Homebound Thoughts

I take very few showers here in this apartment. The water they use for the shower is solar heated, which is basically another way of saying it is cold water. I guess it is a very good way to conserve on energy, both in gas and in water because you rarely use any of either. I assume I am smelling pretty bad at the moment, but luckily I have a cold and cannot smell much of anything.

When last I blogged, I was not very sure about the place that I was staying in nor about the people that I am staying with. I am still not really sure about either, but I do know now that I will, most likely, be staying here for another month in Jiaozuo. Late in October I will travel to Shanghai and meet up with an old friend of mine, Alan and his mother. They will be on vacation for a about 3 weeks. I will stay with them and travel to Beijing with them as well. I am extremely excited to be meeting up with Alan. Prior to me leaving for this leg of my travels in February, I was trying to meet with as many of my friends and family as I could before I left. Alan was one of the people that I tried to connect with before I left, but was never able to. I am not sure how many years it has been since I have seen Alan, but it has been a very long time. It is nice that I will also be going to back to Beijing because there are many things that I intended on seeing when I was there, but never got the chance to. Being with Alan and his mom will also be a welcome change since they are people that I implicitly trust; I cannot say that about the people that I am living with now, unfortunately.

After my travels with Alan and his mother, I will be returning home for the holidays. I booked my flight and I will be returning to San Francisco International on November 14th. I cannot really explain what it feels like to know that I will be traveling home so soon. In a way, I do not really believe it. All this time that I have been away, I have been thinking about the day that I would return home and under what circumstances that would happen. My mind has run through countless scenarios about when, where, how and why this would happen. Pointless scenarios, yet that is what my mind does. So to now know the answers to those questions, it is almost as though my mind is just discounting these thoughts as mere possibilies of a return home and not the reality of actually coming home.

I do not know how long I will be home for. There are many ideas in my head for what I can do. I am just going to wait and see how I feel once I am home. There are to many what ifs that are still floating around for me to be able to know what is going to happen. My main goal will be to spend as much time as I can with my family and friends as possible. I want to see everyone and I am looking forward to being home for the holidays at the very least.

I am also very excited that by the time I get back everyone will know who the next President of the United States will be. I watched the first of the presidential debates today. This debate was much more tame then I remember the debates of Gore/Bush and Kerry/Bush being. Both candidates seemed to be very respectful towards one another, which took me by surprise. Since leaving in February, I have been very disconnected with the general feeling of the country on the elections. As I travel I have had many, many people ask me about who I thought was going to win and who I wanted to have win the election. I found it somewhat strange because this is not a conversation I am used to having in America. We in America seem to feel it is off limits to talk about politics unless you are very good friends with the person you are speaking to. It was nice to be able to have these conversations freely without worrying about offending anyone. Anyway, prior to me leaving I had no reservations in saying that Obama was going to wipe the floor with McCain. Although, it was hard to be able to say that as of late considering just how long I have been away and how disconnected I am with the feelings of other Americans. After watching the debates though, I feel I can state once again that I believe there is only a slight chance that McCain will be victorious. Obama is certainly the stronger candidate and the McCain campaign is not anywhere near the caliber of what the Bush campaigns were in 2000 and 2004. Next week will bring the debate between the vice president candidates which will be very interesting for me to watch. I have been very distant and disconnected from all the controversy surrounding Palin. I do not know very much about Biden either so it will be an educational experience for me to see the two duke it out. One more note on the elections: I can say that if McCain were to win the presidency, many people in many countries around the world will pretty much write off Americans as being naive, ignorant, and/or just plain stupid based off of many conversations that I have had with people about it. Many people in the countries that I have visited are still very confused about why the American people elected Bush into a second term and they are very afraid that we will elect McCain.

The other day I was walking through the streets of Jiaozuo trying to find some good things to take pictures of (there really are not that many I have found). While walking, this chinese girl comes up to me out of no where and starts talking to me in broken English saying she wants to be my friend. I said, okay. So now I have a friend here in Jiaozuo named Nana. We do not always understand each other because she has only taken 2 years of English, but we figure it out most of the time. She is a very nice person and has since taken me to her families house. Nana's mom cooked me a huge welcoming meal full for delicious food and I met her brother and her brother's friends who also speaks some English. They were very excited to see a foreigner, and of course, asked to take a picture with me. I am looking forward to spending some more time with my new friends in Jiaozuo. I trust them more than the people I am staying with.

Things with Yao and his girl friend are pretty much the same as when I got here. I am occasionally helping to teach English. When I am not teaching English...which is very often, I am reading and on the internet, of course. However, I have been spending a lot of time learning Taichi. I have been waking up at 5:30 in the morning and riding Yaos scooter a couple of miles to a square where a very nice 74 year old ex-doctor is teaching me Taichi. Then in the evening around 8:30 or so, I am learning from another Taichi master. Taichi is much more difficult then I every imagined it would be. When I was working for BART in Oakland, I used to watch the Chinese community come out in the early morning hours to do Taichi. It never looked all that hard when I used to watch. So it came as quite a surprise when I started just to do some "warm up" exercises the first day and was sweating and in pain just from stretches. Only after a few days though my body is feeling very good and I can tell that it has helped me out quite a bit. I feel like I am standing up straighter in general. Prior to me starting Taichi, my back was hurting a lot and felt very weak in general. After two days of Taichi my back stopped hurting and feels strong again. It is good stuff this Taichi and I hope to learn a fair amount of it prior to returning home. Hopefully I can continue with what I have already learned once I am back, and perhaps find a teacher near home where I can continue learning. I think, if it was not for the Taichi, I probably would not be staying here with Yao and his girlfriend as I do not feel like I am being very productive as a volunteer.

I have added some more pictures to my China album:

China

International Man of Mystery

I think I now know what it feels like to be a celebrity. Walking around in China everyone pays attention to me constantly. People stare, point, take pictures, whisper to eachother. It is an odd sensation to be the center of attention no matter where you go. Beijing was not all that bad. I ran into other white people every once in a while there. We would then stare at eachother like we too had never seen a white person before in our lives. For some reason, we would not speak to eachother just stare. Such an unusual social experience, China.

Now I am in a city named Jiaozuo. Every chinese person calls this a small city. To me there is nothing small about it. There are people everywhere. I have been told this is a city of 600,000 people. In relative terms, that is not that large. Fremont is a city of 210,000 people. I would say that there are about 50 times as many people on the streets of Jiaozuo then there are in Fremont. The proportions just do not make sense to me. It crossed my mind that it may feel like this simply because there are more people walking or on bikes or scooters here then there are in Fremont. I then looked at how many cars were on the road and there seemed to be more of them as well. The numbers just do not add up. This city feels more like it holds a couple million. Who knows what the truth is. Lets just say there are a lot of people where I am staying and they all stare at me. It is funny to see their faces as I pass by on a scooter; some of them seemed so shocked at what they are witnessing.

Yesterday I went on a tour of a couple of hospitals, an orphanage and an old folks home. Everywhere I went I was being treated like a VIP. Processions of people were following me everywhere. A young woman's only job seemed to be to take pictures of me as I walked around and was shown areas of one of the hospitals. I am not even really sure what I was doing in these areas. My only thought was that at some point I might be doing some volunteer work in these places at some point. The old folks home could really use some help. Even just to organize some people to come and spend time with the people who live there. They seem very estranged and bored. I tried to put forth ideas of organizing some days to come down and spend time with these people. Ideas that did not seem to sit very well with Yao, the person whose house I am staying with and the person that I was warned about before coming here.

It is still to early to tell exactly how things are going to go here at this "volunteer position". I hesitate to call it that at this point. I suppose I am volunteering my time, but so far the only volunteering I have done has been spent with two young boys on two separate occasions. Basically I speak with them and try to get them to use their English that they have already been taught. It helps them to hear a native speaker and it seems like they might enjoy it at times. I am still not exactly sure what else I am going to be able to do here other then that. It seems that Yao really wants me to teach english and only english. I am not sure what his intentions are and there are some communication difficulties. I ask a question and it does not seem like he understands what I am asking. Or perhaps he does understand it and he deflects it. It is very difficult to tell.

I have been able to determine that Yao cares a lot about this project and its future. He hopes to turn this project into a self-sufficient volunteer project that has enough money to operate and a constant flow of volunteers both from within and without China. At this point, I am the only volunteer in the project and I am living with Yao and his girlfriend. Yao is very intelligent and cares about the people here in China both young and old. I do get the feeling that there are things that he is not telling me about. However, I am not sure if that is because he does not know how to say them or because he fears what I may do with the knowledge. It is very clear to me that Yao wants me to stay for as long as possible. He goes out of his way to make sure that I have everything that I may want or need. Well, he makes his girlfriend go out of her way, anyhow. I do not like the way in which he treats his girlfriend at times. I am not sure if it is just cultural differences or if he just has a little domestic violence in him. From my point of view he treats her very poorly. He makes her do things which she does not really want to do. His girlfriend picked me up from the train station when I arrived here, come to find out that he basically forced her to come get me. Yao told me that he was the one who would be picking me up. Later that night, Yao and I were going to go out to dinner but his girlfriend did not wish to go along and wanted to stay home. I cannot speak Mandarin, but I understood that through his words he basically forced her into coming along. I do not like this behaviour, but I am not sure if this is the norm in Chinese culture. Actually, I am not even sure if I care if it is the norm or not. Even if it is normal in all of Chinese culture, I still feel like it is wrong and that Yao needs an attitude adjustment.

I am not sure if the people of China know what stars look like. It is so polluted in this country that you can never see the stars. I am spitting much more then usual in an attempt to get all the crap out of my mouth. It scares me to think that the pollution is only going to get worse here before it gets any better. I hesitate to think what worse will turn into. I never feel clean here. I am constantly thinking about the pollution and about how much pollution is in the food that I am eating or what kind of bugs might be in the water that was used to wash the vegetables that I am about to put in my mouth. Bottled water seems to be a norm though, which is great. I just hope that it is bottled in a part of china that is clean.

Toilets in this country are just plain odd. The traditional western style toilet is a rarity in public places. It seems as though people have them in their homes, but every public toilet I have been to has been a squat pot, as they are so lovingly called. These are basically holes in the ground. One step above a port-a-potty...they smell about the same though. Actually, port-a-pottys might even be better considering there is normally toilet paper in them. In America, before I left the house, I would check my pockets to make sure I had my keys, wallet, and cell phone; here it is wallet, keys, toilet paper. If you are caught out and about in China without toilet paper on you, things can turn ugly pretty quick. I am crossing my fingers that I do not get a stomach sickness while I am here in this country. I just cannot image what would happen if I am in some squat pot in the middle of no where without toilet paper when I need an entire roll, meanwhile a mob of people are waiting outside the bathroom to take my picture.

Here are some pictures from China and I also added some more pictures to the Germany album as well:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ddb123/China#
http://picasaweb.google.com/ddb123/Germany#

Oriental Warning

Since leaving the Christian community that I was volunteering at I have been in Düsseldorf, Germany. From here I will leave for China this coming Saturday. It is odd for me to think that in just a couple of days I will be in China. I have always wanted to go there and now I am doing it. For a long time I have been looking forward to the volunteer project, Wuzhi, that I will be going to on Wednesday next week, however, a few days ago a was sent a message warning me about the project. Here is what I was sent about the project:

Hi there,

I found your blog while searching the web for info on
the Wuzhi Experiment. My purpose was to find people
like you, that plan to join the project. I do it for
two reasons: I want to warn those people, and - I
admit it - I want to take sort of revenge on Mr Yao,
the manager of the project.

The project was originally located in Wuzhi, which is a
small city near Jiaozuo. I've joined it in January,
after spending 2 months in China and having no
concrete plans for the future. I declared to stay
about one year if only situation let me so; I needed
to find some part-time job to cover my living expenses
and the cost of my visa.

Now, the first problem of the project was that it was
much less developed than it seemed from the website.
Actually I met only 2 employers (manager Mr Yao, and
an English teacher), no foreigners, no social work.
But it was ok for me; I thought I could do some good
by helping guys develop the project. You probably know
by now, that they plan to fund the project with English
teaching. Well, since January they've been trying to
start a school, but failed eventually. And without
funds, project can't work (it needs money for
employers, renting fees, utility bills, etc.). The
failure was, as I believe, the fault of the lack of
cooperation between Mr Yao and the main creator and
sponsor of the project. It doesn't matter whose fault
it was. What matters is that since June the project
was managed practically only by Mr Yao, and he became
also a sponsor. We decided to move to Jiaozuo, and
that's when the problems started to occur... actually
there were problems on the way all the time, but this
time the problems were quite serious.

But first, about the period between January and June.
We had not much money to do anything. Well, we could
do SOME kind of helping, at least teach English free
of charge, but for some reason (maybe lack of
experience, or terrible problems you encounter in
China, when you try to help others) we almost didn't
do anything. There were some free classes in public
schools and nothing else. In that time there were
several foreigners that came here to volunteer and
left disappointed after a few days, because of lack of
volunteering work. All that time I had a part-time job
in Jiaozuo, in a small private school (from now on
I'll call it Qi Se Guang, which literally means
'7-colour rainbow'), which let me make the living.

After the crisis in June I proposed to quit my job at
Qi Se Guang, and find another, better paid teaching
position in the city, to fund the project. Mr Yao
didn't approve it; he wanted to cooperate with QSG,
which also has a programme at the local TV station.
So, we stayed with QSG. About one month later Mr Yao
changed his mind; he found someone willing to sponsor
a new school. They decided to open it together. That
man promised to give his 50% of the income to the
charity, which was a great thing. There was just one
problem - they wanted to open the school from August,
and I happened to be the one to work there. To do it,
I'd have to quit my job in QSG immediately. QSG had
two kinds of courses: all-year and a summer one. The
summer one was to be finished by the middle of August.
QSG asked me to stay one more month before quitting my
job. Sounds reasonably, doesn't it? Well, not to Mr
Yao and his new associate. They demanded me to stop
working in QSG from the beginning of August. They
didn't care that much about me working at their new
school, as about me NOT teaching in QSG anymore. The
reason why they did so, were students. QSG didn't
provide English training before they hired me. From
March to August they've been promoting the new course
and gathering more and more students, which actually
appeared quite a difficult task. If I had quit my job
at QSG in the beginning of August, QSG would have lost
the students. And then Mr Yao would propose the
students learning at his school. If not from me, than
from some other foreign volunteer he would be able to
find.

It happened so, that I made some good friends in QSG,
and I found the way Mr Yao wanted to split with them
very harmful;QSG would have lost good reputation.
That's why I didn't agree to work for Mr Yao anymore.
After less than two weeks, and some stressful events,
which I choose not to tell you about, the Public
Security Bureau (police for foreigners) officers came
into my classroom in QSG. This is how my teaching at
QSG ended. Oops, I probably forgot to tell you I had
no working visa. Well, I will write later why I hadn't
got it. So, Mr Yao had been calling police every day
and telling them about my illegal working at QSG.
Police (as almost everywhere in China) didn't want to
deal with such a case, but eventually got tired with
Mr Yao calling everyday and decided to intervene. From
the 15th of August I've been waiting in Jiaozuo for
their final decision. PSB officers in that time were
interrogating both Mr Yao and QSG owner. Finally they
decided to charge QSG with a penalty fee (actually
it's more money that they earned from that English
course) and not to punish Mr Yao in any way. This
decision came up today. I was asked to leave China,
and not to work illegally here anymore. In fact, I may
not comply, and they wouldn't be able to tell, but now
I feel simply tired with China, Chinese mentality and
this whole mess and I want to leave. My plane is on
the 7th of September.

Relations between me and Mr Yao.
He helped me a lot. In the January I told him that if I
could find some job in Wuzhi and buy myself a new visa
(my current one was about to expire), then I would've
gladly come to Wuzhi to help him with his project. I
had other option - stay in Guangdong and work for 5k
per month, but I preferred the Wuzhi Experiment. So,
Yao helped me with finding a job, he lent me money for
the visa and daily needs. And he helped me in many
other ways over past months. I owe him, and I know it.
What Mr Yao apparently forgot, I helped him as well, by
staying in Wuzhi for so long, which in fact was a great
waste of time and our potential. Mr Yao felt very upset
when I told him I consider not teaching in his new
school he was going to open in Jiaozuo. He also hated
QSG for a couple of reasons (like not appreciating his
work). Furhtermore, he wanted to take the students from
QSG over to his new school. That's why he told on me.
Actually, I believe he also tried to call the HongKong
border port when I went there around the 7th of August,
but he was misled by a thought, that border port would
trust his words.

About Mr Yao.
I think you saw his profile on CS. 'castlelay' is his
profile name. Yao is a young man, seems friendly. Also
very opened and sincere, but it's superficial. In fact,
he lies every day. I saw him doing it many times,
although he stayed relatively honest with me, at least
till the time I told him I didn't want to work for him
anymore. In July I got to know, that Mr Yao was going
to withhold the truthe about his project from people
interested in volunteering there. In his opinion he is
fair providing martial arts training, Chinese language
tuition, and others, in exchange for English teaching.
He wants to develop the social part of the project, but
it will take time, and actually after last six months,
I just don't believe he can organise any serious
helping. So, everyone that comes here to help others,
may be strongly disappointed.
Another lie Mr Yao probably told you, is the one about
getting a working visa. To obtain a Z-type visa you
need to find a big company, because only such ones are
eligible for hiring foreingers. I'm afraid there is no
English training school in Jiaozuo that would be able
to do it. Yao can get you a Z-type visa... from
Jiaozuo University :) Because one month ago he bribed
someone from there (for which purpose I had to give
him some of the money I earned in QSG, thus leaving me
almost without any money) and that person is willing to
help him with obtaining a working visa. There are two
problems. Firstly, you'll have to probably work that
visa off teaching English for free in some public
school in Jiaozuo. Secondly, that visa will enable you
to work for the Jiaozuo University, and none other
school. Hence, this kind of visa won't cover your work
at Mr Yao's school. As PSB officers told me, a
foreinger needs a Z-type visa for any kind of work,
even volunteering. You may think it's not that much of
a problem; there are many people in China working
illegally, and police doesn't do anything. But this
case is different, because Mr Yao has now enemies in
QSG. They know he is going to open a school and they
know he already has, or will have soon a foreign
teacher (actually it may be you). They're just waiting
for the moment he takes money from the students to call
the PSB and then he and the foreign teacher will have
same problems, as QSG and me in past three weeks.
All this lying Mr Yao does for the good sake of his
project; he believes, that only in this way he can
develop it, just as he believed that telling police
about my illegal work was a necessary thing to do to
protect the project :-/

It will be better for you to not to work in any way
with Mr Yao. Mind your own safety.

Sorry for such a long message.

Take care,

fijau

This is concerning to me, yet I do not want to rush into making any judgements about what is going on until I actually get to the volunteer site. Afterall, if things are bad there, I can always just leave and go somewhere else. I am not sure where I would go or what I would do, but I will cross that road if and when I need to.

I suppose I just need to go into this volunteer project with an open mind and have no expectations of what it should be like and instead take it for what it is. Ever since reading about this place for the first time a couple of months ago I have been very excited by the idea. After speaking extensively with Yao, I did get the feeling that perhaps things were not as I had pictured them in my head. That is all okay though. I do not mind if the project is just getting off the ground and they are having difficulties. That is to be expected with things such as this. What does bother me is the thought that the people I will be working with may be misleading and untruthful. If this is the case I doubt I will be able to stay there for very long. I do not get along with liars and I do not think I will want to stay and give my time to a project that may be misleading and untruthful even if it is for a seemingly good cause. Yao seems to be very commited to this project, but if that means taking actions that I consider to be unethical and immoral then I will not stay at this project.

I am looking forward to being in Beijing. I am going to be staying with a native couchsurfer who speaks English. The day that I fly into China just happens to be the annual festival of lights. Apparently a lot of Chinese people will be coming to Beijing to celebrate so I might see some interesting things and perhaps take some good pictures. I am excited for Beijing in general. I hope to see of the buildings that were created for the Olympics. I will be flying into the 14 million square foot airport which apparently is the largest building on the planet. I will only have a few days in Beijing before I head south to the place where the Wuzhi project is located. It is not that far away from Beijing, however, so if I choose to I can always go back if there are still more things that I wish to do and see.

The Tribal Life

Things have been quite busy for me here at the workcamp in Germany and I have been meaning to write blogs while here. I have had so little time to write and so much to write about that it has been difficult to post anything. So then, read at your own risk because this is quite a long blog with many thoughts spread over many days that make up the whole of this blog. I also cannot spell check this either so there may be many more mistakes than usual.

This place is basically a large home consisting of a couple of large buildings and smaller caravans for many different families and individuals who have decided to give up a traditional western lifestyle for a life that is more tribal in nature. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come and stay here in the community, but those that do come need to contribute to the society here. Contributing consists of many different activities, but mainly it means helping out with whatever work that needs to be done within the community, e.g.: cooking, cleaning, toy production and the construction, or rather, renovation of the community houses. Like I said, everyone who comes here is welcome, however, it is a Christian community and was started by a pastor in the 1970s who felt that his message of Jesus and God was not getting through to his church members and felt that in order to better serve and teach the work of Jesus and the bible that people had to live a life where everything is shared.

Today the people of this community do share everything they have with those that are here which includes their food, shelter, time, energy and money. There is a core group of people that run things here and make the greater decisions for the rest of the community. These people are members. Not everyone here is a member and only those that are of the Christian faith are allowed to become members. From what I understand, the only two differences between a person who lives here in the community and a person who is a member is: members give everything they own to the community and have made a vow to themselves and god that they will stay here for the rest of their lives (although this vow has been broken by members in the past). Becoming a member then allows you a vote when the community needs to make a decision about something. Overall though, the main thing that guides them is the bible and their faith, it seems. Not even the children that are born here and grow up here are members. The children that live here go to public school and are made to leave the community once they become a certain age to give them the experience of living outside of the shared lifestyle. Of course, should they choose to come back after a time, they are certainly welcomed back as part of the community. In order to become a member the entire group of existing members must vote unanimously to allow you to join. If one person does not feel like you should be allowed to be a member then you would be denied, however, that does not mean that you are not allowed to live here. From what I understand, you could live your whole life here in the community without becoming a member and everyone is okay with that.

Years ago when the community was first established, money was made for the community through "normal" jobs that the members still had working in the western world. This money was used for everyone in what was the community at the time. However, after a while, more and more people started coming to the community to live. People came that needed constant attention because they were drug addicts or alcoholics or who had just gotten out of prison and had no where to go. Over the years, more and more of the community members left their normal jobs and started staying full time as people within the community taking care of eachother. Alas, the money needed to come from somewhere so the members started thinking of things they could do in order to sustain their livelyhood. They wanted to do work that was easy for everyone to participate in regardless of their background, eductation and skill level so that all the community could help with the work. It was important to them they did work that did not harm the environment and used local natural sustainable resources. It was also very important that their work was helping not only the community but the rest of the world around them as well. It was with these thoughts in mind that the community members decided that they would construct wooden toys for schoolage children. It started out as a small experiement developing hand carved toys for sale. Today they have a large woodshop factory here next to the building I am in right now which produces and supplies wooden products to over 2500 schools within Germany.

Most of my time here in the community is spent on the renovation of one of the houses here on the grounds. This is a building where families once lived and will live once more when the work is completed. The 3 people overseeing the work within the building plan to have the work finished before December in hopes that the community population that is living in caravans currently will have a much more warm and comfortable place to live for the winter time. Work in this house consists of: taking what is called "tapetta" off of the walls in the house, which is basically a thicker form of wall paper, installing wooden beams on the interior and exterior walls, installing insulation on the interior and exterior walls, and installing bamboo on the the walls of the house. There was also a lot of lifting and moving and cleaning jobs in the first week of work here. It is now my thrid week here and I am mainly working on putting up bamboo which is a rather tiresome task. In order to do the job right would take a very very long time, but I there is no time to waste.

Work for everyone in the community starts at 7:30 in the morning Monday thru Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are free days for most people. I thought waking up in the early hours of the morning was going to be much more difficult for me then it is. I allow myself plenty of time in the morning so that I do not need to rush by waking up at 6:00. I make myself breakfast (some "hafer floken", which is oat meal), then I prepare coffee, tea and bread for the other volunteers since I am always the first to wake up. This seems to work out better for me compared to my other volunteer members because I am always ready to work at 7:30, but some of them have problems in the morning as they try to sleep in as long as they can and then rush to eat and get ready. Mostly, they are late and make us all look bad and lazy. Despite some of the problems with tardiness, I really enjoy all of the other volunteer participants in this workcamp. We have a wide range of people from many different countries, but they all speak English, which is great for me. They are all very nice people and we seem to all get along very well.

The people in the community, on the other hand, do not all speak English. Most of them understand a little bit of English, but not much. There are a few whom I can converse with where we can both understand eachother most of the time. The lack of communication does seem to make things difficult as it is hard for me to integrate into their community and I feel like an outsider all the time. I guess this is something I need to get used to considering I am going to be heading to China where I will not only have a communication problem, but I will be an obvious outsider based on my looks alone. Despite our communication difficulties, the people here are very nice and welcoming.

The entire community is very time oriented. There is a schedule of what is going to happen, when and they stick to it. Like I said, work promptly begins at 7:30, then there is a break at 9:45 for some tea and bread which lasts until 10:00 (for us workcampers is seems to last until 10:10 most days). Work then continues until 12:00 when lunch begins then there is a break directly after lunch which lasts until 2:00. I was unaware of this break the first day we started work and went out to continue the job I was working on. It did not take me long to realise that I had missed something, but I continued working anyway only to find that people were looking at me like I am crazy. There has been a few times when I have been working on projects that I wanted to do just a little bit more of or maybe finish before I left for a break and it almost seems to upset some of the people here that I am working during a break. This was a shock to me because the general feeling I have experienced in my work back home with regards to breaks is that I should not be taking any in the first place. At home when I take a break I feel like I am doing something wrong and I feel like my bosses are wondering why I am not working. Here it is completely different; there is something wrong with me if I do not stop at exactly 3:30 when there is another break until 4:00 or at 5:00 in the evening when work is over for the day. They live very close to the clock and a change from the schedule is an insult to them, it seems.

All of the breaks in work are filled with eating. When you are not working you are eating. Thankfully most of the food that is made here seems to be fairly healthy, but some of the food that we have had at dinner time has not been all that great for my body. I have eaten more cheese in the last week then I have compared to all the time that I spent in the UK. I suppose it is good there is so much food because we are expending a lot of energy during the day with all of our work and without all of that food it would probably be much more difficult.

The people here have chosen a life much different from that of their western world peers. They have chosen it willingly and with a lot of thought. I wish to understand what has brought each and every one of the people here to this community. I think what they are doing here is fantastic. They live a life here without violence and greed. The area gives off an auroa of safety, comfort and security. Even from the very first day I arrived here I felt very comfortable and safe. I did not and do not feel a need to lock up my belongings. Any of them could easily rob me blind, but I know that that will not happen. It is like one big family here. They are all very kind and respectful. The arts are very prevalent in the community, especially music and song. It seems that everyone here sings. I walk around and all I hear are people humming or singing. A lot of people here play the guitar. There are also drums and flutes and pianos. Twice now there have been community dancing nights which everyone is invited to. In short, their lives seemed to be centered around eachother, family and christianity.

The people here in the community look at the western world and feel that there is something wrong with our way of life. They believe that they have found a better way, and I tend to agree with them. I feel that they are certainly on to something very good and important here. To me it seems to be a return to our roots when people lived in small units consisting of many families. Perhaps it is just bred into us that this is how it has been done for centuries and this is where we feel right and proper. Somehow the industrialization of the world has ripped us apart from what makes us human and we have become so transfixed with the accusition of money, things, wealth and power that we have forgotten what really matters. Seeing these people and how they live gives me hope for the future of mankind in general. These people know nothing of greed. The things they do in their lives is for the good of all the people around them, not just for themselves. However, they would not be here if not for their religion and their complete devotion to God and Jesus; for me, this is a little worrisome. It is sad for me to think that the only reason most, if not all, of the people that choose to come to this community do so because they feel it is what God wants them to do. If these were non-religious people they would not be here nor would the community exist. I cannot help but wonder what types of lives these people would be leading today if they had no religion. I would like to think that the people here would have found a way to live a life like they are doing here, but I do not think that would be the case. I feel that they would still be living a traditional western life-style...although I could be wrong and I hope that I am.

Christianity is the main driving force of this community. When there is a question to be answered the people pray until they are given and answer by God and Jesus. What ever answer they are given by their faith is the answer that they go with. This form of problem solving worries me. To me it means that it is not up to me as the individual making a choice and solving a problem, it is up to God or Jesus. When a choice is made and things are done, they are not the decisions made by a people or person but rather by God and Jesus. I feel this is a disconnect from responsibility for ones actions. Like so many other people in this world who make decisions and take actions not in their own name but in the name of their religion this community does the same. Their actions are not their own, but of their faith and their religion, therefore it is much more easy for the mind to justify immoral or unethical social behavior. Thankfully there are no suicide bombers here in this community that I have seen, but their line of thought is a cut off the same block I am afraid.

I find it especially interesting to speak with the youth of this community. Not just because most of them speak better English then their parents, but to see their views on the western world and the state of our society as a whole. They never grew up in a traditional western household so they have a unique position to be able to view us objectively. They look at us and cannot understand why we live like we do. Why we choose to disregard our fellow man and live a life of selfishness and isolation. The youth feel very privliged to have been born and raised here. If you ask them whether they wish they were born into a traditional western family they all say no. All except one of them, apparently. I have yet to speak with the person about it, but apparently one of the children resents being born here. I am very eager to speak with him about it and obtain his views on this community. I hope to be able to do so before I leave.

I feel like the way people live their lives here is a step in the right direction for the people of the western world, however, there are some things that I do not feel are right here in the community. Mainly the problems revolve around the youth of the community. I was very surprized and pleased to find that the children here are not home schooled, but are sent to public school. School is about the only time they have away from the community though. The children here are only allowed to leave the community for 2 weeks out of the year. One girl in particular here has friends in the south of Germany that she rarely ever gets to see because she cannot leave. To me this seems a bit to much. I understand that work needs to be done within the community, but to only give your children 2 weeks out of the year to be away from the same thing day in and day out just seems a little to restrictive. There is also a rule that no child is allowed to date which basically means that if you are a child that lives here and you have yet to finish with school and leave the community you are not allowed to have a relationship with any other child. To me this rule represents a fatal flaw in the thinking of the community as a whole. The rule was made after a young couple within the community accidentally got pregnant. Due to this incident it was then decided that no child within the community shall be allowed to date until they leave, period. First of all, I do not believe it is a good idea for any parent to make a rule that is impossible to enforce and seeing as how the children are away from the community most of the day during school time this rule becomes impossible to enforce. Secondly, I believe it to be extremely important for children to learn and explore relationships especially once they are around highschool age. There are important life lessons to be learned with regards to relationships and I feel the sooner these lessons are learned the better of the person will be. Children here do not have the opportunity to learn those lessons until they leave the community.

It is now my final week here in the community. Most of the volunteers have already left. I will be leaving this weekend to go somewhere else in Germany before heading to China the following weekend. It has been a different experience living here without the other volunteers. Before there was always something to do and something going on after the work of the day; now there is nothing going on in the evening most of the time. In a way it is good because I then have time to write this blog which I started two weeks ago but have not had a chance to finish. I do miss the other volunteers though and there are times when I wish that they were still here.

Overall this community is a very pleasant and interesting place to be and live. I could not see myself living here in this particular community, however, I can see myself living in a place very similar to it.