there is no obligation

In most places around the world the end of the week would call for a night out, a libation to salute the survival of five days of nonsense to which I am paid.  In this desolate and forgotten border town I watched John Adams: ‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed on occasion with the blood of patriots and martyrs.’  Thomas Jefferson.  With the king on his perpetual deathbed rumors of insurrection swirl in dirty pools.  A free press this country has never seen and in the speculation spills out the next generation’s desire for reform.  But to what end, youthful imaginations are temporal, stability is not in their minds, only power and greed.  So, should I worry, no, there will be no Bastille Day here, rather the rabble of constituents who respected the king while disagreeing with him on issues we today scoff.  You want more than he has given you?  You want to secede, to join the country to your west, you want to break this country apart?  That would be interesting to see. 

A week back from Sri Lanka and how time demonstrated its relativity.  Can I say I had fun without guilt, I don’t know.  Today I was informed I wouldn’t be a coordinator for the next semester, something I am happy to relinquish.  One man now will coordinate the three levels and ha! God bless him, should I help the new super coordinator, we’ll see.  He is new to the nutty system and if he thinks he knows what is best, I’ll support him though I’ll know he’ll be wrong in any endeavor if he doesn’t listen to those who’ve been here for a while.  

Tomorrow I will go to mass but if there are long lines at the border I will not attempt to cross.  I will instead wash clothes and continue reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s ‘No Ordinary Time’, which is good, as I expected it would be.  I will also most likely purchase a printer.  From the first day I arrived here I have been coordinator, which I enjoyed executing to the best of my ability.  Now that I am only an instructor I can teach and for the rest of the day work out of the grotto.  I look forward to this new role though I will probably intensify my job search though there is still no desire to attend the conference next in two weeks. 

A colleague in long standing with this country said the Dhofaris established a new tribe in defiance and will most likely contest the next king.  Gee why would I want to return to such instability aside from the mountains and oceans coming together in harmonic beauty, well, admiration.

2.28.15

I don’t know what I ate but I have to stay close to the loo and I am not hungry.  I bought a printer this morning for fifty bucks and set it up in the grotto.  Now that I’m no longer a coordinator I’ll focus on teaching alone and with that I’ll no longer do eight hour days at the ‘institution’.  I could pretty much be home for lunch every day, or I could take a snack and stay six hours, I don’t know, we’ll see.  For a year and a half I ate lunches at the canteen and while I never had a bad meal, ok, one suspect fish dish didn’t agree, it was the biggest meal and perhaps contributed to my borderline obesity.

In Sri Lanka Laxman told me in so many words he did not want me to ‘invest’ in his business anymore.  While I never felt obligated to help pay for screens or a dining room floor or a renovated kitchen, I did on my own initiative and they were grateful but I suspect he doesn’t trust me in the long term, that I am going to one day demand something in return. This is completely unfortunate because I have no intentions and I can’t change whatever is going on with his insecure thoughts but I’ll back off, who cares, all the furnishing I gave them, carpets, paintings, clothes pins, whatever, possessions mean nothing to me, money means nothing to me.  I have it, I don’t have it. 

Six years ago an Irish friend asked me if I wanted him to get the big cash back because he thought the transaction had no merit, that in the long run I’d be out.  I knew the moment I gave him the money, the intentions then were to build a round-house on his property, those intentions would never materialize.  The cash was a godsend, it paid for immediate bills as the construction of the eight room guesthouse continued.  I knew it all along.  So why not ask for the money back?  Because I don’t care.  I was a part of a huge transformation in this family’s fortunes and in the small community which continues to grow today.  I am fortunate to have been a part of it and to have contributed a small part.

But I am under no obligation to stay at the guesthouse though I could remind him of his own words, that room six is mine, completely and if his insensitive relations don’t build in front of it, it would still be a good place to see the end of life.

Accumulation is just inevitable, isn’t it.  Such choices I’ll have to make when I move again.  

post:  for days I've considered the wording of this blog and easy enough I could rewrite parts of it (which I did), or simply take it down.  I'm leaving it up, call it getting old and who gives a hoot what I think, but there is something good here, for someone not to want my money, I can save or I can find someone who I am naive enough to give, and that's alright. I'm in alignment with the Catholic Workers here, give without question. I have never second thought what I've given.  That's good.  Sometimes I've lost money on boneheaded purchases and felt sick to my stomach.  Not here.  Perhaps it's age again, who cares what I do with my money, perhaps it's the aura of inevitable.  In any case, it is what it is.  

post post:  in light of everything something really weird happened.  A coincidence that I cannot explain.  
We were discussing the cost of a roundhouse and he wrote an estimate based on supplies and labor on a napkin I still have stuck in a book in a cellar, a figure later on I understood to be a fifth of what it would actually cost to build, anyways, he wrote this figure on a napkin and handed it to me at the table in the dining room.  I had the cash in my pocket, the amount I was willing to give him and Jesus Lord of the Earth the cash was the exact amount he wrote on the napkin.  Lord Jesus who is #$% with me.  So, what to make of that I do not know.  It's been six years and where am I, no closer to what I thought would be a destiny written on the walls. 

remember the story

Sri Lanka

Hikkaduwa

Green tea if you got it, and why wouldn’t a Ceylonese merchant not have green tea?

The sunrise is on the other side of the island but the changing light is still worth going out.

One arrack, two beers, a mojito and a few cigarettes came to a violent one off evening end.  This is how we lose weight the next day, not smart Jack.  Not even savory papaya helps.  How about some local indigenous organic medicine?  A little to help flush out the remaining bile and phlegm and then I’ll sit under a huge coconut tree and listen to waves crash coral. 

Yesterday great, funny, outrageous ideas flowed on the beach but without pen and paper and as soon as I get my journal I forget everything.  At the end of the day there is one that doesn’t leave me.

Laxman and I are sitting outside our room resting after four hours via taxi from Colombo and other guests at the Curry Bowl Inn meander by:  The Germans.  Elderly Germans.  Let’s talk German.

Who were the first inhabitants of modern day Germany?  The Aryans from the upper steppes of the Hindu Kush.  Descendants of Alexander the Great.   

At Al-Ain’s bus station I negotiated a taxi fare to Dubai with five Afghanis and one of them, holy cow, you could plop him in Cheyenne or Bavaria and the girls would go nuts, tall, dusty rust hair, sparkling blue eyes and smooth young leathery skin.

And your point is?  The ancient Aryan symbol is the swastika, health and happiness it means.  The Nazis borrowed it because they knew the symbol was in their bloodline. 

That’s all.  The German tribe.  9000 Europeans were killed in the 2004 Tsunami.  They came back and rebuilt this city and perhaps many others.  I see it here in the architecture, the restaurants are mostly co-owned. 

More bile is simply unacceptable as is the burning in my esophagus.  Fresh mango and pineapple smoothies help.  Some panadol and codeine will help too.  And floating in the ocean. 

Sri Lanka lost 35,000 in the tsunami eleven years ago.  According to wiki 280,000 were killed on that one day.  I watched a Galle video, 30km south of where I am and it is enough.   Watching people know they are going to die is grim and depressing.  I don’t know how many died in Hikkaduwa but the owner of the Curry Bowl said water came in 30m high.  How are the people here doing mentally?

Two boiled eggs, nice crunchy toast and a big pot of tea.  A pot of tea is better than a cup of coffee around here.

We took the new north-south expressway and it saved a few hours.  We missed the standing room only train by five minutes and we were eating lunch when it arrived. 

Hikkaduwa highlights:  the sea turtles, the fishing boat.

In Sri Lanka people eat shark.

In Australia sharks eat people.

The ocean is a place where people think and meditate.  The mountains are a place where people listen.

Sri Pada (Adam’s Peak)

I read on line a tourist climbed the mountain in nine hours because of the number of people who go up for sunrise.  I didn’t want to do that.  We left our room at one am and reached the top in three and a half hours.  We could have made it up faster if we didn’t get caught in scrums, stopped solid.  It came to mind stampedes in India.  What do you do if you can’t move and something bad happens.  I would have to fight my way out of the masses.  I also replayed that awful incident somewhere in England at a football match and they let too many people into the grandstands and they filmed the crush and every look was one of imminent death.

‘move to the right’  Left is always right, especially in a scrum. 

Three cups of tea and I don’t have to pee.  It must be energy. 

Highlights of Adam’s Peak. 

a row of monkeys sit on a building’s awning looking down at a very fat happy dachshund.  We’ll play with you dog, and then we’ll eat you.

the moon and the sun are together.

Kandy

I had 20 hotels on my list and I stayed at two of them.  Predictably the first and second choice places were full.  We stayed at the Serene Grand Hotel and while it was more expensive than I wanted to pay, it was clean, there was a good buffet, the shower was immaculate, the bed was most comfortable, there was room service, the A/C worked quietly well and that was enough. 

Eleven years ago I spent four hours in the botanical garden.  This time almost four hours again.  The large trees, the fruit bats, not too many orchids this time, those in Singapore are better.

I couldn’t remember why I didn’t visit the temple of the Buddha’s tooth last time.  Then I remembered when I wasn’t allowed in this time.  Shorts.  This time I covered up and it was, I don’t know about the relic thing.  Hard to verify but if it is a tooth from Siddartha, due reverence is expected.  We visited a monastery with vivid murals and yet I feel this loss of devotion.  Seven years ago the search for love drew me closer to these ‘power’ places.  Now, I take a few photos.

The Englishman who first put a little bit of sugar and milk into the tea knew he was going to be a wealthy man.  A big pot of tea is just ridiculously good.

My feet are black but they’re not dirty.  It’s temple organisms. 

The Serene Grand has an elevator with the number of floors in descending order and every time I don’t know if I am going up or down.  Go down to go up.  I pushed all the buttons for two days.

In the temple of the tooth I forgot to ask for mercy for my own teeth.  After I bought two clay cups, oil and wicket I lit the candles, for my parents, for my spirit.  I understand what a relic’s intentions are, to bridge a gap between the divine, the divine connection.  Is it akin to intercessory prayer, I don’t know, but in prayer the lines of communication never stop, the saints are always working, and why not, a spirit doesn’t need sleep. 

Why don’t Protestants tap into this resource, yes, Jesus is the sole mediator, but the saints are a little closer to us and if they weren’t allowed to intercede on our behalf, well that is impossible because the souls are all around us and have been given a set of rules where they do do something.  Besides consider the spirits of James and Luke, Peter and David, have they been all decommissioned?  No, they intercede.

Negombo

Ash Wednesday.  We went to the oldest church on the island, St. Marys, to receive the ashes.  Laxman got them too, he identifies with symbols on people’s foreheads.  Public manifestations, remembrances, acknowledgements of the third eye.  Wisdom is here.

The Topaz Hotel.  At check in, three nights.  Breakfast not included.  We ate out the first morning.  The second morning we ate breakfast and I paid the bill which I assumed included the breakfast since it was more than the original statement.  On the last morning a man at the desk gave me another bill for breakfast.  I got in the taxi, it was three in the morning, and told him to leave.  Though there haven’t been many incidents, this was an unscrupulous hotel.

My smart aleck phone reduced my reading and writing time and for what.  Most of the time I couldn’t access the internet.  On occasion I used the camera and that was it.  I just can’t buy into the trend that these things make life better. 

I do not think my birthday and the Chinese lunar new year have anything in common.  And I don’t know if being on an island on my birthday has anything to do with the fact I’m a Pisces.  The Indian Ocean off Negombo is, however, much better to swim in than the chilly salty Hikkaduwa beach. 

A man politely accosts me on the beach with his five children.  ‘Please sir, take photo, take photo of my little girl’.  An incredibly cute four year old and such a photo would be cool.  Sorry, the sunset is finished and so are my photos.  He continued to plead with me while his clan from the cute kid to a 17 year old girl who didn’t speak much English stood around almost embarrassed that father wouldn’t give up.

Say, I will take your photo, but please answer me a question.  Why do you not do this? And I put my hands together and fingers pointed up I acknowledged the divinity within him.  Why don’t you do this?  Are you Buddhist?  No.  Are you Catholic?  Yes, I saw Catholics do it at St. Marys during the exchange of peace.  I turned to the cute kid and her sister and did a little TPR.  “This is Buddhist, hands together, bring to chest, this is Catholic, the cross, touch your forehead, then down, right-left.”  Ok, repeat, Buddhist, Catholic.

Another man said maybe people are Muslim.  And you are?  Buddhist?  Why don’t you use this?  Of all the Buddhist countries Sri Lankans are the only ones who don’t acknowledge the divine.  Have they stopped believing in something after a 10 year civil war?  Did the tsunami wash away their hope and beliefs?  It is a mystery I hope to answer.

Final thoughts on the final day of a pretty good rest.

I find a Barista coffee shop and enjoy a 4am cup and a blueberry Danish.  I am surrounded by Russians here.  The Russians don’t tan much, and I don’t know why.  They’re in the water and on the beach.  The white Russians.  In the bars here I order white Russians and get black Russians.

It is evident and obvious, no doubt once again, that I have been assigned to the corner of happy endings with my laptop.

A 75 minute Ayurvedic massage was good.  It took a year or two off.  A 15 minute greasy neck and shoulder massage was not necessary.

murky birds

A pigeon with a gnarly sick beak stands on the roof of the car and it doesn’t respond to hand waiving until I swing a man-bag and it slowly flutters to a ledge above.  Another sick bird stands on the balcony ledge outside my sitting room and while others scatter immediately when I open the screen and shoosh this one doesn’t move, I can see its tiny black eye, I’m going to die.

Every four days I have to wipe down the Honda from dirt and bird shit. Every side of the building is occupied by the murky birds.   Days after our last rain the tiled balcony was covered again with shit from those who roost on four floors of windowsills and air conditioners directly above.  The baby pigeon is certainly one of the ugliest creatures around here and when one finds itself on the balcony still unsure if it can fly, it shits even more when I encourage it to fly off.

And here this dying bird on the balcony has sat for an hour, unmoved.  A healthy pigeon shows no emotion in its eye but when it is close to death, you can see it.  I am too sick to be frightened, it says.  I don’t know if a dying pigeon carries diseases yet I’ll leave this one alone but I’m going to keep an eye on it because I don’t want it to die on the balcony.  

Only a few more days before the holiday begins.  Today I went in around eight thirty and left at one.  There isn’t much to do, the director said there would be no coordinators next semester so there isn’t much to prepare for.  I spent the day reading the Guardian online though the internet is slowed down and there were no images on the website.  Last night I jotted down hostels and inns in the cities I expect to visit.  My colleague is also traveling to the island and has every day planned including transport.  The only time I ever planned this carefully was three weeks in Japan.  I don’t want to plan that much this time.  Maybe I’ll stay three days in Hikkaduwa, maybe I’ll stay four.  Maybe I’ll climb Adam’s Peak, maybe I’ll just skip it.  The 1:30am start is ok and it ought to take four hours to do it, but I’m reading during the pilgrimage months it’s taking people up to nine hours! Nine hours to climb it.  Yeah, I don’t know about that at all.  Well, we’ll see and for these reasons I keep an open schedule.  I will certainly stay at least two days in Kandy, and at least a half day at the botanical gardens, my highlight eleven years ago.  And probably one night in Negombo, perhaps two if I pass up the Peak.  Still, sunrise on the top could be a serious contender for highlight of the trip.

So tomorrow is cleaning day:  clean the sinks and toilet, clean the bathtub, clean the floors, and any laundry.  And then a pre-pack.  I can’t believe how many pockets my new day pack has.  I found four more pockets.  Of course you know that means you’ll be looking through every one to find your nail clippers or rolling papers. 

And the plan Thursday is to drive 90km and get the exit stamp, go to the office, meander, go home for lunch, pace back and forth, and then walk across the border, take a taxi to the Al-Ain mall for dinner and then walk to the bus station and hire a Pakistani to drive me to the airport in his unlicensed corolla.  Sounds like a good plan, no?  I guess so.  I used to drive to Dubai and leave the car on the street or in a lot and then take a taxi to the airport but for reasons I don’t understand I don’t want to do that anymore.  The airport parking lot charges $27 a day and that’s too much. 

And Dr. Binoy gave me a composite filling. Fifty two dollars.  “The one next to this one is broken you know.” I knew there was something going on there.  “See you next month?”

“The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”
― Rabindranath Tagore