I was going on my kind little way in Panama City, crossing a street with ceci, after our first dinner here with our friends, looking for an internet cafe, and a big ugly police man requested our ids...i had my driver´s license and my upeace id (he wasn´t amused) and ceci had her international student id (he liked ceci), so he sent her back to our room to get our passports...we were detained across the street from our hotel...meanwhile he walks me over to the pattywagon cause he's enjoying the power trip with the little north american...ceci takes a while cause she can´t find our bags, our friends had moved them to try to bring them to us because they had also been stopped...meanwhile i´m talking with a costa rican woman in the pattywagon (she´s also waiting on a friend to bring her passport), she owns a women´s clothing shop in san jose and just got to panama as well...ceci comes back and the big bad police man, happy with his catch and quietly stroking his powered ego, tells ceci i´m ´scurred´...it was certainly good entertainment and a little thought provoking...
now my second time being detained...but at least this time i didn´t get felt up (oh, switzerland)...
apparently they were looking for illegals crossing through panama, particularly colombians (it´s all really very sad)...ceci´s boyfriend is a colombian refugee so we talked a bit about it...and kandi and joy were interested when they could stop giggling at my mishap : )
amusingly, this happened the night before my workshops on ´conflict, communication, and culture´, and two days of oppression discourse. the workshops went well and i think everyone enjoyed the theatre of the oppressed methodology we explored together (in theatre of the oppressed participants use the human body to sculpt images)...the police officer refused to let ceci and i sculpt him in images of oppression and liberation....
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The Adventures of the Amazing Eddies
This blog comes as a nexus between an ending and an exciting yet unforeseen beginning that shall rear its head in a few months. Endings are always special occasions, and this ending shall live on in the circuits of my blog. Final assignments mandated the composition of a reflection on the year's learning and experiences, so with a multitude of mediums available to me, I sat down and began a blog so that I could share my thoughts with all my friends. Anyone who has dared to leave the comfort of home and travel has made numerous relationships with new people, and sometimes these relationships blossom amazingly. But all good things must come to an end (at least in the physical presence), and in a few months we must leave each other. I’ve been through these emotions and steps several times, and they’re the same emotions packaged differently each time. Hence, I invite you to share in my reflections on my past year at UPeace.
Ultimately, whenever I think of endings, I think of T.S. Eliot and a stanza from his 4 Quartets.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
The Beginning
Before I came to UPeace, I was asked several times by friends why I was coming to UPeace, what I expected to get from this program, and what the job prospects were like. The questions were, at best, exploratory and, at worst, laced with skepticism. They were reflections on popular society, schooling, and my own inner inhibitions. And they were also requests for me to not leave home and Japan. But from that ending came this beginning.
After I got to UPeace in August I met 140 other like-minded persons from across the globe that believed in the goodness of people and the urgency to establish and maintain peace. It has been one of the most diverse groups I will probably ever work with. Sixteen of these compassionate souls became my closest friends and critical pedagogues. They are…
The Teacher (Stephan),
The Philosopher (Charles),
The Journalist (Sandra),
The Advocate (Som),
The Music Box (Salud)
The Oracle (Shreya)
The Drama Queen (Loizos),
The President (Yaya),
The Beautiful Calm (Viola),
The Nomad Mother (Jen R.),
The Experiential Educator (Jenn S.),
The Holistic Healer (Catalina),
The Loving Mother (Formerly The Endless Writer) (Karen)
The Mediator (Mary)
The Honest One (Nora)
The Poker (Brigid)
The Poet (Myself)
And we would be nothing without each other, so together we are….
The Instigators (Loizos and Nora)
The Competitors (Karen and Kevin)
The Thinkers (Stephen and Charles)
The Dreamgirls (Salud and Shreya)
The Chucklers (Sandra and Yaya)
One day on the bus, early on, a group of us brainstormed a collective name for our class. First, we were the Macondo Peacetime Band…Then Jesus and the Eddies (but we thought Jesus wasn’t quite appropriate)…and finally the Peace Eddies.
There is a time for an evening under the stars. There is a time to dream. There is a time to be. And love is most certainly near. As this year is coming to an end I shall not forget in the coming days the smiles and laughter of my friends here, nor of my friends anywhere. It is ultimately the people we meet who impact us the most and introduce us to new ways of thinking and living. T.S. Eliot said, “Home is where one starts from.” Home is, for me, where one’s friends are. Knowing my wanderlust as you do, it’s exciting now when I think of all the homes I have around the globe, and all the friends I will soon see. Because as I learned long ago, it’s not when and where I am that matters, but who I am with.
Ultimately, whenever I think of endings, I think of T.S. Eliot and a stanza from his 4 Quartets.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
The Beginning
Before I came to UPeace, I was asked several times by friends why I was coming to UPeace, what I expected to get from this program, and what the job prospects were like. The questions were, at best, exploratory and, at worst, laced with skepticism. They were reflections on popular society, schooling, and my own inner inhibitions. And they were also requests for me to not leave home and Japan. But from that ending came this beginning.
After I got to UPeace in August I met 140 other like-minded persons from across the globe that believed in the goodness of people and the urgency to establish and maintain peace. It has been one of the most diverse groups I will probably ever work with. Sixteen of these compassionate souls became my closest friends and critical pedagogues. They are…
The Teacher (Stephan),
The Philosopher (Charles),
The Journalist (Sandra),
The Advocate (Som),
The Music Box (Salud)
The Oracle (Shreya)
The Drama Queen (Loizos),
The President (Yaya),
The Beautiful Calm (Viola),
The Nomad Mother (Jen R.),
The Experiential Educator (Jenn S.),
The Holistic Healer (Catalina),
The Loving Mother (Formerly The Endless Writer) (Karen)
The Mediator (Mary)
The Honest One (Nora)
The Poker (Brigid)
The Poet (Myself)
And we would be nothing without each other, so together we are….
The Instigators (Loizos and Nora)
The Competitors (Karen and Kevin)
The Thinkers (Stephen and Charles)
The Dreamgirls (Salud and Shreya)
The Chucklers (Sandra and Yaya)
One day on the bus, early on, a group of us brainstormed a collective name for our class. First, we were the Macondo Peacetime Band…Then Jesus and the Eddies (but we thought Jesus wasn’t quite appropriate)…and finally the Peace Eddies.
There is a time for an evening under the stars. There is a time to dream. There is a time to be. And love is most certainly near. As this year is coming to an end I shall not forget in the coming days the smiles and laughter of my friends here, nor of my friends anywhere. It is ultimately the people we meet who impact us the most and introduce us to new ways of thinking and living. T.S. Eliot said, “Home is where one starts from.” Home is, for me, where one’s friends are. Knowing my wanderlust as you do, it’s exciting now when I think of all the homes I have around the globe, and all the friends I will soon see. Because as I learned long ago, it’s not when and where I am that matters, but who I am with.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
My Roomie
DSCF0341
Originally uploaded by kevinajkester.
This is Elshaday, my amazing roommate from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She keeps me in line after a long night of dancing and drinking, and is an inspiration as I stream the lines to my thesis. We've been living together since November 2006, in the jagged center of Ciudad Colon, and we once tried cooking together, but that didn't last long. I have enjoyed the Ethiopian dishes she has introduced me to! And in a few years I'll be working in Addis--at least she's agreed to get me a Peace Education job at a university there...and then we'll be roommates again.
Peace Ed soccer hooligans
011707036-vi
Originally uploaded by kevinajkester.
Our soccer team from the Department of Gender and Peace Education. I think we went 0-4, but hey! we're all about cooperation here, not competition! And we certainly cooperated in our efforts to lose gracefully.
Xmas in Costa Rica
PC181113
Originally uploaded by kevinajkester.
This is in the small diner in C.C. that makes gallo pinto and scrambled eggs with coffee. Elshii and Ceci and I used to go to this restaurant on Sunday mornings quite often during the first semester. This is a pic Ceci took of me at brunch one morning near Xmas 2006.
Party with Loizos and Elshii
DSCF0131
Originally uploaded by kevinajkester.
This was at a party at Loizos' apartment welcoming everyone back from Xmas break. I remember I was saying a silly little german phrase to the german lady (Julia) sitting behind me. "Ich habe ein Steifen." (Not true, but is a phrase I learned in Louisville a few years ago.)
UPeace diplomats (UPMUNC)
DSCF0242
Originally uploaded by kevinajkester.
This is at the model UN conference on a very real conflict that is taking the lives of many each day in Sudan. I represented Qatar--ally of the government of Sudan and pawn of China--on the Security Council. In the end the proposal put forth by the US and Britain to create a joint coalition of UN and AU forces to mitigate the violence was blocked by China through its veto power. Qatar also voted with China and Russia abstained. The conference was yet one more example of the politics and economics that underscore war and violence, and that in the pursuit of material development we should not smother the realization of our fuller humanity.
CIMG1637
CIMG1637
Originally uploaded by kevinajkester.
halloween at macondo with ceci (italy), loizos (cyprus), carlos (colombia), and berekat (ethiopia)
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