Pushing Buttons

Internet access, especially wireless access, in Laos can be the equivalent of getting a doctorate degree in patience.  I use free wireless at a place called Vista WiFi Café, so it is a little out of line to complain about the speed.  The arrangement works out well. During a leisurely breakfast (3 hours sometimes) and slowly check email, read blogs and catch up on the news.  When I have something large to upload or download, I head over to Joma Bakery on Settathirat and pay for a more acceptable speed.  If I am looking for true high-speed internet, I head for a regular internet café to catch up on beachwalks or zefrank or maybe a quick look at the best of utube.

There is one problem with the Joma Bakery segment of my connection technique.  It’s not really a problem, but yesterday it pushed the limits.  There is a man, named Akiki, who sits out front and plays his flute – he knows three notes.  Akiki is a very kind man who is afflicted with Downs Syndrome.  I’ve had experience with people with this syndrome before so, to me, Akiki is not the intrusion that others see him as.  He likes to play with my camera – some of his photos are not bad.  He also loves to play with my micro-recorder.  When I get home, I just delete the 40 minutes of him yelling hello and other incomprehensible things into the microphone.  It doesn’t really bother me.  Yesterday, we took it a bit too far.

I was trying to save some writing I had been doing and, wanting to participate in the fun, Akiki decided to “help” with my typing.  On the right hand side of my Toshiba Satellite laptop (purposefully inexpensive in case of theft), there are some buttons.  One of the buttons is the illuminated power button.  Do I need to specify which button was most attractive to Akiki?

As I mentioned, internet access in Laos comes at a premium.  Often, when I have a fast connection, I will load up a dozen or two web pages to read offline.  I had queued up about 20 pages from the US Department of State, United Nations, BBC, and other sites over the past few days.  I had also 3 scraps of writing – about 10 pages – open in MSWord.  Usually, my laptop is rather slow, but when the power button is pushed, it functions with terrific expediency.

I wanted to get mad.  I wanted to get very mad.  I had lost hours of work.  Akiki doesn’t speak a single word of English.  What could I do?  I used what Lao language I had mastered – which was a very short rant.  “Baw!!!  Sua!!!” – which means, I hope, “No!!!  Bad!!!”

This morning in the shower (I do a lot of thinking in the shower to forget about the cold water), I thought about the buttons on my laptop.  I think of them as a tool.  They are a vehicle which helps me to express my thoughts to others, to keep in touch, and to continue expanding my knowledge.  They are something that I take seriously… well, for the most part. For someone else, Akiki for example, the buttons are simply things to be pushed.  The result doesn’t seem to be as much fun as the pushing.  I tried to come to terms with this as I rinsed off the soap.  I felt I had cleared the issue.

After showering, I headed off to Vista WiFi to check my email.  When I opened my laptop, the machine was frozen, document recovery wasn’t working, and the internet access was abysmally slow.  My frustration with the cold shutdown yesterday returned.  Then I looked at my inbox.  An email from a good friend was waiting for me.  I knew from the subject line the content of the email.  The subject simply read “Brucey”.

I knew what the email would say.  Bruce has been fighting brain cancer for the past few years.  In fact, he discovered his illness only a week or two after I had met him.  Bruce passed away on April 29, 2007.  Bruce Banks was one of the nicest people you would every want to meet.  Bruce’s courage was remarkable.  His handling of his situation was, and still is, an inspiration to me.  The world is lucky to have met him.

Sitting at my laptop, no longer in any hurry to open my emails, eventually, the internet got a little quicker.  I opened the email, I read the obituary, I made a little prayer of thanks for the time I had to get to know him a little bit.  No longer did Akiki’s fun, at the expense of my time, seem important at all. 

Don’t worry if someone pushes your buttons.  There are worse things that can happen.  As I finish writing this, the pleasant couple next to me (they noticed I was crying), got up to leave.  The man said to me “have a nice day”.  I plan to do just that.

It is better
to say goodbye than to have never said hello.