Ho Chi Minh! No, wait, hoatzin

There's a bird who lives in South America, mainly in Amazonas jungle, that is called hoatzin. Not Ho Chi Minh, as I tend to remember. It is different than any other bird in the world and similar to the fossil bird Archaeopteryx. Its chicks have dinosaurus-like claws on two of their wing digits, the thumb and the first finger. The chicks can use them to climb on trees to escape predators. (Hoatzins make their nests of sticks hanging over water when forests are flooding.) But if a predator still finds them, they fall to the water, escape by swimming under the surface and use their claws to climb back to their nests. Later, when they learn to fly, the claws atrophy. Hoatzin has a special digestive system so that it can use all the leaves it eats, fermenting them into cellulose. And because of that system it smells like manure, which is also the reason its older English name is stinkbird.

I am somehow deeply impressed by hoatzins.

The sweet autistic freedom

The first time I encountered autists must have been in Cambodia.

I was volunteering in an orphanage in Phnom Penh for four months on spring 2007. I've never had much words to descibe the experience: it is like no language was made to tell about things I saw and felt and touched. Most of the kids in the orphanage were disabled or autistic, which of course was the reason they were abandoned on the first place. Caregivers worked 48 hours shifts with minimum wage and had so many kids on their responsibility that they could only take care everyone was fed and dry. Thus kids, who in west would have learned to walk and maybe even talk, were lying on mattresses on the floor day after day until their joints dislocated and the skin on their back started bleeding for rubbing against the mattress.

The first day—or probably the first week—I spent mostly crying. How can people live in such circumstances? How will their life be when they grow up? After a week I, like I guess most of the volunteers, realized that my crying helps nothing. Acting does.

And so I stopped crying. I was trained for a week by the local physiotherapists, and after that started to work with four children individually. One day one of them—a six years old autistic boy with bloody scars on his hand he had bitten in frustration—learnt to walk and started to explore the world. His wavering walk, and his smile, are imprinted in my memory. I did make a change in someone's life.

Some years later I started working as an assistant at a special needs school in Helsinki. I had seen much worse, of course—children who in Cambodia would have been lying on mattresses hitting their head on the floor were in a very different condition in Finland. First of all, they were not abandoned by their parents (and my greatest respect in the world goes undoubtly exactly to their parents). Second, they had been given all the possible help and assistance. They were not (and are not and will never be) like kids at regular schools, but they had had the possibility to grow and develop as themselves, as they are.

Yet my first reaction was emotional. I was standing on the school yard looking at the kids doing the weirdest things, pitying them for not being able to... not being able to... And then, I couldn't quite finish my sentence.

Indeed they do not live a life we easily consider a good life. Indeed they will not achieve certain milestones, learn to read, get friends, fall in love, get a job they like... The list would be endless. But what really stroke me was the realization of the stressless life they lead. While they do not achieve what we often find important, they do not actually care—and, what is even more important, they are not expected to care or to do any of those things.

It's all about expectations. I certainly feel distressed of everything I feel I should accomplish, should achieve, should want to have in life. While it's easy to say that you do not want something that is generally thought desirable—let us say children as it's an easy example—and while it's of course your own choice and (in our society) no-one can actually make you have children against your will, socially it is much more complicated. People who choose not to have children are constantly in a situation where they have to explain their decision, while people who have willingly followed a norm because it suits them, are often socially embraced. The same goes of course with anything slightly out of norm, like having your children too young, not wanting a career, wanting a career instead of a family, wanting a different kind of career, wanting unorthodox relationships, not wanting to be in a relationship... I'm sure everyone could give an example from their own life.

And while I do respect our educational system in many ways, one has to admit that it is full of expectations. There are syllabuses, schedules and norms. And there should be some: it's not like we should all kick others when we don't get what we want or pee in our pants for the joy of it. I just sometimes wonder doesn't our school system raise one mostly to fulfil expectations, and doesn't it encourage us a bit too much to take certain norms given. Why should everyone develop the same speed and be compared to and evaluated against the average speed? Why should we even learn all the same things even as children?

But the thing is that once you've been classified as not valid for this system—that is, invalid—you are free to learn and experience the world on your own speed. In great part autists are liberated from expectations, because it's almost impossible to bend them to do something they really do not want to do. And while ordinary children—or adults—can be persuaded by appealing to some social norms or relations (like not wanting anyone to be angry at you), autists simply just do not care.

As a consequence, my pity suddenly turned from them to myself and everyone else who is not a low-functioning autist. Ah, I thought. What a freedom!

Obviously, the solution wouldn't still be that we would all start behaving like LFA children. Nor would I change my current life to anyone else's. But being sensitive to all kind of expectations, I do wonder if there exists some kind of a middle ground, where we could enjoy all the abilities we have, grow and develop on our own speed without classifications to valids and invalids, learn what we are good at and interested in—and have a minimum pressure in what comes to accomplishing things and following certain social norms. That we would really have a social freedom to choose what we want in life.

I know some people can do that easily, but I also know that I'm not the only one who does not.

Kulitsa, pasha, some herons and too many restaurants

I think of food far too much. The healthier I try to eat, the more I think of food, and the more I end up searching for interesting recipes and trying them. I will have to do something about this.

That is, after Easter. Tomorrow is Easter Saturday and I'll make quark pastries and maybe some kulitsa, and on Sunday we'll have them with pasha, after the main course of asparagus and creamy basil sauce. And if I am to choose Easter music, it'll be Paul Desmond, which sounds perfectly like spring.

Spring. I like the light of spring and the bubbling feeling of forgotten dreams and adventures it brings to mind. The faint pink color of days and brightness of evenings. The smell of lilies in the bathroom reminds me of what God's touch in your life must feel like if you believe in God  ̶  and I do think that I know how the touch of God's feels, this feeling of purposefulness, sense, love, light and softness at the same time, although I don't name it so.

Spring! I want to make a heronspotting trip to south of Estonia with my new car. It'll have to be early May: university exams are just over and herons are busy incubating their eggs and looking noble. Pärnumaa should be good for spotting herons; I've been thinking of Luitemaa park south of Pärnu, in spite of having promised myself never to drive the Pärnu ̶ Riga road again. All Pärnumaa birdwatching areas can be found on this map. I wish we'll also have time to visit the islands: they have lots of awesome birds there like eagles and black storks, and I've always wanted to drive all the way down to the southest point of the island and see the lighthouse.

And while in Estonia, I want to visit at least one these Tallinn restaurants: Ariran, an odd non-restaurant looking place which is said to be an east mafia money-laundering spot and where the mrs makes delicious home-style meals; Pirosmani, a Georgian café that somehow manages to make its scuffiness look purposeful; and Moses, which simply looks delicious. And, as usual, I'll have porridge for breakfast in either Reval Café or Gourmet Coffee on Koidula.

In Helsinki, in addition to my all time favourite Dong Bei Hu, I am going to try Lebanese Fattoush in Kontula of all places, and Ethiopian Queen Sheba. And then I promise to start thinking of something else than food.

A perfect day

Best days are the days you don't have to do anything. Okay, getting tyres changed. But that's done now and I have summer tyres and sunglasses and new windscreen wipers. Well, yeah, and a new car. And white lilies in the bathroom, gotten from a sweet American girl who was couchsurfing here. And another sweet, joyous couchsurfer sleeping on my floor, this time from Brazil; and melon muffins, although I used honeydew and toadskin melon instead of cantaloupe and damsons instead of apple sauce; and a happy tired cat and patches, endless, neverending patches. Soon, soon it'll be finished and I can finally do something else. And I feel like writing a memorial to my old car.

Self-admiration and spice

I honestly feel that all of my guests should admire my collection of spices. They should express their awe of both variety and quality and ask interested questions. This applies especially for couchsurfers, when I show them where they can find everything they might need during their stay. I imagine an ideal discussion would go approximately like this:

'And if you should need any spices, you find them here', I say.

'How much spices you've got!' goes the couchsurfer, with an expression of astonishment.

'Oh, I'm afraid it's not so much', I say modestly, pointing out some vital shortcoming.

'But such good quality too!' continues the awed couchsurfer, ignoring my remark.

I imagine s/he would also like to go through all the tiny jars, bursting sometimes with excitement commenting 'organic galangal!', 'organic French rosemary!' or 'oh my god, you even have organic ramsons and Cambodian black pepper!', nodding vigorously to him/herself.

I also expect to hear something about the way sage behaves when you try to pour it from a jar or a box, a little like a flock of sheep would fall from a cliff to the sea; or, if not that, at least something about the coarseness of Korean chili on the skin of your fingers. This happens quite rarely, however. Mostly they just nod without any interest and probably with no plans of cooking. Apparently they do not realize they could just prepare a raw cocoa drink with ground cardamon, clove, dry ginger and some oat milk, or spice up their sandwiches with green pepper and basil. Poor people.

But as I am left alone to admire my spiceshelf, I don't think I have much else to do than to list them. Spices and herbs are also one of my favourite souvenirs, and I like to remember where they come from.

Things I have on my spice shelves

 - algae, from Portugal
 - basil, organic
 - bay leaves, whole
 - black pepper, organic, ground
 - black pepper, Cambodian, whole,
   got from a friend met accidentally in a hostel in Saigon
 - capsicum, organic, ground
 - cardamon, organic, ground
 - cardamon, green, whole
 - chili, Korean, roughly ground, bought in London
 - chives, from France
 - cloves, ground
 - cloves, whole
 - coriander, ground
 - cumin, ground
 - curry, Panang style, paste
 - fennel, whole
 - fenugreek, organic, whole
 - galangal, ground, from France
 - ginger, organic, ground
 - green pepper, from France
 - lemongrass, organic
 - mustard seeds, yellow
 - oregano, from France
 - parsley, organic
 - pili-pili, ground, from France
 - piri-piri, sauce, a souvenir from Madeira
 - ramsons, organic, from France
 - rosemary, organic, from France
 - sage, organic
 - salt, gray sea salt, from France
 - Sichuan pepper, whole
 - soybean paste, Korean
 - star anis, whole
 - thyme, grown by myself in Estonia
 - turmeric, ground
 - vanilla, from France
 - wasabi, paste
 - white pepper, from France

Spices I need to get

 - some good quality Indian or Thai kind of chili
 - fennel, ground (I'm not exactly sure what for but I feel I should have it)
 - fenugreek, ground (it's difficult to grind it smooth enough by yourself)
 - nutmeg, ground (for soups and baking)
 - vanilla, powdered
 - wasabi, powdered

Observations. First, spices I've been using most lately are, quite curiously, ground cardamon and rosemary. Second, listing your spices is just what one should do on April 2nd when it's [add bad words here] SNOWING.

From left: chives, pili-pili, cardamon, rosemary, sage, cloves, piri-piri, Sichuan pepper, oregano, ramsons, black pepper, green pepper, algae, mustard, white pepper, fenugreek, coriander