camboja

a journey for giants and story for sages
ill draw the pictures you find the words
broken children complete smiles
a long listless list of
not that the other
more than happy or sad or excited or scared
words cannot name the nameless worlds
the creep and steep inside my brains
at least there will be fruit.

tonight is worth blogging about

first i watched tigers fight, peacocks dance, and cobras strike.

then i listened to rock and roll, a band which sold its soul, and danced.

finally the cab driver told me the things you always hear when people fear that which is different.

sometimes development is joke. but it is worth it. and i would rather laugh than work on wall street.

feeling better bout humanity

this week i have continuously stumbled across things that make me feel better about humanity.
it started when i attended a TEDx event on Saturday and heard Professor Soon describe his community of the future. i am looking for clear specks to explain it better than i can, but until then let me say it was self sustaining, and intergraded the best parts of a city with the best part of the country (and they will soon cover Sri Lanka as an example of what to do with IDPs).  On Tuesday i re-visited my favorite TED talk ever about mirror neurons. followed by this gem of a radiolab.  when you put the two together you realize not only are we capable of being better, but we are actually moving in that direction. then, thanks to this film i learned about sustainable roadways on top of about a million other ideas.  while researching toilet technology i stumbled upon Clay House, which is a fantastic example of ecology meets social justice.  so many days, especially in development, i get the blues. HOW WILL THINGS EVER GET BETTER WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH WRONG IN THE WORLD?! and then i stumble across a few examples of people becoming aware of the impact (bad and GOOD) they can have.  i saved perhaps the best for last. i remember celebrating the first ever earth hour and thinking vegas will never play along. for once, i am thrilled to have been sorely mistaken.

my darlings, my dears

dearest forever friends,

life in the tropics is hard when you are allergic to ants. today i learned that i am soon to be a published co-author. eventually my resume will look worthwhile, and maybe i will finally get paid for doing something i am passionate about instead of pursing passion for free and slaving for the man.  saturday i ventured into the jungle to visit the monkeys. i would like to stay with them forever, assuming they don't get any urges to rip my arms off... but that is another story for another (more private) day.  i also attended TED talks which consisted of one the of the guys who discovered the human genome, a failed talk about failure, and my new hero; Tay Kheng Soon.  apparently there are TEDx talks all over the place. i would like to continue going as they make me feel more complete.  there is another intern in my office, he smells funny and makes rude bodily noises. perhaps i am too picky. i am relieved he is leaving soon, and i feel kind of guilty for that. developing a development soap opera is hard. especially when you know nothing other than sex and lies and romance novel junk. i had a carmel latte for dinner tonight, and i do not feel hungry. the wild roosters are still mocking me.  while i used to only hear them and never see them now i see them but never with enough time to photograph them.  if they are not careful i will cook one for dinner to teach them a lesson about being camera shy. i bought stamps for postcards today, now i must buy postcards.  that probably sums up my time here better than anything else.

hearts and massive shopping complexes (of both the physical and mental variety),
tono

the end of last week, or when science fails you once again

okay.... soooo.... friday. friday i finished the college advocacy kit.  finished is a loose term, there is always more that could be said, of course i haven't thought of it yet, so for now it is done. when i came home friday i sat down to my spinach salad dinner (so confusing to the family i stay with) and had a heart to heart with the domestic worker. she makes less than 1/2 of what i pay in rent for every month, and never gets a day off. to boot she has to pay the employment agency 7 months salary just for getting her the job.  she feels isolated and alone and the lady of the house is always quarreling with her. if angela seems happy she gets yelled at, and she isn't really supposed to talk to the tenants.  the 10 year old boy (jerry) seems to be severely autistic and she is supposed to care for him without any training, which is bad for everyone.  i walked away from the dinner table feeling heartbroken, desperately wanting to fight the injustice occurring right under my nose, but at the same time being terrified because in the end i have to live here. this is where ethics gets tricky.

saturday i assisted claudia, my supervisor with an event at the local college.  we had plenty of down time so i told her about "our help" (to be perfectly honest it feels dirty to let this woman do anything for me, but i can't convince her not to sweep my floor). anyway, claudia informed me that the situation was more than normal, that there have been "suicide" cases of domestic workers all throughout singapore and the abuse is well known, and socially acceptable. she said it did seem to be rooted in some kind of jealousy.  she also said there was an organization that may be able to be of some assistance and that i should ask one of our co-workers for her advice.  i don't know if i feel worse that it is happening where i live or that it is so much worse all over this small island country.  after the event i helped claudia home and the cab driver was very free with his advice.  i am not to drink pepsi or eat any american foods while i am here, i should not go to the pub, i should sent $100 to my parents every month just to make them happy, i need to set two alarms every morning, i cannot jumprope on the top floor-only on the ground floor, the only thing i can spend my money on is a stapler to staple my mouth shut so that i do not offend the people i am living with (he had no words for him they offend my sense of social justice).  claudia and i spent some time talking in her house.  i very much enjoy her company, and her fiance invited me to cambodia at the end of oct.  he is going with a bunch of scientist from all over the world.  i am pretty excited.  we will be going to the temples at akor wat for about 2 and a half days. they are infamous, but to be honest i am avoiding pictures so that i can have my breath stolen in a very genuine way.  eventually i pulled myself away from claudia's company to go skating.  it took me almost an hr to get to where i wanted to go (and i still didnt find the right park).  by the time i got anywhere it was dark so i skated along the first stretch of land i found. it felt great to put skaty and skate dogg back on my feet! how i have missed the feeling!  i skated for about an hour, and covered about 1 3/4 miles.  which was not so bad considering i was skating back and forth the same little block.  not to mention i was starving.  eventually i pulled myself away from skating and walked to the nearest thai restaurant i could find.  after a painfully long wait to be asked what i might want to eat i ordered marigolds and rice. it was super good, but the service was TERRIBLE.  by this time is was close to 10pm and it took me almost another hour to get home. unfortunately commute time will limit my ability to skate to saturdays. this saturday i plan to find the park i initially set out to find last saturday.

sunday i woke up and chatted with mom.  afterwards i went to yoga, which ended up being a private lesson again (score!)  i really like my yoga teacher, she makes me work for it but is easy to talk to.  i would call her a friend, although i doubt she feels the same way (perhaps in a few more months).  i spent the afternoon exploring china town. my plan had been to find moon cakes, but i failed (although im sure they were ALLLL around me).  i did however succeed in finding a chinese pharmacy or seven, and they were amazing.  i had no idea what ginsing looked like... its ugly.  they also had jar upon jar of shark fins and one even had seahorses, but no one would tell me why. in fact, i think the guy was offended by my curiosity.  on the way home a very kind gentleman gave me a tour of the street in his broken english. most of what he told me i already knew, but i was grateful all the same.  in a place where being an expat is the norm, kindness from a singaporean is always welcome.  the best part is they all think i am from london.

monday it was back to work. i had an extremely productive day (makes up for today where i had a terrible time focusing).  i have convinced my supervisor that we need to be running an agressive advocacy/fundrasing campaign in the west in order to start a serious social marketing campaign in cambodia and any other country we are working in.  i am trying to get a movement started on colberts website, on top of some npr coverage and perhaps someone like jack black as our spokesperson.  the communication and advocacy side of wto is being threatened and the only way to save it is to make it the most profitable part of the organization.  i also really want the money for my soap opera and mass media campaign. i did take  break mid-morning from my productiveness to hunt the wild roosters who live behind our office. it was a massive failure, however one came down to visit while we ate lunch!! he was very small, nothing compared to mike tyson (the rooster i killed).  i am curious to know if they are all that small or if he was particularly young.  monday afternoon it started raining and i got very excited because i had set up a rain gauge and couldn't wait to see how much rain we got. much to my dismay it was missing!  it had appeared that it had been moved when the lawn way mowed...they stole my science!!  while looking for it i found the largest land snails i have ever seen!  i would eat those before the wild rooster, more meat per kilowatt of energy.  over dinner i finally met the malaysian girl who lives here. she is a year younger than i am, so i think we could be friends. its very relieving to feel like i have some possible friend opportunities.  at the very least, it wont be strange living next door to her.

tuesday i woke up in the best of all possible moods for no real reason.  i recovered my rain gauge (i think it had gotten tossed out of the way when they were mowing the grass) and put it in a patch of dirt, hoping it would be left alone there.  i left work early to try and attain my visa. i am so close! only one more visit to one more office to pick up my foreigners card. le sigh.  i spent about an hour exploring before i settled in a coffee shop where i did some sanitation reading.  the literature was also pushing for a mass media campaign to drive the desire for sanitation and hygiene products which was fantastic affirmation for my soap opera project.  i also wondered if you could run capacity building with the heifer model.  i.e. is it possible to say give someone start up capital and the know how to make the concreate fixtures on the condition that when his business becomes profitable he teaches someone to do the same and gives him the start up capital needed after the apprenticeship.  im not sure i am satisfied with that as a solution yet, but i am going to keep playing around with it because i think it might work.  after finishing my americano i headed to the grocery store.  all the while i felt fantastic. best tuesday i have ever had.  when i got home i went swimming.  i have gotten much faster, but my stamina still sucks and i can only swim about one full lap before i need to take a breather.  the people here make me look like a person who grew up in the desert where there is no water or something. angela made too much dinner so she shared some with me, it was quite good.  i did some light yoga stretching, watched a few ted talks, did some pleasure reading and went to bed.

today it poured! i was the most unfocused i have ever been.  i couldnt wait for work to be done. i finished my internal soap opera proposal, but i didnt feel like doing anything.  i came home super excited to check my rain gauge only to discover that the rain had knocked it over! failed science again!  there was still rain on the ground so i was able to easily identify a high spot and set it up again. third times the charm right?!  i went swimming again this evening and was able to do 5 laps in about 15 minutes including pausing between them.  i think its time i start doing 7.5 laps... and wearing ear plugs the water in my ears is killing me! i think that is all the amazingness that has happened since i was writing faithfully.  i will try to be better about this so that it isnt life summaries but more interesting musings.

love and miss you all.

a partial recap of the last week. part I

so, i have been dreadful about updating this thing. argh. i dont even have much in the way of an excuse, except when i want to blog it is inappropriate and when i have time to blog i dont. in times like this i would generally turn to my journal as a helpful resource to jog my memory... unfortunately my pen died my third day here and thus i don't have a journal. lets see....

last monday i moved in to my new room. i am living with two children and a maid, their parents sometimes however (they do not sleep here currently), a girl from malaysia, and a mystery man.  for 8 people the bathroom seems to never be busy and it is surprisingly quiet. i have my own room which consists of one full bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and  storage locker which i only use for its large top surface. within the housing community there is a pool, a gym, and tennis courts. i believe i have said roughly two words to the mystery man, and didn't meet the malay girl until tonight. that is to say she was on holiday, but nobody told me.  after i had settled i went to seek groceries. but i got lost and ended up finding groceries in a very inconvenient place. however i managed to make it back home where i went for a swim and much to the chagrin of the family i am staying with i did not bathe afterwards. i also ate a spinach salad for dinner which is apparently quite disarming as spinach is made for cooking and iceberg lettuce was created for salad. en serio.

on tuesday i ventured to the ministry of manpower in hopes of attaining my  visa. i waited for an hr and failed miserably. kind of, i succeeded in making an appointment for tomorrow which should result in either victory or deportation. visas are much harder to attain than one may hope, now i see why people hop boarders. anyway what does it mean to be an illegal immigrant? sorry, back on point. as i left the m.o.m. i asked the helpful young gentleman where i might find something to eat. he pointed me in a general direction where i found a jesus cafe run by ex-drug addicts.  continuing my foray into asian dining i ordered chrysanthemum (spelling this word makes me think of anne of green gables) tea, shark fin dumplings, and some kind of sesame desert with pieces of fried dough.  i can now say with 100% certainty that shark fin is not worth the cruelty that it creates. there was absolutely nothing remarkable about it.  now if you know anything about singapore you might have been as confused as i was about drug addicts being alive, let alone running an entire cafe. however, for the answer to that question you will have to read on through wednesday.  afterwards i went in search of a loo, and found a perfectly clean squat toilet. HURRAH! SQUAT TOILETS ARE THE BEST! no really, i have more facts and figures than you can imagine saying how much better they are for a healthy colon :) anyway, after my own personal toilet adventure i made my way to the WTO offices to meet everyone for the first time.  What friendly folk i work with!  my first project was to redesign the advocacy kit for college students who want to start a WTO chapter at their schools.  after work i came home and went for another swim, sans shower, with spinach. i also spent some time rediscovering the wonders of channel101.com

wednesday was my first full day in the office. i attacked that advocacy kit with great gusto!  i made advancing in a section devoted to flash mobbing and street theatre, i explained how to recruit people, i poured my heart and soul into the most awesome way to run a club. i woke up with headache and a slight case of the blues. while the blues went away by breakfast (toast with coconut jam, and tea) i couldn't shake the headache.  jerri, one of my coworkers and i went to "the hub" for lunch while everyone else went to the canteen which we always eat at.  it was here that jerri explained to me that the sing government is trying to appear more lax. chewing gum is no longer strictly illegal, but is treated like a controlled substance. as long as you have a prescription you can get the goods.  drug addicts are also treated differently that drug traffickers (15g+ for trafficking).  addicts are forced into rehab, hopefully for rehabilitation.  i really like jerri, she doesnt trust the ngo model for development either. its refreshing to hear what you already know.  oh, for the record our office is 10 people counting myself and another intern.  if you count the founder you get up to 11, and there are some more people whom seem to come and go at will. i left early wednesday and went straight to bed, no supper, no appetite, big headache.

by thursday i had my stride. i worked with the founder of WTO, jack sim, on the university bylaws and then attended my first ever staff meeting where i suggested the use of soap operas for sanitation. more to come on that i am sure. after work i tried desperately to make it to yoga, but missed the start of the class by one minute.  devastated i went next door to eat porn's thai food.  it was the spiciest food i have ever consumed, but quite lovely. over dinner i read the asian development bank report from a few years ago. sanitation and papaya salad, what a lovely dinner time you make.  after eating i decided to walk around a bit before going home....

                                       there is more to this. there is always more. but i am beat and shall finish tomorrow. i promise. as i have not yet told you of my rollerskating adventure, chinese pharmacies, wild cocks, or giant snails. all of which are quite exciting.

hearts and moonbeams til then!

best part of my day.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_on_the_empathic_civilization.html

My Day In Photos:

this is where i get my daily prayers

stopped in for some exotic fruits, mmmmm...

she followed me down the street. but not far enough to find a treat

then i stumbled across a surprise ritual in a makeshift temple

i have never seen so much incense in one place

finally i made it to little india

where i found a little indian

and a rather large elephant.

the day ended by having tea with an old singaporean

and his friends.

a home, a movie, a book all about toilets

today i slept in. I mean I really slept in. I woke up at 10:30. The best part was, while everyone else in the hostel was getting ready I kept thinking how rude it was that they were up so early and making so much noise.

when i rolled out of bed i received a text message from some lady to come view a room in her flat. while it is on the higher end of my price range, it comes with a swimming pool, gym, koi pond in the living room, and a family all built in. it is also 2 busstops from work, and roughly 30 minutes from the center of town. i move in on monday (only because i pre-paid the hostel through sunday night). it is going to be an experience... there is a maid. i'm pretty excited to learn about the singaporean way of living, and what better way than to live with a family.

i had planned to go skating but returned to the hostel to do a little reading of a manual all about the different kinds of toilets once can construct. it includes climates and population density in the description. it is magical. now i know why i was told that i could only take it if i promised to return it; the thought of smuggling it out to ponder and admire for the next 50 years is titillating. i killed two pens while taking notes.

while sitting outside a movie crew suddenly set up and out of nowhere appeared this asian-vampire-james-bond-rock-star-japanese-super-model all rolled into one. after what felt like ages waiting to see what precisely he would do, it turns out it was about 15 seconds for a children's t.v. program. he was the villan and had succeeded in turning someone into a chicken (I KNOW!).

tomorrow i have sworn to find the place to skate, and this afternoon i settled on a yoga studio. i'm pretty excited about life here. i think it will be quiet, perhaps even a bit lonely at times. but i also think i am going to have the time to work on myself physically, spiritually, and mentally. also there are lots of beaches.

tales of tail less cat

my bag has finally arrived. a short 27 hrs after i made it. as much as i pretend to be uninterested in stuff, spending 3+ days in the same dress was starting to become bothersome (to say the least). and let us not even talk about knickers (or lack there of...)

last night i wandered around the arab part of town, and today was spent in little india.  i am amazed at how westernized everything seems to be here.  part of me questions if that 13 hr plane ride actually took me to the other side of the planet, or if we just flew back and forth across the u.s. and were dropped off in some unknown city.  restaurants consist of kfc, long john silvers, hooters... and there are more 7-11s here than i have ever seen in my life.  i found the LARGEST electronics store I have ever seen in my life... it was 5 stories, maybe more and filled to the brim with gadgets and gizmos.  the iphone has saturated the market here, however there are no apple stores.  how do you do it steve jobs??  i love my little nokia phone.  it reminds me of the first phone i ever had, but better.  i. pretty sure its the katorchi (literally "little light") from my uganda days. and it comes with games, whatever happened to free cell phone games?!  my hostel is spitting distance from a mosque which is super sweet, especially since it is Ramadan. i forgot how much i enjoy hearing the multiple calls to prayer everyday.  it's far easier to adjust here than it was to adjust to uganda. i'm not sure if that is a plus or a minus.

i have spent a good portion of the day looking for a room to rent, and yoga classes.  surprisingly yoga is almost twice as expensive here as it is in the states despite the plethora of studios (wouldn't micro-economics dicate that would drive the price down?)

tonight i went to see the wto offices.  I CANNOT WAIT TO START WORKING!  there isn't much to them really, but its all about the nitty gritty development.  afterwards i went to grab a bite with my supervisor and her fiance+friends.  all together there were 2 greeks, one italian, one indian brit, one spaniard, and two americans.  singapore is filled to the brim with ex-pats, but few of them seem to be american so it is a whole new kind of foreign exchange.  following dinner we went and grabbed drinks at this ultra plush hotel, (we went to ride the technicolor elevator) and were lucky enough to be entertained by a singaporean lounge singer. no joke. we also spent some time discussing beer serving monkeys. for your viewing pleasure i wanted to include the youtube clip, but it really screwed with my page layout. to be honest i am considering re-routing my trip through japan, just for the experience

a farewell love letter in three parts

1. to the lady who loves and leaves and loves again:
            leaving is the hardest part. the jumping point. tearful good byes, or quiet departures its all the same in your heart.

2. to the beauty of becoming
            i am a be becoming being.  moving, going, growing.  what exactly does an asian-african-american look like?

3. to the one that feels like home
           one might say i have arrived. ready to put my feet up and eat a local meal. if only you were here to share it with... and perhaps eat it backwards.