Breaking through Barriers

By: Penina Romanek

Intern, J-Internship Program

            While interning for ENP, I have learned how forming meaningful relationships can break through any type of barrier. I was apprehensive at the beginning of interning because I thought only speaking a little bit of Hebrew would hinder me in forming connections with the children. However, I have not felt that at all.

Sharing a common language is not the foundation in which relationships are built upon. When I communicate with the children, I smile and show through my body language how much I care about them. They do the same onto me. One of the best parts of my day is when I enter the youth center and then hear, “Penina!” coming from the voices of the girls. The girls then run up to me and give me a hug and even the boys make a point to show me they remember the songs I taught them on the piano.

           

    I am so grateful for the opportunity ENP has given me to be a positive role model and to see the beauty that is inside each and every child. Seeing them smile and express themselves is what has made my experience in Israel fulfilling. Just like the children and I are breaking through language barriers to form meaningful relationships with one another, Ethiopian-Israeli youth are breaking through the barriers of coming to a new country. I have the unique opportunity to witness the youth realize their potentials, and I am so thankful.

Before We GO

This week I will be attending three lectures given by faculty of the University of Notre Dame Haiti.

1-Fr. Jean Marcel, OMI. Fr. Marcel is the Dean of the UNDH and a specialist in Education and Governance. He has extensive experience in working with agricultural sector in rural villages in Haiti. He will be directing our field school in Haiti.

The title of his lecture is “Challenges for a Sustainable Education System in Post-earth Quake Haiti and the Role of UNDH.”

2-Fr. Jacques Brunet, OMI. Fr. Jacques has been working with the poor peasants in the Haiti over 10 years. He is currently involved in many development projects in Southern Department of Haiti. He has specialized in Philosophy and Theology.

He will speak on the “Lives of Peasants in Haiti: Issues, Challenges, and the Limitations of Current International Aid.

3-Rev. Sister Marie-Judith Dupuy, S.S.A. Sr. Judith is the director of Haitian Apostolate Ministry of the Dioceses of Worcester. She directs several projects that are aimed at improving the educational status of the poor in the Les Cayes region in Southern Department of Haiti. She Pioneered the Bishop Collignon Business School at the UNDH, which specializes in secretarial entrepreneurship education and training for women. In addition she also directs several education related projects for poor children.

Sr. Judith will speak on the “Experiences and Challenges of Partnerships between Worcester and Haiti: Pathways to building a Sustainable Haiti.

In addition we will also have three students from UNDH who will contribute to our discussion.

Trip To Haiti

Dear Friends and Family,

As my twenty-second birthday and Thanksgiving are approaching I look around and see all that I have to be thankful for; wonderful family and friends, a fantastic college education (almost a degree), and a more than comfortable life with an apartment and plenty of food to eat (even if I'm not the best cook). This thanksgiving I have the opportunity to go to Haiti and do more than simply be thankful for my wonderful life, I have the chance to celebrate by trying to help others and potentially improve their lives. I will be working on a research initiative with students from my University and a partner University in Haiti to develop sustainable agriculture projects in a rural area. In addition to this research opportunity I also have the ability to bring much needed relief supplies with me as checked luggage.

I am hoping to raise the funds to purchase:

1-School supplies for children (pens, pencils, erasers, notebooks)

2-Sports items (e.g. soccer balls)

3-Over the counter medicine (Advil, Tylenol)

4-Tents (for families who are still without shelter as a result of the earthquake)

For those of you who may have sent cards, money, or gifts for my birthday please considering sending a donation for the purchase of these items. Additionally, as you begin to think about all of the wonderful things in your life that you are grateful for please think about helping to provide basic necessitates to others have not been as fortunate.

Please feel free to send this note to anyone and everyone you think may be interested

Thanks in advenced for your support,

Rachel

To donate: email me at RaGeber@clarku.edu

A puppy named GAN GANS

Monday I went to my internship at Friendly Haven and a puppy squirmed through the gate, a little itsy bitsy guy. He was all messy and covered in dirt and so so cute, so we named him Gan Gans which is Damara Nama for Thank you. He is just about the cutest thing I have ever seen, and clearly too little to take care of himself, and the shelter couldn't keep him... So, naturally I went against CGE house rules, and brought him home! We snuck him in and took care of him for the night (after I had a colleague who has veterinary training give him a once over.)

He was so fun, and cute, and everyone had so much fun playing with him. But we knew we couldn't keep him, so we took him to the SPCA yesterday, where they told us he had worms, and ticks, and needed to stay there to get medical treatment. So, we left him with them to get better and hopefully to get adopted! I was sad to leave him, but they promised to call when he gets adopted, and they said we could visit him too!!

It was fun while it lasted!

Me vs Africa take two...

It seems that I always lose. We went to the South of Namibia last weekend, to meet with different NGOs and campsite managers- We stayed at a government, private, and community campsite. The weekend was really fun, we pitched our own tents, cooked our food over the fire, ad slept on the rock hard ground. It was nice to be traveling again, but by the end of the weekend I aged about 25 years, sleeping on the ground did not do good things for me. Nothing too exciting happened-then we returned back north, (in the meantime I did read the Kite Runner which was amazing) Anyway on our first dat back it was business as usual, back to my internship. On the way home the taxi I was in got pulled over by a cop and refused to show him his license. Then the cop called for reinforcements and told the driver he was going to arrest him. I was literally cracking up, watching the guy argue with the cop and the cop was losing it, it was insane. Then after several minutes of their bantering all the passengers decided to jump ship, so my friend and I did the same. We spent the rest of the day cutting quilt squares without any of the proper tools, and making christmas cards which is clearly my specialty. 

Then tuesday was the hour of power- Which is an hour spent in the pool swimming, to raise awareness and funds for Sarcoma research, in honor of Ted Mullin. My friend Catherine's family started the hour of power after losing her brother Ted to Sarcoma. So, we had a CGE Namibian Amphibian hour of power team. Almost all of us were there and it was really nice, everyone had a lot of fun, until I began throwing up about halfway through. `Little did I know that was only the beginning. Within an hour I was literally doing nothing but throwing up.  Fast forward to that night, can't keep water down, take a trip to the hospital. We went to a really nice private hospital in a nice part of windhoek and they saw me right away (and charged me an arm and a leg too). Anyway, I was sick from tuesday until today, and now finally I can eat real food, and get dressed and do something other than just watching movies. 

So that was my crazy week, where Africa definitely kicked my butt. 

Adventures in Zambia and Zimbabwe

After leaving the Refugee camp we went a bit further up north (like an hour or so) to where the nearest paved road was - I have a new appreciation for tar- and ten of us were dropped off at a gas station, around 4 o'clock to wait for our 10 pm bus to Zambia. After killing an inordinate amount of time we finally boarded our 16 hour bus to Victoria Falls Zambia. It was a very rough start, involving a truly Namibian queue, which is a total mass of people pushing and shoving. Once we did finally get onto the bus there were almost no seats. I ended up next to a mom with a small child (or large baby) on her lap, which is code word for... a mother taking up her seat and part of mine, with a baby kicking me, and bottles being stored in the small of my back, bags piled up so my chin and knees were abnormally close- and the general feeling of misery that would accompany this inhuman position I was in for 4 hours. Finally the bus cleared out and I switched to sit with a friend- while the seats were still insanely small, it was slightly more comfortable having no personal space with a friend over a stranger, and at least friends can be used as pillows!!!

Eventually (what seemed like eons later) we arrived in Zambia, went through customs, got our visas and stamps in our passports, and within a few hours we were in the town of Victoria Falls. Our hostel was absolutely gorgeous, the nicest backpacker's I have ever stayed at! There were mango trees, and a pool, a bar, two separate comfy pillow areas, some hammocks, and many extremely well built kayakers from all over the world.

The first day we just hung around the hostel and walked around town. I went to the ATM and i was a millionaire- I took out 1 million kwachas (zambian currency) and still had millions left in the bank- It was a great feeling!!!! The next day we went to see Victoria Falls, hiked on top of the falls where water covers during rainy season but since it is dry season we were literally at the top of the falls walking along the edge. I even climbed down the falls a bit and took some pictures with a small water fall!! (Probably not the safest-sorry mom- but I survived!)

The next day we went to Zimbabwe to see the falls from the other side. The Zimbabwe side has much more water this time of year, so we got to see the larger falls and get soaking wet from all the mist. In addition, we got to see the rain-forest that exists only immediately across from the falls, because of the amount of mist. With the rain-forest came baboons. This was quite exciting at first, until one went ape shit- literally- and attacked a woman, try to steal her bag, and then ran around and charged at us!! After hiking around the falls we walked around the town of Livingstone. There were a lot of craft shops and at one I found a ceramic mezuzah with a giraffe on it. But because Zim switched to the US dollar and we were in a tourist town everything was pretty expensive. 

After a day in Zim we headed back to Zambia and made plans for the rest of our trip. Most of the group left on Wednesday but I stayed with a couple others to do more activities. We took micro-light flights over the falls, which were essentially hang-gliders with engines, that hold two people. It was so amazing, and slightly terrifying, but it was the best view of the falls you could possibly have. We also saw hippos, a heard of elephants, crocodiles, and a giraffe. Then we went to a crocodile farm, and on the way we literally drove past a heard of elephants. Later that day I went with a friend to the Devil's armchair, which is a pool at the top of the waterfall where the water is rushing down, but there is a ledge that prevents you from being washed over- this was possibly the coolest thing I have ever done in my life. The next day we went horse back riding along the Zambezi River which was lots of fun and pretty relaxing until my horse went crazy and almost fell off a steep ledge into the water and I jumped off to save myself and landed directly on my tailbone, which is still killing me a week later!!! Not to mention I jumped off, landed ungracefully on my butt, and then was in so much pain I was crying hysterically and rolling around in the elephant poop I fell into. Not my finest moment, that is for sure. But on a happier note I was within ten feet of a baby giraffe and a heard of water buffalo. To make this insane day that much better, after horseback riding we went on a safari cruise with free alcohol. We saw lots of animals, and had a a little bit of wine. There must have been something wrong with the South African wine we consumed because within twenty minutes of returning from the cruise everyone that had wine (1 glass-4 glasses) was throwing up. I guess I was extra sensitive, because I didn't have any more than I normally have on passover and yet I threw up about twenty times in 6 hours. This was clearly the only way to perfect my already ridiculous day of pain!! I spent the next day recovering, and hanging around the hostel with other travelers. Then spent saturday shopping for gifts at the marketplace and walking around Livingstone. By Sunday I was ready to come back to Windhoek but I would have done just about anything not to board that awful bus again. However, there was no choice, so we got on the bus for 20 hours of semi paved, unlit roads, crammed with people, that went from excruciatingly hot to ridiculously cold. I survived, despite the remnants of my horse injury, and at 7:30 am on monday morning we arrived in Windhoek. By 10 I was at my internship for a full day of work-needless to say it was brutal!

The miserable 36 hours total spent on the bus were totally worth it because Victoria Falls is the most amazing place I have ever seen, I enjoyed it almost as much as I love visiting Israel! Which is obviously saying something. Now that I'm back in Windhoek though it is time to get to work, we have about 8 assignments at least in the next 4 weeks!! 

The North

After a week at the rural homestay we left to drive further North. We did two days of Game Drives through Etosha- where essentially we drive in our busses through the park and stop a lot to take a million pictures. We saw lions, giraffes, elephants, two rhinos (one was dead), zebras, peacocks, warthogs, water buffalo, basically almost everything.  We even saw a dead giraffe and the lions that had eaten it were resting under a tree right next to it- it was crazy, disgusting, and smelly. While staying in Etosha we also got to visit a snake farm for a short demonstration on poisonous snakes- Then we drove further North, near the Angolan Border. We met with a few non-profit organizations like the red cross, and had a bunch of free time. We also went to visit a Dam on the border of Angola, where we got to hop over the border for a few minutes (I peed in Angola) and then we spent the rest of the morning rock climbing and hanging out at the Dam. We also visited an official border crossing as well, but we didn't have visas so we stayed in Namibia and looked at Angola. While we didn't really do much in the North it was pretty great because we stayed in gorgeous guesthouses with TV and air conditioning-so we were all happy!!! 

On the drive back down we stopped at a refugee camp, which I was very excited about. I requested at the beginning of the semester to arrange a visit for myself and any of my interested classmates to go to a camp, but in the end the director arranged for all of us to visit one in the north. We went to Osire which is a camp predominantly for Angolan refugees, but it also houses refugees from the DRC, Sierra Leone, Liberia etc. In terms of refugee camps it is relatively well established and has been around since the 90's- the school has been around since early 2000. We met with teachers at the school there who are all refugees and they talked to us about their lives there. They told us that being a teacher was one of the few jobs available for refugees within the camp and that refugees are restricted from leaving the camp regularly and can mostly only leave on day permits that can be difficult to obtain frequently. The teachers expressed a general sense of hopelessness about the lack of opportunity in the camps. We were also informed that their food rations had been cut in half and the UNHCR has been talking about shutting down the camp.

I was particularly taken aback by the dis-empowerment that took place by being preventing from making a living and relying solely on handouts from the UN and the government. It was so frustrating to talk to people who want to work and make a living and just have no way of doing so.  As sad as I was from this trip I was really happy that I had the opportunity to see firsthand such a controversial establishment that I have spent so much time learning and caring about.