Happy Ramadan!

Today begins Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting for the sake of God. Wishing all of our Muslim friends a healthy, peaceful, and prosperous Ramadan, In ša Allah (pronounced in-sha-lah, means “God-willing” in Arabic). We especially think of those in Morocco, as we recover from the scorching heat and dusty, dry weather of Marrakech. During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown, abstaining from both food and water. Imagine this task when the daily temperature is 40°C, and when sunset does not occur until 9:30PM! The month of Ramadan is variable, and moves backward ten days in the Islamic calendar each year. 

Blue Mosque - Istanbul

“The act of fasting is said to redirect the heart away from worldly activities, its purpose being to cleanse the inner soul and free it from harm. It also allows Muslims to practice self-discipline, self-control, sacrifice, and empathy for those who are less fortunate; thus encouraging actions of generosity and charity.”

-Ramadan, Wikipedia, August 9, 2010

But we are in France, not Marrakech, and the atmosphere is decidedly different. Having happily landed on the lovely Rue du Gril, we are staying just down the street from the Great Mosque of Paris, built in 1926. which provides a rich visual reminder of the ornate mosques of Morocco. A beautiful and towering structure, the Paris Mosque shines as a beacon after long days wandering the hard streets of Paris in less-than-supportive flat, hard, leather Moroccan flip flips (eco-friendly doesn’t always mean body-friendly). The combination of the inappropriate footwear, and the richly-tiled, ornate minaret, always serve to remind us of Morocco as we are limping home.

Hassan II Mosque - Casablanca

Estimates state that Islam comprises the second most widely practiced religion in France, based on worshippers. However, it is evident that Islam battles for rights and equality in France: discrimination in the form of banned headscarves, a newly proposed French ban on the burka, a ban on face-veils in public institutions, and discrimination in employment. For many years, France has maintained laïcité, the concept of a secular society that mandates the separation of religion and state, including the absence of involvement of either in the other. While originally intended to treat all religions equally, some argue that this objective has fallen by the wayside. Laïcité is described as the reason for bans on headscarves, face-veils, and (recently) burqas in France.

However, before you get all up-in-arms about these topics, let’s review them, so that everyone is a little more educated:

Headscarves: Earliest reference to French opposition to headscarves dates to 1989 when three Muslim schoolgirls refused to remove their headscarves. Teachers were referencing laïcité when they requested the removal, stating that the “Islamic headscarf” was a symbol of religious expression. Think what you will on that. In 2003, President Chirac extended the law against religious expression in schools to include large crosses, hijabs, yarmulkes, and other overly large demonstrative objects.

Burqa: In 2009, President Sarkozy proposed a ban on the public wearing of a burqa, following the bank robbery of two individuals dressed anonymously in burqas. However, rather than reference this incident, the President says instead that the burqa “was a symbol of subservience that suppresses women's identities and turns them into ‘prisoners behind a screen.‘” Hmm…I remember not so long ago when I wanted to wear a burqa, simply to hide from the over-interested stares of men in India.

Employment: A recent study found that three nearly-identical resumes, with differences that indicated religious associations, discriminated against followers of Islam. The researchers showed that Christians in France were 2.5 times more likely than Muslims to receive a positive response to their job applications, and that Muslims in France made an average of 400 euros less than Christians per month.

Face-veil: A recent recommendation to French parliament calls for the ban of face-veils in public institutions, but not in private buildings or on the streets.

I imagine that part of the bans on these objects are for the safety of citizens: outward discrimination against Islam has a history of violence and aggression. Another reason can be found in the “burqa bank robbers:” face-veils, burqas and headscarves can be used to mask the identity of criminals. But employment discrimination? I really can’t see another side to that story.

When we first arrived at this incredible Parisian flat four days ago, we were delighted to find the mosque next door. Through our many months traveling through Muslim countries, I have developed a strong affinity to the daily calls to prayer - they are similar to a church bell tolling, though with a very different tone. But the sound signifies to me a message to the community, a melody of cohesion and unity for those who identify with its call. And for those who don’t fully identify with the meaning behind the call (such as yours truly), I am still drawn to the participatory and engaging tonal hum.

Great Mosque of Paris

 Yet, the Paris Mosque is quieter than we expected. Tourists come and go from its ornate green tiled doorway throughout the day, but the calls to prayer are muted, or possibly non-existent. We heard one the first day, but it was ever-so-quiet and the duration was no more than thirty seconds. This absence is so different from the Islamic countries that we have thus far traveled through: India, Ethiopia, Ghana and Togo, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco. The quiet is almost unsettling. But perhaps this will change as the holy days of Ramadan begin to pass.

Bon Ramadan!  Ramadan mobarak!   Ramadan Kareem. رمضان مبارك

for additional reading, check out the links in the article, and read this funny little story from "Rue Rude."

Read more...

Un Dia Gratis

August 2, 2010

We want to go to the Prado. It is within our grasp now.... instead we spend a day embracing the city as it is.

Today, we went to community art centers, foundation museums, centers for alternative work and thought and action. We just went out and took in Madrid. And, it did not costs us more than our lunch.


We are couchsurfers. Normally, we would have planned our trip in Europe around visits with new friends. This time we have a nice hotel we like and we are not inclined to move. We are in the last month of an over-extended honeymoon. We are treating ourselves special - and that feels right. No better city, we figure, to treat yourself special than Madrid, Spain. Madrid is a city for lifestyle lovers - a pioneering culture of quality of life ethos.

Remember, we are hotel owners first, hostel providers, tour operators; even if our businesses are small, our first love was getting to know travelers in backpacker guest houses - and we like to give back! We want to spend money locally as we have it. Plus, it is nice to have your private balcony overlooking the square and no one counting on your conversation save your beloved.


Please join us once again as we ramble. We cover the tiny alleys and vignettes without you here, so please forgive us our lack of details - what is important is the feeling - the free travel by design. Our pace, our joys, our happenstance endings are what we do best as travelers.

Museums - What are we doing. Political acts, saying things that are not said in mainstream, open to all, working, all ages. What we are doing with museums is to survey and feel our humanity.


Museums have so much in the way of education, of shared experiences. But, they are also storage sheds. More often, they are examples of historical reservoirs. They contain residues of what we choose to remember. We prefer museums and exhibits which challenge us and our society. Often, just by going to museums we provoke new ideas and creativity in ourselves. There is a tried and true difference between Big National, famous collections and the work that is taking place in small contemporary public spaces. We would not suggest that you miss any of it. But, for our 'dia gratis' we stuck to those of the beaten path. We found these uncrowded, filled with challenging and exciting materials, and very very contemporary.

Other spontaneous adventures we had along the way: lying in Retiro park, visiting rose gardens, and finding a graffiti park - built over parking garages tucked behind Retiro Park.

That is but a small taste of what we did and saw this one day. When we are in these amazing historic cities it is always clear that a lifetime would not be enough to explore them, to learn their intricacies and most intimate and personalized magic. Madrid is this way. Madrid has an aura of history. Its people are wonderfully individualistic, personal, self-confident, engaged, open.

Other great free options we have discovered in Madrid include the Train Station, Archeological Museum, The National Library, and Exhibits on Government Planning, and Urban History at Los Nuevos Ministerios -which has a nice park garden that is great for picnicking (or, if you are looking for another cool picnic spot try totally hidden but surrounded by dense offices and shopping plazas Plaza de Picasso - sorry no Picassos - but a great fountain, quiet, and lots of cool shade!).

Of course, there were things we had to pay for on this day of free Madrid. We walked, but we would have just as easily enjoyed the bus or Metro. Ten passes are 10 Euro, and may be used by multiple riders. We paid for a great hotel. We had a fantastic $20 lunch in Madrid.


Spaniards take lunch as the most important meal. It is large, usually three course. We like to split the lunch and order a smaller side dish or salad. This keeps our price lower and leaves room for drinks and tip for under $20.

We think and talk and write a lot about how to explain to people what we do. It is not how we do it that is important. How you do it is your own thing. But, when we choose to attend the free hours at the museum, we do so as supporters of the arts. We would like to think we find other ways to contribute, support, and spread our love of art around. We go to smaller museums, attend special exhibits, patronize small galleries, and buy art from artists whenever we can.

****

Contraposition - there is another choice for what to do with a day in Madrid. It is surprisingly cheap - the cost is $40 ticket for 24 hours of use for the Madrid Tourist Pass. After all we describe that can be done for nothing - why do it? Because it too provides a way of seeing things. This could be the marathon adventure. You could challenge yourself to try and see as much as possible : Having a museum pass (and a 10 euro Metro pass) will allow you to see much more than you ever thought possible in one city in 24 hours. This route asks you to see things opposite of what we described above asking yourself, 'what happens differently in a rush'?


Magic is always happening around us - how we choose to encounter it is personal. We do choose - we twist and alter our fates accordingly.

Un dia gratis - un otro dia de gracias!!

Read more...

Introduction to 'un dia gratis' - A Day in Madrid.

The day was especially arranged by Brittany with total luck granted. She had taken her start-up information from Free Madrid Events listed on the web.

We are traveling as we want to. Though we have occasionally wished we had a bigger 'restaurant budget' or a more ethical, less consumption oriented clothes budget; we realize more often that when we set high expectations we are disappointed; and, we prefer surprises.

We do not want to be contributors to mass consumerism and materialism. That has been a point about how we have traveled this year.

We do not contend that our ability to live off a fixed sum for a long time is the norm. How is what we do different? We aim to use our travel as personal growth to share/blog so that others can benefit from our learning curve. How we are different we hope is by circling the world this year, not getting bored nor living 'on the cheap' and producing products from our travel.

We think and talk and write a lot about explaining to people what we do. At a dinner recently at L'Mansion, Morocco I was told that our budget for a year could not have lasted one couple a month abroad. They get tired, then go home to work. This is normal. We accept our differences.

We live abroad exactly as we hope to, as we expect to, as we would do at home. That is the magic. As our friend a world traveler told us, "You have Time or Money - choose one, you cannot have both."

So I am writing a blog titled 'un dia gratis - one free day' to explain to people who are interested in us, or our story, or in travel, how one day in Madrid, Spain can exemplify our travel ethic, our personalized economy, and a philosophy of urban and social engagement. Please continue to read our blogs as we hope to have many travel hints, experiences, and recommendations to share.

Read more...

Morocco

Click here to view these pictures larger

Read more...

La Corrida

As we are in Madrid, a wave of protest is sweeping the country: sentiments that are urged to a media-worthy level after the corrida (bullfighting) has been banned in Catalonia. The local news is filled with images of protesters, holding aloft bold phrases for bulls’ rights, accompanied by graphic illustrations. They argue that the corrida is cruel and unjust and a barbaric tradition that has no place in modern society.

According to Wikipedia, cruelty can be described as “indifference to suffering, and even pleasure in its infliction. Cruelty usually carries connotations of supremacy over a submissive or weaker force, insofar as a weaker party or entity can rarely inflict suffering on a party or entity that has greater dominance.”

Corrida in Valencia, Venezuela - 2004

Supporters for the corrida argue that it is an art form that must be preserved and honored, that individuals should be left to decide for themselves as to whether to attend the corrida, and that the banning of bullfighting will jeopardize the livelihood of thousands of Spaniards - the bullfighters, the breeders, and the individuals who work in and around the corrida culture.


Some people caught in the middle of the two arguments ask why the bulls must be killed, as death is not part of the corrida tradition in either France or Portugal.


I have been to a bullfight before, in Valencia, Venezuela, in 2005. The matadors were spectacular, they were dancers. A Spanish matador pirouetted around the thrashing, snorting, frothing, several thousand pound bull, her body holding perfect form in the swirling dust. We drank spicy Venezuelan rum and watched the performance, solitary gringos in a sea of onlookers. The performance was mesmerizing, a theater production, set against the grim stage of a bloodied bullring. Six bulls were pitted against strong and determined human athletes. I cried for each bull as it died. It was tragic, but the performance was beautiful, awe-inspiring, talented, highly trained, an incredible display of balance and well-honed technique.


The corrida is certainly a display of dominance: human over nature. Since the emergence of our species, we have always battled nature, we bully ourselves into positions of control, and force nature into submission. Asphalt and concrete and tunnels blasted through rock. Plowing and planting and foresting and deforesting our planet.


I say that Humans are cruel, my husband says that Nature is innately cruel.


Human society creates additional opportunities for cruelty. We, as a species, increase length of life, allowing people to live longer and (arguably) suffer longer. We pave fields and clear-cut forests, turning thriving animal species into road kill. We kill each other with great violence and cruelty. We use animals for testing and experiments, causing great pain and suffering. We destroy our earth a bit more each day, regardless of the long-term cost. We have rodeos and bullfights and horseracing and dogracing and dogfights and cockfights and foxhunts. All these are forms of cruelty, why choose only one - bullfighting - on which to wage war? Why is bullfighting deemed ‘more cruel’ than animal testing? Where are the priorities? At least bullfighting is a time-honored, talent-driven “sport” that has served as a cultural focal point and inclusive societal activity for several hundred years.


My point is not that bullfighting is right or wrong, but let’s get some perspective people! There are countless harmful and cruel activities that humans are engaged in every day.


Beautiful bullfighting photos can be found on BBC. Caution, some viewers may find the images disturbing.

Traditions can be wonderful. Traditions can be barbaric. Nothing, wonderful or barbaric, should be continued simply because it is a tradition - where has reasoning power gone? How many gentle pasttimes are carried on because of tradition? And how many cruel or barbaric pasttimes are carried on or attempted to be revived because they are traditional?

- ruffled_feathers, BBC website

Read more...

Only months after forgotten disaster: Haiti

I.

It seems it must be more time. It is mere months after their disaster: Haitians deserve not to be forgotten by the world. But an excuse is not for any nation or individual to give: Why have all our efforts efforts have not done enough for Haiti? We are all responsible. There is no excuse left for any one of us: We are all responsible to act.

What have we done to change the suffering of Haitians? What do we know how to do?

Our efforts for Haiti are for our whole humanity. What we do for the least among us reflects on our entire human ethic: frail, incomplete, resolute, impossible, merciful, self-interested.

Even our poorest nations (maybe more importantly our poorest nations) should be treated with equality, respect and dignity as our world finally decides once and for certain if we are all to be judged together: integral, decent, connected, dependent by standards of international solidarity.

The case of Haiti's disaster was a result of legacies of colonialism and geographic centralization by monopolies of capitalism and military industrial complex. Our response and quorums to restore nature and humanity for Haiti matched the call for equity in the rebuilding of our City of New Orleans healthfully, holistically, with an engaged and empowered population of democratically governed five years previously. Haiti gives us a positive reason to reevaluate strategies and opportunities for implementation of more humanistic and scientific responses to disaster: the standards which we mete out in Haiti really are our minimum respect for our humanity.

II.

Disaster is an opportunity which can benefit corporations, government, people, and/or the environment. It is past time we began treating it as such. While on the one hand Naomi Klein and Naomi Zack both painted true portraits of the political and corporate backing for philosophies of planned responses to disaster (which, incidentally, got the USA into our current roles on the Gulf Coast, after Haiti, or in Afghanistan/Iraq theaters of war).

Taken positively, there is are some possible positive interpretations of the quality of world reaction to disaster which says that disaster offers us the chance to see our common self interests, how they are connected, and ACT.

In her analysis of Disaster Capitalism Klein points correctly to the ways governments have behaved and used disaster to push through unpopular economic plans. This news, taken together with the consistent failure to establish recent protocols and new global conferences and it may be fair to argue that we have come away with little results from the pressing changes of our climate.

However, the world has a consciousness dilemma which can potentially be an arbiter of change using the same terms described by Klein and Zack. If communities are organized for participation, engagement, and, as possible, for local controls and decision-making, disasters (whether they occur to us or effect us from around the globe) may be arbiters of good sense and positive actions. [The same agent of change used for enormous economic and political change can become an agent for local change, local governance, and/or change of personal or communal responsibility.]

The nations are still not together; (Copenhagen 2009), it is still obvious that any of our recent disasters point to unwillingness, either by our planetary orb or its people, to any longer accept either individually self-interested motivation of nations; or, world's unrelenting environmental changes that demand new actions and world multinational endeavors be cooperative.

III.

What we are doing from where we are today and on our trip? What do we know that we can share with Haitians? What are the actions we know of now which make positive changes occur?

Raising awareness...acting constantly
Supporting local actions, dignity, and participation-based engagement of communities
Acting to reduce global inequity
Acting to reduce environmental degradation
Purchasing fair trade products
Support macroeconomic benefits for human restoration in disaster
Shrinking our carbon footprint
Blogging about our Actions (for Haiti)
Supporting businesses that benefit poor countries economies

We want to continue discussing disasters, how they happen, how they are mitigated, how to prevent them, how to use them for good.

Read more...

What will replace the notion of a land of plenty? A fiction.

I.

This is a fiction.

Our destruction, my Gulf of Mexico, La Louisiane, Luisiana, Land of La Cadie, the lands I grew up in, it sickens me.

I know intimately and love dearly, how our destruction came. It came by truck, by an avoidable human waste called oil slick that imitates life... disaster hits the swamps. It makes me want to ask the world a question: What will we do to replace the notion of our planet as a land of plenty?

This land was named after the Micmac word for, “land of plenty.” Yet, we have took more than land could bear. It was new land. It was land for unkempt flood and excessive natural wealth. Our land - Louisiana.

News and continuing shock comes from another disaster in our homeland. Tears of mine reflect on me in the oil sheens of streetlights. The reels turn. Where will our lands rise hence?

II.

Life here mirrors the suffering of our city and countryside in small but no less absolute terms.

Children dive off rocks and swim in to a harbor that glistens with the coat of motor oil exhausted by the boats at anchor. Near the 400 year old Portugese fort there is a sheen that coats plastic bottles and washed up detris along with a thick grass in bright green algae and mosses.

On top of a brutal hard breakwater six small children are playing, they look up to me on a wall and smile… the sharp jetty will not cut their feet.

We never leave where we are from, where we are conscious, when we are from here.

III.

Valdez. Perhaps this one place where I gained my first memory expectation of the disaster. A human disaster in gold rush following a real disaster (black gold - slickening our natures)!!!

Louisiana and Alaska share much in common for being world’s apart. They are colonies in impossible to reach lands found critical for natural resource and natural human pathways.

....

I am walking the otherside. Beaches in Africa. Yet, their brutality and hard living make for only a small number of residents who can ‘make it’ where others try and give up. The salt air curls.

IV.

Martha Serpas, in her beautiful opinion article is summarizing the sweep of environmental, cultural, and economic destruction brought on us all with the most recent BP oil spill disaster. Her biases refer us to our state flag of Louisiana - where a pelican tears at its own flesh to feed its young. She writes - this 'message... stood too long.'

“Ecological self-sacrifice is not pious; cultural self-destruction is not our duty,” she says.

This is an analogy which I find applicable to the place where the world stands today.

Our citizens and civic leadership ready and willing to lend hands as stewards of our planetary health - but under what conditions? When will our efforts begin? Who will shepherd the costs?

V.

Pictures, images, stories from home are always so valued to us as we are off in these distant lands. When we read about what you are reading, when we hear the local anecdotes and your news, it reminds us of the similarities which all of us share with the world.

This week in Morocco, we were invited to attend a wedding, we visited festivals, passed funerals, saw school groups taking field trips to the sea. If you are involved with something special, please share it. We love to hear about you. Many other people do to. You are the shepherds of our trail.

This was my excerpt, a personal fiction, devised for response to a very nice piece of Louisiana literature. ‘Well done, Well said,’ I say. Beautiful Op-Ed by Martha Serpas.

....

It is also a beautiful and morbid reminder of how environmental degradation, human oppression, sordid incongruous power histories - through them all - that it is human resiliency which has overwhelmed the events of disaster. We are the caretakers because we contain a memory of soul on planet Earth. I can remember. I was in VALDEZ, AK, just after the oil spill. It was external and internal. There was a convergence of the sacred, the profane, and our time.

Read more...