“The builders are the government in partnership with a huge Japanese company. The protesters have delayed the building for two years, but the fight is not over.”
“Is it dangerous for Somkit to be the leader of this group?” I ask.
“Maybe,” says Patom, “but the people protect him. Everybody loves him.”
On Friday of my second week, Manit calls me into the kitchen and tells me that we are going to cook ho mok. The ingredients are on the table. So are a stack of banana-leaf baskets. While Ei makes the hot orange paste in the mortar, I am given my first job: picking off the leaves from basil stems.
While I am doing the basil, Manit takes a big white bass out of the refrigerator; it’s two feet long and fat. She removes the center bone and cuts the meat off of the skin into bite-size pieces. She ends up with a huge pile of fish about the size of a giant coconut.
The last bit of preparation is slivering the kaffir lime leaves into needle-size strips. I can do that too.
And then comes the miracle of ho mok. The fish meat is put into a big aluminum pot with two liters of coconut milk. I am given a short stool, six inches off the ground, and a thick spine from the center of a palm leaf that is more than two feet long. I hold the pot between my feet on the floor in front of me and I begin to stir, briskly, mimicking the woman at the “big cook,” holding the top of the spine more or less in one position with one hand while moving the bottom of the mixer with the other hand, around and around. After five minutes, the mixture begins to thicken. A few minutes later, Manit comes over and decides it is time for more coconut milk. I continue to stir. From time to time Manit checks the consistency.
When the mixture is about the thickness of thin mashed potatoes, Manit adds a large bag of orange paste, about two cups of it. Then Manit takes over the stirring with new energy, thoroughly combining the fish with the paste. Toward the end she adds some very thin coconut milk, maybe a half cup . . . and a few minutes later, another half cup, until she is pleased with the consistency.
The final addition is a handful of the slivered kaffir lime leaves, which are thoroughly mixed in. Then we begin to fill the baskets.
Manit puts a handful of basil leaves into each basket and the mixture is spooned on top of the basil. Then the baskets are placed next to each other in an aluminum steamer tray and the whole thing is placed on top of briskly boiling water in the steamer pot. And covered. After about fifteen minutes, Manit lifts the top, pokes one of the fillings and lets it cook a few minutes more before she lifts the steamer tray off the pot. A second tray filled with baskets is placed over the water.
I am the first to taste the treasure. It is exquisite. The bits of fish have become that sensational coconut-milk fish mousse. The texture is amazing. Ho mok, a gastronomical miracle. Where does it get its custardy texture, its mousse-y lightness? There are no eggs in here. No flour. No cornstarch or baking powder. Apparently it’s all in the stirring. That’s the secret, endless stirring.
I hope I can make it when I’m no longer in Thailand, when banana-leaf baskets are aluminum foil, and coconut milk comes from cans. When the basil has a different flavor. And kaffir lime leaves are hard to find.
If I can’t eat ho mok in the West, I may have to spend the rest of my life in Thailand. Ho mok is that good.
A few days later, I spend the morning with Fon’s five-year-old son, Boat. We have sung “Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do” about twenty times, backwards and forwards. We have named—in English—the colors in a striped umbrella. We have played the “pile the hands on the table” game, and snuggled, and sung songs.
We’ve also viewed all the screen savers in Windows 98 (we both like the fish the best, though the mystery house comes in a close second for him). We’ve written his name and the names of all his cousins in every size and font we could find. And we’ve played dozens of games of one-card-at-a-time solitaire. He likes that gush of cards when you win. So do I.
Now we are playing a sound game that we’ve played before. He says “saparot,” which is the Thai word for pineapple. I repeat it. Then he changes the last syllable, “sapalit” and I say “sapanit” and he says “sapame” and I say “sapaboo” and on and on until it gets wild and we end the game.
Boat used to try to have conversations with me but he has given up. I can’t respond. I’m not sure he understands that I speak a different language. More likely he thinks I’m just dumb, literally and figuratively. I do a lot of grunting and mmm’ing. But even so, we manage to have fun.
A few days later, the cool comes. As I walk along the water, a fierce wind blows my three-inch hair strands as though they were flowing locks. Overnight the weather has changed from oppressively hot to breezy and cool.
The same day, a group of men check in. They are dressed casually, but they are obviously businessmen, a mix of ages and statuses. They are eating at the next table, peeking at Nek and me as we work on her English in front of the computer. I wonder who they are and what they do. The next morning, I find out.
It is before eight when I see one of them across the street, standing on the sand, staring out into the sun-blazed sea. I take some coffee and cross over. He is thin and wearing light-rimmed glasses that are fiery with the reflection of the sun. He speaks first. In English.
“I saw that you were teaching English last night. Are you a teacher?”
“I’m a writer,” I say. “And you?”
He tells me he is an engineer who works for the government department of power. He and his colleagues are working on the power plant project that Somkit and his committee are protesting.
“Do you know that Somkit, the owner of Rim Haad, is the leader of the protest group?” I ask.
“Yes, I have seen him on television.”
“Are you here to meet with him?”
“No. In fact, I was worried when my boss told me we were staying here, but last night I talked to Somkit and he said it is no problem.”
I am amazed and skeptical. They are adversaries, these two men. Could it really be as innocent as all this or is there some devious thing going on here?
I have been told that the government is planning to use low-grade coal in the plant, which is a serious air pollutant; and that the hot water that will pour into the sea from the plant will kill the fish and the coral in the water. There is a similar plant in the north that has ruined the air and destroyed the marine life.
He tells me that the plant in the north is in a valley where the bad air gets trapped. The new plant will be in an open space and the pollutants will disperse. He also says that they will try to cool the water before it enters the sea.
“We have shown Somkit our proposal. He told me last night that he has read it and he doesn’t trust the words.”
I don’t either.
That same night, the people in Ban Krud are preparing for Loy Gathong, a full-moon festival that contrasts poignantly with the massive power plant that is certain to pollute the water. The festival honors the goddess of the river. On the night of the full moon, people thank her for providing the water that sustains them and ask the goddess for forgiveness if they have misused her gift.
It is after dark when Fon, eight kids, and I begin making our boats by wrapping slices of a porous banana-tree trunk with strips of banana leaves, and then decorating the green boats with flowers and colorful buds and petals. When our creations are finished, Fon adds a candle and three sticks of incense to each one and we go off to the river.
We carry our offerings through the crowd, across a bridge, and down a little hill to the edge of the water. Then we light the candles and the incense, hold the boat between our hands, and kneel. I pray silently to the river goddess that she will continue to provide us with water, I ask for her forgiveness if I have misused her gift. And finally, I implore her to help Somkit win his fight against the power plant. Then I place my boat with the hundreds of others in the river.
Even with the full moon, the night is dark. The flowered boats, their flames flick
ering, float down the river to the sea, in grateful thanks for the gift of water. How beautiful.
I am packing to go back to New Zealand when Fon comes to get me. A couple from Austria have checked in for the night and they’ve ordered lunch. The chopped pork dish they were served was supposed to have been a tomato salad. It’s right there on the menu . . . tomato salad. That’s what they ordered. But no one has ever ordered a tomato salad before. The cooks didn’t know how to make it, so they made this pork dish. The woman is a vegetarian.
I talk to the woman and tell Fon that I will make the woman’s lunch. I put together a salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, celery, onions, and cabbage. I flavor it with vinegar, oil, lime juice, salt, sugar, and lightly chopped chilies. The woman loves it. The next day I make her a western breakfast.
“Lita no go New Zealand,” says Fon. “Stay Lim Haad. Cook Amelican.”
The next night Fon and Manit make me a good-bye party. The kids are wonderfully solicitous, filling my Pepsi glass, giving me bits of meat that is cooking at the table, serving me every time a new dish comes out. Obviously, they are sorry to see me go. We didn’t have a language in common, but there was plenty of communication . . . through cooking, English classes, my computer, and hugs.
The next morning, five kids and Fon are up at 6:30 to get me to the bus. We arrive a few minutes early and Fon hands me a gift-wrapped package.
“Should I open it?” I charade. She nods.
It’s a box with five beautiful pens.
“Write book,” says Fon.
I kiss her, I hug the kids, and I tell them I’m going to miss them. I doubt that they know the words, but I’m sure they understand.
United States
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A JOURNEY STILL IN PROCESS
It’s a cool day in December and I have just returned to New Zealand from Thailand. Judy stopped by two hours ago to say that some of the neighbors were getting together for a beach cleanup.
It’s a funny little beach, just down the hill from Marian’s house, probably twenty-five by fifteen feet, set off from the water by a stone wall and a hill. Every spring the town council fills the area with sand for the summer, and every winter heavy tides surge over the stone wall and wash away the sand, leaving a tangled mess of debris, a gift from the ocean.
Summer is coming and it’s time to clean up. Marian and I are raking leaves and grass into piles with heavy, short-toothed rakes, separating the rocks from the driftwood and vines that will go into the fire. Judy and Arn are pulling weeds. Several other neighbors are tossing rocks and tending the fire, which is spiking yellow smoke from the wet grasses and salty driftwood. This is a community that cares. I feel lucky to be a part of it.
For the next month, I write, play, go to the gym, and welcome in the millennium with fireworks, friends, and food. I am leaving soon; I have no choice. My visa is up in mid-February.
Packing is easy. I don’t have very much. But I have to decide what to do with Old Blue. I paid five hundred U.S. dollars for her and I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth.
I call up Ray and ask him if he’d like her back.
“No, thank you,” he says. “Give her to someone who can’t afford to buy a car.”
I’m still thinking when Ray calls back. “Let’s both give the car to Manaia School. They can auction it and use the money for whatever they want.”
“Great idea,” I say. “But I don’t want the money to go for desks or furniture or stuff like that. I think there should be strings, Ray. You’re a literary agent and I’m a writer. Why don’t we ask that the money go for books.”
I can hear his smile through the phone.
Vicki, the principal, and I work it out. On the day I leave, Marian follows me to Manaia School. The door to the playground has been left open so Old Blue can enter. I drive her in slowly and stop on the play area right outside the office.
“Hi, Rita,” call the kids when I get out of the car, the same as they do when they see me in town.
I go into the office and sign the transfer papers. Meanwhile, the kids assemble outside. They sing me a song in the Maori language, present me with a pair of carved bone earrings (a Maori craft) and a silver fern pin (the symbol of New Zealand). I say goodbye to Vicki, to the teachers, to the kids, and to Old Blue, who served me well. I am thrilled that she will be turned into books. Like Old Blue, the robin, she too will make her contribution to the community.
The kids follow us out of the playground, waving and calling as Marian and I drive away in her car toward the airport.
And soon, I’m off. To Seattle to visit Jan. To Atlanta, where Mitch and Melissa have recently moved. And finally, to New York, where I have sublet a furnished apartment for a year while I work on my book.
And when the book is finished? Then what? I have no idea. I’m not thinking about the future. While I’m here, wherever that may be (at the moment, it’s the library in New York), I want to be 100 percent here. One of the most important things I have learned during the last fifteen years is how to enjoy and savor the present. When I am writing, I am inside the sound and meaning of the words, playing with them, curving them around each other. When I am eating, I luxuriate in the taste and texture of every bite. When I am alone, I listen to and communicate with the silence within me and the noises and messages of the world around me.
And when I am with people, I am really with them. After fifteen years of moving through the world, people are still my passion. I love the constantly budding and blossoming friendships that define my life. Like the rice plants in Bali that are always in all stages of growth (to keep the giant from eating the children “after the harvest”), my friendships with people all over the world are also in all stages of development. I have old friends, new friends, evolving friends, serial friends.
I use the word friend loosely, to refer to people I connect with. Wherever I am and whatever the length of our relationship, connection is what I seek. Whether we share a language or simply a shape, I reach out to each individual with love and trust, with a smile, and 100 percent of my attention. Communication is not difficult because we all share the sensations of human emotions, the need to affirm our sameness, and the universal capacity to laugh.
As I reflect on the last fifteen years, I am sitting in the autumn sun a few feet from the lions in front of the New York Public Library. I have been a hermit in Manhattan for the last eight months, living alone, writing in the Allen Room (a wonderful room for writers in the library), and rarely seeing or talking to anyone.
I have intentionally stayed away from friends and family, knowing that I needed to reenter the places I was writing about and interact once again with the people who were such an important part of my nomadic life. And I did. I laughed again at my ragged tortillas and wailed with the woman who was holding her dead baby. I sang in the mountains, fell in the mud, and blew bubbles with a little boy and his mother in the middle of New Guinea. I ate green mussels and gloried in ho mok and whizzed through Bali on the back of Wayan’s motorcycle. And I communed with Tu Aji’s spirit.
When the final words are written, I will think about my next destination. I have no idea where it will be. Probably someplace where they speak Spanish or Indonesian . . . or English. Maybe I will buy a van and fill it with books and zigzag my way around the United States, a national nomad, staying with families, talking to clubs, visiting bookstores and schools, reading from and signing my book. Hopefully I will find homes to stay in and people to connect with.
I will make myself alert once more to the kinds of chance encounters that are always out there. I turned them off when I began writing; soon I will pay attention to them again and see where they lead me.
I am already taking notes for a web page (www.ritagoldengelman.com) where I will fill in gaps (like a list of my kids’ books) and a couple of useful addresses. I’m hoping to keep an ongoing account on the site of where I am and what I’m doing. I’ll put in a section of anecdotes that were cut from th
e book and another of countries that didn’t make it. I’ll also offer some practicalities of my kind of travel, such as, be sure to take itch cream and plastic bags and arrange automatic payment plans for your bills.
I have already set up an e-mail address (
[email protected]) so my readers can reach me and I can connect with them. My editor is worried. Suppose I get millions of e-mails? I’ll deal with it when it happens. If there are millions of e-mails, I’ll have enough money to hire a helper.
It’s exciting to think that all over the world, new and old friends will be reading my book and “talking” to me via e-mail.
I can’t wait to hear from you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The paradox of my independent, liberated life is that I could not live it without the help and support of many, many people. I am, in fact, extremely dependent on the generosity of others. During the past fifteen years, people all over the world have opened their homes and their hearts; they have shared their families, their meals, their fires, their ceremonies. They are too numerous to list. Thank you all.
Special thanks to Bob and Elaine Friedman, Susan Lechner, Debby Barr, Susan and Joel Buxbaum, Mickie Friedman, Irv Golden, Nancy and Morris Zaslavsky, June and Jay Zorn, Marianne Vecsey, Judy Sanders, Barbara and Ray Richards, Bron Richards, John Henderson, Jip Chitnarong, Judy and Arn Piesse, Jean Wells, Christine Leov-Leland, Jocelyn Davey, Vicki Sephton, Tu Biang, Dayu Biang, Jero Made, Ida Ayu Mayuni, Ida Ayu Raka, Wayan Sukerta, Scott Drinkwater, Gera and Andres Todeschini, Edith and Leo Quiroga, Carmen Natale, Asunta Natale, Amparo Jaramillo, Lisa Kramer, Lars Johansson, Nirina Rakoto, Yafa Kfir, Batsheva and Gabi Barshi, Claudia Joenck, Diana Estrin, María Esther de la Rosa Duque, Lily You, Lisa Rifkin, Michael Franzblau, Chou Chou Grant, Howard Lefkowitz, Nancy Lamb, Mary Anne Stewart, Sue Yung, and Stephen Selder.