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Archive for March, 2008

What the heck’s going on

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

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You may have noticed the line on our map departed from its usually furtive inching along and suddenly jumped a country and an ocean to land in India.  This represents Nakia’s path, one the rest of us will hopefully be following shortly. 

Speaking for myself, getting on a plane is the last thing I want to do.  However, in light of the situation, it may be the best option.  Myanmar, a country I long to bike through, has no open borders and large sections of the country are closed off to foreigners.  Others have traveled through it, but only as ‘guests’ of the various rebel groups operating in the areas not controlled by the government. Such travel is impractical for five people on bicycles, and probably would not involve much bike travel anyway.

Going back into China and around Tibet is the next best option.  However, we all don’t equally love mountains, and buying visas and climbing the Himalayas would cost significant dollars and time.  As a group, we decided it would be best to take the carbon emissions hit and book a flight. 

We are currently in Bangkok, staying with Gretchen, a super-hospitable Bennie, and preparing for India.  The three of us guys still hold out hope for finding a ship to take us (less trouble and fewer emissions) but chances of that happening are not great.  So don’t be surprised if you see another jump on the map from Bangkok to Kalkutta.  Hopefully our current and future biking will offset the carbon.

Another Enterprise article

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

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Published February 20th in The Livingston Enterprise 

Learning to not sweat money in Laos

For The Enterprise by Jim Durfey 

We set up camp far off the main road, behind a copse of trees.  In the afternoon light shadows lengthened into distorted reflections.  Pinks and oranges on the Western horizon slid slowly into the colorless light of dusk.  The moon did not rise.  Stars peeked out of the paling sky.  Darkness cloaked the fields and trees, unmolested by cities or even a single house.  As night came, the sky exploded in stars.  A huge meteor plunged through the atmosphere, so close I mistook it for a firework.  It burned brightly with a long tale until it broke into a few sparks and skipped into nothingness.

We had been in Laos for one week, and the natural environment continued to stun us.  Upon crossing the border with Vietnam, we entered old growth forests.  Through 2,500 miles of biking through two countries, we’d never seen anything like it.  Trees of incredible girth sprung up dozens of feet above the canopy.  Walking about their base required several moments.  When we stopped to explore the forest, we saw walls of tree trunks oozing up rock faces, forcing nubbins of stump and bark into every nook and cranny, searching for purchase.  Clear streams rushed crisply through untouched forests and under wooden bridges, which we crossed carefully.

In the seventies, during the Vietnam War, the U.S. dropped more bombs on Lao than had been dropped during the entirety of World War Two.  The bombing destroyed much of the infrastructure, and scattered fighting between political factions preceded poor economic policy.  As a result, Laos has only recently begun to develop, and lags significantly behind Vietnam and China.  Cities are few and far between, and electricity and running water remain luxuries for most Lao.

Instead of homes made of concrete and brick, most Lao homes are made of wood, and raised on stilts.  Woven grass roofs shelter the structures from summer monsoons.  We had biked so far south that we escaped the seasons.  While winter chilled Livingston, the temperature in Laos often hit eighty-five by mid-morning and kept climbing.  The huts past which we pedaled all had well-ventilated, un-walled areas for good reason.  From here, lounging villagers tossed the occasional Sabaidee (Lao for “Hello”) at us.  As I waxed nostalgic thinking of winter camping in the Absaroka’s, we biked through the steaming midday, drenched in sweat.  Villagers often followed their friendly “Hellos” with chuckles.  After a few days, we saw the mirth in our unreasonable zeal to bike in such heat.  Thenceforth, after noon we joined the villagers in the shade until the light softened in late afternoon.

Unlike the governments in China and Vietnam, the Lao communists never effectively suppressed religion.  Temples sparkle out of the countryside and towns all host several.  I sought shelter amongst the trees of one temple in Savannakhet, Laos’s second largest city.  A young monk wearing the bright-orange robes of Southeast Asian Buddhist monks approached me with quiet confidence.  Monk Aek, as he called himself, learned English by studying out of a book.  Smiling with the excitement of the intellectual curious, Monk Aek eagerly propelled our conversation when I ran out of questions.  “My village is countryside.  We have no money to go to school, so I become a monk,” he explained when I asked why he had joined the monastery.

Like many Lao families, Monk Aek’s parents could not afford to send him to school.  Convinced he wanted to learn nonetheless, he joined a temple near his home when he was 10.  Although Buddhist monks usually restrict their studies to scriptures, they have time and resources to study other subjects.  Consequently, joining a monastery as a novice remains a good and sometimes the only option available for boys who desire an education but cannot afford normal schools.

Many other people we met in Lao spoke English.  However, language still remained a challenge.  Because of the large distances between towns, we often bought dinners we could eat while camping.  I once purchased a string of mysterious packets wrapped in banana leaves.  Using gestures, I asked the vendor if the contents were edible.  Assured, I ate two of the packets at dinner.  They had an odd texture, but great flavor.  My more skeptical friends refrained from partaking until they had asked our host for the night.  “That’s raw pork,” he said, “you should cook it first.”

Whether they possess English skills or not, the Lao smile infectiously and make visitors feel welcome.  As we biked along, we became accustomed to the enthusiastic greetings of children.  Often, we heard choruses of voices, but could never see the callers.  Occasionally we would look everywhere, only to finally look up and find children perched in the upper boughs of a tree, waving wildly at us.  Often the most humbly attired children and the adults in the simplest houses proved most welcoming.

Despite their lack of material possessions, the Lao remain happy.  Perhaps because they are unaware of the joys of mortgages, car payments, power bills, and schedules, they see no reason not to smile in the face of their deprivation from these luxuries.

Money provides opportunity.  Monk Aek certainly appreciates this notion.  However, since so many people without it seem to be so happy, I begin to wonder if I value money too highly.  When I work in the states, I work every day, no matter how hot it is or how sick I am.  Lost hours mean lost money.  In Laos, if people are tired, if the weather is unsuitable, they’ll take a break.  If something interesting bikes down the road, they’ll take time to examine it.  Their focus is not nearly as myopic as mine.  Time lost at work means more time to spend in contemplation or with family.

When viewing the satisfied smiles of people without anything other than their health and their clean environment, it’s difficult to maintain that a house full of stuff that doesn’t give one any happiness was worth the work it took to get.  I have already lived an incredibly blessed life, full of opportunities of which most of the world’s people can only dream.  For the moment, I will appreciate what I do have: a great family, a view of the stars at night, and the ability to buy food that fills me and is cooked—most of the time.

A week rife with blessings in Phnom Penh

Saturday, March 1st, 2008

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We entered the AIDS hospice in Phnom Penh expecting to see people reduced to skeletons wheezing for their last breaths. Instead we were greeted with smiles and bows from people who sat or reclined on their beds, weary perhaps, but healthy-looking, less downtrodden by their disease and more grateful to have gotten a clean bed in the breezy, open hospice.

Ed, a jolly Mary Knoll priest who oversees Mary Knoll’s AIDS/HIV programs in Cambodia, explained that ever since the administration of anti-retrovirals (powerful anti-HIV drugs) the survival rate for people coming into the hospice has grown considerably. Currently almost all the residents living their are expected to make a tenable recovery and return to normal life. In fact most of the staff at the hospice were themselves former residents.

Thanks to Peter’s initial contact with Celina, a model world citizen and Mary Knoll volunteer in Phnom Penh, we were able to visit many Mary Knoll sites. The city of Phnom Penh itself burgeons with non-governmental organizations. Our association with Mary Knoll proved most fortunate, as the programs we visited gave us great insight into Cambodia’s struggle with development and the Mary Knoll volunteers and priests themselves could not have been more welcoming.

It so happened we arrived in Phnom Penh in time for birthday week at Mary Knoll. That is the week when birthdays are celebrated by the Mary Knoll community at the weekly Wednesday mass at the Mary Knoll house. FBR went in its entirety. I was excited to attend an English mass, but the company and food afterwards made us all feel right at home. My favorite part of the evening, however, came when the lights dimmed and two Sisters marched into the room with cake. Cake?! I struggled to control my urge to grab the whole thing and dash into the street to feast on cake by myself in the gutter.

After it was cut up I even lingered far away, lest I give my appetite for sweets away. Finally I allowed myself one piece, and discovered real ice cream accompanied the cake. I stood by the wall indulging in cake and ice cream that exceeded my wildest expectations. Then I noticed people getting seconds. I waited, and waited. Soon I became convinced seconds for me would not be an intolerable burden on my hosts’ hospitality. I grabbed a small seconds, but soon found myself being encouraged by a couple of Sisters to eat even more. Great Scott! After fourths everyone else had obviously lost interest in the cake, and the servers were eager to clear the table. I felt I had no choice but to help them out…

This trip has sometimes been a struggle. There is not always cake, and the ovens in which I can bake things are few and far between. One Mary Knoll site we visited, however, really made my struggle for decent dessert seem laughable.

Celina and Charlie (another priest) work with a project teaching deaf children how to sign. It is the only such operation in Cambodia. When they explained their work to me, I realized for the first time what it really means to be deaf.

When children or young adults arrive at their school, they are sometimes as old as twenty. For twenty years, these children have had no exposure to language and have been completely unable to communicate with anyone other than by gestures. Our written language, completely caught up with the spoken language, is of little help to them. Think of trying to learn French in the written form if you have no concept of what a language is to begin with.

Because of the lack of previous work with the deaf in Cambodia, the Mary Knoll program worked to develop a sign language for Cambodia. Language, whether spoken or not, is culturally dependent. Gestures and associations with action are just as if not more liable to take on cultural specific meaning, so of course it makes no sense to force everyone around the world to learn American or British sign language. Celina, for instance, can fluently sign in Cambodian, but only knows American sign language from some courses she took in college.

We climbed the steep stairs onto the second level to visit a classroom. The kids, all of them teenagers, smiled and squirmed nervously as we came in, just as you might expect in any Asian classroom. With Celina and Charlie translating, we had a quick question and answer session. Some kids stood shyly over their desks, but others, one girl in particular, signed question after question to Celina, often interrupting her signing to communicate directly with us in carefully chosen intuitive gestures we easily understood.

The warmth and intelligence I felt in the classroom, and indeed, all through the rest of the Mary Knoll projects and volunteers, made me glad to know that such organizations operate in the world. From the HIV sufferers given a new lease on life by the hospice, to the children given the gift of language by the school for the deaf, Mary Knoll improves the quality of life for many people, often those most neglected in most societies. Now, whenever I eat cake, I will think of Mary Knoll, and remember to be thankful.