How short (and long) a year can be.

It's hard to believe it was a year ago I was playing with pincers on my birthday. I'm curious to see what sort of day will start the next year...

Last year's beginning:
http://vagabondurges.com/2013/07/25/is-that-a-good-start-or-a-bad-one-jungle-birthday-part-2/

Weirdos in the woods....gotta love 'em.

From the files

What is it about redwood trees? “Tree hugger” used to be a term of mockery, perhaps still is in certain misguided areas, but anyone who spends enough time around redwood trees will see nothing silly in the idea of grabbing one for a good hug. I didn’t feel an urge to grab one at the moment, but was definitely feeling the love as I walked in among them on Saturday, the air almost as warm as my lady’s hand held in mine.

When I had told her I was going to be in Venezuela for my birthday, she’d scowled at me, then said “Fine, but I reserve the weekend before you leave!” So here we were, heading out for a picnic for two among the redwoods.

I didn’t appreciate the character of a redwood forest until I spent time in tropical rainforests. In the latter, you have to hack every footstep through biting ants and slicing vines. It’s a different form of beauty, still stunning, but the dense undergrowth pushes in on you as aggressively as the traffic of the city, Bangkok, Bhaktapur, Bogota, and every breath pushes in and out of you with the urgency of competition.

Peace signs and prayer flags?
Yeah, redwood have that effect on people. (file)

But in a redwood forest? The ground between the trees is shaded by the benevolent canopy above, and the earth is soft with duff and dust, clover and moss. Nothing in the undergrowth wants to bite you or bleed you. You can see the swells of the landscape, the architectural foundation for the cathedral of trees rising above, and the air is amiable and easy. You’ve found a sanctuary, everything is happy you came, and the greens soak rejuvenation into your soul.

We meandered into the trees, avoided a cluster of tables decorated with princess party paraphernalia, then swung again around a cluster of trees where a family seemed to be ducking down among the sprouts. People are weird. But I assumed they had a reason, probably letting some kid pee or something, so I nodded vaguely without looking closely in a polite gesture to say “I see you there, being weird, but that's okay, carry on.”

Then we came around the tree and the people stood up and approached us. Was this going to be a problem? Hadn't they seen my nod of live-and-let-weirdos-live?

Then I noticed something else: I knew these people. All of them. Childhood friends and new ones, a brother a sister a newly-met cousin, my parents for god's sake. All smiling, all wearing goofy glasses and tiara's saying “Happy Birthday!” with silver sparkles.

Oh.

No time for photos, I grabbed two on my way back
from the bathroom, and went back to the party

Oh my.

Surprise party? For me? In the redwoods?

...speechless...

I confessed in a previous post that I’m not always comfortable with accepting love, but here was a group of people from various avenues of my life, making sure I knew they’d come for me. It… I…

I appreciate it. I felt it. I accepted it.

“Happy birthday!” they said, and meant it. “Were you really surprised? But you looked right at me....and nodded!”

“I thought you were peeing!”

Veggie burgers and tri-tip on the grill, delicious homebrew beer, card games, football flying, dogs wagging their tails, humans telling their tales, and family, friends, and loved ones all spent a few hours among the trees.

Wherever I am in Venezuela on the formal date of my birthday, I'll be able to smile at the gift I was already given, a little pocket of redwood tree time of love and friendship that weighs nothing, but anchors me anyway.

Good birthday.

Should I go to Venezuela?

Should I go to Venezuela?

The most volatile nation in South America, it’s on my List of Places Too Dangerous to Travel in Without Appropriate Precaution or Assistance. What, you don’t have your own LPTDTWAPA?

My LPTDTWAPA at the moment: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Mauritania, Nigeria, Libya, and Central African Republic. Sorta North Korea I guess. Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, and a couple small parts of Mexico.

Checking El Salvador off that list felt great, like reclaiming part of the world. Now I have the opportunity to go to Venezuela with Witness for Peace Southwest, and Altruvistas, both organizations I feel privileged to have access to. (And who increase the hope of achieving the ultimate goal of tourism: to help the destination...but more about that soon.)

Another reason to go? More chances at getting wee articles published, so it would be good in a professional sense.

Another reason to go? It’s frickin beautiful. Which is enough by itself, but also means it could be a great opportunity in terms of photography.

Another reason to go? As with Cuba, Venezuela represents one of the all-too-few remaining countries that do things in a manner other than ruthless capitalism.

Another reason to go? Meet cool new people (because who but cool people would go on a tour like this?)

Next door in Colombia, I miss the air at that latitude

Another reason to go? The things I can learn, from the people I meet, the places we go, and the other people on the trip.

Another reason to go? It’s actually cheaper than the listed price.

Another reason to go? I want to.

So why wouldn’t I go? The potential danger isn't an obstacle, but what is?

I’ve finally admitted the fact (that was pretty obvious to everyone else) that I was endlessly traveling to escape from certain parts of life. Would I be doing that still?

Answer: It’s only 10 days. Ergo: no.

I've been struggling with this one...

Any other reason? Well...the trip happens to encompass my birthday. That’s convenient and inconvenient. It’s kind of fun for me because it would mean the sixth year in a row having my birthday overseas.

The problem? One of the other realizations I’ve finally admitted to (it’s been a busy year) is that I have...trouble...accepting...love. From other people. (Dogs are good to go.)

This is a longer issue, but as someone told me the other day “Your birthday is a day for other people to express their love for you.”

It made me all...squirmy. And I had to admit that the thought of NOT being here on my birthday was something of a relief, since I would get to avoid the potential let-downs and awkwardness that can come with that day.

Sounds like a challenge. And I am dedicated to not running from challenges anymore. So, suddenly, whether or not to go is a more difficult question than it was before.

So what do you think? Should I go to Venezuela?

(There's a poll on the wordpress version of this post.)

Memories from Andros

I came of age in a two week ceremony of illicit rum, charismatic tarantulas, and a desperate wispy crush on a lithe girl named Molly. She broke my heart with innocence, but still we drifted over coral reefs, hand in hand, shy smiles letting water into our snorkeling masks.

I have no pictures of my own from then,
but was somewhere above Coakley Town

One of The World'sTen Best Ethical Destinations for 2014 is the Bahamas, and I missed most of what they said about it (60% of the country's GDP comes from tourism), lost in a Caribbean drift of recollection.

I owe eternal thanks to my high school English teacher and a science teacher I never had, but who somehow knew of me anyway, for nominating me for the Student Challenge Award, in cooperation with Earthwatch, an organization that connects volunteers with scientific researchers around the world.

In my application essay I mentioned my obsession with sharks, and made some comment about being willing to go to Hawaii. The example expeditions were in Oregon, Nevada, and Vallejo, swell places to be sure, but I thought I was being a tad roguish by mentioning somewhere as tropically idyllic as Hawaii. Turns out I wasn't aspiring high enough.

They sent me on an all-expenses-paid two week research trip to an untouristed town in the Bahamas, where we tested samples of sea sponges for antiviral and antibacterial properties (did you know sea sponges basically don't get sick?), sampled and measured the chemical properties of water taken from various depths of the country's picturesque blue holes, and accompanied a botany class from George Mason University on their field walks through the jungle. I remember their professor was infatuated with orchids, and reminded me of a charismatic Hemingway.

We tagged butterflies for population estimates, gathered garbage off a remote beach to help study ocean currents, and heard some living history from a village witch doctor with projectile teeth no one noticed, since we were busy not looking at the two gigantic goiters throbbing and wobbling on her neck.

The woman, speaking Caribbean English that had to be translated by our program director, had prescribed herself a local herb as an antidote to a curse placed on her by a jealous rival. It worked against the curse, but also blocked her iodine absorption, so now she carried two ripe flesh mangoes below her jaw.

The curses of obeah, a Caribbean variant of voodoo, are not to be trifled with. She also told us about a local millionaire, who, flush with the invincibility of the hyper-wealthy in a developing nation, raped a local girl then went on vacation. Little did he know that this girl's mother was an obeah priestess, and as he was disembarking from his private plane on the runway in Miami, a powerful wind of obeah justice blew him off the steps and into the propeller.

We stopped staring at her goiters and listened respectfully after that. (And drove home past his former mansion, reclaimed by the jungle, but which had stood unlooted for years, the expensive possessions within tainted by the curse, until a hurricane was deemed to have cleansed it.)

That trip was my first non-family-vacation overseas experience, and exposed me to many of the truths that have delighted and sustained me since then. The incomparable succulence of local food eaten in situ after a long hot day of whatevering. The powerful appeal of foreign cultures, languages, and customs. And the brazen hospitality of people who have so little, by western standards of wealth, but who smile wider, brighter, and more frequently than any of us in the “First” World.

Poor arrogant First Worlders. First to what, exactly? First in line to work long hours to buy stuff we don't need? Come to de islan, dey goin show you what is impotant.

My experience on the incomparable isle of Andros, in a town so small they hadn't decided whether it was spelled Stanyard Creek or Staniard, was an intense one, which makes it all the more bizarre that the seed of wanderlust it sowed was dormant for nearly ten years. Instead I worked long hours...to buy stuff I didn't need. Hell, I didn't even do that, I worked long hours to foster a bank account I didn't use.

How tragically responsible of me.

But now, with a few more stamps in my passport, I can sit back and remember that trip, blow a kiss to Molly, taste the coconut rice and freshly caught fish, and laugh at the typically ridiculous kid I was when I bought one of those colorful woven Jamaican/rasta/Bob Marley beanies and wore it home like it was the new me. (I still have it, in the suitcase where I store my extra stuff when I'm abroad. I've never worn it since but can't throw it away. Anybody want it?)

I remember heat lightning in the distance at night, land rover rides through the jungle when the trees sprang up again behind us when we finished running them over, and the endless rubber chewiness of conch fritters, served in the house of a town leader, because we needed a third place to eat in our rotation, and the town only had two restaurants.

Wendy, one of the locals who helped us out, made me the cake for my eighteenth birthday. I don't remember what I wished for as I blew those candles out, but in that place, with those people, there really wasn't a need to ask for more.

Just your average jungle birthday

I'm not sure when midnight snuck by in the near-perfect darkness to officially begin my birthday, but I'm guessing it had already started when I got up, back sore from the bare wood planks of my bunk, to chase the cute little rodent out of our food bag.

I listened to the multi-layered cacophony of insects outside the large wooden room, knowing we were surrounded by them in our hide, about 30 feet up into the canopy of Taman Negara in Malaysia, the world's oldest rainforest. A 130 million year old forest has a way of putting a human lifespan into perspective.

Knowing it was pointless, my eyes rolled over in the direction where I'd seen the massive spider before going to bed. As always in jungles, it was the size of my open hand, and hairy, but this one was interesting since three of its legs were skinnier and shinier.

Arne-the-German and I agreed that it had probably lost the legs somehow and was growing new ones. Amazing little undoubtedly venomous beastie. After a day spent hopping leeches and various skittering things, the backs of my eyelids were a montage of insectile legs, half-seen as they skittered about.

But since I was awake now anyway, I used Arne's bizarrely powerful flashlight to look for critters in the semi-open space in front of the hide. A few days ago some bird watchers saw a tapir at 3:00 AM.

But no eyes glittered back at me, just fireflies drooping around the thick foliage, like stars on listless vacation from their nightly performance, so I lay back down on the bird-poop-spotted boards. My head on the meagre pillow of my rolled up shirt, I could feel the gap in the boards against the back of my head.

It was silly of me to wait for the second rodent visit to move the food bag. This time Arne woke up, sitting half upright on his luxurious 1 cm mat, to look into the eyes of the little fella, about two feet away from him.

“Vas is das?” You only speak your mother tongue when you're that sleepy.

His question woke the two English girls on the other side of the small room. “What's going on?” The nervous one asked.

“Nothing. Just a little mouse. No worries.” I reassured them. “It's all good.”

Apparently I was soothing enough, because even the twitchy one went back to sleep until morning, when we shared the remnants of our backpacker buffet for breakfast. My peanuts were a big hit again, both roasted and spicy-something coated.

We avoided the crackers, given how thirsty they make you and the fact that they were drinking shallow-creek water, which was pretty murky even after purification and clarification tablets. I was more worried about purifying the healthy bacteria right out of my system, so stuck to the water I brought.

We decided the two styrofoam containers of noodles that the girls brought were no longer a safe bet at their ripe old age of 24 warmly humid hours.
We were each taking different routes back to civilization, so we fared each other well and set off.

Just a nice easy walk back to town now...

Happy rebirthday, it's going to change your life.

When I turned 32 a couple weeks ago it wasn't a big deal, I was happy with a good navratan korma. But K's birthday yesterday...now that was a big deal. She turned....dumdumDUM...27!

Warning: my opinion to follow is a simplification/mis-statement of the "Saturn Return" in astrology, and/or the "sade sati" in Hindu Astrology, and/or probably other things, but you can please forgive me, and/or google those, and/or marvel at the transcultural unity of human experience. (I recommend all three.)

You're born. Your stars are perfectly aligned. As a child you just are yourself, and that's sublimely enough. You play with everyone, you eat what you want, cry when you want, and do what you want (within the bounds of parenting and circumstance of course). You just sort of wander around, learning every second (unless you're watching TV) and growing in every way.

13.5ish you hit puberty. My apologies. You pick a social archetype and cram yourself into it. Skater, Student, Artist, Stoner, Athlete, Hippy, Comedian, Beauty, Goth, whatever, choose your label and try to fit it, you poor tragic bastard. You play with those who chose compatible labels, eat what your archetype eats, and have whatever attitudes came in your prepackaged personality starter kit.

Personally, at 12-13 I started paying attention in school instead of entertaining my classmates, started running, and (hopefully) started treating people better. (I still owe a massive karmic debt to Blaine G, the kid I used to beat up in elementary school. I'm sorry Blaine!)

27ish (i.e. 13.5ish years later) you get This Thing. There's no arrival of acne, menses, facial hair, or any of that overt stuff, so it's harder to notice, but it's puberty 2.0, baby. Except with one major difference. Puberty sucks. This Thing is awesome.

If you're over 27, at that age did you start/end a relationship, get married, go back to school, have kids, start/quit a job? It's not everyone's path, and would be an oversimplification to assert otherwise, but there does seem to be a certain something...

For my part, I was a bit of a late bloomer, taking 27 to prepare, but quitting my job, dumping most of my possessions and heading to Europe on a one-way ticket early in 28 to discover this whole Traveling thing. Other cultures, places, and experiences. Homelessness by choice. The vulnerability and invincibility of the vagrant. (But that's another topic.)

Late 20's you STOP clinging to any vestiges of an archetype that no longer fit you. Peer Pressure doesn't influence your decisions very much (advertising and stupidity-on-a-societywide-scale are more topics for another day). You focus in and realize what you want to do, who you want to be. You can play with whoever you want, dammit, eat whatever you choose (significant difference from "want"), cry whenever you find it merited, etc.

Refreshing, isn't it? Let's go play football with the Nerds, smoke pot with the Students, and apply for graduate school with the Stoners.

But wait, there's more. Much better would be to divide each of those phases in the middle, and make it ~7 year cycles.

At 7ish I got a proper bicycle and began exploring the world around me with some degree of independence (this was the Good Old Days when we weren't as afraid of each other). At 20 I had fully left my childhood home and set up one of my own, entering into my first mature romantic relationship.

Increments of 7 do a better job of explaining the "27 Club" of musicians who die at that age; maybe they experienced that last phase so deeply and addictively that the tacit/subconscious feeling of its ending was unacceptable, or maybe unnecessary.

The Saturn Return of Astrology is about this, tying in to Saturn's orbit, though that takes 29.4 years (so yay! We're overachievers!) The Hindu sati sade on the other hand is structured around a circuit of 7.5 years. Darn those Indians, first yoga, now this? They think of all the answers. (Then forget them, but that too is another topic.)


To Sum Up.

Phase 1 (0-7ish): Childhood. You're a child, learning and just being one of those. Toys, cake, and swimming pools!
Phase 1.5 (7-14ish): Advanced Childhood. Your personality is emerging more strongly, in rough draft form, fits and starts.

Phase 2 (14-20ish): Adolescence: You diferentiate from everyone else...well, a large percentage of everyone else, anyway. Fun, horrible, exciting, terrifying, boring, exhilarating, and of course: confusing.
Phase 2.5 (2-27ish): Young adulthood. You have calmed down from the vicissitudes of puberty. Your perceptions, conversations, and relationships improve and clarify. Golden Years.

Phase 3 (27ish-?): Adulthood: You have figured out who you are and can make your own choices. The bullshit habits fall away. Your plumage is bright and beautiful. Congratulations, the music is for you. (Kinda makes me wonder what happens at 40ish. Gives more validity to the often-maligned Midlife Crisis, no? Maybe all those red convertibles aren't just about declining libidos and bald spots...)

So I propose a great Cosmic Toast to K, and to all the 27ish year olds (+/- 7.5 year increments). Happy rebirthday!

For my birthday I want...Ecuador.

First thing this morning there were some strangers singing to me in bed.

Luckily I heard K as she came up the stairs say to them “it’s my boyfriend’s birthday” and “can you open the door for me?” so I had time to sit up before my serenading began. It was a fantastic way to start the day.

From there we moved straight into big bowls of fresh fruit we bought at the market yesterday. Strawberries, grapes, and uchuvas, straight from the small hands of tiny indigenous women in bowler hats. Those three officially make my favorite fruit salad. Add some natural yogurt and surprisingly good granola, with a cup of hot tea on the side, and my day was made before I even got out of bed.

It was a nice slow morning, finishing the last book of the Hunger Games. (I didn’t set out to read them, but in a sequence of unbelievable luck we encountered each one precisely when we wanted it on hostel or restaurant shelves, free of charge. I have never seen K get as into a book as she does when reading these ones, and I openly admit that I enjoyed them too.)

The morning was so relaxing that the candle in the bathroom fit right in, and it took me a minute to realize the power was out. It was still out at noon, when I was supposed to skype with my mother, so we went electricity hunting in Cuenca. Unsuccessfully.

But the sun was out in strength, and the breeze was precisely calibrated to complement it, so we ensconced ourselves at a coffeeshop table, despite the handsome barista’s warning that they had no service due to the power outage, and I spent a comfortable hour on a project I’m working on. When the barista yelled “woohoo!” I knew the power was back on, though the cars continued to blaze right through the now active stoplights. (Driving here, as in seemingly all “developing countries”, deserves its own post.)

I got to talk to my mother and K’s folks, and was feeling the birthday groove.

Then we had a delicious vegetarian set lunch for two bucks that fueled a pleasant afternoon wander around a new part of the city. Cuenca is a beautiful place, with colonial architecture and an Andean flavor that earned it UNESCO World Heritage status in 1996. The architecture, cathedral, and passion for desserts make Cuenca wonderful, but it is the people who make it extraordinary.

Literally within the first hour of arriving in Cuenca two days ago, K and I stopped to take a picture of a lock, as we do, and were hailed by a distinguished gentleman who invited us into his shop. We are well versed in turning down such entreaties, but something about this silver-haired senor could not be resisted. An artist of note, Gustavo showed us some of his work, and along with his wife, showered us with more hospitality than we’ve experienced all trip.

I have been unbelievably blessed with hospitality while traveling (a bow with my forehead on the floor to the temporary homes I’ve found in Nepal, Seattle, Belgium, Hungary, Scotland, Spain, and Zambia) but this was a unique experience. Here was someone who met us on the street, had no connection or relationship with us whatsoever, and within a few minutes I had his name, business info, and contact number, plus those of his sons, on a card in my shirt pocket, an apparently honest invitation to call any time for anything, a standing offer to stop by again any time for a cup of coffee, and an invite to join the family on Friday night to blend my birthday to their celebration of his daughter’s Master’s Degree graduation.

We walked away from the workshop a tad stunned.

Yesterday as we walked around town a taxi stopped and honked at us. We are fairly inured to aggressive taxi drivers, but this seemed excessive. Then we noticed Gustavo in the front seat, reaching across to wave at us and confirm that my birthday was today, extending best wishes ahead of time, just in case.

This evening we stumbled home, podged and fighting food comas after a massive dinner of Indian food, which was delicious despite the sign advertising “flafel” in the window, and where we luckily didn’t see the cockroaches until after we ate (there was one crawling right next to that rotating meat consortium they hack at to make shwarmas…mmm…crunchy).

The notion of surmounting our blood sugar barriers and venturing out into the street again was not met with a ton of enthusiasm, but the memory of Gustavo and his wife’s genuine hospitality overcame us, plus we didn’t really expect to be able to find them anyway.

“We’ll just go to the restaurant they mentioned and see if they’re there. If not, we come home.”

We found the restaurant and peered through the window to see Gustavo’s giant smile and enthusiastic hand waving us in. The next thing I knew I was being introduced to and toasted by a long table of about 20 well-dressed Ecuadorians. I wished I’d worn that one fancy-pants shirt I brought (and not yet worn). I sat and hoped they wouldn’t notice my repair-stitching on the sleeve of my shirt and the fly of my pants, nor smell the miles I’ve walked in these sandals.

People we’ve never met seemed genuinely happy to have us at their table, where they gave us glasses of excellent wine and toasted us with smiling eyes.

Undoubtedly this family is exceptional, but I suspect they are not alone in Ecuador. The staff of the hostel makes us feel at home here, but not in the kinda creepy/clingy way they did in that one place in Bogota. And going into an antique shop yesterday we met Laura, an elderly Ecuadorian woman who married a Dutchman and spoke to us in wonderfully accented Dutch. After poking around her shop (which is also her house and a museum) for an hour, she felt like our third grandmother, and when we ran into her this afternoon all three of us were happy to see each other. I even love her dog for crying out loud.

I was impressed with Costa Ricans, and Colombians on the buses were quick to offer help. But Ecuadorans? Can I “friend” the entire country?

I turned 31 in Bhaktapur, Nepal yesterday.

I turned 31 in Bhaktapur, Nepal yesterday.  This makes a different country every birthday for the last four years.  The blessings are too many to count.

I am at peace with the gradual increase of casualness in one's birthdays as age increases.  Gone are the frantic pool parties that defined my childhood summers, and I'm okay with that.

I woke up yesterday morning 6:00 AM under the mosquito net in our room in Nepal, aspiring to gratitude for the pure exuberant fantasticosity of that statement, as every day.  And it being my birthday added an extra layer of smile.

K is arguably the most skilled person I know at making someone feel celebrated and special, and her "happy birthday" wishes and CD gift of the mantras we heard at Swayambhunath (Buddhist stupa on the hill above Kathmandu) were already gifts enough.  No more required, but more to come.

Before my cold shower (there are a few solar water heaters around here, but not many, and not on our roof) I was reminded of the reality of reality by a not-infrequent visitor on our wall, this time one of the flat spiders who move faster than an animal with legs that long really should be able to move.  I had my deodorant wrapped in a piece of paper, ready to squish it, but declined its death in homage to my Buddhist/Hindu nature.  Instead I opted to try and herd it out the door by tapping the wall next to it.

After a few up and down circuits it made a frantic dash for the door before reversing course, reaching the edge of the wall and flying off, straight down into our things.  My 8 legged friend had reminded me that just because it was one's birthday doesn't mean the world dances to your tune, all things falling into place (as of course they do every day).  I smiled and took my cold shower, which are still not easy to begin, but are by now enjoyable once I'm in.

Every morning we have tea with Saroj and Anita, our hosts at Kalika Higher Secondary School, before eating dal bhat at 9:00.  This morning they shared the birthday ritual of Sagun (no idea of spelling) which includes the gift of a hard boiled egg fried in curry spices, with cucumber and home-grown radishes (the giant white kind, not the little red guys).  They lit the Ganesh oil lamp (think Aladdin) which they daubed with the ritual red paste and an offering of the veggies placed on top for the god.

Then they blessed me with a kata, the white scarf one presents to honored guests and sometimes hosts, red flower received and placed on one's head, and tika, the red dollop of rice and coloring in the center of the forehead that one receives on special occasions or as a sign of welcoming.  I felt more blessed and welcomed and included and honored than I could hope for.

Feeling at peace and in love with the world I began walking to school.  K and I alternate schools, each teaching three days at either Kalika or Himalayan English Secondary School before switching.  (I'll post an everyday schedule and details...one of these days.)

There are no other foreigners (beyond India, Bhutan, China, and maybe Bangladesh) in our area, and at first we were continually stared at on our travels around town.  We have been here long enough that the locals seem to have gotten used to us, at least in our specific neighborhood, though they still bring their children out to greet us (especially K who they still stare at with something that looks like awe) as we pass their homes.  Tiny voices shout out "hi!", "bye-bye!", or "namaste!" and shy smiles erupt at our responses.

It was my first day at Himalayan, which began with a surprise request by the principal for me to address the entire school during their morning assembly, a couple hundred little faces peaking at me from their evenly spaced rows.

We teach six classes a day there, and my introduction to each class began with recitals of the Happy Birthday song that varied from bold and shouted (10 year olds) to shy and blushing (17 year olds).  K had advised them of my birthday, and small right hands delivered birthday cards and gifts, left hands reached across to hold the right elbow in a sign of respect.  (The left hand is impure, there is no toilet paper here...)

For dinner our absolutely amazing hosts allowed us to take them out (it took some convincing), and we ate in a garden restaurant next to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Durbar Square (palace/temple/monument area) in Bhaktapur, considered by many (including myself) to be the most beautiful of the three competing such squares in the Kathmandu Valley.  Walking there, past ancient temples and palaces, and monuments/shrines uncountable, wearing our traditional local outfits, called "kurtha" and not feeling like dumb tourists doing so, was an experience in itself that left us smiling, dumbstruck.

We feel safe here in Nepal (though we are locked in every night behind two layers of metal bars with padlocks, and there are bars on all the windows) but I would still not normally take my camera out after dark, but with our host escort and four people I did last night.  The yellow street lights at night on the streets and red brick buildings is another manifestation of the maddening beauty here that I can only helplessly observe and enjoy.  I snapped a pair of quick tries towards it, one place, and as a result, just for spice, my birthday ended with us being followed nearly home by shady characters from the shadows, Saroj, our host, putting on his stern teacher's face and walking between us and them.

My own teaching instincts made me want to advise them that following someone is much less sneaky when you shuffle with your left foot the whole time.

They were menacing enough that I moved my memory cards from the camera case into various pockets to minimize loss if they did get my bag, but in the end they gave up and melted away.

Today was a "normal" day, and yet I find myself still overflowing with gratitude.  Maybe it has something to do with the half hundred people who wished me happy birthday on facebook and email.  Doubtful/cynical as I am regarding the internet age and facebook society, that felt good, real good.

I admit that turning 31 was somewhat more perilous-feeling than turning 30 was.  (After all, now I'm IN my 30s.)  But experiencing it in circumstances this amazing, and I mean that on a global level, made it all sacred.