chase a mesa

I've been working for a renewable energy company called Conergy for a month and a half now. We're a wholesale distributor of solar panels, wind turbines, solar water pumps, solar thermal, and electronic gadgets. We sell to dealers all over the country and beyond. Conergy is based in Germany and has offices in a dozen+ countries. I was surprised to hear that we're Europe's largest solar power distributor! We have several locations in the US and the Santa Fe office is the central hub. I'm working in Technical Services, helping customers troubleshoot their issues with our products. I am learning so many practical things about setting up renewable energy systems, and I'm getting paid while I'm at it. It's like I'm back in college, just more practical focused this time. I feel lucky to have this job. Check out Conergy at www.conergy.us.

Julia and I went for a hike up the mountain, the base of which our house is located. To be more precise, it's not a mountain; it's a mesa. From our house you can't tell that - it just looks like a slope. As we ascended, it got increasingly steeper, to the point that it was a bit harry. But we made it and were rewarded with incredible views. At the top of the slope is a fifty foot cliff that lines the ridge.


We walked along the ridge for a bit and found a tame, scalable gap in the cliff and climbed to the top. At the top the view changed drastically from a forested slope to a mesa which stretches out flat for many miles. Few if any settlements, bright sunshine (as opposed to the shade while ascending), and a steady breeze. From the top we could see the whole valley with the towns of Glorieta and Pecos. And our house! which is the farthest right abode in the bottom of this picture.


Here's the view looking north to the mountains:

the truth about cats and dogs

I've settled into our house, worked two jobs, celebrated my birthday, climbed a mountain, started a compost pile, planted garlic, learned a lot about solar water pumps, and even taken many pictures since my last installment.

So after being here in Santa Fe for a week, I signed up with a temp job agency. Well actually I signed up with two. The interview with the first was a bit awkward and I wasn't keen on the agency rep. I guess she wasn't keen on me either because I never heard back. So I signed up with another, and they offered me a job right away. Job title "clerk." I had nothing to lose and I needed money so I took it. Next day I started at the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, sticking bar codes on thousands of criminal records. Basically there was this big project aimed at digitalizing every criminal record from the state. It's almost hard to believe, isn't it? That up to this point NM criminal records weren't on a computer system! Turns out all the other states are doing it too, if I heard correctly. It's all part of an overarching FBI project to get a tighter handle on our nation's convicts. This job was ironic for me for several reasons.


Firstly, up to now I've had jobs that are meaningful to me but low paying. Working at Camp Glenburn, coordinating the Sustainability Office at Acadia, a little landscaping and carpentry. Now I had a better paying job that was meaningless to me. In fact, it was more than that; I somewhat believed against the cause of this project. Certainly some of these convicts are dangerous to the public, but many of them are definitely not. Some days I was going through records from the 1950's! These people, mostly convicted of petty crimes, would be in their 80's or 90's now. On top of that, many (perhaps even most) of the current convictions are charges of drug possession, many of them marijuana. Now how a person who has a stash of weed is dangerous to the general public, I'm not sure. So why the FBI needs information on all these people, well it seems to me that they're just obsessive compulsive.

Secondly, to me getting this job was a general reflection of this nation's policies. Where does the US put so much of its money? Into national security, of course. Hence this government security job was the first available to me through this temp agency. Would the US ever prioritize community, healthcare, free education, fair wages, healing institutions (rather than punishing) - things that might actually help create a healthier society and prevent dangerous crimes? It certainly isn't now. Our country is so far from it that it hurts. I'm not saying that we should just let murderers run free. We need balance though! Putting criminals in jail may stop them from committing more crimes, but it won't stop new generations of people doing the same things, thinking they'll get away with it.

Thirdly, this job challenged me to keep a sense of humour and perspective while doing dull work and sitting next to others who didn''t want to be there. There were some amusing charges. One was from 1971, can't remember the conviction, but it was something like drug possession. Listed occupation: hippie. Another record's listed occupation: medicine man. There was another record with a drinking and driving charge, with this description: "driving under the influence of intoxicated liquor." Damn liquor getting intoxicated.

summer's fall

To all you friends and family who are reading right now, thank you. I've had a blog haitus, but I'm back back back. Read on, dream on, I'll weave a tale for you and you leave a whale of blue. k?

Where to begin? I guess I'll begin with now. Julia and I have been in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a week, after driving across the US for two. We are homeful, hopeful, she is jobful, and I am jobless. That, I hope, will soon change. Jeremy's jumping job jubilee has begun, and I hope to work for a renewable energy company. We shall see.

We found a sweet little house in the country 30 minutes from Santa Fe. We were debating the pros and cons of rural living and decided that the peaceful forest here is worth the daily commute. The house is just a couple years old but its rusty exterior gives it an old western feel, which quite appeals to us. So I figured a sepia picture is appropriate.









The loft contains big east facing windows, so the sunrise greets us with full force each day. The early light casts a beautiful golden sillhouette on the opposite wall.















Julia's cat Honey is a real honey bunny.



















It rains alot in July and August, but otherwise it is quite dry and clear here. With little human night light, the stars and moon are vivid. Another oft-forgot but great joy of country living.

what I larned

To my great surprise I find myself in Philadelphia once again. My spring in New Mexico came and went like a flash flood in the desert. But lemme tell ya, I larned and I grew from this flood.

I learned that love can come at the most unexpected of times, and that love cannot be forced. Before Ecoversity, I spent the previous half half year travelling through Canada, western Europe, and South America, finding myself through new experiences and time alone. All the while I yearned for love and wondered if and when I would find someone. In the first couple weeks at Ecoversity I got so frustrated with all these thoughts, with always wanting something more, with not enjoying the present. So I let go - of these thoughts, of expectations. In the following weeks I went on adventures and spent time with a wonderful woman in my program named Julia. . .and a new love grew. It seems that some important things in life cannot be controlled; you can fight against these happenings or you can go with them. Hard times, love, ups and downs. . .they seem as natural to me as the seasons.

I learned that everyone's an artist; as we grow older we often tell ourselves we're not. I was a bit afraid of the whole art of painting. It seemed overwhelming and beyond me - mixing colors; making something look good from afar using hazy detailing; actually painting something in particular, like a body, as opposed to just doodling and drawing whatever comes to mind. The last two weeks of the Earth Based Vocations program composed the Land Arts and Activism section. We spent the whole second week of that section painting 3x10 foot banners that would grace the roadside with color and intrigue. What to put on these banners, we wondered? Well, there's an old Spanish song that I learned at Gaia Ecovillage in Argentina that goes:

tierra mi cuerpo
agua mi sangre
aire mi aliento
y fuego mi espiritu

It means earth my body, water my blood, air my breath, fire my spirit. I thought this poem pretty well sums up what I wanted to express in a banner: the intimate connection that humans have with the earth. Plus, there's a significant Mexican population in this area of Santa Fe, so we liked the Spanish connection. Julia and I took the "aire mi aliento" and "fuego mi espiritu" lines to use for each side of a banner. Each side took one day to make, and I couldn't believe what we, as amateur painters, were able to create.

birds to prey

So much has happened the last three weeks it's hard to know where to begin. But I'll start with a most intense experience.

I helped butcher a turkey. not just any turkey; we called him Papa Turkey. He and Mama were the only two turkeys in a yard of twenty chickens. He dominated. He butted and bit hens and roosters out of the way when he was hungry; he even scared many humans away by biting them. With animals of many sorts and sizes, you can show your dominance over them or submission to them by the way you act. Same with turkeys. I didn't let Papa push me around; it just didn't seem right because he was only fifteen pounds perhaps. So I grabbed him a couple times and sat on him. That made our relationship clear.

He was a very entertaining piece of the chicken yard. He would keep his distance from me, but would stay close enough, eyeing me and making hushed, dissatisfied expressions, like he wanted me out. Who wants to be dominated on one's own turf? So he felt, I presume. Sometimes he would mount a hen (yes a hen!) to show his dominance to me. He had grown up here over several years, so some of the EcoVersity staff were sad to see him go. Papa Turkey was a jerk, and he even made some people bleed, but I miss him now that he's gone.

(warning: this paragraph contains explicitly bloody content) One warm Wednesday afternoon during the two weeks of Land and Garden, our teacher Joel quietly went into the chicken pen, grabbed Papa Turkey, and tied a length of plastic twine around his feet. He picked up and brought Papa to us. We stroked him and said goodbye. We all followed Joel a hundred feet, through the outdoor kitchen, to a stump in an open patch of land. Wasting no time, Joel held out Papa's neck on the stump, Jenny (a fellow classmate of mine) held his wings, and I held his feet. The others stood closely and watched. Holding Papa Turkey's neck out straight with a piece of wood, Joel brought the hatchet down deliberately and severed his neck. Papa fluttered his eyes and mouth, his wings flapped like wild, and the blood spurted in all directions. With his wings still beating, Joel picked headless Papa up and hung him from a hook to drain the rest of the blood (so I guess chickens really do run with their heads cut off). Then we scalded the body in a pot of boiling water so we could pluck out his feathers easily. After that Joel went to work, taking out all his insides. We started wide eyed and helped a little. We saved the heart, liver, and kidneys (which make giblet, a diced stew which sounds disgusting and tastes great), and buried the other organs and the head. Then we hung the corpse in a cool, dry room for a day, cut out the muscles the next day, and boiled the skeleton for a turkey broth. All that remains of Papa now is a couple ziplocs of meat in the freezer.

I was a vegetarian for three years until last fall, at which point I traveled to western Europe with my brother. There I felt it necessary to eat meat in order to eat well (many restaurants had few veggie options) and to experience local cuisine more fully. Since then I have been eating meat from time to time. When the option of butchering Papa Turkey came up, I felt a lot of fear. At the same time, though, I wanted to do it. For all the meat I had eaten up until then, I had never known what the animal was like; its living conditions; how it died. Usually I didn't even know where the meat came from. So I wanted to see if I could help take care of an animal, kill it, and eat it, and see how I felt.

I felt bewildered for a couple days after the butchering. While we were doing it, I was shaking a bit, and I was quite nervous right up until the chop. Everything felt so intense, and I wasn't quite sure what to think. Afterward, all the intensity of the experience sunk in, and that night the image of Papa Turkey's face right after the chop kept circling in my mind. It took a couple days for that to pass, and then another week or two to fully understand my feelings.

The feeling is different than I expected. I thought I would be sick to my stomach by chewing a piece of Papa Turkey, but I actually feel okay. In fact, I feel much better eating his meat than any old chicken breast or steak from the store. I feel connected to what I'm eating. And instead of feeling confused about the meat on my plate, I feel appreciative. No, I feel downright grateful - that this animal died for my well being.

Who would have thought that EcoVersity would make me a righteous carnivore?

land of enchantment

I am quite enchanted with this state. Over the weekend I travelled to San Antonio Hot Springs, two hours to the west and up in the mountains. Santa Fe's elevation is around 7000 feet but it's fairly flat here. That said, you can see good sized mountains to the north and west. My EBV (Earth Based vocations, that's the program i'm in) friend Julia and I arrived at the hot springs in the early evening, after traversing an extremely bumpy dirt road for the last five miles of the trip. These hot springs are amazing. They're situated on a moderately steep hill side facing south, which is great because you get a lot of sun and you can watch the sunset. Four small pools have been set up with the abundant rocks all around - one pool on top of the other. The hot water is flowing at a good rate such that the little pools are constantly being cleaned and replenished, and there's icing on the cake with a "shower" at the top pool, where the water exits from underground through a pipe. The water is perfectly comfortable, around 100F, and the scenery is spectacular. We went, expecting nudity to be the standard. Apparently that's how hot springs work in the west, everyone here tells me. We arrived to see everyone - all twenty or so people there - in proper swim suits, save for one older man. So I stayed in my boxer shorts. No matter. We lavished in this warm haven for several hours, enjoying friendly company.

Up in the mountains there, probably around 9000 feet in elevation, the landscape is completely different. Mixed forests of pines, firs, spruces, aspens, and shrubs cover the land. Creeks flow in every valley, small or large. Golden brown grasses stretch for miles in some of the larger valleys. A little bit of snow even held on in the shadows of north facing slopes. it looked a lot like Colorado (and I should make it clear that it's just a couple hours drive north to Colorado from here, even less from that area). But here it looks completely different. It looks like a desert here. Other than the cottonwoods and box elders that line the dry creek beds (which flow a couple months or less each year), there are only two common kinds of trees: junipers (a cedar) and pinon pines. sand blows with the wind, hearty shrubs like chamisa and sage intermittently cover the ground, along with prickly pear cactuses. like i said, creek beds are dry. even the santa fe river does not flow these days.

but it used to. or at least, it used to flow for more of the year. as the story goes, water from the mountains doesn't stay in the land as much as it used to. when trees - like junipers and pinons - are cut down to clear space for development, or for firewood or whatever, less rain water is absorbed as it flows down a slope. the roots, and the soil that they support, are not there anymore to slow down and absorb water. other factors like lots of concrete covering the ground add to this issue. so now when it does actually rain a lot, the water mostly collect in flood fashion into the santa fe river and is gone from the area quite fast. that water was once absorbed much more into the land, and so there was much more moisture close to the surface all year round. so instead of the riverbed occasionally swarming with flood, there was a more regular, slower flow of water. this slower flow came not just from rain water but from that wealth of water held in the ground.

one way of imagining this system is by comparing it to your own body. a slow, steady flow of food is what does a body good, just as a slow, steady flow of water does a landscape good. if your body is worn down, or invaded by some defiant pathogen, you might get sick, and be unable to hold and digest your food properly. your body flushes out water and food, and you feel crappy. in the same way, a landscape cannot thrive when all its water is flushed out too fast. trees and plants are to the environment what villi are to your intestines: those millions of finger shaped protrudances that take up nutrients. when I had e-coli two months ago, the bacteria's toxic byproduct broke down my villi enough that I couldn't really ingest any food for a couple days. similary, when too many trees are taken away from a landscape, its ability to take in water and nutrients is reduced. . .

i'm supposed to be writing about this land of enchantment, and i do apologize for getting all environmental with you. these issues certainly are dry compared to tales of magic and adventure, but they have been just as important in my experiences here so far as wonderful evenings in hot springs. so for me they go together. i'm learning a lot about how landscapes work - about weather, geological processes, water and resource flows - and I am being opened up to a new way of perceiving every beautiful place I visit.

chicken jumps over the moon

EcoVersity has about fifteen chickens (three roosters, the rest hens) and three turkeys who all live together in one outdoor enclosure/hen house. I like to go in there and hang out with them and listen to their funny sounds and actions. The roosters put so much effort into their cocka-doodle-doos. They stick their beaks up and out and just belt that same sound, definitely not just at sunrise! rather, all day long. And they give it all they have, so that the end of their triumphant moment is a little scratchy squeek of last bits of air.

Chickens are quite social creatures. They're digging holes together and pecking at each other and making strange hushed sounds. I can pick up chickens and pet them like puppies. and it's sweet, we get 10 eggs or so a day, i basically can eat all the eggs i want. i ate 5 yesterday. I don't eat many other fatty foods so hopefully my cholesterol will be all reet. As part of a balanced diet, I think eggs are quite healthy.

A lot of interesting people here. there are seven othes who are in the ten week Earth Based Vocations (EBV) program with me and, surprisingly, they're mostly not hippie types. there is, however, a smorgasbord of new age ideas floating around, especially since I'm in Santa Fe. lots of talk about moon cycles, birth signs (i'm scorpio, which is about the extent of my knowledge), and underground energies. some people devote their lives to these paths and I believe there is some method to the madness. talking about how the moon strongly affects our lives may sound outrageous, but there is no denying that it does affect us in significant ways. tides, menstrual cycles, warewolves. you know it.

So in the EBV program is a nice fellow we call John G from Colorado; a comical lady Cate from Florida; a wonder of a cook, Christina from Ohio; a smiley, energetic lady named Julia from Chicago; bouncy Jenny from Texas; cool happy Matt from Albuquerque (an hour south of Santa Fe); and sarcastic, friendly Kris from St. Louis. Kris has a big rat tail. He pulls it off more than anyone I've seen. For the eight of us EBVers, I think Matt and I would be the only ones to qualify as hippie types, and that's almost a stretch. If only I still had my dreads, I could fulfill this expectation beautifully.

The two week permaculture course ended friday night with a bang of a talent show. Everyone in the course was required to do something, which I think is a great rule. It's very hard for some people to get up in front of an audience, but if you offer something from the heart there's no going wrong, at least not in the personal and positive atmosphere here. There were excellent poems, funny songs about our wise teacher Scott Pittman (a warm hearted and funny man, known well in permaculture circles), a transvestite fashion show, stories, juggling, art shows, and even percimen bread baked as a talent offering. As for me, I rapped. As it is melding poetry with beats and rhythm, I really like rapping. This is the first of two raps I did, called Universal Recall:

About 15 billion years ago the universe exploded
From a single point of everything presumably imploded
Exploded monumental energy chaotic wise
Created space and time as it expanded in size
Quadrillions of neutrinos zigzagging every which way
Stopped by nothing physical and still observed today
Meanwhile the universe expanded and it cooled
Relatively speaking for it was hotter than a lava pool
Pure energy cooled and condensed into matter
Dense, packed energy and definitely fatter
Hydrogen the basic element of the universe
Started clumping together from the force that we call gravity
Packed closer and closer until two atoms burst
Together in fusion - the ball of fire making light
That is the stars we see at night
Some stars imploded creating bigger elements
Exploded into space relaying fiery filaments
Other stars aren't so crazy or formed later in time
One such star we call the sun is of the smaller kind
Formed five billion years ago and will last fivish more
Before it turns to a red giant envelops its close planets incredibly defiant but for now it is reliant
Bathing all in photonic warmth and beauty
A tonic to the cold and emptiness of space unruly

A planet we call earth finds itself in a nice spot
Not too cold, not too hot - oceans are its lot
A couple billion years ago sea life began to form
Photosynthesizing - a new way had been born
Gradually became more complex to the vex of the lower
Life eating other life although bigger is slower
When did an animal first climb up on land?
When did fish and other creatures first begin to band together?
Whenever it was, amazing thing occurred with life
Through individual strife, the collective more diverse
The curse that we call natural selection
The inflection of the voice of some species grew intense
A sense of domination and desire to control
Whole human races exploded like a star
Travelled far to the corners of the earth
Birth and rebirth of patterns kind and violent
Silently the whales watch and wonder
Slumber the sloths high up in the trees
We stand here on earth, in this solar system, in the Milky Way, in a universe that's practically infinite
Always we do die in it and sometimes we do live it
Meanwhile I stand here
Like many beings before, and many beings after
In another place, in the far reaches of space
Enjoying the laughter, and wondrin' bout it all
The universe is self-aware, sometimes I do recall

EcoVersatility

EcoVersity is situated in a ten acre plot of land in southwest Santa Fe, in the barrio, which refers to the poorer area. In Buenos Aires, "barrio" is the generic word for a section of the city; here it refers to a particular section. There is a lot of spanish here - in roadsigns, names of restaurants and towns, and so on. Many people are Hispanic, especially in this area of Santa Fe. I speak spanish sometimes with classmates, but alas, my spanish is slowly fading. I think, however, that it is mostly fading only out of the forefront of my memory; everything I learned is still stored somewhere in the back reaches of my brain. Thus I trust that it will return when I really get into it again. That's what I experienced with my French when Josh and I spent two weeks in France back in October.

So these first two weeks of the program make up the permaculture course. Permaculture, standing for "Permanent Culture", is a system of principles for developing a sustainable community. There are, of course, many ways of going about this, depending on one's climate, circumstances, ideas. Basically it is about creating an efficient, durable plant/animal/structural system that supports and replenishes itself. You grow plants that create healthy soils (which harness nitrogen and other essential minerals for plants), which in turn help human-friendly plants grow (fruit/nut trees, berries, vegetables, herbs). You use animals which help the plant system and also give you food - for instance, chickens, which produce good manure for fertilizer and eggs/meat for protein. You build homes out of local products (like adobe mud, clay, and straw bales here) that are very efficient, designed strategically with south facing windows, built in air flows, and things like that.

Through systems thinking and experience, you can put all these pieces together to make a little community where many of your needs take care of themselves, and where the system replenishes itself (soils stay healthy, chickens breed, etc.) so that it long lasting - sustainable.

Thinking about and doing all this is simpler in a rural setting, of course. EcoVersity, funny enough, is quite rural in its design - there are chickens and turkeys and gardens here - although it is in the city of Santa Fe. When you don't have so much space, and you're next to lots of large buildings and many people in a truly urban setting, applying permaculture principles may be more complicated. And questions like: how long can world-wide trade last, where products travel thousands of miles to reach you? and what would a society be like where people are self-sufficient, and is that even possible? - these questions are open to discussion. Permaculture does not require people to give up everything and become back-to-the-land hippies. It is as much about making current agricultural/animal/infrastructure systems longer lasting as it is about designing new systems. Ultimately, it is about individuals taking more responsibility for their own well being.

I'm just starting to learn about all this, and I don't pretend to know everything about it. I should also make clear that permaculturists do not claim that they can save the whole world. At this point learning about permaculture is simply something that I think will be very useful for me. It is a way for me to act on ideas of sustainability in my personal life, rather than just continue to think about them.

Thoughts?

train talk

"I love kids, you know? They're so full of energy, runnin' around and playin' games. You can act more natural with 'em, just hang out. Man, and they make adults more fun too. They pull funniness out of us like a tow truck," he says.

"Like a what?" I ask.

"A tow truck," he says.

"Oh, ha. I see what you mean. They get me all fired up. I work at a camp in the summers, up in New Brunswick, Canada, near where I'm originally from. We're playing outside all day long, canoeking, kayaking, dressing up and singing," I reply to my Oklahoman acquaintance.

"I got a bulldog, a big guy - 125 pounds," he says. "He loves kids, though. He plays around with them all the time. Just like me, we just attract kids. I was sittin' in the train and these two boys came up to me and we were just chattin' and laughin'. My dog, he'll sit around for a week, and then get all riled up to get some exercise. I'll strap on my rollerblades and he'll pull me like crazy. Had a big crash once, aw man that's some funny stuff."

"He pulls you on rollerblades?", I say, chuckling.

"Oh yeah, he loves it. He'll even pick the rollerblades up in his teeth if he wants to go out."

"Wow, man, that's funny."

"Yeah, I love that dog. And you know, I proved them all wrong. They say bull dogs are mean and dangerous? This dog is so nice with kids."

"Real strong, though, if they want to be, eh?", I ask.

"Oh you bet. He's got like 50,000 pounds of force per square inch in those jaws. They could just rip your arm right off if they wanted. Of course he'd never do that though. Yeah I love that dog. When he's gone, I think I'll move on to a Bull Mastiff."

I look unsure.

"You know, like in that movie. . ." [half a minute of silence] . . . "Turner and Hooch! that's the one. Everyone thinks that's a bull dog. . . nope . . . it's a bull mastiff. Yeah i'm gonna move up to one of those. They're strong too, but not as much. 25,000 pounds in their jaws."

"My family has two dogs," I say. "Smaller ones. A beagle who's got a nose of gold and a poodle-mutt -"

"Man, I can't stand the look of poodles," he interjects.

"Yeah, I'm not too big on the shaved/poofy look either," I answer, motioning with my hands the poodle shape. "We don't cut him like that. He gets all fluffy, his hair grows so fast. I like to play tag with those dogs, I run after them outside and I can never catch them."

"Tag, that's a fun one," he says. "You know what's my favorite though?"

"What's that?"

"Flashlight tag. Aw man that's a good game. I love playing that with kids. The lights just flying around like crazy."

"Flashlight tag!" I laugh. "I used to play that every night before bed with my brother when I was young. I haven't played that in years. . ."

This was part of the conversation I had with this friendly, stocky fellow from Oklahoma City. He made me crack up - his genuiness and youthful heart. When I mentioned in my last blog installment that people are friendly on trains, I wasn't lying. Neat conversations with people - various people of mostly middle class backgrounds - pop up pretty easily.

His comment about the tow truck. . .man, I just can't get over that. That conversation really rejunevated me.

I arrived at EcoVersity yesterday afternoon, and things are going well so far. Just setting up, orientation, buying food. I get to live in a yurt while I'm here. More on all that later.

veering toward EcoVersity

I'm heading to EcoVersity, a small permaculture institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to take a program in fundamentals of applied sustainability, called Earth Based Vocations Certificate. The first part of the program is ten weeks, which will take me to early June. Then later this year, probably in the fall, I will do the second part of the program - a self-initiated project for a couple months.

So I'm sure you're asking yourself what is going on here. For instance,

• What is permaculture? My normal northern knowledge noggin knows that it stands for "permanent culture," and is a system of thought for designing healthy, long lasting communities. Click here for more info.
• What is EcoVersity? Click here.
• Earth Based Vocations? Sounds crazy right. Click here.

I'm even taking the train from Philadelphia to Santa Fe, which is a 50 hour affair. But I have my own bedroom the first night so that should be sweet. I like the train. In North America it's quite slow, yes, as opposed to Europe. But it's comfortable, roomy, picturesque (and you see new places because the tracks usually don't follow roads) and friendly. Strange as it may seem, it's also the most energy-efficient means of transportation. So, since I have a day or two to spare, in the train I'll take care.

i'm back in philadelphia. whew what a trip! feeling a lot better now too. check out our peru pictures.

stay tuned for future adventures.

I Teach You Machu Picchu

machu picchu is indeed a very magical place. sitting atop a ridge surrounded by steepness, one can see imposing and beautiful mountains in every direction. it is the rainy season now, but we have been quite lucky and have only been soaked once. while at machu picchu the sky couldn´t make up its mind. we arrived at 6am with the sun rising and mist enveloping. soon after the sun began to clear the mist and the incredible vista there unfolded itself before our eyes and our smug buttocks planted comfortably on a rock. machu picchu, meaning "old mountain" in quechua, the native tongue of the Incas, is the most spectacular and famous of dozens of ruins in the Sacred Valley. they became ruins in the 1500´s as the Spaniards came and conquered with their guns and germs. the conquistadors destroyed the Inca towns, took their many tons of gold and silver, and often built churches on top of the old temples. machu picchu is, to my knowledge, the largest and most intact of all the different ruins. cusco, where we are now, was the Inca capital and therefore probably its largest city, but is now completely covered by a newer version of buildings and life. the bloodlines of the incas, the pride for their past, and the quechua language still appear quite strong, however.

the incas built things to last. they carved large stone blocks to form their walkways, fortress barriers, and house walls. basically for everything but rooves, which were of straw held up by wood. so now in the ruins, all the stones (which weren´t destroyed or moved by the spaniards) remain and all the rooves are gone. the incas would sometimes chip out their stones from quarries 5km or more from the desired destination, and they pulled the stones by placing rolling logs underneath, much like the Egyptians and Easter Islanders, among others. if you haven´t heard of easter island, you should check out the story of that dead civilization. so far the heaviest stone we´ve seen is 128 tons (280 thousand pounds!). that was at a ruins site called Sacsy Waman which we visited today. they pulled that stone and all the others for that site about two kilometers.

cusco is at 3,400 meters, about 11,000 feet in altitude. that´s high! it´s the elevation of the tops of the big ski mountains in colorado, for instance. you couldn´t tell by looking around, as the mountains near here are not so steep or high. its proximity to the equator (13 degrees south) counteracts the altitude such that there is only rarely snow here. higher up though, you can get all the snow you want all year. the andes climb to 21-22,000 feet in many places. here in cusco, in the distance you can see snow-covered mountains of towering cliffs.

in buenos aires i drank tap water. i just wasn´t thinking straight. but after drinking the tap water in Gaia Ecovillage the whole time there and never getting sick, i did it out of habit when i visited the capital. but still, i wasn´t thinking straight. a couple days later, just after arriving in peru, i started feeling quite ill. well it´s been a week now and i´m just starting to get over it. this bacteria is called e.coli, short for a much longer medical term i can´t remember. well we´ve all heard of e.coli right? remember the drinking water crisis in that town in Ontario a couple years ago? that was e.coli and some people died. let me tell you, e.coli is no fun. the bacteria hangs out in your stomach and intensines, multiplying and producing a toxin that attacks your intestinal lining. the tissue of the intestinal lining becomes inflamed and its ability to ingest nutrients is reduced. i guess i got a good dose of the bacteria, for i haven´t been able to eat anything for about six days now. i actually just ate for the first time this evening - a half of a bowl of cream of pumpkin soup. oh boy oh boy that soup tasted sooooo good. food is simply heaven when you´ve been away from it for a time. so i´ve been relying on tea, water, and gatorade this week. i had some mean stomach pains, especially a couple days ago, which i think is reinforcing the lesson for me. the moral of the story: for all you inexperienced, carefree souls out there, NEVER DRINK TAP WATER IF YOU´RE AT ALL DOUBTFUL OF ITS PURITY. this basically means all places in the world other than Canada, US, and some western European countries. for all its treachery and sickening ability, my ode to e.coli:

during the first part of my time in South America
my life was full of eco-truths.
during the last part
my life has been full of e.co-lies.

as my mom informed me the other day, e.coli is the number one cause of childhood death in the world. children get it by drinking dirty water (and in many places in the world there is of course no option for clean water) and then they diarrhea and vomit their insides out, until they die of dehydration.

for all the inconveniences e.coli caused us, i am very happy that i was still able to visit machu picchu and other ruins and take part in alot of our market strolling and dining experiences. for the dining, i mean drinking tea and watching the others eat, but it´s been quite comical at times. and on another bright side, during my sickness i came up with some new lyrics for songs, like:

we´re sgt. lepper´s phoney darts club stand
we hope that you enjoy your throw
we´re sgt. lepper´s phoney darts club stand
we started thirty years ago
sgt. lepper´s phoney, sgt. lepper´s phoney, sgt. lepper´s phoney darts club stand

this trip has truly been unforgettable. and quite lovely most of the time.

bye-a gaia

i left gaia on tuesday with very positive feelings of my experience and a mixed desire to stay longer. one part of me was glad to be going, back to a place where i can easily express myself in my mother tongue, and another part of me want to stay longer in this little community of very kind people, improving a little each day at expressing myself in spanish. anyhoo, my experience there now feels like a dream, except that from that dream i carry this new ability to speak a bit of another language. i have been in buenos aires the past two days. it is a complete turnaround! from small community to huge city; vegetarian food to meat based; speaking spanish with argentians to speaking english with travellers from all over the world; grass to concrete; cows in my surroundings to people in my surroundings; the list goes on and on.

doctor friends of my dad, named Alejandra and Jorge, kindly picked me up at the bus terminal on tuesday, showed me around some neighborhoods, and took me out to eat that evening. i am grateful to their hospitality, it was exactly what i need coming into a big unknown city alone. well that evening, after not having eaten meet (and almost no animal products period) for five weeks, i chowed down an egg salad, some sausage, and a big honkin´ steak. (enter applause from brother, and carnivore, josh). thus i experienced the more common form of argentine cuisine. in these days of gratefulness, i am also grateful to my stomach for gracefully receiving this carnivorous onslaught.

music has been my sanity equilibriumizer during my time at gaia. when my mind was all tired from listening to and speaking castellano, i would pick up the guitar and strum some bob dylan tunes. when i needed to relax a little during siesta or before bed, i would put on my headphones and doze to chopin nocturns. gaia also had an assortment of little drums and percussion instruments, and i had some great rhythm jams with jorge and edgardo after suppers. and every day in the kitchen monica, ariel and i sang all sorts of 70s songs she used to sing in her teen days. crosby, stills, nash; america; eagles. ahhh music, sweet, music.

have you ever smelled rotten cabbage? ooo, boy oh boy. people always say i´m crazy to smell unpleasant odors by choice. but you know though, i think i understand where dogs are coming from. sweet or unpleasant, wild or fresh or rotting, it is a rich experience, the world of olfaction.

off to peru! to meet up with sister jocelyn, mom, and max killorn, a family friend.

realizations and globalization

thanks for the comments again, very funny as usual. i DID respond to this lastest batch with a comment of my own.

I didn´t even tell you yet how they call me here. jeremias, pronounced her-eh-me-ass. sometimes jeremy, pronounced cher-eh-me because they can´t pronounce "j" like english speakers. it´s nice to be called jeremias for a change, somehow it seems like a farmboy name to me.

After travelling in western Europe last fall, I figured that cars are uniquely small there compared to other places in the world. but nope, the cars are small here too. and they drive quite fast. are cars generally large only in the US and Canada?

i just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible, a story of a 60´s American family that moves to the congo on an evangelical mission. it is an incredibly-written, believable account of the family´s surprises and challenges in a little congo town and the aftermath of their project of conversion-gone-awry. highy recommended. one of the best books i´ve ever read, i simply couldn´t stop reading it in every free moment i had.

now that i´ve learned much more about how Gaia functions, let me tell you a little about its features. the houses´walls are built of COB, a simple material made of mud, straw, and sand, that hardens quite nicely when dry. the rooves are made of thatched straw (a foot or a foot and a half thick), and the installation process is apparently not easy. Gaia has some friends in neighboring Uruguay who are experienced in this art and come to install the roof of each new house. they will be coming next month to do up the third such roof. the garden here has dozens of plant species, including corn, zuccini, many types of lettuces, beets, quinoa (a very nutritious grain), tomatoes, pumpkin, squash, peaches, lemons, and conquots (not sure on the spelling, a strong tasting purple fruit). they buy most of their grains and some of their fruits and vegetables, although the garden is growing.

what does gaia do with its garbage, you ask? a very interesting story indeed. all food waste and soiled paper is composted on site. paper, cardboard, and wood is burned. metals are reused or thrown in with the plastics. now the plastics. . .are put in the walls of the houses. that´s right, in the walls. as the houses are being built i believe. they´ve come to the conclusion that it´s the most effective, least toxic way of dealing with the plastics. there is no recycling of plastics (or anything) nearby in the towns, by the way. so into the walls they go. in this way Gaia has neither started a dump, nor does it throw garbage on the road to be picked up and forgotten about. there´s a certain comfort i experience when i think of my floss and candy wrappers in the walls of Monica and George´s new house.

i hate mosquitos. their slow, stealthy ways at night; their light landing on the skin so as not to be felt until the bite; and of course the god-awful buzzing sound they always seem to bring right in my ear. their only purpose is to suck our blood in a very annoying fashion. i mean blood sucking is always going to be at least annoying, and perhaps worse, but still. two weeks ago, during the heat that followed a week of rain, they came out in full force. here there are two types of mosquitos: the kind regular to my past experiences, and then a larger, more painful-less annoying type. this second kind is about twice the size of the other, and when i smack them i can really feel the squish of a bug! one more reason to dislike them. i am just so happy there is no malaria here. that is really the final, ultimate key to their evil. my ode to mosquitos: you are tiny flying creatures weighing but a fraction of a gram, and yet you have managed to accomplish a feat few things on earth have been able to. you have earned my hate. (applause). fortunately their numbers have quickly died down during the last week.

on friday the annual two week permaculture course started here. twenty-nine people from nine countries gathered in this little community of a dozen people. permaculture is short for "permanent culture" and is basically the ideals of sustainability applied to a community of any size. it is about working with your local environment (rather than against it, or trying to conquer it) to maximize both its health and yours, using resources wisely and efficiently, with the overall purpose of living within the carrying capacity of your land. in applied terms, this means that the forest around Gaia isn´t slowly diminishing and being cut away, but that it´s growing as fast as firewood is being consumed. the garden´s soil quality is maintained or improving. all the COB used for making a house creates a big hole in the ground, which is then turned into a pond. those are some examples. i don´t yet know that much about permaculture, so feel free to tell me more or do your own research. anyway, back to the course. the total number of people here has swelled to 45, so i´ve been helping a lot in the kitchen. it´s been very enjoyable. i love eating good food, and i love preparing it to make sure it´s healthy and delicious. lots of new recipes here. . .a lot of you would probably find the food a bit bland here, with all the grains and no meat, but of course you can always add your own condiments and toppings. cooking for 45 is no easy feat; it´s three of us working hard for most of the day in there. now i can only imagine what cooking for 150 is like, which is the case at camp glenburn where i work in the summer, for example. anyway, last thursday i was in the kitchen preparing supper. it was the day before the start of the course and a couple participants had arrived. rodolfo, a middle-aged man from the Dominican Republic, wandered into the kitchen asking me if he could help. i said sure, why not, and he cut up some greens for the salad. and then i thought to myself: it feels like a normal, peaceful evening, but this is just an incredible situation. a twenty three year old from US/Canada, in broken spanish telling a man twice his age from the Dominican to cut some vegetables for a salad, in a little community in the middle of nowhere in Argentina.

tales from the quick

Hola de nuevo,

first of all, for all those who wrote comments, i want to thank you for your funny, thoughtful, interesting notes. i responded to the comments in my last installment, and unfortunately didn´t have a chance to respond to the latest batch. next time. i did read them though.

well it´s been another action packed week. I finished my Spanish course on Monday, desafortunademente (how´s that for a word). i was having a good time studying for seven hours on my own each day and writing a silly story in spanish for practice. i will put that story in the blog sometime perhaps. in english it´s called A Dollar´s Worth Voyage, it´s the tales of an adventurer similar to me, only much more adventurous and wild, going all over the world almost on very little cash. Now I am officially a volunteer here, working about six hours a day doing all kinds of things. gathering firewood for the kitchen, sweeping very dusty rooms (in cob - earth - buildings what would you expect?), varnishing floors and doors with sweet smelling non toxic vegetable oil or something like that, helping make dinner, shoveling out the edge of a soon to be pond. it´s keeping me on my toes for sure, and it´s fun not knowing what i will do tomorrow. now my body is a lot more tired than my mind, which is the opposite of my state a week ago. feels good for a change.

i was thinking yesterday, why i haven´t had a regular conversation for more than two weeks. regular like a chat using my mother tongue, not thinking about how to say things but only about the ideas, talking quickly with ease and expressing myself clearly. like i said before, a couple of the people here at Gaia speak english fluently but it would seem disadvantageous to have big conversations in english. the one downside is i´m left a bit in the dark with being able to express myself. of course this is naturally what i expected. for someone who really loves to talk and control conversations, i think this would be extremely challenging. for me, often being quiet naturally and talking to myself in my head, it is still quite trying. so i was thinking yesterday, why this blog is the most regular conversation i´m having these days. how strange, seeing as how i´m talking to no one in particular.

this experience is really interesting for many reasons. besides the ones i´ve already told about, there is no alcohol, or chocolate for that matter, at Gaia. being used to a beer or two in the evening, i really crave a cerveza. it´s a detox of sorts, after all the various kinds of alcohol consumed in Puerto Rico and last fall´s travels in Europe. but all the things i often crave, like pizza, internet surfing for hours, milk, grapefruit juice, lots of things, i do want sometimes but generally speaking i have forgotten about them. in such a different atmosphere, i find my usual habits and addictions are not as pressing as they usually are. my habits are very much connected to the places, the locations, in which they have existed.

the weather here is really beautiful. after a week of rain upon my arrival (everyone joked that i brought the cold and wet from up north), it has been sunny and warm, sometimes hot, with just a day or two of rain.

i was running the other day on the dirt road that is next to Gaia, and i passed a big group of cows in the pasture on my left, all standing near the fence and hence close to me. all staring staring staring. the cows just can´t seem to get over this guy running down the road. maybe they´ve never seen this before, it´s possible for it´s a very quiet country road. well i didn´t think much of the cows´staring, because that´s what they all do each time i run, but suddenly one cow started running alongside the fence parallel to me. that cow got stirred up another to start running, and another, and soon enough the whole pack of 50 cows was running along with me! like dominoes. were they scared, were they hopeful for some treats, were they inspired? i don´t know. but it was a surreal experience, i just laughed outloud, running down the road with a big pack of cows alongside. and it´s hard to imagine cows running, right? because they´re always just standing around eating grass. but cows can run, let me tell you.

bear tales

Hola! Well it´s been a week since I last wrote and what a week it´s been. I´ve learned so much castellano, and there´s still a long way to go. It´s been hard for sure; learning a new language takes so much mind energy. last week when i had six hours of classes a day, i did feel a bit crazy. this week i am studying on my own most of the time, and have one hour of review each day with one of the english speaking people at Gaia. i am grateful to the language for being much more consistent (with the rules) than English, but there are still a lot of irregularities. Overall, I feel good about how much I´ve learned so far. The frustrating part is that I still can´t understand everyone in usual conversation. It sounds sooo fast, as it always does when you´re learning a new language and your mind is computing the language slowly. I see this process of learning as anologous to a growing civilization. At first there are just a small group of people living together (a couple words in my mind) and I have a handle on that. hola, como estas, que pasa, a-okay. Then the community starts to grow (new words and understanding) which necessitates more rules and social structure (language rules and structure). Then the community blows up into a city and everything goes crazy! Some people are running with their heads cut off, some are stealing from others, some have jobs and others don´t. . .it is chaos, which will hopefully turn into organized chaos in the long run. well my learning of castellano has had its initial blow up (through all day immersion and lots of studying) and is currently quite chaotic! hundreds of words and phrases and rules running around my mind, some of which i have a better handle on than others. i trust this chaos will organize itself with time.

Gustavo and Silvia, a couple with a two year old boy Tobias, are head of Gaia. They are very smart and hardworking. Silvia speaks English fluently and is one of the two who spend an hour each day with me. She said a couple days ago that she learned English through her many travels around North America and Europe. "It´s hard to learn a new language, but it´s amazing to see different cultures and it gives you humility," she said to me. I couldn´t agree more. I am so humbled to be in this amazing place with nice people who speak another language and have their own habits and norms. We all know of course that there are thousands of cultures and languages in the world, but it really hits me now that I am part of a new one. I feel like a kid in many respects. No one here knew me one bit when I arrived. A fresh start. The first chance since arriving at Acadia 5 1/2 years ago that no no one has expectations for me to be a certain way. It is an odd feeling; it makes me wonder who I am exactly. So it is a rebirth of sorts. Add that on to learning the language from scratch, and you can see why I feel like a kid. At meals I generally sit quietly and listen to the table conversation. Most everyone talks a lot and tells good stories so it´s easy to listen. At this point I´m understanding about 1/3 of what people are saying. Grow, fraction, grow!

I wrote a couple haikus in castellano the other day. Haikus are three line poems of Japanese origin, with the lines being 5-7-5 syllables. Some of my lines don´t have perfect syllablization, but it´s close enough. i´ll leave it to you to try to figure out the meaning or to translate it on the internet.

me siento bien
en un lugar hermoso
se llama Gaia

siempre cantando
la musica llena
el corazon

hormiga negra
trayendo una flor
blanca, que lindo

estoy cansado
aprendo castellano
esponja cerebro

Gaia is well known in the ecovillage world. There are often people coming for tours on the weekends, and two men even came yesterday to film the place for an Argentinian TV show! I think the show is called De Costa a Costa (from coast to coast). It was quite strange. They filmed us setting up lunch outside and starting to eat, and then they had lunch with us. They did some interviews, but not with me, since a super slow bumbling spanish talker is not going to catch the viewer´s eye. Maybe they´d like my rustic North man charm though. Who knows these days with TV, I sure don´t. I wonder what the show turned out like. Let me know if you find out.

All six men (including me) at Gaia have beards. Gustavo has the biggest; it reaches half a foot or more from his chin. People generally wear plain, easy going, well worn clothes, and i guess you could say we look like a group of hippies. Not nearly as flamboyant or colorful as the sterotypical sixties hippes though. As far as I can tell most people in Argentina are clean cut and the men don´t have beards, just like in North America. When the TV men arrived, with short well groomed hair and beardless faces, it reminded me of this fact. It was nice to see them getting along with everyone and laughing together at lunch. Appearances often matter so much, but it´s up to us to believe whether they should or not.

The three kids at Gaia are adorable. Tobias is 2+, Suyai (pronounced soo-shai) is just about 2, and Cecilia is 4. They play all the time around the dinner table and teach me words, and sometimes ask me how to say things in English. Very smart. They, especially the two younger ones, alternate between fits of laughter and fits of crying. Boy oh boy, it´s hard to imagine having a two year old of my own. As my mom and dad tell me, I was a very tempestuous two year old, having long fits of screaming-crying. Thanks for being so good to me mom and dad, and props and respect to all you other parents out there.

Gaia is a sort of wildlife sanctuary in the locale because wide-open, unprotected crop and grazing fields surround us for miles. The eucalytpus-like trees that I referred to in my last installment really are eucalyptus. they are huge and beautiful, and i like the smell so much. Reminds me of a beautiful park in San Francisco to which we would take Pepsi to run wild with other dogs. Anyway I have seen a lot of interesting wildlife. Birds of all kinds non-tropical, toad eating lizards, foxes, armadillos, tarantulas, and bugs bugs bugs. The other day I saw a swarm of tiny ants ripping apart a beetle a hundred times their size. When i noticed the scene the beetle was already in two, and both parts of its body were moving and fighting for control. nature can really be gruesome at the large and the small scale.

Hope you are all well! Amor,
Jeremy

Jerbearticus conquers the Andes

I didn´t actually conquer them at all; it just sounds good. I did, however, cross the Andes in my final plane from Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Amazing! And surprising. Amazing because they are huge mountains, and I saw a half dozen glaciers in the upper reaches, along with some snow. Surprising because the plane crossed them in ten minutes! I guess the Andes aren´t wide at all. . .400 miles an hour, ten minutes of travel would roughly make that section of the Andes 65 miles wide. hm.

I took an hour+ taxi from Buenos Aires right to Gaia Ecovillage, and have been in a dream world ever since. Don´t get the wrong idea; it´s not like a heaven where no one works and everyone relaxes and picks ripe fruit from trees as they please. It is, however, a very different atmosphere than i´ve ever experienced. Fifteen people live here - twelve adults 30-50, with one grandmother, and three children 2-4 years old. They are all from Argentina, as far as i know, except there´s a volunteer here my age who, amazingly, is from southeastern Pennsylvania! Near the Delaware border. Her name´s Abby, she´s been here for almost two months, and is leaving this weekend I think. I greatly admire her fluentness in Spanish.

Speaking of which, Spanish (or Castellano, as they call Latin American Spanish) is the main language at Gaia, of course. A couple people, and Abby of course, speak English, but they and I are trying to limit English conversation so I learn more quickly. This week I am learning Castellano for six hours a day. Intense! Cosas (things), verbos, las partes del cuerpo (body parts), and so much more. I am totally saturated. I have not slept normally because my mind keeps trying to say sentences and conjugate words at all hours even though i have no desire for it to do this in the middle of the night. I will get by, though, and I am learning a lot. I feel a bit crazy at the moment (which heightens my dream world experience) but am having a great time so far. Everyone´s so kind and helpful. The food, which is just about vegan, is prepared (and some of it grown here i think) mostly from scratch and is so tasty! Both lunch and dinner are big, social meals and supper might stretch into a two or three hour affair. Everyone gets up at 7am and works maybe 6-8 hours a day - cooking, cleaning, office work, building and maintenance, tending to the garden, with the women and men appearing to generally be in their traditional roles. It´s hard to say though since I´m not helping out with any of that yet.

Three wind turbines on site power the whole community, the biggest electricity consumer of which is certainly the fridge. no microwaves, electric stoves, clothes dryer. solar water heaters (and a stove for rainy days) make for fine showers. The main building´s walls are made of mud, its roof of thatched straw, and its skeleton of wood. it´s a very comfortable, pretty abode, and definitely doesn´t look like your usual North American home. I guess it looks like one of those magical forest homes in a fairy tale, where maybe a magician lives. Other buildings here look more usual.

We´re at latitude 30 or 35 degrees south, I believe, and I would describe the climate as lush mediterranean. there are a couple palm trees here or there so it must never snow, but it´s definitely not jungle. Big eucalyptus-like trees tower over the property, while there is some undergrowth of bushes and bamboo. The countryside is beautiful here, and is dominated by fields of corn and golden grains, and cows. Cows must be very common because a native plant is called pata de baca - cow legs. i don´t yet understand why it´s called that though.

My Castellano teacher is very nice and speaks oh so clearly. The funniest moment so far was when I said "condoms" (condones) while trying to remember how to say "shoe laces" (cordones). My French has been quite useful while learning, as many words are near identical spelling to their Spanish counterparts, though their pronunciations are very different.

Just so you know, you can write in comments to me by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of each blog installment.

Hasta luego,
Jeremy

leaving on a jetplane

Jerbearticus the Procrastinator, oooo it sounds so evil.

Leaving in three hours for this ecovillage in Argentina: www.gaia.org.ar/english
What is an ecovillage? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecovillage

More in about a week, as I'll have to go to a nearby town to get on the internet.
Fingers crossed. . .