12 million cows and 3 million people

Looking at Sakina’s picture, I remembered how amazed I was the first days of class to getting to know people from so many different backgrounds and cultures, and I am sure that a lot of our learning during the year will come from our classmates as well as from our teachers. For me, it will certainly be a great opportunity, for in the country I come from, Uruguay, we are all so much alike we get used to it and lose perspective.

I was looking up some numbers in the Internet to illustrate my point: Uruguay’s main source of production is meat, with 12 million cows and 11 million sheep, whereas the total population of the country is of a mere 3.4 million habitants, and a million of them live in Montevideo, the capital city. There are towns in the rural area that are practically deserted, rural schools that only have two or three students that every morning go to class by horse (for every student there is a school, that is the government’s policy). The literacy rate is pretty high and because during the two world wars there was a massive immigration of Europeans, our cultural heritage comes mainly from Spaniards, Italians and at a smaller rate English and French. Until the 1950s Uruguay was regarded as the “Swiss of America”, which of course changed after successive economical crisis.

However, people still regard themselves as very cultured and open-minded. That isn’t always so. There is an essayist from Venezuela that writes for a Uruguayan paper, and she says the first thing she noticed when she moved to our country is that everyone kept asking her: “Why did you come here?” And no one was satisfied when she simply answered: “Because I felt like it.” She came to the conclusion that although Uruguayans are very proud of their country, they are also have an inferiority complex that makes them wonder why the hell would someone move there. It is a safe, nice place with beautiful beaches, but also pretty boring. The government has been discussing the same issues for the last 20 years and nothing ever changes. Everything is so bureaucratic that the country seems to be in a lethargic state.
Uruguayans are very concerned on how the foreigners see them, and if they like the country or find it slightly boring as well. And because of this inferiority complex, they suppose people from other countries usually don’t know where Uruguay is geographically located, or what it is like.

However, in school we learn very little about Africa, Asia or the Middle East. In our effort to be recognizable to the world, we make very little effort in knowing more about the rest of it, and become so narrow-minded that we end up learning very little about other cultures, even the North American one. I wanted to share this thought in this blog because I have met people in the class with a great deal of knowledge on foreign countries and a genuine interest in learning even more, and I hope I can achieve the same during the course of this year and the next.

Federica Narancio

A Wedding Arranged

Hi everyone, this is Sakina, the Indian student  this post is a taste of India… …It’s my personal experience, read on…

As one of our classmates plunged into wedlock this week, I think of my wedding to Salim last december. A marriage arranged in heaven, I still can't figure out why and how it happened, I am still finding the answers.

I was 25, and my parents were worried, I had a circle of friends (some of them boys) but nobody I wanted to say ‘I – do, do, do, to’. I am a Muslim by faith, and girls get married in my community at the age of 21- LATEST!
The pressure of my mother and her life raising four girls weighed heavily on me-
“You have two unmarried sisters after you Sakina, think about them, and get married.” There were many nice boyzzz to choose from in the community, my mom would tell me now and again, comparing me to my older sister Aiman, who has three kids at 30!

It was on the 2nd of May that Salim, his dad… his uncle and …his brother came to my house to see me. I was still trying to look presentable, with my short hair, clad in a traditional Indian outfit, I quite frankly looked silly. My mom managed to keep the guests busy with small conversation, sherbet and sweets.
It was not the first time; I was to handle such a situation. I was a pro at it, an expert. Having seen close to fifteen and up suitors, I was in a way tired of getting myself set up for a marriage. It just had not worked for me.

Salim had his own story which I got to know much later, a construction engineer working in DC, he had big brown eyes, I thought of them as X- ray quality eyes, which could look through a person and hid behind glasses. I walked into the room and I could feel them scanning me.

I sat down on a chair next to my mother, and the room dropped to pin drop silence.

I took my own time to look at him, his hands, his smile, his cleft on the chin, his feet (hahaha!)…that was all that was permissible. LOOK!

He was looking at me too, until our eyes met.

“Will you come to America with me?” He said breaking the silence.
He did not wait for a reply, Salim was nervous.

“May I take your daughter out tomorrow, aunty?” He asked my mother.
My mother looked at me, I looked at her, and I agreed.

Salim and I both are cosmopolitan youngsters from Mumbai, educated abroad and traveled extensively; both of us were put into this situation, that one would imagine happens only in rural India. Arranged marriages do exist and are a custom that will never die as traditions go through a revamp in now globalised, Mc Donalised India.

It was a Tuesday when we first met. The chronology of events that followed are still crystal clear to me;
On Wednesday I met Salim’s mother,
On Thursday he met my father,
On Friday he proposed to me,
On Sunday we were engaged
….and on Monday, Salim had to fly back to DC.
We got married after six months, in December.

Today after eight months of being married, it is very common for both of us to say to one another,
“I can’t believe, you’re the same guy/ girl I married.”

We argue everyday, we want to kill one another already, and then we remind ourselves…we are in love.
We have nothing in common! He’s not the sporty kind, I ‘m not the dancing kind. I like him with a beard; he likes me with long hair. He likes coffee, I love tea.

It seems we were mismatched from the start and when people ask me how I met Salim, I just tell them, “It was a miracle!”

Bootcamp

Now that it's over, I wonder what I will do with myself for the next week. I remember being petrified the first day of boot camp, especially after the class introductions. I kept wondering if I could do this, and if it was worth it? I was so scared of the deadline reporting we had to do, and I felt my writing was elementary. I was so ready for failure that at times I wondered why I even bothered. Yet now, three weeks later, I am happy to say I survived boot camp, and learned a whole lot in the process. I got to interview random people off the street, that was hard for me, it still is, but I am coming out of my shell. I got to meet my congressman from North Carolina. I met people who are affected by the anti-illegal immigrant laws and got to see first hand how hard it is for them. I learned a lot about myself in the process, and I am looking forward to leaning so much more.
Good luck to everyone, have fun during your time off and get some rest. I am looking forward to seeing everyone next Friday and possibly everyday for the next year or so.

Uzo Nnabuihe

Utah Miners

For almost two weeks we have followed the news on the six miners trapped in a Utah coal mine. It has been a hard story to follow, mostly because they are still trapped. On the news there are clips of the families hoping to hear some good news, volunteers standing by ready to do whatever they can, and news vans, hoping to capture the latest development. Most recently a cave-in killed three rescue workers and injured six of them. As a result, the search for the trapped miners was stopped. The mayor of the town was on GoodMorningAmerica on friday, and he talked about staying with the families of the trapped miners and trying to comfort them as best he could. The mayor also talked about losing his dad in a mining accident 50yrs ago, and how he knows what it is like to lose a loved one in such a horrible way; but that it does not make it any easier to say the right things to the grieving families.
A few of the miners said they didn't want to go back to work in that mine because it was unstable, this was right before the second cave-in that killed the three rescue workers.
In his article on the political affairs website, Joel wendland writes that the mine had 325 federal safety citations and that the mine was cited for not having a second escape passage in the same area where the miners got trapped in. http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5734/1/278/
Wendland also writes that the fines have not been paid and the problems have not been rectified. Now there are three men dead, six trapped and we have no idea how much longer they can survive.
I wonder what will happen to the mine and mine owners, what kind of punishment will they recieve, besides worthless fines, for their failure to provide a safe working environment for their employees? What about the families? what kind of provision will be made for them if this doesn't end well? It is disheartening to see such hard working people go through difficult situations like these, makes it seem like they can hardly catch a break. My heart goes out to all the wives and children of the miners involved. It is not an easy time for them, and no words can soften the pain they feel, but our prayers go out to them, and we hope for the best.

My Helen Thomas experience

When I was Ten years old Elizabeth Nze,a well known newscaster,refused, while on air, to read the news. It might not seem like a big deal now, but in Nigeria, in 1992, it was. At that time the country was ruled by Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, a dictator to say the least. During his reign all media outlets were monitored by the government. Newspaper, t.v. and radio stations reported news that had been given the OK by those in charge. On that fateful evening, Nze got a copy of the news and skimmed through it, we didn't have teleprompters at the time, then she put it down and said "I am not reading this. These people know what is going on, I will not read this." After saying those words, she got up and left.
To this day, I always think about her and how hard it must have been for her stand her ground, both as a journalist and a woman. Living in a country like Nigeria, women were hardly ever in the forefront of the fight for social justice; that is why Nze's actions will always be a turning point in my life. After watching her on t.v. that evening, I decided I wanted to be a journalist like her; one who reports the truth, and not some trumped up story, or one sided news.
Listening to Helen Thomas brought back all those warm and fuzzy feelings I had when I was ten. She is an inspiration to say the least. It is inspiring to see someone stick to what they believe in, regardless of what they might lose as a result. Helen Thomas has called on journalists to wake up, this includes those of us who are about to join this elite group of news gatherers; we need to wake up.
For me a country that protects the rights of its journalists and gives them the freedom to write truthfully, is an opportunity too good to waste. I hope to learn as much as I can, and use what I have learned for the good of others, no matter how small my contribution may be, as long as it helps someone, I will be satisfied.

Uzo Nnabuihe

Why (some of) the Military Hate (some of) the Press

Photo Courtesy of Jarhead, the movie.

I interviewed a Marine the other day for my story. He was running a MySpace page in support of George Bush. It didn't relate to my story, but we got on the topic of the press and the military.

"I'm so sick of the news," he said. "All they say is all of the bad things that happen, why didn't they talk about the school I helped build? Or the sick kids I helped?"

This is one of many soldiers who I have heard complain about press coverage of the War in Iraq.

Contrary to soldiers' opinion, a lot of press regarding the war was fairly status quo. I did a thesis analyzing the first year of coverage of the War in Iraq, and found that most journalists (embedded or not) had a strong reliance on U.S. official sources. Now, I don't blame them--they were in a new country and didn't know the language and were being fired at--but that was the truth.

The one journalist who stuck out was Anthony Shadid, a Lebanese reporter for the Washington Post. He had a tremendous amount of civilian sources, as well as officials from both sides, and, surprisingly, some of the lowest ranking army and marine sources (i.e. the Privates, a.k.a. 'grunts', rather than the Lieutenants).

I read another article the other day that reminded me of the type of reporting I saw from Shadid. It was in the Raleigh News Observer by a man named Jay Price. He has performed three tours of Afghanistan and he wrote a three part series highlighting two pilots who nearly died in a helicopter crash. He covered how they got along with their brigade, what happened, and what is occurring in their lives now. It was not episodic or overly official-based. It painted a picture of what it was like for them--the good and bad.

Thinking back to my conversation with Christopher, the Marine, I wonder what he would have thought of it. I'm sure it would have been different than the stories he had read. It showed knowledge of military life, an understanding of the structure and struggles. This is lost on a lot of journalists, who I think often see themselves as smarter or better than folks in the military.

Being from a military family (three grandparents served for longer than one war, one was a life member), I have a respect for the military that runs deep, and yet I know I don't understand what folks are going through. I would like to be a reporter that military families could read and trust. Someone who understood the culture and told the story that needed to be told, without patronizing the soldiers or their sacrifice.

-Katharine Jarmul

Live on the web

Hi all,

If you're like me, sometimes you feel like you're living online. Sometimes when I get home from school or work, all I want to do is zone out in front of the web. After a while, I need to close the computer and look at something that's not virtual.

Nonetheless, I can't help but tempt you all with some fun links I've discovered:

Here's a fun site that gives you a how-to on making interesting stencils
My lawyer says I am not advocating defacing public property!

An a great site on DIY silkscreening of T-shirts:
My lawyer says don't screen print anything on public property either!

An awesome site about ingenuity in Africa. Seriously, it's pretty rad:
My lawyer says Africans make kick-ass gadgets!
HINT: Check out William's Windmill, about 3/4 of the way down the page, and the wind-powered cell phone tower, right above it. Also, the knife-sharpening bicycle.

That's it for now.

Sarah