A week and a half back, in Managua, I read an online article from a US source about an American fellow in Nicaragua who was finally set free after much bungling and shady behavior by the justice system there. His poor wife (or girlfriend, depending on the article) had been raped and murdered. One fellow was accused of the murder but struck a plea bargain so that he'd be off the hook if he testified that the American, Eric Volz, was there that night. (?!) Ten other witnesses all testified that Volz was in another town that night, some hours away. Clearly a gross abortion of justice?
A day or two after reading that, I translated part of an article on Volz that ran in the local paper, front page, above the fold. The article was about an inquiry into how he'd been set free, thinking that there was some misdeed there and that he ought to still be in jail. The article said that he was an American man accused of the rape and murder of a "young Nicaraguan woman" (not noted to be related to Volz in any way, never mind his wife) and without mention of the (supposed?) witness debacle mentioned in the US article. Popular sentiment seems to be that Volz is guilty with a capital G. As his conviction was overturned, a mob gathered outside the courtroom chanting that he was guilty.
Perspectives. There's often a noticeable gap between even just BBC and CNN or New York Times/IHT coverage of something. Never mind the mainstream newspapers of other countries. Never mind the newspapers printed by a given group about an issue/event directly related to that group. (I'm reminded of the Somali coverage -- from Somalia, Puntland, and Somaliland -- of the killing of cameraman Martin Adler at a rally in Mogadishu around the time I visited Somaliland.) It's such a damned hassle to get even just one clearly stated, "bias lite" facet of an event. It's impossible, it seems, to get all the facets, or to get even one that's truly bias free.
I think that might be part of the "why travel" question. Obviously an "old Africa hand," or whatever, can explain a political happening in DRC better than I can by being there, watching it unfold in person but only as an outsider, uninformed, sifting a flocculant mess and missing all the subtleties. That said, there's something about being there, about talking to the gate guard, the bread seller, the bicycle repairman, about hearing what they think.
Reality isn't reality at all, as most people mean the word. Reality is a constantly shifting maelstrom composed of the perceptions of those who any smidgen of power at any level. Changing in every moment, impossible to measure. It's the river Heraclitus saw and a delight for Heisenberg. Reality isn't what happened in Pakistan last week, it's what the people perceive to have happened, what the international community perceives to have happened, what the ISI, the US State Department, the Iranians, the NGOs working there or considering it, Karzai, the Great Game players, the fundamentalists, the elders in that corner of Waziristan, the Indian subcontinent, the PPP members, etc, perceive to have happened.
That's it. The currency of realpolitik isn't reality but perceptions of reality. It's that maelstrom, facet free and impossible to pin down even by an "old hand," that matters. Outside the ivory tower, it's a land of perceptions, a wilderness of mirrors.
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There it is. I travel to get closer to the maelstrom, to peek into it, to glimpse a sliver here, a shadow there.
Another part of "why" is captured in an old e-mail draft from when I was traveling in Somalia. I don't recall if I ever expounded on it in that blog, but I'll paste it here too since I think it still rings true for me:
I think a big part why I enjoy travel so much, and particularly to the places that I do, is because of the ambiguity of the situations. I like not knowing how to get things accomplished, not knowing outcomes, not being able to see every step and the eventual conclusion.
In the states, the lack of language barrier, the formalized rules and processes for most things, and the sort of cultural currency I have as a native means that nothing is ever very difficult. Even if I don't know how to accomplish something, it's a very small matter to uncover how to do it and to set it into motion. Here... it's different. I know what some of my available resources are (money, etc), and I know the end goal that I want (to arrive in Hargeisa), at least in a rough sense, but I don't know what the process will be. Sometimes I don't even know the rough size and shape of it. It's absolutely delightful to engage myself with something and sort out the process, work my way through steps that aren't apparent until I hit them, and then find a solution.
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Peeking into the maelstrom, enjoying the ambiguity, the challenge. I'm definitely not here for a "vacation" in the traditional sense. Central America has beaches and jungle zip-lines and Mayan ruins, but that wasn't the impetus to come. Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti. That had nothing to do with a beautiful beach, cocktails, dishy European girls. Hostels full of Westerners, days, even weeks for some, spent in the hostel, talking about pop music and Harry Potter, playing cards, watching TV and movies, enjoying cheap beer.
I think that it boils down to this:
My head enjoys the glimpses and perceptions and history and politics. What Massoud's former guards think of Karzai, what an FMLN bomb-maker thinks about the role of women in the military, how Haitians interpret their country's tumultuous history. That's endlessly engaging.
My heart finds catharsis in falling down Maslow's pyramid to a point where my only immediate goals are to find food that won't deplete my electrolytes and Cipro supply, lodging sans bed bugs or shoot outs, a roadside where I can pee that isn't a leftover minefield from the last war. And in the midst of taking care of all those needs, time to be alone, reflect, do well by Socrates by examining my life and choices.
That's vacation for me. I love it. I'm feeling very happy to be here right now. Walking, thinking, reading, talking with locals. Smelling, touching, tasting the maelstrom of an entire region that's been a political disaster at least since the Spaniards and the bananas that came later.
