How a Refugee Crises went Unnoticed

Recently I’ve been disturbed by what I’ve been hearing. With the fifth anniversary of the Iraqi invasion recently passing, there are a lot of negative things about the state of the Middle East. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees is appalled by the increase of fleeing Iraqis. They are appalled by the lack of water, sanitation, stability and security remaining Iraqis live with. The lack of these commodities is shameful and it is tragic that people living relatively stable lives had them ripped away at the drop of a hat.

But another hat fell, 8 years ago in fact, and the world has done very little about it. People just like the Iraqi are often physically ripped from their homes and daily face insecurity and oppression. There’s a group of people that live in a nation where- as the World Bank states- has the fastest receding peacetime economic in known global history, it defies all logic and all laws of economics. People sleep in bank queues to withdrawal what amounts to 50 cents and wait in long lines for bread and water. Domestic agriculture has shrunk to 8% of what it less then 10 years ago and the nation cannot feed itself. 80% of people are unemployed, and up to a quarter of the population has fled the country because of economic oppression.

Where is this place the world forgot to note? It’s just Zimbabwe. The UN is concerned about the 2 million Iraqi refugees, they somehow forgot the hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans crossing daily over a crocodile infested river into “freedom” in South Africa. What about the thousands of white Zimbabwean forced to move to Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Australia? They didn’t want to leave anymore then the Iraqis wanted to leave Iraq and they have just as hard a time. In short, there is a lot of attention on the pea-sized Iraq but very little on Robert Mugabe’s watermelon sized Zimbabwe. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is currently 37 years.

The moral of today’s posting? Don’t believe everything you hear from international media, and don’t forget Africa’s former breadbasket. Tomorrow elections will take place, no one there expects change. We all wish it would happen though.

How to Move on with the Rest of Your Life

“Sometimes moving on with the rest of your life starts with goodbye…” It's a tough realization when you know you have to say goodbye because you’re forced to admit you’re moving on and leaving things behind. It’s without a doubt one of the most complicated things that people are forced to face in their lives. Some goodbyes are joyfully anticipated, like when this awful math class will end (I live for the day!). Some goodbyes are just there and pass unrecognized, like when, I don’t really know, I didn’t recognize when they passed. Others are very painful, like moving to another country and saying goodbye to friends. Still others you think you’ll never recover from but in time they too fade into the past.

What many people don’t realize about life overseas is how it's divided into a series of goodbyes. Some moves are very painful and it’s a constant cycle of grief and I’ve known people who enter into serious depression because of it. People who don’t share our lifestyle often judge us for these emotions and sentiments saying it’s only a move, it’s not like anyone died. But in fact, a lot died. The events you were part of, the people as you know them, the places as you saw them and the joys that you counted everyday are all gone. The world you created and lived has died forever. I think we’re quite justified in remorse because the more you invest in something, the more pain you’ll feel when you move on. Sometimes moving on betrays the world you left behind and this is also something we’re forced to face.

If I have learned anything about life as a TCK, it’s that it’s okay to be sad and it’s okay to move on. You pack your suitcase, look over your souvenirs, thank God for the memories and joys, collect as many email addresses as possible and turn your face in whatever direction the next challenge is.

You can’t live in the past, that’s why we say we’re moving on. The hard thing is moving on with the rest of your life and sometimes it “starts with goodbye…”

How Carrie Underwood Came to Describe Life

I’m no country music fan, but I came to like Carrie Underwood after someone explained what American Idol was…after the fourth season concluded and someone told me I needed cultural rehab. My family ordered her latest CD, Carnival Ride for Christmas and instantly loved every song. Funny thing, with a little twist, so many of the songs I could apply to my bizarre life in Harare Zimbabwe!

• Flat on the Floor- “You can’t knock me off my feet, when I’m already on my knees…” That’s what happens on a bathroom visit at 2am without power, everything knocks you off your feet.

• So Small- “Sometimes that mountain you’ve been climbing is just a grain of sand and what you’ve been out there searching for is in your hand…” Yea, the lack of water, power, and internet isn’t that bad. We can deal with it like adults. No sweat. Wait a minute, who didn’t bucket flush the toilet!

• Get out of this Town – “Let’s get out of this town tonight, nothing but dust [and potholes] in the shadows, gone by morning light [or earlier], we won’t ever get caught [by immigration], ever get found [by the police], baby let’s get out of this town…” Theme song for our TV show!

• Crazy Dreams- “Thank God even crazy dreams come true…” The fact that pizza is still for sale or that we can find bread that day, the little miracles.

• You Won’t Find This- “Now there’s once in a lifetime and once in a while and the distance between the two is about a million miles…” It reminds me what matters most.

• Twisted- “It’s twisted, messed up and the more I think about it’s crazy [and we’re fed up]…” This song is about the banking, the shopping, the economy, the attempt to complete college online, everything. Whenever something doesn’t make sense…“it’s twisted.”

• Wheel of the World- “God put us here on this carnival ride, we close our eyes, never knowing what it will take us next…” No matter what happens, there is a plan and we are being molded and shaped as we spin around and around on the carnival ride. No matter what carnival ride you’re ever on, God put you there.

How to Survive Six Months in Inflation Kingdom

Zimbabwe is a country in decay and in denial about its decay. For the most part, people remember 10 years ago when the World Food Program would obtain grain for starving countries from Zimbabwe, people remember when Europeans bought property and retired there, and the good ol’ days when open heart surgery was done routinely in Harare hospitals. But now bread is scares, fuel is non-existent, medical is next to scratch and basically, Southern Africa’s breadbasket produces 8% of their previous output in 2000.

Like all Zimbabwe residents, we learned the tricks of survival in Harare. We learned to laugh, we learned to be tolerant and we learned that the fake English accent gets you a whole lot more.

1) Spend all your cash as fast as possible. Why would you rush out to spend all your money? Fact is, you must or you’ll lose everything. With the economic crises, your money devalues every week. One week, $1 will get you 10 million Zim dollars, the following week, its 15 million Zim dollars so the trick is once you’ve exchanged cash, spend it buddy or you can’t get nothin’ the next week. When I arrived in Zim in late August 2007, one dollar fetched 170,000 Zim dollars. When I left early March 2008, we were getting 25 million. My family went on billion dollar shopping sprees at the drop of a hat.

2) Eat pizza. It’s too hard to find food. Everyone one else is scrounging around for the same commodities so save the trouble and just eat out. Eating out is cheap, it’s really good for all the empty shelves in the country and it’s less hassle. Our pizzas would range from $3 to $5 dollars a piece, depending on the exchange rate and created excuses to eat it three times a day.

3) Bathe in the pool. Harare’s water systems are both too small and too old. We went three months without a drop of water coming in from the city. You learn to bring in jerry-cans from places that have a borehole and though it sounds disgusting, you bathe in your chlorinated swimming pool. It’s just like swimming everyday and you try not to think about it.

4) Live off generator. Of course this means you have a generator, assumes you have fuel to put in the generator and that it’s wired to your house. Zim doesn’t have hard currency to pay for imported power from neighboring nations, nor the ability to produce their own electricity nor the ability to control the numerous bandits who steal the power lines. Needless to say, it’s not rare for people to have maybe 5 hours of electricity a month. Our longest cut was 38 hours. Often the nation goes down for over 24 hours, the ISP, phone networks, street lights, radio stations, establishments not on generator and newspapers aren’t printed. That can be scary and you feel as if you live in a war zone

All in all, it’s a beautiful place used as a textbook case of success gone wrong. It’s tragic because the beauty wants to remain.

How we Spend Christmas in Transit

Overseas, Christmases vary and differ for expats who normally float around trying to recreate Christmas in the tropics (at least that’s what it’s like in Africa). People stick cotton balls on windowsills, try very hard to find an evergreen tree and are particular about having bows on top of the presents. Aussi have an easier go at it as they have “barbis” (cookout) and visit the beach and miss much less then Americans or Europeans.

This year for my family, we expect to carry out our traditional Christmas. We’ve always had rather untraditional Christmases, part of the glorious life of overseas living…life on the edge! The main reason would be the fact we move notoriously nomadically and contentedly. This year, we’re in transit temporary life living in Zimbabwe out of a Land Cruiser worth of goods and without Christmas supplies. There’s no commercialism here, few lights, everyone else is traveling to nearby countries to go grocery shopping and see family. We’re staying, since we already traveled for Thanksgiving and have a little “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree 2 feet high, has one strand of lights and 15 ornaments. The boys are go happy to have it.

And like all traditional years, we’ll go to church in the morning, open presents with coffee and American candy at noon and have a pot roast (err, maybe without the roast this year) for a 4pm dinner with a Happy Birthday Jesus cake. It’s easy to celebrate Christmas in transit, as long as all the food comes in a Land Cruiser from other counties and the presents arrive through DHL. Christmas is about counting blessings and so for one day I try to forget the food, power, water, Zim dollar and internet shortages and the wretched fact my boyfriend lives two continents away. It's not all about what you don't have, and Christmas is a season to celebrate the ultimate gift...a child born in a manger over 2000 years ago.

C’est le noël de nous! God bless us, every one.

How to be Frustrated…and Live

Chez Nous

Now, I’ve been frustrated before. I’ve been outside the United States ten years, I’ve been in Africa seven, I know about frustration! But moving to a new country, that frustration was taken to a new level!

I wake up in the morning and it’s very hot, in fact, so hot I’m sweating like I ran a 8K (I’ve ran 8Ks, I know what I’m talking about). I get up to take a shower and discover there’s no water. Moving on for breakfast, I discover that naturally there’s no bread or cereal and my brothers ate all the leftover pizza. Deciding I can wait till lunch, I move on to school. Joy of joys there’s no power so naturally there’s no power for the wireless router and I can’t run the fan either. When the power finally does come back on, the router is dead and someone has to reconfigure the system. By then, I’m slightly upset, hot, dirty and wondering why I live in that country.

A modern individual without a God-shaped paradigm thinks he is the result of his environment and his situation in life defines him. That’s why Karl Marx developed communism and governments institute excessive social programs to improve what we think defines us. But I’ve learned two things here.

1) “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete…” James 1:2-5

2) “He gives and takes away but my heart will choose to say, blessed be Your name…”

Can we decide on internal joy? Can we decide that even when it does go well we can still be happy? That’s the only way you can survive…here….in the US….or anywhere.

How to Watch a Rugby Game

I’ve learned in college to always start with a definition; haft the time we define definition. Thus I will begin most effectively discussing rugby with a brilliant definition.

‘Rugby- A football game in which play is continuous without time-outs or substitutions, interference, and forward passing are not permitted, and kicking, dribbling, lateral passing, and tackling are featured [as well as pushing, shoving, clothes/hair pulling, biting, slapping, bone breaking, and no doubt swearing]’

Several weeks ago I went to Bible study and I was invited to stay afterward and watch rugby. So being the adventurous spectacle watching individual that I am, I stayed. It was after all the rugby world cup final in Stade de France Paris. I learned several things about rugby, all enlightening.

First off, the first 20 minutes are amusing, highly amusing. Rugby is slightly different from American football and at first it’s hilarious. After about 30 minutes, it looks like a bunch of sweaty men making human piles. After haft time you’re waiting to see a proper goal (there are only 3 or 4 ways to score points) but it doesn’t come so South Africa beats the English and you decide that has to be okay.

Second, watching fellow rugby watchers is the greatest fun one can have on a Saturday night. Everyone get so excited they get silly and then you just laugh because they are laughing. They start yelling words you don’t know in Afrikaans in their excitement and use a host of British based English expressions as they jump, scream and yell about how the game should be going. Not to mention the rugby fans on TV are something else!

Can I also say I kind of like it? In a strange sort of way, naturally. "If they don't play rough sports, they go to war..."