On to a Dry Country During Rainy Season
Not Looking Over My Shoulder at that Fork in the Road

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"
--Yogi Berra

My Gram is a consumate quoter of Yogi Berra and I thought of her puns and Yogi Berraisms as I agonized last month over my then-future/now-present plans. When the world gives one so many options, how does one know the best way to procede? After consulting friends, old lovers, oracles, the net, and my navel, I finally made the decision about where to go. Luckily I did it before I left for the forest temple three weeks ago, so that was off my mind while I meditated. I stopped agonizing...because life decisions can't be right or wrong as long as we remember one thing: love.

I used to cultivate anger. It was the easy way to feel powerful. It was what most other white American men did. I tried to change other people and get "control" over a lot of I-don't-know-whats. But it didn't work. All I got were suicidal fantasies, angry fits, broken friendships and sorrow. Now I just try to change myself. I do what little I can. And I do this--as Mother Teresa said--with a big heart.

My choices for my present course of action were varied and attractive. I have spent the last four months looking for short-term employment in Taiwan. I got an offer or two at a cram school on the island and a few more from Mainland China, but when I thought about it, the money and working 12 hours a day at a camp or teaching businessmen wasn't my cup of longcha. I could have flown to Taiwan and worked under the table pretty easily, but tourist visas are good only for a month and (and work visas must be at least one year). Even though I had an offer to stay at a friend's aunt's house, I would not have been able to save much money because I'd have had to spend it all on plane tickets to renew my visa.

I was also offered a cushy job at a Shanghai hotel, but, despite the great money and perks--luxury room, free laundry, free food, free net access, a classroom with all the amenities--I could not see myself doing this for a year, which was the contract they offered me. I realized that I like my current life. It's simple. It has very few creature comforts. And I realized that is what I need right now. I need to keep cutting away the superfluous in order to see my true nature. I need fewer distractions, not more. Sure, I could have taken this job and learned Chinese and spent every night soaking in a hot bathtub watching pre-revolutionary Chinese cinema, but what's the point of that when I could die tomorrow and I would have only lost bits of myself in all the sense pleasures?

I also got an offer to live on Cortes Island in British Colombia near Vancouver from a couple who spend their winters in Thailand. This place of alternative healing, microclimates, meditation, drumming, hippies, hicks, no police and a beachfront garden with my own apartment to live in sounded like paradise. How tempting...but it was not for me right now. As much as I liked the idea of gardening for this lovely couple and sitting in their log-fired hot tub and picking oysters from the sand for my lunches, I have chosen to continue what I'm doing now, but on the other side of Burma.



At the end of this month, I'm travelling to the alcoholicly dry and H2o-ically rainy South Asian nation of Bangladesh to work with communities in the Ganges Delta region. I'm curious to see what it's like living in a predominantly Muslim country with no particular animosity toward America or the West (though who doesn't hate the American government now that it's got no moral leg to stand on?). I'll spend most of my time in the capital, Dhaka a pretty multicultural place. I hope to find some quiet temples in this smoggy city and settle into the work there for at least the next three months.



I don't know what it will be like to live in the most densely crowded nation on earth the during rainy season. I just hope that none of the Arctic or Antarctic ice shelves fall into the sea while I'm there because most of Bangladesh is right around sea level. Though wouldn't a flood of biblical proportions be fun?

Don't worry about your narrator. I'm not going to the Middle East. I pass for Swedish more easily than most, and I know the people I'm going to be living with. I'm going with the flow. This position came at me from all directions in just the right way as a continuation of what I'm doing now...and it's being paid for.

Last night I had my going away part with my students. They gave their thanks, their appologies, their regards. And then they gave me a longkyi (a traditional Burmese article of clothing that looks like a skirt--basically a beautiful tube of cloth tied at the navel).

Now I'm off to meet with more people who'll have an impact on my future and hopefully see some old friends in Bangkok. Thailand has been a wonderful place to live these last four months and I will miss its friendly people, open society, free culture, and cheap street food. Bangladesh is a thriving third world democracy that's likely to give me dysentery rather than cheap and healthy prawn cakes. I'm going to gather more than a few life lessons there too, which I hope to be able to share with you.

Peace to all. An end to all domination. A tear for the victims of my country's hubris. A hearty "howdy" to all I meet, even if you're halfway around the world.