Not as Free as a Bird

The need to be on the move, wrote the man sitting in front of the computer. The day before the day the man was writing these words Cecilia questioned him why, despite his proficiency in the local language and all the experiences of travelling alone, was he wasting his time staying home instead of being out there wandering around while he was still here in the foreign land.

His first reaction was of course to defend his own actions, but the words just fell short of escaping his parting lips. What reasoning could be the justification to his staying home all day long? There wasn't, and he knew it. He had, at the moment of being questioned, already several excuses conjured up to counter the attack, but he simply knew that she was right, these becauses were just excuses fabricated to cover up an ugly truth - he had no control over his own life.

Over time, he was getting used to the thinkings of people that don't move around that much. And he was somehow adapting to these ideas and accepting them as normal. Little did he know that this was taking its toll on his spirit. Weeks and months preceding to this present day when he was writing these words, he picked up a trace of some sort of suffocation - the nature of which remained unclear to him. Suffocation then led to gloominess, and gloominess led to a state of lethargy.

Then it finally dawned on him what was missing, and the remedy couldn't be more straightforward - he just needed to be on the road, to break free from these ideas that restrained him from breathing the free air. It was this very reason that he didn't defend himself when she questioned him. However, along with this realization also came the reaffirmation that man cannot be totally free from foreign influences most of the time, and this inability to be true to himself renders him unhappy.

季報擷取

這裡窮的很窮，富有的就很富有。有時候看到一些事情就會心酸，那不到３歲連窗戶都摸不到的小孩就在路邊販賣東西或是要向停紅綠燈的車輛洗擋風玻璃要那十塊台幣不到的錢（已從尼幣換算過來，匯率尼幣比台幣1.7比1），但有時候看久了就不會去想到他們。雖然相對比起來我們是有錢人，但是為了省麻煩；或是因為這殘障是假的；或是因為他們的父母就再另外一邊監視著小孩們工作，為了不助長這夭壽的習性；或是因為這是整個政府社會的問題不是說給他錢就可以解決的所以就沒有給他們錢。“因為”總是很多，他們聽起來既有道理但也是藉口，但是現實就是這樣，這也是很無奈。“我們並不是德瑞莎修女”，這是事實但也是說服自己讓自己遺忘現實醜惡的一面的說法。視而不見雖然不會讓你心裡比較好過，但是你的日子的確會過得比較快樂。

但也因為這裡窮所以MI (Misión, Mission) 跟OI (Organización Internacional, International Organization) 的車牌滿街跑。但是因為抗議尼國去年底選舉的不公，很多美國和歐洲的援外組織皆已陸續撤走，或是暫時凍結援助，要求尼國政府給一個答覆。桑定政府在四處擺設他們施政成果的廣告標語，說什麼現在已有多少婦女因為某某計畫而受惠。但是這些計畫都是接受外資援助才得以執行的，所以外援撤走的話很多的這些計畫都會在執行上遇到困難。

事情沒有想像中的那麼高尚美好，援助工作的背後包含了政治角力的元素存在。但其實這也不是那麼的令人驚訝，因為天下沒有白吃的午餐。很殘酷的現實就是這樣，尤其以台灣岌岌可危的處境來看更是如此。廣告文宣中說的的國際友情我百分之百相信是有，在推廣戶和合作社農民的言行舉止上就可以清楚看出來他們對我們的衷心感激和衍生出的友情，但是就官方層面來講，這些努力只是數據，而數據是沒有情感的。只要他人出的條件比較有吸引力，十幾年二十幾年的努力可以在一夕間作廢。

事實就是你需要有籌碼才能有影響力，在談判桌上也才有發聲的機會。這跟設計唯美的廣告文宣中所嘗試描繪出的美麗畫面有一定的差距，但遊戲就是這樣，規則也在那裏，不去遵循的結果就是不用玩。雖然如此，我對NGO的興趣卻沒有因此減少，因為上面所說的只是事情的一個面像。

What Makes This Poem Beautiful?

Rising up inside him was the sensation he had always felt as a child and as a young man at moments of extraordinary happiness: the prospect of future misery and hopelessness. In a panic, he tried to bring this happy moment to a close. This, he hoped, would lessen the impact of the unhappiness he knew would follow. The surest way to calm himself, he thought, would be simply to accept the inevitable: that the love he felt for Itak - the source of his anxiety - would be his undoing; that any intimacy he might enjoy with her would undo him, as salt dissolves ice; that he didn't deserve his happiness but rather the disgrace and denigration that would result.

Orhan Pamuk, Snow, Chapter 10

Anxiety Quest

Much to his demise, our hero Lufu Sēoc finds himself once more in the midst of yet another situation which, according to his knowledge of the battlefield, might very well spell disaster. Despite being an experienced commander, our hero can't help but feeling a chill up his spine, and has fallen anew into a state of gaiety and anxiety.

What caught our hero off guard was how the situation was presented in such unforeseen circumstances, and with such great timing - right after Lufu Sēoc decided to put an end to a sentimental episode. But these preoccupy little our hero for he has far too greater task at hand to worry about these matters. He must devise a strategy to cope with this new menace. He must, since his life depends on it.

Para Olvidarte de Mí

Sometimes your rationality is so that it surprises you, it's even frightening. But this rationality breaks down when the melody of a song hits you; when the moments of a time recorded on the sensitive unit in the camera reaches you. You explore their every detail as if trying to conjure up the past, and in the process reliving it, because you know all too well that it simply won't come back. These images are beautiful because the beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy.

And some images are recorded only on your mind. This lack of physical recording somehow makes you sad, you're afraid that you will forget them, or that they will blur and fade into the shadow of the memory, not to be retrieved again.

These moments seem at the same time so close and yet so far away. The feeling this double quality carries tells you that for the years to come you will think of them, then sorrow will show and you'll miss these moments so terribly that you will feel as if you're about to be drown, yet you can't call out for help, for you don't know how. You know that when you go back home you probably will never be here again, you probably will never see her again. The nostalghia will swarm you with a desire to come back to search for traces of the past.

Kakadu and Other Places in General

I've been in the hunt for a new digicam for the past 2 months. I have to admit that I've never been an aficionado in photography, and I'm only doing this beacuse my old Canon died of nature cause, and after going through some trips without being able to take pictures - agonizing that is - , and several reviews comparing different models and such, I've finally settled on one - the Canon G10.

I won't begin by telling you how good G10 is - that's not the purporse of this post - but rather that because of it I've found myself reading articles on photography, and that, surprisingly, it's not as painful as imagined. I'm spending time on having first contact with photography because I want to get more out of G10 than I normally do with cameras, and not doing so would be a real waste with such a fine machine.

It was around 1200 and I was finishing yet another article on G10, then I got linked to some bloke's page on Kakadu. In the steaming heat of the office under the midday sun I was quite excited to see familiar landscapes, and eagerly trying to find the places I'd been to, so I scrolled down and up with the flick of a finger, and when the quick dive to the bottom was over and the scroll bar slowly making its up up to the surface I had an urge to call you, to tell you how much I wanted to take you along with me to all these places.

Prosper Mérimée, 1845

Desire is a capricious thing, it plays with the reality, then it fucks you. This is a dual layer problem. You see on the tele the glamorous side of the life that is in the well-to-do Spain, and you imagine how good it would be living like that there with a nice, beautiful sheila. Then you proceed with seeing yourself there. Shortly after that, you actually believe that you're there, and so you're filled with a sensation of euphoria.

But of course, you are well aware that it's thousands of miles away. And the thing is you are happy about where you're at. You found yourself falling in love with this country full of chaos, misery, poverty and state corruption, yet populated by lovable people. O lovable, yes, you met her, and the scouts report that she's without commitment of any kind. Judging from her attitudes and the way she acts you can sense a trace of happiness. You are exhilarated.

Then desire makes its way into your thoughts, bringing along indecision. Experience teaches you that patience is a virtue, yet it also tells you that you are old enough to get serious about it before it's too late. This battle between fantasy and reality takes place every time you are close to felicity, and the result of the conflict is always you licking your wounds by yourself. This time around, however, you've decided to let fantasy controls you no more and set foot on solid ground.

Mercy Corps

You saw the few lines describing the projects you have with other NGOs in Central Asia - somewhere you always wanted to go because it fascinates you - you sat there staring silently and motionlessly at the monitor for a moment, romantically imagining yourself in the steppes, and then your thoughts found themselves back to the present moment, and to the fact that you'll inevitably leave this place before Christmas.

The connections you've made so far will be abandoned - thoughts like these make you wonder what is it you want. You then figured that you're not made for wandering, but staying, for that's what your heart desires. Nevertheless, you're also aware that you've experienced the same kind of feeling before, and not so long ago. You know that you are adaptive, but that doesn't lose the fact that the past stays within you all the time, and you sense the beauty because the beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy. What's curious is that part of you longs for moving around, yet the other half aspires the contrary, it's as if there's a never-ending struggle happening right inside you and you're constantly bleeding for the wounds they cause.

A Contrast

When you speed past them in your car the question just pop up: am I worthy of all this?

Quite often you see these lower caste of the Eskimo guys on long stretches of the highway pushing their carts just to get someone to buy their ice creams.

There're people bearing the sun standing in the middle of the road cleaning your windscreen, selling you water, fruits, beans, pets, steering wheels, sun glasses, cell phone cases, slingshots and whatever else you can imagine. There's no age limit in this booming industry.

You used to wonder why can't you do something about it, but then you came to realise that by simply buying ice creams from them don't really change the situation and that after a while you just don't see them at all. You knew the world is not fair, but there are times that you just feel more so than ever. You should rejoice at your good fortune. There's a life, you think, and here's mine, two totally different worlds coexisting within such a short distance. At this, you can't detect a trace of smile on your face.

Overlaption

The remembrance of Nuria and the Spanish department transported you back to that place and time, and at that place you would remember - with fond memories - Nicaragua. So, while you're still in Nicaragua, you experienced a sensation of being at the same moment in two places separated in both space and time. This mixture of times confused you for a moment, therefore you were somewhat at a loss, and for a fraction of a second you actually thought you were back there thinking about where you are at right now. But, of course, that only lasted for a fraction of a second. What dawned on you was that you will inevitably miss this place, hence you were happy to be here.