Wrapping things up

I've been back home in Portland for a couple months now. Things have been going well. I'm happy with my new apartment and my new job. And at the same time, of course, this trip is still with me. I've been reading books inspired by my travels. Inevitably, ever few days or so I find myself making some reference to Nepal or Switzerland or Morocco.

I had planned on writing a post or two on trekking in Nepal. It would seem, though, that I've been suffering from a case of writer's block. I can't seem to find a way to do the topic justice. Instead, my photos--and the associated commentary--will have to suffice. Needless to say, these were wonderful experiences, and I highly recommend a trip to Nepal for anyone who is interested. I put photos from Nepal, Switzerland and Morocco up on my Picasa site.

Nepal 2010

France and Switzerland 2010

Morocco 2010

Also, I put together a panoramic composite image of the Himalaya near Mt Everest, and put it up on Photosynth.



There is one other topic in addition to my treks in Nepal that I had wanted write about: volunteering and development work. Of course, a big part of this trip was spent visiting a friend who is volunteering in Nepal for a couple years. Over the past few months--before, during and after my trip--it has been interesting for me to gain little insights here and there into various aspects of her work. And it's hard work, both for her, as a volunteer and a foreigner, and for the Nepalis that she is working with trying to improve the lives of people with disabilities in Makwanpur District. It's heartwrenching, frankly. Clearly, there is an emotional aspect to this topic of volunteering or development work, for me, at least, but I think too for Tiffany and her Nepali coworkers. But it is not and cannot only be about having a bleeding heart. There is funding and grants and paperwork and reports and conferences and trainings and on and on and on. It's serious work.

I wish I had something profound to say about volunteering and development work. Talking with Tiffany and her Nepali coworkers, and getting a glimpse of the work that they are doing certainly made the whole thing much more real for me. I suppose for now, I'll just leave it at that.

I will end this blog with a quote I heard the other day that I appreciated. From time to time, I listen to the radio show Speaking of Faith. There was a show a month ago or so on the art of peace, in which John Paul Lederach, a Professor of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, talked about peacebuilding work he has done in Nepal and elsewhere. Towards the end of the interview, he quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes as saying, "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity." That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm striving for.

Arabian Nights in the Trinity Alps

It's been a while since my last post. I'm still working on editing and consolidating the photos from my two treks in Nepal. Likely, those will be some of my final posts in a couple weeks or so. For now, though, I wanted to write something about the closing of a chapter and opening of another that is taking place. Tomorrow I start my new job. I just got back yesterday from my last little hurrah, which I spent backpacking in the Trinity Alps of Northern California. It's a beautiful place.

I spent two nights up at these lakes by myself. It took me over a day to mentally slow down, to remember to breathe. At first I was so focused on maps and photos and so many distractions. But with time I was able to just be a bit more. I finished reading In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams by Tahir Shah. He wrote some about what traveling means to him. I especially appreciated this passage.

Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed, and you hold them to your heart.

That spoke to me. I could relate, out there sleeping under the stars, alone. And, too, it reminded me of my time in Morocco and beyond.

He wrote about a number of things that I've been thinking about in recent months. I'll share a few examples.

On the paradox of the proximity and yet the distance between East and West:

"A hundred years ago our worlds were separated," he said.

"By distance?"

"Yes. By distance. Now they are closer."

"Much closer--a short flight."

Fouad touched my arm, his lazy eye leering toward me. "But they are still very far apart," he said. "In their minds."

On the Western obsession with comfort:

"You people need much more than us," he said.

"But sunglasses just make life more comfortable."

"Comfort... comfort is from your world," said Fouad.

I especially like that: comfort is from your world. Think about that. What could it mean? Could there be any truth to it?

On different ways of knowing:

"That's how you are," said Osman scathingly.

 "What do you mean?"

"In the West it's always like that."

"Like what?"

"You read something in a book, some writing, and you think you are an expert."

"I'm not an expert," I said.

"Osman's right," said the Bear. "Our knowledge isn't the kind of thing you can find in a book. It's given to us through generations of..."

"Of conversation," said Marwan.

On being an outsider:

She apologized for causing a scene, but said it had all been too overwhelming for her.

"Was it the heat?"

"No, it wasn't that," she replied. "It was my ignorance, a sense of my own tremendous ignorance."

I asked what she meant.

"In the United States we know the system," she said. "But down there at the port I felt like a dancer about to go onstage to perform a dance for which I knew none of the moves."

"How did it make you feel?"

"It crushed me, and I always thought I was so in control," she said.

On understanding the meaning of symbols:

The result is that the symbols which ornament Western society--and are quite plain to Orientals--can't be decoded any longer by the Western mind. They are regarded as nothing more than pretty decoration or, as in the case of stories, as simple entertainment.

And finally, on why he wrote this book, and a big part of why I choose to travel:

"You must write a book to show the West there's more to the Arab world than Al-Qaeda and suicide bombers," he said.

I'm grateful for this time alone, contemplating in the Trinity Alps. And now, let the next chapter begin...

Baraka

I started reading a new book this morning, A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. It's a pretty weighty political philosophy text--social contracts and such. I read about it online a few days ago, while I was searching for people who had addressed the conundrum of whether and how to tolerate intolerance. I see occasionally reading books along these lines as a part of my attempt to strike a balance between engaging my rational, intellectual side on the one hand and nourishing other, more intuitive forms of knowing on the other.

Traveling, of course, I see as a way of learning about the world in a more intuitive, heartfelt way. I had a series of experiences on my birthday a few weeks ago, while I was still in Morocco that I think are a nice example of this.

I started the day in Fez, which is one of the four major, historic, imperial cities of Morocco, along with the current capital, Rabat, the heart of the tourism industry, Marrakesh, and Meknès, where I began my journey through the country.

Allow me to digress for a moment about Fez. I only spent a couple nights there, and that was all it took to win my heart and become my favorite Moroccan city. Maybe some photos will help to explain why that is. Here you can see the ancient ramparts that surround the medina or old part of the city--as opposed to the new part of the city, the French-built ville nouvelle. I spent almost all of my time in Fez in the medina.

Here you get a feeling for the pervasivness of satellite dishes in the country. They are everywhere. My impression is that this is generally the case throughout the Muslim world, except I imagine in some of the more repressive countries. Morocco, by the way, is quite liberal, if I haven't mentioned that already.

Within the medina I spent most of my time in the various souqs or markets. Here are a few photos to give a sense of what it feels like to walk around in the souqs.

There are souqs selling just about anything you can imagine.

Spices:

Sweets:

Fruit and nuts:

Fabric:

Along those lines, many of the souqs are just a riot of color:

And of course, all kinds of fun things can happen with the lighting in there, what with the strong sun, tall and irregular buildings, and various covered bits.

And as is the case with so many things in life, so much of the pleasure of walking around in the souqs of the medina was the small details. You are Welcome...

Hopefully, that helps to paint a bit of a picture as to where I had been for the previous couple days on the morning of my birthday. That is only the exterior world, though. Of course, a lot was happening on the inside, as well. And a good portion of that had been informed by various things I had read recently, and in particular the book I was reading at the time, The Spider's House by Paul Bowles. The book was written in the 1950's, right around the time that Morocco was fighting for its independence from France. Paul Bowles was one of the Beat writers along with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and the like. He lived in Morocco for many years, and so I tend to take his impressions of the country seriously, even though of course I realize that it is just the perspective of one particular outsider.

There is a tension in the book, which is set in Fez, between a few expatriate American characters, who believe in concepts like progress and free will, and an intuitive, devout Muslim teenage boy who approaches the world from an entirely different point of view.

Here is an example that illustrates the perspective of the Americans:

If she possessed any sort of religion at all, it consisted in remaining faithful to her convictions, and one of the basic beliefs upon which her life rested was the certainty that no one must ever go back. All living things were in process of evolution, a concept which to her meant but one thing: an unfolding, an endless journey from the undifferentiated toward the precise, from the simple toward the complex, and in the final analysis from the darkness toward the light.

I find this to be in stark contrast to the sentiments of the Muslim boy. Here are a few examples:

Man was meant to consider only the present; to be preoccupied with the future, either pleasantly or with anxiety, implied a lack of humility in the face of Providence, and was unforgivable.

Christians have good hearts, but they don't know anything. They think they can change what has been written. They're afraid to die because they don't understand what death is for. And if you're afraid to die, then you don't know what life is for. How can you live?

For if men dared take it upon themselves to decide what was sin and what was not, a thing which only Allah had the wisdom to do, then they committed the most terrible sin of all, the ultimate one, that of attempting to replace Him.

They were no longer Moslems; how could it matter what they did, since they did it not for Allah but for themselves?

For me the book was a meditation on the possibility of progress--whether we have the power to affect the course of our lives. It ends up going in a fairly dark, hopeless direction:

It would not help the Moslems of the Hindus or anyone else to go ahead, nor, even if it were possible, would it do them any good to stay as they were. It did not really matter whether they worshipped Allah or carburetors--they were lost in any case.

No matter. I found the journey more satisfying than the destination.

One thing I noticed and especially appreciated about the book was the way that Muslims were meant to speak:

Moulay Ali might be a very good man, but he was not a Moslem. He never said either "Incha'Allah" or "Bismil'lah," and he drank alcohol and almost certainly did not pray, and Amar would not have been at all astonished to hear that on occasion he had eaten pork or neglected to observe Ramadan.

And this finally leads me back to my birthday. A day or two earlier, a friend had asked if spending the day alone would make me lonely or sad. It is true that there were a few times on my trip when it would have been nice to have a traveling partner. But for some reason I wasn't especially worried about feeling down on my birthday. I thought it would be a good day, and indeed it was.

I got on the train that morning, headed back to Casablanca where I would catch my flight back home the next morning. The train system in Morocco is quite nice, by the way, one of the best in Africa. Walking onto the train, I asked an older woman in one of the six-seat cabins if this was indeed the train to Casablanca. Yes, she gestured--we didn't share a common spoken language. And come join me, she gestured further. So I sat across from her. A few minutes later a woman about my age joined us. Then came a twenty-something couple with a young daughter. Together the six of us started the journey from ancient Fez in the interior of the country towards the coast and cosmopolitan Casablanca.

In my backpack I had some fresh figs and almonds that I had bought the day before in one of the souqs. I had my Moroccan Arabic phrasebook out and wanted desperately to share some of this food with these new acquaintances of mine. Finally, I worked up the courage and made a gesture while saying the word for fig in Arabic. It worked! They all courteously accepted some fruit and nuts, even the little one. The ice had been broken.

A little later the young family got off the train, and it was just the two women and me. They were both wearing traditional (colorful!) jellabas and head coverings. With my limited Moroccan Arabic, I was at least able to tell them were I was from, how long I had been in the cournty and such. They were friendly with me. But even more striking to me was how quickly they became close with each other. They could have been mother and daughter, although I know they weren't because of the way they initially greeted each other. They were touching and arguing, laughing, sharing secrets. There talk was indeed full of alhamdulillahs, bismillahs and isha'Allahs. That is praise be to God, in the name of God and God willing, respectively. See here for a nice list of Islamic terms in Arabic.

They got off near Rabat. I was the only one left in the cabin, but then a young woman got on. She was of a totally different ilk from the previous two. She wore a nice blouse and a knee-length skirt, no head scarf. She had a briefcase or some such and was talking on the phone in French. A man joined us a couple stops later. He was middle-aged and working class. The young woman said something to me in French, and then English. Trilingual, not bad. And fluent, too. It turns out she is a marketing student at a business school in Casablanca. She has an internship in the capital, Rabat. We talked about offshoring, globalization and free trade, about SQL queries and information technology.

But here's the thing. Even this modern, up-and-coming young Moroccan woman peppered her speech with alhamdulillahs and isha'Allahs. Isha'Allah, I will finish school in two years. Alhamdulillah, I have been accepted for an internship in Turkey this summer. These reverent words even showed up while she was speaking French on the phone, presumably a work-related phone call.

I got off the train and into a taxi. Bismillah the taxi driver began...

So it comes down to this: Is progress possible? Do I have the free will to affect my life? Or to come at it from a slightly different angle: What role does God play here on earth? Can He intervene? What is baraka--or grace?

The Economist which I read from time to time sees itself as taking part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress. I am afraid of being irrational. Is grace possible? When I arrived in Casablanca that evening and went to the Hassan II Mosque I felt like it just might be.

Tolerance: neither xenophilia nor xenophobia

A few days ago I wrote a post about some of the various meanings of the symbol of the swastika in the countries I visited over the last few months: Nepal, Switzerland and Morocco. In particular, it was upsetting to see it graffitied on bathroom stalls and old city walls, a clear symbol of hate and intolerance. I continued to mull it over for a while, and eventually the word xenophilia came to mind. I didn't know whether it is actually a real word or not, but I kind of liked the sound of it. The opposite of xenophobia, I though, as from my physics days I remember hydrophilia--the property of a material or compound having an affinity to water--being the opposite of hydrophobia--a lack of such an affinity.

So I did what any good citizen of the 21st century would do: I googled it. It turns out that xenophilia is indeed a word, although xenophily may be a more common synonym. And it is indeed the opposite of xenophobia. For better or worse, though, the Wikipedia article on xenophily is negative and actually a bit disturbing, frankly. The negative part is a reference to George Washington's 1796 Farewell Address, where among other things he warned against potentially negative consequences of being infatuated with a foreign nation. The disturbing bit is summed up nicely in the opening paragraph: ...a person may date someone of another race not because they like them as people but specifically because they are different. That's enough to convince me that the meaning of xenophilia is more loaded than my initially naïve notion of simply the opposite of xenophobia without the negative--and potentially sexual--connotation. Perhaps in the end the less exotic tolerance was the word I was looking for. Fair enough.

In addition to the obligatory Wikipedia article, my cursory search of xenophilia led me to this post from a few years ago on the conservative blog Faultline USA. On one level I can sympathize with the concerns of this conservative blogger--and George Washington, for that matter. I agree that attraction to foreignness for its own sake is at least wrong-minded and potentially even dangerous. However, intolerance, bigotry, xenophobia or worse, outright hatred, I cannot tolerate.

On the last night of my 18 day trek in the Everest region, my fellow trekkers and I went out for a drink at the Irish Pub in the Sherpa village of Lukla, where the airstrip is that we would use the next morning to fly back to Kathmandu. By the way, no, that is not a real Starbucks--copyright is not respected in this part of the world--and yes, those are prayer wheels on the entrance to the Irish Pub.

Left to right here we have Emma and Joe, English veterinarians gradually making their way home after living and working for about a year as large animal vets in rural New Zealand, Bruce, an accomplished mountaineer and pulmonologist from southern California, Moses--or Moshe in Hebrew--a retired lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army of Moroccan descent. The television in the Irish Pub in Lukla was tuned to the English version of the Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera. Sitting there watching the news with my new friends, I realized that I felt a little uncomfortable. Was I being un-American by watching this Qatari news station? I asked Moses his opinion of Al Jazeera. I don't remember his exact words, but the essence was that this 24 year veteran of the Israeli army respects the channel, that he trusts their reporting. Why did that surprise me? Maybe the nuance, the reminder of the world's complexities. For what it's worth, here is Al Jazeera's code of ethics. Reasonable enough.

There were a number of different stores on the news that night, but I believe it was something about the recent constitutional amendment in Switzerland banning the construction of new minarets in the country that sparked a conversation relevant to this post. We started talking about the issue of Muslims in Europe, assimilation and such. Emma, in particular, seemed frustrated by the view of some in the UK that the Muslim community there should be allowed to implement Islamic Sharia law. What occurred to me is that perhaps one of the only things that a liberal, tolerant society like the UK should not and cannot tolerate is intolerance itself. So to the extent that Sharia contains elements of intolerance it has no place in the UK. Of course, that is an oversimplification, but to me, anyway, it feels like a decent starting point for thinking about this complex issue.

I appreciate the criticism of the conservative blogger. Reflecting on these words helps me to clarify my own values. If I am completely honest, there is a part of me that is attracted to this foreignness for its own sake. And if I want to be especially self-critical, I could even go as far as to call it a naïve, base infatuation. At times it may be just that.

But if I take a step back, I can paint my interests in a more positive light, as well. Thinking back over my writings in this blog over the last few months, I realize that a good deal of it has been about my quest to find a middle way between xenophobia--an irrational and unwarranted fear of the foreign--on the one hand and xenophilia--an irrational and potentially dangerous infatuation with the foreign--on the other. My hope is that with a combination of intuition and analysis I can find this middle path of tolerance between these unattractive extremes.

Vexillology in al-Mamlaka al-Maghribiya

Sometimes I can't help myself. This morning, for example, I learned that vexillology is the scholarly study of flags. This Flags of the World site has all kinds of good information about flags, including a fun clickable map! Here is the page on the Kingdom of Morocco, or in Arabic al-Mamlaka al-Maghribiya.

This came up because I was thinking about symbols again. I mentioned in an earlier post that the pentagram is an important symbol in Morocco. If interested, you can read more about it, for example on the flag site I mentioned above.

As in most countries I suppose, the flag itself is a fairly common site in Morocco. Here it is, for example, outside of the Royal Palace in Fez.

There were often pentagrams in mosques, as well. Here is one in Fez--taken from through the door, of course, as I was not allowed to enter as a non-Muslim.

I think that may satisfy my fascination with symbols for a while. I suppose I get it that they really do mean different things to different people in different places and times. Fair enough.

I anticipate that my next few posts will be about Fez, which was my favorite Moroccan city, and my treks in the Himalaya, which were the most spectacular parts of my trip. Stay tuned.

The Diamond of Transcendent Wisdom

A few days ago I was reading an article in National Geographic about Buddhist art and writings at a particular holy site along the ancient Silk Road in northwest China. I was particularly struck by a photograph of a Buddhist manuscript called the Diamond Sutra, which was printed in 868 and is apparently the oldest example of a printed and dated book on earth. It was rediscovered in 1907 and is currently housed in the British Library, which has a pretty fascinating site on this text and much more.


Here is the image from the British Library site. (I hope this usage isn't a copyright violation...)

This is a beautiful image, all the more so because of its incredible age. But what I was most struck by is the swastika on the chest of the Buddha figure in the middle of the image. Take a closer look. Isn't that amazing? So incongruous to modern, Western eyes. It is for me anyway.

I've already discussed my fascination with the varied interpretations of symbols throughout time and place, for example here. Today, I would mainly like to share a few relevant photos from my trip.

Towards the end of my time in Hetauda, Nepal where my friend Tiffany is living and volunteering, the powers that be started to pave Bhairab Road near her apartment. Here is the roller. Note the swastikas.

Walking down the street in Hetauda, Tiffany and I noticed these bricks.

So here's the thing about the swastika in Nepal. Yes, I admit that I am particularly fascinated by it, but it really was fairly ubiquitous. I'm not making this up.

What does it mean to Nepalis? Why is it so common? It seems to be an auspicious symbol thought to bring good luck. Here is a short description of the meaning of the swastika in Hinduism.

Before going to Nepal I had no idea that it represented anything other than racism and intolerance. I suppose perhaps I knew that it was also used by certain Native American tribes, but I had no idea that it had been used for thousands of years throughout Europe and Asia.

I was somewhat surprised--and disappointed--to see it again in a bathroom in a small town in Switzerland, where of course it had an entirely different meaning from the one I had just learned about in Nepal.

I was also unpleasantly surprised to see it in the otherwise beautiful, blue town of Chefchaouen, Morocco where no doubt it was once again meant to symbolize intolerance.

Isn't that wild? It blows me away that the same symbol can hold such vastly different meanings to different peoples. The world is big. And complex. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Understanding the word

One thing that I thought a lot about while I was traveling was religion. Both in Nepal and Morocco religious expression felt more public than it does here in the States. In Nepal this took a number of different forms. In the hills in the central and southern parts of the country, i.e., not in the Buddhist Himalaya of the north, I would see people with assorted red tikas on their forehead every day. Often this meant that they had gone to a temple that morning. In Kathmandu, in particular, there were little temples and shrines on nearly every block it felt, with well loved idols covered in tika powder, marigolds and such. In Hetauda, the women of the family that lives downstairs from Tiffany would go out into the front yard every evening to light candles and ring bells at their small altar.

In Morocco, of course, there was the call to prayer five times a day: Four in the morning, noon, five in the afternoon, and eight and ten o'clock at night. I would often see men--rarely women--going into or coming out of a local mosque shortly after the call. One thing that was particularly striking to me about Morocco was the form the religious art takes in that part of the world.

First off, it was very photogenic. Here are a couple examples of beautiful lighting in a couple of shrines in Meknès, the first city I went to in Morocco.

I quickly noticed that the art is very focused on the written word. Here are a couple of examples, one from a shrine in Meknès and another from a medersa or (religious) school in Fez, where I spent my last couple days in the country.

Of course, there is more to the art than just the written word. There is clearly quite a bit of tile work, involving various geometrical patterns and the occasional floral motif, as well. In the medina or old city in Fez there are dozens of fountains that act as public water sources. They are often quite beautifully embellished with lovely tile work. Here is a nice example.

I went to the ancient Roman city of Volubilis, which is known for its beautiful in-situ mosaics. I felt like I could see some continuity between the ancient Roman art and the more-recent Islamic art. Muslims, however, in stark contrast to the Romans never depict humans or animals in their art for fear of idolatry.

And finally, Islamic art and architecture does occasionally incorporate other symbols, especially the crescent moon, but also in Morocco, in particular, the pentagram, which is an important symbol there--a bit more on that in a future post. Here you see both of these symbols in a mosque in Fez.

In the end, for me, though, most striking was the role of the written word in Moroccan religious art. Walking down the alleyways of the medina in Fez, I saw all kinds of framed writings and men carving Koranic verse.

And again, this was in such stark contrast to Nepal, where religious art and expression is so much more physical, visceral, base. In Morocco it felt austere and abstract.

What's the point? I wrote in a previous post that one reason why I choose to travel--to Morocco, in particular, but more broadly, as well--is to cultivate within myself more compassion, including--perhaps especially--for people who look or think differently from me. Another aspect of this, another reason I choose to travel I am realizing, is to understand myself. Who am I? One way I can tackle this question is by trying to understand who I am not. What does it mean to be a Portlander, an Oregonian, an American? What does it mean to be a Moroccan? Any insights I can gain into the latter may help me to answer the former.

It is straightforward enough to read a no smoking sign written in a foreign script.

Harder to understand the meaning of a place you may not enter. (Non-Muslims are forbidden from entering mosques in Morocco.)

These words that I am so fascinated with in Islamic art, what do they say? Of course, they are verse from the holy Koran, and I imagine they must speak to good and evil, right and wrong, believers and infidels. I bet they allude to stories, hundreds or even thousands of years old. The foreign or exotic holds such an appeal for me, as no doubt it does for many people, the world over. But to what extent is this infatuation due to ignorance, naïveté? I have this belief that I may be able to gain a better understanding of myself, of my place in the world by reflecting on these foreign people and places, these things that are not part of my (European, Christian) heritage. What if these foreign, exotic words spoke about intolerance, bigotry? Would I be so enamored still? Do I have higher standards for words I can understand, English words, than for these words that I cannot read, that do nothing more than evoke a feeling in me?

The other day I started reading a short history of the Balkans, where my friend Iva, who I am staying with while I transition back into the real world, grew up. It's fascinating to read about this crossroads between East and West, between Christendom and the Muslim World. But this is such an academic approach to this question. Somehow I crave this in-you-bones level of knowing. But I know I will never know the Balkans--or Morocco, or Nepal--in that way, the way that someone who grew up there, with those sounds and smells and tastes and stories knows it, unless perhaps I devoted my entire life to that quixotic pursuit. Will Iva ever know the USA as I do? What if she is married to an American and lives here for another 60 years? And if she did succeed in gaining this understanding, would that benefit her in any way? Would she somehow be more satisfied or fulfilled in her life? That is my (rhetorical) question of the day.