you got mail

i love mail. in the modern age i guess you can consider pretty much all kinds of technological communication as mail... and i love those too, but not as much as what comes into my black mailbox along the side of the road. or my tiny mail box in the gordon college mailroom.

there's this leap of happiness when i peak inside the m

ailbox and see something addressed to me. and even when it's something i don't really want like my bank statement or some mass-mailing that comes to every college-age person, i still kind of like it.

but what i like the best are letters. letters that start with "dear..." and end with "love...", letters long or short that let you know that someone was thinking about you and took the time to write. i think my love for letters comes from my grandmother who ha

s been my pen pal ever since i can remember. she faithfully writes me letters - no matter if i am in massachusetts, california, or costa rica. she taught me the importance of writing to people, no matter how much faster or more efficient email or facebook might be.

thank you grandma, and thank you friends & family who have written me over the years. thanks for paying for the postage stamps. you have made my mailbox and my life full.

ba-na-na-naaaaa

I have a banana addiction. I used to have a banana a day and I will put a banana in every meal: breakfast (with cereal/oatmeal), lunch (peanut-butter, banana, honey sandwiches are my favorite), dinner (plátanos, anyone?), and dessert (perfect addition to vanilla pudding!)

During our “Faith & Practice” Seminar at LASP, we were divided into groups of 7 or 8 and were asked to come together to discuss how we as Americans should engage with Latin America. Many of the groups, including my own, focused on consumerism since we consume many products from Latin America…and what better topic to pick for me than bananas, a fruit I (obviously) love!

This blog post isn’t meant for me to coerce you into following my new convictions about banana consumption, but rather a way for me to tell you a little bit about what I learned about bananas while I was in Latin America…and why those lessons have challenged me to think differently about my banana consumption and purchases.

[fun fact: bananas do not grow on trees! instead we call them a plant and they grow in group of three. as you can see above, there are three generations for this banana plant - L to R: grandchild, child, and grandparent :)]

Some fast facts from the USDA Economic Research Service

**in 2007, the united states imported 7.908 billion pounds of bananas

**Bananas claim over 50% of the volume of fresh fruit imports

-Bananas rank no. 1 in US per capita fresh fruit consumption (followed by apples & oranges)

-Bananas are imported primarily from Guatemala, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Honduras

Unfortunately, banana production and trade has not always been carried out in an ethical and just manner. While I was at my internship, I read two books on Latin American History/Politics, recommended by one of my professors.

Here is an excerpt that draws attention to some of the harmful affects of the banana industry in the early twentieth century:

"In 1899, [the Boston Fruit Company and Tropical Trading & Transport Company] merged to form a singular enterprise: UFCO (United Fruit Company). Here began a remarkable chapter in the history of U.S. investment, penetration, and control in Central America. UFCO established a virtual monopoly on the production and distribution of bananas"

--Modern Latin America 6 ed. (Skidmore & Smith)

I saw injustice within the banana industry first hand when our group traveled to visit a protest site of former banana workers and they told us their story. At this site, men, women, and their families (approximately 500 of the 7,000 affected by the chemical during a period of time) live under tarps to protest against the banana companies which used pesticides resulting in sickness for many workers. These workers have different forms of cancer and other ailments such as blindness because of the pesticides used on the bananas. Unfortunately, the multi-national corporations involved have yet to pay for the damages they caused and the former workers continue to live at this site outside of the government offices in Managua (the capital city of Nicaragua). The consequences of these pesticides had an enormously detrimental affect on many workers and I do not believe that this story is the only one among other Latin American countries who are involved in the banana industry.

[banana plantation in limón, costa rica moving bananas from the land to be prepared for export. notice the blue bags that are covering them]

Besides workers abuses, many banana plantations are not environmentally friendly because of the bags they use to cover the bananas as they are growing. We visited a few banana plantations in Costa Rica, and you will see blue bags covering many of the growing banana bunches and the amount of these disposed for this huge industry is not good for a planet in need of lowering waste! Now many banana plantations are using recyclable or eco-friendly bags, but in the past this hasn’t been the case.

So…what do we do? There are some awesome fair-exchange/fair-trade banana companies such as equal exchange (www.beyondthepeel.com) and EARTH Bananas, a banana plantation in Costa Rica which sells their bananas in Whole Foods! Even if you don't shop at Whole Foods, you should check them out because it's a really cool business that they are operating. I wish there were fair trade/equal exchange bananas in all grocery stores, but this has yet to happen.

[bananas are rinsed and sorted and then put in boxes, then shipped to us!]

Eating locally has become a bigger theme for our consumption of foods. Eating locally is good for a number of reasons (you should definitely watch Food Inc. to learn more about them!!), but one of them is the lessened environmental impact because of the oil and other resources used to get products across the oceans and continents. Since most of the US’s terrain isn’t very good for growing bananas, it is hard to “buy locally,” so I think the second best option is to buy less.

My local grocery store doesn't sell fair exchange or EARTH bananas so I am trying to only buy organic bananas and eat less of them in general (my next step should be talking to my grocery store about getting equal exchange bananas but i haven't gotten up the courage to do that yet!). Unfortunately organic does not mean "just & ethical", but at least it is better for the environment and not using pesticides is also eliminating the possibility of workers becoming sick from pesticide use. I wish there was a simple answer to eating and buying ethically produced products or that there was one website that would sum it all up and tell me where to shop and where not to shop. But I believe that the exercise of trying to be informed and make good consumer choices is a good practice and something that needs to become a bigger part of my life.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on bananas – I would love to hear them! So far it has been a little difficult eating less of one of my favorite fruits, but thankfully there are many other yummy fruits to compensate :)

[sweet] sixteen

[our attempt at touching the golden gate...not so successful.

but in any case, isn't she cute?!?!]

my baby sister turned 16 this past sunday.

crazy.

the only thing i remember about her being born was that when my dad took kels and i to the hospital to meet her and see my mom, my dad accidentally ran over my toe when he was opening the door. therefore, i received more attention than the new baby or my mom as nurses helped me and my wound :)

there are many special things about libby. she is kind, loving, sensitive, caring, funny, has a huge smile & heart, and has a beautiful voice, among many others. i was really bummed to have missed her debut in her high school's production of "Hello Dolly!", but got to see her perform a few times since i've been home and it is SO fun to see her up on stage. she has also been helping leading worship for youth group which is exciting.

i thought about libby a lot while i was in central america because there were panaderias, or little bread stores, on many corners throughout the towns. libby LOVES bread and i thought she would be in heaven with all the different kinds of sweet breads that abounded every where i went. i told this to my host family and since i've talked to them, they keep telling me how they think about libby and want her to visit them and enjoy the panaderias :)

i love this girl a whole bunch and am so blessed to be able to be apart of her 16th birthday celebration!

happy birthday libs!! i love you dearly and am so proud of you!!

parents

i learned so much from my parents while i was in latin america. i saw hospitality, generosity, patience, and love flow from their hearts in the ways they interacted with me. they were servants in the ways they fed me, provided shelter for me, and also provided conversation and comfort as i lived miles away from the comforts of my own "home". the majority of my time abroad was spent with my san jose family, but i also got to live with two other families, in nicaragua and at my internship. i believe that these people are gutsy -- i mean, really, opening their heart & home to an exchange student you've never met nor seen before? i wish i could say i would jump at the opportunity, but i think it would take a little more encouragement than that. it was a privilege to live with them throughout the semester and i treasure my conversations and experiences with them.

[san jose]

[nicaragua]

[internship]

[santa barbara parents, or as i like to call them: the 'rents]

i was so blessed by the parents i had while i was in latin america for four months, but that blessing pales in comparison to the blessing of my birth parents -- whose hospitality, love, generosity, patience, and faithfulness have continued for 21 years (and counting :)). they were a rock during my semester and i don't think i could have made it through the ups and downs of living in a foreign country without them.

i'm thankful for the blessing of parents: of their wisdom, the ways i observe how they live in love, how they press on through the challenges of life, and how they open their arms to you just the way you are.

a post of scattered thoughts

Life is not like linear algebra: that’s a known fact, but as I was talking to a friend this morning, I was realizing how very true that is – especially in this season of life where I came back from an intense experience abroad and am preparing for my final year of college and then …?? Where am I going? What am I supposed to DO with these new perspectives I’m trying to process? Where is it taking me? I want to figure it out: now. Unfortunately, I’m learning that you can’t figure it out all at once.

Last semester I walked into my professor’s office on a Friday afternoon and proceeded to talk to him for an hour about life after graduation and grad school. He is one of the reasons I miss Gordon so much right now – I miss those conversations with professors who not only teach me, but also listen to me and care about me as a student and person. They provide advice that continues to be helpful, even hours, days, and months after the conversation ends. After giving some practical advice about grad school, he said: “Alyssa, God has plans for your life. Vocation is real” and he told me how as he looks back on his life, he sees how God has led him to where he is today, even though it didn’t necessarily make sense as he was taking those steps.

I walked away from that conversation encouraged and hopeful. Yet I think that the implications of what he said are much bigger. Life isn’t necessarily a straight path and sometimes I really wish it were. I wish that my semester would lead me immediately to point B and from there I would continue on to point C and then D. But it isn’t like that. While I was in Costa Rica a friend of mine emailed me and encouraged me to be patient with myself and said that you don’t know how these experiences are going to influence you in the months and years to come. That was a freeing statement for me – freedom for me to let God do the work in my life, for him to use the experiences and conversations to change and shape the way I think and see the world. Yet for me, this requires a lot of patience and a lot of waiting and confusion because that process often doesn’t make sense. But I hope to be a person where at the end of my life, I can look back and see how God used and placed people, relationships, conversations, and experiences to lead me to wherever he wants me to be and however I think and react to situations around me.

“God has plans for your life.” I am honestly not sure how to respond to this. A few months ago that statement excited me, but now it makes me a little fearful and I am trying to understand what my commitment is to a God who will lead me in and through the uncertainties and confusions of life. He might lead me to the right and left, up and down, east and west, and while I know that these plans are good, I feel the tug in another direction because of my own fear and a desire to follow an easy path of doing what I believe makes sense as is "part of the equation" (you know – y=mx +b).

So where is my semester and my experiences taking me and changing me? I don’t know yet. I know it’s caused me to question a lot of things and to really seek understanding of who Jesus is and what his message means to me and to people around the world. It’s given me new family and friends and a host of conversation topics. But I also need to wait. I need to listen and learn and explore and jump into life and wait expectantly for God to use and teach me things …and to let him use Nicaragua and Cuba and Costa Rica as part of the picture and lessons that are continuing to unfold. There is still so much to be learned from my time in Latin America and the years before it and weeks so far after it, and I can’t do it all at once. It will probably be a lot of zig-zaggy lessons leading me here and then there…but I need to be patient, willing, and ready for wherever they take me.

new england: me hace falta

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love

[summer]

[winter]

[springtime]

[harvest]

tribute to the tanz

[beach beaut]

i'm not much of a cat person - partly because of allergies, but they're also not particularly nice to me (if you would like to hear a funny story about me cat-sitting, you should ask...this might explain my problems with cats). anyways, enough about cats: i love dogs -- the ones that are sweet and fun and sort of dumb, but they're so cute they make up for it. that description describes our dog tanya pretty darn well and i know she was the perfect addition to our family 11 years ago. so to pay tribute to my dearest tanya vanbaker, here are 10 things that you may or may not know about her:

1. tanya's original name was taffy. i think we called her taffy for about a week before we decided we didn't like it and decided to re-name her. thankfully this time her name stuck

2. tanya is an expert gopher hunter. currently, the gopher count in our yard is at 9 gophers. my mom takes tanya outside to wherever the gopher hole is and tanya sniffs out where to set the trap and...9 counts later, we have a successful gopher hunter team! she also loves gardening and gets this cute smile on her face with perked ears and dirt on her nose & paws.

3. tanya loves chasing birds - and this has been a problem. one afternoon i decided to go rollerblading with her and we went by a neighbor's house who had a pet chicken-like bird in their front yard. since i was on wheels (never doing that again!) i couldn't hold on to the leash and tanya took off and got the bird literally in her mouth. somehow i got the bird OUT of her mouth and it ran off. it was a very embarrassing conversation to have with the neighbor later that afternoon

"Hi, my name's Alyssa and I was rollerblading down the street and my dog got your bird in her mouth...I'mreallyreallyreallyreallysorryisthereanythingicando??!"

Thankfully the neighbor happened to be a bird doctor and was able to help the bird recover

5. she likes apple cores and orange slices and sniffs them out from wherever she is in the couch to find you in the kitchen eating your afternoon snack

4. tanya LOVES the beach. maybe going along with the bird theme, she loves chasing the birds along the sea shore (yep, got one of those in her mouth too which was taken to animal rescue!). she loves the waves, and the sand, and then laying in the sun

[annual christmas present]

6. puppy training was a complete disaster: we spent the majority of the time trying to find her mingling with the other puppies and she didn't listen to any of our commands (rather embarrassing when you are the only family whose dog doesn't "come" when called but is instead sniffing the trash cans). somehow she "passed" the class...

7. we have never had a successful tomato crop because she always finds some creative way of attacking the garden (believe me, my mom has tried every trick possible to keep her out, but to no avail)

8. she once ate a plate full of brownies and had to get her stomach pumped and they found all kinds of weird things in their like a bouncy ball and a peach pit

9. she is quite sneaky and seems very well-behaved outside without her leash and then BOOM, she is off, running down the street. one time we had her leash tied to a big bounce ball which we thought would keep her in, but instead she took off with it trailing behind her and ran into the neighbor's house and the ball knocked down their new lamp.

10. she sleeps about 22 hours of the day

love ya tanz!