School Shooting in Finland September 24, 2008
Helsinki-Eleven people haved died in a school shooting in Finland, the second such shooting within a year.
This comes just after I posted about Finland’s unusual functionalisim.
As it is school shootings are extremely rare here and across the country people are extremely upset. In many stores TVs and radios have been turned up and people are glued to the news.
Today has been declared a national day of mourning.
Stronger gun laws have been proposed. Finland is 3rd in the world when it comes to owning weapons-behind only the US and Yemen.
Going to Crimea. September 23, 2008
Helsinki-I’m going to Yalta.
My visa application to Russia was denied a few days ago. So instead I’ll go to Crimea and do a story on the majority Russian population there.
I fly from Riga on 12 October.
I’ll be posting a description of the article and photo/audio essay I will produce there in the next couple of days.
In Helsinki, Finland September 7, 2008
Helsinki-Last Friday I arrived back in Helsinki. I was last here in February on a break between covering Kosovo’s declaration of independence and parliamentary elections in Serbia.
What has always impressed me about Helsinki is its pure functionalism.
That Finland is a largely homogeneous society helps. There are some immigrants, mostly from Ethiopia and Somalia, but by in large Finland is a white, well educated, and wealthy society, with universal access to health care, education, with a commitment to the rules that hold their society together. People here know how well what they have built cares for them. Interestingly Finland has only come to its position as a elite nation in the past sixty years.
Monday morning I’m turning in my visa application for Russia.
The Middle East in Black and White September 1, 2008
Jerusalem-I am posting here some of the black and white photos I did during and around the summer class I took in the Middle East. The class visited Jordan and Egypt. The work I did in Israel, Lebanon, and Syria was unrelated to the university.
Holiness…Back in Action August 25, 2008
Eilat, Israel-I’ve been on hiatus from all that is holy here in the Holy Land.
But no worries. What I’ve been up to could be called prospective. And prospective is one of those things that could be argued to be holy, from a certain point of view.
And now that I reconsider the above, blatantly generalized statements, I realize there has been a lot of holiness to what I’ve been up to.
All that kind of vagueness is over now though. I’ve been taking an actual class through my university, but now will be traveling in Israel until 4 September when I fly to Helsinki to prepare to relocate to Russia.
Photo editors needing a photographer in Israel until 4 September, Finland until approx. 15 September, or Russia through the end of December can email me at justinvela@gmail.com
I’ve arrived here in Israel after two months in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.
At the Eilat/Aqaba border crossing I was questioned for two and half hours before being allowed to enter Israel. Phone numbers and names were insisted upon, but overall the process was very polite and one immigration officer even offered me an air conditioned room and told me where cold water was while I was waiting.
Jordan and Israel may have a signed a peace agreement, but they are still wary of each other and the presence of soldiers along the beach in Aqaba yesterday highlighted a sense of unease.
Israel has larger enemies than Jordan however. Israeli tourists coming back from a day in Aqaba were a sign that relations between the two countries are very stable. Israel is dealing with its many internal problems at the moment and, as always, has the more imminent threats of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon over their heads.
Of course, this is to say nothing of the issue of Palestine, but, hey, I’ve just arrived. My mind is only just beginning to function again. There’s a lot to come. I’m the first bus to Jerusalem tomorrow morning.
Cairo Initial Impressions July 26, 2008
Cairo-The horses that pull carts and carriages outside the apartment where I am staying clomp along briefly before rounding the corner and disappearing from earshot.
I am in this apartment and am quite happy about that. I’m also trying to win the affections of Sasha the Cat, but that will be a trial with no sure ending.
Cairo is everything that Amman isn’t, which is to say Cairo is not boring or ugly. It is a city with a deep presence of culture and history, even among its dilapidation
At first I thought I wasn’t going to like Cairo. There was a Disneyland feeling upon arriving at the airport and in the part of downtown where my hostel was. Five touts came up to me in the first few hours with outstretched hands claiming they were artists…were students…did not want my money.
Once I finally got away from them they acted offended, as if I was insulting their hospitality by not wanting what they offered or to take their business cards and bitterly said, “Fine, go, go.”
I do not know what is more obnoxious. That touts exist or that there are tourists stupid enough to give them a reason to exist and to be so persistent.
That is all behind me now. The apartment is on the Nile Island of Zamalek. Many foreigners and upper class Egyptians live here. There are a lot of embassies. The residence of the head of the EU mission is here. Orange cones with EU stickers keep cars from parking in front of his house. The police on nearly every corner would probably beat any tout that came over from downtown. I wouldn’t feel bad for him.
Yesterday, I walked across the city in the mid-day sun, something that was not so smart, but the humidity made the heat bearable, though I paid for it later with headaches.
Along the side of the road I saw a seven or eight year old boy dump out the contents of an expensive backpack. Some trail mix, a book, and a hat spilled out. The boy was poor and had probably stolen the backpack from some distracted or stupid tourist and he kept shaking it, hoping for something of more value to fall out, but there wasn’t anything else.
The Nile
My first night in Cairo, I meandered along the Nile.
There wasn’t a moment in memory without the Nile. Knowledge of this river is one of the first things that we have. Nobody knows really how they first heard about the Nile. It was discovered in some story or some book, but it has always been there, part of our personal database like our parents names or the need to drink water.
There were crowds of Egyptians gathered along the Nile. Some got onto boats that had flashing pink, green, and red lights blinking on and off and loud wailing Arab music. Some people were part of a wedding party. A girl from the hostel that I was with got a kiss from a four year old Egyptian girl that stared at her slightly confounded. Some people were selling food and drinks. Others were just hanging around, the weather perfect for being out.
For the more wealthy there were large two and three story barges. They had names like Imperial and Nile City. There was a Chili’s inside Nile City. Everything was expensive. The bridges that go across the Nile were crowded with honking traffic.
Everywhere is crowded with honking traffic actually.
Crossing the street is a foolish game of chicken. The first few hours in Cairo I saw several near accidents, car on car, car on persons, and even a horse drawn carriage that hit a car and bounced off it, their respective drivers jumping out to yell at each other.
Afterwards some passerby gives the offending driver a disgusted look, but walks on. Traffic doesn’t stop for these near accidents. It didn’t really stop for the carriage and car accident either. It definitely doesn’t stop for pedestrians, but at the least the traffic makes a person engaged with Cairo’s streets.
Egypt suffers from all the same problems as most other Middle Eastern countries and most of the developing world: an entrenched system of inept, corrupt politicians that mismanage what few resources exist and a tired, population with little faith in their government and who, in many cases, are turning towards Islam in reaction to the West’s labeling of Middle Easterners and Muslims as “terrorists” and because many Islamic organizations offers the poor better social services than the government.
While there isn’t oil here, Egypt has tourism and enough tourists come every year that Egypt should be in a better place than it is. But, according to journalist Steven Glain, as of 2002 the average Egyptian makes $1,200 a year. This is an old statistic, but despite the organized, receipt offering taxis at the airport and the smooth ride into downtown, Egypt is a mess. And perhaps it is an even more inexcusable mess because Egypt has so much here. You feel it.
No Place Like Home…Travel the Great Equalizer July 17, 2008
Amman-The place to be if you are a foreigner and want to feel at home in Amman is Rainbow Street.
There’s the Good Bookstore, an English language bookstore with reliable wireless. I’ve been going there and checking my email for about a week and I have yet to see someone actually buy a book.
The Brits, Americans, Germans, and occasionally locals that come into the bookstore are obsessed with the wiifi and mocha.
There is one German with a very loud deep voice that is always there int he mornings, debating from behind his laptop some point related to Jordan. Often times he is talking about things that happened a thousand years ago and sounding outraged and astounded in his running shorts.
The groups that come in. Long skirts from natural fabrics for the women. Men in tilly hats. The identical red straps of their canon cameras.
Occasionally a women in full cover comes in and warns her children to be quiet in British accented English.
At La Calle there are Johnny Walker ashtrays and Jordanian waiters with tattoos and MTV with volume muted and a Spanish trance track on the speakers.
Its all “normal” on Rainbow Street for the Western traveler. Off the first circle up from downtown its a quiet area, home to the British council and three machine gun toting soldiers (their clips not inserted into the guns) shuffle around int he heat.
The feeling of home is something that after a certain amount of time travelers start to seek out or at least very much enjoy when they come across.
Moist cookies, certain kinds of beer, steak and mashed potatoes, soft beds are things I’ve seen people gush over after a couple of weeks of traveling.
Rainbow street is a good place to feel some of that comfort.
I wonder though that if after a certain amount of time on the road that satisfaction one feels in the feelings of home lessens.
On Rainbow street I’ve felt none of the good or relaxed feeling I should have. La Calle with its leather sofas seemed the same as the downtown cafes with their ramshackle poor lighting and waiters that only seem small amounts of English.
After a certain amount of time traveling does everything equalize?
All around the social aspects of life are unequal. The disparities between rich and poor, people that have access to what can make their lives better and people that don’t and the level of compassion in people when they are confronted with uncomfortable reality.
But to go in and out of different social classes, different kinds of restaurants and hang out spots, I notice the difference in the shisha, but don’t have any feeling of difference. I only change the shirt that I wear.
And there are no satisfactions in those tastes of home. Its all becoming another place and…blending.
One of the reasons why people who travel so often have a hard time coming home is that after they realize the ease and similarities of places it becomes only too easy to live anywhere.
A place to sleep becomes a place to sleep. Food to eat becomes food to eat.
Travel and the varying degrees of quality one experiences on the road equalizes the experiences and forces us to accept them as they are and digest them without getting too bent out of shape by the discomforts or disparities.
Consequently, there becomes no satisfaction in the tastes of home.
Literally there becomes no place life home.
There is no home.
Or rather there are many.
“We Barrow Rice, but not with Chopsticks.” June 17, 2008
Beirut-Briefly, today I interviewed Dr. Hiba Khodr Ph. D of the American University of Beirut. Professor Khodr and I will hopefully do a more in depth interview sometime this week. When I arrived at her office she was having last meetings with students before the end of the semester.
“When it comes to Globalization I tell my students we barrow rice, but not with chopsticks.
Globalization has had a lot to do with the strides women have made in the past few years with human rights and equality.
I was in the US for thirteen years. I came back because I wanted to give my children a chance to know their grandparents and the rest of their family.
My daughter had a hard time when we came back to Lebanon. With the sincerity. People in America, when they don’t like you they don’t put themselves around you. People here sometimes pretend to like you, but talk about you behind your back.
I don’t shake hands. Sorry, I am mean no disrespect.
During the July war I was giving a lecture in the US, a student, stood up and said, ‘No matter what we do, you will still hate us.’
I said, ‘Excuse me, but that is not true. I am a US citizen. We watch your shows. We wear your clothes. We do not hate you. We hate your policies.’
I get criticized even in Lebanon for wearing the headscarf. It is my choice. It is part of my beliefs and something that I like.
You have the image of someone who wears the headscarf as being repressed and abused. And sometimes that is true. Women are oppressed and abused in the Middle East maybe even more than we know.
Sometimes though we choose to wear the headscarf. I am not repressed and abused.”
Rice in Beirut June 16, 2008
Beirut-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Beirut yesterday.
I didn’t even notice. Maybe there were a lot of police and military on the streets, but there are always a lot of police and military on the streets of Beirut. She did not say anything new.
She said,“I also am going to express the United States’ support for Lebanese democracy, for Lebanese sovereignty, and to talk about how the United States can support the institutions of a free Lebanon,” Rice told reporters as she flew to Beirut.”
This AP article is more in depth than the first.
“Congratulations,” Rice said as she shook hands with Michel Suleiman, the army chief elected last month to lead the government. “We are all just very supportive of your presidency and your government.”
In Vienna March 15, 2008
Vienna, Austria-The streets are pretty straight here in the center of Vienna.
Awfully easy to navigate, but still I successfully got lost. I found myself in front of a restaurant that claimed to serve authentic American food. Inside I ordered a hot dog.
It was the best tasting hot dog I’ve ever had and the girl behind the counter took about ten minutes to prepare it with ketchup, mustard, and pickles. Here in the Germanic lands, they know how to make hot dogs.
Vienna is the former capital of the Austrian Hungarian Empire and the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.
Austria is not Germany, but the German effectiveness began as soon as the conductor began coming around and punching tickets.
I was kicked back to second class even though first class was almost entirely empty. The conductor waited patiently, politely for me to find my ticket. I wonder if inside he was seething as I fumbled around.
I’m not going to call a stern train conductor a tool. That wouldn’t be fair. Or maybe it would. But name calling (unless its directly to their face) isn’t very descriptive.
I’m back in a city with cars. They weren’t quite as numerous on Prague’s tiny streets with its superb, if dangerously driven, tram lines.
I’m also back in the land of the Euro. The kind, heavy Euro. They go so fast.
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