“You’re too perty to be boxing,” the tall, chiseled, handsome, broad-shouldered white man teased. He spoke his words slowly, almost slurring them — Southern style — past my ear. From the corner of my eye, I sized up the woman he was addressing. She was around 5-foot-five, slender, and curvaceous. Her smooth chocolate skin was complemented by a thick black ponytail that rested in the dip between her shoulder blades. Her outfit was color-coordinated and probably name brand: a double-layered, two-toned pink and green sports bra visible under a sheer T-shirt, and green jogging shorts that stopped just short of her crotch.

The perty woman had expected to be seen in the gym and did not want to disappoint. Nice ass, I thought, but legs way too skinny.

Her powdery smell and nice clothes were quite a contrast to the dank atmosphere of the gym and to the rest of the amateur boxing class of 12 students. We were a motley crew in cutoff denim, faded sweats, soccer shorts, and a variety of “wife beaters.” Until that night — six months into my training — I had been the only female student in the class.

Our coach looked deeply into her eyes and then rolled his gaze over the rest of her body. She smiled and blinked her eyes quickly as she adjusted her awkward fight stance. Maintaining his intense eye contact, he stepped closer to her and moved her gloved hands farther apart. As he did so, I watched his fingertips glide slowly along one of her forearms into the bend of her elbow. There was more blinking and smiling from her, but I thought I saw her shoulders slump as he walked away. It was obviously her first day. Boxing moves feel and look unnatural for the first week or so because you have to unlearn the instinct to strike first with your strongest hand.    

The coach then moved toward me and stood directly in front of my poised, gloved fists. 
 
“Okay, let’s repeat the combination,” he instructed the class. “Jab, cross, and hook on my command.” He was checking each person’s form and speed. “Go!”

I too worked hard not to disappoint.

“Keep your elbows tight on that hook,” he told me before demonstrating. He curled his back slightly and bent his knees for balance and mobility.

“You don’t want to leave your face open when you hit, see?” His eyes peeked over his large bare knuckles for a second before his three punches shot through the air. The muscles in his neck and arm flexed through the thin T-shirt.

“Pshew! Pshew! Pshew!” He forced air through his teeth in loud whispers with each skillful punch.

“Push from the shoulders and curve at the waist. Let your body give you the force, so the arms don’t have to do all the work. Always protect yourself. Go!”

This time I felt the strength of my whole body concentrated in the motion of my arms. I pushed my fists through the nose of my invisible opponent and then finished her with my right hook to the temple. It felt good to be in such powerful control of my body.

He glanced into my eyes, nodded his head, and moved to the next student. I am not too pretty to be a boxer.

I am 5-foot-nine. My shoulders are broad and my arms toned. My dreadlocs are pulled back with a headband. My thigh muscles bear the mark of resistance training. Though I could never be mistaken for a man, I embrace my masculine edge in a way that helps me blend in with the guys in the gym. My form, my precision, my “don’t fuck with me” face as I hit the heavy bag, can be very attractive to people who know what to look for in a fighter. I see the men — other trainers, semipro competitors, as well as some in my class — smiling and leaning their heads together to whisper while they watch me move. One or two of them usually comment to me directly, saying with innuendo: “Take it easy on your (sparring) partner” or “I hope I don’t get too close to you!”

As you can probably tell, I like — even seek — their approval. This desire to be acknowledged by men is a dirty little secret my lesbian feminist sensibilities will only admit to in the context of boxing. I know that the lesbian boxer is oh-so-clichéd, but this is a relatively new passion for me. I only began this training when running became too painful. It was not because Laila Ali or Ann Wolf inspired me, or because I’ve always had a repressed wish to be in the ring. In fact, being a fighter is the opposite of my usually inhibited personality. 

However, my body — tall, broad, black, and inclined to muscularity — can be intimidating for some people, but until recently I’ve never been conscious of that. Now that I’ve been boxing for awhile, I delight in the fluid motion of my swing, the way I feel as I “stick and move” around the heavy bag. This physical confidence spills over into my daily interactions. When I am dissatisfied with customer service, for example, I complain with my arms folded or throw the most piercing look I can summon. People usually react the way I want by either leaving me the hell alone or stammering their apologies.

I never had that kind of relationship with my body as a runner.

This brings me back to the perty girl. The coach continued with his flirtatious compliments throughout the class, and she never returned. I have thought of her often since that day. It occurs to me that she should be celebrated in a sport that can also serve as self-defense because she’s the type of woman many men assume they can victimize or dominate. She should be encouraged to feel comfortable in being seen as strong, athletic, and attractive. Too often we are perceived and treated a particular way based on only one of those characteristics from our early girlhood. Pretty girls do not fight and, as we are told in so many ways, strong girls are not pretty.

Instead of flirting with her, the coach should have instructed her the way he would have any novice male student: with patience, critical feedback, and affirmation of her potential. Yeah, she was attractive. So what? His response to her made her self-conscious and affected her performance in that already very masculine environment. His attitude represents mainstream culture’s view that only certain types of women — those with big muscles, a heavy build, or an unattractive face — are acceptable outside of traditional feminine roles. When is a man ever considered too attractive for any given activity?

And what about my response? Assuming that she believed him, what should I have said or done as a witness to this crushing of her desire to learn? I should have made some witty retort to put him in check for his sexist behavior. I should have shown some female solidarity because I knew better than anyone else what it took for her to have shown up in the first place. It was weeks before I felt completely comfortable there.

But my confession is that I didn’t say anything. The truth is, I reveled in the contrast her perceived weakness created between us. Because she was perty, I was by default a natural. Actually, most of the men, even the skinny ones, hit harder than I do and have better form. This is because, biological considerations aside, boys are generally taught the basic principles of boxing throughout boyhood, in the rough-and-tumble “play fighting” that goes on between male siblings and friends or with uncles and father figures. With few exceptions, girls are taught to expect protection from those same relationships.

I must confess that I failed myself and my classmate in that moment. When we stand idly by and witness that kind of behavior without intervening, we become passive participants in the act. Women have been fighting for centuries for equal treatment and equal opportunity. So if I find myself in that situation again, I’ll have to be faster on my feet. I’ll speak up. I’ll stick and move, bob and weave, “sting like a bee.” I confess I was too busy being one of the guys when I should have been fighting like a girl.
 

Marlon Rachquel Moore

 

It was fall in Mongolia, and the dusk falling round the State Department Store, the central meeting place in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, made it hard to see anyone’s face — not that I knew what the man I was supposed to meet looked like. I had just arrived for the year to work with writers, and my desire to see the creation of a Mongolian branch of International PEN was shared by Dugar, an Inner Mongolian writer living in New York City.

The two of us had never met. Dugar got my name from the Freedom to Write and international programs director Larry Siems at PEN in New York when Dugar called to ask about the possibility of establishing a Mongolian PEN Center. Larry happened to know I was in Mongolia, trying to make that very idea a reality. Dugar emailed me and asked me to look up an Inner Mongolian writer living in exile from China, in Ulaanbaatar: Mr. Tumen Ulzii Bayunmend. I thought the two were friends, but later I’d find out that Dugar knew of Tumen Ulzii because Tumen Ulzii was a prominent essayist — he wrote about the Chinese government’s actions toward Inner Mongolians — and a leading figure in the People’s Party of Inner Mongolia.

The man I met in front of the State Department Store didn’t look like a refugee, which goes to show how many assumptions I had. Tumen Ulzii has an open, smooth, and youthful face. We wove through the crowds of young people hanging out in front of the State Department Store, and made our way onto Peace Street and into a melee of knockoff sunglasses stands and Korean restaurants. That night at Broadway Pizza, with only the most basic Mongolian words under my belt and about ten English words under his, Tumen Ulzii and I relied almost entirely on pens, paper, an electronic dictionary, beer, and universal gestures for conversation.

Tumen Ulzii is keen and quick. He told me about himself first, then about his move to China, his wife and daughter who are still there, and the books he wrote about race and politics that brought Inner Mongolian fans in from the countryside just to meet him. These same books precipitated a ban on his writing in China and the police raids on his office and home after he left China for Mongolia in 2005. The reason so many Inner Mongolians speak out against the Chinese government — or would like to — is the long history of oppression like that suffered by Tibetans; the effort for cultural preservation, expression, and autonomy among ethnic minorities has often led to clashes with the Chinese government, and Tumen Ulzii’s story is just one of many.

Differences between Inner and Outer Mongolia

The country of Mongolia is the territory once referred to as Outer Mongolia, and the territory of Inner Mongolia lies in China. The size of the difference between Inner and Outer Mongolians depends on who you ask.

Inner Mongolians see themselves as part of a larger Mongolia, but this view is not shared by the Outer Mongolian public, and anyone from any part of China is at risk here due to a sentiment proven by the “fucking Chinese go home” graffiti outside my apartment, and the recently acquired black eye of my young Chinese friend Li, who is here to study. Ulaanbaatar is a small city, and Tumen Ulzii, audibly from a Chinese region, does not feel safe.

Language differences between the two are also apparent; Tumen Ulzii speaks differently from Outer Mongolians. Inner Mongolian dialect has a “j” sound where Outer has a “ts” sound, and the pronouns are a bit different. Inner Mongolians still use the traditional Mongolian vertical script for everything from school notes to street signs. Tumen Ulzii, also fluent in Japanese and Chinese, is confounded by the Cyrillic type used here in (Outer) Mongolia. My Mongolian teacher, Tuya, is the only younger Mongolian I’ve met who knows traditional Mongolian script well. Though the Cyrillic type was instituted here in (Outer) Mongolia only in 1944, it has taken deep hold. The pages of Tumen’s notebook, however, are covered in the rows of lacy black script whose vertical nature, Mongolians say, makes you nod yes to the world as you read instead of shaking your head no.

Refugee situations are not easy

On a much colder and clearer day in January, Tumen Ulzii and I walked the five minutes from my apartment to the Mongolian branch of the United Nations (U.N.). Uniformed men in their early 20s guarded the compound. Even without my passport — I had left it on my dresser to remind myself to get more pages at the American embassy — they let me in. Tumen Ulzii and I crossed an eerily quiet parking lot filled with white vans to a pink, Soviet-style building, where the receptionist asked about my lack of documentation. We walked into the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office, whose walls were home to UNICEF posters and the air smelled of coffee, and I asked one large Mongolian man, Mr. Och, what the holdup was on Tumen Ulzii’s refugee status.

Refugee situations are never easy, and this was no exception. Mongolia does not have an official UNHCR branch, only a liaison office, so the decision to grant Tumen Ulzii refugee status had to come from the nearest branch, which happened to be in … Beijing. Mongolia also has no provisions for asylum seekers in its law, so as long as Tumen Ulzii remained one, he was at risk of deportation and then punishment at the hands of the very government who had its police officers storm his house and strip-search his wife.

Tumen Ulzii has not been the only one. His friend Soyolt, another Inner Mongolian dissident, was arrested on January 7, 2008, upon touchdown in Beijing on a business trip. Soyolt was in the impenetrable world of arbitrary detention without charge or trial somewhere in China for the next six months while his wife and three children remained powerless here in Ulaanbaatar. He was allowed one phone call back in January, and he reported that Chinese officials had told him that if he made a fuss or alerted any foreign media, things would get worse.

The imminent Olympic Games in Beijing seems to be both a blessing and a curse for Chinese dissidents: Attempts by the Chinese government to silence them during the buildup to the Olympics has increased, but for the lucky dissidents who get noticed by the international community — a community currently paying extra-close attention to China and its human rights record — the imminence of the Olympic Games can help their cause.

Mr. Och at UNHCR told me to secure a letter of support for Tumen Ulzii from Freedom to Write at PEN in New York, and that a decision should come in the next week — something he would tell me for three months. Afterward, Tumen Ulzii and I went to get a beer. Tumen loves that I like beer. It was midafternoon, but around here people drink beer at lunch — at least the demographic I work with (read: middle-aged male writers).

“Bayarlalaa, minii okhin,” he says. Thank you, my daughter. “Sain okhin,” he says. Good girl.

Visiting with friends and family

Tumen Ulzii is extremely intelligent, but there are some things he says that boggle me. He can understand lesbianism, but not male homosexuality, and he wants to know why it exists, and how the sex happens. He thinks Hitler’s fine, since he wasn’t as bad as Stalin. He likes President Bush, purely because Bush is the president of the United States.

He does have a few good friends here. Uchida is a gentle Japanese man and a great friend of Tumen Ulzii’s. I met with both men several times at the pub around the corner from where I live. Uchida, who studied in Inner Mongolia, showed me cell phone pictures of his four-month-old baby — the baby and her mother live in Japan. When I wrote up a bio of Tumen Ulzii to forward to PEN’s Freedom to Write program, the men checked it over, with Uchida translating, while I dug into fried meat and rice. Though they are both in their 40s, they looked and sounded like school buddies hunched over a cheat sheet, casual and affectionate. Afterward, I told them I needed to go and clean my floor. They told me they would like me to stay and drink beer with them instead.

“Do tomorrow,” Uchida said.

“What do tomorrow?” I asked, and at the same time, one man mopped with an invisible mop and the other swept with an invisible broom.

Tumen Ulzii had Tuya and me over for a real Inner Mongolian dinner at his modest and bare but immaculately clean apartment, which was on the worst side of town, near the black market. To begin, he gave me a bowl of milky tea with some kind of grain cereal at the bottom. This was suutetsai, a dish nomadic Mongolians have at every meal, which consists of green tea, milk, and salt. He then surprised me by thumbing off pieces of meat from the boiled sheep leg on the table and dropping them one by one into the bowl, something he kept doing throughout the meal. It wasn’t half bad, once I expanded my mindset to one that included garnishing something like crunchy Cream of Wheat with mutton.

The second time I visited Tumen Ulzii at his home, I came by myself during the February holiday of tsagaan sar (“white moon” or “white month”). He had invited me weeks beforehand to be present on the first day of his wife and daughter’s 10-day visit. He and his daughter Ona, a delicate university student speaking very good English, picked me up in a taxi (which in Ulaanbaatar is usually a beat-up stick-shift car driven by a regular guy who could use a thousand or two tugriks). We stopped for groceries; he wanted to get beer for me and he wanted Ona to have one too, like me, something which she does not usually drink and which I tried to stop drinking.

On the way up the stairs, Tumen Ulzii took us one floor too far, then couldn’t figure out why his key didn’t work, and Ona gave him grief for it in universally understandable tones. That night Tumen Ulzii came alive, bickering with Ona, their voices singing in Mongolian and Chinese across the kitchen. Tumen Ulzii is immensely proud of his daughter; she tested into the top 10 percent of university students in China. I took videos of them singing traditional Inner Mongolian songs and smiled at his wife, a quiet geography teacher a few years older than Tumen Ulzii. I felt guilty for knowing what was done to her at the border the last time she visited her husband, trying not to imagine it now that I had seen her tired face.

An official refugee, at last

Spring 2008 … not spring by the standards of my home in California — it snowed last week — but sunny enough for sunglasses as I waited for Tumen Ulzii in front of the State Department Store. He approached in a long black coat and shades that made him look like a spy in a big-budget movie. He smelled my cheeks, the customary Mongolian greeting, and as we walked away from the throngs, he said, “Min! United Nations, okay!” and put his thumb up. I whooped and called Och, who confirmed the news. Tumen Ulzii had become an official refugee, eligible for resettlement. The letter Larry Siems at PEN Freedom to Write in New York sent expressing concern about Tumen Ulzii had been crucial to the decision.

To celebrate, Tumen Ulzii took me to a Korean restaurant. He laid several strips of fatty meat (Mongolian meat always comes this way) on the griddle set up at our table. My Mongolian was better than it was six months ago when we first met, but we still did a fair amount of the gesturing. He raised his beer, pronouncing me an Inner Mongolian daughter.

Resettlement, yes. But where?

Uchida comes and goes from Japan every couple of months, always with new pictures of his child to show Tumen Ulzii. Their friendship thrives despite distance, so when Tumen Ulzii resettles, there is no doubt they’ll remain in touch. Meanwhile, Tumen Ulzii’s keen to know which presidential candidates are leading in my country, and overjoyed that Obama is dark-skinned. He now wonders where I think the best place to resettle would be. America? He mimes an injection into his arm, then, reading from a book, puts his arm high into the air: “Hospitals and university fees are high in America.”

Resettlement can be a long and difficult process. Canada or Europe, we hope. He is very concerned that Ona go to a good university. He loves dogs, but can’t have one here — somewhere he can have a dog. Tumen Ulzii insists that when I visit Hohhot next month I stay with his wife.

“Sain okhin,” he says, kissing the top of my head. Good girl.

 

 

In The Fray Contributor

You may or may not think that the stimulus checks the government is sending out this month make good economic sense, but either way, you’ve got to decide what to do with the extra 300 to 600 bucks. You could buy yourself a bottle of 1980 Dom Perignon, for instance, or take yourself and 29 friends to see Speed Racer. But in case you want to put some of your windfall to work for a good cause, here are 10 specific, action-ready ideas:

1. Feed the grassroots.
Send your money directly to the people who need it by using the online system at GlobalGiving.com, which pairs "average Joe" donors with grassroots charity projects around the world. It’s eBay meets foreign aid, with projects searchable by topic, country, and a host of other criteria. GlobalGiving has just launched a resource page and a relief fund to help victims of the Myanmar/Burma cyclone, which has left up to 1.9 million people homeless, injured, or vulnerable to disease and hunger. www.globalgiving.com

2. Offset yourself.
Worried about climate change? Whether you’re reducing your own carbon footprint, you can use the cash to buy carbon offsets, which fund projects designed to counteract atmospheric pollution and global warming. Carbon Catalog provides a long list of providers and information about transparency and verification. www.carboncatalog.org

3. Help the troops phone home.
Think "support the troops" has become a platitude? Do something real to help servicemembers serving abroad by paying for their calling cards so they can keep in touch with their families back home. If you don’t have a person in mind, look at the bottom of this page for ideas: thor.aafes.com/scs

4. Fight poverty.
While the government has decided to give most people a tax rebate, families of few means will receive smaller checks, and sometimes nothing at all. You can make sure resources go to the people who need it most by making a donation to the Low Income Investment Fund, which helps low-income communities develop in a sensible way and avoid the poverty trap. www.liifund.org

5. Fight racism.
Want to do something concrete about racial injustice in the United States? The Applied Research Center advances racial equality through research, advocacy, and journalism. Their work helps to change both policies and minds. www.arc.org

6. Fight homophobia.
If you think that human rights should include the right to love, consider donating to the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. Astraea supports social justice in the United States, and organizations that benefit LGBTI communities worldwide. www.astraea.org

7. Don’t donate it … loan it.
Microcredit is a burgeoning field that fights poverty by making small, targeted loans in order to foster entrepreneurship in developing countries. Two organizations (one for-profit and one non) offer you the chance to personally finance some of those loans. Your investment may even make a little money at the same time. www.kiva.org / www.microplace.org

8. Do more than talk about Tibet.
Speaking out against China’s record on human rights is a good start. But why not put your stimulus check where your mouth is? A donation to The Tibet Fund will deliver needed resources to the educational, cultural, health, and socio-economic institutions inside Tibet and the refugee settlements in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. www.tibetfund.org

9. Nurture young minds.
Support the arts as a way to empower young people by giving your tax rebate to Girls Write Now, a creative writing and mentoring organization for high school girls in New York. www.girlswritenow.org

10. Support independent media.
We’re not too proud to suggest it: Donate to your friendly neighborhood nonprofit online magazine! www.inthefray.org

Update: Another worthwhile use of your tax rebates would be donating them to help victims of the recent earthquake in China, which has left tens of thousands of people dead or missing. Consider donating to the International Response Fund of the American Red Cross (www.redcross.org), Mercy Corps (www.mercycorps.org), or World Vision (www.worldvision.org).

Andrew Blackwell

 

The women next to me are crying. Silently, to themselves, but unabashedly. As the men in the truck bed look over the terrain, their faces are abnormally blank and sullen. My face is squished against the window in the crowded back seat, and I notice the ubiquitous red dust (a staple of West Africa) flying off of the road as we drive. Like it does every day, today it coats the banana leaves, cocoa trees, and assorted green bushes that cover Ghana. People are still walking along the road with baskets on their heads, smiling at everyone they meet and maneuvering around goats that flood the streets and bleat loudly. 

But unlike these people who move to the normal, almost ineluctable West African rhythm, today does not feel like a normal day for me. In shock, I can’t believe that I’m driving along a dusty road in Ghana, with the wind whipping in through open windows, and my dead friend Raymond wrapped in a blue bed sheet on the truck bed behind me.

I’d only met Raymond once before that day. About a week into my six-week volunteer stint in Ghana, I began working in the Accidents and Emergencies Ward in the Volta Regional Hospital — a different experience from being in American emergency departments, because the hospital had no ambulances, defibrillators, or electrocardiograms (EKGs). The primary emergencies that they managed were broken bones, sutures, or diabetic emergencies requiring IV fluids.
 
Because I didn’t speak the native language, Ewe, I felt like I was being ignored in the hospital ward. After about a week-and-a-half of this, I wandered over to the General Male Ward where I knew some other volunteers were working. I spotted Katie, with her short, curly hair escaping from the pigtail braids she had tried to wrestle it into, and the top half of her head bleached blonde from the sun. She had taken out her large, silver nose ring, but I could still see the two bluebird tattoos peek out from behind the straps of her tank top. Amy, a quiet, blonde volunteer, was hunched over a shopping bag on a windowsill. As I entered the ward, she looked up and kindly smiled before pulling a package of adult diapers out of the bag.

Katie called me over to where she was, sitting at the head of a bed with the remnants of a Fanchoco ice-cream bar coating her hands. “This is Raymond,” she explained, gesturing to a rail-thin figure lying on the bed next to her, “and he is here from Togo.” 

Immediately I felt excited because I could practice my French with him. Katie patted his arm and told me that he had “eaten some bad beans” that made his stomach hurt, and that medicines from an herbalist had only made him more sick. The family took him to one hospital, but the hospital’s operating room “couldn’t help him,” and so they sent him to the Regional Hospital. In the meantime, the wound from his surgery dehisced so that the intestines basically spilled out through the hole. They were held in only by the diapers that he wore in the hospital.

Without much muscle mass, Raymond was basically a skeleton wrapped in a sheet of his own skin. I stared at his huge feet attached to twig-like legs. His knees were by far the largest part of his legs, bulging out like two baseballs between two muscle-less sticks. When Katie told Raymond my name, he looked at me with velvety brown eyes. His eyes reflected a thousand pains, but they were also the strong eyes of a 17-year-old boy. Reclining amidst a sea of sheets, he held out a limp hand with long fingers for me to shake.

We all chatted for a while, learning about each other’s lives. Raymond told us how his sister sold green beans in the marketplace in their hometown, Aflao. He eventually asked Katie when she was returning to the United States. I translated for Katie while she pointed to a date in her planner. August 4. “That is when I go home,” she said, being careful to speak without contractions like the Ghanaians did.

Raymond turned his wide eyes to me and stated matter-of-factly, “I will go with her then. Tell her I go to America, too.”

As I relayed the message to Katie, I shifted my feet beneath me and glanced at Amy, who was still sitting on the windowsill next to Raymond. Katie looked at me with thoughtful, slightly sad brown eyes, and then playfully patted Raymond’s hand. “I’ll try,” she said grinning at him, “but you have to get some more muscle before then!” 

I decided to translate “try” as essayer. Once Raymond understood me, his eyes bulged with alarm, and his whole body writhed as he shouted, “No! Not try! Will! Will! You will bring me with you!”

Katie stared pensively at Raymond’s smooth hands as he assured her that he would be big and strong in three weeks. Nodding along, she untwined her fingers from his and turned his palm over delicately. Sliding her hand over his, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “OK, Raymond,” she said, noticing how her fingers made a complete circle around his arm, with room to spare on all sides, “I will. But remember, big and strong.”

Raymond nodded at her and found a pencil from a table next to his bed. With shaky but deliberate movements, he leaned over Katie and wrote his name, RAYMOND, in her planner underneath August 4. “Now it is a plan,” he explained, pulling up a sheet so that it covered his diaper. “I am going to America.”

About a week later we went to the hospital again and brought more volunteers. I was laughing as Katie stomped and banged on her Jimbe drum, imitating our drum teacher, Joseph, and his testosterone-filled teaching style. The drum had a resounding, hollow, but somehow pure sound that broke up the relative silence in the ward. As we walked in, one of the nurses (in Ghana, nurses are “Sisters”) smiled sheepishly from behind the administrative desk. Her hand stopped its casual lilt on the page, and hesitated for just a moment. “You are here to see Raymond?” she asked out of complete stillness.

“Yes,” we answered, blundering into the room and talking amongst ourselves.

“Ah.” Pause. “We lost Raymond this morning.”

I turned my head to the Sister, whose hand was still frozen on the page, and Katie stopped drumming. We all stood still. The Sister’s words hung in the air like reverberations from a musical performance, and in their silence they were almost as loud as the sounds from the Jimbe drum. The sudden change from loud to quiet echoed the unexpected news we had just received, and I couldn’t believe what had happened. 

It was a particularly warm day when we got Raymond’s body from the morgue. It’d been about a week-and-a-half since he died, and his body had been kept in refrigeration. When they brought Raymond out, I was shocked by how peaceful he looked. He was so still that it was as if he had eternally extended the pause between inhaling and exhaling so that there was a breath trapped inside of him. His mother and Katie couldn’t stand to see him, and so I cleaned his body with two of his aunts and Becca, a nursing student volunteer with a sunny disposition and a go-getter attitude. 

I kept wondering why I was cleaning his body in the first place. Holding his lifeless left hand, I realized that I had only met this boy once before, and that I hardly knew him at all. I wasn’t sure why I even cared about what happened to him. But as I wiped his elbow with a rag, I thought about how happy it had made him that we came to visit him. I realized that the whole reason I came to Ghana was to connect with new people and to learn from their life experiences. I’d certainly met many people when I observed a physician, blood lab technicians, or a traditional bone healer. By spending time with these people I was able to learn a lot about their life stories. 

But I just sort of stumbled upon Raymond and his story, and it still impacted my life. I realized that these informal relations are clearly important ways to make a connection with other people. Even more significantly, I understood that by making Raymond even a little bit happier, I had affected his life as well. Gazing into his slightly sunken, matted eyeballs, I realized that I was giving back to him for what he had taught me. It became clear that these sorts of informal connections, with Raymond and with other West Africans, were not only important, but actually some of the most significant ways through which I gave back to Ghana.

Back with Raymond, I still felt confused as I moved the rag between his bony fingers, but I also felt in awe of our own connection and what it meant.

It is almost afternoon by the time we leave the morgue and arrive at Raymond’s family’s house in Aflao with his body. We plow quickly through the unpaved streets, which are more like glorified paths, and dodge chickens and avoid hitting huts on either side by six inches. 

When we pull into a clearing, people are milling about between the noises of chickens and goats. Jumping out, the men seem to know what to do and start speaking in Ewe. Against the backdrop of a dialect that sounds like a rushing brook, I feel completely confused.

Raymond’s mother grins at me with the type of smile that turns complete strangers into instant friends. Other volunteers had mentioned that she had been extremely distraught over her son’s death for about a week, but it looks like she has finally calmed down and is able to interact with other people. She waves me over to a group of people who are the rest of Raymond’s family. I almost cry when his younger sister looks at me with her huge eyes and holds out a hand that also has long fingers like Raymond’s. 

The men hoist Raymond’s body onto their shoulders and carry him to a sandy area. I guess this is a cemetery, though the only grave markers are Coke cans and plastic wrappers. One of the family members starts digging a large hole to my right. I am still confused about what I should be doing, and so I stay back with Becca, kicking the sand with my flip-flop. I watch Raymond’s father lower his son into the hole, and I watch the different layers of sand cascade around Raymond. “No grave marking,” everyone explains to me, but “maybe the family will plant a tree later.” I take a last look at the grave, now a wet patch of sand, and go back to the compound, stepping on a dusty Fanchoco wrapper on the way.

Back in the clearing, in the huts, I meet members of Raymond’s extended family. I shake about 20 hands, and I see so many faces that are creased with age and worry, but they crinkle even more with warm smiles for me. I feel embarrassed, like I haven’t done anything to deserve this kind of unstinting love from strangers. Raymond’s mother gives me a huge hug as she sobs silently, and Raymond’s sister kisses me on the cheek as she walks back elegantly to her father, like a dignified queen, even though she is crying.

Continuing this generosity, someone hands me a coconut he has just chopped open and his eyes simply say, “Thank you.” As I drink the milk, another relative throws more and more coconuts back into the pick up truck. After convincing them that I cannot take coconuts with me, I slide back into the truck and wave goodbye. 

 

Julia Hellman

 

Weaving my way through the cramped aisles of the Middle Eastern import shops near my home, I felt a pang of nostalgia for my family in Egypt. As a little girl, I’d watched my aunts sift through bags of rice and roll stuffed grape leaves into neat logs. But it’s been 14 years since I was last in Egypt. I realized I was an outsider.

Growing up in Virginia with a Scottish mother and Egyptian father, I lived in a blend of accents, skin colors, and tastes. My mother whipped up everything from cornbread and chili to shepherd’s pie and Peruvian stew. I knew the difference between coriander and cilantro by the time I was six, and I could name all the vegetables at the farmer’s market. But Egyptian food was mostly a mystery.

In the Arab world, culinary traditions are usually passed down from mother to daughter, and, far away from his mothers and sisters in Egypt, my father had no way to recreate the dishes he ate growing up.

In college, I took classes on Arabic language, politics, and history. But I was missing something essential.

“I bet my mom’s goulash is better than yours,” one friend boasted.

“What’s goulash?” I whispered to another friend, Sara Elghobashy.

Her large Egyptian eyes widened.

I might have been well-versed in the rise of the Ottoman Empire, but I was a stranger to daily Arab life.

So Sara, raised in New Jersey but born in Egypt, agreed to teach me how to cook like an Egyptian.

Food is a pivotal part of Arab culture.

“I would much rather offer someone a plate of hummus than lecture to them on the geopolitical history of Amman,” says the Jordanian-American author Diana Abu-Jaber, who writes about food in her novels. “I think in the end you probably learn more about Middle Eastern culture — its earthy, delicious, hearty nature — from eating the hummus.”

As Sara and I shopped for ingredients for stuffed grape leaves and Egyptian rice pudding, greater ambitions took hold.

“Why stop with grape leaves?” I thought. “Why not eggplants and peppers and zucchini? Why not kebabs and falafel?”

But wise Sara knew to start slowly. We began chopping onion, parsley, tomato, mint, and dill. Add rice and ground meat, and you have the standard filling for all stuffed vegetables called mahshy. Sara’s roommates and I gathered around the table, and she showed us how to stuff each leaf and roll it into a perfect parcel. Her fingers worked quickly, tucking the green ends in as she rolled, locking all the delicious filling inside.

I gingerly picked up a delicate leaf and plopped a dollop of filling in the center, just as Sara had. But the filling squished out through the edges, leaving me with a messy blob.

“That looks great!” Sara lied, as I placed the blob into a pot lined with onions and peppers to infuse the leaves with even more flavor, a trick Sara got from her mother.

“Growing up, my mother was always in the kitchen, so if you wanted to talk to her, you had to go to the kitchen,” Sara said. “When I got to college, I realized that I could recreate most of the meals just from memory.”

After about five minutes, the pot began to sputter and spit broth. One of my leaves had exploded, spewing rice down the side of Sara’s stove.

For the rice pudding, Sara tossed rice and coconut into a baking dish filled with water and milk. She watched me with a perplexed look as I carefully measured two cups of sugar into a measuring cup.

“I never thought of using one of those,” she said. “All my measurements are from my mother, and two cups for an Egyptian are totally negotiable.”

After about two hours, the grape leaves were tender and the rice inside fluffy. We piled them atop a platter, burying the exploded one at the bottom. Traditionally, a full meal would begin with soup, followed by the mahshy, then either chicken or spiced meatballs called kofta.

The pleasant bitterness of the leaves contrasted nicely with the faintly sweet filling. After dinner, we pulled the pudding from the oven, where it had solidified more than Sara wanted.

“I swear my mother is keeping something from me,” she said while I cut the rice into squares. “No matter how much milk I put in, it’s never as creamy as hers.”

But the pudding was thick and delicious.

Back home, I found an email from my father in my inbox. I hadn’t yet told him about my plan to cook my way into Egyptian culture. But maybe he could smell the rice pudding all the way from Virginia.

“Today I tried to cook rice pudding like my mother used to make,” he wrote. “It didn’t turn out right, though. I called your aunt to ask for help but she didn’t pick up. It’s sitting in the fridge now uneaten.”

“You don’t need to call Aunt Nagwa,” I wrote back. “I’ll teach you when I come home for Thanksgiving.”

And with one click of the send button, I finally felt like an Egyptian.

In The Fray Contributor

 

Barack Obama has come too close for comfort. I went to his rally for just one reason: to shoot an assignment for my photojournalism class. But when I saw him, my imagination began to take hold. I was struck by his sharp jawline and enrapturing white smile; I was smitten by his charming baby face and charismatic air.

As he looked out at the crowd, I swear our eyes met for a second. I told myself I was just imagining this momentous connection. But I know what I felt was real. I left the rally blinded by my own infatuation and knowing my feelings for him would likely go unrequited.

Then the following day there was an email from him in my inbox. It began: “I’m just leaving New York, and you’ve got me fired up.”

I thought I was the one getting fired up, but apparently the feeling was mutual. I saved his email in my inbox, but did not respond. I did not want him to think that I was that easy or to immediately set myself up for heartbreak. I resolved to play hard to get, so he would not lose interest.

A few days later he sent another email. This one addressed me by name and told me about his appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The email also asked me to donate $25 to his campaign. This was a little off-putting; we had not even officially met, and he was already asking me for money? But I tried to ignore my initial frustration and reminded myself that, after only a brief encounter, I had already received two emails from Barack! Not even men I’ve dated have been this straightforward. I was charmed by his frankness, his apparent distaste for dating games. Flattered, I kept my emotions in check — and again did not respond.

But I secretly searched for him on MySpace. I sifted through a bunch of impersonators until I found his official profile. But instead of finding common interests in sports and music, as I had expected, I found: “Status: Married” and “Of all my life experiences, I am most proud of my wife Michelle and my daughters Malia and Sasha.”

Married? How could he do this to me? I felt as though someone had torn out my heart and thrown it against a wall. I’d dreamt of our dinners together in the White House and of knocking on the Oval Office door to see how his day has been. How could he be so heartless as to string me along like this?

I went for a long walk to clear my mind. When I came back, I looked at my computer again, hoping for answers. And there it was — yet another email from Barack. He addressed me as “Dear Leslie.” He still remembered my name!

This time he asked for $100, because he did not have as much money as Hillary Clinton.

“The bum!” I thought. “How could he be so brazen to call me his ‘dear’ and hit me up for money again?”

I was fired up all right, but this time with anger, thinking of his poor wife and kids, and how they would feel if they knew about his emails to me. Then I got an email from Kristina from Kansas, a regular voter like me, reinforcing Barack’s request for money. It was then that it struck me. Barack was not emailing only me; thousands of people must be feeling my same heartache. Our personal connections to Barack were all feigned. We were all prey of a heartless campaign monster.

This new revolution of campaign propaganda is getting much too close for comfort. The personal space between public figures and private business is closing way too fast, and the media we depend upon for personal communication are being invaded. We’re letting candidates move more deeply into our lives — and falsely into our hearts — than they should ever be allowed to come.

Leslie Minora