Spring 2015

MIDDLEBURY

GEOGRAPHIC

Spring 2015

Young Buddhist monk observing a festival in Ladakh, India (Anthea Viragh) Cover: Chefchaouen, Morocco (Forest Jarvis)

MIDDLEBURY

GEOGRAPHIC Spring 2015

. . . . . 6 . . . . . Pursuing New Heights

Morgan McGlashon

Grand Teton

Exploring Faerieland

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

David Yedid

Short Mountain Sanctuary, Tennessee

Finding Shota

. . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . .

Anna Carroll

Hot Springs, South Dakota

Powder, Patch, Ball – The Primitive Biathlon

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

Georgia Edwards

Middlebury. Vermont

Anthea Viragh

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

Levi Westerveld

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

Land of Ladakh Ladakh, India

New Spaces, Same Identities – A Story of Chinese Migrant Workers

Kunming, China

. . . . . . . . 32 . . . . . . . .

Isabelle Stillman Charles Dulik Bree Baccaglini

Jia Jun Lee

. . 43 . .

Nepal

Indian Thanksgiving

. . . . . 36 . . . . . . . . . 38 . . . .

Finding Apples in Nepal

Calcutta & Varanasi, India

In Transit: A Reflection on Syria’s Refugees

Za’atari Refugee Camp, Jordan

Mapping Contestations: Indigenous Land Resistance in Sarawak Sarawak, Malaysia

Christian Johansen

. . 46 . .

Discovering Zanzibar

Annalise Carington

. . 54 . .

Fire in Valparaiso Reveals Municipal Shortcomings

Zanzibar, Tanzania

Valparaiso, Chile

Krista Karlson Photo: Nick Spencer

. . 58 . .

Emerging from the Amazon Peru

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Chefchaouen, Morocco (Forrest Jarvis)

From the Editor: Middlebury students have a passion for knowledge of all varieties. We believe these pages are a testament to the careful attention our fellow students give to place and experience. The photographs, personal narratives, and academic work featured in this edition cover journeys all over the world — from the peaks of the Grand Tetons to the dusty roads of the Za’atari Refugee Camp. We are proud to present the thoughtful pieces 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 4

Our Contributors David Yedid ‘15

Dave is a senior Geography major. When not studying the intersections of rurality and queerness, doing homework or participating in Hillel and Queers & Allies, Dave enjoys dancing, road biking, writing letters, narrative journalism, raspberries, photography, trail running, and spending time with friends. His favorite place in the world is a Jewish Outdoor Adventure Camp in Colorado called Camp Ramah.

Anna Carroll ‘14.5

Anna spent J-term of 2014 in Fairbanks, Alaska as the recipient of the James M. Meyer grant, where she worked as a handler for an Iditarod musher. She wrote creative essays about the inspiring people she met, the northern lights, stinky salmon, and mushing dogs.

Levi Westerveld ‘16

Levi grew up in a Dutch family on a farm in rural France. He is interested in migration, identity, the visual arts, and spending time underwater or in trees. Levi has two life plans: first, to backpack and sail around our planet to record stories of people from different places through portraiture and second to start a suspended tree house school in the Bolivian Amazon Jungle to learn about local indigenous knowledge.

Isabelle Stillman ‘16

Isabelle is a junior English major. She spent the fall ‘14 studying in Kathmandu. In Nepal she trekked in the Himalayas, rode terrifyingly crowded microbuses, had a variety of encounters with cows, and came away with a greater appreciation for toilet paper.

Charles Dulik ‘17.5

Charlie is a sophomore Feb from Northern California majoring in Geography and Environmental Studies. He is also learning Portuguese and hopes to study in Brazil. In addition to travel, his interests include longboarding, television sitcoms and rap music.

Jia Jun Lee ‘15 Jia Jun is currently a senior Geography major.

He conducted independent research on indigenous land resistance in Sarawak, Malaysia in summer 2014 and will be presenting the resultant paper at the AAG Annual Meeting in Chicago later this year.

Bree Baccaglini ‘15

Bree is a San Francisco native studying Political Science and Arabic. She spent her junior year abroad in Amman, where she attended the University of Jordan and worked with Save the Children. In her spare time, she enjoys crafting, reading, hiking, eating pomegranates, and exploring new places.

Annalise Carington ‘15

Annalise is a senior biology major with a passion for understanding the natural world and our place within it. She has a technical science background but is fascinated by the intersection between science and the humanities, particularly the ways in which science is portrayed and understood.

Krista Karlson ‘17.5

Krista is a Sophomore Feb studying Environmental Policy. She loves outdoor adventures, good books and family time. Her happiest moment this semester was summiting Cascade Mountain in the Adirondacks after a fresh snow. Her favorite place on campus is the fifth floor Gifford tower at sunset.

Anthea Viragh ‘16.5

Anthea grew up taking photos with her mom and sister. 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 is currently abroad in Kunming, China for spring term, and will continue her study of Chinese in Beijing until September.

Christian Johansen ‘16.5

Christian, a proud native of the ‘Shire (Etna, New Hampshire), is stoked to be a part of Middlebury Geographic. He loves Vermont in all seasons and long walks on the beach.

Georgia Grace Edwards ‘18 Georgia is a first year student hailing from Frostburg, MD. On campus, she serves as a Senator with SGA and participates in Women’s Crew, College Tour Guides, Prajna, Midd Masti, GlobeMed, SNG, and Juntos.

Though she remains undeclared in terms of major, she is interested in minoring in both Spanish and Global Health.

Morgan McGlashon ‘16

Morgan is an avid and adventurous skier who contributed “Pursuing New Heights” for this issue.

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Pursuing New Heights

By Morgan McGlashon

Photo: Morgan McGlashon

O

ne starry June evening in 1971, the powder-seeking legend Bill Briggs strolled into the bar and told his friends he’d just skied the Grand Teton. Not surprisingly, no one believed him. No one had ever skied the Grand Teton.

with his father Charlie Thomas, friend H.J., and myself set out to summit and then ski the Grand Teton. However, we made sure to have a camera on hand so no one at the Stagecoach on disco night questioned our weekend excursion.

The next day, he recruited Virginia Huidekoper, from the local newspaper. She hopped in a small plane to fly over the Grand Teton and take an iconic photo of his ski tracks, headed straight off the summit and into Ford Couloir. The next night, when he returned to the bar, Briggs had proof of his accomplishment and made history in the world of ski mountaineering.

At 1 a.m., the duck ringtone on my phone started quacking, and I could hear Charlie outside moving around. Sawyer hit snooze and tried to go back to sleep while I struggled to open my eyes. It was hard to leave the warmth of my sleeping bag, thinking about the 3,000 vertical-feet yet to climb. The first couple hours of climbing would be in the dark. I knew we were on a time crunch if we were going to make the summit before it got too warm, so I gave Sawyer a nice shove and crawled out of my bag.

Since then, Garnet Canyon has seen not only the heavy traffic of eager climbers seeking the summit in the later summer months, but an influx of skiers in late spring following in Briggs’ footsteps. This past spring, my friend Sawyer Thomas, 6

The rain clouds from a few hours before had vanished and it turned out to be a cool, crisp May night. The stars were crystal clear from our perch at the bottom of Teepee Glacier.

myself in the middle so as not to fall behind. Consequently, as soon as I let Sawyer go ahead of me, the gap between us grew quickly. I was in the back, it was dark, and I was getting more and more nervous, moving slower with every step.

Negative thoughts began to consume my mind as I wondered if I was really cut out for this expedition.

Charlie and Sawyer were training for their upcoming trip to Alaska. I had decided to do this on a whim, my first weekend home from my first semester at college—basi cally right off the couch. Beginning to doubt myself, I could feel my throat swelling, my face getting hot, and I thought I might cry.

Suddenly, through the haze of my self-doubt, I realized we had made it to the top of the Teepee Glacier. I couldn’t believe it. Conquering the first major landmark gave me the energy I needed to keep moving. We ate a Clif bar and headed to the bottom of the Stettner Couloir.

I could make out the lights from town and smiled—waking up at 10,000 feet on the side of a mountain tends to have that effect on me.

I forced my feet into frozen ski boots, stuffed a few layers in my pack, and sat down on a rock while I tried to swallow a few bites of oatmeal and wait for Sawyer to make his way out of the tent to do the same. After securing our camp and filling water, we put on our crampons and began to ascend the glacier.

Until that moment, I had never used an ice axe for more than just a backup to control a fall on moderately steep snow field. Working our way up the icy, rock-walled couloir, I used every ounce of my physical strength to grip and swing my ice tools, reaching to the depths of my mental strength to trust they would hold me.

About halfway up, the sun began to creep above the horizon and around the edges of the couloir and my enthusiasm was ignited again, this time by the magnificent Teton sunrise.

“I could feel myself glowing as I took my first turns down the side of the mountain, the whole way thinking to myself, this is just how Bill Briggs did it.”

Right off the bat, the route grew steep enough that we each pulled out our second ice tool to continue up the glacier.

Knowing I was the slowest in the group, I tried to position

This lasted until we hit the melting ice. The temperature had not dropped low enough that night for everything to completely re-freeze. As we reached the steepest section of the Stettner, I shoved my ice tools into the running water, faced the fact I was going to be drenched, and began to work my way up the icefall.

By the time we made our way out of the Chevy Couloir 7

and into the Lower Ford Couloir, my spirits had deteriorated again and I was working really hard to keep my feet moving. Sawyer seemed to be a mile ahead, so I put my head down and started counting backwards in Spanish—a trick I use to kill time in my mental space while climbing— and pushed on to the summit.

Before I knew it, we were laughing and taking photos on top of the 13,775-foot Grand Teton. I smiled to myself, and tried not to be too enthusiastic for Charlie, who had likely been to the summit hundreds of times.

Clouds rolled in around us, so we quickly scrambled off the summit and began to make our way back down. I watched Sawyer click into his skis and begin making turns on the ridge, headed back towards the Ford Couloir. At that moment, the roller coaster of mental and physical strength it took to get to the top was all worth it because this is where I wanted to be.

ABOVE: Taking a break on one of the many forest trails of Grand Teton National Park.

LEFT: A view down the pass towards the valley.

RIGHT: Nearing the summit on a sunny day.

I am not much of a climber, and certainly not an ice climber, but I am a skier. This was what I was looking forward to the entire way up. I stood there for a moment to take it all in and swallow the butterflies. My vision of skiing the Grand Teton was nothing like I’d imagined.

It’s slow and calculated, a few turns at a time, a lot of rappelling—not quite like arcing powder turns off Cody Peak. The snow was rock solid, steep and hardly what I would call good skiing, but nonetheless, a huge grin spread across my face and I could feel myself glowing as I took my first turns down the side of the mountain, the whole way thinking to myself, “This is just how Bill Briggs did it.”

Faerieland’s kitchen in action

Exploring Faerieland

By David Yedid

As I made my way out of Woodbury, Tennessee, the pavement turned to dirt, the tree cover thickened, and I drove up the winding dirt road on what I assumed was the north side of Short Mountain. I had little idea of what this place would look like.

I came to a driveway, the first sign of human dwelling in miles, and parked my car. I walked downhill toward a picturesque log cabin with a porch surrounded by flowerbeds, solar panels, and a recycling center. I saw a hand-sewn flag with quilted letters spelling “Short Mountain Sanctuary.”

I was on a three-week solo road trip, visiting family and friends throughout the Midwest and South. I had heard of Short Mountain Sanctuary through a cookbook called Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Katz. When asking Sandor if I could visit, he said “Short Mountain is a sanctuary, come whenever you want.” I wrote them a letter (no one answered my call) asking if I could visit for three days. “Spiky” left me a kind voicemail encouraging me to come.

Short Mountain Sanctuary is a year-round spiritual community, one of many throughout the world, associated with the Radical Faerie movement. The radical faeries are an international network of queer people, mainly gay men, whose ideology is based on paganism, anti-capitalism, and anarchy.

They reject the patriarchal, materialistic mainstream gay culture. Radical faeries believe that queer people have a distinct spirituality and way of becoming, and therefore should live a distinct, alternative lifestyle. Out there on The Land of Short Mountain, there were no gay clubs, bars, or dating apps.

There were no twenty-something men working corporate jobs with six-pack abs dancing to Beyoncé. Instead, there was homemade sauerkraut, milking goats, bubbling creeks, casual nudity, worship altars placed throughout the surrounding forest, and huge mason jars of loose herbs for tea.

I left Asheville and drove three hours through the Smoky Mountains, the forests stoic and brown, just a week or so shy of blooming into spring. My GPS guided me through Woodbury, Tennessee. I was surprised by the number of roadside churches, especially considering the small population. Plant nurseries dotted the road, and I passed a man riding a horse, a rifle strapped across his chest. I was really in the South now.

10

I walked into the beautiful kitchen, filled with art and

extremely welcome, free, and happy. It was special to see gay men in a rural setting. I loved milking the goats, prepping garden beds, and washing dishes after the potluck.

As one resident shared with me, “You’ve all the ‘f ’s right here: food, forest, faerie faggots. What more do you need?”

Signs outside the kitchen photos on the orange, yellow and blue painted walls. A man in a long black skirt and an old red t-shirt was washing dishes at the sink. “Welcome, my name is Scarlet,” he said, and proceeded to give me a long, heartfelt hug. The greetings on the Land of Short Mountain were always intense and physical. As I continued to meet people during my first afternoon, I was greeted with a peck on the cheek, a long hug, and a few seconds of eye contact. It had a distinctly erotic energy, but I didn’t feel creeped out. Almost everyone who lived on Short Mountain during my visit had faerie names, like “Flair,” “Sister,” and “Indigo.” I went by “Dave” the whole time, but another visitor had taken a faerie name soon after I arrived. It seemed that you could reinvent yourself here.

There was a constant stream of visitors, and no one was expected to contribute anything to the community, unless you were able to pay a bit of money for food. It is a very simple place. All of the stewards of the Land live in shelters made of wood and cob, many without concrete foundations, running water, electricity, or heating. Old-fashioned wood-fired stoves fed by hand heated almost every shelter, except for “The Cabin,” where the kitchen, dining room, and library were. There were outdoor composting toilets, and a barn for goat milking and drag shows.

Short Mountain, like many faerie sanctuaries throughout the world, holds gatherings each year, one for Beltane on May 1st, and another for the Fall Equinox.

Gatherings focus on personal and communal renewal and celebration of interdependence, the natural world, and the divine goddess in all faeries. Businessmen could come for gatherings and dress in drag for a week, or simply walk around naked.

During my four days there, I felt

I sat through their three-hour family meeting; guests motioned to extent their stays, residents discussed financial bookkeeping and tuned in to where their hearts and spirits were. I was humbled by the level of respect and patience they all had for the process. “That is what anarchy looks like, I guess!” a resident shared after the meeting. This was the fringiest of the fringe, I thought.

My “real world” mentality prompted me to ask residents about health insurance, family acceptance, student loan debt, and incomes. Some were uninsured, had been cut out of families, while others were insured and maintained relationships off of The Land.

At the same time, I was inspired by the age diversity in the community, and how much wisdom and honesty everyone shared. The isolation of Short Mountain allowed them to create a parallel universe, one with their own norms and values, that were far different, and in some ways more resonant, than any community I had been a part of. I was very sad to leave the beautiful, kind spirits I had connected with. I knew I would return to the land of altars, wood-fired saunas, and distinctly queer, pagan energy I felt in such a short time.

I drove the winding road again, the dirt made way to pavement, and within thirty minutes I went from Short Mountain Sanctuary into the “real world” of square brick buildings, gas stations, and cell-phone service. I didn’t realize how far I really was.

Finding Shota

By Anna Carroll

In Hot Springs, South Dakota summer 2014, while working on a documentary film project, I found a dog. This is our story.

Sled dogs harnessed up (Anna Carroll).

In trying to find my nerve endings, I discover that departure moments are infinite.

The building is a run down double-wide trailer in Hot Springs, South Dakota. It stands in a lonely field, overcrowded with unwanted dogs, outside a town where the faded land never seems to meet the sky.

I want to find, or be found.

What draws me there really, I don’t know. Loneliness, perhaps. Defining them, defining me. Cripples, biters, mange puppies, runaway hound breeds, protruding ribs, broken teeth, twisted limbs, eyes that plead, eyes that snarl. They jump against their chain link prisons, beggars all of them.

Losses compiled, unsorted and chaotic. No creature is born abandoned, and yet here they are.

Take me, Pick me.

It strikes—the feeling of fate catching in crosshairs, of the surprising yet inevitable taking hold with iron certainty—for there she is, watching me from a corner; withdrawn, starved, silent, a husky mix with wolf genetics unmistakable in her sly frame and piercing gaze. She sits apart, alone and disinterested. Whatever search I’m on, it’s now over. She sits on her haunches, unmoving. She realizes she has been spotted and tension sculpts her gaunt frame. I take in her slate grey coat, the pale white on her legs, distinct triangular ears that point above intelligent and reproachful eyes.

She is unlike any other dog I have ever seen. She is not begging to be taken away. She stares through me, each eye telling a different story: one stunning pale blue, made of frag12

ile ice. The other one split down the middle, a swirl of white upon a liquid brown. She is of the earth. She is mystery and haunting. She is mine to save if I can. She whines and dips her head.

Metal rasps against metal as I free the latch and go into the pen. I wade past the others and dismiss them in quiet tones, with soft hands. I ask silently for their forgiveness because today will not be their day. Because I do not have the heart to tell them their day might never come.

She keeps wary eyes on me as I approach, but does not back away. When I crouch to her level, she flinches within herself. I hold out my palm. Her eyes skitter sideways, then up to me again. The gaze is fearful and unaggressive.

Hesitation deep in her eyes, then without making a sound or changing her expression, she extends her neck, places her chin in my hand and gives a sigh. In the weight of her head, I feel the weight of her heart. I whisper a soft reassurance; I whisper us far, far away.

This might jeopardize everything.

Whatever “everything” means.

The dog comes directly to me. I look down at her narrow body as she sniffs at my knees. Then as if she has decided something, she lies down at my feet. When I stop and turn around at the gate, about to leave, she trots out of the crowd of dogs.

I call Becky. Envision her. At five feet and 90 pounds, she is a straight-shooter no time for bullshit pistol. She leads FBI agents armed with AK-47’s into brothel rings to confiscate

panthers on gold chains. She loads emaciated tigers found in dog crates onto U-Haul trucks—wherever they need to go, she will take them. She never uses the word “friend” lightly.

She believes in a million acts of kindness. On a rough day she roars up in her purple box car SUV and throws it in park, handing out the window a blue cheese burger on a kitchen plate: “Here woman,” she says, “Eat something.” She rides her black mare bareback at sunset, drinks whiskey with me after we finish our barn chores, and sneaks her smokes with me behind the hay shed. We have a sisterhood, this woman and I. “Get the dog, Anna,” she says, two thousand miles away.

It’s a beautiful fucking mystery. Dogs pick us. Who knows why.”

“Yeah but I don’t have a plan.”

“You’ll make one. I’m gonna help you figure it out. It doesn’t matter whether you should or shouldn’t. Tell me what the dog is doing right now.”

“She’s laying at my feet.”

“Exactly. Pay Attention. You’re dog picked you. Whether he wants a dog or doesn’t want a dog or thinks he wants to live in New York City or doesn’t think you should get her, he just doesn’t want a dog without a plan—well I say fuck the plan, Anna. Nick always tells me the same shit, and I get it—a dog is just a dog to certain kinds of people. Some people are planners, Anna, and shit’s gotta make sense to people who are planners. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean face it, your man is logical. But at the same fucking time you and I aren’t logical. We feel, and then do.

Something pulled you into that place and made you find that dog. Something pulled you to her. The biggest mistake you could make is to ignore your gut. Regret is an ugly thing. The dog is right there and I’m on the other end of the line saying fuck it, take the dog, because that’s who you and I are as human beings.”

I have never been able to really do that—stop myself.

I find a rope, loop it around her neck, and take my dog out the door.

What other people call being impulsive; let’s name it fate.

Let’s name it everything happens for a reason.

I name her Shota, meaning “smoke” in Lakota, for she is grey and illusive. He doesn’t understand but pretends that he does. That first night she is mine, I find two bullets lodged into her neck, infected and oozing. I heat my knife with a lighter, then slice down into the layers of rotted skin. She does not make a sound. With tweezers, I reach into the mess and pull them out, twisted and foreign.

Motherfuckers, I say to the world.

She changes before my eyes. There is so much about her I do not know or understand. Her fear of tires. Loud voices.

Doing the wrong thing. Her coat sheds out butter-soft. Her gait is graceful. I come to know her as beautiful, vulnerable, and independent. She jumps on my bed once a day, in the mornings, to curl up against me. Then she is back on the ground in less than a minute, for she is mostly wolf and after all, a little bit wild.

She sleeps at my feet, her massive paw twitching as she journeys into far flung wildernesses, continuing her hunt for the elusive moose. When her eyes open, she looks for me then she flattens her ears in greeting. Her wolf song warbles and croons; this is how she calls me family. We trot into the woods, just the two of us, with him nowhere around.

We breath it in deep; this mountain air, for it is always pine scented and sweetest in the early mornings, the when everything gets to start fresh.

“Becky, you are a friend in billions.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Alright, I gotta go do this thing.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’m getting this dog, Becky. Thanks.”

At any one moment, we are immortal. This is because we never know when we will die. Picasso was the one who said that a great painting comes together, just barely.

She ain’t spayed, the lady in the shelter says. You can just take her for free.

I give her forty bucks. Feed some dogs, I say.

I don’t try to stop myself.

Shota’s eye (Anna Carroll).

Powder, Patch, Ball – The Primitive Biathlon

By Georgia Grace Edwards

“I

don’t think you’re ready for this gal yet,” Harley says to me as he places one of his many beautiful hand-carved muzzleloading rifles back on the rack. Actually, I don’t think I am quite ready for any of it. Sure, I’ve spent the majority of my eighteen years in Frostburg, Maryland – in the heart of Appalachia. In the land of beautiful mountains, simple lifestyles, deer bologna, and of course, camouflage dresses that appear at local high school proms: a reflection of the popular hunting culture. Yet despite my hometown’s traditions, I have never so much as held a gun. Not until now, anyway. And now, I have just eighteen days to become one with a gun.

“I think we had better stick to the 22,” Harley chortles. I agree, admiring the machine in my hands. This gun is smaller, lighter, quieter, easier to use, and, most importantly, harder to damage. After loading a few sleek bullets into the rifle, we leave the comfort of Harley’s toasty basement and instantly immerse ourselves in the wintry Vermont air. Harley walks in purposeful strides, his hands buried deep into the pockets of his jeans. I wonder how he can stand the cold without any gloves. But then again, he is a Vermonter. As a first-year student at Middlebury College, I guess I still have some adapting to do before competing in my very first primitive biathlon, just eighteen short days away. *****

Primitive biathlon. Primitive, as in the strict use of muzzle-loaded rifles and wooden snowshoes (the kind that work best as wall décor). Biathlon, as in the contest involving the combination of two athletic sports: rifle shooting and snowshoeing (not to be confused with the cross-country skiing of Olympic biathlons). Now in its 20th year, the 2015 Smugglers’ Notch Primitive Biathlon, which takes place deep in the Jeffersonville woods of Northern Vermont, is an event that is especially low on technology and high on tradition. This 14

is evident by the Daniel Boone period attire that appears every year without fail. And in just less than three weeks from now, I would be there among Daniel Boones of all ages to take a shot at the sport, so to speak.

In a New England primitive biathlon, competitors navigate on snowshoes through an approximately-2-mile-long course, stopping at four target stages along the way. The first three stages contain two targets, while the final stage displays three targets, for an additive total of nine shots. Targets can be as close as 20 yards and as far as 50 yards. The last three targets are usually the farthest away and therefore, the hardest to hit.

Course times are adjusted based on shooting accuracy scores, with each hit target usually subtracting five minutes from an entrant’s score. In this way, primitive biathlons are all about accuracy – about placement, precision, and patience. Whether I had any of these skills, I wasn’t sure. But I knew what I did have. I had the desire to return to my hometown roots, to the roots I had perhaps failed to explore due to my lack of knowledge and lack of appreciation for the sport of shooting.

And through a few seasoned biathletes like Harley, as well as the careful, understated, traditional art of primitive biathlons, I would do just that. ***** Two weeks to go. Danielle stands behind me, eagerly chirping words of advice. “Okay, great stance. Now, find your zone. Shut everything else out…it’s just you and that target.”

Danielle Rougeau, a shooting and primitive biathlon friend of Harley, has spent a lot of time in front of a target – hours and hours of practice for quite a few years now. But for me, it’s only been a few minutes, and my scattered array of bullets, all teasing the outermost circle of the paper target, are indicative of this.

After each missed shot, I follow her short, brisk strides back into Harley’s warm basement, where we re-load our muskets.

To Danielle, shooting is an art form. Kind of like the art that decorates her office walls in the Special Collections section of the Middlebury Library. Danielle would never tell you, but she is pretty darn good when it comes to primitive biathlons.

In the five years she has been involved with the sport, she has placed in the top three at almost every biathlon she has attended, which is somewhere around twenty-five biathlons in total. And after watching her nail a few shots in a row, it’s not hard to believe.

After about a week of training, Danielle has taught me a lot.

She has improved my stance, my focus, and most importantly, my confidence. She has shown me that shooting is more of an art than anything else. It requires a grace like that found in her log-rolling stance, and a focus on form, like that of the careful figures that line her office walls. You don’t have to be a long-time woodsman to compete in primitive biathlons. You just have to have the perseverance that Danielle maintains. The satisfaction I now feel when I take a good shot does not come from within, or from Danielle’s praise, but rather from the sound that follows -- her overwhelmingly pleased laugh ringing in my ears. ***** There’s something oddly calming about shooting a muzzleloader. I know that sounds crazy, given the deafening blast, the blinding black plume of smoke that follows and consumes the world, the harsh, stale smell of burning gunpowder, and the jolting kickback that I am never quite fully prepared for. Oh yeah, there’s also the fact that a muzzle-loader is a war machine invented for the sole purpose of killing men, and I’m yielding it freely in my arms. But it’s the discipline required to perceive all this -- to control all this -- that produces a calm awareness.

The set-trigger always shoots before I am ready for it. The cap-lock is only a few ounces more, but those extra ounces are enough to make me move on to the next rifle. We go back down the stairs to Harley’s basement. Descending into Harley’s basement is like walking back in time a few decades with each step. Past black and white photos of primitive biathlons, past the tan, flowery wallpaper straight out of a 1950s catalog, past the single bulb that lights the entire place, past the rows of giant wooden snowshoes hanging from the ceiling, and finally, right up to the rack of rifles that could’ve supplied an entire Civil War regiment. A waft of stale gunpowder hits my nostrils.

Harley bends down and hands me the flintlock. The flintlock is about as primitive as you can get after a matchlock, and that’s why Harley, his daughter Wendy, and Danielle all prefer this type of muzzle-loader. “We like to give all the caplocks a hard time.” Danielle laughs her laugh. “It’s kinda like cheating – it’s not as primitive.” Invented by the French in 1630, flintlocks were designed to push back the lid and spark a flint at the same time, solving a longstanding problem of the previous time-consuming manual process. The flintlock ignition system reigned for two centuries, with virtually no alteration.

And almost four centuries later, this is my rifle of choice.

Though perhaps more involved, the process of preparing a flintflock to shoot is one that I enjoy. It’s methodical, a little mantra in my head. “Powder, patch, ball.” After hearing that phrase countless times from Danielle and Wendy, I couldn’t forget it, even if I wanted to. The first step – powder – is perhaps the most satisfying. I take the pre-measured amount of powder, encased in a homemade newspaper packet, between my teeth, and listen to that satisfying riiiiiiiip as I bite off the tape at the top, forcefully spitting it to the ground. That step alone makes me feel pretty official – I like it. Next I fumble in all my zippered coat pockets for my ball starter, which is used to push the patch and bullet out of the blocks around my neck and into the barrel of the gun. Then the ramrod, another satisfying step. I quickly and seamlessly slide my hands up and down the smooth metal until the patch and ball are snug at the very bottom of the barrel.

I lift the gun, never forgetting to add two small pumps of primer into the pan, and then close the lid. I pull back the cock until I hear that click. Ready to go. ***** One week to go. I look down at my feet, which are encompassed by what I’m told are traditional snowshoes - I’d be more inclined to call them tennis rackets for giants made from entire trees. Snowshoes have been used for over 4,000 years, to explore new territories and hunt wild animals. And judging by the massive blocks of wood now strapped to my feet, I don’t think this pair of snowshoes has progressed much from those used 4,000 years ago. I can see that the word “primitive” is not used lightly in the sport of primitive biathlons. They’re supposed to making moving through the snow easier, by staying atop of it. But my rear end, now covered in snow from a fall, would probably beg to differ.

Then there’s my flintlock rifle. (Well, Harley’s flintlock rifle). As if navigating on clown feet for two miles wasn’t a task enough, adding a civil-war era gun to the equation while running tops it all off. I carry the single-shot muzzleloader straight up, remembering to “not get snow down the barrel” and to “glide” with my feet. Harley and Danielle have plenty of suggestions as I maneuver through the snow. They’re forgetting that they are, or have been, arguably two of the best primitive biathlon participants in all of New England. But this is my very first time on snowshoes, and only two weeks since I first picked up a rifle. If only my Appalachian friends could see me now. ***** Day of the competition. January 24th, 2015. I throw on my many layers, hop in the car, and am at Harley’s by 6 am.

I make the basement descent one last time, quizzing Harley and Danielle about the contents of their already-packed car. “Powder, patch, balls?! Ball-starters, ramrods, primers?

Snowshoes, guns…hand warmers?!” “We got it all,” Harley assures me, and trudges back out of the basement. We get into the car. Danielle, who is driving, lets out a “YIPPEE,” and just like that, we’re off.

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***** After a few naps and some nervous conversation, we are finally in Jeffersonville. I’ve decided that my goal for the day is to hit at least four out of nine targets. Other than that, I plan on relying on my youth for some speed that may put me ahead of some of the more seasoned, yet slower shooters.

We turn down one dirt, snow-covered road and a “BIATHLON” sign with a bright red arrow appears. And then I see the Daniel Boones…. One man is covered head to toe in the fur skins of fox and rabbit he has hunted himself, another sports the traditional “blanket shirt” of French explorers, and still another dons a colonial militia uniform that makes me do a double-take because I swear he’s George Washington. I know we’re in the right place.

After signing in, we decide to compete early in the day, while the snow is still untouched and the targets are still freshly painted in that bright orange. We unload the car, attaching the wooden torturedevices to our feet, packing all of our powder, patches, and balls, and prepping our guns. Daniel puts on her raccoon cap (a past primitive biathlon win), and I, my $5 Middlebury thrift shop furry hat find from the day before. It’s go time. As Ray Saloomey, the inventor of the primitive biathlon, counts down our start time, I hear distant gunshots echoing in the distance, Ray yells “GO!” and I’m off.

off – I’m fully embracing the primitive spirit, and no modern inconvenience like sweat is going to get in my way.

I re-focus, find the sight, line it up in the little v and then again with that darn skinny target. I take a deep breath, let half of it out, and BANG! The familiar black powder clouds my eyes and my nose as I release the second half of my breath, but I don’t need the judge’s call to know I missed that one. It just felt off.

I repeat the entire process, powder, patch, ball and all, but I still end up with another “O” on my scorecard. Danielle misses both her shots too, though, and I don’t feel discouraged yet.

The course continues like this. Sprinting, or at least trying to, past brambles and branches and hills and frozen streams and tree roots. Out of breath, sweaty, legs burning. Then station. Go through the mantra, relax, breathe, shoot. Then back to sprinting.

There is a camaraderie shared by primitive biathlon devotees across New England.

A camaraderie that welcomes participants of all ages and skill levels; a camaraderie that I was thrilled to be a part of.

I try to keep as close behind Danielle as I can, but a few slight inclines and I’m slipping and sliding all over the place.

Learning how to shoot was definitely an adjustment. And prancing around Harley’s woods in snowshoes last week had contained a learning curve, too. While helpful, neither of those experiences could have ever fully prepared me for this.

After what seems like a good three miles, we finally arrive at the first target station. I spot three long, skinny orange targets hanging vertically through the undercover.

Darn it. I hate those vertical targets. They’re the worst. Every biathlete has their favorite shaped target, and then the target shape that they dread, and for me, this is it. “Which target are you going for?” the volunteer station judge asks me. “I’ll take the second one from the left,” I respond. I take off my gloves, which, despite the snow and sub-freezing temperature, don’t seem to be necessary, given the sweat dripping off every square inch of me, soaking layer after layer. I raise my rifle, put my two pumps of primer in the pan, close the lid, pull the cock.

Cheek to the barrel, I tilt my head, causing my sweaty hat to shift down into my eyes. Damn this hat! But I can’t take it 16

I end up nailing my next four shots, which are my favorite circle targets, placed at two different distances at the next two stations.

It’s a good feeling to hear that little PING! as the bullet smashes into the orange steel, and to see the target waving back and forth, almost a congratulations in itself. It’s also a good feeling to hear the judge yell “Hit!” and to see some giant “X’s” on my scorecard. And, of course, to hear Danielle’s “YIPPEE!” after each hit target.

At the final, fourth station, I’m not so lucky. But neither is Danielle. I smile as I shoot my last miss, all six neat little rhombuses remaining perfectly still. I’m too proud and excited to care, though, and I stuff my scorecard into my pocket. I take off full speed ahead for the finish line, just ten yards away.

I make it about three steps, though, and I’m sprawled out in full superman fashion, face full of snow. It’s funny – I had heard about falls, and Danielle and Wendy had both given me stories about their single epic career falls, and I had thought about falling the whole way throughout the course. But once I made it to the final station, I thought I was in the clear, and all precautions to avoid falling had slipped my mind. I untangle my cumbersome footwear and spring right back up, glad that I haven’t damaged Harley’s gun. Huge smile on my face, I cross the finish line, running, though perhaps a tad more cautiously than a few seconds before.

“53:09!” Ray calls out my time. And with four hits, I subtract twenty minutes from that time, giving me a final time of thirty-three minutes and nine seconds. Also known as fifth place in the women’s division. *****

We spend the rest of the day conversing with all the characters – I have a really great conversation with “George Washington,” who tells me about his recent run for the Vermont State Legislature as an Independent. I buy some moose-venison chili, meet the man who built Danielle’s rifle, clean Harley’s gun out, and talk with Ray about the event he created.

I go around the course one more time, just for fun. And you know what? I hit that darn skinny, vertical target on my very first try.

Harley and Danielle approach, arms around each other, laughing. Harley in his red fabric French explorer coat, Danielle in her raccoon hat. I know I’ll have a whole car ride to reflect on the experience, but there are only two initial thoughts that come to mind as I sit there, watching them.

One: How lucky I am to have been taught by such talented, patient, fun people. Actually, how lucky I am to have been surrounded by people of this nature all day. I remember Wendy telling me when we first met, “It’s all about the camaraderie.” I had asked her what her favorite part of primitive biathlons was.

I didn’t understand fully what she meant by that until now.

Harley had stopped on the course to chat with an old friend for a few minutes, and when I had stopped to fix a snowshoe, two different biathletes with far more experience than myself had stopped to ask if I was okay. Danielle refused to leave a station until she had thanked every volunteer judge present, and when I had a misfire my second time around the course, a judge stopped what he was doing to unplug my vent hole.

These small details, which I hadn’t noted until now, were what Wendy was referring to. A camaraderie shared by primitive biathlon devotees across New England. A camaraderie that welcomes participants of all ages and skill levels; a camaraderie that I was thrilled to be a part of.

Two: “Powder, patch ball.”

I think I would be hearing that sequence in my head for a long time to come. ***** Danielle and Harley had slipped into the car without my noticing, and as she started the engine, Danielle turned around in her seat and winked at me. “YIPPEEE! So, are you coming with us to the primitive biathlon next weekend?”

I surprised myself with an, “Of course!” without even thinking it over. Maybe it had taken going away from Appalachia to become more Appalachian -- more aware and fond of the art of shooting.

Geogria posing pre-race with her gear.

LAND OF LADAKH

BY ANTHEA VIRAGH

Leh, Ladakh ~ Northern India Ladakh or land of high passes, is a region in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, is situataed between the Karakoram mountains and the Himilayas.

Ladakh

Leh Jammu & Kashmir

India

Map by Lillie Hodges

Children washing their hair in Turtuk, Ladakh

Dried apricots in Turtuk, Ladakh 20

Turtuk, Ladakh

River valley in Turtuk, Ladakh 21

Leh, Ladakh

Mother and baby in Turtuk

Camels crossing a mountain pass

Working on the mountains, Ladakh 24

Buddhist monks preparing for a ceremony

Temple ceremony Ladakh 25

New Spaces, Same Identities A Story of Chinese Migrant Workers

By Levi Westerveld

I

n December 1978, the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Deng Xiaoping launched a series of economic reforms (known as gaigé kāifàng (改 革开放 ) in Chinese). Some of the most significant newly implemented measures were the decollectivization of agriculture and the opening up to foreign investments. The establishment of this new economic structure based on market economy principles emphatically drew the line dividing China’s rural and urban landscapes. In urban areas, particularly coastal future megacities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, foreign investment stimulated the local economy – wages of residents increased and living conditions improved. Yet, these economic reforms were ineffective in alleviating problems in the lives of China’s huge rural population. While coastal cities were growing into future Londons, and New Yorks, rural China was and still is waiting.

With the desire of improving their lives, millions of Chinese farmers have been migrating to fast developing urban China – new hubs of capitalism and free market. Since the end of the 20th century, the number Chinese migrant workers (known as floating population or liúdòng rénkou ( 流动人口) in Chinese) has been increasing. Reaching 230 million people in 2011, China’s floating population adds up to 17% of China’s total population – making their annual journeys the greatest migration of people in the world’s history. The migration happens on two different scales. At the national scale, farmers move from central China to the east coast’s urban centers. At the provincial scale, farmers from rural areas move to their province’s capital or other provincial fast developing urban spaces.

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No matter if we take the economic, social, or cultural perspectives, rural and urban China are very distinctive spaces. Whereas cities like Shanghai embody a super-capitalist, western way of life, parts of rural China still consider electricity a luxury. Thus, it is hard to imagine what it is like for a Chinese farmer to be forced, out of need, to become a migrant worker and to move between these two different worlds. Maybe, it is the first time that he takes the train.

Departing from his family’s land with little money and a few clothes, he leaves his life behind for a new one. Hours or days later, he arrives in Shanghai’s railway station or Guangzhou’s underground bus terminal – some of China’s most crowded places, without really knowing what comes next.

They see so many cars, lights and people for the first time, and they hear street vendors shouting over an unstoppable background of honking taxis. They smell the dark exhaust of buses as they accelerate to get to the next stop, and observe stress on every street and in everyone’s eyes. That is how I had imagined the first day of a farmer in a Chinese city.

I had a chance to fill in the blanks of my story in China during the fall of 2013 when I was studying geography at Yunnan University in Kunming, a Chinese second tier city.

At Middlebury I had already had an opportunity to deepen my knowledge about the geography of migrant workers. But physically being in China gave me the chance to approach and interview them and uncover the real stories behind the Chinese rural exodus. What were their reasons?

How did their lives change? Are they happy? Happier? As they move between the very contrasting rural and urban spaces, I originally assumed that migrants’ definition of their own identity would face some changes, be contested,

Qin and Huang to abandon their farmer’s life and move to Kunming. They married a few years later in 2005, and their first child was born not long after. Their son is now 7 years old and goes to an elementary school in the city. Like most of the other migrants’ children, the couple’s son cannot afford to attend the better but more expensive public schools. Their second child, a girl, is still in Xuanwei where she lives with her grandparents. Qin and Huang have not seen their daughter for almost a year now, but they hope she can come to Kunming in a few months; this way she too will be able to receive a better education.

or even profoundly transformed. I thought that to integrate into urban society, Chinese migrant workers would have to relinquish some of their farmer’s identity and trade it for a partially assimilated townsman or townswoman’s identity. The reality is all so different. Based on existing research and my own interviews, I found that an overwhelming number of migrants have a very clear idea of their own identity: while they live and work in the city, they do not regard themselves as urban citizens but still entirely conceive themselves as farmers. * * * I am walking down Qianju Street. Bus 54 is racing up in zigzags between cyclists, scooters, and honking taxis. In front of me a group of cheerful children in school uniforms are walking back to their homes. Sitting on my left is an older man who plays a traditional Chinese string instrument called the jīnghú. I notice him everyday as I stroll by, the tranquility of the man stands out in this turbulent environment. Another two hundred meters and I will arrive at the local food market.

I turn left, pass an ordinary restaurant, circumvent a family driving on their electric scooter, and there it is: mangos, pomelos, melons, apples, bananas, pears, chestnuts, walnuts, 等等 are pilling up arranged by size and quality. Behind the fruits are the vegetables. After the vegetables the meat stands, and in the rear of the market are the fish still swimming in the accommodated basins.

At the end of the first series of stalls I meet with two migrants selling clementines and steamed sweet corn. Qin Jianjun (秦建军) and Huang mei (黄梅) are originally from Xuanwei in northwest Yunnan and moved to Kunming in 2001. Their children’s education was the principle reason for

Across from the busy street a young woman is selling shoes and dresses in a small shop. I often see her sitting outside observing people and life as it passes by.

Her name is Zhang li (张黎), 19 years old. She comes from a rural town situated in the south of Sichuan (四川). Sichuan is the province north of Yunnan; it is also the province that has the largest outflow of migrants in China. Zhang was 2 years old she moved to Kunming with her parents who were eager to find a less tiring job. Since the family arrived in Kunming 17 years ago, Zhang has not gone back to Sichuan. She has no farming experience, and yet when I ask her how she would describe herself she tells me without hesitating: “I am a farmer.”

When I query her opinion on locals she asks me to wait until two clients leave the shop. She then says: “when they speak the local dialect I do not really understand. Some of them are a little weird too; they will buy meat for their dogs and cats but they cannot afford any for themselves.

They treat their pets like their own children. People do not act the same in Sichuan.” As a foreigner I cannot grasp the difference that Zhāng so strongly senses between her hometown in Sichuan and Kunming. Even though she has spent nearly all her life in Kunming, she does not feel she fits into the local landscape. I am surprised that Zhang, who only spent the 2 youngest years of her life in Sichuan, speaks so vividly about it.

To understand why Zhang and in fact the majority of other migrant workers do not feel they belong in the city, it is important to realize that Chinese cities are divided spaces. On one side are the locals, and on the other side are the wàidì rén (外地人), or outsiders. The division is visible at all scales. Even a simple map of Kunming reveals the spatial separation between these two groups. In Chuanfang (船房), a community in the southwest of Kunming, there reside only 4300 local people but there are between 80 to 90 thousand migrants. This heterogeneous distribution

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was no longer fulfilling its initial role.

An “illegal” migrant in the city has only limited access to working, medical, welfare, housing, and education rights. Under these circumstances, Chinese migrants have thus become a highly exploitable and very cheap labor force. There have been numerous analysts attributing much of the recent Chinese economic success to the national household registration system and its significant success in producing over two hundred million highly exploitable workers.

Interviewing migrant workers at the market (Levi Westerveld)/ of locals and migrants reflects the economic inequalities: migrants tend to cluster in cheap, illegal, and unsafe housing such as the ones in Chuanfang. The existence of this spatial separation is further strengthened by a general unwillingness of members from both groups to interact with each other, an unwillingness fuelled by diverse factors such as the communication barrier growing from migrants and locals speaking different dialects. During one of my interviews, a migrant who worked as security guard at a public school told me that he did not feel at ease in the home of a local. “My outfit, my shoes, my background, my culture, they all don’t fit the apartments of local people” he says: “I don’t feel welcome in that environment. I only interact with them when I have to, when I work, but it stops there.”

The main culprit behind this social and spatial urban division is the Chinese household registration system, or Hùkou (户口) in Chinese. China’s government established this new system in the late 1960s in order to better control population flow. From then on, every Chinese is, according to birthplace and family background, assigned to either the agricultural or non-agricultural status. Before the 1978 Reform and Opening up many migrants were actually sent back to their rural homes from the cities because their household registration status was “agricultural.” This way Chinese cities would not become overly crowded, and rural China would keep a necessary labor force to work on the farms. After 1978, the function of the household registration system changed. To fulfill the need of a large workforce in the fast developing coastal cities, Chinese officials turned a blind eye on illegal migrants working in cities with the agricultural status. There were good reasons why the Chinese government did not choose to simply abolish this law that 28

It is sometimes possible for migrants to change their household registration status from the agricultural to the non-agricultural status, but the process is tedious and selective – reserved to the wealthier and better educated. The ones unable to change status are subjected to the manifold consequences of this law. Economically speaking, the average income of a migrant worker is three times less than that of a local resident. Moreover, most migrants can only find employment in the 3D sector: Dirty, Demanding, and Dangerous.

From a social perspective, for employment and economic safety in the city, migrants rely on a unique social network of migrants coming from the same hometowns.

From a cultural standpoint, because migrants work, eat, and sleep only surrounded by relatives or individuals from their hometowns, a cultural bubble is created in which communities of migrants can keep their own religious, linguistic, culinary, and other cultural landmarks. Thus, the household registration system remains the structural force in place alienating migrant workers from the urban society at the economic, social, and cultural level.

Wang Guofa (王国 发) is the exception that confirms the rule. Coming from a rural town in the North of Guizhou (贵州) (Guizhou is the province east of Yunnan province),

he tells me that he feels half farmer and half urban citizen.

According to him his sense of personal identity was affected by his economic situation.

Wang is self-employed as a wood carver, and with an average income of 5000 RMB a month he earns significantly more than most migrant workers. He tells me that he even has time to go hiking with friends, friends whom he proudly says are from all backgrounds: Chinese and foreigners, locals and migrants. For Wang, being successful economically meant locals conceded his belonging to Kunming’s landscape and enabled him to broaden his social network. His many friends also had an impact on his own cultural identity. He now believes his two children should marry who they want and study what they are interested in; viewpoints which he says are not common in his hometown. But more importantly, Wang’s household registration agricultural status has lost all its meaning for him. He says that agricultural or non-agricultural status “are all the same thing.” Nonetheless, for most migrant workers, agricultural or non-agricultural statuses are not the same and keep playing a primary role in their day-to-day life and long distance future.

Economically speaking it could lead to a disaster.

What would happen in Guangzhou to the 420,000 migrant workers employed by Foxconn, a multinational electronics manufacturing company, if they suddenly had working rights? Would prices of our iPhones and iPads suddenly increase? Or would Foxconn and other multinational companies move to different places that offer a more exploitable workforce?

As I walk back up the Qiánjú Street, I see all these people who have left their farmer’s life in the hope of finding a better one in Kunming: the servant working in the ordinary restaurant and the workers with their yellow helmets that she is serving, the taxi driver who passes by and the man at the street corner who repaired my shoe for 3 RMB this morning, the old couple that sells dumplings outside of the Yunnan University, and the security guard that sits in front of the hotel I stay at. Most foreigners do not notice that they all come from very different places. They seem to all fit too well in this urban landscape. Yet when you ask them, they will tell you they do not.

* * * Over the last decade, because of pressure from diverse parties, minor changes have been made to the household registration system. Most notably (and recently), during the CPC’s Third Plenary Session that took place in November 2013, changes were made to give individuals from both agricultural and non-agricultural status equal rights in third-tier cities. But the Chinese government still hesitates to give full rights to migrants in the bigger second and first-tier cities.

LEFT: Interviewing migrant workers in a sweatshop in Kunming.

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Portraits of Chinese migrant workers

OOO MAATHI: FINDING APPLES IN NEPAL

BY ISABELLE STILLMAN

In Nepal, there are two places to go: “oooo maathi” and “oooo tala.” When my aamaa goes up the hill to buy apples, she goes oooo maathi, not “to the market.” When my baa goes downstairs to work in the family store, he goes oooo tala, not “to the store.” I’ve been oooo maathi and oooo tala a lot – about as many times as I’ve stood up. But I’ve always wondered if it wouldn’t be easier for me to actually identify where I’m going – school, a restaurant, the Himalayas. But, as the Nepalis do, I just keep going oooo.

Even from Tukche’s 8,000-foot-high streets, most things are oooo maathi. Behind the teahouse on the main street of town, a dusty rock trail leads up through a crease in the pahaaD (rocky mountain), grooved into the mountainside as if an open-fingered hand dragged through the soil from town to the ridge above. Walling the path are almost-vertical earth embankments studded with rocks – big and small, smooth and sharp-angled, charcoal and faint orange and shiny mica, in a busy but orderly pattern; the mural they form could hang on the wall of a museum – Artist: Nature. Along the path, tree trunks clench the ground with kinking roots, round balloons of wood bursting out at their bases. They grow sideways first, then curve toward the sky, creating benches for uphill-climbing farmers to rest or tie a shoe. Their leaves flicker in the wind – long leafy green fingers and small yellow 32

ovals and round orangeing umbrellas and crispy green pine needles. It looks like they trees come from all over the world, a hodgepodge of plants from windblown seeds, their parents continents away. But they match, simply.

Up and up we climb, stepping over a thin black tube that carries water from the himal (snowy mountain) down to the homes below, and up a staircase carved from a fallen tree trunk. At the top of the stairs, the ground flattens and we can see the three crests of Nil Giri peak and the Kali Gandaki River’s strands below, woven across the valley floor like locks of hair splayed out to dry in the sun. Apple trees, the shape they are in children’s drawings, march in thick rows to the edge of the shelf of land. Stringy bean plants drooping with age cover the ground. We are in an orchard 8,500 feet in the air.

We kneel to pick beans. The pods hang down from the stalks as if they are trying to bury themselves into the dirt; each plant, tangled as a bird nest, has one or two pods, some plump and finger-sized, some scrawny like a chili pepper.

Inside, the beans are bright pink and purple, white-speckled and shiny like blown glass. Some, from browner pods, are chewy. They taste like any bean does, just cooked in cold air. aalu, potatoes, sleep in the ground, their brown skin blending

Tukuche, Manang region, Nepal.

with the dirt. Most of them are not ready to be picked, content to stay wrapped in their earth blankets a few weeks longer.

The apple trees look like over-decorated Christmas trees, their branches curving earthward at the ends, heavy with clusters of fruit. Some of the apples are bite-sized, and we eat them accordingly, spitting out the seeds. Some are almost too big to hold in one hand. They are green and pink and orangey and red and watercolored. Aamaa points us to her favorite – so dark red they are almost navy. “Khannus,” she says, and we do. We eat one, and then another, 4, 5, 6, 10 – so many apples we stop rinsing them with our filtered water, like we foreigners are warned to do. Some are more tart, some are more juicy, but all snap off in perfect crisps, and taste of the Himalayan snow they grew from. We decide the best are the light yellow ones, with small greenish speckles and one curve blushed with pink.

We hike oooo maathi, to a field a level up – more apples, more beans, and the little cap of Tukche Peak over the ridge to the West. oooo maathi from this field is another, and oooo maathi from that, a rusty-wheeled water pump in a small grassy patch on the flat top of a cliff. We lean over. ooooooooo tala, a waterfall hits the ground and carves glistening snakes through the silt and gravel of the valley. We follow the waterfall up with our eyes, tracing it through a groove like the one we first climbed, all the way to the top of the pahaaD. Halfway up, a suspension bridge dangles from one side of the groove to the other. Baa watches us watch. When he catches our eyes, he points without his lips – we’ll go over the bridge.

He leads us to a trail dug into the side of the hill. Pointing up, farther than we can see, he says, “yaks. Chaar saya.” Four hundred yaks live on top of that ridge – a two-hour walk oooo maathi. As we walk, the trail gets narrower, the mountainside steeper, the waterfall’s rush louder. We round a bend, the waterfall comes into view, and the cliff we are hugging is suddenly vertical. Straightening its waterfall spine and stretching out its sediment skin, the mountain has perched us on one of its ribs to look straight down at the grey-veined tops of its feet. We curve around the rib cage: over sideways tree trunks and under slanting rock faces, slightly off-balance the whole time, hillside hands gripping roots and branches and grasses, cliffside eyes peering down and up to make sure the valley is still below and the mountains are still above – yes, you are here, I am here, here we are.

“I am cold but not uncomfortable, and something about this combination seems new. I think maybe it is a side effect of oooo maathi – that oooo maathi is more than just a destination.”

Around us the pahaaD and himal are painted with sunlight and minerals – red and blue and white and green. To the south, clouds amass where Dhuala Giri stands, hiding the giant peak. We stand at the edge of the field and look out. Even with the closed curtain of clouds, we can tell we are sharing the space of Big Things.

We reach the bridge, strung like Jacob’s ladder between the hands of the hill. The first step is hard – we think maybe this is too oooo maathi for us – the second is easier – it doesn’t bounce as much as we expected – and by the third and fourth the hard part is not willing the next foot forward, but willing our eyes to stay focused on our steps, our feet to stay steady on the planks, instead of losing our balance gaping at the other-worldly scene in which we’ve become tiny characters; the challenge is understanding that this pocket of air we occupy, encircled by the momentum of these mountains, 33

shouldered by the exhales from these trees – that this is a real place. Here exists, and we are suspended in the middle of it. oooo maathi makes perfect sense – how else can you describe this place and this feeling?

wide across their backs, hanging from rags across the crowns of their heads. They too wear rubber shoes. Cows stand around the bridge to town and as we approach they turn in unison and head back toward home. We follow.

The challenge is understanding We reach the other side In town, I pull my hands out and grab the leaves that greet us my sleeves to greet someone that this pocket of air we occupy, of and feel them on our fingertips and realize they are bright red, my encircled by the momentum of fingers nearly immobile with cold, and confirm – reality. When we have all crossed, baa points with these mountains, shouldered by my cheeks icy hot with windburn. his lips again – we’ll go back to I am wearing just a t-shirt over my the exhales from these trees – kurta in the mountain-chilled air. I town, oooo tala. He laughs at our astounded eyes and gaping mouths am cold but not uncomfortable, and that this is a real place. as we look back at the bridge. His something about this combination hands are tucked in the pockets of his brown jacket and he seems new. I think maybe it is a side effect of oooo maathi – wears rubber house shoes that make our hiking boots feel that oooo maathi is more than just a destination. clownish. He does this walk often.

On a gravel road we make switchbacks down the pahaaD, dust billowing twice our height behind us. We pass porters with baskets of corn stalks or apple boxes balanced

Tukuche, Manang region, Nepal.

PHOTO BY ANTHEA VIRAGH

Indian Thanksgiving

By Charlie Dulik

Views of Varanasi from a boat (Teddy Knox)

Bantu-ji, my handlebar mustache-rocking program director from Uttar Pradesh, notices my food consumption slowing down and gestures for me to eat more of our communal assortment of snacks.

Giving up on blending in for the moment, I try and bring up how good turkey is this time of year. Bantu-ji laughs me off, and I get a good look at his red-stained smile, a product of his incessant consumption of paan, a chewing tobacco-like substance derived from the betel nut. I’m not sure how much he knows about the seasonal eating habits of Americans. I check my watch and see that it’s 8 a.m. now, a few hours into our journey. After some quick math, I realize both that this is an optimal hour and that I have enough minutes on my phone plan for me to call my siblings, who have all congregated in Washington D.C. for the holiday.

We’re in a sleeper car on an express (16-hour) train from Kolkata (Calcutta), journeying back to our base city of Varanasi (Banaras). Each of the six people in our compartment have horizontal beds on which to rest.

Three beds are stacked on top of one-another on either side of the compartment, with about three feet of vertical space between each one. They aren’t wholly uncomfortable, but after more than half a day of being barely able to sit up straight, most sleeping arrangements short of tempurThey’re separated by the pedic mattresses become stressful. barrier of geography, and Bantu-ji and I have the worst draw, each of us on the middle beds, consequently the realities sandwiched between four strangers. of India are impossible to

I meander through the packed train, passing by conversations I don’t understand and sneaking glances out of the windows of other compartments. I find an empty section of the train that connects two cars. A door is open and the viscerally comprehend.

He has chosen to further landscape whipping by me suddenly sandwich himself against the wall becomes much more real, the colors in order to display our Thanksgiving cornucopia to me. no longer dulled by tinted windows, the wind no longer We mostly have snacks from Haldiram’s, an Indian snack deflected by the train’s walls. company, but in addition to our Masala Bhujia, Kashmiri Mixture and Moong Dal we have Lay’s and Oreo’s. As India can be surprisingly flat, yet seeing mile after the only white person in the compartment, I feel a need mile of agriculture somehow still maintains the vibrancy to assert my commitment to cultural immersion, and the country is known for. Looking out, it’s easy to unreach only for the Indian snacks. Nobody notices. derstand why the lifeblood of all of this land, the Ganges 36

River, holds such an exalted position in Hinduism. The fields of green rice paddies, blurring into continuous lines stretching to infinity, are brighter than I remember any grass from home. The always clear, bold blue sky juxtaposes strongly against otherwise commonplace yellow soil. It’s difficult for me to remember similar direct exposure to rural environments during travel in the United States, but then again most of my extended travel at home is by plane.

landscapes. In the end they’re not here, they’re separated by the barrier of geography, and consequently the realities of India are impossible to viscerally comprehend.

Yet I can’t begrudge them, because I’m no scholar with supreme cultural insights, just a guy who got on a plane and flew here. Though I can see this culture untinted, there will still always be a barrier between myself and it, just like there always will be between Bantu-ji and Thanksgiving.

My siblings successfully answer the phone after two dropped calls and not much besides our mutual excitement is decipherable over the howling wind. I decide that I value my isolation over easy conversation and stay put. When I tell them Kolkata has better subways than New York, they laugh with the same incredulity that Bantu-ji exhibited towards turkey.

I return to my seat and Bantu-ji immediately offers me more snacks. I respond with a joke about Native Americans’ generosity to pilgrims, and he politely chuckles before ignoring my opinion and handing me more food. Maybe it’s an effect of how vast and awe-inspiring the landscape here is, or maybe it’s something inherent to the Indian ethos, but genuineness seems present in every moment. Irony, even about fallacious colonial nomenclature, feels as out of place as I realistically am.

Genuineness on both sides of a relationship doesn’t magically dissolve the walls of cultural differences, but it does make them less important. I accept Bantu-ji’s offer of snacks and dig into our Thanksgiving breakfast.

It’s almost as if they are culturally still in a train compartment, looking out on India passing by. To them, Kolkata exists conceptually. They see a version of this part of the world, tinted by my e-mails and pictures in the same way the window tints my view of the passing

Lunch at Varanasi’s train station seen from the platform (Teddy Knox)

In Transit: A Reflection on Syria’s Refugees

By Bree Baccaglini

A young boy walking past a shop (Bree Baccaglini) I sat in a converted caravan, a ring of girls huddled close around me. It was a seventh grade geography classroom, and their ustaza (teacher) had stepped outside. As the girls jostled to braid my hair, I asked them what they missed most about home. They spoke of their country, their eyes wild with love and longing. People mentioned friends, family, school, home, but it was the young girl on my right who made the comment I won’t forget. She nodded animatedly and exclaimed, “we miss even the soil of Syria.” During my two months working in Za’atari, I came to appreciate the truth she spoke: for a displaced people, the soil of their home is inseparable from their soul.

Za’atari Refugee Camp, home to those young girls, sits in Jordan’s Mafraq Governorate on a swath of 550 hectares of desert, just under ten miles from the Syrian border. The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees established the camp in July 2012 in response to the violence ravaging Jordan’s northern neighbor, Syria.

The origin of Syria’s war was a dream of revolution. We’ve come to know this dream as the Arab Spring of 2011, when millions of citizens in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria rose up in response to a host of political and societal woes: dictatorship, unemployment, poverty, human rights 38

violations, to name a few. The tragic reality is that the Arab Awakening largely failed to give way to a new governance paradigm in the Middle East, and instead precipitated violent military crackdowns and widespread civil unrest. While the “Arab Winter” that followed those many months of unbridled optimism in 2011 is perhaps nowhere colder than in Syria, a nightmare of repression has replaced a dream of revolution in many countries in the Levant and North Africa. On the third anniversary of the revolution earlier this year, boys and girls at the camp dropped their pencils and ran into street, where protests against Bashar al Assad were underway. Though Bashar’s regime is out of sight, it certainly isn’t out of mind.

Understanding the basic outline of Syria’s conflict is critical for appreciating the state of its refugees today, who, everywhere they go, bring with them memories of their nation’s brutal unraveling. The revolution in Syria began in March 2011, when police arrested schoolboys in Dara’a for writing defamatory slogans about Bashar al Assad’s Ba’athist regime. One of these boys now lives at Za’atari, and people talk in hushed tones about the torture he and other boys endured. And he was just the tip of the iceberg: the regime responded to the subsequent months of civilian protest with heavy-handed military crackdowns, and by the middle of 2012, the situation had escalated into a state

of sectarian civil war. As inflows of cash, arms, and personnel from the Gulf and Iran swelled, Syria evolved from a stage for domestic unrest into a theater for regional power contention.

This power jockeying has, and continues to leave, an ugly trail of human suffering. In August, the UN put the death toll at 191,000, and in September, UNHCR registered its third millionth Syrian refugee. Inside Syria, more than 6.5 million individuals are classified as internally displaced, and millions more are unable to access basic services due to ongoing violence and regime sieges. Despite the scale of urgent human need, humanitarian programs for refugees are egregiously underfunded: all the world’s nations have funding only 51 percent of UNHCR’s most recent appeal for its Syrian Regional Response Plan. UNHCR’s regional approach to humanitarian crisis management is nowhere more urgently needed than in today’s Middle East, where an influx of refugees has defied borders and stressed health, economic, and educational infrastructure in host nations.

refugees: worsening economic conditions, greater resource competition, unemployment, and more.

The urbanization of the refugee experience reflects the urbanization of the human experience, and only in the past couple of years has refugee management philosophy and practice begun adapting to this new landscape. Providing comprehensive services to urban refugees represents a serious challenge, and Jordan and her neighbors face it daily.

Despite the preponderance of urban refugees, it is on the camp dwelling refugees I choose to focus. For a few months this spring, while withdrawn from Middlebury and working with Save the Children, I observed and examined the terrain of Za’atari camp, and feel acutely that sharing the uniqueness of that place matters. Though I have never spent time at other refugee camps, I’ve read a fair amount of how Za’atari stacks up to others, and the literature suggests that it has become one of the most dynamic and industrious refugee environments ever: though their environment isn’t urban, Za’atari’s inhabitants have created a city. In this case study, the portrayal of refugees in camps as helpless recipients of aid is not only inaccurate, but it is injurious. After having their futures stolen, recognizing the agency and dignity of these individuals as they endeavor to shape their present is the absolute least one could do.

This stress has certainly been most acute in Lebanon and Jordan. Syrian refugees constitute a greater percentage of the Lebanese population (25 percent) than any other host population, and the Lebanese government recently judged the burden too great: citing demographic, political, and health concerns, Lebanon closed its doors to Syrian refugees in October 2014. This decision will These days, Za’atari hosts likely push more refugees into Jordan, “The urbanization of the around 80,000 refugees, which where more than 600,000 Syrians represents a significant decrease refugee experience reflects have already joined the thousands from mid-2013, when over 200,000 the urbanization of the human of Palestinian, Iraqi, Sudanese Syrians inhabited the camp (this and Somali refugees who call experience, and only in the past decrease can be attributed to greater Jordan home. Despite the regional urban settlement). The dynamics couple of years has refugee shockwaves, Jordan, incredibly, and between the camp and the almost unbelievably, has remained Jordanian government have been management philosophy and resilient. At the time of this writing, tense at times, given Jordan’s fear practice begun adapting to this of the camp becoming a permanent Jordan continues to keep its door open to refugees, but only just ajar: city. The country’s sensitive new landscape.” in the past few months, refugee demographic balance and scarce inflows have dropped from 5,000 to natural resources make citizens and a handful, with many thousands stranded at the border. This officials alike reluctant to take on hundreds of thousands of development is of course a grave concern to the humanitarian permanent residents. Despite this, Jordan has kept the border community. open and become increasingly involved in camp management over the past year and a half. The government and UNHCR Syrian refugees in Jordan are concentrated in camps located work with an army of NGOs and UN agencies to meet the in two large desert camps and in the urban centers of Amman demands of tens of thousands of refugees, and together, they and Irbid. Although the concept of “refugee management” calls oversee service provision across all sectors: education, health, to mind planned camps with rows of UNHCR tents stretching protection, registration, nutrition, shelter, etc. All NGOs have into the distance, only about 20 percent of the more than their camp headquarters in caravans at “Base Camp,” and here 600,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan live in camp settings – the you can spot tens of aid workers running around with blue rest live urban areas in central Jordan. Jordanians sympathize UNICEF vests, International Medical Corps equipment, and with their neighbors, but everyone from the taxi driver to the UNHCR backpacks and talking in Arabic and English. security minister increasingly bemoans the burden of hosting 39

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It is important to recognize that though thousands commit themselves to Za’atari’s operation, it is not always successful, and people fall through the cracks. Many of the individuals I met expressed outrage at the Jordanian government for forcing them to live in conditions that undermined their dignity, and in some cases, put them in harm’s way. Though the refugees in Za’atari are working to take control of their lives, there is no doubt that tragic structural constraints in this humanitarian crises continue to undermine human flourishing.

The scale of the operation is staggering, and attempting to understand Za’atari by numbers boggles the mind. All in all, running Za’atari for just one day is about a $500,000 USD operation, and on a daily basis, more than 300 water and waste trucks come and go, more than 1,500 people show up to NGO jobs, and more than $16,000 USD worth of electricity is consumed. Refugees operate more than 2,000 shops, pray at upwards of 100 mosques, and live in more than 14,000 households. 51 percent of all households have a television, and 40 percent have a private latrine.

If we descend from the abstraction of numbers to the concreteness of personal experience, we see that most refugees have transitioned from canvas tents to prefab caravans, and have taken a great deal of ownership over shelter organization. Though the camp administration prohibits the relocation of caravans, many families have moved or traded their caravans in order to live with family or neighbors from Syria. Since 90 percent of residents are from Syria’s southern Dara’a province, many familial and social networks map onto the camp, and shelter clusters reflect that.

Map courtesy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Neighborhoods are not the only tangible vestiges of life in Syria that transfer, however; power structures do as well. From the early days of the camp, local leaders (referred to as abus, which is a derivation of the Arabic word for father) emerged at the neighborhood and even street level, and extracted payment from residents for their peacekeeping services. These “abus” and “super abus” at times undermine and at other times support official camp management strategies, and so UNHCR 41

is increasingly focusing its efforts on strategies to productively leverage and integrate indigenous leadership into decision making. Though this makes for a complicated interaction of power structures, recognizing local talent and authority is crucial for cultivating indigenous camp ownership – which is critically needed as these refugees transition from temporary to protracted displacement.

Refugees have exhibited great enterprise in business as well.

The economic heart of the camp pulsates on a street dubbed Champs Elysees (a pun on the Arabic word “Sham,” meaning Levant). Every type of store imaginable exists on this ribbon of road, and is largely made possible through under-the-table trade with vendors outside the camp. Though employment opportunities in this district allow refugees to find work and enhance their quality of life, a fair number of children work instead of study.

The loss of education is appropriately bemoaned as one of the greatest tragedies of this generation of Syrian youth.

Having worked in Za’atari’s schools, I am most familiar with this sector’s woes – of which there are many. I met boys who dropped out of school to pull in more income for their families, and I met parents who pulled their girls out of school. Though sometimes girls withdrew from school due to

legitimate concerns about gender dynamics and harassment, early marriage is the leading culprit in girls’ absence in the classroom. Some parents, unable to financially support their families and fearful for their daughters’ security, enter their teenage daughters into marriage in hopes of securing their safety. Though early marriage is justified by a security argument, the opportunity costs of a lost education and exposure to gender based violence outweigh this justification.

Almost all of the girls that I met, though, knew their diploma was their only ticket into a better future, and committed themselves furiously to investing in their education. In my whole life I’ve never seen bigger smiles than on the day Save the Children distributed school supplies. Their excitement about a single pencil, notebook, eraser, and pen was palpable.

My small, sweet friends also had a burning curiosity about English, and would ask me to practice English with them and sing famous American songs for them to repeat. When somehow the only song I could ever think of was “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” they didn’t mind.

I would sometimes ask the girls I worked with if they knew any English words. I sat down next to a girl named Noor at an early marriage awareness session, and we began speaking in Arabic. She told me that she was studying English, so I asked her, in English, what her name was. She sheepishly looked down at her lap, embarrassed for not understanding. Slowly she lifted her head back up and, with a smile, confessed that the only English phrase she knew was “I love you.” I had to turn away to hide my tears. I found out, moments later, that she knows these three words in a world that took her sister from her.

Noor showed me the true miracle of children at Za’atari: in a literal desert of loss, these young people find reasons for love, hope and laughter. I cannot count the number of hugs and kisses bestowed on me by my schoolgirls in the same way I cannot quantify the magnitude of their personal and national tragedy. That boundless love comingles with boundless loss in a single human heart teaches me everyday about the true meaning of resilience, and it is my awe of this resilience that pushes me to make sense the conflict landscape that Noor exists in, and to conceptually map it in these pages. It is my hope that with knowledge comes empathy comes action – in this case, action to return Noor home to Syria.

Girls on the bus.

Mapping Contestations: Indigenous Land Resistance in Sarawak, East Malaysia

By JIA JUN LEE

A

nthony Lawai Karing was a counselor for the Kayan village of Long San in the Baram region in northern Sarawak during the 1970’s. After 10 years of service with the state government, Anthony resigned due to growing disillusionment with politics and the way indigenous land claims were being dealt with by the state government. Since Anthony left his position with the local government, land grabs have become increasingly pertinent to the political, economic and social conditions of the multiple indigenous groups living specifically in Baram and generally in Sarawak.

The East Malaysian state of Sarawak is a resource-rich area on the island of Borneo, but remains one of Malaysia’s poorest states, suffers from high social inequality, and records among the highest rates of forest destruction in the world. Of the 2.5 million people in the state, 65 percent of the population is indigenous from more than 40 sub-ethnic groups, and are collectively known as the Dayak. The Malaysian Con-

Sarawak, East Malaysia The Baram River runs through Sarawak, East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. The fertile region is the epicenter of an indigenous land rights battle.

Map by Lillie Hodges 43

stitution and state law provides for Native Customary Rights which grants indigenous groups their right to cultivate the land, to the produce of the jungle, to hunt and fish, to use the land for burial and ceremonial purposes, and to be inherited.

not be economically efficient. Despite the illogicality of mega dam constructions, Sarawak aims to go ahead with the projects having already secured billion-dollar investments from multiple construction firms, including from Qatar and China.

But despite legal precedence for native customary rights, the Sarawak government - criticized for widespread corruption and nepotism – has and continues to disregard the indigenous peoples’ land claims. The state has seized massive areas of native customary land, handing concessions to private companies for palm oil plantations, large-scale logging, and for the construction of mega hydroelectric dams.

According to an article by Tisha Raj in the Earth Common Journal, the ex-Chief Minister of Sarawak, Taib Mahmud, is reportedly worth $15 billion in personal fortune and is the main stakeholder of these government-owned or controlled projects. After 33 years in power, Taib Mahmud resigned on 28 February 2014, only to assume the position of Governor which will consolidate his power and effectively grant him 1980s, there was immunity from prosecution.

“Back in the little publicity of blockades and we rarely ever met people like you who come up here to talk to us. Back then, the logging companies could get away with anything.”

Currently, less than 10 percent (and possibly less than 5 percent) of Sarawak’s forests remains intact. Besides commercial logging, patronizing state narratives of development and official statements about the “backwardness” of rural life has manufactured conditions for the introduction of konsep baru or the “New Concept” in the mid-1990s. The New Concept defined modern forms of land titling through the creation of a land bank in order to enable the conversion of rural landscapes into oil palm plantation blocks. Furthermore, the government’s more recent plans to build twelve mega hydroelectric dams have been labeled by the NGO Bruno Manser Funds as “corruption dams”.

Numerous studies conducted on these dams reveal not only that they will displace thousands of indigenous peoples and devastate the ecological environment, but they will also

Disillusioned and frustrated with such political events, Anthony now devotes his time to the Baram dam blockade, a social movement that resists the proposed construction of the Baram dam, the latest “development” plan that will displace more than 20,000 Dayak people from 26 different villages in the area. I spoke to him in the aftermath of the Ngiling Bidai festival that marks the end of the harvesting season in Sarawak. Working in solidarity with current and former village headmen like Anthony, the organizers of two newly-formed NGOs - SAVE Rivers and the Borneo Protection Action Committee (BPAC) - decided to use the Ngiling Bidai celebrations to draw out local residents and call out government leaders to heed the demands of the Baram folk. During the festival, they play the sapeh (a traditional string instrument), dance the Ngajat, barbeque wild boars proudly contributed by participating villages, eat

cooked jungle ferns, drink tuak (rice-wine), sing traditional songs and sign a huge petition poster to the Chief Minister of Sarawak objecting indigenous land grabs before assembling for a photo take with a massive “No Baram Dam” poster.

A current village head, Panai Erang, was busy making new clearings for cash crops and was unable to attend the Ngiling Bidai celebrations.

Panai is from the semi-nomadic Penan community, Ba Abang, which is located further upstream on the Baram.

Due to the dry season and lower water discharge into the but has experienced a lot; he has organized many blockades river systems, villagers from Ba Abang have found it harder in the past, often facing drastic and violent consequences as to navigate the shallow rivers with their longboats and have a result. “My father, the previous village head, was killed by to make longer walks through the forests or motorbike rides logging company workers on former logging roads. during a road blockade in “In the 70’s, the district officers would go on the The journey to Ba Abang the 1980’s while trying to ground, visit villages, hold meetings with everyone is a long one despite its defend our land.”

Euclidean proximity to and make a decision. But since Taib Mahmud (the more-connected villages ex-Chief Minister of Sarawak) came into power, For the Penan, the and involves a one hour land and forest is crucial they have ignored consulting us locals. They make longboat ride followed by a three hour hike through decisions privately and as they please, and now they to their livelihood and traditions. “You must dense rainforests. Panai have taken all our land.” (7 July 2014) understand that the land Erang is a small, frail man is much more important for us Penans than it is for other indigenous tribes. We rely on the forest to survive; we forage, gather and hunt from the forest in a way that does not exhaust it, then we move to new areas and later, we return to old patches in a circular manner”. While the blockades postponed logging on Penan customary land, they were eventually dismantled violently by company workers with the help of the state police. “Back in the 1980s, there was little publicity of blockades and we rarely ever met people like you who come up here to talk to us. Back then, the logging companies could get away with anything.”

ABOVE: Traveling between villages in Baram (Jia Jun Lee) LEFT: Baram Dam protesters (Jia Jun Lee).

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DISCOVERING ZANZIBAR IMAGES BY CHRISTIAN JOHANSEN

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Narriman Jiddawi, shark hunter.”Nungwi, Unguja, Zanzibar

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LEFT: The world’s game. A heated match by the classroom. Paje, Unguja. RIGHT: In all of Stone Town, it is known, Bibi Z’s Pilau is the best in the land. Stone Town, Unguja, Zanzibar 49

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LEFT: A boy playing with a stick in Paje, Unguja. ABOVE: “At 96, the oldest man in Chake Chake. It goes without saying, I asked him to trade hats with me� in Chake Chake, Pemba, Zanzibar. BELOW: A tree that stood tall 18 years ago shows the alarming erosion on Mnemba Island. In a very short time, the entire sand bank may be lost to the Ocean.

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ABOVE: A favorite pastime of many a young man in Stone Town. The sea wall provides an excellent platform to gain the ocean below. BELOW: Seafood caught early in the day by spear, cooked up for lunch in Matemwe, Unguja, Zanzibar.

“Octopus’ garden, a feast for dinner”

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FIRE IN VALPARAISO REVEALS MUNICIPAL SHORTCOMINGS

BY ANNALISE CARINGTON

O

n April 12th, 2014, Valparaíso experienced one of the most devastating fires in its history. While it received little attention internationally, coverage of the fire overwhelmed Chilean news circuits, shocking viewers across the country. The initial outpouring of sympathy was impressive.

City officials spoke of the fire as a collective challenge that would be met with collective support. However, when it came time for action to be born from good intention, many were left disappointed. The relief efforts in the days and weeks following the fire were touted as largely insufficient, highlighting longstanding deficiencies in the way municipal resources are allocated within the city.

I had been in Valparaíso since February, living with a host family and studying at a local university. The morning of the 12th, Camilo, my Chilean host bother, had offered to show me his new house in Curauma, a small town just east of Valparaíso. From Playa Ancha, the neighborhood where I was living with Camilo’s family, the easiest way to leave the city is to take Camino La Pólvora, a highway that dips south and then cuts east, curving along the southern edge of the city. This can be better imagined with a bit of geographical context. Valparaíso in simple terms is a bay city—but the narrow coastal plain that rims the bay is lipped on all sides by steep hills that create an amphitheater-like layout. Camino La Pólvora takes you up along the crest of this amphitheater, providing impressive views of the city and ocean below.

We had been on the highway for just a few minutes when we reached a road closure. Smoke was billowing up and over the road. A policeman directing traffic told us a forest fire had started that morning and that they were closing the road to provide fire crews easier access to the area. Camilo seemed un-

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concerned, turning the car around and telling me small fires were common this time of year. In that region of Chile, the rainy season begins in May and ends in August or September.

It was April then, and after months of almost no rain, the city was parched.

We took the coastal highway instead, cutting east along the bay and then dipping south out of the city. We spent the afternoon in Curauma, visiting the house and exploring the town. It was dusk when Camilo’s mom called. Her voice was frantic. She told us the fire had changed directions, carried by northeasterly winds that had picked up along the coast that afternoon. Fire crews had lost control of the flames as they jumped over Camino La Pólvora, racing down into the hills.

She said half the city had lost power. As we drove back into the city we used the windshield wipers to clear away the ash that was floating through the streets. The sky was glowing red.

The fire was not completely extinguished until the next morning. Roughly 3,000 acres burned, leaving more than 2,500 homes damaged or destroyed and 12,500 people displaced. Churches, schools, and other municipal buildings around the city were converted into shelters. Classes at my university were suspended for nearly a month after the fire.

Two of my classmates lost their homes.

How did a seemingly routine burn lead to such unprecedented destruction? Some say it was simply a fluke, an ill-fated combination of unseasonably hot temperatures and relentless, strong winds. For many, however, the fire was an unfortunate consequence of years of municipal negligence.

City officials have long turned a blind eye to the very for-

ABOVE: Map of the greater ValparaĂ­so region, with the burn area highlighted in orange. BELOW: The burn area broken down by land type: pink represents urban areas, green represents forest, and brown represents woodland. Maps by Annalise Carington

While municipal shortcomings are not entirely to blame, the fire may have been better contained and the damages better controlled if the affected sectors had received more comprehensive municipal attention both before and after the fire.

It is an all too common problem that a city’s most vulnerable citizens receive the least amount of protection and support from the local government, leaving those that are most susceptible to risk the least able to recover in the wake of disaster.

In Valparaíso, municipal resources are disproportionately allocated to the main tourist quarters and its central commercial district. If disaster were to strike there (albeit unlikely due to the ample maintenance and oversight in these central sectors), relief efforts would no doubt be more effective than what was witnessed in the hills after the fire. Residents of the affected sectors openly expressed their resentment of this unfair treatment after the fire, hanging posters around the city that Severe erosion already apparent in the forested region that was burned. read, “No se preocupe, señor turista, no se está quemando la parte de la ciudad que usted vino a ver”, or, est in which the fire began. About 20 years ago, large swaths “Don’t worry, tourist, the part of the city that you came to see of native forest in the upper hills of Valparaíso were cleared is not burning”. and replaced by plantations of fast-growing eucalyptus. This exotic tree species, beyond robbing the region of its native Coverage of the fire, including critiques of how it was handiversity, is notoriously prone to fire. Compared to its native dled by the municipality, focused largely on the urban sectors counterparts that are well adapted to a prolonged dry season, that were affected. While the damage experienced in urban seceucalyptus trees readily shed their papery bark and leaves, blanketing the forest floor in highly flammable fodder. What’s tors was the most conspicuous and presented the most immediate, pressing challenges for the city, these sectors accounted worse, the leaves of eucalyptus contain a suite of volatile for only 12% of the total burn area. The vast majority of what compounds that prove highly combustible when lit. A clear burned was in fact forested land, a staggering 2,640 acres of fire hazard, these plantations are a remarkably risky business. forest left blackened after the fire.

They are also, however, remarkably profitable. While many have demanded that the municipality intervene, preventative measures that would threaten yield within the plantations A forest fire of this size presents its own unique challenges (e.g. selective thinning or the creation of firebreaks) have been for the city. Better understanding these challenges, specifically repeatedly rejected. the environmental risks associated with forest fire, became a In addition, over the past decade, city officials have focus of my internship that semester. I had been working that allowed shanty-style development to spread unchecked into spring with Corporación Laguna Verde (CLV), an environmenthe upper portions of the city’s hills. While the charm of Valtal non-profit based out of the community of Laguna Verde. paraíso can in large part be attributed to the charismatic chaos This small fishing village is nestled in a cove just southwest of its hills—the colorful patchwork of ramshackle houses of the main city. While geographically removed from the rest that crowd its slopes—the sprawl of informal housing into of Valparaíso, Laguna Verde technically lies within the city’s the city’s highest sections is beginning to encroach upon the municipal jurisdiction. In June, we put together an environadjacent forest plantations. These residences are structurally mental risk assessment that evaluated the increased likelihood vulnerable to begin with, built outside the regulatory sphere of runoff and erosion in the forested sectors that were burned, of municipal inspections, and are now left without an effecand the subsequent threat this posed for the community of tive firebreak. The extent of this unchecked sprawl became Laguna Verde. The hills that rim the northern edge of Laguna strikingly apparent after the fire. City officials struggled to Verde are cut by a series of deep ravines. These gorges form a organize relief efforts involving municipal aid because only drainage network that empties directly into the cove of Laguna 10% of the affected residencies were registered within the Verde, leaving this sector particularly vulnerable to destructive municipality. erosional events like mudslides and washouts.

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between the community of Laguna Verde and the municipaliOur study revealed that more than 80% of the vegetational cover in the hills above Laguna Verde had been burned. ty were underway.

When aboveground vegetation is damaged, belowground root systems quickly weaken, stripping the ground of important In December 2014, I reached out to my boss at CLV to structural support and decreasing the infiltration capacity see how things had unfolded. I was surprised to hear that of the soil. The situation was further complicated by the close to no municipal intervention had occurred in response formation of a hydrophobic soil layer across the majority of to our report. Luckily for the community of Laguna Verde, the burn area. This occurs when a fire grows hot enough to and for the reputation of the city officials involved, close to vaporize hydrophobic compounds no damage had been done either. The found in leaf litter, humus, and soil “No se preocupe, señor turista, rainy season was unexpectedly mild organic matter. As the soil cools, this no se está quemando la parte de that year, a fortuitous turn of events. gas condenses and forms a waxy, waWhile of course I was glad to hear la ciudad que usted vino a ver. this, I couldn’t help but think—if not ter-repellant layer that can dramatically increase runoff rates. With the start Don’t worry, tourist, the part of now, when? The municipality was of the rainy season underway, the risks of the increasing likelihood the city that you came to see is aware were found to be remarkably high. of fire long before last April, yet had not burning.” failed to act. Our report provided city officials with another opportunity to Our report was presented to proactively intervene, and yet they city officials at the end of June. We once again failed to act. What will it take to convince mustressed that collaboration between local stakeholders and nicipal officials that effective intervention is born not from the municipality would not only be the most effective way to a culture of reaction, not from a culture of prevention? The ensure successful risk management, but that it was the city’s responsibility to proactively intervene. Our recommendations treacherous geography of the region will continue to challenge city officials, and effective risk management is the best included the construction of strategic barriers at the mouth response. of the drainage, fortification of certain vulnerable buildings, and the prompt initiation of forest restoration efforts in the In March 2015, almost a year after the fire discussed in this sectors that were burned. When I left Valparaíso in July, talks article, another forest fire struck the same region.

57 Just two days after the fire, a man works clearing rubble from the foundation of his home.

Emerging from the Amazon

By Krista Karlson

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A

s I peered over the marble counter at a cheery woman wearing a freshly pressed suit, I knew I was out of place. I stood there in my worn hiking boots and clothes from the day (and month) before as she processed my room assignment and called a bellboy to carry my rucksack. There was no need, I assured her, but it seemed that I was no match for the cheery suit people. As I was led to my room, I was grateful that the bellboy made no mention of the stench that radiated from my body and my rucksack.

Emerging from the Amazon after 3 months is like emerging from your room after passing the day engrossed in a good book. You close the book, disappointed that it is over, and after the initial head rush caused by standing up quickly, you are blinded by the sunlight as you step outside. For the rest of the day, and maybe the week, the book significantly shapes your outlook on life. After a month, or a year, however, the details become fuzzy and sometimes it is difficult to recall them at all.

Many a Feb has surely experienced this withdrawal.

After the initial “what did you do over your Febmester?” questions wear off, we are left with a deep awareness of our Febmester as an integral part of who we have become, but we find it increasingly difficult to articulate why this is so.

I lived in the Amazon for 3 months at a conservation research station called the Manu Learning Center in Madre de Dios, Peru. On daily treks in the primary and secondary rainforest, I performed butterfly and amphibian surveys, set up mist-nets to collect data on small birds, and occasionally went on monkey-tracking adventures. Most mornings as I slithered into yesterday’s sweat-stained, dirt-caked shirt in the hope that it had dried overnight, I would find it still damp. Amazonian humidity is unreal.

My wellies took me many miles through the dense and mysterious forest as I performed daily tasks ultimately aimed at contributing to research regarding the value of regenerating forests. As I honed my butterfly-catching skills (it requires a certain flick of the wrist) and learned to identify the various monkeys, I made a life with a bunch of complete strangers. We ate rice three meals a day together, worked tirelessly to ensure that data was collected properly, and slept under adjacent mosquito nets. Through these seemingly mundane activities, we forged a bond unlike any I have ever experienced. We had virtually no conception of who everyone was “in real life,” but that was unimportant.

What was important was that we were in the Amazon, 59

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utterly detached from the world outside, and we had each other.

experiences in the past year, and I hope that it will define my future.

The irony here is that I have not actively kept in touch with many of these people. When we went our separate ways and returned to “reality,” it almost seemed as though the 3 months were a dream. From a deep part of me I wish this disconnect was not so, but due to the fact that all field staff were from different countries and at different stages in their lives, communication diminished. I must also be careful with the term “reality,” because my Febmester was very real indeed. I struggle with the American reality paradigm of college and work -- what if there are other realities that are equally as real, only different? I imagine “different” with a positive connotation: one of possibilities, adventures and new learning opportunities. “Different” has defined my

Retaining connection with my Amazonian life is hard.

I struggle to grasp shards of my Febmester among the Middlebury vortex of readings, office hours, making new friends and Proctor paninis. Studying in this ivory tower is at once a dream come true and a curse to confinement within a particular lifestyle. I look forward to the day that I ski down the Snow Bowl in cap and gown, equipped with an incredible education that will allow me to refuse confinement in this great big world.

Mist from the forest at sunset.

Flashback

A Letter to a Friend (1838)

Here is where I live In early April of 1838, Middlebury student Byron Sunderland, a senior from Shoreham, wrote this letter to his friend, Isiah Mattison of Shaftsbury, Vermont.

He opened his letter with a declaration: “It has come time to write to you and therefore I shall write.” But before writing about the details of his Middlebury life, Byron mapped the details of his life.

In describing this handdrawn map Byron said, “by this imperfect sketch you may gain some idea of the situation of the village in Middlebury — but to get the thing into your mind fairly you must see with the naked eye...” If you can’t come visit me, Byron might have announced, let me show you our stone buildings and village shops, our factories, churches, and the Otter Creek as it flows through town. Here’s where I live, he might have said, and the pathways I travel along. In other words, here’s a map to show you what you’re missing here. Byron closes his letter by saying, “Come up here.” His map then, is a sketch, a story, and an invitation.

For more information, visit Middebury College’s Special Collections.

Maps and photograph courtesy of Middlebury College Special Collections; written by Rebekah Irwin 61

Editor-in-Chief

Lillie Hodges

Senior Editors

Anthea Viragh Emily Selch

Olivia Heffernan Patrick Freeman

Editors

Andrew Catomeris Becca Roe Emily Selch Emma Cameron

Jiang Jingchen Jiya Pandya Liesel Robbins Olivia Heffernan

Photo & Art Contributors

Anthea Viragh Forest Jarvis Hunter Huebsch

Levi Westerveld Nick Spencer Teddy Knox

Cartographers

Annalise Carington

Lillie Hodges

Advisors

Jeff Howarth Bill Hegman

Photo & Back Cover by Hunter Huebsch

JOIN THE ADVENTURE If you are interested in submitting writing or photography to MIDDLEBURY GEOGRAPHIC or in being part of the magazine’s editing team, please contact us at mg@middlebury.edu Every issue of Middlebury Geographic is available at www.issu.com/middgeog.

A note of farewell I have been a fan of Middlebury Geographic since its inception, and have admired both Professor Jeff Howarth’s leadership and the initiative and excellence shown by student editors and contributors over the years. The magazine stands for what is best about the Geography Department at Middlebury College – the creativity of our students.

It has been an immense pleasure to work with young geographers since I started with the department in September 2002. Long may Middlebury Geographic thrive as an expression of how geographic education opens the world to investigation and provides the means to understand it. If any of you will be passing through the great state of Maine, let me know! It will always be wonderful to see you.

With Best Wishes, Anne Kelly Knowles