We are the World

I truly have been struggling to select a blog title for the past few weeks.  Let that be excuse number one as to why I haven't posted until now.

I've never been particularly adept at titling my works.  My research papers are usually submitted with a title I write approximately thirty seconds before hitting "print."  

As of now, however, I have had a breakthrough.

Today, while our group was watching an incredible angklung performance in Bandung, the song "We are the World" was featured by the "Angklung Orchestra."  

These are angklung. Totally worth a YouTube search if I were you.

I look around to see orang Indonesia, Belanda, Amerika etc. (Indonesians, Dutch, Americans, etc.) singing along to the song being played on these beautiful instruments. 

I found myself incredibly moved by the situation.  Although I hate to sound trite (especially on a medium such as a blog), I realized that this concept of global citizenship was the theme to my last summer's adventures, and I hope it is the predominant theme to this upcoming year's experiences.  Last summer in China and Indonesia, I discovered that there were ways in which I was different from the people I met, but those differences were far outnumbered by the ways we were the same.  It may seem to most like a small realization to have had; for me, it was life-altering.

So alas, this blog has officially been christened "We are the World" because I know it to be true.  I genuinely believe that as all the countries of this planet continue to become more globalized and interdependent, it will take solutions generated with input from all nations to address the problems we collectively face.  I am sincerely hoping that these nine months in Indonesia will give me insight into people's lives that are drastically different from the ones I am used to in Nebraska.  I don't expect to "figure things out" or "know all the answers" come May, but at the very least, I hope to emerge from this experience with a clearer idea as to how I fit into this massive organization that I am a part of called the world.