The Whites

 Tuesday, August 4, 2020, 3:57 PM

Mile 1991, Spaulding Mountain Lean-to

Rain threatening all day, finally now opening up for the first time, fire getting soaked, warm (for now) and dry within lean-to, drops of rain dancing upon tin roof, smoke burning my eyes from the under-attack fire, resisting worthily, even beginning to spread some, rain calming, only eleven miles today, early quit to beat and ride out weather we're supposed to get from that tropical storm, quick and easy miles to boot

     The last time I posted here I was in...I'd have to check. Those days are distant, and I've grown even more than anticipated since you've last read my words here. Since May 29 I have walked 819 miles through the forests of eight states. If I quit now 819 miles would be a respectable distance to have walked, right? Especially given the difficulty of the terrain. It's not like I've been sauntering from town to town on lightly graded and yearly graveled back roads. The path I've followed since the top of Route 225 in PA has been up and down, up and down, up and down. Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild, likens long-distance hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail to knitting a sweater (ascending), then pulling a loose thread to unravel the whole thing (descending). But quit? When I'm not even halfway done? I'd have to be dead or otherwise maimed before I quit. It's vaguely discouraging to reflect on the difficulty of the last 819 miles and know that I'm still less than 40% done with the trail, but I don't let such negative thoughts occupy cranial real estate. It's not, "I have 1,400 more miles to walk." It's "I'm closer to the finish with each step, the southern half is considerably easier, and what am I in such a hurry for anyhow?" I can't help thinking about the future, i.e. being done, throughout these ambling days, but despite how exhausting it is climbing these mountains, I wake up to a new adventure every day, one with trials and triumphs alike, and when I finish the trail, I'll look back on them with fondness and longing. Nobody should come out here unless they are resolved to finish, but the trail won't make it easy. 

     New Hampshire and Southern Maine, thru-hikers agree, are the most difficult parts of the trail. What makes the AT difficult is the elevation gain and loss. The last two states of the trail contain its most challenging climbs, and for northbounders (NOBOs) they start at Mount Moosilauke. 

     The night before I was cordially welcomed to The Whites, I bathed in a mountain stream, slept and ate well. The Moosilauke morning I was on the trail by 6:30 and visited a secret cemetery with gravestones dating back to the Mid-1850s. Then it was up--and up and up. The climb was long and gradual, but the descent was interminable and steep. It's four miles down the other side of God-forsaken Moosilauke. It took me two and a half hours to reach the bottom, and one of my trekking poles snapped on the way. At the bottom it felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my knees the entire time. Whites 1, Señor 0

     Next we descended into Lincoln, NH, and some of us stayed at The Notch--a clean, comfortable, and efficiently run hostel. They bummed me a bike, and I rode a few miles to a Mexican restaurant, El Charro. I was excited to practice my Spanish there, pero tuve un mesero que no habló español. I resupplied and rested well at the Notch. My friend Flipper and I made pancakes before getting shuttled back to the trail. I got in the car with my camp shoes on and changed into my boots on the way. A few miles in, I realized that I had forgotten my camp shoes in the shuttle. Without this extra pair of shoes, usually Crocs or flip-flops, hikers are left to wear either their boots or nothing at camp, making the entire experience simply less enjoyable. Whites 2, Señor 0. 

     In the midst of the Presidential Range, we descended into Pinkham Notch Visitor's Center where I bought an overpriced sandwich among other goodies. With a full tank I climbed up to Webster Cliffs. This climb, like many in the trail's top two states, was long--over two miles--and often technical, even vertical. My pack was laden with water because there was none up on the Cliffs. The view from the top was amazing, worth the effort as always. It rained overnight, and in the morning I discovered just how bowl-shaped my spot was. The tent floor was soaked along with everything in my bag which I left open under one of my tent's vestibules. My journal was also soaked, but I later salvaged the pages--which include some fiction--through the tedium of separating them, drying them in the sun, and scanning them as images into my phone. Later, I burned that handful of my life's pages. I left Webster Cliffs not knowing how ill-prepared I was for what would be my first night tenting in an alpine zone. Whites 3, Señor 0

     They call me Señor out here, but my name could easily be Late Start. I'm often the last one out of camp, average start being about 9 AM. Leaving Webster Cliffs I was even later than average, probably around 10 AM. This start time wouldn't give me the time I needed for a sixteen mile day that was mostly above the treeline and featured the presidential peaks. A meager four miles in I met my friend Hopper at a hut. The huts in the Whites are mountain lodges that house and feed thousands of tourists each year, well, each normal year. This year they aren't open for public overnight stay but do offer food, drinks, and key hiking supplies such as trekking poles. Hopper and I discussed how rain and high winds were forecasted for that night but agreed that 2 PM was unforgivably early to quit. I wanted to go twelve more miles, up and over the highest point in the Northeast (Mt. Washington, 6,280 feet) and had six hours before dark. As we thru-hikers often do when facing a formidable challenge, I decided to send it. I cranked the tunes and found a higher gear. My confidence didn't falter until I hustled up and over a windy, chilly, cloud-covered Washington. The highest peak I'd ever summitted on foot and the view it offered was one of bleak, impenetrable mist. With no reason to tarry up top, I strode down the mountain and roared toward the final six miles. With darkness quickly closing in and a sky threatening rain, I decreed the new plan aloud, as if to a team, "Conserve the water, hit the next stealth spot you see." The white flag was waved; the Whites had kept me from my destination. I found a rare alpine stealth spot and threw down my pack, exhausted and frustrated. My one and only pole had snapped but was still functional, just a little short and wrapped in duct tape. "All I wanna do is eat and go to bed." When I opened my tent pole bag, a dreadful realization dawned on me. I'd forgotten my cross pole at Webster Cliffs that morning. This pole is essential in keeping the tent stable and its inhabitants dry. I was above the treeline in rain, fog, and gusts up to 50 MPH, and I didn't have my cross pole. After a serious self-berating, I bundled up, ate dinner, and settled in for a cold, restless, damp, noisy night of listening to my loose rain fly flapping languidly in the wind. Whites 4, Señor 0. 

     After escaping the Whites I landed at Rattle River Hostel where I could lick my wounds. It was quite a restorative stay despite being stuck with a top bunk in a steaming hot room. In the hiker box I found a fine trekking pole which I still use today. After posting a comment on Guthook's (thru-hiker Facebook), someone found my tent pole and sent it up the trail. I got a free night by beating the hostel owner, Eric, at cornhole. An old trail friend that I hadn't seen since PA, John, showed up while I zeroed there. We ate and drank well. The Whites had knocked me down, but I'd staggered to my feet every time. And now they're in my rearview. In less than two weeks I'll be done with the top half of the AT. Conquering New Hampshire and Southern Maine was the hardest physical thing I've ever done. Now, not only the rest of the trail, but life's obstacles will be easier because they won't be the Whites. 

     Do something hard. You want to grab life by the ankles and swing it round in circles over your head? Or do you want life to merely happen to you and be no more than an audience member in your own production? Seek out challenges. Step out of your comfort zone and see what you're made of, see if you can climb the mountain that looks too high and too steep and too rocky. Challenge yourself and don't give up. If I don't finish the AT this year, it'll be because I'm maimed or dead. Notwithstanding any tragedy, I'll finish before winter settles its icy self into the Mid-Atlantic. I'll be starting in Georgia in early September and walking north to where I started, PA Route 225. I'm still victim to relentless thoughts of post-trail life, but for now I'm relishing the days spent in the forest, watching my patience level become a notch higher every day, and becoming physically stronger and mentally more resilient as the sun beats down on me and my feet beat against the unyielding earth. 

Live Free or Get Off the Trail

Saturday, July 18, 2020, 8:23 PM

Jeffers Brook, Mile 1795.1

     If you're wondering how I stay clean out here on the trail, well, the simple answer is that I don't. If there's a pool, I bathe--if I feel like it. Days could pass without the pool being picturesque enough or without having walked enough miles to warrant a dip or without the desire to spend the time it takes to properly appreciate the holy mountain streams. Today was quite different, though. Today nature, i.e. God, blessed me with not one, but two spots to bathe and the wherewithal to pull the trigger and jump in. 

     The first was early in my day (as opposed to early in the day). I'd summitted and descended modest Mount Cube first thing in the late morning when I arrived at Brackett Brook. I planned to stay at the brook yesterday but instead added two miles to today's goal. Feeling covered in a few days of heavy sweat, I heard the water before I saw it. Hearing water from afar is a good indication that it's flowing full and fast, that it has a lot of room to spread out and pool. My day was only ten percent done, but I was already feeling tired and beat up. I said to myself aloud--I talk to myself often out here--"If there's a nice spot I'm going in." When I saw a wide, slowed section of water aglow in sunlight, I had no trouble keeping my promise to myself. 

     I bought a bar of Kirk's Castille Soup in Norwich, VT and take that right into the water with me. The AT's bathwater is usually frigid, so submerging for a thorough, environmentally conscious scrub with Kirk doesn't only leave you clean but also with muscles soothed from nature's summer equivalent of an ice bath. My body--mainly shoulders, knees, and feet--takes a royal beating daily. Spending a mere ten minutes in the gloriously cold water out here leaves you feeling healed and rejuvenated, like a Pokémon after a super potion. Unfortunately, these forest baptisms don't provide all-day galvanization. The cleanliness and stimulation earned from enduring such a freezing treatment fades when sweat starts to pour from your body and the pack bears down on you with all its weight as the terrain trends upward for as many as five miles. 

     I left Brackett Brook after checking out the stealth spot that could have been home the night before. It wouldn't have been worth the extra three and a half miles. I dawned my other half (the pack) and wet clothes swang from it, attached to dry as I walked through miles of sunlit trail. As Guthooks and the sobo from the night before, Trevor of Western NY, had told me, the day's hiking was to be benign, with no major ups or downs after Mt. Cube. I broke out the headphones and jammed to some Judas Priest till they died. Then I listened to most of "The Art of War" from the phone's speaker before going back to music with some Dispatch which gave way to some creepy Poe short stories and most of Beck's Guero album. I kept putting off lunch as I sometimes do to make better time and the day seem shorter. After crossing an ATV path I came to NH Route 25 where a gray Corolla was parked. It had a grocery bag tied to the back driver's side door. Beneath the bag were apples, clementines, and mini candy bars,  including my trail favorite, Reese's Take 5. This is trail magic, snacks and drinks left by trail angels for thru hikers who could use a pick-me-up. In the previous eight hours, or fifteen miles, I'd eaten a pack of crackers, a pop tart, and some peanut butter. I was forcing myself to go without because, as Sun Tzu says, "Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline." Disorder is a resultant sensation of great hunger and thirst. Trail magic showed up a mile from camp at a time when I really needed it. The Trail will provide. While licking the candy wrappers clean of melted chocolate, I noticed the trail angel was a 2019 thru-hiker in addition to being an adoptive dog mom, these facts evidenced by stickers on her car. Cross the road, cross the crystal clear waters of the Oliverian Brook, and up the mountain you go to where the Trail provides a piece of its own endless magic. 

     

Continued at the Notch Hostel, Monday, July 20, 10:18 PM

     I never made it to Jeffers Brook shelter because I found a tent spot overlooking that night's bath tub. Water ran down a wide rock face and pooled bubbling and icy to a depth where I couldn't stand. Upon entering, the water takes your breath away, and your heart rate spikes. This leaves you laboring to catch your breath and feeling almost panicky. That's when you focus on your breath and bring it under control, when you let the healing, restorative powers of mountain water wrap you in its freezing embrace. I find a rock that allows my bottom half to be submerged and wash my top half while my muscles below absorb the water's cool energy. At Jeffers Brook I even ditched the shorts and swam around in my birthday suit, feeling like a polar bear pawing through the Arctic--resembling one as well with my basic quadruped paddle. That night I ate and slept well. For once I was on the trail before 6 AM, and needed the entire day to log the 17 difficult miles to another brook, Eliza's. 

     New Hampshire is known as the most beautiful and the most difficult state on the AT. Did I say that already? It's proving to be true. The climbs and descents are long and steep. Coming down from Moosilauke, one of the highest points in the east, I broke a trekking pole, snapped the bottom half right off. I'm adjusting to life with one, however, and am starting to think its breaking was a blessing in disguise. With just one pole now, I've found different ways of hiking. Sun Tzu also preaches varying your tactics. Since losing a pole, I've discovered new ways of ascending and descending. Trees and rocks have replaced it, and I move sideways and even backwards now depending on the path that I see as least resistant. My rhythm is smoother up here, my step laced with more confidence. I'm beginning to carry myself like a thru-hiker. "If you can hike New Hampshire, you can hike anything," I tell myself. Then there are people who ask if it's worth it, the daily struggle. 

     Coming down from Lonesome Lake today, a day hiker asked me if it was worth it. "It's always worth it," I responded without thinking and hurried on my nearo way, excited by the wonders that awaited in town (Lincoln/North Woodstock). But down the trail I repeated his question out loud. "Is it worth it? Is it worth it?" It befuddled me. "If you thought it, your three or four mile day hike, might not be worth it, a day off effort, why did you even leave your house?" Whatever the answer, I wasn't the one to be giving it to him. How could I decide what's worthy or unworthy to you? Another day hiker inquiry is how far they are from the top of whatever peak they're climbing to. I want to say, "Will knowing get you there any quicker?" but I usually blurt out the less snarky, more uplifting response of, "You're getting closer every step." Descending Moosilauke was grueling. The way was steep, rocky, and interminable. One day hiker asked me, "Is it this steep all the way up?" I contemplated a response before saying, "I'm not gonna answer that." I could've suggested she turn around right now because I was closer to the bottom than they the top. Is it worth it? I'll ponder the answer to this question forever. 

     Here at the Notch Hostel. Time for bed. Early start tomorrow. Free pancakes and coffee! Thank goodness for ear plugs!

     

With No Affiliation and Less Censorship

Written the evening of Sunday, June 28. Hail came the next day, and I finished Hatchet. Currently reading Ruthless Tide by Al Roker, about the Johnstown Flood of 1889. 

Well well well, look who it is. How long you been out here? Four weeks and some change? And this is your first blog post? Sure you changed the description--but not the title 😉--explored other blogging platforms, been logging nearly every day--I give you a rare kudos for that last one--but have neglected to post for a month. Not because you didn't think about it. Heaven knows you've thought about it--just never done it. And look, you finally get to writing one, and there's no service. Serves you right. You need to be like the USC professor in that Hidden Brain you just listened to--a better habit-former. Obstacles must be removed between you and your target habit, say, writing every day for two hours a day. Ques must be established and respected; e.g. before you write for two hours you do a circuit of exercises or washes the dishes, make the bed, go for a walk or delete old emails. Obstacles--or friction according to the prof--should be placed between you and your bad habits; e.g. how smokers can't just light up wherever they want any more,  usually have to go outside or to a designated area. Then once you've written for two hours, congratulations! Reward yourself by wasting time playing MtG Arena and see if your brain doesn't explode from the dopamine rush. I don't miss playing Arena. It's nice out here in the woods. 

     I left my parents' house on Friday, May 29 with Aunt Betsy, Uncle Scott, and Dylan, the latter driving as a newly licensed operator of automobiles. Mom was crying, as she always does before I embark on a new adventure, new challenge. This always makes leaving all the more difficult, but leave I still do. It's what we have to do in order to exchange adolescence for adulthood, leave home and travel to faroff and fabulous places where we'll face the challenges destined for us, like destroying an all-powerfully evil ring or discovering what's at the top of a certain tower. Leaving home is a difficult thing, though it's a decision often made confidently without much hesitation. But courage isn't the absence of fear just the facing of it. I was scared as we traveled south on PA 225 toward the trail; but I was moreso determined to face the difficult path that lie ahead, one I hadn’t chosen for myself. That determination was coupled with confidence that I could make it and discipline to ensure that I would. Is one born with such qualities: courage, discipline, confidence? Or are they learned? I guess both are true, as are all the combinations between them. I believe such useful qualities can be learned or--better yet--self-taught. And if all else fails, fake it till you make it. 

     Before May 29, I could count on two fingers how many times I'd packed up a bunch of stuff and headed into the woods with no plans of returning to civilization that night. This hike wasn't supposed to happen until 2021, so I had to buy a bunch of gear and do a bunch of research while the days passed toward my departure date. If you ever want to do something big like this, first thing you should do is set a date. Then tell people what you're doing and when you're starting. This verbalization makes it real--to you and the person you're telling. They might think, "Pft, yeah right, I'll believe it when I see it." That's probably what most people thought before my first bike tour in 2014. But if you have history of making plans and seeing them through, you'll be seen as reliable in your ballsiness and people will take seriously your declaration of upcoming adventure. After nearly three decades on earth I feel wise enough to offer this advice: always fulfill promises to yourself and others. 

     What do you want to know? I'm happy to be out here, blissful in my ignorance to all the garbage drama the media puts out to boost viewership. I'm writing this in a shelter alone in the old growth forests of Western Massachusetts. My freestanding tent is set up right in the shelter and keeping the dreadful mosquitos at bay. They've been the worst I've experienced today and yesterday. We had rain yesterday and today, so their breeding grounds are ripening. Bleh 😖 Isolation from the "real world" is a reason I came out here. As HDT said, I went into the woods to face the basic principles of life. I'm butchering that quote, but you're familiar right? We all should have some experience where food, water, and shelter aren't so accessible and so easily taken for granted. Thoreau goes on to say in that quote that he doesn't want to look back on his life in the end and see that he had not lived. I'm going with his spirit, now actually in the same state as his beloved Walden, though on the other side of the commonwealth from it. I have Mount Katahdin and Walking on audio and will listen when the time is right. I've been listening to a lot lately. 

     I've finished six books since May 29: Stephen King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams and the Bill Hodges trilogy, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I'm currently reading--or listening to if you're a stickler--Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. I can't get through them fast enough and have never been so easily and often immersed in worlds other than this one. Oftentimes I am more invested in these made-up worlds than the one I inhabit. Not sure why this is so. Maybe because characters in books are, paradoxically, more authentic, especially when reading a first person account or a story in third person omniscient. I also listen to a lot of music and the occasional podcast to divert from the potential monotony of walking through the woods. 

     When people ask how it's going, I sometimes say "ploddingly." Not even sure if it's an adverb, but it is now, along with "trudgingly." Sometimes the pack feels heavy and it's lethally hot/humid and my clothes are literally soaked with sweat and my knees ache with every upward thrust and the balls of my feet sing dark and discordant notes of pain when I take the millionth step of the day down the mountain. Other days the pack is light (little food probably), my steps are sure and quick, hiking pole placement on point, weather mild and body not crying out so loud in pain, terrain amiable and vibe coursing with positivity. Just like life out there I have good days and bad days. One secret is to know the good days won't last forever and to wring them dry of pleasure before they're gone. Another is to not let the bad days get to you. "Embrace the suck" is a thru-hiker saying. While I'm tackling a steep incline or falling with control down an incessant decline, I am reminded that I'll be stronger for having faced and overcome the challenge. And even though we all "hike our own hike," I have trailmates to commiserate and revel with. 

     I was rolling consistently with a group between Weeks Two and Three. Shoutout to my tramily: Beehive, Monarch, Lance, Dr. X, Picasso, Goat, Krispy, Red Eft, Pacer, BFG, Uncle Jim, Half Baked, Cans, Fonz, and many others. Another is the artist formerly known as Purple Rain, the Sparkle-Chasing Mountain Mermaid. She's a fellow blogger from the state where people live free or die. You can follow her journey here. I think she's known as Neck Knife now, and we shared a hotel room (two separate beds) upon meeting each other in Hamburg, PA. If you follow the news closely you might have a pretty dire picture of the world, real doom and gloom, "life on red alert" kinda thing, but you don't see the instant trust that forms between strangers when it comes to saving 50 bucks and having an actual bed to sleep in and a shower with hot water to wash off the past days. While you may be busy devouring the media's "us versus them" rhetoric, you don't see people leaving food and drink for others in need or when two strangers take a chance on each other when one picks up a hitchhiker. It's been my belief for sometime that the good outweighs the bad in this world. And why shouldn't I believe it? Sometimes good is hidden within bad, like when crops get watered and streams refilled, while you get soaked and have to walk the rest of the day in soggy boots. Good is also hidden in icky things like disagreements. Disagreements can be uncomfortable and even contentious, but the result is usually either a mind changed for the better or more light shed on your true feelings of the issue. We need to be disagreed with; because sometimes our views need to be straightened--or solidified. 

     Ok, not much about actual hiking experiences, but it's my blog, and only my conscience can tell me what to write or not write. Almost 8 PM, dinner time. I have to find water first, then I can make some rice and tuna mmmmmmm 😋 Hiker Midnight (sunset) comes quick--so does 5 AM. Till next time!

PS on the trail, me llamo Señor Guapo 🤭 o, menos engreído, simplemente Señor. 

¡Hasta la próxima!

Ya

I'm remembering my last night in SF after the 2015 tour and comparing it with this, my last day in Mexico. I'm writing this at a bar that I'll likely never visit again (though this time I'm actually paying for the drinks, and they're more expensive), it's the end of a life-defining period (though this one I wasn't ready to finish), and I'm left considering my future (though now I've had less time to reflect given our abrupt evacuation of Mexico). 

Three days ago I was in Mexico City loving my life. My relationships at and outside of work were flourishing, I was steadily acquiring Spanish, I'd just moved into a bigger, nicer place, one with a double bed and TWO sinks, I had just bought garbanzo beans at the market to try my hand at making hummus, MGMT was playing Puebla that Tuesday (last night), and I had tickets, Rob and I were going to spend a week in Cancun over Easter vacation, and I was becoming a better teacher. We were entering the prime of our service and everything was going according to plan. Then the plan was thrown out the window. 

Rob called me Sunday night and told me that Peace Corps had ordered a global evacuation. I dismissed as chisme

(gossip) then because I didn't want to believe it, but it was confirmed the next day (Monday), I had a plane ticket to Harrisburg yesterday (Tuesday), and I'm currently at Houston Airport writing this (Wednesday). During the 2015 ride across the US, we had nothing but time to think about the end. For three months we thought about reaching the Pacific and letting it's cool water sanctify our effort and resolve. This time I had less than three days to consider, accept, and welcome the end. Nine months of emotion plus a year and a half of unfulfilled ambitions were crammed into less than 72 hours. The product was very ugly. 

I spent my last night in Tepexi where I spent my first night, with my amazing family. La familia Aranguthy, Benjamin y Malena, sus hijos Eduardo, Perla, Benjamin, Korah, y Elba, y sus nietos Lourdes, Lalito, Íker, Vale, Regina, y Esther. Here's a genuine impression of Mexicans, one you won't hear from people who don't know the country--Mexicans are loving, hospitable, generous, compassionate, fun, amazing people. They started out as my host family but we ended as real family. Our authentic relationship arose from my needing them and their willingness to embrace me as one of their own. Without them I would've been lost in Tepexi. 

Continued at home Friday, March 20, 12:00 AM

Tuesday was spent walking around campus and trying not to cry as I said my final farewells to all of the wonderful students, faculty, and staff at TEC Tepexi. Korah and I took the combi to school. Íker was with us. It was his birthday. Kiki had been my compadrito since day one. I could see the sadness in his face and wanted to cry. I couldn't cry, though. I had to be strong for him. Korah told him to give me a hug and say goodbye. We walked to school hand in hand as tears came and fell from my eyes. 

 Three flights later I landed in Harrisburg, where I was met by my parents and June. My mom tried her best to balance excitement for my being home with a consciousness of my disappointment and did just fine. Dad was terse as usual but the emotion in his embrace did all the talking. Gram came and saw me when we got home around 11 last night. It was good to be at home and around family who missed me so much, but there presided a feeling of unbelonging as I sat on the couch far from where I'd been that morning, far from where I felt I needed to be. Now over 24 hours being back, I feel lost, like there's something I should be doing but also like there is nothing to do. I'm in a sort of limbo where I can't go back and am not moving forward. Life here seems unreal and like nothing else exists beyond the walls of my oldest home. The cold and rain make Mexico even further away. 

I wasn't ready to leave Mexico. It was all too abrupt. But three quarters of a year is enough time to make lifelong friends and family, base yourself in a new language, and grow exponentially as a person. But three quarters of a year is not enough for me. I will forever look back on this stay in Mexico as unfulfilled, despite how full my heart is with love, memories, and admiration for our neighbors to the south. These feelings of incompleteness may draw me back someday, but right now I'm on a different path. And though I'm excited to see where it leads me, it's as if I was dropped here by accident. 

Where'd January Go?

19-January-2019, Sunday, 9:37 CDT

Well look who it is, and only three weeks since the last post. Just ignore him, Constant Reader. Welcome back and thank you for being so constant. What's happened since we were last together? The first three weeks of 2020--that's what happened, Barbara Walters! But seriously. My lack of occupation has since been filled. Last week started winter courses for interested students. My colleagues and I have to condense an entire semester's worth of material into two weeks, Monday thru Friday. It's been a new challenge for me, trying to include everything an effective lesson should while covering as much as three different topics in one hour and a half class. One more week of these winter English courses, then we start the Spring 2020 semester.

My schedule's going to be a lot different than it was last semester. In order to better achieve Peace Corps's goals, us volunteer teachers need to be working directly with our Mexican counterparts. Last semester I taught five classes on my own. I had no problem with this, and in fact really enjoyed it, but me only teaching students is not sustainable. For better sustainability, we need to be teaching teachers. Last semester I was just giving fish. This semester, and those remaining, I will be giving Mexican professors fishing rods which they can use to better teach students English. I don't know exactly what my schedule will be, but I knew the teachers with whom I'll be working, and all three are amazing. I can't wait to get started next week.

There's been carnivals going on around here. They remind me of the fair back home, except scaled down quite a bit. There's games for kids, young and old, like throwing darts at balloons, catching rubber ducks with a little magnetic fishing rod, and smashing bottles to win more bottles. There's also a lot of food at the fairs, delicious food. Mostly tacos--de suadero, enchilada, arabe, pastor--con salsa, cilantro y cebolla. Oh my gatos! So freakin good. I will never look at Taco Bell the same again. I'll try not to become a taco snob, but once you've been El Dorado it's hard not to cast a judgmental eye on foods of lesser esteem. At the fairs, it's common to have bull riding in the evening and a band play through the night. Yesterday at San Sebastian's fair (a neighborhood in Tepexi), five guys made a human tower to mount a greased pole for prizes at the top. It was quite a sight.

I was down with the sickness a few weeks back, just your common cold, but it still wasn't any fun. Despite my poor state, I accepted and invitation from a friend to go to a swimming hole called "El Ojo de Agua," The Eye of Water. It took a half hour to get there on foot after we were dropped off in the mountains by a taxi. We followed an irrigation path dug by hard-working people some time ago until the woods opened up on a field with a horse tied up in the middle of it. She seemed like she wanted our attention, but we were running out of daylight and heat. The end included a difficult stretch through a bamboo colony, a section that is particularly difficult if you're tall. But the struggle was worth it as we were released onto a bed of boulders that overlooked a crystal blue eye of water. It was a beautiful sight to behold, and the temperature was such that it felt warmer in the water than out of it. I will definitely be going back when the weather gets hot again. 

Yesterday I washed my clothes with dish soap, but everything was ok, I also walked into a dangling thorn that tore into the skin on the side of my head, just before the ear, at the fair in La Colonia I won a Goku piggy bank (but I don't even watch Dragonball Z, sorry fam), I've still been lifting a lot, but am putting on a little too much poundage and need to work in some cardio (thankfully a friend and I plan to do so next week), I'm still writing an undersea story in Spanish that's coming along nicely, still playing to much MtG Arena, but ready to be busy with school here next week. Thanks again for reading, and we'll see you on the other side of tomorrow.

Yo Waddup 2020 ✌

29-December-2019, 7:04 PM CDT, My place in Tepexi

Well, last week I broke a streak of four straight weeks posting here on Poco a Poco. I forget what my excuse was for not writing last week, probably something lame like I was tired and didn't feel like it, lame but true. Anyway, here we are in the dregs of 2019, ready to leave the old year behind and embrace the new. Twenty-nineteen has been an amazing year, maybe the best yet for me, and my hope for all is that the next year is always better than the last. I'll be ringing in 2020 with fellow volunteers in Mexico City. I can't wait welcome the new year with dear friends who were perfect strangers half a year ago.

So what's been going down in Tepexi, you ask? Well, since my last report, school's let out, and I've found myself with not much to do and all day to do it. I told a dear friend recently that I need something, namely a job, to motivate me. Without the responsibility implicated by work, I stay up late, sleep in later, and play too much MtG Arena (WryDenizen if you ever wanna tap 😉). But does my life becomes stagnant without work unavoidably or because I allow it to? Good question. A philosophical one. How much control do we really have over our lives? Answers vary from anywhere between 0.1% and 99.9%, and I land somewhere in the middle (surprise surprise). It's a vain musing anyway because once classes start I'll wish for a break, so 🤷 , Ka is a wheel afterall.

Ok, tuvimos filosofia suficiente, entonces es la hora para cosas más concretas. My Spanish is coming along great. I recently fell victim to Duolingo's 60% off campaign for yearly subscriptions. Its free system stifles your progress by not allowing you to advance--at a commensurate pace--without earning gems, and even those you earn at a pitifully slow rate. The company's marketing/pricing teams finally got me because I want to advance more quickly. As I discovered in my departmental paper for my master's at Bloom, the use of mobile technology, research largely suggests, aids in the process of second language acquisition. Gosh, I don't miss that boring writing.

And here we are at the start of the fourth paragraph with next to zero mention of what's been happening here in Mexico. That doesn't surprise you, does it? Stream of consciousness is a great way to write--VA Woolf eat your heart out. Just let me check my notes...ah yes, aguinaldos, there's a good place to start. Aguinaldos are little bags filled with sweets handed out to kids old and young during posadas. Ok, well, what's a posada? Glad you asked. In my experience, posadas are events hosted by Mexican Catholics where community members are invited to their homes or capillas (churches) to eat tamales and drink ponche. Well, what's tamal-- Stop. Haven't you noticed I've linked them? I'm writing in a stream of consciousness style, not unconsciousness. ...Good one. Thank you. So at the posadas and masses around Christmas, it's common for one group of people to approach the home/church yielding candles and singing songs. When they arrive at the front door another customary song is sung in call and response style. I've deduced that the people on the outside play Mary and Joseph, while the people on the inside play the innkeepers. After a period on interplay, the doors open and people with little baby Jesus dolls are let in. Then the food and drink are served before we hang up the...

Piñatas! Before I share how the kids act when the piñatas go up, I'll tell you how I acted. Last night I went to a posada with my landlord and his family, i.e. my second Mexican family. After hanging back and watching while many others beat the paper mache containers of madness-inducing sweetness, I was offered a turn. I was blindfolded, but not nearly well enough. I couldn't see straight ahead, but I could see just fine through a thick line below my standard line of vision.

Should I tell them I can see and have them readjust it?

Nah hahaha.

What would you have done?

So I was unleashed as no other adults were, completely oriented from not being spun and able to see. The piñata never had a chance. Not to sound like a tool, but I've been working out, and I always make the most of chance to vent, so I was feeling strong. Appearing to others as one looking straight into the starry Mexican sky, I tracked the flopping target like a sweet-seeking missile. I connected once, full-on, then tried to play it off by swinging aimlessly for a while. I did a poor job because I really wanted to smash that thing so couldn't hide the fact that I could see. I landed two more good whacks before catching it square in its hard paper heart on its way up to safety. I saw through the transparent bufanda its guts splay in all directions and a horde of children scramble upon  the candy entrails like zombies on a fresh corpse. Friendships fray when the piñata goes up and dissolve altogether when its sweet innards trickle to the ground, its body a mangled and defeated form of its former beauty and splendor.

And back to the aguinaldos the ladies of the Aranguthy family and I started making them at, say, 9 PM, and stayed up till 11:30 finishing them. Tia Male told me a bunch of times to go to bed, but I was resolved, "We started this together, we're going to end it together." I stapled so many plastic bags of candy, around four hundred I guess. I was truly drained and sick of doing it, but as a member of the family, I saw it as my duty to see the process through to the end. And a few days later, scores of children were happy as a result. Definitely worth it.

I passed Christmas Eve with La Familia Aranguthy, and what a joy it was. They've have adopted me as one of their own, and I love them and respect them and need them as if they were blood. Take this into account when forming your opinion of Mexicans: my family here takes care of me. I came here with nobody to lean on, nobody to run to when I'm scared and lonely. And now I have the shelter of people who love me and care for me. And I'm blessed to have found another family that does the same right here where I live.

Yes, it's been one fine year and a marvelous half a year. Here's to 2020. Here's to Mexico and how they play music loud enough for the whole town to hear well past midnight 😕 But, I guess when you love somebody or something you need to take the good with the bad.  Love? What do you know about love?  You've been relatively quiet this whole time, but you had to make an appearance here before the end, didn't you? Well, for your information, I'm learning a lot about love here. I think I'm learning how to love the right way. Woah. Pretty personal, eh? Yeah, you're right. That's enough mezcal for one night.

Till next time, keep your eye on the prize ✌

The End of My First Semester, a Mexican Funeral

15-December-2015, Sunday, 7:50 PM CDT

Look at you, here to write for the third week in a row. ¡Que impresionante!

Who invited you to this blog, anyhow?

I'm in your head, dummy. It's my blog as much as it is yours.

...that's fair.

...three weeks in a row, way to go.

A rare compliment.

Don't get used to them.

I will not.

Ok, welcome back and thank you for tolerating another one of my internal dialogues. There are self-conversations much more intense than those I share here, but they are documented elsewhere and won't be read till I'm dead--if they're read at all. I think it's a valuable practice, speaking with (at least) two voices--the one with which you speak to the world and the other which doesn't often have acceptable things to say aloud. Because of this voice's candor and crass, we filter what it has to say before sharing its thoughts with the world. The voice in my head is an a$$ hole, and it's what keeps me doing what I ought to, e.g. writing when I don't feel like it. It helps me better myself by presenting contraries and alternative courses of thought or action. Maybe it's the voice of God we listen to in our heads--or perhaps just one of its spokespeople--for I believe God is within all of us. It's how often we decide to listen to that righteous voice that determines the quality of the lives we lead.

What are you talking about? Get on with it. They want to know about what's going on in Mexico, not your musings on the voices in your head...weirdo. 

See what I mean, Constant Reader? Total A - hole. Moving on.

Thank you.

The first semester's classes have ended, and we are in the process of giving grades. I use a free online gradebook called ThinkWave have virtually zero complaints about it. It works just fine...if you have internet, which TEC Tepexi did not for most of last week. This lack of the connectivity I've come to rely on put me in a bit of a pickle--I needed to be in my office as a resource for students making up work, yet I also needed to be calculating final grades. So, as per usual, I did what I had to do and stayed in the office, internetless, and passed the time by reading (just started The Green Mile, first English story I've begun down here) and manually entering the data I did have into an Excel workbook. Speaking of Office, I've been without it since my license expired a few months back. Recently I got it free from my university. Now I don't have to worry so much about saving Google Slides offline and can go back to using trusty, albeit boring on its own, PowerPoint to facilitate learning. This time I won't abandon my school email like I did the Bloomsburg University one--why I lost my Office subscription in the first place.

So, how'd they do? Well, the ones that came to class consistently did just fine. The ones who didn't were the ones who couldn't afford to pay for the class--or, frankly, chose to spend their money elsewhere--thus didn't attend regularly, and not at all in the latter part of the semester. I did discover, however, that some students were attending my class even though they already had the credits, i.e. coming to class to learn rather than for a grade. I found it refreshing to know that students want to learn English that badly. And then there were the students who were in the middle--attended somehwat consistently, wanted to learn a little but mostly just pass the class, and were willing/able to pay the 675 pesos for the credits. There were only a few of them who were short of the passing 70% by a few points, and I gave them the grade becuase they paid and I'm nice. There's some kind of "pay to pass" culture here that I don't fully understand yet. Like students who don't pay, obviously, don't come to class and don't get the credits, but those who do, I don't know, I feel like it's implied that they pass despite not being as prepared as others who came to class consistently. I'm still figuring it out. I do know this, however, the students, when in class, are, by in large, respectful and attentive. 

And now I'd like to share some of their work from the last exam we had. I hope it won't be a problem. Obviously, I'll omit names and even change some content to protect the writers' identities. Here's the fact of the matter: when we begin to learn a new langugae, we sound funny to native speakers of that language, invariably. Despite the level of Spanish I've acquired in...half a year, people still somestimes laugh at what I say. They don't laugh because they're like the voice in my head ;) they laugh simply because some utterances from language learners are so unusual to the native speaker's ear we can't help but chuckle. I only chose sentences that were both syntactically sound and not likely to be said by a native speaker. I hope you can find the humor in the writers' progress like I did.

I occasionally view birds.

He is always tall.

They generally don’t sleep in class.

I am kicking “Felipe’s” a$$. (Love this one, wasn't even mad about the expletive, a fine illustration of the present continuous.)

He rarely does your homework.

They will be playing hide the ball. (Didn't even teach the future tense yet lol)

I kick rocks in the morning. 

Why do you have two sides for you alone? (A potentially deep question.)

He rarely comes to buy hot dogs.

Joe and Joyce hide the house. 

Joe and Joyce hide their feelings.

Joe and Joyce hide a donkey. (These three Joe and Joyce sentences are all perfect examples of the subject - verb - object construction we so often use.)

Joe and Joyce, they hide.   

Now for my first Mexican funeral. My cousin Chucho (the one I helped slay the snake) asked me how funeral were different in the US. I responded by saying they weren't much different. Both have a viewing where people speak, then a burial, where people speak some more. As is usually the case, funerals in the US and Mexico are more alike than different. This one was of the 100+ year old woman I held hands with once at la cabaña. I remember her then as appearing frail and lost, but before time gradually broke her body down, she was strong and aware. Now she's buried in a hole dug by hand, by one man, in one day, a hole that I helped to fill. 

I arrived early at the cemetery because I was told 9 AM, but 9 AM means 10 or 10:30 or noon here. As I wandered about the maze of graves, I thought I was the sole earthly soul in the place of eternal rest. Then I met the man who dug the grave. He told me that the service was in La Colonia, my first home here in Tepexi, so I paid the seven pesos for the bus there. 

The older you are the less people are surprised about your death, the less mournful your life will be, I guess. The air of the viewing was mild. I only noticed a few pairs of eyes reddened with tears, others with the smoke of last nights fire water. Words were said, songs were sung, calls responded to (it was a Catholic service, of course), and the pallbearers carried the small, ornate casket into the bed of a covered pickup. We were late to arrive, and police had stopped traffic both ways to ease the passing of our mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, friend, what have you. The crowd paused around the entrance for a reading from John (In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.) before heading for the empty Handful of earth I'd discovered earlier. 

We weaved our way through the tangle of aboveground altars, streams of life following paths of least resistance, no two walking the same. The pallbearers advanced slowly and methodically towards the place prepared for her. She was lowered with ropes and covered with slabs of Tepexi marble, sealed with Cruz Azul concrete and topped with the same earth that had been removed from her final bed. You need a good reason to dig a hole just to fill it in again. Mi gran abuela fue una razón muy buena. Descansa en paz, abuela. 

Just a few things for this week's random wrap-up cuz I wanna get some tacos here in a second. I bought a frisbee recently and will start a club next semester. I've already had one good throwaround with Hugo and some students. They picked it up fast and foresee a lot of interest in the club next semester. Also, I recently started hitting the weights again. It's been going great. I have to check the bench before I start every time to flush out any black widows that may be lurking within 😕

Ok, that's all for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!