Here I am in the library, just finished an oral presentation on "how the assumptions of development practitioners shape this industry's practices (the industry, the machine!); and moreover, through which way holding these beliefs serves as a convenient tool to rationalize and depoliticize the development project". Ok breathing break after reading this out loud.
Yes, the expose Sebastian and I planned yesterday starting at 7pm. We ended up being kicked out of school and having to take refuge (I keep on using this phrase, but I just love it) in Starbucks. How ironic, after writing a whole presentation that questions the project of development on the basis that it relies on Western constructs, which in turn, reproduce an unsustainable capitalist system.
Little funny, or tragic, contradictions about life we just can't seem to escape from!
This class is interesting, specially because the people in it have such different opinions about the goals and limits of international development. I happen to fall in the category of the skeptical ones, minority but we have some of the loudest speakers. I just love it whenever someone pulls out the "so what do you suggest, should we just let them die" card, and then someone replies "you should maybe join the 'self-appointment priesthood of development' and go civilize the Thirld World!", and so on, and so on...
Actually it is not at all like this, but I wish! We are all very "civilized" in our discussions, and not a lot of radical comments are put forward, but it is still an enjoyable class.
Oh well, this post just turned out to be so far from my initial intention. I just wanted to write a fun, lighthearted story about how the plane from Berlin to Paris left us (or should I say how Tatiana and I did not make in time actually)... and this just took a whole different turn. How to reconcile?
I really just want to leave close the Berlin chapter so I'll sacrifice the nice idea of 'a set of nice logically connected ideas with their accompanying illustrative counterparts per post' and just take pleasure in the randomness of combining my current thoughts on the presentation I just finished with the memory of what Tatiana and I experienced during our last hours in Berlin, already 10 days ago.
So the plane left us, we had had around an hour of sleep, and we had to kill 8 more before boarding... What to do, what to do when you're homeless in a city and all you want to do is close your eyes and sink into a deep sleep. Well the only obvious answer is, go find a library and crash in a couch, right? So we headed back downtown in the search of the Humboldt University library.
We had some obstacles in the way, which turned out to wake us up and give us some temporary energy, like a band of about 12 drummers playing right in the middle of Alexanderplatz. Crowds started to surround them, us included, and we even ended up being invited to dance in the 'stage' with them and got two sets of free drumsticks on the way, score!
Then we were even more tired and determined to find that special place that would allows to enter the land of dreams, but got distracted once more on the road, this time by an artisan market where we both bought some photographies for our Parisian walls.
A final detour....
Until we finally found something even better than the library: a huge lecture hall, all for ourselves for the next few hours.
We owned it, an then, a little less zombie and a lot more human, we returned to the airport and got our flight back home. How comfortable to use transit I understand! Like the beloved RER B, even though I was haunted by the ghost of Cite Universitaire.
Don't know if I should exaggerate on the 'home' issue, but going outside of Paris this time did give me a whole new sense of appreciation for it. I was really glad to see Bridge and the dinner she had made me, and sleep that night in my bed (COUCH).
Voila, it's time for a library break!
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