In case you were wondering where Davidson grads end up, here is our (Nids and I) report:
- Susana has moved to the heartlands of Alabama and has started her very own horse farm. She has discovered the intense satisfaction one can attain from hours spent cleaning and mucking out horse stalls.
- Roshan is happily married with a third child on the way. He and his family have moved to a condo in Charlotte, NC where he is rapidly climbing the corporate ladder at Wachovia. He has discovered a passion for suits, and is also becoming a bit of a clothes horse.
- Morgan has moved to Blue Creek, Utah and there might be wedding bells on the horizon as she vies for the position of 3rd wife to a prominent local Mormon priest.
- Andrea has discovered her calling in Fiji, where she runs a kindergarten school by day and spins for the local club by night. She invites all to join her in her tropical paradise.
- Eduardo has moved to Glacier Fields, Patagonia and is currently undergoing intensive survival training in preperation for the wilderness camp he will be running in the fall.
- Nidhi has renounced the corporate world and found a new career in plumbing. Since it pays as much, if not more than she made before, she will happily service your pipes if you live in any of NY's boroughs.
- Javier is teaching English and Social Studies at a local high school in Vancouver. He spends most of his weekends fishing at one of the frozen lakes in the region as he works towards his First Aid certification.
- Blake operates the most frequently called American Express customer service number in India, where all female clients are patched directly to his line. In his spare time he has taken up gardening and recently won a prize for his tomatoes.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Thursday, December 07, 2006
We Are All Secret Poets
I was told poetry was dead. It only lives in classrooms and mutates into song lyrics in order to survive. Byron, Neruda, Donne, Pushkin, Dario are names of the past and people are hard-pressed to name 5 contemporary poets. The poetry sections of bookstores go unvisited, and collections of poems go unread, remain unbought. Making a living from being a poet is laughable and more, well, like living on air.
It might be true that poetry's golden era has passed. But I have a friend who writes poems to make her tears go away. I know a sailor who sits on the deck of his ship to write some lines and watch the sunset. I have a notebook of poems sent to me so I could get to know the author better. I know a friend who translated his poem so he could hear its rhythm in another language.
We are all secret poets and for a dead art, poetry is doing pretty well. We use poetry to fill those niches that prose never could. We are called to its cadence, its emotive mourning for the words that are absent.
Yes, we are all secret poets and even I dabble once in a while...
Oda al Césped
Es verde indeleble.
Por el sol mojado,
por el sol secado;
escrito en sus briznas
el pasar del tiempo;
Indeleble.
Es verde taciturno.
De la tierra crece,
a la tierra esconde;
con raíces mudas
la vida sostiene,
Taciturno.
Indeleble césped,
Césped taciturno
taciturno e indeleble,
respira y calla.
Oda
Tener en cada latido una sonrisa
Y mirar al viento y dejarla escapar.
Son tuyos, son tuyos, me dice,
Los mil momentos que pasamos juntos.
El mar arrastra la voz de perlas
Y mi poema se esconde entre las palabras.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
My mom told me never to gloat but...
after Alvaro Noboa spent $6.9 million in advertising (to Rafael Correa's $2.5 million) and still couldn't buy his way into the presidency, it's really hard not to indulge in some pleasurable gloating.
The Ecuadorian magazine Vistazo calculated that each vote cost Noboa $9.50 while each of Correa's cost $1.65. And Correa still won! Now I'm not an economist, but I know productivity when I see it.
Noboa, who was probably throwing a fit when he got home after the elections, also had to face another humiliating fact. Each time he runs he gets less votes than the time before. In 1998 he got 49% of the vote. In 2002 he went to 45%. In 2006, he was down to 43%. I hope he gets the hint, and does not start stocking up on T-shirts, wheelchairs, and well, those chickens for the 2010 elections.
Until then, I smile when I see this grafitti on one of Quito's walls:
..........."Les teengo bueenaas notiicias...
............todavia me queedan camiseetas."
.................("I have good news...
...................I still have T-shirts leftover.")
..................- - Alvaro Noboa
All I can say is: This country is NOT for sale!
The Ecuadorian magazine Vistazo calculated that each vote cost Noboa $9.50 while each of Correa's cost $1.65. And Correa still won! Now I'm not an economist, but I know productivity when I see it.Noboa, who was probably throwing a fit when he got home after the elections, also had to face another humiliating fact. Each time he runs he gets less votes than the time before. In 1998 he got 49% of the vote. In 2002 he went to 45%. In 2006, he was down to 43%. I hope he gets the hint, and does not start stocking up on T-shirts, wheelchairs, and well, those chickens for the 2010 elections.
Until then, I smile when I see this grafitti on one of Quito's walls:
..........."Les teengo bueenaas notiicias...
............todavia me queedan camiseetas."
.................("I have good news...
...................I still have T-shirts leftover.")
..................- - Alvaro Noboa
All I can say is: This country is NOT for sale!
Saturday, November 25, 2006
The Millionaires' Club
Every so often, private jets carrying the richest men of the continent descend upon a pre-selected Latin American city. The meetings that ensue, which some have simply called the Millionaires' Club, bring together a couple dozen men who have amassed fortunes one way or another. I cannot imagine what would be on the agenda of such a summit, but a few things come to mind like the high cost of fueling those private jets.
I would not like to presume that these millionaires are by default immoral and I would love to believe that theirs is truly a summit about how to create equitable development on the continent. A couple of troubling facts however stare me in the eye: that Latin America has the worst distribution of wealth, that a dozen of these men are worth the same as a third of Mexico's external debt. And worst of all, that Alvaro Noboa Ponton proudly stands among them. Clearly, if this man is welcomed there, money is the only thing that gets you into that meeting. Ethics and morals do not dwell there.
Alvaro Noboa is the richest man in Ecuador. He is one of the main exporters of bananas in the world, and owns dozens of Ecuadorian enterprises. He inherited all his wealth from his father. He is also, unfortunately, one of the two men running for President of Ecuador in the November 26th elections. The problem with Noboa is not that he is rich. The problem with Noboa is the manner and nature of his wealth. When you are that rich people seem to forget that you denounced your father as crazy in order to obtain his wealth, that you fought a legal battle to strip your brothers and sister of their inheritance, that your banana plantation workers are shot when they protest against working conditions, that Human Rights Watch cited you for violation of human rights or that one of your ships was caught transporting drugs.
Even better, election observers and the electoral court look past the fact that you are buying votes left and right through the bottomless coffers of your inherited wealth. Noboa is handing out $50 checks that can be cashed the day after the elections and only if he is proclaimed the winner. He is also giving out certificates for a chicken. I think I'm signing up for one of those regardless of who wins. I hope I don't have to catch it myself.
As worried as I am about the rising cost of fueling private jets, I am more worried my country will become an official Banana Republic. If the Millionaires' Club is honestly concerned about development in Latin America, it should put social justice on the agenda and seriously consider revising its list of guests.
As for me, as long as I have to run after that chicken, I'm voting for the other guy.
I would not like to presume that these millionaires are by default immoral and I would love to believe that theirs is truly a summit about how to create equitable development on the continent. A couple of troubling facts however stare me in the eye: that Latin America has the worst distribution of wealth, that a dozen of these men are worth the same as a third of Mexico's external debt. And worst of all, that Alvaro Noboa Ponton proudly stands among them. Clearly, if this man is welcomed there, money is the only thing that gets you into that meeting. Ethics and morals do not dwell there.
Alvaro Noboa is the richest man in Ecuador. He is one of the main exporters of bananas in the world, and owns dozens of Ecuadorian enterprises. He inherited all his wealth from his father. He is also, unfortunately, one of the two men running for President of Ecuador in the November 26th elections. The problem with Noboa is not that he is rich. The problem with Noboa is the manner and nature of his wealth. When you are that rich people seem to forget that you denounced your father as crazy in order to obtain his wealth, that you fought a legal battle to strip your brothers and sister of their inheritance, that your banana plantation workers are shot when they protest against working conditions, that Human Rights Watch cited you for violation of human rights or that one of your ships was caught transporting drugs.
Even better, election observers and the electoral court look past the fact that you are buying votes left and right through the bottomless coffers of your inherited wealth. Noboa is handing out $50 checks that can be cashed the day after the elections and only if he is proclaimed the winner. He is also giving out certificates for a chicken. I think I'm signing up for one of those regardless of who wins. I hope I don't have to catch it myself.
As worried as I am about the rising cost of fueling private jets, I am more worried my country will become an official Banana Republic. If the Millionaires' Club is honestly concerned about development in Latin America, it should put social justice on the agenda and seriously consider revising its list of guests.
As for me, as long as I have to run after that chicken, I'm voting for the other guy.
Friday, November 24, 2006
As the world looks on...
After reading a moving piece on the Israeli raids in Gaza, a friend of mine wrote the following exposé. I found it quite poignant and took the liberty to reproduce it here in its entirety, despite its length.
All I hear is silence punctuated by an occasional sniffle from me and a momentary wail in the near distance. All I see is darkness saturated with guilt and shame staring me in the face, mocking and taunting me. All I feel is the nothingness of my life, prying and probing the most sacred parts of me giving no respect to my privacy. I rock back and forth in my misery as I sit here in a corner of the world. My head is tucked in my hands and cradled between my legs, and my heart is cradled in your hands.
Today shame has found a home; today shame resides here with me... in me. Today my manhood fails me and I am reduced to a heap of desolation drowning in my failures. I am humbled in my nakedness. My frailty is seen in my tear-stricken face and there you are looking dead at me. My bones are protruding from underneath my skin and my skin is pale and broken in many places. My lips are patched and my nose has a trickle of blood coming from it. My eyes are as empty as my stomach. I barely have the strength to weep, but yet I weep and all you do is stare at me.
My depressed silence has been rudely broken by gunfire. The darkness has been illuminated by flames and wild eyes full of fury belonging to strange faces. I hear footsteps. In the dancing flames I see shadows that scream out loud in terror as the wild eyes chase them down. I am so scared. I want to run but I know I will not make it far. I have been running for as long as I can remember and in my quest for help, I have found rejection. People have looked at me with disgust and spat in my face, just as you do now. I have to get up; I have to run. I have to protect whatever remnants of my life I have left, even if it is to live it in misery. I have lost all dignity and sense of humanity. So I pick myself up with no shame exposing my body in its entirety to you as I make my last valiant effort to run.
The eyes are accompanied by cold voices that bellow and echo all across my corner of the world. They are screaming for my blood at the top of their lungs. I don't know where to run. My eyes are clouded with tears and my mind with fear. All the same, I make my way in the general direction of the fleeing animals that we have become. I feel a sharp pain in my head and I know that my time has come. Maybe it was a rock or maybe it was a piece of metal; I am not sure. When I come to, the wild eyes with cold voices full of fury are standing over me and there you are among them looking at me. I thought I saw a glint of mercy; a solitary ray of hope but it was short-lived. Your eyes soon became void of all feelings and emotion.
Suddenly I smell the stench and I recoil trying hard to cover my nose as the smell of rotten corpses hits my senses. By the dancing flames, my corner of the world is illuminated and I see the corpses lying there, a mere hint of what they once were. The corpses vary in shape, size, color and sex, but they are all me. The babies are me. The carved out fetuses are me. The old men and women are me. The young men and women are me, as are the crippled. I have died a million times before and I am about to die yet another time. I fear it won't be the last time. My familiar assailants have decided to wait till daybreak before they drain my blood so my cries can be heard by all living souls.
I am strung up and dragged through the streets in the dirt. I have been whipped and kicked. I am cut and bleeding. My head has been shaved with a razor and some of my appendages have been detached from my body. I am a helpless sorry sight. The people make fun of me spitting and throwing rocks as I am dragged, making a ridicule of my humanity. I am covered in blood - my symbol of life - and it is just as red and warm as yours. I leave a trail of blood in the earth but the earth soon swallows it up as a sign that she will welcome me once again, prematurely, but with open arms nonetheless. She has never spewed me out. No, not once has she. When I went to her as a child, she received me as did she when I went to her as a man, a woman, an elderly, an African, a Caucasian, a Jew, an Arab, a Christian and a Muslim. Each and every time she welcomed her child back home like the true mother that she is. I have some short-lived comfort stopped only by the thought of how my end will come. Yet again, I see you in the multitude, your eyes resting on me one more time.
They have brought accusations against me. Some of my assailants accuse me of being black, others accuse me of being white. Many of them just accuse me of being a different color from what they are. They hate me because of the language I speak and the hate me even more because of the god I worship. They will kill me because of the texture of my hair. They will leave my corpse to rot in the streets for I am not worthy of a burial because my nose and my eyes are not shaped like theirs. Eventually, my mother the earth will claim me as hers and give me a place in her endless bosom to rest. You have a place here too, right beside me in the bosom of our mother, for one day you too will return home to her. I have thought of myself as human, but with all the accusations brought against me, I have been judged and found to be less than human. They hate me. They will kill me and mutilate my body even after I am dead.
I also have wild eyes and a cold voice. I am going to be killed at daybreak and I am going to die at my own hands. You still stare at me, your eyes falling upon mine one more time. This time, it is the last. Now I am in the crowd and you are being dragged. You look at me for mercy. I am your assailants and I am the crowd that looks upon you with disgust, kicking you, bruising your body and your soul. You scream and you plead. You swear to forsake your humanity and you even beg for one more day alive. But your time has come just as mine had a million times before. You are still looking at me begging me with your eyes, asking me to intervene and save your life. Our gaze is locked and we are frozen in time even after your skull is wedged in repeatedly with the butt of a rifle and your heart is carved out through your chest. Even after your head iscut off and impaled for the world to see, you still look at me.
I am the wild eyes with cold voices. I am the owner of the dismembered and impaled head. I am the angry kicking multitude. I am JFK. I am Saro Wiwa. I am Yitzhak Rabin. I am Rwanda, Georgia, Russia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, The Gaza and The Chad, Israel, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, USA, Sierra Leone, Liberia. I am the world and I am you. My blood is yours. Each time I die, you die as well and each time I die, it is you killing me or maybe it is me killing you. Either way we are one. It is the realisation of this unity and dependency upon one another that will stop me from dying another time.
All I hear is silence punctuated by an occasional sniffle from me and a momentary wail in the near distance. All I see is darkness saturated with guilt and shame staring me in the face, mocking and taunting me. All I feel is the nothingness of my life, prying and probing the most sacred parts of me giving no respect to my privacy. I rock back and forth in my misery as I sit here in a corner of the world. My head is tucked in my hands and cradled between my legs and my life, cradled in your hands, slowly slips through the cracks in your fingers. You look at me and do nothing. Your death is a prelude to mine yet I look at you and do nothing.
All I hear is silence punctuated by an occasional sniffle from me and a momentary wail in the near distance. All I see is darkness saturated with guilt and shame staring me in the face, mocking and taunting me. All I feel is the nothingness of my life, prying and probing the most sacred parts of me giving no respect to my privacy. I rock back and forth in my misery as I sit here in a corner of the world. My head is tucked in my hands and cradled between my legs, and my heart is cradled in your hands.
Today shame has found a home; today shame resides here with me... in me. Today my manhood fails me and I am reduced to a heap of desolation drowning in my failures. I am humbled in my nakedness. My frailty is seen in my tear-stricken face and there you are looking dead at me. My bones are protruding from underneath my skin and my skin is pale and broken in many places. My lips are patched and my nose has a trickle of blood coming from it. My eyes are as empty as my stomach. I barely have the strength to weep, but yet I weep and all you do is stare at me.
My depressed silence has been rudely broken by gunfire. The darkness has been illuminated by flames and wild eyes full of fury belonging to strange faces. I hear footsteps. In the dancing flames I see shadows that scream out loud in terror as the wild eyes chase them down. I am so scared. I want to run but I know I will not make it far. I have been running for as long as I can remember and in my quest for help, I have found rejection. People have looked at me with disgust and spat in my face, just as you do now. I have to get up; I have to run. I have to protect whatever remnants of my life I have left, even if it is to live it in misery. I have lost all dignity and sense of humanity. So I pick myself up with no shame exposing my body in its entirety to you as I make my last valiant effort to run.
The eyes are accompanied by cold voices that bellow and echo all across my corner of the world. They are screaming for my blood at the top of their lungs. I don't know where to run. My eyes are clouded with tears and my mind with fear. All the same, I make my way in the general direction of the fleeing animals that we have become. I feel a sharp pain in my head and I know that my time has come. Maybe it was a rock or maybe it was a piece of metal; I am not sure. When I come to, the wild eyes with cold voices full of fury are standing over me and there you are among them looking at me. I thought I saw a glint of mercy; a solitary ray of hope but it was short-lived. Your eyes soon became void of all feelings and emotion.
Suddenly I smell the stench and I recoil trying hard to cover my nose as the smell of rotten corpses hits my senses. By the dancing flames, my corner of the world is illuminated and I see the corpses lying there, a mere hint of what they once were. The corpses vary in shape, size, color and sex, but they are all me. The babies are me. The carved out fetuses are me. The old men and women are me. The young men and women are me, as are the crippled. I have died a million times before and I am about to die yet another time. I fear it won't be the last time. My familiar assailants have decided to wait till daybreak before they drain my blood so my cries can be heard by all living souls.
I am strung up and dragged through the streets in the dirt. I have been whipped and kicked. I am cut and bleeding. My head has been shaved with a razor and some of my appendages have been detached from my body. I am a helpless sorry sight. The people make fun of me spitting and throwing rocks as I am dragged, making a ridicule of my humanity. I am covered in blood - my symbol of life - and it is just as red and warm as yours. I leave a trail of blood in the earth but the earth soon swallows it up as a sign that she will welcome me once again, prematurely, but with open arms nonetheless. She has never spewed me out. No, not once has she. When I went to her as a child, she received me as did she when I went to her as a man, a woman, an elderly, an African, a Caucasian, a Jew, an Arab, a Christian and a Muslim. Each and every time she welcomed her child back home like the true mother that she is. I have some short-lived comfort stopped only by the thought of how my end will come. Yet again, I see you in the multitude, your eyes resting on me one more time.
They have brought accusations against me. Some of my assailants accuse me of being black, others accuse me of being white. Many of them just accuse me of being a different color from what they are. They hate me because of the language I speak and the hate me even more because of the god I worship. They will kill me because of the texture of my hair. They will leave my corpse to rot in the streets for I am not worthy of a burial because my nose and my eyes are not shaped like theirs. Eventually, my mother the earth will claim me as hers and give me a place in her endless bosom to rest. You have a place here too, right beside me in the bosom of our mother, for one day you too will return home to her. I have thought of myself as human, but with all the accusations brought against me, I have been judged and found to be less than human. They hate me. They will kill me and mutilate my body even after I am dead.
I also have wild eyes and a cold voice. I am going to be killed at daybreak and I am going to die at my own hands. You still stare at me, your eyes falling upon mine one more time. This time, it is the last. Now I am in the crowd and you are being dragged. You look at me for mercy. I am your assailants and I am the crowd that looks upon you with disgust, kicking you, bruising your body and your soul. You scream and you plead. You swear to forsake your humanity and you even beg for one more day alive. But your time has come just as mine had a million times before. You are still looking at me begging me with your eyes, asking me to intervene and save your life. Our gaze is locked and we are frozen in time even after your skull is wedged in repeatedly with the butt of a rifle and your heart is carved out through your chest. Even after your head iscut off and impaled for the world to see, you still look at me.
I am the wild eyes with cold voices. I am the owner of the dismembered and impaled head. I am the angry kicking multitude. I am JFK. I am Saro Wiwa. I am Yitzhak Rabin. I am Rwanda, Georgia, Russia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, The Gaza and The Chad, Israel, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, USA, Sierra Leone, Liberia. I am the world and I am you. My blood is yours. Each time I die, you die as well and each time I die, it is you killing me or maybe it is me killing you. Either way we are one. It is the realisation of this unity and dependency upon one another that will stop me from dying another time.
All I hear is silence punctuated by an occasional sniffle from me and a momentary wail in the near distance. All I see is darkness saturated with guilt and shame staring me in the face, mocking and taunting me. All I feel is the nothingness of my life, prying and probing the most sacred parts of me giving no respect to my privacy. I rock back and forth in my misery as I sit here in a corner of the world. My head is tucked in my hands and cradled between my legs and my life, cradled in your hands, slowly slips through the cracks in your fingers. You look at me and do nothing. Your death is a prelude to mine yet I look at you and do nothing.
Star Spangled Banner...dress?
As my friend Heather is on her way to walking the aisle, I have spent some time hunting for cheap ass tickets and delighting in the millions of wedding gifts available at Crate & Barrel that I can't afford. When it came time for the wedding dress, that oh so luscious detail, imagine my delight when Heather found this such treasure on the internet:
Although the website claims it's a bestseller, I have yet to see someone wear it. It definitely has not gotten enough publicity or it would have caught on.
I don't know which I'm most worried about: the fact that this dress exists, or the fact that once I took a look at it I began wondering what my bridesmaids would wear to match...hmmmm.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Silvery Strands
ur toes spread out like fan. their reach is incredible! we’re supposed to be listening to some dean rusk thing, but we are mesmerized by the toes. we watch them spread over the lip of your sandal, apparently claimin the entire territory. don’t ask me why, but putting brown beans on them seems like a good idea.
***
watchin the two of u run to the screen cos beyonce is on. u don’t just pant after her as most guys, but u get in ur line up and dance with her. finger lick and all.
***
one night outside Irwin we decide that the plural of dufus must be duffi, and therefore the plural of penis must be penii.
***
we need the 2nd part of the movie. but it’s pouring. at first we try to avoid the drops but then for one second we look at each other…and grin. delighted, soaked, we open our arms and pretend we’re airplanes in a storm. 3rd world motors sputterin thru the water. once back in the warm apartment we jump and hug the girls waitin for us. just sharin the rain.
***
you come running down the hall. a little thing like a door can't stop you and you jump on my bed. somewhere between my dreams and my half-closed eyes, i realize you're way too excited for 9 am. with one excited laugh you yank open my blinds to show me the white blanket that has covered the campus. tickled pink, i look at you with childish delight. my first snow.
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