Saigon to Superior

A Flying Fortress

2010-07-31T17:12:00.010-05:00

So my buddy Gregg and I are in the Target parking lot when a 90 year old guy with a B-17 Flying Fortress cap walks over and says “Hey guys, any chance you could drive me to that liquor store over there?” 46 missions over Europe, one shoot down in Yugoslavia, and several angry Italian mothers later, we share with him the fact that we both went to OSU. "Ohio State?! When I played for the Badgers one of those sons o bitches tackled me so hard I was knocked out for two weeks!" This inspired a return ride offer post spirits purchase. "Thanks! I don't even drink. Give it away as gifts." Cruising back, he commented on the pretty girls in their summer wear. Gregg's "you been around the block once or twice haven't ya?" was greeted with a smile, a wink, and a "twice."

Himalayan Headwaters

2010-01-31T18:18:00.082-06:00

Journal by Ross Freshwater
Photos by Melissa Gibson and Andrzej Plonka

Bachna! That’s the Hindi word for the term “watch out,” the well-chosen name for our buddy Andrzej’s mountain wonder dog. This handsome mutt had trotted out of the Himalayan foothills about a year back, to adopt our friend just as he was settling into his new job as a teacher at an international boarding school in Mussourri, India. Bachna has since grown from a small pup to precocious teenager, a muscle bound ball of mischief that roams the switchback trails of this timber thick town in search of new friends and escapades. Monkeys mumbling and bushes bustling?.. Best stake your feet for the canine missile intent on bowling over its human mark. You.

The last time we’d visited India, Melissa and I were students on scholarship, bound to a tight itinerary with schedule-packed days. We moved much and learned a ton, as our wizened professor, Sally, led us on a summer circling of the subcontinent. This time we were travelling to a very different tune, on break this time from school, and intent on an Indian visit as holiday.

Lucky for us, Andrzej’s school was also out of session, allowing him to treat us, his sister, and a couple other American friends, to fun mini-trips from his mountain home to famous Indian spots on the plains below. Trendy Delhi, the Indo-Pak Border, the Golden Temple—these were just a few highlights of our first two days in the country before our first drive up the G-Force inducing road that leads to Andrzej’s cliff-top apartment 6,000 feet above the valley floor.

From Andrzej's perch it seems one can see halfway across India, that, at this time of year, often sits beneath a layer of thick fog and another layer of puffy clouds far below. Who knew that the land of sun drenched sweat could get so wintry cold? Yahoo weather had forewarned us, I guess, but the chilly temperatures in the land of leopards and sugarcane just felt out of place. Which is why it was so nice to have a friend’s mountain hamlet as a respite, well removed from winter’s blanket near the rays of the blazing sun.

By day in Mussouri we’d trek up and down it’s forested switch back trails, alternating between thick patches of trees and cliff clinging city streets in search of the perfect vista. Just a short climb behind Andrzej’s place puts us within view of the Himalayas, peaks rising from a jagged razor line that morphed from white, to orange, to pink in the rotating sun.

Warmth would retreat with dusk and the day’s rays would be replaced with fuel for the wood stove. Bachna, intent on extended adventures, would be reigned indoors for fear of wakening leopards. Nights would rotate between Chinese food delivery for an evening of Bollywood rentals and treks to the town tavern for Fosters lagers and the reverb loving one-man band. Three days of mountain air and we were once again ready for the plains below.

Destination: Hardwar, where the Ganges spills from the Himalayas along with the Hindu faith. It is here that millions of followers travel each year, intent on coming into contact with the waters that scripture says pour forth from the Hindu gods. Freshly arrived from alpine glaciers, its waters in this holy town are icy green, deep, and ripping with curve sweeping currents that zoom like a power washer over the red marbled staircases that form its banks. For miles the faithful congregate, individuals and small groups grabbing hold of thick chains as they descend down the steps into the frigid waters below. For some, an ankle bath and a few droplets over the head are sufficient for a baptism, while others in swim trunks or saris plop backwards for a quick body-clenching plunge. The air is cold. The water is freezing. On any given day a few folks can be lost, the water’s shock releasing their hands from the chains that keep them tethered to this world. Yet the procession continues, as folks from all walks of life descend down the river’s steps to immerse themselves in the divine.

The day we arrived was four days short of Jupiter’s alignment with the Ganges, an every-twelve year occurrence that brings 12 million pilgrims to congregate along the river’s shores. For miles around canvas tent cities stretched, just a few guests checked in, with Red Cross buses speckled in anticipation of the impending throng. But the riverbanks were not so sparse, with hundreds of worshippers taking their place on the steps to participate in the sunset Puja ceremonies that were about to commence. As a faint sun descended in a small winter orb, instruments and priests moved forth, lighting fires atop the steps. Indians, in a gesture to remember family members since passed, approached the river with lit candles in hand, set atop little metallic boats that were placed gingerly atop the passing current. I looked over my shoulder and couldn’t help but notice the scores of soldiers that had assumed alert positions at the top of the stairs, a steady reminder of the tenuous state of terrorism in our world today. But as I turned again forward, as is so often the case in India, we were accepted not as spectators but participants, and offered parcels by the candle salesgirl in our midst.

Exiting the crowded yet serene scene on the river, our group again found itself in the beeping, buzzing mayhem that is India’s urban streets, and made a b-line for a restaurant then our hotel. Because the Ganges is a holy place, when it comes to alcohol, most of the cities along its banks are dry. We settled into our room for an evening of Bananas, a sort of speed scrabble game that can be easily tucked into a travel bag. I offered sips of Irish whiskey from a tin flask to counter the chilly wind blowing in through closed window frames. A first timer to the country asked for a second, an appreciative nod reminding me how overwhelming India can be for a newbie.

On to Rishikesh—the upriver hippie hamlet a few miles beyond. Calling it hippie probably does it an injustice, as this mellow town is ground zero for something much older and deeper that what the Beatles partly bottled and passed onto Woodstock in a watered down form. It is here that yoga ashrams speckle the landscape amidst waterside temples, funky vegetarian cafes, and new age CD shops. And sure enough, there are plenty of white hippies, dressed in white robes that look a bit like togas, save for The Gypsy, who rides her sputtering motorcycle clad in black jacket and wild blonde hair. And also the Spaniard, at the foot of a bridge, guitar and pipes delivering a playful song about a bag of onions with a Latin bravado that kindled in us warm thoughts of our side of the world.

The ashram where the Beatles holed up - now a grown over jungle full of teenage vice

Zoom out from the familiar for a minute, however, and it is then that you see what George Harrison likely set his eyes on in an age when the world wasn’t so flat. Sadus dressed in saffron robes are all around, long beards and bare shoulder the marks of devout folks who have cast away worldly possessions in favor of movement and reflection. And monkeys, and dogs, and cows, that take in the scene as they please, at ease as fellow citizens. On the river’s edge, one Brahman girl kneels in black robe amongst rows of Brahman boys in red and orange, all gathered round a large fire on a temple platform to perform the Puja that will mark the passing of another day.

And among these folks are the bridge makers—like Mr. Ajay, who wears colorful outfits so half-hazardly matched they’d make the most vibrant Grateful Dead fan envious, while pedaling used camping supplies from beneath his ever-present blue bike helmet, in a sidewalk shop aglow with eclectic poetry.

And Ganesh, the unassuming Brahman engineer, who kindly shared with me the attributes of the Hindu god, Shiva, as the two of us took in the glistening Ganges from a rare bend not lined with marble stairs but granite boulders and sand. “My name is Ganesh – different from the God, Ganesh.” My inquisitive, “But were on the banks of the Ganga. How can I be so sure?” response met with a chuckle, a hearty slap on the back and a final, “Make sure if you go into the Ganges, you do it with all your heart.”

And the stately woman who grabbed Melissa’s hand after she’d offered her seat on the stairs at an evening Puja, insisting that she light a candle with her and help set it afloat in the river. She is a relative of the finance minister I am told, by the one male among this group of smiling women. A very audible “My son is a handsome and single Bollywood director, you really should come for a visit,” making it clear I better behave.

The next day I get a head start on our group so I can have a moment to perhaps take a dip in the Ganges. I settle for a knee-deep entry and a few handfuls of chilly water over the head. Why not dive in? Hmmm… The current is ripping? The faint chance of disease hides like The Thing in some ice bound form? The cold?.. As a descendant of Lake Superior stock I’m on the record to say not that. It was likely the faux sadu, a textbook resemblance to the holy men in scraggly beard and saffron robe, who’d been bumping into me for days asking for donations, then showering me with “you are not nice!” following my anticipated denials. I’d found a pocket of warm sand between two boulders on the shore when he appeared on the horizon yet again. Jeez. Probably not the best time to part with pants to take a dip. But an excellent opportunity to roll up the old trousers and be reawakened by Mother Nature’s icy waters on legs and scalp.

He looks like wisdom himself doesn't he? He's actually studying the utility worker who scampered up a pole to fix a power outage - a distraction from following us about and calling us not nice for denying his demands for a donation.

Link to Melissa's Slideshow
http://dispatchesfromdairyland.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/beauty-in-the-details/

Link to Plonka's Blog
http://aminindia.blogspot.com/

Having lost my camera on this trip I owe you two many thanks!

The Sikhs

2010-01-23T00:39:00.010-06:00

Many Americans probably know the Sikhs as those hardworking and amiable folks who wear turbans and often operate the convenience store or Indian restaurant in their local neighborhood. This became the case in my own childhood community when a pair of Sikh brothers took over the Redwood Carryout—the source of the best candy aisle for ten blocks—that also happened to sit in one of the rougher parts of Kennedy Heights in Cincinnati. The corner outside the Redwood was notorious for an array of urban blight, which often spilled into ugly violence before the store’s doors. I remember well the day those brothers purchased the Redwood. My dad proclaimed, “Those guys are the warriors of India! Let’s just see who dares to cause a raucous around that place now.”

In my father’s imagination, I think he saw these guys standing stoically with arms crossed behind the register, an elegant sword tucked in a handsome robe that administered justice by its simple presence. Indeed, I don’t remember anything big going down while they ran the Redwood, so perhaps tucked in my dad’s perceptions of these Sikhs were a few elements of truth. After all, this was the 1980s, in a part of the neighborhood with a strong dose of Black/White tension. Perhaps these guys played the warrior card as the best business model for that time and place.

As an adult, I have since been to India twice. Each time, I have often travelled with a Sikh driver and frequented a Sikh owned store. Their English is often quite strong and their knowledge of a city and region robust. Also, in a country where entrenched castes often push service providers into a deferential demeanor that can be quite unsettling to an American’s more egalitarian tastes, the Sikhs’ aura stands out as proud, down to earth, and solidly middle class. More than once I’ve left my bags in the care of a Sikh driver to venture into a city or activity. Every time I’ve returned to find them alertly sitting by my things, or they have found me, worried that I might have lost my way in a strange land.

During our second trip to India this past month we travelled to two places where the Sikh’s graciously invited us to get to know their community a bit more—Amritsar, home of the Golden Temple, and Mussourie, home of a small New Year’s mountainside street party that we happened to stumble upon in the middle of the night.

Following a ridiculously fun day watching the daily closing ceremonies at the Indo-Pak border, our small group of American travelers spent the hour car ride back to Amritsar jubilantly shouting out the cheers we’d learned while watching two armies peacock before the border’s gates. After this spectacle and a dinner at a restaurant in the midst of India’s urban chaos, our entrance into the Golden Temple complex ushered us into a completely different realm. Gone was the cacophony of machines, people, and animal folk that seem to dance about one another on every foot of flat urban space, among streets and buildings that don a perpetual coat of dust and wear from the developing economy upon and within.

Instead we found ourselves in a serene quarter. No hawkers, no beggars, no motors. Just well paved and marbled space, with small groups of good-natured folks gliding about in appreciation or anticipation of a special place. The Golden Temple allows no commerce, save for a small convenience stand in a recessed nook. Everything else is free. A sit down restaurant, sleeping spaces, and sparkling bathrooms are available to any visitor free of charge, housed in handsome white marbled halls that line the large rectangular pool in which sits the Golden Temple itself.

It was well past dark when we passed through the towering arch that opens to the edge of the pool, the water in a shallow footwash a warm welcome to bare feet on a cold winter eve. The placid water was the color of the black air, the meeting of the two like mirror images, one glossy, one matte. The world above shimmered back from the world below, clean marble lines in four directions framing the splendor of the gleaming Golden Temple before us. A three story rectangular box with ornate dome and corner towers, it is literally wrapped in gold, karats afire from lights placed discreetly in the darkness.

Yet absent was a stoic air of religious power or wealth. As my senses came in sync with the scene before me, I became aware of peoples’ movements around us. Some made a deep bow on their knees toward the temple once they passed through the arch. Some stood in peaceful reflection of the beauty before them. Groups of family members or friends slowly glided about sharing quiet words and smiles. Each face that we passed gave a warm nod in welcome. As we joined a steadily moving line of pilgrims across the bridge to the temple itself, an efficient and respectful frisk by a guard in royal blue turban and orange robe ended with a nod that made it clear we were welcome inside the temple itself.

Outside a group of young men stood arm in arm heartily singing an impromptu song. We followed the line of pilgrims around the exterior wall until we came to an open doorway. Inside there was an elegant but simple room, at the center of which sat a temple keeper seated before an alter with rounded edges covered in rich blue and gold cloth, beneath an ornate, matching square cloth canopy, the keeper brushing small clouds of incense into the air with a straw broom. Seated cross-legged on the floor just beyond the canopy was a ring of men sitting cross-legged, I’m guessing senior officers of the Sikh faith. Beyond them, men and women were kneeling on the room’s elegant carpet, bowing slowly forward in prayer. There was an air of warm inclusion and the kind of happiness that is the simple sharing of a special place.

I’m embarrassed to say I knew next to nothing about the Sikh faith prior to my visit to its holiest center. I’d heard from various folks that it had sprouted during Islam’s move into India, as the Mughal armies pushed their empire into the subcontinent. I’d been told that it was a fusion of the Muslim and Hindu faiths—a new warrior class to answer the thirsty invaders coming from the Middle East. The long spears of the temple guards and the two swords that form the base of the faith’s crest indeed reflected these stories of military purpose. It was high time I check out Wikipedia to gain some knowledge from a more detailed and slightly more reputable source. What I learned:

Sikhism traces its roots to a Guru named Nanak Gev who lived in the 15th Century. Sikhs believe in one god who does not reflect the image of man but rather the universe. Guru Nanak summed up the Sikh lifestyle with three requirements: meditate on the holy name, work diligently and honestly, and share one's fruits. The teachings of the faith proclaim the equality of all humans and reject discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, and gender. There is no heaven and hell, rather reincarnation until one achieves a union with god. The five sins of ego, anger, greed, attachment, and lust are the big hurdles to this achievement. Sikhism rejects the idea of living life as an ascetic, and instead stresses the need to live life as a householder. The Sanskrit root of the name Sikh means “learner.”

Much of what Wiki provides on Sikhism is likely echoed in bits the website houses on the world’s other great religions. Regardless of similarities or differences, the experience of everyone in our group at the Golden Temple made one thing very clear: Sikhs are a very welcoming and inclusive group of people, that cultivate a center of worship that is steeped in the appreciation and joy of shared community. My visit to the Golden Temple is the high point of two trips to the subcontinent.

But official places of worship are but one window into a people’s culture—a broad and important one to say the least, yet an incomplete view of a larger portrait. Another window would come about two weeks after our pilgrimage to the Golden Temple on the last night of our trip, in the form of our taxicab’s windshield as we rounded the bend of a windy Himalayan foothill road on our way home from the pub. There before us on the shoulder was a huge bonfire, a band of drummers, and a small crowd of dancing Sikhs. I cast a surprised look at our turbaned driver and he responded, “Sikh New Year! Would you like to stop?”

Elated, I jumped from his minivan and whipped out my camera to get some video footage of the scene. Within seconds a jubilant hand grabbed a hold of my arm. An acquaintance from a train ride the week prior smiled and said, “Come on! You should dance.” Into the circle of revelers we went. A guy jumped in front of me with arms raised to the beat, a playfully intense challenge to keep up with his moves. The Kennedy Heights memories of my urban youth kicked in – in a way they haven’t in a long time. I kept up and then some, to the delight of a bunch of Indians who I’m betting rarely see a white boy with moves. More than one approached Melissa and shouted, “He can dance!” In the middle of that roadside circle I completely let go. At the ripe age of 37 I’d reconnected with the youthful anecdote for middle age, while making some friends among some very cool and fun folks.

Photos compliments of the wife, Melissa, and our friend in India, Andrzej Plonka

Peacocking Fun

2010-01-20T21:47:00.017-06:00

"Hindustan!..” “Jiya! Jiya!.." These were the shouts we could comprehend, hurled like raucous ping pong balls back and forth over the gates of the Indo-Pak border. On our side, rows of red granite show stands choked with motley revelers dancing in throngs to the Slumdog Millionare soundtrack; waving saffron, white, and green flags; responding to a rally leader with the fever of hooligans at a clutch football match. On the other side, maybe 100 yards away, neat rows of Pakistanis sitting a good bit more austere and resolute, hijabs and scarves atop the women folk among them, answering in military cadence as soldiers on each side—identical in spit polished dress style save for the clashing colors of their uniforms and the broom style spikes rising like sharp peacock feathers from their starched hats—engage in a game of mirrored spectacle while charging one another from just beyond each gate.

First dueling lungs, as each soldier, erect like a skyscraper, aims to outlast the others with a single shouted note. Pakistan scores 1. Then, guns thrown over shoulders, and orders barked, a flurry of swinging arms and marching kicks that sends toes above noses as the two sides advance on a collision course that ends with razor turns back to the adoring crowds. India scores 1. Repeat for a good hour. And on the India side, throw in a few American Indian style hand to mouth war whoops to poke fun at Pakistanis’ penchant for ululating on the other side. Then lower the flags perfectly in sync, sneak one quick handshake between kicks, and crash close the gates.

This is the means by which India and Pakistan sign off with each other at the end of each day. The day prior, Melissa and I had found ourselves on the other side of this dusty border land as our plane came to a slow stop in the black wee morning air and our Turkish Airlines pilot announced in Ottoman and broken English, "We are delayed ladies and gentleman, and are awaiting clearance from the authorities." Ahhh, I thought, finally we've arrived in Delhi, and alas, no shortage of big Indian government to see us to our gate. It was then that the nice Punjabi German girl across the aisle from us, who had rekindled my creaky college Deutsch over the past 14 hours with the only language we held in common, explains, "We are in Karachi!" Karachi? That’s in Pakistan, right? What?.. A hundred recent headlines from CNN, none of them rosy, zip through my head. It seems the entire country of India is buried in a blanket of fog. After two hours of futily circling Delhi airspace, the pilots had opted for landing in the Islamic republic next door.

But I’m reassured by the idea that our airline is owned by the Turks. No Muslim government, no matter how much they might disdain India, is going to play politics with a stranded Ottoman plane, right? A few uninformed gate agents, obviously left out of the loop, cock their heads in visible surprise when I respond to their question, “Destination, sir?” with a matter of fact, “Delhi.” Its pretty clear planes don’t move too often between Pakistan and India. Indeed, every flight on the departure boards, save for Singapore, has an Islamic destination. But the airport staff, for the most part, are nice. I examine a familiar looking wool hat in a gift shop. The friendly vendor inquires, “You like?.. Taliban!” My response to “Where you from?” is mostly met with cheerful indifference, though one salesman viscerally reacts to the word, “Chicago” as it leaves my American lips.

Only after reboarding our aircraft five hours later, having passed beneath a gate screen that read “Destination: Dubai,” does Melissa inform me of the shop clerk that grappled her chest after offering to assist her with a scarf she had wanted to try on in his store. But Melissa is tough. Turkish Airlines had also purchased a sit down breakfast for all the passengers on our flight. Even the bottle of duty-free Gin I’d had to lug before Sharia Law was left be by the agent who responded to my “…headed to Delhi” plea with a “...take your bottle” response that revealed only mild disgust. The lesson I think learned: if you ever find yourself stranded among Romans, travel with a Turk.

Two hours later we arrive in fog chocked Delhi, my senses reawakened by the cacophony of humanity and other animal folk roaring, buzzing, whirring, and trotting around one another along every inch of flat space—on four, three, and two wheels or feet—the constant beeping of horns a polite reminder that all of outdoor India is a rushing river of life to perpetually navigate. A relaxing stroll in the American sense doesn’t much exist, replaced by no shortage of colorful surprises in transit or commerce around each bend.

Fitting that our friend Andrzej would meet us at our hotel to proclaim, “tomorrow we’re off to the Pak border to watch the peacocks dance!” Our five-dollar tickets in AC class secured, the next morning our train is off into a fog bank three other trains didn’t survive. Our conductor appears aware of this fact, as we crawl toward the Punjab at a speed that allows coffee vendors and other hawkers to bound in and out of open doorways to the passing world beyond. Looking about our car at business folks glued to newspapers, kids lost in cell phone games, and the coffee guy with his shiny five gallon tank in tow, I remember a simple truth about India: to be here one must be comfortable with the prospect of death. Jeez, am I? I tell myself that’s why I brought along the cribbage board and a deck of cards, to deflect such morbid thoughts. And to have my ego heartily bruised by Andrzej’s ludicrous counts.

Just an hour shy of sunset we arrive in Amritsar, where the high price of six bucks for a taxi to and from the border is quickly accepted to reach the spectacle that awaits us before the closing of the gates. Our Tata SUV races across the Punjabi plains, scores of kites flitting in the skies above—our driver even taking control of one from a gas station attendant as we stop for a fill-up. The sun a large orb on the horizon, we finally pull alongside hundreds of other parked vehicles in a barbed-wired field.

One of three hundred promised rupees in hand, the driver pledges to stick by our bags and we bound for the line of giddy revelers stretching hundreds of yards beyond. We take our place at the end and are told, “No! No! You’re a foreigner, move to the front!” It doesn’t seem the least bit fair but these guys will have none of it. On to the front we go, where armed guards hold closed a rickety gate, half a mile beyond which sit red granite stands that promise something that must be akin to the Rolling Stones.

Suddenly the gate swings open and Indians are running full forward all around. We pick up their pace—a wee bit frightening as I mill over the idea that we just might be charging Pakistan—but soon settle into a playful jog as all involved realize the humor of the whole thing and we meander our way into the stands. Packs of women are Bangra dancing to “Jai Ho!” blaring over the PA while young men wave Indian flags in unison from the top seats behind. Save for the spit polished guards with rifles in the red granite towers just beyond, the scene could be straight out of the pre-game at the Super Bowl. One look to the left, however, and the purpose is clear. There stand two wrought iron gates, one after the other, the painted colors of their respective countries filtering the view of white marbled Pakistan just beyond.

Just what do this motley crew of Indians think of the handful of pale faces in their midst? High fives, excited handshakes, and a happy kid dropped into Melissa’s arms answers that question, as we take our place among the revelers and let loose for our adopted team. Commands, kicks, shouts, and salutes, as the peacocks go at it for a good hour. Razor sharp moves fueled by raucous fans, introduced by a mic wielding MC that must stand seven feet tall when not swinging like a pendulum between the edges of the crowd. It. Is. Ridiculously. Awesome. If India and Pakistan can keep this shtick up, they just might keep the peace.

Photos compliments of the wife, Melissa

Link to Video Footage (compliments of Sanjeev Bhaskar)

2009-01-22T22:27:00.019-06:00

Tales and Shots from a World of Adventure
Ross Freshwater

Amsterdam

Whistler, British Columbia

French Quarter, New Orleans

Lake of the Volcanoes

2009-01-22T22:26:00.006-06:00

Mayan Church Yard

It's been ten days since we arrived on the lush shores of Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala’s mountainous west, via a ride with the chicken bus driver from a Talladega night. His was vehicle number two of five during our two-hour journey from Antigua. His school-bus chariot lived up to its flame paint job as over sixty of us crammed into seats so wide they left just six inches of aisle in the middle of the thing—with Mayans, Mestizos, and two clueless Gringos sitting six across, clutching onto seat bars for dear life as the driver rocketed within inches of every turn, all the while the nice English-speaking gentleman next to me remaining calmly focused on his Latin American edition of the New York Times.

The whole time, the driver’s assistant, dressed in a dusty White Sox cap, stood on the steps by an open doorway and smiled in good-humored conversation with the amped pilot. They’ve gotta lose a few of these guys a year to the G-force. They must. The Guatemalans were really good to us, pointing out where we needed to go, slinging bloated backpacks under dashboards. We owe major karma to them. Without their kindness, we’d likely have been lost in Nicaragua this afternoon rather than standing on a raptor’s perch overlooking one of the world’s most beautiful lakes.

After a hard day of hiking, my buddy Andy and I just saw what we both agree may be the most incredible view we have taken in along our many life travels. Imagine being on a restaurant patio with soft bongos and Latin guitar in the background. Before you, five miles across a placid azure lake, sits a 10,000 foot volcano. On its left, in a valley five miles long, sits a blanket of satin white clouds, rich dollops hanging over the foothills just above the lake. To the right, a five-mile spread of small mountains, their pointed peaks purple-black from the scarlet glow of the setting sun just behind. Atop the grand behemoth, a small puffy cloud perfectly encircles it in the fading blue twilight, as if some holy headpiece were required for this perfect Sunday evening.

We had just returned from conquering – okay, surviving – our ascent of this very marvel. It is not the highest in the Guatemalan neighborhood—the one next door is 1,000 feet higher—but 10,000 feet is not bad for a day’s climb by two guys who had committed the prior evening to watching World Cup Soccer amid a crowd of beer-drinking fans. I’m proud to say I outpaced Andy and a young German venture capitalist who exudes so much fitness he had gone so far as to purchase a gym membership for his month of Spanish study here – This is where I also admit that, today, the German’s intestines had just emerged from a two-day bout with Montezuma´s Revenge.

Prior to our hike, we had been instructed by our Lonely Planet travel book and the locals to hire a guide. Finding one is seldom a problem, as there are a flock of them awaiting one’s arrival at the ferry boat dock at Volcan Atitlan’s base. There is a common warning on the street here: If one doesn’t spring the ten bucks for local accompaniment on the steep ascent, one will likely be robbed by bandits along the trail. Although the rest of Guatemala has a reputation for random and violent crime, it is also well known that the country’s police force has made it a priority to keep Lake Atitlan safe for a burgeoning tourist industry.

Our conversation with a couple of guideless English climbers who had in fact been victims of banditry, however, did reveal that criminal activity was alive within these hills—albeit in a more benign form than guide book lore. When these bandits found that the hikers had no money, they kind of scratched their heads, looked at one another, and replied, “Well then… Give us your sandwiches.” Was this the work of bandits or an informal labor union? Regardless, our American teachers’ salaries made us wealthy guests in a foreign land. We hired Jose as our local guide and headed up the mountain.

The first few thousand feet consisted of a ride in the back of a pick-up truck. From there, we were dropped into a corn field, which rose several thousand feet up the side of the volcano. I wondered if the risk of a lost crop to rolling lava flows from a major eruption every twenty or so years is offset by the returns reaped from the loads of free fertilizer regularly dispersed by the mountain’s rich volcanic ash. The recent wreckage of a town in the valley below, however, revealed the perils faced by the valley’s economy. Entire neighborhoods were torn to bits, half submerged in the hard black rock that had consumed them while in its glowing and flowing form. Across the lake was another town torn asunder by the elements, this one’s houses, even a cement playground, thrown into a now-shallow river by mudslides triggered by torrential rains. Yet the locals carry on with all forms of boxes and bags on the backs of trucks, rickshaws, motorbikes, and persons, rebuilding atop the old as their ancestors have done for eternity.

On we climbed, moving from field to forest, the lack of switch-back trails so commonly found in the United States now apparent more than ever as we clambered for roots and tree branches to pull our way straight up the side of a rocky face, past the tree line onto a solid rock perch, where we found ourselves on the roof of an emerald and sapphire world.

Lake Atitlan is breathtaking, big enough to make opposing shores seem distant in the mist, and dotted with enchanting towns all around. Each has its own ambient niche, often connected only by ferry service and the watery reflection of three active volcanoes that ring the flooded valley forming this crystal blue, thousand-foot-deep lake.

Spanish language schools are everywhere and cost a mere $135 per week. They include one-on-one instruction and a family home-stay with three meals a day. How can it be that affordable? We Americans are clearly blessed with the currency of a strong economy. Mayan Indians are also everywhere, clad in their brightly stitched craftsmanship from head to toe—the men, too, with one brightly patterned vest over another brightly patterned shirt on top of another brightly patterned pair of pants, all underneath the light beige of well-tended straw cowboy hats.

The place is also surprisingly hip, with high-speed internet cafes, discotheques, and big-screen World Cup Soccer mixing with the goat herds, motor rickshaws, and Mayan craftswomen carrying colorful loads on balanced heads to sidewalk markets. The motor rickshaws are imported from India, yet they carry the Thai nickname, tuk tuk—a fun tidbit of commercial history to be explored.

Gazing down from our heavenly peak at the sparkling dots of humanity sandwiched between the emerald and sapphire landscape, West Guatemala seemed like a super place for an extended stay. Nicknamed the “Land of Eternal Spring” for its ever-pleasant weather, it is also a great spot for Spanish language immersion on the cheap. Perhaps a whole summer here would be a wise way to go if one truly wanted to make inroads with Spanish, on a weekly budget one could easily blow on a Saturday night in the States.

(6/23/06)

Volcan Paddle

Volcan Storm

The Chicken Bus

The Zocalo

The Art of Border Crossing

2009-01-22T22:25:00.004-06:00

Honest Day's Work

5:30 A.M., we make our way groggily to the curb to catch the once-a-day minivan from Lake Atitlan in Guatemala to Chiapas, Mexico. You can imagine our annoyance when, at the next stop, the curb was bare and the scheduled pick-up still in bed. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes the van idles while the driver disappears into a hotel to wake this guy up. We had been running bleary eyed through dark streets with stray luggage when it seems we could have had the driver powering up our kitchen coffee maker.

Finally, a forty-something-year-old Mestizo, with rumpled clothes and hair, emerges from the gate with a large worn backpack. There is a loud PLUNK as it is slung through the back door of the hold. I think, finally, we are on our way. Then the guy disappears again into the hotel and another three minutes pass. Another large duffle bag. PLUNK. Then another. I glance over the seat to notice that, with the help of the driver, he has rearranged our Gringo bags so that they are on top and his are on the bottom. Finally situated, we are off on our eight-hour journey. About an hour in we stop for gas. The guy disappears into the bathroom for another good twenty minutes. The driver patiently waits. We throw one another an inquisitive look. What the heck is going on? And what might this guy be packing?

Also on board is Lincoln, a 55-year-old expat from California who has taken up Mexican citizenship to make his mint in local real-estate. He is quite a character. Claiming to be good buddies with Bill Walton, the former basketball star, he seems to know other heavy hitters all over the United States, yet he has abandoned the USA altogether to strike his own gold in Mexico. He, too, notices the odd behavior of our rumpled passenger, and the fact that our stuff has been placed in an inconspicuous mound around his own in the hold. The van stops for lunch. The three of us and the driver sit down in a Mexican truck stop cafe. Lincoln orders a large steak, strikes up good natured small talk with our fellow passenger in Spanish, then steers the conversation toward our inquiry with a sly smile: "So, what's in the bags, man?"

Our new friend returns a knowing smile and jumps from his seat for a trip to the van. I think to myself, have I just unknowingly entered some Colombian drug club? A minute later he reappears with several plastic bags in hand. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. He unwraps them one by one. Out of each emerges a statue; heavy, blue-green, intricately carved, pure jade; thousands of dollars of the stuff, pulled from deep within the Guatemalan Earth where the finest jade in the world is made by the fiery compression of two continental plates. The Guatemalan government is well-aware of the value of this treasure, and for this reason, transport of raw jade across its borders is illegal.

My brain wraps itself around the fact that this guy isn't a drug runner coming down from a reckless binge. He's an artist, using diamond saws to turn the second-hardest substance in the world into the likenesses of early Mesoamerican folklore. Out of his stash he pulls the primitive round head of an Olmec Indian and then the intricately detailed square head of an Aztec jaguar. Then, for a good laugh, he pulls out a picture of Bill Clinton in his San Cristobal shop.

It was a mere twenty miles back that he had transferred this weighty loot across his carefully chosen border—a single raised red and white crossing gate on a two-lane highway crossing the hilly frontier. The driver of our connecting van waltzed from Mexico to our Guatemalan parking spot to assist our former driver in the transfer of the artist’s bags. The few border guards milling about what appeared to be seamless commerce on both sides of the border took no notice as we passed under the “Welcome to Mexico” sign, our unchecked passports in hand. This guy clearly had them all paid off. And three children's college educations paid off, too.

(7/21/06)

The Preacher Man

Hill Taxi

The Emerald Isle

2009-01-22T22:24:00.008-06:00

O'Connell Street, Dublin, Ireland

It's New Year's Day, and I'm in Dublin. Flat broke from a week of converting the failing dollar to the high flying euro, but consoled by pints of Guinness that have broken high double digits at this point. There is a saying that it is impossible for two Irishmen to walk into a pub and order just one pint. This is due to the fact that it is terrible etiquette to purchase just a drink for oneself. Beers, cigarettes, and whatever else you may consume in a pub are gifts that are to be exchanged and re-exchanged for the even greater gift of gab. A pub filled with good conversation is termed "good for the craic" (pronounced crack), and we have yet to find an establishment that has proved otherwise.

Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Irish are a stew of characters from all over the North Atlantic, who sip away days in the dark warmth of brightly painted pubs harbored from the shifting rains outside. Their brogue makes their wit as light as it is dark, and if you can match them for a few rounds of good-natured jostling, the ideas that then pour forward are a testament to a people for which literature and conversation are a high art. All art depends on benefactors, of course, and the fact that Ireland is now the "Celtic Tiger" of Europe has maybe spun hours in the pub out of control. Dublin is now more expensive than London. The average Irish person enjoys an income far above most of the world, and as its high tech economy makes it the crown of the EU, its citizens are snapping up fast jobs, fast cars, and fast living.

Couple this with the free fall that priestly indiscretion has wreaked on the Catholic Church, and you have a full blown social extravaganza in a country where birth control was illegal just a little over a decade ago. Along with the cheerful banter yet to be overcome by the rising tide of materialism are chipper Irish women in mini-skirts who, still matching the men word for word in the pubs, have donned a scanty style thoroughly un-Catholic and to whom the Polish woman we are staying with roles her eyes with the word "Irish!"

The mists part about every three hours for a spot of sunshine between the rain drops. On every lawn, hill, wall, and unused driveway there is green. Everywhere—in the crevices of bricks, in the crooks of trees—the island is an eternal spring green, accented by brightly colored doors and brightly colored pubs. Though the internet is lightning quick, half the pubs don't even have music—for it gets in the way of the craic. Outside their front doors in Galway, old men are jumping off the public dive into the December Atlantic, while young men watch soccer matches in the pub, women are loaded with shopping bags, and the population shakes its good natured head at the fact that, this Christmas, slews of Irish did their shopping in New York.

Ireland has an income tax like the United States—low—and a sales tax like Europe—high. The Irish speak English and sit between the two continents. Ireland has severed itself from the English pound, going Euro all the way, yet it remains connected to the States as well: 25% of Americans are of Irish decent, while Irish who have spent time in the States are in every pub. I feel very at home here in this very familiar place. This may be due in part to a bit of family history I learned in the past week. My people come from Waterford County, an early Viking settlement from which the Ostmen raiders would pillage the rest of the island. My middle name, Foley, in Gaelic means "plunderer." Many of my youthful indiscretions are beginning to make sense.

I cannot help but marvel at the fact that my predecessors emigrated from an Ireland that was dirt poor in 1848 and that had also been so for several centuries prior to that fateful day my great-great grandfather had his final run-in with an English tax collector and moved to the United States. Ireland remained poor right on through my own college days. Yet in ten short years, the tech boom has turned England's former whipping post into the Silicon Valley of a continent.

The rustic Guinness Brewery I remember from a visit five years ago, with its hops-covered wooden floors and homey tour guides, is now something akin to Disney World, gutted and redesigned by an architect better known for big city art museums. On the field where not a hundred years ago Irishmen were gunned down for nothing more than playing their native games, an immense Super Bowl caliber stadium now stands to celebrate those very Celtic sports.

Perhaps most intriguing is the Spire. In the middle of O’Connell Street, across from the old post office that stands like a Roman ghost, where in 1916 Irish freedom fighters were crushed with English shells, a metallic needle, no more than ten feet at the base, shoots 300 feet into the air. It is free standing, made with some new feat of engineering that allows its sharp point to shimmer far above the rest of Dublin. As one looks at the chipped yet grand pillars of the old post office, one can still see the scars of war. Turn around, and the sun's rays illuminate the polished metal of the Spire like an electrified wand; so bright, I thought, that on a clear day standing on the English coast, one could detect a glint on the horizon to the west.

(01/02/05)

World Cup

2009-01-22T22:24:00.007-06:00

Italia! (World Cup Victory)

“Viva Italia!” These words are echoing from sidewalks all over San Cristobal, Mexico, as Italian tourists have poured out of the bars and taken over the city’s streets. The World Cup Soccer title is now theirs, following a tie-breaking shootout with France that came down to the last man, a victory that was the product of a month of hard-scrabble tournament play.

By chance, our trip to Central America began at World Cup’s start and would wrap up a day after its exciting end. We’d first landed in Mexico, to witness that country’s first win in Germany alongside the locals that had packed every bar with a TV to the gills. Quite a festival followed. We then saw U.S. hopes for the cup dashed while at a beachside bar in Belize, alongside a group of Mexican snorkelers who saw their own team perish as Angola, Portugal, Italy, and Argentina’s players rocked various TV screens with fancy footwork we Americans don’t often get to see in U.S. sports.

Then we were off to Guatemala where everyone was rooting for Argentina to kick Mexico’s butt—revealing in no subtle way that rivalries with its next door neighbor are alive and hot—only for us to then see this allegiance shift like the wind when Germany took on the victor, Argentina. “Argentines are snobs!” Their cultural difference was acutely revealed as Guatemalans jumped off their bar stools with screams of joy and arms raised high to a German goal.

Since most of the Europeans we’d met this trip were Dutch, we picked Holland as our new favorite after the U.S. bowed out. But then the Portuguese took them down with numerous spats more reminiscent of hockey than soccer. We needed a new team to root for, and a sign to guide us there. A Latin American team would probably win the most friends, and just by chance, the bar owner of the Guatemalan town we were studying in was from Brazil. Sold!

Not even the hustlers in the roadside marketplaces could peel their faces from the soccer matches on their tiny TVs. If walking down the sidewalk this month in Latin America you are suddenly enveloped by a collective roar, somewhere in Germany someone has just scored a goal.

Ten days ago, my buddy Andy and I had just finished up our first week of study at a Spanish school in Guatemala. We were piled high with Spanish vocabulary from the hours and hours of rich one-on-one conversations with our very cool and cute Mayan instructors. However, their burgeoning accusations of our being slackers drove us to a clear conclusion:

We could give up two-dollar beers and World Cup Soccer at the local pubs, and engage in the homework of serious students... Or, we could take a week of “independent study” of written Spanish in the mornings, and take the afternoons to immerse ourselves in World Cup Soccer crowds, where we might also endear ourselves to jubilant locals with our flowering Spanglish. Abandoning our accommodations with the Spanish school, we set out on our own to find a new place to live.

We soon lucked out with an ex-pat acquaintance who asked us to housesit for his pets for the week. This twist of luck also allowed us the opportunity to host garden pre-parties for fellow travelers before each new tournament game. We soon found ourselves walking away from language lessons altogether—in the spirit of the broader cultural exchanges that orbit so passionately around the final rounds of the world’s most popular sport.

A week later, we are back in Mexico, awaiting the World Cup’s final match, a day prior to our return flight home. In San Cristobal, La Revolucion Bar’s two ground-level rooms are packed, and a distinct difference is evident among the mass of people in each. In one, French tourists are swaying back and forth in somber lines, arm-in-arm, singing their national anthem with a shared gravity that keeps their feet firmly rooted to the floor. In the other, the Italians are swooping a flag back and forth amid a motley crew that is jumping up and down, as they too sing their national anthem, in a collection of raucous voices that stands in stark contrast to their opponents’ next door.

If good soccer defies gravity, the Italian tourists’ bouncing all over Mexico right now are a testament to their nation’s World Cup victory.

(07/09/06)

Penalty Kick, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

Pick-Up Match, Dalat, Vietnam

Assist, World Cup Qualifying Match, USA vs. Venezuela, Cleveland, Ohio

Carnival

2009-01-22T22:23:00.005-06:00

The Morning After, Old Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

The party's over. As Ash Wednesday faded into today, somewhere between the stars that were blazing like an ancient road map off the wing of our 767 and the deep black carpet of the Amazon below, this very zoned out celebrant rested his eyes against the window, transfixed by how pockets of thick humid air would temporarily drown out the stars as the plane's strobes electrified the moist darkness with pulsing throbs. Then, back into the dryer black night, constellations again gleaming their brilliant crystal rays over the absorbent jungle canopy below. No humans down there. None. A natural decompressant following five days of frolic amid a dancing mass of humanity at Carnival in Salvador, Brazil.

Your passes into parties there are the clothes on your back, last night’s being electric blue Lycra tank tops ablaze with speckled tridents and fluorescent orange and yellow liberty spikes around the neck, accented by bright yellow ankle-length shorts. These duds give you two options—to dance a marathon with thousands along a five-mile parade route, or to boogie in-place atop an elevated tent city that overlooks the river of revelers passing below. Pushing the current are pairs of stretch semi-trailers, their beds stacked with amps, bands, and bars, as far as the eye can see. Around each rolling duo is a thick rope as wide as the street and as long as the block, carried by hundreds of thick bouncers who ring the flowing party, while those with electric blue tickets bounce along inside or above.

Your fluorescent pass costs about 20 bucks, a day’s pay in Brazil. Outside the ropes on the ground, it’s a madhouse. It is here that the everyman has his party, elbowing his way back and forth in a Latin punk rock dance that might afford two minutes of limelight next to the band that the paying customer gets to roll aside all night long. Inside the ropes, planted elbows give way to the river of humanity bouncing forward with the drums on the semis above. The playlist for most groups consists of about ten songs, and as each band belts them out ten times an evening from their drifting stage, the swirling human river turns to water, as drums and sweat roll the partiers into sweeping currents along the winding parade path that follows their favorite tunes – complete with swirling eddies and DJ-constructed dams behind which the crowd grinds to a halt in a stand still bounce, to be unleashed in a bounding horde as the flood gates are opened by the band’s “1,2,3!”

We spent two nights running the river and two nights dancing in-place on our perch in the tent city above. Our last night, we were again running the rapids inside the ropes. Our ships this time were captained by the percussion band, Timbalada. It looked like there were ten of them atop the semi, all donning white stripes on their faces and shining bodies, a blurring rhythm and counter-rhythm of hands pounding on piles of skin drums.

This time, we dove inside the rope maybe a mile after the ships left their docks and were greeted almost immediately by the captain of this run. She was African, donned denim cutoffs beneath her fluorescent tank top, and wore the biggest smile I saw in all of Carnival. Her feet carried her rhythm in every direction at once, and she wanted everyone to—and was convinced that everyone could—follow right along. Hardly anyone could, yet her smile just grew bigger as charged revelers gave it a try. She gave each a look as if to say, “Come on! It’ll come!” Whether it did or it didn’t, she was happy to share a dance. She owned the entire crowd—in which there was one person who believed that smile enough to truly rise to it. Our friend, Kabral, came bounding out of our ranks and landed face to face with her, feet bounding all over the pavement. Within a tenth of a second they were in sync, their limbs and bodies mirrors that defy description. Every muscle shook, their feet bounding left to right so fast they appeared to float above the ground. Gravity disappeared.

Our new friend and Kabral at the helm, we soon wound our way from a bright urban canyon alongside the tidal pools of an Atlantic beach. Atop a grassy bluff stood a lighthouse—or rather, a fortress with a lighted cement tower rising majestically from the center of it. My buddy, Christian, nudged me. We’d logged in about a mile at this point and had heard our favorite ten songs at least two times over. He motioned toward the light. I nodded. We dove under the rope, and threaded our way through the working man’s masses, quickly finding grass and open land leading to the ancient tower beyond.

The light stood at the top of a gentle hill that rose up from the street, its slight rolls covered with lush green grass, made wispy by the ocean somewhere beyond in the night. We meandered our way up an old path, making ourselves pint-sized along a massive twenty-foot cement wall. In a perfect line it continued on for maybe a hundred feet before a ninety degree turn sent it to the left, overlooking a high cliff. We slipped around the corner into the darkness.

The pounding music and lights from Carnival’s river were all but gone, deflected or absorbed by the behemoth behind us. There was a warm and still silence, made ponderous by the light wind and waves brushing the jagged rock shoreline below. Milling around were probably thirty or so folks, all men that I could see, spaced out alone or with a buddy every ten feet or so, taking advantage of a moment to turn Carnival off and turn their minds toward the black ocean respite beyond. The scene in some ways bordered on shady. My Chicago street sense along with Christian’s formidable height, however, kept my caution light at a mellow yellow.

Christian lit up a smoke and within seconds two characters had made their way over to us, asking for cigarettes. Christian obliged and the four of us passed around two drinks as our new friends rapped with us in Portuguese and we rapped back in English. We talked about the party, we talked about good drinks, and to our answer for, “Where ya from?” they exclaimed, “Michael Jordan!” with broad smiles on their faces. Each of us barely understood a handful of the foreign words exchanged—but their meaning was made clear by the universal human language one is blessed to find in mutual celebrations and the shared beauty of Mother Earth. At the base of this wall overlooking the South Atlantic, just out of ear shot of the world’s biggest party, we had both.

(3/05/03)

Convenience Store, Old Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

Carnival's Current, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

The Monster and a Punjabi Beauty

2009-01-22T22:22:00.010-06:00

Awoke yesterday to a warm day of sunny splendor – one of the first in these Chi-town parts since balmy last August – and figured it a fine time to test out my new kayak on a serene waterway that would pass a lazy day. Since the Chicago River is only a hop, skip, and jump from home, I called my buddy Andy and recruited him for an urban paddle. We started off the morning at the local Hari Krishna breakfast joint, grabbed a few beers from the fridge, then threw our craft in the water, forty blocks from our endpoint beacon, the Sears Tower, its two white-pointed spires rising like goal posts from its 110th story. Having just been upgraded from toxic to merely absurdly abused, the river was a metallic, chocolate hue with a fragrance that was not all together repulsive in the yet-to-explode Chicago humidity.

We set off, past a shanty town of wintered-up lake boats, among whom dwell a few hearty souls who call their floating digs home; around a large and ominous dark, gray, and rusted cabin cruiser, piloted by a bunch of barbequing, black concert t-shirt wearing, good ol’ boys straight out of some meandering scene from Apocalypse Now; then onward past the many under-bridge dwellings that a unique assortment of folks call home. One had a queen sized bed under it, one an entire boxing gym – punching bag, dip bar, and stationary bike – arranged in a concrete living room on the brink of an eight foot drop to the current below.

There were some signs of animal life, including a few geese with goslings – though I must admit, the quietest bunch of the species I've ever crossed—and a healthy population of ducks contently floating among the discarded drink bottles, basketballs, dodge balls, soccer balls, and amorphous petri blobs of shmung. We continued to float past two new and gated industro-condo communities with surprisingly few fired-up grills; past the loading docks of Costco, Office Max, and Home Depot; past glass boxes of corporate offices with stacks of white signs declaring "No Docking!;" and on to the meat of what made this city.

I'd heard my dad talk about the wacky industry on this river. When I was a kid and his paycheck came from Procter & Gamble, he'd come up here to have a look at their riverside soap factory. Across the water was this metals recycling plant, with a grinder that could supposedly gnash a ‘78 Chevy to confetti in seconds. Apparently, now and then the thing would get the hick-ups and—BOOM!—send a huge chunk of metal hurling hundreds of feet into the air and across the river into some unsuspecting neighbor's factory roof. As we crossed 3000 North, I began to hear the hum of the few die-hard companies that still churn ahead of us. They got loud fast, and as we passed the next bend, in a wide stretch of dead river, there she was in all her glory, probably having an easier time of it with the fuel-efficient car bodies of today, but loud as ever as a conveyor belt laden with piles of discarded metal did her feeding.

Slowing river current, ever-rising roar, walls throbbing in angry breaths that coughed out shredded metal: We paddled like hell to get past that thing. Then, onto the hundred-foot piles of rusted confetti no one seemed to have a use for, brown twisted tributes to tetanus taller than most Illinois hills; past the gurgling cement plant encased in the shell of an old towering steel factory – two buildings side by side, skin and roofs entirely made of sheet metal, each a block long and a hundred feet high, the tin housing of a conveyor belt running along the top of each - not so loud, but immense.

Past the old swinging bridges with gears bigger than most life forms and a weighted hundred-foot high black iron railroad drawbridge, on top of which some brass-balled spelling bee flunky compensated for his deficiencies through painting in five-foot letters the courteous warning, "TRANE!" Past caved-in docks, twisted rails, decaying pilings, and 4x4 foot cement erosion control cubes stacked against the steep shore and bursting at their beltline. Under weathered draw bridges of a distant era with quaint lookout houses still bolted to their sides, municipal employees enjoying a very mellow watch.

Around the next corner the water grew wide, a quarter mile maybe. On the left, huge open air warehouses sat on a barren flood plain; and beyond… the sound of rock and roll music - say that again!? Eyes squinting, we spotted a red-tour bus on the far right shore. We rounded the bend. A bar sat on the bank, leaning decrepitly over the water, an array of colorful window panes swung out over the water like the cabin of some jovial pirate ship marooned on a sandbar. Not a boat at its dock, yet hordes of people above, hanging out the windows, on the roof, ambling about floors as untrue as a water-warped deck. We took one look at one another, tied on, and climbed up.

Immediately, we were greeted by two lovely lasses who picked on us incessantly for our redneck entrance and non-Cinqo-de-Mayo-like Aussie and Gilligan hat wear. We’d paddled right into a Mexican-American holiday. Nonetheless, our campy spirits paid off, as the med student and the PhD in philosophy hung with us for many Coronas under the sunshine of the city’s first truly spring day. The med student, a six-foot Punjabi beauty, kept asking inquisitively of Andy, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" They weren't sure but carried on, one increasingly interested in the other. "Thailand, yeah, been there, love it!" and on and on and on. Seventy bucks on drinks and he utters his last name… "Plonka?! Plonka! You were my teacher!!! Back when I was a JUNIOR!... We thought you were gay." He was a student teacher at the time, actually. She was now 23.

Things got wilder when the band Rusted Root appeared at the circus tent on the street in front. PhD girl had an actual Aussie boyfriend who made a late entrance, so at the ripe hour of 10:00PM I gave Andy a wink and shoved quietly off in the boat, alone. I should have just bobbed there seated in the thing, as many a cute reveler leaned out a window with raised glasses in approval of my floating steed. Nonetheless, I was out seventy bucks, flat broke (as was the ATM), and Andy was too. But heck, he had a future doctor/former student as company. He'd make it home. I pushed off into the darkness, which isn't really darkness anywhere in this town, the perma-glow of the human race ever steady. I could only connect the dull glint of four of the Big Dipper's dots. The cement mill was asleep, as was the monster; though a few other smaller neighbors chugged on.

The cell phone rang - I know, not exactly getting back to nature, but we might have needed the poison control center at some point today. So, fully charged in my pocket, I pulled it out. "Dude, come back!" As gorgeous as she is? No way! Find your way home, bonehead. It rang again. And again. And again. The Punjabi beauty's voice: "Freshwater! I've got his phone number, now come get your friend!" I should have left him. Nonetheless, blasted integrity kicked in and I doubled back through a sea of bobbing bottles to pick Andy up.

A lingering dockside kiss and he jumped the railing to the boat. Two bottles of brew from below deck and his story: "Ok, here's how I view it. At first, I was cute, cool-guy-in-a-boat, hook-up for the evening; then I was former-teacher-gotta-jump-on-this conquest; then she realized she actually really likes me - and with that comes an early night. So, alas, I have a phone number." And, wow, was she cute! And of course, women have telepathy. So, as we dug in our paddles, the spirited glow of a good night pushing us zig-zaggedly along, the cell phone rang, other interested lady friends of ours wondering where the heck Andy was for the evening – in a kayak of course, paddling an obstacle course of refuse, under an urban moon.

(05/06/2003)

Damen Avenue Bridge

The Monster

Pre-Monster

Post-Monster

The Scout

Monsoon Morning

2009-01-22T22:21:00.003-06:00

Hindu Ruins, Orcha, India

Awoke this morning to the pounding sound of the monsoon rains, which made their belated and annual entrance last night on the tail of our landing plane. Prior to our shared arrival in New Delhi, the city had been a sweltering 118 degrees. However, as I and eleven other Chicago teachers stepped foot out of our air conditioned rooms into our first Indian day, we were greeted by a "comfortable" 95 degree morning.

Eager to explore a little piece of the country we would be touring on scholarships for the next six weeks, a few of us decided to go for a walk to check out a park recommended by our professor. The rains, having fallen for barely five hours at this point, had already turned many of the streets and yards into rivers and lakes. The drops fell straight down, in huge yet gentle sheets, turning on and off at random with no particular way to predict what seemed like Mother Nature’s playful flicking of a switch.

The streets in the Golf Links neighborhood of New Delhi look a bit like England's; well paved and well marked, with painted warnings on the curb that advised these American pedestrians to “look right” before stepping onto the crosswalk. Above the pavement was a different world, as Indians drive just about anything with an engine and wheels, veering, gunning, and beeping like the mad drivers I've witnessed in Central America or Rome.

Exiting zipping chaos, we slipped through a gateway into the park and entered a landscape of gnarled trees and green grass. We followed a winding pathway past iron benches and granite monuments. If it weren’t for the streams and pools that had just submerged half the grounds, I'd have taken it all in from one of the seats fast disappearing beneath the rising rains.

The birds were in jubilant hysterics, sparrows frolicking in fresh puddles, blue-black crows strutting across low branches while flapping wet wings, flocks of green parrots calmly claiming large random trees, and hawks circling in the sky high above.

All the while, spring peeper frogs kicked in a chorus that seemed to thicken the humid air. Couples strolled down paved pathways on leisurely walks, while teenagers sat in a circle on a slab of raised concrete and passed around a joint. It was in many ways like a park back in the U.S. – in, say, a Louisiana flood.

We then topped a crest on our water-logged path. Instead of an expected fountain or gazebo, there stood a mosque--or rather the ruins of one. It was 500 years old. Fifty feet high, raised Arabic script covered the length of its red sandstone walls. As we moved closer, remnants of midnight blue-colored tiles were revealed in the curves of its worn doorways. Beyond it stood a tomb that was even bigger. And beyond that, munching calmly on a patch of tall grass, strolled a sacred cow.

07/05/03

Primates, Highway Rest Stop, Tamil Nadu, India

Taj MaBike Rack, Agra, India

Rickshaw Rant

2009-01-22T22:02:00.002-06:00

Cruising with Kannaki

Traveling via rickshaw is an amusement park ride. But, be warned, there are no safety bars on the Indian subcontinent. Hold on and prepare for a trip into a video game. Forget terrorists. They're minor. It’s cows, trucks, buses, whirring rickshaws, marauding pedestrians and a family of four on a moped that are likely to turn out your lights around the next bend. The rain was so deep last night our driver had to double back through random alleyways before we drowned. No headlight, then the electricity all over town went out. Drops gushing sideways through the canopy in buckets, oncoming traffic splitting in a mad last second rush around us, all moving objects, save for cows, laying on the horn - bovines being the quiet unmolested random sacred islands drifting where they please, with all currents shifting within inches of their horned heads. Wow. Forget sky diving. Just go for a drive in India.

8/15/2003

Three Faiths

2009-01-22T22:00:00.002-06:00

Taj Mahal, Agra

A Mosque

Whereas most buildings in India reflect the deep reds and browns of the country's clay and sandstone, most mosques glow brilliantly in the tropical sun, their white-washed simplicity standing crisply against the cacophony of the subcontinent’s pluralism. This was a big one, with three onion domes and two fifteen-story towers at each end. We were actually on a school campus in Bhopal, a madrasa where teenage boys live and study an Islamic education. Inside the mosque, which opened wide on a courtyard, a few boys were randomly scattered at low-lying desks, bobbing their heads to the rhythms of recited lines from their open Qurans.

In the middle of the courtyard, at a rectangular pool, a small group of boys was taking in a relaxed evening bath. They passed around a bucket, pouring water over happy heads, sticking toothbrushes into the pool and back into lathered mouths. The ritual seemed as much about mellow hang time as a bath, a chance to cleanse the teenage spirit along with a sweaty day. One of the boys caught sight of my camera, smiled, and attempted to throw his friend in the pool.

Evening slowly passed along, and we probably could have let it pass in its entirety right there, as a soft nasally voice floated from a high speaker somewhere beyond and above. It was the evening call to prayer. I'd come to realize over the past weeks that a number of Muslims consider prayer to be a private time among their own. The folks here were a smiling and welcoming crowd. However, we wanted to respect what customs we'd come to understand, so we exited our peaceful respite and moved on.

A Hindu Temple

Boarding a bus outside the mosque, we headed for a Hindu temple in the suburbs. The doors swinging open at a curb by the temple gate, we were greeted by a sea of little smiles, all pushing a handful of flowers to our adult heights. A bit disoriented by the floral cornucopia before me, I was then told by our professor that the flowers were an offering for puja and that I needed to buy some. No sooner had she spoken when a bold boy opened my hand and closed it around my purchase.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I traveled to India without even knowing what puja was. As I walked up the driveway toward the temple, I found myself in the company of a number of families. The women were dressed in the bright colors of their formal saris, the men in khaki dress pants and collared shirts. A middle-aged gentleman motioned for me to step through the gate ahead of him and his wife. As we filed through the temple courtyard, he engaged me in small talk to pass our time in the crowd.

Immersed in our conversation I had fallen behind my group, only then realizing I didn't know exactly what I was expected to do next. The temple was the size of a modest chapel. Built of what looked like smoothed adobe, it was painted a mustard-yellow with white trim, with red rectangles on the four sides of a steeple above the door, and white reversed swastikas spaced out in red circles around its outer trim.

The nice gentleman seemed to understand I was a lost duckling and took me under his wing. We made our way around the side of the temple, where two small marble shrines sat in small open shelters, opposite each other in the courtyard. Small groups of worshippers were lining up in front of each, their floral offerings in hand. The gentleman directed me toward the shrine to Lord Shiva, represented by a smooth, phallic shaped statue of dark gray granite centered in a small round pool of the same stone – a reflection of the union of the male and female spirit.

One by one, worshippers climbed the few small steps to the shrine, leaned toward it, and tossed their flowers onto the large aromatic mound that was accumulating with the crowd. Placing hands flat together in a reflective silent prayer they then bowed for a moment of respect and moved on toward the temple.

When it was my turn to step up, I couldn't help but notice the cloud of delighted bees buzzing drunkenly around the floral treasure. "Careful," said the gentleman, "don't get stung." I was raised on Catholic schooling and therefore banking on the notion that an act of human piety, whatever the faith, might find a soft spot among the stinger-laden busy bodies whizzing before me. On this day, I guess, I’d behaved.

I followed the gentleman and his wife up a set of stairs to a veranda outside the temple, where each person reached up, grabbed the string of a large brass bell hammer, and gave it a bold clang before passing inside through wide open doors. Within, white marble walls were etched with Sanskrit and English scripture, the words “Don’t be too prideful” echoing past advice passed on by my own Jesuit teachers.

I was then instructed to hold my hand out before the temple guru, much the same way it would be done with a Catholic priest at communion, and was handed a ball of sweet rice. The rice apparently embodies a deity making an offering to you in return for your own floral offering to them in the courtyard outside. Instead of the guru then placing black ash on my forehead with a thoughtful finger mark of the cross, it was red turmeric placed thoughtfully in a short vertical line. He then one-upped his Catholic counterparts by marking both my ears and neck. The Catholics perhaps strike a balance with this artistry through the adornment of the priest himself, whose bountifully decorated robes stand in sharp contrast to the meager loin cloth that serves as the attire for most Hindu gurus—picture Gandhi with wavy hair and a thick beard. This guru delivered my sacrament with a wise and warm smile.

A Buddhist Birthplace

The next morning we caught another bus, this time to Sanchi, a tiny village that sits at the base of a long 300 foot hill. It was at the crest of this hill, 2,300 years ago, that the emperor Ashoka sparked a legacy of grand structures dedicated to the new Buddhist religion. Today, only three of the more than a dozen monuments still exist. Few history books even make mention of the spot in their global survey of the faith.

Yet, before us, interspersed among winding paths, were three structures that testify to Buddhism’s strong role in India’s past. Behind granite gates akin to the wooden ones found at the entrance ways to modern cities’ Chinatowns, these stupas look a lot like partially buried planetariums built of granite cobblestone, and are every bit as big. They are memorials. It is believed they contain within their cores the partial remains of the Buddha himself.

After meandering around these architectural wonders, we knocked on the door of a retreat house adjoining the site. A young man of no more than thirty emerged to greet us. Six feet tall, with horn rimmed glasses matching his buzzed black hair, he donned the orange and brown robes worn by monks the world over. It was obvious, on this hot and placid afternoon, he was not expecting guests. In true Indian hospitality, however, he offered us tea. Having just drunk quite a few pots over lunch, we politely declined.

It was clear that both parties wished to make an effort to accommodate the other, so we kept his offer for a tour to a short jaunt around the compound while he shared tidbits in broken English about their branch of the faith. His sect is now based on the island of Sri Lanka far to the south. He is now the lone proprietor of this ancient site, serving a four-year term as flame keeper for the now empty birthplace of his global faith.

A Universal Spirit

Just before our rural highway faded into the Bhopal suburbs, our driver pulled over to offer us a twenty-minute visit to a small village. We mulled it over. Would we be disrupting the calm of a traditional day with our cameras and Western ways? He reassured us that the residents were plenty used to visitors. Having just immersed myself in the inner-workings of three faiths, I wasn't sure if I was prepared to ingest anything new in my already loaded Western head. At that moment, an old woman stepped out of a doorway with a welcoming smile. She greeted all of us heartily, slapped Ben on the back, then pointed knowingly with a shared
laugh toward the approaching monsoon. The children's posse then found us, and we were soon afloat in a sea of excited youth. The beauty of children is the lack of veils that culture has yet to place over their personalities. Their varying antics, expressions, and unbridled curiosity provided for me a mental pathway toward a common bond. Much like that old lady sharing a laugh over the weather with Ben, I realized that at the heart of a vast array of religions and cultures, there is an elemental spirit that makes us all very human.

(Summer, 2003)

Indian Graffiti, Agra

Train Porter, Chennai

Jain Shrine, Madurai

Jain Carving, Madurai

The Headmistress and the Shaker

2009-01-22T21:59:00.002-06:00

Rascals Outside the Temple, Madurai

I have finally arrived on a wave-washed South Indian beach and, alas, am a bit spent from a night of singing with "Shaker," an old voice in South India’s Tamil world of rock & roll.

Spent the past week in Channai, the economic hub of South India, a carefree, smog-ridden metropolis that is the Motor City of India—their very own Detroit. The proceeds of the auto industry here have sprouted large scale mega malls where one can competitively barter with the best of Kashmiri rug, Tamil leather, and Rajasthani linen dealers, then duck out for pizza in the food court, where people watching includes a hijab-clad Muslim woman with Harley style motorcycle helmet under her arm, and housewives sneaking into the mall's garage-level bathroom for a bit of water to wash the evening cookware they've collectively stacked up in metallic clusters on the outdoor parking ramp. A culture of contrasts, for sure. Five minutes to let the rug dealers ponder their prices, then back up four escalators for another round of haggling.

Those were our afternoons. Our mornings were spent at two all-girls schools founded by a Brahman doctor and the German wife who accompanied him back from his studies abroad before World War II. Caste blind and multi-lingual, the Children's Garden School and the Ellen Sharma Memorial School recruit young ladies from all religions, castes, and parts of the country. Page one of every text book reads:

"Untouchability is a Crime"
"Untouchability is a Sin"
"Untouchability is Inhuman"

In their dormitories live Tibetan, Nepalese, and Sri Lankan refugees. The strength found in the German pronunciation of the word "Kindergarten" has been blown into a full twelve-grade curriculum by the three Tamil-Deutsch daughters who now roam its campus wearing saris, bindis, and the fair and chiseled face of their German mother. The students create a hum of active learning, producing an air that is confident, inquisitive, and self-aware. They are, without a doubt, a group of very capable young leaders, a product of the opportunities that same-sex education can afford young women in a male-dominated world.

Each day at the school was filled with hours of lecture by visiting Indian academics – their monotone delivery a testament to the diligence and discipline exercised by the honor students sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of us – while afternoons were spent in whirlwind visits to various teachers’ houses, their families eager to share an abundant meal at each stop. In one afternoon I ate four times and almost popped.

It was humbling to have students drape fresh garlands or Kashmiri scarves around our necks each morning, or, even more so, to have an entire room full of students stand up in a show of respect for the guest teacher paying a quick visit to their class. As welcoming a contrast as these actions were when placed next to those of the rambunctious and challenging students in my own Chicago classroom, there was also something about them that made me smile at thoughts of my American homeland. Ironically, these feelings were buttressed by a multi-page article I read in a major Indian newspaper during our stay. Titled “Do Teachers in India Have Too Much Power?,” the gist of the piece was that educators were squashing critical thought with their too stringent expectations for student obedience.

A breath of fresh air blew into our rigid week when on Friday, Shaker, guitar case in hand, walked through the school’s front door. As he placed his case by the lunchroom wall, our Brahmin-German host cast an inquisitive gaze toward his instrument. "What style do you play, sir?" Her short, skinny, smiling guest quickly replied, "Rock & roll!,” as he slipped behind a squat table with an ease half his fifty years. Hands clasped behind her back, the headmistress answered with a mild nod. I felt like a school boy myself when Friday afternoon finally rolled around and I bolted to the bus where Shaker and his good friend Sally, our professor, had been rekindling the excited energy of their days playing together in a band. As we rolled toward a beach resort to spend the weekend on the Bay of Bengal, I knew a welcome American release was in store.

Shaker grew up in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, when American draft-dodgers passed through in droves to escape the Vietnam War. What had been quiet seaside villages erupted in an explosion of Hippie excitement as soul-searching Americans mixed their drugs and their music with Eastern philosophy and mysticism. A number of young Indian folks joined in to bring the exchange full circle. Shaker was one of them, and while Sally studied in India in pursuit of a degree, the two of them spent their evenings jamming in a band that covered 60s and 70s rock & roll.

Today, they both work for study abroad programs in India, she stateside, he from the Subcontinent. Whereas Sally seems to have a friend in every Indian hippie hamlet, Shaker responds in kind with good buddies in U.S. towns like Boulder and Madison, where his kids also go for summer camps and he gets to nod approvingly at his daughter’s opportunity to date boys. That Shaker was on our own trip to India was a treat, made even better by our peer John, who lugged along a $90 acoustic guitar he had purchased at Costco for just such an opportunity.

Shaker and John whipped out their instruments before our first dinner together was even finished. Twelve teachers and their professors belted out the lyrics to many classic tunes as a Shaker cyclone ripped his pick into song after song, and John happily tried to keep along. His English verses a bit rusty from disuse, Shaker nonetheless belted out words in a voice that would make Creedence Clearwater Revival proud. He also repeatedly placed the flats of his hands together and against his forehead in an Indian sign of homage, respect, and apology for the occasionally botched line. Then in a flash, smile and hands would tear into the GCD chords of the next verse.

The Indians and Europeans scattered among the patio tables had quite the accompaniment with their beachside dinners. The manager strolled in broad circles around our table. Would she shut us down? A Bollywood agent at the next table over handed Shaker his card. We jammed on and on. Few moved from their seats and we kept on going. Many hours later Shaker glanced around:

“Do you all know David Byrne from the Talking Heads? A couple of years ago I got a phone call from my record company. We do a lot of work with American labels. So when David wanted to make a trip to South India they called me. I went ahead and prepared for his visit by sifting through his music and finding a tune I could rework in Tamil. I was a bit scared at first he might freak out over copyright infringements. I had all these images in my head of this rock star character getting off the airplane. But when he stepped off his flight he looked more like a tennis player. We spent a week together. He’s a great guy. And he loved my remake... Wanna hear it?”

With that, Shaker slowed down for the first time that evening, his strumming taking on an intense tone. The words were in a language with no parallel to my own, but the familiar notes and his expression shared every line. Psycho Killer in Tamil: A captivating version of a haunting tune.

The eternally twenty-year-old, fifty-something rock & roller then stood up and took a bow. “Ladies and gentleman, as I rode on a train all night to get here, it is time for me to turn in." The secret to rocking into your golden years became apparent: Never lose your inner-teenager, keep on jamming, and turn in when the moon is still high.

(8/01/03)

Summer Sundries, Orcha

Barbershop Quartet, Khajuraho

Lakshmi

2009-01-22T21:58:00.003-06:00

Ram, Malibaliporum

Rode a night train today; all the way from the brisk air of a funky mountain hamlet, back to the familiar beach of Mahabalipuram on the Bay of Bengal. As our future rooms were still occupied, I meandered my way to the beach where I was greeted by Lakshmi, the pretty twelve-year-old fisherman's daughter whose acquaintance I'd made the week before. "You go for a boat trip with my dad today, yes?" Her smile was broad; two long black pig tails, radiant dark South Indian face. How could I say no to that? "Tell your dad we'll meet him in an hour."

Freshwater rounds up the road-burned troops, all hung over the furniture watching Terminator on the resort big screen since our rooms aren't ready yet. Creaky comrades, but if I can only get 'em to the beach, reserve tanks will no doubt kick in.

Last week, we had ridden on a full blown boat. Granted, a Boston Whaler type; open, outboard motor, plenty terrifying enough when the adrenaline-pumped fishermen are gunning the thing up and through the walls of three-wave breaks, black smoke whirring, paddling furiously along with the engine, bowman digging his 2x4 into the crest of a wall to pull the thing through; spinning head round to alert his stern man, shouting, smiling, shouting, shouting, smiling, muscles tensed the whole time; his feet never left the deck as he hunkered over on the bow, while his seven passengers were airborne on the back of a bull.

Have you ever stared a wall of water in the face? There's something primal about it. It breathes life into you in a way that makes you ten again - which, other than Lakshmi's irresistible face, was of course why I had to say yes and then go find my friends.

When we returned, there was no whaler. Today, the wealthy owner of that boat was beyond the horizon bagging his twenty-dollar fortune. But there sat Ram, all 130 pounds of him, a compact frame of shiny black muscle, shaved head, smiling. He jumped up and took both my hands. "Hello friend! Today we take you on my catamaran!"

I'd been watching the inventors of this craft for a week. Nothing but a bundle of curved logs bound together, and an outboard motor with the longest driveshaft I'd ever seen bolted to the back. You oughtta see these guys launch them; seems like half the village carries them down to the licking surf, before leaving it to the three crewmen who rock back and forth with each dying wave, waiting for just the split second to lunge their craft into the retreating water.

"You can take seven of us on that thing?" A confident nod was my answer.

So, what is the difference between a whaler and a catamaran? Well, when you are on a pile of logs you are as much in the sea as on it; you are as much brushing those walls as riding over 'em; you rise and fall on the very surface of the water, as Ram’s people have done for ten thousand years.

We swam in the open sea. Ram goofed around under water as if he were a shark. "My English very bad! Only seven years of school." Yet we talked about his four daughters, his wife, his mother; the family that resides in his small but tidy beach-side house. This is a family dynamic that is no easy feat in old India. Marriages are arranged and brides require a dowry. Ram shakes his head in shared recognition of this fact, yet his demeanor reveals the great dowry that lives inside his girls, and a business mind that is modest but solid.

As I glanced over the glimmering water in the afternoon breeze, in slow and deliberate English I said, "This seems like it could be a good life." Ram wasted no time pondering his response. "This is a poor life. The life of a fisherman is not a good life. You are a wealthy man, I am a poor fisherman. I work very hard and have very little in return." Except for a fantastic family; and a hoard of men there to greet him every evening, to grab a hold of him and his boat when the last wave of his twenty-four hour day sends them crashing onto the beach. I didn't know quite how to convey this to him though, so I moved on. “Are your daughters married to fishermen?" "No, no. No fishermen; a mechanic; a teacher. They have all moved away; Chennai, Pondicherry."

After we crashed onto the beach, into the strong hands of his waiting posse, we were invited back to his house for coconut juice. As we sat on the cool tile floor, Lakshmi shared with us her sea shell treasures, while dad scaled the backyard palms and went to work hacking out coconut cups with his large machete. The best part about Ram's cups is you get to eat their sweet meat from the inside when you're done drinking fresh juice.

As we sat talking in his narrow entryway, I took in how Lakshmi interacted with a visiting uncle. It became quickly apparent to me that he had tremendous respect for his young niece. Their conversation seemed more like one that would take place between two adults; two folks with a warm respect for the insights of the other; passing a hot summer afternoon in relaxed conversation, cross-legged across from one another on the cool cement floor. We had all noticed how she had interacted with the boys on the beach. It was clear that they had deferred to her, and that she was a leader among them. I think we all, at some point in the day, had commented on her to Ram. He smiled. "The name Lakshmi means 'fortune'. The day she was born we caught many fish; many shrimp; many prawn. Lakshmi makes even the old people of the village jovial." She has no doubt made their family a wealthy one.

Ram continued, "For her we have arranged the best marriage of all. She will marry my wife's brother's son." As strange as it sounds in our culture, in Tamil Nadu such a union is held in the highest esteem. If some genetic mutation doesn't double on itself, I have faith that Lakshmi's marriage will be a happy one. In a land where wifely subjugation is all too common, her interactions with her future father-in-law appear a good omen.

It seems fitting that I would spend my last weekend in India on the coast of the Indian Ocean; along a shoreline where humanity first discovered the riches of an aquatic harvest; upon which were built the first great civilizations; next door to a people who, other than the outboard motors they have slapped on the back of their vessels, still practice their craft as it has been done since the dawn of history; who now also live on the edge of one of the greatest seas of modern humanity.

Their future visions, however, are no longer gazing seaward. Instead of looking into the blinding rays of the rising sun, they will be looking at the interior upon which it shines. An interior that is teeming with one-fifth of the world's people; a nuclear power; a country with one flag and five-hundred languages; a democracy in which secularism is the norm but Hindu nationalists are threatening disharmony much as the Christian right is doing in the U.S.; a country with some of the brightest engineers, doctors, and writers in the world, and beggars on every other corner, many living beneath crude tarps, their feet and arms eaten by leprosy or the machetes of desperate parents looking to earn a pity-filled buck; an emerging market in which business men broker deals via their cell-phones while on the back of bicycle rickshaws, and posh shopping malls spring up from urban decay—also allowing neighborhood women to do the day's dishes in their garage-level bathrooms. Family is everything. Religion is bountiful. Color is everywhere. Traffic is an insane videogame of buses, bicycles, trucks, cows, sedans, and the occasional elephant; with me sprawled leisurely in a rickshaw's back seat, my senses now immune…

…Save for a few tranquil days on a timeless beach, as the guest of a fisherman—who casts his boat each day from a subcontinent of contradictions into the purity of an ancient and noble craft.

(8/11/2003)

A Trip to Ground Zero - One Month After the 9/11 Attacks

2009-01-22T21:57:00.005-06:00

Ground Zero, New York City

O’Hare-bound, I jumped onto an El train Friday morn. Accustomed to the typical sea of black roller bags protruding from the resting hands in occupied seats, I was greeted by the loud echo of vacant metal on uneven tracks. Disembarking on the silent platform at the end of the line, the nation’s busiest airport seemed akin to an empty cathedral on a random day. It was 9:00 AM, October, 2001. The sun was shining and the sky was blue.

I approached the sole agents working the long string of American Airlines ticket counters, picked up my boarding pass for New York City, then weaved my way through the empty web of turnstiles toward the apprehensive security guards manning the x-ray machines beyond. Though most of my fellow countrymen had clearly dropped air travel like recalled merchandise, I couldn’t help but think that, at that moment, I was traveling on the safest day of the year. And besides, I was headed to the wedding of two dear friends. There was no way I could let recent events dampen their attendance.

As our small collection of hearty travelers boarded the aircraft, we were greeted by attendants that appeared to carry the weight of an anvil in their throats. Upon settling into our seats, one picked up the plane’s microphone, attempted a cheerful good morning, then stated: “Ladies and gentlemen, if you could please look at your neighbor to the left and say hello...” We each did, a sense of relief emanating from a neighbor’s earnest response. “Now, if you could please look at your neighbor to the right and do the same.”

Eye contact and smiling nods continued to melt the tension, as our group of strangers assembled a web of trust throughout the aircraft. The stewardess then continued on with requisite info about our flight, in a swelling tone that ended with a “Thank you for flying Am…” as a corporation’s appreciation was drowned out by personal tears.

A month ago, I’d been bolting up a staircase at school to ensure I was on time for my next class, when a fellow teacher came barreling by and shouted “Did you hear!?” hurling the news at the steps toward which I was bound, “A plane just hit the World Trade Center!” Being a Chicago Public School, televisions and computers are a rare commodity. The little snippet from the stairs was all I would have for the next 45 minutes. I collected myself in the hallway, stepped inside my classroom, and shut the door. I looked down at the ground for a brief second then up at five rows of anxious eyes. “Did you hear, Mr. F!? Did you hear!?”

I nodded, but keen teenage eyes were clear on the fact that I did not truly know what was going on. My simple statement that a plane had hit the World Trade Center was answered with a peppering of flourished versions of this story that were the obvious products of a chain of morphing shouts up and down the school’s halls. The room was raucous, save for Sara from Pakistan, who sat quietly at her desk in her scarf and white shirt, gazing at me and about the room. I quickly delegated a task and set the students to work.

Surprised by the silence that quickly accompanied the movement of thirty pens, I moved to the window and tried to ponder the weight that was somewhere out there in blue sky. I did my best to look reflective and not nervous or mad. I would not see Sara again – nor most of the school’s two hundred or so Muslim students – for the next two weeks. Their parents would not let them out of the house. A wise move I think, given that an Indian mother was pelted with fruit in a supermarket parking lot a day later, her Hindu faith having been lumped together with Islamic extremists.

Exiting the plane and then the subway at Times Square, I was greeted by the warm sun and a handful of old friends. We had all traveled from distant places to reunite for a knot tying, and we had an afternoon to kill before a rehearsal dinner that would take us deep into the fall foliage on the other side of the Hudson. After a half hour of happy embraces our posse had rounded out. We settled on the inevitable course of our day and headed for Ground Zero.

I can’t remember just what subway stop we exited at, as the usual stop at the Battery had been pulverized by the falling towers. I just know that immediately, when the train doors opened, we could smell the smoke. It reeked of jet fuel, burned metal, and I’m guessing, the deceased. And it was everywhere. As we climbed the stairs to the street above, I did not feel the familiar sun. All around us was dust, thick, heavy, and deep grey. Wheelbarrow-pushing volunteers and silent tourists worked their way methodically around chunks of battered metal and concrete that dotted the sidewalks, while clusters of police officers chatted in front of barricades that shielded foot traffic from what mysteries lay beyond. Every volunteer and officer wore a respirator, though a handful of these folks let them hang unused around their necks, the ease of conversation clearly taking precedent over healthy lungs. I wondered about their long-term health. After a mere twenty minutes of unfiltered breathing, I was beginning to feel ill.

We passed by a men’s formal wear store. A large African-American salesman stood with an at-ease stance in beige trench coat and purple respirator outside the front door. A block later, the shops were closed, their windows blown out. Through the metal grate of a pull down gate we peered into a Levis store. Neatly folded shirts, posed mannequins, registers, and every inch of counter and floor were coated in a three-inch layer of toxic dust. Every business on the street was shut down and covered, save for a small snack stand that had dug itself out of the mess. Open for its first day of post 9/11 business, its shiny mushroom shaped exhaust fan spun through the haze above its freshly shoveled roof.

Finally, we arrived at Ground Zero, or rather the tarp-covered fence that surrounded it, and joined the handful of people that had perched themselves atop hydrants, waste bins, and newspaper machines to attempt a closer look. Once again, I saw the sun’s rays, careening through the gaping emptiness where the twin towers had once crowned the Borough of Manhattan. On every side of this void in the skyline stood buildings that were riddled with pockmarks and gaping holes. It looked like a meteor shower had hit New York City.

A block further and we came upon a church. Hanging from its exterior was a giant quilt for all to sign. We reflected upon the hundreds of thoughts scribed by mourners from around the world. Someone handed me a magic marker. I pondered for a minute, then bent down toward a clear spot awaiting the placement of my thoughts – May the pragmatists of the world bring peace.

(10/13/2001)

Formal Wear, Ground Zero

Liberty's Heart, Statue of Liberty

Superior New Year

2009-01-22T21:56:00.002-06:00

Eagle Ice, Eagle Harbor

Lake Superior was the darkest I've ever seen her waters yesterday. A greasy black, her rolling swells so heavy with slush they could not release themselves in their usual frothy white breaks along her shores. Just dark and slowly rolling. Swollen in her containment. Angry. There was a ship out there. An old freighter of the same vintage as the Edmund Fitzgerald. A black ghost with ink-like smoke crawling out of her stack.

I waited for an eruption, but none came. As the cloak of night set in, she settled, awaking the next day to her deep winter blue once again. Had I witnessed for the first time a passive-aggressive bout?

As morning wore on, the small circular blooms of ice began to form and merge as they always do on calm days. Like a slow moving pack they congregate, then seem to breed their way in a blanket across the harbor - usually across about half its surface, depending on the wind; on a really cold day, the whole thing. It was shaping up to be a really cold day. Seeming to sense this, the town otter was busy getting done what fishing he could before the blanket hardened. Perpetually at play, he was a dose more serious than most afternoons.

Toward eve, two bald eagles came gliding down Eliza Creek to the harbor. These two were hunting together and, as the forest gave way to town and beach, they raised their six foot spans and came to perch on the frozen sand.

The otter was diligently engaged in his underwater world. I wondered if the eagles could see him through the hardening slush. Or hear him maybe. Or smell him. They seemed to know he was there. He was big. They were immense. He broke the surface, looking for a fast breath, realizing probably that any chance of finishing his tasks was fast being sealed up by the ice.

The hunting duo caught eye of him immediately. He also caught site of their fast swiveling heads and quickly slipped under the ice - a thick float of the stuff, with only one real opening that I could see. The eagles saw this too, their necks cocking their yellow eyes into dart-like focus in lightning movements that seemed more like those of a caffeinated robot when compared to the slippery smooth movements of their expectant prey below. One flapped its way out onto the ice floe, while the other stayed perched by the stream's mouth, no doubt the source holding this doorway open in the ice.

Jane Boggio, a Scandinavian beauty turned pseudo Southern Bell via marriage, was standing on the road above the beach. She was raised here. A sweet woman, made somewhat lonely I think, by the Yankee spirit Lake Superior has no doubt refused to release in her. She watched the scene unfold for a minute in morbid curiosity. It's amazing how the awe of nature here never ceases to inspire. I've never grown bored with it.

The otter was no doubt plotting what he was gonna do when he burst through that hole. Had he had time to scout his options? I thought about how pressured lungs hurdle time to move faster. Would he be pushed to hallucinate a remedy to this fiasco? Were his improv abilities snappier than the skills of the two perched in the lighter medium above?

He burst up through that hole. White heads flicked around and were angling to move. Wings raised, chests hurling forward, they suddenly stuttered in stride. Their white heads swung backward around. The otter shot from the water over the ice, as his aquatic tail passed its action to his sharp clawed feet. Like a brown lightning bolt, he crashed body and soul into a large stand of bushes up the beach. They were dense and plenty twiggy enough to keep those two away.

I looked behind the eagles to see what had broken their stride. There was Jane, one foot forward from before. An unconscious honed look of movement in her eye. She had barely budged from her place on the road, but they saw her, through the eyes in the back of their heads. She'd given Mr. Otter that one second window to his second chance.

All four of them were pretty magnificent at that moment. The hunters then brandished on their faces the frustrated look that they'd been unnecessarily foiled. But come on guys - an otter’s a cool animal - one of the more fun-loving species I've ever watched. I think you'd find their love of revelry contagious. Keep yourselves happy with the fish.

(01/01/03)

The Rocks, Eagle Harbor

Superior Sunset, Eagle Harbor

Lac LaBelle Channel

Superior Heart, Smith Fisheries

Beach Bonfire, Eagle Harbor

The Calm Before the Storm, Eagle Harbor

High Noon on Superior, Bare Bluff

The Waterline, Eagle Harbor

Sand Hill Stroll, Highway 28

Superior Jump, Manitou Island

Narrows by Night

2009-01-22T21:55:00.006-06:00

Canyon Rainbow, Zion National Park

As evening came, the jokes that had been flowing with the river began to slow. At the same time, the current seemed to build its strength. Or were we weaker? My walking stick no longer held so firm to the river's bottom. Our soles began to slip as we zigzagged our way back and forth across the canyon to avoid the alternating swerves of the water’s pull. Luckily, twilight lingered and we plodded diligently along. Certain bends gained deep shadows while others still reverberated with the rays of late evening that wondrously found their way to the canyon floor.

Suddenly, Manali saw her feet get whisked away. Wendy and I grabbed under each arm, as our friend let out a laugh that released the feelings of the day. Our priority was to keep her from disappearing around the next bend, but her laughter was contagious, making it hard to lug a dry suit full of water to dry ground. Eventually, we got her up and on land. All were soaked. Thank God it was funny. Our rhythm, however, had been broken. We were deep in the Narrows and the end appeared nowhere near.

The Narrows… The minute the once-a-day shuttle disappears in a trail of dust at dawn, you're committed. The next bus to a warm campfire in Zion is 16 miles away and 2000 feet below – at the end of a hike through one of the deepest canyons on Earth. Made well worth it, of course, by the ancient geologic library composed of two towering stacks of red, beige, and white rock that face one another across the Virgin River – a body of water that has carved 150 million years into the planet’s past.

Twelve hours. That's what the outfitter said - on the long end, "I've done it in seven." If he'd done it in seven, we could do it in twelve, right? Or so we thought, and this in mind, we kept along at a healthy clip. Two twenty-minute food stops. Another twenty minutes for bathroom breaks. For most of the day we were in motion, scanning rocks in the rapids, plugging the river’s bottom with our walking sticks, using them to pendulum our way across the ever-shifting current. It was fun. It was breathtaking.

As daylight gave way to twilight, however, the passage of time ushered with it a nervous mood. The day lingered and kept its fading embers as long as it could. Yet, the end was nowhere in sight. At some point, time had to give in and turn itself over to night. I can't tell when exactly this happened. Each bend offered new shadows that alternated lighter and darker, but inevitably bent their way to near black. Movement slipped from bounding strides to fearful hesitancy. Fading humor took on a questioning face. The key to keeping a strong footing is the weight that forward momentum pushes through your sole onto the rock. When you hesitate, the weight is gone. Boots slip, feet fly forward in the air, while water follows a hundred gushing streams through the top of your dry suit.

Such situations can unwrap an individual’s inner-most workings like a holiday gift. One just hopes that what springs from the box isn’t something you’d want to return. Jason had the silent resolve of a Tibetan monk – one who might venture often across perilous terrain doing the business of the day. Wendy had in her eyes the pent-up desire to throw at someone the frustration we all wanted to share. I hoped it wasn’t me. Manali had a look of physical hesitancy in the scanning glance of her eyes. I was sincerely scared for her. I, the seasoned veteran, felt a strong pang of guilt for having indirectly allowed the rest to get into this mess. All of us had fear buzzing its wings just outside determination’s door. Looking back, what blows my mind is this: The personal descriptions of each person above – painted through my own scratched-up and adventure-jaded lens – remained contained within a group dynamic that the four of us kept cool and collected.

Jason stayed just a few steps behind the women, helping to stabilize their crossings. I wondered how weak we could truly be. Fifteen hours had passed. We'd eaten like horses though, and laughed a heck of a lot. But the river was relentless. I plowed ahead, testing various routes for the crew behind. Beaches 100 yards ahead looked just like still water. If a deeper route looked calmer, I said the heck with it, and plodded through, the others banding together with a new rhythm that spelled careful, diligent survival. Dry suits periodically needed draining. We did so, and carried on.

The major thought in my own mind was how far ahead I should plod as a leader. Would a speedier pace provide a coach-like role that would push the others to pick up the pace? An eager, "Freshwater, where the hell are you!?" from a mere fifty feet back answered that question. From then on, I bounded ahead to test currents then doubled back into the others’ view. I also made it my job to jam peanut butter sandwiches into people's hands whether they wanted them or not. I was an annoying big brother.

Our saving grace was the moon, which arrived as if on cue. Nearly full, its white rays bounced all over the canyon. Not to be outdone, the Big Dipper then appeared in the middle of the canyon roof. We would make it. No guarantees on arrival time, but a lighted end did exist. Occasional circle-ups yielded conversations strangely mixed with biting and calm. Humor was not dead—though none of us would admit that to the joke tellers. I don't know how far we plodded on in the dark—two miles maybe, with my mind inventing all kinds of scary animals out of the shadows that danced on the canyon walls with the moonlight. Yet, I knew we'd finish this one. And a Chicago crew of greenhorns knew it too.

The end came in a set of rock steps, carved out of a boulder in the bend of the river, illuminated white by the moon. They led through what looked like giant beach rubble to the handicapped accessible ramp fifty feet above, which itself was a good mile long. As luck would have it, a group of climbers had gotten a rope stuck at mile’s end, for the last Shuttle had departed an hour before. The party’s headlamps illuminating the effort to free the rope high above, a climber’s girlfriend offered four very happy hikers a ride in the group’s 4-Runner to our campsite six miles down the road.

The next morning I took the duty to drop off our rented gear to the outfitter – my top priority, of course, being to give him a bit of flack about his seven- to twelve-hour estimate. His good-natured greeting as I came through the door, however, disarmed me. “It took us fifteen hours man! We were navigating by the freaking moonlight!”

He shook his head in a mix of respect, concern, and a hell-yeah-that’s-adventure-for-ya kind of way. “You never know what that river will bring you. People come in here all the time. Tell me ‘that was way shorter than you said, or way longer,’ and I can’t size half these people up ahead of time if I try.” With that he moved over to his computer. “Let me check the cubic-feet-per-second on the Virgin today.” A few mouse clicks through the internet. “Wow, she’s up to 125 cubic feet per second. Yesterday, when you guys started, she was at ninety. 125… That’s when we close up shop. There’ll be no one goin’ up there today.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Yesterday was sunny and beautiful. How on Earth did that river flood?” He replied, “Oh, the rangers will make you believe it’s the rains that will get ya. Quite to the contrary, actually. The dry desert floor can absorb the rains just fine. It’s the warm sunny days that are the bad ones. That’s when you get snowmelt in the highlands. It’s then, when you’re on that river that you’re really in trouble.”

Yesterday was indeed a splendid spring day. And I suppose the icy temperature of that water should have alerted us to the significance of those white-capped peaks on the distant horizon. Regardless, when you’re intact, it’s a brilliant memory.

(4/23/03)

Mexico

2009-01-22T21:55:00.005-06:00

The Zocalo, San Cristobal, Chiapas

Coffee by keyboard, I’m finding it hard to think above the cab-top megaphone of the local water truck as it makes its morning rounds. The deaf driver is cranking "Raindrops Fallin’ on My Head" at such earsplitting levels I’m pretty sure the Sun God himself just dipped down to exchange his own empty five-gallon jug for a fresh one. Though each passing of this rolling water bottle rack plants the notion that we’ve finally arrived to the third world Mexican lore of our American upbringing, the milk-frothing jet of the frapaccino machine in the Italian café across the street makes it clear that we have not. San Cristobal, Chiapas, has one well-healed foot placed firmly in Old Spain.

Two weeks ago, my girlfriend Melissa and I hit the ground in Mexico City, amid the swirling street-side capitalism that so brightly powers every tropical country I have visited and that is so crisply sequestered in sterile shopping malls within my own. It never ceases to amaze me how the raw power of commerce can be unleashed by the diligent entrepreneurs who will capitalize on three feet of available sidewalk to sell their wares. In much of Mexico, vendors are given free reign, and the ocean of colors, smells, and movement that answers to even the smallest opportunity envelops the senses. There are neighborhoods in Mexico City where vendors fill every block in a chaotic cacophony of every product imaginable, the exchange of goods and services always up for barter, while a steady flow of supplies meanders seamlessly through the throng of humanity on the backs of bicycles, dollies, and human beings.

Alongside these buzzing sidewalk communities stand trendier neighborhoods that rival many in New York or LA. The sidewalk culture is indeed more absent among the luxury German, Japanese, and American cars that line lush green streets, but regardless, a tolerance for the entrepreneurial spirit lives on through the foot vendors that slide by valets and doormen to the candle-lit tables beyond, where nuts and candies are peddled to martini sipping crowds. Anywhere and everywhere you find them or they find you, in the form of guitar strumming mariachi bands paddling their boats aside your own in a city canal, well groomed children selling fresh tacos in your bus aisle, and Mayan peddlers sharing their ancient crafts on a blanket in a cobble stone square.

Next stop: Oaxaca! After spending five-fun filled days in the world’s biggest city, Melissa and I paid twenty dollars apiece to purchase our spots aboard a first-class Mexican bus, complete with subtitled movies, well-tended bathroom, and reclining seats. Though the ever-winding highway made us feel we were riding atop a serpent as the bus snaked its way toward the clouds above the country’s super-highland desert, fresh black pavement allowed an intoxicating day to pass alongside the cactus forests and heat-lightning outside our tinted window.

Perched a mile in the air, Oaxaca’s colonial streets fill a lush valley surrounded by 11,000 foot peaks. The world’s pharmacy is up there, in a tropical cloud forest filled with leaves, fruits, and roots that could give Pfizer a run for its money. We hired a native Zapotec guide to lead us through the mist-choked pines and elephant-sized agave plants that pitched the landscape between thick jungle and sparse highland with each new step, and while running our fingers over no less than ten botanic remedies for ailments ranging from sore throat to cancer. Note: though the local anesthetic has a great lemon taste when one chews on its parsley-like leaves, don't expect to taste much else for a few hours after. If one could get an indigenous guide to adopt them, they could likely stay healthy for a good hundred years.

Far below in the valley sits the region’s Spanish anchor. Though Oaxaca is surrounded by simple yet sturdy Indian villages populated by expert potters, weavers, and other craft folk, the city itself is an ornate remnant of the country’s colonial past. In its marbled squares, well-heeled Mexicans, Americans, and Europeans pass the day in open air cafes, soaking up dry sun amid Spanish language books, shopping bags, and cups of fine coffee and wine.

Yet, something less relaxed is afoot in the air… Why are ten police trucks continually circling about the city? And teams of officers perpetually loafing about in riot gear at the entrance to many neighborhood squares? We learn from an American student that these acts are pre-emptive – a way for the governor-elect to tell protestors of the recent and contested election to not even consider making an appearance. This painted a somewhat surreal picture when placed against the strolling Mexican and foreign tourists of obvious means, the locals moving about with an air of business as usual while Americans and Europeans, feeling secure enough to cast curious looks of inquiry, simply would seek out some ex-pat in the know to dial them in to the story.

The state of Oaxaca’s democracy made our next stop, Chiapas, all the more surreal. We’d been told by the U.S. State Department website not to visit this South Mexican state. Gun-toting Indian rebels were supposedly running amuck. No tourist was safe. Yet European traveler after traveler kept telling us of their amazing stop there, proclaiming its capital, San Cristobal, a Mexican gem. We decided to ignore our government’s ominous website and have a look for ourselves.

I can attest that gun-toting rebel Zapatista Indians are indeed all over Chiapas looking to reclaim their lands – in the form of hand-crafted dolls on horseback, available at every tchatchke stand in the packed markets of colonial San Cristobal. The British, French, German, Danish, and Dutch tourists love them. With bemused grins they are purchased from Zapatista vendors, who are making a killing for their political movement in both pesos and public relations. At the same time, Europeans are reciprocating with a bit of their own culture, through video-streaming their DJs into local discotechs that are every bit as tricked out, trendy, and packed as those found in similar-sized towns in England or France.

I’m beginning to marvel at how Americans, who travel through their own gang-ridden inner cities with a grain of salt, become such timid travelers when they hear of armed groups abroad. Our travels through Chiapas got me thinking. If the U.S. government kept a travel advisory web-site on its own urban areas using similar measures, what would it look like? My own travel advisory would list the following for Chiapas: Mayan-Catholic churches anchored as much in indigenous spirits as Rome; amber and jade dealers that rival any in the world; a cornucopia of restaurants, clubs, and streetside stands that range from funky to exquisite; all nestled on a temperate mountain plain begging for days whittled away at an open air café.

(7/21/04)

The Market, San Cristobal, Chiapas

Cloud Forest Shrine, Oaxaca

Feathered Friend, San Cristobal

The Market II, Mexico City

Tikal

2009-01-22T21:52:00.004-06:00

Swallowed Empire
Perched in the shore breeze of Lake Peten Itza’s crystal waters, I am finally a lighter shade of warm. This morning, a 5:30 AM shuttle trucked us deep into the rainforest for a heat-beating visit to the ancient Mayan capital of Tikal. Following a false start at the hands of an alarm clock not yet changed over to Guatemalan time, we were joined at the crack of dawn by our tour guide, Juan Ignacio Jesus Bendfeldt. Thick dreadlocks, Adidas track suit, and chain smoking, Juan was a 23-year-old native Belgian-German-Italian-Mayan-Spanish-Guatemalan. A student of his own instruction, he would prove to be the most chilled-out dynamo of a tour guide I have ever had.

His five-hour odyssey through the jungle-enshrouded former capital of the Mayan Empire was a mini-epic. No formal education mentioned in an afternoon loaded with precise history, archaeology, anthropology, environmental science, and a laundry list of nailed dates no teacher I work with could whip from the heat of a 90-degree day, Juan made us feel like we were accompanying a modern day Indiana Jones down a vine choked trail to the heart of a lost mythology. From our first view point, jungle-enshrouded mountains lay before us. From the next, pealed back earth revealed the steps of thousand-year old pyramids.

We climbed the few sculpted behemoths that archaeologists have hacked from nature’s grip, ascending their steep stone steps to the jungle canopy. Shaking vertigo at each summit, the sharp edges of the few recovered limestone peaks would materialize from the forest, dispersed among the thick collection of lush green mounds—their still-buried brethren—that protruded from the jungle floor for miles around.

120,000 Mayan lived here at the time of Rome's fall. No European city came within a third of Tikal’s size during this period. The Mayans also devised what remains one of the most accurate calendars on Earth, only to be recently surpassed by the atomic clock. What is likely their tobacco and cocoa is buried alongside the pharaohs in ancient Egyptian tombs.

Yet, in 900 A.D., this great city mysteriously collapsed and was abandoned. No real evidence of the Mayan’s demise is buried in the thick carpets of earth that have swallowed their history, save for three parched layers that point clearly to a drought. Experts have speculated that one dry season in a corn-based culture could be survived, perhaps two. The evidence points to three in a row.

Whatever led to Tikal’s demise, its grand temples have not sat unoccupied. Today its tenants are swinging monkeys, busy toucans, stealth jaguars, and a rich biome of creatures among which flutter 535 species of butterflies. Yet the ghosts of humanity’s dominance are still very much alive - in the intricately chiseled art; a solar calendar made of welterweight slabs, anchored by a small skyscraper pyramid; and the engravings of a complex hieroglyphic language whose meaning was lost when Catholic priests threw the libraries of their native competitors into a roaring bonfire fueled by European conquest.

As we lounged for a good hour at Juan's encouragement on the summit of Temple IV, it was hard to fathom how such an immense human accomplishment could be lost so quickly to Mother Nature's work. The fact that a mere 1,000 years can turn a brilliant city into a mountainous jungle makes one look hard at their own people's place in time. Had it not been for a nineteenth-century gum tapper, swinging from a tall tree branch by the opening of what appeared a dark cave, Tikal might still be buried beneath nature’s cloak. A keen eye catching a stucco fleck is what led to the recovery of this ancient world.

We would learn later that Juan carries the highest score ever received on the Tikal National Park Guide Exam. And our dumb luck allowed us to score him as our own. Juan was a gem. As was Dave, the ex-pat South Floridian resort owner, who had us spotlighting tarantulas in his garden after dinner, revealing how these furry arachnids will tamely walk along a hand and arm once lured from their holes. And Lou, the ex-pat baker and small-boat tour captain who, while pointing out twenty species of exotic bird life from his bouncing boat, spiced the time with stories about his time as a Washington D.C. mail man, including the day he demanded an autograph as he put forward the court warrant he’d been charged to deliver to a laughing John Lennon.

What is it about funky backwaters and the colorful characters they attract? Perhaps funk is the intersection of history and art. Peeling back a few vines in the Guatemalan jungle, the history is alive with ghosts. The residents of El Remate today seem to sense their ancient presence. I'm convinced it's what lures them as much as the forests or the lakes.

(7/21/05)

Relic

Jaguar Temple

Chicken Buses and the Queen's Cash

2009-01-22T21:51:00.003-06:00

Dock Frolic

I’m staring at Queen Elizabeth’s jeweled crown on my weathered Belizean Dollar bill. A short week back, we were on a well-engineered boat ramp that snaked its way to the river that forms the Mexican/Guatemalan border. Our trusted Mexican guide, Elias, waved goodbye as he headed toward his shiny van and we began the 30-minute voyage aboard a thatch-roofed wooden long boat toward the Guatemalan customs hut sitting atop the mud road on the river’s opposite side. Even the vegetation on the Guatemalan side looked worn down. This realization was put into two simple words by the well-heeled, Jennifer Lopez look-alike, Mexican mom sitting next to me. Pointing east, she exclaimed, "Mexico!" then pointing west, "Guatemala..." No adjectives needed: Guatemala’s trees were dead.

Ironically, the rest of Guatemala was a natural treasure. The town of El Remate is a lakeside paradise and its people a cast of colorful characters that will keep your own travel stories rolling long after you've surrendered your backpacks for your office desk. Tikal, the ancient center of Mayan civilization, is an awesome, jungle-enshrouded gem. You'll just have to baby your kidneys after the San Juan Company's "chicken bus" jiggles them like a paint mixer at eighty miles per hour along Martian roads, with drivers that pick or don't pick you up at their whim and hurl your backpacks around like bags of fertilizer. They're often the only gig in the country, though, and hence, our ticket onto Belize.

The Belize/Guatemala border is another night-and-day comparison: Weathered stucco customs hut to the west with two office windows servicing a sun-baked sidewalk; large shining customs house to the east with twenty-foot ceiling and fans. To the west, Latino agents nonchalantly posting exit stamps; to the east, African and Latino agents asking me, in Queen's English, "How are you doing today Mr. Freshwater?" as they engage in small talk about the world’s current events. Once across the border, we couldn’t find the Guatemalan bus driver who was supposed to drive us on to our destination. But, no worries: The cost of a taxi to the Belizean border town, San Ignacio, was just a few bucks, and a welcome break from our former daredevil driver and his rusted rocket ship.

The wait time for our taxi was twenty seconds. As Guatemala melted in the mirror we entered a new world. Stucco and cement-block buildings quickly gave way to a funky Caribbean architecture using lots of wood. Thousands of miles of thick jungle turned to manicured parcels or tamed brush, their intense spring greenness a lush nod to a forest canopy logged long ago. The cab’s windshield brandished a large insurance sticker. We hadn’t seen any of those in Mexico or Guatemala. I'm not sure they exist.

To be clear, we hadn’t exactly arrived in the Emerald City. A dusty economy was evident in the fading paint and our own driver's worn car, with brakes that began to fail on the edge of town. But within the blink of an eye he pulled over and passed us to another driver, along with his fare. I don't think this would have been a priority in the two countries we had just been. Or perhaps, I am not giving credence to these culture’s road-rocketing psyches, in which most drivers thrive on laughing in the grim reaper's face—who himself is likely perched in place of a guardrail around the next bend. This attitude was no doubt embodied by our terrific Mexican tour guide, Elias, barreling along rural roads at 80 mph without a seatbelt, while I nonchalantly worked at mine from its semi-permanent knot on the ceiling.

Pulling into San Ignacio, another difference between Belize and its Spanish neighbors quickly revealed itself. The Spanish and Mayan titles that grace just about every storefront and restaurant in Southern Mexico and Guatemala were now sharing the sidewalks with English, East Indian, and especially Chinese. Even in a western border town, hours from the sea, the British Empire was aglow. Policemen, alone or in pairs, walked with a polite and polished esprit de corps. This was a sharp contrast from their counterparts in Mexico, who perpetually lounged about in groups, bored from the inactivity behind their armor and sand bags.

This is Belize? I had no idea. Up until now, I had lumped the country together with the rest of Central America, attributing its English-speaking roots to some random anomaly in history that had left a light footprint in language alone. I learned that Belize was settled in the early 1600s by English pirates; its hidden beaches and atolls a perfect place to lie in wait for the passing Spanish Armada, who rode low in the water while loaded with Aztec gold. The men married Mayan women. They had great looking kids. Eventually the Monarch cousins of England and Spain struck a deal, and the buccaneers were forced to turn toward the jungle at their backs to earn a living. They quickly made a fortune in mahogany.

Soon, the loggers were joined by a new race from across the Caribbean. This culture’s legacy began when slave ships crashed off the isle of St. Vincent. The escaped Africans found an agreeable island-home and quickly intermarried with its resident Arawak and Carib Indians. A conglomerate mix of Swahili, Arawak, Carib, Spanish, and English evolved into the language of the Garifuna. They governed St. Vincent for more than 125 years, giving the British a good fight along the way, until finally, overwhelmed by Redcoats, they were sent packing across the sea. When their longboats found Belize, the crown-scoffing former buccaneers were willing to share their beaches.

Energized by the country’s bright rainbow of people, we were introduced to yet another culture a week later. While sitting in the back of typical Belizean transit—a well-maintained used school bus from the U.S.—they appeared. Throughout our ride, we’d been surrounded by Garifuna men in their NBA jerseys, Mayan women in their brightly colored skirts, and Mestizo children in their crisp jeans and collared shirts. Then the bus came to a stop, and on the newcomers came, pale Dutch skin in dark blue overalls, belt-length beards, and round straw hats. As if on cue, Mennonites were suddenly everywhere; at the fruit stand outside my window, clopping by in a horse and buggy, playing volleyball in their traditional dress, even going for a swim in their eighteenth-century uniforms. Wow.

Learning Belize’s history, and then finding a different culture in each new town we stop, a question is burning in my head: What is it about the British Empire that has made so many of its former outposts a rich mix of every culture it once disturbed? It’s as if every town, one hundred years ago, held a Model Empire conference, and all attendees were, for whatever reason or another, forever marooned. Also, why is a smiling Queen still adorning so many of their “independent” bills? I’ve inquired about this with folks from the Yukon to Oceana. Through each response I’ve found a common thread. They’ll make fun of her plenty. Better you don’t. Our Garifuna dinner host revealed this just last night. At my prodding, she chuckled a good bit about Elizabeth’s last visit to Belize. “You’d’ve thought that God himself had come down to Earth!” Whole towns received a fresh coat of paint. But as we sat outside her worn beach-side home, a moment of light reflection came across her face—“She’s a nice lady though.”

(7/29/05)

Caribbean Sky

Caribbean Soul

Caribbean Eagle

Let 'em Soak

Mush!

2009-01-22T21:50:00.005-06:00

Chester

Someone pulled the fire alarm today – likely some student more willing to face the winter cold than their impending exam. No time to grab jackets from distant lockers, 1,600 teenagers funneled onto the school’s front lawn in a shivering mass. Cursing the transgressions of their anonymous classmate, kids clinched their shoulders as a flurry of exposed arms attempted to burrow into shallow pockets. It was a sea of miserable young people. Save for the five youngsters gathered in a relaxed circle on the periphery of the tightening mass, engaged in laughter-laced conversation that seemed oblivious to winter wind on bare skin. Upon closer inspection, it made perfect sense. They were the dogsled team. At 40oF, the weather was balmy!

A week prior, these five upperclassmen and this tag-a-long teacher had awoken to the howls of a dog yard. Raising bleary heads from the depths of doubled-up sleeping bags, we found the rays of the North Minnesota sun dancing across the white blankets of frozen breath that had crystallized on our bedding. An intense day and night of instruction at Outward Bound’s base camp was complete. Our adventure was to begin.

We loaded up the sleds and dragged them to the dog yard. Our entrance was greeted by a chorus of leaping yaps as fifty canines jumped atop their doghouses to shout “Pick me!” With just enough leash to sniff their nearest neighbors, some galloped in circles around their tethers, while others raised front paws in excited waves as reared bodies pulled against taught ropes. A contest was on to display which twelve were most prepared for the day’s adventure. It was a jubilant frenzy, dotted with a few lookers in luxuriant coats who, well aware of their good genes, laid front paws atop doghouses so they could poise on hind legs and wag cheerful tails.

Luckily, the choosing was left to our guides, who then handed each of us a harness and sent us over to suit up the lucky picks of the day. Upon recognition of making the trip’s roster, bubbling canine excitement quickly heeded to the task at hand, as each dog calmly assisted a city slicker’s rehearsed yet laborious attempts to get them into their harnesses. With the sound of a final clip, seasoned muscles would shoot back to life as each dog dragged their future driver to a sled to get on with the day’s run.

One dog attached to a lead, then two, then three; it seemed the sleds would be torn in half by the yapping huskies and malamutes that were now tugging against the anchors that had been smartly clipped around thick trees. Four, tug; five, tug; six… clip-WOOOOSH, as sleds rocketed forward behind the ecstatic barks of a full team’s run, human drivers leaning left then right around forested turns, staring wide-eyed as sleds were then hurled down a steep hill toward the shoreline of an ice bound lake where humans and dogs settled in for the long-haul across the region’s frozen highway.

Our team had reached this wintry outpost via a fortuitous introduction made by my childhood friend, Patrick. Having pursued the outdoor career we’d both dreamed of as kids, he had invited me to a dinner with Julie Hignell, the first woman to make it via her own power to the North Pole. She volunteered to visit the Chicago Public School where I teach, hit it off with the kids, and offered six scholarships for five lucky students and their teacher to partake in a five-day dogsled adventure across the Minnesota Boundary Waters with Outward Bound.

In the hands of the finest teachers in the outdoor adventure world, my chief task, other than mini-van chauffeur and wood chopper, was the recruitment of a five-student team that could immerse itself in a modern-day chapter of a Jack London novel. Urban natives, most of my students had seldom stepped foot off city pavement. Our trip would not just place them around a forest campfire, but send them bounding on snow and ice behind winter-worshipping cousins of the wolf. Frigid days would not end with a warm bed and dry roof. Rather, dying embers of a Yukon Stove would signal a cold walk to a sleeping bag heated only by hot water bottles placed within wool socks. It was a situation that no teenager (or adult) could well handle alone. A well-balanced team was essential. After much pondering, I recruited the following roster:

Brian Meza: Senior Class President and socialite extraordinaire. The kid is literally friends with everyone. Even gangbangers of every stripe seem to place him on their “don’t mess” list. With three varsity letters to boot, what would six running dogs be but a few more athletes on another new field? Brian would be the rallying spirit behind the team.

Oyute Amarbayer: ROTC captain and seamless logician. Tall, fit, and supermodel buff, she carries an unassuming competence with which other kids simply jump in line when she issues an instruction. A recent immigrant from Mongolia, I think she may be a descendent of Genghis Khan himself.

Briseida Guerra: Calm observer and model student. Her quiet attention is always brought to an easy smile amid the teenage antics rattling so noisily around the room. Yet, every time she’s called on to answer a question, she’s on. Her quiet diligence and easy humor would both absorb and temper the frenetic energy of a teenage team.

Olaleke Allibalogun: Class comedian and ethnic bridge builder. A recent immigrant from Nigeria, in two years he has travelled from a faint grasp of English to seamless movement between his mother culture and the hip-hop lingo of Chicago. Olaleke’s well-timed humor is also dispersed without fail. On such a taxing adventure, this gift would be gold.

Sairabano Makhani: Old soul and sharp intellect. A Muslim from Pakistan, she had never before spent a night out from under her family’s roof. Her parents thought she was crazy to go on such a trip but left the decision to her. She opted in, with little experience in sports and little exposure to snow. Her drive, however, only settles for success, and her keen mind and wisdom would lend a mature focus to a young team.

Team in place, we arrived in Minnesota for training by Outward Bound. For a day and a night we were schooled – on knots, dogs, and winter survival—before sleds were loaded and we were off on our adventure around the chain of lakes that forms the Canadian border. By the end of day one the temperature had dropped to well below zero. The cold was looking to challenge us as much as the miles.

We built an igloo of sorts to shelter ourselves from the arctic wind and placed hot water bottles between the frost and our bodies and minds. Undeterred, the thermometer continued to drop until it fell to -40o the second night. Removing a glove for mere seconds to tend a zipper or knot resulted in a tingling numbness zipping over white skin. Yet the dogs were unfazed. Following their jubilant cues, we coupled diligence with a smile and carried on. And over evenings around the fire, we learned from one another.

Saira had been at school in Pakistan when the attacks of 9/11 occurred. She recalled vividly how her fellow classmates had cheered when the planes hit the World Trade Center. She knew at that moment she’d been raised differently, and that her fellow countrymen were wrong. She also shared her desire to be a writer, and her plans to study both journalism and medicine as a means to fulfill both her and her parents’ dreams. Olaleke reflected on the academic plight of African-Americans and how his own African upbringing and values stood in sharp contrast to those of others with whom he shared a common ancestry but whose families had been thrown down slavery’s destructive path many centuries before.

Briseida reflected on the fact that she had never really noticed the stars before in Chicago, and how in Minnesota they danced in a bright carpet over the black night. Oyute talked of her many jobs outside of school and the down payment she had just placed on a new Nissan Xterra. Brian reflected on the forty years of rock and roll music he had collected on vinyl records and his desire to become a history teacher.

In five short days, six very different team members bonded on a level that only Mother Nature can provide. We chopped enough wood to fill a small truck and withstood some of the coldest temperatures the Lower 48 ever see. And we did more than just survive. We returned to Chicago with the embers of adventure well kindled in our souls, having in our possession a new power that was perhaps best summed up by Olaleke during an exchange with a skeptical classmate over his pursuit of a new idea. “Are you kidding? I just dog sledded through minus 40 degrees – I can take on the world!”

(2/21/06)

Mush!

The Elements

Three Course Meal

Polar Plunge

Day Without an Immigrant

2009-01-22T21:48:00.002-06:00

Dreams

Yesterday, I was faced with an empty classroom. Granted, it was International Workers Day. Given that seventy different nationalities grace my classroom in an average year, it would make sense that a few students might take the day off to celebrate, or at the very least, escape from Mr. Freshwater’s history class. However, as a fifth-year teacher – of social studies to boot – I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know the holiday existed until today. My ignorance has been forever erased, as I spent the rest of the day in the throngs of the largest holiday celebration I’ve ever witnessed. On 04/23/06, activists, working to counter impending anti-immigrant legislation in Congress, scheduled “A Day without an Immigrant.” This protest would result in the largest march Chicago has seen since Vietnam.

Recognizing at 8:05 AM my inability to bore a critical mass of students, I cashed in a personal day in the principal’s office, threw on an Irish rugby shirt, and headed downtown to scope out the activities. It didn't take long to find a crowd, as 200,000 gathered a good two miles north of the Chicago Loop for a march through the city center. Like hydrological engineers, the organizers were also creating a second reservoir of people on the Southside. Just before the lunch hour, they used their megaphones to open the floodgates, releasing two swollen rivers of people to wind there way through Chicago’s cement and steel canyons, past the Board of Trade, and on into a rising sea of marchers in the city's heart - Grant Park.

Being a political hack, my experience with marches of 100,000+ people numbers, maybe, five. If you'll allow me to throw in Ohio State games as cause-related gatherings, I can up that number to fifteen. However, during each of these gatherings there was a marked difference from today. Without a doubt, most of these past crowds were usually revved-up yet well-behaved. But in each instance, some rowdy element, usually fresh from adolescence, and usually Caucasian, maybe dressed in the black costume of an anarchist, or maybe bare-chested with a scarlet OSU emblazoned on their chest, would inevitably hurl a piece of the crowd amuck. Be it a rock thrown through the window of a policeman's cruiser or a Michigan fan's parked ‘85 Toyota hurled upside down on a fraternity house lawn, my past experiences with large gatherings always revealed something that would throw a good chunk of the crowd toward physical destruction.

Yesterday is the first time I have ever seen a crowd of 100,000+ people pull off an energized activity without a hitch; 400,000 protestors and not a single fight or arrest. Just a very loud and united throng of moving people, waving flags, brandishing signs for immigrant rights, and every so many minutes, bursting into coordinated cheers in Spanish and English - especially when the whirring blades of news choppers would buzz the crowd and send it into a chanting current. Yet, the human rivers never really flooded their banks. Nor did Chicago’s Finest, notorious for their shoulder to shoulder armored formations, move to stem the flow. Instead, the police force was dressed in regular uniform, spaced out, and placed a respectful distance from the crowd. After four hours and countless miles, everyone went home content. And today, the city's dormant businesses are back from a very obvious siesta.

Today, I talked to my students from the seventy different nations about the issue of immigration. For the most part, this is what they stressed: They believe immigrants have a right to come to the United States to find work. They believe that a lot of businesses in the U.S. would not function without them. They believe that the pathway to citizenship should be a rigorous one. When I forwarded the idea of just opening wide our country's borders, they almost all overwhelmingly shouted "No!" Some wanted amnesty for those illegal immigrants already in the country. One forwarded the idea that even non-taxpaying immigrant workers contribute to government revenue through the sales tax paid on their finished products. A few were worried that skilled jobs already filled in the U.S. would be lost to new lower-paid immigrants. One vividly painted a border patrolman's "inability to decipher between a human and an animal in their gun sights." A few preached the value of U.S. education and health care. A few praised the U.S. government and economy for the opportunities their home countries' do not afford. I heard the word “opportunity” a lot.

Yesterday, I spent a good five hours riding the current of a very long human river through some of this nation's deepest urban canyons. 99% of the folks on the march were Mexican. Maybe half a percent were "Other Latino." Perhaps a tenth of a percent were Polish. Maybe half that number were Irish, all clad in coordinated bright green. There were also a few groups of Ukrainians, with bright flecks of the rest of the world waving their rainbow of flags among the Red, White, Blue, Green, and Yellow of the rest. There were flags everywhere. Three out of four were American, and the shouts that accompanied them bounced off the Sears Tower, the Federal Reserve, and the Board of Trade in stadium chants that also bounced between languages in rotating waves.

I, of course, took a few pictures. In one of them, a few Irish participants are sharing humorous reflections in their thick native brogue, no doubt about the fifth-generation American red head focusing his camera upon them.

Voice

Roots

Camping with National Security

2009-01-22T21:47:00.002-06:00

A Look See

I’m currently sitting in a Best Western parking lot in Douglass, Wyoming, borrowing their wireless internet connection while two antelope meander about the parking lot, a quick respite along our mini-American road trip. Yesterday, Melissa and I spent the day kicking up the dust on the dirt roads of Northeast Colorado, chasing windmill farms on the ever-distant mesas perched above the heat vapors on the horizon. We crossed the Wyoming border amid ranch fences lined with cow skulls and buffalo herds, arriving in Glendoe State Park just as the sun was making its lazy summer’s way toward the crumbling sandstone hills that rose above the sparkling reservoir lake on which we set up our evening camp.

Anyone who has been to Wyoming can attest to the feeling that one is sitting atop the well-worn roof of an ancient continent; few trees and windswept swells of barren dirt along which perpetual winds blow around the scattered rocks and sagebrush that carpet the land as far as the eye can see. The perfect place to pitch a tent, pour a dash of Maker’s Mark into a cup, plop into a camp chair, and let one’s thoughts mellow with the setting rays of the sun.

Then came the first blast, miles away yet with force enough to rumble in chest and ears. Strip mine? Five minutes of peace, then, BOOM! Repeat. With a weekend of rabble-rousing in Colorado under our belts, however, we would not let a few tons of dynamite in the next valley deter us from a good night’s sleep. We crawled into the tent on the soft sandy shore of the reservoir and were fast asleep.

I’m not sure what time it was, just that the moon was down and the night was black, when the headlights pulled up to our camp. The idle of a large truck picked up as it was put into park, and a flashlight swung along our car. “Can I help you?” I called in an inquisitive voice, still shaking off sleep as I sat upright in my bag trying to decipher the form of the visitor to our camp. “You’re fine,” was the response, as the authority of a ranger’s voice accompanied the flashlight in a circle around our car, coming to rest on the permit atop the dashboard.

A permit check in the dead of night? How annoying. Granted, in the past I have tried to skate on a park fee, but that was as a poor college kid trying to take in the world for the price of a box of ramen noodles and cheap gas split among marauding buddies. I was now with my fiancée, the woman I expect to marry in the next three weeks, and we had dutifully placed our check in the little metal box by the unattended front gate. I wanted to give this guy a piece of my mind, but then I remembered our bottle of spirits on the front seat of the car. Could we get in trouble for that, even in our pseudo-adulthood within a Wyoming State Park? I held my lip.

Perhaps it was the booms from the next valley that now registered in my alert mind. Perhaps it was the fact that I was being probed by park enforcement after a fifteen-year respite from my being an annoyance to them. I know, well-earned payback. And Karma has a long half-life. But regardless, after little more sleep ended with the rising sun raising the 40-degree desert air into the 80s, I decided to politely share my reflections on our midnight visitor with the attendant at the front gate. In a matter-of-fact, Southern drawl, she gave me a response I did not expect:

“Let me tell you what’s going on. Yesterday, a couple of Arab men of questionable background were scouting out the park. Being so close to 9/11 and all, we can’t take any chances.” It took a minute for the situation and my location to settle in with one another inside my head. Being a former Chicago public school teacher who had many an Arab student in his classroom whose sentiments were focused not on terrorism but girls and music, my unsympathetic side percolated its way into my expression. After all, the date was 6/20/07. The woman sensed my thoughts and continued:

“Look, in these parts we seldom even see Black folks, let alone Arabs. And these guys pulled their car up to my window last night and started asking all kinds of questions about the reservoir: ‘How much water’s in it? How long is it? How old is it?’ We followed them and found ‘em on top of the reservoir taking pictures. The rangers ran their California plate and it came up questionable. The ranger who visited you last night was probably just making sure that everything was alright.”

Two scenarios then flashed through my mind. Scenario 1: There really are terrorists meandering their way through America’s least populated states, scouting out even the smallest of reservoirs for future detonation. Scenario 2: A couple of engineering students from Cal Tech who happen to have Muhammad in their names have inadvertently ended up on a watch list and are partaking in one of the more followed vacations into the hinterland in recent history. Either way, our attempt at finding a serene spot for a short respite from our wacky modern-day world sat blinking its eyes in my sleepy head. The woman sensed this too.

She injected some humor into the situation by engaging in small talk about the area, and wistfully reflecting on the fact that, unlike her native Alabama, she couldn’t find self-rising corn bread in Wyoming. “The Mexicans like flatbread too much. The stores don’t carry it.” I cracked a smile “How about barbeque? They’ve gotta have that kinda down out here, right?” She responded with an indignant draw back in her chair. “Are you kidding? No! They can’t do barbeque to save their lives! Wrong cuts of meat.” She then cocked her head and brought our conversation back to the situation at hand. “Heck, you think last night was wild? You should see when the Russians come up here from Denver on the weekends to party. We gotta get a whole van to haul them folks to jail.”

Who knew we’d be spending a getaway holiday trailing the modern world into the American outback?

6/16/07

Devil's Tower

Phantom of North Dakota

Hong Kong Handover

2009-01-22T21:46:00.002-06:00

Insomniac Dragon

Yesterday, my wife Melissa and I landed in Hong Kong for a three-day flight layover and the start of our honeymoon in Southeast Asia. Having landed at a sparkling new airport and rode an ultramodern train to our hotel, we were giddy to get out of our posh digs overlooking the harbor and jump face-first into our first immersion in this part of the world.

Being in China, I guess I expected some exotic oriental experience to jump before me on the first sidewalk. Instead, we rounded a corner to find beer tents as far as the eye could see and folks of all stripes merrily lifting yard glasses of ale. We’d landed in the middle of July Fest, the annual celebration of Hong Kong’s handover from England to China.

Visions of egg rolls and Tsingtao brew flashed through my mind, yet vendor after vendor was peddling Carlsberg and sausage, with wide smiles above t-shirts that proclaimed, “Hand Over…The Beer!” A Chinese girl jumped from her pack of friends with a hearty, “Cheers!” Just beyond, an African American guy in an Alpha Phi Alpha cap led a throng of revelers in an impromptu step dance. Inside an Irish pub, soccer fans from all corners of the world were hooting at the Asia Cup finals while English and American Navy men arm-wrestled each other over good-natured pints of ale.

Were we truly in China? Queen’s English from the subway intercom instructed us to “Mind the gap” and “Alight to the right,” while blinking maps informed us in real-time that our train was approaching Causeway Bay. Yet round another corner, we found ourselves passing by Chinese medicine shop after medicine shop, display cases pouring over with shark fins, rhinoceros horns, antlers, shells, and… 100% Certified Wisconsin Ginseng. Badgers, fear not those happy California cows—a whopping new market awaits your bounty!

I asked our expat bartender from Manchester how the place had changed since Hong Kong’s handover: “Not a bit.” I asked another Brit who had just returned after fifteen years: “It’s the same really, though they did get rid of the mosquitoes, the rats, and the cockroaches.” We’d have asked a few Chinese their perspective on the subject, but they were so happily engaged in hoisting beers and shopping bags it just didn’t seem the time to inquire about anything but good fun.

6/24/07

Wisconsin Certified Dealer

Life is Good

The Theatre

Contested Skyline

Beerfest

Old Empires' Outpost

2009-01-22T21:45:00.006-06:00

Singapore Pride

Next stop on our honeymoon: Singapore. Modern, wealthy, hushed—and the word clean simply doesn’t do justice to just how sparkling every last inch of this city-state is. Chinese, Indians, and Malays efficiently weave their way through immaculate subways and a world-class economy, harmoniously working together through a shared British past while deferring to their benevolent dictator leader.

Printed on the airport wall in bold letters was, “Death to all drug traffickers under Singapore law,” while the subway brandished grisly pictures of a corpse with the warning, “Jaywalking kills.” Yet the place was friendly and pleasant, with plenty of well-heeled jaywalkers to put my rebellious inner American at ease.

The well kept secret of the region, however, is the country next door – Malaysia is a laid-back gem. Though its constitution is rooted in Islam, its heart is rooted in easy smiles that state clearly, “We can all get along.” As in Singapore, Chinese, Indian, and Malay neighborhoods sit side by side, their architecture, food, and aromas mingling with the relics of ancient Hindu, Muslim, and Christian empires. Unlike Singapore, Malaysia has a funky liveliness in the air, accented by groups of rickshaw drivers lounging about town plazas between fares, and alleyways filled with street vendors hawking a rainbow of wares.

We began our stay in the country at Tony’s Guest House in Malacca - the ancient trade center and former outpost of Hindu, Muslim, and European Empires. Today, Malaccans spend their time in a relaxed nostalgia for by-gone days while the world’s busiest shipping lane now churns right by. Tony is retired, and though he often tells his bemused neighbors that he is just collecting firewood, he actually spends his days turning these scraps into a unique painter’s canvas while also running a guest house, chatting up tourists, and serving coffee to his fellow retirees who, he jokes, are bored out of their skulls. In our tidy room hung two of his works on worn boards – one of a tree frog peering from a limb and the other a naked gunmen assailing another nude guy who is clearly much more endowed than he. Tony was a character.

Passing our first morning with him over a three-hour cup of coffee, Tony chatted us up about America, world issues, and the events in his backyard: “Here, we have a sizeable middle class and everyone gets along. We have a retirement system and health care. My Indian and Muslim friends come to my house for Chinese New Year, my Muslim friends and I go to our Indian friends’ houses for Divali, and my Indian friends and I go to our Muslim friends’ houses for Ramadan. Though I can’t figure out why Muslims feel they have to pray five times a day…Who are they showing off for? I am Buddhist. Heck, I could be praying while sitting at this table right now. What good is the next life if you cannot enjoy this one?”

Tony’s sentiments were echoed by a Malaysian boat captain who led us on a river tour through the heart of Malacca – although, rather than sharing his thoughts in the privacy of his kitchen, he used his microphone to share with the whole neighborhood his theory about Muslim men’s propensity for tricking their women into embracing the merits of multiple wives. No one seemed to be offended, an attitude perhaps voiced best by a middle-aged Sikh gentleman with whom we later shared a bus ride. Comparing Malaysians to the laid-back Canadians he went to college with in Nova Scotia, he stated, “Malaysians are a lot like the folks in Halifax. Simple people who just like to drink and kick back.”

Yet one can’t help but notice another Malaysia just a few hours away in Kuala Lumpur, rooted not so much in a different political outlook as a thriving economic engine that has sprouted some of the tallest buildings in the world. As in Malacca, Muslims are clearly the silent majority, their strong influence even reflected in the Islamic curves of the towering skyscrapers that are built upon the many oil investments coming from the Middle East. Yet inside the five-story marbled shopping malls within, mini-skirted Westerners and hijab-clad Malays browse comfortably alongside one another in front of Victoria’s Secret and the food court pizza counter.

We read about race riots in Malaysia in 1968, and the conciliatory efforts of a populace that seemed eager to mend and move on. We also found in the country’s newspapers a resurgence of support for Islamic law and the exclusion of citizens who fall outside the Muslim faith, a sentiment also described candidly by a fellow traveler who described her mom as an English Rose and her dad as Malay. I couldn’t help but notice how Malaysian and American support of racial tolerance seemed to rise and fall at similar periods in time. Our day-to-day interactions with Malaysia’s diverse populace, however, seemed to embody a healthy tolerance that I hope is not compromised by America’s recent missteps on the world stage and at home.

Our own observations in Malacca and Kuala Lumpur sum up our view of Malaysia in the following terms – funky and worldly, pluralistic and opinionated, relaxed and looking forward, diverse and rooted in one’s own kind; Islamic; and in an everyday sort of way, tolerant. If Turkey serves as Islam’s gateway to the West, it is clear that Malaysia is its gateway to the East.

7/30/08

Public Service Announcement, Singapore

Singapore Strip

Confucian Temple, Malacca

Malaccan Gate

Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur

Vietnam

2009-01-22T21:45:00.005-06:00

Stubborn Pride

“I am your pilot, Aleksander. Welcome aboard Air Asia. Please fasten your seat belt.” These were the short words of our Russian pilot as our Kuala Lumpur gate retracted and he skipped the leisurely taxi down the tarmac for a gun of the engines that sent our spanking new jet wheeling onto the runway and into the air. A Red Navy Veteran? No sooner had we hit the pavement at flight’s end than all passengers were up and about the cabin before we’d even slowed down. Welcome to Vietnam.

A buzzing and beeping mass of humanity, this country is eager to shed the bridles of communism and run full force with the world. Sixty million people; with two million motor bikes in Hanoi alone; weaving through one another in a swerving mass of six-way intersections that seem the product of a traffic cop’s mad hallucination. No traffic lights, no stopping, just millions of drivers engaged in a delicate yet riotous dance of give and take that weaves each round the other through an ever-forward-moving throng. The way the Vietnamese drive is a great metaphor for the way they live.

My high school history class and our Lonely Planet guidebook dovetail on one vivid fact: Vietnamese losses in the Vietnam War were immense. Yet time and time again during our visit, the local sentiment we came across seemed soothed by water under a collective bridge. Whenever we'd respond to an inquisitive clerk or waiter’s “Where you from?” our “America” was time and time again met with a smiling face – no lingering looks or complex thoughts churning their way behind chipper eyes – just enthusiastic Vietnamese looking to strike up friendly conversation and maybe a few sales of their wares.

We got the distinct impression that the Vietnam War lingers much more in the American conscience than it does the Vietnamese. The U.S. media seems awash in it still today; politicians continue to win or lose elections by the way they spin themselves or their opponents within its still-open chapters; analysts comb new military engagements as if they are looking for the resurgent ghost of Ho Chi Minh, while comparing jungles that once hid VC to the modern-day mountains that house the Taliban.

For this reason, Melissa and I wanted to attempt a closer look at this rough mark within our nation's history, taking a break from the scenic beauty that had attracted us to the country for our honeymoon. We decided on a visit to one of America’s most challenging battle fields - My Lai, where exhausted and war riddled U.S. troops, desperate to cut down an invisible enemy, left a village dead in their wake.

Yet our requests for the $15 taxi ride to take us from our comfortable Hoi An hotel to the rural memorial were met with tilted heads and the statements: “That’s a long way to travel, isn’t it?” or “Is that really how you want to spend your day?” Our response, “...Yes, but we’re American. Is this something we should see?" was eased with the soft words of a pretty young hotel attendant that seemed to sum up the feeling that radiates throughout Vietnam – “…It was a long time ago.”

Ironically, today, communist Vietnam may actually be one of the most capitalist countries on Earth. Nothing is free. Parents have to pay for their kids’ schooling, doctors ask for payments up front, and every major road is a toll way. Yet the communist mystique lives on. At every other street corner sit painted billboards with a style that seems borrowed from a period museum – yellow and red hammers, sickles, and stars, above farmers, laborers, soldiers and mothers carrying their respective tools while marching across austere wooden canvases in red solidarity, often with “Uncle Ho” proudly beaming from above.

While at every intersection in between, much larger BMW, Pepsi, and Nescafe ads jump out in bright neon lights and glowing logos, much more in sync with the buzzing throngs of traffic below, converging beneath the giant Samsung and Toshiba LCD screens dancing above Ben Thanh Market in Saigon, clearly revving up to take on Piccadilly Circus and Times Square.

Is there a tug of war going on for the nation’s psyche? Looking back on our two weeks of commerce-fueled immersion, it seems more likely that Vietnam’s 60 million buzzing citizens are simply giving a respectful nod to the dwindling elders of a bygone era, who marched to a political ideology that, while flawed, unshackled the country from two centuries of French and American rule; fueling an independence movement that proved much more complex than anything I’d read in my high school history books – and anchored like planets around the star that is Ho Chi Minh.
Ho Chi Minh… whose tomb I stood in front of one morning to watch a never-ending line of fans stretched thick for blocks, all waiting patiently for the 30 seconds they might get to pay their respects—to the communist leader of a country these same admirers have made capitalist in every manner but name. Clearly, my history lessons are incomplete.

Vietnamese aren’t just entrepreneurs, they’re hustlers, and along with the swelling wave of manufacturing and consumption that have sent their new free market economy afire, tourism has taken off in a manner that would make the most diligent Cancun tour operator beam. “Adventure Tours!” are everywhere, on every corner, loaded with tour managers eager to sell you in chipper English the many wonders they have in store for you in beautiful Vietnam.

And there are wonders: Mountain ranges shooting out of the South China Sea like a lunging dragon’s back, temples with clouds of incense wafting over scores of gleaming Buddhas, water puppets with fireworks flying out of dancing mouths, and a family of four veering nonchalantly on a motor scooter through the bustling hordes along the curves of Old Hanoi's thousand-year old streets, one daughter braiding the other's hair as they roll.

8/05/2007

Ho Chi Minh's Tomb

Lessons

The Lamp Makers

Maid of the Mist

Family Sedan

Saigon Strip

Ponleak

2009-01-22T21:43:00.005-06:00

Devotions, Pnom Phen

Over the past few weeks, my wife and I have been awoken each morning by our clock radio broadcasting the plight of Myanmar’s democracy movement – specifically the torture and murder of 400,000 Buddhist monks. For us, Myanmar’s plight has struck a very personal chord.

This past summer we got married and hopped on a plane for a honeymoon adventure across Southeast Asia. We did not make it to Myanmar, for political conditions render it near impossible to gain entrance. We did however make it to neighboring Cambodia. It was there that we made a new friend. To protect his safety, I’ll call him Ponleak, which in the local language means strength and endurance. Ponleak is exactly my age, 35, and a former Buddhist monk.

We began our stay in Cambodia with a visit to the Killing Fields. It was here a mere thirty years ago that a ruthless dictator named Pol Pot led a gruesome massacre of innocents that would take one quarter of the country’s population. Today, at the center of the site, stands a three-story glass pagoda piled high with the skulls of the anonymous masses.

With the passing of another decade and the dark episode now embodied within a towering memorial, we wanted to imagine that the country has come to terms with its past and moved on. Such a realization would also make it easier to move on to our primary reason for visiting the region – the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. Nonetheless, Cambodia’s still-dark present would soon reveal itself via a former Buddhist monk.

We found ourselves sharing a taxi with Ponleak as a means to cut the cost of our five-hour journey to the ancient temple city. With hours to pass and the smooth lull of the country’s only paved road, we would hear the unhurried story of a Cambodian exactly my age. When Ponleak was 14, his peasant father had two choices: Let Pol Pot impress his son into his genocidal army, or hand him off to a Buddhist monastery for hiding as a monk.

In a country where public education does not exist, the latter option allowed Ponleak to become the only educated child in his family. He learned six languages and passed eight years of quiet reflection over hundreds of books. History, politics, economics, religion: Ponleak clearly knew them all, with a grasp of language and critical thought that could easily make him a graduate of an esteemed college in the U.S.

In 1993, following the fall of the Soviet Bloc, the United Nations finally stepped up to ensure fair elections in Cambodia. Yet, just five years later in 1998, when elections were due once again in a fledgling democracy that had recently been gutted of its educated class, the UN chose not to partake. The results were predictably bleak, and as keepers of the country’s knowledge, Buddhist monks like Ponleak felt obliged to act. They became activists for honest democracy.

These monks were quickly hunted down, and Ponleak’s best friends were killed. Ponleak escaped to Thailand where he spent the next three years mourning for his friends while his family mourned for him. He lamented to us his ordeal. “They thought I was dead…They performed the funeral and all. It was very hard to spend my time there… I had lost my best friends.” The most surreal aspect of Ponleak’s story was the warm aura and good humor that was ever-present throughout his telling of it. Many travelers call Cambodians the "Irish of Asia," and I began to see why.

The Cambodian government proclaimed Ponleak a “false monk,” and in what was perhaps an exchange for amnesty, Ponleak finally decided to trade in his saffron robes for civilian clothes and to return to Cambodia. We hired Ponleak for our personal tour of Angkor Wat the following day.

If you’ve seen an Indiana Jones movie, you’ve glimpsed Angkor Wat. Like many temples built by a sister culture in Myanmar, it is without a doubt one of the ancient wonders of the world, on par with the great pyramids of Egypt and the towering pillars of Greece. Like these marvels, Angkor Wat was built by a brilliant civilization that slowly rose and quickly fell.

We spent a day meandering through these mythical ruins with Ponleak, as he alternated between detailed history lessons leaping forth from carved corridors and his own political reflections on the country today. “I want you to learn about the grand past of my people. But I also want you to see the real Cambodia for what it is today. I want to write about it, but I have no access to things like computers or the time in my day. This is one reason why I share them with you – so that you can write about the things that I say.”

The recent atrocities in Myanmar have pushed me to deliver Ponleak’s request. Like the Christian monks who preserved the wisdom of ancient Greece and Rome through the Dark Ages, Buddhist monks across Southeast Asia are doing the same with this region’s own brilliant and imperiled knowledge. They cannot do it alone.

9/20/07

Boulevard of Khmer Dreams

Cruisin' the Levee

Mekhong Reflections

Angkor Sunrise

The 5th Quarter

2009-01-22T21:41:00.003-06:00

Varsity

To start, let me clarify - due to three generations of genetic mutation, I am and will forever be a proud and deranged Buckeye. Like family, the state of my birth is not of my choosing, and by default, my attraction to Ohio State football is something akin to a bird’s desire to fly south for the winter: preprogrammed, unexplainable, and innate.

However, due to the fact that my wife and I have dug into the U. of Wisconsin for a run at advanced degrees, we have made an allowance: We are now Badger season ticket holders. Game 1 under our belts and I have to say, Camp Randall is the nuttiest stadium I’ve ever experienced. And I don’t mean the football. I’m talking about after the game.

The official rules of college football designate four quarters for a match. As history tells it, Wisconsin was once so terrible they needed an additional quarter to attract fans to the game, not for actual football – it was a lost cause – but rather a motley repertoire of bleacher-based antics led by an unleashed marching band.

It starts with the Polka, then the Pee Wee and the Time Warp, with the traditional Badger song book interspersed as the “marching mob” on the field sees fit for the swinging stands. A whole stadium is in sync with prancing tubas and drums, like a chorus line slapped together on a comedy club stage.

I imagine Ohio State fans still win for intensity: raw, brutish, and unwavering, like I imagine the Coliseum in Old Rome. But I think Wisconsin has them on creativity: lightning quick, irreverent, and funny, like I’d imagine if a football team had to try out for Saturday Night Live.

And then one day Wisconsin got good… and the 5^th quarter carries on, following four quarters of quality football where the fans remain just as riotous, goofy, and fun.

Madison's State Street

Midnight Oil, State Capitol

Global Warming, Campus Power Plant

Monona Morning

Twister

2009-01-19T21:34:00.005-06:00

Storm Warning

I was hit by a tornado once. I usually utter this statement around a campfire or dinner table following the interruption of a warm Midwestern day by a warning siren or an earth-colored storm. It’s surprising how many folks have seen the dark hues of twister-inducing clouds without ever having actually experienced firsthand the raw fury of a funnel – which usually seems to touch down in the next town, county, or state, leaving only its ominous potential in the memory of a retreating front. My own experience with a twister began with a jar of peanut butter during an epic bicycle ride across the United States.

It was late, past midnight, and my buddies—Patrick and Rodney—and I had been riding our bikes for a good four hours. The weather was hot and muggy, yet a lot better than the 106-degree day we’d spent loafing around in pools of sweat in a small town Minnesota park. We’d taken to riding at night four days prior in North Dakota, when the crushing heat made it clear that the only way across the Great Plains on a bicycle was when the moon pushed the thermometer beneath ninety.

Six months earlier, we’d made a pact that we’d ride from Seattle to Maine. An admittedly nutty idea while sober, it sounded brilliant during the college keg party at which we’d cooked it up. To ensure our commitment would not soon fall prey to a clouded bravado, we quickly drummed up $14,000 in pledged donations for a hometown charity to wed us to our goal – only to be delivered upon completion of 3,600 miles.

Which is why, instead of maybe throwing our pedal-powered steeds in the back of a pick-up truck or a passing train car to bypass a gnarly day, we were bound to ride, thick or thin, through Mother Nature’s whims. When we reached North Dakota’s western edge, she had turned on the broiler. So rather than jump face first into an oven, we rode third shift across the darkened pavement of the heartland – a tolerable way to work through the humid miles – until each night at around 4:00am, when the falling temperature worked its way to the ominous “dew point.”

It was at these moments that this little studied meteorological term would manifest itself in a pent-up display of its grand importance – as the random temperature on a given day at which vapor becomes water. On a tame Ohio morning, one might find the dew point’s work in the form of sparkling droplets on a lush green lawn. On the Great Plains, however, it made its nightly entrance via thundering clouds that rose like spirits from the dark landscape, riding spider webs of lightning that rolled in from the horizon with a mere thirty-minute warning at best. It was at this time that we’d strike for low ground and weather the storm, then rise with the sun in search of another small town park to whittle away the daylight hours.

Day one of this routine was relaxing, then exhilarating. Day two was tolerable, then exciting. Day three saw my last change of clothes soaked in sweat and any vestige of rest lost in a puddle of my own perspiration – and this was before the storm set in. Day four saw half-hearted jokes returned with middle fingers raised from wet grass. By the time I had run out of peanut butter during a midnight lunch break atop a soft mulch pile in a hardware store parking lot, all patience was lost.

“Hey, Rodney, you got that second jar of peanut butter in your saddle bag?”

“Come on Freshwater, that thing’s in the bottom of my pack…”

“Dude, I’m hungry.”

“Alright already, if you insist, I’ll tear this thing apart and get you the stupid peanut butter!”

“Oh wait, never mind, there’s still some in the lid from this upside down jar.”

But it was too late. Rodney had already emptied out half his bag for naught and the fight was on. I can’t remember exactly what we shouted at one another, just that the words jarred front porch lights and decelerated a passing car. We caught ourselves, looked around, then at one another: “Man, we need to go to sleep.” In silence we then rode out of town, until we came upon a rest area in the highway’s grass median, threw up our tent, and passed out.

I don’t remember the storm’s approach, just that we’d awoken standing up as a gale-force wind pulled our tent from the ground. Patrick was actually still asleep, shaken awake by Rodney’s and my “What the?!!” as we threw our bodies full force into the nylon floor to bring it back down to the earth. A loud crack and the tent’s poles exploded, as fabric shrunk like saran wrap around our bodies and a freight train began to charge over our heads. Louder and louder it roared. Rodney, having the misfortune of the screen window glued around his face, was our eye into the storm: “IT’S LIKE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, MAN!!! YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK!”

Still louder and louder it grew. Images of a blade of grass flying through a telephone pole blew through my head as I wondered if, this time, my time had come. Any second it could hit, another second, then another. I heard a, “Ross, man!” hurled through the wind. “I’m really sorry man!”…“Me too!” as an “I love you guys!” shot from Patrick’s side of our destroyed tent. More seconds. What would we do?

“The brick outhouse! The brick outhouse! We gotta make a break for it!” Patrick tore open the tent and the three of us clawed our way through a river of water into the storm; breaking into a crawling run for the privy door, which, through the grace of God, we were able to pry open, roll through, and bolt shut. Then we looked up. Hell’s Kitchen was brewing through the skylight in the ceiling. Patrick gazed into the hole in the ground, wondering if it was worth it to live or die. Rodney pondered Patrick’s dilemma, then burrowed into a corner with a “Dude, if we die, maybe it was meant to be...” I grabbed another corner and Patrick quickly staked out his own.

Time carried on in a surreal mix of the immediate moment and minutes ticking by. At some point the roar petered into silence and exhaustion turned to sleep. A few hours later we were awoken by the latch’s click and a towering figure behind a large belt buckle and ten-gallon hat. “You boys alright?” Sure. We’re alive.

We inquired about the storm. “Oh, it’s gone… But not before it turned the Fargo Dome into Fargo Stadium.” Registering this feat of nature, we rose to inspect the aftermath in our own camp. The bikes, weighted by 70 pound packs, were miraculously still there – unscathed by the timber that had come crashing down all around them. As ironic were the many other trees that stood idly in the morning breeze, their branches bearing no witness of the 180 degree turns they’d taken in the storm’s winds.

We collapsed under the sun’s crisp rays, a feeling of rebirth lightening our bodies and our minds. Eighteen hundred miles under our belts and eighteen hundred left to go. Yesterday, our goal seemed to have burned up with the plains. Today, it was reborn with a new life of possibilities.

(7/11/08)