Dr. Scary & Mrs. Marbles

Tell me a storybook about Burma. Your first time was in 2013. How long were you there?

All fucking day.

No. Really is an adverb.

Five weeks. I was the first teacher in and the first one out. They bled teachers after I left.

Why did you go?

To grow. To experience a Montessori learning environment at an expensive private school in Mandalay. See how things worked. On the ground. Wander around. Scribble words. Make images. Meet kind, curious, smiling people.

(Alarm bells clang)

A private school sounds dangerous. I spell uh I smell money. Cash for kids.

Education is a busine$$. Profit before people.

Didn't you learn this lesson in 2008 for a year at St. Laurensia near Jakarta when you helped 4th graders develop social and moral character with humor and curiosity?

Private school, parents rule fool.

Yes, however I needed to see Burma for myself, analyze the management and system. Connect with smiling people. Learn, laugh, grow, glow and flow with the go.

Trust and verify. That's what I say.

And you say it with clear pronunciation.

Make it new day by day make it new.

The school had 700 kids from Montessori (3-6 years young) through grade 9.

That's big money. It's a numbers game.

Yes it is. Don't ask me how much. Big.

Bigger than the infinite sky?

Almost. The financial bean counters wore out abacuses. Click-click. They'll raise tuition next year. The Burmese Managing Director lived happily ever after.

I love fairy tales and fragments. It’s all I trust.

He hired Dr. Scary Snobson as principal two years ago to open the facility. He had a Ph.D in Reports and Updates. He loved organization, management, forms, protocol, procedures, paper and administrative drone head duties.

He recruited former Peace Corpse teachers to get foreign faces and mouths in front of spoiled rich kids and parents. Marketing 101. He practiced Hathaway yoga and invested his princely salary in offshore rice paddy accounts near Burmese refugee camps bordering Thailand and Bangladesh. He was thrilling and running scared.

Did he run for fun?

He ran in the tropical sun for sums. Kids in = count cash. Numbers numbed wealthy Burmese wallets. Pay here. Drop kid at classroom ABC. Minders/babysitters/Burmese educators in training will take care of them until you pick them up at 3. If you're late we sell them to China. A boy is worth $3500 in a one-child Orwellian culture.

I have two boys, said a Burmese parent. Do I get a discount?

It depends on their passing a physical with Nurse Dull, said Dr. Scary. Let me ask my passive Xaimen wife. She's very proud of her green card. She talks like her mouth's full of marbles. She believes in acquiescence.

You mean the sad-eyed, lights on-no one home, space cadet reactive one wearing the cheap floppy Chinese hat, Gloria Swanson sunglasses and magic slippers inherited from her grandmother outside the gate-less gate standing lost and forlorn Monday-Friday mornings as horrendous traffic spewed noxious hydrocarbons into faces of emotionally deprived children and struggling nanny slaves dragging children’s suitcases of books and carrying cheap bright plastic baskets of food while parents, wearing diamond and imperial green jade jewelry necklaces yakked on imported cell phones walking their kids to classrooms in the tall gleaming metropolis of a school?

Yes. Her marble mouth machine droned her official mandatory sequence.  Park here. Drop off here. Parents ignored her.

That's her. She's his baby. Her attention span was shorter than an apology to Burmese parents of neglected children about the hidden cost of grandiose theoretical classless plans. Read the fine print. You paid suckers.

Sounds like the blind leading the blind. Where did they meet, these educational super heroes?

They mated at the Day Grow Country School in Manila. She was head babysitter. He ran a doctoral marathon between Tainan and Rota.

What does she do in this improbable profitable scheme?

Yeah-Yeah is the bureaucratic stone face of the Macaroni Monti Sorry Money Story program.

She hired thirty female Myanmar university graduates for the Monti Sorry program. They signed a five-year - no option out contract - same as teachers were required in China. She and the good Doctor sold the Burmese Managing Director great expectations of wealth. The school paid a discounted rate of $3,500 for each teacher's training and certification program. Sublime slavery. Yeah-Yeah took her cut.

Is she a certified Monti Sorry trainer?

No. She learned the methodology in Havana ten years ago. She's not certified for anything. She’s a little fish out of water.

For three months the local teachers have been training from scratch. Yeah-Yeah goes through the motions. School started on May 20th. Now it's on the job training, learning and laughing plus six tedious hours on Saturday. They watch videos featuring an OCD state side teacher, create materials and practice lessons. They "graduate" next year after being certified by a real Monti Sorry woman in the states of confusion.

Smells like a shell game.

Teachers make $200 a month. The average Burmese makes $804 a year. A SIM card costs $300. One percent of the population has Internet. 26% are unemployed. 16% do not have electricity. If local teachers are late thumbing a fingerprint after 8 a.m. at the admin office the school charges them 25 cents. Live and learn fear school.

She and Dr. Scary run and mismanage (if intimidation, fear and stupidity is management) the Great Educational Scam Machine. She reminded me of Chinese teachers in Fujian schools screaming, Just blend in. I only want you to bring two things to class. Your ears! 

Welcome to my nightmare, said Yeah-Yeah.

She invested her princess sums in offshore rice paddy accounts near Burmese refugee camps bothering Thailand.

Why did you leave?

I'd witnessed enough of the dystopian Kafkaesque-like suffering. The teachers' apartments resembled prison cells. I've more useful things to do with my time, energy, love and compassion.

Give me a urine sample.

Yeah-Yeah in her infinite wisdom minus kindness and compassion expected me to write a lesson plan for the Kindergarten experience in the library.

You're joking.

It was Friday, June 8th, 2013 at 1:17 p.m.

I'd taken the geniuses to the bibliotheca for thirty minutes. They found books, sat reading, looking at pictures and sharing with friends. She wandered in and sat down.

I see you brought the kids to the library.

You are very observant.

Where's your lesson plan for the library?

You're kidding.

At 3:10 p.m. I gave seven-days notice to Dr. Scary. Here's my lesson plan. Probation is a 2-way street.

Good for you.

Yes. Life is too short for this nonsense. I shredded the truth with kids. I helped you. We helped each other grow. We walked slowly. We danced. We sang. We discovered sharing. We meditated. We had fun. Now it's time to ride my elephant through jungles back to Cambodia.

I left a sewing machine and umbrella on an operating table in the teachers' cellblock. I departed Burma without delay. It was a close shave.

That's another story about creativity, independent thinking and free choice.

Yes it is.

Weaving A Life (V1)

Yangon, Burma

The English facilitating opportunity in Yangon met his needs for five months. He and four other teachers were downsized by Mr. Money, CEO when he lost a building lease.

Let’s have some language fun in Utopia. Open your head heart mouth. Dream big draw big.

Create a new photo book, entitled Street 21 documenting Yangon, Myanmar.

Until nationalism in 1962 English was taught in schools.

Bye-bye British. Now it’s Burmese. Many people here speak the language of noble barbarians. Hello, what’s your country? God bless you, said a smiling man.

Everyone is friendly gentle and kind. Buddhist nature.

Myanmar has seven states and 135 ethnic groups. 55-60 million.

His Yangon neighborhood reminded him of China in the 90’s. Tight narrow dwellings.

He lived 114 steps up from ground Zero. He salutes sunrise. Crows say hello. Caw-caw, look a stranger. Their wing music is soft. Feathers glide through air with the greatest of ease.

Train whistles, click-clack music street sellers sing dawn food wares, bird songs.

Two yellow bamboos, one green bamboo and a red and white flowering thick-stalked plant in green and blue containers absorb balcony sun.

Joy is growing, nurturing a small garden. The weather is cool and mild through March - then big heat for three months followed by the rainy season. Sky tears.

He takes a taxi to work/home for $1. Horrendous traffic jams. I’ll race you 10’. Ok. Creep and stop. No motorcycles are a quiet blessing. Banned after an assignation attempt.

Get to the verb. I am a camera. Hunt, freeze, shoot.

Have ink will travel.

Bleed words.

It’s not about you.

It’s ten claws scratching at twenty-six letters.

This is a letter.

He traverses 114 steps, open the large lock on the sliding gate, passes through life, slides it locks it and walks down the street passing men frying dough, tea drinkers eating noodles, women selling fruit and veggies from bamboo baskets, people staring at cheap phones asking relatives are you still alive, where are you, when are you coming home, I miss you as he passes through a narrow alley with 3-4 story apartments, balconies spilling flowers, grateful sliding gates, passive dogs and pedestrians.

The path leads past wooden and bamboo homes where people cook outside corrugated bamboo shacks, bath from large cisterns, kids play, women cook/sell street eats, people chat, walking to the large local market overflowing with colorful nutrition. Fresh cut flowers in 1001 varieties for sale are ubiquitous. Home décor. Bouquets say hello. Women wear sweet smelling white flowers in their hair.

He reaches the small local train station.

Red brick, oval shaped entrance. Barred ticket window. Friendly man helps negotiate a ticket into city center. 200 Khat (20¢).

Four tracks, discarded cars lie on abandoned ways. People burn trash along tracks. Bamboo shacks. PSP mansions. Women dry sardines on pavement.

Waiting seats are iron-rails glued to cement pedestals. Men spit out red betel nut juice. Betel sellers are everywhere. Big business. Cheap buzz. Cancer of the mouth.

Push and shove to get on. Get going. Get real. Get out.

Get is the joker word in English.

The southbound engine pulls six yellow and brown cars packed with humans going to work, school and town.

Women balance watermelon slices on heads selling red juicy slices, men hawk DEMOCRACY newspapers and boys proffer water.

Down the line they jump off and grab a train going north. The majority of passengers stare at cell phones. The real world is boring enough as it is.

Traveler hits the bricks doing documentary street photography, exploring narrow streets filled with Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Chinese, Burmese, street stall food smells, buyers and sellers, meat, fruits, vegetables, hard survival jingle-jangle life. Pulsating vibrancy.

He feels alive here.

Every week he visits a new barber in town for a head shave. Indian. Chinese. Burmese. Travel taught him to trust a man holding a straight razor against his throat.

Sitting meditation.

This is the perfect place to gather raw poetics about the human condition.

A lapidary man has an extensive operation cutting/polishing stones from a jade quarry. He explains qualities and examples of mounted ruby, blue sapphire and jade pieces. A huge business considering northern slave mines, Chinese demand and international markets.

+

Traveler smells like garlic after preparing his lunch of sardines, broccoli, spinach, pasta, carrots, tomato, avocado, garnished with oregano, curry spice, saffron and olive oil.

Teak chopsticks will travel.

He eats in the upstairs staff dining area with female Customer Service Officers. They bring rice, small bags of spicy add-on juices and portions of pork or fish in shiny round aluminum stacked containers. Mommy makes my lunch, they murmur.

They shovel it in with aluminum spoons. They talk with their mouths full. Traveler shares veggies. Hot green Nara tea is delicious. Leaves float on the surface.

One CSO girl said, the CEO is mean and selfish. Yes, said traveler.

The other native teachers devour fast food from the hamburger joint at the nearby shopping center while sitting at their desks staring at computers or yakking. Exciting. 

Teachers fly to Bangkok every seventy days on a visa run. HR provides holding company business documents for re-entry into the gravitational field. Forms, a smiling photo and a clean $50. Old money is not accepted. No creased, folded currency. So it goes.

Longyi is the traditional sarong-like apparel for men. He discovered a fine silk cotton blend in Mandalay at a weaving village way back when. Ventilation.

Needle leads thread. Threads lead a conversation.

Weaving A Life (V1)

Simple Voice

After a reliable narrator

established a voice

geography, atmosphere, tone, conflict and cinematic jump cut action

employing minimum wage universal themes

like time, boredom, passion, loneliness and alienation

in an unforgiving universe of meaningless existence

with humor and curiosity holding hands

casting characters like plot

dragging others around

chained to their personality defects and character flaws

wearing original death masks

surrounded by distracted

simple, noisy, gadget addicted

compassionate illiterate peasants

in a play waiting for Godot

no one shows up

nothing happens

writing with a Mont Blanc 149 fountain pen

using Royal Blue invisible ink

on blank parchment

was pure luminous joy

Yangon, Burma

Collecting Dust

I climbed through the center of Bali inside magical light past an extinct sacred volcano at Lake Batur carrying a portable word machine, a map carved on narwhal bone, codices or painted books and texts on bark paper and cactus fiber called Amate including animal skins and dialogue of Mayan origin.

Gathering flames I lit a piece of bark for guidance. My hair caught fire. I mixed volcanic ash with water, creating a thick paste of red ocher, a cosmetic balm rich with antioxidants. I applied this to my skin to gain entry and passage through the spirit world of ancestors.

To become clay I created clay. I needed dust.

I collected dust and minute grains of mica. Teams of gravediggers, weavers, butchers and writers explored rain forests, jagged mountains and impenetrable jungles collecting dust.

Hunters dived into, under and through massive Columbia waterfalls near tributaries where the confluence of Northwest rivers gnashed their teeth, snaking past abandoned Hanford nuclear plants where fifty-five million gallons of radioactive waste in decaying drums left over from W.W. II slowly seeped 130 feet down into the ground toward water tables.

The waste approached 250 feet as multinational laboratories, corporations and Department of Energy think tanks vying for projects and energy contract extensions discussed glassification options and emergency evacuation procedures according to regulations and Robert’s Rules Of Order inside the chaos of their well ordered scientific communities.

Tribal survivors ate roots and plants garnished with entropy.

Survivors passed through civilizations seeking antiquities. They reported back with evidence sewn into their clothing to avoid detection at porous India-Tibetan borders. They severed small threads along hemlines, Chinese silk gowns and Japanese cotton kimonos. Their discoveries poured light rays into waterfalls rushing over Anasazi cliff dwellings into sage and pinion forests.

Survivors arrived at a mythopoeic part of their journey.

I reflected on the unconscious residue of social, cultural, ethical and spiritual values.

I needed masks. I needed to understand the underlying mysteries inside death masks. I confronted the realm of spirit. I created masks on my pilgrimage. My journey was the destination. Masks signifying the dignity of my intention thwarted demons and ghosts. I became spirits dancing in light.

Everything was light in my shamanistic interior landscape. I released the ego - Ease-God-Out - detached from outcomes, eliminated the need for control or approval, trusted spirit energies, and remained light about it.

Inside light with slow fingers and long thin ivory nails I turned clay into pots. Spinning spirals danced on the wheel of time.

I finished throwing them used them for tribal ceremonies and smashed delicate clay pots to earth.

They exploded into the air creating volcanic ash coating everything in a fine dust.

I dug into the soil of my soul.

I scattered raw turquoise stones along a trail of sacrificial tears on a long walk through geography.

Listen

I am a person who listens for a living.

I listen to wisdom and beauty.

fast wing

subtle light

shadow
little wing

magic 

light dance song bird

kitchen girl is pregnant with hope
save me baby

spill ink
take a line for a walk