So today (begun Thursday, May 5th) begins as a recuperation day from a brilliant vacation I’m just returning from. You know how you always wish that you have a few days off from life after a powerful vacation – but it always seems like you have to jump straight into work, or whatever you have to do? Well, I’ve got that day or three. It’s lovely. I’ve got a really substantial block of time off really. I only came back because my travel partner had to be back. We had a great time.
As you can see, it was an absolute textbook paradise location (sans the litter problem that you will see in a soon-to-follow picture). Still undeveloped for the most part, and even required using dirt roads to get from the main city on the island to any points otherwise. It was an absolute dream. We saw so many things there that were interesting. We saw fishing villages, classic markets, highways of sand. It was brilliant.
I simply can’t get over how much beauty is here JUXTAPOSED by the complete disregard for health and cleanliness that I see around sometimes. Like we got to this gorgeous fishing village on the southern tip, and we could see all these beautiful boats that were floating in the sunset. We looked and and were awestruck, then looked down at our feet and saw trash on the sand as far as the eye could see, and oil covering the water’s edge where the children played. It was humbling. These kids had to play in oil-encrusted waters with trash around, or nothing. Broke kids. No video games here. These were simple folk. You can play in the water, you can get your food from the water. You mix it with beer, and call it a day.
There is a comment that someone shared that put it in perspective – that the Vietnamese people are in their industrial revolution right now – that I should consider what happened to the US from the 1870′s to the 1930′s in order to grasp the mentality of what people were doing with the environment. Growth, rapid growth is the rule. Plastics in the water be damned… Anybody remember the story about Lake Eire catching on fire?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,948661,00.html
This resulted in the Clean Water Act of 1972. Maybe something like that will happen here. Who knows? I need clean air yo.
So anyway (post continued May 11th), I’ve been spinning a new web of creativity around an idea or two, and am enjoying the time here how I can – thing is, I consistently get bitten by the stomach bugs, ants and urge to travel… Documents, documents, documents…
How I could do with fewer of them…
But I’m staying busy – It’s finals week for my tenth graders – who are really fun kids by the way.
…who are expecting me to give more of a speaking test tomorrow. Lots of testing. maybe some teaching in the middle if I can pull it off… We’ll get there… I just downloaded a bunch of Shakespeare for them… Rilke’s Letters, and gave music to them after their last test. I like giving prizes away. That way, everybody has more cool stuff. Anyway, gotta take a nap.
Time to publish some data!
Enjoy!!
(oh yea, and Flat Stanley can be seen on the wall behind the students and me, tacked to the bulletin board.)’(
