Cambodian children

It took me some time to write again. After leaving Laos, I lived in my memories and refused to see the reality. But the reality started to knock on my door so intensively, that here I am in Cambodia.
It has been a couple of days that I have been volunteering in one orphanage. To tell the truth, I lost my battle.
Yes, I lost it in three days. Not more, not less.

There I felt like one of many. Without a face. Without a colour. Like a clear ghost which appears and disappears without being noticed.

And there I was just one of many who comes and leaves. The Zoo. Accommodated not with tigers, not with lions. No elephants or monkeys. Only people. Though kept not in cages, but in their destiny.

And when you ask their names, these little prisoners of destiny do not look at you while answering. They know it very well - in a week or two this ghost will be gone.

So here I am. I lost my battle and I leave.

With a feeling of quilt for taking part in the Zoo's creation.

Laos PDR or Please don't rush

When one crosses Laos border, he or she can see a big sign welcoming to Laos People Democratic Republic.
At the same moment one enters Laos time zone, where 5 minutes extends to a half an hour. Where today is tomorrow and tomorrow might not come as planned. Actually there is no plan for tomorrow. I wonder why they even keep the word for it?

Your bus never leaves on time or it might not leave at all. No complain is worth to make. There is no time here.

In this timeless zone you work every day building a house, planting rice, gardening or running a restaurant.  Since you can remember yourself. And you sing while working. Dirty hands and clear mind. Without any thoughts to become an officer or to work in the parliament. Or in an embassy in Jamaica.

Well, my Friend, you are lucky to be born and raised in Laos, where ones mental health and inner happiness is more important than any education or a career.

No need to drive the newest Mercedes. Or to become a successful businessman first year after your graduation. Or to go to Jamaica.

The place where you are is the best place. Because you are there.

And remember, the cure for unhappiness is happiness whatever the others might say.

In the Jungle?

Before  I entered Laos, I had a very different picture of this country in my head.
Undiscovered. Wast and secret. Jungle. Full of dangers and warm people. Who are still pure and smiling.
And yes, my Friend, they do smile every time they overcharge me at the market.

I do smile as well. Every time I realize how wrong my picture was.
I expected to be one of the first explorers in this secret jungle. Like a pioneer. Or a monk in a pagan country.
I will be honest, I felt challenged by the Mother Nature. By jungle. Wild animals. Snakes and tigers. Indeed, very dramatic.

However, it feels slightly different when I sit in the restaurant in a Lao town surrounded by hundred of teenagers prepared to take the same challenge. Same motivated and brave. Just a bit more relaxed... with a bottle of beer. Or two.

And then I start thinking: are we all pioneers or Laos is not a jungle any longer?

I would like to believe this is the first case (the West is taking the challenge), but most likely I am wrong...

Why are you so smart and beautiful?

Sometimes you do not realise how different people can be. Different faces, hair and skin. Different colour. They speak different languages and do not understand each other. They smile different. They use other movements to brush their teeth. Or they do not brush them.

It is amazing how these differences make people act.

I was told, my Friend, that I am White People.
I was told that white people are smart.

When we visited a school in the north of Thailand, the first question these children asked me was:

Why are you so beautiful and smart?

And I, my Friend, could not answer.

Firstly, the colour of my skin does not have any correlation with my beauty or cleverness, I believe. And I hope. Otherwise I was one of the "lucky" to be born where I was born.
Secondly, how do you know? I did not have any T-shirt saying "I am smart and beautiful". I did not solve any math case in front of them. Not physics or chemistry either. Yes, I wear glasses, but just because I can see very bad. Not an advantage at all, when you think about it.

All I could answer to their question was that I am neither smart or beautiful. I could not say more. My cleverness probably left me for a short holiday, only beauty stayed. Beautiful, but stupid - very stereotypical girl, right?

But if you ask me this question again, now I know what to answer.

I am exactly the same as you are. Not worse, not better. I sweat when it is hot and I freeze when it is cold. I have two hands, two legs, hair on my head despite they are wavy.

The Sound and Smell of Blue

this island made me lose my identity. I cannot tell exactly what it was, but most probably the combination of blue deep water, clouds reaching mountains and muezzins from the nearby mosques.

or maybe I was simply not careful enough and lost it last night watching crabs in the beach.

could be soya as well... now when I get it with every meal... Did you know, that soya makes your brain function very slow? Slower than a snail can move. And at some stage it gets so slow, that it cannot become slower. Then all the aliens point at you and give you hundreds of new names. Mostly animal names.
And then you are not able to separate between your left and right hand, but you are able to lose your identity. Without any difficulties, just with some black spots in your memory.

This is why every time I eat soya, I always think - which hand is the spoon in - left or right?

Does not sound like me?

You are right, my Friend, it was not a soya bean what took my identity away.
I gave it away.
Actually I took a big scissors and cut it off. All my identity, all my hair.
It was long and wavy. Yes, my Friend, it was.

And if you ask me why, I can answer - I do not need it here.
The sound and smell of blue make me feel balanced.

And balanced, my Friend, means when you can sit under a palm tree whole day with that smell of blue and breath. Without any feeling of guilt. Or of time.
Without any identity.

7 wonders

today I promised myself not to be surprised. And partly I managed to do this. 

My mouth does not become an "0" anymore when I get my food served on a banana leaf. One Indian guy told me, it gives food more passion.

Oh yes, my Friend, I eat here with passion. 

I am not surprised anymore that Christmas here is not not white and that Santa walks in shorts.

My friend, I even got used to the fact that Rain has a watch here and comes every day very punctual between 2 and 3 pm.

But I cannot hide my excitement when people treat me as a wonder. I just cannot accept that. I was told at school, that there are 7 wonders of the world:  

1. great pyramid of Giza

2. hanging gardens of Babylon

3. statue of Zeus at Olympia

4. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

5. Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

6. Collossus of Rhodes

7. Lighthouse of Alexandria

I tell you, my history teacher never mentioned that a human being is one of them. Maybe our books were simply too old.

I will be honest with you and tell you a secret - I never trusted these books. These black letters' misery was never my thing, I prefer pictures. 

And here I picture everything. Mostly faces. And later I read them before I feel asleep. 

They talk happiness to me. They talk trust. And from the corners of their smiling lips you can tell that it is real.

You are a wonder. 

They catch you as a wonder and do not want to let you go. And this, my Friend, keeps me surprised. Every breath I take, I cannot fight it.

I feel a wonder like everyone else here.

Definitely will make some phone calls to my history teacher. 

Someone has to rewrite the history of 7 wonders.

to My Old Friend

I think we are doing it. I am not sure how. Don’t know for what money. Did not think when we stop. But we are doing this and this time for real. 

 

So far I can remember, this was already plan C. Our careless study period when you are not obliged to think about your further future is gone. The fourth quarter of this sun flowered period already brought many windy thoughts. What to become after? And my Old Friend, it was not easy. It is never easy when some old woman – a tradition - with a cracked stick in her hand and a hooked from all these years back tells you to think rationally and become someone. I tell you, it is not easy when some crazy bubbles in your stomach which finally get to your brain tells you, no, wait, even screams to you – go and get what you want.

No, these bubbles do not get to your brain, or this is what this old woman would say. Which brain? – She would first question. 

 

Long discussion between the old woman and these crazy bubbles ended up in a plan C. If I remember correct, plans A and B were to become someone. 

 

Yes, my Old Friend, two freshly baked no-ones are going to get what they want. Adventure. Challenge. Experience. Inspiration. Answers. Lesson. Despair and further impatience. You say that is not much? This was what the karate old woman (who was fought by the crazy bubbles) told me. She is dead now. Be careful with us. We eat a lot of garlic. I mean it.

All our destinations will be planed there, next to a cup of depth breath or maybe under a tropical shower. When you are no-one, you are not allowed to plan in advance. Rules are rules. I know all the rules only they do not know me. 

 

Well, my Old Friend, you know me too well. I can tell you that actually the old women before her death made us an exception from the rules. There is a little plan – first Malaysia. All tanks filled with sun and coconut milk. No less, no more. 

 

I promise to you, I will walk slowly. I will drink every drop of sun. When it feels too much, I will sink in the ocean. Deep in blue sea, that my ears get full of water and I could hear these crazy bubbles in my brain screaming. Get what you want! Get what you want! Get what you want!

And I will get it. I tell you my Old Friend, I will get a lot of it. That I can send you a fine piece of it every time. How? Leave it to me, I’ll find the way. 

 

I am pure in my thoughts. We are doing it.