Where in the World is Garry?

Postcard from the Edge

Just What I Always Wanted…

On my journey home I had the pleasure again of familiarizing myself with Taipei International airport. I was quite taken with a particular bill board which reminded me of my extended sojourn in south east asia three years previous. During that time it was always my ambition to be the pioneer traveler. To come across sleepy villages tucked away in the hills, untouched and untainted by western culture. There I would meet with the village shaman and through a sophisticated system of sign and body language and a mutual understanding of all things of this earth we would laugh heartitly at life's precious gift. A crowd would gather, at first timid at the sight of this white ghost from a far away land but gradually they would grow bold and we would gesture together. Eventually village life would continue as it had before my arrival. Children would play carefree, chickens would peck aimlessly around the stilts of the village houses as the ripples of my arrival gradually died away. Unfortunately this never happened. The villages I visited had seen it all before. I was just another white face whose very presence signified that I had spent more money on my airfare then they might hope to earn in a year. This however didn't stop me trying and I found the children, oblivious to the perverse difference between the adults, to be the social lubricant to at least prompt a grin from some of them. We should I suppose be thankful for small mercies. As time went on I found myself ruminating over my apparent lack of spirituality and the appreciation of the oneness and interconnectedness of all things. Perhaps it was something lacking in my personality that prevented such sepia encounters.

It wasn't until I saw this billboard that I realised what it was I was lacking - technology!

How stupid did I feel?

Here we see Derek from Milton Keynes. He enjoys gardening and going down the pub with his mates on a Sunday. Derek has just met Kachoonsuk Tacharachnachan and in a meaningful exchange made possible by the MagnaTech Solvit, in this case solving

how to breach the vast distance that separates Derek and Kachoonsuk?

"It's me Azalias, they don't look as right nice as yers, Kachoonsuk. What ales them lass?"

Kachoonsuk thinks for a moment and begins to write...