AfricanKelli

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This week’s goals:

~Frog current knitting project
~Try new recipe
~Make plans to see the Weston show this weekend
~Make plans to see Chihuly public display in Glendale
~Swim 6000M
~Cycle 50 miles
~Run 15 miles
~Work on vision journal
~Start new book, blog about recent reads
~Get friends to burn me new music. Specifically I want some of the Stars. Have you heard them? Love.
~Harvest prickly pear for next jars of renewal project
~Research Mexico bikinis; 6 weeks and I’m on vacation with the Ya Yas. Option A. B. C., and I just bought D.

Man, we are going to have so much fun.

~And, finally, I need to speak up about this nonsense. Since when is “Women having too much on their plate to be also good in business” and new twist? Give me a break. I’m not a (grandma) Palin supporter, but no one is questioning her husband and if he is able to keep up with his career with their five kids. Stop trying to keep women tethered by an apron; we can kick ass in the oval office and bake a mean lasagna. Don’t be frightened by our mad multi-tasking abilities, you fools. And save your newsprint for something worthwhile, like how these candidates are going to change global warming, do something about starvation in Africa, help slow the HIV epidemic, improve education in the US, etc. I do not care that a 17 year old in Alaska didn’t use a condom. How can this possibly be a topic of conversation when discussing the leadership of this country? Are you kidding me?
(If you really want to pick on Palin, let’s start with the fact she’s still got PTA president on her resume and is a gun-toting nut. I’m fine with that criticism. But her kid is not fair game.)

Geez. Bikinis and a NRA tirade. Never know what you’re gonna get around here. Huh?
~K

When I listened to Lauryn Hill in college on repeat for two years (seriously, ask Finny how silly obsessed I was with that album), I never thought 10 years later I’d be working with actual refugees. There is a lot of confusion about refugees in America and I am new to this field. Here’s what I’ve recently learned:

~ A refugee is someone living outside of his or her home country and is unwilling or unable to return due to a well-founded fear of persecution. This could be because of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group, political opinion, etc.
A current example are the Sudanese lfrom Darfur who are fleeing to camps in Chad and Kenya to escape persecution. The Janjaweed Arabs of the north are committing active genocide against the African tribal folk of the south. (I am over-simplifying a mass migration of people, but you get the idea.)

~A evacuee is not a refugee. An evacuee is someone who has been evacuated. Simple enough, right? You can imagine the confusion when after Katrina political leaders started referring to evacuees as refugees. No dice. Evacuees who were born in the US could not be refugees. Make sense?

~An immigrant is a person who has moved to a second country by will or through refugee status. Refugees are therefore immigrants. Immigrants are rarely refugees. Only 1% of refugees living in refugee camps around the world make it to a third-country, such as the United States, for immigration.

~ An illegal immigrant is a person who has moved to a second country without the permission of authorities in the second country.

~ An asylee is a refugee who reaches another country through their own devices. For example, Cubans who reach the shores of the US are asylees. They are able to seek asylum in the United States. Another example is Martina Navratilova, who requested political asylum from her home country of Czechoslovakia. She later became a US citizen.

Refugees are brought to the United States from dozens of countries. In Arizona, there are refugees from more than 90 countries. How do these refugees get here? The United Nations High Commission for Refugees asked a dozen or so countries to help with the 12 million refugees worldwide; 80% of these are women and children. Most of the men die during the conflict that led their families to flee. Some 70% of these families live at least 10 years in refugee camps, outside of their native countries.

The Refugee Act of 1980 created specific US funding to help aid those fleeing persecution. Before then, refugees were handled on a case-by-case basis. Considering how many people from Eastern Europe immigrated as refugees after the World Wars, it is surprising it took until 1980 to pass formalized legislation and funding. The cap on refugees accepted into the US each year is 70,000. In 2007, 41,000 refugees were resettled.

The process is entirely political. There are countries we would gladly accept refugees from — think North Korea and Iran. There are countries were the trickle of folk come in, but it isn’t as politically glorifying — think Africa. In Arizona, our largest current refugee populations are coming from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Bhutan and Burma.

I’ll cover the life of a typical refugee family resettled in Arizona in the future. And yes, I am loving this job.

~K

Today I found myself smiling at nothing, staring at the sky and being sincerely grateful for a three-day weekend. I was in desperate need for a recharge. It’s been three days of bliss, but today was particularly sweet. I have an assignment for the local newspaper to write an article on prickly pear harvesting and decided to take a formal class at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum. I’d been there once a few years ago and truly enjoyed the walks through varying gardens. I knew today would be no different.

It took about 45 minutes to arrive, although it would have been much faster if I hadn’t taken so much time to gawk at the beauty of the Superstitions. From Tempe, this mountain range is hazy and towering. Up close, it is a majestic giant that I couldn’t get enough of. The purple and red rock faces, the soft green cacti, the flowering desert due to recent rains — all perfectly framed with giant soft cuddly white clouds and a crisp blue sky. It was truly ethereal.

The class was fantastic too. More than 60 people crammed into a pavillion to see how to harvest prickly pear tunas and their pads to be used in a variety of recipes. I’m going to use several of these for future Jars of Renewal projects, hopefully including the prickly pear syrup for margaritas. Eating locally can be delicious even in the desert.

My perfect day — time to reconnect with nature, listen and sing along to super music, eat a great picnic lunch, photograph and write, learn something new, connect with other happy hippies and time to blog. Life truly is great.

~K