Last week in the Philippines, I was talking to a local friend over dinner. We got to talking about our families, and she told me this touching story about her childhood: 

“I grew up very fortunate, living in the countryside in the province. Our village was right on the side of a mountain and my dad was a miner so we did well. He made enough money that my mom could open up a little store and we had plenty to eat.

But others in the village were very poor. They’d come to my mom’s store and ask for a bag of rice or some medicine for their children, but they wouldn’t have enough money to pay.

“Please, I will pay you tomorrow,” they’d say, and she’d give it to them, even though she knew they couldn’t pay tomorrow, either. But she carried medicine at the store even though she made no money on it, and ay sundown when she heard the babies and children in the village crying from hunger, she’d always give out some rice. I had everything as a little girl, plenty of food and clothes and gold necklaces, and never had to be sent to the mountain to work like the other kids.

But when I was eight years old, things went bad when my father met another woman in our village. She was older than him and very rich, with many houses and gold since she owned the mine. They started having an affair, and soon my father left my mother. My mother was crushed, but I was too young to understand that my father wasn’t coming home anymore. I grew very sick with a broken heart.

My mother had no more money from his mining job. The store didn’t bring in much because she gave food to those who were hungry and medicine to those who were sick, even thought they could not pay. I grew even sicker and I stopped eating. I only wanted to see my daddy. For months, I didn’t eat anything but liquids and I grew so thin that even the doctors thought I would soon die. My mother tried to take me to more doctors and buy me medicine, but she had no money. And there was no medicine for my broken heart. My mother sold everything in the store and then the store itself and started selling our furniture just to keep our house and enough food. But I did not eat. I only watched the window every day, lying on my bamboo matt on the floor because I was too weak and sick to even sit up, waiting for my father to come home. There was nothing more my mother could do because I refused to ear, and she was heartbroken, herself.

The rich older woman was in love with my father, and wanted him to come to the big city. She had a beautiful house there where they could live with servants and always be comfortable and he would never have to work again. He agreed, and they took their things and went to the bus station to travel to the city.

But once they got there, he couldn’t stop thinking of his children and his family. Their bus was leaving soon so he told the rich woman that he had to go to the bathroom. He left her side and all of his suitcases but instead of going to the bathroom, he went to the ticket counter and bought a ticket for the next bus back toward our village. He never went back to her, but got on the bus and left.

I was so sick that there was nothing anyone could do and my mother was waiting for me to die, but I wouldn’t eat. I had such a bad fever sometimes that I would say crazy things and see things that weren’t there. Sometimes I’d call out to my father. My mother had no choice but to ignore me after a while.

But one afternoon, I thought saw someone walking on the long dirt road that ran into our village from the main road, where the buses ran. I was dizzy with fever but I thought I saw a man walking towards us. I knew I was sick so I thought I must be seeing crazy things again, because it looked like my father. But I watched him walking, and even thought he was still far off, I could tell it was my father.

I cried out to my mother that my father was walking home, but she dismissed me as having feverish dreams once again and went back to doing the wash. I called out again when he was closer, but my mother just swept the floor. Finally, when he was so close that I could see his face and I knew it was actually my father and not a dream, I cried out to my mother again.

My mother turned around and dropped her broom with what she saw. It was him.

He walked up to the home and came inside. He saw that there was no furniture and his daughter was very skinny on the floor. He hugged me first.

“Is everything Ok?” he asked my mother.

“No, everything is not ok,” my mother said. “We have no food or medicine and our daughter is very sick. She hasn’t been able to eat rice or solid food in months. She just drinks. She is going to die and the doctors don’t know what it is.”

He hugged me again, and then hugged my mother. He apologized and she hugged him back and they both cried, because she knew he was home for good and her heart opened up to him again.

“Mommy,” I said. “Can I have some rice? I am hungry.””

My friend told me that she ate well from that day on, and grew healthy again. Her father moved back in and her mother forgave him. He tried to go back to work but he couldn’t work in the mine again, and they didn’t have money to open the store, so they were poor. But the people in the village remembered that the family had been good to them and shared what they had. Things were not easy, but somehow, there was always enough.

Her father and mother never left each other’s side again, and lived the rest of their many years together until he passed away around Christmas, the year before. 

The children filled up the green picnic tables and then made a formation of plastic chairs, since there were only enough tables to fit about half of them at a time. I walked around with the box of burgers and served them, the teenage girls the hungriest, grabbing two burgers each. 

It’s a constant struggle for this orphanage to stay open and provide for the kids, and hamburgers and a few toys do a lot more to make the giver feel good than it makes a real impact in their lives. But as they waved goodbye to us, yelling thank you with big smiles, at least they knew that someone cared.

Walking out to the trike, I stopped and snapped a photo of something that broke my heart. A big bookshelf in the hall served as the toy chest for the entire orphanage up to that point. It contained a dozen or so ratty and dirty stuffed animals, nothing else. If nothing else, at least those shelves will be full now!


- Norm   :-)

P.S. I don’t write these blogs to try and raise funds, because it’s up to you what you do with your money and how and when you give. More than anything, I just love sharing the experiences and the people that have enriched my life. But already a few friends –from both the United States and the Philippines – have made donations to the orphanage, which I really appreciate. But believe me, you don’t want me to sing you a thank you song – we’ll leave that to the kids!

If you’d like to help these kids, please contact them or send any donations to:
Duyan Ni Maria Children’s Home
Administered by Sisters of Mary of the Eucharist
359 Leticia St. Josefa Subdivision, BRGY, Malabanias,
Angeles City, The Philippines.

Or contact me if you’d like me to bring them something personally or help arrange the donation.

A few years back, I was sitting in a casino bar in Manila, watching the Manny Pacquiao fight. Sitting next to me was a big brother from the U.S., so we got to talking. It turns out he just retired from the Navy, where he had been working at the American embassy in Manila for years.
 
As Pacquiao succumbed to Mayweather and our beers disappeared, the Navy man told me an endearing story about a Filipino you’ve certainly heard of.
 
One day, he was working his regular security detail there at the visa office in the embassy.
 
A short, scrappy, and obviously broke Filipino with shoulder-length hair walked into the office and got in the line to apply for a U.S. visa. As we all know, it’s almost impossible to get a visa to the states unless you have a lot of money or a business there sponsoring you, so the man was out of place and doomed for the same fate as Pacquiao that day – the wrong end of a decision.
 
In fact, life had not been kind to him up until then. His mother died when he was a young boy, leaving his father and family with so many debts that he had to send the children away to live with various relatives. The boy soon quit school and went off on his own so he wouldn't be a burden on anyone. In the coming years, he was often homeless, sleeping on park benches and in front of friend's houses. He did odd jobs just to eat once every couple days, and even singing on the street to try and earn a few Pesos, or at the Shakey’s Pizza on Taft Street in Manila when he was 15.
 
When the scrappy Filipino got to the front of the line, the obviously skeptical lady working asked him why he wanted a visa. He told her that a band in America was looking for a new lead singer and was flying him out to San Francisco for an audition. The band’s guitarist had stumbled upon a video of him on YouTube covering one of their songs.
 
In fact, he often sang their songs with his local small-time bar band in the Philippines. He’d been part of many bands over the years that allowed him to earn enough to eat if nothing else, like Ijos, and later, the better-known Zoo Band.
 
There at the embassy, he told the lady in the visa office that the U.S. group was impressed when they’d heard him and seen him on YouTube that they’d sent him an email, and then an invitation to come to America and try out. He produced a tattered print out of an email that supposedly backed up his story.
 
It sounded so far-fetched that the lady scoffed and started reaching for the ‘Rejected' stamp to send him packing, but mockingly asked him that if he was such a good singer, why didn’t he sing one of the band’s songs right then and there? Why didn’t he sing one of her favorites, “Wheel in the Sky?”
 
So the scrappy man put down his things, stepped back, cleared his throat, and belted out:
 
“Winter is here again oh Lord,
Haven't been home in a year or more”
 
Heads turned.
 
“I hope she holds on a little longer
Sent a letter on a long summer day
Made of silver, not of clay
I've been runnin' down this dusty road,”
 
Every single person in the office stopped and listened to the man. You could have heard a pin drop, according to my Navy friend who was working there.
 
“Oh the wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'”
 
When he finished his dazzling rendition, everyone there cheered and applauded. The lady working was stunned, too. She immediately grabbed the ‘Approved' stamp and emphatically OK'd his travel visa with no more questions asked.
 
The scrappy singer walked out of the office, past the big Navy officer on duty, smiling. He later got on that plane to San Francisco, met a guy named Neal Schon there, auditioned, and got the job. He was the new lead singer of this iconic American band that was replacing their cherubic-voiced former front man, Steve Perry.
 
Against all odds, Arnel Pineda, became the lead singer of Journey, a band that’s sold 80 million records worldwide and is considered one of the best of all time. They even made a movie about Pineda’s star-struck good fortune, called “Don't Stop Believin’.”
​
-Norm  :-) 

I really loved Cambodia, its chill vibe, friendly people, and balance of some of the things you like in other parts of Asia, without too much of anything.  I spent months in Phnom Penh, the capital city, and immersed myself in the local culture.  To truly get a sense of local life, I moved out of my comfortable hotel and got an apartment in a typical neighborhood.  To get there, I had to follow a maze of winding alleys, through puddles and trash and claustrophobic corners and dark staircases.  My apartment was three stories up in an attic and insanely hot - and rat infested.  Still, I enjoyed making great friends with my neighbors - the girl shown here, an old man who's wife owned a sidewalk kiosk, and the folks at the martial arts studio across the street.  This photo typifies Cambodia for me: flawed, crumbling, treacherous at times, but its humanity always illuminated by a warm light.

This is one of my favorite photos from the whole year because of my affinity for the children and poor folks in Cambodia.  So many kids and even whole families live on the streets, begging and eating out of the trash.  These two little girls were walking barefoot on the hot, dangerous streets, trying to sell hand-woven bracelets to tourists.  They are so poor they never owned a mirror nor saw their own image often, so they were enamored with their likeness in this car mirror.  They made faces and danced and laughed. I snuck up on them and shot a few photos before they got too self conscious and laughed before skipping away.  

This is the best photo I took all year.  Ironically, I snapped it as an afterthought on one of my last days in Asia, in a small city a few hours north of Manila in the Philippines.  Everywhere in Asia the discrepancy between rich and poor is alarming, although not geographically segregated.  There is not better example than this photo, where this burnt-out and roofless building served as the shelter for a young mother and her two infant daughters.  Right beside them sat a 7-11 convenience story on one side and an affluent hotel on the other.  I was alarmed at the textures in this photo, their obvious tenderness despite the depth of their pain, maze of many doorways like Dante's 7 Gates to Hades.

Right after I took this, I saw the little girl hanging out in front of the 7-11 by herself, dirty and shoeless.  I bought her an ice cream and gave her a few dollars and she beamed up at me with her big smile.  There's also hope in this photo, like the open sky above them, the joy of their spirit that can not be burnt down. 

The island of Boracay in the Philippines is one of the coolest places I've ever been to on earth.  I actually visited way back in 1999 when it was just a small inhabitation of fisherman and ladyboys (and the kinky German tourists who chased them) among a mostly-untamed island.  14 years later, Boracay is far more developed, but somehow managed to keep its charm (though there are far less ladyboys and very few kinky Germans.)   It's packed with tourists, families on vacation, and beach lovers from all over the globe, but they've done a good job to manage that growth.  It's almost spotlessly clean, so safe you can walk anywhere at any time of night, and its natural beauty hasn't been diminished…despite having a Subway, McDonalds, and a Starbucks. 

Another photo from Boracay.  On the west side of the island runs White Sand beach, a 7 km strip of immaculate…well, white sand.  It ends into a rock outcropping, but that's where the adventure just begins.  Following a narrow stone trail through the cliffs (above) you end up at majestic Diniweed beach, shown here.  It's a private beach but anyone is welcome, with only a few beach bungalows, guest houses, and restaurants built into the hill.  It's so gorgeous that I would just stand there and take it all in when I visited.

In southeast Asia, water is life.  In every country (even landlocked Laos,) the majority of the population lives along the ocean, rivers, or lakes, where they've survived off of rice farming and fishing for many centuries.  Waterways are also the traditional method of transportation, sometimes house them on floating villages - and often were a means of escape for refugees during bloody conflicts like the Vietnam War and Cambodian genocide.  

Walking through a local market one night, I happened on a wedding celebration.  I managed to snap a quick photo of the newlyweds without disturbing them.  Weddings in Vietnam and other southeast asian cultures are a huge deal - sometimes a 3-day affair!  

This is along the river in Hoi An in north central Vietnam, a charming and colorful enclave of traditional culture - and tourist hotspot.  There were plenty of boats along the river, but this particular family opened their's up to visitors every evening and sold cold beer while the father played guitar and sang to his toddler daughter.  

Ko Pi Pi island in Thailand.  These islands and beach were made famous when they filmed, The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio years back.  It's stunningly beautiful, though infested with tourists.  I was sad to see trash floating around and the dipshit travelers treating it like their own party place, not giving the respect its beauty deserves.  

A giant golden statue of Buddha from a temple, or Wat, in Thailand.  There are only certain positions you'll ever find a likeness of Buddha, like sitting, standing, laying, or in the lotus pose.  

A photo from a botanical garden in Phuket, Thailand.  Phuket is the largest island in Thailand and some areas, like Patpong, look like crowded and touristy cities.  But there are still areas of the island that are serene and unspoiled by commercialization.  I spent the whole day wandering within this beautiful botanical garden, and saw only a few other people. 

Luang Prabang features parks and gardens along its river, sun-kissed and nearly deserted except for the occasional tourist or locals playing soccer or meditating.  

A year ago, right as I was leaving for Asia, Carol, a new friend of mine, asked me to write a blog about living a conscious life for her website.  I agreed, but then couldn’t do it.  I wanted to and even put pen to paper a couple times, but it was false and I knew it.  I even wrote something while squeezed in my undersized plane seat on the gazillion hour flight from California to Taiwan, but it just amounted to well-disguised fluff.  I tried a few more times my first months in Vietnam but the result was the same.  The good news is that it wasn’t missed – Carol invited me to write it as a guest blogger just as a favor to me, knowing I was trying to gain exposure with a wider audience. 

Still, I felt bad I couldn’t deliver, and was puzzled why.  I never suffer from writer’s block (I just get my ass to work,) but something about this topic eluded me, month after month.  From Vietnam I traveled to the Philippines and then Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, where I settled into life on tropical islands, abandoning my blog about living consciously for the playthings of sun and sea.  Left with a title and a blank page, it stayed on my To Do list – and my mind.

A year later, these are my last few hours in Asia.  In fact, I’m writing this as I sit in the airport about to grab a flight to Japan and then Hawaii and eventually on to New York City.  So after visiting 7 countries, 20,000 miles, taking 2,562 photos, writing 51 blogs about life, crafting 2 more books, and surviving 1 super typhoon, am I any closer to writing a credible blog about living consciously?

Not really.  And I never will be.  It took me almost the whole year to realize this, but it finally hit me:

If you think you’re conscious, then you are not. 

That epiphany was both comforting and puzzling.  How can I possibly qualify to write about consciousness when I was just one infinitesimal, comically insignificant life form on a planet with 7 billion others?  What makes me so special that I could call myself, “conscious?”  Nothing at all.  So I’ve set foot on a little more of this globe than the average person (though less than others,) and seen and pondered a few more things than the average person, (though far less than others,) but by no means do I think that’s elevated me to any spiritual authority.  I will never be conscious because the more I see, the less I know.  Therefore I will never be qualified to answer Carol’s calling.  

However, this year hasn’t been without lessons – many of them disconcerting and painful but illuminating beyond belief.  First, I had to unlearn everything I’d worshipped as truth because in Asia, almost no Western paradigm has any context.  My cultural debriefing was embarrassing and ego shattering, but always entertaining.  But somehow I survived, and as I board this plane for that gazillion hour flight back I feel much lighter, like I'm carrying less of a burden than I came with.  I hate to disappoint but I have no strong opinions to impress upon you, no grand philosophies to share, nor any secret answers to life’s questions.  I've seen my mortality and understand I.m but one temporary heartbeat, a bundle of sparking neurons like a beacon in the middle of a vast ocean, so deep and distant it’s impossible I’ll ever see the shores.   

 All of our destinies end the same, so take solace that we’re all in that ocean together.  In the meantimes, there’s no such thing as a lifetime, only moments.  And those moments count – every single one of them.  After this epic year exploring exotic cultures and seeing wonders of the world, do you know what I remember the most?  The small things.  A boy opening his umbrella for an old lady during a rainsquall.  A photo of a birthday cake with my name on it.  A hug from orphans who new I wasn’t lying when I promised to keep them safe.  Sleeping on the roof one hot jungle night under a full moon, holding someone I knew I should never love but did anyway.

So don’t worry your thoughts nor waste your days on the big things.  They're either part of our destiny or only made of small things.  Instead, collect those.  Admire their colors in sunlight.  Celebrate them with vigor and give them away with laughter.  That's what you will remember.  I promise.   

Well, I could go on and on and bore you with all of the life lessons I learned this year but a lady is squawking over the airport’s intercom in some unknown language, which I think means it’s time to board. 

So I’ll leave you with this; I depart this strange and magical place filled with more wonder than I found it.  With more compassion for those humble souls suffering for no fault of their own.  And with more love for all of you, who were with me every step of this journey whether you knew it or not.  I don’t want to rush through these moments anymore and never again will I measure these things as small.  I want this plane to take off but never to land.  I may not become conscious but I’ve happily surrendered to that notion, I’m starting to believe that’s how it’s supposed to be.

-Norm  :-)

I had my fortune told for the first time tonight, on a green table in the back of a dimly-lit room of a bar in the Philippines.  The fortune teller sat me down and went through a deck of cards, asking me to first pick 21 cards and then 13 cards, 10 cards, 7 cards, and finally revealing the last card.  The 50-year old woman, moles on her face and jagged teeth, seemed unsettled even though she's been doing these readings since 13 years old in her village, after she displayed a strange gift for predicting future events.  She only spoke only Visayan, her central island dialect, so I had someone translate.  

This is what she said:

21 cards. The queen of spades came up centered, with the jack of hearts right below it.  She said I was a nice man.  But I would have big problems with a woman - she was bad news and just wanted something from me.

13 cards.  The jack of spades was in the center.  Someone I thought was a good friend would betray me over money.  

10 cards. Jack of clubs.  A guy friend of mine who is older would drag me into his problems.  He's not bad, but he'll unwittingly make me carry his burden.

7 cards.  I have to be very careful with the woman I have problems with - I would get her pregnant, but not end up marrying her.

1 card.  The ace of spades came up, the strongest card in the deck.  She told me that was a sure sign I'd achieve my dreams.

"When will I die?" I asked her.  She just laughed and collected her cards off the green table.

"100 Pesos, please," she said.  

-Norm   :-)