This is where I'm thinking of going over the next hundred days, for Part II of How the World Sees America. Bosnia & Herzegovina, Turkey and Syria to the Philippines and Indonesia to Colombia and Argentina. What do you think?

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Upcoming Talk at UC Berkeley on April 11.

Radio/TV/Web

BBC's "The World" Radio Interview

WBAI's "WakeUp Call"

WNYC'S "On the Media"

NPR'S "All Things Considered"

On Point with Fareed Zakaria and Robert Koehane: Windows Media or Real Player

The New America Foundation: The 'W' Generation
The Event Mainpage and CSPAN Coverage

Darshan TV

World Politics Review

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Part Two Travels

Commemorating Muharram in My Grandmother's "House"

This year, for the first time as an adult, I was among the 2000 women who came to commemorate the 9th of Muharram at my grandmother's house in Lahore, Pakistan. Though I was born, raised, and educated in the U.S., these past five days in Lahore moved me deeply, and helped me find myself.

Widowed at 36 with six children, my grandmother named Hamida Bano Ahmed began to gather women at her home in Lahore for ten days each year to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The groups grew larger over the years. Just before she passed away 25 years ago, she insisted that the house continue to be used for this purpose. It has been.

Now a large mosque has replaced my grandmother's home but the same women continue to gather, share their grief, and pay their respects to God, the Prophet, and his family.

Only women are at the pulpit and only women are in attendance at "Ahmed House," as it is known around Pakistan. It is a place where the seemingly irreconcilable worlds of gender, religion, culture and passion come together, because here, they belong together. And it is where I, as an American born Pakistan, can blend into the crowd.

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Train station in Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan

Guest post by John Wehner in Kazakhstan

I'm on a Soviet-era train lumbering across the steppe of Kazakhstan. Out my window the world’s 9th largest nation stretches endlessly: white, flat, dotted with the occasional village or looming grain elevator. And because there’s not much to see outside, my attention turns to those around me; this is a great place to see how some Kazakhs and Russians view America.

On this 31-hour journey northward, I am joined in my compartment by a young Kazakh woman, an ethnic Russian man with his mother-in-law, and an elderly Russian couple. Our sleeping area consists of three bunk beds, arranged in a “U”, with a table near the window and a hallway running through the “U’s” base. There is no door, and very little privacy. But that doesn’t bother these Kazakhs, all of whom look well-fed and relatively cheerful, lounging in informal jeans, T-shirts or sleepwear.

It’s a diverse group. All ask endless questions about my American life. I’m 23, and I’m here to teach English to Kazakhs in the capital. I’ve been here over a year, and am used to the regular questions about politics, fashion, skyscrapers. But on this train ride, things get spicy when Kosovo comes up.

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