shine on you crazy diamond...

okay, so now that i am in turkey with relatively nothing to do (and at this moment nothing to eat...) i am going to blog as if i really meant to keep this thing up. i wonder who i am actually blogging for. my mom, mom's friends, grandpa, my friends, myself...i guess i just don't know.
well i left ein gev on thursday which was a little sad. i really love it there. my roommate kindly hitchhiked with me to the bus station and from there i somehow got to my aunt's house near tel aviv in ramat hasharon. saying goodbye to mario sucked. i really miss him now.
oh ya, and i guess i should mention that i have a boyfriend, who is amazing. mario from guatemala. 25. ha i can never get over the fact that his name is mario. i asked him if he had a friend names luigi. he almost killed me.
anyway...
now that i am with my family i begin to remember why i took this gap year in the first place. i mean yes, i love them all very very much. but damnit sometimes they drive me a little crazy. i have gotten far too used to being on my own to spend such condensed periods of time with them so abrutly. i get to see aaron on tuesday though which is awesome. i haven't seen in almost 2 years...
my family in turkey is the same. my grandparents are beginning to get really old. i guess everytime i see them they look really old. but my grandmother barely stays awake for longer than a couple hours at a time, and can't move around without the help of somebody. they have a really sweet maid that takes good care of her, and talks to me in turkish as if i can understand. i laugh uncomfortably and smile, thats all i got. my grandfather is slowing down a bit, but his mind remains sharp. he is still witty and quick, and he manages on his own quite well. he really amazes me.
my uncle and aunt are still the fighting couple living a life of luxury that is questionably affordable to them. my aunt doesn't yell at my uncle so much anymore, but you can still hear her screams once in a while.
oh turkey.
we are leaving for bodrum tonight, thank god. in istanbul we get a little stuck in a static, but in bodrum its sheer beauty and relaxation + good food/wine for a week straight.

somehow i still miss israel.

my life got really uninteresting.

the website is written in japanese (maybe korean...)

WOAH
Long time I know, but the internet here is pretty damn terrible, and it takes a good 30 minutes just to pull up this page so I avoid the whole encounter all together.
Everything here in Israel is pretty amazing. I've been hanging around the kibbutz pretty much the whole time except for one trip to Tel Aviv with Sharon (Australian volunteer.) Things are a little same same, but its so good that same same is good.
I don't really know what to write about to be honest. I always forget what I wrote about before. I feel redundant.
In Israel things are so different for people. In the US its just so normal. You go to highschool, university and then get a job. Here, when you finish highschool, you are required to do a minimum of 2 years in the army (3 if you're a guy), and then its tradition to travel. Everyone that I have talked to has such great stories. India, Thailand, Malaysia, Latin America...there is so much to see, so much to do. I don't get it why in the US we don't encourage that sort of thing more. I think that people need some time to think before deciding the direction of their life.

Okay so ya I really don't have that much to say.

older chests reveal themselves...

So I will finally write now that I am in Israel. I have been near or on the internet for the past 2 weeks but have been too lazy to actually sit down and update this thing. For another thing, this kibbutz thing is keeping me pretty busy, and if not busy pretty damn tired.
So for those of you who don't know I am at the Kibbutz Ein Gev, on the Sea of Galilee also known as the Kineret. This is the Sea where Jesus himself walked on water. Its a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and literally on the water.
Living on a Kibbutz is a really special thing. I really love it here. I sometimes wonder what it is exactly thats keeping me from picking up my life and just moving here. Learning Hebrew, and becoming a Kibbutzkik.
Then I remember that I want a little more out of life than working 6-7 days a week, 8 hours a day with 3 days off a month.
For these next 3 months though, I think its the best experience I could have chosen. Its giving me valuable experience in coexistence with minimal material wealth, and a work ethic like you wouldn't believe.
Everyday I get up at 7 am grab some breakfast, and head to work. I mop floors, polish silverware, move tables, set tables and rearrange napkins till 11. I get an hour for lunch and at noon I am back at the restaurant busing tables, rearranging food, breaking plates and making friends.
The waitresses/waiters not only have the most difficult job on the kibbutz, we also work the longest hours, but I actually love working there. We get to interact more with the kibbutzniks who some are themselves "senior" waiters and waitresses, and we also get free food which in turn gives us more spending money at the end of the month. I also really love to talk to customers. People rarely understand why I am here busting my ass, and I barely get it myself. But I guess it just feels right.
I really feel like I belong in Israel.
The other volunteers are an eclectic bunch, and only about 1/6 of us are actually Jewish. They are all really great people, and fun, but the relationships here aren't as deep as those I made in Ghana, for alot of reasons. Its a different place, they are different people, and its a different kind of pressure to exist here. I don't feel like I stick out here at all-actually most Israelis think I'm Israeli.
Oh, and I am going to learn Hebrew if its the last thing I do. What a beautiful language.
Anyway, I don't have that much to say...still flip flopping about the premed thing.

And we always seem to need the help
Of someone else to mend that shelf
Of too many books
Read me your favourite line

fights problems with bigger problems...

So I leave for Israel tomorrow. And I have done a poor job at maintaining the blog while I've been home. I guess my life seems not so exciting in cold and snowy MN.
This time that I've been home has been good for me. I am exhausted from talking about Ghana all the time. I feel like I've created a monologue that I repeat everytime someone asks me about it. Its cool though because when I do talk about it, I feel like I am getting more in touch with the experience I had, and the impact it has made on my life and my character.
Being home is like...I just can't explain it. Its like when you're away, time doesn't touch this place. I always thought of Edina as a bubble (even though I don't even technically live in Edina anymore), but this is unbelievable. People change, but things just don't change. They remain constant until you are willing to deal with them, and I'm sorry to recognize the fact that lately I just don't feel like dealing with anything.
Its not that I feel like I have a better understanding of life and where I stand in it, because I am just as confused as the next college freshman, but coming back seeing all the old fights, flames and friendships carrying on without change, without progress without movement frustrates me. And I am in no way above all of it. Infact I consider myself to be in the middle of a lot of things I was convinced I left behind.
And it makes me ill.
I have also begun to understand the concept of actually having friends that are bound to you more than by just history alone. My frienship with Eli was so fufilling and so purposeful that I suddenly have this need to connect with friends that I have never had before. I know I have created a few friendships that are "forever" in my mind, but there are some that lack luster, understanding, vibrancy. They stood the test of time and are therefor forced to do it long after the friendship is withered. Its time that binds us, and I guess in the long run, its going to be time that releases us.
I am looking so much forward to getting on with this year, and removing myself again from this place which, I undoubtedly love, but just feel suffocated by. Its like you aren't allowed to grow because everyone and everything expects you to stay the same. Even if you were a pain in the ass *cough* they don't want change. They want comfortable.
My reference to "they" does not mean I leave myself out of these observations.
So we treat each other both admirably and terribly with comforting smiles and harsh words and expect the same results. The only problem is, is that I don't want to give the same results. I don't want to expect the same results. I want change, progress, movement. I have felt in myself change, progess and movement yet I am not encouraged to display it.
And I'm sure everyone feels suffocated. And we do it to ourselves.

This post may or may not be linked directly to the fact that I have been litsening to a ridiculous amount of Elliott Smith lately. Not exactly a bucket of sunshine.

Felt a wave, a rush of blood
You won't be happy 'til the bottle's broken
You're out swimming in the flood
You kept back, you kept unspoken

chasing cars...

Okay so the word is out...I'm home.

I came home a bit early because of the sick thing, and also because of the discouraged spirit thing. I was starting to get so sick of Ghana I was beginning to forget why I loved it there, and I also knew that if I was sick of it when I left, I wouldn't hold onto the good things when I was home.
Now that I am home, its not so weird or hard. I'm not disgusted with western life. I feel...I feel normal. Like nothing changed. Except I live in Minneapolis, and all of my friends are at college.
It scares me a little, but it also makes me think that maybe, the changes that happened to me, are so a part of who I am, that its not some major reaction to a change in lifestyle. They just slide right in and apply themselves.
I hope thats it. I really hope thats it.
I am sick of this whole moving thing. Unpacking and repacking and not really feeling like you're at home. I feel weird cooking. And the channels on the tv are all f-ed so I have no idea how to watch Food Network.
I did get a chance to catch up on Grey's, which kept me busy for God knows how many hours. Also made me really happy, and lonely. I wish I could date a hot neuro surgeon.
Haha, like they actually exist in the world outside Seattle Grace Hospital.
I missed food. I didn't think I missed food the first couple days, but now I realize that I really missed food. Ice cream especially. And soup. Sushi too. Olives. Coffee...all of it.
I miss my friends from Ghana, but I don't really even feel like I was even there. Like the past 6 months of my life didn't exist. I'm getting scared I'm going through some creepy psychological deal, and I can't acknowledge it because I don't even know its happening.
I don't have a reference point.

holes to heaven...

So this past week has had its ups and downs. I'll start with the ups, for optimistism's sake.
The work I did at Anidaso Fie was awesome. I got to work with around 15-20 women everyday, sometimes the same, and sometimes different depending on whether or not they chose to come to classe that day.
I was asked to help with the art classes they are now involved in to help them with batiking later on. The first couple days we worked on sketching and took nature walks to find inspiration. Then I taught them about basic drawing techniques, like breaking down larger shapes into smaller ones.
Let me just say, its very difficult to remember what its like to be 5, and in your first art class. Some of these women are older than I am, but when I ask them to draw two identical circles, they can't make replicas of the same shape. Or even simple things like drawing within the lines. They don't understand how to process visual information like that.
When we started painting it was so fun to help them out, and they were all so proud of what they were doing. The teacher just sat in the corner, randomly telling them instructions. She rarely taught them, just gave them things to do. To be able to guide these women, even in something as small as drawing was immensely fufilling. And just to realize how much your attention to their work means to them, made me feel purposeful.
The other couple days we focused on basic math, english and health issues. I was assigned the "highest form", the ladies that had the most education. They clearly were the ones who could understand my English the best, therefore made it alot easier to teach them. The "highest form" of these women 15-25 was the first grade.
We did math exercises consisting of addition, subtraction and basic multiplication. I started to teach them to divide, but we only got as far as drawing out a number of shapes and then dividing them with lines, and seeing the result.
This was also really difficult to remember how I was taught this kind of math. I was questioning whether I should have taught them double digit multiplication, or just moved straight onto division.
Some of these women are 25, and they are just learning how divide.
We then read a book "Willie isn't the Hugging Kind." A book written clearly for 5 year olds. We would read 10 pages at a time, and then I would write around 6-8 content questions on the board, like "Why did Willie's sister call him the not-hugging-kind?" Then they would take almost 30 minutes searching through the book for answers.
I am beginning to think that it would be of great value to publish a book for programs like this, which exist in most third world countries. A book that would be able to provide a low level of literacy, but with a content that would appeal much more to adults. As I spoke to the ladies about the book, they did the work I asked of them, but didn't appreciate that they were actually reading. Which is huge. I think it made them feel incompetent, and I don't blame them.
Its so interesting, and yet so scary, how the human mind needs so much attention to be able to function at its highest level. Even if these women went to school everyday, 8 hours a day, for the next 5 years they probably wouldn't know as much as I know as a 19 year old American.
I will write more about the project when I can really sit down and think about it. I haven't been able to because...
Ghana immigration is the most rude and difficult sum of human beings I have ever encountered in my life. Although the details of my situation with them are many and boring enough that I'll spare the dedicated readers of my blog the time, I will say I have never been treated with as much disrespect or carelessness to my situation in my entire life.
Its very frightening to realize you are in a country where you cannot trust the government, and if they want to, they can easily screw any plans of you leaving the country. Not to mention the fact that the organization which I paid to help me with these sort of things, if not just take care of them themselves is not being of much help...I'll also save the details of that for a later post.

Gotta run, more later.

Officials work while friendly
Once we drown them with our sweet talk
And we bribe them with our cigarettes and booze

Moving on...

Let me start out by saying after 4 weeks of literally constant illness, I am recovered (hopefully.)
So Lisette and I left the clinic for good on Saturday. It was very sad, and I didn't realize how attached I was to everything there. Saying goodbye to Samuel, the Captain and Mary was really tough. Especially because here it isn't appropriate to really show emotion, so I had to"keep my cool" which we all know isn't my best trait.
Anyway, now I am in Accra, and I'm going to work at a practical training college for street girls, or street women considering the ages range from around 15-25. These are women who were either prostitutes, orphans etc...and at this school they learn things like hairdressing, sewing and cloth construction, cooking/baking, basic math, science and english so that hopefully, after they are finished, they can make money, take care of themselves, and lead a healthy lifestyle. They also provide access to birth control (whether it be oral, condoms etc...), HIV/AIDS education, and general counseling to the women. I am going to help with the batiking/tye-dye as well as cooking and basic instruction. I am also going to sit in on the birth control and HIV/AIDS discussions. I start work in a little under an hour, and I am really excited!
On a completely different note...
Lately the "being a volunteer" thing has been slightly eating away at my soul. Yesterday I was feeling slightly miserable and alone so I went to an upper class restaurant just to relax and get a good meal. So I spent around $10 on an enormous meal that left me probably 2 lbs heavier, but also happier. However, as soon as I left the restaurant I only had to walk 30 seconds to see extreme poverty. Then I just felt like throwing up.
Let me explain that, to most of you at home, I was surrounded by poverty where I was living, but in reality the town in which I lived had very little poverty. At first, you think the people walking around without shoes and torn clothes who are selling things in a little wooden shack by the side of the road is extreme poverty. In reality, those people are leading a relatively good life by African standards. They eat well and have the ability to work and earn a living, not a very large one, but nevertheless enough to sustain them and their families.
Extreme poverty, as I see it, is the people who have no home or family. Its those who have no hope of finding work. I almost feel better when people are begging for money, because in the worst cases, they have lost so much hope they are just waiting to die.
So what I'm getting at is the guilt that comes naturally to any human being that can afford to travel here for their own purposes. I came here as a volunteer in hopes of helping people etc...and I was under the impression that the feelings of guilt wouldn't be are strong, considering I was dedicating a half year of my life to improving the state of this country.
I guess whats important to remember that I could have given money to help relieve poverty, gone to NYU and started my life, but what I did, come here with the intention of helping in which ever way I could, was a much greater sacrifice.
I should get a move on so I'm not late for work.