Spring is slowly arriving

It is still not warm enough here, at the foot of the Adirondacks, to wear less than a sweater outside. But the sun is convincingly trying to thaw the cold soil and crocuses can be seen lurking prettily at the edges of buildings and lawns. 

As my semester speeds by, I am working on compiling my senior project, which has mostly involved learning to use GarageBand and how to properly cite pamphlets.  As you may imagine, I have also become proficient at procrastinating, for which I have had the support of a couple good friends.  My friends have recommended distractions from watching hilarious TV shows about unfortunate American family drama to cooking interesting combinations of cheap and ecologically responsible foods.  Last night, while searching for a diversion, I came across this video, on an Earlhamite's blog, which I could watch repeatedly without getting bored:

It must be true, I saw it in a movie!

Recently, I have been collecting birthing scenes from the media of the past three or four decades. This is mostly in an effort to put together a really interesting senior project, but also just because they are everywhere and fascinating. What we show and tell each other about birth probably contributes hugely to our perceptions and feelings around our own birth experiences. If you grew up knowing the birthing process only by the ten second clips on your favorite TV show with the woman in stirrups screaming while everyone around her forcefully tells her to push, I can't imagine that your expectations of your birth could be anything less than terrifying. Why do we portray birth the ways that we do? I think a lot of it has to do with fear of nature, the loss of humanly control, and probably a lot of ignorance.

For example, this past weekend, my friend Chloe showed me a clip from one of her favorite shows in which a pregnant woman goes into labor while stuck in a car that had just been in a bad accident. The labor begins with her water breaking, followed immediately by her quick and incapacitating contractions, and ten minutes later in the ambulance, an EMT shines a flashlight at her crotch, declares her 10cm dilated, and a clean very large baby is born shortly thereafter. If I were to know little to nothing about birth, after watching that I may be under the impression that usually women go from no labor to pushing in a matter of minutes, that when in labor, a woman cannot move, that to know that a woman is 10cm dilated, you need not actually check the cervix, and that babies are born pink and shiny at the age of four to six months. "Well," my friend Brodie asked, "have you ever seen an accurate depiction of birth in a movie or TV show?" Mulling it over, none of us could. If you have seen one recently (specifically in a mainstream media production) please let me know.
Have you seen Lady Gaga's new music video?
Have you seen the movie Juno or Knocked Up? What other recent films/shows have you seen with birthing scenes? What did you notice? What did they emphasize? If you start thinking about it, you'll start seeing birthing scenes everywhere.

My favorite find so far has been in 101 Dalmatians, the original animated version. Toward the beginning of the movie, there is a rather long scene of Bongo, the father Dalmatian, and his pet (the human), pacing around outside a closed door, on the other side of which the mother Dalmatian is giving birth. The nanny/nurse is running in and out and giving brief incomplete updates to the excited/nauseated/nervous men, and a clock is ticking loudly in the background. This movie was made in the sixties, and depicts pretty clearly what the accepted role of the father was in a birth - outside. This birth scene, in a classic American children's movie, was the catalyst to my search. I continue to enjoy collecting scenes, but this remains my favorite.


(Picture thanks to: http://cartoon-picture-collection.blogspot.com/2010/10/101-dalmatians-wallpapers.html)

Books!

Last night, I was thinking about books that I love to read. In particular, ones that I can read over and over and enjoy every time.

It became apparent to me, that besides books of poetry (like those of Hafiz or e.e. cummings), or books having to do with midwifery (like Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin or A Book for Midwives by Susan Klein), books that I like to read cover-to-cover multiple times are illustrated.

I think this train of thought is largely due to my day spent reading the same three children's books over and over again to a bunch of 1-4 year olds at the Waldorf day care I sometimes work for in Saratoga.

So, in case you are the type who likes to collect great children's books, here is a short list of some of my favorites:

1. Animalia, by Graeme Base
2. Big Mama Makes the World, by Phyllis Root and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
3. Tuesday, by David Wiesner
4. Pigs, by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko
5. The Napping House, by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood

You Should See the Icicles

In a few days, I am moving out of a rather old big farmhouse and into a rather old tiny apartment about four hours away. There are many things that I anticipate missing about living here, most importantly the program that brought me here, which showed me how to be friends with eleven and sixty-five year olds, and my brilliant housemates. (youngfriendsinresidence.blogspot.com) Other things include the incredibly wild diversity of wallpaper (I have both thousands of pink strawberries and multi-colored trains just on one half of my room), the creek and backyard, being in close proximity to the town of Ithaca, NY, as well as all the beautiful gorges and our impressive collection of collage supplies.

Some Nifty Things

Sorry for the long absence!

In order to continue to share with you all some of the nifty and wonderful things passing through my life, I will attempt to begin a practice of updating regularly with short posts concerning small things of interest.

For example, today I would like to share with you this awesome website full of street art images.

I discovered this site, and many other fabulous things through my friend and lovely housemate Helen's blog, Things I like.

p.s. My family went on a road trip down to North Carolina and back, and on the way, we stopped at this pretty amazing seven-story treehouse.

Visiting Earlham College

My housemates, Franklin and Anna, joined me on a trip down to Richmond, IN, this past week. I had been invited to come give a workshop on Permaculture (and more specifically, worm bins, or small-scale composting with worms) at Miller Farm, a college house located about eight minutes off campus on a little farm. The workshop went well, and it was really lovely to get a chance to see some of my old friends for a while and explore their exciting spaces. A couple of highlights were the hidden treehouse in the woods and the greenhouse built out of tires filled with rammed earth and covered in cob.It was also really great to find, while going through the house's old scrapbooks, some pictures of my aunt Andi, my dad's first cousin Louis, and my current boss Chris DeRoller working on various farm projects. It turns out they were some of the first farm residents.

...and we're off!

The Young Friends and Residence Program is up and running! We are busy with a wide and wonderful variety of activities and adventures!
Facilitating Youth Retreats at Perry City Meetinghouse has been one of my bigger projects these past couple of months. The attenders have been kids from the Farmington-Scipio region of New York Yearly Meeting, most of whom are between the ages of 11 and 14.
Along with youth program retreats, we have also hosted a couple Circle of Young Friend retreats (for folks between the ages of 18 and 35) at the Beloved Community House in Newfield, NY. Young Adult Friends have also come out to be Adult Presences at our youth retreats, which is a whole lot of fun for everyone involved.

My Latest Adventure!

After arriving home from Ecuador on New Years, I have begun to settle into my new space in Newfield, NY (near Ithaca) at the Beloved Community House. Here, I have come to be a Young Friend in Residence Intern, running youth retreats, doing community outreach and personal inreach, and actively participating as a member of this small intentional community.

Please check out our blog to learn more at: http://youngfriendsinresidence.blogspot.com/

Franklin Crump (on the left in my coat) and Anna Obermayer

are my (on the right in Franklin's coat) fellow interns,

and wonderful people.

The Northern Beaches of Ecuador

I spent the last two weeks busing between some of the northern beaches of Ecuador and Quito. The first week, Aaron and I spent at the beach Atacames. It was beautiful with medium-sized waves, friendly people, lots of fresh fish and shrimp to eat, and artisan stalls.

There were also many stray dogs, including one (we named Sandy) who followed us around for an entire afternoon. Stray dogs are as common here as squirrels are in the United States, though (perhaps due to my now taller height) it seems there are fewer now than there were when I came as a child.

We took a walk to one end of the beach where a fresh water river had its delta, and found a field of trash. Plastic bottles, shoes, styrofoam, plastic bags, building materials, old clothes, fishing line, and glass seemed to be the most common artifacts. Walking along barefoot, we opted to start back toward the cleaner beach when we looked down and saw an old syringe half-burried in the sand. Though we walked away, the trash field was heavily populated by birds, crabs, and where it spilled into the water, small fish were congregated.

We took the bus back to Quito, saw Malaika briefly, and Aaron got on a plane back to the States. The following morning, I got back on the bus and took it back to Atacames, where I discovered that the buses to Mompiche beach stop running after 5pm. Atacames, like most of the country, experiences daily power-outages due to the country-wide drought, and so I waited in a quickly darkening town for my parents to make the drive to pick me up. Driving in the dark in Ecuador is especially harrowing due to large potholes, unmarked speed bumps, and a general lack of street lights, coupled with other crazy drivers and the tendancy for most trucks to have one or more non-functional head- and/or break lights. I was thankful to finally meet my family and find them all in one piece.

At Mompiche, the waves were awesome for body-surfing, and the beach was less touristy. We took a boat ride around the edge of the cove and out to a newly-formed island covered in sand dollars (which here they call sea stars because of the perfect stars in their middles and which have a "nursery" right inside the bend of the island) and little red crabs...

...as well as young mangrove trees, which are part-creaters of the island. Some of local food and profit comes from the conch shells which are collected from the muddy roots of these cool trees. The trees also support a wide-variety of birds and insects, and their steady destruction in Ecuador (and other parts of the world) due to shrimp farming and other commercial enterprises, is threatening the biodiversity and health of the coastal area.

What is south of Quito?

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but stick with it - there are lots of pictures!

My friend Malaika arrived nearly a month ago, and after spending only a couple days adjusting to the altitude, came with me on a visit to the little CSA in La Merced. We arrived in the late morning after a harrowing adventure (full of circles and closed roads) through Quito's sprawling expanses. We were immediately put to work helping B

en (of the couple that was taking care of the farm while the owners were in Holland) use an "A" Frame to find level and hand hoe beds on contour in their new upper field. It was hard work, but nice to be in the dirt again. Kristy (the other half of the couple) came back midway through that process, and after lunch we worked with her doing some weeding and bed-maintenance in the lower vegetable gardens. (Malaika weeding below)

The cow woke us up early, and we got up and dressed to find it a beautiful sunny day. Out the window of the house we were staying in, we had a gorgeous view of Cotopaxi, and the air was cool and clear - a nice break from the almost visibly grey air of the city.

Below: Malaika (on the left) and Kristy (on the right) getting ready for the morning.

We weeded again most of the morning, enjoying the time in the sun and the cute baby plants. The lower vegetable gardens are semi-terraced on a slope, and as you can vaguely see in the picture below where I'm weeding, they are using drip-lines for irrigation here. At this time, the rains still were only coming hesitantly, and water was becoming scarce. The farm has several different water collection set-ups (including water tanks made of tires cemented together in a cylinder and a giant swimming-pool-esque collection hole,) is on a slope, and located right on the edge of a ravine with an all-year-round stream at the bottom, so it is generally a little better off than others. Other cool things of note on this farm are the heavily producing bee hives, composting toilets, and grandmother named Carmencita who is both a wealth of knowledge and hilarious.

Below: I just wanted to include this picture of a pig cave. This is the home of the mother of Fernando (one of the workers on the CSA), and along with this awesome space she's created to give her pig shade, she is also farming on an incredible slope and cultivating some of the fastest-growing corn I've seen here.
Below: this is a picture of the central square of La Merced. It is a one stoplight town, but every town here - almost no matter the size - has a central square and an impressive little church.
After our adventure to the farm in La Merced, Malaika and I went looking for another one in a place called Palugo. Though we weren't successful that time, we did end up on a road to some wonderful hot springs in Papallacta, and caught some beautiful views on the way (below).

And, on the way home to Quito, saw the mountain one last time. Since then the rainy season has asserted itself a little more heavily and clouds hang full and low most of the time, blocking my treasured mountain views.
Back home in Quito, Malaika, my brother Caleb, and I went out to the Iñaquito market to go vegetable shopping. We bought the weeks worth for less than ten dollars, and carried heavy bags home, only squishing one avocado on a large bunch of bananas.
Aaron arrived soon after and after a long sleep was ready for adventure as well. He, Malaika, and I packed backpacks, snacks, a tent, and an ipod, borrowed my grandparent's little blue car, and took off heading south.

Though the skies were grey, the ground was turning greener and we were fortunate to see some really spectacular valleys and lush farmland.
Though our maps were poor, and our guide from several years before, we found our way from town to town, admiring old architecture...
narrow cobblestoned busy streets...

interesting and creative nativity scenes...

...and the incredible strength of friendliness of the people.

In between towns and cities we found ourselves driving through incredible and diverse landscapes, from deep red soil to acacia trees to sugar cane and palm trees. Though our car was thankful for the smooth roads, the harsh slices into the surroundings to create them were sad to see. Erosion and loss of property are only two of the many problems caused by the maintenance of such nice roads.

We drove south nearly all the way to Peru and then turned up and west to follow the Ruta del Sol (Route of the Sun) up the coast and eventually eastward and home to Quito. We stayed the night in the beach city of Salinas, enjoying the refreshing salt water and sand, but not so much the high rises. Fortunately, we have been traveling in the off season, so there were fairly few tourists and plenty of places to stay - though most not in our price range.
Below: I wanted to include a photo of just one of the many alternative types of transportation one can find on the beach. Beach towns often have one road (I guess in the States we call them "boardwalks?") and here you can often find everything from bicycle-powered rickshaws, to motorcycle-powered baby taxis, to small pedal-powered cars like these.
Though the roads were not as nice on the way up, the views of the ocean and the quickly and often changing landscapes made it my favorite part of the trip. Our poor car at this point was beginning to express its distress though, so we opted to make our way home as quickly as possible.

Our biggest problem turned out to be our tire, though thankfully we only lost one, we really lost it. The tire-guys we later went to were impressed, turns out it's not easy to take the tread off your tire quite like we did, while also managing to keep it full of air.

In between beach views, scrub lands, marshes, and banana plantations, there were what are called "dry forests" including some really amazing green trees with buttressed roots of impressive heights and widths. Outside the jungle, I haven't seen anything like them here.

Unfortunately, we also saw expanses of incredibly dry land. Though in Quito the rainy season may be making an appearance, it seems as though a lot of the country has not been so lucky.