Mark e Nessa

sumo wrestling macbeth

2009-12-04T07:38:00.000-08:00

Today I took my English classes to drama class to conclude our reading of Macbeth. The class was given a primer in dramatizing literature; I was given an awkward moment for the ages.

After we finished the play, the drama teacher created a sumo-wrestling circle out of our shoes. I was asked to remove my shoes, enter, and wrestle furiously until from the circle she was thrust. I've never so much as shook a fellow teacher's hand, so this was harrying. I shoved, paused, regretted, gritted, shamed, reddened, then finally picked the wiry, wily dramatist and carried her out of the ring.

After reflection I realized this had a number of purposes:: 1,it was a metaphorical demonstration of Macduff's victory over Macbeth; 2, it exemplified the way actor's need to conjure extreme emotion from "airy nothing; and 3, it let the students see their gringo teacher 10,000 kilometers out of comfort zone.

Embracing a colleague in an abisetaoshi sumo-hold is like the crack cocaine version of an icebreaker. Another student, a very intelligent US national, was also called to the ring. Like me he would sumo-wrestle the teacher, then pause and eloquently debate the purpose of the exercise--then he'd return to the match as the his fellows laughed and cheered.

Afterward the student (we'll call him Macduff) and I decided this would be followed by legal action in the US.

She also made us jump on wooden framing, shout lines (i.e., "turn hell-hound!") across the room, and walk about pretending to punch anyone who came near.

I find that I have a great deal of pent up emotion draped behind the US flag. Perhaps I'm wrong. This is Brazil, and we're in deeper.

Does this kind of thing ever happen in full-time US office jobs?

signs of life

2009-11-23T09:52:00.001-08:00

People underestimate the power of language. Especially the language we use ourselves. English teacher, yes I am. But this dissimilar musing came nowhere from my current job.

November and December are disillusionment months for teachers and my mind has been filled with have to's of my existence. This is blind faith.

When the alarm rings I don't have to wake up, I choose to keep my job. During my walk I think I have to go to school again, and I have to turn left across a crosswalk to get there. Again, I am choosing to do my job, and there are mathematically infinite ways to get to work, I just tend to choose the most convenient.

In Brazil, I think I have to give the sinal de vida (signal of life) when crossing the street to tell a two-passenger Fiat to stop and slow down. This time, I am actually choosing to make point intentionally, like Adam to Jehovah, so I am not squished by the diminutive car.

I go into the masculino bathroom instead of the feminine because I want to avoid embarrassment and save time. Plus I like urinals. I walk into my class instead of Jamey Wolverton's because I chose to teach English and not geometry (God bless rhombuses).

Bad faith: Belief based on assumptions that take the freedom, inspiration and fun out of existence. This is my walk to school. These are my choices. No complaints.

The Candango

2009-11-09T10:24:00.001-08:00

I (Mark) have been developing a journalism course here at ye olde Escola Americana de Brasília. While we've had some liftoff turbulence, we finally managed to get Volume 1.1 of our first newsletter published. It's called "The Candango," after the tall-skinny individuals pictured to the right of the logo. Candango was the epithet given to these guys and all the other gente that came to this chunk of dirt 50 years ago and built a city.

So despite some flagrant typos and design flaws, the students seemed pretty happy to see their words in print and in circulation: We've started strong with 1,000 copies, so a few our glossies may even grace the waiting-room tables dental offices in the superquadras near the school.

We don't have an online version of the magazine yet, but we're keeping a blog. If you follow the link, the most recent entry is a question the students are posing to create a "crowdsourced" article--where a net community provides all the incident reports/anecdotal info needed to make an article.

The title piece for the December/Christmas issue is going to be made entirely of comments posted to the question, "What does Christmas mean to you?" If you have a spare second or five, follow the link and leave a comment. I'm sure they'd love to hear from some of my North American compatriots.

I know we're (and by we're I mean I'm) doing a lackluster job at (a) keeping in touch, and (b) giving the play-by-play of life in the world capital for UFO enthusiasts and purveyors of magic crystals (we hear Brasília is also known for its important political role in Brazilian affairs). The aforementioned blog, coupled with a harrying work-pace has kept us hunkered down in our classrooms. But the end of this first dogged leg is near: We'll to the coast over Thanksgiving, and we'll be in San Diego as of December 19th.

We'll see you down the road.

m e v

Cicadas! Cicadas! Cicadas!

2009-10-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

The video above depicts no important visuals.

The wavy camerawork and the audio is bent to give you all a sense of the powerful noise that is emitted by the Brazilian cicadas. They intend to leave the world soon and not without sound and fury.

Cicadas climb out of the dirt at the end of the dry season, and turn the trees in to giant, obnoxious maracas as they blow in the wind. It is a two-tone electrical chorus--our living and working and breathing is set to the soundtrack for a Hitchock film.

Oh, that their too, too solid flesh would thaw, melt and resolve itself into a dew, to litter the cragged sidewalks of Asa Sul with wings and bulging eyes and exoskeletons.

Chapadas Redux: Pirenópolis

2009-10-24T13:10:00.001-07:00

About five months ago, we went to the Chapadas dos Veredeiros. I wrote about the nature and the braziliarities of the bohemian São Jorge. What I didn't write is that we camped with 60 other people in the grassy backyard of a bohemian Brazilian that that had the physique of the Grinch who stole Christmas, and a leathery mustachioed face.

When I awoke on the first (and last) morning in São Jorge, I circumnavigated a smattering of tents to go the bathroom. Draped across a concrete slab that led to the kitchen was a 30-something, overweight hippie, with a spilled bottle of beer which had been overturned toward its former quaffer. A small brook of beer had trickled back toward his shirt and created a yeasty rorshach test on his chest.

We had another opportunity to go to a different corner of the Brazilian highlands a couple of weeks ago; as you have surmised, we did not camp. In fact we spent a great deal of reais to stay away from the center of town, and fixed well in a pousada with AC and a swimming pool.

Pirenópolis, the colonial city in the western highlands, was at once Bohemian and classy; Apollonian and Bacchanalian; peaceful and full of nonsense.

Aside from relaxing on a hammock, or snoozing to the whirring of a 10-year-old AC, we found more waterfalls, more wildlife (Nessa saw a toucan and a number of wild parrots), we were able to more freely enjoy the world outside what's commonly called the Brasilia bubble (though I think the Brasilia-orb, or Brasilia-sphere more in keeping with its space-age dimensions). The streets were made of the sedimentary sandstone, turned up during the ground-breaking of Brasilia and moved to replace the dirt roads nearly 50 years ago.

The pictures in this post are from rustic, classy Pirenópolis and the Brazilian highland countryside.

boston

2009-10-16T02:44:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had a moment of serendipity, where I could feel two worlds collide over half a decade.

It was my schools talent show', and I was there to support my performers and the journalism students who were covering the show.

Toward the end one of my students got up on stage with a flame blue Takamine guitar. She was joined by another girl I didn't recognize on the piano. The song stopped me dead for a moment: "Boston," by Augustana. I hadn't really heard much about them since the days after they performed at my brother's house in Cal Poly, during his 21st birthday.

I knew they had gotten some kind of record deal and were almost famous. I looked around, eerily, as some students sang along along--especially as I remember I was in the vast red capital in the middle of Brazil.

ás chapadas

2009-09-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

Today is Brazilian Independence Day, and now the world pivots over Brasilia, leaving the northern Pacific coast of the Americas dark for three more hours. I miss home a little, because I didn't spend my birthday with my family and friends. And yet, through Nessa’s fidelity to facebook, I received a number of birthday wishes. Thanks to everyone who said hi. I miss you too. 29, yipee. Ugh.

We celebrated our first 3-day weekend with a GGT (great gringo trip) to The Chapadas de Veadeiros, a national park in Goiás, the state surrounding the Federal District, and Brasilia. The Brazilian cerrado is the vast, dry, red-dirt region that extends down the interior of Brazil. Once out of the city, it becomes strange, and beautiful and mysterious in the Chapadas (and the landing spot for some UFO's, some sources say).

Contrary to reason, the cerrado, has the world’s highest concentration of biodiversity, ahead of coral reefs (#2), and the rain forest (#3). This is hard to believe, when you stare out across Brasilia from the TV tower on the eixo monumental (the city’s main drag): you see a large loaf of red and chaparral gray—and the occasional smoke from fires that trim the waning horticulture like geographical haircuts.

But as we took our rental Chevorlet Delta out of town, we found that our surroundings are beautiful and strange—not unlike the way Zion National Park takes you through a 100 miles moonscape, into some of the most outrageous red-rock formations of Saint George.

Coincedentally, we camped in a Bohemian town in Chapada called São Jorge (Saint George, too). Brazilian men in sungos (speedo suits) roamed the streets, drinking ice cold Antartica beer, chasing (slightly more appropriately dressed) women, and as special brew of Marley and techno blasted from oversized music systems in the trunks of their tiny hatchbacks.

We took two half-day trips: one to “Vale da Lua” (valley of the moon), and another to a chapada waterfall. Perhaps, here, pictures do much better descriptions. The following slide show a la Nessa begins in the Vale da Lua and ends in a Chapada do Veadeiros waterfall.

old black water

2009-10-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

The great gong of responsibility has gonged, and I have not been able to do anything except bonk workwardly. This is not to say Vanesssa and I have had a dull, month; rather, we've both done quite a bit:

Nessa has taught forcefully and lovingly.

I spent a week in the Amazon with 7th grade students I do not teach. I'm not exactly sure why I was chosen as a chaperone, but it was the most remarkable fieldtrip a student or teacher could imagine (slide show below). I was able to dust off and dish out youth ministry ballyhoo. One seventh grade gal shot a blow dart into my leg (the pneumatic gun was purchased in an Ticuna Indian village), and it stuck and stung.

Aside from this mishap, the trip was incredible. It was wonderful to see one of the most primal, ancient and mysterious regions of the world. We spent a night in the jungle, with ex-Brazilian army operatives, teaching us jungle survival skills. I learned to bathe in ant guts to avoid bug bites (ants smell like jungle, so bugs are not interested); we learned how to make a footholds out of a palm leaves, which can be used to climb narrow branches to gather acai berries; we learned how to start a fire with a piece of steel wool and two batteries; we saw (I don't think anyone learned) how to make automatic animal traps out of wood plant and ingenuity.

Our schemes were thwarted, pleasantly, by a father. This father it just so happens is the deputy governer of the Amazonas state. He took us on his yacht, aqcua, on a four our tour to the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Solamoes, where the Amazon officially begins. On the return trip we stopped at his twin brother's river-beach house and enjoyed a catered Brazilian churrasco.

He also led us on a tour of Manaus a city that was wealthier and more cosmopolitan than Boston and New York during the rubber boom at the advent of the 20th century.

Not a bad week at the office, I guess.

independence day: womb and brazil

2009-09-03T03:53:00.001-07:00

September 7, Brazil will be commemorating its 187th year of Independence.

Tomorrow, September 5, Vanessa and I will commemorate my independence from the womb.

The Regent Dom Pedro I declared Brazilian independent from Portugal on September 7, 1822. In the year 1808, King John VI of Portugal decided to flee from the oncoming French troops of Napoleon and moved the government of Portugal to Brazil. Although King John VI was well liked, the Brazilian people did not feel the same about his cronies.

I liked the earth when I arrived, I think. But like the Brazilians, I just didn't like some of its cronies.

The Brazilians then looked to their favorite son Dom Pedro as their natural leader.

I looked to the OBGYN, but then he spanked me. Eventually I think I looked to my mother as leader, then my father. I soon learned I was under an oligarchy.

Dom Pedro chose independence to European rule when he said, "Independence or Death!" I think he got both. And H1N1.

During the parade at EAB, our students chanted a song that went "mas não Portugal" (no more Portugal). Perhaps, because their independence is newer, the old sores are still smarting.

The children of EAB were a swirl of lovely yellow and green, and it felt good to partake in a new history that is not mine.

Vanessa are celebrating with a trip to "The Chapadas," which are like higher altitude "mesas" of California, with waterfalls, "moonscape valleys," and epic proportions of dry biodiversity.

more life on mars

2009-08-25T17:40:00.001-07:00

We are in the middle of the cerrado, the Brazilian Savannah. The city was built on a whim and a prayer, when a would -be president and an outrageously ambitious and cerebral architect got together; they promised their nation an inland empire.

Nessa and I grew up in the south part of California. We also studied in the farthest part, but never out of SoCal. We were married there, too. We were in an milieu of blessed, coastal consistency.

While I was often pulled in many directions, say when I had to focus on a pre-calculus problem—I was always in the arid, sunny-fog of the California chaparral. Yes, I always felt and quartered by life—but that’s kind of my thing. Do the best you can while four horses are pulling at every appendage, cognitively.

The students at Escola Americana de Brasilia (EAB), where we currently are teaching, is chock full of 4-18-year-olds that have been drawn and quartered geographically. Of course, the metaphor breaks down, when you see how they navigate Brazil as world citizens.

In fact, I’m astounded at the peaceful, easy-going nature of kids from embassies. They are torn from their tiny roots in, say, Kathmandu, then planted in loose, red soil here. And they flow with it.

They ease into relationships; they integrate (from time to time), with the Brazilian kids who’ve been here longer; they find their land and make a stand, and become excited about their opportunities.

Our headmaster recently sent us an email that kind of breaks down this intense and beautiful multiplicity of experience:

Just this year (in addition to Nessa, myself and another 11 teachers), the school has seen 100 new faces.

Amidst these faces are the following beautiful anomalies to a simple life in one small country:

New Faces: EAB has over 100 new faces (students and teachers) this year. Faces from 51 countries; and for the first time in a long time, we have families from Cyprus, Panama, Portugal and Holland. We have also received families with fascinating cultural combinations. Here are a few:

A Japanese student born in Rio, and a Brazilian born in Japan.

An Indian born in China, and a Brazilian born in Israel.

Children from a British family born in Italy and Colombia.
A young lady, born in Nepal, to an Italian father and a Korean mother.

The school also has a four-year-old girl who speaks four languages.

I've got 2.1 languages in 28.9 years.

Clearly, I've got some extracurricular work to do.

life on mars

2009-08-15T05:57:00.000-07:00

The Mothership: the Honestino Guimaraes Museu--located where the left wing meets the fuselage in our plane-shaped city center.

On our first walk down to Escola Americana de Brasilia we spotted two little owls, perched on a green bar behind our lower commercial street.

We stopped and stared at each other for a while, then passed on to our first day of teaching. Little, wise prophets, perched and signifying nothing—except maybe that we had left the mothership of our former lives, and were taking the first steps into a world with a slightly different gravity.

The following day, Friday, the school took us out on the lake for dinner, drinking and dancing. While I didn’t take part in the drinking (aside from a few sips of Nessa’s fresh strawberry Caiparinha), I experienced something near to death by dehydration. We are in the high desert, and the body dries, the energy wanes, and in bad cases, like mine, the body tries to turn inside-out in its insistent retching.

After a trip to the hospital, where I was given a “miracle IV,”I started to feel well enough to exchange physical angst for the great weight of shame. I had just made blubbering mess of myself on the mess deck of a lake-barge, and I had to be held by a maintenance man named Helio or I would have fallen off the dock. I’ve made better first impressions on an entire new staff.

That said, before my massive Technicolor yawns, the trip across lake Paranoá was spectacular, considering it was a treat of the school. We went under the suspended bridge which connects the city proper to the ritzier lake district, criss-crossing the road with the architectural panache that characterizes everything except the dorm-like “blocos” that flank the two outstretched wings of the residential city. We saw the moon rise as we passed through the bridge. The dinner was catered, the bar, open, and the school in its entirety—from the people that clean the rooms to the headmaster to the head of the board—were all enjoying life in Brasilia together.

Nessa has been socializing at the embassies. She's spent an afternoon at an eastern buffet at the Malaysian embassy, and spent happy hour at the British embassy this Friday. In order to get in to the latter, she had to let them take digital pictures of the front and back of her ID, digital pictures of her front and back of her self, and then, she says, "a magic door openned."

We could get used to life on Mars.

Memorial for Juscelino Kubitschek: the man who built the city in 5 years.

Inside the Catedral

John posing with São João

Mark meeting São Marcos

The Catedral Metrapolitana de Brasilia

My new boss and I sporting blue. He sports 6'6", I reach for 5'11"

our meal with big kitties

2009-07-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

Don't come between a hungry kitty and his chunk of cow

On Wednesday the EAB newbie group was taken to a wildcat refuge (NEX) in the Brazilian savanna 75 kilometers outside of Brasilia. The Brazilian woman who runs the refuge seemed a kind of eccentric eco-philanthropist. She even pays for the beers her own foundation buys for the refuge lunches. The cats are ridiculously beautiful, and if they must be caged or killed, I suppose NEX is the best alternative. All of the cats had fantastic stories, but he spoke in Portuguese, so I was only able to glean a few stories from our bilingual coworkers:
• “Princess” Zagaia was taken from an Indian tribe in northern Brazil. She was a pet and a friend until she began eating their dogs. The tribe, worried she would begin to eat their babies and young children, called NEX, where she is given a giant chunk of cow each day.

• Brutus was found in the forest by a family. The family gave the kit to a couple who had just given birth to a daughter. The mother lovingly nursed the wildcat (yes, the human way), alongside the daughter. Not surprisingly, Brutus loves playing with humans.

• Another cat (let's call him Happy) was taken to the refuge by Brazilian police after his owner (an evil veterinarian) was arrested for animal cruelty. He had been neutered and had been living chained to a post like a junkyard dog. He was, however, the most loving, kissy-faced jaguar in this hemisphere (they say). All of the cats in the refuge had a similar story.

The 8 species represented are all in danger of extinction. I don’t know what it is about our species that wants to possess something so beautiful and powerful, when clearly they were intended to be left to wander nature…and maybe well endowed zoo. The website is in portugues, but it is still a project worth looking at: www.nex.org.br

The refuge also had several macaws, parrots, and a vibrant, self-satisfied toucan.

This kit was taken from mama too early, so he likes to suck on human middle fingers. Somehow the guide had all his arms and hands and heads in place. I saw some heave looking scars, though.

Swimming through his little amazon for his kill

I think William Blake put our thoughts together well, so we'll close this session with a poem:

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

...and a film of feeding time with the pumas:

nova terra for mark y nessa

2009-07-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

We’ll actually it should now be Mark e Nessa, but we think we’ll stick with the Spanish for a while. Our hope was that Spanish and Portuguese would be similar enough to break right in. Not so. While it looks close enough on paper, spoken Portuguese sounds like a lilting, laid-back Martian.

In short, we’ve landed on nova terra, new earth…

Upon arriving in Brasilia at 6:45 Friday morning, we were received by the headmaster and principals with a double-decker tour bus which escorted us directly to the campus, while custodians took our luggage in “combies” (VW microbuses) to our apartments.

Note to reader: A double-decker bus is a great way to receive people. Even one or two. No need for the glitz and the tinting of a town car, nor the pragmatism of a taxi. A double-decker bus is orienting, and being on the second floor of a moving vehicle makes one feel special without inflating his or her ego. Plus you get a good look around.

As we expected, all of the apartments facing my 6-floor window are long and tall and functional; all the rooms, bathrooms and living spaces in our apartment are narrow and long. In 1960, when “the Candangos” built Brasilia out of nowhere, they must have envisioned a long, tall people that would be living and working in the nation’s new inland empire. Their statue, which is our school logo, shows long, tall people, so I think I must be right.

Our living area, our neighborhood, is well-balanced, with living spaces, apartments, play areas, and green space. I can run a kilometer lap around quadrants 204 and 205 without having to touch a street.

Between superquadros 203 and 204 is a “comercio,” which is a row of all necessary shops for human sustenance. Ours includes a Brazilian version of a 99-cents store, a cabaret, and a coffee shop-bookstore. Another has a Lebanese bar and restaurant; yet another a purveyor of German food, Fritz; nearly every has a sushi and saki bar.

Today is Sunday and they closed down the main road north of our apartment from 6 to 6for cyclists rollerblades and runners. This happens every week.

Thanks a short quasi-sonar briefing from our station below. More to come!
M e V

A comercio.

our new skyrocket is almost in flight!

2009-07-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

Vanessa just identified the “Bloco” that we will be stationed in on the sixth floor of a building on SQS 204 (superquadro 204). Most streets in Brasilia do not have names, though I don’t think they are of the variety described in U2’s 1987 hit.

We are in the Asa Sul (south wing) of the city’s two residential wings. The north wing and the south wing are broken into “superquadros,” which are then broken in
Self-Contained Over-Water Living Apparatuses (SCOWLAs…my acronym). The whole city, which does look like and airplane, or a bird, or, no, superman outstretched in full glory, was called the “limit of insanity” by a newspaper from Rio in 1960—when the government was first breaking ground.
The wings, taken from Google's great eye of Sauron.

The guidebook we bought mentions that Brazilians are not “rectilinear” people, so these SCOWLAs must have seemed like Huxley’s Brave New World, or at least a new control tower for the apocalypse.

http://www.caminandosinrumbo.com/brasil/brasilia/Brasilia.jpg
And now, 50 years hence, it’s still a bustling government metropolis where, says a pastor online, “people are hard-working, ambitious and lonely.” Smacks of the O.C. or the D.C. to me.

What matters more is that we’ll be living next to the highest concentration of ethnic and local food in the whole city. Within about 0.6 kilometers are two sushi places, a cheap German place called Fritz, a chic salad bar, a Lebanese restaurant, and a coffee shop-bookstore (“café con letras”).

The city has some of the most far-out curvaceous and brizare (a mispelling I’m going to use pre-emptively, with full foreknowledge that there will be many brizarities forthcoming). A city very similar to a utopia was prophesized by a monastic named Dom Bosco in the 19th century; he is now their patron saint. The city has some outrageous places of worship: The Goodwill Temple and Eclectic Town are two. We’re going to look for an outrageously traditional Presbyterian or Lutheran church.

We leave on July 23rd, but pre-invite you all. The best time to visit is October through March. We’re also planning to travel home more often, as we have good breaks and the school graciously provides us with some travel resources. In short: the second chapter will look a little less like transmissions from an unreachable pueblo (God bless beautiful, unstained Armenia forever).

lago calima

2009-04-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

For our final weekender we went to Lago Calima, a manmade lake outside of Cali. At an elevation of 2000 meters, the lake had a cool, crisp, mystical quality, that kept us in a constant state relaxation. The Big Finale of school was impending, and the gringo troupe rented a lovely finca. A getaway for rich people from Cali, the roads, headgerows, houses, and hedgerows, looked like the Shire from Lord of the Rings (as I imagine it to be).

In the morning the lake was an emerald calm; in the afternoon, cool foggy clouds poured over the mountains, sending horizontal drizzle onto our windows. Around the lake, we found an ecological park with a monkey named Juana (Jane); who had been misreated, but had been loved long enough to want to hold hands with passersby.

The little capillo (chapel) in the backgroud, with its tall red nave, looked like the ideal place of worship for Elvish Catholics. Made me wish I was an elf...and catholic. Vanessa always takes wonderful pictures, which, for this trip, can speak far better than my words:

I've always had a thing for alpacas. They love me and I tease them, but they still love me. This is true only of alapacs, and the llama family in general.

Wells Fargo or Bust

2009-06-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Vanessa's two sixth grade classes gave her a despedida (goodbye), in the only appropriate way: they turned her classroom (and the classroom of her co-teacher Michael Bender) into two adjacent discotecas. They brought 5 chocolate cakes with golden flakes and sugary Colombiana soda ad infinitum. The students engaged in too-slow dancing below beautiful baloon and paper arcs. Nessa also received a number of letters that could be translated and written into telenovelas: "goodbye sweet teacher who has taught us so much." They also showed appreciation for her lessons: "we always write a lot so when I think of your lessons I remember there is missing something and I put it." They loved their lovely gringa teacher and gave her the best bye-bye they know.

Ms. Robertson: "so flirt!"

And so, it's been two years in a far-flung country. Vanessa and I have been breathing, working, listening, begging coffee children to speak in English, paying bills and traveling through Latin America for over 700 days. This has been wonderful, trying (at times), startling (in beauty and irony), and altogether wonderful.

A story: last weekend I went swimming at the Bolo Club, which has been mentioned before in the blog. I walked down the main drag in our town, La Catorce, and was met by nearly every emergency vehicle in Armenia, blocking main access to the south of town. A local catering company had served champagne with a bacteria that sent 39 women to the local hospital. I snuck in the back, and swam to the sound of sirens. The women will be fine, but all was business in the back of the club. All shall be made well. There was no panic. Upset stomachs and brigadeers doing their job.

In short, we are so excited to see you--you who have been so steadfast to follow us and reduced our loneliness with short emails and notes below each post!

As I reflect on home, I remember the covered wagon by what was the Alcapulco in Encinitas: "Wells Fargo or Bust," was written onto the side. This is home. Granted, we go to Brazil on July 24th, but we will make every moment with you count. We miss everything: the hot sauce at Rubios, the lineup at Swamii's on a foggy morning, a Pipe's burrito, the English language spoken at the Pannikan. I look forward to bikeride, as I try to chase my 64-year-old-going-on-14 dad on his yellow roadbike. Though we have loved most moments in the world´s coffee axis, life is most meaningful in the land where one's family and deepest friends are planted.

Thus, we are going to replant in a temporary pot, try to buy a property, and look forward to the day we can raise a family in the southland of California, God willing.

If you are around, my parents have agreed to have a little reuniton at our house the day after the 4th of July.

In short, we miss you dearly, and wish to see you.

m+v

Michael and Vanessa

--sending off on a boat of Colombian sushi.

--a last look at the cloud forests pouring over the occidental mountains on our bus ride to school.

jungle cruise live real deal

2009-05-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Nessa and I and a group of our foreign friends hired a friend of a friend to take us down Río La Vieja on bamboo raft. The pictures in the adventure adds used a Disney font, and made the boats look manufactured, if not touristy. But, dear persona, this is Colombia. We arrived at the office at 10am, then took an hour drive in Jeep Willyz, our lifejackets riding on our heads and our tour guides holding on to the roof and bumper behind us. The rafts were indeed rafts. Guadua bamboo, rope, crusty mud, nada mas.

The trip down the muddy road ended when we anchored by a small riverfront community, where chickens and abuelitas peek out of small brick-and-mortar hovels to smile and cluck. We said hello to a “pavo real” (a peacock, or lit., a “Royal Turkey”), that was the conspicuous mayor of the pueblito’s quadrupeds.

Then, after crossing an iron bridge we got a first picture of the rafts, as they were setting out four rows of benches and a small awning on our raft. After our guides, José and Jhon Faber unroped us, we found ourselves on a river that was more ambitious that it looked from the bridge.

The raft stayed afloat. All our gringo misgivings dissolved into a CCR song: rolling on the river, nothing more. Jhon Faber even jumped off, idled at the same pace of the river, then put up his legs, and pretended to type on an invisible computer. We decided that after some language courses he could be a great guide for the jungle cruise at Disneyland.

At times the river did get a little dicey. When we had to, say, make a sharp left turn, one of our wily, smily guides would jump off the side of the raft with a rudder-rope, run alongside the rivers’ edge (leaping small sheep fences if necessary), then dig his heels into the grass or mud, bringing us to a backward halt. They’d use this time to cut off some sweet guava from the trees and to offer us some warm, sugary “tinto” coffee. Steve remarked that Vanessa--a fresh guava in one hand, a tinto in her left, and an unabashed smile--that she looked like one of the Hepburn sisters in the ‘River Queen’ (Katherine?).

We lunched on an idylic green hill with two, small white dogs that leapt and scurried about like cotton on a vespyr. One of the whites with a darling dispositin and somehow charming eye-cataracts made lifetime friends of Ryan. Our lunch—steamed chicken, wild rice, beef, plantains—was wrapped in large, green plantain leaves. (Cheaper and more stylish that brown-sacking, we thought.)

I think I can attest for all that the highlight of the trip was a ten-minute off-river mud hike to a picaresque walterfall that fell for 50 meters like silver capillaries over the large, jagged boulder. We washed off the river in a smaller cascade in the foreground. I felt a little too hyperactive and decided to go Gollum over all the muddy rocks, scaring our guides, and embarrassing the women-folk (play video if you must see). The slick muddy trail was just seep enough to barefoot mud-ski down most of the trail. Very Japanese game show; very fun.

No crocs on La Vieja, no rhino pointing his snout at the cargo shorts of the lowest three unlucky robotic tourists, but we did see a turtle, parrots, and other beautiful birds. I was reminded that while Disney’s cruise has its charms and hilarity, nothing there is that beats the real deal. Then again…I suppose we could of used a large, runaway slave named Jim to dispense down-home wisdom. “That truck der’s da trash…he’d say,” when the boat got dirty. And the journey would have gone from the monumental to the transcendental.

Even in the deeps of darkest Quindío, we live such comfortable lives.

black crab, and other richies of the seven seas

2009-04-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

"Natural spices of the island that live in the mountain and comedown to left their eggs in the sea. They feeds on bush, and their meat are rich with iron and protiens, it have a delicate taste."

casserole

2009-04-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

"Gastronomic name is the ideal where liquids ans smell of the sea celebrate together the pleasure of the guest dinner."

chiken

2009-04-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

"Beautiful delight of the birds, their meat we delight with pride and responsability."

beef

2009-04-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

"We have made from this fruit of the universe the best exponent of our grill, so they can't even say not mmmmmmmmm."

desert

2009-04-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

"If you wish to feel on you palit the exciting sensation of sweet, we reccomend you ask for desserts."

san andres and providencia

2009-04-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Holy Week provided our final opportunity to travel during this kaleidoscopic 2-year stint in Colombia (tomorrow begins our final 8 weeks as Colombian teachers!). Vanessa and I, along with friends John, Andrea, and Annie, chose Colombia’s Caribbean islands: San Andres and Providencia, after wavering for months between the Colombian Amazon and the Colombia’s claim to tropical paradise. Sorry, John Milton, Paradise won.

We landed in San Andres, the larger, more populated of the two, and settled into the Acuario all-inclusive resort. We spent most of our time there eating, drinking, and marveling at the fabled “7-colored” water of the two islands. The hotel (pictured) is set just beyond the tide line, the levels resembling stacked cross-sections of captain’s wheels washed up to shore.

The following morning we arose to a sunrise on the Eastern waters outside our hotel window, and boarded the plane to Providencia. After settling in and enjoying our first day in the smaller, more rustic island, we were blessed with a sunset (also on the water) of our new, Western facing hotel, Posada del Mar. Such beautiful mathematical disorientation: 1 sunrise on the water, 1 sunset on the water, 2 islands= CO caribbean day!

And then our vacation began.

Most of the 5,000 residents on the island are Colombian nationals, but speak a deep, melodic Creole, though they seamlessly talked to us in Spanish or English depending on our tongue-tied gringo needs. A mother would yell “come” to a beautiful ebony-skinned girl across the beach, and her command would sound like music. They had names like Mark Taylor and Janette Archibold (the mayor), and one of the local politicians, Roland, also owns a reggae restaurant bar on Manzanilla beach. There is one bus, a “chiva” if you can remember from earlier posts, and several cab drivers in giant Mercury Grand Marquis that charge the same amount for any ride anywhere.

“Old Providence,” as the roll of pictures below attests, was a rustic, pristinely beautiful volcanic rock in the sea. I’m not sure that I could name the seven colors, but there was definitely a distinct crystalline green, a crystal blue, a royal-almost-grey water were it became deeper, a transcendental sea green, and the golden brown water above the shallow rocks.

On the first full day, we took a taxi to the quaint city “centro,” then walked across the floating “lovers’ bridge,” to Santa Catalina. We found Morgan’s Cay, where John and I tried haplessly to get a green coconut on a tall palm over the water. We also went on a waterside “pirate hike,” where we saw murals of the trade routes, “Morgan’s meditation rock,” and the spot the islanders decided was were Morgan buried his treasure 400 years ago.

We spent the rest of the week exploring the island on foot and boat and sea, from the “Captain Morgain’s Head Rock” on the adjacent Santa Catalina island, to “Captain Morgan’s Ass,” a split mountain on the other side of Old Providence. On a boat tour of the entire island we gasped at the expansive 36 kilometer barrier reef on the East side of the island (the third largest, behind Austrailia and Belize).

I’m not sure how long this island will stay of the radar: we experienced some of the most elegant laziness we’ve been able to do. I’m sure (though) I do not know that I have de passion for de SCUBA, but it is probably for a diver what Bali or Indonesia was for surfers in the 90’s: untapped wet paradise. For us, ambling in the shallows and peering out into the hypnotic multi-colored expanse was enough to fill a week.

Oh, be thinking about where you’d like to meet us in Brazil. Vamos a hacer el Hechizo de Las Nalgas de Capitan Morgan, si no vienen!

Sunrise on east San Andres

Sunset on west Providencia

John and I trying to master a sticky coco! You can see him in the upper extremity of the palm. Never got the bastard. Have to face the fact I'm not a monkey.

Ray throwing spray.

The island was somehow stocked with the shweatiest American beer imaginable. Somehow Old Millwauke was more fitting than Corona for the offbeat, off-radar isle.

Candid glam shot

Captain Morgan's Head

Captain Morgan's Buttocks

this is our new friend Xanax the crab:)

My feets is a little soft.

final Colomian markynessa shot

Chao for now!

m y v

lunes festivo

2009-03-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

Today we do not work because it is the feast day of Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès. Santa Rafqa was a gal from Lebanon who caused a big stink in her family when she refused both of the two men her family chose from her and became a nun. During her time as a Maronite, she had a series of devastating illnesses. Paralysis, the degradation of her bones, the loss of one eye. All of which she suffered, attempting to know better the Passion of the Christ. She became the symbolic daughter of a suffering country.

But if you ask anyone here, it’s “Lunes Festivo.” No one outside of Priests' robes knows why. But this is our first break in a while, and we'll take anything we can get--especially given that we are scrambling to get our Brazillian visas as we traipse through bureaucracies in three countries. And though we have no pretty pictures to share since our time in Chile,we still do live in the “city of miracles” with a watercolor sky, green mountain majesty, and guada forests. Life is so successful here that impressive sapling become trees on the tops of abandoned buildings.

On a Lunes Festivo the whole city seems to turn in its concrete bed, it wakes up slowly, with a few red buses on the road . From our flat there is only the sound of birds, buses and “Buhoneros.” The latter are men who yell in a consistent, drolling moan that they're here and that they’re selling arepas or empanadas or pan de bono or whatever comes from the “horno,” oven, at home. On man yells “llego, llego” (I’m here I’m here), “subido,” (I’ve come up) “con pan de bono” (with my special bread). His croon is deep and almost frightening, like he were calling from an abyss, like a deep voiced Jessica in the bottom of a well.

What we gringos notice most is the deep quiet and small town solitude. Colombians rarely talk of boredom and often talk of el descanso, the rest. They work hard and they rest hard; there is no room for boredom, and concentrated laziness (hacer pereza) is a kind of art.

Nessa seems to do pretty well with it, but I get restless. In the states I could jump in the car take a book off the shelf and be amidst other lonely strangers. But here, one has to walk into boredom, into solitude, and tame the echoing gong—domore-domore-domore-do…

And so whether or not we dwell on a Rafqa, the Lebanese saint who chose a life of physical suffering, I am challenged to understand that life was designed around rest reflection, just as it was designed around work and evolution.

Que descansen (that you all rest),

m + v

Since we have no pretty pictures, I thought I’d include a picture of the best-looking Colombian money face (in fact it's the best looking money face I’ve ever seen). And if her net worth is only 5% of clever Ben, she sure beats him on looks. "Early to bed, early to rise, makes one healthy and wealthy" and too stressed out to enjoy a Lunes Festivo.

following the lights that lead us home

2009-02-16T14:29:00.001-08:00

On our last post I think we pretty well touched on the who, what, where, and how of our next position, but we neglected telling you all...why. Why another 2-3 year commitment in the sister-land? Why put off life around family and friends in the states, and why neglect setting roots at this pivotal time in our lives? We could be well into our 30's (ouch, another second thought) when this is all over.

The problem with the "why" question is that it leads to another and another and another--like looking at yourself in two mirrors and seeing your reflection curving upwards toward oblivion. But here are some of the reasons: first, we love what we know of the school we're going to. It provides positions for both of us that are ideal for this point in our lives. We also feel drawn to Brazil: another language, an immense, mysterious geography (it has the land mass of the continental U.S. minus California and Nevada); who knows what beauty and nonsense and wonder falls between the Amazon and the Atlantic.

Spiritually, we feel our creator Jefe has put us in a dynamic place to experience, to know and to share our lives with people that change our entire understanding of the world, and draw us into deeper reflections on what it is to be human, and what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself (and I often find far more to love in my neighbor than the latter). Call it God's will or personal evolution. Personally, if we move back now, we worry we might find ourselves on a level path. This is not bad, but we feel with the Psalmists a spirit of ascent--upward toward New Jerusalem, wherever that will be.

These are the things we will miss and are missing: the births of our best friends babies. We want to share (in a less electronic way) moments with gorgeous fledgling families of Justin and Anna, Steve and Ariel, Eugene and Jenny, Taylor and Kelly, Judy and Jeremy, Katie and Ben, Chris and Kim, Steve and Caroline. One note to all our beloved new parents: we are amazed and jealous of your beautiful little gals, save Chase and Kaison, but (as I was telling Justin), we can't wait to see another little penis show up on one of those fantastic new ultrasounds. Oh, and it doesn't take a new chubby little one to make us miss you. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

We miss our immediate families and close and distant friends, we miss having a spiritual community that we feel genuinely a part of. In fact, after groups in L.A., Santa Barbara, and San Diego, we feel like we have a phantom limb. The richness of the spiritual life available in all of California, and Colorado, and so forth, is something hope to find in Brazil.

We miss, in short, you. Sometimes we're broken and sad because of this and have to remind ourselves God's time is not ours, for now, to thank him for the internet, skype, and the prayerful knowledge that we are somehow together in spirit. We relish any email or blog message that tells us about your life.

For the record: We also miss Rubios, In-and-Out, and 3-4 glassy days at Swami's with friends.

We look forward to seeing you in June,

M and V