Mumbai1

They tell me I should hate Mumbai.
23 million people in a hurry,
honking horns, wasted lives,
dirt smog noise, unrest unease,

Caviar and swordfish,
children dying on the streets.

It is torturous and tragic,
Excess joy and excess pain,
Like the mystical magician
She’s the master of extremes.

The world tells me I should hate Mumbai,

And yet I feel something beautiful
because now I know that amidst the squalor,
and amidst the pain, exist people
Who will let you into their heart
When you turn up at their door,
And in the middle of poverty,
Are people with dreams,
Are women of strength,
Are families with hope.

Do not tell me to look into this world
And see only darkness.

Varanasi1

Varanasi, so I never forget...

Varanasi, city of my heart,
You so disturb me
With your adolescent caresses.

Varanasi, ancient city
Old beyond time,
Wiser than rivers, deeper than seas.

You are like a young man to me,
Lean and waiting, impatiently poised
At the startline of adulthood. Come
near me, urgently, Fumbling against me
In the dark, circling hand seeking navel,
Cool fingers sink in
Deeper than skin.

Your tenderness enslaves me,
Despite your brash nature,
Your quick temper, your dirty streets
And tourist traps,

Your tenuous love so enthralls me,
I never know whether to love
Or escape you.

“Madam rickshaw please.”
“Where are you from?”
“Where are you going?”

Oh you fool,
You dusty soul,
I do not know.
I will leave you always wondering…

Welcome to vietnam

This is one of my very first experiences in Vietnam. It took place while I was still on the bus from Laos, about to enter into the great city of Hanoi. It is just another one of those small, surprising moments that sneaks into your heart and makes a nest there. Subtle, insignificant, but unforgettable...

My first interraction with a Vietnamese person was a grandmother sitting behind the side walk just in front of a small row of shops. When the bus stopped, I looked through the glass of the window and saw her sitting there. She looked quite beautiful, peaceful and dignified in her age. She was holding a small baby on her lap.

When she noticed I was looking at her I smiled timidly, unsure what she might be thinking or feeling about this foreignor staring at her through a bus window. A thousand questions were at the back of my mind. Are people here friendly? What do they think of foreignors? Is it rude to sustain eye contact?

She smiled back warmly, and I returned the smile more broadly this time. I must have looked away for a second because when I looked back I saw that she was still smiling and now she was holding the baby's arm in the air and moving it back and forth to wave at me. It was such a playful gesture! Meanwhile, she kept smiling at me, too. Of course, I waved back. I was starting to feel a bit shy, but she seemed so genuinely happy to be sharing this moment with me and her granddaughter that I kept looking back at her to smile again even though the bus had now stopped some meters farther forward.

When the bus finally started moving again I looked back, smiled at her and waved good bye. I felt like I was leaving a new friend.

At that point if I was still a little tense about coming to Vietnam as an American - and I was - this grandmother really eased my worries. Vietnam must be like anywhere, I think, be warm to people and most of them will return the favor. Be cruel and they will be cruel too. In the end it still is not nationality that matters but heart.

Quirky?

I am sitting in the classroom. The cat came in through the window tonight. Twice.
This is just one of the things that reminds that I am not in a normal place.

Last week I finished editing the letter that I received when I first enquired about DNS. It did not matter that I have only been at DNS for 2 months, just over a month of that spent in Tvind. This, I think is quintessentially Tvind.

It struck me, as I was reading (and reading and re-reading) the materials how strange this activity would be in most institutions. Less than 2 months in and I am editing the same materials that helped get me here. Less than 2 months in and I am making those same materials better so that new enquiries will be more impressed, more inspired. Of course it makes sense that I should do this. By the number of mistakes, I can tell that the materials have never been looked over by a native speaker. When I appeared, an American with (theoretically) time on my hands, it was a perfectly natural response to ask me to help.

So why do I have the feeling that this is anything but normal?

Now I am at the computer, and Jurga is asking me questions about my room. She is planning (with Jerome, though whether he is helping or hindering is presently uncertain) the improvements that we will implement together on Wednesday.

This is not just a distraction. This is exactly what I have been talking about all along. Students here are like termites. They crawl in, spread out and begin to make things messy. We sink our little teeth into everything. The main difference between us and those insects being that we sink in rather unwillingly. Oftentimes we even need to be lead to our lunch -metaphorically speaking, of course.

It is strange being at a place where you are immediately meant to have influence. There is no easing in here. It's all or nothing, and like it or not our grubby little hands are all over this place.
I think I did a good job correcting that letter. I did it well because I understand from a my own experience how important that first contact is. I can remember how I waited for that first email, so excited, so unsure. I even remember reading that letter and pausing at the especially awkward phrases. In the back of my mind I know I wondered who wrote it, and why no one ever took the time to write it better. Well, now someone did. Me.

Speaking DNS

It is a strange experience sometimes, being a native English speaker in Tvind. But only when I really stop and listen...

We speak this strange dialect here, a distinct mix between English and Gibberish. I think technically speaking this would be referred to as "English as a second language", but do we really want to discuss the matter so seriously?

I am really asking. Seriously. How much should I care? Because if I really do stop to listen, I notice all these funny mutations running around campus, like frogs with three heads. You know what I mean; looks like English, smells like English, sounds like English, but...

Exercise becomes fitness

Locks become lockers

For's evil twin is terrorizing sentences

and suddenly everything is funny!

They seem to think they own the place! Should I take these language phenomena seriously? Of course, there was on serious case in which I personally witnessed the birth of a new word: "strimmer". It was spreading so quickly through the vocabulary of the OL that I could envision its introduction into the conciousness of DI's across Denmark within a few days time. Intervention was called for.

Or was it? What would happen if we left the language alone, dedicated it as a new dialect: Tvindish? How long would it be before we spoke a new language, distinct from the rest of humanity? It could be the greatest linguistic experiment of our time.

Ok, I am having fun with this concept, but really the issue at hand is a relevant one for my life. The question is how far do I delve into combat against this freak English? Over time I have discovered that certain individuals appreciate having their English corrected, even mid-sentence. But I still wonder, "when is it too much?"

Some conversations are not worth interrupting to chase an errant pronoun. There are times when fixing a preposition is less important than allowing for flow of a thought or the following of an inspiration.

There are certain doors I simply refuse to enter. I do not want to cause friends to believe that what they say is less important because their grammar is imperfect. I do not want to become the cause of eloquent teammates checking their words. I do not want to become the reason that fellow students are never quite at ease.

Moreover, I personally do not want to become so obsessed with finding mistakes that when my teammates speak I forget to hear to their words. The more I correct, the more I listen for mistakes, the less I hear. It is a sad sequence of events.

So how far do I go? After all, does it really matter whether every one of us has perfect English. Personally, philosophically, I'm not sure I give a damn. Some of the most amazingly creative English I have ever heard has come from the mouths of teammates who simply did not know better. Sometimes when I am writing I remember this and am inspired to let my own English flow a little more loosely.

Somewhere here there is a difficult line between a genuine need for expression/comprehension and an irrelevant desire for perfection. I do not know what the answer is, but I continue to tread that line.

What is this?

At DNS we study in quite an unconventional way. We use what is called the DMM, or Danish Modern Method. In short, there is a database containing a wide variety of study tasks, some of which are explained in quite a bit of detail and others which leave you to fill in the blanks yourself. Each student chooses the study tasks they want to complete and completes them in their own time at their own pace. Sometimes this means giving a presentaion, sometimes writing and essay or just producing a summary of what has been learned. If a student wants to complete a task that is not yet in the database that is ok, as well. Each task completed earns points for the student.

This is the basic idea, but there is a little more structure to it. For instance, a certain number of points should come from academic studies, experiences, teambuilding, etc. There are so many ways to earn points, and variety is best.

Anyway, the reason I am posting this here is that some of task I have written, especially the experiences have turned out to be interesting insights into life here on topics I wouldn't necessarily have though to write about anyway. So, well, here they are.