summer lovin at aid

baltimore md....an interesting town that can't decide if it is a blue-collar american town where everyone gets cheap tickets to the orioles' games, an eclectic den for an underground thriving art scene or a sketchy bombed-out boarded-up ghetto. a harsh judgment perhaps, but unlike dc or nyc where there are areas that you just avoid, b-more can't seem to fit itself into the neighborhood mold. it transitions hard, and it transitions fast: one block there are boarded up windows, the next is a nice park or some slick brownstone row houses. dampening the excitement of never knowing exactly what your going to pull out of the grab-bag is the fact that the public transportation makes it difficult to get around at night.

at complete odds with the fact that i am drawn in and caught up by this pulsing city is my work at americans for informed democracy, a ngo stuck in its own identity crisis where a group of motivated, talented young people can't decide if this organization should take a more militant advocacy approach or stick to being a resource center for student activists. spinning in the middle are 16 interns who had no idea what they were getting into. and maybe that's not such a bad thing....our expectations often predispose us to utter failure.

as i jump into this world i am tempted to just quit school and become a transient volunteer or go work on a farm or just become a professional activist slash hobo, but that's not really on the docket for the next year. august 29th is the date of departure, and who knows what the land of wine and cheese will throw at this would-be world traveler. one would hope that a city full of university students will be interesting to say the least, and perhaps i will even learn a little french.

acclimation is becoming my word of choice on my mental cv, and these next two months in maryland will commence this year-long experiment in cultural discovery. in the words of james baldwin "i met a lot of people in europe. i even encountered myself." here's hoping....