Gotta Love Community

Ash Wednesday. It’s officially Ash Wednesday and a few people in the house are giving up speaking English for Lent. YIKES! Oh, did I mention that Jessalyn and I are doing this as well? So, now I will be writing the blog in Spanish and you guys can copy and paste it into an online translator. Esta bien?

Ok ok. Estoy bromando (I’m joking). The exceptions are, of course, when I am writing, when I am communicating with people back home, and when I am talking to someone who only speaks English. So if you fall under one of those categories then you can go ahead and CHILL OUT because I’m not going to speak to you and Spanish (well, not only in Spanish at least).

Though most of us do not come from religious backgrounds in which we practiced Lent, many of us took this as an opportunity to practice spiritual discipline with the accountability and support that comes from living in community.Six of us in the house are giving up English and we are excited about the outcome. What? Only 40 days? I thought this was supposed to be a challenge.

(Side note: Jessalyn is annoying the heck out of me right now. She won’t quit talking in Spanish and I am clearly doing something more important than listening to her. I thought maybe when we had to speak only in Spanish, it would make her shut up. Oh contraire! She says it’s fun. To which I responded, “Sí—AHORA” (yeah—NOW). I love that Hessaljean.)

Because I obviously have a limited vocabulary, there will be many times when I just do not speak; I’ll have to be silent and listen—two spiritual disciplines about which I could stand to learn a lesson or two. Also, Jess and I were talking about how we really want this to be a time when we ask for God’s help with even things such as the ability to recall what we've learned and learn quickly what we haven't. And, because I will not be able to express how I feel as well with people, this causes more of a desire and need within me to express how I feel about things to God.

Ok, I want to tell you guys a little bit about living in community. It’s hard. Thank you. Join us next time for “Profound Thoughts from Kara DuBose.”

Man, I’m such a jokester. Seriously though, I think I speak for everyone in both our Oxford study abroad group and this Latin America group, when I say that there is so much to learn from living in close quarters with the same people day-in and day-out. We eat almost all meals together, have hours of classes together each day, sit in the same rooms to do homework, share the same bathrooms, go to museums together, church together, together, together, together. This forces us to uncover things about ourselves that we don’t like and that we have never had to deal with before. And, it becomes even easier to spot the tiniest things in other people that really just peeve you. (If you don’t know what la palabra “peeve” means, you should probably go look it up and then find as many times as possible to work it into conversation. You’d be surprised at how fun it is to use.)

Anyway, needless to say, we have had our share disagreements here about the way things should be done and run which is inevitable in a group of 24 people with 24 different opinions and goals. It does not take long in an atmosphere such as this to realize when people are disgruntled (also a good word to incorporate into every day language). The Walkers and the Sanders decided last week that this Tuesday’s chapel/house meeting would be for the sole purpose of addressing questions or concerns about how this semester is going. They asked that the questions and concerns be submitted beforehand so that they could sort through the most important things to address and think about how they could change things or how they could help us understand why certain things are just the way they are.

I was nervous before this morning’s meeting because I thought that people might just blurt out hasty comments or be disrespectful. This assumption comes mainly from the way I have seen conflict dealt with in the past; with lack of respect and refusal to look at things from someone else’s perspective. I feel pretty good about the way things went this morning. Wimon and Shelly addressed some of the main issues people were having with classes, homework, free time, curfew, and scheduled events and, in my opinion, they really listened to what the students had to say. A few times people commented or asked for clarity and the dialogue was healthy—In my opinion, the only thing worse than miscommunication is no communication. Naturally, faculty and students are all going to have different goals for what they want to get out of study abroad, and today I think we met in the middle. It helped to hear their perspectives and because they listened to ours, they actually took some of our suggestions and implemented some changes. It’s hard to remember sometimes that the people in charge have a lot of responsibility and that they are trying to think about the best way to do things for the benefit of the whole. On the flip-side, it’s so easy to see my current frustration over the general perspective. I’ve been frustrated at times this semester and I’m sure that something will really peeve me again, but it is good to know that I can voice my concerns and talk them when they come up. It is so unique to be in a place where the authority figures actually encourage and invite feedback and suggestions.

I think this semester is only going to get better and better as we learn how to deal with each others’ weaknesses and nurture each others’ strengths. Oh, by the way, if that’s what a lifetime of marriage looks like, you can count me out.

ESTOY BROMANDO AGAIN! Sort of…

Over and out,

Kara Dawn

i won't forget come daylight.

I just realized that the internet is not only terrible in general, but specifically in our room.

We have slept outside for two nights in a row now. The night before last, in a desperate attempt to avoid waking up to pools of sweat on our sheets multiple times in the night, Kara and I pulled our mattresses off the beds and laid them side by side in the courtyard. Stefanie slept on her mattress pad the night before as well (out of desperation too I believe, air doesn't circulate well) but we opted for the added trouble of the mattress over marginal comfort. We slept like babies, with minimal guilt in the morning when we woke up on our comfy mattresses next to Stefanie on her sheet.



This week went by very fast. It probably had to do that with the fact that we got back from Buenos Aires at midnight and woke up the next morning for class. We like to keep things going around here. The absence of our extra 3 hours of spanish lab this week made a world of difference in my sanity. Its amazing what having an entire afternoon free will do for your mental health.

I find myself writing so much here between blogging, and trying to stay in touch at the homestead, my attempts to faithfully record the events in my life (for once... would you judge me if I said diligence was never my strong suit?) and of course... it is STUDY abroad. be ye not fooled... we have papers due too.
It's nice. I write it because I think it's validating not because I have to. There's just a lot worthy of note these days and it takes some effort... Don't tell anyone I need validation. It might effect my cool-factor.
I do live a wicked awesome life. It's a shame not to write it down. Last semester I decided I'm going publish my autobiography. A lot can happen in 20 years.
If Miley Cyrus can publish her autobiography about how hard middle school has been then I can at least start mine.

This week we read a book called Child of the Dark and wrote a response paper. Personally, this is the kind of assignment I can get on board with. Response papers. That's just a fancy way of saying 'opinions.' I friends, have many opinions (that are right.)

It is about a black Brazilian women who was handed life on a paper platter with nothing but hardships from the beginning. Even without an education she develops a love for writing and writes her story and the stories about the slums of Brazil in a diary which was later published and became one of the best selling books in Brazil. (Child of the Dark) The diaries were published when a young reporter attended the opening of a new playground in São Paulo and hears Carolina threatening some men who were fighting with children over the see-saws. She was threatening to tell of them in her writing and when it's published they will be there for the world to see how horrible they are. As it were, she did.

It was a very good book. Not in the same way that makes you Harry Potter people wait in line at ridiculous hours of the morning to get a copy of the newest hardback and in fact, the note from the translator and the first 50 pages are enough to get the gist and almost as much as you can handle. The pain of life is communicated in the first few pages. The rest of the book is just an extra dose of depression to add to the guilt that you've just been handed. NOW you want to go read it, I can tell.

At the risk of making this post really long and boring I'm going to share part of my response to the book. I have found it so relative to my experience in Uruguay... daily I am humbled by the situations of the people around me. New exposure to an old disease. I see so much more clearly the undulations of the world without the differences being scaled down to a middle class- and a little above or below.

"I think that helplessness has something to do with my forgetfulness and the feeling of having your hands tied behind your back will always harness your concern. This book is an encouragement to me because its very existence exemplifies the only way I know to make a difference. It’s the only way I think I fit, because I can’t fix the world but I can see that the world needs to be fixed. The story behind the book’s existence is as monumental and motivating to me as the very story itself, though the two obviously must go hand in hand.
As an artist I have had to struggle with my profession in light of my knowledge that life is a burden for many. I believe in it, art that is (life too, I suppose) but what justification can I have for art in a world where people are forced to work themselves to death in order to live? (Art in this case includes the art of words... For instance, the diaries.) My solution has been to find a way to use art as a tool for awareness, because I think awareness is what the world lacks. If not to give awareness then a guilt trip, because many people are aware of suffering we just choose to turn our faces from it. In the note from the translator he says, “She is not trying to be artistic – just sincere” but the truth of that statement for me is that art is sincerity.

One cannot say that if there were a God there would be no suffering, because surely that person has seen suffering enough to think the world is unjust, and the fact that there is any logic at all present in a world of tribulations is a testament to his presence in it. Times that sense is found among the rubbish are more than mere coincidence. Coincidence is the fact that so many people happen to suffer a similar burden. My limited knowledge of God’s reasoning keeps me from understanding why life is what is it, but my experience and exposure to the suffering allows me to see that he is doing something. "
hay caras de sudamerica que no puedo olvidar.

annnd... on a seperate and unrelated note. Some pictures from Buenos Aires













DUDE. all photos copyright. jessalyn massingill 2009- back off. :)

-jessalyn

FINALMENTE!

Buenos Aires from Kara DuBose on Vimeo.

Ok peoples,

We finished this video yesterday morning, but because our internet is just AWESOME, the upload kept stopping and it took forever and ever and ever and ever and ever...to upload the sucker! Espero que you will find it worth the wait amigos! Estoy seguro que YOU WILL!

~Hessaljean y Kara (como la cara)

honey, we're home! miel, estamos en casa!

So...I've been working on a video to put up with this blog to show you all of the things we did in Buenos Aires, but as I was making it, new idea after new idea bombarded my mind like the never-ending drip-drops of rain ruining the shoes i left in the courtyard tonight. Ok, I'll be honest- they're going on their 3rd week of being in the courtyard. I supposed they have served their purpose in my life. Maybe later I'll put a picture of the shoes up so that you all can see why it is so hard for me to part with them. Okay, enough about zapatos. All of this to say, I have a lot of things I want to add to the video so I am going to work on it more tomorrow and write tonight. I'm already a sleepy head and I need to be up for Chapel in the morning and, not to mention, Hot Breakfast Tuesday! WAHOO! I'm already hungry and I have to wait EIGHT more hours. Unbelievable. It's the hard knock life for me, I'm tellin' you what.

Okay, this entry I am taking straight from my journal. I wrote this Saturday during our free time in Tigre, Argentina. Though it is not necessarily about the whole group or about what we all were doing there, it is inspired by many conversations I had with people on this trip and also just personal reflection upon my past and current travels. I know you probably did not get on here to read about what goes on in my head, but I had you in mind when I wrote that day. Though I cannot speak for everyone, I want to share a perspective from an insiders point of view and I'm certain that all of us here (and those in Oxford as well) relate to what was going on inside my head. I did not want to wait to blog until I got home to Montevideo, so I found a nice place to reflect and this is what the pen left behind...

"I love people watching. I'm sitting on a boat port, leaned against the brick ticket booth. Today I've heard at least 5 languages in passing: American English, French, British English, Australian English, and I'll let you guess the fifth. And yes, I realize that English is English no matter the accent, but my point is that apparently Tigre receives many visitors from all over el mundo. It does my heart good to hear all these different accents and languages because it, for one, takes me back to what living in Europe was like, and two, always reminds me of one story or another from some person or another from some place or another that i met somewhere or another.

This trip to Argentina has been great. It's amazing how good it feels just to be outside of Casa ACU--not at all because I don't like the Casa, but because I spend more time there than I do at my house in Abilene. I don't really think about the freedom I have at home until I'm thrown into a completely new setting; a new house to call home, new friends to call family, a new language to call familiar, and a completely new context in which to live. I don't have a car to use if I feel the need for a late night drive alone. I don't have a phone to call my mom when something is on my heart that I feel no one else will understand. The list goes on.

I knew all this coming into this semester. I've done this before. I knew, in part, the things I would have to sacrifice. Sacrifice, in my opinion, is measured by the cost. The more something costs, the more valuable it is. When you sacrifice things that are very dear to you, you are choosing to give up something precious without a guarantee that you will receive something back. Often times, at the point of sacrifice, all you can cling to is the hope of a beautiful return. Everything that is worth anything is worth giving something up. In other words, anything of value deserves sacrifice, even if it doesn't always demand sacrifice.

We study abroaders and our guardians (hey rents) have sacrificed a lot to come here. And I'm not even just talking about money. We have precious friends and family back home that, with the combination of our crazy schedules and an AWESOME (insert sarcasm here) internet connection, we can hardly talk to. We gave up the comfort of speaking the same language in order to have the incredible opportunity of learning another. I get giddy at the thought of being able to communicate and connect with an exponentially larger amount of people than I'd be able to if I only spoke one language. I'm excited to see how God builds on this opportunity in each of our lives. Before I left to come here, a lady at church said, "God needs you there to teach you things that you will use to live out the purposes he has for your life." I believe that language is only one of many things we have to learn by being here.

This is foundational for wherever we end up going and whatever we end up doing. For the rest of our lives."

The journal of Kara DuBose
14 de febrero 2009
Tigre, Argentina

That's all she wrote. Some days it's easy to let the sacrifice consume me. Other days, I don't even remember such sacrifice exists. How often I have to be reminded the precious worth of what the sacrifice will bring.

of course, on the night of free chocolate mousse..

Hola.Didn't expect a post? Well,I Jessalyn have a bit of time on my hands here in Buenos Aires because I am in the hotel instead of on the train to El Tigre. Today we were making a trip to a town close to Buenos Aires... but not me, not yet. Sad, i know.
It's because last night at the Tango show I began to feel very queasy (a rarity for me) and ended up being sick all night (even more rare). It was pretty upsetting all around, but the fact that I had chocolate mousse last night that I didn't get to finish because I could feel my impending doom lurking in the air around the Tango dancing was just salt in an already open wound. What a waste of perfectly respectable mousse.
However don't fear because I feel like I'm on the road to a quick recovery. Rosalinda stayed behind at the hotel with me, a very saintly act. Kara wanted to, but they felt like it was better to have Rosi in case I got worse and needed a doctor or something. At this point that's not in my future but at about 5 this morning I was praying that God would just let me die. Kara called from downstairs before the got out the door and I could tell my sweet one was torn up cause it may be all day before we meet again. She felt bad for me, but I feel like we'll meet up sooner than later. I feel much better than I did through the night and I think Rosalinda and I may meet up with the group later in the day.I'm not very good at being sick. I rarely can sit still long... but I'll try to sit still long enough to recover first.

Otherwise Buenos Aires has been great, with only a few minor mishaps or speed bumps you could call them. (it is travel.) Hopefully I won't have time to get on again until I'm back in Montevideo with 4 gigs of pictures and no time to play with them.
I do miss Montevideo...

Uh oh, sounds like someones already feeling at home

...i suppose I'll go rest.
JESSALYN

arak. That's Kara backwards but with a lower case letter.

buenas noches a todos de una chica muy cansada. Evening all, from one very tired muchacha.

I'm really not very happy right now because Kara just complained to me about the song our sweet Amelia had us sing in class... it's stuck in her head. Its really catchy. Too catchy in fact... which is why it is now incessantly replaying in my head... but it does remind me of middle school. *satisfied sigh*
I don't mean to brag but we have sang in class for the past two days. I sound pretty good in spanish.
Really I've enjoyed it. It also made me sweetly reminisce of my French class last semester. (oh the best class ever. funniest class ever.) Nous chantons toujour en la classe du Francais avec Professor Jones. Prof Jones had us sing everyday, AND he had a really cool belt buckle with a bear on it! French songs are silly. So are generalizations.

I do miss nasal vowels in the land of rolling R's.

Tomorrow we are south bound to Buenos Aires. Don't be fooled. It's not a vacation. Think, field trip.

Fun fact: no air-conditioning in Buenos Aires... it's cool though, I'm not worried about it. (ha, funny me. It's actually not cool more like claustrophobically hot.) Also fun fact: Even though it is a common misconception that Stefanie speaks Portuguese, she doesn't but she does actually have real Argentine relatives and is half herself. hmm...so is she a local?

Punta del Este was nice. the Las Llamadas candombe parade was nice. Lunch today- very nice.

thats what I have for you for now.
ta ta amigos. (ta ta is not spanish.)

nylassej.
thats my name. backwards.
(Don't think I didn't sign my name that way in middle school... and today... and other special occasions like on my pen pal's birthday, or the Day of the Dead.)


Pictures tomorrow? hopefully... if not though you shall wait like a good girl till monday.

this one's for AMELIA!

Buenos noches buenos amigos! It’s pretty late here, but I’m not quite tired enough to go to sleep. I should probably make myself because we have to be on the bus tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. EN PUNTO (on the dot) lista para a fun-filled day in Punta del Este! (if you don’t know what “lista para” means, you should probably go back and read the title of our blog page). I’m not sure where the period goes after that sentence. Perhaps I shouldn’t have put the parentheses around it. But “to each his own,” and this is my own.

We (Zanessa, Stefanie L, Jess, y yo) just got back from having dinner with one of our friends we climb with at the YMCA. It was a little awkward at first because anytime you don’t really know someone and you go to dinner with them there is the potential for some awkward moments, but add in the no-speaky-the-same-language factor and you can multiply the awkwardness by like…10 or something. Anyway, to my surprise (and to my liking) it did not take long for us all to be chatting away with our friend Mauro. He warmed up to us too and eventually let us in on the secret that he knew much more English than he had let on.

I could go on, but I came to the ol’ laptop today with a topic on my mind. I want to write about STUDYING abroad. Well, really I just want to talk about 1 of my classes the first of which is my Spanish class. We have this class 8 hours a week (some weeks we will only have 6 because of weekend travels) and we also have an hour of Spanish lab 3 days a week. The labs are groups of about 3 or 4 students with a Uruguayan lab instructor and basically all we do is practice conversing in Spanish. The labs are helpful, but we are only going to have lab for about another month because by then they figure we will have some Uruguayan friends to practice speaking with. Guess what- we already do! And it’s my favorite way to learn. But it’s also the most frustrating way to learn because some of us (cough.me.cough) have a LONG way to go in being conversational in Spanish.

Ok, back to Spanish class. This is BY FAR the best language class I have EVER been a part of. I took Spanish in high school, but it was nothing like this. We have the sweetest little professor, Amelia, and she is from Uruguay. In fact, precious Amelia taught the last U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay. [That little factoid was free. Next time I’ll charge two chocolate bars: one milk chocolate for my precious little compañero de cuarto (roommate) Jessalyn and one dark chocolate for yours truly.] I really don’t even know how to explain what Amelia does differently, except to say she teaches us to speak Spanish. I think the difference is, in high school we learn how to write and how to read and so we think when we make an A on our tests we are on our way to being the next ambassador to Mexico, when en realidad (actually) we know rules that are seldom useful when trying to comprehend and speak Spanish. Oh my! I just realized the difference between this and any other language class…

Okay, when I learned English I was a baby. That’s all, thank you!

Joke. My point is, I learned English by hearing my parents, repeating them, and getting corrected. That’s how you learn a language. The sweet thing about being a baby is you have no concept of feeling dumb for pronouncing something wrong or feeling silly for using a word in the wrong way. That’s what Amelia and our lab instructors are trying to get us to do- speak without worrying so much about the technicalities. They want us to be able to understand and convey our message to people when we are outside of Casa ACU, even if we say it wrong. For example if I say “I need a stamp for to mail your letter,” the vendor at the store will know we need a stamp for a letter. And even if that person does not correct me, someone will. And it’s so true! When I talk to our friends from church, they correct my Spanish and I correct their English. Sometimes we laugh at each other and we don’t always correct everything, but we both want to learn, so we help each other out. Yo creo que (I think that) Amelia is the most encouraging and patient teacher I’ve ever had. Also, I’m pretty sure she wants me to learn Spanish more than I want me to learn Spanish. Ok- that’s not entirely true, but you get the point. She’s not here to help me achieve my 4.0 GPA; she’s here to help me learn something that can’t necessarily be assessed by a grade.

All this makes it sound like I’m on cloud nine for all 11 hours a week I am in some form of a Spanish class. Let me go ahead and set the record straight- this is not the case, buenos amigos. Many of those days, I start to wear thin and sometimes I think my mind is going to explode. Some days I feel like if I have to translate one more word it will undoubtedly exude from my body in the form of flames coming out of my nostrils. And let’s be honest- MOST days I don’t feel like getting out of bed for my early morning Spanish classes. BUT- I have counted the cost…and it’s worth it. I am learning Spanish. I am trying hard to just speak without worrying too much if I get the sentences exactly right. This is my attempt to return to babyhood. And so far, it’s working.

Longing for Punta del Este,

~Kara Dawn

Normal life.

normal life. from jessalyn massingill on Vimeo.

hay un medicino en la casa?

Buen dia o buenas tardes o cualesquiera... está en la tarde aqui.
Today is the exemplar of why Mondays have the reputation they do. Because they are dumb. We are all taking it hard here at casa ACU. Rough. (you could say)
This morning I woke up to a colorful Carnaval payasa (clown) with Stefanie L's voice telling me to "wake up ejessy. you're missing lab." I fell asleep while I reading for class (very soon after I returned from Carnaval) without setting an alarm..it was frightening and I'm going to start locking my windows when I go to bed.

Its hard coming back to the weekday routine after such a weekend. It was sporadic. The rain came to a parched country via answered prayers but caused problems for the group's weekend plans (thats what usually happens when you plan in my opinion, but you can take it or leave it.) It started with a sprinkle Wednesday night while we were on our way back to the casa after dinner and barely cleared up in time to bring sunshine to the desfiles (parade) last night (marks the beginning of Carnaval) that was cancelled Thursday night. Our trip to Punta del Este was also postponed because of rain but because of some folk's previous and non-refundable reservations about 8 or so left thursday night to spend the weekend in a rainy Punta del Este and the next day 6 more followed suit. So it was quiet around here and somewhat melancholy after the first 24 hours or so. I enjoyed it because for all I know that could be the only rain we see here in Montevideo but Friday felt a little TOO free with no beach, no class and no full house and the eery white light that came filtered through the clouds reminded me too much of Oxford, and it was unsettling. Today feels better now that the light in the windows is made of glowy, warm hues, all is as it should be. (ahhh.)

All I can think about today is how I live in a community that exudes so many true Christian values. Its truly been such a blessing. In particular I have been especially touched by the willingness give to one another and the sharing that happens at casa ACU, and without hesitation. For instance, as soon as one person got sick, there was no hesitation to freely give it to everyone in the house... and in fact we have at least six people who are sharing that love today. Wimon and notable others are up and moving now, but were not so jolly in days previous.
Mmm, who doesn't love community living? Its like our own little infirmary. In fact, I'm going to take a bath in rubbing alcohol and cover my face with a menthol rag... cause I'm getting on that bus next week, even if I'm sharing the love all the way to Buenos Aires.

On a more serious and vastly less amusing note, we have some really sick amigos at this house. Halie in particular. She was the first to go down and is definitely the worse case even today. There's almost one sickling in every room. Feel free to donate your prayers.
We accept all major credit cards, with a meager 20 peso fee for international transfer.

Don't worry about me though, I won't be getting sick. I don't wash my hands until emergency situations that way it counts when I really need it... cause the best defense is a good offense. tengo raizon? My immune system is like a ninja warrior.

¡nanu-nanu!
-jessalyn


Beautiful Candombe dancers


This girl is not running to hug the giant green bottle. She wants to kick the giant green bottle in the stomach. It was awesome.
A shout out to the walking sodas of various colors who took it like champs as they were mercilessly beaten by giddy children lining the street. I wish I could see green bottle-man's face... heheheheh.


"wake up ejessie... you're missing lab. heeeheeHEHHhehhecreepylaughheheh."


Sarah and Nikki