Nothing but everything

The life in South Sudan is very simple. My life here consists of few routine even weekend and hardly nothing "new" came up unless I create something. Very few visitors, no cinema, no disco, no amusement park, no shopping mall...oh well, we could have some security incidents :o, I found it very desiable location to read book and some brain exercise which I did not have much time before i.e. thinking of meanng of life....24 hours is ample and I am glad I do not have to spend much hours in over loaded packed train or after five fuss. Our normal life in developed country is surronded by so much artificial pleasure and fancy fad. It is not that bad I know but we have sometimes obsession to follow-up latest fashion trend, watch latest movies and equipped yourselves to be in "latest" technologies, and go just opened restaurant. Well, once I stepped out of this trendy competition, I found that life is still great and I have more time to taste the small thing I have ignored. Well, I have to admit I am not just pertisan of slow organic life only as I personally believe both components are crutial in my life.

Anyway, being here, I try not to miss thing I can not get. I do not miss party, I do not miss shopping, I have more great things here to make me feel special. Sky here is simply amazing. Blue and vast. Clouds have its own style and stories. Without any obstable, I can fully enjoy the panoramic stage of divine nature. Glittering of stars makes me feel almost cry and people here are so true. Sometimes, I can believe I am taken to this place to meet those.

I am here to work, but I am getting more than I can contribute. Although I am not religious and could not find any reason for me to get involved, I could feel something just beyone human being in this place. It is something very sacred.

There is another same day after same yesterday. I met same peole, I stay in same place,
I drink same luke-warm beer and same same nyamachoma. (BBQ) In Thailand, there is well known phrase that "same same but different" but here in Kapoeta "same same and same"!!

Well, as we are in Eid el Ftr holiday, I do drink a bit more than usual. With happy Kenyans and Sudanese, I drank bottles and bottles of beer (same number of the participants of the party) and enjoyed imfammatory discussion. We had small party here in WFP compound today. We didn"t invite any friends from outside, just for ourselves, with garlic tossed nyamachoma (Goat BBQ - yum!) and cold beer and white wine. We set the table outside so that we can feel fresh air. This spontaneous 5 star setting helped us to feel it is real celebration! Same people, same food but a bit different setting. It works.

I just need good people and cold beer, what can I expect more? Oh yes, good book and music are advantage. This place does not have many thing, but everything that makes me happy.

Distance to the world

I had two community meeting today. In the presense of hundreds of women and children (men were not officially invited as they are normally disturbing because of alcohol), we explained the reason of food distribution and arrangement for the coming day. We try to get out of "free food distribution", which is often contrvertial as the thing to cause aid dependency, but the issue is not so simple. After 20 years of devastated war, it is not only land and society which had been affected badly, people's mentality need some amount of time and hope to recover. Without them motivated, without them find it important, none of project will work.

Anyway, they have total crop failure this year, and there are piles of letter and document which requested WFP to provide food. Of course, our food is "to save" life, it should not be problem to do so, but to make it happen, we have to spend so much energy to arrange the distribution properly. It is NOT intellectual work as I do not have to know or apply difficult formula of physics or history of prosophy, but just need tremendous good spirit to move it on.

We should love people and believe their potential. We have to be optimistic but realistic to make it happen. We need good balance to keep us sane, and above all we should have strong stomach. Sounds not so difficult, but it sometimes is.

Altough it has been bloody hot, I love being out to the field as it is the place where there is obvioualy reason for our work. All the paper works or serious meeting will be nothing if food is not reached to the final end. We failed three time to have this meeting, but finally today we could have it with almost 400 women. Without microphone, I did have to shout for my speech. It made me laugh to see translation of "my speech" was much longer and seems to be very different, I am not 100% if they understood what I mentioned, but I don't care. It is gradual step so I did not expect 100 for this gathering. Women have chance to speak up, see some different people from different part of world, and know food is coming. I didnt say anything funny, but people kept laughing. It maybe my face..? Kids like me so much and I have difficulty to get out of their hand shake. I am just like a Mickey mouse in Disney Land.

Commissioner and Government secretary were with me, and they took advantage of meeting so many women at one go. They talked about HIV/AIDS, census, education and community work.....as started from zero, we have many stories to tell, many seeds to bring up. I believe we have long way ahead, but we obviously started our first small steps.

I like one old man from my government counterpart who always gave me funny questions.

He asked me today on the way back to our office.

man "In Japan, do man chase cow?"

mio "we do not normally keep cow"

man "so what do they do"

mio "different type of work"

man ???

man "is your mother not dead?"

mio "as long as i know....she is fine"

man "In Japan in rural area, is house made by what material?"

mio "obviously not iron sheet and bamboo stick!"

Everybody said the world is getting smaller, but still some part of this amazing globe, there is long distance to be connected to the "world" we know. Well, at least that is the reason that I am here. Yes, I enjoy my work to the full.

Happy Eid holiday, everybody!

Evolution theory

My exboss told me when he got his first job offer by telegraph. He is early 50s, almost my father's generation but still on the active list. When I entered uni in 1994, only our friends from same faculty had e-mail address, so we are exchanging note within friends who studied just next to me, which was just a bit more than 10 years ago. We are facing so big changes of our lives in such short period.

Now, look at it. It is almost hard to imagine our lives without internet or e-mail. Any kind of news can come within second from the other part of the globe. I know when my prime minister resigned, what happened in Phuket or Brazil, and whom my friend got married....Of course, we should be properly equipped but as you do witness, I am writing my blog in the middle of nowhere, in which still some people are comfortably naked and girl get married at the age of 13 in return of dawry. I sometimes feel am in vacuum of the gigiantic time flow. Time goes so slow here, but I can still keep being in this crazy twitch of global communication tsunami. I could spend hours and hours to check my web site to look for present for my friend's birthday, or this new intruder of my life, facebook or mixi can easily suck my time without much difficulty. Funnily enough, it makes much easier to keep contact friends from all over the world, but it is not good enough to deepen and improve relationship. I strongly believe real communication should be made face-by-face. Internet, facebook is just side dish, but never be main dish.


It is getting less and less romantic to be explorer; as TV camera reached as far as Antactica and there are bunch of people who write their small events in the smallest village of the earth. Still, we can be idealistic enough to belive we are in the era which improve quality of lives. I am not talking about this MDG stuff, but to know how we evolve ourselves, - maybe not as facilitator but as receiver - we are obviously in the big changes. In some of the location like my country, we got stuck and a bit at loss for the future direction after all family got fancy car and thin TV, but it is good to know, the world is moving on and solution may come up later.

Now we have to remind that human being do not develop as fast as technologies. That is the very reason why we never stop fighting and millions of people are still hungry. We can not be free from greed and many of us have spend extraordinal time and money to achieve inner peace. I enjoy the advanced technologies which makes my life fun and colourful, but do not want to forget about brushing myself up and real touch of human's tempature. Making use of technologies does not mean improvement of humanity.

Three days' skin head

Well, here I am for my third day of writing. Good good.
In Japanese, we have an expression of "just launched but got bored quickly and dump it" attitude as "three days' skin head". I have no idea why is skin head be focused like this, but the point is "three days", I guess. The period is the first obstacle for those who can not have enough patience. Especially, if you attempt something a bit ambicious i.e. go to gym everyday, or be nice to someone who is not nice to you....it is always easy to set the objective, but easier to forget about it.

Anyway, three days have passed, and I still see spark inside me. Generally I like expressing myself by writing, drawing, dancing...do not very care if audience will understand my unlimited thirst of self-exploration, as I do not try to get attention. Even if there is nobody, I will do so anyway.

Why? Maybe Kapoeta is too quiet to be passive. I just have to make myself moving on to make sure if I am alive and OK. It is just sign of survival... in a bit better way, sign of happy survival. My friends often worry about me if I get bord of being in the middle of nowhere. Surprisingly, I do not find the place boring at all, even compared with Tokyo or London. I am a city born girl, but as most of you probably agree with me, but I am not really flashy city girl type. I do love being in the quiet place as well as I do love whooping parties, I like camping but I do not forget shopping. If I only stay in clearn quiet environment, I will be bleached too much and in need of urban toxin, combination of clean air and evil noise will provide me good balance.

Let me stop around here today and go for dinner, I normally go for it bit late, but I was informed that today's menu is chicken, so I have to be there earlier to get my allocation without fail ;) I will have more time to talk about my life later.

Someting new

I am like 5 years old kid who just got favorite toy bought by his parent. Until he is tired of it, he brings it always with him, dreams about it, whole mind goes into the new stuff.

I started two somthing new this weekend. One is this blog, the other is motorbike practice.
They have been the one of the top wish list of mine but never had proper chance to kick off.
Ever since we graduated from our school, we have less and less opportunities to do "something new". Unfortunately we will not have any more excitement whether my favorite classmate will be in my class or not in the beginning of the school year, we now knew the bitter taste of tabacco and beer,(and how good it is) and even how to flirt guys which at least is not my case ;). It is always slightly bitter, fresh and sweet to try something new. Our world is constantly expanding ever since we stepped into this world of wonder, however compared with early teenage period, our growth curve is getting looser and sometimes it can even remain the same level or degenerate....yes, that is because we tend not to try something new once we learned how to stable your life and how warm it is . Without taking extra risk, we have no problem to keep our lives going on.

Wait a minutes! We are not ready to be retired. Now that we have little bit of fortune,
things to keep, people to love and protect, but it does not mean that I do not have to go further adventure. Instead of backpack, I can bring samsonite suit case, instead of being alone, I do not mind to go with my decent buddy (if applicable), but we should not forget to do something new in our lives occasionally to make sure you do not get stuck and mossy.
Open the door, break the windor, step over the barrier, there are still lots to see and discover.

Anyway, so it is not justification, but to make myself more reachable to the new areas, I decided to learn how to ride the motorbike. So far, it is brilliant. It will be really my thing soon. Please note it is not direct influence of watching Tomb Raider 2 last week. Yes, AJ is cool, but I set my target a bit higher !! lol

Prelude

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and flowers.
Welcome to my theather of digestion, new blog launched just today. Why today? It is not the beginning of the year, nor my 20's birthday nor the day I broke my heart (am glad), well, we do not need justification or reason to do something new. I just find it was not so busy Saturday and I have to start this pending issue over monthes. At least it was'nt my first attempt. I do have two English blogs somewhere where even I don't remember. I opened the curtain, then nothing came. Fortunately there was no audience, so the place is simply dumped without much negative impact to society.
Surprizeingly, I have had Japanese blog (started HP diary) over five years, but never succeded to do so in English. It is because English is too public language and open to that whole world so that I can not reveal my secret or great discoveries. It should be original and fun if it comes to "my" writing, but the nature of the language makes me too good girl which end up eventually boring!

Anyway, let me try. I won't promise as I know my scattered mind disposition. However, being in slightly rainy Saturday in middle of nowhere, it is perfect environment to give a try. There are still unlimited source of stories in this world, and you guys know I do not stop talking. I just have to be a bit careful of me talking too much then being fired or sued. People who speak English has scary nature......I may be wrong.

Then, I beg you not to use stupid "translating site" to decode my Japanese blog. I tell you unfortunately they are not as smart as me, and totally come up with different product. I sometimes try to see how accurate the technologies dissolve my puddle of profound thought, it just made me laugh and put me in desperate lassitude. Now I proudly present my blog in English to share my ideas and stories, especially for my non-japanese speaking friends. I don't make them exactly same as I believe I have to pretend to be busy proffessional lady, but try to put good essense in English blog. If you still want to know my secret, kindly study Japanese.

For your infomation, I am still happily in South Sudan, land of wonder and potential and goat and beans. I am looking foward to getting your feed-back. Show time!!