HOPEFUL

Lindsay and Whitey are SO cool to let me stay with them for so long. Although, they were just gone for 8 days in St. Martin's and with my busy schedule- internship, work at the wine shop, frisbee and random exploring- it feels like we are rarely home at the same time. I'm checking out craisglist almost everyday and, while a bit worried about the price of living in DC, hopeful that I'll find the perfect place, with fabulous roomies, at a great price.

One can always hope...

Walking to Work...

Walking from the metro to the office today, I felt this profound sense that we were all little black ants scurrying above ground from ant hill to ant hill. Bundled from head to toe in black overcoats, scarfs, hats and gloves, with perhaps an occasional splash of pomegranate or periwinkle, heads down, walking quickly to and fro, the day felt cold and lonely.

DC pics...

LIFE in DC

You're not really a DC-ite until you have a business card. Or so I am learning. The feeling that permeates every event, conversation, or chance encounter is that of "who is this person, are they important enough to talk to, can they help me in my career ambitions..." If you're not important enough to chat with, they will continue some banal chit-chat, while looking over your head, to the side, or behind them to see who they can go talk to instead. If they think that you are fairly interesting, then they will pull out a business card and say something like, "we'll I've got to run, but it was great meeting you." At this point you had better have a card to give back in return. Otherwise, you're nobody.

OBAMA FAMILY!

Campaign Thoughts (a bit late, as usual...)

It’s been a week since election night and I still have a giddy grin on my face. To have been a part of something so monumental was exciting, humbling, and such a learning experience. It is amazing how fast the day can go by, how many balls we can have up in the air, how many directions we can be pulled at once. Taking a minute to slow things down for a second, reflect, and process feels luxurious.

I especially connected with the “Lessons in Loyalty” from Lorraine Grubbs-West. As a Field Organizer, we embodied the Do More With Less mentality. Example: we have 10 phone bankers and only 4 phones… or we have 100 packs to print, only one printer and it’s midnight. This campaign was about working smarter, not just harder.

Measuring everything also became integral in my life, as we had to report the number of volunteers active today and expected tomorrow, phone calls made, doors knocked upon, team activities completed. Numbers win elections, yard signs don’t vote, and measuring voter contact became the most important form of accountability.

Empowering my volunteers was an exercise in letting go of control, but that is the whole point of the campaign; respect, include, empower. This is much easier said than done. Especially when a stressed out volunteer with negative feedback can make you question your decisions.

However, it is because each volunteer was empowered and felt ownership over this campaign that we will be having monthly Obama Family potluck dinners to stay in-touch. After being abroad for so long, this group became my friends, and I am looking forward to building these relationships.

Now that I am off the campaign trail, it’s time to pick-up the job search again- we’ll see where it takes me!

Searching for a JOB

As I job search from the comfort of home, I am torn between the desire to have any relatively decent occupation to start working, or to wait, be picky, and find the perfect job.

Living at home is amazing- I am so thankful I have a home to come back to and parents that see this transition period as launching their international child. However, the amazingness is tainted by the irking feeling that I am much too old and independent to be mooching off my parents and living in Holland again.

Everyday I am reminded as I take a hot shower, have internet and phone services, central heating and food in the cupboards, how lucky I am. Morocco seems very far away from the snow-white world in which I find myself.

Patriotism and Renewable Energy

Somehow terms such as being patriotic, pro-life, and liberal have been twisted to imply connotations that I do not support. This is my Holland Sentinel response to being patriotic:

In 1776, patriots fought for our nation to become independent.

Today we are anything but independent.

In the United States, 55-60% of all oil consumed is imported. As a nation, we use roughly 20.5 million barrels of oil a day. In other words, that is 861,000,000 gallons of oil coming from abroad EVERY single day.

In fact, our oil usage exceeds the total of the next 5 largest consumers – China, Japan, Russia, Germany and India COMBINED.

How did our country become so dependent on others for our main energy source? We forgot to be patriotic. After being hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the US should have responded in a sustained, systematic, and focused way to create an energy independent nation. Making people stupid by telling them that more off-shore drilling is the solution did not help, and will not help, the problem.

Being patriotic means doing what is best for your country, such as investing in new technologies for renewable energies, imposing gasoline taxes, and building-and-appliance efficiency standards that push us towards independence.

Reducing the price of oil, or off-shore drilling, is not the cure. Au contraire, prices need to be raised to break our oil addiction. We didn’t do what was best for our country in 1973 and it’s coming back to bite our pocketbooks now.

Get out your bicycle, turn off the lights, sell your gas guzzling V8, buy carbon credits to offset your carbon footprint, reduce, reuse and recycle. The fight is on, and the US is losing.

Be a patriot and help our nation become energy independent.

ROAD TRIP TO MONTANA

Holland Sentinal Op-Ed Article

Morocco, Islam and Acceptance

I’ve lived for the past eleven months in Morocco, a 99% Muslim country. Upon my return to Holland, I visited lots of family, making up for all the time I had been gone. Once, while talking about my experiences, my uncle said something that shocked me.

“Moroccans, they’re Muslim, aren’t they?” He asked. To my affirmative answer, he replied, “They’re scary.”

My uncle has neither been to a Muslin country nor does he know any Muslims. He is ignorant about the culture, the people and the religion. Yet he KNEW that they were scary.

It made me think of the time I told my mom I hated broccoli soup, without ever having tasted it. It looked green and opaque, hardly appealing, but once tasted, was delicious.

The next day I read an article in the New York Times that stated 13% of Americans believed that Barack Obama was Muslim. That this blatant untruth was so widely believed, concerned me, but I was more upset that these Americans were like my uncle, scared of something they absolutely knew nothing about.

In a land where free information is at our finger tips, could we not be bothered to do a bit of research ourselves? Islam is a peaceful religion that preaches acceptance and tolerance, not so different from the dominant religion preached here in western Michigan. Is Barack Obama Muslim? No, but even if he was, where is the problem?

Here I was coming home from a country where internet is hard to find and information is hardly free, only to learn that a complacent portion of the population didn’t care about tasting something different-- they already KNEW that they didn’t like it. Ignorance breeds fear, and I had come home to a country where many people were fearful.

One of my favorite quotes states, “Travel teaches tolerance.” Not everyone will have the opportunity to travel, but everyone has the chance to learn. Ignorance is what we should fear. Not a religion and people that welcomed me whole heartedly in Morocco and helped teach me the meaning of acceptance.

Amika's Wedding

A look back... interning for Obama.

Early September

I just had the most gratifying first day on the job. Today I stated interning for the Barack Obama Campaign for Change. I learned how to train volunteers, man the front desk and make persuasion call. My heart was thumping as I made the first call. It was the middle of the afternoon, I was calling seniors- likely the only ones home during the school and work day. I left lots of messages and of course got a few a few rude responses, but I have two really great conversations that made all the bad ones worth it. These two grandmothers started the conversation as undecided and by the time we had finished chatting, told me that they were leaning towards Obama. I really felt like by listening to them, and presenting my younger generation’s point of view, they could also look into the future and be hopeful.

CHICAGO- the city that has my heart.

Summer travels- Finland, Denmark, France

home...

Holland is still home for me. No matter that each time I’ve lived abroad, Paris or Rabat or where ever has become “home,” in the back of my mind, cookie cutter small-town Holland still draws me back. It’s odd to think that this time will be for the last time.

I’m sitting at JP’s Café right now, and everything looks the same, the people are all perfect looking; the girls with hair-sprayed blond hair and the men in summer shorts, sandals and polo shirts. Where are the jelabas?? It was only a few days ago, and yet my days of seeing jelebas and veils on the streets are long gone.

How can someplace feel so comfortable and yet feel so foreign?

I hate traveling...

I hate traveling. Period. Every single time I travel internationally, something goes wrong. The alarm clock doesn’t go off. The hotel doesn’t call with a wake-up (or the stupid TV doesn’t go off, as was the case this morning). The plane is late. The kids are loud, restless, crying and/ or spill drinks and food all over. The movies are bad. The luggage gets lost. The connecting flight is missed. I have no cell phone. And no money. Hence no pay phone. I'm tired and stressed and overly emotional.

Or, in my case today, all of the above goes wrong.

I also thought it was so ironic that just as I am so happy to be leaving Morocco, I sit next to a Moroccan family on the 9 hours flight from Paris to Chicago. Two little girls and one tired mom. When she heard me speak a few words of Darija to her daughter, she asked me if I was married to a Moroccan. No! Why? I asked. Because you speak Moroccan so well. Which is funny, because I did understand some of what her 5 year old was saying, but certainly not much! In any case, I let the little girl brush my hair and we were both happy.

Now I’m in Chicago typing out my travel frustration, having missed my connecting flight due to delays, lost luggage and stupid check-in lines, praying to get on the next flight to GRR. Inshallah, I’ll be home, sleeping safe and sound on the air mattress that has replaced my sold bedroom furniture. Home sweet home. Wherever that may be.

TOUBKAL- hiking the highest peak in N. Africa

June Gnaoua Festival in Essaouira