In the Meantime...

I realize I've been a bit delinquent with these posts. But, not without good reason, I assure you! Here's a brief overview:

Drinking from coconut shells with Joel & Katie at the African restaurant around the corner provided a valuable cross-cultural feeling to the month.

Having High Tea with Katie, Albert and friends was another type of cultural experience. While it was totally foreign to me, Katie commented, "this is just like what I do every Sunday!".

Then, mysteriously, around November 12 I received *18* cards in the mail! What? Happy early birthday to me!

On my real birthday, Katie cooked me dinner while Albert conducted. This was hard-core cooking, they even had a schedule. And, it was deeelicious! Good work.

Later I received another bunch of birthday cards, adding up to 21 from my family and a few assorted ones. What a nice family! Wonderful friends also came over to enjoy the birthday evening...

Then, for the weekend I went to Geneva to visit Sam and the UN. The UN was closed, but Sam was there!

We went up a "mountain" and found a winter wonderland at the top! I'm pretty sure that it doesn't qualify as a mountain by French/Swiss standards, but compared to Holland, and considering that we were above the clouds, it was definitely mountainous. It seems likely that this will be the most snow I'll see all year (certainly more than in Amsterdam).

Then I watched a man jump off the mountain. This was slightly terrifying, but once he was properly off the mountain it looked relaxing and fun. At least it did, until I saw the notice posted that indicated that you must be sure to descend quickly, so as not to get in the way of the airplanes.

The Alps! If you take an unmarked snow-covered path upwards for a while, you get to a beautiful vista with a little cafe on top. The French think of everything.

Here is Sam, caught in the "snowfall."

Later, back in Amsterdam, Katie, Albert and I tried out for the Dutch East India Company. I'm pretty sure they would have rejected us, but we were nothing if not enthusiastic.

Captain Katie searches the horizon for... the library? Or is she looking at Central Station?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the short story of what I've been up to. Of course, I've also been doing some work... although I don't have wonderful pictures to illustrate that. I do have a much more narrow thesis question now, which is:

How has pleasure been incorporated into the Christian discourse of HIV prevention in Africa?

In order to answer this, I am in the process of looking for an NGO that has incorporated pleasure into their Christian discourse of HIV prevention and would be willing to let me come and study what they do and how they do it. While this does not seem to be a big focus of many Christian groups in the US, pleasure is increasingly becoming an important focus in many African communities.

I hope you will excuse the brevity of this summary, but I must get to the market and write a few papers. If I haven't heard from you in a while... please get back in touch!

Vacation Week

I just got back from a wonderful week away in Milan & Bergamo, Italy and Munster, Germany. Italy was beautiful and scenic, as you can see:

This is the view from the hotel window, down a beautiful little Italian side street. The hotel was just a block from the street car stop, which was perfect.

This is my friend Tony, looking cool in another random little street of Milan. We did a lot of wandering around. Also, lots of eating. Because, really, you must eat when you're in Italy.

This is the view from the very top of Bergamo, a little city by an airport of the same name in the foothills of the Alps. It was even more gorgeous than Milan, with amazing views of other little towns and, of course, the mountains.

For more vacation pictures (but not too many more), look here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kmferris/Italy

After Italy I snagged a few hours of sleep and then was off to the European Unitarian Universalist Fall Retreat, where Rev. Dr. Bill Schulz was speaking. Needless to say, I had a fantastic time and it was great to connect with new people. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that fine event, but perhaps some will come soon.

Until next time...

Dappermarkt

For most of the time we've been here, Katie and I have been going to Dappermarkt on Saturday morning to do our weekly shopping. It's much cheaper than the grocery store, more fun, and people will let you practice your Dutch with them.

The market is conveniently marked with these streamers, making it easy to find.

Flowers, flowers, flowers! For the last few weeks, there has been a booth selling 20 roses for 2 euros, and other amazing deals. This is one of the "expensive" flower booths.

Of course, you have to have a nut stand. Here, you can also buy dried fruits and some grains.

This is the bread shop. While it looks rather temporary, they have their own ovens there and you can buy bread still hot. They make excellent brown bread that looks so healthy with greens and tomatoes. Here, you can see the difference in the front row. The loaves on the right are what we would call "whole grain" and the loaves on the left are the delicious amazing bread. It even has little seeds in it. Yum!

In case you were wondering where you could buy men's underwear in many colors... Dappermarkt is the place!

Here is Katie, on our adventure to culturally integrate more completely... by eating raw herring from a street vendor.

Yum... the sushi of the Dutch. Actually, it's nowhere near as frightening as you would think. Even the bits of raw onion are tasty. Perhaps not the best food before a date though...

The fabric vendors at the market are amazing! You can buy beautiful fabric for 2-6 euros/meter... and to give you an idea how cheap that is, the cheapest pretty fabric at a proper store costs about 10-12 euros/meter.

Of course, it's important to have a selection of several hundred watches.

Mhhh... this is where we buy most of our fruit & veg. Notice... one euro for a bag of bean spouts, or a bag of carrots, or a bag of peppers. On the right you see hunks of pumpkin. They also have yummy fruit for cheap. It's great!

If you wanted to buy nuts in a prettier setting, you could go down to the other end of the market. This guy also has a wider selection of dried fruits. On the right you can see fresh mint, for making mint tea. This stand is attached to one with an amazing selection of olives and other Mediterranean fare.
The view of the market... it was a beautiful day!
Ah, and of course, life would not be complete without hot peppers straight from the bush. In this case, the 1.80 you pay gets you the whole bush. What could be better?

Then, after all of our other shopping is finished, we stop by the cheese shop. It is an *amazing* place. The man and woman who run the place are super sweet, and they give you a little taste of all of the cheeses you are interested in before you buy them. They also have a great selection, and they know everything about cheese. We even found a blue cheese that both Katie and I enjoy... As a consequence of this shop, we eat far too much cheese.

Then, after buying cheese, it's time to celebrate with Turkish pizzas. It's basically a big pita with some kind of tomato/vegetable sauce on it, cooked in the oven. Then, when it's nice and toasty they add a creamy sauce, a chili sauce, tomatoes, and lettuce. Finally, it's rolled up, wrapped in foil, and if you take it "eet op" you can eat it right then.
(I'm not sure if that's a proper Dutch phrase or an adaptation by the Turkish guys who work there. It's funny going to a shop where you don't share fluency in a common language.)

Finally, on the way out you see this building that has writing on it in all sorts of different languages. Here, you can see (if you look closely) that it says "Perfectly happy in Dapperstraat." We think that maybe this used to be a bad neighborhood and this building was a government campaign, but again, this is a completely unsupported hypothesis. For Katie and I, at least, life on Saturday morning is perfectly happy on Dapperstraat.

Bits of Dutch Life

Last weekend there was some kind of rowing contest. It was like crew, except with fat boats. We decided it was Viking rowing... though this remains unverified.

This is what the parking lot at the grocery store looks like. Sometimes it's hard to find a spot and you have to park nearly 30 paces away! This must convince you that the US should switch to bikes.


Also, the other day I was cycling home and noticed a car's bumper stickers. Later, I saw the car again - as I whizzed past it. Biking is much faster than driving a car in this city.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

I've been musing more about my thesis recently. After some deliberation, I've realized that I have about 25 pursue-able interests, but I only need to write one thesis. So, it's time to work on narrowing down, narrowing down, narrowing down, until I have something super-tiny and thus manageable.

There are several ongoing debates for me at the moment - work in the US, which I know vs. work in Asia/Africa, which have statistically worse epidemics; Christian vs. Muslim vs. interfaith (other religions don't have a major presence yet); ABC prevention vs. comprehensive/life skills prevention; "human rights" discourse vs. "cultural relativism" - to name a few. I appreciate all of the input I have received so far. It is good to get all of the options on the table now, and it is so very helpful to talk through my ideas. Again, I welcome any other input you may have.

And, last but certainly not least, the upside of insane Dutch weather is... rainbows! This one appeared shortly after I woke up this morning. I think the end of it is at the public library... or at least that's my interpretation.

Moving House in Amsterdam

On a beautiful day in Amsterdam...

you might find yourself wanting to move house. But how will you ever get that piano down the steep, steep staircase?

Well, you hire a man (or two) with a big mobile elevator...

They hoist the piano out your window...

...

And down it goes!

Towards a thesis question...

This week, unfortunately, I don't have any exciting pictures to show. We've had the most wonderful weekend - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all full of sun and blue skies!

What I have been doing, although it's rather un-photogenic, is thinking and talking about my upcoming thesis. I've had several very thought provoking conversations, but my ideas are still vague.

I started off thinking that I would do a case study of an Islamic or interfaith HIV/AIDS organization to see how it balanced religion and theology when dealing with such a contentious topic. However, this presents several challenges, including: there aren't too many of these organizations; when they do exist they often have not been formally evaluated (so I couldn't say that *this* is an approach that "works"); and many of the Islamic or interfaith efforts to prevent the spread of HIV have been conducted on an ad-hoc basis (so there's no formal organization to examine).

So, this led me to consider doing something more theoretically focused, but still practically applicable. In a conversation with Georges Tiendrebeogo I considered an Islamic "how to" for abstinence, for which I could look at writings on Islam broadly and also consult interviews with specific Islamic sources. The idea here is to go beyond abstinence as a prohibition and into a positive construction of it within the religious community.

That got me thinking about approaches to HIV prevention in general, which today tend to focus around the "ABC" model - abstinence, "being faithful," and condoms. Condoms, of course, are the traditional sticking point for religion (although some Muslims have advocated condom use), but "A" and "B" are often easily promoted by religious figures. An interesting thing about Islam is that it (in most readings) supports sexuality, within certain constraints. So that's where I've ended up for now, contemplating writing about some aspect of Islamic sexual ethics in the era of HIV/AIDS.

Obviously, as you can tell from the three paragraphs it took me to explain where I am now, I need a point of focus. Fortunately, I still have time. If you have any feedback, please either leave a comment or send me an email!

Amsterdam Underground Festival

This week's festival was the Amsterdam Underground festival. Not, as you might think, a collection of art from the metaphorical underground, but rather an art festival that actually takes place under the ground. We went to two venues today, and it was nice that they were underground because it allowed us to (mostly) escape the rainy weather.

First was a tour of the tunnel that goes under the IJ (pronounced "eye"). The "tour" actually consisted of an audio guide on an MP3 player, and you walked the entire length of the tunnel alone. Apparently, if I spoke enough Dutch to understand more of what the tour said, it would have provided me with a mixture of information about the tunnel and the fictional story of someone trapped in the tunnel looking for help. As it was, it was just cool to see a place that is not normally open to the public... the dingy maintenance tunnel that goes under the automobile tunnel that connects North Amsterdam to the city center.

Next, we went to the "sunken cathedral." It is a huge cement space... this is what the Amsterdam Underground website says:

Caisson 1 is the shaft from which the drills for the new North/South subway line will depart. The caisson was built above ground, and then literally sunk into the earth. It lies at a depth of 24 meters. In 2008, both tunnel drills will be constructed at this location and drill their way to the Rokin, Vijzelgracht and Ceintuurbaan stations. During the Amsterdam Underground Festival, this enormous new space will be exclusively opened for figurative art, lectures and a theatrical performance. It’s now or never for visitors: this is a one time only chance to descend into this enormous concrete space with its cathedral-like acoustics. Soon there will be subways raging through it.

Pretty cool, huh? Well, it's even more cool considering they were playing video art on the HUGE walls. See pix:

This was another installation... because it is an active construction site (they're just taking a break for this weekend) it's open to the sky above... and thus was rather soaked in water. It was certainly intentional, though, since they gave us all very attractive rubber boots and hard hats at the entrance.

Here you can see some well-outfitted folk viewing the video art.

The other half of the space was flooded, with lights and lots of electrical cables still running through it (this would never have worked in the US), and it was VERY fun to splash around in the water.
The view from the very back of the room, looking over the flooded area towards the video art. On the right you can see a very industrial swing... but it has a blanket on it, to add that touch of home.

In between video pieces, they played music with the lights. It was pretty cool... although it did sort of make you wonder if there was some major hazard of mixing electricity and water so completely. But, we all came out in one piece (or, rather, each of us came out in one piece), so all is well.

Library and Blogger

So, I think that for the sake of time and energy, I'm going to move my blog over here. While I have the feeling that learning HTML really is a good use of time... it seems that it might actually be better to use that time studying the things I'm in school for. Oh, and enjoying the endless festivals of Amsterdam.

So, about the library:

This is looking up from the main entrance. Ahh, the seven glorious floors of wonder.



















The view from the entrance hall... the area down below is the children's section, complete with climb-able bookshelves!
















Here's Katie, sitting in some very unique furniture.
And, a room surrounded by CDs with color-changing walls!


Strange space-pod, in case you need to make an unexpected journey to your home planet.
Even the shelving is cool! They use special lights to make all the books look shiny.
But, not to worry, there's still an antique section, with writing desks that overlook the city.
And, of course, no library is complete without a piano!
And here... well, I'm not sure about this room, but it certainly is strange. Just lots of space-age chairs with some giant jacks overhead.
A random little reading room, with shiny wallpaper. Why? I have no idea!
Ah, and of course, the little room with rounded glass walls. Everyone needs a room with glass walls.