war

One of my favorite local health assistant coordinators has already left for war. He was one of the most happy go lucky, positive human beings I ever met. Such a hard worker. This is truly a sad day for me. I really do hope he keeps safe.

hanging

Some of the best times i have here in MS is just hanging with Cate and taking pictures of random dogs. We've come up with a classification system of the thai dogs: Burger, BFF, and Polio Dog. How many degrees of separation are they away from these 3 dog types? we ask ourselves. Then we dash for the dogs and take numerous photos. It's raging fun. Then we go and look at random T-shirts.
This one is definitely 1 degree away from Burger with his scruffy factor. It was so sad, why was he eating poo on the road? I didn't know dogs eat poo.

Then we came across two little puppies. They were many degrees of separation from the 3 dog types, but their puppiness still warranted a pull over and oogling.

a ghost encounter

Today I had an encounter with a ghost. And it was my friend.

I met an extraordinary man a few years ago, here in Thailand. He came out here to train some of our jungle medics in trauma surgery. We had so many wonderful talks about Buddhism, life, commitments. We had our share of moments of being intoxicated, literally and figuratively. We went our separate ways. I stayed working in Asia; he went to head a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Sudan. Then a few weeks before we were going to meet up in Los Angeles, I received an email from his brother. My friend was found dead in his hotel room, his cause of death was unknown. I was devastated, sad. Life went on however, I thought about him periodically. I still do. I thought about the book he forgot to give me the name of that impacted his outlook on life, his philosophy.

Today, I logged into my gmail account. And on the left sidebar that shows all your friends who are available for gmail chat, appeared his name, with the green dot next to it, indicating that he's available for chatting. I froze. Was it him? I didn't dare write anything to him, in case it wasn't him, I didn't want to be disappointed.

If it really was you, Bryan, I'm thinking of you.

potlucks

Ahh...reminiscing the days of grad school and thursday night potlucks...

la selva, part 1

normally i don't do this, but i am succumbing to the mass mail style of telling you all how the hell i am doing down here since more than 4 months have passed and i have finished my job with the language school. first of all- the jungle. My friend and i have made arrangements to fly to Puerto Maldonado, the jungle pueblo near the bolivian border. he is a guide and i was going as a volunteer worker. we were supposed to be at the airport at 6 in the morn b/c the peruvians love bumping your seat right away if you don't show up like 2 hours in advace to get you boarding pass. i get to the airport and my friend is nowhere to be found. i don't worry b/c i mean, i did get there 2 hours early like i was instructed, being the punctual person that i am and not having quite adjusted to what the "peruvian time" means. anyway, time ticks away and i decide to call his hostal. the lady at the desk says she can't find him b/c she just arrived herself at the hostal. "OK, so why don't you try knocking on his door?" Duh. she tried, but there was no answer. and she was so abrupt to get off the phone. peruvians really love the idea of Customer Service. anyway, 15 minutes later, i call again be/c it is 7am, the time the plane is supposed to take off. thank god for peruvian time, the plane is late. at this point, i am sweating beads and frantically pacing, hoping that he is on the way. so finally, with the sencond call, she bangs on his door like i so kindly told her to do and he wakes up. and he rushes to get to the airport. meanwhile, i run to the desk of the airline, and beg and scream to not sell his ticket and it seems like they already have. not surprising. the pilot is standing next to me getting the numbers of passengers and they are radio-ing everyone to start boarding to leave. the manager is pissed that i am telling him to save 1 more seat for a passenger who is 2.30 minutes late. my friend finally gets there, pale and wreaking of a hangover and we get a seat only b/c the ticket girl was so kind enough to sneak one extra boarding pass for him. so we get to Puerto Maldonado, where we meet the owners of the lodge. i was warned by my friend about the Macho-extremismo of the men here, and i saw right away the truth about this warning (ie, the men only talk about sex, the size of their dicks, sex, drink till they are pissed(drunk), sex, and how many women they can fuck). the first thing the husband says to my friend is, "so, you fucking her?" he doens't even greet me. i think to myself, "2 weeks of this? great." however, the 4 hour boat ride up the Tambopata river calms me down a bit and i am in awe with the fact that i am in the jungle. crazy. we get there and find that our rooms are huts and the shower is the river. i love it. oh, did i mention that we saw egrits and herons and capybaras and caymans on our way there? so, basically, i was there as a volunteer which meant planting banana trees and building bathrooms, but b/c there was such a large number of tourists, i ended up being the waitress, socializer, even the dishwasher. it wasn't bad. i had so much free time between the hikes through the rainforest and bathing in the river and sitting in the hammocks reading my dostoyevsky. so bathing in the river, at first, was a scary concept. there are piranhas, caymans, electric eels, these scary parasite fish that follow your urine tract and burrow inside and literally eat you out and have to be surgically removed. however, i thought if others can do it, so can i. and i loved it. i was scared only once when i felt a bite on my foot, but it turned out to be these small fish that are attratcted to dead skin. besides that, i saw scarlet macaws, blue and yellow macaws, several types of monkeys, sometimes, right outside my hut window. and all kinds of exotic birds and rodents. not to mention that i got really close with all the biting insects. omigod, right now, my body looks like it is diseased from all the bites. repellent worked sometimes, but they loved attacking my butt the most when i was going potty. and there was so drama going on, it is worth telling. the same owner (husband) that greeted me so charmingly in the beginning stole the lodge boat to go see his 13 year old girlfriend. meanwhile, there is no structure nor discipline with the peruvians when it comes to drinking. all the alcohol that we brought up for the tourists disappeared the 1st night, thanks to the hubby and the peruvian hired help. then the uncle who ususally cooks decided to leave and never come back because the girl he likes dosen't like him. he left in a drunken-pissy fury. who needs a television when you've got this? anyway, i am back in cusco. and i am looking to leave. i love this place, but my time is up. especially since i am not going back to work, i feel a bit in limbo and lost. one sad thing about living here. i made friends only on a superifcial basis b/c they leave so quickly and it get tiresome after a while. don't get me wrong - i do have a handful of friends from the netherlands and elsewhere, and thank god i have my one peruvian friend, sylvia. so until next time, hope all is well with everyone!

i miss you all! Linda