Upside down paradigm

Lets turn the common view of westerners going to Africa on its head shall we? Imagine if instead of bringing aid to Africa, I returned from Africa bearing aid for my village in America. What would that look like? Perhaps I bring back a useful way to repair things to make them last longer. I know the re-cycle shop here in uptown might use a useful fix up for old bikes.
Perhaps I can bring aid to America's transactional relationships that occur in retail commercial areas. The retail proletariat that works in uptown would benefit from having customers treat them like human beings with thoughts and ideas, not just functional beings that bag groceries and make sandwiches.
Perhaps I can bring aid to solve the jobless recovery. What would I have to see in my travels to solve that crisis?
Western media is filled with images of what Africa needs to get better. I wonder if Africans were the hegemonic power in the world, what ails in America would they seek to remedy?
I will bring Aid from Africa to help my village. With me luck.

Shaved head, nakedness and trust building

My friend Laker is from Uganda. He and I have had various conversations about hair and their intercultural perceptions. Laker grew out his hair to about 6 inches, which is apparently a big deal in Uganda. If you have hair like that apparently you would be considered a long haired hippie. I remember people in Ghana and Togo keeping their hair pretty short too. The only people I saw with long hair were Rastafarian and homeless people.
These hair conversations combine with my memories of hair in Ghana and today I woke up with an intention to cut most of my hair off. I called my Laker quickly just to make sure.
"Laker, so from what I understand short hair is considered professional"
"Yes, very professional"
"Even on a westerner, it would be considered sharp"
"Yes"
"I was thinking of shaving my head today""Don't shave it all off, people will think you are trying to harness the sun for stored energy"
"Thanks Laker, I will leave 5mm on"
So that is the story. I shaved my head for Africa. I figure people would be just fine if I had longer hair, but it is always nice to have that little edge. Upon further reflection, I often like changing aspects of myself to pay respect to a place or culture I am visiting. I wouldn't change something that is important to me, but I don't identify much with hair, or garb for that matter. In fact, this reminds me of a story.
It was 2004 and I was doing a Tsunami relief work in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. The day I arrived in the village, I wore a sarong (it is like a kilt or skirt). I figured this would symbolize my intention to work with the local culture. It turned out to do more than that. About five minutes into the village, I notice a little snickering. I figure they are having a bit of fun at my fashion expense, but perhaps showing a little vulnerability would build trust later. A lady with big glasses explains to me through an interpreter that I am wearing my sarong like a Tamil (the ethnic minority of Sri Lanka). The Tamil (like Tamil tigers) people are not very popular in the region I was serving in. She had ushered me into her little dwelling and stripped me of my sarong. It was not 10 minutes and I was already standing in my underwear in a villager's house. She put my sarong on a sewing machine and sewed it so it fit like a proper Sinhalese (the ethnic majority of Sri Lanka) sarong.
I hurried out of the dwelling to find my group who were almost complete with the village tour standing beneath a fruit tree. In my eagerness to make up time bonding with the villagers. I picked up a kid to help him pick fruit off the tree. My newly fitted sarong promptly fell down and again the villagers began to laugh. Under normal conditions I would wake up from the embarrassing dream, however these were not normal conditions and I could not pick up my sarong until the child let go of a particularly stubborn piece of fruit. Eventually I was able to pick up my sarong.
Perhaps in situations where you are entering a new culture and there is a perception where you have more power or influence (like in relief work), it is best to show a bit of vulnerability right away so people don't feel like the power distance is too great. However, standing before the village in only my shirt and boxers is perhaps a bit much. Later that trip, I decided it was better to grow a mustache.

Shots, Drugs and Pocket Hole

Went to the travel doctor today with Jessi. This is the first time in my adult life I have been in the privacy of a doctors office with another person. I was able to show my brave face as I was getting stuck with a bunch of needles. I presented my yellow fever card which has now become the sole record of my immunization history. The last record was a fax of a copy. How can something so important be left on such a flimsy piece of paper. There must be an app for that.
I chose malarone as my malaria drug of choice. It will cost about 500 dollars for the whole trip, however I will not have the hair trigger inexplicable anger I experienced last time in Africa.
I remember one time Jessi and I were in central Togo. We had taken a taxi far north from the capital city to spend time with a group of people called the Tamberma or Ditamari. I was sleeping in the hot central hut of the mud fortress and woke up. I remember seeing Jessi and my mind was thinking threat or no threat. It was like I was seeing her with new animal eyes, that categorized things only in terms of threats.
I will be glad to be taking anti malarials with less side effects.

Informant, Chocolate, Cheap, Biir

A special date had been arranged today by my friend Gunther. He had me meet with a friend of his, Kristin, who had just returned from Ethiopia. I learned that I should bring some inflatable balls as children love to play football. I am sure I will be able to impress them with my skills of falling over and injuring myself while attempting sports. Also, I am told that people appreciate gifts of chocolate.
Ahh, Chocolate as gifts this reminds me of a time about 9 years ago.

In my preparation for Japan, I had taken a large box of Hersey's Chocolate bars. Of course the American supersized box did not fit in my Japanese visitmarketeveryday sized refrigerator. In my haste to make myself at home in my Japanese environment, I packed away the bars in my closet. This story has been told a million times and I suspect you know where it is going. The long and sort of it, is that to this day, every time I smell melted chocolate, I think of my tiny 5 mat sized room in Japan.
Never being one to waste food, I took the slightly melted bars to Cambodia. I figured that while the my Japanese students who appreciate beautiful food form as much as taste, did not appriciate my disfigured, yet perfectly tasty bars, Cambodians may have a different appreciation.
While I stayed in a hostel in Phenom Penn, paying only 1 dollar a day on the lake, someone did take an interest in my chocolate bars. Someone who was able to chew a hole through my backpack, plastic bag and through the wrapper of my precious if slightly disfigured Hersey's bars. That someone was a mouse. The whole incident made me disgusted with myself. I felt like George Costanza, (from Seinfeld) in my cheapness.
My super ego chided me.."Common Alex, you try to bring bars as gift and they melt due to your neglect. Just throw them away and start over. Here you are in Cambodia trying to give away melted disfigured (yet perfectly healthy and delicious) Hersey's Chocolate bars that you intended to give as gifts to you students thousands of miles away, several months away. Now you have a expensive travel pack that has its integrity compromised by the only being that is willing to eat your stupid bars"
Listening to my inner George Costanza instead of my superego, I went to the front desk of my hostel. There I tried to bargain my room down reasoning that I am sharing it with a mouse and I should at least be splitting the fare.
Maybe I will bring a different candy to Ethiopia. Maybe certs.

Oh yea Kristen also gave me 3 Biir which is the currency of Ethiopia. I am excited to see what I can buy!!!

Insurance Preparation

I have purchased mandatory insurance, for my Rotary Trip. It was difficult especially in light of all the bad press the insurance industry is getting. Will my claim be denied because I took unnecessary risk by eating with my hand, taking a bus at night or being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or forgetting to put a comma between Minneapolis and Minnesota on my application? All these questions. I guess I have solace in knowing that it is required for my trip and have to pay for it.
This all reminds me of a time long ago in Guatemala.
I was sitting at a bar in back of my hotel on the beach in Monte Rico.

The waves were pounding the black volcanic sand. An even darker black covered the sky and I remember wondering where the moon was hiding. A drunk was making going on and on in the background and he was easy to ignore as my Spanish was not that good.
Eventually I started to understand what he was ranting about. For a moment I thought it was because my Spanish ability had finally gone over the tipping point and I suddenly understood. But unfortunately I realized he was using his English to aim his rant towards me. I started listening to his speech. Something was strange besides the slur of his words. He was speaking in a sort of strange dialect. It was sort of a mixture between thug language that I recognized from Rap music and a sort of prison language I recognized from volunteer work.
At the time in my foolish youth, I thought the man was trying to engage me in conversation. Now, I realize he was egging for a fight. "F&*K George Bush" he exclaimed, I said something recognizing that certain policies may make people angry. His rebuttal was simply "F*#K AMERICA", which surprised me because I thought people in Latin America thought of themselves as Americans too. In fact I was particularly conscious to introduce myself as from the Estados Unidos. In my foolishness I also responded, "Ok, man, whatever". Then he took it up a notch and exclaimed possibly the most powerful word in the English language. A word that almost has the power of a magic spell. Its simple utterance can ruin careers, attract immediate media attention and sway juries. "F&# the" and he dropped the N-Bomb. I don't know why I chose this moment to respond to. Perhaps it was my years of good liberal education at university, perhaps it was due to the intercultural training I had just completed, but for whatever reason, I decided that some drunk guy in Guatemala should not be able to drop the N-Bomb without a reasoned and well mannered rebuke."Listen, you just can say that" I remember saying.
The next events were a blur. Short popping clipped off in the background, I turned to my friend. "I was just in an argument with this guy and he is now shooting a gun in the air." I am glad someone had the reason and deciseness to determine what happens next. "We are leaving now through the back." We walked out the back onto the beach and walked through the back of another hotel. We stepped back out into the dark moonless night and then things got darker. Way dark....
The next thing I know I wake up to the sounds of a grown man screaming. Hearing a grown man scream is particularly chilling. The high pitched scream is as familiar as children screaming in the park or the damsel screaming in a horror movie. But, to hear a man scream is somehow gruesome in its strangeness and unfamiliarity. My mind went back to the last time I had heard the sound, which was in fact ten years earlier when I had watched the movie Dances with Wolves. It was the scene where the main character wakes up in the field hospital and there are buckets of limbs and hacksaw amputations. I open my eyes and there is a single light bulb hanging from a wire illuminating the tiny dark room. I can honestly say that this moment in time marks the single most horrifying moment I have experienced.
I turn my head and my friend, thank God, is right next to me. His was laying his head on my table sleeping. He opens his eyes awakened my my sudden movement. My mind is filled with amputation horror and I clearly enunciate the next words, "Don't let them take anything from me." He tried to calm me down my telling me the doctor would arrive soon. This only send me into a panic. I stand up in my attempt to escape and make a few steps. I realize there is an IV stuck in my arm and a bag of fluid is following me. "I am fine now, we should leave" I say. But my friend was able to settle me down.
I sit down and the doctor returns. He explains that in my attempted escape from the armed drunkard, I had fallen into an empty pool and hit my head pretty badly. He stitched up my head , put my shattered arm in a sling and taken several X rays. The bill ended up being about $100. I paid cash.
Anyway, this whole incident makes me wonder if I even need insurance.