A few letters ago (Letter-19: Unpalatable Patriotism), I discussed the perils of Peace Corps Missions II and III. These missions include representing U.S. culture overseas and taking an alien culture home, legally. So permit me to talk about today’s comida.
In México, comida is the big meal of the day and occurs about two o’clock in the afternoon. Traditional Christmas dinners in the United States tend to start at three in the afternoon. Combine that coincidence with the fact that I walked off with the big prize at a departmental shin-dig last week, and we have got a "Christmas comida".
Last Thursday, the general management division of the engineering research center where I volunteer had a grand breakfast to celebrate Christmas. After trying every which way to avoid winning, I ended up with this turkey. Not only did I feel guilty as a guest of one month’s standing taking the prize, I was mortified because I do not know how to cook nor does my novia.
Frankly fed up with my yammering over what to do about this fifteen pound predicament, a colleague bailed me out by offering to cook the turkey. That is when His Eminent Brilliance put two-and-two together for the Christmas comida. So my running all over town (i.e., to an upscale Mexican market, WalMart and Costco) combined with the help a lovely lady who pitched in a tasty salad and my colleague's masterful job -- actually that of his sisters -- on the turkey yielded a solution.
Monday would have been the logical day. No way; I immediately vetoed that idea. Call me a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee – a Northerner still fighting the War – but I could not see throwing a party, even in another country, on the one hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the secession of South Carolina from the Union to precipitate a war that claimed about as many of our countrymen (both South and North) as every other war put together.
History aside, today’s was a truly American Christmas comida with turkey; Mexican stuffing and salad; cranberry sauce (with the can-ridges as noted by my sister); brie and crackers; mashed potatoes and gravy; sparkling grape juice (in lieu of wine, per major school rules); chocolate almonds; as well as, of course, pumpkin pie and whipped cream. Out of thirty people eating, only two Peace Corps Volunteers (Brian Johnson and I) were from North of the border.
My Mexican colleagues loved the Christmas comida. They gave me a big group cheer, amid my blushing. One senior exec said to me, perhaps giving me my best gift this Christmas, “Thank you, Ned. People will remember this fiesta for a long time…” As gratifying, I had the privilege of paraphrasing a condensed version my father’s traditional Thanksgiving grace in my halting, frightful Spanish:
“Dios, pedimos la bendición ahora para esta comida de navidad porque nuestra familia son amigos y nuestros amigos son familia. Gracias.”
(Supposed to say: God, we now ask for your blessing for this Christmas dinner for our family are friends and our friends are family. Thank you.)
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Letter-26: Christmas wish for Afghanistan
A former FaceBook friend wrote me an impassioned response to my sending a soldier an e-mailed Christmas card with the additional comment of hope that our younger brothers and sisters be home unharmed and in time.
Though I can no longer respond directly to her, I am posting specific comments in response to parts of her e-mail; they appear as comments to this shorter letter. The intellect involved here is far stronger than mine and these angry comments should have currency this Christmas season.
Afghanistan remains dreadfully transparent, even in the North where I was. The United States is caught between Iraq and a hard place (as King Hussein used to say about Jordan). My response expresses a helpless sense of ambivalence about Afghanistan; it comes across as weak.
Personally, I am at the point where enough is enough; I have lost confidence in the crowd that thinks “this time will be different”. In writing this, I want to repeat that I know and respect many soldiers facing very difficult situations this Christmas. They actually make a big difference in the everyday lives of beleaguered people.
While I have butted heads with many of these soldiers during my four stints in war zones, I could never lose sight of the fact – and it is a fact – that these people have been among the finest I have known. And it is time for our soldiers to come home, the sooner the better.
Apparently, troops will be in Afghanistan until or through 2014, implying a 2½-3½ year time-line. This time-line is a depressing disappointment. Since a phased withdrawal may take more time than the one year I would prefer, my disappointment falls short of disillusionment.
Political calculation may be at play, here, in trying to get this increasingly troubled misadventure off of the re-election radar in 2012. Things are neither simple nor subtle. Afghans exhibit the same ambivalence toward U.S. troops that Americans used to have towards Congress: “Congressmen are corrupt and rotten, with the exception of mine."
Likewise, many Afghans hate the Americans except for 'their' Americans. For all of its high-profile glitz, the ‘Whole-of-Government’ approach simply does not work. USAID’s development model is, when viewed charitably, ineffective; other USG Departments are having difficulty fielding workers.
The soldiers in the communities - not over-paid USAID or USDA field-workers - provide much more direct (and appreciated) community development. There remain two fundamental concerns with a precipitate withdrawal. First, would a likely Taliban victory in Afghanistan lead to an expansionist 'Pashtunistan'?
This uniting of the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban, quarrelsome as the two appear to be, would probably emerge from the almost certain collapse of Pakistan, hardly a nation in its own right. A bigger, bloodier war over Kashmir might then erupt among two nuclear powers and a nuclear renegade from the 12th century.
Further, a Taliban victory might precede a whole sale slaughter of thousands of Afghan women activists and local leaders brave enough to challenge an archaic and brutal culture. The mainstream arguments cited most often against withdrawal are elegantly geo-political but inevitably amoral.
Another sense of the word withdrawal comes to mind: the withdrawal involved in de-toxifying from drug abuse. Every drug-addict hates it; but, to be free, the unpleasant transition must occur sooner or later. There are always a thousand excuses for putting off the difficult, but rarely an over-riding reason.
As eloquent as the interventionists’ arguments are, the circumstances, upon which they base their arguments, will be there in a another year, two or ten. Another approach is now in order, is it not? So, I say: let the surge be the surge. Then pull back the development efforts to those truly secure parts of Afghanistan, maybe just 5-10%.
With the funds saved by a full withdrawal by mid-to-late 2012, the U.S. governmnet can lead multi-lateral efforts to ring-fence ‘Pashtunistan’ while re-settling in safer areas current women activists and local leaders standing up to the Afghan Taliban.
If we leave without protecting those brave Afghan men and women currently risking their lives for the establishment of human rights and local governance, the blood from their likely slaughter will be on our hands and conscience.
Though I can no longer respond directly to her, I am posting specific comments in response to parts of her e-mail; they appear as comments to this shorter letter. The intellect involved here is far stronger than mine and these angry comments should have currency this Christmas season.
Afghanistan remains dreadfully transparent, even in the North where I was. The United States is caught between Iraq and a hard place (as King Hussein used to say about Jordan). My response expresses a helpless sense of ambivalence about Afghanistan; it comes across as weak.
Personally, I am at the point where enough is enough; I have lost confidence in the crowd that thinks “this time will be different”. In writing this, I want to repeat that I know and respect many soldiers facing very difficult situations this Christmas. They actually make a big difference in the everyday lives of beleaguered people.
While I have butted heads with many of these soldiers during my four stints in war zones, I could never lose sight of the fact – and it is a fact – that these people have been among the finest I have known. And it is time for our soldiers to come home, the sooner the better.
Apparently, troops will be in Afghanistan until or through 2014, implying a 2½-3½ year time-line. This time-line is a depressing disappointment. Since a phased withdrawal may take more time than the one year I would prefer, my disappointment falls short of disillusionment.
Political calculation may be at play, here, in trying to get this increasingly troubled misadventure off of the re-election radar in 2012. Things are neither simple nor subtle. Afghans exhibit the same ambivalence toward U.S. troops that Americans used to have towards Congress: “Congressmen are corrupt and rotten, with the exception of mine."
Likewise, many Afghans hate the Americans except for 'their' Americans. For all of its high-profile glitz, the ‘Whole-of-Government’ approach simply does not work. USAID’s development model is, when viewed charitably, ineffective; other USG Departments are having difficulty fielding workers.
The soldiers in the communities - not over-paid USAID or USDA field-workers - provide much more direct (and appreciated) community development. There remain two fundamental concerns with a precipitate withdrawal. First, would a likely Taliban victory in Afghanistan lead to an expansionist 'Pashtunistan'?
This uniting of the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban, quarrelsome as the two appear to be, would probably emerge from the almost certain collapse of Pakistan, hardly a nation in its own right. A bigger, bloodier war over Kashmir might then erupt among two nuclear powers and a nuclear renegade from the 12th century.
Further, a Taliban victory might precede a whole sale slaughter of thousands of Afghan women activists and local leaders brave enough to challenge an archaic and brutal culture. The mainstream arguments cited most often against withdrawal are elegantly geo-political but inevitably amoral.
Another sense of the word withdrawal comes to mind: the withdrawal involved in de-toxifying from drug abuse. Every drug-addict hates it; but, to be free, the unpleasant transition must occur sooner or later. There are always a thousand excuses for putting off the difficult, but rarely an over-riding reason.
As eloquent as the interventionists’ arguments are, the circumstances, upon which they base their arguments, will be there in a another year, two or ten. Another approach is now in order, is it not? So, I say: let the surge be the surge. Then pull back the development efforts to those truly secure parts of Afghanistan, maybe just 5-10%.
With the funds saved by a full withdrawal by mid-to-late 2012, the U.S. governmnet can lead multi-lateral efforts to ring-fence ‘Pashtunistan’ while re-settling in safer areas current women activists and local leaders standing up to the Afghan Taliban.
If we leave without protecting those brave Afghan men and women currently risking their lives for the establishment of human rights and local governance, the blood from their likely slaughter will be on our hands and conscience.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Letter-25 to Friends and Family: ¿Spiritual Nutrition or Attrition? You make the call.
Unfortunately, I have had little to report the last two weeks, at least on Mexican culture, for life has been busy with the reading – and, yes, reviewing – of an eight hundred page document in Spanish on how to harmonize accounting standards. That and compliance with Salvador’s gauntlet. Salvador is a kindly older neighbor here in Querétaro, who occasionally gets fed up with my whining about a different catastrophe in my life every week.
Around Thanksgiving, Salvador announced that he had enough and so he pointed his finger at me and said something to effect that “your people are making a big production out of saying thanks right now.” Salvador lives up to his name. He challenged me to write down any two people for whom I felt grateful during each of the fifty-three years of my life.
This group could include anybody – family member, movie actor, teacher, John Lennon, friend, national leader, anybody. Dutifully, I dissected the past – usually found wanting – and realized that my fashionably tragic life had produced more mirth than myth. In fact, the two man rule swept many dear friends into the great dust-bin of history; I think, in retrospect, that was the point.
Feeling fitly smug after this ‘spiritual discipline’ and winding down the Chinese palabra torture, I magnanimously consented to my novia’s desire to see a recent Julia Roberts flic, “Eat, Love, Pray”. Bracing myself for a piping tepid chick-flic, I was pleasantly surprised. The story-line is a romantic adventure about a woman setting out to find her authenticity in three very spiritual places: Rome, Calcutta and Bali. In the film, Smiley finds her inner peace with some simple ideas for complicated people.
A pilgrimage defying all expectations
Like Julia Roberts, but at a younger age, and like a great many others, I made the requisite trip to India. Unlike the film, where Smiley works scrubbing the floors of an Ashram, I worked in a hospital. My inspiration to lose myself in “the East” was not from a dark night of the soul, like Smiley; yes, in truth, I was inspired by Mia Farrow in the Woody Allen film, ‘Alice’. Perhaps not the best start, but enough.
On the trip over and during my stay, I hunched over the Book of Tao; the King James from Saint Edmund’s; the Buddha’s sayings; the least boring book by Joseph Campbell I could find; Parzifal by von Eschenbach; and, the Little Prince. This disciplined study intended to lay the foundation for some Unitarian version of the pilgrim’s catharsis, if not progress.
In Calcutta, the quarters were spare and the work demanding. Nevertheless, during my short stay, I had some riveting experiences like blowing chow apocalyptically and being saved by the capitalist pigs of Pepsi Cola. There were young people from all over the world at this hospital.
One such youngster was an acquaintance from the West Coast, Richard. As the only two Yanks in the place, we spent some time together, when I wasn’t busy vainly seeking enlightenment from one of three beautiful Parisian women with whom I practiced la belle langue and, dammit, nothing else.
Since I am a little doofy and almost barfed when cleaning feces the first time, my Cali-bud -- the temporary head of volunteers owing to his seniority -- did not know what to do with me. Out of a potent mix of exasperation and desperation, just prior to lunch one steaming hot India day, he asked me to sit with a patient who was obviously agitated.
The lesson learned
This poor fellow was in cot #33 by the Y-shaped entrance (main door, anteroom, two doors on either side up a few stairs). The anal details apparently had great significance as I later learned from a psychic who was the wife of a friend of my sister and brother-in-law. So I sat down with the man. He looked like a Muslim; since I could speak neither Arabic nor Hindi, I could only sit there like a dumb ass.
Around Thanksgiving, Salvador announced that he had enough and so he pointed his finger at me and said something to effect that “your people are making a big production out of saying thanks right now.” Salvador lives up to his name. He challenged me to write down any two people for whom I felt grateful during each of the fifty-three years of my life.
This group could include anybody – family member, movie actor, teacher, John Lennon, friend, national leader, anybody. Dutifully, I dissected the past – usually found wanting – and realized that my fashionably tragic life had produced more mirth than myth. In fact, the two man rule swept many dear friends into the great dust-bin of history; I think, in retrospect, that was the point.
Feeling fitly smug after this ‘spiritual discipline’ and winding down the Chinese palabra torture, I magnanimously consented to my novia’s desire to see a recent Julia Roberts flic, “Eat, Love, Pray”. Bracing myself for a piping tepid chick-flic, I was pleasantly surprised. The story-line is a romantic adventure about a woman setting out to find her authenticity in three very spiritual places: Rome, Calcutta and Bali. In the film, Smiley finds her inner peace with some simple ideas for complicated people.
A pilgrimage defying all expectations
Like Julia Roberts, but at a younger age, and like a great many others, I made the requisite trip to India. Unlike the film, where Smiley works scrubbing the floors of an Ashram, I worked in a hospital. My inspiration to lose myself in “the East” was not from a dark night of the soul, like Smiley; yes, in truth, I was inspired by Mia Farrow in the Woody Allen film, ‘Alice’. Perhaps not the best start, but enough.
On the trip over and during my stay, I hunched over the Book of Tao; the King James from Saint Edmund’s; the Buddha’s sayings; the least boring book by Joseph Campbell I could find; Parzifal by von Eschenbach; and, the Little Prince. This disciplined study intended to lay the foundation for some Unitarian version of the pilgrim’s catharsis, if not progress.
In Calcutta, the quarters were spare and the work demanding. Nevertheless, during my short stay, I had some riveting experiences like blowing chow apocalyptically and being saved by the capitalist pigs of Pepsi Cola. There were young people from all over the world at this hospital.
One such youngster was an acquaintance from the West Coast, Richard. As the only two Yanks in the place, we spent some time together, when I wasn’t busy vainly seeking enlightenment from one of three beautiful Parisian women with whom I practiced la belle langue and, dammit, nothing else.
Since I am a little doofy and almost barfed when cleaning feces the first time, my Cali-bud -- the temporary head of volunteers owing to his seniority -- did not know what to do with me. Out of a potent mix of exasperation and desperation, just prior to lunch one steaming hot India day, he asked me to sit with a patient who was obviously agitated.
The lesson learned
This poor fellow was in cot #33 by the Y-shaped entrance (main door, anteroom, two doors on either side up a few stairs). The anal details apparently had great significance as I later learned from a psychic who was the wife of a friend of my sister and brother-in-law. So I sat down with the man. He looked like a Muslim; since I could speak neither Arabic nor Hindi, I could only sit there like a dumb ass.
The poor fellow would not take any food. Despite my diversions employed to sneak some orange juice into his mouth, only to see this dying man maintain his dignity by spitting out the juice. The obvious conclusion stiffened me momentarily: this man was prepared to depart.
So, I tried the technique of Erich Fromme by gently rubbing the shaking man's forehead and saying softly enough for him alone to hear, "I need you because I love you." That may sound strange but that was all I could think of to say.
So, I tried the technique of Erich Fromme by gently rubbing the shaking man's forehead and saying softly enough for him alone to hear, "I need you because I love you." That may sound strange but that was all I could think of to say.
Remarkably, the fellow calmed down and seemed soothed by my make-shift succor. When I returned from lunch, cot #33 was empty; my temporary companion had departed. Captain California noticed my ambivalent success and assigned me to cot #33, once again into my morning shift.
The same sobering scenario unfolded again. When I returned from lunch, cot #33 was empty once again. There was a quiet dignity to these men as they faced their deaths with calm, aided by me, and with a diligent dignity practiced long before I showed up.
Needless to say, I approached the impromptu foreman the next morning and said, "Richard, if I am to sit by cot #33 again, perhaps you should get the permission of the patient first.
The lesson earned
My California friend took to saying in response to my frequently unanswerable and mainly rhetorical questions, “Eat dessert first; life is uncertain.”
¡EUREKA! Mission accomplished…I am Zen; Zen again, I am Ned. Time to go home.
Some weeks later, braving the raw temps of April in New York, I was walking back to my apartment late on a stormy week-day night. Venturing South on Lexington Avenue, I walked past two blocks around Seventieth Street that hosted beautiful pre-War red-brick buildings. The rain was hard, cold and strident. The umbrella had been useless since at least Eightieth Street. I was only a little less drenched than the damnable trench coast.
On the first floor of these buildings were fine toilet shops, heirlooms-bought-or-stolen-and-sold and an obnoxious interior decorating store. That decorating store would switch its display periodically but never deviated from its formulaic format of a Victorian couch with fine, goofy pillows, one of which had a needle-pointed platitude like “Eat, Pray, Love”.
As I passed the display window, I wiped the lens of my glasses to read some trite and true saying. And what was that month’s perfect pillow-talk? You guessed it: “Eat Dessert First; Life is Uncertain.”
This time around, ‘Eureka’ was hardly the first word to cross my mind.
Needless to say, I approached the impromptu foreman the next morning and said, "Richard, if I am to sit by cot #33 again, perhaps you should get the permission of the patient first.
The lesson earned
My California friend took to saying in response to my frequently unanswerable and mainly rhetorical questions, “Eat dessert first; life is uncertain.”
¡EUREKA! Mission accomplished…I am Zen; Zen again, I am Ned. Time to go home.
Some weeks later, braving the raw temps of April in New York, I was walking back to my apartment late on a stormy week-day night. Venturing South on Lexington Avenue, I walked past two blocks around Seventieth Street that hosted beautiful pre-War red-brick buildings. The rain was hard, cold and strident. The umbrella had been useless since at least Eightieth Street. I was only a little less drenched than the damnable trench coast.
On the first floor of these buildings were fine toilet shops, heirlooms-bought-or-stolen-and-sold and an obnoxious interior decorating store. That decorating store would switch its display periodically but never deviated from its formulaic format of a Victorian couch with fine, goofy pillows, one of which had a needle-pointed platitude like “Eat, Pray, Love”.
As I passed the display window, I wiped the lens of my glasses to read some trite and true saying. And what was that month’s perfect pillow-talk? You guessed it: “Eat Dessert First; Life is Uncertain.”
This time around, ‘Eureka’ was hardly the first word to cross my mind.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Letter-24...and not quite a whole lot more...sorry, Neil
Thanksgiving was a busy day in Querétaro and as it was a work-day in México with a business meeting in the afternoon. Further, I had dinner plans on the early side since my novia had to get up for her teaching work at O’dark-thirty. Lastly, I had an eight hundred pound gorilla dancing on my head from the day before.
Eight hundred and two, to be exact. I am slogging my through an eight hundred, two page document in Spanish. The barn-burning subject matter can consume pages with a single thought? The systemization of mexican accounting standards to be compatible with international standards and governmental budgeting procedures as well as – not to be overlooked – to be suited for compilation of national economic statistics.
So much for 90% of life…fuhchrissakes.
But Thanksgiving saved the week since it requires at least passing thought to those parts of my life – people, places and things – that give me cause to “rejoice give thanks and sing…” See you next year so I have time to think of them…
En serio, I really have a great deal for which to be happy. Anyone who knows me well also realizes that the past decade has been challenging with a variety of set-backs, many self-imposed but others the inserted by fate.
King David went through a period like this one. Except, I am no King David…shoot. What these times do tell me is that I have been lucky all the same, not because of something mystical like character enrichment – none of that, thank you – but because of other people.
And certain elements of the past that represent gifts that really do keep on giving. So here are my top five things in life for which I thank God – if He is around – or the fates (if they remain spin-meisters) or whomever.
FIRST, my family. My parents are gone but they still set an example, mostly good and always quite overt. My sister, Claire, and her husband, John Purnell, have given me what money can not: god-daughters and a place where I am welcome. Fortunately, my nieces – Mary (elder) and Elizabeth – get along better than two other, more famous sisters, with those names.
There are just too many relatives to go into specifics; each knows why he or she is special. Special atta-girls to my Aunts Nancy and Marion for coming through significant surgeries this year. Also, a great many thanks to John’s “Purnell clan” who has included me in weddings, holidays, etc.; they have taken this orphan on as one of their own.
SECOND, the United States of America. Yes, I lucked out in the social (perhaps genetic) lottery as, I believe, John Rawls dubbed fate. Distributive justice not overlooked, my prayers to our younger brothers and sisters in uniform labouring under immense pressures in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than most others these young people really care for the people they partner with, patrol and protect.
THIRD, two schools: Saint Edmund’s and Choate. I sing the latter’s praises too often; I have been making up for time lost to years of whining. Saint Edmund’s never gets much press. While Choate did much to develop me intellectually and to start thinking about higher qualities like compassion, Saint Edmund’s taught me character and reinforced fledgling study habits. At Saint Edmund’s, I learned it took a bigger man to fail than to cheat; unusual in the hey-day of the Kennedys and Vince Lombardi.
And, yes, I have lived down to that standard more than a few times. Like Mark Tuttle, Tom Yankus, Ed Maddox and Ben Sylvester at Choate, Bob Izod, Sylvia Martin and – of course – Charlie Appel implanted (or, rather, built on) certain values that still mean a great deal. A quick salute to Washington and Lee for drumming its Honor Code into my head; I went there because of General Robert E. Lee. God and General Grant know that I am no Lee, either.
FOURTH, technology. A grudging concession from this curmudgeon weaned off his mother’s breast with the poetic pitfalls of technology raised by Stephen Vincent Benét, Ray Bradbury et al. Yet Facebook has revived old friendships and started new ones, equally cherished. My Aunts, mentioned earlier, and others important to me have overcome illnesses this year through technology. Bravò to the brainiacs who saved them.
FIFTH, two countries: México and Italy. Both peoples sit on a treasure trove of history but wear it like a loose garment. That makes me want to learn more, much more.
Eight hundred and two, to be exact. I am slogging my through an eight hundred, two page document in Spanish. The barn-burning subject matter can consume pages with a single thought? The systemization of mexican accounting standards to be compatible with international standards and governmental budgeting procedures as well as – not to be overlooked – to be suited for compilation of national economic statistics.
So much for 90% of life…fuhchrissakes.
But Thanksgiving saved the week since it requires at least passing thought to those parts of my life – people, places and things – that give me cause to “rejoice give thanks and sing…” See you next year so I have time to think of them…
En serio, I really have a great deal for which to be happy. Anyone who knows me well also realizes that the past decade has been challenging with a variety of set-backs, many self-imposed but others the inserted by fate.
King David went through a period like this one. Except, I am no King David…shoot. What these times do tell me is that I have been lucky all the same, not because of something mystical like character enrichment – none of that, thank you – but because of other people.
And certain elements of the past that represent gifts that really do keep on giving. So here are my top five things in life for which I thank God – if He is around – or the fates (if they remain spin-meisters) or whomever.
FIRST, my family. My parents are gone but they still set an example, mostly good and always quite overt. My sister, Claire, and her husband, John Purnell, have given me what money can not: god-daughters and a place where I am welcome. Fortunately, my nieces – Mary (elder) and Elizabeth – get along better than two other, more famous sisters, with those names.
There are just too many relatives to go into specifics; each knows why he or she is special. Special atta-girls to my Aunts Nancy and Marion for coming through significant surgeries this year. Also, a great many thanks to John’s “Purnell clan” who has included me in weddings, holidays, etc.; they have taken this orphan on as one of their own.
SECOND, the United States of America. Yes, I lucked out in the social (perhaps genetic) lottery as, I believe, John Rawls dubbed fate. Distributive justice not overlooked, my prayers to our younger brothers and sisters in uniform labouring under immense pressures in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than most others these young people really care for the people they partner with, patrol and protect.
THIRD, two schools: Saint Edmund’s and Choate. I sing the latter’s praises too often; I have been making up for time lost to years of whining. Saint Edmund’s never gets much press. While Choate did much to develop me intellectually and to start thinking about higher qualities like compassion, Saint Edmund’s taught me character and reinforced fledgling study habits. At Saint Edmund’s, I learned it took a bigger man to fail than to cheat; unusual in the hey-day of the Kennedys and Vince Lombardi.
And, yes, I have lived down to that standard more than a few times. Like Mark Tuttle, Tom Yankus, Ed Maddox and Ben Sylvester at Choate, Bob Izod, Sylvia Martin and – of course – Charlie Appel implanted (or, rather, built on) certain values that still mean a great deal. A quick salute to Washington and Lee for drumming its Honor Code into my head; I went there because of General Robert E. Lee. God and General Grant know that I am no Lee, either.
FOURTH, technology. A grudging concession from this curmudgeon weaned off his mother’s breast with the poetic pitfalls of technology raised by Stephen Vincent Benét, Ray Bradbury et al. Yet Facebook has revived old friendships and started new ones, equally cherished. My Aunts, mentioned earlier, and others important to me have overcome illnesses this year through technology. Bravò to the brainiacs who saved them.
FIFTH, two countries: México and Italy. Both peoples sit on a treasure trove of history but wear it like a loose garment. That makes me want to learn more, much more.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Letter to Friends & Family-23: The twenty-third Qualm
The Centennial came and went last Saturday. In trying to be the dutiful Peace Corps volunteer, I walked over to the Office of Tourism of the State of Querétaro to seek out activities for the evening and found very little except a ´Baile Centenario´ and a concert by a Mexicana pop singer.
Unfortunately, scheduling precluded my seeing the big event which was a ´Desfile de Fraces´ (akin to the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village). This Saturday seemed like any other with families filing along in the streets savouring a restful day off from the work-week.
For a cool hundred pesos, there was also a flamenco dance show at the local cultural center. The Tourism Office did not know of any fireworks. This lackadaisical celebration struck me as strange since México´s highest product of the revolution was a much improved democratic constitution, drafted in 1917 right here in Querétaro.
‘La Revolución´ of 1910 basically overthrew a military dictatorship, with its customary antithesis of banditry, in favor of a democracy actively and controversially supported by then freshly inaugurated U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
Since this struggle often involved ambitious men of malleable loyalties, it is difficult to get a sense of how bad or good the revolution and the concomitant civil war really were. Yet this slap-dash régime-change is oddly familiar to Americans a hundred years later.
President Wilson becomes President George Bush, both promoting the interests of democracy aggressively. ‘El Presidente´ Porfirio Diaz, the thirty-six year military overlord, resembles what a benign Saddam Hussein might have done. If one substitutes Pancho Villa for Osama bin Laden and General Pershing for General Petraeus, events begin to look familiar.
Like General ´Black-Jack´ Pershing, General David Petraeus is a public figure with a larger-than-life persona, much of it justified. Neither could find their famous fugitives but did succeed in the more mundane task of fracturing the underground networks that supported them.
Anyways, the Mexicans wanted more than the economic security of an authoritarian régime; makes me wonder about what is really happening in China these days.
Since my ‘novia’ had been a flamenco dancer as a teen-age girl in México City, I booked two tickets for that show and warmly congratulated myself for finding such a Mexican way of celebrating the ´Centenario´. Except that flamenco dancing is a Spanish art…whoops. Well, we had a taco to make up for my cultural confusion.
The show as riveting.
There is little sexual about the dance; it truly is a ballet that combines classical music with a distinctly Arab flavor. It is as if ´Isabela la Catolica´ could only go so far in purging the ´muselmanes´ influence after 1492, thank God. The movement of the women evoked appreciation for their artistry.
The flamenco singer was a beauty but her voice quickly commanded the attention. This dance and music combination contains its own paradox – at once very earthy rhythms and frankly sensual movements reaching the transcendent through the sheer discipline required to excel.
What also struck me was the same-but-different sensation I feel quite often here, south of the Border. The three dancers exhibited the same level of mastery in their steps, in their arm movements and in their body swings. The oldest of the three, by what appeared to be ten years and as many kilos, was different. I puzzled over this for a few minutes and soon realized why she was the best among equals.
This older woman understood her body. Experience truly had emerged as the teacher to graduate this veteran dancer’s movements from mastery to grace. As I watched the younger dancers, excellent in their steps and movements, I realized that in a decade or so they would be rising to their unique grace.
Unfortunately, scheduling precluded my seeing the big event which was a ´Desfile de Fraces´ (akin to the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village). This Saturday seemed like any other with families filing along in the streets savouring a restful day off from the work-week.
For a cool hundred pesos, there was also a flamenco dance show at the local cultural center. The Tourism Office did not know of any fireworks. This lackadaisical celebration struck me as strange since México´s highest product of the revolution was a much improved democratic constitution, drafted in 1917 right here in Querétaro.
‘La Revolución´ of 1910 basically overthrew a military dictatorship, with its customary antithesis of banditry, in favor of a democracy actively and controversially supported by then freshly inaugurated U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
Since this struggle often involved ambitious men of malleable loyalties, it is difficult to get a sense of how bad or good the revolution and the concomitant civil war really were. Yet this slap-dash régime-change is oddly familiar to Americans a hundred years later.
President Wilson becomes President George Bush, both promoting the interests of democracy aggressively. ‘El Presidente´ Porfirio Diaz, the thirty-six year military overlord, resembles what a benign Saddam Hussein might have done. If one substitutes Pancho Villa for Osama bin Laden and General Pershing for General Petraeus, events begin to look familiar.
Like General ´Black-Jack´ Pershing, General David Petraeus is a public figure with a larger-than-life persona, much of it justified. Neither could find their famous fugitives but did succeed in the more mundane task of fracturing the underground networks that supported them.
Anyways, the Mexicans wanted more than the economic security of an authoritarian régime; makes me wonder about what is really happening in China these days.
Since my ‘novia’ had been a flamenco dancer as a teen-age girl in México City, I booked two tickets for that show and warmly congratulated myself for finding such a Mexican way of celebrating the ´Centenario´. Except that flamenco dancing is a Spanish art…whoops. Well, we had a taco to make up for my cultural confusion.
The show as riveting.
There is little sexual about the dance; it truly is a ballet that combines classical music with a distinctly Arab flavor. It is as if ´Isabela la Catolica´ could only go so far in purging the ´muselmanes´ influence after 1492, thank God. The movement of the women evoked appreciation for their artistry.
The flamenco singer was a beauty but her voice quickly commanded the attention. This dance and music combination contains its own paradox – at once very earthy rhythms and frankly sensual movements reaching the transcendent through the sheer discipline required to excel.
What also struck me was the same-but-different sensation I feel quite often here, south of the Border. The three dancers exhibited the same level of mastery in their steps, in their arm movements and in their body swings. The oldest of the three, by what appeared to be ten years and as many kilos, was different. I puzzled over this for a few minutes and soon realized why she was the best among equals.
This older woman understood her body. Experience truly had emerged as the teacher to graduate this veteran dancer’s movements from mastery to grace. As I watched the younger dancers, excellent in their steps and movements, I realized that in a decade or so they would be rising to their unique grace.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Letter-22 to Family and Friends: Peace Corps Training ends; Peace Corps Volunteers begin
Peace Corps Service Training (PST) is a three-month odyssey through stress, limitations, new lessons and private triumphs. I am reminded of my third-form religion class at Choate. Mark Mullin was a Rhodes Scholar and recently ordained minister in September 1972. He turned at least one complaisant teen from the Mid-West (i.e., me) onto mind-expanding, mood-altering substances – on the printed page of course.
In Rev. Mullin’s class, we read an autobiographical account of one minister’s journey across the threshold of radical change. Flanked by his people and steadied by his faith, he triumphed, quietly. Times of duress – times to be vanquished or simply gotten-through (like PST in 2010 or Montgomery Alabama in 1955) – bring out the best and worst in people.
Felled by a bullet some thirteen years later, this prophet came to be venerated more in death than he had been feared, contemned and respected in life. Fifteen years after that religion course, I read a third of that unforgettable book while killing time in a local library.
By then, however, traits of this martyr’s less flattering side – of infidelity and plagiarism – had come to enthrall people across the U.S. Reflecting on that time well wasted in the public library, I came to believe that these faults – considerable as they were – no longer permitted this personal hero to be a martyr. They made him a saint.
¿WHY?
Because, despite these human faults, one man's actions had risen to the godly. He came out in a heavily technocratic and, in retrospect, amoral age to declare that neither brain nor brawn should rule the world. It was the content of a (wo)man’s character that should define the rank of that person relative to his or her equals.
Of course, I am speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr and his book, ‘Stride Toward Freedom’. Looking back, it is easy to see that Dr King was right in saying that his actions and those of other peace-minded Americans would free everyone – that is, his stride toward freedom taken for us all was our stride as well. But getting there took risk and sacrifice.
For half a century, the Peace Corps has been doing the same. I do not pretend to be in a position to label any of my fellow trainees, now Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), as being at the level of M.L.K.
Nevertheless, yesterday’s 'swearing-in' ceremony proved to be more fulfilling than the previous four, combined. Beyond the slap-dash nature of the previous ‘protestas’, when my government needed warm bodies in Iraq or Afghanistan in a hurry, this ceremony acted out a living symbolism.
That symbolism reminds me that I serve with some really fine people. This letter is not written to adulate the younger members but to salute them for their courage in taking a risk so early in their lives. I admire attributes in others that I strive for myself; that can-do enthusiasm which defies all odds, any reason and many résumés has been an acquired taste for me but remains a required trait for them.
The elders are a source of wisdom and maturity. Life's trials and triumphs provide the basic ballast needed to steady a ship navigating through stormy waters. Some of these people mean a great deal to me; they really helped me make my way through a few turbulent weeks of conflicts and skating by with the proverbial "48½" demerits.
During this quiet day-after, life feels like a ball rolling off a table following twelve weeks of exhausting assignments, Spanish ‘stuRdying’ and little sleep. Consequently, I challenge those thirty younger members to liberate their “Mexi-kin” with computers, shovels, solar stoves and old-fashioned American altruism. To the oldsters like me, I say: ¡let’s stay in contact to keep these youngsters in line!
Below are some lessons I got from younger generations in PCT.
1. Mere presence is powerful.
2. Being young at heart doesn’t work too well on the soccer field.
3. Laughing really is the Lord’s best medicine.
4. Experience is no substitute for the content of one's character.
5. Even Republicans can have fun with Democrats.
Now follow some lessons gained from those PCVs over forty.
1. Cleaning graves on Día de Muertos prolongs your life.
2. Cultural adjustment is more about having fun…their way.
3. It is better to have been married and divorced than never to have married at all.
4. A ‘cerveza’ a day keeps the doctor away; that one I have to take on faith.
5. Even Democrats can have fun with Republicans.
In Rev. Mullin’s class, we read an autobiographical account of one minister’s journey across the threshold of radical change. Flanked by his people and steadied by his faith, he triumphed, quietly. Times of duress – times to be vanquished or simply gotten-through (like PST in 2010 or Montgomery Alabama in 1955) – bring out the best and worst in people.
Felled by a bullet some thirteen years later, this prophet came to be venerated more in death than he had been feared, contemned and respected in life. Fifteen years after that religion course, I read a third of that unforgettable book while killing time in a local library.
By then, however, traits of this martyr’s less flattering side – of infidelity and plagiarism – had come to enthrall people across the U.S. Reflecting on that time well wasted in the public library, I came to believe that these faults – considerable as they were – no longer permitted this personal hero to be a martyr. They made him a saint.
¿WHY?
Because, despite these human faults, one man's actions had risen to the godly. He came out in a heavily technocratic and, in retrospect, amoral age to declare that neither brain nor brawn should rule the world. It was the content of a (wo)man’s character that should define the rank of that person relative to his or her equals.
Of course, I am speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr and his book, ‘Stride Toward Freedom’. Looking back, it is easy to see that Dr King was right in saying that his actions and those of other peace-minded Americans would free everyone – that is, his stride toward freedom taken for us all was our stride as well. But getting there took risk and sacrifice.
For half a century, the Peace Corps has been doing the same. I do not pretend to be in a position to label any of my fellow trainees, now Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), as being at the level of M.L.K.
Nevertheless, yesterday’s 'swearing-in' ceremony proved to be more fulfilling than the previous four, combined. Beyond the slap-dash nature of the previous ‘protestas’, when my government needed warm bodies in Iraq or Afghanistan in a hurry, this ceremony acted out a living symbolism.
That symbolism reminds me that I serve with some really fine people. This letter is not written to adulate the younger members but to salute them for their courage in taking a risk so early in their lives. I admire attributes in others that I strive for myself; that can-do enthusiasm which defies all odds, any reason and many résumés has been an acquired taste for me but remains a required trait for them.
The elders are a source of wisdom and maturity. Life's trials and triumphs provide the basic ballast needed to steady a ship navigating through stormy waters. Some of these people mean a great deal to me; they really helped me make my way through a few turbulent weeks of conflicts and skating by with the proverbial "48½" demerits.
During this quiet day-after, life feels like a ball rolling off a table following twelve weeks of exhausting assignments, Spanish ‘stuRdying’ and little sleep. Consequently, I challenge those thirty younger members to liberate their “Mexi-kin” with computers, shovels, solar stoves and old-fashioned American altruism. To the oldsters like me, I say: ¡let’s stay in contact to keep these youngsters in line!
Below are some lessons I got from younger generations in PCT.
1. Mere presence is powerful.
2. Being young at heart doesn’t work too well on the soccer field.
3. Laughing really is the Lord’s best medicine.
4. Experience is no substitute for the content of one's character.
5. Even Republicans can have fun with Democrats.
Now follow some lessons gained from those PCVs over forty.
1. Cleaning graves on Día de Muertos prolongs your life.
2. Cultural adjustment is more about having fun…their way.
3. It is better to have been married and divorced than never to have married at all.
4. A ‘cerveza’ a day keeps the doctor away; that one I have to take on faith.
5. Even Democrats can have fun with Republicans.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Letter #21 to friends and family: Thoughts on a Mexican Crucifix.
NOTE: written August 29th (before the excellent lecture on the R.C. influence in México on October 29th).
One secondary benefit of knowing absolutely no Spanish is the quiet time I get during the Catholic mass I have attended here in Querétaro for these first two Sundays in the Peace Corps. Not quite like Sarah Miles – Graham Greene’s “bitch and a fake” heroine in his sublime novel The End of the Affair – something shifted in me when I spent more than an hour gazing absently at just another crucifix in just another Roman church. Most crucifixes tend to be the same, though this one seemed different.
No mystical paradox here, as poor Sarah encountered while she succumbed to disease. It turns out that the crucifixes here in México are different than the thousands I have seen elsewhere. Out-to-lunch though I am, I have to doubt that I could plod along for half a century and miss this detail along the way. Of course, it took thirty years for me to “get” the double-entendre behind (Bond character) Pussy Galore’s name; anything is possible.
If the devil hides in the details, so does Christ (at least south of the border). For the crucifix in this church in Querétaro has mutilated knees represented on the figure of the dying Christ; many others are even more graphic, with ribs showing and / or lacerated body broken forever...or so it seems. This small improvement on verisimilitude ought not to be a big detail. Yet it was for me. ¿Why?
For one, these mutilated knees were not the skin-scrapes we earned as kids graduating from tricycles to bicycles. These knees were gashed to the bone; nothing short of gory, really. As I age, I also become increasingly convinced that I have made no breakthroughs not already encountered by billions of others in millions of moments.
While the setting and circumstance of an ‘aha’ moment varies infinitely among so many different people, its essence rarely does. Perhaps that idea demotes a ‘breakthrough’ to a certain inward readiness to grasp a detail; not quite a random moment but pretty close. ¿And so what was my ‘aha’ moment?
Nothing less the realization of how unutterably low Christ was brought at the time of his execution by the Roman Empire for subversion. Yes, the knees would have been mutilated stumbling up that rocky path of Golgotha. The message here need not be religious. If one puts aside the argumentation of Christ’s existence and resurrection simply to look at the story, ¿what does it say? ¿At least to me?
It basically says that no matter how destroyed one’s life is or has become, redemption is possible. Jesus then stands out as the ultimate “comeback kid”; ¡yes, thirty-three years old is a kid these days! And this sentiment is not intended to slight Xianity; far from it. One can lose a belief he never had but still revere the larger Truth for which it stands.
What that ‘knee-capped’ figurine taught me was that I do not have to believe in the Christian doctrine to realize that, even when all human hope has dissipated, there is still Hope. That universal paradox of Hope after all hope, then, becomes my personal responsibility upon its discovery – if not for myself, then for the aid of others.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)