TheBanyanTree: Comments/Critique

[Gloria]

Pat, you know I've enjoyed reading your posts from other lands.
Traveling vicariously and seeing the land, people, culture, through
your eyes has expanded this small town gal's world immensely.  Thank
you for that!

Hanley... A friend and I traveled to Traverse City, Michigan, for a
day of discovery.  We wanted to find a new restaurant, wander the
unique downtown shops, just enjoy a girl's day out.  What we found was
Michael Moore's "State" theater and a free film!  Who wouldn't want to
take in a movie on a cold, blustery day, right?!  That movie changed
both of our lives forever.  It was the story of Hanley and the
beginning of Safe Passage.  The film director and others that knew
Hanley shared their stories as well.  The site of those Guatamalens
(?) living in that monstrous landfill is still embedded in my mind.
Hanley on a mission to help, has not left my mind either.  Safe
Passage is a wonderful organization!  On the way out, I bought a
postcard with a picture of the old landfill and a necklace with the
Safe Passage logo.  I've thought about volunteering ever since.  While
volunteering didn't work out for you, I'm happy that Hanley's legacy
continues.

I'm excited about your writing a book!

Gloria...who only dreams about the things you've accomplished



On 4/6/10, Pat M <ms.pat.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Well, I've finally started writing again and have also joined a local
> writers' group. I'm going to write a book.  Here is the introduction or
> first installment. If anyone has the time, please let me know if any parts
> are confusing or awkward.  Any suggestions to improve it will be greatly
> appreciated.  Thanks.  I realize this isn't the venue for my request, and of
> course, there is no obligation to even read it let alone comment on it.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Pat
>
> *****
>
> Fear takes hold of all of us at one time or another, and there was certainly
> no denying it had taken hold of me.  I was seated in an Air China jet in
> first class en route to a country I knew little about. For some reason, I’d
> been bumped up from economy class, but the luxury and fine cuisine were
> doing little to ease my anxiety. As I peered through the jet’s windows at
> the desolate ocher-colored terrain and meandering yellow river below, a hard
> fist clenched in my stomach and my pulse raced. I willed myself to take some
> deep breaths. Breathe in calm; exhale stress. Breathe in calm; exhale
> stress.
>
> We’d taken off from YVR (Vancouver, BC, Canada) some ten hours earlier and
> were nearing my first stopover, PEK (Beijing, China). As the sole woman
> amongst numerous Chinese businessmen, I’d noticed their initial speculative
> glances before they turned back to their newspapers and their own thoughts.
> When they'd looked at me, I wondered, what had they seen?  Could they see
> past my older body?  Could they see my curious spirit?
>
> In spite of the plush seat, the sleep mask and ear plugs, I’d spent a
> restless night amidst the snorts, sighs and snores of the sleeping men
> around me. I don’t travel well; I never have, but I don’t let that stop me.
>
>
> It was July and I was traveling solo, a novice ESL teacher in her fifties
> with no Chinese language skills. This wasn’t my first foray into a foreign
> country; my overseas adventures had started decades earlier when instead of
> joining my friends on a Hawaii vacation, I’d booked a flight to Tel Aviv,
> Israel and had lived and worked on a kibbutz in the Negev Desert for six
> months. More recently, my husband and I had volunteered as caregivers for
> at-risk children and orphans in Guatemala and Mexico. Our marriage of 24
> years had ended while we were in Guatemala. I chose to stay on and he
> returned to Canada. It had been two years since we’d parted, and I was still
> trying to carve out a new life as a single woman.
>
> After Guatemala, I’d enrolled in an intensive TESOL (Teaching English to
> Speakers of Other Languages) college course in the Kootenays of BC. Upon its
> completion, I planned to return to Safe Passage, the project in Guatemala
> where I’d volunteered with children from the Guatemala City dump.
> Previously,
> my husband and I had covered all of our own expenses; now, I wanted, needed,
> a small stipend for my work, just enough to cover living costs. Hanley
> Denning, the young American woman who founded Safe Passage, had agreed to
> this and we were to speak on the telephone to finalize the
> arrangements.  Instead,
> I received an email stating that Hanley, whom I knew personally, and her
> driver had been killed when their car was hit head-on by a bus as they were
> traveling from Guatemala City to Hanley’s home in nearby Antigua. I was
> shell-shocked.
>
> Several times, I had prayed for my own safety while traveling by chicken bus
> in Guate. The brightly-painted buses are poorly maintained, overcrowded and
> it often felt as if they were driven by madmen. Throbbing Latin music blares
> as drivers floor their buses to full throttle and pass vehicles on blind
> corners. Sometimes the only escape of a head-on collision would be over a
> cliff-side. Fatal car accidents are commonplace in Guatemala, but I couldn’t
> comprehend that someone like Hanley who had established an organization that
> had improved the lives of thousands was dead at age 36.
>
> I walked around in a daze. Days passed; then weeks. How could she be
> dead?  Finally,
> I had to get on with my life and my plans. I contacted Safe Passage’s acting
> Executive Director to talk about my plan to teach English for the project,
> and Hanley’s agreement to provide me with living expenses. To my
> disappointment, he was unwilling to provide any funds. After Hanley’s
> untimely death, volunteers (including English teachers) flocked to Guatemala
> to ensure Hanley’s project and dream carried on; there was no need for the
> project to offer incentives.  I couldn’t afford to continue to deplete my
> savings so I had no alternative except to rethink my plans.
>
> While taking my TESOL course, I’d befriended two young Chinese women in my
> class, Mao and Joyce. They worked for English Weekly, a newspaper that
> teaches English to teens in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province in
> Northern China and one of China’s heavy industrial centers. They’d won the
> opportunity to visit Canada and attend the TESOL course by receiving top
> scores on an exam written by hundreds and signing a 5-year contract with
> their employer.  I had introduced them to hiking, something they’d never
> done before, and we had grown close. Several times, they had invited me to
> visit them in China but I hadn’t thought about it seriously.
>
> Now, their invitations came to mind.  China?  I knew so little about the
> country and its people, and the language barrier was more than daunting.
> When I first envisioned myself alone in China, panic engulfed me. It was too
> big; I couldn’t do it, but as the days passed, my fear lessened. You’ve done
> it before, I rationalized, and this time you know people in the country who
> you can turn to if you find yourself in trouble.
>
> I’ve found that the most difficult things to accomplish are often the most
> worthwhile, and I’ve also learned that great rewards can be realized by
> pushing past fear. This was an opportunity to explore more of the world, a
> part of the world I had never before considered visiting. I decided I’d do
> it.
>
> --
> Live life to the fullest!
>
> Pat
>