Quarter Year

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My 10 most memorable travel moments

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Heroes.

by Mike

I’m volunteering in Haiti with an NGO that’s rebuilding schools. My job is to take photos that make heroes look like heroes. I think that’s pretty cool.

In southwest France, the father of an off-the-grid family taught us about medicinal herbs in his garden. We farmed with his family.

Among enormous sand dunes we danced samba in a shack in Brazil while it poured rain. The rain was warm.

In Paris we bought a scooter and took backroads to the tip of Corsica.

A fisherman in Uruguay sold us shrimp from his boat. In our rented, beachfront house we cooked them with garlic and butter and ate them listening to the sea.

The Burmese monk who lead the revolts against his government sat in front of us and meditated. It was an unexpected private meeting in Rangoon. When he finished he gave us oranges as gifts.

From a town in Laos that had no electricity, I remember the lights: stars like sugar spilled on a table, fireflies dancing in the jungle and candles on the tables where people sat and gossiped.

In Nice, the olive oil on our table never traveled in a vehicle. We gathered the olives, carried them to the mill, bottled the oil and ate it on bread.

Within months, in Bali, Hawaii and France, we talked to three different 90-year-olds who each told us their stories about WWII.

The tsunami hit the Indian town I was visiting, and I survived.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

Posted 11 months, 1 week ago.

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Problem solving to Tudia

by Mike

I stepped off the train from Caltanisseta and realized I’d have to act fast: the train station was shuttered and there were no payphones and all the other passengers were getting in their cars to go. The bus left. I walked toward a car full of old ladies, including a nun.

“Hai telephono?” I wasn’t sure if the noun was correct, but how could it not be? They didn’t seem to understand me, and drove off.

One more car, and apparently she wasn’t going in my direction, so she left too.

I was alone in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t know where I was going. For the first time since I can remember, I really, honestly didn’t know what to do. So I started walking.
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Posted 1 year, 1 month ago.

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Before there were markets

More dog

The girls hopped from rock to rock with their skirts brushing the bushes. They sang high-pitched hymns that reached us in the wind, voices fragile like glass, clear and pure as the hill’s high air. From here we could see the Mediterranean to our right and the Pyrenees to the left.

Gabriel knelt.

“This is rocayrol.” The frizzy little lettuce grows in the cracks in high places. He slid his knifeblade into the rock and sliced the rocayrol at its root, tossed it in his basket then searched for another. Gabriel wears a leather necklace with a stamp-sized image of the Virgin Mary on one side and Jesus on the other, and it dangled outside his shirt.

“That’s asparagus,” he said, pointing to a fern leaning into the path. I’d never seen wild asparagus. “That’s fennel. And over there, that’s lemon balm. A tea of lemon balm, rosemary and mint gives men strength in the morning.”

We were collecting dinner salad for 13 people – the parents, nine kids and us two guests. Though they live on a farm in the valley, they collect much of their food from the surrounding hills. “God is generous,” the father said. And while neither of us is religious, as travelers our job is to listen to understand. And we understood.

“Rocayrol has the most wonderful taste,” he said. “It loves high rocks in the sun.” So we climbed high to find it, and as we collected it we listened to the girls’ crystalline hymns.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

Posted 1 year, 2 months ago.

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Love has a recipe

Stirring, Corsica, France

by Mike

Azure fell in love with a Corsican cheese, a cheese that doesn’t travel well. We were leaving in a couple days and she might never again see or taste the enchanting, goaty brocciu. Azure was sad, so I had to do something.

We asked a young man at the market if he knew a brocciu maker who might teach us to make the cheese. He told us to ask the widows who sit on the steps of the mayor’s office.

We rode our scooter to the mayor’s office and asked the old ladies where to find a brocciu maker. In the next village over, they said, lived a woman who made it for years.

We rode our scooter over the ridge and asked a man where Mme Albertini lived. She was his aunt, in fact, and she lived at the edge of town.

We found the woman, but she no longer made cheese – the process is too intense. Her cousin in the next village over, though, still made it.

We found the village and found his barn and Philippe was inside, milking the goats.

“Please,” we said, “Azure loves brocciu and needs to learn to make it herself.”

He looked at her and smiled: if we returned the next afternoon he would happily teach us everything. The next day, alongside his wife and daughter, he patiently taught us the generations-old recipe.

All we had to do was ask.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

Posted 1 year, 3 months ago.

8 comments

Terrifying Old Dragon Man

Old dude, Bali, Indonesia

by Mike

Even a year later this man’s look strips my facade to its frame. Can you feel it too? His worker, a young man, made room in the shop for our flat-tired motorbike, and he went to work silently.

I wanted a picture of the old guy, I had to have a picture of those nails, but I made myself a rule to only take pictures of people I talk to. Damn principle. He didn’t speak English, so with my (very) limited Indonesian, I attempted to have a heart-to-heart with the old man, to get to know him, to have a meaningful, cross-cultural exchange.

“You work here?” I asked.
“Yes.”

“How many years?”
“27.”

Ah, the clumsy conversational dance where all you can reliably understand is “yes,” “no,” whole numbers and “chicken.”

“How old boy?”
“16″

“Your son?”
“No.”

“How many years you Bali?”
“[Unintelligible, but he didn't say chicken].”

Someone else paid and he used his nails to flip though a wad of cash. I salivated for a photo. Enough chit-chat, time to go for the kill, but subtly of course.

“How many years?” I pointed to his hand.
“One.”

Hold up, only a one year commitment for those things? This is doable! We can do this!

“I photo you?”
“Yes.”

I love travel, don’t you? You can never predict what you’ll come across when you leave the beaten path. There are interesting old dudes out there, around the world, willing to take a second to chit chat with a foreigner.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo and HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

Posted 1 year, 5 months ago.

11 comments

My Relentless Wealth

Rice Paddy Sunset, Bali, Indonesia

In the train station’s high yellow light a young American, new to India, looked at his book but thought about suffocation; each breath filled his mouth like tea.

He smelled food prepared by an Indian family camped in a circle on the station’s floor. An old woman ate there, resting in anticipation. She would have to shove through crowds to secure a seat for the night-long ride where she, herself, was more likely to suffocate than this fit young man. She would sleep against a stranger on the aisle floor. She would be carried to another part of India, another humid part of India, where the traveler might see orange glowing light he could not now imagine if only he were brave enough to step down from the car and breathe deeply through his nose.

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Posted 1 year, 6 months ago.

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A Paddle on the Irawaddy

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by Mike

Wandering around the dusty roads of Bagan, we took a turn toward the river and discovered a thriving little shoreline where women washed clothes, kids splashed and others bathed modestly. As we strolled past gardens that hugged the sandy bank, we met a little boat pulling to shore, letting passengers off. Three kids paddled people across the river to what must have been a small village on the other side (though, as you can see in some of the pictures, it doesn’t look like there’s anything there. I suspect the town was far back from the shore, out of the way of floodwater).

We waved the kids over and asked if they’d take us on a little tour down to the gold-covered pagoda that commands the river’s bend.

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Posted 1 year, 7 months ago.

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Buddhist Nuns in Yangon, Myanmar

Buddhist Nuns, Yangon, Myanmar

by Mike

While Azure and I sat at a tea shop in Yangon we were approached by a young monk with his collection bucket. He held it out to us. I was happy to offer some food, so we held up a pastry, “Do you want this?” He shook his head no. I held up another pastry and he shook his head again, “No.” Click to Read More

Posted 1 year, 7 months ago.

2 comments

A Jungle of Force

Corsican market women, Corsica, France
The poor old rich days…

by Mike

There is a mysterious person in traditional Corsican towns, a man or woman kept at the periphery of society because they play a supernatural role in death. At night, this Mazzeri is compelled to sneak into the maquis, the low shrubbery that blankets wild parts of the island, and to hunt down whatever animal comes across their path. The boar or dog meets a violent death – the Mazzeri bludgeons it with a club or a rock, it might strangle the animal or tear its flesh with their teeth. (Read More)

Posted 1 year, 8 months ago.

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Essential Education

The next generation looks on
Learning machines.

by Mike

(This post refers to the time we spent with the Catholic back-to-the-land family in southwest France).

I killed my first fowl on this trip, it was a guinea fowl, practically a chicken. I didn’t actually kill it, rather I held its legs and wings while Gabriel put a knife through its jugular, but I was a pretty-involved accomplice, so it counts in my book. As the blood drained I expected it to squawk or kick or something, to freak out, you know?, but it didn’t react, even as the knife went in. The bird only convulsed after it was already dead, and it was so strong I thought I’d hurt my hand. The bright red blood, which drained into the slop bucket, was fed to the pigs. (read more)

Posted 1 year, 9 months ago.

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How bout another Bagan photo? Flower girl.

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Flower girl in old Bagan.

by Mike

Thought I’d do another little breakdown of the details. After the clicky clicky

Posted 1 year, 9 months ago.

3 comments

Madrid extended

By Azure

Mike stole a sandwich tonight and now he’s afraid the hotel won’t give us a wake-up call.

As we left Margit’s apartment this morning, she asked “What are the chances your flight will get canceled?”

We laughed and said it was about the same as any other day, so 99.9% unlikely.

Well, apparently there was a part “missing from our plane and they couldn’t find it”, so our flight was canceled and we were put up in a hotel. We were rerouted again through JFK with a 6 hour layover, getting us home at 10pm Sunday. Through the magical internet, I went online and found a more direct flight through Amsterdam that gets us in at noon on Sunday, so we called America to have it changed. I had to play the America is the best! card and the these Spanish people don’t fucking understand us! card, but we got it changed without issue. I felt bad about my conduct, but I took a bath.

Mike and I went down to our comped buffet dinner and sat with the superstars of the flight (three overly-made-up middle-aged Spanish women and a med student who we identified in the airport as being “a good talker.”) At the end of the meal, Mike asked if we could take some bread and cheese for breakfast, since our flight left before breakfast started. They said no. Mike decided to go rogue and grab some bread and salami for a breakfast sandwich anyway, but the woman reminded him that it was not for taking away. He waited until the woman had her back turned, then grabbed the sandwiches and ran.

Shelly (the good talker) and I sat there and wondered if he was coming back. He didn’t. About 15 minutes later, they told us the place was closing and we had to leave. Mike was sweating when we got back, afraid that he had been followed. He hadn’t. He called reception and asked for a wake-up call. When he got off, he said, I’m afraid they know about the sandwiches and won’t give us a wake-up call.

I suppose we are all allowed our own kinds of insanity. We have, after all, been rerouted four times already and should have been home two days ago.

Posted 1 year, 9 months ago.

2 comments

I almost saw this guy get killed

Johann

by Mike

The family has discovered that there are, in fact, some medical complications for which God hasn’t provided them medicinal herbs: Mom’s five cesarean sections count among them; one of the kids has a hyperthyroid problem that’s vexing the family. Major head trauma makes the list as well, as we learned.

On the farm is parked a grandmotherly white horse, a wise and battered thing that passes its days in a softly lit barn, shitting on chickens and eating organic hay. Nice life, right? The horse is old and quiet, I think it has knowing eyes. Johann, a 28-year-old son from a previous marriage who lives out of his car, came to shoot the old lady and slit her throat, but first he had to figure out how to attach a pulley system to a 30-foot-high beam so he could later hang her up and bleed her out. (read more)

Posted 1 year, 9 months ago.

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Catchup Post – Back to the Land

Alice in a field with scythe

by Mike

Well. We’ve spent the last week working on a farm with a traditionalist Catholic family of 11 back-to-the-landers. They live in a gorgeous, shallow valley that’s tucked away in the hills between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean, a valley where they have their beds of veggies, fields of grains, pigs, donkeys, horses, chickens, geese, ducks, guinea fowl, dogs and trout pond. The kids go away to a Catholic school in another part of France from the age of about 8 (coming home for long vacations), then at 15 they have the choice to either continue with school or come back home to work on the farm. There are three children over 15 – the oldest decided to finish school, the next two have decided to come back to work. (read more)

Posted 1 year, 9 months ago.

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Catchup post – Free(gan) Food!

Talking
Learning learning learning

by Mike

Dude, we’re way behind, but I’m going to post some stuff to catch up, and for posterity.

We were with Riana and her family at the end of March….

We’re staying with a Freegan family in the idyllic town of Saint Laurent de la Cabrerisse in southwest France. Freegan means that they aim to spend no money on food. They dumpster dive (which just means that they poke around to see if there’s anything they can use whenever they take out the trash), they get produce from the local grocer after it’s unsellable, they have a large garden, they forage and they trade for food. We’re sleeping in a cozy attic of the 18th century stone house they’ve been renovating for the last couple years. Their budget is next to nothing – the husband is a school teacher and mom doesn’t have a job outside the house. (read more)

Posted 1 year, 9 months ago.

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Veins of stone

Rock walls with tree

by Mike

Who drew these lines across southern France, the lonely stone fences that melt in the woods, miles from homes, centuries from birth? This web holding trees to the floor of the forest, it twists and it crumbles, it picks itself up. Bordering paths that I’m sure are forgotten, they frame ruined houses which years ago burned. (more words and pictures)

Posted 1 year, 10 months ago.

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Back to the olive farm

Hard labor
Mike carrying the kiwi branches. He hates kiwi trees now.

by Azure

This is long overdue and it won’t be very coherent, but this is the best recap I can do now…

When I got to the farm, Claude was the first person I saw. She was having a meeting with a guy from the Bio department and he was sort of checking up to make sure that her practices were on track with their standards. She wasn’t expecting me so early and had to put on her glasses to see who it was. When she realized it was me, she greeted me, not warmly, but as warm as she had ever been towards me. She directed me to Margarite’s house and as I was climbing the hill, I ran into Mike.

When we got to the apartment that we had shared the year before and that he was then inhabiting alone, it was a mess! There were dishes all around and he was obviously sleeping on the couch and had a “meditation station” on the floor, which consisted of a pile of blankets in front of the bathroom. The toilet seat was up and he ran around trying to tidy up, not unlike someone would do on a first date. He apologized for the mess and told me it was sort of his bachelor pad. I suppose this is really what Mike would do if he were single, you know, go crazy on honey tea and meditate on the floor a lot. (read more, I could lie and say there are awesome images here, but I won't, it is just a really long post)

Posted 1 year, 10 months ago.

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Let’s disgust you

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All those pods are the eggs that were lined up inside the chicken, waiting to fully form. The pods you see are just yolk – the white and shell are last to form. Also pictured are the heart, gizzard, liver and some fat.

by Mike

I don’t know – maybe you aren’t as squeemish about those eggs, but I definitely don’t want to pop them in my mouth raw. Ew.

There was an attack! Yesterday, while we were cleaning out the chicken coop, I turned around to catch a dog with a mouthful of chicken. I chased him and he ran off, leaving the dying chicken on the walkway. (read more)

Posted 1 year, 10 months ago.

5 comments

How to ride a fox

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by Mike

This is Amaya, proprietor of our current farmstay in St. Laurent de la Cabrerisse. She’s pretty rad. She does things we all wish we could do but are too self-conscious to pull off, like riding a fierce fox (above) or pooping under the dinner table during dessert, as she did last night (not pictured). This afternoon she managed to sneak a whole Coke and then spent the next hour running in circles screaming.

Amaya only speaks French and she speaks it better than we do, though I’ve been learning French for five times the length of her life. Occasionally she’ll bust out in a song she’s written.
“Do you want to hear my song? Do you want to hear my song?”
“Yeah! Let’s hear it!”
“Poulet poulet. That’s the song.”
“That was very nice!”

Amaya is friends with most people she meets, especially the old men in the courtyard who pass their days on the benches. They’re always happy to have her pulling on them, climbing on them or playing the guitar in the middle of the group. She’s quite a gutsy gal.

Posted 1 year, 10 months ago.

2 comments

Racism lol

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by Mike

“Do you think that Barack Obama is as smart as George Bush, even though Obama’s black?” The Thai homestay-owner, Sam, surprised me with the question, and without even thinking I blurted out, “Of course!” Later, he doled out a little anti-Semitism, not knowing I’m Jewishish, and throughout the night he emphatically displayed sexism. At one point he asked Azure to take a picture of us three men: me, Sam and Ali (a young British traveler). Azure obliged, with a double-edged smile. (read more)

Posted 2 years ago.

4 comments

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