Oh I Love the 24 Hours, Jack Bauer is so Fierce

In an always unexpected turn of events, we managed to meet two men last night who fully embodied the third turn of Hollywood in a third world country. These two men were professors at the local university and had studied in Senegal. Our conversation flowed from the delivery service of McDonalds in Senegal to the role of Seth Cohen in the OC to how we all agreed that Nina Myers is a big bitch. I’m not going to lie, it was a welcome change of pace to chat about the sleaziness of American culture. I have never been a man of Hollywood or celebrity gossip and I figured moving to Rwanda where I barely shower and struggle to get potable water that this would be final nail in my Hollywood coffin. I was wrong though. I have found myself savoring any new gossip I hear and anticipating future movies I will probably never see. Going to concerts comes in a solid second place to food for things I miss most from home (I mean family and friends has to come in first). All in all this was not what I expected but really when does life ever go as expected?

Was it Not Enough of a Sign Before?

If global warming, a polluted environment, dropping billions into countries that have poor human rights records and continually rising prices were not a good enough reason for the US to at least seriously try to alleviate its oil dependence, we now a monster oil spill on our hands that’s getting worse.

I must admit, I feel quite displaced from American politics and the day to day news of the world but damn, I can’t get online without seeing an article explaining how worse things are getting off the coast of Louisiana. “Drill baby drill” NO please, we can’t keep putting off the earth and oh we will take care of it later or oh it will fix itself. I think we have been created to be good stewards of the earth but we are just destroying it at an alarming rate and while our only concern is money. Newsflash Obama maybe you shouldn’t let the oil industry regulate itself and maybe you shouldn’t let them estimate the damage their causing. I think everywhere else that would be considered a conflict of interest. I have a novel idea, how about we actually let corporations take responsibility for their actions.

I’m sure the oil spill will give some great pictures the oil destroying the entire costal environment of Louisiana. Will this be the final straw for America to say hmm maybe we can’t keep living the way we are? Maybe we should legitimately invest in renewable energy.

America, a plea from a country receiving the full brunt of global warming, please stop the suicide machine.

I realize that post is a borderline melt but sometimes you just got to let it out and say why? Change please!

Everyone Has a Story. What's Yours?

“23 and so tired of life, it’s such a shame to throw it all away. The images grow darker still, could I have been anyone other than me. ”

This song means more to me than anyone can imagine. It’s a critical part of my story. Those eight words, “could I have been anyone other than me” propelled me into a life of critical thinking and questioning that has brought me to where I am now.

I am 23 and I must admit, the questions of life have been creeping in a lot lately. Do I want to stay in Africa? Do I want to take on the empire? Do I want to fall in line and get a job with a non-profit? Do I want to go to grad school? Do I want to stick to my ideals of being able to create systemic change in a world that desperately needs it?

As I search for answers, I look back on the story of my life. What major events have shaped the course of my life to where I am now? What do I truly want in the future coupled with the reality of what I can sustain?

As I ponder my own story, I cannot help but to think about the lives and stories of those who I have met here. On occasion, people share with me a part of their story. The genocide has been a turning point for almost everyone. It’s interesting to hear people describe how the genocide has made them into who they are today. I see both the positive sides and negative sides. Many folks talk about never wanting to experience anything close to genocide again and for that reason has motivated them to work harder than they ever have before.

In a strange turn of events, one of my better friends here is guy whose life is branded by genocide. He was in the army for 13 years and has seen more than almost anyone can fathom. He served in Rwanda, Congo and Burundi in their times of greatest turmoil. He has witnessed the scourges of hell first hand. He now has a drinking problem. His stories of war are unfathomable but he doesn’t let it shape his entire image. He is a sweet man with a heart of gold and a great cultural awareness and acceptance of others.

I see him every other week or so and for a brief time our radically different stories intertwine and create new chapters of who we are and what we are becoming. My peacemaking ideas meet his honest observations on life and war makes for an interesting time. It really is amazing that two people from ridiculously different backgrounds can come together to shape each other’s lives for the future. Who knows, maybe one day I can show him a light to sobriety while he will continually show me what radical forgiveness looks like. Oh the stories of life and how the oddest of things can have the greatest meaning in our lives.

Silly Monsanto

So the generous company Monsanto has decided to donate $4 million worth of Monsanto seed to help Haiti recover after the earthquakes. Wow I don't know why people bash on Monsanto so much. Wait a second....

So thousands of Haitian farmers have pledged to burn all the Monsanto seed they receive. Well why would they do that?

Oh the crops that they are going to donate are treated with highly toxic pesticides and the crop hybrids have never been grown in Haiti before.

Silly Monsanto, your facade of being a good company is gone. People know what you are doing and they think it is sick. How do you feel that those in extreme poverty in Haiti are going to burn your seed? Is it not a sign that you should change your ways?

On a more serious note I am very thankful that people were paying attention and were asking questions instead letting another horrific corporation pretend to do something good.

AIDS Part 2

I stand by my previous post stating that AIDS education is not lacking in this country but convoluted. I believe the problem is over information and the message presented has been jumbled from many angles giving students mixed information. I also think that we unify our voices and present a clear and similar message. So in efforts to clear things up, I taught AIDS the other day.

Question one from me out of the gate; is there a cure for AIDS? All students said no. I thought we were off to a good start until I asked them if they knew what a cure was. We just went downhill from there. They had all of the right answers from causes to affects but didn’t know what any of it meant. Without knowing the meaning of the answers, they are useless. For example, the ABC’s: abstinence, be faithful and use condoms. There is nothing wrong with the ABC’s if you actually know what the terms mean but I found that many of my students did not. The term abstinence was completely misconstrued from people saying that abstinence was when someone has the inability to not have sex to just meaning that you shouldn’t have play sex??? Which begs the question, what other types of sex are there if there is such thing as play sex. AIDS education isn’t a quiz. These kids have all the right answers and all the wrong meaning when it is the meaning that counts. I don’t care if my kids know all the right answers. I just hope they understand the implications of AIDS. This has certainly taught me a lot about education

Side note-

Of course towards the end of class I had a no holds bar Q&A (that’s how I roll). My two favorite questions were; well if that’s what French kissing, then what is American kissing? Second best question was, how do lesbians have sex?

Debt

$60 billion a year could help pay for..... hmm the 3 trillion dollar war?

companies are evading the government of $60 billion a year and this is just one form of evasion

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a7td7E8_4EeI&pos=10?fhuffbloomberg

just some little laws can make a big difference. these are things that infuriate me.

I Guess it's Dead?

I’m a little late on the draw for this one but apparently the Emergent Church has been declared dead. I would consider myself emergent so I guess that’s a bummer. So I haven’t been able to fully catch up on the conversation because the internet is not so hot over here but I’m still going to share my 2 cents.

First, I’m not sure how something that doesn’t really have a shape and minimal structure could be dead? Emergent came in many forms. Some I absolutely loved while others I wasn’t too big a fan of (cough Mark Driscoll cough). Dang I’m judgmental, I’m keeping it in though. Without leadership or accruing of funds, I guess the emergent church is easy to dissolve its formless structure.

I read that the main complaint about the Emergent Church was that it was too white. Yeah I guess that’s true. In the emergent circles I was involved in only had a few people of different ethnic backgrounds. Too be honest, I don’t really know what the deal is. I believe this criticism is fair but I don’t think that it’s only the emergent church with a diversity problem. I think the church as a whole is struggling with a diversity problem and I don’t really have a clue how it can be fixed?

I don’t think its dead. I don’t know if it was ever alive, regardless of the emergent church’s vitals, things are changing in the American church. Regardless of the shape or form of the existence of the emergent church I hope and pray and believe that’s its cornerstone elements conversation and community will live on.

Communication Breakdown- Part 478

I’m just going to detail you a classic Saturday for me.

So I’m the basketball coach and we had the regional championship match on Saturday. When I asked about what time the game started, I got an answer similar to one you might receive from a cable company coming to fix your cable. “Yeah, we think the game might start between 9am and 2pm”. Great, that narrows it down. So I decide to give permission (students are not allowed to come to my house) to the captain of the team to come and knock on my door when they were leaving for the game.

7:45am- The first students (none of which were the captain) knock on my door to tell me that we are leaving “soon” and they wanted to make sure that I was ready. I blurrily thanked them and sent them away.

8:00am- A close friend from back home calls me and I call her back 20 minutes later.

8:21am- The captain and 2 other players knock on my door and I hang up the phone. They tell me that we are leaving in 30 minutes to go to the game. Thanks for the second news flash.

8:45am- I switch over on the phone to the dullest knife in the drawer sports director calling me to tell me that the team is leaving at 9am for the game. I say to myself yeah right, and call my friend back.

9:15am- Someone is knocking on my door again and I figure it really is time to go and hang up the phone. I answer my door to the captain telling me that its umuganda (where every citizen has to clean the country, enforced by law) and we aren’t leaving for another 2 hours. I call my friend back.

9:40am- The captain knocks on my door again saying that the team is leaving now. I tell them that I’m going to finish up my phone call and come. I open the door 10 minutes later to realize that they have been sitting on my step listening to my conversation, waiting for me to go.

10:30am- It takes us about an hour to walk the 5k to where the match is. I can make the trek in a lot less time but Rwandese like to casually stroll everywhere.

noon- The coach of the other team shows up to tell us that his team isn’t coming and they forfeit. My team is a little bummed and so I run a full practice at the court and we hang around to watch the boys football match.

1:30pm- The athletic association decides that the other team can’t just forfeit the championship, that would be wrong (this is a very Rwandese answer) and make the other coach go get his team.

4:00pm- My kids and I are exhausted from a full practice and baking in the equator sun for 7 straight hours. Did I mention we were starting the game now.

5:15pm- We win the game by 2 points.

I Feel the Steam But I Hear No Crack

At what price comes security?

I often brag to people that I feel safer in Kigali than I do Atlanta. But at what price am I paying for it here? I ofter comment about the quick turn around the country has made from its recent horrific past but there are still many skeletons in the closet. NYT just published a great piece describing the current challenges and the fairly oppressive way they are being dealt with here.

The article does a great job of summarizing many of the issues so I want to point you toward that. A good question is posed by the article, oppressive regimes are never sustainable but how long will it last or will things change here?

I have one good example I can give you. So I am teaching a new course this term called General Paper. Its great, I love it, I get to teach about AIDS, climate change, domestic violence, equal rights and the East African Community. I let the students choose what they wanted to learn for the other 5 weeks of class. Take a guess at what made it into the top 5 in both my classes..... REVOLUTION!

I know its just a couple of my classes but these kids ears are open. As I am pondering ways to teach my kids about revolutions, I don't think I'm the only one in the country with the word revolution on my lips.