Bali Updates

Subject: Bali #5

Last night I watched the last half of Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz" rock n roll film on the tube.  It took me awhile to figure out what the movie was, but then it hit me: the Band's farewell concerts at the Cow Palace in 1978!  What a magnificent ensemble of interviews, thoughts of living on the road, our greatest musicians of the 1970s and the finale of them all on stage with Dylan singing, "I Shall Be Released".  

(I remember telling Scott a long time ago that I want to be listening to that song when it's my time, as well, to bid 'adieu' to this world...)

I'd seen that brilliant documentary film the first time while hitchhiking across France to meet Dave in Istanbul in the spring of 1979 after going home for Bruce's wedding.  I'd gone into Nice to see it, then hitchhiked back out on to the highway and a night's sleep alone out in a wheat field.  The next morning I got up and continued my travels down Italy to Brindisi for the ferry to Greece, Kos, then up to Stamboul where Dave and I took a ferry along the Black Sea to Trabizon and on across Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India to Kathmandu.  

So much of what I look back upon these last days of 2012 have to do with that never-ended journey with my life's dearest friends across from the Mediterranean to the Himalaya.  With that "Last Waltz", in certain ways, I, too, bid my own fare-thee-well to my American roots and beautiful life to create something new on the other side of the world.  A dream of a life unknown, yet to be explored and rich in anticipation.

That leaves me today, 34 years later, on the beach in Bali with my beloved Mother, wife and daughter.  The three Devis of my adult life...  A man and the three women who are the home he builds...  While our sons, Joshua and Ezra, are off in their young adult worlds with their friends and guides ready to find themselves and their future quests without all the parental guidance and support that a child requires...

Much to reflect upon in those sentences, as well...

So today, with less than 48 hours left in 2012, is a rest day for such reflection, reading ("The Master and Margarita") and a bit of swimming.  Soon, we'll take Leah where she can do a short dive with a new type of spaceman ("Biff"??) helmet under the water.   She seems excited to go under the sea and live with the fishes!

Although, in truth, she wants to race back up to the Botanical Garden where they have a jungle zip line and various acrobatic activities up in the trees.  It looks a bit like high anxiety when watching some of the other adults yesterday, but kids are fearless, even our little daughter.  So we may save that for when we move to Ubud on the 1st for three days, as its closer there, if we get back again.   

Also, Mom's feeling much better!  She looks great in her newfound grey hair as the heat is too much for more luxuriant hairstyles or accompaniments...   

Happy New Year to all!  

Subject: Bali #4

I'm sitting in the morning sun on our small terrace here at La Taverna already starting to sweat by 9 am.  Time to go do my laps in the pool soon after checking the football scores, FB and the world's latest crimes and misdemeanors...

Yesterday, we took another day trip w/ our driver, Dharma, up to the highlands of Bali, this time.  Drove about 2 hours to the extinct volcanoes where there are three lovely lakes past miles of rice fields and the constant image of Balinese brick, stone and thatch pagoda temples along the way.  

These local, household and village temple complexes are the defining attribute of this luscious landscape.  Almost every day we see local communities heading to their shrines for puja and prayers, dressed in their handsome black and white checkered lungis and knotted head-dresses.  

At one such temple-school complex, we stopped for a bowl of noodle soup in one town, then at a coffee plantation to taste the local brew and try a new type of fruit with a snake-like skin that tasted like a harder, fleshier rambutan or mangosteen.  It's so wonderful to be among those tropical fruit of southeast Asia.

There was fog and some drizzle up on the mountain where we stopped to take pictures of the lush landscape and lovely lakes below.  Leah touched the large fruit bats that were on display on the roadside, before we turned around to go to a famous (and crowded...) temple island on the larger of the lakes.  It was Saturday so there were hundreds of Indonesian tourists there taking family photos with most of them in clusters of 10-14 family members.  Reminds one of the beauty of our basic human unit...

Then, the Bali Botanical Garden where we wandered among the orchids and bamboo, collecting specimens for our own garden along the way.  How much we love these botanical gardens around the world.  Nature protected, preserved and respected!  There is much on Bali that seems to have been respected by the culture around them.  Some type of graciousness and beauty that mirrors the island itself.

For dinner, we strolled on the main Sanur street and found a delicious Italian restaurant nearby for dinner of snapper, swordfish and pizza where we may have our New Year's dinner, too.

Subject: Bali Update #3

Hi, all!  Claudia was asking for the latest news on Mom, but, fortunately, there isn't any...  except, of course, that she's not wearing a wig today, so I feel younger and among a more age appropriate group...

Yesterday we were supposed to move to Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali up in the hills, closer to the magnificent volcano mountains that are in the center north of the island.  We did actually drive up there w/ our luggage intending to stay.  Mom was booked at what turned out to be a very cute, lovely, aesthetic hotel and we were going to be in our friend Emil's home not too far away (but, as we discovered, not too close, either).  However, little did I realize that Mom is no longer really able to manage stairs or steps very well.  She was not comfortable with the steps at the lodge, much less the very ridge-ridden hills of Ubud...

So, we went and looked at 3-4 other hotels, including the magnificent Amandari, but decided in the end to return to La Taverna on Sanur beach, which is lovely, open and without stairs.  It's a bit beachcomber-type for Mom, and definitely a bit humid in the tropics, but she preferred it to the up and down of Ubud.  Fair enough!  My body aches at times, I can't really imagine the wear and tear of being in one's 80s, not to mention, we all know that Dad's fall was precipitous for him.  Better safe, as they say!

Thus, back to Sanur!  We will do day trips from here, like we did up to Ubud yesterday (only an hour from here).  I've arranged a car for tomorrow to take us up country to some artisan villages -- Bali is nothing if not an artistic, creative universe, ergo it's beauty...   We'll go to some of the famous Hindu temples (very much modeled on south Indian style from 1200 years ago), a stone carving village and maybe a famous water tank/park.  Let's see.

Oh, and we found a lovely restaurant at a nearby hotel (Serei Tanjang) that made it almost worthwhile to return yesterday evening.  Lovely setting on the beach w/ even better food.  Seared tuna, avocado salad, pasta and coconut creme brulee to die for...  We may be there tonight if you're nearby.

All is ok in this tropical world, hot, rainy at times (quick intense storms), the sea, the sky and water, plenty of water... 

Subject: Bali Update #2

There are way to many fireoworks going off in the background for my taste... sounds like Tet in Hue in 1967... but we're out the door in a minute to get Mom who is watching "Salt" on the TV on her front porch here at La Taverna, Sanur Beach, Bali. She arrived on time from HK mid afternoon, where I met her w/ Dharma, the local taxi driver. But with a serious cough, so we stopped at the pharmacy to pick up some decongestant and water. 

After settling in her ground floor suite here a 100 m from the beach, she took a well-deserved nap with the AC on. A far cry from the weather she's had the previous ten days in northern China. Here we're near the equator and the lush, tropical air will be perfect for her clogged lungs. 

I doubt she's up for a bicycle ride (Shakun, Leah and I just came back from 1.5 hours heading in land on the back roads to find a bamboo nursery) or a swim in the ocean tomorrow w/ Leah, but she can relax, have a massage and enjoy our five course Xmas Italian dinner here at La Taverna with us. It's a good way, methinks, to celebrate her 52nd wedding anniversary!

Still, I just wanted to let you know that Mom is safe n sound and we are out to the sandy terrace under the tropical trees looking out to the sea for pizza or pasta or a well-deserved drink. 

I like the idea of a drink... 

Subject: Grammy Does Bali: Day #2

Hey, Everyone!  Mom woke up feeling better this morning.  She had a coughing fit in the night, but besides that seems to have slept well and is more agile today.  She's out having a second long black Illy coffee on the terrace with her bagel and lox breakfast.  (Leah had the same...)  We'll take it slow today and then have our Xmas eve dinner here at the hotel tonight.  Tomorrow we go up to Ubud for ten days of Balinese culture, landscape and a few day trips around the island.  Hopefully Mom will feel better just resting, relaxing, breathing the warm, salt air and not traveling too much this week.  Just wanted to keep you informed...  

Subject: Grammy Arrives:  Day #1

Mom arrived two days after our arrival and Ezra's departure.  Mom's really worn down after her ten day trip traveling around China in the dead of winter with snow, rain and really cold weather.  She took a nap this afternoon, but was still pretty exhausted in the evening.  She said, 'everything aches' and has a real deep cough.  Hopefully a good night's sleep will do her well.  We'll see how she feels tomorrow, but it's been a hard trip for her, it seems.  

She took Ezra's deportation in her inimitable, practical way.  "Well, of course, you need six month validity in your passport -- all countries require that!"  She felt bad, of course, as she was so looking forward to seeing him here with us.  When asked what she would have done at Immigration, she was, again, all simplicity and directness.  "I would have paid -- and be done with it!"  She's right...

Bali should be a good rest without all the travel and plane flights and winter weather experienced in China.  She'll feel better after she's been able to sleep and not think about more travel.  

We have a Xmas eve dinner tomorrow here at the lovely boutique Italian resort, La Taverna, where we're staying on the beach at Sanur.  Should be fun and good food!  

Subject: Ezra Doesn't Do Bali Update #1

I've been trying to solve a conundrum wrapped in a corruption treated with respect...  if you can figure out what I mean...

In brief: Ezi was deported at the Bali airport the day we arrived for not having a six month valid passport.  The Immigration Officials wanted $1,000 to permit him to stay, but were willing to negotiate down to $300+.  However, something went wrong w/ the discussion.  Maybe it was me not feeling so thrilled or happy about the whole situation -- so they finally refused him entry and sent him all the way back to Kathmandu.  

We are waiting to hear from Ezra today if he has gotten a new temporary passport there to fly back here tomorrow (en challah!).  Of course, he wasn't certain if he wanted to return after the three days just coming and going.  But my mother is here and he does want to see her, so he may come or stay at home and work on his college applications due in February.  We've left it up to him...  

When I mentioned this to the Tourist Police at the airport yesterday when I went to pick up Mom, they said, 'the Immigration was trying to respect us by helping find a fair price to let your son stay'.  Of course!  But I was too Western, dumb and frustrated to see it in that uniquely Asian (particularly Indonesian, I suppose...) way.   It was all about the $$, bozo!  Forget your tales of morality or doing someone a kindness...  You could have had what you wanted if you had just paid the piper!

If I had, Ezra (for a few hundred dollars...) would be with us on Bali and not have been sent away...  

Live and learn, I guess...  although Ezra has the exhausting return to Kathmandu ahead of him...

What is love?

What is love?
Do we still wonder?
Do we still ask?
Do we still reflect?

What is given and what forsaken?
What held tight and what released?
What freed and what demanded?
When to go and when to stay?

Who are you, and
What is us?

Notes from Roma, Lecce and Albania

Notes from Italy and Albania

Shakun and I recently returned from Roma, Lecce (Puglia, southern Italy) with a three day side trip to Albania.  Ancient new worlds for both of us...  I attended a conference on 'Sustainable Religious Tourism' where my paper, 'Buddhism, Sacred Art and Pilgrimage Travel Contested' describing a range of cultural and tourist quandaries in Lo Manthang, had been accepted for presentation.  

This was the first conference I'd attended to deliver a paper from my own personal interest.  A few years ago, I presented at a Himalayan Studies conference in Madison, Wisconsin on the Federalism Dialogues as part of my UNDP constitution drafting work.  

But, of course, this was Italy...

We arrived in Roma after our long nearly 24 hour's journey into night from Kathmandu to Italy via Abu Dhabi and Milano.  We took a taxi from the Roma airport to Suey's apartment in the heart of the old city, right around the corner from the Pantheon -- one of the world's greatest and oldest architectural marvels.  Suey is a kind-hearted friend from Smith who has made a life and career with FAO in Rome.  She has a walk-up four floors in an old Roman building behind a massive gate off a cobble-stone lane built around a central stairwell with marble pieces of the old Roman world plastered into the walls.  Simple elegance and refinement all around!  

Sunday night after we arrived Suey took us on a tour of her charming neighborhood. First, of course, was the impressively world-weary Pantheon, dark marble and immense columns fitted tightly among the narrow lanes.  A temple to the pagan gods so refined that its coffered dome has stood for two thousand years while Ionic temples or early basilicas have collapsed over time.  A space so graceful and sublime with proportions so exact that a perfect sphere would sit below that gentle dome. In front a small piazza centered on a Bernini fountain of an elephant holding up an obelisk.  (After a few days, I began to think that there are more ancient Aegyptian obelisks in Rome than in Egypt...  Suey says it may be true.)  

Near her apartment were a few baroque churches, including the French Church, w/ magnificent Carvaggio paintings.  Truly wondrous, original paintings of sacred Christian faith with the soul of the common man.  For the first time, Carvaggio painted simple humans with their innocent expressions, bare and dirty feet, individual faces, old clothes, simple postures and humble rooms.  It was a dangerous revelation at the time of such opulence and worldly power.

That first night, there was the feel of Roma, the eternal city they say, under the darkened sky w/ the classical and baroque buildings silhouetted by city lights and the colorful refined Romans strolling their beloved city or sitting at cafes watching us watching them.  This is a city of many charms, not the least the ambience, the comfortable lanes, the lack of haste, the piazzas, embellished facades of the buildings, the gelato, and understated or even in many cases the absolutely overstated and fudge-like carved sentimental beauty. there is a European history and refinement in these cities that we, temporarily imperial Americans, appreciate all the more b/c it is so warm, aged, cultured, historical, vivacious, cool, attractive and well-lived.  

Monday Shakun and I walked some seven hours through various piazza, churches, chapels, sites and gardens.  Rome is an easily walkable city, especially in the 'historico centro', where most of the various empires, emperors, kings, popes and cardinals made their mark.  We strolled the stone streets w/ limited traffic and endless cafes free to stop for a coffee at any nearby corner.  We found an inexpensive place for a pasta for lunch near the Tiber, a few blocks from the Aris Pacem, where other Romans seemed to gather, after a few hours meandering.  Belle!

Then, as we approached the Piazza Populi, we saw, so out of context, an enormous installation of the UEFA Champions League football trophy set up by the old walls of Rome.  Almost like a carnival in a Fellini film.  Of course, we went in and had our pictures taken by the world's most famous football trophy to share with the boys.  

That evening, we had drinks w/ Dave and Claudia Sadoff (who've recently moved to Rome from Bangkok after a couple years in Kathmandu) at Suey's apartment before going out to dinner at a neighborhood restaurant.  There is such an ease and joy in sitting out at a restaurant on streets of Rome in the evening, even in late October, as if the world were your oyster and life is sweet and beautiful...  'La dolce vita', as they say...

The next day we were more serious about our tourist responsibilities.  We went directly to the all-consuming, vast Vatican museums, the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael rooms, St. Peter's...  But the corridors of the museum are so crowded, it's not really an aesthetic experience, more like an endurance race.  I much prefer to be in one of the scores of magnificent catholic churches in the city where there is less 'art', but a more personal experience...

Fortunately, we stepped into a few of those, away from the hustle and bustle, to sit quietly below those massive images of saints and prophets, glimmering in mosaic or pastels, the glittering gold embossed on the ceilings, the side chapels still used for penance, where it is possible, just slightly, to recall that these were once places of profound worship, where the Church was manifest and manifold in its power and glory, where the tithes of the world came to rest within these solid columns and ambulatories, where Christ had arose to cleanse the sins of man, but Peter and the Apostles placed so much sacred and secular authority in one Papacy that it dominated the lives of hundreds of millions for over a thousand years.

Then, at last, after making our way through those 100 meter lanes of Vatican riches in the museum, we reach the piece d'resistence of Christian aesthetics in Rome: the Sistine.  There, unlike the rabble of the museums, I could have spent the whole afternoon.  So awesome, magnificent and ethereal!  There are wooden benches by the side walls where one can sit and admire the enchanting panels of paintings that contrast the lives of Jewish Moses and Christian Jesus by the most famous of Italian Renaissance masters.  Then, after a time, when one feels the moral strength, one looks down the chapel at Michelangelo's exhausting, triumphant, ein-believable, almost unredeemable Last Judgment with its vivid, haunting, transcendent blues and trance-like impression of the end of days, the end of life, our own mere mortality... our individual deaths.

"His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!"

When the three walls of the Sistine have filled one's restless mind, at last, there is the chapel ceiling, the ceiling, those Renaissance images, the Gnostic seers, the Hebraic prophets, the fearsome creation, the beginning of time, the mythic force of our own existence, the gentle countenance of a legendary male god-figure with Adam and Eve receiving the source of life...  The source of so much of our religious and literary Western culture, the grandeur of our dreams and fears, the hopes and aspirations in the celestial and mortal worlds.  The beauty and yet, today, the ignorance, the superficiality, the cosmetic, ephemeral world of fame and fortune...

How little we allow our gaze to drift unabashedly skywards these days...

Truth be told, we did join a tour when we arrived at the Vatican as we were told it was the only way to avoid the long lines -- but the guide was almost useless.  I listened to many other tour guides and clearly we got a poor one.  Others were more insightful and passionate about the art and architecture.  Next time i'll have to do more research to get a better guide.  We sort of fell into ours by the front of the Vatican which was a poor choice.  Lesson learned...

Still, I'm not a good tour person b/c I like to sit and observe for long periods.  Usually I listen in on other guides while they are near me, as there is so much to learn of the history and significance of the frescoes, paintings, sculpture and architecture.  It's precious when you hear a skilled and knowledgable person walk one through a painting, like a Carvaggio.  Or staring jaw adrift in front of a Bernini or Bramante masterpiece...  such deep insight and wonder about the art and lives of the artists or the time in which they worked...  time slips away as the past opens up...

That night we watched the presidential foreign policy debate with Suey at the American University of Itay.  Afterwards we walked to dinner at a busy and popular pizzeria with friends of Suey who have lived and worked in Africa.  The British husband was born in Uganda when Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda were all one country, then taught at the University of East Africa in Kampala before it became the University of Kampala.  He's editing an encyclopedia of african wildlife -- no small matter, indeed, while she still travels the world for FAO!  Quite interesting and our type of folks!

The next morning, unfortunately, Suey's apartment didn't have internet, so we went downstairs and around the corner to a gelato cafe (such trouble...) to have a 3.5 euro coffee and use theirs.  While sitting, i heard Shakun say, 'tashi delay' and looked up to see a gaggle of Tibetan men at the table next to us.  It turns out that one of them, Lobsang Sangey, the Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile was among them in Italy for meetings w/ Italian  parliamentarians.  We chatted awhile about Nepali politics and the situation of Tibetans in Nepal.  Sangey invited us to visit them in Dharamsala, India to continue those discussions.  All at the corner gelato shop in Rome...

We also finally connected with Luigi and Samanta, our two lovely friends who have been doing the restoration of the Lo Manthang Thubchen and Jampa gompas.  Luigi has been there fourteen years already and has been in-charge of the project for the past few years.  What they have accomplished in that remote outpost of humanity and kulture is little known, but among the most inspirational and beautiful Buddhist religious sites I've ever seen.  Those 15th C. wall paintings from the Sakya tradition have been brought back to near their original vitality and sanctity by the careful, detailed work of these dedicated Italian art restorers.  Without their long-term commitment, and the funding of the American Himalayan Foundation, those temples may have continued their rapid decay and deterioration, leaving no trace of the brilliance of their era.

To make the rendez-vous easy, we met at the Piazza Navonna, where it's nearly impossible to hide, and then went around the corner to a more sedate, cultured and calm Piazza Pace (naturally...) for lunch.  Such a joy, of course, to be with these gentle and yet enthusiastic souls in their own country in the world which fostered their imaginations, artistry and creativity.  It's a gift, as well, for us, living in the international world of Kathmandu, to find such precious friends in Italy and around the world...

Early the next morning we took the express train from Rome to Lecce, direct, for the religious tourism conference which started Friday evening through Sunday.  The six hour ride passed through the countryside train reaching Puglia in time for us to find our cosy B&B just outside the old city walls, a superb meal across the street and only slightly late for the opening ceremony.   On the train, I re-read Lama Govinda's famous Tibetan Buddhist travelogue 'The Way of the White Clouds' -- one of the first books i read when i came to live in Nepal in the early 80s-- in order to take my mind out of the Bernini's baroque Catholic Italy and put myself, once again, in that Himalayan pilgrim soul spirit that animated my paper... 

The conference itself was curious and stimulating.  The people were slightly outside my 'comfort zone', not uncomfortably, but in a fresh, new perspective.  no longer development, INGO or UN folks, but academics and tourism specialists.  In this way, the whole event was a new experience, not merely the sumptuous, baroque surroundings of Lecce, but, in particular, the types of people who attend conferences on academic tourism.  Most of these were professors in their specialized fields (tourism, architecture, urban planning, economics...), as well as young academics making a name for themselves, as well as some modern Renaissance souls who seem to dabble in an array of fields, mixing history, art, travel and pilgrimage.  Of course, there were more than a few Italians, with their elegantly raffish airs and love of beauty, with a range of other northern Europeans, an odd American, a few Israelis, two or three Asians and us.  

Unfortunately, there was not enough time to get to know more than a few of them in two+ days b/c the workshop sessions lasted all day -- swelled at meals by exquisite classical musical concerts in various Lecce churches.  After all, as I noted, this is an exquisitely baroque town.   

Of course, me being me, I was still editing my powerpoint during the lunch before my session.  I added some more photos, given that few, if any, of the audience would have been to Nepal, much less Lo Manthang.  Plus I wanted to remove some of the unnecessary historical facts and personalities that were not germane to the presentation.  Since each presenter was only given 15 minutes, there really wasn't much to be anxious about, although that logic doesn't completely subdue all such emotions.  Not to mention, each specific session was divided into a couple of sections, so only 25-30 people attended any one talk.  

My presentation was preceded by two women, a Greek who spoke on the Compostela di Santiago pilgrimage in Spain and a Korean, studying in Paris, who presented an intensely political and brave case study describing how the Japanese conquest of the Korean peninsula sought to exploit the Korean cultural heritage to justify their Asian colonization in the first half of the 20th C. -- a subject that has resonance for many conflicts in the world today... 

I was fortunate to have almost a full half hour for my power point presentation and a discussion afterward, as one person didn't arrive for their talk.  From what I could observe, my audience (those who weren't nodding off after lunch...) enjoyed going for a ride to the edge of Tibet and across the Himalaya, to consider 'pilgrimage travel contested' in a living Buddhist context.  Since most of the participants were Europeans, they were less familiar with our part of the world.  Although one kindly Brit (of course!), Ian, has been everywhere in the world, and Prof. Rana Singh, rom Benaras Hindu University, who, oddly, took exception to me saying that Muktinath is one of the sources of the Ganges.  For time's sake, I presented my conclusions, but not recommendations.  Then, the beleaguered American who runs the Bahai Center in Haifa asked me to discuss those, as well, which I was more than happy enough to do as the those spoke more to my development background in managing a remote cultural heritage site.

Shakun gave me high marks for my presentation.  I'm not sure it changed anyone's life, but it did mine.  We never would have gone to Puglia or Albania if my dear friend, Prof. Lauren Leve, who worked with me at Save the Children decades ago, had never sent me that advertisement for this conference.  Not to mention how chuffed I was to see my paper in the book of the conference proceedings that we were each given when we signed in on the first day.  

An almost published academic...  imagine that...       

As for the essential subject of food in Lecce, the official lunches were a bit thin, to be honest.  Too little time, too many people and an understandable effort to keep costs down.  Fortunately, there was a wonderful antipasto and seafood restaurant across the street from the lovely courtyard B&B where we stayed in Lecce, as well as the gelato at the corner by the movie theater is to die for.  I found my way past the gelataria every night after the conference sessions while Shakun admired some winter boots in a nearby window I ordered another two euro gelato cone.... 

On Monday, after the conference, we took the overnight ferry from Brindisi to northern Greece, just near Corfu, for our pre-arranged Albanian tour. There were three other visitors from the conference with us, plus Romeo, our Albanian professor.  We left Italy about 8 pm, on a ferry full of itinerant Romas who made the extensive dining area their family sleeping quarters.  We had simple but private cabins with a basic shower/bath to comfortably spend the night.  But the horn and announcement went off while we were still sleeping as arrived bright (well, dark...) and early at 3:30 am in Greece.  As expected, the driver Romeo had arranged met us and take us across the border to Albania...

Romeo, our kindly, Albanian professor-guide, was an excellent host and friend; a true gentleman.  his love for his country and deep understanding of its complexity gave us many insights into the present world of a modern Albania.  From the magnificent Greco-Roman ruins along the coast to the rich Orthodox Christian history in the interior, our three days of travel were a wonderful opportunity to see and appreciate the country from the inside. 

One of our first stops was right over the Greece-Albanian border across the bay from the historic island of Corfu, trading port and vacation spot for empires through the ages.  On the mainland, along an estuary, is Buthrotum (Butrint), an ancient site sacred to the Hellenic god of health and medicine, Asclepius.  Later, under Roman rule both Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus planned to establish a veteran's colony for their loyal soldiers.  

I could have stayed hours there...  

On a few acres overlooking the sea and miles of agricultural fields, one can imagine the life of a thousand years of early Adriatic culture, see the rough hewn stones arranged by the pre-Hellenic Epirus people for defensive walls below the finely trimmed Hellenic construction, then sit in the now-flooded Greek amphitheater, touch the 3rd C. BCE Greek inscriptions, imagine King Pyrrhus battling the Romans, walk by the oldest and largest (and among the most beautiful...) surviving  Baptistry mosaics and stand amid the ruins of the community's monumental early Christian basilica.  

But, for me, amid all those ages, the most evocative moment was standing along a rock face where a well had been excavated as an offering to the nymphs who made their home in the nearby forests.  Along the stone rim of this ancient nympheum there were finely cut depressions where for a thousand years women had been hauling up their water from the depths.  As I stood there, feeling the cool edge where ropes had carried fresh water to those distant peoples, my thoughts fell back into those pools, as well.  

Looking up at Romeo I said, "Romeo, I hope that when it is my time to depart this world, I am not in a modern hospital bed attached to machines, but in a quiet, peaceful sanctuary like here where one feels a part of man's long history, where the idea of our individual passing is simply to join those who have lived and gone before us, pulling water from the wells of life..."   

In the brief days we were there, Albania proved to be an amazing adventure, particularly b/c of Romeo.  Of course, Albania is not Italy, but then where else is?  but w/ Romeo, we had a non-stop seminar on the politics, culture, history and geography of Albania from Hellenic or Illyrian times to the present.  The country has been on quite a roller coaster in the 20th C., from Ottoman satrapy to principality to royalty to republic to war, revolution and fifty years of Stalinism before the democratic dam broke in the 90s.  Since then it's been an agonizing path back to their European roots that were cauterized under the ever Hoxha Stalinist regime.  

On a hillside outside one of the towns there were large white letters where Hoxha's first name, 'ENVER', had been inscribed visible from a few kilometers away.  A few years after his downfall, some local students rearranged the letter 'n' at the beginning as a reminder: 'NEVER' again will they live under such an isolated, controlling, paranoid Marxist state, never.   

For your sake, I'll avoid a lengthy history lesson here and leave the complexities of the nation's Muslim (60%), Orthodox (20%) and Catholic (20%) relations for later.  Although, just to note, that given the 50 years of imposed secularism Stalinism, compared to many other states in the Balkan region, the diverse religious relations are rather tame today, fortunately.

Not surprisingly, given our eclectic fortune, our 3 day excursion was equally ecumenical as it included two devout, Orthodox Israeli Jews and a modern American Mormon.  Really nice folks.  Although we spent more time w/ Shaul and his wife, as Dallan, the U. Arizona State cultural tourism professor had to leave a day early,  I enjoyed Dallan's stories.  Coming from a rural Utah broken family he knew from age 8 that he wanted to travel the world.  Dallan's made a wonderful career of it, as the keynote speaker at many international tourism conferences while meandering the world taking photos of border crossings and exploring the curiosities that define cultural boundaries.  

Shakun, of course, bonded w/ Mazar and may be moving to a kibbutz in the Negev soon.  She has a way with Israelis and many others that has them feeling she's one of them.  Curious that!  

The one day we were in Tirana, Hillary Clinton descended from the sky (with the rains...) for a three hour visit.  I doubt she came to greet us, specifically, but Romeo said that she is highly respected in Albania for her work in the Balkans, especially on behalf of the Kosovars and other minorities.  I was happy to hear that!  Although it was our last day in Albania and it poured, alas.  but no complaints as we had two beautiful days driving around before the rains began. 

The return overnight ferry from Durres, Albania let us off in Bari, where I'd pre-arranged a rental car at the airport.  Unfortunately, there was no car, but the Dollar rental folks arranged an even better car through another agency (Sixt) for our last day and a half.  

From Bari, we stopped in Trani, up along the coast, to see a magnificent, towering 12th c. Romanesque church by the sea.  Trani is one of those charming seaside Italian towns with a harbor full of fishing vessels and yachts where the cafes ring the waterfront and the light is exquisite.  At such moments I wonder why I had been destined to grow up in Upstate New York, instead of here...  

After a filling 12 euro set lunch w/ a table of antipasto, pasta and a glass of white wine by the cathedral, we drove north between rows of parasol pines on a two lane highway along the sea.  We circled around the rough, cliff-like Gargono peninsula that juts out into the Adriatic sea the top of Puglia.  But, alas, since it was November already, the beautiful, incandescent, Mediterranean day light was gone by 5:30 pm.  My last 3 hours of our last full day in Italy were driving in the darkness from the coast along the Appenines in order to be within a few hours drive to Rome the next day.  

We spent that last night at Campobasso along the spine of Italy.  In fact, I think we found a town in Italy that's famous for almost nothing.  Nothing of great consequence, at least.  Even some students asked us, "why are you visiting here?", as if we were the first tourists to arrive in the new millennium.  But when we did get there, it was late as i'd been driving since 11 am, so we only needed a nice play to sleep and eat and sleepy Campobasso was as good as it gets.

After such a long day, unfortunately, even in such a small town, after dinner I got lost trying to get back to the hotel.  It was almost one of these trying marital moment for Shakun and me w/ the not unheard of 'if you'd only listened to me' vernacular...  But, good on us, we avoided that trap.  then Shakun with renewed energy asked some young Italian students (the ones who asked what exactly we were doing there...) who ever so kindly got in our car to take us to the doorstep of the St. Gorgio hotel we'd somehow misplaced.  

As they say, 'the kindness of strangers...'  which is one of the reasons for travel -- to open ourselves up to the eventual and all-to-common cultural or linguistic or geographic disorientation that puts as the mercy of strangers to offer us their generosity of spirit and friendship.  Such moments always linger, as long as the awe-inspiring cultural heritage sites, with memories of the, at times, uncomplicated goodness of people...  Prego...

Saturday morning we woke with only having to make a 5:30 pm flight from Roma.  We had time.  we had been told it was only 3 hours from Campobasso to the Rome international airport.  Which, of course, left us time to find a nearby grocery store for parmesan, proscuitto and prosecco and a few kilo of olives -- although our bags were already overflowing with four saplings (a juniper, a cedar and two olive trees) we bought at a nursery outside Tirana...  

Since we didn't want to get too much Albanian soil on the parmesan, we bought a 20 euro suitcase in which to pack the food, as well..

ahh, Italia... 

Himalayan Spirit 8848

http://himalayanspirit8848.com/

If you weren't aware of his dream... Joshua has just initiated his first 'start-up', as he'd planned, before he graduates from university.  It went live a few minutes ago.  

The company is called 'Himalayan Spirit 8848'.  Josh's producing, designing and marketing merino wool shawls, sweaters and the like, with Shakun, from Kathmandu, then sending them around the world.  The designs are beautiful and the material, of course, the highest quality merino wool from Nepal.  

I've put the company announcement on FB, but since not everyone does FB, I wanted to let people know, as well, by my blog.  For those of you with FB, Josh would really appreciate your 'liking' 'Himalayan Spirit 8848' to help him grow his clientele.  Also, if you can share the website widely with all of your 'friends' on FB, he'd really appreciate that, too.  For those who use email, please let your friends know about the website by email, as well!

Already, one friend from DC just wrote in to say that he'd made his first on-line purchase, too, so Josh's business is, if not actually 'booming', it's definitely begun in reality.  

Himalayan Spirit 8848 is now open for business!!

As they say, the start of any journey begins w/ a single step...

Thanks!  xoxo, K. 

Amanda Todd: Cyber Bullying

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/10/amanda-todd-michael-brutsch-and-free-speech-online.html?mbid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true

Sorry, friends, I don't mean to bring you down...  but this was pretty painful... if you have a moment read the New Yorker article and watch Amanda Todd's video with its haunting, elegiac soundtrack while she all too casually flips her hand-written note cards.  It's more than merely painful knowing the truth of what is to come in her young life.  

How cruel we mortals can be, and how voracious for violence.  

Cruelty, alas, too often, thy name is us...  

Seeing how rapidly and practically unconsciously kids these days ('kids these days'...) post images and thoughts on FB or other social media sites, one wonders if they can even know how to press pause long enough to reflect on the long-term consequences or impact (much less perversions...) of these all-encompassing, all-knowing, ever-present, g-d-like internet universes.  

I doubt it.  

Are any of us that prescient or self-aware, especially when we are young, teenagers, a bit reckless, eager, excited or angry?  Probably not.  Yet with consequences beyond our mere imaginations...

Which is just to say: how do we guide our children and wards in this perpetually wired world so that they don't unconsciously wound or hurt themselves, much less wickedly damage or destroy others.  

Along with math and geography, these, no doubt, are some of the crucial, ineluctable, inevitable questions for these (our!) young souls growing up in a world that can be more unforgiving and cruel than they are ever really taught or can easily understand, alas.  

Naturally, I thought of the teachers and administrators I most regard at our local Lincoln School who understand well the risks and vulnerabilities of our children in this hyper-modern digital world.  Since so much of our beloved children's daily lives are in their wise, compassionate and observant hands.   

For those who know who they are, who help guide our kids at school in the ways of the world, as always, thanks for being there for our kids.  You do such a brilliant job in helping them become self-aware, compassionate, observant and kind-hearted young souls. 

As we know, they each, in their own way, need and deserve so much support and guidance in these often disorienting, stimulating yet fiercely challenging imagined cyber-worlds.

As if the normal, three dimensional one we knew as children wasn't already tough enough...

My apologies to my blogosphere cyber world here as  I'm sorry to bring this painful subject up on a lovely, fresh and crisp autumnal Friday morning.  

Blessings on you, Amanda Todd, the world lost you as you lost yourself in it.

I'm sorry...

Ez Writing to the Future Ezra on Family Life after Watching "The Namesake" as Josh is About to Leave for NMH at the End of the Summer 2007

To the Hill

Ezra Leslie

July 2007

                        The credits rolled down the screen listing the customary names and positions of the hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved in making the film -- it struck Ezra that ‘credits’ were the perfect visage for an unassuming, simple observance that in reality laid the framework for a calculated, complex ceremony whose purpose was to make the viewer feel splendidly insignificant and incompetent. It was getting late and his homework wasn’t finished. As it was unfinished homework made him feel incompetent (and that was on regular days) the movie only added to his sudden guilty pang of grand incompetence. He sprang up from the old Thai triangular pillow he had been lying on, compelled by his sudden pang of guilt. His parents, his brother, and his baby sister (all of whom had been watching the movie) were still hypnotically glued to the credits -- reflecting on the movie, their musings, the day, thingsthatbabiesthinkabout, dinner (possibly), lunch (maybe), breakfast (probably not).

            The movie’s end panicked him a little; it reminded him of his unfinished work, but now that he had walked over to the computer, calculated the work that needed to be done (and the time he had to get it done), and began composing an email to his ‘future-self’ he felt much more composed. Outside he could hear the light patter of rain falling on the house; these light drizzles were the pebbles that signaled the avalanche of monsoon that engulfed the Himalayan Kingdom every summer. Things would never the same. He peered over the computer and saw that the rest of his family had finally broken free from the hypnotic effects of rolling credits; his father, Keith, his mother, Shakun, and his baby sister, Leah, were now dancing to the Indian-themed music -- he couldn’t help smiling. He glanced over to his (also smiling) brother, Joshua, they caught each others eye, and smiled uncontrollably.

            He was in control now. The work would get done. In fact, now that he thought about it, he had made the right choice to watch the movie with the family. It was what his father wanted, with his brother, Joshua, preparing to go to boarding school in a couple of months, at this point every moment spent together was treasured by his parents (still dancing). He began his email:

Hey future Ez,

just try not to think about how dad was dancing around in the TV room yesterday...haha anyways i’m tired i’ve got to do some stuff so i’m gonna bounce...but just remember you’re probably gonna have some work to do cuz i didn’t do it okay? anyways just do what i don’t...

catch you on the flipsyde...

            He smiled at the thought of his future-self and decided, as a memento to the film, to sign the email: Googol Ganguly. Then he clicked ‘Send,’ said goodnight to Mum, Dad, Josher, and Leah Loo, stumbled down to his bedroom, pulled out his unfinished work, and, with the dying image of his parents and little sister dancing to movie credits, fell fast asleep.

            The book was better, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, but it was a wonderful movie nonetheless. The movie had struck close to home tonight, Keith Leslie thought, although his own life had been the story in reverse. He had come from the West (the Land of the Free, Big Stick Democracy, Hamburgers, Home of the Brave) to explore the east (deep seated history, spicy food, governments steeped in monarchy). However, the protagonist, Gogol Ganguly, displayed the same confused idealism and youthfulness that had propelled him to his life here on this six-thousand foot ridge overlooking the Kathmandu Valley. It had given him this life with his wonderful wife (now putting the youngest to bed), his three awe-inspiring children, an amazing home, and of course the garden; reminding him that it was the perfect time to revel in the beauty of the garden. He slipped quietly downstairs and glanced into Ezra’s room -- he had fallen asleep books and papers scattered around him, one was resting lightly on his chin. Keith gently pulled it off, laid it beside him, turned off the lights and headed for the backdoor.

            The door was already locked and in the darkness he fumbled with the latch locks. Finally, he was rewarded by the distinct “kathunk!” of freedom. He pulled on the door handle, pushed the gauze screen wide open, and took a deep breath as he escaped into the peaceful serenity and bounty of nature. The light drizzle blanketed him in a soft cooling rain when the warm glow of lights turned on revealing the exquisitely fragile and beautiful garden, a delicate expanse of green existence.

            Shekhar, the Nepali gardener/guard who had been outside, heard the screen door opening, turned on the lights, and came over, “Namaste, Sir.” It was always a pleasure to walk in the garden with Sahib, together they had helped nurture and build this garden. He had been with the Leslies for over fifteen years now -- he knew that Sahib understood the true beauty of the garden. If everything went ahead as planned though, he would be leaving the Leslies in a few months time to serve manual labor in the Middle East. Although nothing could beat the working conditions here with the Leslies, the Western salary would help earn money -- he wasn’t getting younger.

            Together in mutual silence and respect they walked along the bank of the brook that runs alongside the ten ropanis (acre)  of property that Keith had bought with Shakun twenty years ago. The house, built seven years ago, represented how far he had come since he arrived in this Himalayan Kingdom, a simple Amherst graduate from Upstate New York who left America seeking enlightenment, but never came back. Leah was born into this house, Josh and Ezra had grown from boys into men here, and even he had gone into his fifties in this house.

            Shekhar was now kneeling over the bank, the moonlight shining upon his short and thin, but strong, frame as he peered into the cool, flowing water. “Aunus, Sahib,” he said pointing into the water. Keith walked over and gazed at the ten-inch river crabs digging up the streambed. They both gazed on in wonder at the richness of life that thrived around them. After several minutes of wandering thoughts and gazing at the crabs, Keith glanced up, Shekhar had already walked on ahead. Standing underneath the willow tree that swayed slowly under the patter of rain, amidst the otherwise humid spring night, they both turned towards the wire fence (many years since covered in vines, ivies, and plants) at the sound of leaves crunching.

            A horse had wandered over to the fence from nearby grazing pastures to eat at the other side of the property fence. “We must all leave our own grazing pastures at some point,” Keith mused thinking back on his own travels away from the West, Gogol’s less physical (more emotional) departure from his past, and Joshua’s imminent geographic departure halfway across the world to a boarding school in Northfield, Massachusetts (of all places). At the thought he felt a deep remorse rise up in his throat, feeling the physical and emotional distance that would soon separate him from his son. Knowing his two sons it would probably be Ezra leaving next year. “It is funny,” he thought, “I spend the majority of my adult life worlds away from my own parents, and now I feel the pain of a parent as Josh prepares to spread his wings.” He knew it was for the best though, the type of opportunities lay in wait for his son that students at their International school in Kathmandu could only dream of.

            Shekhar and Keith now had slowly made their way along the fence (they let the horse graze) around the stream, across the pond, and into the front yard. The maple tree they had smuggled over from America ten years ago was thriving. It was a wonder to observe the often arbitrary nature of survival for the plants -- some survived, some didn’t -- this maple was already nearly ten feet tall. He stepped forward, the moonlight suddenly revealing the intricate intertwined gossamer web of a spider spun throughout the limbs of the maple. “Hopefully, the spider is more of a Charlotte than a Shelob”, he thought as he smiled to himself.

            What was this Northfield Mount Hermon? This mystical hill ten thousand miles from Kathmandu, this self-professed educational institution of “the head, the heart, and the hand.” What webs would Joshua spin for himself at Mount Hermon, where would they lead him to? These questions rolled through Keith’s mind like the credits at the end of the film making him feel strangely insignificant and incompetent. There was really no way of knowing what his experience would be like in Massachusetts, but whatever happened Keith knew that few kids had grown up in the cosmopolitan, worldly setting that Kathmandu had offered Josh and Ezra (Leah still had time).

            The rain was beginning to fall in larger and more concentrated flurries now, it would soon be time to go in. It must already be 1 am in the morning, but there was one last stop he would have to make. Shekhar had already gotten there. Just beyond the maple, across the other side of the property, lay the bamboo grove. Keith’s love for bamboo encapsulated his passion for his children -- wonder, awe, and immense pride. No stroll in the garden was complete without contemplating the beauty of at least a couple of the forty some-odd bamboo species on their property. Particularly in the spring, as it was now, they were rewarded by the multi-inch sprouting and growth of bamboo’ tusas’ (shoots) daily. Their powers of growth never ceased to amaze him. Together, Shekhar and Keith, caressingly removed the fallen leaves from the roots of the bamboo unearthing new ‘tusas’ and revealing growing ones.

            Keith sighed looking up at the house, the TV light (forgotten to be turned off) still glowing through the window, “Never again will they be the tusas they once were.”  The rain was pouring now -- it was time to go in, he turned to his companion “Namaste, Shekhar.”  “Namaste, Saab,” Shekhar called out, already disappearing off in search of shelter.

            Inside, the house was quiet -- everybody was asleep and staying put, although not for long. Quietly, Keith closed the screen door closing his garden palace behind him. He tiptoed slowly upstairs where Leah had fallen fast asleep in Shakun’s arms (or the other way around, he never could quite tell). The TV and computer were still on, gently bathing their features in the day’s activities.

            Keith silently turned off the TV and sat down at the computer, peering over the top smiling at his daughter and wife softly dozing in each other’s warm embrace; his smile grew as he saw Ezra’s habitual email to his “future-self” in the Outbox. Slipping on his glasses he prepared an email to his son:

           

        “hey, future once, now past easy ez, what's cooking?  ya missed a splendid stroll in the midnight garden w/ sheks et moi.  great visuals of ten inch crabs digging up the stream bed, a horse out the fence munching on the grass, magnificent gossamer charlotte's webs on the maple tree, the massive tusa coming up in the bamboo groves and the drizzle becoming a slight downpour telling us it was time to turn in.  i know it's no comparison to chemistry or mystic literature... but what's an olde guy to do when he doesn't have classes anymore... just go out and watch the natural world do its amazing thing...  have a lovely morning, son.  love you, you know, your once and future dad."

            Outside, the rain fell unabatedly on the ten inch crabs digging into the river bed, on the horse grazing away from its pastures, on Charlotte spinning her webs, on the ‘tusas’ growing without respite, on Shekhar dreaming in his room, on the young and the old, on the awake and the sleeping, on the staying and the going.