Hula Hoping

Today is the 30th birthday of one of the world's most amazing women.  Amazing women deserve awesomeness every day, but they particularly deserve awesomeness on their birthdays.  I want to be one of the contributors to this amazing woman's day of awesomeness, but I am finding it a bit challenging.  Firstly, the emotional challenge: when you love someone so very much, just about any action does not seem sufficient in channeling the bigness of your love.  Secondly, the logistical challenge:  I'm an American on holiday in India, and she is a Kiwi on holiday in Europe.    

The only gift I could come up with to combat these difficulties of emotion dramatization and friendship globalization is to promote her amazingness.  This woman is a very talented musician who goes by the moniker Hula Hope.  She recently released a lovely album with "songs about threshing wheat and charming men, on the folk side of pop." It is truly great, and I think everyone should listen to it.  

So, my gift to her -- and to all of you! -- is the proliferation of this link: 

http://hulahope.bandcamp.com/

Here are a few bonus tracks, too. (Hula Hope also enjoys music video production.):  

(A brief digression:  In the spirit of sharing Hula Hope videos, I might as well throw in a project on which I collaborated with Hula Hope and Anna-grams.  It is a great source of joy and pride and complete ridiculousness for me:    https://vimeo.com/44302601)

SO...

Happy birthday, Hula Hope!  May this new decade be filled with awesomeness in your music career and beyond.

Rishikesh Randoms, Part 1

About a week ago, I arrived to Rishikesh -- a bonanza of yoga and relative peacefulness nestled into the foothills of the Himalayas.  I came here with the intention of attending a four week yoga course with a school called Agama.  My course is certainly not the only one on the block, though.  You can't walk more than a few meters without seeing a sign advertising a teacher or a class or a program related to yoga or Ayurveda.  Rishikesh is considered a bit of an auspicious spot by Indian Hindus, and, now, with the explosion of yoga in the Western world in the last decade or so, it has also become a hub for travellers and enlightenment-seekers from all corners of the world to congregate. There is a cyclical nature to this that I quite like.  One of the dudes who is credited with bringing yoga to the West (Swami Sivananda) led his adult spiritual life in Rishikesh.  From this town, the wisdom of yoga flowed out to the rest of the world and now the rest of the world is flowing back in.     

With this bit of background, you will have some context for a statement that I hear with some regularity amongst the yoga scene in Rishikesh: "this place has some really special energy."  I can't say for sure what that means, but I can say that I have been on my Anna Skinner game in a way that I have not experienced in ages.  One important amazing symptom of this is that I have been meeting some pretty awesome characters. The first nugget of note is Om the Jeweller with Diarrhea of the Mouth.

When I say that I am staying in Rishikesh, it's a bit of a lie.  I am staying just outside of Rishikesh town in a neighborhood called Swargashram on the other side of the river from the hustle and bustle.  It's a quiet (no cars allowed!) little stretch of one road with ashrams, restaurants, chai shops, bookstores, mini convenience corners, and a few street-cart salesmen.  This means I pass by the same relatively small group of people several times every day.  This might be annoyingly repetitive for some people, but it is ideal for me.  It means that I already know the names of many of the shop owners and get frequent invites for a chai and a chat.  It means that after only three days I was already feeling  like this place was home.  It's like my tiny Rishikesh version of Cuba Street in Wellington or Long Street in Cape Town.  

On my  first walk down this road, I had a brief exchange with Om the Jeweler with Diarrhea of the Mouth.  I was still easing out of my tough-girl exterior acquired while traveling through the madness of urban northern India, so I was not open for conversation business.  I immediately wrote him off as a likely asscrawler.  Twenty four hours later, though, that Rishikesh energy must have been coursing through me because when he invited me into his shop for a chai, I very happily agreed.  I let him unleash his tendency towards verbal diarrhea,  which I mostly found fascinating, estimating only a 25% bullshit rate.  

In one of his rare breaks in speech, I managed to ask a question about the large number of sadhus sprawled out on the benches along the road.  (Quick note on sadhus:  they are "renunciators" following a spiritual path.  They are usually wearing saffron/salmon colored sarongs/robes, they often have wild hair, and they generally look really fierce/maniacal in this manner that I find awesomely intriguing.)   "Are these saffron-wearing dudes really all sadhus...because some of them look like they are on drugs?"  This led to another lengthy description, still upholding the same suspected bullshit rate.  The important information that I believe to be true is that many of the sadhus are for real but some of them are sort of putting on an act to facilitate a lucrative beggar lifestyle.  Some of them might have started out as sadhus with a genuine spiritual focus but they have become involved in drugs and lured in my modern electronics/conveniences.  The most important part of his diarrhea of the mouth was this statement:  "Do you want to go meet a 'real sadhu'?  I can take you to meet one now."  

         

My answer to this question couldn't be more obvious (although the idea was still given some sensible consideration because of the 25% bullshit rate factor and the still existing possibility that Om the Jeweler was an undercover asscrawler).  

I followed my intuition, and I jumped on the back of Om's motorbike.  We headed over the bridge and a bit out of town, down a bumpy dirt road to a new-ish construction site next to the Ganga.  Just in front of the frame of the soon-to-be hotel was a simple but spacious three-walled hut.  It had a wonderful view of the river and the green foothills that have not yet been taken over by guesthouses and restaurants.   Bookending this meager living space was a large Shiva shrine at the front entrance and a big rasta-colored Bob Marley sarong on the back wall.  

Shiva and Bob.  Interesting combo.

Om the Jeweler introduced me to the small crew of men.  I met Hut-owner Baba, Oldman Visiting Baba, Silent Young Baba, and the Babas' Domestic Worker.  I sat in the presence of these babas, not entirely understanding what was going on but totally fascinated by everything I was witnessing -- the pimped-out aspects of this hut life (electricity and hotplate equipped), Hut-owner Baba's amazing dreadlocks that nearly reached his ankles when he unravelled the mass that usually sat like a crown on top of his head, the discussion of the flood that annually destroys the hut, the Babas' Domestic Worker brewing chai, Silent Young Baba playing with a smartphone, and then the bowl of hot water with a small bit of plastic wrap and some unidentified substance inside that looked a bit like sludge.  It was this last fascinating item that gave me an opportunity to ask what I thought to be a socially appropriate question:  

Me:  "Hey, what's in the bowl?"

Om:  "Opium.  Do you want some?"

Me:  "No. no.  Definitely not.  No"

Like I said, Shiva and Bob.  Interesting combo.

So, I sipped my chai, walked down to the Ganga to say a prayer (as encouraged by all Babas involved), watched the ingestion of opium for the first time in my life, and then turned down a puff of the pipe of marijuana.  Hut-owner Baba actually spoke decent English (another trait that made this lifestyle all the more suspicious), so we talked a bit about America and he told me a bit about how he had been living "the sadhu life" since he was seven years old.  

After what I deemed to be a polite passing of time, I gently vocalized my interest in getting out of this weird vortex of sadhu-non-sadhu-possibly-drug-dealer life so I could return to my sweet little sober Swargashram atmosphere for some dinner.  As a farewell and thanks for the visit, Hut-owner Baba offered me a blessing.  Although I thought his spiritual path was largely bullshit, I thought he might have had a 25% authenticity rate. Bob might have been on the back wall, but the Shiva shrine was very impressive and surely much more of a permanent image than that of the sarong.  Besides, there is hardly anyone whose blessing I wouldn't accept.  So, he smudged some holy ash in the area of my third eye and mumbled a few words in a holy language.  As I folded forward to meet my head to the ground, he patted my back, and, in a move that simultaneously boosted and lowered his authenticity rating, stated the words that a Charlie Skinner sort of sadhu would speak:  "God bless you, baby."  

And, God bless you, too, Baba/baby.

I chose not to ask Om the Jeweler any questions about what exactly made Hut-owner Baba a 'real sadhu' when we returned to Swargashram.  He, however, insisted on paying for my dinner, and I could only assume that it was because he felt guilty about his own bullshit rate as well as that of Hut-Owner Baba.  

Despite the absurdity of the sadhu-non-sadhu visit, I loved it and I am thrilled that I get to spend three more weeks in a place where such randomness happens with ease.  This good energy might do me some real random good.  

Rishikesh, let's rock and roll.

   

      

A Different Call to Prayer

Like so many who have come before me, I have had expectations that this journey through India will be a spiritual one.  India has existed in my mind as one big, over-populated holy land that is sure to bring me a bit closer to myself and a bit closer to God.  Why wouldn't this be the site of my spiritual breakthrough?  India is, after all, the birthplace of yoga and the home of a bazillion gurus.  It is the county where Mother Teresa received her "call within a call" from God to serve the poorest of the poor.  It is where Siddartha Gautama sat under a tree and became who we know today as Buddha.  It is where The Beatles studied Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh.  And, perhaps most importantly, India is the setting of the 'Pray' section of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat Pray Love.

In just my first two weeks, I have already visited a number of the spiritual sites referenced:  Mother Teresa's tomb (and her former bedroom), the site of Buddha's enlightenment as well as the site of his first sermon, and a puja (prayer service) at one of the sacred rivers of the Hindus, the Ganges.  All of these experiences have been interesting, pleasant and meditative in their own rights, but they have not been the moments that I have felt closest to a higher power.  In my first few days, before visiting any of these important places, I was unexpectedly called to prayer continuously.  My prayers sounded something like this:

"Dear God, please help me navigate around these multiple piles of poo."

"Dear God, please don't let that rickshaw slam into this bus."

"Dear God, please don't let that taxi run me over."

"Dear God, please save me from a case of raging diarrhea after this meal."

"Dear God, please tell my gag reflex to chill out."

"Dear God, please make this dude leave me alone."

"Dear God, please turn off this incessant noise."

"Dear God, please don't let me suffer from molestation or theft on this train."

"Dear God, PLEASE DON'T LET ME LOSE MY MIND!!!"

"And, PS, please God bless these people living very meager lives (particularly the barefoot men earning their wages by transporting Kolkata on their hand-pulled rickshaws)."

From what I can surmise, India is not the divine location of people's spiritual revolutions because it is filled with gurus and ashrams and yoga and all the remnants of these amazing people who were super close to something bigger than themselves.  For me at least, India is a bonanza of spirituality because it is testing me at every turn.  How far can I take you before you break?  Can I give you 87 people crawling up your ass at once, and can you still remain open-hearted and loving?  (For the record, the response to this question at the moment is absolutely not.)  Can you be hot, tired, and hungry, and still treat all living things with loving kindness?  (Again, nope.)  Can I completely over-stimulate your senses, and can you maintain focus and patience?  (Hmmm, not really.)  Can you accept that life is a big, messy, crazy, unorganized thing, and that I am going to illustrate this to you on these streets, everywhere you turn?  (I'm trying!)  Can you balance all of your emotions and traits at once, particularly maintaining light-hearted intuitiveness and straight-forward assertiveness in equal parts?  (Yeah.  Right.)  

I admit that on this trip I have had quite a bit of hubris around my ability to travel and integrate into unfamiliar settings.  Enter India!  This country is knocking me right on my ass, making me a bit more humble and handing back my sense of wonder and complete bewilderment.  Sometimes shaking out that excessive pride is overwhelming and scary, but I ultimately think that it is really, really good for me (even if it sometimes feels a bit bad).

   

A friend recently said something to me about how reaching enlightenment is not about sitting in a quiet room in meditation, but rather that it's about putting yourself in a situation that really challenges you and brings you face to face with your ugliness.  Let me tell you -- India is no quiet room.  

So, I will keep praying and I will keep looking at my ugliness, and, hopefully, I will survive this crazy place, perhaps even with a bit more of a sense of equanimity and wisdom.  

Bring it on, India!!!

Daughter Chooses Casual Sex Over Well-being of Senior Citizen Mother

I had just hit the official halfway point of the Greatest Hits Tour when my mother (aka Big Bad Betty, BBB, Trip B) met me in Thailand for two weeks.  This was a highly anticipated moment.  It had been a significant year of grieving and transition since we last saw each other.  And, this was a bold step for my mother -- her first trip overseas without my father and her first Asian experience.

With the excitement of seeing my mom and the pride in her for taking this brave step in her travel life, I had not really given much thought to the fact that I was traveling with my mother.  Now, don't get me wrong; traveling with your mother is awesome, especially if she is Big Bad Betty, the greatest mom in the world.  There are, however, a different set of rules and expectations to this travel arrangement.  Having spent months blazing my own trail, I occasionally forgot that this was a different ballgame...

The crowning moment of this took place when BBB and I were in Pai.  It is a small backpacker bonanza a few hours north of Chiang Mai, nestled in the mountains, full of organic-y restaurants and white people wearing Ali Baba pants.  It is sort of what I love and hate most about Thailand all at once.

It also happens to be the perfect place to bump into someone that you have seen previously on the tourist trail.  I have a skill for chance encounters anyways, but I also always interpret them with some degree of significance.  It, therefore, simultaneously felt like a grandly fateful moment and an obvious event when Trip B and I bumped into Stu.  I met Stu about a month prior in Bagan, Burma.  We were staying at the same accommodation and found ourselves sitting outside our neighboring rooms one afternoon, shooting the breeze while we were trying to catch a breeze (the electricity was out and the fans were not circulating).  We had a great conversation about life, love, the future, and our shared mid-western identities (he is from St. Louis and his grandmother lives in Allen Park!).  After that day, he went his own way with his temporary travel companion (a lovely American girl who happened to be 10 years my junior), and I went mine.

So, there we were again, a month later, on the streets of Pai, me with my mother and him quite notably without that young girl.  Obviously, I invited him to join me and Trip B for dinner.

If you know my mom, you understand that she is probably the world's best wing-woman.  A hallmark moment might be the Saturday night when I was laying in bed Granny Annie style, and I received a phone call at 11pm with the voice of a nice gentleman on the other end and my mother's muffled voice in the background:  "Hi.  Yeah, I just met your mom and she said that you are single and that I should call you."  Thanks, Mom.

She may not have realized it at the time, but she was really helping me lay the groundwork for action with this babe, Stu.  I have been defying my familial alcoholic roots and living a dry-ish lifestyle over the last three months.  It's not really possible, however, to stay on the wagon when Betty is in town.  So, along with dinner, there were a few beers.  As we were leaving the restaurant, we met a woman named Leanne (who BBB promptly started calling Cousin Leanne) trying to promote her bar.  Betty was onboard pretty much immediately, empathizing with the plight of a struggling bar owner and loving the opportunity to shove bar flyers in the hands of young tourists. We drank at Cousin Leanne's bar along with some of Betty's recruits, but Big Bad wasn't ready to party until dawn.  After a few cheap rum and cokes, she decided to retire.  Stu and I, on the other hand, decided to continue drinking.

Needless to say, I shared a bed with someone other than Big Bad Betty that night.

At 9:30am, my cell phone rang.  It took me a minute to realize that it was my phone. There were only three people that had my number in Thailand, so the sound of my phone buzzing was quite novel.  The caller ID told me that it was one of the three holders of my number -- my brother's ex-girlfriend.

Me: "Jules! What's up?"

Jules: "Girl, where are you? Your mom is so worried."

Good Lord, Betty contacted Jules!?!? Why??? How??? Whaaaaaaa???

Let me interject some important background information here.  This ex-girlfriend is not just any ex-girlfriend. My brother was in a relationship with Jules for seven years, and they only broke up a few moths ago. She is an absolutely amazing woman, so the loss of her has brought heartbreak to the whole family.  She lives in Chiang Mai now, and I met up with her for dinner a few days prior. My mom was adamant that she did not want to join us.  Seeing Jules would be too sad, too painful, and she didn't want to make things any harder for Jules by being an emotional hot mess.

Suddenly, Betty was singing a different tune when she was gripped with early morning anxiety. A missing in action daughter allowed her to put all that emotional baggage aside. My mother woke up at 7:30am thinking that I might be dead and, more importantly, that she might be left to fend for herself in northern Thailand. In her panicky resourcefulness, she realized that she had acquired one Thai phone number many months ago -- the number for Jules. In her state of desperation, she googled how to skype a Thai cell phone and connected with Jules -- the first contact she had had with her since the break-up with Tommy. She explained that I had abandoned her and asked Jules if she could help get a hold of me. Despite the fact that Jules is trying to pull herself out of the Skinner vortex, she was sucked right back in the middle, called upon to lead the search party for Betty's delinquent daughter.

I explained to Jules my whereabouts and asked her to let my mom know that I was with Stu and that I would return to the hotel right away. I pulled my hung-over self together and did the walk of shame back to my mother's place.

So, a quick recap here: I was traveling with my mom. I bumped into a babe with whom I had a great vibe. My mom basically paved the way for our night of romance. Intoxicated, I chose not to formally notify my mom of the naked sleepover (because maybe that would be a bit awkward anyways?). My mom freaked out and called my brother's ex-girlfriend. My brother's ex-girlfriend called me. I leave the babe in a rush because I am in big trouble with my mom.

Have I mentioned that I am 31 years old?

Betty and I spent most of that day debriefing the incident. I encouraged her to lay down a thick layer of guilt on me, but occasionally I attempted to defend myself. After a while, we entered the more light-hearted joking phase. At that point, Mom told me that if she wrote a blog, she would title her post, "Daughter Chooses Casual Sex Over Well-Being of Senior Citizen Mother." Because I actually have a blog, I thought I could materialize the humorous hypothetical post for her. I think it is about time that I tarnish my good name a bit anyways. It's the least I can do after leaving my poor mother to the Thailand worry wolves.

This is Burma

A few weeks ago, I had a day with heaps of time to kill and a hardcore hankering for some quality time with my email, so I headed to the nearest internet café.  When I walked in and inquired about using a computer, the employee informed me that the internet was not currently working.  That was fair enough, but due to my incessant need to plan, I asked a few more questions to determine when I should return or where else I might be able to find a connection.  What I gathered from this dude’s broken English was that there was no internet in the entire country.  Furthermore, there would be no internet for one month.  I became completely fascinated with this absurdity and began asking other people about this predicament.  The same answer kept finding me:  for about one month, the internet would be operating extremely slowly or not at all everywhere in the country because there was an underwater cable that had been damaged (one woman claiming that fish had been eating the hardware). 

This is Burma.

In essence, this is why I chose to spend nearly four weeks in this country.  I wasn’t drawn there on a mission to temple hop (though I certainly achieved that) or to see some wonders of geography (though I saw some pretty things) or for the lovely weather (it was often oppressively hot or oppressively rainy).  I went there because of the fascinating socio-political climate and to experience a minimally westernized nation that exists in one of the most heavily tourist trodden parts of the world.  Indeed, it was fascinating.    

Burma is the type of place that really makes me wish I was a bit smarter, a bit more informed…quite frankly, a bit less of the American stereotype who is clueless about international politics.  At the same time, I know that’s just not how I am wired.  I will probably always depend on my super smart friends and my experiential learning that comes through travel to explain these world issues.  I think it’s sort of the Skinner way.  I want to see it and feel it and converse about it.  There has got to be an emotional and/or experiential component to reel me in. 

What I’m trying to say is that I am far from an expert on Burma, but I’m going to do something radical and write a travel post (including some non-emotional facts about Burma) on my travel blog. 

Here’s the skinny:  Burma was a British colony until 1947.  The dude who was considered the father of independence, Aung San, was assassinated not long after.  In the wake, there was all sorts of chaos.  And, eventually, in 1962, there was a coup that has now led to the world’s longest ruling military dictatorship.  As you might imagine, this has been bad, bad, bad:  a bonanza of human rights violations, ethnic cleansing, a massacre in 1988, and the country’s leading lady of democracy (Aung San Suu Kyi -- Nobel Peace Prize winner who also happens to be the daughter of Aung San) under house arrest for almost 15 of the last 22 years.  For reasons that I only vaguely understand, the crazy military dictatorship decided to begin easing up on things in the last few years (I’m in the middle of reading a book called ‘Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads’, so perhaps when I finish the book I will understand that piece of the puzzle and can report back.)  After an election a little over a year ago, there is now some civilian representation in government.  Many (but certainly not all) political prisoners have been freed, and some of the crazy laws have been eased (like, now, the newspapers can actually report on the news).  So, there seems to be hope for democracy and reconciliation, but people are not quite joining hands and singing Kumbaya.

I felt that this political situation was evident in some ways, but it was generally only detectable if you were looking for it.  The Average Joes were not walking the streets with their heads down, sad and afraid.  The military men were not walking the streets, busting heads.  People were just living their lives, doing their thing.  I have no doubt that just about every single person in the country has a sad story to tell related to the dictatorship, but on the surface, people were smiling and laughing and generally overflowing with gentle kindness. 

Having said that, there are surely signs of the government’s legacy of crazy control.  The whole country shuts down by 9pm.  I don’t know what that necessarily means, but I know it means something.  Burma is markedly behind its neighbors in terms of level of development, particularly in terms of technology.  I haven’t seen such a lack of mobile phone use since the US in 2001.  There are power outages across entire cities for several hours just about every day.  The isolation from Western culture is impressive.  I mean, men are wearing skirts (which I thought was smoking hot and highly practical, by the way).

*Um, so this guy was NOT one of the smokin' hot babes, but he was a total nugget.

Perhaps most telling of Burma’s isolation was the fact that there were so few white folks around.  As a tourist who tries to tone down her tourist-ness, it felt nice to be in a place that was not full of people like me.  There were certainly other travelers, but the numbers were a small fraction of what you find in Thailand.  (Of course, I always find this sort of conversation amongst travelers to be slightly ridiculous:  we like to go places where we don’t see many people like us…but then by going there ourselves, we are increasing the number of people like us who are in that place.  What gives me the right to go somewhere and complain about there being so many tourists if I am, in fact, a tourist as well?) 

Being a tourist is currently my lifestyle, so I give the role a lot of thought.  What Burma made me think about was that tourists, perhaps, should take on more activist responsibilities.  (Well, I guess I sort of believe that as human beings we have a responsibility to be activists, but that is material for another blog post…)  Bad things are happening all the time, all over the world, in every country I have visited, and, most notably, in my very own homeland.  So, let me be clear that Burma’s human rights issues did not exactly open my closed eyes to the world of injustice.  Burma was, however, a reminder of all of those bad things happening all over the world.  And, it was a reminder that there are a whole bunch of people like me that go to these places where bad things are happening to have one hell of a good time.  Then, what?  Well, then we go home and go back to our jobs and maybe save money until we have enough to go to some other country that is ohmygodsocheap. 

This is how I think about it:  If someone walked into my house, just to have a look, and noticed that I had a broken refrigerator and then left saying, “Interesting.  That girl has a broken fridge.  That must suck.”  And, then, more and more people did the same thing – like, one million more.  If no one ever stopped to say, “yo, do you want some help with that fridge?  I’m kind of a handy man, and I know a guy…”  I would be a bit irritated.  

I don’t know how to fix a fridge.  I’m not even sure I know a guy who knows how to fix a fridge.  But, I don’t want to be that asshole that doesn’t even try to provide my useless help.  So, that’s the point of this blog post.  I just want Burma to know that I see their broken fridge and to inform others about it.  I mean, maybe someone reading this blog is a skilled fridge repairman.

---

A few asides:

1.        The one month internet crash ended up being false.  I was able to check my email the very next day.  Someone explained to me that there was one news source that printed a story along the lines that I heard.  I have no idea if there was any truth to it, and, if there was not, why anyone would want to spread such a rumor.

2.       I call the country Burma, not Myanmar (as you will see it labeled on maps).  Here is why:  "Burma's democracy movement prefers the form 'Burma' because theydo not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change theofficial name of the country. Internationally, both names are recognised."

Unfamiliarly Familiar

After over three weeks of luxuriously relaxing on the southern beaches of Thailand, it was time to visit the organized chaos of another greatest hit -- Bangkok!  It was my first time back to this buzzing city since my brief stint teaching and touring four years ago, and I was looking forward to checking out my old haunts (and eating as much food as possible in the process).

From the familiar feeling of disembarking an overnight train and entering the public gallery of Hua Lamphong train station, it felt great to be back.  Great but weird.  For the duration of my visit to BKK, I felt like a stranger in a land that was not strange to me at all.  You know the feeling of a word or name being ‘on the tip of your tongue”?  I felt like that’s where the entire city of Bangkok was resting -- on the tip of my tongue.  My surroundings were familiar – the public transport map, the walk from the river to Khao San Road, the delicious food on the street carts – but I couldn’t quite connect the dots.  My brain was churning hard, trying to conjure memories that related to these sites with which I felt some vague nostalgic resonance.  Perhaps more practically, it was churning hard trying to remember how to get from place to place.  I wanted to call on some imaginary witness to my life and ask, “umm, can you please tell me what this corner means to me?  And, how do I get to Central World on the BTS?”    

One of the areas I was most looking forward to visiting was my old neighborhood.  For anyone who wants to get on the old googlemapper, I lived on an alley/small street (which they call a ‘soi’ in Thailand) off of         the main road between Bang Pho and Bang Sue (please insert slightly dirty joke here).   As I got off the subway, I was nervous that I would not remember my way, but it came back to me like muscle memory.  Once I began walking down my old main road, though, I felt quite confused.  “Was this always this way?  I thought there used to be some old school wood structures over here…”  I was hardcore second guessing myself.  Then, I realized that there was MASSIVE construction everywhere around me for a new line of the skytrain – the future purple line.  At least I had a concrete reason for being disoriented in this situation – my neighborhood was in the midst of a cosmetic makeover.  As I walked around, marveling at the changes and seeing traces of storefronts, carts, and karaoke bars I recognized, I kept thinking about how the whole scene seemed like a reflection of what was going on in my brain.  It was as though a big skytrain had been constructed in my mind amongst my Bangkok memories.  It felt like all of the knowledge and memories were in there somewhere, but many of them had been deemed obsolete and the rest were blocked by the new construction-y stuff.  Interestingly, the one thing that I remembered with greatest clarity was my little soi, and there was no mental or physical skytrain there (though, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, it appears that there will train tracks up in a matter of months).     

As I carried on with my walk to visit to my former workplace – Yothinburana School – the mental skytrain effect continued, and it became apparent that other people have their own brain train issues to deal with as well.  I passed through the gate, trying to explain to the security guard why this random white girl was walking into the school grounds.  He, obviously, had zero memory of me.  Then, I entered the English Program office, finding familiar faces whose names escaped me and familiar faces whose names I knew very well but who had no idea who the hell I was.   Other than two specific former colleagues, I didn’t actually expect anyone else to remember me.  Therefore, I thought it best to ask to simply ask to see these connections rather boldly announce my return, asserting some self-importance about my visit.  This, of course, turned out to be awkward, particularly when I was shuffled over to the director of the program.  She clearly had no idea who I was but also clearly took offense to the fact that I did not ask first to see her.  I managed to smooth things over by throwing up a few wais.  And, it seemed that all of the familiar faces did sort of recall me after I mentioned my formerly dreadlocked hair. 

Without indulging in too much Anna Skinner drama-queen-ness, I must say that this lack of connection with a formerly significant space and its people put me in a bit of an existential quandary.  My most typical line of existential questioning went as follows:  “Did I not leave even the faintest footprint on this city?  Have I ever left a footprint in any city?  Have I ever left a footprint on anything, anywhere, ever?  Does anyone ever leave a footprint?  What is the point of a footprint?  Does a footprint even exist?  What is the point of anything, anywhere, ever, anyways?”

Since my initial existential self-interrogation, I have regained a bit of perspective.  I only actually lived in Bangkok for four and a half months.  With my TEFL course and my travels, we are looking at a maximum of seven months in Thailand.  That is a remarkably short span of time.  Perhaps more significant than the length of time I spent there is the fact that Bangkok was never my place.  I made some lovely friends, and I had a rowdy, fun time there.  I appreciate the city for all of its madness and amazing food and cheap massages, but I never had a soul connection to the place.  So, um, duh -- of course there will be no bloody Anna Skinner footprint!  Cement footprints (like the ones on the driveway of my neighbors, the Bartamaluccis…I was always very jealous of their permanent prints on their property) require a serious investment of time and a stirring of the soul.  Let’s be honest -- my track record with time investment in any location in my adult life is extremely poor.  And, no offense to Bangkok, but there are other places in the world that have taken hold of my heart in a manner that it never could.   

All in all, it was more great than weird to be back in Bangkok.  I still love the city. I love it for everything it has been to me and everything it has not.  It’s OK that it did not take on my footprint.  It makes me feel a bit rejected, but I really don’t think I wanted to give it my footprint anyways.  I’ve got other footprints to cement…

Kudos and Bofo: A Love Story

Two of my dear friends just got married this past weekend in Arequipa.  I had a front row seat for the evolution of their relationship, often coaching both teams.   It’s like I’ve been with them up to the finals, but I won’t be able to participate in the championship game.  This, obviously, is the source of great disappointment (particularly when you add in the awesome opportunity this would have been to dance salsa)! 

In an attempt at being involved in their special day from afar (and in lieu of a wedding gift), I would like to share with you the story of this wonderful couple…

I met Elly ‘Kudos’ Kondos and Adolfo ‘Bofo’ Salas within my first 24 hours in Arequipa.  The first time I laid eyes on them, Adolfo was in the middle of a Spanish lesson with his most challenging student, Elly.  I was new to the Traveller Not Tourist world, and after I saw the two of them reviewing worksheets at the dining table of the volunteer house, I enquired with someone in the kitchen if all lessons took place there.  It was explained that this was a normal occurrence for instructor Adolfo, but then the informant conspiratorially implied that there might have been a little something more to that particular Spanish lesson ‘if you know what I mean’.  

My thought:  well, they do say that you learn the best on the pillow.

I soon found out from the horses’ mouths that there was indeed more to that Spanish lesson (though, I don’t think there has ever been enough pillow talk because Kudos still can’t speak Spanish).  The gossip about the budding relationship was one of the forces that led to the development of my strong friendships with Kudos and Adolfo. Elly would tell me all about her feelings on the relationship during lunch or a school shopping mission.  Then, she would go off to volunteer and Adolfo would come to the office to teach Spanish lessons and tell me all about his emotional status, asking for some insight from me, the Western female spokeswoman. 

Adolfo was totally enamored with Elly from the moment he met her.  He was taken with every last thing about her, from her silly sense of humor to her outrageous slurring drunken moments.  He thought everything about her was beautiful.  He wanted to be around her all the time, and he wanted her to let him adore her. 

Elly, however, took some convincing.  Adolfo was so clearly one of the best men in the whole wide world.  There was never any doubt about that.  Kudos, however, had come to Peru on a solo mission, and she felt that this was her time to be single.  She didn’t think she wanted anything serious.  Adolfo was persistent, though, and slowly Elly started to break her walls down.  After a few months, they found themselves in a healthy, committed relationship.

As Elly’s return to Australia approached, they started having those tough conversations about what happens next.  They were determining what a long distance relationship would look like and how in the world Adolfo would move to Australia within the next 12 months.  Meanwhile, Elly was spending her free time repeating the phrase “the rest of my life”, considering if she liked it associated with Adolfo…because what would be the point of all of this tough relationship logistical maneuvering if it wasn’t going to work out in the long run?

Then something divine happened that answered all of their questions.  Elly found out she was pregnant.

On this fateful day, Elly had gone to the clinic on her own for the first time during her many months in Peru.  Every other trip she had made (of which there were quite a few – Arequipa seemed to have really done a job on her body over those months) had been chaperoned.  This time she was sure she had it handled.  It was supposed to be just a few tests administered by nurses, and she wouldn’t be talking to a doctor or anyone who would be explaining anything of importance. So, there she was, laying on an examining table, understanding very little Spanish, when a nurse pointed to her abdomen and said, “Tu!  Bebe!”  She then handed Elly an ultrasound photo of what looked like a little bean and sent her on her way.

Then she called me.  I think I answered the phone by saying something I thought was flippantly humorous.  She responded by simply saying, “I’m pregnant.”  I screamed, jumped out of my chair, determined her location, made a really stupid excuse for my outburst and sudden need to leave the office (perk of work at TNT), and literally ran to Espiritu Santo clinic.  Elly was sitting on the curb outside, ultrasound photo in hand.  If there is one thing I have come to excel at since my days in Namibia, it is crisis/disaster/trauma management.  So, I told Elly we were going back in that clinic and talking to an English-speaking doctor.  We sat in the crazy waiting room of that clinic, our conversation vacillating between making light of the situation and discussing the gravity of the reality.  Finally, the doctor called us in and he confirmed that she was indeed pregnant.  He answered Elly’s questions (though not in a totally satisfactory manner), told her the date she should next seek a consultation, and again sent her on her way.

As an aside:  To take my involvement in their relationship to another level, in the ‘making light of the situation’ phase, we did the math and determined that this baby was conceived when I was out of town on holiday.  You see, Elly and I were reliving the freshman year dream – we shared a bedroom in the volunteer house.  When the cat is away, the mice will (more freely) play… 

Elly and Adolfo’s story is one of those really clear examples of how having a child totally changes your life.  Suddenly, there was absolute certainty about their commitment to each other.  Adolfo was on the fast track to arranging his arrival to Australia, and Elly moved her flight home up, cancelling the other stops she had scheduled on her way.  In a matter of days, so much had changed. 

Often these stories of marriage ‘out of wedlock’ seem forced and a tad unfortunate.  I don’t see Elly and Adolfo’s story that way at all.  In fact, I find that the unanticipated entrance of that little baby increases the romance of their story.  All of the uncertainty, it seemed to me, was due to the existence of so many obstacles and challenges that go along with an international relationship.  The previous questioning was about fear, not incompatibility.  This outcome of marriage would have occurred, with or without an unplanned pregnancy.  It was just that lovely little baby Amaia more easily guided them down commitment road, quelling some of the concerns (and creating a whole fresh set).  The beauty with which they have faced all of the tough stuff that has gone along with very quickly transforming their lives, in my eyes, is about as romantic as you can get.

For a moment, let me speak in the New Age language that first opened the door to my friendship with Elly.  I am of the opinion that coincidences hold significance.  I feel that there is a sort of divine order to each of our lives.  And, I feel that the things that are locked deepest in our hearts are what become our reality.  So, it was no coincidence that Adolfo was assigned as Elly’s Spanish teacher.  The timing of Amaia’s entry into the world had a very particular purpose in the timelines of their lives.  And, whether they were conscious of it or not, they manifested the shit out of this beautiful wedding that has just passed. 

I see that Elly and Adolfo accentuate each others' ability to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.  I see that they make each other happy in ways that neither of them expected.  I see in their relationship a real commitment to commitment.  I see deep respect for each other.  I see patience and acceptance.  I see rising to life’s challenges.   I see two very special people creating a very special union.  I feel honored to know them, honored to have witnessed the evolution of such a special relationship, and I look forward to witnessing all of the beauty that is ‘the rest of their lives’.