Archive | August, 2011

A Merry-Go-Round near the top of the world (or, the value of seeing the day out)

27 Aug

A Merry-Go-Round near the top of the world

Today did not start so well.

A freezing cold shower. A 202 page biogas training manual which was read in entirety, but was not so useful. Lethargy. An entire packet of not-so-delicious chocolate biscuits. Thoughts of a meeting yesterday, which did not go so well. Thoughts that today’s meeting will be the same.

Dogs screeching and fighting outside.

The familiar feeling of being trapped. Without culture, without language, without friends. Without knowledge.

And then.

A meeting today where the village women are attentive and patient with your endless questions. They are so keen to share their beautifully made local handicrafts with you and they make you tea (your favourite!). And even though you feel as if you have wasted their time, they graciously thank you any way for coming, smiling at your feeble attempts to thank them for their generosity.

And then.

A merry-go-round near the top of the world. A market place full of cheering gamblers. A soccer match in the mud with local players as good as you’ve seen from across the region. Fairy floss. And jokes about the over exuberant calls from the local boys. (“I am alone! You are alone! Come over here!)

You remember you can take photos. And that you can stop working.

Actually, you remember how to smile.

And why it is that you are here.

Tags: , , ,

<3 Cranium

25 Aug
My three-reasons-to-love Cranium the boardgame:
  1. Tell me how you would best describe Monica Lewinsky in physical actions.
  2. The physicality of it. People actually have to get up and move. And move other people’s bodies.
  3. It reminds me that I do not know a single person in the world who can hum a recognisable tune.

Tags:

A game

22 Aug

Here is a game I’ve been playing with myself.

It’s called “What would I do if I was reacting from a place of love?”.

When something frustrates me. Or I don’t like someone’s style.

Or when I have to do something I really do not want to do.

Or, most of all, when the part of me I don’t like thinks that it would like to see things because ‘then I’d really get it’.

I play this game because I know the person who loves would rather it that these things did not exist for them to see.

Tags:

<3 Watching the sunset (or sunrise)

18 Aug

My three-reasons-to-love watching the sunset (or sunrise):

  1. Gorgeous colours in combinations that just don’t seem natural.
  2. No one is ever quite sure if it will happen again (Read Chapter 14)
  3.  It is the same, but different, every single day. Just like Neighbours.

Tags: ,

On loneliness

15 Aug

People ask lots of questions about me moving around so much.

You have the most tiring job in the world!

New cultures, new foods, new languages – aren’t you exhausted?

Most of all they ask – don’t you get lonely?

I wondered this myself before I left at the beginning of the year, with no intention of returning. I watched a Glee Project episode (yes, the Glee project) where the contestants had to wear the scariest word they could think of.

Mine would be lonely.

But the truth of it – which I have always known – is that I was lonely in Sydney.

There are always things which we face alone. I read somewhere once that the loneliest place can be in a home, in a marriage. And I believe it.

I think the definition of loneliness is the inability to share.

And the mirror of this is the joy of being able to express something at the very essence of yourself – and have someone totally GET IT.

What a gift.

And what I’m getting from all of this is that these gifts are waiting for me wherever I go.

Tags: , ,

<3 Learning (Guest Post)

11 Aug
From my wonderful brother. Three-reasons-to-love learning:
  1. You never know when you will connect the dots
  2. It makes life easier and more difficult at the same time
  3. You can do it everyday with everything

Tags: ,

First Impressions of Kathmandu

7 Aug

Incense at the airport.
Sunset over the mountains.

Cows in the middle of the street. Munching away.
Skinny dogs with forehead blessings.
A volleyball game in a parking lot. Where the losing team keep having to run 100m after the ball.

Honking. Everywhere. Loudly.
A boy scrubbing clothes on the sidewalk. On the ground.
A small boy reaching into my taxi to try and grab a chocolate bar out of my bag. And cursing at me as we drive off.

GLOFs. Entire fields, towns, villages being wiped out.
A man with no hands and no feet.
A kid with burns to half his body.

A voice in my head which says “I don’t know about you, but I am not ok with this”.

Colours everywhere.
Tiny streets with tea shops to get lost in. Which I do. Often.
A tailor who fixes the zip on my bag with pliers and candle wax, and expects nothing.
A view over Kathmandu from the roof of my hotel.

Buddhist Views by Glogowski and Haag.
Actually bookstores filled with books like this.
Temples with highly athletic erotica carvings.
Food with vegetables! (Especially noteworthy after the Philippines and Ghana).

Talkative people. About politics, sports, religion, anything.

Busloads of men in orange shirts, protesting. Perhaps about the lack of a constitution.

People staring.

And then smiling, as they notice you noticing them staring.

Tags: ,

<3 Bus Trips

4 Aug
Three-reasons-to-love bus trips:
  • Sometimes, like just around the corner, you arrive at something you were not expecting. Like the amazing scenery of Panay.
  • In Ghana and the Philippines at least, amazing food, delivered right to your seat
  • Guilt free day dreaming time

Tags: , ,

On rain and courage

1 Aug

I love the rain. I love the change it brings to Sydney.

I love how it matches my mood when I am sad. I love how it makes me smile when I am happy.

I dream of puddles I can jump in. Rivers I can kayak. (Or, at least, rivers my friends can kayak)

I actually stopped hanging my clothes out to dry because it made me stress out whenever it rained.

And who wants to stress out over the rain?

It’s the rainy season in the Philippines.

And I’m working with our microfinance partner following around their loan officers on their weekly meetings. Groups of 10 – 20 women meet each week to access basic banking services. And a loan officer visits three of these each day.

We wait for the torrential rain to stop so we can travel to the next centre. We are late, the women are waiting.

One women is soaked. She had to cross a river to get to the meeting. Another is ashamed to let me use her bathroom because the floor is soaked in mud from the rain. Some of their businesses have failed – the rain destroys the vegetables that they grow to sell and they cannot grow rice.

The noise from the rain hitting the tin roof is deafening – we have to wait for it stop to be able to speak. It is impossible to keep the rain out, everything gets wet. “This is our life” they say.

And I think of Sold by Patricia McCormick and how it would be for those that don’t have a tin roof in this rain. And actually, I see them. As we move, from centre to centre.

These women – they keep telling me I must be so brave – to travel around all on my own.

I don’t say anything.

I think about the size of their loans compared to their income. I think about how I’ve never had to take out a loan in my life.

I think about how they must cross a river without a bridge to access savings facilities and insurance. I think about how I do that at home, in bed, on the net, while eating pancakes.

I think about them desperately trying to keep the rain out. And the warm shower and dry bathroom that will be waiting for me at the end of the day.

And all I can think is that these women are some of the bravest people I know.

Tags: , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

%d bloggers like this: