Ravenna does the World.

Observations of the Capital

2011-09-07T05:16:00.003+02:00

In Port-au-Prince there are long dividers between the road lanes, with huge flower pots. After the earthquake tents filled any empty spaces immediately, and families clung together under their gortex roofs with traffic racing around them. Many young children were killed by cars.

There is a Martin Luther King Boulevard in downtown Port-au-Prince.

Big Fish, Little Fish: Building Foundations and Mobilizing Communities in Haiti

2011-08-29T19:20:00.002+02:00

8/22/11 Papay, Central Plateau, Haiti

As published on the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Web Site 8/24/11 http://international.blogs.uua.org/2011/08/24/big-fish-little-fish-building-foundations-and-mobilizing-community-in-haiti/#more-1812

Eight of us piled into the back of a white SUV. Our American legs, unaccustomed to pants in the summer heat, rubbed against our neighbor’s. As we left the compound, tree trunks painted in the green and red of Mouvman Peyizan Papay (the Papaye Peasant Movement, or MPP) faded to dense fences of thin cactus stalks. A few minutes later we passed the first landmark that had become familiar — the washing river. The first time we crossed, a man was scrubbing his red Chinese-made motorbike in the middle of the brown water; the second time, a massive brown and white bull waited patiently while his hide was cleaned. This morning two men stood knee deep in the river, washing the floorboards of a white truck without doors.

After 25 more minutes of pinballing across the road to avoid deep rifts in the red earth, we arrived at the entrance to the eco-village where we’d be spending the rest of our mornings. Mimine, the head engineer, guided us through the growing village. Two complete square houses, eight under way. The buildings are made almost entirely out of earth, with a rock and gravel foundation and clay walls. We got to work, passing stones hip to hip around the perimeter of the building to the men and women laying the foundation. Soon the group of Haitian children who’d been watching us joined us in line. Side-by-side, we sang Haitian freedom songs and Janis Joplin. The rock pile became smaller, and the foundation grew.

Haiti has a troubled history, and its relationship with the United States is no different. We blocked trade soon after they won their freedom because we were afraid of the precedent set by a nation established through slave revolt. We established a Marine occupation in the 1900s, and we continue to ignore or oppress Haiti as convenient. But here we are, 13 young Americans, laying a house’s foundation alongside members of the most political peasant movement in Haiti — largely because UUSC has proven time and time again, with its steady stream of volunteers and dollars, that it is committed to standing as an ally in the long term.

Today we sat in on a popular-education training, where community members from all over Haiti use music and pictures to discuss oppression and how to mobilize their community. We talked about a series of pictures, one with a large fish eating a mouthful of smaller fish as others swam in different directions. Then we saw the smaller fish organize into the form of a larger fish and chase the larger fish away. In the course of our discussion, one of our members asked if the smaller fish could ever ally with the big fish, to which the facilitator responded, “Selman si gwo pwason prann konsyans” — “only if the big fish is conscious enough.”

With the groundwork laid by UUSC and our community’s continued commitment to serving as a partner — listening to the Haitians tell us what they want for their communities, how they want to mobilize, where they want us to put the rocks — we can make huge strides in supporting progressive, sustainable, incredible projects like the MPP eco-village. And we can make baby steps toward addressing the many, many missteps that we as a nation have taken in our dealings with Haiti. If we’re big fish, let us at least be conscious ones.

Freedom Shards

2011-08-29T19:18:00.001+02:00

8/21/11 Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Our group left the Palm Inn, near central Port-au-Prince, in three white vans. We were silent, our eyes glued to the windows as our convoy passed opulence virtually on top of devastation—high walls guarding tennis courts next to piles of white rubble. Winding through neighborhoods and makeshift refugee camps, we made a left and came upon the crushed National Palace. Of the three majestic white domes, one has caved into itself, one has broken into massive shards like a giant shattered teacup, and one is completely gone. Today marks almost exactly eighteen months after the catastrophic earthquake shook Port-au-Prince, lifting it into the air and then shattering its foundations. Entire university classes were lost—if the third years were in the basement the third years were killed. The National Palace faces the Champs des Mars, where large statues of Haiti’s heroes now tower over hundreds of tents. I kept imagining the Capitol Dome and what it would mean to Americans to have one of our most recognizable national symbols left in disrepair for a year and a half. It just seems so unfair, in a country where so much has been taken, that this symbol of great pride would remain in pieces as well.

Rioting in Khayelitsha

2009-05-12T06:28:00.002+02:00

http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=20735

I'm not sending you this article to freak you out, I'm sending it to you because I'm going to South Africa at an incredibly interesting time.

Khayelitsha is a township (informal settlement created under the Apartheid government to keep black labor close enough to work, but outside of the cities and contained by color) of about 2, 2.5 million black south africans. We'll be staying there for two nights, and working there for two weeks. They did stop service projects there for a few days, but the conditions have since calmed down (the elections were about a month ago).

So we're going to South Africa a month after the re-election of the African National Congress (Mandela and Mbeki's party), which will bring Jacob Zuma to power. This is the first Zulu president of South Africa, and the ANC has historically been far more friendly to Xhosas, the other really large tribe in SA. We'll be in Eshowe and Islandwana in Zululand for four days, so it will be interesting to hear what people there have to say about his ascension. Zuma was also the delight who was brought up on corruption charges (dropped so as to not interfere with his image during elections), rape charges, and after having unprotected sex with a prostitute said that he wasn't concerned about HIV because he'd taken a shower afterwards. Yaaay effective health education! He also has four wives, he had five but one of them committed suicide and indicted him in the suicide letter. Appropriately, women's groups have been actively protesting his ascension. But the drama in Khayelitsha is surrounding the local election of the Democratic Alliance, whose housing policies are apparently going to screw the residents pretty bad (I don't know the exact details, I will in a month). But the article I included is one about the general frustration in Khayelitsha, which is felt especially strongly in townships throughout South Africa. 15 years post-Apartheid South Africa is a model in many ways, but the facts remain that the economic disparity between the poorest and richest has increased by 6 times post-Apartheid, that there are less jobs, that the main source of employment for black women is still domestic labor where the women are typically required to live in the garage outside of the "master's" house, visiting their families maybe two weekends a month, that the government's attitudes and responses related to HIV have been lackluster at best, homicidal at worst. But I love South Africa, and will forever be inspired by its people and communities, because in the face of everything else, South Africans have banded together and taken ownership of social problems in their own communities and elsewhere in the country in such innovative and passionate ways.

Okay, back to work. I just got very excited. One week!

Ravenna

Photo Highlights!

2008-05-15T21:26:00.003+02:00

26 choice images from the past three and a half months:

One Semester, Five Countries

Prague, The Final Frontier

2008-05-06T15:24:00.005+02:00

Well amigos, I've safely delivered myself to the final leg of this overseas adventure. I'm writing from Nice, where I'm nestled safely in the bosom of my parents' cushy French vacation.

In the past month I've gone from Marseille to Morocco with a brief layover in Paris, from Morocco to Amsterdam in even less time, directly from there to Berlin, then straight to Prague, and then back to Paris. Due to the plummeting value of our trusty American currency, the exorbitant fees charged to international financial transactions, and probably a teensy bit to my poor planning, I found myself completely broke for most of my time in Amsterdam and Berlin, and honest-to-goodness broke in Prague. But I managed to have a phenomenal time in the Czech Republic on less than 8Euros a day, thanks largley to couchsurfing.com. Couchsurfing is an online website allowing individuals to host travelers on a spare bed, couch, or spot of floor space. While the premise is basically that total strangers are trusting that the other won't rape or steal from them, it's actually fairly well legitimized through a series of interpersonal security checkpoints, ie if you meet someone through couchsurfing you write them a review detailing what kind of person they are and how you met, etc. You can gauge a potential host or surfer by how many friends they have, and how many reviews. And frankly, I've done a lot dumber stuff during this trip than sleeping on the couch of a twenty five year old Czech woman I met online.

I am so glad I met Martina, my couchsurfing host. She is such a trip--here are a couple Martinaisms (paraphrased slightly):

On Terrorism and Global Security: "The Czech Republic has nothing to worry about from Arab terrorists--they like our women too much. Under communism, so many of them came here to study, and they spent five years drinking our beer and fucking our women."

On why she won't travel to Africa: "I dated enough men from Africa. They're good for the sex, but not much else. And with this ass, they just won't leave me alone. Maybe if I lose weight, then I'll go to Africa."

On Social Justice Initiatives: "This guy sent me a Facebook invitation to light a candle in my window for Tibet. Does he even know me? I'm not going to put a fucking candle in my window for some Tibet crap."

As much as this woman is really the antithesis of basically all of my convictions, I can't help it...I loved her. And she's an amazing hostess--pouring drinks and providing mattresses for the multitudes of couchsurfers she hosts every night. When I had to leave to catch a plane at 4:30am, she took me out for Chinese and then kept me up drinking half liters of beer in a train station pub with her friends. Ask to see our bar tab from that night... I'm thinking of framing it.

Through couchsurfing I found out about a fireshow and drumming circle on a hilltop park (all of the parks in Prague are on hills and offer amazing views of the city), where I met an Indian guy teaching English in Prague. I ended up spending a lot of my time with him and another couchsurfer from Hong Kong who surfed with Martina.

Prague is beautiful--when I got there it really was the first time I'd experienced springtime in Europe, and I spent a lot of time just lying under the sun in the parks. One day I spent seven hours searching out new parks and then figuring out the best way to use their super tram system to get myself back. I think that's when I realized that I really am on vacation. La vie, elle est dure...

Back to the States on Saturday, pictures to be uploaded soon after.

Burrr-lin

2008-04-23T11:34:00.002+02:00

Just kidding, it was actually warmer in Berlin than in Amsterdam.

Let me preface this entry by stating that I am writing from a czech keyboard and have not yet found the question marks, exclamation points, or apostrophes. And the z and y are switched.

I had such a fun time in Berlin... it really is just an amazing city. The transportation is cheap (even cheaper when you revalidate your seventy two hour pass every time your enter the metro, thus rendering illegible the date that it was purchased and then just continuing to use it for the two days after it had expired), the city is huge and packed full of plenty to see and do, there are a ton of international residents and entrepreneurs, everyone I encountered spoke English (save one chap who thought I was asking about mushrooms when I was looking for a bathroom).

My friend Chelsea from AU was kind enough to let me stay with her host family all five nights... at first it was two nights and then four and then the whole stay... but we had a blast together. Thursday I trundled around by myself in the rain and found a great little cafe with cheap Machiatos where I was able to read Lonely Planet Berlin for a few hours. After that I took LPs suggestion to visit what is apparently the best doner kabob place in town (it was pretty darn good) and then the ErotikMuseum... super pictures to come. Thursday night the museums on the island in the middle of Berlin are free so Chelsea and I saw Ishtars Gate. The bar Chelsea and I were planning to go afterwards turned out to be a bust, but after walking a few blocks we spyed a bar I had highlighted in LP called Erdbeer, which is German for Strawberry. We had such a good time... a DJ spinning ambient house, plush couches and candlelight, great drinks. Plus I got to teach Chelseas friend about Apartheid and other pockets of African history, which always warms my heart. Friday was nuts... we went to the big Turkish Market and East Side Gallery to see some of the original artwork on the Wall, and then went to one American party, one hole in the wall Commie bar throwing a free Drum and Bass party with super cheap Czech beer, and a goth bar where this German lady with about three dance moves tried to challenge me to a dance off. She lost, and I went to bed at around seven am after spending close to ten euros on beer, which is quite a feat in Germany.

Saturday was significantly more low-key, I went to the Jewish Museum and Checkpoint Charlie, and then we went to this bar called Kaufbar (I am pretty sure thats how its spelled, but its basically the word for sell so you can buy any of the furniture in the bar as well as use it). We bought coffees and played board games for a few hours before leaving to play on this crazy ball of ropes at around one thirty am. Sunday we did brunch, as Sunday brunches are quite the thing to do in Berlin, and then walked around to a huge flea market and the remaining Berliner monuments that I had yet to see.

I had a simply splendid time, a great combination of nightlife and local knowledge (of my friend who had been studying there for several months and of her legit Berliner friends), and obligatory tourist stops. Although I spent a bit more money than I should have... everything is so cheap its harder to rationalize not spending it... so I am currently living in Prague on less than 200 crowns a day, which is a bit less than eight euros. Lots of walking, but so far its been lovely.

I am pretty pumped to meet up with Mom and Dad in Paris in exactly a week.

Here, there are expiration dates on the psychedelic mushrooms.

2008-04-14T17:42:00.008+02:00

Alright kids, I've started my obligatory white college-aged European backpacking tour with the obligatory first city of young American soul-searching: Amsterdam. And I have to admit, I love it here. I used the public transportation system two times before I realized that I'd just have to bow to popular opinion and rent a bike. So I've been spending my days here biking around, getting lost, striking up coversations with Dutch passerbys under the guise of needing directions, finding a new coffeeshop and passing the afternoon reading...

I'm staying with my dear friend Brandon, a Women and Gender Studies/Sociology Major from AU who is devoting his life to smashing the patriarchy. He's studying sexuality and gender at University of Amsterdam with a gaggle of equally subversive American students from all over the country... while it would be overly ambitious to say that I've been to all the gay bars in Amsterdam, it's fair to say that I've made a hell of a start touring around Amsterdam with his lot. I think the figures for Drag Shows per capita here have to set the global standard. Also important to note: Brandon is living with an elderly Dutch gay man in an apartment who's decor can only be described as an homage to the phallis, a phallis palace if you will. I can't wait to take a picture next to the two and a half foot penis ash-tray sculpture.

While the people here are very nice, I've been exposed to more anti-Americanism here than at any other point in my travels. It's not immediate, but if you talk to a Dutch person for more than ten minutes they'll shower you in their real opinions of the U.S.: our criminal justice system is completely flawed and it doesn't make sense that people should feel that they have to run from law enforcement officers, our drug laws are completely backwards, President Bush has taken our country back at least thirty years, Americans Christians are hypocrites who don't love their neighbors. I can't disagree with most of the criticisms of our country, but I do strongly disagree with the idea that the complexity of our huge nation and our diverse people can be entirely represented by a few episodes of "COPS"or "The 700 Club." But at this point Europeans are so used to hearing bad news from the U.S. and have such a defined perception of "the American" that it's all they hear and all they see.

The moral of this story is that everyone who thinks like me should travel more.

Souvenirs du Maroc

2008-04-13T20:03:00.004+02:00

Waiting for my EasyJet plane to Morocco in the Charles de Gaulle Airport, I turned to the French woman next to me and asked her if she knew Marrakech well, and if she could tell me how to get to the main square from the airport. Luckily a young Canadian girl named Kristen heard my accent and immediately knew I was from her side of the Atlantic, and beckoned me over to her and her Morocco guide book, which from here on out will be referred to as "the Bible." After getting in to Morocco almost three hours later than projected and changing lines to get through passport control at least four times, we managed to board our bus to "Centre Ville." (Second time Kristen and the Bible saved my butt--my hostel had told me to take the 8 when in fact it was the 19.) Descending from the bus into the Place Djemaa el-Fna is incredible. During the day it's a dusty square with a few scattered henna artists or serpent trainers under umbrellas, but at night there are dozens of booths of mobile restaurants, musicians, orange juice squeezers, creating a cloud of smoke and lights and drumbeats... it's almost overwhelming. But at this point I was several hours after the ETA I'd given my hostel, so I went to find my hostel. After a half-hour circling the same place and fending off young boys trying to show me to my accommodations (for a price), I finally broke down and engaged one in his services. He guides me through a hidden door down a winding covered alley into a group of six other boys. My head is already whirring with guidebook stories of youth who will get you totally lost in the souks (labyrinths of Morocco) and then charge you an exorbitant sum to lead you back out again, and then we round the corner and it's completely black. I'm starting to protest but the gaggle of boys are assuring me that this is in fact the way, and unfortunately they were right. At breakfast the next day I discovered that there hadn't been one guest at the hostel who hadn't had to pay a kid to show them the way.

The next day I went with Kristen to a Hamman, a traditional spiritual bath. For the equivalent of 7 Euros a bare-breasted Moroccan women scrubbed me down with a series of herbs and oils. As this woman spoke neither English nor French, we were at a bit of an odds when it came to communication. This did not seem to bother her: when she wanted me to turn over she'd smack my butt, when she didn't feel that I should be wearing underpants anymore she pulled them off, and when she didn't feel like listening to my confused French protests she'd throw a bucket of cold water in my face. The experience was expholiating, physically and emotionally.

Kristen and I also went motorbiking outside the Medina walls with Moroccan boys and got lost in the souks with two Brazilian photographers staying in my hostel. After she left for a trip into the desert I joined a tour group going to these amazing waterfalls three hours outside of Marrakech. On the way we drove through miles of Moroccan flags and framed pictures of the King--it turns out that we drove through the route that the King was going to be taking later that day. The waterfalls were beautiful, crisp and cold with plenty of rock formations to climb. The cascades are so incredible largely because of how tall they are; I was reminded that I was no longer in Europe or the States by the fact that there was no guardrail between the dusty, curved cliff and that hundreds of feet that one would drop if their flip flop went a bit funny.

I did another trip outside of the city two days later, a three day excursion into the mountains and the desert that included lots of driving, numerous forty-five minute stops in villages or gorges, getting caught in a sandstorm in the Sahara desert, smoking shisha with a group of young Berber men, a sunrise dromedary ride... My main objection to my trip is how our driver would bring us to the most expensive restaurants and make bathroom stops at his friends' businesses where we were pressured to purchase food or souvenirs and required to pay for the filthy bathrooms... here's a little anecdote: One of our first stops was a berber village a few hours to the southwest of Marrakech. We were told when we purchased the tour package that it would be a stop, but we weren't told that we would be expected to pay to enter. Granted, ten dirhams is not a lot of money, it's about the equivalent of a Euro, but when you've already been in Marrakech for four days and you've been asked or required to consistently supply 10 dirhams for services you've never had to pay for before, like asking directions or washing your hands, you get pretty fed up with it. So one of the other girls on the trip and I decided that it wasn't worth ten dirhams to go inside the village when we could be walking in the riverbed for free, and were meandering along when the sky went completely black and sand starts flying everywhere. Then it starts raining, but this isn't normal rain, this rain hurts. Why don't they tell you in the tour package that there are HAILSTORMS in Morocco? Gretelle, the other girl, yells out to me in the storm that maybe we should go up the hill and seek refuge in the village.

I yell back to her that I don't want to spend 10 dirhams and would rather wait it out in the hail/sandstorm.

***
In truth, I found my time in Marrakech to be rather fatiguing... The venders are aggressive in their salepitches, the men are aggressive in their passes. I understand that the statistics in Morocco are hard--70% of Moroccan children don't get any formal education and the formal unemployment rate in the cities flucuates between 15 and 10%, but unfortunately these same statistics exist and are oftentimes worse in places all over the world. There's something different in Marrakech. As with much of the developing world, there are two worlds in the same country--glitzy giant casinos that the native Moroccans will never see, hyper elevated property value in the cities marketed towards foreign buyers, national treasures that someone who can't afford a car will never get to see. So I can understand a sense of entitlement to western money, but it just gets to a point where you feel that the Moroccans who smile at you are only seeing a sack of money or a western porn actress.

That said, I did have some phenomenal interactions with people--I bought my postcards from a woman who wants Hillary to win our elections because she's convinced that she would be a better world leader solely based on her gender. The guy who squeezed my orange juice talked to me for an hour about how secular Marrakech is and why his father chose to let his three brothers go to school but not him. I met a Berber man named Mohammad who taught me so much about the Muslim faith and the Berber language, and another who scribbled down the name of a movement in Morocco to encourage Berbers to pursue higher education. I was so impressed by all of these individuals, by their wisdom and worldliness despite having never left the country, by the staunch feminist wearing a headscarf, each one speaking at least three languages fluently. Here I am chasing my bliss all over the world, trying so hard to grow into the person I want to be, but the human spirit really can blossom anywhere.

Checking in before a month of backpacking

2008-03-31T13:59:00.003+02:00

My past few weeks have been relaxing but great, in keeping with my precedent.

I spent Easter weekend with my real, live French friend Pauline and her real, live French family in Montpellier. I think I gained 5 kilos (whatever that means) during that weekend alone. Pauline and I went bicycling through barren vineyards and the oldest parts of her parent's village outside Montpellier, and Sunday morning I sat through 2 and a half hours of Christian French. In truth, her parents' church is very international and informal and interesting--it was a great way to spend Easter in France.

Last week I went to an African Dance class for children in the Banlieue, who are mostly the children of North and West African immigrants. I was the only clearly white person there, but have faith, I was representing thanks to my semester of West African Dance instruction. This weekend I went rockclimbing in the Calanques, these amazing mountains bordering the Mediterranean which are famous for being a rock-climbers paradise because they host all imaginable levels of capability. Saturday night I went to a world-renowned musical festival called "BabelMed." The acts themselves were rather "nul," but the ambiance was great. And the image of this Moroccan rock band taking the stage, with the lighting behind the artists silhouetting head scarves and skullcaps with electric bases and drum sets... A fantastic visual.

Tomorrow I'm leaving Marseille for Paris, where I'll leave most of my belongings before parting for Marrakech, Morocco, the next day. I'm spending a week in Morocco, after which I'll return to Paris, and the following day depart for Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam to Berlin to Prague back to Paris to meet Mom and Dad 29 April.

All my love, and all my photos in a month.

Ciao.

A Couple Highlights

2008-03-16T13:30:00.003+01:00

- PARIS: An all-night "Get Crunkddd" crumping competition (an urban style of dance originating in LA with heavy West African influences that has since become an integral part of a genre of rap and hip hop popular in the Southern United States)
- MARSEILLE: A Klezmer Jazz concert (an Eastern European Jewish style of music, this band also had heavy jazz, rock, and hip hop influences)

Hiking, great conversations, new friends, lost a bit of my maternal language, but these two events are definitely going to be among the ones that define my time here. I'm having the time of my life, and I am one lucky teenager.

Plein de bisous de Marseille!

La Mode de Marseille

2008-03-13T16:48:00.002+01:00

While I found the Parisian style subtle yet insidious, la tendance in Marseille smacks you in the face like a drunk Algerian after the World Cup. It's very popular for the men here to shave the sides of their heads, drench the remaining short black hair in gel, and comb over the front while spiking up the top. The girls oftentimes poof up the top of their hair and sport large gold or silver hoop earrings and plenty of black eye make-up, making the Marseillais couple perfect for West Side Story 2008. It is acceptable for both men and women here to wear sweat pants as part of a stylish ensemble, so long as they are appropriately paired with new Nikes or old Converses and a leather coat. The men here are trying commendably hard to bring back nylon track pants, which most of them can pull off. (Malheuresement, this particular style of pants is not known for being incredibly forgiving to those of wider stature, which the men of wider stature don't seem to realize, or more likely as this is Marseille... they just don't care.) In sum, the youth of Marseille are dressed in such a way as to indicate that at any given moment they could drop their knock-off Louis Vuitton bags to either replace a member of Marseille's football team or form a squadron of back-up dancers for La Fouine's latest music video.

Note: only about half of Marseille's youth dress like this... but they're my favorite half.

Bienvenue à Marseille

2008-03-12T17:44:00.004+01:00

I arrived in Marseille's Gare Saint-Charles Saturday afternoon. I was met at the gare by Véro, a friend of a friend of my Aunt, and Anne, one of the girl's I'm living with and Véro's friend, making her the friend of a friend of a friend of my Aunt. The word in French for networking is réseau. Anne lives in this amazing apartment in the cinquième arrondissement de Marseille, so incredibly central and just a walk down the Canebière from Vieux Porte. She has two and a half flatmates--Nico, Cécile, and Ben, who lives in Avignon but works here and so lives here a few nights a week. But I have been here for four nights, and I'm yet to be in the apartment with only four. Cécile currently has a friend visiting from Paris, Anne's brother is here all week, Anne's friend Anne and her boyfriend are here sometimes, and the cast of characters continues. They're all in their late twenties or early thirties, roll their own cigarettes, and trundle through a couple bottles of red wine a night. Rather a different lifestyle than my accommodations in Paris, where I was silent by 10.30pm and in bed by midnight during the week.

My first night I went out to dinner with the gaggle plus a few and afterwards we went to a bar around the corner. It was around 2 or 3am and the bar was packed but decided it wanted to close, so the management rather loudly dropped metal blinds over the windows. A few minutes later they also dropped the blinds halfway over the door, so that when we parted a few minutes later we literally had to crawl. Bienvenue à Marseille.

Sunday I went hiking to the Calanque, where the mountains tumble into the sea. We had lunch on a rock next to the Mediterranean. Monday I started my courses at Alliance Francaise Marseille--I took an exam and they placed me two levels higher than the level I was at when I left Paris, so we will see... Tuesday I hiked up to the Notre Dame a la Garde, which has an incredible view of the city.

It's been cold since I arrived, and rained the first few days, which I've been repeatedly assured is highly irregular. I like the social climate here--it's radically different from Paris. There aren't a lot of English-speaking tourists here and the Marseillais just really don't respect rules at all. Cars park on the sidewalks, neither the people nor the cars respect the traffic indicators, people throw their trash everywhere, even the dogs will stop right in front of you and pee on the street. I understand that this sounds like a negative review, but it's difficult to describe... Marseille is better for it's "Je m'en fout" attitude. My first night out here we walked through a park where the trees were lit up beautifully with white luminaries blowing in the wind. It took me a few minutes to realize that they were garbage bags reflecting the light of the street lamps.

More later, I'm watching Marseille's football team play St.Petersburg.

Le Rap Francais

2008-03-07T11:41:00.003+01:00

One of my 3 priorities while in France has been to search out good French rap. You'd think it'd be easy, because I'm, you know, in France, but in reality the urban culture here is dominated by mainstream American hip hip. Luckily, last night I had a breakthrough. La Fouine. He has this chanson, "Quelque chose de Special," where he's rapping about how he has copines in all the DOM-TOMS. Basically exactly like Ludacris's "Bitches All Over the World" but plus classe, because it's in French. Youssoupha is another--his lyrics are fairly easy to understand, he has good flow, and his content is significantly less "women and money" than La Fouine, which I have mixed feelings about. Materialistic Hedonist French Rap is pretty super.

**In Marseille I discovered Hocus Pocus... he's actually just legitimately a good rapper, regardless of the language, and he incorporates a lot of other genres like jazz and acoustic flow. Ch-check it.**

My all-time favorite rests Disiz La Peste.

Je pars a Marseille demain apres-midi!

Busy Lady Still Hates Small Dogs

2008-02-26T19:16:00.005+01:00

I'm so sick of small dogs as accessories. Each time I see a dog that's too large to comfortably fit in a purse I immediately feel a strong fondness for the thing, even as it's peeing on the sidewalk I'm walking towards, which happens often. Tsk tsk, these city dogs.

Get excited world, I finally have a social life in Paris. Three weeks!! It sure took me long enough... Cette semaine je suis une meuf occupée. Ce soir je vais sortir à une "ladies night" à une vieulle boite très célèbrée, demain soir Pauline, mon amie française, me fera cuire dîner et après nous allons voir de la musique à une vieille barre connue, et jeudi mon nouveau petit ami parisien, qui est un cuisinier (ouaiiisss), me préparera un repas français!! Et puis, vous savez, le week-end commencera...

Ma meilleure amie dans mon Alliance Française programme est une italienne qui a quarante et un ans et qui s'appellée Daniella. Elle fume comme une cheminée, est toujours en retard pour notre cours, et rit toujours. Elle est vraiment ma héroïne (mais sans les cigarettes). Elle m'a invité lui passer une semaine en Italie... alors, peut-être. J'ai beaucoup d'amis à visiter en Europe.

I'm returning to the Market of the Fleas this weekend to do some final Parisian shopping. I don't think I've purchased one thing that hasn't had some animal product on/in it. In all fairness, I've only purchased two items of clothing, and both have been from the flea market so it's not like they killed it for me... But regardless, I'll think I'll have to title my next entry with my new and self-proclaimed cyber alias: the Vegetarian in Leather.

Doh! Champs Elysées...

2008-02-17T02:37:00.005+01:00

It is with mixed feelings of amusement and shame that I record here, for my family to read and render verdict, the results of my first nuit folle (crazy night) in Paris.

Shilpa, in her four weeks in Paris, has made the acquaintance of a Monsieur DJ Dorien, who happened to be spinning at QUEEN, one of the premier nightspots of Paris, situated directly on the Champs Elysées. Alors, hier soir I went clubbing on the Champs Elysées for free. After about two hours of pulsing techno and really, really terrible dancing (it seems to be a French truth, like the love of good cheese and penchant for fashionable boots, that they are physically incapable of moving rhythmically...except for the black men I've seen, quelques vérités sont universelles)... Anyhoo, after a few hours I decided to tuck the night under my chapeau as a French experience and hop on the metro back to Boulogne...when what should I discover but? My cell phone is nowhere to be found.

Now, the way I see it is thus: while yes, it does in fact suck that I'll potentially have to spend 30Euros on a new phone, at least I didn't buy the first one, and in the end I can always hold tight to the memory that I went clubbing in Paris and lost my cell phone somewhere on the Champs Elysées. Il y a tous que vous voulez au Champs Elysées... si, maintenant il y a aussi mon portable.

French Yoga and Hidden Bidets

2008-02-12T22:57:00.001+01:00

I started my language programme à Alliance Française yesterday. I'm probably the best in the class, but it might be because I've been studying the language for a year and a half at university already, whereas most of them have just been doing it intensively for a month or two. You certainly can't get yourself in a place where you're confident enough to even try to speak after a month and a half. Et on doit avoir la confiance!!, comme tout le Français dites-moi quand j'oublie un mot et deviens frustré. At first I was feeling rather superior to discussing the weather and seasons, but it's been really good. There's a lot of vocabulary I never learned or don't remember, and a lot of minor errors I make when I speak, and revisiting everything more intentionally while being in a setting where I can actually incorporate it into my daily conversations has been incredibly helpful. Plus every night I return to a real live French family who speaks to me. And I'm so glad I dropped out of the Sciences-Po programme!! I'm leading a fairly leisurely life where I do NOTHING but immerse myself in Paris and in studying the language. When I come home I review my vocabulary and make flashcards and watch French tv instead of cramming in homework for classes taught in English. And, unlike any other point in my collegiate career thus far, I'm getting enough sleep, which is probably helping a teensy weensy bit with the whole being patient enough to learn someone else's mother tongue.

I LOVE my homestay family. Ils sont super chouette. Olivier and Nathalie are the parents--they're both talkative and friendly and decidedly un-French and know English but will speak only French to me. Maxime is their 14 year old son (I was convinced he was a girl from an email the mom had sent me--I think I read Maxine--and thus I was so prepared for a girl that when I met a rather petite French boy in the throws of puberty it definitely took me a solid 15 minutes to change my opinion of gender). Lara is their incredibly dramatique 11 year old daughter. She's taken it upon herself to be my bonne petite professeur. I've basically adopted them as my little siblings after 3 days. Maxime and I were doing yoga tonight in the foyer, no joke. And boy did that session show me how much vocabulary I'm lacking. For some reason the words weren't pouring off my tongue for "make sure that you can see your big toe and your back foot is angled slightly in keep your back straight focus on your breathing." As I'm writing this I'm able to translate about 3/4s, but only because the whole living room yoga class got translated by both parents.

My ear hasn't quite clicked yet. I feel like I'm getting more, and like French doesn't sound foreign to me, to the point where sometimes I respond in English but I think I'm speaking French (is that progress??), but I'm just not interpreting whole stories and whatnot yet. I've been trying to listen to French tv as much as possible, especially French Simpsons. Spider-cochon, spider-cochon. Plus I haven't even been here a week and a half yet, which I keep forgetting. Seriously, if you could see the way I PWN the Parisian Metro, you'd think I was a native. As far as culture shock... I don't know... they're nicer than I thought they'd be, in general. I mean, there are bitches and exceedingly helpful people, like everywhere.

I have not yet encountered a bidet, but that might be because I have not yet entered a building where I've spent more than 10Euros. I feel like there's a converse relationship between Euros and bidets.

a BOF tale

2008-02-10T19:29:00.000+01:00

One of the great things about Paris is that there are so many things and so much history crammed into a relatively small space (about a quarter the size of NYC) that if you walk in any one direction for more than ten minutes you'll usually end up tumbling over something you've only seen on the shiny pages of an art history textbook. This morning, after the marché au puce, Megh (another American friend of mine in Paris) went down to the Jardin aux Plants and to see L'Institute du Monde Arabe. With my 3Euro lunch in hand (I never would've thought that I burrito made with crème fraîche would be so delicious) we decided to cross the street to check out the used book venders opposite us and what should emerge into our view but a giant Gothic Cathedral with flying buttresses. Voila! C'est Notre Dame à Paris, in my face. And right in front of this majestic, historic building there was a street performer showdown underway between four black guys dancing "ip op" (on ne dit pas les "H" en français) with lots of pelvic thrusting as well as doing a mean robot to the Amelie theme song versus a group of five hippie-esque acoustic musicians, the leader of which had that really attractive hairstyle where you're bald on top but still refuse to shave your dreadlocks. Je crois que the sexually explicit dancers en face de la Notre Dame ont gagné.

Move aside cemeteries, Le Grand Marché au Puce might just be my new favorite Parisian hotspot. Open Saturdays through Mondays à l'arret du métro "Porte de Clignancourt," très proche aux mals banlieues au nord de la ville, tons of vendors pour into the space with every retail item you could want. I finally purchased leather boots, thus making me infinitesimally less egregiously dressed to the 95% of Parisian women wearing similar footwear at any given time. Parisian fashion is funny. It's so identical and so understated that it takes you several days to even determine what it is. When I arrived Shilpa was going on and on about how great everyone looked and all I saw were lots of shades of brown and black and gray and well, everyone looked quite similar in their non-descript-ness. But the same three or four items of clothing have so thoroughly permeated the city that after a week and a half you're hiding your Sketchers and wishing desperately that your socks weren't visible and tie-dyed orange and you're totally prepared to throw out all of your favorite items of clothing in favor of a slightly more monochromatic persona. But fear not sports fans, this desire fell to the wayside when I spied the most perfectly tacky French sweater thing today at the market. Seriously, it makes me look a bit like a faded French woman in her elder years who probably worked at the Moulin Rouge in the late eighteen hundreds and who now fills the place in her heart reserved for the love of a good man with cheap gin and unfiltered cigarettes. I'm thinking of naming it Stella. There will be pictures.

Note regarding title: BOF is an adjective referring to the oldschool Beurre Oeuf Fromage shops you see everywhere... it's now a pejorative referring to something old and outdated and rather obnoxious, comme Sarkozy et George Bush. C'est vrai meufs et mecs, I had my first political conversation in French with real live French adults. I had to explain Super Tuesday and the Delegate System, which I really can't do very well in English so I'm sure I didn't clarify anything at all. If a small group of Frenchpeople from the Boulogne Banlieue west of Paris try to stage a revolution in America in order to streamline our political process, I take full responsibility.

le Marrakech ou le Bust

2008-02-10T00:07:00.000+01:00

I'm toying with the idea of ditching my plans of spending April bopping around Europe in favor of passing the month in Morocco. According to the giant orange signs in le metro, I could get a round-trip ticket for less than 40 Euros...

First Impressions

2008-02-09T17:57:00.000+01:00

I'm going to a massive flea market---un marché au puce--Sunday, and perhaps the Catacombes. The graveyard that Oscar Wilde's in may have been my favorite place so far--it's so cool--Cimitiére de la Père Lachaise, je crois? Jim Morrison's grave is there too but it's totally not as cool as Oscar Wilde's, and there are all these creepy drugged out middle aged Kurt Cobain/Ramones looking men just hanging around staring at the hole like they're trying to will him back to life and glaring at the oodles of American and British youth popping in front of them to take pictures. It's actually pretty funny.

I LOVE my host Madame. She's very petite and talkative and knows English but will only speak French to me. I'm so happy because I was beginning to get worried--everyone kept telling me you have to come here to learn the language and then it will click, but no one wants to talk to me, or any of us. The best conversations I've been having have been with street vendors and this one really nice friend of Pauline who is NOW in BRAZIL, where I have a feeling she won't be prioritizing helping mon pouvoir a parler le francais...

I'm so glad I have Maura in my life--last night we got a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread and some Port Salut fromage and trundled around the Louvre (outside) and Chatelet. Her host family is hilarious. They're super super Catholic, and her eighteen year old host brother (Jean Batiste, no joke) is totally clueless and has been studying English for forever but can't say a word and when he gets something he'll get very excited and yell it out. For instance, twenty minutes after a conversation about football, he'll yell SOCCER in an egregious accent. But the best is that the father is sort of trying to hook up Maura with John the Baptist and they'll have conversations about how muscular he is when to our eyes he's a normal skinny lanky French teenaged boy. And he plays rugby, and is really proud of it, and so Maura asked if he had played this past weekend and he replied that Non, they hadn't played parce que il faisais trop froid and they would have hurt their knees. Maura and I found this to be exceptionally funny. Really, if you're playing rugby is cold ground your biggest fear? It is if its FRENCH RUGBY. And I don't feel bad reveling in these personified French stereotypes because they're just as happy whenever we play into our American ones. At this point I've just taken to saying that I'm going to get my government to bomb them whenever someone makes fun of me. They laugh, but there's fear in their eyes.

Don't be frightened by my french...

2008-02-09T15:35:00.000+01:00

My first day:
J'avais eu LE MEILLEUR JOUR!! Hier soir mon amie Shilpa et moi a visite La Tour Eiffel--c'est incroyable. Quand on est sous la tour, it's just majestic. Seriously, c'est rien comme ca. Aussi nous avons trouve un bon restaurant (est n'est pas cher) a pre de la Bastille et nous avons parle au serveur seulement en francais! Et il nous a compris! Apres, j'ai retourne moi-meme chez Pauline et Pierre parce que j'y restais et les petits-amis de les deux etaient la. Lou, la petite-amie de Pauline, ne peux pas parler l'anglais, alors, Pauline a demande que je parle en francais... et je l'ai fait!! Pierre m'a dit que je peux parler tres bien quand je s'ai aide faire la vaisselle (dishes).

Ce matin, j'ai mange un pain au chocolat et un cafe (je crois que je retournerai avec un addiction au cafe) et a pris le metro moi-meme chez Shilpa. Sur le Metro, immediatement un francais m'a donne son numero, et m'a dit quand je s'appelle, "My mother will pick up, ask for Henry." hahaha. Une francaise en sa troisieme age l'a vu et a ri et je me suis assise a cote d'elle. Nous commencions a parler en francais--j'ai dit "Je suis arrivee hier matin, ils travaillent rapidement" et elle a ri. Nous avons parle pour beaucoups des arrets du metro et elle a pense que je parle bien! Et je pouvais lui comprendre! Alors, maintenant Shilpa et moi allons au Champs-Elysees et Alliance Francaise et Jardin du Luxembourg et Sciences-Po et pour obtenir un carte pour mon portable.