coming home

edit: hey mom, happy mothers day; love ya!

for the hundreds, if not thousands, of you that were already preparing that food basket to send me some chipotle, thanks, but it won't be necessary; i'm coming home! yep, thats right. i've had it with south africa, can't take it anymore, packing my stuff, and heading back home where the grass is green and the billows roll. something like that. well, its not that drastic. but i am going/coming to chicago/st. louis in less than 2 wks (may 20) for about 2wks for work training. i'll be in chi-town for the week, probably spend parts of the weekend in stl and then head back to chi. so, if you're around those parts, def let me know and we can hook up. should be good times.

the serious section:
people are always asking about whats going on in my head, what im thinking. u know, cuz i'm an ultra complicated, complex, hard-to-figure out kinda guy (not really). but i thought i'd give my millions of readers a bit of a glimpse into the more serious thoughts i've been having lately. this should be nothing surprising for those who know me. if anyone has ever heard barack obama speak, u've probably heard him say something along the lines of trusting the americans to be smart enough to know that [fill in blank] or better, having faith in the general human decency. all this of course makes for a great speech and speaks to the humanitarian/world peace/noble side of us (at least those that went to ultra liberal schools and still have dreams of bringing about world peace, ending hunger, ridding the world of all evils, and, u know, solving all the world's problems in one go, while we sit at starbucks and sip our lattes). not to say that i still don't hold those naive dreams and aspirations, but isn't it sad that the more you know about the world, the more less you believe in this thing called "human decency"? at least i think thats what's happening with me, as much as you can try and block it out and focus on world peace and other froo-froo stuff.

lately i've been reading an interesting biography and a couple of the sections were on the rwandan, burundi, somalia crises, as well as others. to read the history of these conflicts does not lead to a better understanding of who was right or who was wrong, which side was evil and which was good, or even who was responsible and how to resolve it. what it did to me was to have me question just how good us humans are. are we really innately decent? many political theorists/philosophers subscribe to the belief that humans are, in fact, pre-disposed to being bad or evil and that we have to work within the context of the society we live to actually be good. that the driving factor for humans is self-reliance or survival of the fittest, or whatever you want to call it. so who are we, mr obama and others, to attempt to reach out to the basic good that relies in people. i also watched a documentary about a catholic school during the rwandan crisis that housed primarily children from the minority and was being guarded by UN peacekeepers. as the conflict began spiraling out of control, the troops were given direct orders from the US/UN to immediately evacuate all the foreigners in the complex. as the bus-load pulled away, one of the rwandan teachers in the complex read a letter to the commander, written and endorsed by those that were going to be left behind and immediately killed by the hundreds/thousands of rwandans waiting outside the gates with weapons, ready to pounce on the school as soon as the foreigners left. the jist of the letter asked the commander to shoot each and every one of them with their guns, because they'd rather die with one shot to the head, than be hacked to death by machetes and kitchen knives.

These kinds of stories are not unique to rwanda. they're not unique to africa or black people or the developing world. they're not unique to muslim countries or christian countries. throughout history we see events like this in every single continent in every single corner of the world. humans are humans. we still witness these events today; in case you've missed the news lately, i hear there's some stuff going on in iraq, afghanistan, lebanon, israel, zimbabwe, and on and on. just like in the rwandan genocide, many times these are not strangers attacking and brutally murdering one another, but often neighbors, family members, people you grew up with, went to school, church with. so where is this inbred human decency. seems we have to work pretty damn hard to find it, have it, and keep it.

i think this is why i admire the older people that i meet who still hold out hope and belief that we have good blood in us and that together, we can resolve/mitigate many of the problems we face today. hopefully people like that continue to spew their hope-mongering, because it won't take long, without that, for people like me to lose all hope.

edu-macate yoselves: “Of course, hope alone is not enough, but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”