Autoestima

To view the clips of students' responses about self-esteem, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CpY7aLfo7k.

Tell the World How to Change

To learn more about the Millenium Development Goals, go to: youthink.worldbank.org/issues.

People say the scum of the earth live in this village. How can we call another human being scum, as though one could step on another like a boot on trodden ground, to crush another as easily? Meanwhile, human beings, no matter their label, breathe and feel and struggle alike.
I believe this addresses the heart of what is at stake in the Millenium Development Goals: human dignity. How much do we bestow by respecting one another and how much do we cheat one another? I thought dignity was a possession both innate and self-determined. But if a human being defines his or her worth according to a community, as in the developing world, what responsibility has the world community in bestowing such dignity?
I live in Belize as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I stand out as a gringa. What I represent upon sight has already been determined for me by the world. The approach of Peace Corps isn't immediately to gloss it over and make everything shiny and clean and right. How can we pare away the layers of perception we have of one another to appreciate the basics?
We live side by side. We see that we can be friends, and we teach each other. In so doing, we claim our own dignity as human beings and support the dignity of others and the larger community.
What is the significance of human dignity in the world today? I know a young Nicaraguan family here of which the mother and father work ten hours six days a week, their five-year-old daughter caring for her younger brother all day. They cannot afford to send her to school. Each parent makes only $2.25 per hour on a banana farm, while food is priced congruously to that in the United States. A pound of tomatoes costs $4.50; a box of cereal, $8.75; a jar of peanut butter, $5.25; a papaya, $3.00; a head of lettuce, $7.00. Consequently, people eat rice and beans everyday in Belize. This is basic.
So, how does this family, hard-working, trustworthy, and upstanding, conceive of justice and equality among human beings? How do they view me and conceive of the contrasts between people in this world when chancing to glimpse even one of my possessions, such as a Chaco sandal? Or a headlamp, which would be quite useful for late night trips to the latrine? Or a mosquito net, which was issued to me and which they cannot even find to buy here?
Poverty and wealth are relative to some extent, and happiness does not reside in riches. But where is the line defining the basics and human dignity from the whole of resources humankind utilizes and enjoys?
As a health education volunteer, I coordinated a self-esteem activity for several groups of primary schoolchildren in Belize because I believe human dignity is central to overall health and well being. The children didn't know the word in English, Spanish, or Kriol. I will post clips of a few responses when I find a CD Rom that actually works.

Tools and Toys

Part of settling into life as a Peace Corps Volunteer is finding activities that help other people and that also make you happy. Scott has been successful at this by acquiring all the tools and materials for building the climbing wall in the backyard and building it as quickly as possible. I have noticed that each child learns a different lesson from the wall, whether it's simply confidence or perseverance or even teamwork. I admire the determination and ingenuity projects like this require.

Yesterday our Brazilian comrades completed a final project, in which we got to take part, of fashioning a school playground out of tree trunks hewn from the jungle into an obstacle course of steps and high bars. Scott helped dig holes and set posts. It was their final project before leaving Bella Vista this morning for farflung parts of the world. They may soon be living in Namibia, for example, and with their contagious enthusiasm for world development and for cultivating and conserving the earth's resources, both human and material, they will surely continue to make a remarkable difference in people's lives. They will be sorely missed here.

We only hope to continue the ongoing projects they have begun and to attain some measure of their positive energy.

Here Scott is all smiles with his fancy new drill from the States. Thanks, Dad! He says.

And below are pictures of our trip to Placencia several weeks ago to purchase a saw, another important toy-I mean, tool- for the project.

More pics of the wall

Belize Climbing

Here are some pics of April and I enjoying the climbing wall I built. I originally built a too-wide hand crack from wood that our host family had intended to use for firewood; I will probably build another one out of wood that won’t break in 3 days. The new wall is missing a couple of boards because when I went to the lumber yard I didn’t have quite enough cash on me for all that I required (not that wood is expensive, not including tools, the entire thing thus far only cost me $140 US), the gaps do provide big jugs for the kids. I made the headwall adjustable, it can be parallel with the slightly less than 45 degree section, or vertical like shown. I made the wall so that it could be disassembled into three main pieces for when we move into our own home in the middle of December. Unfortunately the wood is heavy because it is fresh and they don’t cure it like in the states, hopefully I’ll be able to get a few people to help me take it apart and move the pieces.

The town we live in, Bella Vista, is a community of 3000 with mostly Spanish speaking Immigrants from near-by Central American countries, mostly Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and a few hundred Belizean Mayans. The majority of people moved here to work at the nearby banana and orange plantations, shrimp farms and the nearby tourist town of Placencia. The town is relatively healthy, people brush their teeth, get three meals a day, and most have running water, but only for an hour in the mornings. The main health problems we’ve seen here are the ones typical in the US, kids eat too much candy and everyone drinks too much Coke, and the food is very salty therefore many of the adults have diabetes and hyper tension. We are supposed to work on projects that the Village Council and the local health clinic need help with, but neither act very excited for us to do anything. We have been working with a couple of Brazilians that have been here for a couple of months for an NGO called Humana. They are creating a community garden, building a playground and teaching adults to speak and read English, and some basic nutrition classes, we plan to continue with several of their projects and find a few of our own.

Peace Corps takes good care of us, Belize is an expensive country and although we don’t feel rich we definitely won’t be starving. Belize has a rather good selection of American foods, although they can be somewhat expensive for our living allowance, we haven’t had to miss out like most of the Peace Corps’ folk spread out around the world. Although I really was looking forward to all the coastal cliffs in Jamaica I’m really glad that we came here, Belize is much safer, there are a lot more options for traveling to other countries, I could actually buy all the hardware and wood for a climbing wall, Mennonites are spread out all over the country and make the best cookies which are sold in stores throughout Belize, we get to learn Spanish so when I get to Tucson I’ll have one nice thing on my resume, siestas aren’t looked down-on in our town, we are 30 minutes from Placencia and a couple of hours from a sick limestone cave that has a river flowing out of it (the water is sometimes deep enough for a little bit of DWS), we have bikes and even a fun trail that connects our community to one that a fellow PC volunteer lives in, and we have a decent variety of American foods. There are definitely things I miss about the states, most notably climbing but the rest of the things I miss will be there in two years, and hopefully I’ll still have the finger strength to come back strong into climbing.

P.S. Do you have any good training tips or routines that will keep me injury/boredom free for the next two years???

A Future

We're happily settling in. The Sotos are a wonderful family and treat us affectionately and openly. They seem to be as interested in us as we are in them. They truly care about us!

Ruth Soto is a very admirable woman. She works from sunup to long after sundown. She cares for her four children, cooks, cleans with diligence with the little water available on any given day, runs the little store they have connected to the front of the house, and maintains her household with calm dignity and authority, and with apparent ease.

I have only seen her sit to mend clothes. She works tirelessly, except for the intermittent, nagging migraines and an occasional toothache or backache. She taught me how to wash the dishes, after I insisted, with only a few handfuls of water at a time. She wants to learn to cook with more variety and healthier with the local resources, which have been few lately with the flooding and the bridge washing out. Ruth also wants to learn English and Maya Kekchi, how to use a computer, and more about health topics, especially nutrition. Her father could only afford three years of education for her back in Guatemala, but she has quite a vision for her children.

Ruth is an ideal host mom and in-country friend.

Upon her request, we have begun English and Spanish lessons together at the kitchen table, when time permits. It allows for cultural exchange and benefits both of us. She has requested I teach a nutrition class for her women's group at the church that occupies the corner opposite their house. Her husband Demetrio is a kind of pastor and plays guitar and sings. Almost every night of the week, we can hear familiar Christian songs being sung with much heart and at the top of people's lungs.

Ruth says that she and Demetrio work so hard because they want to raise their children right and want them to have more than they have had here. Ruth and Demetrio want to give their children their best, so that they can be educated, good people. As parents, they want their children to understand the sacrifices that are made for their futures.

Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

Excerpts from a lovely book my Brazilian friend lent me, set in Zimbabwe during its social upheaval, by J. Nozipo Maraire:

There coexists the timeless poverty of the villages, the fear, the old prejudices, the familiar injustices, and the eternal existence of evil. These things have not changed; my parents saw them before me and you shall observe them after me.

But I have loved, and surely this is enough. It is to have tasted from the cup of milk and honey.

Courage is, after all, to take great risks--and in loving, I have known the pain of risk and loss.

I no longer see the world as ready-made, requiring only that we occupy our own little spot and do unto others as we would have them do unto us as they taught me at the Sunday School in Chakowa Mission...I am coming to understand that this world is as yet unfinished. There is no Eden here save the one we create for one another. Our mission is to complete and preserve the work that was started.

It can be terribly difficult at times to be at peace within. I wanted a smooth life. But I have learned that the furrows and ridges of inconsistency and pain are the very contours that give life a meaningful form.

And, from Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love:

The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving, self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever!!!

That's right. Kroppf's Bakery, Belize: absolutely the best chocolate chip cookies we've ever tasted. So far in training, Scott has lost 12 pounds, and I've lost 7. About the cookies, we don't know if this is our conclusion simply because we're hungry, or because they are truly light, crispy yet slightly chewy, cinnamon-y sweet morsels of perfection. No offense, Mom.

Muy Amable

Meet our new host family! Demetrio y Ruth Soto, y Brian, Ronald, Ludin, y Keylin. They are so sweet and caring. They have been hosting our fellow trainee Alejandro and are graciously accepting us for a couple of months after he moves to nearby Trio. They are from Guatemala. These pictures are from dinner preparations one night during which Ruth taught us to make tortillas, Scott cut chicken from the bone for fajitas, and I taught Ruth to bake peanut butter cookies. It was exhausting and hot, but a lot of fun.

Which Brazil?

These are our Brazilian friends, Denise and Bruno. As part of a different humanitarian organization, they are living in Bella Vista for 4 months and are involved currently with health projects similar to what we hope to have. They also travel to several communities near the banana farms, promote HIV/AIDS prevention, teach English classes, and lead meetings about organic gardening in this area. They hope the gardens families begin to plant in Bella Vista will not only improve nutritional intake, but benefit budgets as well. With the price of food similar to America, it is nearly impossible to make ends meet on the amount of money a person makes working on the farms. Most workers make $2.50 an hour, which is $1.25 US.

A gardening resource for Peace Corps Volunteers is a book called How to Grow More Vegetables and is a result of the research and practices of an organization based in California called Ecology Action and its program GROW BIOINTENSIVE. They propose working toward sustainability by returning to small-scale farming to meet each person’s caloric needs, taking care in turn to grow crops in a way that replenishes nutrients in the soil up to 99%. The GROW BIOINTENSIVE mini-farm model is proportioned as 60% grains and other high-carbon crops, 30% high-calorie root crops, and 10% vegetable crops (Jeavons 28). A percentage of the vegetable crops can be grown as income crops. A living project called Biosphere II, which used Ecology Action agricultural techniques, proved that a complete year’s diet for one person could be raised on the equivalent of 3,403 square feet (Jeavons 30). By contrast, commercial agriculture uses 15,000 to 30,000 square feet to produce all the food for one person for one year, 16,000 in the developing world. These Biointensive methods are used as nutrition intervention in Mexico and are spreading throughout Latin America.

We hope to build on the interest in family gardens here in the coming months.

Jeavons, John. How to Grow More Vegetables* (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) *than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine: A Primer on the Life-Giving Sustainable GROW BIOINTENSIVE Method of Organic Horticulture. Ecology Action of the Midpeninsula. Willits, California: 2002.

http://www.growbiointensive.org/

A Beautiful View

This is a rad picture of Bella Vista, the “beautiful view.” Scott took it when we were walking after language class late one afternoon, and I took a similar shot that did not turn out nearly as rad. We had reached the edge of town to the northeast, toward the sea, and a storm was brewing. The clouds were moving east to west, which can throw someone off when that someone is from the west coast of the United States.

I am infatuated with the clouds above this country. They never sit still. They shift, sifting light, and heave, and toss themselves into great heaps of color and robustness; they float softly, then swiftly, darkening and sweeping the sky with curtains of rain.

It is the rainy season, and this week has been proof of that. Our moods have mirrored the weather in some ways. It rains torrentially like a good thunderstorm in Alabama, sudden and surprising, except that the surprising thing to us is it continues at that rate for hours on end. A thousand tiny hammer-blows on the zinc roof. We have to repeat ourselves to hear each other over the roar. The improvised bridge between the sites in the south and Belmopan flooded, I suppose a fairly common occurrence considering it consists of a pile of stones and planks a scant 5 feet above the river at its normal level.

Despite it all, our training team, a group of 11 assigned to promote Healthy Communities, has built a latrine together and planted gardens at three different sites. The other two community training sites are Maya Mopan-speaking and are called Maya Mopan and San Roman. A helter-skelter fence, made of random boards, some wire screening, a gate, and the rusted hood of a car from the dump, guards our garden from the many chickens that peck and scratch about as they please.

Healthy Communities training is led by the world’s best cheerleader, Jamie. As Peace Corps Volunteers, one of the most important roles we can fill is that of cheerleader, or change agent, or advocate, in our communities. Jamie is pictured below wearing the t-shirt proclaiming, “Everything is possible,” which is indicative of the way she lives her life. She is sort of my hero. She is just too happy to be a realistic role model for my personality, but I admire her very much and would like to emulate at least some aspects of her character and sunny disposition. She describes herself as having a big heart for people, which is true. Somehow she is able to overlook all of the annoying, petty obstacles that stand in the way of helping and encouraging people, without being naive, and in the end, community goals are realized. And she smiles all the way through it.

La Cueva

One afternoon last weekend, we had welcome relief from the adjustment to the oppressive heat and climate. A friend of our host family took us to property owned by relatives several miles distant from Bella Vista, toward the mountains and the rocky cliffs covered in thick jungle in view to the west. We were to visit a cave. Una cueva.

Scott and I piled into a little pickup with four others, all men. As dark clouds gathered over the mountains, one man decided to wait for another day and hopped out. There is not a paved road where we live, except for the Southern Highway, which slices through the outer edge of town and separates the bulk of the town from the banana farms. We took this highway west at surprising speed, the wind in our faces and a storm ahead.

Large drops fell during most of our drive along a heavily rutted dirt road, but hesitated long enough for us to walk among towering cornstalks at the roadside to pick a few cobs to roast over the fire at the farm hut. A young woman lives at the hut with her husband, who is a kind of caretaker. She cooks and paints. She is from Guatemala, and she has no legs. I am not sure if she was born this way, or if she had a terrible accident. Either way, she has one of the brightest dispositions I have seen and is more optimistic than I ever could imagine being in her position. When we met her, she proudly showed us a stack of paintings of different scenes on cardboard, each one featuring a smiling woman with beautiful legs.

It was pleasant in the thatch-roofed hut, with an open fire over which to cook (the woman was pressing tortillas to bake over the fire when we arrived). It was in the middle of an open meadow, surrounded by lush vegetation, a stream on one side, neat gardens, many chickens, and a pheasant or two. They grow tomatoes, chile dulce, green beans, beans, squash, pumpkins, okra, and cucumbers.

The nearest rocky mound was roughly a half-mile away, and our friends led us up to the entrance to the cave, cutting vines and undergrowth with their machetes on the path. The holds on the rock face were awesome. Very nice pockets. Scott kept saying, “Sweet,” and gesturing to the others about climbing. They just smiled, crazy Americans.

Ducking into the cave’s mouth at waist level, dozens of bats whizzed past my head. I could feel the wind of their passing on my ears, their tiny wings seeming to brush my forehead. Scott took many pictures, one of a huge beetle the length of his finger and twice as thick. The following pictures scarcely capture the vast interior of the cave or the intricacy of its features. Some of them were like gigantic curtains and enormous chandeliers in an underground castle. Our friends had walked for more than an hour and a half straight into it on a previous occasion. The rooms varied little in depth, and the air was dank with the smell of bats and was exceedingly humid. We also saw an example of broken pottery from a Mayan vessel for carrying water.

Out of Site

Our community-based training site is a village called Bella Vista, which is largely Spanish-speaking. We have begun settling into our host home and village; our host family is very amiable and was one of the first to live in this location, near sprawling banana farms. Most families are originally from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. We will stay in Bella Vista for the following two months for training and will have little Internet access. Most Fridays we will attend additional classes in the capital, Belmopan.

Even so, people can write us sweet letters and send awesome packages at any time to:

P. O. Box 492
Belmopan, Belize
CENTRAL AMERICA

There is Another Melting Pot

First of all, we really feel like we are melting in this picture. Secondly, it is paradise. It is dreadfully hot, but we see so many people, girls in school uniforms, policemen, young men with tobogans on their heads, walking along as if it is not hot that we pretend like we do not notice the heat either. That is, until we crowd onto the school buses that are used for public transport here and gulp from the rapidly cooling water bottles provided by Peace Corps staff.

While we have noticed how people carry themselves in this climate and how they dress, the most striking of my first impressions is the different, sometimes unexpected, words that come out of their mouths. Belizeans in general speak at least four or five languages, including English, which is taught in schools and is the official language, Kriol, Spanish, Garifuna, from a people group exiled from St. Vincent, and two Mayan languages called Kekchi and Mopan. Where we have begun training in the capital of Belmopan, the most commonly spoken language in public is Kriol. I am tempted to say, "Buenos dias," when I see a woman who looks like one of the women I knew in Mexico, but she may speak Mayan and is only in the capital to sell produce at the market. Or she may speak Spanish but greet people on the street with, "Maanin," like everyone else.

Kriol is such a lively language. We are receiving a handful of lessons in survival Kriol. It is a lot of fun. Recently, a dictionary was published to standardize the spellings of Kriol words, but largely it is not written, only spoken. One of the instructors who lived in Jamaica before coming here urges us to "step up to it," or "stand up and put some rhythm in it." It is as if it takes all of your powers of expression and body language to do it justice. The following is a poem/song in Kriol on behalf of Peace Corps Belize. You probably need to sound it out audibly to recognize the words.

Gud maanin

We da pees koar

We kom da bileez

Wid wahn speshal goal

Fi shayr wi talens;

Shoa wee da gud nayba

Ahn fu enjai unu food

An unu eksaitin kolcha

Over the weekend, our training group took a field trip to Dangriga for an introduction to Garifuna or Garinagu culture. We visited a museum, where we were told the stories of their ancestors and their combined heritage from Africa, represented by a group that was shipwrecked on St. Vincent and escaped slavery at that time, and from the Orinoco Basin of South America. We saw drum-making and cassava bread-baking demonstrations. We ate snapper in coconut milk soup, bones and eyes and all, and plaintain dumplings. The day was finished with a presentation of traditional dancing, as seen above.

I Can't Sleep

Thus ends the first day we are a part of the Peace Corps family: my mind simply will not stop. For once it is not due to stress or anxiety. Quite simply, I am thrilled and finally can allow myself to feel so. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! That is what I used to tell Scott when we first got together. Cheesy, I know, but I am so happy and literally cannot stop smiling and thinking about how lucky we are to be going to Belize and to be going together. It is proving to be worth the wait, already.

Our Staging Director, in charge of our general introduction to the organization, told our training group of forty-five people we hit the jackpot in the Peace Corps lottery with Belize. Tropical paradise. The scary bugs are there only so we will have stories to tell people back at home.

We were prompted to create lists related to our anxieties and aspirations, with illustrations. I drew a scorpion at the request of someone in my group. Scott, in a different group, wrote about being able to use what he learned in school. Other examples were language learning, outhouses, malaria, host families, lack of vegetables, usefulness, the job, playing with children, gender roles, creative projects, acceptance, integration.

We talked about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how the bottom of the pyramid consists of the most basic needs, which is the survival level and the place at which most people the Peace Corps serve exist. From there, in general, people graduate to increasing levels of awareness. Once the basic need for food is satisfied, people in turn try to satisfy the need for security, like shelter and bodily protection, and then the need for love, or belonging and becoming a part of a community, and then the need for dignity and self-respect, relating to the ego.

Finally, when all of the other needs have been satisfied, people can attain the top triangle of the pyramid which is self-actualization. The director asserted that each of us had reached the point of self-actualization by persevering in the process of becoming a Peace Corps trainee, but that each of us in the next few weeks would probably spring up and down among the levels of the hierarchy of needs. Reasons for this may vary from getting enough food to eat in a country unfamiliar to us to beginning meaningful and lasting personal relationships with hosts very different from us in custom and manner.

These are ideas and realities I discussed in college with classmates and experienced to some degree while working for a nonprofit and traveling a bit overseas. Even so, it is exciting to think of living with them as a reality in daily life again. Change can be exhilarating, as can challenges, especially when bolstered by lofty ideals. I can understand what our director means by this term self-actualization in that something as seemingly intangible and ethereal as reaching outside oneself to help someone else can be realized by something as simple as committing to learn and share. How elemental is that! It is something we did in kindergarten, learning and sharing with others, and yet it can contribute to the betterment of societies. I also can understand that an important facet of self-actualization is that it makes you feel good, and not just about yourself.

No Good at Good-bye

This is one of the first pictures I saw of Logan, Utah, where I have lived with Scott for almost two years now. It does not capture the open views of Cache Valley and surrounding mountains, but still I like it. These are simple, uncluttered days for us, so we have had time to reflect and prepare for Peace Corps. This week we have been taking care of last minute details for our upcoming itinerant life and seeing friends when we can.


The picture is of Scott and Andrew, the son of our friends Scott and Liz, and it was taken near Brian's house. Brian is the good friend with whom we are staying until we leave for Miami. I am thankful we have friends like him. I have learned a lot from Brian; I think Scott and I both have.


Brian lives in a rustic house north of Logan, where there are more hayfields and open land compared to where we lived this year a block from downtown. It is refreshing and peaceful. After Scott sold our car on Friday and our remaining unclaimed possessions were littering Brian's driveway, Brian and I talked about how attached people can become to material things. I felt it was freeing to be rid of so much stuff, but the process was somewhat awkward and humiliating, finding people who wanted some of our stuff and then seeing in the end what was left on the ground like trash. How can we be strapped to so many things?


Brian told me about meeting a guy who saw his house and asked about his ambitions, if he eventually wanted one of the sprawling houses of the well-to-do on the mountainside. Brian said no without hesitation. I guess the guy thought that having excess wealth would guarantee him friends and an exciting life. I agreed with Brian that it is best to have only what you need and to be content with fewer things rather than always wanting more. It seems like such a fair and sustainable way to live. I am glad we are going to a different world, in a sense, with Peace Corps, where money is not so handy and priorities are sometimes upside down to the American way of accumulating extraneous possessions.

Brian is unassuming and has a generous personality, not only in giving of material things like sharing his house with us, but in his evenness of temper. I think he could get along with almost anyone. He can see other people's points-of-view, or at least agrees to try. At the same time, he is ready to admit his limitations as a human being. We all have limitations, but I do not think he has very many. Brian was a very strong climber before I knew what climbing was. This is a picture of Brian climbing a 5.13b route in Logan Canyon, and below is a picture of Brian mountain biking with us in Green Canyon.

One week to go!

We have one more week before leaving for Belize, via Miami. The last two weeks have been filled with fun and adventure. Instead of describing everything I'll just make a list in chronological order starting on July 30:

July 30

We cleaned our apartment out and left for California to see my parents (with a car load of crap we wanted to keep) at 10:30 pm.

July 31

Slept in the car around 4 am in central Nevada.

Met my parents in Nice California around 3 pm, hung out and threw the frisbee after dinner.

Aug 1

Spent a whole day near Mendocino California kayaking in a bay that has sea caves and blow-holes and lots of seaweed and divers getting Abalone and April even saw a seal!

Ate dinner at a fancy 'organic' restaraunt and drove back to Nice.

Aug 2

Went wine sampling nearby my parents hotel and even bought two cases of Rose' wine that is delicious and only cost $26 for both cases (the wine was made by the winery we went to for another company that was targeted towards the gay community, it is called Butch Blush and has a half naked farm-boy on the label).

Unpacked our car and loaded down my parents van.

Said goodbye to my parents.

Aug 3

Left Nice and headed towards the Bay Area, we got ourselves a really nice campsite at China Camp State Park near San Rafael Ca which is about 15 miles north of San Francisco.

The camping area had really nice mountain bike trails, so April and I rode them on our single-speeds, mine is a mountain bike but hers is a road bike. It was a lot of fun passing guys on $6,000 (I mean that) bikes with my thrift store find, some people spend too much time at work and not enough on their bicycles.

Had a good campfire and smores.

Aug 4

Packed up our camping gear and drove to San Francisco. We parked near the warf and rode our bikes down the Embarcadero, up Market Street and to the Castro District. We walke around the Castro and stopped at a specialty cheese store that I recognized from the television show 30 Days where they sent a middle American boy that believes homosexuality is a sin to live with a gay man in Castro, they had the guy get a job at the cheese store we went to. Next we went to Hot Cookie to get some of the best cookies I have ever had.

We rode our bikes to Haight Street and checked our Email at a coffee shop that had free wifi and I looked for a pair of adidas I wanted at a few of the trendy shoe stores there. Then we went back to the car and drove to Berkeley so I could check out the guide book for Lover's Leap near Tahoe at the Marmot Mountain Works.

We drove to Angel's Camp and stayed at a Hotel sort of thing that my dad got us for the night, with intentions to go to Yosemite the next day.

Aug 5

We got up late and dinked around the hotel room till check out time and decided to forgo Yosemite and headed towards Tahoe.

We stopped for lunch at Kirkwood ski resort and payed too much for lunch meat and cheese, but it was a good place to stop.

We stopped in Tahoe for some supplies and went to Lover's Leap to set up camp.

Lover's leap is gorgeous, a quiet campground with wonderful rock.

Aug 6

We got up early so we could try to do two big routes in one day, but after the first route we decided to hang out at this single pitch crag that had some really fun crack climbs that we could top rope after climbing this fun 5.9.

we arrived back at camp around 4 pm ate some food and went down to the river and sat in the cold waters, it felt great.

Aug 7

We got up packed up our camping gear, ate breakfast and headed back up to the wall to do Corrugation Corner, probably the best 5.7 anywhere! We decided to do the first pitch of Travellers Buttress to get us up onto the ledge that Corrugation Corner starts on, it was a fun but kinda burly 5.8. We climbed Corrugation Corner in three long pitches and hiked down to the car and headed towards Utah.

We stopped in Tahoe to eat some dinner and then drove straight through with stops for bathrooms and gas arriving back in Logan around 7 am on Aug 8.

So now we are crashing at my friend Brians house for the week. We sold our car on Friday, I posted it on Craigslist and had it sold within 3 hours of the post. I should have asked for more, but I thought we would have a hard time getting what we owed on it, but I under-valued what a Honda Civic in crappy condition would sell for. So now we both still have our bikes to get around town, no big debt to worry about and just a few bags of food and the two bags each we are taking to Belize.

here are some pictures we took on our trip:

So Sad

We drove up to Idaho, about 20 miles from here, to drop our adorable cats off with a family that lives on a farm up there. We were excited to give them to a family that we thought loved animals, so much so that we decided to drive up instead of letting April's coworker take them up there. The family is April's coworkers sister. They have two small children, a couple of dogs and 5 or so cats and the live on a rural highway that people haul ass on. We left sad, April crying and me feeling like a jerk. The family must like cats, but I think they felt as though they were doing a good deed, but could really care less about them. The cats they already have are really small, and 4 of them are half grown kittens and the other is there mother. I believe that if you care about pets you will get them fixed, so that was one big reason we felt so terrible about leaving them there. The Mother of the family said that they go through a lot of cats because they chase mice from out of the adjacent wheat field onto the highway, so another great reason for this horrible feeling. Also the mother cat was very upset about these two new cats showing up she even chased our girl cat around the house within 5 minutes of us showing up, I guess our cat which is twice the size was too unsettled to attempt to stand up for herself because she was scared out of her mind. I really just hope that this decision was better than taking them to the pound where they would likely have been put down, or end up at an old ladies house with a huge heart and tiny house. After we get back from California I think we might go up and check to see if the cats have settled into this new life and if not try to find a different home for them, if you know anyone that loves cats and hasn't already overloaded their household with animals please let us know so we can 'rescue' them.

Also I would encourage people to take a stand against the rascist/right wing propaganda machine that is Fox News. People that scream hate speach like Bill O'Reilly are holding this country back. To see Nas talk about this subject go here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/27867/the-colbert-report-wed-jul-23-2008

Also to learn more about this one-sided 'news' network go to http://colorofchange.org/

New Games

Today we had some input on what to bring to Belize with us, one item was soccer cleats. So I looked around the internet to see what soccer boots would cost and decided to check out a local outdoor store called Al's which had a pair of leather shoes marked down from $60 to $20 that fit me, so now I have a pair of bright white soccer cleats with bright red swooshes that represents that they are a devil brand. I also picked up a really nice looking soccer ball and shin guards from Ross for much less than suggested retail. I figured April would get upset if only the boys were playing soccer so I headed back to Al's and convinced the sales guy that the same model but for females should be marked down as low as mine were, so now April also has some fancy footballer boots.

April got to help watch kids at a summer program today so after she played with the children I made her play with me, by kicking the soccer ball around a local school field which was very fun but hot. Hopefully by the time we get to Belize we'll be able to kick the ball straight, and in the direction we intend. We also played with our new 200 gram frisbee which is nice when it is windy and easier to chuck for long distances. So maybe I'll get off my ass a touch more often before leaving.

Waiting and waiting

So far I've sold about $1600 worth of stuff on Ebay, some stuff went for far less than I thought it would and some went for more than I actually paid for it, so goes the free market. I also went to SLC for the weekend with April. We went for two reasons first to see the Band of Annuals play with Hello Kavita and Will Sartain, and to sell my fixed gear bike. The show was great although everywhere on the web claimed the show started at 9, but as most SLC'ers know the Urban Lounge doesn't start shows till 1030, so we got to bed around 2 that night. We stayed with our friend Jon that we both met when we were living in Yosemite, the same time that we met each other. Sunday Jon talked April into hiking up to Blanche Lake up Big Cottonwood Canyon, so I got to hike the 3 miles with them so Jon and I could climb Sundial Peak. Some might think that because I ride bicycles around and climb 3 days a week I would have a touch of fitness, but this was proven wrong as I crawled up the trail Sunday. I did make it, but I definitely need to be much fitter which might be why April says I have to run with her in Belize. Monday April and I had an interview with our Peace Corps Belize training official, she was really nice and the 'interview' was for her to establish what needs we have for training so we don't waste each others time going over redundant information. I am really excited to go to Belize, I wish we didn't have to stress out about all of this everyday crap like emptying our house. After our interview we ate lunch and took a nap on the floor of Jon's house which he shares with 5 other 24 year old friends, 4 of which also work at BD. After our nap we rode our bikes the 8 miles downtown to hit up a swimming pool then we headed back which is all up-hill for 8 miles, good thing cycling is a lot easier than hiking. Soon after getting back to Jon's I got a call from the kid that wanted my Fixie, so I headed over to his house to make the lucrative exchange, lucrative for him. If you ever have a bike you love don't sell it unless you have to, they go for approximately half of what they are worth monetarily and about 1/10th of what they are really worth. So we ended up going back downtown to meet up with April's friend Heather that used to live in Logan but recently decided to go to Culinary School in SLC. Heather is a really nice girl and it was fun to see her again, probably for the last time before leaving.

Sun Dial Peak, the route started around the lowest point of the wall, bottom right

of face in pic and ended before the actuall summit (picture from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3251693)

When I thought we were headed for Jamaica I was super stoked and read every touch of info about it, made contacts with people and even invested in some equipment to establish climbing routes down there. For Belize I've emailed a couple of PCV's, but mostly I've just stopped worrying about what it will be like and I'm just waiting to find out in person. For Tucson I've been looking at all the pictures of Mtn. Biking and climbing going on there, I'm not to keen on the heat of summer, but the 9 months of perfect climbing/cycling weather is getting me stoked, I've already been looking at what I would want for a bike down there even though I know that by the time I get back the bike industry will probably look a lot different, which would be great since it currently looks like crap. I'm actually thinking that there is a strong likelihood we will stay in Belize longer than 2 years, I'm not too sure April is dying to do so, but 2 years probably isn't enough time to ween ourselves from all of the material comforts we deem necessities right now.