Random Thoughts: International addition

I have a lot I want to write about so tonight, but I do not feel like writing an epic blog because

1. I worked 13 hours today.
2. I get bored when a blog entry is long, so why would I torture everyone with something I hate.

So I will just write about three things in this post and oddly enough everything has an international flair.

Children Of Chernobyl

Since moving to Raleigh we found a church called Lifepointe and they love the fact that I can actually use a video camera. When any project pops up I'm at the top of the list to shoot or give ideas. I truthfully don't mind, I have more energy and I feel like I can handle it... most of the time. This past Friday I was asked to shoot an interview for the Children of Chernobyl. If you don't want to go to the site a quick summary is that it is an organization to help an orphanage in the town of Rudnesk, these are children the state wants to hide. They are usually children with some abnormalities like MS, Down syndrome, mild retardation and crazy as it sounds cross eyed. Most are children of prostitutes, drug addicts and alcoholics, their parents don't want them so they ship them to Rudnesk.

I was asked to interview Mama Luda a woman who saw these children and felt it was her duty by God to help them. She came over to America with three of the orphans and the director Valentin. I was leery of the interview, but she answered my questions so well I only had to ask two follow ups. She gave me everything I needed. I interview the director (through the translation done by Mama Luda) and he was wonderful. Even the two orphans we that were there did a wonderful job.

I know it touched The Wife, if you did not know she spent many years in foster care and finally ended up with The In-Laws when she was 12. She has always wanted to do a missions trip but doesn't want to go and do heavy lifting and hard work in hot weather. She found her trip and wants to go to Belarus and help the orphanage. It even touched me and we are going to sponsor a child. It only cost $20 a month and hearing the stories of how the orphanage survives only because of the money sent from America made my heart grow three times it's size. I know we have it too good and we waste a lot of what is given to us.

So if you can find an extra 20 and give, if not we may becoming to you within a year for help with our trip. You have been warned, but seriously these kids have nothing and their government would rather they go away and never be heard from again, they need all the help they can get.

Hotel Rwanda
Yes I know this movie was released in 2004, but I saying I'll rent it later. Well later came in the form of Blockbuster and it finally was shipped. It took two more weeks of sitting there, but I finally watched it and I should have watched it back when it was first released.

If you do not know the movie imagine if you took Blood Diamonds (minus the diamonds) and Schindler's List and made one movie, you would get Hotel Rwanda. It's the story of Paul Rusesabagina the hotel manager at a Belgium passed resort in Rwanda. When the country was turned upside down during a revolt he helped save over 1200 people.

Rwanda is basically split between two groups the Hutu and the Tutsie. The two for the most part got along, but when trouble started to form it got ugly and part of the Hutu people thought the only way to solve the countries problem was to kill every Tutsie. It was a massive genocide of nearly a million people. It wasn't even killing people it was killing them not with guns, but with machetes, hatchets and any other sort of sharp object. It was bloody and violent and the dead was strewn about the country. In one scene Paul had to leave the Hotel compound for supplies when it was still foggy and the road was getting bumpy, he thought they were running off the road. Little did he realize till he got out of the truck was that the road was full of bodies.

To put the slaughter into perspective imagine the entire population of Franklin county Ohio, Columbus, Dublin, Groveport, Dublin... you get the idea, all dead. In North Carolina the population or Wake, Durham and Orange counties all dead. The most shocking part of the movie was not the killing, but the fact the world did not care. Paul was a man that tried to make connections and had many so that if he needed a favor he could help his family. When the killing started everyone abandoned him and the country of Rwanda. I remember hearing about the genocide while in high school and truthfully I never got how bad it was till I was Hotel Rwanda. A must watch movie.

Domo Arigato Japanese Pitcher

Now that I made everyone horribly depressed with their lives I'll do a 180 to end the post. In Durham the USA college baseball team faced off against the Japanese college baseball team. I haven't had a chance to go till today. I was asked if I could work late and I thought hey a chance to watch some international baseball, why not. I find out that we are interview a guy who is huge in Japan. He was the one that pitched against Dice-K in that 17 inning game back when he was in high school. The thing not mentioned is that he pitched all 17 as well. He was a pretty cool guy, we had an interpreter and we talked about baseball, Dice-K and the kid who pitching against the USA on Friday Yuuki Saitou. I guess he is good in 6 2/3 innings he only allowed 2 hits and 1 run in the Japan win. It's interesting to see how many Japanese media crews came over for this series. The station that is using our satellite PUP has over 15 people and there were still photographers everywhere. It's so crazy over there that Yuuki has magazines devoted to nothing but him. Imagine something like Tiger Beat magazine, People and Us Weekly devoting every page to Tom Brady or Alex Rodriguez.

We finish our shot and time to play a little bit. We are near the area where kids can see how fast they throw. Well this guy through a pitch 114mph. We think it was a little off, but wow the ball left his hand fast. We end the fun part of the day and get down to business. The USA is losing the series 2 games to 1 and if they do not get the win on Saturday it will be the first time that the USA has lost a series on American soil. Japan gets out to an early lead by playing small ball. Get a man on first, bunt him over to second. Get a hit or a fly out to send the man to third and then hit the ball and send the runner in for a score. Some how the USA can't handle that style of play. Team USA goes by the philosophy of "chicks did the long ball" and swung for the fences at every at bat and pretty much never made it to first. By the time we left it was Japan 3 USA 0 in the 6th and we left, we had enough of the ass whooping. So much for baseball being America's past time. Maybe we can take curling away from Canada for a new past time... or corn holing.