I'm Back

It's been almost six months. But I'm back...

Back at Home

AS WE HOOSIERS are taught to sing about our much ridiculed state, I am crooning "back home again in Indiana."

After ten weeks of surviving out of my suitcase (should I really call it a suitcase? -- I have not worn a suit in years), I am in my bedroom, sitting at the desk where I have completed countless math problems since I was seven. My next homework assignment is to prepare for the next level of my life: graduate school.

(Note: I have substituted "level" for the hackneyed "chapter." I am specifically referring to "video game level," insomuch as I have successfully passed the "Peace Corps level" without dying and have earned the right to explore the city of Columbia, MO and its environs. In other words, life is less like a novel than a role-playing game.)

This weekend, in a conversation with my friend Jessica, I referred to the day when I received my acceptance letter from Mizzou (i.e. the University of Missouri) as one of "The Top Three Most Significant Moments of My Life." Jessica wondered what the two other moments were, and I replied, "The day I received my driver's license." At that moment I could not articulate why, but thanks to one of my high school newspaper columns, I may now retrieve my words from nine years ago to explain myself.

Here's "The Optimist" column I wrote for the March 20, 1997 issue of the Carmel High School HiLite:

Freedom will meet me on July 24 at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles at Keystone Square Mall.

If I encounter no mishaps during my driving test and my eyesight doesn't fail me, I will have my own driver's license on this day. I need my license now. I no longer can depend on other people. I must drive.

Unfortunately, I qualify as a young sophomore. My birthday lies on June 24. I would pay large sums of cash to have my birth certificate altered to Feb. 4. Then I could drive today.

I certainly could be defined as a helpless human being because I can't operate a vehicle.

Restricted

I rely on my friends for rides.

I hate to ask my driving buddies to give me a ride. "Do you have the car today?" remans a frequent conversation starter. I sometimes guiltily request with my best puppy-dog face, "Would you mind giving me a ride home?" If they want to keep a good friendship, they better answer with a strong "yes."

However, I do get annoyed when I do catch a ride. With my friends driving, my life is in their hands. If they make a bonehead move -- run a red light or peel out from an intersection -- I could die. I would hate for them to feel guilty over killing a good man.

Preparation

After taking driving education in the summer, I obtained my learner's permit to practice with my parents before I risk my life alone on the road.

My first drive occurred in the Cherry Tree Elementary parking lot. In June, on a clear summer afternoon, I eagerly awaited my chance to hop in the driver's seat, adjust the mirrors and press my foot on the accelerator. When I first did so, though, the car jolted forward, my dad yelled, "Brake!" and I realized the task wasn't so easy.

I drove for another 30 minutes, doing silly figure eight and ovals. Progressively I gained experience under Dad's constant tutelage. I practiced parking and stopping next to fluorescent orange cones. The objective: to know where the edges of the car are.

Watching my every move

When I drive, my mom sits in the front seat, critiquing my every move of the wheel, stop of the tires and parking of the vehicle.

I want to floor it. She wants me to go the speed limit. I love to listen to the radio, survey the road and sing with my favorite CDs. She always shouts at me, "Keep your eyes on the road."

She has other favorite comments. "Thirty-five is fast enough," she says. "The cops are out. I saw some this morning." I am a loving son, so I obey. She would die if I possessed some bad spirits in my sou.

Jealousy

I hate the sophomores, juniors and seniors who cruise to loud music on the street. They can stay out and choose what time they go home. They don't call parents or catch a ride with a friend. The guys pick up chicks with a "hot car." A ride in style appeals to the ladies.

I don't have a cool automobile. I can't feel the bass rumble throughout my vehicle. I only hear criticism, advice and the boring radio stations my parents listen to contently.

Ready -- of course

When I pass my driving test, I finally will get my picture taken and will show it off to my friends. I will present to them my laminated treasure, my Indiana driver's license.

In my mind, I see myself racing down the interstate with my face out the window, enjoying the brisk breeze throwing back my hair. No one will be in the front seat. I can go anywhere. I could go on a cross-country trip.

I will have my license. Freedom finally will belong to me.

How I Got into Graduate School

AT THE END OF MARCH I received my acceptance letter from the University of Missouri's School of Journalism. In August I will move to Columbia, located 120 miles west of St. Louis. I will focus on newspaper journalism with a concentration on international journalism.

Here are the essays I submitted as part of my application in January.

1. In a typed essay (250 words maximum), tell us about yourself, particularly your non-school experiences such as work, volunteer efforts, travel and professional endeavors.

Three weeks after graduating from Northwestern University, I disembarked onto the stifling tarmac in Niamey, Niger. My Peace Corps adventure had officially begun.

Now, more than two years later, I no longer turn my head to gawk at the camels ambling down the street. After asking multitudes of questions during training, I now write about my experiences on my blog. After brainstorming countless project ideas, I now have settled in as HIV/AIDS Program Coordinator. Surprises still surface, however. This year, during the AIDS Bike Ride, a weeklong educational awareness campaign that reached more than 7,500 people in 22 villages, I had to deal with episodes of alleged sorcery perpetrated against our 55-member caravan.

Living overseas, traveling, and volunteering spurred my interest in Peace Corps. Before moving from Switzerland to the U. S. when I was five, I asked my dad, “What language do they speak in Indiana?” My wanderlust had been triggered. The current tally stands at 18 countries and 34 states. While at Northwestern, I sensed the classroom extended beyond Evanston. With Alternative Student Breaks, a student-run group that organizes weeklong service-learning trips, I restored prairie in Washington and wetlands in the Everglades. Ultimately, I trained leaders for these trips.

The adventure continues once I leave Niger in March. During the spring and summer, I will travel to South America and bike around Lake Michigan.

The new Peace Corps slogan asks, “Life is calling. How far will you go?”

My reply?

Never far enough.

2. In a second typed essay (250 words maximum) explain:

1. your interest in a graduate journalism degree;
2. why you think Missouri's program best suits your needs; and
3. your professional goals.

Current events have always interested me. As a reporter and editor for the Carmel (IN) High School HiLite, annually named the state’s best high school newspaper, I lived in the newsroom. During senior year, however, I lost my drive. My friends Allan and Jon died, and I covered Jon’s fatal car accident and wrote his obituary.

I have rediscovered my passion for writing and the news while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger. I started the blog Take Your Shoes Off, which has recorded 7,000 hits since its inception March 19, 2005. I have also intently followed the international media’s intermittent focus on Africa. From the war in Darfur to last summer’s food crisis in Niger, I have grown to appreciate the importance of sustained coverage of such events and the fortitude needed to cover them. With my experience living abroad and my keen eye for cultural nuance, I know I have the will for a career in international newspaper journalism.

What I need now is the expertise. The Missouri School of Journalism is the ideal place to indoctrinate me into the profession. With an intensive two-year track devoted to international journalism, faculty such as Prof. Loory and Prof. Scott specialized in the field, and the required thesis project designed to build on knowledge obtained in the classroom and newsroom, Missouri’s two-year Master’s program will prepare me for a lifelong career in journalism.

3. Advanced study and practice within the fields of Journalism and Advertising rely on the skills involved in gathering and interpreting information as well as the ability to identify important issues and ask good questions. Please:

1. select one of the general topics provided;
2. formulate a question from that topic;
3. explain how you would research the question you pose or you may answer it;
4. frame your question/response within the context of the aspect of journalism you're intending to study; and
5. limit your question and response to 500 words.

Topic: Journalism and the Public Good

Question: Does the Western media’s coverage of Africa adequately inform the public?

Answer: In 2005, more than in other years, Africa was in the news, and rock bands drummed up support for its impoverished nations. Though this consideration was welcome, the media’s coverage was transitory and superficial. If celebrity activists want the world to understand the scope of African poverty, they need more journalists reporting on the people who truly make a difference.

Last year, ironically, the biggest news event concerning Africa did not take place on the continent; rather, it occurred on concert stages across the world. In the run-up to last year’s G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, Sir Bob Geldof planned a worldwide series of concerts, called Live 8, to make world leaders put global poverty at the top of their agenda. At the summit, it was decided to cancel debt for 18 countries and allocate more aid in the future. Then, several weeks after the concerts, the media, including CNN’s Anderson Cooper, came to Niger to beam pictures across the globe of the country’s malnourished children. At the end of year, the heightened awareness of Africa was honored as Time named U2 singer Bono one of its persons of year for his lobbying on global poverty.

While Live 8 momentarily put Africa on center stage, the media has failed to follow up on the continent’s major news stories. For example, since Niger’s food crisis hit the front pages in July, nearly no one has come back to cover the story except for the BBC, which filed several reports in November. The media treated this crisis as breaking news despite the fact that malnutrition is endemic and unremitting in countries across west Africa. In Niger, the situation remains troubling. In a December press release from Doctors Without Borders (DWB), the organization that spearheaded the relief effort this summer, Johanne Sekkenes, the DWB Chief of Mission in Niger, said, “I am worried about 2006 because I don't think that adequate measures are in place to prevent a new epidemic of acute malnutrition.”

While profiling celebrities hobnobbing with politicians does sell magazines, it does not necessarily tell the story. Though Bono has visited Africa, he still is a rock star. He has not relocated to the continent and devoted his life to alleviating global poverty like Johanne Sekkenes has. DWB not only works in Niger but in more than 70 countries worldwide. Such operations certainly merit consideration for the title of “Person(s) of the Year.”

Ultimately, the media should know better. It should know who counts as the most reliable source. Publications and networks should send more investigative journalists to Africa to interview aid workers and other officials invested in the daily struggle to end endemic poverty. By this means, the public will learn about the real issues facing Africa, the politicians will know how their aid is being spent, and the activists will not have to speak as loudly.

The Rattlesnake

IN DUE TIME I will write about my travels during the past month, but now I want to share one of my poems.

My mom and I are flying to San Antonio Thursday. My mom grew up in the small town of Devine, 45 minutes southwest of the Alamo, and we will spend Thursday night in her hometown. The poem, entitled "The Rattlesnake," is about my grandfather, who lived in Devine from 1911 to 2002, but died in Houston two years later at the age of 93.

In arid Texas air thronged some mesquite
That leaned on fallen fences of barbed wire.
A rattlesnake emerged from its old sleeve
And slinked around the stems of sprouting burrs.
An old man wobbled nearby, wondering
Why she remembered nothing. Loving her
Was not like tending cattle, hauling hay,
Or driving John Deere tractors. Patience left
Him wilting in his weathered, wrinkled case.
He learned to love his sweetheart once again
By feeding her: bananas, honeyed toast,
Oatmeal and juice and frequent I-love-you's/
He weaved his fingers through her hardened hands
And thought of when their tapestry began
And soon would end. He saw the molted sheath
Beside a budding bunch of prickly pear.
The wind picked up and blew the skin away
From his extended grasp. A tear rolled down
His cheek and soaked the arid Texas air.

Back Home Again in Indiana

TOMORROW, I'M COMING HOME. Yes, it's true -- I'm alive and healthy. And I even have clean feet.

I'm too excited to dwell on my homecoming right now, but look for something more substanial in the coming week.

Where Have I Been?

I HAVE NOT POSTED recently, and I even failed to mark the first anniversary of Take Your Shoes Off on March 19. To make up for my absence, here are several photos from the past week in Italy and Switzerland.

From Thursday till Tuesday, I was in Bologna, the culinary capital of Italy. I visited my friend Joe, a first-year student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Here we are atop the famous tower in Bologna:


Here I am on the city's narrow, porticoed streets with the tower looming behind me:


After sampling many pizzerias and gelaterias in Bologna, I returned to Switzerland where I spent two peaceful nights in the Alps. I will have pictures uploaded to my Flickr site soon.

I've got to go now, though, for it's time to board another train. In due time, I will post more about my adventures in Europe.

Italia

YESTERDAY, I LEFT THE FAMILIAR surroundings and sounds of Lake Geneva for Verona, in Italy between Milan(o) and Venice, where I understand not a word. To break through this language barrier, I should obviously use my native language, which is used as the default means of communication between linguistic strangers across the world, but after asking simple questions in Hausa for three years, my instincts tell me to pose queries in the most widely spoken language in West Africa. Fortunately, I have been able to curb such silly desires, but, still, several imprisoned syllables, such as "To" (OK) and "Ko" (right?), have escaped my palate.

The cultural adjustments will take time. After becoming inured to the stark scenery of the Sahel, my mind is racing to keep up with contours of Switzerland and Italy, so I may only imagine the sensory overload that awaits me in the U.S.

On that frightening thought, I will leave this Internet cafe and continue my ramblings along the narrow streets of Verona.

Ciao.