Back from Japan

Hello! I'm back from Japan. It's probably echoing out there since my small blog audience hasn't had any posts to read since last March! My sustainable agriculture experience was enriched by people from so many cultures. The multicultural picture books I brought for ARI's library helped in several ways.

Mary from Liberia loved Beatrice's Goat, a story about Heifer Project. She knows families that have received a heifer, just as Beatrice receives a goat. Uncle Timo, from Ghana, brought One Hen to Poultry class and asked all 29 participants to read it as an example of a small poultry project that financed micro loans to others. I read The Tree Hugger, donated by Jeanne Atkins, to my adult English class and told the story of Running Shoes to four Japanese Primary students when I subbed as their English teacher.

So I was immersed in relationships and not children's writing, though I edited lots of documents, helped write an Annual Report and wrote two grant proposals that were accepted! That was my day work. Before breakfast and before supper, you could find me feeding chickens, planting gardens, mucking out pigs, or cooking breakfast and supper!

Now I'm back to revising Hildegard and waiting for my wonderful ARI experience to ferment into rich stories and poems. The wonderful books on the shelf here are what I've read in the last week.