A Year of healing in Ecuador - Part 2, the Recovery

Back on the healing path in April, 2021 we had a series of 'weekend lockdowns' yep, only locked down on weekends (???).  And I had decided to step down off the prednisone which has to happen gradually lest you rebound back into the pain. Where I live is tranquil and our community on this ridge side of the sacred Mandango mountain that dominates the Valley calls itself the Hill Tribe, and 6 households live cooperatively centered around the Pyramid I co-created and built (and have blogged on) in 2012. The Pyramid was built and designed to attract and focus the energies of the Mandango. The Pyramid shaped bamboo frame and thatch covered roof (using scaled down dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Giza) is built over a 9m square earthen platform, the whole structure is in alignment along magnetic ley lines and the 4 directions very important to indigenous tradition. We share shamanic ceremonies there, plant medicine ceremonies, yoga and qi gong, meditation, women's and men's groups, workshops, sound healing offered by Hill Tribe members and people in the community.

Built with all natural materials the Pyramid is perfect for transformational activities; those that support people wishing to delve into their current illusion and evolve a different reality. As a natural structure, standing in a natural setting the Pyramid decays and needs renovation constantly, every-changing as is everything in our world. This representation of impermanence preludes non-attachment and non-judgement which are concepts inherent in nature and which while supported by traditions like Buddhism are so lost in our modern world. I believe this is largely where we have gone wrong as human societies, that we stopped living in and listening to nature. We have a running funding site to help support the ongoing rehabilitation of the Pyramid and I invite you to take a look and please donate if you can.

Lots of pix of the Pyramid here on the FB page @MandangoPyramid

What I wanted to say was that these lockdowns were in fact welcome weekend retreats for us, moments of calm. On each of the 4 successive weekends we the Hill Tribe led sessions in the Pyramid of movement medicine, meditation and breathwork, such a perfect way to be locked down! It is important for me to locate for you why this place has been so essential to my healing and why I travelled across the world and away from my sons to be here and do the necessary healing and be a healthier and better father. I couldn't have picked a better place to ride out the Covid-ness affecting the world.

I joined and left a 'polymayalic arthritis' online forum, a support group for people with this 'affliction', recognizing that most of the people were resigned for life to their medicated condition and coping with that. I was not one of them, I had from the beginning understood that there was a light at the end of the tunnel and that pharmaceutical medications were not the way forward. Life had been insanely busy and stressful and I took it that this condition of mine was the universe telling me to slow down and reflect on who I was and where I was headed. And I am forever grateful for all the lessons I continue to learn.

On my beautiful west facing terrace I started training with a new friend from Colombia, Daniel who embodies positivity, TRX and rubber bands for the isotonic approach. Many months of inactivity had caused my body to consider this weakened conditioning to be it's 'new normal' and certainly on prednisone while I might have been pain free I still wasn't anything like 'back to normal' in terms of strength and activity level. At this point I had been away from my sons' for longer than I had thought and it didn't seem like the end was coming anytime soon. In school in Switzerland and living with their Mum they were doing fine, each adapting differently to a new country and culture and curriculum and to my absence. It has been painful to be away from them, and I know that my resistance to reconciling this has not helped my healing but it has been part of the process and only recently as a result of heart-centered therapy have I learned possibly why this is so, I'll save that for another blog.

The training and nutrition regime was going well until one day I tweaked my left shoulder (another nemesis injury 11x dislocated) while training even though we were going slow and carefully, my body reacted saying it wasn't ready yet. Then over 4 weeks, once I had stopped the prednisone and with the shoulder injury, pain slowly started to return. What I know now is that I hadn't taken long enough to wean off the drug, mistake number 2. Closely followed by mistake number 3 when I did a 5 day water fast in week 4 without the commensurate colon cleanse, and I suspect toxins released during the fast that should have been flushed out, triggered again an inflammatory response and oh boy did I suffer. In late March, rebounding big-time, I fell back into pain and stiffness. There was more inner work to do.

This time I lasted 3 weeks losing mobility, independence, in constant pain, my spirit descended in a spiral again. In the early hopeful days as I was tapering off the prednisone and at the beginning of those 4 weeks I had been considering returning to Europe to be proximate to my boys and to try to set-up a wellness practice there. But that wasn't to be. Instead in late April I reluctantly went back on prednisone and was again, nearly immediately 'cured'. Amazing really the sense of being well again on this drug, and I realise that for many it is truly miraculous and I see why people stay on it. Unfortunately there is a plethora of side-effects of prednisone, some of them to the long-term detriment of the body's integrity.

Skip to the chase. I remained on prednisone through May, June and July, I was on it during my son's visit in July so that I was able to be pain free and mobile with them. The day they left I started to taper off again. This time the taper would take 2 months and by the end of September I was feeling like it was the moment to leave the drug altogether. I decided to stick only with the same diet and not take supplements of any kind so that my body could normalize and not be in anyway dependent on anything else besides what I was eating; food as medicine. I realised also that years of being 'toxified' were a part of my dilemma. I grew up through a time when fertilizers and pesticides were being introduced into the food chain, and when the genetic modification of food began. With respect to the scientific community and their efforts to improve crop yields and support farmers in poor countries, in the interest of ensuring the availability of food for more people, we have known since the '70s that the real problem with food scarcity has always been global distribution, not production and that these methods of chemicalization and modification do not necessarily support population health. Another heady topic.

In addition I have spent much of my adult working life living in countries where there has been a lack of regulation in the use of chemicals in food production. I have lived in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nepal and Myanmar where poverty, war and corruption have resulted in the poisoning of the earth. In Myanmar for example the entire Irrawaddy basin, a food basket of rich and fertile soil is toxic. Getting an organic grower certification there is impossible because the water source is contaminated with chemicals. Ironically in many cases low quality fertilizers and pesticides illegally transported from China thwart the efforts of countries to regulate such additives because they are cheaper, and farmers are mis-educated to use greater concentrations on crops than is needed. So who knows what I ingested and what has accumulated in my system over these years. Also growing up in Canada at a time when so many things were being experimented with in terms of increasing crop yields. Wheat or beef or chicken or soy, etc are far from the same as what I started off eating as a lad. Nowadays you can't find GMO, glyphosate free wheat products on the shelf unless you go specifically for organics. Beef, chicken, pork and even (especially) salmon, anything 'mono-cropped' are all antibiotic, steroid and hormone 'enhanced'. In Afghanistan, in 2003 I was in the north-west province of Farya, the Iranians were shipping containers full of robust frozen chickens to remote town markets, a welcome change from the scrawny farm-yard chickens you could get in the market. Yet by their size these were chickens highly inoculated, hormone supported, being force-fed chemicalized grains chickens. The bird flu scare halted the importation of these chickens probably to the betterment of the general population and my personal health.

Statistically we have seen a steady increase in cancers over the past 30 years, particularly in those who are over 45 years old today. We should not be at all surprised given the abuse of the food supply by corporate interests. I don't think I am the only canary in the mine, I think we are many, a whole huge flock. I believe it is not in the 'corporate' (food industry), nor in the western medical community's interest to see this because if it was, we would be seeing big changes in how we steward the earth, and how we cared for ourselves.

Add to all this I have unknowingly injured myself with two more insults: one the mercury amalgams in my teeth and whatever ails they might bring to heavy metal toxification of the body. Secondly I should not forget air toxicity; I have lived in some remarkably toxic cities, like Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu and Yangon and it can't be underscored how urban living in such places can only contribute to the toxification of body systems. Fortunately my lungs have had a break now and again with good lengths of time a year in East Timor, the coastal town of Dong Hoi in Vietnam where I lived for 2 years, and Vilcabamba here in Ecuador. I admit also to have been a more off than on smoker for much of my adult life and with long breaks, but still, that can't have helped.

Here in the Sacred Valley of Ecuador there is a firm growing commitment on the part of farmers to grow chemical free food, the air is clean clean clean and it is the perfect place to detoxify and heal the body and spirit. And so through this time here I have eaten mainly organic foods. We are not educated about the importance of the health of our gut, and the effect of the damage done to a healthy gut biome by antibiotics. In 2003 I had an insidious pneumonia on the upper right lobe of my lungs and this was treated with nearly 3 weeks of rather harsh antibiotics. I believe my gut was destroyed then and as soon as the doctor could give me a clean bill of health, I ended up back in Afghanistan right at the time when those steroid chickens were available. Who knows what harms came to my system then, and with the various stressors of the job and poor availability of nutrient rich food, no probiotics, certainly I did nothing helpful to rebuild my gut.

Another digression, I know but to explore the understanding that our gut is our second brain is huge. In fact many would posit that our gut is our first brain and without a healthy gut we really cannot think straight, do a search on this! I would concur, and healing my gut has taken time. Post-prednisone I took extreme care to ensure a proper balance of pre and probiotics, fiber, plant and animal proteins and nutrients were in my diet; I was finally attending to my gut biome. I became more regular with my meditation practice, and through this crazy 2 years of the Covid pandemic, have made decisions from the heart, not from a place of fear and this has all helped me to see things much more clearly than would have been the case without such practices. I blogged about my perspective on the global Covid response in January.

In December my eldest son came for a visit, that lifted my spirits considerably and it cannot be understated how a positive frame of  mind does wonders for reducing stress which in turn supports the immune system and thereby supports healing. I will be forever grateful that he made this trip (not easy as I describe in the 'Stuck in Paradise blog below). Thank you son!

A key step that I took was to do a liver cleanse in January 2022, using a clever protocol from 'the Medical Medium' that I can tell you about if you ask. I highly recommend anyone over 45 start a regime of a least annual colon and liver and kidney cleanses to mitigate against the possibility of cancers or other diseases resulting from our years of toxification, and of course to reduce the likelihood of a 'perfect storm'.

Here I am writing in March, 2022.  I now understand that healing really has to take time and is not only about the physical state of being. I have been pain free for nearly 6 months, though weak from a year of nearly no physical activity and nervous about over-doing it to rebuild. A year ago I bought a vehicle, because what is only a 10 minute hillside walk from or to town had become too much and I was constantly tired. Recently, though the original knee dilemma has been largely unattended, I have started to walk down to town and started going to the gym to try to bulk up my quads and shoulders.

It has been a long path towards healing, though as my wise friends say, it took a lifetime to arrive at the place I've come from. I am grateful for this time and place, for the people who have challenged me and those who continue to support me. This journey has enhanced my understanding of what others go through, those in 'chronic' pain who come for some kind of respite. And I am more than before an ardent advocate for prevention. Nearly 9 years ago, when I turned 50, I posted on my FB to my friends 'if you haven't evolved a movement practice by now, it's not too late' and I stand by that. Conscious movement is critical, what we eat should be medicine not poison, we need to cleanse and to be healthy of body and we need to be healthy in mind.

To people in need of support on their journey I am available, and for others I would request that you share my website email address: elementalenergy.daniel@gmail.com or message me on WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal: +(593)996545233 or FB/Instagram: @elementalwellnesstherapies with anyone you know who needs support, or just wants to start a meditation of movement practice.

Finally to my sons who I speak to nearly daily and who have come to Vilcabamba twice in these past 15 months, please know that I left when I did because I had to, you know I miss you. I am rebuilding. I will come to Europe soon, who knows for how long, it depends what works and if I can find work. I have to go slow in the process of recovery because I don't want to end up back down the rabbit hole of pain and despair. Despite whatever restrictions and all the challenges the current situation in Europe has thrown into the mix, I'll be there. Meanwhile I'm building my quads like a '......', great advice from my NZ physio friend who I was another man-mum in Kuala Lumpur 18 years ago! 

I know it has been a challenging time for Cécile, single-parenting teens! And it is wonderful that she has been able to maintain the boys in comfort and safety. That I didn't return when expected was not anticipated neither by me (or maybe it was a 'be careful what you ask for' by one or both of us moment?). At least an absence this long probably wasn't ever thought of. The problematic of staying in arguably one of the most expensive constituencies in the world, was anyway untenable due to Covid so even if I was healthy I wouldn't have been able to work. 

The whole Covid overlay has meant that their Mum has spent more time working from home and except for the end of term last year the boys have been going to school since they started in Suisse back in Aug 2020, so that is something positive. As most of this generation of screen-committed teenagers do, they retreat to their rooms after raiding the fridge after school, and emerge from their dens to again forage for food at dinner-time and then retreat again. It means Mum is around the place. I taught them to cook, and they are quite good, skills that are already proving to serve them well! It has meant a lot for my healing to know the boys are thriving, performing well at school, not without health concerns for our youngest, but overall they are doing better than ok. I will blog again about my concerns for this generation through a period of 'de-socialisation' which doesn't fit with our usual concept of a healthy environment for teens. Covid has kept kids at home and 'off the streets', for the most part, though at least on the street you're getting some sunlight. Anyway, this too shall pass and they will be fine. I am sure of that.

A Year of healing in Ecuador - Part 1, the Perfect Storm

I have been living in Ecuador for 15 months! A difficult year on many levels that began a healing journey after falling foul to a 'perfect storm' of circumstances that started with a small knee injury in France and led some painful months later to a diagnosis of polymyalgic arthritis and recovery in Ecuador. I write now early in March enjoying full recovery, pain free, meds free and mobile (yaaah!). This is the story of that journey.

For some of you in Europe where I had just moved with my sons after spending their whole lives and my past 25 years in Asia, or the Middle East or South America (most recently we lived in Yangon, Myanmar), in December 2020 I disappeared off the family map, remaining there only virtually. After 15 years of being the stay at home parent for my boys I was suddenly not where they were any more and this bears some edification because I know many of you have no idea what happened, or why I am still away.

It began in mid-October 2020 when I stepped off my bike on uneven ground in a field in France and injured my long-problematic left knee. We had arrived in mid August, the 6th country the boys have lived in, for them to start school in Switzerland (that journey is documented here!) and where Cécile (their Maman, my partner in co-parenting) had secured a post at the HQ for the UN Refugee Agency in Geneva. As it turned out she had to return to finish up her engagement with UNHCR in Myanmar until late November so it was me and the boys for the summer and much of the fall adjusting to our new reality after most of their lives had been spent in Asia and the Middle East. Anyway that day in October something slipped in my left knee and it became painful and inflamed.

This wasn't the first time; I injured my knee initially in 1983 and had a surgery then to fix my posterior cruciate ligament, these small mishaps had happened a few times over the years, but this time, a week or two of rest and anti-inflam/pain killers, just didn't work to get me mobile and pain-free again... maybe age had something to do with it; I'm 58 yrs on with many hard miles on the knee, from the Canadian Rockies to the Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes! In the ensuing two months as things really got worse I went to three doctors in France each one amping up the pharmaceuticals and none really helping. Between doctors two and three I was given a referral for imaging which showed a knee with little cartilage remaining to cushion the articulation between bones. Then I had lab tests, more imaging and an orthopedic surgeon who wanted me to have total knee replacement surgery (just shave 5mm off here, 7mm there, put in this cushiony stuff and sew you back up) in which ultimately they disconnect your leg at the knee and then reconnect it with some new bits inside and offer a 65% success rate.

I wasn't very keen on TKR surgery nor that there was a long waiting period for the surgery- and that the ski season would soon be upon us and I wouldn't be able make a turn for the whole winter so I'd be immobile, cold and miserable, and without an income.

To make a long story shorter (but not by much), over those 2 months I became like the tin man left out in the rain; stiffening in more joints particularly my hips and knees. This made walking, sitting, standing up, going up and down stairs all so painful, then my shoulders got in the act and then my hands. Not nice and blood tests were not revealing much, except that I didn't have rheumatoid markers which was a relief of sorts. Temporary relief came only from a hot shower in the morning.

I have reflected long-time about what got me into this situation, the perfect storm. Certainly the knee thing was where it started and just today I recall also how body-damaging scooters are (those 2-wheelers now popular in European capitals for 'scooting' around) and I had been a scooting fool around Geneva. It had become my main and preferred mode of transport. So, my lower back was compromised from over-scoot, that one-foot-lower-than-the-other-backward propulsion is not at all good for the lumbar/sacral spine. I had felt this before at some point scooting around London with the boys when they were little (a great tip for parents btw, kids too big to stroller love it and you can whizz around cities with ease) my back was killing me afterwards. The nerves that serve the knee exit the spine in the upper lumbar (L5 to be precise) and to confirm involvement at the spinal level the entire big toe nail on my left foot (the irony doesn't escape me), innervated from the same location in the lumbar spine, turned black as if I had dropped a brick on it. I liken the ensuing inflammation to a slow algae bloom the way it started in one joint and spread to the others supported rather than suppressed by the anti-inflammatory pharmaceuticals.

As winter approached and it got colder with humidity where we were not far from Lake Leman and Geneva, the cold got into my bones making matters worse. Nutrition played a role. It was part of the storm. Cécile had been there when we arrived in August and I continued cooking for two veggies and our two boy meat-eaters so once she returned to Myanmar in September I reverted to meat eating also to bulk up a bit for winter (or so I thought). I surmise that my diet changed too radically without the softer tropical fruits and veg I had been used to for 8 years and this change in my internal flora contributed to my troubles. 

Along with these physical changes (the climate, the nutrition, the inflammation, the meds) there were emotional and mental stressors; a relationship that had ended 3 years earlier far from a 'conscious uncoupling', logistics and lobbying issues around the school where Kasem was in one and Zaki in another (for the first month), problems getting a driver's licence transferred (that in itself is a story) meaning for a while I was driving on a Myanmar driver's license all the while daily crossing the border between Switzerland and France as you do as a 'frontalier' (cross-border dweller). Stress is a killer and I carry it in my lower back, the water element, the seat of emotions, the element of balance, potential and flow... ebb and flow so why be surprised when the nerves and I was not getting the reinforcement of a better perspective from community and so with everything else going on, I fell foul to my own lassitude, we are indeed our own worst enemies.

To add to the problem, Brexit was reaching it's writhing twisting finale for Brits residing in Europe. British people (am a Brit by birth) who could prove they resided in France by the end of 2020 had to apply for residency pronto. Cannot express enough how I loathe the 'rule Britannia' media driven bullsh*t that warped that appalling decision. There is a Catch-22 in many countries, where to get a bank account you needed a fixed address and to rent a place you need a bank account. Fortunately with foresight my name was on the tenancy agreement for where the boys and Cécile were to live in France (they have now moved to Switzerland). In France you can't work out of your house so you need to join or set up a 'cabinet' (clinic), you can't work without liability insurance, you have to register as a business; a minefield of administration and bureaucracy. And really I have a very strong aversion to bureau-crazy. I had registered and then applied to become a French resident just before the final deadline on 30 June, 2021 and still haven't heard back from the French, I'm told it could take years.

Unable to manage well and in such a declining condition in France with my status uncertain and sadly UNHCR and all it's concern for 'family reunification' of refugees doesn't extend that concept with visa facilitation to it's staff in 'blended' families. I was at a loss and dependent on one particularly supportive friend (thanks again Joe) to get me to appointments with labs and doctors. And then I spoke with another friend in Myanmar who suggested I needed to 'go home', and I am forever grateful for this advice (thanks Christina). And to her question 'where was home' I easily answered... Vilcabamba in Ecuador. Don't be too surprised dear reader who may not know me well, it is in Vilcabamba between Afghanistan missions 22 years ago that I established a presence (coming and going, sometimes for weeks, and sometimes months) in this little town of the southern Andes, building community, centered now around two houses and a project called the Pyramid on Mandango. The boys have been multiple times to Vilcabamba, a respite in nature's harmony. It is also Ecuador where friends in Vilcabamba had had success with more heinous knee problems than mine, through stem cell injections, a much preferred approach than hacking the knee apart, so going to Ecuador was not such a long stretch and though I haven't yet, it could still be that I have stem cell injections into my knees.

23 December 2020 I left for 'home'. This was a very difficult moment; my definition of home is where your family lives and my sons are my family, as their 'at-home parent' their entire lives my departure though planned to be only 3 months, was still heart wrenching. Over a year later my return to France or Switzerland where the boys are in school and living with their mother is pending a full recovery. Over this time it has been thwarted by the covid restrictions overlay (at the time of writing these are ebbing) that would require me to get vaccinated (against medical advice having an auto-immune reactive system) and make working as a therapist nigh on impossible in Europe. I am very grateful the boys are with their Mum, they moved from France across the border to Switzerland last year and very close to their school, they are 15 and 17 yrs old, young men. 

I made my first mistake early on stopping cold turkey the anti-inflam meds the minute I set foot in Ecuador. The trip had been alright, I was coked up on pain-killers and for the first time in my life I wished I had checked in as 'needs assistance' because the walk first through Schipol airport and later after a 11 hour plane ride, transiting Quito airport nearly killed me; but I survived. Arriving in the evening I lapped up the hot humid night air of Guayaquil my final airport. In the morning I went immediately to see the stem cell doctor, who straight away told me I was not a candidate for stem cells in my current 'inflamed' condition. He did a round of unexpected and very painful neural therapy injections (injecting procaine under scar tissue to stabilize the autonomic nervous system), well-based in science but doesn't help alleviate the pain at least not immediately. All in all my knee has seen more action than your average knee and is full of scarring. Said doctor sent me off with liver and kidney support homeopathics, and prescriptions for vitamin injections and advice to adjust my nutrition with the aim to reduce the inflammation.

I had arranged for a taxi truck to drive me to Vilcabamba, no flights these days to the nearest airport at Catamayo (LOH), it is a 9 hr drive east, climbing dramatically up into the Andes arriving at Ecuador's third (and most beautiful) city of Cuenca at 2400m and then south along a stunning road, running the spine of the Andes to Vilcabamba at 1600m. I was glad I paid the expense to do this as I am not sure I could have managed the bus. As it was by the time I got to Vilca after 3 days of travel, I was stiffening up big time, and within that first week when I was ensconced in my the guest room of my tenant's house I could hardly get out of bed on my own.

Those early days of pain are a bit of a blur, my memory is befuddled. I was hoping that following the good doctor in Guayaquil's protocol to support liver and kidney function and boost my immune system, this along with enzymes to try to reduce the inflammation and a transition to an organic dis-inflammatory and alkaline diet would reduce the pain. Alas I learned, that isn't how these things work, at least not as quickly as I needed it to. It was a good learning. Diet/nutrition adjustments and the appropriate supportive supplements can be mitigate the symptoms of many ailments, but they take time. I was in so much pain and while I had great care and compassion from my friends here, especially my friend and tenant (for 10 years) Rebecca who (put me up in her spare room, then cared for me until I could move into the small guest house, the Casita right next door). She brought me food and made nutritious smoothies for weeks after I arrived.

By February 2021, my spirit had spiraled so low due to the ongoing pain and loss of mobility and independence and also because I was acutely missing my sons, I had thought I would be away from them for 3 months which would be the longest period in their lives, yet here I was no further ahead and no end to this process in sight. This emotional stress did not support healing at all. I got a prescription for prednisone from a locally based Egyptian doctor. Prednisone is a steroid anti-inflammatory and by all accounts it is miracle drug for many. I could move freely and nearly pain free for the first time in months, within 2 days of starting the steroid... wow it was amazing. I kept on with an anti-inflammatory, alkaline diet hoping it would yield results given the chance to return balance to my system. I visited a reputable homeopath who diagnosed gout but neither did my profile fit nor did the diet changes and supplements give any respite, so it wasn't gout which would have made a fix easy. Then with the supportive counsel of a dear friend on Vancouver Island (thank-you Amanda), I saw a rheumatologist who diagnosed me with 'polymyalgic arthritis' a dubious condition that some say is lifelong and he advised me to take prednisone, a steroid anti-inflammatory that is to be honest quite the miracle drug. 

Among many things I have learned is that despite medical diagnosis and prognosis who will tell you differently, this kind of affliction is not permanent, and the medical diagnosis is self-defeating. The treatment does not serve to support a curative ethos, instead it prolongs the ailment and promotes the mind-set of a life-long illness and drug dependency. If the whole approach quite distasteful.

I had made that initial mistake of stopping the anti-inflammatories, and made several more along the way and in my own defense note also that I was without a 'guide' and advocate. This is a role I play for wellness clients in my occupation as a therapist. I knew I needed someone who had followed my process as close to the get-go as possible and who could give me advice as to 'what next'. Who could that have been? I needed someone aware of the pitfalls when a medical diagnosis for something not really explainable is only a description of the condition. I strongly recommend a health advocate if you are facing an illness that is characterized as 'chronic'. It happens to many folks, and they end up relying on their doctor who may not have the depth or breadth of knowledge to consider different approaches from the western medical model (or they are sold out to pharmaceuticals as the only solution). Diagnostics are tricky, finding a treatment plan that gets to source, explores all options and solves the problem, is even trickier.

'Arthritis' is a modern-time conundrum, more and more people become arthritic and it is thought nowadays to be an inflammatory response to an auto-immune trigger. In my case I discern that my trigger (the source) was a 'wrong' immune response to streptococcus bacteria; one of the first blood tests I had when things got so bad I couldn't get out of a chair without help (and a lot of pain), showed high levels of this streptococcus antigen (ASTO). So if I let a scratchy throat progress, my body thinks I may be getting strep, antigens are produced to fight off the bacteria but they get carried away (an over-response) and lead to an arthritic inflammation. Thinking back as I have over these months it is quite possible that I had a sore throat when I had that knee incident in the french farmer's field or soon thereafter, but these things never happen in isolation and this 'man from Asia' was not used to the chill breezes of autumn in the Jura mountains. The perfect storm set the stage, created the fertile field for illness, how to regain wellness became the question and the challenge.

I mentioned stress earlier and as a causal contributing factor it is pretty clear that at least in my case, going deep into this and finding where it comes from needs to be a big part of the healing. Here in Vilcabamba, there is an incredible menu of traditional and alternative healing modalities available from some very talented therapists. People from all over the world come and live here, holding workshops, seminars, classes and sharing therapies most of which are out of the western medical model, and that work. I benefited from many of these treatments, and from the easy availability of organic food, of amazingly clean air and water, and importantly the acceptance and support of community. 

I made some blunders on the way, suffering set-backs too painful to mention here, but all part of my path. I have seen a holistic chiropractor, had heart-centered therapy, muscle testing, worked on the question 'am I fit for Love', worked with RIFE technology, hypnosis, massage, taken courses, attended seminars, embarked on plant medicine journeys, and I have had a deep dive into my dark side. I realised that likely I was suffering delayed PTSD from a few incidents in Afghanistan, and had deeper scars likely originating even before I was born, and then adopted. With great gratitude I have been able to exchange craniosacral treatments for many of these therapies. I know this inner work has been essential and integral to my healing, and with the intention of preventing future 'calamities' of this sort.

Part 2 of this writing gives you a break, and will reveal some of what worked on this journey and where I am headed next.

Stuck in Paradise: A Covid inspired human rights conundrum

The deep critical thinker has become the misfit of the world, this is not a coincidence. To maintain order and control you must isolate the intellectual, the sage, the philosopher, the savant before their ideas awaken people. This will cause a mental implosion from lack of thought stimulating conversations and interactions with others which will lead to their demise. That is one of the greatest tragedies of our time, the unwelcomed thinker who’s brilliance will never be known.

~Carl Jung

We are all aware by now of how the various dictums of the 'state' have been influential factors in our mobility over this past year. 

In fact until recently it hasn't been that much of an inconvenience (though it has become more expensive with more limits on less routes, etc) depending on your country of origin, and the rules in the country of destination. If you test negative with the PCR generally speaking you have been able to go where you needed to go, sometimes quarantining on arrival or not. That all changed in the late part of 2021. 2020 I was on the move from Myanmar to Canada to France to Ecuador and it was pretty easy, I blogged about it here. In 2021 I didn't move internationally in an entire year for the first time in probably around 30 years...has to be said this was due more to a state of illness (only indirectly linked to Covid) rather than the state of affairs in the world. Many people were travelling through 2021, and today, check out 'flightrader24.com' and take a look at all the birds in the air, there are lots of people travelling.

The requirements have been a bit confusing to follow since they change all the time, PCR or antigen test? 72, 48, or 24 hrs? ahead of boarding or of getting the result? Do you need to abide by restrictions if only transiting? Will they serve food aboard, etc? So uncertain and unclear and inconsistent across countries of arrival, airlines and across short timelines. Airlines saddled with the obligation of ensuring their passengers comply with the rules have managed variably well and not well. KLM is an airline I have had much to do with this past couple of months and based on their screw-ups, their inability to communicate in a timely manner and their onboard gouging, they are not doing very well. 

More than that the complication of not knowing once you arrive whether you will be able to return from whence you came is disconcerting, a definite disincentive to travel for many; we live in a world where having 'certainty' is akin to feeling safe and secure, it's why insurance companies do so well... they underscore the insecurities then cash in on making you feel secure. With the whole Covid ethos we feel more uncertain than ever... and of what exactly is a good question (and the subject of another blog). What do you do if the rules change for example, the Brits living in France who went to the UK for holidays (before Christmas) were then banned from returning to where they lived in France after the holidays...bit of a shocker that one. As a codicil, this is probably a better example of how geopolitics are alive and well and how using something like Covid as a political football is considered fair game. Only we all know it is not fair, and that it is more about manipulative men in political power positions, their egos and mis-placed national pride than anything to do with protecting citizen's health. Did you here the US has banned entries for folks with the Russian SputnikV vaccine? but I digress.

Recently my oldest son (16yrs) made the journey from Switzerland to Ecuador via the Netherlands and Panama some awful number of hours on the inward flight including an unexpected 24hrs in Panama (thanks to KLM) which caused considerable perturbance. He arrived intact, but a concern that shadowed his visit was not knowing if the Swiss rules for re-entry of non-citizens arriving from Ecuador would change while he was away. We didn't dwell on it, you can't worry about that which you can't control right? They didn't change their rules and Ecuador remained on the green list for Suisse entries, so thank goodness for that.

Actually more concerning was his PCR test as he was preparing to leave (get this) which needed to be taken 48 hrs before entering the Netherlands where he transited, but 72 hrs before entering Switzerland... if they were the other way around he would have been screwed. Not to mention the negative or positive options and those few hours of uncertainty and discomfort while waiting for the result. No matter how philosophical and 'go with the flow' you might be... there is stress; the kid has school on Monday, despite a strange 'flu' going around the Valley where I live, he tested negative with the 'gentle' PCR.

Mandated vaccines for entry into Ecuador became a reality on 01 December. Wow. Suddenly basic freedoms of association and movement were trashed without ceremony and other countries (though not many) followed suit. That changed things considerably for anyone unvaccinated including people who have arrived in a bit of an avalanche, US citizens, Canadians leaving their country due to the 'tyranny' (their word) of covid restrictions on civil liberties and others from other places; Vilcabamba has evolved a name for itself as a place of refuge. The Canadian Prime Minister disgraced himself the other day and may be indicted for hate speech, saying "that those who have not been vaccinated are very often “Misogynists and Racists”, he then stated that “They don’t believe in science/progress”. Finally, Mr. Trudeau went on to make the statement “This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people? “and “that they take up some space.”

Sounds delusional to me, and definitely not very liberal, progressive or thoughtful. Let's be clear on one thing being unvaccinated doesn't make you anti-vax, it does make you vaccine free. The most disagreeable outcome of the current state of affairs is the divisiveness the creation of 'us and them', wow, and the judgement involved; there are those who believe the vaccine free are a danger to society even criminal for not complying with mandates, despite the fact that the coercive exhortations of a government may not be legal in many cases, and those who believe those vaxxed have had their human rights abused, that by being vaccinated you are buying into the mainstream narrative (drinking the koolaid) to such an extent you would potentially endanger your (and your children's) immune system integrity, reproductive health, heart condition, etc. It's all out there but you may not find it on Google, and for goodness sake don't ask on Twitter or Facebook because they have censored such questioning content. Particularly this idea of vaccinating children has horrible taste to it and is absolutely unnecessary. Please do your own research, do not trust the so-called 'science' that the big pharma presents through governments and their media lackeys, and don't use Google if your want truth. So many unknowns with this vaccine that for something as important as this, something that could permanently damage my health, I fall back on the axiom... 'when in doubt, wait it out'. And I truly believe this too shall pass and no harm will come. Covid at the end is nothing but a bad flu, the way it has been approached, the global response was an over-reaction initially because of how little we knew and we were fearful but then decisions based on fear started being made built on those before it and pretty soon, well things got out of control, confusion reigned and today we are in a very serious mess. 

What we know is that there is only ONE humanity, that we are all ONE. What we know is that this state of pandemic could actually be a scamdemic, or a plan(ed)emic because no one (not you, not me) can say that it isn't because no one can be sure! And we can have this doubt because there are many, many signals that something is not right out there and you need to be paying close attention to see beyond the fear for example: 1) Whatever happened to the Great Barrington Declaration The Declaration was written from a global public health and humanitarian perspective, with special concerns about how the current COVID-19 strategies are forcing our children, the working class and the poor to carry the heaviest burden.  The response to the pandemic in many countries around the world, focused on lockdowns, contact tracing and isolation, imposes enormous unnecessary health costs on people. In the long run, it will lead to higher COVID and non-COVID mortality than the focused protection plan we call for in the Declaration.  2) Why wasn't the GBD adopted as a less livelihood destroying alternative? 3) There is a high level of censorship in social media (heard of Dr. Robert Malone one of the developers of the PCR test? and how he has been muzzled? check that out). 4) Why have medical staff who do not want to be vaccinated or speak out against vaccinating been threatened with job loss? 5) There are serious inconsistencies in the narrative around the origins of Covid and the role of Dr. Fauci. 6) Big questions around the validity/veracity of the PCR test (did you know this month the CDC will no longer be using it),"After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, the assay first introduced in February 2020 for detection of SARS-CoV-2 only.".  7) Why the big differences you see when doing independent research using Google vs an untraceable search engine. 8) The censoring of expression on social media. 9) The very odd 'domino effect' of countries falling into compliance like a flock murmuration making health policy changes not even the WHO recommends. 10) The economy and livelihood destroying (we are talking about millions plunged into devastating poverty) lockdowns that are proving not to have been necessary because they didn't change anything in the disease vector, what they did do is make a select group of corporations very rich. As a footnote here, and having lived in Burma for 4 years, in 2020 (we left end of June), we described lockdowns as a luxury of rich countries that has destroyed irreparably already fragile economies. You think you have problems keeping your business afloat in Canada or France? Be forever grateful for government subsidies, most countries can't afford them and many many many small businesses globally have died, not to mention daily wage earners, factory workers in their 100,000's in poor countries, who benefited from that?

These are some of the strange things that have happened. And you have a vaccine on which $billions have been spent given to pharmaceuticals companies and lobbyists (many with dodgy track records, no liability and burgeoning bank accounts). A 'vaccine' which still requires you to mask even if both parties are double or triple jabbed, does not prevent transmission, still has people isolating working from home, schooling online where they are able, still has lockdowns in effect, might result in less intensity in symptoms, is now on its 3rd booster despite the broad knowledge that the variant of the month omicron is a 'saviour variant'. 

This means that it is a highly infectious form of Covid but one with very mild symptoms (well-documented now) and that confers immunity (not well publicized) so indeed it will spread far and wide very rapidly and confer herd immunity. Kind of begs the question; why does anyone need to be further vaccinated or boosted when the virus is conferring immunity on it's own? Let omicron run it's course and this might be over faster.

We have known from the get-go that Covid would be self-limiting (an epidemiological truth that also applies to viruses like ebola when they are contained, with Covid the container seems to be the planet), is what we are seeing in Omicron the way viruses self-limit and burn out, infectious but weakened strains conferring and thus endowing herd immunity? If so, why the panic reaction ruining everyone's holidays and again fanning the fear complex fire? Rather than vaccinate, and this could be said from the beginning, people should be checked to see if they have antibodies (would it have been so hard to develop a quick-test to see if you had natural immunity) and if so send them on their way, why mess with nature? And if they haven't had covid or weren't vaccinated and get omicron... then wow, good for them, natural immunity which many doctors say (and nature concurs) is healthier than an artificially created immunity. 

By the way, all of this has been researched and fact-checked and not using Google as a search engine for anything. If it weren't for my email addresses that are Google based I would disavow Google for their participation in what appears to be at best an incompetency of governance, a deceptive manipulation at worst. 

Anyway, to say WE the humans (the vaxxed and the vaccine free) need to rise above the divisiveness, we need to join together and question a narrative that has led to such a disruption and destruction. We have to accept that it could be 'they' got it wrong, yes it is a big 'they', the response to a virus that actually, statistically caused yes a difficult number of deaths among the elderly and vulnerable but otherwise was only a bad flu with many affected, more than we will ever know due to the many (millions?) of asymptomatics, and mild responses that millions may have had but never reported. This past 2 years how much has been lost; the grief of dying alone, and of not being able to be with loved ones, loss of freedom of movement, loss of freedom of expression, loss of work, loss of livelihood, loss of friendships, rise in depression, anxiety, domestic abuse, alcoholism (all on the rise) and now active discrimination and division in societies. And the dominance of the fear-complex perpetrated by governments, amplified by media.

Who of us before Covid actually had a trust in government' to do the right thing when it came to economies? Which governments put the people first in the wake of the 2008 housing collapse, which governments bailed out the banks? Who trusts corporations that are blatantly profit before people, who trusts mainstream media that is clearly biased towards it's corporate owners? And yet so many have trusted governments and the media on Covid response and well, lets just say I find that a little weird. 

On Wednesday evening I took eldest son to the airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador where I have been living for the past 1yr and 1 week. He is vaccinated and had tested negative as mentioned. He was set, and is only 16, airport rules say parents need to take their kids to check-in and anyway I wanted to see him checked in, boarding pass in hand and headed for security... Thing is of 21 December the private airport authority following the proposals of the National Emergency Committee (COE) has deemed that a vaccination certificate must be presented to enter the airport. This is discriminatory and against international legal instruments, the Constitution which guarantees you the right not to be discriminated against based on a personal health choice. This is no law, it is not even a guideline to prevent you from entering the airport; still I was not allowed to enter. If I needed to leave Ecuador, as a Canadian citizen, headed to a country that didn't require the vaccine to enter, would I be able to get into the airport? No I would be entrapped by the state of Ecuador for exercising my right to make my own health choices.

And so I am stuck in paradise, at this moment on the beach watching the setting sun over the Pacific Ocean in a country so intensely beautiful from it's long stretching beaches to it's deep green jungles to the high sierra of the Andes and towering volcanoes'. Not a bad place to be stuck, but I'd rather my freedoms as a sovereign human being were respected not trampled on by blind, narrow minded thinkers with an agenda that doesn't appear anymore to include protecting public health. Being stuck gets a bad rap and is an unhelpful state of mind to be in, and rarely does one become free from stuck by navel gazing, certainly not by whining. The opposite of being stuck is being free and we can achieve that by relaxing, observing and when the time is right gliding out of stucked-ness, spreading our wings and exercising our right to be free.

https://swprs.org/professor-ehud-qimron-ministry-of-health-its-time-to-admit-failure/?fbclid=IwAR0lX8mnIuC6Na8K3-fQof3Cv3n7pXssxY8iVP3KurfCYPa_kHD7i_n8v6I

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/we-failed-danish-newspaper-apologizes-publishing-official-covid-19-narratives-without

Specialists now agree the endemic is ending 

(that the video is still up on YouTube after nearly 300000 views in less than a day is telling, video's that are pro-vaccine free or against the mainstream narrative are normally taken down within an hour or so.)

https://youtu.be/U3W84wb5jKo

A rather nice shot of the view from my front terrace here in paradise

Screens, Teens and Covid 19

This is another in a series of essays on device and screen management last year, in 2016 and in 2014, Trying to keep up with both the changes we see in screen content and access modalities, platforms and devices as well as the changing needs and desires of our kids.

And there you have it,

Life happened. Despite all efforts to limit screen time, ensure quality content, negotiate on various screen plans and try to keep up with the shifting sands of what my teenage boys are accessing, two events came at us sideways since March. One is a consequence of our less than normal lives of drifting about the planet perpetually nomadic as expatriates, the second was (and still is) the event known variably as 'the pandemic', Covid, Corona, C19, ergo the Virus. I'll call it Covid, because a corona is a rainbow ring of gaseous plasma around the sun (or a beer), C19 is too science-like and a bit contrite and 'the pandemic' gets one's heart beating faster in a bad way.

We lead international lives and this Covidic summer we left Yangon, Myanmar our home for 4 years at the end of an international posting and hopped across to Korea, skipped over the big pond (Pacific) to western Canada, hunkered down in the province of Alberta for 2 weeks quarantine had a visit with a friend or 13 or 14, then moseyed over to Toronto and skadaddled across the other big pond (Atlantic) to Switzerland where we find ourselves settling in close to Geneva in France. Covid quarantine robbed us of 2 weeks in Canada, and with uncertainty and different stages of 'reopening' travelling about for visits was not in the cards this time, friends being responsibly cautious as to who could walk in the front door... and there we were like aliens in a way, landing from a different planet such as the other side of the world might be. 

As with many of us with teens, hand held screens have been central to our children's lives since the emergence of the iPad, the first and only hand-held web-enabled device accessible then for middle class kids all over the world fast forward to now when kids as young as 9 sport smart phones with more computing power than I had in a computer in my first job. This over the course of 10 years, 2010 - 2020; my kids are now 14 and 15.5yrs old... not hard math.

Our kids, and so we as parents are the pioneers of this new high speed connectivity everywhere modality of entertainment, communication, education, networking, artistic creation, connection it spans so many aspects of modern-day life. For my parents it was television... pshwaah I say, that was kindergarten stuff, now we're in the post-grad school of dealing with media and its content, and supporting our kids to make good choices; back in the day the dinner table debate was whether to mute the adverts during Bewitched or MASH or Hogan's Heros, the Flintstones, Sesame Street, or not... ;-) -- easy street.

March 18, 2020... that was the day it all changed for us. The day my teenage sons stayed home from school and being on screens for obscene amounts of time became legitimized as the online classroom went live. This was in Myanmar, in Yangon an emerging city still with not a lot of opportunities for teens, distant from beach or mountains for weekend trips, and a climate that drives you indoors to air conditioned luxury and your high-speed internet connection. It stayed that way for the months of #stayathome through pre-monsoon which is easily the worst time of year when it has been dry for months and the heat steadily builds, farmers burn off their crop stubble, the air is 45C and brown. Then the rains came in June and with them came the end of school. While it has to be said their British international school did a stellar job with the online classroom, even when 95% of the teachers absconded back to their home countries (or some to tropical islands in Thailand or Cambodia), they barely skipped a beat and launched into online learning full on, full-time.

Any home screen-limiting policies went out the window that day and I think for many parents, while relieved that school continued it was a bit of a two-sided coin; on the one hand their kids were being schooled and on the other their kids were being further inculcated into their various other worlds. Minecraft, Fortnite, Twitch, YouTube, Instagram that's what mine are into...if you can't say what yours are into then probably it would be good to find out. The usual axiom if you want to curb a behaviour is to attend to your own same behaviour first; you can't tell someone to stop smoking if you're a smoker and likewise with screens. What Covid brought was a denial of any strategy to put down our devices, when parents too were at home to work and everyone was on their screens and often at night depending on where your time zone landed you. I am working on an online Doctorate programme and much admin for my Wellness business is online. Am I on a screen too often. Definitely.

We were in our last weeks in Yangon, a 4 year posting coming to an end. While the 'stayathome' ended in mid-May and we left at the end of June, monsoon had arrived and so our departure was a bit soggy and sad. I blogged about our 5,4,3,2,1 trip across Asia and the Pacific  it was quite a trip, there are pictures there too ;-) 

We arrived on continent number 2, North America and found ourselves in a 2 week quarantine, of course with high speed internet. The online fun continued and we had a huge extended back-yard in the adjacent walking paths in Calgary, Alberta. We all took turns going for covid-safe but covert solo masked walks in the brilliant early summer sunshine, Canadian Rockies beckoning, Alberta blue skies stretching out far, full moon shining absolutely beautiful. Wearing masks outdoors still has me baffled. The rest of the time in quarantine... you guessed it, the boys (and me) were on our screens. Crazy stuff, never ends. We didn't travel much in Canada on this trip, normally we go on a visit-orgy to friends across the west but this year, as things were just starting to re-open it wasn't the time to be staying with friends. At ages similar to mine (57) many are caring for aging parents or were planning on visiting them after a long absence due to lock-downs or lock-ins and couldn't risk having us around. Pity though since we hadn't been to Canada for 4 years and have friends scattered hither and yon in western Canada with great lives and are fun to visit... you know who you are. Our last visit with you was when we moved from Kathmandu after 3 years there, who knows when the next one will be. 

A notable exception was stay at my great friend Karin's place in Banff, never felt welcomed as much as I feel there. And on this occasion again her door was open for me and the boys. We had a great few days in Banff, did 5 hikes and had spectacular weather. It may have been a bit of a shock for the boys, from being screen-bound for months suddenly we were free and out in the Rocky Mountain alpine.

I admit that the general lethargy of covid inspired couch time combined with travelling with 2 teens who were reticent anyway to visit yet another friend of Dad's who they didn't remember but of course remembered them, and who I think were tired from their school year meant that inspiration and enthusiasm had to come from one source... moi. And I was tired too. The cumulative busyness required to organize the trip and leave my flat, my business, the few solid friendships, stress around the unknowns we had been facing with the departure paradigm for many months funneled as we got closer to the end, and an awareness that the coming move was going to require considerable energy reserves as well meant that we were okay hunkering down and we just didn't travel. Missing friends but resting and readying for re-establishing in a new place yet again.

Our final leg in mid-August was to Europe, the third continent of our journey. It took us across Canada via Toronto (we didn't stop) and onward to Switzerland though we are settling in France just across the border from Lake Leman and Geneva.

The Swiss had just released their first list of 'banned' countries and mercifully Canada was not on it. Goddess bless Canadians for behaving themselves, masking when asked and being respectful and responsible enough to curb the curve for the most part, at least enough to bring the numbers into a statistically acceptable place. The screen dream continues in travel and the boys transcontinental travel is now about making sure they have internet access and the devices are fully charged! It is on their first trip to Ecuador in 2008, ages 4 and 6 in an effort to keep them awake at Schipol airport until the 11pm KLM 13hr flight to Quito I gave them a game boy each. Indeed I was the one who tipped them into the hand-held screen rabbit hole. All my fault ;-).

Habits have settled in. For example my eldest (15) started watching streams on twitch.com in Edmonton in July where for entertainment 1000's of people watch gamers doing what they do best... game play for hours and hours... My son has seized the day and 'hatllama' was born and now he is a streamer too... (cut to Supertramp 'nothing but a dreamer' right?), check him out, tell your kids, he broadcasts on twitch.com at 7:30pm (Central European Time) nearly nightly. My hope is that he is happy doing this, and he seems to be... and then my hope is that he will start to make some money from this, chalk it up as a success, and move on; it takes up a lot of his evening! His 'following' is growing slowly. But now he HAS to be on screen at 7:30pm so homework and dinner revolves around it (eyes rolling). 

My youngest (at 14) has become obsessed with YouTube though to give him credit he seems to be watching some fairly intellectual content at least of late... he did go through a phase of US-origin brain numbing content which was quite distressing. Rather than go out and play, they go to their rooms and screen despite urgings to the contrary... it's all a bit worrying and my eldest son's PE teacher on his initial assessment says his cardiovascular fitness (and flexibility) need improvement.

So it's not all bad news about devices and screen time. I've been poking around at my basic premise that screens are evil and kids need clear guidance to reduce their screen time... turns out I'm not entirely correct. The recent report from Commonsense media 'Tweens, teens, tech and mental health: Coming of age in an increasingly digital, uncertain and unequal world' suggests that it is more the content and quality of the media kids are accessing than the amount of time they spend on their screens. I think we all have experienced the phenomenon of not knowing what our kids are talking about, and for sure they are absorbing a huge amount of content we know nothing about. Try as I do to keep up, dinner table conversation between my sons escapes me entirely sometimes. Monitoring content for quality is another issue and discriminating between what is quality and what is not can be hugely divergent between the middle-aged father and his 2 adolescent sons. What is interesting is that we all zoned out to junk TV and its advertising and so I wonder is some of what they do the same as that? Should I worry? 

What is of concern of course is the amount of time spent indoors, the amount of time eyes straining to look at small back-lit screens, the bent-neck syndrome that structurally closes the esophagus. In the Wellness work I do this area is where the 'Spirit' element resides (5 Element theory), where self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth are seated and certainly as many critiques agree these are areas that are affected in young people today likely because of too much time spent online. Not to mention how the forward bending head, means you go around looking downward not upward and outward, not aware of your surroundings and what is going on. And when you meet people your eyes are not meeting theirs, yours are looking down, and maybe theirs are too, kinda sad when you think about it.

Covid then has put the kaybosh on my efforts to get screen-time under control during #stayathome in Myanmar or in quarantine and in a cautious Canada we were kept indoors and online more than I ever wanted during our time there. Now we have done the Atlantic hop to the France/Suisse border region, newcomers and without friendships in their new schools the boys are finding it hard to break into established social circles. They find easier social solace in adjusting their lives to when their friends in Myanmar, Japan, Australia (or closer, in the UK) are online and free to game or message, or talk on discord.com.  Who can blame them right?

Though sort of concomitant there is a certain laziness that has crept in as well, it is easier to go online than go for on a bike ride... and we all know that the less you use a muscle (for example) the harder it is to get that muscle active and pumping again. My sons were long-time in the tropics and too long in cities at a critical age, adapted to the slower pace, and then the heat and rain and less active opportunities in urban Yangon gradually wound down their energy and drive to get into sports. Now here where people are up and at 'em, out biking and hiking and climbing, etc...(and ski season is coming) there is a distinct preference to stay indoors and online even when the sun is shining which is a great pity given we are located on the slopes of the Jura mountains in France and within sight of the French and Swiss Alps.

Anyway, change is the only constant and certainly this change and in all our children this time of their lives is one of incredible change so 'this too shall pass' and we will see what the future holds for them, because it is coming fast. My advice? Know what your kids are doing online, know what content they are browsing, know who they are gaming with, remind them that balance between downtime, screen time, physical exercise, family time needs to be in their thinking, check out their posture and act if you see things going awry. This phase too shall pass and it is only a question of good shepherding them through because after this... they are largely on their own and hopefully will have absorbed some of what you gave them from a place of love.

 

Air Travel in the time of COVID19

Wow, what a trip it's been; not only the past 3 months of various stages of lock-down, stay home, quarantine, self-isolation whatever they call it wherever you are, anticipated extensions of rules, airport closures, border closures, daily stats of new cases, deaths, to mask or not to mask, conspiracy theories, cause debate, second waves, third waves, mitigation strategies, economic collapse, fearfulness, media manipulation... the list goes on and is based on your perspective. Now there is something interesting, a global event  shaped by our lived experience that forms our perspective, and how many different perspectives does that add up to? This is the subject of another article to follow. For now I only want to unpackage our lived experience transitioning from Yangon, the biggest city in Myanmar to Calgary in Canada, closest city to the Rocky Mountains.

We are expats. I have lived in 9 countries since 1997 when I left Canada, I have 2 son's the youngest now 13 so for him its been 6 countries. 
Our last stop was Myanmar, more specifically Yangon and after 4 years we left there in the midst of the annual monsoon drenching that will last another 3 months. Our travel is tagged to their mother's humanitarian work where she is re-posted every 3-5 years: Myanmar was a 4 year post, Nepal before that 3 years, a year in Ecuador, Beirut 3 years and before that and they were both born in Malaysia. Now we wait for news of the next post, her organization, as many, confounded by the new paradigm of uncertainty.  Before all that I worked as a humanitarian frontline worker living in Vietnam, East Timor, Afghanistan and over the years have worked in several other hotspots where human folly plays out as conflict and strife. Now and for the past 8 years I am a therapist, focused on wellness harnessing approaches and tools that have evolved over 1000's of years, mainly from Indian and Chinese traditions to help bring balance to the body systems. I have a website: https://www.elementalwellness.life/

So this wasn't our first move... though this one was different, very different and it has to be said it wasn't so hard, with kids now in their teens and pretty well dialed in to planes and airports and what is going on travelling has become pretty easy. What was hard was the context of travelling during the time of Covid; what would usually be pretty straightforward was suddenly fraught with uncertainty. From booking to paying to meeting requirements to travel, to checking in...  And we were all saying good-bye Myanmar, the friends, the house lived in for 4 years, and Karma, the family dog (not a happy dog) would have to stay behind for his rabies vaccine waiting period for 3 months! The boys Mum too would remain and join later in the summer with a planned move to Europe.

My sons finished their virtual schooling June 18 and we made plans to get out of Myanmar. There was a bi-weekly 'relief' flight to Seoul, Korea and an uncertain weekly  UN Humanitarian Air Service flight to Kuala Lumpur. We opted for the former, with western Canada being our end destination flying to Korea was on the way. Unfortunately the Monday flight gets you in early on Tuesday and there is no Tuesday flight to Vancouver until the next day, and you can't stay in Seoul more than 24hrs without being quarantined there... so we ended up going via Narita and Vancouver with Calgary being our end destination... nothing so simple about booking that I can tell ya.

5 airports, 4 flights, 3 travellers, 2 Mondays, 1 destination. 

There is a great website btw to help decode entry to different countries https://flattenthecurve.global/

We checked in early arriving by 6:30 pm for a 9:00pm departure, we were helping friends who will move to Calgary from Yangon in August by using our extra bag allowance to carry '3 bags full' for them. Pretty cheap, I negotiated a discount down to $100 ea extra bag then all 6 bags were tagged through to Calgary... sweeeet! Nothing I like more on a long multi airport trip than saying good-bye to my bags at the beginning and hello at the end! 

There were no questions about final destination (we have Canadian passports), no request for the 'fit to fly' certificates, Covid negative tests, etc... nada. Smooth sailing and why shouldn't it be? Myanmar, country of 55 Million people porous border with China and Thailand and yet only 6 deaths and 317  cases (time of writing), no increased mortalities in the population over 3 months... surely is one of the lowest Covid19 risk places on earth (one of the highest for dengue fever which so far in 2020 has killed ).  And please, let's not talk about testing; once I understood the 'accuracy' of the PCR test and how testing was being done either randomly or using a prescribed method or in a targeted (new arrivals, symptompatics, case tracing) manner, I stopped watching the stats, especially comparing countries... a terrific way to waste time. 

The Yangon Airport was of course deserted. I think we were the only flight. The moving goal-posts of Airport re-opening dates have been a real feature here usually announced 3 days before-hand first it was mid-June then end-June, mid-July and now end-July is the newest prospective date to re-open. Though rumour has it perhaps the Airport will reopne in October. The Korean Airlines 'relief' flight (I believe it is so-named because it relieves the pressure in Myanmar felt by 'trapped' expats and Myanmar people trapped elsewhere...) has been running 2x/week since the beginning of airport closures and Seoul's Incheon airport was one of the first to reopen and so people are now flying east to Seoul to then fly west to Europe, convenient though to go to North America and other places in Asia. Good strategy by the Myanmar and the Koreans!

Sensibly Myanmar stays in step with Thailand on 're-opening' as do clusters of other countries in ASEAN ; Bangkok being the biggest travel hub in SE Asia. And Thailand is being super cautious knowing it has a responsibility not only to its own population but to the region, and the world. Nice folks, and smart. The China factor presents an interesting conundrum, who is going to open up to China first? And when will the political/economic pressure come to bear to open to the big money of China tourism? 

It was kind of funny when our gate number changed 30mins before boarding... I mean why, when there were no other flights!? We made our way to the new gate through darkened deserted departure areas, the airport wifi didn't even work, and the only public announcement was the one reminding you to keep distance, mask up and wash hands every 5 mins. A kiosk with coffee, fizzy drinks, beer, cup-noodle and candy bars brought up the rear as our passenger group straggled to the new gate. I had my last Myanmar Premium beer! I like Yangon airport, it is clean, quiet, not too big or busy, has all the amenities (full disclosure) including a Burger King where we ritually pay homage to junk food exceptionally indulging when departing, but not this time; like all other shops and restaurants, even Burger King was closed.

We were greeted at the door by flight crew in their new dapper Covid duds, well-protected, the evident presumption of contagion supercedes the logic that given the low incidence in Myanmar and that 'stay-at-home' has been in place since April, we could hardly be infected. Can't be too careful and what airline wants a single case to originate on it's flight!? So we were distant from other people, food came and had been plasticized more than I've ever seen, at least on this leg we got wine... all other flights there was no wine... that's when you know things are serious and you have to question the wisdom of flying in the time of Covid... I mean no wine? Seriously?

So it began, sterile uncrowded planes from one airport to the next, Yangon (RGN) to Seoul (ICH) to Tokyo (NRT) to Vancouver (YVR) to Calgary (YYC). It has to be said, planes these days at least with Korean and Air Canada are pretty clean places, better than your average Tim Hortons or Starbucks for sure. The recirculated air is hepa filtered, everyone is masked, some more than others and you might get your own row which is a nice perk for the over-night's and if you don't then there is at least a seat between people. Our first was an overnight and only 5 hrs long unfortunately because we each had a row to ourselves and could stretch out.

We had 6 hrs wait in the shiny Incheon Airport terminal building outside Seoul, no complaints except nothing was open when we arrived and when they did open at 7am, there was really nothing to be had. We self-declared our Wellness and in return got nifty little certificates.

Our wait was fine, able to charge up all devices and even get a wee bit more sleep on nice chairs and sleepers in spacious environs; we sat far in excess of the 2m distancing required. The airport is all glass, steel and marble and was pretty eerily empty, would have been great to have a skateboard or inline skates.

Out on the tarmac you could sense through a rainy morning the issues at hand, not only here but globally, fleets of luggage carriers, planes sitting idle for weeks and months add up to people idle too, poverty rising with unemployment, airlines going bankrupt, airports going bankrupt and then your mind wanders towards the impact on tourist economies and how absolutely devastating this continues to be. 

Before long you start wondering about lock-down as a means of doing what exactly.... containing the virus? Actually yes to some degree, but mostly it was implemented to avoid overwhelming healthcare systems and give time for public health and medical exploration as to the best way forward ... that's what 'flatten the curve' was all about. What about countries with already overwhelmed healthcare systems and precarious economies (most lower income countries)? Is lockdown a viable strategy for them where there is little capacity for government support to small businesses and the newly unemployed, no public safety net... only the prospect for broader misery and deeper poverty (which btw translates globally to more hungry children). Lockdown for many countries, Myanmar being one, has been a serious mis-adventure, one that has ruined the economy and caused great suffering and continues to do so as the economic 'second wave' has not yet hit. But more on that in another blog. Onward.

The flight from Seoul to Narita was surprisingly 'crowded' if you can call 2/3 full crowded, it is a less than 2 hour flight and well, to be honest we were not the best dressed in terms of PPE!

Really, the international flights were bubbles of cleanliness, I can speak only of the planes we were on; my understanding is that elsewhere, places where masks are being challenged and mistrust of government advice is more the norm, flights may not be so hygenic, but all of ours were amazing, and we were breathing sanitized hepa filtered air!

On the plane to Narita we had to fill in 6 forms... some of which had no English translation, the flight crew helped but didn't know since we were in transit for only 3 hours whether we had to complete them or not. In the end, I mean really, the 3 of us and any other transit passenger, chucked their forms in the bin! Tut tut.

 

Tokyo airport was like the others, granted it was early but most things were closed, people kept distance sat apart, everyone was masked. As we were leaving Dunkin Donuts opened so we got some 'breakfast'. The departure boards curiously showed more cancelled flights than those 'on time' and I'm not sure why the cancelled ones would be on the board at all, must auto-poll and post the data and they can't turn it off or something.

Our flight to Vancouver, the longest leg at 9 hrs was painless aboard a rather nice 777. We somehow ended up in Premium Economy which, if you have the whole row as we did I don't advise because the armrest is where the tray table is and doesn't fold up so you can't lie down across seats! Sigh. Who knew!

The Air Canada flight crew were as usual well aged (like a fine wine) and their usual courteous blasé selves, I swear Air Canada flight attendants are taught to be staid and just the right side of polite so as not to lose their jobs. Asian airlines, crews are younger and more peppy, helpful and don't have that 'don't piss me off, I've been doing this 30 years attitude', because in Asia people are grateful to have a job and that they get to travel is a huge thing. 

We were seated pretty much in our own rows I'd guess they spread the customers out and seat placement on the advance seating chart adjusts with the numbers booked. Sterility wasn't overly evident on this flight, PPE wasn't over the top, but neither were there pillows, nor blankets despite the length of the flight. I think this is a bit of a cheat from AC, always looking to cut corners. We know that pillow-cases or pillows are usually disposed of and blankets are collected for laundering after every flight so where is the risk? Not to mention that they only have to carry less than 1/4 of what they normally do. 

The dinner came (no wine or fizzy drinks...why?) all the food wrapped in plastic. I'll say that it was pretty good like 6/10 even though nothing on it had seen a farmers field anytime recently. Like hospital food, you can complain endlessly about airplane food but what's the point, you have to simply be grateful for being fed 10km up in the sky zooming along at 1000 kph... soaring in the jetstream in the middle of a pandemic. 

And so we landed through the cloudy drizzly morning, having crossed the dateline over the Pacific we were back to being Monday morning again. Sigh. Two Monday mornings, lucky us. Vancouver Airport was also empty, time of day and Covid combined it was eerily quiet. We had our Covid self-declarations in hand, it is a form with information and a tick-box list that we understood and agreed to self-isolate for 14 days in one location, go directly from the airport, have someone deliver food, etc. There was a space for a phone number, address and email address, I had my Myanmar mobile number and I was pretty sure that wouldn't work so I gave a Calgary friend's number, our Air BnB address and my email address. The form said we would be contacted within 3 days and possibly every 24hrs. I wondered how the form and information would even get to Alberta and when.

It was so nice to pass the familiar Salish spindle whorl, an eagle around a man welcoming travellers, the world's largest and to see the Salish Houseposts greeting people to Canada is warm and reassuring that you have arrived. That is the usually bustling immigration hall, in younger years of arriving back it's here I'm usually pulled out of the queue for extra-special treatment by Immigration officers, not this time, we waltzed straight on down.

We approached Border services all three of us and presented the 'single household' Covid declaration form to the officer. I was a bit surprised that it was here that our form got the look over and to confirm that we understood the tick-list. When I mentioned about the phone number he didn't flinch, in fact he didn't really seem to care and had an attitude while asking us questions that I found curious; either he didn't think it was something to take seriously or he didn't think it was his job to ask... something like that.

Apparently this is what is supposed to happen, didn't really happen that way, was softer, less strident.. https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/multimedia/ncov/air-avion-eng.html and well to be honest, less serious.

Anyway, the officer's parting words as we passed into Canada were 'Welcome Home' so that was nice. We were hungry and since our bags were checked through we hustled to Domestic departures, I was surprised to see as I passed the exit for International Arrivals no Covid checking people, no nurse greeting to see if all was well, no one checking to see that people were in fact getting in a vehicle to to directly to their self-isolation location. Nope people just milling about and exiting waiting for friends, all having come off the same plane, all from overseas, most Canadian. Was a bit odd.

Doing as good Canadians do when on a morning flight, we headed to Tim Hortons eh! This is where for the first time in months I felt the most exposed to the virus. I think we caught a shift change as there were quite a few worker types milling about getting coffee and breakfast, unmasked for the most part, a crowd looking pretty much like normal. This was a bit surprising given what we thought we knew of the response to Covid here and it was not the armageddon we were prepared for. 

The flight to Calgary was less 'hygenic' than any of the previous 4 but it was a domestic commuter hop, most people flying anyway should be at least symptom free. Arrival was uneventful and soon our 6 bags appeared off the baggage carousel. I was running about looking for a place to buy a SIM card so I had a phone number but none to be found. We exited, our friends were there waiting, one to pick up the 3 bags that we had carried and the others with a spare car so we could self-drive 'directly to our place of isolation' as per instructions.

Our cute little place of self-isolation on a sunny day, the days were not all sunny ;-)

We had arrived, I understand why returning Canadians have to self-isolate I do... I don't get why we can't be trusted to go for walks in parks or beaches, the requirement is that you stay on the private property or if in a hotel stay in your room. Pretty restrictive, where is the understanding that sunlight and exercise support immunity and wellness? Methinks they missed something not trusting the population and this is a mistake, educated people are better off with the opportunity to self-govern. It's when they stray that perhaps government needs to step in.

That said, we have been trusted to behave these past 14 days; my friend has received 2 automated phone calls and I have had 2 emails reminding me of the rules. We heard on 01 July that Canada had done a good enough job of containing the virus that we are on the list of countries able to enter the EU! So they must be doing something right. A frontline healthcare worker here in Calgary told me yesterday that for her Canadians should be thanked for staying home and locking down the way they were required... she says a major health crisis was averted. If that's the case then for sure the people of Myanmar deserve big cudos as well! 

That's it... Welcome to Canada in the time of Covid, our next travel will be to Europe! Stay tuned!

Full Moon in July over Calgary, Alberta