vomiting

The only reason I know that Valentine's Day is coming up is because all the toy stores along the main drag are vomiting oversized stuffed animals out their doors in the shape of hearts and teddy bears and flowers, in very conspicuous colors like red and pink and hot pink, hot red! Red Hello Kitty heart-shaped dolls, heart-shaped pillows, pink non-descript shaped-somethings are spilling onto the sidewalks. I zip by these stores on my bicycle, with absolutely no reason to stop. As much as I would love to meander into one and peruse all the knick knacks they sell (which I actually enjoy doing if I have a few minutes to procrastinate), I've got more practical things to shop for - 2,500 small plastic medicine ziplock bags, some string, a bed net, toothpaste...On other occassions, when I have more free time and I do get a chance to take a 'brain break', I like to look at the endless quantities of either fake Lesportsac wristlet clutches or coin purses or cell phone doilies that cost a dollar or so. This activity makes me very happy. Sometimes on a hot day, I'll indulge in a bowl of Thai jelly dessert served over crushed ice or I'll get real Thai iced coffee brewed with a sock, served in a plastic bag and stroll the aisles and just buy something. Shopping here does not break the bank. Shirts cost a few bucks, a pair of jeans can cost 5 bucks. Other times, I'll go over to the store next to the air-conditioned coffee shop in town because there is a miniature pomeranian there and go over play with the dog. The store owner probably thinks I'm a little coo coo because I squeal just a little too loud every time I see the dog, but it's pretty darn cute. When it was a puppy, it fit in the palm of my hand. And my hands are small.

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.

One word, two words

I attended an opening ceremony today for a maternal and child health program follow up training. It's traditional that one representative from each organization and/or district present make a speech. My favorite speech, of the few that were translated into English, was given by one of my favorite medic leaders.

He started out by saying, "When I talk, I may sound angry, but I'm not angry, just warning you...." and he subsequently broke into a very emotive and touching sermon-like oratory.

"One word brings us all here together: HOPE" And I nodded in agreement, and looked around the room to study the facial expressions of all the women medics at the ceremony, wondering, "Are they driven by this as well?"

And then he continued..."We are here to make change and to develop our communities, but we will face many challenges, difficulties, and barriers". An immediate roster of examples started forming in my brain like a Top 20 hottest celebrity couples of 2008.

He ended by saying, "But the one word that will help us overcome all these: LOVE." Period.

His words made me very very happy and inspired. It was one of those moments that made me love what I do and appreciate so much the people who I get to work with.

Tagore

The first time I learned about Tagore (or so I thought) was when I was in Calcutta last September, for work. I was strolling along Sudder Street, and there was this bust of this old man and the caption said that he used to hang out on this street and write a bunch of his poems. I was like, "cool". Whatever, I was more interested in taking a photo of the leathery old Indian man standing next to the bust. A week later, I'm reading an article in Harpers and it makes a reference to Tagore's poems. I thought, "How coincidental! I just happened to be in India where he used to hang out. Cool". But! A few weeks later, my best friend gives me a birthday card, and I was carefully reading her words since she always says the most thoughtful and heartwarming things in cards (not your typical "OMG, I love you! Let's be BFFs forevs!" stuff), and at the bottom of the card, there was a couplet written by no other than Tagore! Right then, I got the chills, and I told my friend Katy about the two previous instances with my Tagore encounters. I didn't put 2 and 2 together, but she did. She said, "Linda, you know what this means? Tagore is speaking to you. You must buy his book or read his poems and figure out what he is trying to tell you." Oooh, that gave me another set of chills.

So, I was resolved on buying a book by him. Of course, a few weeks go by, and I completely forgot about Tagore. I even had ordered a few books on Amazon.com and didn't even think to buy Tagore's poems. Well, I'm up at my parents house a few weeks later, where I store some of my stuff. I'm going through a few boxes, looking for old photos. I come across a box full of books, and I'm going through them really quickly, trying to prioritize which ones I can take home and make fit in my new bookshelf. I'm tossing books out left and right and there is one in particular, with a Korean title, and I was like, no way, it's probably one of my Mom's books from her literature club or something, toss that aside. I make a pile of the few books I'm going to take home and when I look at the pile to assess if it's too many for me, I notice the Korean titled book that I tossed aside is sitting on top of the pile. Just as I was about to toss it aside again, I look a little closer at the title, and it says "Tagore". Bam. There it is. Tagore just lands in my hands. Chills run down my spine, real bone-chilling chills this time. I open the book up gingerly, half thinking that some crazy light force was going to blaze out of the book, like when they open up the Ark in Indiana Jones.

But that doesn't happen. Instead, there's a caption my Mom wrote in Korean when she gave me the book 5 years ago. Translated, it says "So that my daughters can be loving daughters, love Mom". I never remember her giving me the book back then and it takes five years and a journey halfway around the world to finally accept her gift and the words of Tagore. Specifically, these are the Gitanjali poems.

I delve into the Gitanjalis, thinking big things, like they're going to tell me if I need to go back to school, or I'm going to find the love of my life or give me answers to what my purpose on this Earth is. But they don't. Yet, I'm not discouraged. I remember what my Mom has told me, particularly in reading Hesse. "You need to read Hesse every 10 years. What you get out of reading Hesse at age 20, will be different from what you learn from Hesse at age 30, and 40, and so on. " And so that is the approach I'm taking with Tagore.

One Gitanjali, #48, stands out in particular for me at this point in my life:

The morning sea of silence broke into ripples of bird songs; and the flowers were all merry by the roadside; and the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of the clouds while we busily went our our way and paid no heed.

We sang no glad songs nor played; we went not to the village for barter; we spoke not a word nor smiled; we lingered not on the way. We quickened our pace more and more as the time sped by.
The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooed in the shade. Withered leaves danced and whirled in the hot air of noon. The shephered boy drowsed and dreamed in the shadow of the banyan tree, and I laid msyelf down by the water and stretched my tired limbs on the grass.

My companions laughed at me in scorn; they held their heads high and hurried on; they never looked back nor rested; they vanished in the distnat blue haze. They crossed many meadows and hills, and passed through strange, far-away countries. All honour to you, heroic host of the interminable path! Mockery and reproach pricked me to rise, but found no response in me. I gave myself up for lost in the depth of a glad humiliation - in the shadow of a dim delight.

The repose of the sun-embroidered greem gloom slowly spread over my heart. I forgot for what I had travelled, and I surrendered my mind without struggle to the maze of shadows and songs.

At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes, I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile. How I had feared that the path was long and wearisome, and the struggle to reach thee was hard!

The journey is just as important, if not more, as the endpoint, the arrival. What's the point of reaching your goals, or getting what you want if the process to get it wasn't fun, beautiful, appreciated? I just need to stop and smell the roses. In concrete terms, this means I will take a few days this year and head down to the islands of Thailand (which are so close to me) and actually wear my two bikinis that I bought and haven't worn yet. And of course, this poem is telling me about love, but I don't want to write about that now. That's for later to share.

a muu-muu and a basket

you will never guess but i pre-ordered a muu-muu! that is the most exciting news i have to share!!!! woo hoo!! my life is so crazy, so on the edge. oh, and one of the medics from the jungle wove me a basket. it's so beautiful, i'm flattered. i think he has a crush on me.

did you know that muu-muus started in hawaii? mine won't have the crazy bold floral prints, it will have a more subdued pattern, but floral nonetheless. if i like this one a lot, i might go back and custom request another one, but maybe with a sexier bustline this time...

potlucks

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

aizawl, textiles and pineapples

this is aizawl. for those of you who have heard me talk about this city, i make it sound really just gross and unpleasant, but it's all part of the grand plan to counter any tourism efforts made by the the government of india, because i want to keep it my little secret. this last trip was the longest i'd stayed in india, an entire 30 days, and i managed to channel the powers of an ashram into our hostel room every morning. and it worked. it also helped that we brought yoga mats and the awesome yoga shakti dvd by shiva rea.....during the rest of the 14 hours of the day, we did the usual international health stuff.

you never know who you're going to meet when you're doing a little pretesting in a developing country. we ended up meeting b------ migrant village full or textile factories, and the women were making the most vibrant fabrics. a lot of the traditional textiles in the mizo culture have actually been adopted from the b------ textiles since so many of the weavers migrated to india. the pens with the thread are shot through across the big old textile loom like contraption, all powered by women textile workers pedaling of their feet.


of course, i had to take another picture of a dog with gigantor mammaries. this is not uncommon but still, something about this dog's boobs intrigued me enough to send this out in the information superhighway thinking it might intrigue someone out there as well...




...and in another village we went to i came across the most wonderful thing! wild pineapples! wild pineapples!!