Chega! Now is the time

Now is the time to show the world that America backs up her talk with action.  It has always been very interesting to me as someone who has worked abroad as much as I have to talk about rights comparisons.  I've heard too much, "Well in America, if you are this they don't treat you like scheiße."  True, sometimes they don't.  But, also sometimes they do.

With the legal stance of some aspects of my future up for discussion in the legal corridors of Washington, D.C. I got to thinking about some things today.

1. I am grateful for the sea of red when I pull up my Facebook account.  This may seem trite or unimportant to some of you reading, but it's the little actions that create change.  According to many polls, a majority of America supports extending marriage equality to the LGBT community.  With all these little actions, we are so close to a tipping point, it is SUPER frustrating to have to wait until June.

2.  It is the weirdest feeling to have the validity of my love deliberated in courtroom by 20 some odd people I don't know and don't know me.  To have to sit here MILES away, 'powerless' and praying for a good outcome ramps me up to no end.  Who are they to judge?

3. Namibia is an interesting case when it comes to LGBT rights.  Officially, sodomy is illegal.  Lesbians are okay and generally there are no laws on the books about them.  Technically, homosexuality is not illegal.  They can't arrest you for being homosexual here, the can get you for sodomy though.  However, the legacy of Apartheid has caused Namibia to ensure an ironclad right to privacy is enshrined in its constitution.  So... the question is....  :)    LGBT individuals exist here, they are generally left alone and even blackmail is unheard of when it comes to homosexuality.  Yet many LGBT Namibians I have met do ask me what it's like in America.   I have to admit, I'm a New Englander through and through.  The furthest I've lived outside of NE is Pittsburgh, PA.  So I can't talk about Mississippi.  Yet after the story about the first LGBT candidate's killing, I would say Namibia is doing better than parts of my own home country.

4. We need to clean up our house at home before we can go out to other countries and tell them 'like it is.'  I'm not advocating for a complete halt on working on LGBT rights abroad, or a halt at all.  I'm saying, let's ride the wave of public opinion back home and turn this country around!


I remember I came out on this blog.  As I said then and will say now, nothing has changed with me.    When I was in the process of coming out, I thought everything.  I thought it was a phase, I thought it was not normal.  But then something just clicked and I realized it is normal, it's not a phase and I'm happy.  I hope nothing less than society and anybody who reads this who isn't pro-equality will see the day when it just clicks....

An Important Lesson

Many times, a Westerner will come to Africa with the view that he or she is the expert and others have to learn from them.  Often times it is the locals who teach the Westerner something. 

When I was in Mozambique, the greetings protocol used to make me INSANE.  This especially happened when I wanted to get something done.  I really didn’t care how your goats were, I wanted to get in, get what I wanted from you and get out.  There were important things to do in Mozambique which didn’t involve sweating it out in some dark meeting room.

However, time has changed my view on the protocol required in African contexts.  Yesterday is my case in point.  As many of you who have followed me on Facebook or talked with me recently, you know that I am helping out a Namibian friend here with the social media requirements of her business.  It’s proven a daunting task.   She’s sometimes very mistrusting of people she doesn’t know (me) and technology she doesn’t completely understand (Facebook).  So it’s taken almost a month to even get her to trust me.

Yesterday, we had 2 hours set aside to work on her Facebook page and put together a fundraising campaign.  However, the first hour was spent just catching up.  This is something that I only noticed later worked very well for us.  She now trusts me so much that she is sending me her banking information to get her all set up with the fundraising campaign.  All we had to do was ask each other how we were.

Interesting what happens when you slow down.

Ian

It really is all about the little things...

Sometimes in the land of cheap and plentiful (America) one can lose track of the little things that make life so sweet.  I know I am guilty of that.  In America, I usually have a screen blaring at me most of my waking hours.  Unfortunately, it comes as part and parcel of being a social media coordinator.  I would even go so far as saying it is part of 21st Century American culture.

Since I've been here in Namibia, I've fallen in love with this continent all over again.  Namibia is quite different from Mozambique, which will always be my terra africana, but there are hidden gems woven into Namibian culture that I am learning to appreciate every day.

My first example just happened to me.  I am here in downtown Windhoek having a beer and doing some internet work.  Some guy walks by me and speaks to me in Afrikaans.  I answered in Afrikaans, saying it's not my mother language but I can understand.  We procede to talk (in Afrikaans) and of course he is selling something.  But he was selling the marulla nut pendants that I've only seen in Namibia.  We got talking further and he wanted N$50 per pendant.  I told him he is gek (crazy) and he started laughing that an American would know a word like that.  I had some fried on my table so I offered him some fries and now I have both pendants with Adam and my names carved into them for N$50.

The other wonderful thing - dare I say miraculous - happened earlier.  I went to a book store in Windhoek that I've passed on a regular basis.  The rainbow flag is outside, so I knew I had to check it out.  I went in and started talking with the owner.  He is a middle aged German-Namibian and offered me tea.  I took it and spent the afternoon chatting with him and some of his friends in German.  I was looking for an old book about Windhoek, which he had for only N$58.  I paid N$50.  While I was helping him shut down the shop, I chanced across some plays from around the world.  I noticed some Shakespeare so I looked for Twelfth Night.  AND I FOUND IT!    The price tage was N$50 and he gave it to me for free.

Now I am off home, because the Germans are coming to pick me up in an hour for a Braai (Southern African BBQ) at their house.

More soon,

Ian

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I’ve been toying with the thought of writing a book about my time in Africa.  My experiences today have a lot to do with the title and with my desire to write about Africa.  It has felt VERY good to start up this blog again.  I feel like it is a place where I can put my experiences down on ‘paper’ to process them more and also feel like I’m talking to people back home.

The title of this blog is my phone number from Peace Corps Mozambique.  It was my connection to the outside world and my lifeline for making things work at site.  To me, over the corse of the 3 years I spent there, I felt like it was a barometer of my time in Moz.  I started out at 8 (out of 10) because I was nervous about what was ahead of me.  I then went to a 2 when I was dropped off at site and given the keys to my house.  I was in the middle of nowhere!  Or at least so I thought.  I then slowly made my way up to a 5 when things normalized for me.  After my first project spectacularly failed, I was down back to 2.  Got used to the failures, and I moved up to 3.  After I really started getting used to Mozambique, made friends and made it feel like home.  But it still wasn’t really ‘home’ (where was that?)  So I got back to an 8.  Then I was leaving and sad.  I got pushed down to a 2.  Yet Africa was under my skin and I went back home one.

I’ve felt all those changes today.  THis morning was wonderful with the National Botanical Gardens and a trip to the farmer’s market.  Then I went out to another cafe to try out the wireless internet.  It didn’t exist.  I went across the compound to the wireless internet I could find and I put myself there for a couple of hours.  When I got home, I tried to get some of my checklist done.  But the house was too quiet and I couldn’t get motivated.  But, after some more food, I was able to get motivated and I found out all the movies that my friend gave me play on the television in my living room through a USB connection on the DVD player.  I’m definitely living a very 1st world existence here in the Namib Desert.

It’s the little things right?

Out of Practice - or am I?

You have to have a certain type of chutzpah to make it in Africa.  There is just a constant bombardment of the senses that if you are not 'always on,' you might just get ripped off.  I think it's similar to the feeling you can get on stage when you are required to be completely on for the the course of the show.

My Peace Corps Country director said to me once in a dive bar near the border of Zimbabwe, "Volunteers have a 24/7 job.  The minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep, you are working, representing America and that might be the toughest job you ever have."  I think people may also be curious on how we sleep!  But, I digress.

I was walking to downtown Windhoek today after work and passed by a section where the majority of registered hawkers set up shop to sell you all sorts of Africana.  Alot of it is the same that you'll see in Namibia, South africa, Swaziland or Mozambique, but I stopped by a stall because I saw something that comes from Mozambique.  I know it as 'pastas de palha' or palm wallets and like using them for the abundance of coin I get when traveling in southern Africa.  It's also very nice because it stops the coin from jingling in your pocket.  I asked the person at the stall how much and she said N$180! (20 USD). This is for something I would buy for 5-10 Meticais in Mozambique (20-40 cents)  I laughed at her out loud and said I felt insulted she thought I would be so stupid to pay that amount.  She immediately dropped her price to N$120 - which is still too high.

A man came over to me and asked how much I was willing to pay, I said N$4 because that is equal to MTn10.  He laughed at me.  Taking some words of advice from a friend in Vermont who had been to this part of the world since the recession of 2008, I asked if I paid N$100 (which he wanted), what would he give me?  He pointed to some small tschaky and I picked out what I actually wanted.  So, long story short.  I walked away from the market with a bag full of curios as presents for people for N$150.  All were happy and I don't think I'm as out of practice as I previously though.

Now, why would I say I am out of practice?  I lived in the Mozambican bush for 3 years after all.  But, the thing is, I've lived a cushy existence in America since then.  I felt particularly out of practice when my friend Lauren came to visit from South Africa.  She's lived in SA and Moz for the past 5 years save for a 6 month break back in PA.  We had gone out to a bierhaus on her last night in Windhoek and took a taxi home.  Naturally, most taxi drivers think that everyone coming out of this bierhaus is a tourist.  We asked for a taxi and were told it would be N$50 dollars for a 2 kilometer ride.  That ride is normally N$9 a person.

We eventually found a normal taxi and gave them a N$20 for us to get home.  But, on the ride home I thought things were bad.  I couldn't understand the driver and thought he was slurring his words.  I later realized he only spoke nominal English.  I admired my friend because she was just a chatty Cathy with the drivers and had them laughing with her or at her.  I felt that night I couldn't do things like that anymore and would rather stay home than have to deal with it.

Needless to say, we got home safely and after the experience in the curio market today, I might not be in such bad shape after all!

More soon,
Ian