Glory Ho

Since we’ve let the United States, two years and six months ago to this very day, I realize that there’s three of us on this trip. Me, Michael and Sophia.

Sophia, as many know thanks to popular culture, stems from the Greek word for wisdom. Its root rests between suffixes and prefixes throughout the English language. Sophisticated means full of a certain kind of wisdom. Philosophy means in love and pursuit of wisdom. Sophomore means both wise and foolish.

Around five years ago, Michael was sitting in the comfy green chair of our past life, reading Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, when he told me that Sophia was a biblical figure, said to be the personification of the feminine in God.

This was long before our decision to join the Peace Corps. But during our service, Sofia turned out to be the namesake of a city we called home for two years. In Beirut, Sophie is the generous, eccentric founder of Inma Foundation, for whom we built a website—the mother of Inma’s giving spirit. In Carnivale, an downloaded HBO series we’ve watched in many a dingy, freezing Arabian hotel room and a story which mirrors the nomadic lifestyle we’ve adopted, Sophie is the strong, fortune-telling character played by Clea Duvall. Recently, but before I realized this strange Sophia-ness, I purchased the book Sophie’s World, a novel of philosophy by Jostein Gaarder.

As you can see, we never get too far across a new border before her skirts find a way to twirl into our life.

So when our first niece, Sophia Louise, was born January 22nd, 2008 to Michael’s sister Meagan and her husband Ryan, we knew she was a gift from the universe . We will forever remember how we were sprawled across the world in search of the very wisdom her name embodies as she was born. And although we’re not there to hold her little pink hand at the moment, we promise to be the best Aunt and Uncle ever upon return. We love you, Sophia.

We rode down to Tyre a few weeks ago along the Mediterranean to South Lebanon, the hotbed of Israeli conflict. Rob, Inma’s Director, was driving. The landrover was full of an unofficial religious delegation. One of these, an American–let’s call him Ray–rode in the passenger seat. He was speaking to Samir Inma’s founder, who sat in the back.

The topic was the upcoming Prayer Breakfast, a Congressional event held every February, where thousands of VIPs, including Bono and the current president, gather to speak with God in a non-denominational setting and without the presence of the press. While in D.C., Samir would be giving a lecture, his reputation as a diplomatic bridge-builder and international businessman preceding him. He and other special guests affiliated with Inma Foundation would be stay together at a special residence. This would all happen in a c0uple weeks.

As the six of us listened, Ray gave Samir a complete play-by-play of the Prayer Breakfast’s schedule of events, including where he thought they might lunch, at what time they would coffee break and who he was hoping to speak with.

At this point, Michael and I met eyes. There was nothing wrong with this scene. Nothing offensive. Nothing rude. But all we could think about was this: Those Americans, they sure do like to plan. Then they like to talk about the plan.

Beirut, upon first glance, is a Disneyland of dreaminess. There’s Chili’s, Hard Rock Cafe Starbucks, Subway, and this bizarre obsession with retro-style American diners, such as the one you see behind my unhappy husband.

Because we want it so badly to be true, we are instant victims–convinced of this burger-oasis between the chicken, hummus and fatoush all around it. At first, as soda-pop-jerk-dressed waiters walk the floor, cadillac headlights glow across our red-leather booth, and we spot bacon-cheeseburers and coke-floats on the menu, we are forced to close our mouth and dab a napkin at our drool. But it’s only one bite in, and one exchange with the server when we know we’d been duped.

There’s something special about American cattle and exaggerated customer service. And it just doesn’t travel very well.

On our second day in Beirut, a bright Sunday morning, long before we knew how long we’d stay, Michael and I wandered on foot into the downtown area. After twenty minutes, we’d been stopped three times by security officers–told to stop taking pictures and asked about where we were headed. All of this happened along landscaped medians, yellow-lined roads, glass-walled banks and track-suited joggers. As Michael had remarked, apart from the tanks, it looked a lot like San Diego.Taking an unintentional detour past block after block of gnarled barbed wire and barricades, we slowly realized  that this must be Hezbollah.

Aha! The occupied warzone amidst a cosmopolitan city that all those travelers had been talking about. Soldiers were everywhere. Below  we spied a tiny tent city, but left our cameras safely inside our bags. Cars zoomed by, picking up speed toward a kind of highway. But the sidewalk remained. So carefully, cautiously, we pressed on. Clearly, we were on the fringe of what made Lebanon such a clusterfuck of politics, pride and prejudice.

Finally, as we veered slightly left, a black beret stopped us. We told him we were heading for downtown. After a brief conversation with his officer and a lively discussion with us about Hollywood and George Michael, he sent us directly through what appeared to be an army camp of plywood planks, construction, armed militia and tents. So surreal, it looked a little like a movie set. Condoleeza Rice smiled down from a poster. Officers barely glanced at us. At a final checkpoint, our bags were skim-searched and abruptly, we entered a promenade of dusty shop windows and naked mannequins, boutiques which, since the Summer War of ’06 no longer attracted enough customers to survive.

Soon a plaza of chrome and wicker chairs emerged. Hagen Daaz smiled with creamy scoops and I could see Virgin Records across a star-shaped burst of urban renewal. But several storefronts were merely glossy ghosts. Only a few strollers and toddlers wobbled across the cobblestone-ringed center while Sri Lankan nannies followed. A lone roller-blader criss-crossed the clock-tower-centerpiece. But like a Rolex sold on a corner in Soho, the face was a fake facade, the inside dead with dysfunction. Mimicing Beirut,  its’s hands refused to work together. Four coffee drinkers whispered. Armed soldiers—I saw four from where I then stood– paced within their spaces.

We realize now that what we crossed through the remains of the opposition’s sit-in. Tents from last spring. Still there.That’s why the camp had looked abandoned. It was. The guards, with the American Secretary of State watching over, worked for the Lebanese government and were in protection mode. But who did they think would attack? Syria? America? Hezbollah? Al Qaeda? Israel? We learned that depends on who you talk to.

It was the strangest Sunday morning we’d had in a long time.

We’re now struggling to collect just a coin-purse full of unbiased facts. To figure what the hell is going on, what side we’re supposed to be on and how we should feel as Americans

Stay tuned.

At the Al Gawaher Hotel in Aleppo, Syria, we spent nine days (and Christmas) recovering from the past three couchsurfing episodes. In this city, when not gazing at its black-wafer-cookie-architecture, authentic bazaar, frequent stares and intimidating citadel-with-moat, we sat in our 50 degree room and enjoyed an Arabian network of satelite television, including four English-speaking channels! Pure gluttony with CNN, Seinfeld, Rocky and dumb Christmas movies followed. Anything to remind us of America.

But sitting in the heated (!) lobby on our very first day was what did me in. We caught a special on American football, a special which by some miracle had chosen to focus on a team called the Denver Broncos and present a photo-music montage (code for tearjerker) of 1995 Super Bowl clips as Cher sang the national anthem.

It was quite a moment.

Thanks to fellow travelers, we are sometimes grimly reminded of America’s downfalls. We get shit for our fast-food, our “fake football”, our allegedly difficult border patrol, No Child Left Behind test-score-obsessed teachers, tawdry exports like Brittany Spears. . .and of course, Bush.

Yet, still. Despite ALL of that, what we most often find ourselves saying is: You know, America’s not such a bad place after all.

Black-hooded women, not a speck of face-skin to be seen, scurried toward home, in groups of three along the littered streets. On the main avenue, smoke rose from a schwarma stand, hovering above the gingham, picnic-table-patterned heads of moustached, Muslim men. While CNN had always painted those Arab-symbolizing scarves flowing freely in the sun, tonight they were wound tightly, more like turbans, to battle the winter wind. The whining violins of an Arabic tune were never quite out of earshot. The few palm trees now made claw-like shadows on the street and the racks of pashminas were put away for the night.

It was 10:57 PM on Christmas Eve and we were on our way to “midnight mass” at the Latin Church of Aleppo, Syria. We were well-acclimated by now, and although we didn’t dare hold hands in public, there was no real threat in the air. Earlier that day we’d found the Christian Quarter, a maze of alleys with the black Braille-looking doors of a dungeon and multiple churches–one for Orthodox Greeks, one for Latin Catholics, one for Armenian Orthodox, one for Maronites, even others. A whole quarter for us?

I was prepared for a calm, reflective visit–with Christians only 11% of the population, how many could be at midnight mass? But peaceful was not what the universe had in mind. The cathedral was so packed we could barely make it in the door and having been misinformed, we arrived just in time for communion. But we took our place in the mobbed line, gazing at the creamy walls, ballroom chandeliers, understated crucifix, soft paintings and positively beautiful people. All obviously arriving straight from the salon, Christian Syrian women, no matter their age, were highlighted, styled, eyelinered, manicured and pocketbooked to near perfection, wearing an odd, but beautiful mix of class and bling–obviously without a headscarf in sight. The men, as we’d come to expect, were quaffed.

Not until this moment on our trip had we been so conspicuously so out of place and so clearly underdressed. But we couldn’t dwell. I simply vowed never to look down on a casually dressed church-goer ever again and swallowed the body of Christ, facing the stares with a soft smile on my way to the back of the church.

The service was in Arabic, but we could sense the rhythms and syllables of a familiar verse here and there. We sang Go Tell It On the Mountain in our own words and Oh Come All Ye Faithful, too, before sinking into a pew for some prayer.

Here we were. In Syria. With a whole cathedral full of familiarity to bring us back home.

I’ve always believed that no matter which higher power I end up worshipping, Catholicism has provided a wonderful platform from which to leap. Or stand on. Or take a rest upon. When I speak with someone who grew up without religion–with nothing to. . .come back to, to, I am instantly grateful.

It’s been foreshadowed, in one way or another, that I might someday return to Catholicism. While I’m not yet certain of that, tonight, I had a greater appreciation than ever before of what I’d been given as a child. Something very concrete, or perhaps sometimes more like marble or stone, to hold on to.

“We have fish. Very nice fish. I can cook for you with corn, wheat corn.”

Fish sounds dreamy but is usually way beyond our budget. We exchange concerned glances.

“How much?”

“I make whole meal for $12 together. We have very nice wine here in Anamure.”

“How much?

“Ten lira for you”

(Alcohol is a big splurge for us. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a beer. We don’t say anything.)

“We have breakfast here in morning.”

“How much?”

“Ummm, 3.5 Lira”

(We consider. We just bargained the pension for 20 lira, down from 30, because we skipped breakfast and heat. Now he wants 7 lira for breakfast?)

“You are American?”

“Yes. Ben Americaleem,” we say in Turkish.

“Because usually America my best customers, spend lots of money, (he pantomimes throwing money into the air). Where are you from? Homeless part of America?”

“No,” we say, looking at each other and realizing just how cheap we’ve become. “We from Denver.”

Last night, a guy named Ota couchsurfed his way into our world. A Czech hitchhiker who lives on the sale of domain names, English-teaching, an organization called TongueSwap (which you should totally check out) and his unfloundering optimism and flexibility.

What an education Ota was. We learned how light colored clothing (makin g you appear clean and safe) encourage cars to stop. How a guy with a guitar is more likely to get picked up than a couple. How a single guy trumps a single girl. How hundreds of girls hitch alone every year in New Zealand. How most Europeans don’t hitchhike in America because it’s too risky. How hitchhiking, in most places, ISN’T risky. How a Hitchhiker challenge (the kind he is on) from Oslo to Mumbai (yes, that includes Pakistan) has a few rules: No maps. No signs. No money spent on accommodation. Cash only for food.

But when you think of hitchhiking, what comes to mind? My head goes straight to the word “dangerous” and refuses to move. As a child, I was taught not only never, ever EVER to hitchhike, but also never, ever, EVER to pick one up. I mean, who hitchhikes? Assumedly, people without a vehicle. People without money. People living on the edge. Each by themselves, no problem, but together, they deliver a scary desperation. And unlike Europe, in America, hitchhiking just isn’t all that popular. Vast distances, cheap gas, poor public transportation, available loans and inn-school driver’s ed mean that most people have a license and a vehicle. In addition, aimless travel is not the norm. Hence, in America, people who DO hitchhike are not only taking an alternative route, but usually have a higher potential to be unpredictable company.

So you can imagine my slight alarm when on a fall day in 2002, my husband brought home a couple of hitchhikers.

When he came in through the front door, I knew something was up. And when he approached the back office, his face twitched with both wonder and worry.

“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Well, I brought some people home with me,” he answered.

I looked at my yoga-panted, glasses-faced, freelance self with a considerable margin of panic at the idea of playing hostess, thinking he’s invited colleagues back for beers.

But the two Native American women on our porch were not his colleagues. They were smiling, silky-haired members of the Ojibwe Nation of Minnesota, hitchhiking cross country toward a Vision Quest, a traditional American Indian ceremony of fasting and ritual, which results in visions and spiritual guidance.

Brenda and Angie were calm and kind. Content to answer our questions. Grateful for this hospitality. We learned that they are both mothers with grown children. That they had lived most of their life on a reservation. That unfortunately, one had begun menstruating and therefore, would be barred from Vision Quest participation, a huge disappointment. After a couple hours, we invited them to stay for dinner. Michael whipped up some Sinopoli spaghetti. We slurped wine, told stories and lit cigarettes by candlelight on the back patio. Their skin blended into the dark.

They asked to camp in our backyard. In a kitchen briefing, Michael told me he thought we should let them stay in our guest bedroom. I was skeptical. They seemed harmless. I was still skeptical.

But I gave in. This is my husband. He has a strange way of attempting to debunk myths created by media hype, overprotective parents and mainstream, yet misled logic. And he is often successful.

The hitchhikers slept atop my floral, Laura Ashely duvet cover, politely refusing to slide between the sheets and rose early the next morning, full of rest. Michael drove them to the highway. Nothing was missing from our guest bedroom. Adventure over.

I felt a bit of guilt. But wait, I’m not the weird one here. Most people would not have even let that happen! Does my behavior make me paranoid? No, but it made me think.

Because it IS beneficial to occasionally shake loose the grip that society can have on your allegedly steadfast beliefs. And I guess I did, because although couchsurfing is an organized network, I do now, in fact, host strangers traveling through Bulgaria on my couch. And now, even hitchhikers.

I covered this a bit in The Last Monster, and yet, here it is again. Is it just that in a country of mortgages, marriage and expensive health care, our sometimes practical, sometimes conservative craving for permanence and structure prevents us from embracing the spirit of hitchhiking? Or is it possible that just as the media makes us believe that children are often kidnapped, swimmers are often shark-attacked and spring-breakers who go to Aruba will most certainly be murdered, that hitchhiking was ruined due to a few isolated incidents? I suppose it’s somewhere in the murky middle. I’m not sure. But it’s worth a wonder.

Okay, so my sidebar is sort of spilling over this week. . .but not quite. . .you know, at the edge. . . lingering at the round, smooth rim like the beer foam on a bottle. . . . of Corona at breakfast. . . on a fall patio with arms covered in fleece. . and my Seven Jeans and a Bloody Mary bar. . . .and real nachos in front of me. . .and a whole bunch of of TVs getting ready for the start of the 2007 American football season. . .

But this is not a blog about football. Sigh.
To your left, you’ll find some recent discoveries. . .

1. Be Absurd. Be Very Absurd. I’m serious! This is from the Bust Guide’s online BUSTCard selection, and because I’ve found most free online greetings to be generic or geriatric, I love these smart-ass messages. With a name like BUST, you can just imagine the possibilities. Send with caution. Not suitable for all relatives.

2. Etsy. A lovely little online boutique to sell or buy handmade items. Find flower-splattered ceramics, purses from recycled peanut butter cup wrappers and candy-color-striped headbands. Dozens of sellers. A virtual fashionista and fortunata opportunity for all.

3. Pioneer Woman. I suppose I’m dog-paddling in the wake on this one, or as Pioneer Woman might say, behind the herd, but this modern-day writer-wrangler is a little Legends of the Fall, a little Dolly Parton and a little Dixie Chic wrapped up in a whole new brand of cowgirl. And she knows how to market herself–not to mention run photography contests with Price-is-Right-size prizes. Her comforting masthead is like a front porch you never want to leave. Cheers to Trixi La Doux for tipping me off.

A few days ago, we watched The Lives of Others. It was recommended by my dear friend Maury. We were up for a quality film. In the last two years, we’d seen a lot of Will Farrell, Steve Carrel and Seth Rogen. I have great affection for these guys, but. . .

Whether it was our PC crowd (college-ish), a lack of cinematic options (foreign films displayed only Bulgarian subtitles), or simply no supermarket checkout lines or billboards (from which to warn us about crap comedies), our standards had lowered. We were more easily entertained.

I’d read about this phenomenon before. In addition to the above excuses, because expats are so hungry for fresh American culture, they’re more easily satisfied with the Hollywood repeats. As long as the railings are shiny, the medians landscaped and the kitchen islands nice and big, viewers experienced a sense of relief. . .that somewhere, all was right with the world.

Up until now, I’d been okay with it. Before Peace Corps, I felt I’d become somewhat of a film snob–unable to just relax and enjoy. Too obsessed with the staged dialog, mediocre acting or formulaic plot. (I blame this directly on my friend, Amy, btw, whom I simultaneously worship for helping me understand a good film when I see one). But I needed balance. Just because I could appreciate the Esquire , shouldn’t prevent me from cuddling up to the Odeon.

And on a complete tangent. . .what a riddle huh. . .movies, poetry, art– its all subjective. . .who is to say? Who has good taste? Certainly not the Oscars. Then again, as Carrie Fisher once said: “Everyone thinks they have good taste and a sense of humor, but they can’t all possibly have good taste and a sense of humor.” (Thanks to this blog , I found that quickly) Wagon-wheel coffeetable anyone?

But I was ready for a movie that I’d be thinking about for a few days (rather than quoting for a few months). So back to The Lives of Others. It was well done. A film detailing the big-brother-witnessed lives of East Germans in the early 80s. The corruption, the secrets, the escapes, the informers. The power of a communist government. It specifically details one agent’s moral struggle when he realizes his subjects are real people with real lives.

Most importantly, the cinematography is so succinct, the scenery so free of anachronisms and the environment so drab with its hummus and carpet brown colors, that you actually feel like it’s an older film.

I went to bed wondering why I didn’t enjoy it more.

Maybe I just didn’t like it. But is it possible that the communist blocks and doors and woodgrain walls were as broken and crumbling as the Bulgarian world I live in? That I’m eager for shinier, happier people because their in short supply over here? That escaping America to see a depressing indie film is more exciting when you return home to a cupboard of polka-dotted dishes?

Maybe if I’d seen it at the Esquire, it would have splashed in distinctive contrast to the American world. Here, the movie was closer to the world I live in.

Thoughts?