Making a Difference in Nigeria

Please forgive me. I've never been super wonderful at keeping up with my blogs. And being a locavore in Iowa is pretty difficult (maybe even impossible) during the winter - nothing grows here for months, and considering I am unable to grow a garden at my apartment, I couldn't store up food all winter to keep up my ambitions.

So, for now, I encourage you to check out this great article one of my students wrote for the IRIS blog: Amanda Leha and Women's Empowerment. Amanda has really impressed me this year. When she arrived and we went on our trip to Washington DC, I had to yell at her a lot because she was so headstrong. That and she lost her passport for a few hours, which really could have been a huge disaster. But I see now that her willfulness is an asset to her. She sees the world, but refuses to just be or do whatever authority tells her. That can be dangerous in some societies, but this year in Iowa has helped her form some very new ideas of what life should look like, as opposed to what she's always been told. I am no advocate for telling different cultures how to do things - especially not "our way." But I do appreciate when someone from Culture A can look at Culture B and say, "I think this would benefit us, too." If only Americans were more willing to do this, instead of running around the world like ethnocentric, hegemonic asses. Can't really think of a better way to say that.

Amanda and her host mom, Anne, at the Iowa State Fair, 2009