There isno time off from being handicapped. You are always on display when you leaveyour house, always proving what you can do. Once in a while someone asksfor the details of my condition. On a trip to Disney World in Florida, I wasasked if I suffer from the effects of the drug thalidomide. The answer is no. 

I was bornwith a rare blood disease which causes my platelet count to be low. The doctors,after a week of decision, put all my conditions together and nicknamed thedisease TAR Baby; TAR stands for thrombocytopenia absent radii. They took myblood disease and combined it with my physical handicap to create a name for mydisease.

I wastold that, when I was born 33 years ago, only seven people had mydisease. 

Thephysical handicap draws people’s attention to me. Both my arms are short, butthe right is even shorter than the left, which has fewer bones missing. My legsare handicapped as well. At my hips my legs are turned in to each other so thatI can turn my legs to point my feet behind me. I usually only turn them aroundin the snow to see my footprints next to each other in opposite directions — myhandicap humor for the winter. It took me several years to realize that my limpstems from a left leg that is longer than the right. 

I wasblessed with two understanding and strong parents. Whatever the doctors said Ineeded, my parents did for me. I had leg braces to straighten and strengthen mylegs. The first two years of my life I was in and out of the hospital toreceive blood transfusions. There were life-threatening moments for me there,but luckily my body stabilized and has learned to live on the low plateletcount.

Thedoctors could not answer why I was alive. They felt since there was no reasonfor me to live, there should be no reason for me to die young. They neverplaced a life expectancy on me.

My clothesare bought in regular stores. My pants are hemmed when they are too long. Idon’t see hemming my pants as a big deal.  I am 4 feet 11 inches tall.Most girls my size have their pants hemmed to fit. Of course, the right leg hasmore of a hem so that the pants fall at the same spot when on me. I buy mostlyshort-sleeved T-shirts, and they come pretty far down my arms to allow me towear them year round. I buy some sweaters and have them and a winter coat cutby a seamstress.

New stylesmake getting sneakers without shoelaces easier to find. I use to tie my shoesfirst and then put them on. Velcro never worked well for me because it alwaysripped apart.

My parentsnever treated me differently. I have an older brother and a younger brother,and we all had bicycles, except my bike had handles bent in so I could reachthem.

I was sentto Kessler Rehabilitation Center to learn how to drive a car. No, I did nothave my license on my 17th birthday, but I only had to wait a few extra monthsto take the driving exam.

I went toa regular grammar school and high school. The kids treated me well and on mostdays accepted me as an equal.

Life isnot always easy for me. It is very hard to find companies that will hire me. Inmy teenage years I wanted to be a cashier for a fast-food chain. I was called onthe phone to come in for an interview. When I went there and asked for themanager, he walked away and stayed in the back until I left. He told anemployee to tell me he double-booked a meeting and had to reschedule. I wasnever called with a rescheduled time.

I am acollege graduate with a degree in marketing. I was never able to find a jobopening in that field. I work at a desk job and in my spare time crochet dollclothes to sell on eBay. My fingers might be crooked, but I can hold a needleand work the yarn, producing even stitches. My father wanted me to have a hobbyas a kid. I had a cousin who taught me the basic crocheting stitches, and Ibought books to advance my skills.

As if mybasic handicap wasn’t enough, in my sophomore year of college I developed newcomplex partial seizures. They are milder than grand mal seizures. It wasimperative that the medicine I was prescribed to treat them not affect myblood. Only two medicines out there fit that criterion. One of them worked, andI have been seizure-free for five years. My seizures seemed to bother me morethan my birth handicap. I decided to write a fictional book loosely based onthese types of seizures. I hope I have better luck selling it to a publishinghouse than I had finding a job in marketing.

Thedoctors think my disease is hereditary. They feel that my brothers and I carryit in our blood. My parents were told the disease is so rare, it is likehitting the millionaire lottery twice in one year.

Needlessto say, my parents do not gamble. My father blames the volcano Mt. Nyiragongoin the Democratic Republic of the Congo that erupted in January 1977 before mybirth, and my mom tells me there was a black cloud over China. I neverunderstood how a cloud in China could deform a baby born in the United States.I don’t know what caused my disability, but I do know it is part of mypersonality. It has made me a stronger person to overcome it. I feel with thehelp of my family I have done a pretty good job of living life to the fullest.

LaSpada has completed the novel, “The Library ofJournals” about two sisters, one of whom is stricken unexpectedly with complexpartial seizures. Her struggle to adjust consumes her life and pushes peopleaway.

Follow her on Twitter at @LMLaSpada

Related story links:

·      Womanbeats odds to earn black belt

·       Mass.woman with no arms gets black belt

·       Inherited Bone Marrow Failure Syndromes

·      NationalOrganization for Rare Disorders

·      WebMD

LoriMarie LaSpada

Determined to Find Paradise
A prominent British travel writer advised me several weeks ago to never begin any travel narrative with the destination’s airport. But in Sanya, a city in China’s Hainan province, its Phoenix International Airport announces the city’s aspirations to all its guests. Renovations in 2004 replaced concrete walls with teak paneling, a steamed bun diner with an al fresco cafe, and fluorescent lighting with a Plexiglas roof. Intricately carved details in the airport’s design suggest Balinese handiwork, like the carved wood pineapple, twice the airport’s height, which looms over the arrivals area. Natural light that shines through the roof’s glass slabs illuminates the eager faces of the mostly Russian and Chinese tourists waiting. I sympathize with their impatience.  One weekend is all I have to soak up the sun in my bikini while sipping on a tropical cocktail, as a warm sea breeze plays with my hair. Armed with straw hats and sunglasses, my fellow travelers and I are determined to get a taste of tropical paradise.

Tail of the Dragon

It is ironic then that Hainan was considered a backwater province during various dynasties in Chinese history. Previously known as the “tail of the dragon,” Hainan was a secluded region to which subversive poets like the Song dynasty’s Su Dongpo and ousted officials like Tang dynasty prime minister Lin Deyu were banished. Lin once dubbed Hainan “the gate of hell.” Away from cities and trading centers, the island was populated by aborigines and ethnic minority tribes who most Han Chinese distrusted and considered primitive. Dense, snake-infested forests, humid weather, and scorching heat made it a nightmare to live in, in an age before bulldozers, air-conditioning, and hygienic precautions helped ward off communicable tropical diseases like malaria.  Standing on a beach whose name translates to “the end of the sky and ocean,” it is easy to imagine early settlers thinking of this place as the edge of the earth.

There Is Always Room for More

The Chinese government saw potential in the island as early as 1955, when a Communist Party Committee member called the island “a treasure island.”   Today, billboard after billboard of glamorous real estate advertisements line the roads from the airport to downtown. The developments have names like Palmera, Twilight Lagoon, Sanya Peninsula Town, South Bay — “Hainan” literally translates to South Sea. Chinese actress and international star Zhang Ziyi adorns one such billboard. “It’s my choice,” reads the caption under her smiling, sun-kissed face. Closer to the city, shiny residential apartment blocks sprout from the concrete. Most of their units look empty. I ask my cab driver, Sun (pronounced "soon"), if there are more apartments than buyers.

He is quick to respond, "There are always many buyers." Sun is thinking of investing in some real estate himself when he has saved enough. “But it’s difficult,” he says, “prices keep going up… Where are locals supposed to stay?” 

When we reach the Sheraton, he gives my companion, Ray, a card with a list of tourist attractions and his number on it. He says to call him if we leave Yalong Bay to go sightseeing. He can give us a “special rate”. We nod.

Fitting In

The overcast sky looks unpromising, and the weather is colder than we expected, but we are intent on lounging by the beach as soon as possible. On our way to our suite, we pass a fair-skinned mother and daughter in identical floppy sun hats speaking Uighur to each other. The suite’s tiled floor and generous sitting area reminds me of our Westin room in Macao nine months ago. The Chinese flag across from our window flaps in the breeze. Yalong bay’s private beaches are exquisite in the way most private beaches are exquisite: clean sand, clear water, designated lounging areas that suggest the hotel guest need do nothing but relax and be pampered.
The Sheraton’s stretch of sand is dotted with cushioned deck chairs under umbrellas, and the waitstaff serves cocktails, fresh coconut juice, and a variety of snacks like nachos and Buffalo wings. A Russian couple, one in a black bikini and the other in trunks, are whistled out of the water for swimming in an unrestricted zone. Upon entering the water and walking to knee-level twice, Ray holds his breath and charges into the cold waves. We could be on any beach, anywhere, I think to myself, before a woman with a northern accent rolls her r’s at a man trying to take her photograph, adjusting the collar of her pink polo shirt. A Chinese toddler a few chairs down from me leaps from beach chair to beach chair, punctuating each jump with a war cry, to the delight of his grandmother. A family glides past on electric Segways.  I wave at Ray and take another sip of coconut juice before continuing to read, curled up in sweat pants and a leather jacket under a beach blanket, a T-shirt over my bikini top. The wind blowing my hair back feels more like a chilly monsoon heralding rain than my much-hoped for warm sea breeze. This is not how I’d imagined my tropical getaway from Hong Kong. My reading is interrupted by a tanned woman dangling a long string of pearls in front of me. She wears black trousers, a black vest over her printed button-down shirt, and a scarf in her hair, unlike the T-shirt and capris-clad tourists around me. She seems to be an ethnic minority; I can’t identify her accent. She walks up and down the beach hawking her pearls to supine tourists, exchanging glares with the Sheraton staff, who tell her to leave the area.

Amalgamation

For dinner, we decide to venture downtown, exiting our tourist safe haven. The city is half an hour from Yalong Bay by cab. We are advised to walk down the pedestrian street off Jie Fang Lu, or Liberation Road. The pedestrian street is busy and neon sign-lined, like Beijing’s Wang Fu Jing and Shanghai’s Nan Jing Lu. I didn’t expect Sanya to resemble other Chinese cities in this regard. Impressed by the number of Uighur Muslim food options available, we feast on lamb skewers, sauteed vegetables, and papaya juice. We ask our tired-looking waitress about Hainanese chicken rice, and she says immediately we are thinking of Wenchang chicken, named after a city in Hainan. According to her, the version of Hainanese chicken rice Ray and I are familiar with, which is from Singapore and Malaysia, also has elements of Cantonese cooking. It seems she has answered this question before. She speaks to us in the same accented Chinese the peddler of pearls used, and talks to another waitress in another language.

After poking around a store selling Hangzhou merchandise, Ray and I decide to call it a night and get a cab. We wait five minutes at the bustling entrance to Jie Fang Lu for a cab. Five minutes turns to ten, ten to fifteen. We walk down the main road with our arms out. We wait at the entrance of a pink and orange Bahama Hotel.

Where have all the taxis gone? It seems China’s rising middle class. that celebrated target market discussed in business publications around the world, becomes a running joke between Ray and me. China’s rising middle class is to blame for the disappointing weather, the greasy food, the noisy construction. We finally grab a taxi dropping passengers off downtown and hurry back into the embrace of our five-star hotel suite, sorry to have ever left.

Another Try

The next day, we lunch at the nearby Ritz, where we are given fortune cookies. Having never eaten fortune cookies on the mainland, I break mine open to read the paper strip: "Celebrate a special occasion at Sophia." We find out from a waiter Sophia is a restaurant in the Ritz That night, we stay at the Banyan Tree. Our pool villa’s layout makes it even easier than before to spend all day within the hotel’s confines, away from the Sanya we encountered last night, the local Sanya with its local businesses and local consumers. We ask the concierge about restaurants and dining nearby. We’re told Da Dong Hai has candlelit restaurants by the beach and is good for barbecued food. It sounds romantic. On the way there, we see a green and yellow Subwave Deli sign, an ostentatious building with Roman pillars called Royal International Club, and a surprising number of Cyrillic signs. We step out of the cab to hear a blasting mix of European techno, Backstreet Boys, and Chinese karaoke. “Everybody, rock your body…” Music emanates from a fun fair, which consists of a Viking ship, a reverse catapult,and apprehensive tourists lining up to try a ride called "Crazy Wave" that looks nauseating. The announcer’s voice drowns out the screams of roller coaster riders. I can’t tell if he is speaking Chinese or English. He sounds like a Chinese rapper.

Where Two Roads Meet

We pick the restaurant playing European techno music over the one with a karaoke bar. CCCP/USSR is one of the many businesses in Sanya that caters to Russian tourists. Its signboard and menu is in Cyrillic; its menu includes Russian borscht, skewered meat on sticks, and standard Chinese fare. Its unfriendly waitress gets impatient with our indecision. As we vacillate between barbecued lamb and hot plate egg tofu, mosquitoes feast on my legs—I  should not have worn dark colors. A series of peddlers wander by. One of them tries to persuade Ray to buy me a bouquet of red cellophane roses wrapped in pink and green tissue paper. "Buy a bouquet for your lady."

When Ray says, "No thank you," she turns to me smiling sweetly and offers the bouquet.

"Pretty flowers for a pretty girl."

I smile back, but it takes a while to shake her off. When she thinks we’re not looking, she makes a face. I watch her saunter into the dark. As we tuck into the hot plate egg tofu, a man belts out a Mandarin power ballad from the ‘90s in the nearby karaoke bar. His tour group applauds at the end of the song. Here, it seems, is where the two Sanyas meet.

The sun comes out on our last day. Sapphire skies remind us why we were excited about our trip to begin with. Instead of deck chairs, the Banyan Tree has beach beds—full mattresses on bamboo frames and gauze curtains. Across the way, in place of buildings or another forested bay, is the horizon, kissing the blue water. The tide comes in. We could be on any beach anywhere, I think to myself. It recedes.

Making a Choice

As Ray and I wait to board our afternoon flight home, a strange melody makes its way through the departures hall. It comes from a store selling remote control cars, bikes, and other memorabilia not specific to Sanya. While speaking to a father and son, the store’s sales assistant gestures absently at a Barbie doll seated behind a Ken doll in matching white-and-lime green track suits. They are on an indigo bike with training wheels, which is playing the eerie, chiming melody in a minor key. Round and round they go. The dolls’ smiles remind me of Zhang Ziyi in the real estate advertisement, but without the caption that reads, It’s my choice.

In The Fray Contributor

My daughter is black, and she’s Latina. She could call herself a black Latina. But she could also decide to be a Latina who is black. Sometimes she could be Mexican or Mexican-American And in her heart I hope a little piece of her grows up to be Chicano. Most of all, I hope somewhere, in all those designations, she understands she just simply is.
 
The 2010 Census has forced my husband and me to have another one of our long and multilayered discussions about what it means to be black and Latino in this country.
 
My husband is the son of two black parents, a dancer and a psychology professor, both of whom embraced the Black Power movement of the 1960s and ‘70s in New York City. I am the daughter of two Mexican immigrants, janitors who raised me in a traditional household in Texas, warning me to be weary of America’s materialistic culture and not to trust the promise of “fairness for all.”

Moving to Los Angeles, I discovered my Chicano pride.  On those streets I found murals filled with sun-kissed people who looked like me, “lowriders” with their eponymous cars and Spanish-language music on every corner. There I experienced a political awareness of being not only Mexican-American but also “brown” in America. This same Chicano pride has inspired poets, artists, academics, musicians, student protesters, and many others to seek acknowledgement of a collective heritage of racially undefined “brownness” that comes with a subordinate status in this country.
 
And now here we are, the two of us married, with a six-month-old daughter who sometimes wakes up looking black and sometimes wakes up looking Mexican, and who always wakes up looking beautiful.
 
But how will the world see her, and how will she see herself? That remains to be worked out between her and society. We can only teach her what we know, who her people are, and where she comes from — two cultures full of music, good food, dancing, joy, hard work, powerful ancestors and lands that span from the Americas to Africa.

Our baby girl’s first name is Maya, for the Mayan people and the African American writer, Maya Angelou.  Her middle name is Adeyemi, a Yoruba name from Nigeria that means “this crown suits me,” in honor of her grandmother.
 
And now this Census form attempts to box her into a few choice races. Impossible.
 
So we check a few boxes to try to have her counted where it matters for federal funds in America – “yes” for Hispanic origin, “Black” for race and “Mexican” as a write-in race we made up because we don’t find a race that fits her Latino half, and we refuse to label her “other.”

Meanwhile, we know it will take her a lifetime, as for most of us, to figure out how she counts herself.

Elena Rushing

Baptism by Water

     A large splash.

     Silence.

     I open my eyes and take a long breath. I’m in another world, specifically, off the coast of Moalboal, in Cebu, Philippines. I’ve been diving here for the past five days, and everyday has provided me with new reasons to shout mindless obscenities into the air, for lack of a better way to express my complete and utter astonishment at the world we live in.

     Today, I’m diving with what looks to be about a million sardines. All I can see are these agile little fish darting back and forth to a symphony only they can hear. It’s a beautiful day, and the beams of sunlight break through the ocean surface. These rays of light reflect off each individual fish scale, creating a sea of diamonds. At any moment I genuinely expect a “Wizard of Oz”-like face to materialize and explain my greater destiny to me. Ten minutes later I am disappointed when nothing happens and head back to the surface.

     Back on the boat I look back at Pescador island, my dive site and home to the occasional whale shark and manta ray, and I silently think to myself that if I didn’t owe so much in student loans, I would love to recreate an episode of “Survivor” and live on this island by myself. Then I realize that watching episodes of “Survivor” wouldn’t even be remotely possible on this island, and I return to better senses as the boat heads back to the mainland.

The Mango

     Later that day I realize that I have a lot of time to kill, so I head into town. In town there are many fruit vendors, and with a quick glance, I immediately zero in on the mangoes being sold.

     Cebu, this small island in the Philippines, is probably the most famous mango-producing location in the world. You’ve probably seen their dried mangoes packaged in your nearby supermarket.

     I make a beeline to the nearest vendor and ask for the freshest mango she has. The woman working at the stall complies and slices up the mango for me so it is ready to eat.

     Think back: Do you remember your first kiss with that person that you really cared about? How perfect was the world at that moment? That moment in time will stay with you forever. Now, think about how special that moment was, multiply it by ten, and you may get a sense of how I felt while I ate that Cebu mango.

     The following is a brief transaction of my thoughts while I ate that wonderful fruit:

     Bite. ‘Oh my goodness, this is good.

     Bite. ‘Hate doesn’t exist in this world; everybody loves each other!’

     Bite. ‘I’ve never liked cats, but why? They’ve never done anything to me. I will love cats forever now.’

     Bite. ‘Jesus? Is that you?’

     Being from Canada, the mangoes I’ve eaten have usually been from Mexico. These mangoes usually have a very fuzzy quality to them and are sour. The mangoes I ate in Cebu were not only the sweetest mangoes I’ve ever had, but their texture was similar to that of a ripe peach. To this day my descriptions can’t do justice to how good that mango was.

What I’d Thought I’d Lost

     After my out-of-body experience, I went to grab a bite to eat at a restaurant where I had made friends with the owners. The meal I ate was wonderful, and after the meal, the store owners asked if I wanted to join them and some locals in a game of pick-up basketball. I eagerly agreed and off we went to the basketball court together.

     You see, as far as I’m concerned, there are three main religions in the Philippines: Roman Catholicism, Manny Pacquiao and basketball. Manny Pacquiao is the Philippines’ legendary boxer who graces the covers and billboards of, well, everything in the Philippines. However, other than him, nothing or no one is as popular as the sport of basketball in this country. I’ve played basketball most of my life, but when my friends at the restaurant asked me to join them and some locals in a game of pick-up basketball, I didn’t know what to expect.

     We arrived early at the basketball court. The run-down court was directly in front of what looked to be the town’s old city hall. My friends and I shot around until people started showing up. When they did I was a little surprised: They all came to play… in flip-flops! I wasn’t exactly wearing basketball shoes, but at least I was still wearing shoes. My misgivings of how they would play immediately disappeared once the game started.

     Immediately after the jump ball, I witnessed possibly one the greatest, most improbable athletic feats achieved by mortal men. These Filipino basketball players were running and jumping like gazelles in their flip-flops. After my initial shock, I focused on the game since there was now a fair-sized crowd focusing on me, the starting foreigner. I bricked my first two shots and thought to myself, ‘This is going to be a long game.’ However, later on, I started to find my stroke. I let my muscle memory take over and just shot without over thinking, and voila, my shots started going in. It was a close game and the crowd started chanting ’Lebron James’ whenever I shot the ball. It was the first time (and probably the last) I’d ever been called Lebron James, and the antithesis of what I’m usually called (something along the lines of ‘towel boy’). We ended up losing the game on a last-second shot. Tired and exhausted, I sat down on the sidelines trying to absorb where I was and everything that was happening.

     Having worked abroad in Japan for the past year, I had longed to return back to Canada; being so far away from family and friends, my emotional state consisted of frequent peaks and valleys. Yet, as I sat on that bench, in that small town in the Philippines, playing basketball with new friends, I was overcome by an overwhelming sense of clarity. I had finally felt at home, and this was the last place on Earth I expected it to be.

In The Fray Contributor

Trained as an oil equity analyst, I had seen my life for the last three years revolve around oil prices day in and day out, often hopping through different countries and telling clients what to buy and sell. While the work was challenging and exciting, it lacked a certain fulfillment. I always felt that to be a top-notch analyst, I needed to have some real operational experience. It was then that I toyed with the idea of creating a business of my own, something that truly embodies me: my very own taqueria, which I named “Mr. Taco Truck” after beloved counterparts dotted throughout California, offering the authentic yet affordable taste of Mexico one taco at a time.

Blessed with parents who excelled in Chinese cooking, I was spoiled with quality food from an early age and had developed a palette that demands to be excited. Over the years as a self-proclaimed foodie, I sought culinary delights here and aboard, and none has left a more lasting impression than the vivid flavors of Mexico.

As a Hong Kong native, I discovered Mexican cuisine rather late — during my college years in California. While it was not love at first bite thanks to diversions like Taco Bell and other Mexican imposters, I was blown away when I discovered the flavors of authentic taquerias. From mesquite-grilled carne asada to fresh homemade salsa and horchata, casual mom-and-pop shops are where Mexican cuisine is at its best and where I went at least a few times per week, especially after late night drinks. Subsequent travels to the country have further reinforced my love affair with the culture and its cuisine. From coast to coast, Mexican flavors represent a true fusion of the old and new world.

Since moving back to Hong Kong, there is nothing I missed more than hanging out at those taco stalls. Despite the abundance of other international flavors, authentic Mexican cuisine has yet to establish a foothold here because of a shortage of options.
So I decided to bring it from across the ocean home to Hong Kong. I dreamt up the colors of Baja for my very own taco shop on a street corner amid the concrete jungle.

Despite doing so without reservation, running a restaurant is not an easy task. Learning as much as I could along the way, I came to a new sense of appreciation for any established small business. While previous experience may have prepared me for the planning side of the equation, hands-on day-to-day operational involvement is a totally new challenge. From front-of-house items such as restaurant design, graphics, advertisements, and marketing to back-of-house kitchen setup, menu development, and food preparation, all aspects require personal attention to the finest detail. This is especially true for a kitchen novice like me.

I never saw myself fit for a kitchen, and my relationship with cooking has always been a love-hate one. Don’t get me wrong, I love cooking. My curiosity for culinary delights has always drawn me to experiment. However, full command of a kitchen demands skills and composure drawn from years of experience and knowledge I didn’t have of ingredients while a desk jockey. I therefore made it my mission to improve my cooking and overcome technical difficulties in order to bring authentic taqueria-quality tacos to Hong Kong. At least good enough that I could eat them every day.

While I did consider hiring a cook, the lack of local experience with Mexican cuisine meant I needed to take a much bigger role in food preparation. Everything had to start from scratch.

After leaving behind my desk job, I traveled to Ecuador for four months to brush up on my Spanish — Yes, you better speak Spanish if you own a Mexican restaurant! — and Latin culture. Afterwards I sampled my way from San Diego to San Francisco, California, looking for the best tacos on the U.S. West Coast and secured key ingredients and authentic recipes. Although tomatoes and meat would be localized in Hong Kong, I sought the right type of dried chilies and corn flour to ensure that my creation would not be a watered-down version that caters to local taste. I wanted to bring back home as many important little touches as I could.

The preparation of the food demands a great amount of time. The hours after the shop closes for the day are spent preparing for the next, including cutting meat chunks into appropriate sizes and perfecting the marinade. Every night beans need to be mashed, fresh salsa has to be made, and corn tortillas have to be pressed. Although I am not a perfectionist, I do pride myself at creating everything from scratch. You will not find canned refried beans or prepackaged guacamole in my kitchen. Cooking is a labor of love, and there are no shortcuts to quality.

Many people I know were surprised by my decision to trade away my thriving office career to a vocation of never-ending labor and physical commitment. Is it hard work? Totally! Vacations and happy hours no longer exist in my vocabulary. All my time is poured into the restaurant. Yet as any entrepreneur can attest, despite the grueling work and long hours, the creation of something that is one’s own is gratifying and draws on one’s adventurous spirit that no stable career can offer.

On any given afternoon, the aroma of grilled meats and Spanish tunes
fill the air from our corner in Hong Kong’s Quarry Bay among towering office towers and apartments. Our tacos, enchiladas and horchata now vie with wonton noodles and Chinese milk tea.

Encouragement and excitement from those longing for such food as I once did now bring me satisfaction, as do the smiles of first-time taco eaters who tomorrow become regulars.

Vivian Wong

As I stand patiently in line at the dusty immigration office awaiting my prized passport stamp, I am drawn to the thoughts and memories of my time in Ecuador.  I first arrived in the country knowing absolutely nothing about it.  Let’s be honest: when imagining Latin America, we see Christ the Redeemer in Rio, or the Mecca of Machu Picchu. For most backpackers, Ecuador is nothing more than a small country sitting north of Peru.  And as selfish as it might be, part of me hopes that it never becomes a highlight, because right now it feels like I have it all to myself.

A welcoming place

I have traveled South America extensively, and Ecuador reminds me a lot of a couple of its Central American cousins: Costa Rica and Guatemala.  Ecuador has all the tourism potential of Costa Rica, but it has somehow managed to fend off the mob of backpackers and resort-stayers that now dominate its Central American counterpart. Like Guatemala, Ecuador has a varied population of people who are eager to welcome you regardless of your particular origins.  People here wave to passing cars, welcoming their passengers without a second thought.

Insignificance and awe

Towns like Baños de Agua Santa offer everything a backpacker could ever need and more. It sits in an ideal climate where the temperature is never too hot and rarely cold. In this lush mountain town, I spend one day jumping off a bridge, attached only by a not-so-reassuring rope, and the next day rushing down swiftly moving rapids on a six-person raft. The prominent features of cloud and water are inescapable.  Images of the cloud forest lend nostalgic notions of scenes from Hollywood movies, where tall volcanoes, over 5,000 meters tall, stand guard over countless towering waterfalls.  The clouds hang carelessly low among the lush green mountainsides.  They billow into puffy white and grey cotton balls, seemingly in constant motion, as if they have somewhere important to be.  In a world where most cultures and societies worship the sun to some extent, in the cloud forest you learn to cherish the rain.  In the cloud forest, the rain means life:  it greens the foliage, fills the rivers and feeds the valley’s impressive myriad of tall, whispering waterfalls.

Ecuador’s share of the Amazon basin also leaves visitors standing with a sensation of overwhelming insignificance and awe.  At the surface, the endless valleys of green shrubbery in la selva (the jungle) appear shallow and monotonous in color and form.  But as you dig down beneath the numerous layers of the forest’s canopy you can only begin to understand the diversity and character of the Amazon basin.  As I hike through a narrow canyon surrounded covered by the thick canopy, a troop of squirrel monkeys chants above me and bats shriek as they rush past my ears.  The jungle is never quiet.  The rain forest is constantly breathing; it is full of life and, in turn, provides more than we can imagine.  To us, the jungle usually provides a setting for adventure, reserved for the likes of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, but to the indigenous people, their trees, flowers and their food all come from this tropical provider.  As is the case with the cloud forest, the jungle is one of those places so rich with beauty it can leave you at a standstill, and even cause you to forget to take a picture. Most people spend their time trying to add meaning and significance to their everyday life.  But in travel, we spend our time trying to find the places that make us feel insignificant; Ecuador’s piece of the Amazon gives that to us.

The hustling, bustling stillness

In Ecuador, one should not forget to experience the cities as well.  The urban enclaves of Cuenca and Quito combine the benefits of the modern world with the charm and character of the colonial era.  Stuccoed houses with balconies and narrow, cobbled streets line the old, colonial parts of these cities.  I wander through the cities’ massive, hallowed churches, government buildings and bustling plazas, which form the social centers of the cities and I realize that these parts act as the heart and the lungs of Ecuadorian society.  In these plazas and squares, people seem to still have to time simply to sit, share, and converse as the world continues around them.

Interconnected

Like any adventure-oriented travel destination, Ecuador still provides volatility and intrigue.  The indigenous people of la selva still often set up roadblocks intending to slow the damage to their home and their local natural environment, on which they so greatly rely. Less than 15 years ago, the country was still involved in both inter- and intra-state conflicts, many of which still seem to simmer in the undercurrents of Ecuadorian society.  Natural disasters are still a part of everyday life. Mudslides, torrential downpours and earthquakes are all a possibility at any given moment.  Moreover, many of Ecuador’s volcanoes are still very active.  In fact, the large volcano which guards the entrance into Baños has been growing steadily in activity, and spews off large amounts of lava on a regular basis.

Ecuador remains just a small blip on the global tourism radar.  However, its rawness is, in large part, what makes this country such a jewel.  It is well worth the exploration, time and challenge.  In Ecuador you can find yourself navigating your way down narrow, waterfall-lined canyons one day, rafting down segments of the Amazon basin the next, and then soaking in the urban colonial atmosphere the following night. Regardless of its lack of a Machu Picchu or Carnaval de Rio, Ecuador has a diversity and untouched beauty that may make it South America’s next hot travel destination — much to my dismay.

For more of Brendan’s adventures, go to: http://www.brendansadventures.com

In The Fray Contributor

Either I’m a masochist, or I enjoy sleeping sitting up on twelve-hour trans-Pacific flights. On a visit to Tortola to ring in 2010, I realize that I have been running away from bitter, northeastern American winters to beaches on the other side of the world while warm paradise was just a short four and a half hours away.

Despite this proximity, Tortola seems like a world away. One of the small British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea, it has one traffic light, chickens running around freely, and the slow island vibe I desperately crave after hustling through New York City’s rat race. Even language is spoken slower in Tortola. Who can be bothered with verbs or tenses? As I settled into the sun-and-sea lifestyle, I quickly realize I can’t.

I come to visit my cousin Branson, who is actually a belonger. “Belonger” is the word used to describe citizens of Tortola. Branson’s mom is American and his dad is British, but they happened to be living there when he was born. He is blond and blue-eyed and has spent many years living in other parts of the world, so he’s not your typical Tolan (as the locals are called).

Colette S. Coleman

I admit my instinct was to say no when two friends urged me to take a free trip to Israel my senior year of college. I had known for years that even as a half-Jew I qualified for Birthright, a program that uses a combination of funds from wealthy donors and the Israeli government to send young American Jews on a free trip to Israel. But I never thought I would actually go. Raised as a Unitarian Universalist by a Jewish father and lapsed-Catholic mother, I wasn’t sure that my self-prescribed brand of Judaism (Passover in spring, Yom Kippur in fall, little prayer in between) made me qualified to claim a trip to Israel as my “birthright.” And I was squeamish, to say the least, about Israel’s less-than-savory policies regarding the Palestinians. As I explained to my father, “I don’t really know if I agree with all of Israel’s … foreign relations.”

“I think you’ll find a lot of Israelis agree with you,” he said. “Look, not every American agrees with what the government is doing here, right?”

I tried again. “But I’m not … very observant.”

He shrugged. “Neither are they, for the most part.” I confirmed this with Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem, a guidebook to the 1980s Middle East that became my pre-trip primer on Israel. Friedman reported that Israelis tend to be more secular than American Jews, conceiving Judaism as a nationality besides a religion. “[The sense] in Israel,” Friedman writes, “[is that] the sky is Jewish, basketball is Jewish, the state is Jewish, and the airport is Jewish, so who needs to go to synagogue?”

Somewhat convinced, I signed up for Birthright. I pretended I would play reporter rather than pilgrim, picturing myself as a young, female Thomas Friedman who would jot dispassionate notes on the natives. Friedman, though objective in his coverage of Israel and its neighbors, is also Jewish, and, as it becomes clear in his book, viewed Israel as a possible prism through which to understand his own background. I wanted this too.

The much-feared test of my Jewishness came right at the beginning of my trip, when an Arkia flight attendant asked me for my Hebrew name at check-in. “I … I don’t have one,” I stammered.

She raised an eyebrow and asked softly, “And why is that?”

“Because … I didn’t make bat mitzvah,” I bumbled, unwittingly compounding my sin, as Hebrew names are given at birth. She scribbled something in Hebrew on a sticker and slapped it on my passport, then gestured me toward security. I stalked off, flushed and wondering if my passport now bore the Hebrew for “stupid goy.”

I was even more determined to “catch up” with the “real” Jews. During a stretch of insomnia somewhere over the Atlantic, I spent a few hours learning the alefbet from my friend Jordan. By the time we landed in Israel, I was sounding out written Hebrew left and right, decrypting words letter by letter to anyone who would listen. “Yi-teuh-zu-ah!” I read off a sign as we stumbled sleepily off our red-eye into the Israeli morning.

“Almost. Yetzi’ah,” said Jordan, smiling.

“Exit.”

“Good!”

Our big orange tour bus was waiting for us at Ben Gurion Airport. We met our guide, Saar, a towering, camel-faced man who sported a full beard and a gnarled ponytail of dreadlocks. The Birthright itinerary wastes no time — our bus whisked us from the airport straight to Jerusalem for a day of touring. On the bus ride, I asked my friend Joelle to teach me the Hebrew numbers from one to ten. We didn’t have a pen or paper, so she taught me aloud, repeating the numbers again and again. Outside the windows, a brown land of pomelo and date trees faded into sparse desert and then finally gathered into a low ridge of hills concealing Jerusalem.

“Echad, shtayim, shalosh …” One, two, three … I frowned, not knowing how to say four in Hebrew. .

“Arba,” said Joelle, dozing against a window pane.

Just outside the city center, we stopped at an outlook to take pictures. Blocky white buildings crowded the misty hills. The black and gray shapes of squat domes and pointed arches dotted panorama of stone. In the distance, we could see the golden crown of the Temple Mount. It looked exactly like the pictures I had seen painted on plates at my father’s cousin’s house: biblical. It was the place to which all Jews vowed to return every Passover: “Next year in Jerusalem!”

Then we headed straight for the most sacred part of Jerusalem, the Old City. Its tiny quarters — 0.35 square miles — house five ethnic neighborhoods, a few shopping arcades peddling trinkets, countless archeological digs, and some of the holiest sites in monotheism. Inside its massive, 500-year-old walls, sand-colored arches frame the maze of alleys and stairwells that spill down Jerusalem’s steep face, funneling visitors from the modern to the ancient. Feral cats stalk courtyards. Arab merchants hawk T-shirts and pomegranates from tiny shops and stalls.

Saar led us between museums and falafel stands, stopping every 10 minutes to point out this historic tower or that holy monument, punctuating his words with wild gestures from his plate-size hands. “Yeh-ruh-sheh-lai-uhm,” I slowly whispered aloud, squinting at the inscription on a Roman-era frieze and realizing, with a tingle of pleasure, that I was reading the Hebrew word for Jerusalem.

Then we arrived at the Kotel, the Western Wall. The Kotel is all that remains of the Second Temple, the last Holy House where Jews worshipped together as a nation in the days of David. At 62 feet high, it towers above visiting pilgrims, but its 187-foot length is a mere fraction of its original span. The temple was built in 515 B.C. and stood for six centuries until the Romans destroyed it, save its western wall, in 70 A.D. This is why the Kotel is also known as the Wailing Wall: Jews are meant to bemoan the ruin of Judaism’s holiest place of worship. Ancient Jewish law decrees, in fact, that Jews should rend their clothing upon sight of the Wall.

Today, only the ultra-orthodox haredim wail and moan at the Kotel, but their long black skirts, hats, and suits go unrent. But ritual still dictates the movement of everyone who visits. The face of the wall is divided in two by a long fence — men go one way, women, the other. I stood at the entrance to the women’s side for a long time, staring at the scrap of paper on which I was supposed to write a prayer. Watching the tide of black-robed, plain-clothed, and long-skirted pilgrims ebb and swell around the foot of the wall, I couldn’t help but picture the millions of Jews who had bowed, sobbed, and prayed here, whispering prayers in the language still inscribed on the rocks at my feet. Some of those pilgrims, I realized, must have carried the very genes that had gone on to battle their way through pogroms and purges, escaping eastern Europe onto a boat carrying people to America, including my 14-year-old great-grandmother, who never saw her parents again, whose lineage was passed down to my grandmother, who passed it to my father, who passed it to me. They were once here. And now I had returned.

I wrote a prayer on my paper and folded it into a tiny square. I squeezed through the masses and reached the wall itself. The stones were huge, massive, each block as tall as I could reach. I slipped the prayer into a crack, a white speck joining thousands, then touched my fingers to the wall and kissed it, as one kisses a prayer book after touching it to the Torah. I stood for a long time. Then I walked away backward, as one must, keeping my eyes on the Kotel for as long as I could.

I am an atheist. But here, I prayed.

Chelsea Rudman Chelsea Rudman is an international development professional and freelance writer who lives in Washington, DC. Her writing has previously been published in the NY Press and Matador Travel.

As I get ready for work, I finger a row of books on the shelf, tickling the spines of favorite titles, like John Updike’s Brazil and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, until I reach a tiny volume. My fingers rest upon the broken and bent spine of Allan Hibbard’s Paul Bowles, Magic, and Morocco, and I’m transported to the day when I stumbled upon it in a bookstore, lead to it by kismet, in search of some biography, some nonfiction work I never found. Then I remember the days I spent reading it, shaded by an orange tree in the hot Meknassi sun four Augusts ago. I remember those first days more clearly than any that succeeded them: sitting coyly at one of the two outdoor tables at Coin de Feu, attempting to flirt with the waiter, watching Japanese tourists — who always seemed to find this tucked-away treasure of a café — from behind my sunglasses, and sipping on mint teas and cappuccinos.  The café was surrounded by flourishing orange trees, and occasionally, an orange would fall to the ground with a thud, only to be picked up or kicked like a soccer ball by a passing child. I would watch the child as curiously as he watched me, my sunglasses the only thing preventing a full-on staring contest. 

Though that time four years ago wasn’t my first time in Meknes, Morocco,  it was my first time there alone, having just moved my life across the ocean in one giant suitcase and a hiking pack. I remember the smells of that first summer and fall, my solo trip to Chefchaouen, where I was harassed — not because of my gender, but because of a presumption that I wanted to buy some hash — and got food poisoning on the eve of Ramadan. I remember the scent of the crisp air and how I didn’t want to leave the small town, in all its isolated beauty. I remember shopping for a night table on a very hot October afternoon, the smell of its Atlas cedar mixing with diesel and sewage as we rode the truck back to my apartment. I was so proud to have navigated the furniture souk by myself and bargained the price of that handmade cedar table down to the equivalent of $25.

But no memories of my two years in Meknes are as clear as that first August four years ago. On my first day, I bought some potatoes, some fruit, two Casablanca beers, milk, butter, cereal, and a pack of Marlboro Lights. I attempted to make mashed potatoes for dinner, failed miserably, and cried a little while I smoked a cigarette in my kitchen. Then, realizing the sheer madness of crying over potatoes, I hoisted myself up onto the kitchen counter, looked out the window toward the sky, and all of a sudden it hit me — where I was, what I was doing, and the fact that I’d be doing it for at least another year. I smiled, suddenly feeling freer than I ever had before. I took photos that first night, of the sunset, of myself sitting on the floor against my futon, walls bare, suitcase not yet unpacked.

I was barely twenty-three and still amazed by everything around me. I hadn’t yet experienced the frustration of Morocco. I hadn’t yet been pinned up against a truck on my way home from work at night, saved only by my trusty neighborhood car guardian, the eyes and ears of my block. I hadn’t yet had gut-wrenching food poisoning, or the giardiasis that hit two months later, wrecking my insides and knocking 30 pounds off my already lithe frame. I hadn’t begun to feel cheated or ripped off for my foreignness, despite earning a local salary. I didn’t, at that point, feel the pain of leaving things behind.

The week before I left Meknes is a blur. Packing, 100-degree summer heat, and tears — everything happened so quickly, and I was ready to just get the hell out that I don’t think I took the time to savor everything I loved. I was tied down by obligatory good-bye lunches and teas during those last few days, so I didn’t have time to walk the 1,000 or so paces down my favorite street and back. I didn’t get to walk up Rue des FAR, down Ave. Mohammed VI, past the conservatory, where I’d strain my ears for sounds of the violin, then up Rue de Paris, where I’d buy a marrakshia and an espresso and sit amongst lecherous men watching football, hiding behind my sunglasses as I’d learned to do in that first week. I’d sit for hours in the same café, watching teenagers strut up and down the tiny, almost provincial, pedestrian lane, the girls dressed up for each other and the boys doused in cologne, and wonder what I would have been like had I come of age there.

And yet certain vistas in my mind remain distinct; everyday places were now poignant memories to record vigilantly in case I never saw them again. Or perhaps in case things had changed so much that by the time I ever made it back, they’d be unrecognizable.

I remember my beloved Rue de Paris. When I first walked it in 2004, it seemed almost decrepit, but when I left three years later, the storefronts were filling with chic new local additions: Marwa, the clothing store where I bought my favorite fingerless gloves; Novelty, a piano bar, which was only novel to me because it was the only bar I could sit alone unharassed and where one could find draught beer. I miss the uneven sidewalks, the wilted potted plants, the ubiquitous cats. I miss the shouts of teenagers, the smell of apple shisha wafting past my nose, the homeless men on the corner, always grateful for even a penny.

I always knew I’d miss Marrakesh, and on some nights, I swear I can hear the adhan of Fez. But Meknes, ya Meknes, most of all, I miss you.

Glossary:
Souk: The marketplace in a traditional Arab city.
Car guardian: A man whose job it is to watch over the cars on a portion of street, help people park, and generally watch out for the neighborhood.
Marrakshia: A sticky sweet Moroccan pastry common to the city of Meknes.
Adhan: The Muslim call to prayer.

Jillian York

The Menorah in Flames sat on the bank of the Danube, in a district called Dor_ol in Belgrade. I walked on Jevrejska Street toward the river in search of it. The Danube was soothing and peaceful here: Boats were moored on the opposite bank, and a well-paved bicycle path ran parallel to the river. Midmorning traffic was made up of young women pushing baby buggies, old men taking leisurely strolls, and an occasional cyclist. And then there was me, a traveler from Canada, roaming the city while my husband worked as a foreign consultant.

Belgrade had to be one of the cities in the world with the most monuments. Busts, whole statues, fountains, pillars, plaques. Big ones, small ones. Marble, stone, bronze. In parks, on quiet streets, in public squares. On pedestals, in niches, on columns. Everywhere.

But where was the Menorah in Flames? In the guidebook, it looked like a tree without leaves, a trunk with brown and bare upturned branches. It was put up half a century late —1995 — in memory of Belgrade Jews who died following Hitler’s invasion of Yugoslavia in the Second World War. I came upon it sooner than expected. It was about 10 feet high and 10 feet across at its widest, cast in bronze, and situated on a quiet lawn not far from a modest apartment complex. I walked up the granite steps to its marble base. The monument was deserted except for a young boy jumping on the steps, making a game of it, while his mother watched with an air of nonchalance. I was within touching distance of the monument. Then I saw objects protruding from the flames — human heads with faces contorted in agony, skeletal arms with clenched fists, feet attached to scrawny segments of lower legs. I circled the monument; every angle depicted the same disturbing protrusions of horror. Body parts in flames, a tree of death.

Popular memorials
 
Disconcerted, I made my way back to the old city, following the bicycle path that wound along the promontory where the Sava met the Danube. Looking away from the river, I saw the Kalemegdan Fortress, rising up above me, multi-tiered and beautiful, cross-sections of its ruined ancient Roman buttresses exposed. Dominating the fortress on the edge of its western corner was the Messenger of Victory, dubbed “The Victor” by Belgrade residents. It was erected in honor of the liberation of Belgrade in 1918 from Austria-Hungary. The Victor was a statue of a naked man, his right hand holding a sword, a bird on his left palm. He stood on a tall stone column, rising to a height of over 300 feet. He had the taut physique of an Apollo, his brawny muscles in full view, as was his unmistakable manhood.
 
Two middle-aged women passed me as I was taking a zoomed-in picture of Victor in all his naked glory.

“Nice. Tourists always take picture,” one of the women said, her eyes following my camera.

“It commemorates Serbia’s liberation at the end of the First World War.” I tried to sound knowledgeable.

The woman pursed her lips, shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. It’s there long, long time. It’s there when I was small girl. Enjoy Belgrade. Beautiful city.”

Hidden finds

Ascending a huge flight of steps, I emerged onto a quiet cobbled street in old Belgrade, Kosančićev venac. A bust of a soldier in a helmet and armor ensconced in an arch-shaped niche adorned the front façade of an old house — another important find from my guidebook! It was the bust of Ivan Kosančić , a 14th-century hero killed in 1389 in the Battle of Kosovo, in defense of Serbia against the advancing Turks. Here he was, a symbol of heroism and patriotism, tucked away in an unfrequented and humble street, neglected by local residents, yet posing proudly for an occasional tourist like myself.
 
I soon came to a wider and busier street where the Orthodox Cathedral stood, its steeple towering over the surrounding 19th-century buildings. Across the cathedral was a rustic white two-story house with black window frames and a slanted red-tiled roof. An old gas lampshade bearing a big question mark on each of its four opaque glass panels was perched on a swirled wrought iron support, which protruded above the humble wooden front door. Tourists called the place the Question Mark Café. It was the oldest café in Belgrade, built in 1823.

Some monuments were not intended to be
 
The interior of the café, or kafana, resembled a 17th-century Dutch painting. Daylight streaked in through dark tinted glass-paned windows to give it a grey and gloomy atmosphere. A couple of dim lamps with milky-white glass shades hung from the wood-beamed ceiling over low, rugged wooden tables and matching stools.
 
I sat down at a table and ordered tea. Two men sat not far from me, talking in English. The younger one sounded North American, possibly Canadian. His companion looked 50-ish and had a distinct accent. I shot a glance at the two fellows. The one who was possibly Canadian looked over.
 
“Where’re you from?” he asked pleasantly.

“Toronto.”

“A fellow Canuck! I’m from Calgary. Care to join us?” He made a motion with his hand at the extra stool at their table.
 
I got up from my seat and walked over to them. 
 
“I’m Terry, and my friend’s Zarko. He’s from here. So, what brings you to Belgrade?”
 
“I’m Louise. My husband’s here on business. I’m making use of the chance to do some sightseeing. Actually, I’m taking a walking tour of the monuments in Belgrade, with the help of my guidebook.”

“This café is a real monument,” said Zarko. “The Serbian Prince Milo_ had it built in the nineteenth century. The church officials from the cathedral across the street objected to its name, The Cathedral Café, so the owner put up a question sign until he could find another name. He never gave it another name. The question mark became the café’s name. I tell you, this café has survived numerous wars and atrocities. If it could speak, it would tell terror tales of foreign dominations and domestic unrest. It’s a testament to Balkan history of the last two centuries. To me, this is a monument in the truest sense.”

“It sure is. And it’s still serving its original purpose after all these years,” I said. “I’m on this monument walk because I want to have a feeling for the place and learn about its history and its people. But I’m afraid these days, local people don’t always know why a certain monument’s there or what it commemorates.” I was wondering just how many local residents knew of the reason behind the Menorah in Flames, or The Victor, or the bust of Ivan Kosančić.
 
“No matter what, monuments are here to stay. I wish you luck in your walk,” Zarko said. “And remember, some unforgettable monuments were not intended to be.”
 
“Like this kafana,” I said.

“Like this kafana,” echoed Zarko, nodding. 

An undeniable, assertive presence

I soon continued my way and combed the main streets of Belgrade. Kralja Petra, with its Renaissance-styled architecture, was the scene of 19th-century elegance. It ran into the busy pedestrian street Knez Mihailova, lined with turn-of-the-century buildings, many of which housed shops selling designer merchandise. The street was crowded with serious and window shoppers alike, as well as tourists heading briskly toward Kalemegdan Park and Fortress at its north end. Lucky for me, Belgrade was a city easily accessible by foot. I became a part of the city crowd, but what distinguished me was that I walked at a much slower pace than most. I soon learned that the only way to survive crossing one of the city’s wide streets was to take a subterranean walkway, usually lined with stalls selling sundry merchandise, and re-emerge on the opposite side. Yet even in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Belgrade’s administrative and commercial hub, the monuments remained an undeniable, assertive presence.
 
I balked at the sight of a little dog desecrating the Monument of Gratitude to France — a bronze female figure in a flowing robe, brandishing a sword, situated on a high pedestal at the entrance to Kalemegdan Park. It symbolized France rushing to the aid of Serbia in the First World War. I cringed in disgust at the garbage and litter stuffed into the hollow center of a life-sized bronze figure of Serbian Romantic writer Djura Jak_i_, seated in a leisurely pose in front of his house in the pretty Bohemian district of old Belgrade. And what about the bronze statue of Vasa Čarapić, a hero and martyr of the First Serbian Uprising against the Turks? One of the statue’s pointed peasant shoes had become a convenient hanger for a road worker’s jacket.

Sobering reminders, new beginnings

Finally, I was ready to call it a day. As I headed toward our apartment, I chanced to pass what was left of the transmission center of the Belgrade Television complex. Its bombed-out ruins showed a cross-section of the floors, loose bricks, twisted metal, exposed pipes, torn roofing, caved-in walls, shards of building materials, and possibly human ashes.
 
“NATO did it,” a local passerby said to me as I took aim with my camera. “Bombed so many places.” He was referring to the NATO bombings of Belgrade and other cities in Serbia in 1999, over ethnic issues in Kosovo.
 
Regardless of the who, to whom, and why, the ruined transmission center was itself a monument too disturbing to ignore. The ruins, left as they were the day after the bombing, was not a monument erected long after the event. Rather, it was a real, sad, and sobering reminder of the casualties of war. Some unforgettable monuments were not intended to be.

And my mind returned to the Menorah in Flames, whose image was too painful to recall, too mind-shattering to forget, whose poignant message not only chronicled one of Belgrade’s darkest hours, but also touched the very soul of humanity.
  
Do monuments, whether unintended or purposely erected, signify closure of events past, be they glorious or infamous, uplifting or horrifying? Or do they serve as proud and sometimes cruel testaments of what has gone before? Lessons that can be learned? If so, monuments are not the end, but simply the beginning of a new chapter. 

Elsie Sze