The Dutch: Good at Tolerance, Crappy at Customer Service

The latest battle in my war to integrate into the Netherlands was waged today at a site called ABN-AMRO, otherwise known as my bank.

I arrived in Holland on April 28th.
I registered with the Municipality to get a residency permit on May 2nd.
I went to the Dutch Social Security Org to get a tax id number on May 12th.

Everything went pretty easily in all of these interactions – things that in the US might take months and months and mind deadening interactions with public servants were handled gracefully and quickly and efficiently by the Dutch government agencies.

I chose ABN-AMRO to be my bank here in Holland because it’s the bank MSF uses (which usually makes payroll swifter) and because ABN-AMRO trumpets its “Expat service” and bilingual website and expertise in helping expats handle their money. I thought if anything would go smoothly in Holland, it would be my banking account since the Dutch are famously tight with their money and take it quite seriously. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that these people would allow their major bank to be anything less than customer oriented when it came to money.

I opened a bank account with ABN-AMRO on May 15th. The initial interview appointment went quite well. An affable, handsome man walked me through all the steps and filled out all the paper work with me. I applied for internet banking, a debit card, a credit card, and a savings account. We discussed how I could transfer money to the US via my internet banking so as to pay off my bills there.

The only problem was I had to present proof of residency. MSF had thought of that and provided me a letter as my landlord using a residency that they maintain in the center of Amsterdam for travelers. They assured me that they regularly passed by and picked up the mail so it shouldn’t be a problem.

On May 26th , I still had not received my debit card (which I had to use to access the internet banking or the ATM machines). I called the telephone service center. I was told “I’m sorry ma’am – we have run out of plastic cards. Sorry.” I went to the branch office to find out what was going on. “I have no idea why they told you that, we mailed it May 22nd!” I asked them to change my address to my current residency and send me new ones. I returned to the office, and there sitting in my mail box were the now canceled debit card and pin numbers.

In the meantime, I have to access my money by going by the branch office and withdrawing it. I needed to pay my rent. Here in Holland, they don’t use paper checks like we do in the US. They expect everyone to do everything over the internet and of course, since I don’t have my debit card, I can’t access the internet. A short note about the internet banking – when you get your debit card, they also give you a device that looks like a calculator. You insert your card into it and it reads your chip. You enter your pin number, it gives you a code to enter into the internet site. Then the internet site gives you another code that you have to enter into your calculator who gives you yet another number to enter. A bit frustrating when you’ve only got 100€ that you are trying to access…

Finally, I get my debit card. I’m happily paying my bills and withdrawing money. I still haven’t received my credit card yet. You can’t use the debit cards here in place of a credit card – but you can use them in most places that accept pin cards. My student loan officer has been calling me to scream at me about my June payment. I have no money left in my US accounts. I attempted to transfer money from my Dutch account into my US account so he could use my debit card number. In order to transfer money from my bank account in the Netherlands to the bank account in the US requires a swift code. My Credit Union in the US does not have a swift code.

I called the telephone services yesterday to find out what happened to my credit card so I could just give the raving lunatic at the Credit Union my credit card number. “Sorry madam, we have no record of you even applying for a credit card.” So, today, I stopped by the bank today to find out what happened with all my letters and papers written in Dutch. After undergoing a grilling about why I was using the bank branch close to my home rather than the initial branch since they didn’t make the error they don’t want to have to fix it, I finally discovered that indeed the credit card had been approved and mailed. To the old mailing address. I asked her (since its now July 6) if she could send me a new one since I obviously hadn’t received it. She said, “I’m sorry madam, you’ll have to call the telephone credit center in a few hours and have them fill out a new application.” “Why can’t I do that with you?” “I don’t work for the credit card section.”

So then I asked about transferring money to my bank account without a SWIFT code. “I’m sorry madam, I don’t know about that. I don’t work in overseas transfers.” I gritted my teeth and left. As I got on the bike to ride to work, it began to rain. I cycled through the cold rain on July 6 and listened to Sex Pistols over and over again until my rage warmed me up and I arrived at work where I found waiting in my mailbox, my original credit card and pin number which had been delivered sometime around June 21st and placed in our company mailbox which our useless assistant never bothered to tell me had mail in it for me.

On my way home from work, I’m going to listen to Gloria Gaynor “I will survive” over and over again.

Blind Dates in Amsterdam

Busy week this week...

Went to Geneva for two days for a meeting and saw Kavita, my colleague from RI. And.... SIMON arrived on Friday! My friend Margo brought him with her on her way here and thanks to an amazing effort by April, Laurie, and Alec....my fat needy Siamese is sitting here next to me on the couch purring up a storm. Since I had to buy a new litter box, cat food, and all the othr things that cats need when he got here, I ended up collapsed and exhausted on the sofa after he arrived and slept all day. While I was worried that he would be traumatized, he was fine. Within five minutes, he was out of the crate, running around the apartment adn gobbling up the "Welcome to Amsterdam" tuna I had set out for him.

As part of my efforts to meet folks, I agreed to go on a blind date with a guy I met on line. The blind date... well.. how to begin. It was an interesting exercise. He is American and IT guy, scifi reader, divorce from the midwest. Now, I tend to like guys who read scifi and are from the midwest, I'm not so sure about IT folks but if they can make me laugh....

On Tuesday night, he was supposed to call me and we were going to go out. He never called and sent me an email after I was already asleep. I agreed to forgive him and go out with him on Thursday since my goal was not to date him but to gather people around that I could go to events with...

On Thursday night, I emailed him to tell him I'd be at this bar called Bloemers at 8pm and I gave him the address and my phone number. At 8:30 he finally called me (the only reason I was waiting around was because I was drinking a beer and reading the International Herald Tribune). I gave him directions and he said he was on his way. I thought to myself that I would wait until 9pm. Nothing is more than 30 minutes walk away in Amsterdam and he was in Leidesplein which is not that far away. At 9:10, I was just about to pay my bill and leave when he showed up. It was raining, he just moved here (he told me) and he had gotten off the tram too early. Since that shit happens to me all the time, I understood.

within five minutes he told me a story about falling in love with a woman who he worked with and writing her love poetry while married to his pregnant wife. He left his wife for woman who turned out not to be as wonderful as he had expected since she smoked pot all the day as an artist. Now he's single...

Then when I was telling him a story, he leaned in and tried to kiss me! It was about 15 minutes into the meeting! I was not turned on by him and did not want to be kissed by this stranger. I told him it was my 'local pub' and I didn't believe in PDA so to chill out.

When the bill came, he didn't even offer to pick up my beers since I had been waiting for him for an hour and 10 mintues. In fact, he said - I only have a 5 or a 50. and put down the five. So I ended up buying one of his beers. Then I tried to shake him off by showing him where the tram stop was and telling I had to ride my bike home and he asked me to walk with him for a while. On every bridge, he tried to kiss me. Ugh. I was REALLY not interested in him. He was nice enough but not kiss worthy.

Finally, I got rid of him in Leideplein and he told me that he wasn't actually living in Amsterdam, he was visiting there for work every six weeks. So now I know he won't even be someone I can go to bars with when I don't feel like going alone. When i got home, there were three messages from him about how much he was going to miss me. How great we got along and how lonely his bed was. Yikes!

So - I'm not going to see him again but its nice to know that I'm still desirable to American IT guys. At least I'm not invisible.

Life is getting better with little Simon here - makes hanging out alone not so terrible. And I'm meeting people slowly and surely. My pilates class starts in July and the Tango starts up soon too.

For those of you who missed it...

My friend Kevin was nice enough to take some photos of the Jeopardy appearance and put them up on a website for those of you who missed the show!!!

http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=167100524/a=2259746_23797776/t_=2259746

Some photos of my apartment!

Here's my apartment from the outside... I'm on the third floor with the bay window.

This is my kitchen looking out onto the balcony and the back of the apartment

From the backdoor looking out...

The balcony!

The bedroom (note the boxes)- and the little cupboard hides the water heater which cycles on and off all night long. Not super restful.

The bathtub/sink combo in my bedroom... There are curtains to provide privacy when guests are here, I guess.

The living room with the all to the kitchen on the left...None of those African decorations will be here after tomorrow though ):

Living Room looking out the bay window.

The "Reading Nook"/Guest Room/Dressing Room part of the living room.

View from the bay window...

View from the "Reading Nook" and FINALLY....

My bike... the trusty steed that gets me around.

Airports from Hell

I just read a great article by the "Ask the Pilot" section of salon.com where he invited readers to submit their favorite and least favorite airports in. I wish I had known about it before. It made me think about my own fine experiences hopping around airports throughout the world.

The worst: IAD, Dulles in DC - my former home airport for foreign travel. No internet connection unless you sit on the filthy floor outside the airline clubs, unhealthy, disgusting food (unless you get to the very new terminal which must be situated in Maryland because it takes hours to walk there) and god help you if you take the USAIR regional jet terminal - you walk forever to find the gate, get on a bus, drive around across runways for 40 minutes, arrive in a prefab building attached to nothing with a million people packed in, not enough seats for them all, no signs, and a truly expensive 'deli'. It was more like a bus station than an airport.

Charles De Gaulle, Paris France - spent all their space on long walkways to the plane and then put customs, transit, baggage claim, info and all those long runways emptying into a 6 foot area. Rude employees who smoke in front of you.

But the best has to be my third world experiences:

Monrovia, Liberia - Chaos, bullet holes, outrageous humidity, go through customs and the door doesn't fit into the frame, its leaning next to it. Sells Massengil douche in the 'gift shop'

Lungi in Freetown Sierra Leone - located on an island - you can take the drunken Bulgarian piloted helicopter to the mainland or the decrepit Greek 1940s era ferry that dodges wrecks of ferries that didn't make it before.

Conakry in Guinea- crowds of touts, threatening, heavily armed guards pushing past you and yelling at you, if you don't know your weight in kilos, they make you sit on a scale used to weigh luggage.

Cairo, Egypt - I was herded into a room filled with angry Yemeni youth about to be deported from Egypt and being kept under armed guard. Everytime they rose up as one to demand better treatment, the Egyptian police laughed and slapped a few of them. Frightened US tourists huddled by the metal detector. People take your passports for hours on end. The shuttle bus driver tries to shake you down for money. the gift shops sell the most appalling gaudy faux Egyptian crap I've ever seen.

Let me think - I'll send some more. Add some comments with your faves and least faves!

Fighting the Tyranny of the Morning People

Late risers unite in Denmark
By Chris Morris BBC News, Denmark

If you find it hard to get up in the morning, don't despair - you're not lazy, you're just genetically programmed that way, says the B-Society in Denmark.

I have still got a rather nasty bruise on my shin at the moment after the flawed execution of my latest elaborate plan - to make sure I did not miss the dreaded early morning flight. I was sleeping rather fitfully in the spare room downstairs, trying to avoid waking up the rest of the house, when the time ticked around to 4.30. First the phone alarm on the bedside table chirruped. I soon dealt with that. But then one minute later the alarm clock cunningly hidden on the other side of the room burst into life. The trick is to place an obstacle - in this case my son's rickety wooden rocking horse - in your path, making immediate access difficult. Now I know it is not my fault. I am a B-person

The idea, obviously, is that by the time you find the blasted clock you are awake.
The trouble was, in this case, in my bleary-eyed trance, I forgot about the horse altogether and crashed into it at some speed. Searing pain, followed by muffled obscenities, left me lying in a heap on the floor, the alarm clock still beeping impatiently. I made the flight, the sunrise looked lovely, but boy do I hate mornings. But it is OK. Now I know it is not my fault. I am a B-person.

A B-person - as opposed to an A-person - genetically pre-disposed to operate better and to be more alert later in the day. Denmark it seems is full of B-people. So where better to form the B-society? Six months after it was set up, it already boasts several thousand members. Now it is campaigning hard for businesses to sign up to its B-certification list. The glazed looks on the faces of grumpy commuters are disturbingly familiar "We're calling," the society proclaims in its manifesto, "for an uprising against the tyranny of early rising." Mmm, sounds good.

But how does it work in practice? Rush-hour in Copenhagen seems relatively sedate to me - it is certainly not central London on a wet Monday morning. But the glazed looks on the faces of grumpy commuters are disturbingly familiar. So, time to find some B-pioneers.

Flexible working
One strong cup of coffee later and I was on my way to meet Stephen Alstrup who runs his own B-certified company. By the time he gets to his train station the platform is empty and so are most of the seats on his commuter train. "I'm useless early in the morning," he says cheerfully. "All I can do is drink coffee, and stare into space." "People used to get up early because they had to feed the animals. But I haven't got any cows or chickens, so I can sleep late." And when we get to Stephen's office, that is empty too - apart from one member of staff who has been there most of the night and is just leaving, and the company's only A-person who actually enjoys the early start.

The rest of them arrive when they choose - any time up to 3.30pm or so - each to their own rhythm.

Business benefits
It is a small hi-tech company and Stephen needs brains which are working at full speed.
It used to be called disorganised but not any more "Everybody gains," he says, "they're here when they're fully awake, and the business benefits." More confusing for me is the guy who works to a 25 hour clock. If he is in at 10 today, it will be 11 tomorrow, then 12 - you can get the general idea. I do not know where his cycle had got to when we called at the office but there was certainly no sign of him by midday. It used to be called disorganised, but not any more, not in Denmark. His body clock is just different.

And it is not just businesses which are getting in on the act. Are you a teenager who cannot get out of bed in the morning? Or a parent who never quite gets the kids to school on time? Fear not - the Danes may have the solution: B-classes.

Work-life balance
From next year a school in Copenhagen will offer classes which start later in the day - at 10 instead of eight. It is likely to prove popular. Some people might think you're lazy - but there's more to it than that Danish Minister Carina Christensen Even the government seems to like the idea. Work-life balance is a big political issue in Denmark, Families Minister Carina Christensen tells me. And B-philosophy fits right in with the need for a flexible labour force. When I confess that I think I am a B-person, she gives me a comforting smile. "Don't worry," she says, "some people might think you're lazy - but there's more to it than that."

Well, I hope so. The B-society and its founder Camilla Kring are certainly convinced that they are on to a winner. "It's a 24/7 society," she says, as we sit in a park and watch some swans... swanning around. "Our institutions have got to move with the times." Quite so. Which means the choice should be yours. As one famous Dane once said: "To B or not to B?" In modern life, that really is the question.

Normality?

Things are getting more normal here in Amsterdam. Sorry for the blah blah blah post - it wasn't a comment on how I felt about Jeopardy but was supposed to be a placeholder until I had the inclination to write more. I guess last week was a pretty tough week for me.

I had forgotten how hard it can be to be new in an area. While I have friends here from before, they, of course, have their own lives. Everyone here is super scheduled like in DC or are married with kids so it changes the dynamics. And - after spending 8 hours a day at work talking to strangers, trying to figure out what it is I'm supposed to do and learn all the crazy acronyms that come along with this particular organization, I'm often quite tired, fed up, and cranky when I get home. I want the easy comfort of my DC friendships where we can go to the 'local' and bitch and moan and laugh or I can just say -come on over and lets order Chinese and watch crap tv. I don't really have anyone to do that with here.

But I talked it out with my fellow expat - Mike D (yo! Wat up?)- and realized that I can't just sit on my ass and expect the world to come to me, as nice as that might be. So after a week of feeling like I might be invisible, feeling like I was destined to die alone in this apartment and noone would notice until the smell got too bad and they would break in by my back balcony to find me dead in the tiny closet of the bathroom, I had that day where I cried a bit. Cursed a bit. Had a good pout. Made nasty comments out loud on my balcony hoping that the loving couple that kiss each other on the balcony all the time could hear me. Then I got a grip.

I went online and joined a group - something called Meetin.org that organizes events for a mostly expat crowd. I went onto an online dating site and set up a blind date. I signed up for a pilates class and found a tango class. I got on my bike and explored the city on Saturday afternoon. Shopped in the street market- bought peonies, strawberries, toyed with the idea of buying an antique linen nightie. Sat in a cafe called "The Cat in the Vineyard" reading my latest New Yorker with a bunch of jolly old Dutch women who kept laughing, ordering more drinks, inviting in more jolly old Dutch women and finally just took over my table and sat with me. They didn't speak English but included me in their conversation, nonetheless. after about twenty minutes, I decided to give up my seat for the latest old fat jolly Dutch Woman who was arriving and move on. I rode for a while down to Prinzengracht and as it started to rain, chained up my bike and went into a cafe for a cappucino. Lovely!

Rode around and explored for a while. Almost got pushed into a canal by a guy in a Range Rover (these streets are narrow!). I went into the Blues Record Shop that I've been walking by for the past three years that's never been open. Chatted up the owner who told me of a good concert coming up. Found a CD that I will buy when I get over the shock of paying 20 Euros for a CD. I made the mistake of going down Spui street and almost ran into some tourists and almost fell off my bike. Went to a photo exhibit outside the church near where Anne Frank's house is - amazing photos by Stephen Bloom.

I met three new people at the Botanical Gardens the next day and have events to go to this weekend. Friends are coming to visit in the next few weeks. And work is getting better. I may be headed to Papua New Guinea or Nepal in the next month to look at the issue of gender-based violence. Or to Central African Republic although the recent death of a MSF employee there makes that very doubtful.

So - normality approaches. I keep riding that bike to work every day, getting a little more fit and a little more confident each day.

Morphing slowly into a Dutchwoman?

After a long 4 day weekend in Berlin with my high school friend, Mike, I returned to Amsterdam. I was feeling a little apprehensive... things hadn't been completely hunky dory here - while I had met some people, I had an apartment, and my work was now starting to make sense - the easy laughs and enjoyment one feels when one is with a good friend was going to be hard to forget. To make matters worse, as Mike and his neighbor Kimmo (a very funny Finnish journalist) dropped me at the airport, I found myself with a rowdy drunk group of Dutch people returning home after a party weekend in Berlin. They all laughed uproariously and joked and jostled about as I opened up my book to read - solitary again. As we started our descent into Amsterdam, the atmosphere was oppressively dark and damp. The flat, neat, squares of Dutch farms looked green but the rolling hills, forests, and cityscape of Berlin seemed livelier somehow. When I arrived in my apartment filled with another person's art and belongings, my sense of not belonging increased.

The next day, I went off to work, determined to really try to understand my new job and organization and at least find some satisfaction through my job. I had a long meeting with my soon to be boss about her vision of what I should do. Rather than finding juicy new issues to sink my teeth in, I was shocked to hear that she was particularly interested in my ability to look at health data collection systems and analyze them. In other words, back to the world of MEASURE Evaluation! Now, rather than feeling challenged to do this in a way that includes my interest in gender and gender-based violence, instead I remembered how bored and unappreciated I felt that whole time with my terrible bosses Anne and Erin. How they constantly put me down and held me back from doing anything fulfilling.

I left work that day and headed home on the tram, spying my bus waiting for me at Central Station as the tram pulled in. I ran for the bus and missed it as it pulled off. Since I live in the North West of the town, the buses only run every 30 minutes. Deciding whether or not it would be better to wait for 30 minutes or walk home which would take about 25 minutes (and yes, it was starting to rain), I started to step off a curb, jumped back from a bicycle, twisted my ankle and fell off my Dansko clogs into the path of a tram. Luckily, it was stopped at the light and I picked myself up. Scraped up knee, twisted ankle, and damaged pride seemed to be my only injuries but I cursed the entire city of Amsterdam for my bad luck. DAMN YOU AMSTERDAM!!!!!! I spent the rest of the evening listening to the radio because my cable TV was out and reading the MSF policy on abortion and thinking about the women of Darfur. Not very uplifting. I was inspired that night to look harder for the missing bicycle keys that were stashed in my apartment somewhere. The next day, I got the bicycle out and decided to ride to work. I hadn't ridden a bicycle in at least a year and rush hour bicycling in Amsterdam is not for the faint hearted. I followed an older woman who seemed to know what she was doing and cruised along the highways. Amsterdam has separate bike lanes on the highways and traffic lights just for bikers. A very sane approach. Everything was going pretty well until I got right behind Centraal Station where the ferries from the islands in the North dock. People WHIP off those ferries on their bikes and stream out onto the lanes. I wobbled through them - and made it out alive. I finally arrived at work about 20 minutes later - a little sweaty, a little anxious, but alive!!! I was very proud of myself.

Wednesday was also the first day of our CO-days (which I don't know what it means but I think means Country Officers Days). All of the medical directors from our programs out in the field gather in Holland for a series of presentations on issues and stimulating discussion about solutions. I attended a session on Reproductive Health and watched as our medical directors from Sudan, Ivory Coast, Somalia, and Colombia presented tangible examples of the things I've always studied. It was thrilling. I rode my bike home that night, feeling a little steadier, a little more confident, and a little less unsure of myself. Slowly, I'm morphing into a Dutch woman; I suppose - on my bicycle, by the canals, and over the bridges - not just a lonely expat.

My New Commute Home!

Today was my first day commuting to work from my new apartment. although the woman I'm renting the apartment from has given me her bicycle, she doesn't know where the keys are so I'm still looking for them and don't have a bike to ride to work yet. So - on the way to work, I took the bus and then transferred to the tram. Whipping along on the way to work with all the other commuters, I didn't really get a good feel for my commute so I decided to walk home and explore a little bit more.

I work near the zoo in the East (Oost) part of town. It’s a nice area with the zoo, the Botanical Gardens, and the Jewish Historical museum. Right as I was about to walk across the bridge over a canal, the bells started ringing – the bridge was opening. The great thing about the canals here are that they are mostly working canals! Two big flat boats (ships? Tankers?) came slowly through the canals – with big Dutch guys at the helm and lacy curtains and flowers in the windows of the boats. As the crowd started to gather at the edges of the bridge, we watched the ‘gatemaster’ wave to the boats and prepare to close the bridge. There is only one gatemaster, I think. He rides a small moped and wears a uniform. He zooms from bridge to bridge opening them and closing them as the boats slowly cruise along the canals.

I joined the throngs of people crossing over the canal on their bikes, on foot, and with two trams waiting. The weather was nice but a bit overcast. I decided to walk the whole way home, finding my way along rather than using a map. I crossed through Waterlooplein, where there is a big daily market, and continued down past the Chinese dimsum place that Corinne and I found the other weekend. As I walked along, I was behind a woman with EXTREMELY tight jeans on walking a small Yorkshire terrier. She had the handle for the leash tucked in her back pocket as she smoked a joint and sashayed along on high heels. She waved at all the bars as we walked by – me right behind her. Finally she turned around to hug a woman walking by and I realized she was a transsexual (or Transgendered person)! She had an extremely deep voice and was Asian. A HERMASIAN!

At that point, I was making my way through the Red Light District. Although it was only 6pm, the prostitutes were working and unlike Friday night when I showed around my friend Rick’s coworker, there were actually men going in to the little rooms. I was wondering if anyone actually went in there or if it was just drunk English bachelor parties harassing them. I continued to walk along through some of the allies and side streets filled with coffee shops and bars. I passed the sex shops and the fast-food shops and slowly moved into the reggae clothes/porno DVDs/marijuana paraphernalia/ postcards/Amsterdam hoodies section of town. I kept walking and eventually hit the West part of town and a street called Haarlemerstraat – a very cute boutique filled shop where there seemed to be less tourists and more Dutch people. There are some lovely cafes there and suddenly (!!) I came upon the West India House – the site of Corinne and Remco’s wedding reception. I remember some hysterical times there laughing with Alec and Carolyn out by the canal. I passed Portuguese delis, olive oil emporiums, trendy dress shops, scuba diving shops, bakeries, and shoe shops.

As I walked down the street and headed north, I crossed canals until I got to my neighborhood. I’m not sure of the name of the neighborhood but Tasmanstraat – parallels the Ij (river? Lake? Pond? ). I’m on the third floor (sorry – I thought it was the second!) with a nice view of the river (lake? Pond? Sea? ) and some trees… It’s 9:30 at night and the sun is still shining. I’m off to Berlin on Thursday to see my friend Mike Dumiak and learn more about Chad and the Central African Republic where my next trip might be…

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