From Denver (via New York) With Love

Directly following my return from Africa, I found myself on a plane headed across the country to Denver to work at the Democratic National Convention.
I had signed up to volunteer back in April, when it looked like there would be fireworks on the podium and a delegate melee on the floor. That visceral part of me loves a good fight, and the primaries were shaping up to stage a genuine competition of historic proportions. Not seen since Roosevelt and Taft split the Republican Party in half or Lincoln debated Douglas for 11 hours on the principals of abolition have we seen a convention with such possibilities.

As I flew off to the Mile High City, it was probably no coincidence that the muses pointed me towards a poignant article by Peter Godwin in September’s VANITY FAIR, a stirring and straightforward portrait of Mugabe's Reign in Zimbabwe.

Take a moment to read these last two paragraphs:

“Zimbabwe’s runoff election was scheduled for June 27. Morgan Tsvangirai [the opposing candidate] and the M.D.C. withdrew from the contest a few days beforehand, unable to compete in safety or with any guarantee of fairness. The party had effectively been prohibited from campaigning. Rallies were banned. Tsvangirai himself was arrested and detained five times. Mugabe’s slogan in the runoff election was “The Final Battle for Total Control.” With no competition he won handily.

By then the body count from Mugabe’s pre-electoral spasm of violence stood at a hundred, with another 5,000 people missing, many of whom must be presumed dead. Bodies have been found collecting at the spillway of a Harare reservoir. Others have been found in the bush, sometimes mutilated, hands or feet cut off, eyes gouged out. In the months leading up to the runoff some 10,000 people had been tortured. Some 20,000 had had their homes burned down. Up to 200,000 people had been displaced.”

That night, I reached a chapter in my book, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, which echoed the same chords as current day Zimbabwe.

Part of the action takes place 20 years after Gandhi’s success at gaining Independence, part of which included an idealistic vision of a caste-free society in which all people would be able to vote in general elections for their choice governmental and rural leaders.

Despite his valiant efforts, Gandhi’s dream was thwarted for decades by Brahmin upper caste landowners who bullied their lowers to blot a fingerprint and thereby allowing the decisions of power sharing to fall permanently into their hands. These landowners kept the lower castes in check by hanging dissenters upside down, putting hot coals in their mouths and dragging them naked through the streets until their death, ultimately refusing their corpses a proper burial so that their souls would never be at rest.

My first night in Denver, I was hired to work an event celebrating the 68th anniversary of the Women’s Right to Vote.
Embedded in key note speaker Senator Clinton's speech was a reminder that the achievement of the 14th Amendment carried its own traces of blood. Alice Paul was tortured by electric shock until President Woodrow Wilson was shamed into enacting the promise President Grover Cleveland made to Susan B. Anthony sixty years before.

Indeed, many countries continue to engage in violent struggle, violence people continue to endure in order to exercise their inalienable rights, rights we are granted by merely being citizens of the United States.

Both Zimbabwe and India’s tortuous and bloody images remind me that despite our differences as Americans living in a two party system, we live in a relatively thug free society. And let me define “thug” because I know that some of you will equate thuggery to robo-calls and smear campaigns.

No one in a government issued uniform, state or federal, is going to beat you to death, burn down your house, cut out your tongue, or carve a backwards “B” into your cheek, on your way to the local polling center. At least not anymore.

With the growing consternation and constant criticism surrounding us, one can become blasé in the blink of an eye about the political process. Or, as a friend’s husband believes, that your quotient of the 12th, 15th & 19th Amendments, the right for all Americans to vote, doesn’t matter.

Anti-War Protesters in Denver.

We may despise the political landscape we have become; we may be mired by a press that loves to stir up trouble, conjecture and fear, including a quest for who is “pro-American” and who is not. And this blog may very well be one of those propaganda messages that are prevalent during election periods, but reading Godwin and Mistry in the wake of that historic convention compelled me to remind myself and my peers of the great privilege we have. A privilege we can choose to act upon without the threat of violent repercussions. And that matters to me.

We cannot be afraid to engage in intelligent discourse with each other about the state of the country or increasing tax rates for the upper income sector or re-implementing regulation or Roe Vs. Wade. Like crosswords, an exchange of ideas keeps the mind sharp.

Frankly, I’m with Chris Rock on this one, “We are all a little conservative and little liberal”.

Walking from the Pepsi Center after an inspiring evening, I was greeted by staggered 6-foot posters of the "Anti-Choice" variety with angry, shouting individuals, telling me that I was a murderer, and how I would surely be going to hell.

While they didn't know my position about choice, they exercised the 1st Amendment, their right of free speech and protest. Although I can't agree that it was peaceable, I was glad for it.

** As Ghandi said – “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” **

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Kanimambo!

This musical word means “thank you” in Shangani. Whenever one of us would say “Kanimambo!” lingering long on ‘ooooo’, builders and villagers alike joyfully chant the word as a refrain. The people speak both a local dialect of Shangani and Portuguese and we search our rudimentary Spanish to find similar words to communicate with. Sometimes we are successful, but “Kanimambo” is the only Shangani word I’ve retained. It makes me smile. It sums up the gratitude I feel.

With natural rooster alarm clocks, waking up for a 6:30 breakfast is not a problem. There are two bathrooms to share between 16 people and without going into too much detail; we know each other intimately. It’s easier to brush our teeth on the boundaries of the garlic fields that the small mission has planted as part of their garden. The silken red earth gets into our nails under our skin and in our ears and the cracks in our feet. There are no mirrors and for the next two weeks I’m sure that we are never quite clean.

The women set out deep fried eggs, individually wrapped slices of American cheese, and hot rolls supplied by the nearby baker. We have our own way of passing the condiments: condensed milk (sugar milk), jam (pink stuff), butter product, (yellow stuff), tea and instant coffee (Ricoffy).

As different from Massaca is from Maputo, so is Mahanyani. It's hard to gauge how large the village is. Straddling the boundary is a bus stop where women sell vegetables and a large South African plantation advertising its wares as “Bananalandia”. It is a beautiful stretch of hundreds and thousands of banana trees and the contrast between the bounty of the dripping trees and the meager stalls is staggering.

The rickety bus we huddle into drops us at a central meeting point where the school and Habitat office are and we head out on foot to each new location we will be working at with one of our master builders. Over the course of 10 days, we will complete 16 homes. Here there is no grid system. People arrive out of nowhere and disappear from our sites with the same ghostly vapor. In this rural place, you are reminded to be present.

Wells and water taps are spread throughout the acreage. Dirt roads ramble and randomly lead to these meeting points. These outlets are the community newsstands, where inhabitants learn of clinic programs, school hours, and gossip.

I’ve counted three shops that sell cold drinks, bubble gum and other small items. One day, we buy our gang cokes after lunch and this simple transaction empties the cooler.

I am assigned to carry water one day, and when you have to stop every few steps while lugging a 5-gallon petrol container while women haul twice as much on their heads, the task is quite humbling. I can’t imagine doing it every day. But indoor plumbing is not an option, so trips to the well are frequent.

One of the women in our group carried water to her Alaskan cabin many years ago. When I ask her about the experience, her frank response was, “At first you think what an adventure! Then it’s work and then you are just plain angry about it”.
I wonder if these women feel the same.

At 11 AM, someone appears on a bike with a basket containing two thermoses of hot water, a tin of Recoffy, a Nestle product of chicory and coffee soluble mix, which I became quite cavalier with, tea bags, and cookies. I look forward to this break time and appreciate the effort made by the Habitat staff member to provide such a luxury for us.

We are building as part of the OVC program, which I will write about later. There is an abundance of orphaned children in Mahanyani. One of the volunteers has brought inflatable beach balls and during recess, the ball sends 50 plus kids running, kicking up clouds of dust and screams of laughter as the multicolored orb flies through the air. The children make toys with whatever they find. Mostly, it’s with old tires and the wheels of old bicycles. They run alongside the trucks and through the fields. Or they pound cassava root into a top and whip into circles with twigs. These simple pleasures give them such happiness. Anything that can be kicked attracts a huge crowd, however, a Nerf football left them totally confounded.

If the nights are loud, the days are filled with the peep peep peep of chicks and ducks a-scurry. Here, electricity is even more rare than Massaca, although everyone has cell phones and the beeping of dying batteries is prevalent.

Cabbage, cassava, tomatoes, potatoes, mango trees and apples, corn grow haphazardly, without order and women pick their way through their lots to feed the household that day. It is not only the way we connect with each other during this build. It’s the community and the getting a glimpse, if only for two weeks, of the women waking up early to gather water, find food, grind the shima, gather more water, do the washing. These everyday acts that complete a life.



I’ve fallen in love as well. A 10 year old with a bright smile and quick to learn, Francisco has captured my heart. On the last day, his mother sings her appreciation to the group and pleads with the builders to let Francisco work with them so he can learn a trade. I tell her how much I love him and in her blue dress and soulful face she is the most beautiful woman. When she embraces me, I feel a part of her soul enter me.

I’ve been writing back and forth with other team members this past week, all of us heartbroken over leaving “The Dark Continent”, but Africa is anything but that. We wonder why we feel so attached to Africa – is it because it’s the cradle of man, the continent we all broke off from so many years ago – it’s where our roots are, regardless of color, where nature still is on equal footing with the humans?

How do I describe my Africa? Can I wrap you up in words and bring you back with me if I palpably illustrate a rusty red earth that saturates the soul, an abundant turquoise sky backlit by an impossibly bright sun star radiating its glow on the green leaves of mango and banana trees and casting a line of gold on the river that runs through Mahanyani? Or will it be the soft whistling wind and musical sing song of women’s voices returning from the washing with kids dancing around them? With these images, will you yearn as I do to explore more of this incredible world?

Maputo, Massaca, Mahanyani MOZAMBIQUE

From City to Town to Rural Village

There has been so much movement in my life since January, that I feel as if I awoke and found myself in Maputo, Mozambique on the east coast of Africa.

Africa. The word itself inspires majestic imagery. And even though Maputo is a city in disrepair, there is an essence of sturdiness in the briny air that breezes in from the Indian Ocean.

Once considered a rival to the luscious Cape Town, trash billows down the wide boulevards broken apart by the unceremonious Portuguese departure almost 50 years ago and an ensuing civil war. The remnants of this port jewel are certainly sad to behold, but Mozambique has retained the pride of its countrymen, and the government is progressive, moving to eradicate AIDS, empower women and educate every child through the eighth grade. It's an impressive agenda that seems to have caught the enthusiasm of the people.

The first night my roommate tells me she watched "Out of Africa" before she left her home in Florida. It's hard not to smile at this innocent confession because after all, Kenya is not Mozambique and Robert Redford is definitely not here. We are housed near the bus station, a makeshift stop at a rotary where small minivans cram passengers traveling to destinations written on cardboard displays in the windshield. It is a similar bus that takes us to Massaca, the township in which we will be staying.

Massaca 1 (there are six) is a former refugee camp with a population of 1000. The township lies in a simple grid system with the camp's military gate in tact at the entrance. Driving in, we pass a dusty field where kids play with makeshift soccer balls and a market of tin sprawls into dark passageways. Houses of brick, stone, thatched bamboo and tin spread out on four sides from the main road until a flourishing cabbage patch greets you at the end and directs your attention to a view of the countryside.

The village is supported by a Spanish Mission which also runs the clinic, school, miller, bakery and lumber yard where the first day we see children's coffins bing roughly hewn from odd ends of wood. These are early mornings, at 7:AM, the miller has already begun grinding his corn for the baker's bread and for villagers who can afford his service. The meal will be made into a dish called "Shima", a south African staple.


It is quite cold South of the Equator, and the evenings darken quickly but we are blanketed by the Milky Way and a host of constellations I have never seen before. The moon in its sliver visits us three nights in a row. The main road is very dark, electricity being uncommon, but I hear people laughing and walking up and down the streets when I step outside the Mission House wall to have my evening cigarette.

Somewhere in the market of tin roofs and displays of chips & hair extensions, a shopkeeper with a television sets out plastic chairs and plays movies for paying customers. WWF and karate films are favorites and kids love to strike action poses for us.

One would think in the darkness, evenings would bring a thoughtful repose, but the nights are noisier than New York City beginning with loud party music blasting from somewhere in the town until about 2:30. At 3:30, the baker's apprentice arrives to chop wood for his ovens. At 5:00 AM, what sounds like thousands of roosters screetching and howling jolt you out of bed. I imgine they are passing on a secret warning, something like "Today it could be you! Take heed!" It is a most disturbing sound. When we depart for Mahanyani at 7:30 AM, the roosters are still squawking out their credo.

A New Beginning...

Oy!

I’ve spent too long mulling over my latest adventure ... letting the writing utensils that are my ten fingers get rusty and out of shape. The muscles I’ve built up have atrophied and instead of physical therapy, I like to pretend the last seven months didn’t happen… if only I could press the restart button. However, lying in bed the other night, I caught an old episode of South Park: “Fourth Grade”. After spending the entire episode trying to get back to the 3rd Grade, their teacher advises them that "Life isn't about going back, it's about going forward... The adventure of life is that there's always something new. New challenges, new experiences. A fun game is a game that gets harder as it goes. So it is with life". Crazy that Trey Parker’s sage wisdom would inspire me to reconnect with all of you.

It only now occurs to me that I hadn’t even sent out change of address cards, so I’ve effectively fallen off the face of the earth.

Here I am, high above the country on my way back to Santa Monica to move out of the apartment I unpacked my gear in last November. At the top of my list, my life list of who I want to be and the life I want to lead, it states “Trust Your Instincts”.

I did not heed the call, but plunged into the deep end without my goggles. I have learned the hard way that you can’t rationalize your way into a relationship. It has to mature authentically. In my own way, I conjured up a fantasy, born of a lifetime spent working in the arts, living my own movie style or classic Broadway musical life. But the apple I picked, although well versed in the cinema slang and catchy tunes of a Rogers & Hammerstein hit, wasn’t quite ripe.

And now I find my own orchard is strewn between Santa Monica, a storage facility in Pasadena, and the odd hilltop community of Tudor City, Manhattan. I’ve sold half of my possessions, and now, with the remainder halved and quartered, I would willingly give the rest up for a safe haven. The onslaught of Sister Carrie’s return to the big screen hasn't made it any easier. I want that E ticket to Fantasyland where I can have that gorgeously appealing “Sex And the City” type of lifestyle instead of my own.

In a way, I have been dating my own Big on and off for four years. And like Big and Carrie, we have our own set of “issues”. On the premise of getting it together and working it out, he sweetly asked me to move in. However, when you spend the first month of cohabitation lying awake on your side of the bed wondering if you made the right decision, you probably didn’t.

Instead of following my own credo, I turned into a consumer. In the absence of having my own home, I started shopping … a lot. When the boxes started to arrive, Big II shook his head and said, “I’m getting worried”. In this respect, Carrie & I are alike. There seems to be nothing a new pair of shoes and a fresh lipstick can’t cure, even if the feeling is fleeting.

We decided that our living together was a win-win situation. It was our last attempt of the greatest leap. Either it gels or it doesn’t. “Clean break up – no hangovers” we said. But I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t hung. I believed in my ability to get out the wrinkles with extreme ironing. I thought this extraordinary skill would create a life of laughter and successes and challenges and all of the threads that knit up nicely into a history. But this isn't that love story and I’ve been falling apart a little, the threads having come loose, unraveling slowly and painfully. And like Carrie, I found myself lying in bed unable to think about anything of substance.

The past six months have been a reverse bell curve. Starting with doubts, rising with hope and now flat lining. You chart a course and go, but sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you thought it would. The ship goes off course and you hit a Nor’ Easter, each person leaping overboard, clutching a life preserver and trying to make their way back to shore, shivering, shaken up and caught in an emotionally charged decision of fearing another wreck or resiliently anticipating the next time you raise the jib with an ability to steer the ship with the proper navigation tools, a sextant or even the stars.

The thing about having a partner is that it gives you a tether. You acquire that look, that “Thank God I Don’t Have To Be Out There Anymore” gaze. It’s easier not talk about the demise than admit defeat, because I’m a fixer, a solution oriented multi-tasker, an ideal resume for a job, but not a relationship.

My story is not going to end with a reconciliation and 200 square feet of closet space, although I can’t promise that finale won’t include a gorgeous gal puffing on an American Spirit with a shiny pair of heels swinging off her tootsies. There are lessons to be learned. For example, like the 4th Graders of South Park, I am right where I need to be even if that means I am ironically, give or take a month, exactly where I was a year ago; moving out, traveling to a foreign country, visiting a Beatles landmark and living fancy free.

When you last heard from me, I’d arrived home from India, a little disheveled, a little enlightened and seeking the simple life. In one week, I’ll be on my way to Mozambique, packing up Goethe's wisdom with me: “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid” and taking another leap of faith.

This time, my faith springs from within me.


...and until further notice, you can find me at 2 Tudor City Place Apt. 10 E North New York, NY 10017.