REMEMBRANCE

REMEMBRANCE

I take a lot of heat for being a HOKIE, but none more so than in my very own hometown, which probably has something to do with its relative proximity to Charlottesville. I must say I love MY Virginia Tech for reasons that defy prestige on a page or points on a board; for me it´s personal. Virginia Tech, for me, is over 1,000 students coming together each week with hearts of worship; arms lifted high praising the one who gave it all at Campus Crusade for Christ. Virginia Tech is a group of my closest friends who always point to God and are always willing to serve, lead, sacrifice, and inspire. Young men and women who´s hope of changing the world is not a distant dream, but current reality. Virginia Tech for me are those who simply spend time loving on children as part of the Nicaraguan Orphan Fund, those who volunteer for Care for AIDS and those who go on Summer Project to evangelize and lead others in their Christian walk with the Lord. There are thousands and thousands more who personally reassure me each and everyday on campus that Michael and Marcus Vick are not our Legacy, but simply fuel for the fires of others who are set on burning.

For me, Virginia Tech is standing amidst mountain top removal cites with the Environmental Coalition, shuddering from the devastation and protesting the cradle to grave dependency on the archaically destructive energy source now choking our world ecosystem. For me, Virginia Tech is poetry that screams at injustice and thrashes against oppression. For me, Virginia Tech is cultivating peace in the Middle East, strategizing how to alleviate Failing States, combating extreme poverty in Latin America, and measuring ecological and human capital which is far more valuable than the figures of the world economist. For me, Viriginia Tech is holding downtrodden children in the streets of Ecuador and gasping at the wasteland American Petroleum Companies have left in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon. I know every university to have a similar story, but this is mine.

It´s April 16^th and though I may be many hundreds of miles away; my heart, my hope, and my tears are very much in Blacksburg. Today is a day of remembrance and healing. If I were at Tech we would not have class, so I would spend the day in the Chapel, surrounded by community, and most importantly deep in prayer. Today I would probably have had a coffee date with my favorite java buddy, my brother, Josh. We would have started the day in prayer, at some point both of us would have cried. We would talk about what it means to live for 32, but ache, pray, and lament for 33. After breakfast, we would probably take our Bibles to the Drill Field where we would discover and large group of friends. We would grieve, share stories of the friends we lost, reflect, be comforted by the Word, and praise God for goodness and mercy as the daffodils would be dancing in the Blacksburg breeze. Tonight there is a candle light service. Thousands will gather. Wax will melt down the trembling hands of masses of Hokies as they sing Amazing Grace; a VT Cadet will sound Taps through a quivering mute and a bell will chime thirty three times as the names are read aloud. It´s a somber and surreal scene.

Being a Hokie since 2007 has been shadowed by the tragedy in many difficult and beautiful ways. I distinctly remember at orientation, our leader´s worries about our perspective being the first class since 4-16-07. Postsecret is an art exhibit where people unveil secrets or confessions anonymously on post card sized images. Postsecret came to Virginia Tech after the tragedy as part of a traveling tour and healing exercise. I remember how emotional it was reading all the cards and i distinctly remember one that said, ¨I am very in love with my Virgina Tech, but I am still scared to go to class.¨ I remember calling my brother to ask about a Physical Chemistry exam he had jut finished the year the tragedy happened and students could elect to go back to take exams or not. He very emotionally said, ¨Rae, it was the worst exam of my life, but i just walked past Norris Hall (the building where the killings occurred) and somehow the problems and the grade doesn´t seem to matter anymore.¨

I come from a very patriotic family and I’m a patriot at heart and know a thing or two about Hokie pride. But nationalism can rear its nasty head. I shudder at the mutual animosity build up between Virginia and Virginia Tech and this small-scale nationalistic war we play. First, we pick sides, and then we deem ourselves more worthy and waste effort tearing others down, simply to build our own image up. I despise smack talk and believe it to have implications not fathomed. We put on our uniforms and mobilize and before long nationalistic pride is so consuming that the jerseys fade, the football disappears, and the collegiate ranking is overshadowed by the death toll. By witnessing this small town, big sound rivalry and observing through the lens of an anthropological ethnographic study, I see how Hitler could raise the Arian race against the Jews. I can barely see the line where we’re no longer are Cavaliers and Hokies, but Israelis and Palestinians, Sunnis and Shiites, Hutus and Tutsis, Serbs and Croats. I wave my red, white, and blue and I love my Virginia Tech, but I’m weary of conflict. Humility is truly the greatest weapon.

The dinner conversation with Papi Edi revolved around such grave and perplexing topics, which were, I guess circumstantially germane. We talked of war, of tragedy, of conflict, and of loss. I must say it was the most profound Spanish conversation that I have had to date. We spoke about how everyone cherishes Albert Einstein for his genius contributions, but he engineered death even before he had fully theorized relativity. Papi and I discussed how Einstein must have imagined Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He would have had to see the devastation or the potential thereof and yet he still created the atom bomb. Einstein is no hero. I talked about how absurd it is to walk the halls of the United States United Nations Headquarters in New York where there is a statue that once stood in Hiroshima, Japan. It’s beautiful, so mesmerizing that it draws you in; as you get closer you can see every intricately carved detail, when you round the corner to the other side, all you see the rippling impact of the blast. The other side is deformed slab of stone, seared and boiled, yet it becomes a work of art that stands beside Eleanor Roosevelt’s ethnic mosaic that reads “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s the chilling irony; all the time we are constructing or memorializing reminders, yet history never learns or atones.

Papi told me about a really good high school friend of his who is now a General for the US Armed Forces. His friend had told him about the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. Papi asked me, “Is it true? Is there really just a black wall of names that stretches for kilometros y kilometros?” The cold, concrete scribbled with lamentation and regret; dividing the two worlds, life and death, us against them, the dream versus the reality. Ecuador only knows of a territorial squabble with Peru, so Papi was asking me about what is like being a nation at war. I went to talk about US interference globally and as the words fell out I was taken aback. We’ve been at war for a nearly a decade; we’re still bleeding oil in the Middle East. To what is the point? I will never forget Papi´s statement, ¨The United States sends wawas to war.¨ That´s the word he used ´children´and unfortunately I couldn´t agree more.

We then talked of the media age and how the world calmly eats dinner in the CSI:NY morgue. We think that we have risen so far above the barbaric days where man was slaughtered for sport in the Great Coliseum in Rome. Yet, we boast a thriving multibillion dollar industry that reproduces horror for our enjoyment; the plasma flat screen just gives it a new dimension. As if Saw 4 wasn’t proof enough, are we not still entertained by watching the suffering of others?

With all of this swelling inside me, I talked about the tragedy of April 16^th with Papi. He wanted to know the details, how it was even possible. Armed guards at every entrance assure that Ecuador´s schools know no such violence, just it´s streets.

Here is the address Niki Giovanni gave on April 17, 2007, she´s an outstanding poet who I have had the privilege of workshopping with.

"We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech."

neVer forgeT... 4/16/07

As I said, I´m in Blacksburg today and everyday I´m a HOKIE.

Banana Boats & Farris Wheels

The majority of our Carnaval vacation was spent being chased by children armed with all sorts of water weapons, relaxing in hammocks with good Spanish books, or diving under the waves. One day we were walking on the shore in Salango and a Banana Boat businessman caught our attention. He was very convincing so we decided that a banana boat tour around the little island of Salango was just what we needed. As we wrapped up in 1970s style life jackets, some of the local Ecuadorian boys spotted our gringa gang and decided they were down for a sweet banana boat adventure as well. After all the fourth of July Jaws marathons, I had pretty much renounced banana boats completely, but for Ecuador I made an exception. We mounted the slippery peel and shot past all the small vessels of cheering fisherman. When we went to make the first turn around the island the speed boat looped a wide j hook into a 90 degree turn and we all groaned as we watched the slack in the bungee begin to shorten. The best way to describe what happened next is if you were to cut the wrong way when backing a six horse trailer. We did a 180 split axle and needless to say the entire banana peeled out, leaving all of us bobbing oranges with rope burns. As the taunting mariners circled back around to pick us up we chanted, “Este no fue chistoso,” they just continued to roar. This action repeated several times as we rounded the island. On the home stretch the ecua chicos were trying to knock one of their friends off the banana, they slipped and three of them were lost at sea. The drivers didn’t feel like swinging around to pick them up so they tore out the throttle and we all ended up swimming back to shore.

We decided that the banana boat experience was the best 3 dollars we spent all day and to our good fortune we now have some very sweet friends from the small town of Salango awaiting our return; one of us even landed an eight year-old boy friend, Braine. After a day of blistering in the sun (50 SPF at a constant reapplication rate and ratio, still isn´t enough for the powerful equator sun), we got back to our country roots, and hit the carnival scene. The dollar we spent on a endless fairswheel ride was soon regreted when we noticed the ratty twine and patch work duck tape healing wounds that should have been soundly welded, but alas, the mezcla of children´s laughter, rushing waves, flashing lights, and side commentary was quite enoyable.

On our last day we tagged along with a small fishing crew for some real life Discovery Channel´s Deadliest Catch experience. We dropped a line and rocked back and forth on the queasy waves, waiting for something to bite. After a few minutes I pulled up a beautiful Yellowbanded Perch and another one of us caught a cute little speckled guy.

We regretably wanted to throw our tropical fish back, but Ronaldo, the pro, went right to work.


One of us was tugging on what we thought might be a tiburon (Shark), but as it turned out her line was just stuck on a rock. The we starting to feel a little sea sick from all the tossing, so we begged ¨Okay, ocean, if you could calm down just a little right now that would be just lovely.¨ Such a comment of course insighted a biblical reference, so there was a reply of, ¨Who do you think your are, J-E-S-U-S?¨ Obviously we couldn´t calm the storm and several of us ended up in bad shape. We laid on the beach and caught and friendly family rivalry game of soccer then hit the hammocks for some siesta time, which proved to be all we needed.

That night we dined Ecuadorian style with arroz, frijoles, patacones, pescado a la planca, and una ensalada de frutas. Our night bus trip home was slightly eventuful since all roads leading back to Quito were having reported desclaves (mudslides), but we made it safe and sound just in time to shower and start the 1 and 1-2 hour trek to class.

Under the mosquito net….

One thing you must remember as a traveler in Ecuador is that once you leave the Andes and head towards sea level, it is good to have all your vaccines. We giggled and watched pirated Disney movies from beneath the mosquito nets hanging in our beach cabana, which proved to be more entertaining than utilitarian, since our malaria medicine and bug spray had already armed us with an extra layer of protection. Through all our jesting, I couldn’t help but think of the children playing in the puddles of stagnant water in the muddy streets who had no protection of any sort. I thought of all the times I’ve raised funds for the Nothin’ but Nets Campaign with UMCOR (the United Methodist Committee on Relief) and with UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Education Fund) and how, for me, malaria would be an uncomfortable three week inconvenience because I’m fortunate enough to have access to a La Hospital Metropoliana in Quito where I would also have insurance coverage. For the vast majority of people living on the coast or in el oriente in Ecuador, malaria could be a close call or devastating loss because many of the hospitals outside of the city are ill equip and those that have the means, value the reglas of bureaucracy far more than human life. But that’s the harsh reality isn’t it; people are dying in this world everyday from preventable diseases, while others are having cosmetic surgery. Both my Ecuadorian parents are surgeons and I see this as a struggle very close to their hearts. Mamí’s best friend just returned from Mumbai, India on medical mission. She’s a pediatrician which somehow makes her stories and her pictures even more soul shuddering. Needless to say, I have a newfound, very vivid perspective of the immense value of a simple mosquito net.

Carnaval 2K10: If Grace is an Ocean, We’re All Sinking

Carnaval 2K10:

If Grace is an Ocean, We’re All Sinking

Carnaval is by far the wildest, most celebrated holiday in all of Latin America which closely resembles Mardi Gras celebrations in the United States. Of course, we were off from school and while most of our compañeros were livin’ la vida loca and off to party cities like Ambato and Montanita, we soul sisters escaped to the humble little, fishing town of Puerto Lopez.

We took a sweaty night bus out of south Quito and jostled our way to Ecuador’s shoreline. After eleven hours of travel, we emerged to discover a quiet, coastal town with mud laden streets and a distinctly fishy aroma. We checked into our cabana like bungalow and took a quick nap before organic, Columbian brewed beans beckoned us from our bunk beds. We enjoyed breakfast from the top of a grassy hut on stilts, taking guesses at the mystery fresh fruit juice and watching the waves wax and wane upon the shore.

On our first day we decided to explore, La Playita, (a recommended spot from some friends at USFQ) a little secluded beach with gorgeous, eroded cliffs, scampering crabs, and strong currents. We soaked up the sun and enjoyed our pre-packed PB &J. After an adventurous and very scenic crawl over the mossy rocks, we were reprimanded by park police. Apparently, La Playita, is a sea turtle nesting ground and a no trespass zone in Parque Nacional Machalilla (¡whoops! Good lookin´ out guys); we, of course, apologized profusely. Puerto Lopez´s law enforcement officials were blatantly irked, but easily satisfied with our extranjero (foreigner) excuse of ¨oh, we just didn´t understand, lo siento;¨ however, the fully aware Ecuadorian locals who were simply evading Carnaval crowds, took some serious heat. We ended up walking to the next town of Salango where we took in some local color, enjoyed a refreshing Pingüino Popsicle, and caught the bus back to Puerto Lopez.

We enjoyed the day nonetheless!

The next morning we walked the shore to as old men skillfully pedaled rusty bikes with five gallon buckets clenched between their legs clamoring ¨camarones frescos¨ and others balanced sticks across their shoulders with giant flounder bowing at each end. We met our guide and fearless leader, Cherry, and prepared for out maritime venture to La isla de la plata, also known as the Poor Man´s Galapagos. As we loaded our little coast guard cruiser, Puerto Lopez´s fishermen hauled in their morning´s catch, gulls swarmed the air; signaling that a far worse treachery stalked beneath.

On the way, we serenaded the crew with some Taylor Swift and a little Wagon Wheel ¨rock me mama like a wagon wheel.¨ Cherry and the captain replied with the Ecuadorian National Anthem, all three words before they laughed and hummed the rest of the forgotten melody. As we rocked back and forth on the waves and gazed out into open water, I thought about how the ocean is one of my greatest loves and at the same time greatest fears. One look at my broad shoulders lets you know I´m a swimmer who can breeze the 500, but there is just something about the strangling waves that make humankind so powerless. Open water is such an eerie peacefulness. As the black swells that deny entry into an unknown underworld whirled around us, we watched a small fishing boat pull over a hammerhead shark. I´m sure it was an idealistic hope that they would throw him back with all of his fins still attached.

We arrived to an emerald green cove and spent the next couple of hours walking the nearly deserted desert island, disturbing its lone inhabitants. The island has no fresh water source outside of the sprinkling showers, so naturally its residents have wings. We enjoyed the views from the curvy coast and tiptoed amongst the squawking clans. The highlight of course was the chance to admire the very entertaining blue footed boobies and we were even fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of some red footed boobies as well.

We went snorkeling in the crystal water and despite our malfunctioning equipment; we enjoyed the slimy scampering of tropical fish and even got up close and personal with a sea turtle verde in its natural habitat. On the way back we snacked on some fresh watermelon and pineapple and were diverted by Cherry´s stories.

Carvanval is a celebration which derives its roots in Catholicism and definitely carries much more of a sentiment of repentance upon the start of Cuaresma or Lent than I´ve ever experienced in the States. The main tradition is the sprinkling or drenching, rather, of water in the spirit that one should be reminded of one´s baptism before journeying to the cross with our Savior. With that in mind we braved the streets lit by tiki torches and strands of bubble lights and thankfully made it safe, sound, and dry to the Lonely Planet’s top pick restaurant, The Whale Café. The Americanized menu inspired a little nostalgia and the homemade brownie ice cream laden with batter and actual brownie chucks hit the spot. The extensive and diversified book swap was also very fun. It is a well known fact that world travelers are well read and I have yet to find a café or hostel without a burgeoning bookshelf full of languages, sonnets, and tales. The only rule is that if you take one, you must leave one and all of this works off the honor code of course. It’s a fabulous treasure that should catch on in the States.

We tried to be as clandestine as possible when sneaking from the café, but alas we were discovered. I remember sprinting down the malecón , flip flops in hand, sun dress trailing in the sea breeze as the lights danced to the rumba of the pounding salsa. We ducked down off the boardwalk edge and disappeared onto the beach to elude our persistent assailants. With uncontrollable laughter we tried to shake the soaking water from our dripping bodies and untangle the mess of Carnaval foam from our long hair. We decided to just let it all soak in as the sand tickled our feet on our leisurely stroll by the glimmering moonlight. So, the next time a gang of grinning ten year olds accosts you on the street with buckets of mischievously fishy sea water, be cleansed and remember that you are called by name.

Valentine’s Day 2010 we spent on one of the top ten prettiest beaches in the world, Los Frailes. Carly, Jess, and I went ahead as the other girls found an internet café to submit a volcanology report.

We decided to take the scenic route in Parque Nacional Machalilla, two hours and 5 miles later, after an abundance of cacti and some frolicking at a small island, La Tortugita, we reached la mirador and got a sneak peak at the breath taking coastline.

While we splashed in the waves and lounged in the sand, we had deep, meaningful conversations about love, and grace, and what life we think God has destined for us in service to the kingdom.

That evening, three of us caught a gorgeous sunset while the other girls prepared for our special Dia de los enamorados date. Before long we were holding hands and wrapped in prayer, mostly a prayer of gratitude and discernment, a prayer that God would continue to romance us with glorious creation and lovely humanity, that God would tune our hearts to the melody of the harmonious gospel, that we might know a life of reckless compassion.

We were so lost in prayer that the tide rushed in and caught us off guard. We squealed and fluttered off into the darkness to our romantic Valentine’s dinner at a little Italian place followed by some salsa dancing on the beach.

So here’s to letting God romance your heart, it’s the best love story, yet to be written. Oh, how He loves us; what a divine romance.