I have eleven minutes to post in the internet cafe before my time runs out, the computer shuts off, and we drive away from swakopmund.
no pressure.
I haven't written since Capetown because
1) I can't yet explain the ideas that have come out of the Generation for Change workshop. These have to be some of the most inspiring weeks - and I have a feeling that I may have seen the birth of something really huge in all of this.
2) We've been moving every day or two...the ever-capricious TTS schedule has been in full swing. I'm not sure that there was a single day between Capetown and Swakopmund where we didnt drastically change plans. But in the last two weeks we've been sand-sledding (Claire and I tied at 73km/hr...good for our friendship), hiked Dune 45 (the highest sand dune in the world) at sunrise, wrote TTS on the side of a different giant sand dune, slept amidst giant rocks that look as though a dinosaur should crash from behind them at any moment, hiked/bouldered/scrambled up a mountain at 5AM and had a scary accident in which we thought one of our girls broke her arm, looked out over Fish River Canyon at sunset into the radiating heat and the deepest stillness I think I've ever felt, canoed down the Orange River, done yoga on a giant plateau...
We've been playing some MAD ultimate frisbee...slowly converting the girls...
My language class is writing, directing, and performing a play for their final project in Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, German, and Shona...more details to follow on that. Imagine "High School Musical" meets South Africa and you're pretty close.
Ok time running out. Much love. I'm missing all of you...
Heather
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
whats here.
Today was a day of significance.
We spent it in a workshop with the Generation for Change kids. The level of energy and inspiration were astonishing - and while I deeply want to transmit to you all of that and all that we did and that the kids discussed, I think I'll only detract from its power. So what I'm posting here is a compilation poem created by all of the participants in the workshop. The requirement was simply to fill in the following blanks:
I am _________.
I will _________.
Read on. As you read it, imagine a group of about 30 kids - white girls from the US, black and coloured kids from the township, huddled around three giant pieces of butcher paper. Each one read out loud the words that someone else had written: how each had chosen to define herself, what each had committed to for the future. And then at the end, imagine all 30, without hesitation, reading the last two lines confidently. Imagine them reverberate slightly in the room we were in. So read on the words. They speak for themselves.
We spent it in a workshop with the Generation for Change kids. The level of energy and inspiration were astonishing - and while I deeply want to transmit to you all of that and all that we did and that the kids discussed, I think I'll only detract from its power. So what I'm posting here is a compilation poem created by all of the participants in the workshop. The requirement was simply to fill in the following blanks:
I am _________.
I will _________.
Read on. As you read it, imagine a group of about 30 kids - white girls from the US, black and coloured kids from the township, huddled around three giant pieces of butcher paper. Each one read out loud the words that someone else had written: how each had chosen to define herself, what each had committed to for the future. And then at the end, imagine all 30, without hesitation, reading the last two lines confidently. Imagine them reverberate slightly in the room we were in. So read on the words. They speak for themselves.
We Are Who We Choose to Be
I am a dancer and I believe in myself to live my dream.
I am observant.
I will see and help the people in need.
I am a part of the solution.
I will be a politician.
I am the New Generation and will try to pull my community together.
I will respect my family.
I am a leader of this generation.
I will share my urge to change the world.
I am a listener.
I will listen and help the hopes and dreams of people around the world.
I am a friendly person.
I will always make new friends.
I am a doctor.
I will help people.
I have dreams of myself.
I am kind.
I will help people in the community.
I am happy.
I am pretty.
I will always be pretty.
I am clever.
I will always be clever.
I want to be a doctor.
I want to help people.
I am black.
I will always be black.
I am a writer.
I will make a difference.
I am Crystal and I have a lot of dreams.
I will make a change in my community.
I am passionate.
I will inspire others to make change and discover their own passions.
I am a good listener.
I will learn and grow from every answer I receive.
I am Ashley and I have a dream.
I will love my community as I love myself.
I am passionate and driven to acquire knowledge.
I will learn how I can help the world.
I am BLANK.
I will try to change that.
I am what many will never be.
I will acknowledge my responsibilities.
I am very kind.
I will dance.
I am proud to be part of this generation.
I will make a difference.
I am active and fit.
I will promote a healthy lifestyle in my community.
I am strong.
I will strengthen others.
I am honest.
I will always tell the truth.
I am passionate and unique.
I will help to promote positive change and NOTHING will stop me.
I am well connected, opinionated, educated, and frustrated.
I will talk to the people who have the power ‘til I become one myself.
I am capable of changing the world.
I will.
We are one.
We will stand as one.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Capetown, and all that THAT entails.
Our epic journey down the Garden Route has culminated in arrival in Capetown. En route, we hit Tsitsikamma National Park (and an afternoon hike along coastal cliffs that ended at a waterfall with a deep pool at its base that merged directly with the ocean - a view that kept you turning, trying to figure out which side to take in first); Swellendam (coinciding with
the finals of the rubgy World Cup - at 10pm, when South Africa won we were a mile and a half outside of town, but heard a roar rise simultaneously out of the bars and households and carry on for a solid hour - punctuated by horns and sirens and yelling); Cape Agulhas (the southernmost tip of Africa, where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean swirl together. We screamed poetry off of these rocks, to be carried in both directions around the world.)
Lining the aisles of highway in to Capetown, the township stretches out - a writhing mass of human existence all on top of itself, each little space punctuated by a tiny house of corrugated tin , cardboard, and old scrap wood - but inevitably brightly colored and oddly vibrant. The township is broken up by the 18 blocks of continuous graveyard that expands at an exponential rate as the AIDS crisis swallows up these communities.
There is just something about South Africa. This country has such palpable, powerful, and recent history that it sneaks its way inside you and that part in everyone that questions the status quo is strengthened by the active way that people here question justice and what is right and the direction of their future. We have spent the last two days working with our students in the townships - at day care centers (creches), soup kitchens, and participating in community workshops. The creches dot the township - one every few blocks, filled with the burgeoning population of preschoolers whose tiny adorable faces sickeningly represent the blatant lack of family planning and the generation that will grow up to the tradition of funerals every Saturday morning, domestic violence, and drug abuse.
Nelson Mandela has a powerful quote that reads something like: "people are just people, a product of the environment they grow up in". This quote has been on repeat in my head the last few days as I have been at the same creche - helping out a teacher who has no assistant with a class of 42 four year olds. Think of the last four year old you talked to. What did they know? What had they seen in their few years? What had they absorbed in their sponge-like manner of gathering knowledge about the world?
In the morning, driving into the township, I saw a man going after another man's head with a shovel. The second man was defending himself with a pitchfork, and the wife was trying to separate the two. In the afternoon, working at the creche, I saw one child grab another's head and try to run with him into a wall. I saw a child trip another and then kick him in the stomach the way you might see on an episode of Cops. I also saw a child immensely proud of his ability to write numbers all the way up to a hundred, another who - after shoving a second child out of the way to read a book - was passionately interested in naming all the creatures in the ocean and finding out what made each one of them unique. These children are just children - and they receive the benefit of a parent or a sister or an uncle who loves them the way any other child would, and they get the violence of living in a violent place. They are so complicated at four years old.
I was sickened by the neon orange plastic breath of children after snack time - when each of them pulled out their bags of chips and their candy, cookies, lollipops and sugared drinks. Toothy smiles of four year olds with teeth blackened and rotting at the edges. But its cheaper here to buy a bag of chips than it is to buy a piece of fruit.
Why is that? Who is profiting off of this population of young children who need to eat? I look at the labels. Nestle. Kraft. Coca Cola.
Its been a long time since I hit a really emotional place with poverty. I did yesterday. So much of the "white" response to townships is to assume that these people are backwards, uneducated about nutrition or hygiene or child care, sadly incapable of loving or teaching their children. And yet, these generations speak Afrikaans - the "language of the oppressor". It is a gruesome reminder in every day speech that people were forcibly removed not that long ago from the societies that they were historically a part of, and forced into an environment like this one. And then we swoop in, the charitable heroes on the job, ready to pity, to educate, to cluck knowingly at the ineptitude of a group of people, living in such horrendous conditions, politely shocked that they can't, or won't, or don't know how to change their situation. And yet we know so little about why they're there, about what knowledge people had that has since been lost. A group of people chopped off from their roots. I've written about it before.
Yesterday afternoon, however, we crammed into one room of the organization Generation for Change. 15 or so high school kids from the township join us. As the afternoon progresses, they give performance after performance - hip hop dancing, singing, dramas. We respond with our usual perfected version of "Lean on Me" and quite a few helpless glances when asked to respond. (We did rise to the challenge however, performances out of nowhere, and a rather remarkable rendition of our national anthem). This group, Generation for Change, is a group of high schoolers from the township who decided that they are the only ones who can make things better for themselves. They run an after school program for the young people of the community - and high schoolers teach the kids around them - hip hop, singing, poetry, drama. They help to facilitate workshops on drug abuse, on how to get a job. They start soccer teams. As they sing "Change/ its something that we have to do/ now or never/ for worse or for better". To them, there's little choice. This is the struggle.
Dynamic. Inspired. Local. Oddly aching, for knowing what one's struggle is - for launching wholeheartedly and completely into it. And yet, for the first time in awhile, a lot of self-reassurance that this local action idea works. We can all struggle in our own struggles, and be in solidarity with each other.
So thats where we are.
the finals of the rubgy World Cup - at 10pm, when South Africa won we were a mile and a half outside of town, but heard a roar rise simultaneously out of the bars and households and carry on for a solid hour - punctuated by horns and sirens and yelling); Cape Agulhas (the southernmost tip of Africa, where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean swirl together. We screamed poetry off of these rocks, to be carried in both directions around the world.)
Lining the aisles of highway in to Capetown, the township stretches out - a writhing mass of human existence all on top of itself, each little space punctuated by a tiny house of corrugated tin , cardboard, and old scrap wood - but inevitably brightly colored and oddly vibrant. The township is broken up by the 18 blocks of continuous graveyard that expands at an exponential rate as the AIDS crisis swallows up these communities.
There is just something about South Africa. This country has such palpable, powerful, and recent history that it sneaks its way inside you and that part in everyone that questions the status quo is strengthened by the active way that people here question justice and what is right and the direction of their future. We have spent the last two days working with our students in the townships - at day care centers (creches), soup kitchens, and participating in community workshops. The creches dot the township - one every few blocks, filled with the burgeoning population of preschoolers whose tiny adorable faces sickeningly represent the blatant lack of family planning and the generation that will grow up to the tradition of funerals every Saturday morning, domestic violence, and drug abuse.
Nelson Mandela has a powerful quote that reads something like: "people are just people, a product of the environment they grow up in". This quote has been on repeat in my head the last few days as I have been at the same creche - helping out a teacher who has no assistant with a class of 42 four year olds. Think of the last four year old you talked to. What did they know? What had they seen in their few years? What had they absorbed in their sponge-like manner of gathering knowledge about the world?
In the morning, driving into the township, I saw a man going after another man's head with a shovel. The second man was defending himself with a pitchfork, and the wife was trying to separate the two. In the afternoon, working at the creche, I saw one child grab another's head and try to run with him into a wall. I saw a child trip another and then kick him in the stomach the way you might see on an episode of Cops. I also saw a child immensely proud of his ability to write numbers all the way up to a hundred, another who - after shoving a second child out of the way to read a book - was passionately interested in naming all the creatures in the ocean and finding out what made each one of them unique. These children are just children - and they receive the benefit of a parent or a sister or an uncle who loves them the way any other child would, and they get the violence of living in a violent place. They are so complicated at four years old.
I was sickened by the neon orange plastic breath of children after snack time - when each of them pulled out their bags of chips and their candy, cookies, lollipops and sugared drinks. Toothy smiles of four year olds with teeth blackened and rotting at the edges. But its cheaper here to buy a bag of chips than it is to buy a piece of fruit.
Why is that? Who is profiting off of this population of young children who need to eat? I look at the labels. Nestle. Kraft. Coca Cola.
Its been a long time since I hit a really emotional place with poverty. I did yesterday. So much of the "white" response to townships is to assume that these people are backwards, uneducated about nutrition or hygiene or child care, sadly incapable of loving or teaching their children. And yet, these generations speak Afrikaans - the "language of the oppressor". It is a gruesome reminder in every day speech that people were forcibly removed not that long ago from the societies that they were historically a part of, and forced into an environment like this one. And then we swoop in, the charitable heroes on the job, ready to pity, to educate, to cluck knowingly at the ineptitude of a group of people, living in such horrendous conditions, politely shocked that they can't, or won't, or don't know how to change their situation. And yet we know so little about why they're there, about what knowledge people had that has since been lost. A group of people chopped off from their roots. I've written about it before.
Yesterday afternoon, however, we crammed into one room of the organization Generation for Change. 15 or so high school kids from the township join us. As the afternoon progresses, they give performance after performance - hip hop dancing, singing, dramas. We respond with our usual perfected version of "Lean on Me" and quite a few helpless glances when asked to respond. (We did rise to the challenge however, performances out of nowhere, and a rather remarkable rendition of our national anthem). This group, Generation for Change, is a group of high schoolers from the township who decided that they are the only ones who can make things better for themselves. They run an after school program for the young people of the community - and high schoolers teach the kids around them - hip hop, singing, poetry, drama. They help to facilitate workshops on drug abuse, on how to get a job. They start soccer teams. As they sing "Change/ its something that we have to do/ now or never/ for worse or for better". To them, there's little choice. This is the struggle.
Dynamic. Inspired. Local. Oddly aching, for knowing what one's struggle is - for launching wholeheartedly and completely into it. And yet, for the first time in awhile, a lot of self-reassurance that this local action idea works. We can all struggle in our own struggles, and be in solidarity with each other.
So thats where we are.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
there's no such thing as a stop-over town.
The following blog posting probably can't do justice to the event it seeks to describe. Just so you know.
The Traveling School was loaded up in the safari truck. It was drizzling outside, the same mildly miserable stretch of cold rain that had haunted us for a week now and had already thwarted our plans on several occasions. The thought of setting up canvas tents loomed ominously over TTS girls bundled in every layer they had as we were en route to the coast and hopes of the sunshine for which its named.
This was a stop-over town. The hostel was a pass-through hostel - never intended to be anything more than a warm place to sleep the night. And yet this desolate town, hillsides dotted by the simple houses of the people is also the birthplace of Nelson Mandela. And yet, there can be no such thing as a stop-over town or a pass-through hostel. We pulled over and unloaded into tiny Xhosa-style round huts, simple but clean, with beds and roofs..about the most we could ask for that night. In the morning the girls woke at 5:45am to a dreary gray morning and a workout of hill sprints on the dirt road that stretched endlessly out into desiccated farm land. Needless to say, their enthusiasm was lacking in this stop-over town.
The girls piled into the safari truck and as we started to pull away, a police car with sirens blaring seemed to flash down a silver BMW heading down the road. To our astonishment, the BMW pulled into the rocky dirt road to the hostel, and, police in what seemed like pursuit behind. The two cars headed straight towards us, veer off to the right, and a well-dressed man steps out and runs in to talk to the owner of the hostel. Meanwhile, Claire leaped out of the truck, and ran back up the road. The girls afterwards reflected on the questions about Claire's legality that ran through their heads at that moment. But through the flirtatious knowledge-gathering of Japhet, our Zimbabwean driver, she had received notice that Nelson Mandela was to be passing through his hometown. Given that this is rural South Africa, the Transkei and one of the poorest regions of the country - men in suits and BMWs were a strong indication of big things to come.
After some finagling that could only be done in Africa, Japhet was speeding down the road in the behemoth safari truck, on a wild goose chase after the phantom Mandela that we believed might possibly be, though no one was really sure, somewhere in the general vicinity. We drove for 15 minutes or so, the girls alternately laughing hysterically and then sitting in petrified silence and stopped to ask workers on the side of the road. We must have been an odd sight, the white girls in our huge beige truck, but they pointed us on down the road.
Suddenly we drove otu over a lookout, and down below in the middle of the barren grassland was a gated area, a monument, and a collection of well-dressed individuals and very nice cars. The energy in the truck was palpable as the anticipation built.
We drove to the gate, and again, only in Africa - Japhet pulled in and parked our truck behind the Mercedes and BMWs, as if it would be camouflaged and inconspicuous somewhere back there. The girls fell silent. We waited.
No more than 10 minutes later, we saw a long chain of police cars with flashing lights pulling around the overlooks edge, and in the center came a black sedan with tinted windows.
"That's him..." one of the girls whispered.
They pulled into the very same gated compound that we were in, past the giant beige safari truck, and pulled up to the monument. We were peering silently from our windows - an unspoken code of reverence.
Slowly, tantalizingly slowly, a white-haired head emerged from the vehicle.
"That's Nelson Mandela..." one of them croaked, speaking in awe for the rest of us.
Japhet and friend walked slowly down towards the crowd, Japhet hurriedly tucking in his shirt and trying to make himself presentable.
We felt silly, gawking, awkward - and yet, none of us could tear ourselves away from the significance of this moment. Suddenly, we saw Japhet - hefty Japhet who moves his large body with purpose - running towards us. "You can come closer if you want," he said..
A collective breath caught at the same time, we crept out of th truck, and dressed in the TTS uniform of oddly matched sweatpants, polypro, and tshirts we struggled to make ourselves mildly presentable. We walked slowly, as if for fear of disturbing this dream we're living, down towards the crowd. I looked at the girls and teachers around me - and each of us is caught somewhere in our emotions, eyes welling. And we arrived at the edge of the crowd, and people make space for this odd assortment of American girls, and suddenly, we are no more than 10 feet from Nelson Mandela.
There is a flood for me just then - a flood of all that I have ever wanted to learn and understand about the struggle, about oppression, about freedom. And suddenly I am standing there, staring at someone who embodies the cliches and the grandeur. And he is just a man, with white hair and a wrinkled face. But he is just a man - and that fact is enough to sink in so deeply and so pervasively.
This man lived imprisoned for 27 years and then came out of prison to unify South Africa - not for black power or to defeat white power, but with the ideal of coexistence.
He climbed into the waiting sedan, and as Claire remarks - all formality was lost. We grin at him as he drives away, and wave - a little wildly. We'll never know if he saw the group of 17 white girls, frantically trying to express in one moment everything that seeing him had just meant.
There's something magical about this group. There's something about being open, being present. That moment something snapped in all of us and we are let loose.
To those who say that this generation is lost - I challenge you to think again. To those who think that all teenagers can idolize is Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake - I challenge you to think again. I saw young women on this raw morning profoundly and achingly inspired by the sight of a man who made change in his country - and their awareness of his greatness was held in every pregnant moment of being there.
The Traveling School was loaded up in the safari truck. It was drizzling outside, the same mildly miserable stretch of cold rain that had haunted us for a week now and had already thwarted our plans on several occasions. The thought of setting up canvas tents loomed ominously over TTS girls bundled in every layer they had as we were en route to the coast and hopes of the sunshine for which its named.
This was a stop-over town. The hostel was a pass-through hostel - never intended to be anything more than a warm place to sleep the night. And yet this desolate town, hillsides dotted by the simple houses of the people is also the birthplace of Nelson Mandela. And yet, there can be no such thing as a stop-over town or a pass-through hostel. We pulled over and unloaded into tiny Xhosa-style round huts, simple but clean, with beds and roofs..about the most we could ask for that night. In the morning the girls woke at 5:45am to a dreary gray morning and a workout of hill sprints on the dirt road that stretched endlessly out into desiccated farm land. Needless to say, their enthusiasm was lacking in this stop-over town.
The girls piled into the safari truck and as we started to pull away, a police car with sirens blaring seemed to flash down a silver BMW heading down the road. To our astonishment, the BMW pulled into the rocky dirt road to the hostel, and, police in what seemed like pursuit behind. The two cars headed straight towards us, veer off to the right, and a well-dressed man steps out and runs in to talk to the owner of the hostel. Meanwhile, Claire leaped out of the truck, and ran back up the road. The girls afterwards reflected on the questions about Claire's legality that ran through their heads at that moment. But through the flirtatious knowledge-gathering of Japhet, our Zimbabwean driver, she had received notice that Nelson Mandela was to be passing through his hometown. Given that this is rural South Africa, the Transkei and one of the poorest regions of the country - men in suits and BMWs were a strong indication of big things to come.
After some finagling that could only be done in Africa, Japhet was speeding down the road in the behemoth safari truck, on a wild goose chase after the phantom Mandela that we believed might possibly be, though no one was really sure, somewhere in the general vicinity. We drove for 15 minutes or so, the girls alternately laughing hysterically and then sitting in petrified silence and stopped to ask workers on the side of the road. We must have been an odd sight, the white girls in our huge beige truck, but they pointed us on down the road.
Suddenly we drove otu over a lookout, and down below in the middle of the barren grassland was a gated area, a monument, and a collection of well-dressed individuals and very nice cars. The energy in the truck was palpable as the anticipation built.
We drove to the gate, and again, only in Africa - Japhet pulled in and parked our truck behind the Mercedes and BMWs, as if it would be camouflaged and inconspicuous somewhere back there. The girls fell silent. We waited.
No more than 10 minutes later, we saw a long chain of police cars with flashing lights pulling around the overlooks edge, and in the center came a black sedan with tinted windows.
"That's him..." one of the girls whispered.
They pulled into the very same gated compound that we were in, past the giant beige safari truck, and pulled up to the monument. We were peering silently from our windows - an unspoken code of reverence.
Slowly, tantalizingly slowly, a white-haired head emerged from the vehicle.
"That's Nelson Mandela..." one of them croaked, speaking in awe for the rest of us.
Japhet and friend walked slowly down towards the crowd, Japhet hurriedly tucking in his shirt and trying to make himself presentable.
We felt silly, gawking, awkward - and yet, none of us could tear ourselves away from the significance of this moment. Suddenly, we saw Japhet - hefty Japhet who moves his large body with purpose - running towards us. "You can come closer if you want," he said..
A collective breath caught at the same time, we crept out of th truck, and dressed in the TTS uniform of oddly matched sweatpants, polypro, and tshirts we struggled to make ourselves mildly presentable. We walked slowly, as if for fear of disturbing this dream we're living, down towards the crowd. I looked at the girls and teachers around me - and each of us is caught somewhere in our emotions, eyes welling. And we arrived at the edge of the crowd, and people make space for this odd assortment of American girls, and suddenly, we are no more than 10 feet from Nelson Mandela.
There is a flood for me just then - a flood of all that I have ever wanted to learn and understand about the struggle, about oppression, about freedom. And suddenly I am standing there, staring at someone who embodies the cliches and the grandeur. And he is just a man, with white hair and a wrinkled face. But he is just a man - and that fact is enough to sink in so deeply and so pervasively.
This man lived imprisoned for 27 years and then came out of prison to unify South Africa - not for black power or to defeat white power, but with the ideal of coexistence.
He climbed into the waiting sedan, and as Claire remarks - all formality was lost. We grin at him as he drives away, and wave - a little wildly. We'll never know if he saw the group of 17 white girls, frantically trying to express in one moment everything that seeing him had just meant.
There's something magical about this group. There's something about being open, being present. That moment something snapped in all of us and we are let loose.
To those who say that this generation is lost - I challenge you to think again. To those who think that all teenagers can idolize is Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake - I challenge you to think again. I saw young women on this raw morning profoundly and achingly inspired by the sight of a man who made change in his country - and their awareness of his greatness was held in every pregnant moment of being there.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
eshowe, the heart of zululand, or whats been up the last month....
Hey all,
I'm writing from Eshowe, a hotbed of Zulu culture in the middle Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa. The past three weeks since I wrote last have been jammed full, and explaining them is a daunting task - so I'll try to work backwards from where we are now.
This week, in traditional Traveling School style we had the best of intentions for having a full and uninterrupted classes. But as is becoming the spirit of this trip, we've decided to forego normalcy, regularity and routine to attend a shamanic healing, a zulu wedding, visit an orphanage, and go see a traditional Zulu dance. Somewhere in there the girls are also writing a children's book in Afrikaans, and living the lives of their alternate personalities for the Game of LIfe in Math Applications. Somewhere in there, they do 5:55am workouts, and somewhere in there find time and the stimulation to have fascinating conversations about culture, materialism, and the global AIDS crisis. And thats just for my classes. Oh yeah, and to have mad crushes on our guides.
It sounds a little bit crazy. It is a little bit crazy. But its so amazing to be a part of a group of young women who are this passionate and energized, and to be facilitating the process of their awareness just exploding.
The girls have been incredible. I can't say enough good things about them. Each one of them has their goofy, ridiculous silly side balanced beautifully by mature, insightful questioning of the world around them. It brings out a giddy excitement in me - even when I'm drained, or thinking about home, or distracted.
We've had such a string of experiences - living out of a beige safari truck, camping most nights, washing our own clothes by hand, helping to prepare our own food (we do have a wonderful Zimbabwean man Peter with a devious sense of humor who directs most of our cooking), cleaning our own dishes...our lifestyle right now is simple - and it leaves us enough time for impromptu talent shows, lip syncs and sing-alongs on long truck rides, high stakes ping-pong tournaments.
To balance a simple lifestyle we've had a consistent set of intense activities, which the girls have so far always embraced with a cry of "Carpe Diem"...Rappelling down a 300 foot wall next to a waterfall, re-enacting the Battle of Blood River at 5:00am in the middle of a circle of 67 bronze covered wagons, biking through a township, performing at a township school, hiking the Amphitheater - the best known hike in the Drakensbuyrg. Every day brings something new and spontaneous...If I start reflecting on all the conversations we're having, the ideas about race, privilege, power structures, gender, consumerism, culture, values, food justice, you'd be here all day reading. I'll try to write more soon addressing some of the experiences we've had pertaining to those ideas.
For now, my time's running out - so much love to you all. I'm thinking about you...hopefully can get some pictures up soon.
Heather
I'm writing from Eshowe, a hotbed of Zulu culture in the middle Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa. The past three weeks since I wrote last have been jammed full, and explaining them is a daunting task - so I'll try to work backwards from where we are now.
This week, in traditional Traveling School style we had the best of intentions for having a full and uninterrupted classes. But as is becoming the spirit of this trip, we've decided to forego normalcy, regularity and routine to attend a shamanic healing, a zulu wedding, visit an orphanage, and go see a traditional Zulu dance. Somewhere in there the girls are also writing a children's book in Afrikaans, and living the lives of their alternate personalities for the Game of LIfe in Math Applications. Somewhere in there, they do 5:55am workouts, and somewhere in there find time and the stimulation to have fascinating conversations about culture, materialism, and the global AIDS crisis. And thats just for my classes. Oh yeah, and to have mad crushes on our guides.
It sounds a little bit crazy. It is a little bit crazy. But its so amazing to be a part of a group of young women who are this passionate and energized, and to be facilitating the process of their awareness just exploding.
The girls have been incredible. I can't say enough good things about them. Each one of them has their goofy, ridiculous silly side balanced beautifully by mature, insightful questioning of the world around them. It brings out a giddy excitement in me - even when I'm drained, or thinking about home, or distracted.
We've had such a string of experiences - living out of a beige safari truck, camping most nights, washing our own clothes by hand, helping to prepare our own food (we do have a wonderful Zimbabwean man Peter with a devious sense of humor who directs most of our cooking), cleaning our own dishes...our lifestyle right now is simple - and it leaves us enough time for impromptu talent shows, lip syncs and sing-alongs on long truck rides, high stakes ping-pong tournaments.
To balance a simple lifestyle we've had a consistent set of intense activities, which the girls have so far always embraced with a cry of "Carpe Diem"...Rappelling down a 300 foot wall next to a waterfall, re-enacting the Battle of Blood River at 5:00am in the middle of a circle of 67 bronze covered wagons, biking through a township, performing at a township school, hiking the Amphitheater - the best known hike in the Drakensbuyrg. Every day brings something new and spontaneous...If I start reflecting on all the conversations we're having, the ideas about race, privilege, power structures, gender, consumerism, culture, values, food justice, you'd be here all day reading. I'll try to write more soon addressing some of the experiences we've had pertaining to those ideas.
For now, my time's running out - so much love to you all. I'm thinking about you...hopefully can get some pictures up soon.
Heather
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
One week and many miles in...
Hello all,
I'm writing from the small town of Waterval Boven - meaning "Above the Waterfall" in Afrikaans. A little hostel here is where we spend the first two weeks, doing orientation, rock-climbing, and having our first classes.
It doesnt quite feel yet like we're in Africa. But the sun sets blazing orange each day over burnt mountains that look soft with their dried grass, and we hike through the township to get to the climbing sites - giant castles of sandstone that shoot straight up (or down, I should say) into a valley. Along one of the canyon walls plummets a 300 foot waterfall that can be seen from all around, and lends itself to greening the base of the valley that is ringed in reds and browns and oranges.
We have thirteen girls who so far have been up for anything on this trip. They have been absolutely astonishing - climbing for four hours on vertical cliffs for the first time ever in their lives, then hiking out over a rugged trail, then greeting passers-by in Swazi "Sawubona!", then tolerating getting laughed at by 8 year olds when they try. They've weathered the "Cabbage Challenge" (a physical challenge that acts out the old tiger, rabbit, cabbage riddle using a kayak and a river)...my group's tiger, rabbit, cabbage, and group members all ended up soaked in the middle of the river - much to the mirth of the crowd of South Africans watching from the bridge above. They've rappelled down a 150 foot cliff, hiked to the base of a waterfall, jumped into frigid water yelling "Carpe Diem" and "when are we ever going to get a chance to do something like this again?"...They've painted themselves in mud, and even been forced in to bragging about themselves a bit (which, it turns out, is hard to get teenage girls to do).
And ofcourse, they've had classes. Its hard to imagine those on top of the intense physical activity they're doing - but they manage to do it. Our languages class is studying Swazi and Afrikaans - they're interviewing townspeople, and learning all about linguistics and endangered languages. In Math Applications we're talking about goal-setting, making your money work for you, and budgeting.Yes, laugh your heads off, all of you, I am teaching budgeting. We've been working at putting together a mind-blowing Global Studies curriculum, which has been challenging has its co-taught by all four of us, who have very different backgrounds and opinions as to how it should all go - but I think if and when we work through that, we'll be creating something awesome.
Its been a great first week. Its sometimes daunting to think about sustaining this energy for 8 months...but its also intoxicating.
Anyway, thats the brief intro - more soon...
Much love,
Heather
I'm writing from the small town of Waterval Boven - meaning "Above the Waterfall" in Afrikaans. A little hostel here is where we spend the first two weeks, doing orientation, rock-climbing, and having our first classes.
It doesnt quite feel yet like we're in Africa. But the sun sets blazing orange each day over burnt mountains that look soft with their dried grass, and we hike through the township to get to the climbing sites - giant castles of sandstone that shoot straight up (or down, I should say) into a valley. Along one of the canyon walls plummets a 300 foot waterfall that can be seen from all around, and lends itself to greening the base of the valley that is ringed in reds and browns and oranges.
We have thirteen girls who so far have been up for anything on this trip. They have been absolutely astonishing - climbing for four hours on vertical cliffs for the first time ever in their lives, then hiking out over a rugged trail, then greeting passers-by in Swazi "Sawubona!", then tolerating getting laughed at by 8 year olds when they try. They've weathered the "Cabbage Challenge" (a physical challenge that acts out the old tiger, rabbit, cabbage riddle using a kayak and a river)...my group's tiger, rabbit, cabbage, and group members all ended up soaked in the middle of the river - much to the mirth of the crowd of South Africans watching from the bridge above. They've rappelled down a 150 foot cliff, hiked to the base of a waterfall, jumped into frigid water yelling "Carpe Diem" and "when are we ever going to get a chance to do something like this again?"...They've painted themselves in mud, and even been forced in to bragging about themselves a bit (which, it turns out, is hard to get teenage girls to do).
And ofcourse, they've had classes. Its hard to imagine those on top of the intense physical activity they're doing - but they manage to do it. Our languages class is studying Swazi and Afrikaans - they're interviewing townspeople, and learning all about linguistics and endangered languages. In Math Applications we're talking about goal-setting, making your money work for you, and budgeting.Yes, laugh your heads off, all of you, I am teaching budgeting. We've been working at putting together a mind-blowing Global Studies curriculum, which has been challenging has its co-taught by all four of us, who have very different backgrounds and opinions as to how it should all go - but I think if and when we work through that, we'll be creating something awesome.
Its been a great first week. Its sometimes daunting to think about sustaining this energy for 8 months...but its also intoxicating.
Anyway, thats the brief intro - more soon...
Much love,
Heather
Monday, September 3, 2007
positive perspectives...
Hi all,
I post from the hotel in Dulles - our girls will be here in an hour, and I thought I'd sent something quick on before life changes drastically.
I have to clarify one thing: my grandfather pointed out after my last blog that my perspectives on the world seem negative. I think I should say that over the last three weeks I have felt incredibly blessed: blessed to travel through a beautiful country in planes, on busses, in cars, on bikes, and lots of walking. I have felt blessed to have the resources to do so - and the chance to go to Africa for three and a half months with a group of high school girls whose minds are about to be blown. I have felt blessed to have the friends that I do, who have been unbelievably amazing and supportive through the last three months - through a lot of questioning, doubt, and sadness even in the midst of excitement and anticipation. I have felt blessed to have a family who lets me roam - who meets me in the middle of the night, way out of the way, to get one last good conversation in before I take off around the world. I have felt blessed to finally know how deeply I can love and be in love, and to be sure about it even when there's no reason to hold on to that, however painful that might be at times. I have felt blessed to meet new people who I connect with, who I respect, and to know that there are so many more out there doing amazing work.
So yes, I wake up in the mornings excited at the prospects of this wonderful world, as my grandfather said.
I have spent the last two weeks on a road trip - passing through the beautiful new house of Scott Lewis, through Williamstown, down Rte 2. Spent time on natural waterslides, lots of skinny-dipping (even in the Niagara River...yesss) saw Niagara Falls, camped in Michigan, attended the Cheeseburger Festival, camped in Petoskey, looked for Petoskey stones...said goodbye to my fellow road-trippers and began my WFR course - complete with chainsaw simulation, lots of fake blood, a fake compound femur fracture...etc etc etc. Passed the last night drinking beers with Kate Hamel and newfound friend Taura, whose amazing ability to recognize connections of the moment brought sad goodbyes at the greyhound station. Long bus trip to Detroit - made longer by blowing a tire on the highway and spending three hours at a rest stop. Sat next to a man who told me that he has a place in heaven in the lap of Jesus but would frankly prefer to be at the side of God. Jesus has God's right side, so he'd like the left. Thats usually the Devil's spot: so his mission = to rid the world of all evil and posit himself at the Divine Left. Flight to Seattle - amazing time with Paul and Lindsay. Good talks, a little beer, a little adventure of all kinds. Another greyhound, this one to Bozeman...and then it all began.
The vibe between co-teachers is phenomenal, everything we know about our girls is amazing, and hell, we're going to Africa for the semester. I've learned greetings in Zulu (just have to be one step ahead of the girls!) and am working on my Afrikaans.
Tomorrow we head out! Email communication will be shoddy, but I'd love to hear from each of you. Also, if you feel like sending snail mail - which is more deeply appreciated than you can know, the address in Capetown (need to send before Sept. 25):
Heather Foran
c/o Sharon Cupido
249 12th Ave.
Kensington 7405
Capetown
RSA/South Africa
Much love to you all,
Heather
I post from the hotel in Dulles - our girls will be here in an hour, and I thought I'd sent something quick on before life changes drastically.
I have to clarify one thing: my grandfather pointed out after my last blog that my perspectives on the world seem negative. I think I should say that over the last three weeks I have felt incredibly blessed: blessed to travel through a beautiful country in planes, on busses, in cars, on bikes, and lots of walking. I have felt blessed to have the resources to do so - and the chance to go to Africa for three and a half months with a group of high school girls whose minds are about to be blown. I have felt blessed to have the friends that I do, who have been unbelievably amazing and supportive through the last three months - through a lot of questioning, doubt, and sadness even in the midst of excitement and anticipation. I have felt blessed to have a family who lets me roam - who meets me in the middle of the night, way out of the way, to get one last good conversation in before I take off around the world. I have felt blessed to finally know how deeply I can love and be in love, and to be sure about it even when there's no reason to hold on to that, however painful that might be at times. I have felt blessed to meet new people who I connect with, who I respect, and to know that there are so many more out there doing amazing work.
So yes, I wake up in the mornings excited at the prospects of this wonderful world, as my grandfather said.
I have spent the last two weeks on a road trip - passing through the beautiful new house of Scott Lewis, through Williamstown, down Rte 2. Spent time on natural waterslides, lots of skinny-dipping (even in the Niagara River...yesss) saw Niagara Falls, camped in Michigan, attended the Cheeseburger Festival, camped in Petoskey, looked for Petoskey stones...said goodbye to my fellow road-trippers and began my WFR course - complete with chainsaw simulation, lots of fake blood, a fake compound femur fracture...etc etc etc. Passed the last night drinking beers with Kate Hamel and newfound friend Taura, whose amazing ability to recognize connections of the moment brought sad goodbyes at the greyhound station. Long bus trip to Detroit - made longer by blowing a tire on the highway and spending three hours at a rest stop. Sat next to a man who told me that he has a place in heaven in the lap of Jesus but would frankly prefer to be at the side of God. Jesus has God's right side, so he'd like the left. Thats usually the Devil's spot: so his mission = to rid the world of all evil and posit himself at the Divine Left. Flight to Seattle - amazing time with Paul and Lindsay. Good talks, a little beer, a little adventure of all kinds. Another greyhound, this one to Bozeman...and then it all began.
The vibe between co-teachers is phenomenal, everything we know about our girls is amazing, and hell, we're going to Africa for the semester. I've learned greetings in Zulu (just have to be one step ahead of the girls!) and am working on my Afrikaans.
Tomorrow we head out! Email communication will be shoddy, but I'd love to hear from each of you. Also, if you feel like sending snail mail - which is more deeply appreciated than you can know, the address in Capetown (need to send before Sept. 25):
Heather Foran
c/o Sharon Cupido
249 12th Ave.
Kensington 7405
Capetown
RSA/South Africa
Much love to you all,
Heather
Monday, August 13, 2007
Full circle...
So its been awhile.
I've been home since May. Most of you know that I'm gearing up to leave again...So the following is a collection of itineraries, reflections, and the nonsense that a blog lets you drivel on to the page. Thank you for reading...
Leaving this time feels strange. The anticipation is there, per usual. I was reminded recently that I am rarely excited for trips before they happen - too far in to life at the moment to be really mentally ready to go. Luckily transitioning into life wherever it happens to be at the moment has usually worked out for me...
Since May there is simultaneously so much, and so little to say. I attended one of YES!'s jams in West Virginia, entitled Leveraging Privilege for Social Change. The jam may have been one of the most transformative weeks of my life...I went in with the intention of "unlocking" myself, as I had put it - unaware really of what that would look like. The jam pushed me to move outside of my analytical, problem-solving self - to begin looking at the world from a "heart space" perspective. It made me realize how deeply trained I have been to shun emotion from my understanding of the world, and how much I have struggled with being unable to intellectually grasp what I see as world issues that run deep and are pervasive. To be surrounded by 27 other people - young leaders, activists, artists from a variety of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds who struggle with the issues of privilege and power so honestly - and to take a step past the superficial excitement of the visual diversity of a room of young leaders in to the deep anger, sadness and frustration that all of us felt - even with each other, and to push through that to a place of acceptance, support, and acknowledgement...and particularly ownership of our own feelings...
I will be writing, I think, about these thoughts and ideas for awhile - perhaps an undercurrent of my trip...but what I realized at the jam was how much we are acculturated as young, middle-upper class white people that legitimate work in social change involves leaving our people and our places and solving, fixing, living, sacrificing in the problems of other people who we see as needier than ourselves. And yet, I had a moment at the jam - facing a barrage of honestly spoken anger with "white culture" to realize that I have no idea what this culture is thats been handed to me. Who are my people? Where is my land? What struggles do I connect to? Who are my ancestors? What if I dont want a culture of patriarchy, imperialism, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and the NFL?
Kids at summer camp are like sponges. Why? Because for many of them it is the first time in their lives that they find a true community - one that lives interconnected with its land, where different "generations" care for each other, where there are rituals and traditions and legends and heritage. Adults at summer camp are like sponges. And yet, for some reason there's an age where those rituals, those traditions become silly, outdated, childish...and ultimately society tells us that the most we can have of that community is a deep nostalgia...
And if we see the deep pain associated loss of culture in places like reservations here in the US - where in just a few generations tribes have had the tree cut from its roots - manifest in alcoholism, psychological trauma, domestic violence...why would we not expect to see similar pain in a society of people who have systematically lost their attachments to community, heritage, and land.
So much of what I came to see at the jam is how ready I am to be home - that the place that I make change is the place that I know, and that that is not weak to be close to your family, to receive the support and love of friends, to explore the land that you came from...but instead its where you are able to put down roots and grow your strongest.
And once we reconnect to that, we can all come to the table. We can support each other in the struggle that we all face at the moment, rather than trying to solve the struggles of others and pretending our own don't exist.
So all of that said, I'm off around the world for the next 8 months. Ahh yes...
I have traveled since I was 12 years old. I have searched communities, religious spaces, families - scoured them for something I didnt even know I was looking for. I have made friends whose children I hope my children someday grow up with...I have had experiences that were hilarious, some that were tragic, and some that simply rocked my foundation of understanding. I would never change any of that. What I never found was a work that was mine. And suddenly, I feel like I'm not looking any more.
It puts my travels in a new light. Rather than searching, I know that I've found something - and it frees me up for an incredible adventure. It also frees me up to be the teacher and the support person to 13 teenage girls who are just starting this whole process. Frankly, it takes a lot of the pressure off...
I leave Wednesday morning for a road trip to Niagara Falls, through Canada, to northern Michigan for a WFR course, to Seattle to see Paul and Lindsay and then to Bozeman...Getting my mind around the fact that all of that is leading up to being in Africa in two weeks has been a challenge...
The Traveling School will be in Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa. We'll be rafting the Zambezi, rock-climbing, sand-boarding...we'll be studying the AIDS crisis, going on safari, looking at microfinance, and learning Xhosa. There are 13 girls this semester, and 4 deeply devoted teachers...We leave Washington DC and September 3, and return to the US on Dec 15...I have no idea what these 4 months will bring. I'm hoping for some clarity, some adventure, some hilarity...I'm hoping to get a little better at taking care of myself - at not spreading myself too thin. I'm bringing knitting needles, paints, and several books. I'd like to meditate. I'd like to write. I'd like to stay in better touch.
Leaving for so long is daunting. It would mean so much to me if you all will help me stay in touch...Internet from Africa can be hedgy at times - so know that I'm sending you all much love...
I'll post again soon. Sorry that this is such a scattershot collection of ideas - dont take any of them too seriously...but hopefully they'll flesh themselves out as the semester goes on.
Heather
I've been home since May. Most of you know that I'm gearing up to leave again...So the following is a collection of itineraries, reflections, and the nonsense that a blog lets you drivel on to the page. Thank you for reading...
Leaving this time feels strange. The anticipation is there, per usual. I was reminded recently that I am rarely excited for trips before they happen - too far in to life at the moment to be really mentally ready to go. Luckily transitioning into life wherever it happens to be at the moment has usually worked out for me...
Since May there is simultaneously so much, and so little to say. I attended one of YES!'s jams in West Virginia, entitled Leveraging Privilege for Social Change. The jam may have been one of the most transformative weeks of my life...I went in with the intention of "unlocking" myself, as I had put it - unaware really of what that would look like. The jam pushed me to move outside of my analytical, problem-solving self - to begin looking at the world from a "heart space" perspective. It made me realize how deeply trained I have been to shun emotion from my understanding of the world, and how much I have struggled with being unable to intellectually grasp what I see as world issues that run deep and are pervasive. To be surrounded by 27 other people - young leaders, activists, artists from a variety of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds who struggle with the issues of privilege and power so honestly - and to take a step past the superficial excitement of the visual diversity of a room of young leaders in to the deep anger, sadness and frustration that all of us felt - even with each other, and to push through that to a place of acceptance, support, and acknowledgement...and particularly ownership of our own feelings...
I will be writing, I think, about these thoughts and ideas for awhile - perhaps an undercurrent of my trip...but what I realized at the jam was how much we are acculturated as young, middle-upper class white people that legitimate work in social change involves leaving our people and our places and solving, fixing, living, sacrificing in the problems of other people who we see as needier than ourselves. And yet, I had a moment at the jam - facing a barrage of honestly spoken anger with "white culture" to realize that I have no idea what this culture is thats been handed to me. Who are my people? Where is my land? What struggles do I connect to? Who are my ancestors? What if I dont want a culture of patriarchy, imperialism, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and the NFL?
Kids at summer camp are like sponges. Why? Because for many of them it is the first time in their lives that they find a true community - one that lives interconnected with its land, where different "generations" care for each other, where there are rituals and traditions and legends and heritage. Adults at summer camp are like sponges. And yet, for some reason there's an age where those rituals, those traditions become silly, outdated, childish...and ultimately society tells us that the most we can have of that community is a deep nostalgia...
And if we see the deep pain associated loss of culture in places like reservations here in the US - where in just a few generations tribes have had the tree cut from its roots - manifest in alcoholism, psychological trauma, domestic violence...why would we not expect to see similar pain in a society of people who have systematically lost their attachments to community, heritage, and land.
So much of what I came to see at the jam is how ready I am to be home - that the place that I make change is the place that I know, and that that is not weak to be close to your family, to receive the support and love of friends, to explore the land that you came from...but instead its where you are able to put down roots and grow your strongest.
And once we reconnect to that, we can all come to the table. We can support each other in the struggle that we all face at the moment, rather than trying to solve the struggles of others and pretending our own don't exist.
So all of that said, I'm off around the world for the next 8 months. Ahh yes...
I have traveled since I was 12 years old. I have searched communities, religious spaces, families - scoured them for something I didnt even know I was looking for. I have made friends whose children I hope my children someday grow up with...I have had experiences that were hilarious, some that were tragic, and some that simply rocked my foundation of understanding. I would never change any of that. What I never found was a work that was mine. And suddenly, I feel like I'm not looking any more.
It puts my travels in a new light. Rather than searching, I know that I've found something - and it frees me up for an incredible adventure. It also frees me up to be the teacher and the support person to 13 teenage girls who are just starting this whole process. Frankly, it takes a lot of the pressure off...
I leave Wednesday morning for a road trip to Niagara Falls, through Canada, to northern Michigan for a WFR course, to Seattle to see Paul and Lindsay and then to Bozeman...Getting my mind around the fact that all of that is leading up to being in Africa in two weeks has been a challenge...
The Traveling School will be in Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa. We'll be rafting the Zambezi, rock-climbing, sand-boarding...we'll be studying the AIDS crisis, going on safari, looking at microfinance, and learning Xhosa. There are 13 girls this semester, and 4 deeply devoted teachers...We leave Washington DC and September 3, and return to the US on Dec 15...I have no idea what these 4 months will bring. I'm hoping for some clarity, some adventure, some hilarity...I'm hoping to get a little better at taking care of myself - at not spreading myself too thin. I'm bringing knitting needles, paints, and several books. I'd like to meditate. I'd like to write. I'd like to stay in better touch.
Leaving for so long is daunting. It would mean so much to me if you all will help me stay in touch...Internet from Africa can be hedgy at times - so know that I'm sending you all much love...
I'll post again soon. Sorry that this is such a scattershot collection of ideas - dont take any of them too seriously...but hopefully they'll flesh themselves out as the semester goes on.
Heather
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
the excitement never ends.
Hi all,
Sorry its been so long!
I hesitated to write post Galapagos because there was just so much. It started out snorkeling with ten sea lions, passed through blue-footed boobies, red-footed boobies, frigate birds...marine iguanas, land iguanas, Darwin Darwin Darwin, lava lizards, flamingos, volcanoes, sharks.
Theres too much to write there and not enough time, so expect more soon i promise.
We`ve spent the rest of the time playing hurry up and wait. spending two days in the hospital in guayaquil with a student with a potential stress fracture. talking her through her claustrophobia as she had a 2 hr long MRI. playing catch up with the group as we took epic bus ride after epic bus ride across the ecuador-peru border...replete with giant sweaty stomachs, men spitting on the bus floor, bags of live cuy, and our favorite taxi driver javier, who showed us around tumbes to several of the 20 giant mosaic statues that adorn the city...including one of a naked man and woman kissing, and a giant woman breastfeeding her child. we arrived in huanchaco, peruvian coast. we took surfing lessons (i loved it). i cut my foot. we got ripped off by taxi drivers. we took another epic bus ride. we arrived in huaraz, trekking and mountaineering capital of peru. we spent a frenetic four days prepping for our backpacking trip. we headed out. we evac`d a student who couldnt keep down food or water. she and i are chilling in huaraz, trying to plan how to get back to the group. theres a region-wide transportation strike planned for tomorrow to protest the free trade agreements. we`re going to get back to the mountains before then. no worries, we will be safe (thats why we`re leaving in a few hours).
somewhere in there we have had classes, we have prepared delicious meals, we have seen parts of south america we`ve never even dreamed of. the girls finished an altogether crazy amount of work. we worked out at altitude...and we`re all starting to realize that theres just about a month of this wild adventure left and its going by fast.
much love to all of you, my time off is coming up in cusco and i promise i`ll writ emore and with more detail.
heather
Sorry its been so long!
I hesitated to write post Galapagos because there was just so much. It started out snorkeling with ten sea lions, passed through blue-footed boobies, red-footed boobies, frigate birds...marine iguanas, land iguanas, Darwin Darwin Darwin, lava lizards, flamingos, volcanoes, sharks.
Theres too much to write there and not enough time, so expect more soon i promise.
We`ve spent the rest of the time playing hurry up and wait. spending two days in the hospital in guayaquil with a student with a potential stress fracture. talking her through her claustrophobia as she had a 2 hr long MRI. playing catch up with the group as we took epic bus ride after epic bus ride across the ecuador-peru border...replete with giant sweaty stomachs, men spitting on the bus floor, bags of live cuy, and our favorite taxi driver javier, who showed us around tumbes to several of the 20 giant mosaic statues that adorn the city...including one of a naked man and woman kissing, and a giant woman breastfeeding her child. we arrived in huanchaco, peruvian coast. we took surfing lessons (i loved it). i cut my foot. we got ripped off by taxi drivers. we took another epic bus ride. we arrived in huaraz, trekking and mountaineering capital of peru. we spent a frenetic four days prepping for our backpacking trip. we headed out. we evac`d a student who couldnt keep down food or water. she and i are chilling in huaraz, trying to plan how to get back to the group. theres a region-wide transportation strike planned for tomorrow to protest the free trade agreements. we`re going to get back to the mountains before then. no worries, we will be safe (thats why we`re leaving in a few hours).
somewhere in there we have had classes, we have prepared delicious meals, we have seen parts of south america we`ve never even dreamed of. the girls finished an altogether crazy amount of work. we worked out at altitude...and we`re all starting to realize that theres just about a month of this wild adventure left and its going by fast.
much love to all of you, my time off is coming up in cusco and i promise i`ll writ emore and with more detail.
heather
Friday, March 9, 2007
Composting toilets, crater lakes, and Cuenca
Followers of the Traveling School, we´ve arrived in the stunningly beautiful colonial city of Cuenca!
The girls have entered their second set of homestays with families from the city, and are actually free of us (or vice versa) for about a week and a half. Its strange to feel like a regular traveler here, suddenly free of the appendages of teenage girls. I miss their company, their energy, and even their drama but am grateful for some time to catch up on emails, grading, lesson plans, on relationships, on the future, on my own life which is perhaps put aside occasionally here.
Over the last two weeks, we´ve been in Quito - where the girls re-enacted the brutal hacking of 1860s president Moreno with a machete for history class...where we saw a beautiful exhibit of Andean photography and a wax museum of the history of Quito...where we went to the Guayasamin museum and saw the original works of Guayasamin - an contemporary and friend of Pablo Neruda, Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro whose paintings capture human suffering, injustice, and oppression in a way that I have never before witnessed. We also went to his Capillo del Hombre - which is a chapel of sorts that he built as his last great work - his testament to the unification of all of Latin America...to the suffering and violence and oppression that people here have faced. You might recognize his work Hands - a series of massive paintings that show faces covered by hands reflecting emotions of Tenderness, Anger, Frustration...Both teachers and students were moved to tears in the Capillo and it reminded all of us of things that are perhaps easy to forget at times when you are moving and traveling so constantly.
After Quito we loaded all of our massive packs, eleven girls and four teachers onto a public bus from Quito to Chugcuilan - a rural mountain town where the Black Sheep Inn is located. Encounters with a drunk man who was harassing women on the bus gave them a perspective on machismo here...the unfortunate situation of a man practically sitting on a woman´s lap and the bus driver doing absolutely nothing but to explain apologetically to us that the man was intoxicated...
The Black Sheep Inn is an award-winning eco-lodge that has worked over the last twelve years to incorporate all aspects of itself into permaculture. From composting toilets to rainwater harvesting to solar power to gravity driven laundry, to herb gardens it is absolutely exemplary.
I was inspired and excited by being at the Black Sheep...this is all so possible, we just need a place to start. The girls did a series of inquiries into all the aspects of permaculture at the hostel, and to see them so excited made me ecstatic. Part of their midterm for their science class is to design a permaculture system for their own homes - using what they know of the geography and climate unique to their hometowns and houses to figure out how best to use the energy and resources around them. That on top of their proposals as to how to address the issue of rainforest deforestation and oil exploration in the Amazon make me proud to be their science teacher as they begin to engage with all of this.
Being in Chugcuilan also meant being in a mountainous region completely formed by volcanic activity. We did an unbelievable day hike - the most challenging we´ve done to date...We took a bus out to a crater lake called Quilotoa and hiked back to the Inn, along the rim of the crater, down through fields of volcanic ash, through a tiny mountain town, wedged through giant slabs of canyon rock, across a river, and finally straight back up. The girls attacked the hike with vengeance - we spent a good several miles pretending we were secret agents sneaking around, launching attacks on the sheep targets below. They also passed the miles with renditions of songs from the Sound of Music - much to my chagrin...8 miles and as many hours later the girls were tired and sore but excited as well. Some of them have never in their lives done anything like this...and to see how each of them makes it through astonishes me. These girls are being challenged constantly - one day physically, the next day mentally, the next day emotionally...There are always the breakdowns, the bodies that are sick, or tired, or hurt, the tears - but each one of them is making it through this in their own way. I see them dig into the reserves and I see them each rally to bring each other along. I struggle with the wanting to accompany them through what I know for some of them is the hardest thing they have ever done and needing to give them the space to experience all of this for themselves and to realize that they too will make it through on the other end.
We left Chugcuilan at 2:30am on yet another public bus. This marked the beginning of a thirteen hour epic travel adventure down windy dirt roads inches from the sides of cliffs. I should note here how eternally grateful I am for dramamine, as I think it may have saved some of the girls (and their dutiful nurse) from a good deal of...excitement? As it was, we did have one unfortunate incident after which I found myself holding a bag of vomit as the bus driver yelled to me Botalo, botalo! meaning Throw it out! Throw it out! I froze, stared at him, and then pitched the whole thing out the window of the bus. I actively choose not to imagine its landing.
We´ve since arrived in Cuenca - a bit of a culture shock. The colonial architecture here is absolutely beautiful, and we´re seeing a city brimming with the contrast of modernity, bars, salsa clubs, historical conquest and poverty right on top of each other. The shops here are filled with white-skinned mannequins sporting the latest fashions, and I feel myself turned off to being here in some ways. I am glad, definitely, that the girls are getting a sense of so many different aspects of Ecuador and have had the experience of their homestays in Agualongo to compare to these...
Which brings us to the four of us teachers who for the next seven days are just travelers unless there is an emergency. We´re eating well on our teacher budget here, and have big plans to go to the hot springs, to hike, to go dancing, to see where all of this takes us. I´m excited for the chance to reflect on all of this, on myself as a teacher, on how the four of us work. I´m also just excited to spend some time getting to know these women that I teach with...each of them has their own quirks and uniqueness...today we determined that I´m the only one who doesnt consistently make my bed...they are amazing, knowledgeable, excited, fun and constantly inspire me to work harder and get better at this crazy wonderful job.
Next stop: Galapagos. Many booby references to come!
I´ll post photos soon - have many to transfer from my camera!
Much love to all of you,
Heather
The girls have entered their second set of homestays with families from the city, and are actually free of us (or vice versa) for about a week and a half. Its strange to feel like a regular traveler here, suddenly free of the appendages of teenage girls. I miss their company, their energy, and even their drama but am grateful for some time to catch up on emails, grading, lesson plans, on relationships, on the future, on my own life which is perhaps put aside occasionally here.
Over the last two weeks, we´ve been in Quito - where the girls re-enacted the brutal hacking of 1860s president Moreno with a machete for history class...where we saw a beautiful exhibit of Andean photography and a wax museum of the history of Quito...where we went to the Guayasamin museum and saw the original works of Guayasamin - an contemporary and friend of Pablo Neruda, Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro whose paintings capture human suffering, injustice, and oppression in a way that I have never before witnessed. We also went to his Capillo del Hombre - which is a chapel of sorts that he built as his last great work - his testament to the unification of all of Latin America...to the suffering and violence and oppression that people here have faced. You might recognize his work Hands - a series of massive paintings that show faces covered by hands reflecting emotions of Tenderness, Anger, Frustration...Both teachers and students were moved to tears in the Capillo and it reminded all of us of things that are perhaps easy to forget at times when you are moving and traveling so constantly.
After Quito we loaded all of our massive packs, eleven girls and four teachers onto a public bus from Quito to Chugcuilan - a rural mountain town where the Black Sheep Inn is located. Encounters with a drunk man who was harassing women on the bus gave them a perspective on machismo here...the unfortunate situation of a man practically sitting on a woman´s lap and the bus driver doing absolutely nothing but to explain apologetically to us that the man was intoxicated...
The Black Sheep Inn is an award-winning eco-lodge that has worked over the last twelve years to incorporate all aspects of itself into permaculture. From composting toilets to rainwater harvesting to solar power to gravity driven laundry, to herb gardens it is absolutely exemplary.
I was inspired and excited by being at the Black Sheep...this is all so possible, we just need a place to start. The girls did a series of inquiries into all the aspects of permaculture at the hostel, and to see them so excited made me ecstatic. Part of their midterm for their science class is to design a permaculture system for their own homes - using what they know of the geography and climate unique to their hometowns and houses to figure out how best to use the energy and resources around them. That on top of their proposals as to how to address the issue of rainforest deforestation and oil exploration in the Amazon make me proud to be their science teacher as they begin to engage with all of this.
Being in Chugcuilan also meant being in a mountainous region completely formed by volcanic activity. We did an unbelievable day hike - the most challenging we´ve done to date...We took a bus out to a crater lake called Quilotoa and hiked back to the Inn, along the rim of the crater, down through fields of volcanic ash, through a tiny mountain town, wedged through giant slabs of canyon rock, across a river, and finally straight back up. The girls attacked the hike with vengeance - we spent a good several miles pretending we were secret agents sneaking around, launching attacks on the sheep targets below. They also passed the miles with renditions of songs from the Sound of Music - much to my chagrin...8 miles and as many hours later the girls were tired and sore but excited as well. Some of them have never in their lives done anything like this...and to see how each of them makes it through astonishes me. These girls are being challenged constantly - one day physically, the next day mentally, the next day emotionally...There are always the breakdowns, the bodies that are sick, or tired, or hurt, the tears - but each one of them is making it through this in their own way. I see them dig into the reserves and I see them each rally to bring each other along. I struggle with the wanting to accompany them through what I know for some of them is the hardest thing they have ever done and needing to give them the space to experience all of this for themselves and to realize that they too will make it through on the other end.
We left Chugcuilan at 2:30am on yet another public bus. This marked the beginning of a thirteen hour epic travel adventure down windy dirt roads inches from the sides of cliffs. I should note here how eternally grateful I am for dramamine, as I think it may have saved some of the girls (and their dutiful nurse) from a good deal of...excitement? As it was, we did have one unfortunate incident after which I found myself holding a bag of vomit as the bus driver yelled to me Botalo, botalo! meaning Throw it out! Throw it out! I froze, stared at him, and then pitched the whole thing out the window of the bus. I actively choose not to imagine its landing.
We´ve since arrived in Cuenca - a bit of a culture shock. The colonial architecture here is absolutely beautiful, and we´re seeing a city brimming with the contrast of modernity, bars, salsa clubs, historical conquest and poverty right on top of each other. The shops here are filled with white-skinned mannequins sporting the latest fashions, and I feel myself turned off to being here in some ways. I am glad, definitely, that the girls are getting a sense of so many different aspects of Ecuador and have had the experience of their homestays in Agualongo to compare to these...
Which brings us to the four of us teachers who for the next seven days are just travelers unless there is an emergency. We´re eating well on our teacher budget here, and have big plans to go to the hot springs, to hike, to go dancing, to see where all of this takes us. I´m excited for the chance to reflect on all of this, on myself as a teacher, on how the four of us work. I´m also just excited to spend some time getting to know these women that I teach with...each of them has their own quirks and uniqueness...today we determined that I´m the only one who doesnt consistently make my bed...they are amazing, knowledgeable, excited, fun and constantly inspire me to work harder and get better at this crazy wonderful job.
Next stop: Galapagos. Many booby references to come!
I´ll post photos soon - have many to transfer from my camera!
Much love to all of you,
Heather
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
A Quito A Quito A Quito
Today we start getting our traveling school tshirts dirty for real...
(we wear them every time we travel..and today marks the beginning of traveling with full packs every 5 days or so!)
We left the little mountain city of Otavalo this morning and arrived in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. The contrast is striking - otavaleños dress in traditional indigenous attire, women in frilly white blouses embroidered with little flowers, and long black skirts. Quito is in contrast a hodgepodge of amazing restaurants and good coffee. We´re in Mariscal - the ultra-gringa tourist-y section in a hostel here.
Our homestays finished up amazingly well. Cuy (guinea pig) ended up being central to the experience - I sat in the dirt-floored kitchen peeling potatoes while my mamita and youngest son chased the biggest cuy around the kitchen. I did however run out when she turned to me to ask for the knife...We ate fried cuy on our last night with our family - whole, flattened, and deep-fried. I still havent gotten up the nerve to crunch on the feet or eat the head - both of which are fine with the Ecuadorans since the kids love those pieces best. We were also given a basket of fried cuy, boiled whole chicken and boiled potatoes during our despedida the next day with the community - quite an honor, but an awful lot of deep-fried rodent for occasionally squeamish teenage girls. Many comments on how distanced we are from meat processing in the United States ensued.
Other highlights include Carnival with the people of Agualongo - a bunch of gringas loaded in to the back of a pick up track...sitting ducks for the giant water fight that takes over all of the streets. In general Otavaleños are fairly kind...minus the chicha (Ecuadoran moonshine) that smelled like vomit.
We´ve also had 5:55am workouts in some of the most beautiful and random locations that I´ve ever seen. This morning, in fact, we were invited to participate in an aerobics class with a bunch of people in Otavalo who saw us working out one morning. So at 5:30am we met them on a cement soccer field and (quite literally) shook our booties for an hour. My favorite move was the grab-the-ankles-and-swivvle-your-hips.
Upcoming includes this time in Quito with museums and a little bit of freedom and city life for the girls. After that to the Black Sheep Inn - an eco-lodge with composting toilets and an all vegetarian menu and amazing hiking...finally to Cuenca for homestays again for the girls...(and midterms...)
Love and miss you all,
Heather
(we wear them every time we travel..and today marks the beginning of traveling with full packs every 5 days or so!)
We left the little mountain city of Otavalo this morning and arrived in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. The contrast is striking - otavaleños dress in traditional indigenous attire, women in frilly white blouses embroidered with little flowers, and long black skirts. Quito is in contrast a hodgepodge of amazing restaurants and good coffee. We´re in Mariscal - the ultra-gringa tourist-y section in a hostel here.
Our homestays finished up amazingly well. Cuy (guinea pig) ended up being central to the experience - I sat in the dirt-floored kitchen peeling potatoes while my mamita and youngest son chased the biggest cuy around the kitchen. I did however run out when she turned to me to ask for the knife...We ate fried cuy on our last night with our family - whole, flattened, and deep-fried. I still havent gotten up the nerve to crunch on the feet or eat the head - both of which are fine with the Ecuadorans since the kids love those pieces best. We were also given a basket of fried cuy, boiled whole chicken and boiled potatoes during our despedida the next day with the community - quite an honor, but an awful lot of deep-fried rodent for occasionally squeamish teenage girls. Many comments on how distanced we are from meat processing in the United States ensued.
Other highlights include Carnival with the people of Agualongo - a bunch of gringas loaded in to the back of a pick up track...sitting ducks for the giant water fight that takes over all of the streets. In general Otavaleños are fairly kind...minus the chicha (Ecuadoran moonshine) that smelled like vomit.
We´ve also had 5:55am workouts in some of the most beautiful and random locations that I´ve ever seen. This morning, in fact, we were invited to participate in an aerobics class with a bunch of people in Otavalo who saw us working out one morning. So at 5:30am we met them on a cement soccer field and (quite literally) shook our booties for an hour. My favorite move was the grab-the-ankles-and-swivvle-your-hips.
Upcoming includes this time in Quito with museums and a little bit of freedom and city life for the girls. After that to the Black Sheep Inn - an eco-lodge with composting toilets and an all vegetarian menu and amazing hiking...finally to Cuenca for homestays again for the girls...(and midterms...)
Love and miss you all,
Heather
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Photos and homestay updates...
Hey all,
Thought I´d post a few photos. I´m still working out the details of putting them on, so these are not totally organized, nor even my photos, but they give you a sense.
This is me translating in the botanical gardens of Jatun Sacha (a biological reserve). I dont know whether this was before or after the guide told us about feeding kids ayahuasca before classes to öpen their minds¨. This was topped only by the guide who took us caving and tactfully pointed out the ¨Devil´s penis¨formation...complete with testicles.
Here´s our delightful group in Orlando minus one teacher who went ahead to Quito. They´re all freaked out...would never take such a serious looking picture now!
Cara and I posing with the ¨hot lips¨plant...we´ve been told its an aphrodisiac of the Amazonian shamans and also just looks ridiculous :)
Lodges we were staying in in El Establo de Tomas in Tena before we went in to the jungle...
The oil pipeline that descends down in to the Amazon and pumps oil out of primary forest. The Ecuadoran people sell their oil to transnationals to have it refined since htey have no oil refineries in the country and then have to buy it back to use as gasoline, electricity, etc. The Huaorani people vs. Texaco was the first legal case brought against a large corporation outside of that country´s courts. This case was tried in the United States, Texaco was found guilty after leaving approx. 350 open pits, resulting in cancer increases by 1000% and billions of dollars worth of clean up behind.
The four steadfast teachers holding strong outside Jatun Sacha...Cara, Claire, Samantha, and I.This week we are staying in homestays with indigenous families outside otavalo. This is quite a transition for many of the girls - who tried cuy (guinea pig) for the first time on our first night. they´ve all embraced this amazingly...i have a family of 7 kids here...i find myself hardened to a lot of what i see, but this family is breaking that down. they are absolutely incredible, passionate, excited... last ngiht the boys spent about 30 minutes just saying ¨good night heather...good night holly...good night christine...¨over and over again. We´re having a blast, and I´m amazed constantly that my job is introducing high school girls to this experience over and over again. Its hard not to spoonfeed politics to them in the face of all of this...alternatively, its amazing to take a step back and look at all of this as its happening for each of them.
The land here is beautiful, its surrounded by volcanoes and cool crisp green air. people here still farm traditionally, and are proud of being organic and not using any pesticides. in science we are studying plate tectonics and how this land was formed, as well as looking in to local methods of agriculture and how they contrast to European or western techniques.
Much love to all of you, I´m missing you all very much.
Heather
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Amazon, amoebas, [north] Americans
Hey all,
We´re in Tena, Ecuador! Its been a week, and what a wild week its been.
In the last two days I´ve had ungodly access to email that no traveler should ever have, because I´m the school nurse and spending a good amount of time in town dropping off stool samples and taking girls to the doctor. We just finished round 1 of Americans vs. Amoebas. We won this round though.
In reality, that has been such a small part of the last week. We had a brilliant descent by bus in to the Amazon basin, crossed literally under the oil pipeline that ravages the land here, and found ourselves passing through cloud forests and paramo on our way down to the rainforest.
We´re staying in little huts in the base of this valley about 5 miles outside of the small city of Tena. The girls have to focus on their classes literally with monkeys jumping around in the background. (Little perverted bastards - theyre constantly touching themselves and humping chairs). I figure if I can teach here for my first classes ever I´m getting a good start.
We went caving two days ago - and it was amazing to take a trust walk from the day before and apply it to the situation of swimming, sliding, hiking and climbing through caves. After certain friends forced me to watch horror movies like ¨The Cave¨and ¨The CAvern¨I never thought Id find caving so unbelievably beautiful and awe-inspiring.
I´ve taught my first two classes in the rainforest. I´m challenged by doing this in a way that I cant even think of a time previous that I´ve felt this way. I want SO BADLY to be able to do this well, to capture this experience for these girls and give them the best of it all. I´m not being hard on myself, just honest, and I feel unbelievably motivated to learn as much as I possibly can since I´m here. So this is teaching. And I really believe that this is education in the best of all possible worlds.
More soon. Much love to all of you. Hearing from you has been wonderful - please keep me posted about your lives - it means a great deal to hear from you while I´m here.
Love,
Heather
We´re in Tena, Ecuador! Its been a week, and what a wild week its been.
In the last two days I´ve had ungodly access to email that no traveler should ever have, because I´m the school nurse and spending a good amount of time in town dropping off stool samples and taking girls to the doctor. We just finished round 1 of Americans vs. Amoebas. We won this round though.
In reality, that has been such a small part of the last week. We had a brilliant descent by bus in to the Amazon basin, crossed literally under the oil pipeline that ravages the land here, and found ourselves passing through cloud forests and paramo on our way down to the rainforest.
We´re staying in little huts in the base of this valley about 5 miles outside of the small city of Tena. The girls have to focus on their classes literally with monkeys jumping around in the background. (Little perverted bastards - theyre constantly touching themselves and humping chairs). I figure if I can teach here for my first classes ever I´m getting a good start.
We went caving two days ago - and it was amazing to take a trust walk from the day before and apply it to the situation of swimming, sliding, hiking and climbing through caves. After certain friends forced me to watch horror movies like ¨The Cave¨and ¨The CAvern¨I never thought Id find caving so unbelievably beautiful and awe-inspiring.
I´ve taught my first two classes in the rainforest. I´m challenged by doing this in a way that I cant even think of a time previous that I´ve felt this way. I want SO BADLY to be able to do this well, to capture this experience for these girls and give them the best of it all. I´m not being hard on myself, just honest, and I feel unbelievably motivated to learn as much as I possibly can since I´m here. So this is teaching. And I really believe that this is education in the best of all possible worlds.
More soon. Much love to all of you. Hearing from you has been wonderful - please keep me posted about your lives - it means a great deal to hear from you while I´m here.
Love,
Heather
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Preparations...
Hey you all
Sorry that the month has been so disappointing in terms of posting here, but as I'm still in the US I felt like it was a bit anti-climactic.
In the last month, I've enjoyed a road trip to our nation's capitol - highlights being a tour of our national monuments given by one well-educated canadian friend, a certain high profile political friend in a communist t-shirt, one hilarious party combining many gay guys, many straight guys, a few questioning guys and some girls, mini MBTI talks, spying on my brothers classroom (and being told that I'm WAY better looking than mr. foran) and ofcourse quality time with some of the most wonderful people in the world. thank you all - you know who you are. Stopping in NYC and surveying the cheapest restaurants of new york city was amazing. Sadly too brief with all of you all. A lovely long chat with Deena. And of course holing up in a little closet apartment and shutting the door on the world for just a few moments, thank you for giving me the time to do that - unplanned as it was.
I've also partaken in a trip up to rural Machias - highlights including truck stop coffee and pie and good conversation, the bad little falls, the amazing BIG beehive, quality time in front of a big fire with my roommate, and talking land with wes grover.
Finally - I made my way out to Denver and hopped on a greyhound 19 hours to Bozeman, MT. We should all take greyhounds for long periods of time more often. I dont know which was more amusing - the self-proclaimed red-neck women from texas (who'd been on the bus for three days already and were going to seattle); the black transvestite in a blond wig who left the bus stop to allegedly buy a gun to shoot her boyfriend in the balls and was subsequently searched by the police before she could get back on; or the moment when the "tribe" from the bus from salt lake joined our "tribe" in Galette, WY and there was a bit of a "power struggle" for the back of the bus. There was also the touching moment of a young, unassuming woman returning home for the first time in 18 mos after having been in jail for stealing a minivan. It really did make me tear up.
My time in Bozeman becomes a blur - spent MUCH needed quality time with katie - as we are so often two ships passing in the night headed to various corners of the world. we discovered the merits of sledding on frisbees down icy trails, and I have the ring of bruises on my butt to prove it. I'll try to download some of the photos from that day on to this page. see above. Good food - and thanks to laura and addie.
And then to the Traveling School I came - this amazing community of women, teachers present and past - all very present in the life of the school who have found it to be so critical in their own lives that they stick around for it. I'm blown away and bowled over by the competency and experience and joy and excitement in all of this. I'm scared and overwhelmed to take on this trip and I worry about teaching for the first time and being responsible for the safety, security, well-being and good time of 11 15-18 year old girls. I'm amazed by my co-teachers, and a bit shy, I have to admit. I never knew I could be so excited about teaching science. I'm gasping for breath at the idea of my classroom being the Amazon forest floor.
Our girls come tomorrow. I'm in a hotel in Orlando, catching up for a few moments with the world before the big push comes. We have one night of orientation in Orlando and in 48 hours we'll be in Quito, Ecuador. And I'm tempted to say that then the real adventure begins - but in writing all of this down I guess it already has. Thank you all of you who gave me a bed in the last month, and who put up with my vagrancy.
Oh, and happy birthday little brother!
The following is a proverb I found on our director's refrigerator. Its a good one for me to repeat to myself, and I hope it will mean something to you too:
Look to this day for it is life.
In its brief course lie all the realities and truths of existence,
the joy of growth,
the glory of action,
the splendor of beauty…
Today, well lived,
makes every yesterday a memory of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day...” – Ancient Sanskrit Proverb
More soon from here - and hope to hear from all of you!
Love,
Heather
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