2013-05-25T00:31:07-04:00 Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=danna-harman Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Danna Harman Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1616875 2012-06-22T18:04:12-04:00 2012-08-22T05:12:22-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
On April 4 last year, actor and director Juliano Mer-Khamis, the activist son of a Jewish mother and an Arab father, was leaving the Freedom Theater in the West Bank town of Jenin, his infant son Jay on his lap, when his car was flagged down by a masked assailant -- and Mer-Khamis was shot dead.

This month, Sderot, a city less than a mile away from Gaza, which has for the last decade been under an intermittent barrage of rocket attacks, hosted the annual Cinema South Festival -- and gave out a documentary prize in Mer-Khamis' name.

Mer-Khamis' onetime girlfriend Mishmish Ori, a tall elegant Israeli woman in a vintage black dress and high heels, traveled down from Tel Aviv with their daughter Milay, the eldest of Mer-Khamis' four children, so that the 11 year-old could present the award to one of the films.

"Thank you for continuing my father's journey," the pretty girl says as she hands lilies to Guy Davidi, an Israeli who co-directed "Five Broken Cameras" with Emad Burnat, a Palestinian. The title refers to the beatings Burnat's cameras took -- a metaphor for the blows he, his family and his community suffered during the years long face-off between their West Bank village of Bil'in and the Israeli military and settlers.

"Our cooperation was natural and not political. But it also was complicated," says Davidi, in his soft spoken way.

Burnat was given a rare travel permit by the Israeli authorities to attend the screening. But he called that morning to say he had lost the needed documents. Mer-Khamis' widow Jenny, a Finnish activist he married after he and Ori separated, and the mother of his son Jay -- as well as twins who were born after he was killed -- is not present either. Both these absences are complicated too.

"I had not intended to speak today. But I want to tell you something," Davidi says to Milay as he accepts the prize. "My father also died when I was a child of ten, which changed my life... but it eventually led me on a different and special path in life. I hope you too find a special path along your journey."

As far as unique journeys in this complex land go, Milay's father certainly set her a high bar. The product of a love story, eventually turned sour, between a Jewish pioneer cum Palestinian rights activist and a Christian Arab leader of the communist party in Nazareth, Mer-Khamis served as a paratrooper in an elite IDF unit, and then later in a military jail -- for refusing orders to drag an elderly Palestinian from his car.

He both fit in everywhere and nowhere. "I am 100 percent Palestinian and 100 percent Jewish," he once said in an interview. And yet both sides considered him suspicious, with Muslim extremists in conservative Jenin going one further and accusing him of being a spy.

Mer-Khamis lived between Haifa and Jenin, co-founding the Freedom Theater there with Zacharia Zubeidi, once the military head of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, whom he had inspired to abandon fighting for what he called "cultural resistance" against Israel instead. The children at the theater school adored him. Their parents, less so, with many feeling he was an unwelcome proselytizer for Western values -- encouraging their daughters to act alongside boys.

It is believed Mer-Khamis was murdered by a militant with ties to Hamas, but to date, no one has been charged. "It was a personal and a collective tragedy for us," says filmmaker Danae Elon, a friend of Mer-Khamis' who teaches at Sderot's Sapir College, which puts on the cinema festival. "He was gunned down for crossing impossible boundaries and for trying to prove to us all that, through faith and through art, everything is possible."

Outside the movie hall, besides signs pointing in the direction of the reinforced shelters, a reggae band plays under a white tent. The lead singer, a young Ethiopian immigrant in a faded t-shirt, is channeling Bob Marley. Students from Sapir mix with a smattering of locals and dozens of hip Tel Avivis who have driven south to watch films and dance barefoot in the early summer heat.

And inside, Burnat's story unfolds, a sobering tale of the separation barrier going up and through Bil'in land. Bulldozers uproot centuries-old olive trees and soldiers throw tear gas at unarmed protesters, while aggressive settlers drive up with furniture and mobile homes. Burnat films and films. In one surreal scene, soldiers come to the door of his home and insist that he turn off his camera because he is in a "closed military area." "But I am in my own home," he replies.

The film won the Sundance World Documentary Directing Award in 2012 and will open in limited release in Israel next month. Festivals in most Arab countries have declined to screen it because of the fact that it was co-directed by an Israeli.

Ori takes Milay out of the screening to see the other film playing down the hall, something about Kung Fu. "It is too soon," she explains, for the young girl to see the images depicted in Five Broken Cameras. "Too raw."

Afterwards, a cocktail in honor of the documentary is held in the backyard of Ella Hall, a small community center named for one of the 13 Israelis killed by Qassam rockets in recent years.

Ella Aboukasis was on her way home from a Bnai Akiva activity when the warning sirens caught her unprepared. She died, age 17, shielding her 10 year old brother Tamir. At her funeral, her father read a passage from a letter she once wrote to him. "Sometimes we tend to forget that life will be over one day, and we don't know when that day will come."

Students sip limoncello and munch on chocolate ruggaleh, wading through their mixed emotions about the film. One young man, just out of the army, is defensive: The portrayal of the soldiers as heartless is not fair. He was there. Another wishes there had been more focus on the many Israeli activists who joined the Palestinians in the fight.

Someone else is confused. How did the co-directing work? Is this the story of Burnat, whose voice is heard throughout and who filmed most of the scenes? Or that of Davidi, who edited years worth of footage, creating a cohesive narrative, and wrote a lot of the script. Whose story is it? He repeats.

"We are all part of one story," says filmmaker Elon, simply.

On the blue beanbags scattered on the grass, Ori and her friends smoke and make lazy small talk. Davidi talks about the concept of victimhood. He does not believe in it. He has tired of the never ending debate over who is the ultimate victim in the struggle. Conversation flows to the Freedom Theater. Just last week, Israeli soldiers arrested Nabil Al Raee, the theater's art director, in a night-time raid. He has been denied access to a lawyer. A week earlier, co-founder Zubeidi was seized -- by Palestinian Authority forces.

"Do you want to hear me sing? Hebrew or Arabic or English?" Milay asks, prancing around the adults, overexcited by all the attention on her. She flips her long hair and belts out Adele, her sultry voice belying her young age.

Tomorrow, she and her mother will accompany the Freedom Theater actors as they fly off to Berlin, to perform Alice in Wonderland. "Things have not been that great since my father was killed," she says. "But the theater helps me be strong. They miss him too." In the troupe's next production -- Waiting for Godot -- Milay has been given a small role. "I play a person who comes and says Godot will be arriving. Only he never does arrive. Which is a bummer," she explains.

According to a study carried out at Sapir several years ago, some 75 percent of the Sderot population is said to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in the wake of rocket attacks on the city. What does that look like, one wonders. Now, outside the cocktail party, the reggae band plays on -- "Iron Lion Zion," croons the singer. And the youngsters dance and spin around.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.897474 2011-07-19T10:42:39-04:00 2011-09-18T05:12:01-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
At about the same time, with Portugal's former colonies claiming their independence, shiploads of Portuguese soldiers and bureaucrats were returning home -- hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed bringing drugs of far away lands into this potent mix of a moment.

By the late 1980s, the country had greater freedom of press, of speech and of justice -- and also a serious drug habit. Heroin was king, with an estimated 100,000 people -- almost 1% of the country's population - addicted.

Lisbon's Casal Ventoso neighborhood, home to many unemployed dockworkers and soldiers, was at the center of the new drug scene. It became known as "Europe's drug supermarket." Junkies openly injected themselves in the alleyways, dirty syringes piled up in the gutters, streets reeked of garbage, and HIV and Hepatitis infection rates were soaring.

The government did everything it could to combat the scourge: passing tough anti-drug laws, making arrests, and throwing users in jail -- but the problem only grew.

And then, they decided to try something drastically different.

**

At the time Joao Goulao was a young family practice doctor in Algarve, who found himself with more and more patients with drug addiction problems, and a dilemma about reporting them to the police.

"It seemed everyone at the time had family or a friend with a drug habit. These were not 'outsiders,' but part of our communities. These were decent people with problems," he says.

Goulao soon joined a new government task force searching for a way forward. They traveled to other countries with innovative drug policies, studied theoretical models, consulted psychologists and lawyers and social workers. And they came up with a plan.

The plan, which soon became law, was based on changing the categorization of drug users, from criminals who needed to be punished -- into sick who needed help.

And, following this logic, Portugal proceeded to take the revolutionary step of decriminalizing all illicit drugs, from marijuana thru heroin -- becoming the first such country in the world to do so.

"What was unique was that, for the first time ever, there was a focus on the rights of drug users," says Caitlin Hughes, from the Australian National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, who has long studied Portugal's drug policies. "That, and a willingness to take a risk even if it was unclear that it would work."

This month, the country quietly marked the decade anniversary of those groundbreaking drug laws, and turned its attention to assessing what has, and has not been accomplished.

**

"To begin with, it's decriminalization, not legalization," says Goulao, now president of the Ministry of Health's Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, or as he is widely known, Portugal's drug czar.

Drugs are and remain illegal in Portugal, he explains, sitting down in his sunny Lisbon office, taking out his drug of choice -- a cigarette -- and lighting up. This means, that, in theory at least, anyone using drugs, including tourists, can and will be picked up by police.

It is what happens next that is unique. Instead of being sent to a criminal court, offenders are given three days to present themselves before one of the Health Ministry's special panels, compromised of psychologists, doctors, social workers and judges.

The panel evaluates each case and makes recommendations. Anyone found with more than the quantity deemed "reasonable" for ten days of personal use (for example, one gram of heroine, 10 of opium, 25 of cannabis etc) is sent into the criminal justice system, where they can be and are prosecuted and punished for trafficking.

Among the others, a differentiation is made -- between "addicts" and "casual users." Those deemed to be casual users get off with a warning or maybe a fine, usually between 50-60 euros, while "addicts," are directed to one of the country's 79 treatment centers where they can, if they want, get all forms of help, from counseling to methadone replacement treatment.

In 2008, the last year for which figures are available, more than 40,000 people went though these treatment programs. The bill is footed by the Ministry of Health to the tune of about €50 million a year, with an additional €20 million provided through a charity funded by Portugal's national lotteries.

**

According to Goulao, his teams, and the majority of Portugese, the use of treatment instead of punishment, coupled with harm reduction efforts, has been a clear success.

Proof? Hard core addiction has fallen by about half since the early 1990s -- with the number of heroin users in Portugal today hovering at about 55,000. The rate of HIV and hepatitis infection among drug users -- common health issues associated with needle-sharing -- has also fallen since the law's rollout.

Even decriminalization's strongest proponents do not go so far as to give the laws sole credit for the reduction of heroin users in the country, and freely admit the drop could also be attributed to the drug's declining popularity and the rising popularity of other drugs, like cocaine. But, there is little doubt it has been a contributing factor to the change.

Today, Casal Ventoso does not really even exist. In an effort to erase what was once such a sorry place, bulldozers have cut through the neighborhood, adding streets, closing others and pushing out the druggies. A whole block of new apartments went up. A long row of shacks was taken down, and the neighborhood, say old timers, is barely recognizable.

No, the addicts have not totally disappeared, but their numbers have clearly dwindled.

"Will you pay us if we talk to you?" ask two thin men with dreadlocks, rolling down the window to their parked car and peering out. On their laps are tin foil sheets, on which they are spreading a brown sticky paste. Soon, they will heat up the foil from beneath with a cigarette lighter and take in a "hit" of heroin.

"We don't care that others quit," they add, almost apologetic, cutting rather lonely figures on a street in which a baby carriage or two is pushed by, a hip cafe has opened, and many former addicts are working towards cleaning up their lives.

Back in his office, Goulao takes out his blackberry and scrolls down for a message he received that week. "Hello, I just saw you on TV and it made me think to write," he reads from the text out loud. "I am just back from a day at the beach with my brother who, bless you, is today fine, healthy and happy. Thank you. Thank you Portugal."

It's little things like the message, says Goulao -- a simple story about an ex-addict regaining hope and dignity, that make it all worthwhile for him.

**

But while high level delegations from countries around the world looking to fight their own drug problems -- from Denmark to Mexico to the US -- have applauded the Portuguese model and come to Lisbon to study it over the years, none as yet have followed suit and adopted such a full scale response, and many believe the jury is still out as to whether the experiment has really been a success.

It often seems the Portuguese experiment is something of a Rorschach test -- in the dark blobs on the page, people can see whatever they want to see.

For example, Portugal's drug-mortality rate has risen in the last decade. According to Goulão, this can be explained, in part, by the improved methods of collecting statistics, as well as the fact that many of those dying are those who were long addicted to heroin during the country's 1980s and 1990s epidemic.

Goulao also has a ready explanation for why the amount of drugs seized has increased enormously too. An indication of more drugs out there? No, he argues. Its a sign that police officers, freed up from focusing on small-time possession, have been able to target big-time traffickers.

Some statistics are harder to explain away. Violent crime, for example, while it remains relatively low for Europe, has nonetheless steadily risen in Portugal since the law's passage -- and a 2009 report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime has tentatively linked that with drug trafficking.

Perhaps most worrying to those opposed to drug use, is seems clear the number of Portuguese trying drugs for recreation has climbed from 7.8 percent in 2001 to 12 percent in 2007. The incidence of those trying cocaine has nearly doubled -- from 0.9 to 1.9 percent.

Manuel Pinto Coelho, a Lisbon doctor who wants to end decriminalization, has started a campaign to highlight the negative effects of the drug laws here, hoping to dispel what he sees as the "myths" surrounding their success. "Portugal is a role model -- but a negative one." There has been, he charges a "pathetic manipulation of the figures."

"Knowing the Portuguese reality and what is going on at parties, parks and schools of Lisbon, how can we talk about success? We have an intoxicated society," he charges.

And on the ground, one can get a sense that while a lot of the addicts here might be getting help, a new generation of recreational users is either falling through the cracks of the system or playing it.

"The laws helped us clean up our heroin problem and everything is happy about that," says Ivan, a Lisbon fashion designer. "But other drugs, like hash and coke, are commonplace now, and lets face it, easy to get and use." In practice, he points out, the police usually don't even bother with recreational users and fines are rare -- in ten years, less than 2000 have been given out.

"There is really no risk involved, so why not try?" he shrugs.

**

It's nearing midnight and the streets of Bairro Alto are just waking up, with locals and tourists crowding into the hilly narrow streets with plastic cups of cold beer in their hands. The smell of marijuana wafts through the air, mixing with music. Dealers of harder drugs stand around on the corners, looking obvious, and here and there, clusters of friends sniffing this or that are apparent.

Christiana Pires is a 27 year old psychologist, and a leader of one of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction's "harm reduction teams," which serve as another component of the drug law in the country. These teams work in schools, neighborhoods and bars, explaining the responsibilities and risks of drug use, without, she stresses, "being at all moralistic or judgmental."

"The idea is, if you consume, you should know the best strategies for choosing the moment, choosing the people you are with and the drug and quantity you take," she says, setting up a little stand outside the popular Mexecafe bar together with two volunteers. "We are aiming to talk to young people about managing that line between pleasure and risk."

Pamphlets on different drugs -- from ketamine to LSD -- are laid out, along with free condoms and drug kits consisting things like little silver plates to cut drugs up on, and saline solution to clean out your nose. At music festivals the teams also offer drug testing, to make sure drugs being taken are not contaminated, and in some neighborhoods, the teams offer needle exchanges.

Dozens of people stop by Pires' stand throughout the night, asking for information or taking a free kit or a button. Pires, in shorts and hiking boots, her hair in a ponytail, is chatty.

"A lot of people don't really want to be sniffing with bills because they are dirty," she explains to one youngster, giving him a thick plastic straw. "It's a female condom," she explains to another giggling but curious girl. "If you have any history of heart problems, you should not be mixing red bull and ecstasy," she tells a strung out young man who can barely stand up straight.

Mexecafe's owner, Ricardo Cruz, breezily admits that he himself uses all sorts of drugs, and so, he shrugs, might his clientele. "I live in the reality. But I don't want anyone getting hurt here," he explains, simply. "If we get everyone home safely here in Portugal, can't we just count that as a success?" ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.889696 2011-07-08T15:51:21-04:00 2011-09-07T05:12:01-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
"And don't forget to write that almost none of them have been out in the real job market," says businessman Panayotis Kapsiotis, sipping a late night raspberry mojito by the pool as the DJ spins. "They would have trouble running a corner kiosk," he notes, not really joking.

Kapsiotis is at a high school reunion of sorts, as one of his old classmates from Athens College celebrates the christening of a baby daughter at his elegant Kifissia suburban home, together with the whole gang of friends from 20 years ago.

The men embrace each other warmly. The women, many of whom are pregnant, wear expensive designer shoes, their heels sinking slightly into the garden grounds. A valet is parking cars outside. Waiters come around with mini souvlakis. And children run amok even though it's long past midnight.

One of Europe's most elite high schools, Athens College was founded by opposition leader Antonis Samaras' great grandfather. And it is where both Samaras and current prime minister George Papandreou (following in the footsteps of his father Andreas Papandreou, three time prime minister and the son, himself, of another prime minister) went to school. After high school, incidentally, the two men, one year apart, each set off for America, to get their BAs -- both to Amherst, a small liberal arts college where the future political rivals were actually roommates.

But Athens College high school is where it starts. It's the sort of place that, year after year, turns out just this sort of early summer party scene: Attractive. Confident. Affluent. Expectant. Powerful. Secure.

But is that what it really is today?

"This is just a façade nowadays," confines Kapsiotis, his glance skimming the crowded garden. "Sure, most everyone here still has their jobs, as well as savings, and families that can help out, and in some cases a whose dynasty of power behind them -- but don't mistake any of that for a future."

Today, as bankrupt Greece teeters on the verge of a very public breakdown, Greeks from across the political and class spectrums -- rich and poor alike -- are belatedly shaking their heads and incredulously asking "How did this happen?" "What went so wrong?"

***

"The problem starts with exactly those elites. It is they who are to blame -- both the politicians and their businessmen classmates," says George Stampolidis, a naval officer, protesting outside the Greek parliament in downtown Syntagma square, some 20 kilometers and a world away from the affluent Kifissia. "They created a culture of corruption so deep here that now we are all drowning in it.

And Greece, with close to 345 billion Euros in debts, is indeed drowning. Last week, in the face of tens of thousands of angry and violent protestors, plummeting popularity, and the fact that the reforms undo almost everything his party has stood for in the past -- Papandreou passed new drastic austerity measures, promising to shave off 28.3 billion euros in cuts by 2015.

To do this, he has said he intends to cut salaries and social benefits, including pensions and unemployment aid, raise taxes on even those earning minimum wage and sell off state-assets and government services -- for starters. This, mind, at time of recession and unemployment of 16 percent in the country.

The measures are meant to ensure that the country gets a promised 12 billion euros in aid, the fifth portion of an original 110 billion-euro bailout package that it signed last year by the "troika" -- the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts.

Concerned that if Greece were to default -- or seen to be in default -- it would mean massive losses for all the banks that hold Greek debt as well as begin a domino effect that could threaten all of Europe, the troika has encouraged what they see as a responsible austerity plan. It was an "important step forward." European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said in a joint statement.

At home though, it's seen differently. As many as 80% of Greeks oppose the new austerity measures, and there are naysayers even within Papandreou's own PASOK party. Forty-seven people were injured and at least 14 arrested last week as they violently tried to make this point of opposition, protest strikes shut down the country for two full days, and demonstrations continue now.

**

"Crooks! Crooks!" shout the masses outside Parliament, thrusting their spread out palms towards the building in a sign of disrespect, and flashing green flashlights into the eyes of the police and the journalists -- who protestors see as part of the establishment- filming them from the windows of the nearby luxury Grand Bretagne hotel. Banners read: "Crooks: We will find and get you," and "Change the constitution."

"We will not pay one penny to our corrupt government so they can feed the blood thirsty Germans who want our islands," says one protestor named Elias, giving vent to one of the many conspiracy theories making the rounds in Greece. "The Swedes and Norwegians are cutting deals with our politicians to all steal our billions in oil," says another, named Antonio, sketchy on details of which Norwegians and Swedes and which oil.

In the square below, a protest tent city similar to the one that sprouted up recently in Spain's Puerta Del Sol, has come to life in recent weeks. "Politics is violence, Politics is force," sings the Reggae band on stage. Tattooed and pierced slacker youngsters with skateboards stand alongside working mothers with briefcases who complain of not being able to afford their kids' school uniforms and books anymore and sway to the music. "We hate politics. We hate our politicians," croons the band.

But the problem now is that its not just the top echelons who are guilty of the damage done. The whole country seems to have followed the example of their leaders and jumped in to participate in the corrupt system, working it to their benefit. For a long time, few seemed to realize how much it would end up ultimately costing.

"The corruption and bribe taking starts at the top and trickles down to the very bottom," says Vassili Christaras, an engineer and former official in the state owned Electric Company. "Things were better 30 years ago. Now it is endemic."

Corruption today in Greece can be found in endless forms: It's cheaper to pay off the driving test examiner 220 euros in cash and pass the test on the first go than pay 150 euros over and again and fail; It makes sense to hand over 10,000 euros to the hospital's procurement officer if that's what it takes to get the rights to provide band aids. And it is far easier to slip the tax authority 20,000 euros than have to admit to being in a higher tax bracket and paying five times more.

The tax authority is generally considered the most corrupt body of them all. "It operates like a mafia," charges Sabby Mionis, a Greek-Israeli businessman. "It's so profitable to be the head of a regional tax authority, that people literally pay off the minister of finance to be appointed, and then use the position to blackmail and bribe businessmen and make a fortune." The culture of tax evasion meanwhile, means that everyone from the house painter to your heart surgeon refrains from giving out receipts.

A building-code public engineer on Milos island was recently found with 12 million euros in his bank account -- on a salary less than 2,000 euros per month. A doctor in a public hospital in Athens was found to have saved 37 million euros, no doubt with some thanks to side deals with a French orthopedic company he recommended supply the hospital.

"When it comes to corruption, we are like an African or Latin country, or like India, not like anything else you know in Western Europe," observes Meghna Reddy, an Indian married to a Greek who has been living in the country for six years. "Just like in India, no one is doing much to change it, and accepts that it can continue." But while India has the likes of low labor costs, an enormous internal market, and a culture of innovation, Greece is lacking in enough other advantages to offset the scourge of corruption.

Not helping the situation is the fact that the public sector is both terribly bloated and ineffectual. Growing since the elder Papandreou came into power in 1981, the public sector today employs more than a million people, a quarter of the Greek work force.

But few are willing to accept that painful changes, including a mass firing of public servants, must happen. These days, for example, worried that the government might go forth with its plans to privatize the electric company and sell it to foreign investors, making it more efficient and saving money --workers there have been orchestrating power failures in protest, causing blackouts around the country.

At the root of Greece's problems, continues Mionis -- is an even more rudimentary problem: And that is that Greeks simply do not have a strong sense of the larger community. "There is no sense of 'what is better for the whole,' here, like there is in Israel," he says.

The country that long ago introduced the concepts of "democracy," and "polis" to the world, where each citizen was expected to give their time and effort to public, military and cultural service -- is today, a much more individualistic sort of place.

"People are basically selfish, or put out a hand only to help their own families," agrees Christaras, shrugging. "If you think nothing is going to change you start operating only in your own interests."

**

Even those who agree there is need for serious austerity measures are generally despondent about Papandreou's plan, saying that even if the government had the real political will or ability to actually implement, as opposed to just pass, the measures -- which few believe -- and even if ordinary Greeks had the will or desire to play ball -which they are not-- none of this goes far enough to solve the crisis anyway.

Greece's government debt, which is 160 percent of its GDP and rising fast, is simply too crushing for the tiny stagnating country of 11 million people to pay back.

And next up, as and when this 12 billion last part of last year's bailout is secured, is a second bailout, the details of which are being hammered out in far off European capitals and which is expected to be worth an estimated 130 billion euros more.

Greece seems to be in a "debt trap," where paying the interest on its mound of debt requires more and more loans. "We are just kicking the can down the road," says Mionis. "Greece is one big Ponzi scheme, and is being supported by loans and European subsidies. When the EU sees the situation here is no longer contagious, to Ireland or Portugal or elsewhere, they will let Greece go bankrupted."

"A very great number of people are angry and hopeless," says lawyer Stavros Papastavrou, an international secretary in Samaras' Nea Demokratia party "And, while some are willing to make sacrifices, they want to know it will lead somewhere. They don't want to sacrifice for nothing." Samara suggestions for an antidote to the vicious cycle of recession however -- including that taxes be lowered, not raised, so as to stimulate the economy -- has been heavily criticized by the EU, as well as by many Greeks, who believe they are more populist but not any more effective.

"Samaras' suggestions are not sufficient for a 'reboot' of the economy," says Agis Veroutis, a small business owner. "Without the shrinking of the public sector Leviathan, plus obliteration of soviet-style bureaucratic regulation, tax relief will only increase the deficits. Any solution to the current economic standoff must be comprehensive," he argues.

And meanwhile, Greece is fraying at the seams. The once high end shopping streets, where millions of euros used to be paid in key money to secure a corner store, now are filled with "for rent" signs. Graffiti on the bank buildings reads "Burn me."

Crime is up, and, the once fashionable neighborhoods around Omonia square downtown are becoming increasingly lawless, with illegal immigrants selling knock off Dolce Gabana handbags and dealing drugs, prostitutes strutting their stuff, and motorcyclists zooming through at incredible speed - without helmets--as police loll around the corners doing nothing.

Just last month, in a crime that shocked the nation, a 44 year old man dashing to get his video camera from his parked car so as to take it to the hospital where his pregnant wife was giving birth -- was jumped by thee assailants and killed. They were later were caught selling the camera for 150 euros.

**

Back at the Athens' College party in the suburbs, couples are taking to the dance floor, and -- slightly drunk on too-strong cocktails -- mouthing the words to the disco favorites and they bop around. It has been a good party, and a fun night, reminding them of the old days, when they were a little younger, and a lot more hopeful.

This was originally posted on Haaretz.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.890262 2011-07-06T10:22:00-04:00 2011-09-05T05:12:01-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
Jacques-Joseph Moreau, a medical doctor who was one of the first to become interested in the drug's properties, and his friend, the French philosopher and writer Théophile Gautier, even formed a famous little social club -- quite appropriately named the "Club des Hachichins," or the Hashish Club -- dedicated to the exploration of drug-induced experience.

Between 1844 and 1849, the club gathered regularly at the gothic Hôtel de Lauzun on the Île Saint-Louis, and boasted as members such Parisian littérateurs as Alexandre Dumas, Gérard de Nerval, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Eugène Delacroix and Charles Baudelaire (who lived in the club's attic for a while).

Ritualistically garbed in Arab clothing, the activities of the "Hachichins" seemed to consist mainly of drinking strong coffee liberally laced with hashish, and then talking -- and writing -- into the nights about the experience of being stoned.

"The doctor stood by a buffet ... [and] spooned a morsel of paste or greenish jam about as large as a thumb from a crystal vase ... on each saucer," wrote Gautier, describing the scene. "The doctor's face radiated enthusiasm; his eyes glittered, his purple cheeks were aglow, the veins in his temples stood out strongly, and he breathed heavily through dilated nostrils. 'This will be deducted from your share in Paradise,' he said as he handed me my portion."

* * * * *

These days, the Hotel de Lauzun belongs to the government, which uses it occasionally for formal state events at which one is told not to touch the delicate antique furnishings or lean on the decoratively painted walls. The intellectual crowd has moved on to other neighborhoods to escape the ice-cream-buying tourists and the overpriced cafés, and the liberal drug laws of those heady days have changed drastically.

Indeed, today, France has some of the most conservative drugs laws in Europe. Since 1970 the law stipulates that the use of cannabis is punishable by a year in jail and up to €7,500 of fines, while cultivation, possession of large quantities and trafficking in the drug are punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

In practice, the police and courts often turn a blind eye to many cases of personal use, especially in the capital, but still, some 137,000 people were arrested last year for smoking cannabis, according to Michel Henry, a journalist with Libération and the author of "Drogues : pourquoi la légalisation est inevitable."

But whether the harsh law has diminished the French penchant for cannabis is questionable.

According to the latest statistics released last week by the National Institute for Health Education and Prevention (INPES), and the Observatoire des Drogues et des Toxicomanies (OFDT), a public body that carries out studies on smoking, there are 13.4 million people in this nation of 62 million who are either regular or occasional cannabis users -- 1 million more than when the last statistics were gathered five years ago. This makes France's level of consumption among the highest in Europe -- alongside Spain, the U.K. and Germany.

Occasional users are defined in the study as those who have tried cannabis more than three times in their life: Regular users, in turn, of which there are about 1.2 million according to the report, indulge anywhere from 10 times a month to every day.

"We never stopped smoking," admits Guillaume, a middle-aged lecturer in comparative literature, at a drinks party in a sprawling apartment in the ninth district, a glass of red wine in one hand and a joint dangling in the other. "The laws changed, but not our attraction to this small delight."

While young people aged 15 to 24 are the largest consumers of cannabis, according to the statistics, usage is high across all age groups and cuts through virtually all socio-economic sectors. "There are young, disaffected people in the housing projects of the suburbs doing drugs, and there are members of the nation's intellectual, business and political classes indulging," explains Henry. "It's not a class thing."

* * * * *

The incongruity between the number of French using marijuana and the strict laws against it has prompted debate over and again during the past several decades, and it has led to numerous calls for legalization.

The most recent push has come from a high-level parliamentary report released earlier this month, which concluded that it was impossible to continue "advocating the illusion of abstinence" and recommended that the drug be subject to "controlled legalization," meaning that its cultivation and sale would become a state-controlled activity, like the sale of alcohol and tobacco.

The report, which has the support of various opposition members, suggests that the state produce cannabis in sufficient quantity -- and be aware of any deficiencies in production which could create a new illegal market -- and sell it through government sanctioned shops.

"That prohibition does not solve the problem today is a fact," explained Socialist MP Daniel Vaillant, one of the instigators of the report, to Le Monde. "So let's try the challenge of regulation."

Valliant, who served as France' Interior Minister from 2000 to 2002, and who represents the 18th district of Paris, which has a huge population of cannabis users, has been proposing new cannabis legislation since 2003. And he is not the only senior politician doing so.

Bernard Kouchner, the former health minister as well as foreign minister, has been making the same arguments for years. A medical doctor and the founder of the Nobel-Peace-prize-winning aid group Médecins Sans Frontières, Kouchner is on the record as saying he has both used marijuana himself and would like to regulate its use in France.

"It would be ridiculous to close your eyes to reality," he told the press a decade ago, when he was health minister. "Tobacco is more addictive than hash. As far as I know, no one has ever died from smoking cannabis."

"We are adults," adds Guillaume. "And adults always do what they want. The law only serves to make life easier or harder."

Besides these sorts of arguments, advocates argue that legalizing cannabis would allow the state to monitor and tax a clandestine market worth an estimated €1 billion per year, in the same way that it regulates and taxes sales of alcohol.

Not everyone in convinced.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative ruling UMP party has largely rejected all calls for changing the law and argues that legalizing or decriminalizing cannabis would increase the number of users and that traffickers would move into distributing harder drugs.

Those opposed to legalization, including Apaire Etienne, President of the Interministerial Mission for the fight against drugs and drug addiction, argue that making a substance already popular among young people even more readily available will carry a heavy future price tag, as other freely traded drugs have had.

And despite the growing numbers of those attuned to the calls for change in policy, a slim majority here still tends to agree with the more conservative viewpoint. A survey conducted by Harris Interactive for Le Parisien last week showed that more than half of French people (58 percent) say they are opposed to the decriminalization of cannabis.

"When I was younger I used to smoke hash," admits Beatrix, a costume designer, "but we did not know the risks back then. Today we now that tar smoked cannabis is more carcinogenic than tobacco alone and clearly causes cancer ... and there that there may be some connections between high usage and psychiatric problems."

Now that she is a mother of two teenagers herself, she admits, she is not sure she wants drugs, even soft ones, made easier to obtain or more normative. "It might seem hypocritical considering that I used to indulge -- but I am a little scared. We don't know enough about what the effects are."

But sociologist Patrick Pharo, director of research at France's national center for scientific research (CNRS) and author of "Philosophie pratique de la drogue," believes that it is only a matter of time before there is growing pressure and the law does change here.

"The reason is not domestic," he explains. "It has to do with the fact that international war on drugs is now considered a resounding failure, denounced not only by most of the scientific community, but also by many former heads of state and politicians."

He compares the attitude to drugs to the attitude to homosexuality. "One day, international conventions simply turn around," he says. "And that will be that."

"Of course, the two cases are radically different," he hastens to add. "Homosexuality is something that does not hurt anyone, while drugs, illicit and licit, clearly do. They are dangerous," he stresses. "However, it is precisely because they are potentially deadly pleasures that it is important to regulate them, and not to ban them but provide objective information and attention on their real dangers."]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.877438 2011-06-27T11:49:46-04:00 2011-08-27T05:12:01-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
Wearing matching t-shirts emblazoned with a photo of their friend with a big slice of ham on his face and "Hamface's stag do," written on the back, these young men are in town for a good time.

What is a good time?

"Smokin'. You know. Maybe. Some 'shrooms. But mainly just smokin' and chillin," says a 30-something named Trevor-something from somewhere in Ireland as he mock dry humps his friend, the proud groom to be. "They are going to close this all down soon, you know," he notes. "Poof."

Interviewing people late Saturday night in the red light district who have been stoned for days yields little in the way of coherent answers.

"I see balloons. Hee hee," he adds.

Famously liberal Holland decriminalized soft drugs in the seventies, setting up so-called coffeeshops where anyone over 18 could walk in, look through a menu, order their favorite brand of marijuana and light up.

Today, there around 750 coffee shops in the country, of which 223 are in Amsterdam -- mostly in the city's red light district, where prostitution is also legal.

The coffeeshops are a way of life here, with many locals stopping in for a puff to go with their cappuccino and morning papers, or passing by to relax and chat on their way home from work.

They have also become a massive tourism attraction, with everyone from serious pot smokers to the "Hamface" crowd determined to "have fun" to the merely curious -- flooding in from around the world to experiment, and helping to make Amsterdam one of the top tourist destinations in Europe, with over 4.6 million visitors annually.

For years, there has been debate in government about reducing drug tourism and its accompanying "nuisance factor," as part of efforts to fight crime and counter drug trafficking across the borders with Germany and Belgium. Some restrictions have already been enforced in several of the border cities, with more rigid coffeeshop zoning policies and caps on foreign purchases.

But now, it seems the push for change is becoming more strenuous.

Late last month, the right wing Dutch cabinet announced that it intended to turn the coffeeshops in Holland into "private clubs for the local market" -- meaning that would-be Dutch customers will have to sign up for a one-year membership, or 'dope pass', to the coffee shops (about 1500 members be allowed for each coffeeshop) -- and foreigners will be barred from them altogether.

In addition, the new measures call for the number and visibility of coffeeshops to be reduced. The new laws propose that a distance of at least 350 meters be established between secondary schools and coffeeshops, meaning that, in Amsterdam, for example, more than half (116) of the 223 coffeeshops would have to close. If primary schools are also subjected to distance criteria, only 36 coffeeshops would remain in Amsterdam.

All this, according to a justice department spokesman, will be implemented by the end of the year, initially in the south of country, and then everywhere.

Or will it? In fact, what will happen next is unclear, as it's not only the Eurorail-ing pot heads who have registered dismay, but also opposition politicians, the city of Amsterdam and many powerful businesses who stand to lose enormous revenue who are fighting back against what they have dubbed "tourism suicide."

"Coffee shops are not actively promoted by our organization and are not used in order to attract tourists," says Machteld Ligtvoet, a spokeswoman for the Amsterdam Tourism & Convention Board, which has come out against the new measures. "However, the mere idea that one can buy and use soft drugs here is an attractive aspect of Amsterdam and its famous spirit of freedom."

Of course, not everyone is interested in drugs, she allows, and if the coffeeshop rules are changed, there will still be plenty of tourists coming to town to visit the Van Gogh museum, rent a rickety bike to ride out into the country, or relax along the pretty canals.
But others might not be as keen.

Marcus, for example, a 29 year old mechanic from Swindon, England who sports a tattoo reading "Allah" in Arabic on his neck ("just because it's cool," he explains) is one of those who is clear about what attracts him to the city.

He comes here for a long weekend every year, together with some dozen friends, for what has become a pilgrimage to the Bulldog coffeeshop and hostel, one of the city's first and most touristy establishments, stationed in an old police headquarters.

In seven years of coming here, he admits, he has not ventured out of the area between the train station, the Bulldog and the other side of the red light district a few blocks away.

"We are a big group," he explains. "We don't want to get lost."

Booking cheap budget airlines tickets long in advance, and sleeping eight to a room, Marcus and his friends are not high end tourists.

But there are the munchies-fueled dashes to the chip shops and 24 Chinese noodle places; There is, perhaps, a visit to a prostitute and maybe a pop into the sex museum next door, as well as presents for the girlfriends back home -- a wood tulip, maybe, or a windmill salt shaker. There is that got-to-have bulldog t-shirt, and sure, throw in that bulldog ashtray too and that five euro Heineken fridge magnet.

There is all that marijuana paraphernalia, some marijuana seeds to plant back home -- and of course the drugs themselves, which cost at least 11 Euros a gram for marijuana. Harder drugs, although mostly illegal, are also easy to find and far more expensive.

"Drugs tourism generates about 10 billion Euros. And that's leaving aside the trade in soft drugs itself, which has an annual turnover of between 1.5 and 2 billion Euros," says Jan Brouwer, director of the Centre for Public Order and Security at the University of Groningen. "Those are significant sums, but apparently they are the wrong sort of tourist."

Meanwhile, beyond the arguments about lost revenue, there is another, perhaps larger debate being prompted by the proposed new measures to control drug use by imposing restrictions. And that is -- will they even work?

"If there is a will there is always a way," giggles Paul, an architecture student from Lithuania, who is sitting up at a high bar table, inhaling marijuana from a vaporizer and watching cartoons at Barneys, a popular coffee shop that wins yearly awards from High Times magazine for the quality of it's marijuana.

"I would just get my friend here to go in and buy for me, even if I have to pay a little more," he says, nodding to a Dutchman sitting near by. "Not possible....I don't know....to really stop this scene," he says, his voice trailing off as smiles at the cartoon images of skeletons dancing on the small screen.

At least now, adds Jackie, a self employed "Ganja guide," who takes tourists on long wandering coffee shop crawls for 50 Euros per person, customers are provided with accurate information about the quality of the drugs being sold and the source, as well as safety guidelines. Furthermore, coffeeshops are not allowed to serve alcohol, which, she says, is the real "bad" drug, or even to smoke tobacco indoors, which, she points out, "is not healthy."

"Telling us what to do is not going to work," she says, meeting her latest clients, two professional American couples in their late 30s, at Katsu, a low key local coffeeshop outside of the city center. "When does that ever work? This city is known for being liberal and open, and now here come these ayatollahs with all their lecturing about morality. But I tell you, we will not give in," she says.

These sorts of arguments are getting back-up from a range of surprising directions.

Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan, for one, has argued that the new laws will just drive the market underground and create a whole slew of new problems, from unsafe drugs to gang related violence.

"The City of Amsterdam fears that closing the vast majority of coffeeshops in the city would be counterproductive. Initial analysis shows that (this) would result in increased nuisance around the remaining coffeeshops, greater health risks and a thriving street trade," his office said in a statement. "Making soft drugs available through coffeeshops curtails the dealing of drugs on the street."

A new report by a prominent group of politicians and former world leaders also echoes this logic, suggesting that main stream anti-drug policy worldwide have failed -- managing instead only to fuel organized crime, cost taxpayers millions of dollars and cause thousands of deaths.

Drugs need to be decriminalized, concludes the Global Commission on Drug Policy report, which was signed off on by the likes of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil -- and addicts need to be treated as patients, not villains.

Instead of punishing users who, the report says, "do no harm to others," -- the commission argues that governments should experiment with legal models that would undermine organized crime syndicates and offer health and treatment services for drug-users: Exactly what Holland, with its impressive facilities for addiction and extensive demand reduction programs, is already doing today.

"Drug use in Amsterdam has remained more or less the same for a decade, that is a fact," says Jackie. "Why change something that works? What's the problem here? A little rowdiness? The neighbor countries are annoyed? Whatever. And whoever thinks they are going to solve any problems here by trying to stop people smoking is high," she concludes, flashes a smile, and lights up.

END.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.867874 2011-05-27T16:22:16-04:00 2011-07-27T05:12:01-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
One could be forgiven for being a little confused about what exactly is going on.

Colorful hand-painted signs -- thousands upon thousands of them -- are strung up from every tree, and pasted on every surface in and around the central square: "End the corruption!" they scream. "We want jobs!" "Democracy is our fight!" "Down with the bankers!" "Down with big media!" "World revolution," they cry.

"Go Vegan!" they yell. Wait, "Go Vegan?" What? But there is more: "Homosexuals against the Heterosexual hegemony!" "Equality for women!" "Save Western Sahara!" and of course the perennial favorite, "Free Palestine!"

It's such an exhausting mish mash of agenda items and demands that one has to retreat to the roped-off makeshift lending library to relax. There, donated books on everything from the ills of the patriarchy to the ills of consumerism are being sorted by friendly volunteers, as protestors lounge around on tatty cushions, reading, playing chess, chatting and making out.

A chemical engineer wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with "Spanish Revolution" is writing up his ideas about alternatives to the country's social welfare cuts and harsh austerity measures, to put in one of the suggestion boxes scattered on the rickety tables. A political science student is deep in debate with an illegal Cuban immigrant about the country's staggering unemployment -- 45 percent among those under 25, and 21 percent overall, the highest rate in the European Union. A young couple is reading Franz Kafka's The Trial out loud to one another on the couch.

Welcome to Madrid's historic Puerta del Sol square, where tens of thousands of young protestors are camping out to clamor for political, economic and social reform. Some want an overhaul of the electoral system, some an all-out revolution, others a reform of the financial system and others still--- just to be part of the scene.

Together, they have created a pop-up mini tent city here over the past two weeks, complete with a children's crèche, a sanitation team sweeping the grounds and a press center filled with volunteers crouched over laptops and spinning out information with organizational skill that would rival any military field operation.

There is a central stage where musicians come to entertain and firebrands come to rev up the crowds during "general assembly" meetings. There is an arts center where the posters are made, two first aid stations, a small organic garden and a dozen water kiosks and meal counters, where volunteers hand out free ham and cheese sandwiches: breakfast, lunch, dinner and at designated snack times in between.

As the days go on, and the tent city grows, it has spilled out onto the surrounding streets and squares, with breakaway committee groups sitting around on the pavement holding meetings, and voting on everything from environmental degradation to the role of immigrants in society. There are people playing tambourines, there are jugglers, there is a workshop on how to fix your bike and there is, in the mix, also ferocious political debate.

The so called 15-M movement, named so because it started on May 15th, is gathering momentum outside of Madrid as well, and the protests, on a smaller scale, are being replicated in squares around the country, as well as overseas, where Spaniards living abroad have set up mini camps outside the country's embassies in Berlin, Paris, London, Amsterdam and New York.

"This is about protest," says a 28-year-old industrial engineering student-cum-volunteer press spokesman named Miguel Morales Padro, who briefs reporters in between sending out hourly tweets about developments on the ground, updating the movement's Facebook fan group page and uploading videos to YouTube. It is his exam week, he says, but this is more important. And, he shrugs, more fun.

"We are all from different backgrounds, and with different agendas, to some extent," Miguel explains. "But this is about joining together and raising a collective voice. It is about getting our society to reflect on the need for change. And I believe we will be heard, which is why I am here."

No one is in charge here and everyone is welcome. Volunteers walk around with their names on badges pinned to their t-shirts and the name of the "action team" they belong to written on bands wrapped around their arms: Xiomara is on the "legal team" busy going through the suggestions boxes and writing up proposals for the committees to address. Carolina is on the "respect team" breaking up any fights at the camp and keeping the peace. And Nafi, a Moroccan immigrant, is on the "donations team" making and posting lists of materials needed. Who can donate flashlights? Megaphones? More generators? What about Tampex? Shampoo? Toilet paper? Pizzas? Love?

How long will this go on for? "Until 'they' listen to us," is everyone's stock answer.

When it all started, a week before Sunday's local elections, it consisted of a few dozen disgruntled protestors in sleeping bags, who were soon removed by the police. It caught on though, and soon ballooned, with up to 30,000 young people thronging to the square on the weekend and many refusing to leave even after voting day passed, grabbing world headlines and triggering comparisons with the Arab Spring revolutions which brought down governments in Tunisia and Egypt.

The comparison is a stretch.

"They did not bring down the government in Cairo's Tahrir by doing meditation sessions and offering free popcorn," remarks a young policeman named Raúl, leaning on the door of a nearby bank, its façade now plastered with protest graffiti and posters, and watching the scene calmly. "There, they were out risking their lives and standing up to the tanks."

"Part of their problem here," he continues, noting the obvious, "...is that they don't have tanks to confront."

The protestors do not have permission to be in the square and have defied the ban on protests set last Friday by the country's Central Electoral Board who was worried it would disrupt the elections. But while there is a heavy presence of policemen and a few barricades set up on adjoining streets -- there has been no real attempt to vacate the youngsters.

And, despite the posters reading "freedom" and "revolution" in Arabic, the Kafiyas adorning several a non-Arab head here, and the frequent mentioning by the movement spokespeople of the mutual use of social media to get the masses out, most of the protestors will themselves admit they are not really like the Middle East revolutions, or, indeed, even modeled on them.

"We want to tweak the system, not destroy it," explains Beatrice Perez Alonso, an architect who cannot find a job in her profession and so works, unhappily, for a mobile phone agent. There are no palaces to storm and no dictatorships to topple in Spain -- a reality that can, in a way, make for a more complicated task, she explains. The lack of clear "enemy" makes for a lack of focus, she will admit, as she hands out plastic cups to anyone who wants a drink.

Nonetheless, she stresses, gently reminding fellow protestors to recycle, despite this lack a clear ultimate goal, as well as the lack of leadership -- she, like many of those gathered here, sincerely believes something monumental -- albeit inexplicable -- is taking place.

"This is probably the most worthwhile thing I have ever done," says Beatrice without any sense of melodrama. By her own admission, the 35-year-old had never been much interested in politics before now. "But I saw on TV that there were protests and I came over to check it out... and ended up staying the night. I don't even know why I did. I felt I was with like-minded people, upset about our country and trying to articulate that. I feel I was finally part of a bigger movement that was going to do something."

On Sunday, the protestors had their first real opportunity to do that something -- when the country went to local elections. And the results of the vote were shocking -- with the ruling Socialists led by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero suffering a crushing defeat by the center-right opposition People's Party (PP) in most of the 8,000 municipal and 13 regional elections, even in the Socialists' traditional strongholds like Barcelona and Seville. It was the party's worst local returns in the history of Spanish democracy.

But the verdict is still out as to whether the protestors effected this outcome at all, and, more to the point, what the drubbing of the Socialites in any way benefits their agenda.

For, what the protestors appear to share is an emotional loathing of the powers that be -- from all side of the political spectrum -- and a visceral alienation from the old politics, but no concrete suggestions, yet, of what would work better. If the Madrid protests offered any clear view on the elections, it was that people should not vote at all.

And while Zapatero admitted the results were the penalty for Spain's dismal economy and high unemployment, the elections actually confirmed that there is no radical political alternative in Spain today, as the victorious conservative Popular Party offers the same plans for austerity in other guises.

"At the end of the day this is about insisting that those in power, whoever they are, start listening," concludes Beatrice. "Our leaders, from whichever party, need to know there is a problem. And, with thousands and thousands of us out here, we think they will get the message."

She stops to formulate what she is trying to say. "The music of our democracy is not in tune," she says. "We have a system. We just need to change it... That is what we are here to say. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.852971 2011-04-24T05:40:47-04:00 2011-06-24T05:12:01-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
Now, type "The Ashram" into Google, and the first thing that pops up is a website featuring a little cartoon of a chubby angel with a halo, sitting cross legged, inviting you to come get healthy -- and skinny -- in Malibu.

Good bye India. Farewell, gentle guru. Welcome to California.

Established in 1974 by two Swedish women, The Ashram is boot camp West-Coast style: Basic training with meditation, sprouted chickpeas and a hefty price tag thrown in. It's also -- and despite no marketing whatsoever -- probably the most celebrated retreat in the U.S., booked solid nine months in advance.

Every week, 13 guests go through the program, sharing rooms and bathrooms in a humble house that is a 40-minute drive out of Los Angeles. Days begin at 5:30 a.m. with yoga, then move on to a breakfast of, say, goji berries and hemp milk, and continue with rigorous hikes, endless gym classes, more healthy food and yoga. There are no phones allowed. No internet. No TV. And all this for $4,500 a week. Have I mentioned that it's booked solid?

A lot of what makes The Ashram famous are the famous people who have reportedly gone there. Another source of the Ashram's mojo is its devoted returnees. Close to 60 percent of those who do the program once will come back. In fact, there's a special deal: if you do it 50 times, reportedly, you get one free.

A gantze mitiya, as my mother might say.

Anyway, one recent Sunday - thanks to a birthday initiative from Josh, a.k.a. my boyfriend -- we found ourselves climbing into The Ashram's white van on LA's Sunset boulevard and heading out to join the cult.

Our driver, a good looking blond from New Mexico named Yarrow, welcomes us cheerfully: "It's going to be a superb week," he sing-songs out loud. "We have a superb group!" "Right on!"

I look around, futilely, for Queen Latifa.

Is anyone here famous?

There is, hunched in the back seat, one rockstar-looking guy, complete with tattoos, piercings, long jet black hair, a guitar and a blond girlfriend in leather by his side. Hm. "Famous?" I lip-synch to Josh hopefully. "I have no idea," he lip-synchs back.

Everyone else, sigh, looks rather normal: A mother and daughter from Virginia Beach. Best friends from Chicago. A wealthy businessman from London. Another wealthy businessman from San Francisco. A Merrill Lynch financial advisor from Missouri. Nikki, an athletic blond from Vancouver, and Maki and Kimimori, Japanese business partners who arrive on a 12 hour flight in from Tokyo in their hiking pants.

The first thing we do, after a welcome snack of raw kohlrabi, is get weighed and measured around every which what angle: Neck. Back. Shoulders. Hip. Thigh. Knee. Ankle. You get the idea.

And then, we pull on our uber expensive new hiking gear, fill up our new cool Camelbacks with water, tie on our bandanas -- and ta da, we are off, hiking uphill at a nice, easy pace.

Erm. This is not hard at all, I think. "I'm pretty sporty," I explain in passing to Kimimori, who we have re-christened Ken and, who, it turns out, does not actually speak much English, but listens attentively as I play up my military days -- twenty years ago -- and then easily segue into my favorite Tel Aviv triathlon triumph stories.

Two hours later, I am panting. We are onto the sixth mile and the never ending uphill is not so easy after all, it turns out. "Hydrate, hydrate!" the instructors remind us over the walkie-talkies we carry, as we spread further apart along the path.

Jaster, the rock-star-look-alike, and his maybe-model girlfriend are about a mile ahead of me, as are Nikki and Joe, the financial advisor. How frustrating! How annoying! Take a deep breath, I tell myself. This is about my journey, my challenges. But my mind keeps wandering. Don't rock stars and models smoke, drink and do drugs?! How is it possible that those kids are so far ahead of me??

Josh, meanwhile, a schmoozer of note, is behind, happily chatting to an instructor with a perfect butt about her passion for surfing. Ay ay ay. "My husband just died," I hear great-butt saying. Double ay ay ay. I do not feel the Zen. I do not feel the inner peace. And by the way, I could use an energy bar.

And then, as if God has heard my prayers, I reach Bosho, the gorgeous half Japanese instructor brought up by a Jewish lesbian couple who plays in a rock band (where do they get these people, you just have to wonder). He is standing on a hilltop with a snack--four almonds and a prune. FOUR ALMONDS AND A PRUNE? What happened to carbohydrates? I am tired. I am cranky.

Then I look around. It's beautiful. I nibble on my almonds as if they were the last morsels of food on earth, put on my iPod and get into a groove. The sun peeps out. I pass Ken. Ha-ha. I pick a little white wild flower and put it in my hair. Life is beautiful. "Right on!" I yell out to Yarrow.

When we get back to the house, caked with mud, we sit down to lunch: raw sunflower seed salad one day. Organic tofu and quinoa, another. It's pretty delicious actually. I eat the small portions with chopsticks to make them last longer. There are no seconds. No desert. No sugar. No honey. "Hydrate," they remind us. "Hydrate."

The afternoon activities come fast and furious: Water aerobics and water volleyball in a 98-degree outside pool, Pilates and weight training in the gym room, and yoga in the yurt. We all get Wiatsu sessions, an activity aptly named for Shiatsu and Water, which basically involves being dragged around the hot pool by an instructor, eyes closes, as she coons, "relax," and folds our bodies into all forms of weird directions. And we get heavenly massages, where we try to sneak in naps.

After dinner -- coconut chipotle soup, for example, or maybe edemame with raw spinach pesto -- we slink off to secretly use our cell phones, and -- a little bit thinner and totally zonked -- collapse into bed by 8:30pm.

And so it goes, with one day much like the next, except the hikes get longer and harder, up steep hills, across rocky ravines and down to sandy beaches. By the end of the week we have done more than 60 miles, and, yes, almost to my surprise, really begun to feel and look different. All this focus on our bodies, our eating -- on ourselves, basically -- is, it turns out, leading to some tranquility after all.

On the last day, we go in to get re-weighed and measured. Everyone has changed -- The mom from Virginia Beach looks like she had a facelift; Josh has lost nine pounds, and Joe has shed 16 pounds and lost a combined 20 inches in total! He is almost, strangely, unrecognizable.

"My friends were amazed," he admits a few weeks later, adding that they were skeptical he could keep it off, but so far so good. He is training for a half marathon. "The effects are still there..." Maki, who lost four pounds, adds, of her transformation. "Tighter stomach, great complexion, getting up well in the morning feeling ready to go."

And me? I lost a respectable four pounds and 11.5 inches from here and there. I feel great. I vow to eat small portions and healthy food for the rest of my life.

A month later, back in Paris and living directly, as one inevitably does, across from a patisserie, I have gained three and a half pounds back. Oh well. I was never one for great self discipline. But it was fun. It was a challenge. I saw some beautiful mountains. I felt I was one with the movie star set. I was happy. I even managed some fleeting moments of inner calm, out there in California. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.815776 2011-02-28T13:39:51-05:00 2011-05-25T18:30:24-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
The Kibbutz movement is dying? Don't tell that to Emmanuel Logoro. "I have a dream," he says, sitting in his hut near a plastic Christmas tree he brought home from Eilat, and taking out a briefcase filled with diagrams about kibbutz structure. "I have plans."

Logoro, 29, tall, muscular and talking a mile a minute in perfect Hebrew -- complete with all the requisite slang -- was one of the very first Sudanese asylum seekers to cross the border into Israel from Egypt, back in January of 2006. He knew nothing about the country, he says, except that which he had read in his bible.

After nine months in detention in Ketziot, he was released to Kibbutz Eilot, where he proceeded to spend four years -- working in the food hall and maintenance, learning Hebrew, playing in a rock band and making countless friends along the way. When he left, he says, they threw a goodbye party, and he had tears in his eyes. "I could have stayed there my whole life. I was lacking nothing," he attests.

Emmanuel loves the kibbutz, plain and simple. His wife Sara, who he met at a refugee camp in Egypt, does too. She misses her friends, with whom she worked at the Magic Sunrise Club Hotel in nearby Eilat. Their eldest, nine year old daughter Cindy, born in a camp in Khartoum, misses her classmates from school in Yotveta. Cindy brings out an old report card. "A very good student and good girl," she reads out loud in Hebrew to her two younger brothers, who have heard it all before.

The Logoro family loved Israel -- but came back to south Sudan. "This is our home, after all," explains Emmanuel to his son Logoro, a Sabra born at Yosseftal hospital, sitting on his lap. "We are about to be an independence country and there are things for us to do here."

Like, for example, start a kibbutz.

"And why not?" asks Emmanuel. "We have the land, the rain, the people. It will unite us and take us forward, just as the Jews of Europe came together to pray, eat, work and develop their land... What is better than a kibbutz, I ask you?"

Even before he left Israel last April, together with a group of about 50 others, Emmanuel was in touch with people in Juba, telling them about his idea. Sara had returned a year earlier, together with a smaller group of ten, to pave the way. And soon he had scored a meeting with the Agricultural Minister, who, says Emmanuel, was very enthused about the kibbutz scheme.

Emmanuel's uncle offered a plot of tribal land, and the bank agreed to a loan. All he needs now, the young pioneer reckons, is about 30 families who might want to come together and create Sudan's very own Dgania Alef.

What about the fact that Sudan, like much of Africa, is a society built on networks of extended family and tribe- completely unaccustomed to cooperatives outside kin? "This will be a new model," retorts Emmanuel. The fact that no agricultural produce whatsoever is grown in south Sudan? "We will start with Mangoes and Papayas." That most people don't have money to put in, nor at ethic of organized labour? "This can be overcome." Each potential pitfall has a solution, as far as this optimistic would-be-pioneer is concerned.

**
Emmanuel, who was separated from his family and fled south Sudan to the north when he was eight, is not the only refugee coming home these days. As independence approaches, tens of thousands of south Sudanese, having escaped decades of brutal civil war and scattered out across the world -- are making their way back.

They are an eclectic bunch. Some have been in refugee camps in Uganda or Kenya and don't speak a word of Arabic anymore; Others have learnt to Salsa in Cuba. Some have spent time in detention in northern Sudan; Other have had military training in Libya. Some have been working as nurses in Australia; Others, have been nomads in Ethiopia. And some, like Emmanuel, have been on Kibbutz.

These returnees have a lot to offer us," says Elijah Meen, a civil servant, who picked up his younger brother Gordon at the airport last month after having not seen him in 18 years, since their family too was torn apart by the endless war.

Gordon, 29, like Emmanuel, had been an asylum seeker in Israel -- smuggled across the border by Bedouins after years of bouncing from one refugee camp to another in Kenya, Uganda and Egypt. "I knew nothing about Israel, but they are a friend to south Sudan more than other countries. We have been facing the same Arabs," he says.

His experience was mixed. "I thought I would find a life in Israel and get to study and work... maybe even join the army -- but it was difficult," he says. Gordon spent three years between Eilat, Tel Aviv and Hedera, looking for odd jobs and usually coming up short. "I was not from Darfur. I was not favored. I never had the right papers," he complains.

Late last year, he decided to come home and contacted the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ), a little known - and controversial - group that has organized several flights for Sudanese in Israel seeking be repatriated. "I miss Israel," he says. "Many people were kind. But your country is your country. Israel is good -- but it is not my country."

He flew out in mid December, on a commercial Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi and onward to Juba, together with some 140 other Sudanese asylum seekers from Israel, arriving with a carry-on bag and his favorite suit. "After all those years outside of Sudan, I came back with nothing." he says. "I am a little confused now," he admits. "I don't know what to do."
His brother sees it from a different perspective.

"We were wishing he could come home with knowledge of school. But even without, these people have seen the world. They have been exposed," says Elijah. "Even if they don't know how to build a road, at least have seen what building a road looks like. They have seen good houses and good bridges and they can now help us here."

Deng Alor, the man slated to become south Sudan's first foreign minister upon independence in July, echoes this sentiment. "These returnees can be very helpful to us today. They bring back ideas and investments and language. They are an asset." All refugees are welcome here, says Alor -- even northerners, including Darfuris, who cannot return to their own regions, will be received with open arms.

But, he stresses, no one should force these people home. "It should be up to these individuals to make their personal decision. If they decide to come back, if they feel the situation is attractive for them here, they should come and we will do everything we can to help facilitate their return. But if they are in Israel, studying or working, and they want to stay -- they should be permitted to do so."

**
The ICEJ sponsored flights that brought back Gordon, the Logoro family and other asylum seekers from Israel, says the future foreign minister, confounded him. "No one knew they were coming. Even if we have no formal relations, such things must still be coordinated," Alor claims. A senior advisor to the President's office says the same: "We were totally surprised by their arrival. We had not been informed and they came without papers, without anything."

But these assertions seem to contradict an eyewitness account by a member of the security force at Juba airport, who says that south Sudanese government officials were at hand to receive the returning refugees. "It seemed secret," says the security man, who saw three separate arrivals over the last two years. "In the past we have never heard of anyone who had been to Israel. It was not allowed. But when these people came from there, they got a good welcome."

The ICEJ did not respond to requests for information about their program, and Gordon and Emmanuel both decline to discuss details of their return, although they insist they came voluntarily.

"My first dream was to study law at Tel Aviv university, and I had been saving money -- but when I found out I would have to pay 21,000 shekels for a year of Mechina, I realized I would not be able to afford it," says Emmanuel. "And so I decided to turn to my second dream - the kibbutz one. No once forced me."

Addressing concerns that ICEJ may have tried to frighten asylum seekers to accept the offer of repatriation, Emmanuel points out that he did not need anyone else to tell him that certain people in Israel didn't like him there. "[Former interior minister0 Eli Yishai said we had AIDS and Swine Flu!" he notes, by way of one example.

But just as there were those Israelis who told him to go home, there were others - an even greater number, he says - who made him feel he was at home. He still talks regularly to his friends on the kibbutz -bombarding them with questions about communal living as he muddles his way through the nascent bureaucracy here. And in the future, he hopes, they might even be able to come over and lend a hand, or he might go back for a visit.

**
Emmanuel's Sudanese friends who stayed behind in Israel talk of joining him, he says, but most are hesitant. "You start the Kibbutz and then we will come," they tell him.

Gordon's friends in Tel Aviv are not rushing here either -- but they are toying with the idea, he says. "They call me and want to know the situation," he says. "I tell them we are like Israel in '48. We are about to have a new state. And just like Israel pulled itself up with help of those who returned from outside, so we need to return and help our country."

Emmanuel is not upset by any one else's hesitancy or discouraged by the obstacles on the ground here. "I believe in what I am doing, and I have patience," he says. In the meantime, to make ends meet, he has some other plans up his sleeve. For example, teaching Hebrew. "Why not? It's a fab language," he says. In fact, he is already in negotiations with Juba University to begin next semester.

But, he never loses sight of his main mission. "As long as I am alive I will work to build this kibbutz," he concludes -- and then adds, with a wink and big smile: "And as [Theodor] Herzl said, if you wish it, it is no legend."]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.806400 2011-01-18T08:19:59-05:00 2011-05-25T18:25:24-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
Except, of course, for the Jews. They are in Golders Green, schlepping suitcases through the foot-high snow to coaches that will take them north, to this year's Limmud conference -- a creative, collective learning experience that falls somewhere between Burning Man and yeshiva.

The five-day conference-cum-retreat, whose mission is to give Jews the opportunity to "take one step further on their Jewish journey," will feature more than 1,000 sessions given by some 400 presenters, and close to 2,500 participants/presenters in total -- from elderly gents in walkers arguing about Israel, to teenage girls playing tambourines and drinking "simcha on the beaches," the event's signature cocktail.

It's not particularly cheap (costing up to 685 pounds for the week per person) nor particularly comfortable (Limmud takes over Warwick University's campus, lodging participants in the empty dorm rooms of students away for the holiday) and the food is -- how shall I put it gently? -- terrible. But, for many in the British Jewish community, Limmud has become an un-missable yearly ritual.

"Think of it as a Seder experience," says Alastair Falk, who, together with three friends, started Limmud 30 years ago. "You meet up once a year, with people you don't always agree with or even necessarily like, but whom you consider family, and you share an experience -- complete with all its own traditions and significance."

**

My personal Limmud experience starts on the bus, where I sit myself down near two Israeli ladies -- Ulpan teachers for the Jewish agency, it turns out, who will be giving Hebrew lessons at the conference. Immediately, one of them suggests introducing me to her son, the banker. A man in thick glasses and a black kippa offers me some Bamba. Where does one even get Bamba in London?

The thought that I could have spent my weeklong holiday somewhere cooler then this crosses my mind, and not for the first, or last, time.

**

At the beginning, three decades ago, Limmud was intended as a conference for Jewish educators. The founders invited anyone who had anything to say about Judaism to teach a session, charged 15 pounds and bought some videos to stick into the VCR machine for the kids of participants who tagged along. "We figured people would like to get away for a few days and spend some time being Jewish," says Falk.

Turns out they were right. Some 80 people showed up that cold winter of 1980, and 40 sessions took place. The next year, they moved to a bigger venue and brought in kosher caterings -- and there has been no turning back since.

To date, some 22,000 Brits have attended Limmud, which is equivalent to about 10 percent of all British-Jewry, says Carolyn Bogush, Limmud's 39-year-old volunteer chair, a business psychologist and mother of three. And while the Christmas conference remains the flagship, today there are mini Limmud conferences, festivals and study events across Britain throughout the year, as well as in 50 communities around the world, from Moscow to Sydney to Rio and the Galil.

In 2010 alone, Bogush estimates, 35,000 people took part in a Limmud event somewhere in the world. Simply put, Limmud has become, she says, "British Jewry's greatest export."

"Limmud was born out of a frustration," explains Keith Kahn-Harris, a sociologist. "The idea of bypassing the ossified, traditional Jewish establishment and getting people from across communities together was radical. People who had no remote connection to organized Jewish life found themselves studying chevruta. Limmud provided a safe, non alienating space...and it caught on."

**

Upon arrival, I get my dorm room key, a 370-page catalogue filled with descriptions of the various sessions along with short bios of the lecturers and am directed to the cafeteria in the main building, called Rootes. I sit down for my lunch of potatoes with dry tuna fish --blissfully still unaware that this is pretty much all I will be eating every day -- and try and understand where to turn and what to do next.

"Choice is a fundamental principle here," explains Clive Lawton, another of the original founders. "Jews should learn here. That is our philosophy. But what, how and when to do it --we leave up to you. We always believed the market would rule."

"Even if God himself offered to show up and teach a session at 2 p.m.," he jokes, "...we would want to put on someone else at the same time, just in case someone was not interested."

The number of sessions, together with the variety of offerings and what Lawton calls a "glorious lack of quality control," make the whole experience slightly overwhelming: Am I interested in learning something about the book of Isaiah, or going to a session on the big "Broigesses" that shook and shaped Anglo-Jewry? I wonder. I am curious about what Judaism has to say about the death penalty, but "Eggplants: The Jewish culinary influence on Mediterranean Preparations," also looks tempting.

Should I try a session on Crusades and Medieval persecution or one on what do when halakha and ethics collide? Would it be valuable to go to a session on Modern Orthodoxy with Rabbi Shlomo Riskin from Efrat, or join the Limmud Choir, practicing for their performance at the final night gala. It's so exhausting, I sort of feel like taking a nap. Instead, I set out to decipher the cryptic names of classrooms where sessions are taking place.

**

The first class I choose -- on the late rabbinical thinker Abraham Isaac Kook -- is in a classroom called "RAM 5." Where is that? I wonder, and is it anywhere near "HUM 4" where another class I want to pop in on -- "Stress management for the modern Jew" -- is taking place?

En route to "SOC 7" where I was going to do some study on "The Kabbalah of Bob Dylan," I bump into Judith Ish-Horowitz, 57, a teacher from South London, on her way to a class in "SCI 6" on prayer in sign language.

Ish-Horowitz brought her husband, three children and parents to Limmud 20 years ago, and the whole clan has been coming together every winter since. "Nothing competes with Limmud. This is our big vacation of the year," she tells me. "...and also our best family time. We are always bumping into each other, and their friends have become our friends, and our's their's."

I stop by a class on Isaiah, and sit down in another one on whether Judaism can be a route to spirituality. The presenter talks about the Jewish calendar and how it frames our lives and sets our pace. I feel myself slowing down and listening carefully instead of constantly checking the catalogue to see what other classes I am missing. It is not bad at all, this Limmud, I think.

**

I start day two with a circuit training class on the second floor of Rootes, run by a personal trainer from London. It is comprised of seven other people, five of them wearing jeans and all huffing and puffing to her Giddy Gov music. This is not, I note, a very sporty crowd. The Shacharit prayers going on next door (Orthodox, Masorti, an egalitarian services each in adjacent rooms) and the chevruta project down the hall (where hundreds of participants in pairs have gathered to go over texts) are clearly where the action is.

I cram in a lot on this day. For example, I learn that in Medieval times the shiduch system suffered a crisis as Jewish kids stopped listening to their parent's dictums. I learn that you can interpret the Torah as advocating for vegetarianism. And that, others argue, it also allows for white lies. I discover how difficult it is to understand Pope Pius XII's attitude towards the Jews, and I am told, manna was a psychedelic drug. Is that true? Who knew? I walk into that class by mistake really, as it's right next to my other class on the Mishna Berura.

"And what happened when the Israelites ate too much manna?" asks the presenter, a bald New Yorker in thick glasses. "They lost their way and started worshipping a golden calf! Why a calf? Because mushrooms grow in cow shit! They were addicted!" How did I miss all this at my Masorati grade school in Jerusalem, I wonder. A young student puts his hand up: "Wasn't it too dry in the desert for mushrooms to keep?" So informed these Limmud folks, they don't miss anything.

**

I am so busy flitting from class to class that I almost forget I am here to write an article. I pull myself away from a session on "The workings of chevre kadishas," tip toe out of an interesting session on Gaza with John Ging, the UNRWA director, altogether skip the session on "How Matzah became square," and head out to do some interviews.

I start with some volunteers, which is not difficult, as they are everywhere. There are only four paid professionals in the whole organization. Practically everyone else, from the presenters to the technicians to the teen Limmud counselors are doing this for free. In fact, they are paying to do it. Eighty percent of the Limmud budget comes from participant fees, and while some 150 presenters get their expenses paid, all the rest, as well as all the organizers, most of whom are so busy working at the conference they barely have time to attend sessions, pay to come.

"It is about valuing what you are getting," says 37 year old Danielle Nagler, a senior executive at the BBC, a member of an orthodox synagogue and a mother of three, as well as being the co-chair of the conference, who estimates she put in about 15 Limmud hours a week over the last year. "Volunteering gives it a passion," she continues. "It sucks you in. ... And, it's an amazing feeling watching this pop up community, which starts in the abstract every year anew, be created."

**

Meir Adler, a 24 year old consultant, is volunteering at the information desk. The son of a Holocaust survivor and a Muslim convert to Judaism -- both of whom later became Bobover Hasidim -- Adler attends a charedi shtiebel in London where Yiddish is spoken, but also has a degree in philosophy and an increasingly secular outlook on life.

"I have moved away from my background but remember what's important. At Limmud, I feel part of something I am comfortable with," he says. "It's a buffet. There is every type of Judaism here. You can stay in your comfort zone or step out slightly and engage in dialogue. If you are very orthodox, it's unlikely you will come to a gay and lesbian event and decide it's the best thing on earth, but you might realize that it's right for others."

Are there atheists who come to Limmud too? I ask Adler and the others at the info desk. Sure, they respond and turn to the people standing in line: "Who is an atheist?" they cheerfully call out.

"I'm a borderline atheist," offers Deborah Freeman, a 65-year-old playwright from Manchester. She usually comes to Limmud for a day or two, gives a session on her plays and attends a few on the arts, or on Israel. "I find the Tanach to be an inspiration, but I don't see God in it, rather stories about God," she says. "Here, I can delve and learn, but remain the me I want to be."

**

Back at Rootes for some tuna and potatoes, the only thing more astonishing than the quality of the lunch is the incredible number of people standing in line for it. But why is everyone queuing in one line when there are actually three stations? I cut around to the second one, smug that I am so much more enterprising than these Brits, and ask if there is anything besides the little packets of kosher thousand island dressing to go with the gourmet meal.

"She must be Israeli," a handsome young father points out to his son: "She is doing the line back to front." Oh, the shame. The shame. I am a rude Israeli. What would my British grandparents say? Another guy who is cutting the line beside me -- a fellow Israeli, what a surprise -- gives me a sheepish look.

**

I slink away to "SOC 4," and a class about how the siddur came into being, and after head over to get some tea in the Arts center, where I bump into Silvia Nacamulli, a 39-year-old Italian chef. She is here with her husband Marc Iarchy, a Belgian banker, whom she met three years ago at Limmud when he walked into her class on making pumpkin risotto.

"I was standing in the hall and had 20 minutes to kill," 41-year-old Iarchy recounts, "...and a friend grabbed me, and said 'Hey, you like cooking ... come check this out.'" He spent the whole session, Iarchy admits, Googling the pretty presenter on his Blackberry -- and the rest, as they say, is history.

Limmud is, as one might imagine, the biggest Jewish pick up event this side of the Birthright program. Two of Ish-Horowitiz's kids met their partners here, as did Bogush, Kahn-Harris and countless of others.

"Who is going to be your girlfriend?" I ask Isaac Tendler, a 14-year-old Orthodox boy from Nottingham, who is the only Jew in his school of 1,500 pupils. He giggles, slumps into a bean bag and kicks off a sneaker. "Let's just say I would not marry someone not Jewish," he responds, gravely. "I guess you could say that is a good reason to he here ... even if some of the Torah stuff is boring."

**

It's the last morning of the conference, and I wake up early to go for a jog in the snow. Careful not to wipe out on the ice, and pulling my wool hat firmly down to protect me from the drizzle, I run past a long line of ugly concrete university buildings and daydream about the bikini I could have been wearing if I had taken these days and gone to the beach.

I slow down to read some yellow signs pinned to the makeshift eruv: they say something about a catchy virus and advise Limmudniks who find themselves throwing up on what to do.

I definitely could have been in more cool places this week.

I do a loop around RAM in the fog, and find myself near SOC, thinking back to the "Nazis in Oxford" class I sat in on yesterday. I dash past HUM, take a short cut around SCI, fondly reflecting on the Tuesday session there on Breslov and Chabad messianism. I slow down near the Arts center, and stop in front of Rootes, where, humming a Hasidic nigun as I stretch out my calves, I realize I am a little sad about leaving. A little nostalgic. A little bereft, even. I think of the bikini holiday. And I wonder where I sign up for Limmud next year.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.801773 2011-01-03T12:02:17-05:00 2011-05-25T18:20:30-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
In Malta, just like everywhere else in the world, not all marriages work out as planned.

Sometimes the couple grows apart. Sometimes it turns out they were never suited to begin with. Sometimes one of the two falls in love with someone else.

Just like other couples elsewhere in the world, some try to work it out for the kids, some try to work it out for their parents, and some try to work it out for themselves. And yet, at the end, a certain - and growing -- number eventually decide to call it quits.

But then comes a problem which is different here than anywhere else in the world: In Malta, divorce is illegal.

Yes, at a time when, in many countries, almost half of marriages end in divorce, this strictly Catholic island remains one of only two countries - the other being the Philippines--where it is simply not allowed. Billboards scattered around the country with the words: "Divorce: God doesn't want it," bring home the point clearly.

When the prohibition on divorce was written into the Maltese constitution in the 1960s, with the encouragement of the Vatican, it was common elsewhere the Catholic Mediterranean, such as in Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. But, those countries have all since legalized it, leaving traditional, family-centered Malta, with its small population of about 415,000- of which is 98 percent Roman Catholic- an anomaly.

"We are still bound to the principle that marriage is for life and we should be proud of this," explains senior statesman Eddie Fenech Adami, who has served as both prime minister and president of Malta. Other countries, he charges, are "confused" and are "living in great contradiction."

Perhaps. But what is an unhappy couple to do?

"There are ways around the problem," says Mark, a banker, who is on his second marriage.
For one, he explains, foreign divorces are recognized in Malta - so, if one has the means and ways, this is an option. And it's the one Mark took. He met his first wife, an Australian, when he was at university in England, and the two wed Down Under. As such, he was also able to obtain a divorce in Australia, a process which required several month-long trips to that country to establish residency.

"But, for the large majority of the population, traveling abroad, and obtaining the necessary prerequisites for such a foreign divorce is difficult if not impossible," he says. "I was lucky, so to speak, but it's not a solution." In 2009, according to the National Statistics Office, only 31 divorces granted by foreign countries were recognized in Malta.

Another option is to apply for a Catholic annulment of marriage--but this is no simple process either. It can take a particularly long time in Malta--typically eight to ten years--to be approved, if permission is given at all, and requires proof the marriage was never valid to begin with, either because it was never consummated, or because there was "important information" (think impotence, infertility or insanity) that was unknown at the time. In 2009, only 167 annulments were granted.

So what about the hundreds and even thousands of others who want out of bad marriages? While there are no statistics on the matter in Malta, unofficial estimates are that the country is not far behind others in the EU, where an average of about 40 percent of marriages break up.

"We were traditionally trained from childhood that marriage is a lifelong bond and that therefore one must choose one's spouse carefully as this is the person one is to spend the rest of one's life with," says Pierre Mallia, a professor of bioethics here. But, he admits, "...modern society has indeed had its toll and people look at secularized societies. Many more people opt out of marriage very early now."

For the vast majority of those separating Maltese couples, for whom neither an annulment or a foreign divorce is an option, the solution is to avoid the extra headache, heartache and expense and simply separate unofficially. Meaning, people move on with their lives: Leaving the family home, co-habitating with new partners, having new families, and yet all the while still married to their original partner.

"Knowing you are officially 'stuck' in marriage might have made me personally be more careful," says Joanne, an architect who only married in her mid 30s, long after all her friends. "But I see that the system does not work. My friends don't work harder on their marriages or anything like that. Being in a relationship in Malta is no less complicated than it is anywhere else, obviously. It's like saying: '...don't build a hospital because then more people will get sick.' It does not make sense."

Sometimes, separating couples will get an official "separation agreement," which requires going through a state sponsored mediation process and then working with lawyers to set up guidelines for a financial arrangement. Last year, 519 couples officially separated, and there are reportedly over a thousand backlogged cases of others wanting to get this status.
The whole situation, point out pro-divorce advocates, is more than a technical nuisance -- it creates various legal and financial problems having to do with children, property and rights of the former partner. The inability of anyone to re-marry, meanwhile, leads to even more complications having to do with the insecure status of those in second partnerships.

"I met a man when I was 22 and we married. A miserable year later we separated and I was alone for five years, until I met Fernando, who himself was separated from his wife and had one child," relays 42 year old Maria. After eleven years of living together, and three children, Fernando left Maria, who does not work and has no source of income, for another woman.
"Now, I have no status or money or means of getting any of this from Fernando because I was never his wife. In fact, because he had a separation agreement with his wife, he is obligated to financially support her and his first child, but has no responsibility towards us."

The combination of a less religious younger generation, the fact that the marriages of everyone from senior members of parliament to top judges are breaking up, and that a reported one in every four children is born out of wedlock today has led to a growing bipartisan cry to change the laws.

According to Michael Frendo, speaker of the parliament, the frustration surrounding the Catholic stand on divorce in the country is unique - there is no such cry, for example, against the ban on abortion or the prohibition of gay marriage in place. And, while the country still seems split on the question, there seems now, for the first time, to be a slight shift in balance for it.

In July, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando presented the first private member's bill to introduce divorce, and many here now expect this will lead to a referendum on the question and a vote in parliament next year. If there is a referendum, it will be the first one held in Malta since the 2003 vote on whether to join the EU-an indication of the importance of the debate.
"Allowing divorce in Malta will neither make worse or solve the problem of a breakdown of marriage and family, says journalist Kurt Sansone, who writes about the issue for the local Times newspaper. "That breakdown is traumatic and painful any way you look at it - but more and more people are ready to admit that we need a divorce law."
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.786671 2010-12-06T17:40:00-05:00 2011-05-25T18:15:22-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/ Why Papua?" my mom asks me. And where is it anyway? I have no immediate answers. But a week later I have not only found it on a map and purchased all forms of cool camping paraphernalia (think quick dry towels and waterproof socks), but also come up with a philosophy to explain the high importance of voyaging across the world to this tropical land. My mom closes her eyes, raises her eyebrows and wishes she had normal children.

The sparsely populated island of New Guinea, the second largest island in the world after Greenland, is divided between two countries: the independent nation of Papua New Guinea in the east, and the Indonesian Papua -- formally known as Irian Jaya -- in the west. Over 75 percent of Papua is covered by impenetrable jungle, and is home to an incredible diversity of plant and animal life, as well as an array of indigenous, so-called 'primitive' tribes -- many of whom have little or no contact with the world outside.

Believed to number some three to four thousand people, the Korowai of south eastern Papua are one such tribe. They were 'discovered' in the 1970s but remain isolated. They hunt with bows and arrows, subsist for weeks on roots and slugs, are illiterate, and don't wear clothing or know modern medicine. They practice polygamy, believe in witchcraft and live in scattered tree houses 25- 50 meters off the ground. They are also thought to be some of the last people in the world to practice cannibalism.

Thoughts of traipsing into the jungle to meet Korowai begin to fill my imagination.

"Are there actually tribes with no knowledge of modern life?" I wonder. "Is cannibalism still practiced?" "Is the jungle really so dense you can't get through it?"

"Might such a trip be a good way to lose weight?"

And besides all this: "Why is all this 'otherness,' so inherently compelling to me?"

That last is a good question to chew on. And the answer probably has much to do with trying to understand myself, as anything else. I'm hoping, it would seem, that seeing how others make sense of the world around them -- will give me some insight into my own.

"Good luck," says my brother. "You need it."

I set out with Adam, a TV producer and fellow searching soul, who has a month's long vacation. He packs all his unread summer New Yorkers in a special water tight pouch, buys a spear gun ("for fishing, idiot," he explains when he sees my face) and we set off, stopping for lattes and mini ginger muffins at the Brasserie en route out of the country.

The journey to Papua is not short. We drive across the border from Jerusalem to Jordan and from there fly to Qatar, watching the latest Indian Jones movie on our personal TV monitors and daydreaming about discovering new tribes. After a seven hour layover, we get on another flight (12 hours) to Jakarta, where it turns out -- surprise! -- the spear gun sticking out the top of Adam's knapsack has been offloaded in Doha.

Twenty four hours and many new friends at the Qatar Airways lost and found office later, we are back on track, with a complete luggage set, flying overnight to Jayapura, the capital of Papua, and onwards to Wamena in the highlands. It's pouring rain, dark and buggy as we leave the airstrip, and we speak not one of the reported 300 odd languages used here. Members of the Dani tribe, best known for their penis gourd attire, wander around town wanting to shake hands.

We begin to realize that part of the reason so few tourists come to Papua (under a 800 last year, according to the Lonely Planet) is not solely because no one is as intrepid as us -- but also because no one is as uninformed. Traveling into the jungle, it quickly turns out, is not only dangerous, time consuming and physically challenging; it also costs a fortune. Who knew, for example, just how expensive hiring a motorized canoe could be?

We spend days negotiating, finally putting our faith -- and close to three thousand dollars -- in the hands of our newfound guide and translator Isak. And then, off we go, by small plane -- the cost of which is calibrated according to one's weight -- to Dekai, a dusty village on the edge of the Brazza River.

There, we meet up with Lakor, a young cook who does not stop smiling and who knows how to make rice topped with instant ramen noodles and nothing else. He joins our party and we spend another two days in protracted re-negotiations over money, swatting mosquitoes and eating biscuits filled with pineapple cream.

Finally, armed with just about all the information needed for a Ph.D. on motorized canoes in Papua, we pick up our travel permits from the local police chief, lower ourselves into the dugout canoe and motor ten hours down the river, mainly in pouring rain, to the improbably even smaller village of Mabul.

Moving right along, we recruit four Korowai tribe teenagers who will be our porters: Gershon, who, because of polio, has use of only one leg, silent Lucas, Solomon, who is adorned in colorful beads, and little Titus, whose father, we are told, was eaten by members of the Kombai tribe last year.

And then, a week and a day after leaving home, we march bravely into the jungle. I immediately fall off a log and ram my left shin. The adventure has begun.







It's the second day of bushwhacking through the jungle and I am perched on a rock, covered in mud, pulling a leach out of my sock. Adam is being devoured by giant biting flies. And Lakor, our cook, is hovering over Isak's head trying to dislodge a cluster of thorns with a razor blade. I wonder, and not for the first time, what I am doing here.

The jungle is beautiful -- filled with mangroves, sago palms, breadfruit trees and thousands of different species of orchids. The thick insect life, upon which I mostly will harp from here on out, is actually astonishing. Papua is home to some 800 species of spiders, 30,000 kinds of beetles and god only knows how many sorts of mosquitoes. This is a place of frogs, bowerbirds, cockatoos and parrots, where 120 pound flightless birds called cassowaries are king and wild pigs roam free.

It's a forest so dense that you feel completely alone if separated from the others by more than 20 feet. Sound, too, is swallowed here. "Waaa" I call out when I feel myself lost. "Waahaa" call back Lucas, or Titus, who inevitably will be standing just the other end of the nearest log. It's humbling.

In this wild nature, I have become totally dependent on "the guys" as we have christened the porters. They spend the days nimbly racing ahead- barefoot - carrying all of our camping and cooking gear. Gershon, on one leg, is a veritable human GPS system, making a sharp left at this tree, a right at this orchid, a U-turn at that shrub.

They wait for me to laugh at myself before allowing themselves to do so, even though my stumbles are comedic -- getting entangled on a vine here, stuck in bramble there. Lakor and Gershon have taken to anticipating my every wobble, and take turns putting out a steadying arm for me, their timing only bested by their gentleness.

But for some reason I can't fully relax or appreciate it all. I spend an inordinate amount contemplating the pros and cons of my long sleeve shirt -- humidity and sweat dictate it should be off, mosquitoes eating me alive prompt me to put it back on. On breaks from considering this dilemma, I am focused on the delicate art of not flying off the wet logs we traverse -- into murky swamps below. With an annual rainfall of about 200 inches, Papua is one of the wettest, and muddiest, places on earth.

Not helpful is Adam, who talks incessantly about how he should have gone to Paris for his vacation instead, and Isak, who, it turns out, is not as good a planner as one might have hoped. We are already running out of both food and drinking water. He has not brought a first aid kit, mats to sleep on, or any of his own personal basics either. He asks me to borrow a towel, toothpaste and, sheepishly, some socks.

And the Korowai? Well, our first encounter with a jungle member of this tribe is, shall we say, underwhelming. The man has a bone through his nose and is naked from the waist down save for a half acorn on his penis -- but is also sporting a red t-shirt reading www.komodoadventure.com. Cut video. I am worried this is not the real thing. Mr. Korowai is not too interested in us either, takes the tobacco we offer, and wanders away, shrugging.

We need to go deeper into the jungle to meet the more authentic members of the tribe, explains Isak, who has come over to borrow some mosquito repellent. The never ending search for authenticity. Right. The sun sets and we move further and further into the brush. I feel slightly silly. Will meeting Korowai without t-shirts really bring some form of illumination? Why would it? We continue slugging along. I take my long sleeve shirt off. And put it back on again. I miss my Brasserie cafe back home.







In time, we settle into a jungle routine -- walking all day, breaking in the afternoon for a meal of rice topped with ramen instant noodles, looking for streams to bathe in, and, in the evening, thwacking our way to a tree house and requesting permission to join a Korowai family in their home for the night.

Each night offers a different family and a different experience, but the pattern is similar. We hoist ourselves up the shaky wooden poles onto the tree house platform, pump hands vigorously for some time with everyone, saying "manop, manop" which means "good, good," and then hang out entertaining one another and eating slugs (them) or pineapple flavored cream biscuits (us) until bed time.

The Korowai and Kombai live in the trees to protect themselves from floods, animals and other tribes, and move every few years in search for more game to hunt. These tree houses come in all sizes, but typically have thatched roofs and bamboo partitions between men and women sections. Dog bones, sugar cane arrows and cassowary feathers decorate the rafters.

The scenes within are usually chaotic, filled with chatting, coughing, spitting, babies crying and small pigs and dogs making a racket. As Isak promised, the deeper we travel into the jungle the more those we meet seem "authentic" and "primitive." By the end of the week we are staying with a family -- the Nandof -- that seem as excited by our otherness as we are by theirs.

I sit around with the women of the family who are topless, wear skirts made of sago fiber, decorate their hair with tiny mice bones and tails and wear dog's teeth as necklaces. I can't stop taking photos. They, in turn, cant stop reaching out to touch my white skin and light hair and falling over laughing.

I give the young girls earrings as gifts. They share them easily, taking out the red threads worn as earlobe decorations out and giving them to me in return. We pass around their babies and share some sago root patties. I give my pen to a teenager, who watches me write in my diary -- but she can not figure out how to use it. She gives me a small boiled banana, which tastes exactly like a potato.

Over in the "men's section," Adam is blowing up balloons we have brought from home and twisting them into crowns. Soon, everyone, children and elders alike, are adorned in squeaky pink and blue balloon hats -and nothing else. Isak, a born again Christian, asks the Korowai to bow their heads as he says an evening prayer. Animists, but respectful, they do, closing their eyes and clutching the balloons so they don't fly away.

Bedtime happens at about six, when it suddenly becomes pitch dark. I try reading with a torch for a while, but the light attracts bugs that go flying directly in my eyes and I give up. We suggest boiling water for the next day, but no one seems to be listening to us. Isak asks to borrow some calamine lotion.

I can't sleep. Lying close to the edge of the tree house I worry about rolling over and off the edge. A German tourist toppled out of this very family's old tree house a few years ago and died, the Korowai tell us. "One leg here and other there," they say, describing the event and shaking their heads. I can't bear the uncomfortable wooden slats of the floor, but don't dare budge too far in any direction. I drift off to sleep, my dreams filled with falling.

In what seems like the middle of the night, I wake and watch the old men preparing the sago patties on a smoldering fire nearby -- spitting into their palms to knead the root. A mental note regarding eating sago patties from here on out is made. A little girl with what looks like ringworm marks across her body has cuddled up near me. I pull my hand out of my sleeping sheet to see what time it is. 10pm.

A piglet in the corner begins to squeal. I need to pee. I flash the light again. A mosquito bites my thumb. 10:02. I close my eyes, put my head on my smelly knapsack, squashing the camera inside, and try shifting without actually budging. A small dog walks over me. 10:03.

I am up long before dawn, and watch the sky light up in various shades of red and grey. It's raining and the tree house sways gently. I notice the clothes I hung up to dry have become, if possible, even wetter. A wild pig darts under the house snorting, and the 30 odd Korowai strewn around me begin to stir. For some reason, I start giggling. A feeling of inexplicable delight and amusement at the situation descends upon me. I take a deep breath and am present, in the here and now, and content.







"So, tell me, do you really eat humans?" I ask Jacob, a Korowai tribesman whose family -- the Dayo -- we stay with on one of our last nights in the jungle. Isak translates from English to Bahasa and Lakor translates from Bahasa into Korowai. "I have eaten three," comes the answer, taking the same three tiered translation journey back to me. Jacob gestures nonchalantly to his left to indicate the direction the latest dinner came from. Adam raises an eyebrow. I wonder if someone along the translation line has made this up for the benefit of us visitors.

Although the Korowai are often considered to be some of the last remaining cannibals in the world -- eating male members of other tribes they consider to be witches or "kahkhua" -- there is no first hand outsider account of such behavior. Reed College anthropologist Rupert Stasch, who spent 18 months with the Korowai in the '90s, found no evidence of cannibalism, despite being told by tribesmen of it occurring.

Cannibals or not, however, it's clear they can hunt. And if I were a kahkhua, I would head to town.

"Gwak, Gawak" a bird calls out one late afternoon. It is, Isak will later explain, a cautionary call meaning a monitor lizard is nearby. The porters stop in their tracks, drop our equipment and go running. Adam and I stumble after them into the thicket, and watch as Lucas and Titus shimmy up the trees, yelping to the rest as to the whereabouts of the escaping lizard, which they track from up above. Solomon, Gershon and Lakor down below race around shaking trees and letting off their own high pitched hunting cries.

I can barely track the guys in the dense forest, much less the lizard, but suddenly, they have him cornered and the entire team is whacking the animal to death with fists and sticks. Solomon pulls his poisonous tongue out and lifts the bloody four foot reptile up high. Watching the video of this later, all Adam and I can make out are trees, the sound of our own voices caught in the background: "Oh My God!"

As the voyage nears its end I try to think about the question that brought me here in the first place. Did I learn anything about myself from the Korowai?

By and large, the master plan of looking for big answers fell by the wayside almost immediately, as I settled into enjoying the simpler delights of the trip: A florescent blue butterfly on an orchid, a friendly afternoon chat about cannibalism, an evening lying at the edge of a tree house, a crazy lizard hunt.

But, nonetheless, I end the trip with a few new ideas about the trade offs we "civilized" societies have made in leaving the jungle. For, while civilization has provided all of the comfort and wealth, culture, sophistication and fineries of the world I live in -- it has also robbed us of the direct knowledge of our intuitions, our true necessities, our natural selves. The Korowai, in some way, represent a form of living alternative to who we could have been. And while I would not like to trade worlds, I know there is magic in theirs too.

We stumble back into Mabul where we began the journey, feeling like shell shocked soldiers returning home from war. Heroes even. I hold hands with the children that come out to greet me and half expect to see movie credits rolling down the scene.

I have flea bites all over my stomach, spider eggs entangled in my hair, mosquito and fly bites lacing my ankles, and black and blue marks on my shins. For days to come I will find cockroaches mysteriously climbing out of my bags. I cannot remember ever being so thankful for reaching the end of a trip in my life - and yet, at the same time, and quite honestly, a part of me does not want it to end.

I give Gershon my email address. You never know. One day he might learn to read and write, or get somewhere connected to the World Wide Web, and track me down. I guess he would also have to learn English too, or me, Korowai. The chances are mighty slim. I give him a tip. He gives me a pineapple. I think we are both a little sad. And then I get into a canoe and begin the long trip home.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.734744 2010-09-25T11:44:17-04:00 2011-05-25T17:50:22-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/ Surf (v): to ride on the crest of a wave, typically toward the shore, while riding on a surfboard.

I cannot surf. Something about that spring up from the belly onto the board eludes me and I always end up losing my balance, crashing into the wave instead of riding it, and often also knocking myself in the head with the board.

Couch surfing, however, is another matter completely. At that, turns out, I am a natural.

Couch surf (v): to travel from place to place in this world, typically towards nowhere in particular, while sleeping overnight, for free, on the couches of strangers you meet on the internet.

It starts, as many things do, with Google. There, I discover a web based community founded in 2004 by a young Alaskan named Casey Fenton who thought of the idea when, as a student, he went on a trip to Iceland and needed a place to crash for the night. Unlike many other on line social networking communities -- this one is all about getting away from your computer, and traveling to get to know new people face to face.

It works sort of like the old home-swapping idea, except there is no requirement to reciprocate. You register (for free), set up a profile, and can then chose to either host other members on your couch, or make requests to stay on the couches of others -- or both.

Hosts are under no obligation to invite someone over if they feel uncomfortable and can set ground rules for the visit -- bring your own sheets, for example, or don't stay more than three nights. The network is based on a trust, and you are encouraged to write reviews of the people you get to know, so as to build up a verification and vouching system, which serves as something of a safety net.

A trickle of interest, and a few thousands users soon turned into a torrent -- and today there are over 2 million members, who hail from 238 countries -- which makes couch surfing the largest hospitality exchange network in the world.

I start my week-long couch surfing adventure scrolling through the hundreds of hosts listed on the Rome page and randomly pick one. "Hi there, could I stay on your couch Sunday night?" I write, cheerfully, to a handsome looking guy named Biagio, who has glowing references and states he likes to cook pasta for his guests. His couch- also pictured -looks rather plush. A few hours later I check my couch surfing message box. No answer. I'm a little worried. The next day, Biagio writes back to say he is renovating his flat and cant help me out. Is that true? I wonder, insecure. Would it be better if were 22? From Holland? Was there something wrong with my request?

I spend the afternoon filling in and re-writing my profile, trying to be both impressive and modest - and a little funny- all at once. So difficult. I write a few words about my life philosophy, list my hobbies and search for the right photo to upload. I settle on one of me posing with my friend Amber's husband Tal. He is muscular and fiercely good looking. That will put off any potential rapists, I think. I look at various people's profiles and references and try to gauge who would make good hosts and who is uptight or weird and with whom I have interests in common. I send out a whole new batch of couch requests.

I soon decide to skip Rome altogether - they get too many requests, I figure, and I cant deal with the competition -- and soon am corresponding with a Stefano in Lucca, a Sergio in Milan, and am putting out feelers in half a dozen other towns and villages across Italy and into France. I peruse the online Paris group, join the Milan group and, well, there you go, I am doing it.

Surfing, Surfing...and I am off.

I arrive in Lucca by bus in the early evening and sit to wait for Stefano, my first couch surf host, on the bench outside the closed visitors office. It distinctly feels like I am about to go on a blind date and I don't like it. I feel a little glum. And my bag is too heavy. How will I know what Stefano looks like? Wait, is his name even Stefano? or is this Sergio? What normal person would be here waiting on a bench to go over to sleep at a stranger's house? I wonder, getting increasingly bleak. It starts to drizzle. A car drives up.

Turns out he is lovely. Rolly poly and friendly, we walk along the cobbled streets of town to get a drink. We chat about how the Italians always dub their movies and how the guy who did the voice for Woody Allen just died. Stefano argues the guy who does Al Pachino has a voice more suited to Al Pachino than Al himself. I cant really disagree. He is 35 and a fellow journalist who works at the regional TV station in Pisa, we move on to discuss the demise of the typewriter and then his recent trip to South America. Forty-six percent of Argentines are actually Italians, he tells me. That cannot be true, I think, but don't want to contradict my host lest he write me a bad couch surfing review.

We head over to a pizzeria and eat Cecina, which is basically a chick pea patty with more in common with hummus than a slice, and drink a cheap sparkling concoction called Spuma Biondi made, Stefano tell me, out of sugar. We talk about couch surfing. He joined, he explains, because he likes to travel alone -- but not after 8pm. Then it gets lonely and you find yourself wishing for some company.

He has couch surfed in Turkey, Portugal, and across South America, and, back home in Lucca, has hosted 60 people so far. He likes to receive one guest at a time and not couples or groups, he specifies on his profile, so he can really talk and get to know them -- and he also tries to host older surfers, because he has more in common with them. The average age of couch surfers is, according to the web site, 28 -- although there are families that surf together, and elderly who join in too.

The bill comes and I hedge. What is the etiquette here? Is the surfer supposed to pay? Did those etiquette rules take into account my lowly Haaretz budget? We split it. Is that OK? Is he a little disappointed? We drive some six kilometers out of town into the countryside and down a gravel lane to his house in relative silence. It's late and I am looking forward to the couch.

My first couch is actually more of a narrow bed, set in Stefano's study, next to an old computer and a bookshelf filled with dictionaries. There are sheets on the bed already. Wonderful. I need to check into the couch surfing site to see what is happening with my other couch requests for later in the week, but he does not have internet at home. Good night, he says. A girl walks out of another room -- his sister, it turns out, who he lives with. She nods, I nod, the whole thing is a little strange I guess, but, whatever.

The next day, Stefano and I part with a stilted hug and wish one another good luck. I tell him I will give him a call if I am ever writing stories about Tuscany, he says he will be in touch too. He drives off, and I wander off to try to find a wireless spot and get a cappuccino. How painless was that? I think. Couch surfing is so easy! What is not easy, however, is getting on line to check my couch surfing account. Have they not heard of wireless in Italy?

I get a local train to the coastal town of Viareggio, where, schlepping my bags down to the boardwalk, I continue on my search for the elusive Italian wifi café. Finally, together with my third cappuccino of the day, I pick up a signal. First order of business, I write a glowing review of my stay with Stefano. Firstly because he is nice, and second because I am hoping he will now write something nice about me, which in turn will get more people to want to host me. I am so keen, I end up pressing the wrong tab and posting my review twice. I add him as a friend. My first Couch Surfing friend. Its so exciting. Ah, no. I see he has to confirm me. Is it strange he has not written a review of me? What else could he be doing with his time?

I then reconfigure my settings so I can get messages sent directly to my blackberry, and I correspond a little with Mickael from Grenoble, who has agreed to host me later in the week. He is new to the site and has no references, and is also a member of the "Grenoble SOS group" which means he is willing to put up travelers who get stuck and need a last minute bed. Is that suspicious? He has no friends, I note. But then again, neither do I. Why has Stefano not confirmed me as a friend? It's all so stressful this, in its own, laid back surfing way.

On my blackberry, meanwhile, I have begun to get about a message a minute from the Milan group I have signed up for. "We are meeting for an a drink Tuesday," reads one. "I will be there," replies someone called Patrizia. "Me too," chimes in a guy called Popey. And so it goes.

I head back to the station and stand on line to ask if there is internet on the train. They have no idea what I am even asking. The journey is stunning. The train whizzes between the green mountains and bright blue sea and deposits me in Milan, where I set off to find Maurizio, Italy's couch surfing "ambassador," at the drinks gathering.

A 51 year old computer expert with salt and pepper hair, Maurizio is originally from Sicily, but has been living in Milan for 28 years. He discovered couch surfing three years ago when he went to Bremen, Germany for a quick cheap weekend, and used the site to find somewhere to stay. Since then he has come to live and breath the community. He moderates groups, organizes and participates in local couch surfing activities, and, as ambassador, helps negotiate problems and promote the spirit of the enterprise. There are city and country ambassadors, all volunteers, all over the world.

Maurizio arrives at the interview with three girls, a 22 year old Latvian and two 20 year olds from St Petersburg, one of whom, it later transpires, has family in Haifa. "Shalom," we say. Ok. All three girls, along with another young Canadian woman who will show up later, are couch surfing with Maurizio that night. Since he joined, boasts the ambassador, he has hosted 500 people, making him the top host in the country.

But, he adds, if he accepted all the requests received he could have easily hosted double that number. Maurizio has certain rules he goes by when selecting his guests -- those who "copy and paste" requests will be refused; He prefers women, he admits, "because they are much neater," and he rarely replies to those with empty profiles. "I do not want to host a ghost," he explains. He keeps in touch, he says, with about 75 percent of those who he has met through the site.

The two main misconceptions about couch surfing, he says, are that it is a free bed and that it is a dating site. Ok. You do get a free bed, and sometimes, you might find a date - in fact, he admits, he met his girlfriend -- a violinist from Latvia -- when she came to surf his couch two years ago. But couch surfing, he stresses, is much more than that - it is a way of life.
"This is a community of like minded people," he says. "...open minded and young at heart, who love to travel and meet travelers and share experiences."

Milan, he continues proudly, has one of the most active couch surfing communities in the world, with some 3000 members in total and social frequent gatherings to which 250 people easily show up. Don't I know it. I am drowning in news bulletins from the Milan group.

And what is his motivation to host so many people, I ask, seeing him try to make conversation with the St Petersburg girls, who speak minimal English. Years ago, he was about to get married and had bought a big apartment in central Milan, he tells me. Then, things fell apart: he got cancer, his fiancé left him and while he survived the disease, he was left unable to have children. He did, however, still have the big apartment.

"I feel this project helps me fill the hole of not having children in my life," he says. "Its not like everyone who comes to stay for a night or two is like my child, but I do imagine that if I had kids, I would want them to be looked after the way I try to look after these visitors to my home."

Soon, my host for the night, Sergio, a 37 year old lawyer, shows up on a massive motorbike, gives me a spare helmet and whisks me away, bags and all, for a tour of the city.

Yelling to be heard above the wind, he points out a hospital for elderly musicians, a pizzeria whose owner once shot some sobers and became a popular vigilante, the Brazilian restaurant where Ronaldino and all the other AC Milan footballers hang out, and a prison where the top floor prisoners can peer out the windows into the roundabout below.

This is not the stuff of tour guides, that's for sure. We pass by the monastery where De Vinci's Last Supper resides, zoom by the Duomo, under repair as always, head over to the main synagogue, dally at the Piazza, and make our way down the narrowest street in town. Do you want to see Berlusconi's home? he asks me. I'm so tired, its possible I will fall asleep and off the back of the bike. A couch. I need a couch.

The one he offers, back at his apartment, is a pull out in his office and comes complete with clean sheets, a light summer blanket and a bottle of mosquito repellent on the side table. On the wall is a map of Guinea, and we get chatting about West Africa where he has, of course, also couch surfed.

In the kitchen, meanwhile, Sergio shows me a collection of gifts from his other surfer guests - alcohol from all over the world, boxes of chocolate and a sole package of instant noodles from China. I bring out my own chocolate box offering and present it to him. He smiles kindly.

I wake Wednesday practically in panic about Dijon. Dijon, the weak link in the operation. I plan to be there Saturday night but have not yet secured a host and need to send out a fresh slew of requests. I scroll down through my approximately 450 emails from the couch surfing Milan group I received overnight. How much is it costing me to get all these emails on roaming? I say thank you to Sergio, hit the road and un-join the Milan group.

Next up is my host Ilaria, a 26 year old part time student, part time nutritionist from Bergamo, just north of Milan, who welcomes me into her messy ground floor apartment with a box of Mazas in her hand. Maza? Indeed. She does not like salt or wheat, so she is a big fan. How random.

Random, in fact, is a good description of my evening with her. It is shared with Helen, a saxophonist from Estonia who speaks half a dozen languages and is en route to visit her Argentinean boyfriend, and Pauli, a Finnish mathematician, both of whom are also surfing with Ilaria. We go folk dancing - but of course.

When I first heard of the plan I had visions of an old fashion dance in a village in the hills -- but instead we take the highway and get incredibly lost in the suburbs, going through one desolate round about to the next and down dead ends that end at mega supermarkets. Finally, we reach a suburban sports center, where a celebration of Scottish jigs and Polish polkas is taking place on the basket ball court. Helen pulls me in, and, her arms around my waist, we twirl around and around.

"I love these dances because they are so inclusive," says Ilaria. "They have music from all over the world and immigrants come, with their children, to show them the different cultures." Its such a lovely comment. "Inclusive" -- it's a good way to describe this whole couch surfing experience so far. I like it.

Soon--Oh dear, I knew it was coming -- the bands strikes up a lively Debka. I stumble with the steps. Are you not Israeli? my new friends ask me, unimpressed. "It's Syrian!" I protest. They are not buying it. Next up comes up Zadik Hatamar - Whew, the one Israeli folk dance I know. "Zadik Hatamar Yifrach Yifrach," I sing along loudly, as we, the couch surfers, together with the Italian suburbanites and the immigrants all hold hands and sway this way and that.

When I wake early the next morning, on my couch in the dining room, Ilaria is shuffling out of her room to drive me to the station. I am touched. What a genuinely kind, generous person. "I like helping others," she says. "I know what its like to be a stranger in a town." Ilaria hosts anywhere between one and eight people a week, she says, often leaving spare keys for guests to come in and out. 'Its good karma," she says. I give her my Fodor's Italy, kiss her goodbye, get on the train and head across the mountains to France.

Nine hours, several trains and a little hitch hiking later I descend in the studenty town of Grenoble to wait for Mickael, the 24 year old interior designer with no references I am a little worried about. We walk back to his cramped apartment, which he shares with three others: Thomas, Camilla and Mathilde. They wander in and out. Other friends wander in and out. They play music and smoke cigarettes and drink beer and make jokes about kaka. They are, after all, in their 20s. Strangely, Mickael does not speak English. But wait, we have been corresponding in English for days! He uses Google translate, his roommates explain.

They put out an extra mattress for me in the space between the TV set and the coffee table and the bicycles. Do I need sheets? Nah! Mickael gives me his pillow. We all make dinner: hot dogs and cabbage salad. I cut up some carrots. Other friends wander in. Others wander out.

I get on line to find that Sergio in Milan has written me a review. My first review. I'm so excited. "Don't miss the opportunity to know her," he says. Oh, how wonderful. But why hasn't Stefano written anything? I wonder. I check to see when he was last on line. 10 hours ago. Did he not like me? Was it because I didn't pay for dinner? I write a glowing review for Sergio and another even more glowing one for Ilaria. Speaking of Ilaria, is she not on line? Does she not want to write something for me?

I read some of Sergio's other reviews of guests and note he has written "not to be missed" for some guests from Mexico too. I feel a little let down. Less special. I email back and forth with a potential host from Dijon who has informed me I am welcome to stay, but just so I know in advance, he is renovating the bathroom and it has no door this week. Is that weird? All along, I keep looking at my blackberry and feel something is missing. I cant put my finger on it. And then it hits me. The Milano couch surfing group messages. I miss them. I am becoming addicted to this couch surfing.

The next night, in elegant Lyon, I go out with my host Guillaume, a 28 year old air traffic controller for a small private airline, and another woman who is couch surfing at his place that night - Sumeyra, a 23 year old glamorous math teacher from Istanbul. We talk about the flotilla, as one does, and then start talking about some of the downsides of couch surfing.

In Nice, the night before, Sumeyra confines, her host came onto her. It was late and she had nowhere to go, and he was drunk and insisted she sleep in his bed instead of on the couch. She asked for our advice: Should she write a negative review? If she did, no doubt, he would write something bad about her in reply, and then it might be hard for her to find hosts.

Once, Guillaume tells us, an American girl wrote a bad review for him complaining that he did not have an elevator in his building, but had failed to mention that in his profile. He retaliated by writing that she was a "fat bitch." I am taken aback. "You did?" I ask. He did. She took down her negative review. He took down hers.

Although the system has both the public peer review section, and also another section, seen only by administrators, where you rate the trustworthiness of hosts and guests, it is clearly not full proof. Maurizio in Milan once had 30,000 dollars worth of electrical equipment stolen. And infamously, in Leeds last year, a young woman from Hong Kong was raped by her host. "Sometimes there are cultural misunderstanding," Maurizio says. "And sometimes there are real problems. Of course you have to always take care."

Its the last day of my trip, and my train rolls into Dijon. There, on the platform are my long searched for hosts for the night, a 27 year old couple of musicians, Pauline and Romain who have come to pick me up. He, an acoustic bass player; She, a viola player wearing a summer dress and holding a fresh baguette. Why, I ask, would anyone ever want to arrive in Dijon any other way?

Soon, we will return to their cozy house, which is choc a bloc filled with posters of old movies, music books and knickknacks, and sit down to dinner: Fresh fish from the market where Romain has a day job, potatoes gratin, cheeses with 70 percent fat and a good bottle of chambolle-musigny. My bed will be a rickety couch in the music room with a sleeping bag thrown on top. I will need to go through both the kitchen and their bedroom in order to reach the bathroom, where, when I go to shower later, the entire shower head will explode -- but I don't mind any of it a bit. In fact I sort of want to move in.

But for now, they just kiss me warmly on both cheeks hello, take my bags and lead the way.

Surfing, Surfing, and off we go.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.599941 2010-06-03T18:34:35-04:00 2011-05-25T16:40:24-04:00

Danna Harman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danna-harman/
"We don't need to buy visas?" I ask. "How wonderful!"

"For now, No," he replies, slowly, even for a clerk, and looks me over. "But next time we wont even let you folks in."

And so begins my trip to Istanbul in the aftermath of the Israeli raid on the humanitarian flotilla organized by the Turks.

Popular here, we are not.

My first port of call is the Israeli consulate in the Levent neighborhood. It is shut and locked, and the square leading to it is barricaded off -- but there is no lack of activity.  "God is Great," yell the bearded demonstrators, climbing on the barricades and waving Palestinians flags. "We are ready to fight," they chant. "Israel is a terrorist state," they sing.

The signs, of course, are all in Turkish, a language I find completely incomprehensible, and so I ask a young woman in an abaya to translate for me. "Die Jews," she explains, and then squints her eyes, closes one, and reconsiders. "No, no, it's 'Die Israelis.'" Her friend pipes in to help. "I think it's 'Kill Israel,' or maybe 'Die Killers.'" They debate. I understand the principal. They are from Bursa, they tell me, and have taken a bus here to join in the demonstration. Each has bought a green headbands -- two Turkish Lira each -- which they now wrap, lopsided, over their head coverings. "We are all Palestinians," they read. "How do I look?" they ask each other.

I head to the heart of town, Taksim Square, to observe a larger demonstration, organized by the Communist party. "What do your signs say?" I ask some protestors, students from Italy, as it turns out. They are not exactly sure. Turns out they don't read Turkish either. "Israel is an Apartheid State," a fellow protestor explains to us, and, pointing to another: "Die Jews." Oh, so, that's what is says.  I must revert back to the Bursa girls later.

By 10 P.M. I have filed a story and am exhausted and rather depressed by the situation, on various levels. I remember coming to Turkey with my family in far better times. "Hello Israeli cowboy," the merchants would yell out, back then, to my mom, who has a penchant for Panama hats. "We love Israel!," "Shalom."

My friends, the girls from Bursa, text me: Another demonstration is taking place at the consulate, much bigger, they say. I should probably go check it out. But to schlep all the way back there?  Oh, how I would like to sit and have a shishkabab or watch TV. I flick it on in my room -- it's all in Turkish, and it's all about Israel and while, again, I cannot understand the words, the images are clear enough. I push myself out the door and decide to head to the demonstration by metro, which is cheaper (take note Haaretz finance department) and faster.

But not, however, more pleasant. The metro tunnels are echoing with the screams of thousands of youngsters, mainly young men, chanting and pushing their way into the trains. With kafiyyas draped over their heads and shoulders and Palestinian flags in their hands they call back and forth to each other. "Takrir, Allah." "Takrir Allah." God is Great. I feel slightly uncomfortable for the first time, as I get swept up in the throng.

"Where are you from? Where are you from?" the youngsters ask me. This might not be the time to discuss the nuances, be they what they may, of the Israeli-Palestinian, or the Israeli-Turkish, relationship, I figure. "I am a journalist," I suggest by way of diversion and mime some writing and photo snapping actions with my hands. "Ahhh!" they say, satisfied. "America." "The Celtics. Good." So be it.

Emerging from the metro near the consulate with my latest pals, I find myself in the midst of tens of thousands of people. It's a carnival atmosphere. Kids are sitting on their parents' shoulders, and cotton candy and corn on the cob is being sold along with Palestinian flags and headbands. The chants and the signs are all familiar, but here there is a new energy in the air. The traffic is completely blocked in both directions but drivers don't even seem to mind. They blare their horns in solidarity with the marchers and wave out their windows.

As the night goes on, the crowds only seem to swell. Not being the tallest person around, I can't see a thing, and somehow find myself climbing over a few fences and being hoisted up on top of a bus hired by the Islamic movement for VIPs. "Takrir" comes a voice from a loudspeaker right beside me. "Allah," respond the masses. An Israeli flag is burnt directly beneath. My mother, ringing my mobile from Jerusalem, is whispering to me as if the Islamic militants could hear her on Shamryahu Levin street. I now can see, but can barely hear a thing. "Don't go out on the streets alone," she suggests to her journalist child. "And don't drink anything anyone gives you," she adds. "What? I cant hear a thing!" I yell. "Takrir" "Allah" Just then someone in offers me some water.

I start day two looking for Israelis. "Any hints on where will I find them?" I ask my editor. Try the breakfast room, she suggests. Obvious. I slowly walk around the dining room in my hotel, and then in the hotel next door, scanning the buffet bar for faces of my countrymen and women. 'Is that an Israeli or an Iraqi?" I think to myself. 'An Iranian or an Israeli?' 'Italian or Israeli?' My radar zooms in on one likely couple. I sidle alongside their table. "Do you speak Hebrew," I ask, in Hebrew, under my breath, as if on some secret Mossad mission. "Of course, Motek-Luvie- come have breakfast with us," they offer. Success.

A mother and her daughter-in-law from Ramat Hasharon on a roots trip. "That's so sweet," I say, as I dip my cucumber into their Tehini. "So nice to see an Israeli," they admit. I feel the same. "Why don't you come with us to Topkapi Palace," they offer. I'm a little busy, I say, wistfully. "Be careful," they warn me. "Don't talk in Hebrew," they insist. "Don't drink anything suspicious!" Are all Jewish mothers exactly alike? I have to wonder.

I head to the offices of IHH, the controversial Islamic charity that funded a great part of the flotilla -- chartering three of the ships and recruiting and paying the way for all of the Turkish passengers. Israel has banned the charity, claiming they are humanitarian only in name, and in fact are a militant body supporting Hamas and other terror organizations.
 
I am not going to lie about who I am, I decide, and give the friendly secretary with blood shot eyes my Haaretz business card. "You are Israeli?" he says loudly. I feel like telling him to keep it down, but just nod. "Yes." I ask to speak to one of the senior officers and am told to wait. It takes about 15 minutes for the other Turkish reporters present, with little else to do, to train their video cameras on me. "You are Israeli?" they ask. "We would like you to explain to us the position of your government." Oh dear.

I am saved by a press conference, called by the leaders of the IHH to say that their comrades being held in Israel are being given water in prison they believe is poisoned. "We have told our people to not drink anything," they explain. I see we have more in common with these guys than might first meet the eye and wonder what is going on with the poisoned water theme. I spend the rest of the afternoon basically just hanging out at this headquarters, trying to communicate in Turkish (not easy) and trying to piece together information (harder still) about what is happening next. Families of those on the flotilla wander in and out of the offices, worried, wanting to know who is injured, who is dead. Some are crying.

Finally, I get my interview. "Sorry to keep you waiting, says senior IHH board member Umar Farooq, "...but because of you Israelis we are very busy these days." I feel the organization has made an effort to talk to me because, and not despite of where I am from. "Provocation?" he shrugs his shoulders. "Metal bars?" "We did not start this fight, he says, "...but we have won it." It seems he is keen to express himself to an Israeli paper. The interview is sobering. I am increasingly tired. "Let's not talk again until Israel changes her ways," he suggests in parting, ever courteous.

On my last night in Istanbul, yet another demonstration is raging, now back in Taksim square. I wander the streets. It feels like Miami Beach meets Nablus. One street filled with Karaoke bars teeming with women in high heels and tank tops flirting with muscle men, the next street filled with thousands women in abbayas yelling for the destruction of Israel and radical looking types shaking their fists in the air. I notice a new style of black headband reading "Hail to Hamas." Music praising Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is piped over the loud speakers. The police - in full riot gear - seem to be enjoying the balmy night out on the town, and some have popped into Jimmy's Chicken for some fast food. Tourists, meanwhile, a street or two away, go about their business, bargaining for fake leather wallets and evil eye key chains.

On my flight back to London I am sitting, lo and behold, near one of the flotilla passengers, who, released to Turkey, is now going home to give a press conference, and, she explains, start planning her next flotilla mission. "Israelis are animals," she tells me. "Everyone now knows this." I tune out. It has been a long three days. ]]>