Under the Moon On a Sand Dune

Wake up and go to bed and look to the next day and the next until before you know it, 4 months have past and it's almost winter and grand plans have fallen by the way side and the convictions brought home don't mean so much anymore and South America is just a continent coloured yellow on the map on the shower curtain.

If you don't get out from the shadows of the skyscrapers you can forget about the moon until one clear night you look up and there she is, a big onion face suspended over the metropolis and her sharp white light slaps you like a faceful of crisp winter air and you remember that the earth isn't flat and is actually so big that its mass alone keeps the moon in orbit and so you remember that the world is big, made up of more than De La Montagne and second cups.

And even just 10 kilometres that way is somewhere you have never been and thousands of kilometres westward maybe the drip of an air-conditioner hits a Mong Kok sidewalk just narrowly missing a Chinese man on his way to work on a street that hasn't known silence in 150 years while the scent of roast pork and exhaust mingle. And thousands of kilometres to the south maybe the very same moon hangs over the Andes and cold night air and darkness envelopes the valley where a mother sings a lullaby in Quechua to a little boy who still cries when his feelings are hurt.

Who knows? Maybe somewhere out there someone is under the moon kissing a dog on a sand dune. Maybe somebody is wondering what you're doing right now.






I guess they could just check Facebook if they really wanted to know.

Little Things

I've started a job at Second Cup for a few weeks now. It's min wage and I am subservient to everyone when I wear that uniform but it's satisfying in that I'm making money and I feel like I can use my free time to do what I want. For example:

I adopted an ant. My initial intention was to catch, cook and eat some because I wanted to explore the possibility of ants being a viable source of protein for our new green world. I read on the Always Credible and Magnificent Internet that they are delicious, full of protein and much more environmentally viable than meat. Probably more humane too.

So yeah, maybe that sounds weird but maybe not if you think about it for a while. Something else I realized after thinking about it for awhile:

Taking care of the little ant was a little bit like taking care of the baby. There are mental if not physical changes that result from being held responsible for something, for an ant just as to a baby. It's like responsibility is a chemical emotion just like happiness is tied endorphins and fear with adrenaline. I can feel responsibility in my core; a mix of pride and prudence, energising, producing an attitude that is mindful of danger, the future, consequences and security. I find myself taking bigger breaths, expanding lungs and shoulders with a little more purpose as priorities re-categorize. When you are depended on, you think of how best to be strong and to protect.

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So anyway, with this ant, I brought her (worker ants are female I just found out and had to change "he" and "him" to "she" and "her" a million times) home in a tupperware with some leaves. I only found one ant, after spending 2 hours biking around Mount Royal, lifting logs and leaves and digging in the dirt. I even put out some apples but to no avail. Maybe the cold weather had them hiding. She was the only one out, and she was a big fatty, healthy, thick and black. A formidable ant if ever there was one.

I put a maple brown sugar cereal thing in her box and softened it up with some water thinking it'd be gourmet. Every day while I went to work and class, the little missus would stay in her box until I came home to let her out to play. She'd climb everything and I'd watch and marvel at her tiny-ness. If you think hard about anything, it eventually becomes mind-bogglingly amazing as questions overwhelm.

How such a tiny body can be capable of decisions? She's so small and she's choosing her trajectory, but where is the decision-center for these decisions? Where is she storing information about where she went and how does she know not to re-trace her path? What would she do if there was another ant? She probably has never been in a house before. This could be the moon. What does she think my laptop is? Where is she getting all this energy? She definitely doesn't realize who or what I am but what does she realize? What does she make of the fact that forces keep putting her back in a plastic tupperware despite all her efforts?

I took a bunch of pictures and cross-referenced with that peer-reviewed and infallible online academic journal, The Internet. Found out she's a carpenter ant, that they have "elbow jointed antennas" and that all 6 legs are attached to their thorax and that they don't breathe but have little holes where air passes through, like air gills. And you can see their eyes if you look closely, which are capable of seeing light and movement but nothing too detailed since they rely mainly on the antennas. Check out the mandibles and her overall hairyness.



After a few days, everytime I opened the tupperware after class, a stench of rotting sugar burst out. The maple sugar thing wasn't looking so appetitizing anymore. I took it out, changed her water and let her out to play but she had lost a step. She definitely looked skinnier and though she would still explore, after a while she would just sit and vibrate her legs. I knew that this wasn't going to end well. I felt a little guilty and I could have probably let her go.

5 or 6 days after our first introduction, I came home from class to find her dead. Don't know what exactly caused her death her but it was definitely my fault. I felt a tiny pang of emotion as I lifted her body out of her plastic cage. Had her last few hours been lonely? Painful? I don't know. I thought about it for a second but even after all that schpiel about responsibility, she's still just an ant in my mind. Too small, too un-human, too insignificant, too easily forgettable. A little cold-hearted maybe?

So I ate her as per my initial intention and concluded that eating one raw ant is not a great way to get your nutrition. The taste wasn't bad and there was some texture but there was an unpleasant tingling on my tongue afterward, perhaps from the hairs on her body or the sting of betrayal. Maybe cooked would be better.

Discovery as a Daily Staple

Well this isn't going to become a blog just about a baby but when you live with one, it's cool to see how one develops from a little mush into something increasingly competent.

Simple things are really fun.

She learns peekaboo. She discovers entropy, apples. She investigates splashing, dropping rocks into the fountain and begins expecting things, like the splash. She is introduced to floating. She imitates, sniffing tree bark. She's discovering rhythm, causality, self expression. Exercising demands.


She's got a long way to go but she's already come a long way.

Since Coming Back

I went camping in Algonquin last long weekend. Tried not to talk or think about the urban life we all live. Not a hard task when you're the only soul save a few loons swimming in a lake still as a sheet of glass, the fading light of dusk glowing purple. Nothing but trees, water and sky. Who cares about Youtube or Entourage when all you can hear are embers crackling on the fire, when darkness envelops everything except the stars.

But it's no way to live, just a holiday from the real world. You can't live in the wild like that, it's not an option unless you want to go 'Into the Wild' and even that can't last that long. The few hundred dollars of supplies we bought had run out completely by Monday and there was no ATM or Sobey's close by.

I've been struggling with a dilemma ever since I came back from South America, mentally dealing with the excesses of this society, full of useless and insignificant clutter that takes up all of our time. There's no escape from buying into it. You need money just to eat and breathe on this continent. And I feel so hypocritical, uncomfortably settling into the comfort of this developed world and scared of being consumed by it, swallowed up whole. Do I want to follow the path that this society prescribes? Do I want the life I see in shop windows, movies? Is it really so bad anyway? What's the alternative? Nothing feels natural but I need to decide. I need to go out on a limb, take the plunge. Suck it up and get on with it. Be the change I want to see in the world.

Nice to Meet You

Sitting in an internet cafe in Taganga, waiting for a room to free up, waiting to book into another backpacker hostal and meet a new slew of characters and exchange first impressions with two questions: where're you from, where're you going? And just like that, we'll probably be halfway to being friends or not.

Went to a lot of museums in Bogota, saw a lot of works by Fernando Botero. Born 1932 in Medellin. Drew a lot of chubby people. Not just people actually, fruits, trees and horses, Jesus on the cross, guitars, houses, were all drawn chubby. Even drew a chubby Mona Lisa, look it up, it's funny. He's not yet dead but the work of other artists on exhibit who had passed away were accompanied by placards detailing only their name, birthplace and death place. By way of introduction. Like:

Andres de Santa Maria
Bogota, 1860 - Brussels 1945

It tells you a lot really but at the same time leaves out everything between. I'm Reading "A Hundred Years of Solitude" in Spanish and it's slow going but one little quote I remember is where Jose Arcadio Buendia says that it doesn't matter where you were born, one is not from a place until one of yours has died there.

Before I had to answer the question "Where're you from?" 5 times a day, I would hesitate before answering, confusing the question with "Who am I?" I'm not really from Edmonton, I'm not really from Hong Kong, I'm not really from Ontario, these are just places I've lived. Now for simplicity's sake, when other backpackers ask, I don't delve into a detailed personal life history, my response is the same as a museum placard would say:

Liang Cheng
Edmonton, 1985 -

Moving On

After spending 3 weeks in rural Ecuador, coming back to the city feels good and I don't know why. The cars, the horns, the people hurrying around, the teenagers expressing themselves through their clothes, the graffiti, the traffic lights, it's all so familiar. This time it's Quito but all these big cities feel like big cities. Busy, busy people. Saw an old man on the street today, peddling a backscratcher and a toe-nail clipper. His hand was propped up by his walking stick and the toe-nail clipper hung off his finger while the backscratcher stick was propped up, demonstrating these things were for sale. So he sat there half asleep mumbling to himself while offering his two goods for sale. One time he woke up, re-adjusted the scratcher stick so it palm was facing pedestrian traffic, then went back to sleep. I stood there for a while just watching him and giggling to myself but not wanting people to see that I was giggling at him. During that time, the only person that gave a second glance was a 8 or 9 year old boy who stopped dead in his tracks, let go of his mother's hand, went up close to inspect first the goods and then the sleeping man, and then ran back to his mom who had kept walking. I smiled to myself remembering how Kimberley says "Oye" and when little Alex asked my why I was a 'small gringo.' I really miss the kids, I don't know if it's because I'm a big softie or because I'm back in this big, much colder, adult world. I got a million hugs every day for the past three weeks and today, I'll be lucky to get one.

All Smiles, Snotty Noses and Eager Eyes

Well I've only made it to Ecuador so far. I'm at the Katitawa School in Salasaca (katitawa.blogspot.com).

The day starts at 7 am, cold with porridge already cooking and feet creaking on wooden floors. Quick cup of tea to warm up and a dusty half hour walk uphill to school, passing cactus lined fields, fast flowing irrigation ditches, chickens, pigs, cows and the locals carrying wide loads on their backs. We teacher-volunteers arrive at the school just after 8 am, the dusty volcanic soil undisturbed for just a few more seconds until the orange van of kids arrive and off we go. Noise and activity, dust flies, as balls and children are to be chased, hundreds of piggybacks given and questions questions questions questions.

We're in the Valley of Volcanoes, at the equator and 3000 meters up, and the weather leads by example, changing temperament quickly, trending towards a burning hot afternoon but unpredictable. The kids follow suit wearing their emotions on their sleeves, one second steadfast refusal to cooperate, the next all smiles, snotty noses and eager eyes looking up at you, wanting to please and wanting to have their way. They've got a lot of love to give, and when they look to me for an authoritative answer, the last thing I want to do is disappoint.


The past weeks have been equally exhausting as rewarding. Constantly trying to be a living example, and trying to be fair and trying to be friendly and also trying to be respected are mentally draining activities. I find myself trying new things everyday, testing out the kids, trying to push the right combination of buttons. To be a friend and to be respected at the same time. I've learned a few things. Everyone wants to win. If you want to be believed, always do what you say. Kids know an empty promise when they hear one, consequence or reward. Kids can be manipulative. Kids get away with a lot. Kids act different when they think no one is watching. Kids learn by example. Kids will do what you let them do.

Eventually the children are trucked away and after cleaning up and closing up, we walk back home in the hot sun, all a little tired. I find myself feeling either satisfied or dejected. I want so badly to make a difference in their lives and the days when I feel like the kids learned something make up for the days I feel like I'm not getting through to them.

I spend the afternoon winding down on the back patio with the guitar I bought, watching a fierce wind push trees and clouds west, toward the fading light. If lucky, the clouds part and snow capped Volcan Chimborazo takes on hints of the orange pink of the setting sun.
We eat dinner, have a few beers, play some cards as the day simmers to an end. The wind dies right down to a stand still and the lights in the valley come out, shimmering and mimicking the constellations. A distant chorus of cows, dogs and donkeys carries across the valley as night fully blankets the valley. Tranquilo. Taking a deep breath of cold mountain air, I imagine even the most boisterous of the kids, the ones that go from class to class running wild, the ones who are always either crying or laughing and nothing in between, even they must be snuggled up in bed, letting sleep creep over them.



I've settled into the routine and loved my time here but I'm on my way out. I'm ready to move on, act on my own accord without thinking about what's best for the kids and how best to teach them. The experience has been unforgettable but I'm leaving unfulfilled. I still want to do more. I will probably come back to teaching again, here or somewhere else but for now, it's quite enough. Done with lesson plans, back to travel plans. Off to Colombia and I've booked my flight from Bogota to Lima on June 10th. Then home.