I grew up in Keyport, New Jersey volunteering and working at a living history site called Longstreet Farm, but I spent the last 6 months living in Scotts, Michigan interning with Tillers International. I love farming and working especially with oxen.
Branches on the ground
Roots in the air
memory fading, confused
Someone pulling me out
Throwing me here, saved me
Right…my forest is burning
Strange trunks fruits flowers
Leaves foreign shades
looking down, angry, afraid?
No answer to my cry
Only shouts, leave, go back
But…my forest is burning
Loved trunks, fruits, flowers
Leaves gentle, known
Looking around among them
Roots are deep belonging
All only laughter, joy
No…My forest is burning
Gentle hand lifting
tears understand
lifting branches in the air
digging roots in the ground
Water, sunshine,…
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“But we have our tickets”
“The gate is closed”
“But we were told we could come back since we had tickets”
“The President is inside, so the gates are closed”
“Well, can you open them?”
“no”
“I don’t understand”
“I don’t understand either”
6 hours earlier, my roommates and I had visited Lilongwe’s football stadium to pick up tickets for the game. We had been informed by word of mouth that only 40,000 people were going to be allowed into the stadium, and so tickets would be handed out to be sure number limitations were kept. This was different from the usual policy of allowing as many…
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My roommates and I were invited to attend a church service in Dzaleka Refugee Camp. Amy, who had been there before, suggested that I play my dulcimer for the service. I just laughed and said I would not. Playing the dulcimer has always been something I did in solitary. It was a calming introverted activity like reading a book, and I never considered myself good or confident enough to play as a performer. But a few days later, I was thinking about it again, and I felt that God was telling me that I had no right to keep something like my dulcimer to myself. I was blessed to own such an…
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It is that time of year when many people are decking out their houses for Christmas and trimming Christmas trees. My family, particularly my mother is big on Christmas decorations, so the whole house is transformed for the holidays.
This year is my first Christmas in Malawi. It is strange not to have boxes and boxes of decorations just waiting to pop out for the season, but I have enjoyed decorating with my roommates with what we do have and rapidly making decorations as well as impulsively buying any pretty Christmas papers I come across.
I spent the last few evenings after work wiping…
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In the states I grew up in a consumer culture. U.S. Americans are taught from advertisements, peer expectations, and even by the way things are produced to buy and throw “away”, buy and throw “away”. Here in Malawi I see a very different culture. Things are bought, broken, fixed, sold, used again, ect.
We have a saying that goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. But In the States we don’t often see even broken things getting fixed, and I think it would also be helpful for us to think, “If it ain’t broke, don’t REPLACE it”
The other day I asked my refugee friend Kariza about the Yankees hat…
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