My sister sends this from Bangkok, titled Re: flections. :

"As I ride on the back of a motorcycle taxi, side-saddled, hitting speedbumps, on the small 10 minute drive side street that leads to my school, I see the same fat buddhist monk receiving food from people on their knees before him..His face pursed. his eyes bored.

We pass a white dog playing with a rat like a puppy would with a sock.

We pass the man with the shoulder-lenth graying hair, who has cool jewelry, and looks high on drugs. He stands before a wet concrete wall, talking to it, and running his pointer finger up and down the wall as he speaks.

One house has 5 ice cream carts ready to start the day.

One woman is moppping her floor and is singing to herself.

One man is watering his plants in his bathrobe.

Students are on other motorcycle taxis passing us.

Some women are sitting on low stools cleaning vegetables in huge plastic bowls.

I check out my reflection in the passing tinted BMW and Mercedes windows of my students on their way to my school, unable to see them inside."