Just a Small Reminder...

A wonderful little reminder that CHRISTMAS IS COMING, in case you forgot. This is from Jessica Hagy's site Indexed where she publishes a daily index card that helps her organize her thoughts "without resorting to doing actual math." I mean, hello? I NEVER do actual math. I do Danielle Math, as Kenny has dubbed it, which sometimes resembles real math but is always a little off. I don't know. Even Rummikub starts to give me a headache after a while; just looking at all those numbers starts to make my brain feel like it's done too many crunches.

I've been neglecting the old Wonju Wife blog of late. And with good reason, too! The HubbO came down with something last week that looked and acted suspiciously like (dunh dunh duh dunnnnnhhhh) Swine Flu. Oh yes, the influenza o' pig threatened to infiltrate our household. We went up to the hospital on Saturday to have him tested and they said, "We'll call you in 2 hours to let you know." Um,  it's Monday. Still haven't gotten that call. We are guessing it's not swine flu and is probably just regular old boring-but-still-as-crappy flu. Anyway, not kissing is getting really old, let me tell ya.

Also, I've been thinking. I've been thinking a lot about travel as I'm working on our book project. And I have come to the conclusion that the thing you must do while you travel is wonder. You must wonder what life is like. And while you are wondering, you must never assume. Because when you assume you understand someone else's way of life because you spent a week in their town, a month in their village, or three months in their country, you lose something. Assumptions and knowing somehow put up a wall that keep all of the wonder out.

I'm going to start sharing a little bit more about our honeymoon and the things I learned about myself, about my husband, and about the world in general here. Those posts will serve as jumping off points for the chapters I'm writing, and hopefully take a little of the pressure off, because let me tell you. Writing for you guys: awesome, fun, no-pressure (okay, but just the tiniest bit of pressure) and rewarding. Writing for an editor: freaking intimidating, wet-your-pants scary, and oh-my-god-did-I-say-I-was-a-writer? kind of nervous. And it's scary. Because I've been given this beautiful opportunity and if I fail... Well, let's not talk about it. Let's pretend I'll just write my little wrists off and everything will be swell! Okay? Okay.

And travel isn't the only thing that's been on my mind. I've been thinking about this blog and what it's become. It's gone through a few transformations over the past two years. Honestly, I can't even remember what it was BEFORE Rage in the A.M. Rage was about loving and hating Korea, loving and hating myself in this country, and loving and hating, well everything. Then ChubbO Chubbington came along and I berated myself continually and lost a bunch of weight and complained about food and wrote about 500 posts on donuts. But somehow, it was still sort of about Korea. And then Wonju Wife came along. And now, it's pretty much about MY life (oh, and I live in Korea). So I've been thinking a lot about how I'd like to do something helpful, you know? Give a little back to the community that gave so much to me when I first arrived. So, that's in the works.

Plus also, I finally finished all the Harry Potter books. And dear J.K. Rowling, I am a little lost without Harry now. I have my brain back, but I was enjoying giving a large chunk of it to him and his adventure. Now, I must stop talking about him like he's someone I regularly sit down and have a cuppa and chat with.

Journal Week: In the slum

April 4, 2009

Kolkata, India

"Walk to Work"

To get to Mother Teresa's house, we leave our hostel and walk down a long lane for close to 15 minutes. The street is lined with shops of all kinds and intersected by many dirt lanes and one large paved road that the tram rides up and down in its grooves on its line. It is always busy, even at seven in the morning. The taxi drivers are all lined up washing their cars, the cows are already busy on the sidewalks chewing their cud.

Boys and men are wrapped in their dhoti at the waterspouts, rubbing their bodies into a white froth of soap that seems not to clean anything. Old men are already lined up at the shop counters for their daily betel leaf smeared with paan, which will ensure a red smile all day long.

We walk down this dusty lane, avoiding the motorcycles, bicycles, and cars that zoom by. There is a butcher section where large sides of meat hang, dazzlingly red and white in the early morning sun. The smell is already overwhelming, the insides of animals being unceremoniously exposed

to the outside world, then hacked, chopped, and ground. I try not to look too closely because I can't stand the thought of the animals that used to be whole, healthy, wearing their guts inside their skins. I also don't want to feel sick. The smell is almost too much.

There are too many dogs. They are almost as numerous as the beggars, lying alongside them in the gutters and digging with them through the piles of trash swept out of the street. Today, one dog had stopped on the side of the lane. He was brown, with perky ears and his tongue interminably hanging out the side of his mouth trying to find some relief in the Indian heat. He was simply standing, alert. Perhaps he, too, couldn't escape the smell of fresh meat, blood still dripping off knives into drains. He was facing us as we picked our way through the lane.

A young man wearing a white tank top on top of his blue dhoti came walking in our direction, swinging a long thick chain. The links were close to 2 inches long and were round, thicker than a pencil. Both ends of the chain were in this man's hand as he walked down the street. He came up behind the dog- the frozen, all-alert dog. He first brought the chain up, his hand reaching back toward his ear, and then down onto the back of the dog, the long graceful curve of his spine breaking the chain into a squiggle. the dog jumped up and let out the most heart-rending squeal, a plea for mercy and a cry of confusion.

The man who hit the dog was amused by the pain he inflicted. I immediately yelled, "Why?" and turned around to look at the man who had just passed us seconds after his crime. I looked at him as if he were the devil and Kenny also watched him. He was laughing, a full open-mouthed smile on his face, truly filled with glee at his power.

The moment I turned back to continue walking to work, I was undone. could not stop thinking about how unprovoked and senseless the act of brutality was. I cried almost the entire way to Mother's House, unable to stop imagining the way the dog's back must still be stinging from that metal kiss. Everything else was thrown under the bus of this impression- this completely colored my day. Kenny says that my compassion for animals far exceeds my compassion for the people here. And perhaps that is true. I have always felt that as humans, we can understand and rationalize our pain, a gift that dogs don't have.

When the bottom of society are treated as less than our pets back home in America, when the poorest of the poor have less property than my sister's dogs, and the babies sleep on a sidewalk I wouldn't let my cat nap on, how do I expect these people to treat animals well? The dogs are competition. They compete for food and for attention from foreigners. And maybe the dog had won and the chain empowered a man to feel like more than an animal.

Journal Week: At Mother Teresa's House

April 3, 2009

Kolkata, India

Modern Lodge Room 21, aka The Sauna

I was nervous about my first day @ Shanti Dan. I picked a home for mentally challenged women because I wanted to love them. And it was very easy to love them. When I walked in the door with 2 other workers, we were smothered by hugs and kisses and "Good morning, auntie!" coming from all directions of the courtyard. There was one woman with her hair very short, sticking out in small tufts all over her head. Her face was severely disfigured, most likely by fire, her left eye wide open without the protection of an eyelid. Her bottom lip was turned down and melted into her chin giving her a baby's line of drool running down her front. But she showed her teeth and her wrinkled, scarred skin became even more creased and pulled taut across her cheek bones as she gave us her own sort of smile. She came straight to me and wrapped her arms about my waist. I hugged her to me as she lay her head on my shoulder and stared up at me with her eternally open eye. What a warm and lovely greeting. I felt that these women were taking care of me. What could I possibly do to take care of them?

My morning assignment was to clip nails. I was given a super-duper large pair of clippers and one of those hospital issue half-moon bowls you throw up in. When I walked out the door of the Sister's office, there was already a line of women waiting on me. I felt awful cutting their nails. I was overwhelmed by my inability to do it well, something so simple as clipping nails! I can't even clip my own nails without making a mess. But I kept at it, sometimes clipping just for clipping's sake because some of the women had recently had their nails trimmed.

Later, an elderly frail woman whose nails I had clipped, hands and feet, was sitting outside on the concrete balcony that ran round the inside of the 2nd floor of the complex. Many of the women lay out on this balcony instead of their beds. Perhaps it was much cooler in the open air. She was sitting and reached for me as I walked by. Being generally lost as to what my exact task was supposed to be, I sat down next to her. She was wearing a scarf, sari too, over her head. This made her head look even smaller. Her gray hair was pulled back at her neck underneath the scarf. Her blue eyes were sunk very deep into her face, her cheekbones scaring them back into her head. She was weathered.

She began to speak to me, holding my hand. Of course I couldn't understand her, but I felt it was only my duty to listen. I nodded at her and looked into her eyes and hugged her and listened. She began to become quite agitated and began to cry. I felt she was begging me for something. I just hugged her and rocked her tiny frame back and forth. I held her face and her head, feeling how small she had become. She was so tiny.

One of the other volunteers came to fetch me. I unwrapped myself and hugged her once more and squeezed her hand. I told her that everything would be okay. But maybe it will never be okay. I will remember her. It was my only day to work with the women and I was shy and uncertain about what was appropriate behavior. I was terrible. But I listened to her. And maybe she hasn't been listened to in a long time.

Journal Week: At the Planetarium

This week, I've decided to share more of my travel journal with you. Most of the entries for this week are from our time spent in Kolkata. 

April 2, 2009

Kolkata, India

Modern Lodge Room 21

"The Angry Old Woman"

Because Thursday is the day of rest for the volunteers at Mother Teresa's house, we had the day to ourselves. So we decided we'd go to the Planetarium in town to amuse ourselves. The review in the guidebook wasn't great, but it would be indoors with AC, so that was that. I expected some really cheesy light show, but it was an extremely formal affair. We got there just in time for the English show to start. 

We fell back into movie theater-like chairs that reclined way back, but somehow weren't comfortable. A few seats down, a white woman and her 4 or 5 year old son and an Indian man came in together and sat at the end of our row. The ceiling was a big dome with black cut outs of the cityscape around the bottom where the dome met the walls. The seating was circular as well, following the shape of the ceiling. In the center of the room was a large unattractive machine. Balanced on the end of a long arm was what looked like a disco ball.

The lights were dimmed and an aged voice with a hint of a British accent addressed the audience, her R giving away her native Indian tongue. She was first just a voice- the lights were off completely. She made a very stern announcement about turning off your mobile phone and keeping it off until the end of the presentation. The voice was extremely measured and I felt that perhaps the speakers' back was very straight and that maybe she had to fight to keep her shoulders from creeping up in tension around her ears. 

The lights come on as the disco ball in the middle of the room reproduces a sunset. The stars eventually appeared in all their pinpoint glory. Sometimes the voice called forth lines that connected certain stars, making the constellations, turning the ceiling into a grid of lines and dots. The voice patiently tackled each constellation in its turn and in the middle of a sentence the voice immediately grows even more authoritative and suddenly shouts, "Who turned on their mobile?"

She pronounces mobile with all the vowels long so that she chops it in two: mow-bile. The voice continues, firm and righteous: "Did I give you permission to turn it on? Why would you switch on your mow-bile? Who gave you permission to turn the mow-bile on?" 

By this time I am extremely uncomfortable because the voice is direct, instead of being politely neutral and addressing the entire audience. I am embarrassed for this great trespasser of the mow-bile rule but am also annoyed because he has brought the show to a complete halt. I look down the aisle and see the Indian man with the white woman and boy, his face aglow in the green light emitted from his mow-bile screen.

The voice switches on the house lights, enraged by this person's defiance. She appears, an old woman with her grey hair parted down the middle and clasped tightly into a tense bun at the base of her neck. She glares through severe glasses with eyebrows as crumpled and disapproving as she can manage. With the lights turned on and an usher standing at the end of the row, the man finally becomes intimidated enough to drop the phone into his pocket. He makes eye contact with no one, not even the woman he accompanies. The voice is still very indignant, the dignity of her proper and perfect presentation now disturbed. She shouts, "I think it's a disgrace! Turn. It. Off!"

Lights are switched off and immediately the voice is restored once more as she continues, "This most beautiful nebula here..."

A few minutes later she interrupts herself once more. "Keep your child quiet," she snips to the woman at the end of our row with her son. The little boy had cooed and then spoken out loudly, "Wow! Look at that! Look at that over there. Whoa! What is that?" while jumping out of his seat and pointing wildly at the twinkling presentation above him. Later, while explaining the milky way in detail, she stops again and asks about the mow-bile phone. This time, abusing a patron across the room. She abandons her proper English and begins to shout forcefully in Hindi. She finally resorts once more to turning the house lights on, erasing the stars, planets, and milky way, causing the little boy to groan in disappointment. After a good verbal thrashing, the voice switches back to English and its presenter's tone, continuing on about the marvels of the milky way splashed once more across the hemisphere above us. 

It was impossible to enjoy the show, we were both so nervous about the boy who wouldn't be quiet and the apparent idiocy of the mow-bile toting patrons. And I wonder about that woman, her staunch pride in her work of explicating the mysteries that move above us in the dark. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a constellation without hearing her voice screaming at me to turn off my mow-bile. 

Opposite of Early Bird

[From my hiking journal]

March 12, 2009

From Ghorepani to Tatopani

Old Kamala Guest House, Room 503

Day 11 of Hiking

Last night I had awful dreams about being burned by fire because I saw the fire burning in a long line down the mountain before we went to sleep. I dreamed I lost my cat and my baby in the fire. Today as we made our way from Ghorepani to here, we saw several burning, the smoke rising from all the different fires making one huge cloud above us.

I could still see the lengthening line of fire as we started up Poon Hill at 5:30 this morning. It was not as cold going up as I thought it would be, but at the top the wind was serious. I tried to think happy thoughts on the hike to the top, but I just got so angry because every time I thought I was at the top of the mountain, there was a turn and 100 more stairs to climb. It was 3,000+ meters high. It probably took me close to an hour to reach the top. There was a lookout tower, but I assumed the wind was even worse up there and let Kenny and CB check it out on their own. Needless to say, I was not a happy hiker. When the sun rose, it was pretty and the mountains were bigger than life, but it was still hazy and I was cold. I did manage a smile for one or two pictures, but I was not awed by the mountains.

Perhaps that is one of my defects. We come out here and I'm confronted by the Himalayas themselves, and yet, I remain nonplussed. I would have rather hiked up later, not in the dark, missed the haze, and seen the mountains at a decent time of day. Or just skipped it altogether. Even at Annapurna Base Camp, I wasn't blown away. I guess mountains just aren't my thing. Oh well, no one can say I didn't try. 

After hiking back down, we had a beautiful breakfast including delicious hashbrowns and headed down toward Tatopani. Tato being hot in Nepali and pani being water. And by down, I mean down. It was downhill all the way. If you ask, my knees will tell you all about it. I listened to the Funeral album by Arcade Fire and ended with In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, both fitting perfectly and suprisingly motivational on hikes! [Thank you, Rob, so much!]

We didn't get to Tatopani until 4:00 pm so it had been a slow day. We headed straight for the hot springs. I was unimpressed. The water wasn't anywhere near hot-tub hot and due to all the fires, the pool was filled with ash. I didn't last long, being the only woman in the pool anyway. It was weird. The fires had come all the way down to the tree line, where the people who lived there had started fires of their own to make sure it didn't pass down into the town. 

Tonight we met a British man who talked to us during dinner. He says the roads they're constructing will kill the tourist trade. Why hike somewhere if you can just take a taxi instead? After dinner we played Go Stop with CB again. I'm giving him my trekking shoes and izen because the shoes fit him perfectly. Our feet our the same size. Exactly. We were so lucky to have him as our guide.

I got blisters today- on our last day of real hiking!

The Happy Hiker

An overview of my time hiking. In retrospect, I'm so glad that we did it. But that comes with perspective and also no longer trekking  4 to 5 hours a day. I'm working on a few posts that are a bit more detailed and give you an idea of what we did in the mountains. I've compiled a few photos for your viewing pleasure! Let me know if you guys like the smilebox thing. Thought I'd try something new and different. 

On vacation in Florida at my Mamaw and Papaw's house in Estero. Spending my days in the pool with the HubbO and stuffing my face. However, I have taken to treading water for a half hour at the time on top of my every-other-day runs. So hopefully the cardio will cancel out all the homemade banana pudding, sausage and biscuits, steak, and other delicious homecooked concoctions my Mamaw keeps throwing my way! 

Make a Smilebox postcard

Life of Anonymous Celebrity Part VI: International Edition

I do not travel well. I travel a lot, but I do it by stirring up an insane amount of nervous energy and then letting that explode all over the airport, bus station, husband, you get the idea. It usually ends in tears. Creating this nervousness is easy because all you have to do is imagine all the things that could possibly go wrong and then follow each thing out to its logical conclusion: this makes the domino effect of wrong-going things clear and seem unavoidable. Hence, the nervous energy. All this energy must be stirred up and expelled by the time the first thing has not gone wrong. So, once I am through security, holding my boarding ticket and passport like a meth addict clings to whatever it is meth addicts cling to, I'm pretty much okay. I'm definitely okay once the airplane takes off, and I remain okay even when the plane starts to do that dippy thing that makes your stomach flip. 

But when you're on the ground, off the bus, out of the train, the whole process must begin once more because well, another whole slew of things could go wrong with the transit process. The taxi driver could be a complete bastard and say he's not going to take you to the hotel you wish (check), the train could leave gasp! on time (check), or you could spend the early morning hours before sunset with your baggage on steps in front of the Ganges because no one is awake to admit you to their hostel (and check). 

All this to say: nervous before the plane takes off. (One time I cried because they hadn't yet posted our gate number for the flight. I was completely undone by the little blank in that row of numbers. ) Not nervous in transit at all. Nervous at the end of the journey that marks the beginning of another one. 

So, anylongestintroductioneverway, we left Bangkok and flew to Nepal. The flight was great and as we flew in over Nepal, the sky was incredibly blue and the world beneath us glowed green and grew mountains. I was in a pure state of bliss as we landed, but when we exited the plane, the nervousness hitched up its britches and got serious. After navigating the visa-issuance line and process, we picked up our luggage and headed out of the airport to find the transportation supposed to be provided for us by the hostel we had booked. We didn't change any money at the airport because the rates were ridiculous and we didn't need a taxi. So we walked out to the parking lot and BAM! 

I have not ever been mobbed before. Except in the tens by small non-intimidating and only mildly annoying Korean children under the age of 7. But on February 28, 2009, I was mobbed. By Nepali taxi drivers. There must have been upwards of 100 stationed outside the airport, milling about the parking lot, standing in large groups, and aggressively surrounding every passenger to exit the airport. Kenny had tried to prepare me for this, but there's just no preparing yourself. So, with nervousness at full capacity and our hostel taxi service nowhere to be seen, I panicked. We had walked out into the parking lot in hopes that the hostel transporters were simply lazy and leaning against a car we couldn't see while carelessly flipping a sign with our names on it. We had been followed by 8 or 9 taxi drivers violating all sorts of personal space rules, even the revised ones I had amended in Korea. They all talked at once and I couldn't understand anything they seemed to be saying. Kenny was also talking to me, asking me what I thought we should do. It was so crazy for me I couldn't think. And so, in true Nervous Traveller fashion, I put my hand over my ears, closed my eyes, and screamed.

Not really a scream. More like a sound that happens when a groan and a shriek get married and procreate. It came up through my belly and echoed in my spinning head before exiting my mouth and falling at my feet utterly inefficient. Nothing had changed except that now the taxi drivers were laughing as they attempted to haggle with us. Kenny probably thought his new wife was losing her mind already and we retreated back into the safety of the airport. (We did eventually find the hostel guy holding a sign with other people's names on it, but he took us anyway. Booking online for a place in Nepal that only has electricity in 4 hour increments means that your booking is often futile.)

So, I know you're all, "Isn't this supposed to be an LAC post? Will there ever be any anonymity or celebrity?" Yes to both. After making it to the hostel, getting settled, and venturing out into Thamel to explore, a young Nepali man yells across the street at me.

"Hey! I know you! Didn't you just get here today?" 

"Um, yes?" 

"Yeah, I saw you. At the airport. You were yelling a lot."

"Well, I wouldn't say a lot."

"Definitely you. I remember your hair. I like this hair. But you were yelling."

"Overwhelmed. I was simply overwhelmed." 

"Well, it's nice to see you again."

He introduced himself and we did, in fact, see him again. He had a nice smile. He wore a business suit. The jacket showed his wrists, his arms too long. And he proved that when you do stupid stuff in the airport parking lot, people are going to remember you. Especially if you're a white girl walking around with dreadlocks. They won't know your name (anonymous), but they'll know who you are (celebrity). 

Lists from Bangkok

[We only spent a total of 3 days in Bangkok. Here's an entry from my journal.]

February 27, 2009
Bangkok, Thailand
Jasmine Executive Suites, Suite 1112

EATEN:

1.Spring roll on the Floating Market Canal. Delicious.

2.Sip of coconut milk out of an actual coconut, also on the canal. Not delicious.

3.Bit of Kenny's noodles near Wat Po.

4.So-so rice noodles with green curry at a pricey restaurant with an ajumma look-alike singing tunes way too passionately beside a piano. I do not like green curry. Good to know.

5.McDonald's Coffee Float across from pricey restaurant: PERFECT.

6.Crappy spring roll while getting my hair locked in Kao San Road.

7.Fettuccine Pepperoncini, terribly heavy pasta at Little Italy.

8.5 pieces of mozzarella, picked out of a mozzarella and tomato salad, also Little Italy.

9.Tiramisu. Awesome. Desert at Little Italy.

Conclusion: Want to either poop or throw up. But I would totally repeat #5. Who knew?

SEEN/VISITED:

1.  Damnoen Saduak Floating Market: Incredible. We got up so early and still missed the local trading because our taxi driver got lost. Twice. We got a little ripped off with the boat tour for an hour, but had our own boat so that was nice. Probably my favorite part of today. Being on the water was nice and cool. And we saw a big iguana type thing swimming in the canal. 

2. Salt fields. Probably Kenny's favorite.We saw the fields on the way back to Bangkok from the floating market and Kenny made the driver pull over on the side of the road so he could get some pictures. 

3. Thammasat University= Beautiful Campus. A truly lovely walk through the grounds, right on the river. Great relaxed atmosphere.

4. Chao Phraya River. We took a tour boat by mistake trying to get down the river so Kenny could snap some pictures of Wat Aren (Temple of Dawn). Ended up being a really pleasant trip both ways. The weather was much cooler on the water.

5.  Kao San Road. Again, but daytime. Pretty much just sat in a plastic blue chair for 2 hours and had my hair locked. Feels great and so easy to take care of. 

4.  2 Elephants in the Street. It was so cool seeing them up close. They are so large. I mean, you know they're large but you don't really know until you're next to them. One had a reflective light tied around his tail. 

TIME SPENT IN TAXIS:

1.   6:55-9:00: To Floating Market from Sukhumvit. Taxi driver was a mistake. However, I manage to sleep most of the way.

2.   10:15-11:45: Back with the same driver but to Wat Pho. He took a crazy route and the traffic was heavy. I slept some more but felt car sick and had a huge headache when we got out.

3.   5:45-6:30: Back to Sukhumvit from Kao San Road. Traffic was insane and after got far enough we popped out and walked the rest of the way. 

Conclusion: I am already tired of taxis and miss Seoul Metro and the bus system which is easy and so freaking cheap. TOTAL TIME IN TAXIS: 4 hrs 20 minutes!

I am so tired but happy with how the day turned out. It was full and vivid and fun. Now if only I could poooooooop!

[That was pretty much the most exciting day. And then we left Bangkok and headed to Nepal!]