oi, oi, oi

from ecuador to brazil. from solo travel to companionship. from spanish to portugese. andean mountains to atlantic coast. a bit overwhelmed since my change in scenery. everything is exploded, bigger and louder and more. in sao paulo, a city in that in 20 years will be the largest in south america, massive amounts of people. at any time of day, sidewalks like veins, pulsing with people. the city has districts: the electronics district, the clothing district, and my favorite, the hardware store district, with tools displayed in cases like precious gems.

and now in salvador, bahia. the afro~brazillian capital. the home of capoeria and samba. a bona fide beach town, with sandals aplenty. all the women wearing tight tank tops, a profusion of cleavage and bellies, flat or round. right now the humidity is weighing down on me. i had forgotten humidity. it~s easiest just to sit in the open door cafes and drink cheap, strong caipirhnas, in all their limeliciousness, to avoid the agressive street vendors, to enjoy the coming and going rain, and to marvel at this friend beside me. for suddenly, here is someone, not a stranger. a connection with lots of others, with home. a connection with my past, but not my most recent past.

last night, in the strangest of dream experiences, i felt the hands of a man caressing my breasts. i knew this was a stranger, an old man in my hotel bed. i turned around and sat up. i looked at him in the dim light, lying beside me, , he was big with white slicked back hair, so real. confused and frightened, i cried out loud ´who are you?´and out of the dark body, a response ´carrie, it´s me, jake.´the familiarity of the voice, full of calm and concern, drew me back into reality, and in a blink the body was young and intimately recognizable.

i am still unsteady after this experience. later in the night, i woke myself up laughing in a dream (the second time this has happened on my trip). there is something unsettling about that blurring of the line between dream and awake, and i doubt that my questions can be answered with my good old reliable, science.

your opinion counts

here at times ten, we value your input. when important issues arise, you have a say.
 
in one week, my solo travel will end. i will meet up with my international traveling companion. said companion is also he whom i lay down next to in bed  most often in my real life. once again grappling with the proper moniker for this person, an older english woman at a hostel a few weeks back recommended the term, 'my bloke.' while i don't think that will fly in the states for numerous reasons, so far this title has sufficed, and it always gets a chuckle out of british travelers.
 
so, the issue is this - the aforementioned bloke is yet unawares of times ten. shall the song remain the same? 
at present, times ten has either shyed away from or been disinterested in topics of a tender nature. future topics are, obviously, unforeseen. in past discussions with senior/mentor bloggers, this serious issue has been raised in a cocktail conversation way. but now it takes on real concrete importance. times ten is looking for your opinion here. the comment button is live, and we've got operators standing by.
 
while you enter your important and influential thoughts, i will be mulling it over in a cloud forest for the next few days. the best place for clarity being the mist, of course. in the meantime, let your voice be heard.

ritchie ritual

in my few volunteer experiences abroad, i've found some common threads. one dreaded, one dear. the former being the washing of dishes. i've yet to come across a volunteer residence with a dishwasher. having a dishwasher would seem to indicate a lack of need for volunteers in fact. in truth, the washing of dishes is not always a drag. it just depends on the setting. in the jungle, with only a mere two meals a day, we all lingered around the table. i chose to keep my dirty empty plate planted right in front of me rather than push it away, a blantant announcement 'i'm done'. for this would mean i'm available for doing dishes. in my case jungle style dish-doing was a nasty affair: several eaters= several plates, several old, gross plastic prep bowls often with a) banana goo or b) sticky water flour mixture, and at least 2 pots/pans that were suspended over an open fire, resulting in a thick layer of black carbon. these pots are always done last, because it is impossible to keep yourself clean while washing them, and everything touched afterwards is sullied. still, i might not have tried to shrink back into the candlelight shadows as dishwashing time approacheth, but for the lack of running water. 2 plastic basins with rainwater. the first for 'cleaning' which i was loathe to plunge my hands into after the first few items emerged, and the second for 'rinsing.' yeah right. rene, the canadian in his mid 30's, the only male volunteer, was regularly the default dishwasher, with his girlfriend standing by for moral support. i think we all knew if we sat on our stumps long enough, he would save the day, he who was nicknamed 'el capitan,' he who also took responsibility for ensuring we had dry wood and he who rose first to stoke the morning fire. although i walked away many times from that table filled with relief, it was not without a sense of dishwashing guilt that grew larger as the days passed. but now i am doing my dishwashing penance, in a kitchen with very cold running water, a cd mp3 player, and a pleasant latin american hippy atmosphere complete with indigenous mandala mural on the wall. i'll wash dishes anytime i see one now - today it was a joy as with pensive strains of beethoven to accompany me and through the window rays of sun absolved me. forgive me my sins, i'm going to heaven after all.
 
the second activity is just as common as the first. the taking of tea. true, teatime is revered everywhere. but with the volunteer set it takes on greater importance. the making and drinking of tea, it is doing something in its own right. to put this in perspective, consider the volunteer's role as you would a temp job. in both, you have been brought in under the auspices that there is additional work to be done, and we need your able bodied help, pronto. but upon arrival, you wait for orders that may never arrive, or your critical task feels alot like sitting around doing nothing. ahh, but when you are making tea, well then you are doing something. you are warming yourself up in often draughty residences, taboot. the english, with crustless cucumber sandwiches in dainty hand,  the japanese in their gardens of traquility, they have nothing on volunteers the world over.

lost & found: epilogue

a while ago, i wrote of the loss of my brother's dear ironman watch. i did not find it later, though i never returned to the place where i'm sure it departed me. instead i went to a tiny watch store and bought a new, junky digital watch. i insisted to the young woman vendor that it must have an alarm - there was only one that fit the bill. i reluctantly purchased it, knowing it was a piece of crap. there were no directions to set anything, and though i figured out how to set the time, i could not get it to cooperate concerning the alarm. which means i could have bought one of the cooler, sturdier looking kid's models all along. to top it all off, the name of the watch was 'osama.' mmm, osama around my wrist, binding me with time. sure enough, not even a week later, on my long hike into the jungle to arrive at the lodge, the watch broke. just couldn't take the rainforest humidity. i've decided after 2 watches that i don't need one on this trip, and i've been free-wristing it ever since.
 
while retiring for the evening last night, i discovered that i could not find my black notebook which serves as a journal, a datebook, an addressbook, and repository of important numbers for credit cards, passport and airline flights. looking under the bed and the nightstand, i remembered one of my favorite passages from 100 years of solitude (the book i raced). the matriach, ursula,  is blind, and the author is describing how she functions in her home without ever letting on to the family that she can't see at all. she even finds a wretched daughter in law's (or is it grand-daughter in law, or great-granddaughter in law?) precious ring. her methodology is this: she knows that people often lose things in the places that are an anomoly from their regular routine, yet they only look in the common places of their routine. so she thinks of what happened that was unusual the day the ring was lost. in the same way i considered my notebook. and so this morning, just now, i walked right into the post office, and the smiling woman kindly  took it from the top of the pile where it was waiting for its owner and handed it over. thanks, ursula 

visions of grandeur

my new volunteering gig is in a town in the andes. cotacachi is a world trendsetter: the province has established an environmental charter for itself that supposedly is leading edge, to protect it's precious natural resources which include 2 of the world's 25 'biodiversity hotspots.' i came to the cotocachi ecology center to help out, but more to learn how they were going about putting the charter into action. 'cause it's this type of action that i want to study in school.
 
so i arrived to the centre, which is composed of a few bedrooms, an office, a kitchen, a cafe/fair trade shop, and a walled garden area which is currently in disrepair. at present there are 3 volunteers: dorit, a german woman in her early 30's (?) who is pretty in an anne of green gables way; leny, a younger woman who seems cold but i just attribute it to that matter of fact german attitude; and scott, a younger austrailian guy that is incredibly enthusiastic in general. each of them have been here, or will be here for at least 6 months. wow. when i arrived, i was filled with daydreams of coming back next summer, to do my required school intership. but after spending a long quiet day 'working' in the cafe, i wondered. what am i doing here? all the other volunteers are doing things, and i could be too- i could just say, hey, i'm going to start designing that greywater system for the garden you were wishing for. what i've learned is that all the 'sucessful' expats are creative, d-i-y weirdos. there is a long, narrow, swaying suspension bridge made of seemingly weak bamboo over a wide expanse of rushing river and through cloudforest canopy that i must cross to get there. baby steps, i tell myself. but i wonder, if i will ever get to the other side, or just come to a standstill in the middle of the bridge somewhere.
 
 

machete mama

Observations after ten days in the jungle
¬ beautiful places appear even more magnificent at night
¬ even the most lax americans have a greater sense of punctuality than indigeous ecuadorians
¬ riding in the back of a cargo truck on a dirt road is an incredibly noisy and bone jarring affair to be avoided at all costs
¬ mosquito nets should be more widely used, as to increase the worldwide sense of sleeping within a chrysalis, with the result of more restful nights and vivid dreams
¬ ketchup is a positive addition to virtually any dish, and adds a welcome western edge to the monotony of dishes containing only root vegetables
¬ with great determination, one can pretend away the taste and observation of canned tuna in root-based entrees and overcome a lifelong nauseating aversion to said tuna
¬the proper treatment for a poisonous snakebite is as follows:
1. apply four tourniquets with great rapidity, begining closest to the area of the bite and ascending the affected limb until the flow of blood to the major artery closest the trunk of the body has been restricted.
2. with a sharp knife, make two incisions - one on each of the bite marks, so as to increase the expulsion of the venom tainted blood
3. inject .75mL of anti-venom serum in the affected area
4. inject an additional .75mL of anti-venom serum in the gluteus maximus
5. call an ambulance and get to a hospital as quickly as possible
- under no circumstances shall the victim run or get excited, as this increases the rate of blood circulation, quickening the transit of venom to the heart
- there are two kinds of snake venom: neuro-toxin and pulmonary-cardio-toxin, depending on the species of snake. some snakes have both - if you are bitten by this type of snake, you are most likely a goner.
¬the traditional american meal schedule has one meal too many
¬the jungle has remedies to many common ailments, including but not limited to sinusitis, headaches, and asthma
¬ an effective way to repel mosquitos is to poke a hole in a termite nest, collect some termtites on your hand, smash the termites up with both hands, and smear the resultant on exposed areas of the body.
¬rubber boots can be quite stylish
¬carrie h.´s unique laziness charateristics contribute to a very dirty lifestyle, in which she is loathe to do any hand laundering of clothing, which quickly leads to an umkept appearance and unpleasant odor.(note to keep this in mind when considering future long term expeditions in areas without running water)
¬insects do indeed rule the world

a photo finish

i had a mission. finish my book in 1 week. this absolute goal in place because there is a book exchange in baños. i was a great start out of the gate. monday and over 120 pages read, over a quarter of the book. mid-week, moving along steadily, a good pace. but this girl needed blinders like a racehorse, the waterfalls interrupting, the scent of the city distracting the hot baths retarding. so when the final push came today, there were at least 80 pages left, with a meeting with the jungle volunteer organizer, required parental emailing to allay jungle-offspring anxiety, and a self promised final hike between me and the 10:30 deadline. over dinner a page a minute gallop was established. words and unfortunate character names that repeated with each generation swirled and made me delirious with plot lines of fantasy parchments and bird breeding. in a last burst i rushed to the cafe, open book in hand, much to the amusement of the locals on the streetcorner (they knew not to urge me on). with relief i saw the lights still on and the be-glassesed trader at his seat - the judge had not left the podium. i glided over the finished-wood finish line to turn in my weeks´contestant and pick up my new used book.

(the crowd goes wild)

dear

for quite a while, some years now, at least, i have been experience things of a grand nature through the quiet act of letterheadwriting. this happens on hikes through redwoods and grand canyons, or on foriegn treks, or sometimes even in board meetings. it consists of my writing a letter of my experiences while simultaneously experiencing them. the letter may be a to friend, or to family (as was often the case when i first arrived in cali and wanted to let them know how blown away and pleased i was with it all). the actual pen to paper rarely happens, and that´s fine with me. to write a letter that has already been written is tedious, and it never has the life of the original.

separate but similar in some ways to the letterheadwriting is the pure imagination of a person being there with you. for example, just walking through the streets with your imaginary friend by your side, laughing along with you at the hijinx you and your comrade would be certain to find hilarious.

i´ve been thinking on these activities lately. wondering whether they are detrimental. it´s natural (¿) to desire to share experiences with others. and since the l.h.w. has been going on for a long time, i´ve rationalized it to be an understanding of the way i process all that i may see and do and feel. but the latter, therin lies the greater danger, methinks. solo traveling means solo. when removed, it seems like a feeling of reliance when i have a phantom lover by my side. perhaps it is just a manifestation of missing, but it doesn´t have any of the melancholy of missing. though they bring me joy when i am on my own, i would like to resolve to say hello to those imaginary friends when they cross my path, and keep on walking. hands in pockets instead of hand in hand. very tough.

while hiking today, i discovered unexpectedly a solution to the question that has plagued me since beginning a blog. as to whom, or for whom am i writing? the answer lies somewhere inbetween l.h.w. and a white screen.