Terror in Tibet, of Olympic Proportions...

The political situation between the Chinese government and the people of Tibet, led by the Dalai Lama has been one of extreme tension for years now as 2 very powerful forces have fought over the issue of independance and sovereingty. Now, as the Olympics approach in Beijing, the world is watching as one of the most powerfully dominant countries is home to one of the greatest events in history. Having a tenous relationship with many world leaders and a human rights record that many question with their own internal policies, their Communist leadership and their involvement with factions within countries such as Sudan, China is one of the more controversial hosts to welcome the world for the Olympic Games.

As the torch was lit last week to travel around the world before beginning the games on 08.08.08, many watched as China and Tibet's sparring increased to higher levels and resulted in peaceful demonstrations turning to violence.

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader to the Tibetan people, a Nobel Peace prize laureate and the most famous Buddhist monk in the world, has always prided himself in being a man of peaceful resistance and inciting change through peace and commitment to resist the ideals that are morally offensive to what he stands for politically, socially or spiritually. Currently living in exile, the Dalai Lama must be given credit for standing up to the huge force called the Red Dragon in many ways. Sadly, this month he has watched as many of his Tibetan countrymen have been viciously killed in attacks, many being some of the most peaceful buddhists in the world. For the great work that the Dalai Llama has achieved, there is a change coming. Sadly, as interviewed in Newsweek this month, he says there is a new wave of Buddhist activitists, those, whom like the freedom fighters in South Africa, are willing to take up arms and begin violence to create change. Though I understand the sentiments, and don't truly comprehend the frustration, i hope that this does not become the final option for change. Living in South Africa, I have seen the power of peaceful debate and the pain left due to political activism through violence. It usually always end with too many dead, most being lost within the weaker group.

As questions begin of whether or not to boycott the Olympics because of China's record, Germany's Angela Merkel elluded to this in the positive while Condoleeza Rice made comments to the contrary. While China's record might be in question, I think there is no greater time for the world to come together and participate in globe building and cultural exchange such as the Olympics. When August begins, I pray that when the swimmers dive off the starting blocks and the gymasts land off the balance beams, countries will come together, people will communicate and it will be a stage where a step closer to social justice through change will occur...

He's almost gone...

CNN is reporting that the Movement for Democratic Change leader, Morgan Tsvingari is quite possibly the next President of Zimbabwe. As government controlled media has been slow to release the results since last Saturday and there have been minimal international news outlets allowed in the country, the facts aren't completely known.

There are talks of a possible runoff election between Tsvingari and Mugabe for the presidential post, but, lets hope that within the next few days the votes are correctly counted and Mugabe is unseated, no longer the powerful, destructive, murderous president of one of the best nations on the globe.

A Beautiful Day...

There's nothing much more peaceful or much more amazing than witnessing the power, the presence and the peace of animals in their natural habitats. The only more peaceful is when you have U2 playing in the background...

Ange and I went for the weekend away on Safari and to the Panorama Route in the Mpumalanga Province. It was one of the most fun, relaxing, beautiful weekends. We toured some amazing places, saw some incredibly beautiful animals and again, I realized how blessed I am.

So many have so little, I get to see so much.

As I watched a rhino walking about 10 feet from my car and I heard Bono sing "its a beautiful day", I couldn't do much more than just sit in awe as the sun set in the mountainous sky...

"Declaring War on Fat and Laziness"

I have lived in Zimbabwe, Spain, the US and now here and I must say I believe that I am a respectful, "PC" type guy. I like America, I dont agree with everything America does, but, I am proud of many things that embody America. I am proud to be American, some days more than others, but, nonetheless, I like being a combination of Zimbabwe, Britain and the States. I also like people who are nice.

It's difficult traveling the world and finding people who HATE America, who think we are horrible instigators of everything that is evil. I understand many of the viewpoints they come from and many I would agree with, but, even in that, I would never present things the way some people present them. There are many things that I don't like about South Africa, but, choosing to focus on the positive, I am here and I enjoy it. Although many things that America does are wrong, many things that America does are right. The point of this post though is not to get serious about those issues, because I could "argue" and debate many of the different sides to that coin, living in both countries to the person that is yelling about it while sipping his McDonalds and wearing his Nike's. The point of this post is to truly dissect the image that America has given to this one man, sitting on the couch at my bible study.

For one of my best friends bachelor's here, about 8 of us guys hit up BOOT CAMP. We did huge mud rolls and drops, ran and swam through swamps, jumped hurdles, went through sand pit cargo net routines, over rope swings and got tons of pushups in - it was a ton of fun, with or without, Sargeant Viper. We all ended up mud ridden, tired, and laughing quite a lot.

The night before Ange and I went to dinner with very close friends, Casey and Gareth and I was telling about how easy its been over the past almost 3 years to make friends with South Africans, how the cultures collide and how I feel that I have transitioned. We then discussed the typical "we hate america" experiences I had when I first got here, sadly all with Christians. The first one, was the one that stuck out the most. My 2nd week here in SA, back in 2005, my first bible study I came to - the conversation went like this:

Me: Yes, Im from America.

Rogan: Wow, all Americans are fat and lazy.

Me : (looking at my self thinking, well, im not fat, and im here in Africa, so I really can't be lazy)

Fast forward to this weekend. After me recounting this to Gareth and Casey and their horror at someone being so rude, Gareth and I pull in to the BOOT CAMP parking lot. As we are getting out, I say "uuh, hahaha, uuh, Gareth, look at the sign!!!"

BOOT CAMP: DECLARING WAR ON FAT AND LAZINESS

Apparently, I was in the right place....

Come in from the Cold

As I woke up on Sunday morning, I could feel the cold breath in my room as my face tingled with the small sensation that winter was upon us here in South Africa. As I lay underneath the comforter and leaned over to the window by my bed, I felt the cool air throughout the room cause me to want to roll back over and sleep until summer. I opened up the curtain to my bedroom window and the rain was pouring down, the mud was rising on the side of the building embankment and the trees looked like they were dripping in frost. It was cold, very cold, and one of those miserable days that beds became your best friend again and soup is your last meal.

Because Ange had been quite sick the day before and was battling what sounded like the flu, we decided to give church a skip and everything else that day. I braved the cold and the rain to get some food, some Energade, some soup, some medicines and some DVD’s. As I ran into the grocery store, the DVD store, the petrol station and the rain poured down my sweatpants and my sneakers, I thought of how miserable it was outside – it was just plain cold. I got home, made some lunch and Ange took her medicine. We set up for a day in – watching some good DVD’s and some bad DVD’s, but, hey, we were in inside. As the day continued on, the rain pounded on the roof and the windows steamed over from the temperature difference and we read books, laughed, took medicine, ate, relaxed and enjoyed being able to have a place to “seek shelter”.

It was about 4:30pm and I had just woken up from a nap on the couch, my book on my chest and my leg thrown over the side and looked outside. As I stared out over the grass through the raindrops freezing on the glass, I thought about the millions of people outside, sitting in their shacks, with their leaking roofs and their concrete floors, shivering, some, to death. In South Africa alone, there are millions of people living in squatter camps and informal settlements that, unlike us, have no warm place to lay their head and have nothing to help them escape the harsh realities of being one thing - and that is poor.

Every day I drive past the squatter camp situated outside the JAM complex and I see the thousands of people living in the cold, walking through the mud with their umbrellas to a place where there wont be a huge TV to distract them from every day, a nice warm bed to welcome them or a nice hot shower to help relax every muscle in their body. As I drive past, I truly wonder – why and how? How can I help? How can I go home to my house, sheltered from the cold and realize that so many 3 year old’s are shivering through the winter months? Why am I the one that gets into my car to leave the store while watching a family of 4 black children with their Dad, waiting, hoping, wanting a public bus home? Why? How? These are hard questions to answer, but, I do know, that potential lies in our attitudes of thankfulness and our lifestyles of action. We can’t change the fact that we are those whom have been given so much, but, we can, with gratitude, thank GOD and with action, help so many others. As America and Europe plunge into spring and summer, remember those last cold moments and how blessed life is, and what you can do, to make someone else’s….

The Cost of Commodity

Across the world today, each and every person is seeing rising costs everywhere, fuel skyrocketed to over $106 a barrel this week, the dollar is weakening, home prices are high and the real estate market is bursting in almost every major city, all very important and life-altering issues…and then there is food.

Millions of people a day are fed through international aid and development programming. Across Africa, Asia, South and Central America and Eastern Europe, millions of poverty stricken, malnourished, dying children are being fed through international food aid programming being distributed through the United Nations World Food Programme, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), SIDA, the Department for International Development UK (DFID) and then through organizations like the one I work for, Joint Aid Management (JAM). These agencies operate on budgets of millions of dollars to try and affect as many children, women and families as possible, entering into war-torn countries, disaster ridden areas and developing nations with food assistance and with sustainable programming, with their main aim to reach the Millenium Development Goals (MDG’s) and assist as many developing countries as possible.

In all of those operations come the costs, and as we all feel the rising costs everywhere, now the people to feel it most, according to a recent United Nations report will be…the poor. The UN World Food Program has just warned that it will not have enough money to keep global malnutrition “at bay” due to the rising costs of food and is now considering discontinuing programs or suspending certain operations. Iraq’s food distribution program, which at one point delivered food to families on a monthly basis had an average cost of $3 billion. Now, the Iraqi government has announced that these program costs have ballooned to over $7 billion due to the rising inflation and massive price hikes of food, yet, within their country, 1 in 4 children under the age of 5 are severely malnourished and approximately 3 million Iraqi’s need food assistance. The rising price of cereals such as maize and wheat is growing to be a worldwide concern and due to these issues, humanitarian aid agencies can only bring in the half the amount of food with the same amount of money from donors. All across the world, changes are being made, even within 2nd tier countries such as Mexico and Thailand where they are having to make a choice between healthcare, education and…food.

The purse is tightening, the wallet is feeling the crunch and things at the local Walmart might be seeming a little more expensive. In that though, the international donor community must remember those billions of people living in the 3rd world, relying on food assistance and aid programming for life. On that Friday night, as you are pulling the cart away from the frozen food section and you realize that you cant buy that tub of Edy’s ice cream for the weekend party, remember those countries where organizations have not enough money, not enough petrol, not enough food…leaving people…standing on the road…with absolutely nothing to eat.

A Crisis of Leadership....

I don’t understand why today, in an era where countries are world powers and people all over the globe can become national leaders, there seems to be a huge crisis of leadership. What does one expect from a leader? Some might say that they are just like the common citizen with the same common problems and the same common mistakes. That view might be true, but, I think that when you take a position of leadership within an organization, but, even more so, within a country, and then on the world stage, there is a certain requirement on you to act in a certain matter.

Today, as the media and Internet is a buzz with the possible resignation of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (D), the nation has seen yet another leader make decisions that have single-handedly ruined a very promising political career, his reputation and quite possibly his family. I am reminded of Sen. Larry Craig (R), Governor McGreevey (D), Congressman Foley (R) and the most famous, President Clinton. Why does this happen? Why do people, in leadership make very ill-conceived decisions, in a world where billions of people could be great leaders, where billions of people are relying on people of stature and of moral compass? Now, its not that, as Republicans, Democrats, Buddhists, Christians, Athiests, Muslims or people of other political and national backgrounds, we need to always regulate other people’s moral compasses to confine to religious or political standards, but, it does mean that we expect our leadership to act as if they are leaders. Leaders are people who lead…they are men or women whom are there to inspire, to uplift, to take charge … of followers. To the people who might say that it really isn’t of huge consequence or of huge interest to the common citizen, I disagree, Eliot Spitzer was the most “googled” subject yesterday, Governor Spitzer was the 2nd, New York Governor was the 3rd and prostitution was the 4th. Google is the largest search engine in the world. Failed leadership is something that should concern us, apparently it also makes money.

Now, as a common citizen, I, in no way am claiming that while throwing the speck at these leaders, that I am perfect, and have no log lodged in the corner of my eye. I make decisions on a frequent basis that are irresponsible and are not of the best nature, and I am nowhere near perfect, but, I am not leading one of the largest states in the world and I was not elected to represent millions of people.

I, in no way, expect our leaders to be more than human and faultless. I don’t expect them to always agree with my moral views as mine differ from many of even my own faith, but, I do expect them to act as responsible, controlled and even inspiring contributors to the social structure they were elected to lead.

Maybe as time goes on, as the decades roll, we should stop requiring that type of moral and social obligation from our leaders, when that day comes, that would be a tragedy….