Cindy's Adventures

Sanskrit and Slurpees

2011-08-12T19:33:00.001-07:00

"Ring the bell!" Munees whispered as I reached out to grasp the tantalizingly hefty rope hanging from it at the Hindu temple entrance.

"No!" I whispered back "I don't want to interrupt that guy chanting over there!" nodding towards the man in the long white robes. "What language is he speaking?"

"That's the Brahman, or priest, and he's chanting in Sanskrit. You're SUPPOSED to ring the bell...it's the way you say 'Hey! Gods! Wake up! Pay attention! I'm here to get my blessings!'"

At that, I laughed. Right out loud. The young couple kneeling at the Brahman's feet turned and smiled at me, and since I'd interrupted them already, I figured I'd ring the bell.

Although I've lived in Salt Lake City over a decade, I never knew there was a Hindu temple here until I met my Indian friend Munees.

We met at the most unlikely place to meet a Hindu: at a Brazilian steakhouse brimming with waiters whisking around skewers loaded with sizzling grilled meats. I'd planned a dinner there to introduce my Brazil-loving sister to my other Brazil-loving friends. At the last minute, she decided to bring Munees, her friend who works as a mechanical engineer in the very small, very white, very quiet Soda Springs, Idaho.

Munees totally didn't get his money's worth at that restaurant, but was very fun to chat with as he ate what he could. His parents often show him passport-sized photos of girls, he said, hoping he'll allow them to arrange his marriage to one of them. "I'm the type of guy who studies 4 months before buying a car! There's no way I'm going to choose a life partner just by looking at a little photo!" he declared.

As we left the restaurant, he asked "Do you happen to know any nice Indian girls you could introduce me to?" I couldn't think of any right then, but emailed him about a week later:

"Yesterday I was at 7-11 and saw a cute young woman who looked like she might be from India, so I talked to her on your behalf. But it turns out that she's from Nepal. If you're interested in dating a Nepali 7-11 clerk, the next time you're in Salt Lake City, let's go get a Slurpee together and meet her! Since I really don't know her, I can't recommend her as someone you should bet your entire future on, but once I ate at a Nepali restaurant and the food was delicious, so that's at least a good starting point. :-)"

Which is why Munees was in town the day we visted the Hindu temple. We stopped at 7-11 first, and the Nepali girl wasn't there, but we did succeed in getting Munees his first Slurpee. (I love cultural exchanges...an introduction to Hinduism in exchange for an introduction to Slurpees...definitely not a fair exchange, but a fun one!)

Munees gave me a humorous Hinduism-for-dummies temple tour, first showing me the 9 bad luck dieties. You must walk around the platform where they stand, carefully arranged so that none face each other, circling the platform 9 times as you chant something like "Ignore me! Leave me alone!"

He pointed out the animals carved in front of many of the dieties, representing their vehicles ("their Lexus" he explained). Elephants are often found in and around Hindu temples: carved ones in Salt Lake, living ones at temples in India. I inquired about the food sitting in front of the gods--left there by worshippers, he explained.

As we prepared to retrieve our shoes at the end of a delightful evening, the Brahman intercepted us. This kind man with white vertical lines painted on his forehead as a symbol of his priesthood offered each of us an apple, made sacred by the fact that it was an offering left by worshippers. I was honored to receive such a gift.

I love being friends with people who are different than myself. Not only does it help me to better understand the world, but also to better understand myself. Case in point: I never realized how often I say "Holy Cow!" until I started hanging out with a Hindu. I say it less now.

Another benefit of friends different than yourself is beautiful, enriching life experiences, such as the time Munees informed me of his rapping talents, cranking up his car radio so I could hear him rap along with a Tamil song. He even wrote a rap in my honor. In English. That's a gift you don't get every day...thank you Munees!

And, Munees is hilarious, making him an especially fun friend. He once sent me a list of the places he'd like to see before he dies, and listed "the drive-in theatre in Soda Springs Idaho" as the grand finale! The last time I saw him, he described a blind date gone wrong. The girl was beautiful, but they had nothing in common and struggled to keep the conversation going. "You know you've got a problem when the only question you can think to ask is 'What is your favorite color?' on the first date!" he wisely observed. "By the way...." he paused "...what is your favorite color?"

Once to show gratitude for some small way I helped him, he offered to help me get elected president of the United States and get my face carved on Mount Rushmore, completely confident in his ability to rally the 3,000 voters of Soda Springs Idaho in my favor. Since I'm not funny, I especially love people who are, and am especially impressed by people who can be funny in their non-native language.

Here's a photo of the two of us on the evening we visited Antelope Island:

If you know any nice single girls that would enjoy getting to know my fun, smart friend Munees, please send them my way. [Editor's Note: After reading this post, Munees asked me to clarify that he's open to dating non-Indian girls too.] Perhaps Munees will take them out for a slurpee!

The Princess behind the Salad Bar

2011-05-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

"Hey Sister Jameson!" I said to the young woman behind the lunch counter. "How are you today?"

Sister Jameson has down syndrome. Twenty-something, sweet, and spunky, she wanted to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. That's what brought her to be a volunteer service missionary in the employee cafeteria, giving me the pleasure of chatting with her each day.

We normally talk about upcoming fun events or our weekend plans, but today was different.

"This morning when I was in the bathroom I realized something" Sister Jameson responded thoughtfully to my question.

"What's that?" I asked as I placed a tong-ful of spinach from her carefully maintained salad bar onto my plate.

"I realized that I am a child of God." she responded earnestly. "And that means...I'm a princess. Because of that, I have something really important I need to do."

She paused, and I stepped out of the salad bar line to avoid blocking it as the two of us chatted.

"I looked at myself in the mirror", she continued, "and told myself 'YOU have an important work!'"

I felt my eyes becoming moist.

"I just don't know what my important work IS yet." she said reflectively.

"You might have several missions in life....things that only you can do, because of who you are." I suggested. "Maybe you'll find them over time--as you finish one mission, you'll discover your next important work."

That idea resonated with her. "I'll be right back" she said as she stepped away to serve chicken and cheesy potatoes to the next customer.

We chatted for a few minutes between customers, as she thoughtfully explored what her next important work might be.

And I wondered if part of her mission was to have that very conversation with me, to remind me of who it is I interact with each day.

I've thought about Sister Jameson all weekend, and was reminded of two of my favorite quotes about who we and others truly are.

The first comes from Hugh Hewitt's interview of my hero Neal Maxwell for the "Searching for God in America" PBS series. Elder Maxwell was asked how he deals with people who have "hardened hearts" and oppose him, and he responded:

I think it's a matter of loving and appreciating people whether they are doubters or agnostics. They are all the children of Heavenly Father. That's one of the great things that the plan of salvation tells us: who we and they are. They don't know who they are, but I do; and I must learn to love them, even if I disagree with them or they disagree with me. Even if they are critical of me, because they are my brothers and sisters. So I've got a transcendental relationship with them that goes beyond the tactical moments down here on earth as we may be colliding over some issue.

I love that.

The next is from C.S. Lewis' Weight of Glory:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

Thank you, Sister Jameson, for sharing your light with me. You can check "mission accomplished" on one more item on the long list of important work you will do in your life.

Miss America in Rio

2011-01-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

"Hey Miss America!" the young Australian man called out to me as we waited for the train that would take us down Corcovado mountain.

"Will you tell the guide that we went down early, and will find our way back to the hotel ourselves?"

We'd gone to the top of Corcovado mountain to get an up-close-and-personal view of the Christ the Redeemer statue majestically standing there, hands outstretched, overlooking gorgeous Rio de Janeiro. Here are a few images I captured of it from Sugarloaf, another mountain in Rio:

Unfortunately, after riding the squealing train up steep Corcovado mountain,

through the Tijuca forest, with its trees growing watermelon-sized jackfruit,

past the numerous religious shrines along the tracks

we were disappointed to find the Cristo Redentor statue shrouded in fog.

Instead of looking at the gorgeous view from there, we looked at the view signs and imagined what we'd see if the fog ever lifted:

Instead of taking photos of the statue, we had to be content with taking photos of tourists posing like the statue:

And taking photos of the miniature statues for sale in the souvenir shops:

When the Australian called me "Miss America", I realized that although we'd enjoyed chatting with each other that day, we hadn't yet formally introduced ourselves and exchanged names. But "Miss America" worked, and was more fun anyway.

Typically, I avoid traveling with large tour groups, but because of safety concerns, I traveled with one my first day in Rio.

Rio has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and I was especially nervous to visit after seeing the news of a small war that broke out there a few days before I arrived, resulting in 42 deaths. Police versus drug lords, both well armed. The police finally brought in tanks, the only type of artillery that couldn't be matched by the drug traffickers. Here's a newspaper article where you can see some incredible photographs of the small war.

Other than the fear that gripped my heart as my driver and I drove past Rio's favelas on the evening I arrived, the increased police presence at tourist sites, and the shock I felt when I realized upon my return home that the police had detonated a large crate at the General Osorio/Ipanema subway station a few days before I boarded a subway there, I was fortunate to not be affected by Rio's violence.

And although traveling with a large group can be frustrating, I enjoyed the opportunity it provided to visit with interesting people from around the world.

"Have you heard of the South African man who walked and sailed all the way around the world along the equator?" the Malaysian man across the aisle of the bus asked me as we stopped at several hotels along Copacabana beach to pick up tourists. "I MET him once!" he proudly declared.

Once the large bus was filled with tourists, memories of grade school flashed into my mind as our guide gave each of us a sticker with his name on it, telling us to put it on our shirts in case we got lost. I liked Joalber. After distributing the stickers, he transformed into a non-stop talking machine as we made our way through some of the 22 tunnels and beautiful streets of Rio.

Hardly stopping to breathe, he quickly rotated his commentary between Spanish, Portuguese, and English. "Hello my friends!" he'd say when it was time for the English speakers to pay attention, although I paid attention the entire time, having fun trying to guess the gist of what he was saying before he looped around to English.

He showed us some of Rio's beautiful buildings and streets:

And the very unique Metropolitan Cathedral, whose exterior reminded me of an Aztec pyramid:

And whose interior reminded me of the congressional meeting rooms in Star Wars movies:

Joalber was accustomed to guiding nervous tourists, so he'd say things like "Don't worry! I'm just walking across the street and will be RIGHT BACK!"

"The fact that he keeps telling us to not worry is making me nervous!" one of the Australian tourists said. "I wouldn't have thought to worry if he hadn't mentioned it!"

After lunch, another guide replaced Joalber, and he liked me a lot. "You were a good daughter to your parents, weren't you?" he asked before telling me about the challenges his teenage daughters are causing for him. He thinks I look like Julie Andrews. "You look like a teacher...are you a teacher?" he asked, disappointed to learn that I'm a software developer.

Once we finished our tour for the day and began dropping people off at their Copacabana hotels, I decided to hop off the bus early and walk to my hotel nestled between Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. "Don't get off the bus already!" my new guide lamented. "I like you! I'll take you to your hotel!" I thanked him for his concern, but got off the bus anyway. "Keep being good to your parents!" he called out as I walked away.

I'd gotten off so I could check out the Copacabana Palace Hotel, one of the places listed in the "1000 Places to See Before You Die" book, where many famous movie stars stayed. I walked past all the limousines and black cars with darkly tinted windows parked in front, smiled and nodded at the ten dark-suited doormen as if I belonged there, and walked into the small lavender-scented lobby. Because even the cheapest rooms there are more than $500 a night, I considered my walk around the orchid-surrounded pool and courtyard good enough to merit checking this off my list of places to visit.

I then turned my attention to walking along the very beautiful, very long, Copacabana beach.

The beach has amazing sandcastles: many of them with a tip jar in the front, some of them with scenes that made me blush.

I enjoyed seeing the kids play futbol

and spent twenty minutes fascinated by a game of volleyball played entirely without hands

I liked seeing all the folks exercising along there

But my favorite part was taking off my shoes and walking along the ocean's edge. The very fine sand was comfortable to my normally tender feet, and the warm water lapped my feet like a friendly dog as the sun sank into the ocean.

The following day, I was surprised to hear someone call my name as I walked along Ipanema Beach. I turned to find Graciela, a lady from Mexico City I'd met on the large group tour. She works for Oracle, and was en route to an Oracle conference in Sao Paulo, and so we had a lot in common, me being a former Oracle employee and having attended the San Francisco version of the conference two months prior. Happy to see each other again, we compared notes on our second day in Rio.

And I felt grateful to have a few friends in Rio, even if some of them were tourists that only knew me by the name "Miss America".

Life goes on

2011-01-18T18:26:00.000-08:00

A novel about a girl who ran away from home and lived in a museum fascinated me as a child. Salvador's colonial center is a lot like a museum--full of beauty, history, art and culture--definitely worthy of its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

But it was the daily lives of those who make their home in the beautiful Salvador da Bahia "museum" which most captured my attention and imagination.

Some things are true about life, even when you live in a museum.

Parallel parking, for example, can be difficult, sometimes requiring help from your friends:

Few things in life can match the joy of a heart-to-heart chat with your friends:

Except, perhaps, playing games together:

Or flying kites:

Or watching futbol:

Or just hanging out:

Sometimes, you need someone to hold your hand when you're exploring uncharted territory.

Acrobatics are always a good way to impress members of the opposite sex.

There's always work to be done...whether by selling futbol team flags to the drivers passing by:

Or creating art:

Or keeping a watchful eye as a security guard:

Sometimes, you have to say "no", like to pesky tourists who want to take a photo of your hair-do:

Most of all, one thing always stays the same in life: our joy comes from our connections with others.

I remembered that truth when Roberto took me to the airport for my flight to Manaus, driving past beaches like this, with the waves relentlessly pounding the shore:

I was sad. Sad to be leaving beautiful Salvador; sad to be leaving my new friend Roberto.

Travel is life in fast-forward. You see beautiful things, make friends, and connect with people. Before you know it....it's time to move on and you realize you may never see these friends again. Connection. Joy. Change. Loss. Repeat.

So, we squeeze as much joy as we can from the beautiful moments of our lives. We photograph them, write about them, and seek to capture them before they are lost in the waves of time relentlessly pressing on.

A drive in the countryside

2011-01-16T18:32:00.000-08:00

"Posso?" I asked as I showed my camera to the boy leading his cow across the highway. He nodded, and so I captured this photo of him:

I turned to climb back into the car with Roberto, but another boy stopped me with his protests. He wanted HIS photo taken too! Happy to oblige, I captured this image of him, his friends, and their pet cows:

"Will you be selling your cows at market soon?" Roberto called out to them.
"Not this year, but next" the boys replied.

When he was a child growing up in the countryside around Salvador, Roberto raised and sold cows to earn money also. As the two of us drove through the tobacco and sugarcane fields, he told me that his father used to bring home all sorts of unique animals--like armadillo, snake, and crocodile--for the family to eat.

"How did you like them?" I asked.
"I prefer the meat I eat now."

Roberto's father was a traveling man, and had a wife ("concubines" Roberto called them) and children in several of the small towns of the Reconcavo, the rural area surrounding Salvador's All Saints Bay. The arrangement worked okay for Roberto's father until several of the women moved into Salvador and learned of each others' existence. Roberto is not sure, but believes he has about 40 siblings. He has close relationships only with the seven siblings that were borne by his own mother.

As we drove along, we listened to the music of Jau Peri, and Roberto explained the clever plays on words contained in the lyrics. One song about the favelas, or slums where Brazil's poor live, declared that although they are built on the tops of the hills, they do not scrape the sky as do the shiny modern office buildings nearby.

We enjoyed chatting about numerous topics. He warned me to be sure to wear sunscreen, explaining that my white skin is due to the fact that I don't have enough melanin. But that's not a problem. "Brazilians find freckles--little clumps of melanin on white people--to be very charming" he explained.

Earlier in the day, when we arrived at the street market in Santo Amaro, Roberto taught me to say "Posso?" to ask permission before taking a photo.

At that point, we were still inside the car, insulated from the sensory overload I often experience in street markets outside my native country. We found a place to park the car, and walked along the cobblestone streets, past the pastel colored buildings to make our way to the market.

Something about the market made me feel a little timid. It could have been all the men blowing kisses at me, or maybe it was the people saying things to me that I didn't understand ("They're saying you're a beautiful girl" Roberto would say occasionally...I'm not sure what else they said...Roberto kindly didn't translate everything!). Or possibly I felt timid because of the sight and smell of muddy, live crabs for sale.

Or seeing meat for sale in the open-air market:

I used my new word to ask permission to take photos of several people. Some didn't want to have their photos taken; others were okay with it, but didn't feel like smiling.

Others kindly held a pleasant expression for the photo:

And others smiled for me:

Whatever the reason for me being a little timid, I was very thankful to be there with Roberto, who guided me through and pointed out many of the interesting things for sale, like these cashew fruits:

I never knew cashews grew on trees! The nuts are inside the little tan stems, and must be roasted or else they will give you a chemical burn. You can eat the pulpy yellow/red fruit, or make a delicious juice of it.

I liked seeing the many other types of beautiful fruits and nuts:

Together we watched a man make freshly squeezed sugar cane juice:

Eventually, we moved on to see the towns of Cachoiera and Sao Felix, which sit across the Paraguaçu river from each other.

Once, they were very important because of their strategic location along the route where goods were shipped by boat from the countryside into Salvador. Once roads were built into Salvador, the two towns became less important, but are still very beautiful...even if they are crumbling in a few places.

Here, Roberto is showing me the high water mark on the buildings, which flooded frequently until a dam was constructed further upstream.

Because of the floods, the jails in those towns were known as some of the worst places to be incarcerated; the cells sometimes had a foot or two of water in them! The jail was on the bottom floor of the white municipal building you see in this photo:

The towns have very cute churches, like this one with bright red steps and blue accents:

Roberto and I even ate our lunch at a church...actually, at this former monastery turned into a pousada and restaurant...the only monastery I've ever known to have a swimming pool!

Along the way, Roberto said hello to some of his friends

And we made new friends, like this street vendor:

And this boy hauling sugar cane in his wheelbarrow:

It was a good day in the countryside with Roberto.

Capoeira Fight Dance

2011-01-16T12:27:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, practicing capoeira could get you arrested and tortured. Capoeira, a martial arts form developed by unarmed slaves attempting to defend themselves against their armed masters, was banned several times during Brazil's history.

One of the ways slaves "hid" their practice of capoeira was by turning it into a dance...a beautiful, athletic, amazing form of dance.

Today, capoeira is celebrated as a symbol of Brazil's culture and heritage, and watching people practice it in the streets of Salvador is one of the treats of visiting there.

Here's a video of some children playing the traditional instruments that accompany the dancers within the capoeira circle:

Here you can see teenagers practicing the high kicks that are a major part of capoeira:

For those who can't see video, here's a photo of some of those high kicks:

Capoiera also includes gymnastics and tumbling runs, such as the backflip you can see in this video:

And the tumbling run done by a young boy about half way through this video:

One man did twenty back-hand-springs in a tight circle at the evening capoeira performance I attended. As I watched the olympic-level tumbling runs and the simulated fighting with sticks and machetes, my jaw literally dropped in amazement at the strength and athleticism of the performers. I wasn't allowed to take video of the performance, but here's a link to a You Tube video that can give you a sense of the experience.

Not far from where I saw people practice Capoiera is a statue of Zumbi, an escaped slave who lead a settlement of fugitive, escaped slaves for many years until the Portuguese were able to capture and behead him on November 20, 1695.

I happened to be in Salvador on November 20, 2010, the 315th anniversary of Zumbi's death, which gave me the privilege of observing the anti-discrimination festival and day of Afro-Brazilian consciousness held every year in Zumbi's honor. I was happy to see the school children there learning about Zumbi, and learning capoeira, both great symbols of humankind's yearning for freedom and self-determination.

Religion in Salvador

2011-01-09T15:51:00.000-08:00

As I traveled around Brazil, I noticed that many of the Brazilians I met wore bracelets like this:

These bracelets are wish ribbons originating from Salvador's famous Church of Nosso Senhor do Bonfim. People make a wish as they tie them on, making three knots, and then leave them on until the ribbon disintegrates on its own. According to the tradition, cutting them off is bad luck and will prevent the fulfillment of your wish. When you visit the Church, you can see many of the wish ribbons tied to the fences out front, like this:

The Church of Bonfim is a very unique place, where Catholicism and African religion intertwine.

Bonfim is an important shrine, where people go to seek healing, and to offer praise to God after being healed. It even has a "room of miracles", full of wax replicas of body parts for which people are seeking healing:

The bulletin boards along the walls of the room are covered with letters and pictures of those who seek or have received healing:

While I was there, I saw a priest bless a woman by sprinkling holy water on her, and saw him offer a similar blessing on a car.

Each January, during the Feast of Bonfim, a huge procession makes its way through the streets of Salvador to the Church, where Bahianas in their traditional white dresses wash the steps and plaza in front of the church with scented water.

Salvador is famous for its festivals. Roberto described many of them to me, and I got the sense that during the months from December to February, they had a huge festival once or twice a week. Many of the festivals relate to the various African/Candomble gods whose worship was preserved by the slaves.

Just around the corner from my hotel was the beach where a festival to the god Yemanja is held each year, where people throw their offerings of food or flowers out to the sea.

In Candomble, Yemanja is not only the god of the sea, but is also the loving mother of mankind. A little shrine to her sits right next to a Catholic church, where you can often see fishermen bringing in their catch.

Roberto took me to the Casa Branca Engenho Velho, one of the Candomble temples, which also had a statue of Yemanja, along with a replica of a boat:

My favorite part of that temple was seeing the large grove of bamboo, which represents eternity, Roberto explained, because bamboo keeps growing and growing and can be very difficult to get rid of.

Women often founded and led the Candomble temples, because the male slaves were often out in the sugarcane fields and not as available to participate in or lead the religion.

The slave women even created an organization called "Irmandade da Boa Morte", or the "Sisterhood of the Good Death", which continues to this day. Each woman contributed money, which they saved up in order to purchase their freedom, one person at a time. They also used the money to give slaves a respectful funeral and burial. Recently, with the help of Martin Luther King Jr's widow and others, the organization was able to acquire this building, which is in the small town of Cachoeira about an hour's drive outside of Salvador.

I loved seeing the photos of the women in the little museum there:

Along the side of the road to Cachoeira, you see bottles of wine and bowls of food left on little tablecloths. These are offerings people have left for the Candomble gods, each god preferring a different offering.

At a museum with larger-than-life carvings of many of the Candomble deities, Roberto shared with me many of the myths and legends. They reminded me of the myths and legends of the Greek and Roman gods, in that the gods weren't perfect, and would go around betraying and backstabbing each other.

For instance, this god was a plural wife of one of the male gods, and felt neglected by her husband. She asked her husband's favorite wife the secret for making the husband love her so much, and the favorite wife replied that she always sliced a small piece of herself off and included it in the soup she fed her husband, which was not true. But, the unfavored wife believed it and sliced a large portion of her head off to include in her husband's soup. Her husband was horrified at that and rejected her, and so now this female god with a large piece of her face missing represents being betrayed.

I had a hard time wrapping my head around many of the myths and stories of the Candomble gods. They are a million miles away from the religious tradition in which I was raised: belief in a perfect, just, merciful, righteous God who asks us to strive to become perfect as He is. I pondered how such very different belief systems could result in very different outcomes for individuals and societies.

One of the highlights of my trip was attending services in my own faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, while I was in Salvador.

The people there were very, very warm and loving towards me, despite my lack of ability to speak Portuguese. When I entered the building, I was taken by the hand by one of the women, who took me to the Relief Society women's meeting first, where the lesson topic that day was, ironically, the gifts of the spirit, including the gift of tongues that enables us to quickly learn new languages. Unfortunately, I didn't receive the gift of tongues at that time, although I did understand the gist of the lesson due to the kind sister next to me who held her Portuguese manual so I could read from it also, which helped my comprehension.

During the second Sunday School hour, I enjoyed seeing the people interact with each other and was charmed by how fun and delightful they were. The teacher asked us to find a partner, assigning each partnership to read, discuss, and report on a scripture to the class. I felt sorry for my poor partner, who had to do it all on her own!

My favorite part was the third hour Sacrament Meeting, probably because a kind missionary sat next to me and translated for me. On the other side of me sat a young boy in t-shirt and jeans who recently joined the Church and had a beautiful sense of peace and serenity about him.

Two new converts were confirmed members of the Church that day, sitting on a chair in the front of the room as a small number of priesthood holders placed their hands on each convert's head, blessing them and giving them the most precious gift of the Holy Ghost. One of the converts was a middle-aged woman who the missionary told me had been very scared; as she walked back to her seat, she looked at me, I smiled at her, and she smiled broadly in return.

The other convert was a 14-year-old girl in a short black leather mini-skirt, a type of clothing you don't often see in LDS churches. I said a prayer in my heart for her that the gift of the Holy Ghost she just received, and her involvement with the Church and the gospel would protect her from the dangers of this sometimes dark world.

After the meeting, I found myself surrounded by people wanting to chat with me and welcome me. They were so very sweet. One of the kind, cute women who helped me earlier handed me a note, which said "I liked of the be your friend", giving me her contact information and saying "Thank's for time and fore ver welcome in Brazil." She ended it with "Kiss, Kiss" and then signed her name.

Her adorable 14-year-old daughter also handed me a note, which said, in part, "I like everyone American. How are you? You very beautiful." She drew a butterfly, with "Ai love you's" written above it. How can you not love people like that?!? I was very touched by their warmth and kindness, and we became Facebook friends that afternoon!

Did I mention I love Brazilians?

Tour guides of Salvador

2011-01-08T13:23:00.000-08:00

"Where are you from?" the black man wearing little round spectacles asked. He and his friend had walked past and then returned to the place where I sat on a narrow ledge, leaning against one of the historic buildings overlooking the Plaza da Se. I'd chosen the spot because it offered a great view of the anti-discrimination festival going on that day. Here's a little video to give you a sense of the place:

"The United States", I responded.

"I knew it!" he said excitedly. "I could tell you were an American from 100 meters away!"

Apparently, dying my hair dark so I wouldn't stand out in Brazil hadn't worked. Earlier, as I boarded the flight from Miami to Salvador da Bahia and saw no blonde people on the plane, I was glad I had dark hair. But, once I arrived in Salvador, Brazil's former colonial capital and the entry point for millions of African slaves, I realized there was no hiding the fact that I'm white.

Eighty percent of Salvador's current residents are descendants of the African slaves, and they amazingly still preserve much of the African culture--music, dance, dress, food, religion--they inherited from their ancestors, which is one of the big reasons I wanted to visit there. To give you a small sense of it, here's a video of some Bahianas dancing in their traditional white lace dresses with big hoops:

For those who can't see video, here's a photo of me with one of them:

The man with the spectacles introduced himself as Sergio, and his friend as Joshua. Sergio had lived in the U.S. and in Germany, which was why his English was so good. As he pulled out his government-issued tour guide badge, he explained that the two of them were tour guides and asked if I'd like a tour.

When I explained that I already had a tour guide, they looked incredulous.

"If you have a guide, where is he?" they smiled.

That morning Roberto Merces had given me a tour of the historic center of Salvador, the Pelourinho (meaning "pillory"), and we were scheduled to attend a folkloric show in the same area that evening.

Rather than going back to my hotel for the afternoon, I asked Roberto to leave me in that beautiful and historic place so I could explore it a little on my own. We agreed upon a meeting time, which was rapidly approaching when Sergio and Joshua happened to walk by. Only after I gave them Roberto's name and described him in detail did they believe that I actually did have a guide.

Sergio asked where in the States I was from, and when I responded "Utah", he asked if I was a Mormon and said that he knew a little bit about Joseph Smith. We talked about that for a while, and then he said:

"I'm looking for a good woman....a woman who serves the one true and living God, not one who serves all the false African deities."

He was referring to the many gods in the Candomblé religion centered there in Salvador, which is a thin veneer of Catholicism over the African beliefs brought by the slaves. When the slaves were forced by their masters to convert to Catholicism, they just associated each Saint with one of their African gods of nature, and then continued worshiping as they wished. Some of the gods are represented by the statues in this pond in one of Salvador's parks:

"Yes, in this time of sexually transmitted diseases, it's very important to find a good woman," Sergio continued. "You take your life in your hands when you love someone. I'm looking for a good woman" he repeated.

"I hope you find one!" I smiled.

"I think I did find one, and I'm looking at her!" he smiled back.

"If you're looking for a good woman who serves the one true and living God, you should go to church....a lot of really good women hang out at church!" I suggested.

That didn't deter him.

"Would you like to have a baby? Do you want it to be white like you? Or, would you like a mixed baby?" Sergio queried.

"Wow...you're moving really fast" I replied.

"You won't be here very long, so I must move fast" he smiled again.

Not sure how to respond to that, I said "Well, I need to be going...it's time for me to meet Roberto."

"So that means we'll never see each other again?" Sergio asked with sad puppy dog eyes. "Can I at least give you a hug goodbye?"

I hugged Sergio, said goodbye to Joshua, and went to meet Roberto, who laughed when I told him this story, but then also gave me two safety tips, which other solo women travelers might also benefit from:
1. Never let anyone into your hotel room, or tell them where you are staying.
2. Never walk away from your drink, because that makes it easy to drug. If you must leave to go to the restroom, finish your drink first, and then order a new one when you return.

Roberto was an excellent guide. Not only is he an expert in Brazil's African religions and culture, but he is also a fun, reliable, and good man.

He pointed out the places where it was safe to sample the street food, like the acarajé--little snacks made of of mashed black eyed peas, deep fried in dende oil, and served with shrimp, hot sauce, and diced veggies.

He's a good driver, which I especially appreciated when the two of us saw a man and his motorcycle fly through the air and come down with a horrible crash when a van turned in front of the bike.

Like many Brazilians, Roberto is very animated and would often use his hands as he talked, sometimes touching my leg to emphasize a point as I sat next to him in the front seat of his car. Brazilians tend to need less personal space than Americans, and will often touch you as they speak with you, which is one of their charms. Roberto was very careful to not make me uncomfortable...one time after he touched my leg to emphasize his point, he said "Oh! Sorry to touch you! I must remember to control myself!"

But I wasn't concerned...I considered him a friend. I'll write more about our adventures together in upcoming posts.

Sailing the Day Away

2011-01-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

Parati sits on the Bay of Ilha Grande, which has 365 little islands to explore.

Here are some images of the lazy day I spent sailing around there.

Early in the morning, I saw the schooner tour people using fun marketing techniques to drum up business, like this guy advertising the "Aloha" line.

And this pirate boarding the Buchanero. When I saw the pirate later, he was calmly playing the guitar for all his guests, rather than saying "Aaarg!" and scaring people.

One of the guys preparing his ship for departure:

Here's my captain pulling up the anchor of our schooner as we left Parati:

He guided our schooner at this wheel, while the eight guests aboard hung out on cushions and pillows you see here:

I enjoyed visiting with this couple from Jersey (not New Jersey, but Jersey the island in the United Kingdom) who had once quit their jobs and spent 18 months traveling.

I also enjoyed visiting with this young lady from Portugal. She and her two girlfriends had just finished medical school, so they took this trip to Brazil together to celebrate.

I liked seeing the other boats:

And the jungle-covered islands:

And the beautiful mountain range in the distance:

We stopped to snorkel among these fish:

Where we could jump off the boat, or climb down this ladder if we didn't want to make a splash:

The first mate paddled out to tie us to this rock:

Sometimes, we'd drop the anchor:

We stopped to play at some beautiful beaches:

Some of which had palm trees growing coconuts:

And beautiful flowers:

One of the islands had a lovely home on it:

With cute "God Bless This Home" signs in front:

It was a relaxing day...one that felt like a true vacation!

Brazil's Little Venice

2011-01-03T09:47:00.001-08:00

Once a month, at the time of the full moon, the colonial town of Parati floods. The town's builders designed it that way, with a high-tide powered automatic street washing system.

I wasn't there for the full moon, so I didn't capture my own picture of the phenomenon, but here's someone else's image of the reason Parati is sometimes called "Brazil's Little Venice":

Here's one of the openings in the seawall allowing the water to come into the streets:

And here's one of the little bridges that enable people to get around town when the streets are flooded:

My one experience with flooded streets was the evening I had been drawn into a restaurant by the crooning of Frank Sinatra coming over their sound system. I loved the restaurant...not only because it had delicious food and my favorite Brazilian soft drink, Guarana:

But I loved it because of the charming young couple that ran the restaurant. When a middle-aged woman, clearly a friend of the couple, came into the restaurant, the young man greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, a common Brazilian custom, and then spent a few moments dancing with her to Sinatra's music. The wife came out of the kitchen, greeted the woman with a kiss also, and the three of them sat down and clearly enjoyed spending a few minutes chatting together.

It began to rain, so I hung out with the couple and their friends for quite some time, eventually realizing there was no avoiding a walk back to my pousada in the rain. So, I stepped out into the streets, which were full of water:

For the most part, I was able to stay on the sidewalks above the water, but occasionally the sidewalk would be blocked, and so I got quite wet, which was part of the fun.

I made my way back to my room at the "Prince's Pousada", owned by one of the royal family of Portugal, who also has a home in Parati.

Not only does a Portuguese royal live in Parati, but many artists live there. An artist gave me a tour of the town, including the shop where she and her husband sell their lovely paintings. Parati has a puppet theatre with large puppets not on strings, but manipulated by people dressed in black standing behind them. Parati has numerous annual festivals, including a big literary festival, where they hang children's books from the trees in the plaza for all the young people to enjoy. Some artists make pendants out of coins, like you see here:

Other artists weave things out of grasses and leaves, like this man:

who kindly gave me this little bug he'd made:

One of the things I most loved about Parati was the museum offering glimpses into the lives of the local people, through photos and audio recordings. Near that display were these fun windows, where some of the key phrases from the recordings were written in Portuguese on one pane and in English on the other, bringing the two languages together whenever the windows were opened.

A few of my favorites:

I was also charmed by Parati's four churches. This one was built specifically for women, who wanted an excuse to socialize with each other and get out of the house.

This church, the simplest one in the town, was built for the slaves:

This one, with its position along the harbor, is one of the symbols of Parati:

This one, interestingly enough, was partially funded by pirate's loot! A woman who had inherited much money from her father donated it. Her father had seen pirates hiding their loot, and then went to the hiding place later to steal it from them! The townspeople debated about whether or not it was appropriate to accept tainted money for the building of the church, but since they'd already spent about 90 years working on the church without being able to finish it, they decided to just accept the money and finish the church!

When the woman's father died, she knew it was the custom for major donors and prominent people to be buried below the church floor or in the church yard, but her father had been such a bad, mean-spirited person she wasn't sure she wanted to have him buried there. She solved the problem by burying him at the base of one of the church's stairways, so that he would know what it was like to be stepped on, just like he had done to people during his life.

The yellow sandstone used in this church came from Portugal. It wasn't shipped to Brazil because it was especially unique, but only because the empty ships coming from Portugal to pick up the gold flowing out of Brazil needed to be weighted down by something!

Here are a few more photos from Brazil's charming "Little Venice":

The Streets of Parati

2010-12-26T16:28:00.001-08:00

I tried to suppress my laughter as I saw the tourist struggling to drag his carry-on luggage over the large, bumpy, uneven cobblestones. He had just arrived in Parati, a quaint colonial town about a three-hour drive south of Rio de Janeiro, and hadn't yet found the pousada where he and his friend were staying.

I wasn't trying to be insensitive or mean, but was laughing because his predicament reminded me of a similar, hilarious experience my sister and I had in Colonia, Uruguay when we thought we'd save a few bucks by walking instead of taking a taxi, which turned out to be a comedy-of-errors as we realized that wheeled luggage and cobblestone streets don't go well together.

Because the streets of the historic center of Parati (pronounced par-uh-chee) are closed to vehicles, this man didn't have the option of taking a taxi, and so he mumbled "I should have packed a backpack instead of using my British Airways Executive Club carry-on luggage" as he saw my grin.

We stopped to chat and I agreed, as gently as possible, that his executive club membership wouldn't do him much good here, among streets originally built by slaves back in 1667. The streets were built when Parati was an important point on the gold trail leading from Minas Gerais's inland mines to the port at Rio de Janeiro. Because a shorter route was eventually found, Parati was abandoned and forgotten. Later, it was an important stop on the coffee trail, but then was abandoned and forgotten again, which is how it came to be preserved in all of its 17th-century charm.

Since I'd been in Parati a few days, and since I felt badly for smiling at the man's struggles, I gave him a little orientation to the town, sharing with him some of the things I'd learned on my recent city tour.

I pointed out the purple door at the end of the street, explaining that it's one of several non-functional doors around the 33-block town which are used only once a year. Only on Easter Sunday, when a large procession re-enacting the Savior carrying his cross makes its way through the town, are these purple doors opened to reveal the symbolic objects they contain representing each stop along the way of the cross.

I pointed out one of the doors with a built-in lattice, explaining that the lattice idea was a result of the Moorish influence in Portugal, and was intended to enable the single women to see outside the house while they stayed inside, protecting them from the prying eyes of people outside the house who could not see in through the lattice.

The buildings have many doors but fewer windows, I explained, because it was a commercial town with business entrances on the street:

And because the beauty was tucked away in courtyards in the middle of the blocks, like this one, so they didn't need many windows facing the street.

I pointed out that the buildings on the street corner near us had stone footings on three of the four corners, while the fourth was left unadorned. That was the case on every street corner in the town, I explained, because the town had been built by masons, to whom the triangle was a sacred symbol, and so they intentionally created a triangle of stones at each corner.

The masons also put many of their symbols on the buildings throughout the town, like these symbols on a house also covered with pineapples, which are themselves symbols of wealth and abundance and goodness.

By the time we finished talking, my new friend seemed to feel a little better, and his friend arrived to lead him the rest of the way to their pousada.

So, I continued on my way, enjoying Parati's charms, like the horses hanging out around town:

And the folks riding bikes:

And the cute street lamps:

And the unique, prolific flowers:

And the quaint bridge:

And the stray dogs who are thrilled to be your best friend and accompany you through the town:

And I smiled to myself as I carefully made my way along the large, bumpy, uneven cobblestones, considering them an addition to Parati's charm.

My Three Wishes

2010-12-25T21:09:00.000-08:00

The native peoples of the Amazon have a legend that if you hold a tento seed in your hand, close your eyes, and then make a wish as you close your hand and put the tento seed in your pocket, your wish will come true.

I had three opportunities to make a wish like this.

The first time, I made a general wish for a happy life.

The second time, my wish was that I would be able to make it home from Brazil with my virtue. Perhaps because I was a woman traveling alone, or perhaps because Brazilian men really like white women, or perhaps because Brazilians are very open about such things, I faced several situations where I was invited to have casual sex.

Dealing with those invitations was awkward and uncomfortable. In some cases, I was able to just say no and walk away, never seeing the man again. I also tried wearing a fake wedding ring and telling men I was married, which I wasn't comfortable doing, it being a lie. In the end, I found that the best approach was to explain that because of my Mormon faith, I've made a promise to God that I would have sex only with my husband. I was grateful to be able to make this second wish come true.

The third time I wished upon a tento seed, I wished that someday I would return to Brazil again. Visiting the Amazon was one of the greatest adventures of my life. Before I turn my attention to blogging about the other areas in Brazil I visited, I'd like to share a few final Amazon shots.

Here's a shot from the airplane as we landed in Manaus, where you can see the "meeting of the rivers", where the dark waters of the Rio Negro and the lighter waters of the Rio Solimões converge to become the Amazon. The different colored waters run side by side for several miles without mixing, because of the differences in temperature and composition.

This black and white meeting of the rivers is a motif in Brazilian art, used in the walkways along Copacabana and Ipanema beaches in Rio, as well as in this large plaza in front of Manaus' grand opera house:

Back at Ariau, I was happy to capture at least one or two shots of the many beautiful birds I saw, like this egret:

Reiner and Sabine, a kind German couple in my group, captured these images of the unique Amazon birds:

Here is a hoatzin, the pre-historic bird that has a multi-chambered stomach, and whose young birds have claws on their wings.

This guy was the only person I saw actually use a life jacket:

Here's the jungle Christmas tree in the reception area of the Ariau Jungle Towers.

Here's a shot showing more of the towers, lacking the water that is usually below them because of this year's severe drought:

And that same area at sunset, captured by Reiner and Sabine:

Here are the monkeys hanging out on the sign declaring that this is where "Survivor Amazon" was filmed:

As I boarded the "Fe En Deus" and it pulled away from the dock, leaving Ariau Jungle Towers in the distance, I felt sad to be leaving. I comforted myself by reaching in my pocket, pulling out the tento seed and nut ring I had there, and holding them in my hands, hoping that one day I would return again.

Visiting a native village

2010-12-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

Rui seemed reluctant to take us to the Sao Tome native village.

"There are too many people there from Rio" he explained. The village had been adopted by a Brazilian reality TV show, and so it was filled with workers giving it a makeover. The village visit was on our itinerary, though, and Rui knew that the lodge's guests would complain if they didn't get to see it, so he took us there anyway.

I must admit, it was my least favorite part of my stay in the Amazon, although I did think it was fun to see the TV show producer riding in a speed canoe, with a big camera mounted on a tripod in the front. I also liked seeing the men of the village on the bank of the river, unloading all the building supplies that had been shipped in.

I nodded and greeted the men as we passed, and they smiled and gave me a thumbs up, except for the ones that were too burdened down with a load of bricks on their heads to socialize.

Most of them were barefoot, like this man:

I was interested to see the little briar balls that get stuck in the trees when this area floods.

Here's a close up of one of them:

But I didn't really enjoy visiting the village much, because....well...it stunk. Literally. We stopped in an area that had several outhouses while Rui showed us the tree that grows the blow darts.

While we were there, a pig escaped from its sty nearby, and Reiner, a kind-hearted German tourist in our group hurried to put the pig back in the sty and close the door, but the pig pushed and pushed until it was free again.

As we walked around the town, we had to avoid the electrical wires that were all over the place. You can see them in the foreground of this photo of the electric company people installing the lines.

They had a generator in one area of the town, and Tony, a German electrical engineer in our group, looked it over and commented on how unsafe it was. They used the generator to power this television, which was blasting music through the town. Here's a little video showing that:

The workers were making good progress, though:

Even when they didn't have exactly the right tools, like a ladder that was tall enough for the job:

After our brief tour of the town, I was ready to leave, but Rui gave us 15 minutes to look around there. There wasn't much to do, except to buy a beer or a sugared soda from the town's little store (the orange building in the photo below), which I couldn't do because of my Mormon faith and my hypoglycemia, respectively.

So, not sure what to do with myself, I just sat down on a bench near some of the townspeople and listened to them chatting in Portuguese.

On the hour-long canoe ride home, I exchanged knock-knock jokes with the little boys in our group. Here are some silly photos of them using leaves as their jungle hats:

And Rui told me about Vasco de Gama, his favorite futbol team named after a famous Portuguese explorer. And we washed our shoes and other things in the river:

But then it began to rain. Hard. So our conversations stopped, and we pulled out our long plastic disposable raincoats. The rain made big puddles in our laps, requiring us to dump them every minute or two. Here are Sabine and Reiner in the rain:

The rain also made beautiful light for taking photos of the canoes along the river as we made our way back to our rooms:

And although I was very wet, I was thankful for the experience.

Jungle Survival

2010-12-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

"Please! Look to the soil, and don't touch anything!" Rui commanded as we began the first of our two hikes along the rainforest floor.

The first rule of surviving in the jungle is to watch where you're stepping, rather than looking up to see all of the birds, animals, butterflies, and vegetation up high in the rainforest canopy as you walk along. I had to remind myself to stop when I wanted to look up to see interesting things like the epiphytic bromiliad plants, which grow on top of other plants to be closer to the light and escape the darkness created by all the trees shading the rainforest floor.

The second rule: don't touch anything, was much easier said than done. The forest was dense with foliage in some places and so there was no escaping touching things as you made your way through. Here's a little video and photo to give you a sense of the experience:

We hiked through two different areas of the rainforest, and it seemed that the igapo forest, which floods during the rainy season, had vegetation that was less dense than the dry-year-round terra firma forest. Even though I was careful, I took a fall when my ankles got tangled up in the vines along the floor of the "terra firma" forest. Here's a shot of the terra firma floor:

Here Rui is showing us the type of fruit that is eaten by fish when the igapo forest is flooded. Some scientists even believe that piranhas and their relatives evolved teeth for the purpose of cutting into fruit, rather than for the purpose of eating flesh.

"Can I carry your boys across this part of the forest?" Rui asked Katherine, the mother of the 5- and 7-year old who were with us. Katherine agreed, and after all of us were across the 20-foot section that was especially deep with leaves, Rui explained that they often see pit vipers there. I was glad he waited until AFTER I had crossed to tell me that, and was glad that none of them were out that day.

Which leads us to the next jungle survival tip: don't get bitten or eaten by anything.

The key to following this rule is managing your scent, which can be tricky because the jungle is a sweaty place. Beads of sweat are constantly dripping down your back and face, due to the 90% humidity there.

The animals are so sensitive to your scent that Rui asked us to avoid using deodorant, soap, or any fragrance prior to our sunrise walk because it would scare away the birds or animals we wanted to see.

When you are trying to avoid attracting the jaguars, wild boars, and other predators that are drawn by the scent of your sweat, if you've planned in advance you can eat garlic, like the soldiers stationed in Manaus do before their jungle excursions. If you haven't planned in advance, you can rub your hands on an ants' nest, like I'm doing here, and then rub the scent all over your body.

Speaking of ants, here's a video and photo of the little leaf cutting ants that busily gather leaves to feed to the fungi that they cultivate, as it is their major food source:

Here's a cute little fungi I noticed near there:

If you do happen to get bit by an ant, a snake, a scorpion, or a tarantula, you can cut some of these tree roots that hang down from the sky, and use the liquid that drips from them as an anti-venom.

If you have to spend the night in the jungle, you'll want to sleep standing up in the little rooms created by the buttresses of the shallow-rooted trees:

Jaguars like to attack from the back, which they can't do if you're standing there. You can also cover your little room with leaves and mud, or start a fire to hide your scent. You can also smear mud on your face, so the brightness of your face won't stand out against the darkness of the jungle.

Not only can the buttress roots give you shelter, but they can also be used as jungle telephones, if you need to get the attention of someone within about 3 kilometers away. Here's a video of Rui demonstrating that:

Another key to survival is finding water, which is not difficult because it rains so often there. You just use a pod to collect the rainwater, as Rui is showing us here, but then you must be sure to filter the water through your shirt. The water is dirty, having come through all the monkey excrement and dirt and stuff that is in the rainforest canopy.

The final key to survival is knowing what to eat in the jungle, and the safest thing to do is to watch the monkeys and eat the same things they do. They avoid eating anything that is red, orange, or black, like these tento seeds that Rui picked up from the forest floor.

If you do happen to eat something bad and get sick, there are many medicinal plants that can help you get feeling better. Here, Rui is giving the bark of a cashew tree to Katherine's sons, instructing them to boil the bark into a tea and give it to their mother to stop the stomach sickness she was experiencing. They did, and it worked.

I was amazed at the variety of useful plants in the Amazon, and at the knowledge of the natives who know how to use the plants for many different purposes. For example, they hang this "scissor plant" in their windows to keep out bats, because it is sharp and will cut anything that tries to fly through there.

They use other plants for fragrances, and will scrape off the bark and light it to produce a smoke that can serve as a headache remedy, like Francisco and Rui are showing us here:

Both rubber and gum trees grow in the rainforest, and are harvested by cutting the bark of the tree and then capturing the white milk that flows out of them in little cups.

The rubber trees brought much wealth to the Amazon for a time, including enough to build this opulent opera house in Manaus:

The rainforest has plants that can be used for the treatment of malaria, diabetes, urinary infections, hepatitis, and many other ailments. The natives use other plants to induce vomiting, to induce labor or cause an abortion, to treat impotence, to cauterize wounds, to repel insects, to treat baldness, and to generate energy. We still haven't fully explored the Amazon, and still have much to learn about that amazing place.

Visiting there gave me the sense that I live in a very artificial world, where I'm sheltered from the cycles of life: from birth and death, from prey and predator, from dirt, and mud, and sweat. Most of all, visiting the Amazon made me realize yet again, what a beautiful, wonderful world this is.

Contentment in the jungle

2010-12-24T07:40:00.000-08:00

"I can't believe it!" Sam said as he, his girlfriend Abby, and I walked back to our canoe after visiting the home of Francisco, Selina, and their 14 children. The family lives in a cluster of buildings along the Rio Negro, about 40 minutes by canoe from the Ariau Jungle Towers.

"That woman is the happiest, most content person I've ever met!" Sam declared. He'd just spent the last hour chatting with Selina as they sat together at the table beneath this grass roof over the family's kitchen and dining area.

Sam is the son of an international businessman. He grew up riding around in armored cars with his father, and moving from country to country as their family followed his father's career. As a result, he never felt a connection to any one place...never felt like anyplace was home.

"I've never met a person so content" he continued. "That's why people like my dad strive so much...they're never happy, they can never get enough, and so they acquire more and more, climbing higher and higher on the career ladder, trying to get what that lady who lives a simple life in the jungle already has: contentment!"

Sam had asked Selina if she'd ever thought about trading in her house on stilts (built that way to provide ventilation and keep the people above the scorpions, tarantulas, and seasonal water) for a house in the city.

Selina replied that she had been offered a free house in Manaus, but turned it down, because she enjoyed the peace and quiet of the jungle. I also enjoyed visiting their peaceful home, and was grateful I had the chance to visit them three times during my trip.

Here's Selina with her 7-year old son at the shop where they sell handicrafts they make:

The young boy was more than happy to show us how to shoot blow darts at the little styrofoam target Selina had setup for that purpose.

Each time I went to their house, Selina used her enormous cooking pan over the fire to make us some delicious bread made of manioc flour, which she created by processing the cassava root that grew in her garden. She served the bread with cashew juice and pineapple juice. Here's Rui in front of the pan:

And what's left of the delicious bread (she covered it with lots of butter, making it especially yummy):

Here are two of Selina and Francisco's children enjoying the leftover bread.

The little two-year-old boy was stark naked. (But I must admit that I've known little American 2-year-olds who like to run around stark naked too, so there's probably nothing out of the ordinary about that!)

Here's Francisco, Selina's husband, working to fix the dock where we always left our canoe.

One time when I visited, several representatives from the electric company were there, and they were having a discussion about where to put in the power lines. I was interested to watch Francisco casually tap his machete against his leg as he was visiting with the men. I wondered if holding a machete while having a discussion might put a damper on openness...I certainly wouldn't want to argue with the man with the machete! Here's a little video of that:

Francisco was very, very nice, and kindly led us on a hike through the jungle near his house. Here he's using his machete to scrape some of the fragrant bark off of a tree so we could savor its scent. They say that Brazil exports the Amazon rosewood tree to France, and then re-imports it back in the form of the Chanel 5 fragrance.

One time, after I had stopped to take this picture of the grasses and canoes in front of the family home, I heard someone call my name.

I turned and saw one of my guides, so I walked back towards him. He asked me to hold out my hand, and then presented me with a ring made out of a nut's shell, telling me how beautiful I was, and that if he were a younger man, he would fall in love with me. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so I just said "Thank you". Later, a few weeks after I arrived home, I received a letter from him expressing his love for me and asking if I would marry him.

That was, of course, very flattering, but I immediately thought of the expression "A fish could marry a bird, but where would they live?" Life in the Amazon is a totally different world than my life in the United States. While I'm not ready to trade in my U.S. life for one in the Amazon, I was very grateful for the opportunity to glimpse a contented life in that world.

Swimming in the Amazon

2010-12-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

I hadn't planned to swim in the Amazon. I hadn't even intended to TOUCH the Amazon, because I was so scared of the bacteria and waterborne larvae that can penetrate your intact skin and give you horrible diseases. The Salt Lake County Health Department nurse who gave me my vaccinations described the diseases in vivid detail, and even gave me a prescription for antibiotics to take in case a drop of freshwater accidentally splashed on me.

But, once I was actually THERE, and saw that the resort offered an option to swim with pink river dolphins, I really wanted that experience. I carefully studied the 7-page health precautions report the nurse had given me, and learned that the highest freshwater disease risk was in Bahia, the first state I visited, rather than here in the Amazon. Since I'd already purchased the freshwater antibiotics and had them with me, I figured I could take them for good measure.

I reasoned that the Ariau Jungle Towers is a 5-star resort, with guests like Bill Gates staying there. Certainly they knew what they were doing and wouldn't put their guests at inappropriate risk.

So I changed my mind and decided to sign up to swim with the Amazon's pink river dolphins. One of the first questions the lodge asked in response was if I was having my menstrual period. The scent of blood, of course, attracts some of the larger dangers of the Amazon, like the river sharks and piranhas and caiman. I wasn't having my period, so I was good to go.

"I have another tour and won't be able to go swimming with you" Rui told me "but will send you with my friend Paulo. He doesn't speak English, but just do whatever he says, and you'll be fine."

Since I knew one of the other tourists I'd be swimming with spoke both Portuguese and English, I wasn't too worried about being able to follow directions, but the German man next to me who overheard our conversation laughed and asked "How is she supposed to follow directions she doesn't understand!?" So, Rui elaborated further:

"Just keep your hands below water the entire time, and you'll be fine. The dolphins can't see very well, so if your hands are outside the water, they might think you are a fish and bite you. But if you keep your hands below water, you won't get bit." I figured I could do that.

Because of a busy schedule that day, instead of meeting at the lodge, Paulo picked me up in his canoe at the end of my jungle hike. I'd carried my swimsuit in my pack during the hike, and so the first order of business was to stop here to change clothes:

This is where the dolphin expert man lives. We hopped off the canoe into a room where several young men were hanging out. I asked where I should change, and they pointed me to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Like a drunken sailor, I staggered over to the kitchen, not accustomed to walking on such a tilted floor. The kitchen was very unique, with old rusted appliances, but I was so focused on changing out of my sweaty clothes into my swimsuit that I didn't think to take a photo. Here's what the kitchen looks like from the outside, though.

The dolphin man loaded two buckets of fish into our canoe, and then we headed out into the main body of the Rio Negro.

We stopped here at this dock, which has steps leading to an underwater platform where you can stand waist deep in the river.

Once Sam, Abby, and I and our guide were standing on the platform, the guide began pulling fish out of his bucket and lobbing them out to the river. Soon, we heard the gasps of the dolphins as they surfaced for air, and saw their pink and gray heads and backs as they approached. The Amazon dolphins are gray when they are young, and turn pink as they mature.

They love the free fish, of course, and were soon gathered around us, allowing us to pet their soft neoprene-like skin and curiously poking their long snouts around us.

The guide started playing and teasing them, getting them to jump out of the water like this:

They came crashing down with a big splash, like this:

Just as we were beginning to feel comfortable in the water and with the dolphins, a large boat of tourists arrived at the dock, so they could transfer from the larger "Fe En Deus" (Faith in God) boat that brings you from Manuas to the smaller canoes that take you to the lodge. Here's what the two boats looked like on the day I arrived:

The thirty tourists were thrilled to see the pink river dolphins, so they all pulled out their cameras and clamored to get as many photos of the dolphins as possible. I hate being seen in a swimming suit, and so I tried hard not to think about the fact that now thirty people would have photos of me in my swimming suit.

Because of all the commotion, the dolphin man suggested we stop feeding the dolphins and just stand on the submerged deck in the water, waiting for the tourists to leave. So, we just hung out there, and the dolphins seemed to feel more and more comfortable with us, continuing to swim around.

At one point, Abby cried "Ouch! I just got bit!" She pulled her hand out of the water to show Sam and I the red mark on her first and middle finger where one of the dolphins had crunched her with his little teeth. Fortunately, the bite didn't draw blood. After that, she wasn't sure she wanted to stay in the water, but Sam kept trying to reassure her:
"Don't worry! They won't bite you!" he said.
"They just DID bite me!" she replied.
"Don't worry! They won't bite you AGAIN!" Sam tried, but that was little comfort to Abby, especially since she had followed the rule to keep her hands below water.

I didn't get bit, but there was something about me that the dolphins liked, and so they kept swimming up close to me, rubbing their bodies and fins against my legs, just like a cat would do to show its affection. Perhaps it was because I hadn't shaved my legs that day, and they liked having a rubbing post, or perhaps it was because I was sweaty from hiking in the jungle and they liked my scent, but they kept rubbing against me, but not against Sam or Abby. After a few minutes of that, I was overwhelmed by all that dolphin love, and had my back pressed up against the dock, having been pushed there by all their attention.

Most of the other tourists had left by then, so our guide fed the dolphins a few more fish and then indicated that it was now the other tourist's turn. So I climbed back up on the dock and enjoyed watching them have the experience. Here's a little video I took of them:

After they'd been in the water a minute or so, one of the girls cried out "Hey! Are those the pee fish!?" The "pee fish" she was referring to is the candiru--tiny little parasitic catfish that are attracted to urine and have even been known to swim up people's urinary tracts and lodge themselves there with their little spines. There were 20 or 30 of them surrounding the people, and their size and movement reminded me of swimming dragonflies.

The guide gave us the opportunity to swim after he finished with this second group of tourists, but after seeing the candiru, I really wasn't in the mood to swim!

By the following day, though, I'd forgotten all about the candiru, and so jumped in the water when Rui gave us the opportunity to swim at the dock for a few minutes while we were en route to a native village. We didn't have fish with us to attract the dolphins, so I didn't expect to see any, but after a minute or two of treading water, I was startled to realize that I had just kicked something that felt suspiciously like a dolphin. Sure enough, a dolphin surfaced next to me, and we had the opportunity to play with him a few minutes more. You can see him just below the surface of the water in this photo captured by Sabine.

Visiting the Amazon is the adventure of a lifetime, whether or not you swim in the river. Even though I hadn't planned to swim there, I was glad I did, and was grateful to make it through the experience safely.

Give that man a raise!

2010-12-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

The next time I feel like complaining about my job, I hope I'll remember Amadeo, and stop my whining.

One of Amadeo's many responsibilities at Ariau Jungle Lodge is to take people on caiman spotting tours, so they can get an up-close-and-personal experience with the crocodilian reptiles that live along the Amazon. Since the caiman are most active at night, these tours happen after dark. Here's a photo of Rui and Amadeo standing at the front of our canoe, using a large car-battery-powered spotlight to scan the river banks, looking for the caiman.

Once you spot a caiman, Amadeo has the job of leaping out of the canoe onto the reptile's back, clamping the caiman's jaw closed with his hands. Here are a few photos of Amadeo, catching the caiman that would be our example that evening:

Once he had the caiman's mouth securely closed, he brought it back into the boat, so we could get a closer look.

Here's Rui showing how part of the caiman's tail had been eaten by piranhas.

And showing us the caiman's tongue:

For those who can't view video, here's a photo showing off the Caiman's teeth.

I happened to be seated in the front of the canoe just a few feet from Amadeo and the caiman, so I had the opportunity to tickle its tummy and to watch as Rui and Amadeo determined that it was a female.

The next day, I asked Amadeo if he'd ever had an accident with the caimans, and in response he showed me the scars on his wrists where he'd been bit by them. I thought he deserved a big tip.

I was totally impressed at Amadeo's willingness to quietly do the dirty work that was required to help us have a nice trip. Not only did he clean our fish and catch our caiman, but when we landed at places, he'd jump into the water to pull us to a dock (or improvise a dock with planks), so we didn't have to get our feet wet.

Amadeo guided the canoe on several of the 45-to-60 minute journeys we took around the area. One time after getting mud on my shoes after visiting a native village, I decided to wash my shoes in the wake of the canoe, and Amadeo kindly reminded me to hold on tight so I wouldn't lose a shoe in the Amazon.

Here he is with his machete, ready to help us make our way through the dense jungle:

All of the Ariau Jungle Lodge employees were very helpful, like this guy, who carried our luggage up the stairs from the canoes to our rooms.

Rui was the only English-speaking guide I met at the lodge. He is very knowledgeable about all of the medicinal uses of the plants in the Amazon, about the legends of the native peoples, and about all of the birds and animals we saw. He went out of his way to help me have a comfortable stay. Here's a photo of him pointing to a three-toed sloth that he happened to notice in the trees near my tower:

Edi, who picked me up in Manaus and helped me make the two hour journey upstream to the jungle lodge, was raised in the jungle. The first time she looked into a mirror or learned the alphabet was when she was 15 years old, when her family moved to the city because her mother insisted that the children should get an education. Now she speaks five languages.

The Amazon is an amazing place to visit, and one of its pleasures is meeting the wonderful people who work there!

Fishing for Piranha

2010-12-12T16:29:00.000-08:00

"If you don't hide the hook, you'll just be feeding the piranhas!" my guide Rui explained as he showed us how to place the chunks of cow heart we were using as bait on the hooks of our bamboo fishing rods. Here's a photo of my pile of bait, sitting on the side of the canoe:

We'd met Rui and Amadeo at the dock where we always boarded the little canoes for our outings, and I was surprised that they only took us about 100 feet upstream to fish on the Ariau River, which eventually makes it way to join the Rio Negro and eventually the Amazon. Here's the area where we fished.

I must admit that I fed one or two (or more!) of the piranhas as we fished...several times the sneaky little guys were able to eat the bait without getting hooked. But, I was also pleased to catch about ten piranhas. Because of the drought, a lot of fish are concentrated in a little water, which makes them easy to catch. Here I am with the first piranha I caught...which was small enough that we threw it back, but not before taking a photo:

Most of the piranhas I saw were quite small, no bigger than the size of your hand. All of them had serious teeth, and many of them had parts missing because they'd been bit by their friends. Here's Rui, showing off the teeth of a piranha we'd just caught:

Here's a video where Rui explains that a school of piranhas can eat an entire cow in five minutes:

Here's Amadeo cleaning the piranhas--he always chopped off their teeth first, and was kind enough to save a jaw for me to take home as a souvenier. (Which reminds me: having a piranha jaw in your bag makes a great emergency conversation piece if you ever run out of things to say to the other tourists around you!)

One time I caught something much bigger than a piranha on my line, and it was a fighter. I'd lost a few other fish that were able to thrash their way off my line, and didn't want to lose this one, so I pulled it in as quickly as I could and tossed it on the bottom of the boat. Here's what happened next:

Yup, the sharp dorsal fin on the fish cut Rui's hand as he attempted to remove the hook. As Rui squeezed the blood off his hand, letting it drip into the river, I had a sudden realization: "I'm standing in a canoe in piranha- and caiman- infested water with about 7 other people--I hope nobody rocks the boat!!"

It turns out that I'd caught a Peacock Bass, a fish that is highly prized by sports fishermen for its fighting qualities. Here's a video where Rui explained that people make trips to the Amazon specifically to catch this fish:

For those who can't see video, here's a photo of Amadeo holding the fish:

Here's a closeup, where you can see that the fish has an inner mouth with little teeth things it uses to grind its food:

Amadeo was kind enough to put the fish back on the hook so I could pose for this photo. "Bring the fish closer to your face" Rui kept saying as he prepared to take the photo, but since I'd seen it draw blood, and it was still thrashing a little, I figured this was close enough!

Later, when some native fishermen came by in their canoe, and Amadeo called out to them and then held up the Peacock Bass for them to see, I knew that catching this fish was a Big Deal, and it made me all the more thankful for the experience!

Another person on our boat caught something even bigger. They hooked a caiman, which is a small crocodile about 3 feet long. Here's Rui working to get the pole un-stuck:

We ended up just cutting the line, and didn't try to reel that one in! Here's an earlier photo I took of it, where you can just see it's head poking out of the water:

After dark that evening, we went caiman spotting, which I'll write about later.

At this point, though, we happily took our catch back to the Ariau Jungle Lodge, where they cooked it into a soup we ate for our Thanksgiving dinner!

I'm not typically a fish eater, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat a piranha I'd caught myself. There wasn't much meat on the fish, but it was good. The peacock bass, however, was great...it had a lot of white meat that didn't have a fishy flavor at all. I was very thankful for the opportunity to eat it for my Thanksgiving dinner, and thankful for the experience of fishing in the Amazon!

Staying at an Amazon Jungle Lodge

2010-12-06T18:53:00.000-08:00

"Do you want to sleep in a hammock on your balcony?" asked my guide at the Ariau Jungle towers, two hours upstream from Manaus.

When I hesitated, he said "Don't worry...nothing will get you. The opossums...they don't jump!"

"What about the snakes?" I asked. The movie "Anaconda" had been filmed here, and I certainly wasn't looking for an up-close-and-personal experience with them.

"They're down there" he said, pointing to the jungle floor about 30 feet below "so you don't need to worry! And the monkeys...the monkeys won't bother you either".

Even if the opossums, snakes, and monkeys left me alone, I knew the bugs would not. Earlier that evening at the fabulous dinner buffet, bugs kept falling from the ceiling every minute or two, a result of the exceptionally hot day it had been. One of them had even fallen down my shirt, causing me to abandon all sense of modesty and decorum as I hurriedly extracted it. (Fortunately, the phenomenom of bugs falling from the ceiling like that only happened on that first day of the four I spent there.)

So, even though spending the night outside in a hammock would have been the ultimate jungle experience, I was quite content to settle for just 50% of the ultimate jungle experience. I did ask my guide, Rui (prounouned "Hui"), to setup the hammock inside my room, though, so I could enjoy relaxing in it in air-conditioned bliss during the breaks between the exciting jungle excursions they planned for us. Here's Rui and another lodge employee just after setting up my hammock.

The lodge has fun treehouses, like this one:

But my budget only allowed for a room in one of the towers built on stilts:

The Ariau Jungle Lodge actually has fewer bugs and mosquitoes than other places along the Amazon river, because it's built along the Rio Negro, one of the major Amazon tributaries whose black waters are quite acidic, making them not well suited for mosquitoes to breed.

Some people just take a day trip from Manaus to visit the Ariau Jungle Lodge, but I was thankful to spend three nights there, so I could see how the jungle changed throughout the course of each day.

In the early mornings, for instance, I'd hear the pitter patter of little monkey feet coming up behind me as I walked on the raised pathways. One morning a monkey groomed himself for several minutes as I watched from three feet away.

Although the monkeys were very active in the morning, they liked to hang out at the lodge all day long. One time I even saw them sneak into the restaurant to steal sugar packets!

One morning, Rui took us on a walk over the miles of boardwalks to a lake area, where we could see and hear the animals at sunrise. As we stood at the lake, we saw numerous birds flying by: toucans, parrots, egrets, and even some pre-historic birds that have claws on their wings when they are born, and have a multi-chambered stomach. The Amazon is filled with frogs, some of them which make very unique sounds...like water dripping into a pool, or the sound of metal hitting metal. Here's a video that captures some of the sights and sounds of that sunrise experience:

In the evenings, the big Macaws liked to hang out near the bar, and the frogs would come out to relax along the boardwalk:

After dark, the fireflies came out and enchanted me with their dances that reminded me of blinking Christmas lights.

Often, the jungle floor below the lodge is flooded, but I was there at the very end of dry season, and there's also a severe drought this year. The drought is so severe that the normal canoe entrance to the lodge is closed:

So we had to bring our canoes up the Ariau tributary to the back entrance, here:

Staying at the lodge was actually quite comfortable. They have nice warm showers, which I was glad for, since I showered about 4 times each day. The jungle is incredibly humid and so whenever I'd go out for an outing, I'd come back wet.

I was surprised to see how quickly mold grew there--by the afternoon, mold would be growing on the soap and towels I had used in the morning. (By the way, if you ever travel to the Amazon, be sure to take a ziploc bag in which to keep your camera, along with a silica gel pack to absorb the moisture...I didn't and my camera's display screen and automated lens cover malfunctioned until I could get to a dryer climate).

The best part of staying at Ariau Jungle Lodge is all the outings they take you on: you jump into their motorized canoes to see native villages, to swim with the pink river dolphins, to hike through the jungle, to spot caiman (crocodiles), and to fish for piranha, experiences which I will write about in upcoming posts.

For now, though, here's a video of cormorants taking flight over the Amazon as we went by in our canoe:

And a shot or two of the Amazon at sunset:

Waterfall Paradise

2010-12-04T05:45:00.000-08:00

"What is your name?" the young man with a mischievous smile asked as we stood in our swimsuits along the Pedra Branca waterfalls.

"Cindy" I replied.

"Cindje, put out your hand".

I did, and he put his hand over mine to drop something very light into it. He left his hand over mine, looking into my eyes and smiling broadly. I smiled back and grabbed his wrist with my other hand, not sure I'd be happy with whatever I was holding, but when he pulled back his hand to reveal what he'd given me, I was delighted to find that I was holding a little black frog.

Here I am with FrogMan (I wish I remembered his name, but I don't!):

I'd met FrogMan earlier, when I was standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the pool at the base of one of falls, not sure if I really wanted to jump. It wasn't a tall cliff--only about the height of a high-dive, but after my guide Ivan had helped me climb over the rocks and tangled tree roots to get there, he pointed out that I must jump outward to avoid hitting some rocks directly below the cliff. Something about that made me nervous, and it wasn't until FrogMan climbed up also and suggested I take two running steps to jump off, that I finally had the courage to do it. Here's a photo of a guy preparing to jump from that same point:

I was glad I jumped...the water was refreshing, and once I surfaced, my guide Ivan motioned for me to come explore more of the falls with him. The rocks were smooth and so I could comfortably climb them in my bare feet.

Ivan kindly took my hand to help me climb over the difficult places to two additional waterfall-created pools, where we swam and enjoyed ourselves together. Ivan showed me the tattooed image of his young son that is on his shoulder blade, as we sat on rocks submerged in the pools together. We spoke in Spanish, since I don't speak Portuguese and he doesn't speak English.

After climbing back down again, I was delighted to watch one of the guides catching butterflies on his fingers and giving them to people to hold. (I wish I'd taken a photo that shows this guide's beautiful face--he was a mixed race man, with dark skin and bright blue eyes.)

"I'll see you at the next place!" FrogMan said as we prepared to hike back to our jeep to make our way to the Poço do Inglês falls, where you can swing on a rope over the water. Here's a video of that:

I wanted to try swinging over the water too, and found it less frightening than jumping off the first cliff had been.

It was so fun that I swung on the rope several times. One time when I surfaced, I heard a voice calling "Cindje! Cindje!" It was FrogMan. He was on a cliff about 15 meters high, motioning for me to climb up there and jump off with him. No way!

Later, he showed me this caterpillar:

As we continued our jeep tour, Ivan would occasionally pull off to the side of the road to pick fragrant flowers for the three women in our group. This flower had such a lovely scent that I placed it in the buttonhole of my shirt to enjoy it as we walked around the beautiful areas.

Here I am with Ivan, the fragrant flower he'd given me still tucked into the buttonhole of my shirt:

Here, Ivan is picking citronella grass for us, which he then crushed in his hands so we could enjoy its delicious scent:

We made our way high into the mountains along a private dirt road through the lush green atlantic rainforest, towards a remote restaurant along the side of a rocky river for our lunch.

Near the restaurant, they hung pieces of fruit, like this:

To attract colorful birds, like this:

I wondered how the restaurant could stay in business, being in such a remote location, but I no longer wondered as we left the restaurant via a shortcut...most of the patrons get to the restaurant by walking across this footbridge over the river that connects to a highway. Walking over it was fun...when others were on the bridge, it would bounce like a trampoline...not enough to be frightening...just enough to be fun.

The highlight of the day was visiting the Tobaga Cachoeira, a natural waterslide. Here's a video of a man surfing down the slide:

I was impressed that this guy jumped up from his belly up to his feet as he went down:

For those who can't watch video, here are some still photos of the experience:

As I prepared to go down the slide (on my rear end) for the third time, FrogMan grabbed my hand and said "Let's hold hands, run, and surf down it together!"
"No way!" I told him...I'd crack my skull for sure.

"Come with me, then" he said, as he held my hand and put his arm around my waist to guide me to a little waterfalls higher up. He took me to this place, where there's a hidden cove below the falls.

He showed me how to enter the cove, backside first, and I followed him. There was just enough room for the two of us to sit there, side by side, and watch the water cascade over our heads and in front of us.

"This is where slaves hid all day long." he spoke loudly into my ear so I could hear him above the roar of the water. I nodded and smiled.

"You have a nice smile" FrogMan said.

FrogMan had given me a lot to smile about! I loved the experience of having these kind, handsome, fun Brazilian men help me explore the beautiful areas near Parati!

Dancing in the Streets

2010-11-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

I'm a fan of Brazilians....I love the way they express their "joie de vivre" through celebrations, song, and dance.

I'm currently in the beautiful colonial city of Salvador de Bahia, and don't have much time, but at least wanted to upload some videos to give you a flavor of life here.

Here are some men dancing in the market:

I enjoyed watching this man enjoy the music from at a festival related to Black's Rights.

And watching children practicing capoiera in the streets:

Here you see one of the teachers working with a student.

Here are some men animatedly discussing Salvador's two futbol teams:

One of Salvador's teams (Bahia) had the chance to move into first place yesterday, but lost, and so the devoted fans were depressed last night. But that didn't stop the party that happened near my hotel last night, with people marching through the streets until about 2 a.m.

Here's a percussion group practicing, to give you a flavor of what it sounded like last night:

Capitol Reef National Park

2010-10-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

My friend Angie and I opened our motel room curtains near Capitol Reef National Park to see this beautiful sunrise.

We loved it so much that we threw jackets over our pajamas and ran outside to take a few photos, like this one of the moon over the rock bluffs across the street:

Our hotel was perched above a pond in this beautiful setting, so we had fun taking photos.

Although we were still in our pajamas, we decided to visit the motel's continental breakfast, hoping it was still early enough that none of the other guests would be there to see us. But we were wrong. And we were happy about being wrong, because we loved chatting with a friendly older German couple there.

They explained that each year for the past 40 years, they had taken a 5-week vacation in the United States. They told us about their favorite U.S. National Parks (the Everglades and Bryce Canyon), about the obscure parks we'd never heard of (I'd list them, but I've already forgotten their names again), and about which parks were not worth making a separate trip for (Great Sands). Food, fuel, and lodging are so much cheaper in America than they are in Europe, they explained. I was interested to learn that although they've seen almost every National Park in America, they haven't traveled much around Germany or seen many of the areas closer to their home.

That seems to be a funny thing about human nature...sometimes we never get around to visiting the beautiful things right in our neighborhoods. Even though Capitol Reef National Park is only a 3.5 hour drive from my home, this was the first time I'd ever visited there. Luckily for me, my work friend Angie, who has visited the area several times because her great grandparents used to live nearby, was willing to take a trip with me there.

Here's a picture of the two of us, pretending to hold up an arch we found along the trail towards Hickman Bridge.

Here's a photo of the beautiful Hickman bridge:

Along the way to Hickman Bridge, we walked along this trail near the Fremont River.

Both Angie and I like to take photos, so we had lots of fun together. We took lots and lots of photos of ourselves throwing fall leaves into the air, in an attempt to get the timing right to capture a photo like this:

Here's Angie working to capture a cool photo of one of the big bluffs we saw along the Grand Wash trail:

Here's me trying to capture a photo of Goosenecks point. (I'm too chicken to stand right next to the edge of the cliff...laying down just felt much more safe).

Here's what Goosenecks point, where the Fremont river makes several hairpin turns, looks like:

We checked out the cute little one-room school house in Fruita, in a tree-filled verdant valley surrounded by the red-rock cliffs.

We loved the capturing the reflections off the school windows:

We loved eating at the Doc Inglesby Picnic Grove, where the deer are quite tame and allow you to approach quite near:

The picnic area has a picturesque bridge:

We loved walking along the petroglyph trail:

These petroglyphs with the herder who looks like he has devil horns reminded me of the "Ghost Riders in the Sky" song:

"If you want to save your soul from hell a riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today, or with us you will ride
Tryin' to catch the devil's herd, across these endless skies"

In this photo along the scenic drive, you can see the storm clouds rolling in. As a result of these clouds and the rain forecast, we didn't hike in the narrow Capitol Gorge, because the risk of flash floods was high.

Earlier in the day we had hiked Grand Wash, where we saw interesting coves, like these:

One of the last places we visited was sunset point, where it was quite windy, but also very beautiful.

Here's a few final shots of Capitol Reef. Thanks to my friend Angie for visiting there with me!

A few of my favorite things

2010-10-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

"A happy family is but an earlier heaven."
- George Bernard Shaw

Just wanted to share this photo of my mother and my nieces and nephews sharing some happy times together recently. I love the look of contentment on my mother's face as she cuddles one of her sweet granddaughters.

My niece Mallory has a beautiful voice, and was kind enough to allow me to record her singing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", one of my all-time favorite songs.

Here she is performing "Still Hurting", another of my favorites:

Thanks for sharing your talents with us Mallory!

Whitewater Rafting

2010-10-10T11:08:00.001-07:00

As the raft entered the "Hospital Bar" rapid on the South Fork of the American River, the powerful river flipped it into the air as easily as if it were a child's toy, dumping all 10 rafters into the cold water and leaving the raft floating bottom-side up.

It was now our turn to enter the rapid, and seeing the raft in front of us capsize was very sobering. I took comfort in the fact that Tobi, our guide, had been doing this for 9 years, and knew what she was doing. You can see her standing to guide our raft here:

Tobi had taught us what to do if we fell out of the raft, and what to do if we found the raft on top of us (get out from under it--you want to see where you're headed). Along the way, each of us had jumped out of the raft to swim, so we could practice pulling each other back in again, a process that involved grabbing the swimmer by the lifejacket shoulder straps, bouncing them a time or two, and then leaning back to pull them into the raft on top of yourself.

But I hoped that we wouldn't actually need to use our training.

Here you can see me scream as we enter Hospital Bar:

And continue screaming as we go deeper into it:

And turn my head to avoid a facefull of water as we make our way through:

Happily, we didn't get capsized and no one was thrown from the raft. Here we are, celebrating that fact:

Earlier, we'd gone through a less-intense rapid called "Satan's Cesspool", where we could smile for the camera instead of scream. Here's some photos from there:

The guy behind me was hilarious. Here, he's pointing out his best side for the camera.

I loved the experience, loved my fun and friendly rafting partners, and loved having Tobi as a guide. Because it was late in the season and the river was low, we had to navigate through many rocks that are typically below water. She skillfully guided us through; one time she had us paddle for a right turn the entire way through a rapid, causing us to do two 360 degree turns in order to navigate through the rocks and waves safely.

We saw some rafts get stuck...pinned to large rocks by the raging current. When that happens, everyone has to move to one side of the boat, to get the weight off of where the boat meets the rock. But we never needed to do that, because of Tobi's skillful navigation.

One of the things that surprised me about the experience was how little paddling we did. Tobi explained that she looked ahead to see where the main current of the river was flowing, and then would have us do just one or two strokes to position ourselves in the part of the current that was going where we wanted to be. We worked with the flow, rather than trying to muscle our way against it.

I couldn't help but think that life is that way too. If we have goals we want to meet, the easiest and quickest way to reach them is to look for currents that will take us there. Some of the most powerful currents in life are our habits--those things we do without much thought. One of the best uses of our limited supply of self-discipline is to consciously develop habits that will take us where we want to go. Once established, these habits of brushing our teeth, exercising, saving money, etc. will be the strong river currents that take us to our goals and dreams, without requiring a whole lot of muscle and paddling to get there.

Here's another photo of the beautiful American River, in a calm place.

Escalante Slot Canyons

2010-09-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

"We'd better find a place to hide our backpacks", my Uncle Franz directed, "because we won't be able to make it through the narrow slot canyons with them on."

We were in the middle of a desert, so moving forward without the food and water in our packs required a little faith. We'd carried our packs as we hiked through red desert sand and across barren slick rock to reach the entrance of Peek-A-Boo Gulch, in southern Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

Uncle Franz grew up around here. He and my Aunt Margaret have spent their adult lives ranching around here. They'd both been through these slot canyons before, so I trusted them and obediently hid my pack in the bushes. We did keep at least one water container to share among ourselves, carried by my strong and agile cousin Jim.

We then turned our attention to climbing up the person-sized steps at the entrance to Peek-A-Boo Gulch.

Jim lead the way, climbing and jumping in a way that would make a mountain goat proud.

Both Jim and Franz carried ropes, so they could better assist the rest of us:

Here's Jim helping Uncle Franz:

And Jim helping his delightful wife Mikki:

Franz often stayed behind, so he could help Aunt Margaret, Mikki, and I--lifting us or giving us boosts as needed. At this point, Franz kindly held his foot on the rock to be a backup foothold for me as I climbed up:

I found it comforting to have these strong, helpful, kind men at the head and tail of our climbing party.

I wasn't very graceful as I climbed, but I didn't care. I just felt grateful to have the strength and size that allowed me to experience this beautiful place!

After climbing up the big steps, we entered the narrow canyon.

At times it was easier to climb along the canyon walls than to squeeze through the narrow openings near the ground:

Sometimes the canyon would make a sharp turn at a narrow point, requiring some fancy footwork and flexibility to make your way though:

We enjoyed seeing some of the unusual formations in the canyon, like this hole:

We also enjoyed hearing my Aunt Margaret tell jokes. She'd play the the child's "Peek-A-Boo" game with us, popping her head around corners to surprise us and then bursting out with her contagious laughter as we climbed up Peek-A-Boo gulch. Once at the top, we hiked a half mile to come back down through another canyon called Spooky Gulch. Margaret kept us laughing with the spooky ghost sounds she made along the way. I have a perfect video of her saying "Spoooooooooky Gulch", but she's requested that I not put her picture on the internet, and I haven't had the time to edit the video to make it sound only, so you'll have to imagine my cute and funny aunt doing that.

Here's a photo of the fun and sweet Mikki coming through the rough-textured walls of Spooky Gulch.

I loved the way that the light shown down into the canyon:

and highlighted the dust we'd stirred up:

and bounced off the beautiful wavy canyon walls:

and made cool shapes along the smooth rock:

At one point in Spooky Gulch, we weren't sure how we could get through--the canyon had a large dropoff on the other side of the rock Uncle Franz is looking over.

So, we talked, and Jim explored (worming his way through the tunnels under the rocks, but advising us that the rest of us probably couldn't fit through that way), until we finally came up with a plan. It involved throwing a rope over one of the rocks:

As Jim held the rope from one side of the rock, we lowered ourselves down 10 or 12 feet from the other side of the rock.

It was kind of scary. Here I am beginning my descent:

Me wearing my serious face:

Making our way through the slot canyons was challenging, but also very beautiful and satisfying:

Getting through was definitely a team effort, and I felt grateful to be there with such a fun and wonderful team!

You Can Choose

2010-09-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

It all started on July 4, 2001, when my sister and I were waiting for the Elvis impersonator to appear. As we sat in the baseball stands at Murray Park, waiting for that evening's entertainment, I noticed a beautiful thin woman standing near the dugouts.

"I wish I had a body like hers." I thought to myself. At that time, I wore size 26 clothes, and was more than 100 pounds overweight.

Immediately, I heard a voice in my mind say: "You can choose."

I was startled by it. "Really?" I thought. "I can choose?" I had made several serious attempts to lose weight before, and had failed every time. As a result of those experiences, I had no confidence in my ability to do the difficult things that would be required to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

Could I really choose this? I knew I couldn't have a body exactly like hers, but a glimmer of hope started to grow in me that I could make my own body as fit and healthy as possible, given the limitations of my age, my genetics, my busy schedule, and my not-very-strong supply of willpower.

So, even though I wasn't completely convinced that I really did have it within my power to choose this, I started taking actions in the hope that the voice in my head was telling the truth.

Those actions culminated on another July day, 9 years later. That morning I stepped on the scale, like I do every morning, and saw a number that caused me to burst into tears. I had finally reached my weight loss goal. That morning, I weighed 118 pounds less than I had at my highest point.

Now, I'm a size 8, and can even occasionally wear a size 6. I now weigh less than I did during most of my junior high and high school years. (Although, I must admit that I dieted while I was in high school, and once reached this same weight for about 5 seconds back then, before gaining again.) I'm not planning to maintain my weight at the 118 pound loss level--they suggest that you go at least 5 pounds below where you'd like to maintain, which I did. I'm hoping to maintain at 110 pounds lower than my highest point.

Here are a few photos of me when I started, and along the way:

And here's a picture of me now:

I'm not going to win any speed records, but that's okay with me. I enjoyed many benefits along the way: sleeping better, moving easier, having more fun while shopping for clothes, fitting into airplane seats more comfortably, managing my stress better, and being able to have experiences that required some degree of physical fitness. Those benefits came before I reached my goal.

Reaching my goal did have one key benefit. It proved an idea that helped me along the way: the idea that as long as I didn't quit or change direction, eventually I'd arrive at where I was heading.

That voice in my head was right--I actually could choose.

I'll write more about my weight loss journey as I can.

Something larger than myself

2010-09-06T08:34:00.001-07:00

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.
Mother Teresa

We all want our lives to matter, to know that something we said or did made a difference to someone. We all want to be part of something larger than ourselves....something that will go on even after we are gone.

I recently found a small way to make a difference for someone; just thinking about it warms my heart with satisfaction and joy.

I am sponsoring the education of this little girl: Mekides.

Mekides lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with her mother and sister. Her father is deceased. She's in the 6th grade, attending a private school.

I "met" Mekides when I attended a fund raiser for the Children of Ethiopia Education Fund at the home of my property manager and friend, Linda Willis. Linda recently traveled to Ethiopia with this organization and came back very committed to their efforts.

I found Mekides when I was looking through the photos and stories of about 20 girls who had lost their sponsors due to the recession. When I saw her and read her story, I felt an immediate connection to her.

Her favorite subject is math, and I happen to be a bit of a math geek myself. She likes to play hide and seek, which I loved to do as a child also.

Mekides' smile reminded me of my niece Debbie, who I love. Debbie and all the other girls in America have the great privilege of attending school. Debbie won't be forced into child labor to support her family. Debbie won't be forced into prostitution or into an early marriage to an older man. Debbie won't contract AIDS from a wandering husband, because she has no power to say "no" or to insist on fidelity. Debbie will have the ability to direct her life and will be treated as an equal to everyone else in our society. I'm hopeful that my small contribution can help Mekides and her classmates get closer to having those same privileges and options too.

Organizations that work to end poverty in the developing world have found that educating girls is one of the most effective and powerful ways to lift an entire society. Investing in the education of girls provides huge returns, for a variety of reasons, much of them based on the nature of girls to use their resources and education to nurture others. (You can read more about it here and here).

I've sent my first letter to Mekides. I told Mekides about my niece Debbie, and sent her some pictures of Debbie and her sisters with their new baby brother:

I told Mekides about my job as a computer programmer, and how it can be fun, just like solving a puzzle or playing hide and go seek. I sent her this photo of me with some of my coworkers, so she can see that women and men can work together as equals.

I encouraged her to work hard and do her very best. I told her that the world needs smart, strong, educated girls, and how excited I am that she will be one of them.

If you'd like to sponsor the education of a girl also, you can do that for as little as $20 a month, and can sign up at the Children of Ethiopia Education Fund website.

P.S. After doing this, I posted Mekides' picture on my facebook profile, and one of my friends connected me with a young man who I once knew at my gym in Murray, who is now running an orphanage in Cameroon. Ryan Oliver Hansen writes beautiful, powerful stories about his experiences on his blog, which help me understand just how totally blessed I am. His efforts are also well worth supporting: Green Eyes In Africa

Sterling Singers

2010-09-04T18:20:00.000-07:00

My new roommate Rebecca keeps a baby grand piano in her living room. She's trained in music performance, and when I'm lucky, I have the privilege of hearing her play and sing.

I don't yet have a video of Rebecca performing, but here's one of Rebecca's niece Nicole, also a very gifted musician. I love Nicole's dramatic flair in this little video clip:

We started taking photos, and Rebecca and Nicole were very fun models, working to perfect their puckers:

Every Sunday evening, they go to a rehearsal of the Sterling Singers, a community choir whose mission is to testify of Jesus Christ through music.

They always come home from the rehearsals happy and joyful, and so one Sunday I tagged along to observe.

I was hoping to be inconspicuous, but that didn't work out so well....the choir is too huge to fit in the choir seats on the raised stand at the front of the chapel, and so the audience (me and three other people that day) sat on the raised stand while the choir sat in the congregational seats. Although I didn't like being so conspicuous, I loved sitting on the raised stand because it gave me the opportunity to look into the faces of the singers.

At times, their faces were filled with smiles and laughter as they reacted to funny and charming things their leader, Kelly DeHaan, would say.

Other times, their faces were filled with determination, as Brother DeHaan would insist "You can do better than that!" and push them to try again.

Many times, their faces were filled with inspiration, as Brother DeHaan explained the meaning of the music and the power of the words.

"Finish then thy new creation!" Brother DeHaan quoted from the music. "Do you realize what that means?!"

"YOU are the new creation. It means that you've done all that you possibly can to be a good person and purify yourself, but that you recognize that you can't do it alone. You're pleading with Jesus Christ to help you be better than you are. You're pleading with Him to purify your heart. You're offering your soul to Him in hopes that He will be your partner in completing you, in finishing you, in making you whole!"

Here's a video clip of them singing that song after Brother DeHaan's explanation:

Other times, their faces were filled with tears. My eyes filled with tears too, as I watched a man in the choir begin to sob as they sang a song written in memory of a young child who died of cancer. I didn't take a video then, but captured a video of that song at a later performance. Here it is:

"Lord of the Small"
Praise to the Lord of the small, broken things,
Who sees the poor sparrow that cannot take wing,
Who loves the lame child, and the wretch in the street,
Who comforts their sorrow and washes their feet.

Praise to the Lord of the faint and afraid,
Who girds them with courage and lends them His aid.
He pours out His Spirit on vessels so weak
That the timid can serve and the silent can speak.

Praise to the Lord of the frail and the ill
Who heals their afflictions or carries them till
They leave this tired frame and to paradise fly
To never be sick and never to die

Praise Him, O praise Him, all ye who yet live
Who've been given so much and can so little give,
Our frail, lisping praise God will never despise
He sees His dear children through mercy filled eyes.

I loved the experience so much, I joined the choir too! I'm not a talented musician like the other choir members are, but am thrilled to have the opportunity to spend my Sunday evenings in such an uplifting way.

Dancing with my Danish relatives

2010-08-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

A long time ago (1865) in a far-away place (Denmark), a young couple decided to leave home, family, and all that they knew in order to migrate to America. The world was much bigger then. Without jet travel and modern communications, this decision meant that they would never see their beloved parents and siblings again.

But, they had recently joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and felt a strong desire to gather with other church members, so Seier and Annie Jensen boarded the ship BS Kimball and sailed to America. Along the voyage, their toddler son contracted measles, and they sorrowfully buried him at sea. Within a year of arriving in America, Annie had another baby, but both she and the baby died within two weeks of childbirth.

Seier was heartbroken, and all alone. He wrote a letter to his family back in Denmark, expressing his longing for them.

Recently, that letter was found in an attic in Denmark. With the help of a few miracles, the Danish and American sides of the family found each other. The letter was translated from Danish to English for the benefit of Seier's descendants, of which I am one. (Seier remarried after losing Annie, and my great grandfather was the oldest surviving child of that union).

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of meeting some of my long-lost Danish relatives.

Here I am with Lene and Karsten Christensen, who live near Aarhus Denmark.

This photo was taken in a small farming town in central Utah, where a family reunion was held for the sole purpose of allowing Lene (a descendent of Seier's youngest sister Ane) and her husband to meet as many of their American relatives as possible.

After we had all gotten acquainted, Lene and Karsten performed several Danish folk dances for us. I loved them, and was grateful that Lene and Karsten came so well prepared to share our heritage with us.

Here's a short video of a little clap dance:

In this dance, they bob up and down as if they were sailors on the sea:

Here's another dance that shows a variety of different steps:

For those who can't view video, here's a photo of Lene and Karsten dancing:

After Lene and Karsten performed, they taught us several dances. I was grateful to find a partner in a sweet, slightly-shy 15-year-old boy, a distant cousin I'd never before met. The dances were group ones, where you migrate around a circle, switching partners as you go until you arrive where you began with your own partner. What a fun way it was to get acquainted with all these distant relatives I had never before met! (Sorry I don't have photos or videos of this part--I was too busy dancing, and my parents were too busy visiting with the older non-dancing relatives to capture any).

Another highlight of the reunion was seeing all the old family photos that were on display.

These photos belonged to the Alvin and Carolyn Kibsgaard, who drove all the way to Redmond Utah from Ames Iowa to meet Lene and Karsten.

Looking at these old photos was like compressing time: immediately after seeing a person as a baby in a buggy, you saw them vibrant in their wedding photos, and then feeble as the grandparent of a family. It reminded me of how quickly our lives pass by, and how soon we are gone. Thinking of my own mortality motivates me to seize as much joy and good from the moments I still have left, and makes me especially grateful for the sweet moments I spent dancing with my Danish relatives.

In the direction of your dreams

2010-08-20T19:29:00.001-07:00

My refrigerator is usually covered with magnets. Magnets are my favorite souvenirs--I love to bring one home from each trip I take, because they help me remember the fun I had without cluttering up my house too much. Looking at them makes me happy.

Recently, though, I packed my magnets, because I was moving. I put them in metal baking pans, hoping they wouldn't get broken or banged up that way:

But I left one magnet unpacked: the one I bought at the gift shop of the United Nations in New York City.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." the magnet proclaims, quoting Henry David Thoreau. That's the direction I'm hoping this move will take me, but the process was challenging and sad, so I left the magnet all alone in the center of my otherwise naked refrigerator, because I needed the encouragement.

It all started when my sister announced that she was buying a home of her own, and that she and her two children would be moving out of my basement. They moved in six years ago after her divorce, so she could attend law school. While I was so happy that she has done well enough in her legal career to be buying a home of her own, I also felt an incredible sense of loss. I've loved having Tracy, Mallory, and Parker live with me.

One night, I couldn't sleep because I was feeling so sad about them moving. As I pondered, I realized that my sorrow about this chapter of my life ending was actually a reason to rejoice--my sorrow meant that I had experienced a beautiful, positive, happy thing. As I felt gratitude for the privilege of that experience, I realized that this change might not only be a loss, but could also be an opportunity for me to "go confidently in the direction of my dreams and live the life I've imagined".

Although I've owned a home for ten years, I can't say I've enjoyed the experience. While I'm grateful for all the good things owning a home has brought me, I've often found myself frustrated by the amount of time, effort, and money maintaining a home has cost me. Sometimes, we don't own things; things own us. Many times when I was weeding, remodeling, trimming, repairing, mowing, cleaning, or on a long commute, I was wishing that I was instead traveling, learning, blogging, and having adventures.

So, I took this opportunity to downsize, and move closer to my work. It was a big downsize--going from a six-bedroom home to a five-by-ten foot storage unit and a bedroom in someone else's home. Since now is not a good time to sell a house, I put my house up for rent, and hired a property manager to find the tenants and deal with all the maintenance.

I thought I might need the encouraging thoughts on the magnet when my house started becoming empty as I put my furniture up for sale on the internet, and buyers started coming over and taking it away a piece at a time. For example, here's where one of my couches used to be:

And here's where my queen-size bed used to be:

But I found that having my furniture disappear a piece at a time didn't make me sad. Instead, I thought "Wow! Instead of me paying movers, these people are paying ME for the privilege of moving my stuff, which I wanted to get rid of anyway. Woo Hoo!!"

I thought I might be sad when I took my pictures down off my walls, but since I was going to be storing my favorite ones in a storage unit, I found I didn't mind. Here's the mover wrapping up my huge Joan of Arc painting:

That mover is named JC, and I liked him. Here's a video of JC working with Mallory's boyfriend to move Tracy's big fridge out of my basement:

Later, I took this picture of JC and his coworker and had to smile when JC wanted to pose just right for the photo.

On the day Tracy moved, JC asked me to take several photos and email them to his boss to show him what a good job they were doing. A few weeks later when I called to schedule a time for them to move my remaining stuff, the boss answered. When I mentioned I was the one that had emailed the photos, he said "Oh, I think JC is in love with you, because he keeps talking about you." (If that's true, that's because I fed JC and his partner lunch on the day Tracy moved out, and you know what they say about food being the way to a man's heart....)

So anyway, I found that getting rid of or storing my stuff didn't make me as sad as I expected it to. It's just stuff, and we don't take it with us when we die anyway. Here's my storage unit with my remaining stuff:

Instead, it was leaving my good neighbors and friends that made me sad.

I felt it one evening at midnight, as my friend Michelle was leaving my home after spending 20 hours over three days washing my windows, cleaning my ceiling fans, and wiping down every single slat in every single window blind in my house. As I expressed my thanks to her that night, she said "I was hoping that having beautiful clean windows would make you want to stay, and that you'd change your mind, so that's why I worked so hard to clean them!" In that moment, I very nearly changed my mind.

I also felt it when the sweet children who I've served at my church made a thank you book for me, and included sweet pictures and notes like these:

I'm grateful for the opportunity I've had to love these people.

I'm getting settled in my new room:

And have enjoyed seeing the beautiful sunrise from the porch of my roommate's home:

Here's another view of my bedroom, which includes a small fridge, on which I've placed the one magnet that is not in storage...the one that reminds me of why I'm choosing to go through the discomfort of change, which is sometimes the only way to the life we've imagined.

And, hopefully, this means I'll have more time to update this blog. I'm still behind on telling you about trips and other adventures I've had recently, but hope that this life simplification will make it possible for me to catch up. I've appreciated your comments and encouragement.

Grateful to be here, now

2010-08-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

It was a hot day. So hot that I felt badly for the potential tenants who were sitting in a car in front of my house, waiting for the property manager I'd recently hired to arrive and give them a tour. I would have given the two men and a woman a tour myself, except I was really busy--my sister was moving out of the basement right then and her movers were coming in and out of the house, and I had a handyman in the kitchen installing an updated oven/range.

But it was too hot to leave them outside, so I walked out to the car and invited them to wait inside. The man in the passenger seat eagerly accepted my offer and threw the car door open, causing me to notice he was missing a leg from the thigh down. As he stepped out of the car and settled in his crutches, he spoke to the others in another language, and only then did those two climb out of the car.

I brought them inside, sat them on my couch, and scrambled to find cups to offer them a drink (most of the cups had already been packed by then). Once I had them settled sipping ice water out of my cup with a plastic SpongeBob Squarepants on top (which is not the one I usually present to guests, but which I must admit is among my favorite possessions), I jumped back into the circus of chaos that was my house just then.

Later I learned they were refugees from Somalia. The man with the missing leg was the only one who spoke English, and was helping his friends find a place to live. He'd lost his leg in the Somalian civil war.

"We love our country, but we've decided that we will NEVER go back." he said in a determined tone. "We want to live in a place of peace."

Talking with him was a nice reality check, helping me remember that even at my most stressful times, at least I don't have people shooting at me, or land mines to avoid, or civil unrest to face. I am very blessed to live in this time and place.

Along those same lines, recently I've been worrying about a trip I'll be taking to Brazil in November. I hadn't planned to go alone, but that's the way things have worked out. I don't mind, and sometimes prefer, traveling alone when I'm in a place where I speak the language. Heck, once I even rode the bullet train across Japan by myself without speaking Japanese. But there's something about the thought of me being a blond woman alone in Rio de Janeiro without speaking Portuguese that makes me REALLY NERVOUS. So, I've been stressed out trying to find the time to study Portuguese, and to make travel arrangements so I will have help in Brazil. At times I've wondered if the trip to Brazil will be worth the stress it has brought me.

But then, I stumbled across The Afghan Women's Writing Project website, where I read powerful stories about the daily lives of women in Afghanistan. These women aren't even free to travel around their neighborhoods alone, let alone travel around the world like I have the privilege to do. In some cases, they aren't even free to go to school.

Again, it made my stress and concerns seem small and made me realize how incredibly blessed I am to live in this time and place, where I'm surrounded with freedom, opportunity, security, and peace. I'm sure I'll figure out the Brazil trip, and in the meantime, will feel very grateful to be here, now.

P.S. Sometime, somewhere, I'd like to do something to make a difference in this world--to help more people be blessed with with the opportunities that I often take for granted. I'm not quite sure how a person goes about doing that, though. What are your thoughts?

I loved my friend

2010-08-15T09:11:00.001-07:00

For several years, I've had this piece of art hanging in my home:

This is a Traditional Chinese representation of a verse of scripture from the Book of Mormon. My friend Jeanie Hsu made it for me.

I first met Jeanie when I traveled to Taiwan for my work in 2000. We worked together for a few weeks. Jeanie was a single woman not much older than me. She showed me around Taipei and helped me avoid making huge cultural blunders (or, more accurately, helped me recover when I did make them)! She was energetic, vivacious, and fun. I loved her.

At that time, she was taking a calligraphy class. I had been interested in calligraphy in my youth, and so I peppered her with questions. She explained the process of using brushes, ink, patience, and care to turn Chinese Han characters into beautiful art. She pointed out the red stamp in the corner, which is how each artist signs his or her work. The artist dates the work also, sometimes waiting to finish a piece until the date is one that would look especially beautiful written on the art.

A few months later when I was back in Utah, Jeanie surprised and delighted me by sending this piece of her calligraphy to me via a friend who was traveling from Taipei to Salt Lake City. Jeanie had written the scripture in Moroni 7:47 in her beautiful calligraphy. Here's the English translation of the scripture:

But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

Since Jeanie was full of love, it was a fitting scripture for me to remember her by.

Jeanie loved people enough that she was willing to sacrifice and work for their growth. During the time I worked with her, she was a volunteer seminary teacher for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Every morning at 4:30, she'd drive around Taipei on her little scooter to pick up the teenagers who were students in her class. Each day, she'd teach a lesson she'd prepared about the gospel of Jesus Christ, about being good family members, about being good citizens, about loving others. After her daily class was done, she'd give her students a ride to school and then go to work herself.

A few years later, Jeanie visited me in Salt Lake City, and I loved seeing her again. She gave me another piece of art, a beautiful scroll that said "Sweet is the Work", and it was even more beautiful than the first. While she was in town, I tried to set her up on a blind date with one of my friends who speaks Mandarin, but unfortunately, their schedules didn't allow them to get together.

One evening a few weeks ago, I was working on the computer late at night, when another friend from Taiwan was online, and he instant messaged me the sad news that Jeanie passed away recently. I was shocked and saddened to learn that she had a cough, and so went to the doctor where she learned that she had lung cancer. She never smoked. She was still relatively young. She died three months later, after receiving grueling, unsuccessful treatment.

I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There's nothing more to say.
The poem ends
Soft as it began-
I loved my friend.
-Langston Hughes

I feel a great sense of loss at losing Jeanie. Her death reminds me just how fragile and temporary our lives are, and how important it is to spend our time doing those things that matter most.

At the same time, I also feel grateful that I had the opportunity to know Jeanie, and grateful for Jesus Christ, and His promise that we will one day be resurrected and live again with the people we love.

Thanks to Christ, I look forward with hope to the day when I can renew my friendship with Jeanie.

City of Rocks

2010-05-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

Bowl of pancake batter in hand, I peeked into the kitchen at the Almo Outpost Steakhouse to ask if they'd mind cooking our pancakes on their stovetop, since our kitchenette next door only had a microwave. Almo Idaho, population 140, is in the middle of nowhere, so we didn't have many other options.

"I'm too busy to cook your pancakes, but you can come back here and cook them yourself!" the 50-ish lady told me as she placed a heavy cast iron pan on the stove. She reached for one of the 20 plastic bottles of melted butter she kept above the stove, squeezed a generous amount of butter into the pan, handed me a spatula, and suddenly I was having my first experience as a short order cook.

I enjoyed visiting with the lady as we cooked. She was good at multi-tasking, and fast, even using a pair of scissors to cut the toast, explaining that it was faster than cutting with a knife. She lives about 15 miles south of Almo, just over the Utah border.

My friends Dori, Brittney, and Melissa loved the pancakes; they were the best I'd ever cooked. (The butter helped, I'm sure!) The four of us were staying in Almo because of its location at the entrance to the City of Rocks National Reserve. Actually, to be precise, only Dori and I were staying at the comfortable and beautifully decorated Almo Inn, which looked all cute and quaint, like this:

Brittney and Melissa preferred to camp inside City of Rocks, rather than stay at the Inn. Here we are setting up their tent:

Who needs tools when you've got rocks?

Within a few yards of their campsite were all sorts of amazing things, like this ledge:

And a spot for meditation:

And holes big enough for three people to fit within:

City of Rocks is a mecca for technical rock climbers. I'm too chicken to be a rock climber, but wanted visit there because it's mentioned in the US & Canada version of the "1000 Places to See Before You Die" book. When Brittney mentioned her rock climbing class while she, her mom Dori, and I were walking in our neighborhood a few months ago, I was excited to see if they wanted to plan a trip together. Brittney brought along her wonderful friend Melissa, who has taken several climbing classes too.

Here we are in front of Dori's pickup truck, ready to leave Salt Lake City. Since none of the roads at City of Rocks are paved, we were happy to have a truck:

Here's a photo of us "bouldering", or climbing on rocks without gear.

Melissa is especially good at it, reaching the top of this place called Elephant Rock.

Here's Melissa with rubber rock climbing shoes in her right hand, with their pointed toes so she can hang onto narrow cracks in the rock with them:

Here she is with more of her climbing gear:

Here she is, climbing:

Here's Brittney climbing:

Here's Melissa, squeezing through a little cave:

Here we are, studying the best route up the "swiss cheese" climb.

Dori and I didn't climb, but enjoyed hiking through the area. We saw cool trees growing out of rocks, like this one:

And rocks precariously balanced, like this one:

And cool wavy rocks, like this one:

And arches, like this one:

Here I am taking a photo of water cascading down rocks:

We saw lots of amazing technical rock climbers:

We had a great time saying "Breaker Breaker" and any other radio lingo we could think of over our walkie talkies:

And showing each other our talents. Here's a little video of Dori making bird sounds:

And Brittney making a throat sound:

And me showing my talent for smiling cheesy smiles:

It was a fun place to spend Memorial Day with friends!