The Conference

7:24 am. I’m about to head out the door to a conference on migrant workers and health. The main attraction of this conference, of course, is that I get to scope out the big names from WHO, UNIFEM, and the Ministry of Public Health.

It’s day three here, and I’ve been trying to get my brain switched to living-in-a-developing-country mode again. Except there seems to be no evidence that this is a developing country. There are these massive, sleek, hi-tech malls that are all nicer and more carefully and artistically designed to maximize your shameless consumption than any mall in the U.S. People from Japan, China and Malaysia come here on “shopping vacations.”

I’m still reeling from the overstimulation of being in a new country and hemisphere, as well as being 11 hours ahead of New York time, but if I had to choose one message that stands out most from everything I’ve taken in so far, it’s this: JUSTINA MUST LEARN THAI, LIKE YESTERDAY.

Supposedly everyone learns English in school here, and I don’t mean just in high school. It’s taught starting in fifth grade. But much like in China and Taiwan, the emphasis is on reading and writing, not on speaking. So basically, I can’t understand a word anyone is saying to me.

Yesterday I was at an internet café and the woman at the desk kept saying, “Conserve foon.”

What?

“Conserve foon.”

What?

“Foon.”

What?

“Foon.”

Whuh-ut?

“Foon. Foon.”

Finally I figured it out. She was saying, “Computer full.” All the computers were taken and I should hang out a bit until one opened up. Thais sometimes pronounce L as N. But they also sometimes pronounce R as L, or L as R.

So how about some nooden for dinnel?

11:05 pm. I got lost trying to find my way to the Ambassador Hotel off Sukhumvit Road this morning, but I did learn how the whole Thanon-Soi thing works. A lot of thanons (roads) have side streets coming off them that are called sois, which are numbered. So Soi Sukhumvit 1 is the first side street that turns off the main Sukhumvit Road.

This is apparently a pretty large conference. It’s called the National Migrant Health Conference or something like that. There were a bunch of display tables and booths from various NGOs and government organizations that supposedly support migrant health and rights in Thailand, and some of them were giving away freebies. Mostly, though, everything was in Thai, further solidifying my resolve to learn Thai reo-reo: fast fast.

At the welcome table I got a little radio-like thing with a belt clip and earpiece. It receives a feed from the booth where two people were translating the program from Thai into English and vice-versa, which I thought was pretty cool. They could offer personal versions of these for super lazy people, where you hire someone to follow you around and keep inconspicuously out of sight while their translation of everything around you is constantly transmitted to your ear.

I met some people from Mahachai at the conference – my supervisor was there, and I met a Burmese doctor and nurse who are based at the drop-in centers. There were also a few peer educators and Burmese translators from a migration NGO in Mahachai, all youth, and some staff from the Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot, of Dr. Cynthia fame.

One of the early speakers was the head of UNIFEM based here in Bangkok. She gave an energetic speech about migrant rights, especially for female migrants, who are more vulnerable to exploitation. The rhetoric was nothing earth-shattering, just very familiar. There were a few other speakers from NGOs around the country who said more of the same thing, but then the government officials got up and started talking about why migrants were a menace and should be stopped from coming into Thailand.

Whuuut? No one seemed to react. People just kept taking notes. During the coffee break I ran into our executive director, who said, “The ministry people said all the wrong things.” He was irritated but not surprised. It sounds like this is the standard party line every time the government is invited to talk about migrants.

For dinner I met up with a PopFam classmate, Francisco, who is doing his practicum with UNAIDS here in Bangkok. It was great to see a friendly face, one that speaks English at 35 mph instead of 2. We sat in an air-conditioned noodle shop in the mall, slurping down noodle soup and stir fried chicken with vegetables, and comparing notes on Thailand through expat eyes and non-Thai ears.

Francisco ordered an iced chrysanthemum tea, I ordered a Thai iced tea, and we made a special toast:

“To being interns in Thailand. Because you know our classmates working in Africa aren’t eating like this.”

The First Day

I’m still rusty at this blogging thing. Apologies for yesterday’s play-by-play drivel.

I reported for “work” today. But first, I was up at seven looking for breakfast in the neighborhood, and feeling inexplicably apprehensive about it. I found a couple of stands with steam coming from them in an alley, so I bought some barbecued chicken-on-a-stick and some rice. Everyone snickered about my inability to speak Thai, which is probably the last time I’ll find it amusing.

I went back to my hotel room and inhaled my lovely savory breakfast. I made a mental note to ask someone what people normally eat for breakfast here. Chicken and rice for breakfast is delicious, but a bit odd, even for someone who grew up eating leftover Domino’s Pizza for breakfast.

Just before I came to Thailand, I combed the aisles at DSW for several hours agonizing about what kind of shoes would be appropriate for working here. Flip flops were obviously out, but what about open-toe or slip-on sandals? I didn’t want to wear closed shoes without socks in the world’s hottest country, or closed shoes with socks for that matter.

It turns out that people take off their shoes before they enter the office. Barefoot is the proper footwear here. People also take off their shoes anytime they enter a temple or someone’s house, or if you go upstairs in many buildings, like at a hotel. (However, this was not true at The Palace. I guess if you pay that much money, you get to keep your shoes on.)

I met with the Director of HR, my project director, my on-site director, and the executive director of my organization. We had a meeting where half the attendees spent the first ten minutes giggling because they couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t speak Thai. It is rather odd, I think, that the organization has agreed to take on an intern that can’t speak the local language. Would this ever happen in the States? Highly doubtful.

My organization has implemented five drop-in centers around Mahachai, just one town where an ambitious HIV prevention program for migrant workers is being implemented around Thailand, with a primary focus on laborers in the fishing industry.

The drop-in centers are basically a safe place where migrant workers can go to get culturally-appropriate information in their native language, as well as basic health care and condoms. They’re staffed by Thai and Burmese employees and volunteers who provide health services, referrals, legal advice and other information to help migrant workers understand and assert their rights, whether or not they’re registered to work legally in Thailand.

Even though Thai laws restrict illegal migrants from accessing basic services like health care and schooling, international human rights instruments protect migrants from abusive situations. This doesn’t stop employers from exploiting them, but through the outreach and education provided by drop-in center staff, migrants learn what recourse is available to them when they need it.

Four of the drop-in sites in Mahachai also have child development centers, which are basically day care centers for the children of migrants. The centers give kids a place to socialize and develop life skills among Burmese children their own age. They also attempt to prepare kids with language and cultural knowledge so that they can eventually enter Thai schools.

From what I can gather, I’ll be documenting the child development centers, including activities, best practices and lessons learned. That's a lot of nice buzzwords that make my project sound important, but so far it seems like my supervisors are much more skilled at NGO-speak than at communicating exactly what they mean by those things.

The HR director, Khun P, took me to lunch because everyone else in the office had ordered food and eaten already. We walked down the block – wearing shoes - to a small restaurant where he ordered tom yum soup, fried fish and vegetables. He also taught me one of my first Thai words ever: pet. It means spicy, and will probably be one of the more useful words I learn.

Khun P also gave me the lowdown on tipping in Thailand. It’s not expected, he says, although at “finer” establishments, especially those that serve a lot of wazungu, they give you your bill on a tray, which means “it’s okay to tip and place it in the tray.” Also, you don’t tip 15 percent of the bill. You just leave an extra 10 or 20 baht – which is often more than 15 percent. This is true at restaurants, hotels, in taxis, nearly everywhere.

I told him about the Malaysian restaurant in New York that I went to last week where the wait staff completely ignored us except to run after us as we left because we didn’t leave a tip. We hadn’t intended to stiff them; we had simply counted the money wrong. But the service was so bad that we really shouldn’t have tipped, except that tipping isn’t about rewarding good service anymore; it’s about avoiding finding your waiter’s loogie in your food.

“I hear that’s how it is in the States,” he said. “But not here. You won’t be chased for not leaving a tip. It’s just appreciated.”

Thailand is supposed to be less developed than the US?

The Arrival

Look at me! I'm in Thailand! I'm spending six months in the Land of Same Same But Different working for an NGO as a requirement for my masters degree back in New York.

I arrived in Bangkok Sunday morning bright and early - like before 6am. My luggage arrived forty minutes later, on Thai time. I stepped out into the hottest country in the world, armed with a single Thai greeting and a map to my hotel.

Lesson one: Thai people have a hard time understanding that I don’t speak Thai. Ten minutes into the cab ride from the airport, the driver looked at me in the rearview mirror. He had been mumbling in Thai, and must have suddenly realized:

“You speak Thai,” he said. No, I said.

He chortled in deep embarrassment. “You tourism?” he said.

I just said, “Yes,” because I doubted that the phrase “six-month practicum” was in his English vocabulary.

We got lost. We got found. Some very friendly bellhops greeted me in the lobby of the Karmanee Palace Hotel. It was indeed a palace compared to the backpacker guesthouses that I’ve always stayed in most of my adult life. There was granite, or maybe marble. There were chandeliers, and tablecloths, and elevators. There was a complimentary breakfast buffet.

“Sawatdii khap!” they said.

Well, I know that phrase: It means hello.

Unfortunately I didn’t know what the appropriate response was, so I just smiled awkwardly and proceeded to the reception desk. Again, the women behind the counter could not register that I didn’t speak Thai. When they finally did, confusion ensued.

Name please?

I told them.

Write down, please. I did.

They read it as “Jushna.”

No reservation under Jushna, or Justina for that matter. I gave them the name of my supervisor, who had made the reservation. Nothing. I gave them the name of my host organization, Raks Thai. After more confusion, more blank looks, more staring back and forth at me and at each other, they checked me in and summoned the bellhop.

I was finally alone in my hotel room. I had no idea where I was, or how to get around. Two hours in Bangkok and I already felt trapped in my hotel. It was a tiny bit lonely, a tiny bit terrifying.

I needed to call my supervisor to let him know I had arrived, but I didn’t even know how to make a phone call. The bellhop had said to use the phone in my room – and explained it in a voice that suggested he thought I was an idiot for not knowing that there was a phone in every hotel room. But where I come from hotel phones are for people who never went on vacation with their family and watched their mom accidentally use the phone in the hotel room to make a local call and get charged $8.

So I sat on my bed, wondering how to make a phone call. I decided to ponder this question in the shower instead. Ten minutes later I was clean, and my room phone was ringing.

It was my supervisor. He was worried that I hadn’t called earlier. I told him I didn’t know where I could make a phone call. He said that I could call from my hotel room, you know, on the phone that I was using to talk to him. So, in Thailand, hotel room phones are not the world’s lamest scams. Only in America, apparently.

I finally got myself out the door of my hotel room to explore the neighborhood. But not until I had finished examining the mini wet bar, which always reminds me of that line from Blood Diamond where Leo is dancing with Jennifer Connelley and says, “How about we go check out the wet bar in your hotel room?”

And she says, “I’m a print journalist. I drank it.”

Anyway, the wet bar in The Palace only had sodas. And I’m not a print journalist, or a soda fiend. I later learned that the two bottles of water were free though.

I started walking to the Big C. The entire road along the way was lined with food carts. In case none of them offered anything you wanted to eat, there was also a pretty decent market in one of the alleys. I found rambutan! And mangosteen! Mangosteen seems not to be in season, but I made a mental note to come back for some rambutan.

There was also a meat market on the opposite side of the alley, and if you hung a right at the end, you came upon a small clothing market. Man, there’s no shortage of ways to whet your consumerist appetite here. This is a developing country?

The Big C was massive, both on the inside and out. Even if you didn’t see the giant sign that said Big C, there were stands set up selling clothes and food starting right in front of the door and continuing for several blocks. It’s comforting to know that I’ll never go hungry or naked in this country.

Big C is basically like a Walmart Superstore. Groceries, clothes, beauty supplies, electronics, home furnishings, and of course, carts with prepared food.

I needed moisturizer. I left my extra-emollient New York wintertime moisturizer at home, figuring it was probably overkill for a tropical country.

Observation: Every lotion sold in this country wants to turn you white. I really had to search hard to find one that didn’t advertise it’s magical whitening properties. All I wanted was something with sunscreen, not bleach. It’s a bit mysterious, actually, why women wouldn’t fear ending up looking like a Chinese opera singer with all the face-whitening products they’re slapping on.

I finally found one that didn’t say anything about making me look like porcelain goddess, and shelled out a whopping $9 for it. I still haven’t stopped converting prices back to dollars in my head. After all that careful perusing at the store, I got home only to find on the inside packaging: “Naturally lighten your skin.”

Next stop: Chatuchak weekend market, known to tourists as JJ market. Once off the SkyTrain, I saw a sign that said I could get to Chatuchak by cutting through a park. Anything to make time spent frying in the sun shorter and sweeter.

I was approached by a couple guys trying to sell me straw mats so I could sit on the grass next to a rather stagnant-looking pond. They were speaking Thai, obviously, so I shook my head at them and kept walking. They kept following me, speaking Thai and holding an armload of mats. This was awkward. Ignoring people doesn’t work here as well as it does in Kenya, apparently.

"I don't know what you're saying," I said to them. They stopped to let their jaws bounce off the ground a few times. I made my getaway while they looked at each other and discussed why this Thai lady couldn't speak Thai.

Chatuchak market is a bit overwhelming, full of winding stands selling a lot of handcrafted tourist goods – clothes, jewelry, home furnishings, textiles, art, books. And of course, food. Thais never miss a meal, and apparently there’s nothing wrong with having two meals during one meal time.

Note to all: Chatuchak market has tourist prices. A bowl of soup that would normally cost 25 baht cost me 40 baht, and they skimped on the noodles. It was quite disappointing, and I was still hungry.

It was only 4pm and there were still two things on my to do list that would make my day complete: getting a SIM card for my phone, and finding an internet café. My supervisor had said that I might need to go to the mall to get a SIM card, so I found my way to Siam Square.

After marveling once again at the possibility that this might be a developing country, I finally found both an internet café (called True – quite an elaborate internet café experience, and priced to match) and a SIM card. Mission accomplished.

I retreated back to my hotel, with only a pit stop for a bowl of dinner noodles – larger and cheaper than at Chatuchak. I was exhausted, and my feet hurt.

But they were still clean. This is a developing country?

There ARE Biker's Ed Classes In New York

...but they're only for kids. Why?

http://www.bikenewyork.org/education/classes/bike_driver_ed.html

From what I can tell, being over 18 doesn't automatically make you smart enough to ride a bike in the same direction of traffic.

I likeNY in June, How About You? I Smell Jizz Trees In Bloom, How About You?

Successive themes of obsessive focus carve this landscape that is my conscious mind.

Huh? What did I just say? Basically, I fixate on something for days, weeks or months at a time, and I just can't let it go until the next theme of obsession comes along that even more urgently needs my pointless obsessive attention.

Right now I'm obsessing about two things, because I've learned to multi-task. One is about biking in New York, and the other is ... hm, I seem to have forgotten.

Summer has arrived, so I'm bothering to leave the house more often. I got back on my bike a few weeks ago and have been experimenting with commuting in the city. Technically, there are bike lanes in Manhattan. New Yorkers think the bike lane is where you drive when you're looking for street parking. And if you can't find street parking? Just double park in the bike lane. There are neighborhoods where even cops park in the bike lane.

I used to think that people who rode their bikes in NYC were pretty hard core. Now I just think they're stupid. I'm convinced that cycling in the city is dangerous not just because of the low IQ among drivers in this town; it's also because of the low IQ of cyclists. Especially those guys who deliver food on their bikes. Is it a job requirement for those idiots to ride the wrong way on EVERY street, sidewalk and bike lane to get to their destination? Are they forbidden to put a light on their handlebars at night?

City cycling culture is so different here. It's not centered around a sense of community. I think that's what I can't get used to. Bikers really feel no sense of connection to other bikers. I ride safely and defensively mostly because I'm not an idiot, but also in part because I don't want to make things more difficult for other bikers by being that reckless ass-wipe who pisses off drivers for no reason. I don't get why other bikers don't see it this way - oh, classic narcissism! But seriously - a lot of bikers here don't see that any stupid thing they do, drivers will project onto all of us, and it just makes them want to run over anything between two wheels and a helmet.

Uh oh. Here come the inevitable comparisons to San Francisco...

In San Francisco, I always felt this sense of solidarity with other bikes on the road. Bikers, for the most part, cooperate with traffic and don't do stupid things like go the wrong way on a four-lane, 45 mph thoroughfare when it's dark and you're wearing black and have no light on your bike. I felt like we looked out for each other, in the sense that we knew that the way we rode affected the way cars treated all bikers. If we rode safely and didn't antagonize cars, then cars would view us as a normal part of traffic, and stop thinking about how to run us over or, at the very least, how close to get before pegging us with their Big Gulp full of Mountain Dew and ice. This is rather idealized and over-simplified, because there were plenty of bee-tard bikers in SF who gave the rest of us a bad rap...but the ideal was there.

When I'm president of the planet, driver's ed will have a major "biker awareness" component, where drivers learn to respect the rights and safety of bikes on the road. And bikers in New York will have to attend a biker's ed class, because obviously ensuring one's own safety is not an intuitive concept to everyone. And most importantly, I would make New York and San Francisco car-free cities, and tell everyone to get off their fat asses and start pedaling.

YES. There are exceptions. Public transportation vehicles like buses, trains and subways would still run. Casual carpool and other private carpooling would still be allowed. Anything that doesn't burn fossil fuels, like those pedicabs and the horse-drawn carriages in Central Park, are fine. There would be special exceptions or discounts for the elderly, disabled and anyone else who has legitimate reasons for not riding a bike everywhere. Also, commercial delivery vehicles like the ones that deliver food to your grocery store would still be allowed. I haven't decided what to do about cabs. I still have a few years to work on this idea.

There was an article in some local pop culture magazine that basically summed up the road biking culture here: bikers and drivers will never get along. That just isn't good enough for me. I don't care to be resigned to drivers who feel like bikers aren't entitled to be on the road, and bikers who think that their jerkoff riding habits exist in a vacuum instead of eventually trickling down into a giant communal pool of seething driver hatred towards all bikers.

Therefore, I'm going to get myself elected President of the world and make New York a car-free city. As per above.

Oh, Critical Mass. So I've ridden in a few Critical Masses in SF over the years, and although I like the sense of community in participating, it always made me a bit uncomfortable. They always announce at the beginning of the ride that we're supposed to obey all traffic signals and not be aggressive bee-tards towards cars, but inevitably some people start to feel invincible because of our sheer numbers, and bikers start taunting drivers. Arguments ensue, fights break out, everyone else keeps pedaling towards the bar. These pockets of confrontation always bother me because they negate the spirit of Critical Mass. Yeah, it's a protest and a political statement and a social movement, and most of all it's just powerful. But like most things, it doesn't quite live up to its ideals. It's an imperfect phenomenon, created to bring together imperfect people, and maybe in truth, that's why I like it.

Oh, now I remember my other theme of obsession: Disgusting specimens of the male species. So now that summer is here and I'm bothering to leave my house, I've created strategies for minimizing the probability that I cross paths with any of the drooly, grunty, armpit-scratching, mite-picking, mouth-breathing, glassy-eyed organisms that loiter in my neighborhood. Being on my bike helps a lot, because I flit across their field of vision in a fraction of the time it takes an electrical impulse to fire across a synapse in their little drooly brain.

But running is a different story. Mainly because I'm a slow, slow runner. Old hunchback men waddle past me when I run. That's how slow I am. So I had to devise a route that avoided the worst concentrations of drooly organisms in my neighborhood. So far, pretty successful. So successful, in fact, that yesterday I started to wonder if maybe I'd exaggerated the drooly organism population in my head. I ran past a high-rise apartment building overlooking the Hudson, one of those places that I could never afford to live in, but whose building manager is kind enough to allow people like me to pass by on the sidewalk. The security guard for the apartment building was wandering around outside, and when I ran by he surprised me by saying, "Good morning."

"Good morning!!" I said, too enthusiastically. I realized then that at best I had expected him to ignore me, and at worst I had expected him to drool and call me his baby. I definitely did NOT expect him to greet me like a normal person.

Man, no one says good morning anymore. Certainly not the drooly organisms. Not people I see on the elevator everyday. Not the security guard in my building. I feel like even a simple smile upon eye contact is unheard of among New Yorkers. Hell, eye contact is unheard of. More evidence for my theory that there are way too many people on this tiny island, and everyone here hates dealing with everyone else. People actively tune each other out. I was on an elevator in a subway station, and seven of ten people had iPods stuffed in their ears. I could hear what at least three of them were listening to, and I must say that too many people have really bad taste in music.

And Jizz Trees. Admit it, you've smelled them too and thought the same thing. Peeee-yew! They grew all over the Peninsula and South Bay, and I could never figure out what kind of tree it was because I was never sure if it was appropriate to ask, "Where do you think that sperm smell is coming from?"

But a few weeks ago, the jizz trees were at full stinkiness here in New York, and they were EVERYWHERE. I finally went on the internet and discovered that there are several types of trees that could be the culprit. Here in New York, I think it's the Bradford Pear tree, which doesn't even bear edible fruit. It's an ornamental pear tree that was planted all over the island for its ability to survive New York City pollution. It explodes into gorgeous white blossoms in the spring and, apparently, quickly explodes into noxious clouds of jizzy odors in the summer.

I think the jizz blooming has ended because I haven't noticed the smell in a week or so.

I Procrastinate, Therefore I Post

We have this assignment for one of my classes to comb through our hometown paper for mentions of Iraqi and American deaths since the beginning of the war in March 2003. My true hometown paper, the Houston Chronicle, had already been tallied by another student, so I’m scouring my adopted hometown’s paper, the San Francisco Chronicle.

It’s been interesting reliving the war, or rather the media coverage of the war. I felt like I’d reached a point, probably like most Americans, where I just had to stop caring THAT MUCH about news from the war front because it was pointlessly upsetting. It was pointless to get upset that I was right from the beginning, that so many Americans so mindlessly and obtusely embraced all the meaningless words pouring out of Unpresident Idiot and Co’s bungholes – words about how we are being attacked by people who hate freedom, about how we are nobly bringing democracy to a country of helpless victims, UGHHH!! I can’t go on.

But reliving the news, day by day, starting from the first shock and awe campaign, tracing the evolution of anti-American sentiment and deliberate attacks on U.S. troops, the capture of Saddam…Well, at this point I’ve only gotten through the end of 2003. But the point is, I’m left with a lot of old emotions dredged up from a deep, formerly quiet place. Mostly what stands out for me, reading week after week of reports about people dying, is how profoundly yet incomprehensibly pointless all of the dying has been. I’m even more struck by this feeling when I read about Iraqi civilians dying, especially when it’s some kid or woman who is accidentally shot by some 19-year-old American soldier who thinks he’s in a video game.

"'We had a great day,' said Sgt. Eric Schrumpf of the U.S. Marines last Saturday [April 5]. 'We killed a lot of people.' He added, 'We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?'"

…Schrumpf had said "there were women standing near an Iraqi soldier, and one of them fell when he and other Marines opened fire. 'I'm sorry,' said Schrumpf, 'but the chick was in the way.'"

Every other article talks about how Bush declared an end to the war on May 1, 2003. Five years later, that is beyond ironic and insulting.

The sad thing is that not only do extremists now feel more justified in hating anyone who falls into the category “American,” but people like me feel so much hatred and disappointment in human nature. Ideally no one should assume that Shrubbery is an accurate representation of human nature, but how can you not hold a world leader up to some reasonable standard of integrity? I wonder why, knowing how poorly most world leaders score on the human decency scale, I expect more from the monkey on our Hill? But I do.

I was talking to one of my professors yesterday, who served in the Peace Corps in Cameroon in the seventies. She says she still uses the lessons she learned in Peace Corps every single day. And I think she’s right. Combing through these articles about bumbling American soldiers and angry Iraqi insurgents, I impose judgments based on things I learned from living in an African village.

You can’t go into another country and another culture with no clue or intention of being culturally sensitive, and expect people not to resent you.

One article described an American soldier, armed with big scary G.I. Joe weapons, yelling at an Iraqi civilian. “Stop where you are!” the soldier said – in English.

It just amazes me that Americans are so dumbfounded that they are being targeted and killed by people in a country they stormed into without permission.

Our military regularly issues apologies to Iraqi families when they accidentally, or even intentionally, kill one of their members.

Hello? That is just not good enough. I feel the Iraqi who said, “What kind of compensation do we want? We want one of your people to die.”

Well, on a lighter note. ...Let’s return to my favorite pastime – ripping on New York.

What is the deal with people giving kisses on the cheek when they greet each other here? I just confirmed with two friends who are also from San Francisco: we don’t do that on the West Coast.

Why? Because the only people who are allowed to do that and still be taken seriously are people from other countries. Europeans can do it; they are European. Latin and South Americans can do it; they are not North American.

But we are not a touchy-feelie culture. We are the land of the sexual harassment lawsuit. And that means people are - or should be - careful not to lean in so they can make over-exaggerated sucking noises with the side of their face pasted to another person’s after having met them for three seconds. Ew.

About a third of the people in my program are international students. I don’t care if they greet me with a kiss on the cheek - or two, or three, depending on where they're from. It’s just another person's cultural practice, and I accept it.

But when an American greets me that way, I’m like, hey man, that’s not normal or sincere or flattering or comfortable. And I have to make that fake smackie-kissie sound so that it sounds like I’m returning the kiss.

What’s even worse is when people don’t actually make a fake kissing sound, they just fake the fake kissing sound, like this: “Mwah.”

What kind of unattainable level of sophistication are we trying to achieve? Americans are not particularly well-mannered or sophisticated compared to most of the world. We chew gum and talk too loud and smile too much when things aren’t funny or happy. Kissing people on the cheek isn’t going to change that. What’s wrong with a nice, asexual, dispassionate hug?

Actually, New York is the only place in the U.S. that I’ve lived where people greet with kisses. I never saw it in Texas, and I never saw it in Chicago, and I never saw it in San Francisco.

Anyone have a theory about this? I’m perplexed.

Everything I Didn't Need To Know I Learned in Sixth Grade

There's a headline in the New York Times today (which I have become addicted to because it's a less pathetic way to procrastinate than Facebook) that reads:

Protesters Attack U.S. Embassy in Belgrade

And I thought, "Belgrade is the capital of Yugoslavia."

And I was quite satisfied with myself. It's amazing how things you learn in sixth grade geography stick with you, for better or for worse.

Oh Carmen Sandiego! Yugoslavia no longer exists, and hasn't for between five and 17 years, depending on who you ask.

Brussels is the capital of Belgium. Budapest is the capital of Hungary. Belgrade is the capital of Yugoslavia.

No, Belgrade is the capital of Serbia. So what's the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina? Croatia? Macedonia? Montenegro? Slovenia?

Back in my day, we only had to learn one south Slavic country, and we liked it that way.

We Had A Guest Speaker In Class Today. And he was hot. Normally this would not be notable enough to be announced to my roommate as soon as I get home, much less be mentioned on my blog. But the sad truth is that I don't see enough attractive men on a regular basis. My program in school is perhaps 90 percent women. I rarely leave campus, especially in the last two weeks after a virus knocked me flat on my back.

There's a void in my life and it's in the shape of eye candy.

New Year's Resolution Monitoring and Evaluation. As many people know, my New Year's resolution was to have a life outside of school. So, I gathered a couple friends and got student tickets to a show at Carnegie Hall. Student tickets, let me just say, are God's gift to grad school students. He likes when your seats are so high in the upper balcony that you can almost touch his face.

Carnegie Hall is everything you've heard. We saw the National Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin conducting Ravel's orchestration of Pictures At An Exhibition. Most classical pieces are not that interesting to see performed live, unless you have a special appreciation for the hypnotic redundancy of sawing strings. But Pictures requires a pretty elaborate collection of instruments, and combined with the dynamic, dramatic musical score, becomes a riveting performance for people like me who claim to love the symphony but usually find themselves wondering why they didn't just stay home and listen to the CD.

So, the subtext to this story is that I am also beginning to hate New York less. There's certainly a lot of stuff to do, and some of it is even affordable. The legendary Carnegie Deli (not affordable) has a lot to be legendary about, including the two pounds of corned beef and pastrami they put in each $20 sandwich.

But this town still feels like a sprawling asphalt prison that purposefully separates me from everything that's natural and green and sky and sunflowers.

I said as much to Jesse today, and he replied in his deliberate, thoughtful, deadpan way, "So, if, I'm, hearing, you, correctly. Your, feelings, about, New, York, are. About, the, same, as, mine."

These are the things that keep me sane. People who understand why I will never find New York as great as everyone says it's supposed to be. People who itch to get off the island because it feels confining. People who are counting down the days until it gets warm enough to go climbing and camping. And people who at the same time dread the planning and car renting that will have to take place to make that happen, because no one successfully escapes from prison without a good plan.

Her Neighbor Is a Homo Genius

I'm staying at a friend's apartment in the Castro, the heart of San Francisco's gay community. The first thing I did when I arrived at her place was search for wifi.



I miss this town so much!!

Video from Kisumu and Eldoret

I don't even recognize Kisumu in this footage. It looks like a ghost town except for looters going crazy and everything on fire. If the whole country is falling to pieces, who do they think is going to buy those microwaves they're stealing?

Is it ironic that Kisumu's main drag, shown in the video, is named after Raila Odinga's father, Oginga Odinga?

Oh my God, why have I never watched You Tube before? This one is heartbreaking.

The guy in the green shirt is in tears as he walks past gutted storefronts in Kisumu. The reporter greets him, "Habari ya mzee?" How's everything, sir?

The guy says, between sobs, "Salama." Peaceful.

As 2007 Becomes 2008...

New Year's Day 2008, Santa Cruz, CA. I'm visiting the Bay Area on my school break, while Kenya is going to hell in a matatu-shaped handbasket. I called my friend Joseph in Eldoret this morning. Last night a bunch of people hid in a church outside town, trying to avoid getting caught in the mayhem. Then some kid decided to throw kerosene on it and light it on fire, killing 40 people.

Joseph is fine, also hiding somewhere trying avoid run-ins with angry mobs, only worried for his family and friends and wondering if he'll run out of food. Public transport is barely running; the matatus that are operating are hiking fares 150%.

I've also heard sporadically from a few volunteers who are hunkered down all around the country, under lockdown by decree from Peace Corps. Everyone is safe so far, staying indoors except for the occasional excursion to get supplies from the nearest town.

I've been following the news from Kenya since the elections on the 27th. That itself was an amusing adventure, with the Xinhua News Agency in China scooping all the other news services including the BBC and New York Times for a short while. Not surprisingly, the Kenyan paper, the Daily Nation, couldn't seem to keep its web server functioning properly during the elections, and now it sounds like domestic press have been restricted from live broadcasts.

Different news sources were reporting conflicting election results until Sunday, but now the truth seems to be filtering through. The incumbent Kibaki camp is still lying about the results in hopes of retaining power, blatantly defying the will of the people. But Kenyans know better. As one guy said, "We live in Kenya. We are Kenyans. We know what is happening." At the same time, opposition candidate Raila Odinga plans to have a Million-Man March on Thursday in Nairobi's Uhuru Park to declare himself the true president of the people. Kibaki's government has already said the demonstration will be considered illegal, and most people think it will further propel the country into chaos.

It's kind of odd to hear all the news. The last time I was in Uhuru Park was a year ago. I rented a splintery wooden boat with Brady and Melanie, and we paddled around the lagoon. At one point we thought it would be funny to spin our boat with short paddlestrokes in the middle of the lagoon. It was funny only to us, three mzungus twirling in a creaking paddleboat, but I was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my face.

The park was full of families and kids. There was even a boat like ours filled with at least 20 people (capacity: 5) and four kids screaming CHING CHONG CHING CHING CHONG at me while their parents laughed as if it were perfectly acceptable to raise ill-mannered brats. A year ago, even a month ago, Kenya was just another country with a bustling economy, a large rich-poor gap, and a government machine that flowed as smoothly as molasses on a winter morning. Tribal tensions were a way of life, always lurking beneath the surface of social interactions, but rarely erupting into conflict.

Kenyans have always prided themselves on being one of the most politically stable countries in sub-Saharan Africa. To me, all of Africa has the same fertile valleys, savannahs teeming with wild animals and quiet, idyllic village communities that I knew in Kenya. Occasionally, after I returned to the U.S., people would ask how it was to deal with all the political instability in Kenya. After all, Africa is nothing but war and disease.

It was always strange to try to explain that Kenya has always been peaceful. I was always met with skeptical gazes, like people were waiting for me to pause and then say, "Just kidding!" They couldn't seem to comprehend that I lived in an African country and there was no conflict to speak of.

It never occurred to me to use qualifiers like "peaceful" and "politically stable" when I told people I lived in Africa. I've extrapolated my experience in Kenya to all of Africa, so peaceful was always assumed when I talked about any African country, except certain parts of Sudan, or Rwanda in 1994.

Now I see photos and footage from Kenya and wonder how this can be the same country I lived in for two years. Places I once knew are now smoldering embers. I see pictures of people dressed in the familiar clothes ubiquitous in every market, people with Kenyan features and expressions, but they've got a big stick raised over their heads while someone else with Kenyan features and expressions lies on the ground covering their face with bloody hands. This is not familiar.

I'm sad and worried for my Kenyan friends, and in a vague sort of way I feel like I should be sad for this abstract concept of Kenya itself. It's a place I once called home. It's a place that will always be a part of me. It's also a place that made me bitter and cynical about humanity, a place that I've vowed never to return to.

But with all the reports of violence and conflict has also come this sense of loss. I don't recognize the country I once knew anymore. The Kenya I knew wasn't on fire. More specifically, it wasn't on fire because people were trying to kill each other. The Kenya I once knew didn't resemble the tales of chaos and strife that dominate Western portrayals of Africa. Now, I fear that it might. When I see pictures from Kenya, I think of pictures from Rwanda 14 years ago. Of course the comparison is a bit inappropriate; nothing that has happened so far is on the scale of genocide.

Maybe this will blow over in a few days. Maybe it will get worse. I'm going to keep hitting F5 on the New York Times' website.