From the Winter 2010 Caller

Passions: community leadership, environment
Interests: Japan, food, running, Tae Kwan Do

“I am a co-leader of three groups: the Japanese Culture Club, the Environmental Club, and the Baking Club. I’ve been taking Japanese since 7th grade and have been to Japan twice. Joining the Environmental Club seemed a natural expression of my interest in environmental issues, especially pertaining to food. I eat less meat, garden, cook for my family, and buy organic or local food. For the International Day of Climate Change, other Environmental Club members joined me on a zero-carbon outdoor program trip to the Columbia Gorge, traveling on MAX and bicycles.

 

I love what I have right now. I love baking, I love Japan, and I love Catlin Gabel. I don’t do what I do just to look good on college applications. People stress too much—I know I will go to college and make it great, wherever I go.”

Invitation for young people in Kathmandu to meet with visitors from Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon, USA

If you have anything to say about the arrival of corporate food culture in our city, take part in a discussion with youth from the country where it all began—United States.  Exchange points of view and discuss the recent coming of KFC and Pizza Hut to Kathmandu with youth from Catlin Gabel, a high school in Portland, Oregon.

Portland is well known for being a progressive, environmentally conscious city where all things local, organic, and fairly traded thrive.  While fast food outlets exist there, a growing number of people actively support locally owned restaurants and farmers, as well as the globally renowned Slow Food Movement.
The Slow Food Movement was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.”

Is fast food something American young people support? What role does fast food play in their lives? What kind of food choices do their families make? What kind of image do fast food companies portray through advertising? Is fast food especially popular among their friends? Is it popular with any particular segments of American society? Would they like to work at a fast food chain?

On March 6, prior to the discussion, we will screen the movie, Food, Inc., which examines how today’s “food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.”

Since the recent establishment of KFC and Pizza Hut (both owned by Yum! Brands, “The World’s Largest Restaurant Company”), people in Kathmandu have quickly embraced them open arms, not addressing any of the major concerns voiced by people who have been eating fast food for decades. So let’s ask some questions.

Do Nepali consumers really know what they are getting? Why have people been lining up to eat at KFC and Pizza Hut? Is fast food cool?  Is it a status symbol? What does it mean to Nepal’s culture now that it is here? For our environment? For our health? For our local farmers? Who is making the profits? Why should we care? What can we do?

Join us on Saturday, March 20, 9 a.m.–noon, at Today’s Youth Asia venue at Babermahal Revisited for a fun, informative conversation with youth from the United States. If you are 15-18 years old and interested in taking part, email us as soon as possible at collective@sattya.org.

We will screen the movie on Saturday, March 6, at Crehpa (time to be decided). Nepali participants are required to attend the screening prior to the program on March 20.
 

Questions posed to Nepalese student applicants:

Do you know where your foods come from?

What is your diet like? What do you wish it was like?

What do you think about KFC and Pizza Huts’ presence here?

What is your perception of America and from where have you gathered this perception?

Which TV channels do you prefer to watch and why?

On Friday, February 5, 200 Catlin Gabel Lower School students plus staff, faculty, and parents participated in a readathon for Haiti relief. They all read books in the Lower School library, and up and down the halls, from 2:15 to 3 p.m., unified in a student-led community effort to show we are trying to make a difference. Students collected pledges for reading a certain number of minutes or a certain number of pages, and the resulting pledges were added to the funds that Catlin Gabel students and community members have already raised for Haiti relief. As of February 8, more than $11,000 had been donated to Mercy Corps from student-led efforts all over the school, and that figure will continue to grow.

Mariam Higgins, fourth grade teacher, describes Haiti and her families' experiences there in light of the recent humanitarian crisis.

Jenny Faber writes from Spain during her year abroad, November 30, 2009

"The Endless Search"

    Back home finding the perfect parking spot poses a serious challenge for my dad, circling the rows of cars like a vulture and stalking pedestrians loaded down with shopping bags following them back to their car. But my dad’s quest for the parking doesn’t even compare with the lengths Juan, my host father, went to during las fiestas de Pilar. Even during frenzied Christmas shopping or a Costco run before the Superbowl, the most hectic parking times in Oregon, it normally doesn’t take more than half an hour to find a place to park. But after an hour of winding through the streets of Zaragoza, Juan didn’t show any signs of weakness, even when we passed the parking garage, with the bright green illuminated LIBRE sign.
    La Ofrenda de las Flores, the most religious aspect of Pilar, started early Monday morning, and Pili and Jorge, my host mom and little brother were up with the sun to join the procession. Juan isn’t a native Aragonese and wouldn’t walk in la Ofrenda.  Instead he and I planned to get to Calle Alfonso in time to see Pili and Jorge walk by in their native costumes on their way to Pilar.  Normally it takes me about fifteen minutes to get to Pilar on the 29 bus, so it should have taken less time by car. It was such a weird feeling being back in a car, in the month I’d been in Spain, I’ve ridden in a car twice, instead taking “tu amigo el 29” as Juan calls it.  I hadn’t expected such an adventure in the car, normally all my exciting transportation moments occur in the bus.
    We started out at 11:15, Juan asking me, “¿Te molestas si fumo?” Sí me molesto mucho but I couldn’t just tell him that. It was a rhetorical question anyway. We drove by my bus stop, just as a 29 was pulling up, the people packed on like sardines, headed to Pilar. I scoffed at their misery, crammed into the bus, the Spanish abuelas staring down anyone without gray hair, trying to get their seat. We’d get to Calle Alfonso much more comfortably than them, and quicker too. We crossed the river and made a quick loop around Pilar, just to be thorough but it was evident we couldn’t get a parking spot that close. That was just wishful thinking. The streets were difficult to navigate, with cars lining both sides, and everyone hurrying in the direction of the Ofrenda. It was like a step back in time, with the women walking around in floor length dresses, with petticoats and shawls and the men wearing stockings and vests. The drive through town was surreal, it would have been much more apropos to ride in a horse drawn carriage.
    By 11:40 we’d driven into a part of Zaragoza I’d never been to and Juan became a tour guide. That fit well with the picture I’d formed of Juan in my mind, when he emailed me in June, saying he’d be my “solucionador de cuestiones”, my solver of questions. In all the ideas I’d dreamed up of my year in Spain, I never thought of anything resembling our parking odyssey.   KISS FM played on the radio, occasional American songs popped up and other times Spanish music courses through the car. Juan told me little tidbits about each song, even the American ones. As we passed certain buildings Juan explained what their used for and occasionally their style of architecture. Sometimes, I could understand him perfectly and was on top of the world, considering myself basically fluent. Other times, I couldn’t understand anything and realized how much I have to learn.
By the time we passed La Romadera, the soccer stadium, we were farther from Pilar than our house was. The casual manner in which we drove around made it seem like it wasn’t vital to find a parking spot and more important to enjoy the drive together. There was no swearing, nor rude gestures at the others searching for parking, instead camaraderie, drivers signaling if a parking lot was full.     At that point, I’d been in Spain a little more than a month; I no longer felt like a stranger around my host family. I was beginning to feel like I lived in Spain, rather than just a tourist. But that still didn’t mean being alone with my Spanish dad didn’t terrify me. Try as I might, I just couldn’t communicate with him as well as I wanted to. He’d ask me a simple question, and I’d repetitively respond with a puzzled “¿Qué?” Or when I got sick of asking him to repeat it with simpler words, I’d just jump in and respond, more often than not answering him about something he hadn’t even asked me. I could handle a short car ride, but the clock kept going and I desperately longed to fill the awkward silence.
 Juan was on cigarette two when we drove back by Pilar to start circling again. The fumes were bothersome, but smoking is an ever present culturally accepted pastime in Spain. The infamous Zaragoza wind, El Cierzo, picked up right as we drove past a construction site, and it was a mad race to see if Juan could roll up the windows of the car before the dust cyclone hit us. The windows rolled up just in time, and a new topic of conversation started, one of Juan’s favorites, about how I would freeze this year. It didn’t help that I wore a dress and tights, perfectly accentuating his point that I never dress warmly enough. But Juan’s nagging doesn’t bother me; it’s his way of protecting me, making sure I don’t become an American Popsicle. “Abrígate” has become Juan’s trademark phrase, replacing hello and good-bye. It’s not uncommon that I’m sent to put on more layers before I’m allowed leave the house.
    At noon we’d been searching for more than 45 minutes, breaking all records from back home. A lesser man would have given into the temptation of the parking garage, only a moment’s walk from where we planned to meet Pili and Jorge. But Juan resisted the lure of the green glowing LIBRE sign, beaconing like a holy grail, and we drove off to scour elsewhere for a parking spot. The farther out we went the easier it was to see people’s desperation for parking. Cars parked on the sidewalk blocked all pedestrians and cars parked in the street blocked all drivers. Once we crossed back over the river and closer to home than Pilar, it would have been quicker to take the bus. After more than an hour of searching we pulled into a parking lot close to home that was overflowing with cars and buses. There were no rows to drive down to look for space, because cars were crammed into every space possible. It was utter madness, and the poor cars parked in the back were stuck until Pilar festivities finished, and the cars would give up their coveted spaces. Juan works in renewable resources, with los molinos, but he doesn’t drive a compact hybrid car. There was no way his SUV was going to be squeezed in anywhere. Though it worked perfectly we hopped the curb to park in a free spot of sidewalk.  It didn’t matter to Juan that we parked closer to home than to Pilar, and still had to walk halfway there. We triumphed, and against all odds, found a parking space. Juan had evidently planned for our extensive search, because we made it to Pilar exactly the time Pili and Jorge walked by, dressed to the nines in their native costumes.

On December 25, teacher Paul Monheimer, his 8th grade daughter, Noa, and his wife, Pam, flew to Tel Aviv on a Fulbright research grant. Among many cross-cultural pursuits, Paul is researching the use of technology to connect students internationally.  Also, he is looking at how teachers are introduced and trained in the use of technology to aid learning. 

PAUL'S ISRAEL BLOG

NOA'S ISRAEL BLOG

On November 3 Catlin Gabel welcomed a group of about 45 Japanese and American K-12 teachers, university professors, and dignitaries to our campus. They were interested in learning about our efforts toward becoming more sustainable. They had been meeting in Portland for several days and were interested in curriculum in various schools that focuses on sustainability. The tour began with a delicious, organic, locally grown lunch created by our own Hen Truong. At the stop at the Beginning School, Sue Henry described the thinking, learning, planning, and model-building that went into designing Little Eagle Creek, which harvests rain water from our roof. Kindergartners sang our guests a welcome song and another about the water cycle. Jordan Heintz, 5th grade teacher, presented a video about the class’s sustainability curriculum, and the Upper school environmental class did an impressive job of talking about what they are learning. Last, our guests visited the Middle School garden project, which grows food for our kitchen. Eric Shawn, our facilities director, who has been instrumental in the school’s progress toward a greener future, organized the successful half-day tour for our guests. Congratulations, Eric!