All my things are yours.

The worst part of the past few days has been just waking up. 

The sun claws through the grimy windows and you blink your eyes and wince, teary eyed from the cold biting at your face and the thought of all the steps your going to have to take to make it through that day are a dull pressure at your temples. 

You think that maybe if you are just still enough the day won't find you. 

You close your eyes. 

Open again. 

The morning is still there. 

*****************************************************

Sometimes the things we battle hardest against are footsteps like lead, or steam from your breath on a frosty morning as you sit inside your house thinking warm thoughts, or the strain of a smile and the flash of the camera as you take your fourth set of visa pictures.

It's those things... the stumble up to the fourth floor personnel office, the meandering car rides to the police station, the night of vomiting horrors, the misinformation, the old woman on the bus who leans her surprisingly substantial body weight on you for no good reason, the endless layers of dust, the forlorn food left in the fridge, the empty bag of clothes detergent when you only have one load left to wash anyway, the bike tire that is nearly flat, the tedious conversation that ends with a jab at your weight, the advice to 'find a hobby', the stares, the poverty and pain that is all around you at every moment... those things that dim your eyes and put a curve in your shoulders.

And somehow all those little mundane weights attach themselves to your skin, to the very marrow of your bones, until even your thoughts begin to drag and the blessed moments of deep, astounding beauty come across lusterless...

The beggar children whom you recognize by name, knowing their whole family and having wiped their tears, cleaned their wounds, grabbed their shoes out of the creek, and bought countless meals for, appearing at a very random tea house in the city center where you sit slumped though in good company and who hug you and walk hand in hand with you as you leave and you are compelled to admit that they are your beggars, your children, to the delight of your friends.

The sister with deeply slanted eyes who insists that you are her truest sister in the presence of her slightly stunned biological brothers and whose simple command of English leaves you giggling at every word and whose cup of butter tea is so salty that you feel your insides pickle and whose bowl of handmade noodles that you stretched out yourself fill not only your belly but your soul as well. 

The delegation of personnel officials who have been sent with you to the police station, where you mostly just wait behind an icy counter in line with some fidgety Nepalease people trying to pin down why you recognize the police officer in front of you until you realize that he's been in your house before, telling you that in fact you should never worry because you have done a very perfect job at our school.

The Christmas gift of a set of Tibetan books that are so far above your skill level as to be laughable given in genuine hospitality and signed on the inside: to the beautiful Kelly, best fortunes to you. And the teachers and gate security grandfathers who grab your hands and then do their best to warm them as they chatter away at you. And the teachers who lean out of windows to call you beautiful and ask where you are going. And the teachers who beg you to come back though you haven't left yet. 

The grocery shop lady with hands so red and swollen that they are bursting open in cuts and with puss, painful just on sight, who gladly accepts your extra tube of lotion sent from America and smiles at you in that way that doesn't need any language and gives you a hug that immediately assures you that you are in fact family.

The Chinese grandfather who looks nearly lost in his own tattered clothes and whose grizzled face does nothing to conceal the countless days of toil that add up to make his lifetime, whose milky eyes try to catch your own as you offer him your seat on the bus and he flops into it with all the force of a sigh and rubs his cracked hands with wrinkles so deep that they are permanently lined with dirt and in gratitude gives you a nod that might have required the last bit of energy he had in him for the day. 

Because when your eyes are too dry and your heart too distracted to see the beauty in those moments, such achingly clear beauty that you know they must have been knit by your Father's hand in some place that is gloriously other, it is perhaps the case that you have forgotten that all of His things are yours.

And all of your things... those useless piece of junk make you feel like you're a thousand years old worrisome uncomfortable lonely as a stone in a field of wheat makes you not want to wake up troubles... those things... they are His.

And in the most unfair exchange that was ever made you get joy for garbage.

All my things are yours.

The Class 09 Christmas mircale.

I heaved against the warped, peeling gray door of the classroom, arms loaded with Christmas goodies sent from saints in America, prepared for the last class of the term, and nearly dropped everything.

The normally drab classroom was decorated with a few odd balloons and the bowed chalkboard was covered with pictures of Christmas trees and snowmen. The students were all wearing identical Santa hats, throwing confetti, and shouting Christmas greetings. A bewildered looking teddy bear the size of an eight year old child was perched on the teacher's desk next to some hand made cards. I blinked. Took a minute to catch my breath while the confetti settled to the floor. 

Could this really be the class that at the beginning of the term had confounded me to the point of dispair when their admittedly favorite things to do were sleep and drink beer?

Could these stary eyed, remarkably attentive students really be the same students who cleaned their friends ears during class and worked harder at looking bored than any other single activity? 

As I stood at the front of class and slipped an extra Santa hat that lay awaiting my arrival from the desk onto my head, the typical Christmas words, hope, joy, peace, flashed through my mind and quickly away. For perhaps the first Christmas ever another word came to mind and hovered stuck there, entering forever into my seasonal vocabulary:

Redemption. 


The Angels heralded it. The Shepherds came to see it. Herod killed because of it. The Wise Men followed a star to it. A baby in a feeding trough... and redemption became real. 

So we spent the next nearly two hours, talking about Christmas symbols, making Christmas ornaments, singing Christmas songs, acting out the nativity story, taking pictures and spraying fake snow everywhere. When I handed out their gifts, stockings filled with candies and cards written to them specifically, there was a pause... I realized from the looks of wonder and gratitude on their faces, not to mention the momentary silence, that most of them had never received Christmas gifts before.

When we ran out of things to do, I dismissed them. But not before I thanked them for celebrating with me. The chours' of 'we love you teacher' 'thank you teacher' that sounded uncannily like a heavenly host saying 'Glory to Him in the highest...'

A difficult semester, a history of failure and loss, a class that had given up, a people that had almost stopped waiting, a Christmas miracle, a baby in a feeding trough, a class full of merriement and attention, a night of wonder, a semester, a world, redeemed.

Merry Christmas.

For the shock of beggars...

The icy breeze blew through the open tea house door. We bent low to the peeling wobbly table to slurp the beefy noodles and let the steam warm our noses. The piercing sunlight of the door was darkened by a small boy.

His shaved head, raggedy clothes, and torn jacket didn't necessarily give him away. But the wadded handful of torn bits of small money did. A beggar, maybe the tenth we'd seen in that bowl of noodles alone.

I wiped the oil from my mouth. Sorry, we don't have any small money I patiently explained for the tenth time. The boy's eyes widened, he looked at my student next to me, is she Tibetan? he asked incredulously.

I laughed so hard noodles nearly came out of my nose. We beckoned the boy closer, learned his name and where he was from, gave him some not so small money and explained that I was a teacher from America.

Really? He asked, shaking his head as proof of his shock, She looks just like a Tibetan girl. At which point he turned to once again darken the door of the teahouse, but this time in wonder at the whitest pseudo Tibetan he'd ever seen.

For the record, I look nothing like a Tibetan girl... but that beggar made my day.

What child is this?

Why lies He in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding? 

Because that's where we are. 

Short pig tails in disarray she squatted in the forlorn corner between the rusty dumpster and the stained concrete wall. Eyes big with water from the cold she glanced up from the grubbiest teddy bear the world has ever known and threw the box cutter blade she had in her tiny caked with grime hand into the gutter splashed with frozen what may have been leftovers what may have been vomit. Her grin was big enough to turn her eyes into slits and the liquid snot trails from her nose wound their way down her face and would hardly prevent her from later bursting into endless sing songs. At least she had on a jacket this time.

The bus was crowded but not suffocatingly so and in the, somehow still clean, orange plastic seat sat a grandmother, a matted dog, and a small girl. The grandmother muttered and juggled her cares on her lap while the dog squirmed throwing dust and curly black hairs like confetti all over. The small girl, so bundled up with clothes that only her dark eyes were visible, squirmed too, now playing with the dog, now to get the attention of the foreigner. The tiny pile of clothes with dark eyes drew the foreigner down to her height despite the crowded bus with a stare that may well have been a net and then declared through too many clothes You are beautiful. No, was the reply, not me, but YOU are beautiful. The pile of clothes coughed, and grabbed the foreigner for a hug that made even the dog still for a moment.

The soft serve ice cream with blueberry syrup on top experience of delight was hampered only by the imminent fear of splinters from the wooden spoon that appeared as if it were hewn from a piece of drift wood. Carefully being the only reasonable way to eat with it. A pane of smudged glass was all that separated the street from the booth. And all that separated the foreigner enjoying her splintery ice cream from the man with ragged dusty pants and fingernails thick with crust enjoying watching her. His thin jacket hung loosely on his thin frame and his disheveled hair was not long enough to cover raised eyebrows above eyes wide with wonder. On the street behind him nomads with butter slick boots and braids nudged past bags of frozen meat toted on the backs of scruffy boys and small bug eyed dogs trotted along to the sound of their bells. He stood and stared. The foreigner waved. His face cracked into a grin betraying tea stained teeth and he backed away from the window to make room for others who wanted a peek.

What child is this? 

The very One who came for such mean estate and indeed is here, right where we are, garbage, dogs, creepy men and all.

There was something in the air...

I was awakened to the jackhammer hum of helicopters circling in the air... but that's not what I mean at all.

I slid some dirty jeans on over my pajamas and dashed out into the frosty morning prompted by hunger into the staff cafeteria and I sniffed, I could smell again... but that's not what I mean either.

I didn't know what had changed until I went out to the school gate to meet some students for lunch later that frigid afternoon. Right next to the school gate was what appeared to be a newly posted bus route map. Not that I believe anything posted or have the ability to read what's posted anyway. So I turned my attention to the street where a row of huge blue buses was lined up and packed like human sardine cans on wheels... my jaw dropped... the days of chatting with bus drivers on tiny little puttering affairs while I temporarily became the bus cashier were over. I shrugged, I have lived that dream probably more frequently than any white girl ever would.

The cities promise/threat to buy new one yuan buses and change the number and routes was fulfilled this day. Mark it on your calendars, gone are the leisurely, stop anywhere you want on the unmarked route, carry your half a frozen yak with you days. A new era of public transportation in Lhasa has dawned... and let me tell you, it looks remarkably like chaos.

According to the signs all of the buses go to the same places. Hmmm. So I took my chances with the first one that stopped at our school gate. Already packed even at our lonely end of the route was a bad sign. I squeezed on. The buses were so new they still had plastic on the ceilings and doors and so crowded the harassed bus cashier was hoarse from yelling the stops and pushed her way to a window to lean out of it exhausted. I grabbed a shiny plastic handrail next to an old man whose milky eyes glinted in the sun and who couldn't stop giggling at the madness of it all. He was probably lost. I nearly fell into his lap when I was shoved from behind by some extra friendly passangers. Every time the air brakes hissed my eyes widened as more people somehow managed to get on... when the woman with a baby stroller holding what looked like an eight year old child nudged her way to the door I nearly swooned. Grandmothers gave me helpless looks of agony, nomads swore as their fingers got crushed in the new doors, small children gasped for breath like fish out of water, and I, recently on the up and up from a ferocious cold, shuddered every time someone coughed...the bus could barely handle the weight of way too many passengers so when a reckless pedicab dared to cut in front of it I was touched by at least a dozen people with long fingernails... I closed my eyes lest I notice how dirty the fingernails were.

Getting off the bus was a little like winning a marathon, or bursting triumphantly from a nasty bubble in the bitter cold. I took a second to get my balance and breathe in the sweetest air Lhasa had to offer near the Trumpsicon aka run down kmart esque shopping center complete with rancid butter, raw yak strips, and crunchy cheese.

At the tea house where I slurpped butter tea with one of my dearest friends the man next to us made quite a spectacle of pulling a long black hair out of his noodles. My friend nearly gagged. I nearly laughed myself out of all four layers of clothing I had on.

The bus stop I returned to was less of a stop and more of a wad of people milling about in the street. When the same bus I had arrived on screeched to a stop I was comforted only by the fact that I was at least marginally less clueless than nearly everyone else as people fought tooth and nail to get on the bus then, realizing that it didn't go where they wanted to, fought tooth and nail to get off.  I managed to avoid a black eye as I ducked behind a slightly taller man and lept on as the doors nearly caught the hood of my jacket.

The magic was gone by the return trip. Frazzled Chinese mothers began cussing at anyone who would catch their eye as they pushed their bug eyed children suffocatingly close to everyone else, touchy teens literally shoved the storming crowds off the bus at every available chance, three men who surrounded me discussed if they could get away with touching my hair, the weary bus cashier wished aloud for another job, and a middle school girl with watery eyes stared up at me and mouthed it's nice to meet you. I responded with a smile knowing that she was perhaps the only person on the bus who maintained her humanity... everyone else had become biting eels by all other appearances. I gulped and tried to avoid holding hands with the grinning nomad man who was trying desperately to hold hands with me. By the time it stopped at the Teacher's College I nearly wept for joy.

I ran to the school gate and grabbed the gate grandfather's hand and told him I'm scared. He laughed through gapped teeth and said where did you go? obviously not understanding that it was the how did I go that scared me, though the hairy noodles may return to haunt me.

Back at school the three chapped and filthy beggar children I have befriended were silding across the frozen lawn. After a few turns of their matted jump rope we filed over to a shop to buy some snacks. The time that they took to deliberate over what to buy was reminescent of a UN meeting for its seriousness and length. Two packs of chicken and a milk tea later we parted but not before the eldest boy confessed I saw you and said hello hello but you didn't see me I think your ears are bad. And we four burst out laughing in the quickly dimming evening light.

The buses may have changed, but little else has.

And to beat that change, I've enlisted a student to ride every single one with me tomorrow to see where they go. Take that Lhasa and your scary new buses. You will be tamed.

'I forgot you were lao wai' and other tales of mayhem...

I sat silently at a stained plastic table in the corner of my latest favorite Chinese restaurant and eyed the discolored jars of floating vegetable matter hoping that I would never make the mistake of ordering something that would require the waitresses to go fishing in them. I stomped my feet to keep the chill away found myself looking straight into the face of a befuddled Chinese man in raggedy clothes. He shook his fist of wadded money at me and asked impatiently for change... I raised my eyebrows... he immediately realized that I wasn't the cashier or even the same ethnicity as the cashier and mumbled an apology as he backed away the same way I would if I was presented with a plate of the jar innards.

In the taxi cab we reclined, so full of a hastily eaten meal that all three of us wished out loud for stretchier pants. Having taken the initiative to order the food, despite my childish grasp of Chinese, I was of course blamed for the overindulgence. As the cab careened in and out of the sludgy traffic and useless lights, my friend leaned across the backseat, patted my thigh, and asked me something. When I just stared blankly at her she burst into giggles and declared oh I forgot you were lao wai (foreign). It was my turn to burst into laugher so raucous she immediately defended herself you just fit here, this isn't my wrong...

I marched my icy self into the trashy cramped copy shop I always go to and nudged past the throng of people who all seemed to have no urgent business but only needed to push each other for the warmth. The copy shop man immediately paused whatever he was doing to accept my usb and print out what I needed. As I instructed him on what to print and how many copies to make the beehiveesque activity came to a standstill and one man asked who is she? To which the copy shop man, not missing a beat, explained she is an English teacher and our friend. I nodded in affirmation, pressed the warm copies to my body, and paid the heavily discounted price before squeezing back out the door to the filthy frozen street outside.

The bus doors slammed squeaked open and I jumped up and was greeted by a driver who I had met earlier that day. He ushered me into the front seat reserved for friends of the driver and we began chatting about where I was going and why Tibetan people have good English pronunciation and ten reasons why tsampa was the most delicious food on earth. An elderly woman piped in every now though she faced the back of the bus and never looked at us. Eventually we rolled up to her stop and she turned to pay her bus fare and gasped but she sounds just like a Tibetan girl! The driver grinned like a proud father and said oh but she is an American girl. The woman stumbled off the bus in disbelief and the driver promised to bring me some tsampa the next day.

And these were just a few happenings from this past week... you can only imagine a semester's, or two and a half years, worth of the like...  total mayhem.

My face betrays me. If I weren't so white I'd be invisible.

Maybe I'll just mouth it...

When I was in fifth grade I came home with a progress report which was straight A's except for the B marking in the behavior column next to which my harried teacher had scrawled: "She won't stop talking." My mother, ever the endless wit, signed the report, gave me a stern lesson on respect for teachers, and attached a sweet little note saying, "Don't worry, we have discussed our daughter's verbal diarrhea." The teacher, appreciative of my mother's creative support, decided to remind me of my illness every time I piped up just a tad too much... embarrassing.

Little to our knowledge at the time verbal diarrhea is more of a genetic disorder than an illness.

So occasionally, the Creator, in His infinite wisdom, allows me to contract some viral strain of nasty that directly attacks my vocal abilities. A divine dose of verbal pepto.

This past week I have had barely a croak and a whisper for a voice. When some students came to drop off their assignments at my house I thanked them with the breezy whisper I had and they, though perfectly capable of speaking normally, whispered back that I should take care of my body. When I picked up the phone and rasped a few answers to my colleague she complained about the phone static and then, understanding that it was my voice making those noises, she gasped and declared how bad it sounded. When I came across some other students out in the street as I was buying oranges in a desperate attempt to vitamin the cold away I smiled broadly hoping that they wouldn't prompt me to speak, but they did and I tried and they leaned in close and told me to drink more hot water. Bus drivers have given me double glances at the scratchy mess issuing out of my mouth, the grocery family expressed what I'm sure was real concern had I been able to understand Chinese, the tiny little five year old guest I often have literally stepped back away from my door in what appeared to be fear when I tried to answer her. 

Divine verbal pepto. Don't need to be talking with those reactions... anything I need to communicate can just be mouthed. Or texted... text me. (as a side note, the least encouraging text message I've ever gotten while being sick in my entire life: go to the doctor, staying at home is useless.)

But when you can't say much, you'd be stunned at what all you hear... ahhh the blessing (curse?) of ears.

My voice is returning, but I think in the future I'm just going to take days where I'll just mouth things... or just whisper... or just say nothing at all... and in so doing, I'm going to learn a great deal more.

My mother and fifth grade teacher would be proud.