White Privilege

A wonderful article that was just sent to me from an even more wonderful collective of people.

Here Tim Wise, Author of "White Like Me" writes about White Privilege in the current presidential election.

Please Vote. And think about who your voting for. Encourage your friends to vote. We can do this.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

by Tim Wise
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/viewCommentary/3618/1

September, 14 2008

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are
constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this
list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol
Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your
family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or
your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and
Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as
irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like
Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with
you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot
shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and
a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years
like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then
returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no
one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a
person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and
probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative
action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller
than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about
the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan,
makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on
themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state
Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God"
in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding
fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from
holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s
and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that
reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know,
the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school
requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy
liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people
immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband
who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to
secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one
questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and
your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with
her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being
disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the
work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to
vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child
labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely
question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no
foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow
being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree
with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate
anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired
confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a
"second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your
political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a
typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely
knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means
you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose
pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George
W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian
nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological
principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict
in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and
everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if
you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin
Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often
the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism
and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates
America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a
reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a
"trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word
answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question,
or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has
anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black
and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light"
burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow
someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90
percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are
losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly
isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about
that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined,
unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and
certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to publicity@softskull.com

Im finally on Flickr!

hey friends!

im finally on Flickr and uploading photos from my year's travels onto it. here's a sneak peak:







Keeping checking it out as more and more photos and locations will be added to it.

A brief glimps into 2 brothers' adventures in Morocco.

We missed the bus this morning, waking up at 6h15 rather than 5h30. Alarm clocks can ring as loud as they want but, after a constant stream of 3-4 hour nights, they tend to fall on deaf ears. Knowing that I have a hard time doing anything in the mornings, I should have known better. We ran for the 6h30 bus but missed it anyways. It turns out that this was the bus that didn’t abide by the rule of “Moroccan time” (anywhere from 15 minutes- 1 hour late) but actually came 15 minutes early and continued on after a brief stop of only a few minutes. We never had a chance. It was 7h00 and we sat on the dusty steps in front of the bus stop. The small village was already awake and most shops were open, Grande Taxi drivers walked up and down the street calling out their destinations trying to fill their old Mercedes’ with 6 people before starting their journey. Even at that hour the street was a cacophony of sounds. Donkeys pulled heavy loads destined for the day’s market and their brays were accompanied by the shouts by their drivers calling to each other while crossing the streets. Sidewalk café’s were already filling up and boisterous conversations drifted through the streets. Car horns blasted to announce themselves in the mostly human and animal traffic on the streets. Buses approaching the station let out 2 or 3 blasts of the horn to herald their approach. There was a well aged man standing in front of the bus stop with his ear cocked towards the direction of the busses and upon hearing the call of the busses, he start to shout out the destination of the approaching bus. The calls of the Grande Taxi drivers carried over all of this, with the drivers shouting “Khenifra! Khenifra! Khenifra!” or “Fez! Fez! Fez1” or any combination of sourounding village names which were norhing more than gibberish to my unaccustomed ears.
We crossed the street to have some breakfast, stoping at a street vendor to buy some flat and dense corn-bread like cake to eat with our morning tea. We sat at the café watching the comings and goings of the street in the small Moroccan village. 2 mint teas and one café alongée later, the bus arrived and my eyelids were a little less heavy.

We crammed into the bus, preparing for our 7 hour journey. Thankfully we found seats in the back (we had to move a trash can and some baggage) and we squeezed into our seats and closed our eyes. We hadn’t had too much luck with sleeping on long Moroccan bus rides so we were already travel weary. The bus sputtered and took off with the door still open and the ticket collector still with one foot on the dirt road outside. Within minutes we were lurching through the hillsides of middle morocco. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the window, the changes in the landscape were drastic and awe inspiring. The village buildings we were in gave way to magnificent red clay mountains dotted with dusty green shrubs and small clay and tin roof huts. Young boys and old men herded goats and sheep through the hills never straying too far from their huts where lazy smoke curled up through makeshift chimneys announcing the warm meals that awaited them. The crowded bus bounce through potholes and I started to wonder if the driver was actually trying to careen through the man sized holes in the road that caused passengers and overhead luggage to be haphazardly tossed into the air. I was tired but I couldn’t bring myself to give into my heavy eyelids because I didn’t want to miss anything that flew past the window. Sky reaching red clay mountains slowly melted into a flat patchwork of yellow wheat and green field farm lands. Houses were sturdier and sat squarely in the middle of their fields. Farmers seemed to have already been in the fields for hours, hand harvesting the fields or pulling water from the small stone wells that sat between the farms. Sheeps and goats were kept in small pens here and next to the pens were the tired pickup trucks that the animals were hearded into to be sold at the market in the village. All at once the rolling farm lands were gone and I was looking out to a cluster of buildings that made another village. The bus stopped and our dust trail momentarily covered our window. More passengers boarded the bus to stand in the aisle between the seats. Some of the more experience had brought their own plastic stools. The driver turned up the qur’anic verses on the stereo as if to muster gods graces and with a collectively murmmered “Bismillah”we were off again. The womyn sitting next to me had a child in her lap and she was saying the prayers along with the cassette tape. The buildings dissapeard and I was looking out at a deep gorge filled with water at the bottom. A stream of donkeys carted rock in and out of the path reaching into the depth of the quarry. In the distance I could see men on horses and donkeys kicking up small dust clouds as they crisscrossed the trails of the red mountainous backdrop.

Assad handed me head phones and started switching through classics of Johnny Cash, Sinatra and modern jazz artists. We were driving through dessert now and huts became more sparse and far more crude in construction. This was the land of nomads. Mountains still held up the horizon and I was having flashbacks to perilous bus rides through Tibet. The bus took a hard turn and everyone was thrown to the left side of the bus. Before we could right outselves, the driver found another pothole and threw us into it, tossing us all back into the air. Somehow we landed back into our seats and I started wondering if this was only a precursser to the camel safari into the sahara that we were embarking on that night.

To enter Morocco, we’d found our way onto a ferry that crossed the straight of Gibraltar from Algeciras, Spain directly to Tangier. We had avoided Tangier and hoped straight into a taxi to take us to the light blue mountain city of Chefchaouen. We relaxed within the cities blue washed walls for a week, rather the 2 days we’d planned taking solace in the quick friendships we’d made and the relaxed mountain air of the city. Assad and I spent our first night playing music with moroccan’s from Rabat and Chefchaouen in the medina square late into the night. We learned Arabic songs and drum beats and started to dance as the group started to sing the ever popular Bollywood classics. In fact, most of our days were spent in the medina drinking mint teas and fresh squeezed orange juice watching the world go by. We hiked through the mountains and swam in a tropical oasis hidden at the base of a dry and dusty canyon. Most of our nights were spent relaxing on the rooftop of our pension where we’d layed out our sleeping bags on dusty mattresses to sleep under the mountain stars and save money. Every night someone started playing music on their second hand guitars and eventually the Spaniards would start up with flamenco classic or Spanish versions of backpacking favorites like Bob Marley and Manu Chao. Our third day, we spent hours with Mohammad, the self proclaimed “Hat Man,” sitting in his closet of a shop marveling at the piles of knitted goods that seem to fill every inch of the tiny shop. There was no lighting inside save a small candle that he eventually lit on the only free inch of his table. The whole place couldn’t have been any bigger than the smallest of walk-in closets that are so popular in suburban American homes. There was little to no air circulation and the whole place smelled of sweat and wool. Every few minutes Mohammad would dip his head down to take a drag from his Kif pipe before setting back to crocheting the brown hat he had in his lap or telling us about how we were all brothers of the moon, sun and stars. There was a permanent smile on his face and he started to laugh when we took over his shop and started pulling unsuspecting tourists inside telling them that it was us who had knit the bottomless piles of mountain wool hats and scarves and that we would give them a “special good price, only today.” We stuck around Chaouen with our friends for the first night of the Alegria Music Festival to watch a Flamenco performance and a giant concert of Gnawa and traditional Riff mountain music.

We left the calm of Chaouen on a miserably hot 3 hour bus ride into Fez. We had assigned seats which ended up being at the back of the bus perched on top of what we later learned was the engine. We sat back there sweating more than we would in any of the hamams we later visited. Exhausted we arrived in Fez where we were slapped in the face by the rush of tourists, taxi drivers and “faux guides” trying to steer us around the old medina for an unmentioned price. Hustlers tried to take us into their “brothers” shops or into their hotels. Finally we found a pension and bargained our way into being able to share a room with some of the new friends that we’d made on the bus. Fez was a mad rush and even though we’d arrived on Friday, the muslim holy day of rest and prayer, the crowds were still a bit overwhelming after the relative tranquility of Chaouen. We started to treat it all as a game and found joy in inventing country names as hustlers shouted “India?! Pakistan?! India? Pakistan? Pakistan!!! India!!!” at Assad and I. We settled with telling people we were either from Narnia or Mordor and eventually told people we were from Kenya, which was closer to the truth than our previous answers. Street hustlers became nothing more than a gauntlet to weave our way through and bargaining was now the only language we spoke. We tried to find some of the fresh squeezed orange juice that we’d fallen in love and when we thought we’d found it, we gulped down the refreshing drink only to discover small worms in the pulp at the bottom of our glass. A wonderful experience ☺ We were more than ready to retreat to the terrace of our hotel. The next day, the souks were all open and we launched ourselves headlong into the mix. Doing a tour of the leather tanneries and wandering through the different markets in and out of the medieval medina walls.

It was after Fez that we met up with our Couchsurfer Jaouad in his village to join him on the trip to the dessert that we’re driving to right now. He took us to a very local Hammam where we sat on tiled floors with a handful of old Moroccan men and washed ourselves with steaming hot water and that we ladled out of buckets. It was a very unexpected and new experience. There was noone there to give out the traditionally Hammam dead-skin pealing scrub so we will go try another one when we reach Marrakech.

Morocco is what I’ve been looking forward to all summer and thankfully it’s been an amazing experience for both Assad and I.


Update:

After writing this blog Assad and I headed to the Sahara for a camel safari and camping. I fell asleep under the stars with my mouth open. I woke up with a mouthful of sand. Lesson learned. We woke up to see the sun rise over the dunes that surrounded our campground. It was completely silent and beautifully serene. Down below I could hear my camel fart. The whole time we were together, my camel had horrible stinking diarrhea. Very endearing.

From the desert we headed to the breathtaking Todrah Gorges. I couldn’t crane my neck enough to see the tops of the majestic rockwalls of the gorge. We spent the night on the terrace of the hotel we were staying at. We were surrounded by grape vines and a rushing river down below.

From the gorge we went to Marakech, finally escaping our couchsurfer who turned out to be scamming us, and spent a very busy night in marakech. We did go to a wonderful Hamam and got scrubbed clean. Probably cleaner than we’re going to be in a long time. We left Marakech and headed back to the calm of Aix-en-Provence.

Morocco was a whirl-wind trip. I can’t wait to go back there and spend weeks just traveling through the small villages. You can’t help but fall in love with the place.

Pistachios

Pistachios are delicious. I have been craving them for days and have finally got a bag of them. They're just so good!

Although Arizona claims to be the world capitol of Pistachios, Iran exports 50,000 tons more than the US each year. Take that Arizona.

The word "pistachio" is actually a Persian word.


Thank you wikipedia.

Saqib the French Waiter: Student by day, French Waiter by night

Thats right, I've been working as a waiter at a fancy french restaurant called "Le Bistro Latin." During the day I go to classes at the language institute and in the evenings, I stroll through tables carrying dishes of delicious french cuisine, talking to customers and learning about french culture. I wear all black, comb my hair and (i thought this part would be impossible) remain clean shaven for weeks at a time! I've been working there 5 nights a week, for nearly 2 months now and I really enjoy it.

upstairs

Downstairs

The restaurant is small, 20 tables spread across 2 floors, with just 2 of us working as serveurs (waiters). Monday through Wednesday it can be a bit quiet (thankfully) but thursdays through the weekend are usually completely packed. Each table is filled by people from around the world, speaking a myriad of languages all coming to eat at the place their guidebooks laude as being "one of the best restaurants in the South of France." Candles placed around the restaurant and soft lights on the tables give the place a cozy and relaxing glow. In the background I'm usually playing mixes of Miles Davis, Coltrane, Nina Simone, Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles or other favorites. There is always a wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen where the Chef (who is part of the hip couple that own/run the restaurant) creates traditional and modern provencal French dishes. Each dish is a work of art in itself with the Chef paying just as much attention to the presentation of the dish as he does to it's taste. Also in the cuisine (kitchen) is a 17 year old who is apprenticing as a Sous Chef (what an awesome job to have at 17!)

Guillaume et moi.

The other serveur: Guillaume, a 2o-something graphic artist, who has been slowly teaching me everything i need to know about French cuisinary culture and correcting my grammar when i make mistakes. On the slow nights, we get into long discussions on topics ranging from art styles to racism in France. He's patient when i get lost speaking french and our conversations are usually half filled with us asking the definitions and translations of certain words in our respective languages. Between the waves of clients, we often will draw behind the bar, filling up sketch pads with our doodles.

The patrons (owners of the restaurant): They took it over a couple years ago after working there for quite a few years. The husband is the chef and the wife (also a chef) manages the front of the house and also is a serveur on the weekends when it gets really rushed. They're fairly young, speak fluent english (they did their studies in the UK, where they met) and are hip. The husband wears Chucks and the wife wears Birkenstocks. Looking through their cd collection and picking something to play is one of my favorite things to do between clients. They kite surf and take boxing lessons. They took me wine tasting at a local vineyard (who's wines we serve) to try their new wines. They're definitely strict, but only when they need to be and they don't go overboard. They definitely keep me on my feet.

Le Chef!

sauces being made

delicious desserts!- Entremet Chocolats from one of the best chocolatiers in France.

The clients: 60% french, 40% tourists/travellers. The majority of the clients are regulars and those that aren't will atleast visit a handful of times. Most of the tourists read about the restaurant in their travel guides and come in for a taste of traditonal french cuisine. It's the tourists that i like the most as clients because they are eager to share their travel stories with me while i take their orders and they leave tips. French people don't leave tips. it's not part of the culture. Sometimes they'll leave a euro or two but that's more a gesture than anything else. I love watching the couples from around the world that eat at the restaurant. The italian and french couples are the most romantic. They lean close over the tables talking in a way that their words will only reach the ears of their lover across from them. They hold each other's hands near the candle on top of the table and rarely pull their eyes away from each other. They kiss across the tables romantically and i always feel like im interrupting (i usually am, it's impossible not to be) when i try to give them their menus or dishes. Old couples eat at the restaurant and they speak less, usually because they don't need to say much to each other. They usually have the most expensive fixed menu and will sit with their wine enjoying each other's company. A few days ago an older french couple came in that was celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. They must have been in their late 50's and they were writing love notes to each other on the napkins and kissing each other over the candle just like their younger counterparts. It was really nice. When the husband left for the bathroom, the wife leaned to me while i cleared the plates and said "Doesnt he look handsome? i love it when he wears that hat." Other interesting clients have included boxing champs, barons/baronesses, old Portuguese poets, and militant Israelies (with heavy NY accents).

The food is the part i love most about the restaurant. The carte (menu) is made up of 3 fixed menues, each with 3 or four courses. Each fixed menu is crafted by the chef so that each course compliments the course before and after it. Each course is relatively small (compared to American standards), but once people make it through their marathon meals to the dessert they are rarely hungry. The cuisine leaves you satisfied and not overly stuffed like american food sometimes does. The chef is a real artist in the kitchen, and each dish is whimsically decorated with a variety of vegetables and tapenades to compliment the dish. The desserts are magnificent. They range from Lavender and Green tea infused Creme Brulee to Molten Chocolate cake baked with a caramel in the center. Everything served in the restaurant is local. Our goat cheese comes from one of Aix's premier fromagieres (cheese producer). It is delivered each week by the producer, Guy Blanc, who is one of the few people seen around Aix with a pony tail and flannel shirts. He always has an old leather messenger bag on him and a couple earings in each ear. Our bread is made by the chef each morning and the type of bread changes each day to compliment the new dishes. All produce is bought direct from local farmers and meat is bought direct from local butchers. The wines are all from local vineyards, chosen by the owners to compliment the dishes. The Chef has been giving me cooking lessons, teaching me recipes and explaining to me the many different dishes he cooks. Lately i've been coming up with recipes of my own and sharing them with him and the sous chef.

Some of the local reds we serve

I've learned that one of the main differences between French dining and american dining is that in the US when we eat out, what happens on our table is completely under our control, because we are the clients. In french dining, almost everything that happens on the table (ie- the food served, the order which it is all eaten, the tastes experienced by the client, etc.) is controlled by the serveurs and, more importantly, the Chef. The Chef puts a lot of time and effort into creating each dining experience for the clients and the clients are completely glad to sit back and experience that which the Chef creates for them.

Working nearly every night has been tiring (especially with classes) but at the same time it's given me something constructive to do with my time here. Once again, i feel productive and am actually actively learning. I am forced to speak French for hours each night while i am completely immersed in one of the most wonderful pinnacles of France's culture: it's cuisine.

Bienvenue a Beirut- L'aventures de mon Apartement.

8h30: I was asleep on the sofa burried deep in sheets and even deeper in sleep. I was naked, warm and lost in dreams. My eyes are jerked open by a pounding at the door and some shouting in French. Im still asleep and it's too early to understand whats being said. I pull the blankets further over my head. The pounding continues and so does the french. My head hurts. I slowly stand up and shout "attends! j'arrive!" i grab the nearest clothes to me: pajama pants, a dress shirt, a grey knit cap. My face feels crusty, there is probably drool dried on it. Im still half asleep. I splash water on my face and open the door. There are 2 men standing there in coveralls and holding a jackhammer between them.

This is the story of my apartment.

at 8h45 im still trying to wake up fully and have already spoke in french for 10 mins or so (a difficult feat in itself at any hour, let alone an hour before noon). The repairmen tell me that they will be doing repairs on the building for the next 3 days. there won't be any water during the day. while one of the coverall (or raveware, depending on the setting) clad repairemen is explaining this to me, the other has started making marks on my tile floor and is readying the jackhammer. Apparently they're going to be working until thursday night. It's tuesday morning. My explanation is cut short by the violent pounding of the jackhammer against the tile floor and an explosion of dust and tile shrapnel in the air. jars start falling off my spice rack and break on the floor, adding clouds of flour and cumin to the general chaos in my apartment. The man leaning over the jackhammer doesnt notice the breaking jars and i get hit in the face by a piece of tile that rockets off the floor. Apparently there was a notice that was supposed to tell me about all this happening.


by now im awake, covered in dust and garding my face from further shrapnel attacks. i leave the apartment. I reread the notice posted in the hallway, it says that there will be work happening in a few of the apartments and that those apartments won't have water during the day. It says that the work is only going to last until wed. It doesnt say anything about dust and jackhammering, it doesnt say anything about thursday night.

The blurriness is from the dust in the air.

This work is for the whole building and im the lucky apartment owner who gets to have it all happen in his apartment. Im always the "lucky" apartment owner it seems. Here is a list of problems i have had with my apartment since moving in:

-Every month or so the septic system backs up for a couple days and im unable to use any water in the apartment. Being the i am on the ground floor, everytime somebody above me uses any water (showering, flushing toilet, washing dishes etc.) my toilet, sinks and shower gurgle angrily and eventually water starts coming out of the drains. Its not just water though- its toilet water. toilet water carrying with it everything that goes into toilets. This generally fills up the shower and toilet, a few times it overflows and seeps into the living room and into the kitchen sink. Apparently this happens due to a tartar buildup in the pipes. Every time this happens i call the landlord who calls a repairman who comes and tells me he has fixed the problem....until the poo demon returns with a vengeance the following month.

-Lately i've been enjoying an infestation of small flying insects. Not flies nor mosquitos but more annoying than both. These don't bite nor fly very fast. But they do breed quickly and die in crowds around the kitchen. There large numbers and preference of commiting what i can only assume to be large cult like suicides in my kitchen and living room is what is most annoying. They die and create a squishy mess. in exploring their deplorable habits i found out that they werent being attracted by rotting fruit (as fruit flies would be) but instead were flying in and out of the vents in the walls of the building. Apparently my appartment kitchen is the best place to die en masse in the whole building

-2 times this year i had to deal with the sudden and unanounced arrival of a roomate. This roomate was already living in another part of the building and both times we met for the first time when i was returning home from a trip. I would usually find that the roomate had already made himself at home and had rummaged through everything in my kitchen, helping himself to what he pleased. Eventually i duct taped him out of the apartment and i can only assume that he returned to the basement of the building where him and the other mice have been living. At night if im real quite i can hear them scratching in the walls. Being that they're french mice, they are too evolved to fall for the mouse trap which so easily kills american mice.

-one day when returning late at night from a trip, my key wouldnt turn the lock and i found that my lock had seized up while i was gone and had broke. I spent the night at a neighbors and the next evening had to watch a "locksmith" drill through the lock and charge me 90 euros for his labor. He then wanted another 240 euros (a little more than 75,600 US dollars with the current exchange rate) to put on a new lock. He told me this after he'd already drilled through the old lock and showed me how the lock should have been replaced years ago as the insides were already broken. i called the agency who represents my landlord and yelled at them. They sent someone to install a new lock. He installed it upside down.

-In the middle of cooking for a potluck, the hotplates that serve as my stove broke suddenly and short-circuited the apartment. I went the rest of the day and that night without electricity. I had nothing to take to the potluck. It took more than a week to get somebody to bring over a new plac (stove top). The one they installed was too big and now my fridge doesn't fit properly underneath it.

-there as been a rolling set of electricity outages and short circuiting throught the year in my apartment. I keep a ready supply of candles.

-there is splotchy black and brown mold thats taking over the bathroom and area under the sink in the kitchen. Its not as bad as the mold that has been growing in my neighbors apartment. Their mold ate a hole through the wall and is fuzzy.

-chunks of the wall fall out when ever there are any vibrations (ie- loud noises in the street, a door slamming in a near by apartment, etc.) A picture frame once fell from the wall while i was sleeping. I was startled awake by the noise of it clattering against the floor, i was kept awake by the large chunk of plaster that subsequently fell of the low ceiling and broke into tiny pieces when it hit my head. These problems with the wall keep my floor in a perpetually dusty state near the walls.

-when the apartment was "renovated" the set of large single pane windows was never replaced or fixed. The glass is encased by old wood and neither of the windows close tightly because the wood has long since warped and the layers of paint used to cover the gaps, hinder more than help. The problem was solved by installing 2 space heaters under the windows, unfortunately, only one of them work. Any heat that i could get from that space heater is usually lost to the cold air that blows in through the perpetually almost-closed windows.

Look at all the dust on the bed. It's EVERYWHERE!!

12h00- returning from work i walked into the building at the time the workmen said they'd be done. They werent and instead one of them met me at the door to the building. We walked the few steps to my apartment door where he said "Bienvenue au Beirut" before opening my door.
Atleast he has a sense of humor. The inside of my apartment is a chalky white from a thick layer of dust covering everything. My apartment is split in two by a giant crevice running across the floor. The gapping scar in the middle of the tiles is marked on each side by 2 large piles of broken cement, piping, and shattered tiles. I try to say something to the repairmen but instead start coughing from the dust. While i was staring at this from the doorway the other repairman had his head in the crevice and came out pointing another part of my apartment where he proclaims the next trench will be dug tomorrow. My apartment looks like an archaeological site in the Sahara and the dust is so think on the floor that i can clearly see the tracks of the soles of my shoes in the dust. Thursday night can't come fast enough.

Things I'm going do do before I die (Wanna join and/or help me?)

In no particular order, Here is a (growing list of things i'd like to do do before i die). Its subject to (and will) grow over time but it will not shrink:

Silly String wars at Nice's Carneval

In no particular order, Here is a (growing list of things i'd like to do do before i die). Its subject to (and will) grow over time but it will not shrink:

• Go Skydiving, Parasailing, Bungee Jumping, Hot Air Ballooning
• Go Scuba Diving in Turkey
• Go to a Cocktail Party where people are wearing tuxedo's and evening attire
• Sail down the Nile River and sleep on the banks
• Go underwater in a submarine
• Get my Pilot's license and fly across the country
• Ride in a helicopter
• Buy/fix up and outfit a Landrover Defender 110 and go on a a long safari across a country (a la Camel Trophy) with my father and brother
• Speak Fluently:
• Arabic, Swahili, Urdu, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, and French
• Dive in the Great Barrier Reef
• Drive a motorcycle across Australia
• Work for/with an NGO in a Palestine/Afghani refugee camp
• Work with an NGO towards ending international Houselessness
• Work with Teach for America, Habitat for Humanity, or Americorp to teach in an underprivileged community in the U.S.
• Buy D-SLR and become a travel photographer
• Learn how to Sail and sail between countries
• Play chess often, have a chess set on my coffee table
• Build my own house at some point. It must be zero-waste
• Live in France
• Rock Climb regularly
• Travel to both poles
• Learn how to completely repair an old Landrover
• Learn how to drive stick
• Become a travel writer for a travel book
• Learn Sitar, Tabla, and acoustic guitar
• Work with an NGO in India (preferably in Kutch)
• See all the Old and New Wonders of the World
• Run for a public office (preferably in publicad
  
• Work for/with U.N.
• Spend multiple nights in a large yacht
• Learn how to knit
• Achieve the highest dive certification i can
• Get a tattoo
• Learn how to shave with a straight blade
• Be a teacher
• Work in/own a coffeeshop with a live jazz band, open mic night, and community library
  
• Run multiple marathons
• Swim with sharks...
• Dont get eaten during said dive
  
• Bike from Vancouver to South America along the coast
  
• do same trip on motorcycle?
• See the Olympics

Being Silly in Paris

• WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) in South America and India
• Live in India, Berlin, Amsterdam, San Francisco, the East Coast
  
• Learn how to develop my own photos
• Become a journalist (international)
• Get Published
• Write a book of some sort
• Get into a fist fight for a good reason.
• figure out what a good reason to get into a fist fight is
• Visit every state in the U.S.
• Ride the rails in the U.S.
• Hitchhike across a state or two
• Go to an Ice bar or Ice Hotel
• Learn how to Bartend
• Have a library room in my house with a ladder on wheels, big leather chairs & sofas, fumidor for cigars, brandy shelf and wine rack
• Collect and be educated on wine
• have wine cave
• Grow old with life long friends
• Be an old and Stylish!
• Have children (either by the old fashion way or adoption)
• adopt a child
  
• Have my parents live with/near me. Take care of them
• buy/build my parents a house- make sure they are always comfortable
• Be at least Half the father to my children that my father is to me
  
• Live near/with Assad. Roomates!!!
• Be a vegetarian for at least a year
• Be an amazing cook! (with my own cookbook)
• Own a nice watch, pass it on to my children
• Read and Finish all Abrahamic religious texts. (Qur'an, Bible, Torah)
• Pray 5 times a day
• Go to Chiappas, learn from/live/create change/knowledge share with the Zapatistas
• Write the "Social Justice Cookbook"
• Do interfaith organizing
• Have a bespoke suit/shoes
• See Iguazu Falls
• camping/backpacking trip
  
• Invest in Stock Market
• Go spelunking
• Scuba in Belize
• Drive on the Autobahn
• Watch an opera in Italy
• Ride the Orient Express
• Visit an uninhabited island
• Swim in all 5 oceans
• Take parents on Vacation
• Ride "Crime and Punishment" and finish it!
• Go festival hoping in Mongolia and Tibet
• Summit mountain in Himalayas
• Celibrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans
• Carneval in Brazil!
• Run Bay to Breakers with friends and family :)
  
• Achieve everything on this list