Eighty-Eight Boxes

This post was supposed to be about dining tables. 

Enlivened by the prospect of the arrival of our long-anticipated freight shipment, I set about woolgathering, preoccupied by visions of adornments, livingroom embellishments, and frillery of all sorts. This geometric dining table; that chair, simple lines, striking blue ; a cluster of ornaments placed just so; a gallery wall speaking to my quirk and easy good taste.

And so our boxes arrived. Eighty-eight boxes exactly. Eighty-eight boxes of clothing, kitchenware, toys, handbags, shoes, books. All the regular trappings of middle-class Canadiana. Eighty-eight boxes on my livingrooom floor.

Eights are expensive in China. A telephone number, rich in eights, will cost you dearly. A licence plate full of eights is only for the the very wealthy. Eight is a homonym for prosperity. Everyone knows that eight means rich. 

Eighty-eight boxes denoting my good fortune. 

Our nanny took my girl down the hall while the movers were here, keeping little hands out of boxes, and little legs out from underfoot. As she was leaving, she asked how many boxes I had. I estimated twenty.

But, eighty-eight.

Rich-rich.

Our nanny is working for us to pay for a degree in Management. She was born to a bajaj driver, and like millions of others, came from village to sprawling city. She saved three months salary to buy a netbook, but the battery is on it's last legs, and replacing it is going to be a major investment. She lives in a room smaller than my daughter's and shares it with another nanny.  

It was left unsaid, but I could feel it.

One box held nothing but shoes. If I walk ten minutes beyond our gates, I see kids who don't wear any shoes. They have none.

Our nanny will help us unpack all eighty-eight boxes, asking where we got this bowl, and where she should put this pot, and what exactly was this thing for. She won't say anything, but I know she feels it. Will she ever own eighty-eight boxes of middle-class artifice?

I told her I was embarrassed. I was ashamed that I had so much when kids in this country, in this city even, don't have enough to eat. I told her I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. It's not fair and I'm sorry. 

I daydream about an origami table, deliberate about colour schemes, tell myself that I really do need another pair of shoes. Which is, basically, bullshit. 

Because I have eighty-eight boxes. And she might have two.

I took her out to dinner tonight, asked her to stay late, and paid her overtime. It was a gesture, empty and vapid, but I hope she understood. 

And life isn't fair. 

I did nothing to deserve this.

Rich-rich.

Prescription

I needed to fill a prescription today for some medicine that's simple and straightforward and easy, and no biggie. 

The first Pharmacy that I went to didn't have it, so they sent me to another. And they to one yet further. 

The medicine exists, the pharmacist assured me, we have it here in Indonesia. She looked in her book, and there it was in all it's chemical compounds, plain as day, and plain in Bahasa Indonesia.

There's a big pharmacy just a short trip away, she said, surely I'd find it there. In and out, I thought. Quick. Snap. I'd be back in a flash.

Traffic snarled, the taxi driver took me to the back of beyond and then round again, stop and go, and mostly stop, until we arrived, the pharmacy big as promised and stocked full to brimming of everything. Except my medicine. 

But the largest hospital is right down the road, three ladies behind the counter told me. Just two stops on the bus. I would find what I was looking for at the hospital without a doubt. Maybe. Yes. We think so.

I paid my 35 cents, minded the gap, and boarded, the only Bule for miles, and the only mark for a bus full of indecipherable stares and quiet titters behind back turned hands.

I disembarked. A warren of wrong turns and questions with intelligible answers finally lead me through a parking garage and into the hospital pharmacy. Where they didn't have my medicine. 

Blank. Blink. Blink. Look down. Blank. Can not. We do not have.

So I smiled. And explained: I need it for living. And maybe do you have any suggestions as to where I can find it? Sorry, I don't speak Bahasa. Thank you for your help. Smile. Bright eyes. Smile. Smile.

Finally through six people, standing in a circle, explaining and explaining and explaining again, sharing my complete medical history with strangers, calls made on my behalf, maps drawn, apologies, smiles, and laughter at the absurdity of it all, we pieced together the picture. 

It exists in Indonesia, but it's been discontinued. There's one pharmacy, clear across town, that still has a few boxes. Okay. So, we're on to something. It'll work out I said. Thank you so much for your help. 

If this were China, I'd have raged. If this were Japan, I'd have been in tears. But instead I left the hospital, got in a taxi, and drove home. My head lolled by the window as we passed open sewers, street-side hawkers, a donkey cart, rubble huts, houses behind gates, a Mercedes SLR, and and then gleaming steal towers. 

There's a psychic Balinese massage therapist who comes occasionally to work on my back. Last time she came with her vial of oil and little candle, she told me stories of oracular dreams, good omens and ghosts. She said that maybe I lived in Indonesia in a past life. 

I don't know. Perhaps. Probably not. But I do know that each time I see a banana tree casting shadows upon shadows, vibrant green and almost black, I feel home, and there's a little gratitude  that rises  up from somewhere so deep.

Village Life

There's a girl who lives down the hall. She loves pink, and Hello Kitty, and has shoes that glitter and shine when she walks. The Girl Down The Hall wears her hair in pigtails that tumble down her back and pool into perfect ringlets, brown and sweet. Each morning on the way to school, she gets into the car together with my daughter, and asks for Tu Tu Man (Ultra Man) on the DVD player.  My girl calls for Tu Tu Man too, even though she's a bit scared of Japanese super heros.

The Girl Down the Hall taught mine to say "NO!" and mean it; how to snatch back a stolen toy; and to climb on the coffee table and not be afraid. And when I tell her we're going down the hall to see The Girl, Stella runs five paces ahead of me and laughs the whole way. 

 

There's a boy down the hall. He's three years older than the Girl, and has a smile that will shatter you. He likes to ask why, and what's this, and to practice his golf swing. He'll furnish compliments on your shoes or your bag, then turn around and karate chop the air. My girl karate chops now, too.

I ran out of diapers yesterday at nap time. But I didn't worry, I ran down the hall with my girl on my hip, and borrowed two from The Girl and The Boy's mother. I didn't worry about ringing the bell, and waking them, or intruding on family time or otherwise putting them out. I knew they'd be happy to lend a diaper, chat for a moment, and then say, "Okay, see you tomorrow."

The Girl Down the Hall calls me Mama, or sometimes Auntie, but my husband is always Uncle Papi.

I picked up The Girl from school today, and only once did she ask where her Mommy was, then climbed into my lap. She shared a snack in the car with Stella, who remarked upon the fact that they both have curly hair. 

We got home and I told The Girl's mother that I've found my village. She laughed at me, but I know she know's it's true.

-just write