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| my host's inspirational post-its |
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| What Not To Wear |
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| Zayed Family Portrait, Abu Dhabi Marina Mall |
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| Roomy cheese for sale at Carrefour |
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| Manarat al Saadiyat advertising, 9th St @ Shakyh Zayed St |
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| Graffiti, Kia Motors Building |
Monday, May 26, 2014
dispatches from the field
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Southeast Asia #4: The tale of the dragon's tail and his path to the sea (4/11/08)
On Monday the 24th, we headed to the Pakse airport as a group. We
paid our hefty excess baggage fees, and boarded the tiny plane packed
with plastic bags and fidgety passengers. Upon our arrival in
Vientiane, we stored our myriad bags and took advantage of Lao
Aviation's policy of not checking you through on multi-leg journeys to
head into Vientiane Center. Now, it may seem silly, but we found an
Italian restaurant...we should have eaten at someplace Lao, but after 3
weeks of rural Laotian food, we were all craving dairy and pasta and
real salad. So we opted instead to be really touristy.
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| Wat Sisaket |
Afterwards, Kecia and I walked the few blocks to Wat Sisaket, a
beautiful temple built out of wood in the 18th century. Looking at it,
you'd never believe the temple is that young - it is incredibly striking
and looks very old. You could see, too, the shift as we went farther
north - the wat became more Chinese, more Mongolian. We returned to the airport soon after, and then continued
on to Bangkok.
The next morning, I headed out to the airport, and
caught my flight to Hanoi. Upon landing in Hanoi, the sky was grey, and
the ground green - I was moving away from the equator. Noibai is quite
a ways from Hanoi, so the ride took a while. By the time I got to my
hotel, it was already 2p, and I called one of our participants, Cuong,
to let him know I had arrived. At the workshop, when I told the
Vietnamese that I was coming to Hanoi, they immediately started planning
my visit. Cuong, whose English was strongest, was nominated to be the
tour guide. So, sure enough, he showed up at my hotel on his moped and
we departed in a taxi (it's a status thing) to visit the Ho Chi Minh
Mausoleum. Yeah, commie dictators like to be embalmed, so one can
actually visit Bac Ho (Uncle Ho) in the flesh. I tried to deter Cuong,
but to no avail. Luckily, when we arrived, the mausoleum was closed for
the afternoon for some random Vietnamese bureaucratic reason, so I was
spared the viewing. However, Cuong informed me that I must come back to
Vietnam to see Uncle Ho, and perhaps worrying that I did not have a
great enough appreciation for Uncle Ho, promptly ordered us a tour guide
for the Presidential Palace. It was odd to listen to the tour guide's
canned speech about how humble Uncle Ho was, how he loved children (but
was never blessed with his own), listening to the radio, and tuberoses
with such reverence. At one point, the tour guide said something about
Uncle Ho and the enemy and then corrected his speech, apologizing if he
had offended me as an American.
After the failed mausoleum visit (thankfully), Cuong took me to the
Temple of Literature, which turned out to be one of my favorite places
in the entire world. And yes, I realize how nerdy that is. The Temple
of Literature is a Chinese-style series of pagodas, and was built
centuries ago by Vietnamese kings to honor learning and wisdom (what a
novel concept for a culture to appreciate!). In the 1400s, one of the
kings decided that the names of talented and wise men should live on, so
he inscribed the names of those who earned PhDs on stone stelae,
carried on the backs of tortoises, which are symbols of longevity in
Vietnam. Some 1300 men passed the exams, and are immortalized in stone
in the temple. The Temple of Literature is also the site of the first
university in Hanoi, although it was later moved. Students come to the
temple to pray for good luck on tests, and new grads swarm the
courtyards after graduation ceremonies, coming to be photographed and
thank Buddha for success. It is also a beautiful place, and quiet -
Hanoi's streets are filled with mopeds that honk continuously, so any
peace is appreciated.
Cuong also provided some interesting tidbits on Vietnam during our
day's stroll. I noted that all the moped drivers were wearing helmets
(not so in Laos) and he informed me that a law enforcing helmet use was
enacted this past December. And the people are obedient. Even when it
comes to regulating the number of children each family has - by law,
families are allowed only two children. According to Cuong, if you have
more children than 2, it will be very difficult for you in your
career. He added that rural families often had more, but for those who
worked in the city in this communist country, you can really only have 2
or you'll never be promoted - you'll be a "bad" party member in a
country where your status with the party determines your future.
The Old Quarter of Hanoi is really picturesque and bustling, with
"tube houses." There used to be a law calculating property tax by the
width of your storefront - so storeowners would make their storefronts 2
ft wide - and then the store would continue far into the back of the
building. So, there are many many houses that are short in width but
very deep, a vestige of this colonial law.
I was enjoying Hanoi, and delighted in the delicious and authentic
Vietnamese food at dinner with Cuong and Phu Lam, but Wednesday
morning's bus ride to Halong Bay was calling. I had been harboring
dreams of Halong for months now, and my bus was leaving early. I bid my
friends goodnight, and returned to my hotel to again stuff souvenirs
into any perceived cranny in my bulging luggage.
I met up with the tour company, Handspan, the next morning, and
waited eagerly in the Tamarind Cafe to depart (btw, if you ever make it
to Hanoi, the Tamarind Cafe is amazingly good. Do it!) We boarded our
little bus, my junkmates and I, and hit the highway (term loosely
applied) to Haiphong and Halong City. Having finished the books I
brought from the US (list below), I jumped into the pirated copy of Sex
Slaves by Louise Brown that I bought in Hanoi off a street vendor for
$2. It is a disturbing but informational book about the trafficking of
women in Asia - one that shifts your understanding of the situation
dramatically, and I grew absorbed (absorbed can be translated here as
angry/frustrated/livid/
We
pushed through the different groups to descend into a small motorboat,
which took our group out to the junk. It was lovely, the tiny cabin and
tiny bathroom and all in wood with carved dragons, and peaceful - no
moped horns. It was cool, and for the first time in a month, I found
myself hunting for that one sweater I had brought. Sitting on the top
deck, my fellow passengers and I stared at the karsts as we sailed out -
it is by far one of the most exquisite and beautiful places on the
planet. There are no words. There were 11 of us on the boat: 5 in an
Australian family that kept to themselves, and then a couple from
Singapore, and a Swiss couple, and then an Englishman, and me. Our junk
was pretty relaxed - they were a nice group of people, particularly
Tristan, the Englishman, and Christian and Alex, the Swiss couple. We
stayed up late drinking bad Vietnamese wine and discussing American
politics in French - a lot of "merde" and "je comprends pas. je
comprends absoluement pas." It is reassuring to meet people like you
when you travel - but then again, it's people with my interests who
would show up on a boat in Vietnam that I found as well, so it's perhaps
not surprising, but it was reassuring and comforting to meet people I
will in all likelihood never see again but to share an evening of
laughter, wine, frustration, and ultimately, understanding and
connection.
After a month of being misunderstood in Laos and struggling
to communicate, it was refreshing, although the feeling wasn't to last
long. When I asked our tour guide Son how the karsts were formed, I expected some kind of scientific answer, like ...oh say rain
and erosion combined with humidity. Son told me that an ancient king
was fighting a dragon and as he defeated the
dragon, the dragon fell down out of the mountains in northern Vietnam
and as he hurtled towards the sea, he swung his tail about in flailing
arcs. The earth he dislodged stayed put. And so, the dragon's tail
formed the 4000 majestic islands that are Halong Bay.
Upon my return from my two days in Halong, I spent my final night
in Hanoi and Asia before my long flights back to Los Angeles. Cuong
took me to the water puppet show, which was incredible, but a bit
touristy. It was an amazing experience though - actors hold water
puppets on long sticks behind a curtain, and then the puppets come out
up through a little lake and "perform" in front of the curtain. The
show included really lifelike fish frolicking, and princesses dancing in
unison, and a dragon with fireworks in his mouth. It was incredible. I
was delighted, but tried not to chortle like a child like I wanted to
for Cuong's sake!
It was good to come back to LA - I love it here. As I reflect back on what my trip meant to me, how I
grew from it, how I will carry it with me...I cannot help but feel my
heart ache for the dusty jungle roads, and I yearn for the simplicity of
my rural Laotian life. LA is amazing, it is so beautiful - the sky is
so wide and stretches on to forever, so freeing in its vast expanse of
perfect blue, and the hills in their wealth and clarity on the
horizon...but it was also beautiful to be away from everything, to be
anonymous and mysterious for once, to have a simple life uncomplicated
by gyms and iPods and timesheets and commutes. In my mind's eye, when I
am boiling over with stress, I imagine the hard red dirt of Laos under
my sandals, and the scent of mangos and the broad swath of the Mekong
slowly moving towards the south, to the sea, as we are all called - or
the dreamlike karsts of Halong covered in their lush and emerald
foliage, dropping steeply into the pure turquoise-green waters.
Tennyson was right and said it best:
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
And move I must, to a new margin, which will always gleam in my
pilgrim's eyes. So, cheers to the journey - thankfully, it never ends,
it just turns another corner.
Reading List:
Give Me the World by Leila Hadley
Sex Slaves by Louise Brown
When Heaven & Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip
Foreign Devils on the Chinese Silk Road by Peter Hopkirk
Southeast Asia #3: the Coming of the Mango Rains (3/23/2008)
Another week has passed in Laos, and the workshop has successfully come to a close. We
were not reunited with our equipment, unfortunately, but luckily, there
were no other major mishaps. The week went by slowly and quickly, at
the same time.
The slow part was the heat. And the sickness. In
my fourth week in southeast Asia, after successfully navigating the
traveler's sickness question for so long, I finally succumbed...at the
same time that my air conditioning kicked into overdrive and gave me a
headcold. Outdoors, however, the heat continued...and then the stillness in the air. With the stillness came the heaviness of moisture, the feeling the sky has when it is up to something. It
crescendoed with the pressure of the workshop, ascending until the
final Friday of presentations...and then goodbyes to our new friends. Then the mango rains came. They
came with smashing bolts of lightning that illuminated the sky and
cracked away into thunder that was deafening in the wide valley of the
Mekong. These rains, the beginning of the rainy season,
are called mango rains because the mango trees begin to flower, and once
they do, the rains inevitably come. To me, the name is so beautiful, and captures the heady smell of earth, tree, and flower that the rains brought with them. There are times of dry and times of wet, and you should revere
and honor both. The Lao celebrate the ending of the dry
season with many lompong (pagoda parties!), so every night we were
there, there was another lompong, because once the rainy season arrives,
there isn't much to do...but sit and watch the rain! So, the message is, enjoy what you can when you can and have patience with the rest!
Friday after the presentations, we closed the workshop. Everyone
went home to take a shower (mandatory when you're sweating through your
shirt at 8:30am) and clean up before meeting at the boat dock at 5:30p.
Champasak is on the western bank of the Mekong, and our closing dinner was to be held on the island of Don Daeng. So we boarded the boat, performed the necessary roll call ("Myanmar? Thailand? Vietnam? Khmer? Oh yeah, who else?") and we were off. Almost. After the boat was about 50M into the Mekong, we heard a shouting behind us. Turning, we saw a man wading into the water after us. Who is that? The Lao and the Thai immediately burst out laughing. It was the driver of the boat.
Once
we managed to pick up our driver, then we went across the water,
skimming over as the sun dropped behind the looming black outline of the
hills and the Lingaparvata especially. We were dropped at
the edge of a wide, sandy beach, and made our way slowly up to the
resort for our dinner (La Folie Lodge). It was incredibly beautiful, and we had a wonderful dinner. There
was a slideshow to everyone's delight, and some good-natured national
pride in swimming races – and in throwing people into the pool. Before
long, it was time to leave, and we made our way gingerly (and some
drunkenly) back across the beach in the pitch black to find the boat. Perhaps it was the Beerlao, but people started to sing their country songs, and everyone else would clap along. It was beautiful, with their voices echoing across the water. And then Aye Nilar (one of my favorites, this sassy Burmese girl) got up in the dark and began to dance. We could all feel her rhythm in the beams of the boat, gently rocking us back across the river.
On
Friday, my health improved, largely because I ate nothing for two and a
half days so there was nothing left in me to either come out or be food
for a virus or parasite. Kecia has been sick too, as was
Rohit, and two of the Thais – so questions around the breakfast table
typically ran, "Are you eating today?" "How are you digesting?" "Need any Cipro/Loperamide/Immodium/
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| Me with my kip bling to pay our vendors |
Saturday
was the day of loose ends and riding around with Top on his moped with a
stack of money (63 million kip) to pay the restaurants and guesthouses. At every place, you stop and drink and speak with the owner, who has helped you out over these 2 weeks. It was a very long process. But,
at the same time, the easy friendly nature of the Lao, while it can be
frustrating from a Western efficiency standpoint, was also a saving
grace for us. Our organization's bureaucracy tied up our cash for the
entire duration of the workshop, only releasing it to us with one day's
margin, and had the Lao not been trusting enough to front us 2 weeks of
accommodation and meals for 30 people, we could never have had the
workshop. Imagine telling a hotel in the US, "Please let Simon come and stay and he will leave on the 18th and we will come pay you on the 22nd." So, we are indebted to our Lao friends, although not financially anymore!
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| Lao soup additions... |
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| Roadside market in Bolaven |
Today,
Jeff, Kecia and I – along with our instructor Rohit (or Lo-eet, as the
Lao call him) were all that remained of the visitors, and we too loaded
up a truck and headed towards the ferry to go to Pakse. We got to our hotel in Pakse, a luxury hotel compared to what we have been living in for the past 3 weeks. I realized today I haven't seen a TV in 3 weeks...and I was completely fine without it. I have a bathtub, with a shower head with actual water pressure, and a temperature control for the shower. My little room by the Mekong had hot water, or cold water, but no way to control the degree. Part of me is afraid that returning to Bangkok will completely throw me. Tonight in Pakse, we ate Indian food...so novel, for in Champasak, there is only local food. No
7-11, no Mini-market with chips or packaged food if you're dying for
something recognizable, or just something NOT Lao (for example, I have
been having dreams of dairy products for about two weeks now). Going
home to my apartment in Los Angeles is unimaginable luxury – the
variety of food waiting for MY selection at Trader Joe's and Pavilions,
food waiting for me to come pluck it from shelves of plenty, is
tantalizing. And overwhelming.
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| the ferry from Paxse to Champasak |
We took the afternoon to take a tour of the Bolaven plateau. We
stopped in a textile village to buy these beautiful hand-and-feet woven
fabrics – the women run a loom off their feet to their hands, and weave
beads and incredibly complex patterns into the fabric. They're incredibly beautiful. The tribe is Katu, and they are hill tribes that are ethnically distinct from the Lao. They are also polygamists. We
also saw a coffee processing plant, coffee being a particularly
well-known product from the Bolavens, and then we went to several small
tribal villages, including a Christian village of the Ta Oy tribe and an
animist village. The Christian village was full of
children, who followed us around, and loved having their picture taken
if we showed them the digital copy afterwards on our cameras. They
were incredibly sweet, and welcoming, and a crowd of 40 children (no
exaggeration) followed us to the road and waved goodbye to us. When I asked if they attended Catholic school or went to a public school, Oodon (our guide) told me that they went to a public school when they are 5 or 6. Many
of the women give birth at home (the nearest hospital is in Pakse, 20km
away, and they have no transportation), so there are no birth records,
so age is an approximation at best. Apparently the test to
enter elementary school (no kindergarten) is if a student can reach
their right arm over his head to touch his left ear. If you fail, you're told to go age and come back in a year or two.
We turned off the paved road (mistake in rainy season) to go to the animist village. About 10M down the track, the car lurched in the mud from the rainstorm earlier that afternoon. And then lurched again. Soon our tires were spinning mud pies out the back. Ten kids came running out of the village to watch our van helplessly slither around in the red mud. I was waiting for it, and finally, the driver turned around and said the inevitable: "Ok you push."
So, we pushed.
Eventually
we made it out of the mud and into the village. Our guide said
something about sacrificing buffalo, and Rohit and I turned to each
other with the same look in our eye, and said, "Now?" Thankfully, no, but unfortunately, these tribes have a ritual buffalo sacrifice annually. Oodon
took us to the spirit house in the middle of the village, where the
buffalos are killed, and started to explain in detail how the sacrifice
took place. I wandered off to look at the well, unwilling
to hear about animals being killed and also because I'm a wuss and might
faint anyway, so I didn't hear too much.
Today I fly to Bangkok via Vientiane, and then tomorrow I go on to my vacation in Hanoi and Ha Long Bay. Then Friday, finally Friday, beloved Friday, I am going home. Home...
Southeast Asia #2: Waterfalls, swimming in the Mekong, & pagoda parties (3/15/08)
Sabaidee!
It has been a long and speedy week for us here in Champasak, quite the roller coaster.
It was tremendously exciting for the staff when the workshop participants arrived. After months of preparation and studiously poring over the applications, we had actually made this thing happen. I
realized with a surge of pride on Monday morning that we had overcome
many obstacles to get people here: complications with visas, lack of
communication, frustrating partner organizations, problems of HOW to get
money into this country according to the institute's
strict and often stupid rules, superstitions – one participant declined
our invitation to attend because his fortune-teller told him he should
not leave the country until next year.
Monday evening, we left on a high, with our handler Thonglith promising to ensure the classroom was locked behind us. Rather
than carry the projector and printer and computer for the classroom
back and forth daily, we opted to leave it locked in the municipality
classroom.
Tuesday morning I arrived at 8am to set up the classroom. My stomach turned to stone when I saw that every piece of company equipment left in the classroom overnight was actually gone. I
frantically called Thonglith, and he came running, assuring me that
someone had probably just locked them up somewhere safe (but I thought
the classroom was safe?) overnight. The class took off for Vat Phou, and Kecia and I remained, waiting. We
sat in the classroom for 3 hours, waiting, waiting, waiting...as the
clock ticked on, our hopes that someone had just tried to "help" dimmed
and the realization set in that someone really had stolen our projector,
Kecia's laptop, and the portable printer (which was brand new, ugh). Everyone
we worked with was so embarassed, they called in the mayor, numerous
officials in dark olive-colored military suits passed through the
hallway and peeped at us over their decorated epaulets. Thonglith
was nowhere to be found, and when we called him for progress reports,
he informed us that the mayor had called everyone together, then later
that the police were out searching for the items, etc, etc. And yet nothing surfaced. It was a frustrating morning, to sit and do nothing while $2000 worth of company equipment was MIA – and here, we could barely communicate. There was nothing to do but feel helpless.
It was quite the scandal – after all, this project is pouring $20,000 of capital DIRECTLY into this town. Immediate suggestions were that maybe an enemy of the mayor had stolen the items to cause the mayor to lose face. Many suggested as well that because this is such a small town, and the loss of face so humiliating to the Lao
(the director of a national ministry was here, after all, as well as
every official in the province), that the items would likely
mysteriously reappear. We crossed our fingers, but we aren't holding our breath. Meanwhile Thonglith pulled me aside and apologized profusely. He
was so embarassed and felt culpable, because he had promised me the
class would be locked and that I could leave the equipment here. The mayor came and apologized. The Lao participants apologized. It was clear that everyone was unhappy, apologetic, and humiliated.
Later that afternoon, our Thai partner J called from Paxse. She
might be the kindest person I have ever met in my life, and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the table. I was surprised to see her number on my phone – her flight back to Bangkok was due to leave in 30 minutes or so. She
had just heard about the theft – she and her colleague were
departing the Paxse museum when Phone Phanh (pronounced Pon Pan) came
jolting up in a dusty white pickup truck, waving a sheet of paper signed
by the mayor (in Lao, of course). Phone
Phanh nervously explained that he had to search their luggage for the
missing items – as if they would have EVER stolen our
equipment. As J related this to me, I was so embarassed, and apologized profusely. I
had a very clear mental image of the chubby Phone Phanh, sweating in
the midday heat, with his shock of black hair in his eyes, ripping J's
pants, underwear, and shampoo out of her neatly organized bag in the
parking lot of the museum. With perfect grace, J replied, "Oh no, it's ok, now I have a good list of what's in my luggage."
It
was so perfect, so graceful a response to such an awkward situation,
such a perfect roll with the punches, to carry oneself with that kind of
reserve struck me as wonderful, beautiful – something to aspire to. To be able to carry that kind of grace in a situation so absurd and unfortunate...
The
theft must have bought us some good karma, though, because otherwise,
the workshop has been coming along nicely, thanks to some loaner
equipment, and our fantastic participants. Getting to know them, and the young Italians working with the architectural fondazione, has been a wonderful experience. We
sit in the evenings in long tables in outdoor pavilions and eat
together, and inevitably someone buys a crate of beer ($12 for 12 x
½-liter bottles) to share with everyone. The Burmese are
wonderful – they are very sweet to me, and Aye Nilar has invited me to
visit her in Yangon, and then Myo Jyaw, who works in Mandalay, chipped
in to invite me north. The idea of seeing Burma, a country so closed to Americans, with friends is an incredible enticement. The
Vietnamese participants, who are mainly from Hanoi, are excited to show
me around their city for the few days I will be there and have promised
to show me a good time. They are exploring Paxse today, because they heard a rumor that there are Vietnamese there. Apparently
there is no one on our side of the Mekong who makes baguettes, so a
Vietnamese in Paxse makes them and then delivers bags of them, swinging
from the handlebars of his moped, over here to Champasak every morning. I aspire to someday catch a glimpse! The Italians, Mara, Rico and Beatrice, are young architects and archaeologists working at Vat Phou – they are kind, and open. Rico
has been especially generous to us, taking us on personalized tours of
the site and always offering to help carry something or fix something. One evening after class I had to take the videocamera back to my room. With
his quintessential cigarette hanging out of his mouth, he grabbed by
camera bag and wedged it into the front of his moped (where usually children sit/stand). He climbed on, ash spilling onto his pantleg, and said, "Well you are riding? Orrr not?" So
I got on board, shakily clasping the back bar to steady myself, and we
were off, speeding down the road of dark red packed earth, me perched
precariously on the back.
After a long week in class and working in the heat of the day at the site, we were all ready for a break on the weekend. We
had a field trip: but because the ferries that come over to our side of
the Mekong cannot hold anything much bigger than a pickup or a Lao
sawtheng bus (a converted pickup with benches in the back and a shade, we had to take
our buses to the ferry, board a "passenger ferry" (two canoes tied
together and a platform built over the top) over to the "mainland" and
then boarded our giant tour bus to visit the ruins at ToMo, the
waterfalls at Phonepheng, 2km north of the Cambodian border (and the
Pearl of the Mekong), and then we took a delightful boat cruise through
the Si Phan Don (4000 islands). The Mekong fragments
around, well, 4000 islands, and the result is a confusing myriad of
small canals and beautiful islands where you could easily get lost and
never want to leave should your charioteer not know his way around.
We
stopped on an island to sit on the beach (suspiciously enough our boat
drivers picked a beach near a Laolao distillery, which some participants
eagerly explored). The water was so clear, a shade of
light tropical green, and the sun so bright and warm that many of the
men modestly removed their pants behind stands of trees and then charged
for the refreshing water of the Mekong. At one point, I
turned around, and I saw my boss Jeff make a beeline for the water, which he attacked like a water
buffalo. It was hilarious. After splashing
in the banks for a bit, burning with the midday heat, I finally gave in –
Rico lent me his palleu to replace my cargo pants and I was in. The
water was glorious, and the current strong, so it was lovely to float
past the beach and then try to dogpaddle your way back up for another
ride. There were some chicken fights for national pride,
but those quickly gave way to international pairings and then pure
simplicity of floating happily in the water.
Once we attempted to dry off, we got back to Champasak and had dinner. Our
party captain and handler, Thonglith aka Top called "the party bus"
(our usual sawtheng) and we headed out to a "beek fest-tee-val." Half an hour later, we showed up...at a pagoda! There is apparently an annual festival at the monastery/pagoda, and the yard was shaking with the noise from a Lao band onstage. Crates
of Beerlao were being ferried back and forth, rice cakes with caramel
distributed, children eagerly boarded the ride (a carousel, operated
manually, no joke, the guys grabbed the bars and literally pushed it
into motion), and people gyrated to the Lao pop music. Meanwhile,
on the fringes of the yard, the monks bundled down in their saffron
robes to attempt to sleep on the decks of the pagoda. Simon, one of our instructors, joked, "This is perfect. If my wife calls, I can honestly say, 'But honey I'm at the pagoda!'"
I
will be very happy to be home, but there are things here that I will
miss which stand in clear relief to the life that I usually lead: the
sudden fall of night here, like a curtain, heavy and absolute blackness;
the translucent geckos who flock to the halos of light at night to
feed, the bugs that swarm the light in an uncontrollable, primal frenzy –
upon which the geckos snappily choose for their buffet dinner; the
simplicity of life, needing only $5 a day to eat like a king – and the
people who live and work here who aren't concerned with paper, receipts,
regulations, or rules – they just trust you to pay them what you owe
before you leave; you can walk alone at night on the inky streets in
complete safety; the stencil of my birkenstock on my big toe from days
and days in sandals; the simple pleasure of iced coffee – thick and
silty, but it grows on you; fresh watermelon, bananas, and fruit that
doesn't have a name in English; a hammock in the shade...life here is pure in a way that my frenetic LA
life is not. It is an addicting simplicity, and despite
some things that have happened, my time here has served to instill a
profound respect for humanity, and a realization that at our core, we
are much the same. Amphon, an archaeologist here at Vat Phou, can barely speak English and I no Lao, but we can talk about his 3-week old daughter and how hard it is for him to get some sleep. Dian, a Lao
transexual from Vientiane who works in the restaurant here, can tell me
about her dreams to be a chef, and how someday she hopes to open a bed
& breakfast of her own. I don't know the Khmer word
for hungry, but Heng and I can sit together and pass each other more
food with an easy twitch of the eyebrow or knowing smile. And
barriers of culture all break down when we are dancing in the field of a
monastery until 2am, cheering on Rohit's Bollywood dancing, the Khmer's
articulated apsara-style dancing, and Simon's very British attempts at
rhythm.
When I stop to think about this, I cannot feel
anything but extraordinarily blessed, that I can be here and share this
moment with these people.
Southeast Asia #1: When you see "if it swims we have it" keep on walking (3/3/2008)
I am at the close of my time here in Bangkok. Tomorrow morning,
very early, we depart for Laos. We are on a 8:30a direct flight, which
we have been advised is often cancelled, so we're holding a second
booking to fly to Ubon as well. We are dearly hoping the Pakse flight
goes, as otherwise we fly to northern Thailand, rent a cab to the
border, manually walk all of our stuff across the border bridge, and
meet a Lao driver on the other side...keep your fingers crossed!
Saturday Kecia and I headed to Jatujak market. It is like a rabbit
warren - rows and rows of stalls burrow along internal passageways,
with the occasional peep of light filtering through the tin roof into
the darkness below, and then you burst into blinding sunlight of the
main arteries and there are flutists playing for donations, steaming
street grills, giant furry peanuts...or rather, some really unlucky guy
who got to dress up as a giant furry peanut cartoon on 100-degree
day...we wandered and haggled, then rested with a glass of lime soda and
some mango slices...and then got back on our feet and trekked around
some more, looking for cool stuff and good bargains. I am happy to say I
have resolved some of my gift issues! But Vietnam will provide me other
opportunities, I think...
After we had exhausted Jatujak, or...rather, Jatujak exhausted us,
we got back on the skytrain (wish LA had something that modern &
efficient!) and took it to the Siam station, where we got off and got in
a tuktuk to go to Wat Po. I had wanted to see Wat Po last time I was
in Bangkok, but didn't have the chance, and Kecia had never been,
despite this being her 10th visit to BKK! Our tuktuk took the most
roundabout random route - we had negotiated the price in advance, so it
wasn't to cheat us, but rather to avoid the nasty BKK congestion (which
actually is worse than LA, if that's imaginable!). We teetered
precariously around corners in Chinatown, looped around traffic circles
with monuments in the middle, and turned so many times I lost all sense
of what direction we were going...and then screeched to a stop outside
Wat Po.
We went to go see the massive
reclining buddha. After taking our fill of the slumbering giant, we
decided we should support the temple, and so we paid $6 to have a
45-minute foot reflexology massive. It was lovely - we sat outside and
drank lychee juice in the courtyard of the wat having our sore,
Jatujak-trekking feet rubbed. It was so relaxing. When we were
finished, it was close to 6p, when the wat closes to farang (not to
Thais, though), and the courtyard was empty, and the scene breathtaking:
the grapefruit-colored sky and the thin arching spires of Wat Po, and
the Chao Phraya passing by slowly a block away. Beautiful.
We then met up with Sophie, a Vietnamese/French conservator, who
told us about this "jardin tropical et si beau" so we decided to go
check it out for dinner. We went down to the water ferry dock to begin
figuring out how to get there. We were waiting for the north-bound
water ferry, when the south-bound ferry arrived. The boat doesn't
really stop, but more slows down, the ferry boy tosses a rope onto the
dock to anchor the boat there, and then you have to haul it very
adroitly to make the boat. This is not a transportation method for
sissies. The boat started to pull away, and a woman standing in the
entry area on the rear of the boat started calling and motioning to a
guy on the dock, maybe her husband? Anyhow, he made towards the boat.
Instead of jumping immediately, to slide onto the open rear deck of the
boat, he hesitated, and with his giant camera bag and
socks-under-sandals, he jumped about 5 seconds too late. He leaped out
over the growing 2-ft gap between the dock and the boat, and managed to
grab the pole at the back of the boat - but couldn't hold it and tumbled
down into the river. Everyone on the deck gasped - we had seen it
coming but were all rooting for him. He didn't fall very far down,
maybe 5 feet, but into the murky brown of the dirty, lotus-filled Chao
Phraya...and completely soaked himself and unfortunately his camera. It
was such a surreal experience. I couldn't believe we actually saw it!
Therefore when our boat pulled up, Sophie Kecia & I made
quickly to board, and held on to the handrails, grasping tightly for
fear of repeating our German friend's mistake. We took the water ferry
nearly 45 minutes up the river - far outside of the BKK city limits, to
the end of the line at Nonthaburi. Then we grabbed a cab, and after
another 45 minutes, this time negotiating and calling the restaurant and
trying to figure out where exactly we were, we eventually arrived at
the Suan Thip restaurant. It was a beautiful garden, with small
pavilions/pagodas with tables interspersed with the lakes, fountains,
and jungle-like greenery. We selected a small pagoda in the center, not
far from the river, and settled in our cushions to (finally!) eat
dinner. It was delicious, but unfortunately so was I - having no idea
we were dining al fresco, I hadn't worn bug spray, and my right leg is
now covered in mosquito bites. Welts, really.
Yesterday our coworkers arrived, and we had a dinner meeting at Cabbages & Condoms. It was begun by a man named Mechai to
promote his family planning foundation - all the profits from the
restaurant go to family planning and safe sex education for Thais. The
clientele was mainly farang. It was a great restaurant, outdoors with
lush foliage and a live musician, with sparkly lights and yummy food,
but the decor was all...made of their primary materials. So, the lamps
were made of condoms. There were mannequins by the entrances dressed in
clothes made of condoms and birth control pills - it was very odd to be there with coworkers...
Today Jeff, Kecia and I worked on putting things together for the
workshop. We depart in the morning from the Massage Parlor King hotel,
near the neon sign of a giant lobster that reads "If it swims, we have
it" - behind Tops supermarket and the Starbucks...this is all soon
behind us for the wilds of southern Laos!
Tunisia #4: Aish aish (10/28/07)
Greetings again from Tunis, and my charming hotel room on the rue de Palestine:
The conference went ok. I wish I could give you more detail, but
the last two days I got a terrible case of, er, travellers illness, and I
definitely don't remember much of Friday, which was a haze of
exhaustion and multiple medications. Jeff said I could stay at the
hotel, but I felt like that would be being too much of a pansy so I
manned up, got myself some crackers and water, and pulled it together. I
honestly will miss some of our participants: Hajer and Faouzia were so
excited about me learning Arabic that they specifically spoke as Fus-ha
as possible around me and made an effort to include me, and Moez who
shared his pictures of his daughters with me...I even have a soft spot
for Lotfi, who totally cheated me as much as
he could but who has a wonderful smile. And the man whose name I don't know, who mumbled in
Arabic about the pause-cafe and somehow we made it work in putting
things together for the participants. What I have found is that
Tunisians are just like Angelenos: half of them are amazing and nice and
wonderful and the best people you'll ever meet, and the other half will
manipulate you any way they have to to get what they want.
Saturday night, we had dinner at Liliane and her husband's house
after she took us shopping in the souqs of the medina. I bought
myself a present for having made it through the week - a lovely wool Berber
blanket. I am excited for the cats to roll all over it and cover it in
black fur!
Today I decided I would be no Dido, and throw away Carthage just because of a male (or in my case the hordes of them and trying to avoid them). So while my coworkers stayed in Tunis, I made my way to the TGM station and took the train out through La Goulette (if you look on a map, the train runs along the spit of land outside of Tunis and then up north along the coast, it's cool!) and out to Carthage. Carthage is a very wealthy suburb of Tunis now, beautiful along the lines of Nice or Cannes or Beverly Hills: rich white stucco houses surrounded by lush bougainvillea, palm, lime trees along hillsides overlooking in this case the gulf of Tunis. Most of the ruins of Carthage are under protection, but I imagine some houses overlaid the ancient Punic city. I walked up to the Byrsa hill where the Carthage museum is, tooled around, and then came back down the hill and across the train tracks to the Punic ports musem (1 room) and the Sanctuary of Tophet. At Tophet, I met Salah, a very knowledgable guide to the site. He showed me around, and interestingly enough, claimed the site was a graveyard of children. When the children died, the people believed they should sacrifice a small animal to Ashtarte/Ishtar (goddess of fertility) so that the next child would be healthy. So when archaeologists uncovered the site, they found children and animal remains. His story was interesting (he was actually very cool, and we had a very good conversation) but the Lonely Planet's explanation was slightly...different. LP claims that this site was a child sacrifice site - hmmm...either way, it is actually a beautiful site and one of the best, most ...laid back and pressureless conversations I have had here.
Tomorrow, we head out to Dougga. My coworker says it's only an hour and a
half drive, but I have been in the car with him back and forth from
Mahdia, and he has been working in Tunisia long enough that he now
drives like it (that is to say, the rules are - there ARE no rules!) so I
think with my boss in pursuit in a second car, it will take us a bit
longer. But anyhow, we are to meet the French who work there, as well
as seeing our colleagues and participants who were at our workshop who work at Dougga, so it should
be a good day. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I get on my flight
to LA ok on Tuesday -- Air France picked a fantastic time to strike!
Tunisia #3: The Rough Guide (10/23/2007)
Assalema bikum:
The conference is officially underway. It
was an exhausting week of 14-hour days in preparation, with some
conversations being wonderfully easy and some being near
incomprehensible.
To use the word interesting would be an understatement; this conference is an education unto itself. The cultural differences, and odd institutional relationships at play here, are mind-boggling.
In the end, the good the bad and the ugly: this is definitely (what I hope will be) a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Next time I come to Tunisia, I will be much better equipped (and better packed, good lord why did I even pack one pair of heels?). And at the least, it has given me some great material for characters in short stories. And, thank God, I have some good music to dance to in my huge hotel room, the internet to maintain contact with my loved ones, and ...inshallah a sense of humor at the end of it all.
May your toilets be equipped with toilet paper & functioning flush, your food be tuna-free, and your spirits light -
Tunisia #2: New adventures.... (10/16/07)
**Part of my catching up on old travelogues...slightly edited from original email version to protect identities of individuals. Anthropological convention...
My enthusiasm was dampened a bit after a joyous late morning walk
to have breakfast at the cafes alongside the Avenue Bourguiba - a man
came up from behind my table, took my digital camera off it, and ran
away (luckily I still have my Getty-owned work camera, so I was able to document my trip some). I saw this fat hairy arm come over my shoulder, and
before I knew it, his chubby ass had made off with my birthday present!
It is the first time I have ever been robbed in my life - never robbed
anywhere in Europe, Russia, Turkey or Southeast Asia, so I guess it was
my turn to buy some good karma. The biggest loss is the pictures I
hadn't yet added to my computer. I hope some Tunisian kids eat well
this month.
Then I made some new friends. Two "gentlemen," Bechir & Ali,
came to sit with me and chatted me up at the cafe as I waited for the
commissariat de police to arrive to take my statement. They seemed
nice, so I figured, why not? I can either pick them up now, or I can be
hassled all day. So I took my chances, and while I was taken to Ali's
leather shop and shown around, on the whole they were tremendously
respectful and showed me all around the medina. We discussed politics,
immigration, the educational and work systems in our countries...it was a
very pleasant afternoon, which I needed after the rough wake-up call.
| Bechir & Ali, Tunisian hosts/guides |
I made it back to the hotel to meet Jeff & Francoise for
dinner, after having some help from Bechir & Ali in picking out some
Tunisian CDs. (One has a video component, score! They were
1,500TND. That's 75 cents). We ate at a place in the medina, Chez
Nous, and headed back to the hotel to crash before meeting with our Tunisian counterpart
this morning. We showed up at her office, which is in an old palace in
the medina, and it's gorgeous Islamic courtyard architecture, tiles
everywhere, skylights in the domed central courtyard, walls covered with
books and tapestries...I didn't talk much in the meeting, but it was an
interesting power play of cultures and institutions (the director of
the institute asked me if I understood French, after I had failed to laugh as
heartily as he would have apparently liked, at his lame joke...no buddy I
got it. I got all of it. It wasn't funny). I thought to myself, I
could easily work here because the office alone is beautiful.
Then...and then we saw Liliane's house when we picked her up for
lunch.
Liliane, a Frenchwoman, is our translator, and is married to a
Tunisian dramatist. They bought a house
in the medina - huge carved doors, like you see on postcards, open into
30-ft hallways (I'm prone to exaggeration, and I'm not this time!)
filled with books, mirrors, paintings, Arabic calligraphy...her home is
arranged around a central courtyard filled with herbs, and plants, and
cats...she handpainted all the decorations, according to accounts of
what the house had originally been like, and restored the mosque on one
end, and has yet to tackle the HAFSID (11th century) wooden walls on the
north side of the house. It is amazingly beautiful - the hard work of
restoring an 11th century home shows!
Liliane led us through the winding cobblestoned streets of the
medina, past the Zeytouna mosque and down into a corridor with
occasional skylights passing blotches of light into the small souqs
lining it. She turned suddenly, into a small alcove, and we sat down at
the table that barely fit in the alcove, to order some salade mechoui
and "the best lamb in the medina." She was right, it was delicious!
After gorging, it was time to head down to Mahdia. Our little
Megane could barely handle all the bags and boxes and tubes of junk, but
somehow we made it fit and zoomed out of Tunis on the only freeway in
the country (2 lanes each way - it makes Santa Monica blvd look like the
405). And then...then the highway stops just after Sousse. And you go
village by village, through the only paved road, past goats and butcher
shops and small souqs and pedestrians dodging traffic and waiting for
the bus. Somewhere along the way the sky turned sour, and then the sky
dumped down buckets of rain, that quickly drowned the flat road. Soon
we were plunging through puddles in the little Megane, trying not
to spray pedestrians, but to no avail. Several puddles later, we
arrived at our hotel in Mahdia...much to our dismay. It's pretty much
the Tunisian version of a Sandals resort - huge and gaudy and filled
with chubby Germans and Russians taking the cure. Jeff commented, as we
waited in the reception, that it looks like one of Saddam's
palaces...and it kind of does. There are two swimming pools, 3 bars, a
spa....and lots of native Tunisians forced into horrid condescending
outfits. All of us were ready to find a new hotel, pretty much as soon
as we pulled up...but alas...
Anyway. Tomorrow we drive into El Jem with Ahmad, our Tunisian partner, and begin the
planning, in detail, for the workshop, and I meet with the hotel
manager. Exciting, la vie tunisienne.
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