Follow the Leader

So we drove our rented motorbike home to our Bali Bungalow in the dark for the first time tonight. The place we’re staying – the Alam Sari is about 10km outside of Ubud – which by Balinese terms is the boonies via unlit twisting and turning roads, hills, bridges, expanses of rice fields and choruses of chirpy things calling from the jungle that reaches toward the roadway.

Hence, even though my belly was full of a great Japanese meal suggested by and enjoyed with Larry and Rai – I approached the adventure with a bit of trepidation. The early part of the ride was no trouble through the well lit streets and with the traffic of Ubud. But, as we got further from the city the darkness became a canopy and the sporadic oncoming traffic blinded me with bouncing beams of light. Then, just as we made the turn near the temple that prefaced the most daunting portion of our ride another magical Balinese event.

A duck whisperer leads his weed and bug eating flock through a rice paddy.

It seems there was a festival going on at this particular temple and a procession of several dozen folks on foot attired in traditional dress were headed there. In order for the folks to safely make the journey a team of sarong attired men with torches was keeping traffic at bay. So we cued up behind the parade, first one, then three then a dozen or two motorbikes all waiting until the procession turned into the temple courtyard them we were flagged on to continue our journeys. Here’s the magic part. As we took off, the string of motorbikes stretched forward like a strand of Christmas lights extending before us. I could see every twist in the road before me as if candles floating down a river. Then one after another a bike would pull off until one lone rider was before us, and he carried on as we safely arrived home.

Coming home from school.

Today we motor biked south to a village known for its silversmiths where Sara picked up a few things and then to a batik co-op where I scored a couple shirts. We navigated via map by finding our intended destinations and then discerning the general direction, putting the map away and using a compass to keep us on track as we wended our way. We are so enjoying the freedom of traveling the side roads and alleyways.

Women doing batik at the co-op

While walking around the silver village we both accidently stepped in some dog poop. I don’t know why folks say they accidently step in dog poop – I doubt anyone steps in dog poop on purpose. But anyway, after doing so we headed down an alley to look for some water to wash off our flip flops. There are aqueducts all over the place that feed the water from the mountains into the rice fields. As we wandered down this alley we came across a tiny little silver shop that we would have never found otherwise and Sara got some great prices on some earrings and a ring – plus the proprietor fed us some of her home made rice flour bread.

Sara and the Jewelry maker.

Tomorrow we meet up with Larry and Rai again – this time to motor to a black sand beach. I’m sure something or other will happen and by the way things have been going it’ll most likely turn out good.

All together now: “It’s a small, small world”

As my old friend Dr. Sief once said while we chased camels across a Bahraini desert in a hotel mini van, “It is a magical day!”

Sara Holbrook – motorcycle mama

Seems every day in Bali is a magical day. The last time Sara and I were here we took a long weekend between two weeks of teaching in Jakarta. As we boarded the plane a little girl walked up to us and said, “Didn’t I see you in Croatia a year ago?” Indeed she had. She was at a school we visited in Zagreb and here she was waiting to catch a plane in Jakarta bound for Bali. Chalk one up for small world syndrome.

A couple Komodo dragon statues in monkey forest

So Sara and I were scheduled to visit a couple of schools in Southeast Asia – Hong Kong and another for two weeks. Well due to circumstances beyond their control the second school ended up having to cancel our visit five days before our departure. Tickets were bought and paid for, schedules were made, house sitters and dog watchers hired. We were in a pickle. So we started making calls to our friends at international schools in the area, put our Utah based travel agent on standby and hoped for the best.

Have you hugged your elephant today?

Ta-dah – Kate at Jakarta international School said – “Why sure, you guys come back here we’d love to have you – only trouble is we cannot take you until a week after you finish in Hong Kong. Tell you what – what don’t you spend the week in Bali then come to us!?” So – boom, pow! We’re chillaxing in Bali!

Our bungalow at the Alam Sari

Okay, back to the small world theme. An old friend from decades ago now owns a great shop in Cleveland called City Buddha. Turns out Larry and his lovely wife Rai spend a couple months every year in Bali buying for the shop. So the night before we leave Hong Kong I get a facebook message from him asking we’d like to see if we can meet up. (Small world) I write back informing him that Sara and I are staying in Ubud, a city up in the mountains, far away from the surfers and such down beach ways and he tells us he and Rai have a house in Ubud (smaller world.)

We meet up with Larry and walk around town the first day and have dinner with him and Rai and the two of them talk Sara and me into renting a motorbike. The last time we were here, our friend and owner of the Alam Sari suggested the same thing but we were not brave enough to do so. With our new/old friends assuring us it was not necessarily signing a death warrant to get on a scooter here we took the plunge – deciding to try one for a couple days. The motor scooter has changed our life. We flit around the island like a couple of joined dragon flies now. Buzzing and burping up hills weaving in traffic, riding through thunderstorms. Sara’s helmet sports a sticker that says Rancid Hooligans. And that’s what we are! (At least as much as a couple middle aged poets from Cleveland Ohio on a Yamaha Vespa knock off could be.)

Rai discusses a purchase for their store with Larry.

We scootered behind Larry and Rai on a shopping trip for the store today in another village way further than we would have ever gone on our own, then back into Ubud for lunch at a place called Ibu Oka for barbecue suckling pig that Anthony Bourdain declared the best he had ever eaten and finishing the afternoon with a massage. Part of the spa treatment included a post massage scrubbing with aromatic and gritty paste of spices, followed by a burrito like wrapping in towels where it felt like I was being slow cooked as whatever was plastered on my body began to generate heat. A bath in ginger water and a shower and here I am writing this post.

Just one of roughly a gazillion wood carvings we saw today.

Oh yeah, we told the Alam Sari folks that we’d be keeping the bike for our whole stay.

Canadian International School Hong Kong

Like everything in Hong Kong the Canadian International School reaches for the sky.  At ten stories tall the building is an apt metaphor for the high goals set by the students and staff. The campus clings to the edge of one of islands many hills resting atop pylons driven deep into the bedrock and affording quite a picturesque view of the harbor below.

Sara and I started our week off with an assembly and then did classroom workshops with grades five through ten. This school is wired. Every student has  laptop and digital literacy is practiced with a gusto. But, this did not stop the kids from producing some great work the old fashioned paper and pencil way when we got to work in our sessions.

We wrote definition poems, memoirs, worked on imagery, metaphor and editing. I especially liked the eighty minute periods which gave us a bit more time than usual to work a bit deep with the kids.

Deep thinking was definitely something the students here are used to. Primary grades curriculum doesn’t break out into subject areas until sixth grade. Before that all the content areas are taught within an all encompassing theme. I’m not really doing the idea justice here – but it sure looks like it works.

Suffice it to say – we had another wonderful international school experience – extra special thanks to Joanne, Tanya, Myrna, Matt and Stephanie for making us feel so welcomed during our stay. Seeya next time!

Hey Buddy–you got the time?

Hong Kong is a big city that works like clockwork. No wonder with all the timepieces in the city. Even with seven million people packed into this vertically proficient city one would have to assume each resident is sporting half a dozen watches on both arms considering the number of them for sale in this city. From a buck or two to the price of a starter home in a Cleveland suburb watches are everywhere.

Seventy five percent of the island’s land mass is still undeveloped but the other twenty five percent is packed tall and deep to form the mechanism that is Hong Kong. From what I could tell – everything worked – buses, subways, taxis, ferries, and trams up the side of mountains – clean, reliable precision at every turn. It was definitely one of the most navigable big cities I have ever been in. As my friend Larry, a frequent visitor to the metropolis, said it is a city designed for its occupants. I don’t think Sara and I ever got lost the whole week we were there.

Here’s a baker’s dozen pics from our visit.

Let it snow–let it snow–let it snow

Nothing gives one the sense of accomplishment like a freshly shoveled driveway. I think it is the instant gratification of seeing your job completed one clump at a time – step by step, seeing the progress in real time. It made me think how can we structure classroom lessons to give that same feeling of accomplishment as we go along. I was also grateful for the wool sweater I bought in New Zealand this past July – a long term bit of planning that has paid off in spades (snow shovels?)  this winter.

Here’s a couple pics.

Gargoyles are not known for their fondness of snow.

Suzi and Lili inspect my work.

Aiken to be in South Carolina again.

Spent a couple days last week in Aiken South Carolina, a town about an hour’s drive from Columbia. This part of the state has become a return location for Sara and me the last three years.  We were there on behest of a couple teachers who caught our shtick at the Midlands Writing Project up in Lexington NC this past summer.

Now the National Writing Project is a really cool program. Basically  the idea behind the program is that if one wants to teach writing one should be a writer. Pretty novel (no pun intended) approach eh? Time after time after being completely blown away by the enthusiasm and rigor of a classroom teacher I am working with I find out that they are Writing Project alum.

Such was the case of the folks who brought us in to work with the kids at a couple of Aiken’s Elementary Schools. Beth and Sue were our hostesses with the mostesses during our two day stay. Here’s an article in the local paper that chronicles our visit.

We sure look forward to our next visit to the Columbia SC area  – especially since we found Little Pigs BBQ . Food that good and abundant can’t be legal north of the Mason-Dixon.

Here are some pics from our visit – they’ve been a bit stylized for use in future PowerPoint presentations.

JFK High School Warren Ohio

When I first realized that I was booked into JFK High on the first day back from Christmas vacation I figured the day would be shot by kids unable to switch gears from the sleep late and eating goodies mode to the back in a desk mode.

 

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I had a wonderful visit with the students and teachers, meeting with grades seven through eleven. I was invited by a parent teacher alliance called Artcetera who are responsible for bringing all sorts of extra curricular events to the school. I might quibble a bit with the word extra here though. The folks I met from this organization all knew that adding a little extra creativity to the school day is a very integral part of a successful curriculum.

Extra special thanks to Judi and Brian for bringing me in and for their hard work seeing that their students are exposed and participate in the practicality of the arts. Thanks to Judi for the snapshots in this post as well and good luck on the poetry slam they are holding at the end of this month.

New England!, What’s wrong with the old one?

Spent an enjoyable albeit chilly three days in the Boston metropolitan area last week. Sara visited a couple elementary schools and we both dropped in on the students and teachers at Pierce Middle in Milton Massachusetts.

This gave us the opportunity to stay with our friends Christine and Larry – Chris teaches at Pierce and Larry is her husband – so along with these two and their bookended Husky dogs – Montana and Tundra – we enjoyed the bluster that is a New England December.  We visited these two back  Halloween ‘09 when the weather was decidedly more conducive to a stroll around the commons.

I know people like to talk about winter being the dead time of year – but I think really it’s when you feel the most alive.  I mean how quick do you make it back to your car across a  windswept and snowy parking lot ? Teeth chattering shuddering from the cold is indistinguishable from vibrating with anticipation.

Now I admit, I’ve never been one for winter sports – skiing, snowmobiles all that stuff – I have been known to drag a kid up a sledding hill on occasion though but I don’t think holding up for six months under an electric blanket is the best way to pass time.

Anyway – our visit to the Milton School District was a stellar one. We worked with the kids during the day and then with a couple dozen teachers afterwards. Throughout I was fighting a cold and it probably didn’t help that prior to by busiest day (which required getting up at 5 o’this-sucks in the morning) I had a relatively late night at the Boston Poetry Slam – held since 1991 at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge.

I let the hostess of the evening Simone, know I was thinking about swinging by the set – I hadn’t been to the Cantab since 1992 – and asked her what the open mic protocol was. I figured I’d get there and do a poem watch the feature and then cut out before the slam – it was a school night after all.

Well – it wasn’t Boston alone experiencing wintertime blasts – the featured reader Ken Arkind was supposed to be coming in from Denver – but his flight had been delayed and it didn’t look like he was going to make it. So I pinch hit for him – doing a short feature set. Like Woody Allen said: 90% of success is showing up on time. Thanks Ken and Simone.

So it was a good thing I decided to pop some Advil Cold and Sinus caps and brave the elements to take the train into town – I could have stayed home toasty warm like a dog curled up by the heat hole but see, hitting the streets and meeting the wind in your face will pay off every now and then. Plus, I really enjoyed the open mic at the Cantab’s Slam, as well – one of the better I’ve been to in quite awhile.

So – in closing for no other reason than a photo op I leave ya with a pic of the Paps taken 10 minutes ago - wading the snow in our driveway. Anybody know where I can buy a teeny tiny dogsled? Montana and Tundra would be proud.

The Abominable Snow Cat

Winter has officially come to our household. Spike the deaf white kitty has moved back indoors.

What difference a week and 1,038.72 miles makes. There I was happily tossing chocolate covered graham crackers to an alligator and this morning I am wondering whether I should have started the snow blower up last weekend just to be sure it would grumble to life this year.

Lili our seven month Pap pup didn’t quite know what to think about the white stuff sprinkled across the lawn – but acclimated to it fairly quickly – barking at the kids walking past our house to the bus stop took priority over the snow underfoot.

Now Spike has seen this pattern for almost a decade and he knows that when the snow flies it is time to hunker down next to the window and wait for Spring. In fact December is his birthday month – and if he recalls he was born outside in our garage to a neighborhood stray along with his sister Buffy (who is decidedly an indoor housecat) and his brother Oreo who moved in with my sister and subsequently disappeared. The trio’s mom had moved into our garage which was left open by construction workers who were putting an addition on our house unbeknownst to us.

Buffy was the first to be discovered. She was a tiny little ball of fuzz crying, crying, crying,  out in our dark cold backyard. Her little eyes were swollen shut from infection and her whole body was shivering. I scooped her up and took her to my sister’s, the veterinarian,  house where she got pumped full of antibiotics and food.

A week or so later my son Max and his friend Andy heard some mewing from the garage. Andy, who has since become a chef, had attempted to pick up Spike, the source of this meowing. Spike hissed at the cat loving cook who then backed off in fear of the little six ounce ball of terror.

The two ran into the house and told me about the second cat just found in the garage and of its ferocious disposition making it impossible to retrieve. Of course I questioned their manhood and went out there to show them how to deal with a feral kitten.

I found baby Spike and scooped him up, chiding Andy for being such a wimpy kid that he was afraid of this teeny tiny little feline. This is when Spike sunk his teeny tiny little fangs into the ball of my hand. He didn’t just bite and let go – he dug in, shaking his head like a pit-bull putting the finishing touches on a punctured football. Blood was streaming down my arm like a prom queen in a Steven King novel while I continued to tell Andy and Max what poor examples they were of their gender. So, Spike was taken to my sister’s as well and the next day Oreo was found and all three kittens received shots, spaying and neutering.

Now Buffy lives in the house where she has grown big and fat and Spike is the neighborhood tomcat – killing moles and baby birds while spending his time more with the elderly couple next door than with his real family here. Spike acts as if he doesn’t know us most of the time – but will rub up against the leg of the old man while he works on cars in his garage and can often bee seen sporting long grease streaks on his head or tail. I don’t know if it’s just an affinity for garage living brought on by birthright or if he remembers me as tasting bad but it seems all we are good for to him is soft food in the morning, first aid when he has been in a fight and  a warm place to sleep in the winter.

So like some hobo hopping a train to Florida in November – Uncle Spike has moved back into the house. Yep, Winter is here.