The Key To Progress (From Tanzania, Africa)

"We are the future leaders of Africa"

A book of statistics can reveal interesting things about a country. The infant mortality rate, the gross national income, and the yearly income of an average resident. But usually overlooked is the literacy of the country. A small number that can reveal so much, especially over time.

Education, education, the key to progress.

This percentage can separate the developed world, from the developing world. A little number, so easily overlook, but so important to every country. In the United States, a place where not going to school and gaining that education is punishable by law, it is too easy to forget our luck. Yes, America has poverty, and homelessness, and lots of hunger, but the literacy rate we can boast is outstanding.

As I walk the streets of rural Tanzania, I'm amazed by the energy that exudes from these kids. I've been here four days, giving out toys, learning names and teaching lessons, and they are always eager for more. They don't think about the presents we give them, or the amazing new things we bring to the school. They show up whether we are there or not, and this is simply amazing. To think in a country where a child is lucky to get an education, these children are so eager to get just that.

Education, education, the key to progress.

We listened to them sing us songs today. They had it all figured out. The poems they wanted us to hear, the formations, chanting and beautiful rhythm. I thought is was cool that they could memorize, but i was more astounded by what they were actually saying. "We are the future of Africa!" they screamed. "We love our teachers, we love our school, we love you, our humble guests".

Education, education, the key to progress.

I can't seem to stress what ran through my head at that moment, when through the thick accents I understood what they said. They get it. And their brilliant. One of these kids could lead Tanzania into the light, and into the 'developed' world. I was staring at Tanzania's future. Its only future.

Education, education, the key to progress.

And so, as I continue to walk the dusty streets of Africa, towards a beautiful school, with four children hanging on each finger (you'd be surprised by how literal I'm being), I don't see despair in their faces, but joy at their most proud possesion. Their minds. And as I walk from the orphanage every night, I can't shake their smiles from my mind. We walk down these humble paths, smiling, and giggling, as slowly they chant:

"Education, education, the key to success"

7/31/2009
Jackie Lungmus

A Youth Rallies

Guess I’m not done yet!

My picture is of a youth rally. In the picture you see a large group of young adults, holding cameras and obama support posters. They are all smiling, which leads to my conclusion that they are in support of Obama’s administration.

This is interesting to me when looked at alongside a history of presidential races. Only in the last century have people really begun to rally around presidential candidates. For a long time Americans struggled with the idea that they could really have an effect on their government, and change the way things played out in their world. But people are starting to get it.

This world is too precious not to have a say in it. You see the newer generations becoming more active in things like human rights issues. Young adults, from early ages, are beginning to think about their world, and form opinions on difficult issues. It’s increasingly common for people to take those extra steps to change their world. To plant a tree, to write to a government representative, or to go to a rally like this one.

This shows progress in America. This is a good thing, when people, young and old, are realizing their point of view counts. It’s important that Americans value the ability to vote, and their freedom of speech, and their freedom to assemble. We are very lucky, and American’s are starting to realize it again.

I wonder what compelled these students to go to this rally. I wonder how many people showed up to the rally. From the picture it looks like a very large group. And I wonder if this trend will continue in this way. I sure hope so!

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Thanks for a great year!!

Good Night and Good Luck

Wow.

Another year flies by. It’s hard during the year to think about whether or not it was a good one. For me, it usually takes a while before I can fully appreciate, or not appreciate, a school year or a summer vacation or something like that. But I have good feelings about this one.

For one thing, when I think about my year as a whole, I can’t help but smile, which probably means I’ve had a good one. But its just so weird to think it’s over. My third year.

But I can’t help but say the one thing I feel like I missed this year, while I had a good out of school social life (I always had something to do with my free time) , I can’t help but realize that I have formed very few bonds with the kids in my classes. Maybe it’s because three of my four classes were majority sophomores. Maybe it’s because everyone is so wrapped up in “junior year” that we didn’t really stop and enjoy the people around us.

I know that sophomore year, I made friends with people that, to this day, I still spend all my free time with. I have so many great memories from my classes, meeting people, and laughing so hard in class the teacher yelled at us. But I’m not saying I don’t have good memories from this year!

I especially liked all my teachers this year. I got along well with every single one of them, and that makes me either really lucky, or….. really lucky. I know I’m going to miss my chemistry teacher a lot, and both of my American Studies teachers. I just have to keep telling myself I’ll see them around school.

Overall, I have to say, junior year wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Sure there’s the college thing, but I am way too excited about college to even have time to be nervous or stressed about it. While this year at times was annoying, disorganized, and confusing, I’m lucky to have kept my sanity. I know kids that have cried every night for like, the last two months! I’m grateful for my sanity.

And so, as I venture into another patch of unknown waters, I look back and remember my good year, and my good luck, and look forward to a crazy summer ahead. As what will probably be my last post of junior year, and my last post for my American (Integrated) Studies course, I hope I made a good impression on the people around me, and that I don’t just become another student that took American studies one of those many years. I could ask for nothing more, for everything else has been given to me already. And so I conclude, Good night, and Good luck.

I can't think of a title for this, but read it anyway...

Last weekend my sister got confirmed into our church. It was a happy event and the whole family was there, but the one thing I really remember from the weekend is that I took way too long getting ready!

Not only am I not a morning person, but I, in a classic girl move, couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to wear! I had a dress and a sweater but it was missing something. As I rummaged through my mom’s draws of her vintage clothing I found it. A beautiful Chanel floral silk scarf, a perfect accessory to the simple white dress I was wearing.

Now that’s all nice and interesting but that’s not what I’m writing this blog post to talk about. I want to talk about fashion and clothing as a symbol for social class.

This scarf had a pretty and simply floral pattern, but in the center was a huge Chanel symbol. It is by far the biggest image on the scarf and draws a lot of attention. I soon realized that this is one of the reasons the scarf is so pretty, and why I was so drawn to it. Yes, it’s shallow and materialistic of me, but I love the fact that I was wearing a vintage Chanel silk scarf. Of course, this symbol represents something to most people, at least to most girls. It’s a great symbol for wealth, sophistication, and social standing, whatever all three of those terms actually mean.

So I thought of all the people that spend thousands of dollars on clothing and accessories. But why? Is it because of the quality of the merchandise? I don’t think so. We pay for labels. It’s a simple as that. We like Chanel and Coach and Louis Vutton because we have this idea in our head that they’re high-class.

I think this something important that needs to be taken into account when looking at American’s views of social class. It is possible to find people, who live on the verge of poverty, but are still going to pay to have the nice clothing, because at least it gives off the idea that they care about their image, and they can afford to keep it up. It’s an interesting glimpse into American society and how much we obsess over our public image. We want to look wealthy and respectable, so we pay for those random labels that to a lot of people don’t actually mean anything at all. And I think it’s a simple as that.

Small and Mighty

The American Flag. What does it symbolize, what does it mean?

I ended up going away for mothers’ day this weekend, up to Kohler, Wisconsin, which was convenient because if there is only one thing I’ll ever remember about Wisconsin-ites it’s that they love big American Flags. Really big American Flags. I’ve made the drive to Kohler about three times a year since I was like five, and we probably pass five huge American flags on the way there. Actually now it’s only four since the insurance company headquarters we pass took theirs down (which is interesting within itself).

However, the picture I took was not of one of those flags. It was of a much smaller flag. Actually, it isn’t a flag at all; it’s a painting of a flag. This painted flag, as you can see, is placed atop a silo. An interesting place for a flag. Or is it? The first thing I wondered was why there? Is there anything particularly American about silos? Well, yes there is. We’re one of the bread baskets of the world. But then I thought about how the farmer who owned said silo had to make the conscious decision to have that flag on top of his silo. Maybe he believes he is doing something particularly patriotic. Making food for Americans and foreigners alike. There is something strangely idyllic about an honest farmer, who lives off modest means and owes everything to the land. This is the way most American’s through history have lived, but actually, it’s kind of dying. American’s are no longer majority farmers. And with the industrialization of farming, both crop and livestock, the lifestyle of the American farmer is drastically different than it once was.

So was does this flag on this silo say? That this is America? These are its roots, its core, and its true citizen? This flag struck me, because it seems to, despite its size, demand attention. Close to the highway and high in the air, in a perpetual state of motion, it titles its farm “American”. But is it American? Is the rural America still the American heart, as this silo, and a surprisingly large amount of Wisconsin silos claim?

Or is farming a dying art, and with it, a dying form of patriotism?

My Intro

Here is my intro:

Cult: a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.

The word cult conjures up strange images. For example, pictures of large groups of people with shaven heads talking in unison, or maybe even ideas of brainwashing and abuse. But in reality, the word cult means nothing more than a group of people with a common idea. Or at least the denotation does. We all know there is a lot more to the word cult than just that. According to Sociology, A Down-to-Earth Approach, a cult is simply “a new or different religion whose teachings and practices put it at odds with the dominant culture and religion” (Henslin, 529). This definition, if not less confusing, at least seems more tangible. It is hard to step away from reality, and look at the bigger picture, especially when dealing with something as personal as religion, but truthfully, the world’s most popular religions started as nothing more than cults. When telling of one religion, the same sociology textbook reads, “its handful of followers believed that an unschooled carpenter who preached in remote villages in a backwater country was the Son of God, [and] that he was killed and came back to life” (529). So then why is it that new religious movements, otherwise known as cults, are met with such hostility in America? We react with hostility towards new religious movements because we don’t know how else to react. It is due to the abnormal lifestyle many new religious movements require, the counter-cultural values often held within these groups, and the fear we feel when presented with the unknowns of an entirely new religion.

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I guess the real problem is the length. I have always struggled with making my pieces short. I like putting words together and trying to make them sound nice, so it's always hard for me to get to the point with my essays.
It's a rough draft, and most of it will probably not be present in my final draft.

The real accomplishment this "weekend":
Getting my thoughts organized and getting a interviewee!

The Toon of Three Thoughts

So here I sit. Staring at a screen, with what I’m supposed to believe is a sound introduction to (supposedly) one of the most important papers I’ve ever written.

The future looks bleak. At least to me.

I mean, I’m sure it’s not that bad, and it’s not the introduction that scares me as much as the multiple paragraphs that must follow it.

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the exact, perfect, interesting, and painfully specific direction I want my research to go.

Not to mention the fact that I awake almost every morning to the toon of three thoughts: 1) uggg, school again/uggg, track again 2) what is this thing poking me in the back, oh wait, that’s my dog… and 3) I need to find somebody to interview for my junior theme!!

It’s like this little feeling down in my chest that keeps me in a constant state of anxiety, and it doesn’t help when I look at the calendar and realize I have two more weekends to pull this together.

Excuse me!?

Oh and one more thing, the fact that I’m an independent learning that would probably learn about writing this paper by jumping off a bridge than by going in for help, frustrates me, especially when I realize my fourth quarter grade rests upon my ability to keep in touch with my teachers.

I need a hard slap in the face. I shouldn’t be sitting here venting to my American Studies blog. I should be doing something productive!

The million dollar question though, is what.