Winter 2016 by Middlebury Geographic Magazine

MIDDLEBURY

GEOGRAPHIC

Winter 2016

A mosque in Xinjiang, northwestern China, the province with the hightest concentration of Muslims (J.P. Miller) Cover: Viva Cuba! Rooftops in Havana, story continues on page 26 (Demetrius Borge)

MIDDLEBURY

GEOGRAPHIC Winter 2016

. . . . . 6. . . . . Alaskan Transcendence

Michael O’Hara

Alaska

By the Grave of Chief Red Cloud

........8........

Isabelle Stillman

South Dakota

Easy Goin’

Christian Johansen

. . . . . . . . . . 10 . . . . . . . . . .

Emilie Munson

. . . . . . . . . . . . 14 . . . . . . . . . . . .

Rebecca Geiger

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lee Schlenker

. . . . . . . . . . . . 26 . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alaska

Summer School

Pacific Coast Highway

Tierra Explorada

Salaar de Uyuni, Bolivia & San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

The Politics of Development: Negotiating Tourism in Space

La Plaza de San Francisco, Cuba

Filippos Papageorgiou

A Greek Summer, Made Bitter Winter for the Sons of Hellen

. . . . . . . . 30 . . . . . . . .

Greece

Jake Barker Anthea Viragh

Photo: Nick Spencer

. . . . . 34 . . . . .

Puis-je roule avec toi?

Bordeaux, France

. . . . 36 . . . .

Disparity

Bangkok Slums

Shaheen Bharwani

. . 46 . .

Shwia-b-Shwia, Little by Little

Michael Judy

. . 48 . .

Lion of the Desert

Georgia Grace Edwards

. . 50 . .

Naomi Eisenberg

. . 53 . .

Morocco Morocco

First Impressions of Place Ethiopia

Letters from Be’er Sheva Be’er Sheva, Israel

Bagan, Myanmar (Lauren Alper)

From the Editors: Here at Middlebury, we are encouraged to cultivate our curiosity and respect for the world from within the classroom and out in the streets. We believe the works included in this issue showcase the careful attention our fellow students give to place and experience. The nature of geographic thinking is making connections across scales; we are proud to publish student pieces working to relate the local to the global, the familiar to the novel, and people to their environment. The photographs, personal narratives, and academic work featured in this edition cover journeys all over the world — from the slums of Bangkok to the chilling but vast Alaskan Pacific, and from the salt flats of Bolivia and Chile to the dunes of the Sahel. We are proud to present the thoughtful writings of our peers who seek to learn more about the nature of the world we share. Inspired by National Geographic and J.B. Jackson’s Landscape, MIDDLEBURY GEOGRAPHIC combines quality journalism and intellectual research with narrative photography and creative cartography. Each feature article and photo essay is infused with its author’s personality and unique perspective. Rather than concentrate on a particular theme or single region of the world, the pieces featured in this edition of MIDDLEBURY GEOGRAPHIC are united by their authentic tone and search for meaning. They question our social and environmental use of space, while highlighting the human instinct to create communities in all corners of our increasingly volatile world. We hope the following words and images capture your interest as much as they did ours. Enjoy! Sincerely, Lillie Hodges and Anthea Viragh 4

Our Contributors Michael O’Hara ‘17

Michael was born in Burlington, Vermont, but grew up across the U.S., in the end settling down and setting up a homestead in South Dakota. He picked up a camera and downloaded instagram in high school and subsequently started working for the student newspaper as a staff photographer.

Isabelle Stillman ‘16

Isabelle is a senior English major. Last Spring she wanted to go to South Dakota so she did, and that’s what she wrote about for Middlebury Geographic!

Christian Johansen ‘16.5

Christian Johansen is a northeast baby. He’s often late, loves spicy food, and the relationship between Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon. “The intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.” Ernest Hemingway

Emilie Munson ‘16

Emilie is a senior Literary Studies major, who dabbles in journalism and creative non-fiction. When she’s not curled up with a book, you can find her hiking, biking, skiing and sailing. She is happiest on the tops of mountains.

Rebecca Geiger ‘16

Rebecca is a senior from Atlanta, Georgia. A Political Science and English joint major, Rebecca has just returned from a year abroad in Spain and Argentina before backpacking through Colombia and Brazil. She hopes to live in Vietnam after graduating and to continue seeing and capturing the beauty of this incredible planet we live on.

Lee Schlenker ‘17

Lee is a senior majoring in Urban Studies with a focus on Latin America. He spends his days pondering why he came to Vermont to study cities, but in his free time he enjoys cooking for loved ones, pretending he can dance salsa and considering the merits of various socialist experiments. You can most likely find him beatboxing, making lists, sneaking into saunas or blabbering on about Cuba— where he’ll be going for his third time in March.

Michael Judy ‘15.5

Michael Judy is a super-senior physics major from Jacksonville, Florida. He has travelled extensively in the Arabic speaking world and firmly believes in the sanctity of the Sahara.

Filippos Papageorgiou ‘16

Filippos is a Classics Major from Athens, Greece. As a child of a Greek-Turkish marriage, he has always been interested in matters of cultural identity. He has worked as an educational mentor for young athletes in the 2014 Youth Olympic Games, and is currently involved in Middlebury Foods, a student-founded, student-run non-profit that aims at alleviating food insecurity in Vermont. His passions include horses, basketball, ancient languages, and the Rolling Stones.

Jake Barker ‘16.5

Born and raised in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Jake enjoys alternative country music, early 20th century art, and adventures to unknown places with a bicycle in hand. After Middlebury, Jake plans on working on a rural Wyoming ranch, where he will make loud noises and hunt his own food.

Anthea Viragh ‘16.5

Anthea grew up taking photos with her mom and sister around the world. Originally from Vienna, Austria, Anthea has lived in Bangkok, Thailand for the past ten years. At Middlebury, Anthea studies International & Global Studies with a focus in East Asia and Chinese. She hopes one day she can combine her passion for photography, travel and social change.

Shaheen Bharwani ‘19

As a child, Shaheen dreamt of visiting far-off lands like the famous Medieval Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta. He is fascinated by traditional cultures, languages, and art and delights in the positive intersection of the traditional and the modern. His music tastes include Desi Hip Hop, Reggaeton, Nigerian Hip Hop, and K-pop.

Georgia Grace Edwards ‘18

Georgia Grace is a sophomore International Politics and Economics major hailing from the Appalachian Mountains of Western Maryland. She studied in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last summer and is currently spending this J-Term studying in Santiago, Chile. She is a certified Junior Ranger in 38 U.S. National Parks as well as a certified hunter in the state of Vermont (though she has yet to actually use this certification), and she’s psyched to be a part of Middlebury Geographic.

Naomi Eisenberg ‘18

Naomi is an Economics major and Hebrew minor, driving her studies through the lens of human rights. On campus she is involved in spoken word poetry, dance and the Center for Social Entrepreneurship. She sees many adventures ahead of her and hopes to engage with the world around her through experiencing new places and peoples.

Alaskan Transcendence By Michael O’Hara The Matanuska Glacier reflects in a pool of meltwater at its base. The bark of the cottonwood was sodden and waterlogged, but the branches were sturdy and their younger bark had absorbed much less water, so they were easy to grip and capable of supporting my weight. The roots entangled themselves in the moist ground of the riverbank, the larger furcations protruding from the earth before they plunged themselves as deep and as far into the soil as they could, allowing the trunk to lean itself out over the deep pool at a bend in the South Fork of Campbell Creek in the 720-acre Bicentennial park in Anchorage, Alaska. This particular tree was only one of many cottonwoods in the park, but there was one aspect of the tree that placed it above the rest of the trees on my radar. This one could easily be climbed, and the vantage point it provided was to be envied by all of the other trees. The thick trunk bore my weight without protest. From my new point of view, I could see straight down into the clear water with a bird’s eye view of the small fry and a slightly larger Dolly Varden trout. Then out of the blue (although the water had more of a green tinge to it) swam a bright red salmon, cutting upstream through the current. I pointed it out to the others and lowered a camera into the water to be my eyes under the surface. Soon, losing patience or perhaps finding a new, more private portion of the river, the King moved upstream with powerful, languid strokes. 6

I dismounted from my perch and moved into the water to take its place in the river. The water gave a shock upon entry. The cold current washed any warmth downstream, sapping heat from my feet and calves until I could acclimatize to the river’s thirst for energy. I waded to the edge of the sandbar that dropped off to form the pool under my cottonwood as the fry clustered about my feet, keeping my toes company in the sand. I regulated my breathing as I allowed my eyes to wander along the surface of the water, glazing slightly as I focused my ears in an attempt to equalize my visual and audial inputs in a form of active meditation. Despite the nearly numbing cold, I could feel the occasional nibble or brushing tail of the fry, and it felt as if I had found a method of transcending the plane that separates us from the fish. ••• Campbell Creek stems from the Chugach Range that stands sentinel along the Eastern side of Anchorage, collecting snow and water in its mountain lakes. The snowmelt accumulates in two separate portions of the Chugach Mountains, forming the north and south forks of the Campbell Creek. The two tributaries congregate in the Far North Bicentennial

Park, where each year they mark the trail of the spawning salmon that run up its currents to return to their mountain roots and continue to strengthen the branches of their family trees.

The goal of the GLT is to allow future generations the opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty and benefits of this place by regulating the use we make of it now and by encouraging and cultivating a respect for the fragility of nature at the hands of humankind. As Anchorage and the rest of South-Central Alaska continue to grow, it becomes more and more difficult to provide the expanding population with equal and inclusive access to nature as well as for future generations. At the same time, the conservation and responsible practices that the GLT teaches and utilizes are even more necessary to implement. •••

Visiting professor Dr. David O’Hara (class of ‘91) holds a newly hatched mayfly. The mouth of the creek terminates at the Cook Inlet in the form of a 60-acre estuary set aside by the Great Land Trust (GLT), a nonprofit dedicated to the conservation of the Alaskan environment and to the maintenance of the human connection with the land, sea, and the animals upon and within them. Driving the Seward Highway along the south side of Anchorage, we have admired various quacking and honking waterfowl, herons on the hunt for frogs and fish, and other wildlife as they stalked, flapped, and paddled through the hillside homes and the Chugach peaks reflected in the calm waters of the estuary. On the opposite side of the highway lie the mudflats of Cook Inlet that cover a vast expanse of flat land only revealed during low tide. This is the part of the inlet where the anadromous salmon native to Campbell Creek can make their migration to and from their own point of origin after their coming-of-age in the Pacific Ocean. The watershed of Campbell Creek is indisputably important for the salmon it provides a brief home and spawning ground for, but it also plays a role in the provisioning of drinking water to many of the human citizens of Anchorage. The clean, clear water that melts from snow and runs down the mountains is perfect for consumption by humans and animals alike. Therefore, this is precisely what the Great Land Trust is looking to conserve. The infrastructure the organization has implemented at the estuary is focused on maintaining the integrity of the wetland while still keeping it accessible and allowing people to observe the wildlife and the natural beauty of the place. They have built a small parking lot and bike racks so that drivers and cyclists can stop and a boardwalk so that they may admire the estuary up close without getting their feet wet.

Saturday, nearly one week later, I stand in another stream as my classmates attempt to catch Dolly Vardens with borrowed five-weights and a hodgepodge of different flies. This is the Little Susitna, whose glacial source sits at Hatcher Pass, near Palmer. The water, blue-grey with glacial flower, is harder to see the fish through, even with polarized glasses, and is slightly more unbearable to stand in, barefoot. Instead I make myself useful, taking picture after picture of my friends as they catch and reel in their first Dollies. The delicate respect and awe I see in the eyes of Divesh and Julia as they gently battle these fish whose tenacity and endurance show a slight frame full of spirit. My classmates cup the char in their hand, remove the hook, marvel, and release the fish back into the stream where they quickly disappear into the haze. Here again, in this moment I can see the transcendence through nature.

Brenden Edwards (class of ‘18) fishes for Dolly Varden char in a glacial stream.

By the Grave of Chief Red Cloud Isabelle Stillman

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. There is a Sour Patch Kids wrapper on Red Cloud’s grave. are dotted with piles of sticks and remnants of plastic buckIn South Dakota in mid-March, the shred of plastic is the ets or tools. Many of the yards host rows of old cars, their brightest thing visible, in uncomfortable contrast to the thirsty wheels sunk deeply into the dirt. brown grass and rotting wood fence of the cemetery. Small On the corner of 18 and Mission Drive, the Jesuit-run wooden crosses mark the graves, a sign of evangelical troddings Red Cloud Indian School and Red Cloud Cemetery share into this Native American land. At their bases lie bunches of a parking lot. It is 3:00, and students in fleeces and untied flowers, once lively petals now matching the gray-scaled landshoes flee the school doors with their backpacks unzipped, scape. One hand-sized American flag stands alone in the middle dispersing crumpled worksheets on the blacktop. They rush of the grounds. to the tetherball court, elbows sharp. “The town of Pine Ridge is the Red Cloud Cemetery occupies a I roll down my window to hear their administrative center of the Pine Ridge football field-sized space five miles north cheers and boos. Indian Reservation, a region larger than of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, in the I am being voyeuristic, I know. Delaware and Rhode Island combined Watching after-school play like a pedoheart of the Black Hills (whose color and home to three of the poorest appellation is surprisingly accurate – pine phile, visiting a cemetery like a tourist counties in the United States.” trees do come in black). The town of – I ought to have brought my fanny Pine Ridge is the administrative center of the Pine Ridge Indian pack and binoculars. In all honesty, I know almost nothing Reservation, a region larger than Delaware and Rhode Island about modern Native American culture. Whether that is the combined and home to three of the poorest counties in the US. fault of my high school history book or my own ignorance, For forty-one years, Chief Red Cloud led the Oglala Lakota it is difficult to say. After the first tetherball match, I enter people as one of the fiercest adversaries the US army faced in its the cemetery, hoping it will teach me. often-violent entry and annexation of the Great Plains region. Only a few of the tombstones have names engraved on In hopes of ending the bloodshed, Red Cloud signed the Fort them. I weave my way through the marble prisms, some Laramie Treaty of 1868, which confined his people to the Great tilted at precarious angles, slowly being swallowed by the Sioux Reservation. The Treaty also forbade miners and settlers land. Most of the letters are indecipherable, but Red Cloud’s from entering—a rule that proved as flexible as the grasses of name is clear, a reflection of his esteem in the communithe plains. The Pine Ridge section of the now-divided Reservaty. Standing alone in the cemetery, the echoes of playing tion is home to between 28,000 and 40,000 people with a per children reverberating across the hill, the only thought I can capita income of $6,286, a life expectancy of 48-52 years, and muster is of how much I don’t know about my own country. A strong South Dakotan wind kicks the Sour Patch kids an unemployment rate of 80%. wrapper toward my feet. I pick it up. Sugar lingers inside Highway 18 cuts through the southern third of the Reservation. Rectangular prisms of houses sit far apart from the bottom corners, and some spills onto the grave of Red Cloud. I look up at the cross of his tomb, shove the wrapper each other and several yards back from the two-lane, twenin my pocket, and walk back through the knee-high grass to ty-five-mph-speed-limit road. Brown grass, slowly reviving after the northern winter, slouches in the front yards, which my car. 8

Buffalo Restaurant and Bar, Murdo, South Dakota.

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota.

Home in Farmer, South Dakota.

Easy Goin’ By Christian Johansen

Net mending.

rince William Sound, Alaska. We’d left weeks ago, skirting close to the inlets and bays as we searched for jumpers, the sign of active schools below. It is summer. We are at work. It is salmon season. Korry and I compete with the other fishermen for the spot, for the catch, for the paycheck, for the pride. No boat can rival ours. We are the best fishermen in the Sound. We’d set anchor the night before, in a little cove deep in the Eshamy District. The evening carried on as usual. Rice, corn, a little teriyaki, a few big slabs of sockeye caught earlier that afternoon, and of course, at least two or three Rain-dogs to cleanse the pallet in between bites and to wash it all down. The XM Radio rings clear in the background, pulsating a loop of the same top twenty songs that have been playing for the past week. Korry and I rarely grow tired of these soon to be timeless jams, and both quietly revel in the fact that we know the lyrics to each and every song, down to the last “Hey ho”. We don’t change the station. We make our way through our wevening morsel, and on into bedtime. That morning had marked the end of a 60-hour opener over at Coghill, and the prospect of an early bunk was a welcome notion. After scrubbing the totes, the fish holds, and taking a little swim in the not so tepid waters, we make a final gear check: ensuring the bibs are hung, gloves are turned inside out and warming by the small propane stove, and an acceptably slight amount of fish scales are clinging to our Xtra-Tuf boots. A bit of extra

love is added to the fire to get us through the night, and Korry and I crawl into our bunks. We are not the only ones in the bay, however. Rumors of the vast number of Cohos allegedly swarming in the waters beneath due to the two week closure in the district have brought the fleets Copper River, Trident, and even Peter Pan to the small bay in full compliment. Bow pickers line the coast, marking their territory for the seven Anti Meridiem opening the next morning. The Russians are in attendance as well, for just to our east, ready to cut us off if our locale proves a healthier option, is Rasputin, the aluminum jetter with whom we’d had a confrontation with the day before. A feeling of excitement hangs in the air, accompanied by the fishy smell of anticipation for a fat cash out from several thousand pounds of even fatter gills. This excitement is certainly shared on the Easy Goin’, as she and her two sons drift off into a well-needed stupor. The next day will bring far more than salmon to the surface. 6:15. The alarm chimes. 6:19, and our morning cup of Raven’s Brew Three Peckered Billy Goat is French pressed to perfection. 6:25 and our breakfast of Nature Valley’s finest assortment of Oats, Honey, Sweet, and Salty prepares us for the day ahead. Bibs on at 6:30, and on deck to prep. 6:58, buoys in place, and at 6:59 I stand poised at the bow, ready to throw. The clock strikes seven, and the roar of the surrounding en-

gines is tumultuous, as smoke billows into the crisp morning sky and each salt, both young and old, tries to set his net faster than the other. The small cove is a tangle of gillnets and purses, gear is strewn about the depths like a patchwork of hanging curtains woven amongst each other, stretching 50 fathoms to the depths. Yet while the fishermen have shown up in droves, it seems the salmon didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get the memo. The rumors, so promising a few short hours before, have proven to be no more than lore, as bow pickers haul in measly thirty fish sets and seiners purse only a couple hundred pounds. Korry and I keep our noses to the grindstone, pounding out set after set as we try to make the best of what is turning out to be one of the poorest days this season. Suddenly, a commotion to our stern causes us to pause. We shift our attention to discover the source of the racket and see nothing. Untilâ&#x20AC;Ś FWOOM! From the depths, a great mass breaches the surface, its blowhole spouting a geyser of water into the air before the creature slides back beneath the surface. Trapped amongst the nets of a hundred frustrated vessels, a grey whale has made its way into the cove. Frightened, it turns and wheels, trying to break free of the entanglement of gear and line. It tears through one net, and then another and another as it breaches and submerges. By now, all fishing has come to a standstill as every manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes and attentions turn to the leviathan in the depths

The Sound.

Tenderfleet.

Underway to fishing grounds.

Teeth.

Coho, Sockeye, Pink.

Summer School

By Emilie Munson It started with a crash. I was pushing out of the drive of the white colonial home of Warm Showers hosts Nick and Conchi Corrado in a quiet residential neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Late May, the sun was warm and the green leaves rustled in a light breeze: it was the perfect day for a ride. With no experience riding on a loaded bike, I tried to look unconcerned about mounting my back-heavy road bike that seemed to me more unstable than a Weeble-wobble. Gliding down the empty 49th street, I stayed upright for an impressive five seconds before the wresting of my handlebars got the best of me. Unable to stop the fall because of my clip-in pedals, I braced myself for the pavement. The fall itself wasn’t that bad: no roll, no impalement, not even bent handlebars to be proud of. Its emotional effects were drastic, however. The difficulty of riding a bike precariously heaped with forty pounds of camping gear was not something I had anticipated. At that moment, I was supposed to be cruising peacefully towards the famed Pacific Coast Highway, checking off destinations on my meticulous itinerary like items on a grocery list. Instead, I was lying on the pavement in Portland, bruised and hopeless. Hundreds of cyclists ride the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) each year. Built in the early 1930s, the two-lane highway hugs the coastline providing dramatic views of the crashing surf and the immense blue Pacific. Guided bike tours are frequent on the PCH but Caroline and I, two college students with a passion for adventure, decided we wanted the freedom that came with going it alone. The PCH had been on Caroline’s biking to-do list for years and I thought I could conform the excitement of the journey with my codified idea of travel. Little did I know. 14

Caroline Cating fixes a popped tired on Highway One in Southern California. We planned twenty-six days at the end of May and start of June for our month long jaunt from Portland, Oregon to Santa Barbara, California: two travel days to get us from the east coast to the west (and back), two preparation days at either end of the trip to build or take down our bikes, three rest days, and most importantly, nineteen days for biking. With the reasonable goal of twelve miles an hour on a loaded bike, this meant that we would bike an average of sixty-five miles a day. Before this trip, I had never ridden more than forty miles a day. In the months before our departure, Caroline and I used our Adventure Cycling maps to produce a detailed itinerary of how far we would bike and where we would stay each night, either at campgrounds or with Warm Showers hosts. We researched to find pannier racks that we could mount on our attachment-point-less road bikes. We swiped away our savings at the Outdoor Gear Exchange, and trained on our road bikes much more than was good for our GPAs. During our preparations, my father, a cyclist as well, voiced his disapproval with quiet harumpfs on the phone. On the day before our departure, he sat me down and told me it was a certainty that I would be robbed. My aunt sent me pepper spray in the mail. Despite everyone’s worries, however, I thought that our plan was infallible. On a kitchen stool in Portland, I picked sediment out of a gash on my elbow. It would be the first of four falls this trip. A few hours later, I was back on my bike. In the parking lot of a nearby Baptist church, Caroline cheered me through timidly gliding on my bike to executing sharp turns and abrupt stops with my panniers careening behind me. We hit the road the next day. Our Warm Showers host Nick Corrado generously drove us from the city of Portland, fifty miles west to McMinnville, Oregon, helping us

to catch up on the miles we missed the day before. I started out nervous, waiting to fall again each time we slowed at an intersection. Soon, we were cruising open road, though, with the green landscape of rural Oregon sweeping out from both sides of the road to the rolling hills in the distance. We arrived at our campground at Devil’s Lake by late afternoon. Brightened by the gift of s’mores supplies from a kind motorcyclist we nicknamed the Silver Fox, we spent the evening hopefully musing what the road might hold in store for us next. First, it was rain. The foggy drizzle that Oregon is famous for introduced itself to us as we mounted our bikes at 6:45 AM the next morning. Our optimism carefully protected by raincoats and bike gloves, we proceeded. For a mile. “Caroline, I have to pull over!” I called ahead after about ten minutes of biking. We maneuvered our bikes to the shoulder of Highway 101, as the headlights of the early morning traffic continued on through the fog and rain. Seated on the guardrail, I explained to her the problem:

After just a day and a half, despite an itinerary we had spent months, we were behind schedule with bleak prospects. I clung to the hope that with my seat moved to the proper position, my pain would subside and I could continue the tour. The rain stopped and in the sun, I slowly biked twenty-five more miles to Waldport, Oregon. Waldport was a dying town of faded storefronts and failing tourist enterprises at the mouth of the wide, sandbar-lined Alsea Bay. The town was once an old Indian burial ground; now all that reminded us of this heritage was a mural of bright Native American faces and a small point south of town named Chief Yaquina John, after one of the last Alsi tribe members. At the Historic Alsea Bay Bridge Interpretive Center, we halted our bikes to take in the view and find the nearest grocery store before continuing to our campsite three miles down the road in Wakondo Beach. After dismounting, Caroline noticed something was different about her rack.

It was my knee. Though I had been feeling fine yesterday, Both Caroline and I were using Thule Pack and Pedal each pedal stroke on my left side now produced an excruciTouring racks on the trip. The Thule Pack and Pedal Touring ating pain on the inside of my kneecap. is unique because it uses a strap-and“We were learning that rack I knew it wasn’t from my fall, definitely ratchet system to grip the rear fork, permisadventure is part of fect for bikes that lack attachment points, something muscular. We discussed our options as Caroline fed me Advil and taped like ours did. The Thule rack is made to the journey.” my knee. We checked our Adventure Cyhold up to forty pounds total on its sides cling map for a bike shop that could advise me about cycling but Caroline and I were definitely pushing this number. When relating injuries. Unfortunately, the closest was twenty-five Caroline examined her rack, she discovered that it had slid miles away in Newport, Oregon. There was no choice but to down the rear fork and was now positioned just centimeters keep biking. above her rear tire; any farther and the tire would begin rubbing on the plastic top of the rack, risking equipment failure. With gritted teeth, I pushed myself south in the rain. I tried to focus on the dramatic cliffs that fell away just at the Caroline immediately removed her panniers from the edge of the road, giving way to the roaring surf below. From rack and searched their contents for the attachment-release time to time, I unclipped my left foot and rode just with my tool. The tool, when found, proved useless at loosening the right until the muscles in that leg began to scream, forcing me straps that bound the rack to the fork, nor could Caroline or to engage my left leg again. . I manually tug the rack back up the fork to the appropriate position. The rack and we were stuck. Stuck with no way of After four hours of discomfort, we arrived at Newport carrying Caroline’s gear to the campsite without risking the Bikes in Newport, Oregon. Dripping wet, I hobbled inside rack rubbing on her tire. Stuck in Waldport, Oregon with and described my situation. In a stroke of good fortune, this the closest bike shop being Newport Bikes, now twenty-five bike shop employed a professional bike fitter and after eyeing miles away. me on my set-up, he immediately identified my issue. My seat was about an inch too low—a drastic amount in the biking This was when an RV rattled into the parking lot. A door world—causing my left leg, which was longer than the right, in the back of the blue and white behemoth opened and an to be under-extended. Though I had been pain-free on my elderly couple traveling down the coast for a concert descendunloaded training rides, the additional weight on my loaded ed. Like EMTs arriving at an accident scene, Tom and Ava bike added more strain to the left knee. The result: severe marched straight across the parking lot to our aid. Tom tried tendonitis to my Gracilis tendon. The bike fitter told me that to help us move the rack as well, but again to no avail. Then, in most cases, this kind of tendonitis disappears on its own in the pair offered to drive Caroline’s panniers to our campsite a couple of days with rest; but with the constant, strenuous three miles away for us, even though, they weren’t going there activity of a bike tour, he wasn’t so sure. themselves. 15

A bridge above a coastal inlet near Newport, Oregon. Two hours later, we had all of our panniers with us and unpacked, our tent sent up under some windblown pines and a pot of macaroni and cheese simmering on the Whisper-Lite. Tomorrow, Caroline would bike twenty-five miles north, back to the bike shop in Newport to adjust her rack and I, crippled to the point where standing up brought on tears, would guard the panniers and benefit from a much needed rest day. By the following evening, all of our setbacks seemed comic. We were learning that misadventure is part of the journey. Slowly, we settled into a routine. At 5:30 AM, my battery-powered alarm clock woke us. To avoid the cold morning air as long as possible, we breakfasted on hearty Dave’s Killer bread, slathered with peanut butter and topped with banana. Caroline ate little; I feasted. Next, we applied our Chamois butter, wincing from its chill, and tugged on our spandex. By 6:45 AM each morning, all of our belongings were heaped and bungied into a mountain our rear-racks. We conducted a quick bike check: gear secure? Check. Brakes? Check. Headset? Check. Then, we were rolling. That first hour on the road each morning was my favorite. The air was still and the roads empty. The sun would filter through the early morning fog, lending a mystical quality to road in front of us. Caroline and I cruised side-by-side over the pavement wet from the previous night’s rain. The air smelled fresh and dewy with a tang of salt when the wind picked up. Cape Perpetua, North Bend, Coos Bay, Bandon, 16

Brookings. Each turn presented us with more craggy Oregon coastline, shrouded in emerald pines and the omnipresent fog. We would bike until 10 AM and then stop for coffee. Recharged, we continued on until noon before a pause for lunch. Lunch was roadside, typically turkey and cheese sandwiches with jelly for me and mustard for Caroline. In the afternoon, we generally tried to add another twenty miles to the morning’s thirty-five to forty. By four pm, we were ideally at our campsite, setting up our tent, prepping for dinner, creating a home for the night. In Oregon, my tendonitis continued to be an issue, keeping the sixty and seventy mile days that we had planned on down at fifty miles. One afternoon, smack in the middle of the ten empty miles between Bandon and Langlois, Oregon, it became too much. We pulled our bikes into the sandy drainage ditch on the side of 101 and tried to conceive of our next move. With a phone call and a stroke of luck, we secured a ride into the coastal town of Langlois, population 177, home of an interesting breed of water-sport loving, sheep-farming, gopher-hunting natives. Sun-kissed Josh Brady, son of the owners of Floras Lake B&B, roared down the road in his rusted red pick-up and came to our rescue. As we rolled into the tiny farm village, he pointed out the only restaurant in town—“where you eat what Mama wants you to eat,” he said—and took us to the general store to teach us about the local brews.

By the time we had made it to the B&B where we would spend the night, we had received an invitation to that night’s beach bonfire, met approximately half the town and gained some colorful new vocabulary like “dune goons.” We took the next day as a rest day and Josh taught us how to windsurf on the expansive Floras Lake, which is separated from the Pacific by only a thin row of dunes. We went agate hunting on the barrier beach but found instead the most interesting chunks of wood, worn into smooth squiggles and blobs by the powerful tides. We climbed the sandstone cliffs and relished in the bliss of loving where we were. As we biked away thirty-six hours later, we realized that if everything had gone like we anticipated, we would have missed the gem that was Langlois, Oregon. As the miles rolled on, our plan was tossed to the wind. We crossed into California seven days after the start of our ride. Because we were many days behind our original schedule, we had to cut a loop through Alexander Valley in Sonoma to make up time. Instead, we continued down the 101 through the Prairie Creek Redwood State Park, feeling like we had traveled back to prehistoria as the ancient trees towered above us. During the day, the miles started to come easier and we played leapfrog with other cyclists heading south. At night, at our campsites, we traded stories with travelers from Germany, France and New Zealand and recorded the day’s memories in our journals. Finally at peace with my body, the imminent reality that the miles were too many and the date of our flight home was approaching weighed heavily on me. But in Trinidad, California, we caught a ride with three friendly backpacking brothers down to San Francisco. This cut 300 miles from our trip of riding through the coastal redwood forests of Northern California. This meant that we did not get the chance to cruise over the iconic Golden Gate Bridge into the city of hills and cable-cars. But, we were back on schedule, ahead in fact.

and I talked less on our rides but it was less necessary: after so many days on the road together, I could sense her mood in how she stroked her pedals. A few days before the end of our trip, when the end was in sight, we spent the night on the sailboat of Warm Shower’s host Jacob Thomas. In the warm wooden hull, with quiet rock music playing in the background and a joint circling, we listened as he told us the story of his own bike tour down the Pacific Coast: all the way from Alaska to Argentina. He and his college buddy spent four years heading south, down to the bottom of the continent. Along the way, they were forced to strap their bikes to kayaks when the roads got too bad, and they were once taken captive at gunpoint off the coast of South America by a group of native islanders who had never seen a white man before. Jacob said he respected what we were doing. On the last night of our trip, as a golden moon rose over the black waters at Refugio Beach, I finally knew why. In that moment, the plan, so crucial in the beginning, was as distant from my experience as that first fall in Portland. Those scrapes were now healed over but when I examined my elbow, I found a pale scar, a mark the road had left on me.

Caroline Cating in Oregon.

After a sojourn with family in Oakley and Santa Clara, we rode from the Bay Area, over the Coastal Range, back to the coast and our dear friend Highway 1. In San Simeon, we biked past beaches of elephant seals, basking and bathing in the sun. We pushed ourselves over the hills near Big Sur and delighted in views of the aquamarine water. In California’s Salad Bowl, we cruised on cracked pavement through immense monocultures of strawberries where the air as was scented with the fruit as a perfume. We continued to eat peanut butter and bananas every morning for breakfast. We learned that June Gloom keeps the California coast cool and cloudy during the majority of the day in June, but on a sunny afternoon, treated ourselves to a spontaneous beach day. We had our first flat tire. Caroline Emilie Munson in California.

TIERRA EXPLORADA SALAR DE UYUNI, BOLIVA AND SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, CHILE

BY REBECCA GEIGER

Cradled by the border between Chile and Bolivia, the desert and terrain surrounding the Salar de Uyuni and San Pedro de Atacama offer panoramas of green lagoons and gargling geysers so wild and unbelievable they seem like visions from another planet. The journey to see these natural wonders is accompanied by incredible altitude and harsh conditions, but the reward is more than worth it. The most famous attraction is the massive salt flat, an expanse of crystalized salt that stretches farther than the eye can see.

ABOVE: Among the multi-colored lagoons teeming with minerals and unnameable flora, the landscape was peppered with bright pink flamingos feeding on the algae. BELOW: In the distance there were distant mountain ranges, hosting a rainbow of terra cotta hues and sunset pinks.

ABOVE: The lagoons were often frozen over, enough so that we could walk and slide on the surface. BELOW: Amidst the salty Salar de Uyuni was an island covered in an army of cacti of all different shapes and sizes. From the top, you still couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see where the flats ended.

The red lagoon lies in the shadow of a mountainous extinct volcano. All the colors of the rainbow could be seen in this water and the flora that envelopes it.

On the opposite side of the border, in San Pedro de Atacama, a very different type of salt flat exists. The surface is crusty and grey, and pools dyed by colorful minerals emerged in unexpected places.

The view from the Valle de la Luna (valley of the moon) truly felt like a journey through the caverns of the moon. From the top of the valley, as pictured, the uninterrupted sandscape mingled with unusual rock formations to form an unforgettably eerie and gorgeous view of the valley and neighboring desert.

The Politics of Development in La Plaza de San Francisco: Negotiating Tourism through Space By Lee Schlenker

Photos by Demetrius Borge and Cordelia Prouvost Cuba (Demetrius Borge) Politics, and even more so the politics of development, are always anchored in space—a tangible territorialization of intangible debates, ideas and tensions. In considering the theoretical relationship between politics and space, there are two predominant methods of inquiry. The first, a formalist approach, studies how political projects, historical processes and development agendas are deployed in space; the second, a symbolic approach, abstracts meaning from social, political and interactional behavior in space so as to shed light on, and oftentimes contest, the aforementioned phenomena. During my time in Havana, Cuba this past spring, I chose four public spaces—each constructed in, representative of and presently understood through a distinct archi-tectural-historical era—which ground political tensions of both past and present rele-vance in the city’s built environment. For a metropolis whose rich and turbulent political history materializes in a varied architectural and urban landscape, this sort of research becomes of utmost importance in extracting the politicized past, present and future of development paradigms and spatial typologies—a task achieved only by fusing

Women praying at the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de Regla (Cordelia Prouvost)

the two approaches mentioned above. Over the course of these next few pages, I will discuss one of the public spaces I studied—La Plaza de San Francisco de Asís—in order to present the sophisticated and incisive methodological and theoretical approximations through which to study public spaces—a task done only by melding history with observation; expert opinion with user interviews; and political with spatial analysis. San Francisco is Havana’s second oldest plaza, built in the 17th century, a gath-ering place for the convent and church of Saint Francis de Asís. Originally covered by La Bahía de La Habana, and later filled in with paved cobblestone, the plaza quickly took up administrative, as well as religious, functions for the Spanish bourgeoise—initially hosting the jail, the cabildo and many offices of wealthy colonial administrators. Given its proximity to the port, the plaza similarly served vital commercial functions—namely receiving ships, welcoming recently arrived merchants and containing the city’s ‘watering hole’ at which residents came to hydrate. Aside from its original administrative, religious and com-

Cuba (Demetrius Borge)

mercial uses, Plaza San Francisco had developed other important functions over the 18th and 19th centuries. Boasting the house of the Captain General during much of the 18th century, the plaza was also the site of the annual Feria de San Francisco—with games, gambling and en-tertainment—as well as, more than a century later, the port of arrival for many Spanish immigrants. Although it continued to be, above all, an administrative, commercial and religious plaza revolving around the church, the plaza has always been a site of installa-tion, restoration and beautification of architectural or decorative projects. For example, the convent and church of today is an 18th-century expanded and elaborated upon ver-sion of the original edification, and the four-lions statue that adorns the plaza’s central interior is a 19th century gift that, after damage and relocation, had later been rehabili-tated and returned to its original home. Thus—with its vulnerabilities to hurricanes and oceanic damage, as well —the plaza, together with its constituent elements, has always found itself in a state of repair, reconstruction and reimagination. Today, San Francisco is a prime tourist destination and international commercial center under the careful direction and management of the Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad de La Habana, whose insignia appears more than 15 times throughout the pla-za. Though its composition is varied, the majority of its buildings, and thus activities, are international and commercial in orientation. For example, the Lonja de Comercio, Ha-vana’s former stock exchange, which now hosts foreign embassies, tourism companies and international media agglomerates, forms the plaza’s northeastern edge; to the pla-za’s east, on the Avenida del Puerto, is a port which receives cruise ships and, until re-cently, foreign petroleum liners; in a historic building forming the plaza’s western edge is San Cristobal S.A., Habana Vieja’s largest tour company; and, occupying the rest of the plaza is a four-star hotel, a Venezuelan art gallery, three souvenir shops and two cafes which sell Europeans products in divisa. Along with studying the uses and activities of the plaza’s buildings, my methodol-ogy was comprised of user interviews, direct and participant observations, expert con-sultations (historians, architects, museologists, academics), archival research and in-formal “tours” guided by locals I know. And, after having consulted with

Daily life on the streets of Havana (Cordelia Prouvost) Emilio Sarandeses, museologist at the Convento de San Francisco, and Zenaida Sánchez, the architect in charge of the plaza at the Oficina del Historiador, I was able to deduce how the city’s current developmental paradigm translates into and fuels the plaza’s organiza-tional logic. Fundamentally, the plaza is part of a series of landmarks in Habana Vieja that for over thirty years have been part of UNESCO’s World Heritage registry, in turn warrant-ing extra protection, financing and maintenance from the Oficina del Historiador. Through the Office’s self-sufficient, local development model, tourist revenues are fun-neled into the preservation and development of Habana Vieja’s built and social envi-ronments, as well as channeled into workshops, businesses and vocational training centers to employ habaneros in the local tourism industry—thus restarting a cyclical economic engine. Ultimately, this semi-private organ works to attract international bod-ies, currencies and cultures in order to protect local heritage and spur local economic development—characteristic, I would argue, of the Cuban development model right now. This sort of internationalist orientation is not only reflected in the plaza’s social, cultural and artistic programming (hosting classi-

A woman walks by a stencil of Che Guerva, a popular Revolutionary figure for the people of Cuba (Cordelia Prouvost)

cal musicians from Europe and films from the US), but in its built environment as well—from the statues of historic figures found in the plaza (none of whom are Cuban) to the “Bears of the World” exposition, which successfully attracted millions of visitors, and dollars, to the plaza through the illu-sion that all nations, cultures and peoples are equal, a market logic that no potential consumer should be alienated. But even if the plaza’s official agenda relies on the international economy, foreign bodies and world cultures for its occupational (the Puerto and the Lonja de Comercio), cultural (“Bears of the World” and statues) and institutional (hotel and tour agencies) identities, Cubans consistently employ spatial creativity, imagination and resistance in order to contest and invert the spatiality of international dominance. Through a series of observed and deduced spatial behaviors and relationships, I not only offer commen-taries on tourism development and Cuban-yuma interactions, but also detail how official urban agendas get reflected and contested in urban public space. For example, Cuban youth discreetly gather around the tour agency’s entrance to steal its Wifi, using spatial positioning to furtively gain access to a generally unavailable resource. Also, from my own personal experience, jineteras try to seduce foreigners in the parts of the plaza where police aren’t located, saying they’re “waiting for a friend at the port” while chatting up gullible yuma. Cuban kids, drawn to the plaza like many oth-ers for its enigmatic and synchronized pigeon population, compete with tourists for physical and noise space as the play the afternoon away. Costumed “Caballeros de Paris” and other impersonators estafan tourists, appropriate contested histories and significantly occupy public attention. Countless swarms of Cubans also flock to the pla-za to snap their wedding and quinceañera pictures, deterring tour groups from passing through the plaza and taking up space, a tactical and creative tool in spatial reappropria-tion. Lastly, take Minerva, the state-paid palomera who regulates and protects interac-tions with the plaza’s pigeons, which, gradually introduced by the Oficina del Historiador (and also serve as a good metaphor for tourists, who bring attention, but are pests, leave shit and take up space), now draw unprecedented numbers to the plaza, but are ultimately controlled and cared for a Cuban—more specifically, an elderly black woman. It is these types of resistances, controls and socio-spatial practices that define contemporary Cuban life and urbanism, contesting the nature of official development and spatial agendas—in turn placing spatial power in Cubans’ hands, in spite of the strength, visibility and presence of lo internacional. As Josefina, a museum guide, and Carmen*, a middle-aged jinetera, both told me, even though tourists take up a lot of space, and even though most urban developments are planned around and for them, Cubans really don’t care, because the space is still for Cubans, who are creative, re-sistant and spatially savvy; and, as Carmen* emphasized, through the tourists’ money, habaneros get to revalue and cherish their built, spatial and historical patrimony. This, a perspective I would and could not have acquired without coming to this public space and observing/speaking with people, succinctly defines the objectives and thesis for my public space research: to understand politicized, tense and relevant topics, such as tourism development, through socio-spatial behavior and interaction, utilizing a symbolic, interactional and subaltern spatial analysis to inform, and ultimately subvert, a political one.

Cuba (Demetrius Borge)

A Greek Summer, Made Bitter Winter for the Sons of Hellen By Fillippos Papageorgiou

San Torini (Rachel Frank)

spent the first half of last summer interning for a small Law Firm in downtown Athens, Greece: Alivizatos & Kiousoupoulou Law Associates. My boss during that time, Mr. Alivizatos, is a Professor of Constitutional Law at the Athens Law School, and currently the foremost authority on Greek Constitutional Law; needless to say, it was an exciting time for me. To give you an idea, I’m a Greek native on my way to Law School in the US. I was born and raised in Athens, Greece, and both my childhood and teenage years were defined by everyday life in the Greek capital. The very first case I was handed to do research on, concerned an effort by Mr. Boutaris, the Mayor of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, to build a Holocaust Museum and Educational Center in his city. I was asked to look into the establishment and legal framework of other such museums around the world and then present my findings to the Mayor. Boutaris is basically a Rock Star; he’s in his early 70s, comes from a family of winemakers, has very visible tattoos on his hands and fingers, and during his tenure as Mayor has managed to slowly transform the increasingly conservative, 30

narrow-minded, and nationalistic city of Thessaloniki, into the open-minded, welcoming, and cosmopolitan town that it has historically been renowned for being. When he and the Mayor of Athens were asked in a joint interview whether they had ever used drugs, whereas his Athenian counterpart struggled to answer the question tactfully, Mr. Boutaris nonchalantly responded, “Of course I have!” What really sets him apart is that he isn’t a politician. That isn’t to say that all politicians are by nature bad, but they lack the direct and honest approach that he has implemented in his city. He is an extremely charismatic man who ran for Mayor because of a genuine desire to improve the city he loves. When he addresses the people, they feel as if they’re being addressed by one of their own. Even more impressively, he is able to engage his constituents in such an intimate manner without having to rely on demagogic or populist rhetoric. Sadly, this makes him an exception to the norm. Since the beginning of the Greek financial crisis, the Greek people have completely lost faith in the political

establishment. To begin with, establishment party politicians have repeatedly failed to accept responsibility for mistakes of the past and face their errors, resorting instead to endless and aimless finger pointing. Furthermore, those very same politicians, Greece’s political elite, have been pampering the Greek people with obsolete public-sector job appointments, irregular tax cuts, lax tax enforcement, and numerous other benefits for over three decades now. Sadly, but expectedly, as a financially overburdened Greek State has been pressured into committing to enormous budget cuts and tax increases, the coddling has had to come to a very sudden halt.

town instead of commuting. I normally avoid driving to the city-center; the unyielding traffic and lack of parking availability, along with the added risk of receiving parking tickets usually ensure tardiness and frustration. However, in light of the recent events (IMF default, capital controls) traffic in the city had been substantially reduced, and parking wasn’t an issue – the police had more serious matters to attend to. Furthermore, my morning commutes had become a bit of a depressing affair:

Everyone in the train kept to themselves, there were very few smiles, and the most inspiring sight was the now-familWhenever a people as a whole undergo a shift for the iar middle-aged woman sitting across from me reading her worse in status and condition, their reaction will certainly romantic novella. Every stop or two a beggar would enter the be an exasperated one, and us cart. Sometimes it would be Greeks don’t disappoint when gypsy children ineptly playing “As you set out for Ithaca, it comes to expressing our the guitar or the accordion. Hope your road is a long one, dissatisfaction. Enter Alexis Other times it would be grown full of adventure, full of discovery. Tsipras, Greece’s current Prime men and women; they would Laistrygonians, Cyclops, Minister, possessing a very give a short speech on their Angry Poseidon – don’t be afraid of them: different type of charisma than situation, eloquently describing you’ll never find things like that on your way Mr. Boutaris. Like the Mayor, what had driven them to such as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, he also has the ability to engage an impoverished condition, and as long as a rare excitement his constituents in a very intiwhy they needed the passengers’ mate manner, but he does so in help. They would walk around stirs your spiri and your body. a dividing rather than a uniting and collect from those willing Laistrygonians, Cyclops, way. His narrative is one of “us and able to give, and then Wild Poseidon – you won’t encounter them vs. them”, the ‘us’ comprising of would always promptly get off Unless you bring them along inside your soul, the oppressed Greek people and at the following stop in order Unless your soul sets them up in front of you” his leftist Syriza party, and the to move on to the next cart; an ‘them’ represented by Greece’s endless parade of men, women, From C. P. Cavafy’s “Ithaca” European creditors, the Greek and children, riding the train one percent, and the acquiesfrom head to end, asking for cent old political establishment. help and attention. Before being elected, he promised to stand up to the EuroIt’s always a bit of a dilemma whether one ought to give peans, and improve on the “cowardly and unfair deal” signed to these people, if he is so able. The children are likely being by the previous administrations, a promise much easier made sent out by their parents to collect what they can, and althan kept. The result of this promise was an incessant and though giving them money will improve their livelihood, for fruitless negotiation, which dragged on for months before that particular day at least, one wishes to see an end to chilfinally reaching its climax in the middle of the sweltering dren becoming beggars under any circumstances, particularly summer with a do or die dilemma. when encouraged to do so by their own parents. The adults It was June 17th, 2015. I was now two weeks into my always have very well prepared speeches, usually involving internship. The Golden State Warriors had just won the NBA a combination of financial burdens and health problems. finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Basketball, and parThe question always inadvertently buzzing in my mind was ticularly the NBA are extremely popular in Greece; people whether these people were being sincere about their situation will sometimes stay up all night to watch games in real time. or whether they were simply giving a very well rehearsed I instead settled for watching the game highlights during my performance of a compellingly fabricated story. I know, it’s a morning commute downtown. Sadly, the dazzling exploits of very cynical way of analyzing a very real situation, but a lot of Steph Curry and the Warriors were the last thing on people’s us often think that way. Nevertheless, no matter how I tried minds; Greece was just two short weeks away from becoming to rationalize what I saw in these people, how I tried to justify the first developed country to ever default on an IMF payor refute their right to beg from me, the fact remained that ment. they were begging. Regardless of whether their story was true or not, these men, women, and children had come, by some On Thursday, July 2nd, I decided to take my car downmeans or another, to be willing to let go of any pride that 31

might have otherwise deterred them, to admit that they were no longer in control of their livelihood, and to ask their fellow men and women for whatever they might spare, whether it was one euro, half a euro, or even just twenty cents. Although this is not a new phenomenon to Greece, it has increased exponentially over the past few years, as the financial crisis has brought the country to its knees.

ABOVE: Tinos, from the monastery of Agia (Saint) Pelagia; a saint for whom there is an island festival.

ABOVE: A protest of K.K.E., the Greek Communist Party, near Syntagma square (Greek Parliament) before ‘15 referendum. BELOW: Protestors critizice former Greek Finance Minister Gianis Varoufakis at a rally supporting the Yes vote.

I was now only a couple of blocks away from the office, looking for the optimal parking spot, when the door of a car parked on my right side suddenly opened as I was passing by it; the narrowness of the Athenian back-streets made evasive maneuvers impossible. I pulled my car over and got out to talk to the other driver and call my insurance, clearly distressed. This was only the second car accident I’d been involved in - the first one had occurred just a week earlier. Now I may just be a bad driver, but my week of car accidents also happened to be the week of a Referendum announcement, the imposition of harsh Capital Controls, and the default on an IMF loan repayment of 1.7 Billion Euros. The other driver was a lady in her early to mid sixties. I was upset at her for causing me to be late for work, as well as for having to deal with my car being towed (the damage was significant) and the subsequent insurance matters, but it was difficult to stay angry at her. She was also upset, and yet when she discerned my frustration, she asked me what was bothering me, and when I told her I was just distraught because of the accident she replied “it was my fault, you shouldn’t worry about it, its not that important”. She was right, but I was still upset. It wasn’t just me; there was so much tension all around that it was impossible not to be troubled. Every functioning ATM machine had a line stretching back several dozen feet, most stores, even in some of the busiest commercial areas, were temporarily closed. Life had come to a sudden stop, and so had work. The little law office in which everyone was constantly working on one case or another, was suddenly consumed by endless discussion and contemplation of what was going to happen to Greece: would the country stay in the Euro? Would there be a new deal? Would the Europeans loosen the leash, or would they finally abandon our uncompromising little nation once and for all? It wasn’t simply that we stopped receiving new cases – who would start any legal proceedings when their financial assets could potentially be frozen or even wiped out the very next day – our motivation to work had completely dissipated. The concern, the fear, and the uncertainty of Greece’s future were too discontenting to allow for anyone to think of anything else. Towards the very end of the summer, I went to the island of Tinos to spend a few days with my family before heading back to the US. Tinos is the third largest of the Cycladic

islands, and it is a magical place. Unlike many of its neighboring islands, it has yet to fully accede to the pressures of commercial development and tourist attraction; the crisis has also played its part in that. The island’s natural beauty, both in its rocky, mountainous wilderness, and in the unpredictable serenity of the sea and its golden, sandy beaches, gave me renewed confidence for my country’s future. In my view, the Greek problem is primarily one of culture and identity. Although Greece was just the 10th country to join they European Union communities in 1981, and has had a European focus ever since its conception as a modern state in 1830, in many ways, Greek and European identities are very different, and often even competing ideas within Greek society. Sadly, Greece’s European existence is often associated with a patronizing relationship between leading European countries and Greece. There is historical justification for this, since foreign powers have meddled in the affairs of the Greek state in the past. Greece’s first King, Otto, was Bavarian, and the, now deposed, Greek Royal family originates from Danish royalty. Furthermore, Greece’s fate during and after the two World Wars was significantly affected by the Great powers of the time. Lastly, the Regime of the Colonels that ruled in Greece during the 1967 to 1974 military junta is said to have been facilitated, at least indirectly, by US policies following the Truman Doctrine. All these facts, in combination with a leftist rhetoric of martyrdom at the hands of the US supported Greek government during the Greek civil war – the Communist faction was outlawed and defeated with the backing of the US and

Great Britain – have made the Syriza-held Greek public sentiment very wary of foreign demands and interventions. However, the essential difference in this case is the simple fact that Greece is now part of a Union, and is thus committed to a common future with its European partners. Although polling has showed that the vast majority of Greeks wish for their country to remain in the European Union, and to keep the euro as its currency, recognizing that a joint European path to prosperity is in Greece’s best interest, they are still very resistant to any and all reforms that Europe is asking Greece to implement. An important aspect of this discussion, and one that I’m not qualified to elaborate on, is the correctness of the plans that have been implemented thus far. Many have criticized Europe, and Germany in particular, for pursuing austerity policies that have perhaps created more problems than they have solved. However, whatever the case with austerity, it is a fact that Greece is still in need of substantial structural and institutional reforms, as well as foreign aid and debt relief. As much as the current political administration and its constituents may wish to keep Greece as autonomous as possible, the reality is that autonomy is only viable when it is followed by self-sufficiency. The Greek people have suffered, and they will probably suffer more in the next few years, until things eventually start looking up again. But in the meantime, Greece remains an extremely beautiful country; its innumerable islands, surrounded by the charmingly intemperate sea offer endless opportunities to get away from everyday stress and troubles. The food is still excellent, the fish are still fresh out of the water, and the country is still full of good, kindhearted people.

A mountain view from Agapi village on the island of Tinos; Agapi is Greek for love.

Puis-je roule avec toi? May I ride with you? By Jake Barker

Out on a training ride with the team.

ylvain had spoken with the Federation Française du Cyclisme in Paris because when I sent him an SMS asking if I could train this week, he told me to be at the velodrome on Wednesday around 17h. He was my contact with Sider-Cam, a cycling team based in Bordeaux that I hoped to train with, so I could meet some local cyclists. After the summer months of road racing around neighboring towns and vineyards, many cyclists move indoors to the velodrome for sprint and time-trial races. Cycling in France has a rich, historical culture that dates back to the nineteenth century; today, the diverse sport features competitive road, track, mountain, and cyclocross racing and fosters strong communities. As a passionate cyclist, I wanted to be part of this community while I was in Bordeaux. I hadn’t ridden in nearly a week because my ankle was so royally screwed up from walking everywhere in the city (I was using a small SmartWool sock as a DIY arch support for a week, and was forced to wear my running shoes to class...talk about social suicide). I also had gotten a bit sick after several late nights with a few German friends. I honestly don’t have any clue how they stay healthy living on a diet of bread, butter, cheese and jam, then staying up until 6 am two or three nights a week. They must have incredible immune systems.

I knew I was going to be a bit late to the first entrainment, because on Wednesdays I volunteered at an after-school program just to the southwest of where I lived. I rode my bike to volunteer, and after my weekly vocabulary lesson with a group of six-year olds, I rode like all hell had broken loose to the velodrome, partially to get warmed up, mostly to try to get there on time. It is about five miles north of the city, outside the peripheral rocade, near the exposition halls and a brand new soccer stadium. The massive green building, boldly labeled “Stadium Velodrome,” is impossible to miss. After I walked in the front door, the main office was closed, so I continued into the stadium. The Stadium de Bordeaux Lac is a cross between a hockey rink and the Middlebury concert hall, with wood rafters and old seats, and was the site of the 1998 and 2006 UCI Track World Cycling Championships. Angular, dynamic, commanding. A small group of cyclists were doing laps around the track, and the hum of the bicycles filled the space as they pedaled around, and around, and around. It’s a cathedral for the cycling-obsessed. A few people were in the center, so I walked down and around to access the interior of the track. There were a few coaches, some young cyclists and their parents. Wednesdays are entrâinements jeunes, for youth cyclists (and inexperienced Americans). Sylvain was not there, but I found

Simon, a young man of large stature who looked like he should’ve been on the rugby pitch rather than in a velodrome. He greeted me enthusiastically, then went off in search of a bike. I, in the meantime, went to the small changing room to put on my cycling kit. He returned with a black, green and yellow steel Italian bike with a beautiful white Colnalgo saddle. He double-checked the front wheel and then put on my pedals. There were no brakes on this fixed gear bike, so even if I maxed out at 36 mph on the track, I could never stop pedaling. I rode around the internal track a few times on my new rig. The second time around, a gent sitting next to three young mothers and watching me testing the bike, yelled at me. “Slow down when you go by!” “Yeah?” I replied, unsure of why he would ask such a thing. “Yeah, it’s an aesthetic thing for us, you know!”” 5,000 miles from home, in a different language and culture, these were the same words used by my father and I to describe our favorite sport. Bebert, the youth coach, taught me how to ride on the track in less than twenty words. He was 65 years old and shorter than me with tan skin and protruding veins, and he emanated the air of a cycling legend. He described the different tire-wide lines that circumnavigate the track: black for sprinters, red for pacing, and blue for reference. I didn’t really understand. He explained that once I got some speed, I could leave the blue internal track and go up on the track. The incline of the corners was no joke, and I was nervous, questioning the physics of the whole thing, as if that would’ve helped. “If your back wheel starts to slide, go faster,” he emphasized at the end. “Like riding a motorcycle?” I asked. “Yeah, exactly.” Simon said he would monitor my speed, and would tell me when I could go higher up. I started off shaky, building up speed on the flat, internal track. One lap in, he told me to go on to the

track and follow the black line. I was so pumped with adrenaline that it probably looked like I had never ridden a two-wheeled machine in my life, as I tried to follow the line around. With more speed, he told me to go higher up, and on the second corner of that lap, I felt it. The perfect turn. We search for it on a pair of Fischer RC4 World Cup GS skis, on a Ducati in Poudre Canyon, or on a bike coming down from Appalachian Gap back in Vermont. Even at partial speed, I felt it as I went into turn one on the red line. And it only gets stronger. In ignoring the pain of exertion for just a moment, and allowing the G-forces of hitting a 45-degree corner at 35 miles an hour, I felt the sensation of a perfected elegance; the unification of mind, body, machine, and track in a universal motion that transcends culture and time. I rode around for more than an hour, getting a feel for holding my line on the inclines. At the end of the session, I did a 200-meter sprint. The starting point was fifty meters past the start and finish line. To set up for the sprint, I rode a few laps as high up as possible to the edge of the track. Then, on the last corner before the finishing stretch, I plunged down the fall line, full-throttle, towards the black sprinter’s line. Then I pedaled at a nearly unbearable cadence, and tried to hold my line as best I could while my legs screamed for mercy, attempting to maintain my speed into the second corner. I accelerated through the turn with the help of the forces at play, then to the final stretch before the finish. It was rather graceful, despite the fact that I could barely walk after the intense sprint session. I shook the hands of Bebert and Julian, thanking them for that momentous experience in my sub-par French. As if to say ‘You’re welcome,’ they invited me to return the following day for the bigboy training, which would include the regional champions, off-season professionals, and a few other new trainees. I nodded, and told them I would be there, with the hope that suffering through cycling might forge a few friendships. I rode home drenched in sweat, through roundabouts, on bike-paths and cobbles, to perfectly cooked sausages and pureed potatoes, and to that same old barking dog of my host family.

The youth coach, Bebert, shouts out tactics to his athletes from inside the track (Photo courtesy of Team Sider-Cam).

Disparity By Anthea Viragh

Three generations sit together at the entrance of the Choomchon Pattaya slum.

Choomchon Pattaya slum is small and unique; located in Bangkok’s city center and sharing a wall with Royal City Avenue, the epicenter of Bangkok’s clubbing scene. The slum is made up of 32 houses, with 140 people living within the slum. A famous Thai bank is seizing back the land for a development project and has already torn down more than a quarter of the shacks. The residents of Choomchon Pattaya slum have lived there for over 30 years and have no means and no place to relocate to. The bank is demanding that the residents pay over 50,000 baht ($1380) per house to remain living there, but most families, generally women and children, have little to no income. The community relies heavily on an underground drug trade for survival. Due to the community’s location and desperation, young children are sent to Bangkok’s most exclusive nightclubs to secretly deliver ecstasy and yaba (Thai speed) to the nightclub’s bouncers who then pass the drugs on the main drug lord. This photo essay is my commitment to bring awareness and expose the disparity that exists in almost every corner of Bangkok.

The spread of Bangkok is extensive, there are 50 administrative districts within its borders; the Choomchon Pattaya slum lies at the center. With one side of the slum bordering one of Bangkok’s high-end driving ranges, and the other side bordering Thailand’s top nightlife desitnation, Choomchon Pattaya slum represents the extreme disparity that exists in Thailand.

Trash scattered over the grounds of Choomchon Pattaya slum.

ABOVE: The community leaderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sinister doorway decorated with toy guns and posters of the Thai King. BELOW: An outdoor hanging light bulb which illuminates parts of the slum at night.

ABOVE: Ray of afternoon light shines through the slums as community members sit in front of their homes with their loved ones. BELOW: A woman dressed in a sarong dances proudly outside her home.

Deep inside the slum, a young girl sits beside her sleeping father.

A dog guards three brothers who sit inside their home playing games on mobile phones. 41

ABOVE: Two boys wait patiently to buy a snack at the small convenience store located inside the slum. BELOW: A mother plays with her daughter on the main path leading into the slum.

ABOVE: Loong Keng, who slipped four years ago and has not worked since, prepares a chicken stew for dinner. BELOW: A tattooed man stands half naked in front of the slumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gambling den.

Behind his smile is a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;meth mouthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;: severe tooth decay and loss of teeth due to a meth addiction.

A Buddhist Sanskrit flag and jasmine garland offering hang to protect the inhabitants of the slum.

Shwia-b-Shwia, Little by Little By Shaheen Bharwani

Photos by Emma Cameron

Exploring the desert via camel in Merzouga, Morocco that looks over into Algeria.

I never thought I would enjoy taxi rides. In Boston, the hulking sedan called the taxi tends to shut one out from the world. Not in Morocco, as I discovered this summer. The petit taxi, as its French name suggests, is small. Because of its size, riding in the vehicle gives one a feeling of unity with the world outside rather than a sense of seclusion from it. And best of all, the drivers are hilarious. I was in Morocco for six weeks to study Arabic as part of the U.S. Department of State’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) Arabic Program. I stayed with a host family in the capital, Rabat, and studied Modern Standard Arabic at the Qalam wa Lawh Center for Arabic Studies. Back home, my only experience with taxis had been the occasional ride to the airport with family. In Morocco, petit taxis were my primary mode of transportation. Early on, I realized that my looks offered me an opportunity that many of my fellow participants did not have. Being of Pakistani origin, I have a light brown complexion, and facial features that made me look, as one of my friends put it, like a “real Moroccan.” By interacting with Moroccans, I imagined, I could gauge my progress and proficiency in the Arabic language. If a local identified me as a foreigner, I would have work to do. But if I passed as a local, I could not only take pride in my linguistic ability but also engage in a richer cultural learning and understanding, an important goal for me as a Mus46

lim. Since I routinely took petit taxis, each bright blue Fiat with a fare counter became both a language test and a chance to dig deeper into Moroccan society. Armed with my high school French, a few Arabic phrases, and a piece of paper on which my host dad had scribbled his address, I hailed my first petit taxi in Rabat. With a brief “Ça c’est l’adresse,” I handed the piece of paper to the driver and slid into the seat next to him. I had my doubts as to whether he knew where I wanted to go but we reached my host family’s house without much trouble. I paid the fare and exited the taxi feeling satisfied at having made it home. I was even able to thank the driver in Arabic. The leather dyes in Fes, Morocco. The whites eventually become the colors.

By the end of my first week in Morocco, my satisfaction had turned into frustration. All my taxi rides had been just as scripted as my first one. Taxi drivers found it all too easy to identify me as a foreigner. As my Arabic improved over the next couple of weeks, I pushed myself to speak more and more Arabic. I loved chatting with drivers and laughing at jokes I only half understood. As I picked up Darija, Moroccan Arabic, I also began using new words in conversation. By the third or fourth week of my stay, I noticed that it took longer for drivers to realize I was not Moroccan. Then one day, as my taxi rounded a corner and my host family’s neighborhood of Youssoufia came into view, it dawned on me that I had spoken only Darija with the driver. Not once did he ask me where I was from or speak slowly to make himself understood. I was sure that he took me for a Moroccan. I soon found myself standing by the curb, letting a feeling of elation wash over me as the taxi rolled away. Taxi rides during my last two weeks became venues of social and cultural interaction. Moroccans love using proverbs. I tried to use them as often as I could. My favorite proverb was “Lizerbu, maatu,” which means, “Those who hurry, die.” Simply inserting a proverb into a conversation made it lively. By conversing with taxi drivers, I was also able to get a better sense of Moroccan and Muslim values, such as the importance of warm greetings, hospitality, and caring for neighbors and family. I, a Muslim, had grown up with many of these values. Seeing them put into action and internalized by everyday people gave my experience a depth that would not have been possible without the window that language learning had opened. Passing as a Moroccan, I knew that I had achieved definite improvement in Arabic and begun to experience the culture of Morocco as its people did. But I was sure that I had yet to understand Morocco in its full complexity. The fact that I was left with more questions than answers was a sign that my time in Morocco and my proficiency in Arabic were less than ideal. I had to improve even more before my learning experience began to satisfy my curiosity. The valuable skill I acquired was how to enrich that experience in a simple way. I learned how to take a taxi. Overlook of Chefchaouen, Morocco from the Spanish church at the top of the hill, under the Rif mountains.

Spices from a souk in the Marrakech market in the west.

Yellow hides made from the leather dyes in Fes, Morocco.

Lion of the Desert By Michael Judy

Michael Judy playing sand chess with a friend.

The nomads of the northeast Sahara are a people scarred but strong. The smooth brown skin of youth is snatched away by the sands well before adulthood. Gnarled hands and swollen knuckles dart from long loose sleeves, whittling a palm frond or fingering a guitar with a grotesque dexterity. This is a hard land and desert faces speak to that. Madani’s teeth are a flat yellow, stained from thirty years of tea and tobacco. They protrude from his upper gum like those of his namesake, al-SbaH, the lion. Once he told me that he bent them like that on a can of tuna. He’d been riding a camel back to the village after days without food and had nothing else to puncture the tin with. The children in town tell me he is called SbaH because he is the fiercest man in M’Hamid. He knows the desert the best. We are sitting outside a small cafe in the corner of town under an awning of reed lashed together with scraps of wire, watching paint dry. Dunes in three shades of brown, blue sky. A little white khaima, the nomad tent of Madani’s childhood. Happy yellow camels. And over the metal door in big red letters: CHEZ MADANI. For the last month I had been building the cafe with Madani; we started on it the day after I arrived. I followed him around town as he haggled with the welder and the carpenter and the workmen. Deals struck with the butcher and the dealer of spices over a long handshake and a hand to 48

the heart. Some nights we slept in the little back room of the building, on the floor, where the kitchen is now. Small children stand across the street, hypnotized by this new splash of color. I tell Madani that the quotes painted on the wall are all correct “Bzwain ya ukhi. Bzeft” and his eyes trace the lines of the letters with a sharpness gleaned from decades in the desert. Observant, but not understanding. “Merci mon frere”. A few of Madani’s friends are seated around the other plastic tables scattered across the curb, drinking sweet coffees with milk or bitter tea from tiny glasses. The sun hangs low over the horizon like an unripe date, and the new aluminum “Fish for sale”.... five hundred miles from the sea.

Farming dates on the outskirts of the oasis. trays are blinding in the yellow light. Entrepreneurship is a novelty in M’hamid. The only industries here are tourism and the military. With the latest wave of terrorism in the Islamic world, the once-steady stream of European tourists has slowed to a trickle, so townsfolk have been coming to the cafe just to see it. Some buy a soupy bissara and round of bread or a single cigarette. Most buy nothing. The life a nomad is a lonely life. Long weeks of solitude, pulled through the anonymity of the desert by the tenuous thread of survival . To see the face of another human in the desert is an almost holy experience and this respect for company manifests itself in the greetings here, a never ending rush of questions. How are you? How are you? Five different ways of saying how are you. Or ten, I have lost count. Any worries? What’s your news? Madani seems to treat it like a game, trying to out question each visitor. What’s new with your family? Any problems? No problems? Good. Your children are well? I dont mistake the slight shimmer in his eyes for pride. It is a concealed happiness, rooted in his joy at sharing what he has created here, a storefront oasis in the rubble strewn streets,

but his heightened responsibility draws his forehead into faint wrinkles. He is calculating. His mother to feed. And her lambs, he has to feed her lambs. Supplies need to be bought for the classes his younger sister teaches to the neighborhood women. Paper and pencils and more chalk. Phone calls to be made about produce. He wants to start selling tourists meals this week. A small child is kicking a rock down the road and Madani calls him over. He gives his usual barrage of hellos and the boy shyly plucks the twenty dirham note from Madani’s outstretched hand. “All of this is not for me” Madani said, waving his hand at the cafe as the boy runs off to buy a handful of cumin. “If I could I would go back to the desert, I would become a nomad again. But my family depends on me. This is my home now, this village depends on me.” He looks up from the table. Squinting in the orange glow of sunset he does look like a lion, sandy shesh wrapped around his head, a golden mane. “When you come back to Morocco we will leave it all. You and I will buy a herd of camels and travel the entire wadi together, all the way down into Mauritania. Algeria and Mali, Timbuktu. The whole Sahara. How many camels do you want? Thirty? Thirty camels is for children, we will each have one hundred!” I think about Madani coming face to face with a real lion on the southern fringes of this vast desert, the SbaH that his ancestors knew before the sands blew in. I imagine him greeting that long lost brethren. Luh bes? Kul shay bekhair? La ila bekhair? Alhamdulillah. How are you? How are you? How are you? Thanks be to God.

Madani. Lion amongst the dunes.

Ethiopia By Georgia Grace Edwards

A view overlooking one of the main streets in Ethiopiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital city, Addis Ababa, showing the iconic blue taxis and varying landscape of office buildings juxtaposed with residential tin shacks.

This summer, I lived in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, for one month while taking the Middlebury class entitled “Development Across the Disciplines” with Professor Claudia Cooper. While there, in addition to taking the class, I shadowed Middlebury alum Dr. Rick Hodes, volunteered with Cooper’s nonprofit Global Family Initiative, worked at a local school, conducted research of my own, and adventured through the beautiful country. These excerpts, taken directly from my journal on the first day, show, upon arrival, my very initial perceptions of the people and place I would be further exploring for the next thirty days. Ethiopian Airport Encounters (June 2015) The guy at customs beamed up at me with a mischievous intention, I could tell -- his dark eyes beady and cryptic. He seemed to be joking around with his buddy at the booth next to his, who was chewing mercilessly at what appeared to be some type of rubber or tobacco. I would later learn that it was khat, a leafy stimulant popular in Ethiopia. “Are you okay?” he asked me. I guess I sometimes wear my emotions a little too strongly on my sleeve, because I was feeling very uncomfortable with this situation, and he could tell, and he was feeding on it. I was frustrated. His job was to protect the security of his country, yet he seemed far more concerned with making me feel insecure. His white lab coat uniform or whatever that was supposed to be could not hide his true intentions. He asked for my passport, and looked at me for far too long after I had placed it atop the counter. His friend rambled on. They chuckled. “He says you are very beautiful,” the guy behind the counter jeered at me, without any true sense of admiration. This is exactly what I was afraid of. I mustered a small half smile and nod in acknowledgement. “Now, you tell him thank you,” my guy ordered. I was not thankful for anything these two men were trying to do, but I said it anyway, trying to take the path of least resistance and thus fastest escape to the rest of my group, who had made it unscathed onto true Ethiopian soil. He asked me how long I was here, and when I said just under a month, he repeated my words, and then said, “Two months?” laughing, in perfect English, because he clearly had understood what I had said and was again giving me a hard time. He asked if I was here for research and when I said some, he pretended to not understand so that I had to repeat my answer over and over again. I didn’t even launch into the other plethora of reasons I was there – to take a development class, to work with marginalized orphans and women with the nonprofit Global Family Initiative, to live up to the unmaterialistic ideals I so admired, to find some evidence to counteract every negative stereotype of Africa my small conservative hometown endorsed, to consume a tiny slice of that real world experience that everyone tells you is so important. The less I engaged, the better my chances would be. I could see my professors and fellow students on the other side of the glass, looks of concern on their faces.

Then he began with the questions I knew he was not required to ask, like where I had gone to high school and what state that was in and what was the name of the high school and was I a college student now and what did I study and where did I go and what state was that in and what else did I like to do, as if he would actually be familiar with anything I had just said...it was a pathetic attempt at some condescending small talk. At this point, any fear I had was replaced with sheer anger. Finally, he took my four fingerprints. That was unsettling, to know a piece of information that personal and unique to me was now entirely in his hands, replicated from my own. “Now, look at camera. Up here.” Again, my tenseness must have shown, because he told me to “Relax, Beautiful.” But I did not smile. I refused to show any sort of pleasure from this encounter. I knew he would not have spoken to me in such a patronizing, prying manner, had I been a man. But if my choice was between keeping my mouth shut in order to cross the border or speaking my mind, thus instantly compromising my personal safety and my chances of entering, I was going to keep my mouth shut. After what seemed like an hour, he handed me back my passport, waiting for our fingers to touch so that he could smirk his smirk at me. I practically ran to the rest of my group, who all asked if I had given the wrong address or if there was a problem with my passport; there must have been some logical explanation for such a long registration. My stunningly gorgeous blonde friend told me that she had dealt with a woman, who did not even bother to ask her any questions or to take her fingerprints. She was through the glass doors in a matter of seconds. That bothered me even more. This experience may just sound like a simple hang-up with an ornery security guard who was nothing more than a concupiscent young adult. But it was so much more than that, and it was not unique to Ethiopia. My encounter could have happened at any customs office in the world, and probably will happen to me again, many more times, in many other airports. This encounter was a reflection of an unjust, collective history and culture that permeate nearly every society -- encouraging men in positions of power worldwide, like the customs official, to take advantage of and display dominance over young females, like myself, who usually adhere in obedience. I shudder to think that I may one day have daughters (and sons) who will grow up in a world still very similar to this, where women are nothing more than a pretty face, and I have every intention of changing that. So here’s an attempt at a conversation regarding unfair treatment of women worldwide, and it only took going halfway across the world for me to speak up. First Impressions (June 2015) Addis Ababa appears to be a city that sleeps, but if you look over the tin walls, through the makeshift curtain doors, 51

into apartment building windows, and under the occasional streetlight, you will see that this is not the case. If you peel your eyes away from your phone, you will see stray cats slinking, televisions blinking, homeless men wrapped in holy tarps drinking. If you take your eyes off your grimy bus seat and instead look out at your surroundings, you will see sheep piled high in cargo trucks, as if one could topple out at any second. This is what I saw at my 2am arrival. Addis Ababa appears to be a city that sleeps, but if you stay awake just a few minutes more, you will hear that this is not the case. If you take off your headphones, you will hear dogs barking, bajas parking, women verbally marking the places they will set up their stands the next day. If you open your window, you will hear something like crickets, something maybe a bit like home. This is what I heard at my 3am attempt at sleep. Addis Ababa appears to be a city that sleeps, but if you walk out onto your tile balcony, you will know that this is not the case. If you take a big, deep breath, you will smell street dust kicked up, the fresh brew of a coffee ceremony wafting from a cup, burning diesel from a vehicle startup. If you allow yourself to take a whiff, you will smell a culture, a lifestyle, and a people that have a lot to give. This is what I realized at my 5am wakeup.

An Ethiopian boy proudly poses in front of the small home he shares with his mother in Nifas Silk-Lafto, a subcity of Addis Ababa.

BELOW: It is not uncommon to see horses pulling carts of supplies and people alongside bajajs, cars, and vans on the roads of Addis Ababa.

Letters from Be’erSheva By Naomi Eisenberg

An alleyway in Jerusalem hangs umbrellas for the summer. I journeyed to Israel to see I side of the country I had never been exposed to; I had wanted to dive in deep and come out as much more than a tourist. along the way, I found myself confronted with strange conflicts of ideology,, history, and inter personal connectivity. It was from these moments of imbalance that I learned. The piece is comprised of journal entries and notes that I sent home throughout the summer. I.

Most of us came here with Israel fed to us on a silver platter. Through Taglit or HSI, Israel is given to us Jews as a place where we came from, where we belong - a place of justice and right, despite political conflict. And so, we came here to see what we never got a taste of. Yet, it is a flavor that is much more bitter, sour and complex than I could have imagined. The CEO of Yachdav, a non-profit that runs over 50 social justice projects, was right when he said that we were here to see the “backyard” of Israel, the parts that no one else chooses to see, the parts that are hidden from the media’s eye. Together as a group we visited each of our volunteer placements, though only a few of us will be working at each place. I was struck by the CEO. This ex-IDF air force pilot meant business. He explained to us the processes with which their projects functioned and how we would be but a small piece of their large and growing puzzle. When we visited Ha’Hogen Ha’Kahilati, the youth village for felons, I saw that these projects were real and deeply rooted in notions of social justice, filled with rough hope. Visiting the Bedouin villages was so new – I had heard much about these settlements and the lack of recognition by

the Israeli government, but I had yet to step foot inside of one and speak with Bedouin people. Our tour guide joked as he led us through his village: “You see, there are some camels, horses, my high school.” The juxtaposition of the three story mansions with front yard gardens to the tin roof shacks was confusing, to say the least. This will most definitely be a learning experience, and the journey is just beginning. As they say in Israel, this is all just an adventure, a “havaya.” II.

The boys who live in our building have stories. One tells me about his past. A recent convert to Judaism without telling his father, a used to be Christian Arab with eyes like wells, stories engrained in the lines of his face. Child molestation from his village, meth, heroin, cocaine, then the car crash. Waking up to maybe his last chance. He tells me that the first thing his brother said to him when he opened his eyes from his eight-day coma was, have you learned your lesson now? Why does he share this with me? I am wanting to know, but haunted by these images. He is all of the boys that I work with; going down the roads they did not choose, but still lost in the accidents along the way. And in Meitar, the youth village for the felons, I guess they all must have stories- though they are stories that I cannot place. Lost, hopeless, empty. All words that the Ethiopian girl, Yerushalayim, listed under emotions when I asked her to list feelings she knew. When I get to see my family, I feel excited, she writes.

Tal, a half Russian boy from the foster family made a black braided friendship bracelet for me. He tells me that he never met his father, and we discuss the passing of the marriage equality act in the U.S. I make him a bracelet like the colors of the gay pride flag and he smiles. He braids his hair, sings, and loves looking at pictures of my brother and his boyfriend. The other boys bully him. II.

Today during art, Tamra* asked me for the piece of tile that I decorated in nonsense doodles and lines. On the back I wrote, from Naomi to Tamra, remember that you will always be smart, strong, and beautiful. She smiled at me bashfully when she received it. Tamra is a wonderful, quiet and kind fourteen year old, who has only begun to come to the Meitar, the youth village, recently. A few weeks ago I started teaching Zumba and fitness lessons to the girls. Rarely do the girls go into the weight room, but we’ve been working on changing that. A few days ago, after the herd of boys left the room, I saw Tamra peek inside. I asked her if she wanted to come in with me and learn a few things. Within minutes we were weight lifting, and the look on this girl’s face was brighter than I had ever seen. She saw the eight-kilogram dumbbells in my hands and was amazed that girls could be that strong. Next time, she wanted to do more, and even start learning some boxing moves. The backstory to this encounter is that Tamra comes from a household where her stepfather beats her. I could tell that to feel like she could lift weights and feel physically strong was extremely empowering to her.

Most of the girls at the Meitar are quiet, and few have committed crimes. This is in contrast to the majority of the boys who have. I have found that these girls are unlikely to open up to me or even participate in the activities I attempt to lead. Zumba has been a success though; the sound of Beyoncé gets these girls up and moving real quick. We spent the past weekend at a Shabbaton in Galon, a kibbutz slightly north of Be’ersheva. What I truly enjoyed about the Shabbaton was the Kabbalat Shabbat service with the tri-chitza, a divide that allowed a space for men, women, and men and women together. Coming from a reform background, I have often found myself uncomfortable in services separating men and women, though I respect that this separation is part of many people’s tradition and practices. The last time I was praying separately from men, the women were told that we could not dance or sing as loudly, as we were a distraction to the men. There was this moment during Kabbalat Shabbat, where the boys who were praying together started to dance, and I noticed a few of the others standing in the middle men-and-women section looking quizzically at each other. Within moments, we were all up and dancing too. What a beautiful moment to have the three groups dancing men, women, and the two together. III.

Shoshana* is often the center of the party, the boys flocking around her and the girls whispering secrets in her ears. But last week Shoshana came in quietly to the Meitar. She sat in art class making a bracelet in her lap, and avoided eye contact when I attempted to start a conversation with her. I saw the cuts on her wrist, raw, red, and new. My Hebrew is not anywhere near good enough for me to bring this up in an appropriate manner, so I sit with her quietly, and at the end of the day mention it to one of the professional staff. Shoshana disappears. She does not come in the next day, or the day after, and the other kids start asking when she will come back. They tell me nothing. Kids come and go daily at the Meitar, so it is hard to say if what I noticed had any consequence in her disappearance. She was a regular though, so it was odd not having her presence. Today she came back, bouncy and smiling, drawing the other kids to her as soon as she walked through the door. None of the other girls wanted to dance this morning, so it was just me and her, dancing to Beyoncé in the studio. I even taught her the “Cotton Eyed Joe,” which she absolutely loved. After class she said that class with me was always the most fun, and she wants to dance with me again before I leave next week. I wonder if she knows that it was me who turned her in.

During the “Olympics” day at the youth village, we rallied up some spirit to play for our blue team.

IV.

Yesterday at the Western Wall, I was asked for my number -- it was definitely not your average “pick up.” Walking backwards from the Kotel, I was stopped by a religious woman who asked if any of the girls around me spoke Hebrew. I responded that we spoke a little bit and could understand. “How do you feel about your Judaism?” she asks. Before I could respond that I was fine with it, she asks if she could help me become more religious. “Just a ten minute phone call, once a week,” she explains, “and I will help you become a religious woman.” My Hebrew vocabulary is sparse enough, and without the right words to respond to this woman, I awkwardly smiled and shook my head as I began to back away. “Please, just give me your number,” she begged again. With a quick “Shabbat Shalom” and uncomfortable wave, I walked away. Why did this exchange make me so uncomfortable? After all, she was just asking for my number, to “help me” in a way that she saw fit-- in a way that may or may not make me a better person. In all honesty, I don’t know what this woman’s ultimate goal was. Was my Judaism not suitable for her? Was the fact that I wore pants and showed my elbows by the Kotel offensive to her? I think I was bothered by the fact that she was imposing her values and her ways onto my life. Why, in her eyes, was I not free to practice my Judaism and pray the way that I saw fit? By the end of the day, I realized that I might just be a hypocrite. In the afternoon, we visited Geula, an ultra orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, to meet with one of the Rabbis there. I walked into that room knowing that I would be offended, prepared to hear words that would ignite flames of angry feminism, prepared to fight back at any comment that told me women and reformed Jews were lesser. And so, it was me who started the discussion.

Tal and I play with ridiculously large bubbles in the courtyard of the youth village.

I asked about the accounts of verbal and physical attacks on women in ultra orthodox neighborhoods, and about women’s role in the orthodox community. Immediately, the room was tangibly tense. I had set off a chain of questions about why women cannot read from the Torah, and why women had lesser roles of leadership in the community. He answered just as I had expected, with words about women being responsible for the house, the kids, and not having the obligation to read from the Torah. My favorite line was when he mentioned that women often do have a large impact in households and “wear the pants.” The irony of this statement flooded the room, as we had had a large debate over the fact that we were not allowed to wear pants to the visit to Geula. I left the talk flustered and upset. This man’s community treated women in a way that, in my eyes, took away a number of their rights. What about in their eyes? Do they see themselves as being deprived of certain rights because they lived in an orthodox community? There was no woman there for me to ask. Most importantly, however, was I trying to impose my values and my ways of life onto this speaker? Had I done exactly what had upset me earlier with the orthodox woman at the Kotel? Part of me thinks that I did, I had gone in to the Haredi neighborhood with certain expectations and a certain attitude- one, perhaps, of close-mindedness. At the same time, I still do believe to the core of my being that women not being able to make decisions or be leaders is a violation of rights and a life as a second class citizen. So who’s right? How do we move forward from here to live in a pluralistic and peaceful Israel? Is that even possible? V.

For 40 days and 40 nights now, we have wandered here, in this piece of Israel. We have fallen through the window-

The view from site of Ben Gurion’s tombstone in southern Be’er Sheva.

pane of milk and honey and into a more realistic picture of what this multifaceted place is really about. Two days ago I said goodbye to Tamra and Shoshana- I had made them a little plaque that said “Strength and Happiness” in Chinese and English (they love that I speak a little bit of Chinese). In Hebrew I wrote a note to them, reminding them to always use their inner strength and thanking them for all they have taught me. Shoshana read it first and collapsed onto my chest, with Tamra soon to follow. They tell me that they will miss me, that I shouldn’t go back to the United States… I hope to be remembered as that little bit of color and light during the summer of 2015 for them. What I will truly be to them, though, I have no ability to guess- maybe just a memory of dance classes with that girl who had the strange American accent. I wrote a note to Tal on the wings of a paper crane, letting him know that he has every ability in this world to fly, and to never let others around him prevent him from being who he is. He had a hard time letting go of me when we said goodbye.

these past 6 weeks working with the inner turmoil of this country. So, we sat, reflecting on discords of the past month and a half that we encountered within Israel, while looking at the ongoing conflict outside of Israel. It was funny; all of us, around the fire, a full circle from one our first nights that we camped out. We are still laughing, even now, and it’s hard to believe we have only known each other for six weeks. Six weeks of intensity – educationally, ideologically, and personally. We have supported each other in moments of instability, and I hope this connection does not end here. There is still much for us to learn, about conflict, about growth, about social justice, and about Israel, this place that we love. But at least I am beginning to no longer feel like a wanderer here.

Five weeks to volunteer is a short time, miniscule, at that, to be able to reach the vulnerable parts of people unknown to us. Somehow, I think we managed to reach these kids, even if it was in the smallest of ways. Last night we sat on the shores of the beaches of Ashkelon, kissing the edges of Gaza. From the distance you could see the city line, and the flares that expanded and popped silently in the dark blue of the night. What a strange juxtaposition; sitting in the peaceful calm of midnight while looking at a heavy conflict zone. Yet this odd contrast goes even further—we have spent

A natural aquifer, a maayan, filled with flesh nibbling fish, on an 104 degree day in the West Bank.

For the Love of Maps and Sugar Cane By Lillie Hodges The potential for maps in storytelling and analysis may not be obvious to those outside the discipline of Geography. As a senior Geography major and Middlebury Geographic Editor-in-Chief, I recognize my own bias in both cases. Modern mapmaking and geographic analysis changes the scale and depth of our ability to explore places and the people. Open source GIS technology makes it possible for a class of Middlebury College students to study the intricacies of land rights and population change in the developing world as easily as in Vermont. The following story of the Markala Sugar Project in Ségou, Mali comes from one such class. The story of the Markala Sugar Project in Ségou, Mali is one of conflict and discovery, with both local Markalan farmers and international investors seeking to set an example of a successful Public-Private agricultural partnership. The details of the project are unique to the landscape, yet the repercussions of their success or failure stretch far beyond the provincial borders. Since the early 2000s, Mali, among many other African countries, has eased the restrictions on direct-foreign investment in land, also known as ‘land-grabbing.’ These operations have been criticized for displacing smallholder farms and exposing already poor areas to risk of price inflation of their mono-crops. The Markala Sugar Project (MSP), finalized in 2007, was the first time the Malian government had leased land to a foreign entity since their independence in 1960. The MSP’s main objective is to enable Mali to be self-sufficient in sugar. For farmers on the property, the changes will be acute. Ségou province, bisected by the Niger river, is incredibly fertile and sparsely populated. Markala, on the north bank of the Niger River, was known for its relative food security – farmers there used the fertile earth and steady water supply to grow crops 1998 for local consumption. In winning the 50-year land lease, the MSP also took over the farmers’ water rights. Modern sugar cane production most often relies on circular plots with automated, rotating irrigation, techniques the MSP imported to Mali for the first time.

By reducing the majority of the farmland to a single crop, the MSP is vulnerable to both market fluctuations in the price of sugar cane and total crop annihilation if a persistent disease or pests were to hit. For the local farmers, the risks are more nuanced. Losing land to the MSP challenged both their independence and their ability to grow a variety of foods for their own consumption. The project’s proposed solution to these problems was to allow local farmers to grow vegetables for their own use in the areas between sugar-cane pivots. How successful was the MSP in maintaining local food security? Unfortunately, the Project was abandoned in 2012 because of political instability and violence at the hands of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), yet the project’s five years of operation paint an uncertain picture of local food security. Plants have unique spectral signatures captured in satellite data, and it is by “tagging” these unique concoctions of refracted light and thermal data that we can study how the make-up of these farms change over time. The tag for sugar cane has been studied across the world -- remote sensing is frequently used by land managers to study patterns of vegetation over time. Did the great expansion of mono-crop sugar cane cultivation negatively affect local subsistence farming? The results in Markala are inconclusive, as the data covered by satellite extended far beyond the Markala property borders. Yet the analysis hints at growth in subsistence crop cultivation in the region over a 10-year period. As the number of international agricultural projects continues to increase, it is important to remember the story of the Markala Sugar Project and its attempts to balance the interests of local farmers and international investors.

2009

Ségou province, Mali in blue - home of the Markala Sugar Project. Sugar cane seen clearly from space. (Left) Markala in 1998. (Right) Markala Sugar Project in 2009, circular sugar cane plots overtake local farmland and fill former brushland (Landsat satellite images).

Editor-in-Chiefs

Anthea Viragh Lillie Hodges

Senior Editors

Christian Johansen Lauren Alper

Editors

Alanna Brannam Bryce Belanger Cindy Xu Chloe Ferrone Lisa Mordkovich

Emma Hatheway Morgan Perlman Selena Ling Yvette Shi

Photo & Art Contributors

Amelia Miller Cordelia Prouvost Demetrius Borge Emma Cameron

J.P. Miller Lauren Alper Madeleine Raber Zhiwen Yao

Cartographers

Lillie Hodges

Advisors

Jeff Howarth

Halong Bay, Vietnam (Photo by Amelia Howard)

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Taj Mahal, India (Photo by Madeleine Raber) Back cover: Angkor Wat, Cambodia (Photo by Amelia Howard)