Return to Guatemala

Lorena, my teacher before and now. From single to married with 2 daughters in the intervening 7 years. Way to go!

Before graduate school, I studied Spanish in Antigua Guatemala. Seven years later, I returned to round out my year of travel. These are some images (Photos above are from 2007, below are from 2014).

Before, my humble desk at the small school. Now there are up to 30 students at a time studying in a new garden!

Going to coffee museum, La Azotea. Then, I went with my great friend Marie-Eve. This time I went with Ayumi and Bruce, and with a greater appreciation of coffee 🙂

El Arco, then and now. Really no changes at all! Colonial zoning restrictions.

Women carrying. Traditional wear is still very common, and women are strong.

My traditional wear. With my cousin Stephanie 7 years ago, and this time with Sabrina at a traditional wedding with our cabbage patch baby 🙂

Volcán Pacaya. Before lots of red lava at our feet. This time none, but there were some major devastating eruptions a few years ago.

The same blue shirt. I'm cheap, and I cling onto shirts. This one was from about 10 years ago, and it's in top notch condition still! That's tour operator, Sandra from before, couldn't find her this time.

Selfies. It used to be harder with a point and shoot. This time it's all about front facing cameras on mobile devices.

Festivals. I was so lucky to see processions last time, and this time we saw all the kites on Dia de los santos.

Back in Nepal

My whirlwind month trip back to Nepal was indescribably amazing. Without sufficient vocabulary to express my gratitude and good fortune, I resort here to pictures.

In Phalewas:

Rural students my friends and I are sponsoring for their science education for the next 2 years. Thanks Will, Jamie, Patrice, and Winnie!

My FM radio interview broadcasted across several communities. We didn't have enough material, so I sang the US national anthem!

In Nurbuling school:

The students I taught 8 months ago! During the morning assembly they gave me a warm welcome 🙂

Village hospitality. Nima on the left welcomed me to her home and 7 more over the course of a day! What a wonderful way to get to know the Hyolmo culture. I can't thank them enough. Thanks for 5 types of local wine and endless tea!

Love the village life

Oh and I carried this 3 week old bugger up and down many hills to his new home. You don't want to know what happened to my tshirt.

In Tinpiple:

The only dump site that collects the trash from Kathmandu and neighboring cities. Many families live and work here to earn about $1-2 a day. It was absolutely humbling to experience a few hours with them.

On a dump truck back to town. Here is one of the single mothers that works at the site. She was so gracious and friendly! I met her children who were thankfully taken away from working at the site and are now receiving good education and housing, thanks to a great organization that I'll describe later. Again, a humbling experience.

So much more! But alas, photos don’t even do it justice.

Thank you, Nepal! Coming twice this year wasn’t enough. You’ve been a great teacher to me, and I’ll come back to learn and contribute as best I can.

Generosity

I was in the outskirts of Medan, Indonesia, when I tried to make my way to my hotel by local transportation. They use these minivans and pack as many people into them, not unlike the micros in Nepal, and songthaews in Thailand.

I asked the driver in my slow ESL manner, “Medan downtown?” Confusion. “Medan center?” Nothing. Then the affirmative nod, “Medan, Medan!” OK, not too reassuring, but I think I’ll at least get closer to my destination. That’s why I allow for plenty of daylight to counter such uncertainties.

I hop aboard and interrogate the passengers, passing around the screenshot on my phone of the hotel and address. Some comments, some nods, some discussion. No English. I point toward my chest, then down toward the minivan transmission. “OK?”

One points yonder, “Taxi.”

I point to my pocket, “Expensive.” Yeah, but where’s the adventure in that? It would be the most direct, but my rule of thumb is private drivers usually cost at least 10x the public fare.

“Stay.” She uses the palm down, calm down gesture. All right I’m in good hands.

I receive some warm and knowing smiles during the ride. I’m guessing they’re wondering who the heck is this guy? They may have hypothesized poor Thai guy, looking down at my Thai massage school tote bag.

Suddenly, one of them said, “Come come!” Two university students in hijabs beckoned me to follow them off the bus. Ok ok. First rule of improv is to say yes.

I take out money and ask how much, but they proceed to pay for me. “No. No.” Smile. I’m exasperated. “How much? I pay!”

Ignoring me they quickly call over a tuk tuk from across the street. They haggle with the weathered driver, shove him some bills and tell me to get on. Wait! “How much? I pay. I pay!”

No. No. Smile.

I zoom off. It all happened too fast! I peer back to the smiling students. And they’re gone.

How generous they were to me. I reflected. If someone asked for directions in my country, I would help point out the way, tell them how much it would cost, but I wouldn’t go that far out of my way to pay for him!

Moments like these make me marvel at people’s generosity and how much I have yet to learn in this life.

Bukit Lawang, Indonesia

3 day jungle trek to see wild orangutans. Saw 8! Including this massive male. Stay back!

Guides:"Move move move!" "Relax relax relax" "Move move move!!"

My friendly trekking group from the Netherlands and Ireland.

Mutually intelligible

Penang, where the old meets the new

Upon arriving in Penang, Malaysia, after an overnight train and minivan border crossing, I kicked back and soaked it all in at Mugshot Cafe, a local hipster joint.

My ears perked up. “… and the room was so cheap… gibberish, gibberish… my friends told me… gibberish, gibberish” …

What the hell? Why do I understand bits of what they’re saying? It’s not Mandarin Chinese. It’s more like Taiwanese! Obviously I didn’t do enough homework about Malaysia beforehand.

Wikipedia tells me that they were speaking Penang Hokkien, a dialect that belongs within the same umbrella as Taiwanese Hokkien. Supposedly they’re “mutually intelligible.” The Chinese labor force brought this language along with them during British colonial rule.

Taiwanese Hokkien was a peripheral language of my youth, one that I had an ear for, but sadly no tongue for. It’s expressive, local, and legit. A proper hipster language, if you will, and a unique way to connect with the elder generation.

Picking my dad’s brains (a history buff like so many other dads), he explained some of Malaysia’s linguistic origins and then shared that he actually went on frequent business trips to Penang in his days as an engineer. Did you go to Penang Hill? he asked. How about the good food?

Wow! I didn’t know.

Hainanese duck over rice deliciousness

The food there, yummy! I could eat it every meal. I even joked with the playful restaurant owner in Chinese, “Yeah yeah I’ll come here everyday, I promise!”

In Penang, I was hit by so many unexpected revalations at once – a more global domain for the rudimentary Hokkien that I know, and a partial explanation for my father’s childhood frequent absence.

Familiarity oftentimes comforts. On the rare occasions it unsettles. The latter was in effect here.

An aspect of travel for me was to experience the unknown. Although Malaysia has so much more to offer and for me to appreciate, it was time to move on.

Strong girl. Street art Penang.

Oh, and I also got a bad case of bedbugs at Old Penang Guesthouse. Bed 11. Beware.

A small exercise in gratitude

And keep on trucking!

As I embarrassingly scraped the cracked remnants of my half dozen eggs off the cold tiled floor under the unyielding glare of the clerks (no exchange policy FTW) at Canggu Deli, Bali, I felt pretty down. Small things like this can add up during travel. The mind seems to always need things to dwell on.

On the walk back to the apartment, I switched gears and started playing a game I like to call, “Complete the following: I am effing _______!!!”

-in Bali, Indonesia!!!
-surfing like a doggone n00b!!!
-on the effing internet!!!
-getting cash from a machine by shoving in a plastic card!!! And it works!!!
-using another plastic card to swipe for groceries!!! And it works yet again!!!
-using an effing kitchen to fire up a ribeye steak dinner!!! What what!?
-listening to a climbing podcast, Enormocast!!!
-walking around barefoot!!!
-wearing a skirt!!! (Refer back to “how to rock a skirt” entry and don’t look at me funny)
-reading from a rectangular device that holds over 300 books!!!
-writing blog posts on an effing cell phone!!!

Anyway, I could continue adding to this list of “mundane” miracles. I haven’t even mentioned the more substantial things like being thankful for health and loved ones, but you guys all know that 🙂

Cheers to the underappreciated little things.

PS read this awesome article that hits closer to home, literally.

Accomplishing my only goal

Just kidding, no whale sharks this time. But yes barracuda!

In the vein of keeping travel as free and organic as possible, I only set one goal this year: to learn SCUBA diving.

And after 4 days of PADI class at Koh Tao, Thailand, I’m now a certified open water diver!

It was simple, really, finding a proper dive school and having $300 on hand.

Like many goals, it was just a goal with no real impediments. I just had to go out and do it.

And now, having seen more fish and coral in my life combined, where does it all leave me?

In retrospect, the goal was more symbolic than anything else. To dive, I would be far away, somewhere tropical, so the water would be warm and welcoming, and in a different world. And that’s exactly what it was.
It represented living without anyone’s approval but mine.

And now 7-8 months in, it feels like it’s about time to take a path back. I’ll come full circle on some things that I had started, and be home before you know it!

Finding volunteer work

Several people have asked me how to find volunteer work while traveling. In selecting an organization, legitimacy is the first criterion, as not all are legitimate.

I worked in Nepal for NEIO. I had gotten to know the founder back in San Francisco and the focus was on quality (helping one school) and not quantity (becoming a big organization). NEIO is not without its share of shortcomings, but is at least legitimate.

In Cambodia, I joined CESHE by finding them on Workaway. The key utility of this site is the reviews. Many past volunteers positively reviewed CESHE over a long period of time. Sketchy organizations would not hold up to such scrutiny. (Well unless it’s all a premeditated scam.. When you start volunteering you could start getting cautious and almost paranoid, but that’s a rant for another day…)

Relying on social advice, you’ll be on a well-worn track, but at least you’ll have a degree of quality control. You’ll gain a constructive experience.

You may start discovering a lot of imperfections amidst the good work. With luck, you’ll learn to juggle them and move forward.

And a last point about what I got out of the experiences so far:
I’ve liked how I was in the position to push change as far as I wanted to take it. Compared to other enterprises that I’ve officially engaged in (startup company and graduate researcher), the intensity of independent learning and action was greater when volunteering. The weight of responsibility and failure was greater. The immediacy of lives affected by my actions was greater. And I won’t even mention the emotional toll. I was in positions to enforce positive change as I saw fit. It’s something that will indelibly shape my career decisions in the future.

Hope that helps!

How to rock a skirt

The brave day I broke my skirt virginity was July 11th, 2014.

Longyi are worn by at least 50% of the men in urban Myanmar, and around 90% in rural. They’re cylindrical garments tied into a bun below the belly button. The learning curve to tie it neatly was similar to that of a necktie. Quite hipster I might add. I don’t anticipate the prerequisite courage to don the garment beyond the confines of this country, so in the spirit of light backpacking, I’ll multipurpose it as any of the following:

1. Bedsheet
2. Blanket
3. Beach towel
4. Changing room
5. Pillowcase
6. Protective wrap around my backpack
7. Turban

And finally…

8. Baby sling

I’ll let you know if it works out 🙂

Luang Prabang, Laos

A grand mix between French colonial and traditional Lao architecture and overwhelming nature, Luang Prabang was a great VISA run for us.