Stop throwing your plastic bottles in India's backyard

A few months ago I participated in a faciliation discussion with GrassRoots, a subgroup of Metroplan which aims to make a green agenda for Central Arkansas. They are a fabulous organization headed by Jasmin Moore, and doing some great things for the community. Check out their blog which has tons of green posts.

During the facilitation, we watched this very interesting video about The Story of Bottled Water. If you haven't seen it, please watch the video below.


I think about that video every time I come across plastic bottles. They are literally everywhere. Sadly enough I see forgotten bottles every single day here in St. Lucia. As I walk up the hill to my home, smushed plastic bottles on the road. When I walk through the city they are gathered in the irrigation ditches. And when I walk or jog along the beach, there are no doubt a few bottles here and there dotting the formally pristine beach.

The 3 R's of conservation: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle have recently adopted a 4th R. RESPECT. So with that, let's all try to add that 4th R as we go about our day.

Dennery Primary School - A Class Act

Sarah and I were invited for a site visit to Dennery Primary School in Dennery, St. Lucia. The focus on today’s visit was to attend their theatre class and see what connections might be made between the school and the My Island – My Community project we’re working on for PCI Media Impact.

This was our first time to visit Dennery, a tiny village of on the east side of the island. A little over 10,000 people live in this area which is known for fishing and its banana crops. The drive started out beautifully. I could not believe the views. Spectacular! It was amazing looking out onto the luscious green rainforest and picture perfect blue water. The drive was pretty windy though as we were climbing the mountainous terrain, and not too far into the trip, the driver was clipping what seemed like 60… 70… mph steep curves and passing slow moving trucks. Meanwhile, 90s hits from the US were blaring one right after the other on the radio station. I made a comment to Sarah that I thought maybe we had time traveled back to the 90s. (note to self: write script about an absurd vehicle that time travels. like a hot tub. oh wait... that's been done.)

But as the curves got sharper, the bus rolled along faster. I told myself to think of the drive as a rollercoaster, except that this rollercoast didn't have rails. But then I remembered that I infact do not like roller coasters at all (6 Flags is not my idea of a fun vacation) and that the research I had done prior to arriving to St. Lucia (see I did my homework, Joe!) indicated that many traffic accidents occur in St. Lucia because of the steep, windy roads just like this. I then could see the bus (which to be fair is really a mini van) careening off the curve and into oblivion… life flashing before my eyes. Please God, don’t let the last song I hear before I die be Hanson’s MmmBop. Please, anything but that. At least throw me some Boys II Men, Dave Matthews, or Nirvana. Really, Hanson? This was the point where I leaned over and told Sarah if she survived to find all my diaries and burn them.

Luckily for me MmmBop was not the last song I heard. And disregarding the drive, we had a pretty great day. Visiting the theatre classes was awesome. The kids were super talented and boy were they hamming it up for the camera.


They played games! Here is a student pressing the dents out of her imaginary sphere.

They showed me their drawings! Apparently they really have a thing for elves.

They begged to have their photo taken.

But best of all -- they showed me and Sarah how great it was to be 10 and have the gift of theatre, storytelling, and play in their lives. Normally they take their core classes like Language Arts and Arithmetics, and this is the only type of class of its kind. Twice a week they get to visit Ms. Regis's class and escape into an imaginary world of charcters they've made up and created. It really is something special.

And just like that in an MmmBop our time was up at Dennery Primary School and it was back to our little abode in St. Lucia.

You have so many relationships in this life
Only one or two will last
You go through all this pain and strife
Then you turn your back and they're gone so fast
And they're gone so fast
So hold on to the ones who really care
In the end they'll be the only ones there
When you get old and start losing your hair
Can you tell me who will still care?
Can you tell me who will still care?

Mmm bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du

Mmm bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, Ba du dop
Ba du bop, Ba du dop
Ba du . . .

This is your brain on media

Remember that commercial: this is your brain? Now this is your brain on drugs. Egg cracks! Whoosh. And there goes your brain all fried in a gooey tasty yummy sunny side up dish.
Well . . . today I’m going to tell you what happens to your brain as you watch shows . . . perhaps even as you read this blog. This will be a little participatory, so go ahead and relax, kick back.

First – have you eaten breakfast today? Do you need a little snacky snack? Perfecto! Please go ahead and grab that breakfast bar next to you, those carrots, grapes… whatever you want to munch on. No, I’ll wait. Don’t worry. I’ll be right here.
…

Oh, you’re back? Is it tasty? Can I have some too?

How does this picture make you feel?
Does it give you the warm and fuzzies?

Now answer these trivia questions if you can. (Answers provided at end of post)
1. What three European countries begin with the letter A?
2. What became America’s first organized sport in 1664?
3. How many Rocky movies were made by 1990?

How this relates to a recent theory in Entertainment Education is with MacLean’s Triune Brain Theory. MacLean said that there are three brain centers where you process messages. These brain centers are the neo-cortex (intelligence), visceral (emotions), and reptilian (physical urges).

When you’re born, you begin with a reptilian brain and then develop your visceral brain and finally a neo-cortex capability. A reptilian center processes messages about food, sex, and aggressiveness, while the visceral center processes emotional messages, things that tug at your heart strings. The neo-cortex center processes intellectual activity and according to MacLean is only found in human beings.

MacLean believes that when the neo-cortex brain is out of whack with the two other brains that this leads to conflict in a person’s inner drives. Imagine that you are angry at someone, but logically you don’t want to react with punching and fighting. If a person’s three brain dimensions are not developed in synch, then one may find themselves in great inner turmoil as to what the actual response would be.

Thus, in EE programs, it the goal to stimulate both the reptilian and visceral brains by virtue of its entertainment qualities, which can then feed into a neo-cortex frame of thinking for audiences after viewing/listening to the program. When a person is able to pontificate about the scenes they just viewed in a program, it often gets them to question their societal norms and if/how these norms should be changed.

An example of a popular program that I think utilizes some of the neo-cortex and reptilian centers might be something like the Daily Show, which uses humor to convey current events.
As you go about your day today think about any of the ads that you come across and its message. What part of your brain is responding to it? Oh yes, now you might know why sex sells.

1) Albania, Andorra, Austria 2) horse racing 3) 5

Just another Manic Monday

Is it possible to have a case of the Mondays in beautiful, luscious paradise? I suppose so... this cute little paradise seems to be bifurcated by those who call St. Lucia home and those who call it their honeymoon. When I woke up today I was thinking -- hey what's an ordinary Monday like for a regular person here?

And I thought I'd share a snippet of my Monday routine for those of you wondering. ; )

I like to start everyday out with some little morsel of entertainment that reminds me how wonderful and creative this world can be. So I rewatched this video my classmate David made for my friend Julie and me. Check out his touching tribute to Team J below! Thanks, David. You are the bestest. (and what a great way to start the day!)


Then Sarah and I boarded a bus to head to one of our local offices, Rituals Coffee like any ordinary day. We missed our bus stop and the bus cruised on by, so we had to catch another bus back down the hill. (oops!) Rituals is the only coffee shop that I've ever been to that sells pasta, "flatinis" and paninis. I'm still not sure what the difference between a flatini and panini is, but I don't care. Cause I'm drinking a mean grande latte. My favorite!

And now I'm settling in for a day of research and writing a report for PCI Media Impact to help them in their next stages of implementing My Island -- My Community. But as I'm gearing up for this somewhere my mind is thinking about the workout that looms ahead and the grocery list of food I need to get....

Which reminds me of this quote by John Kenneth Galbraith, "A person buying ordinary products in a supermarket is in touch with his deepest emotions."

Here's to everyone's Mondays, no matter where you are or what ordinary products you might be buying today! Have a great one.

hummus
cereal
yogurt
grapes
crackers
soda water
chocolate

Taking a Day Off

Sarah and I finally had a day off, so we packed up our knapsacks and went on a little adventure in St. Lucia.


First we boarded a boat. (Yes. In the famous lyrics of T-Pain We are on a boat!)

Then we sailed to the cute little village of Soufriere.

And went to the world's only drive-in volcano! The only thing that could have made it better was a drive-in movie.

We walked through a botanical garden and I wanted to pick many of the flowers and take them home, but feared the $200 fine. So I snapped this picture of a ginger torch lily instead.

Our adventure ended with snorkeling in the Caribbean Ocean. We giggled and followed beautiful blue fish through the coral reef. The water was so clear you couldn't even imagine it.

Back to public service now!

Sending some love to Body Love

During my time here in St. Lucia I have been lucky enough to meet the neat people of Media for Health, an organization that produces a radio show called Body Love. Based out of Birmingham, Alabama, Body Love is a radio soap featuring Vanessa Love and Rosalyn Armstrong, hairdressers who deal with everything from family, love interests, hair, and… diabetes.

What’s neat about Body Love (for me) is that during my research on Entertainment Education I’ve read about some great projects from everywhere like India, St. Lucia and Mexico. But this is the first official EE radio project I’ve heard about in my country, the USA. After each program airs, Body Love features a call-in show where they take listener calls and provide medical answers to anything and everything health related.

I love what Media for Health is all about! In fact (and unfortunately) St. Lucia, where I’m currently based, has the highest per capita cases of diabetes in the world. According to Caribbean Net News – over 31,000 St. Lucians were diagnosed with diabetes in 2007. It hits home for me on a personal note as well. My grandmother was stricken with a serious case of diabetes. From an early age I remember every time my grandmother, Esperanza, visited us -- watching her with wonder as she gave herself insulin injections in her thigh. We always had orange juice in the house whenever she visited in case her blood sugar level was low. As a child I could never understand how one could give them self an injection, yet I couldn’t look away either. Eventually I found out that the medical reason behind Esperanza’s diabetes was that her pancreas wasn’t working like normal and was unable to break down sugars. When I was a little older my mother became diabetic.

Did you know that in the US diabetes affects minorities particularly African Americans and Hispanics at higher rates than Caucasians?

And at a conference on diabetes, Lars Rebien Sorensen, president and CEO of Novo Nordisk said "Diabetes will constitute the most significant public health challenge of the 21st century if no action is taken now. It is already causing as many deaths as HIV/AIDS. We need to explore practical ways of redefining healthcare, by focusing on the needs of people with diabetes."

The name “Esperanza” translates as hope. And in the spirit of my grandmother’s name I sincerely hope we can tackle this issue as it affects not only adults but a growing number of children. Type 2 diabetes was once informally called “adult on-set diabetes”, but now that so many children have been diagnosed with this illness, it is no longer an adult issue. It’s our disease as well as our future generation’s disease.

So with that – thank you Body Love and Media for Health for all you do! Keep up the programming and here’s to a positive (sugar) balanced future. ; )

Catch episodes of Body Love at http://www.soph.uab.edu/bodylove/

Shameless Self Promotion

As I learned in radio, you should always make promo's about your show that are timely, appealing, and relevant to your show. So, I've made a promo to remind you, lovely loyal blog readers to continue coming back to No Woman is an Island. It might not be as flashy and as cool as the commercial that I blatantly ripped off, but hey if George Lucas has made a career ripping off sci-fi films (no judgement... I love furry little Ewoks just as much as the next gal) then I can too.

And now without further adieu, the first promo for No Woman is an Island. (Break out your giant tub of popcorn, bucket of coca-cola and twizzlers. Turn off your cell phones while you're at it.)

Cricket: not just an insect, also a popular game

This will come as a surprise for anyone who remotely knows me, but I attended a sporting event yesterday. An actual sporting event LIVE! For those of you who don’t know me – the only reason I even know the mere basics of baseball, football and hockey are because of dear patient friends of mine who are kind enough to listen to my ignorant questions and respond back to me with very simple analogies. Hey, I spent my childhood reading as many books as possible, visiting the city library, attending summer art camps, and watching Wishbone on PBS (you know the cute dog that solves mysteries and talks). Anything that involves motion and some type of sporting equipment is entirely foreign to me.

Anyways, it was the twenty20 world cup in St. Lucia, and Sarah and I attended the much anticipated India vs Sri Lanka match. Cricket is very important to the people of St. Lucia. The entire country was in attendance. Roads were blocked and stores were closed. (Also a very fun professor of ours urged us to go.)

This version of the game is a shortened version of the traditional British game which can take 4 to 5 days to complete. Can you imagine a game that takes that long? Whaaaaaaat? This shorter version lasts about 3 hours because each team bowls 20 balls.

Don’t ask me about the rules or any pertinent information about the game. (Read Sarah’s blog for a better deconstruction of the game). It was my first ever cricket match and I was trying hard just to keep up with it. My initial thoughts were:

1. Why do cricket players wear uniforms which look like pajamas? Can’t they incorporate a little more spandex? Give a girl something to work with!

2. Sri Lanka and India both are very into the sport of cricket. No doubt this is directly due to British colonial rule. For India in particular (a country that fought hard for its independence) – what is it like to break free from British customs and rules, but embrace its sports?

It was a close game. India batted (is that what you call it?) first and played a mean game. Sri Lanka came up to bat and initially I was doubtful they could win. Who scores over a 160 points with 20 balls? I mean, right?! Well not only did Sri Lanka slowly creep up to that score, but their final bat (worth 6 points) was instrumental to their win.

Here are a few photos of the fans near us.