School in the High Himalayas

Above is a school that is under construction in the Langtang, Nepal. This project was undertaken by a group of Italian scientists and tourists/trekkers. You can read about the school and make contributions through their web site at http://www.sundaribaini.org/chisiamoen.htm
If you click on the top photo you should be able to see the school perched on the hillside.

Some of you have read my stories about helping some boys go to school in Kathmandu, 'Dream A World of Good.' The boys were from the village above. When they were young they had no opportunity for an education so their father gave up his status in the village and moved the family to Kathmandu so that the boys would have the possibility of receiving an education.

Below is an excerpt from a recent letter I received from the boys who are now young men.

It rained yesterday. Brr!!! And this morning we are all wrapped up and warm. I am writing this email with a huge pile of blankets around me. Recently there has been much news of deaths in the southern part of Nepal and India because of a cold wave. Homeless people suffer the most and the governments try feeble ineffective ways to counter the problems. Poor people are given wood to burn and clothes to wear but that will not help at all. It is so sad to hear when we are wrapped up and warm inside our home there are people dying because of cold.

Last week I visited my village. I have taken some photographs of the school and we all hope that you will like it. Recently, the school has been developing under the eyes of an Italian volunteer who helped the school build its first toilet and even a new building for higher secondary classes. A few years back the school ran up to grade eight only, but now villagers send their students to grade nine and grade ten too.

It is progress! If possible, I would like to visit the school when I go to Nepal in March and make a contribution to their operating expenses. I would also like to arrange a letter exchange with some of our local school students. But, I will have to wait and see how the plan unfolds. Travel restrictions, strikes, and weather can make it difficult to get to rural areas of Nepal, and someone would have to offer to host me in their home. With only a two week travel plan, I may not be able to get there and back. If I do get there, I'll bring you pictures and stories.

In February, I will be giving a free lecture on 'Life and work in Nepal during difficult times.' I will discuss the effects of 911 on Nepal, the murder of the entire Nepalese Royal family, endless annual strikes, and the Maoist Revolution. The lecture will be held at the Plymouth UCC in Shaker Heights, OH. Sunday February 14th, 9:30 - 10:20 am in room 102.

Peace to you all and prayers for Haiti!

What does an angel look like?

Poetry
By Butternut Squash

Imperishable
God’s Words Whispered Obliquely
Mirror Creation

(another haiku for you)

…

I have been thinking a lot about angels lately, probably because Christmas has just gone by and I have been watching the Christmas trees pile up on the curbs and the angels disappear from windows. It occurs to me that what I know about angels is mostly from Renaissance paintings, Christmas cards and the nativity story. I have never read a book on angels other than the Bible, though I know that there are several available.

Some people say that we all become angels when we pass on. Others say that we are angels to one another in the present moment. When my grandmother was on her death bed, my aunt said, your grandmother has just seen an angel. And so I asked her, what did it look like. “Beautiful, I guess,” was all that she said. She was very ill, so I didn’t press for more. But I have always wondered what did she see and how did she know that it was an angel?

A few years ago, I was in a shop of crystals and rocks. The owner and her assistant were laughing while watching people walk through the door. “What’s the joke?” I asked. They told me that they had rearranged a bunch of crystals when they cleaned their shop. Something about the way that they had arranged the crystals was making people loopy when they walked through the door. I walked over to the door and put my palms out. Much to my surprise, there was an electrical flow in the air. I could feel it quite clearly. There were three large crystals, about 10 feet apart, forming a triangle that seemed to generate a very strong circular flow. Standing in it, I could feel energy enter one palm and shoot out the other. I felt like I was standing in a giant crystal radio kit. As I stood there I could feel a release of tension from the muscles in my back, neck and shoulders.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the waves but when I opened my eyes, I saw that one of the women who had been laughing moments ago had her face buried in her shirt and she was crying. When I asked her what had happened she said that she saw an angel on either side of me. I couldn’t resist. What did they look like? Her description was that they were shafts of light that came from heaven. She could not see them when looking directly at them but only askance. How did she know they were angels? She just knew.

If you have seen an angel, I would love to know what it looked like.

Peace.

Pondering Divine Intervention

Street Dogs in Thailand are often hairless and covered with scabs. This photo is from Thai Pulse.

Pondering Divine Intervention
By Butternut Squash

A spotlight fixed on a steam locomotive that was about to charge across the bridge. Moments after the engine crossed, the canons boomed from the river spewing water up all around the bridge which was rigged to collapse. The look-out towers were in flames and men on fire leapt from the bridge. From the boat, I could see everything quite clearly. The music was unbearably loud and I couldn’t help worrying about the ecosystems of the river that had to endure the blasting night after night all throughout November and December.

I had traveled with a friend to Kanchanaburi, Thailand, in early December to watch a reenactment of the bombing of the bridge over the river Kwai. After the show we headed to a video restaurant and had a few beers and stayed to watch a movie. However, my friend got tired and decided to return to the houseboat where we were staying. She left with a few other drunken backpackers that were headed the same direction. Shortly after midnight, when the movie ended, I headed off toward the house boat alone.

Earlier in the evening the streets had been full of cars and pedestrians, but I found it to be disturbingly quiet when I entered the dark humid night. There were few electric lights in the neighborhood and I was feeling vulnerable without people around. I thought that it might be quicker to cut through the temple grounds, so I turned at the stone gate and walked briskly into the center courtyard of the temple.

I saw a shadow move beside the temple, but I kept my pace. It was a bad choice. Very quickly I saw two shadows moving slowly toward me. I stopped. A dog stood in front of me. Its back was arched its head and tail were down and it began a low menacing growl. This mangy, hairless cur had a scabby friend with infected eyes that came up slowly behind him. Within a few seconds, while I was still struggling to decide which way to go, four more dogs arrived. I was now surrounded on three sides by a very hungry looking pack of stray dogs.

My rear was the only side without a dog, but I was afraid that if I turned to leave that I would be taken down and mauled. There would be nothing left of me but a fleeting story of gore for the morning news. I had never had a dog, but I had had a few scruffy cats in my life. So I summoned the persona of my mother enraged by the cat eating hamburger from the dining room table. I stood taller and fiercely smacked my hands together and said, “Bad dogs, go home!” And I marched forward confidently while circling back toward the stone gate from which I had entered. The dogs did not attack but they did continue to growl and followed me closely until I left the temple grounds. A few paces out of the gate. I grabbed a fat stick and carried it all the way to the houseboat.

I have been in some terrible situations in my life, but that was the most frightened I have ever been. The fear made me tremble so badly that I could barely walk, and I felt as if my soul was only vaguely connected to my body for at least the next hour. I still wonder how I could have possibly managed to escape without a scratch.

Barnyard at Bedtime

Pig Smelling a Lily by Karen Thomas, The Angels in Pastels

Barnyard at Bedtime by Butternut Squash

“Hush,” said Rooster at the end of the day,

“I have to rise early. This is not time to play.

Dog chasing cat and cat chasing mouse,

It’s time to be quiet!” He continued to grouse.

“I’m not tired,” squeaked mouse. “Me either,” mewed cat,

Dog ran round the corner, and knocked them both flat.

“Oh no!” groaned the donkey, the pig and the cow.

Cat and mouse cried, it was a terrible row.

“I’m sorry,” woofed dog, “We were playing a game.”

No use in explaining, his head hung in shame.

“Alright, settle down now,” mother cow said.

“It’s dark out, and time that we all went to bed.”

Mouse sniffled softly as she curled in her nest.

Cat licked himself clean preparing for rest.

Dog yawned and stretched, then plopped on the floor.

But donkey was wide-eyed, and stared out the door.

“I can’t sleep,” brayed donkey, “I’m afraid of the dark!”

“Quiet!” crowed rooster, you’ll make the dog bark.

All the barn animals began to complain

“Knock it off! Shut your mouth!” was the noisy refrain.

“Shhhhhhhh!” said the pig to the rooster, and then,

he nosed open the gate and walked out of his pen.

“When I’m very tired at the end of the day,

Or when I’m not really sleepy and I still want to play,

when something scares me, or I’m troubled somehow,”

said the pig to the donkey, the cat and the cow,

“I just think of my day, and I try to recall

some things that I’m grateful for, both large and small.”

I think of my home and my family and friends.

I think of the flower I smelled at day’s end.

I think of the frog that I saw by the pond,

And Ladybug sunning herself on a frond.

With all of these beautiful thoughts in my head,

I find it much easier to relax in my bed.

“I’m thankful for cheese,” squeaked the mouse from her nest.

“I’m thankful for yarn,” purred cat feeling blessed.

“I love each sunrise,” the rooster then crooned.

“I’m happy in clover,” cow sweetly in tuned.

“I’m grateful for blue skies and oats and for hay,”

Donkey had had a wonderful day.

“Thank God for my supper!” said the dog on the floor,

He nodded, breathed deeply, and started to snore.

“Good Night,” said the pig going back to his pen.

“Good Night, and Sweet Dreams,” said his animal friends.

Hunger in America?

Feasting at our house.

Did anyone read this headline?

USDA: Number of Americans going hungry increases
11/16/2009, 2:14 p.m. EST
HENRY C. JACKSON
The Associated Press
(AP) — WASHINGTON - More than one in seven American households struggled to put enough food on the table in 2008, the highest number since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began tracking food security levels in 1995.
That's 14.6 percent of U.S. households, or about 49 million people. The numbers are a significant increase from 2007, when 11.1 percent of U.S. households suffered from what USDA classifies as "food insecurity"-not having enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle.
The USDA said Monday that 5.7 percent of those who didn't have enough food experienced "very low food security," meaning household members reduced their food intake.

7 Haiku
By Butternut Squash

Twenty-one children
In our classroom, three are thinking
Only about their lunch
…
Grandpa…Grandma…Mom…
Dad…Brother…Sister and Me
Someone does not eat.
…
At school with the nurse
“My stomach hurts,” I tell her.
“Did you have breakfast?”
…
Dollar store Ramen
Peanut Butter, Canned Chicken
Seven year old soup
…
Grandma said she’s full.
Mom said she would eat later.
I eat by myself.
…
Bored, sitting in class
Dreaming of a feast, I doze
Teacher calls my name
…
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, one child starving
She goes to heaven

Give Generously this Thanksgiving. There are a lot of people counting on you in the US and around the world.

Don't forget, http://www.freerice.com/

The Chair

A Short Fiction by Butternut Squash

She was beautiful when she was first carried across the threshold. I saw a picture of her once that was on a lampshade. She looked just like a movie star. Her hair was piled up on her head, in a Grace Kelly French twist. Her make-up was drawn to perfection. Her smile was wide and contagious with pencil rimmed red lips around dazzling white teeth. An intricately detailed Dior wedding gown draped her voluptuous form. It was hard to find photos of her. There weren’t many from her youth and there were fewer taken as she grew older. That photo must have survived because it was one from their wedding, or maybe because she had it made into a home decoration. She loved interesting home décor and furniture.

When they met, I imagine, it was like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in 'The taming of the Shrew' where the man with the lascivious smile has to tame the wild beauty. She was creative and independent and said ‘silly’ things, which he found amusing. “He knew what he wanted from the first,” she once told me. With firm and constant pressure, he guided her in the direction he intended to go. After a half feigned struggle for her independence, she submitted to his will. She was proud to have caught her prince charming in the end. I thought that was a funny way to for her to put it--from the stories she told, it seemed so much the other way around.

When I was very young, she still had an amazing sense of style. It was not just the fashionable clothes and impeccable make-up. She always had piles of decorating magazines around and pored over them, as if embellishing her home was a job. As the curator of her personal museum, she cut out the perfect pieces of furniture from magazines and laid out potential rooms on a grid. Then she would meticulously place tiny swatches of paper and fabric neatly around her model of perfection. She turned my father’s house into the flower of his success, a glittering palace no less magical than OZ.

Cooking, ironing, cleaning, being a gracious hostess, making a beautiful home, these were all ways to help your husband succeed, she informed me. Having studied home economics in college, she spent hours educating us on matters of etiquette and style. But of all the things she knew, her real forte was in antique furnishings. She could look at something as ordinary as a Windsor back chair and tell you if it was antique or a reproduction, where it came from, and even give you the probable creator and date of birth. I suspect that she might have had a brilliant career in home decor if my father hadn’t had other plans for her.

His children were born between her sturdy legs, and with each child born, her shape changed a little. It became softer and rounder. The house work and romping children turned her hands and feet broad and coarse. A looser fitting yet still fashionable fabric now covered the lumpiness of her new shape. I liked the softer shape. Her lap was warm and comfortable, a perfect place for a tired child curl up fall asleep.

I don’t think she was fond of the changes though. Eventually, she gave up the designer cloth and covered herself in durable denim, strong, easy to clean, a color that would hide stains from cooking, cleaning, and the chocolaty palms of small children. She stopped going out as much and spent more and more time looking at the decorating magazines, arranging her home and waiting for her children to come back from school and jump into her lap. Eventually, she didn’t want to go out at all, and the details of her personal decoration became completely unimportant to her.

Her husband had his work and the children had school and activities. And she would say, “I’m living vicariously through the stories you bring me.” Sometimes she listened intently, and her children could imagine a deep concern for them in her eyes, and other times she drifted off to sleep as they prattled on about their daily happenings. There were a few occasions when she would start to say something, but dozed in mid sentence, her hands falling limp at the end of her resting arms. And the more sedentary she was, the less she wanted to move, the broader her back became, the wider her seat, her arms filling up like soft pillows.

Eventually, she became indistinguishable from the room around her, except that the rest of the room was not quite as worn. Her blue denim covering was becoming thread bare. This really bothered my father. “I don’t care what covering you choose, as long as it isn’t blue denim!” he demanded. I felt sorry for her. Somehow she stopped wanting to make decisions about her own coverings. In a sort of last desperate plea for help, she begged me to make a decision for her. I tried to help by choosing a pastel blue fabric with light floral buds. I thought at least it would lighten the atmosphere.

Not long after that, we children each left home one at a time to follow our own desires leaving the two of them behind. Her limited existence became almost inanimate. Occasionally, she would call just to hear us speak, but she never had anything to tell us.

If we contacted him, my father didn’t mention her anymore. It remained that way for years. That’s why I was so surprised when he called me a few weeks ago. “I have something for you,” he said. “I think you used to like to curl up in it when you were a kid. If you want to come pick it up it’s yours.” And then he added, “Just remember that whatever you take out of the house you can’t bring back.”

He probably didn’t really remember why I loved it so much, but I was delighted that he offered it to me and I went to pick it up right away. The tiny bud print on the pastel blue fabric had split wide open and the stuffing was oozing out. Too many years of use and neglect, I guess. The frame was still good and the legs still sturdy, so I have just had it recovered. It is now clothed with flowers in full bloom and is looking beautiful again. It’s still wonderful and warm to sit in. I often climb into it with my children and read them cautionary tales of princesses who are willingly enchanted by smooth tongued princes promising happily ever after in perfectly appointed castles. Sitting there together, my children and I dream of all of the things that we might someday become.

Halloween Horror

How do festivals translate across cultures?

Isn't it obvious what's happening here?

American's have some kind of squash fetish. I know I do.

They celebrate the miraculous appearance of faces in pumpkins.

Bigger is always better in America. Isn't it? Yum.

Until it's all consumed.

"Trick or Treat?
And, oh, by the way, I'm collecting for Unicef."

............

If you would like to read some of my ghost stories try A Spooky Tale of Treasure, Heavy Footsteps, Haunted Bells and Bowls, or the Dream of the Lost Souls series.

Happy Halloween!

The pumpkin photos were taken by me at the Circleville Pumpkin Show in Circleville, Ohio.