Fragments

That's all I've got-- fragments, that is-- left from the last four days. That's what happens when you abandon your laptop for a day or two-- you accumulate stories, too many to write about, and suddenly, all you've got left is this vague recollection about how cobblestone streets are hard on the ankles, and also something about the smell in this one pub which was terrible, toxic, and yet cozy at the same time, and then, also, wasn't there a funny story about a female cab driver?

Lovely dinosaur-flower at botanical gardens, near hotel


First though, I've GOT to catch you up on the banana dessert I just had, for the second time, at The Ubiquitous Chip, easily the best place to eat in Glasgow. Well, actually, I ate at the Ubiquitous Chip Brasserie, which is a pretty way of saying that it's a cheaper version of the other restaurant. Anyway, this banana. It's baked, first of all-- and then they put a scoop of rum raisin ice cream on top, a little scoop--nothing too rich, and they sprinkle rum soaked raisins on top and zig zag the slightest, loveliest bit of caramel and chocolate. Do you love Scotland now, or what? You should come here for this banana, I am telling you.

Other, cool, teeny flower, sadly out of focus


Not that all I've been doing here is eating though, lest you think I've done no work. Today, I earned my keep-- I took the early morning train back from Edinburgh in order to make it for the "New Muslims" class going on at Al-Meezan, the "women's mosque" I'll be profiling in my radio story. The class itself didn't make great radio-- it was too loud in the room, and the teacher was reciting a bunch of stuff that sounded so stuffy and staid that it sounded like a long series of cliches about Islam. The great part of today, actually, was meeting this 21-year old young woman, Naaila (pronounced Nyla) who kind of gravitated her way towards me when I was interviewing a few of her classmates, who were much younger, and quite shy with the microphone. Naaila was GREAT--spoke so articulately, and then volunteered to show me around Glasgow Central Mosque, which I'd been intending to go to later.

This was no small thing. Like so many things I do when I'm traveling solo, going to the big mosque would have been yet another experiment in AWKWARDNESS. I stick out like a sore thumb, in so many ways. For not wearing a head covering. For having light skin. For carrying around a microphone that looks like a semi-automatic weapon. Thus, I would probably have been so frozen by the many looks I got that I couldn't have recorded with much vigor. (Side note: It really is somethin' trying to do a media story that's based in a sacred space... how can I NOT be disruptive? By definition, I'm intruding!) Anyway, Naaila guided me up to the women's prayer area, upstairs, which looks just like the men's except it's smaller, and you can't see down to the main area from there unless you peek through the slats in the balcony rail. "It doesn't matter that you can't see the imam," she said. "As long as you can hear the prayers." Which, of course, I believe. Sort of. Turns out, the main reason women don't have much of a space in mosques is because while men are required, according to the Koran, to practice in congregation, women can pray alone, which means they can stay at home (with the kids, if there are kids). They can pray at the mosque, if they want to, but actually, they get slightly more reward (a word used to describe the payback they'll get in the afterlife) if they pray at home. It all rings a bit funny to a feminist's ears, but frankly, Naaila didn't seem the least bit bothered.

Tomorrow morning, I head back to SF, and frankly, I'm ready. Not that I couldn't eat another one of those bananas. But cabs are expensive, and I've need to pay for one every time I've gone to Al-Meezan, and again on the way back. The pounds add up-- and the exchange rate is not exactly making European travel a steal right now. Also, there's the weather. I mean, I KNEW it was going to be yucky when I decided to come-- and it didn't affect my plans, because after all, this wasn't a "holiday," it was a work trip, so what should it matter? Well, sadly, it did matter. It wears on a person to be rained on--the cold, horizontal kind of rain--day after day. And this is windy rain, I'm talking about-- the kind that turns your crappy, dime-store umbrella inside out so that you can only imagine that the people driving are saying things like, "Oh, boy, I'm so warm--honey, doesn't that make you glad you're not out there walking in the rain? Brrr...she looks chilly."

Okay, so there was this one sunny afternoon


Except that Scots don't seem to get cold. Come to think of it, it appears they've outlawed The Hat. Nobody here wears hats, even though it is simply a fact that it's cold enough here for hats. Heck, it's cold enough for long underwear (I've taken to wearing my pajama pants under my jeans)-- maybe they're just proud. Anyway, I'm suddenly quite grateful to live in California, where it's in the 70s right now, and sunny, and even without the acclaimed banana, I'll take it-- cuz I'm chilled to the bone. And now, I reward you with pictures:

Lovely building, in the botanical gardens

Edinburgh! You make me want to write poems about you!

One of many alleyways, lanes, "closes," that beckon in Edinburgh

I LOVE this cat!

Al-Meezan, Islamic learning center for women

My guides for the day, Naaila, and Sami

Where's Waldo?

A Good Day for a Cup of Tea

The "Asian" part of Glasgow is about three blocks long and sits south of the city in a region called Pollokshields. There are about three food markets, two Halal butchers, and one barber shop.

I dropped by there yesterday to meet with the main youth group in my story--it was a high stakes day, in that I really needed the interview to go well. And I needed to endear myself to them so that they felt inclined to introduce me to some of the "at-risk" kids they're working with, as well as the local imam. The good news is that the interview went great-- the two fellows I talked to were incredibly knowledgeable and well-spoken. The bad news is that their boss, who had been rather standoffish from the beginning, turns out to be quite wary of journalists, thanks to a few experiences in which journalists swooped in, said they were going to tell one story and ultimately told another. (The most recent example is an article in the Scotsman, which, as it happens, is the very one I read to find out about this whole project. It begins... "A new weapon will be unveiled this week in the war on teenage gangs: Muslim Imams." "A new WEAPON?" exclaimed Umar, one of the fellows I interviewed. "That's the sort of sensationalist rhetoric that we're talking about," he continued to say-- "they would never use that language if they were talking about white gangs.")

Anyway, what that means for me is that I may not have access to the most important ingredient to the story-- the kids. Apparently, I could have met with them the day before yesterday (my lonely day) or the day before that, if only Umar had known... and he didn't know because his boss was giving me the runaround, because she's wary of journalists, and so on...

SO. More on how that goes later. In the meantime, I'm pursuing my back-up story, the one about this all-women mosque, Al-Meezan. I'm heading over there today to sit in on a "mothers and toddlers" support group. It'll be great.

Before I go though, I have to share this sweet moment I experienced yesterday. I was standing outside of this little market on Albert Drive (the three blocks mentioned above), and I had my microphone out, which of course looks very strange. As Umar had pointed out to me earlier, it looks like a police baton, which isn't exactly the message I was trying to send. Anyway I was trying to capture some sound of people walking by, conversing, etc., as well as the ding-dong sound the market's door made when people went in and out. Well, a couple people must have whispered that there was this weird lady standing outside pointing a police baton into the air as if to measure which way the wind is blowing. Eventually, a guy who must have been the owner came out from behind the meat counter and stuck his head outside, full of curiosity. I must have looked like a spy or a terrorist or a crazy person, but he seemed to give me the benefit of the doubt. He spoke very little English, but I explained that I was an American journalist, and I was recording sound. "Could I record some sound from inside your store?" I asked. At this point, I'd already called a cab, and it was on its way, but now I really wanted to go in the store. He nodded permission, and I followed him in, walking around and pointing the microphone in various aisles, to the cash register, and then the meat counter. In the background, some sort of sitar-based music played. When I was finally standing still, just getting the general sound of the place, he and two other guys in the store, stared at me.

"Da?" the main guy asked me. "Sorry?" I said, because that's how I talk here, like a Scottish person. "Tea?" he repeated. He pointed to a mug of chai he was about to enjoy. "Oh, thank you, but I have a taxi coming," I said. But as we stood there, I realized I was so touched by his offering so I said, "Actually, sure, I'll have some tea." He smiled and hurriedly handed me his mug. It was steamy and the perfect milky brown color of good, real masala chai. I took a sip. The best!! But before I could take a second sip, I saw my taxi pull up outside. "Shoot!" I said, and for a moment, I froze. Oh no, I thought, should I pretend that's not my cab? I want to enjoy this wonderful moment. But they all saw the cab too, and it was silly for me to have to call another one just for a few more sips of tea, so I looked over at my new friend and he put his finger in the air like, "Wait! I have an idea!" He said something to a boy I presumed to be his son, who then scrambled over to a corner of the store where disposable dishware sat on the shelves. He plunged his hand into a container of styrofoam cups and pulled one out, racing over and pouring my tea into it.

"Thank you so much," I said, and truly, I was just so touched and thankful. I bowed a little, cuz what else can you do? And then I left the store, the door ding-donging as I passed.

Evening in Glasgow

One of Those Days

A few images from my lovely hotel



Globalized Glasgow, in the rain (look closely and see Aldo)



There's a time, on every trip, I think, when all that curiosity and wanderlust and ambition that propelled you onto this adventure--it all falls away and suddenly it's just you and a crappy beer and a way-too-fishy Caesar salad, and some weird guy across the bar who thinks you're available, and you're not, thank you very much (and even if you were, you wouldn't be interested). It's rainy and cold on this day, say, and your umbrella is cowering beneath the gale-force winds. All the cabs are taken, and anyway, you're feeling shy, and maybe you don't want to jump out in the middle of the street to wave one down--especially after you've already accidentally waved down one police car and some sort of promotional pizza van. Your feet hurt, and you're tired of hearing the sound of your heels on the pavement-- why didn't you pack another pair of shoes? Yes, there always seems to be a day like that on every trip. Or at least there always seems to be one for me. Or maybe two.

The truth is, traveling solo-- as often as I seem to find myself doing it-- isn't particularly fun. Popping into pubs isn't all that fun, alone, and walking long distances in the rain, alone, isn't all that amusing, and deciding whether your story is going to be a terrible failure or a rousing success, something you contemplate on a day to day basis on trips like this-- well, it's hard to do that when you're an extrovert, and you process things out loud, and yet there's no one around to listen (except that guy across the bar-- ew). Days like this bring up questions like this: what am I supposed to do in my FREE time on a reporting trip? I mean, I'm here on work, right? So, what do I do when I find myself with a few spare hours, or a spare half-day here and there? Join the tourist circuit and go check out some museums? Wile away the hours in a cafe? Go shopping? Perhaps some combination of the above. Until it gets dark, and the rain gets heavier, and the winds pick up-- and suddenly, you'd really rather be back at the hotel now. "Taxi!... Taxi??"

Thankfully, I got a few cool pictures out of today's adventures-- which I took while I was waiting, for about an hour, for a cab, in the rain. And I found out about a Comedy Festival that I plan to check out later this week. I also got some important emailing done, for interviews later this week. So there, today was productive after all. And as always, I will forget this blah day, this inbetween day-- because I always do. And that's what keeps me going.

The Adventure Continues--This Time with A Kilt!

The lovely Kirklee hotel, where I'm staying

A photogenic curve of the road, on my way to morning coffee

A darling stoop in one of the many leafy, winding West End streets

I wish you could hear the voices inside my head right now-- cuz they've got Scottish accents, they do. Ever since I got here, I've been processing the local brogue the way babies process language, mumbling to myself and whatnot. Wee lad. No worries. A spot of tea.

Today my goals were twofold: to attempt public transportation, in some form, even if it meant ending up on the wrong side of the city and having to pay many pounds to get myself back to my hotel. Check. Took the ole Clockwork Orange, the underground rail, and got off at the CORRECT stop, thank you very much. Never mind that I proceeded to get lost afterwards, making myself almost late to my one big meeting of the day... though it didn't matter, because my interviewee was over a half hour late. Yippee! I love it when that happens. Until I don't. Luckily, I had lots to sit and process. My second goal was to talk to this fellow at the Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF) and start getting some sense of the story I'm reporting over here, which, for those of you who have no idea what I'm doing in Scotland of all places, is about Muslim youth gangs in Glasgow, and how the Scottish police are teaming up with mosques to deal with them. My interview today, with the head of the SIF, was incredibly helpful. Probably the most interesting thing I learned was about how the police's strategy probably has as much to do with anti-terrorism measures as it does with anti-gang concerns. In other words, they're targeting young Muslims who they believe are on the fringe, exhibiting what they refer to here as "anti-social behavior," in part because they're at risk of being swept up in gang culture, but also because these kids are more likely to be vulnerable to recruitment from Islamic extremists. So it's all mixed up together. Fascinating.

I also picked up a number of story leads that, sadly, I won't really be able to follow here, like the one about the all-women's mosque that was formed a few years ago when local Muslim women got fed up with the lack of a place for them to worship and connect with other women. Women aren't allowed in the other mosques (which poses an interesting problem when yours truly wants to go talk to an imam for her story...hmmm... suppose I'll have to ask for an introduction in this case...). So, these women raised 1 million pounds to start their own (a very impressive amount) and now it's thriving.

Dias Corvidae!

I had the opportunity to host an hour-and-a-half music show last week, something I used to be so intimidated by because I knew it would require on-air presence-of-mind. But since I've been doing the newscast every evening, I've gotten pretty comfy behind the mic, and had a blast playing all of my favorite music. I'm posting the show as a movie here-- that's all that Blogger would allow. Enjoy! It's like the ultimate mix tape--except with my sometimes-dorky commentary mixed in, and a few weather reports.