This was always about Bhutanical
adventures, and wow! What an adventure that was in the Land of the Thunder
Dragon. Years have passed by but these restless wandering legs of mine don't
settle easily... so the 'Beyond Bhutan' bit finally begins...
(warning - this post is a bit 'involved')
Part 1
I was idling by a river last week enjoying
the play of light and the maundering burble of purling waters. Like this:
I was wondering
about 'Africa'. Why? Because I'm going there. For 2 years. I've taken a
teaching job near Nakuru in Kenya.
I've been wondering
about 'Africa' since leaving Bhutan. I thought to myself, "if I ever do
this again, where would it be?" And there was nowhere else: Himalaya or
'Africa'. Kenya is my way in because that's where I found the school I
wanted. There's plenty of reasons to go. You probably know most of them.
There's plenty of reasons not to go too. This post is largely about reasons.
But it was written in Great Britain before leaving. That Great country of
ours. Still
Great, after all these years. Some people might want to stop reading
now (eek), but here we go...
'The UK' - a
relatively safe and splendid pocket of the world. You can still live well if
you find a decent job and work hard (ish), eating Argentinian beef and New
Zealand lamb, mixing
gin and tonics and watching millionaires kick footballs. All the
natural teeth have long ago been pulled - we killed anything wild that
might kill us. The 'insert adjective' Empire furnished us with such
an absurd headstart that wealth still runs like rivers through select channels
- some of my friends don't even need to work much because their family houses turn
the work of those less fortunate into an income for leisure; the landed gentry
has swelled to encompass those who still stick their flags in the ground
of liberals and socialists, an impossible balancing act.
Old Blighty has its
share of devils - it's an aggressive country with a government that excels in
sophisticated corruption, visibly on the decline with tatty airports and
falling apart schools and hospitals (see 'sophisticated corruption'), not to
mention being peopled largely by functioning workaholic/alcoholics - but as
Kylie opined, better the devils you know.
The fabric is tearing
on this idyllic couch of ours and even when it feels hunky-dory - perhaps after
a stroll in the white-washed countryside and a few pints with a pie - tiny
cracks are chasming. We tell ourselves its ok, partly because pessimism isn't
really allowed, and we
recycle! And we're all good people.
It's ok!
Unless you have kids.
Then it niggles at you deep down that this lingering simulacrum of a cosy
existence, be it carved out or inherited, just isn't going to last. In ye olde
times, people used to leave things for the next generation; the new norm of
borrowing forward doesn't work when the next generation is facing bankruptcy,
both economic and environmental. Barring
a miracle of science or the supernatural, we are the dying embers of the
profligate age and our children's children look set to be the first ashes.
A friend once told me that
the arrival of children signals the end of despair because you can't have a
child and simultaneously not have hope. She didn't mean that the child brings
this hope into your life. She meant that if you love your children, your heart
will break and break again if you let hope slip. So you fudge it or mangle it
or make do if you have to - you make it not go away, even if it means a
loosening of principles, a shift in politics, changes in behaviour. Or a
pulling down of shutters.
What do we do in a
world of ridiculously
melting away ice, heatwaves, plastic
up to our knees, species
armageddon, tech-billionaires
buying bunkers and forests
burning?
Quick! Buy a house and
hide in it. Work more. Only allow manageable quantities of the world in. Strive
hard for comfort and security, resist change. Buy I-Pads. Shop on Amazon. Watch
football or Netflix. Get drunk. Pull the shutters down, for God's
sake. Get through. Eeeek...
In the Chinese
Classic Yueh Chi - the Memorial of Music - it states
that: music expresses the accord of heaven and earth. In that
case...
Part 2
Back to the purling
waters. What was I thinking about, sitting there wondering at the ripples? That
I could make a simple choice...
1) Be like the water that pools at the edges
(supporting a narrow biome of life but growing fetid with time - symptoms:
hoarding stuff, buying houses, seeking security, pretending we'll live forever
etc).
2) Be like the water that purls and meanders
in the middle (playing with the light and keeping pace with the fizzling of
existence - symptoms: minimal stuff, tread lightly, engage with new experience,
live as if you'll be dust).
I went for the second
option. This time. Perhaps as much out of habit as principle, but I
shunned the security of the backwaters and slipped into the river. Great
Britain is a backwater, for sure. From the vantage point of Bhutan it resembled
a doddery, old, farting, retired general trying to get the VHS working and
banging on about the sodding war all the time. I do love it. Parts of it. But I
wish it would stop wetting itself and dribbling on about immigration and the
royal family. I wish it would drop the Great and be honest about its place in
the world.
So I won't be putting
fuel under the belly of the banks by buying a house and I certainly won't rent
it for profit, pension or travel money to those less fortunate than me.
I may be an idiot on this front, but if I acted otherwise, the feeling that I
was something worse would gnaw at me. RANT: nobody should charge rent way
beyond the cost of their mortgage just because 'the market' says so, especially
to people they have the temerity to call friends; a free house should be enough
- shame on you.
(I mentioned this to
Ammato, my new neighbour - exactly this - and I asked him if he thought I was
an idiot, and he turned to me and said - NO! you re a socialist. Thank you
Ammato - you are the first person who hasn't treated me like a weirdo for it.
He went on to point out that socialism is not possible any more, so I may still
be the idiot. Capitalism has crept into everything; we used to call it greed,
now we call it necessity, when often it isn't. In Kenya, the government
actively legislates against socialism, possibly as a reaction to the failed
'socialist' states that emerged out of the post-independence scramble, mostly
headed up by egomaniacs who confused socialism for industrial revolutions and
the gathering of huge personal wealth and stature... where was I?)
I certainly won't
change the world or any of these things. In Kenya I'll see wholesale corruption
on a crazy scale amid a Chinese land grab and an infrastructure campaign that's
being replicated all over the continent. If Russia and the Middle East now own
London, the Chinese are getting hold of Africa, which makes Mrs May's trip all the
more desperate and hilariously out of touch.
I'll try to keep pace
with the fizzling of existence and playing with the light by going somewhere
alien and unfamiliar and find myself being... me. I'll strip back again, live
with less and tread lightly with small footprints. I'll go with the living
waters and try to put my concerns, cares and fears where they belong... in the
air. Fear makes us run to our fenced-off back gardens, and I get it - it
should. But let the wind have my fears, as it will one day have all of me when
this ends and I go back to the river.
Bhutanese monks are
taught to envision their own annihilation and the end of everybody they know
and love on a daily basis. It's terrifying in our culture, liberating theirs.
We cling to permanence where there is none, they cleave to transience and change.
So - move to Africa. Why bother with why when you've got why
not? As the deputy head said to me, of course coming out here is nuts, but
you get to live in Africa! Meanwhile half the world is struggling to survive.
The other half is struggling to live well. And the Earth is struggling to keep
it all going, and more people are coming everyday to add to the mindless
trampling. But the light still plays on the rushing waters that purl and fizzle
and give life, time ticking by inexorably, as a steady illusion that binds our
egos to it all.
Take your clothes off.
Let go your industry.
Let slip some ambition.
Jump in and go swimming
:-)
Part 3
Is this why I am going
to Kenya? Not entirely. I was forced to drive at 30mph on an empty four-lane M5
at midnight. That contributed too - bring on the flow of unregulated traffic,
let slip the controls. So partly, that too. And of course, lions. And hippos.
And colour. This sort of thing:
Next post will be less intense :-) and more
'pictures'
