Category Archives: building projects

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Variations on my America (Excuse the Stereotypes, Please)


My partner Sara and I visited Southern Georgia last week—a town called Americus–a place that’s stereotypically small town America–America  in miniature–a place that, for me, is about  friendship, service, and fabulous feasting!

For many years Sara’s belonged to a group of female friends who call themselves the Breakfast Club—an assortment of bright and talented women who at one time or another worked in the world of international NGOs but originally met for breakfast on Saturday mornings at a place in Americus, Georgia called Kings Restaurant.

When Sara and I got together 5 years ago, I was inducted into this group of omeletpancakebacon-eating women, whether I wanted to be or not.  And, I must admit, I’ve never laughed harder or louder than I have with these funny and fun-loving female friends.

Though I’d gathered with members of the Breakfast Club in a number semi-exotic locations, before last week I’d never visited Americus, the group’s original home—something Sara and I refused to tolerate any longer.

But Americus, Georgia’s bigger claim to fame is Habitat for Humanity—an international NGO founded 35  years ago by Millard Fuller, an organization that builds decent, affordable homes in close to 100 countries around the world—an organization I’ve worked with closely: having my university students help build houses locally in Lexington; volunteering personally with the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project in the Mekong; taking another group of writers to the slums of New Delhi where we worked with Habitat for Humanity India.

Habitat is an organization I’ve worked with around the globe, but one whose US home I’d also never seen—until last week.

(But I don’t want you to miss Americus either.)

So, today I offer a pictorial tour of Americus as I experienced it—a sleepy, Southern town of 17,000 near Plains, Georgia, still the home of former US president Jimmy Carter— in many ways a tour of stereotypical America in miniature.

First, the charming Victorian hotel, the 53 room Windsor, where we stayed, an image of Main Street, USA:

The Breakfast Club’s Saturday morning meal is now eaten at Granny’s Kitchen:

There a group of strong American women gather around one big table:

Later that evening we had dinner at Donna’s, a small ranch home common in American suburbs–something my non-American readers may never have visited.  Notice the mailbox:

We had a ball:

I also got to hug the famous peanut in Plains.  Remember, Jimmy Carter, who still lives there came from a family of peanut famers:

I discovered that one of the many buildings in Americus that houses Habitat for Humanity, the Rylander, used to be a car dealership.  Is there anything more stereotypically American than baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolet?

I also learned that Habitat for Humanity industriously and ecomically prints all of its own publications—a massive work ethic in operation at the Sheffield Center:

We extended out stay in Southern Georgia by visiting Savannah and the seashore on Tybee Island:

But the best part of visiting Georgia remains returning to Kentucky.

So–as Sara’s sabbatical at home will soon be ending and we will soon be moving on to another (yet unknown) international location, I’m reminded that the best part about being away always involves returning home.

Though I know my America is not the America of many, for me, home remains American— as narrow as that America may be.

So, please excuse the stereotypes; I’m just enjoying home.

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Babel-ed by it All: a Retrospective


(Another post from Vietnam as part of my holiday retrospective.  The piece below, written in the summer of 2009, describes my cultural and linguistic confusion soon after arriving in Saigon.)

I haven’t posted in over a week—not because I have nothing to say—but because I have too much.  I’m overwhelmed with stimuli.  Each time I try to write what comes out sounds silly or clichéd.  I’ve drafted but gotten nowhere—several starts.  Perhaps, I’ll post the pieces—these nudges toward nothing I can name.  I’d also like to post a few of the photos I’ve taken—several of Saigon—many of my trip South to volunteer with a building project for the poor–a good hour and a half drive into the country from Rach Gia.  It seems I’m struck most by the faces of children—the eyes of cows and water buffalo grazing.

children playing in sand at volunteer build site

the children's existing housing

squat toilet at build site--common in Southeast Asia

water buffalo grazing in rice patties

We carried bricks from where we parked, to the build site—balancing on narrow paths through the rice patties—shouldering heavy sacks—so god-awful hot we sauna-ed even in the shade.

rice patties at build site

carrying bags of bricks through rice patties to build site

 Sara seems stressed—works ridiculous hours—well into evening—early mornings—weekends.  I don’t see how she does it all—so many people, places, programs—details out the ass—the bulging bigness of it all.  It’s clear why she rarely shares with friends or family what she does.  You have to live it to understand, to appreciate the enormity of the task.

Like Sara, I have trouble pronouncing people’s names—so many sound the same to me–probably because my ear is unaccustomed to the tones—so many combinations of vowels—the words for watermelon and several other fruits differing only in the dipping, the sinking of the sound—or rising at the end.  I used to think I had an ear for languages but not anymore.  I can do European sounds—but the tones of Asia—it’s like I’m deaf to them—can’t hold them in my head.  I’m muted by a Babel I can’t untangle for the life of me.

I know next to nothing about Vietnam.  Only that I am pleased to be here—curious, eager to learn more, saddened by my own ignorance of the place.  I do know, though, that I feel a stirring in me, a creative impulse to make—what?  I don’t yet know—only aware that it’s there, nosing again my consciousness, like a cat marking territory, putting down its scent.

And it rains here every day this time of year, sunny in the morning with clouds thickening toward afternoon—the air heavy even in the early hours—first hints of light just after five, full sun by six.  It’s just now begun to drizzle again, the rainy season soon a downpour. 

I try to go out in the mornings when it’s still dry, before the heat intensifies, boils over into wet, one that doesn’t help to tame humidity.  It sucks all oxygen from the air well into evening, when I hear our landlady pull the garage door down, signaling a close of shop—a metal rattle rumbling our small stack of flats.