Getting directions from dogs

I get lost in parking lots. Not just the I-walked-out-of-the-store-and-now-can’t-find-my car lost, but the I’m-in-my-car-driving-laps-around-the parking-lot-because-I-can’t-find-my-way-out lost. Whenever I go someplace new (or well, okay, to be truly honest, familiar places as well), I factor in an extra 30 minutes to account for all the one-way streets I’ll likely drive the wrong way down before serendipitously finding myself on the right one. My maps are “outdated.” My compasses forever “misguided.” And a GPS always next on the to-purchase-NOW list.

However. Born and raised country girl, there is one place I never get lost. Outside. In the woods. My own 2 feet walking down Mother Nature’s highway.

In the woods, I always find my way. Well, 99% of the time.

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A year before World Cup fever hit South Africa, I decided to explore the country myself. I had 4 weeks to get from Maputo, Mozambique to Cape Town, South Africa. With no car, public buses and my 2 feet were my primary modes of transport. My mission was to hike with the sun’s calendar. As the sun ascended and descended in the sky, I hiked, carrying on my back a small parcel storing water, granola bars, cell phone, and a rain jacket. I ambled along the ocean coastline waters, scaled the mountains, trampled through the grasslands, and trekked beneath the canopies of virgin forest.

One journey brought me to a former horse farm. Given the winter season, I was the only guest that day. Upon inquiry, a woman of great-grandmotherly age gave me a faded map marking the trails in the local region. The map, very primitive in appearance, hadn’t been used reportedly in nearly 10 years. Nonetheless, I took a look at the clear sky, the picturesque landscape of rolling hills blanketed with grazing horses, and headed down a path to the treetops beckoning me in the distance.

When in hike, I quickly lose myself in thought, surfacing only for nature curiosities like a beaver dam or a bubbling creek that needs transversing. Any concept of time passage quickly lost. Hours, miles, and landscapes had elapsed when I came to a clearing in the woods. First I noticed a flock of sheep in the distance being gathered in, then a small furry critter scurrying for refuge beneath a stunning fuchsia color of a flower, and lastly, above, the foreboding dark clouds that had rolled in, without pause, filling the sky.

I calmly turned around following my footsteps back into the woods. First, came a cold drizzle. I trekked on. Then the wind picked up. The trees howled. I trekked on. Then blocks of hail began to fall. I tightened the hood on my rain jacket and trekked on. The sky grew darker. The forest blackened. I trekked on. The earth beneath me began to suck at my shoes. I lifted my feet higher and trekked on.

Then I realized I was lost.

The trek stopped. I pulled out my map. It was of little use. All previous landmarks were being washed away; it was too dark to make out north from south or east from west. So I turned retracing my previous steps looking for familiarity. None.

Calm was becoming fear. Where was I? What to do? Where to next? What if…?

Then I saw two dogs. Wild dogs. They saw me. Thinking (hoping) that the dogs would possess superior directional skills than my own at this moment, I walked toward them. I followed them into a clearing, but not recognizing the area, I left the dogs and returned to the woods. The dogs followed me. But they kept nudging me back to the clearing. Alas, I relinquished my lead and followed them. Out in the open, I was subjected to the wind, the cold, and the harsh rain. More than once, I thought I had lost them. But they always waited, their eyes searching for mine, until I caught up.

Alas, we came upon a camping area, deserted for the season. The dogs led me to a small building, one that seemed fit for collecting park fees and doling out hiking maps. I entered the dry space, searched for an identifying name for the location and found one among the brochures and maps strewn about the floor. Using my cell phone, I contacted the couple I was staying with, provided my whereabouts, and waited for their pickup. As I surveyed the campgrounds, I quickly noted that my company had since left. The dogs were gone from sight.

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Back at the home, the storm continued to rage on, through the night and into the many hours of morning. I slept little. Neither the rare hot shower nor the warm home-cooked meal could warm me up. The mere thought of being still stranded out there in the elements, in a storm that I later learned blew off rooftops and took down power poles, kept me shivering. Out the window, I kept looking. The dogs never returned.

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However, I returned. I returned to the woods, continuing my quest, exploring the world on foot. However, added to the parcel that comes with me, often comes a dog. A dog for that 1% of the time that I get lost.

Lude’s Knot of Protection

June 2010
I looked down at my wrist. The faded bracelet, a red string that had been strung around my wrist 4 times and secured tightly with a knot, had come undone. It was slowly unraveling. With one flick of my wrist, it would be off - gone. And with it, gone, the ubiquitous memory of a person I had encountered 2 years ago, in a life far different than the one I was walking in today.


May 2008
It was a hot summer day in northern India. The monsoon season would soon be upon us. A brief but stalwart rain had begun the morning. The mosquitoes would soon be flocking to our pale skin.

We sat along the wall holding numbers ranging from 1 through 10, all waiting our turn to see the doctor. Each of us waiting patiently yet anxiously to hear our “diagnosis” to receive our “prescription.” The door opened. A short-statured woman, with black hair, weathered skin, and wise, calm eyes, filled the narrow doorway. She requested patient 1. The 9 of us searched the hands of familiar faces. Not one of us held the requested number. Then the lone stranger, a Tibetan monk cloaked in a maroon robe, unveiled, with a devious smile, the sought after number. He chuckled gregariously as he followed the Tibetan medicine practitioner into her office.

Hours later, I stood in the streets of Dharamsala, India, curiously studying the face of a community living in exile. A community grown from a 24-year-old spiritual leader’s escape from his native home in the Tibetan plateau of China to this place of refuge in the foothills of the Himalayas. In the 50 years since, some 80,000 Tibetan refugees had since followed suit.

Despite his familiar face, it was not the visage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, though that caught the eye of my friend Lindsay that day. Rather, it was the face of a recent acquaintance – the monk from the Tibetan medicine clinic.

Though initially conspiring to take a photo from a distance, we opted in the end to trade in the paparazzi-style attention we’d been receiving in recent days for an attempt at conversation. Beyond the initial Tibetan greeting of “tashi delek,” we didn’t have a clue as to how to proceed.


As if words mattered.


Over the course of the next couple days, Lindsay and I taught our new friend Lude how to blow bubbles. He taught us the Tibetan alphabet. We showed him how to use a digital camera. He made us tea. We showed him pictures of our family. He shared coveted pictures of the Dalai Lama. And we laughed much and often.

During one of our most memorable visits, after a meal of tea (“chai”), peeled potatoes (“aloo”), and bananas, he gave each of us a gift. Around our right wrists, he wrapped a red string 4 times. He tied a knot. As we learned, this “protection and blessing cord” was symbolic of remaining within the protection of his compassionate embrace even after departing from his physical presence. It was in effect to give us strength and protection.

Not long after, our small group of Miami University students who had journeyed to India for a month to learn about the Tibetan culture, returned home to the States. Within weeks, I moved to Mozambique, Africa where I had a job beckoning me. Lindsay returned to Oxford, Ohio to work for the summer and stay on for her final year of undergraduate education.

Despite the distance, language barriers and the circumstances of where we lived, we all managed to keep in touch. Then in August 2009, we received our final correspondence from Lude. Despite the danger of his decision, he was returning to his native Tibet. In his final email, Lude expressed (through a friend who translated his words), “I will call you and write to you after I reached back in Tibet and hope you will also keep in touch with me like before. I will pray for your happiness and success for all of your family members wherever I go. I am also hope that we will rejoin in Tibet.”


June 2010
As the protection cord unraveled, I reflected upon the friend who had bequeathed me with such a gift. A warm, genuine, spirited soul but one whose eyes were marred with sadness for a place he called home. Tibet. A place that was once a sanctuary for Tibetans, now a plateau scarce with natives, scarred by cultural genocide. To return, not a fate many choose.

10 months later. Lude’s silence was telling.

My gut reaction was to retie the knot. I paused. For 2 years, I had worn the amulet. For 2 years, it had been a source and reminder of strength. A reminder that someone out there was praying for me, believing in me and in my protection. I had worn it through my year living in Africa and my return, through knee surgery and its recovery, through finding love and losing it, through ups and downs and a myriad of emotions in between.

Lude had held my hand, given me strength when I needed it but now…. Now, I realized –
I could stand on my own.

With one flick, my wrist was freed. And in some small way, so was I.

Passion + Action =

Maria finally signing up for a writing class.

For years my friend Mindi has been encouraging me to really run with my writing. My twin sister is forever supporting and getting excited about most anything I do (I imagine her hand-clapping and giddily jumping on the other end of the phone down there in Austin, Texas). So alas, I listened. Embraced my generally proactive self, and signed up to join a summer workshop with Women Writing for a Change. Never mind that I was behind schedule 1 week syllabus-wise, last night, the 15 member crew welcomed me with open arms and big smiles. Despite all the nerves and self-doubt going into it, I really enjoyed myself. I can't wait to take on the pen and paper for next Tuesday's class.

So hopefully the blog silence of the past year remains just that - the past.


My writing voice shall be quieted no more!

Sharing Smiles in the Congo :)

I must admit sometimes I feel a little like a spy…partly because I get emails that say “we need you on a mission to the Congo…you can expect a packet of information soon… you will depart in a week.” Followed by a request to overnight a secured package containing my passport, immunization records, and, of course, money to a seemingly obscure location in Washington, D.C. Then hours before my plane is to depart, my passport with a Congolese visa enclosed arrives to my waiting hand and then I’m quickly whisked off to the airport carrying but one bag with my essentials for a couple weeks stay in the heart of Africa. To think that Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? was my favorite computer game as a child seems only too fitting.

The update: I was in Kinshasa, DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) for a couple weeks with Operation Smile. Their 2nd mission to the Congo and mine as well. Despite sleeping on questionable bedding, taking cold showers, putting in 12+ hour days at the hospital (one that had no running water), eating the local delicacy of Mopani worms (crunchy outside, soft inside…kind of like a chocolate-covered ice cream bar but considerably less yummy), it was an absolutely incredible medical mission. Incredible. Incredible in part to the amazing team that assembled from 9 countries for the mission, but incredible mostly because of the Congolese people. Amazing, genuine, kind people.

As the mission schedule is usually set up, the first 2 days are strictly screening, then an education day, followed by 4.5 days of surgery, then post-op care. During the first day of screening after getting my screening station set up, I left in search of water only to be confronted by over 200 people gathered on the lawn, steps, floors of the hospital grounds. All waiting their turn to find out if they or their family member would be granted the free surgery to repair their cleft lip, cleft palate, cleft nose, or a slew of other facial deformities. As I wove my way through the mass of people, I began to hear “Maria, Maria” followed by an echo and more and more echos until finally I remembered that “Maria” is not a very common name in the Congo, and realized that, in fact, this echo of my name was actually directed at me. And then they began to sing “bebe e naya be ti o…”, a children’s song in the local tongue of Ligala - the same song I had learned a year ago and had gone around singing to anyone who was in need of laugh (because I can’t carry a tune, let alone in a language I don’t know). So despite knowing me but for a couple days 12 months ago, many of the returning patients and local volunteers remembered not only my face but my name and my sub-standard singing skills. As the week progressed, three times I was approached by mothers holding little babes only to learn that the mother had chosen to name the baby Maria in remembrance of me. And in a month’s time, there will be a 4th arriving (really hoping for the kid’s sake, it’s a girl). I was shocked. Touched. It was, it is completely humbling to realize that though your time with someone may seem minimal to you, to someone else that time with them can leave a lasting memory. A year ago, I just had no idea.

The statistics show that 156 people received the face and life-changing surgery, but from those couple of days, far more lives were humbled, touched, and changed.

Anyway, I could go on… but I will leave you with a video that was made from our trip. It’s just over 4 minutes, but the message is powerful. If you have a history of tearing up during commercials, get some tissues. Enjoy!

To the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1BD8glsLxk

[Side note – you’ll notice in the video an older gentleman. He was 84 yrs old, outlived the region’s life expectancy by 40 years, and at 84 got the surgery he’d been waiting a life for (as he phrased it). He was under local anesthetic (so awake), on the operating table for an hour, and after receiving his final stitch, he raised his hands, looked to the sky to thank whatever god he believed in and then shook his surgeon’s hand. A memory that will surely outlive his life.]

From the voice of the Congolese to you, what I said to all my patients, “Oza kitoko.” You are beautiful.