Baby God

It is Saturday morning! My body is all kinds of screwed up! We made it home last night around midnight, our latest night thus far in Singapore. We were giddy as all hell and sleeping was not going to happen anytime soon because our bodies were convinced that it was 10:00 in the morning. Finally around 1:00 we made ourselves go to bed. I awake at 6:30 unable to sleep. Ugh. Today is our day off for the week. This morning Amanda (the other Amanda in the group) and I are going to go for a run at the botanical gardens. Hopefully we do not sweat out our entire body weight. After that hopefully we can catch some sun by the pool! It is Singapore’s raining season so there have been bouts of rain for the past few days. Yesterday was probably the rainiest day so far, which was ok. We had an early morning poolside discussion. Where have the group shared who they felt they were culturally. The other half will go next week. After that the rain stunted our laying out plans so we headed to the room and chatted for a few hours. It is so enjoyable getting to know these wonderful ladies! It already feels like we go all the way back to high school! After that we met up with the group and headed out to visit a Traditional Chinese medicine doctor. He explained to us how the Chinese anatomy looks at the body holistically. If someone is coming to you with a mental health issue it is become something within the body is causing sorrow, insomnia, or anger.  According to Chinese medicine if there is something wrong with the lung it correlates with sorrow, lover correlates with anger, heart correlates with happiness, and the stomach correlates with worry. The abdomen is a very important part of the body because it’s health is vital to your energy, especially the kidneys. We also were able to see an actual patient get treated for a dislocated elbow. There was a lot of massaging of abdomen, arms, and shoulder along with a foot treatment that required burning the bottom of the foot repeatedly with a hot needle. Umm Ouch!  The Dr. and his wife had us try some herbs to help with energy. It felt like chewing tree bark and tasted like honeysuckle! After the Chinese medicine doctor we took the longest and probably worst bus ride every over to the Malaysian part of Singapore. Over here they do not believe is coasting. It’s either hitting the gas excessively or slamming on the breaks! Hello motion sickness! We all got off the bus quezy and ready to throw up! After we adventured around and saw the preparations for a traditional Malaysian wedding and were bombarded by a security guard our stomachs finally setting down enough for some food! We went to a Malaysian food court and shared Mi Laksa and Noodle Wanton. Both excellent suggestions from Len. He also suggested their desert with is fruit flavored jelly. Definitely not the same kind of dessert you find in the USA. It was light and no chocolate! (That is something I am missing, chocolate!) After dinner we adventured out to our Shaman visit. We had a little bit of an issue with direction and ended up very near the red light district. It was pretty apparent by the women that were giving us directions. Len thought they were “very nice women.” When we finally found the Shaman.  The ritual started out with lighting of incense, which gave all of us red, puffy, irritated eyes! It was a small cramped room filled not only the thirteen of us, but many other regulars as well as volunteers that help the ceremony flow smoothly.  The shaman did a ritual and then the volunteers began to chant while the shaman began to take on the spirit of the baby god. After the transformation we could consult with the baby god. We had to each go through a short ritual before we were able to consult. The consultation rang true for some and for others it seemed to strike a cord that was hurtful. After we had time to decompress about our experience with the baby god we came to realize we had really had to take this experience accept it for what it is and know that others really do use this as a source of coping and stability in their lives. It may be hard for us, who have come from such a modern, westernized culture; to really take this ritual and give it meaning in our lives but we can accept and appreciate the others find solace and peace through these means. Overall it was an experience I will never regret or forget.