a post about grief and gratitude

It's a Tuesday. I am heartbroken today, so I'm doing what I've learned to do: recenter myself. I've learned one way I can do this by giving myself the time and space to write.

There's a lot that has made me feel like a table with one short, wobbly leg. I could list it all, but really, the point is not to ruminate on what is hurting and devastating. That will be there. I am holding that grief, of its many forms, and I am feeling my capacity to be with it and bear witness to it. Which brings me back to this point and intention around gratitude:

Paradoxically, I feel such abundance for my capacity to hold deep sadness and grief. That I can rock it, hold it, be with it. That is an amazing thing that makes me feel tremendously strong and resilient.

I went to Linnea's yoga class on Saturday morning ...and Sunday evening. On Saturday morning, we were bears and a host of other creatures. On Sunday, moving into frog-form at her direction, I decided to attempt to retain the other forms we embodied: from frogs, to sandwiches, to flying squirrels, and others... She creates a space for play and discovery and presence.

As we moved out of one seated pose, with our legs on the floor in front of us, she had us lean forward, taking both hands to walk them down our legs toward our feet, squeezing and holding the flesh of our quadriceps, knees, shins, and ankles along the way. Then, when we we were leaning forward, holding our ankles with our fingertips, she asked us to walk our hands back up, squeezing and touching our legs along the way, saying, "Sometimes I forget I can give *myself* a massage..."

I was surprised and struck by that, as squeezing and lovingly touching my own flesh felt good. It felt like care and nurturing and comfort, at my disposal at any moment.

So maybe today's gratitude is about self-love and care. The commitment to hold and love and honor myself as gently and fully as I can.

Back in the Saddle

It's been more than three years since I've posted on this blog. I'm not even sure what brought me back to it this evening, but it was so fun to look back at my posts from Mongolia in 2009. I loved watching the video of Ena and me, sitting in her car, stopped at a green traffic light in UB. It was my laughter in the video - and all my posts - that made me feel nostalgia for being in some place so different from home. The randomness of seeing the world differently and discovering it with new eyes.

I'm sitting on my couch in Denver. It snowed last night - on the 10th of May. I'm headed back to Brazil in less than one month, and I'm also craving more of a change, more discovery, more of the laughter that comes from being somewhere new, where not everything makes sense.

But I've also been thinking about that tension between the never-ending search and with roots. Or, to say the same thing, the opposite way: staying put vs. continuing to explore. Both have virtue. I'm not sure which is right for me. I don't want nor need to intellectualize it. But it's there.

I'm thinking about writing again. Really starting to write. I have a fuzzy idea of a project in mind - a book that would be about some of these questions that I don't have the answers to. And what would be fun for me would be to focus on answering those questions - not in some definitive way, but to understand, get a peek into how various characters - people I encounter who would be so kind to open their worlds up to me - how they live those questions to answers.

I write it now, and it sounds flat. But I think about that short video of inspiration that went around on FB from Ira Glass, which essentially said: we have to suck before we get better.

I like the idea of being me. I like this idea more and more. I know that writing takes work and discipline - I probably don't really know it - but I also know that I like the idea of becoming clearer on the page. Writing what I see; losing the filters, bit by bit. Developing that voice and nourishing myself in the act of connecting to it more and more. It's a selfish act of pleasure; ironically so, because sometimes it can be so hard.

Why does it work that way? 

African Rains

listening to the cure. waiting for my camera battery to charge just a little more. the rains came this morning. it's been days of Hot, perhaps pregnant hot.. my forehead is wet all day long and at night too; at the heat of the day, i feel drips of sweat running down my legs. i don't bother wearing antiperspirant; i just drink litres and litres of water instead.

so the rain came this morning. it was only for 30 minutes, but it brought a breeze that was cool. i tried to remember if i've felt the sensation reminiscent of 'cold' since i arrived here.

kris, the english woman i've stayed with for the past 3 nights, said that african rain always has the smell of spice to it.

i have to go. i'm headed up to meet Father Lazarus and his daughter, Hilya, who work with HIV positive home-bound patients. they get bikes donated from Bicycles for Humanity - the bikes come from Canada and the U.S. to BEN Namibia (which stands for Bicycle Empowerment Network), and then Father Lazarus and others sell the bikes or donate them to the volunteers to who visit their sick patients in their homes.

tomorrow i head back to Rundu. i'll be in Kerri's village for the weekend - one of her learners has a 'traditional village life' tour for us - we will pound the grain, mapongu, to prepare it for cooking, visit an ancestors' tree (more to come on that later), and generally kick it, namibian style.

i'm not sure what i'm doing next week; i think i'm visiting another Peace Corps volunteer's homestead and school. i'm trying to visit a refugee camp, Osire, where about 7,000 Angolan refugee are staying... but i think i'll be very lucky if they grant me permission to enter...

anyway, love you all. let me know if you want to meet me in europe oct. 12-28 ;)

grasping for here

it's hot. this morning we went swimming in the river, beside women bathing and doing their laundry. we made sure there weren't any crocodiles before stepping in.

i'm sunburned now. the fan's on. it's after 5:00, and all we did today was eat toast, drink tea, take some photos, swim in the river, walk to the bike shop, walk to lunch, come back to sarah's place.

tomorrow we're headed back to rundu, kerri's town. and then i'm off for a very cool development: i'm going to be visiting some Bicycles for Humanity sites (4 or 5 of them, i think) and taking pictures for a book. the backstory: Giselle, a brazilian journalist, is a friend of a Peace Corp volunteer here. she's been in namibia for the past 5 weeks, interviewing and taking pictures for a 'coffee table book' on the organization Bicycles for Humanity. the organization helps Namibian communities - it trains women in bike maintenance and repair; donates the bikes to nurses, who otherwise have to walk to their home-bound, HIV-positive clients houses. Giselle has some amazing stories about the ways people have become empowered through this project - a woman who never raised a dime for herself who is now a bike race champion; a disabled man is now able to support not only himself, but his family
as well...

after one month of interviews and picture-taking, and just a week before her flight home to Barcelona, Giselle's camera was stolen. so i'm going to go back to the people she met with, talk with them, hear their stories, take their pictures, and then have my photos published in their book. i leave on sunday, will come back to rundu on thursday.

i only have two more weeks here...

i was thinking about what i've seen, and how unsurprising it's all felt. women walk with buckets of water balanced on their heads. they carry babies on their backs, with bright, patterned fabric. they bathe at the riverside. in the car, we pass grass huts. everywhere we go, kids run up to me - a white woman with a camera around my neck, asking for me to take their picture. when we visit a school, they swarm me, fascinated with my white skin. people sit. the sun is red in the morning and evening.

in some strange way, i feel as if most everything i've seen, i've already seen, in a picture... from someone else's trip, from national geographic... it's all so different from life in denver, and yet it's not a surprise; it doesn't feel out of the ordinary because it's how i've always seen the 'landscape of africa'. i think i expected to find surprises - to arrive here, and see that it's different than what i had in my mind. but nope. the only surprise is that discomfort i feel from the interest people have in me because of my skin, race, and nationality. or what i don't understand about those dynamics here. that's to sort out later, i guess.

it's hit that beautiful moment of the evening. outside, someone's practicing the drums. i'm listening to Cat Power on iTunes. in a little while, we're going to cook curry and drink Windhoek Lager. i feel like i'm just touching this place, but don't understand it at all.

first southern african days

it's morning here. tuesday, i keep reminding myself, but the name of the day of the week doesn't really stick. i say it, and moments later, i have to think hard to remember again. is it sunday or saturday? those also don't really seem to 'apply' to the mode i'm on.

okay. so some of you are working right now. or, you're sleeping, i think, but will soon wake up to tuesday morning. i've been here in southern africa for 5-6 days now. arrived in namibia's capital city, windhoek, where kerri met me inside the airport - while i stood in line to get my entry stamp. outside on the road we put our packs on our backs, walked out into the afternoon sun -- i literally saw only the airport and car rental tents - not another building in sight. we walked on the left side of the road, stuck out our hands, and thus started our journey to-and-through botswana by hitch-hike, or 'hiking' as it's referred to here (it's common mode of travel in the region; we only have one more day of it, so worry not for my safety). that first afternoon, we got a lift from one africaaner (white people whose ancestors settled on the continent generations ago), caught a lift from Ishmael, then another from another couple, and arrived at the grocery of the home of another peace corps volunteer...

in the morning we sat in a 16-wheel bus with Andre, a man from Durbin, South Africa. he's from the Zulu tribe, was making the trip from northern namibia down to johannesburg... he played us traditional zulu music and, upon hearing about my brother's musical background, pulled out his favorite south african jazz... but mostly, for the 3 or 4 hours in his truck, we watched the road, talked a little about life, and what occupies his mind while he's on the road. while we drove between the namibian and botswanan border, he pointed out a group of army-green tents - refugees from DRC - living between two countries. i asked him what they were waiting for - were they waiting to enter namibia, to enter botswana? another place? andre said - they're waiting for peace to come to their home, and then they'll be going back.

mostly, what i've felt is how easy it is to be here compared to my recent travels to mongolia and china. i walk with my camera around my neck, kerri sticks her hand out to catch a lift with any passerby -and off we go, for another conversation, another entry into another tribe... i meet the dichotomy of being invited to feel safe, hop in any car, with the mental awareness (though w few visual indicators) that there's much more below the surface. visually, i'm in a place of peace. it's just the stories, that i hear bit by bit, that speak to a harder life.

we spent yesterday and the day before on the river. our guide, KT, 'pulled' us along in a mokorro. we were about 500 yards from an elephant. a praying mantis landed on my foot, a lime-green frog on my thigh. we were pulled along the reeds, in a flat, so flat, plain covered by water. with a long stick, he pulled his way 12 km to our camp spot. in the evening, we walked out to see wildbeast; in the morning, on a 4 hour walk, we saw first a herd of zebras - in the red of the african early morning sun - and then later as we walked, spotted a family of giraffe, zebra hanging out among em. they looked at us, ate, at each other, walked a bit, ate, looked around again.

today we're taking a plane ride over the delta. tomorrow we're headed up to kasane - and chobe national park.. on saturday (in however many days) we'll be in a village in namibia, spending time in a school - talking about gender equality, as part of an AIDS prevention training.

on sunday night, when our guide, KT, lit our fire (in about 20 seconds - dry wood and elephant dung), kerri and he exchanged stories about witch doctors - what they do, curses they've cast, people they've saved...

it's nice being w kerri. i'm so accustomed to being on 'high-alert' when i travel - because 1) mongolians warned me to be and 2) because my gut instincts don't apply when i'm not in my home - so i go on a higher mode of awareness just to assure my safety. but kerri has lived in the region for almost 3 years -so she knows what's safe, what's a risk... and putting our hand out and getting into the car w 2 botswanan men and a woman or a south african truck driver (sorry mom and dad) is only the start of another conversation, laughter, and exchange.

--
We all seek education because it grants us two gifts: access and realization. Just like a map, education’s first power is its ability to expose people to possibility; its second is its ability to enable people to arrive at their goals.

back

I probably shouldn't be writing right now; it's 2:11pm in the afternoon in Mongolia (15 hours ahead of Denver)... and here I am, back in Colorado. I've been back for almost two days.

I've tried to be outside as much as possible. I'm trying to get in rhythm with the sun, so that it doesn't take so long to feel 'normal' again...

on the plane, I met a Chinese-born man who's become a citizen of the UK. We talked about the market crash, and then he said: "Americans will hopefully learn a thing or two from this. In China, my parents' and everyone in their generation have spent their lives saving 50% of their income."

50%. That's an amazing number. I'm going to try to save 50% of my income from this week and feel how good that feels.

My flight was delayed. I spent an extra day in Mongolia, and then an extra one in Beijing. I realized that I know Beijing better than I know San Francisco. I took a cab from my hotel to the outermost point of the city subway; got lost for about three stops, but then got oriented and walked myself to the best street vendor in all the city (before then visiting a wonderful noodle shop, where a huge bowl of fresh, delicious noodles cost about $1.20.

I slept on the plane.

And now I'm home, listening to the washing machine begin to clean away the smell of coal that lingers...

4-hour concert, hike to a hilltop, lama fist fight, chopin ballet, and an indian dinner

It was a full weekend:

1. bought a snickers bar at a Buddhist Education Center
2. attended a 4-hour concert on Friday night, complete with Mongolian pop singers, Italian opera, Mongolia soldiers' choir, throat singers, and Mongolian traditional dancers
3. turned down offers of paper cups filled with pickle juice; managed three (small) bites of pig tongue on bread before admitting defeat
4. cheered for the MRPAM staff soccer team on powdery, powdery snow
5. hiked to the near-top of Nukht while learning about the advantages of the socialist system
6. learned how to count to three in Mongolian -- during the most intense tug-a-war tournament I will likely ever witness in all my days
7. sang along to 2Pac in the car ride home
8. slept 12 hours
9. walked in morning light up to Gandan Monastery to listen to the lamas chanting. witnessed a group of 8 to 10 year old boys in a punching/kicking fight, which wouldn't have been that remarkable --- except they were dressed in their lama robes just outside the monastery
10. bought a kilo of frozen chicken legs and a half kilo of yellow and red bell peppers
11. planned tomorrow's class
    
12. met up w Mandah, Javkhaa, and Bayasaa to tour the Mongolian Natural History Museum. Saw the space suit of Mongolia's first astronaut (who's now serving in Parliament) and a collection of preserved beetles
13. walked across Sukhbatar Square for the national Mongolian ballet company's Chopin performance... sat between a Mongolian student and a Nepali man who's working on coordinating a national movement for grassroots small-scale miner advocates
14. ate saag paneer and naan bread while talking about Nepali history and Mongolian geology
15. walked home underneath a nearly-full moon, crossing the street 3 times and not getting hit once