Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver

Two of my favourite topics combined - yay! Food and the environment. So now I have another hero, Barbara Kingsolver. Actually, I have loved her books for years - you all know The Poisonwood Bible which stands out from the rest. If you haven't read it, you must. Just recently I read her latest book, Flight Behaviour, which is a wonderful read, and I think second best to Poisonwood Bible. Talking to a friend about that book, she asked me if I had read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and raved about it - so I got hold of a copy, and it is so far amazing.

Anyone who read The Dirty Life, about a couple who take up farming, will love this one as well.

Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from Tucson, Arizona, to southern Appalacia to farm their land there, because of the realisation that living in the middle of the desert means that every drop of food and water that crosses their lips has been driven, trucked or flown a very long way to sustain them there. The cost in energy and the damage to the planet for humans to live in Tucson is massive (there are some statistics) and they made a decision as a family to live where their food can be and is grown.

The book tells how they spent a year trying to live on food that is grown around them - food that they know exactly where it comes from and who grew it. They have their own farm and they grew a lot themselves; the book has seasonal recipes for cooking when you have a glut - though I wish there were more recipes in it.

Among the points the author makes in the introductory chapters are two that struck me. One is that by eating locally-produced food you are saving so much of the energy that goes into transporting it (she refers to "oily food.") Another is that regions where people have a strong food culture depending on local produce usually have the most delicious diets, and are the healthiest. She mentions Italy, France, Japan, among others. So she sees a need for the US to develop its own new culture of food based on traditional and local foods. Of course Britain does not get a mention - we do have traditional foods but I am not sure they live up to France and Italy's...! But nor has our diet become as badly commercialised as in the US, yet (thinking of portion size and additives).

I am enthusiastic about the idea of becoming a "locavore". I even talked with a friend about sharing their communal allotment this year!! It makes so much sense. However there are a lot of problems associated with it and I have some reservations. One is, growing your own food, canning food, and cooking everything from scratch is very time-consuming. Two, buying vegetable and meat from farmers' markets (which are everywhere now) is extremely expensive and we are living on a limited budget. Three, so many things have to be imported - can I manage without not only coffee but tea as well? Chocolate? Bananas? Wine? Pasta? Rice? Will potatoes be enough?? And a related point, don't countries depend to some extent on other countries buying their produce? If the UK stopped importing tea, wouldn't India have a financial crisis? So how can this theory be completely right? Of course Fair Trade is a good way to go and might be the answer to that. But it is complex: the carbon footprint is still there.

So, I will end up with some compromise version as usual and maybe just make myself feel a bit better... But, it will be a way to make myself try some new recipes and lose some weight... and, every little helps, right? And maybe if everyone did that little bit, it would make a difference.

As usual, I'd love to know anyone's thoughts...

Crossing cultures - how is your blue line?

This diagram was part of the Thrive (Preparation for Missions) Lecture today, on Culture and Culture-Shock/Stress.

I delegated the lecture (yay!) to ECM missionary Jim Memory, who has worked in Spain for some years and still divides his time between Redcliffe College, and Spain.

The diagram speaks for itself, but, it is useful to see where you are on the line... Jim pointed out that it is the classical Cultural Adaptation diagram, often used - but, it is a bit simplistic. For one thing, you may or may not have a honeymoon phase when you arrive, or arrive home, depending on your expectations and how much they are met initially. Also, the expectation seems to be according to this, that when you reach the Adaptation stage, your emotional well-being goes along in a straight line. Well obviously it doesn't, and all kinds of things can change it. For some people, they are more happy than they have ever been once they have adapted well to the new culture - so their blue line would be running along way above its original level, while others may run along at a slightly depressed level even though adapted fairly well. For me, the stage my children were at and my capacity/energy/time to be involved in teaching and the community affected my blue line a lot. I would say from the time I arrived in Uganda, my blue line went gradually downwards... not too badly, but to some extent.

On Culture Shock, Jim said he prefers the term Culture Stress to Culture Shock, in that it is a steady and continuing factor not just the one-off at the start. I did get about two days of what I would actually call culture shock, when I first arrived in Zambia in 1992: we were in a small, crowded car driving to my rural mission station, with one older missionary who was driving us, two brand-new short-termers (one of whom was me), one Zambian lady with a newborn who cried A LOT, and two years worth of luggage... I was overwhelmed and mind-boggled by all that I was seeing out of the car windows, the dirt road, the bush, people walking walking walking everywhere, four grown men sitting in the shell of a rusted-out car, just sitting there, women with bundles on their heads, little bright vegetable stalls by the roadside, goats, chickens, ramshackle wooden booths, mud huts... and I felt scared stiff. When we stopped to buy some boiled eggs for lunch in a scruffy shop, I couldn't get out of the car. I couldn't eat anything either, and I didn't want to greet any of these African people. I wanted to just hide in the car. A good night's sleep and a second day of exposure made me feel better about it and when we arrived in our future home, I was OK.

I had a massive long honeymoon period, and the slowly wearing culture stress for me came really only in Uganda when I became so tired, and conflicted about mothering versus mission involvement, feeling guilty about some of my decisions...  actually there were of course many factors, which I won't list out here! But I was explaining to a student over lunch afterwards, that the cultural differences were normally very manageable for me, I had adapted very well I think, but, it was when I became over-tired and stressed about one/any thing, the other factors such as lack of privacy at home suddenly hit all the harder and became big issues. They get you when you are down! For me, the driving, heat, power cuts, and money issues were some of those triggers.

If I were doing a study on sustainability on the mission field, I would look into this and try to figure out how I could have overcome these things. To me then, the things (heat and power cuts etc) seemed immutable, and my choices (eg to drive the children to Kampala) seemed like the only choosable ones, and so, the downward blue line, was I suppose inevitable. For me I don't have to solve that now, I just have to finish recovering! And think how I would advise others going in future. It is not simple, is it.

What goes into a chicken pie?

Yesterday as I was making a chicken pie for supper, the time went by more than usually fast - because my mind was occupied thinking about the people who made a contribution to that pie. Took me on quite a journey...

It started with blending the pastry in a mixing bowl given to me in Zimbabwe - where I went to set up home with the contents of a three ft by two ft trunk... hence my first flat was extremely bare... A good friend from All Nations Christian College was working with her parents and siblings in Zimbabwe, running a lovely orphanage in a farming area outside Harare. Through Cheryl, I got to know her family, and her sister Gerrilyn was getting married to a pastor called Winston, so as she was starting over, she gave me some of her cooking equipment including these bowls, two floor rugs, some curtains and a sofa set. She basically saved me from living on a bare wooden floor! Although the sofa set got left behind in Zimbabwe, everything else is still in my possession, and I use those mixing bowls virtually every day, fifteen years later, and think of Gerrilyn every time. She and her husband now pastor a church in the US.

Rolled out the pastry on a glass board given to us for Christmas once by fellow-Uganda missionary Thom Froese, picked out for us at Game in Kampala... very handy and also used often... and I also appreciate Thom every time I look at the sepia photos of Paris on them...

Cooking the filling, I was thinking about Robyn, who gave me the recipe and promised me that her whole family even both daughters love this pie and eat every scrap... Robyn was a friend I made through the children's school, Ambrosoli, in Kampala - she is South African, we used to talk about books together a lot, and she then went and immigrated to Tasmania - really! - as her husband is a forester and works there now. We keep in touch a little bit, and it's true, I do love her pie.

Once the pie was out and looking pretty good, I must say (!), I couldn't help thinking about Florence, our helper in Uganda... this was one of the recipes I taught her to make, and, she used to make it perfectly every time. It was such a blessing and so blissful, to say to Florence in the morning, "Could you make us one of those chicken pies today?" - and to get home in the afternoon to find it ready and waiting for supper... Heavenly. I think of Florence almost every day - I don't miss her help as much as I did in the beginning, but, some days I would almost pay for her ticket just to have her here with her steady, unflappable, gently smiling manner, ready to do anything, at her own pace, but, she would get it done. I loved Florence! She would sympathise with me when I was flustered, tell me I needed a rest if I looked tired, tell me things were not my fault, tell me I had been working hard, agree with me that life is difficult, tell me my children were so good, and basically, she was on my side at every point.

So my mind travelled as I cooked, from Zimbabwe to the US to Uganda to Tasmania and back to Uganda again. And, the pie was pretty good. I can pass on the recipe to anyone who wants it - it is easy I promise!

Re-entry revisited

I am skimming through a book by Marion Knell called "Burn-Up or Splash Down - Surviving the culture shock of re-entry," and it looks good already. Isn't it a bit late to be reading that? I hear you ask... Don't worry, I did read a couple of re-entry books before our return in 2011; I am reading this now to see if it would be a helpful one to recommend to others, and also to see if it can shed light on why I found re-entry so stressful, and also because I will be teaching on re-entry later in my missions course, and also because I want to be able to help others who return from living abroad in future.

These are the five stages of re-entry as described by David Pollock in Third Culture Kids, quoted by Marion Knell on p11 of her book:

"1. Involvement A state in which you feel you belong in a place and society; people know you; you are committed and have meaningful relationships and responsibilities.

2. Leaving A time when you celebrate, grieve and say farewells. You withdraw from responsibilities, commitments and relationships. It is a stage marked by a mixture of emotions, such as excitement, anticipation, grief and guilt.

3. Transition The period when you first arrive in the new situation. It is best defined in the word chaos - feeling frustrated, confused, purposeless, and ignorant, not knowing people, places and social skills. This can affect mental, physical and spiritual health.

4. Entering The moment when things begin to come together and make sense again, when you discover the route map. This is a constructive phase, when a new sense of control is developed, a sense of significance and security. At this point, a person is willing to experiment, to try out some of the newly acquired skills and experiences.

5. Reengagement The point when the person feels secure and involved again, accepted and belonging. Re-adaptation has occurred, and a sense of personal security and identity has been reestablished.

All of this takes at least one year."

Looking back over the year and a half since we moved back here, I can relate completely to this description of the five stages. Stage 3 was definitely the hardest, and the longest. I would say stage 4 started when the second year started, when I began to feel connected and that I knew what I was doing. Stage 5 is very recent, and I think has only come with being involved at Redcliffe again, interacting with the students, and back in teaching. Maybe for me, an important part has been resuming my identity as a missionary and a teacher, and feeling that I am now contributing to God's Mission by helping prepare other people. I feel as though this is the right place for me to be - trouble is, it doesn't pay enough! Unless Redcliffe gives me a full time job... So that is a bit of a dilemma!

A kindle?!

As you drive into Hay-On-Wye, town of a hundred second-hand and antique book shops, there is a big sign that says "Kindles not allowed in this town."

I had that sign kind of written over my head, book-lover that I am. But... I began to think that maybe, it would be OK to have one... and then I began to feel it would be more than OK, I HAD to have one... and finally for Christmas Dan gave me one, a kindle fire no less.

When I got it working, the first thing I did was to download a Bible onto it - the ESV - to "sanctify" it. Haven't actually read any of that yet. The next thing I did was to download a free game, Puss In Boots Fruit Ninja, so that the children would love me forever.

Since then I have read two books on it: The Hunger Games part 1,which was pretty good and an easy holiday read, and The Picture of Dorian Gray (which was free) and I loved it. Oscar Wilde is such a good writer! I never knew. Abigail is reading Pride and Prejudice on it and is loving it.

I decided that rather than being instead of books, I will still get books out of the library as well. So the kindle just means... even more reading! And I can feel as though I belong in the 21st century into the bargain!

Teaching again!

Today I went back to teaching! I have joined the part-time Redcliffe College staff, teaching a course called Thrive!, - which aims to prepare students for working and living cross-culturally. It's a very practical course with lots of room for telling stories and sharing experiences, role plays etc. Missio friends, don't worry, I shall use false names!!

I was needless to say really nervous, waking up early yesterday and today with my stomach full of butterflies. I was afraid about that and a bit discouraged, thinking it meant I haven't got over the whole anxiety thing... but I have always, my whole life, got nervous before teaching or speaking, and always once I am up in front talking and communicating, I am completely fine. So I told myself this was normal nerves, not abnormal ones... Dan reminded me that teaching this course is about the students, not about me. Putting it in that proper perspective really helped too. My job is to help equip them, not to "be a great teacher". Anyway, I can now relate to something I read, that when anxiety has become problematic, half the battle can be being anxious about being anxious. I get that.

My class is delightful, about twenty students, and I loved it. It reminded me that I do enjoy teaching, and I can do it! What a relief!

As part of the introduction to the course I used the following handout based on the word THRIVE, which was made up by the person who originally taught the course at Redcliffe. I don't know who. So it is not my own - but I thought some of you might like it and relate to it.

T - To be, not just to do...

H - Hold on to your calling

R - Reasonable expectations - of yourself, of the culture you are going to, of what you will do, - and making sure your supporters have reasonable expectations too

I - I need to look after myself

V - Vulnerability - not to fall into the trap of saying "I'm OK" when you need help/encouragement

E - Elasticity - being flexible - in every way probably.


... Six things to help you thrive on the mission field.

New Years Resolutions

Not being in the habit of making New Years Resolutions, this year I will declare some here, - in the hope that I will then feel honour-bound at least to try...

In no particular order:

1. Putting the past behind, pursue what lies ahead

2. Fight for joy and peace

3. Laugh more

4. Keep writing my gratitude list

5. Brush Frodo more often

6. Pray more

7. Take up Tae Bo again

8. Eat less carbohydrates

9. Learn more about justice

10. Plan to see friends more often

11. Get back to painting

14. Remember to "let go and let God"

15. Lose weight so I can get back into my old trousers!

16. Make Alex wash more

Happy New Year, roof roof

Rrroof! 'Scuse me, I just have to get that itch... aaahh!

Yesterday was the day my people acted crazy, all day long.

First my master took me out in his wellies and umbrella, down the lane, in the rain, full of wonderful sniffs, to buy the paper.

No sooner had we trotted back home and thoroughly shaken off our wet coats in the hall, than my master and both my mistresses and my playmate Alex and their small fun cousins and two other big people all covered themselves in their shiny kind of coats and wellies, and off we went in the sick-making car, along twisty bendy roads, until we parked. We jumped happily out of the car onto the mud and leaves, splashing already, and trotted and ran and walked along a tree-tunnel path beside a bursting rolling river, in the pouring pouring pouring rain. They were all dripping, and the trees and ferns were dripping, and the river was rushing by and the mud was oozing around everyone's feet and sticking up my legs and all over my tummy. And smells smells smells!

Sadly back in the car...

Back home, the people all peeled off muddy clothes and scrubbed up and drank more tea than usual, then put on pretty things.

Then, they said it was time to begin. Begin! Roof! They started running all over the whole house, in the dark, opening cupboards and stooping under beds, and if they found someone, cramming in with them, until only one person was left hunting, and I followed that one, until all the people jumped out and laughed. They didn't do it once but about twenty times. There were also loud numbers and giggles and shshshs. It was SO weird.

After that the people all sat at a long table and started to eat, and eat, and eat. It must have been delicious. It smelt sooooooo good.

Eventually, after I'd had a whole sleep on the mat, they moved into the hot room with the fire, and after stuffing in some of the chocolate that they TELL me will kill me so I can't have any, they started some more games and laughing. When they were all looking pretty sleepy, they suddenly looked at their watches, all of them at once, and started shouting out numbers with great excitement. All the way to "Happy New Year!!!" then they had a hug fest and one or two of them even hugged me (wag wag).

They made a circle and joined hands and started boucing up and down, singing, badly, Auld Lan Syne la la la drink a cup la la la we must learn the words before next year, ... la la la, ... For The Sake of Auld Lang Syne...

Crazy.

Today they all seemed quite normal again.