I told you we were going to have this conversation

Today most of what I thought about...was food. Many people in my life have informed me that they only spend time with me due to my voracious appetite and my interest in anything edible- so I'm going to talk a bit about Venezuelan food, and the markets in which one can find them.
Today we visited the mercado centrale, while is apparently open on Saturdays and Sundays, and it had anything local that is grown that you could want.
I purchased
-guavas
-avocados (GIANT AND DELICIOUS)
-peppers
-lettuce
-green onions
-limes
-little bananas

The opportunity for fresh fruits and veggies is amazing in this market, all covered but fairly "open-air", heavy with Venezuelan radio and vendors yelling "mira" or the prices of their foods, and the smell of pineappele and guava heavy in the air. In other parts of the market is the fish (Venezuelan is big on fish and seafood..hopefully soon I can convince myself i am capable of cooking fish), the meat market (lots of blood, pig heads, feet, and lots of really bloody meat). At the market our director bought Matt and I cachapas, a sweet corn-bread dish with sweeter cheese on top... it was OK but the corn was very heavy for me and as it was freshly cooked, it was very warm on top of the 80 degree weather!



For dinner the director and his wife had us over for tequenos, a deep fried pastry with cheese inside, and a green sauce to put on top (cilantro, green onions and other ingredients..we labeled it green goo). This coupled with some brownies and two glasses of peruvian white wine, and it's been a great food day.

¡Bienvenidos a Venezuela!

My first full day in Venezuela was full of adventure... if by adventure you mean waking up at 10am after one of my co-workers knocked on my door and rang the doorbell to have me join him at the director's house for breakfast. I spent the morning unpacking my bags, and exploring my fantastic new apartment. It has two bedrooms, both with full size beds (for all of my visitors...), two bathrooms, a really big shower, a living room with a giant tv and cable, a kitchen with a frigo, dining room table, and wifi internet (whenever the power is on).

The school is in a fairly commercial area, with government housing units nearby. The school area is entirely enclosed by a large concrete wall with barbed wire around it. Inside are large beautiful trees, many of which are mango or lime, and all of which have many colorful birds (mostly yellow).

After eating some breakfast (a cheese, ham, and red pepper spread sandwich), I headed off with a few others to explore all of the grocery stores and food/liquor shops in the area. Pretty much anything you'd want to find, you can find in the pharmacy or large grocery store, almost exactly a mile away from the school along Avenido Jose Antonio Anzoategui. I bought a few items to add to my stache, including 6 bottles of some of the cheapest beer I've ever found that still tastes like beer...about 10 cents per beer.

We also filled up the tank for gas in the director's car.. for 25 liters of gas, it was almost 5.5 bolivars, the equivalent of about 15 cents. I was baffled. More on government surplus and inflation later.
I spent the rest of my evening hanging out with the high school literature teacher Matt, who is from New York, and wondering how one can feel so tired and ready for bed at 7:45pm. 

End of one chapter; start of another

Time to start writing again, a task I did not take the time to do nor did I find relevant when living in Duluth, Minnesota. For the past two years I have been serving in the AmeriCorps program- Promise Fellows at a public middle school in Duluth, working with 7th and 8th grade students, and they taught me far more than I ever could have taught them. We did awesome service projects, I coached 7th grade girls basketball, and I am super happy to get to know such an impressive group of young people.

There will likely be more posts about my AmeriCorps experience and how it helped to get me to my next adventure: Venezuela.

I will spend (at least) the next ten months:

-bumbling around Anaco, Venezuela

-learning as much español as possible

-sweating

-teaching pre-kindergarden and elementary writing to wonderful kids

-making guava smoothies 

I arrived at the Barcelona airport, about 60km from Anaco, on Friday August 2nd. It was over 80 degrees outside when we finally touched down. I arrived with two other teachers, one returning, one new to the game, who I met up with in Miami. We were selected by the customs officials to go through the line in front of many others (apparently they can even smell the gringos), and with a quick "si, si, soy tourista" we were (mostly) legally allowed into Venezuela.

 Getting our bags was an amusing feat- imagine an airport baggage claim, but without the carousel. The bags were chucked through the hole in the wall, and all of the passengers swarm around the hole, happily pulling out their own bags and passing the ones that aren't theirs to those behind them. The majority of the bags are wrapped in thick plastic wrap, so it was relatively easy to find my giant duffel bags. Once we found all of our stuff, we met the director of the school who was waiting at the arrivals gate. We quickly piled our stuff into the truck and drove for an hour to Anaco and onto the grounds of the school!

Another little adventure

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

Christopher McCandless

So...uh...whaddya do up der in da winter?

And so travel season begins again.. the snow has finally melted, the trees are finally looking less sickly, and the bunny rabbits that inhibit my garden no longer leave tiny paw prints up the front steps. Spring has sprung.
So I guess the natural question is, what the heck did you do this winter?

Well, a lot. I could put up rather unfortunate pictures of me studying, watching Hulu, or I could give you a little look into the beautiful places I had the great fortune to travel to, and always in good company.

Let's start with Christmas Break:
The Brule river, where I spend every summer and winter with my parents, learning the words of the woods and the flow of the river.


Old man winter and I went out on the river on a cool crisp January day, drinking in the sunlight and spotting many eagles perched high in the pines.


I hung out at home, watched the snow fall, and fall, and fall once more. Only one "half day", first time in decades that the U of M has even closed for part of the day. The roads were so dangerous to drive on one day that pedestrians were found walking down the middle, mostly because there were no sidewalks to be found.

Procrastination on paper writing

Duluth: Sunny snowfalls and radio waves

Delicate December: new winning song in my books
Loveliest Radio
Currently listening to the radio program that a friend of mine does here in Duluth, DJ Wonderland on KUMD, sitting at the kitchen table of the house I grew up in. The winter sun is shining softly through the window and snowflakes are sparkling in the air. Nothing like a sunny Sunday snowfall. Can barely see the lake due to a light fog settling upon Duluth.

Home Away from Home
Minneapolis feels so far away right now, even thought it's only a three-hour drive (supposedly, I beg to argue this fact after my travels on Friday). After having spent the weekend away from school, Mpls friends, and the busyness that encompasses the Twin Cities, I gain a new respect for this "great white north". Duluth is a treasure in its own right, even if it is colder than one might appreciate, it has a beauty that I forget to appreciate at times. Driving into town on Friday night with the trees heavy with snow, houses full of Christmas trees and lights, everything felt just about right. Seth picked me up at UMD with his girlfriend and brought me home to my parents' house (where Seth currently lives). Despite getting into town 5 hours later than I had expected, I was just happy to get here.

Radio is now playing one of my absolutely favorite songs, River (Indigo Girls).

Skiing, Hockey, Foods and Friends
Saturday morning I went x-country skiing for the first time this season with Seth and Kara and a few of their friends. I seem to always forget the subtle pain that comes with the first ski, the aches on the particular appendages of your body that you either over-worked, or happened to fall on (I fell twice, once on an uphill, once on a slick downhill attempting to avoid a tree). Pictures of this adventure sure to come soon.

Evening time means food and friends. Dinner at Haciendo del Sol
Enchiladas De Carne Two corn tortillas rolled around our special blend of ground round and spices, smothered with our special enchilada sauce and topped with two tasty melted cheeses.
Mmmmm. That's all I have to say about that.

After dinner I went to a Bulldog hockey game vs. Denver @ the DECC, final hockey game at the DECC before they open the new arena right next door. Very cool to see the closing ceremony and see many of the former Bulldog players.
After hockey it was time to see friends, from near and far, some recent, some it's been a few years. We talked about life, school, the usual weather, the KGB, personality types, childish vs. childlike-ness, Katy Perry (apparently not as popular in Turkmenistan as here...), and of course, knitting. Cannot forget knitting.

Also, went to my first gay bar-not taking into consideration the bar my family accidentally went into in England on my brother's birthday, when we were just looking for a place to eat dinner- the Flame in Superior, very interesting, enjoyable place to dance when the DJ is doing his thing correctly. Ended the night by talking with a friend of mine til 4:30am, who has been abroad in Peace Corps. I love how friendships surpass national boarders, continents, and timezones.

Still jiving to Radio Wonderland, something that has finally given me the inspiration to write...first time in awhile as you can see. Hopefully my winter break will bring my writing itch back.