Leather (updated)

So, I haven't written a post about my leather-working exploits since the brief introductory one about two months ago. Since then, I've made a wallet that looks almost exactly like this, a Kindle case that's a little too small for my Kindle, a briefcase/messenger bag, and a tote bag. I'll get some photos of the tote bag and wallet up later this week, but for now, here are some shots of the briefcase:

In general, I think the bag turned out great.
Things I liked: The leather I picked looks awesome, and lining it in the navy blue suede was also a good choice. The shoulder strap also turned out really well. I incorporated some ideas from a couple different places to make my own thing, and it looks good.

Now, to be critical, I wasn't thrilled with the overall shape of the bag. I had to adjust the dimensions to make sure that it could fit our over-sized laptops, and I thought that I generally would want a bigger bag. The end result is that the bag is a bit more square instead of rectangular. Aside from that, though, I think it's awesome. Higher resolution photos are up on the flickr site. Stay tuned for pictures of my other creations...

Proud to be an American

If you are from the U.S. you probably learned in elementary school that there are seven continents in the world: Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, North America, and South America. You probably took this information at face value and never questioned it. It turns out that there is no one definition for what a continent is, and people all around the world learn different things in school. As it turns out, people in Latin America generally learn that what we refer to as North and South America - they refer to as one continent, America.

Which brings us to the debate I've had with people from various parts of Latin America for years, which you may have experienced yourself. Why do us citizens from the U.S. call ourselves "Americans?" I become passionately involved in this debate, and I will defend that term until someone changes the subject. Even if it's my Colombian friend's birthday and she insists she was taught that North America was comprised of the U.S. and Canada, Mexico was part of Central America, and then changes everything by saying that America is really one continent.

Really what this comes down to is that the name of our country is the United States of America. Goodness knows why our Founding Fathers (and Mothers? Who am I kidding, they surely didn't have a say in the matter.) chose that name, but así es (that's the way it is). What this really comes down to is a linguistic problem - Mexico is called the United States of Mexico, and its citizens are referred to as Mexicans. Colombia is the Republic of Colombia, and its citizens are Colombians. Of course, someone from Latin America may rebut that we were arrogant in the first place to choose the name of the continent as the name of our country, but what can we do about that now? There was probably a good reason behind it at the time - like, you know, these were the first independent states in America. And then the name stuck.

I am often referred to here as norteamericana - which profoundly bothers me. North America refers to not only the U.S., but several other countries, and I see it as more arrogant to refer to myself as a "North American."

So I will continue to call myself American in English, estadounidense or gringa in Spanish, and any host of other words in other languages.

Have you ever had this debate before? What's your take on it? What is your perception of how other people view this debate around the world?

Who is a desplazado?

I get in a cab in the other night and the driver asks if I know where I'm going. "I just started this job a couple of weeks ago," he says. He looks young, probably my age or even a little younger.

So I ask where he was from and why he moved to Bogotá. He had lived his whole life on a farm with his family in Tolima, the departamento (equivalent of a state) next to Cundinamarca (where Bogotá is). He says that the guerrilla has been there for a while and that there aren't many job opportunities there. Part of his family has already moved to Bogotá, and the other part is still on the farm. He doesn't seem to want to talk much about it, but it gets me thinking.

What does it mean to be displaced in this country, which has the highest number of internally displaced persons in the world? Is this man, or someone like him, counted among the 3.67 or 5.2 million desplazados (depending on who you ask) in Colombia? He was not forced off of his land, some of his family members still live there, but he chose to leave because of the dire economic and social situation. If you choose to leave under these circumstances, how much of a choice do you have?

The irbutz

Jerry and I aren't the traditional married couple. We both changed our names when we got married. Jerry's the more fashionable one, I'm the one who plays on a sports team. We quit stable jobs in a city we loved to move to Colombia.

And ever since we've been married, we have always lived with other people. Our reasoning is this: Jerry and I really love hanging out with each other and can tend to want to stay at home and hang out rather than go out. Living with other people is an automatic social life, it's cheaper, it's a great way to make really good friends and meet new people through your roommates.

We love this lifestyle and have thought about what we will do when we decide we want to have children. And then we realized - why can't we have our cake and eat it, too? On top of that, why can't we create the kind of Jewish community we dream of? Thus, our idea of creating an irbutz was born. Ir in Hebrew means city, and butz is taken from the word kibbutz, a form of communal living in Israel. [Side note: We didn't come up with the name or the concept, apparently there are Jews out there like us who have already done this thing.]

The idea is this: live together in a huge house in a city (Jerry's thought - buy an old embassy in DC) with a few other Jewish families. Have regular Shabbat dinners together, celebrate all of the Jewish holidays together, create a community.

Much of the reasoning behind this is our desire to raise our children within a Jewish community. In modern-day American Jewry, the center of Jewish life outside of the family is the synagogue - and while we believe that synagogues are important, we also believe that there should be Jewish communities available to Jews from all different backgrounds. Our irbutz would provide a Jewish home to the broader Jewish community of all ages - Shabbat dinners, Jewish discussions, movie nights, and holiday celebrations would all take place there.

This idea was also inspired by Moishe House, an organization that sets up group houses for 20-something Jews in cities all over the world. Their rent is subsidized in exchange for running events for young Jews in that city. The concept was that Jews in their 20s were falling out of touch with the Jewish community - beyond college, but not ready to join a synagogue. Moishe House is working to fill that gap. We see our irbutz as a natural extension of this concept, a community center that is open to people of all ages. We have also thought about pitching this idea to existing Jewish organizations (like Moishe House) to seek out funding.

There are lots of questions to answer, here are only a few:

1. Who would we live with? How many families would live there? What are the guidelines for selecting who lives in the house?
2. Where would we do this?
3. What are the rules of the irbutz? What is shared? How would food work? How would money work for communal expenses? How do you resolve disputes? What are legal ramifications? How do we divide up chores?
4. What exactly does it mean to make this home Jewish? This is obviously a question that comes up even if you aren't living in an irbutz. What do you do on a daily basis to make your home Jewish, to incorporate Judaism into your family life? Why is this important?

If you have any thoughts on more questions that need to be asked or general feedback on the concept, leave them in the comments. Also, if you know anyone who currently lives or has previously lived on an irbutz or someone who you think would be interested, please let us know!