free burma rangers.

Waking up every morning to have coffee overlooking miles of palm forest, sun glinting off a thirsty lake, horses rolling around a soccer field and a gentle haze of Thai steam rising off the mud is one of the most peaceful ways to begin a day. And then the hurricane that is the Eubank family hits.

The Eubanks were kind enough to host us on their massive ranch outside of Chiang Mai, and this is what you get with your morning coffee if you stay with this generous family: detailed conversation regarding whether or not the term "genocide" is correct for the Burmese political situation, slide shows of children who have been shot, and stories of land mines and dying babies and incredible courage. But it's all in a day's work for Dave, who runs what is quite possibly the most intense operation I have ever seen in real life.

The Free Burma Rangers is a covert (ie. illegal) guerrilla relief and humanitarian force aiding refugees fleeing the Burmese Army. It's hardcore relief work that runs like the army, if the army operated with the ends of wholeness and healing. It has succeeded in creating a network of radios that inform villagers of pending attacks so they can escape, but also so world news sources can stay up to date on situations that the Burmese government would otherwise never give them access to. It's dangerous work, and the strength it requires for them to work daily with 5 year old gunshot victims and 8 year old rape victims and murdered infants is honestly beyond me.

When the family isn't on the ground in Burma, they use their home in Thailand as Grand Central Station (to paint a picture, we shared a visit with a British couple and their two tiny boys who run a development program in Afghanistan; an MIT grad student who does communications work for FBR, an FBR soldier on injured reserve, and next week a California Congressman is on his way with a delegation. Quiet? Never). And although it would be more simple and peaceful to watch The View with your morning caffeine, there is something so encouraging and strengthening about spending time with people who have deep faith and who are passionate-- for excellence, for love, for justice and for others-- that a few days hearing some of the darkest stories in the universe somehow wound up feeling like a bigger story of hope being woven throughout hopelessness.

Here's the FBR website, which can explain this incredible project better than I:

http://www.freeburmarangers.org/

please don't stand in front of the dear leader.

He may look like your fun hipster grandpa, but trust me, you do NOT want to mess with this man.*

At this point in my life, the closest thing I've come to experiencing Communism was drinking vodka with Russians in Prague almost exactly two decades after the end of the Cold War. I won't say it was really heavily focused on the relative merits of democracy, either, so in terms of a cultural experience it was more theoretical than anything. That changed on Friday, when Mom and I headed north-- but not too far north, because that would involve getting shot on sight.

"Nothing normal happens here. EVER."

To set even a pinky toe on the border of North Korea, here is what we had to do: wake up at 5 am, take the subway for an hour to the USO office, take a bus for another hour and arrive at the edge of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), switch buses and go through a kind of "indoctrination" into the UN-- "No pointing, no waving, no gestures that North Korea could interpret as hostile, no bags, no photos unless we are in specific zones." We signed waivers that declared if we got shot or kidnapped, the military wasn't responsible for whatever we did wrong. Then we took another bus through the Joint Security Area and became aware that we were suddenly in the weirdest place we'd ever encountered, and it was only 9:30 am.

"We're watching you, you Western capitalist pigs." (please note the man with a camera, trying to be sneaky in the lower left window)

As our baby-faced military guide recounted 60 years of Korean history in ten minutes, I was pretty much losing my head with excitement because how many times have I sat in a foreign policy class trying to figure out how to save the world and never actually pictured the front lines of where all the negotiation happens? I almost peed from excitement and nerves. The DMZ is the most heavily militarized border in the entire world, and one of the most fascinating stretches of land I have ever set foot on, as it's a line that divides two completely disparate worlds that share a name. It's the difference between a swiftly growing Asian economy that's connected with the rest of the world and a socialist, totalitarian police state with one of the world's strictest (ie. craziest) dictators. You heard it here first, people: Kim Jong-il is CRA. ZY.


Left foot in democratic South Korea, right foot in nuts-as-all-getout North Korea




The stare-down that is border patrol.

Let me expound. In brief, North Korea is absolutely batshit, and the people there think they are the only country in the world that has it all figured out. They are 100% utterly convinced that Kim Il-ung is God and that they are living the dream. I could fill a book with all the bizarre things we heard about the personality cult that keeps North Koreans in line, and how juvenile it is (in a super-deluded and dangerous playground bully kind of way), and how hell-bent the regime is on keeping North Korea isolated from just about everything that exists. Here's a sampling:

1. The negotiation room that sits on the border, evenly split between North and South, has to be cleared out by two armed soldiers before tourists can enter. They used to only have one, until two years ago, when the soldier securing the back entrance was ambushed from the north side of the building by NK military, who broke through and tried to drag him across the border. Now ROK soldiers have to hold onto each others holsters or link arms when securing the area. To this I say, "what the hell?"


2. In an effort to avoid the land-mine-ridden DMZ but still sneakily invade South Korea, North Korea dug a bunch of tunnels, one of which was later uncovered with the help of a North Korean defector who had helped build it. North Korea then denied having built the tunnel, like a dumb kid standing in front of a broken lamp holding a baseball bat, despite the fact that the dynamite blasts were pointing south and water was draining north. Finally, they admitted having built it, but claimed it was an old coal mine (in an area that's almost entirely made of granite). So, in the most believable cover-up in the history of mining, North Korea PAINTED THE WALLS BLACK. "Nothing to see down here but some old coal! Run along!"

3. Checkpoint Charlie: Shane from Vice Magazine said something about this spot being one of the most dangerous places in the world, since you're standing surrounded on 3 sides by a totalitarian dictatorship, but I found it just pretty eerie. I mean, technically we aren't looking at Kabul or Mogadishu here, but the possibility of massive war is, I suppose, what made the Cold War so quietly powerful in the first place. Here's a shot of the sham town Kijong-dong, with the tallest flag pole in the world to show everyone how awesome and powerful North Korea is and designed to lure South Koreans across the border to join this utopia. But it's a lonely town-- these buildings are all empty; a facade created to give the illusion of bustling prosperity. And you can't see it in this photo, but there are wave blockers lining the southern border to prevent any outside information from entering the country. Our guide told us that "recently, Chinese airwaves have been infiltrating, and that's a really good thing for North Koreans." How do you know your country is in huge trouble? When getting media from CHINA is a step up.

North Korea has a bad thing going. Development is stunted and the standard of living is, relatively speaking, quite low. This photo is a snapshot of the Korean peninsula by night-- there's China on the left, and Seoul glowing like a firefly, and an eerie void in between. That's North Korea, a state that allows its denizens zero control over just about everything (including their own thought processing capabilities) and recently demanded 65 TRILLION DOLLARS from the US as reparations for damages incurred since the Korean War. This is why I never would have succeeded in my original plan to be a diplomat: how do you not laugh when Dr. Evil asks you for a million dollars in all seriousness? It's too much!

Kim Jong-il is a character begging to be made fun of, but when it comes down to it, this is a huge tragedy. This man holding razor wire kind of says it all-- his family was split down the middle and the two paths they took could not have been more disparate. The scariest part about North Korea is that their citizens have no clue how bad it really is-- they think they're experiencing utopia when it's actually more like hell on earth.


Here is the Vice Guide to North Korea-- pretty much the most fascinating 45 minutes you could spend today, I recommend you getting involved so we can experience the mind warp together.

*Amy mentioned that if I post this entry, my blog may get blocked from her computer since South Korea is pretty into censorship when it comes to issues of the North. Everyone is sooo sensitive around here about brutal dictatorships! However, the free press shall conquer yet again when we land in Bangkok on Thursday!

pen vs.sword

Some of my favorite images from an exhibit on freedom and the press in the Museo Nacional de Arte in La Paz, Bolivia. Better late than never!

evo it is.

Evo won by a landslide, and I have decided to continue believing in his democratic legitimacy, because sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. Or something.

election weekend!

It's election weekend in Bolivia and tomorrow's vote will decide whether or not Evo gets to stay in office. We went to a rally for the opposition party in Sucre's town square the other night, and it's like Obama came to town: Manfred is the next big thing!

Fun fact: Bolivians aren't allowed to buy/have alcohol for the 40 hours leading up to voting! NO DRUNKIES IN THE VOTING BOOTHS, POR FAVOR.

As we spent long days in the desert last week, our driver Sergio and I passed the time in the freezing Altiplano talking about the government (strange thing about a second language: I can carry on a detailed Spanish conversation about politics but sometimes forget how to tell a simple joke. Oy vey). Our first night, as we huddled next to an open stove in an adobe hut, Sergio told me in his slow, round Bolivian drawl about how so many campesinos, including his mother, didn't have a national identity card until Evo mandated that they be free of charge. With that, she joined the masses of poor workers, previously disenfranchised, who put him into office four years ago.
Great deal, right? I always thought the story of Evo's election in 2006 sounded like what politics should be: a poor Aymara campesino makes good, and uses his trailblazing presidency to unite a country in a more equitable system and remind Bolivians that the Quechua and Aymara have significance as well. Oh wow. I'm so idealistic sometimes. As usual, politics are WAY more corrupt and human nature WAY shadier than I want to admit.

My Spanish tutor JuanJose just rolls his eyes when Evo's name comes up, and he is fairly indicative of the even divide between "city Bolivians" and "country Bolivians." Yes, as Sergio told me before, Evo did provide free carnet cards to the campesinos who didn't have them before, but he also did it illegally, since many of them were given double cards. He also traded the identity cards directly for votes. In the villages, elections were not a private affair, as campesinos had to hold up their vote for public review after casting it in the booth. If they didn't vote for Evo, they were punished; for example, public beatings with a belt. And with such measures, he naturally had a landslide victory with the previously disenfranchised villagers. "He has also succeeded in dividing those in the city and those in the campo," JuanJose said with disappointment. "He wants to change the constitution, and when city-dwellers protest (as they did in Sucre recently) they are beat down. Three people died here and many more were injured, but Evo never once acknowledged it or apologized for what happened. People in the city don't like him at all, for good reason."

Later, I chatted with Marisol about the same thing and she shook her head sadly at the unjust government that is just "otra cara de la misma moneda"-- another side of the same coin. She also mourned the lack of education outside of the cities that prevents the majority of Quechua and Aymara villagers from seeing beyond charisma, as well as the placation measures that give them the false sense of progress (for example, a new 50 boliviano monthly stipend for pregnant mothers. 50 bolivianos is about $6: "that's not help! That's an insult!" Marisol cries. But because it's 50 bolivianos more than they got before, they are deceived into thinking the government is progressing).

Voting is on Sunday, and emotions are running high in Sucre.

more politics.

Fun fact I learned today: graffito is the singular form of graffiti. Who knew?





Yanks out of Latin America!












Uniforms warp men and make them crazy.















We're here to protect you.











Freedom to choose! Free, legal abortion!

...which is why you're speaking English?

Let the capitalists pay for the crisis.

la felicidad

Buenos Aires is not an aptly named city. As soon as your plane lands, the "New York of South America" hands you a fine film on your lungs and a halo of smog, like getting lei'd on Oahu. The grime follows you around (save for brief respites if you can get to a Palermo park) and relentlessly reminds you that you are trading being clean for being in a place that is always alive. Last weekend, the two of us welcomed with open arms the rolling clouds of a three-day storm that blanketed the city with cool rain, kept us up at night with pounding thunder and brought lightning that criss-crossed the sky with astonishing frequency. We put on our jackets and happily took advantage of an October weekend that felt like home (except that people don't have rain gear here. They still wear their pretty clothes and just carry an umbrella).

You always expect to be happy when travelling, but sometimes dirt wears you out before you're ready. And other times, an endless summer storm comes along and makes you feel peaceful again.

Other things that have cleared the smog the first two weeks:

• Last Thursday, I found myself at a tiny restaurant eating pancetta out of a pumpkin and discussing politics and religion with a bilingual socialist revolutionary. I met Diego at Cafe Victoria (this is the view, which I will never cease to be delighted with) and we met up for coffee/dinner not long after. Diego is a fascinating character with the energy of a kindergartner and the drive of Eugene Debs, who went from being "a Christian militant to an atheist" because he couldn't justify the world he saw with the world Christianity presupposes (I'll have to write about that conversation another day). As we chatted in the corner of the tiny restaurant, a pinstriped and graying man walked in with a gorgeous blonde and belted out a perfect note, which was promptly matched from behind the bar by a dusky voiced woman with long hair and a massive grin. The warmup notes then turned into a full-fledged tango show for a restaurant that was empty... besides us. My Malbec swirled in the glass, the music filled in the cracks between the bricks, and I realized again what a lucky girl I am. "Para ella!" the woman called out, gesturing to me, la americana, and the guitarrista struck up a folk song to wrap up. Yep, nights like this are how I can justify quitting my job...
  
  
• Marlo and I got cool again when we stayed out till 9 am. No one needs to know that it was an accident, or how excited we got when we left the party to discover a light sky. Our throats scratchy from smoking hookah, our ears ringing from the Colombian band that changed our lives, we got so energized from our all-nighter that we dragged Martin across the city on foot to go see the Floralis. GREAT PLAN, ladies. We were so tired by the time we got there that we had to taxi home. So much for being 19 again.
  
• I was wandering the side streets in San Telmo for some quality time with my camera when I glanced up and got a wave from a guy standing on his front porch, a wrought-iron jut peeking out of a wall full of flowers. It was such a beautiful building but I was too shy to take his picture, so I just grinned and kept walking. Halfway up the next block, I heard someone calling to me so I turned around to see the same fellow jogging towards me. Picture a young, Argentine version of Cosmo Kramer and we are on the same page with Esteban. He ended up walking me back to my neighborhood (don't worry ya'll, we took main streets to avoid creepstering) and I was pleased to finally meet someone who didn't speak English. For a mile or so, we had the most pleasant, unexpected chat about the relative merits of working vs. travelling ("Pero no tiene ritmo!"--"Without work, there's no rhythm to life!"). I told him how much I loved the architecture in the city right when we hit a block surrounded by bland, terrible apartments, and we laughed at how 1970s architecture was nothing to write home about. "But it's also a sad city," he explained. "All of our beautiful buildings are just imitations of the same ones in Europe; we are always trying to copy other people." How nice it was, to take a walk and have a chat with someone I'd never met before and would never meet again, and not worry about places to be or time to be spent doing other things.

Another week and a half left in this massive city of dirt, and I can't wait to see what little storms await us next.

paging banksy

One of my most favoritest things about my favoritest places is the incredible political graffitti that starts to speckle the walls after many years of chaos... (addendum: i have been chastised and called elitist for not translating these. It's nice to know people care. Translations added, thanks Uncle Pime!)

"Revolution in the plaza, at home and in bed."

"It's the Vatican's fault."

"Are we really in a democracy?"

"The pencils keep on writing..."

"Victory for the Palestinian resistence"

"Where are the Disappeared?" (This building contains military history; the question was not randomly placed!)

"Effing Peronists!"

"Revolutionizing memory, constructing the future."

"Where is he?"

"Women standing to face crises!"

The Grasshopper and The Ant

Let me tell you a story! You’ve probably already heard it, but I’ll tell it again, this time with interjections colorfully placed by Javier Bardem’s character in the Spanish movie Mondays in the Sun, as he read it to a small child. He was meant to be babysitting, but the kid got a crash course in social ethics before bedtime as well:

The Grasshopper and the Ant

Once upon a time, there was a grasshopper and an ant. The ant was very hardworking and the grasshopper wasn't. He liked to dance and sing, while the ant went about his tasks. Time went by. The ant worked and worked all summer long. He saved all he could and when winter came, the grasshopper was dying of hunger and cold while the ant had everything. ("That ant is a real bastard!") The grasshopper knocked on the ant's door, and the ant said to him, "Grasshopper, Grasshopper, if you had worked as hard as I did, you wouldn't be hungry and cold now." And he didn't open the door! (“Who wrote this? Because this isn't how it is! That ant is a piece of shit and a speculator. And it doesn't say why some are born grasshoppers. Because if you are, you're fucked. And it doesn't say that here.”)

The movie revolves around a group of friends who lose their jobs in a Spanish shipyard and are left to float, unmoored and seeking meaning beyond their employment (or lack thereof). They have relationship issues, they drink, they laugh sardonically at what little they have. As the “Making Of” said, it’s not based on a true story. It’s based on a million.

The scene with the kid in the bedroom, who lay wide-eyed and silent at this strange, thick-bearded man who wanted to tell him what the world was really about, struck me more than any other. Everyone has seen world-weary men drinking their pennies away in some dark bar (I will never forget the tightness I felt in my throat, senior year of college, as my friends and I drank Olympia ironically at The Knarr Bar, quite possibly the world’s dirtiest watering hole, when I saw a shriveled, bent old man come in with a wad of grimy bills in one hand. He took a seat at the bar, which appeared to fit his backside perfectly as if it had been reserved for him, and ordered the first of many brews that would get him through the rest of the night. I didn’t want to look at him anymore, so strong was my heartbreak for the way our tongue-in-cheek night out was the equivalent of his lifestyle. His sadness, and then my own, was palpable). Everyone has seen men become shells of themselves as they drown in apathy, which Oscar Wilde accurately considers the worst illness man can contract.

But to watch this character, who was fiery and alive and appropriately bitter and unwilling to shut up about it, seemed an anomaly against the grey backdrop of his tired, tired friends. And the scene in the bedroom, in which he informed an innocent that not everyone would be sleeping in a warm bed that night, that not everyone is fortunate enough to be born an Ant and not a Grasshopper, meant he hadn’t given up. He was funny and honest and smart. He was mad as hell and the kid wasn’t going to be spared any of the ugly details of Adam Smith’s world order. It was one of the most refreshing things I have scene in terms of cinematic social commentary. But it also hurt my heart because the night before, as in so many nights these past few years, I had spent an evening with a Grasshopper, hearing about the same things firsthand.

Cynthia is a mom from Mexico, and I’ve gotten to know her while working with her sweet son Emilio this year at TT Minor. I arrived at their apartment, a lovely space on a tree-lined street in the Central District. Despite being one of the best-off Latino immigrants I have met in the past two years, she struggles, now specifically because her smart and potential-laden son cannot get a break when it comes to school. She had come from the year-end carnival that the school district threw for TT, which we agreed was a pathetic consolation prize in light of the fact that they have mostly been ignored and brushed aside for so long.

(Side note—the jury is still out for me on what I think about TT closing. I want to say that the school itself isn't the real issue, in light of the fact that kids everywhere are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to education. But then I remember what Paul Farmer said in Mountains Beyond Mountains: "If you focus on individual patients, you can't get sloppy." In other words, let's not generalize the bigger picture. Let's find the kid next door, see what's going on, and if it's not good, he probably isn't the only one.)

“Where is Emilio going to school next year?” I asked, then remembering that he would be bussing down to Leschi.
“But what is the closest school to you here?” I added.
“Stevens is just a few blocks away,” she said with a smirk. “But we applied for him, and he didn’t get in.”
“Why not? He’s a smart kid. I don’t understand the district’s methods at all.”
She looked at me sideways, half a laugh on her lips and a shrug lifting her shoulders slightly. “He’s a minority, so it makes it tougher. Only white kids go to Stevens.”

It’s hard for me to forget about my Emilios when I go home at night. It’s hard to watch the Grasshoppers (which is not necessarily a race thing-- although racial lines tend to blend into class lines, they aren’t an exact intersection) get a bad rap. Why did the Ant win over wintertime? Is it because he worked harder and did a better job than the Grasshopper? No! (and if someone tries to tell you that the Grasshopper danced and sang all summer, they probably have never met one in person) and why doesn’t anyone ask about what kind of parents the Grasshopper had, if he was a different color that was looked at a little suspiciously, or whether or not he had been able to access the same quality of education as the Ant had? “This book is bullshit,” Javier told the kid. He’s right. It’s not a science, this business of success. But it doesn’t have to be so uneven to get a fair shake at the beginning.

The movie comes to its emotional conclusion with a speech in a bar, after a (SPOILER ALERT!) friend of theirs dies from alcoholism. The remaining group is bickering about whether or not their dearly departed friend left anything tangible in his wake.

"He didn't say anything."

"He did, but he was hard to understand. Like... like Siamese twins. They're stuck together. If one falls, we all fall. And if one gets fucked, that's it. So do the others. Because we're the same thing. The same thing."

"Need" vs. "Want"

http://www.slate.com/id/2165348/fr/flyout

This makes my tummy hurt.

Things that are not easy:

• clamping one hand over the collective mouth of a disoriented group of possibly guilty, mostly confused, and entirely powerless group of unproven war criminals while using the other to gesticulate wildly while promoting universal freedom of speech.
• admitting that the US' role as a superpower has not exempted it from the same dirty dealings that we are supposedly fighting against everywhere else.

I am as sick as the next person at seeing George W's smug and self-righteous smirk and his hand stubbornly clinging to the Christian Right's pocketbook and tugging its conservative heartstrings. But unfortunately for Bush haters, too much of the problems the US has strewn cannot be blamed solely on Dubya. But they could be blamed on the fact that its abuse of power hasn't been checked by the rest of the world.

So what do we do about Gitmo? I guess we'll just have to bomb it...

Ssshh!

With the political situation in Northern Ireland being what it is, I seem to have been listening to a lot of people spout off lately with their thoughts on politics. This invariably leads to the big question of history: can we get past the history that colors so much of Northern Irish culture and spills into so many corners of life and society? I love this topic; and it's a huge part of what brought me back here in the first place. I didn't feel like I was done with Belfast in 2004 because I'd only scratched the surface of the complexities this place holds. So I came back to ask questions and listen to the answers, to study the polarities between the ends of Belfast, to watch historic politics unfolding in person. I love hearing people's thoughts on Belfast, and I love daydreaming with them about how to help pull it out of the history that drags it down.

But, in the words of Peter Griffin, it really grinds my gears when people who have no clue about what life outside middle-class Belfast is actually like seem to think that they're experts in the social situation all over the country.

For the people who claim to have a lockdown on the Belfast social situation and have never ventured into so much as Sandy Row, for those who think the Troubles are long dead and that society has achieved a peaceful equilibrium, and for those who prefer to talk a lot rather than listen: Belfast's Troubles are technically over, but their legacy refuses to die. Paramilitaries are still around, riots are still cropping up, gun violence hasn't ended, teenage pregnancies are still the highest in Europe, broken families are still the norm, and the suicide rates are still enough to make any jaw drop. Catholics and Protestants are still on edge in each other's neighborhoods, and many wouldn't be caught dead in "their" territory. Peace walls are still the fragile buffers that seem to be multiplying overnight. In many parts, the economy is still struggling back onto its feet. Of course it's not as bad as it was ten, twenty or thirty years ago. But the impact is still real.

I'm not trying to make these communities sound like cultural wastelands, because they aren't. But I also don't believe in sugar-coating them just because others don't see what actually goes on here. I don't claim to be extremely well-versed on Belfast, but eight months of living on the edge of the northwest end of the city, in one of the most divided and deprived areas of the entire country, has opened my eyes and put a passion into my heart for an area that has largely been forgotten. Many people's view isn't holistic, and it really bothers me. Ignorant chatter is irritating coming from Northern Irish people, and even more irritating coming from people who have lived here for less than a year and don't have a clue about what the situation actually looks like. It's like if I were to go on a rampage about how racism is dead on the US west coast. Just because I haven't ever seen it myself doesn't mean it isn't a reality for so many people. I have really learned to not say much when I don't know much about something, because I'd rather not speak until I think my words are more worthwhile than blabber.

We all want to be heard, and we all want to be the expert, but there are a lot of people who I just want to say, "SHUT UP, and just look around you for a minute before you keep talking!"

Ennui Wonder Why?

“I really loved the place, of course, but somehow knew it was not my city, not where I’d end up living for the rest of my life. There was something about Rome that didn’t belong to me, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was…
-‘Don’t you know the secret to understanding a city and its people is to learn—what is the word of the street?’
Then he went on to explain… that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people’s thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be—that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don’t really belong there.
‘What’s Rome’s word?’ I asked.
‘SEX,’ he announced… ‘What’s the word in New York City?’
I thought about this for a moment, then decided. ‘It’s a verb, of course. I think it’s ACHIEVE.’
(Which is subtly but significantly different from the word in Los Angeles, I believe, which is also a verb: SUCCEED. Later, I will share this whole theory with my Swedish friend Sofie, and she will offer her opinion that the word on the streets of Stockholm is CONFORM, which depresses both of us.)”
-Elizabeth Gilbert, eat, pray, love

Ever since LJ sent me that book for Christmas, I have been trying to figure out the WORD of every city I have spent significant time in, and Belfast's continues to elude me. But for the people in the north and west ends of the city, especially the teenagers, I’d say the word is something like BOREDOM. This manifests itself in a lot of ways.

Unemployment rates along the Crumlin Ward are ridiculously high. I think it’s something like 67% of people that are “economically inactive.” When I mentioned to Jack the fact that I didn’t think many of my neighbors really worked, once again I heard the phrase “dependency culture,” which even residents here will freely admit is status quo: if you can get it, take it.

This culture has developed from a number of factors, narrowed down to two main reasons that I can see. Firstly, both sides of the conflict feel they are owed something. Both feel like victims who deserve something to make up for the years of violence, discrimination, hatred, you name it, they feel like they received the brunt of it. Rare is the working class Catholic or Protestant who is willing to admit that just maybe, “our side” did as much damage as “their side.”

The second factor is the overwhelming willingness of the British government to support its Northern Irish citizens financially. This is visible in the long lines at the post office every Tuesday; comprised of people waiting to receive their weekly allowance from the government. The first week we moved into our house, I went across the street to meet my neighbors. The friendly young woman who I’d said hello to in passing was Claire, her boyfriend was Mark. Together they have four kids, ranging in age from 10 to a little over a year. “You don’t seem old enough to have a kid who’s almost ten,” I said, half-joking. “Ach, the babies started appearing out of nowhere!” Claire laughed, “Aye, I had Jordan when I was sixteen.” My automatic mental response was, “actually, it’s been scientifically proven that babies do not, in fact, appear from nowhere,” but I figured that wasn’t something good neighbors say they first time they meet someone. It wasn’t until later that night that I began to really think about the fact that not only is Claire not much older than me, but her story was not unusual. I have heard more than once from 15 year old girls, “I’m tired of living with my parents. I’m going to drop out of school and get pregnant. I want my own place.” The government is willing to support teenage mothers, single mothers, and a wide cross-section of people of the unemployed variety. No, they won’t be rich. But they won’t necessarily have to work, either, a huge draw.

In September, confronted with a society that approaches welfare from a completely different mindset than the one I have grown up with, I pondered the implications of the term “dependency culture.” It has now bewildered me for six months. I grew up middle class, and often I have felt the need to apologize for that and for the things that I was given because of that. As a result, though, I have also grown up hearing negative opinions toward welfare; discussion of system abuse and the interesting moral position that puts taxpayers into. As a resident of a country seeped in individualism, a country that is either too proud, too self-sufficient, or simply too opposed to the idea of being dependent on anyone but ourselves, the image of a culture where dependency is the norm; an accepted part of the mindset, is far from easy to understand. The Declaration of Independence takes on new meaning in light of what I see here: the American mindset has largely become a declaration of independence not only from Britain, but from asking for help, from admitting need, from accepting ‘handouts’ that you have not earned. It reveals itself in the Protestant work ethic that permeates our mentality, shows its face in the way we treat immigrants, becomes glaringly obvious in our health system (universal health care is one of the best things about the UK, and its absence in the States is extremely unfortunate).

Granted, all of this is blatant generalization. Much like many here incorrectly imagine every American to have a pool, a three-car garage, and a boat, there is no way to categorize an entire culture based on simplistic phrases, and those who milk the system are most likely matched by those who refuse to collect the money they are due. And in a lot of ways, I think the social services system here is much closer to the ideal than the US model, particularly in the area of health care (as I gratefully discovered during my hospital encounter). However, the disabling aspect of the welfare system is that it seems to create an unappealing (and, in the case of paramilitaries and idle teenagers, dangerous) mix of free time and lack of economic contribution, which has led to the general loss of identity and sense of purpose that communities really need to stay cohesive. It’s worrisome, and it’s hard to reverse.

Status quo is fine for a lot of people here. The dependency culture, at least in my area, tends to create a cycle of apathy. But for many, like my friend Deborah, it isn’t satisfying, but the way out of it seems insurmountable.
(I’d like to add here that writing about the social situation in North Belfast gets increasingly difficult as I envelope myself into the community here. It’s a catch 22—you have to be with the people to know what they think, and once you know are a part of their lives you feel guilty writing about them as if they’re hypothetical situations or case studies. In The White Man’s Burden, William Easterly rails against the shades of paternalism and condescension that color the Western world’s dealings with the Third World, but they are possible whenever an outsider enters a foreign situation and decides to analyze it. Forgive me if I ever come across as paternalistic or condescending, because I honestly do not feel that way and struggle to remove any feelings of superiority that creep their way in without my permission. Even using the word “their” bothers me, but I haven’t discovered another way of referring to my neighbors and friends here.)

Deborah is an overweight single mom who has attended Crumlin Road for about as long as she’s been a Christian, three years. She had Carson when she was 22. He’s now seven. She is outspoken, loud, painfully insecure, and extremely intelligent. I like Deborah a lot, because you always know where you stand with her, and she likes to debate. Deborah is another story of support from Housing Executive, and lives paycheck to paycheck (if government support can be classified as a paycheck). I once asked Deborah what she wanted to be doing in five years, ten years. She got kind of quiet, thought about it for a bit.

“I don’t want this, Laura. This is not what I wanted for myself, not how I pictured things going. I don’t want to spend my life just waiting around for the next few pence to come through. I want to be contributing something. I would like to work, but I don’t know what I could do.” In all fairness, the fact is that few opportunities exist to break the trap of a poor educational system and lack of employment prospects, but laziness plays a part as well.

The pervasive atmosphere of helpless boredom, dangerous lack of what I would consider normal social services and the fact that economic opportunities are found largely on the dole or through paramilitaries are a pretty brutal combination. But, much like the "word" for this place, ways to change the post-war pattern seem to be hovering just out of reach.

"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui."
-Oscar Wilde

What It Is!

Sometimes all it really takes to feel like a normal person again is a really long laugh with someone you love... and since I am so lucky to have had Schlosser visit over the weekend, I am reminded of who I am and what it's about. I was a bit nervous to have her come to my little corner of Northern Ireland after she had spent so much time seeing all the glamorous places in Europe, partying in Italy and drinking beer in Munich. To come to a place like this was going to be a shock to her system, and I didn’t really know how to explain everything, let alone justify it. But Aimee showed up, nearly a month into her European adventure, with a totally expanded worldview and willingness to become a part of wherever she was. She really impressed me, actually. I am reminded of how much I love her heart.
Schlossmo showed up late from Dublin and we headed straight to the Crown Saloon, her huge backpack in tow, and had Stella in hand within ten minutes of her arrival. When in Rome, we say. Before I had even gotten back from the bar, which took a bit longer because I had to bitch to the bartender about how they didn't pour Harp (this is BELFAST... what do you mean, NO HARP?), Aim had discovered the two guys in the bar who were under the age of thirty. So Madrileno Faro and Salzburgite (not a word) Thomas became our partners in crime for the night, which was an interesting choice to say the least. On the plus side, I got to speak Spanish, we got free passes to a "trendy" club, and despite lacking a bit in the English department Thomas completely got us and actually thought we were funny so of course we loved him. On the down side, there was some really ugly dancing at said club and Aim and I were unsuccessful at explaining the meaning of "that girl," which apparently doesn't translate (side note: after a long discussion on the meaning, Aim and I decided to be walking examples and in fact became "those girls").

Throughout our lovefest of a weekend, I spent a lot of my time translating for her, especially at YF when she was surrounded with “the craziest bunch of teenagers” she had ever met in her life. I had to laugh when they informed me I must be losing my American edge because her accent was so strong. She did really well though, for being thrown to the wolves, and they loved her. But I can’t wait to see their faces next week when we tell them she’s Catholic… for being so world-wise, they really are sheltered in so many ways. Alison mentioned to Aim that they all think I’m crazy because I walk to work through Ardoyne, because I get coffee at the Toasted Soda, and now to have Catholic friends who they actually LIKE… it’s going to blow their minds! It’d be funnier if it weren’t so sad!
On Sunday, as Aimee and I tooled around Belfast looking at murals on both sides of the peace line, I think it all became real when we spotted a massive Home Depot-type building that was completely collapsed and charred from a firebomb a couple weeks ago. Apparently it’s the work of the Real IRA, a radical offshoot of the Provos (Provisional IRA, which from what I can tell is getting increasingly united with Sinn Féin, its political wing, and naturally has become much less violent in the process). So members of the RIRA don’t agree with the talks that are going on in Stormont right now to create some kind of workable power-sharing Northern Irish government, because they don’t think the Sinn Féin (via Gerry Adams) should be trying to cooperate with Protestant leaders. So instead of peaceful demonstrations against the negotiations, they’d prefer to firebomb buildings. Not surprisingly, the US has the RIRA categorized as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Since the Good Friday Agreement, they have supposedly agreed to ceasefire, but still are pretty into planting car bombs, bombing rail stations in England, etc., including a couple places in Belfast in the last few weeks. Kathryn, who was driving, told us that that particular shop most likely had 50 or more Catholics working there, ie. the RIRA just put dozens of their own “people” out of work in the name of revolution, in an attempt to spur Catholics toward a more hard-line stance against what they consider political acquiescence. The logic is so absent it’s astounding.
Seeing Belfast through Aimee’s eyes revived my fascination with the history, the personality, and the people of the north and west ends of the city, and I remember why I wanted to be here in the first place. Everywhere you go you are walking on ground steeped in historical conflict and potential turbulence. There’s an edge to it, and it’s unreal sometimes. It was amazing to have someone to remind me of what a dork I am and laugh at nothing for way too long! I waved goodbye as her bus pulled away, we both tried not to cry, and I realized that it’s much easier to be the one leaving than to be the one left…