I Wrote About That Thing Between Those Two People

I am so conflicted on the Aziz Ansari and Grace situation and my feelings change with every new opinion and article I read about it. Am I disappointed to hear this about one of my favorite actors and comedians? Yes. Do I feel as disgusted as I did hearing about sexual assault by another favorite comedian, Louis C.K.? No, that horrified me and I haven’t been able to look at him the same way since.

Is it possible the woman was pressured into an uncomfortable situation? Yes. Is it possible Ansari was an asshole? Yes. Is it possible she feels jilted about a situation that didn’t go as she expected it might? Yes. Is it possible that they are both humans who don't handle every single moment in life perfectly? Yes.

Wow, this isn’t black and white, cut and dry, is it? It’s nuanced and complicated.

One thing that’s bothering me is the calls from individuals and from media outlets that this woman should have done more. Should have done something differently. That this was a date gone bad and she didn’t do enough to get out of it if she wasn’t happy. But they’re quick to say they aren’t victim blaming. They are victim blaming, though, if they’re giving out armchair advice in hindsight about what she should have done differently. They also haven’t been as vocal about saying what Ansari should have done differently.

After all the support given to celebrities who came forward with the sentiments of, “Of course those celebrities didn’t say anything. Power positions, loss of work, etc,” apparently we are to expect every woman who is out on a date to be more powerful because it’s just a date, it has nothing to do with their jobs. Women can feel intimidated by men for reasons other than money and careers. Is it that hard to believe that a woman was so star-struck by a celebrity ten years older than she that she couldn’t voice every objection she wanted to during the evening? 

Now we are demonizing women for not speaking up more often, as if a switch has been turned on and every single woman and man in the country has magically changed their behaviors. Look at all the romantic comedies where a man doggedly pursues a woman until she gives in. It’s what we’re all told is romantic. If men and women have both been conditioned this way, what does it say that we’re now asking women to be bitches and turn down those advances without equal footing given to telling men to get the picture and stop making the advances? And without the patience to realize that this change isn't going to happen to every woman and every man at the same time. Cultural shifts take time.

A note on verbal and nonverbal communication: My husband and I have been together since 2001 and we still don’t get the nonverbal communication and signals right one hundred percent of the time so should we expect people who don’t know each other well to read those signals accurately? I don’t doubt that Ansari misread her signals but by her own account he called her a car when she said she wanted to leave and she also didn’t say the specific word, “No,” until quite a few incidents had passed. She says at one point that she moved away and mumbled something. If she mumbled, maybe Ansari honestly didn’t hear her. Maybe by not leaving sooner in the evening he was reading the signal that she was enjoying her time with him. Once he found out the next day that she hadn’t had a good night he apologized and didn’t bother her again. If we are going to expect men to read the signals I think it's fair to expect women to be more clear.

I could really live without all the commentary about what people should or shouldn’t do on first dates. On the fact that people think going back to a man’s apartment is a clear sign that sex should be expected. No one else gets to make those decisions for other adults so just STFU about it. Sometimes adults like to have sex on a first date and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s consensual. Sometimes adults like to have sex without a relationship, and that’s fine, too, as long as both parties (or all parties) are on board with it. If you bring someone back to your apartment you still have to talk about sex. Don’t assume sex will happen. Sometimes a woman might want to on the date, but then she sees that your bathroom is disgusting and gets turned off. (And that’s on you for not keeping your bathroom clean; don't be mad at her for changing her mind.)

Maybe what happened between them is assault. Maybe it’s a case of miscommunication. Maybe Grace was expecting Dev from Master of None but got Tom from Parks and Recreation. Tom often acted inappropriately but female characters usually called him on it or were charmed by it which apparently made the behavior acceptable. (Of course, let’s not forget these are characters and not the real Ansari.)

In a perfect world men will stop being assholes and women will be more vocal about their needs and comforts. I hope this is a cautionary tale for all people to be more vocal with their potential sexual partners.

P.S. As I was trying to do a final edit on this (I say "trying" because this is certainly not the last word in general nor my final thoughts, since they keep evolving) I saw a piece on tv where a woman was saying something along the lines of it's not sexual harassment if it doesn't have anything to do with the workplace. Fuck you.

*In writing this, I reread one of my earlier posts (https://whereintheworld-stephanie.blogspot.com/2017/10/what-are-you-doing-post-weinstein.html) to make sure I’m living up to the goals I set for myself. I think I am.

**This is about one specific coupling dynamic based on the experience of Ansari and Grace, a straight man and a straight woman. Communication is important in sex, for all genders and sexual partners.

Who actually represents women in this administration?

Interacting with members of the opposite sex is a part of life.  Dining alone with a woman other than your own wife or being at a function where alcohol is served without your wife is only a threat to your marriage if there are trust issues and insecurities to begin with. If you don’t want to cheat on your spouse, don’t cheat on your spouse. That’s it. It’s so basic it shouldn’t even have to be a religious mandate.

How many women have worked for or with Mike Pence? He’s never had so much as a coffee meeting alone with any of them? Sometimes you have to work late and get dinner. What does it say that he’s willing to do this with his male staffers but not his female employees or coworkers? It says that he fears women as sexual objects and does not value them as equals in the workplace.

Attitudes like this strengthen the belief among religious conservatives that sex is a woman’s fault and men are helpless beings. She was raped because she wore attractive clothing. She was raped even though she wore a burka because a man found her to be tempting. She was raped because a man was threatened by her making more money than he does. Women can’t be in the military because the strongest, most disciplined manliest of men will lose all control of themselves if a female body is anywhere near them and it will be the woman’s fault for simply being present.

Some conservative op-ed writers are saying liberals are blowing this out of proportion. That liberals defend this kind of practice among Muslims because we care more about Muslims than Christians. Um, no. The fact that in several Muslim societies women are not allowed to be out of the house unless they are accompanied by their husband or a male family member is pretty frickin’ abhorrent to this liberal. Before I read that sort of criticism of liberals I was thinking about how much fundamental Christians and Muslims have in common with that view of not being alone with women or allowing women to be in the company of other men.

I’ve also read that he should be commended for making this decision to protect his marriage. It’s true that this could be a private decision between Mr. and Mrs. Pence. But Mike Pence also made a decision to be a politician, and politicians have to attend social functions, where alcohol might be served, and, see my example above about working with women. If protecting his marriage is that important maybe he’s chosen the wrong line of work.

The Billy Graham rule that Pence’s personal decision is based on also only acknowledges heterosexual intercourse, as if male members of the church and male politicians have never been caught sexually assaulting boys or having affairs with men.

I also wonder, if Mike Pence has made this decision for himself, does the same hold true for Karen Pence? If she feels that she can safely have a meal with a man without sleeping with him is she allowed to do so? Is she sheltered from furthering any of her own goals, or simply having male friends, without bringing a chaperone along?

I have a problem with the vice president being afraid to be in the same room as half of his constituents, especially when so many of those constituents are terrified to be in a room alone with the president. Who actually represents women in this administration?

For further reading:
The Religious Reasons Mike Pence Won't Eat Alone with Other Women Don't Add Up

Ah, Nostalgia for the Days of Coal

Billy Joel sang about the depressing steel manufacturing economy in the 1980s. “Allentown” became a blue-collar anthem, especially for miners and manufacturers who were losing their jobs in the Rust Belt.

If that song wasn’t warning enough, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the coal industry has been in decline for the last 30 years, long before the regulations of President Obama’s era were put into place. Miners have had a long time to think of a back-up plan in case coal mining didn’t work out. Instead of welcoming new research, innovations, inventions, or opportunities, however; instead of thinking outside the box or pulling themselves up by the bootstraps they claim to celebrate as part of the American spirit, coal miners decided to wait for the day that time would turn backward. That day came earlier this week with the rollback of the Clean Power Plan.

The Clean Power Plan was never fully put into effect because it’s been held up in legal battles, which means it can’t fully be held responsible for a decline in the coal industry. Also, eliminating the plan is going to take several more years so it’s unlikely to bring many new jobs in during the current administration reign. And, true to character for any of this administration's policies, it is light on details and likely to face legal challenges.

The plan was rolled back for the sake of nostalgia more than anything else. Innovations have reduced the number of actual workers needed for coal. It’s also ironic that a population of people who claim to loathe government interference sat around waiting for more government interference to get their jobs back.

The current administration is full of macho men with frail egos, or at least they’d like to think they are macho and they would like to appeal to that demographic of voters. In their minds, white men still rule this world and the idea of anyone else earning more money or having more economic power is threatening.

One excuse people use for wanting these jobs back is that they or their families are tied to the land. But America was built on people moving to where new opportunities are. It was built by people who found new land, a new place to start or settle their families. If it’s that important to be manly and support a family, figure it out. Move. People in the military do it. People in law enforcement do it. Even the representatives sent to Washington on our behalf make that sacrifice to either move their families or live away from them to get a job done.

With a party in power that’s happy to deregulate industry and seemingly indifferent to adequate health care, what’s going to happen when cases of chronic bronchitis and other coal dust-related illnesses begin rising? If it’s anything like what happened to oil-industry workers in Louisiana, the coal industry will hire lawyers to prove that it’s just a coincidence that there’s an abundance of these diseases among coal miners.

America was built on change, ingenuity, and exploration. It was built by people who moved forward to forge new paths rather than go backwards to outdated technologies. I have very little sympathy for a group of white men who feel sad that their health-risk and pollution-causing industry is no longer relevant because most Americans want progressive change, not regressive policies.

For further reading:
Trump Takes Aim At A Centerpiece Of Obama's Environmental Legacy (NPR)
What Trump Misses About Energy Jobs In America (NPR)
Coal Mine Dust Exposures and Associated Health Outcomes (Report by HHS, CDC, and NIOSH)
The entire coal industry employs fewer people than Arby’s (Washington Post)

Turning a Blind Eye to Steve Bannon -- Now Who Lives in the Bubble?

There's been a lot of talk of the liberal elite bubble in the last week. But what about the rural, white bubble? People are genuinely concerned about the economy, I get that. But does that mean there's no room to be concerned about racism and sexism as well? Just because these things don't happen in one small town doesn't discredit them as being national problems.

Steve Bannon is going to be toxic as the strategist who is crafting the message for our next president. Calls from the left for his removal from President-elect Donald Trump's administration will not be taken seriously unless we have support from the right as well.

Mitch McConnell literally said nothing when asked about Bannon in a press conference earlier this week. He just started ahead awkwardly until the reporter gave up. This is unacceptable. Conservative leaders have to say something, otherwise they are condoning this placement of Bannon in the administration. He's not an appointee who's going to be approved by Congress so the only course of action against his being hired is to put pressure on Conservative leaders to put pressure on President-elect Trump.

Even if you believe the alt-right is a fringe group, putting its megaphone to the ear of the president like this surely must signal to you that something bigger is going on. From National Review:

The problem is not whether Bannon himself subscribes to a noxious strain of political nuttery; it’s that his de facto endorsement of it enables it to spread and to claim legitimacy, and that what is now a vicious fringe could, over time, become mainstream....

Principled conservatives, especially those in leadership positions, have a political and moral duty to condemn, and to work to eradicate, the animus that is the alt-right’s raison d’être.

You don't have to leave a comment here, or on Facebook, or anywhere else. But if this bothers you, call Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and any Republican senators and congresspersons who represent your state and your district, and tell them you are not okay with Steve Bannon being so close to the president.

If this does not bother you, then you are the one who is living in a bubble, not me.

The Problem with Parenting Magazines

When I was pregnant a friend gave me some advice: Never read parenting magazines. “You’ll get put on the mailing list,” she said. “’With our complements,’ the card will tell you. Take the time to throw out the magazines and remove yourself from their mailing list. I promise this is one of the best things you can do as a parent.”

For the most part I followed that advice. I even threw out What to Expect by the time Muffin was three months old because she wasn’t following any of the directions the handbook gave and it stressed me out. Recently, though, I saw this headline, “Am I Supposed to Be My Child’s Playmate?”, from Parenting magazine. The mother of all magazines I try to avoid.

I am no expert in parenting, other than keeping my own child relatively happy and healthy for the last five years, but like most parents, regardless of my feelings on the topic, I’m going to click on a lot of parenting articles. Personally, I think it’s fine to find a balance between playing with children and giving them time and space to play on their own.

The very first paragraph made me uneasy. The author’s mother would make dinner for the family on the one night a week she wasn’t home for dinner because she had a graduate school class. Okay, that’s fine. But her father would throw away the pot roast, hiding it deep in the garbage can, order pizza, and hide the boxes in a neighbor’s garbage so that the mother would never find out. “It was our little secret,” the author says.

That is a terrible secret. Her parents were so held down by traditional parenting roles that her mother could not say to her father, “You are responsible for dinner this one night a week.” Nor could the father say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of dinner this one night a week.” She felt the need to make a dinner that her family would throw away. (Why throw it away? Why not carve it up for sandwiches or save it for another night?) I would be pissed if I found out my spouse and child were doing this after the trouble I went through to make the meal.

I realized as I read that this article taps into the insecurity many mothers feel about being Mean Mommy versus Fun Dad. I haunt parenting groups to see what other parents are up to and I see the Mean Mommy issues brought up by women all the time. Mothers are meant to nurture and be caregivers for their families. Fathers are meant to be playmates.

I call shenanigans.

Both parents are parents. Fathers are not playmates or baby-sitters. (More men are professional chefs but more women are still expected to cook for their families? Don’t even get me started on that… Maybe a future blog post.) Both parents can play to their strengths, of course, but at some time they are going to have to step up to both roles.

That is, if both parents are present and if they are a heterosexual couple.

There’s no reason why, if both parents are present, then they can’t share the nurturing and the playmate parts. Single parents have to do both. Same-sex parents take on both roles. There’s absolutely no need for it to be gender divided, or divided at all. So many parenting articles reinforce these gender roles without taking into account that families are not as nuclear as they were a generation or two ago, nor with taking into account the different personalities and strengths that different parents have. They continue to reinforce the image of the ideal superwoman who can keep a perfect household and hold down a career or further her education while dad occasionally baby-sits.

Families aren’t like that anymore and many media outlets continue to subversively keep that out-dated model alive.

And that's why I don't read parenting magazines. Really, I don't.

Here’s Where I Write on Bamako

I’ve written so many personal notes to friends and family over the last few days that it’s difficult to sit down and write my public feelings about what happened last Friday in Bamako. I’m exhausted. I may or may not have copy/pasted phrases from various notes and stitched them together here for this post.

Last Friday morning I was feeling too sick to be motivated to leave the house at my usual time for a run. My phone buzzed with a message from a friend telling me to stay home if I hadn’t left yet. Thank goodness I was sick. Otherwise I most likely would have been running past the Radisson at the time of the attack. I surrendered to the couch with a cup of tea and a long day of waiting for news ahead of me. I’m not going to rehash the day here. You can Google all the news if you’re not familiar with it. Reading it now still gives me a bit of a panicky headache.

Bamako is relatively back to normal now. Most people can’t afford to take the days off for mourning or states of emergency. The economy relies on everyone going to work every day. My run streak is still on (day 26 today). I spent a few days on the treadmill, partly due to the events here but partly due to the amount of dust in the air right now making my sinuses ache if I’m outside for too long.

It’s Thanksgiving week and I’m sick and all I want to do is sleep and order take-away on Thursday and hope that Mike doesn’t get called in to work. I am thankful that everyone I know is safe and sound. And that we have enough to eat should we choose to have a feast. And we have friends we can gather with, who are our family here. And we have a roof over our heads and all the necessities, and then some, which so many people in Mali and in the United States and in other parts of the world do not have. We are still very lucky.

Nairobi

What makes me feel strange as an expat, especially one who has lived in Africa and visited Nairobi, is that there was a higher chance someone I knew was going to be at that mall then at any of the locations of any of the shootings that have happened in the United States recently. To my knowledge no one I knew was there; but I haven't heard much from Nairobi on Facebook. Has the government locked down on Internet usage?

I'm glad it didn't happen at the mall I've been to in Nairobi because I didn't want to have too clear of a picture in my mind of people running through the food court and Nakumatt store; images of those places have jumped to the forefront of my mind in the last twenty-four hours.

When you go into malls in Nairobi, Hyderabad, Bangkok, Singapore, there are security guards and metal detectors. But there's also sort of a vacant stare in the eyes of the security guards. The metal detectors offer a false sense of security. And they can't stop a hand grenade that gets thrown before the bad guys even enter the mall.

Sunny at Fabling said some of the things I've been trying to articulate today. Malls are the safe havens for expats overseas. It's where you may find the most Starbucks-like cup of coffee and Western fashions. It's where you'll see an English-language movie. It's where you'll bump into just about everyone you know on a Sunday afternoon. In the summer it's where you go to escape the heat. In Hyderabad, since the parks were closed during the day, the mall was where I took a Muffin who was just learning to walk so she could wander around; I took her as soon as it opened in the morning before there were too many people and she ran up and down the halls freely. As much as I avoid malls when I'm in the United States, overseas they are the place to be when you feel a little homesick.


I mentioned to Mike yesterday that I'm ready to head back overseas. Life is almost too easy in the United States, not counting the tragedies that have happened here recently and in other parts of the world. I'm trying to relax and enjoy the conveniences of American life. But there's a void. A void that exploding malls isn't going to cure me of. I've been working on this post on and off for several hours, watching the news from Nairobi worsen by the hour. Nairobi was never a place I wanted to live but I enjoyed visiting there; even the terrible airport started to feel homey after so many layovers there. After several months of nonstop living in Burundi, landing in a country where English is spoken is always refreshing. I still want to get back overseas somewhere.

The Auto-Rickshaw Bed in the News

Through a friend of a friend who works at a local newspaper in Hyderabad, the auto-rickshaw bed became big news. This week the article was published, including interviews with us and with Eimor Customs, the guys who built the bed for us: All for the smile... It was priceless!

If you ignore how they changed my quotes to be Indian English, the only thing they got wrong was noting Mike as a writer and editor, not me. Otherwise it's a fun and funny article about the project.

For more information and photos on how we turned an auto-rickshaw into a bed, see my posts with the auto-rickshaw tag.

Mad World

Yesterday "Mad World" by Tears for Fears came up on my shuffle and I nearly cried. Had it been the version of the song from Donnie Darko, I probably would have cried. Events of the world have been weighing heavily on me lately. Mostly in India, but the United States, Central Africa, and Afghanistan/Pakistan have not been to far from the front of my mind either. Hearing the song made something "click" and I suddenly felt like I knew better how to express some of what I've been feeling lately.

By now the world has heard about the young woman in Delhi who was gang raped and subsequently died from the assault injuries. But she is just one small piece of the women's issues here in India. Here is a sampling from today's newspaper:

A spiritual leader said that if the Delhi woman had prayed and asked for mercy from her rapists, they would not have raped her and perhaps divine intervention would have prevented her from getting on the bus in the first place. He later said that he didn't say those things and offered to apologize if he offended anyone. 

A politician was arrested for crimes including hate speech, which is a capital offense, but law scholars are arguing that the death penalty should not be considered for rapists. 

Under the headline "21-point resolution for women's protection passed" the first line of the article is "A 21-point resolution for protection of the fairer sex was passed at a seminar on sexual violence against women conducted by the Andhra Pradesh Judicial Academy [emphasis mine]." 

A 16-year-old girl was gang raped but it wasn't reported until she tried to commit suicide by setting herself on fire. She's in critical condition at a hospital. 

A top state-level official Chhattisgarh (if not the governor, then someone nearly as high-ranking) blamed "planetary positions" on the current increase of assault on women. According to him, "Only astrologers can explain this."

It's like this every day. It's exhausting.

In in my own Indian microcosm, this wasn't in the paper but I heard that a five-year-old girl in our neighborhood was lured to a construction site with candy. Whether there was a rape or attempted rape is unclear and doesn't really matter. It's horrible either way. It might have been one of the little girls that Muffin sometimes plays with in the neighborhood park and that hits too close to home.

And what feels like the last straw for me, our housekeeper's husband has been beating her and her daughter and she refuses to go to the police about it. I can't report it for her due to the wonderful intricacies of the Indian legal system; they hardly care when a (poor, lower-class) woman reports abuse herself, let alone when an expat does it on her behalf. There's even a Women Police Office not far from her home, full of female police officers whose job it is specifically to protect female and child victims and investigate women-specific crimes. She has her reasons for not going and all I can do is ask her every day if she's reported it or not. I'm getting tired of hearing the same answer though. I urged her to make sure her daughter has the phone numbers and knows where the WPO is in case she's ever in trouble on her own. I'm hoping her daughter, a 19-year-old university student, can grasp the situation a little differently than her mother and will seek help. I know this is not a problem specific to women in India; I know women in the United States are abused and do not go to the police for a variety of reasons. I can't help but think though that in the United States a woman has a better chance of being protected and supported once she does seek help.

I'm not sure what my purpose is in sharing all this. I think I needed to let people in on what's been on my mind lately; share some of the headlines you won't see on CNN. I also needed to purge some of these thoughts from my head. I feel a little guilty making myself feel better, though, when that's not going to help any of the women and girls in these stories. I can extend a little influence on my housekeeper and I can protect Muffin and myself. That's about it. I feel better, writing it out, but not good.

One More Big Day

So, as far as I can tell, the Telenganu people have decided that the best way to show they deserve independent statehood from the rest of Andra Pradesh is to hold rallies and strikes every now and then. They get a bunch of students together, they make shopkeepers close down, they get the police all riled up, they cause traffic jams. But they're very nice about announcing these actions several days ahead of time so you can run out to get groceries before the bandh (strike) and plan your day around avoiding the traffic jam areas. It was exciting and felt so revolutionary when we first got here. Now it's more ho-hum, making arrangements for our housekeeper to take an auto to work because the bus isn't running through her neighborhood, but otherwise business as usual for me. There are always some unfortunate protesters who have run-ins with the police, but it's always foggy as to who was in the wrong in those situations.

For a couple of weeks rumors have been floating around about a Million Telenganu March, inspired by the protests in Egypt. Tomorrow is supposed to be the big day and it's supposed to be the final protest before the statehood decision is made (I think). I don't think they have a million people, but what they apparently don't have is permission to hold a march or rally. The police seem to think they need permission. The protesters seem to think that they don't if they promise to remain peaceful. And student exams are tomorrow so a parents' group has pressured the march organizers to hold the rally in the afternoon, after exams are finished.

I'm curious to see what happens. Either it will fizzle out and be just another day on the protest lines here, or it will be a day of massive protester vs. police clashes and we'll make CNN as the latest regional hot spot.

To all parents and other concerned readers who panic at the phrase "Egypt-inspired": We live no where near the march site and we are staying home all day watching events unfold online. (And hoping the electricity doesn't go out while we run our air conditioner, because afternoon temps are already reaching 100 degrees and it's barely the start of the hot season.)

The Results Are In

In the election for local councillors on Monday, the ruling party has won by a landslide and eight  opposition parties, including the most popular one, are calling for a re-vote because they hate those results. They are threatening to boycott the rest of the elections this year, including the presidential election in June.

Opposition Demands Re-run Over Fraud Claims

Ruling Party Takes Big Lead

Mike's been gone the last couple days, observing the election and the ballot counting in one of the districts a couple hours away from the city. He returned yesterday. He said that there were some kids hassling people and it was one of the hottest afternoons he'd experienced here, but overall the voting process was smooth, if a bit messy. The ink pots that people dipped their thumbs in to prove they voted proved to be the biggest disaster of the day. The ink was thick and sticky, and people were caught outside trying to wash the ink off, but in reality they were just trying to wipe off enough inky gloop so that they didn't leave sticky, inky fingerprints on everything they touched for the rest of the day. Mike didn't even vote and he got ink all over his hands just from hanging around polling stations.

Elections Postponed, Again

Word came out late on Friday that elections would definitely be postponed again, from Sunday to Monday. The nonpartisan electoral commission was confident they would have all the id cards and ballots distributed in time for a Sunday election, but the president, along with about ninety percent of the population that goes to church on Sunday, said there's no way elections can happen on a Sunday. We must have another holiday on Monday in order to have the elections! But word came out late last night that the small percentage of Muslims who live here are crying fowl for a Monday elections, because Monday is a Muslim holiday. Traditionally, the government calls two Muslim holidays a year as national holidays, but the one coming up tomorrow isn't one of them. Also, the Muslim community is tiny compared to the rest of the population and many Muslims aren't even Burundian citizens. But it could still be perceived that the president is favoring his own religion rather than treating everyone as equals. It's a sticky situation and so far we haven't heard which way it's definitely going to go.

We had dinner last night with some Burundian friends. The general consensus is that the electoral commission made the right decision in postponing until they were sure they could get it right. But if the government keeps delaying and doesn't announce those postponements until late the night before (announcements have a tendency to come out around 10 pm, once the local tv stations have stopped broadcasting), people are going to be too fed up to bother voting. Every time the government calls a new holiday for voting, the business community gets annoyed by the business they're losing. Employers don't want to close down again, and employees are stuck between enjoying a vacation day but having another day's pay disappear. In a country of 8 million people, less than half are eligible to vote, which makes these holidays even more of a nuisance to the non-voting residents (although, a good deal of the non-voting majority is school children, who probably don't care why they're not in school).

Most people think that at this point the elections will go ahead on Monday. Some of the press I've been reading is sort of unfair, calling the id cards and ballot distribution "embarrassing" mishaps, but people here think they were just business as usual.

Vote Credibility Hangs by a Thread

Elections Postponed

It's somewhat funny that in this low-tech country, I get my local news from email and RSS reader subscriptions. But, believe it or not, we don't own a radio so can't listen to the local news, and the television stations don't show a lot of news. They don't even run any programing for several hours a day. So when I woke up this morning and saw that there's no CNN-style election coverage on tv, I turned to the internet.

The news online this morning is that today's election has been postponed until Sunday. There's been a delay in distributing the ballots to all the polling places, apparently. Big surprise. But this begs the question,  Is today still a holiday? It was only declared a holiday so that people could vote. Should I be getting ready for work right now? Mike's already left for the day (he's an observer) and I'm dying for him to call me with an update. But since he hasn't called, that means he's too busy so I shouldn't call him. Everyone I know is too busy working for the elections, and my official assignment is to stay home and not get stressed out. (I know that's better for me than running around observing elections, but it's so boring, especially for someone who loves elections as much as I do.)

AFP: Burundi postpones election, citing paper ballot delay

Nearly real-time updates, if you read French: Voice of Burundi

It's Election Eve Eve!

Yes, it's the night before the day before the elections. A few hours ago the president announced that not only would Friday be a national holiday, election day, but Thursday as well. The reason: The government didn't give people enough time to pick up their voter ID cards, so they need the time to do it on Thursday before they can vote on Friday. Rumor has it the ID cards were ready a while ago, but when people started showing up to get them, they were just in piles rather than organized alphabetically or some other logical way. So it took hours for each person to pick up his or her card, having to sort through the piles. After a short time, it was decided they would shut down the operation, organize the cards, and try distributing them again. The day before the election.

Friday is the first of five elections this summer, and the first national elections since 2005 (which were the first elections after about 10 years of civil war). It's an exciting time to be here, watching. There are so many parties (nearly 50 for some of the local campaigns), and party flags and party symbols and party handshakes. I like driving around trying to identify the flags. The eagle holding a machete. Two different chicken flags (two splinters of what used to be one party). A flag with a rooster. And is that one a French flag with the party acronym magic-markered onto it?

Friday's elections are communal, then the presidential election is in June, and parliament and other groups will have their elections through September. And each election day is a holiday. I almost wish I were sticking around longer, so I could have more holidays. That, and I love politics so I'm curious to see how this all works out.

A quick look at the headlines this election eve eve:

President hopes God, development win him votes
He has built a lot of schools and hospitals, but the doctors and teachers are constantly on strike because they don't get paid. He's going to need God's help.

Set to vote
Interesting summary.

HRW researcher expelled
Whoops. Maybe not the best way for the ruling party to prove they are in favor of free and open elections. She's the only Human Rights Watch representative in the country.

Since I won't be at work over the next few days, due to the holidays and the weekend, I'll have plenty of time to blog and check in with election results. Everyone's as excited as I am, aren't they?

Online Language Studies for High School Students

I came across this recent article in the New York Times, Middlebury to Develop Online Language Venture. Middlebury College, known for its language program, is investigating the realm of online language courses. They want to specifically target high school students who are preparing for college but may not have great language programs at their schools or are homeschooled. I’m thinking it could also be good for students who are headed overseas with their parents and want to get a jump on a language before they arrive in-country. By the time our little Sharkbait is old enough to need high-school level classes, this online program should be well-established.

Yeah, college has already crossed our minds. Do we get residency in Virginia to take advantage of in-state tuition for UVA or Virginia Tech or in California for the UC system? I’m also partial to small, prestigious private schools or Ivy League schools, as long as they’re in New England. No pressure, Sharkbait.

Thousands of Burundians turn out for anti-gay demo

BUJUMBURA (AFP) — Thousands of Burundians took part in a government-organised demonstration Friday to demand that homosexuality be criminalised.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 people turned out, according to varying estimates, to protest the senate's decision not to criminalise homosexuality, in the largest demonstration since President Pierre Nkurunziza came to power in 2005.

Read the full AFP article. We were at home having lunch that afternoon while this was going on so we didn't get to see it when it passed by Mike's office. Apparently it was a peaceful demonstration, so despite what they were demonstrating for, it may have been the most peaceful large demonstration in the country's history.

There's been discussion about whether homosexuality should be a crime in Burundi. It's a religious conservative country and many people believe that it's not just a sin, but should be punishable by law. Incidentally, at the same time the homosexuality bill was brought up, the government passed a law abolishing the death penalty. Yay! Look, no death penalty! We'll just try to sneak this anti-human-rights bill through while everyone's distracted by the death penalty abolishment.

A jungle alliance that may just endure

Mar 5th 2009 | GOMA AND KIGALI
From The Economist print edition

Two rival countries have joined forces to hammer the militias that have devastated eastern Congo for so long

SCRUFFY but happy, Timothy is keen to talk about his new life in Rwanda. A former captain in a guerrilla army across the nearby border in the dense jungles of eastern Congo, he has spent most of his life fighting against the present government of Rwanda. Now, however, he has turned himself in and gone back to the land of his birth, where he is on a two-month course run by his former adversaries to reintegrate him into Rwandan society.

He starts early every morning, packing in six hours of “discussion” on such topics as patriotism, the history of Rwanda, and “the role of youth in national development”, before breaking for football. Timothy realises that he must “forget everything about guns” and “learn to co-operate with civilians”. He is learning a lot of other useful stuff too. “Men used to beat women,” he says, but apparently you cannot do that any more. “When she is wrong, you have to talk to her, not treat her like a goat.”

Timothy’s re-education at the Mutobo demobilisation centre near Ruhengeri in north-west Rwanda is the best hope in years that the long, devastating conflict between Rwanda and Congo may be abating. He and hundreds like him are being persuaded to give up their arms by the force of a new alliance between the two old foes. If this new alignment of military and political power eventually leads to peace in the region, the Rwandan genocide of 1994 may at last cease to cast its long shadow over the Great Lakes region (see map).

Read the full article at The Economist. This is the kind of news we keep an eye on, since it's all happening so close to us and it involves the same ethnic groups as the war in the 1990s here.

The Invisible War

By BOB HERBERT
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Published: February 21, 2009

Perhaps we’ve heard so little about them because the crimes are so unspeakable, the evil so profound.

For years now, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, marauding bands of soldiers and militias have been waging a war of rape and destruction against women. This sustained campaign of mind-bending atrocities, mostly in the eastern part of the country, has been one of the strategic tools in a wider war that has continued, with varying degrees of intensity, since the 1990s. Millions have been killed.

Women and girls of all ages, from old women to very young children, have been gang-raped, and in many cases their sexual organs have been mutilated. The victims number in the hundreds of thousands. But the world, for the most part, has remained indifferent to their suffering.

“These women are raped in front of their husbands, in front of their children, in front of their parents, in front of their neighbors,” said Dr. Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist who runs a hospital in Bukavu that treats only the women who have sustained the most severe injuries....

Despite the presence in the region of the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world, no one has been able to stop the systematic rape of the Congolese women.

If these are not war crimes, crimes against humanity, then nothing is.

Read the full column at the New York Times.

I know it's a hard read, but it's a good one.

Tanzanians to name albino killers

Tanzania is launching a nationwide exercise urging the public to identify those behind dozens of murders of people with albinism.

In the secret "referendum", citizens will be invited to write down on slips of paper the names of those they suspect of involvement.

Legal officials will gather the names and pass them to the police.

President Jakaya Kikwete said the public should not fear retribution for naming the culprits.

The killers reportedly sell albino body parts - including limbs, hair, skin and genitals - to witchdoctors who make potions promising to make people wealthy....

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last week decried the albino killings during his official visit to the country.

Last week, in neighbouring Burundi, assailants reportedly dismembered a six-year-old albino boy in his home in front of his parents, the eighth albino killing in that country.

The government issued a ban on all traditional healers in January in an effort to stop the killings and several have been arrested since then on suspicion of flouting the order.

Last month, a pastor was charged in Tanzania with being found in possession of the body parts of an albino.

Read the full article at BBC News.

I get sick every time I read a headline about these albino killings. We have had several here in Burundi since we arrived and it's rumored that they have to do with the Tanzania trade. What century is this? Sorcery?

Africa: Getting the Continent on the Obama Agenda

26 February 2009
Reed Kramer

George Clooney's meeting to discuss Darfur with Vice President Joe Biden and with President Barack Obama Monday night at the White House provided one of the first glimmers of Africa involvement from the top echelon of the new administration.

According to Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander, Clooney was told that Sudan policy is under "ongoing review." The Academy Award-winning actor, who skipped the Oscar's ceremony Sunday night to fly to Washington, said he welcomed what he heard "because there was some concern this could fall off the radar."

That concern has been spreading among Africa watchers as days go by without any significant Africa-related pronouncements - particularly, no announced selection of a person to head the Africa Bureau at the State Department. Similar misgivings are being expressed about the administration's slow movement to fill top foreign assistance-related posts, which also affect U.S. relations with Africa.

Not only are the conflicts in Sudan, Somalia and Congo requiring urgent attention and perhaps changed approaches, but also there is equally pressing need to spotlight and support places trying to get development right, especially with the added strain of the global economic crisis. One stark example is Liberia, which has been making "steady progress" toward eradicating poverty, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported this month, but where "limited national institutional capacity" and persistent security threats make continuing international support vital for the country's and region's growth and stability, his report said.

Read the full article at AllAfrica.com.

I think I'm going to start posting some Africa news. What are you hearing about back in the U.S., financial crisis stuff?