Not about WHY, about HOW

We fled the dong village at dawn and spent the rest of the day in transit to Shanghai. I don’t know whether it was because I was extremely tired but I cried entering into the city. I couldn’t help it. The sight was so devastating. Originally, I thought LA smog was bad, then I was appalled when I got to Beijing, and I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the pollution covering Shanghai. You see about a quarter to half mile ahead of you before the whole scene turns into a brown haze from the ground up. High rise labyrinths littered the sides of freeways and sported a coating of brown sludge on top of there paint; it resembled the snow directly adjacent to highways carrying diesel trucks. The amount of saplings and greenery on every over pass and turn off space gave an inclining that someone/something was trying to reverse the affects of over population. Despite the frequency of the shruberies, every green thing was covered in a thin brown layer and looked exhausted. Coming from the country side in full wet season to this site was a serious shock.
I tapped as a means to calm down but the emotion and visual is forever ingrained in my psyche. In desperation I tried to pull my thoughts away from dark places, away from the question of ” WHY are we here?” Not why are we here physically in Shanghai but “WHY can’t people see what’s happening to their environment?” I know better than anyone that these questions lead to circular thinking and narcissism, no where helpful or progressive, so I tried to turn my head around. I recalled the conversation that one of my chaperones and I had yesterday. He has his doctorates In Physical chemistry and spent his schooling studying the nitrogen cycle. He is a smarty pants that is fighting the good fight. He gave me some insight. He explained to me what I already knew was true about the what predictive models show our o-zone will look like within the next century; not good. After a moment of silence I asked him “Do you have hope?”
He is a man of many stories and launched into one for an explanation. He explained that he used to teach environmental studies. The students he taught continually informed him how depressing the class was. He agreed something needed to change. So he began teaching chemistry and encouraging students to come up with ways that we can improve. HOW can we make our world better? Since, he has had a class put together a proposal for a bio diesel generator. The generator has powered school fundraisers and prom! He’s got many more progressive experiments up his sleeve and I hope to stay in contact with him to find out how they go.
From his story I also found hope. Hope in the youth I work with, hope for my friends that are already working on the Question of HOW and faith that I can as well keep HOW rather than WHY on my mind.
Enough emotional and verbal vomit…
The end of the trip with my students was fabulous! Despite my feelings about the city the students loved it. The city is much more in their scope of comfort than mine. Our last day was a student plan and run day where I got to be the kid and they got to lead,”I have to go to the bathroom! Are we there yet?”
The students where empowered and enthralled to have my trust instilled in them to walk around the markets of Shanghai.
Closing circle was eye opening for me. During the trip I had blinders on, I was focused on facilitation. It was rewarding to hear the verbal affirmations of realizations they had made along the way. Some of these realizations included: connections between personalities, to social groups, to community, to culture, to world; friends of old can still be kept close; traveling and experiencing a place are different entities and ways of seeing the world; there are many ways to accomplish a goal and your idea may just be one acceptable option. I was blown away by the maturity the students demonstrated.
Saying good bye to a group is always emotional for me. Detaching myself from an intense and influential energy source so suddenly is difficult and draining. I got a bit emotional at the airport and shed a few tears after seeing the group off to security.
And then there was two. Kim and I made our way back to the hotel breakfast Buffett to briefly debrief with the other leaders. I came to the realization that I did a lot of foundational work with my group. We laid bricks that can be reflected upon and built upon in the future. After eating ourself into a food coma, Kim and I proceeded to sleep for six hours, woke, walked, zombied about, ate suchi, talked, and slept again.

Sometimes a screeching child, children.

There’s always that point In a trip where the initial magic wears off and real colors begin to bleed through, mine, yours there’s, ours. It’s like in a relationship when that first in love infatuation disappears, sometimes we get a bit sensitive.
For me, I get triggered when expectations are not met, which just goes to show that expectations do not lead to the best emotional out come. Secondly, lack of follow through really grinds my gears. It’s hard to have great plans and verbiage but it really means nothing without physical follow up. As a group we hit this pivotal point and our colors where bleeding.
Spirits and energy levels where low and we where headed for our service projects where we would be laying cement… Yup. I let a bit of ego shine threw at a few 15 year olds, they got to me right at the end of the day.
We had one last bag of cement to mix and pour, all the tools to clean and our in country guide was pointing at the ominous black storm front headed for us telling me 30 more minutes; I don’t like leaving a job incomplete. Only a few of the students jumped in to help while the others stood and questioned why the last bag of cement had been opened in the first place; admittedly an honest mistake on someone’s part. My pushy driver side decided to hotly get some boys, that continued to mill and contemplate, to work. My ego trigger, triggered there defensive 15 year old ego, but the cement got laid.
Later that evening my chaperone and I sat down with some of the students and talked out the day. I got some very helpful feedback. It is true in some high intensity situations that are time sensitive I can get impatient. With that impatience I can let communication fall through. These youngsters help me to find self awareness and clarity. Turns out after debriefing the day with the whole group our bleeding colors created a beautiful master piece of teamwork, bonding, awareness and a cement walkway with a tile mosaic.
My third trigger is continuous screening about bugs and spiders in the hotel at all hours. Tonight’s meditation is on purpose:

– consider your purpose at this point in your life.
– consider what you think the purpose of your parents is
– consider the life and goals of the peoples of the community in which we are staying
– consider the purpose of the animals in our immediate surrounding
– consider the the purpose of the bugs and spiders in this establishment, and for just a moment before you smash them with your shoe, consider that a life is a life…

A recollection: the Rice Terraces and the Dong Village

For the past week we have transitioned from some what rural China to the country. Our fist step was the Dragons Backbone Rice Terraces. In the three hour drive to the terraces the scenery turned from green to greener. We wound up and into the misty mountains covered in subtropical forest composed of pine and bamboo; a very new combination for me indeed. Even more peculiar where the patches of taro and bananas mixed into this pine, bamboo scramble. The bus driver taking us to the bottom entrance of the terraces drove with the intensity of a city slicker around the blind corners. It was the first time I had used a seat belt all trip.
We had an hours hike up hill to our accomidation. The sweat was well worth it, the view was incredible. The entire valley we where in has been progressively developed for the past 600-700 years! Nearly every hill top was terraced at conture. The entire valley looked similar to a giant National Geographic topographic map, but entirely more beautiful. At dawn and dusk the light was just right to reflect off each water filled terrace creating what looked like an interrupted mirror of the sky.
The houses where huge wooden establishments built in traditional fashion using no nails; each floor and plank was held together through an interlocking and wedging method. The smell of pine emanating from the wood was so strong you could taste it. One down side of these beautiful structures was that they are not insulated; you could hear the person a floor down and two rooms over picking there nose. Now imagine bringing a stampede of teenaged elephants into this quiet, country escape. Guests of our acomidations, please forgive us.

The second step of our journey took us further into the mysterious country side of China to the Dong Village. Again, we stayed in a 4 storied wooden fortress that smelled of forest and earth, and with all twenty of us inside sounded like a freight train. Our hotel was built on the river bank over looking the villages 100 year old bridge, the entire village, a few of the garlic chive fields and the mist covered mountains across the river. Every room had a view that made up for the bed; a piece if ply wood with a down cover.
We where lucky to have hiked to the beautiful overlook day one of our stay because each day proceeding was cloudy. The entire valley is composed of water sunken fields. Each field is supplied with water by bamboo water wheels connected to the rivers edge. Above the fields rise the three to four story high wooden homes topped with intricate tiled roofs. Climbing the hills above the houses are rows upon rows of tea plants, deep green in color underneath with fluorescent green tops. Behind these hills are silhouetted mountains covered with splashes of bamboo and pine forest with white mist literally dancing down and through the many valleys. INCREDIBLE!
We spent two days doing service at a school tucked away in a high mountain village about an hours drive from our hotel. I loved the drive. Half of it boasted the views of the river valley and the other half of the jaw dropping bigger picture; many river valleys rippling into the mist. The whole picture is like something out of a dream.
The first day at the school we mixed three bags of cement and got to bond over physical labor. The second day my students quite successfully taught the children English. After class we got to hang out with a few of the village youngsters. I was privileged enough to be invited into a game of “village rasource” happy sack. I so dubbed this game “village resource” happy sack because the clever girls I was playing with had made our sack out of foliage growing in a near by planter. They stripped the stems of the leafs and used the remaining vascular system like rope to thatch all the leaves together!
Our time in the Dong village was most surely my favorite part if the trip.

Ask and the Universe shall provide… I wanted to use the bath tub

The second leg of our trip took us into a more rural area of China, Jung Shuo. We where not fully immersed in the country as there is a main city vain that lay ten minutes away from our accommodations. As near as the city was I could still here the birds and the bugs during the twilight hours. My room was a dream room. My bathroom had a window that looked over my plush pillow covered bed, out onto my balcony and into the sub tropical jungle of China. As I sat on my temporary thrown for the first time, I couldn’t help but think how relaxing it would be to use the bath tub and look out onto the beautiful view. We had two nights so it could totally be possible.
Upon arrival to our hotel our guide took us on a stroll through the small anex that we would call home for the next two nights. The people of this community still practice agriculture. Every house has a beautiful, integrated garden. Beans and squash grew up bamboo tripods or covered slopes to hold earth. Eggplants and peppers where planted in neat rows amongst peanuts being used as ground cover. I saw a plant that nearly resembled edible hibiscus and another few trees that looked like a relative of the kekui nut. Lemon grass and other fragrant herbs where front door and perimeter decorations and bug repellents, and every house had at least one lychee tree. Outside the housing area lay communal wet land growing fields full of rice, taro, water chestnuts and other root plants I don’t know. All of this lay at the base of the majestic, spired mountains that one would normally see depicted in Asian art.
Our first day in Jung Shuo was fun filled with rafting and our second day was just as eventful. The second day started with a cooking class. We learned to make Gung pow chicken, dumplings and eggplant.
After lunch we headed for the mud caves, which are material for movies. To get to the caves we had to ride in a hand drawn boat through a low hanging tunnel. I might be mistaken but it would seem that Walt Disney got some inspiration for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride from this particular cave. After docking in the cave we proceeded into the mountain. We where completely immersed in this underground labyrinth. At times the passageway opened up into an area with high vaulted ceilings which then ascended into crawl spaces in which you had to doge, duck, dip, dive, and doge stalactites and stalagmites. We crossed through underground streams and slipped our way into the final cave, “The Mud cave.”
What proceeded was one of the most filthy mud fights I have ever been apart of. I can only recall I few times I have been so dirty. I took it upon myself to make sure people felt comfortable and acquainted with their surroundings by rubbing their backs with hand fills of soft mud. The sensation of walking from the center of the pit to the outside of the pit was very unique. I could feel the increased viscosity of the mud, the thickening of the liquid as I moved! Right about at peak fun is when it happened.
One of my students took a mud clobber to the face, more specifically to the eyes. I took calm action rinsing the eyes out but It became apparent after about five minutes of rinsing and increased pain, panic and screaming, that we had a more serious situation on our hands. Getting all the mud we physically could out of the eyes we began the slow and daunting journey back out the way we came. Thank goodness for all my training through the Chasm of Doooom and the SEA with Boojum. This was a real blind trust activity, the poor thing couldn’t open their eyes! On the way out we only encountered one slip up and it wasn’t a slip. My student accidentally grabbed on to the jerry rigged electrical wire that was helping to light our way and electrocuted both of us! I was pissed at whoever thought it was a good idea to place wires as railing level in a cave! Ah yes and the same way out meant not only getting back through the labyrinth passage ways but also taking the boat back out. Finally we emerged and rushed to the med center. In which time it started to POUR.
I am so grateful that one of my chaperones speaks fluent Mandarin. We had a communication relay going between the Dr., the chaperone and myself. Alas the clouds parted and the lightning stopped, this is no figure of speech. The students pain subsided and eyes became open and clear and the sky opened and we left the med center with ice cream and a rainbow: quite literally.
The student could not use the shower because their eyes could not get wet. Inevitably my tub got used, not by me, to wash hair and keep eyes dry.