something I've learned/decided as a result of traveling...

...I don't want to be defined by a place.

In a book I found a Mexican dicho (saying) that I could identify with:

"Donde es tu tierra? Donde la pases, no donde naces."

Where is your land? Where you pass your life, not where you were born.

I find myself once again in the snowy palm of Michigan. I swooped down from Montreal a few weeks ago, hesitant and impatient, excited and bursting with energy, stories, ganas to see folks that are dear to me. In Petersburg, there isn't much to do. That's where the beauty lies, I suppose. Simple and lacking charisma, my village of birth is seemingly unaffected by the development carrying on with neither rhyme nor reason in the neighboring village of Dundee. Yet at the same time that it seems so utterly far from "civilization," Petersburg is also an acute reflection of the political, economical and cultural changes taking place in the U.S.. It's not a place where decisions are made or where folks in suits carefully construct and orchestrate projects of massive size and significance. It does, however, change as a result of these acts, like a ripple in the pond, so far from where the stone actually lands. Farms go up for sale. One of the town's two gas stations closes. Dundee gets a Wal-greens at the expense of the small shops which used to make up the small, triangular downtown. Farmers shake their heads. Ex-factory workers sit around my kitchen table, angry about the white-collars that sit behind desks all day while complaining that retired factory workers don't deserve health care. More and more young people leave the state, leaving swampy Michigan for higher economic ground.

Kalamazoo, despite the obvious deterioration of its downtown, somehow retains that almost silly optimism about just about everything that is sometimes refreshing and other times annoying. At the same time that there are less places to consume in Kalamazoo, there are projects and ideas and music and art continually popping up, sometimes in the least-expected places. I like the idea of people investing in things that hold no monetery value: friendship, enriching experiences, brainstorms, collaboration.

I've started researching farming in Michigan, both organic and non- (to mix both reality and my ideals), with multiple intents: to understand the state I was born and raised in, to assess the potential for Michigan to become a major organic ag. state, to assess my own potential in starting a organic farm here some day. Plus, it's fun!

Kalamazoo is keeping me busy though. Potlucks and book swaps. Dance parties and house parties and birthday parties. Work shops and discussions. Bicycles and coffee and music music everywhere. When Abigail Kinas strolls into town, all will be complete.

I didn't write anything about Montreal, I've realized. Nothing truly out of the ordinary happened there, minus one intense instant in a metro station. I saw wonderful friends in the city that I'd known only in the out-of-doors, in the country. We spent many a night wandering the same streets of the city. I made Shephard's Pie for the first time with my hilarious, cribbage challenger JP, who loves Queen more than anyone I know. One morning I beat him 3 times in a row at Cribbage, but he still let me crash on his couch when I needed to. I danced. I sometimes pretended I spoke French in order to get people to repeat things to me, annoying them but fascinating me. I barely made it out of the city and had to remind myself again and again I'd be back if the time was right. It's not a bad city. It's a city. Next time I'd like to be speaking French.

A new project

To better organize my interests, I'm going to keep this journal for travel-inspired/personal writings and a new one that I want to dedicate more-focused energy toward.

It'll still be rather personal, as it's born out of my own desire to learn, study, create, to investigate and document and work on a plan for my future. It's about me wanting a farm, a community that is both local and global in its scope, some answers about how we can slow and stop the destructive forces on the planet. I want to ask questions and not find answers or judge, but still reach conclusions. I just wanna live and want others to be able to, too.

Hence: Radicals require roots

Sometimes I find myself with the incredibly difficult dilemma of having to justify my migratory ways to people who have grown up and accepted a sedentary lifestyle. Perhaps they don't see themselves as sedentary, but for me, having a permanent address that you actually live at is akin to having a chain wrapped around one ankle with the other end looped around a a large tree. True, the tree can be beautiful, with many birds and fruits, but for me the chain outweighs all the lovely things that may dwell in the branches; it also outweighs the roots.

I know other migrants face these questions: When is the time right? Where should I go? By which route? How long should I stay? Will I see so-and-so again? Money?

And migrants with privileges must ask: Should I take advantage of my passport and flee the country of my birth? Do I have any connection to the land where I was born, to the land where I am headed? Should I try to give up my privileges to live more honestly or try to use my privileges in a positive way? How do I balance freedom and responsibility?

For me these questions only further justify my need to throw the little things I need on my back and move, south then north then west then south, a lopsided circle, but always in a circle. Answers, to me, come in movement, in flight, in seeing the same places continuously through new eyes. If I stay in the same place, I stay the same person and it's difficult for me to learn that way. I understand this way of life isn't for everyone, but I think the world was made for many ways of life. And my way of life takes me to many worlds.

e pty

I guess we all should have seen the demise of Kalamazoo's downtown coming with the closing of Athena's Bookstore...but Dragon Inn? Come on! Now I've seen the financial crisis up close and personal.

It's time to head south again.

ciao

I think some people get the idea that the more you travel, the easier it is to say good-bye. Perhaps it just gets easier to evade them, but it's never easier to say them. But really I think we begin to realize that good-byes aren't necessary anymore, only "see you soon"'s.

pensamientos de los ultimos meses....

So much has happened. Luckily I took to writing things on paper. Here are some bits and pieces, some all the way back from summer:

6 August 2008: A few nights ago, as I was trying to fall asleep, I was closing my eyes for just a few seconds and then opening them again. Robert Frost was right! Every time I closed my eyes I could see a jumbled mass of branches, laden with cherries. Each time the same, only the cherries changed- sometimes with long skinny stems, or in big, thick clumps, bright red or deep purple. Ah, cherries. I even dreamt of selling cherry tacos.

22 August 2008: Except for the few hours a week that I spend in the library, I spend all of my time outdoors, working, eating, playing, sleeping. It's easy to forget what hot water and a non-stiff neck feel like. Flush toilets and mirrors have a novelty to them that I hadn't known before. My picking barely improves because I am so distracted by the beauty of the mountains, the trees, the sun, this life. Also, it's impossible to believe that money is more important than these moments.

21 September 2008: The community of pickers, so small, is one of the most gossipy groups of folks I've ever gotten mixed up with. I suppose there's only so long you can talk about cherries or ladders or snakes and people are undeniably fascinated by the lives of others. Eh. I really like walking between Vialo and Dawson orchards: tall grass, endless amounts of fresh, organic apples to sample, a feeling of hiddenness and solitude, if only for a few moments.

23 September 2008: He said it was like looking into a mirror. I am caught off guard and slightly astounded by having found him and by the fact that we have so little time and then there's life. I hear a heart beat and can't tell if it's mine or his. How nice that there is no awkwardness between people who have never been strangers to one another.

28 September 2008: Fall arrived exactly when the calendar said it would. Leaves are browning on the trees and the sumacs are already bright red. Snow fell on the mountains, folks not used to the cold are getting nervous. Thank God I have this little toasty cabin.

29 September 2008: Last night Sergio and I made a real, sweet, picker soup: #2 butternut squash that I picked at the Mariposa, carrots that another picker left behind, ginger, garlic, chiles that Abraham won as 3rd prize in the annual chile pepper eating contest in Keremeos, cayenne, parsley + thyme + chives from Seth and Melissa's garden, a cucumber also left by a past picker and some coconut milk. Making it even more wonderful was that we got to share it with friends as we laughed and leaped and stumbled over language hurdles and stomped the cold out of our feet.

The trees here are old, with birds' nests and gnarled trunks. I'm much happier working in these trees than in rows and rows of pesticide-laden "fruit twigs," as Seth calls them.

3 October 2008: At first I was tired and not feeling social but by the end of the night they had to swear to me that it was the last ride leaving for Dawson to get me go. If there'd been more cumbias on the pub jukebox, I probably would have stayed anyway. The partying allows us to open our hearts and minds in extreme bursts where suddenly torrents of camaraderie and love push through us, like dams bursting and when the cruda comes, the down, we are unsure. For brief moments we are allowed an incredible freedom of expression but afterwards we are left with wild, tormenting, beautiful, vibrating emotions and thoughts, all dammed up again, we feel damned.

4 October 2008: I've spent a lot of my working hours pondering my place in the system of agriculture, the food system. System, system, that word always appears. I'm an agricultural work, a fruit picker, a migrant. We have a little community and we joke about our meager and ever-changing lives, we share stories of hitch hiking and bosses and the lives we've had in other places, in other times. We even laugh together about the discrimination we collectively face by local business owners and employees. We talk about our families, our friends, our homes, desperate to share company, we fall in and out of each other's arms, cry on each other's shoulders, dream together, taking every moment in our hands, taking each other's hands, swinging around, jumping, dancing, weeping, falling, always laughing, all the colors and the time passing so fast.

I am such a small piece of this agricultural mosaic. I feel momentarily guilty for picking only the perfect cherries that are sent to wealthy consumers in Europe and Japan while perfectly good cherries rot in odorous mounds. But my place is so small and here the sky is so big that, with the stars and the mountains, one can't really feel personally responsible.

5 October 2008: Hard work is a miracle cure for anxiety and despair. By the end of the day I just wanted to keep charging up my ladder, thrusting myself into branches, twisting my aching thumbs around stems, pulling down bag after bag of golden delicious apples. I became immune to the scratches and the bugs, completely immersed in thought.

The moon is perfect and crescent-shaped tonight. Snow fell on the mountains to the north. Everything looks perfect and blue and purple and smoky, the taste of winter on every breath we take. Work is becoming ever more unpredictable.

6 October 2008: Today the cold bit so hard in the morning. My fingers burned and ached, every apple was a struggle, I really wanted to cry. Every day is getting colder, things are settling and I feel like I have to resist in order to stay awake, stay on top of things. Otherwise I'll fall into a dreamy hibernation for the winter.

16 October 2008: A couple nights ago Melissa and I both dreamed of bears. Both of the bears were big and neither of us were afraid. I feel quite connected to this place now. And though I've been a week without work and stressed out, the sunset gets me everytime!

In small towns like this..

..the woman who works in the liquor store will recognize you hitchiking and tell her husband to pull over, telling him "Oh I know those kids!"

..a chihuahua dressed in a pink dress keeps the post office lady company, and dances on command.

..everything is closed on Sundays and Mondays, and Tuesdays if they're able, and all signs that post a places hours say -ish

When the mountains are covered with snow,

it's time to head south. I've spent the past few months in a small town called Cawston, so named due to the local crow population (the murders!). I've been living and working on orchards, in garlic, tomato, and pepper fields, packing organic squash and carrots, watching the sun's rise from and fall behind the mountains grow ever quicker with each passing day. And now, I'm heading east!

Hopefully when my computer usage allotments are greater than 15 minute public library blocks, I will be able to recount some of the many, many stories that I've heard, been a part of, and found in the strangely beautiful and magical Similkameen Valley.

Ironically, 2 months after my first visit to Keremeos in which we worked on a farm called the Mariposa, I now find myself on another farm in Keremeos of the same name. There are a lot of farms in this area, true, but it's still strange that in this tiny place there are two with the same name and that I happened to have worked on both of them.

But besides their name and the fact that they both have employed me, they couldn't be any more different. The first was large, with fruit orchards both in Keremeos and in Cawston, and the owner was callous and cold, a typical businessman/farmer, always in a rush. The second, where I am now, is a small organic farm mostly dedicated to squash with a few other ground crops thrown in and the farmer is very friendly and warm to us, and if the squash don't get picked today, well they'll only be riper tomorrow, right?

A WWOOFer and a couple other workers share the land with us and I can honestly say that it's the most beautiful place I've ever worked in. A river runs right next to the old 5th wheel camper that Lucero, a 19 yr old Mexican girl, and I share. A few ancient pines give us shade and it's so quiet that even when every one is working at the same time, the loudest sounds are the flocks of red-winged blackbirds and the buzz of bees tending to all of the flowers. The pace of work is much slower, so I'm not making as much money as in the demanding fruit picking orchards, but right now I wouldn't trade it for anything.


On our side of the mountain we can even see the moon at night, who would want to give that up?


So far I've gotten know, whether by picking or packing or both, spaghetti squash, orangetti squash, red kurris and funny-looking turks, pie pumpkins, and tomatoes. I've gladly come to the realization that I am much more of a ground crop gal than a fruit picker; for whatever reason I work better the closer to the earth I am.

looking back and forward and up and down

When I left Creston a couple weeks ago, I piled into a camper with 9 other pickers and headed for Nakusp, BC to the hot springs! During one of our many stops (for food or gas or beer or cigarettes or coffee, with so many people, someone always needed something), my eyes happened upon the newspaper stand. 'Ah,' I thought, and said to my friend standing near me, "Hey, Georges, remember that there's a whole world out there?" He gave my a funny look, as usual, and I picked up the only newspaper left on the stand, The Globe. "Uh, Georges, I think we missed something," I said, as I showed him the front page: a photo with a burning orange and red background and 3 Chinese soldiers in the foreground saluting a flag, with everything tilted at an eerie and disturbing angle, all above the headline: "China's Totalitarian Success." There was no other explanation to be found on the front page and I decided it wasn't worth flipping through to find one. Perhaps the world is best left "out there." Until I'm ready, at least.

The hot springs were beautiful. From the camper we walked a path through a mossy pine forest and then stumbled and slid and ran down a ravine towards the river. Alongside the river, some in small rocky enclosures and others with sandy bottoms, we found the hot springs awaiting us. I even found a bottle of white wine tucked into the roof of a small shelter. Nothing like drinking a bottle of BC wine in a warm natural bath under a sky so filled with stars there's no room for the moon. At night we couldn't see a thing but we ran through the forest, ducking under fallen trunks and breathing an air so fresh it made our lungs new again. We left with everything wet, there was no way to avoid it.

And now, back to work. Apples aren't the most motivating crop for me because I actually really enjoy the picking. I could spend all day delicately lifting each apple, snapping the stem, and placing it in my bag, or atop my ladder watching the valley fill the space between the mountains with green and purple and red. But that's no way to make money, which is what I need to do in order to get to Quebec in a few weeks and learn French, so I might try looking around and seeing what other work is available.

I tried plums for a few days and my arms still bear the wounds of those prickly trees who fight to keep their fruit and give long scratches and bruises to those who dare to pick it. Tomatoes were nicer to pick but instead of scratching my arms, they scratched my hands to burning pieces. Ow.

And, it could be anything from a plant, to the air, to pesticides, to just plain coincidence, but as soon as we got back to Keremeos my skin erupted into an itchy allergic reaction. Eh. I like the constant sunshine and clear skies at night, but I really could use a little more moisture in the air.

I'm staying at an orchard right now, but working in another because after Creston I have such a desire to share coffee with people before work and food afterwards. And bears!

A couple nights after Marie and I awoke to a bear running straight for us and we ended up sleeping in a Honda Civic, today at breakfast I just couldn't come up with the name for the animal plodding slowly past us, a mere 15 meters from our breakfast table. Sputtering in half English and half Spanish, people finally just followed my finger and watched a good-sized black bear amble away. Bears follow me, why?

Cherry season has ended! And so has my time in Creston. The last couple of weeks were filled with a little working, a little partying, some inter-orchard volleyball tournaments (we made the finals!), and going to the river, watching sunsets, playing cribbage, etc.

Now, Keremeos again!

cambios

In the morning the air is frigid and by mid-day sticky and hot. When we first arrived to Creston we would hear helicopters in the morning flying low to dry the night's rain off of the cherry trees. Last week we watched the helicopters in the afternoon flying high to spray water over the dangerously dry pines. Dry, hot, cold, wet. Last night it finally rained again.

j'aime la cerise

For the past 2 weeks I've worked as a fruit picker, cherries to be exact, on a few different orchards in Creston, British Columbia. My days have gone more or less like this:

4:30 - 5am: Wake up to shouting and murmuring in French (we finally found out that the howling owlish sound actually means something: Where are you? in French). After grabbing picking clothes, stumble out of tent to waiting coffee. Grab harness, walk or jump in a car, depending on where we're picking.

5:30/6am - 8:30am ish: Pick pick pick! Crew boss runs around, shouts at us, hands us stickers, punches holes in a card for each 25lb box that we fill. Muscles warm up, some old aches stretch out and some new aches show up suddenly. Up and down and up and down the ladder, always making sure to set it right and not fall off. Pick pick pick!

8:30 ish: Coffee break! The first day they only shouted it in French. Alex and I are the only ones who don't speak French so when we were the only ones to not show up for the coffee break that day, they started shouting it in English (and sometimes Spanish) too. Lots of sugary things with the coffee: muffins, cookies, brownies, sometimes struedels or little quiches (one orchard owner that we worked for used to have a bakery, yummmm).

9ish - 11 or 12 or 1pm: Pick pick pick! Ivan, our crew boss, runs around and makes sure everyone is smiling and has water. The sugar slows me down a bit but the coffee helps. The sun starts to come out so we have to pick faster before the cherries turn soft and burst in our fingers and we have to stop. Swampers run around and pick up boxes dumping them into large wooden bins, 11 totes per bin, soon to be scooped up by a tractor.

Afternoon: Freedom! People leave the orchard filthy, tired, covered in pesticides and in a sort of stupor that doesn't allow you to do much until the sun starts to go down. An icy shower perhaps or a cold beer or a trip to the river. I can rarely eat after I work, after all the movement and sugar and coffee, my stomach is too tied up. So I usually drop down in the shade and wait for the heat to subside. The river is beautiful and deep down in a canyon so when you sit on the rocks or sand all you've got is cold river and big blue sky.

Night: Typically a little beer drinking but most people go to bed a little before or after the sun goes down because picking starts so early. Sometimes games. Living with Quebecois is like living in a circus, someone is always juggling or throwing fire or hula hooping, I'm surprised that I haven't seen someone ride through the camp on a unicycle yet and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it happened.

I'm struggling to learn French but it's going slow. Today I learned some Quebecois swear words, they all have to do with the church, which the folks from France find absolutely hilarious. Words like chalice, tabernacle, the bread that you eat in church..all of these are swear words! They sound so grandmotherly, I like them a lot. Tabernack!

pilgrims

The first person to pick us up as we hitchiked out of Keremeos was a born-again, self-proclaimed "radical Christian" in a green 1975 volvo. To make the 50 km ride to Osoyoos more fun, I told him how interesting and wonderful I thought Islam was and asked his opinion. What could have been a meaningful conversation about the challenges and benefits of differences in religions and just what those differences are instead turned into a tirade about terrorists and the unquestionable and utmost sanctity of Christianity by our driver, his steering wheel suddenly turned pulpit. Eh.

In Osoyoos, we were lucky and got picked up by a engineer in a new rental car and since he liked to speed, we got within 50 miles of our destination before it got dark. Just as it got dark and we were contemplating how many bears our smelly leftover tacos would attract if we slept on the side of the road, a Swiss restaurant owner picked us up and dropped us off in downtown Nelson.

Nelson is kind of like Ann Arbor, similar size and pretentiousness and number of organic co-ops and hemp clothing stores. We knew our money would be sucked right out of our pockets if we stayed to enjoy the food, live music, etc., so after a couple nights couchsurfing, we were again out on the highway with a sign reading: CRESTON.

A DJ from the Shambhala festival picked us up and let us off at the entrance to the festival, where he was going to set up a stage. Within 5 minutes a car stopped, headed right for Creston. We rolled into town just as the sun was setting and opted for a campground rather than lugging our stuff around from farm to farm. Things would be much easier without that electric stove.

K-K-K-K-Keremeos.....

We spent 2 weeks in the village of Keremeos, nestled in the valley at the feet of K mountain, alongside the Similkameen River. At the Mariposa orchard, we were given a little plot of land under an enormous willow tree to pitch our tent and even a place to plug in our electric stove ($5 garage sale find!) and the discman. Within a few days we met our neighbors, four solitary men who live in separate cabins in front of where we camped: Joe, a former convict, current "Peace" officer with a booming voice who works in the village of Osoyoos, about an hour from Keremeos, and deals primarily with people's complaints about their neighbors or their neighbor's dogs; Gee, a French Canadian with a 12 year old chihuahua named Titchi, who let us use his stove and bathroom and entertained us with stories about bears and selling Xmas trees in Queens, NYC; Wayne, who we didn't talk to much but saw often talking to himself and rushing around, he was rarely home; and Hart, who we never talked to but saw occasionally crouched down and smoking a cigarette next to his cabin. He's Joe's brother and, according to Joe, highly anti-social. Outside of our neighbors, our interactions with other people were almost completely with other pickers, all either Quebecois or Mexican. I've yet to meet another picker who speaks English as their mother language, but we all manage to communicate whatever our respective levels of French, Spanish or English are.

In Keremeos the laundromat, due to the fact that the owner lives an hour away and is never around, became the hangout place for the small community of pickers. On any given afternoon you could stop by and listen to a Quebecois playing the piano (yep a piano in the laundromat) or take a shower gratis, since no one ever showed up to charge anyone. People would usually move the chairs outside and buy cheap cans of beer around the corner and sit for a while. That's actually how we met the group of pickers we became friends with and got plenty of tips about Keremeos ("shampoo and soap are cheaper in the pharmacy," "this farm's owners are jerks," "Wednesday night is 25 cent 'wing night' at the pub," etc., etc).

We picked cherries almost every day for several days, struggling to get up at 5am, usually getting up at around 7am, and finally filling a few boxes, making a pittance, but gaining experience all the same. Experienced pickers can pick between 30 and 60 boxes a day. We were lucky if we made more than 7 each, but the fact that we're completely new to picking and only worked for a few hours each day actually meant that we weren't doing that bad. Around noon it gets too hot and the cherries turn soft, so picking can be dangerous to the cherries. I had no idea what a fragile fruit they were. You have to move them and drop them carefully as to not bruise them and make sure they are never left in the sun. If they get wet and then hot, they split and are no good. They have to be packed within hours of picking so that they stems don't dry out and fall off. Picking requires lots and lots of patience and care, to not rip leaves off with the cherries and to keep the stems on the cherries and, preferably, the cherries still in clumps. Once you get good, you can get fast, Gee told us. Ay, but by the time we starting getting good we got tired and sick. Allergic reactions and infections are common among pickers, both of which we got, but we were lucky at least that we didn't fall off a ladder (also pretty common and it happened to a couple pickers we met).

In our free time in Keremeos we went down to the river and watched eagles fish or stopped by the free store to see what we could find or tried to get the pizza place to give us free slices of pizza late at night. The local employment office let us use the internet for free so we usually stopped by there every few days. But, finally the work ended and we both felt the need to move on from Keremeos. Our farmer wasn't the nicest either and instead of inquiring about our health when we were sick, he told us we weren't cut out for farm work. Eh, whatever. So, with one last grand story by Gee, this one completely invented for the effect it gave, about him befriending the son of the president of a South American country and going to buy old Soviet missles in Europe, we took off with the advice: Anything can happen if you just believe. Thanks, Gee.

Ah well, somehow I got roped into the exciting rumor that everyone can go to Canada, pick fruit and camp and earn a glorious living. Easy, fun, lucrative. This rumor is running like wildfire among young kids in Mexico and we got caught up in it and here we are.

We arrived in Calgary on the 1st of July and were thoroughly interrogated by immigration to the point where we had to go to a special waiting room while the officers called to verify our Canadian friends' contacts. They asked a lot of questions, even absurd ones (like why Alex's mom would give him money to travel), and checked our bags one more time until they were disappointed to find that they just couldn't find a good reason to send us back to Mexico, thanks to God. Whew.

Thanks to Couchsurfing, a nice Polish lady and her daughter were waiting to pick us up at the airport and take us to their huge home in the Calgary suburbs. Like everyone else in Calgary, Dad works in the oil industry, hence all the luxury. They welcomed us with a backyard bbq (even though they don't celebrate Canada Day, just happened to be the day we arrived) and we stayed for a few days in their house, enjoying the luxury but not the long bus/train commute into the city. So, for our last couple days in Calgary we stayed in another CSer's place who was right downtown, next to the river.

Getting out of the city was nice. We "hitched" a ride off of Craigslist to Kelowna, where another Couchsurfer opened his home to us, despite the fact that he already had 4 other folks crashing with him. Kelowna is much smaller than Calgary but still too big of a city to move around by foot, so a couple days later we moved on to the village of Keremeos. The first night we camped in the city park and the next morning, with some luck and a tip from a Quebecois, we starting working at the Mariposa farm. First some weeding, then some cherry picking. The air is hot and dry in the Similkameen Valley, so the work that we weren't accustomed to was a bit more difficult still. Our fingers turned black and ached and when we tried to sleep we couldn't close our eyes without seeing cherries and stems and leaves and branches. Ay, the life of a migrant fruit picker. I'll never be able to think of cherries like I used to.

el dedo gordo...

Tips for folks who want to hitch hike in Mexico:

1. Traveling as a guy-gal combo is not only safer and easier (in terms of getting folks to pick you up), people are even friendlier and may buy you a snack or drink.

2. Get used to semi-trucks or the backs of dirty pick-up trucks- you'll see plenty of folks in fancy cars who are traveling alone, but apparently they've got better things to do. Either that, or they're afraid- one of the two has to explain why they quickly look in the other direction as they pass.

3. Bring just a little bit of money to offer to bus or combi drivers in the event that you get stuck somewhere, but assure them that these are the absolute last pesos to your name. They probably won't believe you but they'll let you on anyhow. Sometimes they're interested in trades.

4. A sign helps, preferably large and lettered by sharpie.

5. When someone picks you up, ask them where they're headed and if it's not your final destination, ask them kindly to drop you off either at the entrance or exit of a city, or somewhere else on the high way so you don't have to walk really far to get a ride again.

6. Chat with everyone- you never know who might just hand you 50 pesos or pay for your bus fare.

7. Truck drivers will know the best places to camp.

8. A week will feel like a lifetime.

sensory

The other morning, the gas truck rolled by, dragging metal chains through the streets and playing that familiar high-pitched and generally annoying recording over and over. and over and over. and over and over. Typically, they pass by for the first time in the morning at around 7am. And typically, I think "Pinche gas truck, who needs gas right now? No one! Who needs sleep right now? Me!" But a few days ago, when I heard that sound, waking me up a good 20 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, while my dreams were still disintegrating images at the backs of my eyes, I immediately thought, "Oh, dear, I am going to miss this place."

My time in Mexico is winding down all of a sudden, and very, very quickly. Though I've been here for about 5 months, now it seems like I just arrived on the OCC yesterday, blinking into the early San Cristobal sun, slightly disoriented and lost and confused. I'll probably leave town in a similar fashion but I've gotta lotta faith, at least.

because i don't respond to emails like i used to...

here's some photos instead:

San Cristobal de l@s Crazies

A trip to the jungle

de raiz a hoja...

Today I was chatting with a dear Nicaraguan friend online and he was telling me how a hurricane hit his city and the neighbors are telling each other, "Oh, my orange tree fell." or "Ay, the poor pecan tree." My friend lamented the fall of the almond trees, which he said he had watched grow up and they had watched him grow up, as well. I told him he should write a poem about it, that the love for trees is as inspiring and powerful as the love for another human, being that we're all part of the natural world anyway.

A few minutes later, a middle-aged man who has been coming to the restaurant every morning for the past week and occasionally making small talk with me excitedly showed me a children's book that he had just bought, La Boda de Chimalistac by Elena Poniatowska. The book was about a lemon tree that fell in love with a Jacaranda and eventually they get married. Ah, tree love.

And my friend was very happy because today is Mother's Day in Nicaragua and I told him that my family always buys trees on mother's day.

Just when I thought the day was already filled with trees and love, I looked down at the bottle of red wine our German couchsurfer left for us and there on the bottle, a little grape vine that looks just like a little tree.

So, in honor of trees and love and beauty, I want to share one of my very favorite poems by Juana de Ibarbourou:

La Higuera

Porque es áspera y fea,
porque todas sus ramas son grises,
yo le tengo piedad a la higuera.

En mi quinta hay cien árboles bellos,
ciruelos redondos,
limoneros rectos
y naranjos de brotes lustrosos.

En las primaveras,
todos ellos se cubren de flores
en torno a la higuera.

Y la pobre parece tan triste
con sus gajos torcidos que nunca
de apretados capullos se viste...

Por eso,
cada vez que yo paso a su lado,
digo, procurando
hacer dulce y alegre mi acento:
«Es la higuera el más bello
de los árboles todos del huerto».

Si ella escucha,
si comprende el idioma en que hablo,
¡qué dulzura tan honda hará nido
en su alma sensible de árbol!

Y tal vez, a la noche,
cuando el viento abanique su copa,
embriagada de gozo le cuente:

¡Hoy a mí me dijeron hermosa!

de repente

Today, as I was getting on my bike and adjusting my bag and scarf to prepare myself to bajar on one of the cobbly streets that connects the neighborhood of el Cerrillo with San Cristobal's city center, I had a sudden rush of remembrance. Kalamazoo, the hills, my bike, the cool weather of fall, even Western Michigan University- I could feel it all so deeply in one profound second, I almost expected to look up and see a familiar Michigan face stroll or bike by. Ah, but then I remembered that I am in a city that I also love, where it is also beautiful to float down hills on a bicycle and feel the wind on my face, where every couple of blocks I do see a familiar face.

I'm going to miss San Cristobal. But, I know I'll be back because it's one of my eternal homes now. I'm very lucky to have so many.

thursday

I like when the restaurant is filled with familiar faces. I like when people tell me exactly how they like their coffee, so I don't make it too strong (as usual) or too weak. I like that today in the morning it rained for about 8 minutes and now the sky is filled with large, white clouds but not grey. I would like to remember many of these things.

verduras

A taxi just pulled up really fast and stopped in front of the restaurant. From the passenger seat, a short, elderly man leapt out and ran to the trunk, hoping not to stop traffic too long, I suppose. The taxi driver flew around from his side of the car and opened the trunk. The old man then lifted a big bag of cauliflower out and quickly set it on the sidewalk. In a few seconds the two men took several smaller, black bags from the trunk and set them on the sidewalk beside the cauliflower, all filled with fruits and vegetables, for our store. Small moments have so much meaning for me here. Across the street two women are leaning against a wall and chatting, now they've parted ways. Next to where they were standing, a small, grey-haired woman with glasses puts a key in the padlock to her store. She looks like the ideal, typical abuela and I know that now she will start to hang a selection of Guatemalan clothes between the doors. Calle Real de Guadalupe is like its own community of shop keepers, bartenders, waiters, receptionists, sidewalk sweepers, wide-eyed tourists, bleary-eyed youth. We all see each other on a daily basis, a living portrait of our lives, and we see each other head for our homes late at night. The electronics store on the corner usually is blasting some type of dance music, whether it be cumbia or American music from the '80s, making the mercadito of a few small vegetable stands feel almost as lively as the main market. I am lucky to live just around the corner. Around another corner live dear friends, around another memories, around another a place I think about trying, around and around and around.

fidel castro responds to barack obama

The English version

"Is it right for the president of the United States to order the assassination of any one person in the world, whatever the pretext may be?

Is it ethical for the president of the United States to order the torture of other human beings?

Should state terrorism be used by a country as powerful as the United States as an instrument to bring about peace on the planet?"

- F. Castro

Barack's Comments

a sad story

Good-bye, Bananas

flight..

The hills in San Cristobal are even more wonderful when experienced from bicycle handlebars and I imagine the whole city can hear my excitement.

se cayó

The rains have started in San Cristobal. At first they were sporadic and happened every few days. The past few nights, however, it has started to rain at about the same time, starting with a few splattering, fat drops and eventually growing into a deafening torrent, even drowning out Michael Jackson on the kitchen cd player. The rain can be isolating, trapping one in a cafe or a bedroom when not prepared, or it can be drawn around a group of folks like a warm, shared blanket bringing out stories and revelations. Last night we had such a moment, originally brought together for a cheap and warm meal, we then found ourselves stuffed with Joe's handmade tortillas and unable to leave the kitchen for the relentless rain, sounding much like billions of nails and tacks being flung onto our aluminum roof. We were all quite pleased to have each other's company and were all in happy agreement when Joe said one of his favorite things in the world was making and eating good food with good people. Can life really be so simple?

Lovely.

This past Sunday, after so many years wandering around Mexico, I had my first Mayan steam bath experience. We just happened to be walking down the street when some friends ran by and shouted, "Hey we're leaving for the temezcal, come on!" and it didn't take long for us to grab a towel and jump into a taxi with them, headed for a little mountain just outside a city. El Viejito was our guide (and he really wasn't old at all) and 14 of us crawled into a very low tent covered in plastic and cloth and crowded around a little hole made in the dirt. There were so many of us that it was impossible to sit without leaning a little bit on the people to either side of us and we had to be careful not to accidentally bump the steaming stones with our feet. Outside 2 careful fire tenders brought our guide hot stones and water and soon sweat was streaming in rivers from our pores in an amazing and deeply cleansing, not at all disgusting, way. Some folks played instruments and sang or clapped and others said brief prayers of thanks and by the time we all stumbled back out into the cool air of the outside we felt such a deep bonding among us that we all hugged and kissed one another, thanking each other just for sharing each other's presence. We shared fresh fruit and cool water and afterwards I took a long, peaceful nap. It was a beautiful experience, something I'd truly needed, and I'm hoping to go back again before I leave San Cris.

a few weeks ago....

i went to the caracol of Oventic, a Zapatista autonomous community, with a few musicians from Puebla...

gigantic...

Today a group of students came into the restaurant to look at the roof garden. One gal was wearing a dark-blue t-shirt with the familiar words "Western Michigan University" on it, so I immediately exclaimed, "Hey! I went to Western!" "Oh," she said, "actually this is from my ex-boyfriend, we're from the University of Michigan." Well, well, I thought. Of course if I'd waited a few more minutes I would have noticed that these kids were not from WMU, in the way that they quickly ascended the stairs, eager to see the garden, despite the fact that their guide hadn't even arrived yet. Ambitious. And I'd already blown my cover.

I can see them now, sitting around a table in their hotel, studiously going over their notes and scribbling ideas furiously or reading Zapatista comuniques outloud to one another, and as they take a small break, to lighten the mood, someone comments, "Yeah, well thank God we aren't going to Western, or all that we would end up doing is working in some coffee shop in Mexico." Maybe the years of hearing the disdain and condescension in the voices of U of M kids in regards to WMU kids has led me to believe one of those students would make that comment. Either way, I would reply, "Yeah and if I would have gone to U of M, I'd have ended up a lonely and cynical academic bound to desperate attempts at being at the vanguard and making incredibly vain gesticulations in order to impress people that other people assume are important."

Anyway, this past weekend I went out of town to a small community about an hour and a half from San Cristobal. We stayed in a cabin, swam in a river that was about 2 meters from our cabin, ate delicious homemade vegetarian food with handmade tortillas, and walked around in the forest until we found the source of the the fresh spring water that flows from all the taps on the land. It was a refreshing break from the city and so close that we could even leave early on Monday morning and I made it back (only slightly late) for work. The people were all amazing as well and each of them in their own way reinforced the same idea, "Live well and happy and simply."

perspective

If there's anything that has affected me by living in Mexico, maybe something that has had the biggest impact on me has been the realization of the beauty and value in the small things that life holds. Or, maybe it's the realization that the so-called "small things" in life, like human connection and expression or natural beauty or divinity, are really not so small after all. I see in the U.S. a society where humanity is denied and repressed and thus, ideas such as faith and spontaneity must be marginalized. Ah, the small things in life, if only we had more time, more money, more of them, wouldn't that be nice? People say this to themselves and continue on, wanting more, being afraid of losing what they already have, and never really questioning: Why do we choose to deny ourselves the things that are truly fulfilling to us in exchange for pursuing a course of life that we perceive is "acceptable?" Where does this idea of what is acceptable come from? Why are people rigidly defined early in life and reprimanded or isolated if they deviate from the expectations of others? Do I really need a resumé to be happy? I've met so many folks these past couple of years who would simply laugh at the latter question.

And just because you know that opportunities exist, does that mean you should take them? or even consider them? Does the privelege of knowing equal an obligation of accepting?

Sorry folks, I won't be working at a big-name corporation or NGO soon. I'd like to keep my life simple for now....and enjoy moments like when one of the Casa del Pan regulars, a young French lady, says, "Can you make the orange-papaya juice the way you always make it? Siempre queda riquisimo." Or days that revolve around hunting down a certain ingredient, or nights that revolve around finding the right onda, or relationships that revolve around something more than just geography and responsibility.

Ok, I have a resume. Will I use it soon? Can't say. But I'm happy. Nothing like descending on one of San Cristobal's city hills, seeing the sun drop zig zags of gold on the stones in the streets, the red-roofed homes and flowers and relative stillness of a still-small city, all surrounded by green hills and clouds, breathing in air that is always cool and fresh, sometimes moist and sometimes not, thinking "I could live here forever, couldn't I?," feeling very alive and then laughing at yourself when you slip on the steep sloping sidewalk. I'm not sure I could ask for more, or if I even should.

word of the day

tergiversar: to distort

spinning...

I learned it in college, enjoyed it for several years, and was reminded of it last night: Activists know how to party. We almost didn't go, wore out by ping-pong and Josue's incredible chard, corn, potatoe, calabacita, onion, tomato soup, but we pumped some coffee into our veins and the walk woke us up a bit. When we show up to the party, memories from WMU come flooding back: low-lit dance floor, loud echoing conversation, good music that doesn't stop, dancing, young folks dressed up and down. Salsa dancers occupy the middle of the room, observers the edges and smokers on the roof. The party is well set-up, packed, and only growing. Soon it's hard to make it from one side of the room to the other. Some friends of ours show up, "So these are all the NGO folks?" and I remember how hard we worked as activists in Kalamazoo, thus the necessity for such extravagant parties and mad dancing.

Well, I haven't been doing much activism lately. Didn't stop me from staying until 6am, oof.

all these little things...

My life these days is composed by many distractions, fragments that, when I piece them together, make some sort of semblance to an ordinary life. I am not simply living a life that is defined by societal and cultural norms, laws, and the expectations of others, but a life which I am composing with the materials that are available to me. It requires resourcefulness and a dedication to imperfection, as well as a good amount of faith.

Weeks move even more swiftly with a routine. A middle-aged academic type who frequents the restaurant told me my expressos are "excelentisimo," and I appreciated his compliment, all the more so because of his use of the word excelentisimo.

We recently obtained a ping-pong table. A tournament is in the works. I may also introduce beer pong to Mexico, just because I can.

I organized a screening of a documentary and not many people came but it was fun, in a nerdy sort of way, to organize something again.

the depth of perception

Last night my roommates and I were walking to a party at our friend Alex's house, an outdoor backyard full moon party. Just as we were passing la iglesia de la Merced, a large, fluffy, white dog rounded the corner and almost collided with us (or us with it). It was quite an impressive dog too, clean and groomed, a rarity around these parts. We didn't slow our walk but as we moved around the dog, we all made comments something along the lines of, "Wow! What a beautiful dog!" A split second later, at the other end of the leash, the owner came around the corner. I thought he would be proud of his fine animal companion and our obvious adoration so I glanced up to give him a quick smile. But when my eyes met his, I saw that his entire face was curled into a sneer. With a mix of matter-of-factness and disdain, he said, simply, "Hippies," almost spitting the word out at us. The unexpectedness of his comment made me laugh out loud, and especially because none of us were wearing anything that would identify us as "hippies." No colorful, loose Guatemalan pants, no long, swaying cotton skirts, no excessive amounts of beads or woven bracelets, not even any dreads or tye-dye. I even thought we looked more clean cut than usual, I mean I was wearing a black blazer after all. Though perhaps this fella (who, in my opinion, looked a bit like a yuppie himself) has the ability to see into our inner beings and thus see our deepest identities. And if so, apparently we are hippies, who knew?

I already knew that there is a considerable amount of hostility felt towards so-called "hippies" in San Cristobal. For example, a grafiti I've seen spray-painted on several walls shows a machine gun between the words, "Comando, mata hippies" Kill hippies. Still, I'd never been personally accosted, nor even accused, until last night. Strange, but certainly not the strangest thing to happen in this town, not even close.

rain rain

I'm getting used to this routine. Wake up at 7am, breakfast while waiting for the water to heat up, shower, ride bike (quickly) down early and almost empty streets to la casa del pan..get out piña, papaya, and zanahoria and usually limones and manzanas too...turn on music...spend the day making coffee, tea and juice, and answering questions and translating..3:30 always comes much sooner than I expect. And considering that I am at the restaurant 6 days a week, you would think I would be in a hurry to leap back onto my bicycle (well, it's borrowed) and fly home, down and up and past the strange lighthouse-looking building that is so far from any sea. Instead I like to linger in the shop and smell and touch all the neat organic products. Today I am waiting for the rain to making bike-riding home appealing.

I met a gal from Michigan, which was nice in a sort of unidentifiable way. Sure I've got some roots and attachments there, but is finding someone from your land of birth in a farther-away land really a cause for celebration? Either way I got her phone number because she works at Promedios and I would like to learn about film editing if I can. I want to learn just about all I can, in fact, while I have what for now I will call a "brief separation from reality." Meaning, I am living how I want without others telling me how to use my time (i.e. bosses, professors, the president) and I am not-so-quietly pleased about it.

In fact, maybe on my day off tomorrow I will stroll downtown and shout about my absolute pleasure with life. Probably not (gringos draw enough attention eh?) but I'm happy, something that is seemingly criminal when one doesn't succumb to the confines of a capitalistic, elitist, hierarchical power structure. So, call me a criminal.

just like spring......

The weather in San Cristobal is warming, slowly but surely. Spring is identifiable in the sudden and brief sicknesses of several people that I know and in the alternating brightness and stormy rains of the days.

Despite all changes and newness, I have myself wrapped up in a tranquil and steady life, which involves work, puppy, roommates, books, and the occasional film. Excitement comes in the form of Tuesday 2 for 1 sushi day and Samba's ever-rounder belly, or the occasional bottle of caña.

I like my new work. It's quiet but with enough unpredictability to make each day worth getting up at 7am. I like making carrot juices for people who display such open eagerness when they ask for one. I also like the staff breakfast that we all get around 11am and which is always a complete surprise. There are nice little surprises too, like today when a woman came to drop off a granola sample for the restaurant owners and she gave me my own little bag to try too. A little later an older woman asked me if it would be safe for her to take a taxi after dark in San Cristobal and I assured her completely that it was.

It's nice. And home is also nice too. My roommates are becoming quite dear to me and I much prefer staying at home to going out these days, a sentiment we all seem to share.

It feels very good to just wake up every morning, breathe and smile all day long, and fall into a warm bed at night. Sooner or later I'll get restless but for now, it's just what I could want.

ain't no fool...

Today I spent a hot, perfectly cloudless day harvesting wheat with nothing more than a common kitchen steak knife. At first I started out with scissors, but the knife let me move more swiftly and our little cream-colored wheat piles grew and grew. Later we bundled them and tied them with pink string but even after six hours, among eight people, we were still only half finished by time we left for lunch.

Though I would be very happy to return to the garden tomorrow and finish the harvest, instead I am going to start working at the restaurant that receives the garden's bounty. The atmosphere is bright and airy and laidback, I already feel very comfortable there.

But, at the moment, I feel uncomfortably full, having just over-enjoyed the Casa del Pan buffet..crema de chayote, ensalada, gnocchi, y pastel de zanahoria. Time for a nap.

And, our home has swelled quite nicely in the past week. We added an Argentinian gal and a couple from the States to what was before only Josue, Samba (the boxer puppy menace), and I. All of us found jobs on the same day and are looking forward to sumptuous home-cooked dinners in the near future. Speaking of home, it's really time for a nap.

night snacks

In the corner of a park, just down the block from where the mariachis practice and wait patiently (despondently?), there is a small, wooden quesadilla stand on wheels. Last night we visited, I unfortunately without hunger, and while the couple inside the stand prepared mushroom and chorizo quesadillas, they told us about how the police have been trying for the past couple weeks to remove them from the park. The first time the police came, there were a lot of people waiting for quesadillas and they began to shout at the police, "Get out of here!" "We want to eat!!" Since then, the police have returned several times, each time without success and the couple have gone to the city to see what sort of deal they can work out. "Either way, we're not going anywhere," says the woman, with a huge smile on her face.

I just have a blackberry atol and watch the incredible loyalty and comraderie among this one lone stand's clientele and among the vendors themselves, as lovely and sweet as the thick purple atol in my hand, which is also the perfect amount of warm on a chilly San Cristóbal night.

bad seeds

News:
Mexico allows planting of genetically-modified crops
La situación de los presos políticos en huelga de hambre en Chiapas
What is happening to our dear bats?

More from Nicaragua:
Change of luck in Leon
Bureaucracy and beer
And finally, leaving...

Nicaragua

Well, I want to be able to write about things that are actually happening currently, so here's the rest of our Nicaraguan adventures:

On to the Isla de Ometepe
Volcano Climbing, Volcán Maderas on the Isla de Ometepe
One more day on the Isla
Bad luck
Visiting the police station

home?

Well, after almost a month on the road I am back in San Cristóbal de las Casas, México. More stories from Nicaragua to come, and following will be my adventure in finding paid work (HA).

Fotos from Nicaragua, uploaded graciously by Abigail.

Departure, for now

Leaving is always hard, I should know this by now, right? Yet, I also knew I had to get back to Mexico or I wouldn't make it out of Nicaragua ever (though actually, and unfortunately too late, now this idea appeals to me). I said good-byes, bit my lip, and got on any bus I could find heading north, north, north.

My exit across the Nicaraguan-Honduran border was very surreal in its contrast to our arrival. Rather than being on a noisy bus with films and a large group of people, it was just me, my bicycle taxi driver and his companion, and an eerie silence only disrupted by the soft sound of gravel under the bicycle taxi tires. Over a bridge, Honduras. The Nicarguan immigration attendant is coincidentally also the attendant for Honduran immigration and doesn't hesitate to charge me twice. When I accidentally and unsuccessfully attempt to steal his pen and am caught, I am indignant and feel that by this point he owes it to me. Whatever.

More buses, more dry and dusty countryside, more solitary travel, more swindling money changers and I arrive at the border of El Salvador, not having eaten or drank water the entire day. I am covered in sweat and dust and begin asking how to find a bus to the capital, San Salvador. People point at the grandiose King Quality coach that is parked at the border, going through the immigration process, and I figure I may as well pay a little bit more and actually get to San Salvador today rather than wander around by myself at night in this unfamiliar country. The luxury of the bus astounds me after being on chicken buses all day, do people really live like this? I feel out of place even though it's just as likely that I would have taken a bus like this had I had the money. A young bus attendant offers me a pillow, blanket, coffee, juice- do people really live like this? Of course they do, I know that they do, but after such a long day, I am struggling to take all of it in.

In San Salvador, my communication with my potential couchsurfers falls through and I spend the night in the bus station. Rain! I haven't seen rain fall in a long time, and it makes for a nice background to the mild chaos unfolding in the early hours at the bus station. It reminds me of how I'll miss taking cold showers in the middle of a brutally hot day. At 6am I board a bus direct to Mexico, missing Nicaragua already, but knowing I'll be back. That land of lakes and volcanos took bits and pieces of my heart at every turn, so of course I'll be back.

Migración

Well, to wrap up her trip in Nicaragua, Abigail apparently wanted to spend several more hours involved in bureaucratic nonsense, because once again we found ourselves (this time three of us, Abby and I and our dear law student friend Carlos) in Managua, in a big office, waiting in line. We were lucky, though, that when we got to Managua, the hostel we planned on staying in was full and Carlos once again displayed his endless generosity by offering us beds in his family's house. Mom fed us again and Carlos helped us navigate the madness of Managua.

The immigration office is hot and jumbled and filled with confused and exhausted people, mostly Nicaraguans. Under the poorly translated sign that reads "Attention Foreign Visitors," we are relieved to find the line is very short. That is, until the stout clerk informs us that first Abby has to fill out a formulario, which must be bought at the cashier's window. The line for the cashier window wraps around itself many times in the sweltering and crowded building (it's so hot they even have an ice cream stand inside). Abby's face falls. Carlos sighs, and grins while softly singing the famous Carlos Mejía Godoy song, "Ay, Nicaragua, Nicaraguita." I am more or less accustomed to Latin American bureaucracy and, though I don't want to wait for another few hours in the trapped heat, I am quite fond of the company I am in and it's hard for anything to take a smile off my face these days.

After we escape with Abby's immigration exit stamp in hand, we realize that it is St. Patrick's day and we must absolutely have a beer. We knock back a few liters of Toña in a bar nearby to Carlos' house. And it was good that we drank, not only because of the relief it brought after the chaos of the morning, but also because the terrible Hollywood movie we saw afterwards in the air conditioned mall cinema could only have been tolerated with a healthy amount of alcohol.

Change of luck..

We spent a lovely week in Leon, preoccupying ourselves only with how to fit all of our food cravings, pool time, and meeting new friends into our days. We met a funny and sweet Norwegian gal who introduced us to Leon's artesans (one of which gave me a beautiful pair of sea shell earrings) and a wonderfully sweet law student who not only hung out with us but graciously catered to all of our needs (not to mention our silly whims). We spent a beautiful, sunny, lazy day at the beach, wondering whether we should play in the sand, lay in the sun, eat fruit or drink beer first- what decisions we were forced to make! At night when the air no longer was suffocatingly hot, we would wander around, finding music or (of course) food.

One morning we discovered that the after-hours bar we had been drinking in the night before actually had been a Sandinista worker's bar, and also where the dictator Somoza was assassinated. Our Norwegian friend told us how her Spanish teacher remembers hearing the screams of prisoners being tortured and killed at the prison a few blocks from her house. All of Leon is like a living, breathing, historical monument and all of the movement and the stories and the people are quite addicting. Maybe I even left my heart there.

La policia.....

3 hours making a ridiculous police report. We wait in the heat for a good 45 minutes before the officer asks us 3 times, "So, you want to fill out a police report?" No, sir, we just love hanging out at police stations while we're traveling through Nicaragua, clearly.

Finally, we're allowed in and the officer sits down very seriously at his typewriter and takes out a small Barbie notebook, where he tells me to write down my information and a list of things that were stolen and the total value of everything stolen. Abby does the same and meanwhile he asks a lot of questions about the circumstances, where we where, when, etc, etc. Every now and then he throws in a strange question and it's hard enough for me to hear him over the noisy air conditioner, so I have to ask him to repeat himself several times when he asks questions like, "Well, at what age do you expect to get married then?" These questions only add to the surrealeness of the experience.

Near the end he asks, "I sure ask a lot of questions, don't I?" "Isn't that your job?" I reply. Clearly this guy is bored and he must realize that he wastes a lot of his own time and that of others filling out police reports, knowing full well that there's no possible way any stolen goods will ever be recovered. He's also a bad typist and this wastes more time.

Mala suerte...

In the morning we make a quick getaway from the island, declaring ourselves finished from its nonsense, and looking forward to a change in scenery. Part of me wants to stay on the island a little longer but the signs show that it's time to head out.

Because buses are already hard to come by on the island, and on Sundays only worse, we get ride in the back of an old man's pick up truck. He's reluctant to take all 3 of us because he doesn't have his tourism driver's license, but when we get stopped by the police, he just tells them that he's not charging us. Seems like a fine enough system to me.

We get to the ferry and for some reason the prices are twice as much and thus the robbery begins.

We toss our bags in the luggage area and climb straight up to the top level. The ferry is large, with several cars including a banana truck on board, and I am anxious to just sit in the sun and feel the breeze coming off the water as we glide back to San Jorge.

A few bus rides and hours later we arrive to the Hostal Albergue in Leon, yet unknowingly deceived by their clever and hip advertisement. We are exhausted, having traveled all day, and when the hostal worker asks for our passports, we move slowly. Even slower is our reaction to the fact that many of our things are missing. Most importantly, Abby's passport and my money, and then all of our jewelry and a number of smaller and more insignificant things, but silly things like my deodorant and contact solution. Disbelief, horror, and anger wash over us in waves as we figure out what to to do. The hostal employee is less than sympathetic and we realize we need a drink.

Drained and miserable, we head to a nearby bar, unable even to communicate properly or politely with the waitstaff. I neither want to sleep, nor wake up, nor be in Nicaragua anymore, nor leave the stop that I am sitting in ever. I haven't felt so bad in a really, really long time.

In the morning, after our "free breakfast" of white bread and butter (we didn't bother making the ancient-looking instant coffee), we find a new hostal a few blocks away. Lazy Bones offers us constant internet access, a pool, coffee and tea all day long, hammocks, and a pool table, and in the state that we're in, it seems perfect. Ok, I know I've said before that I don't care for the backpacker hostal atmosphere but honestly, after our bout of bad luck, it felt completely necessary and good to relax in the "luxuriousness" of this hostal.

In the morning, I realize that actually all of the rest of my money has been stolen and that hits me hard for a bit. But, it takes a lot to keep two gals like Abigail and I down, and soon we are relaxing and laughing over our misfortune. Today we will relax, tomorrow we'll take care of passport nonsense, and then we'll enjoy whatever days we have left in Nicaragua. But no more blaming, anger, sadness, or disappointment. As a dear friend, Vladmir, said to me afterwards, "Well, the most important things aren't the material things anyway, but rather the friendships and connections you'll make while traveling, and those are things that are far more valuable and which no one can ever steal from you."

One more day on the Isla....

So, upon waking up we quickly realize that our original plan of leaving the island today is surely not going to happen. Abby is as sore as I am, with each step it feels like some large animal is grabbing onto our calf muscles with its claws. And the only part that might not have ached on me, my head, is slightly pounding from my alcoholic pain remedy from the night before.

Instead we rest and head to the Ojo de Agua, a little freshwater swimming hole with a cement bottom. Strange, but the day is nice and we can drink beer while letting our aching bodies soak in the cool water. Ok, so I didn't come to Nicaragua to drink but times (and pains) like these call for a change in attitude.

After a couple flings off the rope swing, we get in the back of Mel's pick-up truck and head to the Playa Santo Doming, an insect-ridden beach nearby. Gnats swarm all around us, trying to get into our mouths and our beers and we try in vain at first to keep our drinks covered but then just start casually picking dead gnats out of our cups. The fish we order is miserable, but the tostones (fried bananas) and cheese are perfect, and the breeze coming off the lake is nice. Aquiles and Mel tease Kari endlessly about her Costa Rican, "Tico," accent, and it feels good to just relax.

At night, Kari, Mel, and Aquiles go out dancing. Or attempt to, my body is still in a lot of pain and we get to the bar too late anyhow to do much dancing. Instead, we play pool for a little while and head back to the hotel. Unfortunately Mel gets a little drunk and irrational and that puts a sour end on the night, but I'm not too worried about it; I have my sights set on one thing: BED.

Climbing el volcán Maderas......

It's suprisingly easy for me to get up at 4am and feel ready to climb a volcano. Piece of cake, right? The ascent up the Maderas Volcano is 5km and rocky, sometimes muddy, and at times feels more like rock climbing than hiking. Our young and agile guide, Omar, appears to be sprinting in comparison to us and he's usually skipping ahead of us and then waiting for us around a bend or up a steep hill. Probably helps to have boots, huh, instead of stretched out, worn walking shoes like I have. No one has enough water and us 3 gals (Me, Abby and a Californian named Kari) are just not quite in the shape that our guide is in, eh.

We come across some ruckus-making and curious howler monkeys and later a branch-throwing white-faced monkey. Omar says the white-faced monkeys are more intelligent and also more aggressive, but he doesn't say whether there's a connection between the two characteristics. Hm.

The trees are amazing and the diversity of the plants even more so- ferns, flowers, thick undergrowth and towering trees completely covered and filled with tinier, just-as-complex ecosystems. Birds scream and chirp and flutter all around us, denying even the thought of quiet in this forest. Yet, it's often hard to focus on the natural beauty all around us because one misstep can mean a nasty fall and if you look to the side, you'll probably get smacked on the head by a low branch.

Somewhere around kilometer 4, we 3 gals get delirious, laughing hysterically at nothing and slipping and sliding all over the place. At one point I even found myself hanging precariously from a branch over a low drop-off, somehow turned around and facing the direction we'd come from, without the slightest recollection of how it had happened. Omar must think we're insane.

After 4 hours, we arrive to a tranquil lagoon in the crater on the top of the volcano. I collapse onto the ground and Kari tries to wade into the lagoon only to find herself up to her knees in mud within seconds. At this point my weak ankles, made worse by my terrible shoes, are aching to the point of delirium. The descent back down is 6km because we take a different route and every step becomes a shocking blast of pain shooting up from my foot to my brain. After a couple of kilometers I consider just laying down in the forest and staying the night there. Instead, I bite my lip and clench my fists and stumble down the hill the best I can, walking freakishly like a Frankenstein-esque character. By the time we get to the bottom, I can't speak and just point to cold-looking beverages at the corner store and mutter about snacks while we wait for our bus. Omar drinks 2 beers while we wait, completely unphased by the day, despite his having only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before. Whatever.

Abby ices me up at the hotel and we drink a bit to ease the pain. I should probably have just gone to bed but instead, wanting to drive the pain out of my mind, I slammed a few Toñas and a few cups of Flor de Caña. Ahhh.

On to the crazy Isla....

Bye bye San Juan: Abby makes her specialty, pancakes, for the morning of our departure. They turn out more like crepes (yummm) and we smother them with sweetened condensed milk while downing several cups of strong, black coffee. Another healthy breakfast to get a day of traveling started, ha.

Movimiento: We're moving around a lot on this trip, something that is strange for both of us. In Mexico we would stay at least a week, and usually two, in each place but in Nicaragua we can only stay in places for a couple days at a time, unfortunately constrained by those all-too-familiar restraints: time and money. Yet, even at this point in the trip I feel certain that I will return to Nicaragua, hopefully sooner than later. Nicaragua is sunshine and warm smiles and fresh air to me- but at the same time I know that this isn't enough. Engels words still echo in my mind frequently, especially because I am really starting to love Nicaragua and I don't want to look back and see that all I did was take and take and let the beauty seep into me without giving anything back or properly expressing my gratitude.

To Ometeptl: So, we hop in the first cab we see heading to Rivas, I had completely forgot that only a few minutes before I had said I wanted to use the internet before we left. But it turned out to be a lucky, albeit absent-minded decision, because after about 15 minutes riding down the terribly bumpy and rocky road out of SJ, our taxi got not one flat tire, but two, and a few minutes later an older Canadian man picked us up in his pick-up and took us directly to the ferry, free of charge and with a half hour to grab some gallo pinto.

The lake is choppy and brown and the ferry plods along, sometimes sickenly slow and heaving and other times just slow slow slow. The breeze is nice though and so is the view of the island, which is gradually becoming greener as we get closer, while the two volcanos that created the Island of Ometepe get bigger and bigger. When we land, a bus is leaving and since we know absolutely nothing about the island, we just get on and watch farms and palm trees and the entirely imposing Volcán Concepción pass by our school bus windows until we end up in the small town of Altagracia. Fine.

Should we stay here? We are indecisive, a vulnerability that the clever young guy at the tourism office exploits, telling us the "only way to see the Island" is to stay in Altagracia. Whatever, we're tired. "And by the way, my dad's hotel is just around the corner and we have a tour guide and food and information, blah blah blah." I think normally I would have been annoyed by this blatant trickery but instead, I shrugged and we threw our bags down. He seems like a nice person anyhow and besides, no more time to waste, bikes and a sweet little beach nearby are waiting!

another day in san juan del sur

The birds here are beautiful and I realize we haven't seen much wildlife on this trip so far. Gorgeous blue and green birds with long, azure pendulum-shaped tails swoop onto low branches and then let their tails switch back and forth mechanically, like clocks. They are the 'guardabarrancos,' Nicaragua's national bird. Other birds that look like giant blue jays with feathery curly cues on their heads make a lot of noise in the mango tree and are curious about everything it seems.

We finally get around to finding the beach. It is hot and empty, and the water is again cold. I'm not interested in swimming anyway and instead pick stones and shells and other things off of the beach, throw most of them back, and keep a few. We wander, have a beer here, and ice cream there, typical beach wandering. Except for at one point when our beach stroll was interrupted by a loud and irritated voice behind us, 'Man, they really f***ed this place up!' We look back and see a middle-aged man walking quickly and angrily and all the while talking out loud, mostly to himself, about how San Juan has been ruined in the past 20 years. Meanwhile, Abby and I feel a bit silly and out of place here anyway, maybe we should have been here 20 years ago? Who knows...It's a nice place, but we're not surfers and it seems like the whole town has been built up just to accomodate those folks. And there's the wild partying people have told us about, but I'm just not interested this time.

After a seriously satisfying dinner of fish, ceviche, and a couple of Toñas, I dropped like a rock onto a thin mattress on Sarah and Baldo's terrace.

movement......

Leaving Tola "No lo creo," dad says, shaking his head. Mom is holding back her tears, "Every guest we have...I just start to love them so much." She gives me the family address, home phone number, and many reassurances that anytime we or anyone in our family want, this is our home. I promise to be back soon. With our bags packed full of clean clothes and a bag of still-green jocote (my prize for english homework translation), and my new flip flops on my feet, we head for la playa.

San Juan del Sur, my first impression Surfboards and bleached hair, tattooed youth in board shorts, people no longer expect or care if we speak Spanish, tourist prices, dusty construction, constant movement, walls of hanging bathing suits and surfboards, that certain sort of carefree energy and thinly-veiled desperation that saturates a tourist beach town, "un pequeño relax." I can see how people get stuck here but we're not really digging it so far. Perhaps we're just pessimistic because we haven't seen the beach yet and definitely haven't come close to eating the red snapper that Omantzin was telling us about. At least the air is warm and the ice cream cheap.

We have dinner later with our hosts, a young Texan woman who moved to Nicaragua at around age 11 when her family founded an orphanage, and her Nica husband, who works in the local real estate office and is also president of the national surf circuit (a huge deal in San Juan del Sur). They're nice, stil in their "honeymoon/new appliance phase" and they have a lovely house with a breezy terrace, only 500 meters or so from the beach. Abby and I trade stories with Sarah about how our family members back in the States insist that places like Nicaragua and Mexico are so dangerous, an idea we all find funny considering how dangerous most U.S. cities are. Ah well. Here's an interesting article about Nicaragua's safety. And Nicaragua doesn´t even make the list of the 62 countries with the highest per capita murder rate. They list the U.S. at number 24, right between Bulgaria and Armenia.

la moto

Morning comes with gallo pinto (I will never, ever tire of rice and beans), egg, cheese, sweet orange juice, and, of course, big smiles and happy !Buenos dias! from the entire family. We hope that our gratitude is expressed in our wide-eyed, grinning faces and our scraped-clean plates. Keila will leave for Managua today for her job as a radio DJ with Radio Disney but mom assures us that she is "at our orders" for anything we might need or want, just ask her or dad. Lucky for us, we are completely content eating delicious home-cooking and then relaxing for the day; the heat really doesn't allow us to do much else, right?

Well, we did decide to use the internet for a few hours, and to do so we had to utilize a connection Keila has with the town elementary school's sub-director (her best friend's mom). Even after Keila leaves and around 30 second-graders come in for class, the computer teacher lets us use the computers until his shift ends.

Dad picks us up one by one on the motorcycle and while we ride through town he beeps, yells or waves at nearly everyone we pass. Everyone knows each other here and it's such a small, peaceful town that it's hard for me to imagine dad fighting in the war only 15 years ago, as he later told us.

As we're recovering from lunch (already?!) of bean and egg soup, rice and plaintains, dad comes into to tell us that when the sun lowers a little more, he'll teach us how to ride a motorcycle. So, a bit later dad takes us to the local soccer/beisbol field (in case we fall he says), where a couple dozen men and boys are kicking around soccer balls. I translate the directions for Abby the best I can. Here's the clutch, accelerate slowly while releasing the clutch, here are the brakes, etc. A lot of information for two gals with no motorcycle experience. Finally, a nervous but daring Abigail jumps on, with dad on the back to watch.

A couple stalls later and they're moving, but the moto quickly starts to weave, first to the right, then to the left, staggering wildly like a drunk. Uh oh. Suddenly (this must be the part where Abby blacked out), I hear a roar of acceleration and the machine and riders are propelled forward, now out of control, with poor dad on the back being tossed around like a sack of groceries. Dad tries to reach for the brake but the motorcycle lurches forward and falls over hard. Within seconds every player on the field is standing above a banged up Abby, dad and moto, but at Abby's fierce "Adios!!" they all scatter. A few scrapes and bruises, but nothing burned or broken, thanks to God.



Now that it was my turn, I decide to wait for my nerves to calm down and for the field of curious and amused spectators to empty. So, dad and I chatted a bit about his life until the players begin to leave. Dad carefully goes over the instructions again, telling me, "Don't think about the motorcycle. If you think you're going to fall just get out of the way and don't even think about what will happen to the bike, it's much more important that you don't get hurt." I stall a few times too but finally get going in order to ride around the field a few times, never daring to leave first gear. Next time.

It's so nice to be fussed over by a mother sometimes. Mom fills Abby up with medicine and puts cream on her wounds, she washes all of our clothes because she's worried about us leaving with dirty clothes and not being able to wash them later and, of course, she keeps us happily fed and asks us constantly how we are, what do we need, do we feel good, want to watch tv? Here's the only English channel. Dad usually just grins or laughs and gives us the thumbs up sign whenever he sees us. He's never upset, even for a moment, that Abby could have killed him. He just laughs and laughs and says "Too bad we didn't get a video of that!"

¡a la puchica!

Arriving to Rivas, a taxi driver offers to take us to Tola for 100 cordobas. Silly guy. We go to buy water and ask the woman working for the best way to get there. She says don't pay more than 40 cordobas for a taxi and for some reason she gives us a huge smile when I told her we were going to Tola. Folks are so friendly here.

The taxi driver drops us off at the "parque central," a small square of cement with a few basketball hoops. Some big pigs roll around in the mud in one corner of the park and people sit around in rocking chairs and on porches. Our HC host, Keila, told us to get to the park and ask for her aunt, who sells vegetables there. So, I walk to the stand closest to us and ask a young guy working. "She´s the last stand in the park," he tells me and I look to see that there is actually only one other vegetable stand, about 10 feet away. Aunt looks at me for a minute and then suddenly brightens and shouts, "Keila!" and proceeds to call everyone in the family and let them know we've arrived. I immediately love this family as mom walks up and gives us a warm hug and dad rides up on a motorcycle with a huge smile. Keila is all energy, throwing our bags in the car and asking if we´re ready to see the ocean. "Yes!" After all, I did promise Abby the ocean on her birthday.

At the house we meet Grandpa and brothers and cousins and aunt and baby; everyone is so pleased to see us, even when they find out that were from the States and not from Argentina like they'd all thought (though we never really find out why). Oh my, and when the family finds out it's a birthday, everyone immediately starts shouting and clapping and singing all at once. A few minutes later "las mañanitas" is blaring out of a stereo in the house. Keila promises an unforgettable day and we embark for the ocean.

The air is thick with dust and the roady bumpy and rocky and nearly empty besides the occasional herder leading his long-horned cattle home, their ears flopping and necks swaying back and forth. We couldn't roll the window up for the heat, so dust filled our eyes and ears and mouths until we got to the sea. Always lovely and here the sea is heaving onto the filthy beach, which is popular for parties and family gatherings, especially since the water is too cold to be entirely inviting. At the end of the beach we climb some rocks and watch the ocean send tall sprays of water into the air via huge, crashing waves. Around the bend a pristine beach sits empty and isolated, barely accessible because of the rocks, and in stark contrast to the beach behind us, where an enormous pig is making its way through the litter strewn all over.

At home we get our first taste of mom's cooking. The best beans I've ever had in my life (for real), fried chicken, rice and a little glass of rum and orange juice. Mom sits and watches us eat with a huge smile on her face, truly content by our presence. I tell them that in Mexico everyone calls Abby 'Tinker Bell' and they both erupt in laughter, "It's true!! She is Tinker Bell!" Keila shouts. And when brother arrives with Abby's birthday ice cream, he tells us that the only flavor the store had left was "fantasia." "Ahh perfect! Fantasy ice cream for the Tinker Bell!!" Keila and Mom laugh and laugh.

Turns out fantasy ice cream is really just bubble gum flavored but whatever, I'm eating ice cream in flip flops (though mis matched now) and imagining that if I were back in Michigan right now I would be miserably cold and clinging to the hope that spring was actually going to come this year.