A Postcard: P. Davanzzo

“For a woman to starve to death is a small matter,

But for her to lose her chastity is a great calamity”

This is written on a postcard that I brought from Ghana. It is part of a series of postcards produced to support national tourism. And it portrays a woman sitting by some baskets, hands crossed over her lap.

How can this be? How can people be so different, think so differently? How can we be at peace when we are traveling, learning and sharing other cultures, coming across things that hurt and disgust? How do we stop our judging and accept? Or even: should we? Should we accept something that feels like a punch in the stomach, should we fight for change? What is our reach, how fair is our understanding, how fair is our point of view? How fair is our interference?

I don’t know. I don’t have the answer to any question. Open mindedness brings me a degree of exposure that is scary and irreversible. The only thing I know is that in my world, the world that I create in my imagination, this postcard doesn’t exist. Instead, there is another postcard that says:

“For a woman to lose her chastity is a small matter,
But for her to starve to death is a great calamity.”

Quote Of The Day

Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.

--Lee Iacocca, industrialist

Figuring it Out

This August, recently armed with undergraduate degrees in literature and political science, I did what any directionless American liberal arts major lacking financial ambition might do: ship off to teach English abroad. I was lucky to land a year-long Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship at the prestigious Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey – a part of the world I’d always wanted to visit. I could take free graduate classes while teaching “speaking skills” to small classes of would-be Bilkent undergraduates lacking the language skills necessary to meet the English-medium university’s standards. Read: they wanted warm-blooded native speakers to talk for twenty hours a week. Sounded simple enough. Little did I know just how provocative those hours of essentially free-for-all conversation would be.

My original goal was simply to hold the students’ interest, avoid philosophical landmines (i.e. obey the law) and nudge them towards fluency. I start out with a seemingly flawless lesson plan: an analysis of the Beatles’ “When I’m 64,” followed by predictions of what their lives will be like when they reach that age. To my dismay, my chirpy questions are answered with blank stares. The distant future? They’re late teens still trying to pass the upcoming exam, much less deal with answers to existential questions fifty years from now. To top it all off, the questions are coming from a wacky 23-year-old teacher – barely older than them – hiding anarchist sentiments under awkward-fitting “professional” clothes. The fact that I’m ditching my friends and family to teach them the English they need to get a Turkish education is beyond comprehension. What can they say? Will they end up staying in Turkey or go for the “utopian” dream of graduate school – and potentially life – abroad? Will their passports ever double as tickets into the EU? Is Turkey sliding down the same “slippery slope” towards fundamentalist Islamic rule à la Iran as some Turks insist? For those with immediate family in current or potential war zones, the future is even more precarious. “Insh’Allah, teacher,” they say, Arabic for “god-willing,” “we want a good life, but we don’t know what will happen.”

Actually, each time I walk into a classroom, neither do I. I consistently find myself in a crossfire of social issues I only vaguely understand. A macho student in a pink playboy-bunny shirt fiddles with his brand-new BMW keys in one hand and seductively swings his prayer beads in the other, bragging about the girls he’d met at a bar the night before; next to him, a girl pats her hairpins to make sure the hat she’s wearing covers all her hair (since by law she can’t wear a headscarf to school) as she complains about society’s expectations of women’s physical appearances; next to her a heavily made-up girl in a skin-tight miniskirt and knee-high boots furrows her brows at the mention of alcohol (technically prohibited in Islam) and promises to bring me a copy of the Koran next class. An Iraqi exchange student describes her recent trip home as “peaceful” while an adrenaline-charged boy fresh from his military service demands an explanation of the US’s presence there. A previously quiet girl offhandedly suggests the army destroy Kurdish villages out east; an invisibly-Kurdish boy from the far east is silent. The Bulgarians and Azerbaijanians need special translations of new vocabulary. Those on scholarship need help circumventing the all-too-prevalent topic of “shopping.” Most students are happy discussing their hometowns and Turkish food, but for a small yet vocal minority, the topic of Greeks and Armenians (not to mention Jews, Asians, and blacks) offers endless material for cruel jokes. One boy says he wants to “holocaust gay people.” And I am to say…what? “Holocaust” is not a verb?

The problem is, I’m trying to juggle a little too much: teach English with laughable training, wind my way through a labyrinth of cultural nuances, and figure out what to do with my life. Let’s be frank: for most young graduates, “teaching English” is less a passion for grammar than it is a “gap year” between school and “real life.” Meanwhile, the luxury of my indecision feels increasingly unfair. Bilkent University is one of the top universities in Turkey, and the Turkish-born English teachers I work with are some of the best in their field. Their jobs are competitive and they work hard towards advanced teaching degrees. Me? I didn’t take a single education course in college – yet I have the option of teaching virtually anywhere until I decide to dabble in the myriad of choices available to me. Japan or Spain? Journalism career or graduate school? I’m the face of the cultural imperialist force neither side can escape: no matter how hard my coworkers study English, I’ll always have a leg up just because my native language happens to be the current international one. No matter how much I struggle with the assigned English translations of Foucault and Deleuze in my graduate courses, my Turkish peers are facing an exponentially more difficult battle. And yet no matter how American foreign policy taints my students’ gut reaction to my nationality, they’re always up for talking about Justin Timberlake’s new song. Not necessarily because it’s good. Just infectious. Because it’s everywhere.

These students don’t particularly care about the Beatles. Like most of the industrialized world they know Lost and Angelina Jolie, but they’re also growing up in an especially conflicted and diverse country currently facing issues with enough conversation material to last a lifetime. They deserve teachers who will encourage critical thinking relevant to their lives. I’ve adjusted my lesson plans to discuss topics like gender roles, global warming, and international standards of beauty – even the wildly popular (and arguably anti-American) Turkish television show Valley of the Wolves Iraq. We have debates. Heated debates. And I learn far more about Turkish culture from my students than I ever could fumbling through Turkey on my own.
The cliché rings true: I learn just as much as – if not more than – my students. What was originally a vehicle for getting abroad has become the most stimulating aspect of my life in Turkey. I can’t always give them my all; teaching, studying, translating, and missing home is exhausting. However, I give them more than I expected. Like them, my future life-path is fuzzy. We’re figuring it out together.

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in December 2006, Lisa Brunner tried radio journalism and nannying before arriving in Ankara in August 2007. Her job ends July 11, 2008 - any ideas????

She’s Cheering You On

At the beginning of 2006, I organized a creative retreat for nine women in my artistic community. We had all known or known of each other for many years through our work as artists and writers, but we had never spent time together face to face. We met for three days at my home in Solvang, CA, where we spent time talking, creating, taking pictures and having one great big slumber party. There were structured activities and free time, a wine tasting picnic and a dancing in my living room, and by the time the weekend was over we had formed a bond that will always be with us, reminding us of the beauty and importance of our creative community.

One of the activities we did was an exercise led by Andrea Scher, an artist and personal coach, in which we all imagined a conversation with our future selves. We were instructed to visualize where we were, the environment, the weather, the time of day, even what we were wearing. When the exercise was over, we all shared our conversations with each other and contemplated why our future selves said the things they said, as well as why we asked the questions we asked.

When I imagined sitting down with my future self, I pictured a living room in a cozy house. There were tall ceilings, a fluffy, oversized couch, and a fireplace with a beautiful fire burning. The sun had just set beyond the French doors, and the back yard served as the foreground to a gorgeous view of the mountains. The image exuded peace, comfort and a delicious intimacy, and the most important message I took away from this encounter was that I would always be OK. My future self wanted me to know that no matter what, I would always have whatever I needed to get through any challenge or triumph that lay before me.

This experience has stayed with me ever since - the knowledge that my future self is actually out there, cheering me on and encouraging me every step of the way having made a mark in my psyche that I can always turn to when I feel lost, overwhelmed or uninspired. I imagine my future self sometimes looks at me and shakes her head, but in the gentlest way, knowing I’m simply doing the best I can despite my stumbles and foibles. I sometimes hear her in the back of my mind saying, “It’s OK, you’ll figure all of this out and I’ll be here for you no matter what.”

I do various things to pull myself deeper into my faith when I start to lose my way – I pray, I draw cards from a deck of Rumi quotations, I look to the stars for inspiration and I talk to my grandma, who passed away less than two years ago, for guidance. While all of this is wonderful and meaningful and spiritual, I find the idea of looking to myself now and then for spiritual affirmation very powerful, for if I cannot look to and rely on my future self - which I hope to be my very best self, my wisest self, someone who may still have many lessons to learn but most assuredly has learned more than I know now - then I really have lost all hope of finding meaning in anything I do.

It is my future self that is waiting for me. She knows me best, knows what I am capable of, and can teach me so much of what I need to learn. Your future self is waiting for you too, and knows you are strong and beautiful and powerful. Listen to her; hear her cheers.

Christine Mason Miller

Luisa Weiss: The Wednesday Chef

Luisa Weiss writes The Wednesday Chef, a food blog that she calls "a food section face-off" and I call a lovely, lively column about food and life written in a down-to-earth style that's both witty and slightly self-deprecating, yet always warm and genuine. You've heard of comfort food? Well, this is comfort reading ... about comfort food. With pictures! Luisa allowed her to interview her a la the Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire, and this is what we got. Salud!

Name: Luisa Weiss

Age: 29

Relationship Status: Happily paired with my boyfriend, Ben

Living Situation: With roommates in a Chelsea rental

Job/how do you support yourself: I'm a cookbook editor.

What is your ideal way of spending time: It depends, on the weather and my mood, I guess. In winter, I'm happiest inthe kitchen or curled up on the couch with Ben and a good book or somenot-yet-seen episodes of The Office. In the summer, I love being outsidewith friends - having a picnic, discovering some random hike or beach (Idon't get out of the city enough), or just going on a stroll in the city.

Where were you born? Berlin, Germany

Where do you or would you like to call home? I currently call New York City my home, though with each passing day I'm finding it harder and harder to really imagine myself here for the long run. For one thing, I need more space, more quiet and more green. And yet, I can't entirely imagine myself as a happy suburbanite. So I'm stuck for now. I'd love to move to Los Angeles and live in a little bungalow for a while. With a lemon tree in the yard and palm trees out front. Doesn't that sound like a nice kind of home?

What is it like being you: Hrmm. That's an interesting question. I'm not entirely sure how to answer that. Lately it's been a little tiring being me - lots of work, busyweekends, not enough time decompressing in the kitchen. But it's going to be pretty happy and relaxing being me in about four days - we're off to Bermuda for a friend's wedding, then to Europe for another wedding and a week with my family in Italy.

What are you listening to right now: The hum of traffic on 19th Street.

What did you eat today: Milky tea and a gulp of OJ at home this morning, and a hazelnut flute from Le Pain Quotidien (my go-to breakfast when Ben eats all the cereal at home and I've got nothing left for breakfast).

What is the most exciting thing that's happened to you in the past year: Getting a new job and my trip to Los Angeles in March where I spent a morning at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market with Russ Parsons and Amy Scattergood, and visited the LA Times' food department and test kitchen with Leslie Brenner, the food editor. It's been a good year so far! And it's only May.

Coffee or Tea: Tea.

How did you get involved with food/cooking/writing: I've always loved to cook and bake, and writing has been a hobby of mine since college at least. Two years ago, in a moment of insanity, I decided to start chronicling my journey through my recipe clippings. I'm so so glad I did.

What breaks your heart: Watching old people eat ice cream cones. Seeing other people cry.

What swells your heart: Being with the people I love.

What is the most important thing in your life: Um, the people I love? And trying to find equilibrium in this totally insane world.

What is your idea of perfect happiness: I don't really think that perfect happiness exists - trying to attain it seems to be a sort of futile exercise. Though I imagine that the advent of world peace precisely when I'm on vacation after winning the lottery and giving all of it away to people who need it more than I do would come pretty close.

What is your motto: Don't live by anyone else's standards but your own. Sometimes I have to make myself repeat it a little more forcefully than I would like to.

What is your favorite journey: It's always changing. It used to be flying home to Berlin over the red roofs while I gazed at the skyline. Now? It's dreaming about journeys I haven't yet taken - India, Africa, Vietnam.

What is the best piece of fashion advice you've gotten: Two things: Less is more. And better to spend a lot on one thing you love than to spend a little on many things you just like.

What is it you most dislike: Competition, aggression, dishonesty.

What words or phrases do you most overuse: I'm an English major! I'm always editing myself. (At least I hope so.)

What book(s) are you reading now: Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food and Cormac McCarthy's The Road

Describe your current state of mind: A little foggy (it's Monday morning), but excited - I'm meeting my friend's week-old daughter this afternoon and I can't wait.

Describe the current state of the world: I'm not sure you want to get me started on this. Our world is kind of freaking me out these days. Violent, angry, polluted, mismanaged. The only thing that keeps me going some days is watching The Daily Show. If Jon Stewart can still find something to laugh about, then so can I, right?