Moving Day: The Amsterdam Version!

Moving Day is tomorrow! I found an apartment and will be taking my eight (8) (!!) boxes and three suitcases over there tomorrow morning! After living with my extremely hospitable and tolerant friends Remco and Corinne for the past few weeks, I am moving out of the luxurious apartment on the Amstel to my own little apartment on that other river that I don't know the name of.

I was really quite lucky in finding a place because housing is tight in Amsterdam! If you are an expat - you pay an exorbitant price to housing agencies that sublet other peoples sometimes oddly furnished apartments out. Two months rent as a deposit plus you have to pay a housing agency 'finder's fee'. All the Dutch people I have met tell me how cheap housing is. All the Expats tell me how expensive. Well - I"m paying slightly more than my apartment in DC and I have a view of the river!

One of the women I was supposed to work with left the organization right before I started. She's American and moved back to the US - my colleagues suggested that she turn over her place to me rather than breaking her lease and she did! No agency finder's fee for me! I went over to see it last week and while its not the houseboat or little crooked house that I had hoped for - it's not a cardboard box on the street either!
The highlights until I post photos:

• Big picture window with a view of the Ij (?) from the living room
• small balcony off the kitchen with a view of flower garden and space for flower boxes. possible grill too.
• Lots of windows - good light, whitewashed hardwood floors.
• The world's smallest commode. Think airplane bathroom on a commuter jet.
• The sink and the bathtub are in the bedroom. It's rare to have a bathtub in Amsterdam so that's good. Good news! The bathtub doubles as my guest room!
• 10 minute walk to the Jordaan - the neighborhood I like; bus stop in front of the house
• My own bicycle - that's right, I will now learn how to pedal home drunk from bars and join the rush hour commute on Friday.
• On the second floor (first floor to you Europeans) - so no more huffing and puffing up to the fourth floor!
• Because my friend Corinne is away on holiday this week - I've had to request the services of surly ex boyfriend with an attitude to help me. He has informed me that he has a party to attend on wednesday night and has to 'show a girl around Amsterdam' that afternoon (lucky her) and has given me a 2 hour window in which he can drive me to and from my new place. He'll probably be hungover beyond belief and it'll probably rain.
  

But still! My own little place. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

The Bicycles of Amsterdam

When I leave Corinne and Remco's every day, I pass several houseboats on the Amstel River...

Often times, I have to dodge bicyclists as I cross the bridge or the roads.

But I always am impressed at the kinds of bikes I see... take this one for instance. It's your typical 'take your child to school' bike. A first child bike, if you will.



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This gentleman is driving the small family addition. Normally two small toddlers ride in the 'wheelbarrow' like addition at the front.

But the creme de la creme, is this "Mini Van of Amsterdam". If only I could get a photo of the intrepid Dutch mother driving this while talking on her mobile phone, holding an umbrella against the rain, and carrying some tulips!

Market Day

Well I've completed one week of work and one weekend day and my belongings (minus some US Postal Service boxes) are here... and I may ALMOST have an apartment! Time flies in the Netherlands!

Yesterday - woke up latish (without Simon to remind me that the sun has risen, my rising hour has gotten alter and later) and joined Corinne and Remco out in the garden for breakfast. Thanks to global warming, Amsterdam has been having one of the warmest and driest springs ever! My morning breakfast is now compose of a roll, some sort of ham or cold cut, some cheese, and some coffee. We decided to go shopping - and headed out to the Albert Cuypstraat market. It's a street market on Saturdays that's filled with everything - from cheap underwear to lychee fruit!

The first thing we did is stop to by frites - french fries to those of you not in the know!. In Holland - you get your frites in a little paper cone and you choose what kind of fritesauce you want on them - peanut? curry? ketchup? mayonaise? Then you eat them with a little plastic fork. DELICIOUS! And very remincent of my childhood in Belgium! Remco and his mother (who was visiting) got a Croketten - basically fried meat paste inside a crispy shell! As I'm trying to avoid the label "Fat American", I decided to skip the Croketten.

We stopped to admire the flowers - 50 tulips for 5 euros - and in all the colors of the rainbow. Also, gorgeous peonies, hydrangeas, fuschias, birds of paradise, and others. The Dutch sure love their 'bloemen' and so do I. I don't care if my apartment is a hellhole, I'm going to fill it with fresh flowers. I may not have furniture or any belongings, but I'll have fresh flowers and my iPod. I could do worse.

Then we went to buy vegetables for the week. What a great selection. I missed the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market for about 30 seconds - and then I saw the tomatos, herbs, eggplants, lettuces, wild ginger, lemon grass, passion fruit, and everything else they had to offer - at a fraction of the cost! Heaven! This will definately become one of my weekend rituals. There are also cheese stands, sausage stands, fish stands, meat stands, and, of course, Herring stands!

Roaming around eating my frites, I felt more like I was at a carnival where hawkers sold polka-dotted underwear than at the relentlessly aggressive Dupont Circle's market. Ah - Dupont Circle Sundays- where perfectly toned gay men with their strollers with perfectly selected baby and dog team ram through hyper aggressive DC elites who are elbowing each other out of the way to get at the perfect tomato or the perfect $40 stem of pussy willows. Everyone with their designer dog and $800 stroller. I rarely left the market without having spent $40 and usually only had enough for one meal. We spent 20 euros at the produce stand and came home with eggplant, zucchini, lettuce, cabbage, fresh thyme, onions, garlic, mushrooms, tomatos, apples, fresh squeezed orange juice, and some fresh bread!

After a dizzying afternoon at Schiphol airport driving around the various cargo holds and customs offices, I finally received my belongings that I shipped. The boxes that seemed so large and dominating in my living room - that threatened to send me into a tequila induced coma if they were NOT TAKEN AWAY, IMMEDIATELY! are now sitting in a tiny corner of my alloted room in Corinne's house. So small - is that really all I own now?

We then retired to the garden to prepare Tuscan style grilled lamb chops with a panzanella salad. DELICIOUS.

Unfortunately, almost everyone I know in Amsterdam is fighting a cold or pneumonia - Corinne has a cold, my boss, Marc has a cold, and my frined Carolyn has pneumonia. And I feel tired and weak - perhaps from finally having a job and working four whole days last week? I ended up not going to the three social events I had been invited to and instead - watching south park (with Dutch subtitles) and going to bed early.

But - I dont' feel bad about it. I'm living here now - I remind myself - its not vacation! But somehow, it still feels like it is....

New Updates from holland

Two experiences:
I registered with the Foreign Police/Municipality yesterday. It was the equivalent of the INS interview, I think. I arrived at 8:30am when they opened. There was a line of about 30 people ahead of me. The line moved quickly, everyone were given numbers depending on their situation and sent to different waiting rooms. I waited for fifteen minutes. The man spoke English, processed everything and had me out the door in 20 minutes. I was on a tram for the train station at 9:30.

Today: I went to my first Dutch doctor ... what an interesting change from the US system. My ears were blocked (as they always get - did you know I have to have them cleaned every three months? Some say people share too much on blogs - I say no) and I made an appointment with a doctor recommended by a 24 hour English speaking phone line I found in my guidebook. A woman answered the phone, asked me what the zip code was where I was staying, found a doctor right around the corner and gave me the number.
I called, they said they could see me right away, did I have insurance. I said, no - no insurance yet, and they warned me it would cost 25 Euros. I got there, the doctor saw me in 10 minutes after my arrival, I got my ears flushed out, paid the doctor (not the front desk) twenty four euros and eighty euro cents, and walked out the door - listening to bird song - thirty minutes after I arrived there! Can you believe it?

So far, Holland is doing well on the old Pros v Cons:
Pros:

• Cute Men
• Good Produce
• Fresh Bread that is cheap (no more Safeway Baguettes for me)
• Great Holiday Celebrations
• Friendly Efficient Immigration Services
• Friendly Efficient Healthcare
  

Cons:

• Don't accept credit cards at the train station
  

So overall - I'm giving it an A- for the time being!

First Day Back at Work!

My first day on the job was great! I woke up at 3am (after passing out a 9pm) and remembered that I had not packed the right shoes for the outfit I planned to wear. I have not had a pedicure in two months so my toes are not worthy of wearing sandals! Lucikly, I had my ever faithful Dansko clogs. Not very pretty but comfy and toe covering. I caught the tram, got to the office, asked to speak to Mark and the receptionist said "Hey! You are the new employee! You don't need to wait for him. Here's your key card, I'll show you to your desk." I got there, everything was set up, I got a tutorial from the office assistant on how to log into everything.
At the morning meeting, Marc introduced me to everyone and told them to be nice to me and sit with me in the lunchroom since most of the departmental staff are out of the office for the month. then he gave me a very comprehensive overview of the organization's layout and design. He took me to lunch where we talked about Darfur and sat by the canal in the sunshine eating cheese sandwiches.

It was a FAR cry from my first day at Refugees International. When I got there, the receptionist made me sit in the hall for thirty minutes while she screamed at someone on the phone. They took me upstairs to my new office and noone had bothered to clean out the desk - there was even a dirty plate from someone's leftover lunch on the desk. I had no login into the system, the computer hardly work, and there was absolutely no orientation. I ended up inviting one of the people I barely knew to lunch just so I could hae someone to talk to. I had no work to do, nothing was prepared for me and then they sent me to Liberia a week later.

MSF wants me to go to Brussels for a meeting tomorrow so I'm off at the crack of dawn to take the train! How jet setter!

The only downside to moving here is the money situation. As you may remember, I lost my wallet the week before I moved here. After frantically dashing around to replace the cards and such, I've found some cracks in the system. I don't have a pin number for my new ATM card that is connected to my DC bank account. My electronic bank account won't connect to my South Carolina bank account (although I have a pin number and an ATM card for that). It also takes about a week for the money to transfer form the DC account to the electronic account. My South Carolina account has an ATM card and a pin number but they don't work in Europe.

Today I learned that I have to produce 450 euros for my residency permit (non reimbursable) tomorrow morning. And I have to pay for my train ticket to Brussels (no credit cards accepted) and wait to get reimbursed. I'm still waiting for them to reimburse me the $600 from my plane ticket. The $200 I changed upon arrival is now a 20 Euro note after buying a phone, some phone time, and going out to a shockingly expensive dinner with my friends on Saturday night (70 euros each!, I had no idea the place we were going was going to be so expensive. I ordered cheaply but that 'going dutch' thing will get you every time).

I have no idea how I'm going to get enough money for a deposit for an apartment. Oh yeah, they also pay once a month and because the woman who organizes the appointments with the tax office where they issue you a tax number (essential for opening a bank account), I may not get paid this month.

So that's my day. Wish me luck on the money front. Things will all pan out. At least they provide lunch for us every day at the office. I can definately lose weight this way. And its good for the spirit, dontcha know.

First Day in Amsterdam

I'm currently staying with my ex boyfriend on my first weekend in Amsterdam. It's really a pain in the ass.
Normally I would have stayed with my friend, Corinne, but she already had houseguests. I probably should have gone to the Hotel Kabul or some hostel but he volunteered to have me stay at his house and I turned it down twice but then Corinne asked me if I could do it to make her place less crowded so I said yes.

Yesterday (my first full day in Amsterdam), he went out for the day to 'go on a drive' and 'have a bite of lunch' and left me alone, without a telephone, and with no plans in his apartment for the afternoon. He never even invited me to go with him! Who does that? I feel like a boarding house guest in his house. So that is how I am treating him. I don't make small talk, I don't ask him anything about himself, and I act as if this is a hotel room.

Today, he got dressed and asked me what shirt he should wear and kept coming into my room without a shirt on. Then he said 'i am going out to buy myself some new jeans and get a bite to eat. i will see you later tonight at the barbecue (that corinne is having in my honor)'. he then told me to call him if i needed anything. harrumph. it will be a cold day in hell before i ask him for anything.

Other than that annoyance, I'm having a lovely time.

Needless to say, I am quite capable of entertaining myself. On my first day, I slept for a while to get over the jetlag, ate a delicious ham sandwich (but with no beet root, sadly), got dressed, and went out on the town. The afternoon was BEAUTIFUL! The sun is out and its warm - about 78degrees but with a nice light breeze. All the gorgeous skinny dutch women are in lowriders and halter tops (but some still retain the ubiquitous Stevie Nicks look of long flowly flounced skirts, high heeled boots, and the like). I went downtown on the tram, bought a sim card so I could have a mobile phone, called my friend Corinne and joined her and her guests for a beer down on the main square. The red light district is filled with tourists here for Queen's Day - the big national celebration. There was a large gorup of british men dressed head to tow in white wearing bells on their ankles and with orange sashes. Supposedly, they all dress up for bachelor party weekends and I'm guessing they were dressed as Morris Dancers. Who can tell?

We also saw a bunch of really older ladies in fishnet stockings, micro minis, orange wigs, and sequins. In any other town, I might have thought it was a costume but in Amsterdam, you just can't be sure. As I was cutting through a back alley to get to the square where Corinne was, I passed by a bunch of prostitutes in the red light distict. One of them was HUMONGOUS! She had thighs the size of volkswagons and was wearing a tiny tiny teddy and eating an icecream cone.

Everything is good here so far! I love this city because its so pretty! And there are SO MANY GOOD LOOKING MEN HERE! I saw more good looking men on the late night tram home last night than I saw in the entire city of DC the whole last year that I was there. Tomorrow is Queens Day and I'll be out on the boat with Corinne and Remco and their Swiss friends who are in town. I start work on Tuesday and I have dinner plans for Wednesday with a friend of my dutch friend in DC. Stay tuned for more adventures on Queens Day.

Last Days in DC

Well - I'm officially gone from DC now, as shocking and weird as that is for me to write! I arrived in South Carolina at my dad's house last night at 7pm and my boxes and such are due to arrive later this week.

The last few days in DC were a blur -

Wednesday - I carried 100 lbs of books to the postoffice to ship to Amsterdam. A final humiliating submission to the US government bureaucracy as I had to shuffle through the USPS line filling out and re-filling out forms and apologizing for having heavy boxes to the haughty ladies of the Florida Street Station.

Thursday- the international shipping company sent an old man who appeared to have a heart condition to my fourth floor walkup to get my boxes to ship to the Netherlands so I ended up helping him carry them all down the stairs.

Friday- after being informed that the moving company would not be able to pick up my boxes in the AM as I had organized, they then changed their mind and arrived 12 hours early - interupting my goodbye drinks with my former boss at the Tabard Inn. Two hyperactively strong Mexican men proceeded to tear through the apartment taping up and hauling away everything while the Iranian truck driver smoked cigarettes on the sidewalk checking out the Friday night happy hour crowd on their way to Adams Morgan. God only knows what will arrive in South Carolina. I tipped the Mexicans with that bottle of tequila that I had been eyeballing as a solution ot the anxieties of moving all week.

Saturday - Spent the day throwing things away, freecycling, having lunch with Bernice at our 'usual' and then drinks with Cat, Rick, and the kids. And then! the goodbye party- during the worst Nor'easter that the east coast has seen in ages. Amazingly, people actually showed up for the party. We all met at Perry's where they cordoned off part of the bar for us. What fun! I'm so happy and thrilled that so many of you made it out on the wet, stormy, cold evening to wish me off in style. Sean and Alec outdid themselves with Dutch names for all the guests and tulips galore. I hope someone was able to gather the tulips since I got hammered on farewell shot after farewell shot and the end of the night is a blur. Thanks to William who put up with my insanity and managed to dump me back into Diana and Marco's house that night! From what I recall, I left Angles (where the after party raged on until 3am) and then demanded that he go get the car while I went into Rumba Cafe and danced for a while.

Sunday morning, I awoke to find that the world's biggest hangover had settled on my head. Somehow, through that fog, I managed to get back over to my apartment and give away things through freecycle some more. If it weren't for Kevin and Brian coming to meet me and Alec for brunch, I don't know what would have happened. I would probably still be there lying in a ball on the floor in my empty apartment. Big thanks to the gentlemen from New York who assisted my friend Megan by carrying her television down to her car. After a hilarious brunch discussing "pirate novels" (It was called skye o'malley - Kev!) among other things, Kevin and Brian dropped Alec and I off at the car rental shop where I got a lovely white minivan to haul the rest of my belongings away.

Sunday evening, we had bookclub which was a lovely way to spend the last night in DC. Talking about Black Swan Green, eating ziti, laughing about the good ole days when I was a dirty hippie. Some final photos. Absolutely lovely. A few short trips up and down that damn fourth floor walkup with Gus, Neil, and Alec and the van was packed, the trash was hauled (mostly), and I was out of there. Goodbye little purple apartment with a view of the Washington Monument and a great roof deck. Goodbye Jolt and Bolt and fabulous lox bagels and mango smoothies.

And then Monday rolled around - Alec and I jumped in the minivan and after a last minute goodbye to Simon, my Siamese cat that April is kindly looking after until I get settled, we hit the road. The weather got progressively warmer, sunnier, and lovelier the further South we got. We stopped off at the Ava Gardner museum where I have decided to become the "Ava Gardner of the humanitarian world." Ava moved to Spain and England after growing weary of Hollywood where she had love affairs with bull fighters, arguments with her neighbor - the deposed president of Argentina - Juan Peron, and a 'normal life' of sightseeing and entertaining her gentlemen callers in London.

Sadly, my reverie was rudely interupted by a certain North Carolina State Trooper C Bell who pulled me over for speeding 83 in a 65 on I 95 right outside of Fayetteville. I hadn't been pulled over for speeding in YEARS! In fact, I think the last time was right in that spot where the cop looked at me in disgust and told me to "get out of his state". I will have to skip the court proceedings of fighting the ticket, I guess and just pay it (or not) - $140 of Heinekens and gouda cheese down the drain.

Luckily, Alec and I arrived in South Carolina with no further incidents and enjoyed an evening of twenties music and spaghetti with my father. Now, I have ten days of rest and a short trip to Charleston for some sightseeing before I leave for Amsterdam and my new life and new beginnings in Europe. More to come as it occurs.

My thoughts on White Toyota, White Aid

I just read Hugo Slim's post on Alertnet called "White Toyota, White Aid" which I thought was quite thought provoking and interesting.

As I prepare to move to an operational agency, I'm wondering how my opinions will change about risk taking and speaking out and advocacy. Hugo says "The rhetoric of solidarity, partnership, empowerment and support which international NGO discourse uses to describe current aid relationships, more often than not, describes relationships which are still more desired than delivered. " At my former organization, Refugees International, I strongly believed that my role was to take the voices of the displaced and amplify them as much as possible and advocate for change on their behalf. I found myself arguing with service providers about what was "in the best interest" of the displaced. I'm a firm believer, then as now, in the fact that the displaced are the best informed and suited to make decisions for themselves.

Time and time again I heard well meaning 25 year old Westerners (as well as their 50 year old compatriots) tell me that the IDPs or refugees were wrong in their assessment of whether it was safe to return or not to return. I attended a returns planning meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo for some IDPs who had been living in Kinshasa for years. They were finally getting assistance from the government to return home. The implementing agency was planning to give the people cash to purchase what they needed to re-start their lives back home. They had been the targets of criticism for htis. My colleague agreed with the implementing agency (while I sort of agreed with the criticism - worrying that the money would be distributed to the men who would buy beer and cigarettes rather than food and supplies for the home). As my colleague said - "who made the decision that they would leave and come here? Did anyone help them while they were here? Not really - they are survivors. They are adults. They know what's best for them. They can buy the same supplies at the market cheaper. It's a lot easier for them to transport cash and buy bicycles, mattresses, and large bags of wheat when they get there than to carry it with them."

I realized at that point that I was infantilizing the displaced men and women that I was there to represent. "They'll just use the money unwisely" I remember instinctively thinking. There is definately a 'post-colonial' tendency amongst the do-gooders to tell the displaced what to do. And its easy to fall into it. After all - we have advanced degrees and have been to other settings! "We know what is best for you, so listen to us and whatever you do, don't sell your rations to get other things you might need." We obsessively monitor waste and corruption in the rations distribution without really analyzing - are we helping them or helping ourselves?

I used to speak to a lot of audiences at my previous job. I would try to get across the need to respect and value the decisions and lives of the refugees and the displaced. I would urge them to make donations to NGOs that weren't tied to just one project to allow NGOs to make better decisions. In general, NGOs tend to represent the voices of the people better than the UN which does a better job than most governments, but there is still paternalism, racism, and neo-colonialism in the NGOs.

It's a complicated business - this humanitarian relief and development business. I've been interacting with my old university a lot over the past three weeks and re-engaging with my young idealistic beliefs. As I go to work for one of the "Big 8" (sounds so safari), I wonder how my opinions will change? Will I fit into the service provider "we know best" attitude? Will I be able to influence them at all? Or will I change? Only time will tell.

Moving Sucks!

I have to vent.

The moving company (the one that didn't try to hardsell me or browbeat me into choosing them), just returned my many emails and phone calls and told me that they want to come by on Saturday morning at 7am instead of Friday morning at 7am like we had decided. It's driving me crazy! I just want these boxes out of the house so I can get rid of everything else and just make sure I haven't forgotten anything! Not to mention that its going to be very difficult to make sure noone parks in those spaces on Saturday morning when they are all drunk from Friday night!

I wake up everymorning anxious with heart burn because I am afraid I'm going to fuck up my move. What if I forget to pack something incredibly essential such as my underwear! What if I accidentally pack something incredibly essential such as my passport! What if I get there and its 10 degrees below zero? what if I can never find a house and when I do I'll have to buy knives and forks and pots and pans and sit on a hardback chair and listen to the radio everynight?

I have been eying the half empty tequila bottle since 8am. I live almost directly above the dumpster. Its tempting to start throwing things out the window into the alley. Or to be a total bitch to my landlady and just LEAVE everything I cant get rid of pack or move here. Someone should call around 6pm tonight and make sure I'm not passed out in a tequila stupor.

This is it folks, I'm never moving again. I'm going to live in Holland for the rest of my life whether I like it or not. Or I will become a permanent backpacker. I will live with only what I can carry on my back like a turtle.

Party on the Roof

Had a little dinner party for Dan tonight and we ended up dancing to AC/DC, Erasure, and Bronski Beat on the roof. the moon was a dark gold crescent and the air was light but a bit chilly. We danced and sang and waltzed to show tunes and I though about how much I'll miss DC. Will anyone in Amsterdam understand my taste in music and dance style when I get there?

12 Step Detox Program of a Workaholic

Step One: Panic when you realize you've quit your job. Start trying to make everything perfect before you leave. Give yourself an ulcer as you attempt to plan and design a mission to end gender-based violence in Darfur; write a paper longer than a PH.D. thesis using contacts that you have to call all around the world.

Step Two: Intervention from friends - you can't do it all!

Step Three: Realize you can't do it all. Start to panic and plan how you can.

Step Four: Start to give up. Have a "come to Jesus" talk with friend visiting from West Africa who tells you you are acting like a dumbass freak.

Step Five: make a list!

Step Six: write a memo to boss and tell them what you are doing and what you can't do. Propose next steps for completion of projects.

Step Seven: Realize boss will never read memo.

Step Eight: Get Drunk at happy hour with friends. Get maudlin when you realize you won't travel with Andrea again.

Step Nine: fall into a coma - entire body hurts - feel like run over by a truck as anxiety and tension and stress starts to ooze out of body.

Step Ten: Sleep for ten hours. Drink ten cups of coffee to see friends. Nap even after drinking ten cups of coffee.

Step Eleven: First day without work - panic! Feel rootless energy bouncing around apartment with no place to go. Struggle not to check work email. Try to remember what life was like before you were a workaholic. practice breathing. pay attention to cat. catch up on personal email. Call Alec and complain.

Step Twelve: Cave and buy some wine. Watch Dancing with the Stars. Remember that relaxation is a good time. Detox Detox Detox...

More things I will miss about DC

1. That brass band that occasionally plays in Dupont Circle on Spring and Summer nights
2. Eastern Market
3. Brunch - at Polly's; at Rosemary Thyme Bistro; at Saint Ex; at Bistro Au Coin; - basically Eggs Benedict and Bloody Marys
4. Big fat American Robins and cherry blossoms
5. My purple living room and NPR in the morning
6. All the comics in the Washington Post Sunday edition
7. My morning coffee with Andrea in the basement kitchen

Rape in Iraq

I am so angry. I don't know when I've been this angry - maybe when I first learned about sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers. I suspected there was a problem in Iraq that was not being addressed. In the past two days, I've read two extremely disturbing reports.

The first article, a new report by Madre, a group like RI for women's issues: entitled "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq" - talks about the extreme problem of rape of Iraqi women (by Iraqi men). To me, it smacks of Darfur - get back at your enemy and humiliate them by raping their women. It's shocking and horrifying and I hope it gets the attention it deserves. According to my friend Sayre, who attended the briefing about it, "Even a quick look at it shows how much information we’re missing in US media about the war in Iraq. Gender-based violence is a top priority of Iraq’s Islamists. The U.S. plan to support the Iraqi death squads is called the “Salvador Option,” from 1980s US policy in Central America, to train militias. The military isn’t even ashamed to use that term?!? I also didn’t know about the most popular TV show in Iraq, “Terrorists in the Hands of Justice.” (See Part VI: Gender-Based Violence Against Men.) This report argues that this show is like Radio Mille Collines.” (The notorious radio station that encouraged the genocidaires to kill the Tutsis during the Genocide in Rwanda). I for one, will be forwarding it to all the people on the hill that I have met through my work at Refugees International.

The second article, an article on Salon.com, entitled "The Private War of Women Soldiers " that chronicles the stories of US women soldiers who have been raped and sexually assaulted by their comrades-in-arms. It's outrageous. To read it, click on the link. My login is dmartin, my password is alysonhowell (I don't mind sharing because although Salon.com used to be my favorite online magazine, they have recently become quite lazy. It appears they have fired all their editors and they consistently try to sex up article by giving them salacious illustrations or using the word sex in the title. Just check out the 'debate' they are allowing in the letters section. You would think you were on an IMDB.com chat room with a bunch of imbeciles rather than on a prominent liberal journal like The Nation or Mother Jones.).

Anyway, I'm certainly not suprised to hear that this is happening. As I wrote in my report on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in the UN Peacekeeping system - this happens in all militaries. I don't know what it is but something about the military correlates with higher rates of rape. Is it that learning how to kill someone when ordered that completely violates the internal human moral code so that it degrades the soldiers to the point where they stop seeing women as human beings? I don't think its a natural state of being. Men are not naturally rapists. Or if they are, all the men I know are doing a good job of hiding it from me.

My father is a retired air force sergeant who served from the 50's through the 70's and he would be horrified to hear about this. He and I have talked about violence against women in the 'good ole days'. he told me stories of seeing men he served with hauling off and punching their wives when they got a few too many drinks under their belts. He was horrified, noting it almost always seemed to be big tough guys with small petite wives. But - he noted - it was seen as a family problem, a personal problem - something you didn't get involved with.
Rapists don't belong in the military. they belong in prisons. The fact is that nothing will happen to fix this until women scream out and threaten to vote out all the politicians who don't demand that the military deal with this.

A colleague of mine that I respect immensely once said "Do you think it was the US government that decided one day to make it illegal to beat your wife until she died? No, it was the feminist women's movement screaming out until the US government took notice." And we still aren't there.

Today, in honor of tomorrow's International Women's Day, I spoke at the DC Bar Association about Justice for Rape Survivors in Darfur. Afterwards, the debate (amongst all women, of course) was lively. I spoke with two women who were in their fifties who told me about the 'bad old days'. We need another s trong women's movement. We need to support the women in the US military who are there because feminists in the 70s fought to get us equality. They are choosing to risk their lives in Iraq (for a war I DO NOT agree with - but still, I support their rights to fight there if they choose). We must now keep up with the work that got them there and fight to make sure that they have full protection of the law and the military code of justice to keep them from being harmed by their fellow soldiers.

So - if you are as outraged as I am - pick up the phone and call your congressional representatives and ask them to call a hearing on this. Or, if you live in DC, call your parents and ask them to do it!

Humanitarians with Guns?

Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the NYTimes that I admire, just wrote an article on "Humanitarian Workers with Guns" (It's on Times Select so you have to pay to get it but I'll illegally post it at the bottom here)

This article really bothers me because it totally blurs the role of the military with the role of humanitarian workers. Humanitarian workers must rely on maintaining neutrality in order not to be seen as supporting one side or the other. When this is confused, humanitarian workers become, in the minds of combatants, legitimate targets who 'support the other side'.

In Afghanistan, there was a huge outcry when the US army created PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) and MSF withdrew from the country after five of its workers were killed. The use of mixed military and civilian workers under the command of the military lead to accusations that humanitarian agencies were complicit with the military. MSF, which had operated in Afghanistan without incident since 1985, providing needed medical services announced "It is with outrage and bitterness that we take the decision to abandon them. But we simply cannot sacrifice the security of our volunteers while warring parties seek to target and kill humanitarian workers. Ultimately it is the sick and destitute that suffer."

There has been a rise in attacks on humanitarian workers in the last few years. In January in Darfur, there was an attack on Accion contre le faim - a well respected french aid group. One of the international women was raped. This was shocking to the humanitarian community because in general - internationals are spared. It's the local hires who take the brunt of the violence. (For more info - see this article on the killing of Sri Lankan assistance workers).

There is a legitimate role for the military in a post-conflict countries. They should take on the work that humanitarian agencies cannot - such as disarming and demobilizing armed forces and training national police and armies. The US has not done a lot of work in these areas in the countries that I'm most familiar with - DR Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Why don't they focus on the areas they are needed?

Article: Aid Workers With Guns By NICHOLAS
D. KRISTOF
Published: March 4, 2007
CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti

The U.S. has built a little-known military
base here that represents one of our best strategies to fight terrorism in the
coming years: The aim is to build things rather than blow them up.

This base in Africa, established in 2003, sits at the entrance to the Red Sea in the small Muslim country of Djibouti, next to Somalia. Security is as tight as the sun is
hot, with lots of bomb shelters, but the most apparent threats are distinctly,
well, African.

“We’ve got two hyenas out there,” said Cmdr. Darryl Centanni of the Navy,
executive officer of Camp Lemonier, pointing to a jogging trail on which troops
were running through the semidesert. “So the running gets pretty
interesting.”

He added that a pack of wild dogs also speeds up joggers but that the dogs
mostly get food by catching fish in the sea. (I’m not sure I trust military
intelligence on that one.)

After 9/11, the focus of America’s response to terrorism has been mostly on
using military force to destroy possible threats in places like Iraq and
intimidate just about everyone. The ethos was borrowed from the ancient Romans:
“Oderint, dum metuant” — “Let them hate, so long as they fear.”

Yet all in all, that strategy has backfired catastrophically, particularly
in Iraq, and turned us into Al Qaeda’s best recruiter.

So that’s why the softer touch in Centcom’s strategy here is so welcome. It
aims to help bring stability to northeastern Africa and to address humanitarian
needs — knowing that humanitarian involvement will make us safer as
well.

“The U.S. started to realize that there’s more to counterterrorism than
capture-kill kinetics,” said Capt. Patrick Myers of the Navy, director of plans
and policy here. “Our mission is 95 percent at least civil affairs. ... It’s
trying to get at the root causes of why people want to take on the
U.S.”

One humanitarian mission for which the U.S. military is superbly prepared
is responding to natural disasters. While the U.S. has spent vast sums
broadcasting propaganda to the Muslim world, the two most successful efforts at
winning good will both involved the military. One was the dispatch of soldiers
to help Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami, and the other was the use of U.S.
forces to help Pakistan after the Kashmir earthquake.

The 1,800 troops here do serve a traditional military purpose, for the base
was used to support operations against terrorists in Somalia recently and is
available to reach Sudan, Yemen or other hot spots. But the forces here spend
much of their time drilling wells or building hospitals; they rushed to respond
when a building collapsed in Kenya and when a passenger ferry capsized in
Djibouti.

Rear Adm. James Hart, commander of the task force at Camp Lemonier,
suggested that if people in nearby countries feel they have opportunities to
improve their lives, then “the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if
not completely, diminishes.”

The U.S. announced last month that it would form a new Africa Command,
aimed partly at blocking the rise of ungoverned spaces that nurture terrorism.
The new command offers tremendous humanitarian potential as well, for in some
poor countries the most useful “aid workers” are the ones in camouflage carrying
guns.

In the Central African Republic in September I visited a town with a lovely
new hospital built as a foreign aid project. But the hospital was an empty
shell, gutted by militias rampaging through the area. In places like that,
there’s no point in building schools or clinics unless you also help with
security.

Some of the most successful aid projects in Africa have been the dispatch
of armed peacekeepers to Mozambique and British troops to Sierra Leone. In both
places, troops brought what the besieged population most desperately needed —
order — and laid the groundwork for recovery. We should be far more aggressive
about dispatching small numbers of troops to impose a no-fly zone over Darfur or
to destroy Sudanese militias that invade Chad and the Central African
Republic.

We can also do far more to train armies in Africa. The deal we offer
African presidents should be along these lines: You run a country cleanly and
tolerate dissent, and we’ll help ensure that no brutal rebel force comes out of
the jungle to create chaos and overthrow you.

Helping fragile countries with security is just as important as helping them with education and medical care. So let’s hope that this new base in Africa is the start of a broad new policy that doesn’t aim to make us hated or feared, but respected.

I hate airports

I really hate airports. I don't know why the US makes their airports so damn boring and inconvenient, and only staffs them with people who know nothing about the words "Customer Service". I'm sick of the stupid TAA with their nonsensical rules about removing shoes and keeping the Ziplock quart bag industry in business. I'm sick of overpriced Dasani water being sold to us because the airlines are too damn cheap to do two beverage services on a five hour cross country flight. I'm sick of unhealthy crappy food sold at exorbitant rates. Everything about flying sucks nowadays. Somedays I'd give it all up just to fly business class transatlantically. It particularly bugs me that the World Bank flies first class all around the world. I hope Paul Wolfowitz reins that shit in.

Anyway, in order to conserve my money - I'm waiting for the DAMN BLUE VAN to take me from Dulles to my house. The two characters working at the counter are about as useless as I've ever seen. The woman couldn't even rouse herself to take my money.

Hazy Shade of Winter

Spent the day in California checking out Venice Beach and Santa Monica today...

While yesterday was overcast and rainy, it was sunny and windy this morning. Since I'm still on east coast time, I was up and out by 9am. I landed in Venice Beach (like the heroine of Speed, I took the bus) and I walked along the beach up to the Santa Monica pier as the homeless people, the freaks, and the shopkeepers started to wake up. The Pacific is so beautiful but it looks cold - much more blue than the Atlantic. I watched the surfers in their wetsuits for a while and then put on my iPod and walked up the boardwalk.

How did hippies all over the world decide that Che Guevera, Jim Morrisson, the Grateful Dead, bongs, rough knitted hooded sweaters, leather bracelets, pukka beads, 'indigenous' art, and indian clothing symbolize 'alternative lifestyle'? The other thing that kind of makes me laugh is that the sunny California lifestyle that the US imagines and that is reflected on our tv shows completely leaves out all the goths and metalheads that also populate California. In addition to a man in a tiedyed tee shirt selling pictures of Bob Marley and some incense, I saw a woman in a long leather duster, fishnet hose, 6 inch black patent leather heels, and a bustier walking along the boardwalk. And I thought I looked funny in jeans and cowboy boots.

After trying to figure out what the correct 'California' soundtrack should be (Eagles? Grateful Dead? Jane's Addiction? Motley Crue? Beach Boys? Elvis? Green Day?), I just turned off the headphones and listened to the seagulls and the waves and the wind. I felt all the stress from work just evaporating away. I went into Santa Monica and they were having a BEAUTIFUL farmer's market going on. I've never seen so many different varieties of citrus! At one point, I was in the middle of the flower section and the sun was out and shining and the tuberoses were heavenly. I certainly could understand why California is America's fantasy land.

Then the weather got colder. The Santa Monica 'mall' consists of almost all chain shops. I couldn't find a bookstore. I finally found Border's but it was like "Border's Lite" - with only chicklit on display. My feet were starting to hurt. I caught the bus back to Venice Beach and went to a very hip little neighborhood with very trendy boutiques, cool furniture stores, and expensive restaurants. I found another bookstore. It was beautiful - black and white photos of criminals in Times Square in 1965. Cool old garage turned into a sort of open air bookshop. I think it was called Equator Books. Featured in Wallpaper magazine (for the stylish who obviously don't read books). All the books were about pornography, prostitution, surfing, architercture, true crime or were written by hard-boiled 30s - 60s male writers like Cheever, Roth, or Hemingway. They were all the originals from the era and re-bound in shiny new plastic. Most were about $50. So are these the books that you buy to read? I don't think so - I think you buy them to display on your chic Danish modernist living room table that you lean your Surfboard next to.

Browsing around that neighborhood for a while showed me just how lovely, odd, and stylish Los Angeles can be - its such an odd feel - very 40s, film noir, bungalow in the sun filled with old Jewish men who make a lot of money, super skinny women in $400 a pair shoe stores informing the staff loudly what they did on Oscar night, and Latino immigrants riding the bus with me. I walked back to the boardwalk. It was open and more lively now. A man in a leopard print string bikini, a leopard tooth necklace, a fanny pack, and black hghtop sneakers lifted weights in the freezing cold. Several panhandlers asked me for a $1 to buy marijuana. A woman did squat thrusts in the middle of the bike path. I saw another bookstore sign - the Small World Bookshop. I wandered into nirvana.

Wonderful selection of books- funky, smart, new, old, US, and internationalist. Cute smart boys behind the counter and a sleeping cat. Chatted with the bookseller about DC and the LA and the cold. He was genuine and funny and nice. Bought a book called "Eat the Document" about 60s radicals. He said "I hope you like it." I said, "well it said it was recommended by the staff." He said, "Well I don't want you to think we are all dopes." I walked a couple of blocks up to a cheap and cheerful looking Mexican restaurant and ordered the special - taquitos and rice and beans. Then spent the next thirty minutes talking to a young black artist from Iowa who told me that the women of California aren't spirtual enough for him and he needs to focus on his art (which to me, looked the scribblings of a three year old).

Caught the bus back to good ole Culver City where I lie in my hotel - once owned by John Wayne and home of the Munchkins during the filming of Wizard of Oz. A brief nap and then back out to explore the Los Angelese nightlife (or perhaps just to go to the wine bar across the street and read my new book). California Dreamin' on such a winters day.

My loves in Jeopardy.... baby!

So I just finished my first (?) day of shooting Jeopardy on the Sony Studios in beautiful downtown Culver City. Oh my god! What fun!!!! It's so much fun to be there. Everyone is so nice...
Anyway, I signed something saying I wouldn't tell anyone how I did so I can only tell you these things.

• I met Alex Trebeck (who I called Alec - that's right, baby).
  
• Its taped on the Sony Studio lot where they also film Wheel of Fortune and movies like Men in Black II but I did not see any celebrities.
  
• We talked about my Glamour Magazine appearance.
  
• The set is very cool and metallic-y.
  
• The other contestants are pretty cool - we're all feeling pretty chuffed because thousands of people try out, only about 6000 get called into the in person auditions and of them, only 400 get called to be on the show. And we were a part of them!
  
• A guy sitting next to me in rehearsal won $15,000 on his show!
  
• The show that taped before mine had my most dreaded category - Rivers of Europe!
  
• My show airs the week of June 4th.
  
• Alex is actually a really nice guy. We learned that he's a big fan of 'fix it up' projects and the crew gives him a gift certificate to Home Depot for Christmas every year.
  He answers questions from the audience during the commercial breaks. And wears a different outfit for each taping (there are five a day).
  
• I now have a framed photo of Alex Trebeck and I to hang on my wall. Yea!

Something in Iraq works at least

Today, I walked down 18th street through the icy remnants of last nights ice storm. Although almost every business had not yet gotten around to shoveling their sidewalks at 9am, the Iraqi embassy on 18th and P Street was busy! Not only were their maintenance crew out there shoveling away, so were several men in ties. So - shut up, Republican naysayers that say the Iraqis can't do anything without the US help! Today, they were actually doing better than most US organizations.

DC Film Premiere, Part II

I remembered the man's name from the DC Film Premiere of "The Situation" - it was Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institute - author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq".

To quote from the New York Times op-ed today entitled: "What W.B. Yeats 'the Second Coming' really says about the Iraq war" by Adam Cohen who was inspired by the title of Kenneth Pollack's latest offering on the war in Iraq "Things Fall Apart."

" The confident predictors of who have been wrong in the past do not hesistate
to keep offering up plans...The co-author of "Things Fall Apart", the Brookings
Institute guide to going forward on Iraq is Kenneth Pollack, who is -
incredibly- best known for his 2002 book "The Threatening Storm: the Case for
Invading Iraq." "

You gotta love DC pundits - when you make a huge misjudgement and promote a war that displaces millions of people and kills thousands, just write a new book telling everyone what they should do now...accountability? Not in this city.

Anyway - shout out to my colleague at Refugees International who is heading out to Iraq to look at internal displacement there. Be careful. We need you to come back and hold all these assholes in DC accountable for their sins against the people of Iraq.

Nothing that can't be cured by a hot cup of tea!

My mother was English and one of the things that she taught me was that whenever you are feeling down, there is nothing that can't be improved by a hot cup of tea. I love tea. I drink English Breakfast tea or PG Tibbs tea and occasionally Irish Breakfast tea in the morning with sugar and milk. From time to time, I can be found drinking herbal tea such as licorice root, chamomile, mint, or even unsweetened non-milky "Constant Comment" or "Lemon Lift". But my true favorite is a big mug of English 'workers tea' - the caffeine lift, the burst of sweetness, the comforting warmth.

I had a nice cup of tea ths weekend as I reflected over the week that I had - its been difficult leaving Refugees International. For better or for worse - I have a 'reformer' personality. I want to make things better all the time. I try to curb this behavior but I guess I feel like if I'm not actively trying to make things better, I'm contributing to making them worse. And I'm a 'lame duck' now at the organization - on my way out. Because I have to get a work permit to work in the Netherlands, I've had to give an extrodinarily long notice. And its been an unpleasant feeling. I feel irrelevant at best.

However, upon drinking a good cup of tea, I feel better. Calmer - more accepting of the inevitable change that life brings us. The best way forward for me is to focus on my final projects for them and leave a clean office, organized files, and a kick ass report on gender-based violence in Darfur. I've made some amazing friends at RI and I think they'll be friends for life. I think I've left some concrete accomplishments. I feel good about my three and a half years there and about what I've done to improve the lives of refugees and displaced women around the world.

Change is uncomfortable. It causes me to question everything that I held as true. But with a good cup of tea, I face the future in Amsterdam with Medecins Sans Frontiers and the challenges of finding new friends, proving myself in a new venue.

Do You Remember Where you Were?

Do you remember where you were when you heard that Anna Nicole Smith died?

I was at work - trying to deal with a massive headache so I logged on to defamer.com (my favorite gossip source) and got the news. It's the lead story on Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room". It was even sent to me by CNN "breaking news".

I love my celebrity gossip - its my hobby, and obviously I"m not alone in the world. I've decided that when I'm on Jeopardy and Alex Trebeck asks me about my hobbies, that's what I'll answer. I love reading about the vapid lives of the extremely rich and famous. It's ridiculous the way we adulate them. But when I spend all day long thinking about raped women and the injustice that they are subajected to - i need something light and fluffy to engage myself and allow myself to turn off.

It's been my policy ever since I made the mistake of reading "A Bed for the Night" while working in Darfur. I have to cut off my brain sometimes. So tonight, rather than re-reading all of the papers I have on impunity in Darfur, I'm going to think about sad silly Anna Nicole Smith and her little orphaned daughter.

So long live US Weekly and Defamer.com - thanks for making your contribution to making the world a little easier to deal with.

A DC Film Premiere!

Last night, I was invited to see "The Situation" - a fictional film about Iraq. I was excited to see it because Damien Lewis, an actor who played Soames Forsythe from one of my favorite PBS shows The Forsythe Saga, was starring in it. My friend, Jonathan Morganstein - the Liberal Marine - invited me to go with him. He's served in Iraq and is a democrat so he always has an interesting view on things.

Anyway, the movie was just okay - the acting wasn't very good in parts - too many 'speeches' about how you can't know who the good guys are and how terrible it is now in Iraq compared to under Saddam. I thought it would have been more effective just to show some of it - women having to dress more conservatively, the fear of ordinary things, the power struggles etc. The main character - a female journalist - was terrible. She made all the wrong decisions, put everyone at risk because of her, and worst of all - cried during the big crisis! Of course all the men in the movie were in love with her. Yet another set back for women in war zones. Help us! We are too stupid to get ourselves out of these situations and don't deserve to be there anyway! My actual favorite characters were the "Noble Iraqi Photographer" who was hot and sensitive and funny and the war profiteer insurgent - "Walid", a testament to the actor, I think who was able to really sparkle and show some wit under the turgid circumstances.

The crowd at the premiere was interesting - as a Washington DC premiere, our celebrities were a journalist from the Washington Post and an analyst from the Brookings Institute. Ugh. Dull Dull Dull. Oh- and the Washington Editor of Slate.com. Women came in wearing fur coats but they all wore Ann Taylor 'couture' and had the Washington power hair. If you are over fifty, your power hair is sprayed and bouffant. if you are under fifty, it's flat-ironed straight. There were maybe three non-white people in the audience - two Iraqi women and a black man. Everyone else was the typical Washington wonk types. The old important men speak loudly and jovially and shake everyone's hands. The old important women air kiss each other's cheeks while their dead eyes scan the crowd. The young ambitious senior class presidents from high schools across America looking adoringly at the old folks.

In the end of the film, the American journalist leaves behind the dead Iraqi journalist who lost his life trying to save her. The CIA agent who was trying to make things better is none the wiser. And I left depressed about Iraq and DC - depressed about the self-congratulatory tone of the audience. They all chuckled knowingly when the young new CIA analyst is chastised by an Iraqi diplomat for his ignorance and when the earnest journalist dumps the CIA lover because he says 'its just Iraqis!'.

Jonathan leaned over during the panel discussion at the end and pointed out that the Brookings analyst who was so earnestly promoting his 'new 190 page report on what he thinks about Iraq' and how he wished he could build a time machine and go back to March 2003 was a huge proponent for the war before it began. And that's how it goes in Washington. It's all posturing and politics - no one remembers what you said three years ago, they only care what the executive summary of your latest report says now.

Things I'll Miss about DC

1. The Sunday Edition of the Washington Post
2. The Style section of the Washington Post
3. WPFW's Blues with the Gator on Saturday afternoons
4. The Dupont Circle Farmer's Market on Sunday afternoons
5. Larry's Lounge
6. Landmark E Street Cinema
7. Knowing who the people in Wonkette.com are

Amsterdam Bound!

Well, it's official. I gave notice to Refugees International yesterday and told them that I had accepted the position at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)/Doctors without Borders. So it looks like I'm moving to the Netherlands in March or April. It's such a relief to finally have told RI. I felt such a mixture of guilt, sadness, excitement, and fear. I don't know why. A friend told me that the body doesn't like change so anticipates it by producing anxiety. So even contemplating the move gives me a little anxiety.

But it has always been my dream to live in Europe and also to work for MSF. I can't believe its coming true. I feel very realistic about the reality of living in Holland. While its a beautiful exciting city, it'll be difficult. There will be times when I get super homesick and when I hate the new place. And I'll feel lonely at times. (I'm remembering my move to North Carolina). But it will be a great opportunity.

I'm looking forward to seeing Carolyn, Corinne, Remco, and Vinz more as well as making new friends, challenging myself at MSF, and making a difference on their GBV programs. I hope my friends will all make a point of visiting me in Amsterdam and I'm worried that my family won't get over there very often. But I'm optimistic and excited about my upcoming new life in 2007.

Gender Equality in the US? Not Likely

I've been home watching CNN, CSPAN, and (god help me) Fox News with my father and I've been tracking the reaction to the new Democratic majority congress that is taking place. As I watch the camera pan over the overwhelmingly male and white and OLD audience that makes up our political "representation" I must say, I've been sickened by the sexism in the media.

Tony Snow, had a good chuckle today when asked if the nation was ready for a black or female president.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer has a segment on his show about the new "Pucker Up Congress" where congressmen are kissing people on the cheek rather than shaking hands because they have a new female leader (!!!). I guess they've never been to EUrope or Latin America where this is de rigeur.

But the one that really burned me up today is an entry by Wes Pruden, editor of the Washington Times. He says, in his entry Its Estrogen, stupid, and plenty of it: "Yesterday was all about celebrating estrogen. More powerful than strontium-90, deadlier than polonium-210, estrogen is better for you than testosterone. That was the new speaker's message, and she got a lot of "amens," even if most were from the "womens." This is a historic moment for the Congress, and for the women of this country," Mzz Pelosi told her jubilant partygoers. "It is a moment for which we have waited for more than 200 years. The new speaker, catching herself, once tried to soften the tone of partisan and sexual (or "genderal," in the politically correct usage) riumphalism... "The Democrats are back," the speaker cried, once raising her tiny fist in a back-to-power salute... Mzz Pelosi insists that her new job makes her the most powerful woman in America, and maybe it does, but tiny fist or not she probably shouldn't say that if she runs into Cindy Sheehan."

Then there were the complaints that she talked about children with sarcastic "Yeah - we get you're a woman but do we have to hear about the children ad nauseum?" See the War Room on the "liberal' Salon.com. Helllooooo - she's a Democrat - talking about children and doing something about Education, saving the environment, and stopping war is practically the democrat's platform.

Anyway, I am bummed and depressed about the pathetically macho sexist media that we have. I expect it from the Republicans at Fox News and the Washington Times but I would think that that our "bastions of the liberal media" would know better. Sometimes I can almost allow myself to forget that we live in a white man's world but all I have to do is walk up to Capitol Hill to be reminded of what a long long way we still have to go before we have equality.

Merry Christmas!

This is just a short note to wish you all a happy holidays! It’s been an exciting and hard year for me –

After two years at Refugees International, I was thrilled to be honored with May’s “Glamour Hero of the Month” in Glamour magazine. While it felt quite strange to be in the same category with the president of Chile and other genuine heroines, it was an honor – and helped revitalize me to remember what is important to me in my career. Awards! No, kidding – trying to represent and help the women in developing countries who have suffered amazing violence yet continue to show resilience and courage in the face of it all. I traveled to south Sudan this year and stayed on the banks of the Nile and met the Dinka people which was amazing – its like seeing the Nile as it was a millennia ago. However, it was my tenth mission and I was exhausted from dealing with collapsing tents and sleeping on the ground. After much deliberation – I realized I actually needed a vacation, I hadn’t had a proper vacation since starting at Refugees International. I needed a real relaxing vacation – not a run into a country and do as much as I could in four days vacation like I normally take.

I spent a week at the beach in South Carolina with my dad and sister and really unwound at Surfside beach, reliving my childhood – skeet ball at the arcade, minature golf in Myrtle Beach, and tomato sandwiches after sitting in the sun all day. I then went to Chicago to visit my friends Jamie Kelley, who I met back in Guatemala in 1999. Beer, Mexican food, and non-stop movie watching (including the Xmen) helped make me a little more normal. I then went to Mexico for the first time. It was wonderful! I traveled to Mexico City where new friends Bridget and Alberto put me up and showed me the amazingly vibrant city right during the pre-election festivities. I then traveled up into the mountains to a little artist’s/retiree community called San Miguel Allende – it was very relaxing. I alternated between sleeping in a hammock all day and reading in the plaza. I also went horseback riding and took a painting class. Heaven! After 10 days of much needed down time, I picked up the pace and headed down to Oaxaca to explore the indigenous culture there. There is a huge political protest still going on there over the treatment of teachers by the local governor of this very poor state. However, it was still quite interesting. I also tried the famous mole but was underwhelmed. I think I need to try it again because its supposed to be one of the most amazing dishes in the world.

After returning to work, rested and relaxed, I was immediately sent off to Beirut, Lebanon in the middle of the 1 month war between Hezbollah and Israel. It was a humbling experience to be in the middle of this war zone. While I was staying in the Christian area of Beirut that was unlikely to be bombed, I could hear and feel the nerve-wracking bombs at night and we did spend a lot of time in the targeted areas of South Beirut and the Beqaa valley. It was my first time in the Middle East and it was eye-opening and quite different than my experiences in Africa. My colleague, Kristele and I interviewed refugees living in parking garages under modern malls and conducted meetings in posh ice cream parlours. I met some wonderful Lebanese while there and will never listen to the constant news about the troubles in the Middle East in the same way again.

After a few months back in DC where my fat Siamese cat Simon dominated my time by insisting on sitting on my lap and snoozing all the time, it was time to head back into the field again. This time I traveled to Northern Uganda – where a 20 year civil war was possibly drawing to a close. I returned to south Sudan with my colleague Kavita and we spent a fruitless Thanksgiving chasing around the Lord’s Resistance Army negotiating team to try to interview them. We ended in Nairobi where I finished my schooling in Indian culture. Yes, Indian culture. Between the vibrant delicious Indian restaurants, the books on Indian politics I was reading, and the lessons on cricket I was receiving form Kavita – it was hard to remember I was in Africa sometimes. My trip in Nairobi culminated with a trip to the film Dhoom 2 where I learned all about the art of the Bollywood film. I then treated myself to a safari in the Serengeti to Masai Mara for two days. Believe it or not, it’s the first time I’ve seen the wildlife that Africa is so famous for (apart from watching a monkey run for its life in Sudan once). It was lovely – the animals are so amazing and beautiful. In my first game drive, I saw cheetahs, zebras, antelope, gazelles, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, vultures, and lions. The next morning, I was treated to a champagne breakfast on the banks of river filled with crocodiles and hippos! And the day was topped off by the pilot of the little 10 seater plane allowing me to take the co-pilot seat and fly back to Nairobi. Fabulous!

I returned to DC after a brief sojourn with old friends in Amsterdam for a few days. And a job interview with Doctors without Borders/Medecins sans Frontiers (www.msf.org ), an independent humanitarian medical aid organization that I really admire. After another weeks vacation in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (I could get used to all these vacations) where I went to celebrate my friend Bernice’s birthday, I returned home to some good and bad news. My father had slipped and fractured his pelvis and was hospitalized in Sumter, South Carolina. And I’ve been offered the job of Humanitarian Affairs Specialist with MSF in Amsterdam. The move to MSF would be amazing as would moving to Amsterdam. I would be able to really focus on gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS work with one of the pre-eminent medical organizations in the world. They are always the first organization into the conflict area and provide care and assistance to millions of desperate people world-wide. This would be an amazing opportunity to help them finetune their work for women survivors of rape and violence as well as advance their work on sexual exploitation and abuse and stigmatization of people infected with HIV/AIDS. Plus Washington DC is transient city with friends moving back and forth. I think its my turn to move out for a while.

I’m currently in Sumter where I am hanging out with my father in his hospital room and mulling over the job offer. Luckily, my fathers injury will only require rest and physical therapy – no surgery. He likes his therapists and seems to be back to his funny, cranky self again. Alyson and I brought over a fresh-baked batch of his favorite “Old Fashioned Rocks” cookies and his Christmas presents to his room this morning. We hope he’ll be out of the hospital soon – probably by New Years Eve – and I’ll stay in Sumter a little while longer and help him adjust to being back at home.

Well that was 2006 – it was a year of ups and downs – but on the balance, a very positive year. I look forward to more challenges and travels in the new year. As always, staying in touch with my friends is one of the things that keeps me going. I love hearing from you all and hope I’ll see more of you in the new year.

With love,
Sarah

Thanksgiving with the Lord's Resistance Army

One of the perks of this job is that I find myself in the strangest places while the rest of my friends and family are enjoying normal, wholesome activities. I've spent Thanksgivings in Ghana, en route to Darfur, and finally now - in the capitol of South Sudan, Juba!

If you remember my previous descriptions of Juba, you'll be amazed to know that in the past 8 months - a lot of things have changed. No, there still aren't roads, the soldiers still haven't been disarmed, the refugees and internally displaced people are still on their own to try to make things work. BUT - there is an ongoing peace process being hosted by the Government of South Sudan (Riek Machar - better known as Mr. Emma's War to some) who is trying to get the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan People's Defense forces to sit down and stop terrorizing people in Uganda and south Sudan. And there are now MANY MANY restaurants and tented camps to chase down potential interviewees in Sudan. The development economy strikes again - gotta feed and get those humanitarian workers drunk!

Much to my chagrin, we only learned that the peace talks had gone into recess the evening before we left for Juba. We had to go anyway because we had spent two whole days plus several hours trying to make it work - get the South Sudan visa, get a place to stay, get a ride to the airport, get the name of the guy in charge. All of that would have been for naught and we had made a promise to our boss that we would do our best.

So we arrived in South Sudan with heavy hearts and visions of the previous visits collapsing tents, mudslides, and strandings vivid in our mind. My friend Melissa, that I met last time, picked us up from the airport and drove us back to the OCHA compound. So far so good - everyhting looked the same except that there were a lot of road construction vehicles around. Got to the OCHA compound and everyone was the same! I saw all the same people. Drove to Mango camp - slightly different but still very familiar. Next day - our car never showed up to pick us up. Same as last time! Went to the OCHA compound and sat around trying to make appointments - same as last time!

So what's different? Well - after wandering around and being told that everyone we had come there to see had gone to Kampala for the weekend (where we had been), we randomly ran into a man looking for directions to UNICEF on thanksgiving day. We gave him a lift over there and when we got there, we asked him what he was doing there. He said - "I'm part of the LRA peace delegation!" Exactly the people we had come to see. We hurriedly made an appointment to meet him back at 5pm at their camp "Juba Bridge".

Kavita and I arrived early to our appoinment and all fo the LRA delegates got up out of their sleep to come sit in plastic chairs near the river Nile to talk to us. Ugandans, particularly Acholi Ugandans, tend to be very soft spoken. Sudan is a loud place. As the first man began to speak, someone walked over to the large television that was perched in a tree (so if you didn't want to gaze at the Nile, you could watch satellite television in front of the nile instead) and switched it on. The familiar opening notes to the intro from "Six Feet Under" banged out. Behind me, a construction worker began to weld something. The flies made a beeline for my eyes and we began the familiar greetings and courtesies for our interview.

Two hours later, we were still talking and trying to get them to admit that the International criminal court wasn't pursuing Joseph Kony (famed abductor of children and mutilator of victims) fo no reason. They insisted over and over again that he was a freedom fighter. What about the children who were abducted from schools and forced to kill their class mates? What about the mutilations of people and the accusations of cannibalism? What about Kony's 'rule by the ten commandments' and previously apolitical stance? All of those abuses? Commited by the UPDF. All those children we interviewed? Brainwashed by the UPDF. But the sad thing was, these guys were the intellectuals, the prized sons of the Acholi people who had been exiled from their land and sent away to the US, to Nairobi, to the UK to make money and send it home to help their brothers and sisters. "We're the ones that pay the school fees." they told us. And they were intelligent. They were well spoken and proud. But I think they made a deal with the devil to represent him while they try to bring peace to Acholiland to let their brothers and sisters leave the horrible displacement camps and go home in peace. I don't think they believed what they were saying to us about Kony. I think they are just desperate for peace.

Kavita and I went back to our little tented camp on the banks of the river Nile - just a few blocks up and sat down to analyze our Thanksgiving. Peace seems possible but noone knows what will happen. The ICC indictments are a stumbling block. I was dying to ask the LRA delegation that why, if Kony was so innocent, he was afraid to face trial in the Hague? If he loved his people so much, wouldn't that be a small price to pay to bring them peace? But we had listened to every conspiracy theory under the sun from them. We had heard all about the agricultural land grab going on (not that I don't believe it) and our throats were parched from the dusty night in Sudan and we didn't feel like we were making any progress. So instead, we went back to Mango camp. Sat under the mango trees looking at the Nile work its way up to Khartoum, and toasted to peace in Uganda and Sudan with a cold Bell lager.

Happy Thanksgiving

Juba Jubilee

Greetings from Juba, South Sudan! It’s so hot and humid here after cool temperate Uganda. I’m sweating like a pig.

I’ve returned to the same tented camp as I stayed in before, “the Mango camp”. However, its 8 months later and things have changed.

I’ve got my own tent here – which is nice – and they also have internet connections now so I was able to Skype/chat my fellow advocate Sean in Brussels and Camilla in the US simultaneously. The line of army green tents (1-10) is still the same but for privacy reasons, I guess, they have put these ugly rattan screens in front of the ‘porch area’ on the front. They look ramshackle and like they are about to collapse in front of the tent. There are also a lot of bugs in my tent and the front flap won’t zip up correctly. As some of you may know, I do not like bugs. I’m afraid to kill them and I don’t want them to jump on me. I’d rather handle a lizard, a snake, and a mouse than some bugs. There are some HUMONGOUS grasshoppers in here. When I pulled down the mosquito net over my cot, one was inside! Yikes – I scooped him off the bed but I don’t know where he is now. Hopefully not in my suitcase amongst my underwear, waiting to jump out on me tomorrow morning. I also have a ‘head lamp’ style flashlight. It attaches to the top of my head on an elastic band like a coal miners lamp. I used it to go into the bathroom this evening and since it was the only light there, all the bugs swarmed in front of my eyes and face. Not ideal.

There’s been other changes too. Where in April, they had small wooden tables and chairs arrayed under the mango trees along the bank of the Nile, now they have white plastic tables and chairs under tents with electric lights and fans in them. Helps with the heat but the ambience is not the same. There’s a separate bar from the dining table and they play cheesy 80s music. There are a lot of white railings put up along the Nile bank and ‘car port’ type covers guiding the entrance. I liked it better when it seemed super rustic but I suppose that is the nostalgia talking. It’s easy to remember the mango trees and the moonlight and the nile and to forget the rivulets of sweat streaming down my back and the sticky heat.

A friend of mine in Uganda asked me if I would like to take a position there in her UN agency yesterday. While I’m tempted, I’m not sure if that is what I want to do. And I’m a lot not sure if I want to move to Africa. Today in the Kampala/Entebbe airport was a perfect example of why. We got to the “Royal Daisy Air” check in counter 2 hours in advance of our 1 hour flight, as requested. There was one person in front of us. So we lined up behind him. The sullen Ugandan woman at the counter next to “Royal Daisy Air” said something so softly, I could not hear her. I walked closer to hear what she said and she said “you have to stand in that line” (which was where I was before I walked over to hear what she had to say). Then we got to the front and handed over our passports, tickets, and South Sudan passes (a special type of Visa that the Southern Sudanese issue in lieu of the Northern Sudan’s visa). They wanted to charge us extra for our baggage weight (which was 15 pounds over the 30 pound limit for two people) – but instead of just telling us that, they made a whole song and dance about how we knew that there was a weight limit and pointed to a small box on the airplane ticket which we could not read which was supposed to have told us that. We got into a discussion about how noone had told us that and we couldn’t leave anything behind. Finally it became clear that we could just pay $20 and it would all be fine. Then they wanted to reject the $20 bill we gave them to pay for the overage because it wasn’t printed after 2004. Supposedly there was a huge counterfeiting scheme that took place with pre-2004 US bills so noone will take them anymore. But not actually – they will take them but for a lower exchange rate. Does that make sense? Not at all. So as to make sure we could move around southern Sudan, we had to pay $50 to exchange our 1996 and 2001 US currency $100 bills for 2004 US currency $100 bills. Nothing is simple here. NOTHING! And this is the most advanced country in Africa after South Africa! What in the hell would it be like to live in South Sudan?

In Uganda– there are paved roads and newspapers and radio stations and taxis and high rises. In southern Sudan, there are unpaved rutted flooded clay paths and you have to use satellite phones and our taxi forgot to pick us up from our meeting tonight so we had to hitch a ride from some Canadian guy. Oh – and I also wanted to tell you my favorite Ugandan news story from the paper this morning. It appears that there was a Canadian fellow with the last name of Hornsleth who moved to Uganda. He wanted to help Ugandans so he started buying pigs and would distribute them to poor Ugandans but only if they changed their name to Hornsleth. Now there are about 1000 people with that last name. And last week, many of them applied for visas to go to Canada and meet this guy (who was thrown out of the country, I think). So the government doesn’t want to give them visas because they all changed their names. So none with the last name of Hornsleth is now allowed to get a visa. Hurray for Africa!

Pader and Small Luxuries

After two days in Kitgum, I was apprehensive about arriving in Pader. According to my colleague, when she was here in 2004, conditions were dire and the lodging choices were extremely primitive. The hotel she stayed in was the kind where a drunk Ugandan soldier wearing sunglasses at night with three women on his lap sits and drinks beer all night and shouts at you on your way to avoid the outdoor latrine. She warned me that we might not be able to bathe the whole time we were here.

Imagine our joy and surprise to find that GOAL, an Irish NGO working on water and sanitation here has a guest house. While there is no running water, there are abundant jerry cans filled with water and electricity for three hours a day. Today, I got to take a bucket bath with a giant spider in a concrete stall lit with a kerosene lamp. But I was thrilled that I could get water and wash the dust off of me.

But the most amazing thing is that there is a restaurant in town and internet access! In our room even! The 21st century is an amazing thing. The reason the restaurant is so exciting is that I just spent three days in Kitgum where there was only one place to eat in town - and it was terrible. The BOMAH hotel has the worst service I've ever seen in my life. You must literally chase the waiters around the courtyard that is littered with abandoned plastic water bottles to get them to take your order. And you should do this several times as they forget to put it in. And all they served was beef stew on rice. There don't appear to be any vegetables in Kitgum so the beef stew as gristly hard to chew beef floating in a greasy gravy. Luckily in Uganda, they have abundant bottles of chili garlic sauce on all the tables so you can also flavor your rice with that.

The restaurant in Pader though is my favorite thing here. It is run by young child mothers who have been released from the Lord’s Resistance Army. Many of them arrive from the bush, malnourished and pregnant with small children and they are very young themselves. It is difficult for them to go to school and many of them face stigmatization and rejection by their families. Another mouth or three to feed puts a strain on families in these overcrowded camps.

This amazing woman, Alice Acca, runs a group called CCF: Christian Counseling Fellowship, that has a reintegration center where the young mothers as well as other returning LRA abductees can stay for a few weeks while they get used to being free. They provide counseling, safety, and a secure environment for the young mothers as well as counseling their families and the community that they will be reintegrating into. In addition to these services, Alice is also launching vocational training and sells the bead necklaces that the girls make. I will be returning with some examples. But one of the most innovative ideas is the bakery and small restaurant that these girls run. The food there is delicious and its clean and neat. The residents of Pader are happy to have a bakery. It’s small steps like these that may help these girls and their children start a new life.

And they make a delicious vegetable dish that is basically spinach in a peanut sauce. So I can now check email and eat vegetables and hopefully help out some of these young child mothers at the same time. Life is good in pader.

Good Times in Gulu

I went out to the most beautiful place today –a site where some Acholi were rebuilding their village. Since the peace talks between the LRA and the government of Uganda, there has been a virtual peace in Gulu – the heart of Acholi land in Uganda. The roads are full of people moving between the ‘mother camps’ where they were forcibly interned by the government of Uganda and areas that are quite close to the people’s areas of origin but have not been formally declared accessible by the government of Uganda.

The weather here is perfect- today we had a clear blue sky with fluffy white clouds, seventy degree weather without humidity, a fresh breeze blowing through the trees and grasses bringing the faint smell of wood smoke to our noses, and the faint sound of a goat crying and the sound of birds and insects in the trees.

When we got to the site, on our left was a new Ugandan army deployment where soldiers dug ditches and women washed clothes. A soldier was dancing to the sounds of a radio as we pulled up to the road block (a stick placed across the way with the words STOP written in white chalk next to it). I was a little nervous about them because we’ve heard terrible stories about the way they’ve treated the Acholis. From the road we could see the outlines of a few huts but as we got closer, we noticed that there were many men building bricks, hoeing the ground, and working to clear some of the tall grass around the area. After the customary greetings to the elders of the site, we pulled up some wooden benches to interview the men. “We are happy to be here, the men told us. “Before we came here, before the peace, we were in the ‘mother camps.” The mother camps are the immense government-controlled camps where the displaced Acholis live. While the conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army here has lasted for over 20 years, it wasn’t until about 1996 when the government of Uganda mandated that the bulk of the population had to move into these camps where they could be ‘protected’ by the UPDF(Ugandan Army). In order to ‘protect’ the population from the LRA, the UPDF enforced a very strict curfew, beating or killing anyone found outside the camps for suspected collaboration with the LRA. Ironically, the decision to put everyone in one location, allowed the LRA to attack the population with ease. Many times the camps would be attacked at night and children abducted to be used as child soldiers and huts which were built on top of each other were burned down.

“We are very free here.” They told us.” More so than in the mother camps. We can move around and work our land. We feel safe because the army is here but we have not seen any rebels for a long time. We want a better life for ourselves, we have suffered for over 20 years.” Because the place was so beautiful and the people so humble and sweet, I was almost moved to tears. Later on, as we drove back, we came upon a traffic jam in downtown Gulu. Our driver told us “It is the women with the peace march!”. As we got closer, we could hear the music blaring and the beating of the drums. Everyone was turned out on both sides of the road and we maneuvered to get a good view. Soon the women came into view – some wearing UNIFEM tee shirts, many with small babies tied to their backs, some in colorful green dresses. In the front were the older ladies dressed in their finery. They strutted and danced and chanted. Many were carrying banners that said “No peace without women.” They were marching to Juba Sudan to protest the fact that there are very few women involved in the peace talks. When they saw me taking photos, they began to cheer and clap. “We want peace now. Now is the time for peace. No peace without women.” As they went by me, I applauded them – I felt a bit the fool but I was so happy that they were out there doing this. It’s such a joyous time to be in a return. I felt that way in South Sudan when I saw the trucks frull of Sudanese pull into Aweil Town. I felt that way when we got caught in a traffic jam full of old Mercedes and buses as the Lebanese poured back into the south. And I feel that way now. It reminds you of just how much these people have suffered.

Tomorrow we are off to Kitgum, which is closer to the Sudan border and therefore less developed. I feel like I’m leaving a little piece of paradise behind.

Uganda, Baby!

Here I am in Kampala - the capitol of Uganda. I was excited to come here because Alec had told me that it was the party capitol of Central Africa - great food, wonderful wildlife, calm, nice people, nightclubs, bungee jumping in the source of the Nile. Woohoo! After some of the African places I've been, I couldn't wait.

Michelle, my colleague who knows Uganda the best, had told us the best place to stay with this hotel called the Mosa Court Hotel. I immediately needed to know if they had internet (as you know I'm addicted to writing to you people) and was told that they had in the room internet. The rooms were pretty bare - but that's not a problem - as long as the linens are fairly clean and the toilet flushes, then we're talking luxury. I was suprised that we were paying about $100 a night for this place but the 'development' economy is always expensive. Well - we didn't arrive til 1:30am the first night and our first meeting was at 8am so I expected to be tired. However, it turns out we checked into the LAND WHERE NOONE IS ALLOWED TO SLEEP.

Let's start with the fact that the drunk night guard just loitered around my door all night - shuffling back and forth, occasionally leaning on my door, sometimes shouting at people - so I didn't really fall deeply asleep. They also put me next to the restaurant so at 5am when the waiters started clinking and singing and chatting as they set up. So I basically got about 3 hours of sleep the first night. That's okay- I thought - I'll go to bed early on Friday night and sleep in on Saturday. Well, there was more shuffling and the like the next night but I turned on the a/c to provide ambient noise. At 7:30am the next morning the maid just burst into my door. There was no 'do not distrub' sign and no chain on the door. I got up to take a shower and the water pressure was barely strong enough to rinse the conditioner from my hair. When I returned at 4:30 after meetings all day, they left the patio doors to my room wide open after cleaning the room. Luckily I had taken all my electronics with me but I was on the ground floor next to the patio so anyone could have walked in. The screens were wide open and so all the mosquitos came streaming in. Kavita kept getting phone calls at midnight and also had two people taking a smoke break outside her bedroom door, so we were exhausted.

Yesterday, we came over to the Sheraton to use the wireless internet in the lobby and to have a meeting(because of course the internet and the electricity were not working at our hotel) but then found out the rates were almost the same when I lied and said we were with the UN. Today we checked in to the bliss of the Sheraton for only $120 a night. I have the day off but will spend it typing up notes and preparing to head to the North. The flight we intended to take is sold out so we will have to drive up north. I actually like that because I get to see more of the country - but it also means fording a river and dealing with a LRA road block so we'll have to get on the road early. Also, everyone and their brother is in the North right now because there is a lot of excitement over the potential peace agreement so we're not sure if we have a hotel to sleep in when we arrive in Kitgum. We certainly won't have access to the nice ones since the real UN will be staying there. So I will revel in the luxury of the Sheraton for two nights and steel myself for the border with Sudan. It still looks like we'll be going to Juba - land of collapsing tents and sweltering swamps so I had better get my luxury where I can.

Ta Ta for Now!

Uganda Bound

I'm in Amsterdam on my way to Northern Uganda. The government of Sudan is being extremely annoying about issuing visas to Americans so I will probably not be going to South Sudan on this trip (unless we drive over) but there is a good chance that I will get to go to the Kenya-Somalia border to talk to the new refugees that are flooding in. I would actually prefer to do that as I feel like RI adds more to the mix when we go someplace where there are few others.

The Fall Funk

Well - I'm deep into the Fall Funk. I'm off to Northern Uganda and south Sudan at the end of October which should be exciting me but its not. I don't know why. I've wanted to go to Uganda for ages. It must be the fall funk!

I'm getting sick of DC. I love my apartment and friends but there is nothing to tempt me out of my little hidey hole. When I was in Park Slope this weekend, everything was exciting and cool. I loved the bar that i went to with Kevin and Brian - Slavic Soul! A band that plays Musette Accordion music from 30s France! A million different cute restaurants! I don't even walk up 18th Street anymore. I have tried to shake it up by going to Rumba cafe and Bossa but I don't really have anyone to go with. We're all in a rut. This whole damn city is in a rut. I blame it on the Republicans. Under the Democrats, I'm sure we had more exciting bars.

I am headed to South Carolina this weekend which should be fun and relaxing. It will also be bittersweet- Mr. McElveen, my neighbor from when i was growing up just died this past week. He was 93. His wife has Alzheimers now. They were married for 69 years. Noone in this generation will ever be married for that long.

My neighborhood, Warren Court, was notable in the fact that when my family moved there in 1975, we were the youngest family on the block. Everyone was in their 60s with grandchildren. I grew up on a block of maiden aunts and divorced southern women and was watched over by grey haired women who drove cadillacs and wore driving gloves. I would buy their cut glass vases and old church hats at yard sales. They would call my mother when my sister and I would pick the flowers out of their gardens.

Mr. McElveen always had the most beautiful garden. He grew lovely azaleas, wonderful chrysanthemums, delicious tomatos, and sweet pecans. I remember being a young girl and sitting in his garden and smelling the pungent Chrysanthemum smell mixed with the sweet sweet smell of Magnolia seeds ripening in the autumn sun. The McElveens also spurred my parents to get me baptized. They scared Mom and Dad to death by taking us to Crosswell Baptist church on Sundays so my mom and dad sent us off to the Episcopal and Catholic churches so we wouldn't become Southern Baptists. The McElveens were old timey Southern. Mrs. McElveen would call people "colored" and "nigras" but she would also make divinity and fudge and cookies for Christmas every year and deliver them to everyone's house. She was traumatized when the first black family moved into our neighborhood but sure enough, they got the cookies at Christmas time and the polite standing in the yard complaining about the mosquitos conversation in the summer. When Joey,their grandson, got a Springer Spaniel (very popular for hunting in South Carolina), Mr. McElveen had to walk it - and that dog would pull him down the street. However, he always dressed in his shirt and tie and hat to walk around the block.

Here's to you, Mr. McElveen. I hope you found a lovely plot for gardening and that the tomatos are just as sweet as they were on 6 Warren Court.