Voodoo is Scary

Yevenor tells me his mother is blind. She is 44. I ask if he would like to bring her to the clinic to see our American  doctors. Maybe the doctors can offer some suggestions on what to do.

"No", he tells me, “she already see a doctor.  There is nothing she can do".   I ask what caused her blindness.

"Someone put a spell on her", He says very matter of factly and I want to know who.

 "We think a family member; she had a good business and someone got jealous. So they put a spell on her. We don't know which one did this to her. Voodoo is scary".


Jacmel, Haiti
July 2013



This story is part of another blog: bridgetkellyinhait.blogspot.com

The Medical Clinic- Jacmel, Haiti

July 8, 2013- we have a doctor and a nurse this week. That means we can see 40 patients a day at our medical clinic. But word is out that the white people are back. So they begin to line up at 530AM in hopes of getting a numbered green card to get in. This may be their lucky day.

I can feel the anticipation as we arrive around 9 AM. They flock to us and assume we are all medical staff. They point to their deformed toes and blood shot eyes and skin rashes. They show us their infections. They gesture stomach problems and take our hands to feel their lumps.

We quickly set up the clinic and the first patient is called. An old woman saunters up to the triage table and states her problem. Diabetes, high blood pressure, STDs, vagal discharge, blurred vision and toenail fungus seem to be competition for the disease of the day.

Two young men translate for us. I am impressed with their poise and maturity as I hear them explain ever so softly, "she has a pain in the vagina." And Beth, our nurse, responds, "Does it hurt or is there any discharge when she urinates"? The translator receives a "yes" and then tells the woman that it is ok, she doesn’t have to show us.

We came prepared to set up a private corner of the room for those who do need to undress and expose themselves but this effort proves to be unnecessary as everyone is unabashed about taking their clothes off and showing us her breast or dropping his pants to show us where it hurts.

We have several hundred pounds of medicines, all donated by hospitals around the Wilmington area. We have mostly pain killers, neoprene and antibiotics. We could use more vaginal cream, eye drops and asthma medicine. There is nothing we can do for the people with diabetes. For high blood pressure, the medical team does what it can to convince people to reduce their salt and MSG intake and to stop eating so much fried food. It is not even suggested they eat more vegetables. Other than plantains and coconuts, not much more is available to these poor, poor people.

One woman comes in with a flesh eating rash. An old man has a growth on his forehead the size of an apple. A man is stopped at the door because he came too late to get a card. He calls out to anyone who will respond. He catches my attention and I catch his panic. He desperately begs me to give him "the asthma medicine with the blue pump".  I look to Beth and she tells me he has to be seen by the doctor first. "I got it here last year," he yells to me. "No money to go to the doctor. Please. Please. It is the blue pump". I ask Beth if she knows this medicine. She tries in vain to calm me down but I am unnerved by his desperation. "Please, the blue one. I just need the blue one." Beth calls to him and tells him to come back tomorrow and I give him a ticket, guaranteeing that he will be seen. That appeases him and he leaves.

A mother comes in with her infant son, Joseph. She is worried about her fever. But Beth is worried about her son. Joseph is seriously ill. He is dehydrated and lifeless. The mother has stopped feeding him because she was afraid he would catch her fever.

Joseph now becomes the critical patient of the day. We don’t have any formula to give him. So breast milk is the only and best options for him. But the mother has no milk. She is highly dehydrated herself. I find a 1/2 bottle of juice someone didn’t finish yesterday and we offer it to her. She drinks it down. I fill this bottle again with water and she consumes this drink as quickly as well.

We ask her to begin feeding Joseph. She protests a little. She is still not sure he can’t get her fever. But the translator does his best to convince her. She surrenders and lifts up her blouse. As Joseph is sucking on her prune like breast, Beth gives him a sponge bath. She rubs his head with a wet wash cloth. He begins to respond ever so slowly. Life is coming back to him. We give the mother medicine. We hydrate her and give her food. Yet we recognize that we have only dodged a crisis and there will be many more during his fragile life. This mother does not have the intellectual capacity, the financial means and the family support to raise a healthy child.

Some of the patients are seen and asked to come back the next day. Their symptoms are so unusual the doctor wants some time at the end of the day to do some internet research.

We attempt to close the clinic at 1pm as the staff is exhausted. But every day there is a new request that can’t be ignored. A mother shows up with a sick baby, someone broke a finger, one of the campers split a lip and there is lots of blood.  It is usually 2:30 or 3:00 by the time we close the door. And when we return the next day, we start all over.

For more stories about my time in Haiti, please of to Bridgetkellyinhaiti.blogspot.com

THE DOG SHOW

 

A Dog Show – Sunday, April 19, 2015

I am on a quest to watch people fulfill their passions and always wanted to see a dog show.   So some friends invited me to watch their dog compete in a show in Baltimore, MD.  I park my car and wander around the parking lot.  The excitement is pliable as people open the back of their vans and pull out massive quantities of stuff and dogs.

I parked my car and called to connect with them. “It has already been worth the price of parking just to see all of these wackadoodles out here with their dogs”. I tell them.

There are dogs in little custom made booties.  Dogs are being rolled in on carts and groomed and trimmed and pimped.  Some dogs have their own exercise treadmills.  Their hair and fur are blown dry.  And their owners are obsessively pulling on their stumbled tails. “That’s to que him to  keep his tail erect.  That’s important that it stands straight up.” said one nervous handler.

Poverty in China

Standing on a corner in Henan Province, China I am watching an old woman collect plastic bottles from pedestrians. She moves laboriously as she grabs the bottle and shovels it in her torn bag. I quickly took her picture and in the process, caught her attention. She came over and said something in a loud voice.  I thought she was annoyed with me.  But my translator says she wanted to tell me that I come from “a wonderful country”.  A long time ago, she met an American and he was polite to her so she thinks we are all polite.  She stared at me a little bit, checked me up and down, laughed to herself and then went back to her task.   She gets 1 Yuan for every 10 bottles she collects.  So she gets 10 Yuan for every 100 bottles and that is about $1.75.  She told me she collects about 30 bottles a day. So she makes about 50 cents a day.  She is 80 and this is her daily income.  The government sends her 10 Yuan a month . It's it for her total income.  She and millions of other people in this country live at this level of poverty.

Jackie from Philadelphia

Jackie from Philadelphia
Spring, 1987

My mother was very proud of me when I finished my doctoral program. And why wouldn’t she be proud.  She was after all a mother and it is a mother’s job to be proud of her children.  So a few days after I finished my program, she called my office, looking for me. One of the secretaries answered the phone.

“Good morning”, my mother says, “is Dr. Kelly available?

“I’m sorry; Bridget is out of the office right now. Can I take a message?” comes the reply to my mother.

Put off by this response, my mother continues.  “Oh, is that her first name?” she asks indignantly.

“Whose?”

“Dr. Kelly’s?”

“Oh, yea, yes.  Bridget is her name”, says the secretary, not getting my mother’s point.

“Oh, I only know her as Dr. Kelly”, fibs my mother, only three days after I defended my dissertation.  At this point, no one and I mean, no one, knows me as “Dr. Kelly”.

“Would you like to leave Bridget a message?” asks the secretary, rubbing salt in to my mother’s wound.

“Yes. Yes I would”, my mother responds.  But now she is backed in to a corner because she has identified me as someone she only knows as “Dr. Kelly.”

So when I return to the office, I get a written message: "Jackie from Philadelphia called you this morning.  She’ll call back.”

Being a Mother

I would not have made a good mother.  I am too self-centered and I am not good at taking care of other people.  I remember when I was 10; I threw up in the middle of the night, in the middle of the hallway.  I made a real mess and I didn’t know what to do so I cried out for my mother.  She got up with me and rubbed my back as I stooped over, vomiting on the floor.  I went back to bed and she stayed up and cleaned up the mess.  I don’t think I thanked her. And now it is too late.

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean

I traveled on a ship from Brazil to South Africa.  It took ten long days to make this journey.   One night, I stood on the bow of the ship with an African American woman. She wondered what it was like for her ancestors, who traveled these same waters on their way to slavery.  Did they know their fate? How did they spend their time during this long, unfamiliar passage? Were they happy? She wondered if they sang and played the drums along the way.  As she verbalized her thoughts, I felt the beat of a drum vibrating inside of me.

Sunday Breakfast

Breakfast at the Coral Seas Hotel

Long Beach Island, NJ

Summer, 1980

My Uncle owned the Coral Seas Hotel on Long Beach Island. My cousin owns it now. It’s on Atlantic Avenue.  It sits right on the beach. It has a pool and is close to town. So it is always busy. Right off the main office, there was a small restaurant.  I can’t remember if they served the public.  But on Sundays, we, the extended family, got in the routine of stopping there for breakfast right after church.  I am not sure we were ever invited but that never stopped us from just stopping in for a visit.

Tom made big, fluffy blueberry pancakes. Aunt Peggy poured orange juice and somehow bottles of champagne appeared and we made mimosas. Sometimes the Jameson whisky came out and that was added to the orange juices as well, and then after a while, it was just consumed straight.

For the first breakfast, maybe there were ½ dozen of us.  Then the next week, there were 10 of us.  Then my aunt Jane and her family got word about the pancakes and they stopped by as well. The crown was growing exponentially.

One wall of the restaurant was a window that looked out to the street.  Across the street was a villa that rented rooms.  And eventually, each week, we would see a window on the second floor open up and out would come two or three 20 year olds who were trying to beat the check.  Their backpacks would get tossed to the ground.

One of the three would see us and panic a little bit until we would give him the thumbs up.  And he would gesture back that he appreciated our support.  And as we were laughing away, Uncle Tom would be calling the police.  And as these guys gingerly and stealthy made it down the gutters, the police would arrive.  And our friendship with this group would end quickly. One of them would give us the finger and we would laugh even harder.

My father and uncle would retell stores of their parents, both of whom were strangers to us because they died too, too young.  And with each retelling of the story, facts would be eliminated or embellished, depending on what point was to be made.

They would mimic their father, Doc. “Ah, whiskey. Yes, yes, yes. It warms you up and cools you down.  You drink it when you are sad. You drink it when you are happy.”  And then they would toast each other.

From time to time, someone staying at the hotel would stop in, hungry and hung over, needing something quickly to fend off a raging hang over.  We would tell him that this wasn’t a restaurant and they were still in a fog so it was hard for them to comprehend what was going on.  Usually my uncle got a little more asserted and kicked them out unless he liked this customer who was then invited in to join us.

By the third summer, several of us started bringing our significant others to the beach.  There were a few weddings during this time. So our family was expanding.  Now 20 or 30 of us showed up for breakfast.  It was great fun. My cousin, Nancy, brought her future husband for the first time. Someone handed him a large glass of orange juice. He was unaware that his drink had been spiked. He takes a big gulp and chocks. “Him, how sweet it is", he says and sticks his glass out, asking for more.  He passed his initiation into the family.

 And when the fourth summer rolled around, my father broke some bad news.  Uncle Tom had taken his small restaurant and made it unto his laundry facility.  Our Sunday brunches had come to an end.

The Hafbrau House- 1978

The Hafbrau House
Munich, Germany
Summer 1978

I was kicked out of the famous Hafbrau House in Germany for standing on a table with six men.  We were joyously singing the Canadian national anthem.  The bouncer quickly came over to our table and shouted, “Nin, nin.”  I thought I was being funny so I responded, ”He wants to hear it nine more times.” Now I was singing even louder.  With that, he grabbed me by my legs and lifted me off the table.  I was shoved out of the place.  

And I can tell you this:  that is the last time I ever go to that place.

Watching My Grandfather Have A Heart Attack

Philadelphia
April 1963

When I was seven, I watched my grandfather have a heart attack.  He collapsed right on our front porch. It wasn’t clear to me what was going on.  But the panic made it abundantly clear that a crisis had occurred.  My mother and grandmother screamed and screamed.  I was so frightened by all this.  I remember standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the ambulance to come and get him and make him better.  They came and unloaded a stretcher and swept him up.  My mother and grandmother got in the back of the ambulance with him. And they took off, leaving my siblings and me stranded at our house. We had to fend for ourselves in the midst of this confusion and  grief.

Now every time I hear an ambulance, I think back to that awful moment.  Years later this moment helped me to withstand any peer pressure to smoke. And for that reason, I am grateful for this awful moment in my life.

My Near Fatal Car Accident

My Near Fatal Car Accident
Winter, 1990
Hazelton, PA

It rains and snows a lot in the Poconos. From October to March, we have some sort of weekly precipitation. That leaves us with some combination of  snow delay, snow cancellation or school closing. And after a while, like everyone else, I became blasé about the elements.

When I leave the Bloomsburg Mall at dusk, I don’t really notice that the temperature is dropping suddenly.  I don’t really bother to anticipate what is next.  It drizzled all day but the temperature is balmy for Feb.  It is above freezing so the air feels warm to me. I am on the highway (RT 80) for about 30 minutes now.  The sun is clearly gone for the day and the temperature is dropping quickly. I am with a pack of cars but I pull away from them. Now I am traveling alone.  The other cars are behind me.

All of the sudden, my car spins around and around in a circle for no apparent reason. The trees are whizzing by me just like in the cartoons.  I can’t figure out what is going on.  I apply the brakes but that seems to cause more spinning.  I step off the pedal and surge forward at great speed.  I see that I am going down an embankment.  My car comes to a jarring stop because it is now impacted in the embankment.  I jerk forward with a force that I have never felt before.  but I am not hurt. I sit for a moment to collect my thoughts.  I catch my breath and look around.  There is another car in the ditch with me.  There is no movement from inside this car.  Then I am interrupted by honk.  There is yet another car in the ditch.

“Are you alright?” a man shouts to me from his rolled down window.

“I’m fine,” I assure him, “Just a little shaken.”

“How about the other car?” he wants to know.

“Sorry. I haven’t checked on him.  I am a little self-absorbed right now.”

“I hear ya”, he tells me. He rolls up his window, waves and drives off to check on the other car.

I get out of my car and climb up to the road.  A woman shouts to me, “Get back in your car.”  Her voice is loud and filled with panic. “You are going to get killed”.  She is on the other side of the road and she is waving frantically at me. “Get back in your car, “she yells again.  I am so bewildered that it doesn’t even dawn on me that I am conversing with a woman on the other side of the road on a busy, major highway.  Then I look around and see 10 or more cars that have crashed and are idling on the side of the road. They have landed in a multitude of positions on the shoulder.

Then I get what the woman is trying to tell me. Get back in my car before yet another car loses control and chorines right into me. So I slide back in my car, but I am not feeling any safer.  What if a car comes barreling down the road and lands on top of me?  I attempt to move my car and much to my surprise, I am able to drive it.  I didn’t break the axle. I am able to drive to the top of the road.  By this time, all traffic has slowed down to a crawl.  This makes it easier to drive cautiously, given the uncertainty of the condition of my car.

Within ten minutes, all traffic comes to a complete stop. No one is moving. I assume it is another accident ahead and feel certain that we will begin to crawl again.  I am really anxious to get home. But I am mistaken. We don’t move again for hours. Many hours.  Ten hours to be exact.  And no emergency service personnel check up on us. And we don’t check up on each other. It is dark and cold and raining and slippery.  We all stay huddled in our own cars. We are all tried and worried about getting home safely.  So we have completely isolated ourselves to cope with our frustrations, worry and vulnerabilities.

We were stuck there with no food, no bathrooms, and no way to call and alert family members and alleviate these fears about our whereabouts. There is no word on when we would begin moving again. We sat isolated in our cars, filled with uncertainly about everything.

Not knowing how long we would be here, I worry about keeping my car in idle.   Would I run out of gas? And then I worry about turning the motor off. Would I be able to turn it back on? Had it turned on just now as a flux?  I know I had done some damage to my car. I hit the embankment with such an impact that I am surprised that I didn’t break the axle.  Was there serious damage to the engine?  I didn’t know what to do.  I had too many unknown variables to make a good decision. So I decided just to take a risk.  I turned the motor off and then quickly try to start it again. It clicks right on.  So I turn up the heat, full blast and warm up the car. Then I kill the engine. I find a blanket in the back seat and bundle myself up.  I sit in a cocoon for as long as I could, then I turn the engine back on and warm the car again.

I don’t have any food and I didn’t have dinner yet. So now I am hungry.  I purchased a big ass coke at the mall and drank all 44 oz. about an hour ago.  Now I really have to go to the bathroom.  My car is a compact car so there really isn’t enough room to be clever or creative. So I find a position, without any luxury of modest and relieve myself into my 44 oz. cup.  Now what do I do with 30 oz. of urine.  Well, I open the door and pour it out.  The heat of my urine sizzles on the iced road.

Around 430AM. There is some commotion and people start their engines. We all get out and scrap the slush off our windshields. I don’t know if someone heard something on the radio or is this just an example of us working like a herd of cattle, we are just following who is in front to of us.  But we seem all busy and getting ready to get going.  Then there is some movement. It is slow but it is consistent.  I didn’t care.  I am elated to be moving.  The shoulder of the road is scattered with abandoned, broken cars.

I get to my house about 530AM, twelve hours after I left the mall. As I am crawling in the bed, the phone rings.  It is my boss. School is closed today due to the ice.

“Don’t go outside if you don’t have to,” he warns me, ”it’s really bad outside.  I nearly slipped on my balls trying to get the paper.”

I don’t tell him about my accident.  I just want to go to sleep and when I wake up several hours later, I check on my car for the first time. I marvel that I ever made it home. It is banged up, the door is bent and the front grill is mangled.  My insurance agent tells me that car is damaged beyond repair and quite frankly, so am I.  I am nervous and jumpy and now unsure of myself as a winter driver.

I take my car to my mechanic and tell him that my agents offered me a settlement for my five year old car.   “Do you have enough money for a new car, he asks me. “Nope”, I sadly tell him.  I purchased this car two years ago as a used car.  The settlement won’t pay for what I still owe on it. For some reason, my mechanic takes on the challenge of the insurance agent’s meager settlement and he patches my car back to life.  Its resiliency brings new life to me.  Now I find myself bragging about the durability of my beat up old car and me.

Treating Depression in China

Treating Depression In China

Sias University
Henan Province, China
March 13, 2012

Today, I had to give a presentation to my students about depression.  There were maybe 300 students in the audience and it was too large a crowd to talk about such a sensitive topic.  Most of them really weren't interested in the topic but the Prevention Center is seeing more evidence of it. And there was a thought that a presentation on the topic by an American would be better received.

When it came time to answer questions, the students were slow to ask me anything.  The language barrier is always tough and the sensitivity of the topic also limited any interaction.  But then one student nervously raised her hand.  She needed some clarification about what I had said.  Sometimes she feels sad, lonely and confused.  Did I think she suffered from depression? I told the student that if she thought she was depressed, she should discuss this matter with her family doctor.  The student thanked me for my advice, nodded and then politely sat down. And then another student raised her hand, “In America, in your country, does everyone have a family doctor?” she wanted to know.  And then there was an undercurrent of discussion about the question.  And it dawned on me that they didn’t know what a family doctor was.

I had a professional counselor from the University Prevention Center with me who informed me that none of them had a family doctor.  None of them go for regular physical exams.  If they need medical help, they go to the hospital and wait in line and maybe they get help.  The man from the Prevention Center then told the students that they should go to the psychiatric hospital if they thought they suffered from depression.  The hospital is about 1 ½ hours away from the university.  He thought it was slightly better than the local hospital.  Then he told them that they probably wouldn’t get medicine there either because it just wasn’t accessible in China.  Finally, he told them that the most viable solution for any of these college students who may suffer from depression was to come to the prevention center and get some help from college students who have been trained to be peer counselors.

Keeping Current in Technology

Keeping Current in Technology
Spring 2002

In 2002, Bill Gates generously offered every high principal in the US a free palm pilot.  This offer came with one stipulation:  we had to take a five day training course.  That was a big commitment even though the five days were spread out over three months.  But I grabbed the offer. On the last training day, the teacher had some good news and bad news.  

Good news: you get your palm pilot and certificate for completing the course.  

Bad news: a newer palm pilot comes out today.  “Some of your new skills are already obsolete”, she informs us.

On Broadway

Strousdburg High School
Spring, 1999


We often took our high school students to Broadway.  Our high school was only 1 1/2 hours from Manhattan so a few times a year, we had open field trips for kids to see a Broadway show.  We would buy a block of tickets which gave us great discounts and made it affordable for a large group of kids.

And our students were a pretty good audience.  They had been exposed to enough theatre in Stroudsburg and NYC that het knew how to behave.  But we still made it a practice to review our expectations of good audience behavior before each performance.  No whistling, talking, whispering, singing along, sending messages, tapping, taking photo, making comments during the show, etc., etc., etc. Be generous with your applause, etc. Be polite.  No running to the restroom during the performance. No fanning yourselves with your programs.  The audience has come to see the performance, not you.  No one wants to see or hear from you.

As one of the adults gave our standard speech, a kid or two would inevitably mouth along with what we were saying.  It was his own private protest to what he thought was the absurdity of our expectations.  We would usually ignore this type of kid because his classmates would elbow him until he stopped.  And sometimes he got hurt just a bit and that was okay.

Usually, we sat on one section as a large group.  It would be just the 100 of us tucked away in the corner of the balcony. But for one play, we were scattered all over the balcony and the mezzanine.  That meant we, the adults, had to split up and give our expectation speech several times.  I took the balcony and I went to each pocket of students and I gave each new version of my speech with more and more gusto.  I think I gave the speech five times and by the time I got to the fifth group, I had given them so many ultimatums, that it was almost comical.

“And if you do any of these things, you will be sorry,” I tell them with a tone that left no intent to debate. “I’ll beat you until you bleed.  I will publically humiliate and ridicule you.  I will make you walk home.  You will never get to go to another play again.”  I went on and on in my attempt to make my position perfectly clear: there was to be only appropriate theatre behavior.

I finished with the last group and posed my closing question: “Do I make myself perfectly clear?””

“Yes”, they responded in unison and with a slight tone of fear in their voices.  I felt a little smug, “Good, do you understand the consequences?”

“Yes”, they replied with compliance unusual for high school students.

“Good, then enjoy the show.”  And I walked back to my seat and reported in to the other chaperones that all of our students in the balcony have been addressed.

A few minutes later, I stood up and looked around.  I took a quick inventory to determine if everyone was behaving.  I noticed the last group of students I addressed is talking to an adult, a stranger.  And they are pointing at me.

“Lynn”, I said to the chaperone sitting next to me, “do you recognize that woman our kids are talking to?”

Lynn stood up and twisted her whole body to get a good look. She put her hand over her brow to block out the glare and she stared for a second or two.  She turned to me and pointed directly to them.

“Those kids” she asked?

“Yea,” I responded.

“They aren’t our kids.”

Being Bullied

Being Bullied

Merion Mercy Academy

Merion, PA

Fall, 1967

I recognize that everyone gets bullied in middle school.  But when it happened to you, you are sure no one else has ever experienced this humiliation before.

 I changed schools in seventh grade. I went from a co-ed catholic parochial school in the city to an all-girls catholic private school in the suburbs. This new school had smaller classes size and my parent thought this would be helpful in addressing my chronic, inconsistent reading problems.  I didn’t want to transfer schools.  I thought this school would be too hard for me. Some of my teachers had inferred from time to time that I was “retarded” because of my reading skills.  And I believed them.  What  I would find out 10 years later was that I had a learning disability.  I was dyslexic.

I didn’t fit in to my new school, friendships were different here. My classmates had much more money than what I was used to.  And cliques seemed more defined, stronger, more intimidating.  And it seemed as if no clique was letting me in.  So I wandered around every lunch, looking for a new table that would take me in.

Then there were problems in the classroom.  One student in particular, made comments about my hair, my new immerging pimples, and my braces.  She scribbled a boy’s name on my book bag, one of the popular boys, so everyone could see. And people laughed at the thought that I would have the audacity to have a crush on Ryan.  They and I both knew that he would never give me the time of day.

Then two more girls started in with the teasing.  They would ask me to pass notes to each other. And all of these notes were filled with derogatory comments about me.  I dutifully complied with their request because I didn’t have the courage to ignore e them.

Then one day, we were in geography class and three of them were throwing wet spit balls at me.  These little spit balls were landing on my head and causing great entertainment for all those around me.  It was humiliating.  It was humiliating to keep the spit balls on my head. And it was humiliating to brush them off as well.  Both actions recognized these bad behaviors.

They did this to me a couple of days in a row.  And after about the third day, I had had enough.  I turned around to the girl behind me and flatly told her that she had to stop.  She laughed, looked me right in the eye, put a small piece of paper in her mouth and shot a slimly spit ball at my head.  It hit me square in the forehead.

That was the last straw. “That’s it”, I said angrily. “I’m telling.”  And I shot up my hand.  The teacher must have seen all of this because she reacted as if she was just waiting for me to give her the signal to intervene.

She charged down the aisle, pointing her finger at the girl behind me.  “Is she bothering you”? Mrs. Jordon asked with a voice of authority.

I turned quickly to the girl, looked right at her.  She was nervous.  And then I turned to Mrs. Jordon, “No, I was just wondering if you could tell me the capitol of Yugoslavia”.

The teacher was befuddled.  She stopped in her tracks.  She couldn’t believe it.  She was almost disappointed in me.  But then she answered my question and moved on.  I turned to the girl behind me and with great satisfaction and confidence, said to her "ha, ha, I scared you.”  And I had.  And people around us laughed at her.  And she never bothered me again.

Snorkeling in Mexico

Kayaking and Snorkeling 
in Caba, Mexico
Spring 2011

I remember the first time I went snorkeling. It was in the Caribbean and I was afraid.  I can’t swim so I constantly have the thought of drowning on my radar when I go in the water.  My boat mates, at the time, were encouraging me to break away from my fears and surrender to the opportunity.  One woman assured me that she was a licensed scuba diver instructor and she was willing to hold my hand, figuratively and literally, as I gave snorkeling a try.  So I surrendered and suited up in my flippers and mask and walked out backwards in to the cool, cool surf. 

Conquering the technique of breathing through the mask was difficult, unnatural to me.  I panicked because I didn’t like the sensation. I felt out of control of my own breathing.  So I stopped and stood firmly in the water and just practiced for a few minutes before I went any further.

Once I felt comfortable, I slowly submerged myself in just below the surface.  My eyes were closed and I concentrated on my breathing, slowly, methodically, without panic.  In and out. In and out. Once I had the rhythm down pat, I opened my eyes and immediately popped right back up.

“What’s the matter", Joann wanted to know. “Is something wrong?

I could barely contain myself.  I felt as if I had been blind but now I see. The fish were beautiful and their beauty startled me. So I told Joanne, “I feel as if I was blind but now I see. “  And she understood. And in that short a period of time, I lost my rhythm in breathing, so I started again, in and out and then in and out.  And when I was ready, I submerged myself again.  And I floated through this wonderful world of color and quiet and beauty.  The only noise was my labored breathing.

And so after that experience, I was hooked.  I became a snorkeling junkie.  I go snorkeling every chance I get.  When I got home from this trip, I went out and bought snorkeling equipment.  And when I searched a little more, I found better equipment. So I bought that equipment as well.  And this quest continued so now I think I have enough equipment for three or four people.  And of course, I have never needed to use all of this equipment at any one time.

I did however, go out and get masks for small children and I did teach my young nephews to snorkel in my hot tub.  That was fun and they were filled with a degree of wonderment when they found the toys I had planted at the bottom.  Someday, I am going to take them somewhere where they can snorkel for real.  If they should have half the excitement as I experienced, I will be thrilled.

So now, ten years later, I consider myself a full-fledged snorkeler.  I am a bit of a cautious snorkel and could see worlds more of multiple fish variety if only I could swim.  But I can’t but I am still very happy with what I have seen to date.

So now, I am in Caba, Mexico and I have signed up for a kayaking and snorkeling trip.  And I have come on this journey with my own snorkeling equipment, a safety whistle, and life jacket and a small sun cabana, all of which I left on the boat because of a moment of over-prepared dorkiness which came over me as I was getting ready to disembark from the ship.

We are met at the port by two gregarious young men who speak to us with a comfort and familiarity that puts all of us at ease and the group gels immediately.  There are six of us and two of them (Sebastian and Martin) and we hop in their van and head to the beach, which is empty of people and the only sound was the roar of the waves.

We are using tandem kayaks and I am not good in a tandem.  You have to paddle in sync with the other person and I never, never learned to work in sync with another person.  I am only on my own radar. But I found a partner who quickly passed me the role of the captain.  She thought I had more experience.  So she took the front seat and I hopped in the back.  We were the first in our boat so we led the pack.  And off we went without instruction from our guide and without a sense of the strength of the current.

But then it hit us both at the same time.  We realized we were so small in this surf.  Waves in the distance intimidated us and we held our breath as we looked up and saw waves that only surfers would have wished for.  But these waves were too, too much for us, both of us being stillwater paddlers.

We seemed to have been lucky enough to dodge the breaking of the waves and we were out in the ocean, the Pacific Ocean.  I was paddling in the Pacific Ocean and I looked over and  saw the shoreline  well off to my left shoulder and I pulled on my life jacket ever so slightly tighter as if this extra little pull was going to make me more secure.

Mostly we paddled out of sync with each other. And then we clashed paddlers from time to time and occasionally we found a rhythm with each other.  But just as soon as we reached this point, we fell out of sync again.

We watched for birds and saw some magnificent cormorants. And we saw a large white bird that we could not identify, at first.  But upon closer inspection, we foolishly discovered that it was nothing more than a rock covered white with bird droppings.

We paddled towards a large rock formation and I worried about being sucked in to the current. The waves slapped so loudly against the rock and I just imagined our kayak being sucked in and cracked apart against all of the nooks and crannies.  And of course, we would never be seen again.

As we turned around the corner of the rock, we saw Martin on the beach, waving to us, waiting to grab our kayaks and drag us safely beyond the breaking of the waves.  It was great to see him because I did worry about how I was going to get out of the kayak in the midst of the surf.

We took a quick break and then jumped right in to snorkeling.  I could hardly wait.  The water glistened with hues of greens and blues. The sun was intense.  The atmosphere was joyful.  And I looked around and thought to myself, “Who are you to be so damn luck to be here.”

I got my equipment. Sebastian asked me for my mask for just a second so that he could douse it with a little glass cleaner. This was going to minimize the potential for the mask to fog up.

I gathered my stuff.  I put on my flippers and began to walk backwards in the water.  The first two steps were cool and refreshing.  The third step, I dropped several feet and now the water was well above my waist.  And the current was strong, really strong.  It tossed me around and my flippers folded under me as I attempted to maintain my balance.  I was stumbling and struggling to stand.  And if that wasn’t enough activity, I decided to put my mask on.  It didn’t fit just right and I didn’t have my glasses on, so fixing the problem was a challenge.

The waves were knocking me down and I was losing the battle.  But somehow I jammed the mask over my head and secured it too tightly over my face.  And I had an immediate reaction to the de-fogging fluid in my mask.  My eyes began to burn so much that it hurt to keep my eyes open.  My sinuses opened up and burned as well.  And now, completely distracted, the waves pushed and pulled me ever more forcefully.  I was tripping over my damn flippers.  I was trying to get the damn mask off my head and I couldn’t touch the bottom.  And now, my jacket isn’t fitting right and my balance is completely off.  And I could have used some help.  But the others had already taken off by now.  So I was completely alone.

Just five feet away, there was a rope which corded off the boundary of the reef.  With much effort, I got over there and grabbed hold of the rope. It was slimly with algae which broke away as I grabbed hold.  All of the algae broke up in to hundreds of small particulars and surrounded me.  And even as I hung on, I was being thrown around and couldn’t anchor myself.  I would try to open my eyes but it was still too painful.  I was tripping over my flippers but I couldn’t get them off.  I had to get out of the water because I was becoming exhausted.  And it was hard work as I made my way back to our umbrella on the beach.

Once I settle myself on the beach, I took a bottle of water and attempted to wash out my eyes.  After half an hour, I was able to open my eyes again without straining myself.  So I thought I would try again.  But this time, I would go in without my flippers and I would secure my life jacket more securely so that it wasn’t bumping into my face.

My travel mates had just returned and talked with excitement about everything they saw.  So I was excited.  I picked up my equipment which called attention to Sebastian.

“Yes,” he said, misinterpreting my intention, “You’re right.  It’s time to go.  It’s 12:30 so we have to start back.”  And with that everyone got up, gathered up their things and we went back to the van.  This was a missed opportunity for me.

I Want Him Out Of My House

I Want Him Out of My House
A Meeting With A Parent
Stroudsburg High School
1989

She was crying hysterically by the time I arrived at my office. Leaning against the window ledge, holding her head in her hands, she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

She was her usual unkempt self. In dirty clothes and a ripped flannel shirt, she lifted her head and looked straight at me. Her face was red from tears and pain but also from alcohol. Her face always had a reddish blotchy look to it. She drank a lot and everyone knew it. People referred to her as white trash, a slut, a whore, a druggie.

“I need to talk to you.  I need your help with Stevie. He’s driving me fucking nuts”, she cried in desperation. Her son, Steve, is a big pain in the ass at school so it is no surprise to me that he is also a big problem at home. She was a frequent visitor to my office.  She would come in every time I suspended Steve from school.  She defended him unconditionally and with a vengeance that is scary so I was surprised to hear that she now wants my help.

“I don’t know what to do with him. He keeps playing this song about a boy who kills his mother with a chain saw. I want him out of my damn house. You have to help me get him out of my house now before he kills me. I wish his father was alive to see what he is doing to me. He called me a drug addict but I’m clean. I don’t do that shit no more. I ain’t done none of that shit for years. At least when I was his age and driving my mother crazy, I had the courtesy and the balls to run away. I didn’t stay around and chant songs about killing my mother with a chain saw. He’s driving me fucking crazy.”
1989

Tea Bitches- Part IV and the end of the story

This is the end of The Tea Bitches Story. The other parts can be found in this blog.

PART IV- May 2012- in Philadelphia PA

 It is May and I am back in Philadelphia.  After a few months, I am finally able to review my bank statements.  I go back to my February statement and look at my first ATM transaction in China. In February, upon arrive in China, I went right to the ATM machine in the airport.  I remember withdrawing 2000 Yuan (about $330).  I remember having 20 bills of 100 Yuan.  When I paid the bill at the Tea House, I gave the damn waitress everything I had. By my calculations, I had paid approximately $250 to those damn tea bitches. 

But now, a few months later and back in the USA, when I look at my bank statement, it clearly shows that I only withdrew 1200Y (about $200).

When I went to the tea house, the day after the incident and showed them the note form the security guard, I was immediately offered 700Y.  But I refused that offensive offer because I was adamant that I had paid 1500Y.

So now, there is a whole new twist to the story: if I really only paid 700Y, there is an 800Y surcharge that I collected from the tea house waitress.  No wonder she was so mad at me.  That means the tea bitches teachers each paid about 300Y which is about a week’s salary for them.  And the tea house waitress lost about 200Y. And I later learned that the local police are all in on this corruption.  They look the other way and then come collecting cut in the profits.  I am sure the police never got a cut in this deal.

Anyway, while I was in China, I had a coat custom made for me.  I didn’t know it at the time, but the tea bitches really paid for it.  And every time I wear this coat, I will think of them. Thank you tea bitches. I hope I taught you more than just English skills.

End of story.