FADED

So I've just spent the whole day here in Blantyre basically listening to one song...It's FADED by Soul Decision. It's an old song but I haven't heard it in YEARS and I must say that a whole day of pretty much listening to this song on a loop has me feeling like I'm a teenager. I'm sitting here in the Protea Malawi in ripped jeans, tshirt, flip flops, headphones bopping to this tune as people stroll in and out of the restaurant...This song is amazing. I was reintroduced to it this past Saturday night by a young superstar named Mike. Mike is an Princeton in Africa fellow and a coworker. Technically I report to him. He's 23 has his pulse on the social scene in Lilongwe, has kick ass music on his Ipod, oh and did I mention he's getting a scholarship to go to Harvard Medical School in the fall...All of that being said, the most impressive thing for me today is that he reintroduced me to this song.

It really makes me feel like a song can change things. Music, movies, can really promote change. I know, I know I'm stating the obvious and when the 5 people who are following this blog read this they may be playing along, but basically I feel great tonight and it's due to this song today and watching a cheezy movie with Lindsay Lohan and a british rock band...That's me. I like those fun romantic movies, and awesome old dance hits. That's me. Ha. It's almost like discovering something you always knew about yourself but it hits you at a deeper more profound level. I mean as profoud as funny, cheezy movies and euro inspired dance music can get...And the best part, I'm in Africa. What!? It's like I just woke up or something. I'm thankful that I'm feeling this today instead of just missing moving through a new part of the world as me. Not moving through as someone I'm trying to be or moving towards, who I am.

This is cracking me up. I'm just bopping along to this song STILL. This has been ALL DAY, no joke...It's such a feel good song, please go now and enjoy...FUN, remember that...ha:)

FADED by SOUL DECISION

Say what you need to say?

I took a bus yesterday to Blantyre. It's a 4 hour trip through some of the most rural parts of Malawi. Small roads + large bus + many people+goats and other animals = an interesting ride. It made me think of something that Jim Miller said last December when I was on the Dakota 38 ride...(www.dakota38.com) He'd say, "And if anyone knows of something that's going to go wrong, let us know NOW, don't hold it in, wait for something to go wrong and then say a day later, I knew that was going to happen"...Basically if you know something's going to happen and you have an opportunity to say something, say what you need to say...I'd thought about that as he said and completely agreed. I actually know there are times for whatever reason I did not say something. Whether it was out of respect for an elder, fear of hurting someone, not being sure if I was right, I kept my thoughts to myself.

This is a tricky thing I know, but I feel I've been getting better at this over time. This has hit me square in the face over the time that I'm here. I anticipated myself sitting in the bus yesterday saying so much, helping the bus driver, being on a edge during what I thought would be a nice but dangerous drive. (the driving is pretty poor here) I envisioned that last week when I went to visit my new friend Roderick and his family in a nearby town. Roderick is the man who works at the gate at the house that I'm staying at in Lilongwe. He's 33 years old, born a few days earlier than me. He has 4 children, his first wife just died of Malaria 2 months ago. He has a new wife. He's a nice man. His living space is small. Way to small for 6 people. It was dusk, one candle lit the room and for all of my experiences, all of the things that I could say, ways I thought of helping, there was nothing that I could do. I bought a large juice, some crispy snacks and we sat. We talked with his family about soccer, music, family, and I did my standard being a goofy guy thing for the kids. I've found that to be my biggest asset here in Malawi. When I see things that are difficult to see, things that I feel should change, and I feel powerless to do so, I try to make a child laugh. The pulling of the finger with a fart noise is a universal winner, doing a wonky chicken dance works, as does coupling animal noises with funny faces. Of course the hand shake into the "ow you're strong" in reference to the kids handshake is a go to for sure...All of this in replacement for the aforementioned "say what I need to say"...When I'm in a dark room with Roderick and his family and Junior the 4 year old spills juice all over himself and the dark floor, I want to say "let's clean that up"...But nobody flinches, nobody says a word. This is not my house, I keep quiet. I'm a walking contradiction with this.

I say I agree with say what you need to say, but then realize there are situations and times when there's nothing to say. Roderick is my age with a completely different experience. I've lived an extremely fortunate life. He has a difficult time feeding his family month to month. I'm going on Safari next week and paying what for me is a small amount of money, but would be enough for his family to live on for 4 months. Food, lodging, appliances. We're the same age. What can I say. There's so many things I want to say. How can this be? Yes, it's true, I've seen poverty in my life. I've heard it in political speeches and even realized, "there's a HUGE gap in the world between the haves and the have nots" (financially speaking that is)...I've said this. I've now also experienced it for myself. What do you do with that? We're the same age. By my own lofty standards in the US, I make very little money at this point in my life. I have a small studio in New Jersey, try to keep my expenses to a minimum, by my standards I don't have a lot of money. I'm kidding myself. I'm rich, I'm rich in so many ways. I have money to travel for 4 months around the world, I have money to eat, I have a bank account. If something goes terribly wrong I have family and friends who have money who could help me out. I know this, this is my safety net. I'm rich in so many ways. Roderick is doing this himself. There's nothing I can say.

Last thing I'll say. We're all rich in other ways, in our own way. Family, love, community, spiritually. When you love someone, you love someone. Even if you haven't heard from that person, seen them, touched them, if your wife has just passed away, you've lost a child, there's things that we'd all like to say. Often times we don't get the chance, often times there's not an opportunity to say what you need to say. Say it anyway, say it to yourself, say it to the sky, let that person know that you love them, that there's not a day that goes by that you don't think of them and wonder what they're doing. Then when the time is right and the fates put you in a position to say what you need to say, you'll have thought about it and know what to say. Silence speaks volumes.

The world is not always pretty, situations aren't always what we'd like them to be. Sometimes we get to say exactly what we'd like to say and we feel like a success. I'm finding that even if we don't get to say what we need to say, that doesn't mean we've failed. It's just may not be the time to say what you need to say.

Symphony at 6am

Every morning at just about 6am I hear a symphony. I don't need an alarm clock, the symphony wakes me up. Sure it's getting light out, but I could definitely sleep through that. But not this symphony, not when all the world seems to wake up at the same time. This symphony is not Bach or Beethoven but a sweet little lady known mostly as "Mother Nature", and believe me, this tune is definitely on her greatest hits album. Which, quick aside, is not the case with Billy Joel's Fantasy. Which, I believe and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, is NOT on his greatest hits album. Are you kidding me?! One of the most underrated Joel tunes around, it absolutely deserves a place on the hit parade, but I'm afraid it is not...There is no discussion however on Mother Natures tune that I'll call "6am surprise"...It's a beauty, and it's a complete rock tune. I love it when nature rocks! This is an alternative rock tune. Just blasts me up and out of bed with loud ass birds on a buzzing lead guitar, insane crickets heavy on the symbals and electric violin, and some unidentified animal singing lead in what I swear is a new completely rhythmic 7 second riff every morning. It's almost as if he's going into the studio and after a few cups of coffee the sound engineer is saying "Hey listen babe, I love what you're doing but we need a few takes for safety, so really let er rip this time, mix it up" And he does. It's out of control. My first week or so hear I was hating it. I've never been consistently up at 6am since possibly high school, but to be honest I'm up every morning at 6am and I actually feel refreshed. Like I have friends coming into my room jumping on my bed, saying "get up come on, big day today, let's go"...Let me clarify, every morning I do not get up singing THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT ala Ace Ventura, but more often that not I'd say I'm appreciating my surroundings.

Oh yeah and I live with two large African Ridgeback dogs named Kunga and Zaza. For the first time in my life I'm living with dogs. Very cool, running, barking, licking, and that's just me. Add them to the symphony and it makes me question very little about mother nature. Father time, now that's a blog of a different color.

Out of place

That's how I feel. For the first time in my life I'm completely out of place. I don't look like everyone else, I don't walk live everyone else, speak, work, everything is completely different. I'm trying to do my best to work with GRS and the clinic, but right now is kind of a down time for planning so I'm also not extremely busy with work. Herein lies the problem. I'm used to being busy, I actually think I've done a pretty good job over the past few years of slowing down but I still like to be busy. I based my personality on how much I could get done in a day, how many appointments I could have, people I could see, auditions I could go on, etc. All of this was a cover. It made me not look at my own inherent loneliness. There's nothing here to distract me from being lonely. I'm in a large house with one other person who I very rarely see, I can't call my friends, loved ones at home very often, I do not get tv programs, I can't jump on a subway, I can't order a pizza and I can't see the people who I care about most. It's killing me. That coupled with this neurotic Malaria medication is enough to shake me to my core. Africa is difficult. I've been through some pretty intense experiences over the last few years and this by far immediately is the most universally challenging. I should be feeling great that I'm a part of something larger than myself , but the reality is that I don't feel a part of anything.

(TIME WARP)


All of that being said and here's the kicker, I feel good. I just spoke with my sister on the phone, had an awesome conversation and I feel good. I was in the middle of this post and I just stopped to talk on the phone. That conversation just turned my day around, all becausae I reached out to her for help. We need our family, we need our friends. And as much as I Mr. "I like to think I'm independent" feel I should be able to travel the world by myself and pull an Indiana Jones cool type vibe...I have to remember where I'm from, who I am, what makes me happy, and who makes me happy as well as who and what I love. That may have been the worst formed sentance of all time but you get the point...My opinion for today, if you're in pain, reach out, it may just save your life...

A whole new world

Malawi is another world. I arrived safely last night here in Lilongwe after a missed flight, overbooked flight and then a transfer onto another flight through Blantyre to Lilongwe. I slept for 15 hours last night and into today. It was pouring rain when I awoke and that then kept me in bed for another hour or so. Once I was up and about I interacted with some of the staff here at my buddy Eric's place that I'm staying. Eric is a fraternity brother of mine from college, (didn't know I was a frat guy huh?) who is now a pediatrician here in Malawi working for the Baylor International Pediatric Aids Initiative, or BIPAI for short. It was Eric who I introduced to Ethan at Grassroot Soccer over a year or so ago in hopes that they would be able to work together on a program here in Malawi. The program is now over a year old and recently received funding for a second year. I'll get into specifics later for the program but please feel free to check out the GRS website for info on the program...

My day today after my slumber, was just about shopping for food and a phone. I now have a cell phone and local number. It's amazing how truly connected the world is. Never having traveled to this part of the world I assumed I wouldn't use my phone so I left it at home. I was wrong, I should have brought an old phone and replaced it with a local sim card. In so many ways I am so naive about the way the world works and what's outside of my little bubble in New York and definitely the United States. Malawi is a different world and I feel right now instead of becoming specific about what I saw and how I feel about what I saw, I'm just going to do the best I can to make every day real for myself and real for those of you reading this. So as boring as that is, today I woke up late, went food shopping, and got a cell phone. Huh...that sounds like a pretty average day for anyone, anywhere in the world. So, yes, Malawi is a different world and already in 1 day here I've seen and experienced things I never have in my life but I think it's also important for me to realize that I did exactly the same things here that I would have done in NY. From a results standpoint things got done in the same way. I took money out from a cash machine, asked about prices, haggled a bit for the funcionality of the phone and then paid for it and asked for a receipt...It's nice to be able to see that for myself, especially since when I landed last night I was a little freaked out from all the traveling, being in a new place, etc. Finding something familiar, whether it's a routine, a story, a person, or a phone, can truly put a mind at ease where it belongs...