Turquoise water!

Finally - the sound of the surf, sea breezes, turquoise water!  I literally felt my skin shrivel in Merida.  While it was already pegging at 116, I was told - it's not really hot yet.  Even for this Texan - that's hot with a humidity in the 90 percent range.

So, back to the bus, then ferry and finally the surf.  I admit to having felt fairly flat since being in Mexico except for those unexpected moments of pure joy that erupt over some random sighting, smell or experience. The fact that I've still been dealing with getting Peter in school has contributed to the malaise.  More on that later as a way of responding to queries.

However blue water has a way of healing most maladies in my book and the instant I saw the arch over the highway announcing CANCUN my heart lifted  and when I caught just a glimpse of ocean I knew I was home in the way the soul recognizes:  a place where memories are kept, mysteries abide and the ever changing tide speaks to life. 

Still, I had to disembark and find the ferry to get to the good stuff.   The gods must have been favoring me because I had the good luck of discovering Renaud, a French Canadian who knows his way around Cancun - and more specifically from the bus station to the ferry landing!  Even more to my delight he was headed to Isla Mujeres for his ritual few weeks of escape from Quebec's winter, this - his fifth year.  Like many folks who come and fall in love with the spirit of the Mexican people, the food, the sea and the cost of living, he plans to live here permanently in the not too distant future.  He been my intrepid guide for the week and here are some of the sights.

Fisherman mending his nets

It has been good to tap the well of fond memories:  having lived on the water discovering the sailor within,  summers on sailboats with the kids when life seemed easier, terrifying storms that did not - after all send us to the sharks,  blissful full moon nights where I saw starfish on the sandy bottom at 40 feet.  With a complicated life in between, recovering the wheat and throwing away the chaff was good therapy.   The technicolor hues of the houses, fanciful grave yards, a fishermen mending nets... colluded to reaffirm my love affair with islands and sea side life.

Fisherman's grave boat and all

I was on this island in the early 80s when there was little here but a few buildings, no lodging save a few hammocks that could be rented for $1 per night and the only approach was the single ferry that wallowed its way across the channel from Cancun - and as I recall has engine failure half way across, making everyone aboard green with seasickness.  In the intervening years it's become a tourist Mecca but a little more "real" than Cancun, retaining its spirit and charm.  Five ferries run the gamut from the high end tourist rig with live music to those meant for cars and finally the slow boat that most of the locals or people immune to sea-sickness and with more time take.

Punta Sur (southern point f the island)

 Tomorrow I head for Tulum, known for world class cave diving, postcard perfect lagoons,  Ce
otes (sink holes filled with sea water) and a few World Heritage ruins.  It too has been discovered, but less so.  Will be good to get out of the tourist bustle of Isla Mujeres and with low season starting things should quiet down everywhere.  Looking for a place to hunker down for a while with the key word being cheap.  Naturally I want an ocean view where I can sit and write, meditate and stop moving.  Hmmm - an ocean view for cheap? We'll see how that works...  But luck has been in my favor so far.  I met a couple of women about my age in Merida and discovered they have been interested in applying for Peace Corps! Naturally, that got the conversation going and it ended in one of them offering her condo in Playa del Carmen as a place to stay when it's empty in June.   Can hardly believe my good fortune and intend to take full advantage of what I hear is a spectacular beach.  That will probably mark my final month here, but that leaves April and May to explore and continue with the Spanish!

Peter in his new school uniform

On another front, Peter - about whom some of you have asked:  matters deteriorated by an order of magnitude over the summer as Peter's housing arrangement fell apart and he succumbed little by little to the gravitational pull of his old street behaviors of being the victim and keeping an entire collection of mentors across several continents in chaos.  Certainly Peter has been a victim, but he has also been the recipient of much good fortune. It's been said, "You can take the kid off the street, but you can't take the "street" out of the kid." With each event, I become more aware of how this plays out in Peter's life when things get out of kilter in the slightest.  And they were in full tilt over the summer.

The friend who offered him a place to work and stay was only in it for the money he thought he could extract from me – to help him start a business.  When that did not manifest, he used Peter as a work horse.  Peter left, but left his one metal trunk with all of his belongings there and lost them all when that same “friend” went crazy and burned down his village…  Peter reverted to his old  stir-the-pot behavior and ultimately refused to stay with the friends who offered him a bed.  He preferred instead to sleep in random places, getting sick in the process. Even as all of his belongings were being replaced and school interviews were  imminent, his sullenness, failure to show up to meetings and erratic behavior resulted in his being dropped from the program I thought would mentor him through this year.  Through the consistent help of the one remaining local mentor things came together at the absolute last minute.  A good friend in the States funded this term and it is now up to Peter to make the best use of this opportunity and do it will less drama, because we are all wearing thin.  So, those of you who are interested - stay tuned. Second term is just around the corner, Peter is in a good school that he likes.  The one month term break is nearly upon us and that - once again -poses the challenge of where he will live.    Well - one challenge at a time.  This connection serves as a continued reminder of the privileges most of us enjoy.  The events I mentioned here are not unusual and constitute the daily fabric of life for millions of people.

On that note and one of gratitude, Iwill close because a final walk around the town and a seafood dinner beckon!  

Hasta luego.  Next stop Tulum!

Feathered serpents, dancing girls and sacrifices!

March 16

I’m definitely not in Uganda.  I know this because I am on a bus writing a blog and said bus has wide seats, a foot rest, Wi-Fi, movies and a BATHROOM! Also, not a goat or chicken in sight (on this particular bus - tho such buses do exist), no prayers before leaving – although I always thought that was a good idea considering the risks of riding a bus there. Got the senior discount - one advantage of age, plus my hair somehow got sexy or so I was told last night. Go figure... The eight-hour bus trip was a total of about $28.00 US.  Oh – and a snack: apple empanada and a coke.  The bus terminal in Guadalajara felt more like an airport than anything you’ll see in the States.

I’ve completed my month of Spanish lessons – great teacher – beautiful city. I’d not actually thought of going to Mexico City until two lovely young women – sisters – who live there offered to show me around.  So, I’m headed there with a view of the full moon out of my window and looking forward to immersing myself in Aztec and Mayan culture for a few days:  museums, a visit to the Temples of the Sun and the Moon and a trip through the Frida Kahlo museum, before heading to Merida on Friday.

 One not so happy discovery before leaving Guadalajara was how hard it is to ship something from Mexico to the States.  After packing a box of clothes-too-warm-for-Yucatan and walking the mile to the FedEx office, it took me an hour and a half to mail a box.  Yes, yes – I had to list every item – rather to be expected.  But they also required the contents of each item – i.e. percentage of polyester, cotton, silk.  To add hassle, I was required to unpack the box, and remove the three bars of this magnificent soap I’d purchased as gifts. I’ve coveted Maja Maguria, the richly scented olive-oil based soap made in Spain, since the 70’s and it has become increasingly hard to find. Moving forward, I’d also mailed back running shoes and that triggered an entire page of small print questions:  specific chemical content of uppers and lowers? rise above the ankle? steel toe? water proof?  flame retardant? Being neither a chemist nor a shoe manufacturer, I threw up my hands in despair  after guessing at half the answers, but ultimately managed to negotiate this debacle – a goodly amount of it in Spanish.  It was suggested more than once that this is a bit of payback for what Mexicans encounter at the boarder…  and it's FedEx imposed.  I’m now praying that the box found its way to Oregon, theoretically the next place I will need warmer clothes.

Mexico City: 10th largest city in the world lives up to its reputation as enormous, intimidating and beautiful.  Had it not been for my two young friends, Diana and Marta, I would not have dared navigate this city  since tales abound about people getting lost for a day.  They were gracious, fun and incredibly well versed in the history of Mexico, their city and Mayan/Aztec culture.   I don't know a single American twenty-something as informed about our own history.  The first night out, they introduced me to Leche Frita (literally fried milk) - a flash fried flan served with a creamy sauce.  No calories there.... Good thing I can't stay longer. 

They educated me on the differences between Mayans and Aztecs and informed me that the Temples of the Sun and Moon in Mexico City actually preceded the Aztecs, who discovered the pyramids after the culture that built them had vanished.  The wall to the right is part of the Anthropological Museum which is built around some of the exhibits.  Started in the late years of Freida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (late 1940s - early 50s) as a result of their encouraging the Mexican government to protect the ruins for future generations, it didn't take its present form until the 70's. Mind boggling in its size, presentation and complexity, we saw about a third of it in the half-day we were there.

One treasure I discovered while there was the ball court where warriors attempted to get a ball, signifying the sun on it's way back into the sky after spending the night in the underworld, through a stone hoop 20 feet above ground using the hip or elbow.  For ceremonial games, the winners had the honor of being sacrificed.  The losers sometimes shared the honor. Anyone sending the ball through the hoop in the wrong direction (bad for the sun) was decapitated to fertilize the earth and make the sun happy.  Puts a different spin on losing the Super Bowl doesn't it - and gives new meaning to the saying, "You can't win for losin'."

The "snake" I never saw...

In addition to Mexico City, another unexpected gift was the accidental scheduling of my arrival in Yucatan to coincide with the Spring Solstice – the single most important time of the year for Mayan-lore aficionados. Supposedly the sun aligns with Chichen Itza in such a way that - at a specific time of the day, a shadow creeps down the side creating the illusion of a serpent slithering down the step. This phenomenon brings Mayan enthusiasts from all over the world to the Yucatan filling every hotel, hostel and campground on the peninsula.  Having bought my plane ticket before knowing that or finding a place to stay, I lucked out and found the last budget room in Merida.

March 22:

Not to allow this process to be too straightforward, the universe continues to throw in reminders that – as familiar as Mexico seems in contrast to Africa, I am still a stranger in a strange land.  Google search, switching me back and forth between English and Spanish,  confused the Expedia process of buying airline tickets and produced a confirmation not for the 9:30 AM departure I thought I'd paid for, but for a 6 AM departure, necessitating once again a 3:30 AM wake-up to get 4 AM taxi.  This seems to be hardwired in my psyche, since it started in D.C. when I was still consulting in Texas.  It continued in Africa when I needed to get the goat-bus to Kampala.   I need to have a conversation with my internal scheduler to rewire that circuit.

Still, in that Pollyanna way of justification of which I have been accused, the scheduling mistake got me into Merida at 7:45 AM in time to check into a rather disappointing hostel  (a young man sleeping on an air mattress just inside the front door), BUT in time change clothes and hoof it to the bus station to get a ride to Chichen Itza in hopes of seeing "the snake."  Still no-goats, but a more ordinary bus with AC cold enough to freeze even the dead, I bounced and swayed the two hours to the pyramids to find much of Sweden, Asia, some of the US and 1000 local vendors, indigenous  dancers and flute players gawking and hawking their way around the pyramid complex.  Turns out the snake was not “scheduled” to make its descent until late afternoon. Exhausted, I left at about 2:30 just as the second swarm was arriving to see the show.

 Three hours of swaying-and-stopping later I dragged myself back to the hostel to meet the owner’s firm insistence that he be paid NOW.  Ever the polite, though foul-mouthed, southern woman (who supposedly can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you'll enjoy the trip) I dutifully went in search of an ATM.  The Friday night scene in El-Centro Merida is a crush of humanity shopping, coming and going from work, lined up at every ATM (Tarjeta Automatica) all taking out money for the weekend. My trip to the grocery store resembled CostCo on steroids on a pre-holiday weekend.  Having not yet graduated to an ATM with out training wheels (English subtitles for transactions) I made an error and thought I’d just paid the balance in my US checking account to some unknown entity.  Playing the damsel in distress didn’t require much acting, so I finally got an off-duty bank employee to explain that I’d simply printed out my bank balance, which in pesos, is thirteen times bigger than it actually is.  The confusion comes in because both the Peso and the Dollar use the "$" sign.  After getting the barest essentials at the store, I limped my way back to a 3-wheeler ScotiaBank Tarjeta Automatica and managed to get money for the hostel-jeffe.

The night was surprisingly quiet, thanks in part to the noise of a blessedly powerful ceiling fan (YESS!!!) and I sit now in a patio surrounded by the detritus of the six, 20-something young men staying here.  But the birds and the city are waking up, I’ve been able to fix coffee using my baby French-press and am listening to the sounds of the city. I’m hoping for a less frenetic exploration of Merida today and understand there are some beautiful historical sites and murals.

Merida redeemed:

Traveling is loosing a bit of its luster.  I spent all day searching for a hostel anywhere on the peninsula that is NOT Merida.  Spring Break combined with the equinox is the perfect storm.  After finally shifting gears to go to Isla Mujeres where I found ONE hotel room that I would/could afford, I went downtown and caught the final festivities of Family Night.  The plaza was filled with dancers from the Folklorico dance schools and what a sight!  Here is a still-shot. I was unable to load the video, but play Cielito Lina in your head and you'll have it.  There are hundreds of women dancing in full traditional, hand embroidered dresses, ribbons and flowers in their hair and fans flourishing.

All this exploring is fine.  Spanish is improving, but I still find myself at a peculiar place in terms of knowing what-I-want-to-do-when-I-grow-up. I AM sure I want to stay down here long enough to let new ideas percolate up through the miasma of a brain and life re-calibrated or should I say de-calibrated by two years in Africa.  Have really not stopped long enough to catch my breath and look forward to finding a little place to hunker down for a few months and just let the energy of the sea and the Mayan world wash over me for a while – meditate, write, walk, explore, think and determine how to capture the best elements of my former life and the core elements of me and put them into play in a way that has not yet made itself known.  I’m not nearly as Narcissistic as that sounds, but am hoping that the universe or God will speak to me in terms I can translate – please not Spanish or Acholi.  I suspect that I will have to stand still for a bit for me to be able to hear and thus far have not found a place that beckons.  Tomorrow – I’ll buy the bus ticket to Isla Mujeres and get closer to blue water!  It's a nice problem to have I suppose, but worrisome nevertheless.

More from your questing friend when I get to blue water!

Spanish Verbs and Tequila Tours

Sundays in Guadalajara are something to behold.  Yes – it’s huge, busy, polluted…  It is also a city with soul.  Every Sunday the main business thoroughfare slicing through El Centro is closed to traffic so walkers, runners, grown-ups on bikes, kids on trikes, dog-walkers and gawkers can traverse the area by any means they choose – except the four-wheel kind (tricycles with training wheels are the exception).  It’s glorious.  Volunteer (?) cops manage cross traffic with good-old-fashioned-whistles and a sense of humor.  It all has a festival atmosphere.  Everywhere there are vendors of chips, ice-cream, fruit cups, agua-fresca and unknown things with hot sauce

In the historic district huge plazas provide a venue for every imaginable vendor selling every imaginable product.  Indigenous people are selling exquisite embroidered garments, woven bags, macrame and beaded jewellery and whimsical carved and beaded masks and animals. There are rock bands, saxophone players, bubble blowers, gizmo throwers, etc. etc. ad infinitum. I saw a man painted and dressed to look like a soldier statue, another spray-painted in gold mimed a mechanical man complete with ratchet sounds and yet another was painted silver - totally stationary holding a six-shooter, hopefully not loaded.  The best of the weekend was an Ecuadorian musical group dressed in native costume and playing traditional flute.  They were spectacular. This is the usual weekend entertainment and my entertainment is simply taking it all in.  Families are out in force, as are tourists, most of whom are Mexican, not American, Canadian or expat and that feels good.

On Tuesdays the historic Teatro Degollada opens its doors and offers free concerts for the public.  It’s enough just to go sit in this gorgeous place that harkens back to the age of crystal chandeliers, murals and gold leaf.  The music is a bonus.  Last Tuesday it was classical guitar; this week - Opera.  Museums are also free on Tuesdays, making art and culture accessible to all.  Statuary - whimsical and otherwise is everywhere, as are cathedrals, chiming bells and splashing fountains.  El Expiatorio, the cathedral near my hostel boasts a procession of automated saints that float along a  second floor balcony every hour as the bells tolls. 

A few weekends ago Guadalajara celebrated its 450th anniversary and the metropolis was on holiday.  Squealing, uniformed school children were bussed in in droves for free breakfast in Mariachi Plaza,  while adults were there for the Mariachi music, dancers, parades, free carriage rides and rock bands.  It was a great end to the week that began with my epiphany of NOT wanting to teach English, thereby terminating ITTO classes and starting Spanish classes.    Since then I've started said classes fittingly taught all in Spanish with English allowed only if we throw ourselves on the floor prostrate in frustration.  By the end of four hours my brain is steaming, but bit by bit I am becoming more conversant.  There are three of us in the class, although the specific members change weekly as people come and go. 
Every Wednesday there is an outing of some sort.  The first one took us on a tour of the historic district with a class that is learning English.  The first hour we helped the English class with their English and the second hour we switched to Spanish.  This picture was the result.  It seems the man predicted in my future has turned to bronze: still broad shouldered, still waiting, but has retained a sense of humor...   Look closely.

Last week I braved one of the big jewellery marts in the jewellery district that covers acres and acres of down-town (think of your biggest American mall and triple it.) I visited one three-story building with a footprint the size of several football fields. Two of the floors were just jewellery making supplies: beads, gems, fasteners, do-dads and gizmos.   It was absolutely packed.  These folks love their jewellery, not to mention Quicinera celebrations.  No expense is spared.  One full district is devoted to Quicinera dresses and finery. The dress on the right is considered modest.

At the other end of the spectrum was El Hospicio.  Not to be confused with Hospice as we know it.  It was - instead,  a huge complex built in the early 1800s to house and care for the disadvantaged (orphans, invalids, elderly).    What is most impressive is the balance between indoor and outdoor spaces (23 grassy courtyards) and the attention to the comfort and needs of its inhabitants.  Walkways are covered and arched, beautiful, open and light.  The entire design was to promote healing of the body and the spirit. The artwork and murals there are still considered some of Mexico finest.  We could learn a bit…   The children were instructed in music and the arts, while others were taught a trade.   Impressive.

And then there is TEQUILA!  You guys know me and I am not a drinker.  Half a glass of wine and I'm almost asleep or have a migraine.  Still, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go on a tequila tour and opted for the only distillery in Guadalajara. I chose not to go on the Bacchanalian version outside the city - a train tour with 200 hundred other people, most of whom will be tossing their cookies on the way back, because it's an all you can drink junket. It was fascinating - didn't know the entire plant sans spiky leaves is harvested, then steamed for eight hours to start the process.  Had three shots  of 100% Agave (no sugar added) in the tasting process and no headache. I have found my drink...  On an empty stomach I was glad I was still mobile to enough to find my way to the bus stop for the thirty minute ride and 30 minute walk back to the hostel.  

That's the news. The hostel is filled with kitchen sounds, the new group of ITTO students having now discovered the work load and cooking dinner rather than going out to party. Now Day 2, the glow of the first day has faded.  I am SO glad not to be doing that - but going down to fix some dinner and get the gossip.

That's all folks! Field trip tomorrow and now beginning to make plans to go to Mexico City after the course is over.  I have a lovely offer to be shown around to see the Aztec ruins and museum, so can't pass that up and it puts me closer to a ticket to Merida in the Yucatan, the heart of the Mayan Ruins.

Adios amigos.

Guadalajara sunshine, memories and more

So here I am in Guadalajara, revisiting a city I first tasted in 1965 with my parents.  It has brought fresh memories of a road trip taken after I graduated high school.  We had a brand new Oldsmobile – not the car to have brought to Mexico where mechanics knew how to fix Fords and Chevys but never an Oldsmobile - in 1965 that is. After Guadalajara, the car simply died in Tampico. It took a mechanic - who spoke no English, and my father - who spoke no Spanish, to read the English repair manual to a Mexican translator - who delivered the translated instructions to the mechanic - who finally fixed the transmission to get the car on the road.  In the intervening several weeks it took to get parts, my mother nearly died, having eaten a fish that had dined on a toxin.  Through the good will of a prominent rancher, his drop-dead-handsome University of Texas sons (I'd met the day before  the nasty fish episode) and their family doctor she lived to tell the tale. After a midnight distress call from yours truly, the sons delivered mom and their personal physician to a private hospital, forming  friendships that changed the life of a 17 year old girl forever.  It was that trip that prompted  mom to jerk me out of my plan to attend a small Baptist college in north Louisiana (music scholarship) - and command me to attend the University of Texas, which I did.  Fortunately, UT wanted me and/or the money. The friendship with the sons fizzled, but I stayed in school there and forged a different timeline for my future.  Magically, the inset is the one picture I salvaged from that trip.

It’s always interesting to look back at life and be able to identify pivotal events that change the course of one's destiny – and that was certainly one of those. Along the way on this fateful trip, we would stop at 10 AM and 3 PM everyday whether we were in the desert, under a tree or on a deserted road and make coffee over a Sterno fire.  My love of the coffee ritual and desire to re-claim my Spanish no doubt have roots and feeders in those moments, seared into my soul along with images of Saguaro cacti against the backdrop of red, orange sunsets. 

Almost 50 years later, I’m back.  Friends' fantasies of my snagging a handsome, rich Mexican man are greatly exaggerated and so far unrealized.  So settle down girls.  I have aged and along with me – Guadalajara.  No longer the quaint, Bougainvillea draped city I remember, it has become a sprawling metropolis. The charm of the Mexican square, often anchored by a church - remains, however - along with couples holding hands at dusk, children squealing with delight and the ubiquitous shoe-shine stands lining the periphery 


The day I arrived, I set out to explore and found myself in a plaza spilling out in front of an historic cathedral, El Expiatorio.   What drew me there was a stream of gorgeous young women and their mothers showing off in full evening finery as they strolled on the arms of their fathers or escorts.  The final destination was this cathedral and it was extraordinary.  As I arrived, one mass was ending and the voices that came from the cathedral were pure and sweet, resonating in a way that seems unique to those amazing structures.


        
You know I‘m not a church-person, but this ritual and music stir the soul, so I wandered around soaking it up as vendors arrived with hundreds of bouquets of fresh flowers and balloons to sell after the “big event” finished.   It appeared that I’d happened upon some time of graduation mass.  Seems the wrong time of year, but it wasn’t a wedding and the hint was the dolls dressed in graduation capes that gave it away.

Young and old were there, dressed in their finery. A tiny woman probably in her 60s wore a cocktail dress with the heavy tie shoes.  What I loved was that it didn’t matter.   Couples old and young strolled hand in hand, children played and squealed, Incan- looking craftsmen and women sold beautiful woven bags and Peruvian looking woollen animalitas.  It was the image of the city-squares I had remembered from childhood, complete with shoeshine man and wheeled sellers carts offering juices.  It was just what my spirit needed.

I bought a few basic groceries and walked back feeling like two years of dust and grief – both literal and metaphorical – had just been washed off and the world had re-emerged in Technicolor. I felt renewed.  Sunday, dawned at about 6:30 after a full night of QUIET.  I wandered down to the hostel kitchen and made wonderful dark roast coffee in my little travel French press.  

A WEEK LATER:  I have endured/survived the first week of TEFL classes and to say that ther were poorly organized and rigid would be an understatement.  Still – it’s just the way it’s done – straight by the book and the pace was draconian.  Ten hour days, no time to cook, eat, or do anything not directly related to prepping for the next day.  That would be OK if I knew there was something interesting on the other end.  However, what I have realized is that there is no way I will EVER – read that as N-E-V-E-R  E-V-E-R teach English as either a first OR a second language.  Very formulaic and linear, my response was visceral - so I opted out.  Thank goodness for the freedom to do that.

The good news is that I am able to use the credit from the TEFL class to take a one month intensive Spanish course and that was the original purpose of the TEFL anyway – to give me a way to be down here long enough to at least improve my Spanish.  One month as a time is the plan. From here maybe San Miguel Allende just to see and then to the Yucatan Peninsula where there are wonderful Mayan ruins and blue water. Hopefully a way to work or volunteer somewhere will present itself.   Baby steps…  Going on instinct and trust.

More later - for now, "Hasta luego!"

Re-entry Part Two

 As much as adapting to Uganda and specifically Gulu, was an adventure and a challenge, re-entry is offering equal opportunities for surprise, fury, self-analysis, befuddlement and feeling out-of-sync.  It doesn’t provide the sucking-in-of-breath kind of surprises that Africa offers but there’s been plenty of gasping and shock at what I’ve forgotten or all that’s changed in a mere two years.  Being out after dark and seeing the night sky after being in a locked-up-night-time-prison for two years produces the same wonder that a two year old must feel  at discovering an iridescent, speckled  beetle. 

It’s been a little over a month since I stepped back onto US soil and I am just beginning to feel like a citizen – although a forever changed one.   I wonder if I will ever lose my excitement over being able to wash hands in warm water coming from a tap or flipping a switch and having light on demand.  Interestingly, internet access and phones continue to provide frustration, mystery (will it “be there”) and opportunities for a few foul words.  I’m on the mountain hanging out during the day in Brett’s domain or at least near. Even famous Timberline Lodge - of The Shining lore – has its technology challenges, their internet having been down for four days.  Coupled with the unreliability of my third inherited i-phone with a geriatric battery, phone service is also spssoradic.  It seems like a bit of Uganda has followed me home to be sure I don’t get too accustomed to a world where technology works. 

Three weeks were spent in Austin with friends who welcomed me with warm, open arms and with saintly patience, good will and generosity.  I can hear my late mother saying: “Fish and company stink in three days.”  Fortunately, my hosts have ignored the stench!

A good friend threw me a party, but I needed to send out the invitations.  Still in my stupor at the time, I realized again how technologically challenged I was and that I’d lost my contact list in the fray of my Uganda computer melt-down and had deleted a lot of old e-mails to keep my ice-age computer from abandoning me in a land where getting another would take an act of congress – and we all know how effective Congress is.

Then I was so concerned about intruding on friends or over-stressing their good will, I wouldn’t – didn’t think of either – asking them to d a search for me.  In the same way that I felt like an intruder in Uganda those first months, I felt equally like an interloper when I came back.  This is a strange feeling that defies description, as words have always seemed a little lacking in revealing the subtleties of emotion.

At the moment, I’m in Oregon loving every minute of being in Brett’s world.  He and Molly have gone to great lengths to set up a space for me and make me feel welcome, cosy and warm.  Although this is considered a “warm winter” on the mountain, Timberline – is encased in ice. Two other resorts are barely open, one making its own snow. From the crackling, fragrant comfort of  a fire in the three story hand-built fireplace in the lodge  I’m looking out at a mountain side sporting trees bent under the weight of foot-long icicles.    As most of you know by now, Brett is Director of Ski Patrol and as such is tasked with keeping errant skiers and snowboarders from killing themselves on the slopes.  This means  - among other things - going out every morning, re-setting boundaries and breaking rime ice off boundary markers.  Yesterday the ice accumulation on ropes and poles was one foot in diameter and will be worse today.

Interesting to be here on the mountain to see what goes on.  The second day I was here Brett and another patroller happened to be on a ridge when they discovered a gaggle of young (and stoned) snowboarders out-of-bounds.  Going over to give them the out-of-bounds lecture, it was discovered that one of their motley crew had lept over a berm to rescue his gloves and proceeded to body surf to within six feet of a crevasse that would have taken his life had he not stopped.   They were able to rescue him with ropes, ice axes and cramp-ons, but it was treacherous as the lowering of temps has caused deep fissures in the ice between them and him. The snow-bridge on which he rested was fragile at best and heightened the risk, but thre was no time to spare.  Had they not been there at the time they were and been able to execute a rope rescue, this no-doubt would have ended a different way. 

The contrast between the grime, dust and primitive nature of Uganda and ice and snow at a luxury resort is mind bending. I could not have consciously chosen more opposite environments and cultures, unless it would be Travis’ world of cave-diving in Florida.  Across from me sits a woman wearing a full-length mink coat over her leopard-print pajamas.

Meanwhile, in Uganda Peter continues to struggle with shelter and food, although I have sent some funds, even those who mentor him live on the very edge of survival.  There is a deep well of need there that can never be filled. The saving grace is that climate there is temperate. In January, the results of his exams should be available and we will see what the next chapter holds for him.  One of Peter’s mentor’s (Patrick) has remained faithfully in Peter’s corner, sharing meagre resources, while others in the absence of  “Peter’s Muzungu” have either abandoned him or tried to use him for their own purposes.  Patrick has been accepted to study medicine at Gulu University, but was unable to secure a sponsor until Austin friends decided to fund  him for at least the first year (less than $2000 per year for a college degree  Miracles abound and if manages to continue to his goal of becoming a doctor he will no doubt forever change life for those in his community.

So connections with my community in Uganda continue even as I wonder what will the next chapter bring or what I will create.   Part of it this known - I put down my deposit for a Teaching English as a Foreign Language certification course in Guadalajara yesterday.  The five-week intensive starts on February 4^th and the goal is to be able to get work in Mexico to fund my fixation on becoming conversant in Spanish.   Right now, the only phrase other than greetings that instantly comes to mind is “Caramba! Se me olvido me quaderno (OMG I’ve forgotten my notebook)!  The mind is a perverse thing…  hopefully more phrases will emerge from hiding though I may have opportunity to actually use that one.  I’ve wanted to do this for decades and now’s the time, before I get to comfy or entrenched in both the accoutrements and overhead of living in the good ole USA.

I’m a little nervous – even if Uganda was a world away I had a safety net of sorts of people who had my back.  Not so much in Mexico, but I figure if I can learn to navigate and have eyes in the back of my head in Africa, I should be able to do it in Mexico. At least that’s my rationalization for the moment. 

On January 3^rd I’ll reappear in Austin, catch up with friends I didn’t get much time with earlier, go through storage once again and try to find different clothes and set off.

And so the quest continues. But for now I am basking in the glow of family and friends.  In my last few months in Uganda, one of my fantasies had me sitting by this fireplace, looking out this window at the snow falling on this mountain, sharing Christmas with Travis and Brett and their significant others.  The only part of that fantasy not manifested is Travis’s presence, but he’s enjoying his own fantasy Christmas of diving in the crystalline waters of Florida’s cave system.  And so life is unfolding in curious ways.

In closing, may you be enveloped with an abundance of health, good friends, security  and joy of  the season. Take stock of life’s blessings and enjoy.  In deep gratitude for your friendship and presence in my life –

Nancy

Time Travel t a Parallel Universe: RE-ENTRY

After twenty hours of travel and 48 hours without sleep,  I have landed in what feels like a parallel universe. It looks like a place I remember: there are people, cars, paved roads – places I recall.  I’m supposed to know this place, but it feels alien.  Describing this sense of disconnected-ness, a friend related it to time-travel and that fits except I’ve crossed cultures in the process.   Having sold my house, I am “homeless,” in a way that is both exhilarating and unsettling.  I’m incredibly blessed to have friends who have taken me into their beautiful and extremely luxurious home.  I feel lke Alice in Wonderland must have felt when she fell down the rabbit hole. It’s a strange new world: soft bed, no  mosquito net, down pillows and comforter, a bath TUB, a toilet! More importantly a toilet that doesn’t require a two-foot long mingling stick to flush …  and fridge that works full time and is stocked with things like cheese and pickles and… and… and.  I went to wash clothes and discovered twin stainless steel monoliths facing me. Adorned with control panel rivalling that of a space shuttle, blinking blue lights with 20 possible selections of how to wash I wondered it they might also orbit. Does it speak?  Well – not yet anyway.

Next, there is the car and I am allowed t drive it.  Ah! no key but a button that begs pushing. I like keys.  They make me feel safe and grounded.  Well – get over it.  This car is push button and when I do (push the button) my seat glides silently and ever-so-smoothly into exactly the right position and the car hums to into action.  Windshield wipers think for themselves and come on when it begins to sprinkle, mysteriously speeding-up and slowing-down to match both rain intensity and car speed.  Said car locks with a mere swipe of the finger…    I have to check the back seat door to convince myself it’s locked, because if I touch the driver’s door, it unlocks and we have to start the verification process all over again.  So-long to my long-standing compulsion to double check the door by pulling on it.  Foiled again.  Last night I discovered that the headlights also have a mind of their own – I had them on bright at one point and they dimmed when I was at a stoplight.

Jet lag and realty shock play strange games with the mind.  I lose things or forget where I put them moment to moment.  The storage locker I so carefully organized before I left was not quite as well ordered as I remembered.  The boxes I thought were in front so I could access them were “not there.”  Had to completely unload an 8x10 storage room to discover that a box of critical items as far from the front as they could be:  back wall – half way up.  Now I have found most of my clothes, but keep losing them in the room I’m in because—well just because.  Yesterday, I was late getting somewhere because I’d lost my underwear by putting it in alogical place that was SO logical  I couldn’t find it in my mental fog.  So now I’ve relocated the essentials  - for the moment.   I’m sure they are moving themselves around in the night.  At any rate, SOMETHING is waking me at 3:30 in the morning.  It’s the biorhythm thing and it sucks. 

I have eaten my way into the new world: Mexican food, BBQ, toast made in a real-honest-to god toaster, eggs with yellow yolks, cheese, pickles, Torche’s tacos. There are stripes down the road, stop signs and red-lights and people know what to do with them! There is a startling absence of cows, chickens and goats on the road – where are they? Bicycles don’t have live chickens handing from the handlebars and waiting to be sold.

Today it’s winter.  Last week it was summer and will be again soon, if it doesn’t snow. This must be Austin…

To exacerbate matters, I’ve suddenly become very aware of my age…  In Uganda it is revered – since most people don’t even this long!   I’ve now crossed the threshold where I can no longer pretend: I have signed up for Medicare and Social Security.  Oh what a event.  And you thought 30 was a threshold!  Well – well is all I can say.   I’ve navigated the health care minefield and am glad to say I found it to be curiously devoid of explosives.

Melt-downs are reducing in frequency.  It’s a new world for a stubbornly independent woman of a certain age to suddenly become dependent on friends for shelter, transportation and good will.  And fortunately for me I have an abundance of saints in my life who are sharing their lives, resources and especially their love and good will with me.  This makes me even more exquisitely aware of the contrast of my life here and that of my friends back in Uganda.  In Uganda, I was constantly infused with a deep sense of gratitude for “all that I have.”     All it took was stepping off the plane in the States, to instantly be sucked into the mode of awareness of “what I don’t have.”  All this in the face of the incredible generosity of friends:  I am aware that I have no job, no house, no car.  And yet, it is the very absence of those things that affords me the libert to create a new chapter.  My goal is to once again opt for a simpler life-style – one consciously chosen, not just fallen into as a result of stepping into the mainstream.  So, I’m taking some time this time – to reconnect with my friends and family and explore options.  My kids are grown and happy and self-reliant on their own paths.  So – the up side of “no job, no house, no husband” is incredible freedom to create and that is my next adventure.

It may not be Africa, but I hope it will stay fresh.  I hope to continue to be wide-eyed with discoveries and it is my full-intention to age-backwards.   One of my sons still tells his friends: “My parents are still trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up!”    And so on that note…   I don’t know if people will be interested in the next chapter, but since even I don’t know what that will be – maybe there will be something worth reporting but I sure hope so.

Thanksgiving:  Yesterday – what a day – and so many things, foods, people and circumstances for which to be thankful.  And I am – I simply have not enough time, space or words to convey the true magnitude of this gratitude that overwhelms me to the point of tears some moments. My hosts are both professional chefs and the experience would have been stunning in any case, but coming from Uganda – it was a spiritual, orgasmic,  full-body-mind-spirit indulgence extraordinaire. 

What a season to enter upon re-entry: embarrassment of riches, of friends, opportunities and open doors.

The adventure continues but in a totally different way – rediscovering the “ordinary.”  And so may you rediscovery the ordinary to live it in a non-ordinary way… because it’s only ordinary here.  May your days be filled with tingling excitement and a sense of anticipation for moments as they unfold to remind you of the blessings in each breath.