Desert Bloom

Been dry ! In the desert, riding the horse with no name. Some just let go. Never learned. Never changed. Except on New Years. Then, business as usual. Stores Open and Closed i.e. permanently downsized.

However, the longer the wait, the sweeter the result. Like desert bloom. Like maturity and wholeness. Seeing life from both sides. Of course, our outer self is withered while our inner is renewed.

Yet we tell ourselves we are looking “fabulous”, younger next year?.

For New Year resolution, I learn not to take on additional “blames “ for things I did not do. Leaders, be it de Gaulle or de Klerk, who got paid and promoted , should take responsibilities (for the fall or failure of their regimes.) Most times we would never know the whole story e.g. tales of a country collapse. Mine for instance. With babies tossed from Chinooks and caught like basketballs (my other blog).

Came the clean up (from ill-fated policies, whose spill-over effects devastated the humanitarian side). Came the rescue of refugees. Relief camps and Cultural Orientation camps. Push/pull forces: Thai pirates threats behind, Third-World asylum beyond. Twice, 42 and 40 years ago, I returned to those types of camp.

I found myself playing “god’ (culture shock). Flying toward the Sun Icarus-like. Candle burned from both ends (right about now, it feels the opposite flames will soon meet up). “ He who is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” i.e. made of flesh – college-grad fresh meat – that burn in a flash.

It’s one thing to volunteer : raising money to do good for one summer. It’s another to re-enlist to keep warm a vacated slot (or else the Baptist will take over). More challenging than previously thought. CO camp was where folks were supposedly less anxious and more upbeat, knowing a seat on a flight out would soon be reserved in their names (with UNHCR hand-carry bags, like the ones we would pick up at "shows" for promotional material).

April 29, 1975 escape , but without “babies like basketballs” : orderly, organized and with orientation.

Along with UN relief folks, I was often waved through the gate while back on leave. PRPC was a tightly run ship of 20,000: controlled and structured. The Philippines made a deal with international VOLAGS: have your personnel and payroll outsourced here. Their track record (Clark Airbase) and proximity to the action won them contracts – for a refugees holding center.

A Habitat for Humanity + Guantanamo Bay. Everyone knew it’s transient, like the summer before college. My previous exposure to the Philippines was a 3-day stop at Subic Bay, on-route to Wake Island. But that time, in Bataan, the Baptist just baptized en-mass while the Catholics had their Mass (with Papal visit). Bataan was designed for longer quarantines than my own brief stay at Indiantown Gap, PA 8 years previous.

My own refugee processing period was rush rush, with weddings conducted daily at Indiantown Gap Chapel , Vegas shotgun marriages.

Even with empathy and experience, I was ill-prepared (except for being bi-cultural and bi-lingual, with some refugee-work experience). The plus side? International living experience among expats made my subsequent Cross-Culture coursework a breeze.

Communication was my mainstay. Hence, I found myself speaking, writing, teaching and leading discussions (often I forgot I was no longer at an American campus). Interestingly enough, I found myself a referee among regional factions who, when locked up in confined spaces, resorted to war 2.0.

In Hong Kong, on my second tour, a vacation-relief assignment, things ended on a sour note: I was falsely accused of “stealing” a gold-engraved Bible. Turned out, I never saw it, and hardly read the Bible in Vietnamese to begin with.

Here I was putting myself on loan, at the service of others, riding the ferry, plus boat trips to far-out shut-in camps, with multiple doors slammed behind me at each visit – stomach (Chinese food) churning – holding tight to your day pass (or else easily mistaken for a detainee if not for Hong Kong bought outfit) while listening to terrible tales of violence – even rape – which had occurred the night before…only to get that false accusation for reward.

Not to mention upon repatriation having to wait tables for a few months. On one occasion, unavoidably I was assigned to serve the section where my former film crew were seating. “How was humanitarian these days?”

Years later, having put humiliation from “ humanitarian “ behind, I still marvel at the forgiving Father and His unforgiving children. At times, I thought all the wrong in the world, cascading or not, was caused by or somehow implicated me – High Priests of High Church tend to lay Colonial guilt on us flocks.

Today, you can hardly find any trace of “white-man burden” in me. All “white-out”, pardon the pun.

Overall, I have had my shares of human misery. Refugee I had been myself, hence ain’t no rich Christian in the age of hunger. Of all the (blind) people, few returned to say “Thanks “. I , on the other hand, said it twice. From the heart, not from reflex to say/do the expected for social acceptance/status.

Those religious outreach tactically had a trapped audience e.g. cross-shaped burning- brush lit up the hill where spiritual hunger (survival at sea – even on dead- companions’ flesh -would prime you good ) would otherwise remain apathetic .

At Westmoreland-breakneck pace, baptism was synonymous with Anglicizing. (Certificate of baptism before certificate of citizenship). Wonder how many of the faithful can withstand materialistic onslaught of the West (It was only fitting the Baptist “mission” was carried out by a former Marine). Numbers game!

Human misery will always be with us. From Hungary to Hong Kong, from Ethiopia to Algeria. Yet we also find beauty in the barren and miracle in the mundane. There must be time (Hologram for a King).

In all its sterility, life has its charm, to serious seekers e.g. On the Road by Kerouac.

In looking back, I realize despite the agonizingly high opportunity cost, I have gained what I was in for (still without knowing the name of the horse on which I rode). Tales by survivors at seas, of rape and rescue, stay a long time in even the most hardened of hearts among us.