Friday, September 29, 2006

Jihadists in Africa

A "senior Administration official" I was in a meeting with a few days ago says the Sudanese government is threatening other African governments that it will bring jihadists to their countries if they don't let off the pressure over Darfur. So the African governments are backing down. Same for the US and others - we're not advocating for the imposition of a no fly zone anymore because of concerns that Khartoum would lash out against civilians and aid workers in retaliation.

Normally I am not a big fan of ganging up against the little guy, or the US throwing its weight around as the superpower, but in this case, why oh why are we letting some piddling undeveloped country push us around?

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

White women to the rescue

I was just in a meeting with several officials from the Ugandan government, and one of them, a female Member of Parliament, spent most of her speech time talking about how courageous we white women are, going off to all the remote, dangerous corners of the earth trying to save the world. And she was serious.

Why does that make me so uncomfortable?

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Promotion!

Found out yesterday that I'm getting a promotion at work - long overdue, and a minimal pay raise, but it's nice to finally have some official recognition that I've been doing a good job and doing much more difficult work than my title qualifies me for. Many thanks to V. for being a great, supportive boss.

Mr. Coffee County

My aunt called me today to congratulate me on Peace Corps. Then of course she proceeded to give me all the family news, including that Frank the Marine (who, if you remember, my grandmother is planning for me to marry) is living with my grandparents, which I hadn't realized.

So I told my aunt that Grandma is planning on me marrying him - I thought she might think it was funny. Her response: "Oh no! You need to marry a Mr. Rockefeller type, and he's more of a Mr. Coffee County!" (Coffee County is the very poor, rural farming community where my grandparents live).

Nice to know that somebody has high hopes for me. Don't think I really care about marrying a Rockefeller, though.

Friday, September 15, 2006

From a girl's point of view

I discovered a website called DailyLit, which will email you a chapter of a book a day (I think they're all books whose copyrights have expired). So I signed up to try it out, and picked a book out randomly just based on the title: From a Girl's Point of View by Lillian Bell, published 1897.

So far, I think it is hilarious, so I just had to share. This is the first installment:


Dedicated
WITH MANY APPREHENSIONS TO
THE DULL READER
WHO WILL INSIST UPON TAKING THIS BOOK LITERALLY


THE UNTRAINED MAN UNDER THIRTY-FIVE

"Since we deserved the name of friends,
And thine effect so lives in me,
A part of mine may live in thee,
And move thee on to noble ends."

Every woman has had, at some time in her life, an experience with man in the raw. In reality, one cannot set down with any degree of accuracy the age when his rawness attacks him, or the time when he has got the last remnant of it out of his system. But a close study of the complaint, and the necessity for pigeon-holing everything and everybody, lead one to declare that somewhere in the vicinity of the age of thirty-five man emerges from his rawness and becomes a part of trained humanity--a humanity composed of men and women trained in the art of living together.

I am impressed with Professor Horton's remarks on this subject: "It has sometimes struck me as very singular," he says, "that while nothing is so common and nothing is so difficult as living with other people, we are seldom instructed in our youth how to do it well. Our knowledge of the subject is acquired by experience, chiefly by failures. And by the time that we have tolerably mastered the delicate art, we are on the point of being called to the isolation of the grave--or shall I say to the vast company of the Majority?"

But an art of so much practical moment deserves a little more consideration. It should not be taught by chance, or in fragments, but duly deployed, expounded, and enforced. It is of far more pressing importance, for example, than the art of playing the piano or the violin, and is quite as difficult to learn.

"It is written, 'It is not good that man should be alone'; but, on the other hand, it is often far from good to be with him. A docile cat is preferable, a mongoose, or even a canary. Indeed, for want of proper instruction, a large number of the human race, as they are known in this damp and foggy island, are 'gey ill to live wi',' and no one would attempt it but for charity and the love of God."

Now who but women are responsible for the training of men? If the mother has neglected her obvious duty in training her son to be a livable portion of humanity, who but the girls must take up her lost opportunities? It is with the class of men whose mothers _have_ neglected to train them in the art of living that we have to deal; the man with whom feminine influence--refining, broadening, softening, graciously smoothing out soul-wrinkles, and generously polishing off sharp mental corners--has had no part. It need not necessarily mean men who have not encountered feminine influence, but it does mean those who never have yielded to it. The natural and to-be-looked-for conceit of youth may have been the barrier which prevented their yielding. There is a time when the youth of twenty knows more than any one on earth could teach him, and more than he ever will know again; a time when, no matter how kind his heart, he is incased in a mental haughtiness before which plain Wisdom is dumb. But a time will come when the keenness of some girl's stiletto of wit will prick the empty bubble of his flamboyant egoism, and he will, for the first time, learn that he is but an untrained man under thirty-five.

This elastic classification does not obtain with either geniuses or fools. It deals with the average man as the average girl knows him, and may refer to every man in her acquaintance or only to one. It certainly _must_ refer to one! Misery loves company to such an extent that I could not bear to think that there was any girl living who did not occasionally have to grapple with the problem of at least one man in the raw, if only for her own discipline.

You cannot argue with the untrained man under thirty-five. In fact, I never argue with anybody, either man or woman, because women are not reasonable beings and men are too reasonable. I never am willing to follow a chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion, because, if I do, men can make me admit so many things that are not true. I abhor a syllogism. Alas, how often have I picked my cautious way through three-quarters of one, only to sit down at the critical moment, declaring I would not go another step, and then to hear some argumentative man cry, "But you admitted all previous steps. Don't you know that this naturally _must_ follow?" Well, perhaps it _does_ follow, only I don't believe it is true. It may be very clever of the men to reason, and perhaps I am very stupid not to be able to admit the truth of their conclusions, but I feel like declaring with Josh Billings, "I'd rather not know so much than to know so much that ain't so."

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Gaza is dying

A good piece from Haaretz on the situation in Gaza.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Joe and Precious

One night several months ago I was feeling really depressed and homesick for my mountains and forests. Lacking a better safe alternative, I decided to go and sit in Dupont Circle for a while (it's not exactly isolation in a forest, but at least it wasn't my apartment and it wasn't too likely that I would get mugged or murdered).

It wasn't long before a dog came over wanting to be petted, and then her owner, a homeless man, came over and started a conversation with me. He was really nice, and didn't seem crazy at all until he told me that he knew all the governors and a good chunk of the world's leaders.

We had a really great conversation for about an hour, and Precious (the dog) lay down and let me scratch her stomach, which Joe told me she hardly ever let people do.

That evening has been one of my favorite memories of DC.

Now, today, I saw this article in the Washington Post - some trigger-happy cop shot Precious on the pretext that she was supposedly about to attack him. She is not an attacking kind of dog.

I started crying when I read it, feeling so bad for Joe. Luckily my officemate wasn't at her desk, so nobody at work caught me. I'm sure they would all think I'm crazy if they knew I was crying over a homeless man losing his dog.

Course now all of you know that I am a crazy girl who cries over homeless people losing their pets, but I figure either you don't know me, so why should I care, or you know me well enough that this sort of behavior from me does not come as a surprise.

I feel like I should do something for Joe. What is the appropriate thing to do for someone who loses their pet? Keeping in mind that I can't count on seeing him at a specific time, so getting flowers or something wouldn't work because I couldn't be sure of getting them to him at the right time. Ideas?

R.I.P., Precious.

Photos of Senegal

These are some photos of Senegal that I found online.

I think I will be living in a hut like this!


I am going to dress like this woman:

This is the food I am going to eat (I am a little scared, but I will do it):

I am going to ride around in a donkey cart! (Okay, Peace Corps is going to give me a bike, but I will make sure to ride in the donkey cart at least sometimes).

I am definitely going for a camel ride!

I love baobab trees.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Time to get married?

When I was growing up, my mom always told me to get an education and have a career. Getting married and having kids could wait. But now, apparently, my time is up. When I went home to visit my family in June, my mom and grandma told me that I should focus less on my career and more on finding a husband. Time is running out - if I don't find a man soon, I will become too old and nobody will want me.

Furthermore, my grandma says that I should marry "within my category" - which is code for white, Christian (preferably Southern Baptist, but Methodist would probably do), and Southern.

I called my grandma this weekend to tell her about Peace Corps, and she told me she has found me a husband! His name is Frank, and he's a Marine. And "within my category" I'm sure. And it appears Frank is in cahoots with her on this plan - I heard him in the background asking about me.

Thanks but no thanks, Grandma. An arranged marriage is not my idea of fun.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Peace Corps!

After over six months of waiting, and going to the doctor eighteen billion times for one test after another, I finally yesterday received my Peace Corps assignment - I'm going to Senegal in March!

I knew basically nothing about Senegal before yesterday, but here's what I've learned in the last 24 hours: I will likely be living in a mud hut within a host family's compound. No electricity or running water. I'll be given a bike for getting around, but Senegalese use donkey-carts a lot (I want to ride in one too!). Food is mostly rice or millet, with vegetables and meat (sounds good). Only potentially scary ingredient I've read so far is the fish - I'm scared it will still have the head attached. Apparently tea and coffee is pretty common, which makes me really happy. French is the colonial language, and then I will get to learn a local language too - Wolof for starters, which is spoken in Thies, where I'll be for the first two months while I do training.

I'm going to get lots of books and learn more. So stay tuned!

Sunday, September 03, 2006

A pretty cemetery

A really pretty cemetery I passed while biking in Rock Creek Park.

Friday, September 01, 2006

One of these things is not like the other one...

Remember that song from Sesame Street, "one of these things is not like the other one..." It pops into my head whenever I think about this situation:

As soon as the ceasefire took hold in Lebanon, Hezbollah was out clearing streets, assessing damage to buildings, and handing out wads of cash to those in need, to help get them back on their feet. (Good for them, I say.) The Western press was full of articles saying that we had better rebuild Lebanon faster than Hezbollah could, so that the Lebanese people will like us better than their friendly neighborhood terrorist organization. The Lebanese government recently announced that families who lost their homes will be given about $33,000 in compensation - I don't know for sure, since I haven't been following it closely, but I'm betting that that's better than the US government is doing for Katrina victims. At the Donors' Conference for Lebanon held in Stockholm on Thursday, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora asked the international community for about $500 million to start rebuilding Lebanon. Instead, he got promises totaling $940 million - almost double what he asked for. Then there are the peacekeepers - after some initial delays, 12,995 troops have been committed to Lebanon out of a requested 15,000. They're already starting to arrive in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, not so very far away...the World Food Program has announced that it will have to cut food rations for displaced persons from Darfur because the rest of the world won't pony up the money to keep them from starving to death. The inadequately small African Union force is short of funding as well, so it's had to cut back on patrols (cause they can't afford the gas), resulting in such a decrease in security in Darfur that the International Rescue Committee has reported that over the last 5 weeks over 200 women were raped in Kalma camp alone, with another 200 reporting being attacked and assaulted in other ways. The African Union's mandate expires in a month, meaning they're supposed to pack up and go home. Theoretically they're to be replaced by UN peacekeepers, but the recent resolution passed by the Security Council says that the peacekeepers can only be deployed if the government of Sudan accepts them, which so far it is refusing to do. But lots of countries have already said that they won't be able to contribute any troops to the peacekeeping force anyway, so even if Sudan accepted them there would likely not be anywhere near the number needed to actually provide security in Darfur.

So, in one case, we have a very recent emergency which no one predicted (including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who recently said that if he had known how strongly Israel would react, he wouldn't have had the soldiers kidnapped), but in which the international community has really done an amazing job of responding, generously contributing money and people to resolve the crisis as quickly as possible. And in the other case, a situation which has been going on for years - was anyone caught off guard by people in Darfur needing food aid? Or the need for boots on the ground to protect civilians? And yet we can't find the money or troops to keep people from starving and being raped.

Anyone else feeling a little cognitive dissonance here?