August Wrap-Up

·      I am still trying to find my groove and get into a rhythm with my new class schedule. It is a challenging semester but, overall I love the classes I am taking. It is great to be a 2L and get to choose my own courses.  Tim is falling into routine too and it feels good.

·      I got a part-time job! I am working as a law clerk (paid position!) for a private immigration firm. It is small (two kick-ass female attorneys, 1 support staff and 1 business manager, and now me). I’ve only worked one day so far but I already think it is going to be a great fit for me. The work is interesting (everything from employment to family-based to humanitarian immigration) and my co-workers are so nice and fun. On my first day they bought me a birthday cake because they heard it was my birthday week. How super sweet is that?

Last evening in the Glen. Happy birthday!

·      My birthday celebrations were great! I was surrounded by people I love and had such fun! We took a lightning-speed trip down to Santa Cruz to see Taming of the Shrew at the Glen at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. Mom and Stephan made a theme picnic; Shrewdrivers and Lambic-pentameter, Cross-gartered loins (grilled flank steak sandwiches), Shake-spears (asparagus speaks in a ziplock bag of seasonings), and other cleverly named, delicious morsels. Although none of us were particularly impressed by the artistic decisions of this particular show, I found out later that this was Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s last season! It makes me sad to see another of my hometown landmarks fall into obsolescence. Stephan made an amazing ice cream cake for me. It is great to have a chef in the family. :) 28 is going to be a great year. 

A delicious picnic with some of my favorite women (and Tim, taking the picture).

·      Sacramento is still hanging on to summer weather but at night the cool breeze and crisp mornings remind us that winter is coming. Emily says it is time for me to buy winter curtains to keep us warm in our drafty old house.  I’m excited to wear boot and scarves again. 

Home, Home on the Range

So, we are home in California. Mixed emotions ensue: 

1. So, so, so happy to have been picked up at the airport by our amazing friends Heather and Jeff.

2. Excited to eat In-n-Out burgers (picnicking in the “park”) as our first meal in the U.S.A with a bunch of our close friends

3. Embarrassed to have made socially awkward comments in In-n-Out because we forgot that everyone could speak the language we were speaking and also that it isn’t okay to comment on race and physical appearance like it is in Guyana

4. Grateful for the party, beers, meals, Spirithoods, tours around L.A. and general sense of camaraderie that our generous, talented, smart friends made happen for us

5. Stoked to be back in Oxnard, kicking it with the Tibbses

6. Overwhelmed by the choices of food in grocery stores and on menus, the many cars on the road and the return to the notion that laws are actually enforced and people should be fearful of the enforcers

7. Full (and slightly bloated) from indulging in all the good, aforementioned food

8. Missing Guyana, our friends there, our work, house and lives there

9. Happy and excited and overwhelmed and stoked for what the future holds in this next adventure (law school in either San Francisco or Sacramento, getting fancy phones that are smarter than we are that we have to learn how to use, finding an awesome teaching job for Tim, family reunions, weddings, buying a car, connecting with long distant friends and relatives, not getting sucked in by the consumerism and easy, unhealthy options available here, exercising at any time of the day, not just the morning, since it isn’t oppressingly humid in California, finding and getting settled into our own place, eventually).

All in all, more positives than negatives. It is what it is and we will continue to support each other through it.

Day 13, 14, 15: Resting Up and Eating Out

After our epic trek to Machu Picchu we were very tired, sore and looking a little worse for wear. Tim and I had pushed ourselves very hard on the trek and our bodies showed it with blisters, tired muscles and overworked digestive systems. We decided to take a few days and let our bodies and minds rest. 

My idea of restfulness while traveling still involves being out and about in the culture we are in, but just taking it a bit easy by sitting in markets and plazas and people watching. So that is what we did. In our last day in Cusco we took a spin around the San Pedro market, a huge public market selling everything from textiles to testicles (no joke, cow balls were one of the weird meats we saw in the meat vendor section!).  My favorite section of the market was the fresh juice stands where we sat for a while and chatted with the lady who made us papaya, mango, pineapple, passion fruit and orange juice smoothies. Yum! We did a little shopping and then had a goodbye dinner with our friend and generous host, Ronnie. At this point Tim and I said goodbye to our PC friends Megan and Annie and her brother Tim, who had been our traveling companions so far. They were heading directly to Lake Titicaca and we were off to Arequipa, a large city in the south of Peru which is our jumping off point to the Colca Canyon.

The 9-hour, overnight bus ride to Arequipa was pleasant enough. As the sun rose we looked out the window to see expansive plains strewn with cacti and boulders and imposing mountains in the distance. The mountains drew closer as were entered Arequipa and we got our first glimpse of El Misti, the snowcapped mountain that keeps a watchful eye over the city of Arequipa. Arequipa is a busy city of over 1 million people and, since we were still a little pooped, we decided not to try to rush around and see and do everything or get to know the city intimately. Instead we walked around until we found a nice, clean hostel and took our time showering and repacking our packs. The first thing we did when we went out and about was find the local market, a very impressive and expansive scene much larger than San Pedro in Cusco. We ate some “street food”, papas rellenas (mashed potato balls stuffed with meat and olives then deep fried!) that had been recommended by our PCV friends in Peru and loved them! Then, we got more freshly made juice to boost our immune systems. After a stroll around the beautiful Plaza de Armas and a peek at the white stone churches and building facades we booked a 2-day trek to the Colca Canyon to leave on Thursday morning. At night we met up with our new friend Catherine, an Irish girl who we met on our Machu Picchu trek, who happened to be in Arequipa at the same time. We spent a while relaxing on our hostel’s rooftop patio, shared a bottle of wine and headed out to get a taste of Arequipa street food for dinner. Only a few blocks away we found choclo con queso (giant corn on the  cob with fresh cheese) and a hamburger joint that sold us burgers with fries and egg on top, all for only 10 soles (less than $5) for three people! I love street food even though my weak tummy might not! 

"Festi" Burger! So Yummy!

Buying choclo con queso

Today we again adhered to our take it easy philosophy and slept in, did some hand washing since the sun was shining bright and we knew our stinky clothes would finally get a chance to dry. Catherine met up with us for lunch in the public market, where we shared a dish of stuffed bell peppers, potato cheese casserole and fresh ceviche (again for super cheap). We wandered through the potato aisle, marveling at how many varieties of potatoes exist here and teasing Catherine for being so stereotypically Irish when she wanted to take a picture with them. We tasted local varieties of olives; green, black, salty, bitter, briny and all delicious and again got fresh smoothies. With our bellies full and our bodies feeling somewhat better we decided to take a walking tour I found in our guide book to a mirador, or lookout point, to get a nifty view of el Misti. However, when we got there the fog had rolled in and we couldn’t see the mountain at all. So it was back to the plaza for tea and people watching. We said goodbye to Catherine, then went back to our hostel for a nap. 

Right now we are kicked back in the hostel, listening to some popular cumbia music on a CD I bought today and eating avocado and cheese sandwiches (all ingredients purchased in the Mercado today for under 5 soles). Tomorrow we head out to the Colca canyon (a canyon twice as large as the Grand Canyon where the Andean condors fly) on a two day trek. Then we have a brief stop back in Arequipa before we are scheduled to leave on another overnight bus to Lake Titicaca and into Bolivia. 

Feasting in the mercado with our new friend

So many types of fresh cheese. Too good to resist!

Our Irish friend is very excites about potatoes, imagine that.

Tim enjoyed the fresh ceviche with seaweed. Looks goo for street food, no?

Many types of Peruvian olives and olive oils

Anything you can imagine in the Arequipa market

After speaking to other travelers, Tim and I have decided to try to spend some more time in Bolivia instead of just breezing through Copacabana and La Paz. Everyone we talked to said Bolivia is so cheap and the people are super friendly. Since we are already going to be paying for a Bolivian visa we figured we should make the most of it and see and do more there instead of heading to the beach towns in Chile. As much as I love the beach, we live by the freaking beach and I doubt we will ever have the chance to visit the Uyuni salt flats again, so we shifted our itinerary somewhat. Now we will be spending about two week in Bolivia and less time in Chile and Argentina. I wish we had more time and money to see and do more. South America is just such an amazingly diverse place with so much to offer! No matter what we do though, we are so happy to be together on this adventure and, ultimately, on our way home.

Even Mamut found his place in Arequipa: a sandwich shop called "Mamut"!

South American Adventure, Day 1:

Tim waves goodbye to Guyana at the Cheddi Jagan airport

Maracas Beach for a few hours during our layover. Best layover ever!

It’s been a whirl-wind day. We left our friend’s G/T house at 4am and arrived at the Cheddi Jagan airport with plenty of time for our 6:20 departure with no real drama. We met the other Peace Corps girls there who we are traveling with at first and said some good-bye’s for now to other volunteers who were flying directly home to the U.S. today. To make matters even more perfect, the plane was already being boarded as we walked through security, so we walked straight on to the flight and into the air.

We flew to Trinidad and, since we had an 8 hour lay-over, were blessed with the opportunity to “take a walk” around the island. We decided that instead of waiting in the boring airport, we should explore Trinidad so we hired a car to give us a tour. We went through Port of Spain, and got out of the taxi to walk around the capital city. We saw some old colonial churches and neat architecture and ate some really good local street food called “doubles”. A double is similar to fried roti, but this isn’t your auntie’s plain old roti! We watched the vendors lather on pepper sauce and two other sauces that looked a lot like salsa, but tasted like cilantro and chutney and the final touch is a heap of boiled chickpeas (anyone who reads our food blog knows how much Tim loves chickpeas!). We were stoked to try this tasty local treat. Then our driver took us to the best beach in Trinidad, according to him, called Maracas. It was a truly beautiful beach, tucked deep into a cove, surrounded by lush, jungle covered mountains. The water was chilly but the air was warm and we enjoyed a few luxurious moments drinking in the last of the Caribbean heat and a final Stag beer on the beach.

The flight to Panama passed in fits of wakefulness, but we didn’t have much time to dwell on our own exhaustion because we boarded to Peru within thirty minutes of touching down. The flight to Lima was good, there was tons of space to spread out so Chels and I decided to claim a row for ourselves and catch a bit of shuteye. We found our hostel and had the whole dorm to ourselves too so we didn’t have to worry about waking anyone when we came in. The beds are clean and warm and the room is mosquito and mosquito net free. We are happy RPCVs! And now its sleep time.

T & C (0230 local time)

p.s. I am posting this on Thursday morning, since we were too tired to finish the blog last night. Happy Thursday! We are off to explore Lima!

View from a vista point in Trinidad. I'm pretty sure we saw a pirate ship here.

Eating doubles on the streets in Port of Spain. Best fifty cents spent on lunch ever!

Found a labyrinth in Trinidad at a cool old church.

The sock monkeys had a blast on the layover too!

Please Bring Strange Things…

Speaking of "strange things" it was both strange, wonderful, touching, awkward and moving, to join our friends Gasper and Tanzia at church last Sunday and be prayed over by the pastor and whole congregations.

Initiation Song from the Finders Lodge

Many of you may remember one of our favorite poems, we used it on our wedding program, by Ursula K. LeGuin:

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well loved one,
walk mindfully, well loved one,
walk fearlessly, well loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.

For us, this poem is often in our hearts and minds when we embark on a new journey or phase in life. As we prepare to leave Guyana and walk carefully, mindfully and fearlessly into our next adventure we decided to make a list of the “strange” things we believe are important to carry with us from our experience in Guyana and perpetuate in the rest of our lives. Here is our list:

Strange things/idea/practices etc. to bring back from Guyana:

· Exercising daily

· Eating a healthy breakfast every morning

· Making a weekly menu and meal plan

· Guyanese sayings: ‘just now’, ‘shucks’, ‘walk with’, ‘theif/theifed’, ‘real ting’

· Guyanese card games: Rap, Jackass

· Guyanese food: cookup, curry, chickpeas in any forms

· Eating fresh, local foods

· Farmer’s markets

· Making our own iced tea and coffee (not buying it always from Wasteofmoneybucks)

· Making our own fresh juice instead of buying concentrate w/added sugar

· Guyanese/Caribbean music

· Continuing to experiment with making fruit wine

· Exercising with a plan/work out DVD like Insanity

· Hammock time, find a place to hang a hammock inside in our future home

· Continue blogging regularly

· Saying “Good Morning” “Good Day” “Good Afternoon” and “Good Night” every time you pass a familiar face…or even a stranger

· Being more community oriented

Thanksgiving: Guyana Style Take 2

This year was our second Thanksgiving in Guyana. Both years we have been fortunate enough to celebrate with family and friends. Last year Sara's family was visiting Guyana and this year we had my mom and brother to share the fun. Along with our biological family, we had our Peace Corps Volunteer 'family' and our Guyanese 'family' joining the festivities.

Since we don't have an oven everything was cooked either on a stove top or in our steel drum BBQ. And, like last year, everything was delicious! We had all the traditional American feast items; turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, veggies, wine, and pumpkin pie. Added to that was some extra chicken, Tka's spicy macaroni, Guyanese rum and snacks, Princess's spice cake with cream cheese frosting and Sara's wheat-free rice dish (made with love for my bro).

We decorated the Thanksgiving Tree with post-its of what we are thankful for, cooked, gaffed, ate food and laughed until the wee hours of the morning. We are truly blessed and so endlessly grateful for our family, friends and friends that have become family. Our life is rich and full of love and we give our thanks for our blessings everyday (but especially on a day like Thanksgiving)!

The next morning, Mom and Bup headed off to Barbados to wrap up their vacation before heading back to the USA. I was sad to see them go (and had a very, very scary anxiety dream about them leaving when I took a nap later that day) but I remember all the fun times we shared together in Guyana and in the end, I can only be grateful for the fact that they were able to visit us at all.

Spending time away from our family and then getting the treat of a visit from a few of our beloved ones has made Tim and I realize how important family is to us. We are determined to make family a priority in our life when we get back to America. We plan to live within driving distance of both of our sides of the family and spend more quality time with everyone. I especially look forward to living near my bro, who is so much fun to hang out with. I love how he gets along with Tim and my friends and I feel like we can enjoy each others company on a deeper level than we have done in the past. I look forward to the not-so-distant future where family interactions are a part of daily life, not just a treat on holidays.

My "oven"

The Thanksgiving Tree

PCV Princess, neighbors Lisa and Baby Nathan and I having a fun evening!

Tim and PCV Mark shucking corn for BBQ corn on the cob! Yum!

Family Visit Continued

Mom and Stephan's visit to Guyana continues to be an adventure enjoyed by all. They are getting an authentic Guyanese experience full of wonderful hospitality, more food than they can eat, late nights and early mornings, last minute planning, plans falling through, hand-washed laundry and pirated movies.

On Saturday, we hired a bus to drive us out to Rockstone, an Amerindian village about an hour outside Linden. The village was hosting their annual Fish Festival and I had arranged to hire a boat to take us down the river to see some rapids, experience the thrill of being on a speed boat in the jungle and swim in black water. The boat trip was fun, the day was relaxing and adventurous and we got to eat fish curry and drink paiwari (cassava wine).

The following day we had booked a tour to fly to Kaieteur and Orinduik Falls. I was so excited to show my family the beautiful, remote and untouched parts of Guyana that are so different than my urban community. We endured a harrowing minibus ride to the airport and met up with our tour, only to be told that the weather in the interior was bad and we wouldn't be able to land the plane. I was devastated that our trip was canceled! The tour company tried to reschedule for later in the week but they couldn't charter a plane since all the planes are busy flying elections materials (ballots and boxes, etc) into and out of remote villages for the upcoming presidential election on the 28^th. I think I was more disappointed about the cancellation of our trip than my mom and brother were (either that or they are good at hiding their disappointment). Mom is rescheduling the trip for Tim and I in the new year and getting a refund for their half. When I go, I will have to take the sock monkeys as stand-ins for Mom and Bup (not going to be the same though).

Instead of our epic rainforest trip, we had to improvise so we headed into Georgetown, where we had reserved a room for the night in a hotel with a pool, and would have been content swimming and lounging around all day. But when we arrived, the pool was closed for repairs. Again, I was more frustrated with the situation than my family. Mom and Bup had a great attitude, exactly the kind you need in Guyana where even the best laid plans tend to fall through. I just felt like I should have planned things better for them and was pissed that things weren't working out like I had wanted.

Again, we improvised and explored gritty, ugly, beauty of Georgetown. We took pictures at the seawall, went to the National park and pet the manatees in the pond, went to the zoo (the smallest, most depressing zoo that exists) and had an early dinner at a Brazilian restaurant where we drank and ate delicious fare until we felt like bursting. The night was topped off by watching Guyana Star (think American Idol with one million percent less production value) and giggling in our hotel room.

On Monday we took a whirlwind tour of Georgetown and Mom and Bup got to do some souvenir shopping for CDs, movies, jewelry and crafts. We bought our turkey for Thanksgiving and headed back to Linden. Since then we have just been kicking it in Linden. Tim and I have gone to work in the mornings, allowing Mom and Bup to relax and sleep in (as much as they can with the roosters crowing right outside the window). We have had a continuous flow of visitors and friends who have been generously feeding my family and teaching Mom about Guyanese cooking. To me it seems like an underwhelming thing to do with my family that sacrificed so much to fly down here to visit. But Mom insists that she didn't come to Guyana to be tourist, she came to visit me and Tim and see how we live our lives so that is what she is getting.

Today and tomorrow promise to be a hectic, fun and social time. We have Peace Corps Volunteers coming to visit from all over Guyana for Thanksgiving and we have an epic feast planned. Then Mom and Bup leave the day after Thanksgiving. I am getting a little sad to think of them going. I have loved having them here so much. I am so grateful that they have been able to experience the hardships, beauty, fun, tedium and general roller coaster ride that is my Peace Corps service in Guyana. I know now that when I look back at this experience, I will have people who can relate to the beautiful madness of it all since they have experienced it alongside me. I am so unfathomably thankful!

As far as we got to Kaieteur Falls: the airstrip in G/town...

So, instead, we went to see a manatee

Manatees are cool!

Mom at the seawall, oh the beautiful Atlantic Ocean....and beaches full of trash...