Saturday

I worked in my classroom this morning and then we had a staff cookout in the afternoon, which was relaxing and fun.

Here's today's Saturday Review of Books.

Poetry Friday Round-up

Today's Poetry Friday Round-Up is here.

Poetry for Refugees - Poetry Friday

Last week I posted a link to a blog post telling about someone going around a refugee camp in Nakuru, Kenya, and reciting poetry to the people there. I have been thinking about that all week, and wondering what kind of poetry would be comforting to refugees.

Garrison Keillor writes, in his introduction to his anthology Good Poems for Hard Times, "The meaning of poetry is to give courage. A poem is not a puzzle that you the dutiful reader are obliged to solve. It is meant to poke you, get you to buck up, pay attention, rise and shine, look alive, get a grip, get the picture, pull up your socks, wake up and die right. People have many motives for writing..., but what really matters about poetry and what distinguishes poets from, say, fashion models or ad salesmen is the miracle of incantation in rendering the gravity and grace and beauty of the ordinary world and thereby lending courage to strangers."

One poem that came to my mind immediately was Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers." Here it is:


Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.


I don't know, though - I think you'd get some funny looks if you recited this poem to people who had just been chased from their homes.

This one seems to fit, when I think of so many people killed for no reason in the past couple of weeks in Kenya. Many of them never had much in their lives and worked hard for every bit they had. But it's not exactly comforting:


To The Dead Poor Man

Pablo Neruda

Today we are burying our own poor man;
our poor poor man.

He was always so badly off
that this is the first time
his person is personified.

You can read the rest of it here. There used to be a link where you could hear it read, but it doesn't seem to be working right now.

Eighty percent of Kenyans consider themselves Christians, and that's why I think this poem would be appropriate:


Light Shining Out Of Darkness

William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sov’reign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Here's the rest of it.

Really, though, the best I could come up with is the following, which I put together from many places in the book of Psalms. Of all the poetry that gives me comfort, the Psalms are the most reliable when things are impossible. I'm calling this "Psalm for the Refugees." I wish I could go to Nakuru, and other places in Kenya where refugees are waiting to see what will happen next, and read it to them.


Psalm for the Refugees

(from Psalms 69,70,71,77,80,85,88,89,90)

Save me, O God,
for the waters have risen up to my neck.

I am sinking in deep mire,
and there is no firm ground for my feet.

I have come into deep waters,
and the torrent washes over me.

I have grown weary with my crying;
my throat is inflamed;
my eyes have failed from looking for my God.

Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head.

Let my prayer enter into your presence;
incline your ear to my lamentation.

For I am full of trouble;
my life is at the brink of the grave.

Be pleased, O God, to deliver me;
O Lord, make haste to help me.

Let those who seek my life be ashamed and altogether dismayed.

In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge;
let me never be ashamed.

In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free;
incline your ear to me and save me.

Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe;
you are my crag and my stronghold.

Will the Lord cast me off for ever?
will he no more show his favor?

Has his loving-kindness come to an end for ever?
has his promise failed for evermore?

Has God forgotten to be gracious?
has he, in his anger, withheld his compassion?

And I said, "My grief is this:
the right hand of the Most High has lost its power."

How long will you hide yourself, O Lord?
will you hide yourself for ever?
how long will your anger burn like fire?

Remember, Lord, how short life is,
how frail you have made all flesh.

Who can live and not see death?
who can save himself from the power of the grave?

Where, Lord, are your loving-kindnesses of old?

I will remember the works of the Lord,
and call to mind your wonders of old time.

I will meditate on all your acts
and ponder your mighty deeds.

Restore us, O God of hosts;
show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved.

Lord, you have been our refuge
from one generation to another.

Show us your mercy, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation.

Truly, his salvation is very near to those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.

Mercy and truth have met together;
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Truth shall spring up from the earth,
and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

The Lord will indeed grant prosperity,
and our land will yield its increase.

Righteousness shall go before him
and peace shall be a pathway for his feet.



A friend just sent me this blog post from someone else who was thinking along the same lines of Psalms for Kenya.

What poems would you recite for refugees, if you had the chance?

Education Carnival

Here's this week's Education Carnival.

Liveblogging the Crisis

OK, it's not exactly liveblogging, but Mzungu Chick has been posting very frequently from Nairobi and I for one have appreciated it. Thanks from this mzungu in a faraway land.

Kenya

Many kids in Kenya went back to school this week, where schools weren't burned. Here's a photo from Joseph Karoki's blog. He describes it as "Kenyan children of different ethnic tribes excited to see their friends on the first day of school."

I'm praying for Kenya, but it isn't always easy to know what to pray. That's even more true for the people there, where one's prayers are informed by one's political views, or by recent experience.

Three days of demonstrations are coming up starting tomorrow. I am afraid of what will happen. I read stories of what has already happened and I cry. I feel despair over what will happen in this place I love so much, to people who are innocent, who just want to live their lives.

And I don't know how to pray.

I'm praying for those kids, the ones who went back to school and the ones who didn't. I'm praying for the refugees, thousands of them living in fairgrounds and parks and churches. (How could this be happening in Kenya, so many are asking? Kenya hosts refugees from other countries, Kenya doesn't produce refugees.)

And for the political outcome - I'm praying for peace and justice, and for leaders who will put their country and its people ahead of their own ambitions. I don't know what will happen next, and I don't even know what should happen next. But God does.

Global Voices Kenya Page

Global Voices has put up a special page to cover the aftermath of the Kenyan elections, including an aggregator of the blogs mentioned on White African's list.

Saturday

I'm just about to go home after working in my classroom for a couple of hours. All ready for next week!

Here's the Saturday Review of Books for today.

Reciting Poetry to Refugees

I just read this touching story at the blog called What an African Woman Thinks about people helping out the refugees in Nakuru in any way they can, including reciting poetry to them.

Poetry Friday

Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.

Ushahidi.com

Ushahidi.com was launched yesterday by Kenyans interested in helping out the situation in Kenya using technology. Ushahidi means witness in Swahili, and this will be a place where people can bear witness to events that happened during the post-election chaos. It's also a place to get updates on what is being done for recovery, and where people can donate as well.

White African posted this update today about the resources the site offers.

Life Goes On

While I'm spending lots of my time and energy reading and thinking about the crisis in Kenya, my teaching is going on - and actually going very well. I'm doing some units of study I really enjoy - a poetry alphabet with my seventh graders, where we play around with different forms of poetry and aspects of poetry for each letter of the alphabet, and writing feature articles with my eighth graders.

And on the subject of teaching, here's this week's Education Carnival.

Interesting Idea

Maina Kiai, head of the National Commission on Human Rights, had this suggestion on dealing with the situation in Kenya:

"Kiai called on Western powers to revoke visas for members of the Kibaki government, senior members of the civil service and their families as well as opposition figures.

He said this was the only way to push politicians into negotiating an end to Kenya's post-election crisis.

'Bring them back to suffer with us. Maybe then they will be forced into talking to each other,' he said. 'If all visas are revoked you will see movement so fast, you won't believe it. Many of them think "I have a valid visa to the UK. If things get really bad I am off." They need to have the same stakes as us.'"

Here is the rest of the article.

Reactions from the Diaspora

Kenyan Pundit is posting pieces from many different Kenyans as they react to what has happened and is happening in Kenya. Here's someone from the Kenyan Diaspora.

(Some of the things I'm linking to lately use language that I normally wouldn't use on my blog, or elsewhere for that matter, so my apologies.)

Poems about Kenya

This morning I read this article about Kericho. I was sickened to read about this beautiful place, full of friendly people, suddenly exploding with violence.

Here's a description from the article: "'I begged them to spare me but they showed no mercy,' he said. 'They slashed me with machetes and they hit my back and head until I lost consciousness.'"

This happened in the fields of tea, associated in my memory with homecoming, tranquility, and beauty. All day long I've been thinking about Dr. Bacchus' poem, Chai. It begins:

It grew in the Kericho sun
watered by the rains that swept up from Lake Victoria
every afternoon at 4
like a heavy felt curtain.
Top two leaves and a bud
picked in the pouring rain.
Flapping black raincoats and hats,
bright faces and bright singing.
The emerald of the freshly washed leaves
almost hurts the eye.
Miles of smooth green hills
stretching to the horizon of my mind.

You can read the rest of it here.

Apparently Maria was thinking on the same lines, because she posted this poem today.

Mshairi has been writing poetry too. Here's one about the church burning and this one is called This is the time.

Here's Poetess of the People.

Here's another one from Maria.

Many Kenyan bloggers have posted all or part of the Kenyan national anthem, as I did last week.

If I find any more poems, I'll add them to this post.

More on Kenya

I have been reading more about the situation in Kenya than I should, and this post is going to summarize just a few of the things I've read. There's much more out there, but it occurred to me that these links might give some insight to someone who isn't familiar with Kenya or the situation.

As I've said in other posts, I haven't been back to Kenya in years. Until all this happened, I wasn't even following the elections there. I knew they were going to happen on the 27th and I even prayed for them, since in Kenya, as in many, many countries around the world, election time is often volatile. But I've had to read a lot to get up to speed on some of the issues in the election. And even at that, I know there's a whole lot I'm not completely understanding. (Part of the problem is that my Swahili was never much good, and now is practically nonexistent. Lots of the Kenyan news videos are in English, but with all the interviews in Swahili.)

One thing that is striking me most in what I'm reading is that people are deeply, deeply divided about what is the best thing to be done next. Often a well-reasoned, thoughtful blog post will be followed by dozens of comments from people sniping at each other, sometimes calling each other names and making tribal slurs. (If the subject matter weren't so serious, I would really enjoy the language of these comments, since they are sprinkled with "akina" and "kweli" and "kwani" and lots of the other Sheng/Swahili expressions that make Kenyan English so distinctive and expressive and wonderful to listen to.) Of course the anonymity of the internet is partly to blame for this insulting manner, and maybe people wouldn't do this if they were in the same room.

I am well aware of tribal prejudices in Kenya, though I've never witnessed them turning into violence as they have in the last week. It mostly takes the form of stereotypes about other groups, often jokingly cited by the people themselves, in much the same way a person of Scottish descent might call herself cheap. (If you know about Kenya, you know which ethnic group is supposed to have that characteristic there, but I'm not saying.) Any time people from 42 tribes, many of which are culturally quite different from one another, live together in a country the size of Texas, you're going to have some friction occasionally.

In spite of the tribal feelings, magnified a hundredfold by what has been happening this week, Kenyans aren't some crazed people out for blood. What's going on is more complicated than that. At Kumekucha, you can read an explanation that makes a lot of sense, in my opinion: "what we have in Kenya is a popular uprising against a rigged election where some people have taken advantage to settle scores related to ethnicity." Here's the rest of the post. In some areas, this has been encouraged by certain politicians. People have even been promised free land if they can kick out the "interlopers" who have been peacefully living there. You can imagine the effect of promises like this on people who are living in poverty. Read this, for example.

The blog Changing Journalism explains how the international coverage has been simplifying the situation, to the point of even interpreting Swahili incorrectly. You can read that here. There's more about the media getting it wrong at Eyes on Kenya.

Elsewhere, there are arguments about what does or doesn't constitute genocide, for example in the comments to this chilling article. This is the sort of discussion I never thought would happen about Kenya. How much mass murder does there have to be before it can be called genocide? If, as I've seen elsewhere (and I can't locate where at this moment), people are being loaded into trucks and given pangas (machetes) to use, that seems to fit the "planned" part of the equation. It's all just too horrifying to believe.

Mad Kenyan Woman has posted a couple of impassioned, eloquent calls for people to calm down and think of the future and of their children. One of them has been republished at Kenya Imagine (which has the best title of all).

Many bloggers have been posting incredible coverage with photos. See, for example, Thinker's Room and Nick Wadham's blog.

I've also been very interested by the personal experiences and reactions posted by Mzungu Chick, among others. (Mzungu is the Swahili word for a white person.) And please, read What an African Woman Thinks.

Of course, the violence is going to have many long-term effects, including the balkanization of Nairobi slums, covered in this article. You may have seen this email from chaplain at Baraton University in Eldoret, as it's been widely republished, including at the BBC's site. It's terrible reading, from the same general area where the church was burned. And I can't find out what happened next. This account also really underlines the fact that these are large gangs of young guys who have been mobilized. This isn't just hordes of people spontaneously attacking their neighbors. Here's more about people fleeing Eldoret. Many families who have lived there for generations are saying they can't ever live there again - they wouldn't trust the people around them.

I don't expect most of the people who read this are nearly as obsessed with the whole situation as I am, but I hope you will read at least some of these articles and see that the situation is complicated and sad and terrible. I hope and pray that something will be done quickly that will bring the violence to an end, but there will be repercussions of this felt for many years to come, whatever happens next.

Back to School

I spent most of today working in my classroom, getting ready for school to start back on Monday. I did lesson plans, straightened up from last semester, redid bulletin boards, and tried to get myself in the teacher frame of mind. I'm fighting a cold and feeling preoccupied.

I'm ready for Monday, anyway, with a few things to do Monday afternoon to be prepared for the rest of the week.

Here's today's Saturday Review of Books.

Blogs Covering the Situation in Kenya

White African has a list of blogs covering what's going on in Kenya. I keep checking back, because the list is updated all the time.

Poetry Friday - Kenyan National Anthem

Today I'm going to post the lyrics to one of the most beautiful national anthems I know of, the one from Kenya. Unlike so many, this one isn't the least bit warlike or jingoistic. It's simply a prayer for God to bless the country. That's a prayer I am praying now.

According to Kenya-Information-Guide.com, "Prior to independence the government commissioned a five-member team to come up with a new anthem. The team was to incorporate traditional Kenyan music in the anthem, and ensure that the tune could be performed by a military band without distorting the original tone of the melody. The melody the team selected is based on a traditional folk song of the Pokomo, a small ethnic group in Kenya's Coast province."


When I was a child in Kenya, we sang the anthem often. I had to memorize the first verse in both English and Swahili for Guides. I don't know the rest of it by heart, but here's the whole thing in both languages (source kenya.rcbowen.com):

O God of all creation,
Bless this our land and nation.
Justice be our shield and defender,
May we dwell in unity,
Peace and liberty.
Plenty be found within our borders.

Let one and all arise
With hearts both strong and true.
Service be our earnest endeavour,
And our Homeland of Kenya,
Heritage of splendour,
Firm may we stand to defend.

Let all with one accord
In common bond united,
Build this our nation together,
And the glory of Kenya,
The fruit of our labour
Fill every heart with thanksgiving.



Ee Mungu nguvu yetu
Ilete baraka kwetu
Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi
Natukae na undugu
Amani na uhuru
Raha tupate na ustawi.

Amkeni ndugu zetu
Tufanye sote bidii
Nasi tujitoe kwa nguvu
Nchi yetu ya Kenya
Tunayoipenda
Tuwe tayari kuilinda.

Natujenge taifa letu
Ee, ndio wajibu wetu
Kenya istahili heshima
Tuungane mikono
Pamoja kazini
Kila siku tuwe na shukrani.


Amen. God bless Kenya.

This post is linked to Poetry Friday at A Year of Reading.

Kenya

I don't live in Kenya now, and I haven't for many years, but since I spent much of my childhood there, a part of me will always consider that beautiful country home. When I read the news of what is going on there now, it fills me with sadness.

I tend to focus on things and remain focused on them; some might even say that I get obsessed. After the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, I spent hours reading every account I could find. I imagined what it must have been like for those people. For a very long time I had tsunami nightmares. After September 11th, 2001, I reacted in a similar way.

This is different, though. It's more personal. Those other stories touched my emotions and I felt empathy for the people who had suffered. But Kenya is a place I know and love, a place where I took my first step, spoke my first word, went to school for the first time. When I hear the names of those towns that now are visited by violence, they are familiar to me as places where I played, laughed, and learned. I had visited New York, and I could vaguely picture the places affected by 9/11, but I'd never lived there. I've lived in Nairobi. I've walked and ridden KBS buses down some of those same streets that I'm now seeing filled with angry people and frightened people. Kenyan people. And while I don't know these particular people I'm seeing, I know and love so many Kenyans.

I remember when I was in college and my family still lived in Kenya. When there was something going on there serious enough to get into the US news, I remember the frustration of how vague the reports were, and how few details I could get. I would call home to find out what was really happening. In those days, the news wasn't on all the time and phone calls cost a fortune, so I didn't know much about what was happening. Even as recently as 1998, when the US Embassy in Nairobi was bombed, I didn't have the constant coverage I have now. The US media (I lived in the US then) focused almost exclusively on the Americans affected. I remember looking for information on the internet and not finding all that much.

Now, things are completely different. I can stare at a computer screen all day long, reading news reports and blogs, watching videos. I can, and I do. Is this good or bad? Both, I guess. I'm glad that we can be informed about what's going on, from many points of view. But it's hard to go on with life when I am so focused on this crisis that's happening far away. Especially in these last few days before I start back to school, and when I have more leisure time than usual. Instead of being frustrated at not having enough details, I'm overwhelmed by too many details. Finally this evening I reached my saturation point, and couldn't look at one more horrifying image. I'll look again tomorrow, but for tonight I have had enough.

The country where I live now has had its share of unrest over the past few years, and I've learned some things about living through fear and uncertainty, stocking up on drinking water and candles and propane for cooking, listening to the radio before going out to see where you shouldn't go today or for handy tips on how to avoid the full effects of tear gas. I know about trying to decide whether to stay or evacuate, and watching while friends choose to go when you want to stay. I know what burning tires look and smell like.

Oh, my Kenyan brothers and sisters, I'm so sorry you are experiencing this now. I am praying - I can't do anything else, but this is something, for I do believe that God answers prayer. I'm praying for justice and reconciliation and peace. And for Kenyans in the diaspora, I'm praying for that balance between living the life you have where you are now and constantly refreshing the news feeds on your screen. I hope all your families are OK. And I hope Kenya will be OK, too.

It's Wednesday again

Carnival time!

Reading Update

The last book I finished in 2007 was the devotional I'd been reading all year, Voices of the Faithful, edited by Beth Moore. The subtitle of this book is "Inspiring Stories of Courage from Christians Serving Around the World." Each day's devotional was written by an IMB missionary. Each month has a theme; March is "Prayer," and September is "God Before Me," for example.

I enjoyed this book's combination of interesting stories from around the world. My one complaint, which probably nobody else shares, is that I hate the way foreign words are followed by pronunciation guides. Is it really necessary to inform me that Ganges is pronounced gan-GEES? Or Togo, TOH-go? AN-dees? If this kind of help is required, perhaps an appendix could include it to avoid irritating me. But then, I don't suppose irritating me is something that the publishers were worried about, and this is really a nit-picky comment anyway.

The first book I finished in 2008 was Atul Gawande's Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance. (I was actually reading it at midnight and finished it a few minutes later, to the sound of fireworks and gunshots all around, and the neighbors playing a song about Che Guevara at top volume.) I had already read a couple of the essays from this book that had been published in the New Yorker. I had particularly enjoyed the one about childbirth, and that's what made me want to read the book. I liked most of it very much, though some of the topics aren't my favorite to read about, notably health insurance - the very mention of the subject gives me palpitations of anxiety. But I did find the piece on vaccination in India and the one on Cystic Fibrosis to be fascinating.

As well as providing insight into the medical system of the United States, the way doctors think, and other aspects of health care, this book examines how people of any walk of life can be more effective at what they do. An afterword is entitled: "Suggestions for Becoming a Positive Deviant." I love that term. I first heard it during a conversation about breastfeeding and public health. Breastfeeding exclusively for six months, never giving formula, and continuing to nurse longer than the norm: all these behaviors would make a woman a positive deviant because they vary from the statistical average in a positive way. Being a positive deviant in a professional setting would include striving to do things better than the average, and Gawande's book is full of ways doctors and other medical professionals can do this. In his afterword he offers the following suggestions to all of us, even those who don't work in medicine: "Ask an unscripted question. ... Don't complain. ... Count something. ... Write something. ... Change." I highly recommend reading the whole afterword even if you aren't interested in the rest of the book. The way he expands on each of these suggestions is powerful, and certainly appropriate for teachers.

So there you have it, book #1 of 2008!

Situation in Kenya

I've spent a long time this morning reading blogs, trying to find more updates about the situation in Kenya. Things are very bad. Here's the Kenya Unlimited Blogs Aggregator.

Happy New Year

The Daily Photo Blogs have a theme day today, as they do the first of every month. Today's assignment was to post the best photo of 2007. Here's the choice from Sharon, CT, including links to the other blogs participating.

Happy New Year.

Book Lists

Take a look at other people's book lists at Semicolon.

Poetry Round-Up

Yes, I know it's late, but here's the Poetry Friday round-up from last week.

What I Read in 2007

Here's what I read this year. Not much, compared with some years. I didn't count most of the readings and re-readings to my children, and I didn't count everything I read to my students, either. Totally failed on the War and Peace goal. But I also read some great stuff in 2007.

1. The Trumpet Major, by Thomas Hardy
2. The Art of Keeping Cool, by Janet Taylor Lisle
3. Anacaona: Golden Flower, by Edwige Danticat
4. Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers
5. A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews
6. A Breath of Fresh Air, by Amulya Malladi
7. My Brother Sam is Dead, by James and Chris Collier
8. Uglies, by Scott Westerfield
9. Pretties, by Scott Westerfield
10. Waiting, by Ha Jin
11. The Virgin's Lover, by Philippa Gregory
12. Love that Dog, by Sharon Creech
13. The Seville Communion, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
14. The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory
15. Specials by Scott Westerfield (I see I never did post about these books, in spite of saying several times that I was going to.)
16. Heh. I called this one #17 but it looks like it was really #16, meaning I read one fewer than I've been claiming. The Constant Princess, by Philippa Gregory
17. The Third Secret, by Steve Berry (possibly the worst book I finished this year)
18. The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander
19. Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer Choldenko
20. The Arraignment, by Steve Martini
21. Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen
22. The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield
23. The Boleyn Inheritance, by Philippa Gregory
24. Devices and Desires, by P.D. James
25. The Mission Song, by John Le Carre
26. The Landscape of Love, by Sally Beauman
27. The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
28. The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, by Barbara Vine
29. Monday Mourning, by Kathy Reichs
30. The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers (this was one of my favorites of the year)
31. The Giver, by Lois Lowry
32. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
33. Hitler's Daughter, by Jackie French
34. Troy: Shield of Thunder, by David Gemmell
35. A Certain Justice, by P.D. James
36. Playing for the Ashes, by Elizabeth George
37. Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood, by Ann Brashares
38. The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
39. The Town on Beaver Creek: The Story of a Lost Kentucky Community, by Michelle Slatalla
40. a book in French by the father of one of my students
41. Retrovirus, by T.L. Higley
42. The Teacher's Guide to Big Blocks Grades 4-8
43. Gossip Girl, by Cecily Von Ziegesar (yuk, I hated this book)
44. Day One and Beyond, by Rick Wormeli
45. Living and Teaching the Writing Workshop, by Kristen Painter
46. Words, Words, Words:Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12, by Janet Allen
47. Managing Your Classroom with Heart: A Guide for Nurturing Adolescent Learners, by Katy Ridnouer
48. The Reading Zone, by Nancie Atwell (I love, love, love Nancie Atwell)
49. Second Honeymoon, by Joanna Trollope
50. The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian
51. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
52. Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Vanora Bennett
53. Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine
54. Dreamland, by Sarah Dessen
55. This Lullaby, by Sarah Dessen
56. Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer
57. Boy Writers: Reclaiming their Voices, by Ralph Fletcher
58. The 9 Rights of Every Writer, by Vicki Spandel
59. My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult
60. All American Girl, by Meg Cabot
61. In the Presence of the Enemy, by Elizabeth George
62. For the Sake of Elena, by Elizabeth George
63. Keeping the Moon, by Sarah Dessen
64. Foreign to Familiar, by Sarah Lanier
65. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver
66. Guests, by Michael Dorris
67. The Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (And They're All Hard Parts), by Katie Wood Ray
68. The Flame Trees of Thika, by Elspeth Huxley
69. The Mottled Lizard, by Elspeth Huxley
70. Listening for Lions, by Gloria Whelan
71. Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer
72. Double Identity, by Margaret Peterson Haddix
73. The Last Book in the Universe, by Rodman Philbrick
74. Code Orange, by Caroline Cooney
75. Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo
76. All the Little Live Things, by Wallace Stegner
77. And today I'll finish Voices of the Faithful, ed. by Beth Moore

Whew. I can't believe I just typed all that in. I'm such a nerd. It was fun to revisit all the titles briefly, though. The links are all to my reviews or, in many cases, brief mentions, on my blog. Almost all the original posts have Amazon links if you want more information about the book.

Beach Reads

So here's what I read at the beach...

I finished off Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo. This became book #76 of the year. I enjoyed it very much. It's set in upstate New York, familiar Russo territory, but also Italy. The Kayla plotline felt a bit tacked on to me, but maybe that's because I was trying to finish it in the car on the way to the beach and got a bit carsick...

I read the first part of The Doctor's Wife. I think I've read this before, or at least started it, but I quit reading it when I realized I was spending all my energy thinking, "Have I read this or not? And if I have, why is only some of it sounding familiar? And where would I have found it?" and none of my energy actually paying attention to the story. (I don't want to mischaracterize the book, not being sure I even finished it the first time, but how boring that anyone who is against abortion is shown to be stupid, clueless, and perhaps deranged as well.)

I read several past issues of the New Yorker. This was an amazing article, about a Muslim sheltering a Jew during the Second World War. I also enjoyed a little article on diaries, which you can read here. A quote: "In a diary, the trivial and inconsequential - the 'woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head' pieces - are not trivial and inconsequential at all; they are defining features of the genre. If it doesn't contain a lot of dross, it's not a diary. It's something else - a journal, or a writer's notebook, or a blog (blather is not the same as dross)." This article on the digitization of knowledge was wonderful, and included this quote which I believe fully: "Sixty million Britons have a hundred and sixteen million public-library books at their disposal, while more than 1.1 billion Indians have only thirty-six million. Poverty, in other words, is embodied in lack of print as well as lack of food." Also read lots of articles about the environment that convinced me that wherever our planet is going, we must certainly be in a handbasket.

I also read, as book #77 (and it's starting to look like it will be the last) of the year, Wallace Stegner's wonderful All the Little Live Things. I had read one Stegner book in college and I will definitely look for more.

Here's something I just read this morning to finish up this end-of-the-year reading post: children's book characters make New Year's resolutions.

Back from Vacation

We just got back this evening from the beach, where we had a wonderful time. I didn't even look at the internet except once while we were checking out of the hotel and I needed some information from my email. And you know what? The world went on, even though I wasn't keeping track of it.

I think I need to do an internet fast more often. Good for the stress levels. It's really hard for me not to know what's going on around the world, though - I'm an international busybody.

Among other things, I'm sorry to find out about the post-election rioting in Kenya and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Carnival of Education

The Carnival takes no breaks! Here's the Boxing Day edition.

Merry Christmas

I've been enjoying these few days off. I've been doing all the traditional Christmas things: wrapping gifts and putting them under the tree, reading cards and letters (the ones written on paper are fewer every year, but I enjoy the digital ones too), and thinking about Christ's birth. My husband and kids baked Christmas cookies. Baking Christmas cookies is one of those activities which is much better in memory than when you're actually doing it. I really don't enjoy it, so this year I just watched and ate the results.

We'll celebrate Christmas Eve in a service at the home of some friends as we do every year. We sing carols, share a Christmas meditation together, and take communion. Then we eat. We'll have Christmas morning at home and then dinner with friends.

Then we'll go to the beach for a few days. Ahhh. Now that's my idea of a Christmas tradition.

Merry Christmas.

Saturday Review of Books

Here it is.

Frost

Nancie Atwell wrote somewhere (I think in In the Middle) that parody is an adolescent's natural genre, so I introduce some parodies to my middle schoolers and occasionally a student writes one. When you write a parody of something, it often makes you appreciate the original even more.

This week I posted my parody of Stopping by Woods and Dr. Bacchus' as well.

I didn't copy the original rhyme scheme in my parody, but Dr. Bacchus did, and as I was reading his poem I thought about how amazing the original is, how much he says in just sixteen lines, and how unforced and natural the form is. I remember discussing the different interpretations in college, so when I read it there are all those layers. The poem still survives as a simple, beautiful, and powerful picture.

Here's the first stanza:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.


You can read the rest of the poem here.

Check out the results of the Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect, too, as well as Tricia's poem (and she even includes a link to Frost reading Stopping by Woods).

Brr, all this talk of snow has me shivering, so I'm going to get back to my day in the tropics. Stay warm, everyone.

Poetry Friday

The Poetry Friday roundup is at AmoXcalli today.

More Frost Mockery

Dr Bacchus is parodying Frost too.

Carnival of Education

Here it is, the Carnival of the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!

Cheating on the Poetry Stretch

Since I don't have grading to do, I wanted to participate in one of Miss Rumphius' poetry stretches. So here's what she posted this week. She gave a list of words: snow, frozen, wind, evening, woods, lake, village, farmhouse. The challenge is to take those words and put them in a poem.

When I read that list, all I could think of was Robert Frost, who used all those words already in a most wonderful poem. And then I remembered, hey yeah, I already wrote a parody of that poem. I could post that!

It's not really stretching, as Miss Rumphius intended. And it doesn't even use all the words. In short, it is not following the assignment, and probably my grade will be docked. Ah, well.

I wasn't really grading essay tests on Robert Frost when I wrote this about a year ago. I've never, in fact, given an essay test on Robert Frost. But I just couldn't resist the last line. And since I've just emerged from a period of much grading, and many other teachers are still in it, I think it's appropriate.



On Grading Essay Tests on Robert Frost

Whose work this is I think I know
No name is on the paper, though.
The only clue I have - a scrawl
That I can barely read at all.
And this one seems to think it's great
Never once to punctuate.
And this kid turned aside his head
And didn't hear a word I said.
Oh yes, folks say, you ought to teach -
Just think of all the kids you'll reach!
But I say, friend, just picture you
The night before the grades are due
When you've a mound of essay tests
And a red pen which never rests
And no, your students didn't get it,
And the assignment? No one read it.
Your lesson plans were all in vain
Your life is going down the drain
The only sound's a quiet tear
That splashes into your root beer
The saddest evening of the year.
Oh, how I wish that I were lost
In snowy woods with Robert Frost!
Or better yet, he'd think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near,
But at my classroom I could drop him.
Yes, he could have my job - I'd swap him.
I'd ride off on his little horse
And leave Bob Frost to teach my course;
Let him teach poems to my class -
Then maybe more of them would pass.
I'd say to him, "You're just the guy
To take the road less traveled by!
Come, be a teacher, sir," I'd say,
And hope he wouldn't run away.
But no, for sadly, Frost is dead
And all this work is mine instead.
The tests are piled, test on test,
And I must grade them 'ere I rest.
My bed is lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And piles to grade before I sleep
And piles to grade before I sleep.

Reading Update

Book #70 for 2007 was The Mottled Lizard, the second volume of Elspeth Huxley's memoirs.

Book #71 was Listening for Lions, by Gloria Whelan. I read it to my seventh graders. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, but the climax of the book comes three-quarters of the way through, and the kids weren't on the edge of their seats for the last quarter of the book. They still liked it, though.

Book #72 was Artemis Fowl, which I read at the urging of many of my middle school boys. It is wildly popular right now with my kids - not just boys, but mostly. I dunno. It didn't do much for me. I can see what they see in it, but it's just not so much my kind of book. I have most of the series in my classroom, though, and I'll keep buying Colfer because he's obviously doing something right.

Book #73 was Double Identity, which I think I'll read to my seventh graders next. (We've been doing A Christmas Carol this week, since there's a highly abridged version in our readers.) Margaret Peterson Haddix is another sure-fire author with my kids.

Book #74 was The Last Book in the Universe, by Rodman Philbrick. I read this to the eighth grade. It went over well, with even the kids who didn't like it participating in a lively discussion about the issues it raised. It sent at least one of my reluctant readers to the school library looking for more by Philbrick, too.

Book #75 was Code Orange, by Caroline Cooney. I think I'll read this one to the eighth graders. I think they'll appreciate the protagonist, who's always trying to avoid doing any work but ends up being a bit of a hero. The book is suspenseful and about smallpox. What more could you want?

Celebrating

All papers are graded. I have some comments to finish up for the report cards and some conduct grades to do, plus I'll get two sets of Reading Logs in on Monday that I'll need to tally, and then my high school students have a final on Wednesday that will need to be graded and posted. But I'm almost done!

Saturday

Grading. I'm down to 43 papers.

And here's the Saturday Review of Books.

And More Progress

Fifty-four more papers to go. And now I'm going to a party.

Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday chez Miss Rumphius.

More Progress

Sixty-eight more papers to go.

Progress

Eighty more papers to go.

Education Carnival

Here it is.

What I Did This Evening

Wrote a final for my high school class.
Made a list of discussion questions and quotes for a book discussion tomorrow with my 8th graders.
Graded nine papers. Ninety to go.
And now I'm going to bed.

The Time Has Come

I didn't grade last weekend. Saturday was a big event at school and I was there most of the day, and Sunday I didn't feel well and stayed home from church. I don't do schoolwork on Sundays anyway. Other than that brief break, I've been grading papers madly every evening for a while now, with occasional bursts of whining about it here on my blog. Every day I give back papers, usually with only a day or two of turnaround time if it's a draft that needs feedback, though the final pieces I've been putting at the bottom of the pile. Every day I hear, "FINALLY!" when I give work back. This is not putting me in a good mood, particularly when I have NO OTHER LIFE besides grading these days.

So today was the due date. Nothing after today, this is IT, this is the end.

This afternoon I came home with a HUGE mound of papers. I just counted them, and there are 99. Yes. NINETY-NINE.

(Did I mention I only have 44 students in 7th and 8th grade?)

Many of these papers are the culmination of several drafts, and will not take long to grade. Then there are the others, the ones I'm seeing for the first time, the ones that were written yesterday in a twenty-minute frenzy at the computer. The ones like the paper I conferenced about today, which I would have a hard time summarizing - let's just say it has all the elements of classic 8th grade work, including insults to classmates, space travel, flatulence, and a shootout. (We don't live in the US, so we don't have to escort kids from school in handcuffs if they mention weapons in their writing. And they were aliens that got shot, of course, not the aforementioned classmates.)

Yes, I am postponing the inevitable by blogging. My grades are due on Monday. I have work to do.

You Have to Read This

It's Doris Lessing's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. I cried all the way through reading it. I haven't actually read any of her books, but now I'll have to.

Thanks to TadMack for letting me know about this.

(And here's something you could consider doing to help.)

Saturday Review of Books

Here it is once again.

Poetry in Everyday Life

I was thinking this morning about how poetry is a big part of our family's life. As we are a family of book geeks, we're always reading something or other, and quite often that's a poem.

The reason I was thinking this was that I was saying to my children as we walked to school, "'Will you walk a little faster?' said a whiting to a snail, 'There's a porpoise close behind us, and it's treading on my tail.'" I've said this since I was a small child and Miss Hindley used to say it to us when we were on walks and dawdling too much.

When I went to look for this poem to post for Poetry Friday, I found it in a most appropriate spot. Turns out this was part of Poems on the Underground, a program in which poems are posted in trains on the London Underground. What could be a better example of poems in everyday life?

So here's the The Lobster Quadrille, by Lewis Carroll.

Poetry Friday

Here's this week's roundup at Becky's Book Reviews.

Education Carnival

The Education Carnival is hosted this week by So You Want to Teach.

Grading Again

I have a due date coming up - or a publication date, I guess, would be a better Writer's Workshop term. Whatever you call it, my seventh and eighth graders have to have their completed pieces turned in by December 12th. I do require a certain number of finished pieces - it varies according to grade and according to what kind of genre study we've done. One of the completed pieces needs to be in the genre we've studied (though topic within that genre is open) and the others can be whatever the student writer would like to do.

I allow students to turn in as many drafts of each piece as they'd like. I mark them up and make comments, I conference with the students, I make suggestions, I teach minilessons to help with the kind of problems I'm seeing. Then I give them a grade on the final draft (using rubrics based on the 6+1 traits), when they decide it's ready, or when the end of the quarter comes - whichever is first.

At the beginning of the quarter, my grading load is fairly manageable. I have a pile every evening, but as long as I keep up with the work, it doesn't get out of control. But the end of the quarter is crazy. I'm coming home with thirty or forty drafts every night, needing immediate feedback because the end is nigh.

How do other Writer's Workshop teachers manage this? I keep reading that you don't have to read everything they write, but how can that be? I don't grade everything in their notebooks (though I do read it all), just give them credit for doing it, but for their drafts, I really do feel I need to read them and respond.

The advantage to reading multiple drafts of each piece is that I have a very good idea of what my kids are working on and what they need help with. It's fun to watch things develop and, in many cases, improve hugely between first and final drafts. And it's not as difficult to assign a grade to a final piece when you are pretty familiar with it. At the end of the quarter I routinely get pieces turned in marked Final even though it's the first time I'm seeing them. Inevitably these pieces are not of the same quality as those that have gone through a whole process of drafting. They get much lower grades, and they frustrate me.

I think I've just pep-talked myself into continuing to do things the way I do them. But if you have a better idea, talk to me. How do you manage to give your students helpful feedback and have a life?

'Tis the Season for Another Carnival

This one is the Carnival of Anglican Advent Traditions. I'm not an Anglican, but I attended an Anglican boarding school and so this branch of Christianity is one of the many influences on my faith, and perhaps one of the strongest. I enjoyed reading these posts.

Saturday Review of Books

Can you believe it's Saturday again already?

Poetry Friday - I Participate

Since I'm on a posting binge today, and since I just learned a new word, and since it's still Friday for a bit, I'm going to join the fun and tell you about the paradelle. I learned this word when I followed a link today to a Billy Collins poem and found that he had recently contributed to a collection of paradelles. (Here's a link to the book information, including a funny excerpt from Collins' introduction; if you click on the PDF you can read the whole introduction and some more of the book as well.) I looked up paradelle and discovered that it's a form invented by Collins himself as a parody of forms in general, and specifically the villanelle.

I love Billy Collins because he always seems to be having so much fun in his poems, and I love him even more now that I know about paradelles.

You Think Your Teaching Job is Tough

Most of us have, at least, never had our photos burned by a street mob to protest something we did in our classrooms. This British teacher in Sudan has. She is serving a fifteen-day jail sentence for allowing her students to call a teddy bear Mohammed.

What Will they Cut Next?

School budget cuts have gone far enough! Now schools have been forced to cut out the past tense from their language arts programs!

December 1st, DP Theme Day

It isn't December 1st yet here, but it is in Paris, and Eric has already posted his photo for the theme day. This month's theme is bridges, and I can't wait to see the pictures from around the world. Eric included links to the other blogs participating, so go take a look.

Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday is here at the blog home of Two Writing Teachers. (Here's the roundup.)

And the Other Carnival

The Education Carnival. This week Mattamatical is giving out prizes.

November Carnival of Children's Literature

Coming up from under the student drafts to post this.

Grading...

...and grading and grading and grading.

And Now For Something Totally Different

Apparently there are a lot of elephants in London. Who knew? Take a look at London's Elephants.

Saturday Review of Books

Here 'tis.

Reading Update

Book #67 was Guests, by Michael Dorris. It wasn't quite what I expected. I had an idea that it was a Thanksgiving story, but from the perspective of the Indians. It wasn't, really. It was still interesting, and had several good discussion-starting ideas which I can imagine working for my students. I didn't read it aloud last week as I'd hoped to, though.

Book #68 was The Writing Workshop: Working through the Hard Parts (And They're All Hard Parts) by Katie Wood Ray. I can't recommend this highly enough for anyone who is using a workshop approach to teach writing at any grade. This book is inspirational and encouraging first of all, and practical as well. I found myself using things from it right after I'd read them. I will keep this one handy and refer to it often.

Book #69 was The Flame Trees of Thika. It's Elspeth Huxley's memoir of growing up British in Africa early in the 20th century. I'd read this lovely book before and enjoyed rediscovering it. I have the next volume of Huxley's memoirs, The Mottled Lizard, to read next. There's a third volume, too, called Love Among the Daughters. It's all about the 20s; Huxley goes back to England and then to America, where she studies at Cornell. Fascinating stuff. Doesn't look like the second or third volume is in print, though.

Here are some quotes from The Flame Trees of Thika:

"'What happened then?'

'Nothing happened - and that's the way to tell a true story from a made-up one. A made-up story always has a neat and tidy end. But true stories don't end, at least until their heroes and heroines die, and then not really, because the things they did, and didn't do, sometimes live on.'"



"'You shall come on a safari when you're older,' Tilly promised, noticing my state of mind.

'I shall never be older,' I said gloomily.

'You will be older tomorrow. You will even be a bit older when you get back to the farm.'

'How wonderfully lucky you are,' Lettice added, 'to be glad of that and not sorry!'

'Children are always being told they are lucky to have things they hate,' said Robin, 'like plenty of time ahead of them, and expensive educations, and healthy food, and considerate parents. It must be very annoying.'"



"By the time Dirk had finished telling me all this, and much else besides, we had reached Londiani, or at least seen the roofs, which shone like a pool of water in a fold of the downs. The corrugated iron threw back the sunlight and we seemed to be arriving at a city of splendour and glory, like the ancient capitals of Lanka that were copper-domed.

Londiani shrank, however, on our approach, as if had drunk from the bottle Alice found at the bottom of the rabbit-hole; it shrank, withered, and turned into a single rutted street with a few dukas, some sheds beside the railway, a dak bungalow, and a D.C.'s office with a flagpole."



I love Huxley's evocative, yet understated, style.

Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday roundup at Susan Writes.

Oops

I am guilty of a severe crime: Utility Hubris. Because I boasted (online, no less) that all our utilities were working, I am paying for it. Even though I did it in a spirit of gratitude. I should have known better.

It's too complicated and boring to go into the details, but suffice it to say I called our electrician at 3 AM (he's told me I can call him any time "like a doctor"). He came over a few minutes after 6, but sadly the city power had gone off at 5:50, so he couldn't diagnose the problem. Apparently, though, this time it is the inverter that is broken.

I'm still thankful for all that other stuff though. And I'm trying not to be too depressed about the electricity.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm at work this morning! We have a half day today and then tomorrow off. Today will be interesting, since we have a group of staff members away on a mission retreat, so the place is full of subs.

I'm thankful for my wonderful family, both in this country and elsewhere in the world. I'm thankful that the electricity AND the phone AND the water are working in my house. And that I have a place to live and food to eat, unlike so many around me. I'm thankful for some time off. I'm thankful for rewarding, useful work to do and funny, goofy, lovable middle schoolers to work with. I'm thankful for books and reading and writing and that I get a chance to spend so much of my time enjoying them and trying to teach others to enjoy them too.

Here come my students!

Carnival, with Turkey

It's a special Thanksgiving edition of the Education Carnival over at NYC Educator.

Ain't It the Truth

This poem talks about a phenomenon I've often noticed since becoming a mother. I started thinking of individuals I met as someone's babies - sometimes wondering how they went from that to the way they turned out, and sometimes thinking that some parents somewhere must be feeling proud. It's a different way of looking at the world; if we could all do it every day, it would revolutionize the way we treat people.

This reminds me of the Gwendolyn Brooks poem, "To an Old Black Woman, Homeless and Indistinct." (You can read it here if you scroll down.) The last few lines are poignant:

Folks used to celebrate your birthday!
Folks used to say "She's such a pretty little thing!"
Folks used to say "She draws such handsome horses, cows and houses,"
Folks used to say "That child is going far."

Doesn't Eating Locally Hurt Farmers Overseas?

I worry about the effect of all this local eating on food producers in third-world countries. Banana Republics, we sometimes call them, and that's a pejorative name, but what else are they going to export?

Here's Steven Hopp, in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, on this question:

"By purchasing local vegetables instead of South American ones, for example, aren't we hurting farmers in developing countries? If you're picturing Farmer Juan and his family gratefully wiping sweat from their brows when you buy that Ecuadoran banana, picture this instead: the CEO of Dole Inc. in his air-conditioned office in Westlake Village, California. He's worth $1.4 billion; Juan gets about $6 a day. Much money is made in the global reshuffling of food, but the main beneficiaries are processors, brokers, shippers, supermarkets, and oil companies.

. . .

In every country on earth, the most humane scenario for farmers is likely to be feeding those who live nearby - if international markets would allow them to do it. ... For more information visit: www.viacampesina.org."

2007 New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year

I heard on the radio this morning that the New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the year is "locavore." (Read about it here, as well as the runners-up.)

Here's Barbara Kingsolver's take on the word: "In many social circles it's ordinary for hosts to accommodate vegetarian guests, even if they're carnivores themselves. Maybe the world would likewise become more hospitable to diners who are queasy about fuel-guzzling foods, if that preference had a name. Petrolophobes? Seasonaltarians? Local eaters? Homeys? Lately I've begun seeing the term locavores and I like it: both scientifically and socially descriptive, with just the right hint of 'Livin' la vida loca.'" (From Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.)

Making a Home

I started reading The Flame Trees of Thika last night. I've read it before - at least once - but it's been years. I'm fascinated by settler-types, who move into a place and start a life from scratch.

In the first chapter, a character announces that he is going to move on.



"Henry Oram was the kind of man who never settled down....

'It's getting overcrowded,' he said in a South African voice, flat and strong like himself. 'It's time I moved on.'

'Where to?' Tilly inquired.

'They're opening up new land beyond the Plateau....This place will be a suburb of Nairobi in a few years. There's talk of a railway to Thika....'

'...And now your wife has made a home...'

'With a wagon, a fire, and a pound of coffee any true woman can make a home,' Henry Oram replied. Tilly thought he was pompous, but he may have been pulling her leg."



So here's the question: What do you need to make a home? I fear I need rather more than a wagon and a fire, and I don't drink coffee. I'm thinking about my answer. Anyone else?

Saturday Review of Books

Here's today's edition. This week I linked to my Animal, Vegetable, Miracle review (see below).

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

First I should say I'm a big Barbara Kingsolver fan from way back. Looking at the list of her books, I realized I'd read all of them except her poetry and two books of nonfiction. I've read all the essays and all the novels. I've been waiting impatiently to read this book and I wasn't disappointed. (But I hope she's going to write a new novel soon.)

This book is about a family project; Kingsolver, her husband Steven Hopp, and their two daughters, Camille and Lily, moved to Virginia and ate local for a year. Most of their food came from their own farm, but they also frequented farmers' markets, went on vacation, both domestically and internationally, and wrote about it all. The book itself is a family project, too - Hopp has a sidebar in almost every chapter written from his perspective as a professor of environmental studies, Camille rounds out every chapter with an essay and recipes, and those are Lily's hands on the front cover, holding the Christmas lima beans.

This whole "eating local" thing is brand-new to me, but I'm interested in it because an NGO here in Tecwil (The Country Where I Live) is starting a campaign to encourage people here to buy and eat locally produced food. It's not as simple as it sounds. Sure, we have plenty of outdoor markets - with our tropical climate, fruits and vegetables aren't going to be difficult. But just about everything else is imported. I'd bemoaned that fact before, and I knew a little about the reasons, but reading this book has me all fired up and ready to do my bit to change things.

In this country, farmers just can't compete with North American agriculture because they don't have the equipment or the technology. Past governments allowed food to enter from overseas without any tariffs or restrictions, and gradually local farmers stopped producing their crops because they couldn't sell them - the imports were cheaper. This is the story of local rice, and in a country where you haven't eaten if you haven't had rice, this is a tragedy. Every cook in this country begins with garlic. The garlic is all imported. The list goes on. This country, which used to export food, cannot feed itself.

This country is an extreme example, though, of what's happening around the world. Most Americans eat food imported from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. We aren't aware of seasons, because anything we want is available year round. We've sacrificed flavor, because of course if something is going to be able to travel that far, it has to be hardy and it has to be picked too soon. We've sacrificed variety, because the seed companies are in charge now of what gets grown, and heirloom varieties of plants - and animals - are disappearing. (I never heard of heirloom varieties before - don't they sound wonderful?) And what would happen if our food supplies were interrupted?

In spite of being so chock-full of information, this book is also fun to read. Kingsolver's writing is as marvelous as ever, and on every page there were passages I wanted to read aloud. She is a poet of farming. She had me convinced I should start making my own cheese. Yeah, right. I don't even cook. But with this inspiration, I may start!

Here is the website associated with the book, full of resources and additional reading.

Reading Update

Book #64 was Keeping the Moon. This one was from my classroom library. Sarah Dessen is a favorite with my girls.

Book #65 was Foreign to Familiar, by Sarah Lanier. This is a short and sweet explanation of cultural differences. It's hard to believe that a book this thin (to use my students' terminology - they talk about books being "fat" or "thin") on such a vast topic would be so useful. I'm a bit resistant to dividing up the world into two categories, as Lanier does (hot-climate cultures and cold-climate cultures) but she recognizes that there are exceptions, and in general this seems to fit. I haven't been everywhere, obviously, but I do have a good deal of cross-cultural experience and what she said rang true to me. I recommend this to anyone who's going to be working with people of another culture - you may avoid many problems by becoming aware of some of these issues beforehand.

Book #66 was Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It's going to get its own post!

Lyrics

I just got a new Sara Groves CD. Well, it's not a new one - it's been out a long time - but I just started listening to her. This line from What Do I Know? struck me as I was listening just now while getting ready to go for lunch: "Death can be so inconvenient. You try to live and love. It comes and interrupts."

We're in the middle of our ordinary, everyday lives, and someone we love dies. It is so very inconvenient. And yet it's a reminder that this life isn't all there is.

I talked this morning to the staff member who is helping take over some of the plans for Spirit Week after the death of our activities director. I congratulated her on how peppy she was this week, and she said that yesterday afternoon she just lost it; she could hardly teach because she was so overcome with grief.

As I said in yesterday's post, this week is a weird combination of euphoria and sadness.

Poetry Friday

The Poetry Friday roundup is at Big A little a today. I'm busy trying to be peppy but I hope to take a few minutes to read it at some point.

Long Week

I started out this month thinking I'd participate in NaBloPoMo. You know, that thing where those of us who wish we could do National Novel Writing Month (but realize we won't have the discipline) decide we'll at least post on our blogs every day in November. I didn't put the little logo on my blog, first of all because I wasn't sure how, and secondly because I secretly thought I would probably be an ignominious failure. Well, it's good to be right about something, anyway. After the first few days I was back to posting links to other people's sites, and then I stopped posting altogether when this week started.

Spirit Week.

It's allegedly there to pump up school spirit, but I think it's just a plot to keep us from teaching anything. I try to keep quiet about this theory because it makes me feel like such a spoilsport, but honestly, as the week goes on, and chaos takes over more and more, I long for the end of Friday. This week we had a different dress-up theme every day (pretty heady stuff for our usually uniform-clad kids) and freshman initiation going on (middle schoolers don't participate but are very much aware of the craziness).

At home we're reading aloud The Silver Chair. Today Puddleglum was introduced, and I thought, yeah, that's me this week. Tomorrow we have a pep rally. Pep. My favorite thing.

However, I am trying to keep my glumness to myself, because the kids are having so much fun, and, as I said, I don't like to be a spoilsport. So I have even been participating in the dress-up days, at least the ones which I feel I can do without making more of an fool of myself than I'm comfortable with when I'm trying to be the grownup and maintain some semblance of order in my classroom. So that would be...let's see...today's. It was "Wannabe Day" so I wore jeans and a brightly flowered shirt, and said, "I wannabe on vacation." Tomorrow we're supposed to dress in school colors, and of course I'll do that too.

I think everybody needed this light-hearted week after all the sorrow we've just been through, and since K. was involved in planning this week, it's kind of a tribute to her, too. I had told her of my dislike for Spirit Week just shortly before she died, and we had laughed about it. We're all a bit emotionally overwrought these days, between the grief and the foolishness.

Education Carnival

This week's education carnival is over at Edspresso.

Saturday Review of Books

Here it is again.

Poetry Friday

Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.

I love Poetry Friday because I get introduced to so many new poems and poets. Here's one I particularly enjoyed today. And this wasn't posted as part of Poetry Friday but it was poetic and beautiful, so I'm including it anyway.

But

Last night we got four hours of electricity!

No, this blog isn't going to become the Daily Electricity Report. I just had to tell you.

We didn't get any electricity last night. Thanks for asking.

Electricity, Again

So this morning we were talking about the fact that we got electricity last night. We're not sure how much - less than an hour. It came on at 10:30 and then I went to sleep before it went off. But it was definitely off by 11:15, when another member of the household woke up and checked. We always talk about the power company giving us power, as though we didn't pay for it and as though we hadn't, in fact, bought our own transformer, along with our neighbors. (I blogged about our terminology here, after I read a blog post about the lack of power in Nigeria.) I mean, it's good to be grateful, but why are we so happy that they gave us half an hour of electricity? Yep, you guessed it - because Monday night we didn't get any power at all. We're happy, though, because the generator is working, and also our city power connection is working, so if they do, in fact, give electricity (out of the goodness of their hearts), we will partake of the bounty.

Will we get electricity tonight? Tune in tomorrow to find out...

Carnival

And now, having established that I am, in fact, a bleeding heart liberal (see previous post), I link you to someone called Right Wing Nation who is hosting the Education Carnival this week. So you see that I believe in freedom of speech.

How Liberal or Conservative are You?

I don't know about this one - I'm not sure I'm quite as liberal as it says. I got it from Another Unfinished Symphony.

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

Music to My Ears

"Johnny, I see you're on page 445 of this book! That's amazing! Last year you wouldn't even have picked up a book this big, would you? And now you're reading it and enjoying it."

"Yeah." (Looks pleased.)

"So, what do you like about Eragon?"

"I like that it's set in another place, and they even have this map so you can follow what's going on. And - this is going to sound crazy - when I read it, I feel like I'm in that place!"

Prayers

I love The Book of Common Prayer because it gives me words when I don't have any. Here are two prayers I'm praying right now:

Grant, O Lord, to all who are bereaved the spirit of faith and courage, that they may have strength to meet the days to come with steadfastness and patience; not sorrowing as those without hope, but in thankful remembrance of your great goodness, and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love. And this we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

Almighty God, Father of mercies and giver of comfort: Deal graciously, we pray, with all who mourn; that, casting all their care on you, they may know the consolation of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Don't Bother Me, I'm Ending World Hunger

Somebody help me - I'm addicted to FreeRice.com! Tomorrow I have to go back to work after a few days off, so some of the rest of you take over. C'mon, you can spare a few minutes to end world hunger, right?

Brief Moment of Sun

What do you do on your first day of sunshine in a week? The answer for many of the people in this city is: laundry! Roofs, bushes, even the occasional clothesline, were covered with drying clothes. I just hope they got them down in time, because now it's raining again!

Saturday Review of Books

Here's today's edition.

Carnival

Here's this week's Education Carnival.

Poetry Friday

Although I've been reading a lot of poetry lately, and writing some too, I don't have a poetry post for today. I do, however, know who does. Check out the Poetry Friday roundup here.

Little Problems and Big Problems

Rain, rain, rain. There's rain in the forecast every day through November 10th. This is not the kind of weather we expect here. Normally, even in the rainy season, the rain is mostly at night. Here are the problems I have: Seasonal Affective Disorder - I guess that's an exaggeration, but this weather makes me feel depressed, and with all the life events recently, I'm already not feeling cheery; laundry has been on the line for days and is still as wet as when it was hung up; the solar fridge/freezer is completely thawed, making it just like our fridge used to be back when we had a regular one plugged into the city power; everything in my house is damp and cold and miserable; the power is out again - this time we have one phase, and it's not the same phase as we had last time, so some things work and others don't, and the electrician thinks this was probably caused by the wind and the rain, but we'll see when he gets here in half an hour or so.

But of course, living in this country always gives me perspective on my own little problems. Because here are some of the problems around me: many houses have been washed away; there is extensive flooding; the two-digit number of casualties in the news is estimated by some to be more like a four-digit number. People who had very little to start with have lost everything. And more lives have been lost than will ever be properly counted, many in remote areas that are hard to access at the best of times.

So I guess I can put up with my problems.

Who Knew Ending World Hunger Was This Easy?

Try playing the vocabulary game at FreeRice.com. For every word you get right, ten grains of rice will be donated through the UN to help end world hunger.

I don't get it, exactly. If these companies can donate, why don't they donate anyway, without me playing a game? But on the other hand, I'm enjoying the game...

DP Theme Day

Today's the Daily Photo blogs' theme day for November. The theme this month is "Blue." Here's Eric's entry on Paris Daily Photo, along with links to the other participants. But for some reason he doesn't seem to have a link to Jenny's post from Sharon, CT. Looking at these beautiful photos was just what I needed today. I loved many of them, like this one from Papua New Guinea and this one from Ocean Township, New Jersey.