They Hate Us For Our Freedoms

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So I have a little time between my morning and afternoon classes yesterday. I decide to go grab a bite at the “Greek” gyro place that’s off a little side street of the main square. The food’s great, I finish up, and begin to head back to school. Then I see this car. Let me back up a little bit at this point. Here in Romania, license places are in the following format: [Two Letters – indicating region of country] [A bunch of numbers – random] [Three Letters – can be chosen by owner.] As you might imagine, car owners try to be cute with these last three letters, and I’ve taken to spotting interesting ones. For instance, I’ve seen XXX, BLO (on a Hummer) FAT, and other such things. So, back to this car.

I notice that its letters are: HAL. Now, being the geek I am, I think HAL from 2001. But, upon closer inspection of the car, I notice a bumper sticker (something almost unheard of here,) which reads Halliburton. Of course at this point my blood begins to boil. And once I notice that there is a man sitting in the driver’s seat looking over some papers, I wonder what, if anything, I should do. My first impulse is to tap on the window, and say something along the lines of, “So what the fuck are you pillaging from this lovely town?” I decide against that. Instead I just take a look at the guy – nondescript – and continue to my class. In hindsight, I think that I really ought to have said something (if not that.)

So this has all got me wondering and thinking big picture thoughts. I was concerned about two things. 1) So what IS Halliburton doing in Romania? and 2) Isn’t it interesting that our paths (this company and a Peace Corps volunteer) are crossing? So, to answer the first question, I turned to my new and wonderful friend the internet! I found an interesting article HERE, called “The Politics of Oil: The privatization of Romania’s oil industry has enriched the well-connected—and corrupt.” This report is by a group called, “The Center for Public Integrity,” which seems legit. If you want a peep into the grossly corrupt business/govt. culture here, and the ambitions of NATO/Halliburton/the like to get a piece of the privatization pie, read this article. What I can get from it is that Halliburton has some important role in the privatization of Romania’s oil industry – the specifics, of course, are not so clear. So now I’m really kicking myself for not saying anything… imagine the possibilities! My point number 2, about our paths crossing, is also troubling.

Let’s back up and look at my Peace Corps experience so far. First I’m sent to Uzbekistan, a country which until recently has been sponsored by the US. The post-9/11 alliance forged between the two countries, sold in the name of “fighting the global war on terror,” emboldened a brutal dictator and encouraged torturous treatment of suspected militants. Human rights abuses became more gross, and the quality of life continued to decline in that former Soviet republic. Of course, the real issue here is oil interests, and the premise seems to have been that with Uzbekistan, the US would have a strong base from which to pursue its oil-hungry regional campaigns. Unfortunately with a failed popular protest, Washington was forced to condemn the regime (to save some face,) and thereby lost the favor of Karimov. Currently, Uzbekistan is just another Muslim country in the “Loss” category of the neo-con agenda.

After this, I find myself in Romania… of all places. And recently, the news from here is eerily similar. Secret torture camps in the former land of Vlad the Impaler? Maybe. Future NATO bases, surely. PCRO sent out a message stating that, “In an effort to ensure that Peace Corps and the US Military maintain completely separate identities in Romania, PCRO is considering various Volunteer placement options once US military bases are established here. One of the options under consideration is to discontinue placing PCVs in locations where there will be US military facilities.” Sigh! Did you know that in Uzbekistan I was just about 45 minutes away from K2, the Karshi-Khanabad military base? And now, bases in Romania? Is there no escape from our Military empire? And with this Halliburton crap, the same goes for the neo-con business oligarchy? Simply, this is all starting to stink.

I’m now able to listen to my favorite liberal talk show host, Mike Malloy (link.) If you are a liberal/progressive who is fed up with the amount of crap that passes for our foreign policy these days, I recommend you give this guy a listen. I loved him from the beginning when I first heard him refer to the Bush family as “The Bush Crime Family.” I feel so upset about all of this, so I’ve decided to let it all go in terms of my classes. Today with a very good group of 12th graders, we talked about 9/11, oil, Iraq, and all those great and fun and happy topics. Although I’ve griped about my work here previously, I was quite impressed with the kids’ responses and what seemed to be some genuine interest and opinions regarding this issue. Isn’t it just grand that your tax dollars are going to Halliburton AND me at the same time in pretty much the same place?

But I’m worried, because of the “missionary principle.” The principle goes as such: the missionaries who come to Romania try to weasel into the schools under the guise of offering “free English lessons.” So, they do that, and then, casually, begin talking about Jesus. Then they say, “hey, if you’re interested, why not come down for a discussion at McDonalds after school?” These missionary organizations have the funds to offer such bribes, thereby recruiting kids into the program. And it doesn’t end with McDonalds – that’s just the beginning of the perks. Now as a Peace Corps volunteer, I have no such funds to lavish on students in such a manner. And although these missionary types are not allowed at the schools I work at (good ones,) I can see the less selective schools jumping at the opportunity for a free English teacher.

And this is my dilemma with these Halliburton folks as well. Since there is no middle class in Romania, you either have or have not. Since my students are among the best in the country, they do not lack the potential to join the former group. What I fear, though, is that the dirty ways (both of this country’s past, and our country’s present,) will be that great McDonalds coupon to a better life; if the alternative is having not, I wonder what they’d be willing to let go so as to not get passed by. Have faith, yet!

I’ll be gone for a week at a conference with the other volunteers in my group, and I’ll report back after then.

Till then,

What’s the Plan, Man?

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1: New Videos! Some videos from Uzbekistan have been posted in the photo gallery! They are in the section, “Videos,” in the category, “Peace Corps Uzbekistan.” Enjoy and please contact me if you have any difficulty viewing them.

2: I have just returned from the movie “Flightplan,” staring Jodie Foster. Although most of the movies that come through town here are the standard Hollywood crap, this one was in fact quite brilliant. However, my friend with whom I saw the movie thought that the bit with the Arab passengers was un-necessary. Basically, Foster’s character accused, without any evidence, two Arab passengers on the plane of having kidnapped her daughter. Why, she asked, do films have to constantly touch upon this subject. Surely, she thought, such representations would only inflame existing tensions. But with this I disagreed entirely. The fact that this happened in the film made it all the more believable. Like it or not, these prejudices exist (and are not totally without basis,) and to deny their existence would be disingenuous. Now this is not an accusation of my friend here, but I honestly think her reaction signifies something larger.

The fact is that the whole world is facing this tremendous problem and we, Americans, the people who have historically been problem solvers, are at a loss. Whether we have no plan or the wrong plan is of little consequence if in the end, we remain no closer to our goal than when we started. I have been reading up on Uzbekistan now that I have internet in my apartment, and it is truly terrifying the extent to which global politics and the battle over terrorism reach. So we can not just put our heads in the sand, and we can’t be complacent with the lame belief that the journalists are re-growing their spine; once it’s gone it won’t come back – (oh but maybe it could but Jesus says no you foolish whitecoats!) The fact that in the movie “Flightplan,” an American citizen reacted with undue negativity to an Arab on an airplane is completely believable. Now in the case of the film, all ended well, and apologies, perhaps in not so many words, were exchanged. And although this was but a small element of a truly interesting plot, it acknowledged the tension with which we currently live.

Here in Romania, people are blatantly racist, and engage in about any “-ism” you can imagine. As “the American,” I am supposed to act as a counterexample to such behavior. It is something I try to do, but one which I find more and more difficult by the day. There is no doubt in my mind that as a Nation, we have been committing some unbearable atrocities in these past weeks, months and years. And no, although when I hear JFK’s words I sometimes want to cry, I’m not so naive to believe that our past has been all cupcakes and apple pie. This world is not a kind place and sometimes one must be tough. I believe that good leaders make decisions in times of need and must have the courage to be bold amidst the opposition of those to scared to make any decision at all. However, such decisions must be for concrete, achievable and noble ends. If I were to proclaim that I would kill every Romanian who talks to me and I don’t understand, I would certainly be without a single friend here, likely without any support in my crusade, and probably dead myself. If my policy is so brash that it will lead to my own annihilation before I can even hope to see my desired result, then surely it is just suicide along with taking others down with me – or – err – terrorism.

So how can I say, with any credibility, that America is good, and terrorism and terrorists are evil? Must terrorism involve bombs and airplanes, or does it manifest itself in more sinister, easily forgiven ways? How can I say that Americans are justly global leaders when the news is of ordinary people beaning each other at Wal*Marts over toys imported from China? We have, sadly, become a nation of fools, led by a man who is no less criminal than those who ought, indeed, to be brought to justice. Unfortunately, unlike in “Flightplan,” its not always the case that the plane lands safely, the good guys escape, and the bad guys are blown to pieces. The way we have it now, everybody dies. It is a odd zero sum game whereby everyone looses – a synnecrosis of the most tragic sort.

How tragic, then, my American History class will soon become! The voices for right, laden with an unmistakable urgency, must be heard. But sometimes I wonder, deeply, how it is that the majority of us, well at least 50.7% supposedly, chose not to hear them. We must now, or soon, perhaps, we won’t even have the choice.

Car, Keys, Wallet

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Ever do something totally in earnest and then realize you’ve in fact done something quite funny?

This is a note that I wrote to myself a few days ago. The Gun refers to a lighter in the shape of a shotgun that I wanted to buy for my kitchen stove. The Bank refers to a trip to the bank to collect my new ATM card. Lastly, the $ refers to the $20 I wanted to exchange while at the bank. There you have it.

Vents

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Life here continues to be amusing, contrary, and all around exciting. Since I’ve last written, much has happened. A few weeks ago I went with a few friends to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It was one of my friend’s 30th birthday, and since she wanted all out for such a special event, it was so granted. Of course, as you must know, although Romania is one of the most developed of the Peace Corps countries, travel here is still a bit of a crap shoot. Getting to Bucharest should have been easy. My friend would take a train from her site to mine, and then we’d hop another train. As we well should have figured, though, this was not to be. Instead she sat on her train for an hour in the middle of nowhere, and arrived too late for the connecting train. The solution was to take a “maxi-taxi” all the way from my site (Tirgu-Mures) to Bucharest (total distance about 500 km.) For those of you lucky to have cars, you probably haven’t had to suffer a long-distance maxi taxi ride.

A maxi-taxi is a van with lots of seats cramped into it that must fly through its route in order to maintain a tight schedule. So, that was the story. And additionally, Romania has no highways (or at least as we understand them,) so anytime we passed by a hill of any magnitude, our little maxi-taxi became a bobsled – woosh – jerrrk – woosh! By the time we arrived in Bucharest (unfamiliar and late at night,) my traveling companion was a bit delirious. Luckily we were not taken for a ride by the taxi driver, and soon settled in.

Bucharest was great fun, although I didn’t get to to any sightseeing. The first night we went out for cocktails, and the second night, well, we went out to a “fabulous” club – something which never would have been possible in Uz. Another major highlight of the visit was our trip to a Indian restaurant called Taj. Expensive? Yes. Delicious? Unbelievably so! My program manager had mentioned to me, when I told here that things at school were tough, that a change of scenery would be a great boost to my emotions. Well, she was totally correct – the thrill of travel and a new place really cleared my mind. Luckily getting home was much easier (although our train departed just one minute after we got on board…) All in all it was hectic, crazy and just what we all needed.

This past weekend we had another little trip, this time to a city called Sighisoara, not far from my site. Sighisoara contains a medieval fortress which is still occupied with ordinary peoples’ houses. It was amazingly Gothic. I took some pictures and promise to soon upload an entirely new Romania album which will include these and many others. Again we had some good food and danced a bit. One of the other guys we were with mentioned that many of his students were at the same club at which we ended up…. eeeh.

This week all the teachers in the country are on strike! Good for them. They would like a greater percentage of the national budget to be directed toward education, and receive food tickets (a benefit to which all other governmental employees are privy.) I sincerely hope that some progress will be made. For me this means time off to organize. Just today I went to the cable company and prodded them to hurry it up with my cable internet hookup (I’ve been waiting two months,) and they said they’d send someone on Friday from between 9 and 3 – so, some things are the same even here. I’m going to have some general interest meetings with my students next week about what kinds of extracurriculars they’d like to do; I have many ideas myself, but it’s important that they are into it. I should have done this much sooner, but better late then never.

When people aren’t burning their plastic laden garbage, the air here smells like classic fall. Old women with long handled brooms sweep up the large brown leaves around my building and the children are (always) playing their makeshift soccer. Maxi-taxis come and go, the bells chime at six and the earth revolves.

Grim grinning ghosts

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‘Tis the season to be creepy, and, in keeping with the spirit, I thought I’d bring to light some of the reasons behind why every supermarket in the country is going pumpkin-crazy.

First and foremost, “Halloween” comes from “Hallowed (or “holy/sacred”) evening”. Most people know this. It’s also common knowledge, going by the prevalence of horror-themed festivities, that “hallowed” carries some menacing undertones.

Halloween – or what was to become Halloween – began in ancient Ireland about 2,500 years ago. Known as Samhain (pronounced sow-en), it was actually the Celtic counterpart to the modern New Year, both in function and manner of celebration. It was believed that on Samhain Night, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the not-so-living were relaxed, and all manner of spirits walked the earth. This especially included the spirits of the previous years’ dead, who would attempt to regain their former corporeal existences by commandeering the bodies of the living. Unless, that is, the living made themselves look sufficiently un-commandeerable by dressing up as monsters and making a lot of noise.

Subsequently, the underlying point of the occasion wasn’t so much celebration as self-defense, similar to the modern strategy of acting deranged in deserted subway stations so whoever lives there won’t mess with you. This, supposedly, is the root of “dressing up”. While the custom’s efficacy against roving and destitute spirits is questionable, it has been demonstrably successful at traumatizing preadolescent trick-or-treaters.

So now we know the origin of Michael Jackson horror masks. But why candy? And what’s so frightening about pumpkins?

In researching this article, I came across a wide variety of proposed origins for trick or treating:

– One site stated that trick-or-treating started with people – not just children – going door to door and collecting small, rather cardboard-ish prayer cakes. They didn’t get these free – they first had to promise to say certain prayers on behalf of the cake-giver’s recently deceased loved ones. Try telling that to a kid today.

– Another story had it that trick-or-treating is a reenactment of Irish beggars requesting food from the rich. Refusing meant a lot more than getting one’s windows soaped, at least according to the beggars – the selfish would find themselves targeted by evil spirits.

– Wikipedia explained that “trick-or-treating” was first called “guising”, where the aforementioned trick was actually a performance rather than a prank. Children asking for candy were, as in the first account, expected to do something to deserve it – a typical “trick” might consist of a song, or a poem, or a joke. Needless to say, this tradition isn’t widely recognized any more. “No, Billy, you can’t have that Snickers bar until you recite all the U.S Presidents starting with Washington” would probably get an interesting reaction. Maybe even a lawsuit.

According to legend, pumpkins came a while later, stemming from the unfortunate experience of a man accounts refer to only as “Jack”. Jack was not known for his virtues – he was apparently a drink-loving lout who liked to play tricks on people. One day, he tricked the Devil, luring him into a tree and then trapping him there by placing crosses around the trunk. Jack only released the Devil after extracting a promise that he would never go to Hell.

After dying, Jack was deemed too loutish for Heaven and sent packing. On attempting to get into Hell, however, he was reminded that he had permanently cancelled his reservation, and found himself doomed to wander the mortal world forever. The Devil, out of pity – or, more likely, a twisted sense of irony – gave Jack a single ember from the flames of Hell, so he would at least have something to see by. Jack carved out a turnip to hold the ember, so it wouldn’t go out, and so it was that folks in old-time Ireland used to carve turnips for Halloween, sparing themselves the anguish of sifting through frigid pumpkin goo. Whether Jack managed to snag himself the body of an ineffectively costumed trick-or-treater is not known.

Irish immigrants to America, however, found that pumpkins were much more available than turnips were, and provided a larger carving area, so the custom changed. And just in time, too – who would worship something called The Great Turnip?

There’s much more to be said about the origins of Halloween. I didn’t even get into its uneasy relationship with fundamentalist Christianity, or Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), but I have to make sure my Michael Jackson mask fits before I go out tonight.

That’s it for this very special Chris Report on the history of Halloween. We now return you to your semi-regularly scheduled overseas hijinks.