Once upon a time there was a class of kids. An art class.
One girl who didn't pay much attention in class was seriously focused on drawing.
For 20 minutes she kept her head down working on her paper.
Her teacher was curious. He walked over.
What are you drawing, he asked.
I am drawing the face of God, she said.
Surprised, the teacher said, But no one has ever seen the face of God.
They will in a moment, she said.
Greetings,
A Cambodian orphan said the NYT was looking for stories from readers about their worst travel experience in 2010. The kid suggested I send them a memory. Here it is.
This year was all about first class travel. While climbing into a volcano in Iceland it blew up.
I was blasted into the stratosphere where, fortunately, my cargo pants offered me ballast. The jet stream meandered over Europe in incredibly clear skies because there were no planes. Then, south of Yemen, the air pressure dropped and I drifted toward the Mediterranean. Using my polarity navigation device I located a highjacked Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons and landed among Somali pirates. They were very cordial.
We sailed the seven seas. Eventually they transferred me to a Turkish boat heading for Israel. We were forced to divert to an unnamed northern port where I hitched a ride with a camel caravan going to China. We visited markets in Bukhara, Samerkand and eventually reached Kashgar on the Silk Road where we traded with local merchants.
Over butter tea and tsampa (a hard rock cheese) Tibetan traders invited me to Lhasa, so we drove yaks to Shigatse, and then Lhasa.
From there I walked to Yunnan before crossing into North Vietnam to help Black H'mong friends in Sapa harvest rice. Laos was next door and the northern rivers connected with the Mekong, so I sailed south into Cambodia where I volunteered at an orphanage.
I told the kids this story and they were amazed to learn about volcanic activity.
Metta.
Greetings,
A wise traveler named Hugo, the Director of a Life Improbability Research Center near Paris dropped me a comment asking for the story about the Laotian bubble girl.
Here it is. One day I walked through Luang Prabang and reached a dirt path leading down to the river, a bamboo bridge and distant weaving villages. At the top of the path three young girls were selling, or hoping to sell hand made colorful wrist bands, small wooden beads and bamboo dolls. Same as at Angkor temples.
In the afternoon when I returned they were playing with thin plastic air filled balls. Her eyes held all the secrets of the world.
Like many kids they attend school either in the morning or afternoon.
It's the same universal story, "We need money for our families."
Keep it in the air.
Metta.
A new gallery of Stung Treng town and area is live. It features the Women's Development Center (Mekong Blue), primary school kids, the wat and flags at Thala Bovivat. Enjoy.
greetings,
sunday song
cambodia is a funny place. ha, ha, ha.
what do you see? i see a man carrying one red brick. he’s looking for a place to put it down. he is confused. he had no idea his day would involve carrying a brick AND making a decision.
he needs a woman to tell him what do. this is rare because men, in his culture, are the boss and tell women what to do. usually men tell them to lie down and get ready for the big thing.
he is confused about loss. his wife wears the pants. she is the now.
i see an exuberant extraordinary solid particle cow patty land-mine in the middle of sunday’s broken pot holed road. it’s a steaming green mountain. it smells like an art project.
it will be discovered by a speeding SUV leaving a trace of aroma past sweeping weeping women. it will spread itself over the entire olfactory landscape.
it will create new tomorrows.
* welcome to a new reality game show. it’s called “Watch Women Work.”
WWW.work-to-eat-now OR evolution of the species and social organization (+-)
log on, log in, log the forest. yeah, yeah. i am mr. monosyllable, your creme filled hostess cupcake for this week’s exciting program. yeah, yeah.
contestant #1. a housewife in a rural village. her task is sweeping dust into piles of dust outside her bamboo shack. she has all day to complete this arduous task. repeat.
dust to dust. dawn to dusk. (poetic ramifications in the theatre of the absurd)
contestant #2. a housewife. she has a house. she is a wife. she has 10 children. having children is her DUTY. sex for her is nothing but a DUTY. she is a duty free outlet. her price tag has expired. everything must go.
many children gives her mother and extended family someone to love and play with and yell at. yelling at kids here is abNORMAL and healthy. it nurtures their self-esteem and neurotic adolescence with punctuation marks.
her husband is sleeping. he loves sleeping, eating and making babies, because he doesn’t have to carry them around for nine months and experience hormonal feelings. he sleeps forever dreaming of a hammock in a bamboo forest.
her, his, their children are naked. they play with trash. they set fire to the forest.
fire is their great fun and games besides Yelling and Whining. they play, I whine, you whine, we whine.
contestant #3. a housewife. she is milling around. she has no focus, plan or direction. she is a teacher. she teaches by example. she hopes the lazy boys and men understand. she’s knows many won’t and don’t.
she pounds things like metal. all day. she is a tool. she is a worker. she is a tool of production on life’s assembly factory. she is a simple person. she spits out many children. this is her duty.
contestant #4. a housewife. she works. her lazy adult son watches her. he is bored watching her. he wants to stare at the long and winding dirt road. he wants to feast his small beady rat eyes on dirt. his eyes are dirt. pure clean red dirt. she sweeps him into the river. swim, little fish. bye-bye baby, bye-bye. he floats away.
contestant #5. a housewife. she has a diamond in her mind. she is calm and focused. she exhales beauty, truth and love. she sings all day long.
pick one to emulate. find one with incentive and initiative and win BIG prizes.
what’s the prize? a broom, a brick, an SUV smashing a green cow patty and a monster home shaped like a wedding cake surrounded by a moat, high walls, silver barb wire and iridescent colored candles.
anything else?
a year’s subscription to your favorite illustrated color glossy advertising magazine:
“Dreams, Lies, Wishes, Hopes, and Great Expectations While Driving a Blue Dismal Diesel Dump Truck Needing an Overhaul Loaded with Charcoal.”
cool prizes. let’s play. what’s the first question? said, Socrates.
meanwhile: destiny’s child disguised as a black and vermillion butterfly nurtured red and orange exploding flowers above a cool brown flowing river. see you next week on WWW.
Metta.
Greetings,
This isn't about the spoiled girl-child across the street yelling and stamping her feet and bawling her poor little eyes out as her mother tries to sell junk to schoolgirls or yellow gas from bottles to trucks, meteor cycles, broken terrific anxieties and terrorized spoiled childhood raising her hand threatening to strike the girl down, down, down. The girl cowers. Fear is a great motivator.
The woman's mother sits smothered in grief listlessly counting shredded money. Money smelling of petrol. Petrol cash.
No, it's about the Australian tattooed dude on a visa run with his comatose overweight and terribly unhappy illiterate Thai girlfriend, also heavily tattooed with flowing black lines, playing her hand held computer game at breakfast as he drinks a gin and tonic at 7 a.m. They are leaving by bus for a swinging coastal town.
Do you want some breakfast? he asks. She says no. I want to play my game. Do you want a drink to get your day started? No. Have an egg. It will give you protein for energy. No. I want to play my game. Do you have my medicine he said. She gives him pills. He washed them down with G&T. Breakfast of champions.
Metta.
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