BANGKOK, ALWAYS INTERESTING

Bangkok is a city of chaotic contrasts.  It is both beautiful and wretched.  The rich cruise expressways in their Rolls Royces and the poor amputees choke in the gutter begging to maintain their existence.  The traffic of the city creates a hum and buzz found few other places, but around each corner are tree filled alleys without hardly a sound or movement.  The sweet aromas of food waft over large areas competing with the strong smell of raw sewage emanating from canals and sewer grates.  The beauty of new skyscrapers prick the sky, while decrepit shanties hide in their shadows.  The beauty of the temples and monuments leave you breathless, as well as does the choking air pollution.

Bangkok has changed a lot since I was last here six years ago.  There are many new skyscrapers, and many more are going up all over.  The pollution has lessened as many big vehicles have been switched over to liquefied natural gas but it is still the worse I have experienced (Lima gives Bangkok a run for its money).  I have even seen some tuk-tuks running on LNG. 

Tourism is more plentiful than ever.  It seems as if Bangkok captures the travels who are interested in partying and other pleasures of a new and exciting place, but at the same time accepting them for all the tattoos, piercings, and shocking clothes choices they may wear (there would have been a scandal in rural Honduras if I had the accessories that many tourists in Bangkok have).  Though I have to admit that I'm surprised again by the number of Caucasian white males with their rent-a-girlfriends.  Prostitution still holds a significant place in Bangkok's tourist industry, a hold over from it being the closest safe big city to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  Who knows, maybe it even goes  further back.

The openness of the city may bring about a lot of drugs and prostitution, but it also allows a mosque, catholic church, and a Buddhist temple all to be located with a block or two of each other.  I have been few places where I have seen so many people of different backgrounds.

International business is in full force in Bangkok.  The number of western businessmen (oddly, I haven't seen that many western businesswomen) is astounding, with major international business areas of the city seeming to be completely western. 

Shopping malls here in Bangkok are confusing.  There are many varieties, and they all look architecturally amazing from the outside.  What is odd is how different the insides are.  Of course there is the super high-end luxury mall with Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Rolex, and other stores that I can't even afford to enter.  There are other malls with their food court with McDonalds, KFC, Krispy Kreme (it had the longest line I've seen in Thailand) and others.  However, most malls here look more like the market of yesteryear.  The architectural skin will be beautiful and modern, while the inside is full of shops set up over a lettered and numbered square on the floor, much like the booths at a convention.  I went into one mall that was six stories tall and just had booths/stores selling electronics.  Most of the stores sold knock-offs, but there were legitimate ones as well.  I found these malls interesting as they didn't just replacing the average local tenant in the name of big international tenants, but actually accommodated them many times alongside a McDonalds or Starbucks.  It makes the mall experience a little less sterile than I would normally have expected.

I have been taking Bangkok's local buses instead of taxis or tuk-tuks.  One reason is to save money, but a bigger reason is that I'm always interested in seeing how the average person gets about.  Bangkok's buses run the gamut of beautiful luxury to ancient diesel belching rattle traps.  I have been riding on the rattle traps as they run the shorter routes.  Initially, I had some difficulties with the buses as I couldn't read the destinations written in Thai.  The Thai alphabet looks more sanskrit than Roman, leaving my illiterate.  I started by having the woman at my hotel write the name of a major site near where I wanted to go in Thai on a piece of paper.  I would just show the name to other transit riders who would tell me when the bus I needed arrived.  It worked surprisingly well.  Now that I know the buses that run to the areas where I need to go (this is only two or three buses) so I need very little help.  It was also nice to get away from all the mean tourist-dependent Thais and around the wonderfully gratious and friendly average Thais.

I'll be in Bangkok for a day or two more before I head south towards Malaysia.  I'm excited!

 

COFFEE, WATER, TEMPLES, AND LAND MINES

As always, I got too into my travels and have forgotten to write.  I'm currently in Siem Reap, the city nearest to the ruins of Angkor Wat and the dozens of other temples from the Khmer Empire.  Tomorrow, I will dive into the temples, coming up for air in three days when I head to Bangkok.

 

I last wrote from Da Lat, Vietnam.  After enjoying days of coffee drinking in Da Lat, I went to Saigon.  I met up with a fellow traveler, Rhino from South Africa, on the bus.  I had met him initially on the bus to Nha Trang.  We spent a day hanging out in the chaos that is Saigon before heading off to the Mekong Delta.  Saigon is definitely a metropolis on the move, with only a slightly smaller ratio of motorbikes to cars than in Hanoi.  The city is much more westernized than much of the rest of Vietnam, with more skyscrapers and international commerce.  But that isn't surprising considering that it is a metropolis of nearly 8 million.  There was a surprising lack of international chain restaurants.  I only saw one KFC.  

 

The Mekong Delta is the watery southern end of Viet Nam.  As the Mekong River enters Viet Nam on its way from Tibet to the South China Sea, it splits into seven branches; it used to be nine but two have silted up over the years.  The area is the rice basket of the country harvesting three rice crops annually and growing an enormous assortment of other fruits and vegetables.  The area also supports a surprisingly large population, 20 million or equivalent to the population of Southern California, despite it nearly all being swampy land.  The area is impressive for many reasons: the enormous expanses of water, the houses built on stilts, the markets created within the rivers channels, the bridges built to span the river channels, among others.

 

From the Mekong Delta, I took a really slow boat up the river to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.  The contrast between Viet Nam and Cambodia is drastic.  The people have a different ethnic makeup looking much more similar to the Thai than the Vietnamese.  The Vietnamese seem to more resemble the Chinese.  The food became spicier and more Thai-like (I guess the fact that the Khmer Empire ruled all of Thailand may have produced these similarities).  However, the most drastic change was the increase in economic disparity.  In Viet Nam everyone seemed to be at a relatively equal economic level.  I noticed very few super-rich, and almost no destitute. All in all, Viet Nam was poor by western standards, but the country was definitely middle income and it felt like everyone was going in an upward direction.  Cambodia, on the other hand, had rich driving around in high-end Mercedes visiting fancy restaurants, while the poor and destitute begged and slept in the filth just a few blocks away.  

 

That being said, Phnom Penh is a city of temples and monuments.  There are gilded Wats throughout the city and plenty of monuments representing one regime or another.  There are also many sites representing the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.  The two most notable are the prison S-21 and the Killing Fields of Choeng Ek.  S-21 was a school converted to a prison for all those the Khmer Rouge determined to not be pure.  The Killing Fields were where the prisoners had their impurities beat out of them and were thrown into mass graves.  Many of the mass graves have been dug up and now there is a memorial with the bones of the victims.  The bones are on display to the public as a reminder of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.  The most disturbing aspects of my visit to the Killing Fields were the teeth and bones on the trail brought to the service by the annual flooding and the victims clothes still littered around on the ground.  

 

After Phnom Penh, I spent a few days in Battambang.  Battambang Province is a large rice producing area of Cambodia.  It is also an area riddled with land mines from past wars.  While visiting one of the many temples in the surrounding country side, there were signs warning me to stay on the path, due to mines in the surrounding forest.  I didn't have to be told twice.  I rented a motorbike for a day and toured the countryside discovering temples and villages as I rode aimlessly.  I could tell once I had left areas where tourists frequent as I started to receive double-takes from the locals as I passed by.  The people also became nicer, not trying to hassle me, but curious on whom I was.  Amazing, I wasn't just a money symbol any longer.

 

That is all for the moment.  

Vietnam is a Great Place Because of the Vietnamese

I'm currently in Dalat in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.  Tomorrow, I head to Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon).  I have absolutely fallen for Dalat.  I really can't say why, but I think it encompasses many of the magical qualities that have made Vietnam such a tremendous experience for me.

I have been surprised be the Vietnamese.  Their kindness, their entrepreneurial spirit, their industriousness, and their discipline give me great hope for this country of 85 million people.

I have been surprised by the lack of animosity that the Vietnamese have for Americans.  After the United States funding and fighting with the losing side in a series of wars lasting from 1945 through 1975 (the US provided much of the funding for a weakened post WWII France to fight from 1945 to 1954 (Indochina War).  The US then supported the South Vietnamese with training, arms, and funding from 1954 to 1965.  The US had troops on the ground from 1965 through 1973 (Vietnam War or the American War as the Vietnamese call it).  The South fell to the communist North, reuniting Vietnam again in 1975) I would have expected to have seen at least an inkling of dislike, blame, or hard feelings over the misery that those wars inflicted on the population.  Around ten percent of the population was killed in these wars.  I have seen no animosity.  In fact, I have felt uncomfortable several times for the extreme hospitality that I have received.

Vietnam is a communist country.  There is one political party, the communist party, that determines policy for the country.  My understanding is that the population generally is happy with their government (that says a lot since I can't remember the last time that the majority of the US liked their government).  Interestingly, from street level, you would think that the US was the country whose government heavily influences/regulates the local market.  However, I'm not suggesting that all the controls that the US has placed on its market economy are bad, many have had very positive effects like copyright infringement laws. Capitalistic commerce is alive and well in Vietnam, with shops everywhere.  There are hawkers everywhere selling their wares.  Every street has twenty different shops selling similar services/products all in competition with each other. 

The Vietnamese always seem to be working.  Family run shops are open from before I get up until after I go to bed.  For example, the same man is working at the internet café now, ten hours after I came this morning.  I wouldn't be surprised if he was here from opening, 8:00a.m., until closing, 10:00p.m.  It seems like every family with a little bit of money is opening up some sort of small business.  Sometimes there will be several different businesses in the front area of a families house.  Much to my annoyance, the Vietnamese are always trying to make another sale.  Being in Vietnam is like being in a store where all the employees work on commission. 

I have been surprised by the order and discipline I have seen in Vietnamese society.  I most notably witnessed this in Hanoi, where an enormous crowd of people was out for the celebrations in honor of the 1000 anniversary of the founding of the city.  I did not see any drunks in the streets, no one was causing problems, people were orderly, but still clearly having a good time.  The police presence was minimal and very soft (directing traffic and not cracking people over the head with batons).  Many skeptics may attribute this order to fear of the communistic regime, but I don't believe this.  I feel it probably has more to do with the Confucian principles with which the culture is based and the collective spirit forged to bring in the annual rice harvest century after century.  Whatever the reason, it creates for a nice atmosphere. I love traveling in a place where my greatest fear is that I will be overcharged.  This is a far cry from the violence of Central America that weighed so heavily upon my psyche.

I will only be in Vietnam for a few more days before I head to Cambodia to visit Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat. 

The Veins of Vietnam Are Full of Motorbikes

Motorbikes dominate the streets of Vietnam with a chaotic ballet.  The streets of any big city here are flooded with motorbikes.  Lanes and directional signs don't prevent them from making use of every inch of the pavement.  Intersections look more like the cross of figure-eight demolition derby races, but, somehow, without the accidents. 

Vietnam is commonly conjures images of bicyclists with conical reed hats pedaling through rice patties.  Though many examples of this slower life style still exist, the country has convincingly left the past to nostalgic recollections. 

Most certainly you have seen images of motorbikes completely overloaded with people and material.  These pictures were probably taken in Vietnam.  I have seen up to five people, 4 adults and a child, on a single motorbike.  I saw a motorbike with at least six cases of half liter beer bottles on the back.  It may seem ludicrous to transport so much on one motorbike while seated in the U.S., but here it feels right.  In fact, I would probably do the same if given the opportunity.

Having masses of motorbikes on the streets has a different feel than masses of automobiles.  Of course, I'm not considering that the cities here would never be able to support all those motorbikes becoming cars, the traffic jams would be unbearable.  But what I'm considering is how much more human a feel motorbikes have on the street.  A car is a steel cage that encircles us. It gives us a sense of security from bodily harm, but it acts as a barrier between us and the world.  On the other hand, a motorbike leaves the rider exposed, but open to all those around, like a pedestrian. Our terminology reflects this in that we see a car, an inanimate object, on the road but we see a motorcyclist, a person.  The motorbikes on the street create a warm sense of humanity, whereas the car emits a cold sterility.  

Though motorbikes may make Vietnam's streets feel more personal they certainly make it frightening to cross the street.  Even a simple two lane road is like crossing a six lane freeway when it is full of motorbikes.  On most main streets the flow of motorbikes is constant.  To cross you just have to go.  What do I mean by that?  Well, you don't look at the traffic.  You just step out into the traffic and walk across at a slow and steady space.  Kind of like how when you are high up on a ladder you shouldn't look down, when you are crossing the street, you shouldn't look at the traffic.  If you do, you'll get scared.  But no need to worry, the motorbikes swerve and miss you.  A blind man could cross the streets here without a problem.  He just has to walk slowly and deliberately and the traffic will avoid him.  Proof of this was an old women crossing an exceptional wide street in Hanoi.  She was stooped over hobbling along with her cane, moving at a snails pace.  I felt fear as I saw her disappear behind a bus to only see her on the other side surrounded by a dozen motorbikes all moving around her as she slowly made her way across mid-street.  I figure if she can survive this long with her no look, snailish crossing of busy streets, my odds must be pretty good that I'll make it too.

Heading South Through Vietnam

It has been awhile and a few miles since I last wrote.  I’m currently in Hoi An, Vietnam waiting to catch a bus to the beach town of Nha Trang.  I don’t think I will stay but will head to Dalat in the mountains.  It all depends on bus connections.

I left Timor-Leste nearly three weeks ago.  I spent a quick night in Singapore with a friend of a friend and left some stuff behind.  The next morning I had an early flight to Hanoi on Tiger Airways.  However, on my flight into Singapore I was reading an article in the Strait Times (the Singapore Newspaper) on how Tiger Airways was canceling many of its flights due to two aircraft that needed unexpected maintenance.  I was nervous.  We were only going to spend a few hours in Hanoi before catching a night train to Lao Cai on our way to Sapa.  Out of the Tiger Airways’ eight morning flights, only two weren’t canceled, the ones to Hong Kong and Hanoi.  We were in luck.

The immense development of Singapore was a sharp shock to the senses after rough and tumble Timor.  The streets were pristinely paved; I narily felt a bump as cruised along a freeway with well manicured landscaping. Lights climbed into the sky, emitted from the offices of high-rise towers.  The port, the world’s busiest, hummed along on the left of the freeway for what seemed most of the 45 minute taxi ride.  It doesn’t need to be said that it was a shock to the senses, but it was nice to shake off the dust from Timor.

I was going to Hanoi to visit Nancy, a friend from UCLA, who has family in the city, and to celebrate the 1000^thanniversary of its founding.  Hanoi was founded on October 10, 1010.  Its not very often that you get to go to a 1000^th birthday party.  The party was to last from October 1 to the 10.  We were leaving Hanoi immediately so we could go to Sapa and make it back for the important last three days. 

Sapa is a mountain town by the Chinese border.  Mt. Fanispan (aka Fancy pants), Vietnam’s highest mountain, stands out as a bump in a long ridge of mountains.  Our goal for Sapa was to climb the 3143 meter mountain.  We were blessed with amazing weather and completed the climb over two days. 

Sapa is known for more than its mountains and cool weather.  There also is a large number of ethnic groups. Familiar to many Americans are the Hmong, which live in the mountains of Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. There are four different Hmong groups differentiated by their dress:  Black Hmong, White Hmong, Flower Hmong, and Green Hmong.  There are also a couple other groups like the Red Dao. 

Hanoi was a crazy place.  Being a large SE Asian city, it has only been limitedly affected by the rapid westernization and high-rise building boom of places like Saigon, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur.  It’s old merchants quarter is still intact, though today it is would better be called the tourist’s quarter.  The streets are dominated by motorbikes cris-crossing paths in a chaotic ballet, more resembling a school of fish chasing chum than traffic as we American’s know it.  Hoam Kiem Lake is Hanoi’s central park.  Much of the people looking to get involved in the festivities went there.  The busiest night was Saturday, October 9^th, with what seemed a mass of a million people doing circles around the lake.  Stages were set up on several corners, but many of the acts were bad.  This didn’t affect the mood; most people were out to revel in the masses of people and spend time with family and friends. 

I made a quick stop at Halong Bay, which was beautiful, but touristy beyond belief. 

Next I stopped in one of Vietnam’s historic capitals, Hue.  Until the August Revolution of 1945 that put the communists in power this is where the emperor’s ruled from.  An enormous and spectacular citadel dominates the northern bank of the Pearl River.  The citadel is slowly being restored after being heavily damaged in the wars of 1945 and 1968 and a couple natural disasters.  It was here where I finally rented a motorbike and hit the streets on my own.  I’m proud of myself!  Only one person cursed me.

I’m currently in Hoi An, and old trading town that has slickly maneuvered into becoming a mega tourist trap. I’m not impressed.  The old parts of town don’t look that different than many other areas I’ve been.  I would like it more if I was looking to buy a tailored suit or some other handicraft good.  But, I’m traveling on a budget and don’t have room in my bag for too many souvenirs, especially this early in the trip.

You are now up to date with my travels.  In the coming days I will write more on other aspects of Vietnam.

COCA-COLA, THE NEW WORLD CURRENCY

Every time I travel, I always end up writing about Coca-Cola.  It is far and away the world’s most globalized and ubiquitous product.  It is everywhere I have ever gone, no matter how remote, no matter how snobbish towards American cultural influence, no matter the poverty that inundates a place.  I have written about being offered Coca-Cola in a village a six hour walk from the nearest road; the Coke came in on the back of a mule.  I have written how in Guatemala, when you ask for “agua” you get a Coke; you have to ask for an “agua pura” if you want regular water.  I have tasted Coke in big cans, small cans, plastic bottles, glass bottles in 8 oz, 12 oz and half liter sizes, and the mostly in America, Coke from a soda fountain.  I have tasted the differences in sweetness depending on the local community’s preferences.  In short, I have been around a lot of Coke ......... Coca-Cola!

After all this, I was surprised to have a new Coca-Cola experience yesterday that yet again defined the drink’s worldly ubiquitousness.  I was given coke as money.  After buying my lunch yesterday, the woman didn’t have enough change to give me bills, so she gave some bills, some coins, and a Coca-Cola.  Move over, the dollar, the euro, gold, Coca-Cola is the new world currency. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating this one instance’s importance, but it is an interesting insight into a global product which we almost don’t even notice any longer, it has become part of the background of our lives.

WATER AS A RIGHT AND THE PROBLEMS IT CREATES

Working in and around water, especially water politics is a messy affair.   People, rightly so, have a lot tied up in water.  It is essential for life, obviously.  We need to consume a couple liters a day in one form or another to stay living.  It needn’t be said that if a society has any civility and humanity at all, water should be a right regarded to everyone, .............Right?  It seems pretty straight forward, but the longer I’m around water talk the more complicated it gets.

The determination that water is a right has many complications.  If water is a right, it should be free, or at least very cheap, seems to be a common mindset around the world (why are we so adamant about cheap water in the US?).  While in Honduras, I dealt with this issue on a daily basis.  The Honduran Constitution clearly states that the water in a river or stream is owned by no one and so can’t be charged for, though the landowner can raise a stink about water conveyance infrastructure crossing his land.  As a part of the water projects I was implementing, there was a finance component.  Connected households were to be charged a minimal fee, about $1 to $1.50, so as to fund system maintenance and minor repairs.  But the local people, due to the Honduran Constitution and local beliefs about water being a right, felt that their water should be free.  I commonly had to use the counter argument that the water is free, so feel free to walk to the water source fill a bucket with water and carry it back to your home.  The point being that the water is free, but it is the infrastructure that brings it clean and conveniently to your home that costs money and should be financed by the local community.  This is where the problem lies; to provide free water is expensive.  

Interesting, the very notion that water is a right and should be free makes the poorest pay more than the rich for clean water in much of the developing world.   Having good water access is generally confined to well established, wealthy areas of developing world cities.  Reasons for this are that having access to an amenity such as a high quality water system raises land prices making it unaffordable to the poor and the systems were generally built by the old colonial power to serve the colonizers’ homes in the city center, exclusive of the poor masses.  The poor masses live in the surrounding slums and low income housing areas.  A policy of cheap or free water means that by providing water infrastructure to the poor areas does not payback the costs of implementation.  More so, if existing water sources are limited, new areas added to the network are usually not provided water at the same service level as the old, but politically influential, colonial center;  any reduction in the quality of the center’s service delivery to provide more homes water is vehemently opposed.  But new water sources are progressively more expensive to develop as the cheapest sources are developed first meaning that new water for the poorer outlying areas has a higher marginal cost than the water currently provided to the central city.  This may mean that the new areas are charged more, subsidized so the cost is the same as the central city’s, or a rise on average between the cost of providing water to the center and to the new area ,raising the center’s price slightly.  The poor slums that don’t receive piped water are many times supplied by private services which spring up in a piped system’s absence.  These sources may be a truck that comes around, a neighbor who sells water from a local well, or any assortment of other means.  What is certain is that this water is usually many times the cost of the highly subsidized water in the piped system.  The point I’m trying to get across from this is that, in developing countries government subsidized piped water systems encouraged by the idea that water is a right, disproportionately serves the wealthier citizens, while the poor pay a significantly higher price to obtain water by other means. 

A second major problem with water as a right is that, how much water should be rightfully delivered to each person.  A person may only need a few dozen liters of water to maintain proper hygiene and living standards in day to day life, but this discounts the many other ways that water ensures economic livelihood.  For example, a poor Indian farmer may depend on water to irrigate his crops, providing him with much needed food.  If the water needed for him to economically maintain his limited lifestyle is not allowed him or goes up substantially in price, he will economically falter.  Thus, he needs many more than a few dozen liters daily.  Agriculture around the world is by far the largest consumer of water.  In California, something like 85% of all water in the state is used to grow our fresh produce.  Farmers rightfully argue that if you take away their water you are also taking away their economic livelihood, though it should be noted that they could use the water much more efficiently.  If the farmers’ economic livelihood depends on the water, then do they have a right to it?

I’m not arguing that water is not a human right, as it is clearly a human necessity and I feel that as people, we should at least try to assure that water is fairly distributed.  The problem is, what is fair? Currently, the very terminology of water as a right is not very well defined in the societal consciousness.  The idea that water is a right often prevents many of the neediest from getting it.    The day a consensus is reached on how we should manage our water resources will be an important day.

THE POWER OF MONEY

Money, we desire it, but we despise the greed it induces.  We wish the world could operate without it, but we pragmatically realize that it is how we value goods and services.  Others will claim that the coldness that money inspires (i.e., business economics) is proof that money drives us humans away from the very nature that defines us as human, are warm caring emotions.  Well!  I really would like to have the cold, heartless power of money on my side right now.

The water systems that I am implementing are done so by the community which will benefit from it.  The community is not paid for their labor, as it is seen as their contribution to the cost of the system, since they are unable to provide any significant funding.  I find this method both fair, and it allows them to receive a water system even though their local and/or national governments can’t afford to provide the funding.  Not all agree with me on this, I have heard that it is not fair that the poor should have to work for free to get water while the rich in the big cities get their water system (in the wealthier parts of the bigger cities) through paid labor.  

Having the community build the system limits the speed of construction, complicates logistics, and makes for an unreliable construction crew.  The community only can work so many days a week on the system.  They have fields to tend and, maybe even, money to earn (though there aren’t many sources of paid labor in Passabe).  Sure, water is a monetary benefit, but they already obtain it free of monetary cost; they pay in the labor of carrying it, which is not from too great a distance.  Since the project is rushed, I have to complete the eleven systems that I have quickly.  Being that I am limited on the speed with which I can work in any given community that means to finish quickly I must work in all or most of the communities simultaneously, making for a logistics nightmare.  I would much prefer to work in two or three systems at a time and I as I finish one move on to a new one.  The third is that the work force that I might have in a community is highly unreliable. Some days we will have sixty or more community members, but not enough work for them.  The next we won’t have any, but a lot of work.  If it is market day, people won’t work.  If the morning starts out rainy (like today) it is difficult to get the community to work.  Sometimes the community will decide the night before that they want to work and won’t tell us, while another community will decide at the last minute that they don’t want to work after having stated that they would.  This leaves us with technicians and materials in the wrong communities.  Furthermore, many of the communities are experiencing system construction fatigue.  My projects take months to build. In the beginning the communities are excited and motivated making them eager to work, but after months of construction and no water their motivation has faded until work is a chore. 

Even though I agree with the projects policy to not pay the local communities to build their own water system, I wish I could pay them as it would really speed up the construction time and decrease logistics issues.  A good example on how money speeds up the construction process is are method of obtaining gravel.  To build concrete tanks and water catchments, we need gravel.  However, as I’ve written before, there is no easy way to get gravel as there is no quarry.  So, in Passabe, we decided to start a local operation to make our gravel.  We pay them $1 for a box of gravel which is around 40 centimeters cubed (I should know this but I can’t recall at the moment).  The community on their own motivation will break big river rocks into gravel of the size we need for 8 or 10 hours a day.  When we need a lot of gravel, the rock breakers will be hammering away until while after midnight and start again at 8:00 in the morning.   It is needless to say that we have never run short of gravel.

If I could pay the communities, I am certain that I would always have plentiful labor.  I could get my work done in a timely matter.  And I could be done with this frustration of changing my weekly work plans and priorities on a daily basis.  Oh, that would be nice!

Reflections on my nearly finished time in Timor-Leste

In under two weeks I will be flying to Vietnam.  I will have finished my work in Timor-Leste and be doing some travelling before I need to decide what is my next step.  With so little time left, it is not surprising that I’m beginning to reflect on my time in Timor-Leste, whether I should continue doing international development, and how my view has been altered of the world.

Timor-Leste has had its challenges, not the least among them, the seclusion I have felt in my work site.  I work in the department of Oecussi, which is cut off from the rest of Timor-Leste by Indonesia. I have been in one of the more distant reaches of Oecussi, the town of Passabe.  My only relief is when I’m in Oecussi town on the weekends where I have internet at night, though that means that it is very early the previous morning in the US.  Life without daily phone or internet is hard.  I know many of you will laugh about the absurdity of needing to be connected and you wouldn’t be wrong to point out that just 10 years ago, where I’m at, there was no phone and internet at all.  I wouldn’t have been able to have any contact with the outside world, except when I would go into the capital, Dili. 

I both love and hate international work at the same time.  I love being in new places, places that are exotic to my norm of American-ness.  The immense stimulation of daily life in a new place is extremely exhilarating.  The constant riddle of the local culture and daily life leaves my mind a whirring and my senses heightened.  But the sensory highs mean that there are lows, where the longing for the normalcy and comfortableness of home creates a nearly debilitating homesickness.  All in all there is a cycle, where I want the stimulation of being overseas when I’m in the US and I want the comfortableness of home when I’m away. 

Also, the very purpose of international development work as a whole leaves me conflicted.  On the one hand I want to help develop a country like Timor-Leste, but on the other hand I feel like the family supporting the drunk uncle by giving him a place to stay and food to eat.  The support in a way supports the uncle’s drunkenness furthering the very problem that I would like to wean him from.  Sure, you can try to give him help to break his pattern of drunkenness, but in the end it depends on the uncle whether he dries up or not, and not you.  In other words, no matter how much support you give, it is still the uncle that needs to make the effort to come dry, the support you give only facilitates, but doesn’t guarantee the final result.  International development work is similar in that you are trying your best to help the country develop, but no matter the support you give, it is the local culture, and governing bodies that often determine how successful a program is.  Some places, you can give them a few rocks and they will build a bridge, others you will give them abundant rocks to build a hundred bridges and they will just throw them at their neighbours.

In the end, local cultures are difficult to change.  Often the very reasons that keep a country undeveloped are the result of local culture.  This does not mean that the local culture is solely to blame, as it is a response to local conditions, geographic placement, past history, which may have been influenced strongly by outside forces (think colonization), or any assortment of reasons.  What I’m saying is that the culture that develops is not directly the fault of those who are dealing with its consequences in the present.  Would we blame Henry Ford for the unwalkable, car oriented, suburban culture that the automobile affordable for the masses brought upon the United States and its urban form?  Though it is obvious that American society and culture is heavily influenced by widespread access to automobiles today, we wouldn’t go so far as holding Ford solely accountable, as many other factors, like government policy, personal choice, land market rates, and technological innovations also contributed to the car culture we currently have.  All I can wonder is what will be the impetus that pushes Timor-Leste from its stagnation into a virtuous cycle of development and when will it occur.  Will it be the result of a powerful but somewhat benevolent dictator like in Singapore in the 1960s?  Will it be the result of an outside force imposing its will upon the country, like General Perry’s fleet forcing Japan to open its doors in the late 1800s?  Or will it be a combination of subtle factors?  Who knows?

An observation that always surprises me is how similar societies are throughout the world.  I am always surprised by how similar I find people to be throughout the world.  The biggest differences I find seem to fall upon economic and educational lines.  I find that there are great similarities between class tiers in different countries, a greater similarity than among different classes within the same country.  For example, I find the wealthy and educated classes in Timor Leste to be more similar to the wealthy and educated classes of the US than with the poor classes within their own country.  I know, that I just made an enormous generalization, and I’m certain that if you want to look at the details in each individual country you can prove my point wrong in some instances.  What I’m trying to state is that I feel from personal experience that the divisions between class and education levels are greater than the divisions between cultures.

I think that is enough for now.  I’m ruminating as I write, and probably now as I finish my views may have changed on what I said at the beginning.  Your comments and insights are most welcome if you so desire to offer them.

BIGFOOT!

Yeah, I have big feet!  I know that.  I’ve accepted that.  I wear a size 13 in the US and a size 48 in most of the rest of the world.  The problem is that there isn’t a place in all of Timor Leste that sells footwear of this size.  I actually had a couple friends look in Bali when they were on vacation, and they couldn’t find any in my size there either. 

Last Friday, I broke my flip-flops.  They are unrepairable.  But, flip-flops are the day-to-day attire for all locals.  Actually, I can’t imagine wearing anything different around the house.  But what was I to do?  I went flip-flop shopping and couldn’t find anything larger than a 45.  The 45 fit more like a much smaller shoe.  Finally I bought a pair of size 42 Adibas for $2.50.  Look closely at the spelling of that brand. “Adibas.”  They are small but better than nothing.  

SOCCER WITHOUT SHOES

I was invited to play soccer after work. I’m bad at soccer but I always have a good time playing. It was convenient since the field is directly in front of the house I stay in, in Passabe. The field isn’t in very good condition. It is full of gravel and small rocks. But it suits the community as it is quite a large open space. I keep telling those who play soccer that they should spend ten minutes before they play each day to pick up rocks. After a week there would hardly be any rocks left, I’m sure. But I guess they don’t mind the rocks as much as I do.

Another problem presented itself. I didn’t have any shoes. I had a pair of hiking/work boots and flip-flops, not quite the ideal attire for soccer. So, I went native and played barefoot (probably half of the players play barefoot. This would have been fine if I didn’t have wussy, privileged American feet. My feet were so bruised from stepping on rocks after the game that I could hardly walk the next day. It was worth it.

THE COLOR GREEN

There are those moments when you see a color in the natural world around us and you say to yourself, “Oh, when they assigned the name blue to the color, that is what the person was looking at,” for example, the deep blue of a clear sky on a day with low humidity.  I remember many times as a child lying in the grass in my backyard looking into the blue expanse of a cloudless, deep blue fall sky, trying hard to see through the blue.  My eyes were always getting lost in the infinite blue with no object to focus my eyes upon.

This week, I saw the sight that green was named for.  As I was passing a recently planted rice paddy on my way back from Passabe, I looked over and was overwhelmed by the deep brilliance of the green.  All I could think was, “Now, that is green.”  It was not a light green, an aqua green, but green GREEN!  And it was beautiful!

THEY ROBBED MY RICE

Do you remember those stories you hear as a kid, or maybe you still hear them now, about the bank robbery in the small western town?  The bandits rob the bank, making off with all the gold and cash.  The fearless lone sheriff hunts down the outlaws and all ends happy.  Up until today, I had never thought about what happens when there is no cash left in town, especially in the days before electronic purchases.

The state of Oecussi is isolated from the rest of Timor-Leste, as it is surrounded on three sides by Indonesia.  The fourth side is the ocean.  There is only one bank in the entire state to serve its population of 70,000 or so.  Cash is the only way to make purchases.  If you don’t have any Washingtons, they use the American Dollar as the currency here, you won’t get anything.  Of course some businesses will allow a credit line to regular customers, for example, we don’t pay the gravel breakers for each truck we carry, we pay them weekly, but they are few and far between. 

The project I’m working is funded by USAID money.  The USAID program wants the community to contribute their labor since they aren’t paying for the material costs of the system.  Thus, the community to build the water system.  But since it is difficult to get a community to work for nothing, the project supplies the community with food when they are working.  Here, that means rice, lots of rice.  Today, I ran out of rice.  I called the warehouse wondering where the rest of my rice was.  There was no rice.  Why? There is no money to buy rice with because the project couldn’t withdraw cash from the bank since it was all stolen. Now, I’m facing a halt in most work, because we can’t get the communities to work if we have no rice.  So goes my hope that September would go smoother than July and August went.  Now, did this happen in the old West after the bank was robbed?

NIGHT TIME MAGIC

Today is Tuesday, though it feels like Monday since yesterday was a Timorese National Holiday.  That first day of the week often sets the mood for the rest of the week.  I just hope for a good Monday to keep me motivated until the week.  Sadly, this hardly ever happens.  Having a Tuesday as a Monday didn’t change the pattern.

I was tired of the day as soon as I got out of bed.  I don’t know if I was lethargic from a long weekend, or whether I hit my limit of bull s**t last week for this week.  All I know, was that I was dreading coming here.  The morning started off with one of the big supply trucks, crashing into one of our small pickups (of course one of the two coming to Passabe).  It didn’t have any brakes. Who would need brakes on a truck going up and down mountains roads?  I guess it was good that we found out the brakes were a problem early on.   A series of other mishaps and bull s**t put me in a foul mood and I chewed out the coordinator of the local NGO who employs the technicians I work with.  I finally got back to the house at 8:00 to eat some supper, do some maintenance on the motorbike and get in some reading.  I needed something to relieve me of my foul mood.

The town of Passabe has a generator that it uses most nights so that homes have light.  But often the community runs out of fuel and the community stays dark.  Tonight, I didn’t mind.  I walked out under the night sky and, Wow!  It looks like someone spilled sugar across a black countertop.  There isn’t a cloud in the sky, though the Milky Way stretching from the Southwest to the Northeast looks like it could be clouds.  The moon won’t rise until well after midnight so the sky is exceptionally black.  Venus, bright when compared with the surrounding stars, is setting in the west with Jupiter (or it could be Mars) rising in the east.  There is no light pollution only starry perfection.  The stars are so numerous that it is almost difficult to make out any constellations, as the brighter stars are lost among the masses.  Since I’m in the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Cross makes its way across the southern sky pointing due south as it has for seafarers for eons.  All in all, just a few minutes of star gazing relaxed me, put me in a happy mood, and reminded me why I come to places like Timor-Leste.

BE WARY OF THE MEAT

Generally, I’m a meat loving guy. I’m not a carnivore to the extreme, but I do enjoy my meat. In Timor-Leste, I’m hoping more and more that I get a pass on eating the meat. No, this is not a feeble attempt to make sure that I don’t eat dog again, but recognition that meat and the way it is prepared traditionally in Timor-Leste is bad.

I have received beef, pork, chicken, dog, and some other unknowns (maybe goat) while working in the communities, and can’t recall a single good one. The quality of the meat is preposterous. Beef is grisly, full of arteries and veins, and impossible to eat with all the shattered bone pieces after they hacked (or more properly, bludgeoned) a leg to smithereens with a dull butcher’s knife. The chicken is always meatless, hacked to pieces and seasoned with something awful. Pork only seems to consist of the chicharron (the skin, the fatty layer directly underneath the skin, and a little of the adjacent meat) but when I get only that i get sick and end up puking my guts under the bridge down by the river. Not pleasant! My body just can’t handle that much fat. I have the same problems when I eat pig’s feet.

So, though meat is a rare occasion, once a week at most, I would prefer it even less. I can easily survive eating the many types of unique vegetables I find in my food here. Oh yeah, and those amazing lettuce, tomato, onion salads with salt, vinegar, and oil poured over top. There is something about a fresh, vine-ripened tomato that is delicious.

NOW THAT’S SERVICE

Good service is not a common thing in Timor-Leste. Just getting service at all is an accomplishment. Okay, I’m not being fair. Service in a person’s home is always gracious and warm. Many businesses also give service that, though not good, isn’t that bad. The thing is that there are very few examples of good service.

Today, I did get good service, from the government. A task that was supposed to take from 4 to 6 weeks ended up only taking a week and a half. And to think that I was worried that it wouldn’t be finished by the time I leave Timor-Leste in early October.

The thing is that I can’t give credit to Timor-Leste for this one. My hats off go to the much lambasted and criticized U.S. Government. Yep, that passport renewal that required processing in Jakarta, Indonesia before the passport could be printed in the U.S. at a passport agency, and then mailed to the U.S. Embassy in Dili took all of eight days. They told me it would take four to six weeks. I didn’t even ask for the speedy service. All I can say is, “Wow!” and “Thank You.” Heaven knows that I certainly didn’t expect it.

COCK FIGHTS

I went to my first true cock fight tonight. It was a fight to the death. Once was enough for me.

Marie Anne and I had gone to find a couple tapstand locations, when we noticed the two work vehicles at the local medical clinic. I thought for sure someone must have gotten hurt. Seeing how bad the roads are, I was sure it must have been a motorcycle accident. I parked the motorbike and we went up to the clinic, but no one was there. So we looked around back and saw a large commotion.

One hundred and fifty or so people had gathered to look over the roosters and, of course, watch/bet on the fights. All in all, about a dozen and a half people, including three of my work colleagues had brought roosters to compete, though in the end only a few dared to.

After a bunch of sizing up, two roosters were prepared to fight. On the left foot, where the spur protrudes out, a 3 or 4 inch razor sharp dagger blade was affixed to each rooster. Once prepared, the roosters were brought into the ring. They were allowed to peck at each other so to become riled up. Once riled up enough the sheaths were removed from the blade and they went after each other. After a couple minutes, one rooster disembowelled the other to win the fight. The winner gets money, the loser gets a chicken dinner, a real treat!

WHAT’S THAT ON YOUR HEAD

Do you know those games we play as children where we need to walk an obstacle course with something balanced on our head? Be warned; never challenge a Timorese to such a competition. You will lose.

A couple weeks back I went hiking around Oecusse with Marie Anne. We were descending a steep and treacherous trail less than a foot wide and a steep drop-off on the left on wall on the right. The trail was of a poor quality, the unmaintained type with rocks, tree roots, sudden drops, climbs, disappearances in a stream, and so on. While on our way down, we had to step off the trail onto a tree (remember, the ground dropped away quick and it was not wide enough for two people to pass) for some Timorese coming up the trail. In this group there was a man carrying a backpack (for the back, right?) on his head, though with the assistance of his hands. Following him were three women all carrying items on their head, balanced. Most impressively, a woman was carrying what looked like a large soup kettle. Not once did I see them touch the pot as they climbed and manoeuvred up the difficult trail. I should note that the women put a towel rolled up like a donut on top of their head to provide cushioning and a flat surface (at least flatter than the top of the head) to carry objects on.

After Honduras, I thought I was accustomed to seeing people carry objects on their head, but the Timorese are exceptional at it. They carry many more things and much greater weight on their heads. And I guess the women look exceptionally elegant with their locally woven tais worn like a long skirt and rolled over at the waist to keep them up. Now, if I can work up the brashness to photograph a group of women carrying stuff on their heads. That is how we transport sand to distant sites without road access where we need to make concrete. But that is another blog post why the local people don’t use mules or horses for transport here.

SPLURGING IN DILI

Last weekend, I left the bush for a couple days for a little splurging in the capital. By splurging, I mean eating. After weeks of rice and spinach, I needed to expand my culinary boundaries, for at least a couple days.

I ate at a typical Western restaurant for brunch. I had fish at a Portuguese place. I enjoyed spicy Sri Lankan and amazing Indian. I even ate a steak burger. I think everyone thought I hadn’t eaten for months.

I also took the opportunity to pick up a bunch of reading material and movies in the Dili house.

Dili is not a pretty city. Really there is nothing nice about it except for its proximity to the ocean and the amenities that it has. The city is overpopulated with expats. I have never been in a foreign city that has such a high percentage of them. I think this is more due to Dili’s small population (150,000) for a capital rather than the net number of westerners.

There were many Americans around Dili, due to that the Pacific Fleet’s hospital ship docked off shore to give free medical care to Timorese in need and US military doctors practice without the high liability of American hospitals.

LIVING WITH FRENCH

In Timor-Leste I’m working for a French NGO. As could be guessed, most of the employees who are expats are French. There are four expat employees in Oecusse, the district that I live in. Three are French, and I’m the lone American. For better or worse, the French influence affects my daily life. For example, I was in Dili, the capital, last weekend. The remoteness of Oecusse means that a trip to Dili is a restocking trip. What are those things that we needed to buy in Dili? They were good European wine (no Australian or New Zealand, I’m not sure if this is because they don’t produce good wines or they are just unfamiliar), high quality cheese, and chocolate. Somehow, I’m not surprised by the selection, but I do admit, I do enjoy their good wine, cheese, and chocolate.

LIVING WITH FRENCH

In Timor-Leste I’m working for a French NGO. As could be guessed, most of the employees who are expats are French. There are four expat employees in Oecusse, the district that I live in. Three are French, and I’m the lone American. For better or worse, the French influence affects my daily life. For example, I was in Dili, the capital, last weekend. The remoteness of Oecusse means that a trip to Dili is a restocking trip. What are those things that we needed to buy in Dili? They were good European wine (no Australian or New Zealand, I’m not sure if this is because they don’t produce good wines or they are just unfamiliar), high quality cheese, and chocolate. Somehow, I’m not surprised by the selection, but I do admit, I do enjoy their good wine, cheese, and chocolate.

WHAT I’VE GOTTEN USED TO AND NOT IN TIMOR LESTE

Would I eat dog? Five weeks ago I might have pondered the question before eating dog meat, now I just dig in. Yes, I did eat dog and it tasted like a cross between beef jerky and venison.

Anytime I travel to a new place there are always many customs that I need to adapt to. Sometimes I am surprised what I adapt to, other times I just can’t make the transition. In Timor-Leste, this is no different. I have been surprised how quickly I’ve gotten used to not having electricity during the day and taking cold bucket baths. I even have master and no longer mind the squat toilet; you just learn to balance well on your haunches. Now, I just need to master reading while sitting on my haunches. I haven’t been able to adapt to the local custom of wiping with the left hand instead of toilet paper. Splurging for toilet paper is a worthy expense for me. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I’ve gotten used to much of the food, though after my first couple weeks I thought I’d never get there. I have gotten used to trying to communicate in the local language though I often give a mishmash of Tetun, Baikeno, Bahasa (Indonesian), Spanish, Portuguese, and English; somehow understanding is achieved, though it takes awhile sometimes. I’m learned to be able to drive on the left side of the road and shift gears with my left hand. I’m still getting used to riding the motorbike and I will be accustomed soon. I haven’t gotten used to not having access to the outside world on a regular basis. Having internet and phone only once a week and only at night when there is electricity has been trying. I don’t miss not having TV at all, though I do watch movies on my computer from time to time. I have even gotten used to blogging again.

MOTORCYCLES

Today was my first time riding a motorcycle the 2 hours from Oecusse to Passabe. It was dramatic. One of the technicians rode with me as my experience riding a motor bike was only in town and so didn’t prepare me for roads that are in horrible condition (in car the 40 km trip takes 2.5 hours, and average of about 15 mph) and steeply go up and down. The good news is that I survived.

The first 15 km are quite easy, only some minor uphills and much of the way roughly paved. The places where the road is gravel it is at least in good condition. However, on the first gravel uphill. I down shifted poorly and the bike got away from me. I got the bike stopped before I went off the edge of the mountain, but I had to tip it over. Good thing I was going slow, so I just hopped off the bike and let it tip over once I stopped. I didn’t even hit the ground. Then on the following downhill I got to the bottom and crossed the river. When I say crossed the river, I mean I literally went through the river and got wet. I was happy that I didn’t tip over and was able to ride with my legs in the air.

Once I got to the other side of the river I looked back and didn’t see the technician that accompanied me, so I waited. After awhile I saw an ambulance stop on the far side of the river. Then I saw a big truck stop and saw a motor bike being hoisted in. I just thought, “oh no!” So I crossed back through the river and sure enough, my companion was in the ambulance. Another motorbike had nearly hit him so he turned hard and wiped out on the gravel on the long downhill. He scrapped his leg up pretty good. The steering column on his bike was bent so he couldn’t ride it the rest of the way. The truck hauled it to Passabe.

I was now on my own. After crossing through the river yet again, I started up the steep, rough and long uphill on the other side. However, I had problems as I was in too high of a gear and stalled the bike out on a 10 or 12 percent grade. I was not experienced enough to be able to work the brake, clutch, and throttle on such a steep grade. I have a problem of either not giving enough throttle or too much. On the hill, I gave it so much throttle that I did a wheelie all the way over backwards. I was able to get off the bike as it went up, but I did crack the rear tail-light when it hit the ground. Luckily, I had passed the ambulance as I crossed the river (it too was going to Passabe) and the Cuban doctor (he works at the health clinic in Passabe) patiently explained to me in English (I didn’t know he was Cuban at this point, and he didn’t know I spoke Spanish) how to better listen to my clutch and throttle. Finally, after 20 minutes of failure, he drove the bike to a flat spot and I practiced a few more times and was off (not such a big deal when you don’t have to worry about the brake.

Over the rest of the trip I stalled the bike a couple more times on steep uphills. If I wasn’t able to get it started, I would just turn the bike around and go downhill until I could find a flat spot so I could start up the hill in a lower gear. Finally by the time I got to Passabe, I could start going up a hill. I’m not proficient, but I don’t kill the motor nearly as often.
I figure by the end of the week I should be an expert.

Mom, you did not read any of this!!!!!!!!!!

THE ALL CARB DIET

I can’t resist. I’ve put off the topic too long. It is my favourite topic so it’s about time I talk about it again. Of course, I’m referring to food. Oh! I love to eat everything. No, I’m not a foodie or a connoisseur. I have a blind love (mostly!) that is indiscriminate to food of all qualities. Food, in general, is a wonderful thing.

Here in Timor-Leste, the food is nothing to write home about, but I’m beginning to like it more and more the longer I’m here. I don’t think I will crave any of it as most of it is rice with boiled vegetables on top. Any meat I’ve had has usually been so hacked and the animal had so little meat on it to begin with, that it is just bone and gristle. The one thing I do truly enjoy is the lettuce, tomato, and hard-boiled egg, garlic, and some type of onion salad. A dressing of oil, salt, and vinegar is liberally applied to the top. Maybe it is the pure lack of fresh vegetables, but this salad tastes amazing.

The Timorese diet is almost completely carbohydrates. There is some fat, and almost no protein. I get some through eggs. There isn’t enough meat to count. I only get it on the weekends when I leave the communities. I’m fairly active here and eat large quantities of food, so I think that would compensate. But it doesn’t. After three weeks working in the community I have lost ten pounds. I really don’t know how. The only thing I think it can be is that my body burns through the pure carb diet a little too easily.

SNORKELING TO PLAYING IN THE MUD

Sunday morning I got up early to go fishing. Richard, who is also working on the same project that I am, though with USAID and not the NGO I am working for, has a 15 foot outboard. We loaded in and sped off to try a few fishing spots. A few minutes after setting sail, we encountered our first pod of dolphins. They were going the opposite direction as we were, but they swam with us for a short distance. That was the first time I had ever seen several dolphins swimming a few feet from me at the front of the boat. Amazing! After we went a ways from Oecusse we drop some lines in the water. I had a hit. It was a 10 plus pound fish. Richard stopped to do some spear fishing and the others and I decided to snorkel. The place we stopped was the most beautiful reef I had ever seen, better than anything I had seen in Thailand. I’m not really sure how long I snorkelled, the beauty of the place made time unimportant. On the way home we encounter two more pods of dolphins; one pod had more than 30 individuals. We arrived home weary and sunburned. I thought I was fine, but I was really wrong. Now my back hurts a ton. Oh well, it will be gone in a day or two.

A far cry from yesterday today was rainy and miserable. I headed out to Passabe with the car fully loaded and hit rain almost immediately. It rained most of the two hours of the trip. On the way into Passabe, we pass a couple of the projects I’m working on. I asked if we could take a side road to see a separating tank that we poured Saturday, but I hadn’t seen yet. We made the left and started down the steep downhill. We went maybe a hundred meters. The car slipped and slid like we were on ice. We quickly realized we shouldn’t have gone that way. The road was a wet slimly clay that was as slick as ice. I knew the moment we started down that we wouldn’t be able to go back up to the road we left, but the driver got nervous and insisted we turn around. We turned around but couldn’t make a meter of progress forward in the slick clay. We pushed and pushed and couldn’t move the truck forward without it sliding back down. Finally we got some communities members with a rope and pulled the car back up to the other road. It took 20 of us to pull the vehicle the 100 meters uphill. The locals got a kick out of the Malae (white person) barefoot in the mud pulling away. By the time I arrived in Passabe, I was wet and muddy. Not a good way to start the week.

WE DEVELOP FOR STABILITY

This morning I didn’t get breakfast. This wasn’t by my choosing, but the result of the baker not receiving any flour. The problem wasn’t just today, but for the whole week. The other days my morning bread was replaced with donuts so I didn’t go hungry. These weren’t any donuts, but possible the worst donuts I have ever bit down upon. They tasted like they were baked a month ago in a cheap bakery in small town USA. When they had become stale they were sent to Indonesia, where a local seller tried to sell them. Once they didn’t sell in Indonesia they were sent to Timor-Leste. During this whole long ordeal, I’m certain that resuscitation of the donut was attempted with a microwave several times. The donut arrived on my plate cold, hard and stale. If this wasn’t the life that the donuts had lived, I couldn’t venture to guess what harder life they could have had to make them so bad.

Back to the baker and having no flour. The subdistrict of Passabe has just one bread baker. Bread is popular for breakfast here. The flour comes from Indonesia; I’ve heard that it is smuggled across as the tariffs are so high. The stability of the community’s breakfasts has been interrupted.

The trauma of not receiving my daily bread has sent me pondering deeply on the meaning of life and what we really strive for. We also discuss how we work hard and develop for wealth. That wealth is important for a high quality of life. I do not disagree, but I think that we strive for predictability and stability of our lives. A life where we have some semblance of control over what we are going to do and when we are going to do it contributes greatly to our quality of life. The more of the basic things that are stable in life the more we can focus are finite worrying on loftier things, like whether the curtains match the furniture or not. When we know are bread will arrive each morning, that the bus will come to take us to work at 7:10 plus or minus a few minutes, that the local copy shop will be open until 10:00 so we can make the important copies that we need, we breathe a little easier, we relax our tight muscles a bit. Sure, we use wealth to buy a lot of the stability we desire, but there are limits to the quantity of stability we can buy, some of it depends on the society we have developed.

WHAT I MISS

When you are away from home, it is surprising what you miss. Of course, I miss my family and friends dearly, but that is expected. It is the degree at which, more or less, that is usually unexpected. What is even more surprising for me are those things that are not people that I miss and what I don’t. The big thing that I miss is Los Angeles. I miss the hustle and bustle. I miss the pretentiousness, humbleness, and kindness that could be found in different areas of the city. I miss the mix of language, culture, restaurants. I miss the urban with the surrounding nature of the mountains. I miss the million things to do. I miss the midnight bike rides, riding down Los Angeles’s famous boulevards with only a few passing cars. I miss the baseball games in Dodger Stadium.

It is not abnormal for me to miss a place, but Los Angeles felt special to me. It is layered heavily. There is a new discovery every time you peel back a layer. It is one of those cities that improves with time spent there. I guess to get me through, I will have to keep listening to Randy Newman’s “I love LA,” Tom Petty’s “Free Falling,” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” (from Dodger baseball games) to assuage my missing LA.