Well, I have been Getting My Ass Handed To Me by departments of teacher certification in both Arizona and Massachusetts. The fact that I barely know how to spell Massachusetts, as indicated by the red line under my multiple tries, is perhaps the Universe's way of telling me that I shouldn't move there. I'm only joking when I say this, as MA DOES have this much going for it: the folks at the MDE don't yell at quite the decibel level that the folks at the ADE do.
Now, my time in Asia has taught me to go with the flow, that worrying is futile, and the only thing created by worrying is lines in one's forehead. I've learned how to have faith and know that everything always works out as it should. SO....to that effect, while my career may be veering frighteningly off course at breakneck speed for the time being, I have compiled a list of other possible professions that I can explore during this time of temporary road blocks:
-Beekeeper
-Telemarketer
-Burlesque dancer (not to be confused with stripper)
-Elevator operator
-One of the lost cosmonauts
-A participant in the wife carrying contest
By the way, the fact that the U.S. does not have universal teacher certification from state to state is an absolute crime. And California???? Don't get me started on California. I don't know who California thinks it is. No one is apparently good enough for it. It's sitting there on its west coast perch all, "Ooooo, just LOOK at my beautiful, frothy, glistening shoreline and abundant population of English language learners (I mention this because working with ELLs is my area of expertise and true passion in life). You wanna come here and teach?? Suck my redwoods, biatch!"
Forgive me. I worked for almost 13 hours today, and it is quite possible that the beer I smelled earlier in the lobby of my condo has actually succeeded in getting me drunk.
Any career suggestions/magic wands for making certificates appear out of thin air/talismans (talismans or talismen?? Doesn't it seem like it should be the latter?) for warding off evil department of education spirits would be greatly appreciated.
I'm gonna go sleep it off.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Smoke
My final trip to Cambodia was, as usual, fantastic. I bought a bunch of clothing and DVDs, ate gourmet chocolate, drank passion fruit smoothies, hung out at the Foreign Correspondents' Club overlooking the river, and read a fabulous book in the sprawling garden of the hotel where I stayed. I also bought some really awesome jewelry from an NGO, and these very colorful pieces are made entirely out of trash. I soaked in Phnom Penh's quirky beauty, and the feeling of having stepped back in time to an entirely more classy and romantic era. I love love love it.
I noticed that people in Phnom Penh are constantly picking their noses and hocking loogies (yeah, I really have no idea how to spell that word....). Like, CONSTANTLY. At first I was puzzled by this, as I had never noticed that before. However, since this was my first visit where I didn't have a krama (Cambodian scarf) wrapped around my face each time I climbed into a tuk tuk, I realized that the air there is unbelievably grimy. It goes so far beyond just being polluted or dusty. You get a mouthful of soot that accompanies each breath, and the mucus in one's nose instantly springs to battle. While I was a bit more discreet about it than the locals, I found myself needing to clear out my nose constantly. It just doesn't seem fair that the air there is actually capable of leaving a stain.
I took a taxi to the airport, which had a very kind man with a gently lined face behind the wheel. And while I've read quite a bit about the history of Cambodia, and about the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, I've never had the guts to ask anyone about it. It's not the kind of thing that, you know, comes up in conversation. But, well, I figured that this was my last chance.
I started by asking his age, and then did some quick mental math. He was about six years old when Phnom Penh fell, and he was more than willing to talk about his life during "Year Zero," which is what many Cambodians call the period from 1975-1979.
"I wore black clothes and had to work very hard, even as a young boy. And I cried every day because all we could eat was a bowl of water with a few grains of rice. I used to steal food from my parents because I was so hungry." He hung his head slightly. "I was a bad boy."
He went on to tell me about his oldest brother. All of his siblings were sent off to the labor camps--what he called the "work very hard camp"--and one day when his brother was working in the field he found a small fish or crab and stuck it in his pocket. One of the other boys from the labor camp saw this and told the guard. The guard apparently gave the standard lecture about sacrificing for Angka, never stealing from Angka, never lying to Angka, and that thieves must be punished. And then he shot him.
"But this is kind," my driver, Hen, went on. "The people that were killed in front of me were hit over the head with shovels or sticks until their skulls cracked. The Khmer Rouge soldiers didn't like to waste bullets."
He also sang for me one of the brainwashing songs that the Khmer Rouge soldiers taught the children. It was a sickeningly jaunty tune. I felt like my skin was on fire when I listened to it.
"So, do people still talk about what happened? Do they discuss the past?"
He told me that he and his friends would gather in coffee shops and talk about their experiences. He also said that most people his age, who had lived through those years (and he did point out that there is a large dip in population numbers of people above the age of thirty in Cambodia today), were very eager to see the Khmer Rouge leaders and soldiers brought to justice. The hearings have been happening over the last few years, but the money funding these trials always seems to run out. Other countries have donated money, he explained, but it somehow always ends up in the hands of corrupt politicians and not in the courtrooms.
"Soon these men will be too old. They will get old and die without having been punished," he said.
Our conversation then led us to the subject of education. He was pleased to hear that I am a teacher, and all he wants for his children is a good education. He told me that school in Cambodia is free, but that if his son does not bring 500 rial--just over 1 USD--to his teacher each day, that his teacher will not let him in the classroom.
"Teachers only make about 50 USD per month, so they charge the students." He shook his head. "If the government just paid teachers more instead of giving all of the money to corrupt politicians in their Mercedes, then my son wouldn't have to worry about paying his teacher each day, and he could just worry about his studies."
My head was spinning as I listened to him, as I watched the scenery go past me. I watched children playing in piles of garbage, and beggars without limbs sitting next to buckets, pleading limply into the air. Hen really had no trace of anger in his voice. He was very matter of fact, and even chuckled a bit at the fucked-upness of it all.
"Well, I love your country," I said in a high pitched voice because I was trying not to cry. I felt like a freakin' idiot. Some smiley idiot tourist with absolutely no conception of struggle or grief or difficulty or injustice. I felt a hot twinge in my chest and wondered, really, how much one place has to endure before the Powers That Be will lay off already. My face was all screwed up and I could feel Hen's compassionate (and puzzled) glance in the rearview mirror.
"Why, thank you!! I love Cambodia too!"
Earlier that day I had climbed to the top of Wat Phnom to give a final offering to the Buddha, staring at its compassionate face through the stinging smoke of my incense sticks (three, as is the custom) that I had clasped between my palms. I love the Khmer Buddhas. Their faces are so expressive, their lips are so full, their eyes hold the hint of a smile, their fingers are thick and bulky and look like they could handle a rice harvest. Don't get me wrong--I love the various styles of Thai and Laos Buddhas as well, but they are a bit more rigid and refined, with thinner fingers and tense mouths and expressions that are pure business. I feel completely comfortable gazing into the face of a Khmer Buddha. Like everything is just as it should be, and that cultivating a sense of humor is indeed a spiritual undertaking.
"I won't forget Cambodia," I whispered, sending the smoke into the air in chaotic curlicues.
I noticed that people in Phnom Penh are constantly picking their noses and hocking loogies (yeah, I really have no idea how to spell that word....). Like, CONSTANTLY. At first I was puzzled by this, as I had never noticed that before. However, since this was my first visit where I didn't have a krama (Cambodian scarf) wrapped around my face each time I climbed into a tuk tuk, I realized that the air there is unbelievably grimy. It goes so far beyond just being polluted or dusty. You get a mouthful of soot that accompanies each breath, and the mucus in one's nose instantly springs to battle. While I was a bit more discreet about it than the locals, I found myself needing to clear out my nose constantly. It just doesn't seem fair that the air there is actually capable of leaving a stain.
I took a taxi to the airport, which had a very kind man with a gently lined face behind the wheel. And while I've read quite a bit about the history of Cambodia, and about the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, I've never had the guts to ask anyone about it. It's not the kind of thing that, you know, comes up in conversation. But, well, I figured that this was my last chance.
I started by asking his age, and then did some quick mental math. He was about six years old when Phnom Penh fell, and he was more than willing to talk about his life during "Year Zero," which is what many Cambodians call the period from 1975-1979.
"I wore black clothes and had to work very hard, even as a young boy. And I cried every day because all we could eat was a bowl of water with a few grains of rice. I used to steal food from my parents because I was so hungry." He hung his head slightly. "I was a bad boy."
He went on to tell me about his oldest brother. All of his siblings were sent off to the labor camps--what he called the "work very hard camp"--and one day when his brother was working in the field he found a small fish or crab and stuck it in his pocket. One of the other boys from the labor camp saw this and told the guard. The guard apparently gave the standard lecture about sacrificing for Angka, never stealing from Angka, never lying to Angka, and that thieves must be punished. And then he shot him.
"But this is kind," my driver, Hen, went on. "The people that were killed in front of me were hit over the head with shovels or sticks until their skulls cracked. The Khmer Rouge soldiers didn't like to waste bullets."
He also sang for me one of the brainwashing songs that the Khmer Rouge soldiers taught the children. It was a sickeningly jaunty tune. I felt like my skin was on fire when I listened to it.
"So, do people still talk about what happened? Do they discuss the past?"
He told me that he and his friends would gather in coffee shops and talk about their experiences. He also said that most people his age, who had lived through those years (and he did point out that there is a large dip in population numbers of people above the age of thirty in Cambodia today), were very eager to see the Khmer Rouge leaders and soldiers brought to justice. The hearings have been happening over the last few years, but the money funding these trials always seems to run out. Other countries have donated money, he explained, but it somehow always ends up in the hands of corrupt politicians and not in the courtrooms.
"Soon these men will be too old. They will get old and die without having been punished," he said.
Our conversation then led us to the subject of education. He was pleased to hear that I am a teacher, and all he wants for his children is a good education. He told me that school in Cambodia is free, but that if his son does not bring 500 rial--just over 1 USD--to his teacher each day, that his teacher will not let him in the classroom.
"Teachers only make about 50 USD per month, so they charge the students." He shook his head. "If the government just paid teachers more instead of giving all of the money to corrupt politicians in their Mercedes, then my son wouldn't have to worry about paying his teacher each day, and he could just worry about his studies."
My head was spinning as I listened to him, as I watched the scenery go past me. I watched children playing in piles of garbage, and beggars without limbs sitting next to buckets, pleading limply into the air. Hen really had no trace of anger in his voice. He was very matter of fact, and even chuckled a bit at the fucked-upness of it all.
"Well, I love your country," I said in a high pitched voice because I was trying not to cry. I felt like a freakin' idiot. Some smiley idiot tourist with absolutely no conception of struggle or grief or difficulty or injustice. I felt a hot twinge in my chest and wondered, really, how much one place has to endure before the Powers That Be will lay off already. My face was all screwed up and I could feel Hen's compassionate (and puzzled) glance in the rearview mirror.
"Why, thank you!! I love Cambodia too!"
Earlier that day I had climbed to the top of Wat Phnom to give a final offering to the Buddha, staring at its compassionate face through the stinging smoke of my incense sticks (three, as is the custom) that I had clasped between my palms. I love the Khmer Buddhas. Their faces are so expressive, their lips are so full, their eyes hold the hint of a smile, their fingers are thick and bulky and look like they could handle a rice harvest. Don't get me wrong--I love the various styles of Thai and Laos Buddhas as well, but they are a bit more rigid and refined, with thinner fingers and tense mouths and expressions that are pure business. I feel completely comfortable gazing into the face of a Khmer Buddha. Like everything is just as it should be, and that cultivating a sense of humor is indeed a spiritual undertaking.
"I won't forget Cambodia," I whispered, sending the smoke into the air in chaotic curlicues.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Accountability
According to my friends down at the Office of Blog Accountability, I need to write about the following trips:
1.) My trip to Angkor Wat
2.) My trip to Hong Kong
I am off to Phnom Pehn (ah, my beloved city....) in a few hours, just for a quick farewell tour. This will be my FIFTH trip to Cambodia. I love love love Cambodia. It is heartbreaking and beautiful and desperate and rich and the sunsets there are the most haunting in the world. I will miss its broken energy and smoky skies.
So....much travel writing will ensue upon my return. I have been so so so happy lately, and filled with a nice, quiet, content kind of joy. It's a grown up kind of happiness--one that feels solid and permanent. The transition back to the US (in just over TWO MONTHS) has been a little stressful and crazy (how in the hell did I ACCUMULATE SO MUCH STUFF in the last two years?? Each time I send a box, another boxful of stuff seems to spontaneously appear. Oh, and as far as knowing what I will do for a job upon my return? Yeah, um, not so much yet....), but I have learned the futility of stressing myself out. Everything will happen as it should. I have the most fabulous guy in the world waiting on the other side of the world with open arms.
Here I go, riding off into the sunset!!
1.) My trip to Angkor Wat
2.) My trip to Hong Kong
I am off to Phnom Pehn (ah, my beloved city....) in a few hours, just for a quick farewell tour. This will be my FIFTH trip to Cambodia. I love love love Cambodia. It is heartbreaking and beautiful and desperate and rich and the sunsets there are the most haunting in the world. I will miss its broken energy and smoky skies.
So....much travel writing will ensue upon my return. I have been so so so happy lately, and filled with a nice, quiet, content kind of joy. It's a grown up kind of happiness--one that feels solid and permanent. The transition back to the US (in just over TWO MONTHS) has been a little stressful and crazy (how in the hell did I ACCUMULATE SO MUCH STUFF in the last two years?? Each time I send a box, another boxful of stuff seems to spontaneously appear. Oh, and as far as knowing what I will do for a job upon my return? Yeah, um, not so much yet....), but I have learned the futility of stressing myself out. Everything will happen as it should. I have the most fabulous guy in the world waiting on the other side of the world with open arms.
Here I go, riding off into the sunset!!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Water, Water Everywhere!
I have been a busy little bee lately! Save for some random anonymous hate mail, everything is comin' up roses!
Earlier this week was the festival of Songkran, or Thai New Year, here in Thailand. During this three-day festival, everyone gets wasted and throws water all over everyone else. The idea is that the water washes your impurities and mistakes away so that you can start the new year with a clean slate. Here's hoping!
Earlier this week there were also massive protests and riots. I'll be honest: on Monday, the first day of the Songkran holiday, I barricaded myself indoors for most of the day with Gossip Girl (um, possibly the most addictive thing ever, except for maybe these, which I like to call "crack pretzels") as the streets raged with protesters. On Tuesday the protesters agreed to back off until after the Festival, so I finally mustered up the courage to head to Kao San Road--the place that all of the backpackers infest while in Bangkok, and apparently where the party is for Songkran.
Because of the protests, Bangkok was an eerie ghost town. There were hardly any people around, and as I neared Kao San the groups of soldiers became increasingly more dense, and their weapons seemed to be increasingly bigger. What is generally a boisterous festival with people throwing water out of cars and on street corners and from the SkyTrain overpass was replaced by a meek, haunted version. I felt oddly alone and uncomfortable, and was starting to think that maybe leaving Gossip Girl alone for the night (which was difficult to do....who can resist those come hither eyes??) was not such a good idea.
However, then I reached Kao San Road and was in no way prepared for the sheer volume of people creating a virtual wall of water. Shortly before turning onto Kao San Road itself I had purchased a little squirt gun. I figured that 50 baht was about my budget for that item, and I figured that a little squirt gun was better than no squirt gun at all. However, after turning down the main road I felt like the kid who gets dropped off at school in an Oldsmobile station wagon while everyone else pulls up in luxury SUVs. I was clearly ill-equipped, and my pithy trickle of water was no match for the high-powered rifles that other were packing. People were armed with all varieties of watery weapons: water guns in all shapes and sizes, including the extremely painful water rifles with the backpacks that provide a constant supply of water; bowls and buckets of ice cold water; hoses that sprayed a fine mist over the dancing, squirming, liquid crowd.
Within thirty seconds I was drenched. People were also carrying around buckets filled with a facial powder that had turned to mud and were slathering it all over anything that moved. Before long I had swallowed several gallons of dirty water and choked down several powdery mouthfuls of facial mud. And I'm not gonna lie: My interior monologue read like that of an old woman. My eyes! I just got over an infection! My stomach! I don't want any more infections there! I'm freezing! I'm going to catch my death! Why must these wild youngsters insist on hitting me IN THE EFFING FACE?!?! I felt like I was drowning in the middle of all of these people, all of this water, all of this mud, all of this loud and touchy-feely debauchery that is--to be honest--completely out of place in Bangkok. I finally retreated into the chipped paint nook of a bar and guzzled a Beer Chang to further prepare myself for battle. After the slight buzz started to kick in (I really couldn't tell you the last time I had a beer before then), I was all, "Game on, f*@#ers!!" and traded my tiny squirt gun for something more substantial. That was all well and good until a group of guys chased me down the street and pummeled me with water. That was a strange feeling. I was virtually blanketed in it, cramming myself up against the crowd in a pathetic attempt to shield myself from it. My ears were full of the screaming sound of the water, which muffled the sound of the group's laughter, but only just barely. I knew it was all in good fun, but it was a weird junior high flashback/Vietnam War vision that promptly robbed me of my buzz. Alrighty, it was time to step into another bar and refuel.
After guzzling my second beer I stood (er, swayed) on the curb and sprayed the crowd as they wandered past. I preferred this mode of water combat much more than running around in the trenches, but I quickly ran out of ammo, and upon being told that I would need to pay five baht to refuel, I decided that it was my cue to leave.
I slipped back into the crowd and began pushing my way down the street, determined to make it to the end of this viscous artery clogged with people. My mission had one objective only: to leave with all limbs, both eyes, and all important facial features intact. People still continued to slather me with mud and spray me in the face (seriously....the face? Have some manners!!), and I just kept on a-movin' with my water gun hanging by my side like some tragic vestigial organ. As I neared the end of the road a particularly aggressive mud slatherer (yes, I made that word up...you got a problem with it, take it up with my water gun....) took advantage of the fact that my eyes were closed and my face was in his hands and he planted a big smooch on my lips.
Alrighty. Now it was REALLY my cue to leave.
I bolted through the crowd the rest of the way, and once I rounded the corner there were no more water guns and there was no more mud and I could see again. There was a small dance party right there on the street with a group of locals and I stayed and danced for a bit. No one did any groping or grinding or touching or kissing. "Ah....I'm back in Bangkok again," I thought. After I had my fill of dancing I purchased a jasmine and orchid garland from a kid on the street, climbed onto the back of a motorcycle, and let the hazy quiet of Bangkok slide by me like an oily river.
Even though I am clearly OLD and BORING, I still had fun :)
Earlier this week was the festival of Songkran, or Thai New Year, here in Thailand. During this three-day festival, everyone gets wasted and throws water all over everyone else. The idea is that the water washes your impurities and mistakes away so that you can start the new year with a clean slate. Here's hoping!
Earlier this week there were also massive protests and riots. I'll be honest: on Monday, the first day of the Songkran holiday, I barricaded myself indoors for most of the day with Gossip Girl (um, possibly the most addictive thing ever, except for maybe these, which I like to call "crack pretzels") as the streets raged with protesters. On Tuesday the protesters agreed to back off until after the Festival, so I finally mustered up the courage to head to Kao San Road--the place that all of the backpackers infest while in Bangkok, and apparently where the party is for Songkran.
Because of the protests, Bangkok was an eerie ghost town. There were hardly any people around, and as I neared Kao San the groups of soldiers became increasingly more dense, and their weapons seemed to be increasingly bigger. What is generally a boisterous festival with people throwing water out of cars and on street corners and from the SkyTrain overpass was replaced by a meek, haunted version. I felt oddly alone and uncomfortable, and was starting to think that maybe leaving Gossip Girl alone for the night (which was difficult to do....who can resist those come hither eyes??) was not such a good idea.
However, then I reached Kao San Road and was in no way prepared for the sheer volume of people creating a virtual wall of water. Shortly before turning onto Kao San Road itself I had purchased a little squirt gun. I figured that 50 baht was about my budget for that item, and I figured that a little squirt gun was better than no squirt gun at all. However, after turning down the main road I felt like the kid who gets dropped off at school in an Oldsmobile station wagon while everyone else pulls up in luxury SUVs. I was clearly ill-equipped, and my pithy trickle of water was no match for the high-powered rifles that other were packing. People were armed with all varieties of watery weapons: water guns in all shapes and sizes, including the extremely painful water rifles with the backpacks that provide a constant supply of water; bowls and buckets of ice cold water; hoses that sprayed a fine mist over the dancing, squirming, liquid crowd.
Within thirty seconds I was drenched. People were also carrying around buckets filled with a facial powder that had turned to mud and were slathering it all over anything that moved. Before long I had swallowed several gallons of dirty water and choked down several powdery mouthfuls of facial mud. And I'm not gonna lie: My interior monologue read like that of an old woman. My eyes! I just got over an infection! My stomach! I don't want any more infections there! I'm freezing! I'm going to catch my death! Why must these wild youngsters insist on hitting me IN THE EFFING FACE?!?! I felt like I was drowning in the middle of all of these people, all of this water, all of this mud, all of this loud and touchy-feely debauchery that is--to be honest--completely out of place in Bangkok. I finally retreated into the chipped paint nook of a bar and guzzled a Beer Chang to further prepare myself for battle. After the slight buzz started to kick in (I really couldn't tell you the last time I had a beer before then), I was all, "Game on, f*@#ers!!" and traded my tiny squirt gun for something more substantial. That was all well and good until a group of guys chased me down the street and pummeled me with water. That was a strange feeling. I was virtually blanketed in it, cramming myself up against the crowd in a pathetic attempt to shield myself from it. My ears were full of the screaming sound of the water, which muffled the sound of the group's laughter, but only just barely. I knew it was all in good fun, but it was a weird junior high flashback/Vietnam War vision that promptly robbed me of my buzz. Alrighty, it was time to step into another bar and refuel.
After guzzling my second beer I stood (er, swayed) on the curb and sprayed the crowd as they wandered past. I preferred this mode of water combat much more than running around in the trenches, but I quickly ran out of ammo, and upon being told that I would need to pay five baht to refuel, I decided that it was my cue to leave.
I slipped back into the crowd and began pushing my way down the street, determined to make it to the end of this viscous artery clogged with people. My mission had one objective only: to leave with all limbs, both eyes, and all important facial features intact. People still continued to slather me with mud and spray me in the face (seriously....the face? Have some manners!!), and I just kept on a-movin' with my water gun hanging by my side like some tragic vestigial organ. As I neared the end of the road a particularly aggressive mud slatherer (yes, I made that word up...you got a problem with it, take it up with my water gun....) took advantage of the fact that my eyes were closed and my face was in his hands and he planted a big smooch on my lips.
Alrighty. Now it was REALLY my cue to leave.
I bolted through the crowd the rest of the way, and once I rounded the corner there were no more water guns and there was no more mud and I could see again. There was a small dance party right there on the street with a group of locals and I stayed and danced for a bit. No one did any groping or grinding or touching or kissing. "Ah....I'm back in Bangkok again," I thought. After I had my fill of dancing I purchased a jasmine and orchid garland from a kid on the street, climbed onto the back of a motorcycle, and let the hazy quiet of Bangkok slide by me like an oily river.
Even though I am clearly OLD and BORING, I still had fun :)
Monday, April 6, 2009
Turning Point
Today's blog entry--while extremely long--covers the remainder of the third day at Maesa Elephant Camp (you can read about the first day here, the second day here, and half of the third day here). It is also--drumroll please--the beginning of the memoir that I am writing about my two years in Asia. Or at least as much of the beginning as I feel like sharing at this point.
Now, mind you, I will most likely never do anything with this memoir. I am writing it for my own purposes at the moment. This blog contains some facets of the story, my pen and paper journal contains some, and my photo album/scrapbooks contain others. The memoir is a way to draw everything together so that, forgetful as I am, I do not forget the lessons and experiences of my life here. And it's a way to insert these two years into the greater context of my life, instead of simply chronicling individual moments, memories, and experiences. It is my hope to weave a greater tapestry of it all.
So here is the beginning. It is EXTREMELY rough and unedited, as the revising and editing will come much later in the writing process.
I’m sitting on an elephant’s head, and the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise, accompanied by a sparking shower of tingles up and down my spine, like a snake awakening and preparing to strike. The jungle is suddenly and inexplicably quiet, save for the squishing of multiple sets of footprints negotiating the impossibly deep mud. One set belongs to Wanpen, the elephant (whom I have come to know as “my elephant”); one set belongs to Chi, my guide at the elephant camp outside of Chaing Mai, Thailand, where I have come for a three-day mahout (or "elephant keeper") training course; and one set belongs to Vichien, Wanpen’s actual mahout. Wanpen is harrumphing along methodically under me, shaking her head with each step in protest. She hates the mud, and I don’t blame her. The mud in this section of jungle is an organic entity, swallowing and spitting up the feet of brave pedestrians with gurgling, slurping sounds. Its top layer is slick with what I imagine from my vantage point to be digestive juices. I peer down at my bare feet, which are dangling right below Wanpen’s ears and getting tickled by her breath as her trunk swings back and forth, and I feel fortunate for their distance from the mud. I had, in fact, badly injured my right foot the day before, and I could feel it filling with blood and fluids, and throbbing in dull exclamations. In a daredevil moment—which had recently become a new and strange norm for me—I decided to attempt the advanced dismount: Sliding back onto Wanpen’s hind end and swinging one leg over so that I was sitting sideways on her spine, her vertebrae holding my tailbone in place like a tinker toy. Wanpen then raised her hind leg, I stepped onto the remarkably stable ledge that she had created out of a bent knee, and then stepped down to the ground. Except I grossly misjudged the distance between leg and ground, and wound up flailing through the air before falling painfully (and sans grace) onto the ball of my foot, which responded with a loud POP. It still hurt unbearably the next day, but nothing was going to keep me from giving Wanpen one last bath and taking her for one last trek.
My heart starts fluttering in my chest. Not pounding, as pounding would have been a comfort in that moment. It would have been a feeling of substance, of something REAL and tangible to feel the weight of my heart against the butterfly spread of my ribcage. The fluttering, however, irritated my stomach, and heralded a nervousness of a more primal nature.
I found myself melting into Wanpen, dissolving into soft folds of her skin that had not yet been hardened by age or turned pink by the sun. All of her was a perfect, perfect gray, and with each step I found myself merging with it, my joints and bones stretching to accommodate the massive elastic strides of her movement. The more I felt myself merging with her, the more urgent the fluttering in my chest became. Wanpen kept turning her huge head from side to side, being sure to secure my leg against her neck with a giant, leathery flap of her ear as she did so. Her trunk arched in the air in front of us like an awkward periscope, exhaling brief snorts of air.
I thought about opening my mouth to say something. To suggest that we turn back, that the sun was starting to droop in the sky, that I had to catch my ride back to Chiang Mai soon and wanted to be sure to shower first. But I had become so merged with my elephant that I had no ability to speak--only to soak in my surroundings. I saw the strange geometry of leaves making flirtatious etchings in the air. I saw the uprooted trees resting comfortably against their still growing counterparts, whose very roots and trunks arched under the weight of their fallen comrades. The jungle was emotional and energetic and all connected. I breathed it in deeply, even as a malignant sense of dread coiled and uncoiled itself at the base of my spine.
And then, from around the corner came two bright, white slices of tusk. A gigantic male elephant was taking a pleasantly plump older couple for a relaxing jungle trek. I had never seen tusks that size. They practically devoured the earth as the elephant walked.
Something strange was happening, but it wasn’t quite registering. I could hear Vichien yelling “How! How!” in an urgent voice. How. I mentally leafed through my mahout command book. “How” meant stop. Stop? I saw Vichien lunge for Wanpen’s ear, but the mud had closed its muscular throat around his ankles. I saw him topple near Wanpen’s front leg about a second before she took off running.
The former equestrian in me, the one that had endured many episodes of spooked horses running away with me, automatically sat straight up as my hands instinctively reached for reins and my feet reached for stirrups. Instead, all I had to hold onto were two ears that were waving fearfully, like flags in a storm, and Wanpen’s awkward and surprisingly slow gallop was threatening to unseat me with each step.
She slowed to a trot and I heard a deep and frightening growl. It was so strangely aggressive and gravelly that I thought there must have been a tiger chasing us. Somehow a story that my friend Nadia had told me about a family that was killed on an elephant trek in Nepal when a tiger chased and attacked the little group had time to unfold in my head. I had no idea whether or not to tell Wanpen to stop or go, so I chose to curl up into a ball instead. In another second it registered that the growling noise was coming from deep inside the baby chasm of a frightened Wanpen’s stomach.
She stopped trotting, and I knew what was coming next. She had communicated it to me in a millisecond—the deep guts of her instincts connecting with mine—and I braced myself. With an earth-shattering shake of her head, we parted ways. I fell for what seemed like many minutes as the former equestrian within me shouted directions in her freshly pressed hunt coat: Turn your body so that you land on your side! Keep your right foot elevated so that it doesn’t hit the ground! And, for the love of god, don’t forget to roll!!
As I fell I heard a piercing and unpleasant sound, and I realized that it was my voice, locked in a deep and trembling scream. I hit the mud with a comical squish and rolled. I did a mental scan from my head to my toes and back again. I was completely fine. Chi threw his body on top of mine, as I had not landed far from Wanpen’s frantically stomping front feet. Wanpen and I locked eyes for a moment, I gave her a nod of my head, and with that, she was off, trotting for home, her lower jaw swinging in nervous circles, her ears wringing like fretting hands.
I brought my attention to the frightened and bewildered eyes around me—in particular the poor couple who had witnessed my fall and heard my screaming, and judging by their pale and breathless appearance, the experience had been far more traumatic for them than for me. I tried to imagine what I had looked like to them—like a Barbie doll being shot out of a lawnmower—and I scanned the faces of Chi and Vichien, who were afraid to say anything or even touch me, lest I fall apart right there.
In the great scheme of what my life had been over the last year and eight months, it made perfect sense that I should fall off of an elephant. It made perfect sense that I should be the first visitor EVER in the history of the camp to not only sustain an injury, but to also fall off of an elephant. It made perfect sense that this experience that I had been waiting for my entire life should take these rather adventurous, if scary and painful, detours.
And it was the most hilarious moment of my life.
I stood up, waved to the couple, shouted “I’m fine,” (to which they responded with an audible exhalation), and the hysterical, overpowering laughter came rushing out of me. It was more than my muscles could handle and I found myself doubled over, heaving, completely unable to catch my breath. And the laughter spread to Vichien as he took off after Wanpen. Chi looked at me quizzically, as he was fairly certain I had sustained a head injury, and repeatedly asked me if I was okay. The laughter just kept coming in strong, swift waves, and the tears blurred the whole world around me. Only when my abdominal muscles could no longer sustain the laughter was I able to find my voice again and tell Chi that I was, in fact, just fine.
We were stuck on a very high, very muddy hill, and my foot was still too injured from the day before for me to walk down it, so Chi had to lift me onto his back, just as he had the day before when I had first injured myself. Correction—THIS was the most hilarious moment of my life. Here I was, riding down the hill on the back of my guide because I had been unceremoniously jettisoned from the head of my elephant, and I was too gimpy from falling off of my elephant’s hind leg the day before to walk on my own. Chi could hardly keep his balance with the combined forces of the mud and my still bubbling laughter, and we fell several times, which made me almost panicked because the laughter became utterly breathless in those moments.
We looked like earthy Pollock paintings when we reached the bottom of the hill. Chi deposited me on the porch of a mahout hut and informed me that he would send for a motorbike, as we were still quite a ways from the central area of camp where my (rather upscale) mahout hut was located.
“No!” I said, wiping my eyes with my dirty sleeve and smearing mud all over my face, “No! I want to ride Wanpen back to camp!” At this point, a small crowd had gathered, as the tale of my fall had spread through the camp, which was a déjà vu moment from the day before, as the entire camp had held a vigil at the foot of my bed, icing and massaging my injured foot and helping me to the bathroom. Everyone looked at each other, certain that they had not heard me correctly.
“No, no,” said Chi, “we get you a motorbike. Is better.”
“No! No, I want to ride Wanpen back to camp. I don’t want my last memory of this experience to be falling off of an elephant. I want to get back on.”
Chi finally agreed to send for another elephant (he thought that Wanpen and I seemed to be a bad luck pairing), and I just sat there, laughing while everyone stared. I kept laughing while I rode the new elephant back to camp, and was laughing still when a parade of mahouts escorted me out of the camp and into a car bound for the hospital. The mahouts brought me sweets—delicious rice candies and pyramids of a gelatinous, banana flavored delicacy wrapped in banana leaves—and joked that they should stamp the certificate that I had received for completing the camp with a “real mahout” seal. I felt like a wounded war hero--I don’t think I had ever been glazed with so many respectful glances at one time. I had earned some wicked street cred among the mahouts. They all wai-ed deeply to me as I drove away, steepling their fingers together and bowing their heads.
My foot was fine—just badly sprained—and Chi pushed me all through the hospital on a wheelchair as I went for X-Rays and examinations, bringing me water and ice for my foot, and apologizing constantly.
“I knew this would happen,” he said, “I had a dream last night that a guest fell into the river and I couldn’t help because my legs were stuck. I was very scared all day. And then this.”
There is no underestimating the importance of dreams here. Dreams are prophetic, dreams have messages. While I had always paid attention to my dreams, they took on a new level of significance since living in Thailand. I looked at Chi, saw the worry in his eyes, and I knew that he felt responsible for either ignoring the message in his dream, or for somehow dreaming it into existence. I put my hand over his.
“Mai pen rai,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. To be honest, this was the best experience of my entire life.”
And it was. That night, after Chi had dropped me off at my hotel in Chiang Mai and I was alone with my enormous foot and my buzzing thoughts, I realized that I had turned a corner. That every step I had taken had been precisely planned, had been expertly guided, had been following Technicolor signposts of situations and interactions and decisions that had brought me to this exact point: The day where I would become The Girl Who Fell Off of an Elephant, and it would be a defining beacon in my story. It would carve a dividing line in the topsy-turvy timeline of my life. There would be everything the happened BE—Before Elephant, and everything that happened AE—After Elephant. The Universe, or the Powers That Be, or whatever lexical packaging one prefers to use, will never give us more than we can handle. And, well, if I could handle falling off of an elephant, I could surely handle anything.
And while Falling Off of an Elephant was a turning point, it is neither the beginning nor ending of this story. The beginning of this story—the true beginning, the absolute fertile ground of this story’s germination—begins....[to be continued]
Now, mind you, I will most likely never do anything with this memoir. I am writing it for my own purposes at the moment. This blog contains some facets of the story, my pen and paper journal contains some, and my photo album/scrapbooks contain others. The memoir is a way to draw everything together so that, forgetful as I am, I do not forget the lessons and experiences of my life here. And it's a way to insert these two years into the greater context of my life, instead of simply chronicling individual moments, memories, and experiences. It is my hope to weave a greater tapestry of it all.
So here is the beginning. It is EXTREMELY rough and unedited, as the revising and editing will come much later in the writing process.
I’m sitting on an elephant’s head, and the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise, accompanied by a sparking shower of tingles up and down my spine, like a snake awakening and preparing to strike. The jungle is suddenly and inexplicably quiet, save for the squishing of multiple sets of footprints negotiating the impossibly deep mud. One set belongs to Wanpen, the elephant (whom I have come to know as “my elephant”); one set belongs to Chi, my guide at the elephant camp outside of Chaing Mai, Thailand, where I have come for a three-day mahout (or "elephant keeper") training course; and one set belongs to Vichien, Wanpen’s actual mahout. Wanpen is harrumphing along methodically under me, shaking her head with each step in protest. She hates the mud, and I don’t blame her. The mud in this section of jungle is an organic entity, swallowing and spitting up the feet of brave pedestrians with gurgling, slurping sounds. Its top layer is slick with what I imagine from my vantage point to be digestive juices. I peer down at my bare feet, which are dangling right below Wanpen’s ears and getting tickled by her breath as her trunk swings back and forth, and I feel fortunate for their distance from the mud. I had, in fact, badly injured my right foot the day before, and I could feel it filling with blood and fluids, and throbbing in dull exclamations. In a daredevil moment—which had recently become a new and strange norm for me—I decided to attempt the advanced dismount: Sliding back onto Wanpen’s hind end and swinging one leg over so that I was sitting sideways on her spine, her vertebrae holding my tailbone in place like a tinker toy. Wanpen then raised her hind leg, I stepped onto the remarkably stable ledge that she had created out of a bent knee, and then stepped down to the ground. Except I grossly misjudged the distance between leg and ground, and wound up flailing through the air before falling painfully (and sans grace) onto the ball of my foot, which responded with a loud POP. It still hurt unbearably the next day, but nothing was going to keep me from giving Wanpen one last bath and taking her for one last trek.
My heart starts fluttering in my chest. Not pounding, as pounding would have been a comfort in that moment. It would have been a feeling of substance, of something REAL and tangible to feel the weight of my heart against the butterfly spread of my ribcage. The fluttering, however, irritated my stomach, and heralded a nervousness of a more primal nature.
I found myself melting into Wanpen, dissolving into soft folds of her skin that had not yet been hardened by age or turned pink by the sun. All of her was a perfect, perfect gray, and with each step I found myself merging with it, my joints and bones stretching to accommodate the massive elastic strides of her movement. The more I felt myself merging with her, the more urgent the fluttering in my chest became. Wanpen kept turning her huge head from side to side, being sure to secure my leg against her neck with a giant, leathery flap of her ear as she did so. Her trunk arched in the air in front of us like an awkward periscope, exhaling brief snorts of air.
I thought about opening my mouth to say something. To suggest that we turn back, that the sun was starting to droop in the sky, that I had to catch my ride back to Chiang Mai soon and wanted to be sure to shower first. But I had become so merged with my elephant that I had no ability to speak--only to soak in my surroundings. I saw the strange geometry of leaves making flirtatious etchings in the air. I saw the uprooted trees resting comfortably against their still growing counterparts, whose very roots and trunks arched under the weight of their fallen comrades. The jungle was emotional and energetic and all connected. I breathed it in deeply, even as a malignant sense of dread coiled and uncoiled itself at the base of my spine.
And then, from around the corner came two bright, white slices of tusk. A gigantic male elephant was taking a pleasantly plump older couple for a relaxing jungle trek. I had never seen tusks that size. They practically devoured the earth as the elephant walked.
Something strange was happening, but it wasn’t quite registering. I could hear Vichien yelling “How! How!” in an urgent voice. How. I mentally leafed through my mahout command book. “How” meant stop. Stop? I saw Vichien lunge for Wanpen’s ear, but the mud had closed its muscular throat around his ankles. I saw him topple near Wanpen’s front leg about a second before she took off running.
The former equestrian in me, the one that had endured many episodes of spooked horses running away with me, automatically sat straight up as my hands instinctively reached for reins and my feet reached for stirrups. Instead, all I had to hold onto were two ears that were waving fearfully, like flags in a storm, and Wanpen’s awkward and surprisingly slow gallop was threatening to unseat me with each step.
She slowed to a trot and I heard a deep and frightening growl. It was so strangely aggressive and gravelly that I thought there must have been a tiger chasing us. Somehow a story that my friend Nadia had told me about a family that was killed on an elephant trek in Nepal when a tiger chased and attacked the little group had time to unfold in my head. I had no idea whether or not to tell Wanpen to stop or go, so I chose to curl up into a ball instead. In another second it registered that the growling noise was coming from deep inside the baby chasm of a frightened Wanpen’s stomach.
She stopped trotting, and I knew what was coming next. She had communicated it to me in a millisecond—the deep guts of her instincts connecting with mine—and I braced myself. With an earth-shattering shake of her head, we parted ways. I fell for what seemed like many minutes as the former equestrian within me shouted directions in her freshly pressed hunt coat: Turn your body so that you land on your side! Keep your right foot elevated so that it doesn’t hit the ground! And, for the love of god, don’t forget to roll!!
As I fell I heard a piercing and unpleasant sound, and I realized that it was my voice, locked in a deep and trembling scream. I hit the mud with a comical squish and rolled. I did a mental scan from my head to my toes and back again. I was completely fine. Chi threw his body on top of mine, as I had not landed far from Wanpen’s frantically stomping front feet. Wanpen and I locked eyes for a moment, I gave her a nod of my head, and with that, she was off, trotting for home, her lower jaw swinging in nervous circles, her ears wringing like fretting hands.
I brought my attention to the frightened and bewildered eyes around me—in particular the poor couple who had witnessed my fall and heard my screaming, and judging by their pale and breathless appearance, the experience had been far more traumatic for them than for me. I tried to imagine what I had looked like to them—like a Barbie doll being shot out of a lawnmower—and I scanned the faces of Chi and Vichien, who were afraid to say anything or even touch me, lest I fall apart right there.
In the great scheme of what my life had been over the last year and eight months, it made perfect sense that I should fall off of an elephant. It made perfect sense that I should be the first visitor EVER in the history of the camp to not only sustain an injury, but to also fall off of an elephant. It made perfect sense that this experience that I had been waiting for my entire life should take these rather adventurous, if scary and painful, detours.
And it was the most hilarious moment of my life.
I stood up, waved to the couple, shouted “I’m fine,” (to which they responded with an audible exhalation), and the hysterical, overpowering laughter came rushing out of me. It was more than my muscles could handle and I found myself doubled over, heaving, completely unable to catch my breath. And the laughter spread to Vichien as he took off after Wanpen. Chi looked at me quizzically, as he was fairly certain I had sustained a head injury, and repeatedly asked me if I was okay. The laughter just kept coming in strong, swift waves, and the tears blurred the whole world around me. Only when my abdominal muscles could no longer sustain the laughter was I able to find my voice again and tell Chi that I was, in fact, just fine.
We were stuck on a very high, very muddy hill, and my foot was still too injured from the day before for me to walk down it, so Chi had to lift me onto his back, just as he had the day before when I had first injured myself. Correction—THIS was the most hilarious moment of my life. Here I was, riding down the hill on the back of my guide because I had been unceremoniously jettisoned from the head of my elephant, and I was too gimpy from falling off of my elephant’s hind leg the day before to walk on my own. Chi could hardly keep his balance with the combined forces of the mud and my still bubbling laughter, and we fell several times, which made me almost panicked because the laughter became utterly breathless in those moments.
We looked like earthy Pollock paintings when we reached the bottom of the hill. Chi deposited me on the porch of a mahout hut and informed me that he would send for a motorbike, as we were still quite a ways from the central area of camp where my (rather upscale) mahout hut was located.
“No!” I said, wiping my eyes with my dirty sleeve and smearing mud all over my face, “No! I want to ride Wanpen back to camp!” At this point, a small crowd had gathered, as the tale of my fall had spread through the camp, which was a déjà vu moment from the day before, as the entire camp had held a vigil at the foot of my bed, icing and massaging my injured foot and helping me to the bathroom. Everyone looked at each other, certain that they had not heard me correctly.
“No, no,” said Chi, “we get you a motorbike. Is better.”
“No! No, I want to ride Wanpen back to camp. I don’t want my last memory of this experience to be falling off of an elephant. I want to get back on.”
Chi finally agreed to send for another elephant (he thought that Wanpen and I seemed to be a bad luck pairing), and I just sat there, laughing while everyone stared. I kept laughing while I rode the new elephant back to camp, and was laughing still when a parade of mahouts escorted me out of the camp and into a car bound for the hospital. The mahouts brought me sweets—delicious rice candies and pyramids of a gelatinous, banana flavored delicacy wrapped in banana leaves—and joked that they should stamp the certificate that I had received for completing the camp with a “real mahout” seal. I felt like a wounded war hero--I don’t think I had ever been glazed with so many respectful glances at one time. I had earned some wicked street cred among the mahouts. They all wai-ed deeply to me as I drove away, steepling their fingers together and bowing their heads.
My foot was fine—just badly sprained—and Chi pushed me all through the hospital on a wheelchair as I went for X-Rays and examinations, bringing me water and ice for my foot, and apologizing constantly.
“I knew this would happen,” he said, “I had a dream last night that a guest fell into the river and I couldn’t help because my legs were stuck. I was very scared all day. And then this.”
There is no underestimating the importance of dreams here. Dreams are prophetic, dreams have messages. While I had always paid attention to my dreams, they took on a new level of significance since living in Thailand. I looked at Chi, saw the worry in his eyes, and I knew that he felt responsible for either ignoring the message in his dream, or for somehow dreaming it into existence. I put my hand over his.
“Mai pen rai,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. To be honest, this was the best experience of my entire life.”
And it was. That night, after Chi had dropped me off at my hotel in Chiang Mai and I was alone with my enormous foot and my buzzing thoughts, I realized that I had turned a corner. That every step I had taken had been precisely planned, had been expertly guided, had been following Technicolor signposts of situations and interactions and decisions that had brought me to this exact point: The day where I would become The Girl Who Fell Off of an Elephant, and it would be a defining beacon in my story. It would carve a dividing line in the topsy-turvy timeline of my life. There would be everything the happened BE—Before Elephant, and everything that happened AE—After Elephant. The Universe, or the Powers That Be, or whatever lexical packaging one prefers to use, will never give us more than we can handle. And, well, if I could handle falling off of an elephant, I could surely handle anything.
And while Falling Off of an Elephant was a turning point, it is neither the beginning nor ending of this story. The beginning of this story—the true beginning, the absolute fertile ground of this story’s germination—begins....[to be continued]
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Renovations
"Miss Brooke 29."
"Yes, that's right! I'm 29. You are four."
"When Miss Brooke 27, I two."
Kids just never freakin' cease to amaze me. Especially at this age when you can literally HEAR the synapses popping and the dendrites forming. The fact that this little kiddo was able to figure out both of our ages two years ago and compare them sent me into total shock. Another student that same day suddenly became fully switched on to how rhyming words work and now thinks that it is terribly funny to wander around the classroom, making up all kinds of rhymes:
"Miss Brooke! Play dough, say dough, may dough, tray dough!"
"Very good! Now it's time to put the play dough away and get ready for snack!"
"Snack, pack, track, dack, quack, sack....."
I have another student who is only going to be in my class for a few weeks while his Thai school is on summer break. Both of his parents were killed in the tsunami, and he was found on a beach when he was seven months old. He was then adopted and named by, oh, let's just say a Very Important Family here in Thailand. He is devastatingly sweet and has these wide, wizened eyes. He prefers to observe our morning circle time from under the safe haven of the art table, but every once in awhile he will emerge, curl up next to me, and look up at me with an expression that is equally hopeful and quizzical. And then I have to resist the urge to unhinge my jaw and swallow him whole, because, OMG what a delicious little soul.
The other day he picked up one of my "letter of the week" cards, stared at it for a little while, and then looked over at our alphabet wall. His wide eyes got even wider as he spotted the same letter on the wall. He practically sprinted over to it, pointed to the card, pointed to its equivalent on the wall, and looked at me with surprise. He then proceeded to find the letter in other places: in his fellow classmates' names, in the poem that was hanging on my teaching easel, in the titles of books in the reading corner. And every time he showed me where this letter was hiding, it was as if he was letting me in on a great secret.
The days lately have been these long, breezy, humid stretches of perfect ease. There is still hard work, there is still the occasional difficult moment, but mostly it's been peaceful and, dare I say it, blissful. Bangkok has taken its nonchalant scalpel, carved around my Worry Tumor that has been there since, um, birth (remember the Worry Tumor?), and ground it into a material of substance that can be actually useful to me. Which is not to say that the process of carving was not painful or full of all kinds of sharp, throbbing aches. I sometimes think that the brain has to sear itself in order to rewire itself. Any renovation involves destruction, tearing, severing, demolishing.
And while I've been putting the finishing touches on my own internal renovations, my students have wedged their tiny little feet into the door of literacy, and these small moments of recognition, of emerging ownership over this vast and crucial expanse of the written word, have become huge and important fanfares of purpose for me and my students alike. We are temporarily bound together in the long and important journey of lifelong learning, and holy crap will I miss them when our time together is over.
In other news, what I feel has been noticeably absent from my blog postings is the little detail about getting two hour massages twice a week (and, um, sometimes more), and fabulous mani-pedis once a month. And eating out every day. These are luxuries that I will surely not be able to afford once I'm back in the U.S., and their impact on my life should by no means be underestimated.
So, um, I'm off to get a massage, and I will be sure to instruct the masseuse to pay extra attention to the area where the Worry Tumor used to be :)
"Yes, that's right! I'm 29. You are four."
"When Miss Brooke 27, I two."
Kids just never freakin' cease to amaze me. Especially at this age when you can literally HEAR the synapses popping and the dendrites forming. The fact that this little kiddo was able to figure out both of our ages two years ago and compare them sent me into total shock. Another student that same day suddenly became fully switched on to how rhyming words work and now thinks that it is terribly funny to wander around the classroom, making up all kinds of rhymes:
"Miss Brooke! Play dough, say dough, may dough, tray dough!"
"Very good! Now it's time to put the play dough away and get ready for snack!"
"Snack, pack, track, dack, quack, sack....."
I have another student who is only going to be in my class for a few weeks while his Thai school is on summer break. Both of his parents were killed in the tsunami, and he was found on a beach when he was seven months old. He was then adopted and named by, oh, let's just say a Very Important Family here in Thailand. He is devastatingly sweet and has these wide, wizened eyes. He prefers to observe our morning circle time from under the safe haven of the art table, but every once in awhile he will emerge, curl up next to me, and look up at me with an expression that is equally hopeful and quizzical. And then I have to resist the urge to unhinge my jaw and swallow him whole, because, OMG what a delicious little soul.
The other day he picked up one of my "letter of the week" cards, stared at it for a little while, and then looked over at our alphabet wall. His wide eyes got even wider as he spotted the same letter on the wall. He practically sprinted over to it, pointed to the card, pointed to its equivalent on the wall, and looked at me with surprise. He then proceeded to find the letter in other places: in his fellow classmates' names, in the poem that was hanging on my teaching easel, in the titles of books in the reading corner. And every time he showed me where this letter was hiding, it was as if he was letting me in on a great secret.
The days lately have been these long, breezy, humid stretches of perfect ease. There is still hard work, there is still the occasional difficult moment, but mostly it's been peaceful and, dare I say it, blissful. Bangkok has taken its nonchalant scalpel, carved around my Worry Tumor that has been there since, um, birth (remember the Worry Tumor?), and ground it into a material of substance that can be actually useful to me. Which is not to say that the process of carving was not painful or full of all kinds of sharp, throbbing aches. I sometimes think that the brain has to sear itself in order to rewire itself. Any renovation involves destruction, tearing, severing, demolishing.
And while I've been putting the finishing touches on my own internal renovations, my students have wedged their tiny little feet into the door of literacy, and these small moments of recognition, of emerging ownership over this vast and crucial expanse of the written word, have become huge and important fanfares of purpose for me and my students alike. We are temporarily bound together in the long and important journey of lifelong learning, and holy crap will I miss them when our time together is over.
In other news, what I feel has been noticeably absent from my blog postings is the little detail about getting two hour massages twice a week (and, um, sometimes more), and fabulous mani-pedis once a month. And eating out every day. These are luxuries that I will surely not be able to afford once I'm back in the U.S., and their impact on my life should by no means be underestimated.
So, um, I'm off to get a massage, and I will be sure to instruct the masseuse to pay extra attention to the area where the Worry Tumor used to be :)
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