friedlaughter
les grandes pensées viennent du coeur.
.faith - family - friends - food.
bc'14, dreamer. budding entrepreneur, certified risk taker, avid traveler and food connoisseur. :]
when i was little, my mom described my laugh as crunchy, hence, friedlaughter.follow! @kimmivoo
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Hospital Visits + 'White' Privilege(?)
Hospital Visits + ‘White’ Privilege(?)
I’m allergic to avocados. As a matter of fact, I’m allergic to most fruits. However, as my diet here is super limited, I’ve learned to concoct a mixture of allergy medicine to control my reactions. Vegetables here are limited to cabbage, potatoes, (wrinkly) bell papers, and tomatoes, while fruits here have a bit more variety. Depending on the season, we’ll have apples, pears, bananas, clementine,…
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#avocado accidents#featured#Peace Corps#peace corps namibia#ponders#race#third world hospitals#thoughts#white privilege
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Today is International Woman’s Day. What a day.
Here’s my Women’s Day Anthem (viewer discretion advised, note: heavy sarcasm).
I know I haven’t updated in a while, but what a day to get the ball rolling again!
Instead of blog posts, I’ve been sending out monthly email updates (let me know if you’d like to be included!). I send them at the end of each month, and they generally cover my project work, my mental well-being, and my rants about our world.
I think I’d stopped blogging because it felt like I was just putting updates and information out into space, with no one receiving them. I know there are readers, but there was a general lack of dialogue about my work (minus Rachel, thanks for being mean and cynical, girl), so I sent out emails that garnered more personal responses instead.
However, Goal 3 of Peace Corps is to ‘help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans’ and I do believe it’d be a shame if I didn’t do a bit more to meet Goal 3 during service.
So to get things started again, here’s a little ode to women, especially my mama, and some pictures.
As you know, my work revolves around women’s empowerment and girls’ education. I always knew I had a deep appreciation for women.
My mom was superwoman. She personified The Giving Tree. Remember that book?
Basically the tree gives up all of herself until there’s barely anything left, yet she’s perfectly happy because her little boy has come back to her.
My mother gave everything to my siblings and me – without uttering a single complaint. She epitomized joy and selflessness.
Now that she’s gone, however, I’ve begun to realize that many of the traits I admired in her are present in most women. Women really are super freaking incredible.
Bar the mothers that weren’t around or left, etc, I’ve found that the average mother does so much more for her children than we give them credit for, really.
I’ll have a follow-up post on how bad ass women are, but for now, here are some pics of service since I last updated!
I was a guest awards presenter at Sauyema Combined School’s Awards Ceremony. I’ve done talks with the girls here, so they’d interacted with me before. Girls are on the left (clamoring around me) – there’s a policy for all female learners to have shaved heads as to not be distractions to boys. Sigh.
That’s me! I collaborated with a volunteer in Okahandja to do a girls’ empowerment talk with her girls’ club. Most of these girls live in the location. (Location = unofficial settlement / ghetto)
Some of the most resistant girls I’ve ever had the pleasure of speaking to. They live way in the bush, pregnancy rates are crazy high, but by the end of the talk, I like to think they warmed up to me just a bit.
My neighbors’ kids! They come over for homework help and/or to talk about America every Tuesday and Thursday.
One of the coolest ‘talks’ I’d done — these are deaf learners! Everything I said had to be translated to ASL. They even gave me my own Namibian Sign Language name (:
Some of my girls after a talk I did. They have quite an affinity for ‘Brazilian’ hair, which is just any hair that’s not natural black hair.
So that’s a general gist of the work I’ve been doing since I last updated you!
I also took a trip to Morocco and it was a completely different world. Here I am with the sweetest girl Jamila –
One of the sweetest girls I’d met in Morocco. She lives with her mom, sister, and little brother in a Berber cave near the desert. Her dad passed after her mom gave birth to her little brother. She doesn’t go to school, but helps her mom tend to goats, which is how they make their living.
This was their home ! A cave!
Needless to say, it was quite the experience. I also met the beautiful Oumaima in Marrakech – she works with Project Soar Morocco in Girls Education, and is quite the artist. She’s all about girls’ equality and empowerment, so I feel super lucky to have met her acquaintance. I’m with her on the left and I’m with one of her students on the right.
I’m in awe of women and their strength and perseverance every day.
I’m so lucky to have met the wonderful women I have.
Now, if only the US administration and 45 will realize how wonderful women are and protect and respect our rights, too.
Til next time!
Kimmi
PS. If you want to receive my (more personal) monthly email updates, sign up belowww!
[contact-form] Happy International Women’s Day! Today is International Woman’s Day. What a day. Here's my Women's Day Anthem (viewer discretion advised, note: heavy sarcasm).
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Sad news.
In the spirit of full disclosure, Victoria has left her job here in Rundu and moved back to Windhoek with her abusive husband. He called a meeting with both families and she was basically coerced into staying with him. “It’s sinful to leave your husband” and “in sickness and in health”, they said. She left last night. I found out this morning. So much for a win.
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What? A pregnant 10yr old?
What? A pregnant 10yr old?
I started a girls club that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I invite the girls in my neighborhood to come do homework, chat, and stay away from boys. Boys are trouble. In the four weeks I’ve been at site (in Rundu), I’ve talked to more than 1,000 girls at 5 different schools, started a girls’ club that meets twice a week, met a Chinese family to practice my mandarin with, and befriended the…
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The Joys of a (Not-so) Small Win: Victoria’s Story
The Joys of a (Not-so) Small Win: Victoria’s Story
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks – it’s been physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting More on why later, but this morning, I had a conversation that made it all worth it, even just for a bit. I’d become friends with a woman (let’s call her Victoria) shortly after arriving in Rundu, and although our friendship started off very surface level, and our conversations really only revolved…
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Officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!
Officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!
I’m at site! To catch you up on all things Peace Corps and Kimmi since my last post, here are some highlights: –>We’ve found out our sites. The 33 of us are spread out all over Namibia, and I’m in the Kavango East region in Rundu. My focus during service will revolve around women’s empowerment via income generation, and girl’s education rights and promotion through FAWENA, an NGO under the…
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Pre-Service Training (so far) in pictures!
Pre-Service Training (so far) in pictures!
Cultural Cooking Day I killed a chicken. Swift, clean, and (hopefully) painless(ish). Elainey did a fabulous job holding the chicken still. (; This is said chicken and me before said kill. Chicken insides – there were eggs that we retrieved from the chicken! This is my language class! I’m learning Rumanyo/RuKwangali. From left: Mo, Danny, Dana, me and Shirrita (missing Amanda). We’ll all be…
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Updates & Loaded Topic: Shocking Namibian Cultural ‘Norms’
Updates & Loaded Topic: Shocking Namibian Cultural ‘Norms’
As a CED (Community Economic Development) volunteer, I get training in technical skills, language skills and general cultural norms. I share my language and most cultural classes with my Health volunteers, but our technical trainings stay pretty separate. Last week, the health volunteers were buzzing about something they had learned in their ‘tech classes’, and even after sharing what I had…
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#culture shock#featured#gender equality#loaded topic#namibia#Peace Corps#peace corps namibia#travel#travelblog#women&039;s rights
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I joined Peace Corps!
I joined Peace Corps!
I realized I never wrote an entry about Peace Corps! Since my Costa Rica trip, I’ve since left my job and traveled to the Philippines and Ghana (to, hopefully, be covered in later entries), but now I’m living in Namibia for the next 2.5 years as a Community Economic Development Volunteer. I’m very lucky to have been able to travel as much as I do, and I think that’s always been rooted in my…
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Next stop: Costa Rica!
Next stop: Costa Rica!
Heading to Costa Rica this weekend — stops will (hopefully) include Mount Arenal, Monteverde, and Manuel Antonio. Add me on Snapchat (kimmivo) to follow along with the trip! Pictures on Instagram intermittently. I’ll have at least one entry to devote to Costa Rica and #puravida when I return, so stay tuned! Kimmi
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reflections on responses to the paris terror attacks
reflections on responses to the paris terror attacks
this is quite long, and you may not agree with this, but allow me to rant: the terrorist attacks in paris are awful. the syrian refugee crisis has had my stomach in knots for months now. the bombing in kenya is disgusting. the sex trafficking (children, women, &men) worldwide has been ongoing, and is, to me, an act of terror on people on its own. what baffles me is this new trend of pointing…
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11 Essential Items to Bring to the Amazon Jungle
I just came back from a week long trip to the Amazon Jungle (via Iquitos, Peru)! I’ll go over my itinerary in a later post, but I did everything from jungle trekking, to fishing for piranhas, swimming in the Yapata/Amazon River, to hanging out with the locals and participating in an Ayahuasca ceremony. Below are 11 items that I think were essentials on my trip, and below that is a more detailed…
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'Stop, Reset, Continue' -- 2015
2015 Resolutions
I’m not usually one to make New Year’s Resolutions, but it’s been a rough 2014, and what better chance to reset than a new year?
Yes, it’s almost May, but I’d decided since January that my ultimate goal for the new year will be to follow the mantra, “Stop, Reset, Continue”.
Stop: Disconnect — It’s become too easy to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of the day to day, become complacent with…
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[Non-travel post] Regarding ISIS - Let's speak for each other.
[Non-travel post] Regarding ISIS – Let’s speak for each other.
I’ve been reading up on ISIS a lot lately. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Foley and Sotloff family. My thoughts and prayers also go out to the millions of innocent refugees that have been displaced, murdered, and punished for no reason at all. It brings me to think of a poem by Martin Niemoller —
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Th…
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Anything unrelated to elephants is irrelephant. (Day 2)
Anything unrelated to elephants is irrelephant. (Day 2)
baby ellie! this guy was quite rambunctious.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard horror stories about elephants/tigers/etc being mistreated in their parks for the enjoyment of tourists and visitors, so aside from looking for an elephant park that had a lot of fun activities, I also made sure to look for one that treated their elephants well.
Yes, Baan Chang Elephant Park (tripadvisor) was a…
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Cooking in Chiang Mai (Day 1 cont..)
enjoy, we did! eat, we did!
After looking up a ton of places on TripAdvisor, Facebook and just general google searches, I found a pretty swell lookin’ cooking school called Basil Cookery School that not only had a ton of great reviews, but had 7 courses that were part of the cooking menu. We would each also have our own wok/cooking spaces.
mangosteens galore! one of the only fruits i can eat (:
S…
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The Land of a Thousand Smiles -- Chiang Mai, Thailand (Day 1)
In the 9 weeks that we’re in India, we’ve received one 4-day weekend off to travel and/or relax and of course, I chose travel (which relaxes me) so it all worked out.
there are countless thai massage parlors in chiang mai, but here’s one we found right by one of the local outdoor markets
I was joined by 5 other co-workers for a jam-packed weekend of culture, delicious foods, wild personalities,…
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