The Prince and The Magician

Once upon a time there was a young prince, who believed in all things
but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands,
he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things
did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father’s
domains, and no sign of God, the young prince believed his father.
But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace. He came to the
next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands,
and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared
not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress
approached him along the shore.
“Are those real islands?” asked the young prince.
“Of course they are real islands,” said the man in evening dress.
“And those strange and troubling creatures?”
“They are all genuine and authentic princesses.”
“Then God also must exist!” cried the prince.
“I am God,” replied the man in full evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
“So you are back,” said his father, the king.
“I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,” said the
prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved.
“Neither real islands, nor neat princesses, nor a real God, exist.”
“I saw them!”
“Tell me how God was dressed.”
“God was in full evening dress.”
“Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?”
The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.
“That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.”
At this, the prince returned to the next land, and went to the same
shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.
“My father the king has told me who you are,” said the young prince
indignantly. “You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that
those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a
magician.”
The man on the shore smiled.
“It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father’s kingdom there are
many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father’s
spell, so you cannot see them.”
The prince returned pensively home. When he saw his father, he looked
him in the eyes.
“Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?”
The king smiled, and rolled back his sleeves.
“Yes, my son, I am only a magician.”
“Then the man on the shore was God.”
“The man on the shore was another magician.”
“I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic.”
“There is no truth beyond magic,” said the king.
The prince was full of sadness.
He said, “I will kill myself.”
The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.
“Very well,” he said. “I can bear it.
“You see, my son,” said the king, “you too now begin to be a magician.”

From The Magus by John Fowles

Stand Up for Humanity

Walking to work early yesterday morning, I watched as a homeless woman dug through a pile of garbage nested in the overgrowth of an empty lot.  Whatever food she found she took to a narrow alley between two buildings, her street home I imagine, furnished with plastic bags full of possessions discarded by someone more fortunate.  The woman crouched, shadowed  in the far corner of her street crib, and began to eat whatever it was she had found. Hardwired to survive, her arm encircled the food on her lap like a fort, while her head angled slightly eyeing the emaciated dog standing at the entrance to the alley. Suffering from the same condition, the dog watched her with gaunt, desperate eyes; kindred spirits, he waited patiently until she was done, finally scrambling for the scraps she tossed to him in the end.  Somewhat hidden from view across the street, I couldn't take my eyes off of her or the dog, their business of staying alive so raw.

I often wonder how and why people become homeless; the how is simple, they don't have money to pay for a place to live; but the why is more complicated with a multitude of reasons: poverty, lack of affordable rental housing, eroding work opportunities, domestic violence, addiction, mental health.  I hear about the conflicting intuitions people have about homelessness, some even skew the issue along political agendas to distance themselves from the inhumanity of it all. More families are on the streets today than ever before, more women, more children.  Homelessness shames us.  It is a reminder of society's failures. Standing face to face with  homelessness makes us uncomfortable;  it is impossible to process the utter hopelessness, so in fear we hurry away hoping it doesn't stick.  But we have to do something.  Donate food, bus fare to and from job interviews, clothes, toiletries; share skills, kindness, and empathy. Educate ourselves, start a dialogue for change, make it matter, make it personal.

I leave the scene and whisper as I do so often these days , "there but for the grace of God go I."

And so it goes on Friday, April 13th in Basseterre, St. Kitts.

Mercury in retrograde. The most precarious time of year.

Mercury is in retrograde until April 4th.  It started on March 12th and this occasion is notorious for screwing up anything involving technology, communication, transportation, and legal matters and drudging up problems (or people) from the past you thought were gone for good.  And while any Mercury retrograde is sure to wreak havoc in these areas in some way -- big or small - for everyone, it also affects each of us a bit differently, depending on our sun sign.

I'm a Gemini and and though I adhere to the theory that the "best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,"  this current run of bad luck has been driving me crazy.  Then I read the astrological forecast for Gemini during Mercury's backward dance:  "... on the 23rd (of March) it moves into your professional sector and a work project could get totally screwed up. Patience is key."   And here's what happened: 

I'm launching the first project for the Youth Volunteer Corps (YVC) this weekend.  50 kids will be volunteering their time to work on a community service project they had voted on during our last workshop, but unfortunately it will not be the project I organized months ago, since that one fell apart late last week.

After meeting with representatives from the two Rotary clubs on the island several times since January and meeting with the Principal of one of the primary schools, I had arranged that the YVC would paint the stage and mural at the school, paint the breezeway and  the walls surrounding the school, and work on the agricultural area behind the school. It was to be a partnership between Rotary, Education and the Department of Youth: Rotary would provide supplies and supervision, Education the site, and the Department of Youth would provide the kids, lunch and refreshments. 

Friday morning it started. Rotary won't work on government properties unless government provides the supplies - in this case Public Works needs to supply the paint.  Public Works won't supply the paint because the Principal of the school didn't give them enough notice and besides they're not on the list for paint this year.  Agriculture already has a "plot" staked out at the school and they have authority over anyone else so we can't do agricultural work at the school even though the plot is nothing but a pile of dirt last I looked, and finally Rotary won't get involved with agricultural work anyway unless the school has their own supplies, which they don't.  So no on the paint, no on the agriculture aspect, no on the school.  Back to Rotary. 

As a secondary project on that same date, we were supposed to help Rotary plant trees along a section of the road by the Port that one of the Rotary groups had adopted to care for, but when I asked my contact for the logistics of this plan so I could rethink how to organize the kids for Saturday, I was told that the trees aren't ready for planting.  So no Rotary.

Between yesterday and today I put together a last minute project to clean up one of the beaches, and it is something that needs to be done no question, but it is not the kind of  project I wanted the kids to experience as a first time effort.  The school would have allowed them to actually see the impact of their efforts for a long time, the beach will be dirty again as soon as the fishermen come back on Monday morning. Nonetheless, I didn't want to lose the energy we have created with the expectation of this weekend launch, not for the kids or for the community; so we'll be cleaning the beach, happy to have a project to get us started, even if we have to do it retrograde.

Friday was March 23rd.  See what I mean?  Hard not to drink the kool aid. 

And so it goes on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, eight more days until Mercury gets it right again.

On Pollyanna, Tortoises and Hares, and Eric Clapton too.

It's not like I don't have anything to share as my infrequent blogging might suggest, it's just that I live so much inside my head these days that I don't realize I'm not staying connected until I run into myself in the mirror; easy to avoid in the cozy cave I call my home with only one small mirror above the bathroom sink.  But when it happens, I catch the reflection and am reminded that I'm still here.

Back to the couch, as I catch you up.

A friend from Seattle came to visit last week, someone I've known since I was 14, one of those "you can pick up right where you left off" kinds of friends, even if it’s been years since the last connect.  She gets me and I get her and that feels comfortable and safe.  We did all the island stuff; beaches, tourist shops, buses and ports and long walks into town.  We caught up on kids and jobs and relationships - or the lack thereof, and how it feels to be living in a world where"60 is the new 50", not an unhappy thought, just curiously complex when we consider that retirement is no longer around the corner for either of us.  I enjoyed the visit, a lot.  It reminded me that I had lived a life long before this one; brought back the many vicissitudes of the lives I've lived actually, and remembering with someone I trusted helped smooth out the wrinkles for the next one that waits at the end of this adventure.

The Peace Corps experience is as much about connecting cultures as it is about promoting service; I know this to be true, and though I have integrated well into the culture here I must continue to work on sharing the experience of that integration with those back home.

In seven months my service here will come to an end.   It’s hard to believe that 20 months have passed since I first arrived.  During the months of pre-service training, I felt most often overwhelmed, unsure of the commitment I’d made.  I looked at the two years that lay ahead as time dangling at the edge of a world, flat and endless. There were so many rules, so many expectations, so much to do with little direction and few resources.  It didn’t take long during my home stay to see that the culture in which I would have to immerse myself was one that saw life as the tortoise without the steady focus part when I had always viewed life as the hare without the arrogance to nap.

I let the moral ambiguity of this notion rattle around in my head for a few months and finally decided it was a question of balance. It was up to me to adjust to this new environment and to find a way to make it work.  I decided to look at my service as an opportunity to experience a fresh start, to see work and success and the world from a different vantage point, to experience a new way of being. The past was in the rear view mirror and I was about to try a different road. 

And that kind of Pollyanna take on the world lasted for about a month or two, but its optimism was excessive and it lacked the balance I’d decided earlier would be essential to my success here.

And then some months in and after many pulling my hair out days of frustration, I decided to do what I do best and reach out to the kids.  Get down among them, be part of their experience, find out what they most want, what they think they need. Create projects and opportunities recognizing their value, giving them a voice. It’s where I knew my optimism would find a home and where I would find the best fit.

I learned names and faces and bits about their lives. I asked questions – what made them happy, what made them proud, where they saw themselves in five years - ten years, what did they love, what did they fear, what would they do to change their world if they could; and I answered questions they had for me.  We learned to trust one another and I dared to think that during my time here the welfare of the kids could become a practical objective of my work. And I decided that I would do everything I could possibly do to make it better for them; everything I could do, everyday, to make that happen; even if for only the few that stuck, to keep their trust, long after I'm gone.

“If I could change the world,
I would be the sunlight in your universe,
You would think my love was really something good,
If I could change the world.”   Eric Clapton

Pollyanna returns.

And so it goes March 19, 2012 on the island of St. Kitts.

Cultural Fatigue: Feeling it bad.

The honeymoon phase has long passed; the rooster living in the tree in my backyard is now an annoying malfunctioning alarm clock that I would like to shoot with pellets from an airgun sending its feathers across the Atlantic to another island far away.

I am experiencing what can only be described as cultural fatigue. Feeling the sensation of everything being different and difficult.  Discord, disharmony, confusion and conflict abound.  I need to find a wide stretch of sand where I can erase the impressions of these past weeks and refresh my perspective.

I will now lie on the couch and begin to explain the onset of my cultural dissonance.

I decided to resume teaching expository and creative writing at the same primary school and with the same teacher from last term.  Things had quieted down some at the youth department and it seemed like the perfect time to add an activity I enjoyed to my weekly routine. 

The first week back at the school went well; the kids were a blast to work with and the teacher appreciated the support. By the second week however, the principal decided to get involved and what I had anticipated would be a "work lift" became a source of anxiety and frustration.  When I arrived in the morning with the lesson organized, name tags for the kids, and the days materials ready to go,  I was told that I must teach both 3rd grade classes and work with both teachers, one of whom I can barely tolerate.  I explained that teaching 40 students in a classroom made to fit 20 would be cramped and impossible to manage. Besides, I had only prepared for 20 students and could not accommodate the 40 at the last minute. Since I am a volunteer, I expected my wishes would be respected and began the lesson with the original 3rd grade class as I had planned.  Fifteen minutes later, teacher number two walked into the classroom with her entire cadre of students and filed into the back of the room.   The new students were understandably antsy standing against the wall trying to understand something they had come to in the middle of, and teacher number two responded by swatting at them as if they were flys: neck, face, back, shoulders, hands - whatever she could reach, leaning forward and stretching her hands down the line of unhappy children. 

When I began the actual writing part of the lesson, teacher number two ordered her students to share seats with the original class.  Two students now sat in each chair, three shared a desk with barely enough space for one, notebooks sat on knees, and aisles were crowded with gangly legs and untied shoes. It was chaos.

The lesson continued for two hours and I did my best to help the extra children learn the concept of writing instructions that can be easily followed by someone unfamiliar with the task, but when it came to the practicum, "how to make a cheese sandwich", I asked teacher number two to take her class back to her room since I only had enough food for the original 20.

"I want them to stay," she said.
"I don't think that's a good idea," I said.
"They can watch," she insisted.
"No." I answered. "It's not fair for them to watch the others eat when there is no food for them."

I stood my ground while teacher number one watched the exchange in silence.  Finally teacher number two gathered her students and left the room, but not before telling me with a cultural arrogance that I have become all too familiar with, that she would be reporting this to the principal.

When I work with young people, it is important that I build a relationship with them.  It is how I empower the kids and why they respond to the structure I introduce; empowerment and structure - both essential to learning and to a projects success.  I can't accomplish this goal working with 40 eight year-olds for three hours once a week.  Nor do I want this to be my challenge.  It should be my choice.

I will not return to the school unless conditions change.  And if they do not, it will be a pity for the kids and for me.

And so it goes, on Leap Day, February 29, 2012.




.

When the truth is not relevant.

It's been too long without sharing the latest news from St. Kitts. 

The weather has cooled, especially the humidity, and the physical part of living here is much more comfortable.  I've even found myself wishing for a blanket on a few cool nights.

Carnival parades and Calypso contests have come to an end, children have returned to school and the government has approved the annual budgets for each Ministry, but still we have no supplies: no ink for printing, no copy paper, no pens, pencils or crayons, AND no toilet paper. It is insane to work in an office without toilet paper!

The budget for the Ministry of Youth Empowerment is similar to that of last year, and still has no line item for program implementation.  The five hour "consultative process" staff meeting we had back in October when we discussed the focus of the department for 2012 presented one common concern among staff: money for program implementation.  We were promised that this would be included in the 2012 budget, but it wasn't. And what does this mean for the kids and the department?  Not much for either one, and a disaster for office morale.

The Primary School Debate that was supposed to take place next Monday was cancelled today because it is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Anniversary Celebration and the Department of Education has loaded up teacher's with have to do's in honor of this occasion leaving no time for learning stuff like critical thinking and presentation preparation; language skills and how to exchange ideas; listening to others and essentially practicing the art of communication.  Great decision making on the part of the educators.

I could never live in a place such as this where money is said to be available but not released; where programs are developed but not implemented - or worse yet where programs are implemented but not developed resulting in chaos and disappointment for participants; where promises are made to young people, their parents and community stakeholders, yet broken time and time again; where no one is held accountable and few people care. 

A 16 year old boy was shot a couple of weeks ago because he was gay.  A hate crime or "bias motivated " crime straight from the archives of history at its most awful.  Some say there is no proof the shooting was related to the boy's sexual orientation, others say that he deserved what he got for being so flamboyant, and others claim he was targeted because of something he wrote on his blog or Facebook or some other such nonsense.  It appears that the truth is not relevant when people are in denial of their homophobia and personal bias. Bigotry and oppression, the ugliest side of the human spirit. The boy is still alive but paralyzed.  It wasn't the first time he'd been physically assaulted either, just the first time the weapon was a gun. So much for the golden rule.  A campaign for tolerance too, needs to be taught on this island "paradise"

I watched a chicken cross the road on Fort Street in Basseterre this morning.  He did make it to the other side, but barely.  It was rush hour.






And so it goes this 8th day of February 2012.

Clearing off my desktop...

Going to get serious, reflective, even mildly profound about 2012 some time soon, but first I have to clear my desktop of the assorted collection of sayings, posters, touchy feelies and funnies I've collected these past couple of months just to share with you.

Mindfulness





Grand Carnival Parade Day, St. Kitts, January 2012

Forgive the lack of narrative; I promise I will write something profound by the end of next week.  In the meantime, Caitlin and Jorel left a couple of hours ago and I am feeling the immediate quiet empty of their departure.
So here are some pics from the day of the Grand Carnival Parade; on our way to catch the bus to Cayon after a day at the beach.  I'm a lousy photographer, but I'm going to share a dozen or so of the photos anyway.
Happy New Year my friends.  2012 is wide open and the trains a coming. 
And so it goes this fifth day of the new year, and for me, the first day of saying goodbye.

My baby girl Caitlin and her love, Jorel.

Jorel and the Mommy

Jouvert 2011

My second year celebrating Christmas in St. Kitts with Carnival as part of the two weeks of grand festivities.  Today was Jouvert and one of my favorite people watching events of all time. Since Caitlin and Jorel are here visiting, I decided it was worth dragging them out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to catch the first troupes as they entered the Circus.  Some of the Peace Corps volunteers joined the Red Devil troupe again this year, which means they started their day closer to 2:00 a.m., but from the looks of all those dancing in the streets, it wasn't anywhere near quitting time.  We watched mostly from the balcony at Ballyhoo, but caught the energy mid-way and joined the crowds in the street for awhile before heading back home so Caitlin could get the rest she needs to take care of the nasty cold and ear infection she brought with her from SoCal.


A few photos to share:

Red Devil Troupe in the Circus