Noise.

Big city life is noisy, right? So is country life, but in its own way, you might say. And you’d be right. I never knew how many weird noises cows make before moving to rural Georgia, after all. Big city noises are different, though. The unceasing clatter and din of human beasts. Traffic. Construction. Demolition. Reconstruction. Jackhammers.

In Shenzhen, there’s hardly a day goes by without the obnoxious racket of a jackhammer. There is a construction site adjacent to our residence–everyday for months they’ve been excavating there, cutting and drilling and slamming out rock so they can erect another skyscraper. Are you familiar with that process? Huge hydraulic breakers are employed to do the job, mounted on large crawler tractors. They repeatedly send a heavy chisel point into the rock. Eventually an excavator comes along and digs out the debris, whereupon a dump truck hauls it off. As you can imagine, it’s a loud and drawn out process.

Last week, a crew started demolishing the vacant Longzhu Hospital which is just across the road on the other side of our domicile. Now the clamor of jackhammers and breakers echoes off Tanglang Mountain from that direction, too.

There’s no relaxing outside in the beautiful fall weather because it’s so loud all the time. Even relaxing on the balcony is unrealistic. Luckily, after 6:30pm all is quiet.

Unless, that is, the road is being torn up so a sewage line can be replaced. Or they’re paving the other road.

Bearing all this in mind, when Jenia and I spent the night at the fantastic new Hard Rock Hotel in Longhua, some 45-60 minutes away, I was delighted that it was located in Mission Hills, where a posh golf course exists, and where things must surely be quieter.

Imagine my dismay when I was awakened on the 15th floor by the noise of what appears to be a metro line under construction. The entire median separating the highway was a big work zone. Curses.

But that’s all part of the deal with Shenzhen. It is a really big city, after all. Much of the construction really does make life better, ultimately, but it’s a drawback to living here as well.

Reverse Culture Shock

This post probably requires a little context, so here it is, in brief. I know I have not specified exactly why I decided to return to the U.S.A. this year, so let me go ahead and lay it out there. My job in Kazan ended after I was offered a revised contract for a new position teaching in the middle school, and besides breaching my existing contract, it also reduced time off and lowered my remuneration, as well as extended things another year. Rather than accept that baloney, I decided to go somewhere else. The separation between my employer and I was generally amicable enough, but I can’t say I’d recommend working for them. Anyway, these last two months have been busy. We relocated from Kazan, Russia, to Bowman, Georgia, carrying the smallest and most manageable amount of belongings we could, and after a month or so, we loaded up a U-Haul with considerably more stuff and drove across the country. There’s all the context needed and then some.

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Now, before returning home, I’d heard more than one account of reverse culture shock: the shockingly difficult readjustment to Home. Folks who have lived abroad and made the return write blog posts that make it sound like the worst thing ever. It is bound to be a stressful process, after all, fitting back into a place that has moved on without you, or, perhaps even harder to cope with, hasn’t moved on at all, and therefore hasn’t changed to keep pace with your evolving view of the world. Your Home friends haven’t traveled abroad extensively (or at all), lived as a welcome minority in a Muslim country, learned how to speak survival Russian, or discovered in a meaningful way that people are basically the same everywhere. Essentially, you and your Home friends will have a lot less in common than before you set off on your grand adventures, trotting the globe. At least that’s what the reverse culture shock fear mongers say.

What the shockers are saying is not without merit. We had little reason to doubt that it would be hard coming Home. We’d had inklings of this seismic shift between ourselves and our Home friends before, when during our return trips we’d recounted memorable tales from our travels and our friends’ eyes glazed over as they tolerated our ramblings, either unable to connect on most levels with them, or else entirely uninterested in what irrelevant strangeness we’d encountered. To be truthful, we quickly learned not to tell stories, unless someone specifically asked for one.

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However, coming home has been easy. Of course, coming home hasn’t ended up as coming Home. The reason we trucked across the country is because one of my friends who shared the wonderfully bizarre experience of living and teaching in Abu Dhabi, and who returned last year, helped me get a job working alongside him at a middle school in the Salt Lake City area. Accordingly, we’ve moved to a new state and settled into a new culture that is notably different from Georgia, with breathtaking scenery to boot, so it’s not Home home, although it is our home country. Utah is so different from Georgia, actually, that as we have been getting accustomed to the area, Jenia has more than once caught herself thinking, “This reminds me of the U.S.,” only to have to laugh and say, “This IS the U.S.!”

Georgia mountains look like this.

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Whereas Utah mountains look like this.

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Anyhow, I am not saying that reverse culture shock doesn’t exist. I’m not saying everyone will have a smooth experience upon returning. As for these expats, though, we’ve been lucky enough that coming home hasn’t been a big jolt.

Regarding future teaching adventures and travels abroad, stay tuned. The traveling life is not over.

 

 

 

 

Russian Winter Has Come…

…and gone, or so it seems. It’s been snowing here since October, so what is going on? I expected a frigid winter, and while it has been significantly below freezing since about the end of November, it hasn’t been the sort of “Holy crap, it’s horrendous!” cold that I’d anticipated. Except for about a 2-3 week stretch, that is. Last week it was down all the way to -20 Fahrenheit.

The day it started warming up. Look at how quickly it bounced back t0 + temps.

That was pretty much Russia as I’d expected it: nose hair freezing weather. It was actually cold enough that public schools closed for a couple days. My school, holding the weather in contempt, did not follow suit. After a couple of days in a chilly classroom, suddenly I found myself with two electrical space heaters to augment my room’s 4 hot water radiators, and a room that’s always plenty warm. During that cold snap the school doctor also started planting little home-made paper trays full of sliced onion in all the classrooms and even common areas.

Nice little carton, huh?

Did I mention there’s supposedly a flu epidemic going around? Not that I’d have much way of knowing it, since my Russian language skills are rudimentary at best, and since I haven’t seen anyone outrageously sick, either.

Anyway, two days ago, the temperature bounced back up. Now, it’s above freezing and the all the white stuff is melting; roads are slushy (a slight improvement in the case of the really secondary ones which they seem to have given up plowing after the snowfall got really serious and the cold snap occurred).

Today I went outside–it’s a rare sunny day (see some photos above from another sunny day a couple weeks ago, when it was 7 Fahrenheit and Turtle and I ventured outside for some fun in the snow)–and found that the fleet of tractors and skid steer loaders which at first did a somewhat acceptable job of keeping our residentail area’s driveways somewhat cleared of snow was active again for the first time in approximately 3 weeks. In the interim, the snow had gotten so deep on these roads that cars’ undercarriages were scraping the snow flat between the deep ruts cut by their tires. For a country where winter comes at the same time every year, it seems to always be a surprise here, and even though Kazan is far better at handling it and keeping the main roads clear than Ryazan, the other smaller city I’ve spent time in here, it is quite astonishing from a first-world perspective. To cope, people buy studded winter tires as a matter of course, and get stuck remarkably little, given the conditions.

The forecast for the next week is fairly warm, hovering not far below freezing, so that should be nice. February’s first week is already virtually past, so maybe we have only a few weeks of real winter left.

Money Monday: 4 Years in

It’s been almost 4 years now that we’ve been living the expat life, experiencing life overseas and away from home. Regular readers know that we’ve found this to be a challenging, but generally wonderful period of our lives. We’ve had children, we’ve traveled to corners of the globe we once only day dreamed about, and we’ve mingled with lovely people from all sorts of places we’d have never been blessed to meet otherwise. That said, one of the major stressors in anybody’s life, except maybe the privileged few from the one percent, is finances. Living abroad carries its own stressors, of course, especially after moving to a new location, but we’ve sought and found employment that allows us to significantly allay our financial stresses, and that’s a big deal.

Going rent-free and enjoying the reduced expenses of life in the UAE allowed us to pay off my student loans in 2 years, a task that seemed Herculean, though not impossible, in the USA; the best aspect of working in the UAE was that I, Shon, generated the income (if you subtract taxes) that it took 2 of us to make in the States. The income was one of the redeeming elements of the job, along with the shorter work days.

So where do we stand at this juncture, approaching 4 years into our adventures in ordinary life abroad? How are we faring financially? We are doing alright, I’m glad to say. We’re not wealthy, by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re able to put back a healthy nest egg, a significant portion of which came in the from of the 3 years worth of bonus pay (not really bonus, given that it’s contractually obliged) from working for ADEC; and we’ve been building the savings account nicely.

Besides the savings account, in 2014 we opened a couple of Individual Retirement Accounts and started contributing to them–only to discover that, as we should have known from reading about them, but failed to notice, IRAs are meant to be contributed to from taxable income only, and we would be looking at a significant tax penalty every year we had no USA taxable income (and, of course, one of the main advantages to working in Abu Dhabi was that we weren’t being taxed). So, with the assistance of our Edward Jones financial advisor, we shifted the money into an American Funds mutual fund which Edward Jones manages. That meant no tax penalties, happily. That was about all I could say about it–the mutual fund, called Capital Income Builder, which goes by the ticker CAIBX, had generated a reasonable return for years, and it seemed like a solid enough choice, given that neither of us knew much about investing. Whatever fees we incurred through using a financial advisor was of no consequence, because the advisor was, after all, being paid to help us navigate waters we didn’t know anything about.

However, during the last six months or so, I’ve been learning a great deal about investing, and I’ve discovered that our Edward Jones mutual fund account is probably a financial mistake, since there are plenty of other Electronically Traded Funds (ETFs) which perform better, and cost a lot less to purchase. Not only that, but 2015 turned into a terrible year for CAIBX, and instead of the upper single-digit return it had been generating, it turned -8.5%, making our ongoing investment into that fund seem like a bad choice. Not only that, but taxes on an actively traded mutual fund are higher than a more static ETF, and the fees that it once seemed reasonable to pay Edward Jones (which, by the way, are among the highest of the investment firms, at least according to my research), now don’t seem like such a good idea. After all, the waters of investing are evermore familiar to me at this point. We haven’t yet closed our Edward Jones account, but we will; we’ve reduced what we put into it, however. We will close it, though, and transfer that money into other funds in the near future.

Besides having a savings account and a mutual fund, we’ve also opened up a Scottrade account to manage our own investments with. Scottrade has low brokerage fees and has an excellent program called FRIP, wherein dividend payments are reinvested for free into stocks of your choice. We’ve established a portfolio there with a small number of stocks, and will be expanding it over time, confident that we can do better than -8.5%.

What brought on the interest in investing, you might ask? My friend read The Wealthy English Teacher, penned by a blogger with numerous years spent teaching abroad, and he recommended it to me. I found the book very relatable, and then perused the author’s blog. I’ve also discovered, again, thanks to my friend, blogs like Go Curry Cracker, Dividend Mantra, and many others, all of which helped show me what’s possible to achieve without much more effort than we were putting into being frugal anyway, and prompted me to get serious about my own investing.

So there you have it. I’m happy to say that we’re doing rather well for ourselves at this point, especially considering where we came from with quite a bit of debt, and we’ve learned a lot about investing our hard-earned cash for ourselves. It’s nice to actually have a net worth these days, and we have every reason to believe that it will continue to expand.

Racism, the Rebel Flag, and the USA

Racism is front and center in the American consciousness right now, judging by the amount of media coverage that the subject has received in the last few months, as well as the current kerfuffle involving the rebel flag flying over the South Carolina state capitol.

My perspective on the rebel flag is one colored by spending the first part of my life in the American North (Maine), and more than half in the South (Georgia). Simply put, I never witnessed racism in Maine (mind you, it’s probably there), but I sure saw a lot of it in Georgia. I saw racism from, God help us, church people more than once. As time went on, I saw it reciprocated from people white and black, crossing any type of racial divide.

We all know about the history of the southern freedman after the Civil War–a burst of great freedom and triumph followed by startling, ugly repression and the emergence of Jim Crow, and of course the struggle for meaningful freedom that followed for years afterward. As for the flag–most people in rural Georgia explain that they fly the rebel flag not out of hatred toward black people, not out of a spirit of rebellion toward the Union, but as a means of remembering the conflict that spilled so much blood on the red clay. Some might say it’s simply a symbol of the South, as well, which certainly does have a different culture from other regions. I accept those sentiments to an extent, but if we’re going to acknowledge that the confederate battle flag isn’t always flown in a spirit of malice, we must also acknowledge that the flag exists because it was spawned by a treasonous segment of the USA, a segment in open rebellion, a segment which sought to preserve its power and wealth based on the exploitation of an entire race. Given this, it isn’t even remotely appropriate to fly the confederate flag over a state capitol. Fly it over graves of Confederate soldiers. Fly it at museums and memorials to the Civil War (and incidentally, isn’t the flag in South Carolina actually at a memorial, not over the State House?); these are places where it’s appropriate. Fly it on your own private property, for whatever reason you want–you might have honest-to-goodness noble reasons, and it’s your right, anyway. The Georgia state flag that flew from the 1950s until it was replaced in 2001.

Confederate flag controversy sure isn’t new in the South. When governor Roy Barnes got rid of the Georgia state flag that prominently featured the confederate banner in 2001, that was a change for the better. Why South Carolina still flies the flag on State House grounds, God only knows. Or, actually, history tells us quite clearly. I’ve been googling. It is because people hate change.

After all, we cling to the familiar, often unreasoningly, just like an immature little child. But we must develop. We must grow, getting wiser along the way, adapting, broadening, always getting better. And change we have. Look at the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage. Say it’s about time, or say it’s the end of the civilized world as we know it, say what you want about that, but change is upon us. It’s the only thing truly inevitable in life.

The world is evolving. Trade, travel, and communication are easier now than ever before, both on a local and worldwide scale. You can buy goods made in Malaysia, whip our your handy dandy iPhone that was assembled in China, and Skype family members or friends all over the globe, literally seeing what they’re up to, as long as you have an internet connection.

Speaking of the internet, the wealth of information at your fingertips also allows you to find out more about a place or culture than ever before, quick as a wink. I can chat with an Indian and find out religious views (“We compartmentalize our gods, but you have just one,” said a guy named Sharma). I can find out about the history of any nation or obscure military conflict I wish. As I read more and interact more, I discover a simple truth. There isn’t any reason for racism to continue. By now we should recognize how very much alike we all are. No matter where we’re from or what skin tone we’re endowed with, we have the same basic desires and the same basic needs; by the same means, we should understand that people and cultures are naturally different. Those differences are what make the world an interesting place. Everyone doesn’t need to be like us, and we don’t need to be like everyone else.

Earlier I said travel is easier now than ever before, and I’ve been doing my best to take advantage of that. Having touched the ground in 30 countries or so, I’ve discovered another truth. Racism isn’t an exclusively American problem. It’s worldwide, y’all.  I’ve observed Russian people look down on Indians. I’ve seen Chinese people turn up their noses at Malaysians. I’ve watched Arabs treat Pakistanis like they’re dirt. Obviously, it’s very human to view yourself as better than someone else. You might say that the fires of hatred are easily stoked. You’d be right.

Even so, racism isn’t pervasive. For every hateful, bigoted, racist person I’ve ever met, I’ve met six, eight, or twenty times as many who aren’t. I’ve encountered more kind, honest, good-natured, helpful people than I can count.

The USA doesn’t need to make first steps in solving the racial problem, since those were made long ago. It needs to acknowledge that there is a lingering problem, one which needs to be dealt with in a meaningful way. If removing a flag is all it takes to make a move in the right direction, then why shouldn’t that be done? If we can stop adding fuel to the fire, and instead be part of a solution to the larger issue, we’re remiss not to.

Murder.

Murder.

The word hangs in the air. It settles like a heavy fog around you.

At least when it refers to a victim who is someone that you might easily have known, that friends of yours encountered, who lived in the same building as other acquaintances, and who was killed someplace that you’ve been.

Last week’s killing of Ibolya Ryan came as a surprise to us teachers, nay, us expats, here in Abu Dhabi because it occurred in a place so ordinary, so mundane, so average, that it was entirely unexpected.

There was no love triangle, no drunken stupor, no fit of rage or even a minor altercation. It would seem to be an act of cruelty by a deranged killer fixated on Americans.

The Emirati reaction has been sensational and swift. The Abu Dhabi police released videos on the subject, first showing security footage of the attacker fleeing the scene at the Boutik Mall, and then of the same person elsewhere, setting a primitive explosive device. Within 48 hours, police swept into a palatial villa and arrested the occupants—the woman, the prime suspect, was even removed from the property without being allowed to cover her hair. The videos are set to music, a puzzling choice, but they demonstrate efficiency and efficacy. That aside, the perpetrator turned out to be a woman who has to this point lived a life of evident luxury. That’s a point of interest, because most people who are well-taken care of aren’t prone to be extremists or likely to rock the boat which has always favored them.

The Gate Towers are just across the road from the Boutik Mall on Reem Island.  Yup, been there.

It needs not be said that the Emirates is one of the very safest countries in the Middle East, and generally much safer than the States. It’s a country teeming with expatriates, one where the population predominantly hails from elsewhere. There are lots of Americans, and the number of Americans had been swelling since ADEC started recruiting heavily. Look on Teach Away’s website—there’s a picture of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and a banner that says “Always Hiring.”

But what about this new development? What about murder in the midst of it all? What does this mean to recruitment of teachers in the future? What does it mean to us here, right now?

The Arc is one of the beautiful new places recently built on Reem Island. There’s quite an expat population there, many of whom frequent the Boutik Mall next door.

Last week friends from the States were here when the whole thing went down. They were surprised to hear of it, and I was somewhat surprised that their friends back home hadn’t sent them the same barrage of “Stay safe! Be careful!” messages that many of us teachers received. When they did hear about the vicious attack, they weren’t put off of the Emirates, though. They recognized it as an isolated incident, and could tell you that the odds of a similar attack occurring at home might be just as high (or as low, depending upon your point of view) as here.

That’s how we look at it, too. That’s right, friends, don’t get your panties in a wad; don’t let the sensationalist news media reports which tie the US Embassy’s standard warnings about living abroad make you think this place is unsafe. It’s not. Abu Dhabi is safer by far than Atlanta. It’s safer than Detroit.

But yeah, that word murder really does cast a pall over things.

Yesterday I got my hair cut by a hairdresser who does a great job at this place in the mall.

“Look around,” he said. “At Starbucks–no whites, no westerners. Before, there were many in the morning, other times of day. The women, they are afraid. I cut my client’s hair yesterday at her house, because she wouldn’t come here. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to go to the mall. I don’t feel safe.’”

He spoke quietly. “This is a sensitive topic,” he said. “Business is affected. I think many Americans will go home soon because of it.”

I’m not sure why it’s sensitive. I’ve talked about it with my Arab coworkers, with my fellow teachers, and others. It’s something that does strike home, because that’s how random violence works. It makes random people afraid, because they know there’s no overlying logic, no definite targets, and no reason why it couldn’t have been one of us.

But what about that pall that’s cast? How do you deal with that? Even knowing the perpetrator has been apprehended, even knowing that, as the press says, the killer was a lone wolf?

The same way you deal with murder elsewhere. You feel. You grieve if you need to. You use common sense in daily life. And you try not to feed negative conceptions of what it means to be American.

There is no reason why Americans should be hated. We’re not a bad people. We’re not better than anyone else, either. We’re just people, and we have the same fears and joys in life as people all over the globe. So in the course of being a person, be one that is an ambassador of good will wherever you are, at home or abroad.

And that’s the only good takeaway I can offer.

Don’t fear for me or Jenia or little Turtle. We’re as safe as ever.

What’s New? It’s All Routine, I Tell You.

What is there to write about? We’re long overdue for an update on here, but there just hasn’t been much of particular note going on. At least I don’t think there is, anyway.

On one front, relief is in sight–the winter holidays are almost upon us. This means the weather is getting comfortable, and it also means my time trying to corral students into their seats and get something accomplished is limited. Whew.

On another hand, we haven’t had to deal with all the junk that we did last fall, since we don’t need to deal with immigration hassles and such. That means we’re able to enjoy simply living a great deal more, rather than dealing with distractions all the time.

We don’t notice the crazy stuff so much anymore. But every now and again something especially interesting pops up, like the convoy of cars last month that were driving with their flashers on. We joined in, just for grins, and after getting bored, passed the group and snapped this picture of the guy acting as videographer for the whole goofy parade.

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The baby is crawling–and hoisting himself up to standing positions (and then tumbling down again).

We’ve been trying to stay busy, but have been tired out because of aforementioned offspring. Still, we’ve managed to fit in time to hit the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and the F1 races in Abu Dhabi last weekend.

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We’re continually thankful for having good friends here, and for meeting new people and making new friends, too.

Jenia’s been getting more photography work, including for my coworker Adam’s musical duo known as Sarah and Adam. I snapped this picture with my phone when Jenia was shooting.

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Oh, and there could be a raise in my future at work–that would be nice. There’s been much talk in the press lately about how pay rises were approved, and the rumor is that would be an across-the-board 2000 AED raise per month. That would be just lovely. It would sure make putting up with the difficult environment more rewarding.

While still on the topic of work, I should probably mention that this year has been easier thus far. With the administration taking a firmer stance on a few things (most notably and sensibly discipline), as well as assigning classrooms to teachers and having students switch rooms (instead of confining them in one space the whole day), the incidences of vandalism and hooliganism are much reduced.

But what else is there to write about? I mean, this is pretty ordinary stuff, right? You don’t want to waste your time reading about how we’re struggling to beat back the roach invasion (the little suckers moved in while we were gone this summer, and whatever we do seems to have very little affect on getting rid of them), or how I opened the fridge, grabbed the milk jug, and poured yogurt onto my cereal this morning, right? (that would be a result of the fridge failing to cool for some reason, and the milk curdling during the night) There’s not much point in writing about upcoming events, but I’ll mention them anyway. We’re looking forward to having Jenia’s parents come to visit in a couple weeks. After that, when they return to Russia, we’ll hop on a plane for a far-away country, too (but not Russia). Am I leaving you in suspense? Hopefully. 🙂

Thursday List: Lessons Learned

In no particular order, allow us to present lessons we learned while we traveled this summer.  Humorous?  Maybe (or maybe not, you be the judge).  True?  We think so.

1) The Toyota Yaris is one of the worst cars ever built.  We rented one for a day in Georgia (that would be the state, not the country).  The steering had less feel and was more vague than a careless comment that could be either a compliment or an insult.  The blind spots were larger than a Ford Expedition.  The centered gauge cluster is less sensible than a drunken, raving Mel Gibson. The acres of plastic swathing the interior epitomize the notion of “cheap,” along with every other aspect of the automobile.  Also it has no power.

2) The author of the CNN article “The New London, Paris and Rome” is totally wrong about Ostend.  Ostend is boring and the beach unappealing–not “oddly restorative.”  Besides, we got locked in a Japanese garden while there.

Ostend. Bland, forgettable, and certainly not worth visiting.  Sorry Belgium.  We love some of your other cities.

3) Couchsurfing is infinitely more fun than staying in a hotel.  And couchsurfers are, as it turns out, not all hippies–they’re a varied group of interesting folks.  We stayed with a guy who works in the Belgian steel industry, two air traffic controllers, and more.  We met fellow surfers who had careers as mind-blowing as molecular modeling researcher and astrophysicist.  Not kidding.  The astrophysicist, a guy named Lorraine from France, is also a beekeeper.  He shared a story about how he was asked to deliver a beehive to the Prime Minister (all true, mind you). He said yes, of course.  “But I told them that because it is summer, if I put the beehive in the car to deliver it, it could be a problem.  Because of the heat, the bees could die.”  The person he was speaking to said, “No problem.”  “Yes,” he said, “It would be a problem.  The bees could die.”  The other person reassured him–“No, no problem.  You will not have to stop.”  He ended up having a police escort through the center of Paris so that he didn’t have to stop and wait in traffic, and he delivered the beehive and set it up at the Prime Minister’s place.

4) Traveling with a baby is not only possible, but for the most part, quite easy (and there’s a post about that in the making).  As a side note, carrying a baby in a carrier starts to hurt one’s back after a couple days (but it is notably easier than pushing a stroller all over creation).

5) We now understand our friends who told us a year ago that they were looking forward to being back in the UAE. Then, we thought they were, well, nuts. Now, we are those people, too.

6) It can be rather hard to explain to those back in the US – or the people we met during our travels – what life here is really like. It seems that there is a backstory to every story. Also, for some reason, it’s easier to tell about the negative experiences.

7) Speaking of backstories, here’s one now: just kidding.  Lesson learned when telling stories to family back home–trim the backstories to the bare minimum, or your loved ones will tune out before you get to the good stuff.

8) Strangely, following the most obvious road signs from one place to another doesn’t always yield the fastest route.  Take our trip to Reims from Luxembourg, for example: this should have been a short two hours, judging by Google Maps, but it took us no less than six hours of meandering secondary roads.

The French countryside somewhere along a rural road between Rheims and Luxembourg.

We found some great mountain roads between Luxembourg and Germany. This was just over the German border.

Somewhere in France…

9) That brings us to this point: enjoy being on the verge of lost or completely off track.  Make it a point to simply have a great time exploring.  Make the best of sore feet (an excuse to stop at that little cafe!) or winding back roads (pull over and get a photo of the picturesque mountain pass).  The single best day of our trip was when we were driving, completely by accident and thanks to the road signs, the French countryside.  And enjoy the crummy places you end up, too (within reason, of course), like Ostend.  Where else would we have ever gotten locked in a Japanese garden?  It was a memorable experience at least.

10) It’s good to come home.  We already knew this.  But what we didn’t expect was to grow tired of traveling, since we both love it.  Still, we did.  After what started to seem too long on the road, we found ourselves especially grateful to have our own space and the chance to return to our routines.

Sri Lanka, Part II

Since we shared the basic story of our trip to Sri Lanka in Pre-Vacation, this post is a way for us to share some photographs that we are fond of.  Each one has a story of some kind that goes with it, of course, but not all stories need to be written, for they can be guessed at, and sometimes guessing is as rewarding as knowing the actuality of a thing.

A New Vantage Point: Syria

One of the greatest aspects of traveling is the way it informs our worldview.  That idea may just be suggested by our blog’s title.  After living in the UAE for the better part of a year, I’ve made many acquaintances and built some relationships.  These allow me to see things from a different perspective.  One of these relationships is with a fellow from Syria.  He’s friendly and easy going.  He’s Christian, and he’s invited us to join him at church, and though we haven’t been able to make it happen thus far, we really want to.  How cool would it be to be at a church service conducted in Arabic?  I’ll answer my own question: pretty dang cool.  Anyway, on to the point: I’ve gained a new vantage point on a country and the conflict within it–namely, Syria.

Honestly, I generally don’t give a whole lot of attention to far-away conflicts.  It seems like there’s always something going on in Africa (which isn’t all that surprising, since it’s a gigantic place) or the Middle East.  Of course, now that I live in the Middle East, I pay closer attention.  One conflict that gets a lot of media coverage is the now two-year long civil war raging within Syria.  There’s news about it all over the place.  I see it on the websites of CNN and Fox News.  Al Jazeera offers coverage of it regularly on TV here. These news outlets all usually mention that there are rebels fighting for freedom from President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

About a month ago, the networks were abuzz because the Russians were pulling a number of their people out of the country.  The Russians being staunch allies of Syria, that was taken as a sign that Russia divined the imminent end of Syrian president Assad’s regime.  I mentioned this to my buddy, and this was the start of a conversation that would significantly impact my understanding of what is happening in his home country.

From The Atlantic, the caption for this image reads: People walk on a street lined with buildings damaged by what activists said were missiles fired by a Syrian Air Force fighter jet loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Deir Al-Zor, on March 12, 2013. (Reuters/Muhammad Younis/Shaam News Network)

“The rebels,” he said, “They say they want freedom.  But what they want is Islamic law.  Right now,” then he stops and corrects himself, “Before, when I lived there, there was freedom.  You can practice whatever religion you choose.  If you are in a church and you say bad things about a mosque or Islam, the government will come and put chains around the door.”  He gestures, encircling imaginary door handles with chains and making a closing motion, like clasping a lock.  “Yeah, and they will do the same thing for a mosque.  You can’t talk badly about anyone else’s religion.  Our government is harsh, but they know how to deal with our people.  Because for us, religion is the main cause of wars, and our government knows it.  So you have freedom, you can be Christian or Muslim or anything.”

“This freedom,” he continues, “This freedom that they say they want, it’s not freedom.  We were free before.  Our women could go outdoors safely, they could go alone.  They didn’t need men with them.”

He gives me an example of how the rebels are freeing Syria.  His little village, which is to say his family’s ancestral home, is a peaceful place with only a small number of houses.  In the summer time the family would go there and enjoy serenity in the pastoral, olive-producing area.  The place is so small that it doesn’t even warrant a police station.  Watching the news one night, his aunt found out that the village was “liberated” by the rebels (many of whom come from out of the country, according to my friend).  “What were they freed from?”  He asks.  “There was nobody keeping them…” he searches for words and gives up, instead explaining how the news aired footage filmed by the rebels and posted on YouTube.  This footage purported to show how the village was freed.  My friend shows me the video.  It opens with a tour of a badly damaged home, a hole blasted through the roof, rebar and concrete hanging.  “That’s my aunt’s house,” he says.  The village seems entirely deserted.  Windows are broken out of all the homes, which appear to have been ransacked and pillaged.  “That’s my grandfather’s house.”  There are bullet holes riddling walls here and there, and there are craters where explosives seem to have been detonated.  The cameraman walks inside a storefront or perhaps small warehouse of some kind, all the windows smashed, glass strewn about the floor.  There’s an empty office.  “This is where they pack olives,” he explains.  I shake my head.  “Yeah, it makes no sense,” he says.

The next YouTube video is of the only two military troops present in the town, a couple of men who were posted there to protect the church.  Both of them are bloodied and lay dead on the ground.  It’s plain that the cameraman enjoys showing these poor devils.  I get the feeling they’re gloating and proud of killing the soldiers.  “They’re saying,” my friend interprets, “That they will not touch the church or anyone.”  We must assume that they mean they won’t hurt any civilians, since they’ve slain the guys guarding the building.

“Who needs their freedom?”  He says again.

I tell him about the news coverage that I see from America.  How they paint the rebels in a positive light.  “Don’t believe it,” he says.  “They tell you what they want you to think.”  He shakes his head and frowns.  “These rebels, a lot of them aren’t even from Syria.  You know, they come from somewhere else.  I don’t know where they get their weapons.  Somebody must be helping them.”  In fact, I’ve read that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are providing arms to the rebels.  But I didn’t know this when I was talking to him, and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t have interjected it.

“Let me tell you about their freedom,” he says.  “Last week there was a woman killed by them.  She was Christian.  They shot her in the chest and laid her on the bed like this,” he spreads his arms out in the shape of a cross.  “They do this.”  He nods his head to emphasize his point, and says, “All the Christians are leaving Syria.  It used to be safe to live there.  Not any more.”

“On the news they will say the government forces do all these bad things, that they are the ones doing all the damage.  But they’re the ones that do it.”  He sighs and tells me more.  A friend whose brother, from Homs, hasn’t been heard from in months.  A coworker who doesn’t know where is father is.

His family has, like many people, fled their country, seeking asylum in neighboring Lebanon.

After this conversation, I notice as I read about the war that news sources like The Atlantic are guilty of feeding us biased information.  They use phrases like, “According to the rebels, this section of town was destroyed by government forces,” which subtly gives the rebels the voice of authority, and “The government claims that…” which, conversely, calls the trustworthiness of the government’s voice into question.  Here’s one example and the link to The Atlantic where it appears: A resident inspects the damages at an ancient Souk caused by what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Deir al-Zor, on March 9, 2013. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) Pay attention next time you see a report on Syria and watch for any bias.

I’m not claiming, by any means, that Syria’s President Assad is a kind and loving man.  I don’t claim that his government always acts justly.  My understanding is that if you were to run afoul of Assad’s government, that could be a very bad thing.  However the same could be said of many Middle Eastern governments.  I now understand that under Assad, however, the Syrian people generally did enjoy something much more like the Western definition of freedom than I might have once thought.  I don’t pretend to know the machinations or motivations of those involved in the fighting in Syria.  I’m not saying that the government hasn’t done terrible things in the war, or trying to diminish whatever blame it may deservedly share.

What I’ve discovered, however, is that conversations with my Syrian friend have helped me to look at things in a new light, and to pay careful attention to what I accept as fact.  Seeing the war from his vantage point, it looks entirely different.

If you’re interested in reading a bit more about the war in Syria, there’s a ton of information out there.  You can find lots of videos on YouTube from various points of view.  Do be aware of who’s playing for who, though, as most news networks receive funding from some entity or other.  Often, finding out who funds what can help you figure out what that  source’s bias may be.