The roar from afar that is Euro Cup

It is 85F in Geneva. The sun has turned me a golden brown and I'm no longer burning red under it. Although at the top floor of the old building I feel hot and the breeze is not enough. It is summer...!!

Well, finished the last weeks of May in a blur and a half-assed happiness. Given more time, I would have done better in everything. Now, I just hope I passed. Grades are available this week, but they're not mailing them out. I just so happen to have to go back for a business meeting (about the Global Public Policy Network Student Conference this fall) this coming Fri-Mon so hopefully I can end the awful suspense and receive full confirmation that I did, indeed, suck this past semester. I realize now why my prof from first semester said my paper could be publishable. I spent so much more effort inside that theme and on paper. Second semester there just wasn't adequate time to delve into each subject.

Sigh.

The last three weeks were littered with days like this: Econ 1b class, 1st year meeting (review), Amartya Sen, Matt in town, dinner with Cuba group. Or, Bridget visit, Global paper due, Econ exam review, GPPN meeting with Anand, Conflict Management paper review meeting, dinner with Bridget. Now, my ex-co-workers will confirm that I thrived in our schizophrenic days where one minute it was a volunteer training, a lobby visit, hiring interns, tracking legislation, health care meetings. But this year has felt more schizo and more multi-tasked than I felt before. And many of my friends left without announcement, possibly never to be seen again - off to summer internships and then another school in our dual-degree program next fall. My heart felt torn and my mind wiped out.

So, work happened and my mind moved and friends came. Matt and I had baguette lunch with his traveling friend, Bart, down by the Seine where it was less windy and a bit more sunny. Bridget came and, after 15 years, it only took us 20 minutes to settle back intohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif each other as friends. We let ourselves sleep late and do our own thing during the day. She visited Rimbaud and I spent quick hours at school. We met for dinner and laughed over the über American tourists. And when I was free all day on Saturday, we went through and around and into Paris. The back way to the Sacre Coeur (thank you, Josh and Sarah!), such a perfect day, into the Museum of Montmartre to see the history of absinthe but to leave wondering where to find it.

[The giant roars as Spain kills 3 goals in 5 minutes... sorry make that Spain 4 and Italy 2 .. in the last 7 minutes - good lord!]

Up the back way to the Sacre, around its outside, through a lovely garden, down a side street into the rain and scamper under the cover of an awning of a little bistro. The nicest bartender ever. I'll go back for a salad and beer sometime soon. The corner of Rue Custine, Rue Labat, and Rue Ramey.

We left after a few hours and beers (me, drinking beer in the middle of the day, in the middle of finals prep - I felt giddy and heady and ooo what fun!) and meandered through the street to all of a sudden end up in African market land. Literally, turned a corner and there were glorious bodies of shimmering fabric, hands full of sacks of groceries, children tottling before or after, the smell of chicken roasting, saffron. Bridget is more comfortable than I am, after confronting her shyness of African women (I told her I thought that it was perhaps that they carry such mystery and magic, power and essence within layers of beautiful robes; she told me that they do have the power - they do the accounting, they portion out the shares, they labor in the field but they have the purse strings). She leads me into the fabric stores to show me the multitude of designs and colors from floor to ceiling stacked high. And then, we go on a walk through the Rue de la Goutte d'Or and then to find a bathroom.

Bridget tells it better than I have:

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"vote football (a story)"

walking through a beautiful arab and african quarter of paris, we were
in search of a bathroom - fast. past bakeries and mosques we could not
be deterred because that's how bad lauren had to go. little old men
sitting on stools in front of big city old doors. selling something or
maybe just passing the time like in the old country. kids holding
dad's hand as they strolled the narrow walkways. elegant fabrics
sneakily pouring out of the tops of storefront doorways. we walked on
in a general direction toward something on the horizon. a field of
train tracks below gave way to a space in the skeye that told us which
direction to follow to gare de l'est.

the skeyes was dimming and it wasn't looking good for umbrellaless
urban-explorers. finally we reached a choice in the path where the
decision was immediately obvious. continue down the narrow street or
take a set of steps down to a mini-courtyard that seemed to be
bouncing around a soccer ball. we took the steps and when we arrived
at the bottom, a group of young boys ignored us very well. we were in
the way of their soccer game but they weren't going to make it
obvious. they were copying some of the best moves that they saw from
their favorite footballers on t.v. and seemed to be in a hypnotic
state about it. two white ladies in search of a bathroom could not
compare to the obstacle that their defense offered them.

until... until, i without thinking ran up to them deciding i wanted to
play too. i guess i was feeling 10 years old and didn't think of
obstacles either. but when i approached the kid with the ball, his
eyes got big, he retreated from the ball and shrank in physical size
to an image i could barely see. i realized right away what happened.
being young black immigrant african boys in a mostly white parisian
culture didn't leave a lot of room for safety. they were protecting
themselves EVEN if they had to leave their probably most prized
possession behind: their soccer ball. they were ready to run from ME!
a weird white lady and leave their game - their dream...

it felt like crap. i felt like crap. such a huge worldly pain, regret,
and guilt crept over me and i too cowered away in the opposite
direction.
trying to reconcile embarrassment, racism, pain, oppression, and all
of the embedded junk that goes with it, i got lost in my head feeling
really weird and uncomfortable. lauren still had to go to the
bathroom. but she watched the whole thing happen. and by the time i
got within whispering distance to her, all i could say was: 'those
kind of experiences are important to have to.' she replied with the
obvious, that they thought i was going to beat them up or take their
ball or something like that - i don't remember exactly. but then she
said the most memorable, 'that's why you have to try again.' i think i
said 'WHAT?' still recovering and imagined being in recovery mode for
a few days or weeks... she said 'you have to try again' and
simultaneously realized that the public library just across the street
probably had a bathroom. she began to disappear in that direction as i
mulled over her comment.

hmmm. what the heck. so i went back to the game and gently, in my
nicest french, quietly asked them if i could play. they stared and me
and were of course weirded out. who is this lady? and what does she
want? i couldn't have answered the question either, so i am glad that
it was their eyes and not their mouths that asked me. they were
hesitant, but finally the leader put me in the least desirable
position on the court yard bumpy rocky 'field' that was starting to
get quite slippery from the french drizzle. i became their goalie.
which freed them to show off their best footwork even on pavement that
may as well have been ice.

with my back to the steps, i was guarding a space between a railing
and a wall. it was too big for the number of amazingly dexterous kids
running at me in the rain, but i didn't complain. i just strapped my
backpack on tight. pushed up my sleeves, and awaited the plummeting of
goals over my head, through my legs, under my arms, and too far for my
slippery reach in both directions.

eventually they started calling me madame and told me to take my
backpack off so i could be more comfortable. a few smiles started to
creep up on their pro-footballer faces and a few times their was as
much laughter falling as their was rain. we were lucky to be semi
under cover and only the ground was really getting wet - which i
repeat was NOT easy to maneuver. it felt like a game of broom ball on
the frozen over baseball field of a mid-western town. with just a
soccer ball and a bunch of friends these kids knew how to have fun
despite their surroundings. they found a field half the size of a
tennis court with buildings on two sides, steps on one, and a street
on the other. it was clear they had been playing there for awhile.
because they knew with exactly how much force they had to kick the
ball in order to pass it to a distant teammate but not kick it as far
as the street. i was the only one who ever kicked it into the street.
big faux pas. big eyes.

i have to say, i did make a few saves and got quite sweaty in the
short time that i played, but for the most part it was evident that
these boys were the football heroes, and i was not.

lauren came back at some point, but i didn't notice her for quite some
time - being so immersed in my game. when i did look up she was
smirk-smiling from behind her camera. on a high note i left the game
and joined her, watching from the sidelines. she said after she went
to the bathroom, she had a chance to vote in the library. the question
was: should immigrants be allowed to vote in local elections? an
interesting juxtaposition of experiences... it sure would be nice if
the parents of these kids could have a voice in the decision making of
their community. i can just see these boys as professional footballer
casting their ballots ten years from now.


#########


The photos are in progress. I'm right now working on the ones from my friends the Family Sarnowski visit back in the end of April. Yes, that far behind. But... now I have time, my friends!!

**this was finished on 23 June - I'm not ready to talk about the internship yet, but today was a good day at the United Nations.**

finished, fini, finito, f grad school

Did anyone else want to cry pounds of saltwater out of their tear ducts when they did the last spell check on the last paper that felt like the last ounce of energy in their body?

Well, there's no time to stop now.

My sister comes to town tomorrow at 8am (I desperately need 1 day to sleep all day!!!). We hug and then run down to my school so I can print the final copy and email the final to the prof. I pay the landlord rent - if he's lucky. We find me my own guide book to Northern Italy. We buy a few needed items since I've had no time to run errands. We drink at least 2 bottles of cheap French wine in celebration of me finishing my first year of grad school without tearing out all of my hair -- although I have noticed I'm shedding more than I ever did before in my life. We cruise the Venice Marco Polo rental car agencies online, pick one (she's such a smart girl and got the international driving license before she left the US - me? I was thinking I could just walk in and show them my badass driving skills.... seriously, I was neck-deep in the Fed).

Then, Tuesday we hop an Easy Jet to Venice, get a car and head for the west. It's so unplanned right now and I'm not freaking out at all about that. In fact, I could care less what happens to us over there. If we could just find a little room in a little town with a bunch of good olives and good wine and cute Italian people, I'll be happy. I'm revisiting college days and only packing a small bag. I am hoping for a Sofia Loren moment in a sundress and handbag overlooking some nice windy, tiny town where small boys chase balls in the street and the men lean out windows to whistle. .. Or, again, just a room and some wine.

I totally think I bombed the last two papers I wrote and frankly, senioritis has me so bad right now that I can't care too badly. But then I remember my high standards of late and think maybe it's not so bad. And that really each paper I write could turn into a PhD if given enough time. I reviewed my Ethiopia-Eritrea paper with the prof, which almost sent me into fits. He highlighted like every other line and was really way too interested in my paper than I thought it warranted. He asked for a few clarifications that made me panic. I mean, frankly, I write a paper, turn it in and forget it just to move on to the next thing. How am I supposed to remember what I meant by the negotiations already being biased based on the fact that the Ethiopians were requested to move back to their territory prior to the 1987 conflict? (Hmmm I guess I do remember - it meant that the unmarked border was in essence falling to the benefit of the Ethiopians as the border wasn't theirs to determine necessarily. Having international orgs determine this line inflamed Eritrea and cast a shadow of favoritism over the whole negotiation. ... hmm.. Yeah, I did love that paper.)

Anyway. Other than that paper, I'm clueless on any grades and I don't care. Grad school isn't really about grades. It's more about effort and comprehension. And I like that. And I also like that it's over for now.

So, sister and I and Italy. Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, Venice, back to Paris. We'll have a half-day here and then the graduation of the 2nd years - my last real time to see them and see a bunch of my own cohorts. So bizarre the ending to this year. There wasn't a single event of closure at all. No big bang. No big fiesta or fete or frankenweiner. All of a sudden, we were all in a panic to finish papers in the last 3 weeks and then people just kind of peeled off. I happened to be there at the time when one of my friends was leaving to go finish packing to return to Canada the next day and then go off to LSE or Columbia for the next year. Kind of suffering separation anxiety, and kind of totally excited to know I have some amazing friends all over the world again.

Bittersweet this.

On another front, I'm kind of seeing someone. Man, I haven't even told my in-person friends about this really. But I guess I can tell the whole anonymous world (I'm pretending my family doesn't read this right now). He's French, and kind of very French. He's a bit more romantic than my pragmatic American senses, but there's mutual respect for these differences. Last night he had me over for an apertif to meet a ton of his friends and then to this super kickass monthly event at Telebocal. An independent TV/film production group. It seemed very punk rock, DIY, hippie, original. The gist is that they film events, do on-street interviews and then have a showing of their work monthly. A lot of interns from local universities and young people. I laughed so hard - and actually laughed at the right places and actually understood a lot of the low-brow humor. Got to meet more new French friends. And then got to dance my booty off! The end band was this amazing alternative, mod, punk rock precussion ensemble with a room full of drum sets and musicians in sunglasses playing plastic kid's toys. It was fantastic. So, yes, while I'm moaning about the work load, I am getting out and enjoying the sunlight and night events.

So, one of the interesting things about last night was the amount of times I got up from the couch. Right, sounds like nothing unusual. But literally, every person who comes in greets every person already there. So, every time someone arrived we'd get up from the deep-seated couch and kiss right-left cheek and sneak in our name as intro and then "enchante," which I love because it's so fairy-tale. But, man, what a ritual. I remember Argentina having the right-cheek kiss at intros, but did they have it at departures? And was it so formal that at a party everyone would get up and do the rounds? And who invented cheek-kissing anyway? And who determines how many in which country? Santa? The Queen?

Yes. Well. So there's Paris, then Italy, then Paris for about a week during which I scrub and pack and lock-down and prepare for the Brit subletters and take off to Geneva. Then, there's like, dude, real working. Or, fake real working - I think the motto will be make the most of it and make your own adventure. I don't think I'll be fetching coffee, but since all the interns were in relaxed gear, I'm doubtful I'll be entrusted with the secret documents about the new statistics out from Russia on the growth of their economy. (Not that that's a secret anyway.) I know the point is more to network and meet other interesting people at other interesting organizations in hopes of making some lasting impression so I get a job in the future and pay off my family loans and the Chinese.

But yes, as AA says, one day at a time. And for now, it's 3 minutes into the day my sister arrives and I should go get some sleep. Yeah.. in college when I finished a year it was all about the party, now it's grad school and all about the sleep. Heh.

Bisous.