poopy diapers

2.12.13

Twelve from Guandong  Province took all the rooms yesterday and after the dancing and drinking Maya said she missed the Shanti.  Three days of this kind of business is too much for too few people to manage when every dish coming out of the kitchen is from scratch and you gotta wash the dishes, scrub the pans, run to Shiva’s or Balarum’s shops for more eggs, beer, mushrooms, more beer, coke, water and toilet paper.  Laxman brought in a new cook and he did alright but will he remain here when the billions return I doubt it, oh wait, there he goes now.  Maya’s cousin never left and this afternoon I’ll show him how to put on sheets and keep them hair-free. 

After dinner four young ladies sat around the fire I carefully nurtured, and with their not very smart phones the frustration comes out:  throw your mobiles into the rivers, gals, look you’re all addicted to these brain-sucking gadgets and no one is talking.  You’d rather be somewhere else with someone else?  Where are the stars and the mountains. 

The main water tap below is dry so Maya and Didi are looking for other sources.  The Chinese 12 are without hot water for their thermoses. Shanti. In their western clothes and fashionably dyed hair the people from the middle kingdom now look like the rest of us but they still lack an understanding of how it all works outside in the free world. Laxman joyfully mocked the girls who don’t have access to Facebook.  Yes, it is a wonderful thing for you to get out of your country and see freedom of speech in action.  Set up an address in the US and then get a VPN so you can bypass Beijing’s ignorant firewalls.  What do they fear, they’re not afraid of issuing you a passport now because they know you’ll come back.  I tell you go back and push for liberty.

Yesterday was the last day of the Tibetan’s new year festivities and I missed the Vajra dance two days earlier. Well, for a three hour walk the Seti didn’t disappoint.  At its edge the rapids drowned out Pink Floyd.

“So, so you think you can tell, heaven from hell”

I read the Pope is resigning.  Can you imagine Jesus getting really old (the Kashmiris believe this) and saying, I’m just too tired and I feel like crap.  Peter, the rest, resigning from a position that is supposed to link man with God.  I ignore hints and instincts now thinking this means anything for humanity.  The dude just got old and he is only human.  Divinely appointed perhaps not this time.

Three rooms of Chinese tonight including a man and his wife and son who walked from Dhamphus, normally a six hour trek, ten hours.  Their guide told me over the fire they’re not in any shape and were stopping constantly. 

After doing the beds it was to the dining room and for the afternoon I looked at jobs on-line.  The windows are closing.  I sent my cv to a dubious school in Kabul and I almost sent one to Yemen.  These isolating jobs are not what I need or want but I have to go somewhere.  I think I would do fine in Thailand but it’s going there and getting established and knocking on university doors with all my papers and looking well dressed and shit, how can I do it. 

2.13.13

I can’t just wait for something to happen.  If I want to live in KSA then I’ll have to return to the states and live in on the streets somewhere before I can get an interview.  How would I smell, what would I look like?  Money, blasted stinking money.  Peace-Shanti-Heping.   

I handed the woman who works at a university in Xi’an my email and wrote at the top of the paper ‘peace’ in Chinese script.  “This is your Chinese name?” she asked.  Well no, but it could be I guess.  The night before I talked with her well-traveled husband about censorship and how savvy today’s young educated and mobile generation with their VPN’s smell Beijing’s fear like a poopy diaper and want to know more.  The couple had worked at USC for a year and saw a free society with free flow of information doesn’t produce anarchy and dissent, oh there are exceptions, but intelligent people know the difference and he knew that too but perhaps it’s unimaginable to ponder how a billion plus opinions would change everything. 

And then I asked him if a time was coming when the people would be allowed to vote for officials at the highest levels of government and the man who kept saying ‘Jesus’ (you’ve been here six months? You heat your drinking water over a fire? You’ve been to Tufulan?  I’ve never been to Tufulan) said it wouldn’t happen in his lifetime.  Jesus, man, if it can sort of work in India why not in Beijing, if numbers are the only fear, I’m sure we could think of other fears, let’s talk about the Dalai Lama, eh?