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May 2, 2008 - Friday
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This is just too weird!!!!
Okay, so normally I wouldn't post something of this nature...but this just made the inner 14-year-old in me giggle. Hope you enjoy...
From BBCNews.com
..tr>'Sex pest' seal attacks penguin | .. --> S BO --> .. --> S IBYL --> ..tr> | By Matt Walker
BBC | ..table>
.. --> E IBYL --> .. --> S IIMA -->  Sexual coercion among animals is extremely common
.. --> E IIMA --> .. --> S SF --> An Antarctic fur seal has been observed trying to have sex with a king penguin. The South African-based scientists who witnessed the incident say it is the most unusual case of mammal mating behaviour yet known. The incident, which lasted for 45 minutes and was caught on camera, is reported in the Journal of Ethology. The bizarre event took place on a beach on Marion Island, a sub-Antarctic island that is home to both fur seals and king penguins. .. --> E SF --> .. --> S IBOX --> ..tr>  |  At first glimpse, we thought the seal was killing the penguin  Nico de Bruyn, University of Pretoria | ..table> .. --> E IBOX --> Why the seal attempted to have sex with the penguin is unclear. But the scientists who photographed the event speculate that it was the behaviour of a frustrated, sexually inexperienced young male seal. Equally, it might be been an aggressive, predatory act; or even a playful one that turned sexual. "At first glimpse, we thought the seal was killing the penguin," says Nico de Bruyn, of the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Pinniped behaviour The brazenness of the seal's behaviour left those who saw it in no doubt as to what was happening. De Bruyn and a colleague were on Trypot beach at Marion Island to study elephant seals when they noticed a young, adult male Antarctic fur seal, in good condition, attempting to copulate with an adult king penguin of unknown sex. The 100kg seal first subdued the 15kg penguin by lying on it. The penguin flapped its flippers and attempted to stand and escape - but to no avail. .. --> S IIMA --> ..tr>  The seal may have been frustrated in its attempts to find a partner | ..table> .. --> E IIMA --> The seal then alternated between resting on the penguin, and thrusting its pelvis, trying to insert itself, unsuccessfully. After 45 minutes the seal gave up, swam into the water and then completely ignored the bird it had just assaulted, the scientists report. Why a fur seal would indulge in such extreme sexual behaviour is unclear. Sexual coercion among animals is extremely common: males of many species often harass, coerce or force females of their own kind to mate, while animals are also known occasionally to harass sexually a member of a closely related species. Harassment is common among pinnipeds, the group of animals that includes seals, fur seals, and sea lions; and occasionally it happens between related species. Male grey seals have been known to harass and mate with female harbour seals, for example, producing hybrids. "Sexual harassment is often more commonplace in non-monogamous mating systems, and in species where males are physically much larger than the other sex and thus physically capable of coercion or harassment," says de Bruyn. But this is thought to be the first recorded example of a mammal trying to have sex with a member of another class of vertebrate, such as a bird, fish, reptile, or amphibian. 'Too young' Chinstrap penguins occasionally indulge in homosexual behaviour, and adelie penguins sometimes "prostitute" themselves to get stones for nest-building; while one in seven emperor penguins will change partners from one year to the next. But generally, king penguins lead straightforward sex lives: males and females pair up for years on end. Marion Island is the only place in the world where Antarctic fur seals are known to hunt king penguins on land, so the idea that the fur seal was trying to eat the object of its attention made sense. "But then we realised that the seal's intentions were rather more amorous." The researchers speculate that the male seal was too young to win access to female seals, and in a state of sexual excitement, looked elsewhere. But the mating season was nearly over when the incident took place, leading the scientists to also wonder whether the seal's natural predatory aggression toward the bird became redirected into sexual arousal. Equally, the incident may have arisen because the seal was "play-mating". "It was most certainly a once-off and has never previously or since been recorded anywhere in the world to our knowledge," says de Bruyn. The penguin did not appear to have been injured by the seal, the scientists report... --> E BO --> ..table>
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April 22, 2008 - Tuesday
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Charities forced to do more with less
(From CNN.com) -- Ordinary Americans aren't the only ones being punished by tough economic times. Charities say they need help, too. .. -->startclickprintexclude-->  Food bank shelves across the country are getting emptier because of high food prices and increased demand. .. type="text/javascript"> var CNN_ArticleChanger = new CNN_imageChanger('cnnImgChngr','/2008/LIVING/04/22/charity.shortage/imgChng/p1-0.init.exclude.html',1,1); //CNN.imageChanger.load('cnnImgChngr','imgChng/p1-0.exclude.html'); ..> .. -->endclickprintexclude--> Charitable groups that help the poor -- food banks, thrift stores, shelters -- say the slumping economy is eroding their ability to help the nation's needy. They report declining donations and a surge in people seeking help. Bill Bolling, the founder of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, says he's experienced several recessions but never seen so many working people visit food banks. Bolling's charity donates food to 800 nonprofit groups in Georgia. "This is new for us," Bolling said. "People are giving up buying groceries so that they can pay rent and put gas in the car." National charities like Goodwill Industries International Inc. and The Salvation Army give the same grim assessment -- donations are down, needs are up. At least 1.3 million more people have enrolled in the federal Food Stamp Program compared to last year, says Ross Fraser, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest, one of the nation's largest hunger-relief groups. It donates food to at least 200 food banks. "People who have been in food banking for years say it's the worst they've ever seen," Fraser said. .. -->startclickprintexclude--> .. -->endclickprintexclude--> People often assume food bank customers are homeless. But several food bank officials across the country say that many of their customers are working-class people and their numbers are increasing. They are people like Lynette Copeland, who works full-time as a clerk at a rehabilitation center in Atlanta, Georgia. She's buying a Habitat for Humanity house and drives a car. But she says she doesn't make enough money to pay her bills. Copeland says she depends on the Atlanta food bank to feed the four grandchildren she raises alone. She says the high costs of food, fuel and daycare force her to eat meat sparingly and shop at Goodwill. "Although everything is going up, your pay rate doesn't go up," she said. Lately, Copeland says she has noticed a change in the makeup of the customers visiting her food bank. Instead of the homeless and destitute, people come from all walks of life: the elderly, men in security guard uniforms and mothers with children. Many are first-timers. Some are too ashamed to ask for food in front of others; so they walk to the side of the food bank where fewer people are gathered to receive food, she says.  Watch food bank leaders talk about their needs » "I'm never ashamed to ask for help," Copeland says. "I don't care how people look at me." Charities blame their struggles on a brutal convergence of factors: rising food and fuel prices, the foreclosure crisis, and a decline in federal donations to food pantries. Donna Rogers, a spokeswoman for the United Food Bank in Mesa, Arizona, says her group is trying to do more to accommodate the surge in customers. Her bank distributes food to soup kitchens and shelters in Arizona. They are trying to give more, though, with less. Donations of canned goods are down 35 percent from last year; dairy and frozen meat donations are down by 26 percent, Rogers says. The decrease in donations is coming at the same time food prices are increasing, she says. The price of macaroni and cheese, for example, increased by 44 percent from last year's price. "It's been the worst case of food inflation of 20 years," Rogers says. The amount of surplus food they receive from the federal government is also decreasing. The federal government donated $242 million in surplus food to food banks, soup kitchens and emergency shelters in 2003. Last year, it donated $58 million in surplus food to the same places, says Jean Daniel, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agricultural. The federal government's food donations didn't decline because it decided to provide less, she says. It declined because the American agricultural industry is experiencing strong sales and record exports. The federal government buys surplus food from farmers to donate to charities. Those farmers, though, have less surplus food to sell because the agricultural market is so strong. A farm bill pending in Congress would increase aid to food banks, but it hasn't passed yet, says Fraser, with America's Second Harvest. "If the farm bill is passed, it'll give millions of dollars in aid to food banks," Fraser says. Even if the farm bill is passed, just getting food to needy people may become a problem. High fuel prices are bleeding charities, several say. The executive director of one food bank in Orlando, Florida says one of his drivers paid $880 to fill up a tractor- trailer hauling donated food. It would have cost about $660 to fill up the tank last year, says Dave Krepcho, executive director of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. "This is getting really crazy," Krepcho says. "If those trucks don't move, the food doesn't flow." People are even turning to charity in unexpected places, says one Salvation Army spokeswoman. Spokeswoman Melissa Temme, said a Salvation Army shelter in one of the most affluent counties in Kansas recently reported it was filled to capacity with a waiting list. The 13-year-old center has never been full before, she said. Salvation centers across the country are reporting similar stories, she says. "Some areas had more people coming to them and other areas had the same number of people but the extent of their need increased," Temme says. Copeland, the Atlanta food bank customer, says she can't envision a day when she won't have to depend on charity for survival. Her bills are too much and her pay too little. And, she says, her faith helps her through these tough times. .. -->startclickprintexclude-->.. -->endclickprintexclude--> "If you don't have a strong spiritual foundation, you cannot survive what's going on today," she says. "I get through with a lot of prayer.".. -->startclickprintexclude-->
10:59 AM
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April 15, 2008 - Tuesday
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A little house-cleaning...
Maybe if I cleaned more often, it would lose some of its revitalizing charm. I just sorted through my desk drawer full of receipts (I'm trying to be a good steward of the donations that have been coming my way!), put up a few more family pictures on my bulletin board, and re-folded all the clothes on the shelves in my closet. True to habit, I petered out and left one dark shelf of my closet exceedingly messy, cluttered with various and sundry stomach-calming products, insect repellent, and water purifiers that I have ceased to use. I don't know what it is about me, but I have a tendency to complete 99.5% of a cleaning project with over-achieving (anal, even) enthusiasm and exuberance, only to stare at the remaining 0.5% and think, "Ah. Now that's a project for another day."
Maybe it's the pack-rat in me. I can't stand the idea of throwing things away—less out of nostalgia and more out of a paralyzing feeling that at any moment the world's land-fills will reach capacity, explode, and drown us in nuclear slime and disposable diapers. (Probably not so far from the truth.) So I hold onto that last dark shelf of the closet—tossing things there that I'll never use—so as to avoid having to admit, head heavy with shame, that I bought unnecessary and wasteful items.
I'm getting better though. I'm learning to buy less CRAP, and trying to buy more eco-friendly items from conscientious producers and distributors. It's really hard, though. Globalism and free-trade erases all of the supply chains and increases shipping distances to the point that one never really knows where the things they buy actually come from. Take something as mundane as the computer mouse I'm using right now. Sure, it says "Made in the USA." But where did all of the materials come from? What kind of a carbon impact did the fabrication of the materials have? Who put together the optical technology inside? Who assembled the actual mouse, and where? Was everyone paid fairly? How energy-efficient was the truck/boat/airplane/all-of-the-above that got it to the store where I bought it? And what happens to it when I'm done with it or it stops working?
You can drive yourself crazy with such questions...and I'm probably just scratching the surface. You can ask similar questions about just about everything that we use. Not to mention all of the food that is grown in impoverished parts of the world and exported to the United States and other parts of the more-developed world, leaving the populations that grew the stuff eating just rice and beans to survive. But we all need to eat. And I didn't decide to have my local grocery store sell bananas. And if I didn't have this computer mouse, I couldn't be writing this highly-worth-while blog entry to all of you right now. So what do you do about it all, as a person who wants to make responsible consumer choices?
I might be crazy, but I think the government should help make it easier to be a conscientious consumer. Companies should be required to provide some kind of an 'Eco-Score' and a 'Socially-Conscious-Score' for the commodities we buy every day. We should not only know exactly where commodities come from, but how much impact their production had on the environment and workers and impoverished countries' economies along the way.
Sound unrealistic? Maybe. But maybe not. It's all about willingness. Do you think food companies were excited about sticking detailed nutrition labels on their products? But they do it because the government requires it of them. And wouldn't that create a job or two? Or maybe a few thousand? All those nutrition scientists out there were probably jumping for joy when the government mandated nutrition labels. I mean, someone has to do all that evaluating.
It certainly wouldn't be easy to get that kind of legislation passed. Just about every corporation out there would be fighting it. The truth is, they don't want you to know that they're shipping jobs overseas to sweatshops and economies where people are willing to work for unfair wages in unhealthy conditions because it is the only option they have (aka Nicaragua, China, India...the list is never-ending). They don't want you to know how the US economy is sucking the life-blood out of entire nations world-wide. And it isn't your fault. Because no one tells you. Except maybe when trying to buy Fair-Trade coffee, the average Josephine can't choose the more socially-conscious product because the information simply isn't available. And sadly, even Fair-Trade-certified coffee has its drawbacks. I've met small-scale coffee exporters down here who buy their coffee from independent farmers at above-fair-trade prices, but they're suffering on the international market because they can't get their crop certified by the Fair-Trade organization, because they are too small-scale to get the certifiers' attentions.
This is not at all what I sat down to write about tonight. Sorry, you probably weren't expecting this rant. I wasn't. I get passionate about it though, because I see how it's affecting the Nicaraguan economy...and you don't even have to leave your own neighborhood to see how it's affecting the environment via climate change. All this certainly isn't on the top of the political agenda at the moment...but it should be. If you feel so inclined, jump on the phone with your congressperson, write a letter to your senator, or stop by your local presidential political rally, and let your leaders know that socially- and environmentally-conscious consumerism is important to you, and that the government should be championing the cause.
GETTING OFF THE SOAPBOX NOW.
You just witnessed one helluva tangent, folks. I really sat down to write about the fact that I just cleaned my room, which I was planning on working into a salient metaphor about spending the weekend getting my life organized and rejuvenating my drive to be here. But that Damn-The-Man political rant of mine really tuckered me out. Just pretend that the metaphor was super-elegant and unexpected and witty.
-God, Kendal, you're such a good writer! ~Oh geez. You're too kind. -No really, that transition was amazing. ~Thanks, but I borrowed it from someone else. -Now you're just being humble. Stop. That was just too good.
Are you really still reading this crap? Oh boy. I'm so sorry.
Wow. Rain. Just now. First time in several months. The rainy season must be on its way. You wouldn't believe the way rain echoes on a corrugated tin roof. Even the lightest rain crescendos into the most humbling roar. I love going to sleep with the rain pounding into my ears and the sound of the rusty barrel downstairs in the neighbor's backyard filling up with water from the roof's gutters.
What DID I sit down to write about tonight? Cleaning. Right. No. Rejuvenation. What a lovely word, 'rejuvenation.' The Latin roots really mean a return to youth. Maybe I'm too young to talk about returning to youth without the majority of my readers rolling their eyes. But I can talk about the amazing weekend I just had.
-Wow Kendal, another amazing transition! How do you think of those?
I just finished a moderately successful week working with the kids, (we just did some amateur-art therapy...e.g. "Draw me the most important person in your life, and then tell me why you drew that person"), but I was completely exhausted from all the emotional energy I'd been investing in the kids all week. My bedroom was a mess—papers piled everywhere and books all over my bed—and I've learned over the past few years of living away from home that one can usually deduce my state of mind based solely upon the relative tidiness of my bedroom. I really needed to get out of Matagalpa and my 'home, class with street kids, gym, studying Spanish in bed, bar, then home' routine.
And it just so happened that some of Bobby's friends from Managua were coming up for the weekend and looking to do some adventuring. (Do y'all know Bobby? Peace Corps volunteer? I'm not sure if I've talked about Bobby before. Good guy. Also from DC but we never met until Nicaragua. I see him just about every day. We're thinkin' about finding a place and moving in together, because we're going to be here about the same amount of time and aren't totally comfortable where we're living now.)
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~Nice to meet you, Bobby! - Right back atcha!
So anyway, Bobby's friends from Managua. Karima and Amy. Both teach the Paris Hiltons of Nicaragua at the American School in Managua. Very cool ladies, Karima and Amy. We have great conversations about our undying affection for Barak Obama, teaching, and the effects of Nicaraguan food on one's digestive system. So Karima and Amy bring along Consuela, the unbelievably affectionate and amazingly not-annoying Chiwawa that they're currently dog-sitting, we grab Stephanie who is also in dire need of some rejuvenation, and we head out of town to Selva Negra—the German-owned Hotel/Restaurant/Nature Preserve/Coffee Plantation thirty minutes outside of Matagalpa.
It is such a bizarre place. As you head almost directly uphill on the highway towards Jinotega, the temperature drops violently and the vegetation gets thicker and greener. After a few mountain curves that offer stunning look-out-points over pastoral valleys, you make a right turn at the rusty US-Army-issued tank leftover from the (you can't miss it—it has a big rainbow spray-painted on the back). Small Bavarian-style cottages line the rocky dirt road that leads through shade-grown coffee fields, until you're stopped by a guard standing in front of a giant candy-cane-striped road block. You try not to stare at the revolver poking out of the waistband of his pants, but you just can't help but imagine what it would be like if the poor guy sat down the wrong way and the thing blew a breezeway through his butt cheeks. He makes you pay $1.25 per person just to get in, which you're annoyed about until he hands everyone in the car a laminated card which one can trade in at the restaurant for a slice of Pastel Selva Negra (Black Forest Cake) and a cup of the farm's coffee. It feels a little fascist though, (no cultural reference to Germans or their history intended), to be forced to buy coffee and cake in order to enter the nature reserve. But whatever, it's only $1.25.
You pull into the parking lot, and you can't help but shake the feeling that whoever designed the place was trying to give you that Disney-like fairy-land feeling. Giant cement toadstools with peeling red and white paint spring up in between trees in a disarmingly natural way. The chicken coops and horse corrals almost make you think it's a real farm and not a tourist trap, until you walk into the restaurant/lodge and are greeted by postcards and a Midwestern-style buffet line. Home Sweet Home.
(You later find out that the 'slice' of chocolate cake is actually a paper-thin deli-sliced-slice of chocolate cake, tantalizing unsatisfying and clearly a ploy to get you to buy a big expensive slice, and you're especially peeved when you are denied real cream for your coffee because it "isn't included on the voucher" and are brought powdered creamer instead, even though the table next to you clearly is using cream! At this point, you want your $1.25 back. Damn German Fascists!)
Walking out onto the back patio where all the eating tables are set up, the ugliest geese you've ever seen (what can they possibly use that giant orange tumor-thing on their face for?) greet you from the sprawling, multi-acre pond, which looks almost natural butting up to the base of the forest until you notice the turquoise cement retaining wall over on the western edge of the water.
But the trees. GOD the trees. The trees are why you go. Rising from the edge of that stupid pond is the peak of the mountain you've just been climbing in the car to get there. These are the greenest, densest, most MAJESTIC trees I've ever seen in my life. Technically speaking, Selva Negra is a cloudforest (which I think is another name for a rainforest...but kinda different...I think determined by the amount of annual rainfall). But it isn't like the Amazon or anything you'd imagine a rain/cloudforest to be. In a lot of places on the hiking trails, the trees look pretty average...
I just took a break to make some tea and eat a mango. It's getting ridiculous how many mangoes I eat in any given day. Maybe that's the cause of my digestive trouble... Anyway, while I was chompin' on the tart pit, juice dripping down my chin and forearms, I heard the creepiest skittering sound—like fingernails drumming on a desktop—which nearly caused me to drop my mango and mess myself, (only because I'm home alone, you see). I turned around slowly, and was relieved to find that it was only a three-inch-long cockroach scampering over a glass plate in the dish drying rack. Funny, you know you've been living in Central America for quite a while when you're relieved to find that the things that go 'bump' in the night are only giant insects.
...but then you turn around a bend and nearly clobber your head on the sprawling root system of a giant Chilamate tree. Now, I've never been to the redwood forests in California, but I've seen pictures of trees so big that they dig tunnels through the trunks so that cars can pass through. I'm sure those trees are impressive in their own right, but they can't be anything in comparison to a giant Chilamate. Sure, the redwoods might be taller. But Chilamates are mystical. They look like they have one solid, inner trunk, easily the size of a Hummer at its base, but the trunk is smothered by these individual, vine-like growths that twist and wrap and detach and jump from the trunk, with roots the size of normal tree-trunks dropping from the lowest branches, meters away from the main trunk, burrowing into the ground and creating archways, caves and tunnels. All the way up the monumental trunk, Chilamates are adorned with ferns, Spanish moss, and other symbiotic epiphytes, (I'm making my high school biology teacher so proud right now). Stretching to inestimable heights, the Chilamate's mystique is completed by the proud reach of her copious canopy-ous upper branches. Like an old medicine woman, the sagacious, wrinkled Chilamate grins down at all of the pathetically adorable trees hundreds of feet below her branches, and tells them not to take themselves so seriously.
We had been slow getting started, and so we arrived in Selva Negra last night, totally gringo-ed out, with our over-stuffed backpacks and cooler full of wine, cheese, and of course, MANGOES, and were disappointed to see the setting sun signaling that any hiking would have to wait until the following day. Not to be defeated, we found ourselves a vacant Bavarian gazebo on the east side of that awful pond, set Consuela the Chiwawa loose to chase away the monster-geese, and sipped our wine and nibbled our cheese well into the night.
These are good people. Bobby, Stephanie, Amy, Karima, and Consuela the Chiwawa. We alternated between ostentatiously 'profound' conversation and side-splitting silliness. We danced to the bad DJ at the wedding reception a few Bavarian gazebos away, laughed at our risky and ultimately bad decision to try the cheap Rosé wine from the supermarket in Matagalpa, and swapped traveler's stories. At one point, whilst stroking Consuela (perched on my lap), and taking a particularly deep schlug of that Robotussin-tasting Rosé, I just started to laugh. Between the five of us, we had visited every continent (save Antarctica, but I'm sure someone's working on that), at least thirty different countries, and had lived in at least 8 of them, that I can remember coming up in conversation. Collectively, we'd hiked Kilimanjaro, gone on safari in Zambia, eaten raw horse meat in Japan and a living octopus in China, bathed in the Ganges, climbed to Machu Picchu, kissed the Wailing Wall, seen England's Crown Jewels, climbed the Alps, seen Victoria Falls, and stood on the field and thrown out the game ball for Europe's American Football 'Super Bowl', ALL BEFORE REACHING THE AGE OF 25! (Except for Karima...she's ancient at 33.) And that's just what came up last night.
I just started to laugh, because we are five of the luckiest people (and certainly the luckiest dog) alive. How unlike the majority of the world's population we live! How unlike most people in even our parents' generation we live. And I don't think any of us take it for granted. After laughing to myself, I pointed out to everyone that if we weren't careful, we would be getting alarmingly close to the spoiled, Paris Hilton lifestyle of Amy's and Karima's students that we all pretended to despise. I mean, I was practically there, petting my Chiwawa and sipping my wine in a gazebo at the edge of a rain/cloudforest.
Why write about all of this? So that everyone back home can know what I life of luxury I lead? Not at all. It's just that in that particular moment of laughter, I re-realized quite acutely that although there are some very real challenges and frustrations involved in what I'm doing right now, and although it's complete CRAP being so far away from my family and friends, and although I still can't seem to get rid of this bloody parasite, I'm so blessed to be where I am right now. So few people in the world have the opportunities and resources to even leave their own cities, let alone their own continents.
And it's not just about reminding yourself from time to time how blessed you really are. You have to follow through to the next step—the active appreciation and dedication to taking full advantage of all that you've been given. In every "Woe-is-me!" moment, which we all have from time to time, even for legitimate reasons, I'm learning to slap myself across the face and get myself together a little bit sooner. I have so very little to whine about—even when I'm trying to stop the street kids from sniffing glue and pinching the tushes of the lady customers in the café, whilst running back and forth to the bathroom in a fit of 'parasite fireworks'. Even in moments like those, I try to remember Chilamates and lap dogs and yes, even cheap Rosé.
Night falls over our Bavarian Gazebo. The DJ is replaced by a Nicaraguan version of a Big Band. Interesting. We retire to the little cabin we've rented. More wine. "Oh my GOD there's a water heater here! GLORIOUS! It's SO HOT! I'm burning my skin off and I LOVE IT!" It's a bona fide slumber party. All five crowded onto one bed, recreating hairstyles of the '80s and swapping around the books we're reading. "Who brought these Lifesavers? I think they're a knock-off brand." And of course, more wine. Exhaustion. We retire to our five separate beds throughout the cabin.
Early morning. What the hell is that noise? Thunder? It's not raining. A train? No trains in the rainforest. Is it? Could it be? Wait, I think it might be...HOWLER MONKEYS!!!
We got our sorry Rosé-drinkin' butts out of bed, strapped on some hiking boots, and headed off into the forest to find the source of that ridiculous grumbling. Consuela was our guide—running ahead about 30 meters up the trail, and then turning back to wait for the slow humans—with all the the poise and alertness of a true hunting dog.
It took us a few hours to reach the summit. We tried really hard to keep our mouths shut in order to have a better chance at seeing the wildlife...but our crunching boots and heavy breathing scared away just about everything but small geckos and mosquitoes long before we had the chance to see them. And there was certainly no sign of the howler monkeys.
It was on the way down, after having seen the shiny white cathedral in Matagalpa from the highest look-out point, that the grumbling started again. We walked "Indian-style" (I'm sure it isn't politically correct to use that term anymore...) trying to make our way through the forest as silently as possible. We could here them, but the monkeys were smart enough to avoid the hiking trails, so we just couldn't see them.
We were almost at the base of the trail when, in a rare fit of alpha-male assertiveness that I can only rationalize by my child-like fascination with the idea of seeing monkeys in the wild, I motioned for the others to wait while I ventured off trail, into the heart of the dark, dense jungle undergrowth. (Okay, that's a little dramatic...it wasn't that dense, and it was the middle of the day, so it wasn't even dark. But I felt brave, so DEAL.)
About 50 meters later, I came to a small clearing in the canopy—just enough for me to look up into the branches of a relatively short Chilamate, and spot a troop of six big, black monkeys, leisurely gnawing away on something tasty. In my excitement, the shouted-whisper I used to summon the others without startling the monkeys proved ridiculously ineffective, as the whole family of primates looked down at me and just about grinned, as if to say, "Nice try, bucko. We heard you coming a mile away, and we're just too cool to care."
It turns out that all the tip-toeing and whispering probably wasn't necessary, because as the group of humans with their guard-Chiwawa stood underneath and tried to snap photos and contain our "Oh my GOD look at the BABY!" sentiments, the monkeys just continued about their business, fully aware of the protection the height of the Chilamate's branches provided them. It was VERY cool, and while I'm not really a big boaster, I do have to say here in private that I felt like a bona fide cowboy for having found the monkeys. That's enough of that.
After one last helping of sauerkraut that wasn't actually sauer, we packed up the station wagon and headed back down to the normalcy of our lives in Matagalpa. It was the perfect weekend to break me out of my routine, to help me appreciate the glorious opportunity I've been given in being here, and to help me clear my head and start fresh in the coming week.
Maybe we don't all have a rain/cloudforest a few kilometers outside of town to which we can retreat. But we all have to create spaces in our lives for that kind of reflection, appreciation, and gratitude. Wherever you live, there is a park, a bike trail, a fishing pond—somewhere to go (even in the most urban of environments) where you can remind yourself that despite all of the challenges life sends our way, the world is a beautiful place, and we're all so lucky to have a share in it. As the weather gets warmer up there in the US, I encourage you to do something to break out of your routine and appreciate the beauty in your own backyard. Bring along a group of friends, a dog, and a cheap bottle of Rosé, and you'll have it made.
4:44 PM
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April 3, 2008 - Thursday
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Settling In For The Voyage...
I wrote this not-so-little ditty about two weeks ago on my way back to Nicaragua after a brief visit to the United States. It has taken me a while to post it because, let’s face it, there are some angsty feelings brewing in the following paragraphs. If anything offends you, try to take it with a grain of salt and know that I’m just trying to sort through this strange, uncharted territory of setbacks and successes and solitude. Thanks again for reading—some of the emails y’all have been sending me really have helped me through some tough times. Keep ’em coming! (Snail mail is even more fun...though excitingly unreliable. My mom sent me a card on January 1st that just arrived on March 27th. My absurdly short address is: Kendal Sparks, Apartado 8, Matagalpa, Nicaragua.)
Oh, and P.S., I was just teasing at the end of my last long post—y’all don’t have too much time on your hands just because you read all the way to the bottom of these long-winded entries. I think I got at least five emails that started, "Okay, so maybe I have too much time on my hands, but..." It flatters me to no end that people other than my parents keep checking in on me. I feel very loved.
Settling in for the voyage...
Though the plane’s toes still touch New York’s turf, upon stepping off the jet way and passing through that heavy swung door (I wish someone would actuallyPULL TO ENGAGE that moon-bounce of a slide, just once!), I’ve dropped off the space-time continuum into location-less, plastic air. The uniformity and mobility of these flying machines robs all locality and electricity from its passengers. Accents blend together, the impatiently gruff charm of Manhattan fades, and we all become citizens of Airville for the next few hours.
Lift off.
I find myself once again in the open space between homes. The stiffness of Airville creates more tension in my chest than usual. I’ve grown accustomed to the journeying—the leaving behind of loved ones and comfort zones and sushi. But it pushes on me more this time.
As my fellow citizens of Airville plug into those useless two-pronged $1 headsets and chew re-formed chicken patties and sip their 3 oz. plastic cups of Coke with more ice than soda, I put down my Che Guevara biography that I’ve been reading and attempt to articulate the undying BLAH stewing inside:
Woe and pity be upon this restless vagabond soul, so troubled by the burdens of homelessness and adventure, world-weary and wise beyond his unfair age of twenty-two...his heart heavy with all that he has seen and the burdens of the poor and suffering world around him. Pity his wayfaring spirit—unable to decide which adventure lying before him offers the juiciest material to impress the folks back home...which will fashion the most glorious jewel in his heavenly crown, drawing comparisons to Mother Theresa and admiring pats on the back from parents and peers and patrons.
Today’s Theme: Don’t take me seriously.
No, my life doesn’t suck. And Lord knows I don’t take it for granted. But you’re catching me at one of those ugly and all-important transition points, having just re-visited the world I’ve left behind and heading back to the world I’m coming to know. Forced to explain on too many occasions, ’Just what are you doing down there in, oh what was it, Guatemala?’ I’ve been doing a lot of that healthy but annoying self-examination crap, wondering, ’Am I being useful? Am I learning? Just when am I coming home? What am I gonna do when I get back?’ And it’s all tempered by the slow-burning ardor of friends and family missed and recently revisited—the rushed two-hour conversations crammed into a week-long visit, lending a slightly panicked tone to my time back in the States: "HAVE FUN AND BE HAPPY, DAMMIT! He’s only here for a few days and you’re RUINING IT!"
It was a good visit. REALLY good. Every day filled with friends, food, family, a wedding, a bachelor party, theatre, music, and sleeping in. The wedding was the central event of the trip—the reason for the visit. Two dear friends from high school got married on March 16th, and asked me to be a bridesman. (Yes, you read that correctly, and NO, I didn’t wear a dress.) They are the first of my peers to take that particular plunge, and thus I had more than a few "Oh CRAP, does this make us grown-ups?" moments. (I perpetually answered that question with a resounding "NO!" but the whole ordeal threw my never-been-in-a-relationship-longer-than-three-weeks dating record under excruciating self-review.) But I digress.
The highlight of the trip was the wedding. Being that these were old friends from high school, it also provided the first opportunity for a high school reunion of sorts. (Has it really been five years?) Since I went out-of-state for college and many of the people with whom I grew up did the same, I had lost touch with several of those whom I had promised never to forget. And of course, I hadn’t. But we all know the effects of time and space between all but the closest of friends. Missed calls, missed connections, and missed opportunities; all lead to a growing comfort with the distance between us, i.e. less missing altogether. And so, even after a short five years, I found myself saying, "Wow, haven’t thought of that person in years! It’s just so nice to see them!"
And it was NICE. (I hate that word. I’m embarrassed for using it.) These were (are) people that have shared a really important part of my life—some all the way back to elementary school. They’ve known me through years of self-doubt, identity crises, and awkward haircuts. We have, at different stages of our lives, alternated through varying degrees of closeness as friends, but nonetheless, they remain breathing artifacts of my early childhood and adolescence. I had anticipated our reunion with a degree of anxiety: Perhaps I feared that the grinding tumult of adolescence that I was experiencing the last time we were all together would flood back upon me in a sea of pretenses, unspoken crushes, and too much cheap cologne.
But that wasn’t the case, thank God. Everyone seemed so much more secure in themselves. An air of ease and confidence flowed between peers as we asked about each other’s lives with genuine interest and concern. Any apprehension I had once felt melted away, realizing that each of us had grown up a bit. Maybe we weren’t willing to dub ourselves full-fledged ’Grown-Ups’ quite yet, but something had changed the conversation. Nothing tangible, really, but different, and GOOD. I relished every interaction, hopping between tables and dancing with anyone and everyone who’d let me. I realized how much more sure of myself I have become—I know so much more clearly now what my priorities are, who I am, what I believe in, and where I’d like to be in life. And as icing on the cake, these old friends with whom I share so many threads of common history, THEY seemed to exude a similar confidence. We all seemed to respect and appreciate each other, and the individuals we each continue to become.
Touch down.
A quick layover in Houston. Ahhhh. Breathing real air again. I park myself in a seafood restaurant, eager to savor my last opportunity to enjoy fresh fish without doubting its origin, and therefore not checking the menu. I plug in my laptop so that I can continue writing on the next flight. I open the menu. Cheapest entrée is $16. Not that I’m broke, but I am NOT used to prices like that. I guess you’d call me cheap. Embarrassed behind my menu, munching on the free crackers with my computer out, I feel like it’s too late to bail. I order a cup of soup and a side salad ($14 with tip), make a few final calls back to my parents and siblings, and head to my gate. En route, a dear friend from Michigan with whom I have been trying to get in touch finally calls me back. Just as I answer, the battery indicator on my phone starts flashing. Rushing to find an outlet to plug in my phone and not lose the call, I literally run head-first into two friends from Finland who have been working in my city in Nicaragua for the past five months. I didn’t know that they were leaving Nicaragua for good, nor that they would be flying through Houston at the same time that I would be. Friend on the phone, Finnish friends boarding a plane, dying batteries, and my own plane about to board: THIS is the frenetic pace of life I don’t really miss when I’m in Nicaragua.
Lift off.
Airville. Homelessness. That’s a little dramatic. ’In-Between-Homes-lessness.’ Hmmm. Better. Kinda.
I’m so grateful for the experience with my friends from high school. It came at a time when I needed to find my roots again. When I landed in New York last week on my way home to DC, I decided not to try and see all of my many classmates and friends that live in the city. I was only going to be there for a few hours, really, and I would feel bad calling one friend and not all the rest. What I’m trying to say is, I’m just too popular to make a brief cameo appearance in Manhattan without ruffling a few feathers. [Please refer to Today’s Theme for clarification.]
Instead I bought a single ticket for SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, a Sondheim musical about the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. If I really wanted to make my visit to Manhattan a covert op, I should have known better than to show up at a theatre anywhere in town. Without leaving my seat in the last row of the balcony, I encountered FIVE PEOPLE that I had either gone to school with, or worked with in the theatre at some point. FIVE. I mean, COME ON.
It was a strange feeling. None of the aforementioned five had any idea that I was living in Nicaragua. Most greeted me with some obtuse question about how things were going with the ’theatre thing’ in New York. Granted, I don’t keep up with every detail of every one of my friends’ lives. But I recall a few intense conversations with at least two of these five before I left, about the fact that I was moving to Nicaragua! Is that what the ’theatre thing’ does to people? Require them to be so focused on their own lives and careers that major details of their ’friends’ lives just fall by the wayside? Maybe I’m being unfair—I certainly didn’t know what was happening in each of their lives.
But there was something unsettling about the conversations that followed—I asking questions about what was happening in their lives, and they not really knowing how to react to my strange and unusual experience down here. Unable to shake the lens of theatre through which she sees nearly everything in her own life, one friend had trouble seeing how Nicaragua related to my theatre ’career.’ Another just gave the standard, "Wow, you’re so heroic" response. The latter always leaves me stumped for a reply, because I certainly don’t feel heroic, and it’s just a way people have of making sure the conversation doesn’t get any deeper. It’s right up there with "Oh I could never do that." It is always said so flippantly—most people never consider what the day-to-day reality might be like down here, or whether or not they actually could do what I’m doing. Not to mention the fact that people don’t know how un-heroic and relatively glamorous my cozy life is down here, compared to how most Nicaraguans live.
While sometimes people really do believe those statements, ("Wow, you’re so heroic!" and "Oh I could never do that!") they can often mask underlying feelings. Possible translations include: I really should be doing more for other people. Please don’t judge me for not doing more for other people. What you’re doing just doesn’t fit into my world view (i.e. comfort zone). Please don’t sermonize me or tell me something that would make me feel guilty or want to change my lifestyle.
Among the reasons why such statements make me extremely uncomfortable: I spend most of my days in a very yuppie café, sipping coffee, reading, and waiting on the street kids to show up. Thus, I don’t feel very heroic. Re: Number 1, Yes, you too COULD do that. Maybe I’m exaggerating about my life being so cushy. Intestinal parasites could hardly be described as ’cushy’. Squishy maybe, but certainly not ’cushy’. But maybe my real frustration is that a lot of people think one must go to a third world country to do something good for someone else, when there are so many needs to be fulfilled in our own backyards. And it isn’t so hard to be that kind of a hero. The real HEROIC people out there are the teachers and social workers and clergy and volunteers and yes, even a few politicians who go out of their way to find the under-served and show them love. They are the heroes, so much more than I, the lucky son-of-a-gun who got a grant to go spend a couple of years finding himself and learning about the world.
I realize that I might sound kinda angry-ish. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect everyone to ’get’ the experience I’m having down here. That would take half the fun out of it. Let’s face it...we all enjoying feeling from time to time like the only person in the world who has ever experienced anything quite so unique and special. Maybe I’m just reacting to the realization that these experiences, so paramount in my own life, just aren’t that important to many people back home. Or, at the very least, they just can’t place my experience within a context to which they can relate. But shouldn’t people take notice? Shouldn’t people care? Maybe in my subconscious I expect a ticker-tape parade every time I touch US soil. Don’t these people know what a big deal I am?
[Please re-read the last four paragraphs, making sure to note the utter inability to satisfy the author. Does he want people to be impressed and call him a hero or not? Does he think that he’s a hero or not? Sounds to me like a case of wanting his cake and smearing it all over his blog, too.]
Okay, okay. People continue to live their own lives back home, with all of their own dramas, struggles, doubts, and successes, whilst I daily grapple with the meaning behind my existence down here: "Is what I’m doing worthwhile? What am I learning and what am I giving every day?" Is my experience any more valid or worthwhile than that of my friends back home? Certainly not. Do other people grapple with similar questions in even seemingly mundane jobs? Probably. Am I slowly driving myself insane ruminating over such existential questions and trying to articulate them for unspecified readers out there in the cyber-ether? The voices in my head think so...
I wonder, if I feel this way, imagine the betrayal and frustration our troops must feel when they come back from the battlegrounds of Afghanistan and Iraq. They, having put their lives on the line for an unjustified war waged on false pretenses, only to return to a broken VA system and a country so blind and immune to the horror and sacrifices they have made and seen. How misunderstood they must feel—my whining seems so childish by comparison. I guess I should shut up now.
The point of all this rambling...and yes, I acknowledge that I am rambling...is that not all of my friends were so befuddled by my life. Take Amelia, for example. One of my best friends since freshman year of high school. She’s doing her grad work at Columbia, studying and practicing social work in some of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. She gets me. I get her. We may be in entirely different environments, but we’re both learning a lot of the same life lessons. She knows how to ask me the right questions, sympathize with my frustrations...and hopefully I can do the same for her.
The list continues: Dana teaches middle school in DC public schools at a special behavior disorder school. Kate uses music and drama to work with multiple disability students in an under-served part of Tuscon. Aaron is applying for the Peace Corps, and wants to go teach in Southeast Asia. Nathan is doing something really confusing with the Federal Reserve but it has to do with helping poor people rise out of poverty. Jenny is also going to grad school for social work, and is currently working in a home for patients dealing with schizophrenia.
THESE people get me. This was the ’getting back to my roots’ that I was talking about, right after we took off from Houston and right before I got all whiny. Leaving behind all of the false fanfare of "You’re such a hero," these people were interested in my life, and I in theirs. We’re all trying to step outside of our own experiences and view the world through the eyes of those around us. Isn’t that the point of it all? And how glorious (and obvious?) that the people who ’get’ me are those who have known me the longest and shared so much of my life up until this point!
And I’m not saying that my theatre friends are unable to see the world outside of their own experiences. The very nature of the art form requires one to step into someone else’s shoes. But in a few cases, there seems to be something about those first months or even years right out of the gate, wherein a young actor becomes so focused on the seeming impossibility of landing the ’big break’, that he or she struggles to do much more than talk about his or her own world—successes, failures, jealousies, and all.
But no, no...it isn’t indicative of the art form at all. It isn’t necessary. Some of the most invested and giving people I know are theatre people. To steal verbiage from Barak Obama, I could no more denounce the members of theatre world than I could denounce my passion for the art form. I’m simply acknowledging the fact that one can easily become self-absorbed when forced to fight tooth-and-nail for survival in the business—or any business, for that matter. I’m praying that somehow, when I return to the theatre world that is so much a part of who I am, I will be able to retain what I’m learning: The broader vantage point from which I am now forced to see the world.
Touch Down.
Managua. Airport advertisements in English. Still in between worlds. Not home yet. Who sweats this much? CRAP, I’m disgusting. Palm trees. Breeze. Beauty. Suitcase heavy with too many books about street children. ’What am I doing? I’m so under-qualified to be working with these kids!’ The indistinctness of Airville melts away. Thank GOD. Characters emerge. Why is that young North American lady traveling alone with three small children? Who is that eight-year-old kid waiting for, with his cinnamon nose pressed against the streaked waiting room glass? Oh, the Managua Taxi Mafia, ripping off all the unsuspecting gringos. Poor things, these one-week warriors; students on spring break, missionaries, here to make a difference. They don’t know yet that the biggest difference they’ll make is in their own lives. I hope they’re ready. Learning hurts. But it’s good. REALLY good.
8:16 AM
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March 21, 2008 - Friday
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A little context here...
From CNN’s Roland Martin...
March 21, 2008 Posted: 10:09 AM ET As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on. I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, "The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall." It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001. .. -->===========IMAGE============-->  .. -->===========/IMAGE===========--> One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned "chickens coming home to roost." He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation. He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril: "We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism. "We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. "We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. "We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers. "We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock. "We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home. "We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. "Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost. "Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that." He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again. "What is the state of your family?" he asked. And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves. His sermon thesis: 1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families. 2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!) "We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society," he said. Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries. "Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation." 3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will. By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said "God damn America." I’m not sure which sermon that came from. This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation. The point that I have always made as a journalist is that our job is to seek the truth, and not the partial truth. I am also listening to the other sermons delivered by Rev. Wright that have been the subject of controversy. And let me be clear: Where I believe he was wrong and not justified in what he said based upon the facts, I will say so. But where the facts support his argument, that will also be said. So stay tuned.
3:11 PM
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February 27, 2008 - Wednesday
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Street Kids
WARNING: This is a long bugger. Settle in with a good cup of coffee for this one, folks...I've got a lot to share!
My life is a twister in slow motion. A chest-deep run against the ancient, eddying currents of the Mississippi. An endless turning of the kaleidescope that folds the rapt anticipation of the next lustrous image into the muddy disappointment that the previous is forever lost.
Wow that opening paragraph is obnoxious. I try way too hard to sound poetic. Here's what I'm getting at: Though I'm living in a world that moves so much slower than that which I'm used to, things are changing quickly all around me...and I'm still figuring out how to just go with the flow.
If you scan down a few entries to the one from January 24th, you'll see that about one month ago I gave an update as to what exactly I'm doing. Here, on February 27th, I have to report that just about everything has changed. Let's start with what I was doing...
Things didn't work out so well with the theatre group at the university. The group leader felt that in order to present a play about sexual abuse, the actors needed to lose their sexual inhibitions and become more comfortable with their bodies. In his mind, that involved unannounced "exercises" in which he asked students to touch his and each others' huevos on various occasions. (Huevos = eggs. You do the math.) The group leader also happened to be a rather intimidating and unapproachable ex-gang member with a violent past, so it was quite a tap-dance figuring out how to leave the group without putting myself in a dangerous position, and then informing the powers-that-be that rehearsals for the play about abuse involved a bit too much method-acting.
Right about that time, I was sitting around on a Sunday afternoon with friends in Artesanos (a very relaxed coffee shop/bar that I use as an office most days), when I suddenly remembered that I needed to change my hours for Spanish class for the coming week. I ducked over to the Spanish school (conveniently located next door to Artesanos), and gave one of the teachers my new hours. There was a lesson in progress when I entered, and the teacher (Freddy) introduced me to the new student from the United States named Sol. Before leaving, I invited Sol to join us in Artesanos after his lesson so I could hear about what he was doing in Nicaragua.
Out of this chance meeting, I met Sol (short for Solomon, but which conveniently means "Sun" in Spanish), his sister Emily (nicknamed Luna, or 'Moon,' because of her brother's name), and their friend Kerry (nicknamed Estrella, or 'Star', just to keep the ridiculousness going). The three of them had come down a few days before from various parts of the US to help build a library/community center in one of the rural communities just outside of Matagalpa, where I live. They were building the one-room library in the style of old-English buildings---with a natural stone foundation and 'cob' walls. (Cob is a mix of clay, sand, straw, and water...which when mixed with your bare feet to the right consistency looks like cow manure but hardens like cement and lasts for centuries.)
Being recently out of a job and enchanted by their personalities and bizarre nicknames (my nickname being La Chispa, 'The Spark', I fit right in), I asked if I could join in the cob-slingin' fun. I really didn't know what I was getting into, but having had some experience in construction and learning that half the battle is just being willing to try, I showed up the following Tuesday at 7:30am to start moving boulders into place for the stone foundation.
Ever since, I've tried to show up at the building site for at least a few hours every day. We've had all kinds of volunteers come and go from all parts of the world: A couple from France who built their own house out of straw bails, a Nicaraguan/Swedish couple that just wanted to lend a hand, several neighborhood children who just like getting their feet muddy and throwing cob around, and several more. Sol and Luna have since gone back to the States, but have been replaced by Mary, the Artist/Interior Designer/Doula/Alzheimer's Caregiver who lived in Japan for two years and somehow manages to stay vegan down here. Kerry (Estrella) is the master-builder in charge of the cob-construction, aided by Don Fausto and his team of Nicaraguan builders, | | | | |
