The Power Of Words

My reading for this trip is "Approaching the Qur'an," the book which created controversy at the University of North Carolina when it was selected as required summer reading last year. The gist of the text is that the Qur'an is supposed to be transcendental simply because of the beauty of its language. When sung, the singing should move you as the word of God. Indeed, Mohammad is cited as saying that the beauty and perfection of the language and its power to move is the proof of its authenticity

The call to prayer sung from the minarets has always created a feeling of peace for me, even though I cannot understand it, in much the same way as a well-crafted Presbyterian sermon will do. Perhaps there is something to the power of beautiful language.

The ancient Egyptians believed this was the case. During my visit to the Egyptian museum I saw several instances of hieroglyphics where the cartouche containing the name of the Pharaoh had been chiseled away. The ancient Egyptians believed that the existence of the name in writing gave power to the dead to influence the living. Defacing the name erased that power. Oddly enough they'd leave the faces of the pharaohs intact in earlier dynasties, only choosing to scratch out eyes and ears later on.

Language is one way we reach out to others, and can convert strangers into friends. While at the museum I was approached by some Egyptian youth who assumed I was German and wanted to practice their language. A few words and we were buddies for the rest of our time in the museum.

Command of languages and the cultural habits that go with them can be a powerful thing. I often am mistaken for a German and do a passable job at blending in with them. Entry to the museum was a jostling, crowded affair for individual tourists. I went through once and was sent out again to store my camera outside. The next time in I mixed with a German tour group and was swept through the tourist entry in a matter of seconds. Ausgezeichnet!
Even in English language has power, turning strangers into friends during my trip to the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx. Belgian, Portuguese and American, we all enjoyed one another's company.

Fortunately, many Egyptians speak passable English, so it has been a tremendous tool to get to know folks on the street. Most educated Egyptians speak excellent English, and many university classes are taught in that language. I have found them all to be very polite and friendly.

Unfortunately, Egyptians around sites frequented by tourists are usually trying to use the power of their English to prise a few dollars out of your pocket. Though they haven't read it, they're are quite good applying the principles of indebtedness, similarity (through language) and co-location described in "The Psychology of Persuasion" to sell you things you really don't want.

Often they can be quite aggressive, even hostile in their approach. "Take this as a gift. No, I won't take it back. Forcing me to take it back is insulting. Now pay me." Here I learned the power of Arabic. You can say "No, thank you." in any Western language you please until you are blue in the face, but its like you never spoke. However, use the Arabic la shokram (thank you, no) and they disperse like leaves in the wind.

And for those hawkers that are confrontational there are the tourist police, aka the camel cops. The Pyramids are the site of horse-drawn carriage and camel rides, pushed on tourists like the t-shirts. Camels are bigger than t-shirts though, and here the camel cops come into play, running off hawkers in low speed camel chases amusing to watch. They also intervene on foot, pushing and shoving hawkers away from tourists when they are downright mean.

Cairo is crawling with uniformed police. Parking police, traffic police, antiquities police, secret police, customs police, hotel police. The city's districts are even defined by police stations.

It's a lot like DC actually, except that these police generally don't do anything. They and their officers sit along streets with their automatic rifles, loiter behind bulletproof riot positions, and sleep in their guard boxes. I've watched hotel guards put mirrors under cars but not look at mirrors, immigration officers flee their posts as soon as the crowd of foreigners appears at the airport, tourist police ignore metal detectors wailing alarms, and parking police shrug their shoulders when people are stuck in their parking spots. Its a running joke that law enforcement is a make-work project for the unemployed.

They're very friendly though and a few words will get you a big smile and a handshake.

My line of work requires more than a few words though, so there has always been plenty of opportunity for the traduttore, traditore. For those who do not speak more than one language, the reality is that languages translate imperfectly. Translation and interpretation, like music performance, remain one of the last great bastions of human-ness, where the mind is necessary to perceive and linguistically repackage concepts beyond language which are associated with words. It is not a mechanical function. As a result, it is often imperfect.

In survey research of we deal with precision in written and spoken language and its meaning. By definition we therefore are often victim to traduttore, traditore. Add to it that interpreters can only function for so long before their minds tire, and things can go downhill rapidly.

I spent Monday trying to control a room full of people in training through an interpreter who lagged a few minutes behind the instructor. Today was spent on a noisy street in front of a mosque with dozens of people staring at me while I tried to manage our subcontractor's job performance through an interpreter. Nothing like it to get a sense of how powerless a lack of words can make you, especially when your interpreter's batteries start to run low.

A Tricked Out Renault

Cairo is a city of contrasts. For a while I couldn't be sure if this was a pleasurable or undesirable thing. Traffic in Cairo is insane. The streets have lane lines, but they're optional. I've actually seen our driver clip two people in the last 24 hours. Anything that rolls is on the street, from ancient Ladas serving as taxi cabs cruising next to the newest Mercedes zipping silently by. I spent an hour standing still in this free-for-all on the freeway as we left the airport

Cars and traffic serve as a good metaphor for Cairo's contrasts. As I sat in the traffic, I had nothing to distract me from listening to the calming call to evening prayer from the minarets. I could admire the ancient, silent Pharaonic statuary in the median strip which looked like it was carved yesterday. I could watch the old men washing away the dirt on the highway banisters by hand, one pole at a time.

I could appreciate the tricked out Renault.

I wish I could have captured it on film. The car, checkered black and white, had to be 20 years old if a day. It glowed neon blue in the dark, with its interior and exterior add-on lights. Its aftermarket chrome hubcaps glinted from under the lifted fenders. Best of all it sported Loewenbraeu beer mudflaps on its rear wheels which swayed as it zigzagged through traffic, blasting away with its squeaky horn, while its passengers conversed in the dim blue light, oblivious.

For me, that Renault will always be Cairo. Old and new, jumbled together in a way that works, even if not in the most attractive manner. The city is the same way. New apartment buildings, intentionally unfinished on the topmost story to avoid taxation, creep their way from the Nile into Greater Cairo to threaten the foot of the Great Pyrimids. Pharaonic statues, unmarked by time, stand amidst buildings which look old and worn-out but were built yesterday in comparison. The city is scattered with billboards advertising familiar brands in Arabic, but held by European or American models.

The airport reminded me of the Luxor in Las Vegas, with stylized Egyptian building facades. The guards at the airport drive Jeep Liberty's and sport AK-47s, both built in Egypt. The office vehicles are Ford Explorers with cup holders, but the Egyptians fill them with plastic ash trays that look like little trash cans.

The riverboat casinos in the Nile cinched it for me. Some float. Most are buildings made to look like boats which will never move downriver. Many have neon paddle wheels flashing at the rear, none of which work. All glitz, no function. But they seem to attract people none-the-less, just like the Renault.

I'll give Cairo another chance tomorrow. After all, the hotel restaurant offers a hookah, called a "shisha" in Egypt, with your meal and belly dancing on Saturday nights....

Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius"

While not technically travel, this post is something which my family and friends could not attend, so I am including here.

As many of you know, I sing with the North Carolina Master Chorale (NCMC). The NCMC is regularly hired by the NC Symphony to perform large choral works. Last spring it was a work by Mahler. This quarter is was Elgar's "Gerontius".

The program read, "In a North Carolina premiere, Grant Llewellyn will lead the orchestra and the North Carolina Master Chorale in a work rarely performed outside of Britain. Cardinal Newman's poem tells of the journey of a man's soul after death – 'Gerontius' may be translated roughly as 'old man.' Elgar was given a copy of the poem in 1889 as a wedding present. 'This is Elgar’s greatest masterpiece,' says Llewellyn. 'It’s a large-scale chorus, a sweeping, emotional work.' "

I continue to return to this group specifically because of these opportunities. There is nothing to compare to performing with a world-class orchestra. The sound is incredible! It doesn't hurt that both our director and of course Grant Llewellyn treat rehersals and performances as professional, non-nonsense affairs. Appeals to my Germanic side... Grant's British public school accent doesn't hurt either.

I'd love to invite some of you to attend next year's performances. Next year's line up with the symphony currently includes;

September 28-29: an extraordinary semi-staged production of Mozart’s ever-popular opera, The Marriage of Figaro. Along with the North Carolina Master Chorale Chamber Choir, the world-class cast includes Sari Gruber, Christopheren Nomura, Krista River, and portraying Countess and Count Almaviva, a real-life married couple, Barbara Shirvis and Stephen Powell. Noted director Marc Verzatt, whose credits include the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Atlanta Opera, Toledo Opera, National Grand Opera and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, will bring his considerable talents to this enterprise as the combined forces showcase Mozart at the very height of his powers.

Nov. 23-25, 2007: William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor North Carolina Master Chorale Holiday Pops Jingle up the winter season with the North Carolina Symphony’s beloved, traditional Holiday Pops concert featuring the North Carolina Master Chorale and the annual sing-along.

December 7: Handel's Messiah (unconfirmed)

Mar. 14-15, 2008: Grant Llewellyn, Music Director Peter Serkin, piano, North Carolina Master Chorale
Bach: Cantata No. 118, “O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht” Stravinsky: Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments Stravinsky: Concerto in E-flat (Dumbarton Oaks) Bach: Cantata No. 50, “Nun ist das heil” Bach: Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F minor Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms
In this unusual program, Grant Llewellyn explores the deep connection between Bach and Stravinsky, aided by his guest soloist, the incomparable Peter Serkin. Stravinsky’s fascination in the second half of his career with music of the Baroque, and his idol Bach in particular, is the inspiration for this program which bounces back and forth over 200 years of musical history. The concert ends with Stravinsky’s profound Symphony of Psalms, featuring the North Carolina Master Chorale.

Date Not Yet Set: Karel Husa: Violin Concerto Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, “Choral”
Steely-toned firebrand violinist Ilya Gringolts is featured in Karl Husa’s Violin Concerto. Husa, a national hero in his native Czechoslovakia, is one of the world’s most famous living composers and currently lives in Cary. His granddaughter, Maria Evola, plays in the violin section of the North Carolina Symphony. The concerto was written for the 150th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic. This powerful program closes with Beethoven’s supreme Symphony No. 9, “Choral,” featuring North Carolina Master Chorale, the Durham Choral Society Chamber Choir and a cast of extraordinary soloists

In case any of you wondered what professional musicians look like when they're not wearing black and white, I snapped a couple of photos during "dress" rehersals with my trusty cell phone.

To Kabul and Back Again

January marked my first trip to Kabul, one of many in my future. I've started working with a new company which owns a joint venture collecting survey data across Afghanistan. As part of my role I am involved in refining the operation while helping managing the ever-growing client base.

My first trip was marked by world class air accommodations. While I had at first intended to fly a domestic airline to accrue preferred customer status, my colleague talked me into flying Emirates Airlines through Dubai. A cannot begin to express the difference. I'm not sure I'll ever fly domestic to the Middle East again. www.emirates.com

Flying business class only added to the experience. Beginning with the fine wines and Middle Eastern buffet in the top flight private lounge at JFK to the free chauffeured cars to the hotel in Dubai, the experience was second to none. The cocooned seats, simulated starry skies on the airplane roof, Internet connectivity on the plane and 150 channels of on demand movies, radio and games on a 14" screen in the seat added to the experience. At 33,000 miles a round trip, I'll be a gold status customer on my second go. Free upgrades here I come!

It is well earned luxury, for the leg from Dubai to Kabul is inglorious. We generally fly Ariana Afghan Airlines, primarily because the scheduling works out well. We also joke it is less likely to draw Taliban attention being indiscriminately packed full of Afghans from various places. Of course, this also means I am packed in with them. This trip appeared to be a plane full of a group of pilgrims returning from the Hajj. My colleague and I noted in the terminal the number of these pilgrims clothed in their uniform ihram who were ill and coughing. We survived the plane trip and the airport in Kabul, where we stood packed in the processing chute for immigration with these folks.

Kabul is not especially cold in January. At 6,000 ft. elevation nestled in the wintry mountains of the Hindu Kush, it reminds me of Utah winters. But there is no heat. The airport is a bare, concrete ice box. I felt sorry for the pilgrims standing in line in their two piece ihram, that is until we got to baggage claim. At that point it became a free-for-all under the dim light of a few bulbs hanging by wires from the unfinished roof. It was polite. It was not pleasant. I marveled at how the pilgrims could sort out which 5 gallon container of holy water belonged to whom as dozens without markings, but with identical orange caps, rolled out of the baggage door in a row. Perhaps it didn't matter.....

During a previous trip to Haiti I began to keep a list of things which are common to developing, post-conflict, or just plain forgotten parts of the world. European, Caribbean, Asian; I have come to find that it makes no difference, as the requirements of living encourage their existence. Kabul is no different. Items on this list include;

• wild dogs wandering the streets, sometimes in packs
• mostly muddy, unpaved or broken roads
• second hand cars of all kinds and conditions imported for resale
• public transport as single vehicle enterprise
• buildings made of preformed concrete slabs or unfinished masonry
• rusty steel where concrete won't do
• retail sales as cottage industry, mostly street vendors or kiosks
• people sitting or walking about without much else to do, generally watching those that do
• few or no utilities; water, electricity or gas. Thus no heat, light or working toilets.
• landscapes stripped of anything consumable
• packs of children or older women begging for handouts from foreigners
• wooden carts with used tires for wheels drawn by beasts of burden (or people)

As you can imagine, "living" in such places takes on a whole new meaning. One of the novelties of my Kabul experience was having an office full of computer equipment, but heated by wood-burning stoves made from converted 55 gallon diesel drums. We run an entire two story office off our own generator, but continue to heat it with wood shipped in from the countryside. This is primarily due to the poor electrical wiring in the building which limits the load we can pump through it. The hotel we stayed at was somewhat better, with the dining and guest rooms heated by portable electric heaters, though passing through the hallways from one to the other caused my breath to steam.

But the hardships are all worth it because of the people. I am fascinated by people's values, beliefs and behaviors, which is a good thing as I get paid to observe and measure them. Kabul was full of interesting experiences.

The employees in our office are a cross-section of Afghanistan. Divided into the two primary language groups of Pashto and Dari, many of them have to work at communicating with each other. English is rare and not well spoken. Russian is slightly better. German is unheard of. As with all my other experiences working outside native English-speaking countries, the result is people speaking whatever language accomplishes the goal best, regardless of whether it is native. Abdul our accountant speaks halting German and worse English, so I found myself using German with him. My colleague speaks fluent Russian, which a number of the Kabuli staff speak, so there was some of that flying around at times. And depending on which field team staff you were talking to, you would need a Dari or Pashto translator respectively. The pace of company staff meetings is often painfully slow due to language issues.

Our office employs several women. Women in urban Afghanistan are beginning to reclaim the freedoms which had been brought by the Soviets. We hired two younger ladies during my visit who were university educated, but wore headscarves and were uncomfortable making eye contact with men. This is the custom in Afghanistan. We discussed with them what they did growing up under the Taliban and they indicated they had mostly been locked up at home. Conversely, our operations manager is an older lady who has no such customary behaviors and wears a suit.
There are other customs which I learned about on this trip through work on one of our projects novel enough to mention here. They have apparently persisted for a long time and are traditional sentences handed down by tribal elder councils, or Jirgas. They include the burning of an offender's house, blood money, collective social boycott, and giving a women from the offender's household to that of the victim.

More pleasantly, I also enjoyed the custom of sitting on carpet-strewn floors to interview a new supervisor for one of our field operations. In Afghanistan it is obligatory to treat a visitor as an honored guest. It is also customary to sit in a circle or with backs to the walls of a room with the honored person across from the door. So imagine an interview of one person in a room, on the floor, in a circle of 10 people, where interviewer and interviewee are 15 feet apart, conducted in three or more languages (Russian, Dari and Pashto). That the applicant was dressed in traditional garb with turban just added to the novelty.

Meals were also taken on the floor. As is custom in Kabul, the office provided lunch as part of its benefits. Here I am eating with my colleague and our German speaking accountant. Rice, beans, flat-bread and kebab yet again! Can't complain, really, I like it, especially the rice with raisins and saffron.
So much for this posting. My next installment will probably be from Cairo in March. Looking forward to it!