Awkward dinner conversation

30 Aug 2011, Posted by Lucy Goodson in Backpages, 0 Comments

Special To The Chronicle

I’ve found no better way to destroy the ambiance of a dinner party than to introduce myself with the words, “I’m involved in raising sexual assault awareness on campus.” It’s the only three-second phrase I’ve come up with that unequivocally ends all hopes of cheerful banter. Parents, colleagues, friends, professors; on dates, on holidays, at reunions, in bed—it’s the dementor’s kiss.

“So, what’ve you been busy doing around campus?”
“Well, I’ve really gotten involved in sexual assault prevention work this past year.“

BOOM. Conversation obliterated.

Little ashy scraps of the good humor from moments ago flutter through the air crying, “Why? Why did you do that to me, Goodson?!” I can see my audience’s carefully scripted next words trickle from their brain as they struggle to find something anodyne to say.

They were going for “Wow, that’s really interesting, do say more,” but quickly realize they actually don’t want to hear more. The subject’s heavier than they anticipated. They struggle to find an exit strategy. The signs of panic leak through the weak smiles.

“Well… um… indeed…”

And so it goes. I spare us the agony of awkward silence and lob an easy, lighthearted question back to revive the conversation.

Worse, though, is when I encounter the rare person who does want to talk more about it, endlessly. The problem is not the interest, but the tone, because too often the conversation isn’t a dialogue but a diatribe disguised with the air of reason and informed opinion.

I went to cook dinner at a new friend’s house last weekend for a small get together. I didn’t expect to get into a gridlocked conversation over pasta salad. But, once I dropped that line, that oh-so-weighty line, I should have known there would be a shark in the water. After all, he was a recent sociology major.

“I mean, I don’t know anyone personally who’s been in that situation, but I know some weird people, you know?” he said. “They’d never do anything, of course, but it’s sketchy sometimes. I mean, usually they’re all just drunk, but, you know, it’s not like that. I like to think I’d be the one to stand up to that, our ‘age group’ is just afraid of not fitting in. It’s just so sad. But it’s interesting to look at sociologically. All the undertones of class and race. I once heard of a Durham guy who snuck into a dorm room and found this girl…”

Suddenly, I was stuck in the awkward crevice between his blind ignorance and his inflated ego as he tried to show off his comprehensive understanding of the issue. Anything I said, no matter how small or discursive, only stoked the fires in his narrowed eyes. The rest of the circle was staring at their shoes wishing one of us would start choking on an hors d’oeuvre so they could save the day from this eye-gouging sermon.

Honestly, though, it’s hard to say which is worse: avoiding the subject or pretending to know everything about it. I understand the need to move the conversation forward—maybe not the place, maybe not the time. But I do hope that we don’t avoid it forever. It’s important to have that discussion from time to time because sexual assault can be decreased with words. Changing conversations changes culture, which changes actions.

But beating a bedraggled horse with the you-contribute-to-a-culture-of-rape stick is the ultimate nail in the coffin. It turns people off and locks them in their defensive mode. Nobody wants to be accused of helping someone commit rape, and nobody wants to be coerced into revealing they were assaulted. While I want people to feel that they can talk honestly about these issues, I’m not going to troll them into it. If that conversation comes up and everyone is open to it, pass the bread and let’s go.

I’m not close to being a professional counselor and people’s stories of their experiences disturb me as much as anyone else. But I can’t help but take seriously the work in which so many brave people engage regularly. If you don’t think you know someone personally affected by sexual assault, rest assured you do. So be open to asking the questions you want answered and hopefully you’ll get responses without the gruesome details or moral pretention or judgment. There is a middle ground, and hopefully we can find it before the meal’s over. Nothing ruins dessert faster than talking about gang rape.

Anyone with further questions about sexual assault—what qualifies, how to see signs of it, how to help yourself and others—should consider consulting one of the extraordinary warriors of the Women’s Center and PACT, our campus group devoted to helping students understand and develop solutions for sexual harassment and assault in a realistic way.

Willy Wonka’s Glass Factory

16 Jul 2011, Posted by Christine Chen in Backpages, 0 Comments

Over the river (with wild crocs) and through the woods dust cloud on a bumpy road in the middle of nowhere, to the Kitengela Glass Factory we go!

A friend recommended that I go to the Kitengela Glass Factory, where artisans create masterpieces out of recycled glass. So we set out. It turned out that the factory was on the other side of the Nairobi National Park and then some.

The ride, however, was worth it—we got a than a fabulous view of the Ngong Hills on the way there. And the factory turned out to be “a glass version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory,” in the words of one of my traveling companions. Kitengela glass works can be found all over in Nairobi, but going to the factory itself is the real treat. We watched the glassblowers at their finest, nimbly transforming a glob of molten glass into a bowl with gentle crystal waves.

The factory’s prices were also more flexible. We could bargain for our wares, whereas the shops in the city had fixed prices.

There were around three or four different areas displaying an array of glass work. Chunky vases, lovely decanters, whimsical elephant mugs, and other various products lined the walls of one shop, while another hut featured glass beads and pendants.

A third contained quirky reinterpretations of old bottle caps and other trashed items. There, I saw the most adorable snake on the planet.

I also bought a green wine bottle crushed into a cheese platter. There was also another cheese platter that had once held vodka that even had the brand sticker still attached to the surface. Very funny to think about using this while eating cheese, but utility considerations won out and I didn’t want to watch the sticker gradually become decimated by the cheese knife.

In between the shops was another wonderland of glass and recycled goods. The roads were paved with glass, glass hung from the trees, figurines made of reused metal, glass and other paraphernalia decorated the paths.

Customers could also sit and relax in numerous groves carved out by furniture reminiscent of Antonio Gaudi.

Masai Mara

02 Jul 2011, Posted by Christine Chen in Backpages, 0 Comments

This weekend I took off my internship badge and put on my tourist sunhat.

It wasn’t my first time traveling in Kenya—I’ve been to Nairobi National Park and Hell’s Gate National Park. Nairobi National Park, however, only took up half of a day. Hell’s Gate was more of an adventure—I biked through the park right next to the wild animals, lived in a tent and helped make my very first campfire.

Masai Mara was also an adventure (I had some wild experiences there, let me tell you), but though it lasted three days, it sometimes felt a little touristy.

We were lucky enough to see the Big Five—black rhino, lions, leopards, elephants and African buffalo. We even saw a pair of cheetahs! It was thrilling to see all of them.

It was less thrilling, however, when humans outnumbered our black rhino. It stood in the middle of a small field carved out by tire tracks, swinging its head from side to side, staring with annoyance at the ten vehicles full of excited, picture-snapping tourists as if to say, “Er…how do I get out of this?”

Even the lions, waking from a nice nap and apprehensively contemplating the zebras surrounded by the more dangerous elephants, were harassed by furious whispers and the snap of pictures. The picture to the left was taken just as they were startled out of their passively annoyed state by the loud rumble of an engine.

The leopard we saw hung elegantly from a branch, its stomach swelling from its meal and a flesh wound on its thigh—it was gorgeous. You could see the power in its muscles, right under that beautifully spotted skin. And the gleam in its eyes was so wild. Except, of course, for the fact that the first people to spot it radioed the entire fleet, and five vans were clustered under the tree, their passengers gawping at the cat.

We even saw a pair of cheetahs. Our driver heard something on the radio and sped us over the bumpy trail to the site. They were adorable, but also very frustrated.

They had been trailing gazelles, but were rudely interrupted by tourists stalking them as they stalked their prey.

I think it’s because there were just too many buses there. And this was at the end of June, at the very beginning of the high season. It must be worse in mid-July, when wildebeest migration will be in full swing and tourist migration will be too.

Still, Masai Mara was worth it despite the plethora of other people. We were quite alone, when we went a little off road, for instance. Our driver has driven for National Geographic photographers, so he knew where the animals liked to hide.

He drove us into this underbrush full of elephants. There were several close calls when we got a little too close to them, and they threatened to charge us.

We also saw this adorable little fellow to the left.

At one point, we were literally surrounded by buffalos. And by zebras: Zebra panorama.

Even back at our hotel, we could see a family of hippos. In the late afternoon one of the employees began feeding the resident crocodile. That croc is technically trained—as soon as you call out, “Croc Croc Croc!” it surfaces out of the river. Slowly it dragged the six feet of its lethal body out onto the bank and chomped down the raw legs of beef. Here’s the footage: Crocodile.

Afterwards, monitor lizards and a random creature—something that looked like an ocelot, but was probably a mongoose—stole the remaining pieces of meat.

Robbed by a monkey—again

The tiny fellow had already stolen three cakes from the snack table. One stuffed into his mouth and the other two in his front paws, he ran away on his hind legs. He hadn’t touched the coffee, so I poured myself a cup and got a pack of sugar, placing them at a nice table right next to the railing. I turned to look at the scenery—and then my mother shrieked behind me.

The monkey had jumped down straight onto the table, had grabbed my pack of sugar and was inches away from my coffee. Torn between shock and outrage, I screamed bloody murder. It paused, and stared up at me with a startled look on its face, like, “What are you screaming about? I’m just taking some sugar.” Before I had time to grab my camera, it had made its escape onto the thatched roof.

I should have known better that to sit near the outside. I even told my mother that there was a possibility the monkey would go there.

How did I know? Experience. And a scarier one at that.

A baboon at Hell’s Gate stole two ciabatas from our table. And I, being the ignorant mzungu, threw a balled-up tissue I had been using to clean a coca cola spill at it—and hit it on the arm. Said baboon paused, sniffed tissue, and then climbed up on a rock and stared at me.

Baboons, if you didn’t know before, are not afraid of humans. They don’t respect women. They can also differentiate between park rangers and tourists, and they are even less afraid of tourists. They are further known for their violence.

Uh oh.

Thankfully, a male park ranger stepped in and threw rocks at the baboon, driving it away and thus saving my life. And I live to tell the tale to you and to keep writing posts about my adventures in Africa.

Supervised injection: Insite and the Supreme Court

24 Jun 2011, Posted by Trevor Thomas in Backpages, 0 Comments

With the large amount of scientific support behind Insite, one might wonder why the Canadian federal government would even challenge the facility. Dean Wilson is perhaps one of the most renowned advocates of the Downtown Eastside. At a Harm Reduction Forum held in May, he cited pressure from the United States as a primary cause of the Canadian Federal Government’s attack on Insite. Dean even mentioned that the American government was willing to soften certain taxes if Canada did not open Insite in 2003—a particularly shocking notion. Scientist Will Smalls, a man whose name you can find on many of the articles published about Insite, believes that supervised injection faces so much opposition because of a general “lack of compassion for addicts,” about which he spoke at the same forum. Supervised injection appears to be a method of healthcare that society and law simply haven’t caught up with yet.

Similar to the general attitudes on supervised injection, the Canadians’ opinions about the outlook of the May 12 Supreme Court case vary greatly. At a public showing of footage from the court case in Vancouver, I recall people shouting, “Theatre!” as representatives of the federal government made their arguments, which at times were clumsy and staggered. Many people are clearly confident that Insite will remain open with the decision of the case. This includes Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peters AIDS Foundation in Vancouver, who believes “the federal government will look back and regret the day they took Insite to the Supreme Court.” Others, however, see this as the end of North America’s only supervised injection facility. The state of the federal government unfortunately makes this an equally convincing prospect.

The alleys of the Downtown Eastside are common places for addicts to use drugs and sleep.

While addiction and poverty are very strong characteristics of the Downtown Eastside, something I noticed even more as I walked down Hastings on my first day was the passion of the residents. While the used syringes on the sidewalks and the open drug use in the streets represent the destitution of “Canada’s Poorest Postal Code,” they also represent activism. The graffiti that covers the alleyways is a petition with thousands of signatures, and each homeless addict is an enthusiastic protestor.

The residents of the Downtown Eastside are stuck in a marvelous limbo of advocacy and pride; never before have I seen such a powerful community! They march the streets and shout, “Insite will never be shut down as long as we’re on the block,” and we must shout with them. Insite must remain open if the Downtown Eastside is to recover.

This is the third and final part of a three-part series about supervised injection and Trevor Thomas’ experience at Insite. Part 1, Supervised injection: “state-sponsored suicide”, gave an overview of Insight and the ideas motivations and successes behind supervised injection, and part 2 of the series, Supervised Injection: injecting the facts, discussed the evidence that supports supervised injection.

I would like to thank David Noble and the Noble Foundation for providing me with the support I needed to travel to Vancouver and observe at Insite. Additionally, I would like to thank Darwin Fisher and Russell Maynard for welcoming me to the facility in May.

Three coins to travel through Nairobi

24 Jun 2011, Posted by Christine Chen in Backpages, 0 Comments

In the mornings, our little ragtag group of interns stumbles out of the house, walks groggily to the gate and for one moment, forgets where it is and steps straight onto the road when—

Screech. “TOWN?!”

A man howls at us, swinging out of the open door of a still-moving white van chock-full of passengers. We smile blearily and shake our heads, and the mutatu roars away, covering us with black smoke.

Hello, this is a morning call, it is time to get up ma’am…

Mutatus are small white vans that can fit up to 12 to 15 people—but, which sometimes hold more. The word itself means “three coins”—which is roughly the amount of the fare. These small buses are terrifyingly efficient—they don’t have routes set in stone, so sometimes they can change their course according to the needs of their passengers. It’s like a very cheap taxi.

Some friends of mine from New York City told me that the mutatu phenomenon has spread all the way to the Big Apple itself. Immigrants from Africa searching for work sometimes revert to the skills they developed back here on their continent—driving a mutatu.

They’re feisty things, careening down the bumpy road with slightly reckless abandon, and decorated with names and sayings. The word “Grillz” snarls across the front glass of one mutatu in flaming letters. Another, blasting a track by Lil’ Wayne, proclaims “LUDACRIS.” For the more religiously inclined drivers, vans are christened “Martin Luther” and “Magdalene.” A few had intricate pictures of Jesus with a crown of thorns emblazoned on the nose of the vehicle. Others had “Allahu Akbar” pasted on the glass.

I had finally worked up the courage to ride one the third weekend I was here, when a friend and I decided to go to the Nairobi National Museum. While the museum itself was fascinating, with the skeleton of “Lucy” and other skulls of human ancestors on display, the ride there was just as eventful.

Squeezed in the backseat, I looked up to see advertisements stuck haphazardly on the sides. The inside of a mutatu is usually covered with advertisements, posters and random stickers. I’ve even seen one mutatu at night with a TV screen fixed on the back of the front seat for the passengers at the back—fancy.

As we hurled through the streets of Nairobi, I eyed the passing landscape curiously. We bounced past an intersection with an ornate Hindu temple to the left and a tree-ringed Catholic cathedral to the right, with the criss-cross of Chinese-built highways bridging the congested traffic in the middle. Passerby stood warily until we passed to cross the roads.

Crossing a Kenyan road can be daunting. Luckily, I’d been in Shanghai for half of my life, so I’d had plenty of training on how to avoid careening cars. Still, you’ve got to be wary of the speeding, half-broken cars and the over-filled trucks that could swerve any time…

Apparently the Nairobi government is planning to eliminate the mutatus, limiting them so that only legitimate drivers are allowed on the roads and making way for the newer city buses. While I appreciate the attempt at safety, however, I feel that taking away the mutatu will take a quirky characteristic away from the city.

The buses are roomier but ask for more money. And they still hurt your gluteus maximus just as much or more than mutatus do—no improvement in that regard. Crossing the road with those large buses is also much scarier, at least for me. Most importantly, the buses don’t have the names scrawled across their windshields like some strange legacy of naming ships.

It just wouldn’t be the same, at least for me, without those mutatus.