Ubuntu

Come down, come down, come down. I always have a lot of things to say about coming down. What I mean by coming down is a backward retracing of steps– made by our selves, community, and humanity– to the beginning where nature’s messages are most clear. I think that everything humans have built has taken us only farther from truth and satisfaction. But I’ve already talked about that plenty.

Now I want to look at what exactly it is that we stand to learn from nature, starting with our own emotions…

A couple weeks ago I was walking down State Street with a visiting friend when we passed by a regular panhandler. I didn’t think twice about his presence, didn’t even consider his feelings, until I realized my friend stopped and was digging through her purse for money. This is a girl who already works two jobs and is considering getting a third to make ends meet for herself. The logic machine in my head wanted to say, “No, don’t do that. There are better ways to help people.” But then I was disgusted with myself. Here was a man so desperate that he was standing on a street literally begging people to give him money. Begging! Can you imagine doing that? I would like to think that if there came a point where I literally couldn’t afford to buy my own food, and I had no friends or family who could support me, that I could at the very least call upon the compassion of strangers to help me get food in my stomach. Sure, a panhandler isn’t necessarily going to spend your money on food, but if they are desperate enough to sacrifice their dignity to shake a cup and say “I need your help,” then who are we to not help them? This doesn’t mean I’ve started giving money to panhandlers. But it does mean that every time I pass one I at least consider them and try to put myself in their position, and it is the source of my inspiration to work with Street Pulse. So I use logic to decide how to act, but the inspiration for my actions comes from pure emotion.

I really don’t think it’s possible for anyone to act on anything but emotion; sometimes it’s just harder to see. When we can’t accept the most basic emotions in our life, they still get through; they just get really convoluted in the process of breaking down our barriers. My biggest barrier is with anger. I hardly ever allow myself to feel angry at anything, but the emotion is still there just as strong. Because I can’t accept the anger for what it is in its purest state, it gets through in more complicated ways and leads to passive aggressive actions or self-degradation. Emotions are a gift of nature. If we allow ourselves to experience them we may find that we don’t need things like soap operas, video games, Facebook and other artificial creations that temporarily treat our unquenched desires.

Experiencing pure emotion goes beyond our own personal health. I believe it is the path to a more peaceful world. The way to find your philanthropic side is not to become selfless, but rather to embrace your selfishness and expand your definition of self, because as my wonderful high school econ teacher taught us, we can never escape selfishness.

My dear friend Mary Glen recently pointed me to the concept of Ubuntu, born in South Africa. Check it out:

The beautiful thing is that Ubuntu is completely natural if we simply open ourselves to feeling. If we listen to the people around us, and experience their emotions as we experience our own, other people become part of our own definitions of self. No logic necessary!

While I was writing this I realized my friend Ben just posted something similar! Read it! He says, “Is it sick to say that I want to experience poverty, homelessness, racism–just so I can understand?” No! It sounds quite a lot like a desire for Ubuntu And I’ll echo his final thoughts: “Crying, for me, is part of the process of understanding.  When John Coltrane wails through his horn, I cry because I realize his pain–I understand it.  True understanding is the basis of compassion. And compassion is what this fucked up world needs.”

Word.

Next up: what we can learn from the world outside humanity

on that spoken word tip

K N O C K

D R E A M

F I G H T

S P E A K

I am a cliché, and I am okay with that

Freaks and Geeks

My friends have told me I am exactly like the character Lindsay Weir from Freaks and Geeks. If you haven’t seen the show, Lindsay is constantly vacillating between the freak clique and the geek clique. I finally started watching the show a few weeks ago, and never have I felt so much empathy for a character or invested so much in a plot line. In thinking about the character, I realized that I’m losing my inner Lindsay.

In high school I would ace a calc test, ditch French class, drill hard at a mock trial practice, party late on a school night, and wake up early for an interview. With each activity came a different group of people, and a different set of values to adapt and conform to. At first, like Lindsay, there was little consistency between the person I was in the principle’s office and the person I was around the bonfire, because each identity was shaped so strongly by my surroundings. I liked it that way. When one identity was failing, I had the other one handy to make me feel better. I overloaded my life with friends, activities, and personalities in order to always keep one costume in the closet looking good.

Over time I came to realize what parts of myself could be consistent with both extremes. I found that the desires driving me in both realms were for learning, thinking, challenging and experimenting. Those desires came to define me, bringing both of my worlds into one and giving me a solid place in it. However, as my identity unified, it got lost. When I was living a double life, I felt more unique. I defined myself as different from my friends by my geekier side, and I defined myself as different from my geekier peers by my friends. I didn’t want to be pegged as either because it would put so much pressure on the success of that identity.

Now that my two lives have almost fully merged, I’ve been feeling a panic about who I am. As I find friends and activities that encompass all parts of myself, I feel less original. I love them, but when I see characteristics of myself absorbed in a group, I feel lost. I no longer have a second identity to whisk away to. Everything is invested in one place—in me. It scares me. It drives me.

The adjustment is forcing me to find comfort in reconciling some of my originality, and embrace the parts of me that are just plain old human. That comfort comes from an increasing acceptance and love of that which is just plain old human. My perspective on other people used to be governed by a general outlook full of disdain for humanity. Anyone who fell into a stereotype I felt was part of the problem, for folding into the framework of society. But my interactions and experiences continue to expand my circle of empathy for the world, and instill a desire to be part of it.

My friend Ben Schapiro recently spit a verse that made me realize it’s okay to accept the identity of a cliché. I used to get so turned off by people who seemed to fall into every trap of a stereotype. Someone would share a deep, personal thought with me, and I would actually cringe inside if it sounded like something I’d heard a few times before. But the fact that I may have heard a thought a few times before does not make the thought any less poignant. People are people. We inevitably follow similar paths of logic and reach similar conclusions.

Those who bound themselves only to conclusions which have not been drawn have the most limited minds of all.

This weekend I simultaneously hung out in a dusty basement, listened to my friends jam, did an art project with another friend, and talked about “the flow.” Last year, I would have felt a twinge of shame in that, like I was selling out to a cliché instead of thinking for myself. But in deciding that it was okay to act like a cliché I thought for myself more than ever before, and had a beautiful night. The fact that so many before us have found beauty in the same acts is no longer shaming to me, but encouraging.

This transition is not to be confused with one of rebellious teenage years to older years of quiet acquiescence. I am more riled up and passionate than ever before. The difference is that I enjoy all the people by my side, even if I do get lost in them sometimes.

p.s. The reason I generally dislike Hipster Runoff is because it contributed to my shame of clichés, memes, and the like.

transition

Detainers (photo by Jonathan Kleiman)

I would like to use this blog for thoughts beyond Ethiopia, so it seems a transition is in order…

To wrap up my time in Ethiopia, the story of my detention and deportation is here: http://www.dailycardinal.com/features/captured-in-ethiopia-an-american-nightmare-1.326117

Memories of detention remind me of the work to be done in the word, while memories of the beautiful time I spent there remind me of why I do it.

cheek kisses

From early July…

My students are amazing. When I get to school they are lined up outside my classroom door waiting anxiously. There is pushing to get in but the older students help me read the names of the kids in my class and ensure that the right students are getting in. Every day there are new students, some even who’ve heard about us and travelled from other villages. My students know I always let in as many new students as will fit in the classroom. They shove in four to a two-person desk and make the best of the broken ones to allow as many students in as possible. As I prepare the chalkboard they sit silently, and when I begin class they stand to greet me. Outside kids throw rocks at the broken windows and yell into the classroom. My students’ attention is not broken. Other kids bang on the classroom door, eventually pushing hard enough to move the rock I have used as a barricade and tumbling inside. Unfazed, a few students calmly rise and shove them back outside, sliding the rock back in place. It seems these are the learning conditions they are used to.

Each day that I teach is better than the previous. A comfort settled in between my students and me that allows me to joke and make faces, to discipline and chastise, to congratulate and hug. Whereas on the first day of school I felt nailed to a spot on the floor, hands glued to my chalk and eraser, I am now confident imitating the verb “to skip” across the room, having conversations with myself as two characters, and shouting “THURRRRR” over the rows of students, lips pushed open wide to show how to pronounce Thursday and nose scrunched up for effect. The students have also loosened up. They are learning how to respond to open-ended questions without answers to choose from, to use their imagination, to answer a question wrong just for the sake of trying, to take risks and laugh at their mistakes.

At the end of every class I stand by the door to shake hands with every student as they leave. About a week in the students adopted the more affectionate greeting that’s more like a hug. Today as Biftu approached me she looked extra smiley and bashful. When I grabbed her hand she suddenly lunged in, touching her small lips to my cheek, and hurried away into the protective circle of her giggling friends. Then it was all cheek kisses for everyone.

the servant

Well, I never received a host family, and it seems we will be staying put for the rest of the trip– not that I’m complaining. I am living with the Donald Trump of Haramaya. The first time I went out with him we took a Bajaaj (open taxi) for the equivalent of about two city blocks, got gaping stares and free qat from the market, and walked through the building he is having constructed “downtown.” He has a wife and four children. The way I just presented this family, I realize, seems awfully sexist. But that’s how they see things.

His children are wonderful, but my favorite child in the house is the servant, Mahdi. Often when I’m playing with the children I see him pause and watch from a distance. Sometimes I can talk with him. He is nine years old and very intelligent. When I teach him he listens intently and understands quickly.
The other day I allowed each child to listen to my CD player. When I tried to pass a headphone to Mahdi, the other children looked at each other and shook their heads at me as he sheeped away. I made him take a turn. A smile spread across his face, shy at first, but unstoppable. He tapped his fingers and nodded his head to the beat (BSS), appreciating it so much more than the others.

“Mahdi!”

My host mother was calling him. Suddenly his movements stopped. He yanked the headphone out of his ear. Brought back to reality, he looked at me wide-eyed, as if to see how I was judging him for his lapse in servitude.

“Mahdi!”

And he snapped to his feet, off to serve my host mother.

The servants here live in total subservience to the families they serve. One night I woke up in the middle of the night overwhelmed with nausea. I ran outside toward the toilet but before I made it I threw up on the rocks behind the house. The host mother came out and screamed, “Malia” over and over until a girl came running outside. My host mother returned to bed and I watched as Malia fetched a bucket of water and scrubbed my puke. I tried to ask to help but my Oromo was not good enough and she wouldn’t have let me anyway. I felt horrible watching her do it.

My host siblings are sweet and loving, but it is hard to see their good fortune juxtaposed with Mahdi’s hard work. I watch them drop gum wrappers on the ground one minute, and I watch Mahdi pick them up the next. It is unfair, but it is economics. I cannot blame the family because Mahdi is lucky to have the job.

This is where I believe education must enter as an equalizer. As the system exists in Ethiopia, my host siblings will receive a good private education and go on to study at a university or become a wealthy qat exporter like their father. Mahdi will receive a poor public education and will probably continue to be a servant like his parents. The problem is accessibility.

first day of school

From June 22…

When I first arrived at school with the two other American volunteers, we had around fifty students following us and hundreds waiting for us. As we made our way to the director’s office it was like we were running through a pool of drying concrete. Every step through the swarming children took concentration to avoid stepping on tumbling bodies, and it only got harder as they flocked around us. After a few minutes we reached the door and a skinny old man came out with a whip. Shouting in Oromo, he slapped the children away from the door so we could enter.
Inside, I felt relieved when we shook hands with three business-suited administrators who looked like they could bring order to the chaos. In broken English, they asked how many students we could each teach. Hoping not to turn anyone away, we decided to first see how many students wanted to sign up. We were given blank sheets of paper and the green light. It was up to us to coordinate the registration of thousands of Oromo children, of whom we could only reasonably teach a maximum of 500 among the three of us.

We stepped back out into the chaos. Monika took grades 1-4, I took 5-6, and Sam took 7-8. Using the little Oromo we had learned, we tried to get the right students to follow each of us. I stopped on top of the front steps to one of the school buildings and was immediately surrounded. Students were pulling my hair, pinching my skin, screaming English phrases like, “Teacher! How are you? Are you fine?” and laughing hysterically. I found an advanced tenth grader whom I had met earlier to record names for me and tried to make the students form a line. That was absolutely impossible. Instead I physically pushed all the students off the steps and let them up one at a time to sign up. The students knew there would not be room for all of them. It became a battle of force as they shoved each other to get to the front. I had been choosing students from the front to let through to sign up (literally by raising my arm for a second), but I realized that I was selecting my students based on how strong or aggressive they were. I began reaching out my hand to students in the back to pull to the front. But how to choose? I made eye contact with ten students for every one that I could select. I never found a good system. I went on like that, changing my mind every few minutes about how to choose students. A few hours later I had registered 160 students and decided I had to stop. I would teach four classes of forty students every day.

I headed home with my students on my tail. On the path to the school we must cross a river by stepping on small rocks that poke out of the water. The water is blood-red—from animal blood. Crossing that river on the tedious rocks with students jostling me on all sides was like a horrible Frogger-induced nightmare. Fortunately I made it across and finally arrived at home where I left the students yelling at me from behind the front gate.

real talk

Today I saw a baboon scamper down from a rooftop to a street-side fruit shop, steal a mango, and scamper back up.

trust

Because of the wide variety of cultures, values and lifestyles in America, I think we’ve come to assume that if something can happen, it will happen. This makes the apparent lack of regulation here very scary to Americans. My host father read my Lonely Planet guide to Ethiopia today and said that it makes Ethiopia seem much scarier than it is. And it is true. Since being here I’ve learned that the lack of safety restrictions from the top is made up for by the restrictions the culture places on itself. For example, when I first arrived I would hold my breath and look down every time I passed someone holding a gun. Someone would walk by carrying a scythe (big curved knife for agriculture) and I would feel a sharp pain of anticipation in my neck. Eventually I got used to the idea that people have the ability to hurt me all the time, but they don’t. This idea takes getting used to because it demands great trust in people—a trust we don’t have in America. I think it is because in America we don’t know each other the way they do here. Even if you’ve never met someone here, you share cultural values that unite you. Now when I pass someone on the street with a scythe I greet them and trust that I will pass in peace.

relationships

I am becoming very aware of my needs. As I am detached from everything that I am accustomed to having meet my needs, I realize what those needs are. I feel that apart from physical needs, every other need can be satisfied by people. The only hard part about being here is that I miss the people in my life. As I grow to love the people here I feel much happier here. I am finding that everything I have invested in during my life is replaceable. This is a hard realization because it makes me feel that relationships I have built are insignificant. But I am happy that this realization comes with another—that a relationship’s significance is not dependent on its duration. That my relationships from home are replaceable here does not make those relationships less significant. I have to view the relationship in the context of its time and place. Right now, there are other relationships becoming significant to me, but every relationship left at home is still significant in a different time and place. What the significance of the relationship does depend on is its depth. The more developed a relationship is the more it means to me. This makes it hard to be here away from the relationships I have developed. But with experience and conversation new relationships are becoming a bigger part of me. When I leave, I will leave the depth of the relationship in this time and place, but I will forever be affected by the people I bonded with.