Big in the news last week: unemployment finally dipping below 8%. What do these numbers mean? A political victory for Obama? An error in reporting? An indicator of economic vitality? So often we think of these numbers in a theoretical framework, or as statistics influencing pundit babble. They simultaneously speak of unemployment as the temperature gauge of our economy, and then turn around and blame the unemployed for their laziness (and other negative stereotypes like drunkeness, drug use, dependency on government handouts). If there's anything we know to be true is that the poor and the unemployed deserve their fate, as they are clearly unmotivated and probably just plain stupid.
To the people who received those new jobs lauded in the news, it meant the first gulp of fresh air after months and even years of drowning. To those still unemployed, perhaps it meant a glimmer of light at the end of a seemingly endless tunnel. I happen to fall into the former category.
I had a very low-wage job in Nebraska in 2010 and 2011, which I absolutely adored. Working at Volunteers of America as an AmeriCorps Member was exactly what I wanted to be doing, exactly where I wanted to be. I was able to swing the $500/month stipend thanks to the generosity and free rent offered by my parents. In fact, up to that point in my life, I was handed paid internships like they were suckers at the bank. "Here you go, little girl!" I was academically accomplished, and had a variety of skills and volunteer experience to offer any future employer. I was a passionate and capable youth ready to change the world! And then I stepped out of my bubble.
I decided my life in Nebraska was too comfortable, that I wasn't ready to settle into anything, and wanted to see new places and try new things. So I landed in Portland, Oregon, with only a couple of (lovely) acquaintances to live with, and no prospects. I didn't expect it to be easy, especially since I had never had to go through the process of looking for a job before. They had generously fallen into my lap due to the (never understimated) advantage of networking.
So I arrived, scoped it out, found some really awesome jobs in many areas of interest, and applied and applied and applied. I wasn't eligible for unemployment benefits because my AmeriCorps position was not deemed and "employer/employee relationship". I finally landed a part time position as an organist, which was wonderful, although the commute was borderline unbearable (18 miles one way on my scooter throughout the winter). It wasn't enough money to get by, so I continued to apply, and lowered my standards for just something that would get me by. Finally, for whatever reason, I was offered a job as a receptionist at an assisted living, so blessedly close to my home. My supervisor later informed me that she had received approximately TWO HUNDRED applications for my position. My point is not to brag that I received the job, but to illustrate how awful the job market really is. Without previous experience, I have no idea why she chose me. But I was exceedingly grateful, as my savings were about to their end, and I had been unemployed four months.
Soon after receiving that position I decided to move again. This time, to be with my boyfriend in Boulder, Colorado, who was tied down with school and unable to relocate. Life is short! And I had figured it out in Portland, so I could do it all again, this time much easier!
It turns out I was mistaken, so sorely mistaken. Our situation in Colorado was complicated. I needed to have a minor surgery, and although I got health insurance for exactly that reason, it still ate up almost all of my savings. We lived with Matthew's parents while we were waiting to buy a house in Denver, so I started applying for positions in Denver. The house fell through, and then we were rushed to find a place to rent in Boulder, all in the midst of his parents moving to a different state! The process was full of upheaval and stress, but we finally got settled into our new apartment. By this time I was already completely out of money and relying on my parents to pay for my food and rent. I buckled down and started applying for more and more positions, each week lowering my expectations and lamenting that I wasn't applying for a single job that I actually wanted.
Initially, unemployment seems like a vacation. Do what you want all the time! Relax, sleep in, watch TV. And then it begins to take its psychological toll. I believe I have pretty solid self-worth. But the experience of being unemployed for six months wore me down. I sat for hours searching for and applying for jobs, with a throbbing panic in my gut. I woke up every morning with nothing to do, feeling unwanted, as if I had nothing to contribute to the world. Why didn't they want me? What's wrong with me? And then to have everyone around me telling me: you really need to get a job. You can't go on like this. You need to start pulling your own weight. My mind was constantly in a whirlpool of negative thoughts, sucking me downward. Almost anything I wanted to do, I couldn't afford. I applied for food stamps (and am even now still in the process of receiving them). I finally received a job working at a Korean cafe but was laid off only after three days of training. The owner told me business was down and he couldn't afford to hire me. But my self-depricating downtrodden self doubted the reason.
The spiral of my pain deepended and my relationships suffered. I became so sensitive and couldn't even talk about strategizing. I finally decied to give up completely and try to make money in a different avenue. The very next day I received a request for an interview from three different companies and ended up getting hired as a sales associate at Macy's. Now let me confess, big-box stores selling merchandise made by low-wage workers in poverty-stricken countries are not my cup of tea. Additionally, the hiring standards of the company seem to be pretty low, and the job doesn't pay well. After six months of unemployment, the knowledge that I received the job was like a shaft of sunshine straight into my heart.
I know that my experience was echoed by many young people just like me all over the nation. Capable, hungry to contribute, and resentful of the "moocher status" pasted over an entire generation. Part of the lesson I've learned is even after all the searching, BOTH times of my unemployment, the job I ended up receiving was not rewarding or fulfilling. Is this the future we're being offered? I don't accept it. I am so appreciative of the small amount of money I have coming in, and it's given me a new appreciation for the role money plays in my life. But even so, I cannot be happy with this second-class life! Where will this growing discontent lead our generation? Are office jobs and the service industry really all we have to offer to the world? I challenge all of us, and especially myself, to forge a new path (and a very old path) of tangible contribution to a tangible community. It's up to you to discover what that means for you, but it's a conversation we need to be having with each other, together.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
The Art of Aging
I'm now five weeks into my new adventure - a full time job. On the surface, that may seem like the opposite of adventure; on a day quickly approaching, I may feel think that too. How did I end up here, as the receptionist and front office assistant at an Assisted Living facility? I applied for endless varieties of jobs in non-profits, Portland is rife with them, but the market in Portland is neck deep in young caring professionals looking for part-time jobs. Finally, the motivation of rent inspired me to take a job only a mile from my house, at $10/hr as a receptionist. As an introvert, this decision seemed almost counter-intuitive. Up until this point, my time in Portland had been spent 50% in slumber. I have no experience as a receptionist. Elderly people have difficulty understanding me when I speak (the frequency of my voice can't be heard by the human ear). But they hired me, with the understanding that I will be moving away in May.
At the front desk I have the unique opportunity to listen to the residents talk to each other at leisure, without them knowing I can hear them. (Although sometimes I question this, sometimes I think they just don't care if people know what they say). Topics range from the light-hearted weather and activity talk to the endless regrets for moving from their homes, complaints about how their children don't respect them and treat them as infants, and longing for family interactions. I have to sit through loud whispers of how much better the previous receptionist was than me...oh, Joanie. She's another story altogether. These folks have spent their whole lives busy, and to sit in idleness feels like the worst fate. As they sit and wither, health degrades, some are sent to higher level care facilities, some pass away. No matter how many activities are planned, how many TV shows and crossword puzzles fill their hours, there remains ample amount of time to contemplate the inevitability of death.
And I get to sit and observe it, and contemplate the inevitability of my own death, and mostly likely, my own aging process. First to mind is heart and body health. Weight loss is not the only reason to exercise! I have no longing for living forever, but I also don't want to be hobbling around with a walker at the age of 70.
I don't fault a single one of them for feeling cast aside and undervalued. I can't blame them for longing for a different time. An 80 year old person today was at the height of their game in the era of McCarthyism, where families were perfect units and receptionists didn't shave odd portions of their hair off. Peace activist Howard Zinn died recently at the age of 88 after endless years of highly intellectual thought and action on issues of peace and social justice. He did not lose the ability to process complex current events and lived a very active lifestyle. My grandpa is 87 and still loves to haul hunks of iron around his yard via riding lawn mower. Up until now, every year my grandpa ages, that year becomes the year before "old". But now I'm surrounded by people average aged much younger than that with health conditions like water spiraling down a drain.
An Assisted Living differs from a Nursing Home in the level of care offered, the people here are not able to live alone, but mostly can meet their own needs. They enjoy the convenience of someone else doing their laundry, cooking their meals, mowing the lawn, and the distinct advantage of having compatriots with similar interests and lifestyles. There's a strong argument for that. Whether those needs can be better met in a family can't be answered in a blanket statement about care for the elderly. I would gently argue that the inter-generational relationships benefit everyone in a family setting, the elderly watching the children, the children learning from the elderly, and the middle generation providing sustenance and care for both. This set-up would also offer the elderly mental stimulation and a sense of purpose and of home. There's a certain gravity to the aged that offers balance in a young household. A people (I'm talking about us as a culture) who don't value these representatives of the past are losing something essential, very simply, humanity. Just as we will (mostly) all be old someday, everyone old was someday young, sprightly, comely. The events of their lives unfolded in passion, grief, and prayer. Experiencing the slackening of your muscles and the fading of your mind must be absolutely terrifying.
An Italian man was changing trains in Frankfurt, Germany when a man tapped him on the shoulder and told him he had dropped a deutschmark, worth a few dollars perhaps, and returned it to him. Am I annoyed after hearing this story four times from a man reeking of urine? Yes. But isn't it also fascinating to think how important this one event 40 years ago was in a man's life? It is proof to him throughout his life that there are decent people in the world. What is it that people hold on to when all else has been taken from them, their homes, family, independence, and sometimes even their dignity? Those are the things to listen for, and to cultivate in life now.
At the front desk I have the unique opportunity to listen to the residents talk to each other at leisure, without them knowing I can hear them. (Although sometimes I question this, sometimes I think they just don't care if people know what they say). Topics range from the light-hearted weather and activity talk to the endless regrets for moving from their homes, complaints about how their children don't respect them and treat them as infants, and longing for family interactions. I have to sit through loud whispers of how much better the previous receptionist was than me...oh, Joanie. She's another story altogether. These folks have spent their whole lives busy, and to sit in idleness feels like the worst fate. As they sit and wither, health degrades, some are sent to higher level care facilities, some pass away. No matter how many activities are planned, how many TV shows and crossword puzzles fill their hours, there remains ample amount of time to contemplate the inevitability of death.
And I get to sit and observe it, and contemplate the inevitability of my own death, and mostly likely, my own aging process. First to mind is heart and body health. Weight loss is not the only reason to exercise! I have no longing for living forever, but I also don't want to be hobbling around with a walker at the age of 70.
I don't fault a single one of them for feeling cast aside and undervalued. I can't blame them for longing for a different time. An 80 year old person today was at the height of their game in the era of McCarthyism, where families were perfect units and receptionists didn't shave odd portions of their hair off. Peace activist Howard Zinn died recently at the age of 88 after endless years of highly intellectual thought and action on issues of peace and social justice. He did not lose the ability to process complex current events and lived a very active lifestyle. My grandpa is 87 and still loves to haul hunks of iron around his yard via riding lawn mower. Up until now, every year my grandpa ages, that year becomes the year before "old". But now I'm surrounded by people average aged much younger than that with health conditions like water spiraling down a drain.
An Assisted Living differs from a Nursing Home in the level of care offered, the people here are not able to live alone, but mostly can meet their own needs. They enjoy the convenience of someone else doing their laundry, cooking their meals, mowing the lawn, and the distinct advantage of having compatriots with similar interests and lifestyles. There's a strong argument for that. Whether those needs can be better met in a family can't be answered in a blanket statement about care for the elderly. I would gently argue that the inter-generational relationships benefit everyone in a family setting, the elderly watching the children, the children learning from the elderly, and the middle generation providing sustenance and care for both. This set-up would also offer the elderly mental stimulation and a sense of purpose and of home. There's a certain gravity to the aged that offers balance in a young household. A people (I'm talking about us as a culture) who don't value these representatives of the past are losing something essential, very simply, humanity. Just as we will (mostly) all be old someday, everyone old was someday young, sprightly, comely. The events of their lives unfolded in passion, grief, and prayer. Experiencing the slackening of your muscles and the fading of your mind must be absolutely terrifying.
An Italian man was changing trains in Frankfurt, Germany when a man tapped him on the shoulder and told him he had dropped a deutschmark, worth a few dollars perhaps, and returned it to him. Am I annoyed after hearing this story four times from a man reeking of urine? Yes. But isn't it also fascinating to think how important this one event 40 years ago was in a man's life? It is proof to him throughout his life that there are decent people in the world. What is it that people hold on to when all else has been taken from them, their homes, family, independence, and sometimes even their dignity? Those are the things to listen for, and to cultivate in life now.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Show Me What Democracy Looks Like
I wrote this article for the United Methodist Conference Nebraska to inform and inspire members of local Nebraska churches.
A park in downtown Manhattan has become a shantytown of hundreds and sometimes thousands of people, participating in “Occupy Wall Street”, an effort to bring the greed and corruption of our financial system and government into the eyes of the public. They chant “We are the 99%”, “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”, “Show me what democracy looks like: this is what democracy looks like!”. I had the privilege of joining the demonstration for several days, their occupation of the space now exceeding a month in duration.
They live without access to a public toilet, without shelter, sleeping on tarps laid on concrete and they have managed to build an operating village. The park has safety, sanitation, wi-fi, 24-hour live stream, a spiritual space, free food, medical aid, sleeping bags and clothes, and a library, all provided by volunteer labor and donations. They also hold countless marches, “teach-ins”, “working groups”, and the famous “General Assemblies” in which amazing demonstrations of direct democracy take place.
Why do I care? I am a demi-adult now, recently graduated from college with no real job prospects. I’m not excessively saddled with student loans, but I can’t afford health insurance. And when I heard about Occupy Wall Street, I couldn’t sleep at night and bought a plane ticket almost immediately.
I recently left Nebraska, my adored home state, to seek adventures in the wider world. And the past six years of my life have been spent broadening myself and my faith. I have learned through my home church, the big “c” Church, my community, and my own reflection how much Jesus cared about the poor, suffering, and oppressed. If God is love, that is a personal revelation in how I interact with every single person, and it compels me to fight for their dignity and rights.
There have been many questions and plenty of confusion about these occupations now popping up all over the country and world. Why are they there? What do they want? The people at the demonstrations come from many walks of life, and they hold many different opinions. Their concerns closely echo the sentiments of the Tea Party movement, as well as every-day Americans. They want education for themselves and their children. They want affordable health care for their families. They want fulfilling work that pays a living wage. They want to participate in a democracy they have been promised from birth.
The people I met are diverse, they are young and old, well-off and homeless, anarchists, socialists, libertarians, republicans, democrats, men and women, citizens and non-citizens, all different races. I spoke to a man there from day one, who had his mother and daughter accidentally killed by the police, and later was laid-off and found himself homeless. I had people look into my face with tears of joy for just being there. I saw the spokeswomen of the United Methodist Women talk about Jesus and the 99% on camera at the occupation and celebrated my heritage!
We’re all familiar with Jesus’ tireless demands of clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned, welcoming the stranger, healing the sick. Our nation houses 23% of all the world’s prisoners. It is home-away-from-home to millions of immigrants without basic rights. 22% of our children live in poverty. 45,000 people die in our country every year because they can’t afford adequate health care. These are issues not fixed by food drives, spaghetti fundraisers, and Good Will stores. And anymore they seem to be issues not fixed by our government.
The people in our government currently get elected through massive campaign contributions from corporations. These same corporations have extraordinary amounts of money to lobby our Congresspeople, and in some cases are actually involved in writing laws. This leads to a certain obligation for our members of Congress to be heavily influenced by corporate interest, and do things like bail them out, lower their taxes, not hold them accountable, pass laws that are not in the interest of the American people, and maintain the status quo. They are thus able to become richer and richer and more and more powerful in our government, in a neat little feedback loop. All this means that our representatives no longer represent us. It is up to every one of us to stand up and speak out, in our homes, in our work places, in our public spaces, and in the halls of our government.
We will disagree on how to address these issues. That’s okay! To fret over the lack of “demands” from Occupy Wall Street is to miss the point. The real beauty of this movement is the conversations. If I would offer a suggestion as a conclusion, a way to move forward, it would be this: have the courage to talk about the things that are important, and talk about them in a meaningful, thoughtful way. Everyone wants their concerns to be heard, and to listen to others, and brainstorm and argue and love each other. Shouldn’t this be what churches are? Places for listening, for compassion and care? I’ve spent time bringing up controversial issues in local churches all across Nebraska. Pastors are scared, parishioners are critical, it is hard work! Someone may get offended. But it is worth it. Our faith doesn’t happen in a vacuum; we are participants of vibrant faith communities, the body of Christ.
A park in downtown Manhattan has become a shantytown of hundreds and sometimes thousands of people, participating in “Occupy Wall Street”, an effort to bring the greed and corruption of our financial system and government into the eyes of the public. They chant “We are the 99%”, “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”, “Show me what democracy looks like: this is what democracy looks like!”. I had the privilege of joining the demonstration for several days, their occupation of the space now exceeding a month in duration.
They live without access to a public toilet, without shelter, sleeping on tarps laid on concrete and they have managed to build an operating village. The park has safety, sanitation, wi-fi, 24-hour live stream, a spiritual space, free food, medical aid, sleeping bags and clothes, and a library, all provided by volunteer labor and donations. They also hold countless marches, “teach-ins”, “working groups”, and the famous “General Assemblies” in which amazing demonstrations of direct democracy take place.
Why do I care? I am a demi-adult now, recently graduated from college with no real job prospects. I’m not excessively saddled with student loans, but I can’t afford health insurance. And when I heard about Occupy Wall Street, I couldn’t sleep at night and bought a plane ticket almost immediately.
I recently left Nebraska, my adored home state, to seek adventures in the wider world. And the past six years of my life have been spent broadening myself and my faith. I have learned through my home church, the big “c” Church, my community, and my own reflection how much Jesus cared about the poor, suffering, and oppressed. If God is love, that is a personal revelation in how I interact with every single person, and it compels me to fight for their dignity and rights.
There have been many questions and plenty of confusion about these occupations now popping up all over the country and world. Why are they there? What do they want? The people at the demonstrations come from many walks of life, and they hold many different opinions. Their concerns closely echo the sentiments of the Tea Party movement, as well as every-day Americans. They want education for themselves and their children. They want affordable health care for their families. They want fulfilling work that pays a living wage. They want to participate in a democracy they have been promised from birth.
The people I met are diverse, they are young and old, well-off and homeless, anarchists, socialists, libertarians, republicans, democrats, men and women, citizens and non-citizens, all different races. I spoke to a man there from day one, who had his mother and daughter accidentally killed by the police, and later was laid-off and found himself homeless. I had people look into my face with tears of joy for just being there. I saw the spokeswomen of the United Methodist Women talk about Jesus and the 99% on camera at the occupation and celebrated my heritage!
We’re all familiar with Jesus’ tireless demands of clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned, welcoming the stranger, healing the sick. Our nation houses 23% of all the world’s prisoners. It is home-away-from-home to millions of immigrants without basic rights. 22% of our children live in poverty. 45,000 people die in our country every year because they can’t afford adequate health care. These are issues not fixed by food drives, spaghetti fundraisers, and Good Will stores. And anymore they seem to be issues not fixed by our government.
The people in our government currently get elected through massive campaign contributions from corporations. These same corporations have extraordinary amounts of money to lobby our Congresspeople, and in some cases are actually involved in writing laws. This leads to a certain obligation for our members of Congress to be heavily influenced by corporate interest, and do things like bail them out, lower their taxes, not hold them accountable, pass laws that are not in the interest of the American people, and maintain the status quo. They are thus able to become richer and richer and more and more powerful in our government, in a neat little feedback loop. All this means that our representatives no longer represent us. It is up to every one of us to stand up and speak out, in our homes, in our work places, in our public spaces, and in the halls of our government.
We will disagree on how to address these issues. That’s okay! To fret over the lack of “demands” from Occupy Wall Street is to miss the point. The real beauty of this movement is the conversations. If I would offer a suggestion as a conclusion, a way to move forward, it would be this: have the courage to talk about the things that are important, and talk about them in a meaningful, thoughtful way. Everyone wants their concerns to be heard, and to listen to others, and brainstorm and argue and love each other. Shouldn’t this be what churches are? Places for listening, for compassion and care? I’ve spent time bringing up controversial issues in local churches all across Nebraska. Pastors are scared, parishioners are critical, it is hard work! Someone may get offended. But it is worth it. Our faith doesn’t happen in a vacuum; we are participants of vibrant faith communities, the body of Christ.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Basics
I’m lounging on a bed, in a basement, after a hard day’s work of web-surfing, in Portland, Oregon. I’ve been doing the same thing for days. What am I doing here? I have some half-baked plan in my head, with all sorts of schmaltzy, cliched phrases swirling around like “I want to make a difference”, or “I want to have adventures”. I showed up on a plane without a job or a place to live with the easy confidence that things will happen, that they will be what they should be. And they will, because that’s the track on which my tidy whitey life runs (it's a sickly-sweet thing to ponder).
I loved my old life, my job, my family, the country-side, the laid-back lifestyle of the ultra-rural. And one day I chose liberty over love, for the purpose of newness of thought. I took up uncertainty and discomfort for the sake of the glittery unknown. I left behind a musty cycle of thoughts; I was bored by my own mind, like an old over-washed, over-worn wardrobe.
So I find myself in a new city, without a plan, without a friend; a page turned and the curly scroll of a new chapter heading. I come in search of the grace of arrival, of dispersion of the tension within me, a tension that is strung between the easy thing and the brave thing. I’m a long way away from that kind of grace, it probably doesn’t exist. The only point of arrival in life is death, and maybe not even that.
In the meantime my demons fight. Rather than an angel and a devil on my shoulders, I have a fat cherub and a feisty lioness. The one would have me be content with an average life, the sweet pleasures of a body’s basic needs met well; that pretty good is good enough, and that I have a right to a happy life. The other pulls my hair and pinches my arm, telling me to have courage, fight for the good of everyone, love foolishly, and above all, to write my own story. She’s sexier, and much scarier. They’re not on opposing ends of a spectrum, but act as little consciences. They are both true, and one is not better or more persuasive than the other.
Does every woman have a driving, incessant desire to be the most awesome goddess within herself? I hope so. Can you spend a moment imagining a world where every person is their best self? We should strive for it, dream of it, work toward it relentlessly, because the possibility is so very real. I can be the best that is in me, and so can you, and so can every person if they choose to. It’s not about sameness or rightness or goodness or intelligence or strength, just being the best at being you.
Disappointingly, vague musings aren’t going to move us all closer to our truths. Or maybe just a little bit. A best life requires a plan of action. I have no “normal” plans, like what I want to be when I grow up on that eventual Growing Up Day...I’m pretty sure there will be cake involved. The details are left intentionally blank, to be filled in by life itself within the structure of my choices. Sometimes I have visions of changing the world, of influencing public policy, of saving forests and topsoil, loving the unloved, thinking important thoughts, singing songs that break hearts. Maybe, maybe not. What I can carve is my own self.
So I set the simplest of goals, simple to understand but sometimes difficult to remember and always difficult to do. They are only achieved through the tool of self-discipline, which my lazy dumpling of a shoulder-angel tells me is too much work. I list them in order of my ease in accomplishing them, rather than importance. They’re seemingly unattainable. I am not particularly gifted or holy or strong-willed. It will be an uphill battle all the way to death’s door.
Be Honest.
Live Simply.
Honor Every Person. (love)
If I could manage to do these three things, other things would seem less important, like where I live, or how much money I make, and what job I have. What are your three things? What would make your life well-lived?
I loved my old life, my job, my family, the country-side, the laid-back lifestyle of the ultra-rural. And one day I chose liberty over love, for the purpose of newness of thought. I took up uncertainty and discomfort for the sake of the glittery unknown. I left behind a musty cycle of thoughts; I was bored by my own mind, like an old over-washed, over-worn wardrobe.
So I find myself in a new city, without a plan, without a friend; a page turned and the curly scroll of a new chapter heading. I come in search of the grace of arrival, of dispersion of the tension within me, a tension that is strung between the easy thing and the brave thing. I’m a long way away from that kind of grace, it probably doesn’t exist. The only point of arrival in life is death, and maybe not even that.
In the meantime my demons fight. Rather than an angel and a devil on my shoulders, I have a fat cherub and a feisty lioness. The one would have me be content with an average life, the sweet pleasures of a body’s basic needs met well; that pretty good is good enough, and that I have a right to a happy life. The other pulls my hair and pinches my arm, telling me to have courage, fight for the good of everyone, love foolishly, and above all, to write my own story. She’s sexier, and much scarier. They’re not on opposing ends of a spectrum, but act as little consciences. They are both true, and one is not better or more persuasive than the other.
Does every woman have a driving, incessant desire to be the most awesome goddess within herself? I hope so. Can you spend a moment imagining a world where every person is their best self? We should strive for it, dream of it, work toward it relentlessly, because the possibility is so very real. I can be the best that is in me, and so can you, and so can every person if they choose to. It’s not about sameness or rightness or goodness or intelligence or strength, just being the best at being you.
Disappointingly, vague musings aren’t going to move us all closer to our truths. Or maybe just a little bit. A best life requires a plan of action. I have no “normal” plans, like what I want to be when I grow up on that eventual Growing Up Day...I’m pretty sure there will be cake involved. The details are left intentionally blank, to be filled in by life itself within the structure of my choices. Sometimes I have visions of changing the world, of influencing public policy, of saving forests and topsoil, loving the unloved, thinking important thoughts, singing songs that break hearts. Maybe, maybe not. What I can carve is my own self.
So I set the simplest of goals, simple to understand but sometimes difficult to remember and always difficult to do. They are only achieved through the tool of self-discipline, which my lazy dumpling of a shoulder-angel tells me is too much work. I list them in order of my ease in accomplishing them, rather than importance. They’re seemingly unattainable. I am not particularly gifted or holy or strong-willed. It will be an uphill battle all the way to death’s door.
Be Honest.
Live Simply.
Honor Every Person. (love)
If I could manage to do these three things, other things would seem less important, like where I live, or how much money I make, and what job I have. What are your three things? What would make your life well-lived?
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Cheeeeeese - Part I
Love of cheese seems almost a universal principle uniting humanity. I know only a handful of people who won't eat it, most due to intolerance. We Americans are not regularly exposed to excellent cheese, but that doesn't hamper our fervor for it. My own ardor has led me on a long journey to attempt to craft it with my own hands. To make cheese, you need milk.
Step 1: Buy Goats. No wait, Step 1: Build Fence. Goats are notoriously mischievous and crafty escape artists. Conveniently, I already had a barn at my disposal. Let me share a little secret of my ability to do cool things: my dad does them for me and I pretend to help. So I "helped" my dad build fence, but did eventually catch on to the point that my cousin and I were a mean wire-twisting machine. After all that work, the paddock still appears disappointingly small.
Step 2: No, really, buy some goats. After months of half-baked planning and delays, in the midst of a bitter January, three pregnant goats were toted home in the dog kennels in the back of a pickup (my dad's), wrapped in packing blankets. Those three barely-grown ladies belonged to me. I already had a dozen ducks, but these were mammals, the real deal in livestock ownership.
Step 3: Wait. The constraints of nature are such that Who, Which, and What, named for witches in A Wrinkle In Time, would not lactate until after the births of their kids. It can be a challenge for people to understand, until compared to the female of the human race. Oooooh. Right.
As time marched forward, the freshenings drew near, utters filled and vague due dates approached. Every day was a gut-wrenching good morning as I drew back the barn door, and day by day no kids awaited me, better yet no mutilated fetuses or dead mothers. I lived in dread of the hand-up-the-vagina scenario. One joyous, jittery morning, I could see that What was in labor. She was scratching at the ground and draining from behind. I tripped happily back home to inform the world via Facebook of this impending miracle, and returned a bit later to witness it. A floppy-eared babe sat complacently curled in the door. The final two also came in their respective weeks without a hitch, or a witness, bursting into the world with disregard to any meaningless symbolism I may attach to their births. Isis and Ra, veritable twins from different mothers, and little Neptune, a carbon copy of his Who from Whoville mother.
Step 4: Milk the Goat. Now there's nothing left but to squeeze some milk out of the old girls. Before purchasing my very own goats, I had the experience of only milking one time, or more accurately half a time, from an affable goat named Once (Spanish for eleven). I knew the procedure, pinch off the top of the teat with thumb and forefinger to trap the milk, then squeeze subsequent fingers to expel, aim for the bucket. This is much harder than it sounds. This was my deal, my dad wasn't going to milk them for me. I practiced in the pasture, hanging upside-down over their backsides, I lured them into the milking stall with feed, and neglected and neglected to wean the kids until I felt confident.
Finally the time came, I penned up the babies so they couldn't nurse, and let the milk flow. The routine of milking was routinely a debacle. I put one in the stanchion to have her kick over the bucket, while the others accosted her from each side, the babies bleating pathetically in their pen to be released. The only way I ever got it done was with ample bribes of cracked corn. The kids refused to take the bottle, and for fear of starving them, I let them continue to nurse, only taking them out at night to milk in the morning. I eventually moved the milking stanchion (designed by my dad, screwed together by your's truly) out of their pen to work with them one at a time. Finally I reached a level of comfort with the process, gleaning about half a gallon of milk from them a day.
Step 5: Make cheese. I will divulge my cheesemaking secrets once I attain any. Until then...Would anyone care for some squeaky curd?
Monday, June 20, 2011
The Mysterious Case of the Mystical Carp
Thus far, eighteen nights spent in Freedom Tent. I assumed, upon moving "outside", my largest obstacle would be adequate food storage. I had a box full of dried goods in sealed tupperware containers, and a cooler with a few items in it. I arrived at my tent one late night to discover that my rolls went missing. This was disappointing, as I had spent the entirety of my Sunday afternoon baking myself goodies. I had my suspects, top of the list was raccoon, those wily creatures with opposable thumbs. The thumbs are an important key because the bag of cinnamon rolls and the bag of onion cheese biscuits were completely gone, not just destroyed or partially eaten, and my bath towel had disappeared mysteriously several nights before. The next night it returned for the rest of the pita it had left abandoned, and spent the night chewing and rustling approximately two feet away from my head with only a tent flap between us. It was a rough night. And if it was a skunk, I also didn't really care to confront or spook it. I took Leon, my parents' redbone coonhound, out with me the next night for "protection" against whatever varmint had decided to move in. After all, he is a coonhound, that was the decisive reason for getting him. He immediately tracked it, nose to the ground, and amazingly recovered my lost towel and the remnants of my gallon bags. No one could say the dog didn't do his job. And then he proceeded to destroy every single thing in the campsite within reach of his teeth while I slept soundly knowing I was "protected". He shredded my tent bag, my kindling bag, strew my shower items and matches, personally "cleaned" all my dishes, and ate approximately half a bag of tortillas, leaving the other half in bits all over. I think I prefer a skunk over a Leon. It being the one year anniversary of his birth, I kept my anger checked, but I do think a year-old dog should be over that oral fixation stage.
I could see this issue hadn't passed. If Leon wasn't the answer, I was going to have to come up with a solution on my own. I brought out a large plastic tote to keep "it" out of the edibles. As days passed, the mysterious creature kept returning, finishing off the scattered tortillas one night, eating my leftovers another night, yet another day slicing a hole in my tent precisely at the location of a small bag of bread, snatched the bag and left everything else untouched. The "hole" in the door resembled a surgical incision, I could hardly blame it for being so crafty, only myself for being so naive in thinking it wouldn't be so presumptuous to actually enter my living space. Having never sighted the animal, and hearing it every night, even in a downpour, I decided it was probably a carp, those most disgusting of animals (perhaps second to moths), to promote my hatred of fish. Realistically, I'm 95% sure it's a raccoon, so I named my new pet "Mystical Carp". Having just had a close relative of the Mystical Carp ravage my duck population by more than half in a cold-blooded rampage which involved ripping through chicken wire, coons were not very high on my list of favored animals, no matter how cute and crafty.
The Mystical Carp culminated its mischief in upending my 30+ pound tote of dried goods, removing the latched lid, thoroughly searching its contents of rice, beans, potatoes, onions, pasta, oats, trail mix, raisins, bottles of condiments, carrots, and celery to make off with a very small piece of cheese. This, and its accuracy in knowing where the bread was inside my tent, leads me to believe that the Mystical Carp has extraordinary powers and a discerning palate, and that I am nowhere close to seeing the last of it.
I could see this issue hadn't passed. If Leon wasn't the answer, I was going to have to come up with a solution on my own. I brought out a large plastic tote to keep "it" out of the edibles. As days passed, the mysterious creature kept returning, finishing off the scattered tortillas one night, eating my leftovers another night, yet another day slicing a hole in my tent precisely at the location of a small bag of bread, snatched the bag and left everything else untouched. The "hole" in the door resembled a surgical incision, I could hardly blame it for being so crafty, only myself for being so naive in thinking it wouldn't be so presumptuous to actually enter my living space. Having never sighted the animal, and hearing it every night, even in a downpour, I decided it was probably a carp, those most disgusting of animals (perhaps second to moths), to promote my hatred of fish. Realistically, I'm 95% sure it's a raccoon, so I named my new pet "Mystical Carp". Having just had a close relative of the Mystical Carp ravage my duck population by more than half in a cold-blooded rampage which involved ripping through chicken wire, coons were not very high on my list of favored animals, no matter how cute and crafty.
The Mystical Carp culminated its mischief in upending my 30+ pound tote of dried goods, removing the latched lid, thoroughly searching its contents of rice, beans, potatoes, onions, pasta, oats, trail mix, raisins, bottles of condiments, carrots, and celery to make off with a very small piece of cheese. This, and its accuracy in knowing where the bread was inside my tent, leads me to believe that the Mystical Carp has extraordinary powers and a discerning palate, and that I am nowhere close to seeing the last of it.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Horsetail Thicket
The decision to live in my tent for the summer came like a flashbulb back in January; instantaneous is not my usual decision-making style, so I was particularly inspired. As much as I love living at home, it offers me no challenges, intellectually, physically, financially, emotionally. I live with people who unconditionally love me, know how to deal with me, have similar ideas as me, and let me live here for free. Living outside for multiple months seemed like some great fulfillment of my lonely childhood, longing for the outdoor adventures I read about, but could never quite have. I immediately started list-making, my ultimate outlet of excitement.
The details didn't come as quickly. Where should I set up camp? Close to the house, my source of fresh water? Close to the my livestock? After one night only feet away from the barn, I decided to move it several hundred yards north of the house, further from the highway and railroad tracks, in a clearing filled with horsetails, by a Russian Olive thicket. Horsetail Thicket. The long June days are the greenest of the year in Nebraska, the prairie grass keeping a constant but varied dance in the wind. My home, Freedom Tent, is surrounded by the remnants of an Indian campsite (and I mean within the last few weeks they camped there, not generations ago - although probably both). It is a serene location.
And suddenly the world became divided into people who could understand the appeal of a rugged life, and people who just didn't get why a person would give up a comfortable bed and regular candlelit baths. Why would you do that? Any dream of independence from my family is a complete farce. I come back to the house multiple times of day, continue to share meals with my parents, use their things. And besides, I'm a believer in inter-dependence, the connectedness of all humans, that no one person should or ever can stand alone. I don't necessarily enjoy being constantly scented of campfire smoke and goats. The mosquitoes and gnats chase me into my tent for very early nights. My run-ins with thieving critters haven't further endeared me to the virtues of nature. Cooking good food over a fire is a serious challenge and invites one to enjoy the flavor of burnt.
It's uncomfortable. It's smelly. It's inconvenient. Maybe even dangerous. But it's invigorating, and forces me to acknowledge the core functions of my life. When a person doesn't have a huge comfortable house with all the amenities (and I do), how does one live? Dealing with these issues is a reality for billions of people every day. My trying to echo their experience is a pathetic phantom. But it sparks something real and fundamental in me, a trivial experiment done in the name of life and solidarity.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
School's Out Forever
Feelings of accomplishment, success, relief, freedom, and a little apprehension, gallop through my veins on this demure winter afternoon. My teaching career has ended. I taught choir to 50 junior high and high school students for eighteen weeks.
Many people whom I am very close to are in the teaching field, firstly my two best friends and my brother. Even so, I always kind of got the feeling that people who become teachers more frequently relish high school drama, and/or are unfit for any other career. There are obvious and many exceptions, see above. And in my community, a large amount of them seem to be married to farmers, not that there's anything wrong with that, simply a job that happens to be available anywhere. So my expectations of teaching, while acknowledging my total lack of preparation or experience, were on the low side. However, my lack of connection with youth, with the exception of being one a very short time ago, was about to be critically challenged. I was ready to be changed by this experience.
After about a week into it, I realized a truth of teaching: teachers gotta have their s*** together. Teaching multiple subjects a day, coaching a sport, sponsoring extra-curricular activities, and the constant stress of dealing with hormonal teenagers. This is life-consuming, with excellent vacation and benefits. I taught one class in the morning with one hour of prep time, and two classes twice a week in the afternoons. This was not exactly a high-stress situation, yet it occupied all my limited energy resources. As often happens, my real-life experiences tend to be playing the game of real-life.
Priority Number One: Classroom management. Learning cannot happen without it. I am more prone to the win-over-by-affection type of management than the yell-and-get-angry. This works perfectly in a high school classroom of 9 girls and 1 boy. Treat them with respect, and they do the same. However, a classroom of 22 junior high students won't provide the same docility. I had indigestion for the first month. I remember being a junior high student, and still have an abiding dislike for following rules, so, truth be told, I'm on their side. I can't be mad at them for acting the way they do, which ends up condoning it. Let me put it this way: there's a reason 12-14 year olds are put in their own school. To keep them from infecting the other students. To top it off, my 1-2 classes per week with them made it difficult to establish a relationship, or to teach anything of value. I also was ill-equipped to teach them music fundamentals which they so desperately needed after years of interim teachers. So I was failing doubly, at disciplining them and at actually teaching them something. Only a few weeks into the semester did I decide I couldn't carry on with it. The issue was never their level of affection for me. What junior high student doesn't love a nice teacher with a mohawk? But it is simply their nature to challenge authority. Although I got better at teaching, it never became easier.
Being around teenagers all the time is challenging. I didn't even like being one. Their desperate vying for acceptance should waken sentiments of pity in me, but I find it repulsive. This is certainly not to say the whole thing was negative. They are also each incredible, unique individuals who are developing their personalities and viewpoints. It's spectacular to witness. The younger ones are at a jumping off point where they get to choose their life paths, and don't even know it. Within a few years they will be divided, but right now their varied backgrounds and preferences interest each other and pull them together.
Although relief is mostly flooding out other emotions, I do feel a little like I'm letting these students down in giving up on them. They deserve a great teacher, which I am not. They deserve the Shelby Leylands, Marcia Keeles and Alex Millers of the world. To be a great teacher, you have to love teaching. And I don't. So it is the right choice for me, and I hope for them. My goal in teaching has been to keep the students in love with music, and I believe I succeeded, but now it is out of my hands.
Many people whom I am very close to are in the teaching field, firstly my two best friends and my brother. Even so, I always kind of got the feeling that people who become teachers more frequently relish high school drama, and/or are unfit for any other career. There are obvious and many exceptions, see above. And in my community, a large amount of them seem to be married to farmers, not that there's anything wrong with that, simply a job that happens to be available anywhere. So my expectations of teaching, while acknowledging my total lack of preparation or experience, were on the low side. However, my lack of connection with youth, with the exception of being one a very short time ago, was about to be critically challenged. I was ready to be changed by this experience.
After about a week into it, I realized a truth of teaching: teachers gotta have their s*** together. Teaching multiple subjects a day, coaching a sport, sponsoring extra-curricular activities, and the constant stress of dealing with hormonal teenagers. This is life-consuming, with excellent vacation and benefits. I taught one class in the morning with one hour of prep time, and two classes twice a week in the afternoons. This was not exactly a high-stress situation, yet it occupied all my limited energy resources. As often happens, my real-life experiences tend to be playing the game of real-life.
Priority Number One: Classroom management. Learning cannot happen without it. I am more prone to the win-over-by-affection type of management than the yell-and-get-angry. This works perfectly in a high school classroom of 9 girls and 1 boy. Treat them with respect, and they do the same. However, a classroom of 22 junior high students won't provide the same docility. I had indigestion for the first month. I remember being a junior high student, and still have an abiding dislike for following rules, so, truth be told, I'm on their side. I can't be mad at them for acting the way they do, which ends up condoning it. Let me put it this way: there's a reason 12-14 year olds are put in their own school. To keep them from infecting the other students. To top it off, my 1-2 classes per week with them made it difficult to establish a relationship, or to teach anything of value. I also was ill-equipped to teach them music fundamentals which they so desperately needed after years of interim teachers. So I was failing doubly, at disciplining them and at actually teaching them something. Only a few weeks into the semester did I decide I couldn't carry on with it. The issue was never their level of affection for me. What junior high student doesn't love a nice teacher with a mohawk? But it is simply their nature to challenge authority. Although I got better at teaching, it never became easier.
Being around teenagers all the time is challenging. I didn't even like being one. Their desperate vying for acceptance should waken sentiments of pity in me, but I find it repulsive. This is certainly not to say the whole thing was negative. They are also each incredible, unique individuals who are developing their personalities and viewpoints. It's spectacular to witness. The younger ones are at a jumping off point where they get to choose their life paths, and don't even know it. Within a few years they will be divided, but right now their varied backgrounds and preferences interest each other and pull them together.
Although relief is mostly flooding out other emotions, I do feel a little like I'm letting these students down in giving up on them. They deserve a great teacher, which I am not. They deserve the Shelby Leylands, Marcia Keeles and Alex Millers of the world. To be a great teacher, you have to love teaching. And I don't. So it is the right choice for me, and I hope for them. My goal in teaching has been to keep the students in love with music, and I believe I succeeded, but now it is out of my hands.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Back to School
So I'm a teacher now. What a quirky turn of events. I have spent the better portion of my life convincing others, as well as myself, that teaching is simply not my calling. I have always been secretly afraid that it is actually my calling, just because the prospect seems so terrifying. Well as of yesterday, just call me Ms. Miller. And in my line of study, how many times have I heard the words "so, you're going to be a teacher?" That's what music majors do. Apparently that's not just a stereotype, as much as I tried to fight it. I do believe it is the universe's justice to push us outside of any remnant of comfort we may have scrapped together.
I graduated from Hastings College over one year ago with the happy understanding that my major area of study would be henceforth useless, excepting the well-trained hobby it had offered me. Three months ago I moved back in with my parents with the apprehension that making a living in Lewellen, Nebraska is no easy feat (albeit with the easy optimism that making a living has never been my priority). And the jobs just started falling in my lap. I was offered the opportunity to promote sustainability in the village, exactly the line of work I was interested in pursuing. I whiled my summer afternoons lounging in a serene art gallery. I sweated a pint digging beautiful deep beds for my garden. I frequently rode my bike as a form of transportation. It seemed like I was going places. Or rather, staying place.
And then something else fell in my lap. A friend of the family and outstanding musician and teacher, Steve Lawlor, was offered the teaching job at the Garden County Schools. A resident of Toronto, Ontario, Steve was obliged to turn the job down and recommend...well. I was hesitant, but open, and now the job is mine. Three choirs: high school, 7th and 8th grade, and 6th grade. I have never instructed a single person on how to sing (with the possible exception of one Shelby Leyland, who happens to be the greatest singer in the world, and who obviously didn't need my two bits), nor directed a choir. I wasn't even in choir in high school, I was the accompanist. I was in the Hastings College Choir for one and a half years, if my memory serves. I am not exactly qualified. But the school was desperate, having found no other teacher. The elementary music is taught by a retired math teacher-current pastor with no trained background. The band is instructed by another, like myself, uncertified, although qualified. We're a ragtag team.
One never knows what life will present them, and sometime precisely the thing one wishes wouldn't happen, is the thing that needs to be. I am still not convinced as my calling as a teacher, and have not started pursuing certification. But I do hope to offer the students a passion of music, and in return, receive their gifts. What those are, I can only dream. But the dreams are beautiful.
I graduated from Hastings College over one year ago with the happy understanding that my major area of study would be henceforth useless, excepting the well-trained hobby it had offered me. Three months ago I moved back in with my parents with the apprehension that making a living in Lewellen, Nebraska is no easy feat (albeit with the easy optimism that making a living has never been my priority). And the jobs just started falling in my lap. I was offered the opportunity to promote sustainability in the village, exactly the line of work I was interested in pursuing. I whiled my summer afternoons lounging in a serene art gallery. I sweated a pint digging beautiful deep beds for my garden. I frequently rode my bike as a form of transportation. It seemed like I was going places. Or rather, staying place.
And then something else fell in my lap. A friend of the family and outstanding musician and teacher, Steve Lawlor, was offered the teaching job at the Garden County Schools. A resident of Toronto, Ontario, Steve was obliged to turn the job down and recommend...well. I was hesitant, but open, and now the job is mine. Three choirs: high school, 7th and 8th grade, and 6th grade. I have never instructed a single person on how to sing (with the possible exception of one Shelby Leyland, who happens to be the greatest singer in the world, and who obviously didn't need my two bits), nor directed a choir. I wasn't even in choir in high school, I was the accompanist. I was in the Hastings College Choir for one and a half years, if my memory serves. I am not exactly qualified. But the school was desperate, having found no other teacher. The elementary music is taught by a retired math teacher-current pastor with no trained background. The band is instructed by another, like myself, uncertified, although qualified. We're a ragtag team.
One never knows what life will present them, and sometime precisely the thing one wishes wouldn't happen, is the thing that needs to be. I am still not convinced as my calling as a teacher, and have not started pursuing certification. But I do hope to offer the students a passion of music, and in return, receive their gifts. What those are, I can only dream. But the dreams are beautiful.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
The Omnipresence of Lizards
Okay, so we established that I love crabs, a slow, unexpected love affair that blossomed over long contact. But I immediately fell for the lizards.
We call the ones that live in our apartment "Tara". Tara is a non-color, a bit transparent so you can see her veins and organs if you looks closely or she has light shining through her. I saw her eat a wasp larger than the side of her head. Needless to say, we appreciate her presence here. I have only once seen a Tara on the floor, she is usually to be found clinging to the ceiling and walls.
The iguanas are naturally the most impressive, and remarkably quick, running to a hiding place when startled. There is one that consistently lives in a drainage pipe near Salvatore's. We saw one as roadkill on Calle Litibu, it's head flattened, and three other iguanas surrounding it, whether offering help or anticipating feasting on it, I cannot say. The first is a bit more romantic.
A laundry day several months ago>> I was rarin' to go on our hand-crank Amish-made washing machine, and my clothes were even more ready for a good wash. I uncovered the quaint little device and opened the lid, to discover a sizeable lizard relaxing in the base. I told it sweetly that it would need to leave, because I was in need of its new home. It took this news very calmly, without moving. So I prodded it with the agitator and it still neglected to move. This is highly unusual behavior for a lizard, which are usually quickly agitated (no pun intended). Then it dawned on me...this lizard was dead. And I had just killed one several days earlier by accidental suffocation while I was shoveling soil. I had never used the washing machine, but had constructed it several months earlier, and I supposed that the latency period had caused a drawn-out starvation and a very unpleasant death. This was devastating and I wasn't up to dealing with it, so I abandoned my bag of laundry of Salvatore's porch, and ran away to recount the story to Sascha in horror. He agreed to take care of the situation the following day. We trooped up and I stood away so as to not witness my hapless victim. He moved it around and got a plastic sand castle shovel out to scoop it up and carry it away. De repente, it scuttled to the other side of the washer! It was extremely dehydrated and hungry, I'm sure, but not willing to be buried alive. Sascha yelped and hollered and we laughed. We laid the washer on its side in the sun to give it some energy, but the next day it hadn't left, so I finally scared it out and I hope it is currently living a happy and profitable life.
I will miss the lizards. I probably see an average of six per day, and the record was eight at one time, within six feet of each other by some outdoor lights at night. Reptiles are amazing.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Got Crabs? Too Cliche?
As our time in Litibu has been winding down, Sascha and I repeatedly ask each other the question, "what will you miss the most?"
He lists of names of fruit and fish which are succulently fresh, among many other things. I find the question more challenging. After five and a half months in Mexico, what have I learned to love about it?
Before I get too reflective, I would really prefer this post to be a story. It's the wildlife that I love.
Sascha and I took a walk today, an unusually cloudy day in Litibu, down our beach. We are privileged to live on a beautiful sandy beach, with little windrows of stones, and relatively few visitors. It stretches past the Litibu community into what is called Punta Negra, where a huge semi-abandoned resort full of hotel skeletons looms eerily, with a shiny 600 ft long swimming pool and sea-side showers. It's quite a hike over there, and today we walked to where the sidewalk ends.
Today also happened to be day one of the big crab season. I would categorize the crabs in our area in three ways, all with varying sizes within:
1. Hermit crabs
2. Crabs that dig perfect holes in the sand and have their eyes located on the top of their heads to peek out for predators
3. Crabs that dig caves in the sand and have eyes on the front of their heads
Hermit crabs are an easy win, it's adorable when they curl up into their tiny shells until their legs resemble an armed fortress and frolic across walkways only to get scared and roll away accidentally.
#2 crab types have been seen in abundance, the most frequent resembling spiders in size, shape and color, as they are perfectly camoflauged to the sand. Their little homes fill up with water at every changing tide, but they are always there to rebuild. I would have to add that having an eyeball on the end of a veritable tentacle seems to be a distinct advantage, and all around pretty darn cool.
And today there was some magical sign of nature which triggered #3 to come out of hibernation and get busy livin'. According to our full-time residents, this is approximately three months earlier than normal. There were crab caves, crab villages, and even a crab city. Why they would decide to shack up so close to each other is beyond my knowledge of natural food limits, but it was reminiscent of a prairie dog town, minus the chirping. They shoveled little clawfuls of sand out of their dwellings and rearranged the slipping crumbles until excavation perfection was achieved.
Our stroll-turned-hike revealed this wonder of nature, and Sascha amused himself by playing bullfight with a particularly agressive one, without the traditional ending. It grasped onto his shirt (removed from body) and hung momentarily when lifted. When we reached the end of the beach one and a half hours later, a magical cove awaited us. We were fortunate to be walking at very low tide, the best time for exploring and finding. Large flat rocks with channels carved in them housed little pools, which always house little sea creatures, like snails, and...well, crabs. A daring architect and even more daring inhabitant had built a house overhanging said cove, and at the foot of the steps there were little colonies of tiny hermit crabs. Sascha amused himself by pushing them into the sand and watching the climb their way back out, while I let them crawl over my hands and tried to avoid crushing them with my feet.
As a proclaimed seafood hater, I never expected to love crabs, but they are simply so loveable. So the first answer to the first question would have to be, I will miss the crabs. To be continued...
He lists of names of fruit and fish which are succulently fresh, among many other things. I find the question more challenging. After five and a half months in Mexico, what have I learned to love about it?
Before I get too reflective, I would really prefer this post to be a story. It's the wildlife that I love.
Sascha and I took a walk today, an unusually cloudy day in Litibu, down our beach. We are privileged to live on a beautiful sandy beach, with little windrows of stones, and relatively few visitors. It stretches past the Litibu community into what is called Punta Negra, where a huge semi-abandoned resort full of hotel skeletons looms eerily, with a shiny 600 ft long swimming pool and sea-side showers. It's quite a hike over there, and today we walked to where the sidewalk ends.
Today also happened to be day one of the big crab season. I would categorize the crabs in our area in three ways, all with varying sizes within:
1. Hermit crabs
2. Crabs that dig perfect holes in the sand and have their eyes located on the top of their heads to peek out for predators
3. Crabs that dig caves in the sand and have eyes on the front of their heads
Hermit crabs are an easy win, it's adorable when they curl up into their tiny shells until their legs resemble an armed fortress and frolic across walkways only to get scared and roll away accidentally.
#2 crab types have been seen in abundance, the most frequent resembling spiders in size, shape and color, as they are perfectly camoflauged to the sand. Their little homes fill up with water at every changing tide, but they are always there to rebuild. I would have to add that having an eyeball on the end of a veritable tentacle seems to be a distinct advantage, and all around pretty darn cool.
And today there was some magical sign of nature which triggered #3 to come out of hibernation and get busy livin'. According to our full-time residents, this is approximately three months earlier than normal. There were crab caves, crab villages, and even a crab city. Why they would decide to shack up so close to each other is beyond my knowledge of natural food limits, but it was reminiscent of a prairie dog town, minus the chirping. They shoveled little clawfuls of sand out of their dwellings and rearranged the slipping crumbles until excavation perfection was achieved.
Our stroll-turned-hike revealed this wonder of nature, and Sascha amused himself by playing bullfight with a particularly agressive one, without the traditional ending. It grasped onto his shirt (removed from body) and hung momentarily when lifted. When we reached the end of the beach one and a half hours later, a magical cove awaited us. We were fortunate to be walking at very low tide, the best time for exploring and finding. Large flat rocks with channels carved in them housed little pools, which always house little sea creatures, like snails, and...well, crabs. A daring architect and even more daring inhabitant had built a house overhanging said cove, and at the foot of the steps there were little colonies of tiny hermit crabs. Sascha amused himself by pushing them into the sand and watching the climb their way back out, while I let them crawl over my hands and tried to avoid crushing them with my feet.
As a proclaimed seafood hater, I never expected to love crabs, but they are simply so loveable. So the first answer to the first question would have to be, I will miss the crabs. To be continued...
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Little Red Riding Permaculturalist and the Food Forest
The Project marches forward, as Salvatore returned this week to push us onward toward the Celestial City...aka phase I of a food forest.
We had the excellent fortune of entertaining two guests for an extended period in March. Matthew Greenwald, my cousin from Boulder and fellow Permaculture graduate, was here on Spring Break to enjoy Mexican culture, sun, beaches, beauty in general, and help us out a good deal! It was a highly productive week, as we purchased some trees, built a spiral herb garden, and mapped out and dug swales (for those who don't know, swales are on-contour ditches which hold and absorb water). We also were fortunate to have the company of Denny Storer, a retired political science professor from Hastings College, and a good friend of Sascha's. They certainly kept each other entertained and had some Mexican adventures.
Thursdays are special days here, because we get the help of the gardeners for about four hours. I always feel a tiny bit like this is cheating, as I feel the physical labor part is an important piece of what I should be learning, but they dug approximately 50 tree-sized holes in hard-pan, so I'm not going to complain too loud. Although I have to take a moment here to brag about my improving ground pick skills. Matthew, if you're reading this...sssssshh. I tend to be a bit more gentle on the gardeners than Salvatore, but it's his money, so that's understandable. Barring time spent in Spanish lessons, I believe I spoke more Spanish last Thursday than I have on any previous day, as a go-between from Salvatore to Antonio and Fermin. I am certainly not on professional translator level, but I felt pretty good about it. We have our food forest laid out, approximately half an acre in a bowl-shape, with five swales and the afore-mentioned holes for our brand new trees!
Insert related thought here>> I think Salvatore and I work well together because I am a focus-on-the-details, use what we have, keep it low budget kind of person, while Salvatore is the big picture, buy whatever we need and some what we don't, access the advice of experts kind of person. In the end, we keep each other on a straight path.
Back to the story>>Yesterday we drove over to the San Pancho vivero (nursery), the site of our class, and met with two men, Luis and Alan. Luis does bird-tours and also works at Emerald Coast, the investment agency which sponsored the now abandoned vivero. Alan is a biologist who helped design the botanical garden in Puerto Vallarta. We showed them the design which Salvatore and Dianne put together in Boulder with the help of Marco Lam, in which the fruit trees are planted in the center of a cluster of other trees, called nursing trees, which serve the purposes of mulch, canopy, and nitrogen fixing in the soil. They recommended trees, bushes, and groundcovers for us and were all around genial and generous (and Alan is guapo!). Quinn, the caretaker of the vivero, came to help us dig out trees, and we took home around 15, some of which we can take cuttings from. We also went to Alan's home, where he made us a Chaya drink, leaves from several of our new trees which have medicinal value. Alan has a lovely garden with many varieties of plants, where we took our first Noni fruit home, where it promptly ripened by turning to jelly and stinking up the apartment (apparently this means it's ready). I continue to learn heaps and this experience definitely reminded me that I am still in love with gardening!
We have about three more weeks of work to finish all our projects, including phase I of the food forest, finishing our cob benches, and making sure our giant compost bin is in good working order.
We had the excellent fortune of entertaining two guests for an extended period in March. Matthew Greenwald, my cousin from Boulder and fellow Permaculture graduate, was here on Spring Break to enjoy Mexican culture, sun, beaches, beauty in general, and help us out a good deal! It was a highly productive week, as we purchased some trees, built a spiral herb garden, and mapped out and dug swales (for those who don't know, swales are on-contour ditches which hold and absorb water). We also were fortunate to have the company of Denny Storer, a retired political science professor from Hastings College, and a good friend of Sascha's. They certainly kept each other entertained and had some Mexican adventures.
Thursdays are special days here, because we get the help of the gardeners for about four hours. I always feel a tiny bit like this is cheating, as I feel the physical labor part is an important piece of what I should be learning, but they dug approximately 50 tree-sized holes in hard-pan, so I'm not going to complain too loud. Although I have to take a moment here to brag about my improving ground pick skills. Matthew, if you're reading this...sssssshh. I tend to be a bit more gentle on the gardeners than Salvatore, but it's his money, so that's understandable. Barring time spent in Spanish lessons, I believe I spoke more Spanish last Thursday than I have on any previous day, as a go-between from Salvatore to Antonio and Fermin. I am certainly not on professional translator level, but I felt pretty good about it. We have our food forest laid out, approximately half an acre in a bowl-shape, with five swales and the afore-mentioned holes for our brand new trees!
Insert related thought here>> I think Salvatore and I work well together because I am a focus-on-the-details, use what we have, keep it low budget kind of person, while Salvatore is the big picture, buy whatever we need and some what we don't, access the advice of experts kind of person. In the end, we keep each other on a straight path.
Back to the story>>Yesterday we drove over to the San Pancho vivero (nursery), the site of our class, and met with two men, Luis and Alan. Luis does bird-tours and also works at Emerald Coast, the investment agency which sponsored the now abandoned vivero. Alan is a biologist who helped design the botanical garden in Puerto Vallarta. We showed them the design which Salvatore and Dianne put together in Boulder with the help of Marco Lam, in which the fruit trees are planted in the center of a cluster of other trees, called nursing trees, which serve the purposes of mulch, canopy, and nitrogen fixing in the soil. They recommended trees, bushes, and groundcovers for us and were all around genial and generous (and Alan is guapo!). Quinn, the caretaker of the vivero, came to help us dig out trees, and we took home around 15, some of which we can take cuttings from. We also went to Alan's home, where he made us a Chaya drink, leaves from several of our new trees which have medicinal value. Alan has a lovely garden with many varieties of plants, where we took our first Noni fruit home, where it promptly ripened by turning to jelly and stinking up the apartment (apparently this means it's ready). I continue to learn heaps and this experience definitely reminded me that I am still in love with gardening!
We have about three more weeks of work to finish all our projects, including phase I of the food forest, finishing our cob benches, and making sure our giant compost bin is in good working order.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Semana Santa...and a few food observations
In Mexico, the biggest and longest holiday of the year is Semana Santa, or Holy Week. I wouldn't even consider Easter to be the most important day, from what I observed. The Saturday eight days before Easter, they arrived. Legions of Mexicans, camping on the beach, constructing palapa kitchens, volleyball courts, fruit stands, ice cream vendors. As the week progressed, more and more arrived, with live music every day, mariachi bands with more than a dozen members. The ocean was dripping with their youth and the beach was baking with men drinking beer. Our beach is a public beach, and I almost proud of that, even if this isn't really "my" community. It is NOT a gated community, and I think the Mexicans should have complete access. A few families to whom Litibu Eco-group are especially friendly set up right on our lawn, playing games, setting up chairs and picnics, getting water from our hose, and using the upstairs bathroom. For anyone who doesn't know, our apartment has no glass in the windows, and no curtains. Only screen seperates us and the endearing sound of an electric generator and the piercing lights which accompany it after dark. I have not experienced that lack of privacy, and while it was enjoyable to watch their celebrations, adorable to watch the chubby little children, and amiable to exchange greetings on the beach, I wasn't sad to see them pack their tents first thing Easter morning. We really are spoiled here! Sascha estimated that there were 2000 people, but I would say less, in a 500 m long beach.
One of the biggest events during Semana Santa is the passion procession, walking around the village to different points and going through the Stations of the Cross. We were both looking forward to participating in this, and made it to town bright and early Friday morning, to find the church locked. We had asked five people the day before, with five different answers, and finally someone confirmed for us it was at five that afternoon. So we returned at five, to absolutely no avail. Now, the fascinating part about Mexicans and time (or distance, or population, or whatever) is that no one knows what time anything is, yet they all manage to be there. It's an amazing system. Luckily, with all the people, we had no trouble catching a ride, and wrote it off to extra exercise.
For our own celebrations, Sascha and I had been planning a trip back to Tequepexpan (see previous post for more info) to participate in a vision quest ceremony, and got as far as Sayulita. Our ride didn't work out, and Sascha was exhausted from Denny's three week visit, and had some back pain. But I, personally, was determined not to let Easter suck as bad as Christmas, Thanksgiving, or my birthday. What is it that makes holidays special days? You do something special on them. Yes, that is what we had been missing, so I planned a surprise for Sascha and hid candy, cookies, eggs, etc in the serenity garden for him to find. We also had a lovely walk on the beach, now considerably more empty, and I made us some chile rellenos for supper, which were much easier than I expected.
Chile rellenos, which are egg battered sweet peppers stuffed with cheese and fried, are the vegetarian staple at any Mexican restaurant (other than the classic quesadilla), but Janet and Miriam (the cleaning women/caretakers of Donnamarie/daughters of friend Carlos) informed us that chile rellenos, camarones (shrimp), and pescado (fish) are their traditional Easter foods. So we came to the conclusion that they really do eat the same things all the time. Sascha's family has goose, rabbit, and lamb with funky potato balls. Maybe it's because their cuisine hasn't shifted to an international palette, so their traditional food isn't on special days, it's still every day. I love rice/beans/tortillas. I even learned to love guacamole. And I admire the cultural value, which every geographical and social group of people have had, of a staple food. Corn tortillas! They go with EVERYTHING. Sascha's favorite combo is Huichol salsa (like tabasco sauce) and peanut butter.
We have eaten some diverse Mexican food. But mostly Mexicans don't eat at nice Mexican restaurants. They eat at comedores and loncherias, where they serve...yep. Rice, beans, tortillas, and probably chicken with a nice sauce which you saw running from a rooster the previous day. It's fresh, and that's no mistake! What judgment am I making about Mexican food? It's delicious, it varies little, but I respect that. It would just be hard for me to do it full time. Our grocery store, the largest in town, is smaller than my parents' living room. A healthy portion of that is taken up by beer coolers and racks of cookies. I will put it up to lack of discipline on our part that we are sometimes fatigued by the lack of selection. The grocer helped me tie my grocery bags on to my bicycle for five minutes the other day, and you can't knock that kind of service.
One of the biggest events during Semana Santa is the passion procession, walking around the village to different points and going through the Stations of the Cross. We were both looking forward to participating in this, and made it to town bright and early Friday morning, to find the church locked. We had asked five people the day before, with five different answers, and finally someone confirmed for us it was at five that afternoon. So we returned at five, to absolutely no avail. Now, the fascinating part about Mexicans and time (or distance, or population, or whatever) is that no one knows what time anything is, yet they all manage to be there. It's an amazing system. Luckily, with all the people, we had no trouble catching a ride, and wrote it off to extra exercise.
For our own celebrations, Sascha and I had been planning a trip back to Tequepexpan (see previous post for more info) to participate in a vision quest ceremony, and got as far as Sayulita. Our ride didn't work out, and Sascha was exhausted from Denny's three week visit, and had some back pain. But I, personally, was determined not to let Easter suck as bad as Christmas, Thanksgiving, or my birthday. What is it that makes holidays special days? You do something special on them. Yes, that is what we had been missing, so I planned a surprise for Sascha and hid candy, cookies, eggs, etc in the serenity garden for him to find. We also had a lovely walk on the beach, now considerably more empty, and I made us some chile rellenos for supper, which were much easier than I expected.
Chile rellenos, which are egg battered sweet peppers stuffed with cheese and fried, are the vegetarian staple at any Mexican restaurant (other than the classic quesadilla), but Janet and Miriam (the cleaning women/caretakers of Donnamarie/daughters of friend Carlos) informed us that chile rellenos, camarones (shrimp), and pescado (fish) are their traditional Easter foods. So we came to the conclusion that they really do eat the same things all the time. Sascha's family has goose, rabbit, and lamb with funky potato balls. Maybe it's because their cuisine hasn't shifted to an international palette, so their traditional food isn't on special days, it's still every day. I love rice/beans/tortillas. I even learned to love guacamole. And I admire the cultural value, which every geographical and social group of people have had, of a staple food. Corn tortillas! They go with EVERYTHING. Sascha's favorite combo is Huichol salsa (like tabasco sauce) and peanut butter.
We have eaten some diverse Mexican food. But mostly Mexicans don't eat at nice Mexican restaurants. They eat at comedores and loncherias, where they serve...yep. Rice, beans, tortillas, and probably chicken with a nice sauce which you saw running from a rooster the previous day. It's fresh, and that's no mistake! What judgment am I making about Mexican food? It's delicious, it varies little, but I respect that. It would just be hard for me to do it full time. Our grocery store, the largest in town, is smaller than my parents' living room. A healthy portion of that is taken up by beer coolers and racks of cookies. I will put it up to lack of discipline on our part that we are sometimes fatigued by the lack of selection. The grocer helped me tie my grocery bags on to my bicycle for five minutes the other day, and you can't knock that kind of service.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Is There a Theme Here?
Another weekend in Tepic, fabulous metropolis of Nayarit. We enjoyed the festivities of the Feria Nacional de la Mexicanidad 2010, a four week fair to celebrate Mexican culture. It was of extremely high quality, with display tents of technology, health, agriculture, culture, local goods, endless rows of carnival games and vendors, a livestock show, and bears riding motorcycles. You may be thinking that forcing bears to travel the country riding motorcycles is cruel. You would be right. It was also slightly fascinating. We also witnessed a traditional ritual of four men jumping off a 50 foot high pole and winding around and around it upside down until they land on the ground. It was hard to take it really seriously, as it occurred directly prior to the dancing bear show. Once again, we spent our time with Miguel and his family, our Spanish teacher. It was exciting to see our progress in Spanish, as it was much easier to communicate with Miguel's wife this trip. It's difficult to believe that we get almost no opportunity to practice our Spanish, and we live in Mexico, but it's the truth.
The plan for the next morning was to head to San Blas, a coastal town with mangrove swamps. The mangroves grow in a unique acquatic ecosystem, as they grow in saline water, and in some mangrove swamps in Mexico live manatees and sea turtles. San Blas also has an interesting colonial history, as a Fort for keeping marauders at bay (hehehe).
Miguel and co. showed up an hour later than planned, but as there was no clock in our hotel room, it didn't phase us a bit. We loaded up the car and headed out. Abotu ten minutes into the trip, Miguel's wife (I apologize for not knowing her name) yelled out to him, he slammed on the brakes, and we crashed into a pickup which was in the intersection. Miguel's daughter Paula was sitting on her mother's lap with no seatbelt and hit her face against the dash, loosening some teeth. Everyone was generally fine, and we stayed the rest of the day in Tepic, taking a Turibus around the city, and to a village where only Huichol people live (the local natives). I bought a beautiful beadwork bracelet there from a woman who spoke both Huichol and Spanish (sidenote - Tepic also produces a picante salsa called Huichol which is my favorite, and they make little Huichol style dresses as bottle covers which are adorable). We also went to a really nice museum which had ancient artifacts from all the peoples who had lived in the area. The artwork was absolutely intriguing and up to 10,000 years old. We only got to see the beginning of the exhibit, but I was amazed by the details and the imagination involved.
In the evening we caught Alicia en el Pais de Marvilloso (Alice in Wonderland) in 3D and Spanish, which was a challenge but fun. After attending Mass the next morning, we headed home.
The following weekend, after the arrival of Denny, a retired Political Science professor from Hastings College, we headed to San Blas again. After some lucky hitches and a loooooong wait to transfer buses, we made it to that quaint town I discussed above. The birds, turtles, and crocodiles in the refuge were beautiful, and the boat ride through the glades was thrilling. We saw crocodiles from 1 foot long to 12 feet long. It is one of the best things I've done in Mexico! They also had a crocodile nursery, which turned out to be more of a zoo, although they do release about 100 crocodiles into the wild every year. And we're not talking Henry Doorly here, these animals were in small pens with no attempt at natural wildlife, tamirs, deer, macaws, and lots and lots of crocodiles. We took the tent with us, and Sascha and I made a go of it on the beach. We didn't stay in the designated camping area so we wouldn't have to pay, and had no problems except for SWARMS of mosquitoes and noseeums which violently attacked us as soon as we opened the tent doors in the morning. We were scratching all week.
I met an interesting girl in the plaza while enjoying Harry Potter y la Camara Secreta, a Nova Scotian named Gabby. She had been staying on Stone Island off of Mazatlan, north of here, and had spent time in a Canadian volunteer corps. We exchanged pleasantries about food sovereignty and politics and then went our separate ways.
After waiting two hours for the bus, we began our journey back to Litibu. Half an hour into the trip, as the bus sat in the left turn lane of an intersection, a young kid in a pickup truck sideswiped us directly under my seat. The bus was barely damaged but the pickup had a harder time, and the driver's brother showed up at the site enraged and had to be detained by the police. The bus waited for two hours while three different types of police showed up, and as far as I could tell, mostly directed traffic around the accident site. Finally another bus on the way to Puerto Vallarta showed up, and we got on the road again. The final bus from Bucerias had a crazy driver, and we were able to fear for our lives once again before finally and exhaustingly arriving at our own house and going to bed.
Two hectic weekends and two too many car crashes. After I told Miguel what had happened to us, he informed me that he and his family had ALSO been in another car accident that weekend, and also a mutual acquaintance of ours, a teacher from Higuera. It would make one skeptical to travel in Mexico any more!
The plan for the next morning was to head to San Blas, a coastal town with mangrove swamps. The mangroves grow in a unique acquatic ecosystem, as they grow in saline water, and in some mangrove swamps in Mexico live manatees and sea turtles. San Blas also has an interesting colonial history, as a Fort for keeping marauders at bay (hehehe).
Miguel and co. showed up an hour later than planned, but as there was no clock in our hotel room, it didn't phase us a bit. We loaded up the car and headed out. Abotu ten minutes into the trip, Miguel's wife (I apologize for not knowing her name) yelled out to him, he slammed on the brakes, and we crashed into a pickup which was in the intersection. Miguel's daughter Paula was sitting on her mother's lap with no seatbelt and hit her face against the dash, loosening some teeth. Everyone was generally fine, and we stayed the rest of the day in Tepic, taking a Turibus around the city, and to a village where only Huichol people live (the local natives). I bought a beautiful beadwork bracelet there from a woman who spoke both Huichol and Spanish (sidenote - Tepic also produces a picante salsa called Huichol which is my favorite, and they make little Huichol style dresses as bottle covers which are adorable). We also went to a really nice museum which had ancient artifacts from all the peoples who had lived in the area. The artwork was absolutely intriguing and up to 10,000 years old. We only got to see the beginning of the exhibit, but I was amazed by the details and the imagination involved.
In the evening we caught Alicia en el Pais de Marvilloso (Alice in Wonderland) in 3D and Spanish, which was a challenge but fun. After attending Mass the next morning, we headed home.
The following weekend, after the arrival of Denny, a retired Political Science professor from Hastings College, we headed to San Blas again. After some lucky hitches and a loooooong wait to transfer buses, we made it to that quaint town I discussed above. The birds, turtles, and crocodiles in the refuge were beautiful, and the boat ride through the glades was thrilling. We saw crocodiles from 1 foot long to 12 feet long. It is one of the best things I've done in Mexico! They also had a crocodile nursery, which turned out to be more of a zoo, although they do release about 100 crocodiles into the wild every year. And we're not talking Henry Doorly here, these animals were in small pens with no attempt at natural wildlife, tamirs, deer, macaws, and lots and lots of crocodiles. We took the tent with us, and Sascha and I made a go of it on the beach. We didn't stay in the designated camping area so we wouldn't have to pay, and had no problems except for SWARMS of mosquitoes and noseeums which violently attacked us as soon as we opened the tent doors in the morning. We were scratching all week.
I met an interesting girl in the plaza while enjoying Harry Potter y la Camara Secreta, a Nova Scotian named Gabby. She had been staying on Stone Island off of Mazatlan, north of here, and had spent time in a Canadian volunteer corps. We exchanged pleasantries about food sovereignty and politics and then went our separate ways.
After waiting two hours for the bus, we began our journey back to Litibu. Half an hour into the trip, as the bus sat in the left turn lane of an intersection, a young kid in a pickup truck sideswiped us directly under my seat. The bus was barely damaged but the pickup had a harder time, and the driver's brother showed up at the site enraged and had to be detained by the police. The bus waited for two hours while three different types of police showed up, and as far as I could tell, mostly directed traffic around the accident site. Finally another bus on the way to Puerto Vallarta showed up, and we got on the road again. The final bus from Bucerias had a crazy driver, and we were able to fear for our lives once again before finally and exhaustingly arriving at our own house and going to bed.
Two hectic weekends and two too many car crashes. After I told Miguel what had happened to us, he informed me that he and his family had ALSO been in another car accident that weekend, and also a mutual acquaintance of ours, a teacher from Higuera. It would make one skeptical to travel in Mexico any more!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Temascal
To end a whirlwind week, our yogic gardening class decided to travel to a village in the mountains and participate in a sacred ritual called a Temascal, or sweat lodge. Many people were interested in going, but in the end only two can be Mexico's. next. top...oh wait. Only Emily and I ended up going.
The buses in Mexico are good quality, regular, and inexpensive, so we took the venture on our own. Sadly we got on one of the more expensive buses, and halfway there realized there were no more buses to our destination that day, and had to hire a 200 peso taxi. You win some, you lose some. Tequepexpan is a small village with more traditional architecture, including stone walls in fields and mud brick houses. The community we visited is outside of the village, and has several permanent residents. Their focus is spiritual, a mixture of indigenous religion and Chrisianity. While the houses are not outstanding in their construction in any conventional sense, there is an underriding current of care and peacefulness. Emily commented on their use of religious symbols as decoration, such as God's Eyes or prayer flags, which help to constantly remind of the connection with the spiritual world. The house was also decorated with a large pile of marijuana on the night table (in my opinion, a huge pile, but I have limited experience in these things).
The mountains opened up a different ecosystem to our willing, prodding eyes, with pine trees with 10" long needles, and scrub brilliantly set off by banana trees. The mountain valley was a quilt of agave, corn, and sugar cane. Behind the "mountains" in the foreground, the real mountains wait, the Sierra Madres, invisible.
We prepared for the Temascal with a sage smudge blessing, prayed over a handful of tobacco and tossed it in the fire. Between eight and ten people participated in the Temascal, Emily and I being the only non-Mexicans, and 2 of the only 3 women. We crawled into the dome, made of willow branches and draped with canvas to keep in the steam. The hole in the center was filled with glowing red rocks. Sirgio, the Shaman, would bless each rock with tobacco and everyone would welcome it into our midst. A five gallon bucket of water stood at convenience and soon the space filled with steam. And just when you think it's blisteringly hot, more water is dumped on and the temperature increases. Anna Paula informed us that we could not leave until the door was opened between the four parts of the ceremony. This made me slightly nervous, but it ended up being fine. Everyone had an opportunity to pray aloud, with singing in between. The Temascal invites all the elements to interact, water, fire, earth, and air. More rocks were added, more water, until breathing in makes no sense and breathing out just stirs the air against your skin. After one hour of this cleansing, we crawled back out. I was immiediately cold again, soaked with sweat in the chilly air. But everyone else was ready for a cool down, so each poured a five gallon bucket of cold water over their heads. So even though I was already cold, I did it too. Gah! But the fire was waiting, and dry clothes.
Simultaneously, a birthday party for a three year old was happening in the open kitchen area. Her whole family was there, including a man named Jaime, who informed me he was 26 (contrary to physical evidence) and before the night was over, told me he loved me. Despite my constantly informing him I had a boyfriend. I thought my new haircut would scare people off, but I guess the pull of legal papers is stronger. The food that evening was absolutley delicious, a cabbage dish, and then crazy with the beans: refried beans, lentils, and garbanzo beans in tomato sauce. Naturally, complemented by corn tortillas. For dessert, they made little corn cakes baked on banana leaves. mmmmm. The evening wore on, and Emily and I both got an extended opportunity to practice our Spanish. Only Anna Paula speaks English, and she was preoccupied with her lover.
As the night wore on, we wandered toward our cabin, which six people shared, Emily and I in one bed next to Anna Paula & co, and two other men on the other side of the wall. One man woke up before dawn and called out into the valley. At dawn, the two men had a conversation in normal volume voices inside the cabin for half an hour. After sunrise, when I found myself alone with the couple, I decided it was time to evacuate. We enjoyed some cinnamon tea in the kitchen, and realized all of our food had been taken by the partiers the night before, accidentally. So we hiked into the village, through the hills and brush rather than on the road, and came upon a little door in the village. Inside was a terraced yard, chickens, kittens, little furry dogs, and an elderly woman in a kitchen. The kitchen had a yellow painted earthen oven and pots, pitcher, and kettles hung on the walls in descending size. We thought we were eating there, and she provided us with mint tea fresh from the garden and some buttery crackers. After half an hour of conversation our guide Ernesto asked if we were ready to leave. It turns out she is the tortilla maker, and we returned to her later in the morning to fetch her homemade corn tortillas, which were like pancakes, delicious and fluffy. We traversed the town, and bought some produce. There is generally a convenience store on every block, and no grocery stores, and they prefer to sell cookies, soda, and chips than food staples. Sometimes I really wonder what the Mexican people eat. Beans, tortillas, and salsa for every meal, I think. Our second trip to the village that afternoon to fetch the tortillas brought us to a different path with our guide Ernesto. We were leaping over fences, running from cows, bounding streams, and climbing like mountain goats. I didn't consider it a "trail" exactly, so much as a possibility.
We enjoyed a nice breakfast and took a leisurely hike up the closest mountain to gain a magnificent view of the valley and the small sierra around us. Anna Paula brought us back to Sayulita and Litibu, and taught us some of the Spanish songs which we heard in the Temascal. It was a blessing to be granted an insight into this amazing Mexican community, their ceremonies, and their hospitality. How is this lesson applied to American hospitality to Mexican visitors or immigrants?
The buses in Mexico are good quality, regular, and inexpensive, so we took the venture on our own. Sadly we got on one of the more expensive buses, and halfway there realized there were no more buses to our destination that day, and had to hire a 200 peso taxi. You win some, you lose some. Tequepexpan is a small village with more traditional architecture, including stone walls in fields and mud brick houses. The community we visited is outside of the village, and has several permanent residents. Their focus is spiritual, a mixture of indigenous religion and Chrisianity. While the houses are not outstanding in their construction in any conventional sense, there is an underriding current of care and peacefulness. Emily commented on their use of religious symbols as decoration, such as God's Eyes or prayer flags, which help to constantly remind of the connection with the spiritual world. The house was also decorated with a large pile of marijuana on the night table (in my opinion, a huge pile, but I have limited experience in these things).
The mountains opened up a different ecosystem to our willing, prodding eyes, with pine trees with 10" long needles, and scrub brilliantly set off by banana trees. The mountain valley was a quilt of agave, corn, and sugar cane. Behind the "mountains" in the foreground, the real mountains wait, the Sierra Madres, invisible.
We prepared for the Temascal with a sage smudge blessing, prayed over a handful of tobacco and tossed it in the fire. Between eight and ten people participated in the Temascal, Emily and I being the only non-Mexicans, and 2 of the only 3 women. We crawled into the dome, made of willow branches and draped with canvas to keep in the steam. The hole in the center was filled with glowing red rocks. Sirgio, the Shaman, would bless each rock with tobacco and everyone would welcome it into our midst. A five gallon bucket of water stood at convenience and soon the space filled with steam. And just when you think it's blisteringly hot, more water is dumped on and the temperature increases. Anna Paula informed us that we could not leave until the door was opened between the four parts of the ceremony. This made me slightly nervous, but it ended up being fine. Everyone had an opportunity to pray aloud, with singing in between. The Temascal invites all the elements to interact, water, fire, earth, and air. More rocks were added, more water, until breathing in makes no sense and breathing out just stirs the air against your skin. After one hour of this cleansing, we crawled back out. I was immiediately cold again, soaked with sweat in the chilly air. But everyone else was ready for a cool down, so each poured a five gallon bucket of cold water over their heads. So even though I was already cold, I did it too. Gah! But the fire was waiting, and dry clothes.
Simultaneously, a birthday party for a three year old was happening in the open kitchen area. Her whole family was there, including a man named Jaime, who informed me he was 26 (contrary to physical evidence) and before the night was over, told me he loved me. Despite my constantly informing him I had a boyfriend. I thought my new haircut would scare people off, but I guess the pull of legal papers is stronger. The food that evening was absolutley delicious, a cabbage dish, and then crazy with the beans: refried beans, lentils, and garbanzo beans in tomato sauce. Naturally, complemented by corn tortillas. For dessert, they made little corn cakes baked on banana leaves. mmmmm. The evening wore on, and Emily and I both got an extended opportunity to practice our Spanish. Only Anna Paula speaks English, and she was preoccupied with her lover.
As the night wore on, we wandered toward our cabin, which six people shared, Emily and I in one bed next to Anna Paula & co, and two other men on the other side of the wall. One man woke up before dawn and called out into the valley. At dawn, the two men had a conversation in normal volume voices inside the cabin for half an hour. After sunrise, when I found myself alone with the couple, I decided it was time to evacuate. We enjoyed some cinnamon tea in the kitchen, and realized all of our food had been taken by the partiers the night before, accidentally. So we hiked into the village, through the hills and brush rather than on the road, and came upon a little door in the village. Inside was a terraced yard, chickens, kittens, little furry dogs, and an elderly woman in a kitchen. The kitchen had a yellow painted earthen oven and pots, pitcher, and kettles hung on the walls in descending size. We thought we were eating there, and she provided us with mint tea fresh from the garden and some buttery crackers. After half an hour of conversation our guide Ernesto asked if we were ready to leave. It turns out she is the tortilla maker, and we returned to her later in the morning to fetch her homemade corn tortillas, which were like pancakes, delicious and fluffy. We traversed the town, and bought some produce. There is generally a convenience store on every block, and no grocery stores, and they prefer to sell cookies, soda, and chips than food staples. Sometimes I really wonder what the Mexican people eat. Beans, tortillas, and salsa for every meal, I think. Our second trip to the village that afternoon to fetch the tortillas brought us to a different path with our guide Ernesto. We were leaping over fences, running from cows, bounding streams, and climbing like mountain goats. I didn't consider it a "trail" exactly, so much as a possibility.
We enjoyed a nice breakfast and took a leisurely hike up the closest mountain to gain a magnificent view of the valley and the small sierra around us. Anna Paula brought us back to Sayulita and Litibu, and taught us some of the Spanish songs which we heard in the Temascal. It was a blessing to be granted an insight into this amazing Mexican community, their ceremonies, and their hospitality. How is this lesson applied to American hospitality to Mexican visitors or immigrants?
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Gardening + Yoga = Happy Body Happy Spirit
I spent the last seven days attending a workshop, entitled "Entering the Temple Gates - a Yogic Approach to Organic Gardening". Intriguing? Confusing? Potentially a flop? Well, I didn't have to pay for it, so I didn't mind. I readily entered the flow of the week. The class was led by Juaquin and Yoga Ma Barbara, an eccentric "couple". Barbara lives in a van down by the ocean for the winter in San Pancho, and Juaquin used to have a very active Vivero (nursery) there, which reached a rapid and mysterious demise ten months ago. Barbara is an excellent yoga instructor and Juaquin is a scatterbrained philosopher and perfectionist in the garden.
Our preliminary meeting was to feel out who wanted to participate in the course so they could shape it (or one could say, Juaquin did absolutely no preparation). Those that showed up: Salvatore and I, the Americans, three Mexicans, one French woman who has lived in the area for eight years, two French Canadians, and one Swedish woman. Her name is Emily, and she was the first one I saw when I arrived, with her baggy pantaloons and squashed leather hat. Emily has spent the last year and a half of her life spending time taking courses like this one, and WWOOFing (World Wide Organization of Organic Farming), which is what I would like to do as soon as my time here is over. And to add a little awesome icing, she lived in Canada for the past months. She travels alone. And she happens to have the same skin type and basic body features as me. As the week progressed, we became good friends.
The third and fourth days of our class brought an impressive storm, which washed Emily up in Litibu. The ten foot overhang of our porch still allowed about a six foot strip of our floor wet, we had to move our bed into our "guest bedroom" aka the other side of the curtain. It rained all day and several inches and then all night. So our plans for double digging were severly compromised. But we were able to complete it by the end of the class. We learned preparing seed flats, sowing and planting different size seeds in flats and beds, transplanting, and soil preparation. So I'll let you decide if this was a lot or a little for seven days, but we learned how to do it all with perfection. I am not a perfectionist.
Juaquin is trained as a biodynamic gardener, which involves planting with planet, moon, and sun cycles, and focuses on the health of soils. Our course was not explicitly biodynamic, but Juaquin was trained by Alan Chadwick, a famous personality that further developed the biodynamic and French intensive system. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdMeyywc2xo, it's worth it just to hear his voice).
The last day we came to Litibu, to evaluate our site and talk about our food forest. Salvatore hired Juaquin to do a design for us, and he came out several days previous to the course to give us suggestions and scout out the land. Our day here turned out to be 90% unproductive in terms of developing our design. Juaquin went through some tree varieties with us in a semi-systematic way, for the benefit of other community members. But we ate some delicious locally made popcicles, and did some yoga in Salvatore's serenity garden.
Although the variety of information may have been limited, what we learned we learned well, and I feel completely competent in starting my own seeds or garden, or possibly even a nursery! Not that I actually want to do that...but I wouldn't say no to a greenhouse. Are you reading this, Dad?
Our preliminary meeting was to feel out who wanted to participate in the course so they could shape it (or one could say, Juaquin did absolutely no preparation). Those that showed up: Salvatore and I, the Americans, three Mexicans, one French woman who has lived in the area for eight years, two French Canadians, and one Swedish woman. Her name is Emily, and she was the first one I saw when I arrived, with her baggy pantaloons and squashed leather hat. Emily has spent the last year and a half of her life spending time taking courses like this one, and WWOOFing (World Wide Organization of Organic Farming), which is what I would like to do as soon as my time here is over. And to add a little awesome icing, she lived in Canada for the past months. She travels alone. And she happens to have the same skin type and basic body features as me. As the week progressed, we became good friends.
The third and fourth days of our class brought an impressive storm, which washed Emily up in Litibu. The ten foot overhang of our porch still allowed about a six foot strip of our floor wet, we had to move our bed into our "guest bedroom" aka the other side of the curtain. It rained all day and several inches and then all night. So our plans for double digging were severly compromised. But we were able to complete it by the end of the class. We learned preparing seed flats, sowing and planting different size seeds in flats and beds, transplanting, and soil preparation. So I'll let you decide if this was a lot or a little for seven days, but we learned how to do it all with perfection. I am not a perfectionist.
Juaquin is trained as a biodynamic gardener, which involves planting with planet, moon, and sun cycles, and focuses on the health of soils. Our course was not explicitly biodynamic, but Juaquin was trained by Alan Chadwick, a famous personality that further developed the biodynamic and French intensive system. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdMeyywc2xo, it's worth it just to hear his voice).
The last day we came to Litibu, to evaluate our site and talk about our food forest. Salvatore hired Juaquin to do a design for us, and he came out several days previous to the course to give us suggestions and scout out the land. Our day here turned out to be 90% unproductive in terms of developing our design. Juaquin went through some tree varieties with us in a semi-systematic way, for the benefit of other community members. But we ate some delicious locally made popcicles, and did some yoga in Salvatore's serenity garden.
Although the variety of information may have been limited, what we learned we learned well, and I feel completely competent in starting my own seeds or garden, or possibly even a nursery! Not that I actually want to do that...but I wouldn't say no to a greenhouse. Are you reading this, Dad?
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Permaculture Proposal
Well, you might assume by reading my blog so far that it's all fun and games here. And you might be right, but we've also been preparing a proposal for the community on how they can further move toward sustainability. To give a little more basic information:
This property was purchased almost 20 years ago, although legally this has only happened recently. The community is made up of seven houses and 10 families (some with just one person). The youngest person in this community is 70, and they are all American born. They also all worked for or have a connection to the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) which is an international organization that focuses on community and leadership development, often in impoverished countries. Three of my dad's siblings spent time working with them. This group of people gradually formed with the shared value that they would like to live "lightly on the land" (on the beach in Mexico) and were one of the first to develop this area. It has since turned into a community of approximately 50, mostly gringos, but this particular corporation is the 10 families, who cooperatively own the property. Only six people live here full time, two of which require constant care or supervision by their spouses or others. This creates a divide between the wants of those here part time and the time constraints and interests of those here full time, left to care for the projects. We interviewed almost every community member for 1-2 hours about their current level of sustainability and what sort of projects they would be interested in for the future. Everyone here uses rainwater catchment almost exclusively, and they all have solar power, but now they're on the grid and that energy goes unused. They "compost" by throwing their organic waste into a hole in the ground and eventually digging a new hole, or in buckets which devolves into black muck, then is tossed on some plants.
We calculated the sectors (external forces that could affect our design) and zones (the movement of people, how we can design to increase efficiency) and took into consideration the interests of the members, and eventually came up with a design to include safety issues, centralized composting and recycling, a living fence and improved gates to keep out one unwelcome horse, a fire pit with cob benches and oven, a mandala shaped garden in the central community space, with mainly herbs, a food forest and some other small projects and recommendations. We will only be here for another 4 1/2 months, so we needed them to prioritize.
The annual community meeting was a three day extravaganza this year, the first day to give reports and proposals, the second to divide into task forces to develop a final draft, and the last to reach consensus and decision, and all of them for the celebration of community. The broad spectrum of community organizing and facilitation experience makes it a very interesting process to observe. The one point I would mention is their incorporation of joy and play into what could be a mundane meeting while maintaining a high level of structure.
By day two our project was honed down to two compost structures, a fire pit, a small food forest, and some private herb gardens and raised beds for vegetables as needed. The third day saw our project accepted with a $1000 budget. Woohoo!
Let the work begin.
This property was purchased almost 20 years ago, although legally this has only happened recently. The community is made up of seven houses and 10 families (some with just one person). The youngest person in this community is 70, and they are all American born. They also all worked for or have a connection to the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) which is an international organization that focuses on community and leadership development, often in impoverished countries. Three of my dad's siblings spent time working with them. This group of people gradually formed with the shared value that they would like to live "lightly on the land" (on the beach in Mexico) and were one of the first to develop this area. It has since turned into a community of approximately 50, mostly gringos, but this particular corporation is the 10 families, who cooperatively own the property. Only six people live here full time, two of which require constant care or supervision by their spouses or others. This creates a divide between the wants of those here part time and the time constraints and interests of those here full time, left to care for the projects. We interviewed almost every community member for 1-2 hours about their current level of sustainability and what sort of projects they would be interested in for the future. Everyone here uses rainwater catchment almost exclusively, and they all have solar power, but now they're on the grid and that energy goes unused. They "compost" by throwing their organic waste into a hole in the ground and eventually digging a new hole, or in buckets which devolves into black muck, then is tossed on some plants.
We calculated the sectors (external forces that could affect our design) and zones (the movement of people, how we can design to increase efficiency) and took into consideration the interests of the members, and eventually came up with a design to include safety issues, centralized composting and recycling, a living fence and improved gates to keep out one unwelcome horse, a fire pit with cob benches and oven, a mandala shaped garden in the central community space, with mainly herbs, a food forest and some other small projects and recommendations. We will only be here for another 4 1/2 months, so we needed them to prioritize.
The annual community meeting was a three day extravaganza this year, the first day to give reports and proposals, the second to divide into task forces to develop a final draft, and the last to reach consensus and decision, and all of them for the celebration of community. The broad spectrum of community organizing and facilitation experience makes it a very interesting process to observe. The one point I would mention is their incorporation of joy and play into what could be a mundane meeting while maintaining a high level of structure.
By day two our project was honed down to two compost structures, a fire pit, a small food forest, and some private herb gardens and raised beds for vegetables as needed. The third day saw our project accepted with a $1000 budget. Woohoo!
Let the work begin.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Tepic - Winter Wonderland
Tepic is the capital of Nayarit, the state in which we live, and is located about 1000 meters above sea level, with 500,000 residents. Our Spanish teacher Miguel, also known as our only Mexican friend, lives there with his family during the weekend. The teachers here are assigned to schools and live in a house with the other teachers, because the majority are from Tepic which houses the university. So on weekdays we hitch a ride to Punta Mita, where Miguel does special education with the non-profit PEACE. And last weekend we decided to explore this veritable Winter Wonderland.
Nayarit is an agricultural state, and we got a true taste of it with fields of sugar cane and endless orchards of avocadoes backed by rolling mountains and a roiling stomach. Tepic is not exactly a tourist destination, and we were fairly warned that there is 'nothing to do there'. We did not meet or see a single gringo on the entire trip. Sascha lugged the tent and blankets in his monster backpack, but once there, no one seemed to know where a good place to camp was, especiall that was accessible. So we stayed in a hotel close to the plaza and ventured out the first evening to find half the citizens in the city gathered there. We ate out and then wandered into the cathedral, where there just happened to be a wedding commencing with extremely poor timing, as the Christmas music and loudspeaker narrative poured in the open doors. And then the parade started, in all its commercialized glory, starring any animated film character you can think of. They had Peter Pan, Ciderella, the Flintsones, the Incredibles, the Backyardigans, Sesame Street, Batman, several Santa Clauses and countless more, each trailed by several dozen girls, aged 11-14 in appropriate costume. After the parade we went to a tiny cake shop where I bought a tiny cake from a stunningly gorgeous woman, and then went out to eat a second time.
Miguel scheduled a bus tour for us in the morning, and accompanied us with his wife and darling four-year old daughter, Paula. The tour traveled to four old colonial style haciendas, with trees hundreds of years old, and an orangeria (as Sascha would say), meaning a wonderful orchard full of cross-bred citrus trees. The whole property was chocked full of edible plants, which we all picked at all our leisure and enjoyed thoroughly. Another had been turned into a school, where they found indigenous artifacts and gold hidden in the walls. The last hacienda we visited was at some point used or owned by the Masonics, with symbols scratched into the stone. It was a textile factory from 1841 until 1985, making denim for the American market. The factory utilized child labor. The machines, both antique and newer, were all still there, along with spools of thread. The architecture of the building was fascinating, there were defense turrets in several locations where people with guns shot at marauders in the streets.
We went to a huge new shopping mall afterwards with Miguel y familia, much nicer than any mall I have been to in the U.S., and afterwards to a a huge park where we rode a tiny train. The park came equipped with a zoo, carnival rides, endless playsets and courts, and most unusual of all: an outdoor ice-skating rink. You may think the people of Mexico would not be highly skilled ice skaters, and you would be right, but there were a few with talent, and it was very amusing to watch.
Live music at a nearby bar concluded our evening with style, the mandatory nightly Mexican television, a special treat offered only by the hotel.
Miguel informed us that Mass was celebrated at the hour, and he would try to meet us at nine. Awakening at 8:50, I rushed over to sit in the cathedral for one hour before mass actually started, at which hour both Miguel and Sascha gamboled in. We somehow missed Miguel afterwards, and headed over to a nice restaurant for breakfast, and while Sascha finished I ravaged the town for some Christmas presents.
We caught the bus back to Bucerias where each of us had a conversation with an English-speaking Mexican. The man Sascha spoke to had immigrated to the U.S. as a baby and lived there thirty years, went to college, spent 9 years in the state penitentiary, and was finally deported to Mexico, a place he couldn't even remember. He is a vendor, coming on to the buses and selling snacks, and has no intention of going back to the U.S.
I bought a giant sparkler and called it a day.
There comes a point in every blog where the writer must admit to losing their camera. Today is my day. Just use your imagination.
Nayarit is an agricultural state, and we got a true taste of it with fields of sugar cane and endless orchards of avocadoes backed by rolling mountains and a roiling stomach. Tepic is not exactly a tourist destination, and we were fairly warned that there is 'nothing to do there'. We did not meet or see a single gringo on the entire trip. Sascha lugged the tent and blankets in his monster backpack, but once there, no one seemed to know where a good place to camp was, especiall that was accessible. So we stayed in a hotel close to the plaza and ventured out the first evening to find half the citizens in the city gathered there. We ate out and then wandered into the cathedral, where there just happened to be a wedding commencing with extremely poor timing, as the Christmas music and loudspeaker narrative poured in the open doors. And then the parade started, in all its commercialized glory, starring any animated film character you can think of. They had Peter Pan, Ciderella, the Flintsones, the Incredibles, the Backyardigans, Sesame Street, Batman, several Santa Clauses and countless more, each trailed by several dozen girls, aged 11-14 in appropriate costume. After the parade we went to a tiny cake shop where I bought a tiny cake from a stunningly gorgeous woman, and then went out to eat a second time.
Miguel scheduled a bus tour for us in the morning, and accompanied us with his wife and darling four-year old daughter, Paula. The tour traveled to four old colonial style haciendas, with trees hundreds of years old, and an orangeria (as Sascha would say), meaning a wonderful orchard full of cross-bred citrus trees. The whole property was chocked full of edible plants, which we all picked at all our leisure and enjoyed thoroughly. Another had been turned into a school, where they found indigenous artifacts and gold hidden in the walls. The last hacienda we visited was at some point used or owned by the Masonics, with symbols scratched into the stone. It was a textile factory from 1841 until 1985, making denim for the American market. The factory utilized child labor. The machines, both antique and newer, were all still there, along with spools of thread. The architecture of the building was fascinating, there were defense turrets in several locations where people with guns shot at marauders in the streets.
We went to a huge new shopping mall afterwards with Miguel y familia, much nicer than any mall I have been to in the U.S., and afterwards to a a huge park where we rode a tiny train. The park came equipped with a zoo, carnival rides, endless playsets and courts, and most unusual of all: an outdoor ice-skating rink. You may think the people of Mexico would not be highly skilled ice skaters, and you would be right, but there were a few with talent, and it was very amusing to watch.
Live music at a nearby bar concluded our evening with style, the mandatory nightly Mexican television, a special treat offered only by the hotel.
Miguel informed us that Mass was celebrated at the hour, and he would try to meet us at nine. Awakening at 8:50, I rushed over to sit in the cathedral for one hour before mass actually started, at which hour both Miguel and Sascha gamboled in. We somehow missed Miguel afterwards, and headed over to a nice restaurant for breakfast, and while Sascha finished I ravaged the town for some Christmas presents.
We caught the bus back to Bucerias where each of us had a conversation with an English-speaking Mexican. The man Sascha spoke to had immigrated to the U.S. as a baby and lived there thirty years, went to college, spent 9 years in the state penitentiary, and was finally deported to Mexico, a place he couldn't even remember. He is a vendor, coming on to the buses and selling snacks, and has no intention of going back to the U.S.
I bought a giant sparkler and called it a day.
There comes a point in every blog where the writer must admit to losing their camera. Today is my day. Just use your imagination.
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