Gone Camping!
While all of you are wrapping up your delightful Labor Day Weekend, we are busy actually labouring away – applying what we learned at A&M in never observing this traditional day of camping, barbecues, and sport.
BUT, we did have last Monday off. Fall Day, or some other unidentified reason to observe a holiday. I think it’s out of fear that it might be the last day for good weather and employees might revolt if not granted a few hours outdoors. Believe it or not, we’re already wearing sweatshirts at night, despite the fact that it is August.
In celebration of the three-day weekend, we joined/organized 12 other people from our church group on a camping trip to Swanage, which is on the south coast of Britain.
Upon our 1 a.m. arrival, we spent a fair amount of time putting up a monstrous 4-room tent that is larger than our flat – we briefly considered moving permanently to a campground. The next morning we were instructed to relocate – in the dark we had not located the proper pitch. Definitely a team-building activity and a test of our patience.
The experience was quite diverse – our small group was composed of several nationalities – Nigeria, Ghana, Columbia, US and UK. This led to many interesting conversations and observations – most of which I will not post here.
But apart from that, the greatest result of the trip was a significantly increased appreciation for the beauty held within the UK.
Everyone talks about the UK being a great launching pad for visiting the continent, but the beaches we went to are easily among the best Bree or I have ever been to (sorry Galveston).
We joined the ranks of the walkers – spending an entire afternoon walking on a small cliff that is part of the coastline. It was absolutely beautiful. Some of you may recall a few years ago when the walkers were in disputes with Madonna over their right to traverse through her private property. The walkers are a powerful lobby over here and have maintained the right of access to many beautiful areas of the country, regardless of ownership. At one point in our walk, we were quite surprised to get a text from the phone company saying Welcome to France. Apparently our signal was coming from France!
On Monday, we walked down to a beautiful cove, blocked from the main sea by a long rock ledge. The water was so clear that even Bree got in – she liked being able to see her toes even when she was in up to her neck. It was quite refreshing to be outside the city, seeing the stars at night, and feeling the warm sun on our tippex skin. (Tippex is the “White-out” of the UK).
And it was a short work week on top of that.
Other than that, life has been relatively uneventful. I finished my stint working on the south coast. At the moment, we’re enjoying the Hilton that I was put up in for a training course in Northwest London.
In regards to much more significant matters, we’re having a hard time fathoming what is going on in the south right now, unable to imagine the complete and utter destruction caused by Katrina. The UK media has painted emergency response to the hurricane as woefully inadequate, blaming federal leadership. Additionally, they are highly focused on the anarchy left in the wake of New Orleans – saying that this hasn’t resulted in the wake of other natural disasters even in third world countries. They belabour the fact that the richest nation has been unable to handle this disaster. How does this compare to the way things are reported back home?
posted by M&B @ 8:28 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Good to hear my sister can put up a tent. Now, let me see if I can express my feelings concerning Hurricane Katrina and not offend anyone.
The disappointment in the initial reaction is widespread, however the outreach that is being shown by the folks that aren't in front of the television cameras is unprecedented.
The left is obviously using this catastrophic natural disaster as a way to put blame on the president. They are blaming him for the failure of FEMA, now a division of Homeland Defense, to properly react. You also have the real wackoos (is that a word) like Jon Stewart that are saying Bush stayed on his vacation for three days - because he didn't care.
So they want us to believe that the same FEMA that came to the aid of Floridians during their span of four hurricanes last year, including hurricanes Jeanne and Frances which hit within 3 weeks of each other, is now inept?? Also the president declared SE Louisiana as a disaster area three days before the hurricane hit. He obviously understood the severity of the situation.
Every city, county and state in the US have been receiving money from Homeland Defense over the past three years - and with this money plans were to be developed for various emergency situations.
I think this is a sad time for America and the world, and the last thing in my heart to do would be placing any blame. That being said, I have a real hard time watching the mayor of New Orleans going on TV and putting all the blame on the federal government. The man waited until less than 24 hours before the storm would hit to declare mandatory evacuation. After declaring mandatory evacuation he made zero effort in providing the means - for a city that has over 30% of its population living in poverty - for people to evacuate. They have known for 40 years what this type of storm could do to the city. President Bush made a disaster area declaration and the mayor waits 48 more hours before he says - oh yeah, it's mandatory that you guys leave town?? Come on now.
At some point people need to understand the word federalism. Federalism is the name given to the form of government that unites separate political entities/states within a single national system, but which allows each political entity/state to retain its independence. They always complain about the federal govt this and federal govt that....listening to prominent intellectuals over the last week such as Jon Stewart and the revvverend Jesse Jackson, causes me to believe that they believe federal government means - THE only entity that exists and it was there for us from '92-'00, however it is now in the hands of a man whose main desire is for people that didn't vote for him to suffer.
OK, I feel better now.
I think within the next few weeks there is going to be an amount of money and time donated that will exponentially exceed anthing this country or the world has ever seen. We currently have around one thousand evacuees in Lubbock who are being clothed, fed, entertained, given plane tickets to meet up with relatives - this is only a small part of the huge charitable hand of the United States, a country that cares more about the value of human life - regardless of race, religion or class - than any other nation in the history of the world.
Hi Matt and Bree! glad to hear you are doing some serious camping, Dan will be uber jealous when he reads about it. As far as the Katrina debacle goes, I've been following it as closely as time allows, and continue to be in shock every time I read an article or see footage. Congress is apparently already calling for inquiries, and from what I understand demands for firings are coming from a lot of places. But, thankfully, first and foremost on regular people's minds is helping those affected. For now it's mainly politicians who are worried about the political ramifications (the NY times, generally not Bush fans, paints it as a watershed moment in Bush's presidency, arguing that if he can't get some serious damage control going, he'll be undermined for the rest of his term). Every radio station out here in Cali is offering to match donations or putting on free concerts or putting forth some major effort. It's great to see people pull together; one hopes it continues for as long as there are still people in need. No one from Midland has mentioned any refugee camps springing up, but if there are folks in Lubbock, Midland can't be far behind.
We miss England, and I definitely miss sweatshirt weather! Enjoy your approaching fall weather :)
-andrea
I think that it is absolutely ridiculous to try to blame anyone for what happened. The fact is that it happened, and now something needs to be done about. Instead of pointing fingers, why not use those hands to help. I helped launch a campaign at school called Make a Change, student council is collecting change from students once a day and has set up locations for people in the community to donate money. We are sending all of the money we raise to the Red Cross for distribution. There are several students already enrolled at our school that have come from the New Orleans area, and I've heard rumors that Graham is going to house 300 refugees at our local arena.
Hopefully, through all of this, people will come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Maybe God is using this disaster as a wake up call... and maybe thousands will answer.
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