2012 Participants

1.Brazil

The world's widest road is the Monumental Axis in Brazil, where 160 cars can drive side by side.

2. Myanmar

Burmese people wear yellow paste on their faces which comes from tree bark. It protects against skin disease, helps keep your face young, and also serves as sun protection.

3. Haiti

The word for “violence” in Haitian Creole is the same as the word for the instrument the “violin.” Because of this, it is not a good idea to talk about conflict and violin music in the same conversation.

4. East Timor

It is said that the island of Timor was once a crocodile. It is still called Crocodile Island by some people.

5. Indonesia

Indonesia is home to some of the rarest creatures in the world, including tiny deer, fish that climb trees to catch insects and spiders that catch and eat small birds in giant webs.

6. Malaysia

In Malaysia, the bodies of sea cucumbers are dried and powdered and then made into face cream. Golden sea cucumbers are ground up and put in tea to drink for stomach problems.

7. Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea has over 850 languages and a population of just under 6 million. Evidence of agriculture in the country dates back to six and a half thousand years ago.

8. Philippines

In the Philippines, there is one live chicken for every Filipino. That is, the chicken population and the human population are the same. One Filipino man became internationally famous for eating 350 chilies in just 3 minutes!

9. Solomon Islands

An active underwater volcano named Kavachi is located in the Solomon Islands. The Islands are also home to megapodes which are birds that lay their eggs in volcanic sands and whose chicks can fly right after digging themselves out of the dirt.

10. Bangladesh

The largest mangrove forest in the world is located in Bangladesh. It is called Sundarban which means "beautiful jungle" in Bengali.

11. India

India has largest number of post offices in the world. The material used to build the Taj Mahal was brought in from various parts of India by a fleet of one thousand elephants.

12. Nepal

In Nepal, Saturday is the official weekly holiday. It is said that a snowman creature called the Yeti lives in the mountains and some people try to search for it. Only strange footprints have been found.

13. Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is the world’s largest tea exporter. To say hello or goodbye in Sri Lanka, you say “Ayubowan,” which means “May you live longer.”

14. Cameroon

In Cameroon, people sometimes eat plantains, bean cakes, and puff-puff for breakfast. Puff-puff is fried bread that is filled with air. Mount Cameroon is the country’s tallest mountain and every year hundreds of runners will race each other to the top of the mountain.

15. DR Congo

The Republic of Congo is about the size of Germany. It has the greatest number of thunderstorms in the world.

16. Liberia

Liberia means “land of the free.” Nelson Mandela was born in Liberia, and the country has had more female leaders than Norway, Sweden and South Korea combined.

17. Malawi

Malawi is known as the “Warm Heart of Africa.” Lake Malawi is also called the Lake of Stars because of the lights hung by fishermen on their boats. The fish are attracted to the lights, which when seen from a distance, look like stars in the sky.

18. Uganda

In Uganda, beer is made from mashed and fermented bananas. Some common snacks in Uganda include grasshoppers, termites, and sesame honey candy.

19. Japan

Some farmers in Japan grow their watermelons into a square shape in order to save storage space.

These are the countries that our participants will be from! So I decided to look up some interesting (and somewhat useless) trivia to look intelligent when they arrive. :) Hope it works!

Miracle of Miracles

I want to share a story...because it's too good to keep to myself. I led a small group Bible study session this morning about Jesus healing the official's son and as a result we got totally off-track on the subject of "wonders and miracles." (And now I would like to reference Fiddler on the Roof's marvellous Wonder of Wonders "Miracle of Miracles" song). During our session, I talked about a trip that I took last month to a women's conference at which an incredible Japanese lady named Mrs. Koko Kondo spoke about her life.

Here's my version of her story:
Koko was 8 months old at the time of the bombing on Hiroshima. She talked about her experiences growing up and meeting bomb survivors and hearing so many sad stories about how people's lives had been forever altered. As a young girl Koko vowed that one day she would meet the pilot of the Enola Gay and kick and hit and maybe even bite him to make him pay for dropping the atomic bomb on her city. Her father, Rev. Tanimoto (read Hiroshima by John Hersey), brought 25 Hiroshima Maidens to the U.S. for plastic surgery. While he was there, Ralph Edwards of the TV show This is Your Life arranged for an interview with Captain Robert A. Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay. Rev. Tanimoto's family were invited to come to the interview, so Koko and her mother and siblings were all sitting in the front row of the audience during the q & a session. Koko was so shocked to see one of the men who had been on the plane, and she was even angrier that she had the bad luck to meet him when she was only 10 and couldn't beat him up as she had planned. So she just stared at him and hoped he would feel the bitter intensity of her hatred. Then Edwards asked Captain Lewis how he felt after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The co-pilot explained that when he and the others on the plane flew back to report on the damage, Hiroshima was gone. It was as if the city had never even existed. Captain Lewis said that his immediate reaction was: "My God, what have we done?" And as he spoke he started to cry. Meanwhile, Koko was watching him closely. She saw Captain Lewis crumble in front of her as he recalled his complicity in the reckless murder of so many people. Suddenly she realized that she couldn't hate him anymore. His remorse was so painfully and sincerely evident. After the interview, she went up to Captain Lewis and touched his hand. It was a warm hand--a very human hand.

Later, after she had finished college, Koko decided she wanted to thank Captain Lewis for what he had said on the show. It was then that she discovered he had been admitted to a mental hospital. Nursing attendants told her he had made two clay sculptures during his time in the hospital. One was of a mushroom cloud. The other was a single teardrop. This was the best representation he could make of his feelings about the bombing. Koko was always grateful to him for changing her life and taking away her desire for revenge against the people involved in the bombing.

P.S. Life is also a miracle, right? At ARI we have 10 new baby piglets. :)

Kimonos and Jingle Bells

I've been in Japan for two weeks now and so much has happened in that short time. I have helped to move chairs and filing cabinets from the old office to the new farm shop building, cooked food for 20 + people, collected one chicken egg, and got attacked by a rooster. So life is pretty eventful here, which is an extreme understatement. Every day is interesting in its own way and is filled with singing and praying and idea sharing. Asian Rural Institute seems so alive to me on many different levels.

After navigating my way from Narita Airport to Utsunomiya by bus and then to Nishinasuno by train, Jeen Hae and Ban (a Korean couple) and Nicole (my American roommate) took me to ARI. I got there at around midnight, Japan time, and basically I made my bed and went straight to sleep. On my first day at ARI, I experienced a very minor earthquake and had a talk about radiation with Steven (one of the staff "in charge" of volunteers). Never a dull moment!

There are so many cool things about ARI, the best of which is that it is a community of people both from Japan and all around the world. In the mornings, we have exercises which consist of stretching to a recording of instructions (all in Japanese) and music. I have to watch everyone else to know whether I'm supposed to be bouncing up and down or touching my toes. Even though exercise is at 7AM, I usually enjoy it because I find the exercises to be rather undignified. I always end up trying unsuccessfully remain serious and not smile. I've really enjoyed fixing breakfast with Kazu, one of the main cooks at ARI. It's really nice drinking tea and making pancakes while watching the pink sun come up amid the puffy purple clouds. I've just recently started appreciating mornings, and I guess I've come to the conclusion that it IS worth it to get up early so you can watch the rest of the world wake up to a brand new day. Before each meal, one person chooses a song to sing (there are 10 posted on the dining room wall) and prays. Then everyone says "Itadake mas" which loosely translates to "Let's enjoy the meal." We all eat together in Koinonia House, which, like all the buildings at ARI, is very cold in the winter because it has thin walls and one small wood stove for heating purposes. After breakfast, we have morning gathering--usually my favorite part of the entire day. Basically, it's a kind of devotions time; one person shares thoughts or reflections on a topic of his/her choice. Often it relates to ARI or Christianity in some way, but it doesn't have to. One of my favorite ones so far was Jil's description of his childhood in the Philippines catching fish and riding water buffalo. For me, it's a time to learn about the other people I'm living with. I always come away with a greater appreciation for the morning gathering "chairperson," partly because he/she always speaks in English (usually quite a departure from his or her own native language). Then we have morning "foodlife work," which recently has been moving supplies from the old office to the new one. "Foodlife" is a term coined by ARI to describe the importance of food for sustaining and providing life for people, plants, and animals. We then have lunch and afternoon foodlife work, during which time I clean the kitchen vigorously and thoroughly. Much to my own surprise, I've discovered that I actually enjoy this kind of work. I really like taking a broom to the filthy corners under the refrigerators or scrubbing a black tray until it shines silver again. It doesn't make sense because I hate cleaning my room. Maybe it's just not dirty enough to be satisfying? Perhaps I should shovel some compost onto my desk or grind some dirt into the floor...something tells me Nicole wouldn't appreciate that, though. Then there's supper and free time if you're lucky! I joined gospel choir because I'm a crazy person. We have practice on Tuesdays, which usually runs for 2 hours, and our concert is this Sunday. Also, I have Japanese class on Wednesdays--it costs 100 yen for one class. My favorite word I learned this week was "tanoshi" (interesting), although I also enjoyed the contrast between the short little English word "egg" as compared to the Japanese mouthful "medamayaki." On other nights, I might be found playing ping-pong or watching Seinfeld with Nicole and Franz (a volunteer from Germany). Sometimes Jeen Hae and Ban invite everyone over to their house for supper and treat us to Coca-Cola or pizza. Some nights, I'm just tired and cold so I sit in front of our kerosene heater and wish for summer to hurry up and get here already.

This week, we decorated our community Christmas tree. Mai Mai used white snow spray on the tree, but Jonathan told her to use it on the windows instead. So the poor tree looks like it's afflicted with some strange blight in a few patches on some of its branches. It's also got a huge gold ornament with the words "Merry Christmas" on it and a giant hamster ornament that I found in one of the decoration boxes. Plus loads of tinsel and lights that we've only turned on once, to my knowledge. That tree has character!

My first week in Japan was even busier. I went to church in Nishinasuno with Jeen Hae, Ban, Fatamata, and Mai Mai. The sermon was in Japanese, but there was a translator for us. Afterwards, we went to McDonald's for lunch and then to Nasu Mountain (about an hour away). We got to see snow near the summit, and then we went to onsen, or the public baths. At onsen, the men and women go into separate bathing areas, which are like hot tubs with different temperatures recorded in degrees Celcius. Everyone leaves their clothes in a bin in the locker room area and pretty much just sits in these tubs together. It was somewhat awkward at first, but eventually you realize it's not a big deal and get on with your life. It was actually very nice, to tell the truth. Then on Tuesday I went to a party/function in the surrounding Tochigi area. I got to eat all kinds of wonderful food, wear a kimono, and participate in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. The kimono made me feel like I could neither breathe nor walk properly. It's like wearing a corset and tiny little platform shoes which are too small for your feet. You look lovely, of course, but it comes at a price. After the tea ceremony, I put on regular clothes so I could eat more dessert. Then we were asked to sing Jingle Bells in English with orchestral accompaniment. It was really something!

Tomorrow, I'm going to take care of the chickens and fix lunch--should be very tanoshi. More later!