Call for Donations!

So by now most of you have already gotten an email about this, but I will post it here as well, just to cover my bases.

As I said in an earlier post, this winter vacation I am joining a volunteer trip to India, where we will be building houses in a village that was devastated in the 2004 tsunami. The Dalit who live there received little or no help from the government because of their "untouchable" status. The trip is part of a larger project called Building Communities, and is overseen by a Rhode Island based non-profit called Longitude. A group of volunteers broke ground on 49 new houses last year, and our group will be continuing where they left off (and hopefully finishing!)

Our group's website:

http://www.golongitude.org/www/JET_Winter_2007.html

But in order for the project to be successful, we need to raise the money to buy all the building supplies. There are 25 of us giving our time and labor over the Christmas holiday to build these houses, but without the money not much can happen! Our group's goal is $10,400, and so far we officially have about $600. There is still a long way to go, but we have about 25 people working on this, so we are really optimistic.

Basically, the more money we raise, the more houses we can build. The donation money will not be used to pay for my plane ticket, accommodation, or food - all of that is coming out of m own pocket. Donations will go towards building supplies needed to finish the houses, and any extra will be used to purchase other stuff for the villagers - food, clothes, meds, etc.

I have set my personal fundraising goal at $500.

At first I thought that amount seemed a bit ambitious, but my very first donation - from an old friend of my dad's who I have not seen since I was a kid - was for $100!!!!! And it has only gotten better from there! I decide not to announce my total to anyone until I am finished fundraising ... seems more fun that way, no?

So that is where I need everyone's help! Every little bit counts, so even if you can only give 5 or 10 bucks, trust me when I say that it will be greatly appreciated!

Please pass it on to anyone else you know that might be interested in donating. Especially anyone that has been to India and seen the poverty first hand. Also, a lot of people like to give charitable donations around Christmas time, so if you know anyone like that, you can let them know about the building communities project.

Some companies will match the donations their employees make around Christmas time, so it might be worth looking into that as well.

If you can donate, there are two ways to do it, online or by mail.

ONLINE - Go to:
http://www.golongitude.org/www/JET_Winter_2007.html

You can make a secure online donation right from the website. But there is a 4.75% commission taken out by the company that runs the site.

MAIL - Send check made payable to "Longitude."

Longitude
21 Crescent St.
Providence, RI 02907

Write "ARV KI Housing Campaign - Winter Work Camp" on the memo line. Submit a note asking for a tax deductible receipt if needed.

If neither of those is ideal, let me know - there are other options.

If you are able to donate, please let me know - I have to keep track of how much I have raised. And they hope to send the bulk of the money off to India around November 23rd in order to be able to purchase the building supplies well before our arrival, so please make the donation before then!

Thank you so much for any help you can give!!!

Munday

Two of my girl students just told me that they think I look like Paris Hilton. I know they meant it as a compliment, but I have never been so insulted in my life....

Learning Japanese, I think I'm learning Japanese, I really think so!

Next week I will announce my India trip and fundraising efforts to all the teachers at my school, and I thought it would be really cool if I could make the announcement myself in Japanese. (GULP!) So I had my supervisor help me write it ... well, ok write it for me. One of my students helped me practice after school, and made a recording on my cell phone that I could listen to over the weekend to work on pronunciation. Most of the vocabulary was new and the grammar was a bit more complex than what I already now, but I think it is still really good practice.

I typed the whole speech below -- partially as a way to practice, but also so you guys back home can get a taste of Japanese grammar.

First, in Hiragana/Katakana and a few Kanji: (The Japanese use three different alphabets - I know two of them and am slowly learning the third.)

インド　では　にせにょねん　の　つなみで　たくさん　の　いえが　こわれました。　そして　いまだに　えんじょが　うけられない　ひとが　いませ。 私は　ふゆやすみに　インド　へ　いきます。　そして　いえを　なくした　ひとの　ために　いえを　たてる　ボランチア　に　いきます。それで　私は　ぼきんを　あつめたい　です。　まくひょ　は　５０，０００円　です。　おねがいします。　

This is what is says if you were to write it out in Roman letters. I broke it into sentences and below each one put the literal English translation, in the same order it would be in the Japanese sentence. This should give you a sense of why Japanese is so difficult to learn (one of several reasons actually.)

Indo dewa nisenyonen no tsunami de takusan no ie ga kowarimashita.
India in 2007 in tsunami by many house were destroyed.

Soshite imada ni enjo ga ukerarenai hita ga imasu.
And still help get not people there are.

Watashi wa fuyuyasami ni Indo e ikimasu.
Me winter vacation India will go.

Soshite ie wo nakushita hito no tameni ie wo tateru boruntear ni ikimasu.
And house lost people for house build volunteer to do will go.

Sore de watashi wa bokin wo atsumetai desu.
So then I donation collect please.

Mokuhyo wa 50,000 en desu.
Goal 50,000 yen is.

Onegai Shimasu.
If you would, please.

The grammar rules are actually rather simple once you really get down to it, and there are few irregularities. What makes it hard is that it is almost backwards from English grammar, so you have to completely switch your thinking. I am at the point now where I have a decent grasp of some basic grammar and enough vocabulary to use it, but figuring out what to say in a given situation off the top of my head is REALLY HARD because my brain is not used to thinking in Japanese.

I can't even tell you how many times I have accidentally spoken Spanish to people here, because it is the foreign language that automatically pops into my head when I know English will not work. And I even combine Japanese and Spanish. It is weird when that happens.

Other reasons why Japanese is so difficult -- they still use thousands of the Chinese characters - to be considered literate, you must learn 2,000 of them. Furthermore, there are various ways to say everything, according to how polite you want to be. So even a super basic sentence might be said in 3 or 4 different ways by various people, depending on the situation. Luckily as a foreigner, we can get away with using the incorrect form (using the familiar/casual form with a supervisor for example) and no one will hold it against us. But the tricky part is that people will speak to you in all the different forms, so even though you may actually have learned the vocab and grammar of what they are saying, if they chose to say in the uber-polite form (which is how most store clerks speak), chances are you will not understand them!

You can probably understand why Japanese people are so impressed when foreigners try to learn their language.

Luckily, the pronunciation is rather easy. If Japanese pronunciation was a difficult as Korean, I swear nobody would even bother to learn it.

But really, when you think about it, English is crazy difficult language also. If you don't believe me, try teaching it sometime!

Thoughts

I was looking at photos from last years work camp in India (the trip I am part of is continuing work that was started last year). I guess I have to start off by saying...Wow. It really brought out a lot of emotions and thoughts, some of which I can't really even put into words. I have heard about the extreme poverty in India, and I have witnessed it firsthand in other countries, but these pictures really hit me pretty hard. Probably because I know that it will be me out there in a month and a half, stacking bricks in the hot sun alongside all the men, women, and kids of the village.

I know it is going to be intense, emotionally and physically. There is a part of me that is afraid I won't be able to handle it -- first of all, will I be tough enough to deal with the physical challenge? Doing manual labor all day in the hot sun is not exactly something I am used to! Can this pampered suburban chick swing it? I've had problems with my back for the past 6 months, and I am a total wimp when it comes to humidity. Add to that all the routine stomach problems that will come along with being in India ... crap! I hope I can hang is all I have to say!

But really, I wonder if the emotional side of it won't be the hardest part for me. I have been told that India can be a pretty disheartening place, with extreme poverty, filthy streets, beggars, aggressive men....it seems to be one of the most challenging places in the world to travel to. But I think the context that I am going in might give me a different experience ... I will still see all of those things, but having the opportunity to work in a village and interact so closely with the people ... I hope that the positive side of the experience will balance it out. Or perhaps it will make it harder. Because as a tourist, I think it is easier to put on blinders and harden yourself to the things you see, but when you actually have a change to get to know the people that are suffering ... well, that is a different story. I guess I will just have to wait and see.

Here are some of the photos, courtesty of Rick Mickelson of Longitude (the parent organization heading up the project).

Great Big News, typed with cold fingers

First off, I have to say IT'S COLD!!!! But I have not yet broken down and taken out my heaters. Damn close to it though.

Secondly, I have a big announcement to make - I am going to INDIA over winter break! For two weeks, I'll be part of a volunteer group heading to the Southeast coast to build houses for villagers that lost theirs in the 2004 Tsunami. The people we'll be working with are Dalit - formerly known as Untouchables when the caste system was still officially in place - and because of their low status, they received little or no government help after the tsunami.

The decision to go on this trip was sort of a long way in coming, and I almost backed out actually. I knew I would travel over winter break, but mostly had been considering places like Indonesia or the Philippines because they were relatively close and very affordable. But at the Tokyo orientation I picked up a brochure from a group called GoMad (Go Make A Difference) - a volunteering organization created and run by JETs. And it struck me then - for the past year or so I have been thinking that I should be doing some volunteering in all this traveling of mine - but I had never gotten my shit together and found the right opportunity. And here was an opportunity staring me right in the face.

So I checked out their website a few weeks ago and saw the different projects being organized. There were a lot on there - an orphanage in Bali, secretarial school in Ghana, street kids in the Philippines, English teaching in Thailand .... I quickly ruled out the ones in places I had already been, as well as anything involving teaching (I actually want it to feel somewhat like a vacation!) And of course I was attracted to the Ghana trip because, .... AFRICA!!! But that one was canceled because flights were too hard too expensive. And the next thing that stood out to me the most was a trip to India to build houses. As I read the description, I was overcome by this wave of feeling like "this is the trip!"

I think there were 3 reasons why it felt so right --
1. I really enjoy physical labor, especially since I have such a non-physical job. When I am at home, there is nothing that makes me happier than a day of yard work that leaves me with a sore back and dirty nails. When you don't get to use your body to accomplish a job very often, it is the most satisfying feeling.
2. I have always wanted to go to India.
3. When the tsunami happened 3 years ago, I was one of those people who read about it in the papers, felt the pain of the tragedy, marveled at the generous outpouring of assistance from all over the world, and DID NOTHING. And it even struck me at some point - one of the biggest natural disasters of modern times, and I didn't make any contribution to the relief effort. So yea, you could say I felt guilty.

In a way, I felt as if this trip presented a second chance on two major missed opportunities. First, to make a contribution to the tsunami relief. And secondly, to visit India. I passed up a very good opportunity to go to India last year, right around this same time actually. Given that India is not exactly the easiest country in the world to make it to, I felt that it was pretty significant that I should be presented with not one, but TWO very good chances to go to there, within a year of each other. I guess you could say that I took it as a sign.

But after the initial rush of excitement, I started to get cold feet, and would wake up in the morning feeling overwhelmed by the fact that I didn't want to go. But I wasn't quite sure why. I suspect it was most likely because I am sort of burned out by travel right now -- I have pretty much been traveling for 2.5 years at this point, and I started craving some regularity a long time ago! And I knew that India would be in intense trip. After finally getting over the culture shock of my new life in Japan and actually managing to feel settled again, the idea of making it to India seemed damn daunting! (Not to mention freaking expensive...)

I probably would have just forgotten about the whole thing, but luckily I had already gotten my my friend Kate on board, and she was still gung-ho. But she didn't pressure me, just let me know that she still was excited to go. And then I had a long talk with my coworker Micah, all about why I was having cold feet. We talked about India, living the travel life, and the fact that opportunities like this don't come along everyday. It was one of those powerful conversations that sort of jolts you out of the rut you've been stuck in, and puts the gears back in their proper places. And suddenly, I was excited again.

So now I have bought my ticket, sent for my visa, and started the huge task of fund raising. There is a lot of work to be done to get ready, and I am so wrapped up in it that I am barely thinking about the work I will be doing once I get there!

Fund raising .... that is my big job right now! And I'll be using my blog to help do it! So expect this space to pretty much become an advertising space for my project in the next couple of weeks. But for now, it is bedtime .... lots more to write about this later :-)

I like Fuji much better from far away

This past Sunday, Mt. Fuji treated us to a spectacular view. It had rained all day Saturday, which left the year's first dusting of snow. And my friend called me up about 10 am and said, "Go look at Fuji!" The photo does not do it justice actually, it was so beautiful.


See that 5 story gray building directly underneath it? That's my school! I ride my bike through those rice fields on the way to work. I know, beats a Bay Area freeway any day! But it is deceiving - Mt. Fuji is still about a 2 hours drive from here. I pass the spot where the shot was taken on a daily basis on my way to work, and 9 days out of 10 you cannot see Fuji at all. This is the best view I have ever had.