Atheism - a first world solution?

I was more than a little curious how Africa would affect me this trip, coming back after so many years out of the church and in the non-religious environment that is London. Africa, which brought me back to Christianity every time I tried to leave it; Africa that shows all the best and worst of religion at its most raw; Africa where humanity began and yet ends so early, so painfully for so many.

Sitting in the nurses station where my friend works, I could overhear the fervent praying - shouting - pleading with god to bring down the "fire" and heal a sick person. One sick person among so many strewn across a crowded room. One of the patients in H2U, which in London means higher percentage of nurses, closer monitoring, strict visitation, all of the things you associate with intensive care...and here means a subset of the main room, separated by a sheet, with as much more attention as they can give, which is often not much. What kind of god that can help, ignores that desperate belief? What kind of god is worth knowing if they can't help?

Yet on the other side of the picture, how do you look someone in the eyes and tell them that after they struggle through this life, after they watch their loved ones die young, after they suffer themselves, that that was it? There is nothing to look forward to, no heaven where they will meet their family again, no healthy body waiting to replace the broken one, no reward for all the hard work and belief? It's easy to sit in a comfy flat in London, enjoying my comfy life and think, if this is it, at least I'm happy and living a good life. But most of the world is not so lucky. It doesn't really change what I believe, but certainly makes me more accepting of religion's place in the world. 

**it took me a while to decide to post this, wrote it while there and just now, two weeks later, putting it up!

Madonna and child(ren)

Today I went to the infant home near here at 7:15 to help feed the babies. I'm not sure how much help I was - first off, I am not a baby person, and second, I don't speak the local language. But most people speak English, even if they kids don't really yet, so it was fine.  And turns out, shoving a spoon of porridge at a baby's mouth isn't that tricky, because they don't care if it gets all over their face, and I had an all-covering apron over my clothes so I didn't really care if it got all over me, so we were good. The bottle feeding was pretty easy too. And I picked up a couple of ridiculously tiny, malnourished babies and moved them from feeding area to changing area without any heads falling off, so that overcame my fear a little bit, which was good. One of the little girls about broke my heart though. Such a sweet smile and so little substance to her!

It's really cool what they do here - bring in children who are either abandoned or their families can't afford to raise them because the mother died, and formula is just too much for many families. Then when the children are 2 years old, they try to integrate them back into their family and community, and have a really high success rate. At that age they can eat most things that the rest of the family eats so it's not such a burden to look after them. Plus they can go to nursery school, and the charity has been building these and also continues to support the poorest families financially with raising the kids. Sometimes it doesn't work and the money doesn't get to the child or the family is clearly not looking after the child when they re-visit, so they come back to the home. Then often they try again later, or sometimes the child ends up in foster care - a 'mother' has a house with her own kids and 4-6 more children so they have more of a family environment. Later in the week I'm hopefully going to teach a little boy with mild cerebral palsy some piano/music lessons, he's in one of the foster homes.

What was interesting to learn is that it's this charity, or one just like it (she definitely visited this home), that Madonna adopted her first Malawian child from - hence all the controversy. Like most of these kids, it was just supposed to be temporary that he was in the home until he could go back to his family and community, but in swooped Madonna and now he's being raised the child of a major celebrity. I think all parties have come around to the situation, but it's interesting to understand the complexity of it a bit more. Especially crazy that she did the same thing three years later. And what I really don't get, is why she needed one that had a family. There are many that are straight up abandoned so don't have a family to go back to at all, especially the ones with HIV/AIDS. But I don't think I'll get anywhere trying to understand the mind of one of the most famous pop singers in the wold. :)

Malawi

I haven't blogged or journalled in way too long. So when I found myself wanted to blab all over facebook or email or text message everything I'm feeling, I knew it was time I did at least one of the two. I don't have a notebook or journal of any kind available, but there is a computer here, so blog it is!

Just getting down the factual occurrences of the past few days:

Friday lunch with Palesa and Kundayi, a nice reminder of how well we all get along and what cool people they are.

After scrambling to finish up the rest of my work day from home, at 5pm I started off to Heathrow! Flight to Addis Ababa was really smooth and I had taken care to hydrate myself well so I didn't have any of the ear pressure or vertigo problems I had occasionally been getting since surgery/radiotherapy. Addis Ababa airport was an immediate YOU'RE IN AFRICA moment - so totally different to anything in Europe/USA. Shops, colours, people, signs, all a very foreign experience for the senses. No wifi, no chain restuarants, and the duty free shops were more like street markets than retail outlets.

After about an hour it was time to join the long, crowded queue to get into the gate area where my flight would depart from - then once in that area, about half an hour later, another queue to get on a bus to board the plane. The flight goes from Addis Ababa, stops in Lilongwe to drop people off/pick people up, then goes to Blantyre and does the same, then goes back to Addis Ababa. I disembarked at Blantyre, which is a tiny airport! - and waiting with the taxi drivers for Kate to come pick me up. It was warm and dusty and sunny and I could see the palm trees and the vegetation that is so unique to this part of the world, it was amazing. All the feelings I find so hard to put into words for why I love this place so much came flooding back, I was just grinning. Kate picks me up, we drive back to her place, I have a shower and put on a sundress and suddenly I'm sat on the veranda looking out over the lush back yard with the weaving vines, sipping a cup of tea, loving life.

 

We ate dinner at home that night and packed for the trip leaving early Sunday morning - Mulanje mountain! Left at 7am, arrived just before 10, hired a guide and porters to carry our stuff, and off we set up the mountain. I did not know quite what I was in for, but it was so amazing. 4 hour hike to the hut where we were staying, a small cabin with one room for sleeping and one room for eating/fire. Nipped down to the natural pool of water for a swim, then settled in to have some wine, listen to music, make dinner on the fire, and go to bed early - so knackered from the journey and had another early morning on the cards!

that tiny shiny roof was our hut where we spent the night 

Up at 5:30am, left just after six to head up the peak - that was a grueling trip straight up mostly rocks, it was difficult but so worth the amazing view from the top! I couldn't believe I'd really done it - it was such a quiet but beautiful moment, realising just how lucky I was - lucky to be alive, lucky to be able to work and afford this trip, lucky to have such an amazing person as a friend who lives here and lets me come stay and organises such an excursion, lucky to appreciate this moment to its fullest.

Then it was time to head back down - possibly scarier than heading up, but I found myself handling the descent better than expected, and was leading the pack most of the way. Something about being on the brink of tumbling down a mountain heightened the senses and brought out the best of my coordination! I kinda loved it. Everyone hates going downhill, so I guess it makes me the oddball, but that's okay, I'm used to it :)

We got back to the hut and dashed straight into the pool again - this time didn't even bother changing, dived in with my sports bra and pants on, then just let them dry out in the hot sun on the way down. One of the group had stayed behind and made breakfast - French Toast with bacon - such a luxury! I was so hungry after hiking nearly 4 hours on just a cup of coffee and a couple biscuits (oh and of course the Haribo sweets we had with us, and the apples the guide brought for us that were picked fresh from a tree on the mountain). After a quick turnaround to close up and lock the hut, we headed back down the mountain. It was slippery, being the end of the wet season, which made it tricky, but we were moving through it pretty well. Got back to the cars about 3:30pm, and omg did it feel good to take my shoes and socks off!! Drove off the tea plantation and got pizza in the town, wolfed mine down in record time.

Finally home about 7, took a shower, Kate got back a bit later because she had to go into the hospital to take care of a couple things. We all crashed for bed pretty early! Was such an amazing start to this trip.

forced to blog

Yeah, forced sounds a little strong. But I am supposed to blog for my class, which causes a dilemna: I wanted to start blogging personally again because this is an exciting time in life, and I seem to be unable to write in my journal anymore. Somehow holding a pen and trying to write legibly has become an insurmountable and un-enjoyable task. But I have to write for class, so that will probably take up most of my free time to type away aimlessly on the computer. But, at least for now, I'm going to attempt both. If you want to read about marketing and my study thereof, here's the link: Marketling. I might move this one over to wordpress, since I have 4 blogs started there anyway (nope, not doing anything with three of them, but I might!! someday!) but we'll see how long I keep up with it first.

First: I'M IN LONDON! WOOHOO! Looking back, there are so many ways I could have avoided the last minute stress of having to buy a ticket the same day I got the visa and arrive the first day of classes. But you live and learn. Or just live and have lots of last minute panics because you never learn. Hopefully I stop being one of the latter before I'm too old to enjoy the wisdom of my ways.

Life is great so far. I have a fantastic flat. I wish I was able to live on my own, but having a nice garden, two couches, huge TV with stereo system, a room with lots of storage, and two pretty cool flatmates is a compromise I'm more than willing to make. Especially when I just don't have the budget to do much on my own at all.

Bit of a sad note when I arrived, as I found two of my friends are leaving, one just moved back to Canada, the other goes to NYC in July. It's part of life in a transient city like London, and the price of having lots of cool international friends - they move around like you do. But hopefully that's the last departure for a little while, and I am meeting new people at school as well. Next I need to get a part-time job, but I'm not in a rush as I can work at the piano shop for now.

I'm having an internal debate about how much sharing is appropriate with a relationship, whether to leave it out altogether, use an epithet for my sig other, or what. But for now, I'm back in one. A relationship, that is. And I'm happy, so far so good. And now I must get back to the studying!

Help! I've fallen into introvert-world and I can't get out

So, I did too good a job of swinging back over to lonerville. It's a happy place for me, lots of warm fuzzy moments with my guitar, my laptop, the park...actually, this is interesting. It's been really nice lately, London showing off how gorgeous it is in the sun. And I am turning inwards again, although I'm generally happy, unlike last summer. It's almost like there is some correlation between my desire for socialising and the presence of the sun. If there is sun, I don't need people. Weird.

For example, yesterday I had a bbq with some old friends from Lulu, and it was a great time to get out and visit with people I really like and miss working with. But I was ready to go as soon as things started slowing down, not because I wasn't having a good time or had anything else to do, I just wanted to get back and chill out on my own. Then today I stayed a little late at work after a bit of a stressful day, played the piano, started walking home leisurely, stopped for coffee, started writing a song and typing the words on my iphone, meandered through Hyde Park, got home and tuned my guitar to put said song to chords, fixed some dinner, and now I'm in a fantastic mood. It will be interesting to see how things go, now that the people I spend the most time with are back in town as of this week. Will I add back in a moderate amount, return to the full-on schedule from a few weeks ago, or stay here in my hermit phase until dragged out of it forcefully?

being productive

I don't know how normal I am on this one, because I suspect my instincts here are partially a result of being homeschooled. But I can't go very long in life in a status of 'unproductivity' (not sure that's a word, but I'll use it anyway to make my point). In other words, if I don't feel like I'm accomplishing something or doing well or helping someone or learning something, I feel lost.

But this need to 'do stuff' also has another side to it. Lately I've been looking back at my days at Lulu, and wondering just how successful I really was. How much did I actually get done, and how much did I just stay until 7 or 8 at night 'doing stuff'?

My two biggest weaknesses in work/study life are these:

1) I can't work completely independently. Working from home would have been disastrous. My only real times of finishing things are when they have strict deadlines. I have trouble saying 'I'm going to work on project X for an hour every day' and following through - project X will only ever get done if someone else needs it done by Date Y, and usually at midnight the day before. This is a huge problem at my current job, where I have little to no accountability to anyone. It's basically procrastinating, but more an inability to create structure in a void. If I have meetings, due dates, etc, I can plan around them and do quite well. Without an existing structure, I have nothing to fit the miscellaneous tasks in between, and they just don't get done.

2) I am a 95% perfectionist. In other words, I will get something done 95% perfect, and stew inside that it's not 100%, but not make the effort to get it there. This is also a strength in a way, because it's what allows me to live life and enjoy other things, since I get to 95% relatively easily in most things, and the hardest bit is the last bit (for me at least). Which in turn is what makes this a nasty lazy trait = I'm not willing to do the hardest bit.

To circle back to Lulu, I do think I managed to be genuinely productive at times because I had the structure - but still spent a lot of time wandering off course. I over-multi-task, working on 10 things at once and not actually doing any of them well.

My reason in pondering all this is my current situation. I have to find a way to make a structured schedule and stick to it, to make myself complete projects. I've given myself six months to make something happen - and all my ideas require the diligent execution of projects with no given structure or accountability.

I'm hoping the ingrained need to be productive will kick in, becuase otherwise it's going to be a tricky new phase in life come October!

I am 30

Yes, it has happened. And I am okay. :) I chose to celebrate the last night of my 20's last night, being 29 on the 29th of April, and got a bunch of girlfriends to go out for dinner, it was good times. I crossed over into my thirties with a bottle of champagne and two friends out on the terrace, it was perfect. My instructions were to make a wish and then tell my highlight from the 20's - and it was such a perfect thing to do, because it was so hard to pick an event or memory! There have been so many amazing ones, all but the year I was engaged were chock full of crazy, momentous, enlightening experiences. (Even the engagement was its own crazy time, but not so much on the happy side).

Here's what I would say my highlights are :)

• Tassie road trip at the end of my semester there
• Driving to the beach in the middle of the night with Ryoko after graduation
• My mom's wedding
• Xai-Xai, Mozambique - the people, the beach, the hair-plaiting
• Traveling with my brother through South Africa and Germany
• Buying a house
• Moving to London
• Last night - seriously, it was so cool to realize what a fantastic set of friends I have been lucky enough to 'collect' in this city. It's the first time since college, and actually maybe ever, that I have had so many friends I treasure.
  

I could probably think of more or be more eloquent, but my celebrations last night have taken their toll on my 30 year old body, and I must get some sleep now!