The Proper Way to Argue

I was reminded of these simple rules recently.

Never point the finger at someone else only at yourself. You cannot change another person's actions only your own.

Never do or say anything that is not loving, helpful, and encouraging.

Look for the fault in yourself as opposed to looking for it in others.

If someone points the finger at you take the opportunity to grow as a person and hear what he or she has to say (even if said in anger). Try to understand where the person is coming from.

You can only really tell another how their action makes you feel and not what they are doing wrong. Use the words “this makes me feel ______” or “I feel__________ ”. This way you are talking about your own reaction and allows the other person to reflect on an effect of something they may have done without feeling attacked.

Remember that 90% of anger is really hurt. Remember this when examining your own anger as well as someone else’s.

Try to never make someone defensive by blaming or accusing.

Try to never become defensive if someone is telling you how your actions make him or her feel.

Don’t use the words “never” or “always” particularly when talking about the other person in a negative or accusatory way. There is nothing helpful, encouraging, or loving about this. E.g.: “You never…”.

Don’t manipulate or use passive aggressive behaviour to try to get the other person to bend to your wish. Just be upfront and lay everything on the table about how you feel.

Always humble yourself when approaching someone to address an issue. Don’t put them on the defensive. Make sure they know you are behind them with love, helpfulness, and encouragement.

Remember the simple effectiveness of telling someone how much you care and love him or her to end any such discussions.

Christmas Greetings!

Christmas greetings from Manchester, UK!!!!! We have just arrived back from Malawi to England to spend the holiday (4 weeks) with Nigel's family before heading off to Liberia in a few weeks. To those of you who thought we were going to Sierra Leone...we were. The Sierra Leone Government didn't contact the Mercy Ships back and Liberia did.

Internet in Malawi was difficult and very slow. We gave up on emails after awhile, never mind blogging!

It was hard to imagine it was Christmas in Malawi with the heat (even though the cooler rainy season was beginning). I was looking forward to the medium cold weather in the UK when we returned. I love it. We arrived back on Christmas Eve and stayed at Nigel's great aunt's in London. It was surreal walking around Stanmore village trying to get a Christmas feel with the lights, decorations, and brisk air. I did feel sad coming from one of the world's poorest countries to one where people were in a blind panic in the supermarket to get the right appetizers in time. Who cares. I enjoyed our simple evening and dinner of macaroni and cheese with Nigel's aunt (who is housebound, elderly and alone). It was also nice to see all of Nigel's family and speak for hours with mine on the phone.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

More blogs to come...daily!

We Are in Malawi!

We are in Malawi at short last! We have arrived at the hottest time of year. The heat can be crippling. I walk 35 minutes to the market in the midday to get food and then all the way back home (uphill) and I think I must drink 16 cups of water on the journey! The short rainy season is due to start soon. The coolest times are early mornings and evenings.

Blantyre is nice. It is a small city and the hospital Nigel is working at is on the outskirts of the town. The roads are rough and the best vehicles for the terrain seem to be the Landrovers 4x4's. It is a 30 minute walk to the city centre. The centre itself is bustling, but not somewhere I would hang out for long. I prefer the long dusty roads a bit out of town. Malawians walk everywhere (as do I) and rush hour is more people crammed on the roads than cars.

The Market is close by and there is an abundance of fresh produce, live chickens, dried fish, slabs of hanging meat, woven baskets, fabric, spices, handmade furniture, and really anything you can think of. You can buy bananas just about anywhere you go from women carrying large bushels on their head.
Malawi is very nice. Red earth. Wonderfully friendly and kind people. Dusty heat. Crammed minibuses. Little tables under trees along the dusty roads with a telephone on it and a person there to help you make your call on mobile phone units for a small price.

Life in Blantyre begins very early in the mornings...at least 6am. "Malawian midnight" is about 9pm. The sun goes down at 6pm and it is not advisable to be out after dark. The heat starts at about 7:30am, so the earlier you get up, the more of the day you have not bathed in your own sweat and then caked in red dust!

Nigel has started work at the hospital and I am sorting out a regular painting schedule as I have brought my art supplies with me. I have sourced canvas and gesso, but have been told that artist oil paint is not available in Malawi. We are housed in a guest house off the hospital with 3 other housemates. It is airy and simple.

I have found an art gallery on the way to the market that has a cafe, small library, and wireless internet (for a fee). Internet here in Malawi is slow. I have yet to try the country's wireless system, Skyband, as you have to buy a card with time on it which you can use in any hotspot.

We hope to get out of Blantyre on weekends and explore the rest of the country before the rains start.

A Painting From Beginnng to End

Michal & Nigel’s Year Away

We have put this blog together to let all our friends and family know what we are up to this coming year. When we first met, one of the things we wanted to do was spend some time volunteering in a developing country together. We have spent the last six months deciding and applying to various organisations which we have an interest in and where our skills could best be used. We are currently in Canada and the States to visit friends and family during September. We are in the midst of visiting Vancouver, Kelowna, Fort Wayne (USA), Edmonton and finally Calgary for a wedding, and return to the UK on October 1st. Our next destination is Malawi. We leave London on October 11th and fly via Nairobi to Blantyre in the southern region of the country. We will be working in the Beit Trust CURE International Hospital. Malawi has a population of just under 13 million people. It remains one of the poorest countries in Africa and the life expectancy is 40. This is mainly a result of the high incidence of HIV and AIDS. One fifth of the children die before the age of 5. Healthcare is very poor. There are only 4 orthopaedic surgeons and two medically qualified anaesthetists in the whole country. The country is currently undergoing a programme of training doctors over a 15-20 year period. Many NGO’s and volunteers are part of this work and there is plenty of opportunity to be involved. The CURE hospital is a 66-bed teaching hospital that specializes in treating the orthopaedic needs of children and adults. The facility was opened in 2002 and serves children with physical disabilities regardless of their ethnic background, religious affiliation or ability to pay. Eighty percent of the surgery is for children with a wide range of orthopaedic conditions including clubfoot, burn contractures, osteomyelitis and other acquired or congenital conditions. The hospital also has special expertise in total hip and knee replacement surgery, one of the very few places where this surgery is available in Sub-Saharan Africa. The CURE hospital has 3 orthopaedic surgeons along with 2 clinical officers who provide the anaesthesia. It maintains an orthopaedic and anaesthetic clinical officer-training program. As a visiting anaesthetist, Nigel will work full time alongside the clinical officers in a supervisory and teaching role. Currently they perform very few regional block techniques that enhance recovery and pain relief. The medical director, Mr Jim Harrison, one of the surgeons, is keen to have visiting anaesthetists to update and help train the current clinical officers. Michal will be taking her painting gear and will probably spend some time volunteering in the hospital or a nearby orphanage. We return from Malawi on the 23rd of December in time to celebrate Christmas with family in the UK. We will then prepare to go out and join the Africa Mercy, an NGO hospital ship, while it is docked for 6 months in Freetown, Sierra Leone. We join the boat in Tenerife in the Canary Islands on January 21st and sail with it to Freetown, arriving around February 3rd. Sierra Leone is a country broken by civil war. Over a 10-year period rebel forces raided towns and villages, using rape, terror, amputations and brutal murder as weapons of war. Child soldiers were recruited and trained to fight against their own villages and people. Most of the violence was fuelled by an attempt to take control of the rich diamond and gold resources of this beautiful country. The rebels were disarmed in 2002 by the United Nations, however the country remains scarred by the events of the past. Sierra Leone is ranked second to last on the Human Development Index, a guide used by the World Health Organisation which takes into account life expectancy and health issues. The Mercy Ships have been working in West Africa since 1978. They have completed a total of 223 port visits and perform over 1000 operations during a visit lasting 6 months. The Africa Mercy is their latest vessel and has six operating theatres which will double their capacity to perform operations. Michal will be working as an assistant cook in a team catering for 400 crew on board along with several patients. Nigel will be one of 3 anaesthetists on board working in the operating rooms. Some of the main procedures carried out include cleft lip and palate repairs, cataract and squint operations, operations for limb deformities and trauma, maxillofacial tumours followed by reconstructive surgery, and childbirth and rape injuries such as vesico-vaginal fistula repair. Most people with any such deformity or disability are treated as outcasts by their society, regarded as possessing evil spirits. Following their surgery, which would normally be impossible to obtain, they can begin a new life and become a functioning member of society once again. Here are the websites of the organisations we are travelling with if you are interested in finding out more:

www.cureinternational.org

www.mercyships.org

Keep in touch! Love from Michal and Nigel

UK Clouds?

Raw Guts and Giggles

INTRODUCTION #2
KIM BARLOW
A musician from the Yukon whom I heard for the first time at the South Country Fair. She plays banjo, guitar, and cello to name a few. She has a small town feel with all the charm of the backwood, plaid shirts and hunters. If you think you know what kind of music she makes, then the next song will change your mind...and the next...and the next. An odd duck (in a very good way), she is honest to the point most people start squirming and then turns around and makes you laugh your head off. I am left feeling that although she lives in her "igloo" in 23 hours of darkness without a fashion magazine or celeb gossip rag in site, she is a far cry more cooler than all of us city folk put together.

She was my first cyber stalking love!

Listen to Kim Barlow on MySpace

Stabbingly Drop-Jaw Fantastical

I am not one for listening to recorded music. I have better things to do, and as I have discovered early on, I cannot listen to music and do anything else at the same time. I am compelled to sit and listen, in the same way I am compelled to be still in front of a painting or work of art.

Live music is another thing. I have become entranced with certain musicians I have heard live. There haven't been many, but when I take a shine to one, I am likely to go into cyber stalking mode.

INTRODUCTION #1
VEDA HILLE.
Hailing from Vancouver,I first heard her in Albert in a tent at the South Country Fair. How can I describe her? Eclectic, fantastical, staggering in the array of unusual lyrics, melodies, piano compositions, and sounds. Truly an unusual oddity that has me hooked like a wandering goat lost in the Himalayas without a teat to suckle on.

Listen to Veda Hille on MySpace


Lyrics to her Tuktoyaktuk Hymn written after spending time up on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, at the uppermost edge of Canada in Tuktoyaktuk, a small Inuvialuit community. The song's bridge sends shivers down my spine everytime...

Jesus, where'er Thy people meet,
There they behold thy mercy seat;
Where'er they seek Thee Thou art found,
And every place is hallowed ground.

Tuktoyaktuk, plain dirt roads;
They all lead to Thy wooden house;
Lord, we have built this house for Thee,
On frozen ground by northern sea.

The winter's dark is cold and long;
We call Thee Lord, we bid Thee come,
White crosses in our graveyard stand;
Protect us in Thy willful land.

From sudden storm
Guns that jam
Alcohol
Late spring break up
Thin ice
Rogue bear
Engine failure, engine failure
Failure, failure

Lord, we are few, but Thou art near;
Nor short Thine arm, nor deaf Thine ear;
O rend the heavens, come quickly down,
And make a thousand hearts Thine own.

Tuktoyaktuk Amen

Flooding in South Yorkshire

There is flooding in the region of South Yorkshire where Sheffield is located. Torrential rains have been pouring for a week. Nigel and I live just out of town on a hill...but beside 3 reservoirs that are bursting.

More at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6239828.stm

A Phenomenal Job

This was sent to me by a friend, Leslie Vandas, who has put a lot of work into an amazing project. Read on...



She writes..."I saw an ad in the local newspaper asking for volunteers to paint murals for the Alzheimer unit at Capilano Care Center.  I really felt that I should call as Milan's mom [her husband] is now living there although not on this particular floor.  The woman organizing it is an artist now living on the Sunshine coast whose old friend is living at Cap.  When she visits there she hates the institutional look and felt the staff and residents would benefit from a series of murals along a very long hallway.  Her hope was to challenge artists across North America to use their talent to make institutions more stimulating places to be.

Originally we met at a very yucky location and it was to be a commitment of two days a week 3 hours per day.  It ended up in our garage, six days a week, for two and a half months.  There are five panels of 10 ft x 4 ft and four panels 4 x4.
There was a core group of 4 committed ladies who became very good friends during this very amazing experience.  I remember you telling me that it is important to paint every day and wow did we ever!
I have included some photos of the large ones here.  Mine is the one with the two pots of the left and two pillars on the right.  Some aren't finished yet.

Meanwhile, our house was for sale during this time and people would be blown away when they came into the garage and saw what was going on there.  The first family that looked at the house were very interested in the murals and she emailed a colleague in Singapore (where they just moved here from) and explained what we were doing.  They actually bought the house and the other day she was here and said a prominent artist in Singapore is now overseeing two mural projects there.  One in a children's hospital and one in a home for handicapped kids! 

What happened in that garage changed all of us forever!  The one with the rocks across the bottom was done by a lady who has never painting before!  She hooked rugs before but is now selling all her equipment and is buying paints!
There will be a big fund raiser to cover the cost of the project in the fall and all of us would do it again (but not for such an extended time period). It was all documented by a professional photographer who will produce giclee prints on canvas for sale as well as prints for "our portfolios" (which none of us have!)
Anyway, I thought you might be interested to see what we did."

South Coast of Devon

We took a trip a while ago to the south coast of Devon, England. It was beautiful!

Stanage Edge

Close to where we live is Stanage Edge that draws climbers from all over England. We can hike to it from our flat. It is absolutely stunning. Nigel took me there one of the first evenings I visiting him in Sheffield and I thought it was the most romantic evening with the sun setting, the sheep wandering around us, and the distant voices of climbers over the edge.