Eddie

I got in bed the first night and was about to turn off the light when Fidel Castro came in, looked me in the eye and said “I will speak with you tomorrow.”

That was how I met Eddie, the only other person on the farm who was not a full-fledged community member, though his own search in life may be leading him there.  He is actually British (it was just the hat and darkness that made him Castro by the way) and I got the feeling his life could inspire a helluva lot of blog posts.

Eddie has a mild manner, speaks little, and has a gentle English accent when he does.  His humble, almost diffident manner might send him to the background in some settings, and I suspect many people in this world would not really listen to him.  Luckily Netzak, the head farmer at the community, is not one of those people, and treats everyone with respect and generosity.

That is a good thing because Eddie seriously knows his shit.  He has worked on farms all over, and knows more about plant origins and behavior than anyone I have ever met.  He has a vision of farming that I would absolutely love to see put into practice somewhere.  He envisions a more natural sort of agriculture, plants placed where they want to be, harvests only partial, allowing individual plants to survive year to year, or generation to generation, through which they would move about to find their preferred niches.  He was delighted to find some chard that had grown up in the shade of a workshop where the seeds had fallen accidentally.

Agriculture and horticulture are so important in Eddie’s life that his occasional snores sound exactly like a puttering tractor engine.  It’s uncanny, man.

Eddie has the dark brown skin of a life spent outside.  His hair is pulled back in the style all the men on the farm used, and he has compassionate deep blue eyes.  While planting dried corn kernels and beans into the dry Spanish soil under a bright afternoon sun, he opted to take off his sandals and feel the clods of clay break beneath his bare feet.

On Friday we finished the tasks left to us by Netzak, who was away from the property on other business, and we had an hour until lunch.  So we went wild herb gathering.  Eddie walked along the path, explaining plant genealogies and behavior while plucking a leaf here and there, or harvesting a whole young plant in such a way as to thin the area, improving the conditions for the other sprouts.  Enjoying the dappled sunshine and watching this process I realized something:

Eddie is a druid.

I have met a lot of green thumbs in my day, such as Netzak, in whom the Tribe did well to place their trust for the agricultural side of the community, but Eddie’s gentle appreciation of growing things borders on the holy.  (I mean “druid” in the sense of plants growing in his footsteps, not sacrificing goats and drinking the blood on full moons.)

Eddie was the one person whose picture I asked to take for this blog and he consented, so here you go: a British druid (and the farm's cow, who we had just fed the bitter lettuce to and was loving it).

Sort of intro to the 12 Tribes farm.

(Just to explain, I am starting the Camino de Santiago tomorrow, and am anticipating far less internet access, so I am bombarding the blog today just in case someones want to read some stuff while I'm out walking and getting sunburned...)  The pics are a field just below the lodge, the main farmhouse, the Single Brothers Room outside and inside, and the lower field with the highway below.

In practice, the community is something like a kibbutz, if that is more familiar.  The people work together for the community in various fields from farming (which seemed to involve a surprisingly small number of people) to carpentry and installing solar panels as sub-contracted by a German firm.

The days are tightly structured, from the 6:00 AM wake-up song, the 7:00 AM and PM meetings, three communal meals followed by group clean-up, and work hours in between.  Dress is conservative for all, utilitarian and sturdy as befitting their various tasks; adult women wear long baggy cotton pants similar to pjs, with modest floral patterns, and loose blouse-like tops.

Wood stoves push out heat at either end of the large, open “lodge” which serves as meeting hall, dining room, and occasional classroom, while the kitchen takes up the eastern third.  The property came with a pool, but this is not a pool-using sort of community, so the lodge was built on top of it, and the basin below the floorboards is now used for storing agricultural equipment.

The large farmhouse stands three storeys tall opposite the lodge, living quarters, office, bathrooms and classroom inside.  Niched into the rear corner and accessed by a separate entrance is the Single Brothers’ Room, the bunk-room where I was quartered.  I suspect there is a Single Sisters’ Room, probably nestled up, protected, in the top of the main house, but the tour pointedly did not include its location.

Having a large family seems to be the one respected measure of individual success here, and smaller buildings and trailers have grown up around these two focal point buildings to house the larger family groups.  In this same ring of structures are classrooms and workshops, though the distinction is minimal, as the workshops are as likely to be used by adolescents welding a wagon frame or soldering repairs to farm equipment as an adult.

The fields and greenhouses reach out beyond, across a recently cleared creek bed on one side and down to the highway on another.  International shipping trucks speed by and insane Basque cyclists streak down the asphalt lanes without a glance up the hill to where rusty hoes clear rows between straight beds of green onions, leeks, and lettuce.  Dropping dry corn kernels and green bean seeds by hand into the ploughed rows I could look across to the commuter trains hurrying along their way, and feel glad of my place.

A couple more notes about 12 Tribes childhood.

I wanted to add a couple quick notes to the post about the children, education and whatnot.  And since I didn't take any pictures of the kids (or people in general, sorry) here are some mostly irrelevant but hopefully pleasant other ones, a wall of the main house, harsh and gently, and the walk up to the old (abandoned and growing ruined) farmhouse.

The quick/trivial one is the importance of music in the community, which is extremely high.  Seemingly everyone plays at least one instrument, and usually well.  The kids who grow up there play at least 2, usually more.  At least once I saw a group of around a dozen youngsters with various styles of guitar, a couple flutes, and cautiously a drum or two, practicing on a grassy hillside.

Of course, I heard no “outside” music while there, so this musical expression is almost entirely a religious skill, and the paramount importance of not promoting oneself leads me to believe there is not a lot of diversion from the norm.

Let’s see.  Oh, and they believe that an important way to prevent children from becoming selfish and spoiled is to have a lot of them.  If your parents’ attention is split between your half dozen siblings, they are not going to spoil you.  This seems redundant in a communal living situation, but that was what one of my liaisons conveyed to me.  I think.  And that parents who do NOT have a lot of children are selfish, and not sufficiently committed to their progeny.  Harumph on that one!

But the item that really stood out to me though was body image.  Unfortunately, with everyone being healthy, and not getting to really talk to too many of the kids, or in any depth, I can’t say for sure, but it seemed to me that these kids have a massive advantage in that department.

When I think about raising children, I find myself far more apprehensive at the prospect of having a girl.  And not just because she’d have to put up with the last name “Tendick” (although that thought has occurred to me a time or two).  The world we live in is unbelievably hard on girls.  No offense to my male companeros, but it seems to me it is much harder to be a girl.

Specifically, the expectations and messages regarding body images are sufficient to drive me insane, and they are not remotely targeted at me.  Adolescence is mind-bendingly hard enough as it is, then we heap mountains of photoshopped images of celebrities whose primary career is staying skinny anyway to produce an unattainable notion of femininity.  Barbie.  Disney heroines.  Come on!  And I am sure I don’t even have a tenth of an idea of it all.

In the community, they don’t have these images.  The Bible does not describe Eve’s waistline, breast size, or complexion (though maybe it should on that last one…but the ethnic veracity of religious imagery is another topic).

Again, everyone on the farm works, eats very healthy food, and dresses in baggy, conservative clothing, but I would bet that the comparative rates of eating disorders on 12 Tribe properties is ground-scrapingly low.

But then again, maybe I am just being intentionally optimistic as usual.  Anyway, I wanted to mention that.

It hurts so good.

Going back to traveling by myself in Europe, I have become reacquainted with an old sin. The kebab.  They are Europe's version of our fast food hamburgers, and make me miss burritos oh so very much.  Here's a picture of one...but keep in mind, this is the official publicity version, so the relationship between it and the real thing is the same as the relationship between what's on the menu at Burger Thing and what you actually receive, wrapped in greasy paper.

The dinner combo meal of Doner Kebab, fries, and a soda are truly a Clash of Evil Titans.  Eventually you realize that the healthiest (least deadly) member of the Trio of Terror are the cheap greasy fries, and shudder.  It is one of the times when being unwilling to waste food is a vice.

Basically, kebabs are the culinary equivalent of a trip to Las Vegas.

When you arrive you feel a certain guilty excitement.  You know it's not going to be good for you, and you hope the details never make it back to your family, but that guilty pleasure draws you on.  Once it's really in front of you the appearance of it all is kind of disgusting, but still appealing in that short-sighted way.

The first taste continues the reluctant enthusiasm.  Yummy self destruction.  But the pleasure is already starting to sour, and your awareness that you are making a big mistake grows.  You go a little further still.  Definitely a mistake.  You kind of wish someone would come stop you, save you, but the ball is rolling, and you increasingly realize it is rolling right over the top of you.

The sheer sinful momentum carries you through it all.  But it's okay, right?  Lots of people do this, and they survive.  Right?  You search for a moral compass.  You don't do this often.  You could stop any time you want...

Finally it's over and you stumble away.  The armpits of your shirt are stiff with dried sweat you don't remember feeling.  Your pants have smears of shiny unnatural colors on them and you think you will just throw them away when you get home.  You skin is pasty and pale, and your hands are damp and shaky.  You feel an urge to pray.

98% of what's functioning in your brain resolves to never do this again.  But if you look through the blinds into the semi-secret office of the remaining 2% you'll see that it is calculating how long to devote to recovery before you come back for more.

12 Tribes Education

At 6:00 in the morning a community member wakes you up by playing an acoustic guitar outside your window and singing a song of devotion to Yahshua (as in the ancient Hebrew form of Jesus).  You have an hour to get ready for the day, which will be tightly scheduled.  First thing after getting up is a collective meeting to sing more of the songs, dance, give thanks, and discuss aspects of the faith and lives in the community; it is the community’s equivalent of a church service and will be repeated before dinner.  Everyone wears braided headbands which are symbolic of the crowns that they expect to wear after the second coming of Jesus, at which time the 12 Tribes will be the Brides of Jesus and will help him rule during the 1,000 years of peace on Earth before Judgment Day.  Children are home schooled, only a few key people are allowed to have cell phones, the internet is a remote concept, and the outside world is seen as corrupt, horribly selfish, and utterly doomed.

(No full mirror in the Single Brothers' Room bunk house, but for functional need there was this little one available on top of the rack for dusty work boots.)

The easy response when you hear about a group like this, living apart in a religious commune, is to mock it as a cult.  Nutjobs!  Do they have a secret handshake?  Arcane midnight rituals and speaking in tongues?

But it quickly became apparent to me after I arrived that this community is something very different.  I can’t claim to understand it at all well, and I wish I had the time to better process it, and to be honest I would love to write an entire book on the place, but lacking that time and energy, I will pick a couple of points to mention.

The principal complaint of the other volunteer worker (www.wwoof.org) who was there before me concerned the children, who are home schooled and largely isolated from the outside world; she asserted that being raised in the community was child abuse.  I can see her point (and apparently the governments of some of the countries where the 12 Tribes have communities occasionally do too) because after all, the children didn’t choose to grow up there.  But no children get to choose where to grow up.  The children growing up with televisions as babysitters didn’t choose that, nor did the children in South Africa choose to become orphans and struggle to find enough food every day (just a little reminder that you may want to donate to help us this summer).  And it was glaringly obvious to me that these kids had a pretty good lot in life, or at least a damn good start.

Children are entirely home schooled at the community, which produces its own text books.  This is a terrifying concept, and it is one of my principle regrets that I was unable to see any of the books, particularly the world history ones.

According to one of the two community members who became something of my liaisons (this was mostly conducted in Spanish, so I may be a little awkward on the semantics), the education emphasizes wisdom and proper attitudes more than knowledge.  Sort of like how schools are supposed to emphasize critical thinking skills above rote memorization, only in a defined set of religious ethics sort of way.  One of the fundamental principles of the community is the importance of serving others (and primarily of course serving God) and you could clearly see this reflected in the actions of the children.

They work.  Maybe alongside their parents, maybe at relatively menial tasks, and always at mealtimes and during community activities.  (This is a half of a foldable bike cut off and welded to a frame to form....um...a mobile hoeing machine?  It was very possibly made by an adolescent welder.)  Sounds like child labor, but these are not neglected children slaving away in coal mines.  In fact, I have never seen a group of children so open, friendly, helpful, gracious, generous, and all around gall-darn good-natured.  It was almost creepy.

One tiny example.  The community eats very basic food, not a lot of spices, healthy, staples.  There was one dessert during the week I was there, on the night of Shabbat, and it was clearly a special occasion.  They had homemade (of course) éclairs, though with about a fiftieth of the sugar of what I am used to.  The night’s squad of young helpers walked around with trays, handing them out to anyone who wanted one.  After this was completed, I saw one of the helpers, a girl of around 6 years, finally sit down with her own dessert.

Her mother pointed out that her younger sister had not had one yet.  Without a squeak of complaint she handed hers over, then went and got herself another.

A 6 year old, after delivering the week’s only dessert to others first, graciously handed over her own to her younger sister.

I don’t mean to be pessimistic (which is the grand failing of the community), but what percentage of 6 year olds would do that without any complaint or temper.  And this was completely typical, not deserving of any remark whatsoever among the community.  It is expected.

As regarding the education I can also say that the children spoke English very well (plus Spanish of course), and I got to watch one bright eyed youngster explain all about the solar oven he had built in one of his classes (to demonstrate they baked some apples, which were kind of like the community's version of apple pie, no sugar, no cinnamon, no sauce, no crust, just wholesome appley goodness).  The classes are actually called “teachings” and many of the adults in the community share the responsibility of teaching, each to their specialty apparently.  Class sizes seem to be small, with the ones I saw ranging between a couple students to maybe 10, although most of the teachings were conducted in the classrooms away from casual observation.

(The land overlooks a gorgeous Basque Country valley near the border with France on the edge of the Pyrenees Mountains.)

Man, I just got started and that is already too long for a blog.  And I am hungry again.  And I need to get my butt to Pamplona to start the Camino de Santiago.  Crap, once that starts, I’m really not going to have time to tell you more about the farm.  And I haven’t mentioned my first experience with couch surfing yet!  (Spoiler: it has been fanfuckingtastic.)

Vamos a ver.

Important update regarding the Africa trip

Oops, I need to update some stuff about our fundraising goals.

First off, I was so focused on the first two projects we are raising money for that I made it sound like $700 is our total budget...  We are actually hoping to raise much more than that.  We were working with a budget of about $2000 in mind.  But...

Secondly, the projects were reassessed and the costs are about three times what we first anticipated.

It turns out the cost of painting the orphanage and the daycare center is more like $500.  Each.  $1000 there.

Then the transportation of supplies and personnel to Zambia is another $1,000 by itself, $700 for gas, and $300 for the border and road fees, plus ferry crossings.

So we need at least $2000 just for those two projects.

If we do not raise enough we will basically have to cut either the orphanage or daycare center.  I don't know about you, but that is not a choice I want to have to make.  If we make even less than that...

But there is very good news!  The generosity has begun, and we have already raised $570!  We can see the quarter-way marker, but it is behind us!  To all those of you who have donated: you are awesome!

Now, I know there are a lot more of you who want to donate, and my explanation of donation dynamics got pretty scattered before, so here is a summary, hopefully tidier:

To get a US tax deduction, donate straight to Afnet, but tell one of us so we can make sure it gets to our projects:
1.  Online at www.afnet.org  or
2.  Mail a check to 3630 Charter Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95136

Other countries or if you don't need the tax deduction:
1.  Cash or check directly to Katrien
2.  Donate via paypal to me via the button at the top of this blog page.


For further information and updates please also check out our facebook group, Tim and Katrien's Trip To Africa, which might be found at this link?
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=120928061269892

Hello and good night

It’s amazing how quickly the present moment takes over the past.  I am sitting here in an apartment in Vitoria-Gasteiz, some fluffs of white dog hair in the corner, a Spanish bocadillo resting peacefully in my belly, and I have to pull a couple layers of gauzy forgetfulness off of my memory of the farm/community where I spent the last week…even though I woke up there this morning.

I spent the last week with a community from the 12 Tribes of Israel.

I don’t know if you have heard of them, I hadn’t, and I am supremely unconfident of attempting to summarize the group, but basically they are a series of religious communes around the world who devote themselves to following the original covenant as they see it between the Judeo-Christian god and the (can you guess?) 12 tribes of Israel.

That being said, they are adamant that they are not a religion.  And I can clearly see a picture in my head of anyone from the community reading that last paragraph and shaking their heads, disappointed that I didn’t quite get it.

I am tremendously tempted to start telling you about them, and about my impressions and responses, but it is after 1:00 in the morning, my eyes are gritty with allergies, and I cannot do it justice right now.  So instead I’ll pick a purty picture fer ye’s and go to sleep.  But come back soon and read about them.

Let’s see…how about…a San Sebastian sunset last week…and…the plaza in Campeche, Mexico last August.

Good night.

My attempt as a futbol hooligan

Last night was the end of the Spanish soccer league.

This meant all day, from at least eight hours before the game, the town was full of small packs of soccer fans wandering around in jerseys, face paint, and flags worn as capes.  The mini packs of half a dozen young males looked like a cross between summer camp and Mad Max.  Their chants rolled out of nearly every bar, transcending linguistic norms with unending streams of shifting vowels, occasional sonorant consonants thrown in as place holders here and there.

The street below my mini balcony in San Sebastian:


The chants sounded identical to those I remember from the Polish fans who took over Bratislava when I was there, except their chants all ended in an emphatic shout of “Polska!”  That and the groups here were not followed by equal-sized packs of policemen in riot gear.

With the guys who run the hostel and one of their friends I went looking for a bar to watch the game.  The first was showing the wrong game, the second was too smoky (even for Spaniards!), but just like Goldilocks raised me to expect, the third was just right.  Well, other than us it was all senior citizens who were fully intent on watching each other and seemed unaware of why we were staring over their heads, but good enough.

The ranking system is based on number of points scored, not winner take all, which is good in that it keeps everyone playing hard all game, no checking out in the third inning.  But the game was the number 1 ranked team versus number 19.  The first goal was off a defender’s leg, and in an embarrassing way.  The second was a minute later.  The third…the fourth…  For soccer 4 - 0 is a blowout.

For lunch we’d eaten a big batch of paella, which is rice based, and I had been resisting its soporific pull all afternoon.  Then we ordered a little plate of patatas bravas to share, which are sort of like Spanish home fries (the middle one in the pic), and then I poured a beer on top of that, which combined with the patchy meager sleep schedule of hostel dorm rooms to leave me…can you guess?  Yeah, I fell asleep in my chair.  Right there in the restaurant, during the championship game, I nodded off.  Sorry Barcelona.


But hey, it was revenge for all the times visitors fell asleep during baseball games.  Sure, that’s it.

The important one

Something a little different, this post is forward looking instead of backward.

This summer Katrien and I will be heading to southern Africa to volunteer though the Afnet charitable organization, which runs three day care centers, an orphanage, and four food assistance programs in local schools around Pretoria.  They attempt to fill the financial, physical, and emotional void left behind for children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

One of the programs is to deliver care packages to children in the schools.  They deliver as many as possible but only have so much, and have to restrict them to orphans in child headed households.

Child headed households.

Afnet is a Christian organization, and it forms an integral part of their programs.  However Katrien and I have elected to participate only in secular programs during our time in the countries.  Specifically we are focusing on two fundraising goals.

Pretoria is one of the three capitals of South Africa (I didn‘t know that either), and it has…many problems.  The orphanage and day care buildings have bars on the windows and many blank white walls giving them the air of prisons.  We are raising money for paint and supplies to give the orphanage (“Nellie’s”) and one of the daycare centers (“Ithemba la Bantwana”) some color, hopefully improving the atmosphere and dispelling the prison aura.

We estimate 3 or 4 days for this task, depending on number of people we find to help, and anticipate costs to be a couple hundred US dollars.

The second task concerns the second country we will be working in.  In addition to the centers in South Africa, Afnet runs a newly opening orphan center in Mansa, Zambia called “Icisub ilo Ca Bana“ which means “Hope for the Children.”  The center needs supplies, a van, and a manager, and we are going to deliver all three (the manager being the marvelous Lisa Poll, who you can read about at http://www.santacruzcares.org/SendingLisa.htm ).

This means driving a van from Pretoria, up through Botswana, to Zambia.  This is a journey of about 1,000 miles through three countries.  Our second fundraising goal is to pay for the gas and border fees.  We estimate these costs at $400.

So there you have it, we need about $600-700 to conduct these two projects.

Now.  To donate.

You have basically two options.  The first is to donate to money to Afnet directly via their website, http://www.afnet.org/
Using this option you can use the donation as a tax deduction.  If you do use this site, please email me the name it was donated under and the amount, so that we can make sure your donation goes to our projects instead of the general Afnet budget (unless that is what you want).

The second option is to send the money directly to me or Katrien.  If you are in Belgium, get the money to Katrien through transfer, carrier pigeon, or secret European tunnels.  For my peeps, you may be able to transfer to me directly, or can send the money to my folks in Half Moon Bay, who can get it to me.

Or (part two of option two)
I have a paypal account through my email at santacruzt@gmail.com
If you pay from a credit card they charge a 2.9% fee, or a 3.9% if you’re paying from outside the US (since my account is based there).  If you are paying from another paypal account there is no charge.

We have set up a face book group for the project, which we will use for further updates, and to show pictures of your donation in action.  Which is awesome.  Gotta love the internet (access permitting.)  The group is “Tim and Katrien’s Trip to Africa”.  Man, I gotta take a class to be vaguely tech literate.  First things first though: paint and gasoline.

Last time in San Sebastian...

I am here in San Sebastian looking to teach English.  The importance of language is especially powerful for me in this particular city.

I was here last year, staying in a fairly dull hostel by Zurriola Beach, which is (apparently) known as one of the best surf spots in Spain.  My hostel mates were the shyest Australian ever, a handful of the loudest Canadians ever, and a pair of very nice young Spanish lads.  (All of which is remarkable because it is rare to find people from the home country in its hostels, Canadians are generally not the most boisterous nationality, and a shy Australian?  If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t believe it.)

The Spanish lads cooked us all an authentic Spanish dinner one night of tortilla (not remotely what a tortilla is in Latin America) and paella.  Halfway through the meal they disappeared for a minute and came back…in full drag.  Short cocktail dresses, fluorescent wigs, high heels, and make-up.  They filmed the rest of the meal for their portfolio of drag performances, which are on several websites, although I foolishly did not write any of them down.

But that’s not what I was telling you about.  We were talking about language.

San Sebastian has a bike/pedestrian/running path that stretches just above the couple miles of San Sebastian’s beaches.  The wee hamlet I grew up in has a path that is sort of like this one’s super-sized and wilder cousin, and I spent a fair percentage of my youth running cross country on it.  Of course, I hadn’t been a runner in 10 years, but hell, it was a beautiful path so I dusted off the notion of running, strapped on my semi-appropriate shoes and went for it.

A disappointing but refreshing hour later I plodded back to the hostel and stopped off in the kitchen to get a drink of water before heading to the showers.  The Friendly Spaniards were in there, and asked what I had been up to that morning.  I told them, in Spanish, that I had run for the first time in ten years.

They heard this, looked down, smiled, paused, looked back up, and then taught me a lesson in the importance of knowing language.  You see, apparently the verb for “to run” in slang Spanish also describes having an orgasm.

So there I was in the kitchen that morning, face flushed and sweaty, hair in wild disarray, and a proud grin on my face, telling them that I had just had my first orgasm in ten years.

I wonder if that is an appropriate story for the first day of class?

To San Sebastian

Walking from the bus station to my hostel I realized San Sebastian is even more beautiful than I remembered it.  As I checked in to my hostel a light drizzle came and went, so when I went looking for some bread for dinner the streets were amiably shiny and people moved just the slightest bit faster about their errands under the threat of more to come.

The hostel here could use some work.  2 of the 4 knobs for the stove are missing, and of the two functioning burners, one is covered in crusty layers of burned funk and the other one works only intermittently, even when on the top setting and gets not quite enough to bring a cup of tea’s worth of water to a full boil.  That would be a problem if I was going to be here longer than a day.  The blankets are holey, and I thoroughly inspected the mattress for bed bug stains…twice.  Luckily the mattresses look pretty good.  The slight India-themed decorations are a thin camouflage for neglect.

The clock above the door read 12:05 at 8:50, and a second ago the hour hand free fell so now it reads 6:06.  I find that indicative of timeless places like this.

The owner is a busy little lady with old hands, who spent 10 minutes pressing together the pieces of an obviously broken iron, despite her recognition of the broken plastic fittings that meant the effort would never succeed.  The only thing greater than her annoyance was her perseverance.

Then she tried to sell me postcards, and asked for my keys back tonight, and I began to suspect her of being a slumlord, but she just gave me her number (no, don’t say it) and some advice on finding work as an English teacher, including the address of some sort of something related…I guess.  I can only approximate the information due to her thick accent.  Tomorrow I will be looking for a street with a name something like “Burata.”  Ah…I think I remember seeing an “Urbiata.”

So many Spanish women have this same voice, young and old.  Raspy, tired, well used.  A life lived with so much passion and so many exclamations gives them the sound of sand.  Honestly, after awhile I just want to tell them to chill the fuck out.  And stop saying “joder” all the time.

It is an international truth that people often adopt one or two words which their speakers use FAR too much.  In English it would have to be “fuck” or “shit” which, if you hang out around anyone aged 10 to 30 you will hear far too much of.  Italians are always saying cazo this and cazo that, while the French folk in my hostel last night couldn’t help but add “putain” at least twice per sentence.  (Not sure if I’m spelling that right..if not, please let me know.  For the Spanish it is definitely “joder” while Mexico is fond (although less than these others) of “chingar.”  (Maybe “buey” is a better bet.)

In case you didn’t know or couldn’t guess, those are all dirty.  Silly humans.

Back in Spain

My body is a carnival of disease.

Flowing through my veins are tetanus, diptheria, polio, typhoid fever, and yellow fever.  And a common cold.  And my foot is still sore.  It was a vaccination festival in Belgium...because we are officially going to Africa this summer!  And that.  My friend.  Is awesome.

But I will have to get back to that once I know the details to use while begging for your money...

In the meantime, I am back in Spain.  I am not sure whether to put an exclamation mark of enthusiasm after that or not.  Basically I should.  Spain is great.  It is nice to be able to (somewhat) speak in the native language again.  Buuut...I am looking for a job here, which is intimidating and frustrating, no big deal, and more importantly...I left Belgium.  Yeah.  I find myself sorely tempted to run back to the airport, sore foot and all, and beg to be on the next flight back to Brussels.

Instead...I'm going to go limpylook for lunch.

Arriving here last night was largely fun.  Familiar place names and sites, and a metro map I only had to glance at.  I am staying in the same hostel I stayed in a year ago, and it is very much the same.  There is still construction debris in the entryway (a year later!), the same drawings of naked muses cover the walls (it's called Hostal Las Musas), and the entire staff still seems to be Argentinian.  I am even staying in the same room as both previous times, though luckily not in the same bed, because that would be too eerie.

Breakfast was still frosted flakes and wonder bread.  (Did they name it that because you wonder WTF it's so white for?  I gotta go find me some whole grain loaves.)  The nice thing is that instead of three funky computers, at least one of which was usually broken, they now have six nice new ones.  This is good because it means you can check your email despite the small flock of Spanish boys watching the evening's futbol match.  They do like their futbol here.

Okay, I was serious about that lunch thing, so I'll talk to you later, eh?

Scotland Part 3, West Highland Way

The morning after sleeping in the 300 year old Drover’s Inn (during which I admit I was a little disappointed to not encounter the ghost of the little girl on the bathroom wall) we both felt like a nice full day of exercise, me from having eaten the haggis and Scottish breakfast, Katrien from having had to watch me do so.

The lass at reception (we were in Scotland, so I can call her that) told us that about 7 miles up the road was the town of Crianlarich.  She told us we could catch a bus from there to the coast (our next destination), and we knew there was a hostel there just in case.  So we set out walking.

We started up the winding road, with basically no shoulder whatsoever, and were enjoying the beautiful day, despite the windy passage of cars, each of which barely missed clipping an elbow or foot.  We were at the bottom of a steep, narrow valley, and my goodness, it just looked so damn….Scottish!  Mossy rockwalls along farmsteads, sheep here and there, little stone houses, and a wee brook running down through the middle of it.  I stopped to take a picture and Katrien noticed a handful of backpackers walking opposite us, up on the hillside.

That looked better, so we jumped off an overpass (the old question: if your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you too?  The answer: yes) and made our way over, gingerly crossing a couple of barbed wire fences and greeting a couple of barely perturbed sheep along the way.

I can’t believe the lass at the Inn had told us to walk to Crianlarich, but didn’t mention that we were smack dab on the famous West Highland Way.  Okay, I’d never heard of it, but it is one of those incredible paths that cross some lucky countries.  Starting just outside Glasgow, it winds through astonishingly gorgeous countryside for about 150 kilometers (considered an 8 day walk), past Loch Lomond and up to Fort William, also passing near Ben Nevis, the tallest peak in the British Isles.  (That's not it in the picture.)

We only did one little stretch of it, about four hours worth, but we both quickly decided we want to go back sometime and do the whole thing.  If you want to come, let me know.

Now, of course this lovely experience couldn’t be just that easy, it had to be at least slightly ridiculous.  And it was.  We had not planned on doing any real hiking, so neither were outfitted for it, with one pack, no gear, relatively fashionable clothes (okay, that one’s Katrien, not me) and perhaps most ridiculous of all, I had a plastic grocery bag of food in each hand.

Us by one of the few houses in the area.

At one point we came up over a hill to find a “real” hiker taking a rest on one of those very Scottish stones.  He took a long look at us, looked down to his tired feet, then back at us and asked, in a lovely Scottish brogue “now who’s madder?”

He was a career military man, and there was an airforce base in the next valley over.  This became obvious a minute later as the first of the several Tornado fighter planes we would see roared just overhead.

It was pure serendipity to meet up with him at just that moment, since we (being clueless) had no idea that this was a formal and proper trail, would have followed the main body of it, which dead-ended back at the highway a short time later, but he (being less clueless than us and in possession of a guidebook) directed us to the tiny footpath that we had passed a short time before, and we headed along our merry way.  This is taken on the path we would have followed back to the road, the actual path is the little one in the center-right through the trees.

I love it when shit all works out like that.