So, Jen Koeller keeps telling me I should send you photos you can put up on the blog. So here we are. The first 2 images are here in Cuautla, and the other image is in Guanajuato when I was there at the end of October for my vacation.

My house is kind of crazy (in a good way) right now. So, we had this horse when I first got here, and then last weekend someone stole Sentauro in the middle of the night. And it as a huge shock and everyone was sad and angry but there’s really just not very much you can do in that case. They contacted the police, etc, etc. So my dad kept saying that he was just going to buy a new horse, and my mom kept looking pissed off about that idea. Hah. But instead this morning he came back with A MILLION plants to put in the yard. So pretty much since 1pm my sisters and my dad have been working on planting these flowers and trees in the yard and in various beautiful pots. It’s kind of hilarious.

And these days Andrea, my niece, is here even more than she used to be. Her mom just switched jobs — to one that pays more, basically — but works from 11am to 8pm. Which means that she wakes up Andrea, brings her to school, comes to my house until 10:30am, goes to work, Andrea comes home from school at 1pm, and stays here until her mom comes to pick her up at 8:30pm. It’s super sad — Andrea asked me the other day why her mom switched jobs. And I said “Well, I think this one pays her more. What do you think?” And she was like “I never see her now. When she comes home I go to sleep.” It was just so sad.

Other than that, I’m just really ready to not be doing these classes anymore. All of my professors are pissing me off, for all different reasons. Ugh. There’s just nothing I can do about it. But, we actually only have one more week of classes? Wow, I just cannot believe that. At all. Time warp here, big time. This week I have to turn in the rough draft of my 20 page paper (I already wrote about 14 pages), plus a paper for my crappy literature class. And maybe a paper for my Mexican film class. And then the following week we’re just doing presentations about our projects and turning in the final draft of that paper. So all of that is totally crazy.

After classes end I’m going to go to Oaxaca with Isana for a couple days, coming back to Cuautla for a couple days, and then I’ll go to DF to meet the parentals! So that’s all exciting. I still haven’t figured out exactly what I’m doing for January… I really need to email some people this weekend so I can figure this out in the next week or two. Oh well. But I’m pretty sure I’m going to just fly right to DC on January 18th or so, since I really want to go to Obama’s inauguration. So that should be pretty freaking fantastic. I still have to figure stuff out with Maley — she’s thinking about driving down to DC with her roommates, and so ideally I can reunite with her and go to the inauguration with her and then drive back on the 21st or something. She’s going to Seville next semester, actually!.

I’m trying to think of other fun things to tell you. I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving — I got a chance to talk to my family on Skype, and my grandfather said “Wow, this technology is just blowing me away…” It was cutey. I think my parents went to visit you guys? That’s nice. We had a little party here with a ridiculous array of food that was not all particularly “Thanksgiving-y” but was all delicious. It was fun.

Also, I think I emailed this to Matt, but just in case you guys haven’t seen it, I found it on BBC yesterday morning and just wanted to die a little…

Okay, love you lots and lots. I think I might go take a nap.
Hugs and kisses to everyone,
Hilary

Hi!

Okay, you are getting major points for your emails these days. Really, I super duper appreciate it.

Also (and I don’t know if I should tell you this by email or not): I’ve had a couple of dreams about Diane since I got here. Which was one of the catalysts for me feeling so ridiculously far away from you all. It’s hard being here and not having anyone who knows me, ya know? So I had to email my roommate and tell her, but meanwhile I was in this funk here and no one even really realized that something was wrong, let alone being able to tell whyyy. Anyways, I’m fine obviously. They were a couple weeks ago, and it’s really, really great hearing from you.

On another note entirely: Fucking Hil Koeller! That blog was totally my space before it was hers. I mean, it’s fine, it’s fine…. But really, she can’t just SHOW ME UP like that! God. She may have been born first, but I was making hot pockets in your kitchen for Matt and the other ravenous boys much earlier than she was…. If you put this on the blog and keep this part in I’ll have to kill you.

In other news, things here are really good. I’m getting along well with my family here, but I’m realizing that we don’t really connect on many levels. I LIKE them, but we have very, very little in common. Like, they like religion a lot. When I try to talk to them about politics their only response is that everyone is corrupt. When I try to delve further to discover if they like the leftist parties, they say that a prophet thousands of years ago said that humans aren’t capable of ruling ourselves, that we need divine help. Sooooo that’s a conversation that’s somewhat off limits for me. They don’t like sports, the daughters don’t go out much (one never ever goes out), they don’t drink, they most definitely don’t do drugs. I just don’t know what they DO like. Like, I think my mom, like everyone here, likes gossiping. And preaching/trying to convert people (I kid you not, she told me it’s one of her hobbies. She does it several days a week).

Hahaha so that sounds really bad, but it’s actually fine. It just makes it hard a little. Like, I spend time with them and eat with them, but I don’t sit around the table for hours talking about the economy with them like other students do with their families. Also my father here tends to speak to me but then have another conversation much to fast in front of me. Like, even if he’s “just” talking to my mom about how work was, I’d really love for him to slow down so I can hear too!

My classes are going really well, and they’re still easy. I had a paper and two tests today, and it was fine. I was up later than normal (midnight) last night, but that’s SO EARLY compared to a “late night” at Oberlin. I feel a little bad — some people on the program are really struggling with the workload. Suckers…

This upcoming week we’re going to Oaxaca (look for it on a map!) as a group, which is a state that’s… southeast of us, I believe? It’s about a 6 hour bus ride. We’ll be in the city for a couple days talking to different activist groups, exploring, going to the markets, etc. And then we’re going into the mountains to stay in this pueblo called San Antonio Huitepec. They got electricity in the 70s, along with potable water for the village. Just in the 2000s did they get potable water for individual houses, and now they have internet (since 2006). Anyways, the organizers of the program (from Earlham College, Richmond Indiana) have a connection with this village since there is a very large population of people from Huitepec that live in Richmond, and Patty and Howard work with them there. So that should be really interesting. We have opportunities to talk to students and teachers, asking any sort of question we want, I suppose. It always feels a little funny doing this sort of thing — are we exploiting them in the same way that they’ve been exploited for years? Is it… reverse discrimination in some way, deciding that they’re “different” and we want to “learn” about them? I don’t know, just some questions.

After Oaxaca I’m going on vacation to the state and capital city of Guanajuato, Guanajuato. It’s supposed to be really beautiful. The main reason we (being myself, Isana, Britany, Laura, and Laura’s homestay sister Lilia) chose to make plans to go there is that there’s an international music festival (I think it’s called San Valentina) for these couple of weeks. People from all over Mexico go, and also people from all over the world. I didn’t realize this until yesterday when I was talking to one of our teachers (Norma, who’s around 30 and I absolutely adore) who went when she was younger, but apparently the festival is a drunken drunk-fest. So that should be interesting. (Speaking of which, please don’t forget your mission of getting my mother totally hammered. Okay? Good. I feel like with the help of Jen Koeller, and maybe if you get my dad in on it, you could totally pull it off. Take pictures.) But the surrounding towns are supposed to be really beautiful and historical. I’m excited to be taking advantage of my time here and trying out many different things. Some people are going to Acapulco, which felt a little cliche to me. I’m only here for a couple months, and I’ve seen beaches before. I bet it’s less beautiful than the beach in Nicaragua which Matt and I went to when we were with Bertha and her totally crazy family….

I’ve been watching the presidential debates here, and they’ve been really interesting. It’s funny though — I feel very removed from it all but also incredibly impacted. When the US economy first crashed, the US dollar totally crashed here. One day it was 11 pesos for the $1, and the next it was 9 pesos for the $1. But now, with the economies in all parts of the worlds crashing, it’s skyrocketed. The peso has just lost so much value that sometimes it’s 13 pesos for the $1. God.

One thing that I’ve been finding hard to figure out how to deal with is the constant pressure to talk about how beautiful los Estados Unidos are. I get it all the time, everywhere I go and chat with people. A lot of it happens in my market stall. I love working there, and I’m really getting to know the fellow workers and now the clients (marchantes). So it’s fun to chat and joke around with them all. Also, I must say I’m getting pretty good at memorizing prices of everything (they change from day to day. Only by a couple pesos, but it’s important to relearn them everyday I go) and weighing things out and making change and all that. But anyways, now that I know everyone better often I get the “Wow, you’re from the North! I’d love to visit. Isn’t it great there? Ugh, Mexico is so ugly.” Meanwhile I’m thinking “PLEASE let me stay here for several years, especially if McCain wins. Also I think Mexico is absolutely beautiful.”

And how do you answer that? Whenever I say “No, I love Mexico” people make this face like “Yeah, right, you’re just saying that because I’m Mexican…” and then I go on to say that the US is often not really a nice place to live and there are a lot of problems with the government. One day I was saying that and the man I was talking to was like “Wait, the US, or Mexico? Yeah, Mexico is corrupt.” And I was like “No, I was talking about the US” since I was talking about lobbyists and how big businesses in reality do have a lot more power than the people do. So that’s just something I have to struggle with since I’m an American. BUT apparently a lot of people think I sound German (I roll my “r”s like a German does, apparently) so I think I should just say I’m German more often. Hahaha.

Speaking of which (governments and the like), there’s this intense teacher’s strike in Morelos (my state). So, demands started in June for all these reforms, and then the strike itself started the first week of classes, which was the second or third week of August. And for the public elementary schools it’s still going on. The propaganda here is incredible. The demands really aren’t that ridiculous, in my mind. But the news makes it out to be this huge teachers vs. parents issues, with teachers doing a hunger strike and some parents doing a hunger strike. OF COURSE we don’t see all the parents who agree with the teachers, and I believe there are a lot of them. The real base reason for all this is that the state wants to start privatizing education. God forbid if that happens. Private schools cost a completely unreachable amount here; I can’t imagine my “sister” here (she’s around 30 and has a 5 year old daughter Andrea in primary school) being able to afford that. She can barely afford her house — she (Paula) and her daughter Andrea eat the main meal, comida, at my house everyday. My mom says it’s because they can’t really afford to eat well in their house. So how is she supposed to be thousands of dollars (DOLLARS, not pesos) a year?!

But at the same time, my family also doesn’t support the strike. I understand — a lot of parents are understandably upset that their children aren’t in school. Plus, parents have to stay home with their children now. Many are sending their kids to classes which are one or two hours a day with teachers which cost $2 or $3 a day. But, if you work in a shop you really only make $11 a day — those parents cannot afford to send their children to these private teachers. My family can, but tons can’t. If the strike keeps going, in 2 weeks or so all the kids who haven’t been taking classes will have to stay back a year.

Anyways, so that’s kind of the background. And it’s interesting because we’ve been learning about social movements in one of my classes, and there was this teachers movement in Oaxaca two years ago. You may have heard about it because an American reporter was killed during the protests. But anyways, now there are all these protests in Morelos. Not so much in Cuautla, my town, but definitely in Cuernavaca which is the biggest city in Morelos and an hour and a half away from me. And so then yesterday and the day before there were protests in a town 15 minutes away called Mayuca, and we saw helicopters flying over. And actually when it happened I thought “Oh, ha ha, maybe this is like the protests in Oaxaca where they’re dropping gas on the protests to arrest people” and then I decided that was impossible.

Nope. Not impossible. Yesterday we talked in class about what was happening and what we aren’t seeing on the television, which is a lot. A whole bunch of people were arrested using the helicopters, of course. The idea being that nobody would know where the people were being taken. They did a lot of similar things in other fights against the people. The people’s movements here are amazing and resilient, and the repression from the government is pretty brutal.

Don’t worry, I’m not planning on getting personally involved. But it’s kind of terrifying to think about how the government is doing this. The governor isn’t having talks with the teachers, nor engaging in negotiations, but has ordered army and police into various towns in Morelos. Coincidentally two of the towns that have been inundated with army and police also are towns that have made a commission to try to combat the large corporations that have been destroying the economic viability of the small farmers here. Uff.

Anyways, it’s taken me two days to write this. It’s kind of a novel. I apologize. I kept getting interrupted. But now I’m going to send this. I won’t really be able to write back to you for a while, but I will for sure be reading. So please write!

Also, tell Matt I love him, please, and he should email me?

Also also, if you put this on the blog just take out the personal stuff, eh?

Mwah. Love you and Matt tons and tons. Also, my mom just came into the room to show me a scorpion that was in the laundry room. She had killed it but it’s tail and stinger were still moving around. I haven’t seen any alive. I think that’s a good thing….

Love love, Daughter Dearest

Dear People Who Read This Blog,

As you may know, my name is Hilary Burgin. I love the Canning-Millers more than most things in the world. I might go even go as far as to say that I love them more than I love chocolate and Kimballs. If you know me at all, you know that this is kind of a huge deal.

Seeing as this is the case, it makes me very upset and angry when Millers do not email me back. Ever. Even, for instance, when I write them nice emails which they then post on the blog, but don’t respond back to. Not even to say hello and that they are GOING to post things on the blog. So I find these things out from my mother.

This is a call to help more than anything else. Please remind Michael and Mathew that I am, in fact, still around, and that all they have to do is use their computers (which I know they love!) in order to get in contact with me. This will ensure that I won’t punch them in their faces when I get home in January. The next time you see Michael or Mathew, please pester them until they get Skype or email me.

I assume that this will get onto the blog and I will not get a response but that’s where your call comes in: you have the power to help.

Thank you, and take care,
Much love to all, except for Michael and Matt,
Hilary Burgin, AKA La Chica, writing from Cuautla, Morelos in Southern Mexico

Hi there.
I’m so, so, so sorry I haven’t called. I really want to, and keep not getting my shit together. I have to go buy a phone card, so reaaaally I’m going to do that today or tomorrow, and call you tomorrow. OR get SKYPE because I LOVE IT and then you can see my pretty face, even if you don’t have a camera on your computer. Like, all you need to do is buy those dorky headphones with a microphone and we’re set!

But you said you can’t really write, but it seems that you might enjoy hearing about things here in the meantime, before we work out the phone/chatting things. I didn’t realize for, like, a week that you had put up my last email — I didn’t kill you, as you can see. I guess just change names if you put this one up?

So, this past weekend was a disaaaaster weekend, because of the fact that some people (Mexicans) live in Mexico time, and other people (me) have not yet learned how to be quite so flexible…. Firstly, Friday night was really nice. We went to a pre-anthro (anthro = discoteque = dance club) for my friend Hannah’s birthday, which was really cute. All of us who aren’t sick went, so we were just missing 2 people. That was super cute, since there are definitely some people who aren’t that into going out and partying, and don’t drink, and there’s another set of people who go out all the time (including during the week), and then there’s those of us who go out on the weekends. So it was cute for us all to be together for Hannah’s birthday celebration. After the pre-anthro we went to the house of a family member of one of the girls on the program, chilled out, and I got a ride home around 3am.

The disaster begins Saturday… One girl had invited me to go to a wedding with her and her family which was supposed to begin at 6pm. Her family is really chill and nice, a bunch of brothers and cousins in their 20s who are really close, and they’re like “Yeah, going to the wedding in Guerrero (the state over) is easy — it’s about 2 or 3 hours away, and we can go to Acapulco afterwards!” So we’re interested, and meet up at 4pm to go to the wedding. At 5:30pm we FINALLY leave Cuautla after picking up more family, and then it takes us 3.5 or 4 hours to get there, stopping fairly often because two of the girls on the trip are sick.

Fast forward to Saturday night, when one of the girls on my program is puking, not from alcohol but from this stomach infection, one of the girls is exhausted and taking a nap in the car, I am cranky and tired, and the girl who actually lives with this family is also sick. So we finally, finally get to a family friend’s house to sleep at 5:30 am. I sleep in the same house as the girl who is puking, and Sunday I spend that whole day taking care of her, making her drink water, holding her hair while she pukes… Etc. I had made a Skype date with Sara-Alicia (ya know, my roommate from last year/one of my best friends who I love soooo much) for 5pm (because she has to go specially to the Language Lab, since her computer doesn’t have the ability to do it), and I had made that phone date with with you for 6pm (7pm your time)… Finally we leave Guerrero at 4pm, and it takes us 4 hours to get back. Again, those of us from the program are split up so I’m with the sick girl, and the other two girls are with other family members…

Moral of the story: It was a huge fiasco.
In sum, the important parts:
I need some more time here in order to really master “Mexico time”
Everyone on the program is sick/has been sick EXCEPT for me. I’m biding my time.
I like to sleep and Mexico does not allow for that desire during the weekends.
Everyone is crazy.

It’s okay now. At the time, when it was 5pm, and then 5:30pm, and I was missing my Skype date with Sara-Alicia, and then missing chatting with you, I was alllmost in tears in the car. But it’s okay now. I just needed a day or two to sleep and chill out before thinking it was funny. I mean, it was funny at the time, too, in a bittersweet, sort of way.

Other than that, things are going really well. I really like a couple people — Isona, who’s Japanese American and just fascinating to talk to. We chat about politics and cultures and our homework and I really like it. Then there’s Hannah, who I hang out with and chat with, but normally not about the same sorts of things as me and Isona. Everyone else is really nice, but I like Isona and Hannah the best, I suppose.

My classes are going well, and I’m doing well IN them too. They’re mostly super easy, and the ones that I have more reading for are pretty interesting. I’m feeling really good about my Spanish most of the time, although every now and then I realize again that my family and teachers and stuff dumb things down for us, and talk slower, and listen more carefully to what we’re saying. At my vegetable stand, the guy who owns it doesn’t really know how to communicate with me very well. I really like him, and I like the stand a lot, but today I was trying to ask a couple questions about where stuff comes from, and if it’s organic, and I realized that my family knows the KINDS of mistakes I’m likely to make, and thus can sort of decipher my pronunciation and word turn-arounds, whereas Jaime just hasn’t been with people who are learning Spanish as a second language as much. So I’m thankful for my family.

Things are going well in the house, although on Sunday they made me read aloud from their magazine that they read every Sunday night that’s about the Bible. Well, the magazine isn’t about the Bible… They get this magazine from their church which has different topics, and then they read aloud passages from the Bible to see how they relate. So I read aloud from the magazine for probably close to 30 minutes, and I was kind of furious. I was exhaaausted from the trip to Guerrero, and I was sad about missing the Skype date with S-A and with you, and it was just bad. But other than that, things are going really well with them. Hahaha.

I should go and do some homework. This weekend we’re going to D.F. (Ciudad de Mexico) and we’ll be going to the house of Frida Kahlo, the National Museum of Anthropology (which is the 3rd biggest in the world!), Teotihuacan, and the National Palace (which has Diego Rivera murals). So that’s pretty great, but I have a lot of work for tomorrow and next week.

Love you. Miss you tons and tons.
Daughter Dearest

Thanks for posting that REALLY HIDEOUS one of me.

Peter says he’s planning on going through this area again — we’ll probably both need to remind him that he’s supposed to stop here on his way.

I have two midterms for tomorrow (a 5-page paper I haven’t started and a Bio test which really might kick my ass and might be mostly fine), but I’m SO BURNT OUT from doing work. I worked SO much yesterday, and had to take a test last night online. My Spanish professor’s philosophy is that tests take up too much time during class…. so the students should have to take the tests outside of class. So I studied for hours, took the test for an hour a half, studied tons of Bio, etc, etc, etc and I just don’t want to do anymore.

But spring break starts tomorrow when I’m done with the test at 11am. Which means that hopefully by 2am Friday night/Saturday morning I’ll be in Georgia for a frisbee tournament. Then we’re going to NC to rent a house for a couple days (“we” being 34 frisbee players — 18 boys, 16 gals), and after that we’re driving to DC for a second tournament the second weekend of break.

What’s going on in Action?

Hil B

Well hello there!

I’ve been looking at the blog — fabulous! I can’t wait for all the pictures to come up. Goose did a really amazing job with those the video. I love it.

Also, I was hoping you could help me get a job job for this summer. I realized that you know everyone in the world, and they’re all really interesting. (See, I’m “networking.” Special, huh?!) Anyways, I’m trying to find a job (paid) or internship (probably unpaid) doing something that I actually care about. Probably environmental justice work (not walking around with a clipboard and begging people for money, but actually DOING and ORGANIZING stuff) or women’s health work. Preferably not having it centered around kids under the age of, like, 15.

Anyways, I have this letter thing I wrote to a bunch of Quaker friends of ours that I could send to you if you think it would be helpful. It would probably be good for people who don’t really know me — it tells a little about my classes and majors and what I’ve done in the past, etc. Okay, I’ll just copy and paste it below.

I’ll give you all a call later today, but my roommate’s fast asleep still. I woke up at 8:45 and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I figured I might as well take care of all this emailing stuff.

Jobless,

Hilary

************

Dear all,

Hi everyone! I’m writing to you because I am, naturally, trying to figure out what I’m doing with myself this summer. I would love to have a job or an internship that I find meaningful, important, and interesting, which is really difficult to find!

I’m a sophomore at Oberlin College (in case you had forgotten or never knew), and I recently declared my major as Latin American Studies. I’m not limiting myself, however, to work only within that field. I’ll probably declare an Environmental Studies major or minor by the end of the semester as well. In the environmental field, environmental justice (looking at who receives the benefits versus who receives the burdens of environmental “progress” and degradation) is particularly interesting to me. Additionally, women’s health and access to services is something that I’d love to become more involved in.

Some classes that I’ve particularly loved include Global Environmental History of the 20th Century, Social Psychology, Latina/os in Comparative Perspective, Latina/o Cultural Activism, and Human Rights and Human Wrongs. Over my winter break, which is 4 weeks longer than most, I interned at an organization in San Francisco called About-Face, which combats negative images of women in the media, teaches media literacy workshops in schools, and is starting a new 12-week long activism workshop that ten young women will be a part of this summer (yay!). During high school I went to Nicaragua twice, for a month each time, volunteering the first time in a school translating letters, and the second time teaching photography in a library for kids ages 8-16, which means that I speak Spanish decently well. I’ve been staffing at Friends General Conference since I was a junior in high school, although it isn’t my aim to be working with kids this particular summer. In addition to other volunteering and activism work, I’m also extremely committed Ultimate Frisbee. It’s fabulous.

I was writing to all of you in hopes that you might be able to make suggestions about organizations that you know do good work, people who might be helpful for me to get in touch with, etc. I’ve done a lot of volunteering and organizing, but I’m finding it difficult to get into the more “professional” world of non-profits and activism work than I had suspected. I’m hoping to be in the New England area this summer, preferably in a “city,” although even that’s debatable. Portland (Maine) and the Boston/Cambridge-area are of the most interest to me, since I might also be looking to take classes at a college or university. Chicago is also a definite possibility and very appealing. I’m hoping to not be living at home (even though I love my parents dearly), mostly because a change in scenery is long overdue. I suppose that means it would be good for me to be able to find someplace that would be able to pay me, but that’s negotiable since I might be able to get a grant from the college for living expenses.

Thanks so much for all your support over the years, even if we haven’t spoken recently. Feel free to forward my letter along to people you think I forgot or people you think might be interested in having me work with them this summer.

Much love, and take care,

Hilary

I’ve been really bad about reading the blog lately, but I figured I’d send along a little something for you and whoever else you want to share it with. My teacher for “Bang on drums and talk about feelings” class (also known as my class on Latino Cultural Activism which is getting to be pretty fabulous) e-mailed this to us along with our other readings for the week.

Also, I just saw some kid riding his bike outside holding another bike on his shoulder. That’s kind of normal here.

It’s around a million degrees outside. I’m in the Science Library since it’s TOO DAMN HOT out to get any work done. But I’ll go outside really soon to toss a frisbee around, I’d bet. You can’t just sit around inside when it’s so beauitufl outside since it’s normally, ya know, snowing.

Much love you! I miss you tons! I’d love a little update!

Hilary

(PS: I didn’t change any of the punctuation/line endings/etc)

Poem about My Rights

by June Jordan

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can’t
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/or thinking
about children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence:
I could not go and I could not think and I could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own
body and
who in the hell set things up
like this
and in France they say if the guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that if he
and his buddies fuck me after that
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they fucked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
which is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:
Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
in the hell is everybody being reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition and
before that
it was my father saying I was wrong saying that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a
boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
that I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in other
words
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very
familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
me
I am the history of rape
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
myself
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heart
I have been raped
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/
but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent
to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon
idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life

Hey there!

I haven’t been looking at the blog recently, so I just wanted to write and say hi and see how you all were doing!

I have to leave for class in 8 minutes, but I suppose I can fill you in a little bit about life…

I’ve been LIVING in the library recently. I was sick a couple weeks ago, and I’m catching up on work still. Generally I have frisbee in the afternoon and then I go to the library (after I shower/eeeaaattt foooood) until 1am or so. Blegh. The work is no fun, but I go with two of my really good friends from frisbee and we giggle and make too much noise. Mostly I’m trying to catch up on Economics, which just stinks. I understand most of it (in a off-hand, vague sort of way…) but the problem is that I don’t agree with it. It’s just all such bull-shit, I suppose. But there’s really nothing I can do about it, and there’s no point in arguing, because economics is just the study of capitalism, which is pretty much a bunch of bull-shit in and of itself. OH WELL!

Other classes are going pretty well. I have midterms in a week and a half for my Social Psychology class and Econ, so I should start studying for those pretty soon.

Frisbee is awesome. And awful. Since it was snowy/SO COLD here, we were having indoor practices from 7-9am three days a week, and then on Sundays we had 10am-noon practices. Those were all pretty brutal. But it meant that I had some free time during the day. Now I’m going to start having frisbee from 4:30-6:30 everyday, which cuts into homework time. I’ll figure it out. It just kind of sucks. But playing is really fun. We’re outside now, even though it’s still around 10 degrees probably, if you count the windchill, and the ground has tons of ice on it. It’s just soooo good to be outside again, though. It’s totally necessary.

Let’s see. Crazy roommate has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY less crazy this semester. I still love her to death. She just sleeps at night, in our room, at normal times! It’s fantastic! Sometimes I’ll even come back from the library around 1:30am or so and she’ll already be in bed! I love it. A lot. Although I didn’t love the fact that her boyfriend from NY came to visit last week for 4 days, so I was sleeping on people’s floors/extra beds. And apparently they put a plastic bag over the fire alarm in our room and there were empty alcohol bottles in the room and Safety and Security/ResEd did a fire check and weren’t very pleased. So I guess they’ll come back and recheck at a surprise time. Just kind of sucks. Oh well.

Okay, I don’t want to be late for class! Much love!
OH ALSO: I NEED A JOB FOR THIS SUMMER!!!! WHERE CAN I WORK WHERE I DON’T HAVE TO PUSH STROLLERS AND I DON’T HATE MYSELF?! I just want to work for a cute environmental justice group, or a socially conscious non-profit. IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?!!!

Okay, love love love. Feel free to post on the blog whatever you want. ESPECIALLY if someone from the blog is going to find me a really cute job!!!

Hilarynoodlebeanface

Hi you!

I was thinking about how I hadn’t seen the blog in a while, so I was catching up on it instead of writing my paper about the cultural genocide of Native Americans and saw that people were posting stories! So I thought I’d send a funny story about life here. In the heart of America. Mmmm. Yum. It’s for you and Diane or the blog, whichever you choose. But do tell Diane and Susan (is she there yet?!!!) I say hi if you don’t feel like posting this! (Don’t feel obligated to do so!)

So, this past week I was really fairly sick. It was a cough and throat sickness for the most part, so when I coughed it sounded like a lung was coming up. It was super attractive, let me tell you. So Saturday night I worked on my art project for a while and then my friends and I went to the “Dance through the Decades”, where you were supposed to dress up as different periods (1920s through 2000s) and they played different types of music at different times. (I was the 1950s, Joannah was the 1960s, and Sara-Alicia was the 1980s). After we came back we stayed up a little bit more, and then went to our respective rooms to sleep. My roommate, Cate, rarely sleeps in the room (she’s dating a football player boy thing who lives on the other side of campus) so I got ready for bed and crawled in around 2:30 or 3am, super excited about sleeping for a while until I had to do my art project all day Sunday.

Around 4am, someone else waltzes into the doorway. It is DEFINITELY not my skinny, tall, beautiful roommate. It’s Farah, our “vertical roommate”, as we call him, since he and his roommate Nile live directly below us. Cate and I are on the third, and top, floor, so him and Nile are on the second floor. Farah’s looking around the (dark) room and is still standing in the doorway.

“Hey Farah. What’s up? Do you need something?” He looks down at me all curled up in my bed, steps back a little and goes “O MY GOD HILARY! I AM SO SORRY.” “Mmm. What happened?”

“I TOTALLY thought this was my room. This isn’t my room? Wait, am I on the third floor then? I definitely thought I was on the second floor. O my goodness.”

“No no, that’s totally fine. That’s hilarious.”

I’m obviously laughing my ass off.

How can you not when someone mistakes your room on the third floor for his room on the second floor?! As I’m laughing, I start coughing. And then the “lung-coming-out-of-chest” noise occurs. Which just starts Farah apologizing more.

“Hilary, oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. You’re sick! I woke you up and you’re sick! Go back to sleep.”

“Goodnight Farah! Hope you make it to your room!” Needless to say I was SO EXCITED about seeing him the next day. I started imagining the endless tormenting I would unleash upon him. Mwa haha.

So, the next day around dinnertime I’m in the Oberlin cafe (DeCafe) and I see Farah and his roommate Nile. And just start laughing. And he comes over and laughs a little bit, and then apologizes some more. “Hilary, oh man, that was crazy. I opened the door, and I was taking out my wallet from my pocket, ready to take off my pants and go to sleep, and I look around the room and I’m thinking ‘Hmm, Nile rearranged the room…’ and then I look a little more and I thought ‘And there’s a lot of pink on his side…’ and then you said something and… I’m just so sorry.”

Life is hilarious. My friend Sara-Alicia and I are preparing for sometime when we go downstairs and surprise him and Nile. It’ll be fabulous.

Miss you guys! Take care and I’ll see you SOOOOO SOOOOOOON!!!!! I get back around Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on several factors.

Other than my Farah story, life is good, in case you were wondering. Schooly school is nice. I have a bunch of essays to write as finals, but no exams, which is a real relief. I’d rather have a 10-15 page paper about Native Americans (I have two papers on Native Americans, one for my Native American Identity class and one for Human Rights) than have a test. No doubt. And I just had this HUGE art project due on Monday. I only had a week a half to do it, and I made a full body cast of my friend Joannah. Using plaster impregnated gauze. We did pieces of her at a time – top of leg, bottom of leg, back, chest, top of arms, bottom of arms, etc, etc. It took forever. And then my other best friend Sara-Alicia helped me put together all the pieces and cover the life-size creation in newspaper clippings and flyers from the School of the Americas protest. We set her up with her ankles (no feet) attached to cinderblocks, and she was pulling on cinderblocks with a rope as well. It was an endeavor for me and all my friends. I was at the art studio 10 hours Sunday, and Sara-Alicia was there for 8. I couldn’t have done it without her and Joannah and some friends who came over for a plastering party where we just plastered for about 3 hours. It was intense. But I love how it turned out, and my class seemed to like it a lot too, so that’s good.

I have to go now, since Sara-Alicia and I are going to the viewing of 5 minute movies made my a cinema class. Much much much love! I’ll take pictures of my art project FOR SURE and send them to you, since it was quite a task.

Love you! Take care of yourselves! See you soon!

HilB

Jaime and I have figured out that we’re just about the same person. I am her when she was my age. She did gymnastics till around the same age, we have similar backgrounds of Quakerness, care about many of the same things, think the same about many of the problems of life, etc. It’s fascinating. I love being about to talk to her.

Last night she came into the room and she said ®Well, I think Gladys just said ®no more parasites now that we have the water filter®. I thought she was always using one®. I did too. But the way she said it made me laugh so hard I cried.

I saw a huge iguana yesterday (and got a photo of it!)and told Jaime about it and then wanted to tell Carlos. So, I said ®CARLOS! Vi un… quÈ es? CÛmo se dice este?® And acted like an iguana. Or my idea of an iguana. I put my hands out with my fingers moving a little and opened my eyes wide and stuck my tongue in and out and looked over at Carlos. He looked a) totally confused and b) totally scared. Jaime was cracking up. We laughed and cried about it for about 5 minutes and then she mimicked me and said ®What am I? OH RIGHT! A crazy ass girl on a wall!® and we cried some more. ®Carlos, you need to understand that when you spend all day trying to speak another language, you can’t have fun. We’re just having fun in our own language!® said Jaime (in spanish). It was classic.

Love and Light, Hil

Jaime, the other volunteer who’s staying at the house with me, arrived last night. After 9 hours of traveling. She left the house in Managua around 10 am and got to Achuapa 9 hours later, hotter and sweatier and generally more exhausted.
Even though today was July 19th, the revolution celebration day (like July 4th), there were no festivities here. They celebrate more their personal village revolution that happened June 30th. Oh well. We just saw some boys in the street playing volleyball. As we were walking by the ball came sailing towards me and I thought ‘Weee! FUN!’ and got ready to hit it before some boy stole my glory. Jerk.
I need to start writing down some recipes. I think that would help my endeavor to make Nicaraguan food when I get home. I love everyone in the house, but Juan is never really around since he has a girlfriend. Oh well. No loss. He just sits around in a towel when he is home. Carlo, on the other hand, is my favorite. He’s so sweet. Today I taught him and Jaime how to play some card games since Jaime brought them some cards for a present for the family (they’re boston red sox cards. Carlo was not very pleased. Haaaahahaha. It’s a great ongoing joke, since he’s in love with the Yankees). So we played games for a while and hung out. It’s so nice to have someone to talk in English to.
My daily schedule has been realllly ridiculously slow. Wake up. Hang out. Lunch. Hang out. Dinner. Hang out. during ‘hang out’ time I’ve been reading, writing, talking to the family, napping, etc. It’s been really nice but a little boring. Hopefully tomorrow the library will work out, although I’ll be a little sad to not be able to hang out with Carlo. But he has school tomorrow so I wouldn’t be able to play with him anyways.
The deal with the library and the photo sessions is thus: there is a computer but the keyboard is broken. So the computer software is out. AND the electricity isn’t working in the library either since the transformer or something is broken. Someone was supposed to come for several days but has not yet shown up. So I’ll have to use the printer in my house and just work with the kids and the cameras during the day at the library.
I tried to wash my clothes today. ‘Tried’ being the keyword because I got through 4 items before wanting to be dead. It takes forever, arm strength, energy, water, soap, uugh. I used to read books about people paying one another to do the laundry and thought ‘PSH! So weird! Why PAY someone to do that. It’s just a little scrubbing!’ but you have to get your whole body into the scrubbing and then once something isn’t dirty anymore with sweat and mud you have to get the soap out. That’s the hardest part. So, I’m thinking that my clothing is going to feel a little starchy because I can’t get the soap out. OH FRICKIN WELL. GIVE ME STARCHY CLOTHES ANY DAY! My hands are red from it. And I have SO much more laundry to do.
Write back. Tell me specific things you want to hear about.
Love and Light, Hilary
P.S. What did Matt end up doing for his birthday? Anything exciting?