Brakes, what brakes?

Monday morning rush hour traffic can be a nightmare, in any city, under any circumstances. But Monday morning rush hour traffic in Amsterdam is a whole other monster.

Especially when one is biking for the first time to class.

With a group of inexperienced bikers.

In a foreign country.

Who don't speak the language.

Can't recognize the traffic signs.

And don't know where their brakes are.

Let me just say that we probably should have started bike lessons a few days prior to an excursion downtown. But when we went to pick out our bikes on Saturday at the nice little bike shop I discovered the first day I got lost (that's another story), I did not see through the giddy elation to the impending disasters. I was mildly warned that I would "need to let a few of us know what to do..."

I was not prepared for the heightened anxiety and nail biting process that getting to class produced today. After two mild crashes, in which it was proclaimed that maybe the bikes were not quite right, 2 ignored red lights, and multiple traffic jams on narrow bike lanes, I felt ready to have everyone walk!

Crash number 1: at stop number 1.

Crash number 2: into the back of biker number 2.

By this time, we all had our eye on biker number 5, Mistress of these particular crashes. We were ready to warn her, or move out of her way, at a moment's notice.

Crash number 3 was one very spectacular event in the final turn toward school, and was a surprise for all of us. Our dear and delicate friend (NOT the one, mind you, that we were watching for), miraculously extracted herself from the center of an intersection, a mail truck, and a tram line with a small nod, graceful smile, and wave to move on.

By the time we arrived downtown, I was a Mother Hen Mess of wondering what had gone wrong.

It was on the return trip home when enlightenment struck. Full force. In the form of a cement post. We had just left our Castillaña friends with directions how to get to and from a certain landmark (nail-biting moment number 12) and an outline of how to return home on my newly weathered and frustration-mangled map. Feeling over-confident having only one charge to watch out for, I regretted my nerve when she(remember biker number 5?) plowed dead center into the 'standing policeman' and... uprooted it from its spot! On the corner of an intersection. On an entrance to a bridge. A CEMENT post. UPROOTED.

Now, to be fair, another cyclist was headed straight for her. And, in her defense, the bikers of Amsterdam are rather... aggressive... ahem. A kindly old gentleman stopped us after she extracted herself from the post, which was left angling wildly to one side.

With her pride, and side, badly bruised, he spoke to her in English: You are so brave!

To me, he spoke in Dutch: Put her in front of you so you can see where she is going!! She is just like my wife...

Following his sage advice, we managed to steer ourselves up and over the bridge. On the turn to our dorpje's limits, her confidence regained. She was sandwiched between myself and him, but in a moment of abandon, she catapulted past him and down the path, careening to the left and heading right towards traffic!

He shouted back at me urgently: Catch up! Catch up!

*

Tonight, over IB profin to bring down the swelling, calcium to mitigate cramping, and vaseline for her cut (the grand prize for Most Crashes Sustained), she confessed: You know, I just told my brother that I had three disasters on the bike, and you know what he said? Who let YOU get a bike?! Are they crazy?!

Then she proceeded to tell me: I never did understand where the brakes were, you know!

I was dumbstruck: But do you drive? (Mind you, she is an accomplished MD in her country)

Are you kidding?? she replied, (with an impish grin)... I would run into everything!

She then added that as a child, she once biked straight into the Headmaster of her school, crashed multiple times, and could never quite realize just how the thing operated! The Headmaster himself had told her in front of her class, and her parents agreed, that she was banned from biking. By this point, my own guilt was assuaged. This here was a rebellious act of defiant freedom!

We decided she should, and could, keep biking. Away from others. And maybe with bumpers. At least till she learns how to turn. Or how to brake.

Or how to jump off.

She might be here for another MA, but her REAL degree is going to be Biking 101.

Tourist for a day

From the moment we started our University of Amsterdam buildings tour today, the wan morning light was already obscured by dark and ominous clouds. The wind was like a whip, lashing all of us from warmer climes into submission. "Embrace the weather!" our brave Iranian student shouted at me as I hunched under my umbrella through the wandering and interlinked alleys behind each building. Yes, embrace something, that is for sure!

The University of Amsterdam is spread throughout the city, and the academic staff are all educated on the historical aspects of the buildings the University is working to preserve. Our tour began in the old shipping district, on the canal behind our main building. A dynamite factory and adjacent warehouse from the Oost Indie (East India) Shipping Company have been converted into the Social Science library. Next door, the law school takes up an entire block of buildings, with Dutch master paintings, and a screen that rivals an airport terminal telling students where to go.

The Dutch have an excellent way of preserving history. Dates and numbers are left intact in a portion of a building to show its birth, an inception, or an incarnation of sorts. And, when the demands of modern society place a need for the building to be re-invented, the architects are required to work modern futuristic style in with the old brick and mortar. So tucked within the old architecture of an aging city, one will open a door into a room flooded with light, staircases of marble reaching through pillars of glass and steel, beams of oak alongside metal air ducts and wiring cables. It is fantastic and surreal.

In the uppermost region of the old Oost Indie Shipping Warehouse, we climb to our destination. I think I gasped out loud when I saw the ancient beams stretching along the attic walls, little windows nestled in an alpinic roof. The rain lashed the outsides while inside, I was already perusing book shelves, smelling the dust, paper, and glue. A Social Science Paradise located in the Attic of a building! It was like climbing the ladder of your Great Grandfather's home and discovering his boxes of relics in the attics- old pictures, skulls, and bones creeping out of dusty cardboard marked with labels like: Journey to Borneo 1892.

But the whole city is full of these treasures. We head to the Square of Scribes, where inscriptions are inlaid in the cobblestones, and one can purchase books in a bookstore dating back to the 1600's. On the edge of this square, tiny and indiscreet, is a door with a single nob in the center carved with the word: Begijnenhof (The Beguine's Court). "It is considered the quietest place in all of Amsterdam", or so the locals say. Look up: http://hollandhistory.net/history_of_amsterdam/beguines_court_begijnenhof_amsterdam.html

Now, after this serene and tranquil place, imagine the shock my fellow students must have felt when our advisor led us straight from this into the Red Light District. This is, after all, Amsterdam. We are, after all, Medical Anthropology students. And we will, after all, have to do a field trip here for our AIDS unit in January. I actually think that this adventure was mild in comparison to the fact that our group has to get to know each other in a very intimate, and ultimately Dutch, way: with our shared-sex bathroom in our own building: The Spinhuis.

As our advisor drops us back at our meeting point for the morning, soaked, shivering, and ready for tea and coffee, he mentions a brief note. Our own building, housing the Anthropology department of the University of Amsterdam- that rebellious unit of social scientists known throughout Holland for unique and divergent research- is the site of a very old prison. Yes, I am going to school in a prison. I think this is what I used to call it in high school, but now it is true. We are told that the Spinhuis is where the women prisoners (what are they hinting here?) would be relegated to spin thread, while the people would come and watch them, like visiting a movie, or a zoo. Maybe there is some other history here we are supposed to be learning?

I decide there won't be any 'spinning of the wheels' here.

After heading our separate ways for the day, I hop-skip-and-jump my way back over the growing puddles to the Bushuis Library, and immerse myself in the magic of books. I have been waiting a long time for this!! I find my piece of sunlight while a storm rages outside, finding dissertations, books and documents in multiple languages, on subjects hard to track in Salt Lake City, Utah. I mean, there just aren't that many researchers publishing on the Sami over there.

My tourist visa ends the moment I have books in my hand, a Dutch library and InterLibrary Loan card, and am heading back home. A quick detour to the Chinese Market for... tea, and instant noodles. I'll set the waterkoker on and sit down for a long read.

Bliss for me.

Daily bread

I would just like to make a comment about the kitchen. When there is a 'house-rules' sign on the entry door with a picture of a big fat rat on it, one is less than inspired.

Tonight I cooked a single-dish meal in a pan that once resembled a wok, prior to some misuse by the previous tenants. I swung it around from a barely connected handle to the delight of my house mates who have learned the best appliances are the waterkoker (electric tea kettle), and the ancient microwave.

Someone keeps plugging in the toaster in the hopes of it working, and we all gave up on the Italian espresso maker some time ago. Well, I was the only one who had any hope for either of those things to begin with, as I tend to subsist on toast and coffee. After an hour armed with steel wool and a bottle of bleach, though, I had to cecede to the mold imbedded in its sides. I broke down and bought a coffee press the next day.

However, we all drink tea! And this is a safe and easy thing... the waterkoker is very busy!

After about, um, 24 hours here, I did do two things to help the place- wash the entire kitchen down as well as organize it some, and buy a houseplant. That little plant has almost doubled in size over these last days with all the attention it receives- all of us caretakers have just been chomping at the bit for something to whisper into existence. It gets all the love around here.

And all the daily nourishment!

The evolution of an Anthropologist

They warn us, this is how it begins. The first thing to do is: Observe. The second: Listen.

We are 15 people crammed around a table in a stuffy room in the center of town, the Red Light District two blocks one way, a canal out the window, deep clouds in the sky. This is where you will LIVE they say.

We discover our newest kin- from The Netherlands, Germany, Thailand, Indonesia, Canada, India, Ethiopia, Iran, El Salvador, Mexico, United States, Rwanda, Nicaragua, and India, we are a diverse group, and we are instantly... happy. All of us curious, open, relieved to find similar souls- questing for more, questing for branches outside of our own.

We are social scientists, doctors, nurses, dentists, psychologists (1 more!!), NGO professionals, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, film enthusiasts, animal lovers, and more. I realize if all I do is ask questions, sit back and listen, I will learn more in this year than is printed in any curriculum.

On our first excursion, a boat ride on the Amstel, we hover under the deck to avoid the Dutch rain. I dig in to my first lessons in my newest languages to discover: Javanese Indonesian and Amharic.

Though we have three students from Indonesia (one with two pet fish I have heard all about!), there are 4 distinct language patterns, based on a class system, with multiple variables. Jakarta alone (the capital of Java) is divided from West to Central to East, and the language depends on one's status in society as well as where one lives. Ngoko is the lowest language, spoken by children and the poor. Kromo Alous is 'middle low', Kromo Madya is 'middle class', and Kromo Hinggil is reserved for the highest class. The language has been influenced by Hinduism and Sanskrit, but the local spiritual practice is dominantly Islam. (We are mid Ramadan, so I have dinner partners each night as I eat late naturally and during this fast, they must.)

As for Amharic, while related to Arabic, it is its own distinct language, and, I discover, also the only African language with its own distinct alphabet, known as 'sabaletters'. One of 6 Semitic languages in Ethiopia, it derives from South Arabia, and is only 1 out of 85 spoken tongues! My classmate explains that while tribes are everything, religion a choice one can become. (His mother, raised Muslim, converted to Christianity with no problems.)

I want to learn to say 'good morning'. (I figure this is a safe thing, and will put me on the best sides of my housemates throughout the year.) Simple? Ok: lesson number 1:

Amharic

1- Do I want to say it to a man or a woman?

ndemenad'rsh (to a woman)/ndemenad'rk (to a man)

note: This is MY spelling interpretation, as I cannot quite handle the alphabet just yet!

2- Do I want to say it to more than one person?

ndemenad'rashu

3- Or to the elderly?

ndemenad'ru

ok, deep breath! Now for Javanese Indonesian:

A much easier...

salamatpagi!

Except the 'p' sounds like 'd' and the 'g' is a hard g... now, remember that. Not a soft 'g'.

We are going to have a quiz later.

At exactly 7 a.m., that is.

For the Latin contingent has suggested we should all wake together tomorrow to be on time for class. Did I mention almost all of us live on the same floor? And those who don't, will soon be coming for dinner. Or breakfast.

The lessons never end... I think I just might be in heaven.

Salamatmalan!

Welterusten!

Buenas Noches!

Goodnight!

3 a.m.

My hour of wakefulness.

This city hums at night with a restlessness that is the bloodline of the day. Until 5 a.m., no stillness, except in our kitchen, where no one dares to creep in.

I wait for the breathing of the city to begin. So different, these sounds, from the whispering of Utah trees on the Avenues hills. This city has winds that carry currents through cobblestones, whispers are voices over water, and the sounds extend like fingertips tickling a forehead.

I am awake and listening.

Synesthesias

I am downloading, downloading, downloading, and this is just another part of the overwhelm. I am filtering for what is known among all that isn't... the sites, sounds, patterns that fit into recognizable rhythms. English, Dutch, and Spanish are familiar refrains, and welcome- and I am floating effortlessly between them. I translate the Dutch for the Castillaños, and blend my English like a wild new jazz number. It is the Hindi, Farsi, Turkish, Indonesian, and dialects that are hard to bring in... I listen like tuning a radio to stations... French and German sound like songs I am still learning the lyrics to, but these other languages are new rhythms with syntax and notes I have yet to learn. But come, they all will...

They say synesthesias are often reserved for the Autistic, but I have always found comfort in this skill. I reign mine own in to deal with all this:

My student number? A code of blue-blank-green-green-blank-blue. That is the easiest code to follow, the color of numbers.

To use it in words? Let's try 'sisu' (my next Finnish vocabulary, and a favorite candy) is black rimmed with blue, and white all the way through.

The language spoken in our kitchen here daily? They are tinged with smells and flavors, like the spices they are cooked with. Some soft and sweet, a caramel color of language. Others are peppery and tangy to the tongue, full of spice, colored yellow, red, and orange. The word 'kurma' drips off the tongue like honey, a beautiful version of English 'date' in Indonesian.

And to understand this city? It becomes an open fan in my mind, an outstretched pattern of peacock plumes, extending from the body of the center. Some of the plumes are full and rich, vibrant and new. Others tattered and bent, utterly used, and ready to be dropped by this bird of a city, picked up by a passerby and used in some gaudy costume.

And this is how it works- this downloading, this digesting, this letting it all in. The ongoing information station that my body has become, a radio receiver of transmissions, a t.v. antenna of images, all the varying wavelengths and codes to decipher and uncover.

Confused yet? Welcome to my head...

Paper, rock, scissors

Paper

I have been dubbed "Paperina" by my fellow students who have discovered my love (and need!) to process my thoughts wildly on paper and put it up around me.... my students back home know this is 'how I roll', but here, it is a wild concept among all these other practitioners and scientists to be the single psychologist/artist. But, I am used to standing out... I just never quite thought of my artistic background as being so radically different than the scientific one- for me, they are part of the same path.

Once two of my new friends, from India and El Salvador, caught sight of my mandala this morning, my new name was cemented in place. A process I work in sessions with older clients (that just means anyone over 15!), I explained that the freedom one can experience when 'processing' through the space allowed by art can be quite transforming. They quickly announced I would soon be working with the whole group on expressing their emotions and finding themselves in this scientific program we are in... all so far from home, and so foreign! I warned them they would have to keep my identity a secret if they don't show up prepared for class because we spent the evening processing!

In the meantime, I bought this luscious paper to diagram out all my thoughts and ideas, and I have yet to draw a thing!

That is because paperwork, in Holland, is its own process, requiring one's entire faculties. to do anything that would possibly be a 15 minute process means that you need to multiply that time by 5- and add walking, tram riding, locating, and waiting time in as well. Besides the fact that every function of every building is completely different, and located in different areas. AND, if you are missing a SINGLE piece of paper, identity document, or are even 10 cents short of the money it takes to use the loo, you are in for a journey of back/forth-back/forth, that won't make sense until a few hours later when you sit over a cup of coffee and notice how well you handled THAT one! Luckily, I have been in the Dutch system before- we arrived 2 hours early for my appointment, brought 10 extra papers than I needed, and found all three offices before having to walk into the first one to find out: I would just have to return next week. Hmnph.

But it's ok- I'm Dutch. This should be normal for me. Funny how being away 12 years can put confusion into things.

Rock

Then comes the wall- the hard rock of resistance. Hell, how many times do I need to go through reverse culture shock in my life? So strange to be part of two cultures, and yet be part of neither at the same time. It is a bit disorienting to always be learning the rules of 'home', no matter where one is!

When in the United States, I can get by with my accent and looks for people to think I blend in... then I open my mouth and either a foreign language, or a radical idea comes out and then I know- the cat is out of the bag, now! And 'the cat is out of the bag' is an expression I just learned in the last few years- American slang has always been weird to me!!

Here, I open my mouth and they hear my soft accent speaking Dutch. They read my last name and watch the way I handle daily events, current situations, my undefined yet refined style, and assume- I am here from Finland! Of course- why not? A country I have yet to visit, though the roots run apparently strong... strong enough that I am not seen as an American in Holland, but a Finnish person abroad. Well, we'll just have to see what happens when I finally make it there, and I don't speak a word of my familial language.

Culture shock is a strange thing. My overwhelm comes more from the relentless sounds, the bustling of people, the jostling of bikes, foot traffic, and people not liking it when you stop to pet someone's dog because it holds up the entire street. Cars, buses, brommers (small, noisy motorbikes), fietsers (bikers), and voetgangers (walkers), clamor for space, fighting over even the right to pass down a street lane. Everyone is calm, but pushy like you wouldn't believe. People step in front of cars, bikes take detours around the people ringing their bells like crazy, cars take detours onto tram tracks, busses stop mid-road or run into the middle of it, and trams are the only thing that controls the jostle- because they are the biggest, and if they hit you, you just might be dead. Meanwhile the bike is king. Don't get in front of the bikes, they wil hit you to make a point. And then, you won't be dead, you'll be bruised. And confused.

I have to get the pulse that is Amsterdam. It is a frantic blend of colors, languages, styles, and movement. The Hague, where I lived 8 years, was peace embodied. This is a whole new world, and though I speak the language, I don't speak the language. Not YET.

Scissors

I remember why I used to have a love affair with chopping my hair off now... it is impossible to control one's coif when the weather cycles through ongoing waves of wind and water. My hair has become a mane of unruliness that adds to the overall chaos of the day. I remember why I shaved it now- twice! It is the one thing I can control in the battle of the elements.

But the rock has won the round of Paper/Rock/Scissors for my day. Sleep is a great escape from the wildness of acclimatization. I embrace my bed like a rock hit me on the head... no need for dinner or conversation in our crazy kitchen. Ilo and I head for a pillow and the music of traffic out my window.

Tomorrow is the start of my program.. I need peace and rest to set in.