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January 13, 2010 from Port-Au-Prince
Today continued to be very emotional. I am at the end of myself. I
don’t think I’ve slept well in a week and we all feel a little crazy.
The tremors have continued. They are not as frequent but there were two
very intense ones this evening, that caused the walls to rattle.
However, all day long the earth feels like it is pitching. This is
extremely difficult for me. I think we all have a little PTSD from
yesterday and every shake brings back that feeling of dread. I am in
hyper vigilant mode. I am constantly aware of how far I am from a door.
I’m trying to keep both kids nearby at all times. Every plane that
flies overhead, every loud car, every time the gate opens, I feel my
muscles twitch for the door. It is incredibly insane to be afraid of
being indoors. We spent a good part of the evening sitting in the
driveway, but the mosquitoes are in full-force and it looked like it
might rain. We are indoors now, and it’s making me incredibly anxious.
I took a shower earlier and I left a set of clothes outside, just in
case I had to make a run for it. I didn’t want to be those ladies we
saw last night, in the street in a towel.
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Last night a massive earthquake hit Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, where I am visiting our adoptive son. I am still reeling. The reports I’ve heard are saying it was a 7.4. I’m finding that hard to believe, having been through many an earthquake in my day living in California. It felt like nothing I have ever experienced. At about 5pm, we were getting ready to head out for dinner. I had Karis strapped in her infant car seat, and Keanan was playing in the backyard. I ran upstairs to grab my purse. On the way down the stairs, the house started shaking violently. It was shaking so hard that I had to grab on to the railing to make it down. The ground was pitching and tiles were flying off the walls. I could see cracks forming in the walls, and it was difficult to even see from shaking. It sounded as if a helicopter was landing on top of the house. I made it down the stairs, ran to grab the carseat, and then ran outside, where the shaking continued. Outside we could hear people screaming, and though it was less than a minute, it felt like an eternity. The people in the streets were panicking, and we saw two women in towels, who must have run from the shower.
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In a season marked by giving, we love the idea of giving back to our community and our planet. This year, my family decided to forego gifts for the adults, and give donations in each person's name instead. It's been so fun thinking of each family member and finding ways to honor each of them with a unique donation. At Mama Manifesto, we wanted to provide our readers with a list of ways you can do your Christmas shopping and give back at the same time. Here are a few ideas:
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I may not be a cock-eyed optimist. But something about So You Think You Can Dance makes me feel a little better about the world. Who doesn't love a show full of fun dance numbers? It's part talent show, part eye candy, and part artistic expression: a reality show that isn't about celebrity or idiocy but rather about talent and athleticism; stamina and creativity.
I was so excited for the season to really start, because I am not a fan of the audition weeks' Parade of Freaks, and was ready for the top twenty to show their stuff. Now, I am a seriously sleep-deprived mom, and prone to a bit of the curmudgeondry as of late. but the new set on the show was sending me through the roof. To the point where, fifteen minutes in, I was already badgering my husband with, "Do you see this set? Are you SEEING this? What is with this, Mark? Whaaaat?"
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Obama delivered a completely non-controversial speech today, that was banned due to the controversy surrounding the lack of controversy that was his not-at-all controversial speech. In the days prior, a good portion of the conservative contingency got their panties in a wad about the president giving a pep talk about hot-button issues like perseverance and staying in school and setting goals. Of course, it sounded a little more exciting when the extremists were using words like re-education and brainwashing. Comparisons to Hitler are always a little more provocative then the banal reality of irrational partisan squabbling.
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We had a little crisis this week involving sports. My four-year-old Jafta has been begging to attend a basketball camp for the past three months, and I signed him up for one through our city for preschool-aged kids. All summer, he's been asking about it and counting down to when it would start. It was supposed to start Monday. On Saturday, I got a call telling me it had been cancelled.
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Recently, I was a part of a discussion on facebook about race. (You gotta love social networking for juxtaposing people from all walks of life into 140-character-or-less philosophical arguments). This particular discussion took a turn that I often see happen when white people jump into conversations about race. A few folks implied that racism was over. References to society's Token Assimilated Black Guys were made (Colin Powell, Tiger Woods, etc). Someone suggested that seeing more interracial families would make black people seem more "normal". Awesome. And then, I made a gaffe myself by posing a question that made it sound like I was trying to get a friend to speak for the entire adult population of African Americans. It's not what I meant . . . but it sounded like it.
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There's something in the air right now . . .
Something familiar. A growing sense of frenzy that was kicked up around election time, and seems to have re-emerged with the conversation surrounding health care reform. People are panicking. They aren't just disagreeing, or questioning the administration, or sharing opinions. People are yelling and screaming, threatening and freaking, and believing and perpetuating some seriously creative stories about the government’s desire to kill disabled children and leave our elderly "out to pasture". I wish I could just sit and watch this unfold as a detached observer. People are drawn to drama - this is a universal truth. It would be easier for me to laugh it off and shake my head at the antics of some imaginative figureheads who enjoy cattle-prodding the masses into mass hysteria. The trouble for me, though, as a Christian, is that as I watch this unfold, I am unsettled with the fact that most of this is coming from other people who share my faith. The conservative right and "Christiandom" have been inexplicably linked in our nation - so much so that I think many people have difficulty differentiating between the two. What’s worse, the conservative right are being represented in the media by people whose communication tactics are manipulative at best.
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I've been wanting to write about healthcare reform for a while now. I feel really passionate about it, but I have so much to say that I end up getting overwhelmed and then say nothing. I've also been a little hesitant on what to say and how to say it, because it is such a divisive and polarized political issue. I know my views are sure to tick a few people off. But my unwillingness to choose a side in the conservative/liberal identification game, along with my tendency to blather on about my personal political views, basically means that somewhere along the lines I am sure to piss off EVERYONE I KNOW. Especially my mom, but probably more so for saying the word "piss".
Anyways, there are a million things I could say on this issue, but for now, I want to start with just telling my own story. The reason I think our story is important is because I think that most people who are against healthcare reform have some notions about the "uninsured", and also about what government-run healthcare is really like. In our family, we have struggled with private insurance, but we have a child who is on a government-run plan. I will talk about Jafta and our experience with his insurance another time. But today, I want to give a face to the problem for an average American family like ours.
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