MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Yup--I'm still alive. Sorry about the total lack of updates for the last month or so. I've gotten so overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to catch up that I kept putting it off, thus living in a terrible self perpetuating vicious cycle. So, as catching up at this point seems more than futile, I thought best to just jump in again. Hit the ground running as it were. By the way, the bloke in the first two pictures is Matthew, my fellow MVSer.
Christmas events have dominated my life in Bradford of late--in a lovely way. Full Christmas dinner with the staff at the elementary school--complete with Christmas pudding--molassesy and full of fruits. Went with the after school club to the pantomime (very boisterous, audience involving, slapstick plays always put on for the holiday season) Peter Pan. That was a really good time! We sat at the very top of a beautiful old theater with about 15 7-10 year-olds in tow. Unfortunately, not bathrooms up that high--so we made lots of mad dashes up and down the stairs during the event. And all of the breaking of the forth wall was brilliant. Lots of yelling "He's behind you!" and booing Captain Hook whenever he came in sight. At one point they handed out dozens of foam cubes that represented rocks that we were all to chuck at Captain Hook. I clearly had just as much fun as the kiddos--several of whom I saw the next day at school. One boy stated his enthusiasm in typical Bradfordian "It were well good, were last night!" Other Christmas meetings and ge-togethers, two concerts with that women's choir I'm in.
Pretty much all of our jobs have stopped off for Christmas--schools out, thus is after school club, even the organic cafe is closed. So I'm looking forward to a nice couple of weeks of non conformity to the routine that I've developed here. There are some treats to look forward to: carolling and midnight mass with the Methodists on Christmas Eve--Christmas morning service with the Anglicans and the rest of the day spent with the Biltons' (Paul and Ruth and family--Anglican) with various characters stopping during the day. And who can say what adventures my first true Boxing Day (the 26th) will bring. Hopefully I'll let you all know in a more timely fashion than last time. Love to you all; Merry Christmas; plenty of good will and Holiday cheer!

no pictures this time...

Thought I should start off by letting people know that the little girl who went for surgery came out and is doing fine as far as I know. Making cards for her has been a popular activity in both the school and the after school club.
I've started working (volunteering) at a fair trade cafe adjacent to the university campus a couple times a week. I really had to work up to calling to ask about it, but I am so glad I did! On the basic level of filling up more of my free time, it's been very helpful. It's amazing how much better I feel as a human being when I'm a bit busier. It has also been nice to be around people my own age. I feel like I'm finally starting to make some friends. Just in time, because I had realized about a week ago that I was starting to feel more comfortable around small children and middle aged folks than my peer group--frightening how adaptable we humans are. So sometimes I do the washing up (the dishes), sometimes I get to cook (today I made chili and a cous cous salad), sometimes I work the til and make drinks. I definitely can work with pounds and pence now--but the first day was a bit sketchy--I'm still not sure if I gave everyone the correct change...
Another new involvement is the art club at school--which meets after school on Tuesdays for an hour. It makes me really happy. Last week I taught them about tessellations--interlocking and repeating shapes, and showed them how to make their own. One kid made an Elvis shape, there was also a ghost, a cowboy, and a rhinoceros/mouse, among other things.
A few weeks back, the women's singing group gave a concert for the 20th anniversary of Network--a Methodist women's organization that works with tough issues like the sex trade and battered women and children. That was a wonderful event. I was easily the youngest woman in the packed out room--quite a sea of permed white hair. All of these elderly women, a bit proper, but definitely not prim. I kept thinking that these are the daughters of the original suffragettes; they know how to get things done. They were so appreciative of our singing too, which was probably mediocre at best, and they kept refering to us as girls. I'm still pretty used to that, but most of the women in the group are in their 40s and got a kick out of that. All in all, it was a life giving evening.
In other news, I'm reading Harry Potter again, British version--just the same but with all the lovely British slang and common phrases I've come to know and love. I admit--it makes me feel pretty cool knowing what they mean. Try your hand at these: jacket potato; cotton on; in nick; cling film; pudding; oh sod off; cheers; ta; alright?. Look for translations in the next post--I welcome any guesses.
Some people have asked about how world news differs here. Well, at least where I am, so close to the university and connected to socially aware people, it seems that people are quite informed on issues. I've asked some family/friends in the States what they've heard about the Burma atrocities, and it seems so minimal compared to here. There are a lot of protests and stuff in the newspapers. I checked NPR's website, and their coverage didn't even seem comparable to the Guardian's--the liberal news here. If anyone wants a good alternative to American news coverage--I think the Guardian's website is quite good. It's http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Guess that's it for now. Take care all.

the emergence of pattern

So I've been an inhabitant of England for long enough now that an entire month has managed to sneak away, and I'm sure its siblings will not be long kept from following the leader. I'm not sure if I thought ahead enough about this adventure to have specific expectations about how things would be going by this time. Even so, I think it is safe to say that I am pretty happy with how things are. I'm starting to feel solidly settled in. I realize that I haven't yet told you what I do here, so here's a stab at it:

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I wake up in time to have a cup of tea and a bowl of muesli, put on teacher clothes and walk through the expansive cemetery to the primary school on the other side, Lidget Green Primary School. I try to get there for at least half of Breakfast Club--during which I walk around for a while and listen to whatever the little 'uns wish to tell me and then I sit myself down with the group of girls who choose to spend their time drawing and draw whatever they ask for and chat with them about their pictures and whatever else they want to talk about. We usually swap pictures at the end of the hour. Then I make my way into one of the two year 5 classrooms (American 4th grade), both, oddly enough, are run by teachers named Vicky. I spend the day switching between these two classes, working with small groups--teaching kids how to tell time and about story structure, and answering random questions like how i got to have such a good American accent and how one spells pilgrimage. I'm beginning to know some of the teachers, and have people to chat with during the mid morning coffee break and lunchtime. I also do a lot of laminating and copying etc. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Matt and I work at and after school club. Quite a few kids at the club go to Lidget Green and also live in our neighborhood. One of the nicest things is seeing the kids around and how happy they are to see us. By the way, one of my favorite little girls--Kirsty, who is in my class and goes to the after school club and lives in the neighborhood, is going in for heart surgery on Monday. She's such a sweet little girl and quite well liked. That's going to be on my mind and in my prayers for the next while. This last week, on Thursday as well, during the morning, I helped out with an African Womens/Asylum Seekers circle. That seems like a really neat thing to be involved with. Many of them are stuck home a lot and don't have many venues to be social, many of them really value the time to come and visit with each other. They are also learning some skills. This last week, we did a bit of baking--many of them come from places where ovens are not particularly used. I had a good time hanging out with them--some of them are not really English speakers, but French speakers--so it was fun to put that to use again. I have enough for basic conversations, at least enough to be welcoming and friendly. I did spend quite a bit of that time being a babysitter --I understand that it is important for them to have time away from their kids, but wow--my life seems to have been completely flooded with small children of late! Oh, also on Tuesdays, I've started going to "Just Church" which is a group that meets close the University and is mainly comprised of students doing their Masters in Peace Studies. They are very involved with social and environmental issues around Bradford and beyond...quite a good group to be involved with. They feel like Little Goshen. Friday and Saturday are not rigidly scheduled, but tend to get filled up somehow. Sunday, Matt and I either wander up to St. Wilfred's Anglican church or over to Great Horton Methodist for the service and generally wind up with a lunch invite. Sunday evenings then we meet with the Methodist youth group and generally go around to the leader's house for a light supper of tea, biscuits and cheese. On Mondays, I practice with a women's singing group from the Methodist Church in the evenings. Add in a few dinner invitations, lots of rambling walks around the city or the countryside, a bit of cooking, a lot of reading, and the random excursion to somewhere cool--like Leeds or Saltaire and you'd have quite a good idea of my life here. And now for the pictures.

View of a highly typical Bradford Street from the window of the second level of a city bus.

display of old buses in the town center

On a trip to Saltaire, as soon as we got off the train, we followed the flow of people and the sound of bells (attached to shoes) to the canal where there was a group of Morris Dancers--the Rainbow troop, putting on a performance. Jolly good.

I wandered up the hill via foot paths through residential areas and pasture to the Moor above the town--saw some delightfully pastoral scenes.

Picturesque English Countryside. Hello Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.

a public foot path--these are the coolest things--they run between houses and through fields. what beautiful respect for the walker!

One lone sheep and the lay of the land.

so nice

Where it is that I live

If you can't tell, this is another massive post of pictures. If you click on them, they should enlarge, but I warn you, some of them are quite blurry--sorry. We're pretty much moved in at this point. Hope this helps you visualize. Other than moving in, we've been keeping somewhat busy. I think I better save that for another post though. I don't know about you, but I am slightly exausted by getting these pictures all sorted. By the way, I'd love to hear from people, what you are all up to. Please drop me an email sometime and I'll give you a personal reply. Enjoy the photos:

So here is Matthew, making rice in the kitchen of 19

Some more of 19's kitchen

The view from that window

more of 19's kitchen

the sitting room in 19

opposite view of sitting room

View of 23 from entry hallway-- and yes, those are manikin legs--apparently the guys last year found them and now they make the place look quite artistic...or something at least


Kitchen in 23--mine I guess, there is a washing machine in there too--don't you like our minimalist light fixture?

my little fridge, from a dynamic angle

So, we do most of the cooking in Matthew's flat--my kitchen is pretty much a shrine to tea parties. Observe: tea set one.

tea set two.

some of the other tea cups.

tea or coffee cups and two tea pots. and this is just a representative sample. and there are more in 19.

Found objects exhibited on the window sill of the kitchen.

My chamber from the doorway.

scarf hanger

bedside table--I have a candle now for reading at night.

the pirate that guards my mirror.

Dangley earring hanger.

Found object display on the radiator near my bed.

view from my bed of the desk and my beautiful backlit Senegalese cloth (and slightly psychadelic other curtain that was there before)

a good sight.

well...here I am

After about 14 hours of being in transit, Matthew and I arrived in Bradford. So far, I've met one of the two Reverend Pauls who are to be our local contact people. This Paul, the very Reverend Paul Bilton, is an Anglican Cannon, serving the parish of St. Wilfreds and lives in the adjoining parsonage with his marvelous wife Ruth, who is a caterer. They keep bees and chickens. We also met Tim in the flesh for the first time. He's sort of the mediator between the Pauls and MVS. He lives in Northern Ireland and just hopped over to give us a proper welcome. We live in two flats on Walker Av, which is right off of Necropolis Road--and shockingly the home to the oldest public cemeteries in the city. Glen, one of the MVSers from this unit last year, is still around and has been showing us around via long walks. I've had several spots of tea, gone for two curries, but no crumpets to speak of. I've visited the A&E(our ER--auspicious beginning, no? not to worry, nothing serious) and also the public library. Rode one double decker bus and have almost got the knack of looking the right way when crossing the street. I have tried Marmite. We played with a bunch of British children at community run "after-school" (school hasn't started yet) programme. I possibly remember about 5 names, but I'm glad they aren't here to test me. I have learned that "paper towels" are referred to as "the kitchen roll," and the kitchen counter is the work surface.
With everyday that goes trotting past, my outlook brightens. Things are starting to feel more comfortable. We haven't yet moved in properly; I'm really looking forward to that--decorating, restocking the kitchens--not living out of a suitcase. That being the case, I haven't taken many photos of the flats yet (sorry Mom)--just wait to they are a bit more livable. I also didn't want to go around Bradford with a camera and be labeled a tourist on my first week here--I'll shatter my reputation on a later day. Here are a few pics just to tide you over:

a cuppa

fancy a cuppa your Majesty?

pinky out!

tea or coffee?

Honey from Paul Bilton's bees and, you guessed it, Marmite--the popular yeast spread.

scrambing to catch up before the next big thing

My wonderful summer at Wilderness Wind is behind me and I'm about to jet over the pond to England. Before I go into that though, there is some ground to cover, quite a lot actually. Where I left you, I had just finished my first trip leading. That was an amazing learning experience--some random advice: don't try to go up a tiny river when there is a portage trail available--it's there for a reason, surprisingly enough; don't go in with specific expectations--in the end the weather is always boss. We were forced to take a layover day because of very strong winds and whitecaps--but amazingly, complaints were at a minimum. A cool thing we did that day instead of paddling was to all go exploring by ourselves for 20 minutes, then meet back and lead each other on a tour of our discoveries.
After that, I was off the water for a day and the next group came--a family reunion of 11. Too big for entry to the Boundary Waters, we (Aubrey and I co-led this group) plotted a rout in other beautiful but not quite so protected waters. This family was comprised of 2 grand parents--in their 70s and certainly held their own in terms of physical activity, their daughter and her husband and their 4 kids (an 11 year old girl, 10 year old boy, and 8 year old twins--one girl one boy), another middle generation son with his 8 year old son ( his wife and very small children at home) and one more middle generation son. This was such a different week-- the weather was always with us, which made a huge difference. They were a beautiful family, i loved watching the way they interacted and interacting with them myself. The kids were so well mannered, cute and smart that it made me think--hey, i could maybe do this someday. The set up each day was to have two adults in a canoe and one or two kids in the middle--and they actually paddled! I could totally notice a difference when they would take a break. by the end of the week, Aubs and I felt like part of their family--I appreciated things about each of them, valued our time together and mourned the fact that I won't be a part of their lives. That's been a tough theme this summer--or at least something I'm more keyed into: while meeting and caring about new people is enriching, the short term nature of most of these relationships is really lousy. Is it worth it? Can I even help it? probably not.
After that week, I came back to camp--tired but energized. I love being out on the water. Time just works differently; each day full but not scheduled--no place for watches. I wouldn't go out for a trip again the rest of the summer--that was really hard. For the rest of the summer, i was either doing whatever needed to be done or being the head cook. That week--did a lot of physical hard work--scraping paint, digging trenches, cleaning stuff up--it was tough, but fun to be with all the staff for a week again.
Then came the group of Mennonites with Disabilities-- 6 men ranging in age from 20s to 50s. They staid at our lakeside cabins, and all of us staff got to spend time with them--going on fieldtrips of sorts. We went to the bear center--very informative, bears are much less scary than the media makes them out to be. We visited a dog sledding outfitters--72 dogs--this was my favorite outing. They all howled to greet us-- what a sound, and then stopped in unison only to start back up again. We got to walk around and pet them --I think one of the guys may have petted all 72. The dogs were so good with them; it was beautiful. I want a dog. We took one small canoing endeavor, but mostly we just hung out--played cards, chatted, roasted marshmallows. I really liked hanging out with them; they all so genuinely wanted to be friends. they were such characters--i enjoyed learning some of their idiosyncrasies.
The rest of the summer was filled with cooking--diner for staff during the weekdays, cooking ahead for the groups that are there on the weekends, re-stocking the trip foods, baking bread for the lakeside cabins. This was more stressful than being on the water for me, but i think i managed to shine in it as well. I discovered that i love making elaborate foods--with time built into them--like baking bread that needs to rise several times, or things with lots of steps. I cooked a lot from Simply in Season and from a variety of Moosewood cookbooks. I can vouch that there are some good ones there to be found. I tended to go for things that had names i couldn't pronounce and that went well. I had a lot of fun and gained a lot of cooking confidence.
the rest of staff came and went on trips--back on the weekends-- a few weekend excursions--hiked part of the Superior Hiking trail (that was cool, but I find it difficult to see the point of hiking without a summit. spoilt, I'm sure. ) Then I said goodbye to camp and rather abruptly I was home in Colorado. I was there for a week--resting, trying to pull things together for the next year--doctor's and dentist's appointments, teacher clothes shopping, and i took my brother's senior pictures. I went on a hike with my dad up at Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp--Old Baldy. All along the way I noticed the wildlife in a new way--there were some of the same plants as in MN. I was thrilled to identify them, even to see them. I took in so much more from my surroundings because i was just a bit more informed. Then at the top, the same old spectacular view, accompanied by the full sound of wind through thousands of pine trees and the rushing stream far below. it was wonderful to combine my love of the big dramatic views with all the details.
Jumped over to Indiana--lost my luggage in Chicago, and reunited with some of my dear college friends. Then I went to MVS (Mennonite Voluntary Service) orientation with some Goshen people; my luggage made its grand appearance the day after i left--so i had to do some serious mooching for that week. Some of it was really helpful, but much of it was a repeat of what i'd learned for SST (Study Service Term--I spent a semester in Senegal), or by just living communally--like i have for the past two years at school. What with Goshen College's emphasis on "culture for service" many of us Goshen kids felt over prepared. We tried to be glad about this rather than annoyed--but it was hard to not be bored sometimes. Met many cool people, was a bit tempted to just hang out with people i already know, but couldn't do it. I met Matthew from Iowa, with whom I'll be living this next year in England--sharing a flat we will be. I left with most of my fears of being lonely and friendless allayed and my excitement significantly up.
I then went back to Goshen for a week, went to a beautiful wedding, became aware of even more of my friends becoming engaged (up to five now--and the first wave of weddings is over--crazy that my peers are some of them at a different stage of life), spent time with some of my former housemates, had a wonderful time. I felt truly myself with these people that have known me for so long, free to be completely myself. It was a week that seemed stolen from some other time--there was a strange shadow on it for me because I had to keep remembering that i wasn't staying like they were. Though they may seem rather the same this week--really, things are not and will never be again. How much can we really be in each others lives? transitions, what downers.
Now I'm back in Colorado. Just celebrated my grandma's 80th birthday with a bunch of family--good fun--wild times with balloons--I got to make the cake: tres leches cake--yummy. I fly on Friday evening and get there Saturday afternoon. wow--still not real; maybe on the plane it will hit me--or maybe it won't hit me at all--probably not, asking too much.


PICTURES!



walking the canoe up rapids on one of those tiny little steams with a portage trail close by--we gave up half way through and portaged the rest. yup, learning experience.


First group by a waterfall--i've never been more scared for everyone's safety ever!



Grandparents and kids of group two--spunky characters the lot of them.


Goods time with torillas--group two.


Aubrey being so hard core--ha.


Me being so hard core...and pensive...look out world!


Some of the Mennonites with Disabilities group members watching Dave--our maintenance wonder man--clean up the garage. better than a reality show i'd bet.


Roasting marshmallows with the guys.


Me and Phil with a sled dog.



This lovely white viney flower we never figured out. but maybe my favorite.


Wild Blueberries. so good...


Wild Iris.


Moss! so beautiful...sigh...


Hare Bells. tres belle.


Wild Columbine.


Fragrant white lily.


View of Lake Superior.

phew! all caught up! Ha!