Combating Fear in clothes that fit.

“What should I wear if I do not have a long, loose dress? haha… that may sound trivial but I want to be respectful. Do you get my question?”

Now I generally do not wear dresses, but I did understand all too well her question she texted to me this morning. Molly, a 17 year old student and leader in Mercy Corps’ Global Citizen Corps, is getting ready to lead more than a dozen other students from her high school to a press conference and tour of a mosque in Seattle Washington today.

It’s September 11th, a day of remembrance, and one in which Molly and her group want to recognize as a day to build bridges to understanding as an antidote to fear and distrust.

I understand her question all too well because earlier this month I faced a similar dilemma.

I had been invited by Charlene Teters, a high school classmate, to come to her annual Pow Wow for her tribe, the Spokane Indians. I had connected with her at our 40th year class reunion last month. We didn’t know each other well in high school, but I did remember her brother, George quite well. He was the guy who beat me with a high degree of regularity in competitive wrestling throughout high school!

At the reunion, I learned that over the years Charlene had become a nationally prominent activist, leading to major policy changes so that today many sports teams no longer use Indians as mascots for their teams.

As I got ready that morning to pack and go to the Pow Wow I realized I had nothing to wear that would work.

I pulled out my one clean white t-shirt, with a Seattle Mariners emblem on the back (that seemed ok) but the logo on the front was of Alaska Airlines, with a Native face. I grabbed another t-shirt I had gotten at the Grand Canyon some years ago, and then noticed the image of Kokopelli, a fertility deity worshiped by some Native American tribes in the Southwest. Not ok?

I grew up in Spokane, a western town of sorts, so decided to grab my leather belt and leather hat I had gotten in Peru a few years back. Both hand-made. And both etched with what some believe to be religious animal symbols, called the Nazca Lines, from the ancient time of the Incas. Another commercial exploitation of Native culture?

My last option was to go a little fancier, and pull out my best western-looking shirt, a black, decorative Cowboy shirt. Eek! Now that would be a real poke in the eye.

We really know so little about each other. Maybe none of this would be offensive, I really don’t know. And I didn’t fully know what to expect at the Pow Wow, or, for that matter, what we will see when we go to the mosque today. I have traveled to 26 countries so far in my life, a good number of them in the middle east, and in all that time, I don’t think I have ever stepped foot in a mosque.

What one wears, or uses for a mascot, or burns, or makes a cartoon about, or builds near; these things can seem trivial to some, but to others are critically important. We don't really know why it is important unless we all learn a heck of a lot more about each other. And come to understand what we mean with our actions. For that, we need to step into each others' worlds.

Today is a day to take one more small step. Time to get ready.

Silverdale to Sulaymaniyah

“If you visit American city
You will find it very pretty
Just two things of which you must beware,
Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air”

I first heard this song by Tom Lehrer 30 years ago. Sometimes I think we have made great progress since then. Sometimes I do not. Recently I was torn between these two feelings in the space of an hour.

I headed out to Silverdale, Washington last week to see what a local Global Citizen Corps group was up to on this cold Sunday morning. I heard they were doing something about clean water and climate change, and I had a gift to bring them from their counterparts in Iraq.

As I waited in this lovely waterfront park, I gazed out to the windy sea and saw this surprising signage. Tom Lehrer’s song immediately revved up in my head. Just moments later, this song was interrupted and replaced by a loud and enthusiastic chanting coming from a crowd of 40 youth marching down the street.

They were marching the two miles from Island Lake to Puget Sound- from one polluted water hole to another, calling attention to World Water Day. And their efforts to raise money for purchasing incredibly low-cost water filters for families in Ethiopia.

They ended their march on top of a giant map of the world next to the sea, and stood in solidarity next to the eight countries where other Global Citizen Corps leaders were taking similar actions this week.

These young leaders all knew that if we do want to drink the water and breathe the air, it is going to take all of us across the globe, working together, to make it happen.

I offered them two gifts as we stood there on top of the world; a commemorative tea plate Iraqi youth asked me to bring to US youth leaders, and news that the Iraqi Global youth leaders had just planted 1300 trees and organized 2000 people to call attention to climate change.

I left the park a little chilled, but at least Tom Lehrer’s song was no longer rattling around in my head…

Voting in Iraq-an act of faith

The biggest issue that regularly confounds me each time I vote here in Seattle is finding a postage stamp. Despite this, I have become a strong believer in the mail-in ballot, mostly because I don't have to haul myself to the polls at 7am before I head off to work.

But, as I learned this week, voting in Iraq presents other challenges. I was talking yesterday on video Skype with my colleague, Mohammed, a Mercy Corps staffer for the Global Citizen Corps program about the recent Iraqi elections and wondering how it had gone. "Oh, it's gone quite well, very safe, only a few very small bombs went off".

Now I don't know about you, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of safe "small bombs." Over 100 people were killed in these March elections in Iraq, so to me, it is a pretty big act of faith to march down to the polls, dip your finger in ink, and make your views known through the power of the ballot box.

But many, like Mercy Corps' Global Citizen Corps member Kardo (pictured) did. This desire we have to vote, to help shape the way we are governed, is very strong, it seems. And while I would hope I would do the same if I were in Kardo's shoes, I doubt I will ever get to the point of thinking of any bomb as "small".....

Crossing the Cultural Divide, even in Scotland

Dear family and friends,

As some of you know, I headed for Scotland last week with some reluctance. Having traveled more in the developing world, I have acquired a taste for the unusual, the more close-to-the-tidewater kind of travel that countries like Guatemala, Iraq, Lebanon and Belize provide than the more comfortable developed Western World. It seems to me there is more to be learned when you cross these larger cultural and economic divides. Yes, there is the increased food poisoning, hole-in-the-ground toilets, and bullet-whizzing risks you accept that some have been quick to point out, but with every flowering cactus comes its thorn.

When I announced I was headed to Scotland, it was clear that it was far down my list of places I would like to go. Jenny, Boots, Denise and Erica all called attention to my cultural snobbery and were quite animated about the rewards for traveling in such a place. “It’s part of your own family roots, there are castles, and history, plus the famed golf courses of the world there!” they enthused. I was not convinced, but did decide to be a bit more open to the possibilities here. I have not been disappointed.

First I found that it is as easy to get sick in Scotland as in my favored poverty-stricken countries. Within my first two days in Scotland, I was attacked by a back-bending cough and chest cold as painful an experience, I am certain, as it was for those afflicted by Scurvy in the famed Irish Potato-Famine.

I finally dug out some old unused Cipro antibiotics saved from my last trip to Gaza and threw them at the Kilted Demon that set up shop in my lungs. Today is Day Six of my Scottish Adventure and while I continue to keep a “Phlegm-Cup” close at hand, I don’t have to empty it nearly as often.

Second, I was surprised to see how much there was to be gained in bridging the cross-cultural divide as well. On Day Two I met up with one of our local youth leaders, Thomas from Scotland. He is here with 16 other young leaders from Lebanon, Jordan and the US for our first International Youth Leadership Summit at Mercy Corps. We got into a very engaging discussion about electronics and he pointed out to me the great advances being made in IPod technology.

“Look at this tiny IPod player, its only as big as a thumb drive, and holds 16 Gigs of memory”.

I was impressed by its tiny size and power and how it could fit so easily into your shirt pocket. Thomas went on to say, “With the new headphones that fit around your head, the sound is crystal-clear brilliant... And get this, its only 60 pounds!”

“Well, I like the idea of brilliant, crystal clear sound, but headphones at 60 pounds seems like way too much to me”, I cautioned.

“No, it’s not too much, it’s the best you can get anywhere”, he argued.

“But isn’t that a lot of weight to put on your neck?” I inquired.

“NO, 60 pounds, that’s the cost, man!” Thomas exasperated.

I have learned much more in my time here, including a whole new vocabulary of English words that I did not know existed, from “bidden-lay” (a person of the opposite sex that you live with), to “a Quizzy”, a type of questionnaire. The sheep are so plentiful here even a Texan would be fully satisfied. And in the summer, I was told by one bloke, the mosquitoes are so big they can rape a chicken. Fortunately I return home in a few more days so will not be able to verify this.

As I lay awake at 3:30am this morning,(my body’s “Just Say No” policy for Radical Time Zone changes), I was reminded that if you keep your eyes open in life, you can learn something new every day, and traveling only accelerates that process. Even in Scotland.

I have been thinking a lot about hope and fear the past few weeks. It is hard to avoid at this time of year. Christmas and New Year’s are holidays of hope. Yet that hope easily can turn to fear when we find out people are flying with explosives in their underwear.

Fortunately, that attempt to kill innocents in the airplane failed. But in Iraq last month, one of the countries where I work with young people in Mercy Corps’ youth leadership program, the attempts succeeded, with terrorists killing 127 people in Baghdad.

One of the great things about working in Mercy Corps is the exposure you get to extraordinary people. I listened to two such people last month, hoping to get their perspectives. Both have dedicated their lives to bringing education to girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Greg Mortenson, author of Three cups of Tea, and Julia Bolz, a Seattle-based activist. Between the two of them, they have helped build hundreds of schools for girls in this part of the world, impacting not just these individuals, but generations to come.

The question weighing heaviest on my mind is what do we do to end the terror? There is no simple answer here. But one thing stuck out to me as I listened to them both. Both spoke with one clear message; “promoting peace is based in hope. Fighting terrorism is based in fear”.

Two days after the terrorist bombings in Baghdad, I heard from another group of extraordinary people. Two hundred Iraqi youth in our Global Citizen Corps responded to the bombings by organizing a caravan to the city and donated their blood, most for the first time. Their story was picked up by national and international media, reaching more than 5 million people with this story of hope. The driver of one of these vans was so moved by what these teens were doing, that he refused to take any money for his services that day.

I doubt we will ever capture, kill and eliminate every person who is set on terrorizing others around the world. But I am convinced that most people want to live with hope instead of fear, as these young Iraqi demonstrated last month. If we only give them a chance.

Palestinian Camps...not what you might expect

I love to camp. I associate it with mountain meadows, alpine flowers, a warm fire, a cold beer. And the occasional bear.

So when I heard I would be going to a Palestinian camp in Lebanon, I had a really hard time wrapping my brain around it.

I imagined there being tents in a desert, far from the urban landscape. Hot, dusty, maybe a fence around it just to give it a sense of place.

This was my second trip to the Middle East, to work with young adult leaders who are part of the Mercy Corps Global Citizen Corps program. Meeting these young people throughout the Middle East continues to be a daily myth-busting experience. This month, I found out what it means to be a Palestinian camper.

The first thing you notice as you come upon the camp is that it is anything but a camp. It sits just on the outskirts of Tripoli, one of the largest cities in Lebanon, and looks like a poor urban neighborhood, of several thousand people. And yea, there is a fence, but it’s impenetrable, and you need a passport and a pre-approved Visa to get in. The guards are heavily armed, and I am pretty sure it’s not about the bears.

We got the OK to enter, the five of us in a Mercy Corps vehicle, and drove several hundred yards inside where we stopped and got out. The roads are dusty, the “tents’ are concrete, bland-looking structures. It feels solemn, sad, and temporary. But it has been here for half a century. In addition to meeting with a local youth group that Mercy Corps works with, and hoping to get involved in the youth leadership program where youth discuss issues on-line and take action together, we visited a local after-school youth center run by Palestinian leaders from the camp.

We walked in as children were singing and dancing, and playing a game much like musical chairs. The walls were filled with colorful youth-produced art, along with a shocking black and white photo, showing 2 young people from Hiroshima at gunpoint, hands held high in the air. Startled to see such a photo here, I asked the director what it was about. He told me that it is part of the trainings they do to let youth know that no matter how difficult times can get, people are resilient and can find a way to improve their lives. “Hope is what we most need, and seeing examples of others who have overcome tough times is very important for us”.

This continued to be the most consistent and myth-busting discovery I uncovered in my work with young people here. And it was further reinforced reading “Children of Jihad” on my plane ride home. It is written by Jared Cohen, a young Jewish American who recently spent two years traveling in these same Middle East countries talking to young people to find out how they see themselves and the world. He too, talked with youth in Palestinian camps, Hezbollah youth groups, and on university campuses. He concludes this riveting read with

“I can say from my own experience, living and traveling in this volatile part of the world, that reaching this under-thirty generation is our best hope for greater communication-but only if we engage with them on their own terms. Amid the despair of war, poverty, and oppression, they are the ones who respond to creativity. Could it be that they will also find creative solutions for peace someday?....Like us, young people in the Middle East all desire better education; they all have a fascination with innovative uses of technology; they all get bored and crave adventure and entertainment; they all seek interaction and global connectivity; and more than anything, they all want to feel as though they belong, have a purpose in this world, and can have a better life. Young people in the Middle East are reachable-and they could be waiting to hear from us.”

Is it Safe?

“Did you feel safe?”

This is the first question I get asked as I finally touch down on US soil, after a grueling 21 hours of travel getting from my bed in Iraq to one in Washington D.C. I say grueling, but this same distance would have been traveled by my grandmother over land and sea in about 6 months. She would no doubt have gotten sea sick several times along the way, and paid dearly for food the Jordanian Airlines stewardess slipped under my comatose head. (Her trip from Kansas to Walla Walla in a covered wagon was tough enough for her, so I doubt she had aspirations of a trip to Iraq. But still, you get the point).

In the airport, I picked up the Washington Post (yes, they still print the thing, its not just on-line, Dan!), and find out that 14 people recently died in a car bomb attack in one of the small Iraqi cities in which we work. Another car bomb killed 30 people weeks before in Baghdad. But this is not my experience there.

My experience is going to a local park in Iraq where a large group of high school students we work with are highlighting International Peace Day. Thousands are in this park, strolling with their babies, and laughing at the riddles posed by the students who hand out candy prizes for the right answers, and tell us about the world-wide movement to promote peace.

My experience is walking around the corner after dark in search of a little dinner, and finding an elderly Iraqi fruit vendor. His shop is no larger than my bedroom, with fruit boxes cascading outside on the street. My colleague and I buy enough for dinner, and because I speak no Arabic and he speaks no English, we hand-signal the fruit we want. After we weigh out what we want, he slowly keeps adding pieces of fruit, a pomegranate here, a bag of dates here into the plastic sack, then hands it to me. When I give him $7, he quietly but insistently refuses. It’s his gift to me. Natalie tells me it is his way of welcoming me to his country.

And I would bet serious money that there are more guns in the households surrounding my hotel here in Washington DC than in any neighborhood in Iraq I walked through. Feeling safe, and being safe. Who knows where the truth lies.

The second question I was asked as I rode in the Super Shuttle to my hotel here was, “Did you feel hopeful by what you saw in the Middle East?”

I met with students in Iraq and Gaza working to promote female rights, Lebanese students in Hezbollah neighborhoods cleaning up parks and soon will be working on creating more open meetings of governing bodies. I met students working on access to clean water issues. At the same time, I met with students taken in by the police for questioning because they were planting trees and taking photos to share on-line, but it was a group of both male and female students and the fundamentalists don’t like that too much.

Yesterday, I had the honor to meet with Landrum Bolling, author of “Search for Peace in the Middle East”, a war correspondent for many years, and long-time Mercy Corps advisor. He sadly told me that for the first time he feels pessimistic about prospects for peace in the Middle East. Yet in the next breath, said this work with young people, connecting them in cooperative actions across borders is absolutely necessary and is what can help make a difference.

The young people I met with throughout the Middle East face such tough odds. Some are imprisoned by a wall surrounding their land from which they cannot get out, living in cities where car bombs can explode without warning, or living under governments where a meeting open to the public is as rare as a banjo. Thomas Friedman once said "Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.” He must have run into some of these folks.