Watch the Walk

There's a certain class of comment that is common on Clove Island, but rare in the US. Besides the ubiquitous questions about marriage, islanders also like to talk about weight gain and weight loss. They notice slight differences in arms, faces, collar bones that show or not, and of course how you fit your clothes. But weight gain isn't generally viewed in a negative light on the island. A woman who is plump is seen as being in good health, but a woman who is skinny is a subject of concern: - is she getting enough food? - is she worried about things and not eating? - is she being worked too hard? Homemade dumbbells - is she sick with a health condition that prevents her from keeping weight on? And it's not a taboo topic like it is in the US. In English classes here we teach how to describe people, but we've also learned to clarify to students that calling someone fat isn't considered a compliment. I can't tell you the number of times I've had students descri...

It's always better to do work projects together. Well, in island thinking, anyway. And I get it. A lot of activities require some step that is just plain labor intensive. For example, the other day I was learning to make these lovely snacks: Bhajias I'd arranged with a friend who would teach me to make bhajias, I'd gathered a group of friends to all learn together, and our "teacher" had told me the things to have on hand:   - small red beans   - onion   - garlic   - eggs   - spices   - oil for frying She told me to soak the beans the night before, so they'd cook well on the day of. The ladies all gathered, and 10 minutes after the appointed time I called our "teacher" to make sure she was on her way. She was, but she said we could get started before she got there. "Take the skins off the beans" she said. The skins... off the beans? I verified. Yep, that's what she'd said. So we spent the next hour and a half peeling 1 pound of littl...

Some people run to the action. Like a few months back when I was standing on my front porch and saw some military trucks full of soldiers go zooming past the intersection nearby, heading who-knows-where.    I looked across the street to see a teenage girl holding a baby, who was watching the soldiers too. Was she afraid? Going to hide? Evidently not, because the next thing I knew, she had handed off the baby to a nearby person, borrowed a face mask from them (gross), and was running to see where the soldiers were going and what they were going to do!   I saw a couple dozen people similarly running towards the action. I, on the other hand, was disinclined to follow that crowd, having seen tear gas and rubber bullets used recently to break up groups of people that weren't supposed to be gathering together due to health concerns.   Soon a larger crowd of people was running the opposite way, away from the action. Yelling, laughing, stopping to see if they were being foll...

I came back to the islands in December with two checked bags and a rolling carry-on, plus a backpack. The standard luggage allowance for international travel.   But travel between islands is a little more limited. No, it's a LOT more limited. They give you...  ... wait for it... ... 33 pounds of checked luggage and 11 pounds of carry-on.  I get it. The planes are small. They want to be able to take off and land on our little runways. But it's a tidge inconvenient for us international travelers who don't live on the same island as the international airport.  So what do you do? Especially when they charge around $1.75 per lb over the limit? Well, remember how I've carried things for other people? Sometimes I also get to take advantage of the island way of doing things. This time I ran into an English teacher friend on the big island who just happens to be a soldier, and he took over all things related to my travel-- the ride to the airport, checking in, navigating...

On Christmas Eve I went to an event on the other side of the island. By island standards the event was nothing to write home about. It was sparsely attended, there weren't a lot of flowers for making the traditional necklaces, the gift bags were generic in the extreme, and the food was... insufficient and not what people from my side of the island were used to. Oh, and my friends and I were supposed to be given a ride home by a friend, but he bailed and we had to look for a taxi bus to get home. When I got home, I was tired, but I had a plan-- bake cookies quickly, take some to a couple of neighbors, then head to my team leaders' house for dinner and a Christmas Eve service.  One of the broken latches That plan was quickly foiled when I opened my wallet I'd left home and found it emptied of cash. Uh oh. The back door had been broken and put back in its place. My secondary cash storage was emptied also. A thief had come and gone sometime while I was away.  Thankfully he only...

"You really live in a place where people don't have the Book in their own language?" my nephew asked as he swung from my arms. "Yep, but we're working on that." I answered. My older nephews have been exploring the idea of other languages, asking me for Spanish to use with kids they want to talk to at the playground, or just exploring the world of other sounds.    Another thing they've enjoyed is a game where I give them a foreign word, and then use English to describe it until they figure out what the word means.  "I really like masindza. Do you like masindza? It's long and yellow, and there's some on the counter." "Bananas!"  "Yep! Good job!" That's basically what you do when learning language on the street in any part of the world. Describe and explore until you understand how ideas are communicated. But really, it's more than just vocabulary. When we encounter new ideas, we understand them by asking questi...

Sometimes beauty hits us in the face. We look up to see the sky on fire with a gorgeous sunset. We notice an adorable child and their antics. Our first reaction is pleasure, a smile, appreciation for what we see. It stands out to us. But sometimes it takes a little more to see the beauty. You get so used to the scenes of everyday life that it no longer hits you. Your gaze slides right past amazing beauty because you see it so often. It blends into everything else. You pay attention to the things that matter in accomplishing your daily tasks, rather than zooming in on the details or out to the full picture. I have a thing for triangular tea bags Beauty is a gift, and it can slide right past us if we're not paying attention. So let's pay attention. Zoom in on the minutiae. Zoom out and see the grand panorama. Where's the beauty today? I looked up and saw the cutest house! Lentil burgers and veggies A favorite kiddo Naan dough rising My house from a distance Men praying on the...