Earthquake and Flood

For decades there have been stories of people dreaming that the mountain lake would break open and flood the valley below, washing it all to the sea.  I won’t be suprised if I start hearing those stories again.  Last week the area experienced a 6.2 earthquake. The center was very near that inland lake and that area was the hardest hit. Hundreds of relatively simple village houses in the district were flattened or so severely damaged that they need to be knocked down because they are no longer safe. Six people were killed and dozens injured mainly contusians, bruises, broken bones, head injuries. A ten kilometer stretch of the road from the city was blocked by dozens of landslides which slowed down relief efforts for several days. The lake itself is in the middle of a national forest and the only way into that area is 3 hours by motorbike over a treacherous mountainous jungle trail – once you get past the 10 kilometers of landslides on the main road.

The quake was felt over a wide area. In the city 50 kilometers away, the earthquake seemed to not cause much damage but certainly created some panic, particularly among shoppers at a 3-story mall.  It happened late Saturday afternoon near sunset as many people were preparing to celebrate the end of the month of fasting. One man described it as a strong jolt, followed by an even stronger jolt and then nearly two minutes of swaying. He opined that the swaying was what knocked down so many houses.

The area is located on a major fault line. Experts say the opposing sides of the fault move about 3 cm a year.  The last major quake was 2009 (see entry “Rumblings”). In 2004 the hot springs at a village near where I stay burst open with hot water shooting 3-4 meters into the air. This time the quake was further inland in the mountains and apparently didn’t affect that hot spring but caused a lot more damage to villages in the mountains.

So, while many from that disaster are living in tents and wondering what to do next, another disaster hit the province on the other side of the mountains. This past Saturday during a heavy downpour around 9pm a huge flash flood slammed into 8 villages along a river. The water was carrying huge logs (illegal logging up stream??) which have caused tremendous damage, perhaps the worst being two bridges on the main trans-island hiway along the coast. Traffic from one end of the island to the other has been effectively stopped as there are no good alternative routes. Most alternative routes meander through mountains and are likely to have a number of landslides, common after a period of heavy rain.

So far we have heard that three people were killed, a 2-year-old still missing. At least two of the affected villages are people of the No language group. People there don't usually live on the river banks but since the land is pretty flat right there, a huge rise in water level would affect houses near by. One friend who was there visiting relatives has been stranded, unable to get transportation. Another man returning from further away has had to turn around and go back until the driver can figure out an alternative route. The traffic at one point was backed up nearly 5 kilometers.

Usually when a bridge collapses, traffic just drives down the bank and through the water at a shallow area but this river is too fast and too deep for that. Today I hear that people are crossing in boats where one of the bridge is broken.

Again, dozens of houses have been damaged. On the other side of the mountains, two gold miners were carried off and drowned in the torrent of the river on that site, and down below in the city, several houses along that river were carried away and a couple dozen more filled with mud.

It's been quite a time in No-land lately!

 *Pictures off the internet.

 

 

Flash flood

On December 3, 2011 a strange flood swept through a mountain village, killing six people, destroying 36 houses, severely damaging another 150. According to the news, it had been raining heavily causing a flash flood. But according to the locals, it wasn’t a normal flood, it was like a cold mud “eruption” from under the ground. It just suddenly happened, shooting boulders and mud up in the air as high as a tree according to a witness resting in a hut on a nearby hillside. The "eruption" site was in a small valley upsteam not near any houses but the huge boulders and mud overflowed into a stream bed flooding a series of hamlets downstream. They said something similar had happened about 100 years ago according to their ancestors. A geologist in the area advised them to move and not to rebuild the village as he said the same thing could happen within the next 20 years and so it would not be worth rebuilding on the same site. Of course, resettling hundreds of people is easier said than done. Meanwhile the government, the Salvation Army, and other relief groups have been bringing food, clothes, and other supplies such as shovels, buckets, and tools. The following is a video taken with a cell phone by Rinto, a relief worker bringing in supplies. As of today (March 12) many are still living in tents or with relatives in other villages nearby.

See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5MLnwqVqO0

Toilet Training the Nation

This was the rather provocative title of a recent news article discussing the state of sanitation in the second of my worlds. An official from the Health Ministry is quoted as saying that as of 2010 some 42 million people in the country still defecated in the open. But this was down from 71 million in 2007 so they have made phenomenal progress in three short years (if the statistics are accurate).

Since people from the first of my worlds probably find that amazing and wonder what people do, let me hasten to explain that it is a timeless tradition in the tropics around the globe to use local streams, rivers, rice paddies, ditches or just a spot in the nearest banana patch or woods. It usually rains a lot and washes it all away, plus the strong tropical sun dries (and rots) things quickly. And where dogs and/or pigs run loose, well, they also help with, uh, waste disposal. Friends tell me of having to take a stick with them to keep the pigs away until they finished doing their “business”. People living by the sea just wade out a ways and go and the waves and tide will wash it away. The problem of course is that as the population grows, so does one's risk of catching a waterborn disease!

Even in the Mega City you can still sometimes see people using ditches and canals, especially children. Of course in big cities it’s easy to build a toilet without a septic tank, especially if you live along a main road with drainage canals beside them. You just run the “out” pipe into said ditch or even build a little hut over the ditch. Some people still use chamber pots or plastic bags and go empty them into the ditch after dark.

This is the goal

The article discusses that one of the biggest problems is changing people’s mindsets. Even if the government or some other agency builds them a toilet, some people will still not use it. When I first went to live among the No people many years ago there had already been a sanitation project where two squat-toilets with bathing area had been built for every 4 families, complete with concrete septic tank. The project  also put in wells with hand pumps near each toilet building. People liked having the wells but few of the toilets were actually being used. They said the problem was water.  Since you can't put in a well too near the septic tank or you may get contamination, they had to carry the water to flush the toilet. Not only that, they didn’t like keeping it clean (they said neighbor kids would use it and not flush and leave it a mess.) It was easier for them to do what they had always done – use the roadside irrigation ditch or an irrigation ditch out in the field. They felt it was “cleaner”.

Slowly over the next two decades though, most families in that No village did build a toilet in or next to their homes and nearly all now have their own well. In fact most have installed small electric pumps so they can more easily fill their concrete water tanks in the bathroom making it easy to bathe and flush toilets. Gone are the days of hiking a kilometer to the river with a dozen empty coconut shells to get drinking water! But even so, there are still a few die hard families who can’t be bothered to build a toilet and to this day, 2012,  continue defecating outside in a ditch. Unfortunately, even with toilets, many people still allow small children to relieve themselves anywhere. And there are always a few people who aren’t on the ball cleaning up the kids’ messes so you still do sometimes need to watch where you step.

In the article, a junior high boy was quoted as saying he’d rather have a satellite dish (for TV) than to have a toilet. That is not at all an uncommon attitude. I have been in many rural homes which have a TV, a motorcycle or two, sometimes even a satellite dish and a refrigerator, but not a toilet. The problem isn’t money, it’s a mind set.

The mall as oasis

While living in the Mega-City one of the oases is the mall.

Malls have essentially taken the place of public parks. Many people come not so much to shop as to hang out in a cool place. The malls are particularly crowded on Sundays as people generally have the day off and like to go out as a family or with a group of friends. The bottom level of my favorite mall has a bumper car section which is usually open on Sundays and holidays with little kids screaming, squealing, and laughing as they bang around in the cars. Indulgent parents smiling from the outside of the ring seemingly oblivious to the sensory overload.

Malls in the first of my world sprawl horizontally, but here they soar vertically. My favorite mall is at least 8 stories high with an open center. Each floor is connected by slow-rise ramps making it like a corkscrew. It is possible to walk from the second floor all the way to the top without having to use the escalators. Of course it is faster to use the escalators but if you want a cool place for a walk this is ideal!

Several Sundays I met friends for lunch after church at the corkscrew mall. There are several restaurants and fast-food places all through the mall but on the very top floor is a food court with tables in the center and food stalls serving a wide variety of relatively inexpensive food ringing the outside. Several churches rent the auditoriums on the upper and bottom levels (as it can be extremely difficult to get building permits to build new churches). So many of those people also filled the eateries before or after their services. I did also shop a little as there were a couple of decent bookstores and a largish supermarket but I usually made sure I got a good walk in as well – up to the top and down twice!

Many if not all malls have a hotel and/or condominium tower connected to it. They tend to have a lot of higher end shops and boutiques but also an assortment of medium ranged goods and services and typically include a supermarket, pharmacies, hair salons, fitness centers, banks, and electronics. There are also seasonal "events" in the central area. These can be related to holidays, but can also include appearances of celebrities, promos, contests and the like. The picture at the right shows a cosmetics demo/promo taking place on the ground level.

There is another mall which is a bit closer to where I was staying, though harder to get to because it was located at the intersection of two major toll roads and was accessible only by crowded narrow service roads. That mall was fancier but I found the ambient quickly overwhelming. There are a lot of shiny surfaces, glass, mirrors, marble floors, and particularly harsh eye-hurting lights which had the impact on me of me wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. I mentioned it to the land lady  and she said she too felt the same way about that mall and so usually shopped at one further away.  I wonder if the mall owners have any idea.........

Mega City Snapshot

Living in this mega-city is always an experience. This time I am staying in a private sort of boarding house, though a very nice one. My room and bathroom are clean, newly painted, airconditioned and actually quite a bit nicer than my own place! I even have wireless internet access. There's a small airy courtyard just outside my room with various potted flowering plants, and a Madonna.  The owners live just across the street and usually visit every day. Most of my three plus weeks here I was the only one staying here.


But every day I would leave my clean cosy pad and walk out into the real world - the world of heavy, hot, humid, pollution- and dust-laden air. The roads were crowded, gritty, and often completely gridlocked. That's why I usually walked the 2 km - it was faster! I held a handkerchief to my mouth and nose the whole way to try to decrease the particulate matter inhaled. I disguised my laptop in a cloth shoulder bag and lugged it along too - great weight bearing exercise I might add!

The route took me along some extremely congested small roads with houses and shops opening very close to the street. Sometimes a hapless chicken would be tied by the leg to some post perilously close to the mayhem in the street. People were often seen sweeping piles of trash up and then lighting them, noticeably increasing the general haze. Eventually I came to one of the large canals that drain much of this city. I didn't really need to cross it but since the road on my side was under construction, it was sometimes faster to cross over and walk down the other side and cross back at the next bridge. On the far side the road was wider and one-way  and traffic zipped along. There wasn't really a sidewalk but there was a path most of the way and if I looked to the left and kept my nose covered I could kind of imagine I was walking along a tree-lined river. Well, I did say "imagine". In truth those canals reek and it's hard to ignore the trash and bubbling sludge on the surface. In the distance I could see some of the glittering high rises growing up all over.

I guess people just get used to it. I wonder if I ever could?  I find the chronically hazy, overcast looking skies and ambient pollution very depressing. Whenever I am here I soon dream of the blue skies, fluffy clouds and cool air of the first of my worlds! Or at least the blue skies and brilliant white clouds of the more remote islands, even if they too are hot! And I feel a little guilty because I know that I eventually will be able to get out of this city and go to a cleaner, prettier place while all these millions will still be stuck here.

Clueless in Paradise?

No, I did not get lost between my three worlds. I have just been busy visiting them all! Sometimes there are just too many amazing things happening too fast to even take notes.

I recently read a book titled Hotel K by Kathryn Bonella. It is based on several extended interviews with foreign prisoners who are or were incarcerated in an infamous prison on a certain southeast Asian tourist island. It was a horrendous tale of life inside a prison where money will get you anything, anything at all - and lack of money is a serious problem. Most of the foreigners in there were there on drug charges. It should be required reading for anybody even thinking of using drugs!

Today I read about a 56-year-old British woman who, along with four other foreigners,  was recently arrested for smuggling several kilos of cocaine in her suitcase into that same country. It is truly difficult to grasp how someone that age can be so clueless. Her excuses are impressive. Even though she has supposedly been living with a new "husband" in India for the last 5 years,  she was smuggling this stuff to prevent someone from killing one or both of her troubled adult sons back in Britain - one having recently been released from jail. She has no money, yet somehow jets around to Britain, India, Bangkok, and the tourist island. She knew she was bringing in something and figured it wasn't tulips or cheese but hoped that somehow she could get it in anyway. She got caught in the airport and then agreed to continue on and help the police with a sting operation on the people she was supposed to deliver the cocaine to. She obviously never read Hotel K.

On the one hand I feel no sympathy for her doing such a stupid thing, but on the other hand,  having read Hotel K, well, I can't help but feel some sympathy anyway.

Hypnotism crime

Apparently a common method used in crime in the second of my worlds is hypnotism. You know, the criminal hypnotises the victim so that they do not see the crime or cannot resist. In our town a guy was arrested by the police last year for stealing motorcycles. When he was released he walked through the police station in full view of a dozen police sitting at desks. He swiped one of the police helmets, in full view of them all, and none of them could lift a finger to stop him.

Recently a TV news station showed footage from a security camera at a convenience store where such a crime occurred. A group of 6 men and women came into the store and pretended to shop but in various ways they also tried to distract the cashier, asking where the bathroom was, asking for change, etc. While the cashier has the cash drawer open and her hands counting change right over it, you can see one of the guys reach over and take a large wad of bills right from under her nose, apparently without her seeing it.

Last year a city newspaper helpfully gave some police tips on how to protect yourself from hypnotism crime. Some of their suggestions included things such as:

- Believe fully that evil hypnotism cannot happen to people who reject it,
because all hypnotism is self-hypnotism where our fear is used by the
hypnotist.
- Beware of people who come up and befriend you because all hypnotism is a communication technique.
- Keep your thinking busy and don’t let your mind be empty when you are alone in a public place because when your mind is empty you are very susceptible to suggestion.
- Be careful when you feel sleepy, nauseated, dizzy, or have tightness in your chest especially when it comes suddenly for no reason because there may be someone using a telepathic forcing on you. Immediately decide to throw off that negative energy to the ground and pray according to the religion you believe.
- If you are suggestible, don’t go out alone or else get over your suggestibility.

I'll try to remember those suggestions the next time I'm out and about! :-)

August-September notes

August 2009

Well it’s another hot one. Maybe there really is an El Ninyo forming. Last week the sky was brilliantly clear but this week it has that hazy, dusty tinge it gets when the fires on the next island are burning (the annual "smokey" season - see entries from Oct-Nov 2006, July 2007). It has been raining a little but just enough to increase the humidity, not great gully-washing, roof-pounding rains that would actually cool things down.

I am teaching English in the heat of the day, from 11:00-2pm this week and next. That means I have to dress professionally (read: hot). I’m commuting from the village which means wearing a jacket too for sun protection. The commuting is actually not too bad. It is the month of fasting so traffic from the rural areas at least is really light at the times I travel, tho if I spend too long doing errands and come back after 4pm it can be rather heavy as people come out to do shopping, etc. The light traffic makes for a more pleasant commute. Traffic picks up significantly at the city limits, but since I only have to go to as far as the school, it’s not so crazy as it gets further into town.

The temporary wooden-coconut log bridge is showing signs of age and breaking at the edges but still seems safe enough for a motorbike. It’s definitely cooler in the village – not that it is cool but it is not as hot as the city. There have continued to be lots of power outages. It’s a lot more bearable out here without power than in a hot, closed up city house without power! This morning I’m actually still feeling slightly chilled with a fan at 6:15 am. According to my alarm clock it is 81 degrees. Hmmmm.

(Temporary coconut log bridge collapsed a few days before I left. Luckily not with me on it!)

Something in my lower back/waist got pulled on the trip, either from sitting so long in weird seats or possibly hoisting luggage. Domestic airlines use new contoured-for-Asian-sized seats where the "pillow" part usually hits me between the shoulder blades. The seats are also closer together so that more passengers can be crammed into the plane. If my knees aren't jammed into the seat ahead, they have to be sideways. Makes for cramped sitting. Anyhow, something got strained. Over the course of the day my back gets more and more cramped and stiff and after standing teaching for 3 hours it is downright uncomfortable. Two days ago I started sleeping on the floor. It does seem to help. Even tho the mattress on the new bed is hard, it has springs or something and maybe that little amount of shaking and movement keeps things off balance in the spine department. I also broke down and took mefanamic acid (Ponstan) last night. This morning it still feels slightly cramped/spasmed in the area but not exactly painful so that’s good. Maybe today will be better.

This country is admittedly not good for my back. Even my motorbike is a tad too short and I can’t quite sit up straight and still reach the handlebars. Mirrors if any are too low, even the new ATMs I have to bend way down to even see the keypad! Tables and seats tend to be short and I have to make a concerted effort to sit up and not hunch over. I think I have developed the habit of hunching down to fit the furniture...

September 2009

I am in the village. Friday I finished the last English class. After class I bought a new printer for one of the teams and brought it home pinched between my knees on the motorbike. Yesterday (Saturday) I set it up and printed one sheet and then it started complaining of a paper jam. (And there is no paper jam.) Nothing I do changes it and so it won't print anything, just keeps wanting somebody to clear the nonexistant paper jam. So I will have to haul the thing back to town and see if they can fix it. Sigh!

While sitting on the floor intently focusing on the printer, a kitten playing on the bed next to me decided the flashing light on my glasses was cool so he swatted at it and got a claw in my eye. Ow! Fortunately I have a tube of not-yet-expired terramycin eye ointment. Half my eye is bloody but it's not very painful and I can still see ok. So picture me tomorrow riding my motorbike squinting thru one eye with a printer in a box balanced on my knees or squeezed between my knees or something. Whoo hoo!

Three worlds

I spent a month in the second of my worlds. It is no joke that I call each of these three countries “worlds”, for that is what they are. The languages are different, the religions are different, the dress code is different, the food is different, not to mention customs, worldview, transportation, government, house layout, yard maintanence standards, medicines, even writing paper and pens!

I have noticed how the brain helpfully seems to compartmentalize experiences. When I am in the second of my worlds I automatically drive on the left side of the road. Remembering names of streets and shops is always difficult upon arrival for the first few days until the brain gets the proper file to the front. Visual memory is instant but the linguistic stuff seems to take a bit longer to get to the forefront. (That means that I can still get to places even if the names of the roads I need to take aren’t on the tip of my tongue.)

This trip I was to teach a 24-hour English course and fit in visits with three teams around that. The only problem was, that I didn’t know when the course would actually start or how many of the hours could be done in one day. This seems to be the way things operate. You make a plan but no need to figure out the details until the time comes to actually do it.
Anyway, I will post some notes from that visit.

On fragrant canals

Some things never change. Way back in 1971 John Perkins, the author of The Secret History Of The American Empire, went for his first stroll in the capital city of the second of my worlds. Here is his first impression:

...In an attempt to avoid being run over I nearly stepped into a gutter that was black as tar, littered with garbage, and reeking of urine.

The gutter drained down a steep incline to one of the many canals built by the Dutch during the colonial era. Now stagnant, its surface was covered with a green and putrid-looking scum; the stench that arose from it was nearly intolerable. It seemed preposterous that the inventive people who had turned the sea into farmland had attempted to recreate Amsterdam amid this tropical heat. The canal, like the gutter that fed it, overflowed with debris. I could even distinguish the two by their distinctive stenches. The gutter had an immediacy about its odor, rotting fruit and urine, while the canal carried a darker, longer-term pungency, the mixture of human excrement and decay.

I continued along, dodging the bicycle cabs that hugged the sides of the road. Beyond them, in the mainstream of the thoroughfare, was a frenzy of automobile and motorbike traffic; the sound of honking horns, backfiring engines, and muffler-deprived cars was overwhelming, as was the acrid stench of oil on hot pavement and gas fumes in the humid air. The weight of all this began to impact me physically.

Well said. He could write the exact same thing today in 2009.

Teachers to loose jobs because of swine flu?

This would be funny if it wasn’t potentially dangerous. At a rural junior high school in the second of my worlds, the teachers sat around gossiping in the teachers’ lounge as usual. But today things got out of hand. Instead of the usual topics of money and their sex lives, they started discussing swine flu. One thing led to another and soon the majority of the teachers there, being followers (sort of) of a certain prophet, declared that the minority of teachers, being followers of religions that permit pork consumption, should all be transferred elsewhere. The connection with swine flu was obscure but perhaps they thought that because of the name “swine flu” that people are catching the flu from pigs and after all, didn’t the government run around spraying pigs a few days ago? So it seemed logical to them somehow that getting rid of teachers whose religions permit them to eat pork would somehow prevent swine flu. They got quite heated up about it and began referring to students and teachers of said religions as “unclean outsiders that stink of balsem”. Unfortunately they didn’t consider that 75% of the student body belong to one of those religions. Word got out and by the end of the day, parents of 75% of the students were up in arms and threatening to transfer their kids elsewhere.

Moral of story: engage brain before opening mouth, ESPECIALLY if you are a teacher.

Spraying pigs to prevent swine flu??

It is unfortunate when people take action without knowledge.









(http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/)
It seems that the "swine" part of the name of the current flu pandemic is having repercussions around the world. It was announced that fear of swine flu recently led the Egyptian parliment to demand that all pigs be slaughtered. The reaction in the second of my worlds hasn't been quite that drastic but I got a text message this morning that people supposedly from the health department had been going around the area "spraying pigs against pig flu".

Remembering the "spraying against dengue" that was done a few weeks ago, I wondered what on earth they could be doing. This flu isn't being spread by pigs, pigs are not getting sick, and as far as I know there is no vaccine out yet and even if there was it would likely be injected not sprayed.

The villagers were in a bit of an upheaval because they are concerned that their pigs are being sprayed with some kind of poison or even a virus to make them get sick and die. They are very aware of the paranoia towards pigs by some of the folk of a different religion and they well remember the attacks on pig farms by some fanatics a few years ago.

A quick check on the internet showed a few stories on how the department of health in various parts of the country has begun spraying pigs with disinfectant. More texting back and forth revealed that the pigs had been sprayed as well as the area around them and that it was odorless. And at least one family had just flatly refused to let their pigs be sprayed. I told them about the spraying with disinfectant and suggested that it was probably okay and wouldn't hurt the pigs.

I do wish the folk from the health department would put a bit more effort into explaining things to people.

I am not sure how much good spraying bleach water on all the pigs will do towards stopping this human flu pandemic but perhaps it makes nervous people feel like the government is doing something?

The rabies got a bit more personal all of a sudden

About a week and a half after the dog was killed, I went outside one evening to break up a fight between two of the puppies who had really latched on to each other and were making quite a racket. I shouted, I smacked their back sides, I even flipped them over a couple of times. No effect. I didn’t want to dump water on them because they were still small and it was night and I didn’t want them to get chilled and end up sick. So, stupidly I whacked them a bit closer to the head with my hand. It broke up the fight but one of them bit my finger. The holes weren’t big because the puppies are still small but their teeth are sharp – it felt like it went all the way to the bone!

It bled a lot, dripping all over the floor on my way to the bathroon to wash it. That is good they say, for cleaning out a wound. I washed it well with soap and plenty of water. Somebody had some betadine so I applied that. Coincidentally, a teenager in the house had been bit by the neighbor’s dog earlier in the day. That dog probably isn’t rabid, he just likes to bite. When the neighbor got home she came over and brought some grated up pulp from a particular tree that they say draws out poisons. So they packed the teenager’s wound and my finger with it. It was cool and soothing but after an hour I took it off and reapplied betadine. My wound wasn’t particularly painful but of course we are all aware that the mother was recently killed for presumed rabies.

From what I have gathered, the incubation for rabies in dogs is usually 3-6 weeks but can be as long as 6 months. The virus works its way up the nerves into the brain and when it gets to the brain it infects the saliva glands and the saliva is what carries the infection to other animals or people. That is also when the symptoms start. So apparently the animal is not contagious until about the time the symptoms start or a couple days earlier. That is why they say to observe the animal 10 days. If it was coming down with the disease, it will be showing definite symptoms in that time. If the dog is not sick within 10 days, then it was not infectious at the time of the bite – even though presumably the animal might still come down with the disease at a later date.

To comfort (?!) me they told me all about a 10-year old boy in the next village who had died of rabies a couple years ago. He got it from a puppy that they didn’t know had rabies. (Puppies die from all sorts of things.) They told me about a 20 year old girl from another village who had also died of rabies of unclear origen. So rabies is definitely endemic in the area. In fact, one of these puppies was killed in the night presumably by a rabid dog. Fortunately for me, that puppy was not the one that bit me.

The government has intermittent campaigns to vaccinate dogs and there are antirabies shots for those bitten, although with the chronic electricity problems in the area one wonders how viable the vaccine is. After arriving back in the third of my worlds a few days ago I heard that rabies is also an ongoing problem here though they seem to have made more progress in getting animals vaccinated routinely. They also vaccinate water buffalo, cattle and horses. I told the vet about my adventure with the puppies and he confirmed what I had found out about incubation, etc. He also suggested that I considered getting vaccinated against rabies since I am often in a high-risk area. He himself gets an annual booster. He also advised me that the next time I want to break up a dog fight to just use water!

Anyway, I am now past the 10-days and the puppies are still healthy.

On rabid dogs

April 10, 2009

I always hate it when they kill a dog. Today they clubbed a dog whose pups are about 6 weeks old. She looked and acted like she had rabies. She was normally good natured but a couple nights ago I noticed her attacking dogs that usually would attack her. Yesterday I noticed she was running around a lot and snarling at her pups when they wanted to nurse, even nipping them. I tried to feed her last night but she seemed to have trouble eating, she'd eat a little and then have to stop and cough. She was obviously hungry but seemed unable to eat. This morning she was chasing everything - cats, chickens, other dogs and running a lot. She kept coming back though and smelling her pups front and back. By midday her mouth seemed frozen partly open, though she did come and let her pups nurse once.

They clubbed her just now. There is no cure for rabies and if she were to bite anybody it would be a disaster. Even so we don't know how if any of the other dogs she attacked may have become infected. Her puppies may also already be infected. Sigh.

The teenage boys plan to eat the dog.

Rabies in humans is a big problem in the second and third of my worlds and there are usually a few dozen deaths each year from rabies. One 10 year old boy in thos village died a couple years ago from a puppy bite - a puppy they did not know had rabies. The post-bite vaccines are available but apparently are expensive and can only be gotten in a big city where there is electricity. Poor rural folk find the cost of the vaccines and the cost of getting to the city and staying there for the duration prohibitive. And sometimes you don’t know the dog is rabid.

Elections...again

April 4, 2009

Elections seem to be occuring more and more frequently. When I was here last October/November there was also a campaign going on for regional head. Next week are national elections where the people choose representatives to the provincial and national parliments. The roads are lined with an incredible number and variety of flags and posters. I am told that there are 44 parties each with different candidiates.

I should also explain that in the presence of many languages, and a high rate of minimal literacy, symbols and pictures are very important here. Each party also has a number which is very important as they will be listed on the ballot by that number. In the past, the ballots consisted of the symbols of each party printed on a page and the voter poked a hole in the symbol of the party he chose. This time the system is being changed slightly. Instead of poking a hole, they will now have to use a pencil and mark (check or x) the symbol of the party they are choosing. The ballots are quite large (poster sized) because of the large number of candidates and will require special folding.

At the school where I have been teaching I saw a letter posted on the bulletin board from some interchurch body. It said that they had been asked for guidance on voting so they got together and came up with several guidelines. According to them, you shouldn’t vote for a party which was likely to receive less than 2.5% of the vote as your vote would essentially be wasted since such a party couldn’t win. They also said you should chose a party that wasn’t aligned to a particular religion but should instead vote for a party committed to the rights of all people, and they listed several examples. Then they said you should look for experienced parties which had experience in governing and they narrowed it down to two. Lastly they said you should not belong to the “white party”, the euphemism for those who don’t vote.

When discussing that letter with one guy, he objected strongly to the narrowing the choices down to two and he also felt that telling people it was wrong to not vote was wrong too. He felt that people should have the right to not vote if that was their decision.

Out in the village I heard further discusion of the matter. Many said that 44 parties was way too many, how could you even know what they stood for. Some felt that not voting was the best option in the midst of too many choices. One guy opined that you could easily eliminate a lot of them because they were religious parties and had cresent moons and stars in their symbols. (Indeed, it did look a bit like they were electing the Minister of Religion rather than parliment representatives.) I also noticed several posters which had Arabic writing or ladies in headscarves. So eliminating those would narrow the field down quite a bit. Many of the people running are well known in the area. One popular traditional party has as its candidate a former governor. But that governor was on trial for corruption not too long ago. I assume he was cleared or surely he wouldn’t be running for parliment but some locals seemed to write him and his party off because of that case. They apparently assume he was guilty.

Perception is everything.

April 30, 2009

Election day cane and went. Several people at the last minute decided not to vote. Others who did go expressed concern that they had done it incorrectly. As the counts come in, people in general seemed glum. The largest recipient of votes (the party of the current president) garnered only 20% of the votes which means 80% of voters are disappointed. Some expressed amazement that that party had gotten that many votes and immediately speculated that the counting had been rigged. Stories were out about various losing candidates becoming clinically depressed or even suicidal. Only the top 10 of the 48 parties are listed as potentially winning parlimentary seats.

Oh, well, there's another election coming up later this year. That one will be for president. Interestingly, no one seems quite sure when it will be...

Traffic, uh, Flow

(Some of these posts are delayed because of power and internet issues.) 4 April 2009

While teaching these past three weeks, I have had the interesting experience of driving a motorbike and experiencing up close – very close - the traffic patterns here. Every town has its unique characteristics even within the same country. Traffic in this country tends to resemble a stream gurgling over and around rocks on its relentless path down the mountain. But it seems in recent years some serious eddies, whirlpools, and riptide rapids have developed in this town.

People drive on the left side of the road so for those of you from right-handed places, just think the opposite to get the same effect. In other words turning right here is like turning left for you. The majority of vehicles on the road are motorbikes but there are also plenty of cars, and some trucks and horse carts and man-pushed carts.

The single most important unwritten rule seems to be do not ever stop if it can at all be avoided, and its corollary, avoid slowing down. Thus we have people wanting to turn right (left) who won’t stop and wait for a gap in traffic, they just turn right (left) and drive along the edge of the road on the wrong side of the road waiting for an opportunity to finally zoom over on the proper side of the road. I have seen people 2-3 blocks later still driving down the wrong side of the road who haven’t yet been able to get over. (Had they stopped and waited there was a big gap in the traffic coming up but since they couldn’t wait, they end up following the crowd and can’t get over.)

This of course produces hazards for others. As you drive innocently down the road on the proper side you may have to squeeze uncomfortably close between those right-turners driving down the wrong side of the road and people in the oncoming traffic who are in a big hurry and swing way out into your lane to pass someone.

Passing is wild too. People pass on the right and on the left. A wise driver never swerves because you never know what might be coming up behind you in a big hurry. While vehicles here do come equipped with turn signals, it appears to be optional as to whether you use them. And even if they are on there's no guarantee that the correct signal is on. You must learn to read minds as to whether the vehicle ahead of you or in the oncoming traffic is planning to turn and you must keep your foot near the brake at all times as precious seconds count when you guess wrong.

There are several traffic lights in town now too. The lights rarely all function and with the constant blackouts, they often don’t function at all. From observation, it appears that a yellow light is mere decoration. A red light means keep going as long as somebody ahead of you is still going. You don’t want to be the first vehicle stopped at a light. People turning right (left) tend to start turning from half a block back cutting across the oncoming traffic’s lane and pose serious hazards to the first vehicle stopped at the red light since they nearly get clipped by the folk turning.
In addition, people waiting at a red light to turn right (left) typically start a new right (left) turn lane on the oncoming traffic’s side of the line. Usually this is just motorbikes but sometimes even cars will do it. As you can imagine, this can cause serious traffic blockages as the oncoming traffic has to squeeze through what’s left of their lane. Last Friday I had to sit through three cycles of red lights because of this type of gridlock. And this is NOT a big city.

This behavior is not just young high school kids. I have seen government workers in uniform do the same. I have even seen policemen do it. And it is not my imagination, I have talked to several others (natives) who see the same things I do and complain about it.

Several years ago before the internet was very common in SE Asia I used to have to babysit a computer that would receive an international phone call every night some time after 10pm with the bundled email for our office. We had the only phone with a modern line capable of receiving digital signals with minimal garbling. I had to make sure the computer was on and booted up and then would wait for the call and make sure the info was completely downloaded before turning it off. While waiting I would play games that were installed on it. I remember noticing at the time that playing the games had noticeably improved my manual dexterity which had sort of gotten rusty after several years of village living. I think it was also helpful in improving hand eye coordination and helping me in my driving now especially as I try to anticipate moving targets, etc. My impression: a certain amount of video gaming may be beneficial for driving!

Addenda 4-30-09 It occurred to me the other day that the basic thing going on is that people drive like they walk. People on foot do not stop, nor do they bother with lanes or staright lines, they just walk around obstructions and cut across to where ever they are going, whenever there’s an opening at whatever angle it takes, but they never stop walking.

Avoiding dengue fever--

It is 8:15pm and the temperature in my room has finally dropped to 90 degrees. Earth Day or Hour or whatever it was has passed and we DID have power so I spent it sitting in front of the fan! (I'm off to the village tomorrow seeking some slightly cooler place.)

I am teaching a class on cross cultural communication and one thing we talked about is how people can see the same event and have very different perceptions of it. Or people have the same experience and interpret it very differently. Today when I arrived to teach I was almost overcome by the strong chemical/pesticide smell. The place I teach is a large school complex with several hundred students from kindergarten through high school and college. Apparently government workers had been by earlier in the day and sprayed for mosquitos for the prevention of dengue fever. They sprayed while all the kids were present. Some of the children had vomited.

Not only was I practically gagging at the odor myself, I was horrified that they had sprayed with the kids all there running around. All sorts of questions flood my mind - do they not know that the spray is poisonous? Why don't they spray in the afternoon or on a weekend? I wondered if the sprayers even take any protective measures themselves? Etc.

But I was apparently the only one who was upset. Everyone else just laughed or said that that was just the way they do it here.

I suppose so. Just like the article I read recently which said gold miners on a neighboring island sometimes rub mercury all over their skin to make them strong....

Earth Day

There's a lot of hype out there about Earth Day and save mother earth, yadda, yadda, yadda, by turning off the lights for an hour. Yeah, yeah, go have your candlelit dinner if you like but as for me, if the power is on, I do NOT plan to turn the lights off!

It’s 8:35am and 85 degrees. The power is still on but the internet has died. It is best in the morning or late at night, perhaps due to high demand or some system of business prioritization. Or maybe the power is off at the phone company.

I have now taught three days of Cross-Cultural Communication, of which I know nothing. I really need to learn to just say “no” to some of these requests! I have materials but no real idea how to use them or where I’m going with the class. It’s all complicated by my own fighting against the environment. The heat and humidity have been rugged. It is hot in the day and muggy at night with several-hour long downpours at night. The electricity is often off more than it is on, especially in the daytime. So, no fan to counteract the heat. It’s a wonder my skin hasn’t rotted off yet since it is rarely dry. My face and neck in particular just run with sweat until the front of my blouse is as wet as a slobbering baby’s.

I teach at high noon so am hot and bothered when I arrive. I try to get there early so I can sit and cool off but of course it takes quite awhile to cool off when it’s over 90. Being endocrinally challenged doesn’t help. And I have to dress professionally AND wear a jacket while on the motorbike. Overheating is unavoidable and to a large extent untreatable.

At the house where I am staying, when the power comes on you jump up and plug the water pump in. Then you run around filling things, washing clothes and dishes, maybe cooking while you’re at it to take advantage of there being water. Sweating profusely all the while. You also need to remember to charge all the accoutrements of modern living such as cellphones and computers. If you remember, you can reset the wireless internet and check your email. The pump no longer has automatic turn-off so you have to keep an eye on it and go unplug it when you aren’t actually filling anything. There’s an automatic washing machine here which is incredibly slow filling. To save the pump, I’ve been filling buckets and helping the machine fill. Then you go unplug the pump while the machine washes. When it’s ready to rinse you go plug the pump in again, fill buckets, etc. For this week I am the only one here so I do it all.

When the power goes off I can work on my computer until both batteries are drained – usually 2-3 hours. Then I just lay on the tile floor and try to stay still and cool off a bit. I have an MP3 player and have been listening to various pre-recorded radio broadcasts and talks and lectures so it’s not been a total waste of time. At least you don’t need a light to do that.

And yet, I also have to count my blessings. I am staying at a clean house that actually can get some cross breeze in the afternoon. It is safe, the roof doesn’t leak. I am only teaching once a day. I do not have to dress up and go out to any social events in the dark in the evenings. There IS a water pump and a washing machine, I do not have to hand pump and hand wash like I would in the village. There are screens on the windows so it is fairly mosquito- and fly-free. I have money to buy food. I only have to cook and wash for one, not for a whole family.

So go ahead and turn off your lights if you wish, but as for me, I'm all FOR leaving the lights on!

Competition of the mosques

It is 5:01am. There is a bass voice rumbling on with a lot of vibrato coming from the neighborhood mosque. The call to prayer, judging by the dull moan in the background from all over the rest of the city, was around 4:41am. But the mosque next door seems to be on a different time table than everyone else. It started sounding at least an hour before that, I didn’t check the clock but probably before 4am. Then its call to prayer was at least 10 minutes before the rest of the mosques. It is now continuing on with more chanting. The last several evenings too they have had an hour of chanting before the 6pm call to prayer in which a man calls out something and a couple of women’s voices then repeat it. It is very repetitious in intonation and cadence, almost trance-producing.

Mosque noises have always intrigued me because, except for Friday noon sermons, they are rarely intelligible and so I wonder who it is for. Presumably they are speaking Arabic but of course since hardly anybody knows any Arabic, they could be just making it up. Apparently it is sacreligious to use an intelligible language. I remember reading about a guy in another part of the country who was teaching people to pray in the national language and was thrown in jail for defaming the religion. Perhaps it is thought that they are speaking to God. If so, it is wondrously easy to talk to God in this day and age of electronic recordings. Indeed, if God likes hearing it, one wonders why they don’t just play it all day and all night? (Maybe the neighborhood mosque is on a campaign to do just that!)

I always look at it as basically a city-wide alarm clock to waken the faithful and unfaithful alike with the hope that they’ll crawl out of the sack and do their ritual. Most people can roll over and go back to sleep after the call to prayer, which in itself is beautiful in a mournful sort of way. But this hour of pre-call to prayer and the 30 minute post-call to prayer vibrato stuff was too much for me today. That is why I am up on the internet writing this.

A few years ago a professor, who is also of said faith, was commenting on a recent spate of increased noise and said that some mosque operators seem to think God is deaf. So I gather that there is currently another competition going on between the various “denominations”. My hypothesis is that our neighborhood mosque belongs to one of the newer varieties and not to the traditional variety most common in this area and perhaps seeks to win over more adherents by showing that it is more holy via its noise campaign. Certain people might indeed find that attractive because after all, maybe holiness can rub off on you, and a person can’t have too much holiness when facing Judgement Day.

Rumblings

A friend from the second of my worlds texted yesterday morning and said they had just had a strong earthquake. She had been out in the rice field spraying when it hit. She said there was a loud rumble with it and it was so strong it knocked her to her knees. She said the local elementary school kids were outside at the time having a flag ceremony and when the quake hit they just scattered, running home crying. Schools were cancelled the rest of the day. She didn't have any news at that point as to any structural damage or whether the hot springs in the next village burst open again.

Amazing what you can do with modern technology - I looked it up right away on the internet at IRIS Seismic and there it was already posted, a 5.7 with a center 20km south of town - just about exactly where my friend lives! So I texted her the info. Two friends in the nearby town said they were okay, that schools had been cancelled but people weren't panicking and running for the hills in fear of a tsunami or anything. No further news so apparently all is well.