Mission Completed

All photos taken by Cpl. Lydia M. Davey

The old school building

I can breath a sigh of relief~Draper is home, safe and sound~not that he was in any great danger, but just the fact that he was flying around the world with a bunch of guys with weapons strapped to their bodies can make a Mom worry~Mom's are like that.

I am so proud (and a little jealous) that he was able to join in this effort to improve the education of the children in this African village. He has some great stories of the locals~impressing them with his "magic" tricks and local flavor~goat for dinner~

http://www.marines.mil/units/marforaf/Pages/Main.aspx

Here is an account of their trip:
SHARED ACCORD delivers new school, new hope to remote village
Story Date6/14/2009 By BylineMaster Sgt. Grady T. Fontana, UnitMarine Forces Africa
DatelineBEMBEREKE, Benin — Page Content-->
BEMBEREKE, Benin — Deep in the middle of heavily vegetated terrain, about 15 miles east of here and from any paved roads, lays Konarou, a small town of about 850 villagers. In this town, small clay huts scatter the fine, reddish, dusty soil and the nearest town rests about four miles away.
In the middle of Konarou is a larger straw hut, a school, designed to accommodate about 35 students—and no more. Since the school is so small, it can only accept children five through ten years old.
Benin is a country where 45 percent of the population is zero to 14. For a town the size of Konarou, the school was inadequate. In came the Marines and Sailors.
About 42 service members from the 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group, and Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 11, are working around the clock to build a steel-constructed building at Konarou that will stand as a new school for these local villagers.
The construction is part of Exercise SHARED ACCORD 2009, a scheduled, bilateral field training exercise aimed at conducting small unit infantry and staff training with the Beninese military.
Bani Kore, a local villager, is among the 30 locals helping the service members erect the school. He recalls a time when he was a young, school-aged boy.
“I walked [four miles] to get to school,” said Kore. “It would take me two hours. I would leave for school at 6 a.m. to start at 8 a.m., and I would finish at 5:30 p.m., and get home at 7:30 p.m.”Not all the village children in Kore’s time attended the current school at Konarou. Some were too old, others chose to travel to surrounding villages, and the rest just didn’t go to school. Kore traveled to the next town.
“Many don’t go to school because the old school is unappealing,” he said.
This new school will have new furniture and three classrooms that can accommodate up to 90 students.
“The old school is insufficient,” noted Kore. “Now a lot of older kids can go to school. And perhaps, children from other villages will travel here to attend school.”
“The whole community will benefit from this construction,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 William E. Yobs, officer-in-charge of the Operation Enduring Freedom Trans-Sahara, NMCB-11. The new school site was chosen for the civil-affairs project because of the current economic situation of the town and the condition of the old school.
SHARED ACCORD is a 15-day training event with humanitarian activities schedule to run concurrent with the exercise. This gave the service members a short timeline to finish the school, and meant they had to work at a feverish pace.
“We basically have seven days to finish the school,” said Master Sgt. Graham P. Hilson, operations chief, Alpha Company, 6th ESB. “We’ve been in 24-hour operations for the past seven days.”
These service members worked a four-hour on, four-hour off basis. Soon, they increased the pace to six on, six off. According to Hilson, all were exhausted by the end of the shifts.
Philadelphia native Petty Officer 3rd Class Eric L. Green, a utilities man with NMCB-11, had wheelbarrow duty. Time and again he wheeled to the cement mixer, filled the wheelbarrow up, and pushed it to various locations in and around the site.
“It’s physically exhausting and messes with you in a different way,” he said. “I compare it to going to the gym and dead-lifting 100 lbs., then walking it for 100 meters, 100 times.”
Off to the side, Lance Cpl. Kyle J. Conklin, a Reserve combat engineer with 6th ESB, sat with exhaustion in his eyes and a six-hour buildup of red dust on his face.
“It’s all worth it. The six [hours] on, six off wears you down, but we’re also building a big connection with the locals,” said Conklin, a construction engineer student at Oregon State University, and Corvallis, Ore. native. “You get a sense of pride that you’re serving a bigger cause.”
Despite the non-stop schedule, finishing the construction project keeps Conklin motivated.
“Education is the key to make the world a better place,” said Conklin, as he leaned back on his foldable chair for added relief. “One of these kids might grow up and change the world. You never know.”

Brigade Encampment

We traveled back in time this weekend as we attended the Brigade Encampment at Fort Vancouver. I love living so close to the National Reserve, Fort Vancouver and Officer's Row. It is a beautiful spot, rich with history.
The Encampment tells the story of Hudson's Bay Company and those that brought in the pelts and supplies to the Fort. So cool to see them all dressed in period clothing and living like they would have then,

I tried to imagine what these guys look like in "real" life, they probably sit around in offices, wearing polo shirts and go home to watch ESPN. But not this weekend, they don their cotton and fur, load the black powder, and throw some meat on the pit!

They were great (didn't love posing for photo's tho). One of the black powder guys even spoke to us in his french accent~making it all the more realistic.

You can go to nps.gov/fova for more info and better pictures! This would be a great place to bring kids for a vacation~you can tour the Fort and have a live history lesson!

Turn Up The Corners

I met a woman in need yesterday and shared with her what little I could. All the time in the back of my mind wondering "is this for real?" Am I just being scammed? I hated that feeling of distrust. It's probably from watching too much TV news, you know the reports of "watch out for the latest scam", story at 6.
I had just been killing time at Home Depot, after dropping Natie off at her first day of her new job (yay Natie!), waiting for Costco to open to peons such as me when a woman called to me as I was pulling out of the parking lot. She said she didn't want to approach the car and scare me, but would I be able to help her buy some gas. In her east coast accent she described her flight from an abusive husband in Florida, her brother had driven from Winthrop WA to rescue her and now her husband had canceled her credit cards~they needed help to get to her brother's place. I told her sure, I can give you some gas money, to which she replied "you must be a Christian, I've asked seven people and you're the first one to help."
So I drove over and met her and her brother at the gas station, used my card to give them $20 worth of gas, probably not enough to get up north to Winthrop, so I hope they found more help along the way.
But what bothered me throughout the rest of the day was this nagging feeling of "what if", what if, they were elaborate scam artists taking advantage of ignorant housewives, and somehow they were going to drain my bank account of it's entire (woowhoo) balance. I kept going over and over the entire encounter, looking for the loop holes...I hate that....I hate being mistrustful of fellow human beings. Is that why we don't smile at each other as we pass in the grocery store or scream at each other in crazy acts of road rage? Do we think everyone is out to get us? Are we so jaded that we can't make eye contact with ordinary folks just like us wheeling a cart through the grocery store, or help someone broke down on the side of the road? Okay too many questions~ I will put away my soap box.
So, I've been trying to remind myself to smile more lately, I guess for the past year or so. I've seen other people, women mostly, with frowns on their faces (If you chance to meet a frown....) and so I have been recognizing that I frown a lot as well, without even knowing it, and it ages me. I think everyone looks about 10 years younger when they smile! Instant face lift! Even if it is just a turn up the corners smile, you know the kind, not the whole show your teeth kind of smile, but just turn up the corners and look pleasant kind. It's funny how it affects others, for example after my gas-assistance incident I was pushing said cart through the aforementioned Costco and met up with one such frowny lady~I smiled, a simple, sweet, "turn up the corners" kind~she glared, still frowning~I nicely, still smiling~gunfighters at high noon~until the sun broke through and what? She smiled~a big show your teeth kind~success~I twirled my gun back into my holster and rode off into the sunset~smilin' Jack, ready to spread sunshine and happiness for another day.
I don't know where the western theme came from~maybe the Clint Eastwood movie Mr. R was watching last night. :)
P.S. She looked 10 years younger!

I'm In Love

.......with green ! Everywhere I go it's green I see. It use to be red, red things would pop out at me, red was THE color. Lately, I have been lusting after all things green. It started when I watched the movie "Bedtime Stories"~I have always been a "background movie watcher", I would love to be a production assistant for movie/TV making, I love all the details in the background of a movie. Sometimes I pay more attention to how a room is put together than what the actors are saying. I think that's why I like to watch certain movies over and over. So anyway, I was watching Bedtime Stories and they showed this new hotel~all done in black and this most glorious shade of green~I couldn't take my eyes of the color! I wanted them to just stop the movie and show me more of the hotel. For days afterwards I couldn't stop thinking about this green~like it kept me up at night (I know I need to get a job or something). Now everywhere I go green jumps out at me, it is my new color.
But the problem is I have all this red~how do I go about changing over to green? Especially when I am on a limited budget and don't want to spend a lot on this temporary apartment? (I know there are other more pressing problems, like what to do about North Korea, but I can only focus on my little world right now).
So I have just started small, adding a little green here and there....like this pot from Fredy's....


All the choices.....

99 cent Goodwill bowl!

Maybe now I'll be able to sleep at night!

Prayers For Sale

Funny that I should pick a book about friendship. Our new Relief Society President told me the other day that I look like "everyone's best friend", I wanted to cry and tell her "I don't have any friends here". But instead I just smiled and said "Oh that's nice". Maybe that's why I identify with the characters in this novel by Sandra Dallas, (one of my favorite authors).

Friendship, quilting, depression era history, and long-held secrets combine together to make this a great read.

Hennie has lived through the Civil War and the Great Depression~can you imagine the things that came to pass in her lifetime? From horse and buggy to cars, airplanes, running water, electricity. Just the changes in fashion are mind boggling! Hoop skirts to short skirts
Hennie takes a newly wedded Nit under her wing and they develop a bond of friendship that comforts them both.

I loved the references to quilting, cooking and the stories of the mining days of Colorado. It reminded me of Sumpter OR, with the gold dredge.

What I like about it most is the message that we all have hurts and events in our past that haunt us, but by sharing our hearts with others we can find comfort and help others do the same.