leaving on a jet plane

i'm leaving for manila tonight for a 7 week (1 week of training in manila) missions trip. i am placed with living springs christian church (http://www.urbana.org/feat.trek.2006.cfm?recordid=781) and will be living with a host family there. it's beginning to hit me that i'm leaving in a few hours only because i've been saying my goodbyes to family and close friends. sigh. i am a sucker when it comes to goodbyes :(. anyways, please be praying for God's work in manila and what he has to show us there. if you want to get email updates, please ask jennifer yu or ariel yang to add you to the email list.

until august 5th, johanna

italy vs. usa - tomorrow at 11:30am (cali time)

yep, going for italy!

chips

i am in california spending a few days with family before i leave for manila. one of my favorite things to do here is play with my cousins. one of them (i think he's 9 now) got chubby! i think he gets made fun of at school too for being fat :\. anyways, he showed me this essay he wrote for class about something he finds interesting...

"there are many kinds of chips. chipst are good because it lets you gain your energy when you are hungry. there are lots of kind of chips like doritos cool ranch, hot cheetos, fritos and much more others. my favorite chip is fritos huney. it tastes really tastes like haney. chips are cheap. median sized bags costs about 99 cents to $1.00. there are also very spicy chips such as hot fritos, hot cheetos, and more. this is all about chips."

notice the change of spelling for honey and how his chinese side was completely revealed when he wrote about how much a medium sized bag costs. my favorite line: this is all about chips.

a banner over you

5 italian soldiers were attacked yesterday in Iraq. 3 are fine, 1 dead, and another in critical condition. it touches me to see how much the italians care and wonder the condition of the injured soldier and how they grieve over the loss of one of their countrymen. if you ask around, pretty much every italian here knows how many italian soldiers have died in iraq (31 is the answer).

do you know how many american soldiers have died in iraq? do you care?

valentino rossi!

sweets to smile for

Mmm, don’t these look delicious?! They were, too! these were brought to us by johnny’s (the dog and father of the puppies) previous family. In italy, the man of the house will leave home on sunday morning and go to the city to buy pastries for the family to eat together during lunch time. lunch usually lasts longer so the family can spend quality time together because Sunday is the day everyone has off. Students here have school Monday-Saturday!

Johnny’s family had to give him up because he would constantly bark when the family was away and the neighbors couldn’t stand it. im really surprised the previous owners actually gave him up because they really LOVE him. the wife of the family calls once a week to get updates on Johnny and the daughter visited once and was crying the entire time :\. She brought his toy that she kept which is pictured above with Johnny. After understanding more of johnny’s background, I’m beginning to understand why Johnny is the way he is. Just think of what someone would be like if they were ever abandoned.

Today we gave Johnny a much needed bath. I wish you could see how freaking dirty he was and how bad he smelled! We had to cut away chunks of hair that had stuff stuck in it that couldn’t be washed out! vanna, dorthy (our neighbor), and I formed a powerful team to do the messy job of giving him a bath. Later on, Massimo (my host father) asks: is it time for my bath yet? Interestingly enough, Massimo did go take a bath soon after johnny’s – but definitely not with 3 ladies helping him.

Always trying to smile, johanna

Fagiolete on day 21

Maya (on the left and Vanna is on the right) is from brazil and is the cleaning person at the B&B. I don’t like calling her “the cleaning person” but I guess that’s the simplest way to put it. she speaks no English and communicates with others with a mix of Portuguese and Italian. she came to italy for work and was introduced to the B&B by our neighbor, who is also Brazilian (married an Italian who went on vacation to brazil and met her) and a childhood friend (since they were 5!) of Maya’s. I like Maya a lot and her happiness tends to spread like wildfire. She’s fun, a hardworker, and has a big heart to love and be loved. Someone once said that she was beautiful because of her open need for love. I thought that was a beautiful statement about a person because maybe we try too hard to pretend like we don’t need love or maybe we try too hard to get love, but maya’s balance of vulnerability and openness to love is graceful. This picture is when maya cooked a typical and famous brazilian dish for us.

The dish is called fagiolete and is red beans cooked with meat then drizzled with this special type of flour and spicy olive oil. It probably doesn’t look too appetizing but it was good! I had 3 platefuls :p. I think what also made it good was how happy maya was to eat something from her hometown. She misses her home, family (she left her one year old son), friends, food, culture, and country very much. By the way, maybe it’s just me, but I’m beginning to feel that america’s love for their country is really shallow. The love and devotion Brazilians and Italians have for their country is deeply rooted in their history, culture, and family – something really special for me to see. But maybe it’s just me and the way I was raised in a Chinese-American family, shrugs.

salsa cubana

Every Wednesday, vanna and her friends go dancing. The type of dance is called salsa cubana. The entire time I was laughing, not sure why but I guess it was really fun/cute watching everyone dance and attempt to dance. Vanna says all the girls secretly call the men this Italian word that means “pieces of wood” because they are incapable of moving their bodies.

Look what I found in the B&B’s library!