Geneva Gibber

I’ve pretty much caught the blog up to where I am now. Nothing terribly exciting has happened since my trip to Interlaken on Saturday. There was a tiny party in the lobby of my building last night where I met a bunch of chain smoking Europeans. Honestly, why does everyone here smoke? Last Friday for work, I attended a World Health Organization conference on the effects of secondhand smoke, so I inevitably spent the entire party thinking about all of the short and long-term effects the smoke was having on my body. One of the guys who was smoking asked me if I was from California and hated him for smoking. I said that I wasn’t from California, but that I did hate him (maintaining a smile to imply that I was kidding, even though, let’s be honest, at the moment he and his three friends were lighting up in a tiny confined space, I might have hated him a little bit).

There’s something I forgot to mention about my trip to Bern that I think everyone needs to know about – my trip to the bathroom. At the restaurant where we had lunch, the toilets had self-cleaning seats. After you flushed the toilet, a little sponge hand came out of the back and the seat spun around so that the sponge would clean the entire seat. Now, I’ve always been rather impressed by the spinning plastic covers on the toilets at O’Hare, but this was even more amazing. (More amazing because it seems less wasteful, but also because I’ve always been a little suspicious that the plastic on the O’Hare toilets isn’t really new with each spin, but rather that the contraption just spins around the same plastic ring all day.) I wasn’t able to find a link to the maker of the self-cleaning toilet seat, but some very odd person has a blog dedicated to toilets (Porcelain), and he/she (my guess would be a he) has a picture of a toilet that is similar, although not exactly the same as the one I used.

Highlight of yesterday – Eric (my roommate) stumbled on an open network and we had an internet connection in our apartment for about two hours. I of course, took full advantage of the situation, and downloaded the season finale of Lost, after which three of us huddled around my tiny computer to partake in all of its glory. I love that show. If you’ve never watched it, you should get Netflix, order Season 1 and 2, and get all caught for next fall. It would be a very productive use of 34 hours of your life.

But I digress from my story:

Admirer number two is not nearly so interesting as admirer number 1 (Fardeen), as he is a perfect gentleman. He has cooked me dinner, which he was absurdly proud of because it was only his third time cooking rice, and his first time cooking meat. Sometime during dinner he mentioned that he had a Canadian friend who lived in Switzerland, and that he planned to visit her and her husband in the mountains. He then of course invited me along. As I couldn’t claim that I was busy for the next three weeks, I said yes maybe, if it worked out, and then dropped the subject hoping it would be forgotten. It wasn’t. Last Thursday morning he called and woke me up… (It was a holiday here – we were celebrating the Ascension. I’ve never heard of this holiday, but I was happy to celebrate it by sleeping a lot. Apparently Jesus didn’t actually ascend to heaven until 40 days after he was resurrected, so eating chocolate bunnies and searching for eggs is only the first step in commemorating his death. On the Ascension, according to what I witnessed from the Swiss, to continue the worship of our Savior one should go to the park by the lake and have a beer. Amen. )

But back to my story – Admirer Numero Deux (a.k.a Jawaid) called me Thursday morning to let me know that he had looked into train tickets for our trip to Interlaken on Saturday. Having just woken up, my defenses were down, and I couldn’t think of an excuse not to go. My one tactic to avoid the trip was to ask how much the train ticket would cost and then plead poverty. Unfortunately that didn’t work because Jawaid insisted that he pay for my ticket, as I was a poor student. I told him he didn’t need to pay for me, he said he would have it no other way, and then, because I really am a poor student, I agreed.

So, some might wonder why I was so unhappy to go on a trip to Interlaken, for free, with a man who is a perfect gentlemen. My only good reason – he never shuts-up. He can’t handle one moment of silence; he complains every time I stop talking. I knew that 15 hours of trying to entertain him with conversation was going to drive me mad. I did my best to lay down the law when we first got to the train, insisting that he give me some quiet time on the train to watch the passing scenery and have my own thoughts. He agreed, but then when quiet time came, he lasted for about two minutes, before he blurted out that my thinking to myself was too stressful for him because he was sure that I was thinking bad thoughts about him or the trip. I assured him that I was doing no such thing (a little bit of lie), and commenced looking out the window again. A couple of minutes later, out of the corner of my eye I saw that he was staring at me… can you say “creepy”. I don’t know if it was a cultural difference, but honestly who sits across from someone and just stares. My only solution was to go to sleep, or at least pretend to sleep, so I wouldn’t be able to see him.

The day went on without much excitement. We rode on a two cable cars, hiked around, ate some food, enjoyed the splendor. I realized quickly that I was in far better shape than him, so I walked quickly to make him out of breath, so he couldn’t talk. This was effective sometimes, although he managed to work in plenty of miserable Afghan jokes, mid gasp. .. “Did I (wheez wheez) tell you the one (gasp) about the father who…" Not to be culturally incentive, but the Afghans are not a funny people.

On a brighter note, Interlaken is gorgeous, and I can’t wait to go back with my friends, so I can enjoy it without the pressure of near constant contrived conversation.

Back on the train that night, I was completely exhausted from talking, and my introvert was going into overload. We had more issues with him staring, resulting in me sleeping, but by the end of the ride he begged me to stay awake because he was “so bored” when I slept. At this point I was quite grumpy, and feeling extra grumpy because I felt guilty that he had spent some much money on me that day (I would guess around $200), and I was being completely ungrateful. But, I couldn’t make myself enjoy his company, so I decided to direct conversation toward things that might make him uncomfortable, hoping that he would then end our talking. I dove right in with the need for separation of church and state and the unfairness of women having to cover their heads – none of it worked. He had heard it all before, and expected nothing less from a American women. I was feeling desperate, running out of ideas, when I thought of the perfect subject. Something I was passionate about, and would be willing to stand up for, no matter how offended he became – gay rights! Man did I hit the jackpot. He was horrified. He couldn’t believe that I thought that being gay should be legal, and not just legal but accepted and embraced. When I asked him why it shouldn’t be legal, he said that it hurt society because men were meant to be with women to make babies and continue the race, and not doing so is a sin.

Now, if this were an episode of Lost I would flash you back to Jawaid in college when we was in love with a girl from his class, who he couldn’t marry because of cultural differences. Then we would see them break up, her get married to another man, and Jawaid swear that he would never love again and never marry. (Jawaid told me about all of this on the train.)

Noting to Jawaid his claim that he would never marry or have kids, I asked how he was any less of a sinner than a gay man. You’ve never seen a more horrified and perplexed face in your life. Jawaid was completely traumatized. Clearly he had never had any contact with a gay person and thought of them as some kind of monster. At one point he told me with absolute certainty that there wasn’t a single lesbian in Afghanistan – it was funny and depressing all at the same time. I broke the last straw when I told him that he would most definitely have gay classmates when he began his graduate studies in Monterrey next fall. I told him that they would be in his classes, in his groups, and that he would find out that are perfectly normal, wonderful people. The only word I can use to describe his face – terror. I kept saying, you’re going to meet gay people in Monterrey and in the end he actually begged me to stop talking. Success!

So the lesson of today’s story is – if you want to make an Afghan quiet talk about meeting gay people.

A closing note: If any of you have any concerns about all of this admiring going to my head - not to worry. As far as I'm concerned, this whole experience has been yet another example of my superior ability to attract strange men.

It’s Monday morning and I’m back at work, which isn’t quite as good as sleeping, but far more pleasant than being stuck at school. For the first time in my life I don’t spend Sunday night dreading having to start a new workweek. It’s pretty great.

The following is the world’s longest blog entry – you may want to read it in shifts:

Back to my Bern story (5/19/2006). I met the Afghan group and my boss Oscar at the train station at 6:45 AM to leave for Bern, which is as many of you know is not my best time of day. However, I was determined to make a good impression, and I was pretty excited about going to Bern, so I was uncharacteristically chipper. I went out of my way to strike up conversations with some of the men, as I had been instructed to do by the director of our office. When I first started working, she informed me that one of my most important duties during the Afghan visit was to interact with the men, helping them to become more accustomed to interacting with women on a professional basis. By the time we arrived in Bern most the men seemed very comfortable around me, and some of them began asking me if I would be in a picture with them. I didn’t think much of the request, as I had seen them take pictures with the other staff. So I was in ten or eleven pictures when we first arrived in Bern (including one in which the man told me he wanted a picture with me while my hair was blowing in the wind - a little strange).

We spent the morning listening to members of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation discuss the Swiss relationship to Afghanistan. Then after lunch, my boss went back to Geneva and left me to escort the 23 men on a guided tour of Bern. At our first stop on the trip, one of the men asked to take a picture with me, and then another, and another, and so on, and I felt a little ridiculous, but I didn’t protest knowing that being an American made me a bit of novelty. Then as the trip progressed, at every site on the tour, a line of men would form to take a picture with me. It became more and more clear that my status as a CASIN employee or as an American was definitely not the reason why they wanted my picture. The number of pictures I was in became absurd – I would guess somewhere between 75 to 100. My face actually hurt from smiling so much. At first, the ordeal was flattering (as I am certainly not held in such high esteem by men in the US), but eventually it just got to be down right creepy. Don’t get me wrong, the men were never anything but gentlemen, and I never felt in any way harassed, but I did start to feel like there were always eyes trained on me, which I didn’t enjoy. Apparently, I would be terrible celebrity.

Once back in Geneva, my inability to be rude, left me agreeing to have tea with one of the men, Fardeen (he’s 26, so not a creepy old man situation). The tea was to take place in his hotel room, which seemed a little bit suspect, but his roommate would be there, and I didn’t think it would be a terribly big deal. After having some tea and chatting for a while I said that I needed to go home, but he said it would “please me very much if you would stay and have dinner with me.” At this point it was 9:00 at night, and I was pretty hungry, so not being one to pass up free food I agreed to stay. I quickly learned that one should make an exception to the free food rule, when the man offering to “cook” has had his mother and sisters cook every meal he has ever eaten at home. About ten minutes after getting up to prepare dinner, Fardeen returned with a plate of cookies and a bowl of cream, and set them before me. (I have no idea, why it took him ten minutes to “prepare” this meal.) I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with the cream, but my best guess was that I was supposed to dip the cookies into it. After I ate my first cookie, Fardeen apologized because he hadn’t been able to find a spoon for eating the cream. Thank god he couldn’t find a spoon – imagine if out of politeness I actually had to eat straight cream with a spoon. The thought of it still makes me a little nauseous.

So after my delicious dinner of a couple of cookies, I announced that it really was time for me to go home. Fardeen was visibly disappointed, but asked if he could escort me home. It was after ten at this point, so it seemed like a gentlemanly thing for him to offer. Once arriving at my apartment, he asked if he could see my room. Now I am not an idiot, and understood that all of the stall tactics at his room, and his desire to come upstairs meant that he wanted to do a little more than talk, but he hadn’t made any kind of move all night. My biggest concern at that point was that he would try and kiss me, which under other circumstances wouldn’t have been entirely tragic, but his being a trainee at my work made the situation impossible, not to mention my concern that if the other Afghan men found out, they would completely lose any hint of professional respect they may have for me. The last thing I wanted was to live up to the whorish western women stereotype I was sure most of them believed was true. If I had been a sensible person I would have told Fardeen I was tired and that he couldn’t come up to my apartment, but my inability to say no unless I’m refusing something blatantly unreasonable meant that I let him see the apartment. (For those of you who might be concerned for my safety, I have a male roommate, and I know the guys who live next door, plus Fardeen, although persistent was quite harmless). After I showed him my room, I told him that I was tired and that it was time to go. The following was our ending conversation:

Beth: Thanks for the tea and dinner.
Fardeen: I don’t want to leave; we should talk more.
Beth: But I’m really very tired, and we’ve talked for a very long time.
Fardeen: But it’s so nice to talk, we should keep talking.
Beth (turning on her blunt side): I really don’t think that talking is what you are hoping to do.
Fardeen (picture 26 year old guy who has never dated and knows almost nothing about girls, looking very disappointed and rather confused): Well, I thought that I would stay the night.
Beth: (picture 26 year old girl, suddenly realizing that 26 year old guy trying to kiss her should not have been her big concern, and it is time to make the relationship very clear): I’m sorry if you had the wrong impression when I accepted tea. I know what you must think of Americans, but I would never sleep with someone I just met. Also, you are training at my office, and sleeping with you could get me in a lot of trouble.
Fardeen: (Continue picturing utterly confused and disappointed man): Oh, ok. (long pause) But I thought, well, I thought I would stay the night.
Beth: (Repeats above explanation about why he can’t stay.)
Fardeen: (despondent): Ok, But may I see you again. Maybe we could take a walk.
Beth (still completely unable to turn down offers that are not explicitly unreasonable): Yes that would be fine.
Fardeen: Tomorrow? At six?
Beth: Ok, come meet me outside of my apartment.

Fardeen sulks away. Beth clothes her door. Lights fade. End scene.

Now for those of you who consider me pathetically naïve to think that Fardeen wouldn’t try and sleep with me, let me note a key point. The whole night, the closest he came to me was to sit on the very end of a couch while I sat on the other side – most of the night he sat across the room from me. He never once touched me, not my hand, not my arm, nothing. There wasn’t the slightest suggestion of physical interaction until he announced that he thought he would stay the night. As a female who has spent a substantial amount of time in bars, I am well rehearsed in male suggestions of sex, and Fardeen was displaying none of them. He was more like a super nervous guy on a first date who was wondering if he might get a kiss goodnight. Hence, my confusion - a mistake I won’t make again.

Sorry for the obscenely long post. If it was too long for you to remember everything here are the key take away points:

Afghan men like to take pictures with Beth.
Tea means sex to an Afghan man.
Cookies and cream are not a good dinner.

As I am sure I have bored you all to death, I will stop my story for now. More tomorrow though, as I tell you about admirer number two.

Greetings all. I had debated during my first two weeks here whether to actually set up a blog or just settle on using email. At first, a blog seemed unnecessary as nothing particularly exciting happened in my day-to-day life. I went to work, took a walk, read a book, had a couple of beers at the bar… that’s about it. However, life has since spiced up a bit, and it seems much easier to relay my stories via a blog rather than emails. So even though it’s two weeks into my trip, I will start from the beginning, and catch everyone on my Geneva happenings.

Oh, before I get started, a side note: I discovered something rather bewildering while trying to sort out a good name for this blog. According to the thesaurus section of dictionary.com, the word news is synonymous with poop. The list of synonyms for news begins with words like account, advice, announcement, and then when you get to the Ps there’s poop. Who knew? Am I only the only person who didn’t know that poop was slang for a news story? I briefly considered naming my blog GENEVA POOP, but decided against it.

So I will know fast-forward you through the first week of my time in Geneva. The most notable part of my first day was the fact that my bedroom reeked of B.O. (and it still smells a little despite my best efforts to deodorize). I spent most of the first weekend terrified that the smell was stuck to me, alla Jerry and Elaine, and I desperately tried to find Febreeze. Apparently Febreeze is a phenomenon that has yet to hit Europe.

Moving on from my olfactory dilemma, I arrived on Thursday and didn’t start work until Monday, so the first few days I wandered around the city with some other Dukies. We spent most of our time marveling at the cost of everything. Much to my dismay chicken breasts at the grocery store cost about $12/lb; for readers who know me well, you realize how devastating this discovery was – no chicken for three months, ahhhhh. In an effort to save some money, we took a trip on Saturday to France to grocery shop (getting to France is a twenty minutes bus ride), but admittedly the savings on groceries didn’t really balance out the hassle of the bus and having to use Euros.

On Monday I started work, and discovered that beginning with me at CASIN was a group of 23 Afghan men, who would be training on multilateral negotiations for the next four weeks. For the first couple of days there presence had no real impact on my workday, except the need to cover my arms when I went into the training room (arms being a very scandalous part of the body). However, on Friday, the group was scheduled to take a trip to Bern to meet with the Swiss Foreign Ministry, and I was invited to go along. Apparently, removing the men from the office setting made them much chattier, and I found myself with a slew of new friends. I’ll leave the entire story of Friday to another entry, but let’s just say my life has been much more interesting since my excursion to Bern.