Ruby Shoes Roxanne works her way around the world

New Blog Link

2011-10-18T05:34:00.000-07:00

This blog has been moved to:

http://rubyshoesroxanne.wordpress.com/

Turkey/Bulgaria: Christmas without Christmas; a year of gifts

2010-12-19T00:34:00.000-08:00

Someone graciously reminded me the other day that it’s been almost 3 months since my last post to this blog. So much has happened since the end of my return to Istanbul this summer, since my ponderings about Papua New Guinea, since my 30^th (!) birthday, since the car crash.

Art Light Show (Light and Matter) in Istanbul

Brace yourselves, this one may be epic.

Art Light Show (Light and Matter) in Istanbul

So here I am, one week before Christmas overtakes Christian countries, dragging myself out of bed after a late night of eating, drinking and dancing at a friend’s birthday to write a new blog post.

At the end of each year one ponders where they are, how they got there and where they might be going in the future. It’s now been two years since my last Christmas in the states. Two years ago I had quit my job, sold all my possessions and was packing my bags in preparation to work my way around the world.

I was scared shitless, a state in which I typically tend to exhibit type A personality traits: packing and re-packing, making lists, re-formatting my resume… you get the idea. If you ever see me exhibit all three of these behaviors at once, back out of the room… very carefully.

The trip around the world lasted about 9 months – from January 1^st, 2009 to September 2009, draining the entirety of the ½ of my income that I had saved from the year before. Along the way I made it through New Zealand and Australia for 3 months, Cambodia for 4 months and various other countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, India, Nepal and Italy.

At the end of the 9 months, I showed up in Istanbul on a 2 a.m. flight, with just enough time to sleep, shit and shower before tumbling in to work at 9 a.m. the following morning.

My beginnings in Istanbul were rocky, to put it mildly. I had no friends, no place to live and no idea how overwhelming a city of 16 million could be. It soon turned out that although the job I had secured was one of the better paid in Istanbul, it would be the most stressful and mentally unhealthy places I would ever work. In fact, a mix of culture shock, stress at work and general ennui kept me ill for most of last year – a cough that I picked up when I went home for Thanksgiving basically never left until April, and I would hack the night away, just waiting for dawn and the Muslim call to prayer to wake up and go in to the stress of my office. Depressing… but wait, it got better.

Last April, right around the time that Carol and Dad came to visit, I started my job search in earnest, interviewing at 4 universities, 5 high schools, 2 language schools and even a preschool (“don’t do it, Jennie!” my friends said, “they’ll poop on you.”)

Luckily, I got the job that I really wanted in a university and then had 8 weeks during the summer to mentally recover from the last work place. Friends came to visit, I traveled home, I saw family, I did weddings, I turned 30, and I crashed my car, narrowly escaping multiple collisions, as other cars sped past my spinning vehicle.

Halloween 2010

Coming back from the summer, I basically locked myself down in my neighborhood for a few weeks, providing time for reflection, guitar practice, working out regularly and generally allowing myself enough time to get bored; a true gift.

The new job started in September, my co-workers are great and the students are so much better than last year. On top of that, I work my own schedule, which means that although I have to design and create 16 hours of curriculum each week from scratch, I get to do it on my own time.

This alleviates the pain I had always felt from the curse of over-productive, organized people everywhere: you sit in an office 9 hours a day, while really only doing about 3 hours of work and spend the rest of the time watching office mates dick off, gossip, google surf or just be painfully slow at everything either said or done.

Dressed for a friend's "Turkification" Party - she had just gotten citizenship

Now I can honestly say that whatever time I spend in the office, I am doing work. I’m also making friends and interacting with colleagues and students, but because I am not forced to be there, I tend to have much higher work output.

Since August, I have created, week by week, a working curriculum that teaches, provides practice for, and tests all sorts of academic skills such as research, writing, listening, speaking, note-taking, presenting and debating, to name a few. I’ve gotten positive feedback from students, co-workers and managers and any issues I’ve had, I felt as though I was in a safe enough environment to work through them without being afraid of being thrown under the proverbial bus. And I had almost started to forget what a healthy workplace felt like.

In addition to working and teaching, I’ve also been singing with my choir(s) and made my way to Bulgaria for a trip during the Fall break. My friend Chad came to visit Istanbul from Oregon for a few weeks in November and we wandered around town, and out to the Princes Islands (see pics below) and headed north to Bulgaria, promised land of good beer, pork and fresh air. Chad is a glassblower by trade, but thanks to Obama’s extension of unemployment funds is currently allowed much more free time and actually more income as a laid-off glassblower. Time to travel.

Sunset, Princes Islands, Istanbul

Windy, Princes Islands, Istanbul

Princes Islands, Istanbul

Monastery View, Princes Islands, Istanbul

Princes Islands, Istanbul

On the ferry, Istanbul

After flying in to Bulgaria from Turkey - a quick 1 hour flight - we started in Sofia, capital of the country, and city of 1.3 million, which seemed like a small backwater suburb after the 16 million-person mania of Istanbul. With town walls that date back to the Thracian settlements of the 7^th century B.C., Sofia is, like many Balkan and Eastern European cities, just recovering from Soviet rule and yet rich in the history of thousands upon thousands of years of conquerors.

Turkey/Bulgaria Map

Soviet Monument, Sofia, Bulgaria

Putin's Visit, Bulgaria, Sofia

We then headed south in our tiny rent-a-car to Blagoevgrad, a little town in the mountains where the American University of Bulgaria is tucked neatly into the former Soviet Headquarters. We walked around the university and grabbed some Bulgarian food (salad, soup, pork and beer). Around the town we took pictures and marveled at the ubiquitous “death notices” that are hung up after someone dies – wall after wall were covered with death flyers announcing townspeople that had passed away.

Death Announcement Flyers

From there, we drove up into the green trees, fresh air and mountains in search of the Rila Monastery, where Eastern Orthodox monks wandered past ancient painted murals waxing philosophical on all matters of the soul. Along the way we got lost a good few times, as most of the signs were in Cyrillic script. This, however, provoked countless interactions with the local folk, as we would pull up at each intersection, say the name of the city we were looking for, point left, point right and shrug. Once they pointed left or right, we would head off in that direction, usually or almost always actually heading in the right direction. In this way, we passed small, abandoned towns, roadside chapels, honey and pottery roadside stalls, goats, cows and crumbling soviet block housing.

Eastern Orthodox Monks, Bulgaria, Rila Monastery

Bulgaria, Rila Monastery

Roadside Chapel, Bulgaria

After visiting the monastery, we went to Plovdiv, home of the ancient Greek city of Philippopolis, then a major roman city, later an ottoman center of power, finally a soviet capital and now complete with ruins from all four, including a beautiful Roman amphitheater overlooking one of its main hills and a huge communist statue atop another. We stayed in the old town and managed to catch a concert with a Bulgarian open-throated chorus group.

Bulgarian Traditional Choir, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

At night we wandered into town to sample the nightlife with some of the other hostel goers and ended up in a trendy disco in town where everything was made of shiny plastic and mirrors and go-go dancers. Nothing says classy like eastern European discos.

WTF!?, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Signs, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Hilltop, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Soviet Monument, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Roman Amphiteater, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

After Plovidiv, we packed up the little car once again and drove north through flat farming fields and small, deserted little villages, finally arriving at the base of the Balkan Mountains that cut the country in two and the Shipka pass at 3900 feet – a steep, winding road over the mountains that marks the site of a famous battle of the Russo-Turkish war in the late 1800’s. This battle marked a defeat of the Ottoman forces that had ruled Bulgaria so cruelly during that period.

Our next stop was Veliko Tarnovo, an ancient city on a hill with a history of more than 5 millennia. Apparently, the oldest traces of human life there are dated from the 3^rd millennia B.C.! With lovely restored castles, picturesque views, art museums and statues of the four horsemen, this was my favorite Bulgarian city so far.

Sofia Graffiti, Bulgaria

Statue, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

To add to the fun, the dude who ran our hostel was a true Bulgarian hippy. He and his young girlfriend sprouted seeds in the living room, grew peyote around the hostel in bunches (we came to find out) and waxed philosophical for hours about the energy of such living creatures as humans, dogs and ducks. Needless to say, this man fell in love with Chad right away and they proceeded to have a bromance of epic proportions until I had to play the evil friend and rip us away from the comfy town to return the car in Sofia.

Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

Art, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

One of the 4 horsemen, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

We made it back to Sofia, had a nice dinner out with some new friends and flew out in the morning for our return to Istanbul, where we vegged for a few days, I returned to work, and Chad prepared for a return to the U.S.

Chapel at the base of the Shipka Pass, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

These days I am steadying for Christmas next weekend, or lack thereof, then New Years the weekend after. I’ve bought a flight to Brussels to see Ioanna, who is working in the embassy there, and also to stock up on chocolate, cheese, good wine and all things Belgian.

At the end of January I’ll be in New York for a week seeing my brother John, and catching up with friends and family. Also going to stop by and check out some of the PhD programs for Educational Technology and Psychology in NYC – a new potential direction for 2011-2012….

After that, I am going to Ecuador! A friend I used to work with here has a friend in Quito who is working in the rainforest to create sustainable logging techniques, so we’re heading down for a few weeks to see him and to travel around.

It’s been 10 years since I left Ecuador. I was 20 when I went there to study at La Universided de San Franscisco. I was young, romantic, and a bit lost, not unlike myself now, but at a markedly different point in my life. It was my first experience living outside the U.S. and I am interested to see how it has changed, and also how I have changed.

More soon. XOXOXOXO

Papua New Guinea to Turkey: The depths and the heights

2010-09-15T02:45:00.001-07:00

Where is the line

That defines present time?

Still, there is twine, ‘tween that life and mine

But it’s thinner and it’s thinning

It’s beginning, it’s beginning…

Six years ago, while living in Japan, I took a trip to Papua New Guinea with a group of Japanese and foreign ex-pats. In the in-flight magazine, Papua New Guinea’s leading, and as far as I could tell only author had written an essay about Papua New Guinea.

In it, he criticized the changes that have taken place over the last half-century. When his grandfather was young and got hungry, the writer praised, he would simply go over to the neighboring tribe and eat one of the tribesmen.

The author had great respect for this strength, and expressed his disappointment with the current situation – violence translated into a hedonistic and bedraggled society within the cities, rather than pointedly used between tribes for greater good – and apparently cannibalistic food production.

Whether the editor of the online magazine had pointedly included this section of the article in order to warn or prepare weak westerners who thought they were taking a typical beach vacation, or, as the typos and abrasive grammar choices would indicate, no one had actually read the article before it was published, having been written by the premier author of the entire island, I will never know.

We disembarked in Port Moresby, hopped a flight to Lae and were led past trash heaps and armed guards down to the northern coast and a small motor boat, which was to become our only mode of transport for the next ten days due to lack of roads and electricity in the villages, whilst staying with the tribes.

One night well after dark, there was a knock on the cabin door. My room mate and I glanced nervously at one another from beneath our mosquito netting, both having apparently read the same in-flight magazine article, and feeling a bit like white meat the past few days under the ever watchful gaze of the tribesmen, who sharpened their machetes and spit out beetle nut juice, thick and red as hour-old blood, into the sand at their feet.

The tribesmen led us down to the water and into a small rowboat. “Well, I suppose this could be it.” I only half joked with my friend. We managed a few coughed laughs, muffled by our curiosity and the general discomfort of the situation.

The moon that night was as bright as the sun and shone a light so white and strong that we could see across the bay that there was a group of people who seemed to be standing around some sort of large creature on the beach.

As we got closer, we could see some of the men trying to ride the creature, which, we soon realized upon closer inspection, was a leatherback sea turtle, 2-3 meters (6-10 feet) long and easily almost 700 kg (1500 pounds).

After the men were chastised by an elder sharply enough, they left off jumping on her back and amused themselves by shining a flash light up her neither regions so we could all see how she laid her eggs. After a while, however, even that got old, and we all stood under the sun-like moon and undulating stars while she scratched against the sand with her giant flippers to finish the laying and cover over the hole.

We must have stood there with her almost an hour. At some point, I began to cry quite silently and the un-tethered feeling I had been carrying for so long became almost unbearable. I rubbed my palms against my cheeks, feigning sleepiness, because the wet streaks of my tears would undoubtedly have shone in the moonlight, and I did not want the men to see.

Finally, when she had finished covering her eggs, she began to lumber slowly, excruciatingly, down the beach and back towards the water. Her huge body dragged itself across the sand as though she was carrying the weight of ten men on her back.

Until at last, she reached the water. Suddenly, the movement that had been haggard and rough became fluid. With an instantaneous and lightning stroke, she shot herself out into the ocean, and was gone.

I learned later that she had probably followed the jet stream from the California coast – almost 16,000 km (10,000 miles) just to lay her eggs there on that bright beach.

We made it back to the cabins, back to Japan, and back to our version of civilization safe and sound, with nary a bite mark (except for the odd sand fly) to prove our journey among the former cannibals.

And yet, I often think of her, catching the currents under the ocean and propelling herself forward through the deep.

This summer I took advantage of an extended summer holiday to return to the US for five weeks.

During my return flight to Istanbul, I watched an in-flight special about two Papua New Guinea tribesmen who were taken by a British biologist friend to the U.K. to document their perspective on the culture there.

The biologist brought the two men to dinner at his family’s somewhat posh home, led them through the fanciest neighborhoods and the crumbling projects, where teenage children, glossy-eyed and wielding sticks, practiced tribal dances with the two men.

In the follow-up interviews after each section, the Papua New Guinean chieftains politely extol the virtues of the luxuries that U.K. society enjoys, and express their bewilderment at the strangeness within the society.

Chuckling with one another they observe:

“It’s not easy to eat with the white man. They use as many tools to eat as you use to fix a car!”

“We thought all white men had beautiful houses, but it’s not true. There are some who have terrible houses, where it is dirty and everything is broken.”

“In the morning, white men say “Good Morning!” But at night, after they work all day they go home in a hurry and don’t talk to anyone.”

Later on, while visiting a farm in the countryside built over a old battlefield, they advise the farmer on why he has had such a prosperous year:

“I think the spirits of the dead who died here are still here, and they help you to grow your potatoes.”

As I watched the TV special, I wondered how much has really changed in those six years since I stood with the turtle in the moonlight while she laid her eggs. The same exuberant joy still jostles against loneliness and isolation in me, giving me flashes of great sorrow, but also moments of complete contentment.

I often wonder why the spirit is so inclined to experience the world with such sharp precision.

On a cellular level, six years is long enough for a body to have reproduced each of its cells at least once, or so the old wives tale goes, leaving me technically a completely new person compared with my 24-year-old self.

And yet, I remain the same. Better, perhaps, less lost, more confident, more understanding, less judgmental. But still, as each blog entry testifies, actively engaged in navel-gazing in order to reach a higher level of understanding.

Who the fuck knows the answers. I don’t.

But I know I thought of her as I flew over the Atlantic in my buckled seat, with my wine and soda water. I thought of her below the depths, carrying her eggs to safety; catching the swift current across the oceans.

18 months later - Life as "the other": permanent state or merely a phase?

2010-06-24T01:04:00.000-07:00

18 months has now passed since I left the U.S. and began a journey with the goal of working my way around the world. From January 2009 to August 2009 I moved my way through New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal and India, stopping to study and travel in New Zealand for three months and working in Cambodia for four months.

In August 2009 I started work in Istanbul, Turkey, going home for Thanksgiving to complete the world circle, and came back after to set up my daily life in one of the largest, most over-crowded and oldest cities in the world.

To idealize the last 18 months would be a mistake. Much of my learning has felt like trial by fire. Never the less, it was an amazing journey, and the things seen and stories heard continue to inspire me and underscore for me what I should decide to give a fuck about in this world.

New Zealand and Australia were a source of inspiration via natural beauty and wide-open spaces, and also an interesting introduction to the anti-American mindset that pervades much of the world outside the U.S. At least those were the only countries on the journey in which I could understand nearly everything that folks were saying about America. It is entirely possible (and likely) that it’s been worse in Cambodia, Turkey and Europe.

AUSTRALIA:

NEW ZEALAND:

Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia knocked the wind out of me again and again in both wonderful and trying ways. The eagerness with which my Cambodian students showed up to our 6 a.m. classes provided a stark contrast to my students in Turkey, who would rather have played with their iPhones or danced on their desks than learn English, but whose spirited enthusiasm for fun was often appreciated under the scowl.

My visit to Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia, where Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed men, women and children, and my visit to Chiang Mai to see an old friend from college who was working to help Burmese refugees enter the country were poignant reminders of my luck in this world of having been born to parents in the US who were able to protect me and provide for me and my education.

THAILAND:

CAMBODIA:

In Malaysia, I saw the mix of Indian, Chinese and Malay cultures and the ways in which they mixed (and yet remained separate). A country I often reflect upon now living in Turkey with its pervasively mono-cultural ideology.

MALAYSIA:

Moving through Nepal and India once again frustrated, inspired and humbled me. Seeing the way daily life plays out for the general population was breath taking, as the colors, smells, sounds and energy of everyday life were manic and stunning at the same time.

NEPAL:

INDIA:

The trips I’ve taken this year within Europe (Italy, Spain, Germany and Czech Republic) were a foray back to fully “industrialized” countries (despite the concrete block reminders of communism in East Berlin and Czech Republic).

ITALY:

SPAIN:

GERMANY:

CZECH REPUBLIC:

The later trip to Egypt was again a reminder of just how developed, moderate, clean and functional (albeit haphazardly so) Istanbul truly is.

EGYPT:

Indeed, even since settling in to life in Istanbul there have been serious highs and lows. Finding an apartment, working in the Turkish workplace and learning my way in Istanbul has been a struggle. A respiratory infection that took root in November still threatens to rear its ugly head each time I am stressed and my pigeon Turkish indubitably fails me when I need it most.

TURKEY:

All of this leaves me exactly where I am: heading into another year in Turkey, this time switching jobs from a high school to a university (where I was recently hired) and going into my long-awaited 8-week summer vacation.

I have chosen to continue living the ex-pat lifestyle not only because I saw fewer options at home, nor because I am still seeking to escape something there, in fact just the opposite, but rather because deep down I think perhaps I actually enjoy being “the other.” Other than friends and loved ones, whom I think about on a daily basis, I no longer actively miss anything from the US.

Perhaps it was growing up as one of four white kids in my class at Fredrick Douglass Elementary, where I was regularly told that I was single-handedly responsible for slavery, or the high school lunches I spent huddled in the library writing angry poetry, avoiding the vicious high school social hierarchy.

I often ask myself whether it’s the chicken or the egg that led to my proclivity for putting myself in situations where I am “the other,” but in the end I hope that, whatever it is, it will allow me to learn about the world and pass that learning on to students, friends and loved ones, whether by proxy, osmosis or simple communication of my experiences.

Family members often ask me when I am coming home. It’s a question I can only answer with “I’ll be home for 5 weeks this summer!” (not the answer they want, I know). It’s a question not even I know the answer to yet.

Living abroad brings with it unimaginable daily stress, but it also brings excitement and small victories that are difficult to explain. It brings a social circle of intelligent, social, like-minded individuals, working in fields from business to journalism to teaching, who have also chosen to shirk the traditional career/life path in pursuit of something a little bit different.

And, somehow, amidst this storm of inconsistency and struggle, I have found my place. I have found a footing, and, although it is constantly in flux, I have fashioned a room for reflection and space for peace to enter.

Turkey and Egypt: Long days, feral cats and breathing rituals

2010-05-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

When the winter cough subsides
the body gives way to new air
and expels the old.
Exhaling, deep from the bottoms of the lungs
it rises; sifting up through all the things unsaid.
Head, thrown back.
Eyes, open and skyward.
Mouth, gasping at the green-filled, luscious air of spring.
Mind, calm in the knowledge that the only healer was time,
the only way: through.

Friday afternoon. She is sitting in her apartment eating peanuts and drinking a Beck’s. Crap! She says to herself. Has it really been almost three months since I last wrote a blog? It couldn’t be…

Where have I been, she wonders to herself, as she gazes out her window - down to the valley below and the apartment buildings stacked one atop the other and the old women taking down their laundry after another sunny, dry, warm day.

And what has happened in these last three months?

She remembers darkness… the coming of evening at 5, the late arrival of morning at 7:30. The feeling of the heavy, insatiable wanderlust that pulled at her feet as she boarded the bus to go to work as she slid across the taxi seat to go to work as she walked down the hill in the morning darkness to go to work.

Where have I been, she thinks, whispering the words aloud.

There were long days babysitting spoiled children, there was a trip to Egypt, an urgent mutual attempt at a failed relationship.

And now, as she watches the seagulls gliding past her 4th story window… the call to prayer begins; mixes with the sounds of the acapella Cambridge Singers choir practice CD she has made to practice her soprano part.

She could turn it off, she should turn it off, but the eerie juxtaposition of the Abendlied “Evening Prayers” with the high, yearning, moaning, off-key prayer of the mosque’s neighborhood bellower seems fitting somehow. Singing is as close to praying as she's going to get this year.

Soon, the dogs join in the howling and everything is hungry and sated all at once. Then, the feral cats downstairs join in their yearly spring growling, and she is sure, once and for all, that spring has sprung.

Germany, Spain and Czech Republic: Cold toes, blue sky and real beer

2010-02-26T09:04:00.001-08:00

I went wandering

just trying to discover

how things used to be.

In Berlin I crossed

over – East to West - and through

to the other side.

Spanish countryside

whirred past like watercolor;

my unfocused eyes.

Czech fields - white and black;

rabbit runs to safety where

the sky meets the trees.

Too used to things

I discover trying won’t

Ease the wandering.

Life has been busy but happy as of late. Days run against days and sometimes weeks disappear into thin air.

I feel as though I am (finally) settling in to Istanbul. I started my Turkish class – replete with hilarious interludes from our instructor – “Come on guys! I’m so dyslexic! If I write it backwards you have to tell me, yes?” And so I spend each Monday and Wednesday night with 3 other foreigners babbling like 2-year-olds as he kindly translates our mindless chatter into meaningful sentences such as “Tonight do not buy milk, buy beer!”

I have also started practicing with a choir that is challenging, fulfilling and slightly frightening in its challenge level (no piano, all acapella). Right now, we’re working on a set of 6 short pieces with 6-part harmony (and plenty of lovely dissonance) that are set to the words of Omer Hayyam, an 11^th century poet, mathematician, astronomer and fabled Sufi mystic.

Every day there are myriad minor victories in my life.

These include buying a bagel with soft cheese instead of cream cheese, understanding the curse words my students use in class (so that I can use their behavior against them later when they are least expecting it), ordering a basic doner kebab from the neighborhood guy without having to grunt like a cave woman to communicate and telling the taxi driver who is trying to rip me off that he is wrong (without sounding like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoon: “wahwahwahwahwah…. Wah wah…. WAH!)

Also, the days have started getting longer and somewhere in the back of my reptilian mind Shakespeare is urging me to get out there and gather my metaphorical rosebuds. Life is short, the bard whispers in my ear. Git goin’!

I’m quite sure the flowers will begin their blooming sometime in the next few weeks. That said, in the meantime I will continue my babbling, Sufi singing and relentless coughing – no, the hack is not yet gone.

Just before this present blossoming began, I went on a trip. 14 days, 5 different friends, 4 countries, 4 flights, 3 buses, 2 trains and a few very long moving walkways.

Over the course of my two-week winter break I visited friends in Berlin, Germany, Salamanca, Spain and Brno, in the Czech Republic, and was joined by friends from Istanbul in both Germany and Spain.

The first stop was Germany. Joined by my room mate, Sian, who describes Berlin as her “spiritual home”, we caught a late-night flight to Berlin, were picked up by my German friend Anne, whom I hadn’t seen in 12 years (!? We both look exactly the same, of course), and shuttled immediately to a bar near Oranienburger Strasse in East Berlin. After a few requisite German beers (ah, sweet nectar of the gods) and enough inhalation of Gauloises smoke to kill a small pony we headed back to her place to fall into a deep-on-vacation-sleep.

Anne’s house is an intriguing product of the post-wall-fall era in Berlin. After the wall went kablat, squatters moved in to her place in East Berlin and lived with no indoor heating, crappy plumbing and generally minimal frills until laws were passed which helped them to rehab the house, find buyers and set up a housing community, which shares a communal kitchen but has parceled out living quarters.

This social(ist) way of living pervades the heavily artistic and communal feeling in Berlin. We went to vegan breakfast buffets where the rule was “pay what you can,” and no one seemed to have a job, but everyone was a working on a project.

After living in Istanbul for nearly six months, Berlin seemed empty. The first night as we drove along the streets, I wondered at both the silence and the lack of stress. It felt almost like the Midwest suburbs on a school night.

Never the less, as we headed out on the town it was clear that something was happening, the music was pumping and the Turkish kebabs were hot and ready for any requisite late night craving.

Indeed, in Berlin I met the first Turks I’d ever met outside Turkey (with the exception of my friend Baris from high school). Originally recruited through a bilateral agreement between Turkey and Germany in the 1960’s to establish a guest worker program, Turks now comprise almost 30% of all foreigners in Germany.

On any flight in to Berlin, one will meet innumerable Turks traveling to Germany to see friends, family or to pursue a brighter future.

The population of which being mostly from the lower income classes, I was struck by how much the situation resembles that of immigrants who come from Latin America to the U.S. Indeed, these are not, for the most part, the Turks who populate the elite shopping malls and my classrooms, just as the people crossing the border from our sister countries are not the classes that live “up on the hill” in Mexico city, but the ones who live beneath the hill, or in the countryside, and are tired of those up on the hill. They are, indubitably, the more religious and less secular brethren of the folks I have made friends with during my time in Istanbul.

Over the next few days, Sian, Anne and I wandered around, crossing from East to West Berlin and visiting such landmarks as the Brandenburg gate, weekend flea markets, the Jewish memorial and Brecht’s theater, which was, I must say, so very Brechtian. All this was no small feat, considering that the temperature was -15 C (5 F).

And, in one last act of brain freeze, I, the “seasoned traveler” managed to get myself to the WRONG airport just 45 minutes before my scheduled flight left for Spain, meaning that I got not only a 6-hour salad bar break, but also a new ticket to Madrid. Nothing that ridiculous amounts of hard-earned savings won’t fix, I always say.

If Berlin was a woman with both hands frozen in the ice, Salamanca was a light-jacketed chap on siesta.

I hadn’t realized, I must admit, how much lack of language affects ones life. Being in Spain, I was reminded that (!?) I do actually speak another language, in which I am conversant and do not wander around mumbling like a small angry child.

I met up with my friend Glory (with whom I teach in Turkey) and Eli, a friend from Cincinnati, and as we three traveled through the countryside, I ordered (politely), asked menial (and yet somehow meaningful) questions, and generally enjoyed the naps, tapas, castles ruins, factory villages specializing in hocks of ham, walled medieval towns and beautiful countryside.

Our last night, just as the full moon in Leo (my August sign) rose in the Madrid sky, Glory and I arrived in Madrid and spent a lovely evening staying near the Sol (Sun) metro stop, with the palace, tapas, and home-brewed beer to keep us company. And the next day, after wandering around El Prado, I headed for my flight to Vienna.

Upon boarding the flight to Vienna, I found that it was delightfully empty and spread out across a few seats. However, after arrival in Palma de Malorca (a Spanish tourist town) a group of what seemed to be drunken Austrian truck drivers piled on to the flight and I spent the remainder of the intriguing (albeit) short flight waving away the smell of gastronomically revisited stale beer breath.

I cannot say much about Vienna, except that I stayed in a nice hostel and kept the majority of my roommates awake coughing most of the night. Luckily they were Japanese and far too polite to ever say anything to my face about it.

I seriously considered coming back to Istanbul, and yet the next morning, wrapped in the comforts of Turkish food – salty yogurt drink and lentil soup – from the restaurant around the corner – I decided to soldier on north to the Czech Republic.

Traveling north the next morning via train from Vienna towards Brno where my friend Brooke lives, we crossed frozen rivers, rabbits running across snow-covered flat fields and smoke stacks puffing merrily away in the afternoon freeze.

The Czech Republic was a world in white and black with trees punctuating the background.

Little towns with tiny, squat, yellow, green and orange houses stuck up from under the snow and puffing chimneystacks blurted out muffled smoke notes.

A man bundled up against the wind; head down, walking across his fields and silent bee hives lay dormant, frozen into mounds of snow. In each tree, mistletoe hung clustered together for warmth and swans congregated in a hole in a frozen pond. In backyards, outdoor brick ovens squatted in tiny backyards, waiting for the thaw.

As if waving to me, cross-country skiers lifted their arms in harmony, gliding along the river edges of one-steeple towns.

We crossed barren vineyards and goats eating in yards. And, finally, came to Brno, where my friend Brooke stood waiting at the station.

After a few days recovery, we decided that it was high time for a trip to Prague – bright lights, big city – and hopped ourselves a 3-hour-bus to town. Once there, we explored churches, castles, one infamous clock tower and one hidden vegetarian restaurant (an anomaly in the Czech – land of ribs and beer).

We even made it to a presentation by my friends – Thavry and Monkol (both of whom I worked with Cambodia). Both of them received scholarships to leave Cambodia and study near Prague with a local university. It brought tears of pride to my eyes as I listened to them present about Cambodia and their culture, so far from home.

After getting our full of smoky bars, real beer and bohemia (can one ever REALLY get enough of these things – minus the smoky bar part – bleck) we headed back to Brno via Kutna Hora, a small town southeast of Prague.

Kutna Hora is home to not only a beautiful cathedral, but also an ostuary, consisting of the bones of approximately 40,000 to 70,000 people, compiled during the 19^th century in an artistic way by a local woodcarver, who created, among other works of “human” art, a chandelier that consists of every bone contained in the human body.

After bearing witness to such an artistic and humbling site, there was nothing left to do but eat potato pancakes, drink beer and wait for our communist-era train to shuffle in to the station.

Brooke and I headed back to Brno, a few more days relaxation and one last train southward (for me) back over my frozen fields in to Vienna. One last connecting flight through Germany, one last bus from the Asian side of Istanbul to the European side and one last ornery taxi ride from Taksim to my apartment and I was back. At 4 a.m., two weeks after leaving my apartment, I once again fell, deflated, into my bed.

Happy to be home and tired after my adventures, the last 3 weeks have settled themselves into a pattern that I enjoy.

Here I continue, to grow my hair long, and wait for life, to take me in her arms.

Turkey: Overstuffed and Insatiable in Istanbul

2010-01-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

Dear reader: it has been over a month since my last blog and I have been stalling. After coming back from Thanksgiving and a whirlwind week back in the states, I landed back in Istanbul with a nasty case of bronchitis and the holiday season ahead of me.

The perpetually cold and drizzly Mediterranean winter weather does as little to cheer the spirit as the concrete grey Midwestern winter. That said, we have had some lovely days for wandering as of late and the holiday season was graciously punctuated by the arrival of my friend Eli, a fellow Cincinnati expatriate who lives in Spain, for Christmas and New Years, and my friends Carlo and Lalo (from Mexico and Cincinnati) who came for a weekend in the beginning of January.

Christmas morning saw Eli and I breakfasting along the Bosphorus waters with a group of fellow expats searching for a square meal on our requisite one day off and New Years found us venturing a bit farther north up the Bosphorus towards the entrance to the Black Sea to stay with another Cincinnati expat, Mattie, who lives up that way.

The highlights of my time with my guests included midnight tango dancing in a back alley hideaway, fresh seafood on the coast of the Black Sea, visiting a hamam (traditional Turkish bath) and finally putting on my tourist cap to check out the Hagia Sophia.

The hamam Eli and I visited was an older hamam in one of the more conservative neighborhoods called Uskudar. We went with my friend Meara and two of our Turkish female friends, neither of whom had ever been to a hamam before, I need to mention, making it a new experience for all of us.

The process consisted of stripping down to our underwear/bathing suit bottoms, wandering around in a wrap, bathing in a huge open marble room with 20 other laughing, large and jolly older Turkish women and being laid down on a huge marble slab along with 2 other women to be pummeled, sanded, scrubbed and then sent to the sauna to sweat out any residuals. Two hours after entering the 15^th century hamam building, we stumbled out into the cool, moist Uskudar air refreshed and ready for tea and dinner plans later in the evening.

Amidst the excitement of the holidays, I have to admit that the return of yet another year’s Christmas and then New Years reminded me of how much has happened in the last year, and during this trip around the world.

New Years day I went back to my first blog from January 1^st, 2009, written from the L.A. airport as I was just setting off from Kentucky into the unknown of the world in New Zealand and beyond.

***********************

January 1^st, 2009:

In the end, the reason for this trip at its core is self shock therapy. By shocking myself into becoming engaged in my own life, I hope to change the trajectory of my existence for the better. A choose-your-own-adventure on a grander scale.

Will I make it? Am I a scrapper? Do I deserve the things I’ve been handed in my life? Do any of us? How scared am I, really? How far am I willing to go, in spite of my fear?

And, most importantly, how will my life impact those around me?

Well, I thought to myself, reading over my musing from one year previous, life has changed. I am still not quite ready nor able to express everything that has happened in the last year – the things I have witnessed – the beautiful, the strange and the ugly – have yet to sort themselves out in my mind, but the after-shocks are there, and flashbacks are common.

While walking along in the early morning rain to catch my bus, I am suddenly confronted with the clouds parting to show me the magnificent face of Mount Cook in Southern New Zealand, or the crowd of older gentlemen shuffling along in front of me parts to reveal the brown leathery behinds of two Nepalese rhinoceros running away into the bushes as the elephant I am riding chases them.

Time is a strange mistress. I exist here in this moment, and yet I exist also in my memories and the moments that have already passed. In this way, when I think of my friends or my family, I am also with them.

In the end, these memories sometimes seem more real than the current situation and I have to jostle myself out of my daydreams when I realize that a student is asking me a question, or the bell is ringing to stop lesson planning and teach the next class.

When I was home for Thanksgiving, one of our family friends, Marvin, sat down with me and told me how much my blog has meant to him over the last year. Although we are still prying stories out of him about his younger and (much) wilder days hobnobbing on the Vegas circuit, Marvin doesn’t travel much anymore and was excited to hear what I have learned in my travels. He told me that he felt as though he was able to travel with me during this year.

I was happy to hear that he had connected with my journey and that he had gained knowledge and happiness from my musings… and yet I wasn’t sure how to answer his question about what I have learned from my travels. In truth, seeing so much in the world leaves one both over-stuffed and insatiable at the same time.

Perhaps this will only get worse with age, I thought to myself as I stumbled over my words to answer his question…

Sufficed to say that I feel blessed. And, although I do not yet know what comes next, the self shock therapy worked! I believe, even more than ever before, that life is, indeed, a choose-your-own-adventure. And that the most important thing is not to make choices based solely on fear.

How I will be able to impact those around me has yet to be seen. But I made it around. I am a scrapper and I am afraid, but I am also braver than I ever thought I was.

USA: Closing the circle around the world

2009-12-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry ~

Coming in for landing in Cincinnati after 24 hours of travel (Istanbul-Rome-Atlanta-Cincinnati) I looked out over the grey fields and office complexes around the airport and across to see interstate 275/71/75, which snakes northward towards the Ohio river and the lights of Cincinnati.

It had been almost 11 months since I left Cincinnati and as I could see from the cold and barren, yet comforting landscape, nothing had seemed to change. This is both the maddening and the comforting thing about coming back to a place where you've spent so much time growing - you can always return - and it will always remind you of how much you have changed, and how little has changed after all.

And there was my mother, waiting just outside the passenger exit, looking out over the heads of wandering passengers being herded through the doors, with a big bouquet of roses, berry flowers and wheat, symbolizing the harvest, and a big smile and hug. Harvest, indeed.

The last two years have been intense. I had accomplished what I set out to do - save half of my income, rid myself of (most) of my belongings (although storage boxes in my family's basement say otherwise), plan my escape, escape, and travel west all the way around the world, stopping to teach, volunteer and learn about life.

I had met the most amazing people, seen sad and also inspiring and unforgettable things, learned more about personal abilities and boundaries than I ever thought possible, and here I was, back where I started. Tired and ready for bed.

So at this point I wondered to myself, "Have you changed the trajectory of your existence? Have you affected the lives of those you love and those you meet?"

And I wasn't sure.

It wasn't exactly self-doubt that gnawed at me, but perhaps a tendency to over-question. The job in Turkey goes through next summer. At the end there is the possibility to stay another year, but is Turkey where I need to be to grow and to have an affect on the world?

Was it possible, that after all of my travels and revelations and inspirations, I am more confused and lost than when I began? And, is this necessarily a bad thing?

As I pondered these thoughts I spent the next week pinwheeling round and round picking up supplies of things not found in Turkey to take back with me (think maple syrup, peanut butter, bourbon), seeing both sides of the family and spending time with friends, as well as struggling through the 8 hour time difference.

As the week continued, I steadied for the journey back to Turkey, struggling to suppress a nasty case of bronchitis that was rooting itself ever deeper in my respiratory system and working through the questions in my mind.

Through conversations with friends and family, I realized that ones actions, in and of themselves, and having the ability and courage to follow a dream or even a whim, can in and of itself change people's minds about what they themselves are capable of.

At second glance, the America I returned to was not the America I left 11 months previously. I was struck by the shopping malls that were relatively empty, the buses that were full and the worry and doubt on people's faces that was alternately joined by a new sense of adventure and also a renewed urge to join (re-join) the human race collective and make a change. The loss of financial security, jobs and consumer options has left the populace in a state of confusion, but also in a position of opportunity - to imagine an alternate future, with a new openness to getting shit done by whatever means possible. To count one's blessings with both hands.

And so, I ended the week with a nasty cough and 20 more hours travel before rest, but not as confused as I thought I was.

I am unsure of what the next year holds, where I will be and who will fill my days, but I am open and I am willing and I am trying to be a better person, day by day.

A few months ago, my mother sent me (again) a poem that has always inspired us. I started with Wendell Berry, and an acknowledgment of being somewhat lost. I close with Marge Piercy and a prayer to be found.

To be of use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Turkey - Istanbul: Inspiration for the senses and a reflection on the journey

2009-11-05T11:20:00.000-08:00

In the morning just after sunrise,

drinking Italian coffee on the porch,

looking out over the houses in the valley,

gazing across the bosphorus at the beginning of Asia,

the sounds of my neighbors making breakfast and scolding one another,

the caw of seagulls that ride above the valley on swells of air that rise

from the houses and streets below,

I thank god it’s Saturday morning and it’s all mine.

Three months in to life in Istanbul I’ve found a new home.

Two weeks ago, my roommate and I, with the help of my friend Dave, piled all our earthly possessions into two taxis and “moved” from Taksim – the gritty, fast-paced commercial hub of Istanbul – to an area about five minutes away with quiet streets, trees, old ladies keeping watch out the window, fruits and veg sellers lounging by their stalls drinking tea, children yelling and screaming and delegating in a playground, old men walking their dogs up to the bakery to buy their daily bread and the call to worship – five times a day starting around 4:30 a.m. – from the loudspeaker atop the little neighborhood mosque.

After a good deal of scrubbing, sweeping, mopping and organizing, we placed all our things in their places, stocked the kitchen cupboards and stood out on the balcony to enjoy our new view on life.

From the balcony of the new apartment you can see all the way down the valley over an area called Beshiktash (phonetic spelling) to the bosphorus and to Asia on the other side of the water (we live on the European side of Istanbul).

Istanbul, a city of 16 million people (not counting the 1 million or so people smuggled through on their sad journey from places east to places west), is a daily inspiration and challenge, and probably the most populated city I’ve been in thus far. With more inhabitants than Tokyo at 12 million, London at 7 million, New York at 8 million and Bankok at 9 million, people are living one atop the other in their daily struggle to work, live and play. This is not to mention the sub-population of wandering cats and dogs that rummage through the scraps left for them by Turks on the sidewalks outside their buildings.

But here, our view on the chaos seems small and safe. We’ve named the fluffy little white dog that scratches around in the garden 4 stories below us “snowflake,” the dog who lives on the porch a few buildings over “sweetpea,” and the cat who sleeps on the car one street down “pumpkin.”

As it does, work continues along as well. I am lucky to say that I like all of my students (even the naughty ones – or perhaps especially the naughty ones as they remind me of myself at 16). Everything that I love about the personality of Turks – the chatting, the joyful urge to dance, the impulsive passion of opinions and personality – does make it somewhat difficult to control my 15 and 16 year-olds, but such is my current challenge, and although it’s tiring, it will also be rewarding (if it kills me).

Most recently, the excitement at school quickened on October 29^th with the celebration of Ataturk day. This holiday commemorates the founding of the secular republic by Mutafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. My students attended assemblies commemorating the event which rivaled any holiday concert or 4^th of July celebration at home.

Our first evening in the new apartment, we stood out on our balcony and watched a firework show explode over the bosphorus to celebrate the founding of Turkey’s Cumhurriyet (the secular Republic).

Just before the fireworks show started, the small mosque in the avenue below our apartment played the Adhan (call to worship) and perhaps it was my imagination, but the undulating wail of “Allllllllaaaaaaahhhhhhh, Allllllllaaaaaahhhhhh, Allllllllaaaaaahhhhh!”, seemed to be louder and more passionate than usual.

Although life is marked by such highlights and intrigues, everyday life continues to impress as well. On my way home from work in the evenings, I join the masses in a jumbled, congested mix of subways, buses, taxis and shuttle buses, which one must join in order to get anywhere. Things to watch out for in the jumble include pushy old women in shawls and headscarves who hip-bump their way to the front and pervy men stealing furtive glances at the yabanci (foreigner).

It is a lovely, mindless activity to join the throngs on my way home from work. Even standing on a bus for 30 minutes as we crawl along 3 miles is relaxing as no one asks anything of me and I am free to think my thoughts.

Once we reach our new neighborhood, we speed walk over the cobble-stoned streets, passing simit (sesame-seed bagel) and medea (stuffed mussel) sellers, children and men selling packets of tissues, super glue and socks, the fish market where fishermen bring the daily catch, calling out to would-be customers “buyurun!” (Come over here and buy something! You’re welcome here!).

We pass kebab (meat sandwich), pastry and pudding shops, fruit and veggie markets with displays of autumn fruits - pomegranates, quince, apples, melons, leeks, cabbages, tomatoes, pears, then tailors, shoe cobblers and small family stores selling toilet tissue, electrical outlets and cheaply made shoes.

Often these days, as it’s autumn, someone has their street cart out selling roasted chestnuts or corn.

On weekends and holidays, I continue exploring Istanbul with friends. Each time I go, I see something new. As we wander up and down the steep cobble-stoned streets and neighborhoods, all eventually leading down to the waters of the bosphorus, I am happy that I’ve chosen to spend part of my life in this crazy city.

As part of the next step in the adventure, I have found a new Turkish language class to join. Although I’ve been here over two months, my Turkish is embarrassingly bad, and so, I’ve decided to rectify this situation rather than whine about it.

My teacher is a hilarious Turk of about 35, tall and razor thin with a long, opinionated nose, slim, humorous face, a huge head of long frizzy black hair that he pushes out of his face with repeated “umphs”, tight black jeans and hand-rolled cigarettes. What a character. More on this one later, I’m sure.

And so, nearly 11 months into my journey around the world, I find myself at home, for now, in Istanbul. The journey has been the best $15,000 I’ve ever spent. It has been at once difficult, inspiring and life-changing. Indeed, if it was a different trajectory I was looking for, I have succeeded. And yet, of course, the more I learn about life, the more I realize how little I understand.

In two weeks, I will complete the route around the world. I’m going home for Thanksgiving! For one week I’ll get to spend time with the folks I have spent so much time thinking about during this journey – my family and friends. Without them, without the tether holding my heart together, I may have faltered many more times when things were hard. Without their encouragement and attestations of love, I might have forgotten who I was, and how I have come to be who I am.

And, now, I’m off to clean for a housewarming party this evening and research recipes for yogurt dip and pomegranate martinis.

I’ll sign off with one of my favorite quotes from Robyn Davidson, who crossed the Australian outback, from her book Tracks:

“I had been vaguely bored with my life and it's repetitions -the half-finished, half-hearted attempts at different jobs and various studies; had been sick of carrying around the self-indulgent negativity which was so much the malaise of my generation, my sex and my class.

So I made a decision which carried with it things that I could not articulate at the time. I had made the choice instinctively, and only later had given it meaning. The trip had never been billed in my mind as an adventure in the sense of something to be proved. And it struck me then that the most difficult thing had been the decision to act, the rest had been mere tenacity - and the fears were paper tigers.

One really could do anything one had decided to do whether it were changing a job, moving to a new place, divorcing a husband or whatever, one really could act to change and control one's life; and the procedure, the process, was it's own reward.”

Istanbul, Turkey: Straddling the Bosphorus

2009-10-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

Istanbul

City of swagger and

feral cats crying and

city of steep streets and

matchstick houses leaning;

city of cigarettes

and hungry dogs howling,

city, city of stone;

foundations crumbling.

The first things that made me realize that I was in Istanbul after my return from Rome were the taxi driver offering me a cigarette (or perhaps he was asking whether I’d mind if he smoked, I couldn't be sure) and the razor-thin moon, which mimicked the moon on the country flag, hanging low in the 2 a.m. sky.

As we sped along the rocky coast of the Bosphorus – wide river of water separating the continents of Europe and Asia - I was happy to finally be in the city I’ve chosen as my home for the next year.

On either side of the cab we passed shadowy mosques, their minarets standing to stiff attention in the pre-dawn darkness. In just over two hours, even before sunrise, a man would climb to the loudspeaker of each mosque and, broadcasting across the city, sing a wailing song to call the other men to prayer.

Finally, we arrived in the bustling heart of arts, commerce, nightlife, and shopping, Taksim Square. The square was getting quiet, but groups of late-night revelers still stumbled homeward across the square, past the roped-off Ataturk statue, from nights of bars, and backgammon, tea and hookah cafes.

Waiting for me were my friends Matt and Glory, who, coincidentally, were also teaching in Cambodia around the time I was there. We would all be working together at a private high school in the suburbs of Istanbul, and we were keen to get some rest, as we had to be at work by 9 a.m. the following morning.

My first week in Istanbul they were kind enough to put me up in their extra bedroom as I worked all day and wandered through neighborhood after neighborhood in Istanbul each night trying to find an apartment. In the end, I moved in with one of my fellow teachers from the U.K. and her Turkish roommate very close to Taksim square where I had landed the first night.

Work progressed as well, with the first few weeks spent planning lessons and attending teacher training (unfortunately much of it in Turkish with no translator), and the last few days consisting of doing everything we hadn’t actually done the few weeks previous.

Finally, the second week of September we steadied ourselves for the arrival of the students. I was warned that these weren’t just any kids. In a country where the average per capita income is under $10,000, our students are paying about $16,000 to attend. Indeed, it is not just a school, but also a foundation, which owns and runs a shopping mall.

Suffice to say that nothing has prepared me quite so well for teaching there as working in corporate America. I feel as though everything I've learned, I learned in previous cubicles: image is everything (when in doubt, use the hair straightener), it’s more important that people like you than whether you do great work (people will forget what you said and did, but never forget how you made them feel), and keep your head down and smile. Also, don't slip up because apparently they sue the school if they get bad grades here.

As we led up to the first day of school, I was inundated by warnings from second-year teachers who knew the ropes: “just be strict and mean for a while,” they recommended. “They’ll eat you alive if you don’t suppress them first.” Well Toto, I thought, we’re not in Cambodia anymore.

Now, four weeks later and coming up for air, I can safely say that it has been worse than some past situations and better than others. For example, I’d prefer to train the freight-brokers I used to train (even if they made too many comments about football or strippers, at least I could understand their comments and put the smack down) but it’s waaaaay better than teaching in the situation I had in Japan (here, there are other foreign teachers, we have a curriculum and materials, the classes are half the size at 20 and all the Turkish teacher of English can actually speak English – I had to speak Japanese with some of the Japanese teachers of English). Also, each day one of my favorite students does something that makes it all worth it just as the dull roar of students chatting through class makes me question my own sanity. The other day, when I yelled at one of the kids to get him to shut up. He answered, "as you wish." Ah, the straightforward yet oft-hidden way into my heart - Princess Bride quotes - found out by a 15-year-old.

So, I’m relaxing into working again and trying to do deep breathing when I start getting stressed. I’m practicing sufficiently compartmentalizing my personality so I can be stern, strict and demanding when needed and kind, caring and supportive when it’s safe to do so without fearing complete anarchy in the classroom. Good practice for something else in my future, I'm sure.

The best part about my new life here is the beautiful and melancholy crumbling city of Istanbul, which never ceases to inspire, and the friends I’ve made, both foreign and Turkish. On weeks when I have the energy, there is always something to do. Cultural events, gatherings at bars and tea and hookah street cafes abound. I’ve joined the poshest gym I’ve ever been to (complete with sauna, steam room and nap -!?- room), and I love to amuse myself on the cross-trainer as I watch the young men preening in front of the long mirrors and swaggering across the bouncy plastic floors. This is great stress relief after yelling and punishing pubescents all day.

On the weekends, I make it a point to explore the city, which rises magnificently on either side of the waterway connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

Turks are an interesting people. Passionate, proud, quick-tempered and helpful, I learn more day by day as I slooooooowwwwly learn little bits of Turkish and begin to better understand my role here as a foreigner (yabanci).

Overall, the best part about being here, is just BEING here. Despite a stressful, albeit fun, week-long visa run back to Thailand (yes, I had to go pick up my TURKISH visa in THAILAND – long story) I have been able to settle in and be in one place for longer than a week. I have a big room with wood floors and a balcony that overlooks a courtyard with a feral cat colony and squatting circles of old women knitting. I've been told it's hell in the Spring when they go into heat (the cats, not the old women), but it's endearingly quaint in the middle of the hustle and bustle for now. Sweet consistency.

I grow my hair long here and wait for life to take me in her arms.

Italy - Rome and Florence: Food, churches, and potable water!

2009-09-04T02:25:00.001-07:00

This post is officially dedicated to all those who enjoy looking at the pictures on blogs more than reading the entries. I myself am oft times a perpetrator of this very habit, I confess.

To all other loyal readers, my apologies and I promise my upcoming post from Istanbul will be more verbose.

Italy. Was. Stunning. From the moment I stepped off the airplane, I could feel the difference. I was in Europe! I went into the restroom before heading down to get my bags and washed my face with the water from the tap. Tempting fate, I even let a little get in my mouth!

Waiting for me after the baggage carousel was my good friend Anna from Cincinnati, who lives near Rome. Anna welcomed me with a huge hug and we went off with arms linked to remember where she'd parked her car.

While catching up and grinning ear to ear I met Anna's fabu little car. Unfortunately, 30 minutes later the little car met the back of a tow truck when it jammed in 4th gear on our way to her house.

After squeezing ourselves into the cab of a tow truck with two large, sweaty Italian men ("they just yell because they're Italian, they're not actually angry" Anna kept reminding me), our little adventure ended when the father of the family Anna works for rescued us and we headed up into the hills to Marino, a small, picturesque town on the side of an inactive volcano about 30 minutes outside Rome.

Over the next few days, Anna and I hung out with the kids of the family she teaches and rode around the beautiful countryside in Marino, enjoying the scenery, fabulous food and drinks and general Italian-ness of the environs.

At this point I find it important to mention that I was still glowing from re-entry into the developed world. After running around through Cambodia, Nepal and India for the past 4 months, I was giddy with the prospect of paying the same prices as locals, utilizing public transport sans petting zoo and only minimally smelling of urine, and not being stared at everywhere I went.

In fact, when Anna asked me what struck me as different in Italy, I answered... "uh, it seems kind of the same as home, actually." She seemed incredulous, as things are indubitably different in Italy than they are at home, and I reconsidered, countering with... "well, after India, anything in the developed world is going to feel like home."

Had I really gotten to the point where Italy seemed like home just because I didn't get the shits every few days, see beggars around every corner or run smack dab into breathtaking Buddhist/Hindu or Jain temples while shuffling down side streets?

I suppose my life had reached a new level of relativity, hopefully for the better.

Hiding out in beautiful and pastoral Marino as my body and bowels continued to recover from my trials and tribulations in India was lovely. Anna nursed me back to health with cough syrup and lemoncello and the normalcy of hanging out with the family she lives with and works for around the dinner table as they chatted happily away in French was wonderful.

After a few days, however, it was time to hit up some of the old stuff. We headed into Rome to check out the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Saint Peter's cathedral, Hadrian's column, the Pieta, the Pantheon, Roman-Jewish synagogue museum AND..... Senor Toner! My brother John came in to meet us in Rome and we three had an amazing time exploring Rome with Anna as our superb guide.

In the middle of our day in Rome, just as I thought I might wilt and keel over from the heat, we came upon the Trevi fountain. It was a refreshingly lovely sight in the withering heat, but just as I was about to rip off my sweaty tourist gear to reveal my black bustier and frolic in its cool waters a la Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita, Anna reminded me that it was full of bleach in order to keep the sculptures clean, and a police woman blew her whistle at a fellow dipping in a bit too much ankle. The moment was lost.

After our relaxing and fun-filled stay with Anna in Rome, John and I caught the slow train north to Tuscany to meet up with my dad and step-mom in Florence.

For anyone who has ever had a long trip, full of once-in-a-lifetime revelations and re-evaluations, for anyone who has seen the dark side of the world, the light side of humanity and feels as though they've grown as an individual and a member of the human race, I would like to videotape that person in a car with their immediate family and watch them swiftly revert to an 8-year old child once again.

After loving hugs, exchanged gifts and catching up on the past 8 months of my life with my family, we all piled into a car and proceeded to revert to the year 1988. Dad is always driving the rental car, although he refuses to look at road signs and instead gets more and more frustrated as he yells "where am I going???" while John and Carol and I start screaming out directions (often conflicting), based on mere conjecture and whim, yelling louder and louder in a frenzy of uninformed assuredness, until someone is either crying, angry, pissed that no one is listening to them although they're obviously right (this one is me), or giving the entire car the silent treatment (this one is also me).

Luckily, we made it to a restaurant safely, ate, and were stuffed to the point of relative silence on the ride back home for the evening.

It was both humbling and amazing to be around family once again.

Over the next week, we explored the tuscan countryside, stopping at wineries, farms and roadside attractions promising home sale of everything from olive oil to saffron. We ate amazing fresh food, sat by the pool, made it to the sea coast, and stuffed ourselves with melting gelato. We even managed to get on a "hello"/"bonjour" basis with the French famlies renting apartments near us by the end of the week.

Heading into Florence proper, we broke every traffic law in the book, repeatedly, with Dad driving directly through the "Zona Traffico," in which tourists are heavily ticketed for entering, as it's only for locals, as we three yelled and directed from the back seat and urged him "don't stop!" when he inquired as to whether we should consult with the friendly-looking Italian police officers staring in our direction.

We walked by the Ponte Vecchio as I hummed "O Mio Babbino Caro" in my head (and thought to myself... ok, you can throw yourself off that, but you're gonna get a bad sprain at best!), toured the amazing Uffizi museum, with its stunning collection by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Botticelli and Caravaggio in room after room of breathtaking original works of art.

As the second week in Italy came to a close, our family finally began to relax and gel. And, as we were saying our goodbyes we lamented that we didn't have another week to enjoy the rolling Tuscan countryside, fine wines, fresh pastas and amazing company.

Carol and Dad made for the airport, praying that customs wouldn't slap them with parking tickets on their way out of the country, and John and I headed back to Rome, with him flying home to move to New York City to begin a graduate degree and me flying out to Istanbul to begin a new job.

The world was pulling us all in different directions for the time being. But, if only for just 6 days, we had been together, yelling and screaming and laughing and giving directions and getting pissed, and I was going to miss it.

India: Holy river, holy cow, holy traffic jam

2009-07-30T23:02:00.000-07:00

Hindu techno thrust

Gyrating orange, red, gold

Turn me inside out

I stumbled into India on a hot and humid day in mid-July feeling a bit like an awkward newborn filly. Heavy with backpack I plodded with flip-flopped feet into myriad smells, tastes and textures as we crossed the border near Lumbini, Nepal, close to where Lord Buddha was born, into the wonderful clusterfuck of the Indian sub-continent.

The smell of urine, feces, incense and curry immediately swept up into my nostrils as I dodged wandering cows, tuk-tuks, bicycles, feisty vendors and begging children and we passed stalls selling assorted breads, sweets, yoghurts, milk tea and overseas phone calls.

I had crossed into the land of lovely women, staring men, intricate, shimmering sarees, infanticide for baby girls, arranged marriages, holy cows wandering the streets, unimaginable and yet somehow fluid traffic, poverty, wealth, social castes still alive and well, stunning monuments to love, war and religion and, most of all, the land where 16% of the world's population - over a billion people - all clamor on top of one another for air, water, food, and the chance to postpone, if just for one day, the eternal suffering that is life.

The group that I had joined in Nepal followed our guide through the border crossing formalities and into India with wide, guarded eyes. "Well, here we go" we said amongst ourselves.

Over the next two weeks we traveled via train, camel, jeep, taxi, local bus, and foot to Varanasi, holy city on the Ganges, and over to Agra, where the monument to love, the Taj Mahal, soars white against searing blue skies. We then headed to the back roads of Rajistan, a hot northern desert state bordering Pakistan, traditional and conservative in its rituals, beliefs and day-to-day happenings, and finally back to New Delhi.

Our first stop in India was Varanasi. At almost 3,000 years old, it is claimed by some to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world. Varanasi is believed by Hindus to have been founded by Lord Shiva almost 5,000 years ago on the banks of the holy Ganges river, the river of life and death, and is a holy place for Hindus as well as Buddhists and Jains.

As we got closer and closer to Varanasi, we passed ever more dense groups of young male pilgrims, dressed in bright orange, barefoot and balancing their tell-tale sticks across their shoulders with water vials hanging from each end with which to collect the holy waters of the Ganges, thought to wash away sins.

On the second morning there, we woke at 4:30 to travel down to the river to see the sunrise. As we approached the banks of the river, we saw more and more of the pilgrims carrying their water vials towards the waters.

According to the guide books, nearly 30 sewers empty into the river Ganges at the point in Varanasi, not to mention that the ashes of over 200 cremated bodies are sprinkled 100 meters upstream into the waters each day, and yet, as we made our way towards the already crowded banks at 5 a.m., we saw women and men in beautifully colored sarees bathing and splashing with fervor in the water along the banks. In fact, over 1,000,000 faithful pilgrims come each year to perform ablution, burn their loved one's bodies and float lighted candles for loved ones in the holy waters.

In Hindu religion, the ultimate goal is to break the cycle of reincarnation because life is, essentially, suffering. Many pilgrims believe that by bathing this way in the holy waters, possessing vials of Ganges water, or, ultimately, by dying near the Ganges and then burning your body along the banks and putting your ashes in the river, you have a better chance of avoiding rebirth and releasing your soul from the cycle of transmigration.

While we were waiting for our rowboat to take off, a little boy struck up a conversation with us while trying to sell us his postcards. “Look!” He said excitedly, “my postcards have dead bodies on them too!”

He pointed to the color pictures of funeral pyres on the front of his postcards, and once again I was reminded how strange it must seem that we are surprised at their custom of burning bodies on the banks of the river and throwing the ashes in so that the soul can escape re-birth.

In the west, we hold death an arm’s length away, denying its existence and trying to escape its corporeal realities until the last possible moment.

As we walked back to our tuk-tuks from the banks of the river we dodged roaming cows, piles of human feces and burial processions carrying gauze-covered, floppy bodies down to the banks for cremation on the funeral pyres.

Although I tried to dodge them all, one of the bodies bumped against my shoulder as I tried to dodge a cow, feces and dead body at the same time. The gauze brushed lightly against my upper arm and I felt once again what it means to be in India, and how thin the line is between death and life.

After leaving Varanasi, we caught an overnight train to Agra, home of the 17^th century mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, and holy land of the crappy trinket hawker.

Although the Taj Mahal was originally built as an Islamic monument, complete with passages from the Qur'an along the sides of the marble exterior, the day we visited was a Hindu holiday and one of the only days that visitors are allowed to enter the musky, airless burial chamber of Shah Jahan and his favorite wife, for whom the Taj was built after she died in childbirth while bearing their 14^th child.

The sheer enormity of the Taj was made even more impressive by the wide, searing, bright blue sky framing it on the day we visited. The monument took over 17 years to build and required over 20,000 artisans and slaves and 10,000 elephants to complete. As we waited in line to file through the underground burial chamber, we marveled at the beauty of the white marble against the blue, blue sky and the beautiful colored sarees of the local tourists.

After sweating it out at the Taj, the next week took us through the back roads of Rajasthan, where traditionally dressed Rajput men in colourful turbans and with huge moustaches made their way along crowded, dusty streets via camel, horse, motorcycle, bicycle and tuk-tuk.

Rajasthan is known for its warriors, and we visited its walled cities and forts with wide eyes, imagining how life in this traditional Indian backwater has changed and yet has stayed the same.

When we wandered, dripping with sweat, up to one particular castle atop a Rajistani hill, I came upon a relief on the wall of 31 small female hand prints. According to my audio guide, these were the handprints of the wives of Rajistani men who had been killed in battle. After their husbands' bodies had been brought back to the town, they placed their palm prints into this wall (although they do not greatly resemble true hand prints) and then each proceeded, unaided and willing, to climb quietly onto the funeral pyre with their husbands dead body and, praying all the way, practiced saintly self-immolation.

From within the huge hilltop castles I peered out of the intricate, thick window screens the women in the sultans’ harems peered out of, unable to leave the castles to see the world because of purdah (a state in which wealthy women in India are unable to go outside in public in order to show their status in society).

As I gazed out the window at this alternate view of the world that could have been mine to some extent (had I been dealt the 99% chance of being born to a society in which women cannot or do not travel) I once again pondered the opportunities I have had in my life. In many cases, I believe that we make our own future, especially for individuals born into societies such as the U.S., Canada or Europe. In these societies, it is often too many options, rather than no options that hold back our youth, crippled by our own indecisiveness.

However, what kind of person would I have been if I had been born into a society in which people have fewer options? Would I have raged against my cultural restraints and traveled around the world anyway? Would I have even been able to get the visas to travel to many of the countries I have seen? This too is something we often take for granted – as it’s much harder for people from many countries to be granted even the most basic of travel visas.

Friends often like to point out that for someone who would under most circumstances consider herself a feminist, I certainly have chosen strange locales in which to visit and live – Ecuador, Japan, Cambodia, India, Nepal and even Turkey… none of these countries would be considered particularly progressive when it comes to women’s rights.

And yet, what I have learned so much from visiting these places. The status and inequity experienced by women in these countries is quite often perpetuated not only by the men, but also by the women themselves, through the perpetuation of social customs and continuation of cultural habits through which they judge and punish one another. And, in the end, this has changed what feminism; or rather humanism means to me – with the end goal being to decrease judgment – that men and women both should be able to make their decisions and life choices from a place of bravery and love, and should not be shunned for making those decisions, whatever they may be.

I was often reminded when I was in India, of the story of a friend from India, with whom I completed the CELTA (Cambridge English Language Teaching for Adults) in Auckland this January. If she’s reading this I hope she won’t be angry that I share her story… my fascination with it probably indicates more my own cultural naiveté than any actual difference between it and the stories of most women around the world.

One morning, just before class was to start, I was sitting in my usual seat in class sipping my coffee from the travel mug I carried around religiously (marking me as an American, as no one else in any country I’ve visited feels the need to tote around the coffee they refused to take the time to drink when they made it). Just as class was about to start, she came in looking extremely stressed out and on the verge of tears, as was her habit. She sat next to me and I asked, while suckling my plastic mug, if she was ok.

Her response was unexpected. “Oh, you cannot understand what I am going through, Jennie. This is my last chance.”

Stupidly, I responded, “Oh no, it will be ok, that can’t be true…”

The story she told me next surprised, humbled and angered me greatly. She used to be a teacher in India (in fact, with her double masters degrees and extensive teaching experience she was probably one of the most qualified people in our class, with the exception of our Italian lawyer). Upon reaching a certain age, her father, who wasn’t getting any younger, had decided that it was time for her to marry and after fighting it for a while, she finally acquiesced, seeing little reason not to go through with the custom of an arranged marriage, which often works out quite well.

Her father found a suitable man from the same social caste and they were married soon after. Unfortunately, the fellow had misrepresented himself and as time passed and passed and it became more and more obvious that the marriage would not be consummated, she became worried and asked whether perhaps they should seek some kind of professional help. Her husband answered that in fact he was gay and although she could do whatever she liked there was little chance of a future for them as typical man and wife, meaning that male progeny was basically impossible.

Devastated, she made what had to be one of the most difficult decisions of her life, and went against custom, society and culture to begin the process of divorcing the interloper.

From my western perspective, this was the most obvious choice and she was well within her rights to do so (me coming from a society that chooses divorce when one spouse no longer matches the tapestries in the living room). In India, however, this was the ultimate disgrace, not just for the individual suffering through the divorce (especially the woman) but for the entire family.

My friend’s father was in poor health and the stress of the divorce put him over the top (or so my friend believed). He passed away shortly after the divorce was complete and as I gazed, wide-eyed into her anguished face she said to me, “and I killed him, it’s all my fault. Living here in Auckland with my sister is my last chance. This course is my last chance.”

At this point tears were welling up in my eyes and I had long since stopped suckling my plastic mug. “But, you…. You just can’t blame yourself! That’s not your fault!” I said, disbelievingly.

“You just cannot understand, Jennie.” She said. “This is my last chance.” With that, she turned away, agitated, and began preparing her neat, extensive notes for class.

As I sat back, I realized, after a few moments of internal struggle, that I could not understand. In fact, I will never understand. As class began and I wiped away my tears, I began to understand better not the vastness of her pain, but the depth of my own inability to understand the whole world just by traveling within it.

A nd, as I stood looking through the heavy, beautiful, awful, ornate screens in the Rajistani palaces, I gave thanks to God, once again, for my life, for my choices and for my ability to control, to some extent, both.

One of the most traditional locales we visited during our time in Rajasthan was Nimaj Baj, a small orchard town. One of our tour guides was descended from the local nobility and amidst muffled grumbles about “a conflict of interest” we settled into his family’s “summer estate” and paid inflated prices for curries, beers and jeep rides to visit local communities of startled shepherds quietly minding their own business and tending to their flocks.

The best part about staying in his family’s estate-come-guesthouse, however, was listening to stories his mother told about the state of local affairs. Before coming to India I had read a book called “May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons” by Elisabeth Bumiller – one I highly recommend for anyone traveling to India - and I was surprised to hear his mother complain about the cultural customs mentioned in the book, such as brides being set on fire by their husband’s family if enough dowry is not paid, “purdah” – the practice of keeping an upperclass wife in the house and not allowing her to leave nor uncover her face, infanticide and abortion of baby girls (boys are much more valued in Indian culture) and arranged marriages that more closely resemble indentured servitude in which the husband can easily choose second and third wives (although not legally binding) that were still common practice in her region.

Although Bouvon, her son, refused to walk through the town because of his erstwhile noble status, and instead followed closely behind our tour group in his car, we also had the amazing opportunity to walk through the town and stop by the local school as well as the hospital, where we got to meet the local student population and several day-old babies. The students in the school reminded me of the students in Cambodia, studious, eager, intelligent and hopeful. As we wandered through the schoolyard and out through the town towards the hospital they followed us, begging for just one more picture.

After Nimaj Bagh we headed on through the Thar Desert bordering Pakistan to the town of Jodhpur, which is dominated by the Meherangarh Fort, run by the local Maharaja, which sits on top of a sheer rocky ridge in the middle of town. There we relaxed on the roof of our hotel and even woke up early to catch the lunar eclipse, stealing furtive glances amidst fears plunging into sudden blindness by staring too directly at the sun.

We then continued on to Udaipur, the coolest and most pleasant city we had visited thus far, built near the shores of Lake Pichola, and completed our tour of Rajistani grandeur with a visit to an ornate lake palace.

As the last few days in Udaipur came to a close, we rested and did some last minute trinket shopping as we steadied ourselves for one last overnight train to Delhi.

The reality of India as a country, spread thickly across vast chasms of caste, color, culture, and landscape was the most sensual and inspiring thing I have ever experienced.

The graceful, complicated beauty of the men and women of India, their daily struggle, the force of their multitudes, the delicious smells, textures and tastes that interweave through their daily lives… from the man squatting down to take a dump on the sidewalk first thing in the morning to our noble-blooded tour guide ordering his servants to bring more chai; from the mother sleeping in the traffic median with her skin-and-bones children curled into little balls at her side to our tour guide’s kind, plump, lustrous mother offering up stories about bride burnings, purdah and her duties as a higher caste woman of wealth, as well as her own marriage at the age of 19 to our tour guide’s father, all of India seemed to be undulating with life and contradiction.

And something, some part of me that had been sleeping; part fear, part anger, part desire, part hunger, woke up.

And then, just as it was almost too much to bear, I performed my final act of privilege. I boarded a plane, took my seat and flew away.

Nepal: Mountain temples, monkeys and funeral pyres burning bright

2009-07-17T01:42:00.000-07:00

Birth then Life then Death

The wonderful symmetry

Death then Life then Birth

In a small, whitewashed restaurant up the steps of a back alley entrance just on the edge of the tourist district in Katmandu, Nepal there is a local band of young men who make music twice a week on Sundays and Tuesdays. Using traditional flute, drums and stringed instruments they lilt their notes and rhythms together with a rock guitar, acoustic guitar and saxophone. In their young enthusiasm and splay-legged boyishness, they remind me of any band of musicians at home, meeting at the local coffee house or bar to bond with their buddies and hopefully inspire groupie behavior from the local female population.

They make their music freely, men joining in, men dropping out. They play western tunes, re-orchestrating on the spot to match the sounds that have played across their lives in temple ceremonies or weddings or funerals. It is a lilting sound, with the flute playing lightly across the top, then dropping down deeply as if across mountain tops and down steep passes.

As one of their last numbers, they break into a breathtaking version of Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on” from Titanic. It is at once the cheesiest choice of music and the most beautiful sound I’ve heard in months. My dinner companion, close by my side, leans her head forward and whispers in my ear “Imagine… these are men who’ll never see the ocean.”

I arrived in Katmandu on July 10^th after a relaxing week in the bustling, commercial metropolis of Bangkok. With hotel booked and airport transport paid for I headed through customs and passport control and headed down to baggage to collect all my earthly possessions and wander out into the world. While waiting at the baggage carousel, I struck up a conversation with a Japanese girl, Mio.

After our short conversation, we decided to head into town together (which turned out to be great since my hotel transport was no where to be found). This saved me both a lying taxi driver telling me my hotel was closed and taking me to another hotel to get their commission and also provided an amazing new friend and travel companion for the next 2 days.

It turns out that Mio had lived in Katmandu for 2 years working for an NGO, spoke Nepalese, and was just back for a weeklong visit to bring some funds over from Japan.

Over the next few days, she took me under her wing and introduced me to her host family, her painting instructor and her local friends. The first stop we made was to visit her host grandmother, whom she calls mother, a small white-haired lady in a thin sari who lived near the center of town and cried when Mio came back to see her. We sat with her in her kitchen and she made us milk tea and chatted with Mio in Nepalese and Newalese (a local language of her cast) and I smiled intermittently at appropriate intervals.

After that we headed up to her painting teachers house at the top of a small hill near the center of town and close to the monkey temple, which was virtually over-run with monkeys.

Her painting teacher paints Buddhist mandalas (spiritual paintings which are thought to contain a soul of their own). The painstaking nature of the intricate work means that each small painting can take up to a month to complete, with each stroke of the tiny brush bringing you only one hair closer to a completed mandala painting.

We sat with the man and his children and he caught up and chatted with Mio as well, with me smiling and nodding intermittently again, content to soak up the amazing good fortune I had had to be shepherded in the good graces of my new friend.

One of the little girls running around the painter’s shop had been a little girl Mio had taken under her wing years before. Her mother, left behind by her husband with two daughters (worth much less in Nepalese and Indian culture than boys), could not afford to feed both of them and decided to give one of the girls to Mio. She told her daughter that she would be back to pick her up, and then left her with NGO orphanage workers that Mio had contacted. In the end, the woman ended up taking the girl back because the aid workers were unable to control her behavior, and her mother married Mio’s painting teacher, which solved the problem.

The little girl held my hand sweetly as we ascended the steep stone steps to the monkey temple, but Mio told me that it had been years before she was able to trust western looking people because the aid workers her mother had left her with were white.

After two days of spending time with Mio’s grandmother and host mother, Bimala, who even helped us to buy material so we could make saris, going out for great live music (“My heart will go on”), seeing intricate mandalas in progress, and visiting temples, it was time for us to part ways. Amid promises to keep in touch and my many thanks I headed off with my tour group (with whom I’m completing the rest of Nepal and India) and Mio headed off for a visit to the school she supports.

Meeting and spending time with Mio helped me remember all the people who have been so kind and helpful along my journey – first in New Zealand and Australia, then in Cambodia. Once again, I was struck with my inability to return their kindness directly, and instead the need to “pay it forward.”

Once with the tour group, we headed to more beautiful Buddhist monasteries and temples in and around Kathmandu, stopping along the river to see the Hindus worshipping and cremating their family members by the water. As I stood across the river from them and tried my best to snap some inconspicuous shots of this most intimate ceremony, I was amazed at how in your face death and life can be.

In the west, we try our best to sweep death under the rug, as if it is not a natural part of being born. According to our tour guide, in Nepal, Hindus believe that life is suffering (meaning that death is the alleviation of that suffering). By burning the bodies on the river’s edge and then putting them in the river, it is hoped that the cycle of life, death and re-birth can be broken so that the deceased will no longer suffer through another life. How different this view is from both the Buddhist belief in reaching enlightenment in this life, and also the our western attachment to this life… as well as Christianities ideas about heaven and hell…

I pondered these thoughts as we rode down through the mountains towards Royal Chitwan National Park and promises of elephant safaris, rhino sightings and even a tiger or two.

Chitwan was all it was cracked up to be, albeit with no tiger sightings, and also unbearably hot. Once again, I was sweating like it was my job.

One of the most interesting conversations I’ve had thus far was one I had in Chitwan with our guide, Gourav. We were chatting about what he was going to do after he dropped us off at the border of India to meet our next guide. He said that he was heading home to meet some girls his mom wanted him to marry. Apparently, at the ripe old age of 29 he was quite over the hill and his parents were getting sick so they’d decided it was time he married someone who could take care of them. His elder brothers had both married women who were more educated and did not want to move to their home away from Katmandu to take care of his parents.

When we asked how he felt about this, he said it would be fine with him. He would be ok with marrying the girl, and then he would head back to Kathmandu (10 hours away) to lead westerners (and western women) on tours... and perhaps she could stay and take care of his parents. “Kind of like a maid?” I said. “Kind of.” He said, bobbling his head back and forth flirtatiously.

This was one if the many times I both thanked my lucky stars that I was born into the situation I was, especially as a woman, but also that I had to take a step back and realize how incredibly different western culture is from many other cultures. As we head into India – the next leg of the journey, I brace myself… and wait for the revelations to come.

Everyday I am amazed, humbled, questioned, and devastated. And yet, the cycle, although sometimes unpleasant, is unilaterally inspiring.

Cambodia: Final Days, Sad Farewells, 4th of July and Tuol Sleng Prison

2009-07-03T00:59:00.000-07:00

Everyday I know

I'm escaping with my life;

What a gift it is!

I believe that the moment of freedom is that between the stimulus and the response.

If there is one thing that traveling has taught me, it’s that very often the only control you have over your daily life is how you react to what is done to you and around you. Indeed, because you are an outsider, and therefore without internal cultural context, it is the way you look and your choices that define who you are, far more than your history, experience or abilities.

For example, my experiences in Japan, Ecuador, New Zealand, Cambodia and even Papua New Guinea all had much in common, in the fact that I always had a different name. In Japan I was a gaijin, in Ecuador a gringa, in New Zealand a yankee, in Cambodia a barang and Papua New Guinea a misis. In Japan I was too direct, in Ecuador I was too punctual, in New Zealand I used too much water washing the soap off the dishes (they like to leave the soap on after washing) and in Papua New Guinea, well, I’m sure I would have probably carried my spear incorrectly, leading indubitably to mortal wounds in hand-to-hand combat with my enemies.

Without fail, each culture I’ve encountered has encountered me back. This is what is sometimes surprising about being an outsider – the lack of anonymity. It can be a blessing or a curse. If the people you encounter want something from you – your money or English conversation practice, for example, you can feel quite popular. Never-the-less, this is in essence a surface relationship. As I told the child counselor when I was 9 years old – if we weren’t paying you, you wouldn’t be here.

It is, however, a reasonably honest relationship. I gain an enhanced knowledge of the world, myself and the privileges I enjoy as a western woman, and they get five dollars for a tuk tuk ride.

Of course, as you spend more time in a place, you make real friends, and that is where you learn the most. Indeed, these are the relationships that tide you over when you get tired of your newfound fame.

Again and again, on a daily basis, I am reminded of the moment of choice I have when I decide how to respond. When the ladies in the market tell me my size 10-12 frame is far too fat for any of their clothes, I can shoot off a nasty retort such as “Oh yeah? Well you’re more likely to die in childbirth!” OR, I can smile and say “Well thank you. I am quite fat aren’t I?” And we can all have a good laugh about that.

It’s the same as when I was in Japan and the people in my town would stand at the end of the aisle and whisper about the gaijin (outsider) at the end of the aisle buying her tofu. The higher ground is always to learn a funny phrase in their language… for example “Japanese tofu is the best, isn’t it?” (Nihon dofu ichiban ii desu ne?) Which would inevitably lead to laughter and potential friends, or you could say under your breath “Jeez, I wish you would shut up while I’m buying my tofu….” (urusai, ne?).

I’m not saying that I’ve always taken the higher ground. In fact, some of my knee-jerk reactions have embarrassed both myself and others. But I’m learning, albeit slowly.

When I have nothing left in a situation that I can control, I can always control my own speech and actions. I can put my intentions in check and try to remain positive and open, forgiving them for they know not what they do. Or, I can revert to feeling like an 8 year-old under attack from the other girls in class and revert to self-preservation and self-defense.

In many countries in Southeast Asia – such as Cambodia – it’s the short same split-second of freedom when making moral and ethical decisions. A man with one eye, a missing limb and a sad face approaches you when you’re climbing into a tuk-tuk asking for money. Do you give it to him? This morning I didn’t, I politely declined and he wandered back off down the street muttering about the bitch barang who couldn’t even spare a dollar for his sorry ass self.

Should I have given him some money… I dunno. Probably. How about the children who beg late into the night outside restaurants? How about the vendor who charges you double what you should pay for a mango? Where is the line? And how much does it really matter? When are you being taken advantage of, and when is the reality much more complicated, that perhaps by your mere presence, you are in some way taking advantage of them?

It’s not always possible to assume best intentions. Because, in the end, most people don’t have best intentions in mind for you. Their own moral and ethical code, perhaps their religion, the lessons their families taught them, or their own greater need guide their actions as surely as your own. That said, how much more negative energy is created in this world by distrust, anger and self-preservation. How shall we find a balance between acting like a fool and putting yourself in a self-defensive cage?

Additionally, I realize that in Asia I am treated better than some travelers because I am white and western. The only other thing better would be if I were a white, western male. A few weeks ago, I went to dinner with a friend in Siem Reap who is American, with parents from Nigeria and Jamaica. We were treated abhorrently. Gone were the kind smiles from the waitresses and the attentive questions of “you need something lady?” from the shop owners. We were quite literally glared at with a mistrust I had not yet overtly experienced in Cambodia. Granted the people we met did not grab their hair and say “Africa! Africa!” at us, the way they did to some visiting children a friend was guiding a few weeks ago, but the responses were chilly at best.

Now I am no idiot. I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and therefore recognize the aspects of racial privilege at home as well, but here was a surprisingly overt show of racism that I had not seen since Japan.

And what was I to do? When it came up in conversation later, I asked, “does it bother you, that you are treated differently here?” “I try not to think about it, he said, because it would drive me crazy.” In all honestly, it's probably no worse than at home, just more overt.

And so, here is an example of a choice as well. One I am privileged not to have to make, much like many of the choices my Asian female counterparts must make everyday. And yet, I have only the ability to bear witness, and to recognize my privilege.

I’m not sure I know the answers to these questions, but as my last day in Cambodia comes to a close, these are the thoughts that run through my mind.

The last few weeks were spent in Siem Reap finishing up classes with my Cambodian students, saying goodbye to friends, both Cambodian and Western, 4^th of July parties (held at a British friend’s house, with plenty of jokes about slinging tea:-), and, this morning, a visit to Tuol Sleng prison (S-21) in Phnom Penh before a late afternoon flight out to Bangkok en route to Nepal, the next leg of the journey.

My hostel here is Phnom Penh is right across the road from the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, a former school turned gory torture chamber during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. Yesterday I sat beneath the leafy canopy of the flower garden at the hostel restaurant sipping my coffee and gazing across the road at the gate to the infamous school/prison. And, this morning, after a continental breakfast amid the bougainvillea, I took a deep breath, donned my dark glasses and crossed the road to wander through the classrooms and gaze into the eyes of the photographs of the 20,000 men, women and children killed there, so many of whom reminded me of my Cambodian students and friends.

The school looks much like any school in Cambodia, with high ceilings and open porches that lead along the edge of the buildings connecting the classrooms. And yet, what is seen there is so different than what should be found in a school. Photos of those killed peer out at you pleadingly. “Please, let me be spared” they say. In the end, almost none were spared. Of the 17,000 imprisoned, only 12 survivors are recorded.

The beds that the final tortured and bloated bodies were found on when the Vietnamese troops arrived remain intact, with gruesome photos of the scene upon arrival hanging at their head. Nothing is left to the imagination. All is documented painstakingly.

I’ve been to Auschwitz and the Anne Frank house and Hiroshima… and yet, somehow, I do not remember crying. But I did cry today, for those who died and for those that killed so many and stunted the growth of a nation.

All this is not to overshadow the knowledge that as an American I am not without blame in some of this situation. Many of the Cambodians that fled towards Phnom Penh and were perhaps captured were fleeing not only the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, but also the bombing in the east of the country closer to Vietnam by American troops.

So, what is one to do with all this?

I went back to my hostel, cried a bit more, packed the rest of my bags and headed off to the market to wander around before taking off to the airport and flying away from Cambodia, a choice egregiously unavailable to most Cambodians.

And so, in the end, the most I have been able to do here is to bear witness. Cambodia is a country of great strength, of great corruption, of humor, vigor, pain, suffering and also hope.

I leave hoping that as I process what I have learned here it will make me a better friend, daughter, sister, lover, mother, teacher and student.

Because I am still learning how to make momentary choices.

Below is a poem I wrote when I was 20 and living in Ecuador. I return to it sometimes to remind myself of the journey. So exciting and yet so arduous.

Quito, Ecuador. Spring 2000

I passed an indigenous woman in the street today

And I did not know her name, but I named her indigenous

And her soul flew out from behind her eyes to curse me.

I did not give her the quarter and three cents I had in my pocket,

Because I knew she would hate me,

Whether or not I gave her the money.

(And I knew I would hate myself, whether or not I gave her the money.)

She did not know me, but she named me gringa.

(A woman who walks with her legs wide open and her purse sowed up.)

What’s more, she named me American,

And I could feel the hot syllables of hate

Scribbled across my back as I

Walked and walked and

Pretended and pretended

To feel nothing.

And the change in my pocket whispered angrily

Against my thigh.