Española, NM – Stick around any place long enough you’ll begin to recognize those people and events that encapsulate its fundamental absurdity, moments that in your mind come to define a place and its people. My hometown of Madison, WI, is characterized by the cartoonish lunacy of otherwise normal people going out of their way to look and act weird. Philadelphia had its share of weirdos, but over all it was moments like glancing sideways to see some street urchin in the park shitting in full view of an indifferent public that captured essence of a city that refuses to be beautiful.

Española, on the other hand, spans the ridiculous and tragic. Tragic in the sense that nary a day passes without an overdose death reported over the police scanner. On Monday I waited for authorities to remove a body from a mobile home so that we’d have a picture for this week’s edition until I was relieved by the paper’s crime reporter. At the time we weren’t sure if it was an overdose or a homicide. We just knew there was a body. As people here often note: Española has the most heroin overdose deaths per capita than anywhere else in the nation. The guy, who was lying in the shed rather than the mobile home, it turns out, died of an overdose, his mint ice cream cone melting beside him.

My Friday night captured the ridiculous.

After leaving the casino, where my co-workers and I capped off the week with a beer or two, I was backing out of the stall when a woman somewhere between middle- and old-age asked if I could give her a ride to home, on La Joya Street, which was about three blocks up and on my way. I told her to jump in.

She was really tall, slender and had long brown hair with strands of gray. After introducing herself she began peppering me with questions. Where in Wisconsin are you from? Why’d you move here? What do you do?

I then asked the same questions of her. Where are you from? Why’d you move here? What do you do?

“Right now I’m unemployed,” she said. “But I supplement my income by selling sex. Are you interested?”

I began cursing, privately, to myself, hoping that no one saw her get into my van, a black monstrosity with a purple stripe. My first weekend here I was approached by a guy who introduced himself as a fellow ‘Sconnie. Said he’d seen my van at Walgreen’s, but that I’d left before he could ask where in Wisconsin I was from. I was weirded out upon realizing how visible I am. And that was before I’d even begun work. Now, I never know who is watching, who might’ve seen this lady, whose business I’m sure everyone knows about, get into my vehicle. A rumor like that would be next to impossible to explain away with the truth.

I thanked her for the offer, but said I wasn’t interested.

I pulled up to her house, but before we parted ways I gave her my card in case she ever heard anything interesting – newsworthy – in the course of her work. About an hour later my phone began making noise. It was the prostitute, calling to invite me to hang out with her and her boyfriend, whom I’d apparently met last month at the flea market.

“He’s the guy from Wisconsin,” she said.

I take a lot of risks, but betting my money isn’t usually one of them. I’ve probably bought fewer than 25 lottery tickets my entire life. I’ve never had a knack for winning jackpots. Hell, I never win anything. My parents both gamble, but one is far luckier than the other in this regard. That luck never rubbed off on me.

As kids, my sisters and I used to play a card game with our grandma called Screw Your Neighbor. But my grandma, who came of age during the Depression, only played with pennies so winning never actually felt like winning. Even in the 80s, a handful of pennies wasn’t worth much.

The only significant thing I’ve ever won was $400 in a raffle that my grandmother entered me in after signing my name on the ticket. But I’m convinced things would’ve turned out differently has I known I was in contention. What a surprise it was to one day get a call saying I had $400 big ones waiting for me. I can’t remember what I spent it on. I was 16 so a good chunk of it probably went to weed. Talk about being a winner.

My luck changed last Wednesday. After arriving early at the casino bar ahead of my company, I strolled the gaming floor, between the rows of ringing slot machines, their lights flashing. On a whim I plugged $3 into a penny slot, placed a bet and won 50 cents. Then I placed another bet and the machine lit up and made one helluva clamor. I watched the tally climb and climb and climb and I instantly regretted not placing a full bet. In all, I won 11,500 cents, for total winnings of $115.50.

From a distance all cities seem mysteriously quaint and secretive. Española is no exception. The most striking feature of its skyline is also its skyline’s only feature: the casino hotel. Except for the hotel there isn’t a building in the valley that’s higher than two stories. I find this somewhat humorous since Juan de Oñate, and the Spanish explorers before him, dreamed of finding a City of Gold, which they believed was somewhere in what is now New Mexico. So it’s fitting that the centerpiece of the city’s downtown taunts with the temptation of riches. Only this time around it’s the outsiders who go home empty-handed.

At night, when the lights go out, Ahmed Etaymish, 29, is transported from Madison back to Baghdad, where he relives the horror that followed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Sometimes he reimagines his brushes with death or the murders he’s witnessed. Other times he’s choking on the mist of human tissue that lingers in the air following a car bombing. More often he’s back in the morgues searching for his father, a university professor abducted by insurgents in 2005.

But the worst are the phantom pains, inflicted by the ghosts of the soldiers who beat and tortured him.

“In the dark I hear people [who] come to hurt me, and I cannot control the situation,” Ahmed says, in a soft and shaky voice. “I hear my dad struggling. I see the eyes of the people being killed.”

He sleeps with the lights on to quiet the memories. “Even when she touches me,” he says, looking to his wife, “I cannot feel safe.”

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is commonly associated with combat vets who served in Iraq and other wars. But for Iraqi civilians whose neighborhoods became battlegrounds, the symptoms of PTSD tend to be more difficult to treat because the war was constant. There was no tour of duty from which to return home.

Soldiers “have families and social institutions,” says Dr. Roger Garm, a Madison therapist who has worked with Hmong victims of torture and war. “They have a culture, a language, a way to make a living. Refugees by definition don’t come home. They’ve lost everything.”

But Ahmed isn’t a refugee in the classic sense. He came to the U.S. following his 2009 marriage to Madison resident Kate Vestlie. His story provides a harrowing snapshot of the grisly day-to-day realities Iraqis faced during the occupation, lending a human face to what the military calls “collateral damage.”

And as Israel and the U.S. flirt with war over Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the miseries endured by Ahmed and his family during their final years in Baghdad remind us that war exacts a high toll from innocent civilians as well as soldiers.

Though violence forced Ahmed from Baghdad in 2005, love led him to America. He and Kate speak at length about their unlikely union following a dinner of lamb, which Ahmed helped slaughter days before. Their Bahá’í Faith has been a helpful guide across bumpy cultural terrain, but treatment for Ahmed’s trauma has been hard to come by.

“All we hear is, ‘Sorry, we can’t help you,’” says Kate, holding their 2-year-old son, Samir. “This country went into Iraq and started a war; now no one wants to help.”

Peace in Madison hasn’t translated to peace of mind. Even here Ahmed remains mentally tethered to the war.

“What I need is to kill the past,” he says. “The past is showing day by day; I didn’t expect that. Coming here I thought I was starting a new page.”

‘Freedom’s untidy’

PTSD is a psychic trauma that arises from a violent, fear-inducing event like a threat on one’s life or witnessing the deaths of others. It poisons the stream of consciousness, inciting symptoms that, in Ahmed’s case, include crippling anxiety, flashbacks and nightmares.

“It’s like they’re always hopped up and always under threat,” says Dr. Garm. “We never see anyone go back to the way they were.”

Born in Baghdad in 1983, Ahmed lived through two wars before he was 10 years old and, as a teenager, suffered like most Iraqis under economic sanctions that crippled the country’s once thriving economy.

Life under Saddam Hussein was uneasy, but the surest way to avoid being snatched by state security was to remain apolitical. “Anyone against him, they would disappear, like my uncle,” Ahmed says. “He was against him, and we don’t have any information since 1979.”

When war visited Iraq again in early 2003, Ahmed was studying for a degree in civil engineering. Like others across Baghdad, he and his family gathered the supplies necessary to weather the American bombs.

“We learned from the other wars to prepare for war before it’s coming,” he says. “We prepare as a family, to be in one place so if we die, we die together.”

On March 21, 2003, Ahmed and some 30 family members huddled in a cramped bunker as the bombing commenced, emerging 20 days later to witness the first hints of the bedlam to come.

“We could see in the street people killing [others], [police] officers stealing from the banks,” he recalls. “They thought this was freedom.”

As allied forces overtook the country, government institutions were dismantled and the army was disbanded, but no steps were taken to secure the country. Soon, the car bombings and abductions began.

Questioned about the growing unrest, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld blithely replied, “Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.”

With the borders wide open, militants from several Arab countries poured in. “We thought the war would bring freedom, but the terrorists came, and now the Iraqis live with terrorists,” Ahmed says.

The anarchy grew worse by the day. Ahmed’s mother, Asna, pleaded with her husband, Hasan, to leave the city for Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq. (Asna’s and Hasan’s names have been changed because Asna lives Iraq, where Bahá’ís are still persecuted and have been targeted by militants.)

Things got so bad by the summer of ’05 that Asna, who visited Madison recently, says she finally convinced her husband to move.

“Ahmed, he had final exams to do, so [Hasan] say, ‘Just wait until September,’” Asna says.

That August, the family traveled to Jordan, where Ahmed’s sister was getting married. At the wedding, Ahmed learned of an American Bahá’í named Kate, whom his cousin, Hala, encouraged him to friend on Facebook.

But the courtship would have to wait.

Back in Baghdad on Aug. 23, 2005, Asna called Hasan — who always carried two phones in case the battery in one of them died — and got no answer. The city at the time was under a strict 9 p.m. curfew.

“Two hours I’m calling him,” she says. “I said, ‘If he don’t come back at nine o’clock he is gone.’ I worry always about the boys, but I do not think they would kidnap him.”

‘Kidnap your mother’

Being the eldest son, Ahmed had to find Hasan. Between classes he searched morgues, hospitals and dumpsters throughout the city. Sometimes he’d inspect the human heads insurgents staked on fence posts throughout the city, snapping pictures of those that resembled his father. “All of the bodies are in bad shape,” he says.

Danger lurked everywhere. Insurgents were known to kill relatives who came to identify corpses, which some days arrived by the hundreds. Bodies laid in dumpsters were often booby-trapped with explosives.

Trouble had a way of finding young Iraqi men. One night, after an American Hummer struck a roadside bomb, U.S. soldiers rounded up every male in the area, including Ahmed, whose hands were bound and a bag placed over his head.

“There were many Iraqis with me, and the Americans, they were very angry and were hitting and yelling, but we cannot see,” he says.

Ahmed credits his Bahá’í Faith for aiding his release the following day. “The Americans didn’t know anything about Bahá’í,” he says. “The translator told them it means ‘non-Muslim.’”

Unable to keep up with the volume of corpses, Ahmed and Asna ignored their instincts and reported the abduction to police. “We afraid of the police because we can’t trust anybody, not ever,” she says. “Nobody speak the truth.”

Days later, Asna received a call from a man demanding a $100,000 ransom for Hasan. The caller settled for $2,000, but Asna no-showed after he failed to confirm that Hasan was alive. “I said, ‘I will not come. I have to hear his voice,’” she recalls. “Then they say, ‘You will see him in the [morgue].’”

The family suspects police were behind the calls. “[Police] used to do this, because they have the information,” says Ahmed. “We told them, ‘We can’t pay unless we have the proof.’”

The caller then raised the stakes.

“They told us, ‘Give us the money or we kidnap your mother,’” says Ahmed. “We decided to leave [Baghdad] the same night.”

‘The American lady’

After graduating high school in 2000, Kate Vestlie took a job in Perth, Australia, where she met Hala, the daughter of an Iraqi expat. The women, both raised Bahá’í, became instant friends.

They got reacquainted in 2005 while volunteering at the Bahá’í World Center in Haifa, Israel. Hala had since gotten married and felt it was Kate’s turn. “So I told her to hook me up the Middle Eastern way: arrange a marriage,” Kate says.

Hala recommended a cousin in Iraq and invited Kate to join the family during a wedding in Jordan. “Ahmed will be there,” Hala said.

Kate couldn’t afford the trip, but three years later she noticed Ahmed’s Facebook profile while reading Hala’s updates. Now living in Kurdistan, he accepted her friend request later that day.

“His first message was very short, but it brought me so much joy!” Kate recalls. “I was a changed woman.”

They became serious after logging countless hours on Skype, and Kate decided to visit Kurdistan with Ahmed’s sister, who lives in Indiana. The experience was otherworldly.

“The fact that I was landing in Iraq, meeting this guy, and his whole family was going to be there, it kind of hit me,” she says. “Then all of a sudden his family is mobbing the car. I couldn’t even open the door there were so many people.”

News of the unusual visitor had spread. “They were excited to see the American lady,” says Ahmed. “Iraq is closed and hardly ever sees foreign people, especially from America.”

Initially they planned to wait until the end of Kate’s three-month visa before deciding on marriage, but were engaged three days after her arrival.

Per Bahá’í custom, members of each family gather so the groom’s father can make a formal proposal. In Madison, Kate’s father, Russ Vestlie, gathered his wife and children before the computer while Ahmed’s uncle, assuming Hasan’s role, made a proposal over Skype that Kate’s parents promptly accepted.

Russ and Kate’s brother attended the wedding in Kurdistan. However, months passed before Ahmed could join his bride in America, pending approval of his visa. The process necessitated several nerve-racking trips to Baghdad.

Says Ahmed, “I was very afraid.”

Off the chart

The Vestlies’ search for a therapist has been stymied by time and financial constraints. Also, Ahmed’s symptoms are so off the chart that local therapists have told him they don’t know how to help. Medication has eased the anxiety and dulled the nightmares, but ordinary sounds can still trigger full-blown panic.

Last year he began therapy at the Margaret Kolver Center in Chicago, which assists immigrants traumatized by war. The center took Ahmed’s case, but the twice-weekly drives to Chicago became too expensive and time consuming.

He hopes to resume his therapy once his sister moves to Chicago, allowing for overnight visits.

In addition to his psychic wounds, Kate and Ahmed have also faced challenges typical of any crosscultural marriage. “Twenty-six years of being there, it’s hard to change,” says Ahmed. “We had some struggle in the beginning, and maybe we still have it.”

According to Kate, the biggest challenge has been fleshing out gender roles within the marriage. In the Middle East, for example, men almost always have the final say.

Kate anticipated these challenges. Over the years she became familiar with Arab culture from getting to know various Saudi Arabian students who’ve lived with the Vestlies while studying at the Wisconsin English as a Second Language Institute.

“Kate’s a strong woman and she likes strong men,” says her father. “She actually kind of likes the assertiveness of Arab men because she can spar with them.”

Once, a student from a very conservative Muslim background bullied Kate while his parents visited. After she stood her ground, the boy’s veiled mother gave Kate a thumb’s up from beneath her burka. “On the way out she gave permission for us to beat their son,” says Russ. “That’s a high compliment.”

Kate and Ahmed’s Bahá’í Faith has helped them bridge the divides. “In Bahá’í, no marriage is going to look the same, so the man and woman have to learn how to consult [with each other], and that creates the unity,” Kate explains.

Bahá’í, which originated in 19th-century Persia (now Iran), teaches that the prophets of all religions descended from the same God. Around the time Russ began exploring Bahá’í in the late 1960s, Bahá’ís in Iraq were widely suspected of working for Iran and faced indefinite detention. In 1973, Asna, then 23, was imprisoned after refusing to denounce her faith. In 1979, Iraq’s new president, Saddam Hussein, released the Bahá’ís, but warned they would hang if they practiced their faith.

“I couldn’t speak like this, the details, until Saddam goes in 2003,” Asna says. “Even now people don’t talk. He put the fright in the hearts of the people.”

Ahmed suspects that his father’s 2005 election to Iraq’s Bahá’í National Assembly made him a mark for Islamic militants. In spite of his family’s persecution, Ahmed’s fidelity to Bahá’í’s pacifist principles remains intact.

“Sometimes if he hears certain accents at the wrong time he’ll go back in time and have these crazy flashbacks,” Kate says. “But you’d never know it because he’s very calm and peaceful and loving to everyone. Even those people who tortured him he still loves.”

‘A horrible night’

During the last six months of 2009, Ahmed made frequent trips to Baghdad to complete various steps for his visa. Kate had by this time returned to Wisconsin after learning she was pregnant.

Predictably, the war complicated his efforts. Once he came to get copies of some official documents only to discover a pair of car bombs had destroyed the government building a day earlier.

“The building is so big that they didn’t go in to help the people,” he says. “They heard them crying, but they were afraid to go inside.”

Fortunately a friend of Ahmed’s father, a judge, was able to obtain the paperwork. In December, Ahmed passed a physical. The final step was an interview with embassy officials. If all went well, he’d be in America shortly after the New Year.

But things did not go well. Days before his embassy interview, Iraqi soldiers stopped Ahmed and some friends, demanding to know what religion they practiced.

“Then the big fish came and asked what we were doing there,” he says. “They ask us, ‘How many people you killed? How many bombs you did? How many people you kidnap? Then they started to beat [us], and put bags over our heads and put us in the Hummer.”

At the prison, Ahmed waited in fear as those around him wailed inconsolably. When the interrogation began, he explained to no avail that Bahá’ís are peaceful and non-political. Intelligence agents stood him in water and electrocuted him, after which they hung him from his feet and beat him with a spiked rod.

When Ahmed lost consciousness, the agents cut the rope, dropping him onto the concrete floor. Shivering and bleeding inside the cold cell, Ahmed wept at the thought of widowing his pregnant bride.

“They put us all together and told us you cannot talk,” he says, lifting his shirt to reveal the scars. “The old people in the jail say we will be there for two months for torture unless we confess. It was a horrible night.”

The next day, the “big fish” informed Ahmed he could go. “The big fish say, ‘You have nothing to do with the government; I’m very happy to know about you guys.’”

Making friends

Ahmed dreams of one day showing Kate and Samir the house he grew up in and the streets he played in as a boy. But, for the time being, he knows that’s as unlikely as learning his father’s fate. Though the Americans have left, Baghdad continues to be rocked by violence.

“We need a new generation to live without war, to live without blood,” he says. “I have faith, but my emotions are broken, my heart is broken to see the Iraqis dying every day.”

Asna, too, fondly recalls the Iraq of her youth, before King Faisal II was deposed in 1958. “We have it very good when there was the king,” she says. “And the security was very nice and the money was very good. The kingdom will never return.”

The injuries Ahmed sustained during his interrogation with Iraqi intelligence were serious enough to warrant back surgery, but there wasn’t a surgeon in Baghdad capable of performing the delicate operation. Consequently, he lives with chronic back pain.

His civil engineering degree is virtually worthless in America, but he’s found a niche business helping Saudi students navigate life in Madison. Raised in a culture where social currency trumps the almighty dollar, however, Ahmed is bashful about asking for remuneration.

“He’s a wonderful guy,” says Russ. “I’ve been trying to counsel him as a businessperson, but I think we’re only partly down that path.”

The Saudi students are a connection to the Arab culture Ahmed wouldn’t otherwise have, especially when it comes to honoring a certain custom. “The killing of the lamb is very special because that connects him to home,” says Kate.

Ahead of the Bahá’í Holy Day in January, Ahmed and the Vestlies’ two Saudi Muslim guests, Mana and Abdul, acquired a lamb for the celebration.

They laid the lamb on the ground so its head faced Mecca. After a brief prayer, Abdul sliced open the animal’s throat. Once the life drained from its body, the three of them took about an hour to butcher the lamb.

Ahmed bagged the hindquarters as a gift for an Isthmus photographer and reporter, but was taken aback when they politely tried to decline his offering.

“No, please take it,” he said. “This is how we do it. It’s important that we share.”

It was a moving gesture by a man from whom so much has been taken. He later explained that spreading good will — even among those who’ve wronged him — is his way of making the world a little bit better.

After the Iraqi army released him in December 2009, Ahmed and his friends returned to the checkpoint to visit the Shi’a Muslim soldiers who detained and beat him.

“I wanted to say ‘hi’ to them. I wanted to make some friendship with them and tell them that Bahá’ís are different,” he says. “They were excited to see us. They say, ‘Hey, it’s the Bahá’ís!’”

Rio Arriba County, NM – Land of Enchantment is a supremely apt description for New Mexico. As someone last night said of the landscape, It really draws you in.

Indeed, northern New Mexico is otherworldly. Once a week I drive 66 miles from Española to Tierra Amarilla, the county seat. Highway 84 north, paved along an ancient seabed, snakes across pastoral valleys before entering the red rock canyons that you can see jutting above the horizon from miles away. But there comes this point when these sheer rock cliffs begin to rise rapidly toward the sky. In an instant the cliff is towering over you as you drive into the gray of its shadow. For several minutes it appears as though you’re going to drive straight into the rockface when suddenly the highway makes a hairpin roller coaster turn into a canyon that seems to swallow you.

Evenings tend to be every bit as spectacular as the sun dips beneath the horizon and the Española Valley becomes awash in a glowing splash of red light that illuminates the mountains and mesas that ring the city. The glow is almost hallucinatory, and seems to bend the contours of the world before you as if Dali’s paintbrush had swished across the sky. Apparently this is called Alpenglow, and is caused by indirect sunlight reflecting down from water and ice in the lower atmosphere. It is a unique phenomenon, scientifically distinct from a normal sunset.

When the evenings are cloudy, the sky will sometimes open up a bit, allowing the sun, like a stage light, to shine on the vistas below, as in the picture above. The pairing of these geological sights and atmospheric phenomenons are impossible to ignore. Because there is very little cell reception between towns, and the radio tends to jump frequencies, there is little else to do during this drive but throw on the cruise control and take it all in.

One of the most striking things about Rio Arriba County is that the Internet and social media have little value for many residents here. In this election season you’ll find just one of about a dozen candidates who bothered to launch a campaign website. None of them have Facebook pages or Twitter feeds. Campaigning is very much a door-to-door effort, which is taxing since many of the county’s voters live in very remote clusters scattered across an area the size of Connecticut.

Few businesses have websites or maintain Facebook pages, either. I’ve yet to find a fellow blogger or Twitterer, which probably makes me the county’s most popular online media persona, by default of course. Cell phones are ubiquitous because they’re useful, but I’m guessing that Internet service isn’t even an option for those who live in the far reaches of the county. After all, sections of the county’s largest city, Española, aren’t yet broadband-ready. Fortunately, I live in a wired part of the city, which happened out of dumb luck since it’s not something I’d have even thought to ask.

Not that an Internet shortage in rural areas is any sort of profound revelation, but after years of web browsing and incorporating online activities into my day-to-day life it’s a peculiar shift to not have Youtube videos, viral links, memes, and interesting websites as part of the discussion. It’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just the way it is. Each circle has its own center that life revolves around and here the Internet simply isn’t in that mix. It’s curious to me how living in a place where the Internet is of low importance has in turn made web browsing a low priority for me as well.  Context really is everything.

The county’s lack of online visibility surely contributes to its isolation, but that’s how people here prefer it. Job growth is a central issue in the current campaigns, but in Rio Arriba County that means helping locals start businesses rather than attracting industries to the area. Unlike neighboring Santa Fe and Taos Counties, Rio Arriba has little interest in drawing tourists to the area, despite being primed for businesses to sprout up around elk hunting, four-wheeling, camping, and hiking.

As far as I know there is nowhere in the county one would go to ski or snowboard. There are no rafting or kayaking outfits. Along the highways you may see a farmer selling chilis or tree nuts. What you won’t find are travel plazas, truck stops, or signs advertising the sights or landmarks ahead.

A battered sign indicating a county road is all you get. You never know what you’ll find. Some unmarked trail? Perhaps. A waterfall? Possibly. An elk grazing? Not unlikely. It’s not unusual to see people park on the shoulder of the highways, or wherever there is room, to go off adventuring. These mystery adventures, I’ve found, almost always have a big pay off.

Google Maps is a worthless tool in these parts. And I can’t say people are much better at providing directions. Ask someone for directions you’ll more likely be given a sequence of visual cues than an address. Head north toward such and such a mesa (if you pass the 8-mile marker you’ve gone too far) turn left on the gravel road about ten miles out of town (by the sign warning of falling rocks), stay left when the road forks, then turn right by the big tree with the broken branch. You can’t miss it!  

There is nothing convenient about life here.

Yet somehow that makes life all the easier.

Rio Arriba County, NM – I’ve come to enjoy indulging the White people here who complain about being treated like third-class citizens – behind the Natives even!

Oh, the audacity of these brown people.

In their own ancestral lands!

It is true, though. People eye you when you enter bars or restaurants and you try not to stare back, but you can feel their eyes on you. Aside from the handful of people I work with, I may go all week without seeing another Gringo and when I do it’s likely a family that had traveled from Los Alamos to shop at the Wal-Mart. Children stare at you curiously in the Laund-O-Mat. And sometimes the gas station clerks will appear to eye you with suspicion.

And yet other times it seems overt. A couple of weeks ago my co-worker ordered a plate from the casino bar. We saw the cook approaching the bar with our food. Despite us calling out to him that it was our plate, he breezed right passed us without so much as a glance. There’s no way he didn’t hear us. The bartender had stepped away, so the cook asked the security guard to watch the plate – our plate.

El Gringos.

Really, that’s the worst of it. Aside from the waiter, we’re more likely a curiosity than anything else. Once when I was younger, my grandfather took me to a bar in the small Wisconsin town he retired in. At one point, a black man entered with the beer delivery and the place fell dead silent, with everyone sneaking glances. But somehow that felt different, ugly, and from a place of genuine dislike. Aside from the waiter, the people of Rio Arriba County certainly aren’t impolite. It’s just that White people are unusual. We’re not the norm. It’s a small town. People notice. Get used to it.

There’s just something willfully ignorant in the things said by some of the Whites around here. I’ve heard some White farmers explain that they don’t sell their USDA certified organic produce at the local market because locals can’t afford to pay the high prices that those in Taos and Santa Fe can. Makes sense. Make that money. Live the dream. But while they thumb their noses and make loads of cash on their shiny fruits,  the native farmers who vend at the local market will adjust their prices to reflect what people can pay, even accepting food stamps.

I imagine USDA organic certification simply isn’t that important to families who’ve purchased produce from the same local families for generations. There is no co-op that sells local produce. Instead you go to the weekly market or to the farmer’s home.

The White farmers will warn that you won’t find USDA certified produce at the local market. But there are a variety of reasons why the traditional farmer may not be certified organic. They tend not to use pesticides on their crops, but perhaps the seed stock’s provenance is indiscernible because it’s been passed down through generations. I’m not sure how old seed stock improves the crop, but it’s an important thing you’ll hear people mention.

While you may not find USDA certified organic anything at the market, you’ll certainly find a selection of gathered foods, like wild spinach, gathered by people whose families have been gathering wild foods for hundreds of years. Others make a living selling firewood they harvest and hay they grow.

I often wonder how these griping Whites see Rio Arriba County. I’ve quite enjoyed the discriminations and profiling if only because I’ve never experienced it. It’s worthwhile. Instructive. And certainly nothing to cringe from or be mad about. The county is within America, but it’s different from America. That uniqueness is precisely why it’s special. Though I must admit it was a little awkward parachuting into what in many ways is a foreign land, with wildly different traditions and histories, to write about life here from the American perspective.

Another Gringo.

That’s true, too.

Though I indulge them, each time I hear a White complain about being treated like a third-class citizen I want to throw up my hands, then shake them. Do you know anything about the history here?

I’ve heard: They’ll never accept you. That may be true, but everyone I’ve met so far has been pretty awesome, I tell them.

Just wait, they say.

Española, NM – Yesterday a minor ruckus erupted outside my house. An inattentive bee had flown into the web spun by a spider that had hunkered down in the corner of the adobe’s doorframe. It thrashed and buzzed wildly, trying to free itself. What unfolded was an epic battle between two gnarly insects that both can cause pain to the human body with their stings and bites. But this was a battle of life and death for both creatures. Being a spider hater, my sympathies were 100 percent with the bee, though, as an observer, I kind of wanted to see the spider eat the bee. Below is a pictorial record of the showdown.

Rio Arriba County, NM – You can’t fully appreciate the lunacy of cities until you’ve spent enough time in the country that you feel that full break from modernity. Rio Arriba County widens that disconnect because not only is it rural, but it’s primitive enough to feel entirely of a different time. The rhythms and sounds are different. More peaceful. Serene.

The other day, while driving along the Rio Chama river corridor, I saw a pair of guys on horseback galloping among their large herd of cattle. The dogs ran at the margins to keep the herd in formation as it pushed on toward the summer grazing grounds.

The area is considered a tri-cultural area that includes Spanish, Pueblo Indians, and Anglos.

Here, the natives live on pueblos, which is Spanish for “town.” The pueblo boundaries haven’t changed much since the Spanish arrived in 1540. I haven’t wrapped my head around all the nuance, but what I’ve heard is that after the Spanish conquest, natives were allowed to keep their lands so long as they built a church in the center of the pueblo, adopted Christianity, and named the pueblos after saints. Compared to the genocidal proclivities of the English, I thought the Spanish seemed kind in this regard.

“Really?” was the response this thought provoked from one.

Well, no, they weren’t nice, exactly. But genocide – the English way – was arguably worse than lopping off natives’ feet as punishment, as the Spanish did, though the latter, too, was undeniably cruel. One of Spain’s last conquistadors, Juan de Oñate, hacked feet off of hundreds of natives during his reign as a colonial governor of Nueva Mexico in the early 17th Century. In 1991, a statue was dedicated to Oñate for the 400th anniversary of his arrival in New Mexico. Not long after, someone sawed off the statue’s right foot, leaving a note that read, “Fair is fair.”

On the way to Tierra Amarilla last Wednesday I saw four dogs and one cat, lying miles apart, dead in the middle of the highway. They were still there on my back some two hours later. They weren’t the first or the last pets to misjudge traffic I’ve seen, but it’s not something I’m sure I can get used, as I did in Wisconsin with car-struck deer.

I see a number of dogs freely roaming about, both in the country and the city. Sometimes I’ll step out of the office while on a phone call and I’ll see a dog jaunting across the expansive gravel parking lot, its owner nowhere in sight. Sometimes you see them darting in and out of traffic, trying to cross the highways, which cut many properties in two. I haven’t seen one get struck and hope I never do. And it’s a good thing that dead dogs don’t bark, because seeing their remains rotting in the road is bad enough. It takes a while before they’re scraped off the pavement, so their corpses – baking in the sun and picked apart by scavengers – tend to be in pretty gruesome shape.

The amount of information I encounter daily is astounding.

Last week I learned that tumbleweed – that iconic symbol of the desolate American southwest – is an invasive import from Russian ships that docked in Portland.

I also met the first civilian employee of Los Alamos Nuclear Research Facility, whose employment began during the Manhattan Project days.

On Wednesday a pair of U.S. Forest Service Rangers gave me a tour of the Santa Fe National Forest along the Rio Chama corridor (rio means “river” in Spanish), near the southeastern corner of the Colorado plateau. They pointed out cliffs and mesas painted by artist Georgia O’Keefe, a fellow Wisconsin native.

They also pointed out a pair of modern lavatories paid for with stimulus money. I didn’t try them out because I didn’t have to go. But I did wonder how they’d look in one of O’Keefe’s paintings.

I was also given a tour of the county jail, which, like most jails, was a pretty bleak place, and I met a couple that runs an organic fruit orchard and farm. They grow more than 150 varieties of apples and 14 varieties of peach.

The Spanish spoken here is different from that spoken in southern New Mexico and southern Colorado. In Rio Arriba County, the language is a hybrid of Spanish and Pueblo languages. People in the north speak of how different everything is in the southern part of the state, as though it’s a foreign country.

Unlike elsewhere in the America, residents here generally see growth and development as a bad thing, insofar as their traditions are then jeopardized by outsiders.  While Española is more urbane than the rest of the county, with an active Chamber of Commerce, its own growth is restricted by virtue of being landlocked by the pueblos. Plenty of political conflicts between the county and the pueblos as political entities persist, particularly when it comes to taxes, of which the pueblos pay few of, if any, though they rely heavily on county services and infrastructure.

Residents seem generally unbothered that the county is 50 to 60 years behind everywhere else in America. That’s not to sound snobbish. It’s admirable to see people putting tradition and culture ahead of money and modernity. And it’s rare for communities, when deciding their futures, to speak on a unified front against prosperity, in the American sense. Cultural preservation necessitates resisting outside development and economic pressures. And the people in this area know a thing or two about resistance.

A large part of the county’s beauty rests in its authenticity. The fake adobes and big boxes of Española provide a stark contrast to the aesthetic of towns like Chimayó, where dilapidated buildings occupy a special place in collective memory. What developers would call an eyesore, locals call their history. Here you will find the ruins of the walls that once fortified the town as people in the area began to form villages in order to escape the dangers of being isolated.

While some pueblos in the northeastern part of the county generate revenue from natural gas and oil deposits, the county has successfully thwarted attempts to bring fracking to New Mexico. Fracking, which is done widely in Pennsylvania, relies on noxious chemicals to free natural gas deposits. Those chemicals have been known to contaminate underground water sources.

In a place where chronic water shortages leave everyone dry, there certainly isn’t enough leftover for the energy companies to pollute. And if there’s one thing residents hate more than the government fucking with their land and their culture it’s threats on their water. In most places people take water for granted, but in northern New Mexico, water is the original politics.

The ranchers, too, have many unsettled grievances with the federal government, especially as battles over land use relate to the Treaty of Guadalupe, which ended the Mexican-American War. At one point the treaty called for the United States government to honor Spanish land grants, as did the Mexican government after winning its independence from Spain, but that provision that was ultimately removed during a re-ratification of the treaty.

The government has over the years handed down a slew of regulations that ranchers must abide by, deepening the resentments. The ranchers I’ve met are some of the proudest people you’ll ever meet. They are the keepers of the frontier mentality so pervasive in the unpopulated north. It sounded silly to my eastern ears the first time I heard the treaty invoked, but it really is a document intended to, in part, codify New Mexicans’ existing land rights. In a sense, it is their cultural Constitution, albeit one that the feds seem to honor at will. Government regulations and fees are seen as a breach of that contract.

After all of these years you might say the treaty is outdated. It’s a different time. But it’s no more outdated than the United States Constitution, as a founding document, is outdated. Can you imagine being stripped of your property rights? Why shouldn’t the government honor its agreement with the ranchers and others? The distrust of Anglos is understandable and real.

Chimayó, NM – After two weeks in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, I’m still fascinated daily with how different life is here. Were it not for the Post Offices and English-language road signs no one could fault you for wondering whether you hadn’t somehow slipped out of the United States without realizing it.

Here, things like the Declaration of Independence or places like Philadelphia have little significance. The Mayflower and Jamestown mean nothing, either, because residents of this area have a very different origin story, one rooted firmly in Spanish and Native cultures. Española, the city in which I live, preceded Philadelphia, the city from which I moved, by roughly 84 years.

In Rio Arriba, traditions are closely guarded and federal encroachment on residents’ way of life is greatly detested and met with formidable resistance. It is also a deeply religious place and, fittingly, home to one of the Catholic Church’s most sacred shrines, el Santuario de Chimayó.

Beginning on Holy Thursday and lasting through Good Friday afternoon, upwards of 35,000 worshippers made the annual pilgrimage to Santuario, many arriving to touch the dirt they believe has special curative powers or that will bring them good fortune in the coming year. Many walk from as far as Albuquerque, some 90 miles away.

On Thursday night I drove along State Road 76 toward Chimayó and spoke with many pilgrims, who came in all colors, shapes and sizes. From Española it’s roughly a 25-mile round-trip trek along a very tight, hilly and unlit road, but as darkness fell, very few were wearing reflective gear of any kind. Nor did they carry flashlights or other items to make motorists aware of their presence, relying instead on the Lord to ensure their safe passage.

The shrine, a registered National Historic Landmark, was built over a three year period beginning in 1810 by a peasant named Don Bernardo Abeyta who, according to legend, observed an object glimmering in the hillside while praying during Lent. The object was crucifix, which he gave to a local priest. But after the crucifix mysteriously returned the next day to the spot where Abeyta had discovered it, he asked the Archdiocese of Mexico for permission to build a shrine marking where he found the cross. Today, the shrine sees some 500,000 annual visitors from around the world.

Many of the pilgrims take home dirt from the hole Abeyta dug. One woman I spoke with planned to sprinkle a little in the corners of her home. There was a time when pilgrims would eat the dirt, but the church now actively discourages this.

What struck me was that many of the pilgrims walked without any provisions at all, even those who strolled through the frigid darkness of early Good Friday morning. No sleeping bags or flashlights. Many seemed not even to have brought with them any water or food. Sacrifice is a big theme to many, but so to is tradition.

A group of guys I met who’d walked nine hours through the night explained their great-grandfathers had made the journey, as had their grandfathers and fathers. At eight a.m. Good Friday morning they looked cold and exhausted but were in incredibly good spirits as they awaited their ride home.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts the high number of ornate roadside memorials in the area, established to remember those who’ve died in car wrecks. Yesterday I learned that a number of families begin their pilgrimage from these memorials, in honor of their fallen loved ones.

I was on the road very early Good Friday morning and, before the sun had even risen, droves of pilgrims had already set out toward Santuario. Some parents pushed their little ones in strollers. Friends and couples walked side by side. Some carried large, heavy-looking crucifixes, while others walked in large groups reciting Hail Mary’s as they pushed ahead. And yet others walked alone to reflect and give thanks privately.

A number of concession stands were set up along the route to provide pilgrims with free bottled waters and nourishment. The county also has a large Sikh population that had set up a table full of fresh fruit, trail mix, Gatorade and hot coffee. The guy who ran the stand said it was their way of paying respect to another religion.

There was a strong law enforcement presence, with a few DUI checkpoints. I’d heard that pilgrims in the past have died after being struck by passing motorists.

At one point I pulled off to the side of the road to take some pictures, which I felt kind of jerky doing. There isn’t much of a shoulder to speak of, so Purple Thunder totally obstructed the path of those walking on that side of the highway.

A man with a warm smile and several missing teeth asked if I was going to Chimayó, and if so, could he catch a ride. He explained that he’d been trying to hitch a ride, but suspected passing motorists had confused him for a walker. He went on to explain he’d just came from the hospital and was eager to get home.

“You smell like you just left the bar,” I said.

He laughed a little and said, “I went to the hospital after the bar.”

We jumped into Thunder and roared off toward Chimayó. He told me a story about how once some people were gunned down at Santuario. “I’m not religious,” he said, “but that’s just wrong.”

He had a lot of questions for me and before I knew it we had arrived at his destination: A bar just outside of town.

On my way back to Española, State Road 76 was inundated with walkers, forcing vehicle traffic to a crawl. Most residents here drive gigantic pick-up trucks that nearly occupy a full lane to begin with, so the margin for error in terms of slight swerves is nil.

But there wasn’t a single whiff of impatience. No one honked their horns or made aggressive moves. The walkers squeezed in closer to the hillsides and cliffs as best they could, space permitting.

The Good Friday pilgrimage was also an occasion for those with lowriders to show off the vehicles they’ve put thousands of dollars into, with shiny rims and spinners, ornate paint jobs and hydraulic suspension systems retrofitted to the 1950s and 60s-era vehicles.

Around 6 p.m., as I was leaving work, one of Española’s main roads was bumper-to-bumper traffic with lowriders and people packed into the beds of pick-up trucks, presumably returning home from Santuario. The energy in the air as Good Friday passed into Easter weekend was electric.

Despite the congestion, no one seemed in all that much of a rush. Some riding in the pick-up beds cheered and hollered and kissed the crucifixes around their necks. Everyone seemed so happy and blessed as they made their ways home to spend time with family and friends. I’ve seen a lot in my life, but this was among the most remarkable events I’ve ever witnessed.

And, as far as I know, the Lord saw to it that everyone returned alive. 

Yesterday on my way back from Tierra Amarilla, I picked up a hitchhiker on one of the pueblos. It was the middle of the day and he was wearing a tucked in, button-up shirt with a clearly visible ID badge clipped to the pocket. On his way to work, I figured. I was really flying down the highway and so came to a stop a considerable distance away. He seemed to take forever to catch up to the van. It took me back to my days as a younger man when I hitchhiked through northern New Mexico to Silver City in the south.

The little Indian fellow hopped into Thunder and off we were, back toward Española, back to our jobs. Española being a small town, and Rio Arriba County being a sparsely populated landscape, I’ll call the man Lee. Lee’s car had broken down and therefore couldn’t find a way into town. Hitchhiking is still pretty common in these parts. I see several people each day on the roads, thumbing it.

But Lee had an errand to run before his shift started. He had to stop at the bank to withdraw his final payment to the county morgue so he could recover his son’s ashes. It had cost him $3,000, he said, to reduce his son, the second to die in a car accident in three years. He showed me pictures of them both. And then the cross he planned to hang around the ash-filled urn, which he had to take with him into work, being that he had no vehicle to store it in.

Today while driving around Chimayó my left nostril became suddenly clogged. I swerved slightly, wondering if some massive booger had become dislodged, but then it began to tickle. And then it began to hurt. And then it began to burn. Bad timing too, because along this road dozens, if not hundreds, of people walked along the tight shoulder on the heavily trafficked road. Many of whom had walked some 90 miles from Albuquerque to pay their Good Friday respects at el Santuario de Chimayó.

When I squeezed my nose to assuage the hurt I heard a crunch and knew right away some fucking insect had wedged itself up there and was now struggling to wiggle free. Must’ve flown in through the window, my nasal passage being the point of impact. I began to panic and slowed to a 5 m.p.h. cruise so that I wouldn’t strike any of the walkers while digging this thing out of my nose. But at that speed it must’ve been a good show for those I passed. I drive a van and vans have big windshields so as I’m frantically trying to dig the insect from my nose everyone I pass is staring and their children are pointing at me – the man in the van picking his nose.

At last I dislodged the crunchy little fucker. It was long and red and had little pincers, hence the burning that surged through my sinus. It’s six little legs flailing, I flicked it out the window and continued about my day without further incident.

I’m not sure when sidewalk technology arrived in these parts, but it’s fair to say it’s never been fully embraced. And many of the roads are very narrow. Motorists must always been on the look out for small children, dogs and chickens. Yesterday on my way home a pair of roosters were clucking across the road when for whatever reason they just stopped and stood and stared at me, leaving me no room to swerve around them. I honked the horn and they began walking frantically in circles. I threw Thunder in park, hopped from the cab, and chased them off the road. But by the time I got back in the vehicle they were back in the road. So I honked my horn and again they got all crazy and began walking figure eights around one another. I fetched my Droid to take a picture, but  before I could a barking dog cleared my path, the roosters fluttering away.

A fair number of road signs, like the one pictured above, are punctured by what I can only guess are bullet holes. Guns are pretty popular around here, which makes sense considering help of any kind could be an hour or more away. I can understand how cruising along these twisty mountainous roads firing bullets at signs and into the hillsides could be a good time, but evidence of this activity is also a little unnerving given that I read more than a few stories while in Philly of stray bullets cutting lives short. But frontier life is far different from that within big city limits. Out here there’s little risk of becoming an innocent bystander. Odds are greater that the only bang you have to fear is that of the drunk driver smashing into your vehicle. On these roads, which are dotted with ornate, colorful memorials, that thought is always on my mind.

The worshippers who’ve been arriving in Chimayó are called Walkers, a term that evokes the hit television series The Walking Dead each time I hear it. In that show, zombies are called “Walkers,” so it tickles me a little bit each time someone says it. But in a way I suppose it is kind of fitting since they’re all walking to pay their respects to the most influential zombie of them all. In fact, on Sunday, people all around the world will celebrate his resurrection with friends and family. Sincerely, the pilgrimage to el Santuario de Chimayó, is a pretty remarkable thing. I’ve spoken with many of these Walkers and will speak with many more over the weekend. The pilgrimage is a longstanding tradition in this area. Many of those I’ve met first undertook it as children, and were now passing the tradition onto to their own children. Whatever this area lacks in modern amenities, it more than makes up for in community.

Española, NM – After driving 23 hours over three days I at last arrived at my new home in Española, New Mexico, located in the north central part of the state. It’s a beautiful part of the country. And contrary to the many warnings from friends and others that I would hate living here, I’ve experienced nothing but awe since arriving.

That sense of wonder came as a great relief, because the last time I moved to a new city – Philadelphia in June 2008 – I was miserable from the minute I arrived. Of course, a lot had to do with the dark-hearted girl I was dating at the time, but the city itself was for the most part a trying and difficult place. It never grew on me and my departure couldn’t come soon enough. Of course, it also helps that in Española I have a job in which my skills as a journalist will be put to good use, as opposed to the mindless work I did in Philly, surrounded by corporate lackeys and brainless buttheads.

Here, I’ll be doing real investigative journalism. No fluff. No frills.

My new digs are a slice of paradise. It’s a little 550-square-foot adobe hut that sits on 2.5 walled off acres and in the shade of a 103-year-old oak tree. There is a pear and a plum tree, in addition to several fish and turtle ponds, a swimming pool, hot tub and greenhouse.

Of course, being in the middle of nowhere, getting Internet has turned out to be the biggest pain in the ass. There is but one company that services this area. WindStream it is called and I phoned them last Tuesday to schedule an installation for Wednesday. Wednesday came and went so on Thursday I called and spent exactly two hours and seven minutes on the phone as some lady in Virginia asked me the same questions over and over, apologizing profusely because WindStream had apparently lost my original order.

She said I’ll have service by Monday at the latest, but we’ll see about that. I won’t bore you with the many frustrating details of my interactions with WindStream thus far, but I have a feeling I’ll have to visit the local office and raise hell.

Really, that’s a small thing. I Internet more out of habit than any real need to be online, but still… there’s shit I like to do.

So my pad is all set-up. Today I bought a bed from a very nice Hispanic man who is one of many residents here who have turned their yards into perpetual flea markets and furniture and appliance stores. One lady had like 20 vacuums for sale in her yard. Where the hell do you acquire 20 vacuums? That’s ridiculous.

The Hispanic man was very kind and shaved several dollars off his asking price. He then apologized for speaking poor English, which made me feel kind of like an asshole because I didn’t know how to apologize for not speaking Spanish. Although to my credit, I did bring my college Spanish flashcards with me. Hopefully I’ll be able to somewhat converse and show that I’m making an effort at least.

His son then offered to drive the bed to my place, which I was extremely grateful for as it made things a lot easier on me. He helped me assemble it and we shot the breeze for a minute. Next week is Holy Week, he explained, and apparently Good Friday is off the chain down here. Everyone it seems wears a cross and you can even buy Holy Chilis. Roadside vendors also sell Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary t-shirts.

It’s weirdly Catholic here. On Good Friday, some 35,000 people will visit a tiny little church for mass. Some will have walked hundreds of miles across the desert because it is a very special church. I’ll have more about that later this week… The man’s son warned me about which streets to avoid due to Good Friday traffic, but recommended I check out the spectacle since the Vatos will be cruisin’ to praise Christ in their lowriders. In case you didn’t know, not only is Española Catholic, but it is also the lowrider capitol of the nation.

The major problem with living in the middle of nowhere is loneliness. When I was younger and would hitchhike throughout this region sometimes days would pass where I didn’t speak with a single person. Eventually I’d feel so removed from the world I knew that I began to question whether I even existed. After all, who was around to realize me?

Fortunately, I’m pretty good at keeping myself entertained, but I’m certainly looking forward to the end of May when my girlfriend and partner in crime  joins me after wrapping up her spring semester of college. Alone time can be liberating, but adventures are better experienced with friends, and she’s a keeper. From the looks of things there’s plenty around here to explore and write about, all of which I’ll share here with you at The Feral Scribe.

This past year was a bust in terms of my content production here. My apologies to those of you who still check in periodically only to find nothing new. I’m grateful for your dedication, especially that of Dr. Vicki Hayes of Frankfort, Kentucky, who never fails to re-tweet my posts or talk up my site.

Thanks should also go out to my uncle Mark and aunt Linda for their ongoing support and encouragement. I should also thank Mary and Paul again for Purple Thunder, my trusty beloved van, which has proven very reliable time and again, though it sticks out like a sore thumb here in Española. This morning a guy asked me where in Wisconsin I was from, then mentioned he’d seen my van two days earlier at Wal-Green’s, but that I’d dipped before he caught up to me. Turns out he’s from Stoughton, a hoppin’ little suburb of Madison.

Lastly, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my dad for letting me hunker down at his crib while I searched for work. Funny how a two-week visit can turn into a year long date on the couch. Thanks pops!

To the haters – and you know who you are – keep on hatin’ on. Y’all do it so well.

Peace.

Life is tough on Kata Beach, Thailand

When you’re an adult, and can travel by yourself, why would you choose to tool around a foreign country on a tour bus?

These gargantuan buses seriously intimidate me when I’m driving around Thailand on the little motor scooter my boyfriend and I rented. Maybe I’m a bit biased. Sure the motorbike is risky, as traffic laws here are scarce. But the tour bus just screams, “I am a tourist and I’m uncomfortable in this strange country, so please charge me outrageous prices!”

I guess I like being at the ground level. Taking my life into my hands at least keeps it in my control. Walking is even better. How else do you truly see and hear the street dogs fighting for turf or observe the sensitive plants that close their leaves when you touch them?

Entire worlds open up while walking along Thailand’s roads. Tadpoles swim in the runoff ditch. Little legumes flower purplish-blue sweet pea-like blossoms. The scents of various meats waft from the mobile carts. A Sunday farmers’ market bustles with people getting produce for the week at a fraction of the supermarket prices.

Folks living life.

It’s so simple.

And then a gigantic tour bus whooshes by! Kicking up dust and debris around everything it passes. Do they feel as privileged as I do to be in this captivating, inspirational country?

I am in Thailand. It seems unreal. I don’t know the language. I often feel overwhelmed or lost. I shop at places the tour buses stop at. But there is no one holding my hand.

I know I stand out here, so I try hard to imitate the Thai style. I admire the simple ways they go about their day. If riding a motorbike is how most people get around, then that’s how I’ll commute to yoga, to the market, or to do laundry. Plus it’s much easier to resist gawking like a tourist when you’re trying not to crash or get lost!

I came here to eat raw fruits and vegetables, do yoga, get in shape, and go to the beach. I am spoiled. I was sick in America. I used to look in the mirror and not recognize my reflection. I looked depressed, pale, and puffy. So I came to Thailand, where I’ve learned to love myself and can now actually help this world. When you feel sick and ineffectual, you can barely help yourself, let alone others.

I live much simpler now, and travel along roads the tour buses have never been. This is my idea of tourism and it’s why I became a tourist.

I’m loving every moment!

Laurel Wantuch is an American writer currently traveling around Thailand.