Louis the hero - TLC 30

King Louis, a free slave riding a white stallion roared into Bursa from a Turkish dessert. Waving a jeweled sword he scrambled onto a world stage facing ninety million screaming bloodthirsty catatonic maniacs.

“Live and let live. I am a hero. I’ve returned from the mother of all battles. We defeated fear and ignorance. As a bonus we slew greed. We are victorious. We’ve been killing humans for 4,000 years and still no one knows who the king is. See what I brought you,” gesturing past a gateless gate. Red rolling dust clouds obscured chained destitute slaves.

“Oh, shit,” said his twin brother, a shackled slave and former Freon-free refrigerator shyster from Polo Alto singing soprano, “looks like it’s sheer linen damask lace curtains for us.”

“You can say shit again,” sang Leo, an exhausted Chinese prisoner practicing free speech in Braille, a foreign language and Omar’s specialty.

Leo’s memory remembered hauling buckets of night shit to fields near his straw and mud Gobi hovel. It was the price he’d paid for questioning Authority at Beijing Normal U.

- Why do we have to read Mao’s little red book? It’s mush for pigs, he’d asked Authority.

- Because you are a tool of the state, said Authority.

- This shit stinks.

- Here, said Authority, Carry some more.

After that melancholy loss Leo didn’t take shit from anybody. Living in exile with silence and cunning he burned through levels of existence.

A stream-winner, he slept with Ratanakiri shamans in animist cemeteries. He exchanged stories aboutbecoming with Rita, his friend and author of Ice Girl in Banlung.

Using sustainable dry yak-yak manure Leo discovered fire by rubbing precious stones together. Impressed, his tribe anointed him Chief of Cannibals. He wore an alarm clock around his neck demonstrating Power Prestige Status & Esoteric Arcane Prescient Wisdom.

On stage raising his ruby, emerald and diamond mind sword Louis the crime smelter hero approached a line of wage slaves, Soma miners, shrouded widows, seventy imprisoned journalists and cheap coal powered grieving families. “Bend over. Stick your neck out. It’s not about justice. It’s about procedure.”

“Not me! Why Me?” exclaimed millions.

He brought justice down. He decapitated a screaming target. “Take that, idiot.” Heads rolled.

Revenge. Vengeance. Swift. Sweet. Complete.

A clear cheer erupted from Turkish sheep waving ticket stubs.

Louis turned to the masses. “Step right up ladies and gentlemen to The Greatest Show on Earth. Miracles revealed. Have your immediate future told,” he repeated with reported speech.

Slaves with an eyes-only top secret security clearance in deep shadows played espionage chess in the middle game. They focused on position and material. Your move, said Death, Be mindful.

 

1st International Children's Conference - TLC 28

“We are not here for a long time. We are here for a good time,” laughed Meaning, a twelve-year old survivor wearing a ragged Beware of Land Mines skull and crossbones t-shirt and prosthesis leg scampering a random life pattern across fields near a stilted bamboo home in Cambodia.

“Are you with us?” pleaded a landmine child survivor removing shrapnel with an old rusty saw after stepping in heavy invisible shit, “or are you against us?”

She’s been turned out and turned down faster than a housekeeper ironing imported Egyptian threaded 400-count linen. No lye.

The thermostat of her short sweet life seeks more wattage. She faces a severe energy shortage if she doesn’t find food.

She’s one of 26,000 men women and children maimed or killed every year by land mines from forgotten conflicts. Reports from the killing fields indicate 110 million land mines lie buried in 68 countries.

It costs $3.00 to bury a landmine.

It costs $300-$900 to remove a mine. It will cost $33 billion to remove them. It will take 1,100 years. Governments spend $200-$300 million a year to detect and remove 10,000 mines. Cambodia, Angola, Afghanistan and Laos are the most heavily mined countries in the world.

40% of all land in Cambodia and 90% in Angola go unused because of land mines. One in 236 Cambodians is an amputee.

*

Expanding her awareness of mankind’s genetic stupidity, Lucky showed Zeynep a Laos map illustrating Never-Never Land.

Lao Please Don’t Rush is the most heavily bombed country in history.

25% of villages in Laos are contaminated with UXO.

Upwards of 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos failed to detonate.        

80 million unexploded bombs remain in Laos.

More than half of the UXO victims are children.

*

Meaning hears children crying as doctors struggle to remove metal from her skin. She cannot raise her hands to cover her ears. Perpetual crying penetrates her heart. Tears of blood soak her skin. The technical mine that took her right leg away one fateful day as she played near village rice paddies expanded outward at 7,000 meters per second. Ball bearings shredded everything around her heart-mind.

It may have been an American made M16A1, shallow curved with a 60-degree fan shaped pattern. The lethal range was 328 feet. Or maybe it was a plastic Russian PMN-2 disguised as a toy. She never saw it coming after stepping on the pressure plate. Fortunately or unfortunately she didn’t die of shock and blood loss. A stranger stopped the bleeding, checked her pulse and injected her with 200cc of morphine. Strangers in a strange land carried morphine.

*

Cut the heavy deep and real shit, said a female Banlung shaman.

Fear is a tough sell unless it’s done well, well done, marinated, broiled, stir-fried, over easy, or scrambled.

Fear is blissful ignorance.

* 

Meanwhile, the 1st International Beggar Conference convened in Toothpick, a wasteland near Bright Hope - a rusting rustic dream of exploratory ways and means with scientific cause and effect and logical rational certainty.

It was chaired by a distinguished group of Cambodian orphans.

NGO Fascists rented 12,000 orphans out to fake humanitarian organizations. Abandoned youth pleaded with ill-informed rich donors for marketing and branding money to feed international guilt and shame.

“Let’s eat,” said a fat banker moments before his yacht hit an iceberg in 2008.

“What you don’t see is fascinating,” said Zeynep, “like roots below the surface of appearances.”

“We have so much ice and they have so little,” said an Icelandic chess player attacking Death.

“Everyone comes to me. My patience is infinite,” said Death. “I make only one move and it’s always the correct one.”

Beggars, landmine victims, genocide survivors and sick and tired dehydrated dying starving neglected humans from 195 countries convened in sequestered committee rooms filled with suits, scholars, academics, UN personnel, CIA analysts, NGO profit motivated scam reps, IMF bankers and plastic ornamental steering mechanisms.

“We agree to disagree,” said Rich Suit.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Wage Slave.

Orphans, beggars and children spoke about slave labor, hunger, exploitation, corruption, human trafficking, corrupt police states and the terrorism of economic poverty.

“Bad luck,” said a rich slave. “That’s a you problem, not a my problem.”

Children addressing global media held press conferences focusing jaundiced eyes on lenses, recorders and bleeding pens. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. Sound bites sang starvation’s misery.

If it bleeds it leads.

Incoming! Bleeding hearts ran for cover.

Orphan motions for adjudication, arbitration, fairness, equality and equity were tabled for further deliberation and discussion nowadays.

The average monthly wage was $37 in a Bangladesh clothing factory. 350,000 Cambodian women making $61/month stitched garments for Korean export companies.

Give someone a sewing machine and with a little luck they’ll feed their family. Let’s Eat.

my little mandalay life

Draconian private school stuff: the 10th graders I help from 6-8 a.m. M-F live in a private hostile. No music, TV, web, books, zero. Study, study, study is their drab life. 

Waso, Buddha Day was a national public holiday. Do you get to go home? No. We study biology, chemistry, math, Myanmar, English, and physics all day long. Everyday.

Creative Notebooks are SOP. Colors, drawing, writing and dreaming on paper to all classes so they have something tangible where they can express their feelings. I’ve reminded them that their CN will be growing and going strong long after textbooks gather dust. It’s a small consolation for them.  

I share five of my worn CN books dating back five years for them to see art and writing. This is the raw material, I said.

Myanmar culture teaches people to respect their elders, like teachers so they don’t ask questions. Teams and 1-1 with partners is the way.

No breakfast. Bleary eyed. Marched to class. They arrive at 6, rearrange tables in teams and I mime, open your CN, draw your dream. I play blues and jazz and classical. Random items sit on a central table for still life stimulation if they so choose: flowers, plants, bowls, umbrella, a yellow pencil…you get the picture. We do text stuff focusing on the four skills and play learning games. 

From 1045-1145 I’m with thirty 12th graders waiting for their marks so they can apply to universities this fall. They live at home.

Their goal is speaking fluency for the ILETS exam. Same procedure as with the 10th graders - music, art, music and creativity in dust free notebooks.

Open discussions on local, regional and international issues between partners and groups. Their English is good. The majority need to open their mouth and not mumble. We do high quality text stuff, pronunciation practice and role plays with free interaction. I turn them on to international writers, films, poets and artists. Their self-esteem and confidence is growing.

The 10th and 12th graders will all be exposed to learning chess and competition the next three months before the company contract expires in November.  

Critical thinking example. I gave the 12th graders a homework assignment. 65/28 on the whiteboard. I reminded them for a week. Some guessed, is it a formula? an equation? No. One bright articulate girl finally got it. “It’s the intersection of Street 65/28, a long leafy street with badly corroded barely visible traffic signs." Yes. A place where you can breathe, meditate and draw and appreciate nature.

At high noon a driver zooms forty-five minutes into the countryside to a private school where I play, share and learn with 1st and 2nd graders. They teach me how to be more human. I act my age. 50 going on 10. Ha. We do songs, dance, chants, alphabets, colours, drawing, writing cursive and practice meditation. A child’s play is work.

Mandalay meets my needs. Wide green ancient tree blooming streets. You don’t see many white faces. If any they are tourists doing a 2-3 day pit stop. The construction boom is less than high car congested Yangon. It’s a motorcycle culture here, like Laos.

Mansions surrounded by barb wire sit next to bamboo shanties. It’s more like an extended village than a town. Poor sanitation, crumbling infrastructure. Flooded streets in the rainy season. Neighbours, relaxed men crowd teashops. Everyone I meet wandering, doing my documentary image work is gentle and kind. They recognise the smiling stranger.

This internal calm way permeates my being.

Zeynep the heroine - TLC 20

He expanded humans’ courage at TLC. This extraneous mixture contained Kiwi, American, Scottish and Turkish dialects. Distinctive voices contained ash, clouds, wind and intrinsic human needs for healthy unconditional loving relationships.

“Are your needs being met?” he said.

“Yes,” said Freedom. “I am free from need and the need for freedom.”

Freedom worked 24/7. Under a broiling Banlung sun tempered by a soft breeze he carried buckets of cement over exposed sewage drains and poured it on red dirt. He shoveled twenty-one muscular sandy efforts into a wheelbarrow. He pushed it to a New World Order construction site filled with profound greedy expectations and poverty’s paradoxes.

Off a dusty road after dark Freedom caressed a hungry passive $10 lover inside a plywood shack with a dirt floor, bed and OK condom removed from neon, Blue Zircon and the tooth fairy.

Her clothes hung on rusty nails embedded in exploitation. Stale perfume, lip-gloss and mascara sang long lost hope. Her dead eyes said plow my field with no emotional connection. She stared at a brick wall as Freedom, grinding desire assaulted heaven’s gate. Get to the verb faster, she whispered.

After fifteen minutes longer than forever she joined five girlfriends sitting around a fire below twinkling stars. See who shows up the night’s young, said one. We are tools, said another. I don’t give a shit, said a sad one remembering her mother and siblings up the Heart of Darkness.

The fat male moneyman slouching in a porch hammock watched flickering reruns under a red light special.

Return to Mandalay

Hi. My name is Timothy Mouse. I am a wanderer. I wander and wonder. 

I was in Mandalay three years ago at a private school playing in the Montessori program.

The kids taught me to say I am a miracle.

The management wasn't very professional so I left after ten weeks. Probation is a two-way street. You can read a story about my experience in STORIES on the sidebar. 

It's called Dr. Scary and Mrs. Marbles. They were a strange dysfuntional couple. I really enjoyed Myanmar. The people are gentle, kind and smiling. 

Anyway, last year I had the chance to return with a language company in Yangon. It was a fantastic combination of helping others develop their vocabulary, criticial thinking skills and laughter while doing my street photography experiments. Everything I do is an experiment.

The CEO was mean and selfish. He lost the lease on one building where we had classrooms so I was downsized with three other teachers after five months. I was grateful for the opportunity.

I returned to Seems Ripe, Cambodia and did a volunteer English project in a rural reality for two months with low income families. I polished a new book of black and white images called Street 21, about Yangon. O joy.

I accepted an offer to return to Mandalay and here I is. I have classes with 9th graders, college prep seniors in a fancy air-con room and primary grades 1 & 2 at a rural private school. It's the first time any of them have had a native speaker.

Young learners teach me songs. We dance, sing and play games using the alphabet and colors.

It's the same old story - young ones have no fear and the older ones have been tyranized into passivity. Big ears no mouth authoritorial conditioning. As Einstein said, "Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information."

They are emerging from imaginary shells with a new sense of love, responsibility, leadership ability, polite manners, teamwork and courage. They experiment in creative notebooks. It's a joy to be a small part of their process.