carve

in a village
a girl carves
a gourd
she creates
children
families
animals
homes
forests
flowers
skies
rivers
stars
planets
delicate
lines
spirals
universes

marxist elephant control stick

An angry, frustrated, underpaid, undersexed overworked female Vietnamese teacher moonlighting as a paid Communist party member stooge admonishes her pool shark students for breaking the cue ball off green banked walls, Play the angles you idiots! she shouts, elevating her Marxist elephant CONTROL stick, stabbing them, prodding them, driving them forward, accelerating them through educational fields filled with land mines.

She pounds her stick on a bamboo podium to get their attention. She releases her repressed anger and frustration, Your fate is to put up with me! she screams. Students cower behind rote memorization rules named Fear.

Famine survives in green paddies beneath heaven’s gateless gate as emaciated farmers work steaming streaming white oxen past orphaned sex slaves selling bananas, trinkets and skin to lost scared alienated caffeinated satiated rich obese white tourists.

Vegetable lovers sleep on discarded Burmese teak furniture. Across from the restaurant behind a mud spaceship hut is an iridescent dirt playing field and elementary school. Curious disheveled smiling children stare.

In a dusty lot someone squats over a mud toilet. They shit fertilizer 7.5 miles into the center of the Earth creating earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan. Radioactive debris floods the Mississippi Delta singing the blues.

medina life

Once upon a time there was this small dusty town at the edge of the Medina. A huge decrepit filthy amazing series of connected passageways branched off the square.

A traveler found some high quality silver bracelets, inspected old Tuareg jewelry, rugs, carpets, bowls, dishes, green ionized utensils, a long bullwhip, elaborate Berber bags and junk. In a courtyard men bought and sold bags of recycled pots, pans, brass, and silver as merchants haggled. 

The day was hot. The souk was cool. As he walked past endless supplies of mass produced stuff for tourists he slipped into photographing mode without being obtrusive. The camera is an eye and mirror.

He was lost on purpose. He knew every twist and turn and followed the smell of leather. Inside a small narrow corridor he turned into a maze of tight alleys. People lived in poverty here, their scraps of clothing on thin lines in stale air. 

Inside a small room a boy, 10, applied coats of thick viscous liquid paste to leather. The traveler wanted to make a photograph of his face. An older boy demanded too much money. They offered him a chair. 

The bare room was 8x10. The fumes were overwhelming. The traveler sat, negotiated and tried to avoid inhaling the fumes. No ventilation. A dim light, empty walls with leather punching tools, piles of treated leather, new leather needing the brush. They engaged in broken animated conversation and when the traveler knew they had no deal he left.

This was the only way to deal with some people, show them your back, show them the soles of your shoes. Business is business. They sang. Brushing down leather. 

They were part of the production process puzzle.

An area of low wages. In these under-regulated workshops you either keep up the pace or go hungry. 

The boy earns $6 for a six-day week. Child labor and economic exploitation.

UNICEF has targeted Moroccan authorities to persuade artisans to stop hiring children under 12 and release those already employed for a few hours of schooling each week. 

Metalworking is the most hazardous field, followed by jewelry and mosaic-making, because of the chemicals used. Children working with slipper-makers are exposed to vapors from the glue and dust causes respiratory problems for those working in the pottery sheds.

Child labor was linked to the politically sensitive question of educational provision.

Poor families regard schooling as of little use in the real world.

There has been little pressure as yet from political parties, trade unions, or wider public opinion for any stricter stance on child labor.

In the old slave market sun burned past the Red City throwing light into dust as men shoveled their way through earth, hauling stones with broken wheelbarrows. They dumped large round chipped stones in a site where a man in his straw hat picked them up laying them end to end.

Donkeys clipped along a busted narrow road. Some hauled carts of fruits and vegetables stacked in boxes to the clear blue sky. Others pulled wooden rolling semi-trailers of mattresses, end tables, odd furniture pieces to a distant home. 

Homes were all cinder block. Men made the blocks, loaded them on pallets so donkeys could pull them to sites where they lay broken and whole waiting for generations to finish their education and get to work.

Donkeys pulled everything past men and boys repairing bikes and inoperable scooters along the road. Women with babies strapped to backs paced dust. Old men in djellabas hooded against wind shuffled in slippers. 

Men prepared tea in alleys. They chopped leaves bought from an old man on his bike with fresh smelling mint spilling out of his crushed baskets. They brewed water, crammed leaves into a dented polished tea kettle, poured in water, threw in huge blocks of white sugar, closed the lid, poured some into a small glass, swished it around and poured it back into the tea pot. They poured tea by raising the pot high above the glasses so the murky sweet liquid would mix well.

Bad teeth in the country was a big problem.

Motivation in China

Please open your creative notebook. Using a simple writing tool like a pen or #2 lead pencil I want you to consider the following questions. Please answer them using your basic English. 

Why am I here? _____ 

Am I a machine, a tool? _______ 

What exactly is a machine? ________ 

What is my motivation to learn English? Money. 

Your supervisor has instructed me to motivate you. She expects me to motivate you to complete the assigned tasks, pass the exams and arrive on time. Her management style instructed me to use fear as a form of discipline with you. We are all well aware how the power and threat of fear motivates humans. 

If I fail to motivate you and pass you I will be executed. Survival is my fear based motivation. 

Fear of starvation. Fear of poverty. Fear of failure. Fear of humiliation or shame. Fear of not meeting social expectations. 

Vairochana

Namaste,

Once upon a time he went to Nepal. Specifically Boudhanath. He walked into a cafe.

A woman sat at a table with a lap top. Are you writing a book, he asked. She laughed. No, not really. I'm starting a new Buddhist magazine.

It's called Vairochana. 

Great, he said, Maybe I can help you. Ok, she said, That would be great. They became friends. He helps her with copyediting.

Pasang recently published her second issue. She included something he wrote.

You can read it hear.

 http://vairochana.com/articles/item/24-once-upon-a-time-in-nepal.html

Metta.