I feel the power of the open water. It reminds be of the human touch. When you touch someone you have control, compassion, and even aggresion with the yearning of connecting your body to theirs. No matter how fast of slow it is you feel the careful attention to the touch. When interacting with the earth which has the ability to give and take life, I feel the yearning to be connected. . . But the careful attention to how the connection exits must be considered.
I've been reading this book "The Legacy of Luna" by Julia Butterfly Hill. It's amazingly well written given how scatterbrained she was during her lecture at RISD. And so young! My age when she went up into that tree. I keep wondering when my big event will happen, and what it will be. More and more I think I may have to make it happen, although these things always seem to land in people's laps, as if they were born for it. What am I born for? The things I do seem so ordinary to me; go to college, see the world, climb the canyon. Where am I standing for what I believe in? I digress. The book is a good and inspiring read, easy to get into and quick to finish. It leaves me wondering where the balls are in environmentalism. Vinda Shiva states that the environmental movement in India is lead entirely by grass roots women's organisations. Whenever I read about the environment it's always so feminine. Julia mentions a time in the tree when two female singers came up in the tree with her and sang songs and read poems and had a little session. Guys don't do that. How can men get involved and not feel like pansies? Jackson Pollack once said that "Painting needs balls" and I say Environmentalism needs balls, too.
It's hard to leave a place that you enjoy. Especially when you are unsure about the next place. We were sad to leave Yvonne and her home. It was comfortable, warm and we felt helpful. Everything works out in the end. We are at Windgrove with Peter Adams. His property is beautiful. Walking along the path, seeing the waves crash against the cliffs- It makes you think . . . about everything.
We head down to windgrove on Wednesday and they to the Deep North the following week and as such we have no idea when our next solid internet connection will come around, so if we disappear for a bit, fear not.
I took myself out going to pick up Sam today. I was playing Warcraft 3 - noticed the time and ran outside to the van. Alison was waiting. I failed to notice a dip in the driveway or the broximity of a head level tree branch. To dodge it I croached down and stepped off the driveway, running to fast to really stop, and into the ditch, trip, fall, and roll into a stone lion gaurding the house and then the truck of the previous tree shredding my arm and brusing my leg. And then I had to drive the manual van into the city...
Last night we were talking to Yvonne and here recently arrived brother about their mother’s move from rural Queensland to Launceston after her husband’s passing. Well, she didn’t have any friends here and there was no Shirley club in town so she started one a month ago and now they have twenty two members. Wait wait, a Shirley club? Oh yes, you see her name is Shirley, it was a very a very popular name back when Shirley temple was on stage, but now it’s fallen out of fashion, so all these women named Shirley are around the same age. One day they decided to form a club, all you needed to join was to have Shirley as a first or last name. They’re in all the major towns now. It’s great for the old Shirleys because now they suddenly have all these friends from all walks of life to drop in on. What? Are you serious? I’ve never heard of this. Like, is there a New York chapter? Does anyone back in the states know a Shirley in a name exclusive social club? Alison and I couldn’t stop laughing, it’s just amazing.
I want to start and run an organization that deals with sustainability, community, design, and education on a small scale in under privileged areas. Thinking of the specifics, I realize I have all these big ideas but I feel so lost because I have no idea how to start. So:
Where do you start?
How much of a business background do you need?
What are the benefits of a non profit?
Can it start very small- like a house, some design projects, and a couple of high school interns?
How do you get the local community involved, what about the local colleges?
How do you start looking at the funding? What are main things I should think about?
Ok, so now I feel overwhelmed. I think about all this but feel so helpless. This trip is so that I can get an idea of how other people deal with these things, I am seeing some of that, but I feel frustrated and want to go back home and start doing something about it.
I feel that I should explain or clarify. We created this blog for couple of reasons:
1. To keep in contact with people and share what we are up to on our long journey.
2. We planed this trip to research sustainability in communities around the world. During our travels we come across interesting things that we not only want to share, but we want to get feedback. So, if we or someone else writes something that you find interesting or that raises a question, or if you are going through your daily activities and randomly think of something that is relevant to our research then you run to the nearest computer, visit the blog and post a comment. In the rush and excitement you try not to forget to sign your name (we like to know who visits and responds). The next time we log onto the blog and see your comment we will be so excited and will put a lot of thought into our response.
Thank you so much for taking the time to visit us in virtual space. I hope you come again.
I don't know what it is about this place, but I feel very happy here. Maybe it's the family we're staying with, the other wwoofers, our proximity to the city, the sunny hillside overlooks, or the gamestore I found yesterday. Whatever it is, I've been feeling better here than anywhere else we've been so far. It's just nice, you know? So this gamestore isn't really a game store, it's an everything store called Birchalls. They sell books, board games, action figures, legos, cards, stationary, models, and art supplies. The interesting thing about it is that all the stuff is pretty good quality, not the crap you'd expect to find in a store that sells everything in the states. They even had warhammer figures, that brought me back. Anyway, here are some lovely flowers we saw on the way to town yesterday.
So, between Sam, Alison, and myself we've been hitting the daily newspaper Soduku puzzle pretty hard, only this ones got us stumped. Any tips? The red is what we've got so far...
We were walking through the grocery store the other day and I spotted green seedless grapes. I got excited, not that I was going to buy any, but I could. Then I noticed the price: $15.99 a Kilo. The grapes were imported from the USA.
They don't celebrated Halloween here but they do sell pumpkins- however all their pumpkins look like gourds.(yellowish greenish on the outside) The second time we were in a grocery store I notices a stand that had "Halloween Pumpkins". They were bright orange like I was used to. Guess how much they were, just guess. . . nope, wrong. They were $22.95. I'm assuming they were imported as well.
We went everywhere trying to find a bit of candy corn but they just don't celebrate Halloween here. So we got some sugar and syrup and made our own carmel apples. Yummy. Also strange was that we couldn't find corn syrup anywhere, and come to think of it I never saw any maple syrup either, just honey and sugar cane syrup. We were going to get out today but the weather is a little gloomy. Not sure if I should dress up as an American or a plasterer's assistant tonight.
I've been thinking about how non PC, sexist, and racist this place is. I'm not saying the states is great, it's certainly not perfect, but I feel like it's much better than we give it credit. For instance, yesterday mark the plasterer and Shirley were talking about wwoofers and how blokes can stay in any old shed, but girls need a proper room in house. Yvonne's son calls everything he doesn't like "gay" as do his friends, and I think the only reason racism is not a big problem here, like Ireland, is that there are no non-whites here. Immigration is so strict because they want an all white Australia, as they say. If there was a large minority population here I'd expect there to be some conflicts of interests. The Korean girls wouldn't adopt non-asian kids becasue they wouldn't want them to be different, and if they adopted a chinese child they'd say it was korean. The U.S. is a damn accepting place.
So, Yvonne's ex-lover, their second son, and his grandmother were over for dinner tonight. Somehow September 11th came up, oh yeah, their first son lives just twenty kilos from where the "plane" crashed in Pennsylvania. I muttered that there is no proof that a plane crashed in PA and they all agreed with me! I went on to mention the loose change film and they say sure, it's sold on DVD down at the corner store! These Ausi's know more about what's actually going on in the States than we do.
Well, we've been gone for one month now and are both amazed that we still have two more months of wwoofing before we even leave Australia. Intense. I could sure go for some apple cider...
The Tele is always on here, and with only one common room and no bedroom in the house it's very distracting. Such a contrast to Marcus'! I have to go outside to get any time to myself or study Japanese.
Well, we're in Launceston for the next couple of weeks. The family we're staying with is very nice. There is another guy here redoing their gardens and two Korean girls that generally keep house, and Alison and I who have been assisting Thomas the Builder and Marky the Plasterer in renovating her mother's house which is right next door. The "good christian Korean girls" Have me and Sam, the gardener, banished to the grandmother's house while it is being renovated. Oh, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Early mornings for us men anyhow. The builders are actually very nice and funny guys, a bit different from your typical American construction worker. Oh yeah, she has a 16 year old daughter, and an 18 year old son who often has friends over. It's a noisey crowded house, but it's all good energy. Yvonne collects chinese antiques, as per this stool I really like. There's also a photo of the great view and my new friend.
10/23/06
More studio work today, the drum and basket are nearly done. Yesterday we were here all day, shoveling horse shit mixed with straw and a roadkill kangaroo into their garden. While I saw more shit working for Parks and Rec down at the sewage treatment plant, it was not flavored with the distinct aroma of steamy rotting flesh, kangaroo or otherwise. After four hours of that we were both ready to collapse. That's when the children found us, made me jump them on the trampoline, push them on the big swing in the north paddock, and watch them on the big net. After dinner, the kids needed to stay inside and my stomach became the trampoline. I nearly puked. Needless to say it has been very hard to get time to write or study our Japanese, and as nice as Marcus is, I'm ready to leave for the overworking.
Just thought I'd add a shot of our leaky caravan.
I keep thinking about our goals on this trip:
Researching sustainable living in communities with the intentions of merging different ways of life with modern lifestyles in order to decrease our negative affects on our environment and our society.
At lease this is a goal of mine, but I am struck by something strange as we continue this journey. I am not sure exactly what it is but I will try to describe it. I guess the questions that are raised are: Can you combine environmental consciousness with technology? Is the only solution (for creating a healthy environment for children, families and individuals) to isolate them from TV, internet, and the out side world as a whole?
I bring up these questions because the last two places that we have stayed at have given us this impression in some form or another. Mainly at Marcus' place. His kids go to a small school that encourages the families not to own a television. They are encouraged to entertain themselves by other means that are therefore more beneficial to their development. That sounds like a brilliant idea, but is it really. These children are completely sheltered from the outside world. They have no children in their neighbourhood because they don’t have a neighbourhood. They don't get some social ques because their exposor is limited. The strange part is that their parents pride themselves on this disconnect from technology or 'staying off the national grid', however they have a TV in their bedroom facing their bed. When we ask about internet access Marcus vaguely describe access in some far away place that we might be able to get too or we could go to the city and pay for it. It turns out that he has it in his office that exits in a shed about 20 feet away. So he made it seem impossible and gave us disapproving looks. But if you think about it his business excels because of internet access and Maree's work depends on it. They are hiding it from their children and from us because they think it is better with out it. Marcus also creates sculpture about it base on his lack of knowledge of technology. I find it really confusing and still hold onto the idea that we can find a balance with technology and out environment. We don't have to choose one or the other.
I'm reading a very interesting book here at Marcus' - "What We Think Of America" A collection of essays published by Granta 77, 2002 and edited by Ian Jack. It's so interesting to hear how people think of us, speaking with no pretense. In a strange way I wish I knew how Americans though about everyone else, but I guess that's the point, we don't care to think of them. Two excerpts:
"[America] is the only country whose citizenship is an act of faith" (p.49)
[In reference to 9/11] "They say themselves that they have been expelled from their Eden. How strange that they should ever have thought they had a right to one" (p.54)
Everyone emails me wanting to know how I feel. I feel ok, cold most of the time, often disgusted. With Alison here we can laugh about our woes rather than cry alone, which is good. How's the trip going? Well, the bush is bushier than we thought, the accomodation is much less than we expected, and the work is about the same as we expected. It's hard to tell sometimes when to stop working. The work for the people we stay with never ends, and we could help them dawn to dusk. Sometimes we feel guilty about stopping after four or five hours, but we have to, as an anthropologist must remain removed from the people he or she studies. It's part of the work stay agreement. I'm excited about getting to Japan and staying in one place for a month or two and being in control of my own time. It would be nice to have a weekend off. I'm not excited about it being winter in Japan when we get there. We are both disappointed in how American Australia is (no matter how much they say they don't like us) and are looking into shortening our time in Japan so we can go to India for two months, provided we find a place to stay. I miss everyone, particularly October in New England, leaves, apple cider, and food with flavor. I'm irritated at how hard it is to get anything out here - you can't walk to anything. Getting info from the travel agency is a huge chore. I wish I had a warm had, but am glad I was finally able to get some long johns.
I started feeling tired the other day. Not just exhausted or sleep deprived, I am those things too, but tired. Tired of being here, tired of traveling, and a little homesick, or just in need of a base.
