The pearl of India

In Mumbai we worship the rain and wash coconuts in the sea. Vegetation takes strong green will and splits University walls that have existed before my country's birth. Morning call to prayer beckons devouts to fall to their knees and caresses my inner ear as I lie supine mezmorized by the spinning ceiling fan. My parrot mantra 'How do you say?' falls flat and curious, crawls into corners and I learn that languages here is a different shaped blanket. Instead of the Italian, French, Czech 'I have hunger', in India they 'feel hunger' or 'feel fatigue'. Posessions that I brought with me turn to heavy tumbling grains in a sack that rats have already gnawed through. Large yellow eyed cats twine around my legs and a tom named Tequila settles in my lap as I turn loaned pages. The city streets are an impossible twine of Spagetti give-way black and yellow bee patterns. My ever wet palms grip the aluminum bar in front as I lean to glimpse the Mumbai skyline from beneath the canvas covering as we head to Bandara to find an airconditioned recluse. The festival of Ganesh began yesterday and large clay idols painted pale yellow, orange and pink parade through the city streets, carried to be licked and dissolved by the Arabian Sea. Strings of red, yellow and green lights drip from the towering trees and dangle within an arms reach. My heart longs to see the countryside, away from marble blue techno pumping havens that boast of Bollywood stars. Impossible to decipher in a week, Mumbai teases me with her seaside prominades and roasted nuts. Where this city bends, there is a stand selling goods. Where she races, there is a family of five supported by two wheels. Where she sleeps there are acres of green. Where she towers, there are famous births. Where she weeps, there are bombs. there is business at its height. Saket tells me that over 64 percent of India's GDP comes from Mumbai and that 7 percent of the population of the city pays the taxes from that GDP. My pupils wax at the sheer volume of the population, production and commerce. 

"I don't understand you expats.."

Dear Phil,

My colleague whose name is Ulman and hails from German lineage confessed to me the other day that his family has lived on the same piece of land for 150 years. He has a dog, a wife, a flat, a family and a close network of friends like most of the 20-30 somethings in the Czech Republic. There's a very domestic thread running through the country, which makes expats look particularly odd because Czechs assume that life in America includes simliar values and entrapments as European life. How could you just leave your family? How could you leave your friends?

There is an Italian proverb which reads 'Chi di lontano si va a maritare, o sara ingannato, o vuol ingannare'. I find that I involuntarily adopt this wary attitude of my expat peers sometimes. Why are you here? Is something wrong with your country/city/family/life? In many cases, this is not far from the truth. I've met a 28 year old pimply faced virgin from the UK who spent every 2 hours singing French opera to himself before eating creamed spinach for breakfast. (can't imagine he had an easy time at Uni). On the other hand, I've met expats who are, er, used to be, normal, law abiding citizens...thinking of my friend Dan specifically (who I believe I mentioned in a post on this blog earlier). He's spent many years shifting between cultures, with a long stint in Turkey and the resulting personality is hard to define. He has facial expressions of a Turk, the humor of an Irishman and one of the most unusual perspective's I've ever encountered. He's a self-made mixture of identities, languages and backgrounds who appears to have nothing to hide.

My New England, Puritanical upbringing leaves me with a certain legacy and enculturization that is hard for me to see. I know that my state ranks as the whitest state in the nation. In the past few years there have been several notoriously embarassing incidents, namely the way Lewiston's mayor dealt with the refugee Somali population, which have allowed me to see the ugly underbelly of racism of my region. What is hard, some may argue impossible-to see, is how this affects me personally. A few months ago, I read the book 'Blink' by Gladwell. In this book he writes about an unconcious racism response survey, which you can find 

here 

this survey demonstrates the extent to which our perceptions of race are affected by the media but he also speaks about our potential to reprogram ourselves through counter exposure.

Some of the people who are the closest to me have observed that I seem to be 'searching for something', an observation which I blatantly denied. 'You're searching for yourself.' or 'You're always unhappy.' While I don't think that I am searching for myself, I have come to realize in the last year that I am searching for something. I am searching for my own racism, in order to eradicate it. I can see that some of my Serbian friends are sometimes racist towards Kosovars. I can see that my Italian friends are racist towards Roma. As an American, I know that I have multitudes of prejudices and racist sentiments towards people of the world. Living on a continent surrounded by water and full of immigrants pushed to the fringe hasn't allowed the most diverse existence. 

When people have asked me if I will return to the United States, I have given many answers. Firstly, I don't understand why they are so damn curious. Perhaps it's the Ulman-syndrome I described above. Europeans can't relate to American expats leaving it all behind. But I don't think that's true because there have been great migrations from continental Europe before. If I spent 26 years living in one place, I have a lot of catching up to do. I know there are new things that I could learn in America, but I've experienced much about American culture and most likely, I will learn more pertinent things about it-through the lense of other civilizations. (most recently: Americans have shallow friendships-according to Czechs). I can reflect on my country from here and make more money while I'm doing it.

But I envy you because having roots in New Zealand, Singapore and London~you're working on a very world-wide grid from an early age. I know what you mean when you say that all of your moves have been prescribed or organized around a larger event such as work or study or family. All of my moves have revolved around these factors as well, until I moved to CZ. My students ask me why I chose CZ and I always give the same answer, 'It was winter and I was running out of energy'. That's a half truth. I was running out of money too. I travelled until I had almost zero funds to continue and when I completely ran out of money and had no other choice, I decided to start working here. 

The reason that I decided to travel to India was the same reason that I decided to travel to Zrenjanin Serbia the first time. It's always easier to make a decision if you have a precedent. In both cases, someone that I didn't know so well-but had a fleeting feeling of connectivity with-gave me an invitation. When I went to Serbia, I was in the middle of completing my Degree in French. My parents questioned me. 'What does this have to do with your Degree?' In truth, it had Nothing to do with my Degree, or at least nothing that I could describe. 

On the eve of departure for India, I ask myself 'What does this have to do with building a career?'. In truth, it has nothing to do with building my career. It is not a rational move. The way I figure it, someday, somewhere down the line, this will make sense to me. This logic means that I have to trust the future and also that I have to trust strangers, like my host in Mumbai. At the very least, I will learn something about the most diverse sub-continent on the planet and about myself. Who knows if I will end up staying there? But what do we know for sure anyway? Sometimes its easier not to make plans. Unlike Ulman, I don't have a house and I don't have a 9-5 job, I don't have a wife or a cute little dog. Sure, I want all of those things.* 

I've never travelled with a bag on my shoulder, in one city one day, in another the next, without a return ticket looming over my head, without a big fat guide book in my back. I want to feel that freedom and I'm willing to sacrifice traditional security and sense of community that it requires. This time, however, I want to build an online community that I can connect with via vlog and blog so that I can have feedback and peers wherever I go. Also, I will never move so blindly into a country as I did CZ. I will never assume that money, politics and historical prejudice do not affect a corner of the globe because it is remote from my origin. Or that people will act out of the kindness of their hearts for a stranger alone.

I think India attracted me before I said 'yes' to Saket. My heart was RIPE for invitation. The Czech Republic is grand, Prague is quickly becoming one of the high end, desirable cities to live in but I'm ready to be eccentric from the heart of Europe. I want to know what it is like to live in a country, 180 degrees from my origin, where you are one of 1,129,866,154. People tell me life is cheap but I know I don't know what that means aside from Hollywood. I want to see the 'developing world' with my own eyes. I'm damn curious about China, Tibet and Nepal. I'm fascinated with the current EU debacle but mostly, I'm tired of the West. I'm sick of Gucci and Luis V. I'm sick of having to have all the right gear Nike Puma Spandex before you get on a bike for the afternoon. I -assume- that people in India are dealing with real issues that will face us all, like water, food and fuel shortages. In a way, it's not a blast into the past but a blast into the future. They have to cope with problems now that Europe might not face for another 5/10 years. In my humble short-sighted opinion, in some ways they are ahead of the game.

That's a bit of my story. I want to hear more of yours.

S.

*not really sure if I want the wife bit though.

What Happens if You Stay.

Today I decided to post due to my emerging interest in Web 2.0 and the tools it provides to build and develop communities. For the past two weeks I have been reading non-stop in a frenzied spiral, which began at a less than humble base of a friend's blog. While I knew him in the academic sphere, I never knew how much of an Internet activist he was. In a mere moment, I was introduced to the world of Creative Commons,  Lessig, Mobile phone activism and many more ideas that keep striking me as the most modern tools I've encountered to combat the destruction of values and spread of thoughtless, void of interaction, internet consumption. One of the challenges I realize I am facing, is training myself to be more than a spectator. To expand my horizons and stretch beyond the old familiar uses of the Internet. There are resources to connect people and there are communities forming around those who are learning how to build networks of individuals who share common dreams. In order to involve myself in these communities, I am required to generate, not just spectate and the transition may not be easy. Blogging requires commitment. Useful commenting requires thought and time. Learning how to develop your page to include RSS, my delicious, Facebook, Twitter, requires basic programming skills. These are some new goals of mine.

In addition to my personal aim to become a participant in and creator of communities, I would like to facilitate my students to do so as well.  I've found some great resources on Web 2.0 for Educators. Terry Freedman in particular has gathered a well of projects for all age groups and students using a variety of software. Incorporating proper Web 2.0 skills into Education will enable the next generation to participate in the Internet in order to achieve their goals and build communities. 

As I mentioned, this is all new for me. I feel a bit bowled over. I read the other day that participation in the web via commenting and networking enables the user to filter information, to cut it down to sizable managable bits instead of huge masses of information that cannot be separated or classified into any useful or resourceful means. This philosophy of participation in order to realize the potential and shape of your world, made a lot of sense to me.

In other notes, I've stayed in the Czech Republic and maintained relations with my former 'full time employers'. I now work for them part-time as a free-lancer and I've noticed something strange. After outlasting all of the other 'native speakers' here, I've gained some respect. The more I stand up for myself, the more respect I get and the longer I stay around, the more they treat me like an equal. I'm extremely satisfied with my choices and conduct up to this point.

Here's to being a European. In the same breath, here's to leaving the continent. Here's to exploring Asia. Here's to learning how to blog with hypertext. Here's to cultivating readership and peers who are also bloggers, travelers and teachers. Here's to incorporating Web 2.0 into Education and here's to all of the optimists. I am aspiring.

Reciprocation, Trust and Fading Naivety

I really want to trust my employer. Honestly, who doesn't want to trust people? Distrust breeds unnecessary suspicion and this breeds stress. Sometimes I think life would be easier if skepticism wasn't required, if discrimination wasn't mandatory for most success' and basic self-protection. Being a foreigner is the perfect school of hard knocks for getting over naievity. As a stranger, you stand out and are usually at a significant disadvantage as far as understanding the language, system and traditions of the culture you are visiting. Inexperienced foreigners are easy to take advantage of. I didn't realize that I was part of this category until just the other day. 

When I first arrived in the Czech Republic, I had traveled a bit, not extensively by any means, but a bit in Central and Eastern Europe.  I knew some of tricks and had learned a few lessons about what to do and what not to do. Still, looking back just six months, I can see how I first saw this my small town from the bus window the morning I pulled into Boleslav. My thoughts were a mixture of gratefulness for a different facade and pure charm and intoxication with uncomplicated smells of dirt and stone which signified to me a more uncomplicated way of life. 'The people of this town will teach me.' I thought and imagined a strangers welcome, where many questions would be asked and I would be immersed in Czech society. Czech society is many things but not at all more uncomplicated than American society.

After working for one month, the reality hit me with great force. I was being paid less than minimum wage in America, as a post-graduate with an additional post-grad certification. Initially, I chose to overlooked this wage because I had yet to see the standard of living that most 'middle-class' Czech's enjoy. In my eyes, the poverty of my situation was normal and quaint. I was by no means uncomfortable and it was, after all, Central Europe. I didn't expect any more and I didn't get any more.

As the fifth month approached and my working hours shortened, after I recieved no holiday pay and met more Czechs who seemed to enjoy amenities that I couldn't afford, I realized that I was being taken for a ride. Granted, it was the ride that I had signed up for, but it was by no means, the reality of life in the Czech Republic.  My employers were not paying me according to Czech law or treating me in a way that most Czechs would tolerate. I had tasted what some Americans living in Romania described to me as the post-communist residue that really 'fucks with your head after a while'. For the most part, my head still felt fine, although I saw 3 of my colleagues leave our job simply boiling. I learned that there is a long tradition of taking what you can from those who come from societies 'had' when Czech society didn't have. For example, giving different menus to foreigners in restaurants and vastly overcharging for services. I experienced underestimating my hosts and as I underestimated them, they used this to their financial advantage.

Yesterday, I confronted my boss. After losing 60 percent of her staff, she was easy to speak with. Why do I remain? Perhaps because of my lingering naievity. Perhaps there is nothing more for me to learn. Perhaps because I see leaving as an admission of defeat. I think there is another reason. Money is one thing, but I am fascinated and want to learn more about how Czech's think, live and work. I'm still seduced by the search for a disappearing vein of authenticity wherever it lies, beneath the surface, which is easily explained in so many words. When does the transition from foreigner to friend begin? Must I marry a Czech? Did my employers expect all of the native workers to desert them? And they were proven right and justified for treating them poorly, or just as happy to see them go? Are foreigners replaceable and that's why they are treated with less respect and rights than Czech citizens? 

My  employer is one of the sweetest women that I have met. She's unusually perky and optimistic and we have a genuine connection. Or so I think. This morning, as rubber met the road and I expressed I can no longer subsist happily on my pay. We negotiated a new contract, while driving which is not something I would suggest. As soon as we reached our destination, I briefly sketched the figures we had been talking about on a sheet of paper, to make sure we understood each other clearly. I started with numbers and worked down to dates, insurance and schedule. When I asked her if all was clear and understood, she hesitated, then she pointed down at the page. I had made two errors. One error was in her favor: Instead of 250 CZK per 45 minutes, it was 250 CZK per 60 minutes. One error was in my favor: instead of 1600 CZK per day of intensive, it was 1700 per day of intensive teaching. She pointed both out to me.

When I was alone, I thought about her honesty, her hesitation and our relationship. I had just decided to stay with her school, after 3 teachers, including my partner, had left due to poor wages and broken promises. The school is desperate for teachers. I am asking for more money, but I don't have my figures straight. She knows that I feel as if I have been deceived with false promises about pay and wages. Did she think that I was intentionally testing her? Did she point out the errors only because one was in her favor and one in mine? Is there really mutual respect and honesty between us?

If it's true 'What you give is what you get', perhaps I can hope for more. I can no longer expect that because I naively trust strangers, they won't take advantage of me. Maybe I can expect that if I am loyal to the school, they will reward me. Maybe I should listen to my colleague, 'Trust is good, but Distrust is better' and count my losses and go packing. But in my opinion, the show isn't over. There is still a chapter to be written and I'm curious to see what happens if I stay past this point. Perhaps I can make a friend with someone from the generation that saw the transition from communism. We'll see what happens. I hope I am not wasting my time.

Life and Racism

Last week, my Czech friend curled up next to me to watch American History X. After watching 20 minutes of this film I could barely contain my disgust and shame.I turned my head as a black man was forced to bite the curb and I gagged at the sight of the largest swasticka ever, tattooed on his assailant's chest.

The swasticka and it's implications outside of America were only revealed to me personally this summer as I was traveling abroad. In my minimal reservoir of clothing was an army green hoodie on the back of which I had sown a white and black patch with the slogan "BU*H" with a swasticka in place of the 'S'. The patch was given to me by a friend on election day last year. American youth loved this patch and whenever I would wear the sweatshirt out on the streets of my small New England town some young kid would inevitably comment positively. One of my professors suggested that I sew it to the back of my Graduation gown at the end of my University career when I marched to retrieve my diploma although I hesitated to do so simply because it felt too much like a dare.

I wore the sweatshirt for the first month of my post-grad travels and watched for reactions from those around me, in France and Belgium. When  I traveled East, into the Netherlands I was warned to hide the shirt while in Germany. Begrudgingly, I kept the sweatshirt buried deep in my canvas bag. In Austria however, I pulled it out again and wore it in Vienna into an internet cafe. The owner came to me and  asked that I remove it, stating it was illegal to display this symbol. A new piece of information for me. Again, I packed the patch deep into my bag and left it there.

My travels took me to Belgrade, Serbia from there I decided to move East into Romania and was warned by my Serb friends that Romanians were thieves and not to be trusted. On a train heading father East to the Black Sea with two peace corps volunteers, I moved slowly towards the edge of the European Union's territory. One volunteer worked in Sibu with Roma children, bringing education methods and facilities to the population. The other worked in a public school in Timisoara. At that time, I didn't know Romania's history of concentration camps and torture camps. I didn't know how Roma were exported and affected by the Third Reich and I certainly didn't know how they were hated in Europe by so many and considered a worthless less than human group of pests, to put it mildly. Between these two volunteers I sensed the smallest amount of tension as both could make fun of Roma begging and their frequent please for money, but one was devoted to bringing education to the population and the other on the Western border, more removed from the epedemic.

Walking down the street yesterday with an Italian friend of mine, we passed a group of teenage girls. They had the typical tight jeans and gum snapping sways as one of them held a cell phone blasting Euro-pop into the dusky sky. They laughed and swung earrings, looking sideways under lashes at the male clan gathered at the nearby bus stop. 'I hate those motherfuckers'. he said as we passed.

My stomach dropped. 'You don't understand.' he said 'They are everywhere in Italy. Prostitution, racketeering, theiving, stealing...I knew this one Roma girl who would piss in the middle of the courtyard at school..' and the stories began to flow from his lips. Although he insisted that he distinguished between Romanians and Roma I still had a hard time reconciling his stories with the group of girls that I saw. I think racism destroys the eyes when all a person can see when they see anyone from a group, is the worst stereotype. 'I hate Albanians too..' he said and I had a feeling that most Italians would agree with him. 

Part of me feels like I don't know enough about how Europe understands each other. My sister says, 'Racism is racism'. I know that I am racist too, but that my racism is harder for me to see. I know that I am largely a blank slate, having so few interactions with European culture and history. I have not heard relatives talk about one ethnic group or another, I have not seen my community overflow with immigrants.

I watch CNN from my apartment in the middle of the Czech Republic and listen to the debate about building a wall to keep the Mexicans out of our country. This topic immediately fatigues me. I find my country intolerant and ignorant of the rest of the world. Our standards are two faced, simultaneously allowing immigrants to take the lowest paying jobs and the worst living conditions and criminalizing their position in our country. It's the populations that are living on soil that isn't their own that are discriminated against, migrants, immigrants and refugees. 

After Returning Home

Buildings with holes do not repair themselves.

This surprised me the first time I saw it with my own naive eyes, my shock registered not the vast destruction of a 5 story building but the freshness of it. The hole was wide and I imagined paper blowing wind off the desks freshly exposed to the sun, swivel chairs still turning in awe. The Chinese embassy, an 'unintentional' target of the U.S. bombing of Belgrade in 1999 was an intentional route for my tour guides on my evening entry into Belgrade in January 2006. I am thinking about Belgrade because of Kosovo, whose name decorates walls all around the capital in predictable graffiti. 

This summer sitting on the edge of a slow grey fountain staring, slowly melting and staring at ladies shoes while nervously smoking too many cigarettes.  At the conference of students from KIJAC University in Pristina, one woman stood out from the crowd. Slender hands and a small neck, she reminded me of my sister. She was quieter than the rest and spent most of the night talking with V. the long haired alchemist who never changed his black clothes. She was delicate and tiny, her name was Fluterella, butterfly. She made videos. Yestereday I read in the papers that Serbs in Belgrade never did anything for the Kosovar Albanians. I know that this is not true, having attended a conference hosted by the Belgrade Circle this summer. I do know that the Serbs who hosted this conference were unsympathetic to the frightened Albanians, who had been stopped and hassled at the border. I know that the guest speaker didn't appear and most of the students stayed in their groups.  

The students from KJAK offered me a ride back with them to Pristina, but Buddy had given me glib and mud. 'It's nothing but a skeleton, hot and heavy and full of corruption. There are so many girls there...' he laughed and twirled his purple cigarette with the gold trim. His eyes were too large for his misshapen head and he risked his neck to travel into Pristina weekly, to teach and get laid by young Albanian women. 'Pristina is dead' he laughed deeply. I tried to imagine myself traveling to and working in the city. The bus would come to a grinding halt after 14 hours of dirty bumpy travel and I would get out, crawl to the nearest hotel and take a job carrying bags to the top floor. My legs would become strong and I would see the desert wind blow red sand through the city during the day. At night I would write, perhaps I would work for a newspaper and sell the story of the Serbs like Buddy who snuck in, to work, to sex, to snort the air and piss on the hotel bathroom floors. Surely someone would care that Serbs worked in Pristina, no one thought Serbs worked in Kosovo. I would wait in my corner of the hotel, folding grey towels and tapping out stories on the keys, until the day when Kosovo declared independence. Then surely there would be violence and a story, I would be on the ground, maybe I would speak a little of the language. I would be one of the only Westerners there, embedded and learning from the inside out what Kosovo was like, if it was really dead.

Instead of traveling South with KJAK, I sat at the head table, in the corner position, where no woman who wants to get married will sit. I was paraded through the authentic restaurant grounds and laughed with a fat NYU graduate about Craigslist and Maria Todorova and her son with a Odepial complex. The wine went from my head to my heart and the students left to find discos on the Danube. V. urged me to take a picture of him in the middle of the chairs that had been put on top of the table that night. His black clothes and stark appearance standing like a pole in the middle of a thousand colored chair legs.

The former Yugoslavia has split into 5 independent states now. I think it should be so. After seeing the fear and the tears, hearing the stories of how life was ripped from these students, how everything was halted, after the war. After seeing how Serbs consider Kosovo theirs but hate the inhabitants and refuse them access to the rest of the country. Kosovo is the cradle of their civilization but it has been changing for years and these changes can't be ignored. After fighting with my contingency, my position was solidified. Spain, Romania, Russia, Cyprus all disagree.

I know now that all of those: fat NYU, V., my contingency, those in Romania, in the United States, will all be watching the television, as the world does to check, every few hours, to make sure there hasn't been any violence. For Kosovo's sake, I hope that Serbia relaxes it's grip and the tension does not mount. I still feel an absence in my heart when I think about the bus pulling out of the station in Belgrade without me. There was a smile on someone's face that day, but not mine.