Pamoja

[Hi. I found the following text over the weekend, when I was searching for the letters I wrote to former Minnesota Twins players. (I asked several of them to put me up in their mansions while I went to graduate school. I did not receive any correspondence in return.) The text is an email I sent on behalf of the student senate - we were hosting a get-together for all the grad students. It was called "Pamjoa", for reasons I'm still not quite comprehending. Regardless of its name, we needed to get the asses in the seats, as they say. I thought this email would do the trick. It's ridiculous, ridiculously long, and of little interest to anyone.]

I hope you are all considering to attend Pamoja: An Evening of Community. Wednesday evening will surely prove to be a good time.

I'm sure more than a few of you have thought, or even wondered aloud, "Pamoja? Why is it called Pamoja? Well, I'll tell you why.

There's a reason for everything, and--

No, stop. Wait. I'm sorry. I'm off to a bad start already. That's a lie, the thing about a reason for everything. Reassuring as it may sound, it's simply not true; I don't want to start off with a lie like that. What message would I be sending? A message of untruth, or, at the very least, a misleading memorandum -- and that's, like, the Best Case Scenario.

There is not a reason for everything, and that fact is a difficult thing to wrap one's head around. Still, for some things a reason exists, and one of these reasoned entities is the naming of Pamoja. After an extensive survey of young professionals, the name for the back-to-school Student Senate-sponsored event was shortlisted to three. They were, in order of popularity:

1. Twilight Enchantment
2. Banquet Under the Sea

(and)

3. Pinnacle: A Remembrance of Heart

Clearly, Student Senate had its work cut out for itself. After separately voting on the best event name at four separate meetings, the deadlock was broken. "Banquet Under the Sea" won out by the narrowest of margins, and planning began in earnest. Things hit a snag rather quickly, however, when it brought to our attention that seawater caused unfortunate aftertastes in the dishes we planned to serve. This detail -- in combination with the grim realization that humans cannot dine or survive for extended periods underwater -- was great enough to abort the underwater buffet idea. I thank heavens to this day for the rehearsal that brought these points to our attention; I fear the loss of life may have been far greater if we had proceeded as planned.

So, there we were, a mere two months away from the event date, without a name for our gathering. Down on my luck, I turned to my usual therapy -- a steamy helping of alphabet soup. As I sipped the broth from a plastic spoon -- irregularly shaped due to unfortunate, improper placement in the automatic dishwasher -- I happened to glance down at my bowl's literary content. Clearly spelled out between a bit of celery and a chunk of chicken (the manufacturers claim it's 100% All White Meat!, but I have my doubts) was the word that inspired it all: "PARTOFME".

Granted, it was hardly a word at all, more like 3 words in one magical grouping, but it did the trick. A switch in my noggin flipped, and I rushed to the file cabinet in the next room. Inside was the answer we had been searching for: 3,000 pieces of correspondence, the result of an intensive, nationwide letter-writing campaign to Student Senate the previous semester. All across America, both youths and adolescents alike sent their voices soaring past the walls of their middle schools. They urged us to, should we sponsor a gathering of public health students and faculty, name the event "Pamoja".

Without bothering to alert the others, I immediately began researching the etymology of Pamoja. What I found was alarming. Not only was its aesthetic value off the charts, Pamoja's literal and figurative meanings were perfectly suited for its designation. Clearly, the letter-writing youth of America were on to something…something BIG.

It turns out that Pamoja is a Swahili word for "together". Can you believe it? What a happy coincidence! Here we are, planning an event to bring together two groups of people, and we get a name that MEANS WHAT WE'RE DOING!! Amazing. And it didn't stop there -- as my research continued, I found that "together" is actually an English word for "pamoja"!

Furthermore, "together" is taken from the essential derivative "ghedh", which in turn becomes words like "gadrian" (meaning "gather", Old English) and "gaduri" (meaning "in a body", Germanic). Just fascinating. Didn't I tell you it was fascinating? Here we are, "gathering" people (or, "bodies") into a place that originally was going to be a "body" of water…I mean, does it get any better than Pamoja?

Pamoja, were it to appear in a common English language dictionary, would be placed adjacent to "pampero", a strong, cold southwest wind that blows across the Pampas. It's cold here in Minnesota -- where wind sometimes blows -- where we're having Pamoja! And it's being held at the Weisman Museum, a museum that just HAPPENS to face the southwest!

Books of learning scattered across the floor, my hands shook as I sat there, trying to light a cigarette. My anxiety was so great that I failed to accomplish that task; indeed, my anxiety was so momentous that I had forgotten that I do not smoke -- in fact, my anxiety was so very, very big that I had no recollection of stopping my research briefly, walking outside, punching a passerby in the stomach, taking his wallet and cigarettes, then calmly moving back inside my abode and attempting to enter Flavor Country.

And you should be excited, too. Pamoja could very well be the last event we ever attend. Not the last function we go to at Gehry's Wacky Shack, not the last gathering at the University of Minnesota -- the last event, like, ever. The world could end immediately after the interactive entertainment we have planned for Pamoja comes to a close. Don't believe me? What if I told you that "Pampas" was a vast plain of south-central South America from the lower Parana R. to south-central Argentina? Am I the only one that sees the significance? Pamoja? Pampero? Pampas? Parana R.? Vast plain? A vast plain is, like, only the most OBVIOUS reference to the all-encompassing void of space known as the ever-expanding universe, where our souls will drift for all eternity after the planet we know as Earth implodes upon itself.

Please, I urge you to come to Pamoja before life as we know it comes to an end. Also, there will be food and drinks.

Bye,

Student Senate