In Africa Together

I was working with Kristin (Brown) during the semester on her project in Uganda and Kenya. We had to create lesson plans for Dr. Page's class and do a report on our work with an NGO for Warner Woodworth's class. So what better place to concentrate on than Uganda. Our work in Kenya involved Koins for Kenya, the NGO that Kristin is a board member of. In Uganda we worked with Reach the Children to implement the Grow.Learn.Give Program, which Kristin and her mission companion Michelle had started. Anyway, I had expected merely to work with Grow.Learn.Give from Utah, although I knew that Kristin was planning a trip for November. In October, we came across the Fulton Fund for which an application was due at the end of the week. We decided to go for the grant as a long shot for both Kristin and I to go to Africa for free. Unexpectedly, we got the funding. The next step was to break it to Derek that Kristin and I would be going back to his mission in Kenya without him. I finally told him and we got to discussing possibilities of him coming with us. He did a lot of research to get funding to create a documentary on the Grow.Learn.Give Program and on Koins for Kenya. Most of the attempts were unsuccessful. In the end, I told Kristin about our dilemma, and she and her friends arranged partial funding for Derek to come and be our videographer. We had to buy equipment for Derek to use (which he later sold for a profit), but we were very excited to be going to Africa together for the first time. As we might have mentioned before, we first became interested in each other when we learned that we had both lived in Africa and could speak Swahili. Now we would get the chance to visit East Africa together. We left on Oct 28 and returned Nov 9. The first week was spent in Kampala, Uganda where we stayed in a nice (by Africa standards) hotel. We worked with two wonderful people: Patrick and Madinah. Patrick was the director of Reach the Children and Madinah had expressed the need for a program like Grow.Learn.Give which addressed menstruation education and supplies for primary and secondary school girls. We went around to different schools that had started to implement the Grow.Learn.Give Program and conducted interviews and focus groups to assess the progress. It was just wonderful to interact with the children and have them sing to us (see pictures below). On the Saturday of Derek's birthday, we took a trip to Jinja where we rafted the headwaters of the Nile. Sadly (and luckily) the waters were not as intense as I remembered from my previous trip to Uganda, as a damn had been constructed which slowed down the rapids. Grade 5 rapids are still intense, even if they're not as good as I remember. After completing our work in Uganda we left for Mnyenzeni, Kenya - a small village. It was quite a change from the fast-paced capital of Uganda. Kristin was there to represent the board at a neonatal resuscitation workshop. We didn't attend much of it, but went around to the village taking video and pictures of the people. Koins had implemented a program to provide lights for some of the best students so that they could study in their homes even after dark. Derek created some wonderful documentaries on the work done there, which we will try to attach to this post. It was so wonderful to speak Swahili again. The people have so much more respect for you if you speak the language. We also met a wonderful guy, Anthony, who directed the Koins for Kenya Program. One exciting event that occurred during our time there was the election of Barack Obama as president. All of Kenya went nuts when they heard that "their son" had become president of the United States. It was fun and inspirational to see. We reluctantly left Kenya at the end of the week and returned home. By this time I had some serious suspicions that I was pregnant as my period was late (sorry for underage readers)and I had begun to experience slight stomach problems. By the time I got home, my illness had become stronger, so I decided to visit the clinic. I found out that I was indeed pregnant and decided to surprise Derek. It was a difficult week transitioning back from Africa, having morning sickness, and worst of all, having to defend my thesis. But by Thurs. evening it was all over (at least the jet lag and the thesis). I was too sick to go out to a restaurant, so we ordered in, and I gave Derek a "birthday" card congratulating him on our pregnancy. He had a fun reaction. I wish I could have taken a picture. So that in a nutshell is our trip to Africa and the week after. I'm so thankful that we got the chance to do that together, as we may not be able to do something like that again for a long time.

Zion NP

Wow, has it been that long since we've updated our blog? That's pretty pathetic. So much has happened since then. I'll try to go back and recap. Ah Zion National Park, what a beautiful place. You'll see pictures below of Angel's Landing and the Narrows. Angel's Landing is not the best place for an acrophobe, but I felt very safe the whole way with chain hand rails. Beautiful views from the top. The Narrows is not the best hike to do in October. The water was around 40 degrees. When I first stepped in, it felt like knives were stabbing my feet. I'm talking in the singular because Derek had no problem with any of this. I decided I would be able to press on and after some pukies (feel like you're going to puke because it hurts so bad, usually caused by the cold), my feet adjusted and we were able to hike 3 or 4 miles at depths up to our thighs. When we reached the canyons (I can't remember what they were called) we hiked to a waterfall and then turned around and hiked back. Good thing too, as it was getting dark and cold. Looking back on the time we spent at Zion NP I realize that I was pregnant at the time, which makes me feel hardcore. I'll talk more about my pregnancy in the next entry about Africa.

Autumn Hiking

Derek and I have been spending our weekends hiking at different places around Utah. After all we are planning to move to California in December, so it won't be half as easy to explore all of Utah's beautiful national parks. We have some pictures from hiking Y mountain, some hot springs near Spanish Fork, and Arches National Park. Also, Derek's brother Jack and his girlfriend Danielle along with Derek's sister Katie came to visit us for general conference. We were able to go and see the Saturday afternoon session live, which is always a treat. You can really feel the Spirit in such close proximity to the general authorities of the Church. There were some fantastic talks too. That's about all that's new with us. Unfortunately, adventures are hard to come by during the semester. We've both been pretty busy with homework, but we're enjoying our time. Sorry for this half-hearted blog, but I'm trying to watch the Simpsons.

Singapore again!

After finishing our stint in India we said good bye and headed off to Singapore to finish off our awesome summer adventure. At the beginning of the summer we really enjoyed spending time with our family in Singapore, so we switched our schedule around a bit so we could visit our Singaporean again. In addition to this my sister Katie and my Aunt Susan planned on meeting us in Singapore for a couple of weeks of fun and frivolity.
We had a great time in Singapore and Malaysia. Unfortunately some crazy stuff went down- my Aunt Susan was feeling ill as soon as she got on the plane to come to Singapore. She said she was fine, but complained that her stomach hurt. One morning, after we got back from a killer trip to Tioman island in Malaysia, Aunt Susan woke us up and said she needed to go to the emergency room. It turns out she had been suffering from serious kidney problems and didn't know. Within the next day and half her kidneys and heart had completely shut down and she passed away shortly after. After Rachel and I made all the necessary arrangements to repatriate Aunt Susan's remains we returned to California for the funeral. After the funeral we went up to the cabin to spend time with my grandma, the break sorely needed after the last couple weeks.

All the things that have happened since the last time we wrote

And those are a lot of things. Sorry for our negligence. So the weekend after Amritsar we went to Jaipur in the beautiful state of Rajasthan. Before I begin, let me say that you can tell the difference between my posts and Derek's posts because mine are historical...and Derek's are interesting. Jaipur was established in 1727 by Maharaja Jai Singh II as the new capital of Kachwaha dynasty. It has been claimed to be the first planned city in India. I'm not sure what that means; the traffic didn't seem to be any better than any of the other cities we had visited. But we did meet a nice auto driver who acted as our tour guide for the entire day. Some of the places we visited included Amber Fort, Jantar Mantar, Jal Mahal (Water Palace), Surya Temple (otherwise known as the monkey temple) and Chokhi Dhani (otherwise known as Indian Disney Land). Amber Fort (pronounced Ah-mer instead of like the girl's name) was a beautiful Fort up in the mountains. We could have spent hours exploring the miles of walls of Amber Fort. Maharaja Jai Singh II, who created Jantar Mantar, was an astronomer. The site contains the largest sundial in the world as well as a lot of other contraptions that track the orbits of planets and the movements of the stars. It was one of our favorite places. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves for Jal Mahal and Surya Temple. Chokhi Dhani was amazing. It is a really popular tourist attraction for Indian tourists, but not that popular with foreign tourists. There are huge figures of dinosaurs and other scary animals as well as festive statues of people playing instruments and dancing. We went through the Indian version of the Jurassic Park ride, which was a little cave structure with dinosaur sounds playing on loud speakers. When you reach the end of the cave, there is a "life-size" t-rex waiting to greet you and take pictures with you. There were some great traditional dancers as well who got Derek and I to get on stage, and the best part was dinner. Dinner was a traditional Rajasthani meal in which we sat on the floor with a stainless steel tray and bowls. The servers came around putting different curries and breads in our serving tray until we were too full to eat anymore. It was delicious! Ok, enough about Jaipur already. The next weekend we stayed in Delhi to go shopping and run some last minute errands. My goodest Irish friend Richard came to visit us briefly, and then returned to work at his NGO in Kolkatta. Our last week in Delhi was a good one. I had a lot of work to finish with the WHO and Derek took care of all of the things we forgot to do. I think I'll write a separate post about work with the WHO soon, but for now we're in Kerala in the city of Kochin where we visited our first beach in the last two months! We're about to get on a train to Kannur where we'll be meeting some relatives for a few days before returning to Singapore. Home is on the horizon!

Amritsar, The Golden Temple, and the best March Fighting ever

This past weekend Rachel and I completed an adventure of near Epic proportions. We caught the train Friday afternoon and arrived 6 hours later in Amritsar in the northern state of Punjab. Amritsar, for those of you who are Bollywood savvy, is the city featured in 'Bride and Prejudice'. It was a truly awesome trip, after arriving at around 11:30pm we made our way to the golden temple and slept in the pilgrim's lodging just inside the temple complex. The lodging was rudimentary, but the price was right (Free-ninety-free). The beds were wooden planks with thin mats over them. It made for a long night, but it was a great experience. After our restless night in the bowels of a pilgrim horde we got up and went into the Golden temple complex. The temple is one of the most amazing places in the world. The golden Temple is the holiest place on earth for the Sikhs, and as far as Indian temple's go it's not hard to see why, the temple is just amazing. It is surrounded by a huge lake, and that is surrounded by a white marble courtyard all around the temple. The entire area is covered with pilgrims from all different religions, but the Sikhs especially are reverent and kind all around Amritsar. It was raining most of that day so some of the really neat places we were able to go we did not take pictures of.
One of the other place we went to was the silver temple, this temple is the Hindu version of the Golden temple and looks very very similar. They call it the Silver temple because of the solid silver doors that adorn its marbled halls. The silver temple is much smaller than the golden temple and is much less impressive, but it was interesting to see the differences between Hindu and Sikh priorities. After the silver temple we went to another temple in Amritsar known as the Cave Temple. The cave temple is a shrine for a lady that died in the 1970's and is supposed to be like a patron saint of fertility. So basically if your a young lady and you need to have a baby you go to the Cave Temple.
The temple is interesting, it is not really adorned with precious things like most of the temples, it is mosiaced with glass and mirror, giving it the appearance of a fun house. Also, there are portions were you have to get on your hands and knees and crawl, there is even a part were you have to wade through some water, giving it the artificial appearance of a cave. We are not sure what the symbolism of the cave theme is, but it was funny any way you look at it. Probably the most peculiar thing we did on our trip was attend the border ceremony at the pakistan-india border in Wagah. So every single night, just outside of this small town you find a ceremony at the only official border crossing from india to pakistan. The ceremony basically consists of a whole bunch of people gathering at either side of the border, for about an hour they play music and people dance and cheer. Then at about 6:30 they start the official program where in soldiers in huge fin looking hats march around and yell a lot.But that's not the best part, after marching around and yelling, the soldiers march towards the gates of the other country and then the Indian Soldiers and the



Pakistani soldiers have a march off. That's right, the soldiers try to outdo one another by stamping and kicking high in the air. The whole time the crowds are just going nuts and the competition is fierce. After their little march fight, they shake hands and close the gates. Then they lower the flags at the same time and that's that. Afterwords the crowds converge on the soldiers to get signatures and pictures. It is seriously like a sporting event, and we have never seen anything like it. All in all it was a great trip with a lot of neat things to see and do, but the best was probably just the beauty of the Golden temple and the amazing Sikhs all around that were so nice and so reverent.

Weekend at the Taj Mahal

We went to Agra this past weekend to the home of the Taj Mahal. Our traveling buddies were Ben Smith and Krista, one of Rachel's friends from work. We took a 3 hr super deluxe "executive class" train from New Delhi at 6 in the morning. Apparently executives are treated very well in India because we got a free newspaper and fresh rose when we got on the train, and then a 3 course breakfast was served to us throughout our trip. Not to mention that we had to lean forward to reach our tray tables because there was so much room between our seats and the ones in front of them. Upon arrival in Agra, we hired a driver to take us around for the day. Our first stop was Fatehpur Sikri. Here's a little Fatehpur Sikri history for you ala Wikipedia: It was the political capital of India's Mughal Empire under Akbar's reign, from 1571 until 1585, when it was abandoned, ostensibly due to lack of water. It is located in what is now Uttar Pradesh, India. It's made of red sandstone, so any of the pictures you see with red stone are probably in Fatehpur Sikri. After that we did a little sightseeing and ended our tour of Agra at the Taj Mahal, truly a wonder of the world. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum that was built under Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. He was later deposed by his son and locked up in Agra Fort. When he died, he was placed beside his wife in the Taj Mahal. According to legend, Shah Jahan cut off the hands of all his workers after they finished the Taj so that they could never replicate their work. Also according to legend, there was supposed to be an exact replica of the Taj Mahal made of black marble built across the river for Shah Jahan's tomb, but when his son deposed him, the building was never constructed. Upon further research, we found out that these legends were unfounded and probably untrue (too bad!) We spent a few hours at the Taj Mahal just sitting on the upper level and watching the sun set over the river. We took the Delux train back in time for church the next morning. On a sad note, the Smith family had to return to the States to take care of their ailing grandparents. We expect them back in a few weeks.

redfort

Ramnagar and the "Delux" Bus

This last weekend we had the chance to go to Ramnagar to visit the Jim Corbet national tiger preserve. We spent a grueling 8 hours overnight ride on a "delux" bus that turned out to be a stinky sweat hole that was overcrowded and not airconditioned. It made for a great night, rachel and i got approxamatly no sleep. Afterwards we hired a taxi and went on a trek through the jungle to an old temple. Then we went to the tiger reserve and saw some awesome tigers. Afterwards we got dinner and then caught the night train back to Delhi. All in all it was one killer weekend. Also Ben and Naman went with us, it was a party all day. Good times with good people!

Thank you everyone...

First off, thanks to all of you who are praying for us. Rachel and i are being blessed way more than we ever would have warranted on our own. As you all may or may not know indians think americans are rich. Even nice well intentioned indians think we're loaded. So the lady rachel works with here in delhi at the WHO that was gracious enough to let us stay at her place is charging us 50$ a night. That's right, she is charging us approxamtly 4 times more than we were paying in the states for our own appartment. Needless to say my greatest desire was to abandon that place as quickly as possible. So rachel and i both fasted for a place we could actually afford, and that day at church we met the smith family. They offered us a place to stay for free- as if it was no big deal, like the miracle that they had just preformed for us was small change. Anywho things are great in derek and rachel land, just thought i would let you all know.

ALSO: Just to let you all know you can leave comments, if you have questions or comments about blog posts please comment and we will respond quickly. I feel kinda of bad that this blog is more like an infomercial and less like family bonding. In addition to that notice, i am sorry but pictures may decrease, due to the fact that it is stupid to roam the streets with a 1000$ camera. Anywho, i hope you all will still read.. Love Derek and Rachel!

In India... finally.

Since the last post, we have left Singapore behind and started our adventure in India. Times were tough for the terrific two-some. Tiger airways, our supposed “budget” airline forced us to abandon 13+ kg of our possessions to be picked up upon our return to Singapore. Included in these beloved possessions was Derek’s famous satchel, which he has been depressed and moody about since. After a 4.5 hr flight from Singapore to Bangalore, we found out that we’d be forced to journey far, far into the heart of Bangalore in order to find acceptable lodging. (We landed in a new airport, just 2 weeks old that was far from the city.) The next day we explored Bangalore and were nearly trodden/run over a plethora of times. Bangalore is swell; the temperature was fantastic, the people were nice, and the food was great. That evening, we caught another flight to New Delhi on a much more pleasant budget airline, IndiGo. We arrived around midnight and found a taxi driver waiting with our names on a crumpled piece of paper, which he was holding up. After an hour and a half drive and a search for the house of a WHO employee in the dark, we found the house of Ms. Madhu Sareen. We will be staying with her for the next week and then possibly moving in closer to the city. In the morning we started our first day in New Delhi; Rachel going to work at the WHO and Derek exploring the city. Work at the WHO was pleasant. Rachel’s boss is a nice man from the Maldives who will be guiding her on creating a document to evaluate the Healthy Settings program in Southeast Asia. In order to complete this task, Rachel will need to make calls and send e-mails to all the country offices around SE Asia to ask them for progress reports and then compile them into a document. There are many other interns working with her, from places such as the US, Nepal, Myanmar, and many other countries. We are hoping to travel with them on the weekends to sites around India. While Rachel was at work, Derek wandered aimlessly throughout the greater New Delhi area. After making 3 or 4 new friends and hours of searching, he finally arrived at the mission home. He will probably be trying to work with the missionaries and a humanitarian aid couple, as well as possibly teaching institute. THE END.

last days of the Sing-Era

The last few days of our stay in Singapore were spent seeing a few sights that we had not yet gotten around to. One of these was the famous Singapore botanical gardens, which included a 150 yr old tree and incalculable numbers of orchid species. Singapore has one of the best orchid hybrid production facilities, and it was fascinating to see how they created hybrids and how many beautiful orchids there are. We also spent this time practicing our nature photography skills, and Rachel tutored me (Derek) on photographic technique. We also celebrated our smallest cousin Jonathan’s birthday. One of the highlights of the evening was throwing Derek into the pool. The whole family came together to participate in this warm and loving activity, wherein Derek practiced being a dead weight and the family practiced dragging dead weight 100 m across cement to a pool. We also went to Chinatown with Rachel’s mom and attended a cool Hindu ritual at a local temple. We really enjoyed our time with the family, it was amazing getting to know them again after so many years and we are hoping to come back through Singapore for a week or two before going back to the States.

Singapore to Malaysia and back again...

One of the many places we were able to go with the Suresh family was on a super cool trip to Malaysia to Melaka and Kota Tinggi. We left early Sunday morning and drove up to historic Melaka, the original home of the Southeast Asian Peranakan, or in other words, half Malaysian, half Chinese people. The town is riddled with historic sites from conquerors and colonizers, including the Dutch, the French, and the English. After a brief but informative visit, we got back into the car and traveled to the Eastern coast of Malaysia to a small town named Kota Tinggi. Auntie Evelyn was fantastic enough to reserve a cabin in the rainforest reserve just outside of the city. We had a great time playing cards, table tennis, and “throw pears at the tree” games. Also, the entire area was infested with birds that made really super-neato sounds. Some of them would mimic you, and this caused us and the kids to spend countless hours trying to convince the birds to say something interesting. That night, we chartered a boat to go up the Kota Tinggi River to see the fireflies along the banks in the mangrove trees. The fireflies were beautiful; they hovered in the branches of trees in large numbers trying to imitate Christmas lights. The person steering the boat, wanting to give the passengers a memorable experience, drove the boat into the mangroves, where Derek was able to capture several fireflies for the enjoyment of the kids onboard. The next morning we got up and went to the Kota Tinggi waterfalls, where they have built several super cool water slides. (See pictures). It was a neat place because there were no tourists, only the native Malaysians, including fully garbed Muslim women, playing in the water. We returned that evening to await the arrival of Rachel’s mom, who would be flying in around midnight.

Picture Commentary

Shona and her new malaysian hat, she so cute it hurts to look at her. And she is popular too. Really Popular.

We couldn't help but snap a photo of these two monks touring an old british fort that had once been a dutch church.

the beautiful waterfalls of Kota Tinggi

Buddhists are neat.

So a while back we took a drive to a reserve to see birds, but it was raining and al we saw was some monitor lizards and a whole pack of mosquitos. Then we found monkeys playing in the streets. Afterwards we had lunch next to a buddhist temple and decided to visit. Ps. Buddhists are swell folks.

Singapore Zoo

So uncle Sureesh, auntie Evelyn and Shankar took Rachel and I to the singapore zoo. It was by far the best zoo i have ever been to. They let the orang utans roam free all over the zoo. Before you correct my spelling of orang utan you should know that orang utan is malaysian for "forest man". Yeah, thats cool. Long story short it was a blast and we all had good times. The family here has really been great, they have catered to our every need and given us so much! This sunday we are going to some waterfalls in malaysia, i am pretty stoked.

Thailand, good times

Fun in the Sun- East Coast Singapore

This last monday the whole crew went for a fantastic holiday to the east side of Singapore. It was a long drive, all of 15 minutes- considering singapore is an island everywhere is close to the ocean. We had a great time swimming in the sea, playing roundus, eating icecream and lying in the sun. It was a really great time had by all. Later that night we all went to auntie shobi's house and had dinner with the family, afterwards we played cards and had a super wonderfully time. Singapore really has been a blast, Unkle Sureesh and his family has really taken wonderful care of us and shown us all the sights. So far singapore has been a blast! Anywho, tommorow we fly to phuket, thailand, and Rachel and I are excited to go to Thailand and see the sights! Love you all.

Cabin fever!

First and foremost o would like to apologize for the disturbing lack of new photos on the blog. We have an amazing camera, but it is so nice and so large that we rarely take pictures of the more mundane particulars of our travels. Right now i am sitting on a bed in the heart of Singapore. After a grueling 14 hour flight from San Fransisco to Hong Kong the 3 1/2 hour flight on to Singapore seemed like a cake walk. I must be honest though- being almost 14 hours ahead time wise has lead to both Rachel and i feeling brutalized, jet lag is an understatement. It is now 1:30 in the morning on Friday the 16. Back home it is 10:30 in the morning on Thursday the 15. ugh. All in all the flights were pleasant and for the most part went off without a hitch. We arrived in Singapore to find a plethora of Rachel's family waiting for us. They all seem like great people and have been more than hospitable. I am now ready to pass out, as is Rachel. Ergo, Fairwell, more to follow. Love Derek and Rachel

Sticking to the trail-

In an attempt to stay true to our commitment to post to this thing, i will now post- to this thing. Anyway, this last few weeks have been a whirlwind of visiting madness. On Wednesday the 23 of April we finished with Utah, sub-letted our apartment and left. The girl who rented our place is great and we are excited about not paying the rent all summer. After the long drive from Utah to California we arrived in Loyalton and had a splendid time with my mom. Activities included going to a Scottish-games event and seeing hundreds of burly scots bare their nethers, doing lots of thrifting in Reno, walking in the high mountain desert with my mother and generally having a good time. After a week or so of rollicking we flew out to Dallas to visit the other side of the family. After landing in Dallas we drove to longview to spend some time with our lovely mother Sree. We also attended the funeral services for one of Rachel's great aunts, and then picked up brother Jesse from the airport. Jesse, by the way, has just finished Officer Candidate School for the navy and to be quite honest is a rather hard-core chap these days. After good times in east Texas we drove back to Dallas and picked up Rachel's dad. The three of us then went on a splendid road trip down to Austin and then finally ending up in San Antonio. In San Antonio we spent the day looking for apartments for Gary ( Rachel's dad), we found a really nice place that makes our basement back in Utah look like a basement from Utah- if you get my drift. After returning to Dallas and spending the night we are now preparing for the long flight back to Reno and then an even longer flight to Singapore. Long story short things have been crazy good times in a box. Well, hope to keep y'all updated, feel free to comment on stuff if you feel i am being too descriptive, or not descriptive enough. We love you all.