Friday, October 22, 2004
Wednesday, October 20
I got another issue of the New Yorker today, and the date on the cover is October 18. I am amazed that it sometimes comes so promptly. It almost makes up for the other issues that don’t arrive until they are a month and a half late – if they arrive at all.
This issue is fat – the spine labels it as The Political Issue. I have been soaking it up today. I have been trying to follow the latest election polls through Google, but nothing seems to change and the campaign is stuck at Dead Heat. The BBC gives the campaign a minute or so in its every-half-hour-news-summary, but that isn’t enough to quench my thirst.
Allegra is probably right that it is good that I am out of the country right now. But it is painful to feel so strongly about this coming election and to have to sit on the sidelines. If I was in Pennsylvania, and it does seem to be a swing state, I would certainly be working on some kind of Get Out The Vote or a Support Your Candidate effort. As it is, I’m planning to spend the night of Nov 2 downtown with Peter and his satellite TV, and hopefully a bunch of other Peace Corps Volunteers, charting red and blue states as the tallies are reported.
I was riding my bike toward town this afternoon and came across a huge traffic jam. I thought it must be a bad accident, but it turned out to be a Hindu parade. Groups of young men dancing, wearing fabulous orange headdresses trimmed with gold. Other groups of women in flowing, beautiful saris. The effect was elegant. Old men were riding two floats: one carried two female icons, smooth white skin and intelligent, beatific expressions on their painted faces wearing rich robes, the other carried a single female figure, but raised high on the float and she was protected from the sun by a man holding a huge umbrella over her. The floats were decorated to represent huge fish. Lots of police stopping traffic and more or less milling around. I’d never seen anything like this before, and it certainly is far outside anything I would expect to see in Mwanza or anywhere else I have been in Africa.
I talked to the men on one of the floats. They spoke excellent English, and many of them were from the US – Houston and New York and Chicago – or India. Seems that they are going to install these new icons in their Mwanza temple, and before that can happen the icons have to be taken through the town to become acquainted with their new home and to allow the town to greet them. So this was indeed a major event for them, and they had come from all over to participate in it. I learned this from Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, who gave me his card and said I could call him Shri.
If I can find the temple, I think I may try to learn a bit more. They all seemed to be friendly, and were clearly having a good time. To me it certainly looked a lot more appealing than either the strident self-righteous fire and brimstone Pentecostal or Muslim kiswahili offerings that are so predominant here.
I got another issue of the New Yorker today, and the date on the cover is October 18. I am amazed that it sometimes comes so promptly. It almost makes up for the other issues that don’t arrive until they are a month and a half late – if they arrive at all.
This issue is fat – the spine labels it as The Political Issue. I have been soaking it up today. I have been trying to follow the latest election polls through Google, but nothing seems to change and the campaign is stuck at Dead Heat. The BBC gives the campaign a minute or so in its every-half-hour-news-summary, but that isn’t enough to quench my thirst.
Allegra is probably right that it is good that I am out of the country right now. But it is painful to feel so strongly about this coming election and to have to sit on the sidelines. If I was in Pennsylvania, and it does seem to be a swing state, I would certainly be working on some kind of Get Out The Vote or a Support Your Candidate effort. As it is, I’m planning to spend the night of Nov 2 downtown with Peter and his satellite TV, and hopefully a bunch of other Peace Corps Volunteers, charting red and blue states as the tallies are reported.
I was riding my bike toward town this afternoon and came across a huge traffic jam. I thought it must be a bad accident, but it turned out to be a Hindu parade. Groups of young men dancing, wearing fabulous orange headdresses trimmed with gold. Other groups of women in flowing, beautiful saris. The effect was elegant. Old men were riding two floats: one carried two female icons, smooth white skin and intelligent, beatific expressions on their painted faces wearing rich robes, the other carried a single female figure, but raised high on the float and she was protected from the sun by a man holding a huge umbrella over her. The floats were decorated to represent huge fish. Lots of police stopping traffic and more or less milling around. I’d never seen anything like this before, and it certainly is far outside anything I would expect to see in Mwanza or anywhere else I have been in Africa.
I talked to the men on one of the floats. They spoke excellent English, and many of them were from the US – Houston and New York and Chicago – or India. Seems that they are going to install these new icons in their Mwanza temple, and before that can happen the icons have to be taken through the town to become acquainted with their new home and to allow the town to greet them. So this was indeed a major event for them, and they had come from all over to participate in it. I learned this from Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, who gave me his card and said I could call him Shri.
If I can find the temple, I think I may try to learn a bit more. They all seemed to be friendly, and were clearly having a good time. To me it certainly looked a lot more appealing than either the strident self-righteous fire and brimstone Pentecostal or Muslim kiswahili offerings that are so predominant here.
