Little ranting, and then about me.

1.10.08 17:45

I am sorry one more thought derived from an article by Thomas Friedman. This is exactly what has been on my mind and follows the same theme of what is America to the rest of the world. I will not post articles unless I think they are thought provoking, idea shaping things.

Ask not what…
- December 9, 2001

“…I have nothing but respect for the way President Bush has conducted this war. But this moment cannot just be about moving troops and tacking terrorists. There is a deep hunger in the Post-September 11 America in many people who feel this is their war in their backyard and they would be summoned by the President to do something more than go shopping. If you just look at the amount of money spontaneously donated to victims’ families, it’s clear that there is a deep reservoir of energy out there that could be channeled to become a real force for American renewal and transformation— and it’s not being done. One senses that President Bush is intent on stapling his narrow, hard-right September 10 agenda onto the September 12 world and that is his and our loss.

Imagine if tomorrow President Bush asked all Americans to turn down their home thermostats to 65 degrees so America would not be so much of a hostage to the Middle East oil? Trust me, every American would turn down the thermostat to 65 degrees. Liberating us from the grip of OPEC would be our Victory Garden.
Imagine if the President announced a Manhattan Project to make us energy independent in a decade, on the basis of domestic oil, improved mileage standards, and renewable resources, so we Americans, who are 5 percent of the world’s population, don’t continue hogging 25 percent of the world’s energy?

Imagine if the President called on every young person to consider enlisting in some form of service— Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, Peace Corps, Teach for American, AmeriCorps, the FBI, the CIA? People would enlist in droves. Imagine if the President called on every corporate chieftain to take a 10 percent pay cut, starting with himself, so fewer employees would have to be laid off? Plenty would do it.
I don’t toss this ideas out for some patriotic high. There is a critical strategic point here: If we are going to be stomping around the world wiping out terrorist cells from Kubul to Manila, we’d better make sure that we are the best country, and the best global citizens, we can be. Otherwise, we are going to lose the rest fo the world.
That Means not just putting a fist in the face of the world’s bad guys, but also offering a hand up for the good guys. That means doubling our foreign aid, intensifying our democracy promoting programs, increasing our contributions to world development banks ( which do micro lending to poor women), and lowering our trade barriers for textile and farm imports from the poorest countries. Imagine if the President called don every U.S. school to raise money to buy solar powered light bulbs for every village in Africa that didn’t have electricity so African kids could read at night? And let every one of those light bulbs carry an American flag decal on it, so when those kids grew up they would remember who lit up their nights?

The world’s perception of us and our values matters even more now, and its not going to be changed by an ad campaign, or just by winning in Afghanistan, as important as that is. It will be changed only by what we do— at home and abroad. This war can’t end with only downtown Kabul on the mend, and not downtown Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Remember: the victims on September 11 were a cross section of America— black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor, and middle-class— and that same cross section has to share in the healing. If we’ve learned anything from September 11, it is that if you don’t visit a bad neighborhood, it will visit you.

The first Greatest Generation won its stripes by defending America and its allies. This Greatest Generation has to win its stripes by making sure that America that was passed on to us, and that now claims for itself the leadership of a global war against all evil terrorist, is worthy of that task.
Mr. President, where do we enlist?“

Read all that? It was short I hope so. My dad has been pressing these ideas on me constantly every time I talk to him. He likes to tell me it will be my generation that will be the change from the self absorbed glutton that America is into the eco friendly, more worldly America it needs to become. I just nod at them agree with him when he says this but I never really thought about it all that much. I mean I see the problems we are causing around the world, I see the problems with being so oil dependent, I just don’t know when the majority of people will decide to give up their perks and open their eyes. Ok so I am done with that little thought for now.

Lets talk about me! Let me remember… I had a rocky 4 moment on Sunday. I was stir crazy from being in the house because it was so cold out and nothing was going on. I finally after writing my blog decided to venture outside to see how the track looked to see if I could get a little workout in. I put on 3 pairs or pants, and about 5 shirts then my jacked and proceeded outside to face the elements. This time though I brought my heavy duty winter gloves and not the fingerless ones I had previously used. There was about 5 inches of snow on the ground around the track but the pull up bars were not covered in ice anymore. I trudged through the snow one foot at a time around the track completing two laps before deciding that this was nuts and made my way over the to pull up bars. With my gloves I was able to get a good workout in. I even improvised using old soccer goals that were only about 3 feet high to do some lightly weight squats and bent over rows. That was really my Rocky moment when he is in Siberia training for this fight running in the snow.. lifting random objects while the Russian is in his nice gym working out all nice and warm. I always wanted my own Rocky experience like that so here I have it…

So after that I had Christmas eve dinner at our house. It had some good stuff. We had our neighbors over and we put three tables together and had a masa in the living room. I of course had a really hard time following any conversation given it was in Russian but there was a lot of laughing going on.

Christmas came and went without too much of a fuss. We had roast chicken (the same thing as having a turkey but it’s a chicken because turkeys are expensive as all heck). It was a great meal. Also included in the meal was this kind of patato cake thing though the texture was like a jelly and in it contained chicken organs. All different types. You know what? I liked it.

Tuesday.. still no work I waited around until 2 so I could go to the gym and workout inside. It had been over a week since I had been able to go and I was really anxious to get over there and go. I killed a lot of time playing with my … host nephew… who is 3. I have been downloading these games for little kids off this web site Big Fish Games. It lets you try games for an hour before you have to buy them so I just find games that a 3 year old can play and download them and we play them then change games. That combined with this cup stacking game my parents sent me entertains the heck out of that kid who would be otherwise running around the house terrorizing everyone... so 2 rolls around I get all ready to go trek over to the gym to find out its closed. One of the guys I coach is over there waiting outside. He says its closed because is the day after Christmas… ok.. bummer. He asks me if I want to go play chess at this place nearby with some people. I say your darn right I do! ( I have become semi obsessed with playing people in chess whenever I have the chance… it was just freak luck this kid wanted to play) So I follow him to this abonded looking building where this chess club or whatever is meeting.

We go inside and low and behold there are like 10 old men playing chess and really getting into it. Then there is another boy from the gym there playing speed chess with this really old man. I sit down and for the next 2 hours proceeded to get humbled in every game I played. I said I liked chess… never said I was any good at it :-).

Wednesday was a good. I was able to go to work. After my vacation from it I was happy to be able to sit back in my office and translate some more. It was good to see my partners again. I did a bad thing though. I introduced one of my partners who already has a hard time staying on task to the wonderful world of YouTube. He went right for videos of Putin and didn’t accomplish anything else for the rest of the day. Also that day I planned on going out to the children’s house to hang out and play games but sadly it does not open until Tuesday of next week. Having too much free time I decided I would do something I told myself I would do for sometime now. Visit the mayors office.

My host mom gave me the phone ahead to one of her friends to work there and so I showed up there. What I didn’t realize was how huge the mayors building actually is. I walked in there and it took me 10 minutes before I could even find the Mayor’s office. I could also not find my host moms friend who works there. But I stumbled into the office, asked someone inside this random room I walked into if she knew a women I only knew by first name ( she is the host mother of another volunteer in a nearby town) and as luck would have it she was right in the next room. I opened the door to find out she was sitting down with other gentlemen looking as if they were having a meeting. I said I was sorry and closed the door. The receptionist insisted I just go back in… so I did. I stood there looking stupid for a little while before I stumbled out that who I was and what I was doing here. Then the women brightened up and said welcome in how as I doing that kind of thing. I met the other two gentlemen whose title’s I forgot in the frenzy. I came because I had free time but also because I wanted to find out how many NGO’s are in my “city” and meet the mayor if I could.

Well as I sat and talked a while one of the gentlemen left to go find out my question while I chatted for a bit. Then I was escorted to the mayor’s office and met the mayor who was a school teacher or still is I dunno. He was a really friendly guy and also young. I had a good discussion with the Mayor.. this was one of those freakish times when I could understand everything that was being said and was able to respond to a fair degree as well. I love those days. I found out he is a democrat and in a country full of communists it was tough to get anything done. ( I am in the north, and the north is known as a communist part of Moldova.. not only that but so is the president of Moldova). I asked him if he liked being mayor. He said he likes it alright but he loved being a teacher and wishes he could go back to just doing that. He gave me his phone number and told me to give him a call if I needed anything and asked me when I could come back and get started on projects.

I told him I wanted to read up on some of the NGO’s in the city before I go about starting any projects. I am here more of a learner and facilitator more then an organizer of projects that I think the city needs. He said good plan. I am going there Friday... so tomorrow to go back and visit. He also was helpful in trying to help me find me a tutor for my language which I expressed I needed. He said he would do it himself but he just doesn’t have the time. He was a Romanian teacher.

So that was a positive experience. Today I went to work again. Installed some printer drivers on some computers so their printer works with all of the computers now and printed out some workout plans I had made for the kids at the gym. I went to the gym and had a really great workout and handed out our new workout plan that leaves space to put their weight they lifted each day so they can track their progress. They seemed pretty happy about it.

Then I trekked off to basketball but after sitting outside in the cold for 30 minutes alone I realized that nobody was coming. I later got a call from a kid saying probably nobody will come because it is the first day back from vacation…. I don’t understand that reasoning but whatever. No basketball.

There’s my update. Boom.