migration and the other

aza meeting another lil girl at a school.  they kind of stared at each other trying to figure each other out.   the school is for refugee children and adults.  primarily the school serves east african refugees namely from sudan and eritrea.    recent experiences in the israeli prison with european and african immigrants looking for work and now in egypt with east african folks fleeing war has brought me to a greater vision of one of the global experiences in this age: dislocation, movement between borders, migration and the ways that violence intersects and pushes away from the homeland and toward movement.  to live in the identity of migrant.  to choose the life of the ‘other’ in a strange/familiar place in order to choose life at all.

actually this is the theme of the work i have done in the past few years whether in mexico, palestine, the eastern congo, the u.s., and now in egypt.  time and time again i see how violence causes dislocation and how the experience of dislocation is a form of violence.  and how do we heal from this?  how do we create community in a strange land?  what do we do once we have survived?

a couple of days ago we went to an art exhibit called: the other that dealt with these themes.  kismet?

this was my favorite exhibit (above pics).  a small room filled with plastic bags, stuffed with pictures, stories, fragments of recorded identities of african men and women.  these bags hanging from the ceiling by plastic thread.  it was like walking into a large silent windchime.  these identites rooted to the ceiling but swinging in accordance to the vagaries of the wind or my movement through the room.

first days in cairo

1. we arrived saturday night.  as we were riding in the taxi to the hotel, aza was getting cranky and so i said to her: welcome to africa.  and she quieted down relaxed her mouth and opened her eyes wider to take in the nightscape of cars zooming passed.

2.

saw this on aljazeera yesterday

3.  cairo is busy full of people ancient egypt kitsch, buildings that are never finished being built.  dusty. car horns and construction tools.  warm weather.  i had missed the third world badly.  the elegant chaos.  the burgeoning

4.  we are staying with friends with whom we hung out in jerusalem.  they are working with east african refugees in cairo.  their apartment is cute.  reminds me of my mothers interior decorating in the 80s.  stylish, afro-centric, colorful.   perhaps i can convince my mother to visit egypt.

5.

saw this on aljazeera today…

6.  i am learning how to negotiate a stroller through crazy traffic, sidewalks that glide into no sidewalks.  i find myself directing traffic with one hand while guiding the stroller…

7. watched mtv arabia last night.  i think that mtv arabia thinks that all hip hop songs should have a minimum amount of deleted words and if there arent enough ‘bad words’ in the song to be deleted they should just start deleting random words.  words in hip hop songs that were deleted last night: feather, star, bring it…

8.  even though i wasnt allowed into israel/palestine, i am really excited about the future.  although i miss the west bank.  next time i go to palestine, fuck israel, i will go on a boat to gaza.  `

9. its the lunar new year!  the annular solar eclipse!  new moon in aquarius! last year was a roller coaster.  crazy rat.