Weekly Photo Challenge: CREATE

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Create, Forced Evacuation, Volcanic Eruption, Weekly Photo Challenge

VOLCANIC ERUPTION

FORCED EVACUATION

Weekly Photo Challenge: CREATE

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Create, Weekly Photo Challenge

When my son was little, he used to tag along with me for my quick dashes to the grocery to buy his Papa’s extra crisp starch sprays for his shirts. While lining up at the cashier’s, Enzo left my side. Just when it was my turn to pay, he pulled me and led me to a corner to show me this. If it doesn’t melt a mother’s heart?

Never mind if I have to go to the end of the line again.

Self Defense: A ‘Solo Traveler’s’ Close Encounters With Octogenarian Tourists in The Elevator

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Curling Ribbon Cocktail Ring, Self Defense. Killer Heels

In a recent travel, I found myself in the elevator with a young Hispanic couple and an octogenarian American couple. The two Hispanics were arguing where to have dinner that night in very animated Spanish. They could not seem to agree as the woman wanted to go out, but the man apparently wanted to dine in one of the restaurants in the hotel so they would finish early and he could watch Euro 2012 on TV. The guy was leaning against the open elevator door so that all five of us were stuck there and the elevator was not moving at all. When finally the couple reached an agreement (hotel restaurant it was), the woman pressed the 21st floor and we all heaved a sigh of relief.

When there were just the three of us, the old lady gave me a look an asked, ‘Do you young lady always travel alone?”

‘Well, not all the time, Ma’am but almost always I do’

‘Oh that’s why! That’s why you’re wearing that kind of ring. For self-defense!’

Now, many of those who know me and those who have followed my posts may have already known about my quirky sense of fashion. That night I was wearing a short little black dress. And because it was too plain, I accessorized with this eye catching cocktail ring, I wore this cocktail ring in my middle finger. And because it really was big, it covered partly my point and ring fingers.

I laughed at her observation and said ‘Yeah, this could really give a mean black eye’

‘You bet it can. You never know what goes on in the world these days!’, she said rolling her eyes and then giving me a wink.

Just then, her husband chimed in and said ‘Look honey, even her shoes are for self defense too!’ as they both looked at my black strapped stilettos.

Now, this really sent me laughing out loud. I don’t know if what they said about my fashion sense was good or bad  but I countered, ‘Yes, I could really give a mean roundhouse kick with this one!’ and went on laughing.

They smiled and waved back at me and were still talking about my self defense ring and my self defense shoes when they reached their stop on the 35th, one of the executive floors, as the elevator doors closed to take me to my room to the top floor.

Weekly Photo Challenge: CLOSE

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Close, Weekly Photo Challenge

Many have noticed how much closely we resemble each other. And we’re not even twins!

I Stayed For A Week In Kuala Lumpur And This Is All I Can Show For It

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Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur

VIEW FROM MY HOTEL ROOM

This is my sixth time in Kuala Lumpur and I’ve had my fill of the city in previous trips. Now I need to get out of the city to see more of Malaysia. Penang, Kota Kinabalu or the RM90 two hour bus ride to historic Malacca or the beaches of Kuching (Sarawak, Borneo) where some Singapore based and a Singaporean friend planned to go so they flew in to meet up with me in KL. Due to material lack of time, I was never able to join the group and instead we spent the time having breakfasts together, hanging out in the lounge until midnight and catching on each others’ lives. They’re still cross at me for not keeping my word about Kuching but of course it means one thing – I can always come back. Len, Jeremy, Jen, Silvia and Ciccio – I love you guys!

Weekly Photo Challenge: CLOSE

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Husband and Wife, Marriage, Weekly Photo Challenge

God’s grace, hubby, a very loving person is never averse to showing subtle public displays of affection. When we’re together, we somehow are interconnected physically, even if it’s just  holding hands or putting an arm around the waist.

I know, I know we’re mushy. I plead guilty but I don’t want it any other way.

Here we’re waiting for the catamaran to take us to an island.  Our son Enzo took this shot of candid, unguarded moment of closeness.

Teaching My Son There’s More To Life Than Tablets And Gadgets

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Animal Feeding, Diving, Horse Back Riding, Nature Tripping

Enzo coddling a kid, despite his allergies. He’s cuddly and touchy-feely with many animals, pythons included.

This farm house on top of a hill is also a home on the range where the horses, goats and chickens feed in harmony

But the goats keep to themselves

Nature watching

And this would have the scene that greeted him that morning

Nature tripping

And this is the view he may have seen

The same island has many beaches. Here Enzo prepares to drive from a diving plank

Enzo and Mahal, one of the more than ten horses in the farm

Painting and Portraits: Art and Alzheimer’s

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New York City, Stages of Alzheimer's Disease, The Later Works of William Utermohlen 1995-2000, William Utermohlen

A pharmaceutical firm based in Utah has been working to change the course of Alzheimer’s Disease.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first report of dementia by Dr. Alois Alzheimer’s, this drug company, a few years back, supported two innovative programs that were designed to utilize art and science as a way to inspire and inform the public about Alzheimer’s Disease. Both of these initiatives were hosted by Alzheimer’s Association- New York City Chapter and were held at the New York Academy of Medicine in New York City.

The art exhibition entitled The Later Works of William Utermohlen 1995-2000 that showcased a series of self portrait by the artist after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 1995. These pictures visually communicate the emotional, perceptual, and psychological journey of a man living with Alzheimer’s disease.

Despite the great sadness these works evoke, they are surely Bill’s most compelling works. They remain a testimony to the creative and human spirit that resides in many people with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Snow, 1991

Self portrait, 1967

Self Portrait, (Split) 1977

Blue Skies, 1995. The year the artist was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s Disease

Broken Figure, 1996

Self Portrait With Saw, 1997

Self Portrait (Green), 1997

Self Portrait with Easel, 1998

Self Portrait, 1999

Self Portrait 2000

(Text and photos lifted from the commemorative DVD given out by Myriad Pharmaceuticals at an international Alzheimer’s congress. Use of the material for this post is for information and advocacy purposes)

Yellow

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Choco Munch, Jellyace, Mango gelatin art, Snacks

When my son was in kindergarten, I made it a policy not to give him any money on weekends as there were no classes. However, one Saturday, he was unsettled because he had a few friends coming over to visit. He wanted to buy them snacks. I stood firm and did not give him any. Instead, I told him to check what he could come up with, with whatever he found in the refrigerator.

A few minutes after, he came up with this: upended Jellyace (mango gelatin) over chocolate covered biscuit wrapped in foil.

He had several plates of them arranged on the table. I was speechless.

In his sweet and proud voice he asked ‘Do you like the Yellow Chocolate Hills‘ I made, Mama?

Of course!

I was one proud Mama!

Tom

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Belgium, Denmark, France, Philippines, Tuberculosis, Vietnam, Volunteers

When I was in Denmark, I spent each free lunch time hour lounging on the new couch the landlord asked me to help him choose from IKEA,  watching TV in the apartment. I was the only Asian in the group and the Italians I was with were a big and closely knit group, and delightfully loud, the kind that was infectious and youthful and fun. Being  proficient in the German, French and a smattering of Danish languages , in addition to their native Italian, the girls were always surrounded by a bunch of other Europeans with whom they hung out  in the library and under the trees in the expansive campus, or the cafeteria. Back then, I had very awkward social skills (even until now I guess) so I often kept to myself rather than be in a big group. We would just usually meet up at night for dinner out if we were feeling too lazy to cook and to wash the dishes,  or if we were in the mood for an evening drive and a stroll round the docks and watch ships pass us by, dunking our fingers into a huge bag of chips, if there wasn’t  any interesting movie to watch at the Palisades.

Because I had no cable connection, I had to be content with local programming.

That particular afternoon and many times thereafter in the evening and succeeding days, the news that hogged prime air time was the presence of a high school student with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), diagnosed in one of the local high schools in Copenhagen. As a result of this, the school was closed down for two weeks and sanitized. I remember,  the student was white, which probably became an even bigger deal. You see, most cases of tuberculosis are found in less developed countries in Asia, South America and Africa. TB in squeaky clean Copenhagen was supposedly unheard of.

I did not stay in Denmark long enough to find out the conclusion of what looked like a TV series. But last I heard was that,  each and every contact of the student was investigated. They were able to trace about 700 contacts in six months and three of them also turned out to be positive for TB through skin testing. If my recollection is right, all three were also Danish.

Many first world countries attribute the resurgence of TB to increasing immigration and Denmark  was one of those countries, back then, with the most lenient policies on asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants.

This story made me remember the time (and it was very long ago) when I was a medical student.

The time I met Tom for the first time.

I was a third year medical student when Tom’s group of volunteer doctors went to the health center of my village. He was with Rene, a French doctor who spoke very little English. Rene was married to Kim, a French-Vietnamese nurse who, like him, was also a volunteer. Tom was Belgian, the Flemish kind. He, of course, in the impressionable eyes of a medical student with a small town, small time background, was drop dead gorgeous, not too tall but just-right-enough for me tall, with long curly blonde hair which he loved to flip sideways with his strong, hairy, thickly veined hand. He smelled good (Not that I smelled him on purpose. I knew because I’d ride on his motorcycle when we toured the other villages and I had to circle my arms around his waist as it was one of those small Japanese motor bikes.)  He was also mild mannered and spoke often about his Mom and Dad and little sister. He had been to my house on a somewhat on again, off again basis for visits to get to know local traditions and to request my Mama for tutorials of the dialect so he could have better interaction with the locals in the community.

Because it was summer and I did not have classes, I worked as a volunteer in the government health center like I did summers the last two years. This time however, instead of weighing babies and counting fetal heart rates of pregnant mothers and keeping records, Tom requested that I worked with his team. I really did not know what help I could extend  but things unfolded as the days wore on.

They asked  me to introduce them to the locals, to explain that they were volunteer doctors working on screening for tuberculosis  in the hope of being able to  discover a vaccine which was, to my understanding, a multi center study being conducted by the research unit of his medical school.  In other words, I was their unofficial translator and interpreter both on field work and in clinic consults.

Although they were able to screen and treat many patients with TB, and refer them accordingly to the local registry,  their stint was short lived. They came at a time when banditry and abduction threats were big issues in the island. Two of the seven other doctors from their agency, assigned in the neighboring province were kidnapped. Eventually, their lead agency pulled out their presence from my country.

Of course it was with a sense of regret and sadness that I confronted Tom and his group’s departure. But I was thankful that our friendship happened because it was because of him that I found respect for and held in high esteem his unrelenting dedication in voluntarism. It was through Tom that I came face to face with a sheltered only son, who somehow, was selflessness and sacrifice personified.

He wrote me (snail mail) a few times during his short stints in Chad, Sudan and Nigeria after he left my city. In one of those very short almost cryptic letters, he shared  that his allowance was enough to make him live like a king but then there was nothing to buy or eat but beans.

Just recently I learned that he had been spending over a decade of his time in Karnataka in  India among other Indian states after stints in Peru, Lebanon, Algeria, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Dominican Republic, Congo, Honduras, Burundi, Liberia and Turkey. He never went back home to Belgium where his family, especially his Dad, were constantly worried about his safety. But Tom, barely thirty years old at the time, loved adventure and embraced everything in life, including all the threats and dangers that were thrown his way. He embraced the children, the painfully malnourished kind, the lepers, the tuberculous patients, the orphans in refugee centers, the pregnant  young mothers barely out of their teens, without regard for their class, color or creed.

I do think fondly, randomly of him. He was funny, still is irreverently funny although he now looks older than his years. Even his French beard that covers a quarter of his face are all white. He always looked better clean and shaved. We often got into pesky little spats before about his hair, about how he loved to grow it long until he looked like a lion but he was never one so keen for the aesthetics.

His Facebook profile pic shows him wearing a party hat with curlicues that  could be mistaken for his hair. Maybe he has a family, but I did not probe. What I know now is that he has been living his life with consistency of purpose since the day I met him – churning out  scientific papers after another, outlining public health policies  and formulating guidelines  to uplift the health care services in each God-forsaken, village of a corruption ridden country he found himself thrust into: mostly as program coordinator or implementer or both. It would seem that having a family was not the vocation he chose, just a hunch.  But I hope that, by now,  he will have  found whatever it is he has been going around the world  looking for and for which he has chosen  many things  to give up and to endure.  But maybe not because his eyes still looked sad.

While the years may not have been kind to him physically, I do not doubt the beauty of his spirit. He must have subscribed to Erich Fromm’s  humanistic philosophy about a person choosing a path of ‘being’ and ‘having’. Tom left a very comfortable life back home but he wanted none of those. Instead he chose to ‘be’.

I am writing about Tom because despite our unbridgeable distance (he’s so all over the place it’s difficult to keep track of him) and prolonged absence from each other’s radar, we seem to have lived, presumptuous as it might sound, with a little tweak here and there, parallel lives. Something that I will be able to explain further as I write the conclusion of my three part post  ‘Mary, Quite Contrary.‘

After my holidays. Perhaps.