Giving and Volunteering



Far Rockaway, NY: "U Loot. We Shoot"!

This weekend I volunteered for the disaster recovery of Sandy, and I’ll be brutally honest (when am I not): I did it because I felt survivor’s guilt, I wanted to see what devastation looked like other than on TV and yes, I wanted to help as much as I could.  The bottom line is: why you volunteer is irrelevant as long as you do.  

 

Spending a waaaay long time in various buses to and from the Far Rockaway’s I had two very interesting conversations about disasters, giving and cultural differences.

It must be New York

After spending nearly two months in Switzerland and a big amount of that time outdoors I saw ducks with ducklings, a 20 head herd of red deer, marmots, an ibex and even a mountain goat with a baby, but it took coming home to New York to see – on my first day – during a ride in Central Park a presumptive relative of Pale Male (our famous New York red-tailed hawk) descend from the sky and attack a unsuspecting pigeon (we call those flying rats). 

 

I’ve seen plenty of predatory behavior in New York, but this must have been the most brazen one apart from the shootout between two cars careening through the lower east side I witnessed two decades ago.

 

The crazy thing is: it felt like a home-coming.  I love my native country, I love the wonderful vacations it affords me and I love coming back to New York, to its amazing energy.  It’s not a feeling I can describe and I certainly am a peace-loving person and I HATE noise, but there’s something about New York that still holds my attention two decades after arriving and the hawk’s attempt for a mid-morning snack fits that profile.  It’s good to be home.

New York's Pale Male

Talking Cross-Walk System

As every New Yorker knows, we jay-walk, early and often. Yesterday, minding my own business and lost in thought I stood at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 23rd Street.  As I set my foot off the curb onto the street to cross - no car was coming and the color of the light was irrelevant - I hear an electronic, male voice "don't walk".  What? Are you talking to me? I waved my hand back and forth at the system (see picture above) and each time I crossed the sensor it would tell me not to walk.  It made me laugh. 

As I crossed the street I heard the voice give a longer sermon - I'll have to go back and listen to the reasoning as to why I shouldn't cross against the light.  Maybe they'll make a decent point other than a potential ticket.

One More

So much is being said and will still be said on the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York. And as a New Yorker there are so many thoughts, memories, emotions and questions that do come up in these days as the coverage of the anniversary is steering towards a media overload. And here I am feeding the beast.

My personal story is thankfully rather dull – despite this there is a very nice article in a Swiss magazine that talks to eight Swiss New Yorkers who experienced the 9/11 tragedy and are still in New York. The journalist, Ralf Kaminski did an outstanding job recording and writing the eight stories. And reading them – in their simplicity - they are so revealing and relevant. For those of you who speak German here goes a link to the Migros Magazine article.

I would love to write about the broader scale of the changes in the past ten years and how we all have to move into this or that direction and make this a better and safer and smarter city and country, but I won’t.

The ten year anniversary ways heavy on my heart and I just want to say that I’m thinking of those who have lost loved ones and still are struggling and congratulate those who have had the strength and courage to move on and rebuild.

I know many who woke up a few weeks and months after 9/11 and changed their lives for the better, who stayed strong for their children and those who needed it the most. You are the real heroes in my mind. And like the small stories in the Swiss Magazine, it’s all the small stories here in New York and everywhere that make the difference. One day at a time and one action at a time. Onwards and upwards.

Eid Mubarak

It is Eid al Fitr – the end of Ramadan. To stay in the neighborhood of my last blog entry – that is physical neighborhood I wanted to share what I experienced this morning. It made me think about so many things at once.

I woke at 6:45 AM and as always (weather permitting) I opened all the windows in the house to let some fresh morning air in. On Frederick Douglass Boulevard a lone male voice was calling for prayer. Allah Akbar! The strong voice sang in a surprisingly strong and carrying voice. Normally very adverse to any kind of unduly noise I had to smile. It’s only once a year that the local mosque up the block calls to prayer on the streets; onEid al Fitr and I did not mind and was imagining the excited children with their Eid presents and parents (I imagine) relieved that the fasting was over and they could properly hydrate during the hot summer days.

Suddenly I heard a voice from a window: “Hey, stop it, stop it, stop the noise!” This I thought very curious – we are subject to HOURS of pounding car stereos (the kind that makes your chair skip with the ‘thump’, ‘thump’ of the base), young women in yelling matches and cat fights, people holding entire conversations yelling down the block and I have NEVER heard anybody lean out the window complain. Was it the early morning hour that woke one of our ‘out of work’ neighbors that prompted the complaint? Someone who had been partying all night on the block? Of course the Muezzin carried on – I’m not sure if he even heard the complaint.

I was thinking what an upside down world; where no one leans out the window to tell a nuisance noise to stop but the Muezzin who calls out once a year gets reprimanded. I’m thinking next time I’m up all night because of a car stereo, rather than calling 311 and waiting for naught until the police comes by to stop the noise I’ll just get up early in the morning and do a bit of yelling myself.

Violence

I just got home from an extended stay in my native Switzerland and came back to Harlem New York a week ago to a flurry of Google-Group messages from my building about a recent killing on our block and the aftermath thereof. Last night, a few minutes after I got home and after a day of seemingly peaceful block party a man got stabbed and bled to death in front of our building – it was 8 PM.

Violence is obviously something that finds you everywhere but we prefer to see it on the screen, not in front of our own houses or towards our loved ones and ourselves.

Violence perpetuates violence. But where does violence come from? Violence is a preemptive strike against fear. Fear of what? Fear of being ‘dissed’, or fear of being violated first; a verbal menace getting to the point where action needs to be taken to not lose face; a situation seemingly out of control being controlled by violence – on the street, in war, at home.

America has a huge tolerance for violence on the screen. I hear mothers tell me that they’d rather have their children see violence in movies, TV shows and video games than a naked body or an embrace. I could not disagree more.

Violence perpetuates violence. If children play violent games and watch overly violent shows that perpetuate violence as cool – no wonder there is such a lack of respect for other’s wellbeing. Especially if there is no parental guidance to make sure children understand what is real and what is not, and what the consequences of their (potentially) violent actions are.

I’d rather have children (and I have none) see a naked breast and an embrace on TV than violence.

Happy Birthday America

This is my first Independence Day as an American citizen. I have lived half my life in Switzerland and the other half in the US, or more precisely in New York, which by all accounts is not like the rest of the country. At my swearing-in ceremony a few months back quite a few people asked me how I felt as an American: I feel like a New Yorker and always have. Being an American is something I have to get used to.

New York was love at first sight. As any true love we’ve had quarrels, made up and deepened our relationship. 9/11 wounded New York deeply but also sealed my commitment to this city as a place to thrive, live, learn and love. I love New York for its energy, its grit, its people. New York passes no judgment. All nations, colors, levels of madness, cultures, religions, fads and neuroses live here in an unbelievable hodge-podge. Everybody is ‘other’. Every ‘other’ is the ‘normal’. What is there not to love?

Now that I’ve officially upgraded from New Yorker to American I can vote, I moved from “you” to “we”. I’m not an outsider looking in, commenting, I’m now on the inside and I can say “we” when I have an opinion. I can also apply for grants I previously did not qualify for… Most likely I will be called for jury duty the moment I register to vote.

Happy Birthday, America. My wish for you is to leave your teenage years behind and grow up to be a fiscally and politically responsible country, one that values educating future generations and goes out into the world to be a nurturer and not an oppressor. I’ll be watching closely and participating in my civic duties.