Hope For A Family - Carla's Family

(This was the view from CFCA's Shalem Center as Tenley and I waited for our sponsored child, Silvia, to arrive for our July visit.)

As Tenley's and my week in Guatemala was winding down, the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) staff talked with those of us who had been on the trip about ways we could continue to partner with CFCA once we returned home. One of the ways is to share the stories of children who still need sponsors, in hopes that someone who is seeking an opportunity to provide hope to a family and expand their own experience of another culture will choose to sponsor this child.

For this reason, I am featuring Carla tonight.

CARLA

Carla just turned six yesterday (August 13).  She speaks a Mayan language called Q'eqchi'. Her father is a day laborer (as a wheat grinder) and her mother is a housewife. She has a 10-year-old sister and a 12-year-old sister.

Carla's family home has board walls, a tin roof, and a dirt floor. The family does not have electricity, and they get their water from an outdoor pump. Their sleeping facilities are described as "brick with rug." The family prepares food over an open fire.The family's approximate monthly income, in US dollars, is $50.

Her profile from CFCA tells us that she likes to play chase and dance. Her jobs at home include cleaning the table and feeding the chickens. Additional biographical information says she "likes to smile, likes that everything is in order at home, and likes to run errands." Her family is described as "very humble" and they are consistently involved in activities held in their village.

These chickens belong to a family whose home Tenley and I visited.

If you are not familiar with CFCA's sponsorship program, the $30 per month commitment helps families meet basic needs such as education,  nutrition and medical care. Sponsorship also provides the support and opportunities these families need to improve their life situations and provide a better future for their children. CFCA has staff who work directly with the sponsored children and their families to make sure the sponsorship money is spent wisely. In addition to improving the family's nutrition options and the child's education situation, CFCA also works with families to teach them skills they can use to generate additional income; these individuals often go on to teach others. 

As I have thought this week about what I would write about Carla and, in the future, other children who need sponsorship, I kept getting a bit stumped about how to "pitch" this. I decided that my role in this process is to help tell the story, not sell the story. All I ask is that if you are seeking an opportunity to make a difference and this seems like a good fit, let me know. If you could share Carla's story among your social networks and friends, great. If you live within driving distance of me, I will be glad to brew up some Guatemalan coffee and come speak to your group. 

For another sponsor's perspective, check out Lynn Woolf's post, $1 a Day, about her family's  experience sponsoring Flora from Tanzania and Christian from Honduras. Lynn does a great job of describing one of the other benefits of sponsorship - the thrill of corresponding with your sponsored child.

In closing, I read this quote recently and it resonated with me as I continued to process all of the images and experiences from my trip to Guatemala:

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you. -Andre Gide

I am seeking your help in giving Carla the best 6th birthday present possible -- the gift of knowing someone "completely possesses" the desire to sponsor her.

For more information:

My phone number: (850) 556-3517

My email:  opuswsk@aol.com

CFCA: http://www.hopeforafamily.org/

CFCA email: mail@cfcausa.org

CFCA phone: 800.875.6564

Note from Paula: It is possible that more than one person may contact CFCA about sponsoring Carla or that a potential sponsor may really have their heart set on sponsoring a boy instead of a girl, a child from one of the 21 other countries served by CFCA, or an elderly person. Please know that CFCA has many sponsorship opportunities available and will be happy to work with you to select who you want to sponsor. You can get more details on that here.

           

My Perfect Roman Holiday Party (A Mama Kat Writing Prompt)

When Mama Kat published her five writing prompts on Tuesday, one of them made me laugh out loud just thinking about writing to the prompt (the one about when I have laughed at an inappropriate time). But random.org isn't influenced by what I think is funny and gave me, instead, prompt number two:  If you had the opportunity to throw a dream party for your closest family and friends, describe what that would look like.

Party Condition Number One: There would be nametags. There would be nametags because I have prosopagnosia (faceblindness) which would take far more than one blog to explain (although I started down the path in this post last September). It's my perfect party, so there will be nametags, and they will be worn (please).

Party Condition Number Two: The theme will be "Roman Holiday." There will be food and drinks (including non alcoholic versions) prepared by Velva from Tomatoes on the Vine, such as this concoction:

Photo Credit: Velva Knapp

Party Condition Number Three: One of the scads of talented photographers I know such as Jacob Abrams (pictured below) will be there to take photo-journalism style pictures so we will have the memories far into the future and I won't have to spend the whole night thinking "gotta get this so I can put it on Facebook"!

Photo Credit: Jacob Abrams

Party Condition Number Four: If the party is at my house, it will have been professionally cleaned (inside) and landscaped (outside) in advance. Oh, and decorated too. That's not my forte.

Party Condition Number Five: Under the pretense of "entertainment," I will assemble everyone to watch an entertaining short film about Rome (a film I will have arranged for one of the scads of talented young filmmakers I know to make). BUT, the purpose of the film will actually be
to surprise my wonderful mother-in-law, Barb, with the news that she is scheduled to go on her fantasy trip to Rome, at no cost to her!

Barb shares her story with the Florida Vision Summit

Party Conditions Number Six and Seven: Someone will foot the bill for this fantasy trip to Rome (and the Roman Holiday Party) and I will be part of the contingent going to Rome with her. I used to say, "it doesn't matter who goes as long as Barb gets to go to Rome" (this has been a dream of hers for a long time) but now that my appetite for international travel has been stirred by my July trip to Guatemala, I want to be one of her travel companions.

My perfect party would be one where I made a loved one's dream come true .... and had everyone I care about there to celebrate with me (while wearing nametags).

Wordless Wednesday (Summer Pops Edition)

It's nice to give kids a few extra treats in the summertime,

But......when mom needs a summer treat for herself, she can...

Add lime zest:

Salt...

And some summer spirit(s) in the form of tequila and orange liqueur, to get...

Mom Treats!

The recipe for Margarita Pops came from Family Circle Magazine.

A few more images of my "Margarita Pop Fun" session:

Here's the recipe (click on it to enlarge):

I am linking this Wordless Wednesday post up to the Crazy Days of Summer Photo Challenge sponsored by Kristi of Live and Love Out Loud and Alicia of Project Alicia. This week's theme is "summer treats"! Next week's theme is "fun with friends."

Believing (A Goodbye/Thank You to the MFA Class of 2011)

Spend any time at all on one of my social media sites and you are likely to deduce that I enjoy helping the FSU Film School find people and things. Pigs? Babies? Restraining Straps?

Yes, you heard me right - restraining straps. And here's how the conversation went. A Sunday, around 1:30 p.m. in advance of filming the following day in which said straps would be needed:

Film Student: Can you please call Tallahassee Memorial and see if they have some brown leather straps like you would use to restrain someone?

Paula: Um, sure.

[Paula calls TMH]

Volunteer on Duty at TMH Main Desk: Hello, Tallahasee Memorial Hospital, how can I help you?

Paula: Hi! I am a community volunteer with the Florida State University Film School and I am wondering if you have any leather straps, you know, the kind I could use to restrain someone with?

Volunteer on Duty at TMH Main Desk: Well, you'll need to call back tomorrow and speak to public relations about that.

The straps were needed for this scene in Heather Gillman's Medea:

(Alana Dimaria in Medea)
Photo Credit: David Barrow Wiley
See more of David's work here.

I still wonder what the TMH volunteer really thought about my request!

At some point during this class's time in the MFA program, I was on set with each member, as an extra or volunteer. Before you all go off to the next stop on the journey, a few thoughts.

Having a community volunteer with no formal film training must, at times, be sort of like having a curious three-year old around who can find no end of questions to ask. Thank you, Heather Gillman, for answering my questions about acronyms and terminology even though I may not ever be asked for a quarter CTB again in my lifetime - at least if I am asked I'll have a clue!

Another target of my many questions-to-which-I-don't-SERIOUSLY-need-to-know-the-answer-but-ask-anyway is Hillary Lavin. As a set design volunteer through several films, I came to appreciate the difference that attention to details can make. For instance, you don't want to create an anachronism by placing a "Cars" (released in 2006) themed toy in a little boy's room if the film he is in takes place in 2005. Hillary also answered her fair share of questions I asked about technical stuff, just because I was curious.

This class is the first one I have worked with on pre-production. I still marvel at how much I like something that involves two things I hate - 1) asking people I don't know for unusual things and b) returning things. But something about doing that, with a group of people I genuinely like so much, has alleviated some of my fears. Even if TMH won't take my calls anymore. :-)

I will always chuckle when I think about Jim Ed Wills asking me if I would be okay with having eggs cracked over my head when I was an extra on Playback Henry (the answer was yes).

I thank Faren Humes, whose vision for her thesis film touched on a time and topic that is difficult to address and equally difficult for viewers to process. But it takes courage to lead people out of their comfort zones into a deeper understanding, and Our Rhineland did that. Behind the scenes, I learned a lot helping to recreate Berlin out of Tallahassee and Pensacola, providing casting assistance, and helping locate a cemetery that would permit a night shoot (hint, don't ask in Tallahassee).



"The Red Truck" - The Curse



Matt Ryan produced Our Rhineland and then Faren produced the thesis film that Matt directed, The Curse. (This is where the pigs come in.) I am pretty sure the first email I sent after reading the script was, "we need to find livestock for this?" (Yes.) There were other fun challenges in being a "Curse" volunteer: finding an infant under six months old, researching for multiple location needs, finding a red pick up truck (done!), and locating a barn with a basement. What stands out to me about my interactions with Matt is that he included me in components of the process, such as watching the audition videos of the prospective actors, and asked my opinion. That meant a lot to me and made me even more invested in the final outcome.

There is one other conversation I had with Matt that summarized so succinctly the essence of good acting. We were talking about the search for a German-speaking actor during pre-production for Our Rhineland and somehow digressed a bit into how you know when an actor is going to be effective. Matt said, "you can tell when they believe." It's true. You can take lessons about many parts of the acting process, but letting yourself believe begins somewhere inside.

The best directors and crews bring that belief out and help us viewers believe too. I have faith that every member of the MFA Class of 2011 does that and will continue into the future.

Keep doing what you do.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. - Kahlil Gibran

Dear Blogger-To-Be (A Mama Kat Writing Prompt)

This week, Kat's writing prompt number five (which random.org "assigned" me) instructed us to write about this:   If you were to go back to the moment you decided to start a blog, what ten blogging tips would you share with yourself?  I don't necessarily have ten tips, but there are several things I would do differently.

What Should I Call This Thing?

I just went back and read my first post, which I posted on May 18, 2008. I had forgotten that I was inspired to blog by the audiobook Julie and Julia. When I sat down that day and hastily created a blog, I had to think up a name quickly. I chose "Momforlife" because, clearly, I will be a mom for the rest of my life. As my blog grew and changed, however, I did not like the fact that the name "Momforlife" made it sound like I was solely a "mommy blogger," especially when I wrote business-oriented blogs. That is why I eventually changed the name to "Perspicacity." (The story behind the name is in this video (with my apologies for the horrible cinematography!)) I would have thought through my blog name when I established the blog.

What Platform Should I Use to Blog?

I started blogging on Blogger because .... it just seemed the easiest option at the time. How could something called "Blogger" not be sufficient? As my quantity of blogs on Blogger approaches 300 and my number of followers approaches 200, I am concerned that a switch to a different platform may be disruptive and no one will be able to find me (and that I won't be able to figure out how to transition my history to the new platform). But I know what a pain it is for me as a reader to make comments on Blogger blogs, and I love comments, so I'd like commenting to be less problematic. I'm also still miffed at Blogger for those days it stole from me in May 2011 and the fact that the heartfelt post I had written about my childhood best friend reverted back to the half-finished version. I would have gotten some reliable advice on which blogging platform to use.

Is Anyone Reading This?

When I wrote those first posts back in 2008, and as I kept blogging into 2009, I think I had some expectation that the blogosphere would just "become aware of me." Not because my blog was that amazing, but I just thought if I would write stuff, someone would read it. I know now that it does not work that way. Being a blogger who wants to be read requires some self-promotional capabilities, and that you do your share of interacting with other bloggers. I was fortunate to get some great advice from a friend about using Twitter to promote a blog. Between Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, link-ups, and getting to know other bloggers through patiently commenting and engaging, I got to the point where I could anticipate a few comments with almost every blog. I have also discovered more recently that I had underestimated the role YouTube can play in expanding your social media presence.  I would have developed a more systematic strategy for promoting my blog.

Design

I am bored with the design of my blog. I like it better than the template I originally used, but I want pictures of green felt-tip pens! I want pictures of me! I want people to see my blog and know immediately that they are in Big Green Pen territory. I did some barter work with an individual who was helping me with design in exchange for my editing assistance on some of his work, but I never felt completely "in sync" with him and I did not devote the time necessary to tweak his proposed design. Which gets me back to Square One. I would have secured a design resource I trusted and/or taken a full day to patiently work through the process of incorporating my felt tip pens into my blog presence.

Topics

When I first committed to blogging weekly, every week's topic was going to be a report on how close I was to reaching my running goal of breaking thirty minutes for a 5K run. Then I started expanding on other things, posting Wordless Wednesdays, and writing to Mama Kat prompts. I wrote rather candidly about my teenager and my work. Now that the teenager is sneaking peeks, I find myself backing off of writing about her. Now that my supervisor has counseled me that my blogging about work may be undermining my credibility, I find myself censoring the work-related comments a bit. I am my family's only breadwinner and the carrier of our health insurance - as much as I like to write about work, as cathartic as it is, and although I stand behind every word I have written and every visual I have used, I can't jeopardize my family any worse that it already is by writing or videotaping something that would be perceived adversely. It's not that I would have done anything differently about which topics I chose, but this "topics to avoid" issue keeps rearing its ugly spectre and I am grappling with it weekly.

Step Away from the Keyboard and Talk to Them

When I committed to blogging weekly, after a complimentary "rent Scott's brain" session with Scott Ginsberg, my main priority was to "flex my writing muscle." Then I discovered other benefits of blogging: it was therapeutic (and cheaper than therapy!); I am a different, more uninhibited person behind the keyboard than in a face-to-face conversation; I could make peace with things and people that I had not gotten closure with. But the problem with baring your soul to an individual through a blog is that for the blog to do any good they have to read it and you can't make someone read your blog. As was the case with the people who I used to supervise, writing about them a year later, giving them a copy of the blog in a gift bag along with a memento, was no substitute for the 30 minutes I should have taken along with some a few pizzas. Sometimes you just have to look people in the eyes for what you have to say to matter.

Wordless Wednesday (Universal Bubble Fun Edition)

 Thank you, dear Guatemalan people in the Parque Central of Antigua, for relaxing by blowing bubbles! I was out of memory card space by this point, so grabbed this picture with my disposable camera:

and played around with it a bit on Picnik to come up with this:

Bubbles are fun, language barrier or no!

I am linking this Wordless Wednesday post up to the Crazy Days of Summer Photo Challenge sponsored by Kristi of Live and Love Out Loud and Alicia of Project Alicia. This week's theme is "bubbles"! Next week's theme is "summer treats."

Algo Nuevo (Something New - a #Reverb11 Prompt)

What new thing will you try this month?

When I first read July's Let's Reverb prompt ("What new thing will you try this month?), I knew I would wait and write to this prompt after my Guatemala trip. What better than your first international trip to discover many new things to try?

Most of my writing about Guatemala has been pretty "serious" in nature - how I wanted to do it (and why it was so important), how I needed to accumulate financial and moral support to do it, what I hoped to gain. Having completed the trip, I realize there was definitely a place for all of that gravity but come on - you can bet there were humorous moments along the way, especially since I took my fifteen year old!

With that in mind, I have fashioned my "Top 10 List" of things I did differently in Guatemala:

1. Using Different Money

I am not sure Tenley is ever going to let me live down my failure to exchange dollars for quetzales at the airport. I was looking for a specific bank I had read about and, failing to find it, found myself outside the airport with no quetzales. The hotel staff changed a bit of American money for me, and on Monday the CFCA  staff took me to the bank to change my dollars. Even then, Tenley had to force me to ask to have a hundred-quetzal note changed into smaller denominations.

2.  The Toilet Paper Goes Where?

Except for the hotel we were in on our first and last nights in Guatemala, we were not supposed to flush toilet paper because the plumbing systems throughout Guatemala are not very robust. We grew accustomed to seeing receptacles with thick black plastic bags situated near all of the toilets. Friends and family in the US are requested to use white trash bags in their bathroom receptacles in order not to confuse us.

3.  ¿Cómo se dice?

We were fortunate to have translators with us all the time, and somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my brain I have retained more than I thought I had of the Spanish I began learning back at Roosevelt Roads Elementary School in Puerto Rico as a kindergartner. After a week in a Spanish-speaking country, I am more convinced than ever that immersion is the way to go. We were even exposed to some Mayan dialects, including Kiche, which is the language spoken by Estela, Tenley's new sponsored child.

4.  Where the *bleep* is the @ sign on this keyboard?

I was happy that we had four shared computers at the place where we stayed for the week. That way we could communicate with our families. But the keyboards were unusual. You could see the "@" sign (which you needed in order to log into Facebook if you were trying to cheat on your social media hiatus and sign in). The "@" sign was on the "q" key but no one could figure out how to type it (we ended up cutting and pasting). It was weird. There are bigger problems in the world, right?

5.  Huggy, huggy.

Some of the information that CFCA sends prior to the trip discusses how to appropriately interact with children in Guatemala. It warns against excessive touching. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that one of the first things we would do was an activity where these adorable little Guatemalan children walked us into the room. So I blew off a cute little guy. It didn't take long to figure out that hugs are what interacting with cute little Guatemalan children (in a structured setting such as a CFCA event) is all about. Duh. I think he forgave me (hope so!).

6.  Don't Drink the Water

It has been 8 days since I arrived back and I still feel like an outlaw brushing my teeth with tap water. We had been warned so much not to drink the tap water, not to brush our teeth with it, not to open our mouths in the shower, that we learned our lessons well (and did not get sick - YAY!!). But now it just feels so ... wrong ...to brush with tap water. The bottled water industry must love tourists in Guatemala.

7.  ¡Baile por favor! (Please Dance)

It's not that I don't like to dance in the US, but Guatemala is one dancing country. I couldn't stop grinning when we were at one of the first subprojects and one of the Guatemalan women grabbed me to dance.

8.  Stop sign, what stop sign?

I can't think of a single stop sign that was taken all that seriously in Guatemala. Any directional sign for that matter. It all made us Americans seem hypercautious and very regimented.

9.  Bye, bye nighttime snacks

How do you go on vacation and lose four pounds? We never went hungry but the food is so simple and so much less processed than our US food. We ate dinner so much earlier than the Kiger family norm and we did not snack before bed (snacking before bed has always been a habit for me). Thank you, Guatemala, for kicking the snacks-before-bed habit. Pass the tortillas.

10. "Solid" can mean so many things

On a trip where many US-bred digestive systems are adjusting to foreign foods, conversations naturally turn to, um, matters that would seem indelicate back home. "Solid" was good and "did you take your diarrhea medicine?" caused nary a batted eyelash. The ties (and substances) that bind.

Am I glad I tried something (ten things) new? You bet. Are there things to chuckle at along with the deeper lessons? Absolutely.

El cambio es bueno. (Change is good.)