Stretching my legs

A lot of people have asked if I felt uneasy settling down in South Bend. That my history of traveling every few years must have been in response to the call of the road. I think that was true once. Once upon a time, I did get restless if I could not reinvent myself in a new physical and social setting and watch the errors, shames, pride, and misadventures of my past wash away with each passing mile. Walked up to the immigrations desk, slid my passport into the slot of its glass cubicle, and asked myself - who am I this time? What new personality trait will shine in this new social and physical setting? I think it is that malleability that makes it easy to adapt to new surroundings.

This time around, I felt a little less willing to bend and molt into a new entity. I left for Darfur a few years ago with just a dozen shirts and pants, some music, and my laptop. This time around l took some of South Bend with me. Leaving friends and family was harder than it has ever been. I packed a lot of small things that would give me a little more comfort like a spring mattress, rice protein, vitamins, and some choice food favorites because this time my South Bend self does not want to shed so much baggage. This time, I am ready to continue to carry the man I have come to know with me abroad. My mind tells me that I do this because he is the right man for the job that awaits me, but I recognize the attachments to the familiar and decreased flexibility that comes with age.

Yesterday was the first test of that man's ability to perform in this new setting. I sat across the table from a man who spoke with conviction about why I should forget about trying to get all sides to the negotiation table. He did his best to paint one party as vicious, blood thirsty killers. "It's their nature," he said, "they are naturally violent people." And so on. I remember a technique that one of my professors at Notre Dame used to elicit discovery. He would put a question to the classroom and wait for the answer. After a short pause, he would cross his legs and just sit there. The silence was stifling. At some point we students would feel compelled to say something to break through the anxiety. I find this method works equally well when trying to coax out someone's position on a given conflict. I think that the fact that I am a foreigner here made him all the more interested in "educating" me. I am still in the beginning stages of learning what role I can play here but we have at least one mile marker to add to our map. The coming weeks will add many more as I stroll through the landscape of the characters, big and small, who play some role in helping or hindering this map from taking shape.

Burning the midnight oil tonight as I prepare a presentation to the head of mission on the history of interventions into the conflict zone and what we should try to do different. Just a jumble of ideas at this stage. I travel to conflict area on Wednesday and look forward to start my search for a place to settle down and get comfortable for the long road ahead. Until then, good night.