Poem: Fire Ceremony

Some women cannot be categorized. It’s the gleam in her eyes as she sits next to you, when a single sideways look tells you degrees in physiology, psychology, and even physics are worthless. It’s when she loosens a string in her blouse and glances at you, daring you to do all the things you’ve dreamed of—knowing full well you won’t be able to keep up.

That’s the problem with us college boys. We frame our lives in rectangular wooden caskets, keep track of the latest restaurant openings, maybe even attend weekly poker nights. Nowhere do we envision the woman who shimmies when she shouldn’t, discarding civilization’s rules with a three-second dance. She’s seen our kind before—too often, sadly—and her eyes still gleam.

When she goes to the balcony for a smoke, I stay inside, a glass door separating our worlds. No matter how high the story, others look down on us, drafting rules to keep us in place. My three rectangular wooden caskets hem me in, creaking in tongues I can’t use to communicate. I pay respects to the undertakers by saying nothing, hoping she’ll silence their dirge with the sound of her voice. Her phone rings while I knead her back, and she answers, making plans for hours my eyes won’t open, not even on a Friday night.

She leaves, and suddenly, I'm hungry. After I return from eating alone, the room feels cavernous and dark. Like Plato’s Cave, my eyes try to adjust but cannot. The gleam is gone, and I’ve learned fire comes in many forms; also, that sometimes, all it helps you see are empty spaces and the dancing shadows you’ll miss. 

MMR (2019) 

Poem: the Bee's Knees

Your knee. That’s what I’ll remember most, prostrate next to you, reaching backwards, circling it with my blind right hand. Your skin is white marblestone smooth, your knee the kitchen counter in a mansion I’m not sure I belong in.

You are older, classy, not quite Eastern European, not quite Middle Eastern, plump olive eyes set against a Siberian landscape. Your simple dress intends to disguise your royal provenance, but you slip out of heels and approach with a grace that requires training. Years of careful measurements take time to unwind, and I keep circling your knee to see if I can start again.

An hour ago, you placed one hand on my shoulder and one on my chest, as if you were concerned your weight would be a nuisance. When I kissed your earlobe, you moved your earring to make a path for my tongue. Each movement betrays a lifetime of dignified behavior, thinking of others, being presentable. I do the best I can to turn back the clock, remind you of when you acted out of turn.

In the shadows, we time-travel together, and I see your younger self in the contours of your face, imagining all the moments I missed, and the other selves within you, waiting to emerge. You look back, smile, and remind me the proper time is now. 

MMR (2019)

Poem: A Concerto in V Sharp

From far away, bruscamente is the word that comes to mind. The pace is quick, the shoes don’t match a standard color, and if something fierce appears on the horizon, it might be her or another Indonesian tsunami.

Getting closer, we notice perfect teeth, expertly-applied makeup, and earrings matching the blouse (ah, the shoes weren’t accidental). Even then, it’s not until my hands become baby spianato and my gait mysteriously shifts from a capriccio to sostenuto adagietto that I realize I'm listening to a concerto I’ll never forget.

If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll manage to get even closer, but by then, it’ll be too late: you’re in an orbit that will ground satellites with a mere smile, bring you into her gravitational pull and, if you’re even luckier, never let you go.

© Matthew Rafat (August 2018) 

Poem: I Told You

I couldn’t sleep. Past 12AM, not ready to check out at 12PM. 
Too much energy from today, seeping through me like the soft red stains on my thigh from where you were sitting after sex. 
And I just wanted to touch your hair, that curly mess that bounces happily even when you don't smile. 

You're smart, of course, talking about politics like an old hand one moment, the next minute about making your niche in sweet potato tortillas in Mexico City, casually dropping names like Costco and Bimbo. 
You're the last person I'd expect to say she went on a diet at the age of 11, pre-puberty, pre-blood stains, but women, they see themselves in a light harsher than any sun the Mayans, Aztecs, or Mexicas ever measured. 
They worry about the water being wasted while I lather my hands with hotel soap, about not having a steady job post-university, about not finding love, or other things the universe measured by any calendar must see as small as the beautiful mole on your breast. 
(And that hair, it would make Samson jealous.) 

I find out later you were part of an all-women, American-style football team in a country where football is a different sport. 
In another photo, you are upside down, demonstrating a twisting maneuver only a contortionist would approve of. 
Little about you is congruent or straight, and as you walk beside me, in front of me, behind me, I see the black hair before I see you, and I enter your morena maze without a guide, map, or ticket. 
You kiss my eyelids and finally, I fall asleep. 

© Matthew Rafat

Travel Lessons: History and Relationships

People ask what I've learned in my travels. Two areas stand out: history and personal relationships. 

In Santo Domingo, I learned Christopher Columbus was an Italian whose voyages were funded by Spain to promote economic trade, including the slave trade. Colombus aka Colombo aka Cristobal Colon was buried in the Dominican Republic but his remains were later moved to Spain. 

His voyages helped Catholic Spain map shipping routes that would allow the Spanish to take gold, silver, and other commodities back to Europe and establish European influence—including the horrific transatlantic slave trade—in the Americas. From what I gather, Catholic Spain exported African slaves to the Caribbean initially to mine gold and silver. Later, governments, even when independent from European influence, could not wean their economies away from manual labor intensive industries and adapted the slave trade to cocoa/cacao, coffee, sugar, and tobacco. The American South was, in effect, colonized by Catholic Spain, who gave the Americas the Spanish word "Negro," thus reducing an entire group of people into a color. 

Colon Park, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

In Mexico City, I learned about artist Diego Rivera, featured on Mexico's 500 peso note, and his antipathy towards the Catholic Church and Hernan Cortes, who wiped out or subjugated much of Mexico's indigenous population. Columbus's voyages created new shipping routes and seafaring maps allowing Cortes to go further, and he succeeded, extending the European slave trade to Mexico to exploit Mexico's vast natural resources, especially gold and silver. I gather no one in Cortes' military thought of themselves as exploiting anything or anyone--they were paid to discover new lands and new resources to spread Spain's influence worldwide, and if they didn't do it, surely someone else eventually would. 

Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts

The collision between Spain's military values and Mexico's farming values--explained well in Mexico City's Museum of Anthropology--generated much bloodshed and conflict. Pre-Cortes, the indigenous population depended on corn/maize to survive. Without advanced farming equipment, they were often dependent on Nature's vicissitudes, which explains much of their culture (human sacrifices, animals as gods, etc.). 

Growing up in California, I had assumed Mexicans always spoke Spanish, but of course the language is not indigenous to Mexico. The similarities between English, Spanish, and French--all European languages--as well as their differences once exported to faraway countries make sense once history is taken into account. So, too, does modern Mexico City, where many of the residents in upper-class neighborhoods look/are white. 

All over the world, once a foreign language is imported into a country by a militarily-advanced opponent, the language usually becomes the official language of the government, which then promotes civilian employment--and export of natural resources--favoring the militarily-advanced country. Lawyers and diplomats operating in the host country's language are also able to draft contracts with trade terms favoring their employer, such as the "most favored nation status" clause, which assisted the growth of the U.S. economy post-WWII. We now understand why educated people in Tunisia speak French, not Arabic; why educated Filipinos speak English, not Spanish; and so on. 

In any case, the aforementioned linguistic policy/practice tends to create internal social strife by generating inequality between government employees and their allies--buffeted by new money and often new currency--and groups outside their orbit. This economic shift also creates cultural and therefore communication gaps between the blue collar workforce and a new intellectual elite where only one of the aforementioned groups is immediately exposed to Shakespeare, the Bible, or whichever conduit is used to promote the values of the now entrenched country. As one might suspect from studying Diego Rivera, the blue collar workforce often feels excluded from the capitalist or white collar sector, which dominates military and banking decision-making. From this lesson, we can begin to understand the catalysts behind Mao's Revolution in China, formally called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We can also see how governments that promulgate certain values lose credibility if such values are applied inconsistently to all residing groups. 

One of my gaps in understanding history is trying to figure out from where Spain bought and/or captured slaves. A European Africa Company modeled on the East India Companies in Holland and Britain failed. If Arab merchants were trading slaves in ways that knowingly led to their exploitation rather than integration into the more affluent employers’ families (such as a nanny taking care of her employer’s children and a de facto part of the family), they were violating the Prophet Muhammad’s express and clear edicts. And indeed, the Saharan slave trade occurred primarily from the 16th century onward--after the Portuguese took over the Strait of Malacca from the Arabs, signaling Islam's decline in SE Asia and the world. Even now, the Strait of Malacca is vital to world trade, as evidenced by tiny Singapore's trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund. 

As for the Swahili coast slave trade, "Because of the lack of explicit evidence, [some experts] even question the existence of the slave trade on the Swahili coast before the Omani settlement on the coast in the eighteenth century... Nevertheless, most of the historians of the Swahili world have generally adopted a prudent position, admitting the existence of the slave trade, but maintaining that before the end of the eighteenth century, it remained a minor part of the coastal trade compared to the trade in ivory or gold." (Interestingly, Dibba, Oman was the site of one of the great battles of the Ridda Wars, where Adz troops refused to swear allegiance to the descendants of the prophet Mohammad (PBUH); today, most Omanis practice Ibadi Islam, aka Ibāḍiyya, a unique version of Islam.) 

History rarely provides clarity, but in this case, we know after Malacca fell to the Portuguese in 1511, Islamic influence waned worldwide. Thus, it is not coincidental if greater European influence in Africa post-1511 led to a higher--and more brutal--slave trade where chattel slavery flourished, whereas Islam mitigated the practice and never based it on color. (See, for example, Tippu Tip aka Tippu Tib aka  Hamad bin Muhammad bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi aka  حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي‎, an Afro-Arab slave trader, ivory trader, plantation owner, and governor.) African Muslims were not allowed to be enslaved, and as Islam spread in Africa from 600 AD, it slowly replaced tribal practices, which included slavery and slave trading. 

"If you read... there's stuff in there about genocide, about slavery, about the breeding of human beings which, if you're of African descent in this [Western] hemisphere, that's your legacy, you were bred into existence. Usually raped, but it was a breeding project of form." -- Junot Diaz (2012)

And so, the slave trade and the reasons for its transatlantic expansion help us to understand Islam, its conflict with Christian Europe, and why Arab merchants and their successors despised Prophet Muhammad and his deliberate regulations against slavery, going so far as to attempt to assassinate him numerous times. (This Islamic conflict between slaveholders and anti-slavery advocates occurred much earlier--over a thousand years before America's Civil War--showing that history does indeed repeat itself.) 

Virginia has a long history to confront. Our nation's experience with slavery began there... in Jamestown in 1619... It was the unfreedom of 40% of Virginia's population that made the liberty of the rest imaginable as well as materially possible. The economic viability of both the colony and the new nation depended on slave labor. -- Drew Gilpin Faust (The Atlantic, "Carry Me Back," August 2019) 

The attempts on the Prophet Muhammad's life forced him to flee from his birthplace, Mecca, to Medina, where he realized the Arab Establishment and their hired mercenaries would not stop trying to kill him, forcing him to take defensive measures. Even after Prophet Muhammad’s death, Arab rulers killed one of his grandsons, Husayn aka Hussein, indicating continuing power struggles within the Arab community. From this lesson, we can begin to understand the reasons for the modern-day power struggle in the Middle East between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. 

Until I traveled, I disliked history immensely. I suppose I intuitively realized the way it was taught was a waste of time. I earned top marks in my history classes, but the more I travel, the more I'm angered at America's governmental-academic complex, which seems to teach nothing well--while charging exorbitant tuition or taking state funding from other community-building projects. 

As for personal relationships, that's a story for another time... 

[To be continued?] 

© Matthew Rafat (2018)

London: Expensive but Well-Run, except in Heathrow aka Hell

There isn't much to say about London that hasn't already been said, so I'll keep this short. 

1. Almost all of London's museums are free, though they ask for donations. Everyone knows about the British Museum and the Rosetta Stone, but don't miss the National Portrait Gallery right around the corner from the more famous National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Many people, including me, also overlook the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Me, hanging out with ol' George.

2. England's "mature" cheeses are delicious. So is Scottish fruit jam. 

3. London's bus system is fantastic, and some buses run 24 hours a day; however, they do not accept cash. You must buy an "Oyster" card (same system as Hong Kong) and put cash on the card for single rides, or purchase a daily or weekly option. The daily or weekly option covers all public transport within London, including the subway (aka the Underground), buses, and trains. I bought an Oyster card from an Underground station and chose the weekly option because I wanted peace of mind when getting from Point A to Point B, which often requires bus, train, and Underground usage. Even though I speak English fluently (most of the time), I needed help buying the pass from the machine, because the interface isn't intuitive. Most tourists will need a card covering Zones 1 and 2. 

Overall, London has excellent public transportation but also one of most complex systems in the world. When people joke about the fascists and "trains running on time," they're providing a valuable history lesson: if day-to-day issues like public infrastructure don't work consistently, the most aggressive politicians tend to get elected--and rarely focus their gaze only on the mundane. In any case, don't hesitate to ask easily-identifiable employees at the stations to assist you--all of them were uniformly helpful and knowledgeable. 

4.  I loved the British Library. It hosted a fantastic Harry Potter exhibit (entrance required a fee), but even without the special exhibit, the library would have been a great experience. Check out the cafe inside.

Visitors to the special exhibition are *not* allowed to take photos.
I have no idea where this photo of Rowling's early drawing of the Potter characters comes from.
No idea whatsoever. 

5.  Speaking of Harry Potter, if you want to see where much of J.K. Rowling's inspiration comes from, visit Oxford and Cambridge. They're only about 2 hours by train from London's city center and well-worth seeing. Though Cambridge is larger than Oxford, a daytrip is all you need for both cities. Try to arrive early--some of Cambridge's attractions are only open between 12 and 2pm. I liked Cambridge's vibe much more than Oxford's, but Oxford had incredible exhibits in a tiny museum inside Weston Library, including a handmade Christmas card by J.R.R. Tolkien. 

Not allowed to take photos in Weston Library.
Once again, I have no clue where this photo of a page from JRR Tolkien's 1936 Christmas card comes from. 

Note that out-of-London trips are not included in the Oyster card weekly or daily pass--you must buy separate tickets. 

6.  Don't miss Harrods, the original "everything store." It's easily accessible by bus. You can spend hours in this massive place and never get bored. You might even get lucky and see a magic show in the toy section. 

Now owned by Qatar, but formerly owned by Princess Diana's almost-father-in-law.

7.  I'll end with two cautions. England is not part of the Schengen zone, so many tourists, including Americans, receive six month visas on arrival. Partly as a result of this longer-than-typical visa provision, Heathrow airport's immigration staff are known to overreach. 

I've had issues with Heathrow airport's immigration staff every single time I've visited. I truly believe most of their immigration employees are incompetent, poorly trained, and/or do not want to be there. Stated another way, Heathrow's immigration officers are the only people in the world who make America's notoriously bad TSA look good. In a city as vibrant as London, perhaps Heathrow is where you apply to work when you give up on your dreams--and your life. Nevertheless, there's no excuse for asking tourists totally irrelevant questions. Accepting irrelevant questions as normal rather than offensive and illegal creates a slippery slope where privacy is nonexistent and employees provoke animosity against all government services. 

In my case, after presenting evidence I had an e-ticket to the Dominican Republic from Heathrow, I was asked where I was going after the Dominican Republic. Last time I checked, despite Sir Francis Drake's remarkable prowess, the Dominican Republic isn't under the United Kingdom's current legal jurisdiction nor was it ever an official British colony.

Let's quickly consider the purposes of immigration control and the laws immigration agents are tasked with enforcing:

a. Are you a criminal or will you be engaging in criminal activity?
b. Are you going to overstay your visa?
c. Do you have enough money or access to money to stay in the country you are visiting without becoming a burden on public welfare or accessing other public services you have not paid into? 
d. Are you here for a legitimate purpose or do you intend on working off the books? 

All the questions above logically relate to the ultimate goal of determining whether a visitor is entering a country for a legitimate reason. If you don't have money, you might engage in criminal activity or work illegally. If you cannot articulate a clear reason for visiting or if you don't have evidence of an outward-bound ticket, you might be intending to overstay your visa. If you have a criminal history, you are less likely to be entering for a legitimate reason. 

Thus, questions like how long you are staying, where you are staying, whether you have credit cards, how much cash you have on you, whether you have evidence of an outward bound ticket, whether you have family members in the country, what your job is, and even whether you are pregnant, all logically relate to the reasons Parliament passed laws empowering immigration and customs agents. In short, the Immigration Control Act of any country, not just Britain's, is designed to eliminate visitors who will pose a burden on the country's services or people. It is not a license to ask visitors stupid questions.

When I deliberately raised a ruckus with the Heathrow employee after she posed questions only a moron would ask a visitor with over 30 stamps in his passport and evidence of an outward bound ticket, she called her manager. The way I play this game is simple: if you screw up, you are either racist or incompetent--pick one. If you, the manager, accept your employee is incompetent, then you must admit you are responsible for poor training and oversight. In other words, you put your own job at risk. In the alternative, if you, the manager, accept your employee might be racist, what exactly do you do when you can't discipline her without the possibility of spending taxpayer monies against an entrenched union? I like this game. I encourage any government employee or contractor to play it with me at any airport. 

After checking my evidence of an outward bound ticket and directing me through the same process a second time, the higher-up who came to see me walked away speechless when I asked whether it was logical to send me back to the same immigration employee I had accused of racism or incompetence. I was let through the second time under the same employee and supervision of another manager. 

Moving on, the second caution about the United Kingdom is its prices. Even with the pound's devaluation post-Brexit, everything in London is probably more expensive than back home, unless you're from San Francisco or Tokyo. Should that discourage you from visiting London? I suppose it depends on whether you are willing to endure Heathrow and its unmerry band of men and women. Good luck. 

Dominican Republic: What is the Opposite of Despacito?

All my life, people have been telling me to slow down. I talk too fast, walk too fast, and write so fast my teachers compared my handwriting to Egyptian hieroglyphics. For the first time, I've found people who operate at a similar speed--and it feels wonderful. In the Dominican Republic, everyone speaks Spanish faster than in any other country I've visited. Their best modern writer, Junot Diaz, practically invented his own literary style. It's as if everyone realizes being Dominican means being different, so why not take it up a notch and let others catch up? 

Most people who visit the Dominican Republic will stay only one day in Santo Domingo, the capital. They might venture to Santiago, 

La Romana (my choice if I could live in the Dominican Republic), or San Francisco de Macoris (not to be confused with San Pedro de Macoris), but almost all of them will use the capital city as a launchpad to more popular beach towns or resorts such as Punta Cana, Boca Chica, 

Me, when I was younger and innocent, in Boca Chica ;-)

Samaná (and El Limon waterfall), Bayahibe, 

and the lesser-known Juan Dolio. I think tourists are making a mistake bypassing Santo Domingo, and I suspect in ten years' time, the area known as the Colonial Zone aka Zona Colonial will lose its charm as more corporate and foreign investment enters, driving out locally-owned small businesses like Carmen and her Cafeteria Carmen, which doesn't have a sign because almost all her customers are regulars. 

Dominicans have the best smiles in the world.

I'll give you a quick rundown of the must-see places in Santo Domingo, and you can decide for yourself if you want to stay my recommended three days. 

Visit Kah Kow Experience, take the chocolate tour (15 USD), and add the soap-making or chocolate-making workshop. 

Is that you, Tyler Durden?

Get a cappuccino and Vietnamese salad at Mamey Libreria Cafe. 

See the Monumento Ruinas de San Francisco (not technically open as of January 2018, but still interesting). 

Go to Parque Colon, see the Columbus statue and if you're lucky, some performers. 

Go to Grand's Cafeteria y Bar and try the national dish, La Bandera, which has a rice base surprisingly similar to the Persian tahdig. (How two totally different countries ended up with the same unique rice dish is something I'd like to know.) Grand's didn't have locrio or res/carne guisada when I visited, but you can try those dishes at the more upscale restaurants in Plaza Espana in the evening, an 18 minute walk from Grand's. 

La Bandera con concón with zapote and melon juices (sin leche).

My favorite drinks are zapote juice (without milk) and morir soñando. I do not recommend the mofongo, and I even tried it in Santiago, which is famous for it. (Note: mofongo should not be confused with sopa de mondongo, a Costa Rican soup.) 

You like baseball? It's the national sport. Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez, Vladimir Guerrero, and Juan Marichal all hail from the Dominican Republic. Catch a game at the local stadium, Estadio Quisqueya Juan Marichal. 

Want an interesting-looking statue? Check out the Monumento de Fray Anton de Montestinos on the Malecon. 

Personally, my highlight was Catedral Primada de America. It's not an architectural masterpiece by any means, but how many Catholic churches have Andalusian-inspired tiles and glass-stained artwork that look like something Picasso would draw? 

So there you have it. I won't hide my bias--I'm a fan of the Dominican Republic. No other place has more color, more energy, and more friendly noise. If there's a heaven, you'll probably see Dominicans welcoming you with their beautiful smiles. For me, talvez algún dia, puedo conocer a Lola De León. Hey, nerdboys and men can dream, sí? 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2018)

Bonus: below are my favorite Junot Diaz quotes. If you haven't read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, you cannot call yourself a true bibliophile. And I'm not just saying that because I identify with Oscar. 

"Beli at thirteen believed in love like a seventy-year old widow who's been abandoned by family, husband, children, and fortune believes in God." (from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) 

"It would have been one thing if like some of the nerdboys I'd grown up with he hadn't cared about girls, but alas he was still the passionate enamorao who fell in love easily and deeply. He had secret loves all over town, the kind of curly-haired, big bodied girls who wouldn't have said boo to a loser like him but about whom he could not stop dreaming. His affection—that gravitational mass of love, fear, longing, desire, and lust that he directed at any and every girl in his vicinity without regard to looks, age, or availability—broke his heart each and every day." (Id.) 

‎"For the record, that summer our girl caught a cuerpazo so berserk that only a pornographer or a comic-book artist could have designed it with a clear conscience." (Id.)

Bonus: don't miss my favorite dulcería in Santo Domingo, Dulcería Maria La Turca, near Calle Mercedes and Calle Jose Reyes. Her cakes and flan are incredible. The store has been in business around 84 years.