Dialogue.

Last week, AIESEC Egypt hosted the third Middle East North Africa Exchange and Leadership Development Seminar, and kicked the whole thing off with a Global Village, an event that allows delegates to share aspects of their culture through food, music, pictures, or anything like that. Now, I wasn't able to attend the conference because of school, but I was able to go to Global Village and see the twenty countries represented taking over the Corniche in Gezira. It is strange to think that it was two years ago that I was in Morocco, participating in the same thing. So much has changed since then, but its incredible to see familiar faces so much later.
(Gail from UAE and David Ziser from Kansas/Oman and me and the beautiful Denise from GT). A note on my t-shirt: My 19th birthday present from Katie Mitchell, a Ramblin' Wreck shirt that has the song on the back - this shirt has been worn to every conference and global village I have ever attended as a member of @GT. I am in love with it.)

As there was only one delegate representing the US, which was a little disappointing, but given the financial constraints of the conference and travel to Egypt is a little understandable, we helped deck out the table. Oreos, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter and jelly, Pepsi (although I was upset that our friend from @Madison bought Pepsi and not Coke...my Atlanta roots were pained by that), a Braves hat, and as much Obama stuff as I had in my apartment. Which was cool when people asked for pictures with us, the table, the flag, and Obama's picture.

Which brings me to the role of the Global Village - to learn about other cultures, build relationships, and use that knowledge to create conversations that may one day change the world. Which is just what Obama is doing. His message to Iran exemplifies just that, the willingness to learn about a culture, reach out to them, and begin a dialogue that will initiate change. It's a small step towards a bigger leap, and the man keeps making me proud.

This is exactly what we need around the world - the creation of dialogue. The inclusion of two parties contributing equally to a conversation about the world. And that doesn't just mean speaking, it means listening, too.

For example, the conflict in Israel and Palestine is many things. Complicated, important, heartbreaking, horrifying. But more than anything, I think it is something that changes in definition depending on who you ask. Before coming to Egypt, I was unsure of everything - I had read about it, and knew basics of the conflict, but my understanding of it has completely changed now. Not because I have chosen sides, but because I have had the opportunity to listen to both of them, learn from both of them. And it is increasingly frustrating to find people who refuse to initiate dialogue from a standpoint of being fair and balanced, from both sides.

If you want a different perspective of the conflict than what is usually reported in the US, check out this discussion started by an Israeli university on the role of their military in the conflict. For the full description, take a look at Haaretz, a left-leaning news center in Jerusalem. It is a step towards recognizing the need for developing an honest dialogue on both sides.

Three Cups of Tea.

Reading books like this and learning about organizations like this act as both a positive and a negative.

The positive: Learning that what I am doing with my life has been done, can be done, and can seriously change the path of a community. That understanding culture, language, and people is as important to building bridges as stones and mortar. That someone else shares my fascination and dedication for the parts of the world people have written off. That Pakistan and Afghanistan are as beautiful and incredible as I imagine.

The negative: I'm reading about it, not doing it.

If you want to understand an important aspect to responsible ethnographic participative action research and development implementation, working with Islamic communities, and what I am attempting to do with my career - this book articulates a lot of what I believe. Everyone should understand the incredible potential of one person, one idea, and some tea.

A Proud American Abroad.

This is the man.

I am so proud, again. I can't even begin to describe. Watching it, surrounded by other Americans in my apartment, it was a surreal, enlightening, exciting, incredible, indescribable moment. Even amidst Wolf Blitzer's insistent buzz of analysis and commenting on triviality of things like Aretha Franklin's odd hat (who cares? It's the Aretha Franklin) - the amazingness of this moment shone through. And being here is a unique experience - I would be proud anywhere in the world, but being in the midst of the Gaza crisis, the Arab world, the disapproval of all things Bush - it's going to be a different view today. More than anything, I think that this election and all the subsequent hope it's bringing is going to also bring a change of paradigm, not only for the American perspective on how we view ourselves as well as how we see the world, but changing on how the rest of the world sees us. And right now, it has turned into a pretty good view.

In all the pre-inauguration excitement, I have been watching everything I can to feel like I am as much a part of the inaugration as possible. I found this awesome thing from the BBC called "Notes to Obama" - advice from some pretty incredible people to the new President, and the one from Maya Angelou is my favorite. (It's funny to think that her poem for Clinton's inauguration is almost more applicable now.)

I can't stop thinking about this. How excited I am. How inspired I am. How incredibly proud I am.

yes, We can.

"That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."
- Barack Obama -

I'm more proud than I think I can put into words.

I bet Carmen Sandiego never had to deal with this...

My heart goes out to my beloved Shanky. The boy challenged himself to travel halfway around the world, Live the Dream, and then experiences something monstrous - a brutal attack. I am simultaneously worried and proud of him - half of my heart wants him home, safe, but the other half wants him to continue living. And I know that these monstrosities are not limited to Kenya, they happen in Atlanta, too.
I experienced something similar (although much milder and less scary I'm sure), and more than anything I wanted to come home. I remember crying, in pain, in an Indian hospital torn between home and continuing the challenge. If I had gone home, I would have been a different person. I would be a different person. So much of that challenge shaped the direction of the rest of my experience (and little did I know, a great deal more of my life as I spent several weeks later in the year in the hospital) - if I had left early, there would have been so much that I would have not known. As terrible as it was, it shaped something spectacular for me.
Knowing the extent of the attack, I was also torn on another decision - whether or not to tell my parents. I crave comforting about the issue - god knows how worried I am about Sean. But on the other side of the coin - would my parents comfort be worth their ultimate worry about my safety in the year to come? Would continue to support my decision to spend the next chapter of my life in what they have labeled a "dangerous place"? Of course, comparing Cairo to Nairobi is a little like comparing tequila and rum - both are exciting, potentially risky, and delicious - just differently. But would they see that? I have the feeling that they would lump together all the places they didn't understand and categorize them under "Places we will not let our daughter go." Their understanding and support in my decision to face that challenge are nearly as important to me as the experience itself, and I know that without them this challenge would be about impossible. I guess it is hard for them to relate, my cravings for international experiences are a little, for lack of a better and less cheesy term, foreign to them. They still expect me to "wise up" one day and put on an engineer's hat, to chicken out, marry, and have those babies that my wide hips were made for, and are still wary of my passion and desire for all things Middle Eastern, challenging, and international. I think that they are proud in some ways, but find it difficult to explain why their daughter is on the other side of the world, why she spends so much time in a student organization they have never heard of, or what the hell her path through life spends so little time on native soil. My new friend faces the same issues convincing her parentals to experience the greatness of the traineeship rocketship. But again, it all comes back to the Dream. And if it comes down to living it or letting it pass by, you better be sure as hell that I am going to be living and breathing all I can of it.

Goodbye Poppa-Bear

Another one lives the Dream. Kazakhstan, you better love him as much as I do.
This incredible man has been the backbone of my AIESEC for the past year and a half - he has pushed and inspired and motivated me to want to be that for someone else.
Let's hope that I can live up to the challenge.

Daily Paradigm Shift

I respect, more than anything, the willingness of others to change. I revere individuals that embrace this phenomenon, the people that leap into change head first, not solely accepting changes that happen upon them, but their entire ambition is to constantly change and grow while supporting, pushing, encourage others to experience the same impact.
From reading about a revolution in perspective, to discussions with my role models about their direction in life, from gentle pushes from across the ocean to examine how to improve myself to improve others, to a hero of mine sincerely forcing me to look into the direction of my own - it constantly pushes me to change myself, my perceptions, and to focus my direction. To discover my purpose.
I am consistently impressed that AIESEC has placed these incredible people in my life. That their experiences in this organization has shaped them in away that they have been able to shape me, that their changes in perception of individuals, of cultures, of growth and the globe have so significantly changed my own. That taking on these challenges, whether it is a traineeship, an international conference, or leading other such amazing individuals, do not accept that they have overcome these challenges, but are constantly looking for new ones.
It is amazing that the slightness of one action impacts so many others. That missing a bus my freshman year allowed me to read a flyer advertising AIESEC, that one night of hunger turned into a dinner that cemented my personal connection to some other AIESECers that have been some of my closest friends, that one delayed plane caused me to have some of the most constructive and inspiring conversations of my life. That allowing myself to be dragged to one information session a year and a half ago could give me so many of the opportunities that AIESEC has.
Preston told me this, in a dead-tired, half-aware state on the plane somewhere over the Appalachian Mountains - there is a reason that change is in the word exchange. Because exchange may be the medium of AIESEC, but change is what we do.

and 60 years later, we are still fighting.

Today marks the sixtieth anniversary of Gandhi's assassination. His ashes, with Hindu custom, have been mixed with the ocean and sent to sea.

I remember spending months researching his life, his mission, and his death - one of those all-consuming semester projects that usurped the Spring of fourth grade. Back then, Gandhi was my hero, my guiding light. I read his letters, read accounts of his friends and family, craved reaching the same unattainable goals in my life; peace, fulfillment of humankind's potential, discussion over conflict. I quoted the man in my speech at graduation (as I am sure most people do in one speech or another).

It wasn't until I left for India that I really understood his work, or him for that matter. Americans exclaim that he brought together his country and his people - but India remains as divided as ever, as does the world. India loves it's Mahatma, but there is still a person behind the symbol that Gandhi has been forged into. Simply, a person - flawed, raw, and full of emotion. Ultimately, his humanity is what fascinates me the most. That the unattainable he was searching for was became a capability, and perhaps that my unattainable goals are not invincible either. I have felt the impact that I have created, experienced first hand what belief, what determination, and what the dedication of one person could achieve.

We are so much to so many, and there needs no national holiday, no day of remembrance to understand that. I wish the people who have changed my life could see what they have done. I wish my life could be laid out and show the changes in its course. I am beyond thankful - at this point I don't even know how to start.

maybe I should just start with you. Thank you.

Pakistan's "Best Hope" burns out...

Benazir Bhutto's death shocked me. It, understandably, has shocked the whole world.

Ever since India and experiencing first hand the intense effects of Pakistan on that part of the world, I have become more aware of the political situation there. I fell in love with Al-Jazeera as a portal to sometimes overlooked perspectives on political drama and the status of Islamic societies around the world (an issue very dear to my heart and education). Being so close to the Pakistani border, at one point even touching it, and understanding the role of extremists in their daily lives - the Lal Masjid siege still burns in my mind - it has challenged and changed my worldview. Also the understanding I have of their culture, an incredible mixture of Indian tradition with Islamic faith, has been a great insight to the situations that have plagued the country since July and to the assassination and response yesterday. I understand the significance of  her rapid, riotous, and simple burial. I know the significance of the simplicity of the coffin that now lies in her father's mausoleum. I know why Pakistan lies in turmoil and why riots of mourning rage the streets. I understand their claims that their nation's hope has been killed. They say that their cities are on fire.

I know why Pakistan's loss is, in many ways, the world's loss.

Pakistan is no perfect country. Ever since it's creation in 1947, it has been troubled by war with neighboring India, also a country facing severe problems from its birth even to today, and torn between its Southeast Asian heritage and Islamic society, but ever since the beginnings of America's war in Afghanistan, the country's troubles have been forced into the limelight - most notably their particular issues with extremism and terrorism. President Musharraf has been an ally and an impediment to the "war on terror" - not that I agree with or support the terms of that war or its driving forces - and his masked dissolution of the constitution and public destruction of the Pakistani judiciary in the second half of the year have all but destroyed the country. The reemergence  of Benazir Bhutto from her self-imposed exile this year had led people, namely Western foreign policy makers, to believe that should she be re-elected as Pakistan's Prime Minister, Musharraf would be reined in - that Pakistan would continue as a Western ally, and perhaps it would end the term of quasi-democratic Pakistan and give birth to a new nation run by the people. Bhutto, in her time, was not perfect either - her campaign as Prime Minister was filled with claims of corruption and conspiracy, (including international money-laundering, payoff of foreign officials, and more) her previous support of the Afghanistan's Taliban regime, (she has since condemned the Taliban for their dismissal of human rights and their insistence in supporting terrorism) and her lack of implementation during her term as Prime Minister. 

More recently, all of her efforts have been using her political party, the Pakistan People's Party, to democratize and modernize Pakistan, focusing on human rights and women's development issues to institute stability and democracy to the region - a plan which she hoped to spread throughout Western Asia. It was in this that the Western world named her Pakistan's "best hope" for change and peace in the future. She had been working with Musharraf for months, agreeing to shared power of the country (a move which Musharraf granted her amnesty from the pending international investigations for corruption) - and remained outspoken against extremism and terrorism in "her home, her country", even calling Musharraf to resign after he had established "emergency rule", a code of martial law and suspended civil liberties that nearly destroyed the country. She has been a consistent American ally, and so many have recognized the power Pakistan would have should she return to lead the country.

Her death, which she very clearly understood was a risk from the day she returned to Pakistan, has been cited by lesser news sources to her "recklessness" and "stubbornness" to assess the risks she took by appearing publicly. Others say it was the reluctance of Musharraf to provide her proper protection. Some claim it was America's stance on the Iraqi war (which is a stretch to say the least). Prominent terrorist groups have already claimed responsibility - which will lead to another step towards international foreign policy remaining focused on terrorist threats (which frustrates me because it continues the tradition that America has long since followed - treating the effects and not the cause of these acts, things like economy, education, improved cultural understanding, women's empowerment, and the success of civil liberties and adaptive foreign policy - a tradition that goes back to World War I, but that rant is for another time...)

I don't know what I believe. She was a woman of power from a political family that has been both revered, accused, and punished for their work to build a better Pakistan. She had been a tireless campaigner for human rights, civil liberties, and the progression of women. The world has lost an incredible force for understanding the Islamic woman and the Islamic world, both politically and culturally. It also lost someone who had arguably played both sides of the table in many ways. Her father had once claimed she would be more famous, more powerful, and more influential than India's "Iron Lady" - her life was working to achieve that mantle, and perhaps her assassination will accomplish that impact.

Her death will bring a change to Pakistan, though I am not sure if it is going to get better or worse. I guess only time will tell. 

You rock, Rock.

these people makes my life look lame.

7 days. 18 hours. 34 minutes. 10 seconds.
and i will be flying.

would you believe me if i told you?

if you only knew how much.
but i don't think you would believe me.
please keep inspiring me.
it's everything i need right now.

Remotivation

when I found out that I was not going to Morocco for spring break, I almost started crying. my heart broke a little bit. and i lost the motivation to do anything. even AIESEC, which is a big deal for me. i mean, i'm not angry at the CC, just disappointed.

and then i trudged along to a meeting, still upset and confused and unsure what the next step was. and a comment came up in the meeting about how strange it would be if two integral members of our LC had not stayed with the organization - and how lost we would be without them.

right there was my motivation. I wanted to be that motivation and inspiration for someone else. i want to share with someone how amazing AIESEC is and have it completely change their life.

and here i am, remotivated. i still don't know where i am going from here, but i know i am at least going.


#sidenote: i bought my first suit today. i have never felt so old. and broke. but i better look good at the BOA meeting on thursday.