Fun times...

So we decided to tour this city we've called home for the last 3.5 years. We bought a $3 all-day Metro pass (did you know L.A. even HAD a Metro???) and toured around the awesome city...


Waiting for the metro to come by Norwalk - where we left off...



We thought it'd be funny to try and match the upside-down sign with an upside-down picture... :) gotta love it.


A view of the towering buildings...


All of us on a canon for WWI L.A. residents, I think... but I don't exactly remember. Anyways, it was fun to sit on! :)


The awkward mix of modern art in Pershing Square (the finance district), skyscrapers and European-esque hotels. What a confused little city... :)


They're so cute... sitting in one of the boxes around Pershing square...


Olvera Street is the mock-Mexico City hub in L.A. It was filled with Spanish, beautiful Latin voices and gorgeous Latin men... "Si, gracias!" :) A dream come true... ;)


A sign in one of the Olvera St. shops... heehee :)


So after being brought back to life by the Latin flavor (okay, maybe just me), we headed over to Chinatown to catch the 2nd day of the New Years Celebration of the Year of the Dog.


First, we slid down the infamous escalator slide... not very fast, but extremely thrilling. :)


Then, we took pictures by our respective ages outside the metro station...


Next we looked for a restaurant and observed the delicate Asians around us. What a fascinating culture... that must be next on my to-do list. Mandarin, here I come. ;)


After finally eating delicious chinese food, we took our leftovers and our tired bodies over to the Cathredal of the Angels or something like that. It was beautiful in it's own, modern way. I liked the stuff around it more, though...


Apparently, it costs $5 to light a candle... I didn't know that. Ooops.


Beautiful orchids from friends or family for Catholic servants.


Then the fun silliness on the statues on the church lawn...






Overall, it was an incredible, exhausting, wonderful day. :) We came back and collapsed with salad and Mike's Lemonade. Mmmm... All for $16. Yay for L.A. :)

Broken-hearted

I've never felt so uncomfortable in my own skin. I feel like I don't know who I am, who I was or who everyone wants me to be. I'm guessing this is just another stage of culture shock, but quite frankly, it's horrible. I'm all over the gamut with emotions - somedays happy and loving everyone... others I'm depressed and think that no one cares about people suffering in other countries... then I'm angry, defensive and confused... Then I wonder if it would've been easier to not have seen what I did or experienced the things I did. I just want things to go back to normal - I don't want to feel like a foreigner in my own country. I don't want to feel responsible for my actions and realize that how I spend my money affects my family in Nicaragua. I want to be able to have a conversation with my friends without having to define every word they say because that's how my mind works now. I want to go back to when I was happy and conformed and everyone understood me and we all had everything in common.

But then I know I'd miss out on 2 incredible families who I love very dearly. I wouldn't understand that there is always one more side to a story. I wouldn't admit that there where questions I had that I ignored because they just "couldn't be answered." I wouldn't have been able to see how hard my mom works and what an incredible person she is. I wouldn't be able to learn spanish well enough to have a conversation with my Guatemalan hygienist about Guatemala and what she experienced there. I wouldn't have seen what incredible potential there was for change in my life that could affect change in other countries.

All of me is frustrated, confused and wanting to run away. I suppose I'm realizing that the life I had was good but this can be good to. But it is going to be different. I may lose some things, but I know I will gain others. I was reading about love a bit ago, and what caught my eye is that love always trusts, hopes and perseveres. So, since I want my life to be a life of love, I will continue to trust, hope and persevere.

One of my LASP professors/friends sent me an article on hope. My favorite sentence she hi-lited was the following - one I'd like to keep in mind:

"I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world."

I'll just try to keep playing my cards... Maybe God will lead me in a direction. Maybe God will watch me find a direction. Maybe He'll change my heart and mind to believe things other than I do now. Maybe He'll watch me search till I find what I'm looking for. I don't know yet. I have a few things figured out, but for now I will press on in the journey - however hard it might get. Hopefully my responses will all be loving. Sometimes I will fail, but hopefully I will learn to keep playing my cards and never fold when I'm discouraged.

What Can I Do?

The Problem:

3.5 million Kenyans face starvation as grain surplus sold abroad

"Information and Communications Minister Mutahi Kagwe announced a day earlier that the number of Kenyans at risk from the food crisis had increased to 3.5 million from 2.5 million."

"Surplus food in the west of Kenya is being exported abroad rather than diverted to those at risk from the food crisis."

(That means it's being exported to US... instead of given to starving Kenyans.)

"Aid agencies do not have money to buy food from districts with surplus harvests to feed those hit by the food shortages, said Peter Smerdon, spokesman of the World Food Program...Without new donations, WFP will run out of food to distribute in drought affected areas by the end of February."

"Our previous warnings and appeals have sadly received little response from the donors. What is a very limited window of opportunity to avert mass suffering in Kenya is closing very fast," he said. "We don't want Kenya to become another Niger, where in 2005 donation only increased when people started dying after months of appeals for contributions to prevent deaths."

The Solution:

Whether or not we, the U.S. government or the Kenyan government might be to blame, WE can still do something. No donation is too small.

Donate to the UN World Food Programme.

The link will take you to the FAQ page and on the left is a tab where you're able to donate.

If you don't want to donate online, feel free to mail a check to the following address:

United States
US Friends of the WFP
1819 L Street NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC20036

Be sure to include a note specifying:

1. Your Name
2. Your Address (optional)
3. That you're giving to the operations in Kenya.

Well, I've heard a lot of people say to me, "gee, that's too bad about the crap around the world, but what can I really do about it?" Here's something you can do. :)