever seen. There are more cars on the streets (expensive ones at that), making traffic jams almost impassible. There are fewer and fewer bicycles (I am among the quiet pedalers). Drivers are more aggressive. When I ask people what they think of their city, they often complain about the traffic. And, let me say, i tru, es la verdad. Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death among the youth, which I can easily believe after seeing three accidents in one night! The government just passed a law that requires all motorists to wear a helmet in an attempt to decrease injuries and fatalities. We'll see if people actually wear them...

--Another change is the presence of imported goods. Today is the mid-Autumn festival, when children traditionally would make lanterns and other crafts and parade them proudly in the streets. Now, China has dominated the market with cheap plastic toys mimicking the traditional ones, so kids parade with battery-operated plastic lanterns instead. People who remember the "good ol' days" complain that, while they don't like this change, there's really not much they can do about it. People buy what's cheap and flashy, and those are goods from China. There's also a plethora of imported fruits from China, and people say that they have so many chemicals that a peach will stay ripe on your counter for weeks. Many avoid these "fresh" foods from China if they can afford to.

--Another major change is pollution, especially in the rivers. As people gain more wealth, there are more disposable goods that end up in the many lakes and rivers around Hanoi. Either people don't realize that this is a problem or they don't care. One of the projects that Action for the City is involved in is "PhotoVoice." From the Photovoice website (our inspiration): "At PhotoVoice we encourage the use of documentary photography by enabling those that have traditionally been the subject of such work to become its creator - to have control over how they are perceived by the rest of the world, while simultaneously learning a new skill which can enhance their lives." Basically we will train some youth to express themselves through photography, give them cameras, and have them take pictures of the rivers and surrounding communities. After a few months, we will gather the photos, edit them, and display them publicly to show the community what the problems are and what can be done about them.

Of course, along with these more negative changes, there are many new changes in Hanoi that people accept excitedly. Change is in the air, and even after five weeks here, I feel it...

(ps--As noted on the side of this blog, these posts tend to be more objective. If you'd like more personal updates, send me a note and I'll add you to my email list. :-) )

a trip to the market

2007-09-15T02:59:00.000-04:00

I went to the local market this morning with my host mother and sister. It is outdoors, covered with tarps that hit my head because I'm a head taller than most people here, and about a five minute walk from my house. My host mom goes there every morning to buy the day's food. Here's some of what I saw:

--Live fish in shallow tanks of water. These fish are very alive--I saw one escapee flopping around on the path, perhaps mistaking itself for the Ariel the little mermaid
--Piles and baskets of fruit: green oranges (they're still called oranges, though it would be natural to call them "greens"), huge grapefruit (sometimes the size of my head), papaya, watermelon (dark green and oblong), apples, many different kinds of bananas, dragon fruit (pink with green spikes on the outside, white with black seeds on the inside--pictures to come!), and other fruits that I can't describe...
--Long stalks of sugar cane, waiting to be either peeled, cut up, and chewed, or put through a press to make sweet juice
--Women hacking at beef or pork meat, still on the bone, weighing exact amounts for customers. Pig's feet on the same counter.
--Baskets full of rice
--Piles of squid, tubs of swimming shrimp, other creatures which I could not identify and for which I cannot remember the Vietnamese word!
--Women wrapping up food in banana leaves. I never know what I'll find when I open a wrapped-up green package. Always a surprise...
--A basket full of little birds, ready for some dish (sorry Hope)
--Little shops with cloth and women working hard on their sewing machines inside
--Shops to buy oil and imported goods

And there is oh so much more. As much as I hate going to places like that with my camera, I'll give it a try sometime... But hopefully this has given you some idea of the wonders of a Vietnamese market.

When we came back, I made applesauce from some macs that we bought at the market. mm... the smell of cooking apples brings me right back to the applesauce production at home every fall!

on language

2007-09-10T23:53:00.000-04:00

Rachel, Brent, and I have begun language lessons! On MWF mornings we head to Hanoi University for our "Pre-Elementary" class (this course is 100 hours total). We worked on pronunciation for the entire time the first day. Vietnamese is tricky! There are 12 vowels and some of those sounds have only previously been emitted from my mouth via grunts and "uh"s. Then there are six different tones--straight and high-pitched, falling, rising, down and up slowly, down and quickly up (like a check-mark), and low and short. If you say a word with the wrong tone, it means something completely different. For example, "ta" can mean we/us, flap, describe, be worn out, dozen, and 100 kg all depending on the tone. Most Vietnamese words are only one or two syllables, so getting the vowels and tones correct makes the difference between being understood and being a fool. I'm afraid most of my attempts make me the latter so far, but I'll get it with time. My language class often feels like a flute lesson, talking about tongue placement, mouth shape, etc. I remember some flute lessons in high school where we spent nearly an hour working on where to place the tongue for different notes and different attacks. Well, same thing here, except the result means a difference between thoi (stop) and toi (I/me). Language is a giant ear-training class. Except this is (mostly) fun. '-)

pictures

2007-09-02T04:41:00.000-04:00

I finally have pictures up! For detailed captions, click a picture below to be directed to the Picasa web album.

a brief history

2007-08-26T23:25:00.001-04:00

Viet Nam has been etched in the American national conscious as a War. Think "Viet Nam" and "war" immediately comes to mind. Go to a bookstore, look up Vietnam, and you're bound to find a litany of books on the Vietnam War, the American response to the Vietnam War, the mistakes of the war, the changes the war made, etc etc. A frequent response when I told people about going to Viet Nam was a story from their fighting days in Viet Nam or what they were doing during the early '70s. And this makes sense. I don't want to diminish the impact that the war had because it was the living daily reality for so many.

But Viet Nam is much more than a failed attempt to contain communism. Viet Nam is a country with a long history and diverse people. Even though this place is seldom in the news back home, it has changed and developed, grown and prospered. So I want to give you a brief overview of where Viet Nam has been since it left the headlines of the '60s and '70s.

1975 brought the end of the war and reunification under the Communist Party. It wasn't an immediate turn-around, however, into post-war euphoria. America imposed trade embargoes and Viet Nam soon became isolated from the rest of the world. The Communists sent many Southerners to re-education camps to train them in the ways of communism, but many of them fled on small boats to escape the hardships (these are the so-called "boat people"). These were hard times for all the Vietnamese people, north and south. Food and other items were purchased by stamps issued by the government, but those were scarce. Land was redistributed to the peasants on communes, but drought and deceased motivation led to small crops. In those days, it was a seldom-realized dream to own a bike or a television.

In 1986, however, this all changed with the introduction of doi moi--free-market economy. Viet Nam gradually opened up to the West and released its iron-fist on the economy, allowing foreigners to come in and make investments. Food and other commodities slowly became more available, construction began to boom as demand for housing and shops exploded in the cities, poverty took a turn downwards, and the gray colors of old Communism were infused with the bright pinks and bold oranges of a new Viet Nam. Of course this process wasn't overnight, but the '90s were an exciting time in this country.

The late '90s brought some deflation to overly-optimistic investors as they ran into blocks from the government and cross-cultural conflicts. But in general, the country is still growing rapidly and changing every day. The skyline contains numerous construction cranes that keep buildings growing higher and higher. The streets are changing too, or so I've been told. There are more chain restaurants (KFC, anyone?), glassed-in stores, and regular buses. Tourists walk the streets without anyone taking a second glance at them--it's not a big deal to have bazungu/foreigners around. This suites me fine! It's nice not to be stared at a lot, like I was in Uganda and Papua New Guinea.

So that's my brief little history. I should write a disclaimer that I have only been here for a week, so I really have no authority on these matters, but I'm just writing what I've heard and observed. This past week I've been like a sponge, soaking in all this new information, new sights and sounds and smells. Rachel and I have started biking, which is a really great way to become familiar with the twisting streets of Ha Noi. I've gone running several times--sometimes around a little lake nearby, sometimes on the roads, blending into the flow of cars, trucks, motorbikes, and bikes. It all just flows around me as I sweat through every pore of my body! We've been to the Temple of Literature, the History Museum, the Ethnography Museum, National Opera House, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, the Old Quarter, and many different restaurants around the city. Tonight we're off to Da Nang in the central provinces with the MCC office staff.

All for now. I'll try to get pictures up soon.

on traffic

2007-08-26T10:12:00.000-04:00

Here's a clip of the view from my xe om (motorbike), driving through Ha Noi. Traffic is no problemo as long as you go with the flow and keep the "rules" of the road (like, "only look ahead, not back" and "if there's space, fill it").

ps--I came close to not posting this because it seemed so normal (why would people reading this from the States even care?), but then I remembered that it seemed real crazy when I first arrived. This is the traffic that I now bike and run in (quite the change from the Prairie Path!).

on entering a city of energy

2007-08-22T02:11:00.000-04:00

After some 30 hours of travelling, Rachel and I have made it to Ha Noi, a city that could define Energy. I've been in a number of cities, but none compare to this place in terms of active street life, traffic, and general hustle and bustle. The only time there is a lull in activity is from noon to 1:30, when everyone shuts their shops and takes a nap. There is a constant flow of traffic that is easy enough to navigate if you know the rules ("if there's an empty space, take it"); there are many vendors selling their wares on the sidewalk; and lots of people like to walk around the lakes or sit on benches by the water. I still get pretty turned around when we travel places and don't recognize the street to home, but I know that gradually it will become natural to me.

This week is dedicated to in-country orientation, so we're learning all about the history of MCC in Viet Nam, about cross-cultural communication, values and beliefs, etc. Our country directors are also giving us the grand tour of Ha Noi--we've been to Ho Chi Minh's masouleum, the communist buildings (pretty majestic with the old French architecture), the Temple of Literature where the names of students who passed exams are engraved in Chinese on old stone tablets, the Old Quarter (downtown, which was built long before foreigners arrived), the lakes, Craft Link (a fair-trade store that supplies Ten Thousand Villages crafts) and so much more. Next week we're taking a trip with the MCC staff, then after that work and language study begin in ernest and I'll move in with my host family.

So... all is well here. I'm excited to make this place my home. Pictures to come when I can get to it. Thanks for reading. I would love to hear from you too!

Vietnam-bound

2007-08-11T01:49:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow (actually, just a little later this morning) my nomadic life takes another turn: I begin orientation with the Mennonite Central Committee (www.mcc.org) for my trip to Vietnam. I'm taking the early morning train from Albany, NY to Akron, Pennsylvania. Next Saturday the 18th, I fly out of Philadelphia, through Los Angeles, on to Taiwan, and finally, 30 some hours later, to Hanoi. I'm not quite sure what my days will look like. My official title is "Communications Officer and Peace Intern," which could include web-site updating, writing journal articles, helping with documentaries, planning MCC interfaith conferences, teaching workshops in communication, and doing PR for a new NGO. I might also be able to get involved in the music scene in Hanoi by taking lessons on a traditional instrument or playing my flute in some ensemble. I thing I know for SURE that I'll be doing is learning Vietnamese!

So... signing out until Hanoi...
Anna

Lake Winnipesaukee

2007-08-01T14:57:00.000-04:00

I was flooded with memories from my childhood as I drove down the Merrymount Lake road, came down the steps from the parking area, and walked into "Sunset," the big family house. Everything smelled the same, most things looked the same, my extended family (mom's side) was all there to greet, and a wonderful breeze was coming off the lake. It had been about four years since I was last there, and four years is far too long. Since my last summer there, I have been around the world--to Papua New Guinea, Uganda, Europe, and cross-country USA--and felt like a different person coming back to a very familiar home.

If you looked up "vacation" in a dictionary, I'm pretty sure you would find, tucked somewhere among the boring definitions, something like this: "A state of relaxation, usually involving a lake, many boats, and wonderful family. Days are generally spent sleeping in, listening to loons, sailing many hours, cooking together, running, and reading in rocking chairs on a screened-in porch overlooking the lake."

Some days we sailed for so long that my body kept rocking as I lay in bed, the lapping of waves still echoing in my ears. One of my favorite things is to lie on the decks of Tordzus, our beautiful wooden sailboat, and drag my hand in the cool water. When it gets too hot, I just roll over into the water, grab a line hanging off the stern, and drag behind the boat.

Our last day, we watched a slideshow of some of the pictures we had taken. Here are a few of my favorites...

My family

Mt. Chocorua, first looking up at it, then looking out from the top

On another note, back home in upstate NY, I opened the fridge to find something to eat yesterday. Yogurt sounded good, but when I opened the container, there was a half-frozen road-killed herp (salamander) floating around inside. Ai-ya. Let's just say that I changed my mind about being hungry... Turns out that this little herp is actually quite rare and is now headed for the NY state museum. But wow, I guess I don't have to travel overseas to find weird creatures in the fridge! Only in the Batcheller house...

Independence day?

2007-07-05T19:00:00.000-04:00

.
the 4th of July
the day when america celebrates her independence
independent from what?
independent of who?
independent for what purpose?

are we so independent,

that we have forgotten what it means
. . . to trust
. . . . . . to love
. . . . . . . . . to rely?

are we so free

that we have become enslaved
. . . to Self
. . . . . . to money
. . . . . . . . . to fashion?

but there are some who are truly free
free to serve others and love from the depths
not independent but interdependent within community

abba, let us be free

(from Lombard Mennonite Church's bulletin cover, July 1)

a day in the life of a recent college grad

2007-06-16T16:04:00.000-04:00

So what am I actually doing here, besides taking goofy pictures of myself? Well... every day is different, but here's a look at a somewhat typical one:
6:00-ish : Wake up, go running on the Prairie Path, shower, breakfast, QT, etc
8:30-ish : Bike 20 min to Wheaton, start work at the media lab by going through footage of the Festival of Pacific Arts
12:00 : Lunch with MR crew--we're currently watching a documentary of Metallica. Fun stuff.
1:00 : Back to my FoPA editing on the computer
5:00 : Eat dinner (or whatever's left-over from lunch. I have to work on the whole pack-your-meals thing) outside on the lawn in the sun. Realize that the world has gone on while I've been in the cold basement of the BGC with a computer screen all day.
6:00 : Work sound for a conference event. Yup, I'm the girl (or "light-man" as some have called me...) in the back who everyone curses if something goes wrong and everyone ignores if all goes well. Watch Uganda music videos on YouTube while my CDs are burning. :)
9:30 : Bike back home, scrounge around for dinner, watch the news or read, then bed by 10:30.

Repeat.

Gen. 2:18

2007-06-13T20:35:00.000-04:00

"Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone..." Or woman either, for that matter. And now I know why: otherwise we go CRAAAZY!

I'm living by myself now, until my professor gets back. I spent most of today in front of a computer, getting lots of work done and loving what I'm doing, but then I come home and ... and ... and this is what:

Yeah. God was right. I need people. He's pretty smart like that.

.

Pictures!

2007-06-06T00:26:00.000-04:00

There are too many pictures to put on this blog, so click here for more road-trip snaps. :-) Also see that link for graduation pics.

Final destination

2007-05-22T02:32:00.000-04:00

We've arrived in Seattle! The road trip is over, and we're very glad to be in one place for more than two days. Yesterday we hiked in Glacier National Park, then drove down to Missoula to stay with Elle Walter (hooray! thanks again). So today was our last leg of the journey--about 8 hours through hills and mountains to the Lindvall's house. Pictures to come...

Some photos from Thursday and Friday

2007-05-20T01:26:00.001-04:00

An entry from Mary...

Road work. Poor Anna.

On the way out of Colorado

Grand Tetons

We are SO hard core. And so are pancakes.

Our campsite by Jenny Lake

Anna told me to. I think she wanted some time to herself.

On (or off) the trail to Hidden Falls

I wasn't really feeling photogenic...

We continued on the Cascade Canyon trail

But I had fun taking artsy pictures of Anna.

Yellowstone

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Just to give you an idea how bizarre Yellowstone is.

This is in America. It is not a movie set. It happened naturally.

View from hill by our campsite at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone.

Reflections of faith

2007-05-20T00:35:00.000-04:00

A excerpt from my (Anna's) journal, written on a lake in the Grand Tetons... it's a bit long, and I probably wouldn't read it if this was someone else's blog, but here it is, for those who have time...

I sit on an old white fallen tree whose roots kiss the lapping waves of Jenny Lake. I love the sound of lapping water--it brings me back to childhood days lying on a warm wooden sailboat, my hand dragging in the water, the wind cooling my back. If I lift up my eyes from this page, they meet towering mountains, their jagged peaks still covered with snow from a long winter. The smell of pine and newly budding flowers wafts in the air. All I hear is water--the roar of a fall in the distance--and my own blood rushing through my body. It is peaceful in this place.

Places like this quiet me, as if I'm in a sanctuary and don't want to disturb the presence of the Most Holy. I can't explain God or faith or grace or any of those big terms like escatology I learned at Wheaton. All I know is that, somehow, for some reason, at some time, this Mystery spoke into darkness and declared that It Is Good. Who am I? Again, I can't explain it, but somehow, for some reason, at this present time, this Mystery chooses me and loves me.

It is in this Mystery that I rest and am at peace. I do not have all the answers (or all the questions either, for that matter), but I rest in the knowledge of a Redeemer who is calling me forth, calling the world forth, into a holistic restoration of relationship.

My image of God now is like the reflection in the water before me. All I can discern, through the ripples, are large shapes and rough colors. A dark block here, a lighter streak there. I know that the water reflects the true image of the mountains, yet it is far from clear. And that's how I perceive God at this point in life--I know some aspects of His character, but He is largely unclear. What I rest in is the assurance that beyond the reflections, over the ripples is a God so magnificent and real that were I to see Him, see Her now, my eyes would not be able to behold the glory.

...come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters...

Aspen

2007-05-15T23:23:00.000-04:00

We hiked and hiked all day
Until college stress went away
With sun on our cheeks
And snow on the peaks
We've not been this happy for weeks!

In the morning, we hiked in Aspen and discovered the reason for the name--
so many stands of Aspen trees, reaching high up into the blue sky.

Mary and Bonnie stand on a bridge over troubled water...
(can you tell we've been listening to that Simon & Garfunkel CD a lot?)

In the afternoon, we tried to drive up to Maroon Bells but the road was closed. We walked for over three miles on the road, enjoying the beautiful views, but then found out we weren't even half-way. With sadness, we turned around and walked back to the car, Mary in bare feet and Tanner happily trotting along.

Our last exploration was at a ghost town in Ashcroft, a silver mine that went bust. The following poem, written nearby, depicts the hard life that the miners were trying to hold onto:

The Prospector
When our grub pile's slim and scanty
Not a dollar in the shanty,
And our threadbare garments letting in daylight:
The pay-streak still eluding,
And barren dykes intruding,
And we are chased by harsh collectors day and night
When our efforts lose their footing,
Our pard's insults sure cutting,
And misfortune's cruel jeers and sneers are keen
From our Ashcroft habitation
We behold bleak desolation
When scar Autumn's gold's transformed to silver gleen.
(-Jack Leahy-)

Tomorrow we're on to the Grand Tetons! Woot!

Into the mountains!

2007-05-14T23:45:00.000-04:00

...a travelogue from Anna...

After driving hundreds of miles on vast, flat land, we let out a whoop when we first spied mountains looming over Denver, CO. Within one hour we went from land literally flatter than a pancake, to twisting roads, rocky canyons, and snow-peaked mountains. I have officially decided that mountains are far superior to great flat plains and would much rather live the life of a mountain goat than a plains buffalo.

We stopped in Denver to stock up on oil, a tire gague, and radiator fluid. It took us several trips between the car and the store to figure out exactly what kinds we needed, but we finally came out with a large bag of goodies. We spied a grocery store across the parking lot and decided to see what they might have to offer for our lunch. After wandering around the small store, we found some injera--Ethiopian sponge bread. I have eaten at Ethiopian restaurants before and loved the bread, so Mary and I decided to buy the package of five large injera and soup to dip it in. As we were talking about it, we met a Mestizo man who works at the attached café. Our conversation with him reminded me of conversations I had with people in East Africa--there's a certain sense of curiousity about one another. We headed for a park to eat our injera and soup. We both ripped off pieces to scoop up the soup, but Mary was put off by the 'alcoholic' taste to the bread and soon opted for a spoon.

Now we're at Bonnie's house in Basalt, CO. We just played some good rounds of Mennonite Scrabble and are soon off to bed for a long hike tomorrow. Hooray for friends! Hooray for mountains! Hooray for road trips!

Gateway Arch

2007-05-13T22:55:00.000-04:00

...a travelogue from Mary...The Gateway Arch is enormous, a gleaming silver that reflects and soars into the blue sky. Its feet are large and firmly planted in the ground, but the top seems to lightly float in the sky even as it melts into it. After doffing our graduation garb, Anna and I entered nomadic lives, and we thought that the Gateway Arch would be a meaningful place to begin our post-graduate journey. We are at once both strongly supported by our families and dear friends and soaring (sputtering?) into a future that, like the sky, seems very large and ambiguous.
We drove through Missouri and a lot of Kansas today, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, eating raisins, and reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Nelson's only about 23 years old right now, so he and we both have a long ways to go yet. Missouri had lots of hills, farms, and large swathes of trees. It's lovely to drive through such openness. I can feel my soul relaxing like the Mississippi River spreading into a floodplain. Having spent the past four years in the Midwest, however, we're resisting its charms and charging on through towards Aspen. Right now we're in the bathroom of a KOA campsite in western Kansas, because there's an electrical outlet in here.

Yesterday we drove from Wheaton to St. Louis. We had a little bit of a problem leaving: namely, a tire. When I got the tires changed on the lovely car my Great Uncle Frank gave me, I asked them to give me the best old one for a spare. But then I discovered where the car was already hiding a spare, and, besides, the other one was entirely useless, because for some reason they'd given me the part of the tire you make tire swings from. Maybe some of you reading this would know what to do with it, but I personally have no idea how to turn a tire swing into a wheel. It's not environmentally friendly, nor probably legal, to just toss a tire swing. I thought about leaving it by the Wade Center dumpster, but that would not have been right. So we headed off, Anna and I, in our tank tops and sunglasses, with a full car and the tire part of a tire swing. We pulled into a car repair place on Roosevelt, and I asked a young man if I could drop it off. He checked with his boss, who said, "No." I looked as much as I could like a naive maiden in distress, who had thought the nice automobile men would take care of everything. (OK, I didn't have to fake it at all. What on earth were we going to do with a tire sitting in our back seat all the way to Seattle?) The nice young man looked troubled at my predicament, took it, said, "All right, you're fine," and disappeared around the back of the garage.

We got to the church in time for me to take a long nap in the park across the street, while Anna played with her new camera and took pictures of people taking pictures before prom. We were both so glad to be at Grace and Chris's wedding, and to see our dear friend Michelle Heinze. At the reception, we sat with some friendly people from the area. I asked them what a particularly St. Louis thing to do would be. Drew said there was a drag strip outside the city, if we were interested, and the other guy suggested sniping, or else shooting the raccoon that had been raiding his bird feeder. It is illegal to kill snipes, now, because so many people wanted to call themselves snipe shots, so groups of people go out into the woods and night, catch snipes in bags, and then release them again.
We stayed at Anna Moffat's house with some other Wheaties last night. On the way out from the reception, we asked if they wanted to go out. Anna Moffat was like, "Ummm....do you mean like Steak and Shake, or the other kind of out?" Well...

Dear parents: Please don't worry about us. The police have got us covered.