GUATEMALA -1-

DIRTY HANDS AFTER SOME 25 YEARS                                              

I am finally aboard my United flight to Guatemala City. My daughter, who is in medical school is doing a global health distinction track volunteer program in Quetzaltenango, the second largest city of this Mayan country. We will spend her last week there together. She has learned the country, by now, inside and out or in other words “like the palm of her hand” as we would say in Turkish. She has been making plans for our week since her arrival in Guatemala. Plans that she revised, I don’t know how many times now. I am sure she is trying to get it just right. This is the first time I am going to her territory, in a way, first time she is making the plans for both of us after me taking care of her and the plans for both of us for 27 years now. I can feel she is trying to take care of her Mama in the best way she can.

She already has planned a hot spring, Lake Atitlan, the most beautiful lake in Central America, I hear, Santiago Atitlan, the most authentic village in Guatemala, and the volcanoes around it to hike. She knows her mother has to climb up high in nature, I know she is doing this for me. She has never been that much of a hiker, although we started hiking when she was 6 or so. However, as she has been maturing, she’s started liking the nature and what it has to offer much more. After all, apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I have noticed, though, she is doing more things to please me even if she doesn’t have too much of an interest in them, for my sake, just as how I came to like dogs after she adopted a Great Dane, for her sake. In fact I am in love with the little “horse” now. Just as I was leaving Iowa City, I went to her house to grab things she had asked me to bring along. Zela, her dog got very excited seeing me, perhaps a reminder of her beloved Zeyno. She started licking my ear and cheek when I was giving her a hug, which has been a no, no. For the first time, I submitted, I must have missed her, too. She was so sweet, I did feel a different level of connection. This journey started simply to please my daughter and now became my own saga with Zela, how sweet… Who knows hiking and climbing high in the wilderness may become a passion of her own for Zeyno, too, when the right time comes.

Just as I am settling down in my seat, somebody approaches my seat and starts chatting with my neighbor enthusiastically. Clearly friends of many years, who haven’t seen each other for who knows how long. As I always do, I volunteer to exchange seats so they can sit together. Turns out one has a seat in the business class. I accept, it will be interesting to experience the business class one more time after 25 some years. I smile, they do, too, appreciatively. They don’t know part of my smile is to Resmiye at 25 years of age and her first experience in business class. I have always liked to travel with the mainstream, the 99%, both literally and metaphorically. Hence, I never flew business class other than these two chance flights 28 years apart, it seems.

As I move to my new seat, my inner eye has already turned to 28 years ago. Flying, let alone in a business class seat in Turkey (of 28 years ago) is almost exclusively for the upper class, majority of the population travels domestically by buses that are more comfortable than today’s airplanes, really. I am flying to Trabzon, a quaint attractive university town on the Black Sea Coast as an invitee of a conference based on research I completed to present my findings. To be flying instead of being on a bus for 18 hours is a gift on its own, I don’t have any idea on what else will follow of course. I find my seat and just as I am settling down, akin to today’s occurrence, there is almost a commotion in the alley nearby. Two women are in each other’s arms with delightful screams of longing, disbelief, and a kind of bliss. We are in the Mediterranean, of course; such wild expression of feelings in public is OK. Everybody around smiles with affection and approval; so do I. It turns out one of the women is to be my row mate. Without thinking much, I find myself uttering “I can move so that you may sit together.” Is that when I started doing this, volunteering to help people to be together, get together, to promote connections? Who knows? They certainly embrace the offer with gratitude in their eyes and smiles. Turns out one has a seat in the business class, just like it turned out to be today. As I move toward my new seat, they are already in a syrupy sweet and deep conversation, who knows what, hopefully, sweet things about the years that elapsed since their last conversation will unfold.

. 

I walk past that curtain, which always has stirred alien feelings in me. What happens in front of this curtain is not to be seen by the common people behind. Just like the walls erected around gated communities. Just like the doormen waiting in front of the country clubs. As if we, beyond the curtain are a dangerous species that need to be segregated from the elite. Or as if we are all starving and will attack the “curtain-eers” when they are served their drinks or food. As if we are contaminated with a bug that the stewardess of the curtain territory must make sure to protect her clients from by constantly drawing the curtain. As if, who knows what else.. I walk past that curtain for the first time in my life after it’s been drawn to “closed” position. Hmmm, it is almost like weekend puzzles on the newspaper: “Find the 8 differences between these two pictures.” Aha, the first one is that there are only two seats instead of three on both sides of the aisle with comfortable arm rests in between. Leg room is more generous. Looking at the well-fed, in fact hyper-alimented residents of the past-the-curtain lounge, they clearly need the extra space, too.

The stewardess is extra polite, all of a sudden bent at a more pronounced angle before me, leading me to my seat, which I could easily find myself. Would she have shown this extra respect had she known I am merely a poor resident at a children’s hospital and that my wallet may be emptier than hers. She doesn’t know that, all she knows is that I have a ticket that allows me entry to the beyond-the-curtain space of privilege, access to which requires a thick wallet. The moment I sit, she reaches for my jacket. For a split second, I want to defend it; but she is so sure of herself, I decide to let go of my jacket to see what will happen. Sure enough, she takes it to one of the cabinets up front, opens the door and hangs it elegantly on a hanger, which goes back into the cabinet.

I am now watching my fellow business-class flyers. Good thing, my seat is in the last row of the three-row-beyond-the-curtain territory. To my right are two big men with huge bellies, their shirts about to burst. Their arms are almost touching each other across the wide armrest separating their seats. No wonder wide armrests are a necessity beyond the curtain. Just as my gaze wanders to the row in front of it, the stewardess appears at the doorway with a tray in her hand on which an amorphously shaped white substance is piled up. I am appalled with the scene and a panic is almost taking over me. It is clear that this is something she is bringing in for us, her guests. I not only not have a clue about what this white substance is, but also have no idea on what I am supposed to do when I am confronted with it, which is to occur soon, very soon. I try to hold onto the soothing thought that she is three rows away from me. I can sit still and wait to see how others will interact with the tray and its amorphous white substance and trust on my “quick study” talent.

It is at that moment that I notice the first customer she turns to is also a hyper-alimented businessman whose voluminous arm is occupying at least 10 cm of the width of the alley beyond his arm rest. He is wearing a white shirt. I can see, his tie is loosened, when he turns sideways toward the stewardess. His armpit and its vicinity are already wet with perspiration. I am all eyes and ears to not miss a second of the scene to unfold before my eyes. The stewardess comes up with a pair of tongs in her free hand, grabs some of the amorphous pile with it and drops it into the hand of the voluminous arm. I am still at a loss, what is that white stuff she is giving out to the customers? As she turns to the right side of the aisle, I lock my eyes to the first recipient of the amorphous white substance.

He flattens it in his palms and starts wiping his hands with it! Mystery is solved. I am barely able to hold the huge laugh rising in my chest. After wiping his hands thoroughly, he moves it to the nape of his neck, his face and back to his hands. What a relief, it was a simple ritual that I could never think of: Dirty hands need extra cleaning before touching food. I recall my mother telling me to wash my hands after handling money. She would say “There is nothing dirtier than money. It makes you filthy without you realizing it.” Did she know of the metaphorical context of what she was saying, I wonder now. Then, I was sure she meant this literally, but I accumulated much more evidence on how brilliant her comment was in the years to come, in both literal but more so metaphorical sense. When it is my turn, I accept the wash cloth elegantly as if I have been engaging in this ritual for years. I certainly won’t embarrass my 99% persona in this group of fat bellies. I am still chuckling to myself silently “Here is a difference for you between the two sides of the curtain, hands here, are implied to be dirtier.”

The washcloth distributed today is easier to recognize: they are rolled into individual rolls. I am appalled with wine being on the menu at 9 am in the morning. It is even more appalling that half the customers accept the wine offer. I hope it is only because of “Whatever you pay for, you need to use.” philosophy. I can’t help but wonder, though, what the rate of alcoholism may be in this cohort. I am happy enjoying my cold icy water and orange juice. Next to me is a young man, who turns out to be my daughter’s age. Jose Pablo, a musician, who plays the guitar and bass and free lances his talent by joining bands mostly from the USA. Here is something nice globalization and internet gave to mankind: connecting skills from all over the world that would have never come together before the internet era. I look at his hands. They don’t look any dirtier than mine. Hope fills my heart, perhaps not all hands in the business class are as dirty as some that handle “a lot of money” as my mother would say.  

ON THE WAY TO GUATEMALA

GAILS IN HOUSTON

Big, sturdy, rather overweight, but nimble. Big smile, bigger than life, engulfs everything around it and leaves warmth and ease behind. Every movement of the head shakes up the load of dreads she is carrying. This is my shuttle driver from the airport to the hotel, who will make my stay in Houston unforgettable with her non-stop story telling, with her intelligence, with her southern warmth.  

She will tell me she is originally from New Orleans. She will regret I won't see the true New Orleans when I get to go there some day. "It is all commercial nowadays." I hate it as much as she does. Commercialism washing away all the authenticity places and people have, how sad and how true. I already feel a connection with this woman. She studied psychology, pre-med and accounting. Don't know if all is true, but she must have studied something beyond high school, she is so different than other shuttle drivers I met in the last 14 years in America. Especially when she discovers I do child abuse prevention work, the questions she asks are evidence she is more than your steteotypical shuttle driver.  

Her parents moved to California, which was the dream destination for every Louisianan at the time, perhaps still is. She was 16 when they moved back. A senior in high school, othered by "all the clans" that had long carved in stone in school, not only because she was the new kid on the block but also and more so because SHE was from California. "We were different, we spoke fast, we dressed different.", she hated it, in a year she was out. To where, she didn't say, I didn't ask, the flow of the monologue was so unique, so smooth, so uninterruptible... I just listened, took in everything she gave me, savored this, perhaps to be a once-in-a-life-time, for a migrant like me, experience till the last drop. I didn't ask much, she didn't need questions.  

Her sister stayed, in the house where seven generations of her family lived and raised families. "Not big, a one bedroom house. My sister had the bed, my niece slept on the couch in the living room, and my nephew had the mattress on the floor. When my sister died, my niece moved to the bed and nephew to the couch. He will marry, will bring her bride to the couch and whatever they have will have the floor." I can't help but wonder if there still are any brides to accept the couch. Who knows perhaps there is. Perhaps violent capitalism still hasn't touched the remaining crumbs of African American folk culture in the depths of the south, yet. I hope the bride to come to that couch may find happiness without any resentment. It may be a bit difficult.  

We are at the terminal, too bad, I did ask her whether her grandparents told her any stories when she was growing up and she did respond with an enthusiastic "Of course!" Alas we don't have any time, at least she doesn't. I give her my card, tell her my name, she reads my  name with a perfect pronunciation. "French?" "No, name is probably Arabic in origin, but I am from Turkey." She tells me her name. "Gails", how pretty. She tells me she will write to me. We exchange smiles, I take her big smile and big heart with me, I wonder what she took with her from me.

AMSTERDAM -12- CLOSING

MORE NEIGHBORHOODS

6/1/2012

I will visit the street markets of Amsterdam today. I heard a lot about them, especially the one in the heart of the Pijp, one of the famous boroughs in central Amsterdam, as my Lonely Planet book states. Albert Cuyp market, the largest of its kind in Amsterdam, perhaps in Netherlands, rich with variety from fruits to vegetables, fish to cheese, rugs to furniture, bike accessories to cosmetics, spices to plants, shoes to clothes and antiques and any kind of nick nack you may imagine. I get off the metro so that I can walk to the market. The main street in Pijp is ornate with colorful ethnic stores, restaurants, grocery stores, and others; Turkish, Arabic, Indian, Greek names, plenty. It is relatively early, they are just opening; fun to observe the locals in their daily routine at this early hour.

Albert Cuyp Market

I approach a Turkish fast food place to ask about where exactly Albert Cuyp is. Asking is just a tool to connect, to strike up a conversation, to get to know a person, a life. A young man in his thirties with a mustache responds, sure enough he is Turkish. I ask him if he has Turkish tea to serve. Unfortunately no, he is serving to the Dutch palate, they don’t like the traditional Turkish tea. I settle down for the instant tea the Dutch seems to like. He pulls two chairs to the side walk in front of his store. He moved to Netherlands in his adolescence. He is now married with three kids. He complains that immigrant minorities, Turks and Moroccans mostly, the two major minorities in Amsterdam are being pushed out of the Pijp into peripheral neighborhoods, specifically developed for minorities. Pijp has become a favorite place for new age type of Dutch being in walking distance to the heart of the city, if you have the time. Thus, it is rapidly being gentrified and although the main floor of the new and modern apartment buildings is occupied still by the ethnic stores, up above is a different set of tenants, now. What was home to immigrants in the past is more Dutch now, rather more Arian; my fellow citizen tells me.

                 A Turkish restaurant in Bijp

I look around, it looks pretty Manhattan-y: Like midtown Lexington Avenue with lots of small shops, hustle bustle of people running in and out to get a cup of coffee or a quick lunch, or gathering what they need for dinner, with buses and taxis rushing through the rush hour. That is exactly what I am observing as we talk and watch the passers-by. I like being there as a tourist by choice, yet it doesn’t look like this young man is there by choice anymore. There is resentment in the air, I can feel. One of the things that saddens me the most is meeting an immigrant full of disappointments after my now 14-year saga of immigration, luckily brought me to almost full content. Uprooting yourself from the lands you grew up in, severing or semi-severing your ties with the culture that made you, you, are difficult enough tasks to resolve even when you've materialized all your goals and have actually made the new land almost your own. Leaving Turkey for me was not that difficult at the outset. I had aspirations for myself and my daughter that I couldn’t see would materialize in Turkey. I had to challenge myself before it was too late. I owed it to myself and to my daughter, I felt.

Once the decision to stay in the USA was made, though, the stark realities of immigration hit me like a violent slap on the face. New York City, as big a melting pot as it is claimed to be, actually merely allows different ethnicities to stand side by side not intermingled together. The "othering" if not in the form of discrimination, definitely in the form of ignoring, pretending you are not there is always there to feel at every turn. Eighty-hour work weeks in a very harsh inner city hospital didn’t help, either. The very small Turkish community I was able to build was the only support system my daughter and I had for two years we lived in the big apple.  I had to keep my vision for our future I was determined to create for myself and my offspring right before my eyes as distant as it appeared to be during the years 1999-2001 to be able to keep going with full trust in where I was going when all my loved ones wanted me back badly. Now, well established in America and totally fulfilled with majority of aspects of my life in Iowa City, calling Iowa City home after eleven years there, there are times I still have difficulty with cultural, intellectual, and historical gaps due to not having lived there all my life.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to be an immigrant only in a country, forever, being discriminated against however subtle it may be, not be fully happy where you live, but not be able to go back, either.

My heart goes to the young man and people like him. He asks me about my visit. At the end of our conversation, I want to pay for the tea. He refuses, “You are our guest in Amsterdam, abla (older sister in Turkish), of course not.” What a sweet Turkish tradition this is. He carries Turkish hospitality as his second identity, still, after so many years of being away from home. What I had vowed to do upon my arrival in NYC when we decided to stay in the USA. I will keep everything good from the culture that made me and add onto it whatever good I come across in this new land and in the lands I will travel to. Holding onto the language was one of the most important variables to preserve to accomplish this, for sure. Hence, we designated Turkish to be the household language to keep both of us but more so Zeynep bilingual. We are very happy to have made that decision, which now allows us to be fully immersed in both cultures in a matter of minutes when needed. I know he will probably never come to America or Iowa City, but I give him my card as a token of appreciation. He puts it in his wallet carefully with clear appreciation. After sincere good-byes, I head toward the direction he leads me to, to Albert Cuyp.

Albert Cuyp almost century old, is soon before my eyes. Colors, colors, colors; one most striking feature of the market is its colors. Clothes of all colors, fruits and vegetables of all colors, awnings of all colors, and people of all colors. Joy is in the air. My spirit is elated again; I buy porcelain jewelry boxes, antique paper cutters, pendant watches, and jewelry for friends, family, and myself, as gifts. I come across a Turkish pide (equivalent of pizza) place for lunch. What a lovely encounter. The pide I order is as good as it would be in Turkey. I am seeking an opportunity to talk to the owners. Unfortunately, they are extremely busy with not only serving the in-house customers, but also trying to keep up with the take-out orders. They don’t have any time for my anthropological curiosity. That is fine. I just watch them, with empathy. They are indeed trying to create a full life for themselves. Kudos for them, I hope ten years down the road they are still happy.

I then head to Noordermarkt, which is a flea market that used to be a traditional pigeon and canary market. Later on, when it wasn’t as popular as it used to be, the famous café Winkel set up nine biological food stalls here serving healthy food and food ingredients. It certainly expanded to include lots of other items being sold there over the decades. The spirit is exactly the same as in Albert Cuyp. I buy a few more pieces from Eastern European vendors. It is about time to get back. I would like this to be an early day back to my hostel. I want to think and reflect.

Plant in a pot on the porch of a houseboat

I am by one of the waterways along Lucky Lake, looking at the lake from in between two house boats. There is a pot on one of the porches with an interesting plant in it. It looks like it is reaching out to something, or some place. It strikes me quite profoundly for some reason. It looks like it is either going to fall down any minute or fly up to whatever it is reaching out to. Stirs quite a bit of metaphorical scenarios in my mind, feelings in my heart. I see a bit of Kim, a bit of Bill, a bit of my father in variations in this metaphor.

What did Amsterdam mean to me throughout these last ten days? Amsterdam meant freedom from oppression, just like it must have meant to the Jewish of the fifteen, sixteen hundreds. Amsterdam meant joy, full of green and blue, crisp fresh air, sunshine, sunset, sunrise, drizzle, among others that fully refreshed my ever-present connection with the nature one more time. Lucky Lake, with its serene cold waters, its green foliage opened its bosom to me for reflection and rejuvenation. I thought of my friend Kim during my morning strolls and evening sunset feasts, who died two months prior after a 3 year-long brave and fierce fight with her cancer. Grieving for her death brought back memories of Bill and my father, two significant people I lost in my adult life to death. I understood Bill much better than I did right after his death, thanks to Kim. I understood my father with his entire life story much better than I understood when he was alive, thanks to both Kim but more so to Bill. Amsterdam gave me the time and energy to arrive at peace with two losses in one year and revisiting the loss of my father from 8 years prior. I know there is much more work to do to fully embrace what these three losses have meant and will continue meaning to me. Life will continue and so will processing.

Here I come, Lucky Lake Hostel, for one last dinner in your courtyard breathing in the scent of your roses, one last stroll to my rendezvous with the sun on your north shore, one last sleep under the lullaby of your trees. I will think of you very fondly in all the years to come.

                                          

                                         I came, I saw, I am leaving with fond memories

AMSTERDAM -11- SOUNDS OF NEAR SILENCE

NEIGHBORHOODS OF AMSTERDAM

5/31/2012

Today is another rainy day. Rain and cold; despite my hot shower after the morning swim and with all my available warm clothes layered on me, I am still not as warm as I would like to be. I decide to find a way to be outdoors while being indoors. First I take a basic canal cruise; I want to make sure I visually captured this canal world, now, a Unesco World Heritage, from every perspective, one. Second, the boats are covered with transparent domes, hence, I am indoors but also outdoors. Watching a distorted view of Amsterdam under the rain gives a different romantic flavor to it. My fellow travelers are a loud American family and a quiet Japanese couple. Rain must have pushed everybody into their hotels or cafes, or museums.

The tallest building in Amsterdam, West Church is somewhat distorted as we pass by it.

My plan for the next two days: I will take buses and trams to travel to the periphery of Amsterdam to see more of its neighborhoods; I have a strong sense life within the canal circles must be different than that in the periphery. When the sun starts shining, I will stroll around the small parks scattered through the neighborhoods. First I take a tram and go all the way to Ijburg, in the northeast. Looks like I am traveling through industrial neighborhoods, working class families living mostly in apartment buildings, probably project housing of 4-8 story high. Then I switch to a bus and head southeast. When I get on, 100% black population on the bus is halved. But as more people get on the bus, the rate goes up again from 2/3 black to all the way over 90% black. This is clearly a bus route for black working class people.

I switch to a bus heading to Biljmer. All but me on the bus is black, some Moroccan looking (the largest minority in Amsterdam followed by Turkish), some look like from the heart of Africa. We pass by a school, kids must be in recess, all black not one exception. They seem to be happy. We gradually move into a middle class neighborhood with zero lots. On the bus across from me are an African grandmother and her granddaughter. GM’s hand is on the GD’s legs: to keep her safe. GD is holding onto GM’s hand: to feel safe. They occasionally smile at each other. GM and I exchange glances and smiles. I smile at the little girl, too, but she lowers her gaze down to my lap on which is my city map, open. She gradually raises her eyes toward my face as if thinking “What kind of a woman is this? She is not like us.” I smile at her one more time as warmly as I can. She is cautious, barely 4, has she already learned not to trust whites like my black neighbor kids in Iowa City. My smile is left hanging in the air with no response from her. I wish I could stay longer to get her to smile at me. Alas, I have to get off. GM and I exchange "Have a good day"s and I am off, waving at the little girl from the sidewalk. Aha, I did steal a smile from her, after all.

I am on Princengracht again to catch another bus to travel west when I see a marvellous rose bush. Amsterdam is ornate with a flora consisting mainly of roses among other flowering plants. The roses will gradually become an unforgettable aspect of Amsterdam for me; their scent will remain in my olfactory memory forever. Roses of various colors, white, yellow, pink, red, orange, purple climb up along doors, windows, some cover an entire wall like a carpet. Whenever I see a rose bush I stop and fill my lungs with its deadly scent.

Roses and bikes are part of Amsterdam's identity 

This bush is full of red blossoms at various stages of blooming. I hold one fully open rose and breath it in as deeply as I can.  Almost dizzy with the scent, I move away and cross the street to satisfy my visual sense after touch and smell. I then notice a young man, probably Zeynep’s age, smiling at me as he is finishing his smoke. I feel obliged to explain to him “You have marvellous roses, you know.” Everybody speaks English in Amsterdam. He looks like he is not even aware of what so intrigues me. He walks to the bush and lifts a branch, which was apparently already half broken. He turns to me and asks me if I want it. I think of all the staff at my hostel. I am sure they will be happy to get a gift as simple as a rose bush. I nod and tell him what I will do with it. He smiles and hollers up, a first story window opens instantaneously, another young man. He drops down a pair of scissors, in a minute, I am being handed a branch, full of red rose buds, a few fully open ones, essentially a bouquet of a dozen roses. I tell him “Wait, I will take a picture of you with the rose bouquet then you will take mine." He agrees with a smile. As we are done with the job I look at him one more time: "Now I can tell my friends ‘A man in Amsterdam gave me red roses.’ We both crack up, so does his friend upstairs I had totally forgotten about. In the evening, when I give it to the female receptionist at the hostel, I get a big smile. Life is good.

 

I can't say anymore, nobody gave me a bouquet of red roses, thanks to this ananomyous gentleman from Amsterdam:)

Now, I am on a tram going west. Clientele is quite different, mixture of Asians, well-to-do blacks, and whites. As we go west, the flora gets more lush, big parks and a large lake are part of the panorama. Two old Indonesian looking women approach my seat. I get up and gently leave the seat to them. They call their third friend and offer her to squeeze in with them. How TurkishJ They seem anxious, I wonder why. We are now in a wealthy neighborhood with elegant 2-story canal houses. I get off to change onto a bus. The sun is out, the bus stop is awash with sun rays. I move toward the opposite side of the bus stop to use the shade just like (I assume) the woman around the corner is doing, whose purse I can see from the corner. Oops, she wasn’t using the shade alone apparently. Such passionate kissers… I move back to the sun to leave them alone and soon two teenagers, who speak Dutch but look very Turkish join me to share the sun. One looks like he is from the Black Sea coast, the other from central Anatolia. He is trying to hold her hand and to steal a kiss; she is half refusing, how sweet… The boy finally breaks into Turkish. I smile, they understand I understand. We start chatting. They are both finishing high school and getting ready for the university placement exam, they are hopeful. Good kids.

I stop at Rembrandt Park on the way to Central Station to call it a day. As I savor the lush green and the little pond into which I dip my feet, words flow through my mind:

I hear the sound of

my soft footsteps,

nothing else. Oh, and

birds chirping away.

Duck wings fluttering

and lilies blooming. 

Symphony of sounds

of near silence.

  

AMSTERDAM -10-

ANNE FRANK HOUSE

5.30.2012

Emmy Andreiss, her work, the squares her heart and mind saw and her camera captured shake me up quite a bit. I need fresh air. I leave the Jewish History Museum and head toward Amsteel River. I find an outdoor café right on the water and order a beer, a very cold one. Joy is in the air around me, everybody is chatty as they devour their beer or wine. Nobody seems to have seen Emmy Andreiss’ work, at least not today. I lock my eyes into the ripples of Amsteel; my thoughts, sadness, tension drift away along with the slowly moving water. Pure meditation, just what I need right now. Thank you Amsteel.

Amsteel with an allegro spirit at all times

I visit more museums today. Photography museum is one, at the main floor of which, believe it or not, I come across a temporary exhibition on “Mansions of Bosporus”. In an old mansion from Dutch Golden Age, where the photography museum is established, is an exhibition of the remains of mansions from another land, how sweet. I make a plan to visit some of the "yali"s in Istanbul when I go to the world child abuse conference we are organizing in Taksim, Istanbul in September. 

          A living room from a "yali" in Istanbul  
          furnished Ottoman style

I didn’t bother with Madame Tussaud, but I did visit three famous Dutch Golden Age Homes, Herren hausen, that is, just to learn about how they lived then. It is so interesting to learn about how extremely wealthy people think about living quarters. These masters built their huge mansions on Herrengracht, that is the front entrance of each home was on Herrengracht. They each extended the entire depth of the space between Herren-gracht and Keisergracth. On the latter canal were the rear ends of the mansions occupied by coach houses. Although the most elegant and show-off spaces of the homes were in the front, front rooms actually were not livable, because the canals stank like no other! What happened then, was, the lady of the home designated a big room in the back of the main house facing the beautiful inner gardens to her use to “receive” her guests. I crave for the beauty of simplicity when I hear of such complexity that gives me almost a headache…

The courtyards behind the main house of one of the mansions

 

Before I head to Anne Frank House, I want to send a postcard to a friend. I am told there is a mailbox in the lobby of a hotel in the next block. It must be where the elegant entrance is. Oops, it is not. This is the entrance to St. Nicholas Church, it turns out, closed to tourists and guess what, there is a mass. I will not take photos, I will not bother anybody. Is it a terrible thing to do to simply become part of the mass? I approach the lady handing out the reading material to be used for the mass as confidently as possible. For a moment she is hesitant, after all, my appearance screams out loud I am a tourist, a camera over one shoulder, backpack on my back, straw hat on my head. What if I am a Christian longing for a Sunday mass away from home, though? Can she kick me out of God's home? My confidence wins. She is convinced I am dying to hear the mass and have my heart cleansed. As I move to an empty seat quietly, I murmur to myself “In a way I am (for the former).” I would really like to observe how Christian Dutch worship now that I landed, without planning, on a Dutch mass.

In front of me are three interesting people. An African man with a shaved head, the left side of which has a 10 cm long indentation, an untreated depressed fracture? The doctor in me never misses differential diagnostic opportunities. My heart breaks. Did he flee to Amsterdam because of violence that fractured his skull, has he found the safe haven he was looking for? He is reaching out to the same God the two handsome, middle aged, middle class men sitting next to him do. “Are they Gay?” crosses my mind. “Is this a gay-friendly church?” I wonder. I am the anthropologist humming to the tunes they clearly all know by heart. I don’t even know what I am humming to, all the better, it feels so good and peaceful, probably because I don't know what the lyrcs are about. It is hard to believe this institution also created such atrocities from individual to global scale throughout its history. I focus on the music shooing away the negative intellectual discourse in my mind. The chorus is spectacular, I couldn’t differentiate the music from Heidelberg Chorus’s.

The can is being passed around now. I drop a E1 coin in and pass it down. In the mean time, a group of people are walking down the aisle toward the priests. They are clearly Asian: Indonesian, Malaysian? With my lack of Dutch, I do not know the context, but perhaps celebration of their joining the congregation? By now, my row is allowed to walk up to the priest that will feed us with Jesus’ flesh. I hear the priest utter “This is Jesus’ flesh.”, I can make that much Dutch from my limited German. The bland circle he drops in my mouth dissolves on my tongue. I can’t help but wonder with a brief eye contact with him “Have you ever sexually abused a boy trusted into your care?” I won’t return to my seat as my row mates will do. I walk out into sunshine, which surrounds me inside and out. “Freedom” is dancing in my mind, I hear my voice saying out not so loud “Freedom”. It is good to be free of any organized religion and historical burden that comes with them. Believing in “Good” has always worked better for me than believing in God, and I guess it will remain that way.

By the time I am out, it is raining. This may be good news, people may consider going back to their hotels early, instead of going to Anne Frank House, which is by the way the single most visited museum in Amsterdam, the line never gets exhausted, always couple blocks long, never mind the coil within the building, which is another couple blocks' worth. Or... Everybody may decide “Let’s find refuge in Anne Frank House, then I may be in trouble. It is around seven pm as I approach the House. Valla! The line is negligible, my first prediction turned out to be at work here. In a few minutes, I am within the building.

Luckily, when I visited Anne Frank House, line was not this long.

Yes, indeed, Anne Frank House is heart breaking. A whole family was stuck in the maze of a secret annex in their own huge mansion for over two years. Yes, it must have been devastating emotionally. And my heart goes to poor Anne’s writing of her daily difficulties, the darkness, the dampness, the feeling of suffocation, longing for fresh air on and on and on... Despite all the sadness and revolt all of this stirred in me, I leave with this: "Compared to what masses of poorer and poorest Jewish people went through, Anne Frank's life was a bit overrated. At least for me, what it stirred in me didn't reach the level of what Emmy Andreiss' documentation of the pain the masses experienced did. Anne could suffer from such emotional devastation because her father could afford buying their survival as long as he did. He was a wealthy businessman. He transferred ownership of his business to his trusted friend, an Arian Dutch when Amsterdam was occupied by Nazis. Thus, his business, which he was still running out of his own mansion provided the much needed funds to allow this hiding, two more years of celebrated life when all the poor Jewish people, who had no such huge mansions to hide within, who had no excess money to pay others to help them hide were picked like apples one by one in a matter of minutes to hours to be sent to concentration camps to their torture or quick deaths. As sad as I was with everything that happened to Anne and her family, I couldn’t help but think, “All these millions, visiting Anne Frank House every year should also see Emmy Andreiss’ work." 

AMSTERDAM -9- ALL VANISHED INTO THICK AIR

ALL VANISHED INTO THICK AIR

A woman from the 40s. Emmy Andreiss.

She saw what others wouldn’t.

In the cities, on the streets,

in the eyes, on the faces.

Looking at me, the glaze

of the glass in between.

I move aside, her eyes

questioning.

“Will you see what I saw?”

I will try, I hope I will.

From one frame to the next

begins a humble journey.

The lower half of a coat.

Two stick legs leading the eye down

to collapsed socks; no meat to hold them.

Too big, too worn shoes,

ripped up stitches.

Home to small feet

on the way to a soup kitchen.

Then come two sets of legs.

Two sets of feet.

Two sets of shoes.

One frame.

All dangling.

Legs from a platform,

feet from ankles,

shoes off feet,

laces off shoes,

long lost.

Soles almost falling off,

shoes almost falling off,

socks almost falling off,     

Kids barely holding on

to something.

Next: A man in the dumpster,

scavenging; out of place.

Should have been

lecturing to his pupils.

Wooden stick in hand,

through the filth, searching.

Not the hand, not the man.

The hand is old.

The hand is wrinkled.

The hand is determined to last.

Next is a man and a woman.

Hats too big for sunken cheeks

“Sifting ashes in search of coal remains”

whispers Emmy Andreiss.

Coal remains, home to take.

Coal remains dropped by trains.

Will drop off a woman,
one train, last frame.

A train of ruin, of shame, of pain.  

A woman of sunken cheeks,

sunken eyes, hopes lost,

dull looks, but still looks

for something lost?

Boys couldn’t grow

to fill dangling shoes.

Hand couldn’t last

to reach, to touch, to feel.

Homes of coal remains

vanished into thick air.

5/25/2012-7/24/2012

Amsterdam, NL, Jewish History Museum

A few of some 30 photos I was lucky to view in the basement of the Jewish History Museum during my visit triggered the above sentiments. Coupled with the captions that went along with the photographs, I was so saddened, seeing the last one, of a woman who made it but at what cost, who knows, made me cry. Luckily that was the highlight and also the end of my visit to this museum. I needed fresh air badly, among all, that is one feeling I remember the most. 

PS: I am dissapointed that the glass over each frame coupled with my inaptness for photo-taking (perhaps my next skill to learn should be photography), there was a lot of reflection reducing the photo quality. But there is something fun in these photos, the result of the exact same shortcoming: Let's see if you will be able to notice it...