Despite being well versed, hell- down right prolific, in both the art and execution of farewells; they wear on me. Not simply the act of saying goodbye – but the brief intervals between the ends…the end of the job or travel that has occupied my time for a eight months or two years and the next employment distraction.
In between I find myself in a whirlwind of catching up and “do I still fit?”. It is in these moments of brief reentry into a world I am at once a part of and apart from that I am reminded how much my presence in the world is – as my dad likens everyone’s effect – a hand pulled out of a bucket of water. The surface is disturbed briefly, but the calm returns. The normal. Without me.
People get married. They have children. They move. They take vacations.
There are those who embrace me wholly upon my return. Gather me into the folds of their life and remind me that there is still a place set at the table, a pillow on bed or couch that has my name on it. But there are also the calls that never happen. Well meaning intentions that fall away to the more pressing, the more consistently present parts of life.
The reality is that even if I were always here instead of courting airports like most people court lovers, relationships still change. long spontaneous dinners followed by late night dancing are replaced with Chic-fil-a and clapping as junior tumbles through the indoor playground; and budding careers that end the week with a Friday happy hour boss detox bloom into being the boss others detox from.
I get it.
Still, I find myself retreating into myself in the brevity between my endings and beginnings. As my suitcase waits patiently (only partially packed) in the middle of my sister’s living room, as people call or email farewells, as five weeks dwindles to five days and I prepare to make a life elsewhere while watching this one from a distance, I find myself intent on sitting quietly where a few weeks earlier I was raring to see, visit, reconnect.
It isn’t about regret. I don’t regret my frequent flyer miles or beautifully random path of people I’ve encountered – continue to encounter – along my sometimes sporadic way. but that doesn’t mean I don’t lament the weddings, spontaneous dinners, random festivals, or comfortable silences my less frenzied life offers. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss the people who in my mind are constants in my life – if only in the context of home as country and nostalgia as roots.
One day I’ll be still. Maybe. Succumb to the comforting notion of a place that doesn’t have to welcome me back because I never really leave it.
I’m not opposed to the concept. I look forward to home as location and not the abstraction it has been for most of my life. But that time isn’t now. Right now is at least one more “goodbye”. One more “hello”. One more leap of faith that those that love me here and now will love me when I return.
June 17, 2010
Brussels – Chicago – Dallas
The self-check in denied me twice. The attendant, polite and dare I say pleasant, ushered me to the front of the sprawling line and assured me it would be taken care of. She was wrong.
As it turns out, someone at Peace Corps or SATO (the government travel agency) canceled my ticket. Um yeah.
It was barely 8am and I wouldn’t have been checking in this early at all if I hadn’t met BushDiva to retrieve our stored luggage. But there I was, with a wild grin, suppressing mania disguised as laughter.
I was directed to the help counter where I was initially hung up on by a SATO attendant and then successfully relayed my story to a man who was kind enough to share his confusion at the “why” of my situation but happy to see what he could do about it. At this point it had to be about 3am in DC and he was forced to make phone calls to authorize the reissue of my ticket. He wasn’t too optimistic but he told me to hold on and he’d try.
God was smiling this morning because the first call he made was successful and 10 minutes later I had a ticket in hand and my luggage checked. First crisis of the day averted.
After breakfast I wandered to my gate and slowed my pace as I passed a gentleman waiting at one of the gates. I thought I knew him – so out of place in the middle of Brussels – but he didn’t seem to recognize me so I kept walking. But I wasn’t wrong, and a few minutes later, this recently met blast from Liberia, tapped me on the shoulder and we chatted a little about how small the world is and respective places in it.
The flight –interminable as it was – was uneventful.
We landed and as usual I sprinted toward my next destination – eager to beat the crush that was sure to follow me to customs. Thinking maybe I could have kept my earlier connection to DFW if things continued this smoothly.
The only other person to forego the escalator for stairs was a gogo (African grandmother) struggling with too many bags and a bum leg. I slowed down and offered her a hand with her bags. When she made it down we put her on one of those motorized cars that race through airports – the driver insisting I ride too- to drop us at customs. At this point, everyone is assuming she is my mother or grandmother (at least in part because I continue to call her “ma” a habit from Liberia when addressing older women).
We made it through the first customs station and headed for luggage pickup. my bags appeared and I settled them beside me as we waited for her to emerge. Eventually they did – heavy as a body – and I heaved them up on a cart and we headed for the exit. By this point she was calling me her daughter and was eager to introduce me to her children who would be waiting outside.
It was not to be. She had to stop over in some cordoned off area that did not concern me. On my way toward my connecting flight I stuck my head in and bid her farewell – a little teary for no particular reason, certain that the extra time I’d requested when my ticket was first issued was so that I could help my Cameroonian gogo get where she was going a little easier.
Walking through the doors I looked around at all the waiting and expectant faces, trying to pick out her family. I think I spotted them, a few grown-ups with a gaggle of kids waiting for…my guess, their gogo.
But dallas called. And so I ventured into O’hare’s airport to wait for my connecting flight. Home is but a few hours away now…and I’m tired.
Tags: transition, travel
June 16, 2010
Naples/Milan, Italy – Brussels, Belgium
It wasn’t there. I was one of the first people to the luggage carousel. I’m not sure why, when I rush I only succeed in waiting and watching as the conveyor goes around instead of people watching as I mosey through the gates. Still, I rushed. And when I arrived there were only a few pieces going around. The little monitor stopped flashing and indicated the luggage for my flight was finished.
Katze approached smiling. He spotted his red bag, retrieved it, and then offered words of encouragement to me.
I met Katze in the Milan airport – my connection out of Naples to Brussels. It was about a three hour layover, not long enough to do anything but too long to sit there. After about an hour I leaned over to ask if he spoke English. When he responded in the affirmative I asked what Obama was saying about the oil spill.
Only katze doesn’t speak Italian because he is from Belgium (French, Flemish, and English he speaks minds you). Both of us bored, we started a tentative conversation – each weighing how open the other was to a more extensive conversation.
And so it was. We began with our time in Italy, moved to travel in general, to work.
On the plane our seats weren’t together so I didn’t see him when I disembarked and jetted for my luggage. I was rushing partly because I hadn’t secured lodging for the night and I really really wanted to eat something delicious.
Still, katze found me sitting there. And when the last shreds of optimism were dissolved by harsh reality, he followed me to the baggage counter – complete with sympathetic face.
I provided all the necessary information. Indicated what type of bag -rucksack/packpack- color – obnoxious orange you can’t miss. The lady behind the counter asked for my contact information. All I had was my folk’s address in Houston (I couldn’t seem to recall my sister’s in heath). The woman smiled and assured me they would send it along to Houston as soon as it was found.
“excuse me?”
“why? Do you need it now?” she asked quite surprised.
The thing is…I do. My mom has always told me to pack a spare set of clothes in my cary on…at the very least, underwear. But no…not today. Today I left Italy, poorly dressed in thin shorts and carrying a sweater in case of chill. And so the absence of my bag was more than inconvenience.
The woman busily and politely printed paperwork. Katze continued to speak words of encouragement and I found myself trying to work through the next 12 or so hours. “where do I come tomorrow?” I asked. She handed me the paperwork and explained I could check at this same counter, and if it wasn’t there it would be sent directly. The thing is, even if they had found it, the last delivery was a half hour from then so there was no way for me to get it.
“do you know where it is?” I asked. Katze shook his head encouragingly. The woman began typing and reading and then her face lit up.
“it is here! It came on an earlier flight,” and so it was. She wandered into a storage room and emerged with my bag. Never such a welcome sight…never so happy to see orange.
Katze and I continued upstairs. Ever the good travel companion, he took time away from the hour commute he still had before him to make sure I at least had a map and some possible places to stay.
We finally parted ways and I strode (ok maybe I hobbled given the load I was carrying) to the train station conveniently located in the airport. I do love Europe’s affinity for reliable and clean public transportation.
I managed the train, found myself in precisely the area Katze had warned me against, and got myself settled into a hostel – feeling entirely too old to be there as I eyed groups of folks clustered around tables, drinking, laughing, and flirting amongst themselves.
It is only for a night I remind myself, although I could hear lizzie’s voice in my head, “I’m too old to share a bathroom- I just am,” she reiterated every time we changed hotels in Italy. starved, I didn’t ponder too long and so I descended into the metro and found a local restaurant that had been recommended.
Crowded with folks drinking and eating, I ordered sausages with mashed leaks and potatoes and gravy at my watier’s suggestion. Oh yeah, and either a kriek or a lambic (I’m not quite sure of the difference but it was a mort subite extreme). Not a beer person, something Belgium is known for, I do love sweet and lambics, also a pride of Belgium, so I indulged. Unfortunately, no waffles to be found (although the bartender offered his own kitchen as the best place, only he didn’t end his shift until 1am…pity) so I headed home – afraid I’d be caught in the questionable part of town when night fell.
Silly me. Silly silly naïve me.
I’d become accustomed to the late summer nights in Italy. it would be close to 9pm before the sun relinquished its hold on the day. And so as I hustled home I gauged the time to be about 9. I’d been in transit most of the day and so logic didn’t gel properly or I would have realized that I had left the hostel around 9pm.
Sun still above the horizon, although seeming inclined to cross it in the near future, I walked back into the hostel and recalled lizzie’s voice again. And I am…I am too old to share a room with 10 other people. At least I am when I’ve been traveling for more than a month and I have to be up at the crack of dawn with no alarm clock to speak of. So I got a refund and headed back into the light of day, ducking into the metro to try out a hotel near the airport that Katze had mentioned. The book was wrong. After missing the last free shuttle to the Etap (€15) I discovered the room (a box with a shower and toilet – no phone and no frills) was actually €65. The place across the street was €45 but that place had a shared bathroom on each floor – for that i could have stayed at the hostel.
Part of me is seething inside. My inner frugality coming up against my old age…some things I’m just not in the mood for anymore. Ultimately it was money well spent. After a hot shower I settled into bed and watched American tv shows dubbed in Italian.
June 15, 2010
Napoli, Italy
I woke up in the wee hours of the morning not feeling right. Sick is too harsh a phrase but not exactly wrong. And so I never ventured down to breakfast (the thing that, besides the great panaromic view of positano and the sprawling ocean, I love best about our hotel). The thought of it was enough to make me nauseated. And so I lay, first in the bed, and later in a patch of sun on the tile floor…waiting for the inevitable.
We had to check out. Today was prelude to travel. Actually, the next two days are prelude to travel followed by the big day…my brief return stateside.
Lizzie and shana followed me to naples –but their flights are out of rome and so this afternoon, after our slow and meandering transportation north, we hugged and joked, and said goodbye again. After 10 years it is quite the habit for us.
Still not well, I fell asleep in my bed, vaguely aware that too much sleep would make tonight difficult and long.
I ventured out before it got too late – naples has a reputation. Well earned I learned tonight when the two aussies and two kiwis I met earlier in the day returned to the hostel with a tale of woe. Someone rode up on the sidewalk on a scooter – just as the caretaker had warned me earlier that day – and snatched one of their purses. Everyone was ok. They were a little stunned and a lot bummed, but all things considered, they knew it could have been much worse.
Tomorrow I’m off to Brussels…not long enough to really do anything at all but be in transit but then, transit is my constant.
Tags: italy, transition, travel
June 14, 2010
Amalfi, Italy
It was the meal I’d dreamed about when I dreamed of Italy. Beginning with a conversation in italian that I didn’t understand between our host and the restrauntuer. it was finally decided that the owner should prepare whatever she wanted. And so we waited, sipping peach sangria (made from local wine and peaches) and chatting about amalfi and travel, life and love.
The antipasto appeared first. I was gazing, unfocused at the dark beach that surrounded us – the gentle lullaby of waves lapping against the swaying pier competing with the piano and voice accompaniment drifting down from one of the hotels precariously hugging the cliff’s edge. Fish, octopus, shrimp, clams, mussels, and lemon wedges appeared on plates set before us, and fried zucchini blossoms and bruchetta on a platter in the middle of the table. The seafood- caught that morning- tasted like the cool clear azure colored ocean all around us.
Next came our first course…handmade gnocchi with mussels and clams in a mild and silken tomato sauce. Nowhere near a marinara sauce, this was a delicate bridge between the firm potato dumplings and the sea.
The second course greeted us – a thin slice of swordfish sharing space with skewered shrimp and lemon wedges whose size more closely resembled grapefruit wedges.
At this point even I was losing steam…but i pushed through to desert –a small cake infused with lemon and covered in lemon cream. After all, this area is known for its lemons…from Sorrento and on around. The others sipped Italian coffee, espresso served in clear shot glasses, drunk hot sweet and fast. i contemplated the randomness that brought us to that secluded beach.
Shana, watching the kyak polo game from the concrete pier, was distracted by two men fishing for octopus in the harbor. After a short exchange, adreas invited her (and by default, us) to watch Italy play Paraguay at his bar. The two of us made our way there (lizzie wasn’t feeling well) but by half time we were famished.
Andreas spoke of a friend’s place on the water and after checking our guts (no alarms were going off, although we took note of his slightly creepy partner) we jumped on a small speedboat at the pier. This, after all, is (one of) andreas’ jobs – taking people out on the beautiful water along the coast. And so he guided the boat nonchalantly with one hand, not even facing forward, while he pointed out the five monasteries of amalfi (all converted on in the process of converting, to posh hotels high above the waves). A little further was Sophia loren’s home and what used to be her private beach before tax problems gave it back to the Italian government. He steered us into a dark cove and switched off the engine and showed us the “arch of love”, guiding us through with only a few centimeters to spare, so that, on the other side, we could see what appeared to be two elephants kissing. And then we were turning into a better lit cove – without the tourist and world cup bustle of town.
It was clear he was smitten. But ever the gentleman and respectful of shana’s engagement, he talked to us of his Italy, his amalfi.
The meal finished, andreas pointed the boat toward positano to take us home, as he’d promised. The smoke from his cigarette billowed over his head like late day clouds shrouding the amalfi coast. Random sparks loosened from their tobacco bind, lost themselves to the wind and their orange embers were extinguished in the cool air. Positano’s lights danced on the water as we moored the boat to the pier and disembarked, preparing for the 400 step end to an otherwise wonderful evening…one of those wondrous adventures that was unthought and undreamed when I woke up that morning.
June 10, 2010
Naples, Italy
Standing in front of the ticket machine in downtown Naples trying to decipher the “Itaglish” that popped up on the screen when we requested the instructions in English, we fumbled with change that for some reason continued to be rejected. As we rummaged for alternative money (realizing late a hastily made sign indicated the machine did not, in fact, take €2 coins) one and then another person handed us their metro cards.
The beauty of the transit system here is that the fare is timed…€1,10 (they use commas instead of periods) will get you 90 minutes. So instead of buying three cards we purchased one and finally we were on our way…sort of.
The destination was Pompeii and we had been attempting to get there all morning. our 9:30 alarm that roused us but did not pull us from the covers morphed into dwaddling showers. By then, close to noon, it was time to eat.
My domain.
So we scouted the guidebook and headed for a pizza joint everyone raves about. Of course en route we passed a duomo (church) that shana wanted to visit (she loves the architecture and the art) and stopped randomly to gawk at buildings that struck our fancy or to ask directions with a broad smile.
Triumphant, we arrived and ordered. Margarita and a four something or other. As it turns out, the four something or other is a pizza with four distinct sections: margarita; mushrooms; artichokes, olives, and ham; and eggplant; with a sprig of basil thrown in for flourish. I prefer my tastes to mingle and so I rearranged the pie so that each bite had a little of everything.
Not bad…not bad at all. And another tick on my “to eat” list.
Full, we headed for the metro and our original purpose for leaving that morn…err…afternoon…Pompeii.
The thing about the trains here is that there is the metro and the train and they are separate and yet they are related. You can ride them with the same ticket but they operate on separate track systems.
Finally getting the hang of the whole affair-or so we thought-we got off the train, boarded the metro and sat down satisfied. Only it turns out we were headed to the wrong station and were on the wrong train. Two kind people later we were finally on the right track and chatting amicably with a Spanish teacher from the bay who is visiting Italy as a chaperone for a high school trip.
Pompeii.
Pompeii.
I’m torn about such things…torn because in some ways I am ruined on ruins. There are only so many crumbling buildings and toppled columns I can get excited about. But more than that, conflicted about stomping through what is essentially a burial ground. People were entombed there. Caught unexpectedly in final repose.
But this is shana’s element. Her enthusiasm for this sort of thing rivals mine for the food. And so we wandered around in the late afternoon sun, imagining what all this lush landscape looked like before Vesuvius, looming large and beautiful in the distance, blew his top and still in an instant an entire city.
The daylight here is long; the sun setting closer to 9 then 8, so it was deceptively late as we headed back to naples. Dinner was calling us home and so we wandered our way to a restaurant. Pricier than we anticipated, surly waiter in the shadows, we savored lobster linguine with a sauce rich and velvety to the tongue-sweet to the palate, and steak with parmesan and arugula.
Back to the hotel there was Neapolitan rum cake (light and completely saturated with full bodied rum and a hint of something sweet – like cherries) and some sort of chocolate tart washed down with a helping of karaoke…a solo maiming of summertime and followed by a trio mutilation of ironic.
Sleep calls now…positano possibilities whispering in my ear…
Napoli, Italy (Naples)
June 9, 2010
We took a taxi…our driver, chatted in Italian the whole way, intermittently pausing to allow shana to pipe up in Spanish. I threw in random words here and there and a lot of laughter, giddy at the prospect of good food.
The driver pointed at himself and said Guiseppo and then pointed at me, then shana, repeating our names as we said them. Lizzie was in the back seat, still exhausted after her flight in (and 5 hour nap) and ravenous. It was 9pm, just getting dark, and we were finally venturing into the city. She mumbled her name, swallowing the “e” in Elizabeth so that Guiseppo heard lesbeta.
“lesbeta?” he repeated. “lesbeta? Dame e dame?”
What he was asking slowly dawned on us… “no, Elisabetha” shana chimed in with Italian pronounciation.
“ohhhh!” he exclaimed while we all laughed, unsure why he thought she would introduce herself as “lesbian” even if she was a lesbian.
No matter, we arrived and shana handed over €10 (we’re running through euro like water here) and prepared to exit. Guiseppo pointed to the money and said, “two more.” To this, lizzie began digging in her pocket while shana motioned for her to put it away.
“so you’ll come back in two hours?” she asked with a 200watt smile. He answered with what we inferred to be that he would be off work then but reminded us that we must call him tomorrow to take us to the restaurant he suggested. We nodded enthusiastically and exited the car – €2 still in lizzie’s pocket.
Shana has a gift.
Of course the two euro reprieve does very little to remove the sting from our train ride down. We bought our tickets to naples from a machine in the station (complete with me assuming the machine had eaten my card only to discover – at the police officers’ we stopped insistence- it was in my wallet) for €31 for the three of us. Downright giddy. We headed to the train a few minutes before departure only to discover it packed to the gills…we searched frantically for any seats (holding little hope for three together) and finally found a cluster of three in one of the last cars.
We hunkered down and chatted together, catching up on the last few months and giving each other a hard time. A few stops in the ticket agent emerged. We gleefully handed him our ticket and he looked dour. He rapid fired Italian at us and gestured to our ticket. We kept pointing at the number three on there…making sure he saw that despite there being only one ticket it had three people on it. He snatched the ticket and walked away. When he returned he wrote down €50 and pointed at us.
We owed money. As best as we can figure, the extra money was a fine for not having validated our ticket before we boarded. There are little yellow machines at each station and you stick your ticket in before you ride because the tickets themselves are good for a period of time. That was one hell of a lesson to learn…from rough $12 to about $35 tickets…just like that. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
Still…finally seated at an Italian restaurant, Italians (not tourists) all around us, we scanned the menu and prepared to order. Water, a glass of wine for lizzie, antipasto (some kind of cold stuffed eggplant, and assorted peppers and tomatoes with basil and oil), and of course bread (which was not bad like everyone warned me it would be).
We were off to a roaring good start, everyone trying all the dishes and smiling with gastronomic delight. Then we ordered our next course…gnocchi with mozzarella for lizzie and myself and spaghetti with tomatoes for shana. Hers – light and the taste of summer, ours – dense and superbly textured with a mild tomato sauce accented by a generous helping of parmesan cheese.
But we weren’t finished. Fruit had been wafting by our table and so we ordered fruit. Huge chilled wedges of sweet watermelon emerged, followed shortly after by some kind of homemade donuts dusted heavily with sugar.
I was beyond full. Happily patting my bloated belly and basking in the foreignness of the feeling of – not just fullness – but satisfaction. We are early in our trip…still figuring out how it will unfold, what we will do and where we will eat…I am cautiously optimistic that my food fantasies might actually come to fruition.
Transit is the most inconvenient time for me. Of all the things about living in flux that I’ve become accustomed to and take in stride, being in transit between places – the time and space between morocco to libiera and Liberia to Italy for instance – is maddening. Packing for different purposes, one eye in the “here and now” with another cocked to the “what might be” down the road.
The smaller transits are a pain too – between this town and the next, figuring out where to sleep and what has to be unpacked only to repack again – but the big ones loom heavy on the horizon. They require coordination between bag storage and bag pickup, transport that accommodates multiple bags instead of what fits on my back.
So while being temporarily back in Liberia is a step closer to Italy, seeing my girls, and finally heading home, it presents a set of challenges to planning that prevent anything from being set in stone. Case in point, my bag extra bag is graciously being stored at a friend’s, I have a ride to my next destination, but I can’t get my bag right now and the ride has a precise departure time. Not picking up the bag now will pose similar problems when I fly out of Liberia only with less time wiggle room.
And the extra bag, a minor inconvenience in a place where I know people (but that doesn’t have reliable mail) becomes all the more cumbersome once I transport it to another country and try to figure out what to do with it between flights.
Whining aside, my excitement is mounting. On the plane from morocco I ran into a man who is headed to work in Liberia – but more importantly, he just left a two year stint in Italy. He gave me a list of “to eats” and reaffirmed what folks keep saying…the food is spectacular.
So this transit, like all transits, makes the next great thing possible. In that light, if I have to work a little mojo to get my stuff and myself ready for Italy, I’ll put it in the proper perspective and smile as I try to figure out if the Brussels airport has affordable long-term storage.
Tags: liberia, morocco, transition, travel
What looks like the absence of a plan is actually my plan. Losing myself to the medina, the moment, the opportunity to be caught in the current of a place is entirely the point…entirely my point.
I realize most people prefer a plan. A schedule. A map. People prefer an order in the chaos of uncertainty. Itineraries allow you the allusion of control, of familiarity, in the absence of both. My final day in Casablanca – in Morocco – I lost myself to the medina. Hell, I didn’t even look at a map as I wound my way through the meandering streets of Casablanca. I stopped and asked directions periodically and mostly followed the first hand gesture delved out to me before asking again.
And eventually there it was, emerging quicker than I anticipated. I began to wander. In search of gifts; unsure what those gifts would be. I didn’t bother to track my movements for my eventual exit. Mostly I was mindful of the folks watching; I couldn’t pass any one spot too often or appear too turned around or people might think was in need of a guide.
Frustrated with the lack of inspiration from the more mundane of Morocco’s old medinas (it is more strip mall meets Target), I was headed toward one of the babs (doors) when I spotted a winding path I hadn’t wandered yet. It was the silver souk…one of my favorite areas. I eyed earrings and bracelets of Berber lacework.
And there I found him.
Rihani was still setting up his shop, just off the silver path, when I walked in. he didn’t rush to shadow my every move or show me every little thing there. Instead, he asked what I was looking for, pointed out a few items, and then left me to myself. A few moments later I asked him for sandalwood (this is the first place I’ve ever actually seen the wood) and more than giving me directions, he wrote down what I was looking for in Arabic so that I could show that to people to help me through the labyrinth that is the old medina.
It worked. I wandered toward where he gestured and then stopped and asked. The dance repeated. And there were the vegetables – the spices – the sandalwood.
I wound my way back to the bab but on a whim, retraced my steps to his shop. There he sat smiling at his door. “did you find it ok? Let me see what you got?” I hadn’t bought anything, too rich for my blood at 20MAD a gram, but he offered me a seat and served me tea and invited me to chat in the shade.
We compared travels – he lived in Italy and dubai – and travel stories- he got mugged and beat up in Italy and once found a crying Frenchman in the medina who’d met a similar fate. We talked about morocco in general and Casablanca specifically. A few moments of polite chitchat turned into hours of easygoing conversation. my stomach began to churn and I prepared to bid farewell. Instead, Rihani asked if I’d eaten and invited me to join him for lunch. A tangine appeared…legumes, potatoes, carrots….and hidden beneath it all, chicken. It was delicious, whether by preparation or company I’m not really sure. We ate with our fingers and laughed about family.
Eventually it was time for me to leave. I rounded up my things and Rihani walked me to the bab, my arm looped through his. He kissed me lightly on each cheek, as is the fashion here, and bid me safe journey.
Morocco couldn’t have ended any better. Mosques with ancient architecture and God’s natural wonder have their place…but being human for a moment…more than dollar sign…more than fleeting foreigner taking up space.
I couldn’t have planned that any better…couldn’t have planned that at all. Which is why I often plan to not plan. show up with a rough outline, some vague notion of what I think I’d like to see. and when it finally fleshes out to true form – sometimes tiresome and scary, often delightful and unexpected – I am reminded of the beauty between timetables and scheduled destinations.
Tags: liberia, morocco, transition, travel
in the name of…
“did you see the governor of Arizona? Don’t you just love her?! I joined her facebook page.”
I’d been trying not to eavesdrop- for once. Trying not to hear the louder than necessary conversation going on behind me. I realized I didn’t want any parts of it when I heard the tall matronly blonde tut-tutting something about the Obama administration. Actually, I knew I didn’t want to hear that conversation, or any other, when I glanced at her midsentence and she whispered her next Obama related comment.
Too bad she didn’t keep whispering.
Mind and eyes wandering while I tried to blast away her voice with music on my computer, I saw her missionary t-shirt. I cringed again.
It isn’t fair. As in all generalizations, the broad brush doesn’t stroke everyone – so please know that I understand that going in. but also understand that my vision of missionaries isn’t the kind people I know and sometimes loved both in the US and far from home. mine is a first-hand cause and affect visual of what missionaries wrought in Africa over the years.
Less about any one religion (christianity and islam both stamped and sometimes maimed their way across the continent) it is about weapon versus too. And so many people chose weapon. Forced conversions outright or subtly with the bartering of “faith” for food or supplies.
Immediately my memory reaches back to post-tsunami sri lanka where my class visited a muslim community on the island of Kenya. We sat down to find out how they had fared during and after the calamity. The story we heard repeated continuously was how volunteers showed up with blankets and soap…and bibles. Even after the community expressed their religious views and preference not to be proselytized to, the bibles continued. Accepting help meant accepting bibles.
I can’t help but to think that approach did more harm than good. That it wasn’t in the spirit of any god I know.
Of course, before I can get to smug I have to remember that I am a missionary of sorts. I push an agenda. And while mine isn’t about saving spiritual lives it is about saving…more importantly, it is about saving on my terms.
Despite the trend of development workers to be more inclusive and participatory in the communities they work in, ultimately money speaks. Ultimately my (USAID, WHO, World Bank, insert NGO here) dollar will dictate what is done – or it will go someplace willing to try it my way.
Some of my ilk tries to hide behind science. Infallible indefatigable science. But science, like religion, can be tool or weapon. When, five or so years ago, a researcher in Uganda was doing harm through an unapproved study, it was in the name of science.
aid workers can argue that our way is right. It is scientific. It saves lives. And those arguments may be true, but missionaries believe no different. One believes it saves bodies and the other souls. Intent isn’t the problem – approach is. And so I have to put myself in check and recognize that many missionaries work tirelessly in clinics and shantytowns, on agriculture projects and conflict resolution. Many do work that complements mine – or makes mine possible.
An old friend recently asked me to connect him to a friend of mine who worked for seven years in Haiti. His church does work there and he wanted to know the how to do it better. More than just good intentions, they are searching for good results…just like me.
It may not be my method but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done well.
Tags: aid, observations, religion, socialcommentary, travel, uganda