Letter to Friends and Familiares #36: Myths, Conformity and Idleness

Cultural assimilation is a heady topic these days. ‘Heady’ remains the apt word because it exists mostly inside people’s heads. Recently, I participated in a training session on “the process” of “cultural assimilation”. Like most giddy subjects of political correctness, this discussion – grounded firmly in academic studies – contained about 20% substance and 80% methane madness.

Before the discussion, the weighting assigned to substance might have been 5% but volunteers serving in the country-side really face challenges and, as I am delighted to report, they adapt admirably well. We even suffered through the tedium vitae of a survey on culture shock to “help” newly arrived volunteers. Nevertheless, the people leading this discussion are earnest, decent and well-educated.

They are also wasting time and, in Mexico at least, fast becoming intellectual anorexics pushing food around their plates to look busy. The topic is not altogether devoid of meaning as anyone living outside of her fatherland must face adjustments, especially when that person has to study a new language. Nevertheless, people have been away from home for centuries: been there, done that.

While we may not be a global village, for at least half the world, the inter-net has extended the psychology of globalism into a common expectation of experience. This common vision, together with a modest amount of human sensitivity to the (re)actions of others, should suffice to navigate the rather dull waters of being an expatriate.

So why this entire hullabaloo about the obvious? Easy question: such vacuous discussions provide the fodder for boring Ph.D. theses published into dreadful tomes desecrating hallowed book-stacks of the Library Congress. Credit should go to a fellow volunteer who perceptively observed that the cultural adaptation model was ‘re-up’ of the five (or was it six) stages of grief from the 1970s.

Only one word need describe that erstwhile tripe remains: ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz

The only things interesting about Elisabeth Kübler Ross were the spelling of her first name and the umlaut in the first half of her hyphenated surname. The problem with linear models like these is, first, they are linear and, second, they reflect the reality of the person devising them. They serve one beneficial purpose of limited scope: providing means of support to an otherwise ill-equipped brainiac.

Anyone who has experienced the profound and riveting disintegration of genuine grief often finds the ‘simplistification’ of the Kübler-Ross model to be slightly condescending, perhaps downright demeaning. Grief is a living koän (i.e., the insoluble non-sense riddle of Zen) that breaks or grinds us down to an acceptance of certain latent limitations in ourselves and our lives.

So, too, with cultural assimilation. This re-tread, touted by professionals with the life experience to know better, trivializes the positive situation facing your typical migrant: the opportunity to collaborate with other people to expand his knowledge of language and manners as well as to widen her perspective. Collaboration with whom? Why, locals of course.

Cultural collaboration ought to be fun and reciprocal without the drudgery of falsely imputed tasks of overcoming ‘resistance’ or acknowledging ‘immunization’ or ‘denial’. We are discussing international living for pity’s sake, not some sort of syndrome or addiction. Most offensive is the petty tyranny of political correctness reigning down on anyone with the nerve to turn his nose up at this garbage.

People who do not buy into this spasm of the ‘glitterotten’ face labels like “out-of-touch” or “insensitive” or, worst of all accusations from liberal intellectual fascists, “well, he is, you know…” The little brat who decried the emperor’s nakedness was the Little Prince in my book even if he was damned as out-of-step with his more sophisticated and “grown-up” compatriots.

Letter #34 to Friends and Family: Good Friday re-visited

Yes, it has been three months since Holy Week and my sense of timing is as sharp as ever. Nevertheless, during an evening in Annapolis recently, Angelica and I celebrated Independence Day with my sister’s family as well as the Priest(ess) and her similarly ordered husband (of the Prunells' church) over dinner and fireworks.

What emerged from this few hours of chatting on everything from lapsed Catholicism to Bishop Spong was that Saint Ann’s Church of Annapolis, a mid-to-low Episcopal congregation, had re-enacted the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday 2011 for the first time in many years at the same time I was trudging around the Calesa colonia (i.e., neighborhood) of Querétaro on the “Viacrusis”.

The only difference between the two events that I could detect was that the temperature was twenty degrees higher in Querétaro and walking the good walk in México literally made me a red-neck. Of course, in April and May, I had the blog to end all blogs written out inside my head and, of equal course, I found myself too intellectually and inevitably indolent to do a damn thing about my spiritual insight.

Nevertheless, this parallel between two rather dissimilar groups got my attention since this nitty-gritty and not-so-pretty ritual – after all, it was re-enactment of the ghastly death of a young man – seemed to be addressing some deep-seeded need within the average human breast. I say 'breast' and not 'head' because sacramental acts hardly pertain to the intellect.

Interestingly, however, as the spiritual utility of ritual acts is realized (at least among my acquaintances), intellectual resistance frequently subsides into the irrelevant.

So this action ties, I think, into the sacramental side of Catholicism; that is, the ritual side (i.e. upper-church) Christianity. What do the sacraments mean? In actuality, I am referring to the “action” sacraments, primarily Holy Matrimony, Confession, Holy Communion and Extreme Unction.

Like these rituals, the “Viacrusis” entails the taking of action by at least one key party to it. These sacraments rang hollow for many years as I was struggling mightily to assert, establish and justify my intellectual pride.

Finally, after finding a very old, very Catholic book on the Church and its pre-Vatican II ways in my mid-twenties, sacraments began to hold a third possibility: perhaps, they represented the sacred syntax of a spiritual life in this material world. In all honesty, I still prefer the lower church practices of Unitarianism (not Christian) or Presbyterianism.

Yet I have found the services in lower churches often to be very long and sometimes tedious. And, for me at least, nothing else on Earth quite delights me as the high Anglo-Catholic services – in very limited doses – of Saint Mary’s Church or the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City.

I wonder why.

Could it be that ‘walking-the-walk’ for two hours on Good Friday and a quarter of an hour every Sunday enraptures people far more rapidly than a group talking itself into a state-of-grace?

Could walking through ninety-five degree heat, walking in the sandals of that repudiated revolutionary, bring me closer to his humanity to afford a glimpse into His divinity?

Obviously, I really do not know because I am not a Christian. But Christians of diverse levels of education, intelligence and socio-economic status two thousand miles apart may have established a coincidental consensus.

What do you think?

Letter to Friends & Family #33: ¿Is the Peace Corps Relevant?

A former Peace Corps volunteer (Former PCV) sent me an e-mail just after I arrived in Querétaro. She has become a bit disillusoned with the Peace Corps and international development in general over the years since she had served in Africa and particularly after getting an M.B.A. I have saved her questions until now since I had no miles on the odometer back then.

I am not well-versed on matters related to development and my experience to date in that line of work has jaded me badly. Those civilians that are good at it are among the very best Americans you will meet; they, sadly, are in the minority.

Former PCV: My questions to you are as follows. Could such techniques (performance measurement tools as articulated in recent development literature) be applied to evaluating the level of success or lack thereof with regards to the Peace Corps operating in many countries and the degree of making an overall difference in people’s lives within these countries?

Ned: This reminds me of an interview I had with USAID for being a finance trouble-shooter in conflict zones. I was good to go…until the last question: “Mr McDonnell, what would you do to bring Afghan contracting standards up to international best practices in two years?” One of the funniest one-liners I had heard.
¡Wuppps!
This question was serious. I started out by saying, “First, I would scratch out the word 'years' and write in the word 'generations'…” GONG sounded; end of interview.

If a longitudinal study -- of which I would be hopelessly unaware -- evaluated various programs (i.e., USAID, Peace Corps, Catholic Charities, GTZ, etc.) over time, I suspect the Peace Corps would rate comparatively well in that catch-all caregory of "sustainability".

Former PCV: In other words, are American taxpayers getting enough return on their invested tax dollars or are these 'beneficiary' countries doomed to always be in a third world of under-developed states of existence? Really, is the money spent truly raising the quality of life or making a lasting or significant difference for citizens in these countries or protecting their natural resources? Does JFK's vision amount to little more than a feel-good opportunity for renegades of the good life?

Ned: First, this activity represents what we call Goal-1 of the Peace Corps: providing grass-roots technical and educational assistance to under-developed countries. Since México is a proud member of the OECD, she represents an outlier in the Peace Corps portfolio of beneficiary countries.

So, again, answering this question comes down to calculated bloviation by me. That said, and in response to this question, we have to keep in mind of what we are up against in poorer, conflict-ridden, poverty-stricken countries.

These peoples face a double-whammy of a culture of poverty (as seen in "The Other America") positively reinforced each day by getting by on a dollar or two. Thus, many programs are bound to fail if they are evaluated in terms of manifest results documented in the time-frame of implementation.

After all, cultures take two generations to change. Patterns reinforced over a lifetime will not change. Largely unchanging parents exert a strong influence on the next generation. But the grandchildren then will have options as the cultural bias attenuates.

¿Don´t believe me? Look at Viet Nam. We started there in 1954; resorted to covert war in 1960; went overt in 1965; started getting out in 1970; and, saw our policy collapse in 1975. Yet by 1995, Viet Nam was already far more like a Western nation than a bucolically freeze-dried dictatorship (i.e., life under communism).

Former PCV: Or is each Peace Corps volunteer simply a mini-ambassador -- there to show-off American culture and altruism to the people of some village, town or city?

Ned: This question resembles what we call "Goal-2" -- representing U.S. culture to others unfamiliar with it. The cynical side of me thinks that this Goal-2 is a catch-all for dead-beat volunteers. Just follow the money. Most of the money flowing outside of the U.S. to the developing world comes from the private sector (¡Great Caesar's Ghost!)

Many Americans represent our country admirably all over the world, mainly through the private sector, just by doing their jobs. Beyond companies like G.E., I.B.M., Apple, 3M, Heinz, et al., many small businesses are doing the same, often with a human touch.

A Choate Rosemary Hall classmate started and has flourished with a travel company which, among other activities, leads good-will working tours to places like Haiti. These efforts, like those of the Peace Corps, have a bigger impact after the fact than many high-profile programs. People, poor people, desperate people will remember the help that these very special Americans gave.

Those seemingly trivial efforts do plant some seeds of self-help to sprout in villages around the world. Why do these inexpensive small-scale programs hold such promise? They recognize two facts about poverty: its maddeningly incremental rate of improvement and its structural violence. One calls for patience and the other for compassion.

Former PCV: Of course, the Volunteer will have many unique experiences to take home and talk about, if anybody is willing to listen. As I found out years ago after returning from Africa as a PCV, you start to talk about your experiences and after 3 or 5 minutes, the listeners' eyes glaze over. Most Americans just don't really want to hear the stories you have to tell about the culture you lived in!

Ned: These days, bringing these cross-cultural experiences home relates to what we now call Goal-3. My take is that most Americans care about these experiences but are simply too busy with mortgages, insecure jobs, kids, looming college tuitions, the frenzy of the information age to have the time, energy, attention or inclination to indulge my travelogues.

Better for me to rehearse a sincere spiel of inward impact and renewal...in three minutes or less. My friend is a great lady whose idealism has faded somewhat and probably for good reason.

To her I would close with just one observation: never under-estimate the power of example. The work of many people in and beyond the Peace Corps have made their mark over the years.

Thirty-five years ago, when I first toyed with the idea of the Peace Corps, I would have been one of the last people in town to think that, just a generation later, Coca Cola would seriously be trying to find ways to help water-stressed areas.

I think we can -- at least in part -- thank people of generations past in the Peace Corps and other out-reach agencies for success stories like that of Coke. Others, large and small, truly abound.

To the volunteers of today, including very brave young men and women in uniform serving our country under wretched circumstances, I say with pride: imagine how high your seeds will grow in the next thirty-five years?

Letter's to Friends and Family #32: Time for Isaiah's kin to beat swords into plowshares

Now is a time for the U.S. to stand strongly beside Israël; now is the moment for Israël to “think outside of the fox-hole”.

Shock-waves initiated by the United States and Britain in Iraq seven years ago becoming manifest across the Middle East and North Africa together with an oil drenched tsunami spontaneously flowing in from Japan have the world sitting fearfully in the dentist´s chair praying that the drilling through rotten material ends before the novacane wears off.

Previously, I have written before on this blog about Israël’s unsustainable policy toward her Palestinean brethren. In other settings, I have laid out in detail personal thoughts on Iraq and the Middle East. Thus, I want to be brief. For background reading, Stratfor’s well thought out piece neatly ties the catastrophe that befell Japan into the unsettled conditions in the Persian Gulf.

There is a nightmare swirling around the collective unconscience, especially for Israël’s always precarious existence. Iran’s inclination to project its hegemony through oppressed Shi´ites captures the media´s attention. Yet, I see the larger opportunity belonging to Israël.

Why? First, imperfect as she is, Israël has the only self-sustaining democracy in the region and boasts a proven track-record of economic expansion and permanent employment creation. Arabs and Persians alike see the fruits of her freedom.

Most Arabs realize that Israël’s breath-taking advance in the sciences, governance and education did not come from the United States. It was the Israeli people – well educated, everyday Israelis – who transformed a patch of desert into a western democracy while her historically bellicose neighbors languished.

Second, enter President G.W. Bush made a moral – and very difficult – decision finally to expel Saddam Hussein from Baghdad while the U.S. was busy leading a coalition to resurrect the stirrings of democracy in Afghanistan.

This risky policy bet that two developing democracies flanking either side of Iran would inspire that country’s middle class forcefully to foreswear a generation of religious tyranny. Most of the other régimes on the Arabian Peninsula are fast approaching their days of reckoning for years of corruption and repression.

Saudi Arabia´s coming collapse, more than Libya’s, will shock most other Arab countries into reforming themselves lest they be swept by a contagion of class warfare into the “great dust-storm” of history. All of this plays into Iran’s hands say the experts. I disagree.

The emergence of a general Arab-Persian conflagration fought primarily on Iraqi soil remains the greater danger than Iranian meddling through Shi´ite proxies across the Persian Gulf. So, what is Israël´s historic opportunity in this mischief lapsing into mêlée?

That of holding the balance of power between two peoples who despise each other more than either hates Israël. But…how? Eight months ago, the sentiments outlined below sounded unrealistic. Events across a troubled region are fast transforming the fantastic into the foreseeable.

Israël can step up to support the Arab Street´s move toward democracy, counsel collapsing régimes on reforms (structural and political) and guarantee the sovereignty of these frightened lands through the following five bold measures:

• repudiating her current apartheid by tearing down the wall and opening up access roads;
• annexing Palestine into a secular federation with a Xian capital in Jerusalem and six provinces – three Jewish and three Muslim;
• apologizing to the Palestinean people for past transgressions by recognizing the right-of-return (or compensation);
• leading an aid consortium for economic development and job training for the three Palestinean provinces supported by the U.S., E.U. and G.C.C. with Israël's largess being a fundament of her recognizing the right of returs; as well as,
• offering to lead a peace-keeping force in Iraq drawn from Turkey, Morocco, Malaysia, Indonesia and other non-Arab Muslim nations to supplement 5,000 U.S. Army regulars (arrayed in Baghdad as a trip-wire force against Iranian aggression).

Letter to Friends and Family #31: Typical week-ends in Querétaro

The last ten days has witnessed, hopefully, a crescendo of craziness with shock waves unsettling least stable region on earth, unions getting busted in the one-time laboratory of democracy and nuclear reactors cracking open in the world’s most orderly country. Amid all this heavy history going down, what was this slacker up to? A typically tranquil ten days in Querétaro – that’s what.

Starting a week ago Friday, I met my sweet novia, Angélica, in the middle of downtown and we ventured over to the Teatro de la Republica to pick up our symphony tickets. It was in this hallowed hall that the Constitution of 1917 was signed, making México a Republic, at times faltering, ever since.

Since I had ordered the cheapest tickets, of course, we took our place near the front of the line forty-five minutes ahead of the show to get good general admission seats. We actually prefer this timing because it gives us time without distraction to talk about our lives. Forty-five minutes is a challenge for me as I can summarize my life in forty-five seconds. Soooo: sit, stay and listen.

The concert itself was lovely. La Filarmónica de Querétaro is very good and the acoustics quite personable. The evening’s menu included some tumultuous Liszt, boring Strauss ending with sublime Brahms. Ironically the Liszt piece was a ‘poema sinfónico’; I can only imagine Franz’s idea of a love ballad…in my darker moments.

Saturday, I spent much of my time working through the eight hundred page accounting manual, finally getting – on the fifth reading – a tentative sense over mastery of the ungainly and recalcitrant beast. Then off to Angélica’s for a DVD, the “Soloist” (2009) starring Robert Downey, Jr and Jamie Foxx.

This film was what “Black Swan” should have been since it opened the story up to consequences of the mad artist on others’ lives. Granted “Black Swan” operated under heavy constraints as the story-line was itself an allegory of the ballet plot-line.

Sunday was another great DVD, “Sleeping Beauty” (1982) by the Kirov Ballet of the erstwhile Leningrad. The sorceress sure was ugly, and her Adam’s apple did little to reclaim her lost femininity! The week at work was interesting and I will write separate letters on life in Querétaro and at CIDESI, a state-sponsored center of scientific research.

Friday rolled in once again and, with it, the Filarmónica at the Teatro. This concert was even better than that of the previous week. The solo by another whiz-kid, Vladimir Curiel – very internationalist Mexican with a Russian first name and French surname – during Lizst’s piano concerto #1 was riveting and contemplative.

Reminded me of the calming influence that piano playing had in my household growing up.

Saturday brought work on my Peace Corps trimester report. The day ended with a light dinner with Angélica. The meal was posole, a type of meaty soup in México filled with tasty ingredients which I would rather leave undiscovered. We then watched the film “Glory” (1990) about the Civil War. Even after six times, I still adore that film. It should take two hours to watch but my poor novia had to sit through three hours as her novio re-played his new “favorite scene” every ten minutes or so.

Sunday featured a free concert in the main city square. Two Mexican guitarists migrated from classical Spanish to flamenco to break-away boogie-woogie to basic blues to blue grass and back to México; Jules Verne, move over: I made it around the world in eighty minutes! Angélica and I closed the week-end with a smoothie and a walk in Querétaro’s prettiest park, Cerro de las Campanas.

So while the world slid toward Hell over the last fortnight, a latter-day Willie Keith (i.e., me) spent two quiet week-ends next to Heaven.

Letter #30 to friends and family: Peace Corps and its big Five-oh...nooo!

Last week, the Peace Corps celebrated its fiftieth anniversary at a thousand points of light around the world, including a sizable fête right here in Querétaro. Byron Battle, the former director for Peace Corps-México, and his his truly lovely wife, Margarita, hosted the event. The Battles know how to throw a Peace Corps party. First, their home has the elegance of an old style hacienda, displaying Margarita’s upbringing, blending in smartly with well-placed pieces of more contemporary art.

Then came the life-sized portrait of President John Kennedy with the current Peace Corps symbol suspended above his head – a thought-cloud in a comic book. President Kennedy´s cloud-sourcing worked since his initiative was a big dream brought to fruition by his brilliant – and under-appreciated brother-in-law – Ambassador R. Sargent Shriver. Their dream endures today.

Though banished too far out in the campo to attend the party, two friends and fellow volunteers – Arpan Dasgupta of (somewhere in) New Jersey and Steve Walker of Sarasota, Florida – helped set the tone by posting on FaceBook timely YouTube videos of President Kennedy announcing the formation of the Peace Corps.

Of course, there were tacos galore – and other things I can not name (¡even after six months!) – and the wine flowed freely. Best of all, for me at least, my wonderful novia braved the unknown and came to the party with me.

The Peace Corps has been in Mexico for only 15% of its half century. And México remains an outlier since it is already a member of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, qualifying her as a rich nation and not fitting in with the typical recipient country.

Of course, the festivities brushed such prosaic details aside until we each had to introduce ourselves as returning volunteers, former volunteers, seasoned current volunteers and newbs (‘twas I…yesirree). Now I work on debit and credits for a technology center – BORING material for a wine-drenched dinner.

What to do? Escape was one option. I had to nix that one quickly since, to walk out would have entailed:
a) being uncouth;
b) displaying cowardice;
c) acting unprofessionally; and, most important,
d) walking right through the peace-buzzed merriment.
Ah…to be gutless.

So, Charlie Goldsmith, an old pro as a current volunteer, was on the end of the line that had kicked off the previous groups. Safely standing at the opposite end was I until Charlie threw a curve ball and beckoned my end to start. By mistake, I thought that meant me as I did not realize Sonya Greegor – lovely woman and good sport – had joined the line but outside of my view and knowledge.

So, when Charlie motioned me to speak, I almost fainted.
¡Damn! I should have walked out in front of everybody when I had the chance.
Now, what do I do?
Talk about debits, credits and accounting harmonization in México?
Nope.
With a quick breath, I asked God for deliverance.

Then the calm of the 23rd Psalm (King James Version, if you please) descended upon me. Why not pull a J.F.K. maneuver? One of my favorite stories of President Kennedy was when he went to Paris with his glamorous wife of twenty-nine years at the time, the former Jacqueline Bouvier. Her cultivation, ancestry and fluent French made Jackie Kennedy an instant icon in Paris.

President Kennedy’s sense of humor and spontaneity shone through his grace as he said to a crowd something like, “Hello, I am John Kennedy, President of the United States of America. But, you know me as Jackie’s husband…” Of course, like Senator Bentsen would say, “You’re no Jack Kennedy.” But, hell, I can have fun, too, especially since the gracious Mexican beauty in my company was already a hit.

So I fitted the Presidential Patron of the Peace Corps to the situation and said spontaneously, “Hi, I’m Ned McDonnell and my project is my beautiful girl-friend. Yeah! On my free time I do work in administration at a local science center.”

People laughed and cheered, showing that President Kennedy still lives, transcending the ghastly images of the Zapruder film. Were he alive today, that president would be a very contented ninety-three year old, obviously not with my emulation, but with his and the saintly Ambassador Shriver's – and our – inimitable Peace Corps.

Letter to Friends and Family; TRACT 29: Goy, you can give me a shine.

In writing my last letter home, I began thinking about my ambivalence toward the Catholic Church, a reflection I often have here in Mexico. And I began thinking about an idea that popped into my head when I was dabbling in hagiography many years ago.

Wikipedia quickly refreshed my memory and added another fact: beatification allows Catholics in a location to venerate a local hero beatified by Rome (though such centralization of sanctity was not the case for several centuries); canonization is the elevation of a beatified Catholic to sainthood.

Appreciation of this rich tradition of relating to God through people, even townies, excites misgivings about modern Catholicism with the silence of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust and the recent scandals about sexual abuse in the U.S. and elsewhere. These events taint the Church but not necessarily its traditions.

Perhaps the Roman Church can do something to reconcile this divisive history. Call it a new “Stride Toward Freedom”. When Martin Luther King wrote that spiritual milestone, by pre-Vatican II standards, he was headed to Hell or, at best, Limbo for not being an R.C. My time in an Episcopalian grade school, with my beloved ´1940 Hymnal´, probably planted the seed of beatifying non-Catholics.

´Hymn 243´ sings merrily of the saints of God – patient and brave and true – and they are people like you and me. Hmmm. Sounds like early Christianity when there were too few of the faithful around to be exclusive and martyrs checked their egos at the Coliseum.

Let’s face it: we live in a difficult and bloody time amid the globalization of selfishness. Winning has become the only thing and we are all losing. Billions of impoverished people are left behind despite the unflinching efforts of brave and compassionate people, ranging from soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq to AIDS workers in Africa.

People need hope and relating to God directly can be difficult. What if the Roman church, still in a position to better the world, started beatifying non-Catholics? For example, Martin Luther King would be a perfect candidate. What would be the practical consequence?

First, devoted Catholics in the U.S. would be permitted to venerate (i.e., show respect openly inside the Church) this saintly man; it already happens in many parishes on M.L.K. Day. More important, the Roman Church would be sending a message – not necessarily a relativistic one – that the plea for peace and the sacredness of sacrifice still resonate in this hardened age.

WHO WOULD YOUR CANDIDATES BE? Do not fret over whether you are Catholic. Who would be, in your eyes, worthy of old-fashioned veneration because (s)he basically deserves it? For me, Robert Kennedy and Sargent Shriver would lead my list as devoted Catholics.

Non-Catholic nominees would include the obvious like Mahatma Gandhi, Florence Nightingale, President Abraham Lincoln, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Dietrich Bonhoeffer while others emerge from the accidental place and time of my birth like William Larimer Mellon, Charlie Blango, President Gerald Ford, David Hackett and, of course, Roberto Clemente.

Beatification simply means these people are in the presence of God now. Thus beatification becomes almost a tautology.

Why?

These people were already in the presence of God when they lived amongst us, making us a little better by their very examples shining through their very human faults.