Walkabout with a yogi

As I am now ‘on holiday’, as you might call it, life in Singapore has changed. I am no longer a student living in student residences, but have taken up the life of a tourist, postcards and all, and am therefore resting my head in a 12-person dorm in Little India. And, yes, people snore, but it is indeed cockroach-free. Hurrah!

I now roam about map in hand, camera around my neck, bag on my back, and hat on my head thereby almost passing for a snap-happy Jap, but alas, I am tall.

Something rather peculiar happened to me on my walkabout yesterday:

For those who don’t know it, Singapore is hot. Not a ‘British tourist wearing an “I ‘heart’ Mallorca” t-shirt’ kind of heat, but a kind of heat that quite literally liquefies you until you’re nothing more than a pool of liquid-you… and I’m from Malta… I know ‘hot’!!! Or at least I thought I did. While taking a breather from the heat on my walkabout in the Colonial District yesterday, I sat down at a fountain by a rather pleasant patch of greenery, ready to fiddle about with my new camera.

Headphones in my ears, I was busy imagining ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, when a man bent down beside me waving to catch my attention while mouthing something or other. I took the headphones out of my ears and excused myself for not hearing what he said, thinking that he had asked for directions of some sort. He proceeded to kindly let me know that I’ve got a very lucky forehead and that he felt compelled to point that out to me.

Pardon?! (Mind still somewhere in Ipanema…)

Yes, I had heard him correctly the first time.

He was somewhat excited by having noticed my forehead since he hadn’t seen one like mine for a long while, especially since my luck was to be almost immediate – it would all take place this June. Now the easiest thing to assume is that this man was some kind of loon, but take a moment to picture him: an Indian man in his early thirties, presumably Sikh by the looks of his black turban, clean-shaven, dressed in a very smart pair of trousers and a well-pressed shirt, and a shiny pair of black shoes. Not your average ‘nutso’.

When he sat down next to me and told me that he was studying astrology and was at present in training for a future career in something to do with Virgo, Scorpio and Gemini, I couldn’t help but wonder whether all horoscope writers believe what they write as much as this man obviously did. He certainly seemed to be genuinely enthralled by my forehead and the good luck I’d experience in June.

He took out a leather pouch and unzipped it to reveal a mass of papers, one being a very old photo of bare-chested Indian men from about the mid-1800s I would say. He pointed to them and said, “I will become a yogi like them”, all while looking at me like I was supposed to be understanding everything he was saying. No luck. Yogi Bear is all I could come up with. (Wikipedia later let me know that a yogi is ‘a male practitioner of various forms of spiritual practice'.)

He took out a blank piece of paper, scribbled something onto it which I couldn’t see, folded it up into a tiny ball and asked me to tap my forehead and the nape of my neck with the paper and then to hold it firmly in my hand. This I did, out of curiosity more than will. He then took out another small piece of blank paper and asked me to write down my date of birth and star sign, after which he spent a few minutes telling me that I have to stop being so kind towards other people because people always take advantage of this trait, and right now there is someone (more specifically, a girl) who is consciously wishing me harm and it’s all because of my open-hearted nature and my inability to keep any part of myself a secret. I jokingly told him he had it all wrong because I’m a ‘me, myself and I’ kind of person. The joke escaped him. In retrospect, it wasn't that funny I suppose.

Well, after a few of these generic statements made about my personality he asked me to name two types of flowers, which I did (orchids and daffodils); which of these flowers I prefer (orchids); and a number, which I did (4). He then asked me to blow onto the piece of paper which I had been holding. I was told that if I was surprised by what he had written down on the paper then next month would indeed be a lucky one for me. Filled with trepidation (read: I was humouring him) I slowly unfolded the paper and low and behold the word ‘orchid’ was scrawled above a number ‘4’.

I thought, ‘What on earth?! Did he write this before or after I told him my answers?! Definitely before because he had just sat down when he gave me the paper to hold. What on earth?!’

I said, ‘Interesting.’ And tried to seem unimpressed by the two words ‘orchids’ and ‘4’ that were staring up at me from the scrunched up piece of paper I was still grasping.

Silence. He wrote three numbers – 50, 100, 150 – and then said that poor people pay him 50 dollars and the rich pay him 150, which one was I? Ahhhh… Money, of course. I smiled and said that I wasn’t going to give him any money. He said that that wasn’t right since he had just provided me with a service, but of course I had never asked him to do anything for me so I pointed that out to him and he was soon on his way. Off went yogi, telling me to remember him when I have a lucky month come June.

Namaste yogi.

If I had heard somebody tell me this story I would have sceptically assumed that some trick had been played, or that the story was simply an exaggeration of events to make the situation seem all the more odd. I have gone through it in my head over and over again, but he honestly scribbled onto that piece of paper a good ten minutes before I gave him my answers. Guessing that combination of flower and number is a near impossibility – not a complete impossibility simply because he did somehow guess it. Of course here I’m assuming he guessed it, I’d be more correct if I said that he KNEW it because he did. He was sure, without a doubt.

I was, alas, ‘Houdinified’.

I'll try Chinatown tomorrow.

Save the Turtles

Last September I had the great fortune of travelling to Malaysian Borneo to go scuba diving at Sipadan - one of the best scuba diving spots there is as it is in the heart of one of the richest marine habitats in the world. Think about paradise for a second... you've just thought about Sipadan island. Virgin white beach, lazy palm trees, sun so bright its UV index must be sky high (literally), and above all, sea of all the blues in the colour spectrum. And if that doesn't get you drooling, the world beneath the ocean's surface takes the meaning of 'paradise' to a level as yet unknown to man.

Even in the most challenging of conditions, scuba diving remains the one activity that consumes me as meditation might consume others. Now, I pride myself in being a laid-back and all together relaxed character, but when I dive I really do feel as though my gears have just shifted into neutral and any movement is regulated by the ocean.

It's as cheesy as Stilton to say I become one with the ocean... because in reality, one never does. An observer is all one remains. Interaction is key. And interaction is precisely what happened whilst diving at Sipadan.

But I must explain...

Diving at Sipadan is slightly chaotic. It's legendary status attracts many a shoal of keen-eyed air-guzzling divers. I myself was part of a particularly excited group of both the experienced and the newly certified. This posed a problem for me: crowds irritate me, diving relaxes me. The group was dashing about, taking photos, staring in awe, scaring all sorts of sealife away... until... there was that one turtle that made my dive one of the most amazing encounters with nature I have ever had the great fortune of experiencing.

We were diving along a wall (sheer drop for many many metres below) and she was resting on a sort of shelf in the wall. The group crowded round and she got nervous about to swim away, but just in time the group lost interest and swam on. The dive guide, my boyfriend Jens and myself remained behind. I was enthralled, completely captivated by this particular turtle. She was looking at me right in the eye, and I slowly let the current take me close to her until I was closer than I ever thought I could get. We were both in a trance. She just kept looking at me. And I just couldn't look away. My heart was racing. Getting so close to a turtle in that manner is quite rare, especially since moments earlier she had been distressed by the crowd which had gathered. And then, as I drifted away from her, she pushed off the shelf and made her way to the surface, silhouetted against the the sun's rays breaking through the surface, until she became lost in them.

The simplicity of the moment is what remains with me.

I was lucky enough to have had this encounter, but encounters such as these will continue becoming even rarer as turtles' numbers are dwindling. Caught for their shells, drowned by being trapped in nets, choked by plastic bags... we commit a crime for which there is no punishment, other than guilt for those with a conscience. Grow a conscience.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/save-the-turtles

Save the turtles.

(Photo courtesy of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Hawaii_turtle_2.JPG)

Who is our neighbour?

The following is an article I had written after a short stay in Ethiopia during 2006. I came across the article the other day as I was cleaning out the 'My Documents' folder. Reading it now is honestly like reading something that was written by a different person. While bringing back timeless memories, it also shows me how much I have changed. My opinions regarding God and religion have evolved so much since then. I've gone from being a firm believer, to being one critical of religion, the church, and the existence of God. Call me lost, an atheist, an agnostic, a sceptic, a sinner, a Christian, a secular Christian...call me what you wish. The one label I WILL attach to myself is human:

Who is our neighbour?
(Inygo* experience in Ethiopia)

What springs to mind upon the mention of Ethiopia?... An arid, desolate and poverty-stricken land so often seen on the sides of collection tins at your local grocery store…

In all our unawareness we are hidden from a vast land that prides itself in an extensive variety of landscapes, from lush countryside to snow-capped mountains. A beauty mirrored in the Ethiopian people. This hidden beauty was precisely what awaited us last August as we set off to Addis Ababa; a group of 15 diverse people driven by different forces but with one main purpose – to help as best we could.

By our standard there is no doubt that Ethiopia does indeed portray a picture of poverty at its worst, an image so clear in our minds because of the constant series of contrasts that we came across. Imagine seeing a Mercedes driving past hobbling donkeys carrying loads and nearly naked beggars, or luscious moneyed embassies built in the midst of one-roomed mud huts – beginning to see the irregularities? The rich are rich, the poor are poor. It was the latter, the needy and destitute, whom we were to be spending most of our days with, people whose tolerance to pain both physical and emotional was most striking.

The Missionaries of Charity is all about helping those who cannot help themselves, thus being on a mission to serve the poorest of the poor. Images of heavily diseased and dying patients or severely malnourished children appear in one’s mind, and there is every truth in these images. However, this impressive reality is the surface of something seemingly much more trivial but ultimately of great significance. Our work consisted of so many varying tasks from washing the patients and changing the dressings of bed sores/wounds, to simply feeding them, clipping their nails or cutting their hair. One cannot go on without mentioning the children – both those at the Missionaries of Charity and those at the Kidane Meheret orphanage where we were staying. These are children of remarkable intelligence; unfortunate perhaps in being born into the life they have been, but yet fortunate in that they are untainted by the modern world, their eyes still depicting true innocence and love.

The frustration that affected all of us from the start stemmed from the severe language barrier, as what good is it to constantly repeat those few Amharic words we knew, ishi (ok)… dehna neh? (are you well?), words which in actual fact were not the most appropriate ones to use. In spite of this, by the end of our stay we had learned to communicate on a less superficial level than spoken language. The simplicity of holding hands, singing, praying and crying with the patients, or even the slightest smile brought an understanding that words cannot explain at any rate. In the words of Mother Teresa: It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.

Being part of a group meant that none of us was alone in our inner emotional turmoil, and it was the spirituality within the experience that left us with the most profound effect. Daily Mass and prayers signified a time in which we could share our thoughts, prayers and frustration with God and each other, helping to bring perspective to the experience both on a personal level and as a group. The hours spent praying together, talking to each other and most importantly listening to one another provided each one of us with the strength to face the next day, helping us realise that each patient is really Jesus in disguise (Mother Teresa).

Coming away from volunteering in Ethiopia really does leave one with the feeling that the real poverty is not a monetary one, but one of loneliness and rejection. In this day and age one must take time for the one true universal language: love. Volunteering in Ethiopia gives a whole new meaning to the words of Mother Teresa, We can do no great things; only small things with great love.

2006 Inygo Ethiopia Group

*Inygo = Ignatian Youth Network. Each summer Inygo offers the opportunity for youngsters to volunteer in various countries, including Ethiopia. Contact: inygo@jesuit.org.mt

Of too many people and too many luxuries

Environmental Sustainability Learning Portfolio Week 2: How would you explain/define the term “overpopulation” to an intelligent layperson?

Overpopulation – too many people, too little resources? If only it were that simple.

Last semester I was (un)lucky enough to have delved ever so slightly into the topic of overpopulation. Truth be told, it fascinates me. During my research back then I came across an article on The Economist’s website which touched on the topic of population growth. However, what was even more interesting than the article itself were the comments left by the fifty or so people who were willing to give their two cents on the subject. One in particular remains etched in my mind:

When I moved from Canada to Switzerland I found it crowded, but got used to it. When I moved to Hong Kong I was overwhelmed by the throngs, but got used to it. When I visited China and India I looked back with new appreciation on HK's ample green space. Now, as I write here in Manila, I hope I never see the place that makes these places look spacious. (A friend tells me that would be Bangladesh)

Though in no way an academic statement, the above makes one feel that the highly contested doom-laden scenario of Thomas Malthus might not be far off from what a large number of people nowadays might be subconsciously feeling, or even worse, believing.

Rather than giving a parrot-definition of what overpopulation is, it might be more worthwhile to take a quick look at what overpopulation does.

The 2007-2008 food crisis provided a quasi-Malthusian scenario, whereby protests and riots were ignited due to the sharp rise in world food prices. The fact that a large share of crops is being diverted into the production of bio-fuels rather than food is deemed to have been a major contributor to the food crisis. This makes me question, however, whether the problems being faced nowadays as a result of apparent overpopulation are simply due to the extravagant lifestyles of those in or en route to the ‘Western’ mode of living. It has been noted that the Chinese diet has become more carnivorous over the course of its development to the stage it is at today. Hence, more grain is being rerouted to feeding cattle. This makes one question whether it is the number of people that is putting a strain on food resources, or whether it might simply be the huge increase in the number of people shifting towards having a ‘Western’ way of life and all the sins that come along with it. Thus, is overpopulation really a case of too many people, too little resources? Or is it closer to too many people, too many luxuries? Too many SUVs…

Birth policies throughout history have sparked controversy, be it the Nazi pro-natalist birth policy or China’s more recent one-child policy. The underlying trend is an incessant need to control the otherwise uncontrollable. The developing world is often cited as being key to the problem of dramatic population growth. However, at the same time, infant mortality, failed abortions, lack of access to contraception, and so forth, are also problems rampant within the developing world. Hence, can one really expect culpability to lie on the shoulders of those who have little or no access to education or to methods of empowering themselves? Is this a problem of overpopulation? Or is it a problem of accessibility?

Ultimately, overpopulation is complicated; it is something we ‘get used to’. That is perhaps the one truth that can be learned. The rest is up for discussion.

Here goes..

I've been encouraged to start a blog time and again. However, in order to swim against the never-ending 'blogging' current, I refused point blank. (Of course, it could also have been just plain laziness..)

So why start now? One of the modules I'm attending here at the University of Sussex in Singapore defies conservative approaches to learning, and pays great attention to the development of knowledge and opinion over time, as opposed to what I like to refer to as 'pre-exam-binge-learning'. This module, Environmental Sustainability, requires me to write a weekly opinion-piece regarding the various issues being dealt with weekly, akin to a blog. My least academic learning-portfolio entries will be the starting point for this blog, which might grow and flourish, or which might wither away, time will tell!