The CIA, Laos, H'Mong, 1961-1975, The Secret War- on the front page of the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/world/asia/17laos.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Monday, December 17, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
H'Mong New Year in Northern Laos
In Muang Ngoi I fell in love with bright green river weed. In its most beautiful form, it flowed behind rocks and branches in the green Nam Ou river. I loved seeing the men and women collecting it, drying it on the streets, and then mixing it with sesame seeds and smearing it as a paste on woven bamboo mats. Once dried into paper and fried, it tastes like a river and a cracker. The town may be one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. And I say this despite how sick I got. It took us 4 hours on a small wooden boat to reach this village of about 120 homes. There are no cars, no motorbikes and no electricity except by generator for a few hours in the evening. The river is green, the jungle green, the mountains are stacked layer upon layer. Bungalows over the river cost $1 a night. For meals we ordered lap lap vegetables (cooked with cilantro, scallions, red chillis, green chillis, and peanuts) and vegetable suzy, a medley cooked in coconut milk. It was the best food of the trip and cost $1 each. There are few tourists here, but enough to warrant some guesthouses and good restaurants on the river. Wandering the town, I saw river weed linng the streets, a family welding aluminum propellers, and women weaving on looms. At sunset we sat on the beach with Carlos, Barb and Kim while 5 little boys and a girl swam in their underwear and built a fire. They dragged bamboo into the fire, waited for each section to pop and then cheered.
The next day, December 9th, Carlos, Barb, Kim, Sarah and I took a canoe with a local guide to trek 2 hours up the mountain. It was the H'Mong New Year and we wanted to see the celebrations and stay in the village. On the way up the village I asked Tuy, our guide, how long people had lived at Muong Ngoi. They have been there for 45 years, since the Americans bombed the people from the mountains to the river. The kids in many of these villages run, screaming to their parents when they see foreigners, because they assume that all white people are Americans.
We reached the village, consisting of 40 houses made from woven bamboo after passing through rice fields and a Khmu village. A black pig was slaughtered and we ate bits of it for lunch, along with sticky rice and vegetables. In the evening, a rooster was circled around a bamboo pole and then sacrificed. With bamboo straws we drank a rice wine from a jar brought over from the Khmu village.
The chief invited us to his hut for dinner and festivities. I offered him a pack of cookies, as did Sarah and Carlos. Barb and Kim gave lao lao. He welcomed us there, saying he was glad to share with us, to interact with us and happy we wanted to be there learning from each other. Very old men sat around the chief and smiled and nodded. The chief offered out white rope for everyone to tie on each other's wrists and wear until they fall off--for good luck in the new year. Then everyone started passing the food--sticky rice, vegetables, cookies, candies, pork. The oldest man spoke French and handed me a fork full of pure pig fat, a warm gesture. I couldn't help but think that my country had been bombing this man and there was no way in hell that could refuse the piece of lard he was offering me.
Late in the night everyone toasted lao lao, danced, and played instruments around the fire. I woke up in the early morning sick. I managed to participate in the courting ritual. Teenage girls dress intheir best traditional costumes and toss indigo-dyed hemp balls to young male prospects. Men sit around and watch, smoking their bamboo bongs or playing a sport with a bamboo ball and net. Women nurse their babies.
vomit and shit my way down the mountain, on the steps leading up to the village. worst ive been. ive given up meat. more details later im off to dinner and to celebrate the last day of hanukah with sarah.
Mountain passes and border crossings
We've been by boat and by bus and by foot through North Vietnam and Laos. The drive from Sapa to Dien Bien Phu was the most magnificent drive I've been on. The fog lifted after we passed the highest pass in Vietnam. It lifted to reveal foot trails through lush jungle, kudzo and vines streaming down the mountain like drip castles, scattered thatch huts, houses made from bamboo on stilts, mopuntains that looked like conical hats, water buffalo plowing the rice terraces. We followed along the Nam Ou River, curves that swung the doors open, flung us against the bus window and forced us to see that one foot of road existed between our tires and sheer cliff, no guard rails. The driver laid on the horn around every mountain but never slowed, it was a constant drone of motor and horn and sheer delight as Sarah and I looked out the back and saw land and land and no people, no cars.
We arrived in Dien Bien Phu, the closest Vietnamese town to the Laos border. This border just opened for internationals in May and it is not advertised in any guide books, making it difficult to figure out bus schedules and times. Awaking at 3:50 the next morning we walked to the bus station, hoping to catch the 5:30 bus. It didn't leave until the next day. So we hired a car, arrived at the border in 30 minutes. It was 5:30am and the border didn't open until 7am. With our headlights we found a ditch to protect us from the dogs, the cow shit and the cold wind. At 7 we woke up and easily passed through Vietnam and walked 1km to Laos. Tunnels used by the Laos during the "Secret War" distinctly marked the mountain side. The US launched the largest bombing attack in history on Laos during the 1960s. 2 million tons of bombs dropped, 1/3 did not detonate. Hundreds die each year from these unexploded ordinances. I see relics of them in peoples yards. They are sometimes used as flower pots.
The Laos greeted us warmly, told us to wait a minute, the border guard who could officially give us our visa was at breakfast. 20 minutes later he came back and told us, "rest a while, no problem, it'll be a while." He brought us a bitter green tea, roots,and oranges. We shared our dried fruit and soy beans. 2 French men arrived later and we played rummy, ate more oranges. Few cars or people passed by. The guards lifted weights, shot at tin cans for target practice, bathed in the river, played guitar and sang. One took a photo of the flowers to show us. Whenever a big truck came through, a guard would donne a medical lab suit and spray the tires down to prevent the spread of avian flu. It got dark. The guards invited us to dinner and they served us fried noodle soup, fried prok rhinds, pickled onions and bannanas. We toasted two rounds of lao lao-only the start of our experiences with this god-forsaken whiskey made from rice. After dinner, Sarah and I laid in the dust road and counted shooting stars. We slept on wood benches in the office. Red candles flickered out and the temperature dropped near freezing. Roosters woke us up. In the morning, the visas were mysteriously stamped by our border guard friends. A bus arrived around 8am and we piled in, sat on rice bags and bounced to Muang Khua to spend the night. The ride was dusty, people vomitted, we forded 4 rivers. I was so eager for a drink, I bought lao lao in a bag for 30 cents. A low point for me. That night we played Texas Hold'Em with 3 Aussies, a Spanish, Mexican, 2 Israelies and a cyclist from Holland. Everyone exchanged travel stories, tips and I went to bed early.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Indigo Fingers, Step Terraces, Sapa
I'm high in the mountains of Northern Vietnam where tribal women wrap flax string around their indigo fingers and create beauty in brightly colored and ornate bags, quilts, pillowcases, clothes. They walk the mountains, these beautiful women with clean faces, dirty hands, cracked feet. Some speak, eager for a sale, desperate, some smile and practice their English, young and bright, asking me where I'm from, if I have a boyfriend, how many brothers and sisters, how old am I? Silver hoops weigh down their ears, red polka dots on their foreheads-evidence of a form of acupuncture. Medicinal herbs, opium, rice and handicrafts are their trade, animism their religion. They walk to the market in Sapa every day. I see a dog's head in the market- the fear of death can be read in its clenched teeth.
Sarah and I walked 12 miles south of our basetown of Sapa between two villages of H'Mong people. A 7-year-old girl named Yen of the Black H'Mong tribe showed us a book about her people. She explained how they make rice wine, irrigate the step terraces that stretch up and down their mountains. These ethnic minorities dotted throughout the northern highlands are caught somewhere between the medieval and modern world, speaking their own langauges, semi-nomadic, befuddled by the concept of nationhood and patriotism.
Its cold here. I like the smell of fire, chestnuts on the streets, roasting corn. Last night Sarah and I were drawn to a fireplace at Nature Bar and Grill. We met other travelers also lured by the heat. The owner sat with us, a native of Sapa, who ranted about the three restraunts that popped up just this week, all imitating his menu and restraunt lay-out. One traveler was from Amsterdam. Another couple was American. We've only met two or three people from America in the past several weeks. Travel magic-they lived in Carrboro. Exhausted from trekking all day and delighted to be in the company of people from my favorite town, I celebrated with a splurge of 3 dollars on dinner--a plate of venison sauteed with lemon grass and onions.
Tomorrow Sarah and I are taking a local bus to Dien Bien Phu, a border town with Laos. The border here was recently opened-we've heard mixed things about the length of the ride, the negotiations to cross. We're hoping the entire trip will only take a few days, perhaps 15 hours on a cramped bus and winding mountain roads. I'm eager to get to Laos, its calm here, less tourists, less people, no cities, small villages, more time.
The Dragon's Tail
Sarah and I spent two days in Halong Bay on a boat with eight other travellers. The tattered Vietnamese flag, the broken ladder, the sunsets. Halong Bay is a dreamy place. The locals say it was formed by a family of Dragon's sent by the gods to protect the land from Chinese Invaders. Jewels and jade turned into limestone karsts and isles of all different shapes and sizes. In the late afternoon Sarah and I took a kayak to explore. We went under an arch and found ourselves worlds away from everyone. Massive rock walls grew up from the blue water and green trees and vines tumbled down and around through the crevaces. After the kayak we went for a swim around the boat, which was anchored in the middle of all the islands. As the sunset, the colors changed, casting melancholic tones of deep orange and red across the land. We feasted on fresh fish, tofu, vegetables and rice and drank 2 bottles of a good red with a soft-spoken Danish man. In the morning we woke up to a green sea peering into our cabin, casting a cool green glow on our starch white sheets. On the top deck we watched the soft colors of morning turn bright from the rising sun and a hot afternoon as we drifted in and out of islands and other worlds.
Hanoi
Our time in Hanoi was spent meandering about the Old Quarter and surviving crossing the street. Motorbikes don't stop at traffic lights, do not stay in their lanes, and do not restrcit their travel to the streets, often driving up onto the narrow sidewalks. Such daytime activities forced me to buy a bottle of French wine at the market and soak the evening away in my bathtub, reading Catfish and Mandala.
But I'm also charmed by Hanoi. Its ancient, its historical and the culture seeps out of every home in the form of curry spices, incense and sheer energy. People slurp noodle soup and munch greasy coconut-filled donuts at plastic red tables and stools on every street corner. Men walk arm-in-arm and gather for rich coffee with condensed milk or green tea. Everyone works on the street--making funeral wreaths, repairing motorbikes, frying rice cakes, sewing purses. I dodge the people, the motorbikes, every sensation constantly stimulated.
Sarah and I visited Ho Chi Minh's humble stilt house where he lived from 1957 until his death in 1969. We walked through his garden and up to his mausolem. Everything is orderly. The guards don't even let you stand in one place too long, or sit on the ground or the curb. They keep people on the go, a curious suspicion in their eyes.
But I'm also charmed by Hanoi. Its ancient, its historical and the culture seeps out of every home in the form of curry spices, incense and sheer energy. People slurp noodle soup and munch greasy coconut-filled donuts at plastic red tables and stools on every street corner. Men walk arm-in-arm and gather for rich coffee with condensed milk or green tea. Everyone works on the street--making funeral wreaths, repairing motorbikes, frying rice cakes, sewing purses. I dodge the people, the motorbikes, every sensation constantly stimulated.
Sarah and I visited Ho Chi Minh's humble stilt house where he lived from 1957 until his death in 1969. We walked through his garden and up to his mausolem. Everything is orderly. The guards don't even let you stand in one place too long, or sit on the ground or the curb. They keep people on the go, a curious suspicion in their eyes.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Northbound Train
After two nights in Hoi An, Sarah and I headed north to My Khe to check the surf. Still churned up by the storm, the ocean was disorganized and a mess so we ended up missing the train to Hanoi and spending the next day wandering the streets of Da Nang, the 4th largest town in Vietnam, a business center, where we saw not a single Westerner for 24 hours. We did, however, eat soup alone in a pink banquet hall and played rummy, much to the amusement of the curious staff.
I love trains. The pace, the history, the idea of a train is beautiful. The train that stretches along the Vietnamese coast was renamed the Reunification Express in 1976. I've seen few signs of this quasi-Communist country- a splattering of propaganda billboards and a few large Communist Youth Work Parties that marched through the streets of Hoi An in hunter green uniform, red star cap and shovels over their right shoulder. This train was "bombed by the Japanese to destroy the country, bombed by the Americans to divide the country and rebuilt after the war to reunite the country," or so "they" say.
On the train we were able to put a window down. Feeling the wind, slow dancing with the mountains, the ocean below us, gave me an indescribable feeling of joy. We ate hard boiled eggs with salt and pepper, played cards on the top bunk bed and drank Mirinda and Hanoi Vodka before bed. We woke up to Hanoi, the 1000 year-old capital of Vietnam.
I love trains. The pace, the history, the idea of a train is beautiful. The train that stretches along the Vietnamese coast was renamed the Reunification Express in 1976. I've seen few signs of this quasi-Communist country- a splattering of propaganda billboards and a few large Communist Youth Work Parties that marched through the streets of Hoi An in hunter green uniform, red star cap and shovels over their right shoulder. This train was "bombed by the Japanese to destroy the country, bombed by the Americans to divide the country and rebuilt after the war to reunite the country," or so "they" say.
On the train we were able to put a window down. Feeling the wind, slow dancing with the mountains, the ocean below us, gave me an indescribable feeling of joy. We ate hard boiled eggs with salt and pepper, played cards on the top bunk bed and drank Mirinda and Hanoi Vodka before bed. We woke up to Hanoi, the 1000 year-old capital of Vietnam.
Typhoons and Landslides
The typhoon was expected to hit Na Trang on Saturday night so we booked an over-night bus ticket to Hoi An. At 7:30pm the bus picked us up and we made our way north along the coast. Darkness gusted in stronger winds and we could feel the bus shake as it hugged mountains on one side and a churning ocean on the other. About three hours into the trip we slowed down, I woke up and saw a bus infront of us slwoly turning around. There was a stir amongst the crowd of people onboard. A landslide the size of a small mountain stretched across the sea and crumbled over the road into the ocean. After a heated discussion that I couldn't understand, the bus crew decided to turn the bus around, inch by inch on the narrow road. The three point turn took atleast twenty minutes, during which time I contemplated death--death by landslide or by the sea...?
I thought perhaps we would head back into Nha Trang, or find shelter elsewhere for the night. I guess we turned around just for gas and bathroom because before too long we were back in nearly the same place. Waiting four hours on the bus for a crew to clear the road, windows and doors clamped shut to protect us from gusting typhoon winds and rains, made for a miserable night. I thought I might suffocate. And again I contemplated death. Suffocation seemed to be the worst option and just as I wondered if I could get off the bus and try to sleep outside, the bus started up and headed toward Hoi An.
The floods had receded in Hoi An and the ancient town with narrow cobbled roads, wooden houses hundreds of years old, and temples and Chinese Assembly Halls on every street corner was buzzing with tourists. Sarah and I wandered through the market, tried a local food specialty. Banh Xeo is a rice crepe thats rolled and fried with shrimp and bean sprouts. We walked along the river, drunk with rain and spilling over the streets at high tide. Only a week before our arrival, our hotel, 5 streets off the waterfront was flooded as high as the reception desk. In the afternoon, we ran into Laura and Ashley, friends we met on the Mekong River. The travel community in Asia is quite small and its been fun to see the same people in different places throughout. We joined the couple for dinner that night at Miss Ly's Cafeteria where we sampled more local food specialies--fried wonton and the white rose.
Perhaps what I loved most about Hoi An was the moss, fat on the sides of ancient homes, the tiled roofs, and the bogs infront of every pagoda and temple. I love the colors--neon pinks, yellows, reds and purples of the Chinese lanterns, handmade shoes and the plethora of cloth shops. The market, teeming with energy, sales, and colorful produce-splashes of color and texture, it smells like the fish that splash in tubs shared with bound frogs, snails and crabs- the sea smell offset with the stark and pleasant wisps of incense that drift lazily down the streets, lighted at every family alter.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Broken patterns
There's a typhoon passing over Nha Trang. Sarah and I wandered to the beach to watch the surf. Freight trains of white water rolled in. I found green and cloudy sea glass and thought of home. At home I never find pottery with sea-worn edges, broken patterns of blues and greens. I picked up the pieces scattered all over the beach and I brushed them off to bring with me back home.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
A Vietnamese Thanksgiving with Drunk Russian Men
We were waiting for a bus that never came when someone told us that a typhoon was on a path directly to the flooded streets of Hoi An, our next destination. Our bus driver had forgotten us, but sent an old army jeep with a torn leather roof and rusted-out floor to pick us up and carry us to another bus. 6 hours and one break-down later we were dropped off at a guest house in Nha Trang, a beach town about 12 hours south of Hoi An.
Donning our best holiday outfits, Sarah and I headed into the rain. Nearly two weeks had passed since I last drank red wine in LA with my uncles and I was eager for a good glass of a French red, a toast to Thanksgiving. Wine in Vietnam comes mostly from Dalat, in the cental highlands. Excited to try a local wine, when I first arrived in Saigon I had bought a small bottle for $2 at the market. With great anticipation, Sarah and I toasted a glass- to Vietnam, to traveling, to adventure- and I brought the glass to my lips, took a sip and spit it right back out.
As soon as we sat down at Truc Luc, a seafood restaurant near our guesthouse, I ordered a glass of red and pumpkin soup (it seemed thanksgiving-y). A few sips later and one of the Vietnemese waitresses giggled and whispered in my ear that another table wanted us to have more wine. Soon we had four full glasses of red wine on the table. The men who sent the wine turned out to be Russians, in fine form, on business in Vietnam for two weeks. We declined joining them for dinner and from our table watched one of them take a nap in his chair.
I was feeling like this was the start to a memorable Thanksgiving dinner when the entire restaurant started waving their arms and singing happy birthday to a man who was dining at the table next to ours. One of the waitresses played with my hair while another giggled and pointed at the drunk Russian men. Soon after I finished fresh grouper in lemongrass and chilli, the waitress brought us both baileys and coffee and I couldn't help but join the Russian men for a drink and good laugh. Calling themselves Mike 1 and Mike 2 they declared that Vietnemese vodka is almost as fine as Russian vodka- so I had to try. It was the restaurant's second birthday and the waitstaff was planning a party as soon as everyone left. They started singing karaoke and dancing around while we all enjoyed a shot or two of vodka and toasts to our respective countries.
When we returned to our hotel the phone rang three times and we ignored the calls. Then I heard a knock on the door. A man told us that we had visitors in the lobby. I asked if they were drunk and Russian. He confirmed. They must have followed us back in the rain. I said that we would be taking no visitors. Sarah and I played rumy instead.
Donning our best holiday outfits, Sarah and I headed into the rain. Nearly two weeks had passed since I last drank red wine in LA with my uncles and I was eager for a good glass of a French red, a toast to Thanksgiving. Wine in Vietnam comes mostly from Dalat, in the cental highlands. Excited to try a local wine, when I first arrived in Saigon I had bought a small bottle for $2 at the market. With great anticipation, Sarah and I toasted a glass- to Vietnam, to traveling, to adventure- and I brought the glass to my lips, took a sip and spit it right back out.
As soon as we sat down at Truc Luc, a seafood restaurant near our guesthouse, I ordered a glass of red and pumpkin soup (it seemed thanksgiving-y). A few sips later and one of the Vietnemese waitresses giggled and whispered in my ear that another table wanted us to have more wine. Soon we had four full glasses of red wine on the table. The men who sent the wine turned out to be Russians, in fine form, on business in Vietnam for two weeks. We declined joining them for dinner and from our table watched one of them take a nap in his chair.
I was feeling like this was the start to a memorable Thanksgiving dinner when the entire restaurant started waving their arms and singing happy birthday to a man who was dining at the table next to ours. One of the waitresses played with my hair while another giggled and pointed at the drunk Russian men. Soon after I finished fresh grouper in lemongrass and chilli, the waitress brought us both baileys and coffee and I couldn't help but join the Russian men for a drink and good laugh. Calling themselves Mike 1 and Mike 2 they declared that Vietnemese vodka is almost as fine as Russian vodka- so I had to try. It was the restaurant's second birthday and the waitstaff was planning a party as soon as everyone left. They started singing karaoke and dancing around while we all enjoyed a shot or two of vodka and toasts to our respective countries.
When we returned to our hotel the phone rang three times and we ignored the calls. Then I heard a knock on the door. A man told us that we had visitors in the lobby. I asked if they were drunk and Russian. He confirmed. They must have followed us back in the rain. I said that we would be taking no visitors. Sarah and I played rumy instead.
Saigon
Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) is a dizzying sea of motorbikes. Crossing the street is like playing dodgeball or chicken with bikes, motorbikes and buses, but the stakes are much higher. In a city with 10 million people, 5 million own motorbikes. No one wears a helment. The morning after Sarah and I arrived into town we stood on one side of the street and waited to see how the locals crossed. Three old women grabbed arms and shuffled inch by inch into the crowd. A slow pace gives the motorbikes a chance to dodge you. Pedestrians just giggle at each other, especially at the terrified faces of westerners. One old woman grabbed Sarah's hand and led us both across. Another time, a man walked out and held up his hand to help Sarah and me feel more comfortable. He represents the second most striking aspect of Vietnam. The people are genuine. In Central America and Egypt I was accustomed to constant pestering, begging for money. Men hissed and kissed and taunted, sometimes so much that I felt unsafe. Vietnamese men just smile and wave and go about with their day.
Our second day in Saigon Sarah and I took a bus out to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These complex and brilliant tunnels became legendary in the 1960s for their role in faciliating Viet Cong control of a large rural area outside of Saigon and just under the noses of American land and air operations. On the bus ride I kept saying Vietnam outloud to try and make it feel real. The word has a heaviness that I can never fully grasp. I think about my children telling me in 30 years that they will be traveling through Iraq and this helps put it all in perspective. The countryside is green jungle and the people come to the streets to let their children grin and wave at us in the bus. I listen to Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez war protest songs on my ipod and try to take myself to a different time but I can't. The Cu Chi Tunnels are a popular destination for tourists and Vietnamese school children. We see B52 bomb craters and go into the top level of the tunnels where the VC squatted in the dark for weeks or months at a time. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese and Americans lost their lives on these grounds. I hear gunshots and feel nauseated that tourists can pay 25 cents to shoot guns at fake targets on site. 3 million Vietnamese died. 3-4 million lost limbs. 60,000 US soldiers died in this strange and faraway land. Countless Vietnamese children were born with birth defects on account of the heavy and arbitrary use of Agent Orange. Its haunting. I'm glad there is peace here now and that I can pass through just 30 years later. I wonder about nearly ever middle aged man and woman that I see, especially the armless, footless that I walk around in the street.
In the early mornings we walked through the park near the Reunification Palace in Saigon. Men and women stretch alone. They stand still and swing their arms. Everyone else plays badmitton. Badmitton! Who ever thinks about badmitton!? I love it.
After a few days in Saigon, Sarah and I headed south into the Mekong Delta. We took a boat to floating markets on the river. Men and women paddle around us conducting business with their boats sinking low, heavy with bannanas, durian, dragon fruit and papayas. Dragon fruit is the most beautiful with its neon pink body and green spiky leaves. The fruit grows on cactus-like plants that cover the land in the south. This fruit grows nowhere else in the world.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner we eat Phu--a hot soup with rice noodles. On the Mekong I have a fried elephant ear fish for lunch. We see how the men and women make rice paper, rice noodles, rice pop cakes, coconut candy and coconut crepes. As we boat by, men and women point to us and their children wave and wave, making their parents laugh. The children are always with an adult, always playing. Everyone waves, its like a parade and my hand nearly gets tired. One afternoon I ordered a king Cobra in satay for lunch. It tated about like you think a snake might taste, but hope it won't. Sarah and I both tried snake wine. The Vietnamese pickle a snake and bottle it in rice wine. Again, its too snakey for me. The Vietnamese say it has healing powers. I say wine works just fine for me.
Sarah and I took a 5-hour bus to Mui Ne yesterday. We checked into a room that hangs over the South China Sea. The beach is clean, the water is warm, palm trees outline the beach. There is no surf, but I'm happy to relax a bit. We've hardly stopped since we got off the plane and I have finally shaken the cold that gripped my voice for 3 days. Its nice to take a moment before we continue traveling north. Our next destination is Hoi An. We leave tomorrow at 1pm and arrive the next morning at 5am. There has been heavy flooding and we have received mixed advice on whether its okay to travel. Some people have gotten stuck, some people say its just fine. Hoi An is a charm of a town that I cannot resist.
North North, heading into Northern Vietnam. War and peace. Time. I fumble with these words, unsure of so many things. I have much to learn about the world.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Thinking about Christmas in October
I'm telling my dad tonight that I’m going to Vietnam in 3 weeks. I’ll try to explain why. I'll tell him that I’m missing Thanksgiving. I’ll miss walking through the woods with mom and Walt. I’ll miss sitting (or sleeping, rather) in the deer stand as dad keeps watch and mom drinks beer. I’ll miss mom’s stewed oysters and Aunt Gina’s sweet potatoes with brown sugar and pecans. I’ll miss the river, the red plaid curtains at the hunting camp, the fireplace and hot chocolate. Last Christmas, Santa brought the family a new boat. I haven't even been on it. Dad would be excited to take me for a spin. When I was 12 he taught me how to drive a boat. Some of our biggest fights during that time were on the water, us being stubborn and silly really. The disputes continue sometimes and though the subjects seem more serious—politics, jobs, religion—they still seem just as silly. How do you make them stop? I never see Walt.
I’ve missed Thanksgiving once before. I’ve never missed Christmas. The holiday has been the same in my family for 20 years, since we moved into our house on Evans Street. We listen to Christmas music, wrap presents, and decorate the tree. Walt and I put on the first ornaments at the same time and we use the same two ornaments every year. The tree is always the same—gaudy with old ornaments falling apart, too much tinsel, and fat, colored lights. Christmas night we have friends over, eat scallop chowder, go to church, and drink. The biggest dilemma is deciding who should drive to Church. No one wants to quit drinking. On Christmas morning Walt and I go down the stairs together. We used to hold hands. Walt insists on not looking at the presents that Santa has laid out on the couch. We must go through our stocking first and look at the crumbs Santa has left by the fireplace. We always have a tangerine in the bottom of our stockings. We never mention that Santa might not be real. Mom fixes a big breakfast and then we pass out presents under the tree. Almost every year it’s just the four of us—a single unit that get less and less time together over the years.
The worst part is if mom thinks I’ll be surprising the family for Christmas. If she thinks that somehow I just wouldn’t be able to miss the holiday with my family and so I’m catching a flight home. I’ve surprised them like this a few times before. She’ll wait and hope and say her prayers. And I wont come home.
I’ve missed Thanksgiving once before. I’ve never missed Christmas. The holiday has been the same in my family for 20 years, since we moved into our house on Evans Street. We listen to Christmas music, wrap presents, and decorate the tree. Walt and I put on the first ornaments at the same time and we use the same two ornaments every year. The tree is always the same—gaudy with old ornaments falling apart, too much tinsel, and fat, colored lights. Christmas night we have friends over, eat scallop chowder, go to church, and drink. The biggest dilemma is deciding who should drive to Church. No one wants to quit drinking. On Christmas morning Walt and I go down the stairs together. We used to hold hands. Walt insists on not looking at the presents that Santa has laid out on the couch. We must go through our stocking first and look at the crumbs Santa has left by the fireplace. We always have a tangerine in the bottom of our stockings. We never mention that Santa might not be real. Mom fixes a big breakfast and then we pass out presents under the tree. Almost every year it’s just the four of us—a single unit that get less and less time together over the years.
The worst part is if mom thinks I’ll be surprising the family for Christmas. If she thinks that somehow I just wouldn’t be able to miss the holiday with my family and so I’m catching a flight home. I’ve surprised them like this a few times before. She’ll wait and hope and say her prayers. And I wont come home.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
I'm a blogger, blogging away
I haven't blogged before. Before, I never blogged. Blog is a great word- better the more times you say it. Blog Blog Blog.
I used to take long trips and clog the inboxes of friends, family, teachers, preachers, professors, friends of friends' families, etc etc. It was too much. Now I'm going to be a blogger and blog blog away.
WHERE? WHEN? WHY??
VIETNAM (to start)
November 12th
to be explained later or never
I bought a one-way. I hear there is a fruit in the south of Vietnam that grows nowhere else in the world. There is much to discover.
I used to take long trips and clog the inboxes of friends, family, teachers, preachers, professors, friends of friends' families, etc etc. It was too much. Now I'm going to be a blogger and blog blog away.
WHERE? WHEN? WHY??
VIETNAM (to start)
November 12th
to be explained later or never
I bought a one-way. I hear there is a fruit in the south of Vietnam that grows nowhere else in the world. There is much to discover.
Nicaragua
May 10, 2007
“Arriba Arriba?” High High? I ask the bus driver and point to the top of the American school bus that’s used in Nicaragua as local transportation. In English it’s called a chicken bus. Most are classic yellow, but customized with images of the white jesucristo bleeding on the cross. This one has green streamers along the sides and a blue Virgin Mary. I am on my way to Limon, Nicaragua, to start a surf camp for Nicaraguan girls. I ride through the mountains on top of the bus and grip rusty racks to keep from being slung off—passing sea-foam colored homes, black iron pots piled on the washing slabs, and bright purple rope oppressed with drying clothes.
I yell with the men, “¡Brama Brama! ¡A la izquierda, a la derecha!” Branch, Branch! Left, Right! And we dodge. When we stop, women with baskets of dulces on their heads and bags of ripe avocados around their wrists, push their way up the aisles looking for a sale. I sit on top because the bus gets crowded and these women have no problem shoving me out of the way. I don’t blame them anyway. So I sit with some men. One holds a pig in a bag. On the back of the bus a calf is tied down. The calf is complacent—staring behind the bus as if to take in the scenery—like me. But the pig squeals inside the bag and the man slaps it to shut it up. Can it breathe? Does it just wish for the view? Women never ride on top.
Within a week the sixteen girl campers come to our house in the morning dressed in skirts and t-shirts. Only one or two wear a bathing suit. Some arrive an hour early because not everyone observes daylight saving time. Time is a silly concept in Limon, Nicaragua, a small town on the Pacific. While Jeff, Sharp, Andy and I fill up water bottles and carry the surfboards outside, several of the girls jump rope. In the hammock two cousins drape themselves over Abby, showing their affection. One of them has a crush on Elvis, the seventeen year-old Nicaraguan surfer with whom we live. Rosa, a spunky twelve year-old, climbs down into the shade of the well, where the air is cool. The others peer in and watch her. They have a lot of respect for Rosa. She has a confidence that draws people to her. Her grandmother’s house serves the best breakfast around and her brothers and cousins make up the local surf gang.
Professional surfers have started traveling to Nicaragua to surf at Popoyo. Because of their influence, there is a growing number of Nicaraguan surfers. But there are virtually no females in the water. In awe of her brothers and cousins, Rosa also wants to learn to surf.
A week before the camp had started, as Rosa and I played with her pet monkey, we talked about the camp. I was skeptical that others would be interested, but she assured me she would convince her girlfriends. The next day, Jeff, Sharp and I were hitching a ride to the store to buy instant coffee and rice, and Rosa yelled for us to wait. She ran from her house with a list of 25 signatures scribbled on a pink piece of notebook paper.
Most Nicaraguan women don’t have the same opportunities that I’ve had. In a country characterized by the machismo culture, male power and dominance, women have often been forced to be subservient to their husbands and fathers. Their sphere of power is restricted to the home and the roles of child-rearing, cooking and cleaning. The idea that women are weaker and need male protection has been ingrained in most western societies and is finally starting to fall apart, but such ideologies have left many women everywhere feeling inadequate and self-conscious.
Surfing has been one of the most important confidence-building tools in my life. Situated in an element out of my control, I have to trust that I can handle whatever the ocean deals me. Waves sometimes slap me in the face and play with my body like a child pulls on the legs of a spider—seeing how far they can stretch before breaking. But sometimes I catch a wave and we flirt all the way to the shore and nothing else in that moment matters. Surfing is a life philosophy, a therapy. Coming from a culture in which self-restraint and control dictate success, surfing provides an opportunity to step outside of that box, where everything is fluid. Inevitably, spending time in the ocean fosters a greater appreciation for the environment and a more personal desire to conserve it.
It’s difficult to say when I began to surf. I think this is because learning to surf is in many ways like learning a musical instrument or a foreign language—it’s a process and it never feels complete. I grew up in Morehead City with a boating and beach family. I would wake up on a summer morning and immediately put on my bathing suit. There was no question that the day would involve spending time in the ocean or the sound behind my house.
With my parents watching from the shore, my brother and I would take our little neon boogie boards out in all types of wave conditions. We preferred big, nasty and impossible, and we loved to get pushed around by the ocean and tossed aggressively into the sand. Eventually, we tried our luck standing. Mostly, the boards would sink, and the wipeouts were always more brutal. Enticed by such a challenge, I asked some family friends to push me into a few waves on their surfboards at Atlantic Beach and Cape Lookout. For Christmas, I received a surfboard. The following summer, the boogie board stayed in the shed.
We play in an estuary on the beach. The water is brown and tadpoles scatter along the edges. I lead the girls in some exercises. A few disobey and run in the water before we finish, but I don’t mind. At first, the girls like Abby and me better than our male counterparts. They tie our hair in braids and climb on our backs under water. Most of the girls don’t swim well. So for the first week of surf camp, we won’t take them into the ocean. Some girls will never learn to surf, but that’s not what matters most. I am excited that Nicaraguans and Americans are playing together peacefully in the estuary. I am pleased that the 16 girls who participate in the camp have an opportunity to do something new together, as women.
We divide the girls into two lines and Abby and I demonstrate a relay race we have designed to help them practice paddling. Sharp yells for us to start and we sprint to our surfboards, carry them to the edge of the estuary, and race them to the other side. The girls cheer for us and Abby and I share a glance, deciding to end the race in a tie. After the girls run through the relay several times, they beg for Jeff and me to compete. The girls call Jeff, Jefe, because its easier to say. Jefe translates to Boss in Spanish. As we race, the girls taunt him, “Jefe no puede, Jefe no puede,” Jefe can’t, Jefe can’t. They grab his shoulders as he paddles to make sure that I will win.
*******
Two summers before, just after my freshman year, I had been co-coordinator and instructor with the Cape Lookout Surfari, a surf camp for high school girls. I worked with Keith Rittmaster, natural science curator with the North Carolina Maritime Museum, to start the overnight camp, based at the North Carolina Maritime Museum’s field station on the Cape Lookout National Seashore.
High school is a crucial time for teenagers who are struggling with their sense of identity, understanding their bodies, and becoming independent from their parents. The Cape Lookout Surfari is an opportunity to learn and improve surfing skills in a comfortable, non-competitive atmosphere. We teach surf etiquette, safety techniques, weather, marine science, and environmental conservation. But camp is more than instruction and activity. Together we are a bunch of girls, running around our island in our bathing suits—surfing, swimming, playing cards and telling stories and waking up early and going to bed late and eating healthy meals and then lots of cookies. We don’t think about the rest of the world for four days and three nights.
The last night of camp, after pouring sea water and sand over the bonfire, and taking one last dip in the shallow lagoon, we pile into the truck bed. A girl whispers, “I wish I were more comfortable with my body.” And she looks down at herself—at her little thighs and sandy feet. Another girl hears and replies, “We all wish we could change things about ourselves, but we can’t…Oh well!” And for an instant the darkness around us is black only because no other color or light or people exist outside of these girls and their lives and mine—life is so interconnected, intertwined; we sing together on the night ride home.
*******
The pit preacher was angry and shouting garbled words at a thin undergraduate standing under the tree. I was a sophomore at UNC, sitting on the steps by the Daily Grind as the grad students bundled up and held office hours and the internationals sipped espresso. I sat with my head in my hands, staring and feeling sad, like I never wanted to move from that one spot, as though I could stay there until the end of forever and just watch the world fall from the top of the skeleton tree and shatter over the preacher’s head.
I left for Nicaragua a few days later after I explained the trip to my mom and then my dad—when he was at our hunting camp with friends, in high spirits and he took it okay. I didn’t leave him much time to change his mind because I left the next morning. My roommate found a note, taped to her computer—I’d be back in a week.
My first trip to Nicaragua, in November 2004, was an escape from structure and schedule, from inland and academia and from normalcy. Feeling stagnant and unmotivated, I went to my professors and told them I needed to get away. I needed to surf and be in the ocean because I hoped it would make me feel like myself again and somehow spark something in me. I talked to John Brodeur, Director of Carolina Leadership Development and the NC Fellows Program and I spoke with Ginger and Ben, friends in the program. They encouraged me to explore and think of ways to use surfing to inspire other people.
During my week in Nicaragua, I decided I would start a surf camp. I had an abstract vision and a lot of questions that could only be answered with experience. I didn’t know where to start the camp; I wasn’t sure how the locals would respond to a blonde American woman, and I spoke no Spanish. I planned to take the following summer to travel down the Central American coast. I told my parents that I was meeting up with some friends from Carolina who were planning to travel south with me. That wasn’t entirely a lie. I knew I would see Jessi and Rachel in Guatemala and maybe they planned to travel south. My plan was to study in a language school in Antigua, Guatemala for a few weeks. Then head south down the coast somehow.
*******
That next summer I was studying in a Spanish school in Antigua Guatemala. After class, I had stayed on the pay phone later than normal, talking to mom and dad and missing home and the live oak trees on Bogue Sound. Mom was worried, so was dad and my brother. The rain stopped while I was on the phone. I folded up my umbrella and walked as fast as I could because it was getting darker. As I neared my house, it was completely dark and no one was in the streets. Approaching fast behind me was a guy with his hood drawn over his head and his hands in his pockets, looking down. He was about to catch up and I thought maybe he’s just in a hurry home to see his newborn baby or catch the evening news.
In the moment before he grabbed me I thought entirely about knives; I imagined a blade with a black, worn handle slicing simply into my side, and I saw blood soaking into my white linen shirt and me squeezing it out, to make it go away and then blood on the pavement, dripping a second before me. And it was thinking about the knife in his hand, that made me swipe him with my purple umbrella. I aimed for his hands and pictured the knife falling into the street with him, but there was no knife, just an inexperienced teenager with cold hands, out for something I can’t understand and I hope he never does it again; I hope he doesn’t get better at it. I hope he doesn’t attack on a sunny day when I don’t carry an umbrella.
There was a bar in Antigua that had a dusty purple glow with creamy walls and tapestries and starlights that hung in the corners and cast star-shapes on our bodies. The bartender was from New York, had been around for a while, he didn’t specify time. Didn’t matter. A tack board was beside the drink specials with a poster of Bush with horns and fliers for apartments to rent and a half-piece of copy paper written on in black:
On our way down south searching for untouched surf spots. Looking for flexible easy-going SURFERS to share the gas to our first destination—EL SALVADOR.
The next night I met the crew: a South African, Italian and English. We decided to leave Guatemala the next week.
Ojala means hopeful in Spanish and this is what we named the 1984 Jeep—we hoped it would make it into El Salvador. It had a rusted interior and peeling paint. The car seats were red and salty from sweat and sea; we did sweat—without air-conditioner; we rolled the windows down and floated between mountains like a plane in a green sky, our contrail—the highway behind; and the sky—jungle hills, green and refreshing.
El Salvador makes me think of neon pink, powerful waves, and palm trees that lined the beaches, nearly perfectly. Black beaches and plastic bags, washed up Band-Aids and bottles. I stayed a few weeks, until the air forced me out—it was heavy air, crowded and dirty. Too small, too dense so that I saw in every situation the really rich and the really poor. I surfed with the rich guys—they had been educated in Florida and California and learned the sport there. They took us to their white stucco beach houses where darker servants cleaned the pool, shimmied up the palm trees to chop down coconuts and crack them open to pour us drinks with rum; and then in the night, we would ride in their air-conditioned white SUV and listen to the music of the Counting Crows as we curved so smoothly around the mountains and so easily past barefoot babes in the streets holding iguanas with their heads chopped off, for sale.
I hitched a ride out with a guy driving from Texas. He had saved up enough cash bartending to take his camper, named Dolphin, through to Panama. He had a thing for dolphins; I never understood. We conversed as we drove out of El Salvador, topical conversation about jobs and weather. After crossing two borders in one day, one into Honduras and one out, where men hissed at me “Hola Mamasita, Aye Americana” and tried to lure Dolphin-lover into a back room, probably only to take his money, we quit talking and just drove.
Northern Nicaragua was empty and tired. It rained and we rolled the windows down anyway because it was so hot that we sweated into the seats, staining the backs. The roads were worn, gone, and Dolphin-lover asked why couldn’t they just get the road fixed and then I read out loud about Hurricane Mitch.
He dropped me off in Rivas, Nicaragua, at the market, by the bus stop, where dozens of chicken buses waited and everyone told me they could take me to my destination. But they didn’t even know where I was going. So I just waited with my book bag and surfboard. I found its usually better to wait and take a few dusty breaths, and then make decisions. A little girl approached and spoke to me slowly and so I followed her. Her name was Amanda, she was 12, and selling beef wrapped in tortilla and then fried. Her hands were greasy but she was smart and made friends easily.
She waited with me until my bus came. After two hours of bouncing down a dirt road with hot bodies and long stares, I got off in Las Salinas, 8 km from the beach. I didn’t want to walk so I paid a shirtless man to drive me. He smelled of rum but he was friendly. We drove past salt fields and white flamingos until we reached Popoyo, where Donald, a friend of a friend had been living for a year.
I rented a room from a family on the beach. Donald had taught their sixteen-year-old son, Elvis, how to surf and I talked to him about starting a surf camp. He liked the idea. It took less than a week to feel a part of their home. The defining instance came when I stepped on a devil’s walking stick and a thorn lodged itself comfortably into my pinky toe. I burned a needle and tried to tend to it myself but I didn’t like stabbing my own flesh. Elvis offered. Instead, I gave his stepmother the needle and she held my sweaty body down and pried the thorn out.
I would wake up early to surf—when the air was almost cool and I would hesitate to cross the river expecting the water to be cold, but it wasn’t. The surf break was a short distance down the beach, a paddle across the river mouth and a walk around a cliff with rocks so perfect in their formation and color—gold and brown and sandy with streaks of red (the streaks were my favorite), but mostly the rocks were beautiful because of their shapes. The smooth shapes made me want to curl up in the contours and return to my congenital state till the sun could join me. I felt the bottom of the ocean with my feet and walked along the angle of ridged rocks, and currents eventually swept me past the breakers. When the sun got so hot that I could feel my skin burning, or when the tide was so low that ugly rocks loomed under me as the waves sucked up, I came in to save my skin and my limbs and to make instant coffee and eggs and beans.
I liked Nicaragua. That was all. It was a feeling—like you get with a lover. Or like when you hear a song you haven’t heard in a while, a song that takes you back to an old state of mind, remembering your old self, your old friend, your old lover. Nicaragua was like that. It was comfortable.
*******
Four months later, over the holidays, I started writing letters and applications, organizing the surf camp and searching for staff. Sharp Kemp wanted to help. He is a student at NC State and a long-time friend from Morehead City who used to fish with my brother and cook for me over a fire on the beach behind my house. In the spring, I ran into Abby Stark in Costa Rica. I recognized her because I’d seen her at a Bob Marley tribute concert at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. She also wanted to teach at the surf camp. Andy Wolfe, a friend from Morehead City who goes to Columbia and speaks perfect Spanish, offered two weeks of his time to start the camp. In February, Jeff Carver called me from Florida, where he’s in school at Jacksonville University and he wanted to help with the camp and fundraising. Jeff’s parents and my parents were friends in college. We hadn’t seen each other since my uncle’s wedding in 1994—before surfing and other countries really existed to us. We worked together over the phone and wrote letters to friends and family, requesting donations. Without the support of this staff and private donors the project would have been impossible.
Atlantic Beach Surf Shop and Marsh’s Surf Shop in Atlantic Beach and Action Surf Shop in Morehead City donated t-shirts, stickers, hats, and rash guards. Florida surfboard shaper, Clay Bennett, gave us an incredible deal on eight of the surfboards that we used for teaching. The other surfboards were donated by Sharp and Jeff.
Despite many restless nights, my parents provided unconditional moral support. They encouraged me to pursue my goals and helped in every way that they could. The trust that they had in my life decisions and the way that they shaped me, had an important impact on the Nicaragua project.
Ultimately the support of the Fellows Program went far beyond financial aid. Being a part of the NC Fellows community has been my most meaningful experience at UNC. It has taught me much about leadership, but it has also taught me a lot about myself. During my time at Carolina, John Brodeur, the director of the program, was a mentor and a constant source of guidance and encouragement. The diversity within our class taught me both to appreciate my personal history and my home while considering new perspectives and ideas. By inspiring me and challenging me to explore the way that I think and the reasons that other people think differently, I grew into my own person. This perspective on life, fostered by the Fellows program, was the driving force behind the surf camp in Nicaragua.
*******
In the afternoons, after camp has finished and the girls have run home to complete their chores, the other instructors and I read in the hammocks until the hottest part of the day is done. Then we surf past the setting sun, until it’s so dark that we can hardly see the waves coming in lines from a horizon we can no longer distinguish. After dinner we drink Tona and Flor de Cana, first trying to salsa and sing in Spanish—understanding the dance and language only through the dewey effervescence of ice and lime.
During the night the heat settles in bed with me. The rain pelts the tin roof and sounds like an old Sandinista that I saw on my first day in Managua. He held a tin jar with a few coins and he shook it and mumbled, “For the love and charity of Jesus your savior, help me.” Coins, tin, sadness—that’s how the rain sounds. When the power goes out, the fan stops and the heat creeps out from under the sheets and the bed and from under my backpack, in the dusty corner. I think I could suffocate so I go outside to the well where the frogs groan, out-screaming the rain.
In the morning I wake up to piglets sucking milk from their mothers. They fight with each other, trying to get milk. Sometimes they wander in the front door and we give them crumbs off the table. Our old neighbor is the color of cracked clay. His Brahman cattle weed our yard and I think they are beautiful until they start to eat the purple azaleas and red hibiscuses that go so nicely with our yellow cinder-block home.
The camp lasts 5 weeks and after the last session, the 16 girls who consistently participate receive boards and goody bags and a fine fish dinner, prepared by Sharp. On one side of the sky, a storm moves in with sudden flashes of lightening. Streaks of red and pink collide with the storm and the battle is underlined by gray clouds the shape of mountains.
Nicaragua is quiet and sometimes I forget people exist. A group of dogs fight on the beach. They are so thin and I can see every rib in their sides. We have gone to the beach with some of the girls to watch the sunset and play a game of tag. I lunge for a shirtless boy in blue shorts and wrap my arms around his waist, tickling his sides and spinning him across the setting sun. Our shadows dance in the pale sands and stretch into the sea. Blackness eats each star’s reflection one by one and we run into the surf. Our bodies glow. We follow the fireflies back home.
*******
I graduate this year and people are always asking me what’s next, what will I do with the rest of my life? Postcards and images of people and places flash in my mind, but no single portrait streams together in a way that I can articulate into a life plan. At some point, I’ll return to Limon and surf with my girls and run another camp somewhere—maybe at the secret spot in the north. I want to go back to Leon, Nicaragua, my favorite city and stay a while; I want to buy a VW van with Sharp and paint it bright yellow and drive up the left coast of South America. When Fidel dies, I’d like to be in Cuba. I want to work on an organic farm, and on a vineyard, bartend to get by, or become a scuba instructor. It’s important for me to understand Latin American politics and the role the US has played. I want to hangout with Peace Corps volunteers on the beaches of El Salvador again.
I will work with kids and with women and contribute something to be determined while there. I will learn and read classics and paint and write. Then I will come back to America in 2008 and work on a Presidential campaign, maybe go to graduate school and if it feels right, I could become a professor…of sociology, or history? In American studies? Sexuality studies? Women’s studies? I might live all over the country for a while or work for a non-profit organization in the Triangle. I’ll be here and there for at least some part of my life. When people ask me what I want to do after college, I just say I want to do a lot of things.
“Arriba Arriba?” High High? I ask the bus driver and point to the top of the American school bus that’s used in Nicaragua as local transportation. In English it’s called a chicken bus. Most are classic yellow, but customized with images of the white jesucristo bleeding on the cross. This one has green streamers along the sides and a blue Virgin Mary. I am on my way to Limon, Nicaragua, to start a surf camp for Nicaraguan girls. I ride through the mountains on top of the bus and grip rusty racks to keep from being slung off—passing sea-foam colored homes, black iron pots piled on the washing slabs, and bright purple rope oppressed with drying clothes.
I yell with the men, “¡Brama Brama! ¡A la izquierda, a la derecha!” Branch, Branch! Left, Right! And we dodge. When we stop, women with baskets of dulces on their heads and bags of ripe avocados around their wrists, push their way up the aisles looking for a sale. I sit on top because the bus gets crowded and these women have no problem shoving me out of the way. I don’t blame them anyway. So I sit with some men. One holds a pig in a bag. On the back of the bus a calf is tied down. The calf is complacent—staring behind the bus as if to take in the scenery—like me. But the pig squeals inside the bag and the man slaps it to shut it up. Can it breathe? Does it just wish for the view? Women never ride on top.
Within a week the sixteen girl campers come to our house in the morning dressed in skirts and t-shirts. Only one or two wear a bathing suit. Some arrive an hour early because not everyone observes daylight saving time. Time is a silly concept in Limon, Nicaragua, a small town on the Pacific. While Jeff, Sharp, Andy and I fill up water bottles and carry the surfboards outside, several of the girls jump rope. In the hammock two cousins drape themselves over Abby, showing their affection. One of them has a crush on Elvis, the seventeen year-old Nicaraguan surfer with whom we live. Rosa, a spunky twelve year-old, climbs down into the shade of the well, where the air is cool. The others peer in and watch her. They have a lot of respect for Rosa. She has a confidence that draws people to her. Her grandmother’s house serves the best breakfast around and her brothers and cousins make up the local surf gang.
Professional surfers have started traveling to Nicaragua to surf at Popoyo. Because of their influence, there is a growing number of Nicaraguan surfers. But there are virtually no females in the water. In awe of her brothers and cousins, Rosa also wants to learn to surf.
A week before the camp had started, as Rosa and I played with her pet monkey, we talked about the camp. I was skeptical that others would be interested, but she assured me she would convince her girlfriends. The next day, Jeff, Sharp and I were hitching a ride to the store to buy instant coffee and rice, and Rosa yelled for us to wait. She ran from her house with a list of 25 signatures scribbled on a pink piece of notebook paper.
Most Nicaraguan women don’t have the same opportunities that I’ve had. In a country characterized by the machismo culture, male power and dominance, women have often been forced to be subservient to their husbands and fathers. Their sphere of power is restricted to the home and the roles of child-rearing, cooking and cleaning. The idea that women are weaker and need male protection has been ingrained in most western societies and is finally starting to fall apart, but such ideologies have left many women everywhere feeling inadequate and self-conscious.
Surfing has been one of the most important confidence-building tools in my life. Situated in an element out of my control, I have to trust that I can handle whatever the ocean deals me. Waves sometimes slap me in the face and play with my body like a child pulls on the legs of a spider—seeing how far they can stretch before breaking. But sometimes I catch a wave and we flirt all the way to the shore and nothing else in that moment matters. Surfing is a life philosophy, a therapy. Coming from a culture in which self-restraint and control dictate success, surfing provides an opportunity to step outside of that box, where everything is fluid. Inevitably, spending time in the ocean fosters a greater appreciation for the environment and a more personal desire to conserve it.
It’s difficult to say when I began to surf. I think this is because learning to surf is in many ways like learning a musical instrument or a foreign language—it’s a process and it never feels complete. I grew up in Morehead City with a boating and beach family. I would wake up on a summer morning and immediately put on my bathing suit. There was no question that the day would involve spending time in the ocean or the sound behind my house.
With my parents watching from the shore, my brother and I would take our little neon boogie boards out in all types of wave conditions. We preferred big, nasty and impossible, and we loved to get pushed around by the ocean and tossed aggressively into the sand. Eventually, we tried our luck standing. Mostly, the boards would sink, and the wipeouts were always more brutal. Enticed by such a challenge, I asked some family friends to push me into a few waves on their surfboards at Atlantic Beach and Cape Lookout. For Christmas, I received a surfboard. The following summer, the boogie board stayed in the shed.
We play in an estuary on the beach. The water is brown and tadpoles scatter along the edges. I lead the girls in some exercises. A few disobey and run in the water before we finish, but I don’t mind. At first, the girls like Abby and me better than our male counterparts. They tie our hair in braids and climb on our backs under water. Most of the girls don’t swim well. So for the first week of surf camp, we won’t take them into the ocean. Some girls will never learn to surf, but that’s not what matters most. I am excited that Nicaraguans and Americans are playing together peacefully in the estuary. I am pleased that the 16 girls who participate in the camp have an opportunity to do something new together, as women.
We divide the girls into two lines and Abby and I demonstrate a relay race we have designed to help them practice paddling. Sharp yells for us to start and we sprint to our surfboards, carry them to the edge of the estuary, and race them to the other side. The girls cheer for us and Abby and I share a glance, deciding to end the race in a tie. After the girls run through the relay several times, they beg for Jeff and me to compete. The girls call Jeff, Jefe, because its easier to say. Jefe translates to Boss in Spanish. As we race, the girls taunt him, “Jefe no puede, Jefe no puede,” Jefe can’t, Jefe can’t. They grab his shoulders as he paddles to make sure that I will win.
*******
Two summers before, just after my freshman year, I had been co-coordinator and instructor with the Cape Lookout Surfari, a surf camp for high school girls. I worked with Keith Rittmaster, natural science curator with the North Carolina Maritime Museum, to start the overnight camp, based at the North Carolina Maritime Museum’s field station on the Cape Lookout National Seashore.
High school is a crucial time for teenagers who are struggling with their sense of identity, understanding their bodies, and becoming independent from their parents. The Cape Lookout Surfari is an opportunity to learn and improve surfing skills in a comfortable, non-competitive atmosphere. We teach surf etiquette, safety techniques, weather, marine science, and environmental conservation. But camp is more than instruction and activity. Together we are a bunch of girls, running around our island in our bathing suits—surfing, swimming, playing cards and telling stories and waking up early and going to bed late and eating healthy meals and then lots of cookies. We don’t think about the rest of the world for four days and three nights.
The last night of camp, after pouring sea water and sand over the bonfire, and taking one last dip in the shallow lagoon, we pile into the truck bed. A girl whispers, “I wish I were more comfortable with my body.” And she looks down at herself—at her little thighs and sandy feet. Another girl hears and replies, “We all wish we could change things about ourselves, but we can’t…Oh well!” And for an instant the darkness around us is black only because no other color or light or people exist outside of these girls and their lives and mine—life is so interconnected, intertwined; we sing together on the night ride home.
*******
The pit preacher was angry and shouting garbled words at a thin undergraduate standing under the tree. I was a sophomore at UNC, sitting on the steps by the Daily Grind as the grad students bundled up and held office hours and the internationals sipped espresso. I sat with my head in my hands, staring and feeling sad, like I never wanted to move from that one spot, as though I could stay there until the end of forever and just watch the world fall from the top of the skeleton tree and shatter over the preacher’s head.
I left for Nicaragua a few days later after I explained the trip to my mom and then my dad—when he was at our hunting camp with friends, in high spirits and he took it okay. I didn’t leave him much time to change his mind because I left the next morning. My roommate found a note, taped to her computer—I’d be back in a week.
My first trip to Nicaragua, in November 2004, was an escape from structure and schedule, from inland and academia and from normalcy. Feeling stagnant and unmotivated, I went to my professors and told them I needed to get away. I needed to surf and be in the ocean because I hoped it would make me feel like myself again and somehow spark something in me. I talked to John Brodeur, Director of Carolina Leadership Development and the NC Fellows Program and I spoke with Ginger and Ben, friends in the program. They encouraged me to explore and think of ways to use surfing to inspire other people.
During my week in Nicaragua, I decided I would start a surf camp. I had an abstract vision and a lot of questions that could only be answered with experience. I didn’t know where to start the camp; I wasn’t sure how the locals would respond to a blonde American woman, and I spoke no Spanish. I planned to take the following summer to travel down the Central American coast. I told my parents that I was meeting up with some friends from Carolina who were planning to travel south with me. That wasn’t entirely a lie. I knew I would see Jessi and Rachel in Guatemala and maybe they planned to travel south. My plan was to study in a language school in Antigua, Guatemala for a few weeks. Then head south down the coast somehow.
*******
That next summer I was studying in a Spanish school in Antigua Guatemala. After class, I had stayed on the pay phone later than normal, talking to mom and dad and missing home and the live oak trees on Bogue Sound. Mom was worried, so was dad and my brother. The rain stopped while I was on the phone. I folded up my umbrella and walked as fast as I could because it was getting darker. As I neared my house, it was completely dark and no one was in the streets. Approaching fast behind me was a guy with his hood drawn over his head and his hands in his pockets, looking down. He was about to catch up and I thought maybe he’s just in a hurry home to see his newborn baby or catch the evening news.
In the moment before he grabbed me I thought entirely about knives; I imagined a blade with a black, worn handle slicing simply into my side, and I saw blood soaking into my white linen shirt and me squeezing it out, to make it go away and then blood on the pavement, dripping a second before me. And it was thinking about the knife in his hand, that made me swipe him with my purple umbrella. I aimed for his hands and pictured the knife falling into the street with him, but there was no knife, just an inexperienced teenager with cold hands, out for something I can’t understand and I hope he never does it again; I hope he doesn’t get better at it. I hope he doesn’t attack on a sunny day when I don’t carry an umbrella.
There was a bar in Antigua that had a dusty purple glow with creamy walls and tapestries and starlights that hung in the corners and cast star-shapes on our bodies. The bartender was from New York, had been around for a while, he didn’t specify time. Didn’t matter. A tack board was beside the drink specials with a poster of Bush with horns and fliers for apartments to rent and a half-piece of copy paper written on in black:
On our way down south searching for untouched surf spots. Looking for flexible easy-going SURFERS to share the gas to our first destination—EL SALVADOR.
The next night I met the crew: a South African, Italian and English. We decided to leave Guatemala the next week.
Ojala means hopeful in Spanish and this is what we named the 1984 Jeep—we hoped it would make it into El Salvador. It had a rusted interior and peeling paint. The car seats were red and salty from sweat and sea; we did sweat—without air-conditioner; we rolled the windows down and floated between mountains like a plane in a green sky, our contrail—the highway behind; and the sky—jungle hills, green and refreshing.
El Salvador makes me think of neon pink, powerful waves, and palm trees that lined the beaches, nearly perfectly. Black beaches and plastic bags, washed up Band-Aids and bottles. I stayed a few weeks, until the air forced me out—it was heavy air, crowded and dirty. Too small, too dense so that I saw in every situation the really rich and the really poor. I surfed with the rich guys—they had been educated in Florida and California and learned the sport there. They took us to their white stucco beach houses where darker servants cleaned the pool, shimmied up the palm trees to chop down coconuts and crack them open to pour us drinks with rum; and then in the night, we would ride in their air-conditioned white SUV and listen to the music of the Counting Crows as we curved so smoothly around the mountains and so easily past barefoot babes in the streets holding iguanas with their heads chopped off, for sale.
I hitched a ride out with a guy driving from Texas. He had saved up enough cash bartending to take his camper, named Dolphin, through to Panama. He had a thing for dolphins; I never understood. We conversed as we drove out of El Salvador, topical conversation about jobs and weather. After crossing two borders in one day, one into Honduras and one out, where men hissed at me “Hola Mamasita, Aye Americana” and tried to lure Dolphin-lover into a back room, probably only to take his money, we quit talking and just drove.
Northern Nicaragua was empty and tired. It rained and we rolled the windows down anyway because it was so hot that we sweated into the seats, staining the backs. The roads were worn, gone, and Dolphin-lover asked why couldn’t they just get the road fixed and then I read out loud about Hurricane Mitch.
He dropped me off in Rivas, Nicaragua, at the market, by the bus stop, where dozens of chicken buses waited and everyone told me they could take me to my destination. But they didn’t even know where I was going. So I just waited with my book bag and surfboard. I found its usually better to wait and take a few dusty breaths, and then make decisions. A little girl approached and spoke to me slowly and so I followed her. Her name was Amanda, she was 12, and selling beef wrapped in tortilla and then fried. Her hands were greasy but she was smart and made friends easily.
She waited with me until my bus came. After two hours of bouncing down a dirt road with hot bodies and long stares, I got off in Las Salinas, 8 km from the beach. I didn’t want to walk so I paid a shirtless man to drive me. He smelled of rum but he was friendly. We drove past salt fields and white flamingos until we reached Popoyo, where Donald, a friend of a friend had been living for a year.
I rented a room from a family on the beach. Donald had taught their sixteen-year-old son, Elvis, how to surf and I talked to him about starting a surf camp. He liked the idea. It took less than a week to feel a part of their home. The defining instance came when I stepped on a devil’s walking stick and a thorn lodged itself comfortably into my pinky toe. I burned a needle and tried to tend to it myself but I didn’t like stabbing my own flesh. Elvis offered. Instead, I gave his stepmother the needle and she held my sweaty body down and pried the thorn out.
I would wake up early to surf—when the air was almost cool and I would hesitate to cross the river expecting the water to be cold, but it wasn’t. The surf break was a short distance down the beach, a paddle across the river mouth and a walk around a cliff with rocks so perfect in their formation and color—gold and brown and sandy with streaks of red (the streaks were my favorite), but mostly the rocks were beautiful because of their shapes. The smooth shapes made me want to curl up in the contours and return to my congenital state till the sun could join me. I felt the bottom of the ocean with my feet and walked along the angle of ridged rocks, and currents eventually swept me past the breakers. When the sun got so hot that I could feel my skin burning, or when the tide was so low that ugly rocks loomed under me as the waves sucked up, I came in to save my skin and my limbs and to make instant coffee and eggs and beans.
I liked Nicaragua. That was all. It was a feeling—like you get with a lover. Or like when you hear a song you haven’t heard in a while, a song that takes you back to an old state of mind, remembering your old self, your old friend, your old lover. Nicaragua was like that. It was comfortable.
*******
Four months later, over the holidays, I started writing letters and applications, organizing the surf camp and searching for staff. Sharp Kemp wanted to help. He is a student at NC State and a long-time friend from Morehead City who used to fish with my brother and cook for me over a fire on the beach behind my house. In the spring, I ran into Abby Stark in Costa Rica. I recognized her because I’d seen her at a Bob Marley tribute concert at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. She also wanted to teach at the surf camp. Andy Wolfe, a friend from Morehead City who goes to Columbia and speaks perfect Spanish, offered two weeks of his time to start the camp. In February, Jeff Carver called me from Florida, where he’s in school at Jacksonville University and he wanted to help with the camp and fundraising. Jeff’s parents and my parents were friends in college. We hadn’t seen each other since my uncle’s wedding in 1994—before surfing and other countries really existed to us. We worked together over the phone and wrote letters to friends and family, requesting donations. Without the support of this staff and private donors the project would have been impossible.
Atlantic Beach Surf Shop and Marsh’s Surf Shop in Atlantic Beach and Action Surf Shop in Morehead City donated t-shirts, stickers, hats, and rash guards. Florida surfboard shaper, Clay Bennett, gave us an incredible deal on eight of the surfboards that we used for teaching. The other surfboards were donated by Sharp and Jeff.
Despite many restless nights, my parents provided unconditional moral support. They encouraged me to pursue my goals and helped in every way that they could. The trust that they had in my life decisions and the way that they shaped me, had an important impact on the Nicaragua project.
Ultimately the support of the Fellows Program went far beyond financial aid. Being a part of the NC Fellows community has been my most meaningful experience at UNC. It has taught me much about leadership, but it has also taught me a lot about myself. During my time at Carolina, John Brodeur, the director of the program, was a mentor and a constant source of guidance and encouragement. The diversity within our class taught me both to appreciate my personal history and my home while considering new perspectives and ideas. By inspiring me and challenging me to explore the way that I think and the reasons that other people think differently, I grew into my own person. This perspective on life, fostered by the Fellows program, was the driving force behind the surf camp in Nicaragua.
*******
In the afternoons, after camp has finished and the girls have run home to complete their chores, the other instructors and I read in the hammocks until the hottest part of the day is done. Then we surf past the setting sun, until it’s so dark that we can hardly see the waves coming in lines from a horizon we can no longer distinguish. After dinner we drink Tona and Flor de Cana, first trying to salsa and sing in Spanish—understanding the dance and language only through the dewey effervescence of ice and lime.
During the night the heat settles in bed with me. The rain pelts the tin roof and sounds like an old Sandinista that I saw on my first day in Managua. He held a tin jar with a few coins and he shook it and mumbled, “For the love and charity of Jesus your savior, help me.” Coins, tin, sadness—that’s how the rain sounds. When the power goes out, the fan stops and the heat creeps out from under the sheets and the bed and from under my backpack, in the dusty corner. I think I could suffocate so I go outside to the well where the frogs groan, out-screaming the rain.
In the morning I wake up to piglets sucking milk from their mothers. They fight with each other, trying to get milk. Sometimes they wander in the front door and we give them crumbs off the table. Our old neighbor is the color of cracked clay. His Brahman cattle weed our yard and I think they are beautiful until they start to eat the purple azaleas and red hibiscuses that go so nicely with our yellow cinder-block home.
The camp lasts 5 weeks and after the last session, the 16 girls who consistently participate receive boards and goody bags and a fine fish dinner, prepared by Sharp. On one side of the sky, a storm moves in with sudden flashes of lightening. Streaks of red and pink collide with the storm and the battle is underlined by gray clouds the shape of mountains.
Nicaragua is quiet and sometimes I forget people exist. A group of dogs fight on the beach. They are so thin and I can see every rib in their sides. We have gone to the beach with some of the girls to watch the sunset and play a game of tag. I lunge for a shirtless boy in blue shorts and wrap my arms around his waist, tickling his sides and spinning him across the setting sun. Our shadows dance in the pale sands and stretch into the sea. Blackness eats each star’s reflection one by one and we run into the surf. Our bodies glow. We follow the fireflies back home.
*******
I graduate this year and people are always asking me what’s next, what will I do with the rest of my life? Postcards and images of people and places flash in my mind, but no single portrait streams together in a way that I can articulate into a life plan. At some point, I’ll return to Limon and surf with my girls and run another camp somewhere—maybe at the secret spot in the north. I want to go back to Leon, Nicaragua, my favorite city and stay a while; I want to buy a VW van with Sharp and paint it bright yellow and drive up the left coast of South America. When Fidel dies, I’d like to be in Cuba. I want to work on an organic farm, and on a vineyard, bartend to get by, or become a scuba instructor. It’s important for me to understand Latin American politics and the role the US has played. I want to hangout with Peace Corps volunteers on the beaches of El Salvador again.
I will work with kids and with women and contribute something to be determined while there. I will learn and read classics and paint and write. Then I will come back to America in 2008 and work on a Presidential campaign, maybe go to graduate school and if it feels right, I could become a professor…of sociology, or history? In American studies? Sexuality studies? Women’s studies? I might live all over the country for a while or work for a non-profit organization in the Triangle. I’ll be here and there for at least some part of my life. When people ask me what I want to do after college, I just say I want to do a lot of things.
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