the citizen

Public You

2009-03-03T17:02:00.001-08:00

Something that's been rattling around in my head for several years now . . .

Summary: From a certain point of view, there are 3 things that make up who you are: 1) Intelligence; I.Q., more or less. 2) Courage to question your beliefs. 3) Courage to act on your beliefs. This applies most when thinking about ideologies and politics.

There are different conceptions of self. In the West, it's mostly about who I perceive myself to be, whereas in the East, it has more to do with my family, my community. That's a broad generalization; there are lots of variations, and no one's got it quite nailed down. What is the self? Who am I, really? One of my favorite ways of thinking about it is the Amish response to the question "Who are you?" According to popular belief, the answer is something like, "Ask my neighbor."

So it's like the self can be looked at from outside yourself, inside yourself, inside your community, outside your community, etc. Really, there could be an infinite number of "selves," and without getting too ethereal with the logic here, who you are could change based on a number of metrics.

So let's think about the construct of a "public self," or who you are as far as your place in the world. While "left" or "right" in terms of political ideology is often an overused oversimplification, it has proven to be fairly apt, and I'm using it here. We know what someone means when they say "I'm a leftist," "I'm a conservative," or "I tend to fall in the middle." It's one metric for getting a sense of the public self.

I posit that where a person falls on the right-left spectrum can be understood by how they measure up on three variables: 1)Intelligence, or straight-up I.Q., 2)Willingness, or courage, to challenge their own beliefs, and 3) Willingness, or courage, to stand up for their beliefs.

Intelligence: This probably doesn't seem very P.C., but some people are just smarter than others. Of course, there are all different kinds of "Intelligence," and a person with an I.Q. of 85 could be a brilliant musician, far outshining another person with a 150 I.Q. who can't carry a tune or keep a rhythm no matter how hard s/he tries. Accepting that I.Q. is a limited conception of "intelligence," it fairly accurately describes a person's potential to reason, conceptualize, and comprehend complex topics such as we encounter in sociopolitical dilemmas. Someone with a high I.Q. is able to understand the complexity of the world, whereas someone with a lower I.Q. might not be able to quite make sense of it all--not that s/he should be expected to. I personally maintain that it is the responsibility of those with higher I.Q.'s to attend to the more complex matters of society, and the extra dignity that is given to these positions is not necessarily deserved, since no politician, leader, or luminary would have any power whatsoever were it not for the thousands of lower-caste people forming the bricks and mortar of the society they are assumed to have "led" or "built." Let's also dispose of the notion that it's somehow bigoted to identify and appreciate intelligence for what it is. If ten people are in a room with a ticking bomb, and none of them has ever defused one, the one of them that is most likely to figure the thing out and save their lives is the best choice to take on the task. And that person is the smartest one in the room. Likewise, smarter people should be given more responsibility in the higher levels of society--to a point. The other metrics I'll lay out should help to clarify.

2) Courage to question one's beliefs: It is scary to think that you are wrong, as it can threaten your premise for existing. If I've been living the last ten years spending all my time and money getting my hands on as many pieces of used tin foil as I can, because I believe that tomorrow the tin foil deity is coming to whisk away all tin foil-havers to a paradise garden for eternity, and then someone challenges my practice by saying I've been wasting my time, it's not only bad news for me, it's an indication that I've wasted the last 10 years of my life and am therefore a fool. That's why it takes courage to question your beliefs: again and again you risk having to acknowledge to yourself and to the world around you that you might be a fool. I don't claim to have a comment on the veracity of religions, but one reason people tend to cling to the beliefs with which they were raised is because it's intensely frightening and horrifying to imagine everything you have believed might be wrong; it's far more comfortable to build arguments and logical fortifications so that you can plausibly defend your belief system, and hence sleep at night. The courage to cast aside that comfort in the name of "truth," (whatever that admirable notion may be--I personally have very little idea) should not be undervalued.

3) Courage to stand up for your beliefs and your self: This is an easy one to understand. It is the domain of Joan of Arc, Rosa Parks, and any martyr from any religion, war, schoolyard bullying session, public scandal. You believe that something is right and you put your life, reputation, happiness, or health at risk. It is the type of courage needed by soldiers going to war to fight for their country. If you don't believe in your country, it's going to be difficult to die in its defense.

Now here's where it gets interesting: People have different mixes of these three. And that's what I think makes up who you are as a public person. It allows you to look at a person through a different lense. When we think someone is wrong, we often simply say they're "stupid," or "an asshole." Maybe they just have vastly different priorities.

Let's give some theoretical examples:

Rush Limbaugh: Very intelligent, Very willing to stand up for what he believes, Very unwilling to question what he believes.

Bill Maher: Ditto.

That bong-smoking friend of yours who talks philosophy all night but never seems to get involved with anything or hold down a job: Intelligent, willing to question what he believes, but not willing to stand up for what he believes.

George W. Bush: Average intelligence, very willing to stand up for what he believes, unwilling to question what he believes--that's why he was a bad leader, though arguably Limbaugh or Maher could have been worse, due to their deadly combination of razor-sharp intelligence and complete unwillingness to question their own belief systems--as has likely been the case with all tyrants.

What about someone with low intelligence but plenty of both kinds of courage? Ah, there we have the underappreciated "salt of the earth," methinks. The people who don't try to stick out, but rather work hard, watch the news, lend a helping hand where they can, try to have a happy life, and never judge people or try to advance an agenda past what seems prudent. These may be among the happiest folks around.

So who are the saddest folks around? I'd say they're the ones who lack either kind of courage without completely compensating with the other kind. There's the woman who's shut herself up from the big bad world because it frightens her, and in her own home and heart she'll never admit that she might be wrong about some things. There's the man who will never, ever question the rightness of his cause, but can't quite summon the guts to stand up at the town meeting. These, I think, are the angry, sad people of the earth.

The ones who may be the most immediately dangerous to themselves and the people around them--though relatively harmless to society at large--are the ones with less intelligence but plenty of just one kind of courage. Think cults (stand-up courage, but no questioning courage). Think self-haters and mutilators (questioning courage, but no stand-up courage).

Of course, the Super Human would be pretty high in all three metrics, but nobody's perfect. Since I'm the one pointing the fingers and judging people, I'll let you in on my own self-analysis: I figure I used to be more of a Rush Limbaugh/Bill Maher, around my high school and earlier college days, but now am more of a "bong-smoking friend of yours." Not that I smoke bongs. You get the idea.

As a nation, I don't think we're getting dumber. I think we're getting more cowardly--and it sure seems like we're losing the courage to question our beliefs faster than we're losing the courage to stand up for them--although lots of people are losing that one too, probably myself included.

. . .

There. I just had to get all that down somewhere. I don't think anyone reads this anymore, but if you did manage to slog through, and you have an opinion on this, please critique the idea by leaving a comment.

The respect I genuinely had for John McCain

2008-08-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

Dwindling, dwindling . . .

proudest moment

2008-08-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

Completely unexpected moment of pride in my country, courtesy of . . wait for it . . . . . . Kobe Bryant.

So you know how we've had some real jerk-cough moments in recent Olympic history, like our sprinters or basketball players basically being arrogant pricks?

Opening ceremonies, Beijing Olympics, a-yesterday. Some candid footage of the athletes mingling in the middle of the stadium, having finished their little march with their respective flags. Kobe and LeBron are mixing it up with some of the Russians (some of whom wanted a picture), and they're about to part ways. It's that kind of sports footage where you can just barely make out a few of the things that they're saying, and you sorta have to read their lips too. And I know for sure that, as they were shaking hands and about to walk away, Kobe Bryant sez: "How do you say 'thank you' [in Russian]?"

Dude's wearing Ralph Lauren, nerdy golf cap and all, making a real effort. And it really looked like all of the other basketball guys were doing the same.

Cut, of course, to Bush looking bored and checking his watch (fer serious).

But still.

we ruin them

2008-08-07T15:27:00.001-07:00

I just had a thought:

Maybe it's not the candidates who are slimy and pandering and who will do anything to get elected--at least not at first. Maybe they're actually civil servants who want to do some good as they see it.

And then we ruin them.

Douglas Adams: "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

Who listens to the attack ads? Who actually decides to change their votes based on them? Who actually gives a crap about what Obama likes to drink at breakfast or how silly John McCain looks in that picture where he's hugging George W. Bush? Who hones in on stupid, insipid buzz words like "elitist" and "flip-flopper?" Who cares more about whether they can "relate" to a candidate more than whether or not he/she is a smart, capable leader?

We do. And that's how we make McCain spew forth Karl Rove crap, and we make Obama "shift" his positions ever so slightly and ever so often enough that we forget what it is either of them used to stand for, and all we're left with is how mad we are at the other candidate. We could have had an election between Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, and maybe Dennis Kucinich. Those guys actually stand for something. But we won't stand for it. We'll believe whatever the TV's tell us, and by our complacency we tell them what to tell us.

I used to have fairly high opinions of both candidates. I'm madder at McCain now because of the base he has to pander to, but overall I've just come back to that old, familiar place of having not much faith in either of them. And at the moment, I'm thinking that it's America's fault.

I've now done work for 3 organizations with "Peace" in the name.

2008-08-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

One great thing about working for Greenpeace: I feel like I can write something honest about working for Greenpeace on a blog and the chances are that they won't kick up a fuss. After all, GP isn't exactly about maintaining the status quo and political correctness, and gettin' arrested is something they're not strangers to.

Speaking of which: Whilst my job has little to nothing to do with the sit-ins or banner-hangings that GP does and which often garner arrests, really respect their line on it. They say that civil disobedience is breaking an unjust law--which GP may do from time to time. But what we do more often is break laws that we think are good, for a purpose. This is why GP activists cooperate and act courteously when the cops show up. We do the things not to get arrested but to call attention to an issue and to achieve a goal that we think outweighs the negatives of being apprehended by the law.

One less-than-nice thing about working for Greenpeace: the imprint the crazy hippies seem to have left on peoples' minds. A few guys with dreads associated with the environmental movement in the 70's act like jerks, and suddenly it's like I've killed your dog. Granted, that's only one or two a-holes per week/month who act like this towards me, but that's all it takes to bring you down sometimes.

Ahem: Greenpeace is just trying to protect the environment, everyone. That's it. I promise. I'm in it now, and I used to be a little wary of it. No, I probably don't agree with everyone at GP about every issue. But I also didn't have to swear an oath of allegiance, unlike the US Peac e Cor ps, where I had to swear to protect the US from "any and all offenders." So please. If you're one that thinks GP is a bunch of crazy eco-terrorists . . . well, stop it. We're not.

***

What chafes me about global warming deniers, on a personal level, is that I'll probably never get a real chance to say "SEE? &%$#*&!%@ SEE?! I TOLD YOU!" Because ignorance always fades slowly. All of Florida could fall into the sea, and the ocean could feel like a hot tub, and people would still find a way, at least at first, to say the globe wasn't heating up. I'm sure it took a long time for people to let the flat-earth theory go. We'll look back in 50 years and realize how dumb it was to claim that global warming was a hoax ("Wow, Grandpa, people actually believed that?") but between now and then it'll be a gradual thing. No amount of Intergovernmental Panels on Climate Change is going to change that fact of human nature.

Greenpeace actually isn't very crazy

2008-04-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm here getting trained in San Francisco for my new job with them. And they're pretty darned good. As in, pragmatic, reasoned, reasonable, professional. Full of really smart people. Those crazy things they do from time to time? They actually get things done. If you thought they were crazy and ineffectual, it's probably because you weren't he target audience. That's my half-epiphany for now.

Recant

2008-04-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, yes, yes:

"The mark of a free man is that ever-gnawing inner uncertainty as to whether or not he is right." -Justice Learned Hand

"Adam, you're too hard on yourself."
-Everybody

"Whatevs, maybe I'm just free."
-Author Unknown

I'm not old, but I can already feel a difference from when I was 18: It gets harder and harder with each year to admit that you're just straight up wrong. You've lived, after all, for XX(X) years and you've learned a thing or two. The problem is, you're never too old to be fulla shit. A few days ago my grandfather (Fox News watcher, has framed pic of GW Bush on his kitchen counter) sort of softly ripped me a new one, in his grandfatherly way, for my recently demonstrated fiscal irresponsibility. And you know? He was right. And you know? It was really, really hard to admit it, even to myself. And I said, "Self, how many times have you been called out on your crap over the last year and NOT admitted to yourself that you were wrong?"

(Answer: 14)

Which is (tangentially) why, if my guy Barack wins the election in November, he's going to get anything but a free pass from this Citizen. (Did'ja see? I reference the new name of my blog.)

The Speech, the day after

2008-03-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

I've realized that for me, someone's reaction to this speech is a perfect litmus test of who is worth listening to.

It was the best treatise on race covered by the mainstream media that I've heard in my lifetime. Only a true racist can completely dismiss Wright without seeing the underlying truths in what he was overzealously trying to express. The issue goes so much deeper than any person can even comprehend without a humble, concerted effort to understand why your brother acts the way he does without first judging him for it. If you can't see the value in Obama's speech then you: A) Haven't dealt much with racial problems (which is very plausible/understandable if you're from NW Iowa or Montana), B) You were bound and determined to be against whatever came out of his mouth to begin with, for any number of reasons, or C) You just plain don't want to step outside of yourself for long enough to consider what's really going on between races.

Funny, the people I always suspected weren't worthy of very much respect invariably reacted negatively to the speech, and even ones with whom I disagree but are still cool--they reacted mostly positively.

You don't have to want Obama to be your president. You do have to see that it was a vital, honest speech with real content.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords

The Speech

2008-03-18T10:29:00.001-07:00

Okay.

Okay.

Alright.

If anyone happens to read this post, you've got to see/read the speech Obama gave today about race. Whether you're a Republican, Libertarian, Greenian, Democrat, or Vanilla Swirl. Take the armor off for a minute and just read/watch the speech.

That's all I have to say.

Except one more thing: I'm not much of a patriot. I think patriotism is more or less "the belief that one country is better than others because you are in it." I think it's one step away from nationalism, and nationalism is how ALL of the big wars get started. I think if we actually want God to bless America more than we want him to bless Iran, we're just wrong, and we're the Romans.

But I love my country, like I love my extended family. And today, I have more hope for her.

the 46-year-old 6-year-old

2008-02-25T09:16:00.000-08:00

Easily the greatest picture I've ever been in. Click on the picture to see it big.

Hey right so I came back, right?

2008-02-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

My brain’s been a dorm room since I got back from Malawi.

I’m back from Malawi.

What do I mean by my clever metaphor? I’m having fun, eating a lot of pizza and watching a lot of TV but in the corner there’s a whole pile of granola bar wrappers and dirty laundry and creased-up papers detailing assignments that I should have done two weeks ago. Now that’s all metaphorical, okay?

I have no good reason why, but when I was over there doing whatever it is I was doing, blogging was nice. Nifty. And now, like the last time I did this, I feel like a tool when I type things out. That dorm room thing? Would I have posted that while I was in Malawi? That sounds so bleepin’ stupid. Like a dumb jerk trying to make his everyday life seem tasty and funny and relevant to people in the webosphere. Seriously. Webosphere? I typed that because blogosphere is an overused word and “on the web” would have been too commonplace. So, I haven’t wanted to blog for a long time, again. I’m forcing myself right now.

So I decided to come home just a bit early because the GF had some medical issues that were stressing her out just a teensy bit—which is to say, she might have had cancer. So I pulled out a few weeks early and I’m home now. I had one of those invigoratingly hellish last weeks in Malawi where I got a few hours of sleep a night and didn’t remove my shoes for about 4 days trying to get everything done. Everything got done. I found a good home for my kitties, spent all the surplus money from the Zikomo Project on orphans’n’sickpeople’n’schools’n’ that kind of stuff, took some pictures, bought some souvenirs, and left. I almost missed my flight because a friend bought me a drink as we were waiting to leave. I said “sure, one drink can’t hurt.” But the drink was about 14 ounces, 8 of which must have been brandy. And as the plane is boarding, 30 minutes behind schedule, I show up at Customs (not the gate, mind you) going, “Uhh, am I late?” Fortunately they were nice enough to whisk my dumb butt through and I got on the plane.

Saw some hippos before leaving. That big yawny thing they do? They really do do it. A lot. Also lots of monkeys, a ton of those antelope-type things with the curly horns like a snake coiled around an invisible branch, and supposedly a green mamba, though I’m suspicious. Are they really supposed to speak in a cockney accent? This one for some reason confused me with a governor of some sort. Polite though.

Oh, Hillary (GF) doesn’t have cancer, turns out. Possibly should have mentioned that earlier.

***

I finally ate bugs before I left. The ones with the wings that you peel off. Now just listen. I’m not doing the thing where you try to make yourself sound really exotic and cool in saying “Oh, they actually tasted pretty good.” But they actually tasted pretty good. On Colbert the other night a guy came on to pitch his newest book, which is about, among other things, why we should eat bugs (because it’s good for the environment and they’re full of vitamins and stuff). And because of my breathtaking African adVENture, I can actually say he’s got a point and he’s probably right.

***

That blog post that Catapult Magazine used? They also put it into a book, apparently. Which is cool. You read it here first, folks. I now technically have original work published in two real books with ISBN’s and everything. In the other original work, however, it’s under the pseudonym Adam Solberg, since they wanted to make me sound Jewish. I’m actually telling you the truth here.

***

Can I say that I rather hoped that going to Africa would make me feel better about race relations? And it didn’t, really. I guess it might have made up for an upbringing in a place where between the ages of 0 and 21 I saw like three black people, but I still am so far from really understanding what it’s like to be a black dude on the West side of Chicago. I guess that’s sort of the point (that I’ll never understand), but still. Actually, the best education I get these days is listening to Lupe Fiasco or Talib Kweli (whom I really like) and Ghostface Killah or Wu-Tang Clan (whom I like too but can’t honestly say I can quite make the bridge over into my own experience when it comes to the lyrical venom (hate?) and guns and bravado.) Then again, I didn’t grow up under the long legacy of slavery and the injustice that seems to show up when the Haves think they deserve what they’ve got and that the Have-nots are just lazy and stupid.

You say you worked your way up the ladder? Well, if you’d started where they did, down in the muck, I’d give you your props. But do you even realize that you started three quarters of the way up?

Yes it’s all very fascinating.

Hi everybody.

I admit it.

2007-12-24T01:42:00.000-08:00

I've been watching the polls for the 2008 Presidential Nomination. Way too much. I know polls are mostly crap and are a civic-minded person's version of Us Magazine, but it's my vice that keeps me a little connected with America.

While the opinions they are a'flying this season, I have to add mine to the stack. I think the following people are actually decent people: Edwards, McCain, Obama, and most of the candidates who aren't getting any support, like Kucinich. And I believe that Obama has a chance of doing some real good.

A recent poll (of 1 household, one person who is Adam) showed the following numbers:
Obama: 72%
Edwards: 21%
McCain: 14%
Clinton: 2%
Huckabee: 0%
Giuliani: 0%
Romney: -9%

I kind of wish you could cast a negative ballot. For example, if the election race ended up being between Clinton and Romney, I'd love to be able to just tick a box that said "NOT MITT ROMNEY" and have it cancel out someone else's vote in favor of him. That'd be sweet.

No Matter Where You Are, You're With The BBC.

2007-12-22T05:55:00.000-08:00

Got some lice. Apparently they’re not the kind that live in your hair (I don’t have any in my hair), but the kind that live in your clothes (I have some in my clothes) and bedding (I have a lice refugee camp in my blanket). When I find one, I squeeze it until it pops and my own blood oozes out. I go, “Give me that back you little turd.” He goes “. . .” I wipe off my fingers on my pant leg.

Apparently I’ve got to boil my clothes and Raid the crap out of my house. A tiny part of me was hoping that all of the itching was some kind of witch doctor hex that would require some formation of rocks, hair and teeth around my house, coupled with some kind of lizard tea, for eradication. But no, just lice.

I was on my way into the hospital to ask them why I was scratching my skin off uncontrollably, when fortunately I was accosted by some friends. They told me, “Hospital? What for? You’ve got lice, dude!” I laughed and did a little dance. See, my insurance doesn’t cover skin diseases, and I was petrified that I had some kind of weird skin disease that would require special care and big doctor bills. So lice were a welcome relief. Even though the whole thing is pretty gross.

***

Lately I’ve been learning about agriculture. Soil degradation, fertilizer, that kind of stuff. I’m trying to get people in the village to try some sustainable methods of farming. It’s pretty awful to see a village in Africa where one of the few products of technology that have become ubiquitous—chemical fertilizer—is also one that hurts the land. I mean, of all of the advances of modern science that could have come along, of course the one that is more harmful than helpful is the one that everyone’s using. See, you can grow more maize (pretty much the only thing anyone grows around here) with the chemical fertilizer, which means more money to feed your family. Problem is, next year the soil’s going to be worse, and a lot of the land is now at the point where it can’t produce anything without the fertilizer. This sucks, because the land in Malawi that’s been left alone is incredibly rich and fertile. There are a number of people working against this trend, but another problem with third world development is that it’s like pulling teeth to get the average person to try anything other than what they were taught to do. It’s painfully ironic that people are at the point where they’ve actually been taught to use chemical fertilizer, that it’s now part of indigenous village life, but there you are. I’ve only got a month and a half left here, but in that time I’m going to at least try to get a few of the people I know out in the village to try a few new strategies with a field or two. With a lot of luck, it’ll work in the “test field” and they’ll want to do it all over their land. Then the rest of the village will see it and put it into practice themselves.

Right. Well, there’s always a chance. Just have to plant the seed.

I’ve also been working on building a good stove out of bricks and clay that will efficiently burn wood and produce less smoke. Unfortunately, that project suffers from the same problem. The women say, “We’ve been using a couple of bricks around a campfire-style oven all our lives. Why should we use this weird-lookin’ thing?” I usually reach for a chicken and bite its head off, to show my disgruntlement. They go, “Hey, we’re running out of chickens. You’ve got to curb that shit.” I go, “Sorry. It was either the chicken or my own elbow. The chicken was lookin’ at me weird too.” “He was not.” “Yes he was.” “No he wasn’t.” “Well, he did the other day.” “No he didn’t.” “He did too.” “No, no he didn’t.” “Okay fine he didn’t. Leave me alone.”

***

Latest illusion of which I have been disabused: That going overseas and working in development does more relevant good for the planet. It doesn’t. In fact, this little trip has made me much more sensitive to my duties back in the states, and made me realize the interconnectedness of “development” in the first world and the third world. While there are a billion reasons why cultural engagement is just as important at home as abroad, I present three:

1) Systems affect systems. The more just the U.S. is, the more justly it will treat other nations. Maybe if we were nicer/smarter/humbler as a nation, our aid programs would kick ass, our economic policies would be compassionate, and we wouldn’t drop so many bombs and deny/overthrow so many democratically-elected governments. Educating our fellow countrymen (where we have knowledge and expertise to do so) and getting involved in local governance, as boring as it may seem to us youngsters bent on world-changing, is of course what grownups do.

2) It’s easier to affect what you know. While it’s sexy and adventurous to go to Africa, the fact is that I’m not African and the myriad cultural differences mean that it takes a long time to understand the culture enough to be able to effect change that’s sustainable and correctly principled. Anyone who tells you otherwise is stupid. If I’d put in the time and energy doing what I’m doing here to doing similar things in the States (and, of course, been able to convince people to give me money to do it), I’d probably have been able to do things at least as good if not better.

3) The environment is the environment. Since we pretty much spit out a quarter of the world’s pollution, and that actually produces ill effects in places like Bangladesh and East Africa (see: Typhoon(s), Record Flooding/Drought), seems pretty logical that fighting against pollution in the U.S. must be pretty important. Feel disillusioned about making a difference in the States? It’s just as hard and frustrating anywhere. See my previous rant about disillusionment.

Yeah. Them’s my two cents. Again. Aaaaand scene.

***

Yes I know I blog about my opinions and my diseases and little else. I am aware of that.

aren't we the problem?

2007-12-08T03:34:00.000-08:00

Hi blog. I got Malaria—finally. I was starting to get exasperated at my inability to catch any of the really cool diseases. First off, I have another installment into the “Africa for Regaling Guests at Cocktail Parties—Like a Douche Bag” handbook:

Ha! You know you’ve been in Africa for awhile when all of the following happen and none of them surprise you:

1) You get Malaria (and go to the hospital).

2) At the hospital, the floor is strewn with large, moth-like flies, floundering around like as many fish in the bottom of a boat. Well, flying fish.

3) You go, “Doesn’t inspire much confidence, does it?” and the nearest woman with good English replies, “When they get big enough we eat them.”

Ha! So as I was saying, everyone must visit Africa. And read The New Yorker or something.

End of excerpt. Apparently the bugs you fry up with just oil and a little salt. I’ll let you know.

Anyway. Got malaria out of the way. It wasn’t that bad, really, because I was on prophylaxis—which doesn’t prevent malaria, but kind of smushes it a bit when/if you do catch it. Malaria here is more like the flu: Everyone seems to get it from time to time—you take a few days off of work, get some medicine, and then you get better and go back to work. It’s not as big a deal as it probably seems. Yeah, people occasionally die from it, but that’s almost always very small children, old people, or people with HIV/AIDS.

***

Oh, some friends from college who do an online magazine for people who like both God and social responsibility (though if you ask me, those don’t mix) saw my blog post about cynicism where I talked about Dreamingers and asked me to tinker with it a bit to make it into an article. So it’s at www.catapultmagazine.com. It’s a biweekly e-magazine, and the current issue will be gone by this coming Friday. A goodly amount of you people who peruse this blog already know about Catapult, but if y’don’t it’s worth a look.

***

I’m going on record now as saying Permaculture is the future of Planet Earth. (Google is your friend.) As the planet gets hotter and our unsustainable practices piss off Mother Nature enough that she really does something to get back at us, and we actually get it through our heads that we simply can’t keep living like we have, I predict 1) Massive population control efforts—cuz after all, if we’re honest, none of these things would be a concern if there weren’t so danged many of us doing the same danged things—and 2) Permaculture as a way of living for almost everyone. Personally, I want to be able to tell my grandkids I was on that wagon long before the band.

‘Cuz yeah—it’s getting pretty crazy. I mean, we’ve already obliterated so much forest worldwide, caused so many species to become extinct, and generally mucked things up to such a degree that it seems we’re kind of on a collision course with some sort of cataclysm, doesn’t it? I mean seriously. I don’t mean in a doom-and-gloom sort of way, but really quite seriously. I don’t think it’s even possible, what with people so doped up on all their frivolous technology and consumption habits, that we’ll change in time to avert major disaster. I feel kind of bad, because I’m pretty sure that as a privileged, educated Westerner, I’ll be fortunate enough to escape most of the consequences, but do I deserve to?

***

Better tell you this: John is my neighbor. He’s cool—really, really awful teeth though. His family’s originally from Zimbabwe (which is somewhat more developed than Malawi); they came here a little over twenty years ago and now hardly anyone even remembers that they’re not Malawian. The men of his family were meeting to decide what to do about their niece. Her husband’s away in South Africa working. He’d been there in the past too but was fired after stealing from his boss. She just started working as a maid for a richer man affiliated with one of the political parties here. Aaand, here it is: she was raped by this guy. At the moment, she was at large—she’d fled and they couldn’t find her. They’d sent the smaller children on various missions to go out and look, but at the moment they couldn’t find her. As you might expect, the chances of the political operative seeing justice is slim to slimmer to none. As I write this, they still haven’t found her, at least to my knowledge.

Iron Lion Zion

2007-10-30T04:26:00.000-07:00

I am not cynical.

People are generally more bad than good. Most Western aid to Africa doesn’t work and some of it does more harm than good. The human race does not, in general, move forward. We are no less barbaric than we were four thousand years ago. The situation of the poor here in Malawi is not going to get better for a long time.

I am not cynical. I don’t think telling the truth is ever cynical. There are two kinds of dreamers. Those who have a dream (Dreamers) and those who dream as a way of life (Dreamingers). I’m trying to be the former, and I’ll never be the latter. I’m tired of Dreamingers. I’m tired of being called a pessimist by people who’d rather fantasize about tomorrow’s reality than start building the bridge from today’s. I’m sarcastic. I chuckle about gross injustices when there’s nothing I can do about them (which is precisely the reason I usually don’t chuckle about American politics). Not everyone needs to be sarcastic; it’s my way of coping. What makes me mad is that no one seems to see that big brick wall called disillusionment coming. Some people hit it and become truly disillusioned—they sink like Peter trying to walk on water. That’s when you’re cynical. When you’re no longer looking out for the good. Others do what drives me nuts: It’s like disillusionment is an ugly pink eviction notice and they slip it into the bookshelf and hope it blends in with the other printed material. They learn to ignore it. They buy the groceries, read the funny pages, raise the kids. They forget about that awfulness they caught a glimpse of once upon a time. It’s always there, but if you talk about the kind of new blender you want to buy and the rising prices of cable TV for long enough and with enough people who think likewise, it can start to feel like maybe these are really the things that matter. Still others live in a fantasy world, constructed by their egos or religion or just plain naïvette. Dreamingers.

If you come to Africa with both guns blazing, spraying money every which way, starting new projects that aren’t anchored by years of training and/or experience, having seen firsthand the cornucopia of SHIT that comes along with poverty and injustice, AND acknowledged it to be such, you’re a Dreaminger. I could give at least ten pages of examples of such shit without stopping. If you’ve read my blog much over the last year or two, you have a hint of what I mean, and you certainly don’t have to go to Africa to experience it.

I’m not saying I’ve found the perfect way to scale that wall of disillusionment and I’m not saying I’ve got the perfect dream. I’m just saying that any attempt at redemption needs to have a working relationship with the suffering and misery it’s trying to overcome. Don’t get disillusioned, get even. Dig a foundation of determination that runs deeper than the disillusionment—you’ll probably get really dirty and you’ll have to make several trips back to the hole to make it deeper before you can set the forms and pour the cement. But do it anyway.

I am not cynical.

***

Three days ago. Seven new “conversations”, entailing at least twelve new messages, all about the New Jerusalem Food Farm. Gmail doesn’t archive e-mails one-by-one, but sorts everything by conversation. So when I realized that about a dozen people had responded to my seven Zikomo Project requests (spread out over four conversations). It was another very good day. I find that here in Malawi people don’t express joy quite the same as I do—that is to say, like a drunken college student at a football game. So I don’t really do that round here. Hence, instead of letting my jubilation explode like fireworks, I had to settle for setting off a few Ground Bloom Flowers inside my torso. (You know the ones. They’re pink, the shape and size of an AA battery, and they hop and spin like a top when you light them.) I just sort of wriggled and giggled like an autistic schoolgirl. But it was still nice. For some reason people really seem to like the Zikomo Project. It’s been pleasantly surprising, actually.

***

Okay, I promise not to go on long about this. Last polls I had time to read say Hillary’s going to win the Democratic primary. Un-%#!$#*!-believable. We are offered Barack Obama and we prefer Hillary Clinton. What is wrong with us? Are these primary votes being bought like bananas at the supermarket or are we really that blind? Hey, I hear she just voted to identify the Iranian army as a terrorist entity. Nice. Hey America! Let’s replace our awful, nepotistic, warlike, entrenched-politician administration with another nepotistic, warlike, entrenched-politician administration! Just what we need! Please someone tell me that I’m wrong about the polls. I don’t want to have another lesser-of-two-evils choice this election. If she wins (or if anyone else wins, for that matter) and we invade Iran, I’m going to D.C. to join the other protesters.

***

You know my visa problems from the last post? They really brought me down. I felt tense all the time and it wore on me. I felt very sorry for myself.

During the weeks when this was happening, 3 occasions come to mind: 1) Job, a kid of 21 who wants to be an actor and was “working” (only paid occasionally, when money was available) with the Umodzi Drama Group, a little troupe that tries to scratch out a living in a culture-starved place with little hunger for theatre. He just helped wherever he could, writing, acting, running errands, whatever. Good-looking and America-philic, he was awaiting the outcome of his application to university so he could go on with his education. If he was very, very lucky, he might be able to go to school for acting. If less lucky, he could just get a degree in something else and do theatre on the side. Unfortunately, he turned out to be unlucky, and he was turned down flat. His parents are dead and he lives with his uncle, who won’t suffer his nephew to do theatre, only to work hard for a living. Now Job can hardly even do that. And why was he turned down? Because the year he passed his high-school diploma exams, there was massive cheating and results fraud, and most employers and colleges refuse to recognize any results from that year. Hence, Job had to stop working with the theatre and literally return to high school in order to pass his exams again. Before this happened Job had been a friend and I like him a lot. I haven’t seen Job for almost two months now. 2) I had a long conversation with the teachers at one of the orphanages where I volunteer. They were frustrated with the Board (which is driven along mostly by foreigners), because it was investing all of its time and money into developing a new facility for the orphanage, but paying little attention to the dire needs of the present: Over 300 kids have one dirty outhouse in which to urinate and defecate. There are regular food shortages. And most dire for the teachers, they spend 7-8 hours a day at the orphanage and get paid nothing. Some have families to support and it’s almost impossible to volunteer so much time when you really ought to be out trying to hustle up enough money to buy nsima and maybe some beans for your family to eat. A few have no income and one earns about $2 a week selling eggs. They complain to me and ask why the board won’t help them—after all, most board members drive cars and live in houses with walls, guards, and a gardener. I try to explain but it’s not good enough and I myself don’t agree with the board either. They feel more and more hopeless, after being promised a salary but not receiving it. Meanwhile the Board almost never even visits the orphanage and rarely listens long enough to take in the advice from Steven, the Malawian who tries to hold everything together. I have nothing I can tell them that will help. (Later on through the kindness of a few Missourians, I was able to give the teachers one month of salary as a sort of stopgap, but that money was spent mostly on food and was gone quickly.) 3) “Old man veggie,” a guy who comes to the office of McKallie’s Home of Future and Hope selling vegetables, charges too much. He wants almost double what a person could get at the market for the vegetables, and since I bought from him once, since then he always walks in, stooped and slow, looking at me with those big eyes and expecting me to buy something. He overcharges because for a long time he sold most of his veggies to white people who didn’t know a fair price and were happy to pay the “cute” old man whatever he asked. He got used to it, and sometimes even looks at me like I’m not being fair if I don’t buy from him. His family lives in Zomba and when he has enough money, he goes to visit them. One day when it was raining he came in and told me he couldn’t visit his family that weekend because he’d not sold anything today on account of the rain. I’d once before responded to a similar complaint from him by paying him 500 kwacha for about 120 kwacha’s worth of vegetables and telling him to go and see his family. This time I bought 50 kwacha of broccoli and told him that was all for today. He sort of thanked me and clearly told me through his eyes that I should have bought more.

I think that covers it. Those three things.

It’s the poverty. Not like our world would be perfect if there was no poverty, but I don’t think people who’ve grown up well-fed, clothed, and educated often realize what poverty systematically does. Without poverty, racism would be a largely moot point. Without poverty, we wouldn’t have anything close to the present rates of robbery (armed or otherwise) or even murder. Without poverty who could see any of the wars in recent history even being imagined? And this is just scratching the surface. Poverty touches everything. Massive deforestation in Malawi, for example: People can’t afford to give up the living they earn from the charcoal industry, a terribly wasteful one that indiscriminately burns down forests for the charcoal they can get and then sell in the markets. The people are also not educated about the effects their actions have on the environment, because—surprise surprise—the schools are poorly funded and the level of education is dismal.

Let’s not go too far—We’ll always have poverty because we’ll always have lazy, indolent people. But anyone who names this as the principle reason for widespread, infectious poverty is ignoring, um, HISTORY. If we really decided to get down to it and beat poverty back with a big fat bloody cricket bat, we’d really be getting somewhere.

***

So whatever happened to funny, short posts, huh? Funny . . . let’s see . . .

I dunno. I find that funny. Am I twelve?

As for short . . when was the last time I did anything that could be described as “concise” or “economical?” You should have realized this by now.

Victory (This is a really long story. And there's more crap after it too.)

2007-09-20T03:24:00.000-07:00

Okay then. About 6 weeks ago, I went in to the Immigration Office to get an extension on my visa. See, I bought a one-year multiple-entry visa before I left the States, like a responsible traveler--or so I thought--but was told when I entered the country that it was worthless because Americans don't need visas and if I want to stay longer than a month I need to have them stamp it every month. Great. Well, at the end of the first month, they stamped it for another two months, saying "After these two months, come and get a six-month stamp. It costs $40." After those two months, I came and they said, "Fill out this stuff for your Temporary Residence Permit (TRP)." I fill out stuff and submit it a few days later. A few hours after I'd submitted it, it comes back with "Rejected" written on it, and a signature. I go, "What?" and the guy goes, "I dunno." I go, "Well, what the heck to I do now?" "Umm, I'll get you a meeting with the Deputy Chief, who rejected your app." Okay. Now that meeting is scheduled for FIVE DAYS later, for goodness knows what reason. I meet the guy to ask about the rejection, and it turns out he's a complete anus of a human being. He won't listen to a word I say and insists that, though I have all the necessary documents AND my Program Manager, George, in tow to back me up, what I'm doing is WORK. Of course it's not, since I receive zero pay, but he's having none of it for some reason. He tells me that I need to leave the country. Now. The conjecture, in hindsight, is that A) He was looking for a bribe, B) He's just generally the contents of a transverse colon. Either one could be true, probably both. Anyway, we go straight from his office to the office of Trouble, the lawyer for the orphanage I came with. By this point, because of various delays (like the 5-day wait for the meeting) my visa has been expired for over a week. I'm getting stressed. To Trouble I say, "So, do I high-tail it for Mozambique and then come back a day later (effectively resetting the free 90-days you get when entering the country)?" He says, "Well, you could do that, but talk to my friend, who works with this kind of thing." Two days later, I meet the man, Richard, who at first says, "Okay, if you pay me a lot (like $1000), I can guarantee that I'll get you a Temporary EMPLOYMENT Permit (TEP)." We were talking in the back of a car, all sneaky-like, and he informs me in so many words that it's pretty much a back-door outfit. They bribe people. I say, "No, that's not for me." He says, "Well, since you're a friend (of Trouble's), I can just submit the application for the TEP for you, the regular way, tomorrow (so the Deputy Chief doesn't see you and make a fuss). Then, I'll give you the receipt for the submission. It takes them at least two months to decide each case. During those two months (and it will likely be more, since delays happen often), as long as you have that receipt, you're legal.” I say, fine. Thank you. I scramble to get the documents together, making expensive calls to home and bugging Dordt College for my transcripts. It all comes together and I give Richard the application and all the supporting documents, along with the application fee of about $27. I breathe a sigh of relief, thinking okay. Now if he just submits the stuff I'm legal again and I'll figure out what to do after the two months. (If they actually grant the permit, you have to pay another $450, which I can't afford, but my plan is just to get the two months indemnity while they decide my case, then leave the country for a day and come back when those two months are up. They probably wouldn't decide in my favor on the work permit anyway, since the orphanage isn't fully registered as an NGO yet.) AND THEN, for about four weeks, there was an almost daily ritual: Me calling Richard to ask him for the receipt, and him either telling me he was about to submit it or he was in the process of submitting it. And every “next day” it hadn’t been done. Four weeks this went on, each assurance more persuasive than the last, and me going more and more crazy each time it turns out to be a lie. Now, Malawian society in general has a tendency not to be very good about follow-through. If you say you'll meet someone, you mean Maybe. If you say you'll do something, but don't want to do it, you never tell them that you don't want to do it. You just say you will but then don't. But this goes way beyond that. This guy knows that I'm hooped without that receipt, more and more illegal each day he delays. After about the third week it was clear he’s had no intention of helping. Once a week or so I call Trouble the lawyer, who had recommended Richard as a friend, and ask him to prod his buddy, who was as the weeks went on answering my calls less and less. Trouble invariably says "Okay, I'll call him and get back to you." Naturally, he never gets back to me. By the end of four weeks, it's clear that this isn't just a case of Malawian laxity. Something's seriously rotten in Denmark. To confirm this, at one point on the phone Richard claims to be away on business refers me to his wife, Yasmine, whom he's allegedly told where the receipt lies within his house, so she can look for it and give it to me. She tells me to meet her at her school at 4:30. I go to the school at that time and call her. She says she's already gone home and can't find the receipt. I should call back when Richard returns. I call her the next day and she actually hangs up on me and turns off her phone. A week later Richard does the same, and I officially cannot get a hold of him or Trouble at all. It's clear someone's got my money and isn't giving it back or helping me with my visa problems. I can't go to Immigration to complain about this guy, since the Deputy Chief told me to leave and he's biological fertilizer anyway. So it's time to get serious. I talk to two other lawyers, who both tell me that Richard is probably looking for me to give him a load of money--you know, cuz I'm white--and Trouble might not be helping because he's expecting legal fees. But who knows? I talk to a friend who offers to pull some strings to have Richard investigated. I say let's hold off for now, but hold that thought. I call the US Embassy, which begins, slowly, to make some calls. I call my girl and family at home, saying, "I'm in deep in this, please call a few Senators." My Dad and girlfriend do so. Another friend knows the wife of the Chief of Immigration (not Deputy Chief), so he tries to go through her toto put in a good word for me. George, the program manager, tries to get a hold of Trouble, and he gets through. Trouble once again pledges to talk to Richard, and once again we don't hear from him. I give Trouble a piece of my mind, via text message, since he won't answer my calls. Trouble acts offended, for some reason, though I'm assured by scores of Malawians in my corner that he's the one who's at fault here, and possibly not throwing straight dice. George goes back to Immigration and, through a series of about seven visits, gets us an appointment with the Chief of Immigration, who's the head of the whole department and outranks the Deputy Chief who moonlights as a wad of used toilet paper. It's hard to get an appointment with him, but we manage to do it and without the Deputy getting wind of it. We also prepare a completely new TRP and enlist the help of Steven, the Director of the other orphanage I volunteer with. On the morning of the meeting, the Embassy guy has agreed to call ahead and put in a good word for us. I don't know if the messages from the Senators' offices have gotten through yet, but I'd breathe easier knowing that the Chief, prior to the meeting, got a call from the US Embassy saying that there were Senators stateside who were interested in this case, and I was a good guy and everything and please help. An hour before the meeting, the Embassy calls and says the Chief is out for the day. What? Oh. So, I figure there's no rush; we'll have to meet him another day. I'm with Steven at this point, and it's about 8:00 (the meeting's at 9). We're getting a last-minute letter from the other orphanage ready for supporting documents for our meeting with the Chief. I tell George at about 8:45 to go to Immigration ahead of us and make a new appointment since the Chief is out. George calls back somewhat frantically at 8:50. He says that the Chief is in and we need to scurry to the meeting. I run out of the building I'm in towards the Immigration office, calling the Embassy while I'm at it. "HEY! What's up with you guys!? The Chief is too in his office, so call him!" I grab Steven and we hustle to make it to the meeting. WE show up about five minutes late and are told to wait outside his office. (I've since cut my hair and shaved my beard so the Deputy won't recognize me--oh, did I mention his office is adjacent to the Chief's?). We wait ten minutes, then twenty. At exactly 9:24, the secretary's phone rings. She patches it through to the Chief on the other side of the door: "US Embassy for you, sir." I look at George. He looks at me. Do I dare feel relieved? Five minutes later, we're called in. We have the meeting, and I plead my case. The Chief seems interested in Richard. He says they've had problems with him before. He tells me to give my statement to the investigations officer. And what about my status? He reviews my documents and says, "Well, I talked with a man from the Embassy who asked me to look favorably on your case. He also said some people from the USA had called as well. On the strength of that . .” And he stamped it, approved. Whew. Chief also says Why the heck do you have this guy Trouble as your lawyer, when he associated you with a crook and helped your situation zilch? I say why indeed. I'm not the one who makes those decisions, though. Anyway, I gave my statement to the investigation officer, who also sends me to the police station to give my statement. The next day, I get a call from Richard (!) I don't answer it but ask the cops what I should do if he calls again. They say I should set up a meeting with him so they can catch him. Two minutes later, I call the crook. Richard tells me he's already been arrested and posted bail. So nice that the cops know WHEN THEY'VE MADE AN ARREST. Anyway, they say I should meet him at the station the following Monday. He wants to give the money back, and have me drop the charges. Apparently he's a suspect in some other cases too. At the meeting with him, George, and the detective, Richard claims he was trying to help, but only a sucker is going to fall for that again. I’ve been a sucker, certainly, but at this particular point I’m not one. Hence, the case is still under investigation and is probably going to trial soon. Either that or I’ll get my $27 back and let the other cases Richard is a suspect in catch up with him. As for Trouble the lawyer, I’ve recommended to the orphanage director, Tracy, that he be terminated as its attorney. She hasn’t responded one way or the other.

I told you it was long. And that’s the shortest way I can tell it without leaving out any pertinent details. The unabridged version is at least twice as long.

So yeah. Hence the blogging hiatus. I was a bit disturbed for some time, and everything was suspended. I’m still recovering, to be honest. It took a big toll. It made me a little meaner and less energetic (hopefully temporarily). Feeling like your very presence in a country is to try and help, yet feeling betrayed on all sides and like somehow the country is going to spit you out . . . well, just try it and you’ll see what I mean. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

***

I want to go off for a minute on two things, because the typical level of conversation I get here is something like, "So. You're riding a bike." "Yes. You're carrying a bucket!" "Yes boss." "Sweet."

1) Denying global warming is noisome. It's one thing if you're a scientist/climatologist and you want to make a point about how maybe we don't know exactly how/when/why human activity is affecting the climate. But when the scientists from all over the world (the United Nations IPCC) gathered to say it's 90% sure that the planet's warming way faster than ever and humans are causing it, it's not just another contention or another report from someone with an agenda. You're now just blocking out what you don't want to hear if you're still holding out. It's like seeing someone who has a fever throw up in front of you. The "alarmists" are saying, "He's got the flu!" and the skeptics are saying, "Let's not jump to conclusions!" The planet's throwing up and it's got a fever. Can we at least agree it's sick (or at least sick of our pollution) and get moving on solving the problem? Let's not wait until it breaks out in a cold sweat and gets hallucinations. Wasn't it obvious from the first time that, as a child, we saw that acrid black smoke coming out of a tailpipe or smokestack or visited the local landfill that some things just can't be good for living things on Earth?

2) Barack Obama is in my opinion the best option we've had for a President in my lifetime. Don't give me this about Obama not having enough experience--we need a good man who can inspire and unite us, not another entrenched politician. After all, look at what happened to John Kerry after all of his "experience." Obama won't "save us" from the mess we're in or turn the whole system around. But for once can we show a little courage with our ballot? If you're still on the fence about candidates, do your own research and look at who a candidate was before all of the election crap started. Hillary Clinton's seemed a rather disingenuous, deeply politicized figure for as long as I can remember. Nowadays she seems warmer, but I don't buy it. Barack Obama was inspiring to me long before any of this election stuff started. If you're a Christian and the religion of your President is a big deal to you, take a look for yourself at Obama's faith. He's got better ideas about faith and governance than any US politician I've ever heard--ever. Mitt Romney was adamant in his support of Bush long before the election stuff started. Now that pretty much the entire educated world hates Bush (except for 1/3 of America) and almost everyone around him has resigned in shame, he's not so buddy-buddy. I don't buy it. Based on the good committees he's spearheaded and his willingness to go his own way if he thinks it's right, I'd be a John McCain fan if it weren't for the fact that he seems to support war in general. Call me crazy, I think war ought to be a truly last resort. But I digress. Bottom line: Don't believe anything you see in the TV ads or in your favorite newspaper. Find out who they were before the campaign began. That's who they'll be after it's all over.

Sorry. Just had to get those off my chest.

***

Nyambadwe Cup Championship Football match. Someone had gotten wind that I haunt the area and invited me. I got a seat under a canopy next to the band and alongside the President of the Football Association of Malawi and the rich guy who sponsored the tournament. Complete with free snacks and everything. Yet another wedding-cake-ornament experience--those are never in short supply when you're a white guy in Malawi. Anyway, a goal gets scored. INSTANTLY there are about a thousand people flooding onto the field. Is the game over? No. Do the referees mind? Neaux. Are people running around like chickens, rolling in the dirt (the football pitch is, of course, grass-free), throwing dirt into the air, and yelling crazily? No. I mean yes. Yes. Very much so. Fantastic. I wish we could do that in the USA.

Game wasn't much. The Spring Marshals beat the Old Slashers 1 - 0, on an anticlimactic free kick that just made it over the defense line and trickled in. The goalie's view was blocked so he didn't get to it. The Old Slashers played better football but squandered several good chances.

2007-08-03T03:07:00.001-07:00

When you have diarhhea really bad, you'll be laying there in bed or sitting or walking, and a mass of foulness somewhere near the end of your small intestine will say, "Well, we're leaving. Now. You have 15 seconds." Now, of course mother nature gave us all a doorman to help too many guests from leaving without one's making ample preparations for their reception outside the house. And I have a strong doorman, experienced and hardy. But for these particular guests, he has to call in favors from other muscles around the entire campus. So yes, if I can't make it to the crapper on time, you'll see me leaning against a tree or what-have-you, one leg bent, my face red, and muscles from the arches of my feet to the front of my torso to the back of my neck joining the struggle.

So then I make it to the toilet, after the mass has been turned back, broken some furniture and gone back for more reinforcements. I have been provided with a hole the size of an orange in which to deposit my guests. And when the blast radius is closer to the size of a smallish frisbee, so that even when I grab onto something and attempt to lower my ass closer to the dirt, let's just say that unlike Elvis Costello, my aim is RARELY true. After all, it's not as if I'm dealing with a high-precision instrument.

On their way out, they leave comments: "The DJ stinks, the CD's keep skipping, those assholes from Pasadena are drunk and making a mess, and you're out of fiber." I say, "Right. Thanks." They smash their beer bottles on the ground as the one in front goes, "Taxi!"

***

As you may have deduced, I've moved out to the village. I sleep on my thermarest on the ground under a net, I cook over coals, I walk about 45 minutes to the nearest market, I draw my water from a well, I listen to my short-wave radio and burn a lot of candles at night. Not really a big deal. Like I said back in the Bangladesh days, these things take a few days to get used to. They're not the hard things--they're the romantic things.

***

Biglongthing: My visa. They're giving me trouble with the next phase of it: The temporary residence permit. After the first 90 days you need one. For some inexplicable reason, my application's been rejected. So I've been calling in favors from friends of friends (the third-world way of getting stuff done when you need to make everyone play nicely). Peter says that when I meet with one of the contacts, I'll need to provide something, a token to make sure they know I appreciate what they're doing for me, and to make them more amicable towards me and my situation. He suggests a bottle of Fanta.

and I laughed.

1123

2007-07-18T02:56:00.000-07:00

Listening to The Album Leaf (soft, electronic ballad-type music) last night, I noticed that the clock on the wall was ticking exactly on the beat. You know how that happens sometimes. And you hope it’ll stay perfectly in synch, but it never does. But it did. This time it did. For someone who has compulsions like guessing how many steps it’ll take to get from the edge of the market to my front door and then counting (I guessed 1441 but it was only 1123--bad guess. I do this all the time.), the clock thing is a momentous occurrence. It stayed exactly on the beat for the entire song. It felt like a cross between being on The Twilight Zone and winning a billion dollars. Y’know. Like that. They must have had the metronome set to 60. (Is that right? Any music nerds ever read this? Erika just left a comment, so I know you’re out there.)

***

How to get on TV in Malawi:
1) Go to the TV station.
2) Put your name and reason in the log book under the day you want it.
3) Show up with transportation on that day at the assigned time.
You get a reporter, cameraman, and camera, and a spot on the evening news.
(The orphanage is getting some donated stuff from some big people from rich stores. The big people wanted media coverage for advertising, to make it worth their while. We complied. Big day is Friday. I’m torn between a John 3:16 sign, “Hi Mom!” and just making rabbit ears behind Steven.)

***

This is so “Africa for Regaling Guests at Cocktail Parties, Like a Douche Bag” that I almost don’t want to relate it, but I am part douche bag on my father’s side and it’s cool anyway, so: 3 guys, one very African xylophone. Crappy chunks of wood for keys (keys? tiles?), improvised mallets using tire rubber, dried out pumpkin shells with tops cut off seated below the keys, each sized according to the size of the key, and all of this tied together with old rope and twine. About 7 feet in length. 6 hands moving all over like Woody Woodpecker obliterating a tree trunk. Sounds fantastic. Guy #4 shakes the rhythm with two old aerosol cans on sticks and filled with something like rice, and, as expected a crowd has gathered. Oh, and the guy playing the bass notes is blind, for Pete’s sake. My presence has created a small bubble in the crowd as everyone always gives me a wide berth, which suits me fine. Half the people watch me rather than the musicians, but this is old news and I’m used to it. They’re playing a song akin to “Tequila” in that there’s a part in the song where the music cuts out and everyone gets to sing, “Aliyabwerera!” It takes me several passes to hear it correctly, and venture to say it along with everyone else. Naturally, since being in Malawi is like being under surveillance, from the second I start trying the word people are noticing. When I finally give it a shot, there’s this explosion of pure glee from the crowd. See, they love it when you just try something that’s “theirs.” They friggin’ love it. And Malawians in particular, they just laugh a lot. Doesn’t matter what the conversation topic is. I mean it. If it’s two people talking there will be laughter involved. [insert cannily absurd conversation about people dying or wanting to kill each other] I’ve seen kids at the orphanage trying to beat the crap out of one another and then smiling and giggling seconds later. After the song’s over, a few people throw in some bills, one of the guys hoists the xylophone onto his head, another stuffs the mallets and shakers into a sack, and another leads the blind guy by the hand, and they’re out. Got a gig in Tucson tomorrow and then a long drive to Santa Fe.

***

Long Distance Relationship. Sigh. You again. I am, quite regrettably, an bit of a professional at it, mainly from messing it up several times. This time is very different, of course, since I’m really quite committed to this particular girl, but a lot of the same pitfalls are just waiting. I keep some light reading down there and a snack or two since I spend so much time in them. Okay really though. There are special pitfalls for wordy, somewhat obsessive people, such as myself and my love. D’ya wanna hear about one? It’s called e-mail. When you get one e-mail per week, and if there’s something nasty or negative that can be drawn from it, all of the other good things will slowly fade and the negative thing will grow as you water it with your thoughts and turn it towards the sun . . of . . . . your . . . . . . . . . I’m out of metaphors. Point is, if that’s the only thing you have from the other person for seven whole days, it’s like you’re having a fight that lasts a week. Naturally, they didn’t mean it like you took it, or at least not like you took it and ran with it.

And words that were meant to be transitory, if taken to heart as gospel, can rip ya up. It’s a bit like, while living overseas and learning the language, getting a translation of a word, and then starting to use the word. For example, “tuma” means send. But it only means send in the sense that you send a person to go do a task. If you try to “tuma” a letter with the people at the post office, you’ll get blank stares. Then maybe you’ll get angry at the postal employees for not “sending” your letter. You’ll snatch the letter back and stomp home, your progress towards getting that grant completely halted, your dander considerably up, and the poor employees shaking their heads and confirming that yes, foreigners are crazy, irate, and unreasonable people. And all because of one badly translated word that you tried to use. I recently transgressed in such a way, causing her almost as much confusion and worry as I caused myself. Time and space between people just have a way of stealing communication and making you want to blame the other person for things. You ache for her and instead you get clumsy and too-malleable words (Your words are eloquent, Hill. I mean words in general). But I’m ready for this challenge. I’m going to learn as I go, give the benefit of the doubt, and swallow my pride as many times as it takes. I’m going on record as saying that I’m gonna do good this time. It’s time to love like a man, not a boy. Bring it on, Distance. Come on, bitch, let’s dance.

The ZP, for insiders

2007-07-09T04:43:00.000-07:00

It took awhile, but it’s finally begun: The Zikomo Project.

Here’s how it goes:

1) I meet a person or local organization (here in Malawi, Africa) and interact with them, in everyday settings.
2) I learn of a material need they have that is not within their current means of acquisition, the procural of which would help them to reach their goals for the betterment of themselves and of all Malawians.
3) I do a little bit of poking around to make sure that the person/organization is of a good character and would take full advantage of the procural of said material need to press ahead and work hard to make things better.
4) I submit a request via e-mail to the list of willing donors who trust me to connect them to such persons/organizations. The request lists a specific amount (ideally somewhere in neighborhood of $50-$75) for the specific material need.
5) Whichever donor responds first sends money that, through the wonder of technology, reaches me here in Blantyre.
6) The money is spent, posthaste, on the material need. The transactions are detailed in a ledger, and a photograph of the recipient(s) along with the purchased item(s), is sent to the donor, through the wonder of technology.
7) We all dance like TeleTubbies.

Here’s an example:

Innocence Banda, a 21-year-old man who plays football and likes reggae, wants to become a teacher. At present, however, he can’t afford to finish Forms (high school). He’s honest and personable, with good English skills. He works hard at whatever he does, but just can’t get ahead, since both money and opportunity are in short supply around here. He needs about $80 to finish his last semester and pay the exam fees to get his diploma. There’s no way he can get this since he doesn’t have a job and his family doesn’t have any extra money.
I ask a few people to confirm my perceptions of him as a good kid with solid work ethic. His teachers at school all concur that he’s the cat’s pajamas, as does Mr. Nkhukhu, the guy who introduced us.
I get the money from the project and give it directly to the school. Innocence gets himself a degree.

Here’s why it rules:

If it’s done right, it won’t create dependency on foreign money. While there’s a place for food aid, that’s not what this is about. It’s not about meeting day-to-day needs. This is about connecting individual Americans with individual Malawians, making one-time-investments in people so that they can be empowered to do their own thing, while cutting out in-betweener costs. Since my expenses as a volunteer are graciously paid by other sources, I have the time and freedom to divert all of the donated money to the place where it’s needed. There’s very little lag time, so we can meet needs NOW, ensuring that the all-important state of momentum is achieved. It also makes the giving real, almost grassroots. It helps to facilitate change where change always has to begin: with the individual. In small ways it can help to promote friendship and cultural understanding, too.

Here’s some other stuff:

I’m still a ways from my goal of having 40 people sign up. Maybe my e-mail appeals are too wordy. I have that problem, you’ll notice. But there are enough that have said yes that it’s time to start. I’d like to figure out how to make it so people can donate online, but I don’t know where to start with that. For the time being, people will be sending checks to the project’s accountant, who doubles as my mother, Diann. She’s so sweet.

If you, person reading this, are interested, please leave a comment. You won’t have to wait long before I’m saying all sorts of flattering things to get inside your pants-pocket for some dough. Seriously though, the poverty here is pretty extreme--most of my new friends live hand-to-mouth. You won’t regret it if you sign up.

So . . Yep. Here we go!

give em gum, give em guns, get em young, give em fun, but if they ain't givin it up, then they ain't gettin none

2007-06-27T04:19:00.000-07:00

It almost never fails. The same thing happened while I was in Bangladesh too--all the time. And it’s funny, funny, (mildly annoying) funny. I will be on my bike, maintaining my steady, measured, somewhat brisk pace. I will pass someone who is going significantly slower. Approximately 45 seconds later that person will muscle past, sometimes casting a sidelong glance to make sure I’ve noticed. I will shake my head, and continue my pace. About 50 yards ahead of me, Lance Armstrong will slow his pace. And yes, I’ll pass him again, knowing that somehow, that’s going to be taken as a personal assault on his manhood or something. Again. The next thing that happens usually depends on my mood. If I’m feeling pissy, once I’ve passed him a second time I’ll maintain a rather smug, almost breakneck pace so he can’t pass me again (unless he’s really fast). If I’m feeling sanctimonious, I’ll be the turtle to his hare and let him grunt on by again, and we’ll continue our little cha-cha until one of us finally makes it home. One of these days when someone tries to pass me, I’m going to match his speed exactly and stay neck and neck, for as long as it takes to drive him crazy.

***

On three continents now (ohh, look at me), I’ve played a little game with students. It’s a little rhythm game we used to do in theatre classes. You stand in a circle, and start clapping a slowish, steady beat. One person, holding a pen, and a person standing next to him/her, make the following exchange, to the beat, like a chant:
Person A: This is a pen.
Person B: A what?
A: A pen.
B: A what?
A: A pen.
B: Oh! A pen!
The exchange ends with person A handing the pen over to person B, and without breaking the rhythm, person B must do the exact same exchange with person C, and so on and so forth, around the circle. The game gets more complicated as you add more and more objects (book, ball, wallet, biography of James VanderBeek--which gets tricky to say in one beat . . ), and even have things going in different directions and cross each other. It’s about concentration, listening, and keeping the beat (or if you’re teaching English, it’s about vocab and the articles).

Now, in America, the high school students picked it up in about 20-25 minutes. In Bangladesh, after an hour about 2/3 of the students could do it passably, but only just in individual pairs, coached by me, and only sometimes did we even have time to do it in a circle. In Malawi . . . The sixth graders had gone around the circle twice after 10 minutes. It’s pretty cool. There’s a reason why Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, and Jay-Z were/are all African-American. Yes, that’s right. (You can sub in Mos Def or Nas if you’d like.)

***

Things yelled in my direction every day on the street, AKA names I am called:
Jesus (the beard)
Chuck Norris (either the moves or the beard. Probably the moves.)
Azungu (meaning white man)
White man (because I’m a white man)
Adamu (because my name is Adam. There’s not a single syllable in Chichewa that ends in a consonant.)
Adams (because who wants a name that ends in ‘M’?)
David Cassidy (actually I was only called that once)
Sir (just because it’s polite. But with the African accent it’s more like Sah.)
Boss (because I wrote “Born in the USA” and other blue-collar hits)

***

I wish development work got to be more primal. Rock stars, athletes, even stockbrokers . . They get to yell and scream and punch the air when something’s gone well. I had a good day today. I wanted to crush a beer can on my head and shout; and it really felt like I’d just *#!@%ed poverty and injustice in the *#@%$!*%. But you know, not only can you not write that in a blog that anyone can read, you also can’t scream it--or hardly even think it--without feeling stupid, especially when you’re standing just outside the Water Commission office alongside a busy street where you could be called Jesus at any time.

I like Malawi.

Constance Chipaka

2007-06-21T06:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it took a lot of time, effort, and a trip halfway across the world (ostensibly to "fight poverty" or some garbage), but I have finally named a child. Her name is Constance.

My buddy Nedson had a baby and hadn't named her yet. I chided him, and he asked for me to give some suggestions. I gave him five: I mentioned my girlfriend's and niece's names (aww . . ) as well as the name of a friend, Corinne. In a way, I'm disappointed, because while I love the way Constance sounds coming out of your mouth, and I dig older, somewhat obscure words, I was secretly pulling for the last one I suggested, Velouria.

Nonetheless, I have a baby credit on my resume now. Pretty sure I'm a godfather now.

Ah.

2007-06-18T03:33:00.000-07:00

This will be the quickest and worst post I have ever made+

I am teaching at an orphanage 2 days a week and working to build my mud shack out in the village other days+

In this internet cafe I am hearing, for the fourth time, the R. Kelly and Celine Dion duet which is entitled, if I'm not mistaken, "I'm your Angel"+

I'm putting a picture of my Chaco tan up because it is cooler than anything, ever+

Little children aged about 2 run crying when they see me. I scare the crap out of them. I am white+

The return of faucet-arse: Something I ate made me make that music again. Feels somehow comforting. Splattery+

There is also another picture. You can see it; it is found below the other picture. It is of me and the homies after the fourth day of construction on the shack. We rule+

this guy

2007-06-01T04:30:00.000-07:00

I’m going to go for it. The giving thing that I theorized about on The Leather Apron Revival. I’ve been ruminating on the details, and I think it can work. This is gonna be hot. It can work. I need to get the word out to as many of my friends and family as possible. That could be difficult since I don’t think as many people read this anymore (since I fell, somewhat, off the face of the earth upon returning from Bangladesh). But we’ll get there. You or someone you love may soon get a rather lengthy e-mail from me laying out the game plan.

***

I’m a lucky, lucky person. I cannot think of another time in my entire life when this many things have been going splendidly. Observe:

I’m in Africa volunteering, learning a language and absorbing another culture.

I have no diseases.

I am going to help build my own mud house, which I designed. It’s under a mango tree in a village neighboring a forest in mahfuggin’ Malawi. The family who owns the property is cool as Kim Deal (but in a Malawian way).

I have two orphanages wanting my help, perfect spots for an azungu (foreigner) like me to work. Kids really needing the skills that I have, and thinking I’m cool because I play guitar and make funny faces.

Hillary.

I’ll probably be on TV with a drama group soon, which wants me to work with them, playing music and acting and you name it. They do AIDS education, literature awareness, and local Malawian drama. Might even get a chance to adapt a little Shakespeare.

I’m learning to cook Malawian food, making friends, and seeing things I won’t get another chance to see.

I’d just like to freeze this moment and acknowledge that, for anyone keeping tabs on Adam’s seasons--meaning you know well that I’m not only adept at self-flagellation but fully willing to call any glass half-empty--I’m actually digging my life pretty hardcore right now. Just for anyone. You know. Keepin’ tabs.

I may have promised pictures last time. I lied. Don’t rush me, or I will kill you dead.

***

Wolfowitz is out at World Bank! Now we get rid of Gonzalez, then elect Obama, and what has two thumbs and is gonna be pumped?

This guy!! ADAM indicates himself, using both thumbs.

Rasta!/The ubiquity of booze 'n' dancing

2007-05-29T03:44:00.000-07:00

I think I’m going to love Rastafarianism. I get to dance.

The Warehouse is a rather charming indoor/outdoor club in the middle of Blantyre that can pack about 2000 if need be. Lucius Banda was, in my previous estimation, the Michael Bolton of these parts. I’ve heard his songs on the radio, and they’re sort of like Baja Men meet the Balding Mullet himself. Thought I’d get a laugh out of his show.

Grabbed some brandy from the grocery store with Nedson (Africans can and do drink. DRINK.) and went. And guess what was great? The music. Opening acts played mostly reggae covers, throw in an occasional trumpet and blues guitar, and ‘twas marvelous. Reggae just suits Africa. As does . . .

Got into a conversation about: Rastafarianism. (The following is probably me getting a bit carried away, but) Yes! Now that’s a way of life for Africa! Handed-down Western Christianity around here kind of gives me the willies. And it’s everywhere. Darned near every white person you meet here is on some sort of Christian quest. But instead of seeing African Christian churches, you naturally see Presbyterian, Assembly of God, and even Baptist churches. New friend sharing my beer crate (chair) tells me that the old guy with long dreads dancing onstage is an old, respected Rasta around these parts. Rastafarianism is a way of life, corollary to Christianity. The king of Ethiopia (kin of the queen of Sheba) started it, and adherents do not eat anything that involves blood (uh, meat). They’re about peace and love. Unity. Regardless of race. Since I can get away with it here, I go, “So even a white guy could be a Rasta?” My friend makes the funny sour face that I’ve come to love. It means “Are you kidding? Of course?” and he says “Yeah, of course!” Score! I love peace. I love love. I love unity. I love regardless of race. I might even have a soft spot for that Jesus guy. The point is, shouldn’t the spread of religion share some ideological ground with “development?” That is, if you want to save souls, shouldn’t you start with what they know/believe and go from there? There’s no way you can convince me that, as brilliant as John Calvin or John Knox were, they deserve to form the ideological foundation for religious practice in Africa.

And my dancing works here! Which leads me back to the music. The concert was joyous. Wonderful. Unbelievable to see the difference between cheesy radio Lucius and in-concert Lucius. I can’t explain it, but the music was good, all of a sudden. And everyone was having fun. Real fun. Dance how you want. Dance with your friends, or with strangers. Mostly I just danced around with my new friends, most of whom were male. I’m also newly convinced that dudes should dance with dudes.

As the evening got sloppier/drunker, the ho’s came. Nedson’s married, and Paul said goodbye to his girlfriend about an hour ago. Not that that stopped anyone from a little grinding. (Except me, Hillary. Ten-foot pole.) Interestingly, the whole thing reminded me of a recent trip to a Hollywood club with friend Lo. Similarities: ho’s who use you to get drinks, male friends getting into fights (blood and everything!), overpriced drinks (stressed-out bartenders too), and the half-drunk advice at the end of the night, from the guy with the girlfriend:
“F_____ bitches, man. She wanted 1000 kwacha.”
(me) “Oh.”
“Just dance with them and then go. They want you to buy them drinks.”
“Yeah, the one awhile ago, she wanted a Stout.”
“That one, she wanted 1000 kwacha for five f_____ minutes.”
“ . . . Well, uh, that’s too bad.” (Trying to change the subject, a little) “Gotta wrap that thing, too, eh? Don’t wanna mess around with that.” (Me feebly trying to be a “good influence”.)
(Paul takes out two condoms and shows them to me. The man’s prepared.)

One thousand kwacha is about $7, by the way. Salaries are substantially lower here, though. $300/month is considered a very good salary, and usually supports a lot of family members. Many people with normal jobs make about $35/month.

smellin' of roses

2007-05-25T03:58:00.000-07:00

Visit 1: Pastor Anthony Mainje lives in the village and has a bump on his head the size of a hamster. Wears a big smile and sometimes less-than-immaculate white lab coat. If you’re lucky, a cowboy hat that says USA on it. Last time I visited him, we chatted (and by we, I mean George and Pastor), visited a house he’d apparently found for me to live in, and then ate nsima together. The nsima was good, and the house he’d found looked great. It was on a little homestead with a family. It was really tiny, with mud bricks and a thatched roof, but remote and close to the forest. Nice. The people who lived there weren’t 100% sure that it would be cool for me to live there, but Pastor assured me that it would most definitely be available to me.

Visit 2: Um, right.

Out at the place again, this time w/o Pastor around, we’re talking to an old dude in the living room of the largest home in the homestead. Old dude is 81. Clean shirt. Says What? That house ain’t available! There’s people and bags of corn living in there! (It’s true.)

I go, “Riiiiight. I’ve heard this crap before. Someone’s got a reason why they don’t want me to live there, and they’re not coughing up the real reason, but some bullshit.” I’m mad. That house looked golden to me. Visions of Sugar Plums. Dancing. So much for that. I press the issue. Old dude says, “Yeah? You think I’m lying? You wanna see the bags of corn and the place where they sleep?” Oh. Okay. He’s serious. So why the heck did Pastor “find” this house for me to stay in? Is he really a Pastor, by the way?

Old dude has the answer: Pastor has two wives. And he doesn’t want us to know that he does. When he first “found” a house for me, he was forgetting that it was located on the same property as where his second wife lives. So in a pinch, he just took us to see some other house that he figured might work. See, this is what ya do in Malawi. When we’d visited it the first time, only the women were around, and they didn’t have decision-making power. So they just served us vomit-flavored drinks (not kidding) and nodded and smiled. Hence, here we are.

Can’t we just tell Pastor we don’t mind that he has two wives, and check out the house he really wanted us to see?

Oh, Adam. Silly boy. Have you learned nothing about Malawian culture?

See, if there’s something embarrassing afoot, the last thing you’d do is actually talk about it. Just make stuff up! Telling Pastor would be completely faux-pas. So when we visit Pastor later that afternoon, we smile, shake hands, and change the subject. In Malawi, so it seems, when the faucet’s leakin’, one should paint the ceilin’. It does SO rhyme.

Anyway, crap. That all stinks. We leave and start walking back towards town, old dude with us for a stretch. Then he goes, “Oh, I have a lot of land, by the way, d’ya wanna just build a new hut?”

Uh, yes.

“Okay. Where do you want it to go?” He shows me about 12 different options. So now, it looks as if I will be helping to build a new house/hut from the ground up. It’ll be really small, but I chose a nice spot under a mango tree overlooking the forest. HAH! Y’all wanna be me but you can’t because you’re FAT. And, after I leave, the house will be put to use by one of old dude's sons. Yes and yes.

Stay tuned for more. Pastor Anthony likely has some more shiznit he’s going to try and pull. I have photos I’m gonna try and post soon. I also hiked up Mulanje Mountain over the weekend. Y’know.

went to Malawi on a mission from God be back by 5

2007-05-11T02:26:00.000-07:00

So I went to Malawi. Yes.

I’m living in Blantyre, a city in the South, in support of an orphanage project started by Tracy Hills, a woman that my dad introduced me to. I’m here on an volunteer basis to help train their hired man, George (a Malawian who’s worked with other NGO’s), and generally to fill in the gaps as an all-purpose helper, since Tracy herself will be living in the States except for visits every 3-4 months or so. I’m living in a sort of dormitory right now, on the Feed the Children (an NGO) complex, with a number of Malawian staff and disabled children that are being helped by their program. The village where the orphanage is to be built is a few kilometers outside of town, and that’s where I’ll be living for the bulk of my time here, if things go as planned. I’m here largely due to a nice donation from my Grandmother, who recently sold the farm and contributed to my expense debits as a sort of charitable offering/tithe/tax deduction. My plan is to be here for about 9 months, give or take--possibly until the money runs out.

Up to speed? Yes.

And . . . you know, what about the girl? Is she going to . . . you know, wait around?

Well, I wouldn’t exactly put it that way. She’s got a burgeoning acting career to attend to, a psychotic boss to ditch, and my car to babysit while I’m gone. I have, in fact, also put her on my savings account, so if I screw up, she can skip town with all of the $700 stored there. I mean, you could live on that for like, a month. I am worth more than a month. I just know it. But, in a sense, yes. She’s going to wait. How awesome is that? Did I hit the jackpot? Yes, I hit the jackpot. Beautiful, talented, smart (er than me), and patient? I win. Hey, friends: Don’t let me screw this one up, okay?

Had a talk the other day with the villagers. See, they’re looking for a place for me to live. I’m learning Chichewa, but don’t really speak it yet. So through a translator, they said,
“So here’s the problem. There isn’t any place around here with electricity.”
And I said: “Oh, no no no. I don’t need electricity! I don’t even want it!”
“Uhh, right. Whatever. The other problem is, we don’t have anyone to cook American meals for you.”
“No no no no no no no. I don’t want American meals. I’ve been eating nsima. I just want to live like you guys. No special stuff!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha let’s kill him and cast lots for his clothing. No, seriously though. You’re lying to us, right?”
“NO!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Let’s laugh!”

This could be an uphill battle. Fun though.

Oh, and no diarrhea yet. Which is pretty great. I feel like someone from a Pepcid AC commercial.

kiss kiss bang fade

2007-04-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving for Malawi on Monday. Amsterdam, Nairobi, Lilongwe. Bus: Blantyre.

As predicted, nothing I feel is to be deemed trustworthy at this point. I always feel crappy before leaving somewhere to go anywhere. It's guaranteed. Insecure, sad, doubtful. I'm just a little older now than I used to be, so it's not quite so extreme. Still, I wonder if other people are this weird about leaving.

The idea is to be in Malawi for about 9 months, helping to sort of lay some groundwork for an orphanage to be built. It's with this small organization that's just getting started. The head of it all, Tracy, is from Twin Falls, and that's how we met. Teaching George (the point man, a Malawian dude with apparently some communication issues) more about good leadership and effective communication (or sumthin). That's my primary duty. But my ideal is to go and just improvise other ways to be helpful around the town/village too, and take it easy while getting to know some of the locals.

I've got me some really friggin' great equipment. A hanging bag water filter. Bitchin' messenger bag. Malaria pills. Crazy herbs to help fight off diseases. A Thermarest.

I feel so parched and old when I think about starting out for Bangladesh with Peace Corps over a year and a half ago. So much has gone oddly, badly, and also goodly since then. Sometimes when I read about Bangladesh in the news, I feel like a traitor that I still haven't returned, and don't yet have any plans to do so. I wonder if anything is ever going to pan out for more than 6-10 months at a time. I wonder if, once something does make sense for longer than a school year's time, I'll be ready and won't feel like bolting. I sure want to be ready. Whenever I leave something to go on to the next thing, there is an irresistible temptation to think of everything that I'm leaving as the only thing worthwhile and: STUPID!!! Why are you leaving all of this!? Even when, mere weeks ago, I was thinking almost the opposite: Man, I hate this place. I need a new apartment/city/career/mindset/blender/job/life. So which side of the dichotomy is real? The one that's always reaching, stretching, ditching things, and attempting to be brave 'n stuff? Or the one that's committed, calm, maybe a little cowed and maybe a little bored? Bah. Almost done with my twenties. 3 more years and maybe I'm done with this crap.

Lest I sound ungrateful, I am about to go do something that I really want to do. I'm going out with little to no safety net, I'll have to have to make it up as I go, I'm going to experience another culture, pushing generally in the direction of doing good, and I can actually afford to do it. (Well, that's a lie, actually, but other people have enough money to front me.) I should stop whining.

Might have e-mail access, might not. Might update this thing once a week, might update it once a month, or even less.

Weirdly, I'm not scared. I've been scared every time I've left the country for one reason or another. And this time, not. Huh.

More to come.

then again . . .

2007-03-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

For those who, like me, get a very uneasy when they see people in other countries burning American flags and burning pictures of Bush or Condi, I offer this modest grain of salt, from the Daily Star, a Bangladeshi newspaper.

Reporting on the reaction in India to the national team's recent shocking loss to Bangladesh in Cricket's World Cup:

Another Indian television channel NDTV showed the infuriated public throwing stones at the home of Mahendra Singh Dhoni in Ranch in the morning after the loss.

"Dhoni die, die," protesters chanted, burning effigies of the long-maned player, who has scored 1,958 runs in 68 one-day international matches and is counted among India's most aggressive batsmen, an AFP reporter at the site reported.

"It seems Dhoni is banking more on modelling than wicketkeeping and batting," said Sohan Mahto, one of the protesters.

At least our Chris Webbers and Leon Letts and Rex Grossmans are still alive.

Ice cream phone

2007-03-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

The whole city was like a roosting rooster just shaking its feathers and popping its head up going "Wha? Yes? Spring? I move around now?" today. People were doing weird, springtime things like dropping their bags, looking at the sky, and doing that thing where you almost bump into someone walking into you, then you both try to switch directions, then back again, and back again until you're both embarrassed.

I might as well blog about it now:
I'm quite very much in love. With the girl I'm probably going to marry someday. Uhh, Yeah.

I know, I know. I know.

What do I talk about first, her or me?

I'll make you either wait or skip to the end to hear about her. There's a picture. It's cool; go ahead if you haven't already. Usually I skip ahead to see how long a post is before I read it all anyway, so possibly you're like that too. What I must say before anything else is that she is so very good for me in so very many ways. It's been one of those sort of undeniable "Wow. This is really it, isn't it?" She is quite simply my favorite person in the world, and I love her intensely, rationally, and irrevocably. Crazy, huh?

Now then. Explanations and acknowledgements for anyone who's going WTF. Since there is an inherent weight and gravity in numbering things . . .

1. Yes, the timing sucks. Of course. I am leaving for Malawi in about a month. And I'll probably be there for at least half a year, if not a year. Some problems arise. Believe it or not, this has occurred to me. And to her. And you know what? We're going to get through it. This may sound like typical Adam love-n-leave bullshit. But it's not. And she's going to wait for me. And that's how it is.

I know. I know.

2. I feel really awkward finally posting about it. As anyone who reads a few posts back can clearly see, not too long ago there was another girl, a pretty great girl, who had me in fairly dire straits. Believe it or not, this has also occurred to me. And to Hillary (There, you have a name). And you know what? It still hurts every so often. And I still feel like a dick and a failure sometimes when I think about it. But things get better with a bit of time. And feeling like I've won the lottery in having found such a wonderful person as Hillary tends to, you know, help. It all hurts her (Hillary) too, sometimes more than it hurts me. She'll probably read the words "a pretty great girl" and literally cringe. Breakups are the gift that just keeps on giving. And while I'm not sure I could be more blisteringly patronizing, that breakup had to happen, and both she (Sophia) and I are happier because of it (as I understand things).

I think I speak for all of us in saying that I hope that is the last Adam ever speaks of his last relationship on his blog.

Yes. And back to the

3. Dude, are you serious? Yes. I know. I had a plan for the next couple of years. Singleness held adventures galore and personal growth and the valiant search for meaning all wrapped up in a nice, solitary package. All I can say is, I'm thick sometimes, but I'm not dumb enough to let this girl pass me by. When something really, really good smacks you right in the face, you don't play it off. You just don't, no matter what your plans were. Am I really saying these things? Have things really progressed to that point, and is she thinking the same way? Respectively, Yes, Yes, and Yes. It's pretty quick to be saying things like I've said (ie.: Eventually I'm going to marry her), but so it goes. This kind of thing happens all the time. Sometimes you just know. Prior to this happening to me, I would not have really believed that it ever really works like that. I do now. I know it doesn't have to, and usually doesn't.

Anyone bored yet? Need to stretch your legs? We'll take a little breather, and then we'll come back for a Q & A.

Okay, let's get started. Hope you all had a chance to grab a few of the snacks on the back table, and really this is informal, so if anyone wants to get up and grab some coffee, or punch, or whatever, feel free.

Okay then, first question.

What's she do?
She's an actor in Chicago. She's in a lot of shows. Hasn't broken into Chicago Shakes or The Goodman or Steppenwolf yet, but the day is coming. Write it down. She also works at my temp agency. She got me the job I'm working at now.

Can we see a picture?
Uhh, I don't think we have any available.

Where's she from?
Missouri. She can ride horses. Like for real ride horses.

So what do you like about this broad?
Watch it, buddy.

What do you like about this girl?
She's extremely smart. I can't even tell you. She reads a billion books per year, she's seen every movie ever made, she's listened to every band worth listening to. She's pretty. That never hurts. She's really passionate, emotional. I like that. I need that. She cares about things. She likes my quirky weird stuff, and how I take everything too seriously. She's a liberal like me but realizes the worth of "conservative" values like commitment, family, God stuff, faithfulness, and the value of having a real home. She's brave. She told me she loved me when I was too chicken to pop the lid on that phrase. I could go on for days, but those are the biggest ones.

Tell us something cute.
She can't whistle.

Cuter.
I made her a Valentine's Day card with Lil' John in it.

Cuter yet!
She has a dimple in her lip that I call her Limple.

(groans heard around the room) I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Sorry.

Hey, how long has this thing been going on?
Oh. Right. Uhhh, couple of months. Definitely a blitzkrieg romance. We didn't have an actual start date. You see, when we met, she was with a Russian acrobat, who roughly resembles Daniel Dae Kim from TV's Lost. And I stole her. Sort of.

Tell us more about that.
No.

Okay, that'll be the end of the Q & A. Thanks for coming.

Anyway. In other news, our government sucks sometimes, I'm going to Malawi in the middle of April, and I have sworn off of watching Lost as a protest against manipulative and shoddy writing from a ridiculously talented writing staff. That was 3 months ago.

it's hard to write on the blog on the computer

2007-01-29T17:33:00.000-08:00

If I'm about to blog something I wouldn't enjoy reading myself, I generally delete it and don't post. And if I'm about to blog something personal that can't be disclosed to the general public, then I generally delete it and don't post. I have been sitting here for at least a half hour trying to figure out how to talk about some things that I'd like people to know.

And there's no way to do it right.

There are people who deserve not to be subjected (or subject further) to my writing about them publicly. And yet anything important I tell you about my life right now will eventually lead to things I can't say if I'm to respect their privacy.

So . . . pardon the lack of here's-what's-been-going-on. Here are the musings.

After re-reading a few posts back, it's embarrassing for me to say: I'm happy right now. I thought that was going to be impossible for some time to come. I thought I was supposed to wear the mantle of the tortured young journeyman/Everyman. There was something so sweet about that indulgent yet heroic vision of myself. Prolonged pain would make me better. It would within a certain time frame--set by me--grind me down into the richest of clay and then whatever it is that's magical about the world (please let it be God, please let it be God) would shape me into the postmodern superhero that I secretly believe I am. I have to be special, I have to be in some way different than every other man who's come before me. And what hero was ever birthed out of a rural-suburban, middle class life fraught with comfort? Call it white guilt meets white flight. I don't have the right to be happy, do I? Happiness is supposed to come from within--or some shit like that. And I figured that in order to get my insides working right, I'd have to give them a good thrashing--back to the rich clay thing again. It's very odd to realize that I have on one hand the highest regard for myself (superhero), and at the same time the greatest of contempt.

I'm thinking that while I stand over here and look smugly upon those people who cling so tightly to their religion or their staunch humanism or whatever it is, I'm actually standing with my tongue stuck to a frozen pole of extremism. I can't make sense of a reality that doesn't involve extreme bad (hell! Mwahahahahaha), extreme good (ultimate truth), and extreme solutions to struggles that everyone faces. I've been demanding the life of Hemingway meets the life of Job as the only way to find my heaven. It seems impossible to accept that maybe I'm just not that special . . .

"We were raised on television to believe
that we'd all be millionares, movie gods,
rock stars, but we won't. And we're
starting to figure that out."

. . . and yet there's something really good about it. There's something sustainable here. Like maybe that essential rock-bottom doesn't have to mean the same thing to me as it does to Tyler Durden. And maybe rock-bottom's overrated.

That said, I'm not counting my dinosaurs before they've eaten all the tourists. No, wait. The forest for the trees. Counting them, I mean. The trees. Because they ate . . the

I'm also really thinking that happiness is a lot more accidental than we like to admit. It may not be that you win the lottery and become happy. But I still think that some of us were not meant to be happy. Where would rock be without Nirvana and where would Nirvana be if Kurt had been an Osmond? So I haven't won any lottery. But I do think I've been getting lucky lately, and I'm not especially inclined to think of this as "the way things ought to be." The trick now, I feel, is going to be figuring out how to make sense of it. There are good things about wanting to be a hero, wanting to save the world, realizing the scariness of existence, and I'm not about to let them go completely. I feel utterly ill-equipped to be happy and 27. We'll see where this goes.

the sheer delight - a somewhat gushier post

2006-12-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

Everything has been happening. My very mode of operating has been going through an overhaul lately. I don't think I'm going to go to Zambia on Peace Corps after all (Reasons: Too much time gone when I want to get started on my life soon; Previous existential motivations for going have dissipated with advent of new outlook on my life; Have identified a certain tendency within myself to do things simply because I feel I "have to" do them, and I always just kind of figured I "have to" do Peace Corps again, because, well, just because.), but there are other opportunities for volunteering overseas that have come to light, and both of them require a decision within the next week. Maybe neither of them will work out. Maybe I'll change my mind back and go on PC. Maybe I'll stay right here and go back to school.

I won't go into much detail about the changes, but to my wonderment, it would seem that the heart of the thing I've been doing wrong ever since my previous framework of Christianity was uprooted has been exposing itself. It has to do with emotions and thoughts that are too big for a head that doesn't have a workable way to make sense of them. What I've been doing is holding onto these thoughts/feelings and wrapping them up in a sort of intellectual blanket, rather than letting them be what they are--painful, hideous, joyful, indulgent--following them to their fruition and then letting them go. Hence the logjam that has affected almost everything of consequence that I've done for years now. Always stilted and afraid to take either fork in the road, for its inherent benefits and shortcomings. It has to do with all kinds of childhood shit, brain tendencies, and recent history. And not to say that being this way hasn't lent itself to good things, too. It's made me more thoughtful, more tolerant, and in some ways more open. But, it's changing and that's wonderful.

Since the sun sets in Chicago around 12:39 p.m. in the winter, I stepped out for a walk a few minutes ago to grab a some rays before they're gone for the next 22 1/2 hours. Towards the end of the walk I realized that the deadness I've felt for almost 3 years now, most acutely in recent months, is itself dying. I'm FEELING things again. I'm hurting, and having revelations, and getting inspirations, and hoping and being disappointed and trying to understand love again. And I started laughing really hard. I grabbed my phone and put it to my ear so as not to appear a crazy person laughing at the air.

Thank you, girl of heartache.

***

Don't get me wrong. It still hurts and there's a long mahfuggin' way to go. But the occasional swell of good feeling from being in some way en route, well that is nice.

i will let you down

2006-11-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

Nothing hurts more than the loss of a romantic love.

I don't think I've blogged at all about the ins and outs of my relationships, because they always seem too personal to put out there in front of everyone. But as of last night, the final nail was put in the coffin of the longest romantic love of my life.

And it hurts like nothing else ever does. I've been sitting at work for an hour and a half now completely unable to do anything. The writing was on the wall, the relationship wasn't right, it needed to happen, blah blah blah.

But God Damn It.

I loved her so much. And after everything that had happened, I still believed with what seemed like every fiber that I could make it work. I believed that this could be a powerful catalyst for helping me to let go of things I've always wished I could let go of. I also had no idea how deep these things run when they are given time to grow. To use a completely inappropriate military analogy, my head thought I was just keeping order at a peaceful demonstration, but my heart is deeply embroiled in Vietnam.

And now this thing that is inextricably woven into my consciousness is, instead of a comfort, a constant reminder of failure and heartache. Isolated from my family because they are all so different from me and lead different lives in different states, isolated from my friends because I keep moving around and leaving them, isolated from God because I don't know if I believe in him, isolated from the world because it's a vicious place, and finally isolated from a girl who, without my realizing it for the longest time, made everything alright by her sheer existence and by her care for me.

So this is what it's like being alive.

***

Nothing makes sense. Going to Zambia for 2+ years doesn't make sense. Staying here doesn't make sense. Working doesn't make sense. Blogging doesn't make sense. Taking time off doesn't make sense because I'd have all day to stew over the hurt. Even all of the things I've learned from this and ways that I've become more free because of this don't make sense. Smoking a cigarette, now that makes sense. Anybody got anything else that makes sense?

***

2 hours now. I should be fired.

***

Maybe this can be a part of the massive something that needed to happen to euthanize the ennui in my gut that has been festering for about 3 years. Or maybe this will break me.

Nah, I don't think it'll do that.

New Blog

2006-11-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

There's a new blog that I've started with some friends. It's all about how we don't really need college (sort of). And it's open to new contributors. Some of you who check in here every now and then should really consider becoming one if you can spare a few extra hours a week. It has the potential to be a really cool thing, and I'm a bit stoked about it right now.

CLICK THIS BLUE TEXT AND GO TO THAT BLOG THAT I JUST MENTIONED
Make sure to read the post entitled "The Concept" first.

I'll be posting here too from time to time, but as is abundantly obvious, I've been rather uninspired to write a lot in recent months. The good news is I think that's going to change soon.

O Sifuni Mungu

2006-10-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

You going to Zambia?
It cambia great place.
See a fambia elephants all together.
I know Spambia great sandwich meat.
And Bambia cartoon deer.
But that dambia pest when he sting me.
(Sigh.) You stand by me, I'll stambia.

Adam Smit (circa 1:58 p.m., Oct. 28, 2006)

That's right. It is once again time for me to resume saving the world and getting a great tan whilst doing so. While I'll miss feeling sorry for myself, I'm sure that she and I will meet again soon, in a mud hut somewhere. (For those of you that don't speak Weirdo, I finally got my new invitation for Peace Corps, to serve in Zambia. It's in Africa.)

Zambia is a Christian nation (50%-75%) that is home to a vast array of wildlife including elephants and cheetahs as well as Victoria Falls, the tallest waterfall on earth. Over 70% live in poverty and 10% are infected with the AIDS virus. About 12 million people call this Texas-sized country home, but they don't call each other "Bubba" as this is considered repulsive and insulting. Bubba was a character on the 1994 Robert Zemeckis film Forrest Gump. He was born with big gums. Gum gets stuck in hair. Hair is soft. Ohhh, so soft.

My job in Zambia will be to gather, support, and train mentors to listen to a radio program that teaches life skills and then turn around and teach the life skills to their fellow villagers. And I'll probably be doing secondary projects concerned with AIDS education. I will be leaving January 21 and, unless something goes wrong, returning April-ish of 2009.

***

Well, that's how that goes. Midterm elections coming up. Vote early, vote often, and don't vote Republican unless you absolutely have to (not that Democrats are much (if any) better, but when Godzilla's destroying the city, sometimes King Kong is the only solution . . . ahh, democracy).

How to get not hanged over

2006-09-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

So I've spent maybe 6 or 7 hours over the last several days looking around online for what information is available about avoiding a hangover. Do you want to know what I found?

*Water. Duh. We all knew about that one. Drink a bunch of water before you go to bed, in between drinks if you can, the morning after, etc. Sports drinks before bed are good because they have electrolytes (basically sodium and sugar). Fruit juices are pretty good, because your liver needs some sugar because it's expended so much in processing the alcohol, AND because Vitamin C helps a bit (I forget why, but a lot of sources recommend it). Citrus juices aren't a great idea--really acidic and whatnot. Just DON'T pass out before you get some water--it's probably the most important thing.

*Greasy/fatty foods before you drink. Apparently it lines your stomach and makes the alcohol absorb more uniformly. Food in general is good to have in the stomach for that reason.

*Vitamins. A multivitamin before you drink, maybe another before bed--seems pretty intuitive: your body's doing a lot of stuff and trying to get rid of what is really a mild poison. It's going to expend vitamins. Specifically, vitamin B complex is recommended all over the place, and vitamin C also.

*Alcohol selection. The clearer stuff has fewer "congeners," which are figured to be one of many factors that can make you hangover-y. In other words, distilled vodka and gin will be a lot kinder to you than Brandy. Same with dark beers versus lagers. And red wine has tyramine, which causes headaches. But then white wine is for pansies anyway, so . . . whattayagonnado. Oh, and cheaper alcohol is more likely to give you a hangover--you probably already knew that too.

*Eggs the morning after. They've got cysteine, which helps to clean up your dazed and confused liver.

*Some people say pop a painkiller before bed with your gallon of water. Sounds like they can pretty easily mess with your stomach, but they've done studies that link hangovers to inflamed things inside your body (Meh. Big surprise.) which means anti-inflammatory things might be good. Aspirin is about the only one that doesn't mess with your liver and it also has prostaglandin inhibitors, and there was a study that said prostaglandin makes you more hangover-y. Personally, I don't want to put any painkillers in my stomach while it's already swimming with booze, so I'm taking a miss on this one.

*Hangover pills . . . seems like there's reason to believe they can help, but not alone. They generally have calcium carbonate (ie. Chalk), which is found in TUMS, and activated carbon, which is found in, uhhh, charcoal pills. So you could save money by grabbing a TUMS or two and a charcoal pill (available at drugstores). I hear that the carbon from burnt toast is NOT the same as activated carbon and hence doesn't work. But toast is pretty gentle on your stomach so . . . why not. What calcium carbonate and activated carbon do is soak things up. They soak up nasty things, acidic and poisonous things. That's why having them in your stomach can help.

*There's a study floating around that says no hangover cures work. But I read it and they only really tested compounds I've never heard of, and nothing I've mentioned here. Several websites also said there's no way to prevent a hangover, but I don't really buy that--you put something noxious into your body and when you do that, there's usually something else you can put in to help your body fight it off.

*There are also a bunch of herbal/alternative things that people claim can work: Milk thistle: An herb to help prevent hangover, known as a liver tonic . . . "Evening primrose oil contains gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) which can help prevent a hangover. Try 6 capsules before drinking." . . . Grapefruit juice is said to help detoxiy the liver . . . "Dandelion root is considered food for the liver because it aids metabolism and detoxification." . . . Green tea with ginger the morning after eases the crappiness if you didn't preempt it the night before . . . I haven't tried any of these and there are only scant references to them.

So there you have it. It's probably not 100% perfectly right, but I did sift through a lot of stuff.

You're welcome.

JsJh; on the flop: 9cJcJd

2006-09-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

At the concert the other night, I was listening to the song "Casimir Pulaski Day." The reputedly macho guy from our group who was standing to my left rubs his eyes with thumb and middle finger when we get to the line "I thought I saw you breathing." A minute later, near the last lines of the song--"and he takes and he takes and he takes"--the guy to my right wipes his face with his sleeve. Me, I'm doing my regular lumpy throat thing and listening to the girl behind me who's been singing every word to herself.

I'm not sure if it's exactly how she meant to say it, but the other night someone told me that happiness and sadness are really almost the same. In a roundabout, otherworldly way that makes sense to me. Why else would it be so . . great to hear a sad song and let yourself get all choked up by it? It's better to hear someone just say "It's not alright" in a beautiful way than to hear someone say "It's alright" in any other way. There's a kind of momentary revelling in the pain that's not necessarily masochistic--though people can definitely become addicted to it. It's sweet to be reminded that Oh yeah, that still hurts. I still feel that. And even if it's not love or ecstasy or excitement, it's . . . I dunno, Pure? If the shittiness of life never came to a head every now and then, there would just be this vague, dull sense that something's wrong but no idea of what it really feels or tastes like.

Like shivering, right? Our body shivers because it's cold and it's trying to warm up. Likewise, we cry . . . And crying is physiologically almost the same as laughing anyway.

***

My dad quit his job today. For a long, long time he'd been in the advertising business for the newspaper, and awhile back they were bought out by a big ol' corporation. Accordingly, the people started getting treated like figures in a ledger. Enough was enough, and after almost 35 years it was time to move on. But a few weeks ago, he and a few employees were e-mailing back and forth during the day. They got to joking about cutting out of work, and for the first time in my father's life, freed up by the sensation of his impending retirement, he just left work and went to the park.

Remind me to just leave work and go to the park sometime before I die.

I think the worst thing about turning 40 will be having so many people around me think that they're old, they've paid their dues, and their moving and shaking days are over. Come on, now! Every single day is a day you can reinvent yourself! Hooyah!

Season 2 of Lost isn't even close to as good as Season 1.

2006-09-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Hahah. I have just highlighted and deleted many words that no one will ever read. I was starting to go on about why I haven't blogged in awhile and there were really good reasons and I was trying not to be all cute and self-depricating, when I realized that I'm cutest and mostest self-depricating when I'm trying not to be. It was freakin' adorable, let me tell you. But it's gone now.

After a number of years that I have been alive, I still don't get why people are so sure of themselves. I think it was freshman psychology where the good Dr. L informed us that if this particular study (or group of studies) is to be believed, people who are depressed (and therefore self-BASHING) are usually more accurate than people who aren't. When we're not depressed, we think happy thoughts about the Me. It's called self-serving bias.

Two things that I'm told often:
"Adam, you think too hard."
"Adam, you're too hard on yourself."
"Adam, that was amazing."

Three. Three things.

But about the first two: It used to be so much fun to learn a hard lesson about myself and feel like I'd just expanded "as a person." But to the first two . . . I usually says to Mabel I says:

"No, you don't think enough. This is why people are killing each other. Sort of. Indirectly. No, wait, let me think for a second, I can say that better . . . "

and . . . "No I'm not." I'm sure the occasional self-flagellation is a fix in some ways, but the problem is that it's usually not incorrect. I really do think other people are not nearly hard enough on themselves and that other people don't think enough. I guess if my life were an exemplary model to others I could take my message to the streets.

But my revelation for the night is about why, possibly, I think this way: My childhood ideas about existence and hell are so harsh: You have to be right or you're going to hell. If you're wrong you could die right now and you're f-----. This leaves very little room for error. Heck, it's all over the world. This or that sect is convinced that they've got the only truth and everyone else is going to hell (whatever "hell" may be for them . . ) and the problem is, EVERY SINGLE deluded asshole who says this also simultaneously possesses an intricate, interminable grain of truth somewhere deep within that mess of fear and misinformation. I'll be honest: I think I'm a fundamentalist at heart. There's so little room for error in my world. I'm no different from the closed-minded yokels that I constantly say are dragging our nation down to the depths of fascism. I always want what I know to be right and if I'm constantly adjusting what I think is right, I have no solid base and the possibility that there is some discernable truth out there becomes more and more remote. (Okay, so everyone feels this way, probably. Lay off; it's my party and I'll cry if I wanna.) There's so little room for being wrong when your worldview was shaped by altar calls and youth rallies with no Ecclesiastes or Song of Solomon or a little Sex, Drugs, Rock and/or Roll--maybe even a little MSNBC to balance it out.

Which once again leads me to the conclusion I've been stuck on for an annoyingly long time (like 6 years, give or take a an existential duke): The only thing that rings true is that the good, the pure, the whatever . . seems to lie in living inside the fear--making the pain and agony of uncertainty your home--somehow. Living the contradictions. I know there are poets and philosophers up the wazoo that have hinted or outright said something like that, but it still makes the possibility living in the real world seem about as far away as Pluto, the self-doubting planet.

So I doubt myself partially because I think everyone should and partially because I was weaned as such.

Anybody feel me on this?

Oh, and this looks interesting too. I think it's going to be a "look at how scary the Christians are--they're all just like Tom Delay and Dick Cheney and this is how they get started" kind of a thing at times, but at other times it looks like it could be really compelling.

***

Oh, and back on the news thing: I think news is INCREDIBLY important. Or "what's going on" or whatever it should be called. Because what's going on is we're part of a system that makes people sad and/or dead. I don't mean just America. And the answers are never, ever, ever simple. Taking someone else's word for it because it's easier is where all the crap begins. Politics aren't optional . . . blah blah blah, all of that stuff that we already know but don't act like we do. So maybe it wasn't the most entertaining blog topic, but there are NOT a million other websites out there that do what I was trying to do.

Not that I'm going to be doing News constantly anymore but I just had to get that off my chest.

***

Poker is the best game known to man.

2006-09-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

This was going to be a comment but then it started getting long so I made it into a post. Chris said:

"It has been over a month... Get over yourself and start posting. Hell, even talk about that silly Teach for America thing or whatever it is you're going to do next, just, something!!!"

to which I'm now saying:

Hey Chris. Thanks for the sentiment ("You're a good guy but stop being precious/dramatic and post"--also expressed by a few others), but let's not be rash now. Not posting on a blog just means not posting on a blog. Posting is putting something out there for anyone to see, and if you don't want to put something out there for anyone to see, you don't post. Let's not equate it with the silent treatment.

It seems that no one but me was being edified by the news search thing, so I concede that this blog ain't the place for it. But that was all I had that I really wanted to post about, so I'm all out. Don't take it as an appeal for sympathy or an angry retort. It's just a blog.

The Dr.udge Rep0r+

2006-07-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

So. The Drudje Reporrt. (trying to avoid random googlings here) I don't know anything about what the radio show is like, but the site, while it appears to be rather balanced, (there are incendiary advertisements, but who cares about those) actually just culls articles from mostly mainstream sources, as nearly as I can tell. And I've been seeing plenty of tabloidish, paparazzi-type articles in there too, which is bad.

Buuuut: At the bottom, and as recommended to me by Nick Lantinga, a staunch Republican who knows his stuff, there is a WEALTH of links to other news sources from whence a person could more news than you could shake several sticks at.

Ultimately the Drubge Riport is coming off the list soon, but not because of bias, and not because it doesn't have valuable content (ie: The Awesome Links List) . . merely because it doesn't seem to be geared towards getting a real, in-depth version of issues like the other sites do.

***

Apologies to Luke and any friends who don't particularly like the current blogging content/news search. I would merely argue that 1) It's really, really important to do, and while I should have done it long ago, I think it's a worthwhile thing to do in "public." 2) I find very little in my day-to-day life worth blogging about right now. I don't say that to be cutely self-depricating, I just don't like to bore people with details about myself. Although I did just read The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran and found it Amazing.

Two Gold Stars

2006-07-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

for the Christian Science Monitor (no religious affiliation, by the way). They had a great article about the need for public debate on religion's role in politics, quoting from an eloquent Obama speech on the topic. AND, they cited real, sensible references on the Middle East and Somalia. AND, at least one piece wasn't afraid to paint Iran in a bad light--using plausible arguments--which is something I never see strictly-left sources doing. AND! there was this commentary about bias and balance--excellent.

I wonder how many people now cruise into this blog because of buzz words that end up Googled . . .

I guess this is now a blog about news stuff

2006-07-19T18:17:00.000-07:00

Or at least this is what I'll be doing with it for a little while. Getting informed is important, and I have been a stale meatloaf of ennui (a word which I have used twice today--I am a complete slut for cool-sounding and cool-meaning words) as of late, SO . . . yeah. Just so. News and stuff.

Reason Online is still in, though they were about to be out. Today's article about hybrids is kind of mediocre--citing some pretty far-right sources and making a good point in a bad way; but they get points for having Cathy Young as a writer, who as nearly as I can tell is cool--good feminist, casts stones at libs AND cons.

Meh.

Impeach/canonize Bush/Hillary

2006-07-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

I decided 3 minutes ago that I'm going to do a non-intensive but structured search for news that I can depend on. Assumptions:
1) Mainstream US news sources are out.
2) The best way of getting close to the real dirt is through multiple sources that at least come close, with a fine-tuned B.S. filter always in place and well-maintained.
3) Finding the "center" (whatever that is), opposed to left-wing or right-wing, is the goal.
4) The bigger problem is not that this or that politician is having his/her way on this or that issue, but that an uninformed, lazy, and apathetic public is not educating itself properly and taking action to cut through deceptions and fight injustice, thus leaving itself vulnerable to the selfish agendas of unfair and irresponsible people. Er sumpfin like that.
5) Those with more (the rich or privileged) have a responsibility to help those with less (the poor and/or oppressed), regardless of how they have gotten their power.
6) The Constitution is a decent guide, though not infallible; Love is good.

My biases:
1) I'm left of center, but not by that much--and I think it's possible that on a global scale I'm downright centrist.
2) My jury's out on abortion, but I lean towards thinking that life is life and do we have the right to end it? I think this is the biggest issue on which I'm not on the typically liberal side. There are a few others, but only a few.
3) I grew up religious and reject the idea that religion is the root of all evil--that's an oversimplification by people who are "religious" in their own way.
4) I tend to shy away from any way of thinking that says "here is the answer in no uncertain terms." I think that life is uncertainty and living the uncertainty is where the magic begins.
5) I think that war is inherently bad and only to be used as a last resort, though it is seldom used as such.
6) . . . I have a ton of biases, really. Those are the biggest ones.

I don't have any great way of evaluating these sources except by logic and by feel (Does it feel slanted unreasonably? Is the logic weak? Do ALL the stories somehow manage to prove the other side to be kitten-eating Hitler-loving Megatrons?), which of course means that I have to trust my own judgement, and that of people who are trustworthy.

So I've linked some news sources on this page that are either pretty good or under evaluation. A few have really obvious biases and are linked because they can at least bring something new and valid to the table that might not otherwise be mentioned. If you think any of them are crap, let me know. Or tell me which ones I'm leaving out that shouldn't be left out. I'll be updating.

Non-maintstream sources that are out:
Salon.com: I used to like them but now I rarely see anything on there that even tries to be nice to the right-wingers. Good A & E stuff though.
Alternet.com: They were like that from the moment I became familiar with them.
Nationalcenter.org: Like that, only from the other side.
Rawstory.com: Sensationalist, though interesting.
Intellectualconservative.com: The first story I read was about how Fox is too liberal.

Get More Ringtones!

2006-06-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

This was going to be a comment response under the last post, but who reads those after the first time they post a comment anyway . . so here it is (responding to Joanne and then JustinVK):

I think the idea is that "captured" and "homeless" are more or less opposed to one another. (Right?) Maybe homelessness is really the path that everyone should be walking--speaking of "amazing people," a lot of them seem to lead pretty lonely existences (influential/brilliant philosophers, prophets, artists, etc.), and if everyone aspired to that, maybe we wouldn't be as messed up as we are as a society. Maybe if we all had the guts to be lonely--in that existential way--we'd cease to be so. Then again, I'm not doing so well with it. And I don't want to tell happy people that they shouldn't be happy. On one hand I'm sick of systems of thought that put a salve on fear and uncertainty at the expense of integrity (intellectual? emotional?) and on the other hand I guess I'm complaining about the lack of certainty and stability when the salve isn't there.

Justin, I'm not sure what an amazing person is, I'm just making the generalization about amazing people when looking at the crazy lives of ones like Hemingway, Dostoyevsky (the two examples I use way too often), Van Gogh . . heck, what about someone like James Klaver? He was cool before cancer, but afterwards I feel he had some truly amazing qualities. I guess there are people who don't have to go through all kinds of stuff to come out the other end wiser and better. But I doubt I'm one of them, and I doubt most people are ones of themses.

***

I find connecting with people very difficult due mainly to my own limitations. The other day my car battery was dead and I was musing about how to get cables and another car to charge; none of my closeby friends were answering their phones. My new roommate Chris said I should just walk around the neighborhood and ask. I said that sounded awkward. He said just do it, it's easy. So I did. It took about 20 minutes, but I found an old Puerto Rican mechanic who lent me the cables and shortly thereafter another guy watering his lawn who jumped my car with me. The former reluctantly parted with the cables because he'd had a pair not returned before. But after I returned them and noticed that he was sort of partying with his family in honor of Puerto Rico week in the USA, he offered me a beer and I ended up talking with him and his buddy about Puerto Rico, PR day, and living in Logan Square for a while. In fact, I could have stayed all afternoon and drank beer and celebrated with them. Naturally, I had Stuff to do. But it was so wonderful to stand in this man's garage for a short while and talk while his middle-aged daughter drunkenly danced some PR dance and kids climbed on and off of laps and other people looked on. So easy and yet something I never, ever do. Except the other day.

hard bought

2006-06-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

Recently I attended a small memorial service with a friend. And by small, I mean that there were 5 people, including a pastor. (Sorry to be cryptic here; it can't be helped.) It was short and tasteful.

One of my friends had written down something to say. Out of his back pocket came two unlined white pieces of paper, wrinkled like an old treasure map and curved slightly from riding pressed up against his backside for the 45-minute drive to the church. I think he had planned to just "say a few words," but in a weakened state he could naught but read the blue sentences in front of him. They were good sentences, and his oration was everything a piece of music, or eulogy, should be: Prepared with forethought, but delivered without any at all. His sadness and despair came in waves--and we know from ocean swimming that every seventh wave is bigger than the previous six. At times his voice shifted into new and strange registers that could never be reproduced outside of pain--this pain. Cliches of comfort cried out for air inside my head as I frantically tried to suffocate them or at least get them to shut up for now.

Reading, he spoke about how he had always had a vision of himself suffering. Suffering would give him clarity and purpose. Suffering would make him better, make him new. And now that he was experiencing the worst suffering he had ever known, he wanted nothing more than for it to be over; he felt no clarity or betterment at all.

Maybe later on he will.

I sure hope he does, because I've been desiring pain or at least chaos for some time now. I feel like a perpetual "Before" picture and I want to know how to make the thing happen to get the "After" part. I guess I want God to throw some shit at me. That's got to be a dangerous and naive thing to wish for. But all the really amazing people seem to have gone through some kind of badness.

Afterwards, another friend who is a Springsteen fan related an anecdote: At a concert, the Boss was talking about Jacob from the Old Testament. The gist was that Jacob was always screwing things up, and yet God seemed to keep helping him out. Bruce says (more or less), "I don't know if Biblical stories really have a moral, but if they do, I think this one'd be 'God Loves F---ups,' and that's good news for all of us."

You may note my double standard of censoring the F word but leaving in other profanities deemed slightly less noxious by society. This may irritate you. Well, ---- off.

***

Gabe, I haven't heard of the Acts 29 society. But I will now be sensitized to hearing any mention of it.

On the "being free" thing from the last post: Chloe, I guess there are a lot of ways that being free could be defined. I was thinking (maybe like Gabe and CT) that I don't really feel up to the task of making all of these decisions and holding my and other peoples lives or well-beingseseses in my hands. There's something about this kind of freedom that seems more like homelessness and oblivion. But I think you're onto something too.

Exterior, morning.

2006-05-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Lifting a bag of mulch in someone's backyard just off the Kennedy in West Chicago, shoes muddy and feet cold, for a second it was like someone had just edited the film. Cut from March 14, Bangladesh, to May 12, Chicago. Steady white noise of cars with the occasional, gentle swooping sound of one passing close by. Light drizzle. Just like a sequence in the middle of a long movie like Cool Hand Luke or Castaway.

I wouldn't mind just cutting out the last two months, either. Two months where nothing that you'd put in a story happened. Bangladesh to Idaho to Illinois.

Hello again, Chicago.

A few weeks ago, before the move to Chi-town, I had an inkling to pack up the car and go to LA for some time. Not for the movies. For the Christians. Rabid ones. Laura G., LA native, has been hanging out with people who can and have raised the dead. People who point at you and you fall over, your lame leg regenerated into a fresh new one. People who speak and hear prophecy. People who are like the people you read about in Acts in the Bible. I wanted to go and hang out with them too. Because Laura is not full of crap. If it's hoaxy, she won't buy it. I even asked her to ask God on my behalf if I could come. I didn't hear back until after I had packed up and left for Chicago.

God said to Laura, "He is free."

Seems like what I believe means everything at times and nothing at other times.

Raise your hand if you want to be "free."

I don't.

***

I'll have a phone number within a few days. E-mail me yours and I'll call you.

when they get into a car and go

2006-04-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

My mom is selling Arbonne now. It's "not" a pyramid scheme. Their "motivational" and "training" materials tell her to find her "why." (Okay those last quotes actually do belong there.) The "why" is your motivation for selling Arbonne skin and beauty/health products. You have to think about it and come up with your own "why." It should be something noble--usually a reason for having more money, like donating it to Unicef or something. Mom's "why" was that when I find God again she can have enough money on hand to support me in the Christian ministry that I'm going to set up.

Lump.

I've been through why I don't like the network marketing stuff with her: It's based on a structure that means you can only make enough money by simultaneously selling the product AND getting other people "under" you selling it too. It's about as sustainable as a Fourth of July sparkler--and everyone knows you can write your first and maybe last name but NEVER your middle name with those little punks. But mom believes in the product. It's skin products without bioengineered hormone-enhanced condor hides. And you get a free Mercedes-Benz if you make Regional Vice President or some position like that (serious about that part). The problem is that the people that are good at selling Arbonne--both the products and the company--they're all slick. My mother is not slick. What an odd feeling, seeing someone you love putting her beautiful self into something you don't love at all--and realizing that while she may get burned, your only real option is to encourage her. And I don't even have kids yet. I don't like it.

Since when do you venture capitalists have the right to take my mom's desire for me to find God and use it to expand your not-pyramid?

***

I've thought about how not to make this next part sound like a pity party and I can't. But it's not supposed to sound like that. So make like an attractive female in a horror film and ignore the implications . .

Bangladesh is a ghost in my head now. What's worse, I seem to care less about the people than I did when I left--at least it feels that way. I got on the plane feeling pissed off and distraught: "You (that is, the Man) are not gonna get me down. I am coming back and I am going to bring U2 with me and we are going to really CHANGE things and I'm going to give my shoes to the orphans and give hope to the hopeless and get a great tan and Oh hey, are these honey roasted? Geez, lookit this--they only have 2 in-flight movies; what a gyp--on the way over there were 3 . . " and from there began a journey into what must be complacency.

Okay, so my thunder won't be stolen that easily. But how long has it been, 3 weeks? and already I think about all the constant attention I used to get, the incessant power outages, the mosquitoes . . and I go, "HOW can people LIVE like that?"

So maybe community is more important than I've been giving it credit for. In Peace Corps they call it "community integration." But I've realized that some of my more inward-focused tendencies have increased the crap that has gone with the evacuation and its aftermath. I wish I'd spent more time sitting with people--even when not saying anything or doing anything important. Peace Corps people. Bangladeshi people. Anyone.

***

Isn't it great to talk to strangers in the grocery store? I wish there was a way we could all talk to each other without needing an expensive can of creamed corn or a last carton of 2% to start a conversation. In other words, I'd like to buy the world a Coke.

well

2006-03-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

Long post coming . . here's a summary so you can skip accordingly if you want: Part 1: Reverse culture shock is a biyatch, this whole thing still sucks, and I'm frustrated about my inability then and now to step outside myself. Part 2: Responding to a few comments. Part 3: Max Payne 2 on X-Box.

1.
I've had very little to say these days. You know how it is, or you've heard how it goes: You get home, and after one 20-minute conversation, most people are done hearing about you and your stuff. Sort of like describing a really good painting: largely futile and never doing it justice. I'm going to try not to swim in self pity and splash it all over you, because that's just annoying. Part of the frustration is that for most of the people around, I'm the only representative of all of this beauty and confusion and crappiness, and so once again it is all about me. I can't show or impart to anyone the true essence of "Bangladesh," and I imagine that when I try, it sounds more cute than real. I've often made real things into cute things and even more often framed my experiences to make myself look charming and "courageous." Right. Sure, there's the garden-variety guilt that I can eat pizza and candy on my couch, drink water from the faucet, take a 20-minute hot shower and find a job within days. But moreover I feel like the only person who has benefitted from my shortened PC tour has been me. Many have consoled me about the eviction from Bangladesh, and often they add something about how great it was that I went in the first place. Oh, if only I could show you how far from great I was, and how much life and wonder I've wasted. I yelled at my host brother Shamol on my last day in Bangladesh, simply because he laughed when I was irritated about something else. I ignored phone calls from Azad, sometimes on a daily basis because I was too lazy to pick up the phone and just talk for 1 minute with him. I hardly ever talked to the children running around my neighborhood yelling FOREIGNER! whenever I passed by. I often pretended I couldn't understand their Bangla in order to avoid having to make real contact with them. I usually had somewhere more important to be, like buying furniture for my large, subsidized apartment.

I feel utterly unqualified to be the sole representative of the people I met in Khulna to the people I know in America. Even if I commit my life to humanitarian service, there will still be that dream of sticking it out in B'desh for the 2+ years that probably will never be realized.

I'm thinking about going back, on my own. Only problem: as sick as I got under the watch of a PC doctor, what would I do without one? If anyone wants to go with me, I will marry you.

2.
Sophie: Thanks. That felt good. And I like the way you write in your blog.
Chris: I already e-mailed you.
Irina: I like your name. Sorry for times when I was pretty insensitive/ignorant about your culture.
Luke: Good point. And thanks. And Calen Moerman was phenomenal, thanks for the recommendation.
Jason: Been reading about Kiss Me Kate. Can't wait for the GWoT.
Maria: Thanks for not saying something like "everything happens for a reason." Concert for B'desh DVD gladly accepted.
Gerard Matthews: I e-mailed you. Are you in Mexico? I think yes.
Anonymous: Cousin Dave?
Jack: (raises eyebrows)
Christy: Thanx. Family kissed. Hope you and Rave are well.
Gabe: Call me a negative nancy, but I think you have to be a doctor for that. On a related matter, I now wear glasses that resemble the ones you were wearing when we were both at Dordt.
Dave: I'll bet you do. NICE TAT. (That's insider-speak for tattoo.)
Kristin: Thank you. I will.
Reuben: Thanks for expressing that. It's been hard to think of anything to say after coming back home (even though this post is giving War and Peace a run for the money). Things seem so run-of-the-mill now.
Justin: Hey. I was disappointed by the first couple of songs on X&Y--kinda cheesy lyrics--but I like several of the other ones. What d'ya think about that? You big Coldplay fan you.

The encouragement you people have given has been a real comfort. For reals.

3.
Went to the Sizzler today with the fam. If anyone's looking for fat people, most of them are hiding there. Well, not hiding. Eating. I played Max Payne 2 on X-Box for an entire day yesterday. The ending is really sad. The enigmatic sexy heroine dies instead of vanishing into the night like she should. But supposedly she helped Max find out "who he really is." Which seems a little trite. (Wow. I think my posts are going to get really boring from now on.)

Things I perceive upon coming back: Lots of obesity; people getting worried about things that don't matter; I'm no longer a celebrity; I can see why people are fat because we can eat ANYTHING we want; I'm spending so little time actually outside--it's either in a car or in a house or in a store or in a car. Or a house. (semicolon) It's nice to discover I have more patience now. In B'desh you have to get used to everything taking longer. It's more important to spend quality time with your friends than to keep a schedule. In other words, in Idaho it's rude to be late. In Khulna a it's rude to say "I'll be late, I have to go." Something like that. Made for a great excuse for someone who's always late anyway. And by someone, I mean Boy George.

NO

2006-03-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

It's over.

PC Bangladesh has been suspended (read: shut down). I am typing this from a room in Washington, DC, where we have all been consolidated and await our Close of Service seminar. Why? Because someone in one of the towns in B'desh got threatened by a member of an Islamic extremist group.

My grief, and the grief of other volunteers, has at times been overwhelming. We had just gotten through some of the toughest times; we were excited about actually starting to do some things that we could be proud of for the rest of our lives. This was our home.

Why did I ever waste a single day feeling sorry for myself? More often than not I was annoyed by the legion of little kids outside my door constantly trying to get whatever piece of me they could. On my way to the bus station they chased my rickshaw repeating the same "Halllo, Uncle!" just like any other day. Some days I would smile and reply back in Bangla, but most days I'd just ignore it if I was in a bad mood. On this day I just stared. It was a lot easier not to get down about the state the world's in when I could tell myself I was at least doing my part to stem the tide.

No one understands why we have left. I will be forever replaying the mental tapes of the faces of my colleagues and friends falling one after another when they learned the news. There was a pattern: First, the eyes would fall as the information was processed. Immediately following, the eyes would flit about the floor in order to assess the believability that such an unsuitable thing was really happening. Next, the eyes would return to my face and the mouth would protest: "But Bangla Bhai and Sheikh Abdur Rahman were captured!" After my flimsy explanation, the eyes would lag off to the side and the mouth would stall, wishing it could speak better English or that mine could speak better Bangla so we could sit down together and work out that Peace Corps was WRONG, I COULD stay and this was all a big mistake. The eyes would come back and ask, "You're really leaving? For good?" Yes. And then the face would change to match mine. "Oh, this is very sad news for us."

And I had nothing to say.

When I first touched down in Bangladesh, I'd never have admitted it but I was filled up mostly with what should be called dread. Leaving on the plane yesterday, the only thing I could think was

NO

No. This is not right. It feels like someone has died. While this is not as dire a loss as the loss of a friend, spouse, or fiancee, I am reminded of Laura G.'s loss of her love a few years ago. They had only been "together" for less than a year. But in that time they had found a love that made them happy to think about the future. YES! I'VE FINALLY GOT SOMETHING RIGHT! THIS IS WHAT MY LIFE FROM NOW ON WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE. Then not.

And that's only for me. It's less than a picnic for the hundreds of friends and colleagues around the country whose hopes for their respective towns--well founded or not--were resting on the work of some kids from America. So many want to leave the country as it is. Every day someone would ask me to take them--sometimes as a joke, sometimes not. Most who are fortunate enough to leave the country to get a good education don't come back. How can things ever get better?

And yet this is a nation that has come back from floods, war, oppression, and extreme overpopulation and continues to thrive. Maybe they're better off without us coming and raising false hopes among the educated few with whom we fraternize.

*****

What's next for me? I don't know. If anyone's got any crazy ideas, jobs, or plans that involve doing something either foreign, humanitarian, or artistic, or insane, let me know--because once I finish a two week bender during which I question the existence of justice, I'll be an open book. Okay I'm probably kidding about the bender thing. I'm not quite tortured genius enough for a existentially-motivated bender.

. . .

2006-03-14T04:50:00.000-08:00

Terrible, terrible news on the way. I can't say now because of time, but I'm not above using another cheap literary device to add to the suspense. I'm safe and everything, but in a day or two the bad news will be revealed.

Sinks

2006-03-08T01:16:00.000-08:00

I pretty much cried yesterday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060304/ts_afp/usnuclearpoliticsdisarmament

(quicklink feature won't work on this cpu)

Don't waste your compassionate tears on the sight of distented bellies and sobbing mothers. Put them in a box and save them for the day when you're too beaten and jaded to continue fighting injustice. Take them out and cry them. Then keep going. Please, keep going.

This is not a political blog. Here's the full speech if you want it:
http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/speeches/2006/speech_Brooks_Arms-Control-Assn-25Jan06.pdf

******************

But there's always good news. Things are neither as bad as we fear nor as good as we hope . .

They caught the bad guys in Bangladesh!

"Bangla Bhai," the enigmatic, charismatic, psychopathic, sociopathic leader of the JMB--Bangladesh's version of Al-Qaeda, sort of--was caught yesterday. And the day before they caught the other guy, Sheikh Abdur Rahman. In other words, the #1 and #2 guys are now in jail. In my head I can hear Rockapella from Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, pleasantly cooing in my hear that all is well, for Bangla Buy and Shake Abdur Ray-man are . . innnn jaaaaaiiiilllll.

If he comes again tomorrow, I will call him Two Socks.

2006-03-01T03:26:00.000-08:00

(Krusty the Clown voice) HEY HEYYYY!! . . I don't hate the world anymore--for anyone who read my last post. Someone went and changed Bangladesh back to normal over the past couple of days. Thanks, whoever you are.

And now, anecdotes to lighten your heart:

"I hate this class because Mr. Adam is so ugly to look at and he is not so very smart." Actual words from a student. Maybe not such a bright idea for an exercise on my part. See, in order to stimulate creativity in generating practice sentences, I told them to start with the phrase, "I hate this class because . . . " explaining that I wanted off-the-wall answers, like "because there are flamingoes flying out of my fanny." Most of them chose to say mean stuff about me, which I think means they actually think the opposite. I think.

"Army Knife? What is Army Knife?" (I had lost my faux army knife and was trying to find a new one in Khulna--futile errand . . After further explanation:) "Ohhhh! You mean MacGyver knife!"

(I am explaining the meaning of the interjection, 'Shoot!' After the penny finally drops, approximately 15 of the 25 students caucaphonally speak up to help me out:) "Ohhhh! You mean SHIT!" I don't think they get it. But hey, at least it afforded me my first chance to whip out the ol' cat-o-nine-tails. Ah, blood.

***

I now have a maidservant. But it's cool because it actually does provide real employment for someone, doesn't cost that much, and means I don't have to turn the underwear inside out anymore. And then back inside in again. And then go without. And then do my own laundry. I mean, who can be bothered for that crap? She also makes me delicious food and sweeps the floor. People call her Milonerma, which means Milon's mother. She has a son named Milon. Apparently lower-status women around here are identified by the fruits of their womb rather than by their actual names. I call her Nilun-Apa which means sister-Nilun. Usually she laughs at me when I call her that. I don't think she gets it.

But seriously, I kinda like that about this culture. They call each other brother-Shamim or sister-Tanbi or brother-Mahmud. I'm still Mr. Adam to most people, but I'm working on that. A few people have moved to calling me "Smit" which is to them more familiar, but only on a few occasions have I been called Adam-Bhai (brother-Adam).

***

From the newspaper today I have learned that 22 people have been sentenced to die by hanging in a particular town because of their involvement in the bomb blasts in August of last year. Here's the thing: In all of these particular blasts, NO ONE DIED. In fact, all 22 are being hanged for being involved in one bomb which injured an 8-year-old boy and did nothing else but scatter Islamist propoganda leaflets. Yeesh, man. We wanted you to crack down on these dudes, but . . .

2006-02-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

Bangladeshi schoolbus. Anyone ever see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Remember the Childcatcher?

"Okay now, host sister and host mom, this is TECH-NO-LO-GYYYYY so listen up. Look at the flashing red light and don't screw this up for me. While you may be mystified and awestruck by this machine and my uncanny ability to use it, you must focus and concentrate on the red light. See, it's right th--"

Something like hate

2006-02-16T07:32:00.000-08:00

"Cedar Rapids Recreation Commission."

I saw this on a T-shirt worn by a young Middle-Eastern boy today at the hospital. As in, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His father was standing nearby, and possibly an uncle or something. The uncle had a turban and long robes on. Neato.

***

I think I might hate Bangladesh a little.

I am genuinely worried about this.

So. I've been in Bangkok for about a week and a half. And it's been very good: health improved, vacation (of sorts) taken. But reflecting on the things that a country like Thailand has going for it that B'desh does not . . this is an activity that darkens me. I have something like dread that wells up when I think about returning. I've suddenly realized that so many of the things I love about life on planet earth are not present in Bangladesh, at least not in ways that I can see them.

Their musical heritage seems limited at best and your average person has less musical education than I did at age 10. The result is that no one in my class can keep a beat when I try to do "musical" exercises, and what passes for music has been sounding to me like a dying seal as of late. The only art that can be seen outside of exclusive art schools is rather simple Rickshaw art which usually amounts to a pretty picture of a bird or a Bangladeshi film star and, style aside, looks like something a typical high schooler might paint for his mom for Mother's Day. The food is all the same--good, but all the same. After awhile one yearns for some hummus or a hamburger or anything different. In general, there are so few deviations from the status quo. And of course, as we've seen of late, they're not exactly in step with our ideas on free speech, ala cartoon riots. The list goes on; I'm going to stop now, but . .

I came with deep-set intentions of never ever foreclosing on any person or culture. Before I came, one current PCV warned me that "this culture sucks." Of course I scoffed and snorted at his ignorance and ethnocentrism. But lately my search for redeeming qualities in this oppressed culture has come up . . empty.

There are phases of culture shock, and they continue through at very least the first year in a new culture. I'm told that right around the one-year mark or perhaps just a bit earlier is when the feelings of negativity and hatred are at their worst.

I devoutly hope that I have reached this point early and can be done with it Soon.

Because I'm at the point where if I flip to a Bangladeshi TV station while waiting at the hotel, I skip over it really fast. It's like eating a food you like on the day you come down with the flu. For months you can't stand even the thought of that food.

If anyone's made it through this post, I hope it has sounded to you like the rantings of a petulant child. Then maybe I'll snap out of it soon.

***

Close Guantanamo Bay!

go go

2006-02-14T22:30:00.000-08:00

Yes, they put a camera inside me, and yes they used the, uh, ventral entrance. Which just seemed a little over the top to me. Sort of like Tim Robbins' escape from prison in Shawshank Redemption--they had to take the long, narrow, secret passageway. At present I'm still waiting to find out what they saw in there.

Adjusted number of female nurses who have NOW seen my junk: 5 (and once the pictures get uploaded that number's going to explode). The only other thing I have to say about the cystoscopy/catheter is that it hurt when I came to--but not that bad--and for the surgery I was in a chair almost identical to a gynecologist's chair. I only know what one of those looks like because Matt D. and I had one in our apartment that we shared with Dusty A.

Traveler friend Matt K. was in town and we did this and that, including my first stop ever at a go-go bar. These things don't really excite me, in fact they kind of give me the willies, to be honest, but I was really curious and wanted to at least see what one looks like. So we stepped into one just to have a butcher's. Having been a McDonalds worker at the tender age of 15, I would like to draw the following parallel: A bad lead singer of a band holds onto the microphone stand much like a freshman holds onto his beer at his first frat party; much like a bored but tender McDonalds employee holds onto the cash register; much like those girls were holding onto their poles.

Anyway. 15 seconds and we were out. So it's not like I've really experienced Gomorrah, but at least now I know where to bring the parents when they visit.

Oh, and here's to Thailand for being the only South Asian country (according to Matt) where people don't use their car horns to communicate everything. Silence is golden.

Bang

2006-02-09T04:46:00.000-08:00

I've been "medevac'd" or medically evacuated to Thailand. Bangkok. So they can figure out what's wrong with me. I was pulling for Typhoid, as was Dr. Praphaporn (now that I can remember her name correctly I say it as often as possible). Typhoid would have been cool--sounds like a cross between typhoon and battle droid. But the blood test says no. Time for more figures:

22: Number of times I've been stuck with a needle, giving blood samples or getting medicine.
7: Number of locations for the sticking (both arms inside the elbow, top of hand, 3 different fingers, left butt cheek).
10: Approximate number of seconds between receiving injection to make kidneys light up on X-ray and throwing up. Fastest nausea reaction EVER! Not that bad really; threw up and got on with the procedure.
9: Number of X-ray slides--taken in one sitting--of kidneys after they had been lit up with nauseating injection.
3: Number of times I fell asleep during this procedure.
2: Number of times between today and yesterday that a female nurse has seen my junk. And we're not even supposed to be doing any tests on that region.

Did I mention this all started with another kidney stone? Back in Bangladesh a few days ago, I was just sitting on the can, minding my own business trying again to poop into a cup for the nice doctor lady, when my side starts to ache like a maux-faux. Soon I am throwing up EVrywhere and begging for painkillers. 2 1/2 hours later they finally decide it's time to believe me and they stick me in the behind with some Toradol. Goooood Toradol. Pretty Toradol. Not as good as morphine, but it'll do.

To make a long story short, a lot of doctors poked me with needles and fingers in a lot of places and in the end Deborah (nice doctor lady) decided only Thailand would do. So here I am, at the nicest hospital I've ever seen in my life. Outside, what with the burnished pillars, marble and traffic controllers directing the Jaguars where to park, it looks more like the Mirage than a hospital. Inside, people love me long time.

Also, judging by the number of ugly aging white men here with young beautiful Thai women inscrutably at their sides, there's hope for me and George Clooney still.

"What do you mean, 'over there?' There's a lot of 'over there' over there."
--One American patient to a Thai nurse, upon being directed where to sit in anticipation of his X-ray results. The area in question was a long hallway with many seats along the walls.

Pneumonia, in the Study, with the Candlestick

2006-02-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

This is the post I hope my parents don't read.

I just can't seem to catch any really cool diseases. The bronchitis hasn't really gone away, and now it looks like I might have pneumonia. But they're not sure. And, um, yeah, there's a "spot" on the X-ray. Now this probably isn't a big bad "spot," in fact, it's probably just an irregularity on the film. But nonetheless I get to cough my phlegm into a special cup that resembles something from an alchemist's lab. I've been getting fevers (not too bad, usually 102 or so) and don't have an appetite. And tomorrow--you guessed it--they're going to collect some of the discharge from the other end. Oh, and I've lost weight. I now weigh less than I have since high school. But that's deceiving since I've only really lost 14 pounds. Unfortunately, 14 pounds off a skinny guy is like 58 pounds off of some portlier gentleman.

All that said, I could be a lot worse. And they had Top Gun on cable last night at the fancy hotel, so I'd say as a tradeoff for the current ailment it was worth it.

And on the bright side, I saw a large box of laundry detergent in a store last night whose name, printed in bright red letters (ala Surf or Tide) was "Barf." So I could feasibly be washing my clothes in barf tonight.

But on the non-bright side, that moment at which she said "spot on the X-ray" was a little surreal--that is, before she explained that it's probably nothing and at worst it's a little tuberculosis. You know, that moment at which you feel like you're in a movie. Sweat instantly forms on the forehead and you feel very small and insignificant. You instantly try to think of all of the unhealthy things you've done over the last year and go "D'oh!" when you realize there have been many. The word "Cancer" echoes in your mind from a thousand doctors behind a thousand desks behind a thousand closed doors.

But that's a bit extreme. Let's not write my obituary just yet.

Hey no wait, let's do that.

"Died valiantly saving Chuck Norris and Nelson Mandela from a burning snake pit while solving world hunger. Plans to regenerate and revive him as a Batman-like superhero are currently underway. He is survived by a loving family and thousands of beautiful and talented women who had hoped to be the love of his life."

But anyway.

Pikshers

2006-01-21T01:49:00.000-08:00

While I am to computers what Brittney Spears is to acting ("Crossroads," baby), I'm attempting to show you a nearly sunken boat and a fisherman pulling up his net. How rustic. Keep in mind that this picture took longer to upload than it takes you Americans to do your taxes online nowadays. So LOOK HARD and appreciate it and somehow apply it to your life.

And here's what I would look like as an emaciated, distraught, Dengue-ridden Peace Corps volunteer. I took this like 3 months ago so I'd have something to show people if I wanted pity at some point. In reality, I am just posing. But dang it looks convincing.

steal stuff

2006-01-20T03:56:00.000-08:00

So someone stole the Chacos. Anyone who's owned (and hence paid through the nose for) Chaco sandals knows that they are amazing and never wear out. And I was wearing them every day all day. I was perturbed at their disappearance. Next day, someone stole a large envelope containing mail from the office and possibly from home--never got to open it. The next day, I left a small notebook laying on a counter and forgot about it. Came back for it later . . yeah. I think it's kind of like "He's American, whatever he's got it must be worth something." Mgrrr. Next time I'm going to leave a bunch of poo and burnt hair in a box on some counter somewhere. THEN WE'LL SEE WHO'S LAFFIN. Mgrffngr.

But hey, today I won an all-male . . um, thrusting contest. See, we were on our way home from a wedding in a village (boring, good food, bride was about 183 years younger than the groom). We stopped at a big gardeny meeting place and there was a sort of picnic program going on, with games ala towns like Punxatoney (SP) and Lake Woebegon. Naturally, they first asked the foreigners (myself and Matt, a guy who's traveling the world and happened to cross my path) to come up and make a speech in front of a couple hundred people. This is a common thing. I rattled off some diplomatic crap in sketchy Bangla and then we sat down to watch the women finish a game in which they all use bamboo sticks to try and smash the clay pots that one another are holding. They're confined to a circle about 30 feet wide but wearing formal dress and semi-high heels. Fantastic game. Anyway, after the beefiest one won that particular contest, there was a game for the men, and of course Matt and I were coerced into playing.

New paragraph so this story doesn't seem so long and drawn out: The game was this: First, you blow up a balloon, then you face your partner and suspend the balloon between the two of you, standing chest-to-chest. Hands are kept behind the back, and on the count of three everyone has to sort of bump and grind until someone pops their balloon between your two masculine bodies. I learned later on from some guy that some of them cheated by actually bringing pins with them and trying to hide them in their shirts.

But we still won. USA! USA! In your face, Not-USA!

But the day wore on and we had to leave. Hence, we could not stay for the prize ceremony. So we donated "it" (whatever "it" was, probably a box of poo and burnt hair) to the child with a bad kidney for whom the picnic (and a raffle) was organized.

OH, and another thing happened. As we were getting off the boat coming from the picnic, there was a large gap to cross. An extremely attractive bangladeshi girl in heels and a silken shalwar was eyeing the gap onto the pier with some reticence. The reflex was to just give her a hand as any good boy scout would. But it's a no-no to touch women in this culture. So as I sort of edged past her on my way up to the pier, I said offhandedly: "I'd help you but I'm not allowed to touch you," figuring hey, there's no way she's going to understand that, because no one understands English--much less fast, offhanded English. So I jump up onto the pier and turn around and she goes, "Okay, now please just give me a hand." In REALLY clear English. Um, what? Uh, okay. So I help her off the boat. "Thanks." Uhhhh . . "Wow, your English is very good." "Thank you."

Naturally, during the boat ride Matt and I had been saying things that we didn't think would be understood by others. Naturally, she must have heard them. Naturally, we may have commented on her looks in a rather candid discussion of Asian women . . and possibly how much my feet stink and how I dug some black junk out of my nose last night. Now how much of that did she understand . . .

Well I didn't get her number.

march of the dead cows

2006-01-14T04:49:00.000-08:00

Ah, Eid-ul-Ajah (or however you wanna spell it, everyone's got a different way). Also known as bloody Eid. This is the day that the cows get it. At about 8 a.m., after mass prayers, the family gathers around for some cozy time with a 2000 lb. cow and a knife/axe the size of an ultralite wing. About 6 people (men only) hold the cow and then someone performs the divine rite of hacking the cow's head off. It's a Muslim ritual in memory of the story of Abraham and Isaac . .

. . but BOY did they screw up this story in the Koran. Lemme tell you. They say it was ISHMAEL and not Isaac who Abraham nearly sacrificed on the altar. They also call the guy Ibrahim and not Abraham (guess that's why I'm here teaching English--sheesh). Plus, in the Koran version, Ibrahim actually brings the knife down but at the last second Allah changes Ishmael into a goat instead. Now, I'll give them that one. That's way more exciting than the Bible's version where God merely TELLS Abraham to stop the knife, then Abraham switches out the son for the goat.

But anyway. The slaughter is quite a sight to behold, as one can imagine. And seeing those cow hides, skulls, and occasional entrails laying here and there throughout the day really give it that holiday feel. The great thing is that we get beef curry for just about every meal for at least a week. I'm saying this as a good thing now, but probably at the conclusion of the week I will not be saying this.

Weeks with bronchitis: 8 (BUT finally using some drugs, condition improving)
Weeks with left ear plugged: 4 (If you think it's a pain you are correct.)

Wedding

2006-01-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

3 Things:

1) New record for mosquitoes killed in bathroom with single puff of insecticide: 37. Not joking.

2) I have thus far so acclimated to the culture (in which men never touch women but hold hands with each other) that I willfully walked arm in arm with a dude friend without feeling weird.

3) Congratulations on unsingling, Matt and Brielle. Really (really) wish I was there--I think we've been over this so I will shut up and leave probably my first short post ever. Whee!

war of attrition

2006-01-05T04:45:00.000-08:00

Today 2 students whose English level is better than the rest of their classmates found out that they were not selected to be in my upcoming English class because, as I attempted to explain, they would not learn very much since they already know what most of the other students are about to learn. These two accosted me and we had . . a . . discussion. Lower lips quivered, and there was crying. Without the certificate they would earn from my class--and apparently the mental benefit of taking a class with the first foreigner they've ever met--they believe that their job prospects would be significantly poorer. I'm sure they prepared for days, if not weeks, for the screening interview that ironically eliminated them.

My tentative "solution" was to invite them to my once-a-week open practice session on Wednesdays, which is currently populated only by other teachers from the DYD, since that is the only demographic group that I am currently instructing. It's an informal session and not part of a class.

So. The teachers who are in my class hear of this offer. Immediately they come to me and protest, saying that it is not proper for students and teachers to mix in such a fasion. They will not allow students to attend the practice session.

"But, just for practice?"
"It is our culture."

Faaaantastic. Now, here's the thing: these teachers are not selfish or bad people. They are actually quite nice and easy to get along with. In other words, they're right--it really is their culture that students and teachers can't even practice English together even though English practice is what people beg me for EVERY DAY.

Situations like this are quite common for PCVs in Bangladesh. But as I ran down the 4 flights of stairs to my counterpart's office, thinking about my missing cell phone (Peace Corps-issued), angry landlord, ear infection, bronchitis, crying students, and best friend's wedding (the one I'll be missing in a few days), I felt really good. Maybe it's just that being the center of attention is nice, even when it's not all positive attention. Maybe it's just the delicious irony. But at the time, I'm thinking the most likely reason is that it really is pure bliss to feel relevant. And I do. I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a lot of love (or at least liking) for myself. But today, I felt relevant. If I have a bad day because I'm feeling sorry for myself because I'm sick, then my cause here suffers. Maybe those students would cry for any foreigner, but there aren't any other foreigners here, now, teaching an English course. I guess it only feels like I'm doing something good if something's going wrong at the same time.

Matt and Brielle: Someday soon I will tell you about the my failed plot to get an early leave to come home for your wedding. I did try, and I even told a few fibs to my superiors in doing so. But it didn't work. I love you both more than I have shown. And I am not a little saddened that I will be here and you will be there. It's the only thing that I have regretted about coming here.

Hey, I think this might be the first post where I haven't tried to make any jokes or write anything funny. Maybe the Blue Fairy will make me into a real boy now.

teach me in time and faces

2005-12-28T03:40:00.000-08:00

-Weeks with bronchitis, as of today: 6
-Current body weight, in pounds: 142 (Weight at swearing in: 154)
***
-Number of students who have applied for my English class of 25: 93 (which is still WAY lower than average for reasons which are not worth going into).
-Bowel movements today: 1 (Which is always nice)
-Christmas present received in White Elephant exchange at my home while hosting a Christmas get-together for other PCV's: Pirated DVD with The Perfect Storm, Titanic, Waterworld, and Castaway on it.
-Number of other volunteers with whom I have spoken today who share my desire to stay in Bangladesh, stick with it, complete our service here, and love it in spite of the naysayers: 5 (As opposed to 1 from the other camp. Woot!)
***
After finishing a Christmas in Bangladesh, it is my newly-formed opinion that everyone should spend a Christmas or two away from family and (old) friends and the usual trappings. Christmas felt a little weird. There were good times, but it just felt . . off. I can't really say that there was this nagging hurt or anything like that. Of course I missed people, but I've been missing them for awhile now and it's not exactly an acute pain or anything. So probably next Christmas I'll appreciate my family and traditions more. But even more important than that: I was forced to think about Christmas apart from how I've always thought about it and take a little step towards my own understanding of what it means.

Yes, I'm going to leave it ambiguous like that. That's right.

People from home who have crossed my mind for various reasons over the last week or so, except for my family because that's pretty obvious: Lo G., Brielle H., Ethan K., Anthony from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Reuben and Heidi VDK, Sophia DB, Cheech Marin, Maria DB, Bret H., Morgan ?, Joey from friends, Nick VDK, Matt D., Jack M., Jason VDB, Hillary Duff, MJ, Dusty A., Jennifer Aniston, piano teacher Joyce W., Bob & Julia from Peace Action, Pat H., and of course Vanilla Ice.

If your name's not here you are utterly unimportant to me, and the world at large. Call Cheech and ask him for his secrets.

Loss

2005-12-21T01:14:00.000-08:00

Many of the PC volunteers from Bangladesh will be leaving soon.

As I've briefly mentioned before, there have been some bombs and some threats from radical muslim groups. They've said that they're planning to target schools (where some PCV's work), and one threat even mentioned targeting any woman not wearing a burka (the head-to-toe covering for a Muslim woman), among other things. So, people are justifiably freaked out. The government is too corrupt and petty to do much about it, though many arrests by the Rapid Action Batallion (popular police) have been going down recently. Some volunteers have been near the places where bombs have exploded prior to that, one or two even knew people who died. As foreigners, we are easily recognizeable and though we haven't been made targets yet, some figure we're next on the list and soon things could get bad. Personally, I don't think things are that bad, and the frequency of the bombs has decreased significantly in the past couple of weeks as various leaders of the movement are caught. But still . . .

Peace Corps has responded by giving PC Bangladesh Volunteers the option of Interrupted Service ( = you can go home now without shame and start over again if you want to). I won't be taking this option (I feel pretty safe and I'm here for the long haul), but a few good friends will be. It's hard to see the numbers dwindle. It's like joining a real peace movement and slowly watching it die as the pressure and stress becomes too much for some.

A wave of temptation washed over me when I realized that if I decided to take the Interrupted Service, I could go to the wedding of Matt (one of the, if not the, best friends I have) which occurs in early January--just after I'd arrive back home. To be honest, I haven't really cared much about many of the weddings I've gone to . . just a few. Usually I find them overly formal, trite and empty--the real stuff of love happens long before and long after the wedding. But this would be the first wedding that I REALLY did not want to miss, would have done almost anything to attend. Cry for me, Argentina. The truth is, I left you.

* * * * *

Still, Christmas is going to be fun. I've got lights, friends coming from neighboring towns, some good food, a little alcohol, and maybe even a Christmas tree. I'm genuinely happy about a lot of things this Christmas. Moreso that most other Christmasesaseses past. Huh.

If you're havin girl problems I feel bad for you son

2005-12-18T02:58:00.000-08:00

I promise not to talk about excrement or vomit this tiBAAAAAAAAAAARRRRFFF!!!! Ahem. This time. Got that out of my system. I think we're good now.

My kickin' vision for my "secondary project" (Peace Corps lingo for trying to do something good outside of just teaching English) is as follows:

Bangladesh is, according to Transparency International, the most corrupt country in the world for the fifth year in a row (better luck next time, Finland). And we got poverty and a crappy education system and all that stuff too . . Exhibit 1. Exhibit 2: There are a lot of early twentysomethings with nothing to do because after you finish college you have to wait almost a year to find out your final grades. Exhibit 3: There are a ton of NGO's (non-gov't org's) but very little volunteerism among this rather bored and restless demographic. Enter your boy (me), an English teacher, animal lover, and all around nice guy, who starts what I like to fantazmisize as The NGO Temp Agency. See, you get a month or two of free English coaching, which is good for your career, you listless Bangladeshi 22-year-old. In return, you use a month or two (or more) of that free time of yours to volunteer with an NGO. It's a win-win-win situation, Ahmed, because get this--volunteer service ALSO looks good on your resume. Chalk one up for the non-extremist moderate and socially aware good guys.

So that'd be pretty cool if it worked out, sometime down the road, maybe a half-year or so in the future. I know, I know, the world was supposed to be saved by then. You know Bob, I've moved on, I think it's time you did too, mnealright?

Found a Bangladeshi version of Monopoly yesterday. So amazingly awesomely crappy you can't believe it. The misspellings, the hollow plastic dice that aren't anything resembling cubical (cubular? cubist? cubert? cute?) the property cards printed on typing paper and hand-cut with a pair of scissors, the playing pieces which are one step down from a button. But it's all there, and playing will be a blast.

With one little poof of aerosol insecticide in the bathroom this morning before my shower, I murdered exactly 24 mosquitoes. See, you gotta close the door and the windows for about 15 minutes afterwards and then come in and survey the carnage. It's sort of like finishing a level of DOOM--if you're kind of a sissy about bugs. Which I am.

Fever hurl

2005-12-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

Longer-than-usual hiatus from the blogging due to combination fever, cough, turbos---s, and as of now, a plugged ear. Although I shouldn't complain. The second actually helps the third along when you're doing both simultaneously. The only problem is the mess. I've had to clean off my ankles (remember, squat toilets) a couple of times.

Sorry, that was gross. But not as gross as this: I've gotten used to looking at my poo so checking it for worms at the Peace Corps Medical Officer's request has not been a problem.

The overwhelming front-burner item has been the bombings here. Nearly every day there's a new bunch of threats or some bomb someone found or detinated somewhere in the country. They're usually all small bombs, and to call the bombers a rag-tag group would be to call a lynching mob a fully functioning democracy. But the story's long and sad, and to put it briefly the government's too busy bickering to combat the problems of ignorance and poverty that have bred and will continue to breed suicide bombers like these. I'm not scared of getting bombed. The chances are still like a billion to one of getting hurt, because they're not targeting foreigners (yet). I'm scared that Peace Corps will get scared and then we'll have to start all over or worse, just go home. As much as I'd like to take a hot shower, play some video games, and go to the Olive Garden, I really don't want to go.

And if we go, all the Bangladeshis we leave behind have to live with it while we get whisked away to let them figure it out of their own. Several times that jerk in the back of my mind (who rooted for the American swimmer over the Cameroonian), on a bad day, will think, "Screw you people! You can't figure it out, I'm out of here and you can bomb the crap out of yourselves! Y'think we love it here?" Except, to be honest, the language is more colorful in reality. And invariably following that, I slow down and remind myself that this kind of crap is why Peace Corps exists. Then I beat the maidservant and feel better. (I shouldn't have to say this, but that was a joke.)

Goal of saving world may take 5 months instead of 4 1/2.

A German joins the ranks

2005-11-26T01:33:00.000-08:00

Ingo is a German who is now staying at my house (or, my host family's house, if you prefer. And I think you do.)

Ingo was walking downtown, on a stopover from India on his way to the capital city, when who should accost him and demand that he have tea/"gossip"/life-story-exchange, but Shamol, my rather overbearing host brother. Adam receives a call (Adam is at the time in Jessore, a nearby town) on his cell phone.
"Hello."
"Hello, Adam."
"Yes, Shamol, hi. What's up?"
"Oh, fine. I have German man to talk to you."
"What?"
"Ingo is German man, he is visiting Khulna. Staying at my house. He speak with you."
"Um, okay."
--it should be noted that since the advent of mobile technology, Bangladeshis love the things and frequently have short conversations on them. They also tend to put their favorite guests on the phone, impromptu, to talk to their friend or cousin or whatever. I could tangibly feel poor Ingo's awkwardness as Shamol handed him the phone. I've been in his schoonen before and didn't like it.
"Yeah hi?"
"Hi. Ingo?"
"Yeah. Hi."
"Okay so you're visiting Khulna?"
"Yeah. Yeah I'm visiting."
" . . . . . cool."
" . . . . . yeah."
"So . . . . "
"Yeah . . . "
"Hm."
"Yeah."
"You'll be there when I get back?"
"I think so, it sounds like Shamol has invited me to stay at his house."
--great. Probably a mass murderer. Freakin' Germans.
"Cool. Great. I'm sure you're not a mass murderer. I love Germans."
"You didn't really say that to me."
"I know, but I figured it would sound more interesting than the actual conversation."
"Mkay. Dude you're weird."
"I know."
"And you totally stole this literary device from Dave Eggers."
"Dude, shut up!"
"Can I go now?"
"Fine, go."

So last night, as we were conversing, Ingo sez (for real now):
"Yeah, you probably always have to field the question of why people hate America, just like I always have to argue with people about why they love Hitler."
"Yeah, totally, I--wait. What was that?"
"It's true. People in this part of the world (meaning India and Bangladesh), they love Hitler."
"You're kidding."
"No, ask Shamol."
"Shamol. What do you think of Hitler."
"Oh, very fine man. Great Statesman."
(Ingo)"Even though he murdered millions of people."
"Oh yes. Very strong man."
--and I proceed to froth at the mouth and get a little bit out of control in conveying to Shamol that he may have committed a slight error in judgement on this one. Shamol is one of the most reasonable, honorable Bangladeshis I've met--outside of the overbearing thing. It's all about misinformation, really. They're taught this crap, and local newspapers are a bit corrupt.

Dangit. I always end up saying something negative about the country and skimping on the positive. It's addictive, this third-world-country-bashing.

The positive thing is, every person with whom I have exchanged any amount words will have my back in just about any situation. After you've been here for about a year, if someone starts giving you crap, most of the time there's someone you've met (who usually thereby loves you dearly) who will step in and diffuse almost any situation. It's happened before where someone gives a PCV some flak, and as a result gets beaten to a pulp by various in-swooping community members. Not that I want the guy who tried to steal my bag to get beaten to a pulp, but . . . maybe that part of me that smiles smugly when the American swimmer who's already won 47 gold medals beats out the Cameroonian underdog who's been training his whole life for this--that part of me probably does. But he's pretty much a jerk.

short bus

2005-11-19T23:54:00.000-08:00

Today I am 26. I like this better than 20. I like being less insecure and less naive. Don't you?

Boring, skippable paragraph:
If anyone wants to shoot me a phone call, my parents have figured out a way to do it cheaply and reliably. Give them a call at 208 735 5963. Say your name is Chuck and you knew me in college. Or your own name could possibly work too. Unfortunately, it's pain in the rear for me to try and make international calls from here, and almost impossible to get through, so I can't really call people very often if ever. But phone calls are really nice and they make me happy.

24 is SO addictive.

Riding bike in Khulna is so much fun. It's a rush. Naturally, it's not the safest thing in the world and it seems like there are no rules, but there really are, and they're just a lot more intricate. For example, if someone steps out in front of you, you stop. Faster traffic on the right honks like crazy when they're coming up behind you and you on the rickshaws and bikes move over immediately. Ring your bell to tell someone you're coming around them. Ring your bell to tell someone who might not be looking that you are going to plow them over if they don't look in your direction and take the proper evasive maneuvers. Ring your bell to tell someone "hey, I've got a bell." If you want to move over or join the stream of traffic, just gently assert yourself and people will (most of the time) slow down and let you in. If your name is cow, or you are in fact a cow (which is really the same thing), disregard these instructions, and walk where you please. 14% of us worship you and hence, don'tworryit'scool.

I got a call from my parents last night and it was a wonderful thing. Being 26 is way better than being 16, when, as memory serves, my parents were oppressive backward tyrants. Somehow they changed in 10 years. Now it's weird, like I love them or something. Like I'd actually want to stay at their house for another reason than that it's free rent. Like I'd actually ditch my important life plans if they needed me. Crazy.

Western

2005-11-12T04:53:00.000-08:00

A simple guide to affirmatives and negatives in Bangladesh:
Yes = Yes
No = No
Yes = No
No = Yes
Yes = I have no idea
Yes = I'd rather not say
Yes = What did he just say?
No = More rice please, I was only kidding when I said I was full.
No = Please reassure me that I should say yes.
Maybe = Absolutely not. Ever.
Maybe = Geez, will ya look at the time . .
(and in some cases:)No = Please follow me around until I say yes.

Once you get the hang of it, you still have no idea what they are saying, or what you are saying, for that matter. It's actually kind of fun at times. Seriously.

So about being Western: It's a little easier here because the only Westerners they've seen are in the movies--like Arnold Schwartzeneggar or Celine Dion--so about 2/3 of the people figure that I have several M-16's stuff down my trousers and have orgies on a regular basis, but I can't open a can of soda or operate a lock. It's a 24/7 task to slowly disabuse people, one by one, of their preconceived notions. I may be the only American some of them ever see--and sometimes only for 5 seconds, at that.

Coming here I've had this sort of guilty attitude, like the West is the root of all evil--Wal-Mart and McDonalds and Halliburton are killing babies, etc. In a sense they are, but as L. DeVries remarked awhile back, when you're outa the country you start to see a few things that weren't so bad. Though we're a pretty busy culture (in the USA) and the culture here (B'desh) is more about quality time, sometimes it's frustrating to sit around for hours on end, drinking tea, doing nothing more than conversing. While we're not exactly the hardest workers in the world, we get stuff done.

They have shrimp here that gets as long as 10 inches. And you can get a KG of snails for about 13 cents.

Nick VDK and Jess are getting married. They will make beautiful, outdoorsy type babies.

Closing Time

2005-11-05T05:18:00.000-08:00

It's generally agreed upon here that if you drink milk after eating pineapple, you will die. Not making that up.

Eid: The Muslim Christmas, more or less. You get dressed up and go visiting and eating more or less all day. It ends their month of fasting--rather bulimic (sp) holiday, that. Except for the vomiting part. Not at all unlike Christmas time in the states. On Eid morning, there was a large gathering at the local Central-Park-sorta-place. About 5000 Muslim men and boys all in Panjabis (those long robelike things) and tupis (the white muslim hats shaped like the lid for your Brita), praying at the same time. It reminded me of Promise Keepers, except for the Muslim instead of Christian part. It's also customary to kiss the feet of an elder and then allow them to give you some money. People give a lot of money to beggars on Eid. And a friend of mine made out with 540 taka from her host family and friends -- which buys roughly the equivalent of $30 of this and that. I was mad, cuz I got jack.

Then there was the swearing-in weekend in Dhaka. Since we have finished training, we are now real-live Peace Corps Volunteers--after we go to the embassy for a ceremony in which we "swear in." The oath reads as follows: "I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, domestic and foreign, that I take this obligation freely and without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps by working with the people of (country) as partners in friendship and in peace."

. . . Many of us collectively decided to say it with a Texan accent. A thick Texan accent. It put some slightly cynical joy into an otherwise drab and somewhat 1984-ian occasion. But it's cool to be a real volunteer now. No more training; now comes the real thing.

After the ceremony there was, of course, two days of partying, Peace Corps style. Those of you who think that PCV's drink like fish and then do things they later regret are absolutely spot on. All of that pent-up culture shock, lack of physical touch, and alcohol deprivation come thundering out in a liberating and confusing weekend of hookups and hangovers.

The families really do love each other here. I haven't been a particularly model "son" to my host family--I stay out late sometimes and don't converse with them as much as I should--but they're already talking about how much they'll miss me. I fell kind of bad because the fact is . . I won't really miss them that much in return. What a turd. And of course I don't tell them I won't really miss them. Naturally I make something up, do the chicken imitation, and bring the conversation back to their favorite topic: who I'm going to marry, when and how and yes, of course I'll invite you.

A few of you know about my ideas on loving your fellow man: I think it's hard, if not impossible, to truly love selflessly. I'm kind of going off of a passage from a book (brothers karamazov) in which an elder makes a recommendation to a woman struggling with her faith. He tells her that the best way to proceed is to make every effort to actively, selflessly love others--and the point at which she realizes that she is completely unable to do this, that is the point at which she will rediscover her faith. That's a gross simplification, but you get the gist. So I figure here I am, a real volunteer, and it's now or never. I'm going to try and love some of these people, whatever that may mean. I've got no excuses left (my career, schooling, etc.). It's now more or less my JOB to try and do what's best for Bangladesh and not for me. Thus begins the experiment.

In 1 day I leave for Khulna, where I will spend the remaining 24 of these 27 months. Goodbye Gazipur.

NO BIRD FLU! I do not wanna get sent home on account of a bunch of chickens who don't wash their hands before eating and after blowing their noses.

Toot sweets

2005-10-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

So you know that bit where you walk around like a chicken, what with head jerks and all? I've always liked doing that, and I think I could probably make millions of taka here doing the Murgi (chicken). My host family goes into fits of laughter when I do it. But watch a little Bangladeshi TV and you'll see why it's not so hard to be funny here -- Okay, so, Hollywood tends toward cheesy and asinine, right? And Bollywood (India) is copying Hollywood, so it's bound to be even worse. Well, Dhaliwood (Bangladesh) is copying Bollywood. So it's like an imitation of an imitation of something that wasn't any good to begin with.

At about 5:30 every night, Muslim families (which means most families) have Iftar, the meal that finishes off a day of fasting. They're not allowed to eat, drink, smoke, or--for the most conservative--swallow their own saliva (which makes for a lot hocking going on) during the daytime. Come 5:30, they eat all of these delicious fried foods before prayer. Then there's a meal at the regular time of about 9 p.m., and most people then eat again at about 3 a.m. I, however, get to eat during the day. My family doesn't want me to fast, and I don't argue. Most restaurant huts put sheets in front of their entrances to hide the sinful eating that goes on during the day, out of respect for the good Muslims who are fasting correctly. Oh, and speaking of good Muslims, I busted out my camera yesterday and my host ma promptly warned me not to let grandma (who is currently visiting from out of town) see it, because grandma thinks that taking pictures is a sin. Wow.

Address stuff:
Right now, I think that the "safest" way to send packages/letters is the Dhaka address I gave on an earlier post. But, if you're sending something that's not too terribly valuable or it's replaceable, you could try this one, to have it sent directly to me soon-to-be new home in Khulna. I made up a pseudonym for myself so as to keep the packages flying under the radar. Only problem is I'm not 100% positive it will work. It should though . . .
Prodip Roy
c/o Shamol Kumar Roy
Islamia College Road, Choto Boyra,
Thana: Sonadanga, Khulna - 9000
Bangladesh
. . . this one has the potential to get here faster, but it hasn't been tested yet.

Swearing in is only 3 days away. Then we all get dressed up and become real Peace Corps Volunteers.

Anyone out there (like Jack or Matt) who can tell me the best way to link a short video (taken on a personal digital camera) to this blog? I think it's a .mov file, if that helps. I'm pretty clueless here, but a friend and I have been fooling around with his camera and I might be able to show a little bit of what it's like here with all of you cool cats.

Jack and Jasmine are getting married

2005-10-21T01:37:00.000-07:00

Good job, guys.

I have nothing more to say on that topic, except to quote Michael Bolton in saying, "Love is a wonderful thing." For my money, it doesn't get any better.

Back to me and my important life now.

Oh yeah, site visit . . . So much for living in a grass hut living on uncooked rice and roasted dung balls for two years. Turns out Khulna is a pretty cool town. 1.5 million are the official statistics, which of course are grossly low, since people live in each other's back pockets here. Ironic little twist: my host brother in Khulna bought me a shirt to express affection. And it's the kind of shirt that Wrigleyville/townies/preppies would wear. You know, with the diagonal stripes? So eye-catching, those diagonal stripes. If I didn't already have a target on my back that said "steal from me, please," I do now.

Speaking of posters, on the door to my new room at my new host family's place, there's a doozy: It's a little boy in a denim jumper with a hat on sideways. In front of him are the long legs of a woman in a short skirt, presumably facing him, but all we see of her is from the waste down. Our little hero is lifting up the skirt and looking underneath. The caption is, "Seeing is Believing." You can't make this stuff up. Or at least, I didn't.

Americans have considerable influence here. Yesterday I was asked to make an impromptu speech in front of a group of ward leaders at the Khulna City Corporation Slum Development monthly meeting. Naturally, I went on about the benefits of buying an Eclipse rather than a Miata (better pickup in second gear) and how the Lear jet is really underrated (more affordable than most billionaires think). Seriously, though, it's really tempting and easy to think that, because there aren't as many opportunities for intellectual and cultural stimulation here, the Bangladeshis are thus less intelligent or don't have as many ideas about how to improve the world--at least, I've fallen into that trap. And I've been very wrong. A new friend called me out on it, and I felt like a bit of a heel. Because Americans have such a high profile here, it's easy to think that the attention we receive is, in fact, deserved. Of COURSE they all stare at me--I'm smart/intelligent/enlightened. Um, no. While it's true that we've had access to a more developed educational system, there's a fine line to walk, and I have yet to find it.

Met an army colonel and the mayor's nephew. That was cool. Ate an omelette that had a staple in it--which actually wasn't a big deal because we eat a lot of fish here and have become accustomed to reaching inside the ol' mouth and digging out fish bones. So the staple was more or less like just another (metal) fish bone.

Visit Bangladesh!

Saint Anthony

2005-10-13T04:30:00.000-07:00

So this past year I hear we (B'desh) tied with Haiti for the world's most corrupt government. Pop the Kriss, man! That's a step up from holding the honor solely for the past several years. Funnily, there's an organization called the anti-corruption agency -- you guessed it: it's the most corrupt agency in the entire government. Let's just say the palm greasing goes on in more ways than one. But then again, last time there was a cyclone here and they had to stuff 7000 people into facilities built for 1000, there wasn't any looting and rioting, like in New Orleans. Yesterday, in a conversation with a friend, we decided that were it not for the constant stares and overabundance of attention we receive here, we'd choose to live in Bangladesh over one of those monotonous USA suburbs.

Smacked a cow with a deftly hit ball during cricket the other day. Ground rule four runs. Unless the cow is killed. Then you die.

The ludicrousness of the requirements imposed on the Peace Corps' training regimen reached a new high yesterday: We had a seminar about a seminar. Yes, we were instructed what the supervisor's conference on Saturday will entail, using bullet points and small-group discussion. It's quite funny, actually. As a friend put it, it's like sitting outside the Library of Congress while someone tries to explain assorted classic novels using a power-point presentation. Apparently it's like this everywhere on Peace Corps.

Went to some students' home for lunch yesterday. As always, mountains of food come from lord knows where, and literally the ONLY way to keep them from putting way too much on your plate is to physically cover it like you're saving your buddy from a grenade. And it's not impolite. I quite enjoy it actually. They take the spoon, dig for about a half pound of rice or curry or whatever, and bring it towards your plate. You duck and cover and go "Na! Na! Aro Na! Amar pet bhore gechhe!" which means "rubber chicken purple monkey! I am forty-seven cheese!" (or something like that) and you hold it there while they try to penetrate your fortress of arm and shoulder with spoon of food. If you don't cover the whole plate, they may sneak it in through one of the holes. Really good food, though. People are really, REALLY nice when they wanna be.

Tabil = Table
ChEr = Chair

I now fully understand every aspect of Bangladeshi culture

2005-10-07T01:16:00.000-07:00

Hey, thanks to people for posting. It really does pick my day up to check the ol' blog and see that people have said stuff. I feel like it's a good idea to adapt to this culture without completely letting go of American culture, so as to . . you know, not . . be . . screwy. Cut down on the reverse culture shock maybe.

So. Here's something. Pre-service training is kind of a drag, as any PCV will tell you. It's a lot of dumb seminars that could have been summed up in 10 minutes instead of 3 hours with multiple flip-chart diagrams and small group discussion. SO, for the talent show a few friends and I reworked some scenes from Office Space and fit them to our needs. Brought the house down. That felt good. And it was the right decision to play Ron Livingston instead of trying to do all the super-funny characters. I'm a consummate straight man. I see that now. It took all of this personal growth (gag) for me to reach this (temporary) epiphany.

There was a soccer game between some PCV's who are better at soccer than I and some Bangladeshis -- some of whom play professionally. It was organized complete with advertising (people with a loudspeaker driving around in a rickshaw talking it up -- hilarious) and uniforms. End score was 2-1 to the short guys (B'deshis) but the fun part was the people in attendance: there were riot police. Not that there was a riot, but there were riot police. With big guns. It's weird; in some ways you're way safer here than, say, Chicago, yet somewhere deep inside there's a little dude going "WTF . . get me out of here . . " I pat him on the imaginary head and give him a graham cracker.

During Ramjan (Ramadan - Muslim holy month of fasting), which is now, the Bangladeshis don't eat during the day, and then generally eat pretty good at night. The idea Mohammed had was for people to remember what it's like to be poor. Correspondingly, people give more to the poor during this time. They usually get up at 3 to eat again so they don't go nuts. Some people sleep more during the day. The intent is not to do that and not to eat at 3, but then again who's never slacked off on going to Mass or titheing properly? Way too many people just think Islam is messed up beyond all recognition. The framework of the religion actually does make sense, of course. Even the burkas (the black circus tents some women have to wear that show only their eyes) can make sense. The trick, I think is to decide where to "understand" and where to leave room to criticize. I think we all know that organized Christianity can at times leave something to be desired, like any organization at all, and without room to criticize human dogma, we'd have fascist religion. So naturally, in my humble O, organized Islam's gotta have flaws too. So what to accept and what not to accept . . .

Hey, does anyone want to know anything specific? I guess some people have already asked some questions and I've answered, so that's cool. But I don't wanna just prattle on for my own benefit. I guess it would be nice if other people would post and tell about their lives, but that seems to be asking a bit much for a blog, sort of like asking the world to come to me. So what's a good blog supposed to be like? Should I do shorter posts? Any suggestions?

Shiddi = staircase.

2 years

2005-10-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

Khulna.

Site announcements were two days ago, and my site is Khulna. This is a city in the southwestern part of the country. Two years. Wow.

Pros: art college, close to Sundarbans (natural foresty pretty part of the 'Desh), good DYD (the place where I'll be teaching classes), good site mate (Ann. She's a stud.)
Cons: BIG CITY (grrr), site mate period (wanted to be alone), technology (wanted to rough it a bit more)

Sorry. Boring post today. Let's see . . . quick blitzkrieg of interesting things: I wash my clothes naked (who doesn't), the neighbor kid peed on my shoes, I walk through a (newly formed) pond on my way to work every day because of the rains, and my host father still shouts when he talks because he thinks it's easier to understand him if he shouts. It's not.

Bhalobasha = Love

oo-att is yor name?

2005-09-24T04:01:00.000-07:00

I'm so dumb for not thinking of this sooner: Type the blog post in Word while you're waiting for the sites to load and THEN copy and paste.

Finally went to Dhaka (the capital city) for a day and a half. Dhaka is the place where volunteers go to hang out, have American fun, buy stuff they need/want/crave, and occasionally engage in some form of debauchery. There is a Pizza Hut and a few other restaurants in that vein, and never have I tasted anything so wonderful as this. Believe it or not, rice 3X a day can get old. There was also a real live party quite similar to the ones back at home. This one was at the Marine House, which means it was Marines and Peace Corps volunteers (throw in a few Bangladeshi prostitutes and some weirdo ex-pats). It was great to crack a few beers again and play a little air hockey.

Getting very people-d out, I am. Answering the same 12 questions 20 times a day was novel for about a day and a half. It's actually quite arresting, the lack of originality of the questions you'll get. Just once, I want someone to ask:

"So whadja think of Sideways? Me, I saw it twice. Thought it was great, Paul Giamatti always cracks me up. And that other chick who's now on Gray's Anatomy, what's her name . . . ? She was good too. Not in my top ten, but one of the best of last year I think. Made me not want to drink Merlot -- oh, hey, by the way, did you hear that movie caused a measurable decline in Merlot sales? Yeah, some people must have been pissed. I would have been. So are you going on Friday? Yeah, I'm gonna try, some of my other friends want me to go to this housewarming, but I'll probably duck outa that as soon as I can . . . so I'll probably see you there. Yeah . . this is my stop, see you later!"

instead of:

"Watt is yor contree?"

Is that so much to ask?

-Yes.

Crap.

But it's all good; I'll lock myself in my room for an afternoon here one of these days and I'll be right as rain again. I don't mean to complain. Complaining is kind of a way of life for PCV's around here. And there's a fine line between letting off a little steam about a culture that you're committed to loving for the next two years, and just plain bitching. I'm trying to keep from the latter, but it does come in abundant supply. Positivity. The problem that I am attempting to remedy (and advice on which I am desirous of) is how to have the ENERGY to want to talk to all of these people on a day. I feel like such a jerk when I hear some little kids going "HI!" or "HOW ARE YOO!?" and I don't even feel like raising my head to say hello. Not that I'm an extremely bad person, but I have noticed other volunteers who can pull this off much better than I can. They stop, smile, talk in crappy Bangla, spend an extra 5 minutes -- and they do this like 15 times a day. I've usually got 2 or 3 in me. So I'm trying to work up to 15.

Baby steps.

Anyone got any thoughts on the hurricanes? I'm curious to know what discussions are going on.

Devendra Banhart

2005-09-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

Just started listening to this person on my iPod. Cool folky stuff. Also interesting to note -- about 4 out of 5 of the Peace Corps volunteers here have an iPod. Somehow, when the Bangladeshis pull out the "You are rich man" bizniss, I can't really argue with them.

Model school today. That means a little class of about 15 to help us get our feet wet teaching. It's a hard thing to do, of course, but it's not so hard on the self-esteem: they treat us like we're Avril Lavigne.

But the bigger issue lately has been surviving versus thriving. One volunteer recently ET'd (early termination'd), which brings the number to 3. Last year's group has lost 16. Suffice to say it's hard for Americans here, especially women. And a lot of the ones who haven't ET'd are really negative about Bangladesh, sort of as a coping mechanism. My goal has been to maintain an even keel, not getting too excited or too down about anything. The hardest thing lately has been the balance b/w personal (alone) time and actually engaging the culture. Some volunteers here are good at continually engaging and making friends. I just want to go back to my room so I can be alone. It's hard to know when to push yourself to do better and when to give yourself a break. Will I be best off driving myself insane and then growing from it into a new person, or should I gradually try to take on more, while gingerly taking care of my sanity?

Hi Corinne. Hi Luke. Thanks for posting. For the record, it's definitely a bright spot in one's day to open up the blog and find that people have posted stuff. On the computers here you can accomplish in about 1 hour what you could previously have done in 15 minutes in the States. Notice my new Links section. Took me about 1 1/2 hours just for the ones I put there.

Do you have any idea how much rice a person can eat when that's the main staple? Picture a mound the size of the top of a basketball that's been eviscerated Hannibal Lecter style. Now picture a little bit extra. There you go.

I hear Delta and Northwest went bankrupt. That stinks for them. Glad I'm here where I don't have to deal with the repercussions of THAT.

Theme song runner-up

2005-09-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

The Sounds: Living in America. Can't resist. It's so durn catchy. And the lyrics are, like, so totally fitting. Y'know?

There is a poster on the wall behind me. Now, there is a small assortment of "inspirational" posters in Bangladesh, which feature some kind of postcardy kind of scenery and a proverb in English whose translation may or may not be correct. Some are simple, like "You must try hard" or something. But others are actually quite insightful, though I doubt the average English-speaking Bangladeshi understands them fully. SO, the one behind me: A picturesque nature scene, with a marshy pond, trees, and rocky mountains in the background. Nice. Coffee-table book nice. The saying on the bottom, in modest, red letters, is "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow." The poster is old, with a portion of the lower left side torn away, the edges curling, and extra tape here and there.

Your daily dose of semi-heartrending irony. I think I might offer the guy a few dozen taka for it. What's also interesting is that I first noticed it while reading an e-mail from Jason VandeBrake, who played Macbeth in Dordt's most recent production of Macbeth (from whence the quote is taken) -- my first college play.

Um, this next part is boring, so skip it if you're not planning on sending any packages (so read it): Since this is indeed one of the most corrupt countries in the world, it can take 4-5 months for packages to arrive, and sometimes they don't arrive at all (letters are faster, usually within 3 weeks). Most of the time they will have been opened, and sometimes stuff is taken out. So, a few guidelines for sending me stuff: 1) Wrap everything in TONS of duct tape. Make it a pain for anyone to find out what it is. 2) Leave a little peace offering on the top -- gum, cigarettes, pens, etc. That way they can quick grab it and leave the rest of the stuff alone. 3) Smaller packages, like in a padded envelope, arrive fastest. 4) DHL and FedEx are more expensive than USPS, and just slightly more secure. 5) Don't send electronics, or at least don't write it down that you are on the little form. I pay HUGE duties on that kind of stuff. There are other ways to get it here not via mail. 6) Include a little list of what you sent, so I can know if anything was taken. Not that I have any recourse if anything is, but at least I can thank you on behalf of Imran the corrupt shipping clerk for the new Schick Tracer.

Recently had my first case of explosive diarrhea. I'll spare you the details, but I have noticed that the Bangladeshi way of cleansing one's posterior does make it easier to get it really clean. You're at a better angle and toilet paper just doesn't quite get the job done. Actually, that squatting position is one they use a lot. You'll often see people just hanging out that way; it's pretty comfy for them.

I'm playing with fire here, b/c the power usually goes out right around this time of night. So I'm going to publish this muthah and get on out.

Munshigonj

2005-08-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

That's where I am right now--it's a town a couple of hours away from where I'm currently living. I'm visiting another PC volunteer, as part of training. I'm here for 4 days seeing what he does and doesn't do in his town.

On the back of a lighter I just bought for lighting candles, the warning label says (verbatim):

Announcements:
1. Keep from the childs play with fire.
2. The product is under dox, Keep from hight temperture.
3. Exurpale the fire ofter use. Don't take as fire in use and when you might be used up the gas.
4. Couldn't aftercontlution the product.
Made in Myanmar

. . . They were right. I tried aftercontlutioning the product myself - no dice. I tried burping and exhaling while impaling myself in compliance with rule #3, but after several tries and perforated gall bladder, I gave that up too.

By the way, for anyone curious, the loquacious MJ is Michael, a friend from Improv Olympic in Chicago. He's crazy (in that he's written speeches for Tipper Gore, lives in New York and works in LA, and has a thick Korean accent).

So apparently an essential part of a PCV's day is having tea about 6 or 7 times with various people from the community. It's part of your job. People want to have tea with you sort of like they want a turn with the bowling trophy. They all ask the same 5 questions and are always really excited to see you. But I can also see how this country will grate on a person of Western descent. People stare constantly. Sure, it's a novelty for about 3 days. But after months and years of this, I guess it becomes hard to take. The PCV I visit often copes by making snide comments in quick, American English to sort of let off steam. E.g.: After the 87th time yesterday of being called "ali baba" (which in that context means a rich person who got rich through ill means), or being asked who the President is even though they all know the answer and know that he knows the answer, he'd let off with something like, "Yeah, you're an idiot" and walk away. Naturally, there's harassment and some inherent danger too; some PCV's leave (Early Termination, or ET), and some end up spending a big amount of their time locked in their apartments. I'm trying to slowly build up my tolerance for stares and annoying people and lack of privacy.

The computers here are super-slow, by the way. I get an hour to do whatever, and lots of times that's not enough time to do much. So be patient with me. I'm a tender little flower.

For crying out loud, they don't even speak ENGLISH!

2005-08-22T05:27:00.000-07:00

Due to the flood of letters and calls that I should have received, I feel compelled to let you all know that I have not been blown up in the recent bombings here in Bangladesh. The bombs were small, handheld things deployed by a Muslim group and were a political statement. Some of them had leaflets which they scattered. I think 2 people died, which actually probably means that no one was supposed to die. So it's not a huge deal for us.

Now the malaria medication. Now that's a trip. It gives you these vivid dreams that don't quit. Last night I was Brad Pitt in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Glad to see I'm acclimating to the new environment. They also have 4 ways to say the letter "T", all of which can be easily confused with the 4 ways to say the letter "D".

Everything has cumin in it here. I actually just had a cookie with cumin in it. But the food is actually quite good. You have rice with every meal, of course, and when no one's looking I use my left hand. It's also somewhat unnerving the way people watch you eat. As a white person you're a celebrity, and so they feed you and then watch you eat. Last night an "uncle" of some sort literally leaned over me with his head about 5 inches from mine during my entire meal. They also comment about how bad I suck at using my hand while eating. They think I can't hear them. And I can't. BUT sometimes I can. And it hurts. No, it doesn't.

My host family always asks if I miss my family. Here, you always stay with your family and you cry if they're apart from you for like a week. I guess that's a good thing.

I now officially hate the expression "cultural differences." Hate it. Hhhhhaaaaate it. Can't tell you how much I hate it.

Must go now.

Day 6

2005-08-16T04:37:00.001-07:00

Okay, so.

For anyone who was wondering, yes. There is a guy in the computer stall next to me who is committing a certain self-fulfilling deed, with the help of his computer.

And here I am. It really is like the National Geographic pictures. Bangladesh! Crazy, wonderful, sad, etc. Yes, I've gone off of toilet paper (not by choice) and eat with my hand. Just the right hand, cuz ya wipe with the left one. I'm learning the Bangla language every day and trying to soak up the culture.

For the next 3 months it's training, then we go out to our real assigned posts. I live with a host family of a mother (who insists that I call her mother, LIKE YA DO), father, and son. They all stare at me while I eat. It's fantastic. It really is like being a rock star here. Of course, there's the extreme poverty and harassment and dangers of being an American in a Muslim culture and there's a rat living under my bed and my hand smells like poo, but to me that sounds a bit like Cat Stevens meets Jim Morrison meets the guys from Def Leppard (thank you, VH1).

Looks like I'll have a lot of room to do theatre stuff in my town, once I go there. I'm stoked about that. Sounds like I can start a theatre group and watch local theatre all the time. They love the theatre. Granted, it's off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off the coast of Broadway in a rubber dingy, but I think Peter Brook would probably be salivating over some of the stuff I'll get to see. Maybe. Maybe not salivating; he was a pretty clean guy.

One of the PC Volunteers is living with a host family who supports 9/11, ideologically. Spooky. Less than cool. But so goes it.

Time to go buy index cards and sign some autographs.

Theme song

2005-08-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

I've have decided that my theme song is Interpol's "Next Exit" from the Antics album. I was on the plane swooping down into Bangladesh, my nose pressed up against the glass and wondering what the crap I was doing, and that song was my money song. Thank you iPod.

This is day 2. We're still at the hotel in Dhaka (3 stars. Yup. They're cushioning us.). Forthcoming: about 7 shots. For starters. Also: cell phone. They give us all cell phones, and apparently they're even pretty nice. AND! We get free incoming calls, even international. So, I won't be so isolated from you all as once thought. However, it might be limited minutes and it'll probably be really expensive. Phone number will be posted as soon as I can post it.

Each and every one of the speakers and instructors that have been talking to us takes great pains to use phrases like: " . . . despite the frustrations you'll encounter . . . " and " . . . sure, you'll have bad days--it'll be a tough couple of years, but . . . " It's like people think that they can sort of lessen the bad stuff by making SURE we all know how "tough" and "challenging" and "rewarding" it's going to be. I guess I should be thankful that they're not lying to us.

Tomorrow we go out to the host families, in a village about an hour outside of Dhaka (the capital city). Then, for three months, we take classes about learning the language, staying safe and sane, and how to teach English. Everything is a barrage of stimuli. And they really do sound like Apu.

Time to go

2005-08-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

So I wake up Wednesday morning to my brother (who is visiting at the time) handing me the phone. On the other end is Danielle, dental liaison for the Peace Corps. She tells me, "Hey, I was noticing that you leave on the 6th (Saturday) and we still ain't got yo' dental packet yet."

Adam freaks out.

You see, this was supposed to have arrived weeks ago via priority mail. It's a long story, but more or less I can't go to my assignment without their having received this packet, approved it, and sent the word along to the proper department to issue my plane ticket. Naturally, I've got copies of the pertinent information, but much freaking out was nonetheless in order.

A regular-sized FedEx envelope costs precisely $21.52 to get to D.C. overnight, by 10:30 the next morning. To get it there by 7 costs about $49. 10:30 it is (was). Obstacle overcome.

I wish I was more excited to go. I'm more apprehensive than excited right now. Relatively afraid. Like I've made a string of wrong decisions from whether or not to bring a laptop (decided against, kicking self now after seeing TONS of extra room and weight to spare in suitcase) to whether or not to even accept the invitation to Bangladesh rather than waiting for another one (overcrowded, mosquitos, corruption . . )

A friend recently observed something like this: "Whatever it is you're looking for [Adam], you're probably going to need to go through some pain for it." I think he was implying that I'm sort of looking for pain. Which is probably true. A little dramatic, perhaps? A little bit naive? A little bit of flawed logic? Individualistic, narcissistic? Not that the Peace Corps is the most painful thing a person could do, but it could suck. Part of me is hoping it does. Weird.

For what it's worth, my address for the next 3 months will be:
Peace Corps Bangladesh
House #10F, Road 82
Gulshan 2, Dhaka,
Bangladesh

and the best way to e-mail is arbutus1440@yahoo.com

Even though it was like 2 months ago, congrats to Matt and Brielle on deciding to shack up together permanently in a marital fashion. Happiness.

Link for family and my freaking mouth

2005-07-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

Officially going insane now, for anyone keeping track. Logistical nightmare, this Peace Corps. Powers of attorney, new supplies, moisture-absorbent packets, 220-volt converters, luggage requirements, where's all my crap gonna go, gifts for host family, bank accounts, taxes . . . Gah.

Mouth still numb from wisdom teeth surgery, a week ago. Doc says I could have this numb spot (no feeling in left lower lip down to chin) for a couple of MONTHS. Huh? For a couple of pulled teeth? Yes. And the video I had to watch before the surgery warned me, too. In fact, at the bottom of the "Possible Risk Factors" was the bullet, "potentially fatal." If I die before my time, I want it to be covering up a grenade to save my buddies in the trenches or standing in front of a tank in Tiannennimumish Square (uh, SP?), not from getting teeth pulled.

Oh yeah, the link. This is mainly for family members of Peace Corps volunteers.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCFamilyandFriends/

It's a message board group for y'all. Something to keep filed away for a rainy day.

T minus 10 days until departure.

Your blogs!

2005-07-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

Naturally, now that I've sold my soul to the blog world, I need to know where your blogs are found as well. A few of them I already know, but post them anyway. That way I and anyone else who checks here can find them easily.

Oh, and if anyone out there has a line on a used laptop that you or someone you love is looking to sell or unload, I am in the market. Apparently it's nice to have a laptop in the Desh.

Mundane details: I only cried a tiny bit in the airport. I think it was all the buildup. You can't really plan to cry. Well, I can't anyway. Right now I'm at home and my face is the size of an ice chest because I just had my wisdom teeth removed. No solid foods, so yesterday I made a smoothie with milk, ice, peach yoghurt, peanut butter, carrots, spinach, and orange juice. It was actually really good. I recommend it.

GIVE ME YOUR BLOG ADDRESS!

Post #1: Rhode Island

2005-07-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

This one will be boring because I'm just starting this blog. Expect dazzling prose and compelling literary wizardry after I get done with this one.

Thought #1: Blogs can get tedious if the person is telling you too much. Like why the guy who sold him the dental floss was rude and gave him the wrong change and then he had a bagel for lunch but with extra cream cheese this time and how that makes him think about how he's thinking about getting a cat and what a good name for a cat might be and -- then you're asleep at your computer. I'll try not to do that.

Thought #2: If you feel like posting a reply of any sort to anything I write please do. (Unless you're some jerk who just happened by this blog because it's on a blogging website and you want to make a pain in the butt of yourself by posting stuff like "Adam eats boogers." Then don't do it. You suck and should die.) Even if it's really short. Just say something.

Okay, now the boring stuff: I'm in Rhode Island now, visiting Sophia, my girlfriend/quasi-girlfriend/"friend"/ho (OMG, JK). She's short and gentle and artsy and way pretty. And I have to say goodbye to her tomorrow, for 2+ years. I think crying in the airport is great. And I plan on doing it. Even on the plane. People are too stoic and lifeless in public places. I plan on crying and blowing my nose on whomever I please. Tomorrow I fly back to Chicago, then it's a long trip back to Idaho for a few weeks while I shack up with my folks and prepare to leave for Bangladesh. I have to get my wisdom teeth out in about 4 days. Snap.

I leave for the 'Desh on the 6th of August, for those of you interested in mundane details. I'll be living for 3 months with a host family, learning the language and how to teach English to Bangladeshis. Then, they'll send me to site where I'll do just that for 2 years. There I'll live with another host family for 3 months and after that I'll find my own apartment. If all goes well, I'll be back in the USA right around my birthday (Nov. 19) in 2007. 2007!!! Holy cow.

One last thing: I have a lot of doubts about the decision I made to go to Bangladesh. As you'll find out if you read more posts after this, it's a really, REALLY hard country for us Americans to live in. Just stressful, I'm told. People are packed in like sardines and they're poor as all-get-out and they're all up in your business whenever you're in public and the climate is crazy hot and muggy and it's Muslim and (insert further complaints and prognostications). But, while I'm scared, I'm feeling like "this is it." This is what I'm supposed to be doing right now. I'm supposed to go somewhere scary. And be uncomfortable. And suffer a little. And get out of America for awhile. And try to learn how to not be so selfish and individualistic.

So, I guess on that note I should shut up for now.

Isn't pizza the best invention since sunless tanning? I'm going to go eat some and be happy. Or try to.