I got way ahead of myself last time, discussing themes and lessons and values when I should have first explained this summer’s agenda. Though I have much more to share, let’s cover first things first.

I am interning for two months with Kamay at Puso (KAP), an organization based in California, which has a center in the community of Madapdap, located in the Pampanga region of Luzon (the largest island of the Philippine archipelago). KAP is the main funding body of the center, bringing medical treatment (mostly physical therapy) to the town’s children and those of neighboring barangays (‘neighborhoods’; the smallest units of government in the Philippines). These children, ages 2-12, suffer from cerebral palsy and other degenerative diseases, contracted from what most believe was contaminated drinking water that their mothers ingested before the children were born. The recent history of this area is long and painful, starting in 1991 with the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The eruption itself killed hundreds of people and destroyed the infrastructures, local economies, and relative peace of the surrounding communities. Their inhabitants were virtually refugees—dispersed, in constant search of safe land on which to settle, and in constant flight from ash emissions, lahar, that continued to flow into the area’s rivers and valleys. In response, the Philippine national government relocated them to Clark Air Base Command (CABCOM), part of one of the two main American bases left in the Philippines, abandoned by the U.S. military following the natural disaster. The square footage of the former base was vast (around the size of Singapore), physical space a non-question in deciding whether all these families would literally “fit” onto CABCOM. However, after a couple of years, when stability and re-growth seemed imminent, individuals—many—started to get sick. These sicknesses ranged from heart disease to skin cancer to respiratory problems to organ failure. Turns out, CABCOM was also a former motor pool, where the U.S. military during its occupation improperly dumped toxic waste produced by jet-fighters, submarines, and other war-related equipments. (Read this.) Finally in 2000, reacting to several years of bad press highlighting the plight of the settlements’ victims, the Philippine government again moved the communities to where they are currently situated—outside of CABCOM, but not far from its ominous borders.

Then came the next generation of babies. Not old enough to have experienced the disaster, they are nevertheless feeling the health effects that resulted from displacement. Kamay at Puso starts at this level of engagement—children—and partners with mothers and the local community to make medical treatment and health information accessible (and free). Uniting families of Madapdap, San Isidro, Santa Lucia, and others (all resettlement sites) around their children, KAP aims to make community involvement and empowerment more palpable, despite a situation that is immobilizing, defined by heartache, and distracting (to say the least).

The main problem the organization has, however, is lack of capital. Money comes in from individual donors and from fundraisers held by Filipino-American (Fil-Am) organizations in the States, but those funds vary in size and are often inconsistent sources of consistently needed money. My job is essentially to fundraise, but to do so in a way that solves for this organizational and financial conundrum. The project is threefold:

1. Grant-writing

I have started to write many grants this summer and have many more to go. The idea behind this aspect of the project is that large sums of money are needed to fund expensive x-rays, hospital visits, medications, leg braces, rolling walkers, et cetera. Some of the children’s conditions even require surgery. However, in most cases, physical therapy is applied because it is cheaper, and it is a less invasive and risky form of treatment. At this point, all of the physical therapists, rehabilitation doctors, and surgeons work with the kids for free. Yet as a result, they can only donate their services for a few hours each week, the center serving only a fraction of the children and families it could. And of course, there is always the problem of consistency, when after six months, doctors either leave to do something that actually makes money (why wouldn’t they?) or succumb to the increasing pressures of ‘brain drain’ on professionals in Third World countries. The children are left to adjust to new doctors and therapists, enduring treatment that is painful for their fragile limbs, and the process repeats itself again.

If granted, these new sources of funding will help KAP move beyond sustenance and reliance on the goodwill of medical professionals towards a stable operation. So far, the money that comes in only covers operational expenses (electric, water, salary of the center’s one full-time staff member), other expenses being paid for out of pocket by the coordinator here in the Philippines or by an unexpected check from the States. Grant money would help the center transform and grow, retaining doctors for a longer period of time, treating more children, and embarking on various programs (health and hygiene educational seminars, livelihood projects, speech therapy programs, and dental care initiatives) that correspond to the principal physical therapy program.

Undoubtedly, this is the most important part of the project.

2. Livelihood

Madapdap and the other barangays in this area suffer notoriously from high unemployment. Some joke that when you’re in Pampanga, you always see a bunch of people on the streets, just hanging out in front of their ‘sari-sari’ stores (where they sell small snacks), chilling out leisurely in front of large fans. An outreach project of KAP to help ameliorate this situation (of money basically circulating within) is the livelihood project, employing the children’s mothers and relatives to make low-cost products to be sold abroad for more money. There are multiple benefits to this approach, raising money for the center and employing the unemployed, but also building a sense of community around the cause of children. The idea is to get the people of Madapdap involved and really let the mothers and families direct such initiatives—less finger-wagging, more handholding. Additionally, this project would likely increase the flow of money to the center and into the town, creating a more dependable source of funding.

My job is to help Susan, the center’s coordinator in Manila, come up with product ideas that would be appealing to American and European markets (consumers of Fair Trade products), and to contact Fair Trade retailers regarding wholesale purchases. So far we have thought of these dolls that are pretty easy to make and are sewn using all local materials. But beyond that, I will need some creative guidance, so I’ll ask my mom (she loves to shop). Or better yet, send me some of your ideas (Belinda_Navi@brown.edu)!

3. Networking

I am continuing with networking efforts made by those currently and previously involved with KAP. Beyond its moneymaking capabilities, networking helps get groups and individuals, especially Fil-Ams and Filipinos living abroad, invested in the issues from which they are geographically removed. There are countless organizations in the United States, even if only at the college and university level (Filipino Alliance at Brown, Filipino Intercollegiate Networking Dialogue or FIND, Samahang Pilipino at UCLA), that have enormous fundraising and networking capabilities (I should be posting on Facebook!). Word of mouth spreads like wildfires, if you have enough fuel or offshore winds. Don’t know about those winds, but I hope rising fuel prices won’t hinder me from undertaking this task (HA!).

There’s The Story and The Plan. I’m off now for some coconut juice (my favorite!), so don’t wait up for me…

(For some good, short, pertinent reading, check out yesterday’s New York Times article on the Bhopal disaster of 1984: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/world/asia/07bhopal.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.)

Bush and Fukuda passionately justify their decision by separating sports from politics. But we all understand that Olympics have always been political, sometimes resulting in very unfortunate and unfair consequences for the athletes. So why did Bush decide to go? In my understanding, Bush's decision to please China is intimately related to his success in the North Korea non-proliferation issue--arguably his only positive legacy on both the foreign and domestic front. The Bush team deserves credit for North Korea's recent move to turn over detailed documents of its nuclear program and subsequently destroying one of its reactors, and it is likely that China has been playing a continuous role in facilitating this development behind closed doors. Bush has taken North Korea off the terror list, which made many East Asian neighbors, including Japan, very unhappy. But what is done is done and the last thing Bush wants to see is North Korea turning back on its promises, which will make him look like a fool and squander his only chance of leaving a positive legacy in foreign affairs, at least in the foreseeable future. (It is still, in my opinion, unclear whether Iraq will be a positive or negative chapter in Bush's presidency; the war isn't over yet.) Therefore, to keep his success in North Korea on course, he must make sure China stays with him, and attending the Opening Ceremony and offending some human rights activists is a small price to pay.

Fukuda also has good reasons to please China. Since he took over the Japanese Diet, he's been much more pro-China than his two predecessors, Abe and Koizumi. He has made major efforts to improve relation between the two countries, from his visit to China that has "brought spring" to the bilateral relations, to the most recent settlement of the border and resource dispute in the East China Sea. Although the details on the border agreement and agreement to jointly excavate natural resources are still unclear, it is clear that both China and Japan are mindful of improving their relations at every step of the way. Seeing how increasingly dependent the lacklustre Japanese economy is on China and the vast prospect of wealth and strength the two Asia giants can bring to each other if their relationship continues to improve, attending the Ceremony is again a small price to pay for Fukuda, especially considering that the human rights organizations' presence is weak in Japan.

China has already scored major diplomatic victories for its Olympics, earning approval from the two top economic nations. Europe is still giving China the cold shoulder, but from China's recent reaction to Sarkozy's refusal to go to the Ceremony if China doesn't engage in genuine negotiation with the Tibetans and improve its human rights record, it's clear that China could care less about what Europe thinks at this point. The Chinese state media sent a less-than subtle message to Sarkozy, essentially saying that his presence is not welcomed and the Chinese people don't even want him here. This will certainly not go well with the EU since Sarkozy is not its president, but China has found a new sense of confidence, if not arrogance, when it comes to running its Olympics. This is a dramatic reversal from 3 months ago when China was under siege from the world for its violent crackdown in Tibet. There's still lots of time left between now and the Olympics, but so far China is leading the gold medal standing.

A couple of weeks after Paparone's article went online, Chris Anderson posted The End of Theory on Wired. For Anderson, today's deluge of data means that conventional approaches to the scientific method - I think he would include positivism in this - is now obsolete. However, what is also obsolete is certain postpositivistic approaches to making sense of the world, and researching how we make sense of it:

At the petabyte scale, information is not a matter of simple three- and four-dimensional taxonomy and order but of dimensionally agnostic statistics. It calls for an entirely different approach, one that requires us to lose the tether of data as something that can be visualized in its totality. It forces us to view data mathematically first and establish a context for it later. For instance, Google conquered the advertising world with nothing more than applied mathematics. It didn't pretend to know anything about the culture and conventions of advertising — it just assumed that better data, with better analytical tools, would win the day. And Google was right...Google's founding philosophy is that we don't know why this page is better than that one: If the statistics of incoming links say it is, that's good enough. No semantic or causal analysis is required.

Anderson's argument is itself problematic: the data deluge he diagnoses (perhaps something akin to the loss of any real behind an excessive hyperreality, as analysed by Baudrillard?) does not seem to me to dictate a prioritising of mathematical analysis, or a complete end to the utility of a (social) scientific method. People can, and do, do effective work in unknown and shifting contexts, and there is also the potential for political and military actors to themselves create the contexts in which they work.

That said, I find Anderson's short piece is compelling in a number of ways. Anderson does make a strong argument against the type of positivism and postpositivism that Paperone finds in FM 3-0. One can argue that many of the current opponents of the US - for example, the networked insurgencies in Iraq - have already moved beyond postpositivism, and are enthusiastically embracing a number of aspects of the petabyte age.

States and state militaries have struggled and are struggling to respond to this. The move to a type of postpositivism discussed by Paperone is interesting, but I suspect that it will not be a sufficient response to such opponents.

I have entitled this blog 'Hand and Heart', a translation from Filipino of Kamay at Puso, the organization for which I will be interning this summer. 'Hand and Heart' represents this summer's personal and professional challenge, merging hard work and outreach with personal engagement and passion. This metaphor is in no way meant to limit my goals for the summer nor the contents of this blog. And it's certainly not intended to be cheesy, if that's what you were thinking. Rather, it might be constructive to think of it as an inevitable theme one faces when undertaking this type of work, attempting to mitigate, fight, even eliminate fundamental global problems that have been ignored, under-addressed, badly addressed, under-covered by the media, you name it, or even those whose causes have been identified, but whose effects merely take time to definitively suppress. This theme of 'Hand and Heart' actually reminds me of a conversation I had with my mom and my friend Agnes the night before my departure -- of "giving oneself to the cause". To be completely forthright from the get-go, I have no intention of "giving myself to the cause" this summer, or giving myself to anything for that matter. I could not imagine handing that kind of ownership to any thing or person. However, I do believe the expression raises important questions about how individuals can attempt to balance sanity with humanity when working with NGOs, communities, and individuals who are clearly in need of help or advice or support or whatever. I hope to address this general struggle, as well as the specific work I will be doing during these two months, throughout the blog. In my next post, I will get more detailed about Kamay at Puso, the work they do, the plan I will undertake, and the context that led to the birth of the organization. I will also try to describe the taste of the mangoes I will be eating everyday while here, though I expect that adequate words just don't exist (yet).

PROJECT 1: Options for Health - Western Cape
This is the primary project I am working on with Dr. Mathews. Options for Health is an intervention that is going to be implemented throughout the Western Cape. The intervention is aiming to reduce the levels of risky sexual behavior of HIV/AIDS patients who are on ARVs through motivational interviewing and education. The intervention will be implemented for 9 months in 15 clinics and compared to 15 other control clinics. Assessment will occur through a final interview after the 9 month period. While the intervention is being implemented, patients will be routinely interviewed and their medication adherence will be quantified. Other issues that will be addressed during this study are pregnancy intention (what should a counselor advise when a patient who is HIV+ wants to have a child?), gender-based violence, and medication adherence importance. First, we are going to be running a pilot study at one clinic in Kraafontein in order to see if this intervention can be implemented. 40 patients who have been on ARVs for more than 6 months will be selected this Thursday and the intervention will be implemented for 4 months. In order to make sure that the intervention doesn't disrupt the clinic's usual work, observations will be taken for a week prior to and after the intervention is implemented. Counselors, doctors, and nurses will all be interviewed to make sure they understand the intervention and agree to it. For all of this, we had to meet with various staff from the clinic and Department of Health to ask permission to carry this out. There's a lot of red tape surrounding healthcare in South Africa to the point where the number of doctors are regulated to clinics. In many townships, no doctors are available or sent there from the Department of Health. There is not a lack of doctors in South Africa but many choose to work overseas due to poor pay and facilities. Many NGOs instead try to take the brunt of this decision by financing doctors (such as through Doctors Without Borders), counselors, and nurses. However, none of this is permanent and is contract-based. I have met many counselors who are in fear that they will lose their job once their NGO ends their contract with a particular clinic. Looking at past papers regarding similar interventions in the US is misleading at times as there is so much more red tape in South Africa both politically and socially. In fact, the main concern the doctor at Kraafontein had about the intervention was the effect it would have on the community which is valid as the topics such as safer sex and disclosure about one's status are very touchy.

One thing that has struck me though about this intervention is whether or not it will work outside a research perspective. To be able to assess this study, patients are selected and given "incentives" through either Shop-Rite vouchers or free transportation to and from the clinic. When the study ends and it's written that it works, will it actually still work without any incentives and without researchers tracking down the original 40 patients they selected?

There's one counselor here named Samuel in Kraafontein who's been trained in the Options intervention. He has a holiday for 2 months but cut it short for the study to only 3 weeks and will lose his holiday pay because he wants to help the clinic out more than just relaxing at home. Because of him, we can pilot the study even earlier now. People who work in the community as counselors and peer educators do really want to help in any way possible to reduce levels of re-infection or spreading of the disease. They rather not waste any time, which I found amazing and very unlike the health officials who know all the statistics surrounding this matter.

Although Iraq has hardly become a stable or peaceful place, the good news in recent months is heartening. The rate of U.S. casualties has declined, the influence of foreign fighters and Sunni extremists has decreased, and the central government has had success in asserting its authority against Shiite militias in several parts of the country. These successes cannot be attributed to any single action or policy. The so-called “Sunni awakening,” in which Sunni tribal leaders have turned against the al Qaeda-inspired elements in their midst and allied with U.S. forces, has yielded positive results. The 2007 troop surge in Baghdad may partially account for the greater coherence and authority of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's central government. Although military and civilian casualties continue to mount, they are climbing at a slower rate than in recent years. Unquestionably, this is all very good.

As the situation in Iraq has evolved, however, the public positions of Obama and McCain have remained relatively static, especially since the primary campaign began in early 2007. Obama has called for a phased withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces from Iraq over a 16-month period, at a rate of one or two brigades per month. He would allow for residual forces to remain in Iraq and the region to protect the U.S. embassy, to fight al Qaeda elements, and—if Iraq makes political progress—to continue training Iraqi security forces. He renounces any claim to permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. McCain, for his part, is a strong advocate of continuing the current strategy as implemented by General David Petraeus. His objective is a stable, prosperous, democratic, and peaceful Iraq that poses no threat to its neighbors. He is opposed to any significant troop withdrawals until that objective is achieved.

But before they launched their campaigns, each senator approached the situation in Iraq differently. Obama opposed the initial invasion itself. But after Saddam Hussein had been deposed, he did not immediately call for a withdrawal of U.S. troops. As late as 2005, he stated that, “U.S. forces are still a part of the solution in Iraq.” He explicitly favored a reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq (not a full withdrawal), and he opposed a specific timetable for any withdrawal. By 2007, shortly before he announced his presidential candidacy, he had settled on his present position. McCain supported the original invasion but became sharply critical of the Bush administration's handling of the occupation. Specifically, he said on several occasions that he had “no confidence' in then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and he consistently advocated for a larger troop presence in Iraq. Since the 2007 troop surge began—and the presidential campaign kicked off—McCain has largely supported the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, and he pledges to continue it.

None of this history should condemn either candidate. Indeed, it is good that policy makers adjust their positions as the real-world situation changes. Unfortunately, electoral politics places a premium on consistency, so until the election, neither Obama nor McCain are likely to radically alter the positions they adopted 18 months ago. But this doesn't mean that their records cannot (or should not) illuminate their potential policies as president, especially on the central question of how long U.S. troops should remain in Iraq.

At the end of this year, the UN resolution that formally permits U.S. troops to operate in Iraq will expire. The Bush administration is keen to provide a continuing legal framework for the U.S. occupation and has been actively negotiating two separate agreements with the Iraqi government. A Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) would codify the specific legal terms under which U.S. forces could operate in Iraq; the United States already has negotiated dozens of SOFAs with other countries that house U.S. troops. A “strategic framework agreement” likely would cover broader (and more contentious) issues such as the political, military, and economic relationship between the United States and Iraq and what functions U.S. troops could perform in Iraq. Reports have leaked that in negotiating these agreements, the Bush administration is seeking 58 permanent bases, control of Iraqi airspace, and immunity for troops and contractors.

Right now, neither Obama nor McCain would offer an absolute answer to the question, “how long will the United States stay in Iraq?” Obama would say that he would withdraw all combat troops in less than two years and he would disavow permanent bases, but he would remain vague about the size, location, and duration of the residual force he proposes. McCain is even more explicit in de-emphasizing the question. Earlier this year, he famously commented that he would not object to U.S forces remaining in Iraq for 100 years, and when questioned on that point in a recent interview, he noted that it is “not too important” when U.S. forces leave Iraq. The important thing, he said, was whether U.S. forces were suffering casualties. McCain highlighted the presence of U.S. troops in Japan, Korea, and Germany as examples of what he would consider acceptable analogues for Iraq.

Despite their respective ambiguity (or perhaps because of it), the policy records of Obama and McCain are particularly helpful in figuring out how they now interpret the role of U.S. forces in Iraq. In McCain's example, U.S. troops did not face insurgencies in Japan, Korea, or Germany like they do today in Iraq; by the time those occupations had begun in earnest, the wars that preceded them had largely concluded. Within a short period of time, each country had gained a stable and secure sovereign government. But even after the fighting had ended and stable governments had been formed, the fifty-year U.S. presence in those countries had a very specific purpose: to deter Communist aggression in the context of the Cold War. McCain's parallel, then, poses a very important question. Once the violence in Iraq is quelled, its government is stable, and U.S. troops are no longer taking casualties, what would be the objective of the remaining U.S. forces? Who would they be deterring, and in what context?

The answer to this question lies in the original rationale for the invasion itself, in the debate that raged in 2002 and early 2003. Supporters of the invasion used a variety of reasons to support their argument: Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and had to be toppled; he possessed weapons of mass destruction that presented a threat to others; he was allied with al Qaeda; a new, Arab democracy would be a beacon of change in the turbulent Middle East. None of these reasons, on their own, seemed to justify an invasion, and the Bush administration used them interchangeably.

Since then, many of the justifications for invasion have proven to be exaggerated or outright inaccurate. But one justification, alluded to in comments by policymakers since the invasion, was downplayed at the time: the geostrategic motivation. Iraq is in a very important corner of the globe, located near some of the United States' most valuable allies and some of its most distrusted adversaries. It also has a lot of oil. In other words, Iraq was a good place for the United States to plant its flag in the real-world game of Risk.

Sensible people may disagree about whether this geostrategic rationale was sufficient to justify the invasion of Iraq. But as it applies to the presidential candidacies of Obama and McCain, there is a clear difference. Obama opposed the introduction of U.S. forces into Iraq at the outset and has consistently renounced permanent bases there; nothing in his subsequent ambiguity about the specifics of occupation policy changes that. McCain supported the original invasion and is unabashed in his support for a continued U.S. presence in Iraq. Indeed, his “100 years” comment may be the most honest acknowledgment yet of the geostrategic rationale for invasion. In an electoral sense, this is a great thing. Beneath the candidates' superficial ambiguity, their positions are starkly different. In this election, on Iraq, the choice for voters is a real one.

Foreign Policy Association, 26 June 2008

The continuation of Mugabe’s dictatorship in Zimbabwe deals a heavy blow to all who believes in democracy and freedom's power to bring prosperity and justice. When evaluating the situation further, it is even more disappointing to realize that there was little international intervention during the months of political violence--where innocent people were killed or detained and women were raped or abused all because of their political affiliation and civil opposition to the Mugabe government--to stop the repression and provide the necessary security to conduct a fair run-off election. It was a golden opportunity for the U.S. to exercise its global leadership, regain its international standing, and deliver the good that its democracy promoting platform promises. In her recent essay in Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, forcefully and eloquently articulated a foreign policy platform where democratization continues to be the centerpiece of a so-called "American Realism" (combination of idealism and classic realism). Unfortunately, in the case of Zimbabwe, the U.S. failed to put its money where its mouth is, and allowed the opportunity to slip by. Since the Iraq War, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has been seemingly plagued by a shroud of fear of intervention even when its leadership is clearly called upon. The Burmese monk protest was one of these missed opportunities. The post-election violence in Kenya was another, but thanks to the aggressive leadership of Kofi Annan, a power-sharing deal was brokered and the Kenyan democratic institutions prevailed, though the U.S. had very little to do with it. The chaos in Zimbabwe presented another chance for President Bush to deliver his promise of democracy and end his disastrous foreign policy record on a high note, but he simply decided to put his hands in his pockets and went to Europe.

With one missed opportunity after another, it is not hard to become skeptical of the neo-conservative, democracy promoting doctrine of the Bush-Rice era, no matter how inspiring in words this doctrine sounds. Although Zimbabwe weighs very little in the calculus of U.S. national interest, it is not difficult to see how much benefit a humanitarian success story can bring to U.S. image around the world. This is not to say that we should only embark on a humanitarian mission if it improves our reputation; when people are suffering from brutal oppression from their leaders, the United States has an obligation to intervene to bring security and justice if a clear case for intervention is present. Two prominent scholars from the Center for Strategic and International Studies have already devised a workable plan for the U.S. to remove Mugabe's dictatorship and help improve and stabilize Zimbabwe's fledgling democracy, but our administration has decided to ignore it altogether.

Whether it is for our own interests or the interests of others, we should have intervened in Zimbabwe for the sake of democracy, freedom and humanitarianism--three concepts that should be resonating across the world but have been instead perceived as sugar coats for a selfish U.S. foreign policy. If the United States is truly committed to promoting democratic values and principles, which I imagine it will at least rhetorically, doesn't matter who becomes the next president, we must be ready to back our words with action when a justifiable case of intervention presents itself. Iraq of 2003 was not one of those cases, Zimbabwe of 2008 is. And until we deliver our promise, U.S. foreign policy will continue to bring more caution and fear than hope.

The hostel is on both sides of Milton St. in Observatory with dorms on one side and individual/double rooms on the right side. The workers there are all really nice and helped me get settled rather quickly. After putting away some things I called up Darshan who told me to get ready in 2 hours to head out into CAPE TOWN- specifically to get food and explore. I was still tired and dirty from the 20 hour plane ride and so, showered quickly. Afterwards, I went out to get some things to continue getting settled in and walked around Main Rd. near the hostel which is where I bumped into Darshan. We soon caught a minibus- which is a small that transports people for very little from place to another. Catching one is fun because you have to keep an eye and ear out for the yells of the conductor - "CAPE TOWN CAPE TOWN! WYNBERG!" and run over to them to catch the bus. We headed over to Old Biscuit Mill which has a Saturday market that was filled with all sorts of delicious food and FREE samples (of course I loved this). I didn't have any native South African food as this was mostly tourist directed. In fact, most of the people at the market were not South African but instead American or other European countries.

During the rest of the weekend, I explored various places in Cape Town and found out more about how safe things are in some areas compared to others. I was told not to walk alone at night in the dark- a caution that I had heard many times. I heard stories about people being held at knife point in minibuses and others being mugged by gunpoint. Yes, I was a bit put off and scared after this. I carry a knife around but if someone asks for my money by force, I have no problem handing it over. Regardless, I've learned a lot of caution. No more running in the street and wandering around aimlessly....like I do at home.

Cape Town is surrounded by Table Mountain and everywhere you look, you're able to see it looming above giving the nicest view even in the most dirty parts of the city. There's also a lot of beaches in the city. I've attached pictures of a motorbike ride I took on Saturday morning with one of the guys who works at the backpackers hostel I'm working at. I saw a lot of animals too! - Baboons, darsies, seals (I sat on one too!), and camels (this was a tourist thing....). I made a note of all the places I wanted to revisit such as Muizenberg for surfing, Simon's Town, Seal Island (to see this: Great White Sharks Eating Seals), Robben Island, District Six Museum, and much more. I've been told that it's impossible to see all of Cape Town in 4 months- longer than how much I'm staying.

but we got to the marble palace alright which is actually the residence of this bengali family who grew wealthy from trade w europeans and so built their home out of italian and indian marble and filled it w (mostly european) statues, paintings, furniture, and fountains. there was a ginormous mirror that went from floor to ceiling and was built from a single piece of glass. all the paintings were of white people except for the few that showed the bengali family, but it was interesting to peak out the window, past the parqueted floors and marble pillars to look outside the iron gates at the rest of squalid kolkata. there's evidence of this kind of thing everywhere -- movie posters plastered to the same wall where a homeless man is sleeping, stray dogs and kids bathing a few streets away from a 5-star indian restaurant. i found out that the street that i walk down every morning to get to the motherhouse is actually the red-light district, so if i ever was there at night, it'd be a different story.

anyway, it's been starting to rain earlier and earlier, so today after getting back from shanti dan, i waded around sudder street taking pictures of the water. the guy who works at the internet cafe told me to take his picture, which i did, and then he took mine next to a rickshaw. men who were standing outside liked to comment on my camera ("photo?") and of course the little kids love posing and looking at the images afterward.

To Vicky: I do believe the Japanese political drama is strongly influenced by Obama's ascendency into international prominence and popularity. The drama's title is "Change," which I think is no coincidence, and the Prime Minister's young and handsome image, as well as his struggle with older politicians both expresses Obama's current image and appeal and foreshadows his future challenges if he does become president. Obama craze in Japan has been around for quite a while now, with the Japanese town named Obama attracting thousands of tourists simply because its name is the same as the Illinois Senator's. However, the drama's rating has declined in recent weeks, so I guess the Japanese's disdain for politics in their pop culture is trumping even Obama's appeal. But there is no question that Obama's influence has penetrated the hearts and minds of the Japanese culture like no other foreign politician before him.

To David: Thank you for your thoughtful response, especially the article on Obama, Japan. Fascinating. I think you are absolutely spot on on Obama's need to encircle himself with like-minded foreign advisers. I would also like to add that it is even more important that he has a group of like-minded military advisers, especially the people on his Joint Chief of Staff. He will be facing some tough military decisions with Iran, and given his lack of foreign policy experience, he is vulnerable to blindly accepting the advise of his military confidantes and delegating too much power away from himself.

As far as I know, Obama's FP advisors are former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski (under Carter) and Anthony Lake (under Clinton and likely pick for Secretary of State), former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice (Clinton), former navy secretary Richard Danzig, Joseph Cirincione (specializes in nuclear proliferation), Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress, and Richard Clarke. As we all know, prominent scholar, Samantha Power, quit because she called Hillary a monster during an interview. I have not heard Hagel being a member of Obama's foreign policy inner circle, but his background and experience, especially as a moderate Republican, can definitel add a new and much-appreciated perspective in Obama's team. I am actually rooting for Hagel to be the VP, thus completing the ultimate unity ticket.

Obama also has a formidable opponent in McCain who not only is more experienced in foreign policy but has a strong circle of advisors as well. I just found out that Randy Shriver and Mike Green are his two advisors on China and Japan respectively. While canvassing today, I talked to an African American man who strongly supports McCain because he thinks McCain can protect this country from attacks, especially by bin Laden, while Obama will only sit around, be a pansy and try to negotiate. This man says he cannot relate to Obama at all because he went to Ivy league schools and is an elite, while is a regular blue-collar worker. If Obama cannot convince his African American base that he is strong on foriegn policy, he will be in trouble this Fall. To prevent this scenario, I stand by my position that he should focus more on the economy in the the general election season.

shanti dan - school for street kids and center for women who have either been abused, in prison, or have disabilities. the womens' building has 2 floors w a peaceful courtyard w a garden in the middle. we talked to the women, painted their nails, sang songs, washed their hair w lice shampoo, and gave them haircuts. the ones who are able to help out the sisters and masis w tasks like folding clothes and some are allowed to go outside if they want to buy fruit. one woman named mona seemed completely normal except that she shuffled instead of walked and didn't speak. but she understood the masis and vols and could even paint our nails, slowly and carefully, after we did hers.

sishu bhavan - orphanage for kids w and w/o disabilities. it is w/in walking distance from the motherhouse and probably the most popular site along w kalighat. there are about 20-25 disabled children and vols work mostly w the ones who are not as severely affected. using each child's binder, we did exercises w their limbs and made them sit/stand in certain positions. there were also toys for those who could play w them and we helped feed those who needed help.

prem dan - see 1st entry

daya dan - home for children w disabilities. there are 2 floors, and the 1st floor has about 20 boys, all w physical and mental disabilities. some have families but a few are orphans. there are toys and books for the boys, and the vols play w them, help them go to the bathroom, and pass out food at mealtime. when i went yesterday, there was one boy named mongul who may have muscular dystrophy but had one of the best english i've heard from any indian national. he is by far the smartest of all the boys and helps out the masis by keeping the other boys in line. they all listen to him when he tells them to do something in bengali (1 of them is even his special wheelchair-pusher), and yesterday he asked one of the sisters for candy which she gave to all the boys.

kalighat - the only home that i didn't find physically attractive at all. men and women, about 60 each, are separated from each other and vols work w the same gender. usually patients at kalighat don't recover and their conditions can range from severely ill and unresponsive to mentally completely intact and just physically affected. i met a woman there who used to be a school teacher and so knew bengali, hindi, and english and could speak easily. she was in an auto accident long ago and had been taken care of her husband until he died a couple years ago and has been at kalighat ever since.

i'm really glad i got to go to all of the homes, but i don't know how much use i will be at each of them. some places there were far too many vols and at others we were limited in what we could do so the masis mostly took care of the patients. shanti dan makes me exhausted after the mornings, too, so i don't want to over-commit myself only to have to back out again.

i learned something really bad about the adoption process at sishu bhavan. one of the other vols who works there regularly and was here 2 years ago doing the same thing said that the nuns don't tell parents who are adopting the full physical and mental histories of the orphans. there was a european family there earlier this week who were getting ready to take home a brother and sister and suspected that the boy was autistic or deaf b/c of his behavior and he didn't speak. but the nun denied that he was anything but normal and for an hour, she and the parents went back and forth about it. the vol who was translating thought there was something abnormal about the boy, and she said that a few times, adoptive parents have brought back orphans b/c they were disabled in some way but weren't told that. apparently, the nuns don't tell the parents b/c they believe that god will make the child better when he/she gets older. it's absolutely ridiculous that people would disregard science and facts b/c of religious beliefs and completely unfair to potential parents who have every right to know everything about the children.

it's also upsetting b/c actions like these make christianity seem like an outdated and hypocritical belief. obviously not everyone who is christian believes and acts like this, but it's almost as though you have to be careful from becoming too religious or else you go crazy. it's a perpetual war b/w religion (i really don't like that word) and science or religion and modern life.

Speaking of Sudder, I am paying only 70 rupees per night for Hotel Maria ($1=42 rs). And I am getting what I pay for, meaning a dorm room w 12 beds (not the most comfortable things, metal w a mattress that's more like an enlarged, worn-down cushion) and 2 bathrooms (no tiles, running water w temperatures that vary depending on the time of day, 1 western toilet, 1 eastern toilet, neither flushes consistently). Showering is creative business of trying to get as clean as possible while avoiding getting water into your eyes and mouth and not breathing through your nose b/c, well, it's a bathroom... in the room, there are clotheslines that always have towels and shirts drying b/c laundry is a never-ending task and the rains can start unpredictably and quickly so you don't want to leave your stuff outside.

There were new vols at Shanti Dan this morning, so this time I was actually the more experienced one. Turns out the kids are closer to ages 8-10 but are so malnourished and have been raised on the streets that they are physically and mentally younger. Subash, who's probably the smartest, is an orphan, and Laltu is really tiny b/c he has a heart murmur and his parents can't pay for an operation. I found some picture flashcards that could help the vols learn some Bengali words while they learn English (spoon sounds like "cha-moosh").

With all of the wordliness of the other people here, mostly everyone knows English tinged by whatever regional accent. It's downright embarrassing for Americans, or at least for me, that we aren't more fluent in other languages. These European and Asian schools are doing something that ours aren't. The sort of funny thing is that the locals will vary their responses to me depending on who I'm with -- if I'm with white people, it's "hello madam", and if they are Asian, it's "arrigato". Once when I was walking w an Indian girl from Delhi, no one said anything to me, although this might have just been a coincidence.

The bus on the ride back from Shanti Dan today was packed -- the driver didn't deny anyone who wanted to get on, so we all were inside, mostly standing, squished against each other, and sweating. There was an Indian guy next to me who was about eye-level and staring. It was beyond awkward, and normally I would've stared back and maybe say something like "Can I help you?" to make him stop, but here all I can do is look away. Although there are special seating sections for women on public transportation, it would be so much easier to be a guy. Luckily, all I've gotten are stares -- my friend hit a man with her water bottle because he grabbed her butt and other female vols have told me about walking on Sudder when it was dark and being followed by creepy men who say things like "You're so pretty" and "I love you". It's especially prominent around this area b/c it is such a tourist hub -- in more village-y areas, the locals will look at you b/c you look different and the kids will run up and say "hello!" but that's about it.

I went to the famous Kalighat, home for the dying, yesterday afternoon. The women there are worse off than at Prem Dan, and the conditions aren't nearly as nice, but other than that, it wasn't a life-altering experience. I think I expected too much b/c other vols would either tell me that it was too intense for them or that they absolutely loved it. It was intense, like any of the other sites, and I'm glad that I went, but I didn't come to any great realizations or anything. We changed bedpans, distributed food and water, helped w feeding for a few of them, and gave massages to those who wanted it and talked to those who could -- like most of the people at MC, the women didn't know English, but some just like to talk to anyone who will sit and nod and listen. Some of the women looked completely normal, it was almost incredible that they would be at Kalighat. But it is the same w the women at Shanti Dan -- some may seem completely regular on the outside, but they could be mentally disabled or come from places of domestic abuse or from prison.

I accidentally went to a nice restaurant this afternoon (thanks, Lonely Planet), meaning that there were waiters who were all dressed the same, tableclothes and silverware already on the tables, comfortable chairs, low lighting, a menu with a wine list. The food was so much more expensive than what I'm used to paying but still, nothing cost more than $5 and my entire meal, which was the most money I've spent so far on food, was a little over $2. I'm not going to buy anything when I go back home.

Funniest discovery of the day: most of the matrimonial ads in the Indian newspaper are by parents who are looking for a nice girl for "our son, handsome, degree in such-and-such, good family, etc."

Ironically, his biggest opposition is at home. If Obama were to win the election, foreign policy will not be his trump card. His experience is thin and his track record is essentially non-existent. While there are many intangible appeals to his charisma and moving personal history, voters will look more towards experience and track record when they think about national security. McCain definitely has the edge in this debate, and it would be smart for Obama to steer the election towards the ailing economy, not on security, defense, or foreign policy. His team has already realized this it seems, as Obama embarks on a two-week tour through all the major battleground states to undermine McCains economic policies while re-introducing and re-enforcing his own.

I am confident that Obama's character and judgment will quickly and dramatically improve U.S. foreign policy and American standing in the world. But in order to do that, he must first win the election. And to win the election, he must first stick with the economy and exploit McCain's weakness.