(Un?)teachable Moments Or How I Nearly Lost My Soul (and sanity) in Ruffec, France.

I haven't written in a little while because I've been movin' and shakin'. But I will attempt to catch you up now, in a short series of poorly organized, chronological posts. First, how things ended up as I left the Charente...

A few evenings before I left Ruffec, I was cooking dinner and the TV was on in the background. Jamie's American Road Trip was on: a British chef travels through the US to investigate how the recession effects how regular Americans eat and interact with one another. He was in Georgia (on my mind) for only a few brief scenes, but it was a fascinating study in how race and class interact. First, he had high tea with upper middle class white women in Savannah. He asked them straightaway if, and how, the recession was affecting them. "Yes, of course," they replied, "but we don't talk about it." "And is this predominantly a McCain or Obama crowd?" he asked. "This is predominantly a McCain town," one woman replied, "but we don't talk about that." They ate fancy cakes and had cocktails. Then he visited a poor white family outside Savannah. He asked about the presidential election here as well, and here plenty was said, including the n word. In the background was a Confederate flag. The camera zoomed in on his shocked face, but he said nothing. They ate barbeque. And so there it was, that flag, which I normally dont think about, twice in the course of a week. And that was it for me. I started to think differently about what I was trying to do.

There are confederate flags all over America, and different versions of the same sentiment all over the world. I can't get rid of them all, but if I got some people thinking, I'd like to think that's something. In the end, I don't know if I got through, but I had gone as far as I could go without completely losing it. I was on this farm outside this pretty shit town, (which could have been anywhere in the world), and I had no one to talk to about what was happening. What was happening? I was working for and with people who believed that England should stop Pakistanis from immigrating, and that it was o.k. to fly the flag of American Fascism, and that it was okay for straight people to kiss in public, but not gays or lesbians. I knew I could walk away from this scene at any time, and without a word, but what use would that be? I wanted to affect something. I would take these long walks in the pitch black at night: just me, and the stars, and some dogs howling in the distance. And I would ride around on a borrowed bike in the late afternoons, after I finished work, looking for that barn. I never found it. I knew I should be looking at my travel journal as my friend, but I resented it. Instead, I wanted someone to tell me I was right. But this was about ego. Eventually I realized that if you can't make sense of it, write it. And voila. A gear engaged: I felt just barely better, but enough. And I gave up. Because a teachable moment is only teachable if people are seeing, not just looking, and listening, not just hearing.

Then I escaped to Lyon, which is a beautiful city, and drenched in history.

So America, send reinforcements into the world. I feel torn about travel. My environmental impact makes me guilty everyday. I wonder, even as I do it, if the environmental impact of leisure travel is justified in its mind-broadening qualities. Travel can open one's mind like magic mushrooms only wish they could. And I do get down on America for all of the many problems we have. It's important to stay critical of one's country, always. But as unresolved as our race issues are, western Europe has a lot to learn from us. Maybe because we've been negotiating immigrant issues on a larger scale for a longer time? I don't know...