Islands

We leave tomorrow for Tahiti. I don't want to go; don't feel finished with my work here but then of course, realize 1. it will never be finished and 2. I will be back. The good-byes are difficult-we made some very important new friends. One of these took Marilyn and me on board the big cruise ship yesterday to film the music and dance of the Huahine Mamas. The politics of tourism and local culture was enacted before our eyes. I won't blog about this but have a poignent and complex story to tell. I just finished a one hour time lapse of the view from Chez Guynette, a center of one universe. I have collected the images and sounds I hoped to find here. One more snorkle this afternoon, a farewell drink and conversation with Marty and Dorothy, a grilled fish for dinner, and then off to Papeete.

Posted by Sally Cloninger at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Here we are, at the end of our month on Huahine. It flew by--the locals can't imagine what we do all day, as not many visitors stay this long. We've made many good friends, and are known all over, as students on small islands have found out. I've got good information for my project, and lots of photos. Tomorrow we go to Tahiti for 5 days, and then to Raiatea for almost 2 weeks. There's a logical circuit of the islands, which we are not doing, so everyone's amused that we're doing it out of synch. We hope to catch the pirogue races, as "our" team, FareAra will be there. We've offered to sell tee shirts and caps.

I was felled by an extreme flu yesterday--but once I decided it wasn't Dengue fever, I relaxed and slept 14 hrs. much better today. I had my hair cut this morning--always living dangerously.

Posted by Virginia Darney at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Our lovely Xlendi, gosh it is so nice to be back here. ever since i wrote that nasty blog about the weather being real shit, it has been beautiful and warm every day.

just by chance i got this photo of xlendi from the air as we were flying over malta, way back in Febuary!

this is the view off our roof top at sunset. since hesper's mom came we have taken a table up there so we can eat breakfast and dinner up there.

gotta love the busses here!

yikes today is thursday and we fly out on monday. i can't believe that this whole experiance is almost over. i am still having dreams where i am at home trying to get ready to leave for this trip, then i wake up and the sun is streaming in and i relize that this is it, i am here! but now it is over. well almost, we fly back to rome monday, then hesper leaves on wednesday morning. i don't fly home til the following wednesday. i am anxious about that week i have on my own. after about the first two weeks hesper and i spent together, we joked that by the end of out trip we wouldn't even need words to comuncate anymore. we would just be able to read eachother's minds. but now that that time is here, it really isn't that far fetched. we have definatley become very close, and i am very glad that we have gotten along so well. in fact now we joke about being the conjoined twins, and once we are seperated there will be this whirling empty space where the other is missing. we wonder if when we get back, if others will be able to notice a differance in us, i mean besides our gorgeous tans and Maltese sense of fashion! i am pretty sure our sense of humor has been warped by this trip, but only for the better! heh. honest to God i don't know what to do with myself during that last week. i don't want to stay in rome, i know that. something about the one being left behind just sucks. so i am going to strike out on an adventure of my own. i thought about going to Moscow cause it has a nice ring to it....From Malta to Moscow! but i think i would freeze in russia with only my mediterranean wardrobe. so something a little warmer. right now the south croatian coast is weighing heavily. a lot of islands are there. but the place i want to go is on the mainland shore, it is called the 'pearl of the Adriatic' or also Dubrovnik. so i could do that or i could go spend the week in venice which is a nice choice too. or i could do the italian tour and see Seine, Florence and pisa and what every else catches my fancy. i don't know a world of possiblities! and then home, home, home, and the need to find a home!

Posted by Rika Seidl at 05:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today is Malta?s Independence Day and a public holiday. So far, I haven?t seen much in the way of celebration--just lots of families spending the day together. There was a big line at the movie theatre. The sky is acting as if it wants to clear up for my mom?s arrival tomorrow. I?m hoping it will be successful. I had a happy helper in the form of our apartment maid. When she came to clean our room a few days ago, she saw a glass full of flowers I had picked to sketch. Alarmed, she told us that one of the blooms was a protected species that is extremely rare due to so many people picking it! I was shocked and dismayed, and very sorry. Fortunately, she said that the others were weeds, and promised not to tell on me. We told her we were students, and that I was studying the island?s wildflowers, and she grew very excited, saying that she is a passionate wildflower enthusiast. We showed her my book of sketches and she was able to identify some of the plants I didn?t know. The next day, she brought her own wildflower book--the Velveteen Rabbit of guidebooks--and left it with me to use. She was full of tidbits about pollution, medicinal uses of the plants, and history. We exchanged addresses and promises to write. She also encouraged me to send sketches, and offered to photocopy pages of her guidebook and send them to me. What a sweetheart! Tomorrow we?re headed back to Xlendi on Gozo, and in about two weeks, we?re off to Rome. I?m hoping to visit the Vatican museums, and am looking forward to viewing some masterpieces and the Swiss Guard. All of a sudden it seems like time is going by so fast, and I think back to the week on Elba that to me felt like a month. I can?t wait to see how being back home will put this whole trip into perspective.
Thanks everyone for the birthday blessings!

Posted by Hesper Stacey at 05:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A photo of Downtown Valleta. This is what I imagine Prague looking like.

This photo was taken in Valleta outside of the main cathedral. we had just been turned away from entering, since we had no ticket. so i was erked and saw a mocking photografic revenge. so now we have the Masturbating Statue

a nicer photo taken in Victoria on Gozo. this is a very common sight to see saint shrines built into the walls

A little bit of Graffti that i thought was interesting

The festa day on Gozo
Before the ceremony started while the altar boys could still run around

a little later when the band came out to play, the cardinal would be arriving shortly

A little more of the same

A photo of our deliriously fun day with bicyles. we rode all over Gozo, from shore to shore!

this is in Xlendi and is an image i have seen a few times but finally decided that it was too great not to whip out the camera and take a picture. this is a very common way to get the horse out for exercise. we have seen shetland ponies running beside trucks and this white stallion a few different occasions. so picture this and then to make it even better as this car passed they had "eye of the tiger" playing really loud. it was priceless! i have seen this car and horse before with about eight kids packed into the back of it, taking the horse for a run around the countryside.

Posted by Rika Seidl at 05:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I don't remember the name of this town, but it is where we went with Sirio for a Carneval parade

This was the beach that was a 10 minute walk away on one of the few sunny days ever! in the background is the Island of Monte Cristo! and of course that is my beautiful assistant Hesper!

A first glimps of our cabin. that is Ms. Hesper with her feet in the bidet! we decided that the bidet could be put to better use as a mini-tub-footwarmer. this is one of my favorite photo's from this entire trip. and yes i do have her consent to use it in my blog.

Posted by Rika Seidl at 04:39 AM | Permalink

This weekend was sheer madness, but great fun. i went on this trip on this double decker bus with like 50 kids from the university to the mountains where it was all green and pretty. but when we got there it started raining, i mean pouring like it never does here. and no body wanted to barbyQ in the rain, so we spent like 4 hours on the bus driving around all crazy-like chasing the rain around the island, searching for a dry place. imagine doing that in washington, huh? he he. we?d be driving for months. finally we found this place and we all lugged in boxes of food and and cases of beer to these tables and celebrated life. it was so much fun and i think i got some great photos. but then of course it started to rain again, but this time like the ocean was falling from the sky and it was a locura (craziness) trying to clean everythig up and getting everyone on the bus. when we all made it, we were drenched from head to toe and we just started dancing and falling all over eachother while the bus drove back to the city, pouring beer and coke all over eachother. it was a mess but so much fun... the kids here are so crazy and i?m going to miss them so much. i?ve never seen so much life in a group of friends. i thought it would be fun to take a trip some time like that at evergreen, but minus the alcohal right, not quite legal there for everyone. this was the longest weekend ever because monday and tuesday night we celebrated raquel and my friend jennys birthdays. the fun never ends. i keep telling myself that i need to slow down, while the people here keep telling me, tienes que aprovechar todo y vivir en el momento ( i have to take advantage of my time here and live in the moment) they are right, befor i know it i will be back home and missing the islands. i like how they think here, they are very spiratic and free. I have been working on my project with them and getting to know them rather well. During the day I come to the university to talk, learn new words in spanish, observe how they interact and learn new card games. I?ve also been to a few classes here, and it is interesting to see how they differ, especially the english class.
I designed a quiz and am handing it out to as many people as I can with a series of questions. For example, what they fear, whether they remember their dreams or not, what they think of when they hear the word chaos, or serenity, if they have trouble making eye contact... ect. ect. The answers have been really interesting and it has really helped me understand a lot more about young people here. Everyone seems really interested in what I am studying because its nothing like the classes here, and the more I explain how Evergreen works, the wierder it gets. But I love it and miss it and love how we learn.
Tomorro im?going back to lanzarote. i cant wait. i miss my friends there that i made at carnivales. more good energy, good food and fun.

missing everyone of course!

Posted by Elisa Barrios at 04:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

(This is the same place as before only this picture was taken yesterday, not nearly as nice, eh? i got wet taking this picture, the waves splashed up and got me. Ah, always the dedicated photographer.)

This was taken yesterday as well. That is Hesper!

Ooh, What a Sexxy girl I am! I don't know how this car got here but it was set on fire at some point in time.

ok now for the real Blog-
Ugh, the weather has not been so nice for about the last 2 weeks. Everyday we wake-up and open the curtains to another gray day. It sucks and is not the Malta we know. Before when we stayed in Paceville, everyday we?d open the curtains and gloat saying ?Ah, another glorious day in Malta?. It was wonderful to know that everyday was going to be sunny. But now it is kind of hard to get up in the morning. We have been sleeping in later and staying up later. I think Hesper and I have become a couple solar powered girls. The clouds here are different from the Northwest, they are not nearly as dark. So even though it is cloudy and gloomy here it is still pretty light. There is just this heavy layer of white clouds that sits over the island. In the last two days it has been getting worse, there has been a fog that has moved in and By God it rained! But once again by Northwest standards it just sprinkled. Even though it is spring here it doesn?t really rain, like in the month that we have been here it has rained probably a half inch and that?s it. This is definitely an arid island, upon which there is a huge tourist industry. It reminds me of Jamaica Kincad?s book about Antigua. There is a definite water shortage here but no one talks about it. In our hotel room there are two stickers above the sink one says something about ?Please use your towel for more than one day? but it makes it sound like you can save the environment by not making them use the detergent to wash them rather than the water. Then there is another sticker that says ?Water not fit for drinking? in an assortment of languages so we have to buy all our drinking water. Which is really expensive, we are paying about $3 for a little over a gallon of water! Ouch! And we have shopped around to find the best price. We even bought them in the neighboring city one evening and then lugged the bottles the 1/2 mile home, uphill! That was one of the great things about Gozo and our house in Xlendi, we could drink the water from the tap. It tasted like crap but it didn?t make us sick. It was super salty water, yuck! So our kidneys got a good work out, filtering out the extra daily salt intake. But hey we saved a lot of money not having to spend $6 every other day. We have heard second hand that Malta imports water on big tankers from Italy. Which I am sure is a bit pricey as well. There also these big industrial buildings that say they are REVERSE OSMOSIS plants. An interesting idea, I am not sure exactly how it would work but it sounds plausible.

Posted by Rika Seidl at 04:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Nadia and I met up in Wellington, after both of us got sick of our North Island towns---the North Island is SOOO last week! Actually, it just became time to throw dependence to the wind and see if we could survive being our spontaneous (yet surprisingly adult) selves.
After we stayed with Ms. McManus in Wellington, we caught the Inter-Islander ferry to Picton. Many of the ferries that day had been cancelled because of extreme weather, and this one was delayed, but we managed to finally get going at 6.30pm. It was lovely watching the sunset over Wellington and I really think that Wellington has more charm than Auckland. The ferry pitched, back and forth. One minute your legs are bending and your weight falls to earth, the next you are tottering around on tiptoes, eyes darting frantically for the nearest rail. It was a sunset tribal dance of sorts, because neither of us could help it. When we went back to find our seats inside, we stumbled throught the bar and crashed into a huddle of red-faced men who bellowed "Awready ben ere abit before, ay?" (Bloody New Zealand accent. I can actually mimick it now, because I hear it as being a ridiculous comedic farce of an Australasian. I am perceived as an oddity here when I speak, incurring squint-eyed scrutiny.I am truly a stranger everywhere, and will have to accept that I will be asked about my odd hybrid speech for the rest of my life.)
After the ferry dance we politely sat until the nausea rose in our stomachs. I tried to ignore it by reading a book. The schizophrenic swirling pattern on the upholstery of the seats did not help matters.
We stayed the night at Atlantis Backpackers at Picton (Free Breakfast! --which turned out to be a loaf of bread--) and then went to rent a car for the next ten days. After getting some rather ambitious quotes we got a great deal from Ace Rentals, and are now the proud temporary owners of a Nissan Pulsar hatchback. It is a really cute little car, and its been a breeze to drive. In downtown Christchurch it could fit into any space. My driving has been fine, too, even though I occasionally get in on the wrong side, or grab for an invisible seatbelt.
I drank in beauty all the way on the drive down. I wish my volcabulary was sufficient to describe it, but it isn't at present so I'll have to labor at it in my journal. The word "beautiful" is not specific enough.
So, we are in Christchurch tonight, and tomorrow, new adventures at the bottom of the world. We share the sea with Antartica.
Sweet Island Dreams,
Lyd

Posted by Lydia Dawe at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

While I was growing up there was this deserted compound of pale yellow buildings known as the "Institute." We rode our bikes on the old concrete paths. We skipped and played war and tag and chase and picked buttercups and held them under our chins to see just who loved butter. Some of us played basketball in the court behind the main buildings. Not me, though; I was fat and didn't like running so much. Still don't. We lived a few hundred yards up on top of the blind hill at 5 1/4 m. Zimovia Highway in a trailer my folks had bought just after I was born in '71. The grade of the hill was flattened out in a major road project in 1992; the year after I got wiped out by a drunk driver with no headlights on who popped over the crest of the hill like a stealthy, horizontal eyeless jack-in-the-box going sixty just as I was crossing the street in the dark. Talk about bad timing. But that's a story for a different time. Point is, I liked playing down there. Something about sitting on the concrete steps and looking out at the gorgeous expanse of Shoemaker bay and Zimovia Strait. There were the two clusters of huge fir trees across the street along the beach. It was always our favorite beach. Probably the whole towns' favorite beach. Now the trees have all been cut down, and the driveway filled in and rocked off and is privately owned. Like so many things, Institute beach is no longer what it once was. Still beautiful but changed forever. At a young age, from hanging out at the Institute I guess, I developed an affinity for old rough-mixed concrete. You know, the concrete with all the stones in it. The concrete that grows moss across its pits as it flourishes in the damp air above walled-in streams chuckling below; glinting spiderwebs strung here and there reflecting the sun or frosted with chill. All the Institute buildings were quite tall for my world, possibly even three or four stories, and the main one had a series of three arches along the front. These weren't southwestern-type arches, but inverted U shapes nonetheless; possibly 25 feet high, which you could see the front of the building through, and the concrete walkway behind the arches and along the building front was a perfect place to play protected from the rain. When I was a little older I began to sneak inside. Just a little bit. I always was kind of a fat mamma's boy wuss, meaning I didn't ever do anything THAT bad or sneak in anywhere TOO far before anxiety tightened my stomach and scrotum beyond staying; I'd always leave before something 'bad' happened. My whole life I've lived with that nameless anxiety. I guess now I am able to attach some of that tension to my fear the universe may again do something 'bad' to me one day. I didn't conceive ofthat particular fear until I was twenty, when I got knocked clean out of my size thirteens by that drunk driver just in front of my parents' and left to die in a ditch while he slunk home in the dark on booze fumes and later couldn't figure out what smashed his little truck to hell and covered it in blood and hair. I know that fear, but I still can't explain anxiety's presence during those first nineteen years, though. I really can't. I had an exemplary childhood with lots of love from my family and plenty of food and supplies and support. I still do, thank you God. I think older kids would sneak in and party inside the Institute. My older sister Kimmer and her friend Gigi stole mirrors from inside there. I found them one day stacked inside my fort and I think back and wonder if maybe that wasn't such a good idea, taking those mirrors. Later, friends of mine said they found a burned-out fire and the remains of a sacrificed cat with some kind of symbols painted on the walls. Apparently there were satanists in our midst. How original. Not that surprising, though. For such a small town, Wrangell featured just about every flavour of organized religion, except possibly Buddhists. Why not cat sacrificing devil-worshipers, then? For a time I remember looking at everyone around town wondering who the evildoers could possibly be. By this time I'd seen enough tv to grasp the concept that people are not always how they appear. For instance, the druggist down town may be a coven leader for the church of satan. Probably not, but my imagination always had its own little B grade matinees. I know I wasn't alone in concocting fantasies about others; however, I kept my stories to myself. Wrangell has always been home to a thriving gossip community which feeds itself on untruths and does not care much for the taste of non-fiction. Anyway, all my memories of the Institute equal this fun and quietly spooky place I used to play and remember as a Wrangell landmark.

In blissful ignorance I romped on the grounds where since the 1930's until 1975, thousands of native children lived as near-prisoners; taken from their homes and villages and forced to live like POW's under the authority of the BIA. Many of these children were sexually and emotionally abused; some as young as five years old. Many could not speak english and being from the flat tundra were terrified of Wrangell's mountains and trees. Students were not allowed to speak anything but english and had were referred to by number instead of a name. Given Wrangell's intense mix of histories; settlement by Tlingits for thousands of years, and much much later fur seeking Russians who handed it off to the British who were generous enough to move aside us Americans, I was shocked but not all that surprised to find yet another shameful color added to the palette of history in this remarkably beautiful and sometimes horribly devious place. One day at the cafe' in Seattle a couple years back, I served a native man whom I told I was from Wrangell. At the time I thought it strange when he physically recoiled as he told me he was a former student at the Institute. I couldn't understand why he said it with such malice. To me it was real neat and near the beach with buttercups and a four way ball hoop on the playground. Just one more example of me as a well-meaning and ignorant white boy with a big smile and a lot to learn.

When I returned to Wrangell this February on the drive out the road home I was shocked to see the Institute property devoid of any structure and ringed by cyclone fence topped with barbed wire. The buildings had been completely destroyed and removed and all the grounds tilled up. The land is so poisoned from asbestos it may be some time before anything can be done with it. Last year there was a healing ceremony put on by the Episcopal Church of Wrangell for survivors of the Wrangell Institute. Some feel the term 'survivor' is too dramatic for what students endured at Wrangell. Some people think they are making up tales about how the younger boys always got the bottom bunks because the older boys knew if they were up higher they were less likely to get groped by the holder of the bobbing flashlight in the dark, held by the security guard making rounds. Some people like the safety of denial and will cower there always; we see you. I learned of all this in two ways: First I had breakfast with Father Mike Curran of the Episcopal Church who hosted the healing ceremony. He spoke to me at length about how incredibly scarred and scared the twelve survivors were who returned to take part in the healing ceremony. He related how these people were visibly sick and frightened by just stepping onto the now vacant campus. Even with the buildings no longer standing he said former students knew exactly where their beds used to be. Only TWELVE! Think of all the others who might never be able to make it here for closure they may sorely need. Father Mike hopes, and I agree, that the grounds would be a perfect place to build a temple of healing and learning so that all generations affected by the horrible legacy of the Wrangell Institute could come for some peace and closure. Second, I just watched almost 30 minutes of news footage put together by an Anchorage TV reporter covering the infamous Wrangell Institute and healing ceremony held here last year. I am going to hook my mini dv up to the vcr and copy the three sections so others can see what I've seen. I'm in disbelief to learn the true existence of the place I used to play at, which runs contrary to everything I belive in and now realize its contribution to the heavy burden on Alaska Natives and native peoples in general. Rhonda McBride is the name of the Anchorage TV reporter who made the story. She ended the piece by trying to present varying viewpoints, such as interviewing a local couple who worked at the Institute and claim no recollection of any abuse at all. She also cuts to a very primped UAF professor who wrote a book claiming use of terms like 'holocaust' and 'genocide' cloud the issue and shouldn't be used in this situation. If you could see how deeply wounded these people are, miss UAF comes off looking like a boob. McBride says the piece is not an attack against the people of Wrangell, rather, the idea that taking children from their homes to live in boarding schools is a practice which happened that needs looking into. I can't say it doesn't bother me to find that my former playland is the site for all this grief and hardship for some. I'm not even native. But I was born here, so I am of this land and I guess I can feel that way.

Posted by Walter Maenhout at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So I read at the open mic again last night, it went a lot better than last time. I didn't break the mic. Instead I transmuted my fear into power and rocked their socks. Hell yes.

Posted by Will Erokan at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

yeah so i passed my sailing corse, and now that that is done i, am a pirate, but one without a cool name...
everyone please help me out!
Master McCooper...
Rope Burn the Pirate...
Captin Sideshow...

come on all I NEED HELP!!!
and that is all there is to say
have a great one!
Ethan... ...THE PIRATE!!!

Posted by ethan mccooper at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

That was my score on the written portion of the sailing test! Yes I have been studying in paradise! I have three more written tests before I leave and so far I am mainly dreading the navigational one, but all in all I am so interested in this and having such a good time learning that it is great!

I saw another one of those mighty spiders and some interesting beetles lately.

I did see something today that has definetly inspired personal introspection and I guess, a kind of cultural obectiveness. Ethan and I got up and went to the Yacht Pro office this morning to gain a free ride from the truck goin in to Phuket town today. We ended up lucking out and riding in the airconditioned boss'es car. On the way we saw many beautiful things and were excitiedly talking about what our goals for the day were and our expectations of the next couple weeks. As we drove Ethan spotted some massive water buffalos right next to the road, grazing in a field. Unfortunately I had already spotted a horriffic motorbike crash only a few car lengths ahead where the man lay dead on the side of the road while a few other drivers were directing traffic past on the two lane highway. The man wasnt breathing and his motorbike lay ahead of him, utterly destroyed. His helmet was about fifteen yards away from his body, and blood flowed from his mouth onto the concrete road...

I thought about this incident all day. As we past our driver said "its an accident" with a sort of giggle. In thai culture it doesnt seem as if death and dieing or even distress and pain are factors for grief.

As I have been writing here a man sitting to my left got stung by some type of slow flying insect. The shop owners came to his aid and squashed the offensive beast, and applied some kind of balm, but while laughing the entire time.

When in the mountains of Chiang Mai I met a man who owned one of the building I slept in. He told me how cool it was watching american airplanes bomb Iraq. He did so while laughing.

Just a couple quick personal observational examples...

I'm not sure if people here laugh about all this because, "what else is there to do?" Or if they do this because of the nature of Bhuddism and the concepts of life as suffering? or really just why? I'm not offended by it in any way just morbidly interested.

The incident also made me reflect on something Rob (the owner of YachtPro) said to me. He said that Thailand promotes a false civility. That in actuality this is a facade, and that in reality it is similar to the "old west" (funny coming from an Australian). The lack of emergency vehicles, some kind of covering for the body, or I guess just the utter reality of the situation being so close, made me really reflect on what we have as Americans and what we lack. I thought about who I am while I am here and the validity of the expectations I have.

Once in Phuket town we did our shopping, though more subdued and ate a bit of food. The movie theater had 7 movies playing but only was playing Scoobie Doo 2 in English. I opted out of that one.

Coming back we caught the local form of a bus and rode with local people back here. This is very uncommon for foreigners and every person we asked for directions, while trying to navigate the city, kept offering us taxi's instead. We ended up being the last stop on the route. The driver was very nice but quiet and the ride was not bad at all. We paid our twenty baht and got off.

All in all it was quite a surreal day...

Posted by Timothy Lyon at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

well, i am back in reythemno in crete, and it is so nice to be home. it was the greatest feeling getting off the ship and actually knowing where i was going. well, the english girls were back at the hostel so it is like a reunion. i haven't seen eric yet, that partyier, i mean studier, but i hear he is excellent. he is learning a lot about how ancient greece effects the population's lifestyle, as am i about stray dogs and their freedoms. well, got to run but i am much happier now back amongst people i like. happy birthday mom and soon michael's.

Posted by Ariella Spector at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm still in Healesville. I'm still here because of one tiny word. "Pending."

I have money in my account that I can't touch until tomorrow (wednesday) because the deposit is pending. Stupid pending.

Anyhow, I'm all packed and ready to fly back down to Tasmania. I'm currently scheming to rent a car, when I get back, for a long week of driving all over the island. I think that will be a less expensive way of seeing more of the island. Tours are lame! I'm ready to go exploring all on my own.

When I get back to Tas I'll be in Hobart for a few days working on the interviews for my photography project. I'll get to find out if they even took any pictures, that will be exciting! I'll also have time to put up a list of "Tasisms" that I've heard. The list will come with translations, and is sure to provide some amount of entertainment in your otherwise boring marshaless existence.

UPDATE:

This journey was suposed to teach me about myself.
In keeping with that theme I will disclose the latest grain of knowledge bourne on the winds of this adventure. It flew into my eye causeing much irritation, until at last, loosened by tears, the grain came to rest on the tip of my finger for inspection.

I, marsha-anne geeting, am a worrier. I get worried, uptight, and upset. I am the complete opposite of our lovely cool as a cucumber Newmanina Kiwi Devil Ali McManus.

This might be something that you all knew, so spare me the eye-rolling please. I am excited about this discovery because I didn't know.

But, now I do. And instead of running from my natural inclination to fret, I embrace it full on! Because, now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

with all of my pending and worried love,
marsha

Posted by Marsha-Anne Geeting at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Two days ago I moved into my second apartment, where I will spend the remainder of my time in Aruba. My new abode is located in the same housing complex as my studio. Originally it was a single family home subdivided several years ago to include the main house, attached a one bed room apartment, two studios and a very small cottage not much larger than a shed. This type of housing complex seems to be a popular way for Arubian home owners to generate income while providing short term housing for students who cannot afford beach front rentals. Each unit has a "semi private" gravel yard with planters filled with cactuses, flowers, and palm trees. Never the less, I love my new place and consider it home. I am enjoying living alone in this tropical paradise and wonder how I will feel when I return to roomates. The subdivision my place is in is called Bakval Garden. It cconsists of many ranch style homes interspersed with brand new million dollar homes as well as buildings that have been abandoned. Most of the homes have five foot concrete walls surrrounding them, as mine does, for the purpose of providing private court yards and out door living space. Many dining rooms, for example, start inside and extend outside with no exterior wall. I have not seen many lawns in Aruba since it is a desert island and watering grass is probably very expensive. In lieu of lawns, people pave the area between the street and their concrete fences to park their cars. With narrow two lane roads, no one is allowed to park in the street. My location is very convenient for a residential area. I have a five minute walk over a dried up water shed that takes me to the bus stop. Other then the bus and walking I have also gone horse back riding to some of the natural sites as that is the only way to get there besides by car. I will talk about that at a later date. That's all for now.

Posted by Krystel Nysted at 07:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I have finally left the capitol of santo Domingo and feel much better. Much more free and much calmer. I spent about five unpleasant hours on a bus coming up here to the town of Samana. It's on the edge of a bay in the northern part of the country. the town is famous for its whalewwatching and although it is the season to do so i have chosen not to partake in the looking at whales. why? well, money of course. and of course, there is lots to do here otherwise. Yesturday i went to an islands in the middle of the bay by the name of cayo levantado. I almost got suckered into paying a horrendous price to get there, but i came to my senses and trusted my instincts. a man showed up at my hotel telling me he was taking a bunch of people to the island and would i like to go with him for 500 pesos, each way. i had been told the day before i could get there for only 100 each way. the man at the hotel claimed i had been lied to. of ocurse i wasn't. the deal is that if i want a private boat with other tourists i pay 500 if i want to just get on a normal boat with dominicans it is only 100. so i did just that and i actually didn't have to pay at all on the way back because i got invited on a boat full of kids on some trip by a strange girl who tried to make out with me.

the island was fantastic. the sand white the ocean beautiful blue green and the palm trees grew so close to the water. much closer than the beach i saw in boca chica. i met a man there who told me the other side of the island was better so i followed him there. and as we're walking through the woods we come across massive contruction. they are building a hotel. it was a pretty ugly site though i am happy to see the island before the hotel is there. all these peolel kept trying to tel the man not to continue and he kept assuring me that it was okay because i was with him. when we got to the other side it was completely empty beaches. I felt really lucky to be there, but then a military guy came and said to get the hell out of there. I spent the rest of the day on the other side where are the kids my age were. I had some strange interactions with some of them. and got some interesting reactions to my sexuality. one guy started telling me about god and whatnot another wanted me to get together with his friend who liked girls too. it was all very strange.

Today I went to see Cascada El Limon. a 150 meter tall waterfall and probablly about 75 meters wide. It is about 15 mintues away from Samana and i took a motoconcho there. a motoconcho is a motorcycle with a carriage sort of thing on the back of it. cant say i have ever done that before. the drive was great though. it turns out samana is much bigger than i had though, it stretches out. alongside the road there were a lot of chickens and horses and pigs and cows and children and beyond them were mountains and hills covered almost exclusively by palm trees and beyond that the bay of samana and beyond that the other side of the bay bareally visible through the bluish fog. When we reached the entrance to the trail for el limon i learned that i was only going to get to see the waterfall if i got on a horse to go there. holy shit. those things scare me. i hadnt been on a horse since i was about 8 prbobablly. i recently had a dream that i was coaxed into riding one and it was the most wonderful thing, oh no, they are still just as scary to me as they were when i was six. on the way back the horse ran my leg into a tree. the horse also liked to walk directly towards and very close to drops in the side of the trail and right up alongside barbwire fences. to say the least it freaked me out. more than well worth it though. Even though i was certainly wearing the wrong shoes, my flip flop sandals. what an experience tromping through mountain full of banana and other fruit trees unknown to me. Smelling different plants and feeling different breezes. When we got to the end of the horse part we bagan the hike down to the bottom of the waterfall, down down down, did i already sau i was wearing the wrong shoes?? I can not think of a better use of the word spectaclular than to describe this waterfall that dropped in to a ten foot deep pool of cool water then flowing into a river.

On the way back i got stung by a bee. first time in about nine years. it was, and still is, very unpleasant.

Posted by Erin Louis at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

So I've once again neglected this whole weblog thing for awhile. I don't really feel like going over the whole week again so here is just a summary.

Okay I lied here is a list of my day by day riding first without any detail.

Day 30 Westport to Punakaiki
Day 31 to Hokitika
Day 32 to Harihari
Day 33 to Whataroa
Day 34 to Fox Glacier
Day 35 to Lake Paringa
Day 36 to Haast
Day 37 to the Cameroon Flat campground 10 km on the other side of Haast Pass
Day 38 to Some place on the side of the road 10km before the Lake Hawea township
Day 39 to Wanaka
Day 40 to 12 mile Delta DOC campground 10km past Queenstown (Via the very steep and long senic route which is the highest road in NZ at 1076m).

Okay with that done with, the last week or so has been amazing. The scenery has been spectacular and I've meet lots of people. A ton of things has happened and I have all the detail written down somewhere but you don't really need to read all of that again. The basic things that have affected me so far have been near endless rain, until the last two days, massive hills, and the sand flies. The sand flys are the one thing that has been bringing me down. They have inspired in me a hatred which I hope nothing else ever has to see. I can't stop moving for more than 2 minutes without being engulfed in thousands of them. My legs are now red, covered with sand fly bites and sand fly enduced zits. Streams of blood occasionally start flowing down every exposed part of my body as one of them bites in deep. I itch everwhere and at night can hardley fall asleep. The bug-sprays I keep experimenting with never seem to work and it has become a daily ritual to get into my tent as soon as possible and then spend a half hour or longer exterminating the average of 40 or so flies who manage to sneak in with me. With this I announce the NZ Sand Fly as my topic of study for the Documentation Kit 'Study a Local Living Thing' option to assignment #9. Also from now on all reference to the sand fly will have some sort of profanity procceding it. If you are offended by this than I by all means invite you to come experience them for yourself. You will soon become just as annoyed. That being said the flies seem to be not as bad since getting into the Queenstown area so my drawings for now may be confined to the dead carcuses lining my tent floor. Yet despite it all I've still been having a wonderful time.

With that I leave you. I'm in Queenstown now and headed towards the Fiordlands and Milford Sound, and from there I don't know. I'll be back in a week. Later.

Posted by Luke at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Many good things this week. Son Michael and wife here so that in itself was a happy thing. After some basic in-town sight seeing, we took a day for Carriacou. The ferry trip was delightful. A fairly small ferry that skimmed along at a good rate on slightly rolling sea on a gorgeous day...everything sparkling...many flying fish. Stood at the railing almost entire time loving the whipping wind and sun and roiling wake behind us. Carriacou a small place with a very different feel, one main perfectly flat (how wonderful) street, small shops. We went to the little museum where I saw a number of works by the famous folk artist Canute Calliste. Talked with his daughter but didn't try to meet him as he is actually in bed at this point, very old and not well, had a lovely lunch in small cafe, sitting on terrace a few feet from the sea. Other highlights: went shopping in great small fabrique shop. Saw some art objects and craft things in another shop where I fell in love with a small painting by local artist and my dear Michael purchased it for me. Looking forward to showing you all. Then, after five weeks here, actually got to the beach. Had a lovely lazy day there topped off with light dinner and rum while we sunset-watched. A touch of luxury. Also one day my inn-keeper, Ralston, cooked an incredible dinner for us which included exotica like pigs tail, pickled beef and an amazing assortment of vegetables in unforgettable sauce. We also visited a second galllery where some very interesting and exciting art by mostly local artists was on display. Met artist/owner who shows in US and Canada and is quite well known...Buchanan. Met another artist who works in shop and will visit her tomorrow. By end of week will have met with Victor Francis who does marvelous wood carvings. Am also going to check out a local dwelling place or two. Very sad, however, that have to leave my wonderful place on the cliff as Ralston leaves on 31st to move to Gouyave. He has stayed through this month only because I made the reservation in Feb. Across the street now the Rhum Runner is attempting to lure tourists with some drumming; sometimes they have a little steel band on these tour-the-harbor boats. There are festival events, including special drumming, just after I leave. The major festival in St. George is in August. Actually, one needs to be here a full year to catch everything. There'll be lots of activity today, as two cruise ships are in. The Carenage is already swarming with tourists. Self-appointed tour guides often start a conversation and walk alongside one and it sometimes takes a few minutes before you realize you're getting a tour for which you're expected to pay. Women everywhere selling spices and spice chains. Hundreds of minibuses and taxis. Michael leaving in a couple hours so will say so long now. More next week. Hope everybody's having wonderful adventures. Love, Dorothy

Posted by Dorothy Barr at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Thank you Aunt Jody, and Crazybone (wow its been a long time since I heard from you! have fun in New yOrk and one of my buddies in this class is actually studying in Manhattan and he's real cool if you go down and look for comments on this site from "willie bee" you can directly e-mail him just tell him your my friend or Wil, vice versa) okay enough of that!

I just finished my day skipper course and am very stoked! Ethan and I have been having fun and I was planning on sleeping in tommorrow since I havent been sleeping well, but no go... I'm goin into town with the company truck to get some money out of the ATM and to get more sunscreen and soap. The store within walking distance is very limited and the store that is about 2 miles away has more but closes early and it is very hot in the day time here. So tommorrow we go into the big city of Phuket town! whew hew!

I start my next set of courses on the 6th. Its a five day live aboard cruising course! Should be interesting! I'm not sure if Ethan will be gone or on the course with me. I dont think he knows either. Anyway this is expensive in this town (in comparison) so I better run but have fun and keep writin! Tim

Posted by Timothy Lyon at 08:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I always have the most vivid dreams in the morning after I've first woken and peed and gone back to sleep. Been dreaming about Brandy, my ex-fiance' lately, which is odd. I guess she's still buried in there deeply and my subconscious finds pockets of misplaced emotion for her. Or something like that. There was something about Brandy buying some drums in the beginning but that was about it. The meat of the dream goes kind of like this--and I write this as I still feel some of the tingly otherworld of the dream state--probably won't mean shit to you but I still feel the echoes of that place--. I'm in this big apartment which is apparently my family home (not) and it is sparely decorated with tan carpets and the walls are pale cream. I'm in the corner looking about and I see my mom when the doorbell rings. It's a good looking blonde guy who works for my mom. I feel weird because I'm the son, he's not supposed to be here. There is a central island where there is a computer and my mom is at it punching up something while I'm talking to blondie. I guess we're flirting, but who knows? Next thing I know I'm outside this huuuuge rectangular apartment building and the lawn is covered in snow, but it's actually a gigantic keyboard of sorts. Somehow I'm out of heating fuel and I desperately need to contact the heating company and I'm making some motions to type information into the snow-lawn when all of a sudden behind me up pulls a large white pill-shaped fuel truck. Guy jumps out leaving the engine running, and it echoes very loud in the dark night. He comes up and asks if I called and yes I did and then we're looking all around the outside of the building for where to hook up the fuel tank. We come around the back to a ground-level concrete terrace and I'm looking through sliding glass doors into a dark apartment and the heating guy does something and says: "I like the tropical setting." And warm air whooshes out from somewhere into the cold grey concrete terrace and it feels quite comfy. I'm not sure if this is our apartment because I had the feeling ours was up higher. Next I'm riding in a car out somewhere in rural Washington with Julie I guess, but I can't see her. We pull up in front of a bar of sorts and go in. Kind of like Otto's in Oly but smaller and I'm trying to see what kind of beer they have on tap and I can only see one 'machine' that looks like a Redhook yellow and red tap pull. The cook/bartender says he thinks the seasonal is.......something I can't recall. Then I'm around the corner of the bar which is faced with planks of wood almost as high as my chest. I spy my good friend lil' miss Sarah at the counter and I am so glad to see her. We shared a great hug (which I love to get in a dream!) That's that. I had a thought that has provided me some comfort. I have been taking lots of slides and video of native art around SE. I can turn that into a project. My religious ideas are good but this isn't the time to do it. That may just be my lazy ass finding excuses. That's that.

Posted by Walter Maenhout at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm sorry I haven't made it back to the computers in a while, I've been travelling around the island setting up contacts with people and working odd jobs for people. I have been earning my way as I discover what kind of place Maui can be. The possibilities are so endless for such a small place. I'll be going to Kauai tomorrow to scout out the good spots for my brother to go to when he comes out in May to do a photoshoot. I'll sit on the pier at HanaLee's coast and look out to see a rocky outcrop that vaguely resembles a dragon. I have saved twelve rolls of film for this trip, I only hope that will cover it. I have two more days on Maui before I come home so I'll use that time wisely. I already have it set up with a friend of mine to go upcountry and visit a local friend of his who happens to have a two story triple waterfall on his property, not to mention a fantastic view of the sunrise and the sunset. I'll save a roll for that if I can, at least one roll... Anywho, life is peachy here and I hope that all are well on your respective journeys. I'll be in touch when I find a place on Kauai where I can use a computer. Until then I love you all, and to all a goodnight.
Kimo

Posted by James Freeman at 01:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

This is an updated picture of Popeye (yes! Popeye I decided to change it because Crusoe didn't fit his personality and it was too hard to say fast!!) He loves the beach he gets out off control when he sets paw on the sand!!

This is Captiva Beach...my favorite place. I get excited when I come on to Captiva Island! GOREGOUS!!!

This is Popeye and I shellin' on Captiva!

Hope all is well....love ya all!

Posted by richelestark at 12:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Music festival hit Corte this last week. The whole town was a buzz as a series of carnival tents were constructed at the base of the mountains right where the two "rage'n" rivers meet. The festival was a combination of musicians and artists from the mainland of France, Morroco and of course local Corsicans. The outcome was of remarkable success yet not without the tension of Corsican's power to sternly seperate themselves.

The most bold example of the tension was visually displayed on one of the main walls of the University. The day before the festival, artists busily painted over a 50 ft wall where Corsican Nationalist Graffitti was splattered most half hazardly. The painting was in preperation of some visiting artsits, a team of 8, who would produce a new mural for the wall. Durring the two days of the festival these artists worked hours on end with a wild array of spraypaint colors producing images of mountains, dragons, and other creations with expert careful hands. The whole display was supported by a DJ blasting music as a small crowd danced and children got down and dirty with tons of pastels and large pieces of construction paper. I would walk by every few hours durring the day and watch the progression of this intracite mural. This piece however drasticly different from anything I had seen on the island and not at all in harmony with how the Corsican's graffitti their towns. The imagery full of vibrant color and with a richness seemingly not appreciated elsewhere on the island, it was art for art's sake and lacked a connection with corsica.

I wondered how the Corsican's would recieve such a gift after I found out that none of the Artists were from the island.

My main interest durring this festival was but of course the strange buffet of music that was presented in all the cafe's and glorious carnival tents. I headed out the first night with my camerea and recording equipment and started in on the maze of shows hidden in petite cafes.

The first was a drumming group with a wild african dancer. This was an enthusiastic group but only watched by a small group of obvious outsiders. I wanted to find what the Corsicans were watching.

My second cafe gave me just this. After spotting an eccentric Corsican Polyphony singer who I adored for her bitter harshness. I followed her into a crowded room blaring with the familiar accordian and fiddle of the more french influenced harmonies. The room was sticky and smoky, but the harsh Corsican faces were radiant with laughter as children danced wildly and everyone was clapping along. The saxaphone player teased the air with his blares and the singer with sad droopy eyes sang with a circus flare. They allowed me to photograph them however, recordings were not appreciated. Durring this performance an interesting addition showed up towering outside the door. A group of French and Russian Stilt Walking Clowns (who later I would become quite close to) strutted up the street. I noticed that alot of students abandoned the music, along with some of the other foriegners, however most the corsicans sat, loyal to the music. I was torn but didn't have to wait long for the stilts performers decided to take their oppertunity and enter the tiny cafe! I couldn't beleive it as these monsterous figures entered the space not fit for the the people already in. The eccentric polyphony singer glared at them as she tried to keep them out. This was a distraction to the music and their comedy act was not completely appreciated. I loved it however, wildly snapping photos and curious how the musicians would respond. The drummer stopped but the accordian squeeked and sqwalled with appropriate sounds of chaos.

A child began to hysterically cry and the stilts retreated back out to the now darkening streets of evening.

The clapping resumed again but the mood in the room had changed and some seemed upset by the ridiculous intrusion. Certianly there were different vibes flying about, some enjoying the un-island-esque festivities while others preffered to sip their drinks uninvolved.

The music ended and I jumped quickly out of that place, following the stilts to the next stage of music. This was just a man with a guitar who sang requests, he was backed up by two half hearted bong players. They let me record and I sat back observing as the room thickened with a diverse crowd. Requests were mainly for french songs that everyone seemed to know and enthusiasticly sang along with the man. A few english songs were sang but with a certian sarcasm I didn't know whether to take as insulting..hehehe...

This act faded into a female singer, who was rudely ignored, her voice not able to compete with the crowd growing slowly more wild. I recorded her for a bit but agreed she lacked the umph.

I recorded a Corsican chant and then it was time to head across town to the tents where CANTU POPLI CORSE - the most notorious polyphony group on the island was getting ready to rock. I was thrilled and giddy, I was so lucky to hear these legends (and for free!) I made my way down and was surprised to see the large tent overflowing with people. It seemed the whole town was out, old ladies sat with their partners, tons of Corsicans (the most I had seen in one place) along with the whole student body. This was truly the act of the night. I switched on my recorder and pushed my way through the swelling crowd. I decided to ignore glares and crept right up front kneeling before the stage displaying a huge moors head flag. The music had already started and I was overwhelemed by the size of the group 9 singers in all! a fiddler, an accordian, three guitar players, a couple bases, the group was huge and glorious! All extremely handsome, middle age men swaying to the hypnotizing music. This group was considered a modern polyphony group, more rock than the simple acoustic chants. I was knocked off my feet! There were two main chanters, backed up by the 7 others, all had one hand pressed against their ear as they harmonized and belted out the delicious sounds of Corsica. I almost forgot to take photos as the music slipped into my being. This was something quite powerful, definetly different than the small chants with guitars by fires in local bars.

The crowd was right there with them, every song accompanied by claps, whistles and I dreamily watched the proud and happy faces of the locals, whole families wooing over the handsome musicians.

You could feel the radiant energy in the tent and I danced hollered and with paranoia kept checking my recorder, I wanted this all on tape. They played away for hours, and after they stopped the crowd chanted for more and they returned again with a song I had heard many times before, a song that through this group had begin to become somewhat a national anthem. The lights splattered these men with hues of blue, purple and red, the tent packed with a overflow outside, ears pressed close to the outside - no one was missing this event.

After this group which really impressed me, leaving me exhilerated and in awe - I had witnessed the pulsing heart of the music of corsica today. I noticed that all the elderly couple slipped away, smiling and heading home, soon all that remained seemed to be a few of the younger corsicans (not alot) and a whole slew of the foriegn students and artists. The music went on until sun rise. Different groups blasting away in different tents connected by glowing trails of white lights.

I recorded, danced and became aquainted with the clowns and performers. They were here just for the festival, first time in Corsica. Felt welcome but certianly a strange enviroment. They were primarliy here to entertain the children, which I was fortunate enought to seem them do the next day. All the schools had been let out to come and observe the art and festivities. The first time since my arrival that the streets were busy and all the bakeries open, even through the dead hours of siesta.

The music continued and I attended some lectures on Tourism (all in french but I got some out of it all) and picked up tons of information on the enviromental issues of Corsica and signed some petitions protecting birds (I guess as a student I could participate!).

The festival left the town dead (I left for an escape to Italy for a few days which would be a whole 30 pages I will spare for stories when I return home). Soon after the festival the politics of the town heated up. Two days after the mural had been finished, a gift to Corte, Nationalist demolished it, repainting most of it white and replacing the crude sketches of Pasqual Paoli and Nationalist expressions. A protest by students demanding more Coriscan to be spoken at the university was met by tear gas throwing french police. (I was away in Italy but was told that I wouldn't have been able to photo anyway...I would have been attacked).

The festival was put on by the University and was one of the most lively things to hit Corte in a long time. While appreciated by the buisnesses and students, an air of disaproval, evident in the destruction of art left behind shows a certian disregard for outside influences. Strange....I try not to judge harshly but wonder how a town can let a small yet powerful group of extreme nationalist reflect the whole attitiude of the town. I know the loudest voices are not a the majority and am confused at the tension.

Tomorow night I attend another polyphony performance....I can hardly wait to get more wonderful recordings and to observe the power of music to transform people....it truly is the main outlet for people here and they embrace it with the enthusiasm I think such art deserves. participant observers is every person when music is concerned here.

I will write more soon as I gather my notes and get some more interviews....... I am floating in a mass of bizzare experiences and can hardly contain my joy at the wonders I have been discovering.

Posted by Teagan Walden at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

First, thank you all for reading and replying. as far as my family goes, thank you mom, dad, jim, sara, paula, and grandma, and joey. Joey i wish you could be at this waterslide. it is so fun and there are many kids your age, plus it's free! i've gone 4 times now.

i've made so many friends here, i've had so many invitations to stay at people's houses i've had to turn many down. I've been spending more time with indo fijians too so i've been able to compare and contrast the two ethnic groups on the island. I've been spending only about $10 a day this last week because of home stays and i'm out of gifts from home so I am buying groceries for them. the family i'm with now won't accept my gifts cause they buy dalo and send it to the main island and apparantly that makes a lot of money.

a man offered me a suba certification for $250 FJD instead of the normal $600. i've got the local rate so i'm gonna do it. I wasn#t going to because of the expense but since it's so cheap, woo hoo.

I've been to the south part of the island now so i;ve seen most of the cities. all the inland is farmland and i;ve only scraped the surface of that.

As far as my study goes...

I may have switched my focus to Taveuni's farming, specifically, with a touch of other life.

It is hard to do audio recording and take photos of the same thing so i've kinda given up on audio recording though i've done some. plus it's low quality and i'm a perfectionist of sorts. well sometimes.

MY documentation kit is pretty much done . THe cinema here closed down a month before i came. they were playing free american movies such as lord of the rings every day. But a hardware store plays rugby tourneys by satellite so i may watch that. I did watch this horrible recent Indian movie, that was a gangster movie made in USA with horribly cheesy fight scenes. Randy could make a movie much better than the one i saw. I documented it but i wish to do another.

Every time i try to do the cultural geography of the landscape, i get distracted, talking to locals, getting invited for water, or tea, or lunch. everyone stops to ask what i am doing and i've had to do it over a few days.

I went camping up in the bush for two nights and took photos of the planting of taro and more. My friend Joe (and his son, Mak) and I rode horse up to the top of a local mountain and saw a great view. I rode the horse by myself which was exciting, but with no sadle, my groin and inner thighs were very sore afterward. I used my one man tent for the first time, and realized it is very hot and small. It's hard to fall asleep when you're sweating. Luckily i stored my big bag in Joe's tent. I should have just brought a hammock, mosquito net, and tarp. but whatever. It was great farming and picking all the food we needed to eat from the farm and cooking it. Coconut, scraped and squeezed and cooked with bele leaves = lolo, very tasty. And breadfruit, and taro and cassava and taro leaves, and banana and mandarin and lemon tea and sugar, salt and rice and the pots were the only things we had had to bring up for food. I wish it was that subsistent, camping in America.

Ok, i must go now, and i must admit i am still homesick, and often irritable, hearing the same questions: Where are you from? How long have you been in Fiji? on Taveuni? When will you go back? How do you like it here? It gets annoying telling the same thing over and over. And all the kids yell out "Pulangi!" which means european or white person when they see me and if i have my camera it is always a combination of "pulangi" and "veitamba" and it's like i expected that to stop as i stayed here longer and learned the language and became more and more like a local. I like walking places with a local friend cause then it is easier to deal with being different.

But I'll be fine and i'm finally gonna call my parents. I know, i'm such a bad son, five weeks without calling them, but they have been reading these blogs and it's expensive to call home.

As always, love and peace and happiness and good fortune and healthy life and all that,

Jon Travolta (one family here calls me this)

P.S. happy birthday Jim!!!

Posted by Jon Huey at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Just thought I'd update the blog scene on this cloudy lazy sunday. Let's see...I took the water taxi over to San Pedro earlier in the week to get my passport stamped. She told me I was illegally here but stamped me anyhow. I spent the day there in that fast paced environment. I dodged women driving golf carts and men in their mini van taxi's. I like Caye Caulker much better and decided to stay here for the rest of the time.
I met a man from Wisconsin here tracking a relocation of Howler monkeys with gps and he invited me to travel with him on the mainland to do this tracking. I would have gone, my interest being the fruit trees the monkeys live in, but decided against it. Not only did John establish this crush for me, he also started planning my days for me. That is something that I can't stand, being a control freak, I can only ride on someone else's schedule so long. I spent two days with him. The first getting to know him, we canoed to the northern end of the island, past the split. Mostly bird watching and snorkeling. We ate dinner that night and planned the next day. We planned to meet at 10:30am to eat brunch and look up the birds we saw. But then John woke me up at 7:30am the next day with a note he wrote to me explaining how he felt and would like to be with me.... So that was it. I bombed the plans to meet for brunch, and just went along my own path. It's really funny, because all the complaints that I had discussed with him were about men hitting on me, and how I am really sick of it..
Used the computer, had tea with a friend here, then went back to bed. I knew eventually John would be at my door. And yep, when he came by I got up and we ended up renting bikes and riding to the southern end of the island. (wouldn't I know it, guess who just came into the computer lab... He was supposed to be gone already.. john!)(He was asking when the lady who ran the lab would be back, I turned to answer and it was him, he obviously didn't recognize me from behind with my braids.. augh!!) So that was it basically. After riding to the southern end, we rode up to the split where I was meeting Lloyd. I talked to Lloyd for a brief moment, even introduced him to John and then he left. John turned to me and said he was leaving probably Friday and to have a nice life, that It looked like I would rather stay here and interact with the locals. I said, "well that's what I"m here for!" Then he got on his bike and I watched him leave, feeling really dumbfounded and alone.
But then I blew it off. Saw Lloyd again and ended up going spear fishing with him for about an hour. Which was really fun. We speared a black snapper, a jack fish, and a grunt. Later I ate dinner with Lloyd at the hostel and we drank some rum. The next day I hung out with another local, Sony. I watched and tagged along with him as he prepared a traditional meal for his family of eight mouths. It sort of reminded me of the primative cooking on the bog, where I live. Walking house to house (eventually being miles) to complete the meal, exhausting yourself in the simple preparation. He made coconut fish head stew with mashed plaintain. He beat the plaintain in this large carved out wooden bowl like thing until it was the consistency of bread dough. I really didn't like any of it, but thankful because after all that walking I was really hungry. I'm not too fond of fish head stew.
The next night, I decided to plunge and go out. My first real night out on the town by myself. I went to the Ocean Side bar. I went dancing. Danced three known songs then the punta music came on. I danced the Punta!! It's this really fast beat music -a Garifuna tradition. The shoulders hardly move, while the hips and waist are thrusting away, really fast. It is crazy to watch, people don't even move anywhere and if you concentrate on just the upper body that doesn't move either, just the hips and legs jiggle. I had to try. I couldn't help but laugh most of the time. and even know as I think about it. But these people love to Punta.
Today is cloudy and raining off and on, so I've been drawing and hanging out in my cabana.. Thanks for listening. Robyn

Posted by Robyn Montgomery at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Loose yourself in the moment. While driving through the Southern Alps the sun set beautiful colors as Harry Hood was tuning my ear.I became still. This moment was at least, epic. I felt very good about hood. The following day we geared up and went to Mt. Cook N.P. The sunset was again casting a spell on my pupils. Our plan was to hike 5,000 ft. up to the Mueller Hut. I was expecting the weather to hold, instead the cold alpine terrain and extreme winds shot down our ambition to clinb. So back to the sunny east coast. i wanted to let go. So I shaved my head and headed to the beach - got naked and ran into an ice cold ocean on a windy, cloudy afternoon. It was amazing. We then returned to the North I. I personally needed to arrive on a new farm.(eco-community) I will arrive tomorrow. Then ten days at the Mahamudra Buddhist Centre. For a wide range of yoga, meditation, and self-healing courses. located in Colville (Coromandel Range) Then off to Piha Beach for a week of surf and hopefully sun. That's the plan for me.

If my heart can become pure and simple like that of a child, I think there probaly can be no greater happiness than this.

Peace, Love, and Balance within - Matty -

Posted by Matthew Kroeninger at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This week i discovered the beauty of numerous venetian fortress, the magnificent strength radiating from every brick. I love the way all these fortresses still carry the story of their creation along with them. Most of the history has lost it's base in reality and exists as a structure of myths. One fascinating story is attributed to the venetian fortress at Rethymno. In the middle ages and renaissance epochs the city was constantly ravaged by pirates every couple of years. The most notoriuos of the pirates was the famous Barbarossa who would come with a whole fleet of ships from Turkey and tear apart the town. So to prevent the city from being attacked they constructed this magnificent fortress on the side of the hill so that the city could see the ships from far off in the distance. While it was also used as a walled protection for the center of the city, now known as the old town. Even today you can see remnants of the concrete wall left as a reminder of the turbulent past. Besides the palace at knossos the venetian fortress are the main attratction for the history lovers. It fullfills the human interest in the raw ugly side of humanity that inevitably leads to war and destruction. To see the incredible time and effort put into a building used for the protection of a community. The lengths to wich humanity will go to feel secure in their lives. It's impossible to not enjoy the comfort in security that inspires creation. From fortresses, weapons, and barriered walls set up to protect yourself from the dangers of the unknown. Tomorrow i will be going to the southwest coast of the island to a little place called elafonissi. From what i have heard it is a white sand beach that is packed during the summer and empty in the winter or spring, so i hope to enjoy some sunny swimming on a white sand beach blessed by the silence of isolation. I think that at the end of this week i will take a ferry to Santorini and enjoy the life on an ancient volcano. In the past forty years they have uncovered about 20 buildings that were perfectly preserved by the volcanic eruption reminiscent of Pompeii. I know a couple of people who i have met on Crete that have found jobs on Santorini and i hope to meet up with them and go camping undr the starry night. For now i must go, but i will keep everyone informed of the beauty i see on my travels. Oh, the flowers are starting to come into bloom, beauty beyond imagination. Red, purple, and pink poppies covering the hillsides which leaves me in a state of amazement because every thing is rocky and rugged. You dont see how such a colorful flower can form out of such a jagged rock. Untill next time YEEASAS AND KALLINECHTA from the country of the west.

Posted by Eric McLaughlin at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This was written a while ago, the week that I went to the hospital. It's not finished, but I think that I'll just post what I wrote, anyway. 4/9

Another week, another..... well...... week, I guess. Another church, maybe? My experiences here have not been static enough to see too many similarities between the days. Only rain.

There has been a lot of rain. Not Washington Rain, which is only a little nuisance that doesn't hurt anyone, but real, unabashed, 500-horsepower rain that sneaks up on you when you are walking down a dirt road, miles from any house you know and forces you to take shelter under a giant taro or banana leaf. At least the rain is somewhat warm. The outdoor showers here are all much warmer than the indoor ones. I've only just begun to develop a tolerance to the cold cachement water that comes pouring down out of the open end of a pipe which is a local showerhead. I don't shriek nearly as loudly at the cold, frigid, sub-artic gush. Now, if there were only some way to actually get dry in this humidity...

So.....

I'm staying in Utwe now, at the house of Rimus Nena(brother of Romus- I love these names), proud owner of Armis Taxi (pronounced Army's) and a reputation more notorious than Meltina's. I moved in on Thursday after 9 wonderful days with the George family. I'm very glad that I have been moving around, because life with these different families has been very different. The Kibby's were great, but they were very busy too. Meltina was working a lot, and the kids were off doing, well, their own stuff. The George family was much bigger, and much more interested in what I was doing. They too were very busy, mostly with church things, but there were always at least two kids following me around wanting to wrestle or play at all times. My favorite was little Manuo, who is two, and is convinced that I speak Kosraen. He would follow me around, talking to me, and his Kosraen vocabulary far surpasses my own. I would ask someone what he wanted, and it would always be "he wants you to climb the ladder with him.", or "He wants to play ball."

So, two Saturdays ago, when I was out in the channel with Tadeo, I told him that I wanted to go to the Menke Ruins, up in the hills in Utwe. He told me then that he was going to take a woman from KVR (the Kosrae Village Resort) up on Tuesday, and that I should go with him then. I happily agreed: the more the merrier.
I called Tadeo on Monday night to confirm the trip and to figure out when and where to meet him. He said to meet him at noon at the trailhead to the Ruins, and that any taxi would know where that is. So, I called a taxi on Tuesday morning, an hour before noon, and when no one showed up, got Bob to drive me in the family truck. I was about ten minutes late, or 20 minutes early in Island time, but there was no one to be seen anywhere close to the trailhead. After waiting and searching for people, we drove into the town of Utwe and used the phone at Rimus's house to call Tadeo.
"Papa Tadeo is not here. He went to the airport today."
Really? What about the tour of the ruins?
"Oh, my uncle led the tour, hours ago. A woman from KVR and a guy"
Really? Wasn't that supposed to be me?
"Um, hold on..(fourminutepausewhilephoneispassedaroundtheroom) Lwen Wo!(man's voice)"
Um, hello?
"This is Tadeo's son, Salik! I'll take you! You wait for me,Ok!?! I'll be right over!"

Salik showed up a few minutes later with his friend Ryan Kilfas (big home-made tatoo "RyaKil" on his arm) and we hitched a ride with bob to the trailhead. The trail was pretty easy, we only crossed the river 5 or 6 times and it was never too steep. We stopped along the way at one of Salik's tangerine trees and loaded up our pockets. I like Salik, he knows all of the plants and local remedies like his dad, but he is much younger, and speaks better english. He told me that he has been taking correspondance classes and wants to be the photographer for the local paper. Along the way he told me that we had been following the tracks of some people, but they had stopped. No one had gone this way for several days. It only took about an hour to do the hike, and we stopped along the way to examine Ka, the different kinds of Taro, and a strand of Eucaliptus trees(sp?). The ruins are very overgrown, but impressive. The locals didn't really know about them until they were rediscovered by a local about 100 years ago, and then shown to a German archaeologist. There are more than a hundred big stone rooms, all with central altars. It is believed that they were never lived in, but only used for ceremony, although I find it very hard to believe. It is not known exactly how old they are, but they are easily the oldest structures in Micronesia, abandoned before Nan Madol was even built.

On the way back we met Papa Tadeo on the road, and without apologizing for the changing plans without telling me, told us that his brother and the lady from KVR had got into an argument and had turned around after half-an-hour.

Wednesday night, I went with Bob to the church because he said they were going to be jamming. When we got there, we could here it from the parking lot. A lot of preprogrammed keyboard drumbeats, and female harmony. I started to talk to the musicians, the same guys who were rocking out on Sunday, and I tapped their equipment and recorded some of the music onto MD.

On Thursday, I moved out of the George's house, and I think that Kenye was crying. I know that some of the kids were. I met Rimus's family too. He has four young daughters, and two drivers that are like sons to him. He told me that I am now his white son. He's only 30.
After a good meal of salmon cooked in shredded mango, papaya, and homegrown chiles on rice, I got a phone call from Bob George. He asked, "Hey Randy, are you FROM Utwe?"
um.... no..... why?
"Well, you forgot your toothbrush."
The other towns are kind of snobby about Utwe. Apparently they were a low town in the heirarchy of ancient Kosrae, the farthest from royal Lelu. They were also the last to get electricity, and a paved road, and Utweians are sometimes treated like the barefooted step-children of Kosrae. Once again, politics and stereotypes abound. Bob told me that he doesn't really like Utwe because "there are a bunch of fags."

well.....

So, on friday I found out some weird news. A friend of mine here, who shall remain anonymous, asked me for some advice on Friday. There is this 30-ish guy in Missouri who has been calling and e-mailing him. I asked him about what?

'Oh, well he sent some money, but it never got here.'
Why did he send money?
'Oh well, he wants to help us. He says his accountant told him he's going to be a millionare this year. He's a friend of my sister-in-law who is in the states. He says he wants to come and visit.'
Oh, is he a tourist?
'No, he is a friend of my daughter's.'
Oh. How does he know your daughter?
'Well, my sister told him about her. He wants to meet her, but he told me that he can't come here because of business. He said he's going to send tickets so that we can go and meet him.'
Why do you need to meet him?
'So we can see if he's a good guy. he wants to meet our daughter.'
What do you mean?
'Well he want her to live with him. And he wants to help us.'
Help you do what?
'Send us money. And he wants to help my daughter.'
What do you mean help her?
'He wants her to be his wife.'
How old is your daughter?
'17'
And he's thirty? Does your daughter know this guy?
'Yes, sometimes when he calls, she'll pick up the phone. He's a real sweet talker.'
How does he know you again?
'My sister-in-law is married to an older man in america. He is a friend of her boyfriends. She told him about my daughter.'
Wait, why? What did she tell him?
'Just that her name is (name) and that she's 17. He told me that he would send a lot of money. He's rich. He said that he would send a certain amount each year, and it would equal to $46 thousand over 10 years. He's a real sweet talker'

I was dumbfounded. I told him that the whole thing sounded terrible. He told me that a lot of Kosraen women want American husbands. I know that a lot of Kosraens are very naive, and that things are very different here, but what exactly am I supposed to do when a friend of mine tells me that there is a guy half-way around the world who would like to buy his daughter as a wife, and that he's thinking about it. I told him "NO". I asked him what he even knew about this guy. Not much apparently. I asked him what his daughter thought about it. He told me that she knew about it, she had heard him talking about it, and that she was neutral. NEUTRAL. Of course she was neutral. So many women here are used to not having any say in their lives that they don't even think to voice an opinion about them. I told him that this was bad news. I took him to the Library to find an article in National Geographic about 21st Century Slavery (which is a shocking article, by the way. It mentions slavery busts in both Washington and Florida within the past ten years), but their subscription ran out a few years ago. I talked to the assistant Attourney General about the legalities of the whole thing, and she said that there was nothing in the spirit or the law that looked down on this. I'm going to get him to do an online criminal background check, to hopefully find something to help him protect his daughter. I just don't know. I don't look down on women in other countries who volunteer to join mail-order-bride programs voluntarily. For a lot of them, it is a good way out of a bad situation. But here is guy who is calling people who don't know him, telling them he'll send them money for their daughter, a GIRL half his age, in a place that is known for having submissive women. I don't know. I just don't know. I've been telling my friend that he has no reason to trust this guy, and he keeps telling me how great a guy he is. I'm gonna need to find a way to convince him that this is a bad idea. It is, isn't it?

blog out-
Randumbfounded.

Posted by Randy Thompson at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yeah, I'm a reverend as of today, I can now perform marriages and start my own church, maybe even score some tax breaks...

Posted by Will Erokan at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Yes sir, I found some booty, hidden treasure, about 15 bucks in a quarters in a small pleather change purse. Hell yes. I've been squandering it on booze mostly, and a little bit of pizza. Last night I went to this thing at collective unconsious and afterwards I was hanging out with the actors all night. They're a crazy bunch. Oi vey. Some weird guy was there, he was claiming to be a lawyer for pornstars out in California, and he kept flexing his muscles in the mirror. Some lady was flirting with me maybe, and her husband was getting angry over the whole scene, then she started going off about how the jews and the blacks and the puerto ricans and everyone else should all be made slaves. What's interesting is that I've come up on lots of people stating extremely racist things for the sake of comedy. Personally on the west coast the only people I've ever known who used slurs are rednecks and nazis. Out here though everyone thinks its really cute to talk about how the jews are stingy and that sort of thing. In theory this could be along the same lines as whats going on in Hawaii with their favorite comedian being to racist for the mainland. Perhaps when you have some many cultures in a small space everyone starts to joke around about there racial and cultural differences, instead of becoming extremely paranoid about the whole subject and developing weird complexes. Hmmm... This was a really long post and I don't think I want to spell check it, or even reread it for errors. Instead I think I'll go get some food. I haven't posted any poetry in this thing. Ha ha. I don't even really talk about my project, I just discuss nutria and post Paris Hilton's phone number, which really didn't seem to get anyone to new to read this thing. I thought that would get all sorts of people up in here. Oh well. As far as my spirit quest goes... Hmmm... I'll never reveal such things. I have found some weird shit though, some sort of neobeatnik business going on in the lower east side. Today, well today I'm meeting up with one of the ring leaders, the Reverend Jen. Hmmm... Actually screw food I'm going become a reverend right now, universal life church here I come...

Posted by Will Erokan at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

1) Julie just left after two weeks and it was very good to have her close after such an absence (five whole weeks!)

BOO HOO

2) I got my first two rolls of slides developed and they look pretty amazing, except for THE FRICKIN CAMERA HAD A DATE STAMP ON SO EVERY SLIDE HAS A DAMN DATE ON IT!!

BOO HOO

3) I haven't really started on the documentation kit--so BOO HOO

that's all for now.

Very short, poignant entry for your viewing pleasure.

Posted by Walter Maenhout at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wow, I have a lot of good friends and family supporting me out here! Thank you all very much!

Dad did you get the package I sent you yet?

So I am now in Baan Ko Aen. Its that little muslim village and like all of Thailand its not what you probably picture. There is such a tolerating compromisation that this country's people have. No matter what your beliefs or goals, you can make a life for yourself here as long as you are tolerant of others lifestyles and beliefs as well. There are plenty of women walking around and some wear the bhurka (sp?) and some dont. There is no problem getting pork products or even alcohol the only differences are that there is no prostitution, everything closes much earlier, there isnt as many options of things to buy, there is the call to prayer several times a day, and in general things are much, much quieter.

It took me some time to get settled in this new place and locate an internet shop. Anyway, It has been great Sailing! I just finished my second day out! Ethan and I have our own instructor named Erica from Canada. We get to take a 24ft boat out and learn tons of stuff each day I have already completed the big test for Day Skipper and I will find out my results shortly. Tommorrow we have a on boat test where the culmination of these three days will be reviewed! I love it here and next I will go on a five day sail where I'll get to see Phi Phi islands and Krabi which both were on my plans but I wasnt sure when I'd get to go to them. We sail all day then have dinner and lunch at random places along the way! Some people will most likely stay on shore at a hotel of sorts but I will be sleeping aboard the boat each night! I have been learning so much and with the help of my books I have learned basically every part of the boat and all the vocab regarding the main theories and terminology of sailing!

This town is a bit quiet but my room is very nice and I have facilitated another room for the entirety of my couple weeks here for about ten dollars a night. Since I will only have to pay when i am not staying on the boat it should end up being pretty Everything is going well and I'm not sure when or if Ethan is leaving. He mentions it every day but then also discusses staying on for more courses. We shall see...

This school is fantastic and I am learning immense amounts. When I am finished I will have multiple certifications through the American Sailing Association. Life is good and as long as my money comes through soon I will be okay. Have fun everybody! and keep them comments comin! -Tim

Posted by Timothy Lyon at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

so i have been sailing with Tim and it has been a blast! also i got a sunburn! i did not know that i can sunburn like that, black people can burn? who knew? yes so it has been Hespers birthday one of these days and all should

so i have been sailing with Tim and it has been a blast! also i got a sunburn! i did not know that i can sunburn like that, black people can burn? who knew? yes so it has been Hespers birthday one of these days and all should wish her well. as for myself it is not and has not been my birthday for some time now, but still well wishes are always welcome! :-b hope all is going well back home!!! miss you all and i will see you some time kinda soon!

By the way i think i win on the big title thing cause this is my post in its entierty!!! miss spellings and all!!! without this extra runon bit to add to and clame my title as King! it would be there but i maxed out the number of letters that you can have in a title at the end of what i had to say... so yeah, have a great one all!

Posted by ethan mccooper at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)