Text & Photos: Julie Schwietert Collazo

If you’d have asked me two months ago whether I agreed that we should close Guantanamo, I would have said “Yes!” without thinking. Like many Americans and citizens of the world, I viewed the US naval base and detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the current administration and its foreign policy and defense decisions.

I probably knew more about Guantanamo than your ordinary American. I knew that the base was booty my country acquired (or commandeered) in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War. I knew it was the oldest US naval base outside the continental US. I knew about the treaty governing the base’s perpetual lease, that it had temporarily housed both Cuban and Haitian refugees in the mid 1990s, and that Fidel Castro has allegedly never cashed any of the annual $4,085 checks the US drafts to pay rent on this patch of land in southeast Cuba.

I also knew that Guantanamo–American shorthand for the base–is actually a town in Cuba, a dusty, desert town where 30 year olds look a good 20 years older.

Like most Americans, I also knew that my government had used Guantanamo Bay as a legal black hole in the global War on Terror, converting facilities on the base into housing for “detainees” who are considered to be dangerous “enemy combatants,” and, at one point, using those facilities to conduct “interrogations” in which activities like waterboarding, hooding, and extreme sensory deprivation raised questions about what torture really is and whether “civilized” Americans would use it as a policy instrument.

So would I have said “Close Guantanamo” two months ago?

Yes.

Without hesitation.

But then I went there.
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President-elect Barack Obama, for whom I voted and who I support unequivocally, has articulated his commitment to close Guantanamo Bay as soon as possible. In a November 12 Washington Post article, staff writer Peter Finn reported:

The Obama administration will launch a review of the classified files of the approximately 250 detainees at Guantanamo Bay immediately after taking office, as part of an intensive effort to close the U.S. prison in Cuba, according to people who advised the campaign on detainee issues.

As of late October, when I visited, 255 men were still being held at the US military’s Joint Task Force (JTF) detention facility at Guantanamo.

Many of the men being held–referred to euphemistically as “detainees”–were removed from their home countries and transported to this island, where they have lived in captivity for several years.

They have been awaiting trial and due process (hell, most of them have been awaiting formal charges) ever since, with few ever seeing their day in court. Those who have could legitimately question whether justice was served, as military judges are appointed to panels that hear detainees’ cases.

A good number of the men have actually been cleared for release by an administrative review board. But here’s the problem: They have nowhere to go. According to sources on the base, the men who could leave Guantanamo Bay today can’t go anywhere because no country wants them. It’s too dangerous for them to go home. Yet no other country is stepping up and volunteering to give them temporary or permanent shelter.

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There are things we can’t understand unless we see them.

Things we can understand intellectually or emotionally, but fail to grasp entirely until we’re staring them–literally–in the face.

And that’s the case with Guantanamo.

Close Guantanamo.

It sounds logical enough.

Easy enough.

But as with economic bail outs and battlefront pull outs, closing Guantanamo is only easy if you’re thinking about it from afar.

In the abstract.

Rhetorically.

When you start to think about the bigger picture, the longer term, the human consequences, and–especially–when you see it… nothing is quite as easy as it seems.

Do I want to see the detention facility closed?

Yes.

But not unless we have a realistic plan in place to transfer men whose true lives are poorly understood into societies where they have a chance to live. Not unless we’re ready to acknowledge that the complete miscarriage of justice for which President Bush is responsible is likely to have effects that we’re not remotely prepared to handle.

Closing Guantanamo is the easy part. It’s what comes after that is hard… and which no one is talking about.

Text & Photos: Julie Schwietert Collazo

This time last week, I was in Chile, sitting at the base of the most amazing mountains I’ve ever seen in my life, marveling at the fact that the clouds that had been hanging around for the preceding two weeks had disappeared as my colleagues and I rolled into town.

“Life is SO good,” I thought to myself. “I have the best job in the world!”

“I dunno; I kinda feel guilty,” one of my colleagues said about the trip after we polished off another pricey, hours-long, multi-course dinner in an upscale restaurant in Santiago. “Don’t,” I said, relishing the lemon sorbet palate cleanser that had been set before me. He looked at me dubiously.

“First of all,” I continued, “a press trip–as amazing as it is–actually is WORK. And don’t forget that. It’s not mucking port-a-potties or paper pushing, that’s for sure, but it IS work.”

I paused for another mouthful of lemon sorbet.

“You get up at 6 AM each morning, you’re on the road until midnight at least, and you need to be gathering article material all day long.” Pause. “Second,” I said, swirling the last bite of sorbet around on my spoon, “the sponsor really wants you here. And they expect something out of it. Don’t forget that either,” I concluded, as I laid the spoon down.

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What is a press trip?

As the name suggests, a press trip is a trip–usually two to seven days in length–that is sponsored by a tourism bureau, a hospitality industry provider, or an advertising agency and which is arranged specifically for writers and journalists. The goal of the trip is to inform writers about the destination and its attractions by giving them first-hand experience of a place. The sponsor or host of the trip typically expects that the writer will produce one or more feature-length articles about the destination in order to increase exposure and stimulate tourism in that area.

The nature of press trips varies considerably. Many press trip sponsors pay all expenses for the trip: roundtrip airfare to and from the destination, lodging, meals, activities, and gratuities. Other press trip hosts pay for all expenses except airfare. Clearly, the intention of the sponsor is to show the media who are on the trip the best facets of their country or city, and they will go out of their way to impress writers and journalists, putting them up in 5 star hotels, taking them to luxurious restaurants, and offering them activities that most writers would find impossible to enjoy on their meager salaries.

I know plenty of writers who are opposed to press trips. They feel that press trips are artificial. They argue that writers can’t possibly get an objective sense of a place–be it a restaurant or a hotel–if someone else is footing the gasp-inducing bill. They contend that hospitality providers are on their best behavior for press trip participants, and that writers are gently coerced to write favorable articles in return for the incredible free experiences they enjoy.

But having participated in several press trips, hosted by very different sponsors and in very different places, I have to say that those arguments are not only weak; they’re untenable.

First, if you’re a writer with integrity, you will write articles that convey your actual experiences, not some glowing, polished, barely concealed sales pitch that is at odds with what you saw and learned.

In Chile, we were toured around a resort that boasts the largest manmade pool in the world… right on the ocean (which, by the way, you couldn’t see). As we tooled around the pool on a motorized boat and stepped out onto an artificial beach, en route to an underwater bar with an exotic fish aquarium, I could barely conceal how appalled I was. In my mind, it was an environmental, social, and cultural monstrosity, and there’s no way I’ll write anything positive about it.

Second, if you’re a responsible writer, you won’t rely only on the programmed elements of the trip itself to provide you with information and insight into the destination. In fact, you’ll use the contacts you make (you ARE making contacts, right?) to gather more information on the ground than you ever could have gathered from afar. For example, while I was in Chile, I had questions about safety for travelers. I mentioned this to my sponsor, who was able to arrange an interview with the Sub-Secretary of the Interior of Chile. It was a contact I would have been unlikely to have made on my own, and the Sub-Secretary provided me with vital information and insight that will enhance some of the articles I write about the country.

Third, hospitality providers are rarely even aware that you are a writer or journalist being sported about the country, and even if they are, line staff rarely recognize the implications of treating you with the same surly attitude that characterizes their interaction with any other guest. The service at our all-inclusive resort in Torres del Paine was pretty atrocious, especially for the price, and there’s no way I could or would squeeze some glowing review out of my experience there. Even when your sponsors give hospitality providers a heads-up that their incoming guests are VIPs, it’s impossible for them to control hotel desk agent or waiter behavior. True colors will eventually shine through. If you’re an astute observer, you’ll see them and take note. But if you’re punch drunk on your third free cocktail, you’re not going to see them. That’s not the sponsor’s fault; it’s yours.

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Press trips give you first-hand experience and knowledge of a place. They give you the opportunity to meet people who can answer questions you’d otherwise be tempted to just Google. They give you, if YOU are responsible and resourceful, contacts that you can leverage over the course of your career.

Press trips also give you boundless opportunities to write about a destination based on your experiences. Those articles don’t need to be positive–and shouldn’t be– unless your experiences were positive. But the outcome of your experiences largely depends upon you. Are you a good listener? Do you ask questions that help you see the place for the complex, nuanced country that it is? Are you able to collect the stories that even your sponsors may not see, the human interest stories that really tell about the place you’re visiting? You owe it to the sponsor–and to yourself–to sit down at the end of the trip or within a specified timeframe afterwards, to talk about your experiences, the sponsor’s expectations, and the articles you expect to write and publish based on the trip.

Press trips don’t need to be sleazy. They’re only uncomfortable if you’re viewing the trip as an all-expenses paid vacation rather than part of your job. Keep your eyes and ears open, keep your cocktail consumption to a respectable minimum, and don’t check your critical sensibilities at immigration. Press trips can be incredible experiences for you and the sponsor. Both of you share the responsibility for making sure that’s the case.

Text & Photos: Francisco Collazo
Translation: Julie Schwietert Collazo
[vease abajo para la version en espanol]
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I already have the Sunday edition of The New York Times.

This time, I made sure I was home on Saturday night because I’m no longer confident I’ll get my copy if I don’t act quickly.

We bought two copies of this one, one to read and the other to keep.

My plan was simple: get up in the morning on November 5, buy The Washington Post, and then buy The New York Times once we were back in New York. It was an historic edition, one I wanted to save forever.

Simple,right? Well, it wasn’t as simple as it seemed or as easy as the plan sounded.

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The day of the elections, my wife and I were in Washington, D.C., blogging about the results with a group of writers at NPR. It was an incredible experience, considering what the election meant for Americans and given the history of the United States.

The room where we were working was a beehive, enthusiastic and intense, with results and emotions alike bouncing from one side of the room to the other: “Obama is ahead in Florida!” someone shouted with emotion. “McCain won Virginia!” someone else shouted, and the room filled with breaking news squawking from three televisions and a large screen on which the election results were being refreshed every few minutes by NPR. The moment was transformative, not just for me, but for people around the world.

During my stay in Washington, D.C., I’d walked along the streets before we started blogging, visiting polling places and looking for Obama political posters: nothing! It seemed like the earth had just swallowed them up. It was as if there had never been a campaign in his name.

The next day, we woke up with the idea of buying the newspaper in Washington, but all of the newsstands were empty. There was no way to find a copy of the paper anywhere in the city. We tried to find the paper at various shops and gas stations between Washington and New York, making frequent stops at restaurants, newsstands, and pharmacies, but the result was always the same: “We don’t have any copies.” “We ran out at 10 AM.” “Sorry!”

At this point in the journey, I began to feel defeated and annoyed. “How could this happen?” I asked myself again and again. Isn’t this the country where you can find anything you need or want?!
I started to speculate that the shortage of papers was a press conspiracy intended to stimulate demand and increase prices, a thought that made me sad.

We arrived in New York at 11 PM and drove around the city looking for copies of The New York Times. The same bad luck followed us. Defeat and depression! The first Black American was elected to the highest position in the United States and I had no newspaper! I couldn’t get over it.

We bought copies of other newspapers—Le Monde, El Tiempo, and others—but for me, it wasn’t the same. I wanted the November 5 edition of the Times; the rest didn’t matter to me.

A scene from the movie “Schindler’s List” came to mind, the one in which a high official for the German army tries to convince Schindler that he can “replace” the workers he’s lost when they’re “accidentally” sent to the concentration camp with a fresh batch of workers. “The train comes and we turn it around,” the official says, but Oskar interrupts him, saying, “Yes, yes, I understand, but I wanted these!” I know the feeling.

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My wife was suffering, watching me in this state, and she decided to order the November 5 edition directly from the office of The New York Times… at the price of $14.95 per copy. But even getting this copy took days of patience. Every time she went online to complete the order, the server crashed. Six times or more, the same problem. But finally, her order was processed. I felt relieved and vindicated.

Now, I have not one, but 10 copies of The New York Times, for a cost of $224.50. We learned that after every attempt she made to buy the paper, she was charged for a full order. Well, at least I can breathe now: one is too many and a thousand is never enough!

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Uno es mucho, y mil no es suficiente

La edicion del domingo del New York Times la tengo ya. Esta vez me aseguro que esta este en casa el sabado en la noche “por si las moscas” ya que no confio que encontrare una copia si no actuo con rapidez.

Compramos dos copias de este, una para leer y la otra para guardarla para futuras generaciones. Mis ambiciones eran simple: me levanto en la manana del dia 5, compro copia de El Washington Post y una vez en Nueva York compro una copia del New York Times, y estas las guardare para la posteridad. Verdad? Bueno, no es tan simple como parece ni tan facil como suena.

El dia de las elecciones mi esposa y yo estabamos en Washington, D.C pasando los resultados de las elecciones instantaneas en la red electronica. Una experiencia unica por lo que estas elecciones significaban para nosotros y para la historia reciente de los Estados Unidos.

El salon donde estabamos hubicados parecia una colmena de abejas por la intensidad y entusiasmo con que los resultados y emociones corrian de una esquina a la otra: Obama esta arriba en la Florida-uno gritaban con emocion- McCain gano en Virginia-otro gritaban y el salon se llenaba de noticias recientes unidas al sonido de los tres televisores y de la pantalla gigante que nos alimentaba con las noticias frescas y recientes que llegaban a los studios de NPR (Radio Publica Nacional en sus siglas en espanol). Esta experiencia era transformativa no solo para mi sino para muchos alrededor del mundo.

Durante mi estancia en Washington, D.C. sali de la emisora antes de comenzar la transmision por todos los sitios electorales para buscar las pancartas politicas de Obama y nada. Habia una ausencia total de todo lo refente a este. Parecia que se lo habia tragado la tierra. Era como si nunca se hubiera hecho campana politica con su nombre. Nada!

Al dia siguiente nos levantamos en la manana con la idea de comprar el diario en Washington y en cada uno de los estanquillos estaban vacios, no hubo manera de encontrar una copia de este en ningun lado de la ciudad. Tratamos de comprarlo en el camino desde Washington hasta Nueva York hacienda paradas frecuentes en gasolineras, cafeterias, estanquillo de revistas y periodicos y los resultado fueron los mismos –No hay copias, estas se agotaron como a las 10 de la manana, lo siento! Ya a este punto en el camino me sentia derrotado y molesto. Como puede pasar esto? Me preguntaba una y otra vez, no es este el pais donde puedes encontrarlo todo? Ahora estoy pensando que es una conspiracion por parte de la prensa para que halla demanda y subir los precios- pense con mucha tristeza.

Llegamos a la ciudad de Nueva York como a las 11 de la noche y andamos toda la ciudad para conseguir copias del New York Times y corrimos la misma suerte una y otra vez. Me senti derrotado y muy deprimido por muchas razones: El primer Afroamericano electo para la mas alta posicion en los Estados Unidos de America y no tengo esa documentacion para anos venideros; Que le digo a mis hijos cuando me pregunten por que no tengo una copia original de esa noticia. No puedo perdonarme esto!.

Compramos copias de varios periodicos de Nueva York: Le Monde, El Tiempo y otros, pero para mi no eran lo mismo, yo queria la edicion de Noviembre 5 y los demas no me importaban de la misma manera que este. Me vino a la mente una escena de la pelicula “La Lista de Schindler” donde un alto oficial del ejercito aleman trata de convencerlo, diciendole a Oskar Schindler que el podria “re-emplazar” a los trabajadores que el habia perdido al enviarlos por accidente a Auschwitz (campo de aniquilacion y exterminio en masa), por un cargamento fresco de prisioneros que recien llegarian: El tren llega y nosotros los desviamos –el official Aleman dice- y Oskar interrumpiendole le dice- Si, si yo entiendo, pero yo quiero estos!- de hecho la escena tomo un significado profundo y personal. Para mi era una revelacion muy intima y emocional.

Mi esposa esta sufriendo al verme sufrir y decide ordenar esta directamente desde las oficinas del New York Times a un precio de $14.95 cada copia. Obtener esta copia fue un trabajo de dias y de mucha paciencia. Cada vez que entraba a la pagina para completar la order, esta se caia o se desconectaba, o un anuncio le decia: “Debido al volumen de pedidos no podemos procesar su orden. Por favor trate de Nuevo” y asi ocurrio por 6 o mas veces hasta que en uno de esos ultimos intentos logro ordenarlo. Senti alivio y me senti vendicado por todo mis esfuerzos mentales y la tensiones de no tener esa copia. Ahora, tengo no una, pero 10 copias del New York Times por un costo total de $224.50 ya que despues que cada intento que se hizo este se proceso como un pedido completo.

Al final, puedo respirar y comprender el dicho: Uno es mucho y mil nunca es suficiente!

After an incredible week in Chile, I’m back home and it’s time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, as the case may be).

Don’t get me wrong: I love my home office here in New York City.

But after spending the past week either outdoors or looking out onto these views…

it’s gonna be tough getting back in my NYC groove.

Text & Photos: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Translated by: Francisco Collazo

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[vease abajo para la version en espanol]

There are a hundred thoughts that pass through your mind when you’re standing in front of glaciers and icebergs in Patagonian Chile.

You think about time and the environment, about beauty and what it means to see something with your own eyes that you’ve only heard about.

And you think about dinosaur water.

As we trekked across the rocky beach ripped with wind, Alison Brick (a writer for Vagablogging) and I listened to the sound of the water lap up against the crystals of ice that lined the shore like an enormous diamond necklace.

“It sounds like windchimes,” she said, and she was right.

We walked up to a high point to look out towards the glacier and to get close shots of the icebergs.

And then we came back down to the water again. Alison picked up a piece of ice and held it in her hands.

“I’m holding dinosaur water!” she said with a tone of awe.

Her spontaneous exclamation was perfect. What strikes you more than anything as you stand at the foot of icebergs in Chilean Patagonia is the sense that you are just the latest addition in the universe’s long and lovely timeline.

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Hay cientos de ideas que pasan por tu mente cuando estas frente a frente a los glaciales y tempanos de hielo en la patagonia de Chile.

Uno piensa en el tiempo y en el medio ambiente, de la belleza de ser testigo y ver las cosas que antes solamente las oias decir y ahora las puedes ver con tus propios ojos.

Y piensas de estas aguas tan viejas como el dinosaurio.

Mientras caminamos en la playa rocosa acosada por los fuertes vientos, Alison Brick (una escritora para Vagablogging) y yo, nos detenemos a escuchar el sonido de las olas que golpean las formaciones de cristales de hielo que se forman en la orilla como si fuera un collar de diamantes.

“Esto suenan como moviles de viento,” me dijo ella, que de hecho era cierto.

Ambas caminamos hacia el punto mas elevado y cercano al glacial para tomar una mejor foto a los tempanos de hielo.

Luego bajamos a la orilla. Alison recoge un cristal de hielo en sus manos.

“Tengo en mis manos aguas tan viejas como el dinosaurio!” dice con tono de sorpresa y asombro.

Su exclamacion espontanea fue perfecta.

Lo que mas te choca de toda esta experiencia en la Patagonia Chilena mientras observas los tempanos de hielo, es el hecho de que te das cuenta que eres el ultimo objeto agregado a esta linea de tiempo y maravillas.

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