In Babel, the movie filmed partly in the town next to mine-- four hours from the Mecca of desert filmmaking, Ourzazate-- Kate Blanchett has a moving scene where she has found her husband huddled in a small desert bivouac, drinking tea. She asks him what he's doing there, he never answers other than to ask her questions, too. I've never been sure which person is more compelling, and which is more pathetic. I've come to stand up for the guy having chosen to be there, despite the fact that we are given very little info about what he is there for, and why he left his family back in San Diego. Often I see myself in Brad Pitt (the rumor is that he visited a volunteer's house in Agdez and left a note for her, wanting her to show him around). Sometimes I'm Kate Blanchett, doing the prodding. Sometimes, the easiest answer is, ''if you have to ask, you'll never know.'' But I also realized if I were to come, this is the time of my life to do it: not like Brad in the movie, when there's people, wife and kids and others counting on me SO MUCH to be present.
But, you make your decisions and you can't control how the others react to them. I'm lucky in that I've had such acceptance of being here and the fact that I'm allowed to continue participating. Each time a person sits down at a computer to chat with me, taking the time out of their schedule... I dont deserve it and I know that, and I realize I've taken myself out of my ''spot'' and noone is obligated to humor me. So that's a huge lesson, the extent to which people have supported me. And not without thanks on my end!
Bolivianos/ Incan men practicing TINKU, the Andean martial art. .... enough empty, maddening and exhilarating hours to read all 900 pages, of little-print THE STAND in its Italian version... before I knew Italian.
... the chance to become a Berber man, and with it: a much more relaxed lifestyle, sometimes too much so. The best fruits and veggies in my life, and enough time to learn how to make dishes. I've relearnt cooking because I use different methods with different ingredients, so that fact alone means most food I put in my mouth is automatically a whole different gastronomy than what I normally do.
...chance to be an Incan man, eating peanut soup, saltenias, potatoes rice and the odd chunio at 9,500 feet above sea level in the Andes -- just halfway up the mountain. To walk each week 10 km down to 6000 feet to Icla where my friend and I would eat an omelette, I'd buy a can of peaches to eat with my thrice-daily cereal and after a game of chess/book club, I'd walk the 10km back up the other way. The pictures I'm looking at while writing this look so incredible, like computer-generated for a sci-fi movie or something.
... I thought I'd gained back 5 or 10 pounds of the 45 that Ive lost--and I was heavier in November but after the holiday gluttony and the travel I'm back down to where I was before.
... a country where I've swam in the Mediterranean AND the Atlantic, and live 24 hours from both of them.
...''learned to stop caring and love the bomb.'' Quote from DR STRANGELOVE. But there's a real effect from that Inshallah that you get again and again, and when you hear yourself say it endlessly, you really kind of step-back and take your hand off the steering wheel and look out the window more at the scenery.
...biked through the Atlas and slept by a waterfall with my best sahabin!
...learned learning Arabic is not the reason you should come here. But that never was why I came.
...I dream smaller dreams for myself and bigger ones for other people.
...USA forever, its a great country. Or really, it's like every country in one, and we're OK with that
...You can't know Islam until you know a few dozen hundred Muslims.
...the exhilaration of having my first bee sting, crawled up into my neck through a crack in the zipper -- while a dozen people were staring at me, epipens in hand, in case my throat closed and my head swelled and Bad Things. But couldnt even tell it, even though the stinger was embedded in my throat for the next half hour!
...the chance to know the difference between the cous cous of each region of Morocco.
...to have FREAKED OUT stepping off the airplane in Europe after more than a year here continuously and being only one of many white people. Being able to not be stared at -- though I still had the feeling everyone there knew I wasn't one of them. On the same two trips, to be shocked when seeing girls with their hair out. To be flabbergasted when presented with the decadence of monotemporality in the Swiss Lac region. To think some very vile thoughts when watching young people who all wear Gucci in Italy (and to know its the authentic stuff) before being impressed by the idea, and the painstaking detail that went into each sidewalk and building in Milan.
...to go home in 2008 and awaken each night with my teeth grinding, my face in a painful grimace, unsure of where I was or what I was doing there: a refugee that left with the guilt of having gone instead to a better condition.
...More than half way through of my goal, living one year on all 7 continents! But, way too fast! I'm 25! Am I going to have to upgrade this into ''biomes''...? Both China and Java? Both Morocco and Mozambique?
...reinforcing a lot of bad habits, and having to find my misplaced virtues again and again
AND the agony of a celibate boy that believes celibacy is the most overrated virtue.
But with only myself to blame.
...Meeting more than 1000 really cool people, but few that compare to the old crew back home(s).
...Sucre, Cochabamaba, Rumi Mayu, La Paz, Lima, Icla Candelaria, Tarabuco, Sefrou, Ourzazate, Zagora, Azrou, Nkob, Tazarine, the Draa Valley, plus 25 of y friends' towns here and another 10 in Bolivia: Sopachuy etc;; etc;
...being there long enough in each place for my family to usely know what I'm talking about when I mention somewhere
...a fierce love of modern ear-plugs (''Ear plugs are heaven'')
...the ability and opportunity to have extremely beautiful moments and more rarely, to understand the worst side of myself, resulting in : well-worn tear ducts.
...INFINITE JEST, the new passion
...Living the dream!
...written and sent nearly a hundred letters., and a lot of practice writing cursive.
Now your turn. Te toca!
Part 2
--number one gift, the chance to grow up more fully, far away from the support systems that worked at home but that I relied too heavily on (and still do, too much).
--very intense but transient friendships
--Shakespeare Sunday
This is not the one we had -- the one we had was two timesbigger than this, brought out in three sections!
**Picture to follow**
-- Andrew Porter's Expectations lesson
-- A great respect for the versatility of pastries across cultures. Doughnuts in Southern Bolivia, one Boliviano each, so good every person ate 4/day; saltenias in the Andes at the Sucre place, utter goodness with the small, evil un-pitted olive hidden inside to crack the tourists' teeth; schbekiya, the Ramadan treat of the Arab world, fried bread covered in honey and sesame seeds; the decadence of the Sefrou pastry shops, the majority of which contained a mashed peanut spread that was scrumptious; miliya, which is like an oily and yummy flat bread; plus the daily bread of the Baker in Morocco, who helped cure my insomnia as I watched him put 60 loaves into his enormous oven while I nursed a cup of tea at 630 AM; plus homemade chocolate banana pancakes that I see volunteers make, and the fondly remembered moments of sharing my waffles with people in Candelaria, carrying a plate of them from house to house so that the women can try them. And sure, you can get all of these things in one or two blocks on NYC, sometimes better than the real thing, but there's more meaning attached because these are flavors, smells and indulgences that have very specific place-and-time stamps attached to them in my brain, that Proust-like will catapult me back to a younger Ben, trying them for the first time, with a very select group of individuals.
--The murderous, triumphant statue in Tarabuco
Hovering over the dead Spanish soldier, he holds the man's heart in his hand and it's dripped blood onto his shorts - the first thing Tourists saw whence stepping out of their Land Rovers.
-- surprising fact (but really is it so surprising?) that most people in PC are/were more liberal than me
--being around people from all states/regions/cultures of the US : from the Dominican community in Queens to Alaska, to the more sheltered Midwesterners, to US Virgin Islanders that never had been north of Orlando (until we flew out of Philly/New York). I'm trying to get a handle on the accents this next year so I can plant people in their respective boxes -- though fat chance they'll stay there for long, is the problem with boxes and people.
--PC has given me many job assets that I'll likely never use // Foreign Service has never seemed less appealing than now // but a wealth of personal ones that I'll rely on every day
--An example of which is the singer-songwriter types that I've met that have shaped me and my ambitions to a great extent.
--Learned to stop complaining . Just today I talked with Doug, the new guy in Agdez, about how ... I go to Switzerland and can't even fathom the person that thought to justify the vast expanses of side walks that are rarely used... just the idea of every road automatically having a side walk seems so overblown, over the top, luxurious even.
- An equally full amount of contact with nonUS people traveling through the areas I am. Czechs, Aussies, French and
--Enlarged sympathies to the causes of marginalized/ abused/ overlooked peoples, whether that be from emotionally outcast individuals to the politically oppressed to the average immigrant. Because I've been on the receiving side of all of that: beaten up, kicked out, targeted, robbed, persecuted, ridiculed and mocked.
--Learned to not complain, to take the hide road (viz. the above). Never contemplated murder but I've imagined some spectacular and ironic deaths in which I'm a passive observer.
--Stared at a boy riding on the bumper of a dump truck, on the outside holding the wall and stepping on the truck's ball bearing, and thinking : There's 20 adults behind me, and they all could care less, and one bump and bye-bye. That was nearly enough trauma to send me home: because I was thinking, should I cause a scene? Or do I watch laissez-faire-ishly whatever happens with the emotionally detached perspective of an anthropologist that will not intervene, no matter what risk?
-- thanks to PC, I've been able to more fully enjoy the abundant pleasures of utilizing the complete range of my throat's linguistic capabilities: glottal stops, the Arabic Ein ( more or less the same dynamics of the sound sheep and goats use, but stuck between consonants) , the soft, non-rolled R that is even more difficult than the French version, sort of like the purr of a kitten but when their mouth is closed-- and smaller pleasures and extremely bizzare of a class of phenomena I'll call '' localizers'', things that you do and say that really highlight where-the-hell-you-are-and-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here -type qualities, eg., saying Bizza Hut has the best bizza in Morocco!
--Another example of the above: Knowing without having to ask when people ask how is life in Yoo-zaa, or its variants : Spanish ''oo-sa'', ''yoo-sa'', ''us-ah'' . And by this time, declining to explain that it's properly said, U.S.A., an acronym not a word. Becuase why explain it when noone else they know uses it the right way? The same with Bizza Hut. They say Pizza Hut and noone gets it until they say it the common way in the place where they are.
--''I've become Charlie Chaplin'' or, how PC gave me the ability to communicate with my hands/ face / eyes / shoulders / knees / lips (nonverbally) / toenails. BODYLANGUAGE. Two illustrative stories related to this: going to Milano in October, I opened my mouth to speak in Italian and Anto and Serena look at me, each one surprised and laughing and saying, why/how did you learn that gesture? Then they each said something to the effect of, ''You've picked up our ways too well!'' But this came totally organically from having to mime my way through the near endless contact with the language barrier.
I told this to Doug today and he said : so, my mother and grandfather are 100 percent Italian (Auguri DOUG!) and that my mom has a story about that . The joke is, when they were little, the two sisters would hold their Italian dad's hands behind his back. The result? He no longer was able to speak!
I'm sure there's more, that's all I got for now!
----
Addendum
1. The Texas Longhorn Sign
Learn from my mistakes and leave your Texas pride at home. The longhorn sign, often a fun sign thrown around in Texas, is one of the most offensive signs in Italy. When you direct this gesture at someone you are calling them a “cornuto(a)” and are insinuating that their boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband is cheating on them.
2. The Head Nod
Ok, try this. Look straight ahead, dip your head down and then kick it up while making a little “tisk” sound. Perfetto! You must be Italian! This body language cue has been the source of hundreds of misunderstandings between my husband and me since we met nine years ago. You see, in America when we nod our heads up and down (or even down and up) it would signal affirmation. In Italy, it is the opposite.
3. The Pinched Fingers
Similar to the hand sign you would make when you snap your fingers, this is one of the most “Italian” hand gestures in the country and one my father-in-law directs at me all too often. The meaning? What are you talking about?!?
from http://my-bellavita.com/2009/07/07/travel-tip-tuesday-when-actions-speak-louder-than-words/
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