And then there was light!

Ok, let's do this thing!

B.K. Seven Years Ago...

Seven Years Ago..

I was in the amazon this past weekend, and while I was there I got into a deep conversation with one of the bigger honchos of study-abroads in Ecuador. He told me the worst thing that he ever had to deal with in all of his years of doing this program. We were sitting out in hammocks under a tent canopy when he told me about how 7 years ago a female student was raped when she took a trip down to the South of Ecuador with an exchange student that had studied at her school the year previous (and that she lived at the house of in Quito during her semester abroad).

There was a lot involved with the story, like how she had been drinking for the first time, about how a friend of her host sister's brother had taken advantage of her, and about everything happened hours South of Quito, where anyone she knew could have helped her. After it happened she wandered out to the highway and rode on buses for approximately 30 hours, and as the story goes with most rape cases - if evidence is not collected after the first 24 hours you can sit pretty on the fact that you will have to kiss any hope of a case goodbye. However, the man who told me this story then went to the police to address the situation - unfortunately he discovered through police reports that the young man who had committed the rape was the son of a woman who was running for office, and whose uncle was an officer in a neighboring precinct. So this guy couldn't be touched. The man who told me this story then told me the darkest thing that he had admittingly ever done in his years working with the program.

The woman told him that her parents would essentially disown her and blame her for the incident if they ever found out it happened, so with no other way to achieve retribution he paid two detectives approximately 50 dollars each to keep tabs on the guy who raped the exchange student. For a few days they sat outside his residence and watched him as he'd leave home to go to school. In time they trailed him down on his daily commute and pulled him over for a talk. After denying his own identity the two detectives took him into the station and "shoved his head into a toilet full of shit. You see there's this toilet that they never flush at the police station, where they tell the prisoners to go to the bathroom...essentially it's a wonderful interrogation tactic. I told them to make sure that he paid for what he did, and he knew exactly why it was happening."

This was hard for me to hear, it's not what I was taught to do in the case of rape counseling, but then I recognize this man's motivation and I understand his intense rage about the entire situation.

He told me that the rest of the students who were there that semester (all female) were very protective of the woman who had been raped for the rest of their journey. After the semester ended both he and his wife tried to stay in touch with her, but eventually she just vanished, contact stopped and he has no idea what happened to her. Hardest for him because he cared for her like a child as he no doubt did for everyone that came under his care.

But then that is part of life. That is the harsh way in which some people come and go like dust in the wind. Not a strictly bad thing, but unexspressibly painful for everyone involved.

And it happens a lot more than I'd like to think.

B.K. South Korea

I'm still waiting my first paycheck for the past two months of living abroad. It will be arriving on January 10th. Until then the entire fleet of new recruits at Chung Dahm Institute will be sucking the marrow out of chicken bones to get by. And you know what, it really isn't that bad.

I'd say the worst thing about the past month and a half has been trying to figure out what is a suitable investment, especially when it comes to hanging out with the rest of the staff after work. If it were up to me I think that I wouldn't spend a dime on anything social wise - that's another reason why I'm thankful for Kristen, she pushes me to not become a recluse that hoards his money.

The kids that I work with are great. Every day I have at least 2 new classes of students that complain to me about school as much as I did to my own teachers. "Teacher, let's take a break," "teacher, no more homework," "teacher, CDI is the devil." In the end we almost always get along though, and there are those times when a surge of energy just sweeps the classroom beyond a simple 'oh great, everyone is paying attention for once,' it's that feeling that they're actually learning how to do something. I remember how my physics teacher in high school, Mr. Skinner used to smile all the time; this smug little look that was like he always had a secret to tell, and with that secret he always fueled his classes with this unworldly energy that us kids couldn't help but gobble up. He used to teach us all about how to make calculations about things that I have never used again in my life as a non-engineering undergraduate, but I still remember him as one of the best teachers in my life.

B.K Randi

Lost the use of his right arm 20 years ago in a textile mill accident, his tennis scholarships for college, and still gained his arm back through physical therapy. He was compensated with $2000 for the incident.

Lost the lives of both of his children 20 years ago for reasons that he will not disclose to me beyond the fact that it was not his fault.
Has been divorced for 18 years.
Works at Flo's.
Is the happiest man I have met in my entire life.
Is enough reason for me to remember that making money is still not the most important thing in the world, but for some reason I can't help but feel bad for not being a provider even when I don't have a family.

Money does make the world go 'round. But it does not make it a happy place.

What a vicious conundrum.

B.K. My own worst enemy

My day in short:

-My coworker and I re-established a friendship that was previously lost through non-verbal acts of service today, the tension between him and I revolved around me being in the weeds and discourteous last week.
-I continued to struggle with the desire to have more money when I know I don't need it.
-I figured out what it means to be personally injured by someone else.

My day in detail:
So work today was awful slow. I don't mean to hyperbolize here but I could have painted a 13 room house in my spare time, especially the last two hours of it when I was used to perform community service in side work. This was even more frustrating in lieu of the fact that last week was the restaraunts outright busiest week of the summer, not just at Flo's but apparently every restaraunt in Murrell's Inlet...a downer because of all of the business lost due to circumstance. But lets look at some positive things from the course of the previous six hours. For starters, a coworker of mine named Jay and I had previously come upon bad terms with eachother when I had rubbed him the wrong way last Sunday while I was in the weeds for an hour and a half; at the end of the night he made sure to constructively criticize my demeanor and it left me feeling anxious to come back to work. Tonight though he was more than willing to lend me a helping hand with carrying food to my tables and suffering in the plight of vaccuming with me. He really is a great guy and has a good heart, he just doesn't want people to do stupid things - which is exactly what I did a week ago :)

As for what remained of the night, I made a solid $60, which for some people reading this factors out to a very solid income for just 6 hours of work. I myself look at the hourly ratio and know that it still proves to be the greatest income I have ever had. However, today I found myself putting a price on my tables, looking at the customers and saying to myself "ah crap, they're only going to tip me 10%," and I also noticed myself being jealous of other waiters who were getting the really big tables and then I recall myself being angry at the hostesses for not being more equality-oriented with the distribution of customers.
Allow me to put something out on the table right here and now.
-I sincerely do not need the money. I have been given a full education at a college of my choice and will never have to pay a dime in debt.
-I have all the time in the world to make money, if it really mattered to me I know I could get another job, maybe even a second job!
-Being a missionary starts now, which means that I know I should be more conscientious of putting other people above myself, being joyful when others make 25% tips and not feel like I'm getting the crap end of the night and continuously doing things to bring smiles to my customers regardless of the stereotypes I can place on them. In fact, labeling people should not exist for me and I should act in a selfless manner while interacting with others!

There's something else, selfishness, the feeling that I am not getting what I deserve and should be compensated increasingly more for my time. I am sure that every job has its faults and every group of workers will always have something else to dream for, be it purpose or most likely greater income. The hard part is being mature enough to say "ok, this is good enough for me" and not giving in to the idea of wanting more. The hallmark of a good person is how selfless they are. How earnestly can I approach being a good person?

For me personal injury is when I am not given something that I feel entitled to. This can be anything from gas money on a long trip with a friend, to free time being denied by the lazyness of a roommate who fails to wash their dishes, to even a good night kiss from my girlfriend. Of course there are varying ranges of injury that go along with these trespasses but what I have trouble figuring out is whether or not they're really injuries or just me being selfish. It makes me think a lot about that whole dying to one's self each day thing that Paul talks about.

B.K. %10%action#%90%reaction

night-time summer rain

yields a smile warmly gleaned

as the lot clears out

B.K. Spanitics

Last night after punching out I got in a conversation about religion with one of the guys who works in the kitchen.

• Just a shout-out really quick, people who work in the kitchens of restaraunts are outstandingly hard workers-I'm sure that doesn't apply to every single person who has ever had a cooking job, but the staff at Flo's busts their butts each and every night and I appreciate that.
  Anyhow he was taking out the trash when I was getting out of the building and he started up a conversation. We have a habit of poking fun at eachother and other people in spanish, cussing and trying to figure out new ways to get the dishes done faster. He told me that as Christians we should be setting an example for other people and that we shouldn't use "malas palabras," and then he started to hold me accountable as an older person (I think he's 19) saying that I have an even greater duty to be an upstanding Christian of morals and decency and should consider my actions in front of even him. I responded by shoddily quoting Timothy 4:12, pertaining to his role as a young person to continue setting an example even though he doesn't have the, what, credibility(?) that older people have. We went back and forth about the responsibility of being a Christian and the relevance of being an example through ones actions in terms of stereotypical conservative behavior (Abstaining from alcohol) versus stereotypical liberal behavior (Radical love for others and dispreservation of one's self).
  I told him that I believe it is our responsibility as Christians to reconcile everyone to God, not for the sake of winning souls to Christ but to establish a relationship to the Father through our own love. I asked him how we should do that and he responded by saying that we must first establish a friendship with that person so that they will take a vested interest in what we have to say; we must construct a sincere friendship that will create conversation. We then started to talk about the hypothetical male friend (because this model gets a little complicated if we incorporate a female) who wanted to go out for a drink and whether or not we would continue building that friendship in a liberal sense by earnestly going with him or removing ourselves in the conservative fashion by being a model of Christian excellence. He told me that he would go with the friend for the sake of establishing that friendship, that commonality for something greater down the road. He quoted Paul who said that he became weak for the weak and strong for the strong and told me that he could do no better.
  
  This was big for me considering the fact that the majority of my kitchen staff does not seem to enjoy alcohol a great deal. When offered drinks by Debbie after one particularly strenuous night the majority of them opted for virgin pinapple slushies. My friend at one point earlier on in the job became frustrated with me because I bought a case of beer for some of the head chefs for all their hard work, he said that I was leading them to vice and corruption. You know when I think about it, a gift of beer may not have been the best idea when I didn't even know the people that well. My friend said to me that it would have been better to become something of friends with him first and then consider having a drink with them rather than just shoving alcohol in their faces.
  
  All of this, ladies and gentlemen, happened in very broken spanish...but none the less did happen across the language boundry with passion, concern, and even a high-five at the end.