one plus two

no place like home is someplace too

2010-10-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Being back in the mix means I'm back in the mix. It's frayed a bit now, half or at least a third of me is in the jungle but the rest of me is here and here is where I need to do what I can. I've got a new gig, temporarily running a smaller organization trying to bring more housing to those who need it.

So last week I went down into the creeks, the places where folks sleep who can't or don't want to go to a shelter, either because they are full (they are always full) or because they can't handle the rules, or because it's no place like home at all. A friend and I hiked down to a spot where we immediately stood out next to a group of 20 or so folks just packing up for the day. At first there was a lot of staring and then wondering why we weren't showing up like the church folk with socks and coffee. So after a few we start talking, an old timer leading the way. One by one they start to tell us why they aren't in a shelter and why this is all they've got and jiving aside the stories are theirs and ours and different and the same.

Drugs and drink and sick and violence and fear and filth and loneliness and hopelessness and humor and laughter and joy and strength and at the end of it all it's plain old poor. We hear their stories and then we tell them some of ours, that we are working on a project that will put keys in their hands. Not today and not soon enough but keys all the same.

They nod and they listen and invite us to sit. They tell us that sounds real good and how no one has come with lines like this and even if it's a good story why should they believe us and we agree with all of it, we admit the road is long but we have hope, and more than hope we have a plan.

It doesn't have to be like this I tell them and they nod their heads. We wind things up and get up to go when one of the guys reaches out and grabs my hand Don't forget about us he says. And I grab his hand right back and tell him we won't, that it might take us a bit but we'll be coming back. And as we climb the hill my friend and I are quiet, we've both done years in shelters and met thousands of folks and even after all this time and even some time away the problem is right here smacking me in the face. We can do better than this.

We will do better than this.

who are those people that want everything to stay the same

2010-10-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

Part of it is because we haven't been able to make the whole "lets live in the jungle" thing work out as well as we would have liked. I mean, it works, and it doesn't. Namely, we haven't been able to earn a living outside the US.

So he is there and we are here and I'm back in the homelessness mix. Again. It's like Groundhog Day, like I never left, and like I've been gone a long, long time.

So we are building a house in the jungle and earning a living in the States. There's a computation error there somewhere, the addition is more than the subtraction. Or something. People are starting to ask that question, the what the hell are you guys doing question. I'd be asking it too.

And yet still somehow it makes sense. Hope, see. We haven't yet given up on hope, on the fact that we can make it work in a way unclear to us now. That by throwing in the whole towel we'd not have learned what we have. That drumming under a full moon in the jungle is really awesome, or that there are excellent doctors in rural parts of the world, or that survival can actually take up 32% of your day, every single day. Or that bugs aren't really that scary. That the sounds of the jungle can soothe you, that you can do most things you set your mind to. That you can grow a butterfly tree. Or that you can be really, really hot and still actually maintain a pulse.

That the whole experience may stretch you in places you need to grow and still not know the way. That the way is the way, not that sign up ahead.

Now if I can only believe it more than 32% of the time, every time.

Oh, and I miss blogging. Especially now that I'm back on the street.

i think I'm turning japanese

2010-08-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

I fear I've neglected my blog so much that it's been taken over by Asia. If only I knew what they were saying. Do they hate my posts? Love them? Are we related somehow? Did we used to date?

now

2010-08-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

We've been back in the jungle for a couple of weeks now. It's like we never left and feels like we've been gone a very long time. The road to our house is a tiny bit better but the one to town is worse. It's either screaming hot or pouring rain and I found a scorpion in my bedroom today.

Reconnecting not only with J but with our friends, kids coming round to play, friends dropping by, my mystic friends bringing a potluck while we sat at the table and had a good long chat. Another came to bring tortillas and catch me up on the village gossip. In between I am lazy and watch the iguanas crawl by.

J's made such progress on our house, it's incredible to see the walls so high. Everyone is taking notice now, the strange house growing in the jungle, born of sweat and blood and time apart.

It's wild here and it's calm. It's rugged and fierce and peaceful and beautiful. We have all kinds of trees on our land, avocado and mango and a butterfly tree. Hundreds of avocados and butterflies but no mangos yet. Maybe next year our neighbors say. Maybe next year.

home again

2010-07-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

are headed back

to our jungle.

A birthday party, one for the baby born a year ago

They are waiting

For Us.

Postponed especially.

Our jungle family

And us.

And we are so blessed.

all the broken shit

2010-07-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

A month might just be an all time record of blog neglect suckiness. I'm not sure what else to say. I think about writing all the time and still the words don't flow.

I've been working on a project recently, one that's taken me back to my old haunts and given me a chance to catch up with some old friends from the streets. One guy from back in the day, he had a place but then he lost it and here he is again. He tells me that this time he's going hard core, if he has to be without a place to live he's doing it all the way and he's doing it in the streets. And he's writing a book about it too.

So he sits down and pulls out a journal and some pictures and starts to share and I listen and I look and he tells me his son passed away, a son who wasn't even grown. I reach over and grab his hand for a minute, in between all the jokes there's the pain and he looks at me and says make me god for 12 minutes and I'd fix everything. All the broken shit. Done.

Today I'm at the MD, one of those mixed use places where you can get your broken arm fixed get new glasses have a baby when I hear a guy behind where I'm sitting on his phone, he's agitated and he's talking louder, he doesn't know what he's going to do and he can't take it anymore but maybe he should shut up because people will think he's a terrorist. I can't help it, hearing that in a public place, I decide I gotta turn around and look, at the very least I need to see if he's thinking near term and so I look and and I see an average guy of an average age and I see sad. I see sad and I feel sad and I turn back around. Later when I'm leaving I see him again and this time he's lecturing his kid but in a way that sounds like there's all kinds of stuff beneath, stress and worry and fear and he's out of control. I want to reach out somehow but I come up zeros. I walk by.

Then I think of my friend again, I think of him outside and smiling, writing by streetlight and I think about what he said. Make me god for 12 minutes and I'll fix everything. All the broken shit. Done. And I wish it was that easy, we could all take turns and fix our little corner of everything and pass it on.

the kumbaya of women

2010-06-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

I've been single parenting for awhile now. J's been in the jungle and we girls in the States, working here to pay for the house building there. It wasn't an easy decision and there are hard days, bad skype connections and a missing so deep. A wondering of what the hell are we doing and an excitement underneath because we are creating this place in the middle of nowhere, from near and from far. We are still committed to this thing.

So it's mostly been me and my girl, made possible in part by the flexibility of friends and women who have become friends. Like my boss, who when it gets late in the day she says oh i know you need to go get your girl and she means it and it's okay. Or the friend who takes my child about once a month, out for lunch and a movie so I can run errands or simply do nothing. Or my mom, who we visit when we can and who will take completely over, leaving me behind in the best possible way.

But mostly it's just been me and my girl, something I thought would be harder than it has been, we have good days and not so good and I occasionally beat myself up for not doing a better job and sometimes I'm a slacker and sometimes she talks back but mostly we do just fine and while we miss the third leg of our little stool I also realize how precious this time is, the ease with which we move through our day, the simple routine of two. The bond we share and now share even more.

On a bad day she might look at me and tell me she thinks I'm being mean because I miss daddy and that's okay but I don't have to take it out on her. Or on a good day she'll call us sisters and hug me tight. Or today, she handed over the contents of her piggy bank so we can buy anti-malaria nets for kids who need them, or yesterday when she told me my outfit looked really, really bad but in a really nice way. And through it all, distracted or not or busy or not I look at her and I watch in wonder, because I can't believe how lucky I am and how much I adore her, how amazing and brave and nimble she is and how we are in this together, laughing and stressing and hugging and teasing and learning and crying our way into what comes next.

nice

2010-06-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

My site is fixed. Fixed because of this guy . We've never met, haven't talked in a year but are blog friends from back in the day. So when I emailed him a blog cry for help he was there and figured it out immediately. Without hesitation. Just like that.

And that's why this place is so good. Even when we aren't here as much as we'd like. Because we are still here.

ugh

2010-06-15T20:01:00.001-07:00

There's an issue here, with this blog. Not sure what it is but appears to be an infection of sorts. So if you are reading this in your reader, don't click through. More to follow. Although I'm at a loss at what to do.

getting up off the floor

2010-05-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine runs a program that helps people who've been in the streets for the longest time re-enter the workforce. Folks many would consider lost forever, she takes these guys and lifts them up. She invited me to visit yesterday, to see her in action.

So I walk into a crowded room but full of life, guys joking around and friendly. I see a couple guys I know from back in the day and their faces light up and mine does too. We hug long and hard and get right down to it man it's good to see you you too hows the baby did you hear I got my own place now? I sit down smiling, already my day has been more than made.

So the meeting starts and it is awesome, folks going around the room sharing successes for the week. The man next to me starts sharing I was given 25 years to life for something I didn't do, I spent 12 locked up before I was released. I've been in the streets ever since and my friend her face is beaming but what's different today she asks and he says today I go home. I got myself an apartment and he leans back and he's grinning like the cheshire cat, he grins and we all grin and the room breaks out in applause. And where are your keys to this fine new apartment she asks and he grins again right here in my pocket and he reaches down and pats them and smiles again. I reach over and squeeze his arm, the rock solid kind of arm that comes from too many years inside and he looks at me and squeezes my hand right back.

The room breaks out into cheers again, the most supportive kind especially when it comes from guys who are still in the streets. I feel myself getting teary, because no matter how many years and what's come in between, I never failed to be moved by this most beautiful display of everyday humanity, the kind that has no bullshit and has been hard won.

I am sitting next to an old friend, a guy who 3 years ago lived in my program for the longest time until one day my friend scooped him up and put a broom in his hand and turned things around. He worked for her for a year, daily getting up off my floor and going out the door. The following year he came back to my place but this time as an employee rather than a client. I remember that day so clearly, he poked his head in to my office and held up his work shirt. I'm scared, he told me. What if I can't do this and it's ironic, this guy is huge and tough and has seen all kinds of things and I remember telling him who else could do it better than someone who knows all the tricks? Yesterday and three years later those days are long past, he's got his own place and a car to get around. He's still got a job but here he is, coming back to volunteer for my friend.

The meeting goes on, folks sharing leads and rides and even some shoes and as folks are clapping all over again the meeting winds down, they have their assignments for the week and are off to work. The doors open and the guys spill out into the sunshine, joking and jiving and I am carried out the door on this great wave of hope.

As I walk to my car I chat a bit more, guys that most people would give wide berth to walking me out and it hits me again as it always does when I'm back in the mix that no matter where I go or what I do I'll never stop being moved by this. I am so lucky to still have this in my life because these guys make me want to do better, to try and do more. Whether in this country or the next we are all humans here.

in the park

2010-05-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

Every morning I get up very early and work out with a group of people in a nearby park. It's one of those organized things, where the guy in charge very nicely yells at you to do more run more jump more and you do it because you need to and also because it's fun. I've been doing it for awhile now and the group is friendly enough, companionable in the sense that we are all doing this together.

Two days ago we were on a little run and in a line we passed by a parked car. I see the people in front of me turn their heads as they go and when I pass I see a cat, a pile of blankets, and a kid and I immediately know it means some folks are sleeping in their car.

So I drop out of the line and run over to the car and I see a woman and a few kids and a couple of cats all piled inside. She's nervous when I approach so I talk to her through the window a bit, I tell her what I used to do and that I mean no offense but if they are without a place to stay maybe I can help. So she rolls down her window and we talk a good long while and I promise I'll connect her as soon as I'm done with this jumping around stuff. As it always has, my heart breaks for the kids, especially the one not much older than mine who jumps out of the car to get dressed in the street before school. Her little face is dirty but her smile is bright. They've been living like this since February.

They've been living like this since February.

So I fall back in with the class and there are some whispers, what was that what's going on are those people in their car and I briefly share and I also share that this is what I used to do and do in different ways today. Folks react in a way I am surprised by, they start telling me I am so good for doing this and I get embarrassed and a bit weird because I haven't done anything yet and this family is still in their car and it's awful. Later at work I recount it for my in the business friends and they understand my awkwardness because to them these sorts of interactions are normal and certainly not worth making a big deal over, it's simply what they do.

So today I go back a bit happier, because in the meantime I've connected the family with some housing options but am frustrated because it's going to take a few days. So I bring some food to give to them after class was over but during class others said they've brought food too.

So after class is over I walk over with some food and several others are coming too. So different from yesterday, today we are all gathered around the car, one woman is giving the kids all kinds of food. One of the guys is looking under the engine of the car, another helping load things in the back. There is talk of other ways to help, bringing dinner, clothes, a mechanic. They are inspired to do more.

All of a sudden the littlest girl starts jumping up and down Look mama, water! Look mama, bread! And in that space my heart cracks in half, little girls excited over bread and water is wrong on so many levels it nearly makes me cry. Our new friend looks at all of us, she does start to cry and thanks everyone over and over. She hugs us and we hug her and I promise to get in touch with her tomorrow. I know we'll figure this thing out.

I look at my peers and I see their faces, the generosity and kindness and everything else. I see they are moved by this moment and I am too. What created discomfort yesterday turned into love and action today. Strangers are now friends. It's so easy to do the right thing.

the apple and the tree

2010-05-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

My dad emailed this to me today after I sent him a link bemoaning the screwed-up-ed-ness of Cali and our government:

Civil rights used to be a value in this country. Then 9/11 happened and our leaders decided we couldn't afford those values.

Equal treatment under the law used to be a value. Then the State of Arizona decided we couldn't afford that so long as desperately poor people continued to come across the border in order to feed their families.

Bi-partisanship, a spirit of "we're all in this together" used to be a value in this country. Then extremists hijacked the political process and we had to lay that value aside, too.

Common decency used to be a value in this country. Then a person of color got elected.

Paying our bills used to be seen as personal responsibility, a value in this country. Then any tax increase became "socialism" and we couldn't afford to pay for public services anymore.

Get in line, Arnold. The pile of broken values is just over there. Lay the needs of children on top of the stack before it gets any higher.

He's such a bad ass, my dad.

mi amiga

2010-05-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

One of my early mentors and forever heroes was the woman I was assigned to work under in my first days inside the shelter. I was immediately taken by her strength, her ability to understand the multiple issues facing homeless families and manage to hold them close until the seams came together. She was fierce in her commitment you will do this mija, you can do anything hermano she would speak with passion and folks would listen. They would listen and do as she said and by the time they left us they had jobs and homes and money in the bank. Over the years I watched her change more lives than I could ever count and she did it entirely from the heart.

In many ways it was her calling, she was a single mom who'd fled a terrible situation, abuse and more and so one day she took her kids and ran, she ran and ran and for awhile and many years she was scared, she was alone and on her own and without a home. Yet she was a warrior, she fought for her family and for herself and used all she had to help others and over the years things came together, she ended up working at the place that sheltered her, she stabilized her life and had a roof over her head and then she gave back, did she ever give back. She gave back more than anyone I've ever met.

We had crazy times, she and I, like the time she stepped between me and the guy with the knife, the one with the wild eyes. As calm as I'd ever heard her she looked at him square, mijo, put that knife down and the blue eyed man dropped that knife where he stood. One other time a little boy was so troubled he decided to jump out a window but she was there, she was there and she caught him as he fell and she held on three stories high as he dangled out the window for endless minutes until others could come and help. I remember after she was crying and she said I was so afraid I couldn't hold on but I said God, you keep my fingers strong and He did.

There aren't words for the love and respect and awe I feel for her and have felt for her for 12 years or more. There aren't enough words for how much of an impact she'd had on others, for the thousands of children she's fed and clothed and housed. There aren't enough words to describe her grace of spirit and her ability to mother.

But there's a part of this story I forgot to tell you. Back when she was fleeing that terrible situation she was in, the man who wanted her dead, she grabbed her babies and she ran. She ran so far she ran all the way from Mexico to here. She ran her in the dark and she emerged in the light. She's a citizen now, she pays her taxes and owns a home and has for many years. She is grateful every single day to this country, this country who in her eyes saved her life.

Arizona, you've broken my heart. You've broken it because you are blind, because you are afraid, and because if you'd arrested my friend all those years ago on the night she saved her own life she'd never been able to save so many others and we'd all be worse off today.

You've done a bad thing, Arizona. You've done all of us a really bad thing. Shame on you.

Shame on you.

40

2010-04-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

I'll have to get used to it, this leaving my 30's and entering my 40's. It's only been about 9 hours and it's already starting to roll off my tongue a bit easier. 40.

40.

For some reason, this number, this big 4 ish number, it always felt so damn old.

And yet I sit, 40. I tried to hide but you came anyways, you came and you found me and relentless you arrived and so I will greet you defiantly, I will embrace you and love you and I might even kick your ass. 40. So you watch out sister, because I'm coming into my own.

happy birthday to me.

el sancho and the viixen

2010-04-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving a meeting daydreaming about the jungle when I see them. They on their bikes, the lovely older and magnificently well cared for bikes that only serious bikers have. I pull up behind them and I notice them laughing. He's a bit overweight, his hair comes way past his helmet. She's in leathers and has her shades on and I see shades of red hair reflected in the sun. They are easily in their fifties and are on their bikes in the middle of the day. I smile and then I see it. Their license plates. His says El Sancho and hers says Viixen and I realize in that moment that no matter what I do I will never know this, I will never know what it means to let my freak plates fly, that there is a story to how they've earned these names and went and minted them and this is how they are known, on their bikes and with their peeps. El Sancho and the Viixen.

El Sancho reaches down to his saddlebag and digs around and I find myself desperate to know what he keeps in there. Viixen revves her motor and puts her boot on the little metal thing, I am sure it has a name and I yet I have no idea what it's called, all I know is I wish I was on the back of her bike. The light turns green and off they go, El Sancho and the Viixen, they go and they go fast and I want to follow them because wherever they are going must be pretty damn cool.

219

2010-03-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Apparently we like to cut it a little close.

Way to go, America. Yes we can.

Yes we did.

It's about freaking time.

divine intervention

2010-03-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

As soon as I hit the curb I knew I'd blown a tire. Shit. Not knowing what else to do I figured I'd try and make it closer to home, but as I'm driving a car is behind me honking. It's behind me and it's honking, honking. I raise my hands as if to say I know I'm driving on a flat tire. It's my choice. But they keep honking and then pulls in front of me and honks some more. So I pull over at random and the car stops in the middle of the street in front of me and for a minute I have to consider if I accidentally hit this car with mine and simply do not remember but in the end I decide I'd broke my tire all on my own so I have no idea what is going on.

Now other cars are honking at her but unconcerned she jumps out of her car, spry as a spring chicken. It's a nun. A nun in her habit is standing in front of me. Dearie, she says. Your tire is flat and your hubcap is way back there. I smile at her and thank her and she waves and jumps back in her car and drives off. I pause for a minute, both because that was really fucking weird and because I have a really flat tire. I am on an unfamiliar street and I have no form of roadside assistance to call.

As I momentarily ponder I hear a voice from on high. Did that nun run into you? the voice says and I look up and there's a dude on a roof, a construction sort of guy doing construction sort of things. I gaze into the brightness of the sun and I start to laugh. Looks like you're changing a tire I say and he laughs. Looks like I am.

He climbs down and takes a look and I tell him that was awfully presumptuous of me but I was momentarily caught off guard by both the tire and the nun. I thought the nun hit you the way she was acting he said and we laughed a bit and he says he's been wanting to change a tire for awhile now so it might as well be mine. So I poke around in the trunk and find a spare but no jack but my Handy Manny has it under control, he pulls a big jack out of his big work truck and does his thing.

I tell him a few times that he's a lifesaver, that I am not quite sure what I would have done especially without a jack and he takes a drag of his cigarette and smiles ah now, you woulda called someone and I figured he's right but him being right there pretty much felt like a million bucks.

When he's done I try and give him $20 and he shushes me and backs away but then leans over conspiratorial like and says but I'll be here all week if you want to come back and bring me some cookies and I laugh cookies? I say. I'd have figured you for a beer guy and now he laughs too, well if you're offering, I suppose I'd like that better. I guess I'm still tripping out on that nun and we say our goodbyes, he climbs back on his roof and I drive away, and tomorrow I'll go back with a six-pack, because when a nun nearly runs you off the road it's good to stop and listen and it's very good to be thankful for the angels that come next.

my kid is awesome

2010-03-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

I need to go to the grocery store tomorrow. What should we buy?

Coffee. And wine.

I need to go the gym.

You can always go to the gym Mommy, you never have to ask me if it's okay.

After me being all ranty over something silly, like her not picking up her stuff.

Sometimes you give me a ginormous headache. I still love you, but sometimes it's hard to like you.

But the best of all?

Yep, she lost her first tooth:

Dudes.

Oh, and do me a favor and head over to Alejna's and vote for your favorite 2009 JUST POSTS!

http://collectingtokens.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/vote-for-the-best-just-posts-of-2009/

bags of rice

2010-03-03T14:48:00.001-08:00

I dropped my Ipod in some water and didn't realize it for a bit so it sat there. Like it was taking a bath. Or swimming. When I realized what I'd done I grabbed it, frantic. I ripped off the case and dried it off, a used a blow dryer, paper towels. A friend told me to put it in a bag of rice and do not try to turn it on. I tried to turn it on anyways. Nothing. I put it in the rice and tried to forget about it. I accepted defeat.

A very good friend of mine just learned her husband has been having an affair. As cliche as it is, its not something she ever saw coming. None of us did. Not him. No way. Not like this. Not in a cheap Lifetime movie sort of way. It's ripping apart their family and sadly, those of us who love both of them. Or used to. Its Day Three since she's learned and already so much has changed. People surprise you. They break your heart. They turn into cliches.

I took my Ipod out of the rice today. Expecting nothing, I pressed the keys and it turned on. It plays just fine. Rice. Like the kind we used to throw at weddings before it all became so politically incorrect. All of a sudden I hate the rice that fixed my Ipod. But rice, just like us, is just along for the ride.

see saw

2010-02-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

My life is so weird. My partner is in another country. My kid and I are living here. We want to be back in the jungle. We don't know how long it will take. I am enjoying my work here. M continues to thrive. Everyone is healthy. Things are okay.

Things are okay.

I can't keep putting off blogging till I have it all figured out. Otherwise, holy shit.

So I'm getting used to here, and part of getting used to here is getting used to M's school here. It's a great school, clearly more well rounded than the jungle and yet something is also missing. M thinks the kids here are meaner, she complains that they keep telling her what she cannot do, what they can do better. It's like that here because we thrive on competition I try and tell her but it makes little sense to her. To her it's just mean. But the jungle had it's issues too, like the time she came home with sentences to copy and I kid you not, the sentences read:

He is tall.

She is fat.

No kidding. She is fat. So that gave me chest pains too, and I spent the night making her write

He is tall.

She is smart.

over and over and over instead and talking quite a bit about why I didn't like the other sentence. So here the homework is clearly more politically correct. And clearly More Political.

We were given an assignment last week to get a big piece of paper and 100 pieces of something, and our job was to glue those pieces on the paper and write each number. Easy, I think and me thinking I'm clever get those little candy hearts and we sit and glue and label and glue and we look at ourselves and we smile and we call it One Hundred Pieces Of Love so we bring it in and then we notice all the other projects, some in 3-D, others will all sorts of bells and whistles, fantastic designs and over-the-topishness that defines parenting today. As we gaze around the room our One Hundred Pieces of Love seems inadequate, what made us giggle the night before makes us self conscious today, M gazes around and looks at me If Daddy was here our project would have been better she says and my heart hurts and at the same time I can't help it because I know she's right.

You are right about that Baby Girl, because he's the creative one. But if he was here he'd have made you make it out of sticks and leaves and rocks, and then you wouldn't have gotten to eat the leftovers. And she tells me it's okay in a way that she probably doesn't really mean and I love her for it and I give her a hug.

And it hurt a bit more when the teacher hung hers way up out of the way to make room for all the really cool ones, something I would have done too, probably without even thinking about it but when it's your kid's project that's in the nosebleed section you notice. And then you blame yourself even if you truly believe competition is silly. Because if daddy was here it would have been better. Just like nearly everything else.

So you hug your kid again and you tell her we'll do a better job next time and she pats me on the back it's okay mommy I still like ours and I wonder again what I ever did to get this lucky.

sweet and sour

2010-02-02T18:20:00.001-08:00

I show up for my Karate Internship right on time but he's already gotten started, I walk in and see a bunch of boys, a few girls, and M. Karate Guy looks at me and says I brought her this time, just like that, no warmth and sort of defensive maybe. I look at the clock and inwardly groan. I wonder why Karate Guy is hating already and then I figure I can't really blame him.

I'll help I say and he says okay and points over at a group of boys. Keep them in line he says. So I walk over to the little dudes, boys I think are maybe in the range of 9-12 years old. They are off the hook, karate chopping each other and being generally unruly. I stand between them and give them a look. Dudes, I say. I'm watching you.

They don't seem to care and keep on being little shits so I stand between them and tell one of them to go sit against the wall. The rest of them look at me askance. I'm not messing around I say and one of them sticks out his tongue at me.

I decide boys between the ages of 9-12 can be little fuckers. The only experience I have with kids of multiple ages is from my work, and kids at the shelter could be little creeps too but I suppose I cut them some slack. These kids have it pretty good, being housed and all so I figure there's no going easy. I break up two more going at it and make one of them hold my hand.

That pretty much did it, if a girl wants to completely freak out boys between the ages of 9-12 I suppose you make them hold your hand. So it's working long enough for Karate Guy to get started, he's paying extra attention to M and I can't tell if he's making a point or just being cool because she's the smallest one there. So I figure since I'm here I might as well learn something, I do some of the exercises and frequently position myself between my boy posse breaking up random acts of dumbassery. He puts them through a few paces and things are going well until one of the boys calls another one fat and all heck breaks loose. The kid who was being teased gets really upset and to be honest, the kid who was calling names wasn't super slim himself but whatever, I grab that dude's hand and he shuts his mouth. I do all the regular things one does with the other kid when one's feelings are hurt and he's not really having much of it but did start laughing when I took the other dude's hand so I think we are okay.

It's nearing towards the end and Karate Guy asks me to be a "shark" so the kids can be "fish" or something like that, I don't really know what the hell he's talking about but it involves tagging them as they try and run past me which I can do pretty well but some of these kids are also pretty fast, so maybe they should be called "eels" but whatever.

So the class ends and Karate Guy tells the class that this week was much better than last week and I'm of course thinking it's because he had back up, the hand holding kind of back up and he turns to me and says thanks and asks if I can come again next week. Only if there's beer after I say and I think he takes me serious and you know, maybe I am because as I said before boys between the ages of 9-12 can be little fuckers, but they are also pretty cute and so I tell him I'll come next week. He looks at me and says you know, I didn't realize M was so upset last week, the teachers told me she was crying and I thought about punching him in the arm just because he's being kind of dorky but then he leans down and talks to M and apologizes directly and tells her how good she did and that she has real promise and I don't know that I believe him but I lost the urge anyways because he's really a very nice guy doing something nice for these kids and if I were him I'd want as few kids in the class as possible too.

kung fu this

2010-01-27T07:04:00.000-08:00

I signed M up for karate weeks ago and she's been over the top excited ever since. The class is offered at her school right after her class is over so as far as I knew it was settled, she was going from class to karate and I was going to the gym. With my mix tape.

So feeling spry and earphones in place take me down to paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty I arrive at her school and head to the room. I was excited all day knowing she was finally getting to do this. So as I'm walking in a guy comes walking out and for some reason I had a feeling this was the instructor so I say, Hey, are you the karate instructor, I'm looking for my kid. Her name is M and he stands there looking perplexed for a minute and says, oooohhh...M? Yes I say and he says Oh, wow, I had so many kids I couldn't handle them all so I left her in her class.

You what? I say and he says he's sorry and for some reason I reach over and punch Karate Guy in the arm. He looks a bit taken aback by this but you know, whatever. Look dude, M's been looking forward to this for weeks, did you at least tell her why you weren't able to take her? Um, no, he says. So I punch him in the arm again. So you just ditched her, and now I get to go pick her up and have her cry?

I'm really sorry he says. Do you want your money back? No, dude, I want you to teach my kid karate.

He looks a little sheepish. There's too many kids, he says. I can't handle them all.

What do you need to do about that, I say? I need a helper, he replies.

Fine, Karate Guy, I'll be your helper. He smiles and reaches out his hand and introduces himself and I do likewise and for a minute I decide Karate Guy is actually okay and he's also really, really cute. And I'm surprised he is actually getting this close seeing as I've already punched him twice. But he does and we settle it. I'll do this thing. Not sure what this thing is, but I'll do it anyways.

I find M and when she sees me she breaks into tears. I didn't get to go to karate! she says.

I lean down and pick her up and hug her. Dude, I know. I've already told Karate Guy how lame he is and she starts laughing. No you didn't! Oh yes, baby, I sure did and I tell her the story but I leave out the part about hitting him twice and she's happy now, especially now that she hears I'm coming to karate too. I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into, but something tells me it'll be amusing at least. And I figure I could do with learning some karate too. Maybe it'll even take away the uncontrollable urge to punch people I've just met in the arm. Twice.

i'm a mix tape in a sea of mp3s

2010-01-25T18:42:00.000-08:00

I brought my ipod to the States but forgot my cord. I figured it didn't matter because I don't know how to download music anyways but then I started working out and holy mother I've been doing some long overdue rocking out and all the indigo girls in the world can't meet me there.

I was sharing my lament at my friends' this weekend, two of my most favorite people in this world. I've been hanging out with them a bit lately, my kid loves their kid and I love them and they are the only two people I know in real life who read my blog. So they let me borrow a cord and three hours of computer time later I downloaded all the stuff I liked when I was seventeen or twenty seven and while I am sure there is better stuff out there I dare you to prove it.

Bad Medicine: Who can't relate to this? Love IS like Bad Medicine. But we Like Bad Medicine. I actually saw Bon Jovi on my birthday one year, on a first date with an older guy (not usually into older guys) who showed up with a cake and champagne and good seats (let's hear it for older guys) and I thought it was going to be bad but the show was actually a lot of fun. Plus that singer, he's kinda hot.

Cum on Feel the Noise: There's really nothing I can say and even after 20 years I still smirk when I see the title, those dirty 80's boys. Again, I dare you to prove there are songs better than this. I think I was in 7th grade the first time I heard this and my friend's mom was gone for the night and someone showed up with wine coolers. Remember wine coolers? Those were awesome but probably not when you are in 7th grade.

Lose Yourself. I like Eminem. I know he's controversial and all that, explicit lyrics, yadda yadda but I've always liked him and I'm almost 40 so I probably always will. And nothing gets my speed up on the treadmill like this song does.

Why Can't I Be You? The Cure. 8th grade and it's 3am and I've been listening to Boys Don't Cry for 5 hours straight.I am positive I was wearing all black. Is there anything else I need to say?

Eye of the Tiger. If it's good enough for Rocky, it's good enough for me. Plus it makes me laugh when it comes on. The lyrics are so intentionally intense it makes me giggle. Just a man and his will to survive. That guy wasn't messing around.

Highway to Hell. I saw AC/DC in concert when I was 20. Man, that was a good show. Those guys knew how to rock.

Sex Dwarf. I swear this is Soft Cell's best song, but I think I'm fairly alone in this thought because I don't even know if they released it in the US. I remember driving several hours to the one import store that had this disc and it was a whole adventure. Now we just press a button. Life used to be a lot more interesting. And this list proves I'm a bit twisted. Or at least kind of a loser. But that's okay, I'm comfortable with that. Round and Round, Love will find a way just give it time.

There's some more 80's rock, some rap, basically a bunch of songs you'd probably never admit to liking but you'd sing along to in a bar. So I love my music, it's about two workouts worth and I love it so much I keep the earphones in when I leave and sing really loud in the car. I think that may be against the law here but am not entirely sure.

So all in all this post proves what you already know, that I am a total dork. But I'm a fairly happy one, and I've decided that after 39 years on this planet I'll take a happy dork over an unhappy hipster any day of the week.

civic dreaming

2010-01-18T19:41:00.001-08:00

We talked about it, how our country used to be different, how Dr. King came along and said what a lot of people were feeling, how he stood up, how he had a dream and wanted more than anything for everyone to be treated equally no matter what color their skin. I show her his I Have A Dream speech and she actually watches most of it. She marvels at all the people who were there and we talk some more, one of those magical moments where she is really and truly listening. She asks if he's still alive and if we can go see him and I tell her what happened and she wants to see pictures of that too.

She can't understand why someone would want to hurt such a nice man, a man who just wanted everyone to be treated the same, the way we all do. I told her that he scared some people, some people were very afraid of what he had to say and didn't want things to change. That some white people thought white was the only good color and they were better than everyone else. She looks at me and starts laughing. Are you kidding? ARE YOU KIDDING? If I thought that way I wouldn't know X and X and X and X friends and I LOVE them!

And I smile at her and tell her I am not kidding but her saying that is exactly why Dr. King is so important. Because he helped change America. That because of him and others like him things changed and it was good. But she can't let it go. White people were AFRAID of black people? Yes, I say. Are they afraid of them now, she asks and I tell her yes, some people still are afraid of people who look different from them and she pauses for a minute and says are people afraid of Barack Obama? and I nod and say yes, I think some people are and she throws her head back and laughs out loud. Well that's just about the silliest thing I've ever heard she says.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King.

toupatou

2010-01-15T16:56:00.000-08:00

I sit and I sit. I keep crying. Like you are, like we all are.

Haiti. Mwen regret sa, Haiti.

Mothers.

Fathers.

Babies.

I sit and I sit. I go online and make a donation and I feel futile. I sit and I wish I could do more. M hears us talking about it and it scares her. Earthquakes. Can it happen here she says and I nod, I can't help it so I nod and but I also say but it wouldn't be as bad as there even if it shook as hard. When you are poor, when you are so poor, everything is harder. Buildings fall down easier. There aren't as many cars and tools and machines to help you.

Like the jungle, she says. Like if we had an earthquake there.

More like that, yes. It would be more like that. But it's still so much worse there. For as poor as the jungle is, this place is worse. Worse, she says. Like she can't believe it. This child who grew up on shelters and then the jungle. She's already seen what a lot of people might think was bad already and yet I see her try and dig down deep and figure out more. It must be really bad she says. Yes. Can we go there and help she says. I hug her, maybe a bit too hard. We would just be in the way, I tell her. They need doctors and nurses right now.

Mothers. Fathers. Babies.

Haiti. Mwen regret sa.

Kisa pi nou fe?

one plus two minus one

2010-01-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

Two weeks. It's been two weeks of this new way of doing things and so far, so good. My kid, she is amazing. She's embraced our new situation with joy and curiosity and already loves her new school. And they work her there, she's actually exhausted by the end of the day and her brain is full of new ideas. I think Five is the very best age so far. I am so in love with Five.

As for me, I am conscious every day that I am doing well in some ways and falling short in others. Without J everything falls to me and for the most part it's okay but his absence is a small ache, rising up on some days and quiet in others. We are only two weeks into this thing.

I have more to say but it will have to wait. One being in charge of Plus Two minus One means my math is off.

catch

2009-12-26T14:18:00.000-08:00

Seasons. Change. This year has been full of it, a year ago we left the States with little more than what we could carry and we set up a home here in a small village and aside from one scary medical issue it's been fine, it's been fine as spun sugar dripping off the cone. I've learned some things, things I'd never known about heat and dirt and bugs and third world markets, of concrete bungalows with Cuban doctors who fix you better than your doctors in the States. Of hand washing laundry and learning to make do. I've learned about the dark, about the full of the moon. Of community and what it means to look out for one another when there is no one else to call. And along the way we've had a few breaks, a good gig in the US that enabled us to keep on doing what we are doing even if it meant a bit of back and forth for me.

But change is coming, another one thought out carefully and with our goals firmly in mind but require an unconventional situation. One I embrace and one I do not. It's simple really, when the Man offers you a longer gig in what has proven to be a very uncertain economy you say yes, you say yes even if it means that half of us will need to leave the jungle and come back to the States temporarily, for several months in a row. You say yes and then realize you cannot be away from your child so she must come with you. You say yes and realize that you also cannot leave what you've started here. You say yes and realize how much you will miss J. But J will stay and we will go, and he will build our house while we are gone.

You see how this is a good thing, a once in a lifetime sort of opportunity to allow for both income and construction. You see how if we focus, if we really focus, we can maybe actually pull it off. But it means half of us are leaving and the rest is staying here. It's a distance I can't quite fathom, one where visits are already planned and life is already in motion.

But today I watched the toucans and I cried. I listened to the magnificent howler monkeys screaming in the trees and I cried some more. I do and do not want to go. It requires an extra dose of courage and trust to make this next move.

Our friends have come round today, hugs and small tokens and lots of goodbyes. A few months is a long time here, the mamitas in the village have already offered weekly meals, fry jacks and johnny cakes and rice and beans for J. He is awkward in response, he's not quite like the men here, he is more accustomed in domesticity and doesn't need the help but it's touching all the same and it's quite lovely knowing they'll be here just like it's calming knowing our village there awaits, friends and family who support our next chapter have circled the wagons there too, assisting with odd bits of child care and books for M and a warm embrace for me.

So tomorrow M and I will hug J tight and then get on a plane and start something new and we'll do it together and apart and there is grace in that, in knowing that our small family is it's own little village, that we will watch over each other as we go and that in a short while if all goes as planned we'll be back again soon and move into a place of our own.

coming on christmas

2009-12-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

I'm sure it feels like this everywhere but it certainly feels like the holidays have completely surprised us by how fast they've arrived. The enormous difference this year is here in the jungle things are much (as much as much can be) less commercial. I haven't noticed more advertising, more sales, more stuff. There's a lack of stuff here, a lack of stuff and a lack of money to buy it.

So instead people focus on their families and their holiday meals. Everyone here has a different way, some spring for some holiday liquor, some make special meats, some bake special breads. It's slightly cheerier, occasionally we'll see buildings lit up with lights and when we do it's like magic lighting up the night. Spirity-spirit, M calls it. And it is. As the days progress neighbors occasionally stop by with treats and we've been doing the same, a family near us has had a series of challenges this year, their already meager existence has been threatened even more with illness and injury and as such we've tried to do a few things to assist.

And this year is lacking another former constant in my life: spending holidays at the shelter. Prior to this year I'd spent more holidays than I can count inside shelters, doing my part to make it okay for guests and volunteers alike and this year I am relieved of that burden and the blessing too, there is no one who needs me this year beyond my family and it's quieter and easier and feels just about right. I did my time and I loved all of it but this year it's been for M, a year where she isn't coming in second and that's meant more magic for her. She's been very worried that Santa won't know to find her here, that it's too far for him to come and there are no chimneys to speak of but we've assured her he's gotten her letter and he knows what's what.

So it's good, this thing. We are warm but not hot, we are mostly dry and only have a few bug bites. We found some simple things we'll turn into a meal, not like holidays of past but of a holiday present, one that is simple and good and simply good enough.

we would if we could

2009-12-16T08:04:00.000-08:00

Healthcare is free where I live. It's not excellent, it's probably not where you want to be if you get into a serious accident. But it's here. And it's free. A friend of mine has a father, he's 99 (go, him) and he was sick over the weekend, sick enough to warrant hospitalization and so hospital they went. She's Canadian so she's used to the mecca of free health care, and her standards are not low. She described a rather comprehensive effort to help her father, the one criticism she had was the lack of food so she had to bring meals in for him to eat. She mentioned the nurses feeling bad about it but cited a lack of funding that made providing meals very difficult. They would if they could, she said. Her father was discharged yesterday, the interventions provided were good and now he's on the mend.

And I've thought about that all night. They Would If They Could. But wow, they sure did a lot and it was all for free.

It's such a contrast to what I am reading about America's fight for health care reform. How it's a bunch of fat cats who have health insurance cutting and cutting and trimming and reducing and making it into a bill that might mean something, but it's clearly not Reform.

They Would If They Could.

Where is that ethic? Where is the ethic that we should do what it takes. That the environment and housing and food and healthcare should not victims of oh well, we tried, it's a good compromise after all. Where is the Yes We Can? The Yes We Will?

It's doubly disheartening for me because this President is the first one I've actually believed in. The others I expected nothing much from and got nothing much and that was to be expected after all, and we are left screaming and grumbling and carrying on. But this one, this one I believed in. I still believe in. So when I hear it's the best we can do right now I call Bullshit. Bullshit Mr. President. And I mean that with respect, because I do respect you. But I am worrying about you now. About things. About what it all means and wondering where the fight has gone.

Because it's not enough. It's just not. And I think you know it no matter how it's spun so I have to hope we are still mid-game here, that this is part of your strategy, but it's not really feeling that way right now. So I'll keep watching and I'll wait. But we need you to show up.

lashing out

2009-12-09T06:58:00.000-08:00

The practical and fanciful opinions of M's school collide on a rather frequent basis. One on hand I am appreciative of the opportunity she's having, learning in a rural environment filled with diversity and social sciences based on the broader parts of our world. On the other hand I struggle with what seems to be a much slower pace with big chunks filled up by religion. In this country most of the schools have churches on site and that means Mass. Mass and more mass. If I was her I'd be going batshit but blessedly (pun intended) it's all she knows so far so she seems to manage it okay.

But then the other thing happened. The thing that made my blood boil right off the charts.

M comes home happy, my kid is relentlessly happy, we've been given this enormous gift without fully knowing why but we take it with gratitude, our kid practically no matter the situation she is full of joy. So as we talk about her day it finally winds around and it winds around carefully because my kid, along with being happy she's also pretty smart and she knows what makes her mama freak out. But as we talk it becomes clear, her teacher is smacking kids with a ruler when they don't listen to her. She smacks them with a fucking ruler.

It's called lashing here, it's a practice that is used but I was told that it doesn't happen in her school which is one of the main reasons we chose it. We were told this doesn't happen here. So I find myself starting to go apeshit but I reigned it in, getting the full story mattered the most. So we talk about it more and she tells me that her teacher sometimes smacks kids on their hands when they aren't listening and wait, oh wait good lord almighty you know it yes She's Hit My Kid.

I asked M all kinds of questions, did it hurt (a little) did it make her cry (no) how many times (only once) do other kids cry (no) can you show me how teacher does it (she does and it seems rather benign) but still, what the fuck. What the fuck.

So the next day I go in to talk to this teacher, to tell her unequivocally she is not to touch my kid and to talk to the principal too. To tell them if M is doing something in their minds worthy of being smacked to call me on the phone and I will go there right then and there. But no matter what, Do Not Touch My Kid.

So I go in and I go in calm, I am calm because I feel pretty confident we are all still okay and I walk in the classroom to find out that her teacher is gone, she gone as in not coming back and M has a new teacher starting today. So not knowing this teacher and not having any time to form a relationship (which is a big part of the culture here) I don't have a choice, I have to make it clear. So I tell the teacher and she says we don't do that here and I tell her well yes, some of you apparently do and and I am nice but firm, you don't do that to my kid and she hears me and I can tell she can tell this isn't a discussion point. This is just how it's going to be.

So I think we are good, I think things are going to be fine. I go home and think about it and think some more and talk to a few folks, several of whom don't see lashing as a big thing, they lash their own kids and it's just the way things are done but if they are judging my reaction I can't feel it, I can't feel it because again and at the end of the day we are all mothers here and we need to do what is right for us.

M knows what I did, she knows because we talk about all of it, how upset I was and how this isn't okay with me. She was there when I talked to the teacher, I don't shield her from it because I want her to see her mama standing up for her, that I have her back. She was happy I did it but also somewhat unconcerned, it was clearly a bigger deal to me.

But it makes me think about other stuff, about the way she's being assimilated and whether or not I can live with all the ways it happens. I can't live with all of it in the States and I can't live with all of it here, and the amusing thing that the things I can't live with here are very different than there. It's the stuff you don't think about, the stuff you hope you can turn your head to and assume it'll all turn out okay but to an extent we all know that's bullshit and yet we don't know what else to do but stand up when you have to and keep talking about it. Keep talking about all of it and hope some of it sticks.

dance sister dance

2009-12-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

I've missed the full moon party for the last several months, either travelling or in between I didn't have the time to attend. But last night I was there with the others, gathered on a beautiful jungle mountaintop with fifteen or so other women of all ages and experiences with one common thread running between us - the love of this place.

So we gathered as we always do, sharing a jointly prepared meal and then as the conversation dwindles and the night moves along we move out to the fire, we gather our drums and our music and we sit in a circle and each do what moves us under the moon. This time after the circle closes our sha-woman, an aged yet utterly spry and pixie like woman turns up the music. Baile! she says Dance! and she started to move and I sit for a moment watching women of all ages and sizes shake their hips and move their arms and dance barefoot in front of the fire and I'm lost in it for a moment, these women who if you saw on the streets you'd never expect such sensuality and such grace. I am warm by the fire and smiling when the delightful pixie-sha-woman grabs my hands and pulls me up and we dance and we dance and all of a sudden I dance but on my own this time with eyes closed and I stop feeling self-conscious and I simply feel free.

There's a sacredness to it when women get together like this, when we come together in support of other women, of ourselves, when we let go, when we dance. The peacefulness and the rightness of it washes over me like rain.

As the evening ended I watched the fire for a moment more. I realize that we've been here almost a year now but it doesn't feel like it because for the last few months I've traveled back and forth and yet still, we are here and being right here is one of the reasons why I came and yet I feel like I've cheated, like I haven't embraced the opportunity as fully as I could have because no matter where you go there you are. And I wonder about 2010 and all the uncertainties yet to come and while it's a bit scary I realize I am still in this thing, I am still here and in this thing and the rest will just have to wait and see.

in the air

2009-11-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

I spend a lot of time on planes now, ever since August it's been a steady stream of back and forth and repeat. Airports fascinate me, this artificial hub of humanity where everyone is going somewhere at the mercy of others. I sit and I watch people go and go and go and I find it amazing really at how many people are out there in our world doing their own thing.

Flying itself is clearly less desirable, roped in like sheep at a forced rodeo all dressed up with places to go and no control of getting there. We all sit silently resenting the way in which we must get around while docilely submitting to the rules of the road. I've been lucky in this regard too, no big mishaps or you know, scary 30,000' sort of things yet and I keep hoping that I'll fly under the radar one more time.

I'm heading back to the jungle after a brief trip to the States, wrapping up a project and feeling the satisfaction in knowing I'll keep my feet on the ground through the holidays both, a pause in the rush and one I am deeply craving, a long time at home with nothing much to do but relish in the joy of my child and partner, since travelling as much I find myself trying to stand still. I watch them when they are busy just to see how their limbs work and what makes them smile. I hear the words of the tiniest Who and instead of screaming I Am Here I say I Am Blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

rainy days and mondays

2009-11-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

Me and Karen C, we are driving through the rain. The one radio station here plays American 70's music all the time, an amusing juxtaposition as I slow down to avoid the big bull in the muddy road. I wonder what Karen C would make of all of this, of the kids in their often ill fitting uniforms and the ladies strolling with babies strapped to their chests maya-style.

I end up as I often do in the open air produce market, the only place in town where you can get fresh fruits and vegetables. Today I score some cauliflower which is a rare treat amidst the usual bananas and onions and occasional starfruit. But I need bread and I can't find it so Karen C and I, oh wait she's gotten off the bus and now it's me and Barry G and his brother or two and we are cruising, cruising. I hit three little markets and there's not a loaf to be seen. It's hard to describe, this way of living especially coming from a place where more is always more and there is always more of it. But shopping this way forces one to be sociable, you exchange this and that with folks you run into and the shopkeepers who are used to you by now.

I briefly contemplate making my own bread, but my schedule doesn't allow it and besides, I burn it more often than not so I hit bingo at the last stop and can't believe I'm buying white bread but I'm desperate and that makes me giggle too.

By the time I'm done it's time to get M for lunch, the afternoon break is already here. I pick her up and a neighbor kid and I eavesdrop as I often do on the closing minutes of her class. Time to say our prayers says the teacher. Shut your mouths children and I can't help but laugh, saying shut your mouths doesn't seem acceptable in any setting but somehow right before kindergarten prayers it's especially off limits but not knowing what else to do we drive home and it's still raining but now Donna S has joined our ride. We sing along, or at least I do and almost run over a chicken. Those dudes run really funny. I suppose everyone's just trying to get along.

the ants go marching

2009-11-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

I'm cleaning up a few nights ago when J walks over to the verandah and opens the slider. Immediately he leaps back and streams of black ants come piling in covering his feet and crawling up his legs. He slams the door and starts jumping around, expletives abound.

I run over and flip on the outside light and the porch looks as if it's alive, a black swarming mass of moving floor space. Marching ants. Holy shit.

We quickly stomp on all the ants that made it inside and brush them out of J's hair and after some looking around, it appears that the ants are not only on the porch but climbing up the house. We've heard about these things in jungle folklore before, the marching ants come in the millions sweeping through areas eating everything in their wake. Some of our neighbors think they are a good thing because they clean out all the other bugs as they pass, the black swarm comes and goes in a short amount of time.

But I can't quite embrace their calmness. What the fuck is this I say over and over, watching the blackness puddle and swoon like a funhouse mirror gone very wrong. We realize this side of the house is fairly safe but we have no idea what cracks or holes exist in places we cannot see. After a while of sitting in somewhat bizarre stupor it hits me that the right side of the house, where the little buggers are heading, has no such reinforcements. The space between the door and the floor is ample enough for ants to come in riding on each other's backs. In triple. Shit. I say as much to J and so we head over and tentatively open the door and here they come, their blackness swarming towards us. Foolishly, I grab a towel like I was taught to do in those old fire safety movies back in the 70's. I wet it and stick it along the door jam to keep the smoke out. Or in this case, ants. I do this quickly and feel triumphant until the towel seems to slowly start to move. What happens if we can't stop them? Will they slowly overtake our bodies leaving only heaving black mounds of flesh?

Danger Will Robinson. Oh, and holy shit get me out of here.

M is asleep, thankfully and blissfully unaware that we are about to be consumed. J and I go on defense, I am spraying bug spray at the door frame and we are stomping in abandon. Somehow or perhaps it was never meant to be it works and the ants slightly shift course and we see them marching their massive way across the driveway. Our dog comes out of hiding. J looks at me and says you'll have to blog about this one and I laugh. Not until I'm sure we aren't waking up covered in ants I say.

I wake up the next morning ant free and nervously eye the porch. We tell M all about it at breakfast and she's filled with dismay at missing the escapades of the night before. She's a brave one, my kid. I tell a neighbor about it who laughs and says they came through her house a few days ago. Sprinkle water on them next time she says, they don't like the water. Later I come back from taking M to school and from the market and walk out onto the porch when I see them, a marching black wall coming over the lip of the porch from the ground, a good three feet long and about a foot onto the concrete turning it black. Being a secret double agent, I grab the hose and turn it on and let out a screech and a jet spray so powerful it's like washing thick mud off the side of a house, the blackness goes flying backwards onto the grass and I'm going Apocalypse Now on the little fuckers, spraying and spraying until the porch is clean and the fortress is intact. I peer over the edge of the porch and the ground beneath is fully alive, the marching ants are still marching. Several dogs have now taken refuge on my porch and they all look at me expectantly, watch the gringa, she's crazy and I think about spraying them too but I pull myself in check.

After way too much water I finally concede that maybe I've won this round, those little bastards are 0-2 now but I know and they know that they'll win sooner or later, whether it's 2am or when we aren't home, you can't stop nature from running it's course. So I can only hope that they've moved on down the village, making their way far away from here.

In other news we are bracing ourselves for the first real storm of the season, the hurricane to the south of us will bring us rain and I reminisce about last year when the entire village was flooded and I hope that like the ants, the rain will go easy on us too.

tricksters

2009-11-01T17:30:00.000-08:00

As many things go here, information regarding Very Important Events is often contradictory and somewhat loose. As Halloween approached, we tried to figure out customs and whatnot so as to allow M to have some sort of holiday while navigating the fact that Things Are Just Done Differently Here. So after several inquiries we thought we had it figured it and headed out to go to a few houses and trick or treat. The first two houses were practice, expat neighbors we know who were more than happy to offer a treat. But then we ventured over to our village friends, with our gorgeous little Dorothy with her dog Toto in tow. (Note to self: no one here has seen the Wizard of Oz).

We were welcomed heartily at our first stop but also with laughing. Oh no, we don't trick or treat till tomorrow night. And Monday night. But not tonight. Today of course was Halloween. Alright then, we shake our heads. Leave it to the gringos to get it wrong. So M is rather disappointed so we figure it can't hurt to see if other folks on on this same page. We stop at a restaurant a friend of ours runs and she being anglo has some candy to share. M now is energized and wants to make more stops so we go to another village friend who reiterates that trick or treating is tomorrow and laughs as we go. As we are heading back home with a rather meager bucket of candy we stop at a ramshackle little store on the off chance one out of three might come through and besides, it's a little tienda so I am pretty sure they have candy no matter the day. There's an old woman in the back and I see her making tortillas. She sees us and smiles and walks up to the front. Que quieres? she says and M says Trick or Treat! Que? So I lift M up and so the woman can see. She smiles and laughs. Quieres dulce? She asks and I smile Por favor. So the woman grabs a couple lollipops and hands them over even though I'm pretty sure that she's also of the This Doesn't Happen Till Tomorrow ilk. The funniest part of it all is a little boy was in the store at the same time, a shilling in hand probably there on an errand from his mom. The woman hands him the lollipops too and he looks in confusion and amazement and runs out the door. I am laughing now and we thank her and walk back outside. We end up calling it a night after that, M is ridiculously understanding about all of it and I've never loved her more.

So tonight, the day after Halloween we've had some visitors and they come in massive, massive amounts. The walk through the village swinging little lanterns going door to door, no bags to hold candy or a costume to be seen but high spirited and joyful just the same. I'd like to think it has more to do with Dia De La Muerta, I've noticed the cemetery across from our house has been bustling today, paying homage to ancestors and lighting candles with candy and costumes secondary if at all.

So as with anything we roll with it and when we shut the door we look at each other and laugh because everything continues to make no sense and be exactly fine all at once.

working the land

2009-10-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

I've done a terrible job writing about the actual construction and transformation that's been going on at our land since we moved to the jungle. J spends backbreaking hours and days in the hot sun carefully planning, building, and creating our future home. While this doesn't do it justice, here are a few photos of our recently constructed earth bag structure. The whole thing was done by hand, the door and window frames were handmade, the bags will carefully filled with a mixture of sand and clay. J has spent countless, countless hours on this, not only in the building but in the art of learning how it's done.
While it looks simple, this took forever. Lots of dirt. We found pottery shards during the sifting which was pretty amazing. Earthbags are very heavy and the walls are thick. Thick walls means cooler temperatures. Natural respite from the heat. The round construction means it's not going anywhere. This will be here for a long, long time.
This may look like paint but it's actually a tint applied to the last coat of mud. Once the bags are done the whole building is covered w/ mud and then the final coat has some sort of magical mixture added to it. As you can see, J has spent an incredible amount of time on the details. It's been amazing to watch his passion and persistence unfold in so many ways. Every step of the process was looked at from a environmental lens, what materials are sustainable, what is the least harmful, etc. I am a particular fan of the window flare and the slate at the bottom which while beautiful, serves as a splash guard for those pesky thunderstorms.

We had to hire the roofing work out. Thatch is absolutely an art form, and the guys who did this spent several days cutting, weaving and then tying the leaves. It's an incredible process.

So there she is, our little jungle structure nestled on our little jungle property. We aren't planning to live in it right now for a number of reasons but we eventually might use it for guest lodging. We needed a practice structure before attempting to build any sort of living space and there were countless lessons learned. J's working on a different structure now that this one is finished, which will be the center of the garden. In the meantime we've planted over 50 trees, many of them fruit bearing.

It's a work in progress, but as it's progressed I've watched J become a botanist, an earth father, a laborer and a foreman. It's been a joy to watch his brain work in new ways and he's largely self-taught himself everything as he goes along. And there's no home depots here either. So he's been forced to think creatively and exercise his passion. It's not always easy but it's been amazing to watch. It's been an evolution of our partnership as well, in our former lives we both went off to the workplace, now so much more of our focus (at least when I'm not out of the country) is on meeting our basic daily needs and our land. We've both become more domesticated out of necessity. There is simply too much to do if we want to manage everything that needs to get done. But it feels more honest somehow, more deeply personal and less stressful.

This year has been a lot of things, ever since we took the leap and left our jobs and our lives and moved to the jungle but mainly it's been a year of discovery and of working things through.

thirty nine

2009-10-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

i can still taste

the sweetness of that cabin

long ago.

the discovery and blood and cement and the yes

that lit the fire that brought us here.

you, the human that makes it all seem sane

the one who held on even when the road

the road was lonely and long

and good and full of flowers

that one night in the casino

and the one right after we brought our girl home (the year they finally won)

and we

we made this, this life this one is ours

through the mountains of oregon

and florence

and bangkok

and suchitoto

and bayon

and now the jungle

it is you, i cleave here and there and in ways quiet and loud

and sometimes teary and mostly, yes mostly with gratitude

i celebrate you.

happy birthday to j

class

2009-10-07T16:31:00.001-07:00

I've been volunteering in M's school this week, an informal sort of thing. As you might imagine school here is mighty different, the rooms are crowded and supplies are nil. The teachers have a lot of kids and few resources to get the job done. I noticed her struggle and offered to come and help. She said OK and told me when to show up but I've yet to see her smile.

So I show up and the room is in a subdued chaos, the teachers here have no problem yelling at the kids, something I'd imagine I'd do too if stuck with this job. She handed me a stack of composition books and asked me to write the homework assignment in each. I dutifully sat at her desk and wrote and wrote while she taught the kids about 1,2 and 3. I watched M on and off and she was in heaven, somehow sitting in this crappy little room with an oh-so-strict teacher and the afternoon heat didn't seem to bother her or maybe she just doesn't know any better. Either way given the circumstances I count these blessings because this is what we've got to work with here.

I came home a bit depressed if she was in the US she'd probably be taking yoga or some shit and you know they'd have A/C and J just looks at me and says it's the sum not the parts that we need to focus on and yet I can't quite find the charm because I can't help but worry about what is best for her and we talk and we realize that while living here school is different and perhaps substandard but she is happy and safe and still learning even if there is a hole in the classroom floor.

So I went back again today, determined to not only volunteer but observe again and I have to admit it was better, the teacher had my work ready for me when I arrived and she was able to finish her lessons without worrying about the paperwork and I got to sit at the front and assign the homework and tease the kids when they came to collect their books. After closing prayer (hi hello there is a lot of jesus going on around here) she looked at me across the room Manana? I say and she nods and even smiles and M and I walk out hand in hand and happy, she's thrilled I show up and I'm thrilled I'm afforded the luxury of coming mid-day to my kid's class and hang out.

I decide I'll come whenever I can, tomorrow and the next and when I'm not running back and forth to the States because that's what this new gig affords me, long stretches at home and some time away, my id and superego and ego might just unite after all.

sideways

2009-10-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

I've been sticking rather close to home lately. I've got a gig that requires me to work from home, a blessing that is near indescribable. That and one car and a child whose school schedule has her popping in and out a record 4 times in 6 hours. It's okay though. I feel good. Really good. I've been a stay at home mom type for awhile now and the preciousness of that has yet to grow old.

But today I met some friends for breakfast, my voodoo priestess friend and another. We spent the time talking all things otherworldly, a place I am unafraid of but rarely visit. She's hungry, my friend, she's hungry to shake things up a bit and feeling subdued because few people speak her language even here.

I challenge her over our eggs and beans, I challenge her to do it anyways, to bring us to her land and work her magic. She laments and then comes around but not without asking me to have a role in the ceremony and I laugh, I can't help but laugh because I may be an alright sort of girl but I'm hardly tuned into the otherworld, the one that hums all around and over and under. She's undeterred, my friend and insists so I say okay as long as I can be from the East, I've found some Sufi writings lately I'd want to share. She agrees and works her magic even at the table and apparently the ancestors are on board. We are good to do this thing.

As I drive away I reflect on the past eight months, often spent hot and sweaty and itchy and weird and lately en route and I also think of all the blessings, that until this year I was a working girl who worked all the time and shopped at the box stores and drove to work and turned back around. It's like that here but different, there is a routine to our lives but it's untethered, it's random and frustrating and delicious and third-worldly, and I feel like I know more now, a kind of quiet knowing that things are different everywhere and there is grace in all things. I am slowly becoming less afraid.

I get home in time to watch a neighborhood dog kill an iguana right in front of me. It was a longish sort of battle and it made me want to cry and also want it to be over. I watched the dog turn and wander off, it's great battle over with barely a second glance and I looked at the dead thing and I thought of the cycle of life, of how it goes round and round and that I might not have thought of it this way if I hadn't come all the way down here. It's like I knew and did not know, and that doesn't make one thing better than the other but there's a quiet knowing in it, knowing our time here is short and we have to jump and grab those rings when we can.

pieces

2009-10-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

You'd think the auto registration center for the area would be rather official. You'd think it would have more than a shack-like quality with a couple dudes sitting behind desks so old you wouldn't believe with the A/C wall unit rattling behind them covered in dust. You'd think, but then you'd be thinking all wrong.

We pay our money and they give us a receipt. What about the plates I ask and the man smiles. Oh mon, we are out of plates. The entire country is out of plates. J starts to get nervous, we still don't know all the rules. We can't drive around without plates he says. Oh yes, mon. You aren't in America any more so you need to relax. Besides, everybody knows we are out of plates. Here, I'll write you a note. And he does.

So at the checkpoint we get stopped. You don't have any plates they say. Your country is out of plates we reply and we hand him our little note. He glances at it. Oh that's right he says. We are out of plates and smiles and waves us on. Everyone does know we say and we laugh. And we laugh extra hard and I keep saying The Country Is Out Of Plates! No Plates Anywhere! And I laugh some more.

I love the lunch time school pick up. Everyone goes home for lunch so all the mamas and the papas and the abuelas and abuelos and tias and tios gather under the shade, some with umbrellas, some in taxis, the old men laugh and the women gossip. We wait for the bell and wait some more for our own uniformed child to come racing out. Mine is easy to pick out of a crowd here and as she spots me she breaks out into a grin. She races over and we climb in the car while joyously turning on the A/C. The car is still the one place we are cool although with the fall has come cooler weather and it's getting harder to complain. We pass goats on the way home and a woman with a basket on her head and it starts to rain. A horse blocks my way and I have to honk and it tosses it's mane disdainfully as if to tell me he's been here long before me. I see my neighbor on the road and we wave.

I like it here, I like it here a lot.

jiggety jig

2009-09-28T08:54:00.001-07:00

I've been back in the jungle for a few days now, the shiny brightly painted landscape of the States replaced by the peeling and dilapidated and yet beautiful scenery of home. As I walked out of customs and into the arms of my family, feeling my child's legs wrap around me and kick with delight and teared up from the love and from the journey, from the teeter totter turbulence.

I can't believe how well they fared in my absence, something I swallow with such gratefulness, that M felt full and loved and J felt calm and happy, the two musketeers missing their third but getting along just the same.

After a sweet reunion and a lazy afternoon it was back to work, a different sort of work that is easily forgotten and so much more in the moment, the digital distractions cast aside.

The sky here is so big. So unfettered by buildings and lights. It's the stars and the glowbugs and the sounds of the jungle at night, a cozy and wild west sort of smell that reminds me of our smallness. It's so hot here and yet it's bearable now and I'm happy to see that everything I'd learned hadn't completely worn off.

I bought some cheese at the market yesterday and opened it to use in the tacos I was making for dinner. As I cut into the brand new package I saw it was already covered in mold, a phenomenon I can't quite understand. I yelp a bit and demonstrate my disgust and J looks over welcome home baby he says with a grin. And then we talked long into the night, a pastime of ours that has often fallen by the wayside in the name of sleep. We both acknowledged we still don't really know what we are doing or how we are going to pull this thing off. We talked about options and ideas and have agreed that we aren't ready to throw in the towel but have been humbled so entirely humbled by how impossible we've found it to sustain ourselves financially without seeking work far away. So we agree to let it ride, that this gig is doable for a few months more, we'll balance the balancing and take our kid to school (she is thriving you wouldn't believe how much she is loving her class) and make tortillas from scratch and sweat in the heat and we'll remain open to what comes next.

hip hop you don't stop

2009-09-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

So, she says, do you wear the same four outfits every week? I laugh a little and say I do. And in cubicle world I am sure it gets noticed. But you know, still. She cases me a little so, is what you have on one of your outfits? I'm wearing jeans and a shirt and after 12 hours I'm sloppy. After 2 hours I'm probably sloppy. Yes I say.

She runs up the stairs and comes back down. She's holding two dresses. I don't wear these anymore she says and hands them to me. They are lovely and casual and nice all at once. Really? I say and she smiles. Try them on she says. She hands them over and I understand again how you never really know till you know. How every day is a series of little gifts and sparkly rainbows. Of tears and longing. Of realizing how alive you are in the presence of others and outside of your usual routine.

And this is how it's been, this new world of couch surfing and depending on friends, of catching cabs and flights and morphing one world into the next. Of the kindness of strangers and also your friends. I'm busy and I'm lonely and I'm full and I miss my family and I like the work and I have fallen asleep on the floor and guest beds and once a bit tipsy after a long night of red wine and the most delicious chilean sea bass I've ever tasted.

I miss my home. I desperately miss my kid, a few weeks away from her has been like a gaping wound that no amount of skype or phone calls can cure. I miss her smell and her giggle and I miss the jungle and even the dirty heat. I feel like I'm the worst mom in the world. I fall in love with her father all over again without him even knowing it.

So I'll zig to my zag, this brave new world we've created, one foot in the first and the other in the third, there is no playbook for this and so we go day by day wondering if this is right or that is right or what it all means and in the end it means we are still living, one of us hasn't left the jungle and two of us have gone back and forth and the third, the girl third has been back and forth for two months now, an upside down sort of something that feels shaky and stable all at once.

So the radio silence has been just that. Of not knowing what to say and of having to say too much.

five

2009-09-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

M turned five today, her most perfectly amazing self has turned another year. We've been excited about this for weeks, five is so much bigger than four and as such great merriment must be made. We also made a point of celebrating four, all the things that four brought that will never be again, things she's outgrown and also mastered and all the things yet to be.

We decided to have a small party at the house, she invited two or three friends and along with them comes a host of adults, village neighbors and surrogate aunties and the like. Every single person who has been invited has immediately asked me what they can bring and how they can help, something so common here and yet it still floors me every time, folks who have nothing still ready to give what they have. I also secretly think they think I am rather useless in the ways of jungle life, and as such if food is going to be prepared the way it should they'd better lend a hand.

We wanted to keep it simple, things here are done differently, there are no presents or goody bags, food is simple and there is no entertainment aside from each other. We talked about this a lot, how this party will be different than ones in the States, how we will have some presents for her but we won't open them at the party, having our own private breakfast celebration instead. M seems okay with all of it, she is nothing if not flexible, learning another way of life at an early age has had this very positive affect on her and I am so thankful, realizing how easily it could have gone the other way.

So today we celebrate our child, my child, my only-born, this great beaming bucket of sparkly rainbows who never stops laughing and is always ready for a hug. My big girl, my five year old magic maker, this little person I love more than I love anything else in this world, this sweet girl child who takes my heart outside of my chest with her everywhere she goes. I am so unfailingly in awe and delight and in love with her, I curve my hand around her still rounded belly and I hold her close and breathe her in and I know in this moment and in every moment that I am so richly blessed by her, that it is the supreme honor of my life to be the one she chose to guide her along her path and I do it with determination and with honor and sometimes with frustration and selfishness but no matter what I try and do my best because that's the least she deserves in this life and no matter where we raise her and no matter how we live she knows without a doubt how much she is loved and celebrated and on good days we even make it fun.

Happy Birthday, you magnificent, remarkable, bright and beaming girl. I love you always and in every way.

bob marley has definitely left the building

2009-09-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

This country is so lax about so many things, roads and stoplights, electricity and more and as such its been quite a shock seeing the seriousness with which they take their schools. All of the schools here are run by the catholic church, so certain things were expected like churches on site at each school, uniforms and prayers. But I didn't realize the full extent of things until yesterday at our first parent/teacher assembly.

We gathered right after lunch in one of the classrooms, the same stifling heat-filled rooms where we expect our children to learn. The heat and the lack of air circulation has been on my mind all week, M will come out of class with her face sweaty even though she's sitting still. There are ceiling fans in the room but the teacher is afraid to turn them on, they are so rickety she's worried they will fall down on the kids.

The principal runs the meeting, starting of course with prayers. She then goes over general rules (rules! lots of rules!) about things like mandatory pleats in the uniforms (there must be TWO! Not ONE. Not THREE! TWO!) and about how the kids can never, ever be late to class. I can't help it and I start to giggle and J looks at me sternly once or twice but I can't help it, the anti-authority vein in me takes over. Besides, it's very, very hot.

One of the other moms asks about the heat and what the school can do and unfortunately they can't do anything, there is no money and the catholics don't come back till January to do repairs. I mentally tick off the months in my head and realize we can't wait till then and we'll have to do something about it now. The principal ends by reminding folks they have stopped corporal punishment and I thank all that is holy because this principal scares me in a good way and I really don't want to have to fight with her but I would have over this.

After the meeting ends we walk outside and climb in the car. Let's go into town and buy a fan for M's classroom I say and J says right now? and I nod. So we head into town and I'm still giggling, we debate who is going to have to go to mass because we just learned we are supposed to go every week, something that god bless them I just don't see myself doing and wonder what the consequences of this inaction will be. Maybe the fan can serve as our advance penance but J just laughs, he was bred in parochial schools and if anything I think he finds all of this rather familiar and relatively okay.

We buy the fans and decide to get two, realizing the unfairness of things if I were to ask the teacher to only put a fan on M's side of the room. As we are driving back I wonder if this is going to make me seem like an asshole, the only foreigner in the school is already inserting herself in things and J says but that's exactly what you are doing and I agree and decide it can't be helped.

When we pick M up after class she's chattering happily. She actually loves her school and her teacher and is already starting to make friends, this first week has gone better than I could ever have imagined for her. She climbs up on the stool and watches me chop onions and asks me to look at her and she stands at prim attention and makes the sign of the cross and I look across the room at J and he starts to smirk. What's that baby I say It's the sign of the cross mama, I am Catholic now and I slowly and quietly rest my head on the table rocking it side to side. It's okay mama you can be Catholic too and I look at her and smile and I remind her about all the worlds religions and how some people are catholic and some are christian and some are buddhist and some are muslim and I remind her of people in her life who are each of these and she smiles and does her cross signing once more. I know mama but I want to be catholic.

And I know in this moment that I'm not anti-any of this but I am pro-openness and awareness and personal choice and I disagree with having things forced on her or anyone else and I realize that right now my ass has just been kicked by a force much bigger than I am, that unless we take her out of school completely this is just the way it's going to be and all of a sudden I realize how much more complicated things become as she gets older, how this is just the first of a thousand million things and how once again when you are a mother there is simply no going back. So I decide there will have to be some balance, a third pleat if you will, a way to calm the tide or at least slow it down long enough for her to find her own balance and for me to have time to continue to grow up.

torn between two lovers feeling like a fool

2009-08-31T18:04:00.000-07:00

Ahem

(taps microphone softly)

(glances around, considers running away)

It's been nearly two weeks since I've posted, I think a one plus two record. I may have been serious when I said I forgot how to write.

I'm back in the jungle. We are back and not only back but my baby, my sweet, delicious, tiny girl child started kindergarten today. I quite tearily dropped her off and left her and picked her up afterwards, my amazing most beautiful kick ass kid. She did it, she did it with only a few tears, sweating in the heat, she came out smiling and even complaining that there wasn't very much learning going on around that place which I've decided to chalk up to first day settling in and not as an omen of things to come. She even wants to go back tomorrow. Score one for jungle school.

I've been a whirlwind of planes and work and heat, my project isn't winding down so I am due back next month, a blessing and a curse, a paycheck and a long distance road. I am really walking the line now, unsure of where I am supposed to be and even more quietly, where I want to be, unsure of a lot and confident in the rest. Somehow this is sort of what we planned and yet somehow when it's actually happening it feels a million times strange and a bit teary, I get a bit of a rush and I am in some ways proud of myself. I already miss my child and am not sure what kind of mother this leaving again makes me.

We talked about it quite a bit me and her, debating whether working every day all day and being apart in that way is better than being together constantly for six months and having two weeks apart. She's decided the latter is better except for the part when I'm gone and I completely agree. The career part of me feels so thankful, I've somehow landed a gig that suits me perfectly, working with non profit types instead of inside of them, helping things work themselves out. Being in the States meant a few other things, besides gaining a few pounds I reconnected with old friends, several of whom took me in and for one fantastic weekend, M and I both. We couch surfed and ate too much and drank in the luxury of being around people we love and who love us and we laughed and hugged and maybe cried once or twice.

And now we are back and feel fortunate again to be met with hugs and squeals and catching up with our new friends, the ones we've come to love here who are now part of us too. Down here they chide me for going up north to the unreal world and nod with understanding because they know why I must. The mothers here promise to help J and M any way they can because they know and we all know there is nothing like having a mother in the home and for that I am happy too. The village circles it's wagons once more. And I spin right round baby right round.

fencing

2009-08-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

Man, it's easy to get sucked in. You with your roads and your stoplights and your miles of produce all neatly stacked in rows. You with your convenience and your hot water and your surety that when you flip the light switch the light will indeed come on.

A week and a half to go and then I'm back in the jungle but the project will continue a bit longer so I'll be coming back again soon. I'm grateful and I am lost, I am straddling two sides of a very different fence and one is seductive and one is real while the other is seductive and the other is real.

I weave anonymously through the crowd both sure and unsure. Office politics make me giggle and I laugh in the elevator. I miss the sky. I can't hear the birds. I drink your wine and I sit in your comfortable chairs. I order a sandwich with the ease of someone who hasn't forgotten how. I'm soft in the middle. I'm using my brain. I like the project I'm working on but my life doesn't feel real.

I've forgotten how to write.

culture clash

2009-08-16T09:19:00.001-07:00

Four airplane flights and a week of work under my belt, I'm starting to see how this might work over the next couple of months. The pace I'd expected and the entire thing is a blessing beyond words, being able to come back to my old life while in an entirely different capacity still feels familiar. I am in an amusing position, being brought in by The Boss to work on Special Projects, an out of the box type assignment that has the regular boxers on some sort of alert. But I am happy for it not only because of the work but because the special projects are for my old community, tackling the same problems from a different angle with hopefully some success.

I join the masses on the downward plunge on the midday elevator, groups of people fleeing incubation for the street. Every day I feel near hysterical in a manageable sort of way because this whole thing is so bizarre to me and I will never understand the culture of this type of place. Once the doors open and I'm out in the sun I inevitably stop and tilt my face towards the sky. I am here and I am not here and it creates an invisible barrier, my months of jungle village stay with me as I manage not to become swayed by the creatively lit restaurants and fast cars. Cubicles. I am not here for this.

I am walking down the street when I see him, he's manning the corner with his cup and his sign and I see the folks before me swerve around him as they go. As I approach I slow down and he shakes his cup at me and I start to laugh which gets his attention so he actually looks at me and breaks out in a grin. Girl! Where you been? and I tell him and we talk for a minute about how things are still rough and how there is still hope. I want to talk to him more, I want to bring him into one of those restaurants and buy him lunch and really hear how he's doing and catch up not only on the street but the heart, the news on who has found a place and who's been locked up, the cycle of poverty hasn't skipped a beat.

I tell him as much and he is in agreement. I want to hear all about this crazy jungle thing and next time bring pictures of your kid he says so we agree that next week I'll find him and we'll go have some lunch and he smiles broadly and he gives me a hug.

And in that moment I am back all the way, amidst the suits and the blackberries and the well stocked stores and the high speed connections I found my soul and I'll savor it, as I walk away I feel more sprightly as if all of a sudden the ground I am walking on makes a little sense after all.

just like that

2009-08-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

It's surreal. I'm back and within being back 48 hours jumped in full time at work, I'm sleeping at a friend's house while M stays with her grandparents. J is still in the jungle so like a little triangle we make three points on a map with she and I reuniting on the weekends and I already can't wait.

It's strange how we envisioned doing exactly this as part of the way we make the jungle work and I am grateful for every moment of it but it's still very, very strange.

I'd bundled up my work clothes and stowed them in a box in the jungle six months ago and last week I opened them up and realized I had no shoes so I went shopping the day after we arrived and got a kicky pair of heels. Ruby slippers M calls them and I wore them on my first day and within a half hour I was nearly crippled, blisters and suffering and now that I'm out of the jungle and even the shelter it's harder to walk around barefoot and so I suffered all day until the second it was time to leave.

As soon as I walked out of the elevator the shoes came off and I walked city blocks barefoot and as I did I noticed suits glancing down amidst the after work rush. The urban jungle makes me smile, I feel the rush of the bodies and the go go go and I smile at the man on the corner with the big sunglasses and the boombox on his shoulder, Cruel Summer blaring out of it with satisfying irony and I dance a little as I go.

art, dengue and leaving on a jet plane

2009-08-06T06:07:00.001-07:00

Our little jungle art class has been going on for three weeks now. I have wrestled with what pictures I should post and after careful consideration it feels unfair of me to put ones of the kids themselves without asking the parents permission. So instead I'm posting a couple of pictures of the art that's coming out of the classes. I want to repeat again that every single bit of the supplies we are using were donated by the blogosphere, and without you we wouldn't have had a class, no class at all.

The first picture was taken from the first class. Each child got a large piece of paper and six colors and after a long discussion by the famously amazing artist jungle queen the kids were instructed to close their eyes. Then the teacher turned up some music and the kids went at it. Believe it or not, the below was done with eyes closed by a 12 year old. I like to think of it as a ceiba tree's roots with a sun in the sky.

The second class consisted of the kids learning about dye and how it works with fabric. Then the teacher led the kids through several exercises using the dyes in different ways. That pink and white one in the middle? Yep, that was M. She's dye-natural. The kids spent a few hours figuring it out in preparation for working with larger fabric and t-shirts.
At the end of each class the teacher has each child sit and write in their art journals. Each child has been given a sketch book and they write or draw their thoughts from the class. M always draws a parrot and writes the word THE. Am not sure what THE is about but she does it every time.

The kids made t-shirts and sarongs yesterday but unfortunately I missed the class. One of the other kids in the class was sick yesterday and since we've had a dengue fever epidemic raging through our little village we have been especially watchful. Since the mom didn't have a car I offered to take her and her daughter to the doctor while the class was in session. When I got back the kids were done and my eyes near popped out of my head in amazement. I forgot my camera so will have to take some pictures later but their work was gorgeous. Using the previous class to show the kids how the dyes worked and get them comfortable with it really paid off. We are still waiting to hear if the child has dengue. Dengue sounds like a horrible thing and it can be but generally folks fare okay after a rather nasty illness. So far 300 or so people have it and only 1 has died. I watch our mosquito bites and I say silent prayers every five minutes that the bastards that have bitten us are not the ones with the fever.

There are two more classes but unfortunately I'll be missing them since M and I are returning to the US for a few weeks. We fly out tomorrow and I start work on Monday so it'll be a whirlwind and also a blessing, this job has given us all a sigh of relief. But as the clock ticks I am on one hand happy to be temporarily leaving the land of dengue and on the other rather nervous about re-entry. Y'all move so fast up there and things all of a sudden seem very loud.

I've been absent lately due to a weeklong visit from my mother in law, a woman who has never left the US in her entire life. I was rather worried about how she'd feel about all of it but I can honestly say I am very proud of her, she's taken everything in stride and has really seemed to like her visit. I overheard her saying to J you know I thought I'd hate it but I see why you moved here, next time I come I want to stay longer and when I retire how would you feel if I lived here three months at a time and I smiled because she's our first, our first family member to see this place and somehow she gets it, in a short little span of time she's understood what we've done.

I'll see you on the flip side, friends. Back to the land of high speed internet and fast food. Of first rate hospitals and groceries. Of freeways and stoplights. I'm hoping that once I'm there I'll have time to write more clearly about some things that have been rattling around in my head for awhile. Because still and after six months I am still trying to make sense of it all.

american me

2009-07-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

Being here for six months now has made me more deeply love and simultaneously more frequently shy away from America. It's odd seeing the random bits that are filtered through here, living without TV but still able to read news online keeps me plugged in in a way that is probably both good and bad. Those Birthers for example. I mean, that's just embarrassing for everyone. And is tonight's Beer Summit a real thing? I kind of like that one actually. But I digress.

There are many things I've developed a deeper appreciation for since moving here. Health care, although we've been extremely lucky and in fact probably have a MD who is equally or more astute than any MD we've seen in the States, especially given his lack of equipment (he routinely uses a magnifying glass which makes me think of a mad scientist but yet he seems to use it well). Roads are another one. Damn, America, you have roads down to a science, generally pothole free and labeled so nicely with stoplights that work. Public services in general, the safety net of those three little numbers is something too easy to take for granted till they are gone.

There are some things that I enjoy but are obviously unnecessary, such as convenience. Being able to go to one store and get what you need instead of six stores and still coming up zeros, places to get a decent pedicure and of course, a variety of food choices.

But then there are some things that distance has allowed enlightenment, things that frustrated me when I lived there full time that I find even more annoying now, like the media. It's salaciousness, it's need to grip onto a subject and shake it like a dog with an iguana (oh, just trust me on this) until nothing is left and everything smells like shit. And one that has been particularly annoying is the boohooing over gas prices. Simply put, until you routinely pay the equivalent of $5 US per gallon (and that's on a good day) you can't realize how nice 2.87 or even 3.42 actually is. And imagine doing that while living on substantially less income. Perhaps that's why public transportation, as rickety as it is here, effectively makes the world go round. And the thing is, I never hear anyone complain. That's the thing that strikes me the loudest. There is markedly less complaining here.

And that can be both a good and bad thing. One of the reasons America became so great is because people DID complain. They stood up, they rallied, they cried out when things were unfair. This form of protest has brought a host of important changes to America, from the obvious civil and gender rights to all sorts of other issues. But sometimes, America me thinks you doth protest too much. Taxes are okay. Higher gas prices are okay. The former gives us the roads and the public services and many other things. The latter...well, the latter is a problem no matter how it's sliced. But keeping people and big business happy comes at great costs, doesn't it?

I write this with trepidation. The last thing I want to do is to sound critical or cavalier, I am sensitive to both and to be honest, feel more American now than I probably ever have in my life. I am proud of it and honored by the opportunities it has afforded me. Grateful that I've had the privilege of growing up well. But one can't see that without seeing the excess. Everything see, is a blessing and a curse.

Here, people live on very little. They eat the same foods every day, day in and day out. And when you ask them what their favorite food is they will tell you it's what they eat every day. Even the kids. Beans and rice. But what if you could have anything you want I ask them and they say without a hint of irony beans and rice. Here working hard and spending time with your family is a measure of your life. It's smaller and to those of us who've grown hungry it's often hard to fathom. That this could be your life in it's entirety, travelling very small distances and living as generations before you have lived with of course, small and large advances like electricity or running water or now, the internet. Being able to sit for hours in the evening simply being still.

Imagining our lives like this is easier for me now and harder still. I am aware of the separation, of what having some money and a passport can do. How lucky I am and yet also aware that if the shit really hits the fan these folks in all of these little outposts all over the world will probably survive a lot longer than most of us domesticated types. They know hand to mouth existence. They suck it up every single day. It's just how it is and yet there is a great joy entwined inside of it that has touched me more deeply and has made me think harder than I'd ever imagined. I thought I understood poverty before coming here and perhaps in in the States I still do but here, they've got nothing on folks here and these folks have nothing on folks in Africa. It's all relative I suppose. It's harder and easier. It's scarier and safer. It's just different.

I write this also because I am coming back for a bit. I've gotten a consulting gig in California, something very important to our family's ability to survive here and so in a week or so I'll be returning for a few weeks or maybe longer, back to the land of More after finally getting used to the world of Less and I'm a bit scared, scared that my soft white underbelly will show itself and I'll quickly forget all I've learned. That I'll wander the big grocery stores and buy more than I need. That I'll take luxury for granted. That I'll like the order of stoplights and exit signs and affordable gas prices more than I should. That I'll forget how to sit still.

recorded for posterity

2009-07-29T06:51:00.000-07:00

My kid is really funny. I know all kids are really funny but this one's living here with me and I'm keeping her alive till she's grown and ready to do her thing so you know, she's special. And if I don't write it down somewhere I'll forget. Nearly five years old is a fantastic age, isn't it?

Proof positive:

M: Mama, do you still hate John McCain

Me: Well baby, I don't know that I hated him...

M: Oh, yes you did

Me: Bygones. Whatever, I don't hate him now.

M: So do you want to invite him to the jungle then?

Me: It's probably better we keep our distance honey. No offense to him.

M: Well, would you want to marry him then?

Me: What about daddy?

M: He won't mind.

Or this:

M: Grandma and grandpa love me a lot. I think they love me the most besides you and Daddy. I hope they never have their own daughter so they keep loving me best.

Me: Um, I am their daughter.

M: Oh, yeah. I forgot about you.

And here:

We were driving and discussing for the first time that Mommies and Daddies Sometimes Split Up M is watching it happen to a friend in the village. I am gripping the wheel tightly, thinking we are going to have one of Those Defining Moments when it dawns on her that this is something that can happen in the world.

Me: Well honey, sometimes mommies and daddies decide they can't live together anymore so they agree to live apart. But no matter what they love their kids and it has nothing to do with your friend.

M: So sometimes Mommies and Daddies stop living together?

Me: (heart sinking while puppies everywhere die) yes...

M: Well, if that happens I'm definitely going with you. Can I have some ice cream?

And my personal favorite:

Mama, when I grow up I want to work in a Pizza Parlour.

Me: That's great honey. Make sure to tell daddy, he'll love that.

oh baby

2009-07-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

The baby came Friday after stubbornly not coming for a week. The hospital room (family only so I missed the good stuff) was bustling with nurses and they seemed to take good care. They did insist on repeated ultrasounds to check the baby's position which seemed a bit odd when everyone there had fingers but otherwise all was fine and my beautiful village friend birthed an even more beautiful baby and she's perfect through and through. Tomorrow we go to the center of the village, there are doctors who come through once a month with immunizations for babies and kids and they've invited me to come along.

In other news, M was pretty sick for a bit. The rash made no sense and her bloodwork came back showing some sort of infection but our wonderful MD was very calm and reassuring even as I panicked test her for malaria test her for dengue and he smiled and said no no, she's not sick like that and I figured he would know much better than me. What this place lacks in money and fancy equipment is made up for in other ways, like when the doctor called later that night to see how M was and to remind me to give her her medicine. Like when he said if she gets worse no matter how late you call me I want you to call. It's made up for again when he texted me the next morning to check in once more. It was all the way over the top three days later when I texted him from far away to ask if M could resume eating dairy and he responded in moments no ice cream till Monday and somehow these little kindnesses add up to so much.

And now she's fine, whatever it was has left the building and my jungle pixie is back to normal, running wild in the yard and tackling the dogs. We went and visited the new baby today, the first time M has seen her and she stood so still, so angelic, and peered into her eyes. Was I ever small like that mama and I touched her cheek oh yes baby and smaller still and she smiled a big smile and turned back to the baby, the one who will grow up with chickens and iguanas and a dozen people mothering her at once all under one roof and I looked at her mama over their heads and she looked at me and we smiled, the one that says she knows what I know now, that nothing will ever be the same and she already can't imagine not being this little girl's mom and I realized it once more, it doesn't matter what village you grow up in, we are all mothers here.

i hate sick

2009-07-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

M is sick. I don't know what is wrong with her. She's covered in a terrible rash and hot to the touch. I took her to our jungle MD this morning early, I called him on his cell and he said to meet him at his office and we did. He took one look at her and said it was an allergic reaction but to what? So we trudged across the dirt road to the laboratory where they took a bit of blood for further exploring and after lunch we'll go back and wait our turn. We'll wait our turn in a roomful of people, there are no appointments but then again there is cell phones that get answered and she's in okay spirits so far.

We have friends in town, good friends who we love and have missed and who've come to visit. The rest of the party is in the middle of a jungle inside of a cave partially under water right now while I sit with my child and wonder what the prognosis will be. J wanted to stay behind, he thought I should go with our friends but it's funny, it's so funny it's not even a thought because it's just like air or water when your child is sick you are a mother and nothing else not anything else matters until you know they are okay and the thought of not being there is not even a thought because you'd never even think it because this is where no matter what this is where you need to be.

neighborly

2009-07-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

We have a new neighbor, a retired American guy who has chosen this place like many who seem to be choosing this place as their new home. Feeling neighborly I invited him to dinner, remembering my first weeks of lostness and oh my god what the hell have we done. A major news flash I haven't yet mentioned is that I now have a working oven, not one we bought but one that was traded out of another house, my jedi patience paid off. So friends, I'd like to proclaim loudly: I can bake things. I can cook without using the top of my stove.

Not that I'm much of a baker. But still. And I had a precious tub of ricotta, one I found the same day I made my vegetable discovery so I figured no better way to break in the oven than to make a lasagna. Anyways, this is all rather boorish so let's get back to the new guy.

One of the things I've been startled to find here is that some of the expats I am meeting, (generally the older ones) have actually left America because of their disgust with the increasing liberalization of our nation. They have nearly exactly the opposite politics as I do which is often a conversation stopper and one I cannot reconcile in my head but hey, to each his own.

So when our neighbor came over, beers had been cracked and conversation started he began telling us about the things he's bringing down, from a big TV to a fancy BBQ. As he looked around at our sparseness he issued an invitation to come over anytime and watch TV to which I said well TV isn't really important to us but yes occasionally I'd love to watch CNN and was going to finish the sentence with when Obama is giving a speech when he interrupted me midway with ah so you like the Communist News Network and so I of course my sentence was left dangling with J smirking in the background. Being unsurprised at this point I started to laugh, look at us, neighbor, you can't imagine we'd be anything else, and since it's safe to say our politics are at opposite sides of the fence we should probably agree to disagree up front and he laughed and nodded and I couldn't help adding but I generally prefer baking lasagna for socialists and there was a bit less laughing that time (I never quite know when to stop) and the conversation moved on.

Over the course of a reasonably pleasant non-political evening I was struck by the mirror our neighborly neo-con held up for me. Newly here, he was trying to make this place like the place he is used to, a place this will never be. He wants the bugs gone and the electronics in. He wants it to be orderly and he wants it to be cool. I had different wants but I had wants all the same, the skittish what the hell have I done sort of thoughts that leave you with nothing else to do but try and find what you left. I didn't realize it until after he left, this thing he's doing that I did and everyone probably does and how it's just something he'll have to reconcile or he won't be able to stay.

And I was happy in realizing that while I'm nowhere near assimilated I am coping much better, I have stopped freaking out about bugs and am growing used to the heat. I find marvel in the rickety bits and find absolute glory in the length of the sky. I am calmer here.

Because when you strip away all the distractions, the TV and the restaurants the commerce and the convenience the hustle and flow you are left with more time to think about who you want to be and how you might find ways to find stillness in the rush. It's all a part of why we came but I lost that for awhile because one can lose herself when she's feeling lost and now I'm finding I'm slightly more found and no matter what comes next this place is starting to change me in ways that I suppose I expected but like a new coat you have no idea how it will fit until it's actually on.

And on a totally unrelated note: No Baby Yet!

a day in a jungle life pt. 2

2009-07-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

For Jennifer, because she asked.

It used to be different when I was small. There were 12 of us kids and we worked, we worked from when we were little all day to night. We grew everything, mon. Everything! Beans and corn, I'd have to take the corn and grind it and grind it till my arms wanted to fall off and then I'd make tortillas from it and the boys would eat, they would eat so much! My dad he grew everything, he grew everything we ate and hunted for our meat. And we had no electricity, only kerosene, the whole village had no power. Only 20 years ago did we get power here.

But now, things have changed. I wake up at 5am every day (in the same house she's lived all her life) and I sweep and I clean and I take care of whatever dirt has happened in the night and then I cook breakfast. I feed everyone in my house (8 family members spanning 4 generations) and I make fryjacks or johnnycakes or tortillas with some fried egg. After breakfast I wash, I clean the dishes (they do not having running water in their kitchen so they wash dishes outside) and mop and clean the bathroom and then I put beans on, beans are in the pot all day long. I wash them three times to take out the stones and put them on the fire with some garlic and onion and sweet pepper and if we have enough money we have meat too and I feed everyone for lunch, this is our biggest meal. I make a nice rice and beans mon, you know that. Dinner is leftovers from lunch and if they don't want it they have to cook for themselves.

In between I iron and wash clothes, when I was a girl I washed in the river but not anymore. Then I go to work some days (housekeeping and cooking for lodges or expats in the area) and I go to sleep early. I go to sleep early because I am tired! When I was a child we would sit and read stories and listen to a radio that had a battery but now, now we have a TV.

We have no cable but the kids they come with movies and we watch movies some nights or we go and watch futbol. TV, I can't say if it's good or bad in some ways it is good, it opens the kids minds from what is only here but bad because it makes them want. It makes them want. But I think it's better now mon, I think life is better now.

This day in the jungle life as told to me by my friend N, a woman who lives down the road from me.

day in the life

2009-07-08T07:18:00.000-07:00

I'm over at BlogHer talking about a day in my jungle life. Please excuse the crappy job I've done of linking, formatting's gone a bit wonky here. Again.

http://www.blogher.com/day-jungle-life

the chicken is in the pot

2009-07-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

Four hours later we emerge from the hospital triumphant. The baby is perfectly fine and with everyone's help the birthing account has been created. They are ready for their delivery. My friends asked me to come with them along each step, the MD visit, the lab, the ultrasound and seeing that floating baby made my eyes float a bit too. Here, there and everywhere the beat of life goes on.

Our last stop was the cashier and I stood off to the side watching them hand over what is to them an enormous sum. I see the father's eyes glaze over a bit and he shakes his head. Babies, they are expensive I say and he nods. The chicken is in the pot, he replies and that makes me laugh. Indeed. We drive home and they are smiling now, the weight of so much has been lifted.

Much of the MD appointment was in Spanish and my limited skills only took me so far. I ask when she told them to come back and they said we come back on her due date, the 20th. I start to laugh and I tell them they very well might be coming back sooner, the baby will tell them when to go so dates don't matter so much anymore. The relief is palpable and as we drive up to their little house swarming as always with kids and chickens and dogs and family everyone there is smiling as they tell them about the day. Later on my friend and the baby's grandma comes over with some freshly baked johnnycakes and gives them to me. Thank you, she said. They were worried and now everything is going to be okay. I tell her I am thankful for them, for all they teach me every day and while I can't make a nice beans and rice or very good tortillas, I can't catch a parrot or scale a fish there are some things I can do and getting things organized is one of them. It takes a village she says without a hint of irony in her voice. And it does.

Speaking of villages, there are some of our own that have moved some serious mountains this week. Linking is problematic some days so I have to give a giant squeeze to Jenny and Sarah, Brie and Amy, these fabulous woman have arranged to donate all of the supplies for the upcoming village art class which starts in a two weeks. The postmaster shakes his head at the boxes and as he opens them he is curious about what it's for and I tell him. Friends from the US want to make sure kids here can learn art and he smiles and charges the lowest possible duty, a token at best of .50 per box. Because of you these kids will get to do things they have never done before and holy cow, that's pretty darn cool. Another chicken is in the pot.

I'm starting to come around to this place, the bugs and the heat and the rickety nature of most things aside I see it more deeply now and less romantically, we need so much less than we think and yet we still need some things and there is a balance of Western and Not Western that is might not be necessary but is valued a lot, like rice in a sifter, we can strain out the icky bits before cooking it on the stove and a pot of rice goes a long, long way.

special delivery

2009-07-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took our pregnant friends to the MD so they can decide where to have their baby in a few weeks. The options are slim, there is a government hospital here so decrepit and awful that I am literally afraid to even go inside. The other option is a private hospital, better than the public one but still far below any lowered expectations I may have. The problem with the private hospital is that it costs money to have the baby there, around $500 US which seems like a steal yet far too outrageous a cost for most of the folks who live here. As our baby gift to them we'd already offered to help with some of the costs with the agreement that the rest would come from them. Problem is, they were quoted an inaccurate and lower fee the first time they inquired so now they are looking at about $200 more than they were planning, a cost that exceeds their budget.

They've been going back and forth, their stress level rising. The other day they decided to scrap the idea all together and go back to the public hospital but rumors, unfounded or not about the level of care have got them scared. We went to the private hospital so they could get the information again and hopefully accurately because they have to decide now, the private hospital won't deliver the baby without a couple of prenatal visits first.

When I picked them up their usually happy faces were grim. I asked how they were doing and was met with silence until the father said Jen what would you do if you were us? and I responded carefully, it's not my place to give advice and yet it's hard to watch young scared kids about to become parents not having a plan for what to do. I would learn as much as I can about my options and then go from there and they nodded and off we went. We went to the private hospital, the same place I took J those months ago that scared me silly and talked with a nurse. We learned the true costs of the delivery (the 500 US with 80% of that needing to be put down as a deposit two weeks before) if there are no complications, an additional 1500 US if things were to go south and a C-section was needed.) She hasn't had some of the blood work she needs and they will want an ultrasound (this is the only hospital in the area with an ultrasound machine) so that will cost extra too. I see their eyes roll back in their heads, I know the standard delivery costs are probably manageable but if costs go up they would have no way to pay. The other option for a few hundred dollars less is to go to a private doctor and birth in his office without equipment and hope for the best.

I tell myself babies are born this way all over the world every single day but no matter the mantra I feel like I might throw up.

So we get back in the car and the mother is silent and on the verge of tears, the father is getting agitated, he needs a decision and still isn't sure what to do. I decide to be direct and ask them how much money they have and he tells me what is in his bank account, all the money they have in the world isn't quite enough to cover the standard private hospital fees so I ask them then if money wasn't the issue where would they choose and it was the private hospital hands down.

The mother looked at me and asked where I would have wanted to have M and I couldn't tell her the truth, that every fiber of my being is screaming NONE OF THESE PLACES NOT ONE BECAUSE THEY ALL SCARE ME THEY SCARE ME A LOT but there are no other options so I looked at her and smiled I think I'd choose the private hospital too so we talk about options and they decide to ask an uncle for the rest of the funds they need and he agrees to give them the money and now strapped but decided they can move forward.

So tomorrow we'll go back to the private hospital and open an account, she'll see a MD and get her tests done and hopefully the birth will be routine and all will be well. They've asked me to come along and I'm awkward, I am not family and I am unsure of my place and yet they have asked and so I will go, not sure if I will be sitting in the waiting room or invited to come along. On the way home I carefully inquired about how much she knew about what to expect, the village is full of mothers so I have to assume they've talked it through. Do you know how to recognize when you are in labor and how to time your contractions and she nods slightly and I have to assume it's true. If you ever want to talk the whole thing through I am happy to just let me know and she nods again and I leave it at that.

There is no such thing as epidurals here and so she's in for it once it starts, there are no breathing classes or those cozy little mommy-daddy circle groups talking everyone through the routine, just a woman and her body as women and their bodies do what they do all over the world every single minute of every single day but my own lily-white body still can't quite manage it, knowing the luxuries of the West and the ways we are unbelievably coddled with soothing music and doulas, water births and prenatal yoga. And with machines that measure the baby's heart rate and medicine to help with the pain. Again I am reminded I do not think I am tough enough for this.

There are few cars out in our village so we offered to be on call so we can drive them to the hospital when her labor starts and J and I have agreed that when the time comes I should be the one to take them and he'll stay home with M, generally these things happen in the middle of the night so I expect this will be the same, a long drive down dusty roads without a clear sense of what will happen when we arrive but the fervent prayer that nature will naturally take her course and while it has nothing to do with me it still comes down to this: my own uncertainty of the world and it's struggles and how things are unfair and why some are privy to so much more and how many things can go wrong and how money makes you cautious and how money can solve your problems and even now I sit here scared for all the things I never had to think about before coming here.

I am here

2009-07-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

One of the things I thought I knew but did not realize the weight of it was how disconnected I would feel from all of you. I realized nearly a month gone that I have been blogging for three years now and it's more than blogging, it's chronicling, it's sharing, it's give and take. It's Just Posts and new babies and BlogHer and travel and heartache and tears and joy and laughter and love.

You see, I consider you real friends of mine.

And here I am sweaty with jumbled Internet that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, that crashes for no reason and that takes terribly terrifically long to load.

I read your blogs in my reader but how can you know it if you can't hear me speak? If blogs are read in the jungle do they make a sound?

They do.

But how would you know that if I can't tell you. night I spent an hour and was able to comment on just four or five blogs and I gazed at my reader like I'm about to split Cain from Abel not knowing what to do. I miss you and I miss all of you in this way, this proving I am here this standing in your cheering section this raising the roof like the littlest Who in Whoville I Am Here I Am Here I Am Here I Am Here and for some reason it feels lonelier to read about your babies and your families and your struggles and your joys without telling you I was there and I send you love across the water and I wonder if you feel it or if you think I've just stopped coming round.

I still come round but I come round different. I am different somehow here and now, me and yet not me, me yet not knowing who I am. Seems like the time a girl needs her friends the most and she can't she can't she can't let them know unless she does something like this.

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes (when she comes) there are no six white horses but there's me and I see you and I hope you know I do.

getting by with a little help from my friends

2009-07-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

I have a new friend, one who has lived here all her life and has a son M's age. She's married to an expat, so in the many lines that are drawn and dotted here she straddles a number of fences, she's risen out of poverty but she hasn't forgotten it, she's familiar and comfortable with some things western and she's also deeply ingrained here. She's honest and she's unassuming and I like her very much.

We've agreed to get out of town once a week in pursuit of other scenic vistas, determined to show our kids more of the country and allow them to experience new things. Our first outing was today, we'd decided to go to an eco-park where the kids can play and swim. She offered to tack on a grocery shopping trip at the end of the day since we were close to the City and I happily agreed because dusty shelves filled with vienna sausages and pork and beans lost their appeal months ago.

So after a day of sun we headed into the City and parked the car. We walk across a busy street into an old garage, a dirty nondescript place where she promises we can get the best produce in the country so I follow her laughing inside because I'd never have even come close to this place on my own nor would I have ever had the slightest idea there was anything inside. So we walk into this dark and dirty place where a couple of guys are unboxing fruit. They nod at us and she heads back to a walk in freezer, a big one and she moves the log that was bracing the door aside. We walk inside and I realize suddenly it's my mecca, all the produce that never makes it to the villages is sitting on the shelves. Boxes of yellow peppers and baby carrots, heads of romaine and cherry tomatoes. Green onions. So I look at her and she's going through the boxes and taking out things she wants and making a neat little pile on the floor so I figure I will do the same and so I peek inside a box and then I see it, I see bundles and bundles of asparagus, something I've missed so much and have never once seen.

I grab a bunch and I must have squealed because she's looking at me now and she's laughing it's like the angels came down and shined a white light down on your face when you saw that asparagus and I started laughing too but not before I started singing hallelujah and gently caressing the lovely green stalks against my cheek. This makes her laugh even harder and I am pretty damn happy and even as I realize it's silly and these vegetables cannot possibly be local I still make a little pile for myself. Oh my god, I see blueberries.

I forget we are in a dirty nondescript little garage and when we emerge from the freezer I realize I have no idea what to do next but there's a guy there who weighs each thing and writes it on a scrap of paper with a total and we pay and as we pay we are still laughing one because I am such a giant dork and two because we are both happy with our bounty and our day and the knowledge that we'll bring these things home to our families and enjoy their wide eyed appreciation. This is followed by a trip to a real grocery store, one with real food on the shelves where I bought ricotta cheese simply because a lasagna has been a long time coming in this land of rice and beans.

My other happiness has more to do with realizing this is one more thing I've figured out, in a country with very few addresses or stoplights or signs but plenty of word of mouth I found a little treasure and amidst all the change and poverty and adjusting it's this, this way of digging deep and figuring out and being off autopilot that I appreciate the most. Well that, and a well stocked walk in freezer in the middle of nowhere.

first baby firsts

2009-06-29T06:28:00.000-07:00

Our village friends are having a baby in three weeks or so. Since we've been here I've spent time getting to know the young woman and her boyfriend is a good friend of J's. They live with his family in a small concrete house with many other family members and assorted animals. The woman is very shy, she speaks spanish much better than english but her english is also pretty good. Occasionally she has babysat M and she taught me how to make the best tortillas in the world and I've brought her baby clothes and special chocolates from the States. She's never gone to school beyond age 13 but she's smart as a whip and can cook me under the table any day of the week.

She's quiet and beautiful, she's scared and she's brave, she's resigned and she's looking forward. There are no baby classes here, nothing about breathing or labor or what to expect when you are expecting. There is just day in and day out, one step at a time, doing the best you can. So we've spent some time talking about how babies change everything and how mamas need to find ways to care for themselves because soon it will be all about the baby and to be honest when you live here like she does it's never been about her anyways, every day is already a struggle and a baby will just mean more.

As we were talking one day J overheard us and spontaneously said you should get a massage before the baby is born and she looked at him and at me I've never had a massage before so I asked her if she'd like to try it, a way to reduce some of the aches and pains the last month of baby brings and she nodded her head.

So I called a friend of mine here, a wise old beautiful crone masseuse and we agreed on the day and time and I picked my friend up and drove her 20 minutes over bouncing dirt roads to our destination. As we drove I asked her if she knew what happened during a massage and she shook her head no so I asked her if she wanted me to explain and she nodded her head. So I told her everything I could think of, from deciding if she'd want to take her clothes off to how wonderful my friend is to how massage is safe and all about her. She's quiet so we drive on and I tell her if she doesn't like it all she has to do is ask for the therapist to stop. Her eyes got wide at the naked part and otherwise she just smiled and once we got there my friend immediately embraced her and shooed me out of the way. About an hour later I hear giggling and I see them walking arm in arm down the path to the lovely veranda where I am sitting and I look at her and I swear it's the face of an angel, all sleepy and beautiful and glowy and I smile and ask her how it was and she says Oh Jen I loved it I loved it so much and she hugged me and I hugged her and we talked for awhile and then drove home.

On our way back we stopped at another friend's house, he has a absolutely amazing home with a pool. Pools are the lap of luxury here, every time I see one I literally start to salivate so when he says feel free to jump in I do. I look at my friend and she's watching and I reach out my hand, come in and float, you won't believe how nice it makes your belly feel having it in water so she does and she lays her head against the edge and smiles big. We chat a bit and we get ready to go and on our way home she looks at me I've never been in a pool before and I reach over and grab her hand it was a day of firsts for you then and she leans her head back and smiles and doesn't move till we reach her house.

As I drive home I wonder what having these sorts of things introduced in your life really means, whether never knowing means less wanting or knowing means you are a bit wider because you've filled yourself with new things and I hope it's the latter and am conscious of not wanting to be the former, the person with big ideas that don't put food on the table or a roof over your head and to be honest I still don't know because most of the world gets along fine without all the extras every day all the time no matter what and we folks with our fancy ways show up and tilt the scales.

jackpot

2009-06-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

He showed up three nights ago in the cover of darkness. I had already fallen asleep but J was awake and when I awoke in the AM I saw the remnants of the night before. Dog food on the porch, a small water bowl. Cowering against the house is a frail, pathetic looking puppy. He is terribly thin and he isn't moving very much.

When everyone is awake we start to discuss the situation. We already have a dog, this dog looks like it's going to die, there are needy stray dogs everywhere here, we can't help them all. We make a futile call to the local SPCA but it's only a cell number and of course, no one calls back. The dog stays in his place on the porch and we feed it and watch it drink. We go back and forth. I think the dog is sick, J and M don't disagree but they like this dog, this wee little scrawny thing. He chose us they say so will a hundred dogs to come I say. Every day I see dozens of stray dogs, it is endless and terribly sad. Besides, we already have a dog and what if we can't make it down here and we have to move.

After the second day my resolve is weakening. He's awfully earnest and cute this dog and he seems to be recovering a bit, he's walking around now. We won't let M touch him because we still don't know what's actually wrong with him. I give up. Fine then. If this dog is sticking around we are taking him to the vet so we wrap him in a towel and head off into town, the vet is only in his office in the evenings and we show up right as he's getting ready to leave. He unlocks the door and lets us inside and we put the dog on a makeshift table in a very shabby room, something that would be used for storage in the States. The vet looks him over and tells us he thinks the dog is not only malnourished but has an infection and needs antibiotics. I look at J sending silent why are we doing this vibes and J doesn't look back. The vet then offers to put him down with a little shrug of his shoulders. It's humane he says and I look at J again and I see it on his face. He wants to save this dog.

So the vet grabs a post-it (a post-it!) and writes an antibiotic on it and signs his name and tells us to take it to a human pharmacy. I look at the little slip and it makes me laugh because I am holding a post-it. There are no blood tests and the vet says come back in a week, I have a feeling this one might make it. So we go to a human pharmacy and I hand the woman the post-it and she doesn't blink an eye but she does tell me the antibiotics don't come in this small of a dose but she has capsules at twice that and I ask if she can just give me those instead and she shrugs and nods her head. Just like cutting cocaine she says just take half the powder. As I leave I laugh, I am reminded again why I like it here, the ways it's all hinged together in a way that would be entirely unacceptable in the States and there is goodness and badness in that.

On our way home we start discussing names, something I'd refused to do before now. I have surrendered to this moment in time and the meekest have inherited my earth. So we drive in the dark under a lightening storm with M in the back screaming out names. We go through the obvious Blackie! Whitey! (that one I can't help but laugh at) BlackieWhitey! (Clearly dear readers, the puppy in question is black and white) Sheldon! Fern! When the name hits me and I say it out loud. We should call him Jackpot and M cries Crackpot! Crackpot! Because lately she's trying to rhyme everything and we laugh and J says he likes it too and M tosses out one more Blackie Blackie Oatmeal Patina! Which to be honest is a close second but by the time we get home it's decided. We'll call him Jackpot.

We get home and I take the capsule and break it open and pour half of the powder onto a piece of cheese and smile thinking I need a mirror for this shit if I am going to do it right and then he eats it immediately and the next day I notice he's up and around a bit more, food and water and medicine and the puppy is starting to act like a puppy. He barked for the first time, carefully protecting his new turf and I wonder if he knows how he got here and how he stayed and how he's in it with us now, this little puppy who hit the jackpot.

this land is your land

2009-06-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

Come out with us to the land J says, you never come out and I think you'd like it. It's hot and dirty and it'll be good for you. He's right, I spend most of my time doing other things equally important but still. He's right. So M and I head over in the afternoon and join J and the two guys who help out and we are promptly put to work.

J hands me a bucket, the size paint comes in and points to an enormous pile of rocks ranging from the size of a small dog to the average kind that fits in your hand. Those rocks need to be moved over there and he points across at least half an acre. You can use the bucket.

I look at him thinking he is joking but he's not. I grab the bucket and walk over to the rock pile and start to fill it. It's only half way full and I can barely lift it so I stop and carry it the long distance to the other side. On my way I am cursing, in hellish moments I always silently pretend I am arguing my case in front of a jury but you see my friends I used to run a multi-million dollar non profit and it's clear that hauling these rocks must be some mistake. Anyone who knows me would clearly agree. As I walk back I say can I do it a different way or am I actually being punished and I hear the other guys start to laugh. Of course not babe, do it however you want so I look around and realize there is nothing else to move these fucking rocks but oh wait oh holy mother wait I can use our car.

So I grab the keys and back the car up to the rock pile and open the back and start loading them in and I hear the guys laugh again that bucket was bullshit I say and I load and load and load and then drive across the acre and unload and unload and you get my point and I do it for two hours without taking a break because after awhile I find the zen of it, the simple pleasure in moving my body and working our land and I realize that this is why J has been pushing me to come. I even find a piece of Mayan pottery something not uncommon here, everyone says if you dig awhile and you'll find some shards but it's the first I've found and I hold it in my hands knowing this has been here for a thousand years and more and I can just barely make out the paint along the edge.

The third hour rolls around and nearly all of the rocks have now been moved and I am starting to limp because I am a wuss and I am not used to working this hard so I tell the guys I'm done and they smile because they started 6 hours before me and they work just as hard if not harder every single day but I don't care. So I grab my kid and my dog and we go jump in the river, we watch an iguana and we see some fish.

So now I'm tired and sore, the good kind that says you did something honest and J asks me if I'll come back again because he has another job all picked out and I can't help but ask him if it involves a toothbrush and tile and he laughs and we laugh but I don't laugh too hard because if the rocks was the ice breaker I am seriously wondering what he'll think up next.

dead horses and waffles

2009-06-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

Today marks five months to the day that we moved to this rural little village. Our stay was broken up of course by the bizarre medical situation that brought us back temporarily so in truth we've been living here for four months all told but it feels like I should mark the date anyways because it's something to me.

Every day I feel more like I live here and am also reminded that this is not my home. There are so many things that make sense, that feel right, that I am figuring out and many others that make me realize I still and will for a long while not understand how things here are done.

The other day I was driving M to school and we pass a dead horse on the side of the road. Horses run wild here and as anywhere cars and nature don't mix. As I passed it I wondered what happens next, who gets called (is there anyone to call?) and what gets done. As I am driving back from town a bit later I see the same horse but this time there are several tires piled up on it's body and curiouser still, I wonder again. The question is answered a few hours later as I drive past once again and now the horse and the tires are on fire, a great big side of the road fire that makes me want to close my eyes but I cannot. Within a day or so there is nothing to ever mark the horse or the tires or the fire at all. Ashes to ashes, jungle style.

I don't know what to think about this, just like I don't know what to think about so many things from weird bugs to kids without pencils to battered cars puttering their way over dirt roads with six or more kids inside. It's just so goddamn rural and poor here, the poorest homeless guy I used to know on the streets in the States has more than most do here. And yet somehow it works. Somehow it doesn't matter that no one has anything, that in an increasingly globalized and techno-savvy world that years and generations pass along exactly like this and people fall in love and farm their land and make babies and get sick and go to school and on and on and on.

Yesterday morning started bad, M completely unhappy with any of our admittedly meager breakfast options (our fridge is so small it can only hold so much) so she's whining and I'm losing patience and my tone is probably bullshit when all of a sudden I hear a voice, our friend, the one I talked about in my last post is at the door. I brought you waffles she says, and she walks in with two enormous waffles still warm from her stove. I made extra and I thought you might like some and I hug her and tell her exactly how much we do and M sits happily at eats the biggest one down to the last bite. For a moment I worry she heard us arguing but I know she lives too far away for that and I realize it's just her being kind and things once again finding their way of working themselves out, the underlying current that races through so many moments here, the pulse of a community just doing what it does.

the universal backbone

2009-06-16T06:38:00.001-07:00

It's something I've always recognized and usually brought to the forefront during my years working with homeless families. Women are the backbone of society. I mean, we all know this on some level, if nothing else than to prove our own personal worthiness but it's worth stating.

We are the backbone of society.

I remember time and time again meeting women with children, women who were going hungry to feed their kids, women working three jobs to keep a roof, women huddled in cars doing their best to stay warm and keep their kids safe. But here, here in a place where comforts are less and work is harder and things don't magically appear from shelf to microwave to table, here it's a whole other sort of backbone. Backbone times two. Everyday life here is consists of a lower poverty level than any client I'd ever met in the States.

Many households here are headed by single mothers. The family structure is different, here folks will live with all sorts of extended family members in the home, be it grandma or nephew or sister but two parent households are not the norm. It's one of the great issues here, children growing up not knowing their fathers and women having to scramble even harder to make it all work. And work is tricky too, most of the work for women here consists of housekeeping or cooking for tourism which often means they travel far and are gone for days at a time. My good friend, a woman who has lived here her whole life has been doing this for a long time, she travels part of the week for work and leaves her children in the care of relatives and whenever she comes back she says the same thing while she shakes her head there's nothing like having a mother in the home and it's true; when her kids are on their own things get slippery, when she's home there is always a pot on the stove and the place comes alive.

But it's a wicked catch-22. Stay at home and cook and clean and parent or go out and find a way to earn money so you can cook and clean and parent. One difference here is the village picks up the slack, folks keep an eye on other peoples kids and collectively keep them in line but it's still not the same because there is nothing like having a mother in the home. In the States we pay for the opportunity to work, we juggle childcare and perhaps housecleaning and two parent households divide up responsibilities but here it's looser, there is no safety net and we look to our neighbors to see us through.

Education is one of the solutions, but here is school is expensive and folks can't afford to send all of their kids. Often once the kids finish primary school they are unable to go on to high school, that costs even more so less than half of the kids in this country are in school past the age of 13. The ones that are lucky enough to go work their tails off to get good grades and graduate and are then facing another conundrum, there simply isn't enough work to go around and my gringa novice observations tell me that even then the best jobs goes to the boys.

My village friend has had a dream for a long time, a dream that will allow her to be home and to make money. She has long wanted to open her own little restaurant out of her house, a place that offers good local food that she can cook out of her home. She's a terrific cook, she's shown me how to make all sorts of local dishes from fry jacks to salbutes, beans and rice. She longs for this and even though it's not a lot of money it's more than she can save while being responsible for a household of kids. I fantasize about this along with her and have even looked into micro lending, something that is hard to come by here unlike other places in the world but so far it's coming up zeros and it will continue, this wicked circle game full of women holding up the shoulders of the world until their knees give out from the weight of it all.

guess what's coming to dinner

2009-06-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

I've complained a lot about the rudimentary cooking facilities I have at my disposal but what I haven't told you is how we are eating. I've complained about shitty markets but I haven't shared much about what I am actually able to buy.

Things fall into two camps here: it's either locally produced, organic and fresh or it's shipped from a million miles away and it's total crap. (think vienna sausages, macaroni and cheese, velveeta, tang and cheetos). Yes. Really. I was all set to carry on about US imperialism until I realized that someone on this end is actually ordering all this bullshit and asking for it to be sent down here so I'll hold my tongue.

One thing that irks me beyond belief is the lack of healthy snacks for M, I've stopped snacking entirely and am better for it but kids or at least my kid, she likes to eat. A lot. And snacks here are for shit unless it's fruit and a kid will only eat so much of that. Everything and I mean everything has high fructose corn syrup in it. But on occasion and sometimes to please M we buy some of the distant crap, a hard day means we might just make a box of macaroni. But on a good day and there are happily more of those than bad I cook.

The other day we made flour tortillas by hand, I cooked and refried some dried beans I bought at a local supplier, cooked up chicken bought from the farm in town and bought produce (tomatoes, onion, cilantro, peppers) from the local market where the farmers come and sell their produce daily. Even our cheese (if you aren't hungry for velveeta) comes from less than 10 miles away.

So when we sat down to eat it suddenly hit me: every single thing on the table was locally grown, farmed or manufactured. While that means we have a lot less choices we are also finally living up to one of the ideals we'd set. We are sustaining ourselves food-wise within our living area about 80% of the time. And that's even without our own garden, something we've yet to establish because the season is wrong.

So I forgave the oven and I sat back and I smiled, M pointed to each food and asked where I got it and how far away it was and we realized we were within a 10 mile radius all the way. It's the first time in all this time I'd really thought it through and now it's a challenge every day, to see how close to 100% I can get.

Don't misunderstand, we aren't always batting a thousand here, like I said boxed mac and cheese finds it's way here sometimes but now at least it's matched with bread I've baked or gotten from the local bakery, paired with sweet tropical fruits we've either found or purchased. Simply put, it's just the way it's done here and for many folks they live their entire lives like this, living and eating and working in a small circle, eating fruit off their own trees and eggs from their chickens and their imprint on the earth is tiny and it reminds me once again how often the poor carry the rich on their backs in ways known and unknown all around the world every single day.

So when I can forget about the lack of work and the scorpion waving it's tail in my kitchen yesterday I start to think maybe, just maybe we're not entirely full of shit after all. This move has been hard in many ways, eye opening in others, stilling and refreshing and scary and adventurous and hot and wow, yes wow, kinder to the earth after all.

gather yourselves

2009-06-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was a full moon and as such I found myself at the monthly full moon ritual, this time held in a coconut grove. I've learned that the rituals vary depending on which Shamanic influence is leading the ceremony. This month was led by a woman who drew on Native American practices to serve as her guide. One of the readings was from Hopi Elders and it struck me in such a deep way, standing hands clasped under the moon and as I stood there I thought of all of you so I wanted to share it with you here.

These words resonated so loudly with me because of my personal journey, one where sometimes I am afraid and for our global existence, the deep sense that many including myself have that things are going to continue to change in ways we can't quite yet comprehend but we better get ready for. And we better be ready to jump in together because it might well take all of us to see us through.

We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For

We have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered:

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in the right relation?

Know your garden. It is time to speak your truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time.

There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold onto the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination. The Elders say we must let go of the shore and push off and into the river.

Keep your eyes open and your head above water. See who is in there with you and Celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over, Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.

All that you do now must be done in a sacred manner and in Celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

- The Elders, Hopi Nation, Oraibi, Arizona

coming

2009-06-09T05:19:00.000-07:00

Five days in Mexico, living in a surreal sort of world with clean sheets and hot water, absolutely no bugs and nothing but swimming in the ocean and drinking cold beers. And then it's over. I don't think I would have noticed a year ago or even six months ago how luxurious it was but now, given how I am living now, I felt like every moment was a dream, where the buildings and roads and even the markets there far surpassed the place we now call home.

And on top of it I still had to figure out how I was getting back. I stopped at the concierge on the day before I was supposed to leave and asked for help arranging bus travel. He looks at me with a contained mirth we don't arrange bus travel from here he says as if buses were leprosy incarnate. Of course you don't, I say but perhaps you could call them anyways. And so he does and I learn I either leave at midnight all night or I take my chances in the morning with no real option for getting the rest of the way home. So I contact my new stranger friend, the one who'd gotten me on the bus on the way here. I'll pick you up he says, a journey that would take him five hours both ways. We settle on a price that is unbelievably affordable and he says he'll meet me at the bus station in Southern Mexico. I just have to get myself there and so I do. I arrive late and am worried he'll have decided I wasn't coming but there he is, a ragtag sort of guy with a quick smile. You are late he says with a smile and grabs my bag. I am so thankful you came and waited I respond and he says the truth I know but remember I gave you my word.

So we jump in his car and he tells me then that he has never done this leg of the trip before and I laugh because he made it sound so easy when I asked him for a ride. I settle in realizing I am five hours in a car with a stranger who has just done me a really big favor. There was just no way I wanted M to make this sort of trip and J couldn't come without her. I was nervous and now I can breathe.

And what unfolded next was almost better than the week itself, almost hard to put into proper words. This guy and I, we talked. We talked in depth and length about history and culture and race and consciousness and religion and God and family and poetry and work and struggle and I felt I was sitting alongside some sort of jungle shaman professor who liked to drink too much on the weekends. It is no understatement to admit that I have not talked as long and hard with a stranger like this in my life. And we laughed, at one point so hard I couldn't speak.

He's a family man and an entrepreneur, his mind is as complex as I've met and he's hungry for more. If I brought up something he didn't know about he asked a million questions, turning it over in his mind. He's lived in a little town near our village his entire life, his family is all rooted here and this is the only place he's ever been but he's wiser than me by miles. Towards the end of our journey he looks at me. I'm worried about you Jen, I am worried you aren't going to make it in our country because you will give up and if you give up our country will lose. I tell him his country isn't easy, that it isn't easy but I knew that coming in. He slams on the brakes now fuck woman, we spent hours talking and we've connected on all these levels and then you go and call it MY country? This is OUR country dammit, you are here too and this place can now belong to you. I thought we were getting somewhere in all this time and I started to laugh, I said that out of respect but he doesn't care. On this he's unmoveable.

We finally arrive home and I unfold myself from a car that signals the end of a 13 hour trip. J and M come out and J shakes my new friend's hand and thanks him for his kindness and for getting me home safe. He leaves with promises to get our families together one night so everyone can get to know each other and he drives off. J looks at me and says so was that okay, that trip? I saw that guy when I dropped you off and thought he was the janitor not the owner of the transport and I laughed not only was it okay but it was one of the best conversations of my entire life and I told him all about it and as I was falling asleep that night I thought again of appearances, of how things look on the surface and how easy it is to make assumptions and how when we do that we miss out on all the good stuff and how today was a day that I'll probably remember forever, a poet jungle warrior showed me his truth and I showed him mine and it was honest and real and a hell of a good time. Because while we we have absolutely nothing in common and nothing we've experienced in our lives so far would lend to a common understanding we were very nearly exactly the same.

going

2009-06-07T06:31:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to leave at 8am last Monday. But buses just started making the trek again from here to Mexico so things were confusing but the guy who owned the transport assured me they'd show. As it approached 10am I started to get grumpy so I say it right, dude, I need to get my ass to Mexico. I knew I had a good twelve hours to go and I don't really want to arrive in the middle of the night. Fuck it, he says, I'm taking you myself.

We'd been talking for a few hours now and I already liked him, strangers sometimes have a way of making sense right off. So I happily jumped in his car prepared for the first 5 hour leg of my trip, the one that would take me out of one border and into another with a no mans land in between. As he's getting gas in his car he gets a call. He looks at me and smiles the bus just drove past us so we jump back in the car and catch up to the bus which pulls over and lets me on in the middle of the road. He's yelling, my new friend have a good trip call me if you need a ride back.

The bus is full of backpackers, Israelis and Brits and an American or two. I settle in and pull out my book. I'm in this thing now and so far I've only got a ride across the border, the rest will still need some figuring out. I read for awhile and fall asleep. At the border the driver tells us to get out and go through immigration and he'll meet us on the other side. We do and after the free zone we have to do it again but this time it's Mexico. Bienvenidos.

The countries are so different right away, here is all Dos Equis and street tacos and everything is in spanish. I go through customs and they search my bags and I always, always think of Midnight Express in these moments, like somehow someone stuck a kilo in my bag but of course no one ever has and they wave me through, machine guns at their sides.

I sit on the curb and it's hot and I am at a border and no one knows I'm here. I'm on the road even if it's just for a day and it makes me want to keep going, that backpacking sort of travel where things happen and everything unfolds. I look up at the sun and realize I need to make sure the bus doesn't leave without me.

This transport ends at a bus station and I have no idea when I can catch another bus to go up north. I learn quickly the next bus doesn't leave for two hours (fabulous) and it's a six hour trip (super fabulous) but it's less than $20 for the whole ride. So I buy my ticket and wait some more. I'm a dork at bus stations, I am always sure they are going to leave without me and I can't understand a thing folks are saying so I am anxious. I eat a bad looking taco because I am not sure when I'm eating again. My cell phone doesn't work and I forgot to exchange enough pesos and I ran out of US dollars a long time ago. I shake my head. I wait.

I finally board the bus and it's a nice one this time, air con and decent seats. I don't realize the seats are assigned so I of course sit incorrectly and am promptly booted but at least he took pity on me and pointed me in the right direction. I read and fall asleep and look out the window and somehow six hours make their way gone.

I get off the bus at my destination and get in the first taxi I see. I only have a name of a hotel and we settle on a price first because I'm still peso poor. We drive in silence, I roll down the window and lean my head back and breathe deep, I love the smell of travel, it's intrigue and exhaustion and solitary and a bit on the edge. I'm both sad and happy today is almost over.

We pull up at the hotel, my friend she has money and insists on staying in nice places and even offers to pay so what the hell, I can suck it up. My dusty flip flops hit the marble floor and a porter dressed in a suit actually wants to carry my piece of crap backpack and I feel embarassed, both for being here and for being me. They stop me and ask if I am a guest here and I am not surprised in the least. I promise I clean up well I say and they smile the smile that richer people than me are much more used to. Me, I much prefer the dusty road and straight talk, street tacos and a cold cheap beer. All of a sudden I see my friends and they scream a happy scream. I'm finally where I've been trying to be.

if you build it they will come

2009-06-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

I took M to visit my artist friend, the one who teaches in a neighboring village. She is a prominent artist in the West. But here, her art classes are taught in a building that looks like this. It's adjacent to the village school which might actually look worse than this.
I didn't realize M would get to participate but she did. She jumped right in with the other kids and learned to make a shadow puppet. The kids here work on the floor or on simple benches inside this dirty, hot building but they don't complain because this is the only art class to be found.

After the puppets were finished the kids put on a show. M is waiting her turn while watching some of the bigger kids perform. Their stories are a bit jumbled but there is much laughter and some shyness, they aren't used to performing like this. The benches can double as work tables, an extremely creative use of simple pieces of wood. M is very proud of her puppet and was even allowed to bring it home with her. Her puppet, by the way, is an apple. She performed with the teacher who used a horse puppet. Of course, the horse ate the apple. Smart horse.
After the class I cajoled my artist friend again and asked her to bring her talent to the kids in our village and she agreed to come for a month over summer but said we have to provide the art supplies because she's already out of pocket with her current work. But it means that the kids in our village will get a chance to exercise their own potential, so that kids like G can come and learn. I remind her again about G, about how much he could benefit from her lessons and she tells me to show her a child who could not benefit from art and I had to agree.

The below picture is of G and M, practicing their art at my dining room table. He still comes round almost every day.
When I told him about the art class his grin was wide and sweet. I come too? He asked. Well of course, G. This class is for you.

I'm away this week, headed by bus to Mexico where I'm meeting my two best sister friends from the States. I'm leaving the jungle behind for a week and while I'm a bit nervous leaving M I am thrilled beyond measure at the thought of cold beers and the ocean, sisterhood and clean sheets. But between now and then I'm 12 hours on a rickety bus, getting there may be much less than half the fun but well worth it for what's on the other side.

And in case you really miss me this week, I've also written my latest BlogHer installment. Go take a peek and let me know what you think.

zoo 101

2009-05-30T15:53:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week we went to the zoo. The cool thing about this zoo is a) it's the only zoo in the country and b) all the animals are native to here. The zoo actually started more as a sanctuary than a zoo and is still run by the same woman. I recently finished reading a book about her and the zoo and other issues in this country and I found it fascinating and heartbreaking all at once. Even if you don't live here it's a really good read. And it gives some insight into post-colonialism, something we in the West have never really had to ponder from the other side.

So we hung out at the zoo and saw howlers and jaguars and ocelots and toucans and harpy eagles and peccaries and tapirs and so many other wild things that all live and breathe in this one small place. It was also a million degrees outside that day so there was much complaining and unlike the States no refreshment stands around every corner. Some things you take for granted. But then I see a toucan and I kind of forget about missing things like that.

snappish

2009-05-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

I have internet in our jungle house now. It took all this time and acts of equal parts contrition and might but here I am, catching up with you. It's slow here, not quite dial up but not quite right, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And after all this time I've decided I don't need it as much as I once thought I did.

My friends down the road run a guest lodge and I am there sometimes either visiting or watching our collective kids run wild. They also have easy access to the river and when it's as hot as it's been lately I take M up there to go for a cool off swim. In case you are curious we also have cool off showers and cool off under the net experiences as well. We actually call these things that. So our big dumb puppy follows us the other day which means all three of us are in the river cooling off when some of the tourist folk staying at the lodge wander down for a swim. So we do our swimming thing and they laugh about our silly dog and my silly kid and we don't really talk much and life goes on as normal.

So the next day I am at the market in town buying a few things for dinner when I hear someone calling my name. I look around and it's those tourists from the day before in the back of a taxi, they are calling my name and one of them takes out her camera and actually takes pictures of me while I am hauling my sweaty ass into our car with a few grocery bags like we are all buddies hanging out on an adventure. I mean, I guess in the philosophical sense we ARE all just buddies hanging out on an adventure. But I digress.

I know this is a touristed area, folks come here to experience the jungle, hell it's how we found this place ourselves. But now that I live here and am not on vacation it feels different. This is my real life here and my real life entails buying groceries at a shitty market down the road before driving home and cooking dinner on a shitty stove. I mean, there are good things too about being here but I'm just summing some of the less than good ones up for you here, and for some reason it struck me as odd that people I do not know would want to take pictures of something so mundane and for some reason I was now unwittingly part of their vacation experience, with them meeting weird local folk with weird local dogs and kids doing weird local type things. With pictures.

Or maybe I'm just being too sensitive.

PS. If YOU came here to visit me you can take all the pictures you want. That's different. See how that's different?

PPS. Maybe I'm the one with the problem.

PPPS. I need to shut up already don't I?

PPPPS. We were sound asleep when the earthquake hit. It went on for quite a while in a house and a village and a country not built for such things. Aside from a few broken things we are fine and so are our neighbors. We'll learn more as the day goes on. Scared me, though. This was by far the hardest one I've ever felt and I'm from California.

girls in the world

2009-05-26T05:06:00.000-07:00

I hear them chattering, M and her friend. Her friend is talking about M and telling her how pretty she is. I always wanted white skin like yours she says. M, in a moment that I'll remember forever says but I like your skin, it's so pretty and brown. I wish I had browner skin like you. It's not the first time this has come up with M, being here she's generally one of the lightest skinned kids around and she's asked me more than once when will her skin be darker. And in this moment I was so grateful for that, she made her friend feel good instead of bad, a spontaneous peacekeeping mission but one that also splinters my heart because it reminds me of what is just around the curve.

So in that moment both girls seemed happy, it's the easy open chatter of 4 and year olds but it's not lost on me that just around the corner comes the more difficult stuff, the times when these games of compare and contrast will linger, that wounds will be caused, that defining others by what is different will be hard to resist and will matter so much.

We as mothers no matter where we raise our kids or what our faith we is face these issues, these issues of raising our little girls into young women in a world full of differences while trying desperately to show them how to celebrate them instead of losing a piece of themselves in the exchange. And we face our own demons in the balance, our own multiple dissatisfactions whether quiet or loud do not go unnoticed, our girls see us worry about our weight and our hair how we look and a multitude of other things that more often than not were simply how we came out but never able to accept.

And I feel this is the beginning of our journey, of my chance to do whatever I can to normalize M's experiences of this in her world and to be there with her when she struggles but I am also unsure, afraid that my own earlier woundings will get in our way as they have for generations before. And it also strikes me that no matter where you go in the world we women share this and that both saddens me and binds us, me to you and us to them and we together have to work to strengthen our collective lineage and do what we can to make sure our girls know their radiance, their unique badassedness, every single day of the rest of their lives.

school daze

2009-05-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

I met a woman who teaches art classes in another village. We've become friends so I asked if I could come and see her and see what she does. The village is about 30 minutes from here down dusty bumpy roads winding along jungle river. She is an artist in every sense, from her clothes to her walls to her manner of being, this woman. I like her. So she takes me to the school where she teaches, she shows me her ramshackle classroom and she's somewhat embarassed, not of herself or her work but of what is painfully obvious, these kids have nowhere close to what they need.

She volunteers her time here, she's involved in the village and is commited to the children. Her art space is at the local school and as we walk the kids swarm her. Art today they ask no children, not today and we keep walking. She shows me pictures, she has shown the kids all kinds of art from puppet making to cassava root to macrame. I try and teach them things they can turn into an income one day if they choose. It's obvious how much she's done with so little, her passion and sense of community are nearly falling off the walls.

As we are wandering around the school I see the bathrooms, outhouses really and I poke my head inside. I hear the little girls who've been trailing me start to laugh so I look at them that's the boys they say and giggle. Whoops I say but there are no signs so I don't feel so bad, apparently you have to be in the know to know the drill. No matter who uses them they are terrible, they are so dirty and I want to cry and I can't imagine M every using these one day even though this isn't the school she'll go to I wonder what those look like and make a mental note that I've got to check them out before next year.

I say as much to my friend who already knows the score. I tell her I can't imagine how people in charge could not care about this, not the teachers themselves but the higher-ups, the ones who set standards and make the rules and allocate funds and she laughs. They probably send all their kids to private schools and I am sad because I am sure this is true. I tell her I wanted to talk to her about bringing some art classes to our village but now that I've seen these bathrooms it seems silly in comparison to even ponder but at the same time it's why she does it at all, to show these kids the world is bigger than these bathrooms and that they can do anything they set their minds to in this life.

everyday picasso

2009-05-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

Every afternoon any number of village kids come round to play. I can't tell if they are coming to play with M or because we are fairly new and have toys they've not yet played with, I hope it's the former but I think it's also the latter. One of the kids who comes over is a boy I'll call G. He's adorable, he's 8 years old and has lived in this little village his whole life. As is common here his mother has to travel long distances for work so he's often being watched by cousins or other family and has a lot of time on his hands.

I've decided there are two reasons he comes over, one is to use our bathroom and the other is to color with M's colored pencils. He will sit for hours and color in silence, using coloring books we have on hand and every so often he'll bring the picture he's working on over to me for my review. We even brought him one from the States and he finished the entire book in a few days.

I was watching him last night and he looked up and saw me, a shy smile on his face. I decide I have nothing to lose. You know, G, you are an artist. Does anyone ever say that to you? And he shakes his head no. Well then, you should know I see that you are. And he smiles and shows me his picture and he is so serious, his lines and shading are just so. I ask him if he ever draws without lines and he nods his head. I get him some paper. Let me see what you can do and off he goes, studiously bent over the sheet of paper. He comes back awhile later and I see he's drawn a sun. I knew it, I said. I knew you were an artist. He smiles and I ask him if he gets to draw in school or if there are any art classes and he shakes his head no. I ask him if he has colors at home and again he shakes his head. You come here to draw, don't you and he looks down at his feet. It's okay if you do, G. Everybody needs a place to work on their art and you can come here whenever you want. Thanks, he says. I will go now but maybe I come back tomorrow. If it's okay with your family it's okay with me I say. As he's leaving M screeches goodbye and asks what we were talking about. I tell her knowing G can hear me G's an artist. He is an artist and artists have to create. There are no two ways about it. I see him puff up a bit before he looks down again. I like this kid G.

I don't know this kid's potential but I know he's not getting to exercise it. His family struggles daily to meet basic needs and the village school has no extras, I see how it is and I see why and at the same time I sit and wonder if I gave him a box of art supplies and found a way to bring art classes to the village I wonder what might come from it, I wonder how many Gs live here and are simply never allowed to flourish the way they need to, to allow the color to come from their fingers and onto the page. And I wonder what can be done about it.

mother superior jumped the gun

2009-05-19T15:01:00.000-07:00

Everything is harder here. This is less of a complaint than a statement of fact. Going shopping requires multiple endeavors, putting the 5 gallon water containers in the car and going to one place to get them filled and another to return the glass bottles or sometimes the same place it just depends on who has what in stock at the time. One store might have chicken and it might not or it might only have the kind that comes with feet and we aren't quite at that stage in our journey just yet. Chicken feet will have to give us a pass for awhile. Bananas are everywhere but sometimes they are overripe and I can't figure out how things work seasonally yet, zucchini for example has left the freaking building without so much as a goodbye and it's been replaced with these freakishly hard squash type things that scare me a little. So today I dropped M off at school and failed at finding wheat bread so I came home and sat on my porch and looked at the plastic laundry bucket and the cloudy sky. Odds are it will rain as soon as it's on the line. I see a toucan.

Some days you just have to give in.

So I get my book and turn the fan and open a cold coke and sit on my ass and read. I read when J comes home full of dirt and dust and I read when he comes through again. I do however, offer to make lunch for him and the guy he works with every day. I do get off my ass for that. Grilled cheese and sweeping, these are the things I've mastered lately, but today it's on white. And I sweep like nobody's business. I could perhaps earn a MS in Sweepage if such a thing was possible.

After lunch I do something I never do. I take a nap. I climb under the mosquito netting and sleep hot and sweaty dreams and wake up just in time to race back to pick up M. On my way out I see J, who leans over and gives me a kiss. You'll be working soon, he says. It's okay to take a day off. I can tell he's a bit worried about me, he's so used to seeing me going 100 miles an hour he isn't sure what to make of this or better said, what I happen to be making of this and to be honest I'm not sure either. I'm not bored and I'm not afraid. I'm not stressed out and I'm not unhappy but I'm something and I don't know how to define it except for this all still takes some getting used to.

Oh right. The title of this post? Beatles White Album. But you knew that already.

easy off

2009-05-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

I have this friend in the States, I've known her a long time. She's wealthy by any standard and whenever I'm with her I have this sense of it, from her really nice cars to terrific clothes to fancy house and private schools. It's like a spa retreat, visiting this friend. She's unaware of her largess mainly because she's never been accustomed to anything different. Her life is all she knows and it's basically what she expects.

Here we live in a house that is below the standard of normal or even below below normal in the States. There isn't a housing inspector in the US that wouldn't cite this place for a variety of codes, from the holes in the roofing to the termites out of control to the broken this or that or whatever else. I am not saying I am entirely digging this, in fact some days it's nearly too much. But this is life here and our house is not as nice as some but nicer than most.

On one of my worse days I was complaining about our stove, a stove that has no temperature control in the oven and needs to be lit with a lighter every time. The stove that runs out of propane in the middle of dinner. Beyond the rickety status of things it's filthy, it was in this house when it flooded and here it remains, a battered thing like no oven I've ever seen before I moved here. So I was on a rant to J, taking stock of all I found unbearable in some sort of roundabout effort to convince him we should spring for a new one, it'll still be the same size but it'll work and it won't be so, well, gross. A friend of ours from the village was here when we were talking about it and he chimed in too, yes see you can get a new one in town. And maybe if you do you can give this one to my mom, because our stove isn't as nice as this.

And in that moment I, like my friend in the States was largely unaware of her largess. I am like my friend living there but living here, with my high standards and supposed expectations, of my discomforts unbearable and yet completely without a clue about how much of the world goes around. I'd feel even more ashamed of this if I wasn't at least trying but in so many ways it makes me want to try a little more. Because at the end of the day the damn stove works, it works and I use it and I cook my family dinner on it and it often sucks but it works and no one is getting poisoned and no one is going hungry and that should be enough right there.

doors

2009-05-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

I came here naive.

It's not easy to find international work.

All I want to do is work on community development issues, I want to gain experience working internationally, I want to make some sort of small difference. I want to earn a living while J attempts to build our house. I came here full of this intent and after 3 months (granted we had a setback) I am no farther along than I was when I arrived.

The resources see, they don't even come close to filling the need. And I knew this and I know this and yet I am still full of frustration because I can't help but think I could do something about it if only I was given a chance.

I'm whining here and I know it. I want this to work more than anything and in order to do that I need to work either with NGOs in the States or ones here and the US economy is terrible and here, well here is a wild landscape and there is still so much I do not know. But I'm scrappy and I'll work hard, I will and can do this if given a chance.

Five years ago we started this journey and I was told something then that always stuck with me. All you'll get is one door at a time, Jen. You'll have to walk through to see what comes next. And I've walked through all of them sometimes blindly sometimes in good faith and so far so good but this one, this door it seems to be stuck or hiding or I need one pill to make me smaller or one to grow so I can see where it is.

you don't know how precious you are

2009-05-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

And so we are here. Sorry for the delay, but things have been hectic and internet is back to being spotty at best. Plus it's been raining, great big buckets of rain.

As we were landing back in the jungle last week J looked at me and said It feels like this has been one long day and I started laughing because that felt exactly right. Like the past month had been one surreal dream of doctors and hospitals and now as we walked down the jetway it felt like we were waking up. It smells different here, see. It smells like heat.

The night we came back we were invited for dinner, we sat with 6 other people under a palapa, eating good food and drinking too much wine (this friend, she finds wine here and it is good, but I think any wine here is good because it's hard to find) and the conversation was perfect, one of those long rolling nights full of laughter, telling stories. One of the things that continues to strike me here differently is what we talk about, here we talked all night of spiritual matters, not religion but spirit, of things people have encountered and how they've witnessed transformation. My priestess friend was there, radiant as usual and midway through the night she jumps up childlike to dance in the coconut grove under the moon. I watch her and I smile as she calls out to the stars.

This is what I have missed.

The next day I reconnect with the friend who has been collecting our mail in my absence. She and I carry 4 boxes to my car, four heavy boxes that are full, are full and overfull with school supplies. She looks at me in disbelief I can't believe your friends did all of this. Do you think they will mind if some of this goes to the other school in the village too? I tell her the truth, that I don't think you would mind at all as long as it's going where it was needed most and she said there is no shortage of that so I take the boxes home and start to open them and all of a sudden I am sitting in the middle of the floor crying because I am so humbled by your generosity and not only your generosity but for your love and gifts for M and for how you wrote notes telling me you did this with your children and how much it meant to them. I could say thank you two hundred and seventy six times and it would not feel like enough.

J stands over me in awe, he can't believe you would do something like this and yet at the same time he can, he's seen it before with the Just Posts and with the flood and with the orphanage in Africa and yet he still can't help but shake his head. Your friends, they don't even really know you and that's when I stood up and said you are wrong there buddy, just look around and tell me that we don't know each other and that our love for our community here isn't the same or better as anywhere else and he nodded his head you are right he said. And I am.

So I divided things up along with the things you'd sent to me in the States (you women are so creative, feathers and glitter and shells and blocks and glue and paint and sparkles and so much colored paper and crayons?) and took the biggest box to M's school and two smaller boxes to two other schools, each teacher stood in shock and hugged me tight. I let them know this wasn't from me but from my wonderful friends and they all said to thank you so much. And today when I dropped M off at school they were using playdoh for the first time and they had new puzzles, and new crayons on the table. The children are using new and different and better supplies today because of each of you. One other box is still waiting, apparently there is a homeschool out in the bush where there are only 10 or so kids who can't make it into the village. I hear they have next to nothing and my neighbor asked if we could share some of our supplies with them too. Four different schools. You helped four different schools and if there was more I could keep going, the need here will forever outshine the resources in a way that's hard and stupid and honest and real.

So for the two hundredth and seventy seventh time, I thank you.

Want to know the song in my head? The Ocean by Dar Williams

take me out to the ballgame (and hurt me)

2009-05-07T07:45:00.000-07:00

I'm probably hovering at 38,000 feet right now as you read this, or wading through the Houston airport accidentally breathing in swine flu germs or perhaps just perhaps cracking that first jungle beer but I couldn't leave the US of A without sharing a story with you to ponder whilst I'm en route. So sit back and relax and at the end I'll be asking for your opinion.

J and I are at a Dodger game with two friends. It's maybe the 4th inning, we are in fairly decent seats (friends with money treated us to the game) and we are enjoying our first beer. The crowd is raucous, it's obviously that this section has some very dedicated fans who whoop it up every time something good happens. It's good fun and everyone seems friendly. We are here at the 4th inning because traffic was so bad (yes LA you have bad traffic you bad city you bad traffic city you) that it took us this long to get here and then to find the beer. But it's okay because on the way we were listening to New Order and you know, I haven't listened to New Order since I was a wee wisp of a thing, and now I'm old. So it was quite a reunion me and New Order. But I digress.

Sitting in the stadium on the first base line, I can see the field and the night is clear. I smell hotdogs and everyone is wearing blue. Directly in front of us is a couple that I might rather generously describe as rednecky. The dude is affable and loud, the woman seems to be enjoying herself. They are sitting close but then again we are all sitting close packed into stadium seating. He jumps up and screams every time something good happens for his team which happens a lot.

And then it happens.

All of a sudden and without provocation a peanut shell lands on my hand.

I glance down and see it and a few more shells on the aforementioned affable yet rednecky gentleman in front of me. Almost unthinkingly I reach down to brush off the shells on his back when all of a sudden his lady friend whirls around (think the chick from Exorcism) and grabs my hand and squeezes it hard. Hard. And right before I even make contact with the said shells. As she squeezes it she says Don't you touch him and then lets go of my hand and turns back around. I see her gentleman friend nudge her but he doesn't look back. J's watching the game and misses the entire thing.

Needless to say I am speechless. She then proceeds to turn around and glance at me every 12 minutes or so for the rest of the game. Just in case. But in case of what?

Lacking closure and slightly afraid of the crazy chick in front of me I am unable to find resolution and am left to wonder what could have possibly been going through her mind and what would cause a person to react like that. So I've come to you for help.

Is it that she:

1. Was terribly insecure and thought I was hitting on her aging rednecky gentleman caller even as I sat with a male friend of my own?

2. Has eyes on the back of her head implanted there by the CIA for purposes of looking over her shoulder to thwart evil at large scale sporting events?

3. Thought the peanut shells added a little sexy something to his ensemble?

4. Thought I was an alien invader looking to suck the blood of a strapping young buck and feared for her very life?

5. Thought I looked like his 2nd ex-wife, the one he can't get over and still calls on Fridays after too many beers?

6. Fill in the blank

Or was I simply wrong for somewhat absentmindedly invading another person's personal space, space that is on short order at a sporting event of this kind? I realize that is probably the right answer but her response was well over the top for such a minor offense.

Or was it?

See you on the flip side (from down under and why do they only say that about Australia anyways?).

back in the saddle

2009-05-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

I am packing and repacking, this time trying to fit in the amazing and beautiful pile of school supplies that was so generously donated to M's school from many of you. I hear there are more supplies waiting for us when we get back as well, between all of your general loveliness the school will have everything it needs for an entire school year. Just like that, you did this. Thank you. I mean really. Thank you.

Aside from the supplies there have been some jungle requests. A woman who has never left the village nor the home she was born, she has asked me for some new pots and pans, ones from the states she says, I know they have nice things there. This is from a woman who will surprise us with rice and beans and bits of meat, a woman who I love. Of course I cannot say no so 8 pots and pans are mixed in with our clothes, the bags are burdened and straining with goodness like new baby clothes for the neighbor who is giving birth next month and the medicine and other sundries not so easily acquired in the jungle. I even got to buy a nearly teen her first bra, her mama ordered it specifically and I felt both humbled and grown all at once standing in the store trying to decide if a 12 year old would appreciate it printed with hearts or if plain is better and to be honest I still have no idea.

In other ways too like we are re-entering something we had no business leaving so soon. I anticipate it feeling harder this time around, the obstacles that seemed new before won't be wrapped in mystery but sitting there glaring in the light. It'll force me, I think to get clear, to get much clearer on why I am doing this in the first place and what I hope to learn.

In other news, I'm also posting at Blogher today with part 5 in a series of 6: Jungle, interrupted

sitting on dandelions

2009-05-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

The traffic was terrible and you just knew that whatever lay ahead wasn't good. It wasn't the right time of day for hundreds of cars sitting like a parking lot. After awhile the glimpses of red flashing lights were visible, after a while longer you could see them spinning around inside their globes. As we are inching by I am always caught in that wrestling move, the one that tries to get me to turn my head while the rest of my body screams don't look you don't need to look it's someone's most tragic moment and it's not for you to stare and yet I see her anyways, I see her and I see her mangled bike and a couple of wrecked cars and then I notice she doesn't have on any shoes.

I send a silent prayer for grace and hope and healing as the line moved forward and I look in the rearview mirror at my child, she's holding her little stuffed kitty and singing to herself and I look around at the other cars flying past me and each one is an entire life captured in a bubble going places to be with people they love or people they don't but either way it's so entirely fragile and we take for granted never really knowing if we are going to make it to our destination or hell, if we'll wake up in the morning and then I think of all the squandered days, days spent feeling sorry for myself or not showing up or lacking in discipline and I ask the Divine for a do-over, a chance to do it right this time, hit me baby one more time.

rewind

2009-05-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

We head back next week. I am ready and I am not ready, coming back meant so many things became easier, from bathing to laundry to eating to sleeping. Easier means more comfortable and I am like a baby lulled into a state of complacency here, where I can leave food on the counter for as long as I wish and fall asleep uncovered by nets. Leaving so soon means my life there had not yet become normal so going back is almost like starting all over again. I've known this all along, ever since the moment I realized we'd have to fly back and yet I ignored it for awhile but here we are now, it's time to cowboy up and it's time to go.

And yet I am excited. The whirlwind of the past month still ringing in my ears, the hospitals and lack of privacy, the freeways and the massive grocery aisles. I think I could fit every single crappy market in our whole jungle town into one Safeway here.

It makes a girl think. Sometimes it's hard to separate the truth from the bullshit. Questions like what is this all for really and what are we supposed to be doing and how much does my consumerism hurt someone I've never even met.

When we get back we are starting a food forest on our land. I'd rather call it a garden but J assures me it's not. It's rather a wild mass of vegetation where all the plants grow together in some sort of harmony. I can't quite picture it but then again I can't quite picture most of what we've done since January so instead we'll just go for it and I'll probably freak out along the way.

PS. I mentioned it before but I need to say it again. To you. Your support and kindness over the last month has meant so much, this place I could write frankly and have you listen. Those of you who came out of the woodwork simply to just let me know you are here and you care. It means more than you know. Thank you.

now

2009-04-28T09:48:00.001-07:00

It's sort of hard to sum up the past three or so weeks of our lives. Mainly they've been a blur of pain and doctors and tests all culminating in a surgery and most of all a good prognosis. Long story short, we are free to move about the country. Or outside of it. I say we do both. So next week we'll go back to the jungle, hopefully dodging a pig pandemic along the way.

I could dwell here on April's both good and bad but I've decided there is no point, life moves on and sometimes things happen that make us take stock and so we take it and move forward because there's no sense in looking back.

We went to the movies last night, a movie I've been dying to see for the longest time. I knew I'd enjoy it even if it wasn't well done because it was a movie about my people, and watching the portrayal of mental illness and homelessness up on a big bright screen brought tears to my eyes several times. On the way home from the movie we talked a bit about our own Mr. Ayers, the ones who aren't famous but who managed to move us in unspeakable ways. I had an experience similar to the one in the movie years ago, a man who has now since passed on but is still in my heart all the same. I cried again a tiny bit because I miss the fight, the ups and the downs and the struggle to help folks find what should be easy, a place to sleep that will keep them safe. It was time to move on and yet it will always be in my heart, I still miss the lessons and the banter and the reality and the street but I figure that's okay, it's my way of honoring what I was lucky enough to be a part of for such a long, long time.

benign

2009-04-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

Benign.

Be Nine.

Beenine.

More later but we just found out all will be well.

All is well.

today

2009-04-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Thirty nine is a rather caustic number, sort of edgy and rough. The nine speaks of something ending and something hanging on and something unknown around the corner. It's prophetic really, rather sums up how I feel about a lot of things right now.

Life is good. We are here. We are here and there and everywhere.

I am here. Here and there and everywhere.

Happy Birthday to me.

passing go

2009-04-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

Another long day sitting in hospital pre-op and post-op rooms, J is hanging in but today was painful, really painful and seeing him like this and seeing us like this is making me tired. Simply put, the last few weeks have been hell around the plus two. And the hot doctor didn't even look so hot. I'm not sure why that is but am thinking it has to do with me.

But grace is everywhere, isn't it.

It's in the nurse who took me aside and shared some coffee, in the man who lended a hand to a stranger when I'd lost my way, in the pharmacy tech who pulled some strings, to my parents and friends here and the ones in the jungle who keep checking in and of course, all of you. It's in motion, all of it and in times like this you almost sit back and take stock of all the goodness swirling all around you and how if it wasn't for that you don't know how things would work and yet because of it they keep on.

The world is a small and friendly place and those kidney stones, well lets just say those fuckers are toast. I've got them in a jar and if I wasn't so annoyed with them I might name them, perhaps Cheech and Chong or George and Dick, comedy duos high and low.

And now we wait. We need the green light. The one that can set us free.

like a blister in the sun

2009-04-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

Your comments and emails and general loveliness has been so wonderful. I truly thank you, the knowing that there is a place to say what I want and to have it heard means more than you know. But since you've asked, the truth is this all kind of sucks. Chances are everything is peachy but since we don't know we can't really make plans. If everything is fine then....or well if you end up being sick then....but there isn't really a finish to the conversation because we simply have no idea.

I'd like to say we are making the best of it but the truth is it's making us cranky. Well that, and living at my parents house is a bit of a grind. Plus I'm feeling sullen, my birthday is coming up on Thursday and while it's just a birthday and it's really no big deal, I sort of can't help feeling like a teenager and a crone all at the same time. I want cake. I don't want cake.

I just want to go back to the jungle and whine about the heat and the bugs.

This week is filled with more doctors but this time it's addressing the original sin, er, issue of the kidneys so once again we'll spend a day or two at the hospital and surgery will ensue and in between we'll wait for the results of the biopsy. Have I mentioned the kidney doctor is a total fox? Almost makes a girl wish it was her insides he was manhandling and I'm almost jealous I'll be sitting on the sidelines and not the focus of his attention. I said as much in mixed company and received mixed reviews but I'm sure here around this fire you'll give me more rope. Plus I'm kidding. Duh. Mostly.

I re-read my recent posts and think I'm making this time in our lives sound better than it is. I mean, I am and I'm not. We are good and we are not. I am happy and I am not. I am scared and I am not. I am angry and I am not. I am self-obsessed and I wish I was not.

But then I watch my child, bubbling over with joy after a day spent with her grandparents and I know that at least for her, life is rolling along just fine and that in some ways is exactly enough.

rolling rolling rolling

2009-04-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

We were easily the youngest people in the outpatient surgery room by a decade or more. We got there early, surprised beyond belief we got in so soon. We expected it to take at least a week so when the call came in we jumped. Let's get this on.

The nurses love J. While I am certainly aware of his loveability, I was a bit bemused to see how they flocked to him, somehow the story of the jungle had made the rounds and three or four different nurses came in to ask about our journey, the whys and hows and wheres. The waiting took forever, three hours of IVs and tests and draws and then they wheeled him away for the procedure, the one where the doctor shot the straightest of everyone we've met so far, telling him it could very well be cancer but age and health play in our favor. The straightforwardness is refreshing even if I don't like the words. Another nurse was not so direct, she actually asked if J had to peepee which made me laugh uncontrollably, kind of like when Anderson Cooper made that joke about teabagging on CNN.

After the procedure he was sick, a reaction to the medication that took awhile to subside. The nurses came back and mothered him, two of them brought up faith and God and one even asked to pray for him, something that has been a rather common theme over the last week.

You don't realize the faith in others till you are dealing with something like this and then it's all around you, it swirls all over you and you almost can't breathe but then you remember how entirely generous it is to be thought of by others, of how goodness is simply that. It's good and people's hearts are wide.

After four hours they decide we can leave, he's stabilized and it's time for us to go. They bring us a wheelchair and I start to laugh. I sit in it and they tell me it's not for me and swat me on the head and I laugh again and load J in and spin a little wheelie. I can't help acting like this, it's like I refuse to take this seriously because if I do then it's more real and if I keep cracking jokes then it's like a field trip and not really our lives. I'm waiting for him to sign a form when the Jesus Nurse comes back and asks if we are looking forward to going back to the jungle. Yes, I say but if he's sick I guess we'll have to stay here for awhile and kick cancer's ass first. She looks at me and smiles you two have just been added to my prayer list and I smile back because I am thankful for so much kindness but I also want to know where was God a couple weeks ago, because that's when He really should've been on his game. I want to ask her but am afraid I'll sound insulting when I honestly don't mean to. So we leave the recovery room, J sitting in the chair and me pushing him and I lose a little control on a downslope but instead of trying to slow down I stood on the back of the chair and for awhile we glided, both of us in tandem hoping not to tip over.

spin

2009-04-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

So.

We wait. We sit and we sit and we wait. We've seen more MDs in the past week than we have in the past year or more. We see pictures of J's insides and we hear the doctors chatter. It might be cancer they say. It's probably not cancer they say. Either way they keep saying it. They keep saying that word and I can't help but wonder if they are sensitizing us to a new reality or just impressing us with their knowledge. No matter because all the scans were inconclusive. Now we wait for a needle to define us, one inserted into his organs and I think of fortune cookies, you never know what you are going to get when you open one up but you can't help cracking them open with hope in your eyes only to find one that says You Will Take An Unexpected Trip or You Will Soon Be Prosperous or how about the one that says It's Not Fucking Cancer.

On top of this our health insurance is running out soon and we learned today that no one else will touch J with a 10' pole now that he's having all of these medical issues. He'll be uninsurable she says and I laughed and she apologized and yet I couldn't help it. I am entirely unsurprised I say and she commiserates. I think back to a few weeks ago and how I was learning how to wash my clothes with a hose and cook on a propane stove. Pigs and horses in the road. I think of sticky hot nights and mosquito netting. Bats in the house. Hard and simple. We were doing it and it wasn't always easy but we were doing what we said we would do.

Today I think of health insurance and health itself. Of life and it's lack of insurance. Of choices we've made and adventures we've proclaimed. Of taking things for granted. Of being humbled. Of waiting.

And I wonder if this is all a ball of nothing or the very tip of Something but right now I can't find the waiter and I'll I've got on the table are dirty plates and cold food.

snaps

2009-04-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

The last full day of Neen's visit was near magical. We had the opportunity to take a canoe inside the mouth of a cave, going in to the utter blackness and back out again. It was dark and quiet (save for the yapping of two smallish people) and utterly peaceful (save for the yapping of two smallish people).
Once we were done we grabbed some cold beers we'd stashed in the car and then stopped for lunch before going out for a swim. We also got minorly attacked by a monkey. Bad monkey.

On our way we almost ran into a horse drawn wagon who'd stopped for a refill.
I was almost brave enough to swim under the falls, but then again almost doesn't really count. Besides, those river rocks are slippery. It didn't help that our friend (and guide) said I could make the entire trip in flip flops and was he ever wrong about that. The water was amazing, the sound of the falls and the clear water swirling all around us.
This last one is just a postscript from when we were at the Cayes. There's just something about outdoor restaurants on the beach with swings, mismatched chairs and battered, paint chipped tables. My kid's pretty cute too.

disconnected

2009-04-09T08:33:00.000-07:00

So here we are, 48 hours back with 9 of them spent at the medical center. The doctors there have been incredibly kind, somehow hearing the story of a crazy third world hospital experience compelled them to move quickly, we were referred and referred throughout the day and J's surgery has already been scheduled. But no matter how fast things go it looks like we are here for a month and that's just if everything goes okay.

It feels stagnant, the thought of that, mostly because here we already feel like fish out of water. Our life in the jungle, no matter how imperfect was moving forward, hard work and good work and we were finding our groove. Now I feel a bit aimless, reconnecting but disconnected. Out of sorts. There's a subtle hum here, a fast paced sort of energy whether on the freeway or in a store, things are so bright and shiny and loud. I went to the grocery store yesterday and when I walked in I sort of gasped, things are so perfect inside and there are so many choices. I wandered the produce section and bumped into the guy stocking the pears. Everything looks so perfect here I said and he smiles, probably thinking I've lost my mind. But even being gone so briefly forces me to realize all we take for granted, that most of the world has no reflection here, that in other places you buy what's available and the choices are small. We just don't realize how much we have no matter how many times we tell ourselves how lucky we are. But I wonder if it's really lucky at all.

So we'll be aimless and we'll struggle with that, we aren't really wanting to be here and it feels like a setback, the groceries I bought cost more than an entire week in the jungle, our budget is narrow and these unnecessary expenses makes us pause. And that's not the only thing, I have long had a couple of somatic complaints, both of which disappeared when we moved and barely two days here they are back en force, something I can't quite figure out.

So mostly I'm whining, it's hard to see the trees no matter what people say.

day 49: backtracking

2009-04-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

We've been walking around in a daze for two days, coming off the whirlwind of hospitals and airline reservations and packing. We don't want to go. We wander around the house bumping into each other alternating saying i don't want to go back with are you having any pain? We are both terrified he'll get another stone attack before we get on the plane or worse, while on the plane itself. The pain comes so fiercely, it's all he can do not to pass out. I am begging the gods and goddesses and the moon and the earth for it to lie dormant until we get to the states.

Medical issues aside I am a bit scared. Scared it's not been long enough for me to forget my foolish ways. Scared I'll hop right back on the laptop, a virtual junkie. Scared I'll find the shower and the laundry too comforting, the sheets too cool and crisp. The adjusting has taken some time and now we are throwing ourselves backwards and I wonder if we are strong enough to resist the sanitary charms.

Friends here have enveloped us, one is house and dog sitting, another is ensuring M can get registered for kindergarten, a process I was supposed to start next week. Two others are taking us on the long journey to the airport, in order to fly home we've had to surrender our car, a process that ensures that we won't be in legal trouble upon return. We take his ultrasound pictures and doctor papers, I show it to the customs person hoping it will mean they will give us a break and surprisingly enough it does, the man studies the papers and looks at us we understand your situation and can work with you he says and I smile in gratitude, on the verge of tears all day.

Friends invited us for dinner, cooking is the last thing you need to worry about they said and so we sat under a palapa eating a delicious meal as the sun set still in disbelief that we have to go. In less than two months we've had our fair share of struggles, I imagine our village friends must think of us as calamitous gringos, one thing after another seems to be getting in our way and causing others to lend a hand. There's been nothing routine about it, for the past six weeks we've been really living, awake and alive and each day both bright and exhausting as we figure our way. We've figured it and now hit some bumps and wonder how long we'll be derailed while knowing the only thing that truly matters is that J is okay. But we can't believe we are walking backwards after such a short while.