basic

I spent the better part of 15 hours trying to make relief packages for some of the people that have felt the devastation. Only the most basic things...toothbrush, toothpaste, rice, water, blankets, things that would require more thought to be taken for granted.

The last few days my spirit has just been non-existent, absent. Finally, yesterday a tangible way of helping...feeling it in my hands and my back that i have done something, i still feel like shit. With all the effort of the people working, we provided relief to a few thousand people for a mere few hours, while milllions of people are displaced. I am pretty sure i'm supposed to feel good about something, but i don't and i don't understand why. What's happened and what's happening is affecting me so much and I didn't personally know anyone affected directly. If I did, at least i would be able to understand how i'm feeling. I feel displaced.

baby bird

Saturday morning i walked into class to find a bird in the classroom, ordinarily nothing even to bat an eye at, ordinary. This was a baby, however, that entered the room and couldn't get out.

I spent what seemed like hours just trying to show this baby the door and have it fly through it. It just couldn't find it and flew here and there and into windows and walls. Forever just trying to urge this scared, confused, infantile little bird through the door. Following it both hands cupped and making ridiculous bird noises getting it to cross that threshold.

Despite the many things i don't like about being a teacher, i enjoy coming in on saturdays and helping those kids who need the extra help. This week i spent more than an hour encouraging a shy girl just to speak in audible tones, just a girl who could use more attention.

I look forward to seeing the baby birds on saturday.

Extra

Every day is full of things that are Extra-ordinary, as I see them anyway. Tonight I’m just thinking about the past few days and all the crazy things that have just happened as totally normal.

I’ll just tell you about a couple…Yesterday riding in a sang thaew (the back of a pick up truck) on the way home from dinner the car stopped in the usual traffic and just maybe two feet away on this one lane road was an elephant’s big but….hmmmm….Today, I attended a shameless so called fundraising carnival complete with crooked carnival games including “pin the bindi on the forehead”.

It seems that not a day goes by without the daily departure from the ordinary.

School Spirit

This is something that still baffles me. Being a student, I can’t say that I had very much of this. Being a teacher, I see now why this can be important. The students I teach who have it take pride in their work, in their appearance and are concerned with their results. They are just all-around more pleasant to teach.
I had classmates who had a lot of school spirit at my school and friends at other schools who did as well. I didn’t understand it then and still do not. Now, however, I see it as beneficial to the kids in this school. How can one instill school spirit? Can one instill a sense of pride? It’s on my mind and if the few people who read this have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

Fresh

Totally? Partially? Not at all? Shaped by all the things around us. Probably.

Sometimes it can just be overwhelming. Listening to other people, seeing their attitudes, there situations…I see it. The influence can seep in over time, sometimes it comes all at once, but it is unmistakably there. It affects how you feel about going to work, going home, going out, just about going anywhere doing anything.

Fresh. Taking stock. Just one day wake up and push all that aside. Forget about how much or little you have, just go through the day and just decide for yourself. I did that today and Monday seemed a lot less like Monday and Friday didn’t seem so far away.

The Garden

Every day I see about 120 children whose name faces I know, whose names I know, and personalities I know. I hadn't realized how attatched I would become to many of them. It is something that just didn't cross my mind...I interact with these children, these little people who are so much individuals in their own way, every day. I can not really think of another profession where you might interact so often and intimately with other people.

I can really understand now why high school teachers are so happy to see their former favorites years later. It's incredible that I KNOW these 9, 10, and 11 year olds...To see them grow up in front of my eyes...In a year, in two years, in ten years. In a way it's like a parent watching their kids grow up, but rather watching hundreds grow up at so many stages of adolescence and childhood, SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Tending to a growing garden, just waiting patiently for it to flower. Waiting for the brats of 4B to become the young adults of 10B. That's rewarding.

Complacency

God Dammit people! Get off your ass and do something about it. If there's something wrong, and you know it DO SOMETHING.

I'm so sick of people just passively taking what comes. Passive is not even the word to describe it, as someone so aptly described a person in a bad situation, "not being passive, but actively doing nothing"

if this describes you, then i say, 'what the hell man?'

ASS-umption

Assumption makes an ass out of u and me. I’ve heard that lame joke so many times. It rings truer today. I on the other side of the teaching desk, and there is so much perspective to be had on both sides.

There are countless situations and relationships where you probably don’t know the whole story. Parents, teachers, bosses, peers, and many others. I interact with people who fall into these categories. What I think I know affects these relationships.

Consciously, I wouldn’t think I knew the whole story, but I think this experience has taken a layer of subconscious ‘ass making’ right off.

Time

I’m still thinking about complaining, more specifically what is everyone complaining about. A big one is not having enough time. For once, I feel like I have so much time, and even more fortunately for me is that I realize it and am not wasting it.

Not unlike many I imagine, work has become little more than a means for me. It’s a means to be here, to be learning about myself and giving me so much time. However difficult or frustrating a day at work can be, I’m still home (and with Zahra!) by 3:30 with the whole day stretching ahead of me. I have more time to be with Zahra, read, think, and do other things that have always been a lesser priority then ever before.

Happy

I don't understand why so many people spend all their time (or what seems like) complaining. Even if there's nothing current to complain about...just bitch and moan on and on about something that in the past or something that might happen in the future.

It's as if they've signed a contract promising to be unhappy...everyone could complain about something if they wanted. Being unhappy is as much a choice as being calm, or being angry, or being...happy.

Community

Jamaat- the simple translation would be community. Chicago is my home, and I like to think I’ll always be a part of the Chicago jamaat.

But here, in Bangkok, I belong to a new jamaat, and this one is markedly different from any I’ve been in before. First it’s not Indian. It’s 3 or 4 generations Thai. The first language here is Thai. The people are Thai. The food is Thai. From it’s inception 120 years ago, this jamaat has flowered in seeming isolation from the global community. There is a translation of the majalis in Thai, and they even pay homage to the royal family of Thailand at each function.

It’s very different, but when you walk in the masjid, it’s still unmistakably Bohra. And though it’s like any other Bohra experience I’ve had before, I’ve gotten a sense of community that I feel should be at the heart of any jamaat.

One difference is that the Amil doesn’t sit on a thakat, many feet off the ground, rather only a few inches at the audience’s level. During Vaas, the Amil asks questions, takes jamaat member’s names…talks to rather than at.

I am a new member and am not privy to many of the unspoken obligations and gossip and history and hierarchy that goes along with being a part of any social or cultural organization which is quite possibly just below the surface. From this distance, however, it feels how a community should…like a family (I know this must be a slight exaggeration, but that’s how I feel right now)

Audience?

When I started writing this, it was for myself. Though over three months, a few people, to my surprise, have told me they read my blog. Reading what I’ve written, my writing has changed from the introspective way it began.

Perhaps three people isn’t actually considered a readership. But, consciously, I want to turn inwards as when I started.

Full Moon

We were out last night and found there to be a huge flood about 1 kilometer from were we live. This was interesting because it hadn’t rained, or at least that we noticed. But there it was unmistakably, a pool of water that stretched on as far as the traffic, flooding the entire gas station and shops along the road. Not just a puddle, I’m talking 1-2 feet deep water. People walking through it and water up to their knees; we could hear the water at our feet underneath the car!

The next day this mysterious, non-rain water was explained. It was a full moon…high tide. Because Bangkok is about 1 foot above sea level, when the water is at high tide, the river rises and the drains back up. Something that seemed so bizarre was explained. It’s not even all that strange here I suppose as it happens once a month.

It’s great to experience something so…well unexpected…that’s the best word I can think of right now

old paper

Here's something that i dug up from a paper i had written after coming back from egypt.

One of the first few weekends I was there a new friend Max called me up and asked, “are you busy this weekend? Ok, meet me at the bus station in the morning and bring a sleeping bag.” And this was the beginning of my first adventure, and it truly was just that. In the morning I found myself at the bus station, in reality it was just a huge lot with ten different bus companies scattered around and filled with people who only speak Arabic. After much searching I found Max, and we were off to, to, to….well to be honest we weren’t sure. Armed with bread, some jelly, sleeping bags, and our handy Fodor’s Egypt guide, we took off!
Some four hours into the bus ride the bus driver let us off, strangely enough it was just the two of us who got off. It was a fork in the road, on one side was the red sea, the other desert and not a town for 3 miles in any direction! After some lunch and deliberation, we hitchhiked (not highly recommended) on an unusual overcrowded bus full of Coptic Christians; a large Egyptian man who closely resembled Santa Claus invited us on.
From there it was on to St. Paul’s Monastery, the first in the monastic tradition. Some monks gave us food and a room. Thus far everything just seemed to be happening for us, it was amazing and completely spontaneous. We stayed for a few days and hiked, just trying in vain to capture and take in all the serenity that was around us in the middle of the desert. Hiking was one of the activities of choice, and no words can describe the immense fullness of what we saw. Imagine climbing a mountain, when you reach the top you can see miles in any direction and still see no sign of life-a road, a tree, a house-nothing! Imagine climbing to a place where the wind gusts so that you can hardly stand to see the canyon that the wind has eroded away, just years of wind!
Traveling is an excellent way to meet people. We played soccer with some of the other people visiting, and it was a bonding experience despite the language and cultural gaps we connected, beyond words. At this point everything good just seemed to happen, so convenient, and when we thought about how we were going to get back to Cairo, some of our new friends offered us a ride to Cairo, a 4-hour ride! When we arrived back and tried to explain the details of our trip, the response was pure jealousy. It excites me to see a person totally enthralled by a story of something I did. OH and by the way, this 3-day excursion ended up costing around $6.

Sounds of Bangkok

Sounds of Sam Rhong actually, a suburbish place just outside Bangkok. We live on the sixth floor and have three balconies through which the surrounding sounds fill our apartment and have become welcomed sounds of home.

I say suburbish, because it’s not a city, but sounds like a city…maybe not even a city. Let me explain. Every night is like a concert of various sounds…many of which we can’t exactly explain.

First there is this xylophone (I never thought I would write that word:) music that we hear every night. A solo xylophonist practicising? Hmm…Some nights there’s karaoke, very catchy different music butchered by some wanna be singer(s). These music sounds are constantly interrupted by unitelligable yelling in thai. Domestic problems? Very excited people?

Animals. Roosters, they roost at sunrise right? WRONG, all day and all night. Dogs, they go crazy every night, like a pack of werewolves in a full moon…waking us in the night, they sound like they’re killing each other or some other very loud animal…we think to ourselves, ‘at least they won’t be making noise tommorow’, wrong again!

The strange/cool part is we’ve become accustomed to these sounds, a unique mix probably only ever to be associated with apartment 601.

Tough Job

I have a class of fifth grade boys, they practically ruin my afternoon when I step in that classroom, a group of about 30 mostly unmotivated, uninterested, and rowdy kids. I have tried everything I can think of to get them interested and to pay attention…and every day I leave their classroom exhausted, drained, and frustrated. Many of them aren’t anywhere near a fifth grade level and a handful do not speak English.

I cannot discipline them; I can barely get them to sit down quietly. Some of the teachers here hit the kids; I can confidently say I will never. I took some extra rowdy students to the mild mannered principle and to my surprise he hit them. Then they behaved…for one day.

I know now, what will happen if I send them to the principal. I have already resolved never to hit, but aren’t I doing just that if I send them again to the principal? Even the threat of the principal will keep them in line for a short period, but that’s still the threat of violence and I don’t like that.

Easy answer is not to do that….but I’m still stuck with a group of kids and without the one tool, hopefully not the only, of discipline they respond to. Help.

Me Nam Chao Praya

That’s the name of this river that runs through Bangkok, south and on to the gulf of Thailand. Also, we’re fortunate enough to live near the river.

It feels like the moon, it follows you wherever you go. Every time we go out, it’s appearing and disappearing on the side of the road…in the city, the riverfront is spectacular, lined with tall buildings and nice hotels, and restaurants….filled with many river taxis and boat traffic, and at night, it’s filled with boats that are lit up taking passengers on cruises. At night you can see large, lit up boats floating down the river from our window.

And the sun sets over the river, as it’s usually to the west. Maybe it’s the pollution, but the sun is red about an hour before the sunset, so there’s a beautiful show of red and purple lights with the river. Just as most Chicagoans share a strong bond with the lake, Me Nam Chao Praya has the same effect on me here.

Compass

3$, that’s what I spent on a compass. I think it may be the best 3 bucks I’ve spent in a long time. I’ve been to three different countries with it already and it’s helped me to find Kiblah in so many different situations. I used to feel uncomfortable putting my masela down and doing namaz anywhere when the time comes.

This compass has been liberating, it’s been something physical, tangible that is letting me overcome that feeling of awkwardness. I’m being myself all the time, even in Thailand, in the strangest of places…a zoo, a train station, a temple, a parking lot, a mall….

36

36 years.

36 years have seen a war in vietnam, korea, two in iraq and so much more.
36 years have seen 4 passport renewals, 36 tax returns, 3 states, and 7 different houses
36 years have seen 3 kids, 3 marriages, and 2 grandkids
36 years have seen 4 parents, 3 sisters, and 3 brothers pass away

i could probably continue down this list for another 36 years

My parents, god bless them, celebrated their 36th anniversary of being married this last week. And it makes me feel in awe of them. I'm just recently married and learning the meaning of the word "giving". For perhaps the first time, us children have finally been able to give back something, albeit nothing in comparison to what each of us has recieved as a result of their 36 years together.

Thank you for giving me a wonderful home to grow up. From the bottom of my heart, I want to wish them not only a happy anniversary, but another happy 36 more years. I love you mom and dad.

cadence

Every Friday morning, the students at this school as a group perform these ridiculous exercises as a group. While wearing their uniforms, in dress shoes, and in the morning heat (which is slightly less than the midday heat and slightly more than the evening heat) they perform group jumping jacks and arm raises, quite literally to the beating of a drum.

This is as silly as I am trying to make it sound, maybe even more so....and the kids know it. My job is to stand and "supervise", whatever that means. I can only stand think how ridiculous is this? for 30 minutes! But is it only the students out there in the heat marching and performing the prescribed exercises? You may not hear that drum, but are you listening for it?

For whom the drum.....Tolls?