Pausing Here and There

Hey All.

Gina Ulysse was a professor of mine in college. She was a FORCE in my life, opening my eyes to the possibility of a radical anthropology. She is a spoken word poet and you should check out her work. You can watch her at:

You can visit her websites too:
www.ginaathenaulysse.com
www.culturebase.net/artist.php?3294

SPREAD THE WORD!

1) Arrive in SF. Watch the sunset over the entire city from a hilly, windy bluff thingie in the Marin Headlands. Gasp at all the beauty.
2) Spend your first week interviewing for jobs, apartments, doing all that dmv fancyshmancy shite. Drive around a lot and get lost.
3) Discover you have a social life here that includes: really amazing amazing sushi, like I can’t even tell you how amazing; riding around pretty hills on a motorcycle (as a passenger, but vamos a ver I’ll learn soon); going to the ocean and learning about sea arches; camping on Angel Island on the full moon and doing light photography (by this I mean playing with long shutter speeds so you can do things like spell your name or draw a tree with a flashlight against the backdrop of the city skyline); tequila and new people; yarn and belt shopping; lounging in sunlight people watching in Dolores Park (perhaps my favoritest of all favorite SF traditions)…I think it goes on.
4) Spend 3 days observing PPL work her magic in the upper elementary classroom of a beautiful school where I, cross my fingers, will hopefully be able to work someday (as anything!)
4a) Move in to a new apartment. Do gads of laundry…still sitting unfolded on your bed.
5) Get a call from the Nanny Agency that has hired you pimping you out to extremely wealthy families to run around after their 2 year old which is alternatingly hillarious and devestatingly tiring.
6) Drive home from 10 hours of work with said family. Buy gads of food from Trader Joe’s after nearly dieing trying to cross Masonic. Arrive at new apartment. Meet new housemates. Make white bean turkey chilli and eat, thinking you might die because you forgot to bring a lunch to ritzy richy and didn’t want to ask if you can eat some of their food.
7) Write this blog post and crash.

The adventure began on a clear early morn in late February. I had loaded my car the night before, and I was on the road before the sun, beating out all that nasty Chicago traffic. I managed Iowa without pause, and pushed through all of Nebraska. Those two states looked all and all the same, what with their windswept fields of crackly yellow wheat, their windmills, their truckstops with the cheap gas and fried items.

Colorado was a different scene: rolling hills, still covered with snow, but more desert-like than the plains of the midwest. I arrived in Colorado Springs by evening, enjoyed a delicious dinner with the brother and his housemates. We drank yummy beers, and I reveled in their love of college life. I had forgotten how easy it is to lose yourself in that.

On Saturday, Jake and I went to something called “sector 16,” which apparently is a place you can hike, and hike we did. We went up a “trail”–a mule deer trail, all the while slipping down the scree rock. Jake promised that at the top of the peak there was a trail on the other side down. I believed him.

Then we reached the peak. We took pictures and enjoyed the pretty blue colorado sky. Then we went down. This entailed me crying, my brother coaxing me down a vertical dead tree to some rocks as I freaked out about the height and the potential of death, and then skiing down the skree rock, falling a lot. By the end, I was glad to be done, glad to have done it, and we went and ate hamburgers and milkshakes. Milkshakes make everything better.

That evening we enjoyed a very “college” experience, replete with bad blues poetry, my brother using the word hegemonic in a social setting, and a keg party full of scantily clad youngsters and reggae. I was cold. I kept what my brother has deemed my “assassin jacket” on.

On Sunday I drove. I drove and drove and drove. This drive included the town of Hartsel where you can buy delicious buffalo meat tamales made by hand by Dorothy, located directly across from the Hartsel Town Jail, which is a white building with the word “Jail,” painted in a sloppy, slanting hand.

On Monday, Lynni and I taught her children about run on sentences by very dramatically, and in one breath, recounting our story of the vegan cake that traveled on BART and was photographed. As a class, we put in punctuation, and chanted, “No Death!” to remind the children that sentences lacking periods and commas, and with too many “ands” leads to death by asphyxiation. Lynni and I continued our tradition–we enjoyed capitalism and thai food, and then I drove again. All day Tuesday I drove.

But, then, I arrived. Cori made me a delicious red Thai curry with cucumber garnish. I’m about to cook up some dumplings, cardoons, dofupi, and kaofu with Eric and Amy. Oh the Bay Area, you do not disappoint.

And now I’m here. That’s right. San Francisco prepare yourself.

And, apparently, San Francisco has, because within 24 hours I have successfully registered my car, have a social life planned for the following week, some interviews set up, and have found a delightful little sublet in the sunset, where I will move in on Monday. I get two new roommates, a big kitchen, a bedroom that has a window looking out onto a sunny atrium, a cozy but cold living room, and the stylish San Francisco bath separate from shower set up. Lucky me!

Returning to the United States, I have luxuriated in a few things: hot water showers with pressure, seeing my friends and family, being able to call my friends and not have it be a big planned production, sushi. But, I’ve also missed some things: speaking Spanish everyday, the market and being inspired to cook crazy creations by the beautiful people in my house, going out for a nice meal and having it only set me back a few quetzales.

Now, it’s time for the U.S. portion of my adventure. I suffered through about two weeks of snowy, coldness in Chicago (replete with crazy boystown nights and lovely lunches and dinners with friends and family and neighbors). The plan is such: Drive across the LARGE state of Nebraska and visit the brotheratron in Colorado Springs, Co. We will frolic in the mountains for a day, and then I’ll head to Las Vegas to see the best friend. From there, up highway 101 and my adventure to find an apartment and a job in San Francisco begins. I’ll keep you posted.

1. The San Jose Airport is full of very large, old Americans eating burger king and exclaiming things like: “Dear, when is the flight. I don’t think you’re right. Is it this gate or that.” I’m sure if I heard those things said in Spanish I would a) not totally understand, and therefore b) be less full of judgments. This airport provided me with all the culture shock I can really handle.
2. I drank water there that claimed it was from the Costa Rican rain forest. REALLY!
3. I spent more money than I have ever spent on myself at one given point. Cruzar dedos que Sta me de todo del dinero.
4. I wound up in Charlotte, North Carolina for 15 minutes, which I discovered is different than Charlottesville, West Virginia. People spoke with southern accents, so that was interesting to hear.
5. When I arrived in Chicago it was SNOWING. Not big fluffy pretty snow, but powdery whippy wind ice cold thank god my dad brought me a fleece and a jacket and a scarf and a hat and gloves. I don’t know what I’m going to do about this fact, but I will escape the winterywintery wiles very soon.
6. Irony point: I know this is a little bit lot of information, but I am currently suffering from the worst stomach upset I’ve had during my entire trip.
7. I’m home! And, soon, I’ll be on the road again…Can’t wait to continue my travels in these lovely, interesting, wild and wooly 48. (and maybe some day I’ll get to the other two.)

So, I had originally intended to write a brilliant blog post regarding my salida from Guatemala, replete with a video of myself zooming down a slide…la nina mala se fue. But, here I am, in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, enjoying the brilliance of carribean sunshine, delicious seafood, and time with my cousins and that post has been put aside.

A quick recap of what leaving was like:
1) I had a delicious breakfast of crepes, mora and strawberries. Also banana bread. Thanks Sharon.
2) I was hungover from dancing my heart out the night before in the yoga house kitchen, and later, at the bar.
3) I started to cry when a very sweet little old lady told me in the minibus on the way to the bus terminal that I had a lot of luggage, and what was I doing traveling alone. I told her I was sad to be leaving Xela because I had been there for so long. She told me that I should always talk to the Señor (god), because he watches over us when we are sad.
4) I arrived to Antigua and made some fast friends at the Yellow House hostel. One of them was this girl from Scotland who was living in Phoenix and studying wholistic medicine. We had a good time sharing gripes about Phoenix, and then I gave her a bunch of tips of interesting places to go. I realized that I actually knew a fair amount about Phoenix, despite feeling like a total hermit there for two years.
5) Said girl and I went out for dinner. Along the way we encountered a group of people dressed up like cartoon characters dancing in the street in synchronized dance steps.
6) The next day I headed to the airport and, faster than a flash, I was in costa rica and rocking the bumpy roads in a soccer mom vehicle with my cuz´s.
7) Over the course of the last few days I have come to the conclusion that I am homesick, really ready to start my life in San Francisco, and not looking too much forward to more on the roadness. So, South America will be another adventure for another time. I´m coming home! Woot!

If this works….then this is a video of me weaving! Woot.

Also, I am leaving Xela in two days. I have mixed feelings about this, but mostly I am concentrating on concurring a raging cold that makes me sleep for 10 hours a night. Puchica!

Mas o menos, primavera ha empazado en Xelo, pues, no primavera exactamente, porque aqui tenemos solamente verano y inverano. Pero, por lo menos, el aire es fresco. Hoy, había un hombre con “a cart of tulips” caminando en la calle, y mucho gente se sentían en el parque. Los “tulips” era rojo y naranja, y fue como un escena de una pelicula.

Tambien, mi classe de español ha tomado una vuelta “turn?” Estoy aprendiendo dichos y modismos! ¡Puchica!

agarrando los ideas del aire
Picking ideas out of thin air

huevona
lit: A big egg
lazy

estar de rollo, o, andar de rollo
lit: to walk the stream, or be of the stream
to hang out, shoot the shit

fufurufo
stuck up

fresa
lit: strawberry
stuck up person

buscarle cinco pies al gato
lit: searching for the five feet of the cat
looking for trouble

el huevo de la vaca
lit: the egg of the bull
a problem

la cruda
lit: underdone, raw
hangover

estar de goma
lit: to be made of rubber
to be hungover

él tiene pege
lit: he is sticky
He has mojo, or moves

clavos
lit: nails, cloves
problems

Hello All! I’ve begun taking weaving classes at Trama, a womens weaving cooperative. I am in the process of making a “chalina” a scarf with spaces in it. Working on this project has made me realize how much time and effort goes into each piece of weaving that I have seen here. Guatemala is certainly known for its textiles, and while I have seen these gorgeous pieces of cloth, huiples (embroidered shirts), traje (the traditional cloth different for every region, and sometimes even for every aldea or village), rugs, bags, and so much more, I have felt too overwhelmed to want to buy any of it. I think that becoming a student (for a little breath of a time, at any rate) at this cooperative is such a healthier way for me in this instant to encounter, or get a better understanding of the process involved in making a piece of fabric.

First, I chose my colors and spent an hour or so making double stranded thread, by making balls out of thread I wrapped from these two circular spinny things. Then I spent another hour or two designing my scarf: wrapping the threads in a particular way around a wooden frame to create my design. Then I began to create the loom. The tension of the loom is formed by hanging the string between two wooden poles. One pole is hung from the ceiling and the other is attached to my back by a nylon belt, more or less. I then separated the strings in to bundles of twenty, turned the whole project around, and created the separation of strings that will allow me to weave it by separating every strand from each other with a nylon thread that I was wrapping around my hand. This took another 2 or so hours.

I begin to actually weave on Tuesday, wow! I suppose this does not sound exactly clear, but hopefully I will have some pictures soon to show all of you. In other news, I am learning the subjunctive tense…that other world of Spanish.

Here are some of my pictures from my travels during the holidays. Enjoy!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=19ltfkzb.bplbtr7&x=1&y=-657ifu

Today Sharon, Michelle (housemates) and I cleaned the entire kitchen. I went through a giant bowl of mismatched baggies full of semi-identifiable spices and put them in clean jars and labeled them. It was perhaps one of the most thoroughly satisfying organizational activities I have done in a long, long time.

I am also currently wearing the most hiddeous paisley polyester shirt with pirate sleeves I have ever encountered in my life. I don´t think I will ever be able to take myself seriously again in life, ever.