The Brown Shoelace Chronicles: A Collection of Short Stories from Far off Lands

By Xlibris US

Early one February I was fortunate enough to be selected to make a short business trip to visit my companys office in the Philippines. I was looking forward to see the faces and shaking the hands of several of the names I had been working with over the phone and through e-mail over the years. However since the trip was for only 4 days I thought the 24-hour plane flight was going to be the only adventure I had in store. Well the four-day trip turned out to be a 14-day trip, which ended up being a several month trip and eventually ended up almost a year in duration that spanned several countries. So I had plenty of time to get into trouble, experience a new culture and be a little adventurous.


This is a collection of the short stories that I sent home during my assignments in Manila, Trinidad and Indonesia, I hope you enjoy them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499017236

Book preview

THE THING THAT MAKES

THIS PLACE SO UNIQUE IS

THE COMMUNICATION

(A man attempts shopping)

A ll the signs and almost all of the TV shows here are in English. However most people speak little but their native language, Tagalog (which seems to be a cross between Spanish, English and something I believe they picked up from a Star Wars movie). However they all seem to understand and speak American slang and sales slogans quite well. Anyway my point here is shopping, yes I know something every man dreads and a communication gap makes this all the more frustrating to the gender that actually expects to bring a desired object home from the mall. You see I broke the shoelace on one of my black dress shoes the other day. I know, this already sounds boring, but hey I got a minute, I thought this might be a funny story so just bare with me.

Where was I? O yeah, I broke a black shoelace the other day so on Sunday I thought hey how about a trot over to the Festival Mega Mall (until recently the largest mall in all Asia) and fetch me a new lace?. Simple enough plan, it was hot out, the Mall is air-conditioned, I could grab a bite, see a movie. All around make a day of it. So I walked the 3 blocks to the Festival Mega Mall (until recently the largest mall in all Asia) ready to quickly score me some shoelaces grab a Big Mac and see a movie. I hit 3 shoe stores and did not see one shoelace, so had to resort to actually asking for assistance in store 4. By now I’m getting a little hungry but this has sprouted into a mission, I can not stop until I get my lace. Now that actual eye contact has been made at store 6, I must verbally communicate with these people. The next few shops the clerks just looked at me as if I was crazy, the few after that made motions that no black laces could be had there. However the cheerful chirps and enthusiastic gestures indicated I would have little trouble if I required lime green or shocking pink laces. So now I have to stoop to asking directions, (hear me out guys before you chastise me this story could give us some validation for NOT doing this in the long run). OK so now I’ve been to about 8 shoe stores and one kinda Kmart thing and no laces (didn’t I say this is Festival Mega Mall (until recently the largest mall in all Asia) but now I have directions… . in Tagalog (the national language, that can only be spoken by an American male if he has been recently kicked in the groin). So armed with my best translation of munbo-jumbo hand waving and head nodding I’m on my way again to get some laces, and hopefully still have time for my happy meal. It took me another 10 minutes to discover, not my destination, but another shoe store here at the Festival Mega Mall (until recently the largest mall in all Asia). Again to my avail no black laces, so I try to keep the directions to just the store name that has black laces when I make my quire. Again I get a Tagalog response, again more hand waving and nodding and off I go. Four more times I don’t find the store they sent me to, I find another four different shoe stores (yes that’s right more shoe stores in the Festival Mega Mall (until recently the largest mall in all Asia). Four more times I don’t find black laces. Four more times I am directed to four different stores with names, in Tagalog. By now I’m tired I must have waked over 10 miles inside Festival Mega Mall (until recently the largest mall in all Asia), sorry just had to do that again. Now I’m pretty much convinced that none of these stores exist. The thought that this has all been cruel entertainment for these clerks enters my mind. To me there is a very distinct possibility that clerks in all of the shoe stores here in the Festival Mega Mall (until recently the largest mall in all Asia) have been calling each other to see how much of a wild goose chase they can keep me on. I decide the game is over, it’s to late for a burger, I just want to go home, as I get to the mall entrance there is, you guessed it one last shoe store. I stagger in and inquire about black shoelaces, and as I get the standard reply (in Tagalog) I happen to see one pair of brown shoelaces even in the right length. I snatch them up, I must have seemed a little to eager because they ended up costing about $10. In looking back I think that might have been part of the ploy all along, have me run around the mall until I would spend $10 for a $1.50 item in the wrong color. A Big Mac, fries and a coke cost $1.50 and a movie cost $2.50. So you see guys it doesn’t do any good to ask directions. If you can’t find it the first time, eat a Big Mac and go see a movie, believe me you’ll save time and money in the long run.

OUTDOOR TEAM BUILDING

(White collar boot camp)

F or those of you that haven’t ever herd of the term Team building let me try to explain it. Well the best way I can figure to describe it is as a new exercise tailored to lower and middle management to help them achieve mutual trust, learn to appreciate the strengths in others and the advantages of working together as an effective team. Or in simple terms its marriage counseling for middle managers. So in that light one would expect an outdoor team building session to be a meeting of the minds in the fresh air and sunshine, nothing to physical for us slightly pudgy sedimentary paper pushers. For those of you that have actually been to one of these I would love to hear how this story compares to your experience.

This is my account of a Philippine Outdoor team building event for those of you that may have been there with me, this is purely just my personal recollection and may stray slightly from your own or even in some places, possibly the truth. So just enjoy my story with the personal satisfaction in knowing you were right in suspecting I have a rather loose grasp on reality.

Well in the sprit of team work and project togetherness I consented to attend an Outdoor team building session last Saturday. Not ever experiencing this level of responsibility during my employment so far, I never had an opportunity to attend one of these before. So I really didn’t know what to expect and since there was no release form, like the one for the upcoming company picnic I decided it would probably be tame enough to not get too excited about. Just some cheerleading and trying to build a better mousetrap by committee, you know that kind of stuff. So I just tried to scrounge up the suggested clothing consisting of the usual outdoor attire, a pair of jeans, sneakers, T-shirt and cap (remember I originally came here for 4 days so I have with me mostly business casual attire). I had most everything covered except the shoes and I wasn’t going to buy a pair of tennis shoes to just play charades under a coconut tree. I figured my topsider knock-offs would surfice for some finger pointing and head scratching on the Saturday outing.

Saturday gets here so I walk from the hotel to the office with my new boss to catch the bus to the team building location. We wait in front of the office swatting misquotes with the 45 or so other fortunate souls invited to attend. While waiting I was told where the site is, but it could have been the North Pole as far as I knew, so I had no clue as to weather we would be on the bus 4 minuets or 4 hours. As it turned out it was somewhere in between. It was an extremely beautiful drive in the country, and in the country it was. We drive through little hamlets with street front shops selling everything from used Jeepney parts to fresh baked bread, through narrow allies, past coconut plantations, past pineapple plantations, past… . well I think you got the picture by now. I’m starting to think, if I weren’t in a company bus I would have sworn they were driving us all out to the boonies to rob us and leave us for dead (in retrospect I think I would have preferred that to what was really in store for us). The end to our long ride brings us to a very impressive private farm, I believe it is called the Bluerose Farm but I really don’t recall. Anyway once there we are guided to a massive dinning hall to eat breakfast (yes, breakfast, did I forget to mention we left the office at 6:00 am?). The dinning hall is very nice, just an enormous roof with hanging vines on all sides for walls. The back of the hall was setup for a wedding reception that afternoon, everything was lovely. We all settled to tables and had our Philippine style breakfast. Don’t ask me what it was but it tasted OK. There was a roll, some kind of meat that was like jerky, a kind of omelet, papaya juice (it was probably mango juice, but I can’t spell that) and instant coffee. It was really kind of like a normal breakfast in a Louisiana waffle house. The main differences were the jerky, it was all served cold, the strawberry jam (I thank that’s what it was, I stopped asking, it’s better that way) tasted like it had chili powder in it, the papaya juice and everything was served with rice. Other than that… . oops hold on I did say a Louisiana waffle house, so just consider the papaya juice and rice out of place. OK let’s move on, it’s taking longer to write about the breakfast than it took to eat it.

After breakfast we meet our tormentors, sorry I meant to say guides. Then had a short prayer (looking back I should have spent more time on that) of coarse then there were the standard management speeches followed by a calestenic ice breaker. This icebreaker was a kind of Simon says chicken dance combo that I’m sure lead to some blackmail worthy photo opportunities. Then we plunged into the meat of the event. Foremost we were broken down into 4 teams of just over 10 each. Next we had to come up with a team flag and cheer; each team was given a box of crayons, an 11x17 sheet of paper and a piece of tape. These items and about 10 minuets were what we had to compose our little countries. I somehow was fortunate enough to find myself in the mist of several individuals that were more aware of energy conservation than had artistic imagination. Our cheer, it was pointed out should be very simple as to not require much in memory skills or have ambitious jesters requiring undue energy output, so a simple yet very tasteful WEEEHEEE!!! Was composed with a clap to punctuate its conclusion. The flag took somewhat more effort, although my suggestion of unavailing a plan white flag, was favorably embraced. While I tried to bolster my design or general lack there of, by pointing out that a white flag my become useful later in the day (little did I know how true a statement that really was). It eventually lost out to a star inside a circle design that overall showed a particular interest in the color green, which coincidentally happened to be our team color. Soon after the time limit expired our team was systematically outclassed by every other team, as they unvalued their ornate flags and perfectly choreographed cheers (big surprise there eh?). However we were confident we wouldn’t forget our battle cry and we kept the back of the flag white, just incase.

So with our identity crises behind us we began the games. First off we needed a team leader, soon fingers were pointing to me. As I tried to back out of this esteemed position, I was assured all that would be required of me was to hold a compass and point. Humm I thought I could manage that, so I accepted (I really wish I had remembered the shoe lace/mall incident prior to this point). So now I am the leader of this lackluster crew, armed with my compass and no clue to what we are doing. I guess I need to remind you all, I’m in a foreign country, and people here tend to speak their own language, Tagalog (Ta-ga-law) which just so happens at this point I was shortsighted enough to not learn to speak.

Apparently our first task is to put together a puzzle in the shortest time possible. It looked like it may have been designed for a 2 year old, it had a very small quantify of very large pieces, yes there was a catch. Only 2 people could manipulate the pieces, they had to be blindfolded and the others couldn’t touch them. So now we have 12 people squatting down shouting in some odd language and pointing. It looked more like a surreal crap game than a company sponsored event. As in any large group there is always one individual that seems to believe he knows exactly how to do everything better than the rest. Despite the persistent coaching from our own resident expert, we did manage to finish.

Now I know what you are all thinking, as it was my thought through all of this as well, what is this dang compass for?. Well let me get to that, you see now that we have rather loosely touched on trust and communication with the puzzle it is time to partake on a road trip. There were several notes tacked to various trees. Each note had the name of a color that corresponded to a team, a task to jointly complete and that’s right a compass heading to the next note. So as our navigator, me, a seasoned sailor, starts to confidently blaze the trail to the first note. I take the baring point my arm out towards the direction we should walk and off they go, like a horde of children at an Easter egg hunt. As my team scurries off the guide keeps asking me are you sure that’s the right direction?. Not to worry though, they didn’t get too far, seems I led everyone right into the side of the mess hall. So we all stood there staring at this blanket of vines wondering what to do, yes there was a lot of mumbling and fingers being pointed at me, I wish you hadn’t brought that part up (I just knew you were thinking it). Well anyway 2 or three would break away from the pack and make a wide circle looking high and low for signs, like blood hounds trying to find the sent. Then one gets the bright idea to run a-r-o-u-n-d the building to the other side. Sure enough there were 4 trees tagged with the first markers one for each team.

The first we came to said Red Team 1 then Blue Team 1 on to White Team 1 and as luck would have it ours was last Pink Team 1 WEEEHEEE clap. I know, I know you thought we were the Green team, well we are and how the Pink thing came about may never be solved. So for the rest of the morning we go from marker to marker doing all kinds of odd ball Team building stuff like tying 2 people’s legs together and helping them to the next marker. Attempting to build something (don’t ask me what I don’t speak the language remember) out of a bag of trash. You know what you would expect from this kind of thing.

Well just as I was settling into thinking this was going to be a piece of cake, I only got my team lost 3 times. The dark side of our guide appeared, as we found ourselves at a pair of trees with a cable connecting them about 4 feet off the ground. There was a sliding rope suspended above the cable I imagined was to hold on too as you did a tight ropewalk. Well I didn’t have to imagine long, that was exactly what was expected of us. One by one we did a white knuckle shaky wobbly way across the cable. I managed to put this off to almost last, with the constant direction of our resident expert I managed to make it across, barley WEEEHEEE clap. I am quite sure my display on the cable made my Simon says chicken dance pale in comparison.

Now armed with a new compass heading I pointed the way and off they went, not caring that this was no longer the finely manicured farm we were on previously. My loyal benevolent team bounded forward leaving me and the guide far behind, the whole while I kept hearing are you sure… .? Hearing that from the guide in the past was never a good thing, double-checking my compass I discovered (yet again) that I have sent those poor souls in the wrong direction.

On the upside however I had made up a pretty good excuse for my poor performance on the cable, yep blamed it on my shoes. The downside was I was running out of believable excuses for not being able to read a compass (do you ever get the feeling I may be about as sharp as an axe handle sometimes?). Just in time to save me from making another lousy excuse, the snack bell rang (OK, OK so you know there aren’t any snack bells in the jungle, the guide said Hey it’s snack time happy now?). We all meander back to the mess area and of coarse have to give a loud WEEEHEEE clap. All right then where was I? Oh yeah I was eating a tuna sandwich (it looked like tuna anyway, still going with the don’t ask don’t tell thing) and drinking a coke. Thankful that the one strenuous activity was behind me, the walking all around hells half-acre caring a compass was bad enough. Well snack time ended and the guide ends up walking us back towards the 2 terror trees. Opon closer inspection there are more, oh yes we have several opportunities to ropewalk rope climb, and in my