Inspired by Harriet

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Blog 17

December 8-December 12. Blog 17.

After returning from Kurrarawe and finishing up my responsibilities as a member of Chile Country Team, I was tasked with finishing my other academic responsibilities. With all of the energy that I put into my time with the Mapuche, this week has been garnering a lot of energy that I didn’t think I had. To fcomplete my final assignments, I was responsible for creating a powerpoint presentation that encapsulated the Chile project and my research project. In addition, I had to complete my research project paper as well as several shorter papers for some of my courses. By the grace of god, I finished my papers in one piece and on time (well kind of on time!)

On my last few days in Santiago, I went to a final retreat with members of my program in Punta de Tralca. Our rooms were right next to the water and the site included multiple pools and recreational facilities. Although most of our activities were focused around community building and reviewing main themes and takeaways from our program, there were also moments that I took to be by myself and truly take part in a self-reflexive exercise. During those last few days near the water I thought about what I had learned from this program and also what I wanted to learn going forward. I believe that while I enjoyed travelling to Jordan, Nepal, and Chile and learning from the people and activists there—I did not have the same life-changing experiences that my peers did and I thoroughly believe that in a trip like my own, there would be no way that I could. As a Black woman of a specific politic, my human rights program had no space for me, was not tailored for me, and continually felt as if it was letting me down. It was quite frankly. But the fact that my program never spoke of anti-Blackness until I facilitated a workshop on it, never spoke about the Black people who we would see in every country we visited, and included (and catered to) students who had never tackled their anti-Blackness in any serious critical way—was not enough to stop me from enjoying myself. No, I did not have a life-changing experience, but there were moments that I experienced joy. I made friends from each country that I visited who I still keep in touch with, I’ve been touched by amazing people and those people have touched me, and I have travelled to places that I never thought I’d ever see. I’ve done things that I never thought I would have the courage to do and I was happy when I did those things. I learned how to safeguard my happiness even in a group of students who are still learning what it means to not only be politically correct but what it means to be human and be radically compassionate to other humans. 

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Blog 16

November 30-December 7 Blog 16

In addition to working hard on our country team project, this week I was also able to really take in the Mapuche territory and speak to some of the leaders of Ferria Walung about what it means to be Mapuche. Ferria Wallung is organization formed under the leadership of Mapuche women to sustain their community and prevent the state from settling on their indigenous land. Beginning in the nineteenth century, indigenous territory has been under constant threat. The threat that Mapuche territory has is a consequence of a legal framework that does not value the Mapuche people and advocates for state-sanctioned development which usually opposes the desires of the Mapuche. For the Mapuche, the fight to keep their territory is not only an environmental issue but it is also, and most importantly, a human rights issue.

For the Chile team project, we are creating a websit for the Ferria Walung organization to display what water means to them. Throughout our time in with the Mapuche we have learned that the relationship is undefinable, the language to describe it exists in the emotions and the connection that the Mapuche have with water and furthermore the land. For this reason, we have decided to use photos, video testimonies, and direct quotes to form the basis of the website. We hope that in the future, IHP students can continue what we’ve begun with our solidarity initiative. Completing the video, translations, and photo project for the website took many long and hours and many days but we were extremely proud with how it turned out and we can’t wait to see how it is utilized in the future. For my part of the project, I focused on creating a document for future IHP students that detailed what information they should have to go forward successfully and efficiently. In addition, I worked on compiling legal documents for the Chile Staff and Walung leaders to review on what the legal framework of Chile is concerning radio broadcast.

At the same time as we were working hard to complete our solidarity inititative project, we were also working hard to complete our research project and additional final papers for our program. Sometimes it felt as if I couldn’t look outside and take in the fact that I was in this beautiful sacred land without thinking about all of the responsibilities that I was required to fulfill. However, coming back to my homestay family every night and eating their fresh and absolutely delicious food was one of the things that made it all worth it. Furthermore seeing our willingness to try to communicate through not knowing Spanish and through mild confusion made the experience unforgettable. Learning from the Mapuche community in Chile was truly an experience that I will never forget.

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Blog 15

November 23-November 29 Blog 15

It’s hard to fathom that my time in Chile is coming to a close. It seems that we just got to Chile and now we are soon to be ending our trip. Yet there is still so much more. We’ll be visiting and learning from the Mapuche people in the south of Chile for our final weeks. The Mapuche are an indigenous group whose territory is recognized by the Chilean state as existing in south central Chile. Their land is surrounded by beautiful green mountains, hills, and volcanoes. On Monday evening we travelled to Temuc0,   city in Southern Chile. There, we met with indigenous rights activist scholars to learn about indigenous rights in Chile. We met with one of the founders on the Committee for the Defense of the Sea and leaders of the Mapuche community who spoke to us about their struggle against corporate control of their water source. The conflict between the Mapuche and paper pulp companies began in 1996. These companies used the sea to dispose of their paper pulp waste that contains dioxins such as aluminum. The Committee for the Defense of the Sea is actively working against the project to pollute the sea and future projects that might compromise the sea as a water source for food and for life. Water is intrinsic to who the Mapuche are.

During the launch of our program in New York City, I had signed up to be a member of the Chile Country team. As a requirement for my program, each student has to do a service project with members of the community that we are inhabiting. I decided to do my service project for the benefit of the Mapuche people because I wanted to learn more about Mapuche rights and because I wanted to learn more about what indigenous rights meant. On Thursday, we left Temuco to begin our stay in Curarrahue or as the decolonized autonomous Mapuche leaders call their town, Kurarawe. In Kurarawe I was given a new homestay family in a beautiful home. My homestay mother’s name is Benita, my homestay sister is Florencia and my homestay brother is Pablo. I am also living with two host sisters from my program, Arely and Molly. While the native language of the Mapuche people is Mapudungun, our homestay family spoke fluent Spanish as well. I was extremely fortunate that Arely, one of my close friends on the program was also fluent in Spanish and could interpret for me so that I was able to speak to my host family, if only for a little.

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Blog 14

November 16-November 22 Blog 14

“It is not enough to dream because you might wake up with nightmares”

“Democracy is a noun only, if you hear it as an adjective, be suspicious.”

“Our only crime was to dream for a democratic and just society.”

                                                                               Quotes from discussions during our visit to Villa Grimaldi

               Last week, my program took me to Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos as part of our focus on transitional justice and the history of the Pinochet dictatorship. This week, we visited Villa Grimaldi, one of the most prominent sites used by DINA, the Chilean Secret police to torture alleged opponents to the Pinochet dictatorship for information. This site has been reclaimed by the people and transformed into a memorial site to remember the lives of those who were murdered there. In the morning before the site visit, my host dad spoke to me and my host sister about the friends that he had lost during the Pinochet dictatorship. He trusted us with his lived reality of experiencing the fear of living under monarchy and challenged us to hold his raw emotion with us as we learned about transitional justice that day and every day going forward. I might be a student learning about a dark part of Chilean history, but there are Chilean people who experienced that horror first hand. Our tour guide for Villa Grimaldi was a woman who had experienced torture first hand in the establishment. That was one of the many moments where I really wished I could speak conversational Spanish so that I’d be able to really speak to her, without relying on an interpreter. She took us to a part of the memorial site that was in the shape of a lighthouse. She showed us the part of the walls where there were pull out casket like boxes. She told me that as a means of torture for information extraction, prisoners would be stuffed into those holes in the wall, often four at a time for days. I’ve included a piece from my notes during the visit:

“We got to the last monument and we went inside. It was shaped like a cube with faded brown and teal boxes. It was the memorial for the pieces of metal that were linked to the bodies of the disappeared who were drowned in the ocean to hide evidence of murder during the dictatorship. Inside the box was Black darkness. To me the darkness felt infinite. Ocean waves played on repeat. In front of me: a glass case displaying the metal that was used to ensure the erasure of political genocide. It felt like the transatlantic slave trade. It felt like remembering”

During the week we also visited the University of Santiago, and had lectures on transitional justice.

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Blog 13!

November 9-November 15 Blog 13

My transition from Amman, Jordan to Santiago, Chile has been a difficult one. Yet today I feel as if my body is finally beginning to adjust to the summer weather, the vast array of colors, the Spanish language, and all that Chile has to offer. While we have only had a few introduction lectures on the history of social movements in Chile and on indigenous rights, what I’ve learned has certainly been intriguing. Our classroom space is in Bellavista, which is a Bohemian artsy section of Santiago. There are many restabars (restaurant in the afternoon and bars at night) as well as many vibrant art and collaborative spaces. As student movements centering on equity, safety, and accountability for Black college students in the United States have garnered national attention, I have been grateful to learn about the ways in which the Chilean Student Movement garnered attention and continued to progress. I truly believe that a transnational dialogue on movement building against oppressive structures is key to moving towards global social justice. I also met my host family at the beginning of this week! My host parents are the cutest people ever. My host dad’s name is Miguel and my host mom is Ilia. They have two sons: Manu and Miguel who are always around and always willing to lend a hand and offer a joke to lighten up the mood. Their house is cute and comfortable and my roommate and I have been lucky enough to get our own rooms. Through my conversations at home as well as in my attempts to speak to everyday Chileans, I’ve noticed how much not knowing how to speak Spanish in Chile impacts your ability to get around and form connections. According to national statistics, 10% of Chileans speak English and Spanish is the national and most popular language. With this fact known, I have been taking the few language classes that we’ve had very seriously and I try to consistently learn new words in Spanish and to use the “poquito” (little) Spanish that I know every day. On Thursday, Chile played Columbia in futbol and the whole of Chile was perked in front of a television screen to see how the match would go. My host family made a beautiful spread of food and snacks to eat while watching the game. My host dad even had a black horn to blow every 15 minutes to emphasize his happiness. It was a really funny and fun night! On Friday we went to the The Musea de la Memoria Y Los Derechos Humanos (The Museum for Memory and Human Rights) in Santiago. Based on our lectures and presentations prior to our visit, I knew that our visit would be deeply emotional but also one of witnessing the pain of others with all of the ethical questions that come from being in a place but not of the place. I’ve never been comfortable with exerting my gaze upon the historical pain of others, even when I am sharing in a space that I was invited into and did not occupy without consent. So first and foremost, the visit was extremely uncomfortable for me but secondly it was an opportunity to learn with images, in movement, and through videos and presentation materials the human rights atrocities during the Pinochet regime. This weekend I went to Movilh Chile’s LGBT Festival which is an annual parade and concert event that celebrates the progress of LGBTQIA rights in Chile. The festival was so much fun!! I danced and took in the energy that surrounded me. On Sunday my family hosted a barbeque and invited some of their closest friends to further welcome us into Chile.

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12!

November 2-November 8 Blog 12

It is my last week in Amman and I don’t feel ready to move on to Chile. It feels as if I’ve just begun my learning in Jordan and that I’m losing my grasp on the opportunity to learn more about Jordan and furthermore the relationship between the US and the Middle East. I’ve made friends here who have reconfigured my understanding of Jordan, Islam, and the Arab world. I’ve formed friendships, both scholarly and personally, with Palestinians who have made me believe in hope for Palestine when before I could see none. Most of all I’ve fallen in love with the fierce generosity, willingness to listen as well as advocate for their position, and the welcoming nature of Jordan.

During my last week in Jordan I conducted last minute interviews for my research, visited several non-profit organizations, had final dinners, last minute hangouts, and ended with an academic synthesis of the Jordan portion of the program. One of the highlights of this week was meeting Sawsan, a Masters student who is half Sudanese and half Jordanian. Believe it or not, she has been the only Black person who I’ve encountered on my trip so far who I’ve had a chance to get to know during my trip. She is committed to doing a critical analysis of race and gender in the Middle East, through the lens and experiences of a Black Jordanian woman. We met and talked about Blackness, shared knowledge of the Black feminist tradition and scholarship, and also made space to share personal stories of racism and sexism in our respective communities. We also shared our visions for our futures and for our collective liberation. Another highlight was the final dinner with the Jordan Country Team at Umsiat Amman in Downtown Amman. The food was amazing but the company was even better! I also had a wonderful farewell dinner with the friends that I was so blessed to have met and made during my time in Jordan. We ate, laughed, talked and simply enjoyed our time together knowing that we would meet again sometime in the future.  

While it would be a gross injustice to simply summarize my Jordanian experience in a 500 word blog post, there are several thoughts that I would like to end on in terms of my time in Jordan.

1. Through my research I’ve learned how to seek out spaces of exception where the subaltern speaks. I’ve experienced the amount of diligence and patience that it takes to seek out those whose identities must be private. I’ve also realized that it takes a certain positionality to do so; to encounter the people who you want to learn from and with and to have them trust you enough to build solidarities.

2. There are visible dichotomies between socioeconomic classes in Jordan. Because I had the privilege to move freely between East Amman and West Amman as well as to the locations outside of Amman I was able to witness this first hand.

3. Black women are everywhere and their voices will not be silenced.

4. Islamic liberation theology and Islamic Feminist critiques of the Qur’an are radically changing and shaping the way that Arabic and/or those who identify as Muslim see themselves in relation to those who share their faith and those in their community. I am grateful to have met some of the current and future theorists, professors, and leaders who are pushing these discourses forward.

5. There are nations in which religion and culture are explicitly linked and this fact is legitimate, intelligible, and in need of no validation.

6. I am inexplicably in solidarity with Palestine and all victims of settler colonialism.

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Blog 11

Blog 11. October 26-November 1

I went to one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Petra! In addition, I also went to Wadi Rum and Aqaba. Our SIT Jordan Country Team truly went above and beyond in planning and executing a southern excursion trip for my program. It was absolutely phenomenal and filled with experiences that I will never forget going forward. We began our Southern excursion with a walking tour of Petra. It was the first time that I have ever walked through something like Petra. There were walls of stone on both sides of me, some intricately carved into different shapes and spiritual sites that marked the ancient civilization that lived there. It felt as if I was in a scene of the Prince of Egypt to be honest haha. We walked to see the monestary, the bank, and amazing mountain views all carved out of stone. I opted to take a mule to take me up the mountain and through all of my screams and frights, I can honestly say it was one of the best experiences ever. Of course, my mule was the only one that did not walk calmly, instead it often tried to run forward and would make sudden jolts and jumps. Maybe it was trying to test me, to see who I was. By the time we saw all of the amazing sights and were ready to go back to our bus, I had opted to get on another mule. I’ll never forget the sound of the mules heals clapping against small puddles of water as we made our way through sand stone walls with the stars glistening in the sky above. It was magical. The second stop on our trip was Waddi Rum. Waddi Rum is the largest Wadi in Jordan, also known as The Valley of the Moon it is a vast desert. We stayed the night in a camp site set up in the desert and enjoyed the most tasty lamb dinner that was cooked underground! We also had a huge camp fire and dances around the fire. I also rode a C A M E L! Believe it or not (I can barely believe it, but after two mule rides the day before anything is possible) I successfully rode a camel through the desert and loved every bit of it! We concluded our time in the south of Jordan with a visit to Aqqaba, the only coastal city in Jordan. When driving into Aqqaba I saw tall palm trees and wide streets similar to those in California. I also saw the beautiful clear water that characterizes why Jordanians and international tourists name Aqqaba a must-destination. In Aqqaba, we enjoyed a boat ride that included a yummy lunch, lots of dancing and singing, and snorkeling!

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Blog 10!

October 19, 2015 to October 24, 2015

We started our week with a visit to the Al Za’atari Camp in the east of Jordan. Za’atari refugee camp is home to over 90,000 Syrian refugees. In the time prior to our visit we were debriefed on what our visit would include: speaking to individual families who had agreed to meet with us, visiting food sites. Yet nothing could have prepared me for what being a foreign student in and of a refugee camp would feel like. Even recalling the experience is difficult; I fear that I may be insensitive, that I am taking up space, that there is no way within this blog post for me to truly center the lives of those who spoke to me—those who touched me, held my hand and kissed my cheeks. I don’t know if my words can make the reality of those displaced in Syria intelligible, and at the same time I fear what the implications are if my words, rather than the words of Syrians themselves, is what makes the refugee reality intelligible to a Western audience. Rather than attempting to explain my experiences, I am including quotes from the families and individuals who came to speak with us, descriptions of specific moments, and notes that I took while at the refugee camp.

“We drove to the second main gate to enter the camp. The process to enter is strenuous. The army officers who are guarding the camp must check and re-check your documents. The weather is sweltering, we are in the desert area of Jordan. We were told that no one really lives this far out. Young boys, maybe 10-17 stand around our bus, just waiting and watching. Waiting and watching. One, wearing a yellow transformers shirt, catches a student’s eyes from our glass window veils, barriers—and smiles, waving. What hope can we—I bring to him here? There are approximately 120,000 refugees in this camp. The students behind me are terrorizing/theorizing about what questions they will ask as we ride through rows and rows of dusted caravans on flat dry land filled with Brown bodies that we don’t know the names of. I wonder if this terrorizing will keep them alive for longer. As for me, this feels like pain with no one hurting me physically. This looks like history repeated: containment camps, jails…What makes this different from a prison. If these people leave, they become fugitives in Jordan but if they didn’t leave their homes in Syria, they could’ve died. What is different about carceral spaces that exist within borders? Are refugee camps toils of nation-states? Their transnational excretions? It is just starting to rain. Who is the boy sitting outside of the Za’atari Camp Civil Refugee Center? Gray sweater with his hood on, blue straight jeans that end right before his ashen sandy legs, the government-mandated color of all of the buildings in Jordan. Why is he smiling now? They opened the refugee center gate and gave him a cigarette and now he sits closer to the gate. I think he is waiting for something from them. The rain has stopped and now a new boy is sitting in the first boy’s rock.”

                                                                                               Journal Entry Taken While Waiting in our Group Bus

“I want to be honest with you. Syrian people have skills, they like to work. We want the international community to stop the war and send us back home. Have you ever heard of a President who killed his people and then he won? We love everyone. We love people as people, but we have a problem when it comes to government”

                                                                               Syrian refugee, Father, Husband, Former NGO Employee

“I want to go to Germany because I recently had a baby. She is thirty six days but she has a health problem.”

“Comparing to other people [our journey to Jordan] was easy because my wife was here and my children. I travelled at night for it to be safe.”

Syrian refugee family who invited us into their home, sharing one of the few bottles of water that they had

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Blog 9!

October 12-October 18

On Monday, we visited the University of Jordan in West Amman. The campus, compared to my small liberal arts college in New York, is huge! It has long beautiful paths and featurs many different departments and buildings.  Students come from all over the world, and all over Jordan, to study at its renowned facilities. We were fortunate to have two Professors from the university teach us through our time at SIT Jordan, but being right in the university setting was a different experience. It was a reminder that I has been away from structured education for more than four months, and that I was forgetting how being within the ivory tower felt. I couldn’t help but think about how my friends at Vassar and other colleges back at home were doing and feeling. During our time at University of Jordan, we were tasked with speaking to students on key human rights issues as defined by our program. These issues spanned women’s rights, refugee rights, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Personally, I didn’t like this activity. I would have preferred if the students who we were tasked with speaking to had self-selected themselves to speak to us rather than us randomly interjecting ourselves in their daily school life. While the students who I spoke to were extremely kind and open, it was impossible to not think about the fact that they were uncomfortable with the language barrier and also with topics that were as personal as they were political. Because we were a group of U.S. students who were visibly and physically different, I felt as if my presence could have felt imposing to the students that we approached, in a way that they might have felt as if they had to speak to me. As a student socialized in the United States, under western exceptionalism, I don’t think it equates for me to think of how I would have reacted if this activity was performed on U.S. campuses. The inability to reciprocate the activity I think was the real brunt of my discomfort.

During this week I was also able to co-facilitate a group discussion on the Israel-Palestine conflict. With the other co-facilitator Ali, we constructed a discussion focusing on moving away from political correctness—looking at or visceral reactions that what we had learned, how our opinions changed, and the transnational connections that we see. We spoke about the relationship between settler colonialism and gentrification as well as the global phenomena of appropriation of indigenous people’s lands. I was most proud and inspired by two of the women of color in the group who spoke up on how upset they were that some students wanted to remain diplomatic on the conflict. They spoke about what we lose when we feign diplomacy instead of action; who dies when these issues are only seen as political rather than extremely personal. In my opinion, I see the occupation of Palestine by Israel as inhumane and unjust. Historical and personal narrative of the conflict shows that the occupation has less to do with religion and more to do with conquest, colonialism, and racism. I firmly stand with Palestine just as I firmly stand with Black low-income people in Brooklyn who are being pushed out of their homes every day.

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Blog 8!

October 6-11 Blog 8

“I too think the intellectual should disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provactaive by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressures and manipulations, should be chief doubters of systems, of power and its incantations, should be witness to their mendacity…An intellectual is always at odds with hard and fast categories.” Vaclev Havel

We arrived safely in the capital of Jordan, Amman on the afternoon of October 6th. Immediately after getting out of the airport, we were greeted by an extremely excited Jordan Country Team who came bearing gifts and kind words. The weather was a crisp fall, giving us a refreshing breeze that was distinct from the summer sun that marked my time in Nepal. Our welcoming lunch was at a restaurant called Kalfa where we had the most amazing falafel, hummus, ful ( fava bean mix), and vegetables. I ate until I could barely stand upright. I was so excited to eat authentic falafel and I was not disappointed. We spent our first day in a hotel and on our second day, after an orientation, we met our homestay families. I am in a homestay in West Amman near downtown. My homestay mom’s name is Orayb, my homestay dad’s name is Maad, my three sisters are named Jude, Seewar, and Renin, and our little dog is named Lexi nicknamed LuLu, respectively. They were extremely welcoming and kind on our first meeting and during my first week, as I got to know them better, I learned that they operate very similarly to my own family. I am rooming with one of my close friends on the program, Arely and we share a room that is more like a studio apartment. In the room there are two beds, a living room and a bathroom. It seems that just as I lucked out in having a spacious living space in Nepal, I also lucked out in Jordan. Our classes during our first week concentrated on survival Arabic, research methods, an introduction to Jordan’s political landscape, and an introduction to Islam. Some Arabic words that I can never forget, as my wonderful Arabic teacher Muna made sure we repeated them multiple times in each class are: Marhaba (Hello!), Akid (Sure), Tamman (Fine), Suh (Yes), Shukran/Islamu (Thank you!), and Afwan (You’re welcome). In our first class with Dr. Sara we learned about the political structure of Jordan using a historical, political, and economic framework. Our introduction to Jordan was steeped in an understanding that colonial powers (namely Britain) were responsible for separation of a greater Arab nation and thus the creation of Jordan. However Jordan, and furthermore the Jordanian identity, is a compilation of the many cultures and peoples that surround its borders. Rather than analyzing Jordan as only a nation that exists on the periphery of a turbulent Middle East and within the palm of American economic and foreign policy, our Professor allowed Jordan to be analyzed on its own first and then in relation to the Arabic world and to other nations. We also had an Introduction to Islam course which explored the origins of Islam and dispelled racialized and gendered perceptions of Islam. One of the quotes from our Professor that stuck with me was “Islam is a world admission that means submission to God.” It was also interesting to learn that only 12-15% of Muslims are Arabs. During this week I was also beginning to think about how I wanted to approach my research in Jordan. Specifically, I worried about not finding individuals or organizations to reach out to and not knowing how to even begin this process. Due to the fact that Jordan has no official LGBTQIA rights related civil society organizations, I knew that my interviewees would have to be found though informal methods. I was uncertain of my ability to actually reach the people whose thoughts I wanted to hear but I was also excited for the challenge.

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Blog 7!

Blog 7. October 5 to October 6 

October 5, 2015 marked my last day in Kathmandu, Nepal. All of the students were responsible for meeting at Yellow House (a cute bed and breakfast in Kathmandu) in the morning where we had our final debriefs, program evaluations, and meals. When I said my goodbyes to my host dad that morning he placed a khada, or a Nepalese scarf denoting a ceremony or celebration, around my neck and gave me a huge hug. He then reminded me that when he comes to visit New York City, I betta’ not pretend that I don’t know him anymore. I couldn’t believe that after spending such an intense month in Nepal I was actually leaving. The night before our plane ride to Jordan and then to Amman we celebrated our time together with the Nepal Country Team and our host family with a closing dinner that brought together all of the people who made our time in the country as wonderful as it was. I couldn’t help but question whether or not I would return to Nepal after I returned to the United States. If I returned, would it be to visit friends that I had made, would I be returning with a service project in mind, or as an English teacher or an advisor of a program similar to my own? Furthermore should I return and if I do, do I have to have a reason. These were the ethical questions that had sprung up during the course of many of our lectures, site visits, and hang outs—and these were the questions that remained on my mind even as I was overcome with joy and gratefulness. The following morning we packed our bags and made our way to the Tribhuvan International Airport. We said our goodbyes to our wonderful Nepal Country Team (almost all of our country team except for Jeevan who had to leave us a bit early) and made our way quickly through all of the airport security procedures up until we went to get our boarding passes.  At this point we found out that our flight to Doha was delayed for hours. By the time we arrived in Doha, we had missed our connecting flight and had to the stay the night until the next available flight in the morning. The root of this issue was and still is the blockage of fuel and petrol from India to Nepal. However, the Indian government has denied any agency in the fuel crisis in Nepal. It didn’t take an expert foreign policy analyst to see the long lines that shrouded Kathmandu gas stations, most of these lines occupied by empty cars and motor bikes. I also witnessed the closing of restaurants that did not have enough petrol or gas to cook. Graffiti laden walls shouted “Lay Off Modi” as a statement of opposition towards the Indian Prime Minister. According to Nepali News, and based on information that I had gathered through informal conversation, the Indian government was blocking all Nepali border entry points into India “after expressing dissatisfaction with some provisions of the Himalayan nation’s new constitution” (Nepali Times). Our plane delay was only a small consequence of an issue that was affecting the daily livelihoods of Nepali people in all encompassing ways. My position in Nepal during the time of the nation ratifying a new constitution and then during the petrol shortage allowed me to both witness and be indebted to the toils of international foreign policy in a way that I wouldn’t have been aware of, or indebted to, if I was in America. After arriving in Doha, and after spending a night in a hotel gratuitously provided by SIT, I was off to Amman unsure of what to expect, but excited for another month of international study.

“Fuel Crisis Deepens” by Nepali Times, �1?]

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