A Mother's Love

I should be paying my bills. Instead, I'm blogging. I don't write for weeks and then I go hog wild. Go figure.

I don't know how to embed this video from the New York Times, so just click on the link and watch, ok?

Doors of Bhutan

I walked 150 high altitude miles of Bhutan's Himalayas in October, through snow, rain, mud, glacial moraine, yak stampedes, over high passes, and saw some of the most beautiful remote landscape in the world. What did I come home with? Pictures of doors and windows and dzongs and children. In this isolated part of the world where buildings are white washed mud and stone, the doors and windows are splashed with color.


Know what the most common response was when I said I was going to walk Bhutan?

You guessed it -- "Where is Bhutan?"

Well, it's a small Buddhist Himalaya kingdom bounded by Tibet on the north and India on the other three sides. The geography is so difficult Bhutan was never conquered or colonized. Mountain climbing was not allowed. Tourists visas were difficult to obtain. Smoking is not allowed. By law, 60% of the country must be covered by forest. Until not long ago, Bhutan was essentially a medieval agrarian society. Most of the people probably didn't know about "us" until television and Internet was allowed in 1999. And so the culture remained fairly pure.


In the 1980's His Majesty King Jigme Singye Wangchuk introduced his goal and philosophy for the country: Gross National Happiness (GNH). Success measured by the people's happiness, not the gross national product, or shopping, or material acquisition.

He envisioned bringing the country into modernity based on Four Pillars - economic growth and development, preservation of their cultural heritage, preservation of the environment, and good governance based on integrity, efficiency, accountability and transparency.


In December 2006, the king abdicated to his son, Jigme Khesar Namgeyl Wangchuk, 26 years old, Oxford educated, and single - the world's youngest head of state who is supervising the transition to a democracy with a constitutional monarchy. A few weeks ago, elections were held for the upper parliament. The oldest elected parliamentarian is 45 years old, and most are in their 20's and 30's.


The next elections in March will form the lower parliament, and Bhutan will be on its way to a westernized democracy with a goal of happiness for its people.


Sound like Shangri-La?


At the end of January, about two weeks ago and a few days after the March elections were announced, the country experienced a series of bomb blasts believed set off by Nepali militants. It seems that in the early '90's, the Bhutan authorities, in a type of ethnic cleansing, stripped citizenship from Hindu Bhutanese who were Nepalese in origin. About 100,000 fled or were forced to leave the country. Most crossed the border to Nepal and still live in refugee camps. An agreement between Nepal and the US last year to resettle 60,000 Bhutan refugees in the United States created more conflict with those who believed they should be allowed to return to Bhutan. The conditions have been fertile ground for Maoists and communist groups to foment militantism in the camps and the bombings appear related to disrupting the elections.


Are you asking yourself, is that what I think it is?

Yes, two large, hairy penises. In Bhutan the penis is a symbol of good luck, and they are everywhere. It is not unusual to come across a guest house or restaurant, like this one in an idyllic 13,000' village, and be welcomed by twin dicks. Or to go to the village spring and have to collect water out of a penis shaped pipe.

The doors of Bhutan are opening. Wishes for Good Luck and Happiness to them as they let us into their world.

Making Schools, Not War

Kathie and her family visited us here in Charleston over Christmas. As always, we had such a good time! It was so nice to finally meet Isabella, a proud and strong little woman of 5.

Isabella and her mom stayed at Jessie's house and Kathie stayed with Kelly and me. Of course, Kathie cooked for us - some yummy shrimp scampi that she just "threw" together one evening and a wonderful moussaka for Christmas Day. (We like to have international menus for Christmas.)

While she was here, Kathie and I went to see the movie "Charlie Wilson's War", starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. This is how Fandango describes the movie, which is based on a true story: "Charlie Wilson, an alcoholic womanizer and Texas congressman, persuaded the CIA to train and arm resistance fighters in Afghanistan to fend off the Soviet Union. With the help of rogue CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos, the two men supplied money, training and a team of military experts that turned the ill-equipped Afghan freedom-fighters into a force that brought the Red Army to a stalemate. However, the result also empowered the Taliban and terrorists including Osama bin Laden."

The part this description leaves out is the ending (and if you haven't seen the movie but plan to, skip the rest of this paragraph). With the help of American dollars appropriated by our Congress at the request of Charlie Wilson, the Afghanis have driven the Soviets from their country. Charlie is shown meeting with a US congressional committee to request more money, only this time the money is for educating the Afghanis. His request is turned down.

Hmmm.

Kathie gave me two terrific gifts for Christmas - a Crate and Barrel gift card (ooh, they have cool stuff!) and a Netflix subscription. The first movie I selected for my queue was "Syriana". Yes, the movie's a few years old but I had never seen it, even though George Clooney and Matt Damon star in it (two of my "boyfriends", as Kathie calls her favorite hunky-boy actors, singers, whatever).

FYI - "Syriana" is loosely based on Robert Baer's memoir See No Evil, an account of his time in the CIA.

When the DVD showed up in my mailbox a couple of days later, I ripped it open and watched it. Chaos and confusion! There are at least four story lines going on in Syriana, a bit like "Crash". I finished watching the movie, thought about it overnight, then decided to look it up on Wikipedia. Armed with a better understanding of the individual plots, I watched the movie again. My confusion was much reduced this time - but not completely!

The subplot that I did understand from the very beginning was the one about the two young Pakistani men who are laid off from their jobs in an oil field (Iranian?) that has just been bought by a Chinese company. This is how Wikipedia describes it: "Since the company has provided food and lodging, the workers face the threat of poverty and deportation due to their unemployed status. Wasim desperately searches for work. Wasim and his friend join an Islamic school to learn Arabic in an effort to improve their employment prospects. While playing soccer, they meet a charismatic blue-eyed Muslim fundamentalist cleric, who eventually leads them to execute a suicide attack on a Connex-Killen LNG tanker using a shaped-charge explosive from the missing Tehran missile." OK, so that last bit about the missile is from one of the other plots. Keep up.

So, all the young Pakistani guys really wanted was a job.

Hmmm.

When I talked with Kathie the weekend after Christmas, she mentioned a book that all of San Diego is reading this year, entitled Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. I just finished reading it last night. If you read only one book this year, make sure this is the one. And be sure to buy it from Amazon through this link. Essentially, this New York Times bestseller is about a mountain climber/RN who has dedicated his life to building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Well into the book, he talks about how some kids in these countries have been drawn in to extremist Islamic schools - simply because there are no other schools available.

Double hmmmm.

Back in September of 2001, I talked with a nun friend about the horrific World Trade Center catastrophe. I expressed to her my concern that, in our pain and shock, we would skip a collective soul search for underlying causes and pass right on to a kneejerk military reaction. After all, "What would Jesus do?" I asked her.

Sister Renee, who lives in Philadelphia and works with people who lost relatives and friends in the Trade Centers, responded that the Catholic Church recognizes "justifiable war". As much as I respected her, and maybe because of my respect, I was sorely disappointed by her answer.

I guess I'll read another of Kathie's recommendations next: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.