It is worth noting that I am writing everything in an actual, physical journal now, so I'm not completely hopeless.
There's something more real, more poetic, and more cathartic about the process of composing something on paper, even if it's perhaps not as elegantly written as what I type. Writing on a computer is not like writing with a pen on a piece of paper. I have no clear preference, even, but occasionally certain tasks lend themself to one or the other. Journaling feels meant to be done by hand--at least for me.
I will probably continue to post here with astonishing infrequency, but in the meantime I thought it worthwhile to express that my whole experience is not going unrecorded, nor unexamined.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Inspirational moments
A few weeks ago I went to Struga, in the southwest of Macedonia, to act as a camp counselor for a group of students--some from Albania and some from Macedonia. It was a wonderful experience being a part of the camp, and the students themselves were intelligent, funny, and excited. During the end of the second and last day of the camp we did an activity called Uncomfortable Questions, where participants were prompted with a situation and asked to declare how uncomfortable the situation made them feel. Signs labeled "Very Uncomfortable", "Somewhat Uncomfortable", "Comfortable", and "Very Comfortable" were hung up along the wall, providing the kids with a spectrum on which they could place themselves. In practice our signs made more of a semicircle, so the Very Comfortable participants and the Very Uncomfortable participants were left staring each other down. One of the questions asked the students how comfortable they would be having a gay doctor of the same sex. Of around 15 participants, a solid 10 were standing around Comfortable or Very Comfortable. The rest were rooted at Very Uncomfortable. I, as camp counselor, was a participant in this little activity, and had a cozy spot underneath the Very Comfortable sign all picked out. Our facilitator made a point of asking the participants why they were standing in a particular place, if they would want to move if they could, where their parents would be standing, and other situation-specific questions. I was asked to talk a little bit about why I was standing under Very Comfortable. I talked a little bit about growing up in Wisconsin, about the city I came from, and about how homosexuality had always been something I was comfortable with, and consequently was rarely something I even thought about. Then I talked about how, were I a soldier who had been shot, or in a likewise life-threatening situation, I couldn't be made to care less about the sexuality of the doctor who is trying to save my life. So if I'm okay with it when my life is on the line, then it would be hypocritical to be against it when my life isn't on the line. During that comment one of the students standing under the Very Uncomfortable sign walked across the room to stand under the Very Comfortable sign, which has become one of the most inspiring moments I've had in Peace Corps.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
So the stars were out tonight...
Orion is high tonight in my sky. It reminds me of home; it is home. Home is a planet away, distance, geometry. It's a triangle proving the earth is round. Curvature separating here from home. Stoic in the night sky, seen from everywhere all at once. Everywhere that can see, that is. Here I sit, miles and kilometers from the land of his birth. The people that gave rise to Orion; form and name. Metrics of distance from here to there, here to anywhere, here to Orion. Distance as a function of time is not so great, but becoming so. Or is it? Struggle as we may, gravity binds us, poetically, together. Push and pull and fight, then fall back. Throw the rest away, we've got ourselves, staring up into a plum drenched eternity, Orion staring back.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Taking the Combi
Today I woke up in Prilep after a fitful night sleep, having watched San Francisco and Baltimore reach the Super Bowl. It should be a fun couple of weeks leading up to the big game, and I think we'll have some sort of party in Prilep for it since our maniac 49er-fan Nick lives here in town.
More important to my purpose in writing this is to talk about an experience I had while riding in a van back to my site. I was sitting in the middle row, with an English speaker to my right. It's not particularly strange that this man spoke English, a lot of people in Macedonia do, but in my region it's less common, especially as you get farther from a population center. The men sitting behind me were particularly keen to ask me questions, even if they didn't always understand the answers (or pretended not to, trying to be funny). One particularly choice encounter went like this:
"Hey Alex, where are you from?"
"United States of America"
"Where is that?"
I'm not positive they were joking, but I assume...
Still, it was a later comment that has stuck with me. I suppose given the inauguration of our president today, as well as its being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I found it particularly striking. The man asked, through our mutual translator, "Why are black people black?" I should say, first, that racial questions aren't uncommon, nor are they usually motivated by anything other than curiosity. I have only once felt like I was being asked a question born from prejudice, and it wasn't in Crniliste. Still, given the circumstances of the day it was a startling question. I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if this was a teachable moment, or a laugh-and-shrug-it-off moment. I went with teachable and responded, "Why are white people white?" To which there was a curious look, a moment of consideration, and then a sort of gracious nod conceding that I had made a very fair point.
The initial question presumes there is a 'normal' color for people to be, and that any other skin tone is a deviation. In this case, the normal skin tone is white, and so it's only natural to ask why black people are black. The question, as I said before, wasn't coming from a place of prejudice, it was coming from a place of honest curiosity. But, it was a question that a factual answer wouldn't have actually addressed. If I had said, "well it has to do with the level of melanin in the skin, which is probably a direct result of prolonged sun exposure. As you may know, most of Africa is considerably closer to the equator than here, and so therefore receives more sunshine during the year. If you were to move to Africa, generations from now your descendents would probably have developed dark skin as a result of sun exposure."
That factual answer does nothing to question the assumption evident in the original question, namely, that white is normal and there must be a reason why black is different. It's not a question of what is normal and what is different from that, but how we're all different from one another and that's normal.
So that was my combi ride back, and where my mind has drifted during its unoccupied moments today.
More important to my purpose in writing this is to talk about an experience I had while riding in a van back to my site. I was sitting in the middle row, with an English speaker to my right. It's not particularly strange that this man spoke English, a lot of people in Macedonia do, but in my region it's less common, especially as you get farther from a population center. The men sitting behind me were particularly keen to ask me questions, even if they didn't always understand the answers (or pretended not to, trying to be funny). One particularly choice encounter went like this:
"Hey Alex, where are you from?"
"United States of America"
"Where is that?"
I'm not positive they were joking, but I assume...
Still, it was a later comment that has stuck with me. I suppose given the inauguration of our president today, as well as its being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I found it particularly striking. The man asked, through our mutual translator, "Why are black people black?" I should say, first, that racial questions aren't uncommon, nor are they usually motivated by anything other than curiosity. I have only once felt like I was being asked a question born from prejudice, and it wasn't in Crniliste. Still, given the circumstances of the day it was a startling question. I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if this was a teachable moment, or a laugh-and-shrug-it-off moment. I went with teachable and responded, "Why are white people white?" To which there was a curious look, a moment of consideration, and then a sort of gracious nod conceding that I had made a very fair point.
The initial question presumes there is a 'normal' color for people to be, and that any other skin tone is a deviation. In this case, the normal skin tone is white, and so it's only natural to ask why black people are black. The question, as I said before, wasn't coming from a place of prejudice, it was coming from a place of honest curiosity. But, it was a question that a factual answer wouldn't have actually addressed. If I had said, "well it has to do with the level of melanin in the skin, which is probably a direct result of prolonged sun exposure. As you may know, most of Africa is considerably closer to the equator than here, and so therefore receives more sunshine during the year. If you were to move to Africa, generations from now your descendents would probably have developed dark skin as a result of sun exposure."
That factual answer does nothing to question the assumption evident in the original question, namely, that white is normal and there must be a reason why black is different. It's not a question of what is normal and what is different from that, but how we're all different from one another and that's normal.
So that was my combi ride back, and where my mind has drifted during its unoccupied moments today.
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