More Green

First Steps

2011-10-11T19:07:00.002-05:00

How do you write sincerely about social change? The vocabulary of the subject is so lofty, about changing the world, about ideals and what's wrong and what we should strive for and how to get there. Where do you start to get a handle on issues like that? I've been learning about environmental economics, Gandhi and non-violent protest and how hippie communes failed, feminism, on how social media is changing society and yet I still feel inadequately informed. I want to take action but I've struggled because how do you even start if the tip of the iceberg is more than you can even grasp?

I think being fed up is the starting point for social action. Just as the Occupy Wall Street movement in NYC was starting up two weeks ago, I organised a Turning Point Gathering in Fredericton with the help of a few friends and Leadnow.ca, a Canadian independent advocacy organisation. These gatherings were held across the country in an effort to co-ordinate the efforts of people who are concerned about the direction we are heading. I invited dozens of people at market and the CSA and hundreds more on Facebook. In the end, only nine people showed up on the rainy Sunday afternoon (not one of the 20 confirmed attendees from Facebook came).

I was secretly relieved by the dismal attendance because even with the Host Agenda sent to me by Leadnow, I felt that my amateur organising skills would be easily overwhelmed. And I understand how hard it is to get people to show up to something like this. When you're comfortable, why go out of your way to learn and talk about things that don't seem to affect your life? But I think people are becoming increasingly uncomfortable about our direction.

The gathering was simple. We voiced our concerns for Canada (that we don't know what we stand for, economic inequality, irresponsible environmental policy, increasing lack of transparency and democracy in government), what things give us hope for the future (local public demonstrations, the organic farming movement, widespread accessibility to alternative media sources) and what we think we could do together (writing letters to the editor and signing petitions allows politicians to recognise that their actions and policies are being scrutinised). The results of the meeting were sent to Leadnow as a first step towards mapping where we want to go and how we'll get there.

Across North America, the Occupy Wall Street movement is gathering voices too, in a much more dramatic fashion. The movement started unorganised and without a leader yet their goals are crystallizing through the addition of more opinions and dialogue and their methods are evolving. They want the interests of people to be put before the interests of corporations, for people think hard about root causes of the problems, and they will do it non-violently.

A turning point means a new direction for everyone involved. The event-organising is certainly new and somewhat awkward for me. I'm still learning about alternative modes of thought, about different ways to affect my surroundings. Someone noted at the meeting that grassroots movements have a difficulty because they are organised by people who have jobs and families they care about and limited time and resources to use to organise for change. This is in stark contrast to the budgets that corporations devote towards shaping society. I feel a lot of uncertainty but I believe with enough confidence to act that capitalism has outlived its utility, that the negative far outweighs the positive. A change in direction needs to be considered and I don't know what that looks like or where it leads but now is a good time to start figuring it out.

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2011/10/can-we-be-the-100-percent/

http://occupywallst.org/article/today-liberty-plaza-had-visit-slavoj-zizek/

Harvest Season

2011-09-25T12:20:00.003-05:00

This harvest Friday, we pulled in our fruits from the yard; watermelons, cantaloupe, honeydew, sweet potato, zucchini, leeks, cucumber, basil, parsley, tomato, squash, hot peppers, sweet peppers, eggplant, swiss chard, onions, pumpkins, ground cherries, cabbage, garlic, kale, beans, sweet corn, beets, carrots, potatoes, wild flowers and there was still more out there we didn't have time to bring in when the sun set at 8pm (lettuce, turnips,kohlrabi, dandelion greens). We're still not used to the sun setting a little earlier every day now. I go to bed at 10pm, wake to my cell phone alarm at 4:30 in the foggy dark morning, peculiarly warm and rainy after all the recent cold mornings lately. We pack up the trucks to bring to market and drive 40 mins westward to Fredericton Farmers Market. The drizzly weather at market doesn't put a damper on sales as a steady stream of people come between 7am and noon. The sales team smiles big and displays the vegetables to look their best, cracking little jokes, asking if they want anything else with their order (a Second Cup habit), trying to make them buy something more by flirting and making them like me and asking "Have you tried our melons?" The flavour of our melons astound people.

For lunch, I buy market samosas from the right-hand side of the ongoing samosa rivalry then shower at Michelle's house in Fredericton. I lay down on my back and close my eyes for twenty minutes before we drive out to help at an afternoon wedding, the dear friends of dear friends of the owner of the farmer, Mike. The 58 year old bride talks about how being single for so long made her reach out to the surrounding community for support and enabled her to build a loving community around her in Fredericton. We rush around serving our farm produce in different forms, roasted vegetables, homemade pasta and real Italian sauce, chicken and parsley with lemon, served family style, passing food around the table. The rainy day clears in the afternoon into a grey and glowing evening as we light the candles and the food keeps going out and dishes come back in. Oh my god the dishes that 48 people use for a fancy meal. It's dark by the time we pile in the truck to leave, stop in Fredericton en route on our drive back to see a few friends but too tired to make a night out of it, the stimulation of espressos after dinner getting crushed by the anvil of a seriously long day, elongating until we get home at midnight. I sleep like a rock until I can't sleep anymore and wake to the sound of bacon in a pan.

Mike's cooking breakfast and after a meandering conversation about the current debt crises ("Oh, they're just circling the drain,") and economic matters introduces me to the idea of potlatch. It's a Native Indian custom of communal gift giving, reinforcing ideas that the accumulation of wealth is not about numbers in a bank account but a show of status and a blanket of security. Potlatch means your status is determined by how generous you are. A beautiful idea.

I come back to the cabin, sit down and type this up. The sun breaks the fog and is pouring in right this minute, now, noon on Sunday, day of rest and refreshment, and I will now hit publish and go play outside.

Oooh a Rainbow!

2011-08-19T19:00:00.009-05:00

The day starts late, I've slept in and Eric tells me the oatmeal is ready. I have ten minutes to eat it and be ready for work at 7am. I always wake up from vivid dreams when I sleep in and this time I dreamt of being in a sunny classroom and having to do supplementary studying at home because I didn't take Grade 12 Biology. I groggily crawl down the ladder and 20 minutes later I'm digging carrots. The foggy morning feels like a dream too, a flock of fat geese make a racket and fly directly overhead, close enough that I can hear the beating wings. As the day gets older, the sun burns off the fog and by the time I'm picking cucumbers, it's hot and sunny, beautiful like a beach movie.

The cucumbers are huge and I accidentally pull a melon from the neighbouring row, the vines of the plants running wild across the beds. I walk over the the truck where Eric's loading tomatoes , the truck radio blaring some sunny pop tune to ask him if he wants a bite of the first melon of the year. I peel the skin with a knife, slice off a chunk and take a bite and slice off another chunk for Eric. "Still a little unripe yet but pretty darn good" he says as we crunch down and the sweet perfume of the melon fills my mouth.

The cadence of Eric's speech belies the fact that he is a nice and simple prairie boy and he says "It's moments like these that make life worth living, eh?" smiling wide. And I feel it in my heart, the heat of the day, the sweet cool of the melon, the hard work compressed in my lower back and hamstrings and this brief moment of respite standing there looking at each other enjoying some of the fruit of our labour. I feel it all and I smile back and then I feel the knife in my hand and say "Haaiii-yaa!!" and feint a stabbing motion at his stomache and say "How about now?" He laughs but I've killed the moment.

A lot of people won't let a good moment be a good moment. David Foster Wallace says and I agree, that my generation has a problem accepting cheesy but genuine moments, a product of being constantly marketed to and emotionally manipulated by media. It feels vulnerable and naive to feel good about something true and my gut reaction is often self-defense in the form of a caustic joke. Sometimes you need to learn, sometimes you need to un-learn.

Anxiety Breeds Celebration

2011-06-21T22:28:00.002-05:00

The solstice is always strikes a weird combination of emotion in the heart of Canadians when they day's significance. The long awaited summer has officially arrived, yet at the same time, the day preludes the shortening of days and descent back into the interminable winter. There are the first hints of a wasted summer, even before summer has begun, because the days are already shortening. Yet June 22nd comes, the sun sets at 10pm again and the worry is forgotten because we know there are still many days left. Then before you know it, September is into October, school's back in and the soft pang of regret strikes the heart with the beauty of the changing color of the tree canopy and a crisp night.

Holidays are meant to help us deal with things, though they get bound up in many different trappings. Thanksgiving and the harvest bounty are surely related. Christmas coincides with the darkest time of year and has an ability, if you let it, to warm the spirit. New Years is a convenient break for resolutions. Chinese New Year is time for family. So I'm proposing we get back to celebrating the solstice, though I'm probably thousands of years late to inventing this one.

At first I thought, "Next year!! I'll have the best celebration." But I'd like to see my personal tradition reach it's 25th, 50th, or 75th year and those numbers imply starting right away. So today, the first day of summer, coincidentally the first harvest day for Jemseg River farm, I got to the highest point I could, 20 feet up in an ash tree on the south west ridge of the farm and watched the sunset. I didn't take a picture because there will be many more long lazy sunsets before autumn comes, but I did enjoy it because it was unbelievably stunning, clouds and water dancing with fire over this hilly New Brunswick hobbit-land, and also because who knows how many more chances I will get to watch the setting of the summer sun.

The Moon River Club

2011-06-18T15:29:00.003-05:00

The smell of wet earth announced springtime in Southern Ontario. Not far from the shore of Lake Erie, there's a beautiful trail through the property of a native plant nursery and in late March through to April, a half hour leisurely walk will bring you through fields of prairie grass ringing with a chorus of frog and bird song, below the hushed canopy of majestic hemlock and maple trees and along the banks of a gurgling stream. It feels in the right moment like you're on stolen time.

I set out one day after work with an aim to wind down and seriously enjoy nature and invited River, the owner's 8-year-old son who immediately dropped his kid-size bow and arrow to join me and then ran and picked it back up when I told him I had seen some wild turkey roosting in the trees and that who knows what might happen.

We zig zagged our way towards the forest and river and I noted with relish that this is the first time I get to say the sentence I'm heading to the river with River though I bet he hears that all the time. I told him that my name in Chinese, Liang, means the brightness of the moon and he could maybe say I'm heading to the brightness of the moon with the brightness of the moon. Our attention turned to the sights, sounds and smells as we neared the water, looking for a trace of the turkeys that roost in the trees along the river's edge. We crossed the river on the boardwalk and I fabricated a turkey call to see if I could frighten them out, a loud Mexican-like "ARRRRRRRIIIIII." A startled group of deer across the river scattered and the sound of their hooves crashing through the bush incited us to set chase upon foot, up the other river bank and along the trail, leaves flying underfoot. I stopped running after a minute, knowing well that the fleet-footed deer would be far beyond the reach of our human slug-pace but River kept going. I watched as he continued with optimism, bow and arrow held outright, as if at any moment the deer might jump out from behind a tree and ambush us. He was sure that we were on the right course when he inspected an overturned leaf and a hoof print that I tried hard to imagine I could see as well. He took off again and I found my patience a little worn. I had come out here to seriously contemplate nature, not entertain my make believe. I knew that he knew that he was making stuff up, like a kid play-fighting pirates knows he's not really fighting pirates.

I followed River through the bush, listening with skeptical bemusement to his in situ story of one of the baby deer getting separated and lost at the waterhole over the hill. But as we continued, my impatience turned to amusement. We followed the tracks over the hills and through the mud as the baby deer was led astray by something wily and vaguely leprechaun-like. The skunk cabbage showed signs of deer grazing and my enthusiasm grew as we named ourselves founders and establishers of the Moon River Club, a club with the Mission Objective of relying solely on tracking animals for survival. Through the trees we went now with double the purpose as the baby deer was dismissed and the Club grew in scope, structure, and ambition.

The light grew dim in the forest as we turned around and headed back, making plans to build a forest shelter, a draw bridge and pioneer skunk cabbage recipes. We would make full use of our survival techniques, and be exclusive, allowing into our fort and planned soirees of storytelling only an approved member list of people with names pertaining to Moon or River and also special guests River's dad, brother and sister. We crossed back over the river in great sprits, tracking the footprints of a 25 year old young male and an 8 year old boy carrying a bow and arrow who seemed to have been hunting turkeys.

Big Love

2011-04-04T16:10:00.005-05:00

I work with some real bonafide mothers here at at Acorus Restoration, a native plant nursery and ecological restoration in Walsingham, Ontario. When my big city friends ask, I says these ladies are small-town and live in a little bubble like and that they sure as hell can tell great stories and boy do they love to talk all day and gossip. My friends think I'm talking bad about them but I'm not. These women here, they pour all their love and energy, and there's a lot of it let me tell ya, into them bubbles, their family and their community and their homes and it's nice to be around. They know their plants and the conservation areas and concession roads, and they recognise all the bird calls and love their dogs, they know who's dating who and who's marriage is having problems and who's got high blood pressure now and who they just seen the other day working at the pizza place and who's doing drugs. I ain't saying they're perfect, they've got their prejudices too like everyone else but they're fussy about living right. And they care a plenty. City folk like to look down on country folk, call them rednecks and hicks, but there's a lot to be said for loving where you're from and taking care of it.

Don't Talk About the Year As If It's Over

2011-01-08T23:13:00.002-05:00

So I'm settled back in Montreal with an absurd head of hair. Snow's on the ground, hockey season's here, farming season is certainly over. I went back for a quick visit to the Ontario farms yesterday. The fields were white with snow, the farmers unhurried. There’s time to take it easier until the weather starts to turn. A full season under the belt is not enough experience to speak about farming with authority but it counts for something. Here's my take.

P.S. In the picture below, that big puffball mushroom was edible and unbelievably delicious.

Old farm houses act as a reservoir of many things, collecting things as years and people pass through; old couches, old books and old record and cassette collections, old and new ideas, old and young people. I dusted off and read a book from Les' bookshelf, published in 1976 called The Promise of the Coming Dark Age. It talks about how the breakdown of the Roman Empire was followed by the Dark Ages, a period normally associated with chaos and lawlessness. Yet this was an important period because it was during this time that our modern day institutions of democracy, fraternity and equality were built. I see a similarity on these farms, an incubator for energy and action combined with varying degrees of disdain for the New Empire. It's a lively space away from the monopolizing effects of the city and a place to build a way out.

You find all types of people on the farm and you see the uniqueness of each one because you have the time to really feel them out. You see the way they act when under-slept, how they eat oatmeal to what makes them tighten up and what makes them beam inside. Initially everyone's new and you put your best face forward as you feel thrilled to meet all these independent and intelligent people. Then as usual, familiarity doesn't always breed contempt but it diminishes courtesy and admiration. After all, everyone is human and not everyone is always happy or at peace all the time and there’s more interaction, less isolation. More frustration and laughs and friction, less apathy and boredom. Make-up is a ludicrous idea for a day on the farm, laundry and showers are suggestions, there's more examination of inner qualities, less on outward appearances. The cooking and cleaning and working together is a big laughy chatty Kathy pow-wow or a pet peeve, depending on the day. There's less screen time, certainly less noise but more music and radio. More talk and more action.

I met three young boys on the farms, Elliot, Luke and Nate who are between three and five years old. They are just explosions of questions and energy. We theorized that it must be because everyone that they meet is a friend that comes to the farm and it makes them unabashed, carefree, energetic crowd pleasers with scuffed knees and elbows. There's a real purity to them, distillations of the farm life.

________________

At the end of the season, I got into a slightly heated argument with David, the owner of the farm in Nova Scotia, as I haggled to get paid $250 for the work of two months of 11 hour days. He told me I wasn’t cut out for farming and that I don’t have the energy, that I should consider practicing the traditional kind of Tai-chi where your hips stay facing forward to straighten out my spine. I was taken aback but I respect his opinion. His perspective is often sharp and clear, a product of experience and wisdom. Maybe farming isn't for me. It's not that I doubt my ability to work hard, nor my endurance. I can work but I analyse and think a lot too. What David saw in me was a waning motivation towards the end of the season as I began to question certain practices and their efficacy. I think in his view, to be a farmer you need the work ethic that never quits. Every day is a long day and the work is repetitive but needs doing. I’m an abstract thinker, mentally strong but a dreamer added the farm manager when I asked her opinion.

When I told Les this yesterday during my one-day return trip to the Ontario farms, he said that the idea of not being cut out for something is contingent on the idea that there is a set way to do things, that things don't change, that times don't change.

Well we all know how it goes. "You better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone" sang Dylan. There are movements rising and receding everywhere. There's a real groundswell of urban youths seeing what it's like to try and grow food, temporary buoying the profitability of organic farms with enthusiastic, idealistic and cheap labour, just eager to learn and willing to sacrifice pay for education. There's a trickle of people starting to see the worth in paying two dollars for a bulb of garlic. Meanwhile, technology has reached a deafening pitch. There's a whole generation simultaneously drowned by and trying to stay abreast of cellphones that Facebook. What is considered absurd is a fluid notion, changing by the day. Every new generation is a wave of the most book-educated, mentally-stimulated, self-conscious and self-critical groupthinkers crashing onto the uncharted shores of the 21st century, bumping up against the truths held to be self evident by an old guard that did the same thing. The movement of Shambhala Buddhism to Nova Scotia decades ago is still quietly rolling off eddies.

I'm not convinced my generalisations are necessarily accurate. I don't know what's going on in other parts of the world, in the financial and political circles, in the Middle East or California or Europe, in the newest developments in nuclear energy or computer technology, in the tracking of planets in our solar system and beyond, in the oceans and the skies and the heavens, in the efforts of corporate social responsibility. But it's all moving and I've got faith that what I'm doing will work out.

Four Seasons

2010-11-06T14:31:00.011-05:00

I've been at Four Seasons Farm for nearly a month now. The family that runs it is the last remaining part of a community that moved here in the late 70's on the advice of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche as part of the Shambala Buddhism movement because this area has a good energy, cut and shaped by the ocean and the elements. The old record collections and bookshelves at these farms are always my favorite feature and so naturally I've been listening to Billy Joel and reading a bit on Shambala and trying it out: a little daily breathing exercises and trying to foster a tenderness in my heart. Sounds a bit hippy when I say it out loud.

Then I try to practice it during the day. Results vary. The daily schedule is meals and work. We eat three meals a day together around a big family dinner table, seven to nine of us, simple breakfasts and lunches, taking turns cooking dinner. Eleven hours a day minus the oatmeal break in the morning and a one-hour lunch break is spent working, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the sun, sometimes in the fields, sometimes in the greenhouses. Sometimes we work together, conversations fluid and varying as people move in and out as their tasks dictate, each person changing the dynamic and topics ranging from ridiculous to self-righteous to romantic, comments coming in from someone cutting arugula in the corner who gets it to someone cutting magenta right next to me who doesn't. Sometimes I work alone, sitting in silence, regretting or smiling about incidences past present or future or with songs surfacing and receding, the Mississippi delta, shining like a national guitar...on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese...and any man who knows a thing knows he knows not a damn damn thing at all...moon river wider than a mile...slow down you crazy child, you're so ambitious for a juvenile...she only comes out at night, lean and hungry type...choruses, little excerpts, ones that I just heard or hardly remember from deep recesses of my mind that I look up and try to memorise.

On Halloween we dressed up as the farm, I as a chicken made out of cardboard boxes and went to the firehall to squawk at the Maitland Halloween Dance. One night it went from cold during the day to warm rain at night and we named the weather Cuba and walked through the forest to a house abandoned for decades, whips of warm air rolling through the field with the moon out. Everything feels immediate. The ocean makes the weather. Normal is a setting on the washing machine. This Nova Scotia farm experience is exposing me.

Shouldered by a Giant Turtle

2010-10-10T14:17:00.009-05:00

We cannot know anything. That's what both books that I am reading proclaim. Book number one is the Modern Mind by Peter Watson, an unbelievably expansive summary of the movements in thought in the 20th century, mainly detailing how scientific thinking dominated our minds these past 100 years, infiltrating every discipline from art to music to philosophy. Yet it is starting to show signs that we may be at an apex, a peak that may signal a dead-end in terms of our ability to understand the universe through deductive logic. Bear with me if you can, I know this is heavy. Here's a comic:

The other book is One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese scientist turned farmer who applies a Taoist philosophy to agriculture, advocating do-nothing farming consistent with his philosophy that nature cannot be improved upon by man and that we know nothing and the best way to think and act is with a non-discriminating knowledge which is not arrived at through critical analysis and deduction. That means accepting wood as wood and not examining it from it's most basic building blocks. The books are more nuanced but these two wise men are in agreement on at least one point, that deductive thinking has flaws and science cannot provide an answer to everything.

Watson's book goes further, summarising the ideas of John Maddox, a long-time editor of the academic journal Nature. No one can deny that science has brought technological advance. But the progress in pure science (mainly physics) and the search for a Unifying Theory of Everything while trying to dissect everything down to the smallest pieces is exposing limits to our understanding. Maddox, a lifetime scientist and editor of the most recognisable science journal says that at this stage, concepts like the big bang, string theory, quarks (and neutrinos and whatever we discover next that proves to be even smaller) and the multitude of other concepts that most of us laypeople don't understand, that even to scientists these are just extended metaphors for scientists to try to make sense of the universe.

http://www.xkcd.com

How can anyone picture what came before the universe or what is beyond space or what an electron is made of? These are unanswerable questions to which science attempts to answer with increasingly inexact theories. String theory is completely unsubstantiated. Merely the process of observing electrons in orbit around an atom introduces error making it only possible to know the probability that the electron is there. So the universe isn't being carried on the back of a giant turtle nor was it created in six days, but where does the big bang get me? I've been having this feeling lately that you can choose what you believe in regarding the big questions (like the existence God, what happens to you after you die, what's the point of it all, the inherent good or bad of people etc.) and you won't ever be proven wrong. Of course, it's not easy to choose to believe something so we look to the world around us to clue us in the right direction.

So what do you think happens after you die? My grandfather recently passed away, the first time I have experienced the death of a loved one and certainly not the last. I saw the life force slowly ebb from his body and though I didn't see the ultimate end, I knew where it was leading. It's funny that we have the intellect to contemplate our own deaths but no way to know anything about what happens after that last breath. And it's the biggest elephant in the room, the great unknown, the after life, the thing that few people can ever accept despite it's inevitability.

It's also fall here in farm country, a beautiful time and harvest time. Time is up for the annuals, plants whose life cycles last one season are returning to earth in decomposing stalks and dispersed seed. From dandelion to corn to beans, how do they feel about death?

Quoting Wikipedia, "precise medical definitions of death become more problematic as science and medicine advance." Is plant death like human death? Just because we're smart enough to think about it doesn't mean we experience it any different. A termination in function of the heart and the brain means you're dead but many of the cells of which you are constituted are still alive. A person can be revived by a defibrillator after being clinically dead for several minutes. A person can be brain dead while the rest of the body functions are kept alive. Where is your soul held? Where were you before you were born and where will you go after?

What I'm questioning is how much the acceptance of science as the only authority is helping us come to terms with the world. Consider death as the permanent cessation of of vital bodily functions vs. death as the soul leaving the body.

In the final chapters of One Straw Revolution, Masanobu Fukuoka revels in the joy that is held in a grain of rice come winter though the rice plant has withered away. People can't prove most of the things they talk about today yet most would dismiss this without a second thought. And this is where scientific thinking fails us, telling us no evidence means no reason to believe. I think an exuberant grain of rice sounds nice, and if you want, you can see death as just a different expression of life. Science won't ever reassure us about death, resolve our queries of whether our spirits live on or if humans are inherently good. Science won't give us faith in karma or that someone is smiling down on you from above. But just because you have no evidence to believe in something doesn't mean there's nothing to believe in.

Urban Agriculture

2010-08-28T14:55:00.002-05:00

It's the wave of the future.

How's this for a good idea?

Young Urban Farmers

Carbon Tabulating

2010-08-22T12:51:00.012-05:00

Part of my decision to come out here was to see how hard or easy living with less impact would be. After all, the say that all you need is love...after you've got food, shelter and water of course.

Well, Kawartha Ecological Growers is the organisation I'm working for. We co-ordinate the produce of twenty different small family farms to be delivered daily to members in the city. Many of the farms we work with are Amish and well-versed at living self sufficiently. The Amish make a deliberate effort to live a slow and luddite lifestyle, forbidding use of electricity and fuel. The only phone the community uses is at their school house. Mark and Shannon take orders and communicate with them via handwritten notes or face-to-face communication. For refrigeration during summer months, they harvest huge blocks of ice from ponds they have dug during winter, then store it in an insulated trailer. Tractors and carriages are all horse-pulled. Their food and clothing is all self produced and their lifestyle is the definition of simple. If a community member is sick, everyone will donate to pay the hospital bills in cash since they do not use OHIP cards. They refuse to cash in government cheques and stockpile them as proof of staying independent of the government and "maintaining the importance of brotherhood."

Meanwhile, I've been trying to live on as little as I can, in a cabin with no running water or electricity. (Well not anymore, see footnote below). All my food is locally grown and travels an average of 15 food miles I would guess. Raw milk, yogurt and eggs have been consistently available since I came to the farm. My diet in those early weeks of April was a lot of non-perishable things like bread/pasta or stuff that would keep like potatoes, canned or frozen beans, tomatoes and zucchini from last year's harvest. Then as the season began, more variety was introduced like wild-harvested items (fiddleheads (pictured above) and nettle), leeks, as well as the early and frost tolerant lettuces, beets and rhubarb. Then came more variety like aspargus and strawberries. Now it's a feast of the harvest and also the canning and preserving for the winter months.

Abundant bounty of fresh corn and beans and peas and peppers and broccoli and melons and tomatoes and garlic and more. The occasional grass fed beef or free range chicken too. And I would say it was all produced in a manner that minimizes or eliminates use independent of fossil fuels and improves the soils. It has been a great season as most crops like wet, hot and sunny conditions.

Showers consist of well-water, rainwater or lakewater. Drinking water is store bought as are a few other items like cooking oil, bananas, dish soap, soya sauce, salt. I drive all over the place to deliver groceries to our members and to get to different farms for work and on weekends I go to Toronto for a vacation from the solitude of the simple life and revel in a frenzy of bright lights, noise and friends.

Sustainable living is a lifestyle designed for permanence. The difference between my lifestyle and the Amish lifestyle in some ways is a difference in degree and in some ways is fundamental. I can do my best to use little and produce what I can but I won't be able to shut out the rest of the world, the innovations in technology and the constant march of progress even in this dark and cosy cabin. I don't have the community to do so and I don't think it's realistic or progressive to hope to create a community that would eschew modernity. On a few levels there would be benefits to returning to only face-to-face interactions and leaving behind the distractions and comforts glowing from our digital displays. We could slow right down and be happy, happier even, but the brotherhood I know and have isn't about that and it won't ever be. You can't unring a bell.

So food, shelter and water matter but so does love. We all cry, laugh, lose loved ones and think that we're the only ones who have dealt with this before so don't forget that we're in it together, all of us in these modern times.

****

I wrote most of this before I left for Hong Kong in early July. I came back one month later to find that I'd been kicked out of my cabin due to a dispute between my boss and the owner of the cabin which is unfortunate but doesn't surprise me. So I'm working mainly on Les' farm now, the coolest of the farms. Les is a 60 year old man who manages a few hundred acres on his own, has animals and a tractor and a wetland on his property. We use the tractor and machinery much more.

My Other Speed is Slow and Doesn't Have Time to Care What You Think About My Shoes

2010-07-01T15:15:00.013-05:00

I hand write by candle light onto pad now. I forgot how different it is writing just for yourself until I started doing it again.

I leave the farm most Fridays for the city and burn up the energy that comes from working hard all week. It's a whirlwind of cell phones, jazz bands, dance floors and cheap chinese food, until Sunday when it takes me an entire evening to slow back down to the pace of a different life.

It can get lonely at nights in an unconnected cabin. No music or radio, no TV or hot shower or internet to distract from the enveloping darkness. The sky darkens and the moon takes over, sending out beams of solitude and I swear to you the coyote's howl out of the neighbouring forest sends chills through you like a wind through a wind chime.

The days are of course beautiful and seemingly endless. Farming is basically working your ass off for next to nothing (monetarily) but getting rewarded in a different, more traditional and more whole-wheat way. Wildflowers smiling at the sky, swaying in the wind and hearty meals and hardy dogs playing with country-bred kids and planting and digging and haying and their respective rhythms and idyllic looking clouds and jokes about the weather until christmas and donkeys and trying to ride donkeys and learning about wild tea and zucchini flowers and pollinators and long shadows over seas of wheat or canola and exploding sunsets over the huge Canadian horizons and all that kind of thing.

I chase something entirely different on weekends, consuming and looking outwards for something to fulfill me, that smile, those laughs, those eyes, that night out, that awesome concert and that attitude of 'people like me and you should too and what do you think of my shoes.' I want to fill a hole with a whole lot of fun and I'm definitely not the only one trying that out. And so it takes me all Sunday evening to change gears. Alone with the dark and the quiet, I have nowhere to look but inward and maybe it is slowly forging strength.

So I think I can do this. It's beautiful, healthy, and colourful. It's sustainable and fulfilling. But I don't think I can do it alone.

(Donkeys, haying, wildflowers)

It's a Life

2010-04-14T15:59:00.005-05:00

It's been a whirlwind of a week. Farm life has 80's tones. This old house has sloping floors and the sheds and bookshelves are filled with things from previous decades. For the first week we had only one tape and one speaker so I repeatedly heard Paul Simon sing "These are the days of miracle and wonder,this is the long distance call."

Now things are starting to swing as my body learns to handle this life. No longer nervous around the creepy gang of pervert-weirdo chickens that are more free range than I am. My back is stronger and new muscles are getting sore and recovering every day - thumbs, wrists, balls of my feet. The pent up energy I had to do things, to exert myself fully has been spent building plotting digging pushing shimmying hammering lifting paddling climbing.

Always always outside except feeding time, three times a day when I stuff my face with the freshest home grown holy goodness I've ever had the pleasure of mowing down. And then sleeping time. Like a hefty log. It's a pretty good life if you like the simple things.

Good Signs

2010-04-04T22:06:00.004-05:00

Arrived on the farm today and played capture the flag barefoot in the sunshine, a good omen if there ever was one. Have internet and electricity at the house for a few days while I get settled in and until I move to the cabin. Went out for a mosey after dinner and got re-acquainted with the stars. They were out in full force tonight as were the bright lights of Toronto 15o km to the south-west. Guess I won't be needing the North Star for orientation.

Also, to everyone who donated to Katitawa School for the forest project that I wrote about a few weeks ago, thanks so much. We raised the 500 dollars we needed. Check the link.

A Minute for Gratitude

2010-03-23T14:18:00.002-05:00

So I've decided to leave on April 1st. Things are winding down as things are starting up. I was talking to Breanne on the way home from French class on a mild spring night and she was saying that I'm leaving just as everything is starting flower and blossom and I agreed that things were just starting to go well here in Montreal. This place is sweet, a brew pot of people and ideas and communities. She said that it passed by so quickly, why didn't we make the most of it? and I said cause I wasn't leaving while I was here.

And then I was talking to Thom as he came in for my last shift at Second Cup and he asked me if I was feeling nostalgic yet and I kind of scoffed because it seemed so ridiculous that I would have any nostalgia about this ridiculous min wage job that produces inordinate amounts of waste and doesn't recycle and where my boss has gotten mad at me for refilling peoples' cups with hot water or giving change for bills. This is a place where we are taught to push extra sales by asking what kind of muffin you would like with that? to make customers think it's free and then charge them for it fully knowing it's stale fatty sugary food. And one time a girl found a tooth in her sandwich. If there's one thing I've learned from Second Cup and maybe corporations in general it's to not trust them because they just care about money. If there's a way to cut costs to the detriment of others, it's likely they'll do it. And then you'll eat it up.

But so then later on in the night as I was cleaning up, picking soggy napkins out of half chewed cups of leftover dregs of coffee and chocolate grinds and coagulated milk solids, cleaning up plates sticky and plasticized with processed shriveled blueberry, an odd moment happened. The Rock'n'Roll Oldies station was playing and Leaving on a Jet Plane came on. Something about that song pulls me viscerally from inside, turns my stomach into a vacuum and generates nostalgia in my whole body. So I started missing my terrible job even while I was doing it. And it was such a ridiculous sequence of events that I felt the need to re-evaluate what I have had and I realized there are elements of this job that are unique, mainly the chance to connect with dozens of people every night. Between midnight and 7AM I have tons of conversations, some good, some uninspired, some fantastic.

I talked with a student recently moved from Taiwan on his own and we talk about how being far from family affects you. In french, I discussed with a man from Iran doing his pH.D and Masters respectively at UQAM and U of Montreal studying Environment and Religion how much time is left before we see some serious consequences of our system and what sustainable development should mean. This cute couple came in, a little tipsy from a few drinks, from Florida and Calgary respectively and couldn't stop smiling at each other and danced and sang a little to the upbeat oldies playing while ordering a coffee and moka. And then Marc came in and talked for a while and drew me a linguistic chart of logic of how piquer un sainte crise doesn't mean sting a holy crisis.

Then a great conversation with a real estate developer about the workings of the real estate market in the past few years and how it's all inflated. And then this grumpy lady got very impatient when I made her a double short instead of a double long.

And so I thought that if I can even feel fortunate towards Second Cup, perhaps the key is the lens through which you look at things, to remember how short-lived this is all going to be so as to make the most of it. If I can even feel good about Second Cup, I should take a minute and take stock of what else I can feel fortunate about. I've heard it's a good exercise for happiness.

Let me just take a minute and count 'em, those things you take for granted until they are gone:

1. Health. This body housing the me. The millions of cells performing a myriad of functions, oxidizing, respiring, repairing, synthesizing, digesting. Whatever you call that sensation when you're moving fast enough that air is blowing throw your hair and across your face and you're breathing deep and fatigue is building slowly in your muscles as they pump hard, your lungs expanding fuller and fuller, trying to compensate for the oxygen deficit and your body is just coursing with life. And to sleep soundly at night.

2. This island city that you forget is an island until you cross a bridge or mount a royal and then you see it from afar or above how it really all fits together, the bagels, the french/english uncertainty, the boroughs, street corners and winter settling in and icing all the cracks and crevices in the city, my first winter in 3 years! and icing over of rinks and the festivals to get you out always out and into le foule, the holes in the walls, the anti-capitalist sentiment, the university and its classes, the practically free french classes, all of us outsiders struggling together to get a handle on french and the french.

3. To be alive in this era, with these all-new challenges and joys and modes of communication and issues being tackled for otherwise I wouldn't know what to do with myself not that I really do anyway.

4. Peeps. The people around me near and far. Thom and Xiang threw me the most epic surprise party on Saturday. I rushed home in the afternoon thinking I was "babysitting" and instead found a house full to the brim with good, good, honest people. They were hiding in the kitchen and gave me the biggest surprise of my life. And they kept pouring out of the kitchen, people I've met from work, from class, from life, all such good people, so human and honest and loving, all doing their best the best they know how. And then we all hung out for the afternoon and everyone got along with everyone cause it's so easy to make friends and be friends, it just requires honesty and a smile. It buoys the spirit. People are so good, they're there to confide in, the laugh with, to share with, to lessen the burden and increase the joy.

5. And my God little Noa is just something else. We go through our phases of friendship, on and off and of course her parents are doing all the legwork here but she's a constant reminder that life is simple and real and beautiful.

6. There's more to this list. You could go on forever.

More Green

2010-03-15T01:40:00.015-05:00

I've been learning lately that everything is connected. You, me, them. Social justice and environmental justice cannot be considered apart. The rich and the poor are in it together. A healthy environment has rebounding effects in every direction whereas a degraded environment has the opposite effect in every direction. To oversimplify; green things, be it trees on your street or a forest near your school or plants in your room have subtle effects on everything from air quality, human behavior, water drainage, humidity, health, aesthetics and even greenhouse gases I suppose.

The world is currently looking for ways to encourage more green. Examples include carbon credit trading, ecosystem valuation, urban agriculture and "green" everything, from dish soap to toilet paper to bullets. Yes, like for a gun. Some of these schemes are disingenuous but this one is not:

The school where I volunteered in Ecuador ("All Smiles, Snotty Noses and Eager Eyes") is trying to raise some money to save the stand of forest next to the school, valued more as timbre than as green.

If you have you ever been asked to donate to a cause and have been unsure whether to do it or not because you don't know how much of the money is going to the cause and how much is going into "administrative costs?" here's your chance to donate directly without doubt to good people for a good cause. Take a minute out of your busy schedule and click below even just to read about the school and project. And give a dollar, five dollars, ten dollars, if you have it. Donating online through paypal is safe and easy and immensely effective in a world where the internet cuts through boundaries and barriers of communication so incisively. Click this goddamn link:

http://katitawa.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post.html

Though it is likely that you will breathe some of the good clean oxygen produced by those trees, you will probably never see Kimberley, Marcia and Alex except in the picture below. You may never even be in the same country let alone meet Robert, the 78 year old American man, dedicated founder of the school or the community of Ecuadorians young and old that will see these trees everyday. But you can rest assured they exist nonetheless and that everything is connected.

Unpolished Dream/Nightmare

2010-03-08T04:42:00.005-05:00

I feel like I'm bearing the weight of the world and all I want is for it to get off my back. I know damn well that it's time for action, in fact it's almost all I can think about unless I'm purposefully distracting myself. I think about all the time; that we have to start acting and it still might not be enough but I don't know what to do, I can't find anything decent to do and the pressure is hard so I resort to escapes like everyone sane person does. It's why sometimes you find yourself trying to wake yourself from a nightmare because you want to escape a scary effing thought. But there's no escaping this one beyond denial.

I can barely open my mouth, barely write on this blog without wanting to talk about declining biodiversity, declining forest cover, declining ocean ecosystems. It's a goddamn nightmare.

We need a dream to aspire to instead of a nightmare to run away from. What is that just yonder, right over the horizon, glowing so bright that it's throwing off the darkness?

Martin Luther King uttered "I have a dream" and it captured a generation.

We know what the future has to look like, at least fuzzily. It has to have less clutter, less useless things that make us miserable. We have to take better care of our land, eat better and healthier, realer and plantier food. We have to waste less that's for sure, we'll have to sacrifice a few things too. That's the simplest start I think and I don't think it's much to ask for. The world probably has to be more equal too. I'm going to grab one of those things and run in that direction. Farming, this summer, organic farm internship or WWOOFing. Done. Get off my back you big black cloud.

The Night Shift

2010-02-14T10:30:00.002-05:00

Picture Credit

Rode past Second Cup one night at around 2 am on my way home. Looked in the window to see who was working and I had a vision of myself in there working away, completely unaware of what was going on outside the store. As temporary a workplace as I keep telling myself that this is, the minute details of this corner of Guy and Ste Catherine have become part of my life. Milk temperature, rags, 7 scoops sugar shake for a minute, asbc, for here, to go, skinny, pesto, $3.21, grab'n'go, portion sirop, single double short long, copie de votre facture. I'm really good at measuring 6, 8 or 10 ounces of liquid, pouring a full carton of milk into a canister quickly and moving full cups of coffee from one counter to another. I'm amazing at opening packets of tea, putting sleeves on cups and directing people towards the washroom and the key it requires. Also decent at sweeping and mopping and being patient. The sum of it all is worth absolutely nothing in any other circumstance and even in this specific circumstance still no more than a slice of strawberry cheesecake and a medium chai latte per hour of grovel. Our stuff is overpriced.

I'm here now, lap top next to the blenders. Baritones and esses over the steady hum of whirling electronics. Ten minutes ago, cop cars swarmed the corner in a burst of red a blue flashing lights, guns pulled out at arms length aimed at a car of teenagers driving the wrong way down St Cat's. It looked like a sting operation. Their guns look bigger and thicker than I thought they would, kind of fake and plastic. But now it's completely quiet as snow falls silently onto the sidewalk, undisturbed but for a few tracks of meandering footprints highlighted by yellow streetlights. The night shift is a different world and though everyone normal might be asleep, the hours still need to pass until morning.

I humour one old guy for a half hour as he tells me grand stories of how he has a penthouse at the Fairmont and how his sons both just died, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq and how he is going to the south side tomorrow to finish up a quarter million dollar deal and how his great grandfather owned the first construction company in Montreal. And can he get a free coffee.

A hurried man rushes in to buy 200 grams of coffee ground at number 3 and I wonder what his rush is. It occurs to me later that since I'm the only one working, maybe he wanted to get me away from the cookie or tip jar so that while I was grinding the coffee he could steal something.

The big fat late night security guard glides into the store like a hovercraft, slow steady and disdainfully. He's never happy about being awake at night. In the heaviest joual accent he exhales while mumbling "gran noir siltplai." I try conversing with him every night and catch no more than 4 to 5 words.

Two students refill their coffees.

The store is dead quiet for an hour and the curly haired homeless guy sleeps undisturbed in his usual chair with his usual little spiderman bag. One time he took it personally when I told him he couldn't sleep in the store because the boss said so and he asked me who my boss is and told me he knows my boss and that I should go back to my own country and that tomorrow he's going to talk to my boss and I'll never work in this store again.

A well dressed and good-looking young man keeps on coming in and out, ordering a small coffee, sitting around and waiting and checking his phone then popping out for 20-30 minutes and coming back and ordering another small coffee. This is between 1am and 5am in downtown Montreal. He avoids my attempts to engage him in conversation. I imagine what shady things he is up to.

A patchily balding man orders a large dark coffee at around 4 am and sits with an Alcoholics Anonymous book for over an hour, orders a second large dark coffee and is still reading when I finish my shift. He brings me a copy of the book a week later because I asked to see what he was reading.

The same loud cab driver repeats his nightly routine, asks for a coffee and a glass of water for his alka seltzer, promises to me like I'm his doctor that he'll soon switch to tea cause he knows the coffee rots his stomache, offers to trade jobs for a night while adding honey and milk to his coffee then shouts bye across the store as he rushes out the door. The two students refill their coffees again.

A drunk teenager probably pockets some change from the tip jar.

People finishing work late at bars come in for a muffin and a glass of milk or a hot tea to go while they wait for the bus.

People starting work really early start to come in, hot coffee and a croissant for here and the newspaper, yesterday's if today's hasn't arrived yet. La Presse or The Gazette.

People waiting for the metro to open just sit and wait.

And so eventually the sky begins to glow hints of pink and light blue. The morning paper and fresh bagels arrive. Traffic picks up. The digital clock digitally creeps to 07:00 and the next shift comes in and I'm relieved of my duties, extricating the last of the overnight vagabonds on my way out. I walk home downhill as the morning rush starts; cars and buses swim by and the commuter train pulls carriages full of people into the station. The city stirs, wipes her bleary eyes, oblivious to the fact that though nothing really happened last night, it still happened.

Under the Moon On a Sand Dune

2009-11-05T19:59:00.009-05:00

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

2009-10-12T16:45:00.000-05:00

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

2009-09-06T20:25:00.001-05:00

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

2009-08-06T14:02:00.001-05:00

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

2009-05-31T12:16:00.000-05:00

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

2009-05-18T17:55:00.003-05:00

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

2009-05-17T14:20:00.004-05:00

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

2009-04-14T11:35:00.001-05:00

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

2009-04-02T16:53:00.004-05:00

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

2009-03-25T10:44:00.002-05:00

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

2009-03-18T14:47:00.003-05:00

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)

2009-03-13T12:05:00.006-05:00

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

2009-03-10T17:06:00.014-05:00

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

2009-02-27T15:14:00.000-05:00

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?

2009-02-19T16:25:00.006-05:00

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

2009-02-16T16:24:00.007-05:00

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?

2009-02-11T14:28:00.000-05:00

Grey Blue

2009-02-10T17:01:00.003-05:00

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)

2009-02-02T11:08:00.004-05:00

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.

Huh?

2009-02-01T09:00:00.001-05:00

By my last day in Tumbes, I was ready to go. There was an extra spring in my step as I was looking forward to getting back to the big city. I left the office at 6pm, and hopped in a moto taxi to grab a quick bite before the plane. We get to the restaurant and I get out and pay the driver. I thought I heard a guy walking by say "Chino" but I paid it no mind as I often misunderstand what people are saying. I pay the taxi and glance over my shoulder and see the guy, sketchy looking, about my age. He says it again "Chino."

I know what's coming.

"Que?"

"Venga." He tells me to come here.

"No. Por que?" I try to sound annoyed.

I start walking away and he calls me one more time and walks up to me.

"Chino"

"Que???"

He showed me the scars on his forearms where he cuts himself, quite regularly evidently. This is apparently a sign of deliquency and is probably meant to intimidate. I start walking away.

"Dame un sole." (Gimme a dollar)

"No. Por que? Para que?" I was trying to say "What for?" I don't know if it got across.

"Noo, noo. Amigo." He puts out his hand for me to shake it. I do and he squeezes hard. I squeeze back. "Aahh, fuerte como oso. " he says meaning strong like bear. And then he walks away.

Huh? I wonder if that has ever worked out for him.

Something Optimistic

2009-01-30T12:23:00.000-05:00

Well I'm back in Lima and it looks like I've left Tumbes for the last time. I think I can leave any place, no matter how mundane and boring it was or no matter how little time I spent there and still feel a little wistful, melancholic, sad that I won't ever see this place again. I think I am programmed for it.

My time in Tumbes was okay. The social and cultural part of Tumbes lacks stimulation. Regardless, it's easy to be happy. I ate what I wanted, slept just fine, worked a good job and spent mere pennies. My sentences in Spanish grew in length and depth. I got my camera charger fixed (for pennies), which wouldn't have happened in Canada (the technician hooked up a cell phone charger to the existing case, ingenious). I even had guitar lessons with a nimble fingered old carpenter where I learned boleros and other romantic Spanish styles that make the ladies swoon, I hear. Being happy is simple. But being optimistic is different and Tumbes didn't help.

The questions that have no answers keep piling on. And I'm losing the "everything is going to be fine" attitude that has kept me afloat in the past. Maybe it's being a tourist and a resident on this continent, and seeing the poverty contrast with the affluence in my pocket. Or maybe it's the beauty of these places that I'm seeing that shows me the full import of our problems. Maybe it's lack of someone argumentative in my life who would jump on the flaws in my arguments and dismantle them, and ridicule me mercilessly for thinking humankind and the planet earth is on the brink. But maybe it's just not true, maybe everything is not going to be fine.

They say it's about what you focus on. But at what point does focusing on the good stuff pretty much equal sticking your head in the sand, avoiding the reality of things? Enlighten me. Science, good science, is about not overstating your conclusions, not letting your data outstrip your conclusions. Not saying anything to a degree overboard. And science is telling us we're in trouble. And it is scary to hear, and hard to understand and so we find wool to pull over our eyes. I know I do. We focus on the things we can understand that aren't so scary, that aren't so hard to understand. Like big plans for the weekend. Like The Hills, NFL, NHL, Facebook, UEFA, Grey's Anatomy, Brad Pitt. And leave the change up to Obama.

This moment above, Pisani scoring the game winner in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals meant the world to millions including me. Hearts exploded, the city went crazy. Front page news. But what does it really matter? I'm as guilty as anyone and that just makes me lose more optimism. If I can't even change, how can I expect anyone else to. The system makes it easy to lose yourself, to spend your time and money in a bubble that in the scheme of things, means nothing. Haha, the 'system.' I sound like a radical. Maybe someone needs to do something radical.

I look for optimistic things. The hole in the ozone is shrinking. We've made gains in education, women's rights, malnutrition, democracy. I hear education is the only way forward. But the root of the problem seems too fundamental to human nature to overcome. That we're all looking out for ourselves as people and this problem needs us to look out for ourselves as a species. I look for optimism and the only places that I find it - babies and Obama. Seriously.

Baby steps?

It's Time

2009-01-20T16:36:00.000-05:00

And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

- Barack Obama. 20-01-2009

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2009-01-13T15:50:00.011-05:00

New Years Revolution: Quit technology.

(Train Graveyard, Bolivian Altiplano)

I think almost everyone reading this has experienced in some way the frustrations of technology, especially when it malfunctions and you have no idea why. Part of the exasperation is that with no knowledge whatsoever of how to fix it, you're at the mercy of the mechanic or technician you go to for help. My computer hard drive, Ipod and camera charger all failed on me together leaving me with no computer and no music, pictures, work files. My annoyance (with HP, Apple and Olympus) eventually wore off but as I survived a month without my Things, I realized how dependent on them I had been and that maybe it was all a little unnecessary. Didn't someone once say something poignant about the pointlessness of accumulating nice things because we all die in the end?

Well okay, I'm not going to quit technology. That was just me being over-dramatic to get you to read this. But after a month of dealing with warranties and computer technicians, I have my laptop back and a firm resolve to not become overly attached to digital things, especially things that I can't fix myself. As resolutions go, we'll see how well this one holds up.

(Laguna Colorado, pink with Flamingos and algae)

I tell you what though, this blog would be a lot more difficult to write without pictures.

So with the last reserves of my camera battery, I went to Bolivia for Christmas and New Years. Compared to Peru, Bolivia is poorer, landlocked, colder, higher in altitude, more extreme in geography; in general a harsher place to live. We took a tour of the Altiplano in southern Bolivia, a sea basin that 8 million years ago got uplifted 3000 metres into the sky and then dried out. The beauty of the salt flats, deserts and lagunas make up for the lack of comfort. I felt like I was on the moon as we drove for miles and miles in this weird land with no horizon or forms of life visible, with only gravity as a reminder that I was still on earth, until we ran into other groups of tourists kicking up dust, stirring up a racket. Between long spurts in the car, we'd arrive at an isolated pocket of vegetation or a laguna that exploded with colour and we'd all ooh and aah and snap pictures. I predict outer space tourism will feel very similar after we get over the initial thrill of the whole outer space thing and space suits.

We tourists were dependent on our guides and gas guzzling SUV's filled to the roof with supplies, sunscreen, sunglasses, food and blankets to survive out there. The few other species that manage to survive on the Altiplano are a tough crowd. Generally thick skinned and very spikey. Centuries of struggling with the harsh conditions have forced all life to evolve ways to deal with the salt-and-sand-filled torrents of wind ripping across uninterrupted flatland, the quick transition from desiccating heat to below freezing temperatures and the chemotherapeutic UV rays that barely have to cut through the atmosphere to reach us at this altitude and latitude.

On the trip, I finished a book called Wolf Totem. It's the story of a Chinese intellectual sent to the Mongolian grasslands for "re-education" during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 60's-70's. Living amongst the indigenous nomadic herders, descendants of Genghis Khan, the author recounts the tough lives of these communities who lived independent of technology in an unforgiving environment bordering the Gobi Desert. They weathered sand and snowstorms, fought off wolf packs and mosquito plagues, but gained an innate hardiness from living the hard life. The horses, dogs, people and wolves of the grassland became mentally and genetically stronger, fiercer, more robust, over hundreds (thousands?) of years of natural selection.

On our last day on the Altiplano, our car broke down. Obviously none of us except the driver had a clue about how to fix it so we played 'throw little rocks at the the big rock' while we waited. It was fun, but we were pretty useless, dependent on our driver to fix the problem and dependent our car to get us out of there.

I know I'm a bit young to start raving and ranting about the good old days but doesn't it follow that our increasing dependence on technology is making us weaker as a species. What happens if one day, our grand network of technology that keeps our civilization afloat fails us? Say electricity stops working, just stops working and we don't know why. What happens if one day the only thing we can depend on is ourselves and what we have inside us?

I'd like to think that it'd be hard but we'd adapt.

Birdwatching and Mud Stains

2008-11-28T12:30:00.005-05:00

This is myself and park warden Henrry (with two R's) on the binoculars. I am following his lead, trying to spot what he sees. He is one of the most experienced rangers at the SNLMT.

On Tuesday, I got the chance to join him on the bird survey, along with Jose (park warden), two MEDA colleagues and some university students (pictured above). Early morning and low tide is the best time for spotting birds since they are out looking for crabs and fish to eat along the newly exposed banks of the rivers so we were on the river by 7 AM.

To the right is a Google Earth satellite image of the mangrove reserve, the SNLMT. The mangrove reserve is outlined in red and the international border is yellow. The right side of the picture is Ecuador, separated from Peru by the International Canal. At the top, the river flows into the Pacific.

On all sides, you can see that former mangrove habitat has been taken over by farms, rice and shrimp. A lot of products of human activity (plastics, mercury, petroleum, pesticides) find their way into the mangroves.

Despite the encroachment of human activity, the mangroves carry the heavy load, providing food and habitat for a diverse bird population. Monthly bird surveying is a way to keep tabs on bird populations.

The way bird surveying works is simple. The boat follows a set path every time. You identify and record the number of each bird species you see. If they are flying, you only count the ones flying in the opposite direction as you, to prevent double counting. Henrry does most of the identifying while another ranger, Jose does the recording. The rest of us point out anything in case he has missed it.

This apparently was the sighting of the day.
Not the white guy, that is a baby Snowy Egret, Garza Blanca chica, the most populous of the birds in the sanctuary. No, it's the grey blob I circled to the left, sitting on the branch and barely visible, the Bare-throated Tiger-heron. Despite the superhero name, this bird is not bloodthirsty, courageous and carnivorous. Rather, it is very shy and rarely sighted. So much so that I couldn't get a better shot of it. Though I admit I didn't know what was going on. I thought people were getting excited about the Snowy Egret.

Having an expert around opens your eyes. The first time I visited the mangroves, I saw a Blue Heron and a bunch of Snowy Egrets. This time I had a page full of bird names I scribbled down while trying to keep up with Henrry. Hundreds of sightings of herons, egrets, frigatebirds, cormorants, martin kingfishers, pelicans, blackbirds etc.

Most are waders, a loose categorization for birds adapted to shore areas and wading in pools. They have long legs for walking in pools and eat small crabs and other invertebrates. To the right is an example. He is the largest heron in these parts of Peru, Ardea cocoi or Garza Cuca.

Some were fast little guys zipping and darting around like the Ringed Kingfishers. Think hummingbird with hunting skills.

Some were big air floaters, like these Fregata magnificens to the left, just floating in the air taking it easy until doing precise dives for prey. They are also known as Man O'War for their rakish lines, speed and aerial piracy says Wikipedia. Air pirates. Gangsters.

After an hour, we had motored to Point A on the map, whose proximity to the ocean meant that a laguna was drying out from the last high tide. This dynamic makes it a favorite spot for some birds.

This is a Roseate spoonbill. When standing, he looks like a flamingo cause of the pink coloration but he can be differentiated by his long beak, the spoonbill.

I could pretend I took this picture if I had one of those cameras with the serious looking zoom. It's stolen from wikipedia.

It was still spectacular though. Here's my photo of a bunch of them taking flight.

To compare, here's a Chilean flamingo displaying a remarkable lack of spoonbill.
Both flamingos and roseate spoonbills derive their pink color from the betacarotene from the shrimp and crab in their diet. They are not related.

These are Black Necked Stilts, Himantopus mexicanus, local name: ciguenuela. The english name is pretty self explanatory. They look like they're walking around on pink stilts.

The day ended with a chance to get filthy and trek through the mangroves to Point B on the map.

Best mud stains I've had in a long time. Point B is another laguna that floods during high tide but by the time we got there it was dried out and the birds were gone.

I'm out of postcards. First one to point me out in the picture gets a pair of pants to wash.

So, that's it for my month in Tumbes, though I'll be back when the heat gets serious in January. Back to Lima and the big city life.

Farming and Reforestation in Dry Forest - A MEDA Peru Workshop

2008-11-25T07:56:00.007-05:00

6:45 AM - Early Sunday morning. Tired. Stumble around. Too tired to eat. Grouchy, slouching.

7: 20 AM - Meet others at Plaza at. 12 of us pile into truck, 7 in the truck, 5 in the flatbed. Uncomfortable drive to the Mangrove Sanctuary. Tired and squished in backseat. Left leg asleep. I wish I was.

8: 15 AM - Arrive at Algarrobo guardpost. Mill around. Tired still but waking up. Left leg too.

8:45 AM - Erik, Peruvian colleague in charge of Tourism, tells me about cultural poverty. He says the poverty here on the coast is not the same as the poverty in the Andes and in the jungle. Here near the mangroves and coast, these people have it easy. They live on 15 soles (less than 3 dollars) a day. In the Andes and the jungle, the people live on 1 or 2 soles (50 cents) a day. Here, the luxury of living near such a productive environment like the mangroves means that people can go fishing for a few hours and haul 60 soles worth of fish, allowing them to spend 45 soles on booze and waste the rest of their day drinking it.

We did see some 15 year olds boozing on our way here. And it's before 9 AM.

According to Erik, this is one of the obstacles holding Peru and Latin America back. This is a country and continent whose abundance in resources has led to stalled development. Hmmmm...logical. Unsure if I agree.

He says the people need education, so they can stop mindlessly following stagnant cultural examples.

I tell him I agree. I tell him as best as I can that I've seen people whose parents pay for their university, party every day and drop out because the worse that can happen isn't that bad and so they don't see the incentive in working hard and getting a degree. Meanwhile, some people work part-time to support their tuition and come out with flying colors. And then there's everyone in between. He tells me a joke about Henry Ford's son. I think of Paris Hilton as a representative example of the child of a millionaire.

9:30 AM - I am finally wide awake. People from the different associations start to file in.

In total, 30 people come to take part in the workshop. 4 women. I follow the guy in the cowboy hat around for a while. He's got a great toothless smile that I didn't get a shot of.

10:10 AM - Everyone stands up and introduces themselves. Dante, colleague in charge of Environment, explains the importance of the mangroves and why we are here today. Surrounding the mangrove reserve is dry forest, an important ecosystem. Many of these people are land owners, farmers whose land around the mangroves provides a buffer against the contamination from human activity.

These are not the people who waste their money on booze. Their dollars come from the hard labour of farming within uncooperative crops in a harsh environment.

People listen intently, man in cowboy hat included. They seem really interested.

11 AM - Refreshments are served. Spilled pop means a party for ants, lined up like gazelles and giraffes at an African watering hole.

I mercilessly kill one ant to see what other ants will make of it. There is temporary chaos and I lose track of the body. Drinking of 'Real Kola' continues, humans and ants together. No 'Real Kola Lite' here. Orange, sugary, carbonated deliciousness. Not short on sugar.

11:15 AM - The meeting continues. The people are broken up into their respective associations. First task of the day is to make a map of all the land of which they have ownership of. In other words, arts and crafts. They break out the color markers, scissors, pencils, rulers. Fun is cowboy hats, drawing things and group work.

12:20 PM - Under the great Algarrobo tree for which this guard post was named, people present their maps and biggest problems with farming in this dry area without water.

The main problem for most of them is irrigation. There are only a few months per year where they can grow anything and the crops are fruits with roots deep enough to survive throughout the dry season. Most of the year between March and September is unproductive and people want a complimentary source of income. Digging a well and irrigation would cost a lot. MEDA wants to incorporate these ideas to help with reverting area to dry forest.

1:15 PM - Lunch is served. It is food.

Afterwards, people resume the arts and craft session with maps of their ideal farms in 5 years time. Before and after depicted below.

3 PM - Last task of the day is more drawing. People draw a map of actors, people or organisations they are involved in.

The day winds down. Closing ceremony, group picture and lots of applause and laughs. It's a happy time. Click on the picture and try to find me, I blend right in.

I'll send a postcard to the first person who can point me out, regardless of whether I know you or not. Seriously, anyone, answer in the comments.

4 PM - The heat of the day is dissipating. Participants collect their travel stipend and then pile into their trucks to leave. Dogs bark and chase as the wheels kick up dust.

4:10 PM - I check on the ants at Lake Real Kola. All gone. I assume even they left happy.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

2008-11-24T11:29:00.005-05:00

This week is the last week of my one month stay in Tumbes. The work has been great and I´ll put up a few posts on the stuff I've been doing at work soon, cause it has been an interesting month and because that was the initial point of this blog, not all this ruminating on beautiful mountains and fiddlee dee dee. But as I get ready mentally to move back to Lima, I've started to feel at home here in Tumbes, a rewarding feeling that I want to write about.

When I first came, I thought adjusting would be a breeze since Lima had been so fun and easy but it wasn't and again, I had to learn to call a new place home. When you're a tourist, you're constantly on the move and there's no need to settle down and feel at home and you also don't have to learn to like places that don't immediately appeal to you. When you're a tourist, you spend the money and look the part and people treat you like it and it's comforting. You say your thank yous and pleases and do as you would in your home country, have a blast and people cater their actions for you and your tourist dollars. And in Lima..well I guess big cities are universally very similar. Busy streets, lots of different people, grocery stores, McDonald's and Starbucks if you're so inclined, roommates who watch Gossip Girl. It's all familiar before you get there with reminders everywhere that home is not that far away. But some places don't get along with you so quickly. For me it has taken an anxious month of second guessing to come to terms with Tumbes.

You walk around at first and you are looking everywhere, screening nothing. You pay attention to everything and it's overwhelming. And you better pay attention to the way people do things around here because not everyone is going to change just so you can keep doing things comfortably the way you do at home. Every sound and face is foreign. When the policeman whistles, you freeze and look at him and look at the street and wonder what the hell he is whistling about. It makes no sense. When you walk down the street, you look every single person in the face because you're kind of scared of getting robbed and you look over your shoulder a lot as if someone is following you. You make snap judgements, you have to. "Do I trust this person, do they have a trustworthy face, can I stop noticing them now?" and the passing of judgement affects how tightly you clutch your backpack.

(Stacey and Jorie guarding while Wendelien visits the ATM)

And you're back to the miscommunication and it sucks. And that old habit of saying things like questions because of uncertainty creeps back. And you can't handle the number of unknowns and because there are a lot of unknowns.

And sometimes you want more vegetables in your food and you think to ask but first you wonder "Is that allowed? Or will they think I'm rude and picky?" Or you want to yell out "taxi driver, slow the %!$# down," and you get kind of mad but you don't say it because before you do anything you always ask yourself if it's customary to do this or will they think I'm rude. You always think twice.

And everyday, you walk to work and cross the street when it's safe but your idea of safe starts to change because you walk the roads twice a day you get familiar with the few streets that you walk down all the time. Slowly parts of it are committed to memory and you start to learn little things, like how to make weak jokes. You learn to watch out crossing the street outside work because motos come flying down the hill but from home to work you can sneak across the street before motos start moving if the light is freshly green because they have no acceleration, especially going up a hill and plus, they'll swerve ever so slightly to avoid hitting you. You learn to take the shaded route to work back from lunch to avoid the midday heat.

So you can sneak across the street and hop onto the curb and go down the hill and cut through the market and get to work all sneaky and lithe. You get to know the traffic lights, like at Boundary Street and Nathan Street...or University and Westmount. Lithe. And you begin to relax a little more in your town, at ease.

And now when the policeman whistles, you hardly take notice and it still doesn't make sense but it's not an urgent matter. It's a conceptual police whistle and you filter it out as background noise because you have acquired the Tumbes filter. You have learned to separate background noise from what requires attention. Stray dogs will bark, won't bite - do not require full attention. People yelling are not yelling at you - ignore. That cute girl who works at the store on the corner - don't ignore. Conservation of mangroves - requires attention. You talk to a couple waiters that start to recognize you, and store owners and guards and you relax a little more and you sleep better because you know to point the industrial fan away from you to keep the mosquitos away without making you too cold and you start to feel like "yeah, no matter what is thrown at me right now, I can probably handle it." Though most of the time that is true from the beginning, it just takes realising. You know where to eat and where to buy water, what to do for breakfast, the routine provides comfort. And you realise that not everyone is trying to rob you or con you. And you go from biding your time and counting the days, to actually living them.

And at one point, that feeling of having settled in hits you and you smile to yourself, like when Steph said "God willing" to that guy. For me it was when I played my second game of chess with the 10 year-old kid local champion near the Plaza de Armas after he narrowly beat me last week with his defensive tactics and I told him I knew his strengths this time and that I would win, and I smiled inwardly and thought to myself that I didn't have to think twice about saying that and I don't have to think twice about as much anymore and it's nice to not have to think twice about everything though I should think twice about opening with my knights again.

So I go on and play with this hyperactive, chubby genius kid who drinks too much soda and uses his pawns so well and always controls the centre of the board. And he beats me twice, once just barely and then once easily and arrogantly, and I vow that I will beat him next week though I really doubt it.

On Beauty

2008-11-04T12:31:00.006-05:00

When Mother Earth made Peru, she was not messing around. She told Papa Earth to turn the volume of the game down because she needed to concentrate and he did it immediately because she had that serious look on her face.

Along the coast of Peru, desert meets the Pacific Ocean, laying down sandy beach after beach, uninterrupted except for a precious little mangrove reserve near the Ecuador border. Year round, the sun ignites the ocean at sundown, like a match to oil.

Moving inland, the Andes mountains tower above, high enough to harbour glaciers despite being three degrees latitude off the equator. Clouds pour in and around the steep vertices, playing peekaboo with snow capped summits. Mountain and water cooperate, roaring off cliffs with reckless abandon or bubbling down rocky streams, dancing jigs around sharp bends, occasionally pooling in lakes and lagunas, cold and clean enough to drink and live to tell the story.

Within 30 minutes at llama pace, you can go from being blanketed by humidity, squidging around in mud to squinting from the reflection of the sun on an expanse of snow crunching beneath your feet.

I often find myself at the back of our hiking group, trying to take in all the beauty. The change in altitude makes my head pound and I hang back, letting the group move further away. I close my eyes, breathe deep and open my eyes again. I'm hoping it will become clear why these mountains are so good. Nothing ever happens. I see deep blue, blinding white, fresh green. I think about how billions of years ago and thousands of miles below, massive tectonic plates coming together push these mountains towards the sky. I wonder how many million newtons of force are involved. But these words are too small, even factorialed by infinity and the universe a trillion times. I don't know why these mountains are so good, so beautiful.

But they are, and photography sure is easy with cooperative subjects.

East of the Andes lies the Amazon Jungle. I haven't been there yet but I'm sure Mother Earth won't disappoint.

PS. On a different scale, I am moving to Tumbes to get more involved with our mangrove project. Work here in Lima has picked up as of late and it has been a valuable experience, writing expansive funding proposals or concise Letters of Inquiry, maneuvering between Spanish and English words and concepts. It's a good feeling to go home every day knowing you accomplished something. Of course, I am excited to be spending more time in the mangroves and less in the office.

PPS. Obama becomes President today?! I'm guessing yes and so is everyone else.

Hoo-ray.

2008-10-10T13:26:00.008-05:00

Tumbes is a hot, dusty frontier town on the Peru-Ecuador border.

If it were an accessory, it'd be a big copper belt buckle, slightly rusty. Water goes out in the middle of the afternoon. Some of the bars and restaurants have those swinging saloon doors that Clint Eastwood used to come sauntering through. The dust gets in your mouth. It is like a town out of a cowboy western except the horses are three wheeled mototaxis. Oh and there are bandits. Five minutes after arriving in Tumbes, a robber tore Fernando's camera away from him and made a getaway in a sputtering mototaxi (pictured above, not the actual getaway vehicle). Earlier in the week, I caught a funeral march as it went through the Plaza de Armas for a policeman who had been killed by robbers.

I walk around a little scared. But Stacey handles it. She is the intern stationed here and more gangster than I.

I've spent the week here in Tumbes, getting a handle on what's going on. The Santuario Nacional Los Manglares de Tumbes is under MEDA's care. It's a mangrove forest, the only one in Peru and ecologically important. We need to sustainably generate USD 100,000 yearly to support the cost of operation and we have five years to do it. To make this kind of money, we're going to have to turn a tranquil mangrove sanctuary into a buzzing, commercialised Disneyland. Sell souvenirs. Offer exciting adventures. Add value. To save the mangroves we're going to have to sell plastic versions of them. Hoo-ray for capitalism and consumerism.

Life imitating souvenirs.

To do some research on target markets, we headed to Mancora, a touristy little surf town a few hours south and stayed the night. Mancora's tourist dollars will likely play a large part in keeping the mangroves afloat.

Fernando dug for crabs to help forget the indignity of watching his camera get away from him on a spluttering 8 cc mototaxi.

It's nice in Mancora, touristy but the scenery makes up for it. Check the emo sunset complete with birds flying off into the horizon.

I get to spend my weekend (and my dollars) here, in a town that would barely exist if not for tourists. And I'm going to love it.

Hoo-ray for capitalism and consumerism.

Whose Money and Why?

2008-10-01T10:30:00.015-05:00

A few things I have learned on the job:

One hectare (ha) is 10 000 m2 and the number of zeros is deceiving. It looks like 10 km squared but it's just a box 100 metres by 100 metres.
The administration costs for conserving a 2,792 ha mangrove forest is about US $100,000 ($36 per ha).
No wonder 13 million ha of forest are lost annually.

It would be oversimplifying things to say that to stop deforestation, 468 million dollars a year ($36/ha x 13 million ha) would be needed. But the point is that unless some new incentives appear, our forests are doomed. Guilt inducing appeals like this make people look away.

(Picture stolen from: Greenpeace)

But money makes the world go round. Yes, money catches peoples attention.

(Picture stolen from: moneymingle.com)

But whose money? And why would they pay to to help conservation? An emerging idea is Markets For Environmental Services (MES).

A tree can be sold for it's lumber, oil or fruits but the services it provides like absorbing carbon dioxide, preventing erosion or filtering water had no monetary value until MES came along.

What MES hopes to do is create a market to sell the services that ecosystems provide, mainly carbon sequestration, hydrological services, landscape beauty and biodiversity.

Carbon sequestration is a famous one. Trees take up carbon dioxide. The purchase of carbon credits are payment for that service. There are still a ton of complaints about carbon credits: an area can be deforested and then obtain carbon credits for reforestation, trees planted at higher latitudes catch more heat than is balanced by the carbon they capture, if people think they can negate their carbon output they will just pollute more etc. But one inarguable thing that carbon credits have introduced is a large pool of money and recognition of the value of trees for an environmental service they provide. In 2007, the carbon credit industry was worth US $63 billion.

Another example is the hydrological services of forested land. Forested land purifies and filters water, a service that bottling companies and water providers benefit from. With MES, they can pay to keep the watershed intact to reduce their costs.

(This is the Peru I signed up to see)

In the same way, biodiversity can be valued. From the insect pollinators to the plants that may hold the key to future medicines, the habitat provided for them by an ecosystem can be protected by MES. The economic valuation of bees is somewhere near US $300 billion because of our dependence on them to pollinate so many of our crops. And if some plant has new chemicals that may yield new medicines, you can be sure pharmaceutical companies will be stepping on each other to secure the rights to it.

I'm really just learning this as I go along and I have my doubts. I can't even grasp these huge denominations; billions of dollars and millions of hectares. I think the utility of MES other than providing a pool of money for conservation, is that MES creates a monetary framework for people to understand how much they rely on nature. And there is hope that along the way, the poor will reap the benefits of MES since they are the ones who live closest to the land.

(Pictures stolen from: Kristina)

At the same time, I don't know if this will yield the wanted results. It sets up all of nature to be centered around what we humans deem useful or not and how much we are willing to pay for it. I guess it's a little late to lament the fact that our environment is one that is already highly controlled by humans. But with this system, only species that humans deem profitable will be valued. A cheetah is worth how much tourists will pay to see it. That's not even close to true value. And what about lichen, or ugly plants?

Something is better than nothing I suppose. Maybe humans and nature are so closely linked that eventually it will become clear that everything nature has created has monetary value. But maybe we won't see it in time. Or maybe the power we have to accumulate things so far beyond our needs makes us incompatible with the rest of nature. There are a lot of maybes. I've got a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. Here's to hoping we can save worthless, beautiful things too.

What do you think? Am I boring you?

The Burden of Genius

2008-09-17T23:27:00.000-05:00

The last time I chose a best friend was when I was in Grade 3. I remember declaring it, maybe in my head, maybe out loud to whoever would listen. His name was Ian MacDonald and we played soccer together and I thought it was funny to ask him if he wanted a hamburger cause his last name was MacDonald. He didn't find it funny but we had a lot of sleepovers anyway. I'm not sure why I chose him as my best friend, but I know I adhered to my choice religiously.

Who knows why but as a kid, there is an excitement to choosing favourites, favourite movies (Lion King) or teams (Edmonton Oilers) or foods (Eggplant mush that my Dad used to make). But as I've gotten older, I rarely choose favorites anymore. Maybe because as an adult you have to justify your choices and because this world is too full of great things to decide which one you like best. I can't justify my choices with the simple platitudes that pass unquestioned when you're a kid (I like the Lion King cause of Timon and Pumba!). Well you can but who would care. But after the two months that it took me to finish reading the 1,100 pages of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, and definitely after I read it a second and a third time, I was sure that it was my favourite work of fiction, by a long shot. I didn't declare it out loud and tell all my friends (or maybe I did, Dayna?) but I knew.

So I was stunned when I heard from my sister that David Foster Wallace, at age 46, had committed suicide this past weekend. Genius is not a word that applies as often as it is used. I call my friend a genius for wearing snowboots and snowpants to university when it snows (we used to walk to school) when in fact, it's just logical and a little eccentric. But DFW was a genius.

If you don't know, I can't tell you. But I'll try. If you have time, click the links at the bottom of the post.

After finishing Infinite Jest, I craved more. I started reading everything else he had written and the breadth of the topics seemed too much for one man to handle without resorting to a superficial assessment. His essays tackled everything, from the horrors of a cruise ship (see link below) to America and the proliferation of talk radio, to tennis as a religious experience and it was all from an unbelievably original and inspiring point of view. Says Thom Bissell, "He had the ability to make intellectual things sound plainspoken and scatological things sound beautiful and horrible things sound honest."

He covered tired topics like John McCain, animal rights and 9/11 and still came away with new discoveries and realizations about society, human psyche, politics. He would take the issue and look at it from a satellite and then with a microscope. Then he would examine the popular perspective in the same way. And somehow, he would tease out these brilliant, universal conclusions. It seemed he was always five steps ahead. And he wrote with such blistering honesty, clarity and grace, with a grandfatherly decency, that even when he wrote about the discomfort of attending the annual porn star convention in Las Vegas with a confusing mix of disgust and arousal, reading it aloud to your parents would be enlightening and enjoyable, not awkward.

And the book, Infinite Jest. How do I even begin to describe it? While I was reading Infinite Jest, every few pages I had to stop and just smile because it was too much joy to handle. It's a difficult read and I had to stop to let it sink in because it was too much insight, too much wisdom for me to handle. His writing is not for those without patience because he will keep writing and writing until he is absolutely sure that he has made himself understood. He finds irony in the most curious of places, his definitions are beautifully accurate, his descriptions load your senses and take you places that are sometimes dark. He makes you feel at home in your most anxious, neurotic and self-conscious state. When you read his words, they map your thoughts, his word transcend the page, and transplant his ideas straight from his brain into yours. And this makes you feel unalone.

Like other geniuses, he had an ability to see things differently, maybe because he noticed all the things that most of us filter out on a daily basis to keep us from going insane. And maybe that's why, like other geniuses (Hemingway, Cobain, Van Gogh) he killed himself.

For the rest of us, it seems that the ability to create such staggering beauty would be reason enough to live on. But what non-suicidal mind knows how to understand suicides. Obviously, that wasn't enough or for him, it wasn't about beauty. Maybe he was a genius because it wasn't enough. In Infinite Jest, DFW describes the case of one girl in a mental house who has tried to commit suicide. She describes her depression as being entombed in a sense of nothingness, no emotion, just the pain of an infinite numbness. His short story 'The Depressed Person' begins, "The depressed person was in terrible and unceasing emotional pain, and the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror." He had dealt with depression his whole life. Who is to say he made the wrong choice?

Was he thinking before he hung himself “What’s the point?” Despite all the answers we could come up with that would end in exclamation (Wait! What about life! Puppies!! Mountains!! Love!!! God?!!?!!), I'm sure for him they would still be unsatisfactory.

I emulate him in my writing. This post runs on and on because I have DFW's fear of not being perfectly understood. I have learned from him to write with honesty and to examine things that I would normally ignore, and to step back from things that I scrutinize too closely. I try like him to be profound without being cheesy but with this next sentence, I fail. He has changed the way I see the world, the way I write and read, and the way I live my life.

Transcript of DFW's Kenyon Commencement address to 2005 undergrads

Literary communities' memories of DFW

Collection of Essays DFW wrote for Harper's Magazine
(His essay 'Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise' is acclaimed and hilarious but long and hard to read on a computer)

All Cooped Up, Nowhere To Go

2008-09-10T15:22:00.014-05:00

Well, I was warned but I didn't believe them because I thought I was strong. Plus, I am opposed to bottled water on principle. So, I drank the water (in my defense it was filtered and my boss drank it first) and now I can't leave the house because I have limited control over some of my bodily functions. It's funny how the more basic a function, the more you appreciate it after it's gone. I am making mental note to remember this day so I will always have a good basis of comparison when I think I'm having a crappy day. Har har. Being opposed to medication too, I have resorted to pain relief in the form of movies Ratatouille, The Darjeeling Ltd, and Meet The Robinsons. Pictures of this little one also work wonders in helping me forget the stabbing abdominal pains. She's my three week old niece. Her name is Noa Fei Leenders Cheng as of right now though that might need to be reversed. Haha get it? Cause she's Chinese. Well, half. And the last name for Chinese people comes first. I'm dehydrated and possibly delirious.

I had a good weekend though.

Me and the roommates decided to escape the city. The pollution is smothering in Lima, the cars are loud, the overbearing color is grey. Exhibit A:But as soon as we left city bounds, the cloud cover thinned and the unrelenting smell of combusted fuel fades. 4 hours later, we arrived in Barranca, a oceanside town. To say the cool pacific breeze blowing inland was a breath of fresh air would be a gross understatement. There's Jesus in the background.

We ate, had a few drinks and then joined the rest of the town at the party sponsored by the new fast food chain, Roky's. This is a tactic frequently employed by fast food chains here. Get 'em while they're developing. Savvy marketing ploy for sure.

Maarten, being the conspicuous tall white guy, got called up on stage to join in the festivities. There was potential for some cross cultural miscommunication when he was asked what he thought of the ladies in Barranca and all he could do was shrug because he didn't understand the spanish. I was bracing myself for a riot. He was saved by the MC, who translated his shrug to the crowd as english for 'They are beautiful.' Everyone laughed.

Now we were partial celebrities and we got warned by some kindhearted ladies that we should be wary because some guys were preparing to rob us. We went back to the hotel, put all our valuables down and rejoined the crowd. I got my own moment of celebrity when a bunch of 12 year old girls asked if they could take a picture with me. Needless to say, I was flattered.

The next morning, we journeyed for an hour by collective taxi to see the ruins of Caral, recently discovered to be the oldest in South America (5000 years old). They built pyramids, had elaborate religious ceremonies and stayed around for about 1,000 years. I asked our guide why he thought this site and not others had given birth to the first American civilization. He responded that this site is close to a river, fertile lands, situated in a valley and close to the ocean but not quite on the coast. It wasn't until after we left that I realised I should have asked what were the reasons for their downfall. All the benefits of the location are still around but the civilization is gone.

PS Hi to everyone reading. Please leave any questions or comments if you have any. Say anything you want, anonymously if that helps.

Centro Historico de Lima

2008-09-04T15:22:00.025-05:00

This is the Cathedral of Lima, photographed during the only hours of sunshine I have experienced in Peru (you can click on the pictures). It was built in 1535 and has been restored many times. We didn't get to go in.

Next to the Cathedral of Lima and not quite as magnificent is the government palace, named House of Pizarro. It was named after Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador that came to Peru in the 1500's with a handful of men and brought the Inca era to an end.

I first read about this clash of civilizations in Jared Diamonds' book, entitled 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. This is one of my favorite books but I'll try not to write a book report. Basically, it is a theory about the root causes for why the balance of power in our world is so lopsided, exemplified by how Pizarro's 200 men defeated an army of 80,000. Yeah, that's not a typo. Why did Europeans conquer North and South America and not the other way around? The answer is given in the title, but Diamond tries to understand why Europeans developed the guns, germs and steel, and the Americans didn't. It's not cause they're smarter.

The historical account of when Pizarro met the Inca ruler, Atahualpa, is astonishing. In a nutshell, the Inca empire was weakened by civil war and smallpox from earlier European contact. When they formally met, Pizarro's guns and horses freaked out the Incan army and in the ensuing panic and massacre, Atahualpa was captured. Pizarro asked for one room filled with gold and two with silver as ransom. He received it and then killed Atahualpa anyway, sending the Inca empire into chaos. Guns, germs and steal?

The government palace has army guards, gates and tanks surrounding it.

About two minutes away, behind the House of Pizarro, beyond a strategically placed tank, across a bridge and past the armed soldiers, is a different world.

I think this is the edge of the slums.

We were tempted to go further but it would have been unwise according to Gisela, our Peruvian friend and guide. Why tempt fate?

We retreated to a relic of a bar that was centuries old (said the newpaper on the wall) to satisfy our thirst for authentic Peruvian experience.

One Car Ride Worth of Thoughts

2008-08-30T17:46:00.001-05:00

As we drive from the aiport into town, I´m nervous and restless but I sit still and silent next to Stacey in the back seat of the car. I don´t like how erratic this driver is driving, I don´t like the dark smoke coming out of the exhaust pipes, I don´t recognize these faces as trustworthy ones. I´m feeling ill-prepared. Why did I pack so much crap? Why didn´t I practice my Spanish more? Good thing Stacey´s with me. I owe her a cerveza.

We´re stuck in traffic. I try to make small talk with Stacey´s friends parents in the front seat but it´s frustrating because of the language barrier. All I can do is say "Gracias" and then "Mucho gracias" with as much sincerity I can muster instead of "Thank you so much for being so accomodating to a complete stranger, your kindness makes me feel right at home." It´d be a lie anyway. I don´t feel at home. I tell them it´s my first time in Lima. It sounds like a question because I´m not sure I´m saying it right. I laugh out loud and then stop because I realize I can´t explain to them what´s so funny. The driver honks for a good 20 seconds. We still aren´t moving.

I catch myself thinking about how nice it would be to get back on the plane and head back to the 401. I slap myself, mentally. You signed up for this. Relax. Oh look, there´s a Starbucks, KFC and Burger King right next to each other. What a relief...

Actually, I´ve changed my mind, it´s not a relief. It´s sad that these megacorporations make me feel at home. Why do I even want to feel at home? I´m in Lima. Now I´m disappointed that `the man´ has got me brainwashed. How unfamiliar can this place be if I can still grab a Latte and Whopper? Why is it familiar even though I´ve never had a latte or a whopper in my entire life?

What did I expect? Familiarity and excitement rarely coincide. There´s no consistency to my emotions. My thoughts are going a mile a minute. For one mile I´m excited, the next minute, I´m tired. I steel myself. I´m ready. This is going to be fun.