Getting to Vos*: A few more cultural observations

*Negotiation pun. Fischer and Ury anyone? Nope, I dont miss college at all, I swear.

Word of the Day

La ama de casa-housewife, although it literally translates as "owner of the house"

Tangent time! In a medical anthropology class I took sophomore year of college, we had to read this book called Body and Emotion, by Robert Desjarlais. I'm more interested in the anthropological study of power structures, so I wasn't actually that interested in the anthropologic study of the body, so I kind of dismissed it as fluff at the time. Lately, however, I've been thinking a lot about one of the main concepts from the book, embodiment. Essentially, in an ethnography of Nepalese shamans, Desjarlais contends that there are some insights about culture that can only be gained through miming the actions through which a society functions and expresses itself. I'm starting to think that there's some validity to his theory, partly because as an extranjera, I often am not privy to so many of the actions that enable daily life. This is because Peace Corps pays our host families (aka the women of our host families) to do the majority of household chores for us during training. Therefore, as a gringa I am simultaneously sexually objectified to an extraordinary degree yet also have a mobility and freedom that sets me apart from Nica women. For example, these dudes shouted Barbie! Barbie! at me in the street the other day which was quite possibly the funniest and least accurate cat-call that I have ever receieved. At the time though, I was going to hang out at a cyber cafe, without too many responsibilities, something that's pretty much unheard of for most women here. 

                Occasionally, however, when I am able to do household chores and such, I do feel more Nica in the sense of sharing the same actions that constitute every-day culture.  For example, carrying a heavy pail of water, un balde, into the house and washing myself with scoops of cold water from a pana, a bowl used for washing. Or doing my laundry, which my host mom taught me to do on Sunday. No, there is not a washing machine. Laundry, for the most part in Nicaragua, is hand scrubbed with bars of detergent and rinsed on a pila, a stone tablet. There are of course, certain motions that accompany the act of washing that the majority of Nicaraguan women perform expertly.  It's fascinating to watch my host mom, who is basically a super hero, wash clothes. BAM! BAM! BAM!  the clothes are done. I was feeling proud of my feeble attempts to emulate her movements until I got my sundried laundry from the clothesline and realized that my black clothes were dotted with completely obvious white soap splotches. #gringafail.  

Anyway, here are some other random observations, mainly quotidian and mundane:

·         Instead of saying Hola! or Buenos Dias! to each other on the street as in the rest of Latin America, Nicaraguans greet each other with "Adios."  This leads to comical exchanges with would-be admirers on the street yelling "Goodbye" (the literal translation of Adios) to try and attract our attention. 

·         Nicaraguans, like many Central Americans, use vos instead of tu, to refer to friends and family. There are two words for you, one that is formal and implies respect, usted, and one that is informal, vos. Vos is generally only used between people who have confianza, or  trust in each other. Confianza isn't something that is given freely to anyone immediately outside the family unit, but something that is earned over time. It's really interesting to see the different patterns of people who use vos with each other. For example, one of my training mates uses vos with her host mother, whereas I would never do that since my host mother is much more traditional. The majority of people, even people close to her such as her daughter in law refer to her as "Dona," another term used to denote respect. Beyond differences in personality and upbringing, I think people's willingness to use vos with each other varies between the different regions of Nicaragua. Today for example, we had meetings with the training director, who's from the Atlantic coast (where people are stereotypcially more open and friendly), and he used vos with me, which took me aback at first.

·         Nicaraguan table manners are generally very relaxed. Plates aren't super necessary if you're eating bread with a cup of coffee. Most food, including meat, can be eaten with your hands. In many families, tortillas are served with every meal, which facilitates hand eating. There's even a riddle about their multiple uses. Soy tenedor, cuchillo y comida? Quien soy?/I'm a fork, a knife and food. What am I? However, since my host mom is best friends with the owner of one of the best bakeries of the town, our family usually eats bread, which is less useful for scooping things, so she usually has forks at the ready, especially for the gringa. The ama de casa typically serves everyone in the family. This leads to routines where I chase after my host mother as she brings my plate across our patio to the table, feeling guilty/useless, and desperately wanting to defy the culture on this particular item. Generally speaking, you don't have to wait for everyone to be seated to begin eating. In fact, if you were to wait for everyone to sit down, especially the ama de casa, you could be waiting about an hour. 

·         When the electricity goes out, which happens occasionally, although not usually for more than a few hours, people refer to it as "luz". Hay luz? Hay agua? Is there any electricity or water? I sometimes hear family members asking each other this when they wake up in the morning. It's never really a big deal when the electricity goes out though, as opposed to the panic that ensues in such situations in the US. I can only imagine this phenomenon will worsen as we become every more dependent on the i-phone and the internet. Here, life pretty much goes on. I'm sure the unpredictability wrecks havoc on small businesses, but people work around it. 

·         Churches are the main cornerstone of civil society here. Our small town boasts at least 8. When we asked the youths in our English group to give a number, they all basically stated "There are a lot..." Exact number: still unknown. 

·         Bandas de guerra, or marching bands, are a big part of the culture. They're guaranteed to perform at any major parade. Sometimes, they also play at 5:30 in the morning, which made for an excellent alarm clock. 

·         There are a lot of non-verbal forms of communication here. Whistling, at various decibles, for various lengths of time, can mean anything from "Damn, look at that Barbie shaped gringa" to "Hey you, come over here" to an expression of joy, judging by the gleeful whistles that eminate from the billiards hall on a regular basis. My unfortunate inability to whistle is severely hampering my ability to integrate into the culture. Additionally, hand motions are used to indicate a ton of things from "I'm leaving" to "I have diarrhea" to "He's pretty rich." If I ever get really bored, maybe I will make animated gifs to show you, because they're pretty awesome. Also popular is shaking one's fingers and snapping them together, which I can describe just about as well as I can perform the gesture, which is to say, not at all. 

I'm going to shut up now because this is the longest post ever. Adios (Goodbye) for realz.

So...what exactly are you doing in Nicaragua?

Una advinanza- a riddle!

Blanca soy, del mar naci, ricos y pobres sirven de mi. Quien soy?

White I am, born from the sea, rich people and poor people like to serve me. Who am I?*

==============================================================================

               So, I´ve gotten a lot of questions from people about what exactly I am doing here. I'm attempting to rectify my vagueness now! Honestly, until I got to training, I only had a very cursory understanding of what this job would entail.  A lot of things have been clarified since then. 

                Once I finish training, I will be a Peace Corps volunteer in the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Education sector, one of the 5 project sectors of Peace Corps' work in Nicaragua. For sustainability, Peace Corps Nicaragua mandates that we co-teach, alongside Nicaraguan English teachers in public secondary schools throughout the country. Rather than have outsiders come and teach for 2 years, taking jobs from locals, we work alongside Nicaraguan teachers to build their capacity to implement communicative activities in the classroom. Essentially, a lot of what the job entails is trying to build a more dynamic classroom environment. As has been emphasized during training, Nicaraguans have a tremendous oral culture and tradition, with poets, singers, writers ,revolutionaries, you name it, BUT, for a variety of reasons, this creativity is not necessarily reflected in the educational system. 

                Nicaraguan students face many challenges. According to the Ministry of Education (MINED)'s statistics, only 8,000 students graduate from Nicaragua public high schools (out of a country of 5 million). This doesn't include numbers from private schools, which are fairly numerous, but is still a relatively low number. Hot, loud, dusty classrooms are crowded with at least 30-40 students. Students are unlikely to have books, although this is expected to change next year; MINED has big plans to provide every student in the country with books. With 2 shifts of school on any given day, students receive between 4-5 hours of classroom instruction daily, meaning that a lot of learning needs to be accomplished in a short period of time. 

                Teachers face many challenges as well. Teacher's salaries are relatively low, and as a result, they may work at multiple schools or for multiple shifts. For example, my host brother is an English teacher who works at 3 different English teaching jobs, including at the local school in our town. 

                Despite the daunting realities of the educational system in a developing country, there are still many resources that English teachers (and volunteers) can draw from within the Nicaraguan educational system. The students in the 2 classes we observed last week were relatively well behaved and motivated. The two teachers we've worked with so far have a very high level of English, although this is certainly not the case nationwide. MINED is extremely interested in bettering English use, for a variety of reasons, including the economic incentive of attracting tourists and call centers to Nicaragua. Of course, as with any language, there are a million personal reasons to motivate learning. For example, one of the doctors currently renting at the house here wants to become a psychiatrist, but all the books are in English, which he doesn't speak. And for others, such as my host brother, the desire to learn English is very much rooted in an interest about culture and other ways of being. 

                 MINED has also developed a very thorough English curriculum, which is an incredible leg up. Many countries in which Peace Corps volunteers work don't have national curriculums.  Lastly, MINED has a very strong relationship with Peace Corps Nicaragua's TEFL program, which is very encouraging.

For now though, I am in the midst of 11 weeks of training. This means that I have a very structured schedule, until November 20th, when, assuming I don't mess everything up, I will officially swear in as a Peace Corps volunteer. 

                 I usually wake up between 5:30 and 6 to birdsong, from a giant flock of birds that conveniently roost right outside my window.  3-4 days a week, we have Spanish class for 6+ hours daily. We are lucky to have extremely intimate sessions-it's just 3 students to one professor. Our current professor, Nidia is the coolest. She isn't afraid to joke around with us or even make fun of us on occasion. We also have reading for the technical side of training and sometimes Spanish homework, although it's usually fun ie: ask your family to tell you a riddle, write a fairy tale or ask someone to tell you the words for private parts. Class is a mix of grammar review, communicative activities and talking to people in the community to boost our integration. The other day she gave us a list of idioms and made us go ask strangers what they meant.

In addition, we have technical trainings twice weekly, on various topics related to English Teaching, Health, Safety, Cultural Awareness (also known as a-wahness).  

                 Recently, new activities have been added into the mix, including 2 weeks of classroom observation observing current Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs), co-planning with local teachers, co-teaching planning activities to present at a teacher training workshop, helping out with English extra help tutoring sessions, and meeting twice weekly with the English youth group that I mentioned in my previous posting.  There are other weeks with varied schedules, but I'll talk more about that when we get there.

In short, it's been pretty nonstop. I'm enjoying training so far, and it's great to have a community with other Peace Corps trainees, but it will also be a lot more relaxed when it's over. 

*La sal! Salt

4 trips to the school, 60 handwritten invitations, 2 trips to church....Rookie attempts at development work

One of our successes so far has been finally getting a youth group together. As part of our training, Peace Corps has tasked us with putting together a youth group to practice our English teaching skills, organizing skills and of course, augment what students are learning in the classroom with communicative activities. The word "finally" is not really warranted at all, given that it took less than 2 weeks, but Peace Corps has us on a pretty tight timeline for training activities, so we were starting to get worried.

Things take a long time to do here. Organizing a meeting is a more drawn out and personalized process than it is in the states. If you wanted to start a club in the US in a high school or university, you would put a few signs, and the people who were interested would show up to the appointed place at the appointed hour. Not quite so here. I'm actually glad we had difficulties putting the group together, because it really gave us a hands-on look at how community organizing can be done effectively in this cultural context.

For various reasons, we weren't able to go around to all the classrooms at the school to invite students to join our group that way. So we tried a different tactic- making 60 invitations by hand (Que fachento!) and going around to all the different houses where there were youths live to deliver them. We teamed up with a teenager who had been in a previous group organized by volunteers, to figure out where houses with teenagers might be.

Sadly, this approach didn't really yield fruit. In our first meeting, after about an hour of waiting, only one student had shown up, and we hadn't even given him an invitation, but had personally invited him to the group when he asked us a question about English in the cyber cafe. After our first meeting flopped, he suggested that we come by his church's youth group meeting to invite people.

We ended up at an evangelical youth service for an hour of worship before making our announcement, but I think it made a big difference in the end.  This whole episode really showed me the importance of spending time with others on their own territory before trying to get them to do something, even if it's something they are interested in, or that you think they would find beneficial. Making a gesture first is essential. Secondly, organizing is more effective when its done using existing local institutions, which in small town Nicaragua, is very much based around church groups. Lastly, a personal/verbal invitation is most likely to bring in participants.

At this point, we have 6 students in the group and hopefully, we will grow it with word of mouth!

Que Barbaridad!

I´m going to upload some pictures to this later, for now, text only!

Que barbaridad is a frequently uttered expression which literally translates to "What barbarity!" but means something roughly equivalent to "How absurd!" "How silly!" "How stupid!" It is by far my favorite of all the words I've learned in "Nicañol" so far. One interesting thing I've noticed here is that because multiple generations of families spend so much time together, there isn't as much of a distinctive youth culture. It's about as likely that you'll hear a teenager say "Que barbaridad" as to hear her grandmother say it.

Been here in El Rosario for over a week now! I really like it here. We've (myself and two other trainees in El Rosario, Brooke and Jamey) been pretty busy with Spanish classes and putting together a youth group. In the downtime though, I've definitely had to adjust to an entirely different pace of life, but honestly, I think all the time I've spent sitting  around getting to know people and enjoying simpler pleasures has probably been good for me. I haven't really been stressed at all, which is practically incomprehensible compared to how I am back home.

This weekend, I got to witness another slice of Nicaraguan culture during the Fiestas Patrias, Nicaraguan Independence Day. Over two days, there are parades, put on by students, with costumes, drums and traditional music. On the 14th, Nicaraguans celebrate the Battle of San Jancinto, when their national hero, Andres Castro, killed American adventurer- mercenary William Walker with a stone, drawing a war between Nicaragua's Liberal and Conservative parties to a close in 1856. The 15th is a celebration of the Independence from Spain of the "5 brother countries" of Central America, including Nicaragua of course. Basically, it's a two day holiday to celebrate and reaffirm Nicaraguan national pride.

My awesome host family loves to travel, and so since it was a long weekend, we went to get to know some new places (some new to me, and some new to them as well). We drove down the Pan American highway, past gorgeous landscapes that looked like savanah with mountains thrown in, to San Jorge, a town that is next to Cochibolca (also known as Lake Nicaragua). In the gigantic fresh water lake is an island called Ometepe, formed by two volcanoes. We had incredible views from the shoreline, and went swimming in the "waves." 

After that, we drove to Tola, a beachside town on the Pacific Coast with a growing tourism industry. In the town plaza, we found a statue of the "novia de Tola," There's an expression here "I got stood up like Tola's girlfriend" but my host family thought it was hilarious that there was an actual statue.

After a while driving down beautiful dirt roads, we made it out to Playa Gigante, an incredibly beautiful beach on the Pacific Coast,where apparently some surfing championships had recently been held. There were trees that reached right onto the beach, olas bravas (rough surf),cliffs nearby, and chickens running around looking for food, which my host mom said were wild.

Nicaragua is an unbelievably beautiful country. I will probably continue to write that in every single blog post. It is also still very much a country in transition, although from what to what is not really a straightforward question, especially from an economic perspective. While traveling down near the coast, we witnessed four completely different economic models in the span of about 30 minutes. Next to luxury tourism resorts with private beaches was a Sandinista co-op farm, with a sign proudly declaring that its foundation in 1980. Just up the highway were USAID funded export agriculture projects. And all around, there were families just scratching out a living from subsistence agriculture.

Getting a more intimate look at Nicaraguan culture has been fascinating. One thing that has been fascinating me lately is the concept of space and how it is demarcated. For instance, the confines of houses matter so much less here- neighbors and extended family members swirl through each other's houses, providing friendship, food and support. At the same time, it's fascinating to see how some other spaces are segregated, by gender, sect or out of respect. The billards hall next door and the cantina (sketchy bar) is a space that is almost exclusively the province of men. Each of the 7 or 8 churches here stakes its claim on its own gathering of souls. Different rooms within homes are spaces that outsiders like myself will never enter.

One thing I've really liked about the way Peace Corps trainings frame the way we approach Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a poor country, there's not any way to avoid the fact, but neither is there much utility in belaboring the point. But so much of what Nicaragua lacks in GDP, it makes up in color, beauty (land and people), generosity, resilience, and dry, dry humor.  Our training has barely used the word poor at all. Instead, it has emphasized that Nicaragua is a country with a rich language and culture, which we have a duty to try and understand better. It has also encouraged us to dig beyond surface appearances to seek out the resources, both human and otherwise, that exist in Nicaraguan communities and think of creative ways to build from these strengths. 

Nica Cuisine!!

Now that my stomach has adjusted a bit, my host family has been giving me different foods to try. Everything here is realllyyyyyyy good, although certain flavors have taken a little getting used to. My host mom doesn't even like to cook, but she is really good at it.

A short list of foods I've tried so far:

Gallo pinto is a daily staple, made from red beans and rice mixed together, fried in a bit of oil. Hence the name: it looks like a black and white chicken.  Just as Peru and Chile fight over who discovered the potato first, Nicaragua and Costa Rica disagree over who invented the dish and who makes it better.

Tostones/Platano frito/ Platano Maduro/Guineo Cuadrado- There are tons of different kinds of plantains and at least as many ways to prepare it: boiled, ripe & fried a bit, sliced (platano cuadrado, which tastes sort of like potatoes), sliced in curly strips or puffed up in little balls (tostones).

Queso/Cuajada is delicious (although unpasteurized) cheese, made from cow's milk,  with a salty and slightly fermented taste.  Cuajada is made from the same milk, but is strained a little bit more.

Guacamol- The avocados here are gigantic. The Nicaraguan version of guacamole is made with  hard boiled eggs and chopped up avocado pieces.

La fruta de pan or breadfruit, is the coolest looking fruit ever!!!!!! (Except for petaya, which has a special place in my heart). Also, it tastes like potato chips.

Guyaba are fruits have a green skin, with pink flesh and are sometimes eaten with salt.  On Friday, my host sister-in-law, host granddaughter and I went to the town nursery and picked guyaba from a tree.

Nanciste are small little fruits that taste sort of like crabapples.

Nacatamales are one of Nicaragua's signature dishes,  typically eaten on Sundays for breakfast because they are so heavy on the digestive system. Similar to tamales from other countries, but much better, they are made by steaming corn meal, meat, potato, onion, yerba buena, and tomato in banana leaves. A giant serving of yummy.

Elote is the Central American word for ears of corn.  There's a woman who comes by our house on weekends with a horse and cart and sells them. They are sweet, and slightly roasted and super good.

Atol is a  thick drink made from some sort of corn based product, milk and cinnamon. It's sort of heavy and very sweet, but also very good. 

Calula is passionfruit. They make it here in refrescos, or fruit drinks. It is sweet and sour at the same time.

Watering Dirt, Always Wearing Shoes

Wow, can't believe i've been in Nicaragua a week already! For our three month training period, I´m living in a small town with 3 other volunteers, called El Rosario, in the Carazo department, which is home to about 3,000 people. My host family is awesome! Technically, I live with one grandmother, named Doña Bemilda, but in reality, her son, his wife, and their son also live with us, and the house is always buzzing with activity from other family members, friends, and other people. 

The title of today´s post comes from something the country director of the Peace Corps said in our training: when trying to understand the ins and outs of a culture, you need to re-examine things that don´t make sense at first and try to understand the reason behind them. Watering dirt cuts down on the work women have to do to clean. Wearing shoes means you are always prepared to kill bugs, in addition to not getting sick.

Training is simultaneously harder and easier than i thought it would be. We also have a fair amount of readings to do as part of training, and of course, language practice. Since i've been lazy about blogging, i'm going to try and sum up some of my impressions of about Nicaragua, "Word of the Day" style (bringing it back from the Chile days! )rather than describing events, a lot of which aren't that relevant to anyone than peace corps trainees. 

la bulla- noise

I want to describe Rosario as tranquil, but that's not exactly true. sure, the pace of things is generally pretty slow and round about, and there are maybe 10 streets in the town, but i definitely wouldn't describe it as quiet. Noises, at various times of the day, include the billiards hall next door to me, chickens, birds, wind, storms, motorcycles, horses, firecrackers, blaring speakers, and various other things. 

la mosquitera- mosquito net

I don't want to say that its cushy here because that's not exactly true, but its not super hard either. i haven't been anywhere near hungry, in fact, quite the opposite. There's not always electricity or water, but theoretically, the infrastructure is there. there's wifi at a few people's houses, and there's a cyber cafe next to my house. I havent been too troubled by bugs yet, although I am knocking on every piece of wood that i can find as I write this. I haven't taken a real shower yet, but it doesn't even phase me anymore. and this is coming from someone whose greatest weakness from an environmental standpoint is her love of hot showers. It's really cool to see how quickly you can adapt to new conditions. Today for instance, I used some old plastic bottles make containers to put some of my crap in. A few weeks ago, it wouldn't have even occurred to me to do this. To be completely cliqued, its fascinating how little you need to be happy and comfortable.

la petaya- the coolest fruit ever. seriously. it is literally fuscia. Nicaraguans make refrescos with it, which is basically just fruit juice. Que rico!

la mecedora- rocking chairs

Typically weekend or weeknight activities include talking for hours on end in the rocking chairs on the "porche." 

el sacuanjoche- the National Flower of Nicaragua

My host mother´s grandchildren very patiently spent hours explaining Nicaraguan flora and fauna to me. 

el sangre indigenahispanoamericano

Apparently, Sandino, a nationalist revolution who fought in the 20th century used this word to describe Nicaraguas ethnic heritage as a mixture of indigenous, hispanic, and american.

It is definitely a mestizo country, and i'm really interested to learn more about the role that race plays here.

 

otorrinolaringologia- ear, nose and throat specialist

One of my host mom´s nietas taught me this one yesterday. It is apparently one of the longest words in the spanish language. and it sounds awesome, even though i cant really say it.  

fachenta- a word roughly meaning rich, but which is a lot more playful that that. 
Jamey, one of the other volunteers, gets called that a lot because his host family owns a food business and the cyber cafe. Basicallly, calling him fachento is one of our major forms of entertainment at this point. 

Literal (and Metaphorical) Cliff Diving

As I write this, I am sitting on the Acela to Washington DC, where I will meet up with the other volunteers (of undetermined number) as I leave for Peace Corps service in Nicaragua for 27 months. Until November I will be in training, and then I will begin my two year period of service, in the "Teacher of English as a Foreign Language" Program.

I happened upon the "Cliff Divers" at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston the weekend before I left. I had some pictures I was going to upload, but the internet is quite slow, so I will leave you with this link instead.  it was a really cool competition in which people literally dove off the top of the building and did these absolutely stunning flips and twists as they fell into Boston Harbor, landing so hard you could literally hear the splash. And it strikes me as an entirely appropriate metaphor for this endeavor: likely to be beautiful, terrifying, exciting, and maybe a little bit painful at times.

I hope to keep you all updated on my adventures, at least semi regularly, internet situation pending!

Snail mail or post cards is greatly appreciated as well!
My mailing address, at least until about Thanksgiving, is:

Emily Clayton
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 13256
Managua, Nicaragua
Central America

Un abrazo gigante a todos! (Big hug to everyone). Thanks for everything, past, present and future.

Tales from the Trike: A Street Level Perspective on Boston

Check out my awesome ride...and the beautiful view I get to see on my way to work every morning.

"Imagine I had to make you believe that's a painting of a terrorist. What kind of country would we live in? ...It's just like your cart- I can see it as a convenience, a threat, something funny....It's all about interpretation "

-Tom, a classic New Englander, who works for the T, giving what I think is one of the more eloquent defenses of freedom of expression that I've heard in a while, in response to the furor in Dewey Square over Brazilian Muralists Os Gemeos' new painting

"Business is not too good. Some of the fruit is too big, I lose money. I give the fruit for free to the single ladies, I lose money."

-Costas, (sort of illegal) fruit vendor

For more on this classic David and Goliath tale 

One week before graduation, I thought I was (f)unemployed for the foreseeable future and moving back home to Jersey. In a surprise twist, I am still living in Boston, working at a nonprofit part time and working as a "trike rider"  part-time. Yes, you read that correctly. Essentially, my job consists of pedaling a giant tricycle café around and selling people coffee at early hours of the morning and at farmer's markets.

Maybe it's just because it's a completely insane thing to do, maybe because I get to commute when no- one is on the road (ie 4:30 am), because I have to smile and be friendly to people, or maybe just because I get to drink gallons of ridiculous good coffee on a regular basis, but I genuinely love my job. Or rather, one of my jobs. I'll write about my internship at a really cool conflict resolution/etc. nonprofit type of place sooner or later, but honestly much of what I do there is vaguely confidential so the stories (that I can tell) are less interesting. So I'm going to stick with writing about my tricycle riding work at Equal Exchange for now.

Equal Exchange is a fair trade company that has been around since 1986. They have stayed very true to the values of the movement, emphasizing the role of small farmer cooperatives in driving social & economic change. Their 100 person company (of awesome people) is also run as a cooperative. Basically, working for them gives me hope that other economic models than straight up capitalism are tenable in modern day America. Also their coffee is the tastiest thing that has ever happened to my caffeine addiction.  Check em out!

Part of the reason I think I like the job so much is that I needed a break from school-esque things.
On the good days though, there are still plenty of analytical/critical issues raised by the cart's interaction with the urban environment, or simply the things I see while hanging out in public spaces for hours on end, such as: sexism (see below), racism, clascism, urban citizenship, borgeousie aesthetics, the economic and social dimension of human rights, LeFebrevre's "right to the city", urban transportation, the romantic risks of bike culture, local foods, what makes a revolution, is it possible to "massify" movements for social/economic/environmental change without losing their character (fair trade, organic) etc, etc etc.

In other words, despite my brief attempts to be more relatable to people in the "real world", I am still a gigantic nerd. What I love though is that I get to draw on all these stores of books and journal articles to make very real decisions. How should I interact with the homeless? To human suffering and elation? How do I respond to unwanted attention? How can I be entrepreneurial and make profits effectively within the zoning restrictions set by the local government? And the all important: how do I navigate these streets?

Mainly I sell coffee outside MGH (Mass General Hospital) and in Dewey Square, although at the beginning of the summer I also occasionally worked at Copley Square, which was terrible because I always got the tourists lost when they asked me for directions because I really only know directions in Boston in an intuitive way and have no idea what the streets are actually called.

People tend to respond to the trike in strikingly similar ways. I feel bad for putting people in a box and being reductionist...but it's almost scary how patterned responses to the trike are.

Hipsters and small children: "Wow, that's so cool!"
Women: "Wow, that must be great exercise."
Men (especially anyone packing a beer belly): "Wow, you're getting a workout. You should put a motor on that!"
Men in groups riding in trucks: some variation on "HEY GIRLLLLLLL."Apparently, the sight of a woman sweating while pulling a 500 pound tricycle cafe is very alluring. I wish I had learned this earlier to more fully capitalize on this discovery [horrible horrible joke]

Here is a brief highlight reel of some of the more memorable experiences:
-On 4th of July when three (still)  drunk tourists came out from the hospital and tried to ask where they could buy Uncle Sam costumes
-The time a homeless man referred to me as a "nice piece of Irish ass."While technically true, this was quites
-The day the police tried to evict the quasi illegal fruit man (see above) and he responded with a giant wood sign with neon orange tape blaming them for kicking him out, as well as yelling out accusations of corruption directed at city hall and practically everyone else
-The time a homeless man tried to give me money for no reason as I was driving away from him and then he threw it at me
-Every time some I-banker tells me they don't like the "A-rab" mural
-The day I was filmed for a documentary about how an awesome company called Metro Pedal Power is revolutionizing urban transport
-Bartering iced coffee for ice pops at the Farmer's Markets
-Everytime I inadvertently get tourists more lost

Sure has been an interesting summer. 2 interesting weeks left!

fuerza

Fascinating Story of Environmental Injustice

Native Americans, racism, the Mob, lead poisoning, strange cancers, undeclared Superfund site, Ford: sound intriguing?

Read it and weep.
http://toxiclegacy.northjersey.com/

And then make a small gesture:
http://www.change.org/petitions/protect-the-ramapough-mountain-indian-tribeclean-up-the-ringwood-superfund-site

Summery (sic)

It’s been a great summer up in Boston; I’m currently on my way home and I’m sad to be leaving. Especially since there are still so many things left unexplored. The better you know a place, the more things you realize there are to do. But it will be great to spend some time with the fam, some friends & take a break before things get heinously busy again. Part of me is ready to be done with college: I’m past the point where getting dressed up in ridiculous costumes to greet freshmen or sitting around playing frisbee have much appeal. The other part of me is terrified: there are still so many classes I want to take, internships I want to do, professors & friends I want to know better, research I could do. qué será será though, I really need to calm down about everything.  

Anyway, here’s a brief retrospective of the summer: goals vs. what actually happened. 

1. Have a cool internship

Check. Working with Cultural Survival was really great and I’m going to miss them tons. I’m thinking of coming back to help out in the fall if some other plans fall through.  

2. Read a lot. 

Check. 33 books and counting. 

3. Learn another language!

This goal failed epically. I have no idea when I thought I would have the time to do this. This was partly me thinking it would be cool to study Portuguese again and partly this one week where I decided I should learn a language my ancestors spoke. I decided Hungarian would be cool. There is a basic Hungarian course downloaded into my iTunes. However, I still speak 0 words in Hungarian. 

4. Go on a hiking trip.

While I did finally get around to exploring the Fells, a nature reserve right next to Tufts, I never made it on a backpacking trip or anything more extended than a long walk in the woods. I did however, travel home on 3 separate weekends, to Western Massachusetts for a family party, to Falmouth, MA/Tiverton, RI for my internship and to Nantucket. Not to mention getting to know Boston & Cambridge better. And I went on an epic 30 mile bike ride to the North Shore to work at a wedding. So not a terrible summer for adventuring. 

5. Drink at a rooftop bar.

Boston has a lot of really cool rooftop or patio bars. Never made it to any of em. 

6. Learn to Dance

Despite making it to several “Salsa Abajo las Estrellas” events, I still am a pitiful salsa dancer. At this point, I think the only thing that will really redeem this would be to end up in a serious relationship with an extremely patient Latin American dancer. Which seems rather unlikely at present. I also never made it to any of the African Dance classes at the Dance Complex that I had been dying to go to.  

7. Grow vegetables.

I found some free vegetables in the street once, and was going to have a small garden except the plants died on a hot weekend when I was home. Oops. 

8. Be economically self sufficient. 

This is sort of a misnomer since my parents are still footing tuition, healthcare, cellphone bill and probably a bunch of other things I’m forgetting about, but I had hoped to be able to cover my rent for the summer. This went well for the first two months, until I ran out of hours at my various jobs and needed a bailout package. At least I’ve cooked for myself for the last 6 months or so. 

9. Vegetarianism 

In my opinion, summer is one of the hardest times to be vegetarian. On the plus side, there are tons of delicious vegetables. On the negative side, people are always barbecuing delicious things. My (delicious) infractions: linguica stuffed clams (I mean come on!!), mussels, chicken filled spring rolls, shrimp, clam chowder. But hey, what are principles without a bit of flexibility?

Feliz Dia del Niño

Check out this amazing album of photos from Chile's continuing protests for free education, an interesting observation of El Día del Niño. I'm not 100% sure on context bc I haven't checked with any friends yet, but I'm guessing there were many symbolic layers to the event. Obviously, education is very much about families and future generations. Secondly, I would guess that the presence of children in the streets was meant to counter the violence and police brutality that have characterized much of the ongoing standoff. Lastly, Día del Niño is basically a very comercialized holiday, another day to buy presents for. So- taking your kids to a protest= promise of future education and advancement/a way to fight back against the commercialization of everything.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2316542752452.141225.1215963344&type=1

Wishing I were in Chile right now...

Completely contrary to the US students passive acceptance of massive debt, Chilean students are literally fighting for their right to quality education as a state function. Man I want to write about this more, but it's so late.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14412646

Feeble Salsa Dancing & Dangerous SUVs

Today was pretty much the best day ever, despite a lot of sweating like a proverbial hooker in church & a minor fall.


I worked for my catering job and Northeastern today. Basically I just chilled out with fun staff who had multiple danceoffs and got to bring home a bouquet.

After that, I biked around the South End, which I realized was an area I didn't know that well. I wanted to hate it for being totally gentrified, except it was so damn cute that it was nearly impossible. Little brownstones and parks and sidewalk cafés...

On the way home I had an incident that made me feel like a true Bostonian cyclist. I got doored, ie someone opened their door and hit me. I almost stopped in time/only caught the very very corner, so I almost didn't even fall. No major injuries, just 2 tiny bruises. And of course I was wearing a helmet, so that was good. Honestly, I've had worse falls down the stairs. So so so lucky. But seriously, lady, if you weren't driving a BIG ASS SUV (So 2000), there would have been room for me to go by in the bike lane and you to open your door. Get that crap off the road already!

Tonight, I went with my friend Suzanne and some of her salsa dancing compañeros to Salsa Abajo de las Estrellas, a weekly free outdoor salsa dancing extravaganza.  So much amazing dancing. I think I figured why I am such a terrible salsa dancer: I can't move my hips without forgetting the steps, and producing those two movements simultaneously is fairly crucial. It was so fun though: you can't help but be happy while listening to salsa. 

It also kind of negated my previous point about the South End. We were gathered in a park right next to Villa Victoria, a crucial center of Puerto Rican culture and activism, and there was an amazing cross section of people who showed up for the event. Keeping culture alive, reinterpreting it, reviving it, sharing it, through movement and music. What could be more beautiful?

Side news: An article about an awareness event the Guatemala radio network is having made it into the Guatemalan press! Perhaps I will translate the article at some point for y'all, google translate obscured too much of the meaning.
http://www.lahora.com.gt/index.php/nacional/guatemala/departamental/3581-buscan-aprobacion-de-ley-de-medios-de-comunicacion-comunitaria

I had a dream last night that I went on a fact finding mission with the members of Cultural Survival to draw attention to the plight of a group of indigenous peoples. I can't remember "where" though.  Triple nerd score.

Brief reflections on my bookcase and the system that produced it

O hey there insomnia, really missed you. I swear, I haven't been this mentally restless since sophomore year of college.

So my bookshelf sits across from my bed and after staring at it for a while, I decided to inspect it further.

A rough and unscientific survey of the contents:

Poetry: 4 volumes. All male. 2x communist womanizer Pablo Neruda
Music: The Rough Guide to Jazz. This is the only book I have that remotely deals with the African American experience. Embarrassing.
Literature:
So many dudes. Whiny dudes.
"I want 'my' desert back" Edward Abbey- Desert Solitaire
"Being wealthy during the Pinochet Years is such a drag that all I can do is get high "Alberto Fuguet- Mala Onda
"I just got a noble prize for coopting Mayan imagery" Hombres de Maíz- Asturías (to be fair, he wrote unbelievably well)
"Let's have a cross continental bohemian romp" Rayuelas- Julio Cortázar
Economics: 4 volumes. If you count the Euro-enamored"Wealth and Poverty of Nations" and "Small is Beautiful."
Latin America: This part of my collection has a lot of breadth. But all expat academics, minus a lone Chilean author, Manuel Antonio Garretón.
South Asia/Middle East: All written by outsiders. 1 book about the Shi'ia, 1 about Islamic art & 1 alarmist/ing? view of Pakistan's nuclear program
Africa: According to my book shelf, Africa is nothing more than child soldiers & the legacy of Belgian genocide in the Congo. Cue the sad music and NGO pleas for money. Shameful.
Europe/Former USSR: Chernobyl. What a downer. 
Asia: Huh? Where's that?

I was shocked to realize I only own 2 books written by women. "Wasted" is about a woman's struggles with anorexia. The other is a male voiced narrative of spiritual journey in Spain.

Using my bookcase as a metric, it's visually apparent that the university does some things well: expose us to a wide variety of topics and shape more specific interests. What it doesn't do well: expose us to non-white, non-western, non-male views. Or let the inhabitants of different regions speak for themselves. To a certain extent, this isn't really academia's fault as much as it is the myriad legacies that led to disparities in education and investigation of the problems of the other rather than engagement with one's own society.

But it does really explain why I am only becoming more truly aware of my white privilege 3 years into my college education (a lack of consciousness that of itself represents tremendous privilege).

I/we have a long long way to go.

TED Talk: Language Diversity Matters!

Cultural capitalism?

Chanced across this again today- been meaning to repost for a while.

Quote of a hot hot hot day*

*Not actually related to the weather.

"To understand the extent, reality, and sacred nature of the rights of the person without destroying society, without fracturing it to atoms: such is the most difficult social goal."

-Alexander Herzen, quoted by Tzvetan Todorov in "The Conquest of the America: The Question of the Other"

Quote of the day

"We need to rigorously explore the ways our interventions as 'white people saving brown people from slightly less- brown people' may maintain colonialist- style relations, may blind us to difference among these people and are integral to consolidating a subject-position as gringa."
A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala, Diane Nelson


Damn straight. I (and probably every NGO ever) totally needed someone to remind me of this. To deconstruct the anthrobabble, she's arguing that the act of intervening is how foreigners in Latin America consolidate our identity in that context aka "gringa"

Dirty Water, Hard Partying Armenians & 235 Years of Rugged Individualism

Happy Fourth of July! As my independence day celebrations generally tend to be amusing, I figured I would recount this weekend.

On Saturday, some friends & I were going to go to Haymarket to the market to get vegetables, but then we rerouted and decided to go kayaking on the Charles! We had the best weather imaginable so it was a great adventure. Renting kayaks from Paddleboston, based out of Kendall Square, is actually quite affordable, at $18/hr for a double or $12 for a single cockpit, $1 drysack rental. A nice spot of exercise with fabulous views of Boston for about the same price as going to the movies. After that we never really made it over to Haymarket, but we walked back through Cambridge/Somerville, encountering a wild turkey yet failing to encounter the Union Square Farmer's Market. O well. That night, we had a bbq/fire pit which slowly devolved to the point where we were chilling on a porch with the 2 Irishmen who are subletting from one of my friends, trying to get them to remember our names and make their jokes slightly less offensive to women. Typical night for Slummerville, I suppose. The firepit was awesome though.

 On Sunday, I refused to do anything productive all day except read Kim Barker's "Taliban Shuffle" (still haven't totally digested how I feel about it) until I went to a catering around 8. I thought it rather odd that a dinner was starting that late, especially since it was a holiday weekend, but it made more sense eventually. Apparently, it was for an Armenian Awards Convention of some sort. I'm not entirely sure the details because all the posters were in Armenian. At least initially, I ended up serving food to the room they had set aside for all the kids, which was a terrible idea because it got rather rowdy. I felt like I was in a video game- dodging small fast moving objects while trying to get to a certain point. Or maybe babysitting. Definitely not your run of the mill catering experience. Kids running around, all the gorgeous adults drunk, a bunch of people making loud speeches in Armenian, a hooded religious figure, kitchen staff creepin' (Señorita, I love you!): it was rather chaotic. Dios mio.

Things got even more wild once they started blasting music with a live band. It reminded me of a Bollywood score, speed up, with extra string instruments thrown in for good measure. Eventually, everyone was dancing in a circle and then all these guys started breakdancing and then dancing with carrying men on their shoulders AND carrying another guy around the waist. Then they started waving various flags. By this point, it looked more like a mob celebrating election results than what I'm used to as a dance party. Quite unexpected but a good reminder that life is to be enjoyed. a lot.

So then it was time for independence day. I decided to be nice to America and spend a day without criticizing stuff, which is hard because pretty much all i do is read about reasons one should criticize american power and influence. (We know you can be better!!!) But anyway, turned off my brain & threw on some red white n blue & went to a bbq (i ate veggie burgers though).  Then we watched fireworks over the Charles which were AMAZING. it was quite good & far more laid back than my all night partying yeah yeah Chilean independence day. but 2 independence days in twelve months? Maybe I should make that happen more often.

can't get you out of my head

Happy song!

MEXICO 2/11 | The Plastics Revolution | Saturno - Light Of Day - Money Talks | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.


Why am I awake right now? Today was my day to sleep in! it's ok though, this music makes me want to do happy awake things!

What I did at work this week

-Researched (a.k.a stalked using the internet) Guatemalan/Mexican concession owners of multinational corporations.
Results: Holy crap! There is no way we can possibly hope to influence these people! They own everything! And are absurdly powerful!

-Tried to make a drunk guy who stumbled in our office at 10:30 in the morning leave without being rude. SO AWKWARD. Luckily, the rest of the staff are much more used to these things, as the office seems to draw "interesting characters." I wasn't there to witness it, but apparently a slightly off kilter fellow wandered in last week, claiming that he was a novelist, and needed people to give him ideas for book characters.

-Researched major figures at World Association of Community Radio Stations (AMARC) & drafted letters to them, inviting them to participate in an event in Guatemala City in August to push for the legalization of community radio stations there

-Transported documents about an ongoing court case in Panama regarding the displacement of the Ngöbe people by a dam to our lawyer at Harvard Law School. By bicycle of course :)
(Two side comments:
1. Harvard Law School is super liberal! At least the professors are. I had not quite expected that. I hadn't seen so many "No human is illegal" stickers in quite some time.
2. There is absolutely no security at Harvard Law School. New plan to find successfulintelligentboyfriend: Do homework at Harvard Law School. )

-Translated(somewhat poorly I'm afraid, but it was English to Spanish) a document about film making for a workshop we're sponsoring in Guatemala. Then I also "translated" the images used in the booklet, changing them from reflecting white urban realities to a rural/indigenous Guatemalan context. This was a lot of fun, since I got to look through all of the amazing and gorgeous photographs in our Flickr account.

-Briefly pitched in Cultural Survival's weekly wiffleball game, continuing to prove that there are many reasons I didn't play sports involving hand eye coordination.

Look Who Graduated

the one in the middle <3 Congrats to Audrey Clayton, Bernards High School Valedictorian 2011

"No queremos migajas, queremos sentirnos libres": Some thoughts on my internship

*"We don't want crumbs, we want to be free"- From a song by the amazing Anita Tijoux

Apologies de ante mano (beforehand), I sense an insanely long post coming on. Amazingly, I've already been working with Cultural Survival for over 2 weeks now. It's been a highly emotional experience, which I think will be apparent as I talk about it more.

The office staff and my fellow interns are really truly warm, intelligent and amazing people and I'm excited to continue to get to know them better throughout the summer. The office is super relaxed, which  I'm learning is a working environment that I really value. A lot of the staff live far away and commute to the office only when they have to, so there's a changing cast of characters throughout the day(s). And just being around the office environment of a non profit provides an inside look and learning experience. Just from overhearing conversations, I'm getting a sense of the complexities of the politics of charity navigator ratings(somehow ours went down despite the % of dollars going directly to work increasing), the sometimes awkward dance with potential funders, the cycle of asking for donations, and shifting an organization to be relevant in the digital age. There are always funny surprises too, such as people leaving letters outside the office reading "What about the Indo-European tribes?" or a woman trying to donate her goat farm to us??????

I should give some background about my specific project, the Guatemala Radio Project. At the best moments, it feels like I'm part of an important struggle for human rights, a dramatic complex dance of David and Goliath. At worst, I feel like a imperialist hack, meddling where I don't belong, in a cultural context I don't fully understand, and for what, self aggrandizement? A sexy sounding job title? As if the US didn't have its own struggles and problems.
May have gotten slightly carried away with the hyperbole there...

ANYWAY, the actual projects I am working on are incredibly varied, from creating maps & video content to screening audio to translating/transcribing documents to testing a phone system to transmit radio messages over the air in real time. Lots of Spanish. Which is sorely needed, after I realized how bad things had gotten when I tried to talk to my old language partner the other night. The biggest project I am working on right now, however, involves a project to legalize community radio stations. Despite provisions in both international law and Guatemala's 1996 Peace Accords, Guatemalan Communications Law does not actually allow for frequencies to be allocated by any means other than expensive auctions. As a result, Mayan communities have limited access to media. And thereby are excluded from other important forms of information, such as news, health info, political info, especially in regions that mainly speak Mayan languages. So what we are trying to do as a last hurrah before elections in September is get the Junta Directiva of the Guatemalan National Congress to put a bill, Initiativa 4087, on the agenda to be voted on, which would provide a definition of community radio stations, creating a framework to legal challenge the shutdown of radio stations and simultaneously allow for their expansion. To do this, we are figuring out who is important politically and has power over the agenda: both political actors & sponsors of commercial radio stations, many of whom are internationally owned corporations or subsidiaries. Most of what I did today was look up the history of Coke (can anyone say depressing?) and Domino's pizza in Guatemala which made me realize how consolidated the world's corporate ownership is, yet just decentralized enough to avoid responsibility. Realizing some of this interconnection made me feel less like an interloper. Consider these linkages: Bain Capital is founded by Mitt Romney. Bain Capital buys Domino's Pizza. Domino's expands in Guate. Providing them with capital to advertise on commercial radio stations. When commercial radio station owners hear interference from other stations, they get the police to crack down on "piratas," pirates, because they have paid to use the waves and the others have not. Community radio station struggles to get back on its feet again if it can at all. Disparities in power abound, but I just indirectly connected a US presidential hopeful to a Mayan villager in about 5 giant leaps. Small freakin world.


Let me give an example that really sums up a lot of the ethical hurdles I've been pondering.  This week, I was assigned the task of finding high quality examples of radio broadcasts about health that a specific funder had provided support for. In some ways, the series was great because it provided simple, easy to understand information about a variety of health problems. However, our sponsor, unnamed, happens to be founded by a conservative catholic, who is completely opposed to birth control and discussions of abortion so I was instructed to avoid anything seemingly controversial. This censorship in order to make the donor happy kind of pissed me off, especially since it was completely hypocritical since we had actually funded several spots, for example, about condom use, with their money. It also illustrated how, in order to fund something we feel is important, i.e. health information spread by radio, we covered up a discussion about the future role of women's reproductive rights in a very traditional country. Similar example of this pragmatic approach: asking Otto Perez Molina, a former military general cum politician generally believed although not convicted of crimes during the Civil War against Mayan villagers to support our campaign. This may or may not get you where you need to go, but boy it feels sleazy to me.

I got really mad though at one point when I listened to another radio broadcast from the same series about dengue fever. Follow with this example for a second. I've been thinking a lot about a study Paul Farmer did in Haiti, in which he surveyed sick patients in a rural Haitian village to see if they believed voodoo was responsible for their illnesses. A trial group who were given money for additional food and other such items fared far better in the long run, regardless of whether or not patients believed it was voodoo or microbes that made them sick. Back to the case at hand, it's clear that mosquitoes cause dengue, and in some ways those are easier to avoid than invisible microbes, alongside the eradication of sources of stagnant water. The thing that upset me though was that the underlying inequalities that lead to stagnant water in Guatemalan villages were completely unaddressed, which in a sense implied the patronizing notion that villagers only don't take action against dengue because of ignorance. How about a gigantic storage bin filled with stagnant water because your family, who despite technically having access to clean drinking water, only actually have access via a pump for 2 hours every day and therefore have no choice but to store what they can for future use? Or poor housing conditions with leaky roofs?  Or how about chronic malnutrition rendering people vulnerable to disease despite lower middle income country status?

The problem is, you can't fundamentally address these inequalities without calling for a radical change to the order of things. And that's already been tried. But dark humor aside, this is one of the questions this summer's work has posed to me: is it enough to say you are working for social change if you are unwilling to deeply confront the issues that cause the problems you are trying to remediate? Are fair trade, corporate social responsibility and unenforceable human rights utter bullshit, vain attempts to justify a system that arguably isn't working for most people? Can we justifiably pressure corporations to not destroy indigenous homelands with massive infrastructure projects when our own consumption is fundamentally linked to the need for power? Is international partnership and collaboration an actual reality given the immensity of the disparities in wealth and power and influence?

I will say this: as tired and overstimulated as my brain is right now, longing for this weekend in the verdant pastures of New Jersey (intended unironically), I don't ever think I will want the sort of job I can stop thinking about when I leave the office. I doubt I'll be "selling out" for a while yet, although I think its pretty clear from the rant above that I'm not entirely sure how much more integrity the non-profit sector has anyway.

Life Updates

Things are going swimingly.
I paid my rent for the month. I had a lovely trip home to see the family. I have a mentor. My "summer home" is a slight step up from my previous lodgings: I am no longer living in a converted porch, the basement pipes are not covered in asbestos, there is free laundry, a big backyard with grass and a grill, a dishwasher and I have an absurdly large queen size bed.
I started my internship with Cultural Survival officially yesterday. I really like it so far. Everyone is really relaxed and there is no apparent dress code for the interns. We get to hang in this cool basement/library near the kitchen or upstairs at a giant table. We got delicious banana bread that one of the staff members, Polly, brought in.
I spent most of yesterday getting acquainted with the staff, the office and the specifics of the Guatemala Radio project. Because I am lazy, see link here for now: http://www.culturalsurvival.org/current-projects/guatemala-radio-project Basically, though, I just read a ton of back issues of Cultural Survival's magazine. My head was swimming with new things when I left: violence against Papuan women, Leonard Peltier, Guatemalan mining laws, the silence of the US, Austrailia and Canada on indigenous issues in international law, conservation refugees, etc.

The other interns are really cool too, ranging from grad students with families to intinerant travelers to another Tufts senior. Everybody brings really unique things to the table, which I'm excited for.

All in all, shaping up to be a good summer.