Thursday, April 26, 2012
Summer Schedule
The semester is winding down. In all honesty, I am sad about such a splendid semester coming to an end. I feel as if each semester gets more interesting; I hope next semester continues this trend, despite fewer of my courses being environmentally focused.
My summer schedule is firming up - woohoo! If you are near any of these places, please tell me - perhaps I can stop in for a visit!?
My projected dates and locations:
May 6th-11th: Savannah, GA & Asheville, NC
May 21st-May29th: St. Louis, MO>Memphis, TN>New Orleans, LA> Baton Rouge, LA>Austin, TX> Monterrey, MEXICO> San Antonio, TX
May29th-June 1st -on the road to CA
June 1st-15th: In California @ wedding and visiting family
June 17: Layover in NYC
June 17th-July 13th: NYC>Lagos, NIGERIA> Porto Novo, Cotonou, Parakou, Kalale, Natitangou (all BENIN)
July 16th-August 24th: DC @ EPA
August 26th: Indiana
An exciting summer - may God bless it, and may it all happen if it is His will alone! All the best!
What are your summer plans?
I am in my fourth of six semesters in grad school! I am loving it. Currently, I am very focused on my Risk Assessment and Toxicology courses, and all that I am learning from them. I would have to say that it seems like each semester of study gets better and better, as each semester begins to feel more and more like I am working on issues related to my career interest.
In other news, this summer will include a trip out to California to see and participate in a dear friend's marriage, and the opportunity to see family. I will be in DC for 6 weeks at the EPA, too.
My boyfriend, Valere, and I are doing well. This summer, I will be headed to Benin (West Africa) for about 4 weeks to see him, meet his family, and visit my own friends and "family."
All of this is Lord willing of course - but definitely hoping all these things will come together! Feel free to update me on your life - looking forward to an exciting next couple of months!
My projected dates and locations:
June 1st-15th: In California @wedding and visiting family
June 16th-17: DC
June 17th/18th-July 14th/15th: Benin Visit
July 16th-August 24th: DC @ EPA
August 26th: Indiana
In other news, this summer will include a trip out to California to see and participate in a dear friend's marriage, and the opportunity to see family. I will be in DC for 6 weeks at the EPA, too.
My boyfriend, Valere, and I are doing well. This summer, I will be headed to Benin (West Africa) for about 4 weeks to see him, meet his family, and visit my own friends and "family."
All of this is Lord willing of course - but definitely hoping all these things will come together! Feel free to update me on your life - looking forward to an exciting next couple of months!
My projected dates and locations:
June 1st-15th: In California @wedding and visiting family
June 16th-17: DC
June 17th/18th-July 14th/15th: Benin Visit
July 16th-August 24th: DC @ EPA
August 26th: Indiana
Monday, December 12, 2011
Finals!
This week is the official finals week! Thankfully, I only have two finals this week, two courses had alternatives to the traditional finals. My final for solid and hazardous waste management is today, the other (harder one) is on Friday. I hope to study at least 8-10 hours a day for the Friday exam in Environmental Chemistry. Please be saying lots of prayers for env. chem.!
I really liked my courses this semester, and it makes me slightly afraid of the coming Spring semester. I hope that I end up enjoying the course material as much as I have this semester. I still have one more class to select for the upcoming term, I will probably decide which course to take during winter break.
I will be staying in Bloomington, Indiana for break. I am going to try and work 60 to 80 hours a week, to help save up for a trip to Benin for the summer.
More tomorrow perhaps!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
"Bad Hair"
A couple of weeks ago I was in Target getting headbands to hold back my hair. At the end of the aisle I stood in, there was a group of four teenage or pre-teenage Caucasian girls discussing matters related to petroleum-based products. One girl was explaining how a black friend used such products to do her hair - which was a cultural phenomenon to these young ladies. One girl said, I only feel bad for them, because if you have to use this it means you have "bad hair." Another girl shook her head in disagreement, and then the one who uttered the words about bad hair looked over and noticed me. Embarrassed, she covered the side of her face closest to me, and whispered to her friends. They quickly slid away, and I was left feeling personally discriminated against. It also made me paranoid about all Caucasians have latent racist thoughts like that. I found myself uncomfortable, and weary of others as I finished up my shopping. Racism hurts in personal ways.
Monday, November 22, 2010
I am back from Benin, but I think I may continue writing about what it means to be in Benin., enjoy my dear friend.
Here in Indiana, I occasionally have a day when I miss my nation (Benin) a great deal. Lately it has been the hollow pounding of tree stumps that my ears are seeking the comfort of. In Benin, Yams (not sweet potatoes, real yams) are boiled, and when somewhat soft pounded into a food called yam pillet. It is like a big doughy ball of goodness, with a flavor similar to mashed potatoes. The process of pounding the yams is the sound that I miss. The Beninese take a large piece of wood, kind of what you'd imagine as a tree trunk, and carve a large bowl, 1.5 foot plus bowl on top and a small base in left on the bottom. They then carve out a large, thick pole that is similar in structure to a cue-tip. This instrument is used to pound the boiled yam in the large bowl thing. The wood on wood makes a sound that gives one a true sense of place. While this sound was one of the things that would wake me up in the middle of the night during Ramadan, when people eat in the dark and fast when daylight comes, by the end of my service, so many aspects of living in community are associated with life around the yam pillet-ing process.
I love Benin, and miss Kalale greatly.
Here in Indiana, I occasionally have a day when I miss my nation (Benin) a great deal. Lately it has been the hollow pounding of tree stumps that my ears are seeking the comfort of. In Benin, Yams (not sweet potatoes, real yams) are boiled, and when somewhat soft pounded into a food called yam pillet. It is like a big doughy ball of goodness, with a flavor similar to mashed potatoes. The process of pounding the yams is the sound that I miss. The Beninese take a large piece of wood, kind of what you'd imagine as a tree trunk, and carve a large bowl, 1.5 foot plus bowl on top and a small base in left on the bottom. They then carve out a large, thick pole that is similar in structure to a cue-tip. This instrument is used to pound the boiled yam in the large bowl thing. The wood on wood makes a sound that gives one a true sense of place. While this sound was one of the things that would wake me up in the middle of the night during Ramadan, when people eat in the dark and fast when daylight comes, by the end of my service, so many aspects of living in community are associated with life around the yam pillet-ing process.
I love Benin, and miss Kalale greatly.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Three-hundred years on...
During my time in Ghana I took some time to visit the world heritage sites of Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle. Both really brought about an understanding of the slave trade and the experience of becoming a slave for different colonial nations. I recommend visiting there sites, they are interesting and guides do an excellent job of bringing history to life.
The castles' attributes tell something of the slave trade too, though. There are several dungeons, those that were for holding men or women slaves, the trapdoor the inten used to sneak slaves up to sleep with, the churches that sat on top of the dungeons- it all tells quite a story. But there is one attribute that stuck with me, that shocked me more than anything else that I came upon in the Castles... You see, I do not have a very home sense of smell, or I do not have the ability to smell things easily. Upon entrance into a women's dungeon at Elmina Castle I noticed this smell. It assaulted my senses, and made me want to leave the chamber quickly. But the guide spoke about the experience of the people, the hundreds of women who were crowded into a relatively small space. Like all the dungeons I'd seen, I'm pretty sure this one had the drainage system but through the floor. It was meant to allow for the excrements of slaves to flow into the nearby sea during the three months they were held before dying or being shipped off. It seemed normal in every way, except the stench. I wondered he they'd just neglected cleaning this dungeon well, and such. Soon the guide answered my mental queries. The dungeon smelled because the drainage system couldn't drain bodily fluids that well. It helped some, but eventually slaves ended up standing in their own excrements for the rest of the time they remained in the dungeons. In this dungeons womens stood upon feces, urine, and the blood from their period. I realized the latter was part of what I smelled probably- the stench of blood. He explained that even though they tried to clean the cell, the odor would not leave the space. Three-hundred years on, this particular cell still smells, reminding us of the stench the act of slavery has left upon human history. May God help up to never repeat such acts again.
The castles' attributes tell something of the slave trade too, though. There are several dungeons, those that were for holding men or women slaves, the trapdoor the inten used to sneak slaves up to sleep with, the churches that sat on top of the dungeons- it all tells quite a story. But there is one attribute that stuck with me, that shocked me more than anything else that I came upon in the Castles... You see, I do not have a very home sense of smell, or I do not have the ability to smell things easily. Upon entrance into a women's dungeon at Elmina Castle I noticed this smell. It assaulted my senses, and made me want to leave the chamber quickly. But the guide spoke about the experience of the people, the hundreds of women who were crowded into a relatively small space. Like all the dungeons I'd seen, I'm pretty sure this one had the drainage system but through the floor. It was meant to allow for the excrements of slaves to flow into the nearby sea during the three months they were held before dying or being shipped off. It seemed normal in every way, except the stench. I wondered he they'd just neglected cleaning this dungeon well, and such. Soon the guide answered my mental queries. The dungeon smelled because the drainage system couldn't drain bodily fluids that well. It helped some, but eventually slaves ended up standing in their own excrements for the rest of the time they remained in the dungeons. In this dungeons womens stood upon feces, urine, and the blood from their period. I realized the latter was part of what I smelled probably- the stench of blood. He explained that even though they tried to clean the cell, the odor would not leave the space. Three-hundred years on, this particular cell still smells, reminding us of the stench the act of slavery has left upon human history. May God help up to never repeat such acts again.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
My neighborhood friends - the trees
Greetings all! I just got back from my holiday vacation in the culturally-rich nation of Ghana. I enjoyed the jollof rice with say cabbage, jovial hellos from the locals, and the national pride of the Ashante... And much more. But there is something that stuck out to me, that wiped some of the glimmer away from my respective of Ghana - trees.
As I made my way northward in the nation, I find myself utterly startled by the absen nature of the Ghanaian landscape. In Benin we're always told the deforestation is a problem that affects our country. We're told that is we do not plant trees, soon winds will displace up with their force, that the sun burn upon up still more harshly. In Ghana all these possible consequences are experienced. In Benin people often forcefully shew you into shady areas when the sun's around; in Ghana, people stood in the middle of the road or next to a boutique but felt the same thing - scorching heat. Perhaps there great people were use to the sun so thought nothing of it. But with the bit of Beninese I have governing my worldview, I was startled by their willingness to stand in heat. Shade is a value in Benin, Fruit from the trees (mangoes and such) are valued in Benin- the tree has so many positive functions. The lack of trees sent my mind and heart hurrying back to Benin, and my little house, where palm and mango trees are my actual neighbors. I love Ghana, but I love trees, always and everywhere; I hope the two can work towards being united a bit more. :)
Ghana's population is far greater than Benin's, I suppose that is the cause of its people carving landscapes into blank horizons. Whatever the case I say cheers to reforestation and Benin. I'm glad to be back in a land that depends upon trees retaining life. Love until... :) happy New Year, and Merry Christmas! :)
As I made my way northward in the nation, I find myself utterly startled by the absen nature of the Ghanaian landscape. In Benin we're always told the deforestation is a problem that affects our country. We're told that is we do not plant trees, soon winds will displace up with their force, that the sun burn upon up still more harshly. In Ghana all these possible consequences are experienced. In Benin people often forcefully shew you into shady areas when the sun's around; in Ghana, people stood in the middle of the road or next to a boutique but felt the same thing - scorching heat. Perhaps there great people were use to the sun so thought nothing of it. But with the bit of Beninese I have governing my worldview, I was startled by their willingness to stand in heat. Shade is a value in Benin, Fruit from the trees (mangoes and such) are valued in Benin- the tree has so many positive functions. The lack of trees sent my mind and heart hurrying back to Benin, and my little house, where palm and mango trees are my actual neighbors. I love Ghana, but I love trees, always and everywhere; I hope the two can work towards being united a bit more. :)
Ghana's population is far greater than Benin's, I suppose that is the cause of its people carving landscapes into blank horizons. Whatever the case I say cheers to reforestation and Benin. I'm glad to be back in a land that depends upon trees retaining life. Love until... :) happy New Year, and Merry Christmas! :)
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