"You can be the change you want to see in the world" Mahatma Ghandhi 
"Célébrons nos rêves, célébrons la vie"
"On ne voit qu'avec le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible aux yeux", St Exupéry.
PS: une webdesigner professionnelle est entrain de construire un site professionnel pour l'AESHA. Le nouveau site sera lancé officiellement au mois d'octobre. So remain TUNED!!!

 

Part 2 - Impulsiveness, nonchalance and adventures in the cultural heart of America

by BRAHIM EL GUABLI, special guest writer
Ouazazate, Morocco

The Worldly is happy to present this new series by Brahim, which offers us collected insights into our American way of life, as seen and reported by someone visiting from a place and culture apart.

Click here for Part 1

Before continuing my journey to Louisiana, Oregon, Illinois, and Texas, I think it is important to share some Washington adventures.

Washington in my culture is always associated with the long distance and wealth. If someone wants to tease you if you say that you are busy or have a long way to go, they would say ‘you want to go to Washington’ or ‘you have been to Washington.’.\ It means that no matter how far you go, you would not be able to reach Washington. As for wealth and pride, if someone is disgustingly proud and boastful; they would tell them ‘you have not been to Washington’ which means that you need to come down to the earth because there are people who did far better things than you. Do they mean the state Washington or Washington DC? I assume they mean the latter. It is the political capital of the country and the most “mediatized” American city abroad.

After spending some days in Washington DC you feel that the world has changed for you. You do not remain yourself anymore. You indulge in very deep internal dialogues. I have spent one week in this beautiful hotel in New Hampshire Avenue. It is not far from some of the places I have only seen on TV and read about in books before coming here. It is five minutes walk to Dupont Circle and approximately 20 minutes walk to downtown and the administrative centre of DC. Every time I come back from business trips, I take a shower, change, and get ready to walk as far as my feet will take me. Walking in this metropolitan city gives you a great sense of freedom. I walked all over the surrounding areas to know the place, overcoming my fears of being in a foreign count ry. Knowing the English language was a real advantage for me. I have always managed to come back to my hotel without being lost. Not anytime did anyone do anything that would have made me think that I was discriminated against. I walked all the way from the old train station through the White House and all the way among high skyscrapers to the hotel without being lost.

Every time I walked in these beautiful clean spacious avenues and streets, the image of the little kid in me came to mind. How did I manage to get here, I, the poor little Tifoultoute boy. Am I not lucky to have travelled all this way to the country of Uncle Sam? Had I not gone to school, would I have been to be here? Remembering my life as a little kid walking barefoot, chasing dogs at the river, trapping the migratory birds every spring, spending whole days looking after my dog and pigeons and dreaming of them at night. Sleeping was another day for me, all I used to do was think of the other kids who were throwing stones at my dog and trying to trap my beautiful pigeons. Lots of times, my mom would come and wake up me and ask me to stop yelling. Ideas of my childhood conquered my memory, I thought of times I instigated “clannish” fights with little boys my age, going on donkeys’ backs to fetch water from a water source hours far away from home. All these memories were coming back to me like a strong flood and submerged me in emotions -- emotions of happiness and victory. Emotions of being able to overcome one’s poverty and social background and make a place for oneself among “people.” The movie of my life interlaces with my walks and fills the place with a spiritual aura. I cannot explain it but I felt it. I cannot know what this feeling was but it swells my heart and takes my soul to the transcendental skies.

The great thing about walking in Washington DC is that you see the extent to which people are really civilized. How civic engagement is a true lived value and not a dream. Nobody tries to rush in traffic lights and none would throw any thrash no matter how small in the street. Washington DC seemed to me like a mosaic piece of a dream; a better world that will break the ice of misunderstandings and animosities between people. Everywhere you go, you meet blacks, whites, Asians, Arabs, Hindus, Sikh, Muslims, Jews, Christians and I do not know what other religions exist in this world. I wonder why they do not clash as they would in other countries? The answer is really simple. It is DEMOCRACY. When you grow or live in a democratic country your actions and reactions are governed by law. People imbibed the values of democracy, equality, and the rule of law. Neither family ties nor social position counts here regarding the respect of law. Law is universal and everyone does his or her best to not break it.

Some people might think I am alienated. Some might think I am partial and some others might think that I am eulogizing America because to their minds everything is a conspiracy and they could not understand the fact that instead of always seeing the negative sides of things, we should also appreciate the positive to create a faith-building climate where people could converse and exchange. I think that appreciating a people’s culture and way of life is a key to understanding them. It is easier to spot the stereotypes and share them with the reader but it takes more courage and deeper faith to delve into the deep American values and go beyond the either black or white way of seeing things. I am talking here about my America, the way I lived it and not the way people want me to see it. I feel sorry for my co-citizens and for a vast majority of Arab readers because they do not get the right image of this country. They need to have another image. A true one. Not based on prejudices and received ideas. Americans need also a reversed image of us. I am full of hope these travel memories will bridge some gaps and help instigate a dialogue between my readers. We may not agree, but we can still learn to respect each other’s right to see things the way their eyes see them and the way their minds imbue them.

Dupont Circle is a popular place where at least four streets intersect. It is a green circular crossroad at the middle of which there is a statue and water fountain. It is a beautiful centre that is full every afternoon with people who come to listen to music and enjoy the lost spirit of hippie-ism. It is also full of restaurants and cafes, it reminded me of ‘la place de la République’ in Paris. They are not the same but they have a lot in common. Busy and full of people and representing symbols of successful capitalism and rich life. La Place de la République is not far from George Pompidou Center as it is always full of hippies, musicians and humanist artists.

The intriguing thing about Dupont Circle is when we arrived at our hotel, our interpreters warned us about going there alone. But Said and I decided to go. Why not? The first thing we noticed upon arrival there was that is that a lot of the people sitting there were men but also a few women and also some homeless people. Everybody was sitting on benches and holding some drink or food and very few were holding books. But musicians and especially guitar players were so many and they gave the place a lot of spirit. Yet, I was wondering why all these men were there? We discovered later that it is a gay place and we just left so that they did not think we were gay too.

Said, my friend plays music and he has a beautiful voice. He wanted me to ask one of the guitar players to give him his guitar for a moment to play Berber music. You never get rid of your habits. Old habits diehard. In Morocco, borrowing music instruments, clothes, money, and even jewellery is a common thing. I was hesitant. Said implored me to ask this hippie young man to let him play a Moroccan song on his guitar.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“How are you?”

“Good, thanks.”

“Great! My friend is an artist and he wants to play Moroccan music.

Could you possibly lend him your guitar for a minute?”

“I am sorry I can’t. It is very expensive.”

“Well! He will just play for a minute and give it back to you.”

“No. I am sorry I cannot. It is expensive and I cherish it so much.”

While talking about how much he loved his guitar, he did an unconscious movement and took it away and put it in its bag. This excluded any further discussion with him. I just said:
“We are sorry to disturb you. My friend just wanted to share some Moroccan music with the public. Sorry again for disturbing you”

This scene is just unthinkable in Morocco. The artist would be happy to share his music tools with you. Yet, I also understood that we were foreigners in a foreign territory and the man was surely suspicious and did not trust the reason my friend wanted to borrow it to play music.

This is not the only weird thing that happened to Said and me at Dupont Circle. Said by the way, is very funny and he loves getting out and enjoying every experience to the full. Married and a father, he burgeons with life and he doesn’t resist being invited for a walk, for shopping or for anything that would include meeting other people. In one of those free afternoons, we were walking without a real direction towards Dupont Circle to take the Metro to the Union Station, we saw a group of two men and a woman brandishing leaflets and flyers and we went towards them. We looked at the flyers they were exhibiting and the lady started talking to us.

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

“Where are you from?”

“Morocco, North Africa.”

“Cool. I heard it is a beautiful country”

“Yes, it is. Very diverse. You should visit someday.”

“ Do you want to visit the house of the founder of the scientology church?”

“Yes, why not? I have just read a long article about it in a Moroccan weekly French magazine.” I had in mind “Le Journal-Hebdo” that had a very long deep article about the scientology church.

When we told the lady that we wanted to visit, she asked us to follow her. While following her I started asking her a lot of questions along the way. But after two blocks my heart started beating so fast. I got scared and started being afraid. It was the first time in my life that I knew cowardice. I thought of horrible things. I was governed by an unprecedented fear. What if this was a bait by some mafia to catch foreigners? What if we never got out of that supposed house? What if we were executed? All kinds of questions crossed my mind. But at the same time, being an avid addict of knowledge and learning about other people; I just told myself to calm down and be alert to defend myself and my friend if anything happened.

What deepened my fears was the fact that we had to walk four or five blocks from the circle. Said was calm and was asking me questions. We were speaking Berber and told him that we should get back and leave the lady. He refused and insisted on visiting.

We got to this beautiful neighbourhood. The house looked really nice, the little front garden well preserved and the outdoor area was very clean. The lady did not have the front door key. She went from the backyard and opened us the door. Said got in first and I followed.

All the possessions of the leader were there. His office, books, furniture, ideas and ideals were intact and so are pictures that represent the major most important stages in his life. The lady started talking about him and his work and also about their friends all over the world. Yet, when I would ask some specific questions, she declined answering under pretext that she did not have answers. She would give a nice smile and when refused to answer questions.

The visit took us thirty minutes. It would have taken longer if I did not pretend that we were busy and we had a rendezvous with friends. When we were outside, I felt reborn again. Said, did not care because he doesn’t have any idea of the dangers we ran going somewhere we did not know. I am sure lots of Americans would not have the guts to follow a person they do not know four or five blocks in a sneaky way. What killed courage in me was the sneakiness of the woman. Imagine yourself following a sneaky alert person who wants to show you the house or the museum of the spiritual leader of a religion. You would not feel comfortable after a little while. Simply, the innate fear within you will wake up and serve as a brake to your egos. It does not matter how much you love knowledge. Fear comes first and blinds your brain.

We left the lady. She was happy and her eyes glittered with a feeling of joy. We wished her good luck in her endeavours to widen the circle of her church adepts. It was a great experience. I realized this when I got over my fears. Diversity, even in religion, is a pillar in the democratic cultures.

The Smithsonian museums were one our Washington favourite directions. The great thing about the Smithsonian museums is the story of their founder, James Smithson. He was an illegitimate child of Elizabeth Hungerford Keate Macie and Hugh Smithson. He was born in France and naturalized British. He has graduated from Oxford in 1786 and he decided to be a scientist in natural sciences. Despite his wealth he decided to explore the countries of Europe looking for samples of minerals. He wanted to make himself a reputation in science and just one year after his graduation from Oxford he managed to become a member of the Royal Society of London, which published a lot of his work. Before his death, he wrote his will to his nephew and stated that if his nephew died without an heir the money would go "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge ...." AND SO IT WAS.

The Smithsonian museums deserve to be called the cultural heart of Washington DC. The museum of National History, the Museum of Native Americans, the National Air and Space Museum, and The Museum of African Heritage are but a few of the nineteen museums and nine research centers the wealth of this great man has given humanity. I wished again wealthy people of my region would give a little of their huge wealth to build a museum, an aquarium, or a natural resort. No one does that.

Not everyone could acquire wisdom and not everyone could create great things with their money. James Smithson would have been just a human being that passed away like any other one, but he managed to invest his money to write his name in history. He bought his ticket in eternity. He was a far-sighted man. He saw with the eyes of the future. Had he seen with the eyes of his era, he would have been forgotten. How many people in our world pile up wealth and die and the day of their death marks the end of their names? How many people do their best to amass money and do not spend it in just causes? I felt sad and a tear rolled down my cheek. Not because I was jealous this time, but the holes in the memory took me back to my early childhood days in the eighties in Tifoultoute, my little village in the South East of Morocco. I remembered some poems I wrote about my life then:

My Soul Is A Blaze
I am an ember
that in the heart of darkness glows
still challenging the blowing winds,
burning with hope to stoke again.

My ashes have gone away
the betraying winds carried them far
believing thus killing me forever,
but stronger A am anyway.

I am the phoenix
growing triumphantly in this barren land
waterless,
incentiveless,
death-waiting,
still, I am here reviving again.

I am that candle wanted to be stabbed out,
tire not yourself winds
you will not be honoured to carry my ashes away
for I am born with a blaze in my heart.

These words were deeply resonating in my ears. They were mingling with sadness and a sense of hope. Every outstanding huge cultural project I have visited in this country was built thanks to funds of philanthropists. From the Smithsonian Institutions to the Aquarium of Corpus Christi in Texas, I saw tiles with hundreds of names of people who have contributed their money to build them. Americans are giving people. They are millions to give a little of their income every year for causes they consider just. My sadness was due to travelling back in time again, but my hope emanates from the fact that there is a new generation of people growing back home. They would surely make a difference.

The period I was visiting these museums coincided with the end of the school year. Being a teacher myself, I had such a deep jealousy watching these swarms of kids from different ages lining up to enter the museums for a free visit. I was thinking why do my kids not have the same opportunities? Why do they not have the opportunity to see a dinosaur? Why did I have to wait till I go to the US to see a hippopotamus? I was thinking how long shall Moroccan kids, in remote areas like where I grew up in, have to wait before being able to visit a museum? How long would it take them to ride a bus to see a dinosaur? I hope not as long as it took me. I wished – in a very selfish mood – that there where I am from, little kids like their American counterparts could grow up enjoying the beauty of historical, natural, and cultural heritage. But, the voice of reason inside me is always stronger and brings me back to the right path.

It is possible if our wealthy people would have a Smithsonian dream. It is not too late for them to buy a seat in the train of eternity.
All Smithsonian museums are free of charge. That says a lot about the kind of thinking that prevails in society and the values that the owners of this huge humanitarian project cherish. I had to pay $20 to get a ticket for the “Louvre” in Paris and the tenth of that amount to enter into other museums. I paid 10 euros to climb the Effel Tower. The idea of a free visit of “monuments” that represent the heritage and the culture of the people of a country is a genius idea. Thousands of people if not millions would visit every year, and every visitor becomes a potential ambassador to their home country. Giving free access to cultural and scientific heritage in a very capitalistic country might be seen as an aberration especially when the maintenance and management expenses of such huge institutions cost millions of dollars. Yet, it is totally understandable when we delve into the American mindset and we relish on the importance of the human capital in creating wealth. It is like saying; we give you free access to museums and cultural institutions so that you become better citizens and great workforce that will develop the potentials of our country among others.

One of the best of the best stories to happen to me ever in the US was at the hotel at New Hampshire Avenue. It was an early Friday morning. I have woken up early and got ready to have breakfast downstairs. The restaurant was empty except for four people: two Pakistani engineers, also international visitors, and an Indian one. The fourth was a stout white heartland American. The Asians were sitting together in the same table and the American was sitting a bit to the center of the nicely made restaurant. Our Moroccan group was known to always have breakfast by the entrance. I sat in our usual place. Three or four minutes later the American man called me:

“Hello, do you work with the department of state?”

“No, I don’t. I am a guest of the American government. Why do you think I work for the department of state?”

“The blue file you were holding had the symbol of the department of state in it”

“Yes, you are right. I am a guest of the American government but I do not work for them”

“Well, I thought that you are an official. I wanted you to carry a message”

“I wish I was an official, but I am not”

“You can sit down”

“Sure, let me get my breakfast”

I joined his table and he started talking. He was 64, truck driver all over the country and he was a Vietnam army veteran. He told me about his adventures, his unfulfilled dreams and hopes for the future. He told me about his friends and mates, his wife and children, his garden and dogs. He was talking and talking. I did not say a word. All I did was listening. Listening has such a power on human beings. It makes them feel important. It makes them express their views and empty all the sadness they hold inside. He talked for about an hour and when he stopped, tears were rolling down his cheeks. I handed him a handkerchief. When he was ready to go, he said, “You are a great man. You surely will have a lot of success in your endeavours in the future.”

I was pondering over his words when we parted. What made me look like a great man for this wise old man? Nothing. It is just because I listened to him carefully, with patience and a lot of endurance. I might not have liked what he was saying, I might not have appreciated the topics that interested him, but I thought it would refreshing for his heart to listen to him especially that he took me for an important person. I was dressed as an important person with my black suit and necktie and shoes. Appearances deceive. But what doesn’t deceive is the wisdom of spotting the right person to tell your story to. He did spot in me, the listener. He did. I still remember his yellow shirt and red “Hard Rock” hat under which you could see long grey hair.

Washington DC also introduced me to the American values of food. Years before visiting this beautiful country, I read that Americans love food, enjoy partying, and Friday and Saturday nights are dedicated to bars and nightclubs. This is a cultural trait of happy people. They enjoy life and live the moment and look for better days to come. I have never seen in my life the diversity of food anywhere else as I have seen in America. I have never imagined that you could weigh your food and pay depending on the weight of what you ate. This happened to me first at the Union Train Station. We finished a business meeting and we had a really tight schedule and we needed to eat and go back to our business meetings. We went to the station. It was full of people from blue collars to white collars to children and old people.

There is a huge variety of food. My eyes kept skipping from stand to stand and my mouth started drooling like a hungry dog. I could not control my hunger for all this food that I have never seen in my life. I have never needed food in my life, but I have also never eaten such a variety of plates that will educate my palate forever. I have never seen in my life so many dishes and so much food. I have never seen in my life so huge steaks and so big cups of Coca-Cola. I have never seen in my life so huge plates that a whole family could share back home. All served for one person.

Chinese, Japanese, Indian, American, Ethiopian, Lebanese, French, Italian, Russian, and all the kinds of food that you could imagine are to be found in America. The food stands at the Union Train Station represented a small America. You would not even feel hungry anymore taking a tour of all these varieties of food. Workers sell the food of their home countries and here again a very little significant story happened to me with a middle-aged Chinese woman. I bought some chicken made in the Chinese way and I handed her five dollars and she was busy looking for some cents to give me back, I said:

“There is no problem.”

“It is problem.”

“Why is it a problem” thinking that she might get in trouble with her employer.

“This is America baby! You should take all your change, no matter how small it is. You will need it somewhere else. Nobody would give you anything for free.”

Also, workers at these small restaurants hand you samples of their food to taste; if you just took a long walk all around the restaurants and taste from every kind of food they exhibit; you would kill your hunger forever. I will surely go back there to enjoy the smell of food and look at people eat in this melting pot restaurant. Food here is also cheap and affordable.

American people have a very educated palate. They have schedules for sushi, Mexican food, Arab food, African food, and so on. This is part of an education and a way of life that Americans have learned through their long way to diversity and democracy. I can say that there is a food democracy. I saw it. You can eat everything you want to eat but you should also assume the consequences of your choices especially if you do not buy healthy food. Obesity would be the ultimate bad result. Of course, you also need to afford fancy food.

My trip to Washington was coming to an end. It was sad to start packing and be ready to fly to wounded New Orleans. The “angry woman Katrina” has devastated a whole city. The journey to New Orleans was a lot of fun but I had to have a bag check at Ronald Reagan International airport because of a pile of books I had in my backpack. I don’t know how the books looked at the scanner for the TSA officers, but the mere waiting for the bag check to happen and people’s looks at this brown-colored almost made me faint.

I learned my lesson: no backpack, no belts with metal objects, no mobile, and no laced shoes. Better be light and travel without trouble. Ever since then, I have never had any bag checks. I simply learned how to not be belated at the airports.

Visit next month for the continuation of Brahim's journey!