Tribute to Children

To: Dr.Mihail

From: Carl M. Ploense III

Re: F-14 Tomcat data

The F-14 has a cost of $38 million per plane. It requires teams of engineers (20-30) to take the plane from the drawing board to the flight line. These Engineers are responsible for systems such as navigation, propulsion and armaments. While moving and navigating in its environment, the plane is capable of tracking 20 objects at a time, establishing whether these are friend or foe, and engaging six objects. This is a close replication of human movement as embodied in a machine.

It is interesting to note that when a child first learns to walk and talk, it is capable of these things and more. A child who first learns to walk has navigation skills, can visually and audibly identify objects (more than 20), can coordinate its navigation skills with its propulsion system, and move from one point to another. A child can engage multiple objects (carry on conversations or play with a number of other people). The price of a child... you figure it out.

Sources: (1) Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1994; (2) http://www.chifno.navy.mil

This is a memo sent to my favorite professor this past semester. This was written before e-mail; its an actual memo. My professor explained the importance of early childhood education and ended his lecture with this. I don't know the writer of this document but it has so much truth packed into it I had to share it. Sometimes my university weakens my love for people, it makes me think they are all ignorant. However, this warmed my heart. Placing value on a child's life is a good place to be. It has been hard for me to take in the contradicting lessons being taught by my university. On the one hand we have Special Education; Every child/adult with a disability has potential, they just need more support to reach it. There is tremendous value placed on human life. Even in the case of parents finding out their child will be born with a disability, there are organizations in place advocating for the child's life. When I go into my next class we talk about abortion like its just a fact of life. It's the Burger King slogan except its talking about life "Have it your way."

Semester wrap up...

As this semester is about to end I would like to reflect upon all the reflections I have written. Reflections had always been an enjoyable experience. I love talking, writing is no different. Pouring over everything I learned through class lectures and observations were once fun. Now I feel like there is nothing new coming out of me. I have not witnessed anything new from my observations. They ask the same questions, telling me the same answers. I can only repeat myself so many times in so many different ways.

I am burnt out and I'm not finished. My longest project is due Monday. I feel like everything I have written in the past week sounded as if a 3rd grader wrote it. My brian has been overloaded with paying attention. I can't do it anymore. No more paying attention, if this carries over and it seems like I am ignoring you, I am. But not on purpose.

I'm supposed to me writing a paper right now, whoops.

My Favorite Moz Church

I know that there isn't any audio to this video... I don't have a high-tech camera. This was my absolute favorite church experience in Mozambique. Erica Snyder took us to her home church. It was a pretty long bus ride out to get there. We also had to walk behind all the big buildings on the main road and walk through peoples yards or alleys to get there. It was funny to see people in their natural routines of the day and see their faces totally shocked to see a white person walking through their back pathway. Now these people don't really have yards. There are tiny houses with dirt paths between them and they are kind of a no mans land, everyone is free to walk through. Unlike in America, if I was some stranger walking through my backyard I might hide in my room with my cell phone. It was also funny to see all the NON church goes. They just hang out in the shade eating chamusa and drinking tea. This is a Chanusa.......

In my neighborhood those people would be jogging around the block in order to fit in their favorite jeans, or out in their yards fertilizing and mowing their lawns. I must say that Mozambicans have the better idea sitting around eating fried food rather than using physical energy to make something nonessential "better"

Trying to be thrify

I am just giving up. I realize that while I am in America I can be thrifty to only a certain degree. I fell in love with a French press and an electric kettle while overseas...so I bought one. THEN My best friend ambushed me and booked us for Pedicure appointments (totally a lie. I really wanted a pedi so bad! I kept saying how nasty my feet were). I feel pretty guilty about spending so much money so soon after getting back from Mozambique. But Honestly I know that God has blessed us to be in these kind of economic situations for his greater purpose. If I didn't live in Suburbia and know all the blessed people that I know, I would not have been able to raise the funds to go on such a trip and learn all the things that God has taught me through this incredible experience. God takes such good care of me. I am jumping back onto my budget plan as soon as I start getting regular pay checks once again. Don't judge me! lol Oye

Back Home

Traveling is always an adventure. I was blessed enough to experience the craziness of African Airports with my entire Discovery team. Our original plan was to be back in America on Saturday morning at 11:30am. God obviously knew we needed more time to get adjusted back into American culture. We ended up being split among three flights leaving from Maputo, Mozambique to JoBurg, South Africa. Five of us were able to spend the night in South Africa at a missionaries house. Her name is Leah Preston and she is an awesome lady. The next morning four more of our team flew into JoBurg and we were able to all hang out at this beautiful guest house. The temp was about 48F we had all packed for Mozambique weather so we were chilled. But Leah took great care of us and had tons of sweatshirts and blankets for us to not be uncomfortable. There was a hot shower is water pressure! You don't know what you have until its gone. She also made us Pizza! Pepperoni Pizza! You can not get pepperoni in Africa, you have to import it! So that was the best tasting Pizza I have had! Needless to say we all got to finish up our togetherness and bonding time. I was really sad because two of us got back to the airport just in time to catch their next flight so I didn't get to say a second goodbye :( The first goodbye was a little hectic trying to get everyone out on a flight and splitting up the group.

It was a little different coming home and having my family expect me to start where I had left off. Everyone made it seem like I should be overly excited to FINALLY come home. I don't think they understand how much I love Nampula and the people I worked with. I have found that most people want to update me on their lives over the past six weeks rather than ask about my trip. I knew that was to be expected but I didn't realize that it would happen so fast.

So, I am a bad blogger

I have been informed that I am bad at blogging. BUT Africa internet is kinda here and there. I haven't had the opportunity to sit down for a moments peace and think about everything that has happened.

Now things have kinda slowed down and there are less people in the house. Im sitting quietly at our kitchen table with a full blasting wifi connection so I figured now is the time if ever to write a freaking long blog.

So far, I am one of the three people on the Disco team that are not linguist majors that have stayed here at SIL. Jess, Brad and I have been the interns on campus here and have had oodles of jobs to do. I really love working with all of these missionaries and pastors. We are the lucky three who get to stay here the whole trip and not really travel far away from the home base.

The original plan was for me to teach at Morning Star academy for next week. Kelly the 3rd and 4th grade teacher was supposed to travel to Beira with Jess. Well, in Africa things can fall through and plans always change. I was asked last week in I minded not teaching because for one thing Kelly isn't traveling now and that week there is a Africa Inner Mission conference and there will be swarms of people on the Campus and it will be crazy. So I was asked if I would be willing to be an assistant to one of the head honcho's and help her do all the crazy jobs she has. I told them that I was totally fine being her assistant and doing whatever they needed me to do. I asked if I would still be able to get time in the school if that meant only observing a couple days or something than that would be fine. So I was telling people that God has a sense of humor because I thought the only thing I would be qualified to do here was teach and then I got a ton of responsibility thrown on me. I started helping Susan grocery shop to feed 60 people for a week! They have tea time twice a day too! That was a pretty interesting situation. It was like Costco shopping at Aldi. So I had a couple of odd jobs here and there plus some computer work that my laptop came in handy for. The third day of my assistant position type job Hilary came into breakfast and said "Kelly got food poisoning. Can you teach thing morning?" Mind you this was 30min before school started! SO of course I was like SURE! Kelly was awesome and already had her lesson plans written out for me. The kids were also practicing for a play so after 12:30 I was done teaching for the day. I already knew the oldest boy in class. He is David's son Ben. Ben is an awesome kid with tons of energy and long blond hair. Words so a really bad job at describing him. I only had 7 students in class and I got to grade their homework! Of course the Kumon way of grading papers if different than the rest of the world so one of the poor kids thought she got everything wrong on her paper but she got them all right! OYE. I quickly got the hang of how Kelly grades and then everything was just fine.

Tim is now in a different province than I am. I'm not quite sure of the name of the city. We get to talk on the phone about once a week. Texting is relatively cheap so thats mostly how we communicate. The cell phones here are so cute. They only make phone calls and texts! I didn't know such a simple phone could exist. The team who just left the SIL campus here took the same bus stop as the boys so we sent them with a care package to give the guys for their last week of recording. I gave Tim a package of Ramen noodles and a dark chocolate peanut butter packet.

Jess and I have become pro's at living here in Nampula. We know where all the churches are. We know all the pastors here and the missionaries. They know us by name and ask us to do lots of cool stuff for them. My current project is organizing Africa clip art and making it easy to search for then we will load it on the new website that Jess is designing. Somehow I always end us closest with the artistic people! She is a design major in Canada. She is also Chinese. So now I have 3 asian friends! HA.

I remember the first week I was here wearing flip flops grossed me out because there is just sand everywhere. I always hate sand getting in between my toes and getting me feet dirty. I don't really know what it says about me now that I am completely OK with wearing flip flops and everyone's feet here are in a permanent state of dirtiness. I was paranoid and only wore shoes into town. Now I'm over it and wear my flip flops everywhere.

I AM SOOO EXCITED ABOUT THIS NEXT PIECE OF NEWS!!!

So David was so kind to find Jess and I a new place to stay during the huge AIM conference next week. We get to move in with one of the teachers named Erika. She lives downtown in an apartment. Its owned by the misison organization. And it looks like a Penthouse compared to the place we are staying in now. Our house right now is perfectly fine. We have everything we need. Its just that we don't have an oven so cooking has been my arch enemy. I hate cooking on a hot plate! BUT We have overcome our distain and now know how work it out.

I love going to the market and buying fruit and vegetables that the people grow themselves! I will from now on always bleach my fruit and veggies when I get home. I never realized how nasty that stuff can be. My mom always would harp on my to wash my fruit but I think bleaching does a much better job.

MOM: p.s There are water filters everywhere. I have never needed my own water filter.

IF I didn't make it clear this penthouse we are moving into has an OVEN! And Erika LOVES to bake! SO we will be making cookies!!!!! I GET TO EAT COOKIES!

I'm not going to lie the cooks here are really good bakers. We have had chocolate cake for tea time once a week! AMEN. Part of my jobs for Susan involved working in the kitchen. All the kitchen staff speak only Portuguese. SO I had to learn a couple helpful words. I know all their names and they know me now so if I need anything they always come out and check on me!

I love it!

They also have a hot sauce here called Piri Piri. Pronounced more like Pidi Pidi. You have to kinda roll your R. I just flip it cause we all know how I am with rolling my R.

I did however get to take a phonology class here lead by my team mates. Mainly because the head of the linguistics department wanted me to participate because I was I thought it was interesting but I didn't know anything about it so I didn't feel qualified to work with them. It turned out really great and I found out tons about how they develop alphabets for these languages and how they work along side the native speaker to get everything right.

OK I think that is enough for now. Tomorrow is church day. I am playing in the worship band! YAY ok I will write again later about all the other really wild stories that I can't remember right now.

Day 7

Today is our first day without anything scheduled. Tomorrow we get to go Moz churches which will be amazing!! This week has been intense and for a lack of better vocabulary "Face melting." We have one week with real linguistically legit people telling us about the languages in the country. Its really interesting and interactive. They have us practice making sounds that the English vocab does not have. So its pretty funny to listen to us try like fools to shape the sounds. This afternoon is free time so a bunch of us are going to go into town and shop. We know our way around so its pretty cool to be a grown up and not have to hold someone's hand to go shopping. My Portuguese is pretty basic. Spanish really did help me have a good base to pick up. I know all my numbers up to 200 in spanish and they are basically the same in Port. so Shopping is a breeze. They add a lot of SH and Ch/Sh to the send of words so I get a little confused but can basically figure it out.

Most of our group will be leaving Monday to go out with the missionaries in other provinces of Moz. They couldn't find somewhere for me to go and stay for a week like everyone else. But I'm so OK with that. I'm really excited to get to stay here and really get to know the school and the teachers. Hillary, David's wife wants me to be able to go and observe at the schools in the city and in the neighborhood. One really interesting cultural thing I learned is that when people are listening to what you are saying they aren't necessarily looking you square in the eye. Because, well, we listen with our ears not our eyes. HA! I have not gotten a chance to get to see how this effects the classroom but I'm sure it will be an experience!

As for roughing it in Moz, we are totally in for a cushy stay. We don't have lots of water pressure in our shower and there really isn't even heat. But it's not like at home where the water is freezing and will give you hypothermia if you take a cold shower. Its somewhere between room temp. and chilly. When we are really desperate we boil water and take a hot sponge bath. I'm planning that for tonight!