Well, unfortunately I did not have internet access in Turkmenistan, so this is my first chance to blog, from the airport at Frankfurt. I will over the next few days try and put up some retrospective entries, as my experience in T-stan was nothing less than amazing.

- Mr. N.

Two days before my flight, I get word from the State Dept. that now I *am* authorized to go to Balkanabat and meet with Rita and do a homestay...except that I can only go for a few days. So now I'm HALF in the capital at the embassy, and HALF with Rita. They warned me this itinerary could change again and again without notice, and to just go with the flow.

I registered with the State Dept Consular service so they are supposedly going to be staying on top of my presence there. Good advice, incidentally, for anyone traveling to places like the places I travel to.

Fun fact: Turkmenistan is entirely a cash society, no checks or credit cards. It will be interesting walking around with wads of cash on me. Hidden money belts are the rule in these kind of situations, distributed in many different spaces on the body.

I have also been assigned the status of CIP (Commerically Important Person - sounds very spiffy) and as such have been assigned an "expeditor" who will hopefully keep me out of too much trouble.

Two days until I leave!

- Mr. N.

There have been some pretty massive re-shufflings of my schedule due to last minute changes suddenly imposed by the Turkmen government. Things are still shifting around, but it's now looking like I'll be based mostly out of Asghabat, the capital city.

I'll be working with teachers and kids through an "education advising center", and doing my visit at a private school...apparently someone nixed my working with Rita in Balkanabat.

Still, it looks like I'll be able to meet with a lot of teachers and exchange best practices, and teach a little to Turkmen students about life in America. Four of my own students at CC went above and beyond the call and created a big scrapbook of photos of typical American activities, and then labeled them with words from an English-Turkmen dictionary.

I was advised that this schedule, too, could change at a moment's notice, so I'm going with the flow...

- Mr. N.

In consultation with my cooperating teacher in Balkanabat, we are developing a draft agenda for my time there. It is a difficult process, as communications between our two countries are unreliable. Phone calls often fail to go through with "all circuits are busy" messages that last for hours or even days, and email doesn't always arrive when sent.

Still, we managed to cobble together a working itinerary. If you're curious, you can ( read it here. )

- Mr. N.

An example of successful nonviolent social protest by kids younger than my students: some middle schoolers in New Jersey protested an increase in lunch prices by paying for their lunches in pennies.

This is a nonviolent tactic called a "slowdown" - people obey the law, but do so in a way that is purposely designed to "gum up the gears" of the system to exert pressure.

The school first gave the students detentions, but then pardoned them after parents did a protest of their own.

With luck, this whole incident will draw attention to issues of underfunding of schools, which is the real cause behind hikes in lunch prices.

This story got INTERNATIONAL press coverage - for example, here's an article about it from a newspaper in Moldova!


- SW

Spent this Saturday at an anti-war protest in downtown Boston, one of 11 coordinated protests around the nation including New York, LA, New Orleans, Orlando, etc.

The Boston Globe's article on the march was actually fairly favorable, a large change from the usual coverage which involves equal or greater coverage to pro-war counterprotesters, who always are an extreme minority (the worst example of this was a march in DC that I went to where 30,000 - 60,000 antiwar protesters got less coverage than 200 pro-war folks).



At 10,000 or so, this protest was small compared some others I've been to whose numbers ran in the hundreds of thousands.

After 4 years of protests, it's something of a victory that the overwhelming majority of the country now wants the war to end. On the other hand, our government, not just the President but Congress as well, Democrats and Republicans alike, seem unwilling to do anything. Sometimes it can feel pretty bleak.



Still, every action is a brick in a wall. Today, no one looks back at any one march or boycott from the civil rights movement prior to 1965 and says, "Hmm, Segregation didn't end right afterwards, so that march must have been for nothing." We keep going because slow or not, this is the only way change happens.

- Mr. N.

My wife and I caught a great live music performance at Club Passim in Harvard Square last night. Sonia: Disappear Fear was a two-woman band who sang in four languages - English, Spanish, Hebrew and Arabic. Which between the two of us we understood, which was nice, but even if we didn't, the sound was good. The lyrics were about ending wars, social justice - all kinds of good things. It put me in a good mood for the morning, albeit a sleepy one.

- Mr. N.

Although the news continues its tireless focus on episodes of violence around the world, two big events in nonviolence are unfolding all around us this week:

1. After less than a week of striking, the United Auto Workers have brought General Motors to reach an agreement about working conditions and wages. Throughout US history, labor unions have fought through nonviolence (and sometimes violence) to win us advances like the 40 hour work week (with weekends), workman's compensation, overtime pay, health and safety standards, etc.

2. The people of Myanmar (Burma) have been suffering under an oppressive military regime for years (in fact, the very first protest I ever attended was to get Pepsi to stop investing in that government), but now more than 200,000 people are on strike and monks are leading protests through the nation in what the media has begun labeling the “Saffron Revolution” against the military dictatorship. Police and soldiers are responding with arrests, beatings and tear gas, but so far have not opened fire on protesters. Will this rebellion be crushed, like a similar one in 1998 was? OR will it succeed, as nonviolent rebellion succeeded in overthrowing oppressive governments in India, Poland, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Nepal, Chile and elsewhere?

Keep an eye out!

- Mr. N.

Today is the UN's International Day of Peace.

I also have some resources posted on my own web page re: nonviolence and peace type things.

- Mr. N.

I will observe a moment of silence today for the 3,000+ Americans and visitors who died during the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania six years ago today (which was also a Tuesday). A moment of silence for the illusion of our safety, now gone.

I will extend that moment of silence to the 3,000 - 4,000 Afghan civilians and the 100,000 - 600,000 Iraqi civilians who have died since the United States government (both Republicans and Democrats alike) decided our best response to these attacks was to unleash war on two fronts, and the 3000+ American soldiers who have died and continue to die in those wars. Has it been worth the payoff? Do I feel safer?

I will extend that moment of silence to our lost civil rights - rights to privacy, to a speedy trial, to an attorney, to habeus corpus, to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Has it been worth the payoff? Do I feel safer?

We still live in a country where we are free to express our ideas and to shape our nation's leadership. That's the best way I can think of to honor all those who have been lost.

Enough silence. I am going to use my voice to help shape the kind of country I want to live in.

- Mr. N.