Category Archives: culture

a day in the life

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Sometime in the last few months I picked up a new personal meal-prompted ritual. And it only slightly (and admittedly irrationally) bothers me that onlookers might presume I’m Christian (which I, although a fan of Jesus “the pilgrim,” am not) when I bow my head, close my eyes, and whisper down the inner halls of awareness my gratitude for and debt (in some currency divine) to all the people, events and natural elements that conspired in order to provide the offering at my table.

However this exercise is often a stretch of the imagination for me (as well as others raised in “developed” countries) where the distance that my food has travelled is so far that it often leaves me an equal number of emotional miles distant from knowing anything of the source of my sustenance. This fact evidenced by the fruit in the photo above, which, contrary to many 1st-world-first-guesses is not a cranberry, but the colorful coat of the very same coffee bean (coming in equally flamboyant shades of yellow as well) that fuels the entire of the developed worlds’ digestive fire; moving along board meetings, news readings, exam studying and, in general, the full flush of the other bowel movements of (at least) the American social, political, work and educational systems.

So in an effort to follow the umbilical cord of our addiction to “happy-ccinos” (as my co-leader likes to call cappuccinos) back to the pachamama (“mother earth”) source, we (me and my students) wrapped palm-thatched baskets around our waists and took to the fields of a local Guatemalan coffee finca (“farm”) for an exercise that those of us working in “experiential education” like to call, “A Day In The Life”; which is essentially our own little “life-swapping” reality TV series — minus the cameras, crew, cast and lack of credibility.

In order to combat reverse discrimination by the bugs (which consider the blood under our lighter skin of a tastier blend) we slather ourselves in mosquito and sun repellents. As I smear the cream across my neck and face I feel quite like I’m preparing for the frontline of a war. And why not? With statistics like the fact that the Guatemalans that I will be working alongside will spend a full day filling a single 100-pound sack, for which they will receive a daily wage of 25 Quetzales (or $3.33 USD) which will, in turn, need to be spread thin enough to feed an (average) family with five or more children — well warring countries might not be involved, but a daily and frontline fight for survival certainly is.

But as is usually the case with all my assumptions about the lives of those living in “undeveloped countries,” instead of the bugs and sun, I should have come better prepared for my personal battle against the stuck-up and self-centered nature of statistics and stereotypes. Thinking back, I’m not sure what exactly I expected, but as soon as the camion (“carrier truck”) drops us off on the most beautiful sloping hillside with panoramic views of looming volcanoes and lush valleys, I immediately begin to question if we could really call the boring synthetic box of an office cubicle a more “civilized” or “healthy” working environment. Breathing in the tropical forest is like drinking water and the breathtaking views inspire such heavy inhalations of an air so sweet, rich and refreshing that even the thought of an air-conditioned office closes my throat on a choke.

One of the Guatemalans with us suddenly yodels into a valley of the rainforest. And to my dismay and delight, a dozen yodels, from all sides of the hills and in all tones of the human vocal rainbow, sing echoing yodels of geographic location and greeting right back. Based on the information relayed in the secret yodel code (of which we are hardly privy to comprehending), our group tromps to our destination with the ungraceful and shuffling step of those foreign to the jungle and ignorant of the language it, too, speaks.

When I finally I arrive at my first coffee bush, a sweet woman, with wrinkles appropriately placed in proof that she spends more time smiling than not, quickly explains to me the dynamics and detail of a full and efficient pick. Her hands move with expert quickness as she demonstrates the art of defining that which is ripe and that which is not; “See? More red than green. This one, yes. This one, yes. The black ones, yes. This green one, no.” Her hands move like a wand over each branch, turning a heavy red mass to a thin and trim green one. With each swipe of her magic hands limbs bounce up and lift with new lightness and life. My imagination is (ever) active and I fancy myself hearing the branches, when they spring, sighing with appreciative unburdened relief.

The woman’s magic-wand hands stop and it takes me awhile for my fascination to wear and my imagination to wander back to reality before I realize that she’s looking at me expectedly and offering me my turn at a try. I move my hand to the bush but I’m slow and I stumble; “This one, yes. This one, um, no. This one is equal in green and red, yes or no?” The woman is immensely patient; a virtue, I fathom, in which she’s a practiced expert given the amount of time she studies in the shade of her guru, Mother Nature.

I’m not a quick learner. In fact, I pride myself on being a slow one. And so at the expense of swiftness and with deliberate concentration to detail, I diligently begin to clean my first bush of berries. And as I do so I realize that, contrary to all my petty presumptions, this is surprisingly pleasant work! My SPF 35 war paint was hardly necessary for, had I asked instead of assuming, I would have learned that this is shade-grown coffee — and thus the sun pleasantly trickles down its warmth between the tall macadamia nut trees planted and placed specifically for the purpose. Work songs, location yodels and laughter bounce and banter with the songbirds of the valley. Children too work alongside us but against all my “big bad” notions of “child labor laws,” these kids are talking, laughing and playing with their parents and neighbors, and I question if the children in neighboring continents could really be better off putting an equal amount of finger power into navigating a gameboy or television remote control. This being one of the very few organic farms in the country, no masks or gloves or worries over future birth weights and cancers are necessary. (Although at this thought, I do look up and envision for a minute, an American plane flying overhead and, without warning, darkening my sky with billowing clouds of poisonous powder. This “plan” as part of some covert and corrupt “aid” package devised — in misguided aim to eliminate the naturally thriving coca plants that grow innocently in lands Latin American — by the upturned and addicted noses of Northern neighbors wrongfully projecting blame.) But back to the berries — they are beautiful! And compared to their red fruit cousins of the forest and field they are (thankfully) thorn-free and come off the bush with incredible ease. And yes, it might be true that I have a touch of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) that’s being tickled with a curious feather of fancy by each green and lean branch picked (so obviously!) clean. But recognizing the satisfaction as not so different from that which I feel after sorting a full email inbox, I muse that productivity and organization perhaps are universally innate human inclinations met by many, and/or any, repetitive motion.

But I am only a silly American girl worthy a place to observe, but none to judge. And so I turn to the woman working beside me and ask her instead, “Do you like working here?”

Her mouth slips back into the smile that fits her face so well and she responds, “Of course! I love it here. But it wasn’t always this way. The owner of this finca did not pay us for two years and during those years it was very, very hard. But we organized ourselves and brought him to trial, and the banks, they didn’t get him to give us our money, but they did decide to hand over the land to us, the workers. And we still owe so much money to the bank. But this land is ours. And all the work we put into it comes back to us. And I am so happy to work my own land — with my own people — that it doesn’t matter if I only make 25 Q per day. Because I know that it is fair and that I am investing in the future of this land for my children and for our community.”

I mentally pinch myself a reminder that this story is unique, special and single; that the majority of coffee pickers in Guatemala are discriminated against for being indigenous and work in dire conditions under corrupt and manipulative ladino management for far under the (un-enforced) national minimum wage.

And then I revisit a memory of myself in high school; skipping sixth period for a jaunt to the Starbucks down the street, where I place an order for a non-fat, extra-froth, tall vanilla latte…and slap down an amount of cash that easily surpasses this woman’s entire daily wage. And it suddenly occurs to me to wonder under what corrupt and manipulative management the ladino finca owners succumb. I wander up the chain of responsibility, above the ladino owners, above the slick-talking multilingual middlemen, above the multi-national and mega-corporations, and there, on top of my pyramid, I find myself — the ignorant consumer. I hang my head in shame with the realization that slavery in America wasn’t outlawed; it was simply exported. And with this new consciousness, I can no longer hide my culpability in either ignorance or distance.

“Do you like picking coffee?” the woman wakes me from my shame with this question rooted in piercingly pure curiosity.

“Yes I do,” I eagerly and honestly respond, “especially because I’ll never drink another cup of coffee again without, first, a pause and prayer of respect, responsibility, awareness and appreciation.”

In response to my pledge, the warm smile of the woman spreads, and with this wave of expressed emotion, her magic wand goes again into action to relieve me too of my shame and guilt burden. Wordlessly forgiven, I gratefully sigh and then spring up light with renewed right intention.

*****

< More information on the “Nueva Alianza” fair trade coffee finca in Guatemala.

*****

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white and red aliens

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I close my eyes and step out of my house in Oregon.

I shuffle down the driveway to the mailbox to pick up the morning paper and right before I cross the street a black fume-exhausting bus with flamboyant red, orange and blue-tipped flames painted across its sides stops in the center of my street. There are block characters written across the front of the bus but I am not familiar with the language and thus can’t read the script. A door opens and strange music and voices pour out. The instruments and rhythm playing on the radio inside are foreign and awkward to me, but it’s the strange tone and alien chatter of the inhabitants that startles me into an uncomfortable shyness.

Someone from inside the bus yells a command in a harsh voice and I assume it means, “get out” for suddenly a river of small and dark people drain out of both the back and front of the bus. The people that fill the street are like nothing I’ve ever seen; they all wear the same red striped pants with what look like black chaps that wrap around their waists and snap with strange buttons in the front. Their long sleeved shirts are also of a same uniform color, but with huge collars and cuffs of finely woven material with intricately knit symbols that I imagine as a code to which I’m illiterate. Baskets are suddenly tossed from above the bus to their individual owners who, with long leather straps that wrap around the bodies and rest the weight on their foreheads, delicately heave up their luggage onto their backs and into carry-ready stance. Despite their obvious intrusion into a reality where they stick out sore, the people possess a oddly unwavering confidence that they are in the right place.

My 7-year old niece (who lives next door) hears the commotion outside, opens her door, yells a good-morning greeting and begins to run down towards me on the street. When I turn my attention back to the visitors, I see that all the people in red pants are jostling excitedly in their baskets, where upon they all pull out paper and pencils and begin to sketch notes and little picture likenesses of my niece. One of the observers smiles and points curiously to my niece’s blue denim jeans. Another steps to the front of the group, points at my niece’s pants, and starts explaining something in a calm and confident voice. The group responds with collective “oh”s of understanding.

I turn around and shoo my niece back to her house and when I speak the group suddenly hushes each other to hear my words. The apparent leader stands on her toes again and seems to translate what I’ve said, for the end of her sentence is met with a group grunt of comprehension.

I finally muscle up my courage and step up to this strange leader, “Who are you? Where do you come from? And why have you come here?”

The leader translates my questions to the group and then turns to me and speaks in a strangely accented but comprehensible version of my mother tongue, “Why, we’re people from a land far away called, Todos Santos. And we’ve come here to study your culture, your language, your clothing and your traditions. Can we make some pictures of your house, your family and of you?”

I open my eyes.

But it’s still so impossible for me to imagine.

What could the indigenous people of Todos Santos possibly make of the white alien invasion of blond-haired, blue-eyed, tall and pale-looking strangers with heavy backpacks and bug-eyed black sunglasses that wander through their streets with huge cameras, strange languages, awkward confidence and silly questions?

Or do I dare ask at the cost of my confidence being rightfully shaken?

*****

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this is india – part II

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(This story is a continuation of the post from last week, which can be read by scrolling down to the next entry entitled, “this is india – part I”.)

*****

The Rail Official instructs me to wait until he has finished confirming the seats of the rest of the passengers in the car.

As he leaves my cabin, another man shuffles in backwards from behind him. His shirt is ripped and slung low across his back to reveal a place in the taut dark skin covering his back where a shoulder bone should be – but is not. He waves something to get the attention of all the people in the cabin in front of me, and from my seat I can see them all turn their heads; They clean their fingernails, tend to children, look for lost pens in their baggage, or just look out the window — turning their attention to anything but that which flags for it.

The man shuffles backwards into my cabin and turns around. As an obvious foreigner, I already know that I will be targeted as his ripest prospect. Indeed as I have predicted, he, ignoring the rest in the cabin, staggers straight to the white beacon of wealth.

“Didi……Didi…….Didi…….Didi….”

In Bengali, he tells me the long sad story of his life. The only word I know, “Didi,” I learned a the Mother Teresa House of the Destitute where the inmates there also tugged on my clothing to ask for help, addressing me either as a sibling or mistaking me for the nun that I am not.

“Sister……Sister……Sister…….Sister….”

As he continues his story, he throws his remaining arm to my observation and mercy. I desperately want to clean my fingernails, tend to a child, look for a lost pen, or stare out the window — but I refuse my eyes this relief.

It is my chief complaint of “my” country that the people refuse to look at the ugly truths that stare at and ask recognition of them in the staggering headlines of today’s news. Instead, distance and ignorance are too conveniently allowed to pad the cushions of the couches of comfort and conformity.

And although I’ve known this couch well, I’ve sold it right back to the devil.

“No thank you. I’ll stand. And I’ll stick to my soul.”

And it hurts. It hurts to look.

But I make myself do it.

I look at the flesh on this man’s remaining arm, which like silly putty, seems to have been twisted, pulled and remolded to the bone. I follow its elongated length and observe how it abnormally narrows around the wrist and then protrudes as a lump in the pad of his fist. And when I am finished looking at the truth of his reality, I look directly into his eyes and bow my most humble respect to the divine within him.

He pauses for a second. Perhaps caught off guard by the unusual recognition.

And then he continues again…

“Didi, please.”

In Spanish or English I can easily explain that I prefer to give time and not money, but my Bengali leaves my actions to speak. And I’ve forgotten the pile of fruit I usually bring to meet such occasions.

“Sister, please.”

This time I give up. Although this situation has happened a hundred times, and I never become any more sure or unsure if it’s the right thing to do, I reach into my pocket and pull from it the change that he asks of me. He motions with his limb to his shirt pocket, into which I drop the coins.

“Thank you Sister.”

And he leaves.

And in three minutes, another brother with a different deformed limb will come. One shuffling. Another dragging. And then the next, crawling. There’s always another. For this is India.

*****

The Rail Officer waves to me and I follow his people-parting path. The isles are slim and busy and after a modest game of Train Twister (right hand holding onto blue seat, left foot over yellow suitcase) we finally arrive at the third class A/C sleeper car. He pushes through the sealed glass door, and in wave of cool breathable air, we enter another world of India.

Newspapers written in English are shuffled as eyes peek from behind smart spectacles for only momentary and disinterested glimpses of the new visitor. Women with rings of gold around their wrists, ankles, toes and ears encourage prized sons in pressed slacks to eat another of the samosas that they’ve so diligently made and delicately packaged for the trip away from home. Uncles discuss politics together, fluently switching between Bengali and English to better express their opinions or utilize Western business lingo. A group of young boys dressed in designer jeans, each with his signature version of long and colored hair, pass around an MP3 player and start to sing, in unison, a song by an American boy band.

I take the seat indicated to me by the Rail Official and he tells me he’ll be back later to collect my “increase in fare.”

A man sitting at the window across from me leans over, “Did you move up to A/C too? You know they save these seats just for us, people like you and me. They save entire cars for us. This is how they really make their money. Hey. Where are you from? America? You’re so lucky you speak English. You know you can travel anywhere in India speaking English. I don’t speak Bengali. Or Hindi. Or Tamil. I only speak English and the local language of my state, of which I’m sure you’ve never heard. Did you know that India’s constitution recognizes 18 major languages and then, on top of that, we have over another 1000 minor languages and dialects?”

The jovial youths in the cabin adjacent have put down the MP3 player and are now laughing loudly, exaggerating the depth and volume of their voices and then emphasize their joking and jestering by cussing in English…

“SHIT Man! Fucking cool!”

I sit stunned in shock of the worlds of class and caste separated by a single, sealed A/C door.

Where, I wonder, is India?

*****

A cleanly pressed and richly dressed couple move into my cabin and sit modestly next to each other. May is the month of marriages and even louder than the dark henna tattooed up and down the new bride’s arms are the fresh, careful and delicate mannerisms that the couple use to address each other.

“Arranged Marriage,” has for me lost all its (discovered ignorantly founded) stigma and what remains left is only pure fascination and intrigue. For the first time, I am stoked to be in a culture where it is not inappropriate to stare; Because I cannot keep me eyes off the pair.

The bride rests her eyes on the ground as she gracefully asks question after question of her new husband. His responses are reserved, well thought out, and gentle. They do not look each other in the eye when they speak to each other, but they laugh or smile sweetly in unison at the end of each of his conclusions. In between each of her questions and his answers, she looks up at him with wide, interested eyes and bats her lashes like I’ve only seen in Disney movies.

For hours I silently watch them, wondering if perhaps this might actually be the first time, after all the years, months, weeks and days of family chaperoned wedding preliminaries and festivities, that they’ve had the chance to be alone together?

And who trained this woman, I wonder? An army of aunts, mothers and grandmas of a former era? For she is such a model of courtesy, respect, modesty, and controlled femininity!

She looks up, bats her eyelashes, looks down, and asks another question.

He makes the motion of scrubbing his hands (to remove the henna tattooed on the tips of his fingers) and I can tell simply by the tone of her voice that she gives him some kind of advice on the art (and removal of) of which she (and all In
dian women) is very experienced.

But he dismisses her advice.

She cocks her head for a brief moment and then tries to re-word and deliver her wisdom again with even greater grace.

But again, he, without looking at her and with a motion of his hand, waves the suggestion away.

And then I see it!

She does not look down. She does not laugh.

She turns her face the other direction, looks up to the right corner of the room…

And rolls her eyes.

And of this single glimpse I smile with the certainty, that this marriage of man and woman, will ultimately be, the same as any.

*****

(and 30 hours later…)

I have new friendships with every person in my cabin.

They have asked me every question of my family, work, schooling, income and country, and now have quite taken it upon themselves to be my personal guardians.

Our train is due to arrive five hours late and so I have already missed my connecting train ride and having no reservation at any of the booked-up hotels would be at a loss, were it not for my new friends who assure me that they’ve got a plan.

When the train finally arrives, those in my cabin politely instruct me when to sit and where to stand, and when they finally give me permission to get off the train, like elephants, they form a protective circle around me as they shuffle me off the train, across the platform, and into a special room guarded by security.

The room, full of fans set to their highest speed, has two bathrooms with showers and about 40 waiting chairs of which about a dozen are occupied with women and children. It’s 1:00am and I have six hours to wait before my next train departs. A Bollywood (India’s version of Hollywood) movie is on, which from a single glance, I make out to be a version of Beauty and the Beast (except, lacking a proper Beast costume, a man dressed like King Kong has proved adequate enough). This place is perfect for my lounge between destinations.

My new entourage smiles their approval of my approval and because it’s how they’ve been taught to salute westerners, they each proudly stick out an awkward hand to receive the novel Western custom of handshaking. Although I infinitely prefer the polite bow of Eastern salutations, I oblige and humbly stretch out, along with my hand, my most sincere gratitude.

As I settle into a seat to watch the movie, the children turn around and settle into seats to watch me. Most Bollywood movies last about six hours (slight exaggeration) and have an average of 11 different plotlines and themes (no exaggeration). This one turns out to be a mixture of Beauty and the Beast, The Nutcracker, Babes in Toyland, The Tortoise and the Hare, Ghost and Anaconda. After the finale, where all the characters (except for the Tortoise, of course) bust out in synchronized dancing, the security guard turns off the television.

Following the example of the rest of the women in the room, I lay out my shawl on the floor and roll up a sweater into a pillow.

As I lay there on the tile floor, thanking whatever deities may be for my ability to sleep on hard floors both comfortably and soundly, I feel something inside of me lift again right out of my body, and rise up to the ceiling.

Looking down at the patchwork of vibrant saris and shades of deep and beautiful skin tones spread out across the floor, there again, is that silly pale patch with the tan-clad girl on it. But as I relax my perspective and take one more step back, I see that, from a distance, her spot isn’t really so odd at all. How she managed to, I’m not sure, but she has indeed found even for herself, a place in this Quilt called India.

I squint to see more closely and note that the satisfaction of her success is marked by the slight but sure smirk of a smile across her lips.

And I smile down upon her.

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a spoon full of graciousness

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I take a deep breath, hold it, and step into the dank room.

(When the students ran into our shared room an hour earlier and exclaimed, “It’s the most foul thing we’ve ever seen in our lives!” I laughed. I’d heard the rumors of hell realms to be found in Tibetan toilets, but really, could it actually be so bad?)

The answer I immediately realize is….

Yes.

I take a cue from the woman in front of me. We veer away from the three piles in the ground that once, in their younger inverted lives, constituted squat toilets, and instead do our business in an undesignated, but somewhat “less” crap-cluttered corner of the room. On my way out, I silently put a big gold star on the map and congratulate, “Tidrum, Tibet” on its new toilet foul-weight title.

Luckily the air outside is cool and delicious. I fill my lungs on it till they are sufficiently full and free of the desperation that 4, 325 meters of height above sea level can pressure on the chest of a foreigner to altitude.

Breath and being lassoed back in, I gather myself and start to stroll back down the wooden row fronting a dozen small guesthouse rooms. On the way I pass an elderly Tibetan woman whose arms are occupied with a large metal pot. As I pass her, she stops, sticks her lips out at me and then gestures her mouth (with a small grunt) towards the door. Thinking she wants me to open the door for her, I move for the handle, but before mine makes it, another hand suddenly swings it opens from the inside and the woman and her pot, like a sliding subway door, quickly close me in.

The door shuts.

“Tashi Dele!” I stumble in and say with an extra warm smile in dire hopes that the Braille of my facial gestures will be able to communicate that which my limited Tibetan could never.

Surprisingly unsurprised smiles spread across the cracked and tanned Tibetan faces of the three women in the room. They return my greeting and then one, in excited chatter (that we in the West are only familiar with because it is the language of the Ewoks in Star Wars), says to the woman with the pot what I imagine to be, “Oh look what you’ve dragged in! A little treat for us! Isn’t she sweet?! Well, let’s get to work ladies!”

Two of the women jump up from the beds that they are lounging in and begin preparations to do what Tibetan women do best…

Feed the guest.

(Now would be perhaps a good time to explain that because the Tibetan Plateau dips below nothing less than 12,000 feet, and due to the lip-cracking dry and coldness of this region, vegetables have never been able to be coaxed from their cozy little seeds. So, with virtually nothing growing from the land for centuries, society, and particularly diet, instead centered itself around that which could sprout, stand and sustain — the Yak. These burly, altitude-loving beasts provided not only powerful labor but also warm clothes, rainproof tents, blankets, meat, milk, cheese, butter and whatever else Manslow used to fill in the basement of his hierarchy of human needs. Essentially, for Tibetans, the Yak was a gift from heaven and a dream of sustainability realized. And thus, a piece of this holy pleasure is the first thing any gracious Tibetan is to offer a respected guest. Leading us back to the warm room where our guest from the West… is living a Vegan’s worst nightmare…”)

Yak hoof. Yak head. Yak cheese. Yak Feet. Yak jerky. Yak milk. Yak rump. Yak beef.

Paraded on pretty plates, and unveiled with pride and the gentle pushiness that all Tibetans have mastered, each and every Yak delicacy is placed on my lap and offered in genuine kindness to me.

I bow and shake my head while repeatedly begging, as kindly as I can, to politely decline. But the trays of body parts keep emerging from cupboards, and under beds, and out of tins, and unveiled by cloths and brought in from neighboring rooms… until finally, in my despair, I give into a pathetic round of caveman charades where the message, “Me no eat meat” is perhaps successfully been made clear, but in its perceived inherent absurdity, certainly not understood.

With the hosts and the guest both emotionally exhausted from the lack of exchange, one of the women makes a last jump up and moves to the stove where the big pot has left her embrace and found an even warmer home on the fire.

Trepidation, dread and surrender all at once engulf my gut. This is it. I know it. I’ve used my full deck of “no thank you” cards. With not a single decline left in my hand, and confronted with only the most serious of a, “only Yes cards accepted here” sign hung in her eyes, the woman returns to me with the most monster-sized tumbler of Tibetan Yak butter tea I’ve ever seen.

I smile and accept.

And in unison, a sigh settles across the room.

(Hot yak butter tea. Listed as number two on Lonely Planet’s “Top Ten Worst Experiences in Tibet,” and the only drink brave enough to put its literal gut reaction right into its own name, is the ultimate staple of the Tibetan diet.)

I sit, with a thermos full of, and three sets of eyes steady on me and my, Yak butter tea.

I do not sip. I gulp. Large, hot, salty, buttery chugs. Determined not to allow any little drops to loiter on the more sensitive taste receptors located on the sides of my tongue, I shoo it all right onto the red express way, with a one way ticket, headed straight, and as fast as possible, down.

There’s no time for hesitation here. For as the guidebook has warned me, there is only one thing worse than hot Yak butter tea; Taking first place on the Tibetan terror top ten list, beating out both squat toilets and rabid ranch dogs, sits the fermented and solidified, COLD Yak butter tea.

And I can see it! The top layer of the tea visibly cooling and forming into a chunky yellow film right before my eyes! Like the frozen lake Nam-tso that we just visited, jutting glaciers of Yak butter are reforming and solidifying into something that I’ll soon, if I’m not fast enough, have to chew!

I grab a homemade, sweet cracker from one of the dozen tins that’s been placed in front of me and take a bite in order to aid in the washing down of another large gulp of tea.

The women, content that their guest is finally both drinking and eating, finally recline back into their beds and flash each other smiles of success and satisfaction.

“Ummmm. Gooooood.” I chug, smile, swallow and repeat.

The women are very happy now. One jumps up, throws a shawl over her shoulder like a sari and starts a little happy dance in the middle of the room. We all giggle. The shawl falls off in the dance, and when it does, instead of picking it up she looks down at her chest, lifts up her breasts that have been lowered with the love of a good fifty years of age, and looks at me with a disappointed frown.

“No good,” she shakes her head and says in her limited English.

And suddenly her hands are on my chest. As she squeezes and smiles her approval of my body’s youth, I do one of those amazing flips of consciousness that leave me swirling in a whirlwind of dizzy stars and wondering…

“Is this all really happening? Or do I really live in one marathon showing of back-to-back reality TV comedy shows where the candid camera-man has yet to wave, catch my attention, and let me in on the joke that is called, “My Life?”

I look for the camera in the corner of the room.

Nope. No camera.

I look at the smiling face of the woman standing a modest grabbing distance from me.

Yep. Still a Tibetan woman holding my breasts.

All the women, including me, burst out lau
ghing, as she lets go and resumes her happy, little jiggy across the wooden floor.

The antics, the charades, the dancing, the laughing and the language-less exchanges continue.

I’m so busy giggling, laughing, miming and smiling that it’s not until a quick hour has passed before I look down and realize that my entire tumbler of Yak butter tea has mysteriously and unconsciously disappeared.

I smile to myself and note that while “hot” and “cold” Yak butter tea may rightfully assume their places on the top-ten Tibetan travel “terror” charts, Yak butter tea, warmed to just the right temperature by the graciousness and kindness of dancing and bust-grabbing company, has forever earned and secured its place in my personal hall of memory fame.

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immortality burning

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*****

Journal Entry
March 23rd, 2005
Kathmandu, Nepal
Pashupatinath Temple
The Burning (Cremation) Ghats along the Bagmati River

In insatiable appetite, a greedy fire spits out the flames of a violent hunger. Riding a wave of wind, a whipping tornado of smoke takes a turn back towards the ground and the heavy breath of burning flesh engulfs its circle of male mourners.

They do not flinch.

On the deck of the burning ghat, tearless faces await shaved scalps; A sacrifice to symbolize their new un-chosen un-attachment to the body that burns. A single, small and circular black patch on their heads is all that is left kept, seeming to me like an X marking and respecting the last line of connection, and a path we will all one day walk, between this world and the next.

In the fire, a human thigh, blackened beyond recognition, falls from its bone. Immediately, a bamboo pole is thrust into the pyre and the thigh is pushed like a log deeper into the coals. The fire rages; As if it too longs for and appreciates the consumption of that considered rare and sacred. The men sit squatted, flat feet, arms crossed, watching without word of protest, as Immortality burns.

The mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and nieces are not here; Their tears thought too likely to lure the eye of a soul caught in the bardo (between worlds) back to a reality where their vessel is no longer capable of the carry. So once again, the men and women are pushed to their separate corners of the dance floor, women to the corner of birthing and life and men to that of dying and death.

The men sit in silence. This is the first place I have ever noticed where the swinging doors of conversation on politics, business and sport are solemnly shut. Instead the men stick their fingers into the warmer crevices of their bodies and, without word or commentary, watch the silent captions that scroll in their minds underlining the scene.

And the fire burns.

Without discrimination it burns all our accomplished and failed dreams, all our material gains and losses, all our relations of love and hate, all our deeds of both good and evil intention, and all else that ever once, positively or negatively affected our formations of earthly ego.

The wind blows again and the heavy breath of burning flesh engulfs its circle of male mourners.

They do not flinch.

What does it take for death to become an unflinching matter?

Custom? Numbness? Aloofness?

Enlightenment? Unattachment? Understanding?

Torture? Habit? Pain?

Respect? Courage? Love?

A one-eyed money sits on a perch beside me, watching with curiously human-like gestures, and less blind than I, as the fire continues to dance under death.

*****

Just want to say thank you, again, to WorldNomads for renewing their sponsorship and continuing to insure that my travels are safe and worry-free. Having been in regular contact with their staff and in use of their super-internet-friendly and overall excellent service, I feel fully confident putting my name on theirs. So if you’re planning travels and in the market for travel insurance, there’s a trustworthy and practical contact for you.

*****

I’m entering a meditation retreat at the Kopan Monastery, so I will be offline and unable to respond to emails for awhile. In the meantime, there are a few new pictures in the *new* Nepal photo album to browse through.

*****

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tato chai

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I roll out of my 0 degree sleeping bag and, quite like Taco Bell’s 7-layer burrito, wrap myself in multiple levels of warm and soft synthetic stuff.

“Embrace the cold,” I whisper to myself through chattering teeth.

Having tossed my stone always in the tropical weather squares of the travel-history-hopscotch I have mapped in a chalk path over the world, I suddenly find myself, for the first time in 10 years, COLD.

So all of you who, with frostbitten fingers, sent me green emails with attached white pictures and warm wishes to my already tropical tropics can now slap each other woolen high fives and snicker over my chances of survival in a place where you don’t need higher consciousness to be aware of your breathe.

Ah! But do you know what else exhales its steamy existence bringing awareness to the precious and piping hot moment of Now?

Chai!

Originally discovered in my first travels through Northern India as “chai garam” (Hindi) and recently re-discovered in the Nepali speaking Darjeeling as, “tato chai,” this hot, milky, leaf nectar of the Gods is, unlike my blood, the only substance that circulates and gives warmth and life to my system.

A bow to chai for bringing to existence this very blog for whom (Chai being deserving of personification) without, my frozen fingers may have, like my I-book’s cold-fatigued battery, completely crapped out.

Chai means, “tea.” Garam and tato mean, “hot.” But even I put my un-English nose up at even the idea of using these watered-down words to capture perhaps one of the most powerful and core “essences” of India. If you made me choose three words to describe India, “chai” would be one of them. (The other two, by the way, would be of the sol-sort that include lots of hyphens and in a train-track-kind-of-attempt-and-crash-against-all-MLA-guidelines would play pattycake with the English language.)

So chai.
Warmer of my soul.
Bearer of this blog.
Essence of India.
In all your versions and family-kept secret recipes,
And as Royalty in the vast Kingdom of Tea,
I roll out my red carpet to thee.

(And if you were wondering, despite all their mass-marking, block-conquering and bucket-size-serving attempts, Starbuck’s version doesn’t even come close. The East and West certainly sit on opposite sides of the quality vs. quantity teeter-totter, with, as I imagine it, the US sitting squatly and fatly on the ground, 3rd worlds quizzically and hungrily looking down. And until we start to totter an equilibrium, you’ll find me hanging out on the monkey-bars.)

Chai, served in shot-sized, delicate and decorated tea cups, is presented on every and all occasions. For sunrise, before breakfast, after breakfast, with biscuits, at break, before lunch, in the afternoon, with neighbors, upon visits, before dinner, for dessert, and at bedtime.

Step into the hardware shop to buy a tin of paint, and have a cup of chai. Drop by the tailor to pick up your shirt and sip on a cup of chai. Pay visit to the cousin of your uncle’s nephew and sit down to share a pot of chai. Inquire as the price of a piece of jewelry, but not without first a cup of chai!

Here, human beings are not faceless, nameless creatures making empty and emotionless exchanges of goods, services and courtesies; We are warm, unique and recognized individuals who, if nothing else, share one thing in common; A pot of chai! And before any transaction is allowed to proceed, an understanding of this brother, sister and human-hood must first be assured.

On the streets of India, as an obvious guest in this country, any visitor will numerous times be beckoned to the dark door of a cushioned room where the steam of chai wafts his/her way. And to those that answer to that invite and dare to venture forth to seek within these depths of shared humanity, I encourage you (as I do all), to always, ALWAYS…

Stop and sip the chai.

*****

> The updated India 2005 PhotoAlbum

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meet my family

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After enjoying our evening English sessions so much, I was invited to move into the house to share in a season with one of the most carinoso, loving and fun families I’ve ever encountered in my travels. Now, I’m quite conscious that here in the magical little Colombian community of Taganga, I’m making memories that my eyes will one day tear up over, but I’m too busy loving it all up to miss it quite yet.

Please, meet my family…

This is Mayra, my 12-year old adopted sister. She teaches me how to properly mash patacones (fried plaintain) and I help her translate Bob Marley songs. When we’re not swimming or singing, she’s usually making “yuck” faces at all my raw vegetables and doing everything within the power of her persuasions to get me to eat meat.

This is my host mother Diana. She’s taught me the secrets (canela and panela!) of making a proper Colombian tinto (coffee). Despite the fact that she’s lived in Taganga for three years, she’d never been to the only discoteque in town. So, on her insistence, Annie and I took her out last weekend, where she held her own on the dance floor (without a sip of alcohol) ‘till 3:30 in the morning!

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Meet Annie, our in house resident expert in song and salsa! We spend evenings turning the kitchen into a dance floor as she instructs me in the subtle shoulder, hip and rump rotations that distinguish cumbiafrom mapale and purro. She shakes it like only a Latina pura can.

And this is Freddy! From the minute I wake up (at the crack of dawn) to the first minute he spots me climbing over the hill towards the house, at the top of his lungs he screams his enthusiastic greeting; “CHRISTINA AGUILERA!” He wants nothing to do with conjugating verbs and is constantly throwing his fist onto the table to ask, “Yes. But HOW do I say in English, “If your new Colombian girlfriend spends the night while you’re staying in our hotel, then you have to pay the price of two people.” We take trips on the moto to go pick up Mayra at her grandmother’s house in true Colombian style: one moto, three people, two backpacks, two ice-cream cones, and a weeks work of groceries and a five gallon jug of water dangling off all limbs not driving.

I’m not the only long-term hotel guest who’s fallen in love with this house. This is Martin, who Diana refers to as “whoo hoo!” which is the whoop noise he makes when he gets excited, which he did a lot of when making Switzerland’s national dish, Roshti, for everyone last night.

And this is David from Israel, who’s been happily “stuck” in Tanganga while suffering from some “mystery disease” that the doctors here think might be dengue fever and which he INSISTS that he cured by consuming obscene amounts of garlic. But I have to admit, the 40 cloves of garlic that I chopped and added to his special Shakshuka recipe, did make for a salivating experience.

This is the fruit juice bar of Anna and Kelli, where you can find me every morning and at every sunset, sipping on concoctions of guanabana, papaya, mango, maracuya, and lulo. There isn’t an easier place in the world to do a juice fast and as a result, we wink at each other over my special discounted rates.

This is Swiss Diana, who has an English book exchange in town that I visit on almost a daily basis. I’ve already read four books off her shelf and am now busy translating and creating promotional flyers for her in exchange for organic papayas from her garden. Yum.

This is Black #2. I used to take him for walks on the beach, but when he gets tired he refuses to move and I’ve grown tired of carrying him home. And he only responds to commands in Spanish “puppy-talk” (which is what Diana uses) and I just can’t bring myself to make my voice so high or strange.

This is Dana, the REAL big baby of the house. She sneaks up on me in the grass or when I’m in the hammock, and with no warning, I suddenly have 100 pounds of Dana on top of me. My only protection is…

Mama Tacha, who’s always ready to take a quick snap at a sol-stalking Dana. Mama Tacha and I have a special affinity towards each other. I think it’s because she too was a wanderer who followed her nose up to this house where she was treated with such love that she refused to leave. Tacha follows me everywhere. Be it on the beach or at the bar, she stands patiently by my side, always within distance of a reassuring pat or longer loving pet.

Well, it’s Christmas Eve, and “CHRISTINA AQUILERA! VENGA POR UN TINTO!” is being shouted up to me from downstairs. Time for me to join and delight in the laughter and smells wafting up to my room. Sending wishes out to all, that in your holiday also, may the only thing hotter than the tinto be the warmth of the loved ones you share it with.

< More new pictures in the Colombia Album

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looking up

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(New pictures in the Colombia Album)

The heat has exhausted me and I slide under the shade of a palm-thatched hut on the beachfront. Small, tanned, naked children roll around on the sand floor absorbed in their individual imaginations. I smile, again admire the world that those under seven live in, and wonder if I’ll ever be able to find that door again. Two older boys play chess with soda bottle caps on a hand painted log stump in the corner of the hut and a man and his wife recline in the table next to mine. The woman is nursing a new child. Every few minutes someone from the community stops by the hut and tries to steal the baby for a toss, coo or cuddle. A group of men return from the sea and take seats at the table and a round of cold beers are immediately placed before them. Fingers and feet naturally tap along to the salsa streaming out from the radio as if the beat can never quite escape their bodies. I am always awed by this natural relationship with rhythm that those of lighter skin seem always to struggle so much with.

Someone whistles from the back and one of the young men disappears and returns with the pitcher of fresh lemonade that I have requested. He puts it on the table and stares at me without reserve or embarrassment. Then he asks me where I’m from.

“The United States,” I slowly reply. I always say the name of my country as gently and softly as possible, perhaps in silent hopes that this grace will also soften the sharp and cutting edge of the controversial conversations that usually follow.

He plops down soundly into the chair next to mine and crosses his arms across his chest.

Noting his body posture, I appropriately brace myself for the Question. What will it be today? The election? The war in Iraq? Bush’s recent visit to Colombia? The Free Trade Agreement the US is trying to push on some of the poorest countries in S. America in order to guarantee its freedom to exploit their precious resources? “Plan Colombia” and infamous drug war? What will be the Question today?

“Como hago?” he says.

I’m confused by his coastal slang and look at him blankly.

He puts both his hands on the table and clarifies, “How do I get there? Why can’t I go there? You can come here, right? Why can’t I go to your country?”

Ah. The immigration question. An exhausting discussion that I’ve had on islands around the world. And one of my least favorite. Because not only do I not have any answers for why people are constantly denied visas or even visiting rights to the US, but I also have to battle bitterly with the “dream” that Hollywood has not only painted on the “life ideal” billboards of America, but also broadcast across continents to make citizens of otherwise perfectly content communities question if they actually are happy without a car, two story house, vacuum cleaner and wall mounting television.

I shake my head and sigh.

“Why do you want to go to the United States? Do you know that what you see on television is not true? Do you know that Americans work 50 weeks a year in hopes of finding the time and money to spend only a few days in a pardise like this?”

I throw my arm out and spread it over the tropical beach, the sea, the children playing in the sand and the family laughing behind me…

“Look what you have here! You live on an island in the Caribbean with everyone you love! You have warmth, and beauty, and music and community and family, and comfort and long, lazy and sunny days to enjoy it all.”

He looks around for a second and acknowledges, but swipes aside, what I see.

He squints his eyes and says, “I hear you can make $20 dollars a day just washing windows of the cars in the street. Tell me. Is that true?”

I press my fingers to my temples and sigh. I, as of late, have been feeling particularly overwhelmed by qualities of life and humanity. Earlier this same day, I found out that Playa Blanca (see pictures below) was recently bought by a huge international 5-star chain resort that is making the island private and is now in the process of kicking off its inhabitants. No longer will people be able to rent a hammock on the beach for a night (4000 pesos, US $1.80) and enjoy a fresh fish and coconut rice meal (7000 pesos, US $3.18) prepared by Mama Ruth. Via exuberant prices, only the elite will have access to the island. And Mama Ruth and family, may themselves have to relocate in order to oblige.

“Is that what life is about? Money?”

He rubs his fingers together and says, “Not just money; but the Dollar.” He contines, “If I can get to the States, I can get myself some dollars. And then I can find myself a nice American wife and…”

I don’t have to listen. I know how the sentence and story ends. I’ve seen it in music videos, magazines, movies, soap operas, and TV enough times to have the script memorized on all kinds of conscious and subconscious levels.

I look at the sea and watch a small naked child taking chase after a retreating wave and then turn, shrieking with joy, as the chase suddenly turns on him.

The children see so easily. If there’s anything we should watch, it should be them. When did we forget those innate secrets of living and loving? When did the simple recipe for joy become so cluttered, complicated and confused? And what must we unlearn to reveal and realize them again?

*****

Playa Blanca (“White Beach”)

Morning…

Noon…

and Night…

Journal Entry

December 1st, 2004

Playa Blanca, Islas de Rosaria

Off of coast of Cartegena, Colombia

Yesterday, today, tomorrow. 365 days a year, For millennia upon millennia. Over desert, jungle, city and sea. In the slums, on the streets and over the suites. Morning, noon and night. Life diligently and gracefully raises a hand and sweeps the sky. In a brush of brilliancy to allure and lift weary and downtrodden eyes. To bring to attention the questions that the striking evidence would only imply; In inspired wonder of who, what and why.

My favorite color is that of the sky minutes after the sun has set, but before the first star has shown itself yet. A fleeting and paradoxically incalculable minute. That by these instructions can be recognized and captured only by intuition. (As I think all life’s most inspiring moments to be.) This color. If captured in a stone. Would woo and wow the Royal to send troops to destroy, devastate and enslave, just to put a piece of it on their plump fingers. And here it is. That same color. Spread across the sky wide. Unprejudiced of all whom it adorns. Making even the sea look small and pale. In bold declaration. That all royalty and richness will befall. To those who look up. Any and all.

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Things That Make Me Go “Hummmmm”

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“You’re finally here! What took you so long?”

“Hey, I had some trouble catching “Manchas” and getting him on a leash. He’s not used to these things you know. What the heck are we doing here hiding behind this wall anyway? Who are you looking for? And why do you still have that kitten? Haven’t you gotten ridden of them all yet?”

*peeking around corner*

“SHHHHH! Here she comes out of her door! Look. She’s definitely on her way to the beach. This is perfect. She has to pass right by us…”

*also looking around corner*

“What are you going on about? Hey. That’s one of those nice gringa volunteers that’s planting trees with Planet Drum. Man. WHAT are you up to? Tell me or I’m out of this nonsense!”

“Shhhh! Just listen. Here’s the plan. I’m gonna set the kitten loose as soon as she gets to that lamppost. Now when I say, “go!” you let Manchas go, okay?”

“What! Manchas will sink that kitten in one swallow!”

“Sh! Sh! No. No. I guarantee that the girl will get to the kitten first. And once she’s got it in her hold, she’ll take it home, clean it, feed it, name it after a planet and then find it a new happy home. Listen. I’ve seen her do it twice already. She’s a total sucker for this stuff. Trust me. Wait. Shhhh. Here she comes! Okay. Are you ready? GO!”

*****

Yes. It’s a conspiracy theory. But I’m totally convinced that the whole town of Bahia de Caraquez has set up me as a personal kitten placement center. I’m under the impression that I even take orders because yesterday I was approached by a woman who put in a specific request for a new kitten, “Hembra. Y blanquita, blanquita, por favor!” (“Female and white. All white please!”)

Hummmm.

And so going with it, I’m adding to this week’s theme of, The Things That Make Me Go “hummmmm”…

*****

I walk into a grocery store and put pasta, raisins, green olives, tomato sauce and wheat bran into my cloth sack. The store clerk tells me that my total comes to $4.20. I pull out a five-dollar bill and he takes one glance at it and then frowns at me. I roll my eyes at myself because I should really know better having had this happen to me already a dozen times already.

But just to be clear I hold up my hands and surrender to the change-crisis in Ecuador…

“No change for a five dollar bill on a four dollar purchase?”

“Nope,” he nods.

And I walk out empty handed.

*****

I’m walking up a street in the city of Quito. A car has clumsily pulled up and parked awkwardly on the curb. I suspect that the middle-aged man and his wife are lost. The man hisses (as is customary in this country) to get my attention. I approach the car to offer what help I may. When I get to the passenger window, where the wife is frigidly sitting in the seat in front of me, the man leans across her and sleazily starts, “ESTAS bonita…” before I realize the slither in his statement and make my dismayed escape.

*****

Beam and I walk into a Mexican food restaurant. There are no other customers, but the boy attending to the place turns down the music and brings us menus. We order veggie burritos with extra guacamole and a couple margaritas. He writes down our orders, gives us his thanks, places chips and salsa on our table and retreats into the kitchen.

Over the sounds of chopping in the kitchen, we chat until the nacho plate is cleaned. Ten minutes later, the boy reappears from the kitchen and stands at our table with news:

“I’m sorry. We don’t have tortillas, or beans, or tomatoes. And we don’t have avocados for the guacamole. Or cheese.”

We are stunned into silence.

“Oh. And we don’t have limes for Margaritas either,” he finishes.

Finally I stutter out, “So you don’t have anything?”

“Nope. Sorry. That’ll be $1 for the chips.”

*****

There’s a beach that I retreat to almost every weekend where I can spend my Sundays suspended in a hammock. A few weeks ago, I put my Chaco sandals behind the beach bar for safeguard while I took a barefoot stroll on the sand. When I returned, the shoes had mysteriously disappeared. The staff, with whom I’m friends, seemed legitimately concerned. The searched the place, but with no find, presented to me a pair of flip-flops and told me that they’d keep an eye out for my sandals on the feet of the few inhabitants of the small town.

When I returned the next week and inquired as to if they had sighted my sandals, the bartender replied, “No we haven’t. But will you please be careful that Maria (a co-worker of his) doesn’t see you in those flip-flops that that we gave you? She’s been looking for them all week.”

Yes. I “hummed” then. And I “hummed” again when it was reported to me by my roommate that one of the bartenders had recently been spotted sporting blue and silver, womens’ size 7 Chacos.

I’m happy to report that the sandals were shyly returned to me today when I extended a “no-explanation-needed-just-smile-and-show-me-the-shoes” offer. When I explained my sentimental attachment to the sandals that had walked around the world with me, the “borrowing” bartender in turn explained that he was only doing me a favor, as they (the shoes) needed a vacation too.

*****

In conversation over coffee, an Ecuadorian girlfriend of mine was worrying again over my single status.

“Don’t you get lonely? How terrible it must be for you always to be travelling alone! You need a boyfriend! Yes. And one that is at least 25.”

I’ve heard the speech a thousand times, but not the age requirement and so questioned further…”Wait. Why must I have a boyfriend over the age of 25?”

“Ah. Because when they are in their early twenties they will constantly see other women behind your back. That’s the way it is with Latin men. And that’s what happened with my boyfriend, at least until I finally broke up with him. But then we got back together again last year. Things are much different now that we’re older.”

“Because he’s more mature now and has more respect for your relationship? And so you can trust him now?”

She stands up to go to the restroom, pushes her chair in and replies, “Oh God no. I still don’t trust him at all! But he’s not allowed to go out with his friends any more.”

“Hummmm.”

*****

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My Day, My Life

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“Shasta-boy, you’re a handsome dog…from an angle.” – Shasta’s Owner

*****

The last of my sleep wafts away on the gobble of a turkey outside my window.

I start to walk the path back to waking reality and as soon as I become conscious of the road I’m walking, I spin on my heels and run back into my last dream. Some of the visions come back immediately. Others I have to stand and wait patiently at the door (wondering what I’m doing there and if anyone’s home) before they silently and slowly open by the hand of my subconscious accord. When my mind is sufficed with its collection of memories from last night’s mental vacation, I open my eyes.

I pull my pen and journal off my nightstand and jot down the captions to my night visions.

I sit up and cross my legs — American legs, Indian arranged — and salute Truth with a Namaste (“I recognize the divine in you.”) greeting to That Which Inspires my thoughts, intuitions and visions. I soak into the silence and find the place where I feel my insides peeling away from the outside. And there I simply sit. Suspended in my soul; Buoyant in my being.

****

I Namaste the Divine again and finally stretch back into my body. Shasta has heard my wakening rumble and runs to the foot of my bed. He points his nose down at my feet and looks at me from the curious corner of his eyes asking permission to lick my toes. I smile my consent and his tail curls up in a whipping white circle of its own excited 360 degree smiles. He saturates my feet in his saliva. He then tugs on the foot of my pajama pants as I slip on my flip-flops and grab my house keys.

As I cross the studio apartment I take delight in the sound of my shoes sweeping across the wooden floor. So I add a couple of foot-notes with a some salsa steps and spins. Shasta springs onto his hind legs in his desire to dance too and I note the musical addition of his clicking toenails.

*****

Shasta hops down the stairs in front of me, pausing on every step to make sure that I am only one behind. “Attached Love,” I define to myself and chuckle.

I step outside. The sun is brave today. The overcast mornings that it usually wears during the dry season have been left in the closet, and it steps out in the gleaming colors that it usually reserves for the “winter” holidays. I rise up on my toes, close my eyes and lean in to receive my warm morning kiss. I wave of goosebumbing joy craws over my skin. This is definitely a partner I can wake up to every morning. I nod my re-agreement to the sun, “till death do us part.”

*****

“Shaw-shaw!”

“Shaw-shaw!”

The neighbors call over in a language that can’t be bothered with English pronunciation.

“Shaw-shaw!”

They wave the dog and I over.

Shasta’s small rump wags in full circles in a desperate attempt to catch up with his erratic tail. The neighbors all pat his back and repeat his name to his ecstatic delight. They all laugh out loud and say to me, “You know that this dog doesn’t understand Spanish?! An Ecuadorian dog! That doesn’t know Spanish! Have you ever seen such a thing!”

I hear their laughing trail off behind me as I make my way to the market. I cross the street, but turn around when I hear the heel of an angry hand on a horn to see Shasta in a perfect squat in the middle of the street and a red faced taxi driver sign language-ing his hysteria over the situation.

“Shasta! Venga!”

But his furrowed brow tells me that this is a matter beyond language barriers. And in consideration of the parasite inspired dysentery of which he has a case, I give my best “sorry about my dog sir” shrug and wait patiently for duty to be done.

*****

At the local market I stroll through rainbow towers of fruits, vegetables and small animals. I am certainly the only gringo in the market and me, my pajama pants with snowmen on them, and my funny dog that doesn’t speak Spanish are easy destinations for wandering eyes.

I settle on a shop run by a woman who I know from experience can’t be bothered with ripping gringos off. I select a Shasta-sized papaya and give her 30 cents. I offer her my burlap sack to drop it into and she laughs. She tells me she’s never seen a gringo come to the market with a burlap sack before. She wants to take a picture of it. We both laugh and I swing the bag over my shoulder and say goodbye.

*****

While preparing breakfast I hear the door downstairs unlock and open. All the other volunteers have gone to the city for a convention, but I know the only other person who has the spare key to the house.

“You know, you’re driving me NUTS with these questions!” I hear echo from the hallway over heavy steps.

“Good morning Steffan. What questions?”

In his Danish accent he continues, “You know. These questions about the meaning of your life, my life, and all life. All these things that you keep talking about. I really don’t know how you can live your life this way. It’s just too intense to question life so much. You know, I would call you an intense person…but I usually reserve that term for people who overwhelm me. And I don’t feel overwhelmed by you. But how can you life your life like this? All these questions? How will you ever find the answers?”

I open up the coffee jar and drink in the deepness of the dark roast. Then I turn to him and say, “Steffan, I don’t care about the answers. I’m interested in the search itself.”

He shakes his head at me with frustration.

“Hum. We I have to go to work. I just came over to leave my organic waste in your compost bin and tell you that you’re driving me crazy. So. Do you want to have coffee later?”

I smile and agree.

*****

While crossing the street on the way to the bus stand I suddenly hear horrific howling behind me.

I turn around and see Shasta whimpering wildly at a paw that was just run over by a bicycle. With his three good legs he hops to where I stand on the street corner, crawls between my legs and continues to yelp out the enormity of his painful paw. I crouch low and hold him till his whine whimpers out. I notice that many pairs of feet have congregated around me and think that I hear them talking again about how the dog doesn’t understand Spanish, until I realize that they are not talking about Shasta, but about ME.

I turn my attention upwards and declare,“I speak Spanish.”

The startled crowd jumps back at my unexpected smile of comprehension.

“Who are you? What are you doing? Is this your dog? What’s its name?”

The children in the crowd come forward and a half dozen pairs of small hands begin to pet Shasta. His sad eyes lift in excitement of all the options presented to lick and he miraculously puts weight on his injured paw in order to give a full body turn to allow all his new admirers a proper pet.

I suddenly grasp how entirely odd I must look. For not only am I dragging two enormous rice sacks full of empty two-liter plastic bottles, but I also have empty milk jugs hanging from my backpack and a machete in my hand. And I’m a gringo. Actually. I’m a gringa. And in Latin America, a girl alone (let alone a North American one carrying a machete) is ALWAYS a crowd-worthy curiosity.

“His name is Shasta. He’s not my dog. He belongs to a girl I live with. I’m a volunteer with Planet Drum. I’m carrying all this stuff because I’m using these things to plant trees.”

One of the men in the crowd nods his head wisely in agreement and explains to the rest of the crowd that he knows our house, where it is, and who else lives there. (Because this IS the business of people living in small towns: to know everyone and everything.)

“Ahhh. She’s a volunteer. She plants trees,” they all turn around and inform those standing behind them.

*****

The bus is full. I manage to squeeze into a small space near the front passenger seat behind the folding entrance door. As I sit down I glance through the window and see a girl and immediately return the warm smile she sends me. Or did I smile first? And then I realize that the window in the folding door is not in fact a window, but a mirror.

I lean closer to the mirror and look for the fleeting vision of myself as not-myself. I know it’s hidden behind a layer of dirt, but did I really just not recognize my own face? I shake my head in unison with the girl in the mirror. We are one again. The bus driver motions for me to put my machete on the floor and asks me where “Shaw-Shaw” is today.

*****

I make a stop at a construction site where a canal is being built. I ask for the foreman and the workers tell me that he’ll return in twenty minutes. I don’t have to look at my watch because I know that the effort is useless. “Twenty minutes” in Latin America can span anywhere from twenty seconds to twenty days. Time consciousness is not valued in the culture. And I note that neither is efficiency as I watch a dozen men watch one in their group break up concrete with a single sledgehammer. The American in me cringes. And then I cringe at the American in me.

I sit down next to a donkey tied to a light post. I watch him dig into a large heap of powdered cement. I can’t imagine what smell could survive the smother of cement powder, but he digs, and digs. And then he looks at me, curls his lips above his teeth, strains his neck into the air, and belches out the most comic cry of life absurdity relief. I nod my head in agreement.

A burly yellow tractor excavating the canal passes me. The driver watches me scribble notes onto a paper pad, and then puts the machine into neutral. He jumps out of his seat, traveling a good five feet to the ground, and walks over to me. Without a flinch of hesitation, he takes the notepad out of my hand. He cocks his head, tries to read it, and then looks at me.

“It’s in English.” I confirm.

“What are you writing about,” he states more than questions.

“I’m writing about what I think,” I reply.

“Humph,” he manages and tosses the notepad back at me, turns around, climbs back up the tractor and proceeds.

An hour later, the foreman approaches me. I tell him that I’m a volunteer working on a reforestation project and that we are in need of bamboo poles to help us with our dry season irrigation system. I ask him if he has any old ones that could be donated. He asks me how old I am and if I’m single. I consciously footnote how accustomed I have become to the sexual under-over-and-obviously-on-tones of every interaction I make with a Latino man. I ignore his questions (as I do most of the kind) and hand him an example irrigation pipe. He tells me he’ll deliver the pipes to our house in the afternoon and leans forward for a “customary” cheek kiss. I step back, let the American in me step forward, and offer a handshake.

*****

I open the tarp to the greenhouse and step inside as a few butterflies make their excited escape. I inhale deeply and wonder what it is about the smell of soil that makes my insides smile. I walk around and touch the delicate leaves of the small plants. I try to remember each of their names as I go; Guachapeli, Guayacaan, Fernan Sanchez, Colorado, Agraobo, but I can’t identify the one with the white veins on the leaf. I note to myself to look it up when I get home.

I dump out the plastic two-liter bottles and begin sawing off their tops with my machete. Although the other volunteers never bother with it, I also strip the bottles of their labels. I imagine the marketing department of Coca Cola frowning in disgust as I free the plants’ future potters from a branded identity. What a shameful marketing major I am.

I inspect a small Guachapeli whose roots have outgrown its small bag and have broken straight through the plastic constraints to gasp and grasp for life in the ground outside of its container. I carefully dig up the ground around it, free its fleeing roots, and lift it up to the sky. I smile and say, “How similar we are young Guachapeli,” (Because this is what I do, you see; Have silent conversations with everything. And I’m over being shy about it.)

I put some nutrient rich soil into the two-liter bottle, slice open the bag of the Guachapeli and with the care of a heart surgeon, transplant the small tree its new home. “It’s not the wild, but you are still in need of special care until you are of suitable size and we have found you a suitable place. Here you can build your strength. Because you’re going to need it when you’re ready for the wild.” I top the plant with more new soil. And as I do so, I wonder what it is about the feel of soil that makes my insides sigh.

*****

The late afternoon light is my favorite. It has the color of warm toast and the feel of softened butter. And it is this light that casts itself like as a slide of soft light through our front windows asking if I’d like to play.

I push our brown leather chair to the hopscotch sun squares on the floor and open up the large windows. The wind exhales upon my entire upper body and I can smell the strong flavor of the ocean on its breath. I inhale deeply and fall into my chair.

There is nothing. Absolutely nothing. I could ask more of this day, this life.

I open Ralph Waldo Emerson and on the slide of afternoon light, fall into his words:

“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how men would believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the of City of God which had been shown.”

*****

To be continued.
(sol’s travel photos) (about sol) (some sol stories) (LeapNow.org) (travel disclaimer) (packing list)

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