Nearby Neighbor

Traveling from Thailand to Indonesia is a bit like visiting a friend whose house has the same floor plan as your own; everything is familiar, but the furniture is bizarrely different. The Elaborate Buddhist temples have been replaced by equally elaborate mosques, the tuk-tuks replaced with sidecar-wielding becaks.

Call to prayer, haunting and melodic, pours over the buildings, snaking in through windows and doors. It wakes you in the morning, and bids you farewell at night. Hijabs of every hue cover the heads of devout women, equally a proclamation of faith and a fashion accessory. Cats lounge and prowl in broad daylight, flaunting their power in the absence of canine competitors. The fried rice has a bit of a kick, the variety of local curries an even bigger one. 

The landscape and weather are both similar in temperament to what we live with in Thailand. Tropical flowers, palm trees, and banana leaves abound; fried rice and noodles rule the kitchen; smiles are offered openly and easily. Yet, touching down in Indonesia’s northern island of Sumatra, we are greeted by a land that is still incredibly travel-worthy, with a diverse culture, rare plant and animal life, and a lush array of landscapes. 

Despite being so close to Thailand, both in kilometers and in attitude, and despite having been to Java and Bali in the past, Sumatra offered us a whole new world to explore.

Mzungu! Mzungu!

Gringo. Gavacho. Farang. Keenok. Suddha. Mzungu. As foreigners in a foreign land, the first word we learn in the local dialect is what they call us, the white people.  Schoolchildren shout it as we pass by. It jumps out in conversations held by locals. Sometimes it is derogatory in nature. Other times it is used matter-of-factly: we are the outsiders.

Here, in Rwanda, and throughout much of Africa, we are greeted with Mzungu! Mzungu! A Swahili term meaning ‘aimless wanderer’, the tag was originally applied to European explorers. Also used is the Kinyarwanda word Rutuku, or ‘red’, for the color we turn in the sun. Which is, in some ways, better than a name originating from bird shit or pink/white fruit, as is the case in Thailand.

And, despite the large number of expats in Kigali, never before have we been so clearly the foreigners. With almost nothing to speak of in the way of tourism (aside from some incredibly expensive gorillas), the number of white folks coming through Rwanda is miniscule compared to some of the more touristic countries. We are, in some ways, still a novelty: children run up to us in mobs to say hello, good afternoon, and touch our hands; I’ve even received a couple of hugs.

Our skin color, our hair, our clothing, our language, all of these things make us noticeably and immediately different. Unfortunately, the world over, these things make people assume we are inherently wealthy. We have discovered that it also means that, here in Rwanda, they assume we have the correct answer for every situation. Although, that is probably just because they don't have the hordes of drunk tourists visible in some places (another assumption we try to dissuade people from making about Westerners).

And though my name is not Mzungu, and I will not pay higher, mzungu prices, we try always to be good ambassadors for the white people, our fellow gringos, the farang spread across the globe, doling out handshakes, conversations, and hugs, dispersing myths of automatic wealth and knowledge, and spreading smiles.

Buenos Días, Colombia

And we’re off again.

After a summer in our hometown of Albuquerque – enjoying first world comforts, hating first world prices, soaking up some beautiful high desert weather, spending quality time with old friends and new, stockpiling money, a whirlwind east coast visit with family – we have set our sights on a new continent.

It was an incredibly open-ended job hunt – Turkey? Indonesia? Bhutan? Costa Rica? Cameroon? Ethiopia? – leading us to settle on Latin America. Faced with dishearteningly low pay compared to teaching in Asia, our options were few (though job opening were numerous). Immediately, the volunteer jobs that want volunteers to pay were ruled out. The remaining options were a high-paying job in a capital city teaching business English six days a week or a low-paying job in a rural school. We went for hidden Option D: working four days a week in exchange for room, board, and Spanish lessons.

And sometimes, following instinct rather than money pays off in a big way.

Our instinct has led us to Olits Insitituto de Idiomas in Ocaña, Colombia. The school is new; students are few and classes small for now.  Olits is run by a couple, German Christine and Colombian Camilo. Along with Christine (and their two children), we are the only foreigners in all of Ocaña. Possibly this little bit of celebrity will help the school to grow.

So, here we are, in Ocaña. Built in among the landscape, the houses tier up and down hills, stacked like blocks, all terracotta roofs and beautiful balconies. Buildings crowd up to tight winding streets, restaurants, churches, and shops interspersed with the residential. Spanish rattles all around us, still indecipherable, but becoming more intelligible.

Language is shared, taught, practiced. And through this exchange, our international family grows ever bigger.

Familiar Fizz

There are some things you will rarely escape, no matter how far you travel. McDonald’s, for instance. Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and KFC all show up fairly often. And Krispy Kreme has made a recent debut here in Thailand, following us all the way from home. But nothing is as prevalent, and as adaptable, as good ol’ fashioned Coca-Cola. No matter where we’ve gone, how rich or poor the country, what language they speak or what money they use, we could always order a Coke with our meal. (Apparently this is true unless you go to North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Burma, or Sudan.)

I have seen the Coca-Cola emblem written in so many languages it’s mind-boggling. Most products maintain their logo and change all wording to the local language; Not Coke. Strangely, you can instantly recognize it, no matter the language. The brand image is apparently seared into our brains. The same thing can be said of most Coke and Pepsi products.

One big difference between here and home that they use old school glass bottles. You almost never see glass Coke bottles in the U.S. But, in Southeast Asia, they are much cheaper than plastic, since the bottles are returned to the company and refilled. This means you have to either drink it on the premises and give the bottle back, or they will toss ice in a plastic bag and pour your Coke in. Slap in a straw and you have a to-go “cup” full of soda, sweetened with real sugar. Nothing quite as refreshing, or precarious, as a bag of cool soda.

No Smoking

For a country with so many smokers, little social stigma about smoking, and where you are allowed to smoke nearly anywhere, the warnings on Thai cigarettes are surprisingly large and horrific.

Last year in the U.S., there was talk of putting graphic images on packs of cigarettes, taking up 50% of the packaging as a dramatic warning system. I perused the proposed images. They have nothing on the Thai warning pictures.

However, I find many of the warnings here confusing, misleading, or even slightly amusing. Why is Thai Fabio smoking into the face of that child/probable kidnapping victim? Holy hell, who lit that man’s foot on fire? Also, are these really warning me of the dangers of smoking? Oh well, at least the Thais are going all out.

It was actually strange going to other Southeast Asian countries last spring; the cigarette packs looked disconcertingly bare.

Disclaimer: I realize that writing about the fact that we are smokers in Thailand may spawn some criticism. However, in our defense, it took us a long time to get all of these empty packs together. Oh, and we have set Feb 1^st as our quitting date, so you can all rest easy.

Yoga as a Foreign Language

I have been practicing yoga since my freshman year at Emerson College. I never feel better than when I have a regular, daily yoga practice, but I have a hard time being as disciplined and dedicated as I would like when it comes to maintaining an at-home self-practice. When no one is looking, it’s much easier to be lazy. For the first year of our time in Thailand, we weren’t living anywhere that had yoga classes. It was a very lazy year. But, finding myself in a city with an expat community I set out to find yoga somewhere.

 

I found two places in Chiang Rai: one, a pseudo-hippie café catering to foreigners, the other, marked with a sign all in Thai, except for a picture of people doing yoga and the number 700. It was time for a comparison.

First, I went all-Thai. Since I couldn’t find any info online, I stopped by to ask for times, prices, etc. The woman who greeted me spoke little English and repeatedly said, “Thai language.” Three classes a day, 60 baht ($2) a class or 700 baht ($23) a month, definitely worth a try. I assumed she meant she only spoke Thai. I was wrong. She meant the instructor spoke Thai during class. Oh well, no different from the rest of my life here.

Then, I went to try out the hippie expat café, although with some reservations. I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but many of the foreigners we meet aren’t exactly my cup of tea, which is why I had put off going for several months. I find them to be pompous and abrasive. Backpackers in Aladdin pants, talking about full moon parties and how awesome and fucked up they were, or spouting pseudo-spiritual dribble; I just can’t take it. And spending so little time around English speakers makes it even more difficult to be forced into listening to them ramble on about themselves. (I know I sound bitter, but feelings build up after a year and a half.)

Turned out, they had to cancel their yoga classes for lack of a teacher, but hadn’t updated their website. So, I pedaled on over to my Thai yoga class instead, making it just in time.

Turns out, I adore taking a yoga class in a foreign language. The instructor, a delightful man with a wonderful sense of humor, a big smile, and a fantastic energy about him, does speak some English, particularly yoga-oriented English. He probably speaks enough to teach a full, not very detailed, class in English.

Three months ago, he was very heavy on the English, clearly for my benefit. However, as the classes generally follow a standard ashtanga series and I have been doing yoga since 2005, his English usage has dropped down to practically nothing. When he does say something in English, I know it is directed at me, which is just lovely. He leads a wonderful, challenging class and the Thais enjoy themselves and are all willing to attempt anything. Just last night, we did headstands, handstands, and forearm stands all in one class.

Occasionally there will be another foreigner or two, and the class gets and injection of English, but not very often. My Thai comprehension, while still pathetic, is also dramatically improving. 

Okay, only yoga-specific Thai, but it’s something.

Bookstore Connoisseur

I am an admitted book junkie, and used bookstores are like my Mecca. While living and traveling in foreign countries, the lack of English-language bookstores has been the most difficult adjustment. Bookstores are few and far between, and when one does find a good one it is almost certainly expensive, catering to us “rich” tourists and such. But, having no other choice, I still will spend a good hour selecting a pricey, yet tantalizing, stack of literature to hold me over until our next book expedition.

Living in Chiang Rai, I have been lucky enough to find one decent bookstore carrying primarily English books. The selection isn’t great, but the owner is lovely. He pays very well for trade-ins (used books have become a currency with which I buy more used books). And, as the next closest bookstore is three hours away, beggars can’t be choosers.

I never miss a chance to swap for more books the second I finish reading, and have therefore perused every single bookstore we have come across in our travels. Bookstores are as necessary to me during travel as local cuisine or national monuments. Many of the books I have bought abroad are just as well-traveled as we are, working their way around Southeast Asia, picked up in one country and traded in another. I find books with stamps from bookshops in Koh Tao, Bangkok, and Koh Phi Phi. They have stickers from Bali and Vietnam, price tags from Laos and Cambodia. So far, I have yet to see a book stamped with a bookstore I haven’t visited. 

This system of reading is hands-down the worst way to check any of the books off my intended reading list, but thanks to a combination of curiosity and desperation, I read a slew of books in the past year and a half that I would have otherwise never even heard of. Several that surprised me, in no particular order, off the top of my head: Giraffe by J.M. Ledgard, Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres, A Case of Exploding Mangoes by  Mohhamed Hanif, Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (not that great, but apparently a must-read for travelers?), 2666 by Roberto Bolano. 

As a traveler, I know that the lighter, easier, more convenient thing to do would be to suck it up and buy a Kindle. And maybe, one of these days I’ll be praising the wonders of my new e-reader. But for now, I am willing to trudge along with a stack of paperbacks weighing down my backpack. I will wade through the used bookstores to find a couple of gems at decent prices. I will spend every kind of currency on overpriced books. I will forsake the ease of buying exactly what I am looking for in one simple click for the gamble and intrigue of not knowing what I will read next. Sorry Kindle, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Why of the Wai

The wai (pronounced ‘y’), a little bow of the head with your hands in prayer-position, is the traditional Thai greeting and parting gesture. We Americans have the wave, in all its variations and incarnations; well, the Thais wai.

Socially-nuanced, wai etiquette is complex. It affects how low you bow your head, who wais first, and whether you wai back at all. The lower one’s social position, the more respectful the wai; we’re talking about full-on, touch your hands to your face, thumbs-to-nose, fingers-to-forehead, deep bow wai-ing. Equals can bow lightly, hands more chest-height. The lower position person always wais first, and I’m pretty sure that you aren’t supposed to return the wai of a waiter or service person at all. Luckily, the etiquette is very forgiving for foreigners.
 

All complexities aside, I really enjoy the wai. It might be my years of practicing yoga and all the associations with the gesture itself, but I truly enjoy living in a country with such a nice greeting. I find it calming, peaceful, and somehow delicate. Less frantic than our wave, the wai takes a little extra time and effort, a mini pause. It is a brief moment acknowledging another individual.

Melaca, Melaka, Melacca

Coming from Thailand, Malaysia was remarkably clean. The roadsides weren’t dotted with litter. There wasn’t a trash pile in sight. And, at regular intervals, you could see trashcans! The buildings still have the mascara-streaked look of age and weather; patchwork roofs with panels in various shades of rust and rot popped by. But overall, Malaysia seemed to be a remarkably clean country. 

Bahasa Malay turned out to use roman characters. After so long without seeing much even resembling English, it felt like we could read everything. However, there is no common link that makes any of it decipherable. Signs were also in Tamil and Chinese, as there are large populations of Indians and Chinese. Luckily, everyone seemed to speak English as a common language. 

Having only limited time in Malaysia, we decided that our time would be best spent in the World Heritage City of Melaka.  Melaka (Melacca? Melaca?) has a rich mixing of cultures, past and present. You can see the colonial remnants from the Dutch, Portuguese, and British. Like the rest of Malaysia, you have Indian, Chinese, and Muslim Malaysians, each with distinct neighborhoods and cultures. (But, unique to Melaka, you also see the intermarrying between Indian and Chinese.)

We stayed on the edge of Chinatown, listened to the Call to Prayer from the mosque across the street, and watched a Hindu parade.

Galleries and museums mingled with the guesthouses, restaurants, and trinket shops. The galleries boasted friendly owners and high price tags. The museums were full to the brim with mannequins dressed in traditional garb (and little regard to proportion or ethnicity), posed in various dioramas explaining colonial or cultural history. 

Melaka was awash in rich, vibrant colors. Chinatown was draped in red lanterns. Doors and shutters were painted in yellows and blues. Maroon brick poked through crumbling white.

Trees and plants infused the homes with splashes of green in interior courtyards below skylights. 

Walls, doors, and even all the chainlink and barbed wire fences were painted turquoise.

At night the city was on full display. Houses were lit in reds from every angle. Neon lights illuminated bridges and trees. Tourist boats rushed up and down the river that winds through the middle of the city, adorned and flashing. 

Our four days were spent just meandering around the city, walking up and down the river, wandering through the neighborhoods, and then napping in the afternoons. Good food, friendly people. If the beer hadn’t been so expensive it might have been perfect. Hats off to the World Heritage folks, they’ve proven themselves to us once again.

Time Difference

Why are there stuffed crocodiles on top of every car in the parking lot? Why has that man walked a half a block along the telephone lines? How do you fit six people on a motorbike? Why do none of the clocks say the same time?

It’s been just over five months since we moved to Thailand, and I find myself questioning what is happening on a regular basis. Five months ---various cultural surprises (some pleasant, others less so), a finished first semester, a full year’s worth of illnesses (on my part), two thousand students, three pregnant stray animals, bug bites by the hundreds, a dozen new friends, one catastrophic elephant ride, a whole heap of bruises --- and here we are. During this time I have struggled, much more than Win, with the lack of planning, the disregard for punctuality, and what I saw as general confusion.

We go to school the first week and learn we have no students Friday. We show up to school and find out we have short classes for Sports Day. We show up the next day and find out Sports Day is next week, so it will be short classes until then. We arrive on Tuesday and are told that, no, today will be Friday classes. Half day Friday. No, Thursday and Friday. First period is a concert, last period is first. All last minute, day of. No calendar, scrap the lesson plans.

In a parade for Father’s Day (King’s Day) having the foreign teachers come is an honor, so we went. After an hour and a half of getting all of the individual school lined up, teachers donning pink or yellow, and the bands ready to lead, color guards in spandex and neon, drum majors in heels and cowboy hats, we were ready to go. We then walked several kilometers through barren parts of town at dusk on streets that hadn’t been cordoned-off and to the delight of no spectators, all while carrying cardboard cutouts of the King.

In attempting to book an elephant trekking tour we settled on the jungle trek instead when the elephants were all booked. We assumed that the two treks were different and separate. The assumption resulted in a five-minute hike through the jungle, first crossing a river, then clambering up an ant-covered embankment, climbing an ant-covered ladder, crossing back over the same river (more ants), and falling in line behind the elephants to finish our trek. We dodged mounds of elephant poo and crossed rivers in water up to our armpits, bags held overhead. All this while the Thai families sat comfortably atop elephants, shaded by umbrellas, dry and unharmed by ants.

We go to a restaurant and get a menu all in Thai, so we just point at something and hope for the best.  The best instance resulting in stir fried veggies when I was feeling nutrient-depleted; the worst, rice gruel with a raw egg at the bottom and spare parts soup, complete with grey meat, tripe, liver, and various other indistinguishables. We go to a restaurant, try to order food in general and are told “Mai Mi,” no have. No have food? No have cook? We don’t know, but they don’t have something. We show up at one of three border crossings to get into Burma/Myanmar, “Cannot.” Why? “Burma is closed to you. Open Thai Burma only.”

Five months of nothing going according to plan, but here we are. And I have become much more adaptable and easy-going. There was little choice. We live on Thai Time. Things happen when they happen, and always somehow work out. When we don’t understand each other we smile and shrug. A smile goes a very long way. A good sense of humor goes even farther.