Under the Moon On a Sand Dune

Wake up and go to bed and look to the next day and the next until before you know it, 4 months have past and it's almost winter and grand plans have fallen by the way side and the convictions brought home don't mean so much anymore and South America is just a continent coloured yellow on the map on the shower curtain.

If you don't get out from the shadows of the skyscrapers you can forget about the moon until one clear night you look up and there she is, a big onion face suspended over the metropolis and her sharp white light slaps you like a faceful of crisp winter air and you remember that the earth isn't flat and is actually so big that its mass alone keeps the moon in orbit and so you remember that the world is big, made up of more than De La Montagne and second cups.

And even just 10 kilometres that way is somewhere you have never been and thousands of kilometres westward maybe the drip of an air-conditioner hits a Mong Kok sidewalk just narrowly missing a Chinese man on his way to work on a street that hasn't known silence in 150 years while the scent of roast pork and exhaust mingle. And thousands of kilometres to the south maybe the very same moon hangs over the Andes and cold night air and darkness envelopes the valley where a mother sings a lullaby in Quechua to a little boy who still cries when his feelings are hurt.

Who knows? Maybe somewhere out there someone is under the moon kissing a dog on a sand dune. Maybe somebody is wondering what you're doing right now.






I guess they could just check Facebook if they really wanted to know.

Little Things

I've started a job at Second Cup for a few weeks now. It's min wage and I am subservient to everyone when I wear that uniform but it's satisfying in that I'm making money and I feel like I can use my free time to do what I want. For example:

I adopted an ant. My initial intention was to catch, cook and eat some because I wanted to explore the possibility of ants being a viable source of protein for our new green world. I read on the Always Credible and Magnificent Internet that they are delicious, full of protein and much more environmentally viable than meat. Probably more humane too.

So yeah, maybe that sounds weird but maybe not if you think about it for a while. Something else I realized after thinking about it for awhile:

Taking care of the little ant was a little bit like taking care of the baby. There are mental if not physical changes that result from being held responsible for something, for an ant just as to a baby. It's like responsibility is a chemical emotion just like happiness is tied endorphins and fear with adrenaline. I can feel responsibility in my core; a mix of pride and prudence, energising, producing an attitude that is mindful of danger, the future, consequences and security. I find myself taking bigger breaths, expanding lungs and shoulders with a little more purpose as priorities re-categorize. When you are depended on, you think of how best to be strong and to protect.

****

So anyway, with this ant, I brought her (worker ants are female I just found out and had to change "he" and "him" to "she" and "her" a million times) home in a tupperware with some leaves. I only found one ant, after spending 2 hours biking around Mount Royal, lifting logs and leaves and digging in the dirt. I even put out some apples but to no avail. Maybe the cold weather had them hiding. She was the only one out, and she was a big fatty, healthy, thick and black. A formidable ant if ever there was one.

I put a maple brown sugar cereal thing in her box and softened it up with some water thinking it'd be gourmet. Every day while I went to work and class, the little missus would stay in her box until I came home to let her out to play. She'd climb everything and I'd watch and marvel at her tiny-ness. If you think hard about anything, it eventually becomes mind-bogglingly amazing as questions overwhelm.

How such a tiny body can be capable of decisions? She's so small and she's choosing her trajectory, but where is the decision-center for these decisions? Where is she storing information about where she went and how does she know not to re-trace her path? What would she do if there was another ant? She probably has never been in a house before. This could be the moon. What does she think my laptop is? Where is she getting all this energy? She definitely doesn't realize who or what I am but what does she realize? What does she make of the fact that forces keep putting her back in a plastic tupperware despite all her efforts?

I took a bunch of pictures and cross-referenced with that peer-reviewed and infallible online academic journal, The Internet. Found out she's a carpenter ant, that they have "elbow jointed antennas" and that all 6 legs are attached to their thorax and that they don't breathe but have little holes where air passes through, like air gills. And you can see their eyes if you look closely, which are capable of seeing light and movement but nothing too detailed since they rely mainly on the antennas. Check out the mandibles and her overall hairyness.



After a few days, everytime I opened the tupperware after class, a stench of rotting sugar burst out. The maple sugar thing wasn't looking so appetitizing anymore. I took it out, changed her water and let her out to play but she had lost a step. She definitely looked skinnier and though she would still explore, after a while she would just sit and vibrate her legs. I knew that this wasn't going to end well. I felt a little guilty and I could have probably let her go.

5 or 6 days after our first introduction, I came home from class to find her dead. Don't know what exactly caused her death her but it was definitely my fault. I felt a tiny pang of emotion as I lifted her body out of her plastic cage. Had her last few hours been lonely? Painful? I don't know. I thought about it for a second but even after all that schpiel about responsibility, she's still just an ant in my mind. Too small, too un-human, too insignificant, too easily forgettable. A little cold-hearted maybe?

So I ate her as per my initial intention and concluded that eating one raw ant is not a great way to get your nutrition. The taste wasn't bad and there was some texture but there was an unpleasant tingling on my tongue afterward, perhaps from the hairs on her body or the sting of betrayal. Maybe cooked would be better.

Discovery as a Daily Staple

Well this isn't going to become a blog just about a baby but when you live with one, it's cool to see how one develops from a little mush into something increasingly competent.

Simple things are really fun.

She learns peekaboo. She discovers entropy, apples. She investigates splashing, dropping rocks into the fountain and begins expecting things, like the splash. She is introduced to floating. She imitates, sniffing tree bark. She's discovering rhythm, causality, self expression. Exercising demands.


She's got a long way to go but she's already come a long way.

Since Coming Back

I went camping in Algonquin last long weekend. Tried not to talk or think about the urban life we all live. Not a hard task when you're the only soul save a few loons swimming in a lake still as a sheet of glass, the fading light of dusk glowing purple. Nothing but trees, water and sky. Who cares about Youtube or Entourage when all you can hear are embers crackling on the fire, when darkness envelops everything except the stars.

But it's no way to live, just a holiday from the real world. You can't live in the wild like that, it's not an option unless you want to go 'Into the Wild' and even that can't last that long. The few hundred dollars of supplies we bought had run out completely by Monday and there was no ATM or Sobey's close by.

I've been struggling with a dilemma ever since I came back from South America, mentally dealing with the excesses of this society, full of useless and insignificant clutter that takes up all of our time. There's no escape from buying into it. You need money just to eat and breathe on this continent. And I feel so hypocritical, uncomfortably settling into the comfort of this developed world and scared of being consumed by it, swallowed up whole. Do I want to follow the path that this society prescribes? Do I want the life I see in shop windows, movies? Is it really so bad anyway? What's the alternative? Nothing feels natural but I need to decide. I need to go out on a limb, take the plunge. Suck it up and get on with it. Be the change I want to see in the world.

Nice to Meet You

Sitting in an internet cafe in Taganga, waiting for a room to free up, waiting to book into another backpacker hostal and meet a new slew of characters and exchange first impressions with two questions: where're you from, where're you going? And just like that, we'll probably be halfway to being friends or not.

Went to a lot of museums in Bogota, saw a lot of works by Fernando Botero. Born 1932 in Medellin. Drew a lot of chubby people. Not just people actually, fruits, trees and horses, Jesus on the cross, guitars, houses, were all drawn chubby. Even drew a chubby Mona Lisa, look it up, it's funny. He's not yet dead but the work of other artists on exhibit who had passed away were accompanied by placards detailing only their name, birthplace and death place. By way of introduction. Like:

Andres de Santa Maria
Bogota, 1860 - Brussels 1945

It tells you a lot really but at the same time leaves out everything between. I'm Reading "A Hundred Years of Solitude" in Spanish and it's slow going but one little quote I remember is where Jose Arcadio Buendia says that it doesn't matter where you were born, one is not from a place until one of yours has died there.

Before I had to answer the question "Where're you from?" 5 times a day, I would hesitate before answering, confusing the question with "Who am I?" I'm not really from Edmonton, I'm not really from Hong Kong, I'm not really from Ontario, these are just places I've lived. Now for simplicity's sake, when other backpackers ask, I don't delve into a detailed personal life history, my response is the same as a museum placard would say:

Liang Cheng
Edmonton, 1985 -

Moving On

After spending 3 weeks in rural Ecuador, coming back to the city feels good and I don't know why. The cars, the horns, the people hurrying around, the teenagers expressing themselves through their clothes, the graffiti, the traffic lights, it's all so familiar. This time it's Quito but all these big cities feel like big cities. Busy, busy people. Saw an old man on the street today, peddling a backscratcher and a toe-nail clipper. His hand was propped up by his walking stick and the toe-nail clipper hung off his finger while the backscratcher stick was propped up, demonstrating these things were for sale. So he sat there half asleep mumbling to himself while offering his two goods for sale. One time he woke up, re-adjusted the scratcher stick so it palm was facing pedestrian traffic, then went back to sleep. I stood there for a while just watching him and giggling to myself but not wanting people to see that I was giggling at him. During that time, the only person that gave a second glance was a 8 or 9 year old boy who stopped dead in his tracks, let go of his mother's hand, went up close to inspect first the goods and then the sleeping man, and then ran back to his mom who had kept walking. I smiled to myself remembering how Kimberley says "Oye" and when little Alex asked my why I was a 'small gringo.' I really miss the kids, I don't know if it's because I'm a big softie or because I'm back in this big, much colder, adult world. I got a million hugs every day for the past three weeks and today, I'll be lucky to get one.

All Smiles, Snotty Noses and Eager Eyes

Well I've only made it to Ecuador so far. I'm at the Katitawa School in Salasaca (katitawa.blogspot.com).

The day starts at 7 am, cold with porridge already cooking and feet creaking on wooden floors. Quick cup of tea to warm up and a dusty half hour walk uphill to school, passing cactus lined fields, fast flowing irrigation ditches, chickens, pigs, cows and the locals carrying wide loads on their backs. We teacher-volunteers arrive at the school just after 8 am, the dusty volcanic soil undisturbed for just a few more seconds until the orange van of kids arrive and off we go. Noise and activity, dust flies, as balls and children are to be chased, hundreds of piggybacks given and questions questions questions questions.

We're in the Valley of Volcanoes, at the equator and 3000 meters up, and the weather leads by example, changing temperament quickly, trending towards a burning hot afternoon but unpredictable. The kids follow suit wearing their emotions on their sleeves, one second steadfast refusal to cooperate, the next all smiles, snotty noses and eager eyes looking up at you, wanting to please and wanting to have their way. They've got a lot of love to give, and when they look to me for an authoritative answer, the last thing I want to do is disappoint.


The past weeks have been equally exhausting as rewarding. Constantly trying to be a living example, and trying to be fair and trying to be friendly and also trying to be respected are mentally draining activities. I find myself trying new things everyday, testing out the kids, trying to push the right combination of buttons. To be a friend and to be respected at the same time. I've learned a few things. Everyone wants to win. If you want to be believed, always do what you say. Kids know an empty promise when they hear one, consequence or reward. Kids can be manipulative. Kids get away with a lot. Kids act different when they think no one is watching. Kids learn by example. Kids will do what you let them do.

Eventually the children are trucked away and after cleaning up and closing up, we walk back home in the hot sun, all a little tired. I find myself feeling either satisfied or dejected. I want so badly to make a difference in their lives and the days when I feel like the kids learned something make up for the days I feel like I'm not getting through to them.

I spend the afternoon winding down on the back patio with the guitar I bought, watching a fierce wind push trees and clouds west, toward the fading light. If lucky, the clouds part and snow capped Volcan Chimborazo takes on hints of the orange pink of the setting sun.
We eat dinner, have a few beers, play some cards as the day simmers to an end. The wind dies right down to a stand still and the lights in the valley come out, shimmering and mimicking the constellations. A distant chorus of cows, dogs and donkeys carries across the valley as night fully blankets the valley. Tranquilo. Taking a deep breath of cold mountain air, I imagine even the most boisterous of the kids, the ones that go from class to class running wild, the ones who are always either crying or laughing and nothing in between, even they must be snuggled up in bed, letting sleep creep over them.



I've settled into the routine and loved my time here but I'm on my way out. I'm ready to move on, act on my own accord without thinking about what's best for the kids and how best to teach them. The experience has been unforgettable but I'm leaving unfulfilled. I still want to do more. I will probably come back to teaching again, here or somewhere else but for now, it's quite enough. Done with lesson plans, back to travel plans. Off to Colombia and I've booked my flight from Bogota to Lima on June 10th. Then home.

20 Minutes

Still a little wheezy from the Semana Santa (Easter) party in Ayacucho, a fitting end to my time in Peru, well worth the hungover bus ride. Too much fun for a good 18 hours running from bulls with hysterical crowds, live fireworks singeing t-shirts while dancing around raging bonfires in the town square to live marching bands that didn't stop. All to celebrate Jesus' re-birth. Lack of laws and safety regulations make for good parties. No one got hurt, plus it's tradition and culture.

Took the lloooonnng bus ride last night from Lima to Tumbes. Popped in to the ex-office to say hi but everyone was out which is too bad because that was probably the last chance I'll ever get to see them. But then again, who knows. Still in a familiar place for about 20 minutes until I board the bus from Tumbes across the border to Guayaquil. Leaving my adopted South American nation but I know I'll be back. The plan is a week in Ecuador, 3 weeks in Colombia, a month in Brazil. Come meet me. Contemplating trying to squeeze in a peak of Chavez and the regime in Venezuela and I still might but planning that far ahead crossed my eyes from looking at maps and made my head spin. Going to take it one week at a time. Peace out, Peru. It's been a blasty blast. Wait, didn't I already say that.

What's Update

4th last day at MEDA Peru today. It's been 7 months on this continent, which seems like a while but everything is relative. Sat in a meeting today with the two bosses and a retiree, Phil, who used to work for the World Bank. I mean I've learned a lot in my time here and I've written a lot about it but I've still got only 7 months experience while Phil has been working this field and this continent for twice as long as I've been born. So I sit through an entire days meeting, all keen and awake, ready to give my two cents at a moments notice but ultimately can't contribute a single thing. Nary a peep. I just contribute lots of nodding. It is a good way to convey interest and understanding without interrupting.

For example: What are goals worth pursuing? What seems like it should work but doesn't? How do you get attention? How do you persuade communities? How do you communicate to donors? How can you be sure what you're doing is right? Has this ever been done? What happened in Colombia? What happened in Bolivia? I don't know. I'd just nod and pretend they're rhetorical questions.

Wednesday is last day. Easter holiday after that will be spent in Peru and then my visa expires and I gotta be out by the 19th of April. I'm taking a bit of a detour on my way back to Canada. Two and a half months to grow my hair, somewhere in South America (Colombia or Brazil). Excited yes. Call me Al. The main drawback is that I'm going to miss the hockey playoffs. At least the Oilers aren't making it.


Peace out, mangroves. It's been a blasty-blast.

Restore the Glory

Ancient civilizations on the desert coast poke their noses out from the sand, curiously take a sniff. The salt sprayed air smells different, with wisps of singed petroleum. Their ears buried in the ground fill with a humming noise.

"?" they ask.

Excited archaeologists move sand, step carefully and carve out shapes of what they think the past civilization should look like. Here, a dented collarbone close to a shattered claypot is never a coincidence. Here, this handful of sand is meaningful, soaked in chemical analysis and checked three times. You have to read between the lines.


They say this one is 1000 years old. I can't remember that far back. That's much older than my grandpa. They call it the civilization Moche, since no better name caught on first.


They're still trying to decide what to call this one (Norte Chico or Caral or Caral-Supe). And these ones, they're 4500 years old. I wouldn't be able to tell. Egyptians put up pyramids around then. Who did this? Picture what an imaginary name on an imaginary face did. Two thousand grandpas.

One guide is grateful that the Spanish conquered South America and not the English because the English slaughtered whereas the Spanish integrated. For the other guide, the Spanish conquest was the beginning of the end, a loss of respect for everything and the consequent downhill slide. Restore the glory!

Numbers and worn down buildings and bones is all we have to go off to find a cosy interpretation. A vanished culture always feels like a tragedy. After all, who's not happy to be here.

The Good News is Part 1

I find it hard not to worry about the world. Our civilization is under threat and I feel like I should warn everyone because no one knows but I have to be careful not to talk too much about it because the truth is, most people don't want to hear it. No one likes a self-righteous party pooper dispensing advice from an imaginary high horse. And I don't want to beat a dead horse. And no one wants a guilt trip (on a horse?). Plus, I don't want to lead a horse to the river if I can't change horses midstream. Someone hold my horses, this is getting ridiculous. Never look a gift horse in the mouth...because gift horses have ugly mouths I think. Okay, I'll stop.

But my family is contractually obliged to listen to me so even in the historical marvel that is Cusco, I sent my sister a downer of a postcard lamenting that I didn't know what to do when children workers come up to me in the streets selling their candies. Should I give them something and support their parents in promoting child labour or should I refuse to give my spare change to child in need?

Here's another. There's a poor little boy that I sometimes see walking near my office who looks nothing like any of the happy children in this picture, least of all the kid on the far left. He's a shoeshiner, small, poor and dirty and can't be more than 8 years old (though sometimes you can't tell because malnutrition hinders their development). His presence contrasts starkly with the backdrop of my office, proud bright streets, swept, scrubbed and manicured, every tree and shrub attended to (daily, since Lima is desert afterall). Holding his brush and with a shoeshiner's stool slung over his shoulder, he drags his heels passing upscale cafe's and clothing stores, evading eye contact, not looking scared amongst these rich and powerful businessmen but bored rather. His swagger belied a tired mix of nonchalance and weariness, as if he's had enough of the un-stimulating existence he lives and the reality of this world. So young yet already so jaded.

I've seen a lot of child workers in Peru and Bolivia but this boy's attitude got to me. Other kids resort to different tactics to make a penny or two. Who can blame any of them for what they do? They should be in school, playing and learning. Instead, some rush around offering candy, some just look up at you with the cutest bambi eyes, some sing a song, some whine persistently. This boy however, behaved as if he'd been living this life way too long already. As if he didn't even care if he made an extra cent or two because he knew it would make no difference to his existence. Truth be told, he's absolutely right.

For the moment, this dirty boy is currently small and harmless enough to be disregarded in this affluent, closely-guarded neighbourhood. But as he becomes a young man he will begin to constitute a threat in the eyes of this community, intimidating merely with his presence rich ladies who will react by clutching their handbags tighter (I've seen that happen, and who knows? Perhaps with good reason). Without even a basic education, learning to read or multiply, this kid is locked onto a path towards certain poverty. In a world of laptops and internet, baby Beethoven tapes and a million stimulation tools for every stage of infancy, this boy and countless others have been left behind, failed by this world. Him and 72 million others.

****

I'm reading a book published by the Earth Policy Institute called Plan B 3.0 - Mobilizing to Save Civilization. It's available for free download here or here. The title sounds alarmist but the truth is, the facts are alarming. The book talks pragmatically about the four main problems threatening civilization, a tightly interwoven net of poverty, overpopulation, climate change and destruction of the Earth's ecosystem. Those are four monumental problems but true to the title, it's a plan to overcome these problems. It's straightforward, rather genius and worth at least a glance if you plan on living in this world.

Basic education is common sense. It gives people a way out of poverty, improves health and agricultural productivity and lowers fertility. In an overpopulated world, everyone benefits from educated mothers having fewer but healthier babies.

The fact that 72 million children worldwide are unable to attend school is both a symptom and a cause of poverty and overpopulation. Without learning to read or to count, the chasm between the rich and the poor will only widen. Like the little boy left to shine shoes, the undecated will be left behind, locked in a frustrating cycle of povery with no way out while watching the first world flourish. This is a dangerous combination, and as Amartya Sen is quoted in the book, "illiteracy and innumeracy are a greater threat to humanity than terrorism."

***

The good news is that as a world, we have made astounding progress. I think poverty has been the norm for most people for most of the duration of human history. Only recently have we secured access to clean water, education and food for a majority of the population.

China has done incredibly lifting people out of poverty (430 million people!! in two decades between 1981 and 2001) and has increased literacy in a growing population (from 65% in 1982 to 93.3.% in 2008). A country with an educated population advances quickly, on its own two feet and encourages democracy. Whenever I see kids in school, it gives me hope, no matter how rudimentary the classroom. Knowing the human spirit and being backed by a growing superpower, these kids will bring progress to the world, no matter how hard their lives. The state of the world's environment is going to depend largely on how China continues to develop and the decisions they make right now and in the future. Education can only help them to make the right decisions.

Peru as well has grown immensely in the past decade, currently equaling or possibly surpassing China's growth in GDP. This country is similarly developing and booming, making strides on many fronts while dealing with its own economic and political turmoils (in 1992, two carbombs planned by 'The Shining Path' terrorists brought down a building just two streets from where I live in the richest neighbourhood in Lima). Literacy rates in Peru have gone from 82% in 1981 to 90.5% in 2007.

Eliminating poverty worldwide is one of those things vague things like world peace that everyone wishes for. They seem like far-fetched pipedreams, unattainable goals. It's an answer to a question in a beauty pageant. I mean eliminate poverty?? All my life, all I've heard about is people starving in Africa. But eliminating poverty and world peace are closely related and regarding the former, it is becoming a real possibility. It's exciting and progress is being made everywhere....

Character Caricature (Using an Exclamation Mark in Text and Speech)

I recently moved into a homestay where I live with a married couple in their 50's and a few other international students. It's a nice environment, and after acclimating to this different social arrangement, it has become comforting. The mother cooks wonderful food and cleans and entertains. The father works long days, comes home and generates the noise in the house. Let me explain.

The father is a well established architect and is from Arequipa, the southern capital of Peru. In my Moon Guides Peru, Arequipenos are described as such:

"Texans of South America. Loud, confident."

They didn't mention excitable. Or use exclamation marks.

I came home last night at 9PM, found him eating dinner and asked him "How was your day? Long?"

He responded "Bien! Bien! Manana mejor!" (Great, great, tomorrow will be even better!). I can't capture his cadence of speaking in text but the general attitude is of an inclination to expressing oooooh! aaaahhh!! in whatever word is being said.

He injects conversations with moments of reflection and appreciation on the size of such a big supermarket or to marvel about the ingenuity of this building with drawn out words or just sounds (like the letter m).

He'll work himself up exhorting the importance of these two streets in Lima. "Do you know why they are important?! Do you know why?" asking twice or thrice, making you wait for the answer and building up an anticipation that is ridiculously exhilarating for a subject so mundane. "Because on the corner is the wonderful Interbank building!! The one that looks like it's inclining over the highway!).

I'm thinking
"Come on, on the one hand, it's just a building with some lights...


...but on the other hand, it does look like it's leaning over the highway!"


(Pictures from skyscraper.com)

He'll draw out syllables, so that a simple comment will last 20 seconds. E.g. "Mmmm, que bbuuuennnaa es la comida italiana, siii, que ddelliicccciioossoooo es!!" (How ddeelliiccciiouuss italian food is!!). And he'll sit there a minute practically smacking his lips as if he's actually eating Nona's sauce.

As if he's trying to fill the room with the word 'buuueennnaaa.' And the room fills. With mmmm and aaaaaahhhh and sssiiiiiiiiiiiiiii and quueee buuueeennnaaaa!! and their associated feelings. A large, enthusiastic presence.

We were talking about the herb Laurel (bay leaves I think) and I didn't know the word in English so he was trying to explain to me what it was and his wife said she had some in the cupboard and he gets excited "Aaahhh sii, en vivo! en vivo! Tienes que verlo!!" like "We have the real specimen, live! You must see this!"

This morning at breakfast, he wanted to open the curtains to let the light in. When it happened, you would have thought it was the first time he'd seen light come in through a window. "Loook! Look how it enters the room!!"

I don't know why but I laughed when I saw his architecture services wesbite today. At http://www.diegolarosa.com/. A character indeed.

I wonder what life is like for such a man, when every thing, every day is a living wonder. Do you get tired of describing marvels, and how could your heart withstand the sight of modern and ancient miracles like Tokyo, Times Square or Iguazu Falls or the Pyramids? Or is every day like seeing Machu Picchu?

Record set for exclamation mark usage.

Hanging Stars and Dropping Rain

Dave said to me during his first trip to South America "It's crazy to think that tomorrow I'm going to be back in Canada and this world is still going to exist. Like this isn't all just an elaborate play for me to see that disappears when I'm gone."

Dave says ludicrous things like "Um, there's a jaguar on your back!" or "See that mountain peak? That's where I was born." but I'm with him on this one. It is crazy! This world is crazy! It is crazy to even think that the world goes on without you. Does it? Even when you're not there to see feel hear smell taste it? A tree falls in the forest. No it doesn't. What goes on behind the scenes when I'm not paying attention? Are there elves behind the scenes hanging stars in the sky and dropping rain? Do they set up a fake elaborate ploy of a world and then scurry away moments before I wake up? How hard they must work when I travel.

****
Thousands of centuries before the Colca river was even named, it began cutting a canyon of red rock. This was happening all along and I never knew until Sunday? And now it's 3,400 metres deep? As if. And until the Amazon dries up, it'll keep cutting away? Even when I'm not around to verify? What if no one is around to verify? Unbelievable. But it's beautiful.


Machu Picchu was unknown to the modern world for so long, hidden in cloud forest, a secret paused in time until Hiram Bingham's chance discovery in 1911. And suddenly it goes from being non-existent to a must see miracle. Millions of tourists come to seek a glimpse of the past, to breathe the same misted cloud-forest air, touch the same stone that once an Inca sat upon. You would have seen it in my expression, having difficulty imagining the hard-to-imagine scene as it would have unfolded 500 years ago, even in the face of all this concrete (stone) evidence. "This ground I'm walking on? This same stone? Real actual people?" No way. Something this outlandish belongs in a hollywood movie, fairy tale.



Or the jungle. That was definitely an elaborate ploy, headed by our guide, Juan 'Loop' Carlos. The smell of green. The afternoon rains that turns everything into a slurry undefined mess. Hearing and feeling jungle activity transition from aloof daytime mode to aloof nighttime secrecy with all the animals, people, trees, flowering and breathing and breeding, rivers, air, clouds, all adjusted to the seasons, metered in rhythms, synchronized and humming wet green and brown on a million different frequencies. Um, I live in Lima. As if a world like this exists.

And this guy, a caiman, is a descendent of the dinosaurs? Dinosaurs?? As if. As if I dropped this guy at the exact same time the light went out on the canoe.

As if these guys grow to 6 meters. How? When? No way.



As if he'd harm a soul.

***
The only one world I know is the one inside my head. My brain is wired so that I, me!, hear that car honking, ME taste this food, I see, I feel, my senses are bombarded. My world is only made up of the things I experience. Travel reminds me that the world I know is a limited world. Travel rekindles feelings of awe. I feel like a baby, full of wonder and questions. All this time, this crazy world had been here, doing all this and it had just been far enough out of sight to be out of mind?


World record set for question mark usage.

Sometimes All You Need

Dave came down last Friday to travel with me for two weeks. I wish I could post some pictures right now. We went to the Amazon and came back three days later stinky and muddy like you wouldn't believe. Humidity breeds funky smells. Our guide caught a caiman with his bear hands and was going to let everyone hold it until I dropped it at the same time the light went out (in my defense, I was worried I was strangling it) and pandemonium ensued. Later we swam in a piranha filled lake for all of three hysterical seconds, got lost knee deep in a swamp where anacondas are known to inhabit, listened for animals in the pitch dark, all the while adrenaline pumping through my veins. I don't think we were in danger at any point but going to the Amazon, where man's rules don't apply is like a swift kick in the rear.

Earlier, I had my head out the window of a train descending into cloud forest, the wind on my face noticeably smelling greener and wetter. Later, I was watching water like chocolate milk pound down Rio Urumbamba, roaring and leaping over boulders, crashing down and then kicking off again. Tomorrow we'll start hiking to Macchu Picchu before dawn breaks.

I am ready to travel again. Maybe it's leaving the city-office grind behind and this is the first time I've spent more than five minutes in front of a screen since Lima. Maybe it's spending a few days with a good friend wearing out jokes that were stupid to begin with. Maybe all I needed to remind me that this world is amazing, better than imaginable was a kick in the butt and some wind in my face. The excitement of travelling is back again with full force and I don't care if I have to do it alone.

Back to Lima on March 7th, one more month at MEDA and then it's on.

A Good Reason?

Sometimes, I decide whether or not I will do something NOT by thinking whether or not I want to do it but RATHER, whether or not the person I want to be would do it. Know what I mean?

Case in point, taking two months to travel on my own throughout South America. Or going out with a bunch of people when I know I am going to feel uncomfortable or bored around them. Not that I don't want to, but I'm tired and I want to go home. And part of it is fear of failure. I'm not too sure who this "person I want to be" fella is but I figure he is somewhat of an explorer, a not-sit-at-homer. And these are not chances that come around all the time. Sometimes it pays off and I have a great time, sometimes I end up thinking to myself "why did I do this if I never wanted to from the start?"

















Well, and look how big and amazing this continent is. And the natives, how fierce they look, with their spears and shields.

It is still to be seen whether or not this is a recipe for happiness, unhappiness or for becoming the person you want to be. At the least it's a recipe for avoiding boredom I think.

2008 is Already the Past...Aaahh I'm Late

Golly gee whillikers time flies.

It seems like yesterday that I wrote my first post on this blog about that taxi bringing me on a wild goose chase from the Lima Airport to my apartment. I remember that night, I finally got to sleep at 2 in the morning, a little uneasy and excited in a new environment and uncomfortable on a full stomache of BBQ chicken. Six months later I'm still waking up in that same bed but definitely sleeping better. Four months to go now 'til Canada, and who knows what next. Hot diggity dog-gone it, time flies, before you can say Jack Robinson I'll be too frail to say boo to a goose!

Things that I'm looking forward to:

- Chuus going intercontinental.

- Seeing the Amazon rainforest.

- Not sucking at surfing.

- A world with less plastic.

- And more green. It's inevitable, we'll get it soon enough, we have to.

- Seeing Noa Fei again. Look at her. It should be illegal to be that cute. That's just ridiculous. Someone arrest her.


- Going Home.



Things that I'm not looking forward to:

- Going another year without winter.

- Going it alone in Argentina and Brazil.

- Not being able to watch the playoffs. Aaahh..I love it, from those first two weeks when there are four amazing televised hockey games every single night. And then teams get cut out and the good teams rise to the top. And then every series gets tighter. And every game is more important and it almost kills you, the emotion, the tension of those last ten minutes with the home team down a goal and buzzing around the net like dive bombers and the stadiums of fans, who have followed this team through its ups and downs and now that they've made it this far, it's like life or death, and all together everyone holds their breath and grips their armrests and then roars in unison when they score, as if this group of 20 men are playing for our collective lives, flying and crashing around on ice, superheroes who will save the world or die trying.Well...I'm not old enough to really remember any of the Oiler glory years, but I imagine it's like a good heart attack times a million.

Umm..other things I'll miss:

- Leaving this internship and working to save mangroves, Peru's only few thousand hectares, a small step in the scheme of things but at least in the right direction.



- Eventually having to leave this incredible place behind.




I am going to snap my fingers and it's going to be 2010 and I'll be thinking how the hell did I turn 24 and I miss Peru. And then just as quickly it'll be 2011 and I'll be in a Sobey's reminded of Peru by the release of Lucuma flavored ice cream in North America since they finally figured out to start importing it because it's amazing and we have a million flavours but no Lucuma?? And then suddenly it'll be 2020. And then before you can bat an eyelid, we'll have robots like Wall-E falling in love and not cleaning up our garbage and wanting to get married and causing all sorts of social disorder and infringing on my human rights. How do you slow this train down?

Grey Blue

Been busy in the office. I've got a week and a half to finish up some stuff before I take a two week holiday with Dave. We're going to the Amazon. So no ruminating thoughts, just a picture.

This was in Potosi, Bolivia, one of the few pictures I managed to take before my camera ran out of battery. We were whizzing by in a car and the whole sky was dark with clouds but the buildings were all lit up.

Double Life, Double Happiness (Toys L Us)

Chinese New Year was this past weekend. It kind of slipped my mind this year until my landlord told me about the Chinese New Year party she went to last night where they had live steers (castrated bulls, I just learned the difference) and lots of asians. It sparked something in me so on Saturday I went to Chinatown just try to find some oriental flavour in Lima.


By then New Years Eve and New Years Day and passed and not much was going on in Chinatown. I wanted dragon dance and loud drums but there was none.

I walked up and down the streets, unsure what to do, unsure how to connect to my roots. "Hablas cantones?" I asked one old Chinese lady. She said "No, de que quieres hablar?" (what do you want to talk about?) and actually ran/speed walked away before I could answer. I felt awkward so I walked into Hong Kong Market and bought some soy sauce, which made me feel more silly.

Finally I sat down in a restaurant and ordered a BBQ pork with some veggies and rice. I got to practice my rusty Cantonese after figuring out that my waitress spoke too (using Spanish to ask if someone speaks Cantonese can cause confusion if they do speak Cantonese but not Spanish). She was from Gong Mun (Delta Mouth?) in China, I don't know where that is but we talked a bit in Cantonese and though it was just small talk, it felt good, like something deep inside me working itself loose, dislodging Chinese words and phrases. She took away the fork and knife and brought chopsticks. Her husband was working here in Lima and she had come to join him in September but she was not adjusting well. She still hardly spoke a word of Spanish. Another waiter came over and started talk to me about immigration laws to Canada and asked if I could help him. I told him I probably couldn't and the switching between languages made me dizzy.

The dishes came and they were massive, intended for sharing. I could have used some extra empty stomachs to finish the food.


Before leaving, I asked if she knew which buses went back Miraflores. She waved over a Peruvian waitress and asked her "Meilaflolo?" I couldn't help but laugh at the the perplexed look on the Peruvian girls face. "Miraflores" I explained, careful to enunciate my r's. Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where there's a Toys "L" Us in Chinatown.