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[Scotzmen]

I thought Scotzmen was well, scottish. What you doing living in Nz!

Moved here for better job opportunity! Didn't go so well to begin with, but finally found what i was looking for

[Sachaztan]

How come you got a job opportunity in what has to be fairly close to the opposite end of the world?

[Scotzmen]

Every job to do with computers is on the rise here, so i managed to get a apprenticeship in a local system engineers buisness, and study at home away from uni, since i need to be at home, to get my qualifications in various areas. It's a lot easier here, and there was fuck all jobs going on in Scotland  

[omgNiko]

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[Sachaztan]

It's pretty weird that this bothers you so much

[omgNiko]

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[omgNiko]

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[Bear]

Allegory of the Cave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Plato's Allegory of the Cave by Jan Saenredam, according to Cornelis van Haarlem, 1604, Albertina, Vienna

The Allegory of the Cave (Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave, Parable of the Cave) is presented by the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato in the Republic to compare "...the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature". It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter. The Allegory of the Cave is presented after the Analogy of the Sun and the Analogy of the Divided Line. All three are characterized in relation to dialectic (διάλεκτος) at the end of books VII and VIII.

Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to designate names to these shadows. The shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

The Allegory may be related to Plato's Theory of Forms, according to which the "Forms" (or "Ideas"/"Archetypes"), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. Only knowledge of the Forms constitutes real knowledge.[1] Socrates informs Glaucon that the most excellent must learn the greatest of all studies, which is to behold the Good. Those who have ascended to this highest level, however, must not remain there but must return to the cave and dwell with the prisoners, sharing in their labors and honors.

Plato's Phaedo contains similar imagery to that of the Allegory of the Cave; a philosopher recognizes that before philosophy, his soul was "a veritable prisoner fast bound within his body... and that instead of investigating reality by itself and in itself it is compelled to peer through the bars of its prison."[2]

Contents

    1 Synopsis
        1.1 Imprisonment in the Cave
        1.2 Departure from the Cave
        1.3 Return to the Cave
        1.4 Remarks on the Allegory
    2 Influence
    3 See also
    4 References
    5 External links

Synopsis
Imprisonment in the Cave

Socrates begins by asking Glaucon to imagine a cave inhabited by prisoners who have been imprisoned since childhood. These prisoners have been imprisoned in such a way that their legs and necks are fixed, forcing them to gaze at a wall in front of them, unable to move their heads. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway. Along this walkway is a low wall, behind which people walk carrying objects "...including figures of men and animals made of wood, stone and other materials.". In this way, the walking people are compared to puppeteers and the low wall to the screen over which puppeteers display their puppets. Since these walking people are behind the wall on the walkway, their bodies do not cast shadows on the wall faced by the prisoners, but the objects they carry do. The prisoners cannot see any of this behind them, being only able to view the shadows cast upon the wall in front of them. There are also echoes off the shadowed wall of sounds the people walking on the road sometimes make, which the prisoners falsely believe are caused by the shadows.

Socrates suggests that, for the prisoners, the shadows of artifacts would constitute reality. They would not realize that what they see are shadows of the artifacts, which are themselves inspired by real humans and animals outside of the cave. Furthermore, the prisoners would "assign credit and prestige" to whomever among them could quickly remember which shadows came before, predict which shadows would follow and name which shadows were normally found together.
Departure from the Cave
Allegory of the Cave. Left (From top to bottom): Sun; Natural things; Shadows of natural things; Fire; Artificial objects; Shadows of artificial objects; Allegory level.
Right (From top to bottom): "Good" idea, Ideas, Mathematical objects, Light, Creatures and Objects, Image, Analogy of the Sun, and the Analogy of the Divided Line

Socrates then supposes that one prisoner is freed, being suddenly compelled to stand, turn, walk and look towards the fire. He is told that what he has formerly seen has no substance and that what he now sees (the carried objects) constitutes a greater reality. He is also asked to identify some of the carried objects. He is unable due to his confusion and he still believes the shadows to be more real.

The freed one is then compelled to look directly at the fire, which hurts his eyes. In his pain, Socrates continues, the freed one would turn away and run back to what he can make out, which now are the carried objects to which he was just previously introduced.

The freed one is then dragged in pain and irritation up and out of the cave. Upon exiting the cave, this discomfort only intensifies as the radiant light of the sun overwhelms his eyes.

Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. He is first able to see only shadows of things. Next he can see the reflections of things in water and later is able to see things themselves. He is then able to look at the stars and moon by night and finally he is able to look upon the sun.

Finally, he is able to behold the sun and deduces that it is the "...source of the seasons and the years, and is the steward of all things in the visible place, and is in a certain way the cause of all those things he and his companions had been seeing." (See also Plato's Analogy of the Sun, which occurs near the end of The Republic, Book VI.)[3]
Return to the Cave

Socrates next asks Glaucon to consider the condition of this man.

    "Wouldn't he remember his first home, what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners, and consider himself happy and them pitiable? And wouldn't he disdain whatever honors, praises, and prizes were awarded there to the ones who guessed best which shadows followed which? Moreover, were he to return there, wouldn't he be rather bad at their game, no longer being accustomed to the darkness? Wouldn't it be said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted, and that it's not even worth trying to go up? And if they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead them up, wouldn't they kill him?".

Socrates mentions that the returning one's eyes, having become acclimated to the light of the sun, would be overcome by the darkness of the cave. This is analogous to what happened to his eyes when they were first exposed to the radiant light of the sun (516e-518a).

The prisoners, according to Socrates, would infer from the returning one's disorientation (on account of the cave's darkness) that the upward journey out of the cave had damaged him and that they should not undertake a similar journey. Socrates concludes that the prisoners, if they were able, would even reach out and kill any whom attempted to drag them out the cave. (517a)

Despite the hardships which the returning one would face, Socrates insists that the enlightened must return to the cave in order to share in the lives of the prisoners. By analogy, Socrates is implying that the enlightened philosopher must descend from a continuous intelligible contemplation of the good to share in the visible lives of his fellow citizens for the well-being of the whole. (520a-c)
Remarks on the Allegory

Socrates remarks that this Allegory can be taken with what was said before, namely the Analogy of the Sun, and the Analogy of the Divided Line. In particular, he likens...

    "The region revealed through sight"—the ordinary objects we see around us—"to the prison home, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the sun. And in applying the going up and the seeing of what's above to the soul's journey to the intelligible place, you not mistake my expectation, since you desire to hear it. A god doubtless knows if it happens to be true. At all events, this is the way the phenomena look to me: in the region of the knowable the last thing to be seen, and that with considerable effort, is the idea of good; but once seen, it must be concluded that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful—in the visible realm it gives birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible realm, itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence—". I also think that the sight of it is a prerequisite for intelligent conduct either of one's own private affairs or of public business".

...After "returning from divine contemplations to human evils," a man

    "Is graceless and looks quite ridiculous when—with his sight still dim and before he has gotten sufficiently accustomed to the surrounding darkness—he is compelled in courtrooms or elsewhere to contend about the shadows of justice or the representations of which they are the shadows, and to dispute about the way these things are understood by men who have never seen justice itself?".

Influence

    Evolutionary biologist Jeremy Griffith's book "A Species In Denial" includes the chapter Deciphering Plato’s Cave Allegory.[4]

    Journalist Chris Hedge's book "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" refers to Plato's analogy in the chapter "The Illusion of Literacy".

See also

    Archetype
    Analogy of the Sun
    Analogy of the Divided Line
    Form
    Intelligibility (philosophy)
    The Form of the Good
    Nous
    Plato's Republic in popular culture

References

    ^ Watt, Stephen (1997), "Introduction: The Theory of Forms (Books 5–7)", Plato: Republic, London: Wordsworth Editions, pp. pages xiv–xvi, ISBN 1-85326-483-0
    ^ Elliott, R. K. (1967). "Socrates and Plato's Cave". Kant-Studien 58 (2): 138.
    ^ Plato, & Jowett, B. (1941). Plato's The Republic. New York: The Modern Library. OCLC 964319.
    ^ Griffith, Jeremy (2003). A Species In Denial. Sydney: WTM Publishing & Communications. p. 83. ISBN 1-74129-000-7.

External links

    Allegory of the Cave at PhilPapers
    Animated video of Plato's Cave
    Animated interpretation of Plato's Allegory of the Cave
    Plato: The Republic at Project Gutenberg
    Plato: The Allegory of the Cave, from The Republic at University of Washington – Faculty
    Plato: Book VII of The Republic, Allegory of the Cave at Shippensburg University
    Plato - Allegory of the Cave (animated) at YouTube
    Allegory of the Cave - Plato at YouTube

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Allegory_of_the_Cave&oldid=602737294"
Categories:

    Allegory
    Analogy
    Concepts in epistemology
    Platonism
    Philosophy of education

    This page was last modified on 4 April 2014 at 15:36.
    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
    Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

[omgNiko]

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[Shabtajus]

Character Sets
Character sets can differ in the number of alphabetic characters and special characters. While the English alphabet contains only 26 characters, some languages contain many more characters. Japanese, for example, can contain over 20,000 characters and Chinese can contain an even higher number of characters.

Western European Alphabets
The alphabets of most western European countries are similar to the standard 26-character alphabet used in English-speaking countries. These alphabets often also include some additional basic characters, some marked or accented characters, and some ligatures.

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Japanese text is composed of three different scripts mixed together:

Kanji ideographs derived from Chinese

Hiragana and Katakana, two phonetic scripts (or syllabaries)

Although each character in Hiragana has an equivalent in Katakana, Hiragana is the most common script, with cursive rather than block-like letter forms. Kanji characters are used to write root words. Katakana is mostly used to represent “foreign” words, that is, words imported from languages other than Japanese.

Kanji has tens of thousands of characters, but the number commonly used has declined steadily over the years. Now only about 3500 are frequently used, although the average Japanese writer has a vocabulary of about 2000 Kanji characters. Nonetheless, computer systems must support more than 7000 characters in accordance with the Japan Industry Standard (JIS) requirements. In addition, there are about 170 Hiragana and Katakana characters. On average, 55% of Japanese text is Hiragana, 35% Kanji, and 10% Katakana. Arabic numerals and Roman letters are also present in Japanese text.

Although completely avoiding the use of Kanji is possible, most Japanese readers find a text that is composed without any Kanji hard to understand.

Korean Text
Korean text can be written using a phonetic writing system called Hangul. Hangul has more than 11,000 characters, which consist of consonants and vowels known as jamos. About 3000 characters from the entire Hangul vocabulary of characters are usually used in Korean computer systems. Korean also uses ideographs based on the set invented in China, called Hanja. Korean text requires over 6000 Hanja characters. Hanja is used mostly to avoid confusion when Hangul would be ambiguous. Hangul characters are formed by combining consonants and vowels. After these characters are combined, they can compose one syllable, which is a Hangul character. Hangul characters are often arranged in a square, so that the group takes up the same space as a Hanja character. Arabic numerals, Roman letters, and special symbol characters are also present in Korean text.

Thai Text
A Thai character can be defined as a column position on a display screen with four display cells. Each column position can have up to three characters. The composition of a display cell is based on the Thai character's classification. Some Thai characters can be composed with another character's classification. If both characters can be composed together, both characters are in the same cell. Otherwise, they are in separate cells.

Chinese Text
Chinese usually consists entirely of characters from the ideographic script called Hanzi.

In the People's Republic of China (PRC) there are about 7000 commonly used Hanzi characters in the GB2312 (zh locale), more than 20,000 characters in the GBK charset (zh.GBK locale), and about 30,000 characters in the GB18030-2000 charset (zh_CN.GB18030 locale), including all CJK extension A characters defined in Unicode 3.0.

In Taiwan, the most frequently used charsets are the CNS11643-1992 (zh_TW locale) and the Big5 (zh_TW.BIG5 locale). They share about 13,000 Hanzi characters.

In Hong Kong, 4702 characters have been added into the Big5 charset to become the Big5-HKSCS charset (zh_HK.BIG5HK).

If a character is not a root character, it usually consists of two or more parts, two being most common. In two-part characters, one part generally represents meaning, and the other represents pronunciation. Occasionally both parts represent meaning. The radical is the most important element, and characters are traditionally arranged by radical, of which there are several hundred. A single sound can be represented by many different characters, which are not interchangeable in usage. A single character can have different sounds.

Some characters are more appropriate than others in a given context. The appropriate character is distinguished phonetically by the use of tones. By contrast, spoken Japanese and Korean lack tones.

Several phonetic systems represent Chinese. In the People's Republic of China the most common is pinyin, which uses Roman characters and is widely employed in the West for place names such as Beijing. The Wade-Giles system is an older phonetic system, formerly used for place names such as Peking. In Taiwan zhuyin (or bopomofo), a phonetic alphabet with unique letter forms, is often used instead.

Hebrew Text
Hebrew text is used for writing scripts in the Hebrew and Yiddish languages. Hebrew uses a bidirectional script. Hebrew letters are written and read from right to left, while numbers are read from left to right. Any English text that is embedded in Hebrew text is also read from left to right.

Hebrew uses a 27-character alphabet, and takes punctuation marks and numbers from the standard Latin (or English) alphabet. Hebrew text also includes vowel and pronunciation marks. These marks appear either as a dot (dagesh) inside the base character, vowel marks below the character, or accents to the upper left of the character. These marks are generally only used in liturgical text, and are rarely seen in day-to-day use. Hebrew has no uppercase letters.

Hindi Text

[omgNiko]

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[Shabtajus]

Canadian Graffiti    Tuesday, August 27, 2013
I'm bored tonight, so I'm writing. Fantastic start, right? It's been a year and a half since I've posted, and this is the first time I'm so bored that I'm going to update my blog.

I could write some inane sarcastic statement like, "not a lot has happened," but I'm a better writer than that, to be sure. And I know you know this is the case because you stuck around after the first two sentences. You, reader, truly are a connoisseur of fine writing. You see Isaac Asimov next to Stephanie Meyer and the choice is obvious. You've heard of Stephanie Meyer.

So what has happened since February of last year? It looks like during my last post my plan was to attend SPU. That went well, in that I got an interview, and not so well in that I wasn't accepted to the university. That's fine because I ended up at Northwest University instead. You'd think, being a university you've never heard of, it would cost less than SPU, but that's not the case. On the bright side, it didn't cost more than SPU.

In May, I bought a new-ish car and traveled the US. I visited 27 states in 29 days. The whole photo album can be viewed here.

I could write at least a few blog posts from that trip alone, but I'm not going to. Some stories are meant to be memory, and some are meant to be told in person.
Memory, it turns out, is fairly malleable. For instance, perhaps a decade from now, I'll remember having accidentally entered Mexico, rather than accidentally entering Ontario, without my passport thanks to unfounded trust in Bing Maps. And I'll remember the three pieces of graffiti I saw on three different overpasses over two separate freeways, each at least thirty minutes apart saying "I ♥ you", "Forgive, forget", and "Have a good day" in Spanish rather than English. I'm not really sure what a heart symbol in Spanish would look like, but if I remember crossing the border from New York to Mexico, I'm sure I could think of something.

Perhaps some day I'll remember... nope, this was a stupid way of writing. I'll have no more of it. Fine, I'll tell you a couple more tidbits. The only place I visited or drove through in which I did not find some amount of beauty was Los Angeles. Everywhere else I appreciated some aspect to it.

Washington DC is the only city I've ever considered someplace I'd want to live. I really prefer suburbs and rural areas. I actually got giddy when I first saw the Washington Memorial from the freeway. I had no idea I would feel that way. Perhaps I've seen the West Wing too many times. My favorite place to visit in DC was the National Building Museum.

Petrolex's family in Phoenix was ridiculously hospitable, and even gave me $100 for gas. I loved my visit with them.

I went to the Sounders/Dallas FC game with Nicci and her then boyfriend. We were three of about ten Sounders fans scattered about the sadly small stadium. Even that close to Mexico (most of the attendees were hispanic), soccer is not a big sport in the US. The three of us made an appearance on TV in Seattle for a couple seconds around half time. We won that game 2-0. It felt really awkward being an away fan. That's the first time I've experienced that.

After visiting Disney (an old female friend from high school, not the company--if you're reading this it's because I didn't manage a better pseudonym for her before finishing this post) and her boyfriend in San Diego, which was super fun, I drove Phoenix-ward and got a ticket in California for speeding. 'Cause if you're going to get a speeding ticket, southern California is the logical place to get it.

Texas has freeway speed limits of 80mph. "Share the road" signs in Texas are for motorcyclists. God bless Texas.

My most surprisingly awesome visit was with an old church/high school friend and her husband whom I'd only met briefly at their wedding. Halfway through what had been a normal small-talk dinner, I made some nerdy science statement and things just went uphill from there. Her husband and I stayed up until 1:00am discussing the physics of light.

On a month-long trip, you're bound to have some ups and downs. Aside from LA and my speeding ticket, I've only listed some ups. Some downs were missing Mother's Day and my grandpa's 75th birthday party. Also Montero scored his first, long-awaited goal of the season against the LA Galaxy at one of the games I missed, and it was a pretty fantastic shot. That's alright. He's not on the Sounders anymore anyway.

A few of the visits I had were really awkward. Maybe I'll forget those over time. There are a couple other stories, but I really will only tell those in person. So if you're that interested, and you know me, ask about the girl in Chicago, or the whole story of Niagara Falls through Ontario to Chicago, as getting into and out of Canada without a passport is a feat.

In mid July, I saw an old acquaintance, Mary, online. (She's aliased so for her love of British everything, such as Downton Abbey.) I knew of her from college, and I'd always thought was cute. She'd been part ofwith Vin's clique of CCFers that I was never really a part of. Up to that point in our lives "hey" was the only word we'd said to each other, so quiet naturally, that's what I said. One thing led to another and we dated from August until January. I don't know what to say about Mary. She's one of the best people I know. She's funny, compassionate, real. But there's an indescribable quirkiness that's just Mary (though italicizing her real name would make this sentence more accurate). It's that quality that most attracted me to her. We broke up on good terms. In fact we were both planning a relationship changing/ending talk for the same evening. I miss her semi-frequently, but more often than not, I miss her more than my romantic relationship with her.

With September began my masters program. We began as a group of twenty-two, but in the end nineteen of us graduated. One failed a class and dropped out, one ran into healthcare/money issues, and one got super sick after commencement (which happened in May, despite the program ending in July) and had to push back her student teaching to this September, and she'll graduate when she completes that.

The first three months were pretty easy, and as long as you had flexible hours, very doable while working a job. I didn't have a job, still relying on my Microsoft stock.

Second, and technically third, semesters were a little lighter on class load but also had two major teaching projects--one for the school, one for the state--a forty page research paper, and student teaching. At this point, you could no longer maintain a job.

There really is a ton to write about my masters degree experience, and I've exhausted tonight's writing enthusiasm and, let's face it, talent, so I'll post more about it tomorrow, or, you know, within a year or two from now.

[Shabtajus]

turns out shabs a linguist and a philologist.  

Much Ado About Nothing    Wednesday, February 22, 2012
I suppose it is time.

Since October 1. Hum. Well, I briefly dated/flinged--flung?--a girl named Belle. Basically the first date went fantastic, which introduced super high expectations, that were later not met. It's entirely possible they were impossible to meet. Belle and I are still friends, though it took a couple months.

In the last couple days in Rwanda, we headed back toward the airport. On the way, we visited some orphans and widows, doing missionary work like a cop eats a doughnut. The woman my group met with was 51 years old and had an amazing, tragic story. Her husband was a fisherman and died drowning when she was in her early twenties. By then she had two kids, but her parents and parents-in-law disowned her. She couldn't afford the house she was living in, and had no where to go, so she lived, quite literally, under a mat for ten years. The neighbors took pity on her kids some nights and gave them food, some of which they smuggled in their shirts, so that's how the woman survived. There was something about her owning the house they'd lived in, but not the land it was on, and the man who owned it refused to part with it. He was planning on leveling the house, but since it was government-built, it was illegal. When we met with her, she was in the process of getting the government to step in. My favorite part was that she let us take the bench in her house, and pulled down some mats for herself. One of the mats, when unrolled, revealed a giant spider. I pointed it out, expecting her to whack it with a shoe, or ask me to. Instead, she slapped it, bare-palmed, it curled up, and she brushed it aside. My sister would have run to Uganda at the sight of that spider.

The day before we left the country, we had a one-day "retreat" for the World Relief staff. It was based around the five or six sections of the Lord's Prayer. We put out large sheets of paper with the section name at the top, then went around and wrote prayers that fit the section for World Relief and otherwhere. (Otherwhere passes spell check?) It was a fairly powerful experience. Afterward, it began to rain pretty hard. I walked out into it, getting soaked. The Rwandans thought I was crazy, which amused my team and me.

The day after we got back from Rwanda, I had tickets with my Microsoft team and Swood to see the Seahawks. We were to meet at a bar in Seattle, but I managed to leave my wallet in my bags, still packed, at home, and my 16-year-old face couldn't convince them I was 24. Our tickets were for seats literally the furthest from the field, the nosebleeds of the nosebleeds. We lost the game, though had we made the hail-mary field goal we would have won or gone into overtime. I don't remember.

When I went back to work, everything had changed. The two remaining members of the original project I was on had left to go work with my old boss. We had one new member, and two or three more on the way. Our code base had moved to an entirely different system. Seriously, I'm gone for two weeks and the team falls apart.

Within two weeks, I had to do my commitments. My boss helped me with those, and midway through, I realized, I'm not going to do these. It made setting them a bit easier, when then and there, I decided I was going to quit my job.

Obviously the next question was "What now?" The only thing that came to mind was teaching high school math, so I set my course, and looked for colleges. The only college that fit my schedule was SPU. For UW, I'd have to wait until the next October to apply, and start in spring of '13. Western, which would have been my first choice, had no Seattle satellite campus, and I don't want to leave my church. When I talked to HR about leaving Microsoft, she recommended CityU, but my sister is there.

A few weeks later, at one of my one-on-ones with my boss, he told me, as a friend and in no official capacity, that I should start looking for a new job. I started talking to people about my decision, outside of work (and with Athena). My Rwanda trip team (we're still meeting once every two to four weeks as we did pre-trip) was all very supportive, everyone saying I'd make a great teacher. My psychiatrist said she hears people frequently say they want to quit their jobs, and she always tells them to keep them, but in my case, that I should go for it. The only two people I told that weren't thrilled were my mom and Luke's wife--both teachers. My mom didn't want me to drop out of the computer field when she knows that's one of my (if not my) biggest passion, and she's been teaching for 35 years, is burnt out, and angry at what the government is doing to the system right now. Luke's wife is a second or third year teacher, and at the time, had been having a very rough year. Both of them are junior high teachers, whereas I want to teach high school.

I gave my two weeks' notice two weeks before Thanksgiving. My boss gave me the best compliment he could have: "Oh, I expected you to say you were going to Google or Amazon." My last day could have been the Wednesday before, but Microsoft has a long standing tradition of a farewell lunch, and I figured that everyone would be out of town, but be back by Monday, so that was my last day. Those two weeks were hard because it's Microsoft policy not to tell anyone except HR and your boss if you're actually leaving the company as opposed to changing groups. I spent a lot of it messing around with a MSR gadget, teasing out the peculiarities and attempting to train the guy who would take over my project. I spent a lot of it rereading QC too. The rest of my time, I spent talking to Vin on facebook. She is a wonderful person.

The person I hadn't told, come Thanksgiving, was my grandpa. I was not really looking forward to that conversation, but I've got a bit more ... I don't even know the word ... than my mom or sister. Hostility isn't quite right; indifference; rebelliousness. Combine those but only take certain portions of each: hostdiffousnessity--the attitude of I'm doing this, and I know it to be right, so you can condemn me or not and it won't bother me either way. It's being a teenage daughter, except right. Anyway, I don't even remember how it came up, but I ended up telling my grandpa I had given my two weeks' notice and was going to become a math teacher. His response was, "Good for you!" My jaw almost dropped. I know he and Grandma knew that I wasn't happy there, in fact they were the first to know, even before me, but they'd always tried to push me toward Amazon or Google. When my mom had told him she wanted to be a teacher, he was disappointed, though my understanding is that it was because of the pay they received.

Thanksgiving went well for me. Well in general, except for my cousins and sister, I think, and except for one or two parts, it went well for them too. Good food, good company, an interesting game of Apples to Apples--interesting because some people played it literally, my sister and I didn't, and my two cousins were too young to understand "Woodstock." "I like the bird." But, as the party was breaking up, my grandpa said goodbye to my sister asking, "So, are you on track to graduate?" Since my sister's taken five years to graduate, he's quit supporting her financially (or so I've heard). His concern can be interpreted as aimed at her success rather than her wellbeing. Then, he turned to me and said, "Follow your dreams!" A few moments later, when he was out of earshot, my eldest cousin turned to my sister and said in a bitter tone, "Or, you can just not go to college and have no expectations placed on you at all!" Good ol' family politics, I guess. Still, beats presidential politics.

My goodbye lunch was bittersweet, half because I was leaving and would miss the people who attended, half because half the people I wanted to attend were out of town still. I'll admit it's a little selfish to wish the guy were at my lunch rather than at Disneyland with his family. A little.

Of the process for leaving, I was most upset that they didn't let me keep my badge as a memento. I was tempted to leave it home that day, but my good nature prevented it.

The SPU program officially starts in late July, so I had/have eight months of unemployment. What allows me to do this, and to live while in college without a job, is my recently converted buy-a-house fund, a large sum of money sitting in MSFT stock. Assuming Microsoft doesn't go out of business, or drop its value by half, I should be fine for living for 36-40 months, without taxes. What I don't have is the $17k needed to go to school, so I'm hoping to take out some loans for that.

Everything just kind of fell into place for this decision. Last June, I'd planned on moving into a house I wanted to buy by February, so that's when I set as the end of my lease. As "luck" would have it, February is when Bob's roommate is moving out. (It's now one week until the end of my lease and she still hasn't so I need to do some more prodding.) Rent at Bob's place is a couple hundred cheaper per month. It's not huge, but it's some. SPU's program is 14 months, which is about the amount of living money I have, and it's somewhat targeted at people leaving the tech industry who want to teach math and science, which is me. My mom's an alumnus so I think that will help with admissions and tuition a little bit. A dozen other small things have just left me feeling at peace with this decision. It's where God wants me to be right now, and that's enough. It's quite the turn around from where I was a year ago.

Christmas was good, mostly because I got to see friends from all over. Vin came back, so we had lunch together at a place in Seattle. Denna, whom I'm renaming once again to Nicci (having reread The Wizards First Rule, and deciding Denna doesn't really fit--and I'm not choosing Nicci because she's Death's Mistress [one should hope not], but because she turns into a dear friend of Richard's, though not his wife) visited, and I spent a day barhopping with her and her sister, brother-in-law, and roommate and his friend. That day, my iPhone was stolen from my car seat through my window. I forget that Seattle is not Redmond. It was really being used as a glorified iPod, since I've been using my Windows Phone for over a year. Still, it would have been nice to keep, sell, or give away. It's missing the chip that makes it act as a phone, so they'll have a little more trouble using it. After the barhopping, I took the ferry over to Port Orchard and hung out at her parents' house, with some of her other Port Orchard friends. I'd been hoping to get a chance to talk to her one on one, but it didn't really happen. At the end, it was me, her dad, and her. Her dad and I played a game of chicken, and I lost. I was a little disappointed, until the next morning when Nicci told me that a lot of wounds between her dad and her were mended and that they were on significantly better terms, which were my prayers while driving on the way home, and had been for months before. God is good.

Frank was also in town, and the Quad had a good night of Apples to Apples, and dare I say it, Quelf. They are the only three people with which I could play that game, though perhaps on a different timeline, it'd be interesting with Goose as well. Much blackmail material was generated.

A lot of people, people older than me mostly, have suggested that I should become a technology teacher, or assume that's what I'm going for rather than math. It's really hard, and repetitive, to try to explain that there's a difference between computer science and technology, the same as there's a difference between math and accounting. I would love to teach computer science, but first I'd have to find a school that actually teaches it. That might involve working for a few years, and then coming up with my own curriculum. I don't know how good the AP CS curriculum is, but that might also be an option.

In order to become a masters student, you have to take the WEST-B and WEST-E tests. WEST stands for Washington Educators Skill Tests. The B is basic--reading, writing, and math. The E is endorsement, so in my case, math. I took the endorsement test first, and it was fun. I got something like a 78, but it's a pass-fail test with a 70% bar. The WEST-B, I got in the high 80s/low 90s for reading and writing, and a 98-ish in math. The scores they give you are on a 100-300 scale, so calculating, I'm guessing, is not a straight percentage.

In order to take the WEST-E, you can't bring anything except a calculator, and they give you lockers for your wallet, watch, cell phone, and anything else on your person. I thought I'd be smarter than that, and leave all my stuff in my car. Of course, that stuff included my keys. And my wallet, which normally has my backup car key. I do so love when I outsmart myself. One of the women who worked at the testing center was super gracious, and let me use her AAA membership to unlock my car. She even gave me a little cash for lunch while I waited for them. It's so great to meet people like that.

The SPU application was due February 1, but to beef it up a little, I was encouraged to volunteer at a couple schools. I set myself up to volunteer in a math classroom at a high school in Kirkland, but the Monday that week was Martin Luther King Jr Day, and Tuesday through Friday were snow days. The Civil Rights Movement strikes again! The next Tuesday, I went back to Port Orchard and volunteered in my favorite junior high math teacher's classroom on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday was insane. Because of the snow, the kids were rowdy. Also, because of the days missed, they had pushed back the end of the semester to that Friday, which meant the kids' grades were basically set in stone. No failing student was going to pass, and no high A student was going to get a B. No passing student cares that much about a percentage point or two, nor will they fail. The kids basically had no perceivable incentive for listening. Further, Cedar Heights's schedule is such that on Wednesday, he didn't have a plan period. Last, and probably foremost, he's a little too lenient when it comes to keeping the kids quiet, so when he gives that inch and lets them talk during homework time, they take that mile and don't shut up when he's trying to teach. In one period, he even lost his temper and sent two instigators outside for the rest of the period. At the end of the day, I was wondering if I even wanted to teach anymore. Also, that day, my car was towed because it was parked awkwardly, yet a legal 6" from the curb. Neither that, nor the $216 it cost to get it out of impound, helped. I decided to tough it out and stay Thursday. I wouldn't say it was a night and day difference, but a world of difference, nonetheless. The biggest thing, probably, was that I was ready for it. Second, he had his plan period, and during it, I went to my mom's classroom to see how she teaches. Her classroom management (crowd control) skills are significantly, well, better. It helps that she's been teaching longer, and also that her classes are all of a single grade, and thus she can reinvent her teaching style each year, whereas the math teacher's classes are mixed-grade, and students have expectations year-to-year. Also, apparently, the class I visited third period was her best, most respectful class. I finished that day thinking, "Ok, so this can be done." Still, the experience confirmed in me that I want to teach high school and not junior high.

It was good to see all the teachers I grew up with. Having lunch with them was fun, and interesting. I got the feeling that these particular days were hard for most of the teachers, probably due to the end of the semester, and a lot of the time was spent "discussing" student behavior. One interesting comment was that a girl had asked another girl out and was rejected. She ran out of the classroom, hurt, and I think went to the counseling office. The comment was that the girl who asked the girl out was committing sexual harassment. I'm thinking, "Really? How is that different than a guy asking a girl out?"

Friday was best of all, despite the Friday mayhem. During third period, I again visited my mom. She was teaching persuasive writing. The entry task was to pick a topic on the board and write a note to their parents trying to convince them of something. The topics were like "push back my bed time" or "let me dye my hair" or "give me more allowance". After a few minutes, my mom collected all the papers then redistributed them to other students. The task then was to write a reply as their parents, countering the arguments. I looked up at the board, read through the topics, and asked, "Do you realize you just put some kids on the wrong side of 'quit smoking'?" It got me a good laugh. I made a few more comments like that, and asked my mom at the end if I had been too disruptive. She said no, that having me had been good.

Some Saturday in January, I went to see Goose's play. She played Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. The part fits her almost perfectly; Goose is a nicer person. I went during a matinee because it was the last day, and I know that casts have parties after the last showing, which was that night. I wanted to see her afterward, but I didn't want to impose, having not seen her in a little over a year, and that being when she broke up with me. The play was fantastic, I thought. It was no new epiphany, but Shakespeare was brilliant. It kicked off a bit of a Shakespearen binge for me. I didn't actually do a whole lot--I read a little bit, enough to discover that so much is lost without the acting--but I thought about it a lot. Someday, I want to write a play, a comedy I'm sure. It always comes back to plot, though. It's the same reason I haven't written a book yet, either. The only thing I seem to be able to write about with any degree of skill is myself.

Most of the binge happened on facebook, and a friend of mine, a girl I almost went on a date with but then she got married, posted this clip on one of my statuses. I don't normally put youtube in my blog, but this is worth it.

[Shabtajus]

i heard niko's mom was drinking alcohol on purpose when she was pregnant. Well it explains a lot

[omgNiko]

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[omgNiko]

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[Shabtajus]

Today I met wisdom incarnate. He's the former Bishop of Rwanda, having recently retired. He spoke for an hour or so at the beginning of a day dedicated to explaining the vision and execution of World Relief Rwanda. This is a man who represents and leads the entire country through the Anglican church, a man who speaks to hundreds if not thousands at a time, a man who speaks to and councils presidents and ambassadors, here to talk to the twelve of us.

He didn't speak on behalf of World Relief, but he definitely agreed with their work and methodology.

The Rwandan government relies heavily on the Church to care for the most vulnerable. That is Jesus' mandate for the Church, and the Church therefore, presumably, is the body most fit for the task. Is it the government's duty as well? Yes, I think it is, but in the US, the Church often shrugs off its responsibility, its core purpose, because we can rationalize that our government has already taken care of it.

It's entirely foreign to me that government should rely on the church to do anything. It seems to me our government tries to do what would make our lives better, avoiding at all costs any relationship to the church; the church is a hinderance, not an asset. Recently I was considering whether it might not be a good idea to completely remove marriage, a religious notion, from our laws. Let the church handle religion. Hearing Bishop John's telling of how the Rwandan government and church work together, complement each other, may have turned me around on that. Of course, it's easier when 90% of the population claims to be Christian.

The Bishop talked a bit about the US, where he has lived in the past, and some of the Church's failures there. One of those failures, he said, is not being able to talk about Christianity in the schools. I assume he means students not being able to, but he didn't specify. I asked him how the church could not fail in that regard and he said it needs to change its attitude; it needs to be more humble. He said the Anglican church has figured out everything, and it leaves no room for the Spirit. He then asked if he had answered my question, which I felt he had not, so I asked how that would change the government's position on religion in the schools. Essentially he said the government doesn't value the church because we no longer have anything of value to offer. "The church doesn't do magic. If you put salt in a pan and heat the pan with the food and serve it immediately, the salt won't have added any flavor." He suggested that if we humble ourselves and serve rather than rant, in a generation or two, we may see change in how people view Christianity. It's certainly food for thought.

Another culture shock that I mentioned previously is Rwanda's view of Sex. "Professor" Maurice, my translator on Thursday for the pastoral retreat, talked a bit about the Mobilizing for Life program they have which teaches faithfulness and abstinence to combat AIDS. I asked a devil's advocate question, as I do so often, "When the US, historically, has taught abstinence only, it's failed miserably. It doesn't reduce the amount of sex, it reduces the amount of safe sex. (Thank you CJ Craig.) What do we expect to happen here?" In the last three or four years, the number of sexually active youth in areas where the benefits of abstinence has been taught has dropped from 33% to 12%. Maurice talked about a lot of testimonies. Pastor Phil said there are statistics to support this as well. He went on to talk about the many supporters of Rwanda, whether they be governments or organizations, that all have agendas for Rwanda and Africa. They all have their own ideals. Much of what comes in is helpful, from financial aid to education to entrepreneurial spirit. But with the good also comes the bad and the ugly, and just because the US can't keep its dick in its pants, doesn't mean the rest of the world can't. Since then (two hours ago) I've been thinking about what could cause this separation in values (and abstinence is a value in Rwanda). I know it's not belief in the Bible, as this education is still being taught to the country and roughly one in three pastors aren't even "born again." It's not ancestral roots (they're not being taught it by their parents) as polygamy is an issue here. I'm left thinking it's our media, our advertising, our obsession with sex in the first place. They have no sex appeal ads because they have no ads at all. I'm not blaming the media outright as the media wouldn't present what we don't want to see. There's a Jack Johnson song about this called "Cookie Jar".

These two pointed questions earned me the prestigious Hardest Questions award during graduation from World Relief University.

I overheard at the end of Bishop John's talk, on the way to tea that Rwanda is, too, materialistic. Americans put their faith and trust in the objects they own. Rwandans put their hope in the objects they think would make their lives complete. I guess Americans do that as well. It's an interesting thought, to be sure.

What I've learned today is that life as it's meant to be is hard. In fact, it's impossible. The amount of forgiveness, the metaphorical seventy times seven, for every possible way someone can sin against us, whether that be accidental, misunderstanding, cruelty, thievery, rape, or murder of loved ones... how can you? With the 1994 genocide raw in everyone's minds here, it makes all of this that much more real. The amount of healing through forgiveness that's happened in the last 17 years is phenomenal. Selling your stuff to support those in need? I can easily give, and in fact enjoy giving, out of my abundance, but ask me to sell my tv, or laptop, or car to help someone? Not happening. LIfe, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? God gives us life and the liberty to do with it and fail as we please in our own pursuit of happiness. Life is the one thing we, as Americans, feel we have as our own. How can we give that up completely? It's impossible. "With Christ all things are possible." It's hard to comprehend, much less believe, much less act on.

On lighter topics (and it is now this entry's tomorrow, about 18 hours since starting it), we left our hotel in Musanze yesterday morning. Before leaving, we walked up to the Catholic church about five minutes away and prayed for the region. Dyanah didn't walk with us. I thought she was being lazy since she got in a car that was to pick us up at the church. It turns out she was leaving, so I missed my chance to hug her goodbye. Nothing grieves me more than missed opportunities for relationship, romantic or not. To my future girlfriends, never tease me by offering a kiss and then denying it because of something, legitimate or not, I did. It tears me apart.

The ride to our new home, where the day-university class was held, was about 40 minutes long, bumpy and upward. (We're just about to leave this place, and I just carried my bags up the stairs to where the SUVs are. To give you an idea of the elevation, not only am I winded, which would be normal, but everyone else has mentioned being winded too.) We got some beautiful shots of waterfalls and people working their fields. The retreat center we went to has the most glorious view I've ever seen, tenfold and then some. It overlooks a large lake with several islands in the middle. There's no electricity to the islands, so there are no power lines crossing the water or anything else to mar the scene. Not that I've ever been a poetic writer, but I doubt anyone but a poet laureate could capture the view. Or a photo. With the world's best camera. Yeah, you really should just visit.

Glory be to God, we had a bathroom door in our room.

It has rained fairly frequently, so we haven't had much opportunity to see the whole thing unclouded, nor have I had any time to journal outside.

Because I don't believe I've yet stated it, and it really is one of the main points of this trip, I'm going to attempt to explain World Relief's purpose here in Rwanda. "To empower the local church to serve the most vulnerable." We've (the world) found that dumping money in Africa hasn't worked. In fact, it has worsened the situation by creating a dependency on those who've tried to help. The old give a man a fish, teach a man to fish. The only way Africa will ever succeed in betterment is if it does it itself, if it owns it itself. World Relief believes the best organization to serve the "most vulnerable," the poor, the widows and orphans, the down-and-out, is the Church, as it has been called by Jesus to do so. Further, with 90% claiming faith, it's the largest social network in Rwanda, already in place.

Jesus calls himself the groom and the Church his bride. World Relief sees itself as the maid of honor, the woman whose job it is to help the bride to have everything she needs, and then to step out of the way.

World Relief doesn't supply any financial incentives for pastors to join in their programs, except in the beginning for a free lunch and transportation. The pastors or other Rwandans own everything they do. World Relief just supplies training (trainers of trainers) and curriculum. If people think of a program as World Relief's, they'll become dependent on the organization.

This kind of thinking is difficult for task/results-oriented people and organizations. "89¢ a day will let this child go to school." That organization will, unfortunately, never go out of business, never succeed in its goal of saving Africa. Even organizations that agree with World Relief's way of doing things are often pressed by boards for results and will pay for food and transport for every meeting. Now pastors aren't going to the meeting for the benefits of the meeting, but for free food and the extra money left over after expensing transportation. Once again, they're taught that white people will give them money.

It calls into question, a bit, our (Bethany's) partnership with Living Water International. Wells are great, but it'd be better if the Africans paid for them. They also break fairly frequently, so that's another opportunity for African business. Elizabeth has mentioned this to LIving Water (whom primarily in the past has been sponsored by organizations and companies that want to boast they've put x wells in Uganda), and said Bethany is more interested in a relationship and partnership with the people our wells have gone to, and that we also want a maintenance plan in place for those wells. It sounded like, from talking to her, they were noncommittal. She said she'd call again when we get back.

Last night at our team time, Richard tried to make joke to tease me about Dyanah, but accidentally said [Caleb] instead of Jordan. After a team-wide fit of laughter directed at Richard instead of me, Elizabeth asked if there was romance there and I shrugged indicating a little. I guess she had no idea. She had even pointed out at breakfast one day that the only two other single people on the trip were women too old for me, and "I guess you'll just have to find an African."

This morning before our mostly-daily devotion, we did a quick highs-and-lows. At the end, I appended a sappy, half-joking low that I didn't get to hug Di goodbye. This unfortunately coincided with a side-effect of my Vyvanse, watery eyes. I don't know if anyone noticed or thought I was tearing up over it. Amongst the laughter at my bringing this up, I heard someone say I was doing it wrong, that I was supposed to be embarrassed so they could tease me. Ha.

We spent some time debriefing. I've said it before: I don't really come with expectations because I don't know what to expect, and I don't want to be disappointed. The disappointments I've had were minor, a missed hug, paying more than I'd meant to on a souvenir chess set, not having as much a-few-on-one time with the pastors on Saturday. I spent the last twenty minutes of that debriefing time writing this, which is really debriefing in itself.

This whole trip we've been examining poverty. This trip is based on a book called When Helping Hurts. At the beginning, it does a deep dive on the various forms of poverty. It's essentially when our relationships to God, self, community or environment are out of whack. This is to say that we ourselves are quite poor as well. We don't lack materials, but our relationships to ourselves and to our communities are really screwed up. To God, I'll leave on a per-person basis, and in Washington, we're at least trying to be environmental. Anyway, financial poverty affects all four relationships, at least in the theory presented by the book. I asked the group whether it was fair to say that Jesus experienced no poverty. The consensus was that he did not. Then I asked if he was materially poor, which he was. I'm still thinking that out.

[terrapinsrock]

[Bear]

Jesus said: You, however, be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

Wisdom is noble, but cunning and machinations are base. We must avoid such absolutely. Yet we must be fearless and straightforward at the same time, diplomatic but never conciliatory. Naturally we will be denounced as crazy, evil, negative, divisive, inflexible, stubborn, bigoted and all the things that all Human really are. That is why Jesus said,

“Whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented” (Matthew 11:16, 17).

[Shabtajus]

Yesterday we met with a few pastors from various churches in the area to make reminder-to-pray bookmarks to disperse to Bethany. That's all I have to say about that.

The rain just stopped. People are again walking the streets. That's the first thing you notice in daytime Rwanda. There are people everywhere. They don't have cars and so they walk. Bicycles are fairly common. They all have flat beds behind the seats for carrying people, bags of potatoes, or bundles of bamboo-looking branches. You could close line six people at once. Buses and vans are there too. The most common mode of quick transportation is paying a motorcyclist to taxi you. People carry everything on their heads. They necks must be made of cement (steel bends when compressed). When it starts to rain, everyone just takes shelter, squished together under the nearest eve until it stops.

The roads aren't near as crazy as in Jamaica. While pedestrians don't have right-of-way, at least drivers will slow down and try to avoid them. They honk if a pedestrian or bicyclist is ten seconds away. Cars slow down around curves or when they're about to hit pot holes. Not so in Jamaica. Drivers aren't afraid that cutting someone off will cause an accident. Perhaps the speed limit naturally enforced by the pedestrians and road quality allow for quick braking.

Though people crowd the city streets of Seattle, this is somehow different. People look more comfortable around other people. They look used to walking and taking whatever time it takes. Seattlites are determined unless they're playing the tourist for the day.

My pen just dried up. Nearly the entire thing was spent in this journal. I hadn't planned on that possibility happening. I don't think I've ever written a pen, start to finish.

On Friday night, a new translator arrived for the weekend named Dyanah, or Di. She and I have been a little bit of an item, an innocent, two-day African fling. She's stick thin--compared to her, I look average--about 5'9", with a face softer than most African women have. I was surprised that her accent nearly matches mine. She's going into international business, in the hopes of traveling the world a bit.

The last two nights' events conspired against our Nertz tradition. No riveting writing to add there.

As it is Sunday, we all went to church, or rather three churches. The church we went to was Baptist, I believe. It's a church Elizabeth visited when she was here in January. Since then, it has gained windows, doors, a roof, and a floor, half of which was still drying today.

When we got there, a choir was already singing and dancing. As the rear half of the floor was dying, the front doors were locked and everyone entered by a side door near the front. We were seated in chairs immediately to our right, clearly reserved by for esteemed visitors.

The choir sang a couple songs, each five to eight minutes long. We clapped. Di complained to me yesterday that all the music here is now synthesized rather than made with real drums or instruments. Such was the case here. When the music died down, the pastor welcomed each group: men, women, children, pastors from the Congo, visiting pastors from nearby, people who have been gone a while but have returned, new people, and us. He gave a short sermon on Daniel 1. More singing happened by a second choir, lots of clapping, lots of dancing. The pastor had us go to the front and introduce ourselves. More singing happened and this time the pastor invited us to join in the dancing. I wish I had, just because it's a bit of a fear of mine. Ballroom dancing and swing I love; when I don't know what I'm doing, I can't make myself move. The running-in-place the dancing men were doing was pretty simple, but I still wimped out. Next was time for testifying. Someone had gotten married this week and an aunt was proud and praising Jesus for it. Something happened for a guy that I don't remember, and to thank God, he was putting 50,000 franks in the offering this week. That's about $83--very generous here, about two weeks' wages. Each time someone went up or sat down, including when we introduced ourselves, the keyboardist played the same short tune giving it a talk show flavor. A second pastor came forth to give a half hour sermon on a few different verses scattered throughout the Bible. The long and short of it was that people need to return to God, and until that happens, don't expect any miracles. Next was tithes and offerings. We each put in our 83¢ we'd been told was an appropriate amount. More singing and dancing. The three hour service ended around noon.

I was in my Sunday best, slacks, black dress shirt, shoes, and tie. Di said I looked "stunning."

This morning I had a debilitating headache. Marie gave me some Advil and I skipped breakfast in lieu of lying down til it took effect. Thus, I missed the announcement that we ought to bring a change of casual clothes. It turned out not to matter as stopping back at the hotel before lunch was both on the way and the more logical choice.

We had lunch at Lava Cafe, which I think the other members of my team nicknamed Lava Java. They serve white people friendly food. I got what the menu made sound like a tri-tip dip. They forgot my au jus, but all-in-all it was decent. Di ate my fries complaining for the umpteenth time that I don't eat.

After lunch, we went to a national rainforest as tourists. What appeared to be a park ranger gave us a tour of the forest, complete with history and legend. We took a ton of pictures. Di stole my camera saying I don't take enough shots. I'll be the first to admit that. Africans take pictures slightly diagonally. We got a good shot or two of the two of us with arms draped over shoulders. Right at the end of the tour path, it began to rain. Heavily. It was a mad dash across volcanic stones and under vines, Indiana Jones style, to the SUVs. The rain stopped thirty feet from the start of the trail. One of the legends or historic stories had to do with a pool or spring that dried up when someone tried to tamper with it. Four snakes appeared and the tamperer disappeared, never seen again to this day. Seven days later, the pool returned to normal. We saw that pool then left for home.

I'm all stuffed up with a sore throat. I think Marie gave me her cold. I don't much feel like eating dinner, which is in fifteen minutes, but I want to say goodbye to Dyanah. It's been fun.

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This is Africa    Friday, September 23, 2011
I'm wearing one of my favorite shirts. I believe I only have two button-down white shirts, and while one looks nicer, especially untucked since it stops at waist height, this one has memories. I wore it on one of my last days in Costa Rica when I couldn't take feeling dirty anymore. The women in the kitchens at the camp thought it was a shirt worthy of weddings, which I found mildy depressing as it's a fairly average, low thread count dress shirt. Anyway, that was the day of the obstacle course with the mud pit, and despite taking the shirt off well before the event, there's still a mud stain at the bottom, just right of center.

Mud is the reason I'm wearing it now. Today we "shadowed" four pastors to get a sense of their daily lives. To get to our pastor's house, (and while I'm thinking about it, the "mini-barn" that our group's Savings Group met at was actually a house) we drove down the main road ten minutes, at which point the pastor, who had been waiting for us, got in the SUV, then fifteen minutes up a rough dirt mud road, across a few log bridges, one of which looked to be pieced together with wooden fence slats that made cracking sounds when we drove over it and definitely had a few missing pieces, that is, had holes, up to a point where we had to walk up slick red dirt. His house was at the end of a ten-minute climb.

The pastor we were visiting was one of the ones in my small group from yesterday. His name is John Peter, a good ol' two-parter first name. His neighbor, wife, son (about four years old) and infant daughter were there with us. Shorty after arriving, his dad joined us. We sat in their front room around a couple small tables of mismatched height. The room was smaller than my tiny apartment kitchen. Mothers here are not at all shy about breast feeding.

We talked for a while about his church. His congregation is fourteen people. The Anglican Church, at least in Rwanda, feels instability reduces complacency, so he moves churches about once a year. The one he currently leads is a two hour walk from his home. He has to be at his church three days a week, and on off days, he walks down the hill to find pick-up jobs and/or do blacksmithing. Our translator, Ngoga, is some sort of liaison at the national level for World Relief Rwanda, and did some filling in to give our questions context. He also did his fair share of asking both parties his own, very helpful questions and then translated the responses. As the pastor's wife, his wife is the president of his church's mothering group and helps with encouraging women in their marriages and resolving disputes.

After about an hour, we went outside to look at his land. My apartment is pretty close to half the size of his entire property. In his garden, he has a couple banana trees, probably there naturally, and has planted beans. He'll harvest about 30 kilos (do your own damn math), while he cooks about a kilo a day. Since he can't grow beans consistently, given the seasons, he can't come near to living off them. Our translator, whom at the time I only knew as our translator, gave him several different ideas on how he could more efficiently use his land. All he really said was, "That's possible," nothing committal or excited. Lindsay, Christine, and I talked amongst ourselves as the pastor and Ngoga talked, about taking a soil sample, figuring out what would grow best there, and buying seeds of something not native, and therefore in low supply, to Rwanda. He could sell that crop for a high price in the market due to being rare or exclusive. There's a hot sauce on our dinner tables that is super spicy with no added flavor that I could discern. The factory that makes it is only a short distance from his house, and is in constant need of peppers. Ngoga suggested he grow these instead of beans, then use the profits to buy beans or whatever else. Like I said, he didn't sound enthused.

I have to admit, as frustrating as I find his attitude, I take the same one at my job. I'd rather deal with working around the bugs than fix them.

We went back inside and minutes later it began to pour. The rain lasted a few minutes, then began again, coming in waves. We ate lunch, it now being too rainy to safely get down the hill, and there being no point in skipping lunch in order to beat the rain for the sake of the drive. Our meal was surprisingly American with ham sandwiches. There was also passion fruit, which Lindsay bit right into, when it's more of a pomegranate experience, pine apple, and some sort of meat pie. We'd come with several aluminum sack lunches, but not quite enough for everyone in the room, as several neighbors had joined us. We made sure they all got one before we did. The four of us visitors shared the remaining two.

They asked us a few questions. One was whether we have poor people in America. They're always shocked that we do. We got to share about Bethany's Tabitha Ministry, a homeless women's shelter, and other programs that serve the homeless. When we'd finished our lunch, and it stopped raining, I prayed and then the pastor prayed, both translated. The pastor, his wife, Anna the infant strapped to her back, and his brother, walked us down the now slick and muddy hill to our SUV. It took quite a while, and at the end, our shoes were coated with the red, sticky mud. The journey down, even with four-wheel drive, was still a bit terrifying. I don't usually get scared by things like this, and I didn't this time either, but it was definitely a dangerous trek, especially with the rain that started back up a couple minutes before we made it to the car. I'm surprised we didn't get stuck in the mud.

When we got back, we tried to figure out what to do with our shoes, clung to by mud as they were. We tried to clean them off in puddles or wiping them in grass, the effect of which seemed to only be to color the ground. When John got back with my room key, I washed them off, then showered, and changed into this white shirt. When I exited the room, to head to our team time, a guy was collecting shoes to wash for us, mine now more wet than dirty. Maybe he has a hair dryer. On the bright side, we discovered we have a balcony, when looking for a place to put my wet shoes.

We debriefed a bit as a team and with our translators who were all more than translators, hearing each other's experiences, and asking questions about World Relief and the culture of Rwanda. All the information was interesting and I'm sure important to someone, but I've always had a broken filter when it comes to judging importance, and can't recall much of it now. I remember that Ngoga said he lived 100 KM from here. I remember Richard saying the foreign aid fund the US put toward stopping/helping the AIDS epidemic in Africa is almost gone. I remember Josh Lyman repeating a statistic that 81% of Americans think the foreign aid budget was too high and 72% think it should be cut, meaning that 9% of people are so bat shit out of their minds that they think the foreign aid budget is too high and shouldn't be cut.

The majority of our team went out for coffee at Lava Java. I sacrificed the experience to journal (now) for the sake of you fine folks, and not because my only available shoes are dressy ones. I doubt they'd have hot chocolate anyway.

If I moved to London, I'd have to spell color with a u. Eww. Accents, right.