Dear Oprah,
    While looking through my journal the other night to read what I had written about Violet during my time in Africa, I came across the following entry I had jotted down to take note of that day's experiences.  I thought I'd just share my thoughts from June 27th, 2007 as a little insight into life as a child in M'Bita:

     "...there was a man who took another man's wife in the village last week.  This man apparently lived right next to the school. The first husband was associated with the local mob and he had the other man hung in a tree right in the man's own front yard.  This was last Friday. The American teachers who are at the main school (everyone but me and Suzanne who walk about a mile from the campus each day to get to the "nursery" building down the road) heard all of the wailing on Friday.  The "mortuary" (that is the closest American concept word I can think of...the version here seems to be much less 'polished' than what we would really consider to be the practices of our kind of mortuary) was coming to get the body.  Then yesterday, during the chapel services that Mary was trying to lead, they brought the body back and there was much more wailing.
     These children see so much.
     When I went and got Vallary out of class to visit with her today, she was telling me about running from a hippo once.  I asked her how she got away and she said, "if a hippo is ever chasing you...you must run up the hill.  You see, because, a hippopotamus has very short, fat legs and he cannot bend his legs like we do and so he cannot chase you up the hill!"
     What different concerns and skill sets these children aquire!
     I just helped a child (George) whose scab came off one of his knees.  Blood was running down his leg.  The teachers pulled out a first aide kit but only after I asked. I think they ration them pretty tightly, which I can understand since I do the same in my own classroom where I am the one paying for them. And at least I have the luxury of popping by CVS on the way home from work whereas I have no idea how they come by theirs?  I wonder. This is the 3rd child I have seen bleeding and the other two were injuries that led to a decent amount of blood loss. I waited for someone to bandage the wounds but nothing happened so I pulled out my own band aides.  I didn't want to seem like a wussy American or step on any toes but in a place where such rampant aides is prevalent, I just couldn't help it.

     Johnson & Johnson, Mbita needs you.

This is George.  How could you resist giving him a band aide?? :)

Dear Oprah,
     V....aluable to her people's future and
     A....pt to
     L....lead them to a better tomorrow.
     L....eadership
     A....abilities
     R....arely seen in one so young.
     Y....ou are her hope!
Are you listening?

Dear Oprah,
     While looking through my pictures last night, searching for the one I wanted to post, I came across this picture:

Violet...who followed me to the bathroom (it was an out house) every day...

     This is Violet.  I noticed her the first day I worked in the "nursery" because she was visibly so much older and larger than all of the other children there.  Even if she hadn't been, I wouldn't have been able to miss her because she stared at me constantly.  After a few days, I noticed that when I left the building to go out to the outhouse, I would always pass her on my way back in. Then I started to realize that she was following me. Each day, she got a little bit closer until the day she was right on my heels and I thought she might just come into the small "stall" with me (it was just a hole in the ground surrounded by 4 thin walls). I tried to talk with her but she did not respond with anything but the smile you see above.  I felt a heaviness from her and was intrigued by her seemingly, though unspoken, thankfulness for the simple attention I gave her: mainly just eye contact and smiles...and I tried to remember to say her name everytime I said hello to her because she became brighter for a moment every time I did so.
     One morning, she didn't come to school.  I missed her. That night when we met as a group of teachers back at the place where we were staying (as we did each night for sharing and prayers to try to process the thoughts and activities from our individual days in order to support one another going into the next) I mentioned that Violet's absence had stood out to me and was bothering me a great deal. Anne Marie, who was doing the home visits each day, said she would put Violet's house on the top of the list. She knew which child I was talking about as there had apparently been discussion about the fact that her mother's legs were completely curled under and she barely got out of bed each day.  When she did, she hobbled around on PEGS...not crutches...pegs. Violet went home everyday and fed her, did the wash, straightened the "house" etc. I realized then that Violet's mother was the woman whom I had heard a story about the first night we arrived.  Judy, the head of the school, was very pleased because some of the other single mothers had gone to Violet's house to help her mother. They found dead chickens and extreme filth everywhere but pulled together to clean it up for her. Her mother made a recovery...but still, Violet was her sole caretaker. I thanked Anne Marie for making Violet a priority and hoped I would see her the next day.
     I didn't. She was out again. When I asked Diana, lead teacher of the nursery, where she thought Violet might be, she looked very worried and said, "I heard wailing on the other side" and then walked away.  I didn't really know what that meant until a few nights later when I experienced it for myself.  I woke in the early hours to a low humming noise that progressed in its pitch until its cacophony broke into its individual components of individual cries....and I then knew it to be the sound of many people crying at once. It was the wailing I had heard of.  When someone in a village died, the neighbors would morn out loud together. This is what Diana had heard the morning I asked her where Violet might be.  I realized that the teachers of the school were even more concerned than I was when the morning's prayer centered around Violet's safety.  I felt sick to my stomach.
     About 2 long hours later, Violet came walking into the school building and it was truly one of the happiest feelings I have ever felt. She promptly followed me to the bathroom (though I didn't really have to go...I just wanted to do something for her and didn't know what else I could do except that). I took this picture that day. I was so thankful that she was there. I showed it to her in the view finder. It was such a small gesture and I actually felt a bit guilty in some way for capturing her sadness on film. But as she looked at it, I realized that she was seeing herself for the very first time ever. And she was smiling :)
    Oprah, there are a bazillion Violets in Africa.  And I want to help each of them.  But I don't know how to save so many. What I do know, is that there is only one Vallary. And she has the capability of helping/leading/supporting/teaching/guiding/mentoring all of the Violets in a way that I never could, being a whole continent away and lacking in the inherent understanding of the African way of life. And most importantly, this is what Vallary WANTS to do with her life. She wants to be a leader.  She wants to help her country.  And I want to help you help her by telling you her story and hooking up her need with your gift of education, hope, and a future. Are you listening out there? Sure do hope so.

The "bathroom".

  

Dear Oprah,
      I was just watching Glee for the first time, thinking about the parallels between you and Will Schuester (minus the disparagingly huge disconnect between a teacher's salary and yours - no offense, of course) and how you're making the WORLD the stage for the girls who attend your school.  I have heard you say that you would have been a teacher had you not gone the route that you did and I can't tell you what it does for my heart to see someone with your ability to do whatever you please decide to focus on 1) raising the girl power factor  2) educating others IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS  3) helping those who need and deserve help - whatever form that may be.   So I just wanted to take the time tonight to say thank you, Oprah...from one teacher to another :)

Dear Oprah,
     For tonight's post, I thought you would like to hear Vallary's voice.  This is one of her recent letters to me...I think it speaks volumes:

Dear Katie,
     Hi! How are you? I hope you are fine and doing well in the States.  I am also fine and doing well in Mbita.  We are now on August Holidays and I enjoy a lot with my family members.  C.G.A. has offered the High School students some tuition and we are very thankful for their great help, hoping that we are going to gain a lot after the two weeks of tuition.
     I am also working hard in my academics so as to pursue my future dreams. This term's results were quite pleasing despite the fact that I did not do so well in some subjects. I became position two in my class out of 64 (2/64 in my class) and position 3 overall (all first formers 3/376 students).  We are 376 first formen and we have been grouped into 6 different classes for easier teaching. I am in form One Central and I enjoy a lot interacting with people from different parts of the country. In my school, we are a population of over 1000 students (the whole school) and I get it very difficult knowing everyone's name.
     My family is very fine and they are doing well. I also thank God very much because He blessed us with a little baby nephew who is adorable.  How is your family? Are they doing well in the states? I hope they are all fine and fairing on well with their lives.  I turned 15 years in June and I am very happy that I only have three more birthdays to celebrate and I will be an adult. I am very happy because when I turn 18 I will have to vote for the leader of my choice and not depending anymore on a leader chosen/elected by other citizens.
     There has been a great drought here in Kenya and it has affected very many people in the country. Kenyans have raised a lot of money so as to help their fellow Kenyans who are suffering. We have also received some help from other concerned countries. May you also pray for the Kenyans who are facing starvation and have nowhere to go to and no one to turn to.
     Next year, the country shall be carrying out general election so as to choose new leaders for our country.  the most exciting of this is that we will have the 4th president of the country since independence unlike U.S.A. that the current president Barrack Obama is the 44th.  I pray for leaders who are just and having all the good qualities.  I also hope that in 2036 God keeps me alive i will also vie for the presidency post and I hope that I will be the best president ever seen in Kenya.
     Otherwise, May God bless you for always giving a helping hand just to see me do well in my academics.  I love you. Bye Bye.
                                                 Your Friend,
                                                  Vallary Maklago Akinyi

Vallary and her friends posing for me.  She is the third from the left on the bottom row.

Dear Oprah,
     Clear and straight up, here's why educating Valary is worth your time and effort:
1. She is a HARD working student...the top in her class.
2. She wants to earn the best education possible for the soul purpose of using her obtained knowledge to better Africa.  She is PASSIONATE about this goal. 
3. I spent a good bit of time with Valary while I was in Mbita...enough to observe that the other children look up to her and defer to her leadership skills. Having observed and worked with many different socio-economic levels, personality traits, and varying family styles of all sorts throughout the last 10 years of teaching...I know what I know.  And I know that Valary is going places.
4. She will make you proud.
   
     That's all for tonight...I'm watching your interview with Chris Christie. Which by the way, evaluating teachers isn't the only answer - it must go hand in hand with equally evaluating parenting. Every school I have ever worked in (which runs the gamut from private all girls' school in downtown Charleston where my mother was once in boarding school all the way to a school in the neighborhood that at that time had the 3rd highest violent crime rate in the United States where I was in the middle of a real lock down where a man ran from the police through the school trying to duck for cover) had amazing teachers in it - everyone of them with their heart in the right place.  The MAIN, though admittedly not the only, difference in each school is the varying level of  parental/community support in each.  It's almost that simple. Why are we trying to make it so much more complicated? Schools with community members who are involved accept nothing less than the best for their children...and everything else falls into place from there. 

     Valary is so very lucky to have had the community of CGA...but now she's ready for more. Will you be her community outreach?

Dear Oprah,
     I WAS Valary's sponsor! I was so thrilled to find her and clear up the earlier confusion, not to mention the guilt I had felt watching this precious child's face fill with disappointment when I told her initially that she was not meeting HER Katie English. I was HER Katie English! What a crazy turn of events that not only did I now have a child half way around the world to look after, but more importantly I was there to meet her!! Who gets to spend one-on-one time with the African child they sponsor?? I was about to and I couldn't wait.



Valary and me hanging out in the open air "room" that serves as the school's meeting place for assemblies etc.

      Valary and I got to know each other a little that day. She told me that her mother had died but her father was remarried. He is a teacher at the highschool and so even then when she was only in 5th grade, she was already very focussed on getting good grades so that highschool would be a possibility for her. In Africa, children are not guaranteed a highschool education as they are here in the states.  Instead, they must earn their spot and be accepted into a school. Much of Valary's conversation was about her dreams of getting a good education so that she would someday be able to be a leader in African politics. I was blown away by her drive and focus at such a young age. It mirrored the enthusiasm for education I was seeing every morning as I walked to the preschool and back (it was a mile down the road from the main school). At the beginning of the day, many of the children would show up early because they were so excited to be at school for the day...despite the fact that there were no lights...no running water...not even any screens in the windows to keep the mosquitos out. But to the children, school meant food...a solid roof...and less responsibility than at home - or at least of another sort that didn't include taking care of sick parents, or taking younger siblings to bathe in the lake, or carrying the heavy water buckets from the lake to their "houses". In the afternoons, when school was out, we would literally have to shut the gate while  numerous children hung from it because they didn't want to leave school each day.  I guess I wouldn't really want to go home to a house made of doo doo, straw, and mud either. Oh, Oprah...if we could only get the American children to truly value education in the same way.  If only....

I tried to introduce the concept of organizing children into smaller groups for more appropriately leveled activities and was please with the outcome.

One of the teachers with the dishes she had just washed.

Dear Oprah,
     So there I was, thousands of miles from home, an ocean between me and America, on a continent that prior to that very day had been only a shape on a map to me and my personal knowledge...and yet, somehow being in the school office digging through files felt very familiar to me...it was almost as if I hadn't gone anywhere at all. Judy popped a file out from the cabinet, "this is Valary's file.  Let's see what's in here." She rummaged through the papers and pulled one out. "Here it is.  It says Katharine English is her sponsor.  Let's check the address. Ahhhh...are you on Johnnie Dodd's Boulevard?"  I felt a huge rush of excitement! "No I'm not but my ex-boyfriend's office is! I vaguely remember him saying several YEARS ago that one day after church he had sponsored a two children, one of them in my name, but he mentioned later that he'd never heard anything back or received any type of acknowledgement.  That is sooooo crazy!"
     "Well, let's look up his name and see if there is another child under it." She did so but we found nothing. Even stranger! How totally crazy! "Can we change this to my name? I'd like to take over her sponsorship if that is okay?" Judy chuckled and said something along the lines that I'd certainly earned it on the merit of travel effort alone.
     Wow! This was so cool...I felt like I had just earned something rare and super special. I turned quickly from the small room and with great anticipation headed back down the dirt path to find Valary to tell her the happy news! 

Dear Oprah,
     So...Valary had just introduced herself to me and asked if I was the same Katie English who sponsored her? I remember trying to keep up a conversation with her while still maintaining a conversation with myself in my head about how I could possibly be the Katie English who sponsored her.  I had never sent any money to the school. Had it been sent in in my name? I thought I remembered something to that effect but at that moment I was foggy with extreme jet lag and fatigue setting in and so most of my cognition was being devoted to trying to focus on the details of Valary's life she was sharing with me.
     Just then, Judy Cochran who runs the school with her husband Steve, came over. She was making the rounds to welcome all of the teachers. "Judy, I know this is going to be a strange question, but Valary has just asked me if I am the Katie English who sponsors her and at first I said that I wasn't but .... well, it's a long story....but, I think I might just be. I just don't know for sure because if I am, I haven't been the one to send the money and I have no idea if it is still being sent or what the deal is.  Is there a way for us to check that?"  Judy was so amazingly accommodating, "We can sure try. Let's walk up to the office. The gal who keeps our records straight isn't here today but we can see what we can find."
     I followed Judy up a winding trail along the hillside until we got to the building that served as the office. She led me to a small room, cluttered with papers strewn about and stacks of mail piled on top of every available table top so that there wasn't a single surface area that showed itself. In the corner stood an old filing cabinet and I immediately wondered where in the world that thing had come from...it wasn't like there was a Wal-Mart around or an Office Depot...which lead to the subsequent thought of who the hell had lugged it all the way up here? I imagined the rest of the furniture in the room had been made nearby, but a filing cabinet?
     Judy's fingers were fast as she flipped through the alphabetical files. She obviously was used to wearing many hats around the school and had done this before though she had humbly told me multiple times that the real pro, who was absent, would have found Valary's information much faster than she. I was thankful for whatever we could find and though I COULD have easily slept like a baby right there on top of the uneven stacks of mail due to my severe exhaustion, I now suddenly had a burst of adrenaline pumping and felt wide awake again.

The main building of the school where the "office" is located.

Dear Oprah,
     I wish I had a picture of the walk up the hill between the school's sign and the first set of buildings.  It was a hike. And we were carrying loads of "teacher stuff", a great many loads of supplies we had brought to share with our African counterparts...things like chart paper and unifix cubes.  After we had stored them behind a locked door (as they were very precious materials just as they are to American teachers who also often have to go to great lengths scavenging to obtain them - except if you're lucky enough to teach at Jennie Moore Elementary where our principal, Karen Felder, and our PTA really do a slam up job taking care of us - shout out to JME), we were told that the entire population of the school had prepared an assembly to celebrate our arrival.  Each grade was going to perform an African song and dance for us as a welcome to Mbita and Christ's Gift Academy.

I'm so frustrated that the video I have of a snipit from the performance does not seem to be the right format to upload :( I want so badly for y'all to be able to hear it. The melodic sound of the children's voices set to the African rhythm is so enchanting and other worldly and yet there it was being performed live and in person right in front of me.  There's a special place in the heart of a teacher for a singing child.
     After the performances had ended...over a good 2 hours worth...each of us American teachers was asked to stand up and introduce ourselves and tell which grade we would be working with. I introduced myself as Katie English who would be working with the preschoolers and immediately wondered as I sat back down if they used the term "preschool" in Kenya and if the children had any idea what it meant? The rest of the group finished introducing themselves, the children and staff gave us a wonderful standing ovation that we had not really earned, and then we started to disband to go check out our accommodations across the road. As I straightened myself up from bending down to pick up my water bottle from the floor, a round young face appeared in front of me.  "Excuse me," she said in her choppy little precious accent. "I am very pleased to meet you. I am Valary Akinyi. Are you the Katie English who sponsors me?"  It took me a second to figure out what she was even talking about.  Her face was 100% filled with anticipation which just confused me further. Sponsor? "No, honey. I mean, I am Katie English...that's my name, but I don't sponsor you sweetheart. It must be another Katie English. I sure do wish that it was me because you are a cutey!" I felt her disappointment like a thunder cloud hanging over my head.  Teachers are especially good at reading expressions and unwarranted disappointment on a child's face is right up there with watching your dog get into a dog fight and not being able to stop it...seriously, it's the worst. In over ten years of teaching experience, my brain has trained itself to automatically go into overdrive when it senses child disappointment in order to somehow soften the blow.  I was racing through a replay of what had just occurred so I could come up with something when I realized how ridiculous it was that I had suggested 'it must be another Katie English'.  I mean, what could the odds of that be? And then it clicked. That offhanded remark I'd heard back over a year earlier from that ex about a child he'd sponsored but never received any response or confirmation from...the same ex who in many ways I had traveled aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll those many miles on this very day to try to get on with my life and away from the pain....could this be THAT child?

Dear Oprah,

     I want to start tonight's letter where I left off last night...at the arrival of the school. The picture above was my first introduction, in person, to Christ's Gift Academy. I'm putting it in because after seeing it, my mother started sending her own donations to the school because she said it haunted her. She saw it as humble, rickety, and yet proud - a fitting description of Mbita and most parts of Africa, I would suggest. To me, that first day when I took the picture, it was a sign of triumph! We had made the long journey and had finally arrived to do what we had come to do...which is so funny, really...us Americans coming to teach the Africans how to teach...when the as of yet undiscovered reality was that we were coming to learn - learn of true humility, true grace, true perserverance, and true faith. Valary was about to make her introduction into my consciousness which would begin to teach me these things.

Dear Oprah,

     So, after a 6 hour flight to Amsterdam and then a second much longer flight, we arrived in Nairobi but had to spend the night there in a hostel before catching a plane the next morning to Mbita. We were told that the hostel was in a somewhat dangerous neighborhood and that it was best if we didn't walk back up to the main building after going to our rooms. I remember feeling as if I was at the end of the world and very, very outside of any type of feeling of control. The church had taken care of all of the arrangements and only upon arrival did it occur to me that if need be, I didn't even know geographically where I was.

My friend, Susan, figuring out the Mosquito net our first night in Africa in the hostel outside of Nairobi.

    

    

     When I say we were "catching a plane" the next morning, I don't mean the American version! We had to split up into two different puddle jumpers and it was only as I finally dared to look out the window upon descent that I realized that we were landing in a grass field. Well, duh, Katie! Did you think there would be tarmac in Mbita?? My firsthand schooling in spoiled Americanism, where we take EVERYTHING for granted and our world view is so shamefully lacking, had only just begun.  



The "pea shooter" plane.



  





The field it landed us in. Duh, Katie!





    

     After landing, we had been traveling for over 24 hours and the sketchy navigation of the rural dirt roads was still ahead. Steve Cochran, the "head missionary" (my own term - can't remember his actual title) of CGA, picked us up in his jeep with an accompanying van. I really can't do justice to the description of that ride. We were physically trying to stabilize ourselves as the car lurched back and forth and even side to side over the dusty pit-filled path it worked overtime to travail...and looking back, I remember long moments of silence while we were all just trying to get a mental grip of the scene at hand, which was just as elusive as the goal of physically steadying ourselves. It was so utterly unbelievable. Many people walked, barefoot mostly, up and down the "side" of the street...though there really wasn't one ( a "side" or a "street")...it was just that there were just enough people claiming that small strip of dust that any passing cars just treated them as if they were another pot hole to be navigated. They often came close to being hit and it was strikingly haunting, and still is when I picture it now, how none of them seemed to care. Many of their eyes were void of emotion. And yet, there were some who radiated joy despite it all. Some stopped on the side to barter with one another...a hot item seemed to be "jelly shoes" like the ones that were all the rage to wear in the 80's in the US. Once in a while, we would come across a small trickle of a stream of water...hardly a true "stream"... where women would lower the buckets from their heads down into the dribble and try in vain to collect a portion while others next to them attempted to wash items in the same small puddle. There were no buildings...just a few shacks here and there that looked like tin shanties... and some huts too.

     And then there were the children...small, teeny, tiny tots...no more than 3 that would be walking along all by themselves with no pants on, bare butt just toddling along. I didn't get it. Where were their parents?? And more importantly (coming from an American newly arrived): where were their diapers?? They were being stored somewhere along with the tarmac. I learned that some parents had no one to watch their babies while they worked in the fields or fished etc. and so they just wandered around on their own. And their pants? They weren't "potty trained" (a laughable concept in the first place since there weren't any potties either...just a hole in the ground in an out house), so pants would only become soiled whereas no pants offered the freedom to just squat.

     It was a lot to take in and exhausting in everyway exhaustion can possibly form. But when we finally arrived at the school a couple of hours later, our day was only just beginning...

     So...I didn't even know that I sponsored Valary...because I didn't really...or at least, I didn't know that I did. Years before I ever even grew into a person who would EVER consider making myself uncomfortable enough to spend 2 weeks in a 3rd world country (despite the time I spent "vacationing" on a trip to China with my dad in high school - an experience that left me so sad to have been introduced to the world outside of America in a foreign land so dusty and void of smiles), I went to church one Sunday and sat with a full congregation while a couple named Judy and Steve Cochran spoke about the school they ran in Kenya. Most of their students were orphaned or had lost at least one parent to AIDS. We watched a slide show with pictures of Christ's Gift Academy and the beautiful children they schooled each day. I was thrown by all the little girls who had hair as short as the boys due to the parasite risk long hair brought when bathing in Lake Victoria...the same water they washed their clothes in and drank from as well. My discomfort only grew when they showed the pictures of the narrow dirt road, filled with dangerously deep potholes, that lead to and from the small fishing village of Mbita. I clearly remember thinking to myself, "how do the volunteers endure the 8 hour plus ride over all of those roads that are only wide enough for one 'car' (though two often face each other in a chicken like game of driving survival) only to end up surrounded by such massive poverty? How do they MAKE themselves do that?" The thought actually 'haunted' me (my thought now is that haunting feeling is often God preparing you - breaking you in for something yet to come that you're not yet ready for and can't even imagine) and I remember bringing it up again to my then boyfriend, asking him if he thought he could ever put himself in such an uncomfortable situation. I think he mumbled a "hell no" but then followed it with an offhand remark about having picked up 'Sponsorship' cards after church that day that he needed to fill in.
     Fast forward to several months later when he again remarked that he had never received any confirmation about the children he was sponsoring in Africa. It wasn't even a conversation...just a remark.
     Fast forward again to a break up which lead to a great deal of soul searching on my part. Not long after, my best friend, Sierra, called after church one Sunday to say that she had found it! Found what? I was confused but my lackluster response didn't faze her. It never does.  "The project you needed to focus on...the next step in the soul searching process! They announced today at church, which you would know if you had been there, that they need a group of teachers to go work at that school in Africa. The one that those people come from to talk to us about every once in a while. Do you know what I'm talking about? I think you should go! At least find out about it." I promised I would.
     I called to inquire the next day. The girl said she thought there were no more spaces because they were taking a specific number of teachers and each of those would be paired up with one of the grade levels at the school. She was pretty sure all the spots were filled but she took my number and said she'd look into it. Honestly, I felt a little disappointed but equally relieved. I had done what I promised Sierra I would do and now I was off the hook...until she called back.
     "The person who was going to work with the youngest children, 4 and 5 year olds mostly - some 6, had to back out. What is your background in education?" she asked.  At that time I had taught kindergarten for 4 years, 1st grade for one and was finishing up a year as a Head Start Child Development teacher (4 year olds). The fit was perfect and I was on my way to Valary...though I still didn't know it.
    

Dear Oprah,
     So where to start? I'm so eager to tell you about the day I met Valary...it's such a cool story...but I think you first need to hear what prompted me to start this blog (something I have never done until now). It's an equally cool story. And when I say "story", I really mean Spirit Filled Chain of Events.
     The chain started this past Friday, January 13th. I was at a professional development "inservice" at school (I teach 3rd grade). As a team building activity, we were asked to write down a word on an index card. This word was meant to represent us in some way or even be a type of "goal word" in lieu of a New Year's Resolution. "Inspire" was my first choice, as that is my primary goal for what I aim to do with my 3rd graders everyday, but instead I chose "energize" hoping it would motivate me to keep on moving through the upcoming rigorous weeks of January.
     Tempted to sleep in the next morning, I woke up and considered lounging in bed for a while. But then I heard my word cheering in my head: "Energize, Katie!". So up I got...but after pouring my cereal, I immediately hit a road bump: what should I energize to do? The usual to do's just weren't inspiring me. I felt like I was in a rut.
     I hopped on my TED CONFERENCE app looking for energizing inspiration. A list of possible categories came up. As my eyes scrolled to the bottom of the list, there was a tab for the "inspiring" category. My abandoned word! That's when I began to feel the surge in my chest that rose up through my shoulders and out through my fingertips.  It was weird...and exciting. I felt something like a ringing hotness that went through my body. I know it sounds odd, but it was like a force of energy or something. I tapped on the tab and put in that I was looking for an inspiring talk that was around 5 minutes in length. Up popped "Matt Cutts: 30 Days to Try Something New". I was in.
     Matt explained that when in a rut, he had decided to follow Morgan Spurlock's idea (Super Size Me) of trying something new for 30 days and in the process had learned a fun way to set achievable goals to finally do those things that he had always meant to get around to but hadn't yet. His lighthearted speech did what I had hoped...I was now inspired to get energized to do something new for 30 days! Then came the next hump: what??
     I was thinking about the possibilities as I put on my shoes to go check the mailbox. I seem to do a lot of good thinking between the house and the mailbox for some reason. But just as I was zipping up my boot, there you were on the tv, wiping your tears as you watched YOUR African girls walk across the stage to accept their diplomas as the first graduating class of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy For Girls...and that's when it hit me: I was going to spend my 30 day self challenge writing to you to earn MY African girl a spot in your school.
     An even stranger thing happened then...one that I hesitate to write about because it was again weird and very personal and yet I can't fully explain it: I started to cry. They were sort of happy tears but they also felt heavy with responsibility...and also, I think, fear that the shedding of their hopefulness might go unanswered. But I can't not try. And so here we are on day two of the journey.
     Hope this finds it's way to you...will write tomorrow and begin to tell you the story of what lead me to Valary. Until then...
    

Dear Oprah,
I'm on a mission and I need your help. Actually, Valary Ankinyi needs your help. She's the young African girl I have sponsored for the last several years. She deserves a spot in your Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy For Girls...I'm just not sure how to get her there. So I'm going to write you a letter (via this blog) everyday for the next 30 days, hoping against hope that somehow you'll see it by the end of the 30 days (more on the 30 day thing later). Fittingly, at the end of that time, it will be VALENTINES DAY...and after all, what better gift of love is there than showing your love for a child's future through education?  So let me begin...it's a great story! You're gonna like it :)