We Need A Dictator

We are in Boston, in a taxi, heading to Quincy Market, for dinner. I sit next to the taxi driver, engaged in conversation. I notice a heavy accent. 

“Where are you from”, I ask.

“Egypt but I haven’t been there for a while. It’s just too scary right now” he tells me.

“But you must feel some satisfaction that you are working on getting it right. You just have to get it right with the next election” I tell him.

“You Westerners are all alike. You think everyone wants democracy. But Egypt, we need a strong dictator who doesn’t torture us. We need a dictator, not democracy.”

Boston, MA

March, 2014

Images of Haiti

During the summers of 2013 and 2014, I went to Jacmel, Haiti to work with the Haiti Family Initiative.  Based in Wilmington, DE, this organization offers the people of Jacmel a free medical clinic, a women's empowerment program, an art program fro children, a sports program and a school readiness program.  All costs are paid by volunteers and about 3000 people participate in one program or anther.  For more information on this organization, please feel free to visit their website: 

HaitiFamilyInititative.org

I Met The President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And he waved to me, personally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saying Goodbye to My Mother

Saying Goodbye to My Mother

Bryn Mawr, PA  May 9, 1998

It was Thursday night and I have to head home. I live two hours away and have to be up early. So I leave around 8PM. I kiss my mother on the top of her head and say, “I’ll see you tomorrow Mom and if not, I will see you in the next life.”

“I’ll be here tomorrow”, she says sadly and wearily. She is exhausted and ready to die but overwhelmed with guilt about the dark days ahead for the rest of us. The hospice nurse predicted that she would die last week. But she is hanging on by a thread. So every day is a heavy blessing.

I call her in the morning, just to check in. My sister answers the phone and says that Mom could not speak to me. “Is she asleep?” I ask.
“No, she can’t’ speak anymore”, my sister informs me. I don’t comprehend exactly what she is trying to tell me. But I don’t have the courage or the energy to ask for more details.

So after work, I drive two hours back to my mother’s house. She is confined to her hospital bed as she has been for the last 8 days. And when I see her, it is clear to me that the cancer has now gone to her brain and she has lost some functions: the ability to close her eyes, her speech and other muscle controls. She is in some sort of altered state, a semi-coma. One look at her and I am flipped out. She has slipped so far away from us in just 20 hours. She senses that I am upset and she takes my hand and kisses it repeatedly. I try to hold back the tears, but that is next to impossible. This is it. This is the end of her tiring four year battle with cancer.

On Saturday morning, my sisters and I sit around her bed. Patricia, a nurse, takes her pulse. “It won’t be long”, she says with a stoic voice of professionalism. “We should get Dad.” She gets up and calls my father out of the bathroom where he is shaving.

“Dad, it will be any minute now.”

So he calmly wipes the shaving cream off his face and he joins us around the bed. There is no sound in the room, just silence and heavy, heavy anticipation.

I have thought of this moment so often in the last few months. My friends, who have been with a parent at death, have told me about the peacefulness of this looming moment. They talked about how grateful they were to have been at this moment when a parent takes that last breathe. So I sit here, waiting for the calmness. This is the moment when I surrender my mother to her death.

Patricia takes my mother’s pulse again and announces “She’s gone.” She sobs and we sit in silence. The moment isn’t calm. I am not even sure when the moment of her death was. But it doesn’t matter now. It is over. I am filled with sadness, relief, bewilderment, disbelief and emptiness.

Someone calls the funeral director. We call other family members and we move around the house with heavy hearts. All of our actions and conversations are labored. We cry and then we regain our composure. We try to be positive. After all, we all saw this coming. And she is no longer suffering. So we try to focus on this. But the loss is still too great.

The doorbell rings and it is two men from the funeral home. They are dressed in black suits. One of them has a body bag tucked under his arm. As they enter the house, they nod to all of us and we all nod back.
“Where we at?” one of them asks loudly, “we upstairs?” He is cracking gum.
His loudness and poor grammar offend me. He is getting on my nerves. Or maybe I am just looking to fight with someone today and he is such an easy target.

“If you are referring to my mother” I say in an indignant voice, “She is upstairs” and I point to the steps. They start up the steps and I follow behind them. One of them stops and turns to me and says, “You’ll want to stay downstairs Miss. This isn’t nice to see.”

“No”, I tell him adamantly, “I’m coming up with you.”
We go into the bedroom and he lays the body bag on the floor. Both men look nervously at me. They are not sure if they should get started while I am still in the room. So we come to a standstill. Finally, I break the silence. “I know this is your job. And she is not your mother, and you have to be indifferent in order to do your job. But this is my mother. And I am going to make sure she leaves her house with all the dignity she deserves.” 

My voice is quaking and I do everything I can to hold back my tears. I really feel a need to appear so strong in front of these two strangers.

Both men nod to me respectfully, “Yes Ma’am” they say quietly in unison.
And then we begin. We walk over to her bed. The men stand on the sides and pull on the bottom sheet. On the count of three, we left the sheet and her. They hold the side of the sheet and I hold her head. I am stunned at how heavy she feels. She weighs only 75 pounds but it is a struggle for the three of us to carry her that short distance to the body bag. We lay her down and one man begins to zip the bag. He pulls the zipper up to her chin and then he purposely stops. He isn’t comfortable in continuing. So I take hold of the zipper. I kiss my mother on the forehead and then I finish the job. I pull the zipper over her face and to the end of the bag.

“Okay” I tell them, ”you can take her now.”

They nod and each one takes a handle at the end of the bag. As they descend the stairs, I see my father and sisters looking on. No one says anything. The two men proceed out the door and I follow them to the car where they put the bag in the trunk, just like a bag of groceries. Now, this package of my mother looks so, so small. It is as if she shrank just in that short period of time.

The two men close the trunk and they get in the front seat. They’re already chatting and laughing about something. As they take off, I watch and am amazed to see no visible trace of my mother. She is gone. Forever.

To read more stories, check out: bkmemoirs.blogspot.com
or bkmemoirs.wordpress.com

Up On The Roof- Jacmel, Haiti

Thursday, July 18- I have befriended the young girls in the neighborhood. We meet at night, on the rooftop to escape the Haitian heat. One of them has a phone and a few downloaded music videos. I sit on a pail and they cluster around me, their boney elbows resting on my shoulders. They insist I watch their 1" screen filled with Haitian pop stars. Sometimes they dance for me and sometimes I attempt to dance for them. This brings a lot of laughter and rightfully so. When the bugs become too much, I excuse myself and go back to my room. 

Tonight, I am bringing my MP3 player and my music. Madonna will be joining us.

For more stories about my time in Haiti, please of to Bridgetkellyinhaiti.blogspot.com

Trying to Learn English in China

Trying To Learn English
Sias University, 
Henan Province, China- 
Spring Semester 2012

My students rarely carry any books or paper or any other academic tools.  Most of them have an electronic translator on their cell phones.  And some of them walk around with a thick paper back dictionary that is filled with idioms and slang.  Students tend to pick an expression or two from the book and try it out in class.  Usually, they are off just a bit but they are proud of their efforts.  So it isn’t worth it to correct them.

But in spite of the fact that they have no books, every one of them walks around with a small notebook pad which they keep with them at all times.  This is their own Wikipedia.  It contains all of the Americano they can record.  If I mention a movie that interested me, they whip out that notebook and write down the name of that movie.

If I mention an author, that name gets entered in the book.  If I use a word that never heard, it is written down after one of them yells out, “Spell it please”.  And heads go down and scribble down my every thought.

After class one night, I asked students if they wanted to go  for a cup of tea. One student said to me, “lets’ just talk causal. No need to talk turkey all the time.” When I mentioned that this was not a common expression, she was able to site the reference and history of this expression.  Apparently, it goes back to the days of the pilgrims.

Another student stopped me recently and asked “what is the difference between polluted and contaminated?’  I started to give her some lame explanations but then suggested that she just look it up in her dictionary.

“What’s the difference between fable and fairy tale”?  Well, I tried to explain that they are really similar and we use them interchangeable.  “Oh,” she tells me, “I thought a fable had animals that represented something else and a fairy tale didn’t have animals.”  She is making notes as I  talk.

At the end of every class, I now know to anticipate them.  As I am packing up my things, they scramble to get to me first.  “Bridget, just one minute, how do you say this word”?  And usually, there is a list of four or five words, all unrelated.  They have expressions that they think they heard and ask if I can interpret their idea of what they am have heard.

One student in particular comes up to me after class and just runs thought a list.  How do you say “sleeve”, “Tom” , “Tim”, “proxy”, “eradicate”,  and the list goes on and on.  I looked at her long list of words and it looks as if she recently asked someone else for the meaning of “erotica”.

One student wanted me to list all of the American authors since 1950 because she likes American authors.  She’s read two books and wants to read more.  I mentioned that there were 1000s of authors.  “No, no”, she corrects me, “just authors since 1950”.  She is reading the Wonderful World of the Wizard of Oz.  The top half of the page is written in Chinese and the bottom half is written in English.  She sees it as a very humorous book with a very good moral.  I asked her what is her interpretation of the moral, “study hard and go to college and you will be successful”, she tells me confidently.  I asked how she came to this conclusion. She turns to her trusty notebook and leafs through the book and finds a few notes she had on the story.  She quotes something that confirms her thoughts.

They have charts that convert Celsius to Fahrenheit.  They have the exchange rate of US currency.  They have the list of all the foreign faculty they know and the colleges they attended.  Business cards are stuffed in these notebooks.  Email addresses, Skype address and phone numbers are stored in there. If I mention a state, I have to spell it, give a general idea of its geographic location and indicate any colleges in that state that offer scholarships to foreign students from China.

If I mention something that is too complicated for them to understand at the moment, I have to write it down for them.  They never ask me to write it.  They just hand me the book and it is understood that I have to write it.  Then they squint their eyes and try to decipher what I wrote and then they have to rewrite it in Chinese/American alphabet script. Then they put their book away and the conversation moves on.  And then I make another statement and the book comes out all over again.

Beggar Woman

Thursday, July 18, 2013-  Jacmel, Haiti 


A few of us are sitting on the porch in the late afternoon.  A well groomed woman strolls by and greets us, “Bon swa”, she calls out, pleasantly.  Some of us respond back.  She glances back at us, somewhat startled.  My accent must have caught her attention because she does a double take. She begins to search for me. She notices me.  She stops in her tracks and comes right up to the house.  The porch gate separates us.  She looks at me and begins to rub her stomach and then touches her mouth.  I know this gesture.  People beg to me for food and money every day.

“She is hungry, she wants gourdes”, says one of the young girls who lives in the house.

At first, I am uncomfortable.  Then I become annoyed.  This woman does not look to be destitute.  It appears to me as if she is just cashing in on what she sees is her lucky moment.  She has encountered a white woman.  She is persistent.  She has now stood in front of me for five minutes and we are at a stalemate.

One of the women in the house comes over and makes sure the gate is secured shut.  She doesn’t chase the woman away but she makes it known that the woman can’t come any closer to me.  Everyone watches to see what I will do.  I sense that they cannot understand why I don’t just give her money.  But I am offended by all for this behavior.  I am exhausted by the poverty and my expected role to help right this wrong.  I can’t fix it all and I can’t give money to every damn person who wants to take advantage of my skin color.  

Now I am angry.  She seems to begin to pick up more tone, more attitude as she stands there and calls to me.  All eyes are on me. One of us has to back down and after five minutes, she does.  She walks away and mutters something under her breathe.  I sit there for a few minutes, very uncomfortable, trying to calm myself and waiting for the rest for the household to scatter and move on from this unpleasant encounter.

For more stories about my time in Haiti, please of to Bridgetkellyinhaiti.blogspot.com

SAVE THE FORESKIN

Washington, DC
March, 2013




I read in the paper that the Supreme Court heard opening arguments yesterday in the case ton the Definition Of Marriage Act.  Thousands of people protested outside the courthouse.  Just around the corner, 350 Episcopalian ministers walked the DC streets in protest of our minimal gun regulations.  The US Capital was hopping and bursting with issues, determination and history.  So I tell KT, my houseguest, that we have to go to Washington to join in the dissent and be part of history. 

We drive an hour to the train station, take a train, jump on the subway and then find our way to the Supreme Court. We find that Day Two of the hearing did not bring the same crowd.  As a matter of fact, less than 20 protesters show up today.  And they don’t seem very political to me.

There is a man dress as Jesus who is preaching the bible and intolerance of homosexuality.  Young men taunt him.  He keeps his temper so they lose interest in teasing him.  Now, even this small crowd begins to thin out, leaving only tired reporters who are waiting patiently for any breaking news.

We wander over to the Capital and don’t see any evidence of the 350 Episcopalian ministers.  They seem to have all left town as well. But I do see a man with a large, hand painted sign.  I read it quickly and do a double take.

“KT, I thought that man’s sign read ‘keep your hands off my penis’. That one,” I point, in complete disbelief, “keep your hands off my pension.”  KT turns around and looks. “Holy shit, it does say penis.”

He stands there alone in the middle of the lawn, holding his battered sign.  We are contemplating what to ask him when a woman comes up to us.

“Do you know today is international female circumcision day? Max comes out every year at this time to protest male circumcision.  Do you know how dangerous a circumcision is?  And we just do this to every boy in our country, without any thought.  We are the only developed country that does this as a standard practice.  Did you know that?

“No,” I honesty tell her. “I never thought about it.” And that is the truth.

“Do you know why foreskin is so important”?

“Nope, can’t say I do”. I tell her, a little ashamed of my ignorance.

“Have you ever seen a botched up surgery?  It happens all of the time but doctors never tell you that.  And then it’s too late.  The little boys have damaged penises for life”.  Her tone is a little sad. “Can you imagine that?  Those poor little boys!”

“Why are you here today?” I ask her.

“I’m a nurse.  I used to deliver babies and I have seen too many little boys become scarred for life.  So now I come out every year to join Max.  He’s from Vermont and I am from Illinois.  We meet here to protest. But I lobby, all year long, on my own on behalf of young boys.  We are so concerned about girls’ health and their circumcisions but no one ever thinks of what we are doing to boys.  It has to stop.”  She speaks with so much conviction that I feel some sort of moral obligation to take on this cause.

“It’s a violation of their civil rights.  They can’t defend themselves and we are mutilating them without their consent. It’s shameful. It’s sinful.  It has to stop.” She is working herself into a little bit of frenzy now that she has an audience. 

KT has wandered off at this point and I am alone with this woman, who begins to drill me on my general knowledge about the history of circumcisions. Little does she know how limited this knowledge it.

“Did you know the foreskin protects the glans for irritation? It helps to keep foreign materials out of the penis.  Did you know that?”

I hesitate but then answer, “No.”

She doesn’t really wait for an answer, she just continues. “Do you have any idea how important foreskin is for sex? It retains natural lubricants and makes sex more pleasurable for both men and woman. Did you know that?  Are you aware of that?”

Nope.

“Men who are circumcised have different health problems than men who are not circumcised.  They can suffer from meatal stenosis.”  She raises her voice a little with this fact.

I don’t even know what meatal stenosis is but I don’t tell her that.

“And the foreskin is self-cleaning, every time a man urinates, the orifice is cleaned. It’s a hygiene issue.”

At this point, I interrupt her and tell her I have to leave.  She insists I take a hand full of literature. And I do just to get her to stop.  I tell her that I will spread the word and she thanks me profusely.

After a bit, KT and I head home.  It is dark now.  The train is crowded with working commuters.  We have to stand and we are tired. KT is leaning against a pole and laughing a little bit.

“What is so funny?”  I want to know.

“Yup, Kel, you really have your finger on the pulse of the nation. We really saw history being made today.  Thanks for including me”, 

Homelessness in America

Someone told me about a tent city in my county.  It's where the homeless live.  I couldn't believe it.  I never saw any homeless people in Cecil County. 

It's tucked away, behind the ACME, right off of the main highway. It's hard  to find the entrance but after a few false attempts, I make my way down to the site.  There are a dozen tents, in close proximity of each other. They look abandoned but the evidence of recent trash lets me know this community is real.

I notice a woman sitting  inside her tent and I call to her and ask if I can speak with her.

"No, I just got back from Church", she tells me. 

So I leave her alone and wander off to explore.  A few minutes later, she calls to me.  She tells me she has been living here for the last four months, right after she lost her job and her apartment.

"I was working at McDonald's and crossing the highway, I got hit by a car.  It really messed up my leg pretty bad. I was in a full leg cast and didn't have any insurance. I couldn't stand so I couldn't work and got fired.  I don't have family around here so I had nowhere to go.  I ended up here.  When my leg gets better I am going to look for work again."

Elkton, MD

June 2014

You Lucky Dog

I am at the Laundromat in the middle of the afternoon, my favorite time to go there because it is usually empty.  But not today.  It is packed with people, mostly young, black men.  And they are jumping and packing and unloading machines.  Someone who looks to be a grandmother sits and reads a magazine. The mother is bracing one boy's hair.

"What is everyone doing here today,? Where did all of you come form",I  ask jokingly.

"It's laundry day," the grandmother tells me, "and Vivian is getting all the boys to help. They home from college and they have to do they own laundry", she tells me with a sense of pride in her daughter for holding these boys accountable.

"Are all of these boys yours?", I ask the mother as she gets up and barks orders at them.

"All mine", she says proudly.

"And that's not all of us boys", says one of them.  "There are two more at home".

"How many boys" I want to know.

"Seven and two girls", chimes in another.

"Seven boys and two girls, well you are one lucky dog",  I joke with the mother.

She laughs uproariously, "You, that's the only way you can describe it.  I am one lucky dog.".  With that she points her finger to the car and all those boys get up, mobilize and fill the trunk with clean laundry.

Dragon Lady

Kelly Long Nv

When I first came to China to teach, I asked my students to give me a Chinese name and they said they would think abut it.  After all, they had Western names so I wanted an Eastern name. But after two weeks, no one had any suggestions.  So I approached the topic again. I told them that I wanted a name that had the world "Dragon" in it since it is the Year of the Dragon (2012).  They didn't like the idea but the idea really grew on me.  I suggested that they call me "Dragon Lady" and that suggestion met with great horror.  In their opinion, it was too harsh, too unfeminine, too impolite. A dragon lady is viewed as undesirable.

 "Dragon Girl" was offered as a compromise, it was not as straight-forward or bold.  But I insisted that they translate Dragon Lady for me.  They protested and reluctantly translated my new name (Long Nv).  At first, none of them would address me as Long Nv but eventually, several of them told me, "That name fits you."

Bassin Blue, Haiti

Bassin Blue
Jamel Haiti
Summer 2013

Friday, August 2, 2013  – we head up to the Bassin Blue Waterfall for the afternoon.  It’s our treat for the volunteers.  The medical clinic is closed and now we play. We get there by truck and then we have to hike about a mile in to the falls.  The hike is treacherous and slippery.  There are three levels to the falls.  The first level has the easiest access.  The second level is more demanding and I don’t know how difficult it is to get to the third level because this level is good enough for me.  The water is a beautiful blue and the falls are surrounded by lush, lush vegetation.  We are only 20 miles from Jacmel, but this is a completely different world.  There is not a blade of grass to be found in Jacmel.  The tree population is sparse and scrawny.  But here, the Basin Blue is teeming with green, beautiful, fragrant life.

While the others make their way up to higher elevation, I slide slip in to the cool, blue, blue water.  One of the guides stays behind and watches over me which I appreciate because the currently is stronger than I had anticipated.  But the silky water is more luxurious than I had imagined and I begin to think of ways of how I could spend the rest of my life in this wonderful pool of water.

For more stories about my time in Haiti, please go to Bridgetkellyinhaiti.blogspot.com

My Chinese Students

They are lovely; I don't think there is any other way to describe them.  They are gracious and kind and thoughtful.  They are like little puppy dogs, always happy to see me.  And when I am in their presence, they stroke my arm and lean up to me and they want to shake my hand, sincerely and vigorous and for a long time.  Mostly too long a time as I usually have to shake longer than is comfortable for me, then my shake goes a little limp (hoping to serve as a social cue) and then I have to assert myself a little and just yank away. After that, they go back to stroking my arm.



When we have a meeting, someone is assigned to come fetch me and escort me to the meeting.  Someone is assigned to serve as my translator as needed.  One woman is in charge of any power point presentation I may have.  One student is insistent that I get a phone so that she can call me to see if I am safe at all time.

When I walk through campus with them, they immediately go into guard duty mode and escort me through the campus as if i am fragile and could be damaged by the other students.  So they shield me from the other students and as necessary, push and nudge the other students out of my way. They reprimand all unknown students who accidentally bump in to me.  And then my students apologize and check to make sure I am not damaged.

When we are in the classroom, they listen with so much intensity that I almost have to laugh.  And while I am speaking, they nod their heads in unconditional, constant  agreement with me.  And then the class leader gets up and translates what I just said and there is a loud raucous of disagreement. And there is all sorts of bantering going on and I can't follow what is being said.  So I just nonchalantly raise my hand. Then there is an immediate silence and they go back to sitting on their edge of their seats, listening intensely.  And it appears to me that no matter what is said in Chinese, we all seem to reach agreement in the end and we all think my idea is the best idea.  And so why wouldn't I think these people are lovely.

In 2012, I taught at Sias University in Henan Province, China