…and 8 hours of class will make you a little stir crazy.
today was my first full day of class. i mean that literally. while i am taking a kappa haka class (i’ll explain that later), today was my first day of my public health classes. each of them is from 9-5. no misprint…9-5. and when you consider that i have to take the bus over at 8 and wait for the bus to drop me off at half past 5 well…you get the point.
in some respects it was great. i met classmates – finally. i have been eager to see who shows up in class and to hear what they do…and oh what they do.
we have many doctors – from all over the world. a sister from sudan, a brother iraq…then of course we have a guy from social work making a career change. 46 of us. 46 in an 8 hour graduate class is a lot.
but i’m pleased to note that we have maori and pacific island voices being heard. and i ended up running my mouth to a woman who works for the government in maori health. say what you will about my talking but i have to admit i’m loving this current incarnation of my father.
let me explain for anyone who has never met my dad…he is friendly. he speaks to everyone…all the time…in all places. he can hold a conversation with a 5-year-old or an 85-year-old, it is just who he is. and when i was younger i groaned and rolled my eyes. and when i got older i ignored it or smiled in his general direction as if i were the parent and he were my wayward child. now that i’m closer to grown myself…i see that part of him emerging in me…and i like it. i understand why he does it.
all that said…8 hour classes are brutal and i have another one this friday…bear with me as i try to hunker down and get used to this change in schedule.
*Disney’s Aladdin
ok so my daddy isn’t and my mom is but that is neither here nor there. mostly i’m just thrilled that my tuition money finally made it in. it was here intially, then it got cancled by rotary, only they didn’t send a replacement check until about two weeks later. that said…it is here now.
so i can pay my tuition before they boot me out of class hopefully.
in other news…i’ve also begun to recieve speaking engagements for my time here. i have one confirmed and another one in the works (both for april). i was so excited to get the call i didn’t know what to do with myself. it isn’t that i haven’t done speaking stuff before…it is just that this feels different somehow…though if i think about it i guess it really isn’t.
i managed to go down to the viaduct the other day. a beautiful day with the sun warming gently and the sky clear and blue. that is the cruel joke of auckland in the fall – today it is cold and gray. no matter…i am still enchanted with this city and its city life.
and the people so far have been beyond friendly…so i smile at auckland and all of the international and domestic flavor it has to offer!
2:30 am is freaking frigid in auckland. I’m not talking, “it’s a tad chilly”, I’m talking “my teeth are crashing together so hard I mght break one.”
I know this because at the wee hours of this morning I was awakened by a strong urge to pee and the blaring of a polite voice informing me that a fire alarm had been tripped and I could proceed downstairs now or await further instructions.
Um…yeah…did I mention I live on the 11th floor of a 19 floor building. Yeah…so in a groggy state I panicked initially – thinking somehow I had tripped the alarm. As I realized it wasn’t me I checked our peephole for smoke and then stuck my nose out to guage what others were doing…running around kind of frantically with the smell (burning plastic?) in the air.
I rapped on my roommate’s door – she sleeps hard – and gathered a pair of pants and my trusty fleece and started the 11 flights down. But the obstacle was the water streaming down the stairwell. I’m not talking cute trickle here…I’m talking bujagali falls torrents.
Down to the bottom where folks are milling around – but not a lot of folks. One fire truck – lights flashing, firefighters milling – is parked in front of our building. Moments later another and then another. At this point I’m thinking, “how many alarms is this thing to need this many trucks?”
No matter, more folks trickle out. Firefighters, with full gear and hoses, trickle up. One stops the alarm. Folks, shivering in jandals (flip flops) and sheer night clothes huddle together. A few of us laugh as we hear one guy on his cell phone, “I’m at my apartment. (Pause). Its on fire.” (it was all in the delivery).
Five, ten, 20 minutes go by. I’m thinking I’ve brought cat-5-hurricane type bad luck on this place. But it seems I haven’t. apparently some twit was burning something in the hallway.
Yeah…all that ruckus and mess and lost sleep and adrenaline cuz some nitwit was either getting a few jollies are is just too stupid to know better.
11 flights back UP the stairs through sopping carpets…whoever it is better be glad we all don’t know who they are.
Published: March 2, 2006
Rampant child malnutrition in poor countries is usually not caused principally by lack of food, nor are large, politically popular programs to feed schoolchildren the right way to tackle a problem stunting the intellectual and physical development of more than 100 million children worldwide, a new World Bank report says.
While many experts would agree with the bank’s assessment of the evidence on malnutrition, its policy recommendations are sure to be controversial at a time when the world is pushing to halve poverty in the coming decade and school feeding programs are often seen as part of the solution.
The bank, the largest financier of antipoverty programs in developing countries, maintains in the report released today, “Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development,” that countries like India with staggering rates of malnutrition need to change their approach to speed up progress.
Nutritionists at the bank say programs should emphasize changing the behaviors of mothers — for example, to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of life or seek quick treatment for their children’s diarrhea and other common childhood illnesses, rather than directly providing food.
Providing school-aged children with nutrition education, iron supplements and deworming medicines are better ways to improve nutrition than simply providing them with meals, the report also says.
The lead author of the report, Meera Shekar, said feeding programs are costly and vulnerable to corruption, with publicly provided food too easily given to better-off people rather than to the poor, or siphoned off to be sold.
“You get more bang for your buck without the food,” she said. “The food brings in votes for politicians. We have very little evidence it improves nutrition.”
Advocates of feeding programs reply that food can be a magnet that draws mothers and children to centers where nutrition counseling is offered and that nutritious food provided early enough in life can also help.
“If you feed the children well, they’ll all be there,” said Jean Dreze, an economist and leading advocate of free school lunch programs in India who conceded that effects of such early feeding programs on nutrition can be difficult to capture statistically. “The response to food is phenomenal.”
Some of the facts about malnutrition, familiar to experts but not widely understood, seem counterintuitive. For example, rates of malnutrition in South Asia — including India, Bangladesh and Nepal — are nearly double those in sub-Saharan Africa, which is much poorer.
In fact, in India, where almost half the children are stunted by malnutrition, the problem is far from limited to the poor. A quarter of the children under age 5 in the richest fifth of the population are underweight and more than half of them are anemic.
i remember getting into a debate with a fellow PCV when i was in south africa – we were on opposite sides of the “as long as you affect some change, no matter how small, it matters” conversation. she was adamantl opposed and i, a staunch believer. we didn’t change each other’s minds but…i have since reinforced my own.
i was at best an average volunteer. it was part of my bit when i recruited for peace corps. i didn’t try to sell illusions of my own greatness…i talked about some things i was proud of…but i talked heavily about what i wish i had know/done so that i could be better. my hope was that new folks would have a better start – see things differently.
even so, i can see the affect pc has had on me. and i like it. almost five years removed from service and am mindful of what i didn’t do in south africa. i recall the ways tha ti was uncomfortable and didn’t like it instead of embracing it.
keeping that in mind has driven me in different paths since peace corps. it has taqken me to various countries and invovled me in a different kind of life. it has since brought me zed – to a university that is ranked pretty high in the world and has inner workings that are more foreign to me than zulu.
but what i learned as a result of peace corps is that i have to throw myself in and see what happens. i have to speak to strangers and offer my services until someone decides to take me up on them…or until i know enough to take myself.
looking back on our argument i can’t help but think of how my time in south africa did not have the HUGE impact i had invisioned for it before i left the states. even so…the differences are important…hopefully in other lives…but defintiely in mine. and those differences are affecting change on a bigger scope now…because i learned so much there…and i’m open and eager to learn and to share so much now.
This was written by Octavia Butler in 1998…the truth in it is staggereing:
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
Here I am in the most developed country I’ve visited in quite a while and for once I NEED to stand out so that i can arrange formal/informal talks as part of my obligations as a rotary scholar. But here, in the midst of English speaking zed, I am the least “interesting” I’ve been in a country. In southern Africa the novelty of an American was pretty high…in china it was a combination of my americanness and my blackness that made me standout. Ditto for sri lanka…and if I really think about it, pretty much everywhere I’ve been.
Funny that I didn’t think that would be true here. But apparently it is. Not in the same, “take a picture with me” kind of way I’ve seen in some countries but it is still there.
I’ve been lamenting that although I have met some amazing folks since I’ve gotten here, very few of them are actually from zed. I’ve been on a mission to change that so I can actually experience zed from a zed’s point of view. Today opened up that opportunity for me.
I went up to campus just to see what was going on…it is the first week of classes and so as on most campuses madness abounds with clubs and foods and music. I was intermittently reading and observing when a woman came up to me to ask me to fill out a survey.
Once she heard my accent we started to talk and it turns out she is tongan/zed. I started telling her about my planned studies for this year regarding pacific island health and my own observations of the closeness of issues in that population with that of black and native americans.
Her interest and mine piqued, we dove into thoughts about health and tradition and she began to tell me about tongan life.
Step in half a million folks…she is in her fifth year and knows a BUNCH of people. And then it came… “are you a black American? For real, a full black American?” oh my god that is so cool?”
Yep, I’m cool. And it didn’t stop. Then I was introduced as the black American and others were enticed to speak to me because I was a black American. Anywhere else I think it would have made more sense to me but here I figured it would have less pop. But when I asked if one of my new friends had met many black Americans she could only think of one…I guess the scarcity makes for the novelty.
That’s cool…I’ll ride this wave and hopefully crash on some interesting shores in the process.
Tags: newzealand, transition, travel
I have a friend who jokes about being a miscegenation. He contains multitudes and adamantly refuses to be put into a little American box meant to define him
The zed, at least Auckland, is a lesson in that same kind of hybrid. On campus, very few people check a single box. This afternoon while lolling time away on the quad I met a tongan kiwi, a samoan kiwi, a Cambodia/Chinese kiwi, an cooke island/irish kiwi…the list goes on. That doesn’t even begin to account for the international folk who have come to study or stay depending on their mood.
It is this amazing burst of multiculturalism that confuses the senses for a second until I realize that the boxes I came equipped with just aren’t big enough.
Add to this the mixing of the times and I am thoroughly intrigued. Performers entertained throughout the day. There was a hip-hop dance troupe…mostly asian and pacific islanders… working it out to a mix of blaring beats. And later, there was a group of sikh men doing a traditional dance accompanied by what looked like a traditional drum. After a few moments of that the cd player came on and all of a sudden the sounds of contemporary India poured out…a little bit mumbai a little bit hip-hop a little bit pop…mostly a sound all its own. And just like that they were dancing traditional dances to this less than traditional music.
I had to laugh out loud because I’ve been limited in my thinking in the past. A friend of mine told me about someone’s dissertation on the hula and how it is has been “bastardized” of sorts. Only…it hasn’t…or not completely. The notion that traditions are static is ridiculous…life is kinetic.
traditions morph and evolve with the people who keep them. Like the guitar that is readily present in maori tradition now…an import from the Europeans. But the music is all the richer for the addition.
Tags: music, newzealand, race, travel
Niue
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Official languages | Niuean, English | ||
| Capital | Alofi | ||
| Head of State | Elizabeth II | ||
| New Zealand High Commissioner |
Sandra Lee-Vercoe | ||
| Premier | Young Vivian | ||
| Area – Total – % water |
260 km² 0 |
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| Population – Total (2003) |
2,145 | ||
| Establishment – Date |
Niue Constitution Act 19 October 1974 |
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| Currency | New Zealand dollar | ||
| GDP | $ 7.6 Million ( 231) | ||
| Time zone | UTC -11 | ||
| National anthem | Ko e Iki he Lagi | ||
| Calling Code | 683 | ||
| Internet TLD | .nu | ||
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| Map of Niue | |||
Niue is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. It is commonly known as “Rock of Polynesia”. Although it is self-governing, it is in free association with New Zealand. This means that the sovereign in right of New Zealand is also the head of state of Niue, and most diplomatic relations are conducted by New Zealand on Niue’s behalf. Niue is located 2,400 kilometres north-east of New Zealand in a triangle between Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands.
History
- Main article: History of Niue
European involvement in Niue began in 1774 with Captain James Cook‘s sighting (landing was refused) of what he named “Savage Island”. Legend has it that Cook so named the island because the natives that “greeted” him were painted in what appeared to Cook and his crew to be blood.
The next major arrival was the London Missionary Society in 1846. Briefly a protectorate, the UK‘s involvement was passed on in 1901 when New Zealand annexed the island. Independence in the form of self-government was granted by the New Zealand parliament in the 1974 constitution.
In January of 2004, Niue was hit by the fierce tropical storm Cyclone Heta which killed two people and caused extensive damage to the entire island.
Tags: newzealand, travel
Despite Mardi Gras, New Orleans Struggling
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS – They’re throwing Mardi Gras beads again — so many strands, they’re landing in tree branches and getting snagged on the trellised balconies of the French Quarter.
At the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter, Pat O’Brien’s is once again serving its syrupy, yet potent Hurricane cocktail. At Tropical Isle, you can get an equally potent Hand Grenade in a tall, plastic go-cup.
But walk to the end of Bourbon Street, take a left on Esplanade Avenue, a right on Rampart Street and head east. At first, the debris comes in bits: A small pile of siding. A rusted box spring. One taped-up refrigerator. At first, you find them in neat piles, in the front yard or outside on the curb.
There’s still a semblance of order. But keep going. It gets worse.
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