Avenue Queue

Reshuffling our bags to make the quickest departure possible, my companion and I moved to the front of the bus, eying the other passenger and checking for those carrying tents (luckily to no avail). Though it was far too early on a Sunday morning for any sane person to be strolling the neatly trimmed streets, as soon as we disembarked from our red double decker we joined the handful of groups quickly making their way up the sidewalk with wary eyes glancing back at their competition. No group was running (perhaps because, like us, they thought it rude to pass up a fellow fan), but most were walking so fast that their overstuffed backpacks threatened to burst at every turn- and, in fact, some went further then threatened in an explosion of blankets, peanut butter jars, and underwear. Finally, signs promising of a queue began to appear, and (if possible) the pace quickened until, one by one, the couples past the park gate and the real running race began with increasing numbers of clothes casualties. Despite the fact that the first matches of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships were over twenty-four hours away, the line for tickets had already reached its second row. Making our way through the dewy grass to the back of the queue we passed tent upon tent with their excited owners sitting on lawn chairs watching the more recent campers trickling in and eagerly discussing the upcoming line up. Soon after we (with great difficultly) set up our tent, we too joined those early arrivals in watching the young and old make the trek towards the end of the queue in hopes that they were in the first five hundred to arrive. Thirty hours, six guitar-played Beatles songs by our tent neighbor, two games of soccer, and one game of cricket later we had finally exchanged our queue cards (marking us number 234 out of over 2,000) for center court seats at the 125^th Wimbledon Championships. Taking a deep breath and trying to suppress an impossibly big smile, I handed my ticket to the guard and entered into a dream come true.

Though watching the near mechanical perfection of Rafael Nadal from third row seats was no doubt the highlight of my week, it has had much competition for first place. Last Wednesday night I retired my (now wholly) jeans for my theatre best and made my way to St Martin’s Theatre to see the longest running show in the world, The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. Growing up with Clue as my favorite board game and hosting a murder mystery dinner at age 12 (for those of you reading this who were there, I apologize now for the ridiculous costumes I made you all wear), The Mousetrap was a wonderful classic drama well worth the climb to the last row of seats. Despite giving over 23,000 performances, the play was just as enthralling and enchanting with its quirky characters and underlying dark humor as the day it opened 59 years ago. The following evening I again traveled to the West End theatre district to seeBlood Brothers, a story of twin brothers separated at birth only to be reunited upon their death. The musical was filled with witty songs of Marilyn Monroe, jests at Irish super station (Mom, I found someone else who won’t let their kids put new shoes on a table), and humorous depictions of childhood love; nevertheless, it ultimately had a stern message of class division in England and the extraordinarily opposite treatment and opportunities of the poor and the wealthy. Progressing from play to musical, on Friday I once again changed theatrical gears to attend a modern operatic interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Set in an all boys school with the chorus made up of youth, the tone was eerily mystical and dream-like with slow moving, sensual actors that seemed to make the audience almost uncomfortable. The score was absolutely incredible and fit Shakespeare’s verse impeccably and came to life with a faultless beauty in the cherubic voice of Oberon, the darkly deep voice of Titania, and the comically satirical non-singing part of Puck. Rounding out my dramatic week I veered away from drama to see the Shakespearean comedy Much Ado About Nothing at The Globe Theatre. The theatre itself is a reconstruction of the first known theatre in 1599, where Shakespeare worked and for which he wrote many of his best-known plays. Made of wood in a three-floored cylinder with an opened roof, the place has a magically joyful feel. Standing in the center leaning on the stage I had front row ‘seats’ to the hysterical tale of ‘merry wars’ of love, rumour, and deception. Though the actors preformed in Shakespearean English and dress, played towards contemporary perceptions of humor, which made it all the more amusing and memorable. 

Taking a break from the stage for a different aesthetic genre I ventured to the Tate Britain, which houses England’s collection of national artwork. The Romantics and Late Baroque satirical style of the feathery brushstrokes of John Constable’s landscapes and the socially critical dark humour of William Hogarth’s etchings that line the gallery walls give unparalleled insight to both the British mentality and art history. Much larger in size, I spent two days getting lost in the British National Gallery, spending hours following the contour lines of da Vinci’s Madonna in sfumatto and the contrapposto of Ruben’s three beauties in the Judgment of Paris. But by far my favorite canvases stained to perfection we those of J.M.W. Turner, the Romantic British painter whose sunset seascapes bursting with color foreshadowed the works of the famed Impressionists half a century later. His visions combining his affection for humans, belief in the sublime power of the natural world, and ominous premonition of the repercussions of the Industrial Revolution and modernization on both humanity and the environment in stretched linen swirling with dramatically transparent hues and highly intense natural light are simply awe-inspiring, so much so that their impression lingered in my mind long after my visit.

After a week’s worth of cultural outings I finally found myself in the Wimbledon grounds awaiting the first match of the day to commence. The park is faultless with perfectly manicured blooming flowers and shrubberies, precisely placed flagstones and carefully cut grass courts complimented by workers in suits and smiles offering tennis goers classic strawberries and cream. After watching a few players on the outer courts practice we made our way to Center Court, the largest of the complex, to absurdly good seats in the third row. We watched Nadal beat the good-humored American Michael Russell in three sets of unbelievable serves and unstoppable backhands and number six player Francesca Schiavone fend of an ill-tempered Aussi Jelena Dokic who challenged the callers more than I have ever seen in a Championship (to her credit, more than half were initially called incorrectly), and finally cheered on Andy Murray with a wonderfully wild national crowed (including the Royal Box) to defeat the Spanish Daniel Gimeno-Traver in four sets, the last two of which went bagels. Midway through the second match, the rain triumphed over the meek sun (there have only been four tournaments without rain since 1922) and the newly installed retractable roof leisurely covered the now wet spectators.

As I gazed up at the large metal and glass tiles lurch towards one another, I could not help but think back to Turner’s masterpieces of the wonders of man’s new technologies in his day, trains and steamboats, and his forewarning of their environmental ills. I have used our modern day advances at nearly every leg of my journey, from taking planes across oceans to using Skype to call my parents, inventions that make those of Turner’s day seem minuscule. The English painter was fearful that humanity’s modernization would ruin the truth held within the natural landscape and the simple peasants, and to an extent he was right. Constantly talking to my fellow Green Action-ers about domestic energy policies and discussing environmental security issues with past professors along the Thames River are clear testaments to that. But despite how much damage technology has done, it has made so many seemingly impossible feats possible for our generation, whether that is flying to Georgia within a mere day or watching Murray serve at 124 mph in the pouring rain. It is those now seemingly simple tasks of airplanes and retractable roofs that make me optimistic for future technology, and perchance our generation of artists will paint the contours of windmills in harmony with nature and the might of the sun with inviting tones rather than the radiantly dark power of 19th Century trains and boats. 

Song of Solomon's Wisdom

Cast in a faint yellow glow by flickering street lamps, the narrow cobbled streets of Fes shimmer through the permeating desert darkness. Markets of Berber spices and hidden tea cafes intertwine beneath the star-filled sky to create a richly woven tapestry of biting sea smells, freshly enticing aromas, and shadowy faces of peddlers whose crooked white smiles seem to be the only human feature that pervade the night.  Escaping from the main artery through an ancient archway, the labyrinth of the medina continues down less traveled veins filled with key shaped windows and olden wooden doors blessed by the elaborate metal hand of Fatima. Drowsy mules piled high with boxes of fruits and bags of burnished lamps are led by lonely merchants down these roads too tiny for our modern transportation. Every few feet the sandy wall dips into a cut out too small to be noticed save for the sound of artisans chipping away at mosaic tiles or the brilliant blue sparks of a welder’s torch as he works without heed on his textiles. Not far lays the tanneries, perhaps the only part of the city that silences as the sun slips behind distant mountains. Enormous round caskets filled with colors beyond imagination now rest from their demanding day. Only a few hours before the wells were swarmed by men with animal skins stacked high on their backs, shouting to coworkers and constantly adding water and dyes before plunging the leathers into the murky liquids. Though their noses no longer smell the nauseating order of urine and chemicals, to the onlooker it is the most repellent scent for miles. Above the smells and the shops ornate, geometric tiles line the walls in the imperial color of the city (blue) and the symbolic shade of Islam (green), and above the tiles lays an eerily stagnant sea of thousands of satellite dishes.

Last Tuesday evening I sat in the heart of this mystical medina entranced by sounds both foreign and native to this palace fortress amongst the dunes of the Sahara. A single raw voice rose from the silence and echoed through the narrow streets. The notes, each hit with such precision and force only to decrescendo out to nothingness, were masterfully strung together to form a beautiful cadenza. The harmonious poem illumined the darkness with warm visions of the nomadic culture of the Thar desert (Rajasthan, India); soon other voices of the Manganiyars joined the sole singer, their voices flowing over one another’s in a tonal ocean of both unrefined and highly cultivated splendor. The music crescendoed with the additions of the khamaycha (a 17^-string bowed mango-wood instrument) and the dholak (a tar, clay, and sand coated drum) with the light rhythm of the khartaal (a teak made castanet) sprinkled atop. Engulfed in the sinuous Sufi songs of northern India as I sat watching the 2011 Sacred Music Festival in Fes, all other thoughts and qualms vanished from my mind, leaving my soul to become illuminated (as the lyrics dictate) ‘like the expanse of the stars in the night.’

Still spellbound by the incredible performance, I spent the next few days exploring imperial Fes, the once capital of Morocco and still a cherished city to many here in North Africa (it is believed that people from Fes are both the most intelligent and best looking in the country). My travels took me into the plentiful craftsman shops of the textile district and to the old Jewish quarter where a magnificent synagogue still stands as a testament to a once cosmopolitan civilization. The night before my departure from the exotic, I again stood in awe of musical mastery in the festival, only this time moved by a French slammer’s (rapper) new culture built upon a religious and spiritual journey through foreign customs, language, and philosophy.

Embarking on my final leg of his extraordinary expedition, I arrived late last week to a rainy London. Though much more similar to New York than any other city I have visited, it still holds a wealth of distinct culture. The architecture is by far my favorite aspect; save for the infamous Tower of London and Westminster Abby hardly any structures predate the Great Fire of 1666. Most buildings are fashioned from unassuming red bricks or commanding grey stone that measure but a few stories (a stark contrast to the tall trees of Manhattan’s urban jungle). Though gargantuan in its expanse, the city seems quaint and picturesque from any angle. Bubble taxis and double decker red busses bustle along the crowded avenues lined with familiar red telephone booths and oddly fashioned English youth. Hollywoodesque monuments like Big Ben and London Bridge become part of the modern city flanked by contemporary superstructures of glass and steel. Though too afraid to use my British accent here (for those of you who know the Kenyan minister story I will be visiting my ‘hometown’ Bristol to work on that twang), aspects of myself seem to litter every street- literally. There is Victoria street and Victoria line, the large statue of Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace and the Victoria and Albert Museum: there is even a pharmacy called ‘Boots.’ Strolling along the Thames or around Hyde Park, I definitely envision some part of my future back here.

In my few days I have seen far more than anticipated, and there is still so much to fit in. My two visits to the British Museum were not enough to discover even half of the museum’s treasures, though I did saunter through mummies, the Rosetta Stone, Assyrian reliefs of lion hunts, Aboriginal Australian artwork, Asian artifacts, and numerous other objects of humanity’s history. Though seeing what is left of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus or reading a portion of the Book of the Dead was awe-inspiring, I could not help but think of the nations that were raided of their own possessions. I also visited the Tate Modern, a wonderful Modern Art museum in the former Bankside Power Station with a spectacular collection of Surrealism, Arte Povera, Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Pop Art, and several other modern styles. Despite the wonders within, the most inspiring aspect of this Tate was the large sign on its façade spelling out RELEASE AI WEIWEI (for those who do not know, Ai Weiwei is an amazing contemporary Chinese artist who is currently being detained without reason by the Chinese Government http://freeaiweiwei.org/). After meandering through the Tate Modern, I made my way to Whitechapel, which is now populated by Bengalis and is known for its ethnic cuisine, for a Jack the Ripper tour. Though not nearly as frightening as the Jack the Ripper stories my mom told me as a kid, it was strongly exciting to visit each of the murder scenes and imagine what fear must have struck English citizens in 1888.

My first evening in London I went to the National Theatre to see a performance of Swedish folk songs, and again a few days later to listen to a classical pianist. Much like my experience in Fes, the magnificence of the music overwhelmed me in an expressive elation. As seen by most of my posts, I tend to look for a deeper meaning in my life experiences, whether it is lessons of the breadth of Americanization or the universal goal of ameliorating humanity’s ailments. And yet, as I listened to the mystic voices of the Manganiyars and the quick spitted phrases of Abd al Malik, music as dissimilar as the two cities detailed in this blog, deciphering life lessons was perhaps the farthest thing from my mind. Rather, the simple aesthetic might of the music and the tonal wisdom of the songs was all that existed. Over the past half a year I have seen more beauty in the world than I though possible, from the grand mosques of Istanbul to the severe natural landscapes of the Swiss Alps. Usually, my thirst for knowledge takes precedent over what is in front of me: instead of seeing the allure of the tiled patterns, I see humanity’s interconnectedness; rather than enjoying the purity of church bells and Imam calls, I visualize the harmony of religions. Nonetheless, as I sat this past week engrossed solely in the music, no overarching themes clouded my thoughts. In their place stood only the beauty of the music.  The title of the Fes Sacred Music Festival this year is “Wisdom of the World.” Perhaps the most sacred wisdom is one that has escaped me in my intellectual complexities: the admiration of the aesthetic splendor of a piano piece without searching for meaning. Of beauty, pure and simple. 

The Way We Live Now

Paramus, though a wonderful town to grow up in, has nothing to actually do. There was always Friday night football games, when the team was home, and the more likely than not defeat celebration at Applebees afterwards with the rest of the high school and a few college students looking to relive their glory days (cue Bruce music).  There was the mall, of course, but my friends were hardly the ‘mall-rat’ type, and the movie theatre on RT. 17 if there was something good playing and we could scratch up the few extra bucks to get in. Bowling in the neighboring towns was, in earnest, the only activity we could do. And we did it often. At least of a third of my memories from weekend hangouts took place on the road to bowling allies, while cosmic bowling, or after bowling at the diner. Thus, the question “Have you ever been bowling outside of America?” I have been bowling more times than I can remember, but never abroad, and as I sat late Saturday night watching Jon Stewart talk about New York pizza on a couch in Ifrane, I could not get the question out of my mind.

Boarding a train in Tangier four days earlier, I watched the reel of nature play on repeat out the window for four hours. Flocks of sheep passed by every few kilometers easily outnumbering the humans on the landscape, occasionally dotted with cows grazing on tall grass. Where the red, cracked earth or the grey rocks covered in dying moss did not make an appearance, agricultural fields stretched for miles. Men mounted on lazy mules made their way from the vast expanse of the bled towards solitary buildings on the horizon in straw hats, their animals weighed town with hidden treasures. Women, still covered from head to leg, bent low between the greening rows, scooping up indistinguishable bundles of Moroccan daily life. As we screeched closer to barren train stations en route, children would materialize, playing on vacant train tracks or looking with wide, simple eyes through my window. From afar, the towns we passed through looked like mirages stacked with ancient buildings, an eminent minaret keeping watch over those below, and impoverished tents along the dirt road dabbled with bright colors of fruits and spices from the souk with venders standing close by, their faces etched with some certain understanding of the past and of ourselves as human that modernity has left behind.

After a missed train stop, we finally arrived in Rabat, the political capital of Morocco. Rabat, compared to the port town of Tangier, is incredibly calm. The wide boulevards are lined with trimmed trees and most of the streets are absent of traffic, grime, and chaos. The same cafes and overly anxious beggers found in every town I‘ve visited thus far inevitably emerge out of darkened doorways and rubbish filled corners. The medina, though larger than my encounters to the north, still holds the feeling of an elaborate maze constructed to make travelers mad (or perhaps entrap them within its walls). Outside the medina hosts a mixture of colonial architecture, modern apartment blocs, administrative buildings, and a infinite array of monuments from past civilizations who have laid claim to this grand city. The Kasbah wall fashioned in bright red clay unfolds far into the distance, topped with a geometric pattern and buttressed with disguised art galleries and shops below. The ancient gates into the city are veiled in richly carved arches, above which one can climb to magnificent views of the beckoning estuary and Atlantic Ocean beyond. After sitting down for a lunch of Moroccan fare (tajine chicken with couscous and mint tea), we made our way to the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. Before the mausoleum lays a forest of severed columns that testifies to a once magnificent plan for a mosque before an earthquake in 1755. The minaret, however, still stands tall at 44 meters and casts an ominously tranquil shadow over its marble inferiors. Towards the east end is the resting place of Morocco’s past three kings. The interior, guarded on all four sides, is a large room of patterned zellij (tiles) and carved plaster where visitors can look down onto the tomb from a balcony. Despite their mistakes or misgivings in life, their eternal home is one of an adored and much loved ruler. 

Unfortunately, most of my time in Rabat was filled with meetings rather than sightseeing, but I hope to travel back to the capital to visit the sparse museums and ancient grounds I did not have time for. While there, we met with several grassroot organizations to discuss the situation of women and children Sub-Saharan migrants in Rabat, and efforts to ameliorate their condition. Though I try to isolate emotion from work, it continually becomes a more difficult task to perform as I hear the plight of pregnant women and children being sexually abused while wondering the desert in hopes of finding the Moroccan border. Their stories, though cast a pessimistic mist over the current status quo, make my fervor for human rights of all people all the more ardent.

 Leaving my Rabat nights of roundabout walks through the rues and late night talks over tea on traditional couches with Moroccans, a Russian, a German, and a Dutch I boarded yet another train to Ifrane via bus from Fes (where I was stormed with hundreds of Moroccan soccer fans for the Algeria Morocco game- which we won 4-0). The arid lands outside my window gave way to more mountainous terrain as the train lurched onward into the Atlas Mountains. Soon tall forests of greens and earthy tones covered deep into the expanse, but still held those few peddlers of fruits and meats on the sides of the roads. Finally, after a days worth of traveling, I made it to the small town of Ifrane, unlike any other city in Morocco. The white and brown wooden houses with red tiled roofs slanting steeply downward are more like an Alps village in Switzerland rather than a town in North Africa. The orderliness of this town, though nothing compared to the impeccable precision of Zurich, seems unbelievably out of place here. The sidewalks are all kept neatly and couples and families stroll down them towards the stork filled lake with meandering paths into the wilderness. There are cafes in town that serve non-Moroccan food (something I have not seen save for the Thai restaurant I went to for my birthday) and people on the streets say hello simply to be nice rather to sell you something. There are many mansions tucked away behind high walls of affluent Moroccans and French that escape the heats of the summer in this cool haven and ski in the winter. The souk, though not as extensive or exotic as Tangiers, still boasts of sheep intestines (though I will stay away from meat after watching a sheep be slaughtered for a ritual on Friday), a dozen types of olives, and everything else in between. The center of town has manicured gardens where young children summersalt onto soft grass and unexpected rendez-vous occur regularly just beyond an ancient stone lion that keeps guard over the inhabitants.

My next few days here will hopefully be filled with hikes into monkey filled forests and under waterfalls (not alone but with my gracious host and his friends). Currently, however, the town finds itself in the midst of a treacherous lightening storm with torrential downpours of hail that push all indoors, including my group of Americans, Moroccans, Canadians, and Brazilians. Taking refuge inside the town’s bowling ally (quite different from the pool hall we played in in Tangier where a girl wielding a stick and taking aim was a spectacle to be watched by all), we tied our laces and entered our names in the screen. As I was tightening my shoes, my companion asked the question that startled me.

Whether I found myself in a taxi in Yerevan or searching for food in Tel Aviv, some aspect of home seems forever present: Beyonce blasting from a Georgian marshuka driver’s radio, a café boasting of ‘New York Pizza’ in Rabat, even the simple English phrases that young children repeat back from Hollywood films all hold testament to the breadth of Americanization. As an International Relations major back at Lehigh, I am well aware of the global stretch America has obtained over the past half century. Nontheless, as I travel across borders, I tend to blind myself from those instances of cultural imperialism in an attempt to indulge myself in the essence of Georgian or Moroccan life. Exploring exotic cultures, one does not like to encounter American influences, dismissing them as “un-Moroccan.” Yet, in reality, living in Tangier or Rabat today as a Moroccan means that certain aspects of American culture are inherently part of your identity, from the movies on TV to the food on your plate. As I near the end of my travels abroad, I have realized that those American manifestations I have avoided are not only impossible to ignore, but truly part of other people’s lives in our time. Moroccan belgha (pointed shoes) and djellaba (robes) are of course still an integral part of this generation, but so are Superman shirts and Gossip Girl key chains. To truly learn about what daily life is like in another country in 2011, it is imprudent to ignore American influences: amusingly, it took a Moroccan bowling ball to teach me.