A Moment of Happiness

In the ordinary jumble of my literary drawer, I sometimes find texts I wrote ten, fifteen, or even more years ago. And many of them seem to me written by a stranger: I simply do not recognize myself in them. There was a person who wrote them, and it was I. I experienced them, but it was in another life, from which I just woke up, as if from someone else’s dream.

-Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

There is nothing much I have not said.  Very few subjects I have not touched upon.  And yet, I feel like I have a world of advice and mishaps to impart to an unseen reader. It is with a heavy heart, and even heavier fingers, that I type out my very last blog entry as a part of Hopkins Interactive. The words that pepper this entry are untranslatable into English from their original languages; but they function to describe fleeting moments of emotions that have been expressed by either myself or fellow members of my graduating class.

Hygge – Danish, a complete absence of anything annoying, irritating or emotionally overwhelming, and the presence of and pleasure from comforting, gentle and soothing things

I have written posts with no words and entries with too many. I have complained, been thankful, appalled and humbled. There were times when I had nothing to say and, often, when I had more to say than I could put into words. This blog has been four years of attempting to verbalize my experience and my growth. It is at this time, the curtain call of my college education, where words to describe this moment seem to be more difficult to come by than ever before.

Wabi-Sabi – Japanese, a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay

Torschlusspanik – German, the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages

Any attempt to concisely articulate what it is like to spend fours years at Hopkins would fall short. There is growth of self, expansion of interests, passions, social circles, and maturation on so many levels. The person that my parents dropped off at Wolman Hall, who wrote those Class of 2012 Freshmen blog entries so long ago, the person who started this journey is no longer who I am. I hardly remember what it was like to be that person, rather this university and the experience of college has allowed me to be molded into who I am today and who I will choose to become.

Saudade – Portuguese, the mournful beauty of longing for something or someone that you love, and which is lost

I have always attempted to emphasis the importance of personal decision and experience in choosing a college. There is no such thing as a perfect university, no pre-packaged experience that will allow you to grow from timid freshman to conquering graduate. There is only you. Only you can decide what you make of it. It is a fascinating and daunting task, to take charge of such a formidable experience. There are many aspects to it that will be implicit, that occur through the passing of time and web and flow of friendships. Others, however, will be explicit in the direct lessons you will learn. Many, if not all lessons are difficult to learn and they force us to expand our realm of comfort. They require an extension of a sense of self, which is often stubborn. But that is what college allows to happen. The possibility of the imaginative expansion of the self. It took me four years to figure out what that truly meant, and I believe it will be a lifelong process of accepting the opportunities that come to you and growing from that.

Duende – Spanish, the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person

Tuka pamoja – Swahili, denotes a shared sense of purpose and motivation in a group, implies empathetic understanding

And so, all my cards have been placed on the table. I hope somewhere in the over one hundred and twenty posts I have written, I have imparted some small kernel of wisdom that can be of use. I honestly hope that everybody’s college experience can be as fulfilling, as engaging, and as difficult, productive and truly wonderful as mine was. I hope that among the friends you make on the day you move in are the friends you take pictures with on Graduation day. I hope your professors excite passions in subjects you never expected to love, and I hope they give you headaches with their expectations of perfection. I hope you build snowmen, go to happy hours, impact and improve your community, spend too much time in the library, skip studying to get cupcakes, and most of all, I hope you embrace every moment of happiness.

Depaysement – French, the destabilizing feeling that comes from not being in one’s own country or context

Lagorn – Swedish, somewhere between “just the right amount” and “enough,” expresses a sense of balance and satisfaction with having your needs met without excess

It has been an absolute pleasure and honor to be able to be a part of Hopkins Interactive for four years and to share my journey through this blog. The only appropriate way I could think of sending this off would be with the words of Garrison Keillor, long-time host of The Writer’s Almanac:

Be well.

Do good work.

Keep in touch.

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It’s the answer to every question this month. Every inquiry as to why one is irrationally emotion, MIA or genuinely questioning all of their life decisions can be answered with “Because It’s the Cup.” It’s playoffs time, and the most wonderful time of the year for a hockey fan. Also the most excruciating. But the sport does the combination of those two contrasting emotions so well that it makes sense it culminates in this exquisitely painful marathon of games, emotions, story lines, and heartbreak.

Braden Holtby. Caption really not necessary.

I recognize my complete and utter devotion to my favorite sports’ tournaments and emotional video montages is something not shared by everybody I know, but really that doesn’t deter me from talking to them (and every single person I see looking up playoff stats in general) about my opinion on results, hits, and goals. Because boundaries are stupid. Also because it’s the cup.

In the same way, “Well it’s Hopkins” tends to crop up in conversations amongst students here on a regular basis to explain oddities, exceptions and quirks that define our experience as Hopkins students. Whether it is having a professor miss a week of class because they are presenting in a conference in St. Petersburg, quips about spending too much time on D level and the woes of the demands of professors and extracurricular activities – being a Hopkins student is a commonality that unites the student body through hard work, devotion, occasionally annoyance, but mostly pride.

The Great 8.

Most of the time, Hopkins does not invoke the heart wrenching experience that defined watching the playoffs but there is a commonality that connects all Hopkins students, as playoffs connect all hockey fans. There is something unique to being a student on this particular campus with these particular professors, opportunities, and in this city. When I reflect back on my interactions with prospective students over my four years at Hopkins, I marvel at how much I did not know and could not articulate about being a student at Hopkins especially during my first year. Freshmen have the amazing experience of struggling, exploring and triumphing with their classmates in a manner that is similar at most colleges in America, it is when you begin to diversify your interests, branch out, grow roots and establish yourself throughout the next three years that what it means to be a Hopkins student in particular becomes apparent, though forever difficult to articulate effectively.

“Well it’s Hopkins” for me now becomes something that ties me just for a short while longer to this campus and to this student body. So, when the question “Why Hopkins?” is asked, all we can really say is “Well it’s Hopkins;” only here could you have these experiences, meet these students who share the passion and vigor that define those who enroll here, only by being at Hopkins and going through the four years of learning, exploring and growing do you understand fully and truly “Why Hopkins?” That is a question that is best answered by the journey. And while it is not as high paced nor as instantly gratifying/heartbreaking as the playoffs, it has not been too shabby of a journey.

PS. I’ve already cried over the Blackhawks premature exit from the playoffs so the probability of my crying over the Capitals game this upcoming Wednesday regardless of the outcome just shot up to about 123%. Hopefully not in public though. Oh joy playoffs.

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Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that you live, if you do.

-Elizabeth Bowen

When my friend Adam told me that he had never officially ventured to the Baltimore Museum of Art which resides directly adjacent/for all intensive purposes on the Hopkins campus, I basically wept internally to myself and sat next to Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen for a bit till I felt better. With most people who tell me things that break my heart a little (“football is boring,” “I don’t read for fun,” “I’ve never seen Lord of the Rings,” “chocolate is not my favorite thing in the world,” “you can’t be African, you’re pale!” etc), I basically just pretend that it never happened, denial is not just a river in Egypt and all that, but with this – I literally was like “we need to fix this right now.” Mainly because if I like you enough as a friend, I like to share things that I enjoy (duh!) and in return, I love it when my friends challenge my experiences and perceptions. For example, I now no longer have a rudimentary stereotypical perception of Wisconsin. I actually think it is an interesting state. Also it’s state drink is milk – go figure. It also has a city that has the most outdoor public sculpture per capita of any city in North American. Things I learned from Adam while on D level during finals. The more you know, the further you go people – Reading Rainbow wasn’t lying to us.

I'm such a sucker for marble sculptures. They are never short of magnificent.

Anyway, I actually have a point to this rambling. So we went in the midst of finals as a form of a mental break, and I art-nerded and Adam dealt with me, like only my friends know how to. My complete devotion to museums, and art museums specifically, is something that I simultaneously thank and blame my mother for entirely. When we first came to this country, my mother used to take my older sister and I to museums all the time. I grew up playing in Rotunda in the National Art Gallery, challenging my sisters to name artists in the each gallery, the butterfly enclave in the National Museum of Natural History still remains one of my favorite places on Earth. But as I got older, I had to come to the realization that that experience was something that was gifted to me by where I grew up, who my parents were and what values they passed onto me. I made friends from parts of the country that did not have museums easily accessible to them and thus had a different appreciation for aspects of it that I had taken for granted.

I am going to make every one of my friends come to see the butterflies with me before I graduate. No joke.

I actually think I was getting complacent in my trips to the BMA. I would usually make a bee-line for the impressionist gallery and/or the inner courtyard and just sit and think, read, write etc. I guess with most things, familiarity leads to a decrease in appreciation. A fresh perspective usually is enough to jolt me back to recognition of treasuring everything that I am allowed to be a part of. The BMA trip was just one example. After three and a half years at Hopkins, I only occasionally take a moment to stop and marvel at aspects of this university and my experience that are commonplace to me.  The campus on an exceptionally beautiful October day, the psychedelic walls in the Tutorial office, the to-die-for truffle based drinks at Chocolatea, the stacks on D level with literature that makes me want to give up on school and just read for a living, and more than anything else – the people that I have shared even a fraction of my time here with. It is actually quite annoying how emotional I get over the fact that the sand in the hourglass of my time here is moving much more briskly than I am comfortable with. And so the point of my tale is, whether it is by inviting a friend to visit a museum that you adore or by taking a moment every time you do something that is regularly in your routine – it is worth it to remind yourself to take a breath, enjoy the moment and appreciate the little joys that often pepper our lives subconsciously.

Seriously. Chocolatea is sinfully good. photo from http://www.chocolateacafe.com/

Happy Holidays and New Year Everyone! Whatever you may celebrate (or nothing at all) – enjoy the food, family and days off of work!

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Risk is essential. There is not growth of inspiration in staying within what is safe and comfortable. Once you find out what you do best, why not try something else?

-Alex Noble

Sinto impulsos covardes, assustadiços e escapistas de voltar. Também porque sinto saudade, muita, de tudo. Mas sei que não devo.

-Caio Fernando Abreu

This past weekend, I dragged a few friends of mine down to DC to watch a play that my older sister’s best friend, Andrew, was performing in. It was a beautiful post-modern piece that explored the ways in which we as humans wish for things to “stay.” My favorite word in any language is saudade, a longing for something so intangible that it is indefinable. People loved and lost, tragedies of life, moments to be treasured, a nostalgia of times past, the lost rhythm of life, people who left, people who stayed and changed – “all things born of the soul that can only be felt.” A word that means more to me than I could ever hope to explain, and it was the name of a scene in this play so needless to say I was extremely moved.

It was a beautiful production and I’ve encouraged basically everybody I know to go into DC to support it, cause the local arts always have gems such as this. It also gave me an avenue by which to attempt to understand all the emotions I am having about my impending graduation. There is everything to be excited about and everything to be terrified of. I want to tell high school seniors that this I am feeling what you are feeling, but it is a bit skewed. I know I want to go to medical school the year after next but having twelve months absolutely free for me to do as I will is almost overwhelming in its possibility. I want to do everything and nothing, I continuously freak out about how quickly this year is going (how is it that after tomorrow I will only have five days left of class for the fall semester?!) but I am thrilled about the options open to me.

I have moments of absolutely crystal clear reflection where I become hyperaware of the finality of my time at Hopkins. Reading for my Islamic literature moves me to tears because I know that this will be the last time I take a literature class as an undergraduate just cause I want to expand my mind, weekly lunches with Peter always make me realize how quickly the time will come where my friends and I will be scattered everywhere, every drop off at Tutorial is one less time that I get to hang out with my kids. I am excited about what comes next in my big picture, but for now I just want to yell at everything to “stay” just as it is, in this perfect moment where I am comfortable and familiar and content. That will probably not be my mindset during finals but the great thing about this feeling is that I give it absolute free reign to change based on the day, my mood, etc. For the first time in my life, I think I’m learning to go to with the flow.

Chocolatea is the perfect place to muse over all of this.

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I have a very close friend who is entirely in love with Halloween, she plans her costume a month in advance, overbooks herself for parties and gatherings, and then spends two days recovering. I, however, have no such soft spot for the holiday. I didn’t go trick-or-treating as a child so I have no nostalgia, no need to go out or dress up or any of it (apologies to the Fell’s Point faithful, you guys keep on keeping on) – to be quite honest, I spend the last weeks of October willing Thanksgiving to get here faster and singing to Frank Sinatra holiday music.

But, for the last four years, on the Thursday before Halloween, I’ve been given a reason to care, a reason to get excited over the costumes, the candy, the fantasy of it all: the Tutorial Halloween party. I’ve spoken about this party for the last three years, my freshmen year when I was a tutor taking my kid around to trick-or-treat, as a sophomore as an organizer being in charge of my six pairs and dressing up as a cowgirl, as a junior as the Student Director running the whole shebang dressed up as a footballer and this year, for the last time, as Cruella de Vil while my orgs were dalmatians.

Please note how ridiculously adorable and perfect my staff is, and the fact that I am trying to keep a "mean" Cruella face on when I really was smiling the entire time.

Our Halloween party consists of ushering our many princesses, zombies, butterflies, and Scream-masked kids to the freshmen dorms where they filled bags with more candy then they could ever hope to trade during lunch. That was followed by a pizza party, viewing of the Goosbumps movie “The Blob That Ate Everything,” face painting and all the gross food that my boss Young decided to grace us with. There was “boogers” which was cheese dip with green food coloring, “worms” which was jello that was formed in straws, and “kitty litter” which was cake complete with “poop” aka tootsie rolls. I basically refused to try any of the gross foods until I saw somebody else eat and enjoy them, and two of my dalmatians, Hannah and Aaron, convinced me to eat the actually super delicious kitty litter. Plus, their dog ears were really just so cute I couldn’t say no.

Hannah and Aaron eating kitty litter.

Basically, it was a fantastic way to end this four year tradition. I could talk about it forever and how every day when we drop the last kids off at home, I have a quick quiet moment where I realize that the number of times I will do this is now becoming finite. While the three lovely SAABabies, Erica, Joseph, Kevin, are just beginning their adventure, I have my usual overwhelming sense of finality. I need to remind myself to enjoy these moments now and then, I’ll deal with the finality of it all next May!

Our one normal group shot!

I love these people.

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If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

-Isaac Asimov

Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant

-Saadi

It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance.

-Saint Jerome

Human beings have the amazing capacity of dealing with all sorts of trials and tribulations that happen in our lives, we have the gift of allowing ourselves and others forgiveness and forgetting. It is the best of humans that forgives those that trespass against us, and I can only hope to gain the height of self-awareness and openness of heart that comes to some individuals so easily.

When I am trespassed against, I am like an elephant – it gets engraved into my mind and I am compelled to acknowledge the effect it has on me. I have a distinct inability to forget transgressions, something my mother is forever admonishing me about. I never allow ignorance as an excuse, not for myself nor for others. So when my professor leaned across the table we were sitting at, gestured at my name and asked me if I had been educated in the country as a way of trying to explain what she thought was my poor writing, all I could do was laugh. Out loud and harshly and my brain racked with trying to legitimize the question and why my professor would find it at all appropriate to ask it. Instead of the snippy remarks I wanted to make, not the least of which included the fact that many adults who learn English as a second language speak and write it better than many native speakers, I bit the inside of my cheek and left at the first possible opportunity to go calm myself.

To say that this was the first time I’ve experienced this situation or this question would be a lie, but it was the first time it came from a professor and somebody, with a PhD and who teaches at Hopkins, from which it was more of a shock than a confused local in rural West Virginia. My experience with professors at Hopkins, overall, has been nothing short of exemplary and while I’ve had a few mishits (namely my Orgo lab professor who turned me off recrystallization forever), in my three years I have learned from the most brilliant minds who genuinely care about their students and their abilities. That being the mold of professors that I held to be truth, this experience is such an unfortunate anomaly.

In the immortal words of Thumper...

My personal inclinations have always been strongly antiracist and highly sympathetic to minorities because of the obvious self-extension it offers me. That being said, I appreciate the novelty of dealing with cultures and individuals that were previously unexplored. To approach that from an angle of ignorance and ethnocentricity cheapens the scope of human experience. While I may not be able to change my professor nor reprimand her for her stereotyping and unfortunate remark, I can use it to remind myself and those around me of the dangers of falling into a mental pattern of ignorance.

Anyway, the whole racist look hasn’t been in for quite some time, please do try and keep up professor.

I'm not hip enough for this to be my photo, courtesy of http://omgruok.blogspot.com

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The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

-Buddha

The much promised entry about my end of the year experience with Tutorial has finally come into existence. The last week of Tutorial always has Graduation for the kids, and it is an opportunity to express our gratitude to the tutors and the families who are so dedicated to the program, as well as making sure the kids get their moment in the spotlight for their achievements and hard work. Plus, as any of our kids will tell you repeatedly as the date approaches – we have cake.

Like more of my experience with Tutorial, is has been one of increasing participation. From sitting in the audience with my tutee Malik, to sitting on stage with my packets and certificates for each of my pairs as an org, and finally organizing the entire event along with Young, our director, as Student Director. The perks of being on top include being able to steal a piece of cake from the M/W graduation and making sure that everybody knows that they are beyond-words appreciated.

When I left for pick-up the day of graduation, I left my blackberry at the office – this meant that rearranged icons, a new background and many new pictures of my orgs were found when I was reunited with my phone. Some of those pictures I would never dream of sharing because they are hilarious and the people in them would probably kick me if I ever did, but I can share our staff pictures. Usually the instructions from the SD are “look nice” for graduation, this year at the insistence of my orgs Sargon and Abir – everybody was required to, in the immortal words of Barney Stinson, suit up.

The week of graduation for Tutorial usually ends in a Tutorial dinner for both the M/W and T/Th staff as well as the student works who we all love very much and like to fight over.

As a present for Emma and myself, Young and the student workers had our kids decorate a plain bag for us that we can use for everything aka school. The thing with having surprises when there are children involved is that most likely, somebody will spill the beans – this happened to Emma and nearly to me, but even knowing the surprise didn’t take away from how much I loved the bag and the picture frame that my orgs signed for me containing a picture of all of the kids and their tutors as well as the orgs.

Staff dinner is usually followed up with a SD lunch sometime during reading period where the incoming and outgoing SDs or SDs that are staying discuss amongst themselves and Young any issues, concerns or comments we have concerning tutors, families, kids, or particular pairings.

So that is the end of the end-of-year Tutorial shindigs that commemorate all the hard work so many people put into running the program all-semester long, and I already miss everybody and can’t wait for Tutorial to start up again in August.

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Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark-spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It’s passing, yet I’m the one who’s doing all the moving.

-Martin Amis

Old Town Alexandria, VA

It is undoubtedly easy for me to speak casually about college admissions decisions, not only because my experience was relatively painless, but also because it seems so very long ago that any notion of anxiety seems simply an intellectual matter. I don’t remember what it felt like to wait for those emails, or to open the packages, to tell my family about the decisions – I remember the actions, but not necessarily how I felt. Despite that, I do feel a twinge of excitement every time decision time at Hopkins comes around because I know that it’ll be another round of families who are made immeasurably proud, it’ll be the beginning of a journey that is difficult to describe and even harder to predict, and the new freshmen that show up every year are even more impressive that the group that preceeded them.

You may feel like you have no control over the decisions that will be coming your way, but to be honest, the thing that you do have control over is what you make of the situation. Choosing a college to attend is often a see-saw process full of research, asking a million questions, family talks and input from people you trust – but ultimately, it is you who will make the decision and who will attend that school for four years. What you make of your college experience is entirely in your hands, whether it is your dream school or a school that didn’t expect would even be on your list. There are some people at Hopkins that I know would not choose to come here again, and there are, more, people that would choose to come back in an instant – the difference often lies in their approach to experiences. Attitude is often key.

Old Town Alexandria, VA

One of my favorite stories is that of a 92 year old man, who was legally blind, having to move into a nursing home after his wife of 70 years passed away. As the nurse takes him into his new room and begins to describe the surroundings, the man says “I love it” with enthusiasm. The nurse says “Mr. Jones, you haven’t seen the room; just wait.” To which the man responds with wisdom that comes with having lived a full life, “That doesn’t have anything to do with it. Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged, it is how I arrange my mind. i already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficult I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.”

The idea that you can decide for yourself to set a mindset of happiness and having a good experience is powerful especially in choosing a college because no matter how much research you do or how many current students you speak to, you will not really know what it is like going to a school until you attend. And so, the best we can do is make the best choice possibly based on the resources that are abundantly provided to you, especially from Hopkins. College acceptance may mark an extremely happy and anxious period in your life, but do keep it in perspective, because as Pericles said, time is the wisest counsellor of all.

Old Town Alexandria, VA

Because this post made me reflect on my decision days, these pictures of my hometown seemed appropriate.

All the best, and good luck to all applicants on your college decisions!

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Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

-Martin Luther King, Jr

It is funny how easily I forget the daily grind of being at Hopkins. Give me a week or two away from this reality, throw me back in it and I have to relearn everything. Including 4 am wake up times and to-do lists that span multiple pages. But besides all the school stuff, something else has been holding my attention for these first weeks of the semester – and no it isn’t football or New York Fashion Week [as much as those two things make me happy].

I may not be a political science or international studies major, but I do have a brain and a conscious – so the Tunisia and Egypt situations and resulting ripples in the Middle East and North Africa are important to me. My older sister, a graduate of LSE, has always been the basis for my world awareness and her job at a news magazine in DC during this historic time has meant that I have perhaps even more frustrated by ignorance.

There are many aspects that I can express my opinions on: the fact that citizens across the region have taken this opportunity to capitalize on their pro-reform platforms, that the 18-day revolution will not be the norm, the Obama failed miserably in the eyes of the world, and most importantly that each country has its own unique history and social dynamics and thus must be observed independent of our need to simplify their political movements to fit into a Western doctrine. This is not about America, this is about each country and its nation-state.

There is no need for me express my explicit opinions on these matters, this is not a political blog, but an expectation I do have of the students who attend this university, or which to, is to be intellectual curious human beings and to be aware of the world in which they live. So it baffles me that people were unruffled or unaware of the fall of regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, I wonder if college campuses were this uninterested during the Iranian Revolution. Reading people – the more you know.

And when I don’t have many words for moments and times like this, I’ll let photographs do the speaking. Scenes from the protests in Algeria courtesy of live from the casbah

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Being from Africa is the best thing that could have ever, ever happened to me. I cannot see it any other way. All of my fundamental principles that were instilled in me in my home, from my childhood, are still with me.

-Hakeem Olajuwon

American college students go to Africa, to hang out with other white folks in a fabricated enviornment, awkwardly dance to “great beats”, eat amazingly spicy “ethnic” food and then hurry home to indoor plumbing, USDA beef grading and to high speed internet in order to upload a Facebook photo album sharing their “amazing life changing experience” with their high school friends, college room mates and that random attractive member of the opposite sex from that kegger last week. In the immortal words of my older sister “white person, go home.”

This is Africa.

T.I.A, this is Africa, this is cat whistles and quick tempers, this is superstition running so deeply that even atheists invoke the name of God before driving through the cliff bridges of Constantine, this is the huddle of people discussing politics over six cups of espresso and two packs of Rym without anyone mentioning the health benefits of quitting smoking, this is colonial scars running deeper than you can imagine, this is rioting and overthrown governments and politics that the US media is forever baffled by. I can’t recommend an unabridged edition of a book that can fully invoke what to expect in Africa. The legacy of a continent on which the human race finds its origins, with kingdoms that would make the Romans blush, and cultures so varied and vast they can barely be encompassed in the 2,200 languages spoken by Africans is hard to fit into a book found in the “Plan Your Trip” section of your local Borders. When I step off the plane into Algeria, I am stepping on the soil that contains my identity. This is the land of my ancestors, my country’s struggle; this is where my grandparents are buried, where my parents grew up, where I was born. I am not trying to understand or compartmentalize Africa, I am African.

Madaros near my mother's village. These Roman ruins would make you drool.

Constantine

About.com has an article advising travelers on what to expect on their first voyage to exotic Africa, never mind that preparation needed to visit Morocco is a bit different than preparation needed to visit Sudan, but the article warns me that I might be in for a “cultural shock.”  That is the most limiting component of dealing with a non person of color travelling to Africa, the audacity of shock. The jarring feeling of dealing with people who are so different from your definition of normal that the sense of exoticism never wanes. Cultural relativism is especially apparent in the manner of telling stories of adventures in Africa later. Stories regarding starving children, drum circles, the clothing, the sounds, the animals and the heat (the heat always makes it into the story despite the fact that a majority of countries in the African continent have seasonal weather fluctuations) ignore the underlining reasoning for the trip to Africa; guilt.

White guilt, as Judith Katz, the author of White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-Racism Training, calls self-indulgent white guilt fixations. Most experiences of individuals who come from a background without an understanding of different cultures, ethnicities, language as a norm is quite frankly, limited, when experiencing a culture so different from the one they’re comfortable with. This is not to simplify the issue into one of white privilege or black disadvantage but rather that compassionate policies towards people of color in different continents is not the most effective way to breach gaps between cultures or to foster a sense of understanding between communities. So American college student, hop on over on the MARC train and volunteer at a school in South East DC, I promise you it’s an “exotic experience”, befriend someone with curlier hair than yours, someone who wears a headscarf, or who grew up speaking another language, someone who has a nose piercing with actual cultural meaning, I promise you their food will be exotically spicy. Ethnocentrism cheapens an opportunity to help humanity on a global scale.

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