Landmines

“We are not here for a long time. We are here for a good time,” laughed Meaning, a twelve-year old survivor wearing a ragged Beware of Land Mines skull and crossbones t-shirt and prosthesis leg scampering a random life pattern across fields near a stilted bamboo home in Cambodia.

“Are you with us?” pleaded a landmine child survivor removing shrapnel with an old rusty saw after stepping in heavy invisible shit, “or are you against us?”

She’s been turned out and turned down faster than a housekeeper ironing imported Egyptian threaded 400-count linen. No lye.

The thermostat of her short sweet life seeks more wattage. She faces a severe energy shortage if she doesn’t find food.

She’s one of 26,000 men women and children maimed or killed every year by land mines from forgotten conflicts. Reports from the killing fields indicate 110 million land mines lie buried in 68 countries.

It costs $3.00 to bury a landmine.

It costs $300-$900 to remove a mine. It will cost $33 billion to remove them. It will take 1,100 years. Governments spend $200-$300 million a year to detect and remove 10,000 mines. Cambodia, Angola, Afghanistan and Laos are the most heavily mined countries in the world.

40% of all land in Cambodia and 90% in Angola go unused because of land mines. One in 236 Cambodians is an amputee.

*

Expanding her awareness of mankind’s genetic stupidity, Lucky showed Zeynep a Laos map illustrating Never-Never Land.

Lao Please Don’t Rush is the most heavily bombed country in history.

25% of villages in Laos are contaminated with UXO.

Upwards of 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos failed to detonate.         

80 million unexploded bombs remain in Laos.

More than half of the UXO victims are children.

*

Meaning hears children crying as doctors struggle to remove metal from her skin. She cannot raise her hands to cover her ears. Perpetual crying penetrates her heart. Tears of blood soak her skin.

The technical mine that took her right leg away one fateful day as she played near village rice paddies expanded outward at 7,000 meters per second. Ball bearings shredded everything around her heart-mind.

It may have been an American made M16A1, shallow curved with a 60-degree fan shaped pattern. The lethal range was 328 feet. Or maybe it was a plastic Russian PMN-2 disguised as a toy.

She never saw it coming after stepping on the pressure plate.

Fortunately or unfortunately she didn’t die of shock and blood loss. A stranger stopped the bleeding, checked her pulse and injected her with 200cc of morphine. Strangers in a strange land carried morphine.

*

Cut the heavy deep and real shit, said a female Banlung shaman.

Fear is a tough sell unless it’s done well, well done, marinated, broiled, stir-fried, over easy, or scrambled.

Fear is blissful ignorance.

Weaving A Life V 1

Fairy Tale

I am sorry are our three favorite words in Cambodia.
It’s the last thing 2,000,000 genocide victims cried out before a complete stranger slammed a shovel against their skull. I am sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

One survivor said to another survivor, what a beautiful fucking mess. Help me drag this one away.

You either let go or get dragged along, said a Buddhist monk lighting incense for world peace.

Same in China said Leo, We learn life’s hard bitter lesson to accept loss forever, I am sorry. What is the most beautiful word you know Zeynep?

Freedom. And yours? Food, said Rita and Leo.

Less talk and more drawing are essential in life, Z said. Experiment with circles, dots, triangles, squares, lines and curves to reach existential levels of realization. Connect the dots forward.

The asylum is a prison and protection, said Rita.

You create art to explore your sense of self and find out how you feel you are, rather than whom you think you should or ought to be, Z said, drawing her future.

Make the right choice for the wrong reason, Leo said.

Make the wrong choice for the right reason in the right season, Rita said.

Z discovered questions were repeated. 1,001 questions ran around her Turkish restaurant looking for answers. Questions grew tired of repeating themselves. This is so fucking boring, said one question. We are abused. We are manipulated and rendered mute. Useless.

Think of it as a test, said another question. Patience is our great teacher. I’ll try, said another question. Yes, said a question, these non-listeners have a distinct tendency to say nothing and say it louder than empty silence when they’re leaving, when their faces are turned away from eye contact, potential real heart-mind communication and growth.

Echoes drifted in through around silence and ignorance. I’ve seen that too, said a question, who, until this moment was silent. My theory is that it’s because of genocide, fear and ignorance. It’s also a delicate mixture of stupidity or indifference, said another question. I suggest it’s their innate Buddhist belief. They suppress their ego. Non-self.

Why is the most dangerous question, said Lucky addressing questions. Remember Leo asking why and ended up carrying shit at the Reform Through Re-education Labor Camp near the Gobi before becoming Chief of the Cannibals wearing an alarm clock around his scrawny neck reminding everyone of Time?

Yes I remember said a timeless prescient question. Leo was one smart cookie, whatever that means. He figured out unique survival skills in a desperate situation. He knew the fundamental difference between book smarts and street smarts. Anyway before we drift off the subject, how do you explain fear, asked a question.

Rita (author of Ice Girl in Banlung) - Fear is a basic instinct. It’s in our DNA. It’s in the amygdala. Flight or fight? Is it safe, eyes say scanning a potentially dangerous environment since Day One. You see it everywhere, all day, everyday all the scared uncertain eyes asking is it safe?

They peek left, glance right, double check. The coast is clear. Let’s go. People ran away to survive. Instinct.

People had a panic attack, started running and others would ask them a question like why are you running, who’s chasing you, where are you going or what’s the matter or when did you become afraid or why are you afraid, or why don’t you stay longer and the running one would keep going trailing abstract question words behind them like memories of dead or missing families or disembodied spirits or exploding landmines or molecules of indifferent breath.

I see, said a question, that explains everything. Yes, said an open-ended question. Being correct is never the point.

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. We are assassins.

The Language Company

Burma

The Garden #10

The beginning of Ice Girl in Banlung decorates The Garden #10.

Thanks for listening.

The Garden #10

Chunchiet

The Chunchiet animist people bury their dead in the jungle. Life is a sacred jungle.

  Animists believe in the universal inherent power of nature world. The Tompoun and Jarai, among animist world tribes have sacred burial sites. 

  The Kachon village cemetery is one hour by boat on the Tonle Srepok River from Voen Sai near Banlung. It is deep in the jungle. You need permission from the village chief to visit.

  I was there.

  The departed stays in the family home for five days before burial. Once a month family members make ritual sacrifices at the site.

  The village shaman dreams the departed will go to hell. In their spirit story dream the shaman meets LOTH, Leader of the Hell who asks for an animal sacrifice. The animist belief says sacrificing a buffalo and making statues of the departed will satisfy LOTH. It will renew the spirit and return it to the family.

  After a year family members remove old structures, add two carved effigies, carve wooden elephant tusks, create new decorated roofs and sacrifice a buffalo at the grave during a festive week-long celebration with food and rice wine for the entire village. 

  New tombs have cement bases and carved effigies with cell phones and sunglasses. Never out of touch.

  See your local long distance carrier for plans and coverage in your area. The future looks brighter than a day in a sacred jungle.

  Fascinating, said Leo, a shaman monk from Tibet.

  Walking is the best form of travel, said Rita. Take your time quickly. How did you get here?

  Leo said: By walking. The paved road from Pakse, Laos to NE Cambodia is for tourist buses.

Grow Your Soul

Spin Your Wheels

I have a spaceship here in SR.

It’s disguised as an old reliable small black Japanese made folding bike with 20” wheels and five gears.

It cost 50 bones a year ago at the used bike market across town or, if space travel is your lingo, across the universe. It’s fun to spin the wheels.

Considering many Khmer vehicle operators have a death wish, riding the bike is more akin to playing Russian roulette in traffic. Slow is the mantra.

While walking is the preferred way to travel especially for street photography the bike is fun.

Every kid needs a bike.

Like Laos, it’s a motorcycle culture here with many young immature zombies talking on phones while driving at high speeds.

Caution is advised. Traffic laws are nonexistent.

You do see the occasional partial roadblock by police when they stop drivers w/o helmets.

The tender gravity of kindness says howdy hi howdy ho.

Buddhist Khmer are soft and gentle. They live in the now. The advantage is being present.

The challenge for them is to focus on more than one thing at a time. This unpleasant fact is illuminated by their dopamine addiction to phones + everyone talking at once w/o comprehension. Embrace chaos.

Gadgets make great babysitters.

For the majority it’s about entertainment distractions not information.

Relationships here are like adopting a child.

All the adults need childlike supervision.