Thoughts on the arts and development.....

Tonight, I attended a performance/talk given by Dovie Thomason, a Kiowa Apache and Lakota Sioux storyteller. The reason why I call it a performance/talk is because it was a storytelling performance, the flow was led by stories, but it was also a talk - a talk about her life, about multiculturalism, about being an indigenous person, about being human, about respect and our struggle to understand one another. Needless to say, I found it absolutely captivating. If we could learn something from storytellers, it would be that there is no good reason for giving talks that are dry and fact-filled and make your audience fall asleep. She talked about how her grandmother used to tell her a story instead of punishing her or praising her. She wouldn't sit her down and say "now let me tell you a story of what happens to little girls who do that" - she would simply say "come here baby girl - do you want some cookies? Did I ever tell you the story of how....." and never said a word about what Dovie had done, instead letting Dovie make the connections herself. If only more public lecturers knew how to lecture like that, we might get moving a lot quicker in this world.

After she finished speaking, we had the opportunity to ask questions. She had mentioned her involvement in the conflict resolution process in Belfast, and so I asked her if she could talk about how she got involved with that and what she did, since I'm very interested in the use of the arts for conflict resolution. She said that in fact, she really did very little more than listen. She and the others who had been called in to help made a rule, that no outsider could speak - they could only listen to what everyone had to say. And they heard many many important things that needed to be said: that people were tired of fighting, of bombs, of not being able to just date who they want and be friends with who they want. This surprised me at first - coming from my background I had, I guess, expected her to run activities with storytelling workshops or something goodness only knows what. But she went on to say, (serious paraphrasing here) "....We did a lot of just listening. Listening, providing an open space....I think that's something that artists often do, is leave a safe space open for discussion and talk...." WOW. Something so simple, and yet it had never really occurred to me in that light before. Artists do their thing in order to allow discussion to take place. Now this may not have been exactly what she was doing in Belfast or what she was even talking about, but that is what it meant to me. Yes, sometimes it is important to just listen. But in order for that to happen, a listening environment needs to be created. This can be done in a multitude of ways, I'm sure. One very important thing that I think could be done through the use of performing arts is the guidance of people who have something to say toward actually putting it in a format that can be heard, and giving it an opportunity to be heard - for example one experiment that I like to reference often, of a director who got a group of teen refugees together to put together a show about their experiences, of how they had become refugees and what their lives where like because of that and since. They were given the opportunity to present it to their peers and teachers as well as to the public and it was a very powerful means of communication - giving them the power to present these things to people who they had so often wished to communicate with and were just not able to. Because in day to day life it is very hard to tell your story so that people will simply listen and not talk. And sometimes that is something that needs to be done.

One book, one pen

So I'm on this email list called "Art for SED" (the SED standing for social and economic development). Recently a woman sent out an email about a storytelling conference she had been to that was absolutely amazing and inspiring. They had storytellers from all over the world and there were performances and workshops and just generally good opportunities to network and generate ideas and have a glorious time. In her email, the woman painted the scene of a woman from Africa who told a traditional story. Here is the story as she told it (only slightly edited by me):

"let me paint the picture
here she is up in front of us all in her beautiful African fabrics and
jewelery
she wove a story about a village in Africa
and in this village every child at birth was give one pen and one book
(she repeated these words over and over with every dance and song)
and they were not to use them until they reached 21
and when they got close to this age the wisest person in the village
would look at all the handsome men
and by their unique qualities choose the right book for them
BUT THERE WAS THIS YOUNG MAN, NAMED CHOOK, WHO IT IS BELIEVED COULD NOT
WAIT AND HE USED HIS PEN AS EARLY AS FIVE
HE WROTE ALL OVER THE WALLS
AND AND EVEN IN THE DIRT

(mean while she is dancing and singing and has the entire audience
totally captured right into the very centre of the story
and no one has any idea, at this point, what the story was REALLY
about)

then she goes on to tell us that as he got older he would write in
everyone's book that he could get his hands on
he became known as Chook, he who could not leave any hen untouched.

so he went on like this in the village until he had written into every
book

he had heard that in the commercial city you could get many books
so off he went
when he got there sure enough he could even hire books of all sorts
all colours and when he had written in them he could
go back, return the book, and get another and another
so this is what he did
until his pen just stopped one day
so he went to a book shop
the man in the book shop showed him how to put his pen between his to
hands and rub backwards and forwards and the pen started to work again

so he was so happy he went straight back to writing in the hired books
(all of this remember with dance and humour and play and song remember
'one book one pen' being repeated over and over)

he had written in all the books by now and he searched high and low
until he found this one book that was filled
every page he turned in this book had been written on
but this did not deter him, Chook, he who could not leave any hen
untouched.

so Chook, he who could not leave any hen untouched, wrote all over
the cover
of this filled book

BUT soon his pen began to drip red ink after only ever being a blue pen
he was very worried
went back to the book shop where the book shop owner told him he would have
to go back to his village
he could not stay in the commercial city any longer

he went home an abridged version
and no one wanted him there as they didn't want him writing in their
books again
eventually the grand mother came out and told him to come into her home
and he was brought back to health by her love and he didn't write in
any more books and went around his village teaching all the children

YES YOU GOT IT
'one book one pen'

all you men keep the lids on your pens and all you ladies keep your
books shut
and if you have to make copies use carbon paper."

The Great Otterstotle

I realize that I have been terribly bad at upkeeping this blog, much to the disappointment of my beloved Grandmother down in Miami. A recent event has inspired me to post, and perhaps this may be a turn of events in the greater scheme of my weblog.
A few weeks ago, my family lost one of a pair of cats that has been living with us for the past 15 years. Always the odd couple, Gus and Otter (tabby and black, respectively) have been a focal point of our house all these years. Gus (the still living cat) was always the more outgoing one, a sucker for a rub and quick to make his mark on the person in the room who least likes cats - always the more easily loveable of the two. Otter, on the other hand, had always been shy, aloof, and for a period of time developed a nasty smelly drool whenever he was purring, and sometimes even when he wasn't. Needless to say, it was always a little harder to find room to love Otter. But now that he has passed away, my family has been circulating a rather amusing series of eulogies for Otter via email - pondering on what he did all those years when not in public sight (which was quite often, due to his shyness). I present them to you here, in chronological order.

First, my father's note to us all, informing us of Otter's death:
"Dear all - After nearly 15 years serving as Gus's straight man, Otter has gone where cats go after they've lived nine lives. Mom found him this morning in the drawer under Dena's bed, where he must have crawled for his final nap. Thankfully, Dena had asked us to bring her Duck slippers down when we visit her today, and mom thought to look there. We leave tomorrow for several days, so it was clearly providential. After removing Otter, I buried him in the middle of the small clearing within the ring of bamboo in front of the shed. Ifound a stone to mark the spot."

Secondly, my sister:
"It's strange, but suddenly I feel as if I never reallyknew Otter. I never really appreciated his value as a cat until he was gone. We all made fun of Otter, and were exasperated by him from time to time, but really as pets go he had a lot of good qualities. I've met many cats that were unfriendly, bad-tempered, or even violent. Otter wasn't the most lovable pet, but he wasn't unlovable as cats go - just a loner, shy, and a bit gross sometimes. Don't we all have a bit of Otter inside each of us (that we hide from the world - probably more successfully than Otter did)? The best part about Otter was that when you did show him love and affection, he clearlyappreciated it - like the loner at a party who is embarrassed and pleased when you make an effort to talk to him.
There are my thoughts - and philosophical reflections - on Otter's life. He was a strange cat, but a good pet as pets go."

After my sister's reflection, there was a lull in the conversation for a while, as I didn't quite feel up to reflection just yet, and my brother is currently living in a remote village in Ecuador doing Peace Corps, and can only check his email by traveling an hour to the closest city. I don't actually know how my mom has managed to get off without writing a real reflection this whole time.... I'll have to get on her case about that. At any rate, just tonight I found in my inbox a not from my brother, with his theories on what Otter has really been doing all these years:

" I felt compelled to similarly offer up a few words of remembrance in honor of the cat we all knew as Otter. As Shira remarked, how many of us really knew him well? He was a cat of mystery and intrigue, and I suspect that he lived a secret life that not even Gus was fully informed of. How many of us, really were aware, for example, of his secret door to the outside world, which he concealed in the back of the laundry basket? Or his jet-black Otter-car that he kept parked in the Otter-cave cleverly hidden within the drawers beneath Dena's bed? No, these are the type of details that can only be revealed after one's death. All this time that we thought he was just mildly eccentric and preferred weird sleeping places, he was in fact living a second life of great drama and importance. His smelliness, social awkwardness and loner reputation were simply an inspired Clark Kent disguise. To reinterpret Shira's commentary, yes, how many of us have a little bit of Otter inside? Gross, inept, but a giant amongst cats. A cat with a world vision, and the paws, teeth and jet-black Otter-car to make a difference. For the sake of us all, I pray that we may all find a little more of that Otter spirit within our lives.

In all seriousness, Otter, you were a fine, fine cat. Here's to you and to many wonderful memories. May you ever rest in that heavenly laundry basket that awaits all good cats when they die."

And finally, I felt that it was my time to send out my own thoughts on Otter's life. Here is my theory:

"In reality, Otter was, as you all have said, a cat on the fringes of society. A loner, a bit smelly, and a little slow in learning how to accept a good rubbing. His habit of walking away in between pats was a bit of a turn off - but since we've all been pondering what Otter was REALLY up to all those years, I'd like to offer my own theory. Perhaps he was restless because he was thinking. From the moment little Otter was first born and looked up through the leaves of the bush he was born under and saw the sky, he began to think, and he was destined to become one of the great cat philosophers. "I think, therefore I am." At the age of 15 (in cat years that is) he began submitting articles to the cat papers under the pseudonym "Otterstotle." He was a troubled cat, you see. He saw a great many things wrong with the world and wished to put them right by exposing them to the rest of the cats for what they truly were. And so he spent his days alone, lost in thought, and trying to figure out the answers to all the problems that he saw. Like all great thinkers and creative cats, he was slightly mad. In his middle years he got into the rather unsightly habit of drooling when his thoughts got particularly wild. But the rather pungent odor emanating from this drool was partly a ploy to keep off the authorities, who by this point in his life were searching for him high and low as his articles were beginning to excite members of the feline species. When he was worried that they might be getting a bit too close, he would go into hiding for a while in that particular drawer under my bed - an excellent hiding place I might say. Sadly, the madness really got to him in the last few years of his life. He was unwell, as we all could see.I'm glad to know that he spent his last moments in the dark familiar coziness of my drawer, asleep. And there you have it - my thoughts on Otter's life. Yet one more lesson to take from him: Perhaps we should all encourage our thinking side a bit more, and devote our lives to trying to change the world."

And these are the theories on why Otter's life always seemed so lonely. Really he was quite a loveable cat, in his own way. Thanks for listening!

yeah, yeah, another poem about India

Ok, so this time I actually had a legitimate reason for writing a poem about India (not that missing India isn't a legitimate reason, but this was a reason outside myself). I recently had to do a group presentation on Indian theatre for my theatre history class, and my section was intro and origins. So I decided I wanted to try and do some sort of visualization thing to get the class to feel more of a connection with India and its theatre, and the best way I could think of to do that without being completely cheesy was to write a poem. So here it is:

3-Dimensional Photograph
by Dena Adriance

India.
beautiful
sacred
colorful
overwhelming India.

See the technicolor temples,
the gold trimmed saris
fluorescent turbans
clashing patterns and bright lights,
the ornate palaces
and the beggars in the streets.

Hear the animals in the marketplace -
chickens packed in cages
and bony cows in the streets.
Hear the horns of the cars,
honking every ten feet.
Loudest of all -
the music.
The nasal songs,
the dancing and drums for religious festivals,
and the throbbing beats of a Bollywood movie

Smell the air -
in Delhi people cover their mouths with scarves
so as not to inhale the pollution.
It's hard to find clear air
in India.
Either foul or sweet -
trash or incense.
no happy medium -
only extremes in India.

India:
Overflowing sub-continent
of one billion people.
An ancient people,
speaking 17 languages
in 844 dialects.
Hindus, Muslims, Christians,
Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and Baha'is.
Religions mixing, intertwining, overlapping,
Religion inseparable from daily life.

India:
ugly
beautiful
foul
sweet
rich
poor
noisy
peaceful
ancient and new,
overwhelming India.

Photos, at long last

I know - it's what you've all been waiting for! My photos of India have FINALLY been put on the computer! Whaddaya know. So here they are: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ameliemello19/album?.dir=/4f31&urlhint=actn,ren%3as,80%3af,0 If you are very very confused when you see them/read the captions, just take a look back at my blog, and hopefully I wrote enough that you'll be able to figure out what they all are. Well, I gotta run, but I just wanted to let you all know!
Ok, so I just realized that this won't show up as a link - just copy and paste the address into your address bar and do it that way, cuz i can't figure out how to make it a link... that's something for future learning.

P.S. IT'S SNOWING AND THERE'S NO CLASS!!!!

So I couldn't stop thinking about India today....

I made myself a cup of desi-chai today, the way they make it India. I was trying to study for my stats test tomorrow, and all I could think about was India. So I did something about it. And here is the result:

Journey by Chai

Ek chummudge chai,
ek chummudge shakre,
thora adruk.
Thora sa paani, thora sa dhood.
Sab obolti-he.

Something so simple -
a single cup of tea.
So ordinary, so universal.

But this one,
this one,
this one pulls moments out of time.

Ek chummudge chai.
A street stall in Delhi -
exhausted limbs,
a long day of walking.
"Chaar rupiya."
Four rupees and the chai rolls to a boil.
Slightly bitter, slightly sweet,
an echo of how I feel on this, my last day in India.
My worn out body feels better.

Ek chummudge shakre.
In Indore, the chai is cheaper.
The Chai-Walla boasts to his friends -
Angrezi ordering chai from his stall.
"To kya hoa?"
My friend asks, "So what?"
"Kuch bi nahi," he replies,
"There's nothing wrong with that."

Thora adruk.
I make the chai today,
to have with our poha for breakfast.
I like mine with ginger -
there's no such thing
as too much spice, in India.

Thora sa paani, thora sa dhood.
Lata teaches me how to make desi-chai.
I take the milk from the pot on the stove,
the germs have already been boiled away.
We buy our milk in bags here -
the Dhood-Walla is impressed with my hindi.

Sab obolti-he.
A giant pot of chai boils every morning,
flavored with long strands of lemon grass from the garden.
At nine o'clock, girls with long black braids
ladle it into a battered tin teapot,
large enough to serve 30 of their peers.

Something so complex -
that mix of flavors;
strong tea, sweet sugar, boiled milk,
and don't forget the spice.
That's what keeps time
ticking backward in my head.

I remember India:
my journey by chai.

OH MY GOSH!!!

I'm so excited I could pee my pants! (but don't worry - Iwon't) Plans have changed suddenly, and exciting things are happening at the institute! I was originally planning on leavin Indore the 18th and heading to Rajasthan for a few days before I fly out. HOwever, Jimmy and Janak have just arrived home today after a week's absence (Janak's niece was getting married) and brought with them the news that the Institute is going to be opening two new centers (akin to the one we opened outside Bhopal in the beginning of October) in the state of Haryana (just left of Delhi) - before the end of the month! One of the centers will be run fromthe Baha'i center in a town whcih I can't remember the name, and the other one will be on a beautiful property in the village of Mewat nearby. The one in Mewat had already been built as a vocational center for women, but they were not very successful and asked the "experts at Barli" to step in and open a new branch of our institute there! Four current students will be runnin these two branches, all of which are good friends of mine and I'm uber-excited for them! All this was just fine and dandy and then Janak placed the icing on the cake for me - she's sending Elisa and I up with the girls to start preparing the centers for opening on the 15th! HOORAY!! I'm so excited I could burst.
At any rate, I don't have time to write more on that now. Last weekend Elisa and I went to Mandu, which isthis gorgeous historic area filled with old ruins of forts, palaces and mosques. Itwas not only beautiful, but really cool because, being in India, they don't stop you from exploring the way they do in the west - we got ourselves into some interesting placesthere!
But Elisais waiting so I gotta run - Iprobably won't update moreuntil afterI'm home. ButI promise to tell you ALL ABOUT Mandu and Haryana then! BYEEE!!!