The Thrill of Teaching
06 Mar 2012 1 Comment
in South Korea
I have met with all my classes now for this semester at Hannam University. A colleague pointed out to me that the freshmen seem alive and eager this year. I believe it’s true.
I am really thrilled that twenty young peope have elected to take my course in western civilization. Imagine that. Of course, the students are all Korean, so there may be some fascination with the subject for them that American freshmen would not have. Some may drop out. I saw their faces fall when I said there is a lot of homework.
Just as I know almost nothing about eastern civilization I can imagine that my students also find this western civilization unknown territory. Most kids who grew up in Florida had to read Julius Caesar and have a vague idea about the “Ides of March.” The first homework for this course is due on the Ides of March. I have asked the students why this date is significant.
On Being (in the Airport Too Long)
09 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
Staying in a big airport for more than 8 hours will turn a normal person into a zombie. I am starting my 8th hour, and I am not sure I am normal anyway. I’ve been visiting dear friends in Modesto, California. My morning flight out of Modesto was cancelled due to fog, so my friends helped me to get to the BART train station closest to Modesto. I just missed the flight from San Francisco to Charlotte, North Carolina. In about two hours I can board a night flight across the United States from west coast to east coast. The flight is five hours, and the time difference is three hours. Thank goodness i
t will be another day when I arrive in Charlotte.
So far I have eaten an orange, read some of a book, walked for an hour, brushed my teeth twice, eaten a tuna salad sandwich, answered some emails, tried to figure out a New England Journal of Medicine, gone through the passenger screening procedure twice, read some more of a book, and not this brilliant blog.
I am hoping that I will be able to get on the plane before complete zombiehood takes over.
School and the Future in Costa Rica
14 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
Recently my friend Charlotte Gott and I had a wonderful 8 day holiday in Costa Rica, a gem of a country in Central America. It seemed to us that every Costa Rican, or Tico, we met was interested in preserving the environment, flora, and fauna of their country. We enjoyed great hospitality and generosity everywhere we went.
At Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast our travel company, Costa Rica Expeditions, offered us the opportunity to participate in a volunteer program at a local public school. The idea was that English-speaking tourists like ourselves could have conversations with local students whose native language was Spanish. The students are in the process of learning English.
One afternoon Charlotte and I went with our local guide Gustave by boat to a nearby village. This village is located on the Tortuguero Canal right as it enters the Caribbean Sea, on the edge of the rain forest. There is a rough road into the village, but cars very seldom take the road. Most traffic is by boat on the Tortuguero Canal. The homes were simple with well-kept lawns and flowers, and were electrified.
We had the chance to meet four high school students, two boys and two girls, ages either 13 or 14. None of the students had ever been to San Jose, the capital. To get to San Jose would require an hour boat ride, and a three hour road trip. One young man wanted to be a guide in the rain forest when he grew up. The other young man wanted to be a football player. The two young ladies were interested in being biologists. As I looked at these attractive young people, I wondered what the future would hold for them. The chance to pursue education after high school seemed to be remote due to the financial considerations in which they lived. This brief glimpse into the lives of these young people was one of the most interesting and haunting things I encountered on our trip.
Meeting Interesting People
05 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in South Korea
This is the most popular relish in South Korea. I have grown to love it.
It recently occurred to me that I haven’t written in my blog for three months. The last time I wrote was while I was still in Malawi. I returned to South Korea on 13 August 2011 to resume my teaching job in the Department of Nursing at Hannam University, Daejeon. There are only five weeks left in this semester. It has been a bit of a struggle keeping up with four and a half courses. The half course is one I am teaching with another professor.
I would like to tell you about an interesting encounter I had yesterday while I was waiting to catch a bus in downtown Daejeon. I had a conversation with an 80-year old Korean woman. It is rare to have anyone speak to me in English in this town, and really unusual to have a conversation with an older person. Mostly the Korean kids will try out a greeting in English if they are really brave.
She was an attractive, elderly Korean lady, nicely dressed, and with a twinkle in her eyes. First she greeted me in Korean, but I told her in English that I could not speak Korean. Undaunted, she told me she was 80 years old and she spoke some English. So, I had the chance to chat with her for a few minutes. She was born in what is now North Korea, but was sent to Seoul to attend high school. She studied at Ewha Girls High School in Seoul, and was a good swimmer at the school. Her daughter lives in California, and she has visited the United States and Canada. Our conversation was short as my bus arrived in a brief time.
If you care to look up “Ewha Girls High School, Korea” you will find that it was the first school for girls in Korea, started by Mary Scranton, a Christian missionary, in 1886. Mary Scranton was 54 years old when she started the school. The early years of the school were difficult because many Koreans did not trust foreigners at that time. The teachers at the school have been criticized for giving the girls English names, but at that time in Korea, girls were not given individual names, but were called the daughter of so-and-so, or the grandaughter of so-and-so. This was perhaps the first time a girl received an individual name. From this early start at women’s education, Ewha Women’s University has grown, which is one of the largest women’s colleges in Asia and the most prestigious in Korea.
The wonderful thing about my encounter with this woman is that she seemed so happy, friendly, and content. She told me that she is a Christian, that Jesus loves her, she loves Jesus, and she enjoys singing in the choir at her church.
Visit to Mwanawamvula
05 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Malawi
On a morning when the news from Europe and America says the stock market has taken a plunge, I had the opportunity to visit the village of Mwanamvula in southern Malawi. No one in Mwanamvula cares about what the stock market does. Important issues here are whether it rains or not, how to get water to the gardens, how the dairy goats are doing, and are the children getting enough to eat.
The Primary Health Care Department of Mulanje Mission Hospital has been working in Mwanamvula since 2006, encouraging the women to have kitchen gardens where nutritious vegetables can be grown to feed the family, to have a community garden where many hands make the work lighter, and helping individuals to get high-quality milk goats to aide nutrition. It was only in 2006 that farm inputs were supplied by the Primary Health Care Department. After that year, the community itself provided the inputs. This community is able to grow three crops a year of maize, the staple food of Malawi.
The Saana milk goats have been specially developed to give a high volume of high quality milk. They are bought in South Africa, and brought to Malawi on a truck. A female goat is given to a woman or man who qualifies to be able to take care of the animal. These goats have to be kept in an above ground corral to protect them from common goat diseases. The plan is that the female will produce a baby goat, or sometimes twin babies. The new goat is passed along to someone else in the village who qualifies for it.
So, on a day when buying and selling of stocks preoccupies many in the developed countries, the every day watering of gardens, feeding of goats, and raising of children occupies the women of Mwanamvula village.
News from Mthengo Wanthenga, Malawi
27 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
in Malawi
Introducing Cryotherapy to Mthengo Wanthenga Hospital
Doctors and nurses at this rural hospital in central Malawi have been waiting for two years to be able to offer a lifesaving procedure to their patients. Dr. Sue Makin, gynecologist now teaching in South Korea, had conducted a training program in cervical cancer prevention in August, 2009, promising to help the hospital obtain a cryotherapy machine in the future. Now, in late July, 2011, Dr. Makin has returned with the cryotherapy machine and a carbon dioxide gas cylinder. With these resources health workers will be able to offer a full program to prevent the most common cancer in women in Malawi.
In a resource-limited country like Malawi offering pap smears to the population of women at risk for developing this cancer was impossible. Over the past ten years the technique of visual inspection of the cervix with the naked eye after applying household vinegar has taken root in numerous hospitals and clinics throughout Malawi. The major challenges are offering training workshops to health workers, ensuring quality of services, and being able to obtain equipment that is not available in Malawi.
Now this hospital with its interested and dedicated doctors and nurses will be able to offer the screening test that can identify precancerous patches on the cervix. In addition, with the cryotherapy machine, the precancerous areas can be destroyed in a simple and safe outpatient procedure. Cryotherapy involves freezing abnormal cells on the cervix. These are cells that were destined to become cancer in the future. Now, the deadly process is interrupted, freeing women from a fatal disease.
Malawi, the Warm Heart of Africa
01 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
in Malawi
Greetings from Malawi, a small, landlocked country in southern Africa, well known for the warm, friendly people who live there. I had the privilege of living and working in Malawi for eleven years. During my break from teaching in South Korea I am once again back in Malawi. It is not difficult to get from South Korea to Malawi as long as you can afford the air fare. It’s a three hour trip from Incheon Airport in South Korea to Hong Kong, a 13 hour trip from Hong Kong to Johannesburg, South Africa, and then just two hours from Johannesburg to Blantyre, Malawi.
The big issues facing many Malawians right now have to do with impending power cuts, which are reported to be coming in July. The television and newspapers warn that power will be off from 4 PM to 10 PM every day. Of course, one hopes that the cuts will not occur everywhere all over the country, but it is not clear exactly what is going to happen. One of the generating stations will be shut down for repairs until December of this year. Many people are worried.
The other big issue is the shortage of gasoline and diesel for cars and trucks. There are long lines in front of filling stations. People sometimes wait a whole day for fuel. It has to do with a shortage of foreign exchange to buy fuel for the country.
In spite of these major challenges, life goes on placidly most days. So many people do not have cars or electricity in their homes that maybe the effect of power shortages will not be too severe.
This hospital serves Mulanje District, with a population of about 500,000 people.
