Rocky Mountain Memorial Weekend

Photos from my trip to Colorado over Memorial Weekend.

Rocky Mountain High

Photos from my hike along the Beaver Brook Trail near Denver in early April.

Snakes on a Plane

Dummy me, forgot my camera. If I hadn't, you would have seen photos of a street in Hamra populated by throngs of green beer guzzling (mostly) Lebanese. You would have seen the green hair, the funny hats, the girl dancing with a pineapple. You would have noticed somewhere in the background the 500 year old, 500 pound Kuwaiti who kept trying to get me to go back to his hotel with him.

Did you know that pouring Blue Curacao into beer will turn it green?

The party was in a liquor store. Unlike in the US, where liquor stores tend to be synonymous with bad neighborhoods and unsavory characters, liquor stores in Beirut just sell liquor (and beer and wine, etc.) Except this one, Sam's Beverage, which, in addition to selling booze, held a street party for Paddy's Day with free green beer.

Sam's is where I buy my Almaza and wine, so when I stopped in last week, the owner invited me to the Paddy's Day party. I used to buy beer from one of two shops a few blocks away, but stopped going to one when once I purchased two large bottles of Almaza, took them home, and realized the old man had given me one small bottle but charged me for two big ones. The other place I stopped going to when I realized their prices were several dollars more than everyone else. (12000 for six Almazas when it should be 9000. That's two whole dollars more for a six pack.) Anyway, Sam's is closer - a minute's walk down my street. The owner's a nice guy (he should be - I'm in there enough) and it was a pleasant surprise to discover the beer was free (especially after having dropped a pretty penny at the Mayflower so I could have a few Paddy's Day Guinnesses.)

It's funny how a holiday that is supposed to be in memory of a Christian saint (though he’s never been canonized by Rome) has turned into a global celebration of drunkenness. Most people think nothing of the reason for the day. I do, of course, since I overthink everything. St. Patrick's Day wasn't much of a holiday in Ireland. You went to church of course, and you thanked St. Patrick for getting rid of the snakes and bringing Holy Christianity to heathen Ireland, but that was it. It was the Irish Americans who made it a holiday. They wanted to celebrate their heritage and the country they so loved but were pushed out by British oppression and forced starvation. Back then, the Irish were working class and generally too poor to travel to back to Ireland. So they brought Ireland to them.

Fate brought me to Ireland. By a stroke of luck, U2 was playing in Dublin one week before I was supposed to study abroad in Luxembourg during my Miami U years, so I flew over early and fell in love with the place. I can't forget flying in there for the first time, seeing from the plane window a green I'd never experienced, going to the ATM for money called pounds, trying to figure out the bus system to get into Dublin, watching rows and rows of red brick Georgian homes from the bus window, taking a taxi (I'm not sure I'd ever been in a taxi at that point in my life) to the Brewery Hostel, a yellow building next to the Guinness Brewery. I'd never had Guinness before, hated James Joyce (we had to read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in my senior English class), and couldn't figure out how to make international telephone calls.

All these things make me chuckle now.

I began to learn about Ireland, about the history, about the politics, about the literature, about the music. I was interested in everything Ireland; it became a hobby of mine. And then, a curious thing happened. I began to identify with it. I began to understand what my own Irish ancestors had gone through, the O'Hagan clan from County Tyrone. Not only did Irishness become a part of me, but it became a part of my Americanness. These two things were inseparable from one another. We are a nation of immigrants, a land whose ancestors were poor and persecuted. Now, immigrants are the poor and prosecuted. The thing that made us a nation is now ripping us apart. Fear of difference, fear of the unknown, fear of lifestyles that are not like our own.

James Joyce, who is now my favorite writer, said while living outside Ireland,

“All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light, but though I seem to be driven out of my country as a misbeliever I have found no man yet with a faith like mine.”

He wasn't talking about church faith, as he despised organized religion. He was talking about the essence of being, that which makes us human, what most people call the soul. Joyce desperately wanted to love his country, which was a part of his being, but he couldn't. He hated Dublin, but said “When I die Dublin will be written in my heart.” He couldn't bear to watch his fellow citizens' engage in politics, either supporting the British monarchy that had oppressed them for centuries or following the different nationalists sects that couldn’t get along to accomplish anything, and he couldn’t bear their blind obedience to the church that also oppressed them with its rules and superstitions with no regard for the human soul, and he didn’t tolerate the cultural and moral decay produced by economic development, particularly as the rich got richer while the poor continued to starve. These were all recurring themes in his books.

I know exactly how he felt.

Conversations with Bulgarian students

Here in Veliko Turnovo, there seems to be a lot of interest in the Japanese language among young people. I'm not sure why this is, as I don't think there is much of a connection between Japan and Bulgaria aside from some Japanese organizations buying property in Plovdiv, renovating it, and turning it into museums, at least that is what I have been told. Many university students in Turnovo take Japanese courses which seemingly have no practical use for them, so I've been trying to come up with theories as to why this language is so popular. Most of the students don't have much exposure to Japanese people, which is why a Japanese guy, Hero, who is living in the hostel is something of a celebrity in town. I'm simply hypothesizing, perhaps wrongly, but I think the interest in Japanese has something to do with the lack of diversity in the town and in Bulgaria as a whole, and a Japanese guy is seen as sort of exotic.

Coming from a country in which nearly everyone's ancestors have come from other countries, diversity is normal to me. Indeed, as a white person, I was a minority in Washington, DC. A friend of mine from Austria who came to visit in September remarked about the diversity as we rode a DC bus - he seemed to be in awe of the fact that we were the only two ethnic European types on the bus, which was filled with black Americans, Ethiopians, Latinos, and Asians.

I guess diversity is a pretty tough concept to grasp when everyone around you is the same, which is why I think many of the Bulgarian university students here continue to bring up the issue of slavery in the US as if they think nobody of different colors can get along because of it. If they were to visit an American city and see the rainbow of people who live in America, it would throw their whole stereotyped world out of order. Indeed, if those who claim to hate America would set foot in my country, they would be confused by the contrast between what they perceive America to be and how we actually live. Sure we have our race relation problems, but in a country of 300 million people, how can we not? We're human. One of the leading candidates for president is a black man - does this not say something about our country?

I'm not saying all Bulgarians hate America, not at all. Many of them simply hate American politics, and well, we're kindred spirits in that regard. It's a shame that so many of the university students I have come to know and have had several discussions with have grown up knowing only Bush as the US leader, as they have no other reference point to base their ideas on. It's just a shame that there aren't more people who can help these students see that there is more to America than Bush's follies, that we aren't simply a nation who loves to be at war.

I guess that's my job. As an American in small town Bulgaria, I am something of an oddity myself, as many of these students have never encountered a real-life American, and certainly not one who has taken such an interest in them. This is why the topic of America and American politics comes up on a daily basis and I find myself on the defensive side of things quite often. At first it really upset me, as I did not come here to be insulted, but I've come to realize that these students have an insatiable curiosity about this thing in the media called America and they don't know much about it aside from what they hear in the news. I try to make them see that America should not be defined by its bombs, but by its ideas. I want them to know that not all of us came from wealthy slaveholding ancestors but that most of us came from poor or persecuted families who left their homelands to seek better lives in the "Land of Opportunity." I tell them that the Statue of Liberty, which used to greet sea traveling immigrants with open arms, has at its base "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." But the greatest difficulty I have is trying to explain how big America is and how 300 million people are spread over fifty states with fifty separate governments and not everyone thinks the same, that indeed, parts of the US have such vastly different cultures that it is easier to think of them as separate countries.

It's something new to me, and I'm learning quite a lot from these kids (and some people my age as well!) I'm also learning a lot about my own country and its place in the world, which is one of the reasons I wanted to get away in the first place. Sometimes it's easier looking at things from the outside instead of trying to navigate your way through a labyrinth of what seems to be circular logic. (Look at my screen name!) I'm not sure if I will find any answers in three months, but at least I feel I'm getting a bit closer to them.

On race and the idea of tolerance

In response to the Bulgarian who failed to get the joke about closing the bars on election day, I had begun to write a response that became long enough for a separate post. I have been hearing this same thing from many Bulgarians since I've been here, and I'm really starting to tire of it. It's getting quite frustrating. His comment:

FYI: The Turnovo constitution, adopted after the liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish yoke (1878), on 16.04.1879, states:

art.57 : All Bulgarian citizens are equal before the law.

art.61 : Nobody in the Bulgarian kingdom can buy or sell human beings. Every slave, regardless of gender, religion and nationality shall be free upon stepping on Bulgarian soil.

Note: The slavery institution doesn't existed in the all 1300 year history of present Bulgarian state.

art.86 : The Parliament consists of members, chosen by direct vote, 1 representative on 10000 citizens from both genders.


On comparison, the women in USA got the right to vote as early as 1920(19th amendment) and the blacks in USA were (in fact) allowed to vote after 1965.

So someone from the cradle of democracy should tell us what the democracy is ???

First of all, SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION. At the time of the founding of the Republic in 1776, slavery existed everywhere on earth and had been an accepted aspect of human history from the very beginning of organized societies. In fact, slavery in the United States wasn't even started by the United States - it was started by the British, from whom the US gained its independence!

Secondly, the entire United States did not have slavery and a civil war was fought to end it in all of the country. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales involving only a tiny percentage of Americans. Slavery was outlawed by the 13th amendment to the US Constitution in 1866 but had not been practiced in the northern part of the country except in a few cases, but the north outlawed it shortly after the US gained its independence.

Thirdly, blacks got the right to vote under the 15th amendment to the US Constitution - in 1870. You are referring to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was not intended to give the right to vote but to stop discriminatory practices like literacy tests that were given by some Southern states. What so many Bulgarians fail to understand is how vastly different the South and the North are. They also fail to understand that each state has its own government which determines each states election laws. The Federal Government exists to protect rights, not to tell citizens what to do (in theory). When individual states violate rights protected in the constitution, that is when the Federal Government is supposed to step in, hence legislation like the Voting Rights Act. I've tried to make the Bulgarians I've talked to understand that there are 50 different states with 50 different governments, but they just can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept of federalism. And they think all Americans are alike, whether they be from California, Texas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, or Ohio. Yet these cultures are so different that they are like different countries.

Fourthly, Bulgaria has never been in a position to have slavery, because the modern Bulgarian state has always been dominated by another empire. Bulgaria gained its independence from the Ottomans after slavery was being outlawed throughout the world. Prior to that the Bulgarians were slaves themselves in the Ottoman Empire - how can a country have slaves if they are slaves?

Fifthly, there seems to be this notion that racism does not exist in Bulgaria.

• How about this delightful story, with a Bulgarian saying to a black British woman, "What the f--- are you doing here? You don’t belong in Europe. Get the f--- out of my country. I f----- hate you. You’re a f----- nigger."
• Also, I hear all the time from Bulgarians racism against Gypsies. Roma continue to be subjected to discrimination in the spheres of employment, healthcare, education, housing, and the criminal justice system. It was common practice not to let any people of Roma origin into public swimming pools, cafes, or cinemas, according to the Bulgarian Human Rights Foundation.
• Oh, and don't forget the assimilation campaign of the 1980s and 1990s against the Turks, when they were forced to change their Turkish names to Slavic Bulgarian ones and Turkish culture was suppressed.
• In 2005, the racist Bulgarian party Ataka won 10% of the votes. I have often seen graffiti on walls saying Ataka with swastikas above it.
• The first specific law against discrimination in Bulgaria came into effect in 2004, not because the people wanted it but because it was a requirement for EU accession.

Lastly, while America deserves no unique blame for the existence of slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid abolition across the globe. In the course of scarcely more than a century following the emergence of the American Republic, men of conscience, principle and unflagging energy succeeded in abolishing slavery not just in the New World but in all nations of the West. During three eventful generations, one of the most ancient, ubiquitous and unquestioned of all human institutions (considered utterly indispensable by the “enlightened” philosophers of Greece and Rome) became universally discredited and finally illegal – with Brazil at last liberating all its slaves in 1888.

The United States is founded on the idea of equality:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

That is from the Declaration of Independence, published on July 4, 1776. No country is perfect, as countries are run by human beings. But America has done more for the world than any modern country on Earth. Do you like your television, your internet, your computers, your automobiles, your airplanes, your trains, your medicines, your electricity, your telephones...? Why are people so quick to criticize America when we have given so much? Why not for once just thank us?