Eight hours ahead of our home in Harrisonburg VA, we are all together on a Sunday night after enjoying a worship service together as a group.聽 This is not an easy task to summarize what we鈥檝e done so far.聽 In the past week, we have been all over the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and experienced....
Polarities and connections in Guatemala
The following is a response to studying the history of Guatemala and Central America, particularly regarding Spain and the Catholic Church鈥檚 efforts to convert and assimilate the natives to Spanish culture.聽 Through studying the history of Guatemala we are working toward a deeper understanding of the Guatemala of today and how it came to be.....
Turning towards home
December 5, 2012 As our semester draws to a close, our group has returned to the place we started: Motu Moana Boy Scout camp.聽 I believe it was Eric King who referred to the cyclic nature of our trip as poetic, so I decided to write haiku (mostly as a joke) to describe the last....
South Africa 360掳
This trip has been a trip of extremes. When entering Soweto, we met families who were extremely poor, yet had joy that overwhelmed us as we became a part of their families. We lived with the electricity-free families of Lesotho that showed us the joy of a simple life and the problems that come from....
Free travel on the South African coast
November 5, 2012 After having been in mountainous Lesotho for almost a month, I was ready for the next adventure. Although I have many cherished memories and moments I will take with me from the village, my toes were aching to sink in sand, my skin was craving the warmth of the sun and tingling....
Service learning: stoats, tree planting, ranching
Stoat Trapping With Andrew Shepard Our journey through the South Island high country has yielded some truly amazing scenery. The snowcapped mountains and tussock covered valleys of the Southern Alps offer the iconic landscapes of New Zealand. The small town of Makarora is no exception to this rule and was the setting for my two-day....
Bethulie, another perspective
Our short time in Bethulie was definitely a time of transition as we adjust from village life in Lesotho to things we are more familiar with, like electricity, toilets, and food that is not pap or meroho. Bethulie is a small farming town, and in the first few days we visited a lot of different....
I will never forget
My time in Lesotho can鈥檛 be easily summed up in a mere few paragraphs and I鈥檓 not convinced that I will be able to paint a worthy picture of all the sights, sounds, and feelings that I鈥檝e experienced in the last month.聽 But I will try to string together a few of the memories that....
Ngatiawa community
Sunday, October 14 Today we left Otuku Marae and traveled to the Ngatiawa (the g is silent) community. When we first arrived, the sparseness hit us immediately. The housing, mostly under construction, held no enduring touch of creativity, as if it slid off the symmetrical 90 degree angles and bare complexion. Small patches of grass....
Sustaining cultural tradition and the environment
October 3, 2012 Keeping Your Feet Staying on the marae was intriguing because of the contrast it offered to North American natives: maraes dot the landscape in New Zealand and you don鈥檛 have to travel far to find one.聽 The Maori have a community base that allows for an effect on national politics, and despite....