We are living in a globalized world. . .

. . . and I am a globalized girl. Terrible, sorry. I know  Couldn't think of anything better.

The other day I was thinking, and realized that just in the past few months I have

•  Spoken Italian with people from Japan and Arabic with someone from Italy 
• crossed the border from Switzerland to France to eat Chinese food with a Vietnamese couple and an Italian nun
• visited the Amsterdam office of an American based software company to meet my wonderful Mexican hosts
• attended Catholic masses in French, Italian, Dutch/Spanish, Arabic/Bari, and English on 3 different continents.
• For beer, learned my Mexican friend drinks only Guinness and my Italian friend, almodt exclusively Corona
• eaten Indian food in Paris, tapas in Geneva, Doner kebab in the netherlands and actually been served Swiss steaks in Switzerland
• Gotten really emotionally involved in Nigerian soap operas . . . and found the plot lines having the same compelling elements of Shakespearean plays (star-crossed lovers, royal marriages, competitions, absurd tragedies).  The dialogue, however, fails to match up. 
• resently mattress comes from Uganda.  My sheets. . . not sure where they were made, but they feature a random Japanese anime pattern. 

Anyway, thought it would be fun to make a list like this . . . Altogether, feels a bit crazy, awesome, and overwhelming if you consider it all too closely.

What are some of your random global mishmash experiences?  Feel free to share them in comments.

Everyone in South Sudan is fine.

I am not very courteous on South Sudanese terms.  I’m learning, very very slowly.  The usual greeting starts with an outstretched hand, often silently (which is my problem), as they will just wait for me to turn around and notice and return the obligatory moderately-strong hand squeeze/shake.  Very nice, very polite, but sometimes I can be a bit thick. . . . so I now have a new culture to be awkward in.  

Sr. Celestina and I failing to fully
embrace this giant mango tree.
Regardless, we are fine. 

Then the conversation usually begins with something like “hello, how are you?” And I’ve learned the answer, is undoubtedly “fine.”  Not good, not bad, just fine.  I’m pretty convinced that whether it’s the best or worst day of someone’s life, they are still fine.   Sometimes I just say hello, and someone will respond, “I am fine,” giving the obligatory answer to the unspoken question.  Or I will respond as I do in the states, “I’m good, you?” and have gotten in reply, “I am fine, also.”  It is the default, the expectation, and I am slowly falling into line. It’s fine without the passive-aggressive undertone it sometimes takes on in English. It’s not just saying you’re fine or good because you don’t feel like saying any more to the person in question for whatever reason.  It is just a culturally-appropriate communication.  

It’s the same in Arabic and English.   A common greeting is, “Kayf, tamaam?” or “How are you, fine?”  So everyone in South Sudan is also tamaam. I am not sure about the Bari or other tribal equivalents. 

I have been in South Sudan for nearly six weeks and I am fine. I hope you are all fine also.  

THE TASTE OF HOME, with a few twists

The title of this blog is a little aspirational, I will admit. The title character in the story moved his entire life, including a new bride he barely knew, halfway around the world, permanently, without the kind of connectivity with his former life that I have even on a bad day.  The short story of my life would be a lot less poignant, but hey, that's why man invented literature, right? It's by nature aspirational.

Some days, though, I do feel like I’m breaking new ground and experiencing a little bit of what it’s like to move across the world with just a few belongings, your personal history and cultural background, and build something new.

Not long after I got here, I saw that we had a TON of zucchini from our garden, and was inspired to try to bring one of my dearest and favorite family traditions: my grandmother’s zucchini bread (for those not familiar, it’s not dissimilar from Banana bread but with everyone’s favorite green squash.  Trust me, it works. . . recipe below).

Obstacles that stood between me and the delicious taste of home were the following:

• The flour I tried to use first was littered through and through with larvae and beetles.   Maybe at home I’d just toss it, but here, when resources are scarce and overpriced, I gave it the old college try and tried to sift them out, but the larvae kept slipping through in greater numbers than could be justified by a "protein deficit".  So I tossed the flour and tried a new bag.
• I had to figure out how many millileters to the cup so I could use our single measuring cup without internet access in the kitchen for a quick web search or anything with a functioning device with the appropriate app.   I tried to turn on my American cell phone to use the conversion tool on there, but no luck for that particular conversion.   Had to go across the way for Internet to find out that it’s around 236.  Maybe unnecessary, but I’m not a natural cook so have to do these things for fear of a total kitchen trainwreck.  And again, lack of resources means that I didn’t want to waste everything I had. Failure was not an option. 
• The past couple years of Zucchinifest (my annual tradition of making a huge batch with my sister) had involved lots of substitutions to make the delicious dish I like to eat by the pound (or kilo, as I’m trying to think in the metric system) a little healthier (read, less guilty). . . applesauce, whole grain flour, not in the pantry, not in a store around the corner.  So back to the traditional, white-flour delicious full-oil, slightly reduced sugar recipe. 

In the end, SUCCESS.  The community loved it.  I’m not sure Grandma ever imagined I would be doing it with Ugandan flour and Zucchini grown in our garden in South Sudan (which wasn’t even a country until so recently), But it happened.  She’s no longer alive for me to be able to tell her that, but can hope she somehow knows and consider the feat a delicious toast (pun not intended) to my family history, and the human ability to adapt and thrive wherever we find ourselves, even 3 continents from home


My Grandma's Zucchini Bread (original recipe)
3 eggs beaten              1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar              ½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup cooking oil              1 teaspoon salt
2 cups grated zucchini              1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla              ½ cup chopped nuts
3 cups sifted flour

 Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour two loaf pans. Beat eggs and sugar. Then add oil, grated zucchini and vanilla. Cream together. Sift together dry ingredients. Add to creamed mixture and blend thoroughly.

Add nuts and bake for one hour or until done.

ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME, with a few twists

I’m living in a place with no public running water or electricity, but am able to have both with some the help of a few innovations. I also have my own simple but comfortable.  room and bathroom, I love my mosquito netting more than I can possibly.
put into words.

Solar panels on the house!

1) solar panels attached to the house that provide the bulk of our electricity.  They power a battery, which allows us to have power all night, although after cloudy days we’ve lost power for a few hours during the night.  We also have a generator that can be used on cloudy days, or to run the washing machine.  (I did try to do my clothes by hand the first time, just to see what it was like, but will be using the machine from here on in order to use my time better and actually have clean clothes)

2) Running water from wells that have been dug around the property, some for our use, some that provide much-needed fresh water to the local community.

These technologies are currently too expensive for the local population, and I am made aware of this on a daily basis.  Still, it’s nice to have access to these things, and know I’m living a lower-impact, somewhat more sustainable lifestyle than I probably ever have before.  

my beloved nest.

"I want you to teach them to read"

This is my Task. Capital T intended.

Without telling them, my work here has actually been exactly what I am best-suited for.  I have been charged with working with those who are behind on English, especially some of those who have migrated from Khartoum and the rest of the Sudan, and up until now were studying in Arabic, and now have to start from square 1 in terms of reading, and a language that isn’t particularly predictable at that.  I love my native language, but from the eyes of a non-native speaker, it’s often ludicrous.  C is sometimes K and sometimes

S.  KN and GN make the same sound.   The vowels are all over the place. 

To add to the challenge, the education system here relies too much on call and repeat, on blind copying and memorization, and less on basic phonics (the above complaints notwithstanding, “sounding it out” is still the best way to learn English. I can still hear my mother in my head, saying over and over again “sound it out.”  And chiming in is my own voice, over and over again to my students.

To further add to the challenge, few of the tools/crutches I would like are at my disposal.  The primary book I’ve been using I only have a couple copies of, and I’ve found a few mistakes in it.  Printing worksheets is expensive. Audio-visual or interactive materials are out. . . the classroom doesn’t have electricity.  I have to rely on a chalkboard, one copy of the book, my patience, energy, and students’ seemingly inexhaustible desire to learn from me.  This latter one is my lifesaver.  I could never teach full-time, but seeing the lights go on in their heads and hearing some of their first coherent sentences in English is what is keeping me going, keeping me excited, which in turn helps to keep the learning fun for them.  I can also use Arabic when explaining a concept is just too circuitious or impossible to grasp, and am learning new Arabic words in the process even though I tell them I don't want to hear any Arabic.  It’s a pretty good gig and between working with students during the school day, finishing up with the library, and teaching for 2 hours in the evening, time is flying by.  I will be home and in graduate school before I know it.   

Laura the Humanitarian

I have continued to make a visible impact by physically moving things from one place to another, this time with donated medicines from a German organization.  I got to see what it would be like to do disaster relief work, with the delightful mix of hot weather, tedious work and a warm fuzzy feeling inside. We were dividing the medicines into 4, for the 4 Salesian dispensaries in South Sudan. . . Juba, Maridi, Tonj and Wau.

Medicines for all kinds of ailments, especially malaria (mosquitoes suck).  Divided into exactly four.  Among my “deep” reflections during the process of doing the mental math and the work to break up everything evenly, was that socialism is exhausting.

I didn’t actually save a life or make anyone well.  I will leave that to the doctors, nurses, and people actually responsible enough to use syringes and such things.  But sorting, organizing and moving several hundred pounds of things that save lives felt like pretty good Karma.  Or, a barely noticeable step towards, as I tell the sisters, (mostly) in jest, “atoning for the sins of my country.”

Laura the Librarian

After running around the UN listening to people talk, I said to myself that I was ready to do things where I could actually see the impact.  Teach one person one thing.  Move one thing from one place to another.

My wish has come true.    Several thousand times over.

One of my big jobs here has been getting the library in shape.   Picture your elementary school library.   Then change everything, except maybe the fact that there are books on shelves, walls, a floor, and various other furniture.

There are almost 6,000 books.  The vast majority are hundreds of identical state-sponsored textbooks that are kept in the library except when teachers are using them for a class.  Some even predate South Sudan being a real state, so they were written by the Secretariat of Education of New Sudan.   P1 (1st Grade) to P8.  Math, English, Science, Social Studies, Christian Religious Education, usually called CRE.   Yes, officicial State religion texbooks, which blew my mind more than a little.   All these books were moved sorted, stamped, numbered, recorded by hand, and shelved, and I did at least a plurality of that.  From my perusal, the content for the subjects is pretty straightforward, and seem to reflect the student’s world. I  haven’t spent a ton of time in the classrooms to see how they are used.  Maybe later.

Also note the difference between a textbook WITH international development aid (UKAID) and those without.  The books funded by UKAID  arer  prettieed plastic covering to withstand the environment, the other more utilitarian ones do not.

Looks pretty good, in all, and it has created a great place for me to do with my students. I’ve also discovered some nice resources, including primary texbooks from Sudan that have been useful in relearning Arabic.

There are limited basic reading and phonics books I will be taking advantage of with my students, and some useless donated books.  We have 20+ copies each of advanced accounting textbooks and some cognitive psychology online lab books donated from some maybe well-intentioned  aid agency that no one will use . . yep, drowning in useless expensive textbooks and thirsty for the basic literacy books we need.

Welcome to South Sudan