Review of "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac

On the Road by Jack Kerouac
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I remember very clearly reading this book while living in South Carolina, dreaming of a different life. I was 22, working as a bartender, and already pushing the limits of what was acceptable at the time. I sat in some crappy Hardees or Lizard's Thicket eating by myself obsessed with the prose. The zooming enthusiastic embrace of the everyday and the possibility that you don't know what the next day will bring. Through the lens of the book, I saw my crappy surroundings as an adventure.


I'm afraid to re-read it. It's a book for the young and the confused. It's a book to inspire you to find beauty in a place like Hardees. In 2005, when I was 38, I went to the famous La Cucaracha in Mexico with a woman I met at my guest house there. She loved Jack Kerouac. We talked to 18 year old punk american kids fleeing the law, toothless drunk guitar players with heroin problems, and horny Mexican waiters trying to pick up gringas. I didn't enjoy it. I wanted to go someplace nicer with better service and more sophisticated people. I had grown too old for Jack Kerouac.


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Changes in 2011

As you may have noticed - 2010 was not a great year for me as far as writing and being creative... I was on sick leave for five months due to a combination of stress from work (non stop travel, Haitian earthquakes, and human resource problems at my org) and from personal grief over the illness and death of my father in 2009 and it definitely impacted my ability to put my thoughts down on paper (or the computer!).

Although I had adventures and traveled a lot in 2010, I couldn't find it in me to write as much as I used to... for the record, I did manage to hit several new countries this year and most of them were for pleasure and fun, not work*.  It was odd not to visit Africa this year - although my time in Haiti and India were certainly memorable.  2011 should bring some big changes... I've accepted a job with the Norwegian Refugee Council and will be seconded to the United Nations as a Gender-based Violence Regional Training Manager for Asia. I'll be working on building capacity in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal to fight gender-based violence and I'll be moving to Bangkok, Thailand!

Its a big change - but I think I needed something. Although I have learned a lot in the big humanitarian agency where I currently work, its never really been a good fit for me - the lack of prioritization on women's issues, the reluctance to do advocacy, and the byzantine office politics and proud refusal to professionalize has undermined my own belief in my abilities and I feel stagnant.  I'm not sure that this new job will be perfect - are there any "perfect" jobs out there? And I will miss Amsterdam and Europe and my lovely colleagues from my current job but I am ready to try something new. Thai cooking classes, meeting Afghan women's organizations, and working for the Scandinavians... lets see how it goes! Wish me luck and pack your bags and come to visit in 2011!!!


*Here's my travel itinerary from 2010:
January: Kerala, Delhi, and Manipur India
February: Istanbul and Selcuk Turkey
March: Port-au-Prince, Haiti and London and Liverpool, UK
April: Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina
May: Edinburgh, Scotland, Paris, France and Texel and Verschelling in the Frisian Islands of Holland
June: Berlin, Germany and Gdansk, Poland
July: Paris, France
August: Copenhagen, Denmark
September: Tuscany, Italy and Bologna, Italy
October: Berlin, Germany and Prague, Czech Republic
November: Ghent, Belgium, Maastricht, Netherlands and Berlin, Germany
December: London and Swindon, UK

Humanitarians aka Mercenaries, Missionaries, and Mad Men: Part Two

(I left this post lingering unpublished from my return from my sick leave. It was written in October 2010. I'm in a different place now but I think I'll post it anyway.)

Well I've finally decided... I'm in it to win it (to paraphrase Hillary Clinton). I'm not giving up on humanitarian aid yet. A couple of things have convinced me...

1. Helping a friend apply for a training course, I was reading her writing sample. I got pretty excited about it and had lots of ideas on how to beef it up. I want to turn this writing sample into a joint paper on how quality of care can be as important a humanitarian principle as neutrality or independence.  I feel like I have something to say again... I want to write some papers for publication and I want to make an impact on this crazy profession again. I think I'm getting ready to find my voice, which has been lost for a while. 

2. I don't feel so alone anymore. With so many of my friends in the same exact organization are burned out right now and struggling.... I realize that its not just me. Sitting in the misery and depths of burn-out, I felt like a crazy person. I was the only one who was so angry and outraged. I was so exhausted and tired of fighting all the time. I was sensitive and impacted by everything. I felt like my skin had been scraped off and there was nothing protecting me anymore. But the more I get out of that state and talk to others, I realize that it is normal to struggle in abnormal situations. I need to take much much better care of myself nowadays. I have to learn to prioritize keeping myself healthy and de-stressed. I'm never going to change my passions and personality but I can change some bad habits.

3. Opportunities are presenting themselves to me. I've been stuck wondering what to do... but just by stopping for a little bit and ceasing to try to find the answer for everything and MAKE things happen, I've suddenly been shown a few different ways I can move forward. And a few little glimpses of a changed life that could make me happy and content. And they are all still related to being a humanitarian worker -I am not going to have to drastically change my identity. I have a better idea of who I can be in my career but I realize my career is not the most important thing to me anymore.

4. Discovering how wonderful and supportive my friends and family are. While I'm dealing with burnout, I'm not depressed. I've struggled with depression in the past. I'm just plain ole damn exhausted. And my friends who check in on me, call me up, meet me for picnics, take me to Poland, and listen to my frequent crazed thoughts about this and that are my lifeline. No man is an island. But I've felt like an island for a while - but thanks to my sister, my friends, and even random new strangers that I meet at after football celebrations and talk to - I realize that there is a lot of love and good things out there. I'm building back up my batteries.  You gotta have a good network to survive this life. 

So what have I learned in my downtime? 

Humanitarian agencies can be dangerous places to work. While my friends who don't work in the business don't really get why its different than other bad organizations,  the ones who do understand that its a toxic soup of poor management, nepotism, severe power politics, and a never ending supply of idealistic volunteers who will always step forward to accept the abuse. I think its the idealism thats the worst part of it.... over and over again, I've had to end conversations with people i've just met about where I work. I'm out on stress leave and when people hear where i work, they can't believe it. I don't want to tell them about it. I believe my organization is one of the best providers of humanitarian assistance in the world. I don't want to kill off charitable contributions! A lot of the stress is brought on by my own inability to make boundaries, draw lines, say no, and protect myself. The good people outweigh the bad but sadly the good ones have to leave after a while to protect their sanity. They often return but always trying to warn the rest of us about how bad it can be.  But the abusers of power, the corrupt people, the incompetent, and the (frankly) insane are tolerated here because "they really care about women and children" or because "you don't know what they were capable of doing back in (historic crisis)". Idealists all, we tolerate abuse and poor working conditions on the belief that those who are there must be good people just like we hope we are.

A friend once told me, when I was on a quixiotic quest to improve DDR programs in West Africa by becoming a donor,  that going to work for the World Bank would kill me. "That beast is too big to poison from within" - he said poetically (he's a pretty poetic and philosophical guy and the one to take with you if you get harrassed by the cops in Kinshasa... he can sweet talk his way anywhere!). I'm an idealist and I always think that I can improve things and contribute to the bigger good. I want to give away all my good ideas and work in teams and I believe deeply that consensus and participatory decision-making are the ways to go. But the place I work right now doesn't work that way. That beast might be too big to poison from within. 

So I have to find my own way - I don't want to leave. I still have things to accomplish here. I am going to have to fight to keep working there - I have also learned to find the other thinkers like me and stick by them. It's too tempting to get pulled into the clique but as my beloved graduate school professor once told me, "As an anthropologist, you are always going to be the gadfly". I want change and I want to improve the world to assist the most vulnerable women and children out there - that's not going to happen by being coopted by power or by shutting up when the going gets tough. I believe in what I do and I know there are others out there that do as well - I find them every time I go to the field or meet a new colleague (usually the depressed looking ones lurking by the copy machine).  To use a cliche - its a marathon not a sprint so I have to change tactics and build up new stamina. I need to start ignoring the crazies and focusing on the good folk.

La Puebla in Oaxaca

I made it to Oaxaca. the boring guy, Duckie, in my guesthouse in San Miguel kept saying - the teachers on strike there, you know. I never asked him what he meant. Now I know. I just walked down to the Zocalo where there are hundreds of middle aged, young, and pretty well dressed people camped out on the streets, three blocks deep around the square.

There is graffiti everywhere and big posters supporting communisim. It´s been a long time since I´ve seen that! Anyway, they are the teachers - camping out to protest the government´s policies about education in Oaxaca state.

There was a violent attack by the police that killed at least two children in June but it appears that the original reason for the strike was for a pay raise. Also, there are signs saying no privatization of the schools. I´ve since done some research on the web and there is a good explanation of what is going on here.

I´m going to wander around and see if I can get one of them to explain to me what is going on. They don´t seem too keen to proselytize to the tourists but perhaps they are tired since it seems to have been going on for over a month. I´m very curious. I must also admit, I love Latin American revolutionary imagery! If only the Africans could get there graffics together, people might get excited about them too (blasphemy, I know).

Viva la Vida!

Greetings from Mexico City! I am finally on vacation- (then why are you on the computer? you ask) (Well, I want to use the blog as my travel journal, i respond lamely. Plus there is a computer right in the living room and I can sit on the balcony of this courtyard and catch up with you...)

The morning yesterday was a blur - the taxi company didn't come when I called them, I work up late, ran around like a crazy person, and then sat, stunned, in National airport at 5am wondering when the vacation would start. I watched "Eight Degrees Below" - a sappy movie about dogs being left behind in Antartica. And, like I did during the preview, cried throughout it. Those sweet noble dogs! I got into Mexico City airport and everything still felt surreal. Then when the taxi pulled out - I started to perk up. I'm in Mexico! I love latin america! the smells, the sounds, the sights, everything reminds me of Guatemala and I love it so. I never have this feeling when I arrive in Africa (but of course, I'm arriving in war zones... ). Anyway, I think I'm going to enjoy my vacation.

Yesterday, I went down to the "Zocalo" - the giant square in front of the Presidential palace - it's the largest in the world, second only to Red Square in Moscow. The buildings hre are beautiful! All colonial Spanish. The Zocalo has the biggest flag of Mexico that I have ever seen. Bigger than the one in Tijuana. They love that flag! I am staying with Bridget Moix, a former colleague. She's a quaker and we used to do peacekeeping work together but I didn't know her very well. Out of the kindness of her heart, she and her husband Alberto, invited me to stay with them in Mexico City. She's currently managing the Quaker guesthouse here but insisted I stay with them. And boy am I glad I did!

Their apartment is absolutely gorgeous and exactly what a house in Mexico city should look like (to me, anyway). It's in a courtyard which two other apartments that their cousins live in share with them and its painted yellow. You come up a flight of stairs that are made out of lovely granite slabs with creamy walls and turn a narrow corner into the apartment - the kitchen is all tiles and plants with a beautiful little garden of cacti and ficus behind a wrought iron wall with glass bricks behind them. That's one wall of the kitchen. There are exposed beams throughout the house and tile and caramel colored wood everywhere. The dining room and living room open up into a small balcony.

Upstairs, they have a bedroom with a swinging window/door (hard to explain) that opens up into a small courtyard. The shower also overlooks the courtyard. Everything is so lovely.

Last night, we went to a 'taqueria' in Condesa where we had pork and pineapple tacos (sounds gross but was delicious)for about 10 cents each. As you finish them, the man puts a new one on your plate freshly made until you tell him to stop. I ate way more than I thought I could handle and had a "Victoria" beer - a little heavier than Corona but not a dark beer like Negro Modelo. Just right! Then we walked through the tree lined streets and got some gelato... I had dulce de leche y queso - basically a cheescake and caramel flavor. DELICOUS!

Right now, I'm drinking coffee on the balcony listening to the birds. Today, I'm going to go see the Diego Rivera murals and possibly the Templa Mayor - the ruins of the giant Aztec temple that they built a cathedral over in downton MC. It's amazing to see the meld of Aztec and Colonialism here - you never really got the feeling in Guatemala of the 'conquest' but here, it is all around. Plus I love the fact that everything is named after the REVOLUTION! Insurgents! Patriotismo!

Viva Mexico!