The Three Baboons

Then, one day he saw three baboons. They were part of a tribe living in his neighborhood. This is how it happened around dawn.

A blond corn-plaited hairy one stuck her head out of a 5th story window and spit. She watched the spittle fly past trees and SPLAT! on the pavement.

She looked around and they saw each other. She smiled. Her upper teeth were small and sharp. She started jabbering in her strange language. Her sounds, her words were questions. She wanted to know something.

Here is a rough translation.
“Where do you come from?”
“Are you alone?”

"Do you have money?"
“Do you want sex?”
She made many sounds but that’s the essence. Baboon language is simple and direct.

He just stared at her and smiled. She smiled. They smiled at each other.

She disappeared. A moment later she returned with two friends. One had dark hair, very hard eyes and big floppy breasts. She shook them side to side while speaking to him.

“Look at these watermelons,” she said.
They were heavy fruit.

Another baboon joined them. She was blond with sapphire eyes and straight hair with short spiked bangs. Her oval face smiled and she stuck out her tongue. A shiny silver post glistened from the middle. Laughing like a child, she rolled her tongue around, up and out like a little snake. Every now and then a snake needs to find a cave.  

She appeared to be the most playful one in the group.

All three stared at him and jabbered again, making suggestions and questions with their inarticulate yet clearly understood sounds.

“Where are you from?”
Blah, blah, blah.
“How old are you?”
"Do you have money?"
“Do you want sex?”

The plaited hair one got halfway out on the narrow balcony and crouched down, opening her legs. She started riding an imaginary wild mustang. Her eyes and face assumed a state of ecstasy.

The one with hard eyes started gesturing with her hand, massaging empty space. He stared at this spectacle and smiled.

They laughed. The power of suggestion.

The silver posted one kept smiling and flicking her tongue in and out, like breathing.

They were full of energy and wanted some action. Such amazing, funny and strange wild baboons!
 

Bhutan

Spanish church bells buried in the Plaza de Dreams, a fictitious manifestation of reality, a conglomeration of his experience, tolled as people toiled. He didn’t steal a line, a title from Earnest about ringing bells. He paid his toll and crossed to the other side of paradise.

A wandering Chinese monk shared a talkstory with Omar.

“One day in the Himalayas I hiked to a meditation hut above Taktsang, Tiger’s Nest, in Druk Yul overlooking the Paro valley laced with rice paddies, rhododendron, fir, spruce, hemlock and barley fields.

“Guru Padmasambhava or Guru Rimpoche (Precious Teacher) was the spiritual founder of the Nyingmapa old school of Himalayan Buddhism in 800 A.D. which is still taught in central Bhutan. Tantric Buddhism in Bhutan dates to 450 A.D. and is the esoteric form of the Drukpa Kagyupa Buddhist School. The state religion of Mahayana Buddhism or the Great Vehicle was established in the 8th century.

“According to legend, Rimpoche subdued many demons in Paro and central Bhutan. At one time he had two wives, an Indian and a Tibetan. He transformed his Indian wife into a tiger and flew to Taktsang Monastery in the 8th century.

“Tiger’s Nest is a series of small tight buildings built into the cliff. It is composed of intricate staircases, stone flagging, a small open air kitchen, balconies, rooms for sleeping, and meditation. I was welcomed by boys and monks who showed me a small meditation room filled with statues, offerings of rice, coins, fruits and vegetables.

“They showed me the cave where Rimpoche lived for three years. Three monks appointed by the chief abbot in Thimphu live here for three years for meditation study and are followed by novice monks in their spiritual meditations.

“Taktsang, destroyed by a fire in 1998, was rebuilt.

“I traveled east along the spine of the dragon climbing to 10,000 feet dropping into valleys and climbing again. Distinct elevations consist of grasslands, crop lands, forests, hardwoods, coniferous forests, soft woods, alpine meadows, yak pastures, and glaciers. Barley, wheat and potatoes are primary spring and summer crops from 7,500-13,000’ with the tree line coming at 12,000-14,000' and coniferous replacing hardwoods above 8,000’.

“I passed West Bengal and Indian road gangs working at quarter mile intervals. They perform hard work carrying large rocks and crushing granite to repair and fill the endless washouts. They will live and work here for two or three years maintaining the roads before being replaced by new workers from northern India. Their living situation is very grim. Shelters are woven reeds, fortified with any materials they can find along the rivers. They carry their children on their backs as they work. Younger ones sleep along the road under torn black umbrellas.

“Ten thousand people live in the Bumthang area. Small shops and stores along the single main street serve as homes and business. Built of wood with small steel stoves and chimneys, the rooms are multipurpose; selling in front, eating and sleeping quarters in the rear. Merchandise includes thread, wool, fabric for weaving, canned goods, small toys, sweets, local spirits, spices, eggs, a limited supply of green vegetables, a few green apples, and soap.

“The architecture is Tibetan, rectangular buildings are two-three stories high, a pitched roof with open space holding firewood and fodder. The middle floor is for storage of grains, seeds and foodstuffs. The upper floor is the living quarters, broken into smaller rooms. The ground floor on a working farm is for the cattle. If not, there are windows at this level with a shop, storeroom, kitchen, and servant’s quarters.

“I arrived at a monastery in the foothills overlooking the town where 300-500 Bhutanese gathered to receive a blessing from a lama. Children and adults sit and talk on rows of timber slabs on the sun baked ground.

“Three monks blew long wood and silver jallee horns to chase evil spirits away. The lama, Nam Kha Nen Boo, is Khenbow, a reincarnation of a former monk known for his fortune telling power. He was seated and read in a low tone of voice for twenty minutes and used a small hand held drum and bell.

“Finished, he moved among the people touching us on the head with a statue called a Tshtshto. This dignifies the life of a human with a blessing “Have a long life.” People approached with offerings for his blessing. Bags of red string, flour, and jenlap, a nutmeg like substance, were offered. One lama handed each person jenlap. Another lama gave each person a single red string to be worn around the neck.

“I visited the Jakar Dzong. The head lama opened large doors in the quiet spiritual center. Ornate sculptures of Padmasambhava and flickering yak butter lamps filled the center wall. Inside another room was a ten foot high statue of the guru, bronze statues with salt and butter flower carvings.

“Display cases with hundreds of identical 5-6" Buddha statues sat in tiered arrangement extending the length of the room, reaching the ceiling. Larger images depicted historical and religious levels of spiritual attainment.

“My meditation is on The Eightfold Path or Middle Way between self-indulgence and self modification. The eight orders are: Right Views, Right Purpose, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Awareness, and Right Concentration or Right Meditation.

“I have a diamond in my mind. I am alive and empty in the here, now, and present. I know imagination is better than knowledge. Now I travel south on a path through the jungle.”

“Be well,” said Omar.

A Phone

Greetings,

His first two weeks in Anatolia involved settling in; the flat, city and teaching orientation.

“A” helped him buy a DNA cell phone. “G” said it was essential. He’d never had one. It was a red Nokia E65 gadget with all kinds of buttons and functions; like calendars, tools, SMS, IM, Teams, Bluetooth, internet access, GPS and To Do, Did, and Does. Connections.

This “Instant, Everywhere You Are, Or Imagine You Are or Need To Be,” dimensional proportion suited his status acquiring mobility extreme.

One morning he and "A" took a taxi to an nursery area below a castle. They found white, red and purple roses, cactus, ten small plants, containers, and potting soil.

For teaching he bought three pairs of lightweight linen pants in brown, beige and black; five long sleeved button-downed cotton shirts in various motifs, two ties - one turquoise and one dark blue - and three pairs of very, very thin black socks. He bought an iron and ironing board for the linen and cotton fabric because he loves ironing words.

Then he knotted a tie to his red phone and dragged it through Ankara yelling, “Look! See! I’m connected to the Universe! I am now a VIP! I have Infinite Diversity Through Infinite Combinations.”

Everyone looked up from the ground with serious expressions after studying pavement (cracked and broken in places like China which gave him a sense of remembering) or their minute delicate phones cradled like infants in sleep mode and congratulated him with lilies, orchids, assorted floral arrangements and so forth.

New friends took him to a seafood restaurant. Seafood is plentiful and delicious in Ankara. Waiters in clean shirts with black ties guided them to an outdoor table covered with a white tablecloth, multiple sets of silver cutlery, water glasses and folded napkins.

A waiter brought them mineral water in a glass goblet with a thin stem. A slice of lemon floated on bubbles. He also deposited a bowl filled with green, red, and black olives lightly dusted with a mixture of chilli powder, oil and vinegar.

Everyone enjoyed a fresh green salad with tomatoes, carrots, beets, parsley, mint leaves, corn, and red lettuce in a pistachio sauce along with hot fresh brown bread with butter. The main course was braised salmon, a lightly flame seared potato and tomato, and green pepper. Thick Turkish coffee finished the meal. Grounds coated his throat.

Friendly strangers, including beautiful women with very deep dark seductive eyes flashing love's lost and found, escorted him to a crowded local cafe where they taught him the traditional game of backgammon while sharing fruit-flavored hubbly-bubbly tobacco pipes well past his bedtime, regaling him with fantastic stories about their lives and environmental survival strategies.

They had an Encounter.

Peace.

Salad days

Greetıngs,

The Turkısh keyboard takes a bit of gettıng used to because the small "i" is really a vertical line. Internet access is sporadic - no recent podcasts for the moment - as I dance around eating salad, cheese, fresh bread, salmon, olives and assorted Middle Eastern delights all washed down wıth sparkling mineral water (soda)...settling into the ebb and flow of the place, people, attitudes and all the variables.

"Where are all people?" I yelled at the top of my pitiful voice rasping fragments of sky standing along the street filled wıth emptiness. Well, for starters, there were business people knotted with ties, hiding behind shades, stern faced women dragging kids around for the summer in the heavy direct heat and flamıng red haired - nose pierced gothic counter intuitive punk rockers hanging out on corners, but, like you know, where are all the coagulating, broiling, endless MASSES...?

Peace. 

Anatolia

Once upon a time there was this traveler and he left China after three years. He’d taught English in Sichuan and Fujian. He loved writing, travel and teaching.

It was Time to leave because he’d completed all the work there he was supposed to do. He was ready to move on. He needed to make love along life’s road and give birth to new inspirations. Simple, immediate and direct.

Before leaving the Middle Kingdom he had a “going away - give it all away” party. He gifted 30 books and 40 DVDs to his English major students at a university in Fujian.

“Don Quixote, The Garden of Secrets, If On A Winter’s Night a Traveller, The Poetics of Space, Journey to The Center of the Night, Nomad, The Stream of Life, The Book of Imaginary Beings,” among others listed on his Amazon book list. He knew the students would enjoy and share world literature.

He gifted 20 plants to Chinese teachers whose destiny was established long ago. Plants he had nurtured through wind, rain, sun and lightning flashes along eastern green mountains before, during and after sunrise.

After putting 2,650 miles on a Warrior bike he sold it to a tall business teacher from Holland where the land is flat and filled with windmills and tulips. The teacher would return to China after a summer holiday and needed it for his Chinese girlfriend. Spin them wheels.

Then, the traveller went to Xiamen and got on a plane to Hong Kong. He wandered around the huge gleaming airport looking at stuff and absorbing new dialects.

In a dream about flying to Istanbul he looked out a narrow plastic window and saw a brilliant severed slice of orange and red sun inside blue and white clouds on a horizon.

He closed his eyes and dreamed he landed in Ankara where he would live, teach and explore.

A woman named G met him at the airport. Blond, positive, 40’s and from Australia. While they zoomed into the hilly capital on a brilliant sunny Mediterranean day past red tiled roofed stacked apartments and brown block styled buildings from 1930 he regained his sense of perspective in a new land as she regaled him with information. He heard it all and forgot most of it because he was tired from all the dreaming.

She took him to a fine 5th floor apartment where he met a young part-time female teacher, an artist from Capetown, South Africa, named A, who'd return home in August with her husband, a film maker.

The flat had a fine balcony displaying the sky, clouds, western hills, amazing sunsets and bird shadowed wings. Blue jays, sparrows, pigeons, starlings.

The space received red, white and pink roses and delicious plants to give it color and life.

Peace.