penguins and pink boots

2008-03-31T19:01:00.001+13:00

leap of faith.

aloha from hawaii! (I blame the long period of silence since my last blog entry on polynesian paralysis.)

D and I left the ice on 17 february -- our first trip on the same C-17. we had always deployed and redeployed on separate flights, so it was fun to experience it together for once. our flight left right on time and we were in christchurch by early evening. the flights after ours, scheduled for the 19th, 21st, and 23rd, weren't so lucky. they were victims of various weather delays, and the final summer pax didn't depart pegasus field until the 25th.

on this trip to NZ, I was determined to see more of the south island than I had before, so D and I rented the world’s cutest hatchback (painted a lovely sinus-infection color) and headed north to maruia springs, a japanese-style hot springs resort nestled in a green valley.

next stop was nelson, where we set up D’s tent in a hostel’s backyard. we spent the next few days lazing around, exploring abel tasman and farewell spit, knitting, watching movies on the laptop, and generally recovering from six-day workweeks.

D did most of the driving, which I was thankful for – I can drive on the left side if I have to, but I was nervous that I would forget and go barreling into the wrong lane, which would probably be cause for at the very least a dirty look and maybe a rotten kiwifruit lobbed in my direction. I kept turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn indicator, which was embarrassing. on the way back to christchurch we stopped in punakaiki to see the famed pancake rocks, curious geologic formations that resemble stacks and stacks of pancakes piled onto each other. I started to think about breakfast foods and of course then I got hungry, so we had to leave.

after my first season on the ice, I hiked the banks peninsula track, a 35-km trail that originates and ends in akaroa on the south island. the track can be hiked in either two or four days, and in the interest of time I had done the two-day option. it was pleasantly rigorous and the two huts I stayed at were quaint and comfortable, but I made up my mind to someday return and do the four-day option to take in the stunning views at a more leisurely pace and to stay in all four huts. D hadn’t hiked it before (not properly, anyway – he had hiked most of the peninsula’s roads but hadn’t seen a lot of the coastline), so we signed up to do the track from 25 – 28 february.

it could not have been a more perfect hike. the weather was absolutely gorgeous, the views were just as ridiculously breathtaking as I’d remembered, the other two huts were something out of a dream, and our fellow hikers (five older kiwis from the north island) provided great conversation and company in the evenings.

being middle-aged, they would start out early in the mornings to get a head start, but D and I would inevitably pass them by 9:30 or so. there was lots of good-natured ribbing about this and also the fact that D was diligently working on a knitting project during the downtimes. one of the kiwi blokes, a guy named ross, took every opportunity to poke fun at D (in a chummy way) about his feminine qualities. D took no heed and produced a very respectable hat knit in stockinette stitch with a one-inch, 2x2 ribbed trim at the bottom and a pom-pom on top.

in the evenings, we would settle into our huts, cook up a simple meal and open a bottle of wine (available on an honor basis from the tiny stores that also sold staples like bread, milk, eggs, meat and canned goods). there were tree swings and bathtubs under the stars, dips in the cold southern ocean and hunting for clams on the beach. it was a perfect four days.

upon reaching akaroa, we said goodbye to our new friends and headed back to christchurch to meet up with megan and susie, who had just come off the ice. the four of us flew up to auckland and checked into a seaside cabin at orewa beach, a holiday community north of the city.

the weather was marginal for the next few days, but not to worry – we located the town’s one yarn store and went crazy. the four of us could not have been happier stuck inside the tiny cabin, drinking endless cups of tea, eating biscuits and working on our respective projects. the ducks that frequented the holiday park would waddle up onto the deck and even into the cabin looking for a handout, and ducks are inherently funny creatures, so we were never at a loss for cheap entertainment.

the real reason we were killing time in auckland was because – thanks to my friend benny, who plays bass guitar for santana – we had guest passes to the santana show on 4 march! as if this wasn’t enough, benny treated us all to thai food the night before, where I presented him with some proper antarctic schwag in return – a hat from the south pole and an icestock t-shirt. he was very excited and promised to wear the shirt on stage the following night. sure enough, when we showed up at the vector arena for the concert, he walked onstage sporting his antarctic finery.

it was an amazing show – full of blistering solos by benny and his bandmates, infectious afro-caribbean rhythms, and the unbelievable musicianship of carlos santana himself – but the icing on the cake was backstage access after the show. benny graciously introduced us around, and we were properly starstruck – but the band members were acting like WE were the celebrities, having just come from antarctica!

here we are, L-R:
drummer dennis chambers
susie
delaney
bassist benny rietveld (www.bennyworld.com)
me
megan

the band manager even expressed interest in getting the band down to the ice for a concert. perhaps I will have to go back for another season after all.

here is benny modeling the latest in antarctic concert t-shirt fashion.

coming down off the santana concert high, we then took off for three days on the coromandel peninsula east of auckland, an area reputed to have the best beaches in the southern hemisphere. some family friends, john and juanita, maintain a holiday home (or ‘bach,’ as they are called in NZ) there and had invited us to come check out these beaches for ourselves. we were only too happy to oblige.

john and juanita proved the consummate hosts, stuffing us full of food and wine, introducing us around their holiday community, pointing out such essentials as the hammock and the lounge chairs, taking us to a private beach accessible only by a fifteen-minute hike, and providing scintillating conversation. in return, we duly told them more than they had ever wanted to know about life on the ice.

all too soon, the three days were over, and as we packed up our car to leave, john mournfully said We didn’t know what we were going to do with you before you got here, and now we can’t imagine what we’re going to do without you.

truly some of the best people I know.

back in auckland, we said goodbye to susie and megan and flew off to sydney for a week and a half in australia. D attended ‘uni’ in wollongong for a semester and still has a number of good friends in the area, so we crashed with some mates of his before flying off to perth. a highlight of our time was a rugby game at aussie stadium – my first! D’s friend cameron is the strength and conditioning trainer for the sydney warratahs, and we were able to get tickets through his connections. I found rugby much more exciting than regular old american gridiron football, and more complicated than soccer. a very entertaining evening.

the next day we flew to perth to visit with my friends marilyn and allen, as well as marilyn’s son scottie, a chef who is staying with them while looking for work in australia. marilyn was feeling stronger and looking better than a year ago, when she had recently completed several months’ worth of cancer treatments, and it was a joy to see her back to her old vibrant self.

the three of them treated us to a week of gourmet meals, leisurely beach time (they live two blocks from the indian ocean, which was much warmer than the water in NZ), knitting tips for me and D, and day trips to nearby sights.

we picnicked at serpentine falls and made friends with the local kangaroos; and took in a sculpture exhibition at cottesloe beach; but the highlight of the week was a visit to penguin island, a nature reserve where marilyn volunteers.

penguin island is home to several orphaned fairy (or little) penguins, the smallest penguins in the world. we got to see them being fed and then strolled around the island viewing the other wildlife. it was clear to us that this was a very dear place to marilyn, and it was truly magical – a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the real world, where the birds would practically eat out of your hand.

our time in perth at a much-too-soon end, we flew back to sydney and took a day trip to kiama, a lovely little seaside town south of wollongong (where D had attended a semester of uni). we spent several hours dipping our feet in the salt-water swimming pool, strolling around the quaint downtown area, and soaking up the local ambience (mostly in the form of meat pies).

as the crowning touch to a great trip, we were able to get an audience with one of the world’s newest people, my friends doug and belinda's six-day-old son finn. he was charming, debonair, well-versed in the various nutritional properties and benefits of breast milk, and only pooped once (to my knowledge) while I was holding him. what an absolute cutie.

on the 19th, it was off to hawaii for a few weeks with my family. today is the 31st, and it’s been nothing but mellow good times with friends and rellies (including susie, who stayed with us for four days), swimming adventures with tate, house-sitting for my sister’s boss high above honolulu in st. louis heights, catching up with pals (old for me, new for D), lots of potlucks, and – now for something completely different – my first skydiving experience.

as an end-of-season thank you gift, myrna and christina had gifted me with a skydive. I was touched and suspicious all at the same time. what does it mean when your co-workers tell you to jump out of an airplane? anyway, I didn’t want to read too far into the gesture, so we set up the appointment for monday the 24th. christina and her boyfriend brian would be meet us there. susie didn’t want to jump (she had done it once before) and so she would be the event’s documentarian.

we met out at dillingham airfield, on the western point of o'ahu, bright and early. it was perfect weather -- clear and sunny with very little wind. we checked in, signed about sixteen pages of legal waivers, and met our tandem instructors to get into our harnesses. after a short briefing, we walked out to the strip.

our airplane was a tiny twin-otter-like craft, with two benches and a rolling door. all four of us went tandem, so there were eight of us in the airplane. we trundled fast down the airstrip with the door open. my instructor, jason, rolled it shut just before takeoff, placing himself precariously close to the opening. I didn't know whether to be terrified or relieved that this was such a casual affair.

D and his instructor jumped out first. they went to the door of the plane and -- POOF -- they were gone! christina had warned me that it would be weird to see a friend there one moment and gone the next, and it was. it wasn't like they had just stepped around the corner and were hiding -- they were gone! next it was my turn. for some reason, I wasn't nervous, just very focused. they don't give you time to think or to be scared -- it's very streamlined and efficient.

maybe I wasn't nervous because jason was a very laid-back dude wearing shorts and chaco sandals. he had done over nine thousand jumps, so I figured he knew what he was doing. and if something went wrong and our chute didn't open, well...at least my death would be quick.

jason gave me a few brief pointers, we went to the door, he counted one two three and out we went. I thought I would go mad for the first few seconds when I felt like I was falling. I REALLY hate that feeling. but very soon we reached terminal velocity and it didn't feel like falling anymore, just like we were in a wind tunnel. I kept trying to breathe normally and relish the freefall because I knew it would be over too soon, and of course it was.

jason tapped me on the shoulder twice, a signal that he was going to open the chute, and then we SCREECHED to a halt and started floating. it was much calmer and easier to take in our surroundings once the chute went up, and very peaceful. he did a few turns so that we could get a 360-degree view of mokuleia, and then it was time to land. he maneuvered us perfectly onto the landing field and we trotted to a stop.

sorry it’s taken me so long to update the blog – thanks for reading this far! I hope this finds everyone well and enjoying either spring or fall. D and I will be back in seattle on 9 april and are looking forward to catching up with that contingency.

until the next entry,
parachute love,
c.

2008-02-08T11:41:00.000+13:00

eclipse craziness.

the christchurch airport has been closed due to an attempted hijacking. this means our C-17 will certainly not launch on time -- it was scheduled to off-deck in CHC at 1000 this morning.

what complicates matters is that there are 15 pax coming out of the south pole station via LC-130 this morning as well. they were destined to land at pegasus airfield at around the same time as the C-17, get off one aircraft, and get on the other -- and head straight on to CHC. they are what we call 'straight-thrus.'

if the C-17 isn't there to meet them, this complicates matters. do we have enough beds in mcmurdo (our maximum bed space is 1100)? do we have shuttle operations to support transporting them from the airfield back to town? if we're going to keep them at the airfield and have them wait for the eventual arrival of the C-17, do we have meals for them at the airfield galley? what about their baggage, if they do come into town -- does it stay on the baggage pallets or come off?

the whole business of sending people off the continent (redeploying them), whether from mcmurdo or south pole or a field camp, is a tricky one. at the end of any given season, there are a finite number of flights that have been agreed-upon, long before, by the military and the NSF. with each flight costing hundreds of thousands of dollars of USAP money, these numbers are not taken lightly. the aircraft have finite numbers of seat pallets on them. this year, in contrast to previous years in which a C-17 held 140 seats, we only have 126 seats per C-17...as there is a shortage of usable seat pallets due to the war in iraq.

this means that each space is even more coveted, and flight manifests are even harder to build. hundreds of people have to redeploy over a three-week time period, and every single one of those people believes wholeheartedly that their redeployment date is a sacred, untouchable thing.

there's a definite science to manifesting people according to their priority level. top-level priority is any medevac. this brings its own set of problems. a medevac usually requires an attendant in the form of a flight nurse or flight surgeon. and if the patient is on a litter, that takes up the space of four seats. so a total of five people can potentially be bumped if a medevac needs to get out.

the next-top level of priority is someone who has been terminated. for obvious reasons, a recent termination is a potentially dangerous (at the worst) or mischievous (at the least) person. for this reasons, terminations have to be timed carefully, especially in light of possible weather or mechanical delays.

next in line is a patient transport, which is someone who is being sent north for medical reasons that are not dire. for example: earlier in the season, delaney took a soccer ball in the eye at close range. a week later, the pain was gone, but his vision was still blurry, so he went north to get a second opinion from an opthalmologist there.

next would be someone who has not been terminated, but has resigned voluntarily. getting this type of person off-continent is still a priority -- the longer they're around, the more resources they use (to put it in a mildly heartless way), without being productive community members in return. supposedly, several seasons ago, someone quit during winter but, due to flight schedules, remained on-station. he walked down the main hallway, borrowed a hammer from the housing office, returned to the galley, and attacked a co-worker with it. he was later apprehended back in the main hallway swinging the hammer and whistling 'mary had a little lamb.' ever since, resignations have been sent away as quickly as possible.

as far as those who rank at the bottom of the totem pole, there's a science to that too. when planning redeployment, everyone is asked to designate themselves as one of the following categories of traveler:

first available (FAA), which means just that -- put me on the next available flight home.
actual with flight priority -- I know what date I want to travel home, but it's not immediate. and in case of a delay in getting to christchurch, I want the actual flight to take precedence over total time spent in christchurch.
actual with hotel priority -- I know what date I want to travel home, and in case of a delay, I want the number of nights in the hotel to take precedence over the flight date.
open -- I have no idea what I'm going to do yet. I'll figure it out once I get to new zealand.

the most bumpable pax are those who work for the contractor -- raytheon polar services, as opposed to a grantee or someone who works for the NSF -- and who have designated themselves in open status. by definition, they're undecided, and so are the most expendable.

due to the fact that one can be bumped at any time due to pax prioritization, mechanical difficulties with the aircraft, or the threat of bad weather, USAP participants are urged from day one not to make any kind of expensive or hard-to-change onward travel plans. nevertheless, someone always does. a woman in the supply department was told by her supervisor upon signing her contract not to do this. she was told again repeatedly over the course of the season. so what did she do? once she learned of her redeployment date, she booked a flight from christchurch back to the states and then on to frankfurt, germany. for the next day. predictably enough, she got bumped to a later flight due to overcrowding -- and now has to eat the cost of making changes. silly woman!

yesterday afternoon we had a partial solar eclipse. the moon slid in front of the sun for several minutes. the skies and the water in winter quarters bay darkened, everyone rushed to a window or door to look, and I think I heard a dog howl.

coincidence?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10491291

2008-02-08T09:21:00.000+13:00

knitting pretty.

I've been making pompom hats for people now that the craft fair is over and I can devote more time to individual projects. here's michelle, one of our dining attendants, wearing one of my recent creations.

and a week after I got to go to the south pole, D got to go too -- on a morale trip! never one to sit idly, he made sure to take his current knitting project with him on the plane -- a scarf knit on the diagonal.

2008-02-05T14:39:00.000+13:00

the swedish are coming!

last month, the swedish icebreaker Oden steamed into the ross sea en route to mcmurdo station. for the last two years, the swedes have been hired by the NSF as the primary icebreakers, whose job is to open a channel in the seasonal sea ice surrounding mcmurdo so that the annual fuel tanker and resupply vessel can get to the station. this job used to be filled by the US coast guard with one of their two icebreakers - the Polar Sea and the Polar Star. however, there are myriad costs built into the price of hiring the coast guard vessels -- for example, upkeep and maintenance of the gargantuan ships (compared to the small Oden) and training costs for the crew members, who are required to participate in things like homeland security training. the price of hiring the swedes is but a fraction of renting the coast guard. like shopping for furniture at IKEA, getting the Oden to break ice is a good deal -- neat, stylish and practical.

on board the ship, along with approximately twenty salty crew members, were about twenty-five scientists. these scientists were along for the ride to perform 'science of opportunity' on the way to mcmurdo, and once they got within helo distance of our station, the plan was to helicopter them off and send them north with their scientific samples and data via C-17.

because these grantees (and one cook who had a medical condition) would be coming off the ship and spending some time in mcmurdo prior to the flight north, they needed to be briefed on certain information, just like any other arriving pax. every arrival brief needs to contain the following USAP tidbits:

what number to call in an emergency (911, just like in the states)
touching or harassing the wildife is a big no-no
no smoking indoors unless you're in a designated smoking area
you must have your laptop screened by the IT department for viruses before you plug in
don't download copyrighted information or anything offensive once you do
don't be a poopyhands -- please wash your hands before going into the galley

etc., etc.

I must have been living right, because the day before the Oden was to burp its scientists out onto our shores, I got a phone call that I was headed to the ship via helicopter to perform their arrival briefing.

I hurriedly doctored my existing powerpoint presentation (weeding out a lot of the stuff that is only pertinent if you're staying at mcmurdo for an extended length of time) and ran home to put on my ECW gear and grab D's camera. the NSF station manager had asked me to get some shots of the ice channel from the air, and delaney has a sweet pentax that would be just the thing.

the Oden had already broken a channel about ten miles into the sea ice and had stopped to let us board. there were several of us -- the point of contact for vessel operations, two guys from the science cargo department, two guys from the hazardous waste department, a helitech, and me. in addition to scientists, the ship would be offloading scientific samples, waste and lots of gear. mark and doug would ensure that the haz waste was properly contained and labeled. same for michael and keith with the scientific cargo. jena would weigh all the passengers and calculate the flight load of each helo trip. and once my arrival brief was delivered, I was cheap labor along for the ride.

we whup-whupped out to where it sat perched on the edge of the channel and touched down delicately next to it. they had set out a little ladder for us to climb up to the deck.

we got out of the helicopter, walked over frozen sea ice and clambered up in our bunny boots. a blond middle-aged woman welcomed us aboard and showed us where to stash our snowy boots and hang up our coats. the floor was smooth parquet and the lighting was warm and homey. there were still christmas decorations up, including a christmas tree in the galley. the floor felt smooth and clean under our stocking feet and there were good smells coming from the kitchen. we would be there for lunch, and were informed that today was spaghetti day.

some of the framed prints -- of leaves and flowers and trees -- hanging on the walls looked vaguely familiar. I realized that I had seen them on sale at IKEA in seattle.

a few minutes later, all the scientists had been mustered in the galley. I introduced myself and the reason I was about to make them sit through a short presentation, and launched right into it.

my spiel only took thirty minutes, but it would be several hours before I could board a helicopter back to mcmurdo. there were only two helicopters allocated to shuttle scientists, all their gear and baggage, and us back to mcmurdo, and they were going to have to make several trips. so we relaxed, ate some spaghetti, marveled at the cleanliness of the ship (the kitchen was so clean you could walk around in it barefoot), helped schlep baggage out to the deck so it could be lowered over the side with a net and crane, and took photos.

by mid-afternoon, everyone but the mcmurdoites had been ferried back to mcmurdo. we climbed aboard, strapped on our helmets, plugged in our radios, and lifted off. the pilot let me sit up front this time, and dipped this way and that so I could get views of the seals lounging on the sea ice.

just another day at work.

2008-02-02T10:29:00.000+13:00

playing in the snow.

a few pictures from this year's icestock, the annual outdoor music festival.

2008-02-01T17:58:00.001+13:00

a fun picture of our bike rack from a snowstorm a couple of weeks ago.

2008-01-31T18:21:00.000+13:00

international cooperation.

this is one of those stories that I get to hear because of the nature of my job, and I think it's both funny (except for the poor guy's thumb) and a good illustration of the international nature of the seventh continent.

yesterday we got word of a chilean crew member aboard a spanish ship near the french antarctic station cutting off his thumb in an industrial accident. he will be picked up by an italian twin otter aircraft, which is piloted by canadians, and brought to the american station, where he will be evaluated by medical staff before being flown to new zealand and on home.

2008-01-30T18:21:00.000+13:00

finally.

after almost three complete summer seasons, I was given the chance to go to 90 degrees south – scott-amundsen south pole station.

the station is named after first two men to reach the south pole on foot – the brit robert falcon scott, and norwegian roald amundsen. scott reached the pole frozen and half-starved only to see a norwegian flag stuck in the snow – it had been there for two weeks. oh, and he died on the way back to the coast, along with most of his men. that’s gotta suck.

this has been a busy season for the south pole station. a new elevated building has recently been completed and dedicated – a state-of-the-art facility that includes housing, offices, the cafeteria, a greenhouse, gymnasium facilities, a communications center, and lots of other things – all in a massive building on stilts that allows for snow to blow underneath instead of piling up alongside.

in stark contrast to the old dome (the original south pole station facility), which used to house most of the station’s facilities and which is half-buried, emptied these days of everything except pallets of frozen food, and slated for destruction in the next year or so, the elevated station is perched proudly atop snow piled two miles deep. earlier this month, a huge gaggle of distinguished visitors was flown to the station for a day trip that included a dedication ceremony, where they were given antarctic schwag and shown around the facility before boarding the planes that brought them back to mcmurdo and then took them on to christchurch.

it's really astounding to think that everything that went into building the new elevated south pole station was flown there on LC-130 - on approximately 925 separate missions.

anyway, back to my trip. for the second time this season, one of my chaladies (myrna this time) connived behind my back and, in cahoots with station management both here and at pole, got me manifested on a day trip last week. I really need to start cracking down on myrna and christina. they are sooooooooo sneaky.

the day prior, I went to the medical clinic and got a packet of diamox. the docs urge southbound pax to start diamox the day prior to going to pole to pre-empt altitude sickness. the altitude at pole is not quite 10,000 feet, but due to a phenomenon called physiological altitude, it feels much higher – somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 feet. and you get there in a single LC-130 flight from sea level, which doesn’t leave much time at all for acclimatization. in contrast to nepal, where we had several days to get used to the idea of summiting at 18,000 feet, my body had three hours to adjust. every season, someone at pole is medevacked due to acute altitude sickness of either the pulmonary or cerebral variety (which cause such pleasant things as hacking up pink froth from the lungs or projectile-vomiting, not to mention coma and death), and more often than not, it turns out that the victim refused their diamox on the way through mcmurdo. altitude sickness can plague those who have never before had problems with altitude, even if they’re in relatively good health, so the docs here push those little white pills on people for good reason.

properly drugged and along with one of my best girlfriends, susie, I reported at 0700 for transport to the plane. we were driven out to williams field to catch the first line (mission) of the day, along with about twenty others. in the group was a team from CBS news and also one from NPR, here from the states to capture footage for specials that will be edited, produced and aired in the near future.

we were given earplugs, a box of flight snacks, and a safety briefing on what to do in the event of a crash (muster 300 feet from the nose of the aircraft and wait for further instructions from crew). then, with the props starting to whirr, we climbed aboard and strapped ourselves into the webbed nylon seats that lined each side of the LC-130. a member of the crew pointed out the toilet facilities – a urinal at the front of the aircraft for the men, and a toilet at the rear for the ladies (shielded by an olive-green shower curtain). classy.

and we were off!

the flight took roughly three hours, putting us on the ground by 1130. we stepped off into the roar of the propellers and hauled ourselves and our ECW bags off the skiway and toward the elevated station. it was freezing cold and sunny and clear and OH MY GOD I WAS AT THE SOUTH POLE!

susie’s brother tim works on a science project at the south pole called ice cube. the project, which is so huge it constitutes its own line item separate from the NSF yearly budget, involves drilling kilometer-deep holes into the packed snow and ice under the south pole. into these holes, which are roughly three feet in diameter, are lowered cables onto which are strung sixty basketball-sized objects called digital optical modules (DOMs, for short). each DOM costs thousands of dollars and holds sophisticated equipment that can detect the collision of subatomic particles called neutrinos with ice molecules, which release a spark of energy. data from these collisions is sent up huge cables (see pic), collected and analyzed to give the scientists clues into the timeless mysteries such as age and size of the universe, cosmic happenings many worlds away, and why it’s impossible to say ‘expedia’ without adding on the little sing-song ‘dot-com’ at the end.

tim was standing at the skiway to meet us. he suggested we dump our stuff in his room (everyone at pole gets their own room, in contrast to mcmurdo, where rooms are shared by anywhere from two to six people). we climbed the stairs to the first floor of the station, where beth, the station support manager, greeted us and welcomed us to the pole, and then we were free to wander at will.

first item was of course to get our hero shots at the geographic and ceremonial south poles. the geographic south pole consists of a metal marker that is moved every year due to the fact that the snow piled on top of the continent moves several feet in a year’s time. the ceremonial pole, a few feet away, is surrounded by the flags of the countries that signed the original antarctic treaty and consists of a larger pole topped with a shiny metal ball. it’s the prettier of the two markers and is a popular spot for folks to take pictures of themselves. not until much later did I realize that I had been standing at the southernmost point of the entire planet. at the time, I was concentrating on squinting so that my retinas wouldn’t combust (the sunlight and snow made it very, very bright there) and on keeping all my extremities covered (even with no wind, the ambient temperature of -40F kept us on our toes).

after the hero shots, tim and our friend bear took us around the various facilities. bear picked us up on a people-sled rigged to a skidoo and off we zoomed.

led by another friend, sven, we toured the icecube facility and saw them drilling the final hole of the season - #18 of 18. the project will eventually drill so many of these holes that they will take up an entire square kilometer – and since they go down a kilometer in depth, the entire thing will resemble a cube – hence the name. we were not only lucky enough to see the drilling in action (done with a high-pressure hose that uses two engines totalling roughly 6700 horsepower to shoot hot water into the hole, then pump out the resulting meltwater, heat it, and pump it back in to continue drilling) – we got to sign one of the DOMs with a sharpie – something that only DVs are allowed to do! our DOM, named ‘wolf’ (each one has a name, like ‘ear’ or ‘tube top’ or ‘jerusalem’) will be lowered into the hole along with 59 others and frozen into the hole, where it will watch neutrinos colliding with ice molecules for the rest of time.

here is sven, explaining the finer points of icecube to a captivated susie.

next we visited the NOAA (national oceanic and atmospheric administration) facility, a separate building in a wedge-shaped plot of snow called the clean air sector. basically, the air in this area, due to the lack of winds carrying pollution or other contaminants into it, is the cleanest in the world. the scientists showed us the vials they use to capture the air and test it for carbon dioxide levels. then they gave each of us a little glass vial in which to capture our own ‘cleanest air on earth.’ on the side they wrote the date and the carbon dioxide level for that day, which (incidentally) was off the given chart. if anyone tells you that climate change is a myth, send ‘em over to me – I’ve got the evidence in a little glass jar on my desk.

due to the length of our visit (nine hours on the ground), we were allowed to eat both lunch and dinner in the south pole galley, where the cooks had dished up sloppy joes for lunch and beef bourgignone for dinner – fabulous! my buddy keith, who cooks at mcmurdo, was there too, working in the kitchen as a replacement for a SP cook who had gone to mcmurdo for the week on R&R. (anyone who is slated to do a summer-winter contract at pole gets to spend a week in mcmurdo on R&R prior to winter. the polies usually spend this week lounging in the coffeehouse during the day, hiking our trails, looking at the wildlife, and running around in shirt-sleeves – all things they are unable to do at pole even in the summer.)

after dinner, beth took us down into the tunnels dug into the snow under the station. these tunnels are roughly ten feet tall and five feet wide, and they contain the sewage and water lines that run between the disparate sections of the station. parts of them have inevitably burst from the cold, so the tunnels, even at the cozy temperature of -60F, smell faintly of poo.

they were lit by what looked like hanging miners’ lamps, and the walls were smooth packed snow, the ceilings fuzzy with frost. side tunnels snaked off in different directions, and some of these held interesting offerings and art installations, such as a real pig’s head that had been stolen out of food waste and mounted on a plaque and adorned with a pair of sunglasses. another tunnel held a two-foot-long sturgeon, displayed in a window cut out of the snow wall. in a plastic sleeve tacked to the wall was a typewritten account of how the sturgeon had come to rest in a snow tunnel under the south pole. apparently it had come off a food shipment headed to vostok (the russian station in east antarctica), spent a winter atop a food container at williams field, and been hand-carried to the pole under one of the pax seats on an LC-130. it was therefore much more well-traveled than the average mililani resident.

I would have many, many more pictures from my day trip to the pole, but delaney’s camera battery kept freezing. I had it under my jacket, sheltered from the wind, and would pop it out to take a quick photo before it succumbed to the cold. in the snow tunnels, I couldn’t take more than a couple – and due to the poor lighting, they didn’t come out anyway. here is one of me, however, upon emerging from the tunnels.

all too soon, it was time to head back to the skiway to board our return flight. susie, a firefighter named will, and myself were the only pax on the aircraft this time. dehydration and altitude, as well as sheer exhaustion, had taken their toll on me, and even though I had fully planned to try to sit up in the cockpit on the way home, all I could do was sink into a supine position on the webbed nylon seat and lie in a little red-parka pile all the way back. we got into mcmurdo at 1:00 am.

I had been to the south pole and back in one day. I had taken my hero shot, shopped at the store, eaten two hot meals, marveled at a pig’s head stuck to a wall, toured science facilities, and all without having to eat seal blubber or amputate a frozen limb. roald amundsen and robert falcon scott would have been jealous.

2008-01-18T17:15:00.000+13:00

the toughest job we ever loved.

the mcmurdo station RPCVs (returned peace corps volunteers) had a little get-together at the chalet last month. here we are!

L-R:

sharona (cameroon), shuttle driver
neoma (honduras), shuttle driver
vince (nicagarua), janitor
me (mongolia), admin coordinator
myrna (chile), admin coordinator
jenny (mongolia, but she left a year before I arrived), dining attendant
mike (cape verde), housing supervisor
travis (peru), supply materialsperson
lindsay (peru), admin coordinator

and here is the text of an article I wrote up about our gathering for the peace corps online magazine:

A remote location with strange cultural phenomena.
Exotic foods and the accompanying gastrointestinal distress.
Homesickness, frequent e-mails, language lessons, cross-cultural sharing, and occasional frustration with bureaucratic red tape.
The opportunity to make a small, but very real, difference.

Sound familiar?

To the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station, they sure do.

In what was probably the southernmost gathering of RPCVs in history (77° S), nine of us came together in December to share our Peace Corps experiences and stories with each other, friends and co-workers. All of us are employed at McMurdo Station as contract workers during the austral summer season, which lasts October to February, and which sees a flurry of activity all designed to support scientific research and exploration of the Seventh Continent.

The United States Antarctic Program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, has three year-round stations on the continent – McMurdo, Palmer, and Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. McMurdo is the largest of these, with over 1100 people in the austral summer season. Roughly three to four hundred of these are scientists who have secured funding from the NSF to gather data for various scientific projects, ranging from atmospheric and ozone studies to antifreeze properties in fish and penguin blood. The rest of McMurdo’s residents are the support staff that help to operate and manage the station 24 hours a day. The sun doesn’t set in the austral summer, which (coupled with the short five-month field season) means operations continue around the clock to get everything ready for the next long, cold winter.

McMurdo has everything that a small town or college campus or remote mining camp would have – an airport (actually three), a harbor and pier, a cafeteria, a library, a store (complete with video rental), a chapel, three gymnasiums, a craft and ceramics room, a state-of-the-art laboratory, warm and cold storage facilities, a power plant, staff berthing, a heavy shop to repair vehicles, a Wells Fargo ATM, and even a tiny greenhouse. Supplies are flown in via military aircraft on a regular schedule during the austral summer (no flights arrive over the winter), and a resupply vessel steams into port late in the season to carry away a year’s worth of waste.

The support staff at McMurdo is made up almost universally of adventurous, well-read and well-traveled people that leave friends and family behind for several months a year to deploy to Antarctica and support scientific research and exploration in our individual roles. It’s the perfect place for an RPCV to feel right at home.

For more information about the USAP, go to www.usap.gov.

2007-12-27T13:37:00.000+13:00

sleigh ride.

as I mentioned in a previous posting, this season I was selected with five others to be a harbinger of good cheer as a santa's elf. we were on weather delay friday and saturday, but sunday dawned clear and calm, and by 11:50 am we were aloft -- with packages of goodies, lots of spare camera batteries, and enough babbling, childlike excitement to power a small country.

we got dressed in our santa 'n' elf garb at the helo pax terminal. there were enough santa jackets, hats, and pants for most of us -- and a cute little mrs. santa dress for me. putting this stuff on over our ECW gear (which is required for all helicopter flights) was a bit of a challenge -- thank god most of it was generously oversized.

here I am with larry, the operations manager, who went as santa in place of terry, the NSF representative. terry was busy that day, so larry (who is more santa-like in appearance anyway) got to go.

we were to deliver boxes of goodies to each field camp, along with any post that had arrived for them. the boxes contained wheels of brie, sausages, and fresh-baked pastries and cookies from our hardworking galley staff. the boxes were loaded into the 'meat wagon' for transport to the helicopter.

once we were all dressed and had selected our helmets, weighed in and given our hand-carry bags to the helitech, we got a safety briefing. as in my experience a couple of weeks ago, when I accompanied the DVs to the historic huts, I learned how to use the radio embedded in the helmet, how to use the four-point harness seat belt, and what position to assume in case of a hard landing. here's jena pointing out our six destinations on a ross island region map. we would be visiting lake hoare, lake fryxell, marble piont, minna bluff, mt. morning, and black island.

we all posed in front of the helo pax terminal for a pre-flight photo. L - R: don the airfield operations manager, jim the heavy shop supervisor, kathy the postmistress (in the background), gerald the fleet ops supervisor, larry the operations manager, and mike the crary laboratory utility technician. most of these folks have several seasons of ice time under their belts -- gerald alone has nearly twenty-five -- so I was very surprised to be selected as their fellow elf.

first stop: lake hoare in the dry valleys, a field camp located smack dab next to canada glacier. (in case any of you are wondering, a glacier is basically a river of ice. it moves a lot slower than a river made of water, but it still moves. chunks fall, or 'calve,' off a glacier's front, which can make it an exciting place to be.) there is a permanent camp staff of two people, and various science groups use the camp as their base on and off throughout the season. the primary group at the moment is studying ecosystem processes and biodiversity in a cold desert environment.

we were greeted by rae, the camp manager, who escorted us into the kitchen hut and gave us tea and cookies. we might as well have been visiting a mining camp on the moon. there were tents scattered about, as well as huts containing various pieces of scientific equipment. and right there, looming next to the camp, was the unearthly white glacier.

then rae took us on a short nature walk around camp. first stop: the desiccated skeleton of a long-dead penguin. the dry valleys are a long way from the sea ice, but occasionally a confused or disoriented seabird or -mammal will wander up, away from its family and friends, to die a lonely death in total isolation. scientists have pondered what would make an animal do this -- perhaps a virus that attacks the part of the brain that enables navigation or orienteering, or an innate instinct that tells a sick animal to leave and not endanger the others.

here's rae, standing next to the six-year-old carcass of a seal that met the same sad, confused fate. what would possess a seal, so graceful underwater but ungainly and awkward on land, to haul itself miles and miles over gravel and scree to starve to death in the dry valleys? poor guy.

here's one of the grantees, a woman named andrea, standing next to a scott tent anchored by rocks. as if we needed anything to further cement the whole 'I'm on the moon' feeling.

here's another gorgeous view of a glacier. these sights were a dime a dozen. I had to pinch myself repeatedly.

we landed at minna bluff at the same time as another helicopter. an environmental crew was there to do some documentation and recovery, so it was an exciting time for the minna bluff camp. two helos in their front yard.

we lined up for another group shot. yes, it was kind of windy.

I took about a hundred and fifty pictures over the course of the flight, way too many to post here, but these were the highlights. it truly was one of the best days of my life. a chance to see the beautiful ross sea and environs from the air, with a experienced pilot and picture-perfect weather...and all while wearing a red poofy dress with cotton balls glued onto it. it doesn't get any better.

2007-12-27T12:04:00.000+13:00

christmas in the mcmurdo ski lodge.

merry merry!

and back to work, the day after christmas.

2007-12-23T09:57:00.000+13:00

crafty.

here's a pic of me at this year's arts & crafts show, which was held on 9 december. this year I decided to crochet flower pins (like the one ann curry was wearing in the picture earlier in my blog). the freshie hats were a big hit last year, but they were pretty labor-intensive; it took me about three hours to make one hat. I can make a flower pin in less than thirty minutes. so I was able to make forty-five of them. and most of them sold during the two-hour show. I keep seeing them pop up around station -- at least four made appearances on performers' outfits during the women's soiree, which took place the following saturday.

2007-12-21T09:30:00.000+13:00

I'm running on 3.5 hours of sleep. a nap is in order very shortly.

this week has been anything but uneventful. two nights ago, a DC-3 aircraft carrying ten souls departed a remote field camp called mt. patterson. due to some mechanical difficulties, the pilot decided to turn around shortly after takeoff and try to land. the landing damaged the plane, rendering it unfly-able, but amazingly, none of the passengers suffered any serious injuries.

my boss and the NSF representative were summoned by pager shortly thereafter, around 9:30 pm, to a 'war room' of sorts called the EOC - the emergency operations center. the EOC is set up lightning-quick in a conference room normally used for interminable supervisors' meetings and teleconferences, with a bank of telephone lines, radios, key personnel, and a whiteboard. it becomes the command center for dealing with whatever emergency is at hand -- a late check-in by a party traveling off the established roads, an injured hiker, or something like this.

christina, my co-worker, takes the meeting minutes for an EOC callout. the command team determined that she was needed starting at 2:30 am. she got up, reported to the EOC, and started taking notes.

by the time I got to work yesterday morning, david and terry had been up all night and christina had been working since 2:30 am.

the passengers were eventually pulled out yesterday afternoon using two smaller Twin Otter aircraft, brought to mcmurdo, and evaluated for emotional, mental and physical soundness. some were sent north on the C-17 this morning, and one reportedly has an injured ankle, but word is that all fared amazingly well for having just crash-landed in an aircraft that is over sixty years old.

that was yesterday. last night, delaney and I reported to Hut 10, a small building used to house distinguished visitors and that is available to 'rent' per night the rest of the season by anyone with a $50 deposit. Hut 10 is a popular spot to host parties or dinners or sleepovers, especially on weekends, because it contains a stereo system, a large-screen TV, three bedrooms, and -- most importantly -- a functioning kitchen. because all our meals at mcmurdo are prepared by the galley staff and cooking in dorm rooms is forbidden, many people rent Hut 10 simply to prepare meals, bake cookies, or host parties -- in short, to feel somewhat human again -- which is a nice escape from the ordinary in a town that resembles a cross between a mining camp on the moon and a beer-scented college campus.

delaney's roommate matt is the sous chef for the long duration balloon (LDB) complex, a field camp about thirty minutes from mcmurdo that exists to help a large and disparate group of scientists launch huge plastic balloons into the atmosphere to collect weather and atmospheric data. matt has thursdays off, so as a christmas present to me and delaney, he offered to cook us a real meal at Hut 10 last night.

we showed up at 6:00 pm to tantalizing smells wafting out of the kitchen, an open bottle of pinot on the dining table, and james taylor and moby on the sound system. we knew matt had spent the day preparing a lavish five-course meal, but we had no idea what was on the menu -- except for the fact that it would not contain mushrooms (per my request).

check this out.

first course: a buttery, perfect avocado half sprinkled with gray sea salt from matt's own stash, cracked black pepper, and minced parsley and adorned with a lemon wedge. I've never tasted anything so amazing. (keep in mind that we go for days, sometimes weeks, without freshies -- even during the summer season -- and the winter-overs can go for months. matt had appropriated these freshies through his galley connections, and I only felt guilty for a second -- then I was too busy eating.)

soup course: cream of cauliflower soup drizzled with white truffle oil (also from matt's personal larder) and handmade croutons. we tore into this before we could get a proper photo, but trust me, it was real pretty until we demolished it.

pasta course: fresh angel hair pasta made from semolina flour matt had brought down himself, and hand-cranked through a pasta machine he had sent ahead of him. served over roasted eggplant and asparagus and topped with a shaving of creamy emmenthaler. heavenly.

entree: pan-seared sea scallops over melted leeks, pan-fried potato cakes, and steamed green beans, and finished with a yellow pepper coulis. almost -- but not quite -- too pretty to eat. the scallops, despite being the only frozen ingredient in the entire dish, were tender and sweet and melted in the mouth.

dessert: homemade orange-zest shortbread in an apple, pear, and blueberry compote. at this point I was too full to breathe or think, but somehow found room to put most of the dessert away.

went to bed at around 11:00 pm. got up with my alarm at 2:30 am to check the ETA for the C-17 that had launched at 2100 from christchurch. yup, according to the flight info scroll, it had landed at 0237. I got dressed and headed down to the chalet, expecting to host an arrival brief at about 0330 and go back to bed. unfortunately, I wasn't counting on ivan the terrabus getting stuck in the snow halfway back to mcmurdo, containing the 45 or so pax that were headed to the chalet. two smaller vehicles had to be dispatched to rescue the pax while fleet ops labored mightily to dislodge ivan. at 5:15, the last of the pax straggled through the door and we started the arrival brief.

I finished up at 6:00 am, had breakfast, changed into my ECW gear for my santa flight, and came back to work, only to find that my santa-and-elf helo flight has been cancelled for the day due to weather. it's not terribly stormy out, just breezy and overcast and threatening to snow. we'll see if it's on for tomorrow. right now, I'm headed back to bed.

2007-12-15T12:38:00.000+13:00

the holidaze are upon us.

this is how I spent the night before thanksgiving: emitting roughly three gallons of sweat at the Berg Field Center (BFC) party. the theme was cheesy 1980s. the music was awesome. the air was sultry. the costumes were tacky. (think day-glo, ripped sweatshirts, leg warmers, members only jackets, side ponytails, tight-rolled jeans, and eye shadow.)

thanksgiving dinner this season was a lovely affair as usual. here I am with delaney and jared. not sure what exactly was going through my mind at the moment, but I seem to be mulling it over carefully.

my co-worker christina had a surprise birthday party on november 14, thrown by her scheming boyfriend bryan. I love christina. she's my personal trainer, relationship coach, common-sense sounding board, and cat herder rolled into one ridiculously fit body. watching her play volleyball is like listening to 'hitch a ride' by boston or eating nine flavor beef at lee's asian restaurant in west seattle: pure perfection.

here's my other lovely co-worker myrna and me at thanksgiving dinner. myrna is one of those people I never, ever have to worry about. she's a self-contained dynamo who can assist dozens of grantees at a time with redeployment travel arrangements, donate a gazillion grains of rice every week to the UN Food Program at www.freerice.com, and still find the time to assist with the christmas choir or create lovely centerpieces for the holiday tables in the galley. we've been sitting four feet away from each other for months and haven't tired of it yet.

thanksgiving, it seems, was just yesterday. and christmas is a week and a half away.

I've somehow found myself in the position of holiday choir coordinator this season. as of a couple of weeks ago, no one had stepped forward to take up the reins, so my friend martin convinced me to jump in. having been involved with (and emotionally scarred by) the choir effort two seasons ago made me a bit wary, but the response has been more than enough to assure me that it was the right move -- lots and lots of people who love to sing have showed up at rehearsal, and have tackled the old favorites with gusto.

we're holding regular practices and are slated to perform in at least two venues over the long holiday weekend: the heavy shop party and caroling at mac ops. I alluded to these two years ago during my first season on the ice. the heavy shop hosts the big bash of the season, for which they degrease the floors, put up decorations, clear a space for dancing, set up a snowmobile on which guests can pose for pictures with santa, and load tables with all kinds of delectable goodies. there are usually one or two fistfights during the course of the evening, to make things interesting. always a good time. and caroling at mac ops to the field camps and south pole over the radio, and hearing them sing back, is enough to make even sometimes-scroogy me feel the holiday spirit.

one thing that will definitely help to put me in the holiday spirit is the fact that I have been selected, with five others, to be a santa's elf this season. every christmas the NSF representative dresses up as santa, takes half a dozen people from the community as his elves, and flies out to the field camps in a helicopter to deliver gifts and holiday cheer. my co-worker christina coordinates the selection process, in which supervisors nominate their employees for the honor, and the final decision is made by the NSF rep. I was informed three days ago that christina and david (my boss) were in cahoots to get me on the list. I'm still in shock. weather permitting, we'll go next thursday or friday. one of the destinations is the dry valleys, a specially protected area of great environmental interest, that receives almost no moisture or precipitation of any kind. this, coupled with extremely low temperatures and relatively high salt accumulation, produces a unique ecosystem in which scientists can research geological formations and processes in a virtually untouched setting.

off to lunch. some sort of lentil loaf is on the menu. I believe I'll be visiting the sandwich bar.

elfin love,
cindy

2007-11-17T12:25:00.000+13:00

all in a day's work.

I went on my first helicopter ride on thursday.

support forces antarctica (SFA), the joint military command that assists the USAP with cargo airlift logistics, was hosting two DVs (distinguished visitors) this week -- a couple of major (two-star) generals. as part of their visit, they were scheduled to visit the kiwi base, south pole station...and the historic huts of the ross island region -- robert falcon scott's discovery hut (just down the road from mcmurdo), his cape evans terra nova hut, and ernest shackleton's nimrod hut at cape royds. cape evans and cape royds are accessible by mattrack, delta, snowmobile, or helicopter. DVs get to go by helicopter. I, as a trained hut guide, got to go along for the ride.

we met up at the helicopter pax terminal at 1215 on thursday. off-deck was scheduled for 1300. in addition to the two DV generals, there were a major and two colonels acting as their handlers -- all wearing olive-green flight suits under their windpants and parkas. (the military parkas are made by the same company that makes Big Red -- but theirs are Big Olive.) the two DVs, who asked me to call them al and fred, were shortish, older men, very uncle-like and friendly. fred in particular was a real cutie pie. they were based out of hickam AFB in honolulu, so we talked a bit about hawaii and about their recent visits to iraq. they were excited to be in antarctica and had been having a great visit so far. my fears about accompanying two stiff, stilted, stuffy, high-and-tight-sporting officers were quickly allayed.

nick, the helitech who would be flying with us, gave us a safety briefing in the terminal. we were to choose helmets from the rack containing rows and rows of them -- sized S thru XL. I suspected that I would be wearing a small, but nick said most people wear an XL -- and he was right. the S was extremely so, the XL snug but not stifling. he showed us how to fasten the chin straps and adjust the microphones. we all took turns standing on the scale in our ECW gear so nick could calculate our weights for the flight load. then nick explained crash positions, how and when to use the radios embedded in the helmets, and how to engage and disengage the four-point safety belts. we would be flying on a Bell A212, better known to those with military experience as a Huey. and it was a gorgeous day, clear and sunny, with minimal wind.

nick introduced us to scott, our pilot. the helitechs and pilots at mcmurdo work for a contractor called PHI - petroleum helicopters, inc. they are known to run an extremely tight operation, and the pilots are some of the best in the business. we need only look out our chalet window on a stormy day to witness them delicately maneuvering a monstrous machine and touching down on a pad about the size of a lunch tray to know that we're in good hands.

we squeezed in and strapped up, nick shut the doors, and scott started up the engines. scott gave us a little heads-up over the radio and we took off. after a brief hesitation, the helicopter rose a few feet off the ground, banked to the left, and shot up and out over the ice runway. mcmurdo got smaller and smaller to our right. I was seated next to one of the generals, fred, and we oohed and ahhed as mount erebus rose up with its plume of steam. we buzzed further and further north, gaining altitude. it was fantastic, a tiny dragonfly-shaped canister containing seven men and excited little me.

fred had a little stuffed Penky the Penguin doll in his backpack. he took it out during the flight and set it up on the windowsill and snapped a photo of it. this impressed me no end and I developed an even bigger platonic crush on him. here's a picture of us in the helicopter.

we landed at cape royds, our first destination, about fifteen minutes later. scott brought us down a few hundred feet from the hut and the ASPA (antarctic specially protected area) containing the adelie penguin rookery, where thousands of the little birds were lounging in the sun, trumpeting and flapping their wings, sitting on their eggs, or running about after each other. skuas circled overhead. we walked out to the volcanic rocks where I had snapped the photo of werner herzog and his cameraman last season to get a closer look at the penguins. they couldn't have cared less that we were there and went about their usual penguiny business.

we could have stood there all day, but our pilot had to fly up to the summit of mt. erebus later in the afternoon, so eventually we made our way to the nimrod hut. this was the base for ernest shackleton's team of 15 men, ten ponies and nine dogs during their run for the south pole in 1908. they only made it to the magnetic south pole. the loss of their final pony, who was pulling a sled packed with food, forced them to turn around when a mere 97 miles from the geographic south pole in order to avoid starvation on the way home. shackleton and two of his men battled dysentery and weather on the way back, but were later rescued and the nimrod sailed north, a little over a year since it had first landed at royds, with all souls safely aboard.

after the guys had their fill of snapping pictures and examining the artifacts left in the hut, we went back out to the helicopter and took off for cape evans. we landed and encountered a small team at the terra nova hut -- folks from the Antarctic Heritage Trust out of NZ, who have been engaged in a several-year project to preserve the huts in the ross island region and the artifacts in them. they were about to break for lunch, but one of the team generously offered to take us through the hut and give us a brief tour. he showed us the stables, where the team had kept the mules and ponies, with bales of chaff still stacked against the walls and horse-sized snowshoes hung from the support beams. outside, he pointed out the huge anchor, half buried, from which the ship had ripped loose with tons of food and other supplies on board, leaving the men to winter with just what they had brought ashore.

to me, the most human and heartbreaking thing about the cape evans hut is some graffito scratched on the inside wall of one of the bunkbeds. it's impossible to see without craning your neck and using a flashlight, but written there by some miserable, frozen, stinky, half-starved crew member is a list entitled Losses to Date. a number of names follow, names of unfortunate fellows who had succumbed to starvation, illness or freezing. the very last name reads 'Shack?' ernest shackleton had not returned from his attempt on the south pole, and was feared lost and therefore dead. (he wasn't.)

on the way back to mcmurdo, the pilot took us up near an icefall at the foot of erebus. the results of massive, snails'-pace scrunchings and smashings of giant slabs of ice and snow were awesome to behold. some days I feel pretty jaded, after two and a half seasons on the ice. things like sunsets, views of the mountains, the endlessly changing weather lose a little bit of their magic. I find myself going through the vicious daily cycle of eat-work-gym-eat-sleep. and then I get to do something ultra-cool like this. and it really wakes me up to the fact that I'm doing something that most people will never, ever get the opportunity to do in their entire lives. and I feel pretty humbled and lucky.

helmety love,
cindy

2007-11-14T10:49:00.000+13:00

package mail joy.

we got 14,000 pounds of package mail yesterday -- there is much rejoicing on station.

one of my three packages was a mailing tube containing a copy of the film poster for Encounters at the End of the Earth. here we are.

and here's the web address of an MSNBC story on ann curry's return to the studio in new york, and an interview about her time on the ice. (for some reason, blogger isn't letting me turn it into a real hyperlink, so you'll have to copy and paste.)

http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/12/462133.aspx

and here's a picture of myrna and me at our desks in the chalet.

more soon!

2007-11-14T10:22:00.000+13:00

birds on deck.

because of bad weather most of last week, we've been flying C-17 missions all weekend to try to catch up. a C-17 arrived and departed saturday, carrying the Today Show crew with it north to christchurch. the same aircraft then took off at midnight on saturday and landed at 0500, carrying only cargo and no pax. it went back to christchurch and launched AGAIN at 1500, arriving at mcmurdo 2019 with thirty-three pax on board.

I was grabbing dinner in the galley on sunday night and ran into my friend sharona. she asked what I was up to that evening and I told her I had to work the incoming flight. she mentioned that she and her boyfriend had been talking earlier about how life in the mcmurdo community (really, every community on the continent) revolves around the flight schedule. every intercontinental flight brings either pax, cargo or some combination of the two, and the effect ripples out through the station like shredded carrots in a lime jell-o mold.

as soon as a plane is in the air, a departure message goes out to a select distribution list, containing information on departure and arrival times (to the minute), weight and contents of cargo, names and affiliations of pax, and names and rank of crew members. I take the information in that e-mail and forward it in turn to another distribution list, but not before I change the subject line to Arrival Brief for AZM-019: Dining Hall at 1445 / Meet 'n' Greet at 1530. this lets pertinent parties know where and when to show up to meet their wide-eyed new folks.

the flurry of activity set in motion by an incoming flight affects:

fuelies (who need to be at the airfield to fuel the plane before it takes off again)

cargo handlers (who will be unloading and then loading the plane)

air pax service representatives (who are in charge of the passenger manifests)

loadplanners (who are responsible for tracking every piece of cargo on every flight)

surveyors (who measure the deflection of the sea ice when the aircraft lands on it and bends it out of shape)

aircraft ground equipment personnel (who haul 1,200-pound heating units out to the planes and hook them up to the engines to keep them warm while the planes are on the ground)

firefighters (who are on standby at station 2, the airfield station, in the event of an airplane engine going out or other unlikely snafu)

shuttle drivers (who transport outgoing pax and crew to the apron and pick up incoming pax to bring to town)

chalet staff (who conduct the arrival briefing for incoming pax)

crary lab staff (who prepare office spaces and key cards for incoming grantees)

housing and janitorial staff (who plot dorm room assignments, notify existing roommates, and leave packets of bed linens on beds)

galley employees (who have to plan down to the single individual how many meals to prepare)

all this activity, and probably more, caused by one little airplane.

2007-11-08T11:27:00.000+13:00

chasing ann.

this morning I called ann curry and woke her up so she could take a phone call from the states. she had been out late with the crew and sounded very groggy, but was nonetheless cheery and professional.

later this morning I went over to the coffeehouse, where she was hanging out waiting for word on whether they would fly to the pole today (ultimate answer: still TBD). I had been charged with two small boxes containing gifts from a couple of guys in FEMC -- an erebus crystal from bobby the sheet metal worker, and a silver pendant made by harry the pipefitter, containing a smaller crystal. I gave her the boxes and explained the significance of the erebus crystals -- they are produced by only two volcanoes in the world -- mt. erebus here in antarctica, and mt. kenya in africa -- and their proper nomenclature is anorthoclase crystals. she was very touched and exclaimed over how pretty they were.

I also gave her one of my crocheted flower corsages and she said she would wear it on TV. here's a picture of her in her new finery.

ann and the rest of her crew are stuck here until at least tomorrow, when the first C-17 of the week is scheduled to launch. we don't mind much having them around. her crew is a bunch of cool, laid-back guys that give us little NBC and Today Show gifts and marvel over what a fun, unique place mcmurdo is. check out this GREAT article, written by their sound engineer bobby:

Where'd all the Ph.D's go? Antarctica

Posted: Monday, November 05, 2007 7:39 AM by Jen Brown
Filed Under: Ends of the Earth
(From Bob Lapp, TODAY engineer/audio operator)

We have a saying in the freelance world, “stupid people make us money” and “the dumber they are, the more money we make”. The examples are endless; athletes and dog fighting, racist disc jockeys, the majority of Hollywood under 25 and OJ. You also find that most people you meet want to be famous, by talent or by sheer ignorance, it does not matter, whatever gives them their 15mins of fame. Just take a look at the explosion of “Reality TV”, You Tube, or any of the web based “video garbage cans”, somehow peoples lives will never be complete if they are not part of some massive download, or talked about on cable news.

Michael Jackson paid for my master bathroom remodel and The Enron trial paid my mortgage for 6 months…(tragic yes, but they still make the stupid list for thinking they could get away with it!), and the everyday criminal puts food on my table…..yes it is the moron money train.

Don’t get me wrong, Idiots have been keeping me busy for 20 years and I got two kids to put through college. But I often wonder what happened to all those people who actually paid attention in college? Where are all those selfless folks who wanted to save the world, not own it?

I only had to travel to the bottom of the earth to find them.

The brain drain went to Antarctica. You can’t swing a drunken celebrity and not hit a Ph.D at McMurdo Station. It is not just the folks who are doing the science that have a pedigree, but people with Master degrees are driving the vans, cooking the food and doing the dishes.

These are all the people who ruined the curve for me in science class. When I hoped they would all “drop off the face of the earth”….who knew it would happen? I think the only marginally educated people at McMurdo are on our TV crew. (I speak for myself as only a BA degree holder.) Yes, I think the collective IQ dropped when my feet hit the ice. When these guys name drop, it isn’t “Brangelina”, Speilberg or Streisand, but rather MIT, Harvard and Air Force Academy. I think you have every top 20 university that threw out my application, represented here. These are incredible educated people working on enormously important projects in some really tough conditions. I don’t know what these guys are pulling down a year but I haven’t seen much Prada at the dinner table. I actually think these men and women do this for the betterment of mankind?

I hate to tell them but you’re never getting on “Inside Edition” with that kind of attitude!

All kidding aside, get down to Antarctica and recharge your faith in what mankind can do. This is the place where the frontier spirit is alive and well, and you see the type of drive, determination and grit that once made all of us proud to be an American. (Please insert, Kiwi, Aussie, Brit, Italian and other where applicable)

There are three undeniable truths about my trip to Antarctica:
1. These are some of the finest people I have had the privilege to work around.
2. None of these people will make it on TMZ.COM
3. I couldn’t make a dime in TV at McMurdo.

here's the link to the article on the Today Show's blog:

http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/05/447798.aspx

and this, from their wrangler and POC, a guy named peter, who is obviously impressed with the treatment and reception they got from the mcmurdo community this week:

Not to trivialize, but as I said last night (actually early this morning) it's a heck of a world we live in when someone in Greenland or Ecuador can dance in real time on national TV to a band playing on the Chalet deck in McMurdo.

Much more importantly, in the context of public awareness of the International Polar Year and NSF's / Raytheon's mission in Antarctica, this is a "slam-dunk", "a home-run," choose your metaphor for excellence.

I never, at any time, encountered a single moment's hesitation on anyone's part to do what I asked them to do (no matter how seemingly absurd the task) from the creating a breakfast plate in the galley to enduring blasting cold in the Chalet offices to make the Nightly News live shot a success, to the folks in Crary who cobbled together a weather station -- and this goes without saying in the television business -- on short notice.

And without the support of Joe and his team on phones and networking, this could have easily been as big a PR bust as a boon.

Speaking from personal experience, it is easy to say in an office at NSF: "Wouldn't it be great to be part of a global broadcast." It's quite another to actually make it work.

I will not take a chance and name names too many names for fear of accidentally forgetting someone who played a key role; but I will say that it is not possible to thank the community enough.

I was also very personally satisfied--and I strongly hope that this was a result of a bug or two dropped in key ears--that in addition to focusing on the science that drives the mission, the producers and "talent" saw fit to include the community in the broadcast as so many expected...and surely deserved.

Words fail me. I am proud and exceedingly fortunate to be a small part of something--and I don't limit this to this broadcast specifically--so very, very fine.

peter and his group had pretty much taken over our offices for a couple of days, since the filming you saw on the Today Show and the Nightly News took place on our deck. the chalet was full of cables, boxes of sound and video equipment, fancy monitors and mics. they were very apologetic about all the stuff they'd strewn everywhere, which was nice of them, and we in turn made an effort to make them feel at home too. the reference to the 'blasting cold in the Chalet offices' in his e-mail was because the doorway to the deck was so full of cables being run through it it wouldn't close properly and cold air was coming into the room where myrna and I sit. I was there, eating a tuna-fish sandwich I'd picked up from the galley, and peter (knowing I'd just gotten over the flu) told me to go into his temporary office in the back of the chalet to eat so I wouldn't have a relapse.

the weather has been absolute crap this week. hardly any flights north- or southbound. a herc containing 39 pax took off for pole this past monday, circled and attempted several landings, and ultimately had to boomerang back to mcmurdo -- but not before fully half of the passengers had gotten airsick. people were puking in their GoPicnic box lunches and in their hats. there were jokes about cleaning the aircraft out with a fire hose.

but I'm influenza-free, and everything's pretty great!
more soon.

low visibility love,
cindy

2007-11-03T12:22:00.000+13:00

rosie lives.

as promised.

here's another pic, of me and my friend skippy. skippy is a pal of my ice sistah amber, who is in grad school this season and not on the ice *sniff*. skippy is an operations GA (general assistant), which means that he's on the bottom rung of the pay scale and has to shovel lots of snow, but gets to go all kinds of cool places in order to do the shoveling. he's already spent a couple of weeks out at WAIS (western antarctic ice sheet). lucky guy!

and here's a picture of rosie herself, in all her WWII-era glory. I love rosie because even though she's a badass mama jama working in a munitions factory, she obviously cares enough about her appearance to apply false eyelashes before heading to her job. we can do it indeed!

2007-11-01T15:35:00.000+13:00

broadcast times

monday, 5 november, Today Show
tuesday, 6 november, Today Show
tuesday, 6 november, NBC Nightly News

all dates are US, not NZ.

turn on that Tivo and enjoy!

quarantine love,
chalet cindy

2007-10-30T12:14:00.000+13:00

licking doorknobs: a big no-no.

this blog entry is being written from my bed. yesterday I tested positive for not one, but two strains of the flu: types A AND B. in spite of the fact that I diligently submitted my upper right arm for a flu shot two weeks ago, the shot only provides about 70% coverage in the face of the onslaught -- which this season is considerable. there are reportedly five strains of influenza in NZ alone, and the shot protects only against three of them.

in a community as small, interdependent and insular as mcmurdo, public health is everyone's concern. we are urged from well before we step foot onto the continent to wash our hands, use hand sanitizer, report to medical at the first sign of sickness for treatment, and so on. this season the flu has been sweeping through our ranks, decimating (or at least adversely affecting) every department from Logistics to Science Support to Station Services...and now, Area Directorate (where I work). folks have been holed up in their dorm rooms for five or six days, under pain of death (or at least a brisk scolding) if they dare emerge to so much as get their own food from the galley or check their e-mails at the computer kiosk. last night I thought I could sneak inconspicuously downstairs to return my tray and dishes to the dish window. as I was scraping leftovers into the food waste bin, I turned and saw Doc Harry, the kindly, white-haired, portly lead physician, storming his way up the stairs toward me. you're supposed to be in quarantine, young lady, he said. that means you do not leave your room.

oh, the guilt! I slunk back upstairs with my tail between my pajama'd legs.

so, I am confined to my room for the next couple of days, hacking and coughing and generally evoking lots of sympathy. friends must bring me my meals, and whatever work I want to accomplish has to be done on a loaner laptop from IT with the magic of dial-up internet (which is a privilege doled out to a few supervisors and managers so they can access their MS Outlook accounts and the network drives from their dorm rooms, and which, as you can see, I am taking full advantage of for the purpose of updating my blog). yesterday I watched movies and knitted. friends stopped by to wish me well or drop off treats. right now I'm waiting for keith and zach, two cook friends, to bring me a big pot of chicken soup that they're making on the sly in the kitchen.

the flu test itself was like medieval torture. first, the lab tech, a no-nonsense, squat middle-aged woman named sherry, swabbed the back of my throat with one of those long Q-tips, which always makes me want to yak. I came THIS close to barfing all over her no-nonsense bosom. and then -- oh the horror! it makes me want to weep just to recall it -- she took another Q-tip and shoved it all the way up each nostril and swabbed it around somewhere in my brain cavity. I swear it was like she was probing the back of my eyeballs. invasive! disgusting! painful! getting my nose pierced by a large, completely tattooed man in capitol hill was less traumatic.

but the test yields near-instant results. five minutes later, the flight surgeon walked in and pronounced me positive for -- impressively -- strains A and B. which is something, in all of sherry's years of being a lab tech, she had never seen before -- until this season at mcmurdo.

the biggest disappointment with this downturn of events is that today Ann Curry and the crew of the Today Show arrive at mcmurdo. they are in the air somewhere between NZ and here on a C-17 as I type, and are scheduled to touch down at 1357. they have been filming their adventures in NZ, which we only know from watching www.msnbc.com (we don't get NBC or any other network channel down here), and they are to be let off the plane first at the ice runway in order to film the pax emerging. they will certainly also film the arrival brief, which falls within my normal course of duties to organize and run -- but today, my co-worker melanie will have to conduct the brief, as me exhaling virus particles in a room full of people -- namely, the Dining Hall, and bigwigs such as Ms. Curry & Co. -- would certainly bode disaster. I can just see the headlines now --

Today Show's Ann Curry Sickened by Exposure to Influenza Type A and B

"I didn't realize how contagious I was," explained the McMurdo staff member who has been pinpointed as the station's Typhoid Mary, whose name is not being released. "I wanted to appear on the Today Show, even in a marginal capacity, and I recklessly endangered these high-profile, really nice visitors to our corner of Antarctica by turning a routine briefing into a festering hotbed of morbidity."

people have been emailing me from the states, wanting to know when the antarctica segments are going to air on the show. to tell you the truth, anyone back home with a TV is going to be far more in the loop than we are. I would suggest watching the show itself for details of the upcoming broadcasts, probably every day from now until the 9th when they depart for NZ. but if I get any info on this end, I will most certainly post it here as well. the current plan is for them to fly to pole on the 1st (the 31st for you all) but to be back in time to broadcast live from here on the 5th or 6th, and return to NZ on the 9th.

here's the current posting from the Today Show website:

http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/29/436528.aspx

I started feeling achy and a bit feverish this past saturday at the seasonal halloween party, where I was dressed as Rosie the Riveter and circulating amongst hundreds of other people drinking cheap NZ beer and taking pictures of each other. my costume, which I had planned and executed with razor-sharp focus, included a denim work shirt with campaign pins attached to the collar and a red-and-white nametag reading 'rosie' above the left chest pocket; brown work pants borrowed from a female carpenter; brown work boots borrowed from a friend who enjoys diving the skua bins; a black thermos lunchbox I had picked up in a value village in seattle; a red headkerchief borrowed from keith the cook; and an actual handheld riveter on loan from a friend who works in the heavy shop. rosie was a big hit. I walked around pretending to rivet people and flexing my considerable biceps, on which had been drawn with a sharpie a stylized american flag and a bald eagle.

well, back to coughing and hacking. pics coming as soon as I'm back at a computer that has a connection fast enough to upload them.

2007-10-22T12:18:00.000+13:00

in the interest of keeping up foreign relations...

one of my job duties is to make sure that a set of twelve flags is flown every weekend off the chalet deck. the countries represented by these flags are the twelve original signatories to the antarctic treaty:

argentina
australia
belgium
chile
france
japan
new zealand
norway
russia
south africa
united kingdom
usa

the flags are usually flown over the weekend, so that folks can take advantage for photo ops, and taken down on monday morning so as to save them as much as possible from fraying in the whippy antarctic wind.

on some summer days, taking the flags down or putting them up is a pleasure. I get to be outside in the fresh air, with the whup-whup-whup of helicopter rotors coming from the helo pad below and planes coming and going off the ice runway. and then there are days like today, when mcmurdo is fading in and out of condition I, the winds have us at -15F and I can barely see crary lab next door. after a couple of minutes, I can't feel my fingers, and I can only take two or three flags down at a time before I have to come in and defrost my face.

here's a screen shot of the latest flight schedule, with multiple weather-related delays:

we have a bunch of polies stuck in mcmurdo waiting to head to the south pole. these poor people are chomping at the bit to get down there and start their turnover with the outgoing winter folks. but we're at the mercy of momma nature for the time being.

I can't believe it's the last week of october. this saturday is the big halloween bash in the gym. I'm gathering the last bits of my halloween costume, begging, borrowing and stealing from friends to complete the look. this time next week I'll have photos of the halloween debacle.

off to lunch, which today is pizza -- happiness!

2007-10-20T12:47:00.000+13:00

getting (re)schooled.

this morning I attended light vehicle training, a prerequisite for anyone who needs to drive one of the fleet of ford vans and trucks for work here. the chalet has a red pickup parked out front, and we're allowed to use it to go to the food room to pick up boxes of vittles or haul stuff to the dorms. myrna, christina and I have also been known to take it over to scott base on 'official' USAP business, which of course usually includes a trip to their gift shop.

it's been a couple of years since I was a shuttle driver and spending ten hours a day behind the wheel, so a refresher course was well in order. it covered basic safety things like wearing seat belts, sticking to the 15-mph speed limit in town, maneuvering around groups of red-parka-clad pedestrians, and not opening the door into a high wind. it also covers antarctica-specific goodies such as how to drive on a packed-snow road (key words: slowly and 4WD), giving way to heavy equipment like loaders and cranes, how to brake on a gravelly volcanic-soil slope (the mico brake is your friend), sitting out blizzards while stuck in the vehicle, and how to avoid embarrassing gaffes like driving away while the engine heater is still plugged into the building or driving over your chock.

a fellow shuttle driver and I commiserated after that first season about having to re-learn how to drive in the states. we had tremendous urges to honk twice before backing up and to wave at everyone we passed on foot, and were scared witless to go faster than about 30 mph.

here's a picture of our VMF - vehicle maintenance facility, known in local parlance as the heavy shop. this is the facility that fixes and maintains all vehicles on station, from ivan the terrabus to the tiniest little golf-cart. at christmastime, the heavy shop hosts a holiday shindig, where people eat fancy hors d'oeuvres, dance to live music, watch a slide show of pictures of peoples' families and pets sent from home, and pose for snapshots with santa claus atop a skidoo snowmobile.

speaking of posing for pictures, last week my niece Tate took her first school photos. the photographer had come to the preschool armed with a box of toys for the kids to hold in the pictures. most of the girls picked Hello Kitty, Barbie, or Dora the Explorer dolls. not Tate. she insisted on carrying a helicopter.

my sister tells me that one night while putting her down for the night, Tate asked mommy to go back to the dining room and put away the CandyLand game they'd been playing earlier. when my sister said she would do it later, Tate insisted she do it immediately -- because she didn't want the ants to get to it.

Tate has learned how to say the pledge of allegiance at preschool. my sister took her to grandpa garcia's grave (steve's dad, who died before Tate was born). they laid some flowers, and Tate proceeded to perform the pledge of allegiance at the gravesite. at which point she stood still, listened, and said, "I think he's clapping."

okay, back to work. problem du jour: finding office spaces for transient south pole management, technical event personnel, and sundry grantees in the two buildings controlled by the chalet. here's the spreadsheet I use to plot this joyous task.

vroom vroom,
chalet cindy

2007-10-16T11:34:00.000+13:00

up, up and away...in my beautiful balloon...

here are a couple of pics of me in the cockpit of the C-17, en route from christchurch to mcmurdo on the 6th.

the crew chief was a local boy from kauai!

2007-10-11T18:30:00.000+13:00

a revolution in the girl world.

so. unbeknownst to most people I encounter, I've been wearing a little rubber accoutrement somewhere on my person for the last couple of days. you can't see it. it set me back about thirty bucks. and it's a little early to tell, but this tiny device may turn out to be life- (and planet-) changing. it's called The Keeper.

I first heard about The Keeper last season on the ice. a flier went up in the girls' restrooms on station that erin p., a recreation coordinator, was going to give a talk on a new kind of feminine hygiene product. the name of the talk was 'A New Surfboard for the Crimson Wave.' (oh - hey - guys, if you're the type that likes to leave the room when girls start talking about their periods, you may want to wait for the next blog entry. although being knowledgeable about womens' bodies and what happens to them between puberty and menopause is actually a good thing, especially if you plan on ever having a girlfriend or wife.)

so, intrigued, I went to the talk. erin is possibly the world's peppiest person. she's about as tall as I am, with curly blond hair and a megawatt smile, and has the energy of a hummingbird on speed. she gave the talk in the back room of the coffeehouse, where there are comfy chairs and sofas, and there were about fifteen girls gathered in them, waiting to hear what she had to say about this new surfboard.

she started out by saying that decades and decades of women using traditional feminine hygiene products has caused tons and tons of decaying garbage in landfills around the world. in addition, some of those products cause health problems -- toxic shock syndrome, anyone? but for several years now, she's been using something different, something that doesn't produce the same amount of waste, that pays for itself after a couple of months, and is easy and convenient to use and carry. it's called the Keeper.

the Keeper, as she explained, is a simple device -- a rubber or silicone menstrual cup -- that looks like a little funnel. it is designed to catch, not absorb, menstrual fluid, thereby eliminating the need for tampons or pads. instead of being thrown away like other kinds of feminine hygiene products (or FHPs, as I refer to them), it is simply emptied, cleaned and re-used -- for up to ten years if cared for properly. it's great for the environment. but not only that, it's great for active girls who find leakage to be a problem with traditional FHPs (like me), as it fits snugly under the cervix. AND it's perfect for girls who like to travel (again, like me), especially in foreign or developing countries where finding 'your' brand of FHP is a real problem. (I wish we had known about this when I was in the peace corps in mongolia. russian-made FHPs are sorely lacking in variety and quality.) but the implications, especially in antarctica, where all used FHPs have to be specially handled (because they contain biohazard) and shipped off the continent for disposal, are mind-blowing! instead of producing thousands of pounds of hazardous medical-grade waste, Keeper users can Do Their Part for the earth -- just by substituting this ingenious little cup.

now, if you're the squeamish type (guy OR girl), you may be grossed out by the prospect of handling something that catches blood. yes, it can be a little messy. you ARE dealing with a bodily fluid, and you need to be careful not to get stuff everywhere. I've been using it for a couple of days now, and I admit my expertise could use a little finessing. insertion and removal can be tricky, especially when the Keeper is full. I found this out this morning after wearing it all night. but the wonderful manufacturers of the Keeper suggest in their literature that you take a couple of damp paper towels into the stall with you to clean up any wayward spills, and this advice has proven invaluable. and the more I practice, the more I find that it's really not that hard. to insert: squeeze the top and fold it over on itself, then -- SPROING -- let 'er go! wear it around for a few hours, smiling serenely at the fact that nobody knows you're dealing with your period creatively AND saving the earth at the same time. to remove: well, kind of the opposite of what you did for insertion. empty and wipe. repeat. in between periods, wash with soap and water and store in the cute little calico cloth bag it was shipped to you in.

of course, there are few private bathrooms here on station. in my dorm, I use a bathroom down the hall that has three stalls and four sinks in it, as well as a shower. so I've learned that I need to practice in order to deal with the Keeper silently, as rubbery suction noises could prove extremely disconcerting to the girl in the next stall. I also have nightmares of squeezing the thing and having it shoot out of my fingers, over the wall, and onto the girl in the next toilet. at which point I would probably hear one of three things -- (1) screams of laughter (2) screams of horror or -- the absolute worst possibility -- (3) complete silence.

you can read more about the keeper here:

www.thekeeperstore.com

it's so cool! I've run into a couple of other girls that use it, and all of them say that they can't imagine ever going back to other FHPs. the Keeper is just too convenient, easy, environmentally sound, and cost-effective.

anyway, it's 6:25 pm and I'm still at the chalet. I need to get my butt over to the galley for some dinner. the menu says tonight it's chicken marbella, grilled pork loin, and seitan bouruignonne, whatever the heck that is.

serenely,
cindy

2007-10-09T21:22:00.000+13:00

last august, I wrote about how returning to the ice is like waking up from a dream. in my dream this summer, I took a trip around the world. I trekked to almost 18,000 feet in nepal, wandered among a sea of pastel houses on the italian riviera, walked for forty days across northern spain, and bicycled among herds of roving reindeer in finland. I ate pancakes covered in sour cream in estonia and salty licorice in holland and pigs'-feet soup in okinawa. I nursed emotional wounds and tired feet. I witnessed three-hour sunsets, browsed innumerable flea markets, and discovered my spiritual solace in empty churches and under the endless sky.

upon waking, I find myself back in the place where blowing snow whispers past my window like a secret, where the sun shines relentlessly on the just and the unjust and the giant satellite dishes perched on the mountain ridges like so many heaven-gazing unblinking eyes. I dress in layers of clothing made from recycled soda bottles, sheep's wool and cowhide. I give thanks for meals prepared in an industrial kitchen from ingredients that have languished in the station's storehouses for months, sometimes years. I see friends from seasons past with new hairdos, new partners, new jobs, new life stories. and I feel a crushing gratitude that I was allowed to journey to this place not once, but now three times.

my name is cindy. who or what am I?

if you are what you eat...

plain organic lowfat yogurt
earl grey tea with milk and sugar
crates and crates of kiwifruit
homemade goat-cheese pizza with roasted red peppers and kalamata olives
crockpot lentil stew
packaged pepperoni slices
steamed soybeans in the shell
cheez puffs
granny smith apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream

if you are what you wear...

platform-soled black cowboy boots
a fur-collared vintage leather jacket
secondhand jeans
green flowered ankle-tie wedges
yoga pants
tank tops in every color
a $2 vintage warm-up jacket
penguin-print pajama bottoms
stainless-steel nose ring

if you are what you own...

1994 subaru 4WD station wagon
a 'justice, not war' poster
a stuffed dragon puppet named percy
hand-embroidered wall hangings from western mongolia
vietnam-era army footlocker
$2 crockpot in which to make aforementioned lentil stews
coat rack topped with a kangaroo carrying a mail pouch

if you are what you've done...

taught in a developing country for two years
lived in a hotel for five months while working on a federal court case
jumped around in the trampoline room at Bill Gates' house
drove a bus with 5'-tall tires
played christmas music in a jazz band in a hotel lobby in singapore
told a funny story, in mongolian, on mongolian TV
got published four times in my favorite literary magazine
lived the life of an intrepid explorer
loved fully, bravely, recklessly, and foolishly and lived to tell about it

I've been thinking about death. not in a morbid, gothic, the-end-is-nigh kind of way, but in a matter-of-fact, pragmatic, let-us-avoid-a-fiasco-like-what-happened-to-terry-schiavo way. if my life were to end unexpectedly, this is what I would want in a memorial service.

the mourners will arrive at the venue, a place large and welcoming and full of natural light, with ample parking, and be seated to the strains of 'isa lei' by ry cooder and v.m. bhatt from the dead man walking soundtrack. they will be dressed comfortably and gaily in everyday clothing -- aloha shirts in hawaii, polar fleece in seattle -- and bear not bouquets of flowers, but checks made out to the Heifer Project and UNICEF. some good friend will read a selection from walt whitman's leaves of grass, the chapter where he talks about the grass being the lovely long hair of graves, and how he stops somewhere waiting for the reader. the audience will nod at the deceased's good taste in 19th-century american poetry. they will then be treated to a tasteful but rousing slide show featuring memorable scenes from the deceased's life -- cuddling her new baby sister, dancing in a ballet recital while wearing pink bunny ears, trying to ride the family's black lab like a pony -- and van morrison's classic paean to freedom and friendship, 'into the mystic.' the printed programs will inform them that the deceased is to be cremated after her organs are donated, and her ashes to be scattered at portlock in east honolulu. a family member will read the deceased's favorite bible verse.

he has showed you, o man, what is good. and what does the lord require of you? to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your god. -- micah 6:8

after the service, the mourners will be treated to a live band and free heavy pupus, including but not limited to jalapeno poppers, crab-and-cream-cheese wontons, and shrimp dim sum from house of hong. they will leave humming a happy tune with bellies full of good food and wine.

today was long -- my first day back at my job, with requests for information coming fast and furious, and a broken radiator in the bathroom, which made peeing feel like ice fishing -- but extremely productive and rewarding. I'm off to bed. more to come soon.

2007-09-30T10:09:00.000+13:00

the call of the ice.

it's that time again.

in forty-five minutes, I leave for sea-tac airport, headed to denver for orientation for what will be my third season at mcmurdo station, antarctica. lord willing and the creek don't rise, I should be on-ice this coming saturday, 6 october. (that's 5 october for all of you on this side of the international date line.)

my birthday on thursday will be spent flying from auckland to christchurch early in the morning, then celebrating in christchurch upon arrival, probably involving some combination of a ginger beer at the dux de luxe, purchasing a bag of RJ's soft eating licorice at a convenience store, and browsing for thrift-store treasures at toff's on columbo avenue.

I made sure to get out yesterday in some true seattle weather -- drizzly and cool -- with my housemates' border collie mix annie. here we are at seward park.

be well, everyone -- I'll write when I hit the ice.

2007-09-24T11:19:00.000+12:00

attack of the scuba ninjas.

I took the ferry over to the olympic peninsula this past weekend to see some ice friends -- alison and KB. they were there to do some cold-water scuba diving in a town called hoodsport. here we are, along with alison's boyfriend rob, being all stealth-like in diving hoods.

and this is what we really look like.

I'm back in seattle for just a week and will deploy to denver for orientation this coming sunday. right now my life is a frenzy of packing, shipping, getting together with friends, dealing with a year's worth of mail, reorganizing the stuff I'm keeping in storage, and getting outside once in a while to enjoy the late-summer seattle weather. today is crisp and sunny and golden and beautiful.

a friend just forwarded me this extremely well-done, quietly powerful website. have a look.

http://www.tearitdown.org/

2007-09-19T23:41:00.000+12:00

no place like home.

here's a photo of me with some lovely ladies I've been friends with for years and years and years. L-R: cathy, diane, and kristie.

cathy, on the left, and I have been best buds since third grade. back then I had coke-bottle glasses, long stringy mousy hair barely held in place with those barrettes that had ribbons and beads strung through them, and was wearing things like members-only nylon jackets and camouflage fatigue army pants. it's a wonder she would even speak to me, let alone be my friend.

cat and I have slept over at each others' houses endless times; these sleepovers, in our youth, usually involved sneaking the toaster and some ingredients upstairs in the dead of night to make tuna-fish sandwiches and reading back issues of Seventeen and Young Miss. we rode our bicycles all over mililani town, usually stopping at the pay 'n' save for crack seed (if you're not from hawaii, you probably don't know what crack seed is, and thank your lucky stars you don't). we've sung in choirs, played the trombone in bands, stumbled our way through handbell performances, and performed organ-piano duets together for almost three decades. she's a relentlessly cute, sassy-dressing, extremely talented artist and musician with a penchant for jane austen and movies from korea and hong kong. she's hoping to get a job teaching english in korea this fall, which means that when I return to hawaii for another visit, she may not be living there anymore, which would be extremely sad and weird for me but an incredible life-changing opportunity for her.

more to come soon. I'm off to seattle tomorrow.

2007-09-13T09:19:00.000+12:00

my fifteen minutes starts now.

back in december, I blogged about the day I accompanied werner herzog and his cameraman peter zeitlinger to cape royds on a day of filming. werner's documentary, encounters at the end of the world, is now premiering at the toronto film festival to wide acclaim.

about a month ago, I was contacted by werner's production company. they had seen a photo I took of werner and peter and liked it. in fact, they liked it so much they wanted to use it for the film poster.

here it is.

2007-09-06T16:32:00.000+12:00

crossing the continental divide.

in which cindy (now in hawaii) writes the granddaddy of all blog entries to catch her faithful readers up on what she's been doing for the last two months.

after I completed the camino de santiago on 16 july, I headed north to cooler climes. first stop: the netherlands.

while trekking in nepal, delaney and I had met a couple from utrecht, a university town about thirty minutes from amsterdam. they were tall, attractive, extremely fit, fluent in english, and -- best of all -- extended an invitation to me to visit them in holland whenever I happened to get there.

bas and mari introduced me to dutch life over a whirlwind three days in utrecht. we ate stroopwafels (alluded to in an earlier posting), shopped for gouda cheese (correctly pronounced 'gow-da'), rode bicycles all over town, attended a seaside birthday party (which seemed to be solely populated by equally tall, attractive, sporty and fluent-in-english thirtysomethings), and drove out to de hoge veluwe, the largest national park in the country, for a relaxing day of cycling through the sun-dappled woods.

after a month and a half in spain, holland was a bit of a shock. my first impressions were that the dutch were tall, blond, fashionable people, given to efficiency and a businesslike demeanor. they greeted each other with three kisses, alternating right and left cheeks. holland, in contrast to spain, was rainy and expensive. a cup of tea, my litmus test for any new city, was two euros ($2.75).

chock-full of bookshops, swank home-furnishings stores, and temp agencies, holland seemed a very literate, style-conscious and economically opportunistic place to little first-time-in-europe me.

in spain, I had identified myself primarily as a pilgrim -- someone who had forgone temporary luxuries like cute outfits, proper hotels and restaurant meals in order to focus on the spiritual and physical journey. pilgrims are a common sight, and it's understood that they usually aren't carrying a lot of material possessions or cash. the 'impoverished peregrino' culture of northern spain had therefore enabled me to do such things as wash my same two sets of clothes in the sink, ask bartenders to refill my water bottle, linger over a pastry and cup of tea for three hours at a cafe, or eat grocery-store meals on park benches without much embarrassment. here, I felt a sudden pressure to buy bottled water, pay the fifty euro cents required to use public toilets instead of peeing behind a bush, and to order proper meals in restaurants. it was disconcerting but not to the point where I felt uncomfortable in this clean, polite, hyper-efficient country. on the contrary, I loved it.

after a few days with bas and mari, I hopped a train to The Hague (Den Haag), the political nexus of the netherlands. a camino friend had put me in touch with her former co-worker there, who had offered me a place to stay. I stayed with ginny for four days, reveling in her spacious apartment's high-speed internet connection, washing machine and dryer, well-stocked kitchen and proximity to the tram line. I explored the hague, amsterdam, delft, and haarlem at my leisure. I admired amsterdam's architecture (both of the buildings and the elaborate dike system protecting the country from encroaching seas) from a boat cruise up and down the endless canals. I browsed an outdoor market in delft and bought myself the quintessential dutch souvenir -- a set of flowered vinyl bicycle panniers. I purchased french fries covered in a tasty mystery sauce from a street vendor. and in haarlem, I visited something I had read about years ago and had always been fascinated by -- The Hiding Place.

corrie ten boom, a dutch watchmaker, together with her sister, elderly father and other members of their family were involved in the dutch resistance during the early years of the holocaust. at first, their involvement was limited to procuring illegal ration cards for jewish friends or finding places for them to hide in the dutch countryside. however, as the gestapo stepped up their effort to rid holland of jews entirely by shipping them off to concentration camps in germany and poland, corrie and her family realized that their calling was to protect these jews in a more personal and hazardous way -- by hiding them in a secret room at the top of their house in haarlem. a tiny space, roughly two and a half by eight feet, was constructed in corrie's bedroom out of bricks smuggled in in pockets and briefcases. the false wall was then wallpapered and aged to make it look like the real wall. in the bottom of a bookcase against the wall was a secret sliding panel. drills were held several times a week -- a buzzer would sound, and any jews in the household at the time were to drop whatever they were doing, grab a minimal amount of personal effects, run up the stairs and disappear into the hiding place -- within one minute. the other family members would clear away the incriminating extra cups and saucers from the dinner table and rearrange the chairs. the hiding space was so small, those hiding had to take turns sitting and half-lying down. although one of them was asthmatic, with a hacking cough, they were not allowed to make even the slightest noise. corrie and her family knew full well that if any jews were discovered in their home, everyone would be put to death.

one night, as corrie lay in her bed sick with the flu, the buzzer sounded. the six jewish friends staying with them at the time began running into her room and crawling frantically into the hiding place. corrie, confused, thought: I didn't order a drill for tonight. then she realized it was the real thing.

corrie, her sister betsie, and their 80-year-old father were taken away to a concentration camp in germany, where betsie and their father eventually died. while in her prison cell, corrie received a package from their sister nollie. the address written on the front slanted upward, toward the postage stamp. recognizing it as a sign, corrie moistened the stamp and carefully peeled it off. underneath, written in tiny letters, was the message: All the watches in your closet are safe. the six jews, after four days in the hiding place, had all escaped unharmed.

you can read more about corrie and The Hiding Place here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrie_Ten_Boom

from amsterdam, I then caught a plane to stockholm. sofia, a swedish girl I'd met on the camino, had offered me a place to stay. knowing full well that I'd never be able to afford scandinavia without a sofa to crash on, I gratefully accepted her offer.

to me, sweden looked like western washington state -- lakes, evergreen trees, and lots of volvos. as in holland, the natives were tall, blond, gorgeous people, coolly polite and fluent in english. and as in holland, everything was expensive. the average cup of tea: 17 kroner ($2.50). lunch at one of sofia's favorite restaurants: 138 kroner ($20). 90 minutes of internet time: 29 kroner ($4.20).

sofia took me on a walking tour of stockholm, surely one of the most beautiful cities on the face of the earth. stockholm consists of eleven islands linked by walkways and bridges, ringed by marinas and full of beautiful parks and museums. it was a busy weekend, as stockholm was playing host to approximately one hundred ships and their crews from countries all over the world. we attended a peace mass in gamla stan (old town) at the historic Storkyrkan cathedral, witnessed the changing of the royal guard at the palace, watched a parade downtown and walked the waterfront looking at the boats. at dusk we hiked to a nearby, nearly deserted lake and went swimming in the crystal-clear water.

sofia was amused by my very american habit of saying 'please' and 'thank you' to everyone. there is no word for 'please' in the swedish language. to make a request more polite, swedes will add the word 'tack' (thank you) to the end of a sentence. perhaps this added to my impression of swedish folks as no-nonsense, terse and businesslike, yet friendly and helpful people.

sofia had to fly north for a few days to take a test for her graduate program in psychology, so I had her apartment to myself. I did yoga, read, cooked leisurely meals, did all my laundry, and made the occasional foray into town. by far the most interesting destination was an open-air museum called Skansen, an attraction so huge it takes up half of one of the eleven islands comprising stockholm. it includes a sami village, several farmsteads, gardens and restaurants and a zoo featuring nordic animals. people in period costume demonstrate such traditional crafts as linen-making and answer questions about the historic buildings, many of which have been transplanted in pieces from all over sweden.

I highly recommend a day (it's difficult to do it in less) at skansen for anyone making a trip to stockholm. info here:
http://www.skansen.se/

a couple of relaxing days later, I said goodbye to sofia and jumped on an overnight ferry to finland. I had always wanted to visit this strangely not-quite-scandinavian, not-quite-soviet country with its famously unintelligible language, especially after having seen such films as Night on Earth, Man Without a Past, and The Cuckoo. further piquing my interest was the fact that the finno-ugric language finnish is distantly related to mongolian, korean and japanese. and the culture of the northern sami (lapland) nomadic reindeer herders, intact after centuries of coexisting with more modern europe, fascinated me to no end.

helsinki was another beautiful seaside capital, full of gorgeous churches, bustling open markets, peaceful parks and cell phone-toting locals (nokia is a finnish company, and 96% of helsinki residents have cell phones). I checked myself into a local hostel and started exploring on foot.

I loved seurasaari, an island containing an open-air museum and acres of flat sun-warmed rocks from which to gaze out across the water; the famed train station guarded by four giants and designed by eliel saarinen; but by far the most impressive sights in helsinki were the cathedral and senate square, the russian orthodox cathedral, and temppeliaukio kirkko -- the church in the rock. check this link for photos, which nevertheless don't do it justice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temppeliaukio_church

and here's a link to the famous train station:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Central_railway_station

I bought myself a one-month trainpass to get further north. kuopio, my next destination, is a small town in the eastern lake country. I checked myself into a bed in a hostel that used to be an elementary school. there was still students' artwork on the walls and chalkboards, desks and chairs, and plastic dinnerware in the kitchen in bright, primary-school colors.

the highlight of my stay in kuopio was a visit to Rauhalahti, the largest public smoke sauna in finland -- it seats 60. the finns invented the sauna (pronounced 'sow-na'), and it's a tradition that has been in use for hundreds of years. taking sauna is an important ritual for social, physical and even spiritual reasons. in years past, they were even used for giving birth, as they were usually the cleanest facility around. the non-sexual aspect of the finnish sauna is quite strict, and you will typically see men, women, and children all relaxing at the same time, usually nude or with a brief towel.

a smoke sauna is one that is heated not electrically, but with a wood fire. the fire is built into a stove at one end of the room and topped with hot rocks, onto which ladlesful of water are thrown from a bucket to produce cleansing steam. I had never liked taking sauna before -- I overheat very easily, and it always felt oppressively blistering -- but for some reason, this time I was not only able to handle the heat, I thoroughly enjoyed it. there were about eighteen or twenty other people in the dark room, of all ages, chatting quietly and occasionally getting up to throw more water on the coals or step into the shower room. it was very calming.

the major appeal of Rauhalahti is that it is situated next to a pristine finnish lake. once you've gotten good and steamed up, tradition is to go jump in the lake to cool off. in the winter, this may involve first cutting a hole in the ice, something that doesn't put the hardy finns off one bit. warm up, jump in lake. repeat as necessary. enjoy your newfound glow.

I did the whole routine about four or five times. then I enjoyed the complimentary lumberjack show. only in finland!

next stop: rovaniemi, on the arctic circle. this little town has two major claims to fame: the 'santa claus village' a few kilometers away, where visitors can not only send postcards postmarked with a special 'north pole' stamp and shop for christmas-themed souvenirs all year long, but can also visit with santa and his elves in their workshop; and Lordi, the 'monster rock' band that won the Eurovision Song Contest last year (finland's first win). eurovision is akin to our American Idol, with the winners propelled to instant stardom. Lordi plays heavy metal while flanked by spectacular pyrotechnics and costumed in elaborate KISS-style getups that include masks made of foam and latex. a public square in rovaniemi is now named after them.

here's a link to Lordi's website, for a giggle:
http://www.lordi.fi/

rovaniemi milks the santa theme for all it's worth -- I stayed at Hostel Rudolf, just down the street from Hotel Santa Claus. the train that pulls into rovaniemi is stencilled on each car with Santa Claus Express.

nevertheless, I bypassed a visit to the santa claus village to instead see an ethnographic open-air museum that featured a farmhouse community transplanted from various locations around finland and a sami (lapp) cultural center.

the sami are the indigenous people of northern scandinavia and western russia. traditional reindeer herders, trappers and fishers, many of them still live in rugged lappland, albeit with many modern trappings and conveniences (such as using snowmobiles to herd their reindeer). their language, also part of the finno-ugric family, is distinct and separate from finnish or swedish.

the tiny village of inari, even further north of rovaniemi, is one of the best places to interact with the sami culture. for that reason, I hopped a five-hour bus ride due north and checked into a tiny cabin next to glassy lake inarijarvi. at that latitude, sunset took three hours, with the sun finally disappearing at around 11:00 pm, and it never quite got dark before the sun rose again at around 3:00 am.

the next day, I rented a mountain bike from the local information center and took off for a local reindeer farm, about an hour's ride away. reindeer walked languidly away as I pedaled past them, looking not at all concerned. most of the 14,000 reindeer in the inari area belong to various herds, but are allowed to graze freely. when I arrived at the farm, the tour was just about to start. a woman dressed in traditional lapp clothing herded us through a fence, picked up a stout stick, and banged several times on a tree.

in a few moments, a dozen or so reindeer came bursting out of the birch forest toward us. one of the tourists freaked out and ran out of the gate, but the rest of us had a ball feeding the reindeer, petting them and listening to the soft clicking of their feet (reindeer have special bones in their hooves that click when they walk, thus enabling the herd to stick together in darkness or fog). it was an incredible experience to be near such beautiful, exotic animals.

I rode back down to helsinki the next morning by bus and train and bought myself another ferry ticket -- this time to tallinn, estonia.

estonia is the largest of the three baltic states and was occupied by both russian and german forces for most of the twentieth century, finally gaining independence as the republic of estonia in 1991 following a 'singing revolution' in which more than two million people joined hands across estonia, latvia and lithuania in a call for self-determination.

most of the interesting sights in tallinn are quartered in an egg-shaped neighborhood called Old Town. cobblestoned streets wind every which way, leading to public squares ringed by vendors selling knitted sweaters and fresh flowers. a church tower used by the KGB to spy on the local populace is now a tourist lookout. the oldest continuously operating pharmacy in europe is in tallinn. records show that it was on its third owner in 1422.

by the second day, I'd met another american, nic from chicago. we killed an afternoon walking around, and then went in search of fixins for dinner. the balti jaam open market was just across the train tracks. we had read that it was a 'colorful' place, where tourists were advised to keep their wallets and wits about them.

as soon as I walked into the market, I felt like I was back in mongolia at ulaanbaatar's har zakh. kiosks were selling soviet memorabilia, cosmetics, used books, cuts of meat, fresh produce. I even recognized some of the toiletry brands as the same stuff I'd used while in peace corps -- harmony soap, blend-a-med toothpaste. what a trip down memory lane.

the next day, I was determined to hit the museum of occupations, which details everyday life under the soviet and nazi regimes. I spent an hour there, taking in the instruments of torture, giant busts of lenin and stalin, and the excellent displays on espionage and resistance. then I decided to go back to old town for lunch.

as I walked up the street, I noticed a large tour group on the other side, the type that comes off cruise ships, consisting mostly of older asian people. their group leader was holding a flag on which I could read the name of the cruise: Sun Tours Hawaii. hmmm, I thought. it's a pretty small world.

I crossed the street and asked the folks at the back of the line, Hey, you guys from Hawaii?

in surprise at hearing a pidgin accent, a few of them stopped.

Where you from? one lady asked. she was wearing a big flowered hat.
I grew up in Mililani. My parents still live there.
Oh! What's your name? she asked.
Cindy Ogasawara.
pause. Are you Roy's daughter?

told you it was a small world.

turns out a couple of them had grown up with my dad and his siblings at Camp 9, a plantation village in central o'ahu. one man had done some plumbing work on my parents' house. another man was my dad's high school principal. and one of the women was the registrar at the same high school. freaky!

my tourist brochure mentioned a greek catholic ukrainian church in a remote corner of old town. I had never been in a ukrainian church before, so I set out to find it.

down a little-traveled alleyway, I came to the large wooden door set into the stone wall and fitted with an iron knocker. there was no one around. I knocked.

a few seconds later, the door opened. an elderly man with dancing blue eyes stood there. without a word, he beckoned me in.

we walked into a courtyard ringed with ancient oak trees, filled with light and flowers and a tinkling fountain. a couple of other men were doing woodwork at a table. they barely acknowledged me.

the old man opened another ancient door. I walked through into the most beautiful church I have ever seen.

it wasn't huge and filled with stained glass, like the cathedrals of spain. it wasn't whitewashed and palatial like the helsinki cathedral. it was small and dark and smelled of incense. the pews were roughly hewn out of dark wood, but polished by decades of worshipers sitting in them. there were mysterious icons at the front of the church, gold-haloed saints half-smiling beatifically down at me. iron chandeliers hung from the ceiling, filled with melted candle stubs. I knew immediately that this was a sacred space. it was apparent that people had been worshiping here for a long, long time.

the man disappeared. I sank into one of the pews and just sat there, reveling in the quiet and beauty.

all of a sudden, the floor started to open up.

the center floorboards were sliding away to reveal a secret room under the church. as I sat there, open-mouthed, they slid under the altar completely, and I could see a staircase leading down into the basement. the old man was in there, using a crank to open the floor with an elaborate system of pulleys and weights. he motioned that I should go down the stairs.

I had heard that old town was full of ancient secret passageways and tunnels. maybe this was one of them.

in the secret room, he showed me glass display cases, each full of dozens and dozens of intricately painted eggs. I had no idea what they were for, but they were beautiful.

then he took me through the whole church complex, up and down stairs and ladders, through passageways and under low-hanging beams. there were living quarters, places for drafting and drawing, places for making paper in giant vats, straining it in frames, and hanging it up to dry. there were spiral staircases and hidden attic rooms, full of beautiful drawings and calligraphy. and it was all completely ancient-looking and I could not believe I was the only guest. I kept laughing out loud and saying Wow. this was the tallinn I had dreamed of experiencing.

we went back out into the sunny courtyard. one of the younger men doing woodwork said something to the old man. they chatted for a bit (in ukrainian? russian?) and then the younger man introduced himself in english. his name was nestor and his father, anatoly. he told me that his father was the caretaker of the church. he himself was an artist. they sometimes stayed at the church complex, sometimes at their own homes, and were glad to give tours to anyone who knocked on the door.

we went upstairs for tea. through nestor, I learned that the ukrainian greek catholic community in tallinn was small but active, had been suppressed during the soviet occupation but had met in secret, and bounced back with vigor after independence.

nestor showed me a copy of a book he'd illustrated, The Poetics of Endangered Species. each page contained a beautiful watercolor of an endangered bird, animal, or plant, and a poem written by estonian poet timo maran from that organism's point of view. hence, cepaea nemoralis, or brown-lipped snail, says:

quietly I crawl carrying
my own house
and never ever have I
stepped on
anyone at all

I told them about my around-the-world trip, about my job in antarctica, and about the occasional loneliness that comes with traveling solo. about how being surrounded by people doesn't necessarily mean companionship, and how most interaction with locals is shallow and brief -- buying a meal or a souvenir, or having a conversation in a train or bus. and they offered me a place to stay in the church.

I stayed there my last night in tallinn, in a tiny attic space up a flight of stairs and a ladder, and slept like the dead.

here is the best link I can find about the church:
http://www.teelistekirikud.ekn.ee/en_kirik.php?id=713

the next morning, I said goodbye to nestor and anatoly and got on a bus to riga, latvia. I would only have 24 hours there before catching a ferry back to stockholm.

riga is a beautiful city, full of easter-egg-colored buildings and church towers, and bisected by a lazy canal thronged with ducks. it somehow felt a little more sinister than other northern european cities I'd visited -- perhaps it was the fliers in the hostel warning male tourists not to buy local girls drinks at bars. apparently, this sometimes leads to an exorbitantly high bill (in the neighborhood of US$400), a common scam. you don't happen to have that much cash on you? no worries. the bartender's thug friends will gladly accompany you to the nearest ATM so you can withdraw the money. seeing as I wasn't about to go buying drinks for strangers (male or female) in the local watering holes, it didn't concern me all that much, but it still lent a slightly seedy air to my visit to riga.

the rest of my time in latvia was spent shopping for soviet kitsch at the outdoor market (again, reminiscent of the black market in mongolia), having pancakes at a famous local eatery, strolling in the park and marveling at the strange fashion sense of the locals. otherwise snazzily dressed young men were wearing white winkle-picker leather shoes. the women's outfits could best be described as lurid and tawdry, with a heavy emphasis on day-glo colors. perhaps cindy is a little out of touch with today's fashions, having worn the same pair of khaki hiking pants almost every day for months.

here's my favorite photo, from the window of the pancake place. apparently credit cards, alcohol and cigarettes are no-nos...along with horseback riding and trumpets.

I ferried back to stockholm, flew into heathrow and set out to kill an afternoon waiting to meet up with my camino friend leslie, who was arriving a few hours later. we would be crashing with her ex, stanley, in north london. I knew how I would spend my time waiting -- at the Tate Modern. I grabbed a steak 'n' cheese pasty, hopped on the tube and made a beeline for Bankside.

aside from the stylish name it shares with my three-year-old niece, the Tate's appeal lies in the fact that it is the largest modern art museum in the UK, free (except for some of the temporary exhibits), and housed in an architecturally interesting former power station (one of the largest spaces, the Turbine Room, is five stories tall). works are grouped thematically instad of chronologically, which introduces visitors to lesser-known artists by placing them alongside the more famous ones. I wandered for hours up and down the spacious halls filled with sculptures, paintings, and installations, and made sure to visit the gift shop for souvenirs emblazoned with the name 'Tate.'

my favorite sign at the museum, with its typically british choice of words, read: This room contains works of an explicit nature that some viewers may find challenging.

back on american soil at JFK, while waiting for my flight to burlington, I killed time in the food court over chinese take-out and read more of madeleine albright's book about religion's role in foreign policy, The Mighty and the Almighty, while seated -- appropriately -- between an elderly muslim man and a young hasidic jew. the muslim man was drinking a bottle of soda and hiccuping while the young jewish man studied a small paperback written in hebrew. god bless america.

it felt strange to pay for my take-out with american bills. it felt even stranger to be able to understand the voices on the PA system without really trying. and I could read ingredient labels again! dextrose...emulsifier...*sigh*. lovely.

a quick jetblue flight north and I was in burlington, vermont for a brief visit with an ice buddy, brian. burlington is a smaller version of the most outdoorsy, hippie-ish seattle or portland you can imagine. natural grocery stores, used bookshops, and outdoor gear stores abound, and everyone seems to have a large, friendly dog. we barbecued out back, went hiking near lake champlain, ate lots of ice cream, and tooled around in his huge green ford. vermont is as eco-friendly as it is un-friendly to the wal-mart corporation (see link).

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/transform/protest.html

after leaving burlington, I headed downstate to visit another ice buddy, amber, who is attending a graduate program at dartmouth in globalization. she's been enthusing about it ever since her first class, so I was eager to sit in with her and see what it was all about. the discussion that day centered on the writings of political prisoners, and although it was heady to be sitting in a dartmouth classroom!!!, I had problems following what was going on. maybe I've been away from academia for too long, maybe it was low blood sugar... but I felt as if my synapses were coated in motor oil. still, it excited me to see amber all fired up about the program and to consider whether I may someday return to the classroom myself.

I hopped a greyhound down to NYC for a week with my sister. lynn and I hadn't travelled together since she was married in 2002, so both of us were excited about this time that she could get away from her responsibilities as a mommy and as the manager of a naturopathic doctor's office.

the first thing we did was to take in an off-off broadway show called Walmartopia!. I haven't laughed that hard in ages. I think I may have (slightly) lost control of my bladder at one point. here's the website:
http://www.walmartopia.com/

my sister lives in a sterile suburb in hawaii, which is ethnically but not quite culturally diverse. we were walking around greenwich village when she leaned in and whispered, I keep seeing all these Amish people everywhere.

after a moment, I realized she was talking about the hasidim. I explained the difference. hasidim = jewish. amish = christian. we got a good laugh out of that.

although our time in NYC mostly consisted of me carrying my sister's purchases while she shopped, I did get to do two things I'd set my heart on: visit ground zero, and take a tour of UN headquarters.

ground zero resembled nothing so much as a huge construction site thronged by tourists. the sun beat down, a man tried relentlessly to sell me some postcards of the planes crashing into the north and south towers, and I started to feel claustrophobic. there was nothing sacred about the site. I decided instead to duck into a church across the street, st. paul's, which had been used as a resting-and-refueling station for rescue workers after 9/11. as soon as I entered the church doors, I knew that this was a place for healing. it had been turned into a museum of sorts, filled with children's artwork and old 'missing person' fliers. people moved reverently around the sanctuary, looking at the photos and memorabilia, or sat silently in the pews. I managed about two and a half minutes before I completely lost it.

the next day, we went to UN headquarters on the bank of the east river. it turned out that we were visiting on a particularly auspicious day. the general assembly was actually in session, but had cleared the chambers for lunch break, so we were able to go in and sit in the impressive room. each arm-rest was equipped with a little dial on the side that could be turned to one of six languages, the six official languages of the UN. delegates stick the earbud in their ear, choose a language and listen to testimony and deliberation translated in real time. the murals on the walls are completely abstract, executed in muted colors that don't appear on national flags, in order to represent that no country's culture is being subverted at the expense of another's. we learned that almost every country in the world, except for some tiny south pacific island nations, is a member (including north korea, which surprised me), and the reason the UN is based in NYC instead of london, geneva or another major city is because john rockefeller donated the land that it now sits on. fascinating!

all too soon, our week of girl-time was over, and I was off to denver for a doctor's appointment and to see an old peace corps buddy and his wife. david and nara met while we were living in mongolia and now enjoy a cozy existence with their rascally but adorable two-year-old, kevin. I credit parents of two-year-olds with having the patience of job, the cleaning skills of heloise, and the sleep requirements of hummingbirds.

next stop: tucson, to see dave, an old ex from my redmond borders days. dave and I were inventory manager and coordinator, respectively, way back before I headed to the peace corps and he moved to arizona to ultimately become a high-school english teacher. his tiny, welcoming casita at the edge of the saguaro national park is surrounded by miles and miles of inhospitable desert. as I pulled into his driveway, I glimpsed a coyote in my headlights; and the next morning there was a tarantula in his kitchen (thankfully, before I had awakened). it was 115F. yes, you say, but wasn't it dry heat? um, yeah...thanks. I feel much cooler now.

last mainland stop: flagstaff. another peace corps buddy, bob, has been living there for a few years and I had yet to visit, something he was fond of reminding me of every time we chatted. after the blistering heat of tucson, flagstaff's cool juniper-scented mountains were a welcome change. bob, his girlfriend scarlet, and I watched movies, went hiking, and fed our faces. and just like that, it was time to head back to hawaii.

what am I reading? my sister brought me a book to read while in NYC -- a memoir called the glass castle. it's a quick, engrossing read about four children that basically raise themselves under horrific circumstances imposed by their well-meaning by ultimately irresponsible and selfish parents. I can also heartily recommend the albright book. I'm now reading karen armstrong's the spiral staircase, about surviving her seven years as a nun and her evolution into one of today's most respected and in-demand comparative-religion experts.

lest you're wondering why cindy would take a trip around the world only to mash the last bit into a few weeks' time, the answer is that somewhere in all of this traveling I decided to go back to antarctica for a third season. I am nearly PQd (medically cleared) at this point, and scheduled to fly down on the first flight of the austral summer. that means I will be spending a mere week in seattle, packing, going through a year's worth of mail, and catching up with friends before heading to denver for orientation on the 26th or 27th of this month. I'll be doing the same job I did in the chalet last season -- senior admin coordinator for mcmurdo station -- but this time without the steep learning curve; and working with the same team of fabu-rous ladies (the 'chaladies'), something I'm really excited about.

sorry for the long silence between postings. hope this finds everyone tarantula-free.

XO chalet (again) cindy

2007-08-13T20:43:00.000+12:00

more scenes from the camino.

the interior of the albergue de peregrinos in roncesvalles, where we spent our first night. it can hold 100 beds. thankfully, after the 10:00 pm lights-out everyone settles in for the night and the worst thing you have to deal with is the snoring of large german men.

the singing nuns that run the albergue in carrion de los condes. it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but there was not a dry eye in the room when they ended. they just radiated love, kindness and hospitality.

the 'jesus hostel' in villar de mazarife.

the highest point on the camino, the cruz de ferro (iron cross) at 1505 meters. tradition is to bring a stone from your home and deposit it on the ever-growing heap.

inscription on a church building in leon:

pilgrim, do not let the fatigue of the camino impede your thinking. is the important thing the goal? isn´t it true that it is the encounter with the wilderness, with the river, with the path that you have lost, perhaps with the one and only god?

getting closer.

entering santiago.

the cathedral of santiago de compostela.

our next goal: the end of the earth.

arriving in the town of finisterre. it was still quite a walk to the ocean, though.

this is what the end of 826 kilometers looks like.

I'm writing this from a hostel in riga, latvia. tomorrow I head back to stockholm on the overnight ferry, and then to the UK on the 18th.

here's a picture of me in a church in tallinn, estonia.

more to come soon!
post-soviet love,
cindy

2007-08-06T18:18:00.000+12:00

camino scenes, in no particular order.

a rather buffed-out statue of jesus in o cebreiro.

wine is good and cheap in spain.

some pilgrim-themed art.

a horreo, or granary, where corn is kept in order to dry it after harvesting and keep it safe from rats. these structures are ubiquitous in galicia, northwestern spain.

me and bebe, a donkey owned by a french pilgrim couple. this was bebe´s second camino.

another horreo.

fog in galicia.

more fog.

just a coupla pilgrims on the road to santiago.

another example of the basque language and how different it is from spanish.

the largest state in spain is castillo y leon. they were annexed hundreds of years ago, but some people still think leon should stand alone.

art in the park, leon.

carvings on the door of the medieval church of san ysidro, leon.

a bronze door knocker in navarra.

and here´s a little game I like to call 'find the yellow arrow'.'

I´m in northern finland at the moment, way north of the arctic circle in a tiny lapp village called inari. here´s a pic of me feeding some reindeer. tomorrow I head back south to helsinki, then over to estonia by ferry. if I can find more uncrowded libraries with free internet, I hope to post more updates soon!

antler love,
cindy

2007-07-26T12:10:00.000+12:00

a day in the life of a peregrina.

loading up and setting out. the pack should ideally weigh no more than 10 - 15% of a pilgrim's total body weight. mine was about 9 kilos, a little on the heavy side, but that included lots of snacks and drinking water. after the first couple of weeks you don't notice it anymore, anyway.

coffee break at a roadside cafe/bar. there is little difference between the two in spain. many times I saw snifters of brandy being served along with cups of joe. the spanish, bless their hearts, seem to think that a cup of cafe con leche and some bread with jam and butter constitute 'breakfast.' hence all the snacks I carried in my bag.

hydrating at one of many fountains along the camino. I drink water like a fiend, so I carried several refillable water bottles in my pack. you never know when you might encounter a long stretch without a fountain, especially on the meseta. it astounded me how little water some pilgrims drank...in some cases, less than a liter a day.

following the yellow arrows. sometimes you come across a split, where those on foot ('a pie' in spanish) go one way, and bicycles go another. I like this picture because it looks like there is pie being advertised further down the road. pie? I love pie! apple or rhubarb?

taking a break and putting the ol' boots up.

negotiating traffic jams. here's a typical scene from cow-choked galicia.

finding the next albergue. always a sight for sore eyes...and feet.

stretching.

attending to blisters. hypodermic needles, which are readily available at any pharmacy in spain, are used to first drain the blister, then to inject betadine solution into it to disinfect and dry. here my friend leslie's heel gets the treatment from the hospitalero (person in charge of the albergue).

laundry.

journaling.

researching the next day's route (which, if done on your back in bed, invariably leads to the next item: a siesta).

making dinner. this is sometimes a solo effort, sometimes a group effort. we would often make a big pot of soup or pasta, with bread, wine and dessert, for two or three euros a person.

the finished product, with friends.

I'm still in holland, and fly to sweden tomorrow! the weather here is gray and damp -- just like seattle. hope this finds everyone v. well --

stroopwafels (waffle cookies with caramel filling) and hugs
cindy

2007-07-23T12:41:00.000+12:00

forty days in the wilderness.

this is just to let you know that I completed the spanish portion of the camino de santiago on 16 july. I walked 826 kilometers in forty days, from roncesvalles to finisterre. amazingly, the worst things I experienced (on a physical level) were tired feet and the occasional cold shower when the hostels ran out of hot water. I am full of gratitude for having arrived safely, of sound mind and body, in santiago and then in finisterre.

briefly, the camino de santiago, or way of st. james, is a pilgrimage route dating from the eleventh century that leads to what was once one of the most popular holy sites in christendom: the cathedral of santiago de compostela, or 'saint james of the field of stars.' legend holds that the bones of st. james, one of the original apostles of jesus, are housed in a tomb beneath the cathedral. santiago (the name of the city as well as the saint) once rivaled jerusalem and rome as a pilgrim destination. throughout the middle ages, pilgrims would walk, ride or sail from all over europe to pay tribute to the saint's relics.

the camino all but died out in recent centuries, but inexplicably began to regain its popularity in the mid-twentieth century. it is now enjoying an international revival as people from all over the world re-enact the ancient pilgrimage to the cathedral. as church attendance continues to drop, more and more pilgrims swell the ranks, walking and searching for spiritual meaning that they have not found in the pews. although reasons for undertaking the camino are many, most pilgrims state 'spiritual, religious and other' as their motivation to walk hundreds and hundreds of kilometers.

as for myself, I heard about the camino ten years ago and have wanted to do it ever since. part physical challenge, part fantastic sightseeing trip, part intensive spanish course, and part spiritual journey, it did not disappoint.

I am in holland at the moment and fly to sweden this friday. holland is way too full of museums, parks, canals and other sights for me to be spending daytime hours blogging, but here are some pictures from the camino to start off with.

first day of the camino, in roncesvalles. roncesvalles is located a few miles from the french-spanish border and is a common place for pilgrims to start their journey. the camino can be started from hundreds, if not thousands, of places all over europe -- I met pilgrims who had started walking in germany and the netherlands.

a sign points the way for peregrinos (pilgrims). yellow arrows and scallop shells are typical symbols of the camino.

words of encouragement for the pilgrim. the word 'ultreia' (barely readable under the arrow) is roughly translated as 'onward!'

many peregrinos attach actual scallop shells to their packs, in order to distinguish them from regular trekkers and tourists. I have heard that the shells were originally used for drinking water. the T-shaped cross was given to me by the mayor of larrasoana, a former pilgrim himself, and is a symbol associated with the order of st. anton, a group of monks that provided medical assistance to medieval pilgrims.

a typical sight along the camino, usually at cafes where peregrinos stop for the first coffee of the day. the walking stick, called a palo in spanish, is a pilgrim's best friend. it can be used not only to add balance and stability on uneven ground, but to instill more confidence when faced down by village dogs.

along the camino, hospitality and lodging are provided by a network of albergues (pilgrim shelters). they typically cost less than ten euros for night (sometimes only a small donation is required) and can be used for one night's stay only. preference is usually given to pilgrims traveling on foot as opposed to on bicycle.

one of the most common sights at albergues, where pilgrims hang their daily washing. many albergues are equipped with basic facilities, such as a communal kitchen, a large sink for washing, internet and bicycle racks.

and this is how the clothes get washed at places without running water.

I spent six to seven hours a day doing just this: walking.

the spanish countryside is stunning, especially when seen on foot. cloud formations, wildflowers in bloom, insects and field mice running across the path, birds of prey circling overhead, and fields of ripening wheat cannot be fully appreciated from behind the windshield of a car.

along the camino, conversations can lead to friendships as pilgrims fall into step alongside each other. here I am with a 72-year-old retired philosophy professor from milan. it's never too late to undertake the camino.

this elderly gentleman, seen here walking next to my friend leslie in the city of logrono, told us that he had done the camino fifty times. local citizens would often encourage us with a buen camino! (good pilgrimage!) or offer advice on places to stay further down the road.

an old stone wall on the meseta, or highlands, that cover much of north-central spain.

a cozy communal dinner in one of the albergues, prepared by the hostel staff for the pilgrims and costing only whatever donation you would like to make.

with two new camino friends, leslie and sofia from sweden.

every tiny village in spain is as well-equipped with a local church as the larger cities. the churches are often a thousand years old and still hold a daily mass for the faithful.

the church in viana, a lovely town where we took an extra day to rest our weary feet.

the altarpieces of even the smallest churches are a riot of intricate carving and kilos and kilos of gold leaf.

a welcome sight after hours of walking: the next village.

the kindness of strangers is sometimes manifested in a free coffee stand for pilgrims. this one is maintained by a former pilgrim couple that asked themselves, 'what would we have wanted when we were walking?' and then set up a stand containing just those things -- coffee, tea, energy bars, and fruit.

more words of encouragement along the way.

a local shepherd and his flock.

a medieval bridge, still very much in use, in the town of puente la reina.

a tiny church in the middle of nowhere, originally associated with the order of the knights templar. the knights, before they were disbanded by the catholic church, protected and escorted pilgrims through the wolf- and bandit-infested countryside.

a fountain providing not only drinking water, but red wine, generously donated by a local winegrowing cooperative.

spain is not as homogenous as I had thought. in the northeastern parts, basque is as common as castilian spanish. it bears no relation whatsoever to any other european language.

I have tons of other photos and journal entries to sort through before posting. hope you enjoyed these in the meantime.

abrazos grandes,
cindy

2007-06-05T18:09:00.000+12:00

a living work of art.

hola from barcelona!
delaney and I returned to delhi from nepal and, two days later, flew to spain via london. we were awake for longer than 24 hours and by the time we collapsed in our hostel room in barcelona, we were too tired to care that we had just landed in what must be one of the world's most charming, vibrant and energizing cities.

barcelona may be the real city that never sleeps. bar-goers and clubhoppers don't even bother to leave the house until well after midnight. far into the wee hours, the sound of happy revelers drifts up the narrow alleyways, over wrought-iron railings, and into the floor-to-ceiling french doors that fill the barri gotic, or gothic quarter. if you're not one of the 24-hour party people, you would do well to invest in a pair of earplugs.

many know barcelona as the city that housed and nurtured such independent artistic thinkers as the famed architect antoni gaudi and the painters joan miro and pablo picasso. there are museums and parks dedicated to their works everywhere. we concentrated our few days on gaudi, visiting his la pedrera / casa mila, sagrada familia, and park guell. we were not disappointed. gaudi used colorful mosaic tiles to cover many of his unconventional works to great effect. his art is like a box of crayons dancing to polka music.

all too soon, it was off to one of the few countries delaney did not visit on his monster trip to europe last year -- italy. he had (very thoughtfully) saved italy for a time when he could visit it with some special gal. luckily for me, I was the special gal he had in mind.

cinque terre is a national park comprised of five tiny villages on the ligurian coast, also known as the italian riviera. it has also recently been designated a UNESCO world heritage site. the villages are connected by a train line and by footpaths, as well as a ferry system, and that is about where I stop talking about it and start putting in some photos. keep in mind that even these pics cannot do the place justice. it's truly like stepping into a fairy tale. we hiked, drank gallons of cheap red wine, ate our own weight in pizza and gelato, watched a marble-carving competition, and strolled the narrow alleyways filled with potted flowers, sleeping cats and old women carrying baguettes.

delaney left last night for a month in south america. he hopes to do some trekking in chile and bolivia before heading to hawaii to see my family and to be in a friend's wedding. I'm going to be in europe until september or until the money runs out, whichever comes first. in order to save cash, I've signed up to WWOOF (www.WWOOF.org) and to couchsurf (www.couchsurfing.com). we shall see how that turns out.

tomorrow morning I head to pamplona and then to roncesvalles on the french-spanish border to start walking the camino de santiago. I have chosen roncesvalles as my starting point, which means a 720-kilometer hike. if I average 20 to 25 kilometers a day, I hope to complete the route in a month. this morning I received my walking shoes sent by my sister via poste restante, bought a bus ticket to pamplona, pared down my pack to a few changes of clothing, camera, water bottles, toiletries and medicine, and shipped all my nonessential gear and clothing ahead of me to santiago de compostela. there's no turning back now!

much love and tapas from barcelona,
c.

2007-05-23T22:27:00.000+12:00

more pics from nepal.

I realized after I'd posted the last entry that I hadn't included enough pictures of this extremely photogenic place. so here they are, in no particular order. forgive me -- it's late, I've had two glasses of wine, and I'm leaving for europe early tomorrow morning!

USB love,
cindy

crossing a stone bridge with bamboo railings, somewhere between tatopani and beni on one of the last days of the trek.

a tall ridge carved by two rivers that converge later downstream.

a great view of one of the annapurna peaks from the manang side of the trek.

cobblestoned alleyway in marpha, the 'delightful apple capital of nepal.'

flier posted at every safe drinking water station along the route.

a quiet lane in kagbeni.

the view from kagbeni into the upper mustang region, which can only be entered by special permit.

a traditional ladder hewn out of a log.

kagbeni, one of the first towns after the thorung la pass. that zigzag up the slope is an actual trail.

crossing a bridge near chame with two young nepali friends.

a roaring river near bagarchhap.

a pretty river scene near the start of the trek.

delaney on a nepali bus, which has obviously not been engineered with 5'11" westerners in mind.

2007-05-21T17:24:00.000+12:00

nepal: it ain't india.

delaney and I flew into kathmandu in business class (not our first choice -- economy seats were all sold out). we looked down from the airplane windows onto a city enveloped by lush green hills. the time change, announced the flight attendant, was fifteen minutes past delhi time. yes indeed. nepal is a different place entirely.

our hotel had sent a car and driver to pick us up at the airport. (mind you, this wasn't some five-star establishment, but what $12/night accommodations come with in nepal.) we drove into town and through the tourist ghetto called thamel, thronged with hippies, trekkers, hawkers, sadhus (holy men), gawkers and just regular old nepalis. we pulled up at the hotel ganesh himal and were greeted with a 'namaste' and a bow by the hotel management and shown to our adorable room on the fifth floor.

we wasted no time in getting out into thamel an exploring what was to be our 'hood for the next two days. thamel is full of restaurants, gear shops (selling convincing knockoffs of famous outdoor brands such as the north face, mountain hardware, lowe alpine and marmot), tibetan souvenirs and pirated CDs. the very first thing we noticed, in stark contrast to our shopping experience in india, was the almost total lack of harassment or haggling on the part of shop owners. they were almost universally friendly, laid-back and understanding of our desire not to load up on prayer flags, turquoise-and-amber necklaces, embroidered pillowcovers and other goodies prior to hitting the trail. 'no' apparently can mean just that, 'no.' what a refreshing experience.

the second thing we noticed was the ubiquity of the 'namaste' greeting, and how heartfelt and genuine it seemed. 'namaste' literally translates as 'I recognize the divine in you,' and is, I think, one of the best greetings in the entire universe. I mean, really, what a nice thing to say to someone you've just met. everyone, from hotel guards to restaurant owners wetting down the dust in front of their doorways, to elderly men in topi hats and fruit vendors pushing carts full of watermelons and bananas, greeted us with a 'namaste' and a smile. more points for nepal. it really seemed to us that this was a place with true soul.

we spent the next couple of days shopping for gear we would need on the trail -- trekking poles, iodine purification tablets, fleece outerwear, water bottles, windproof gloves, batteries, pack covers in case of rain. mostly everything is a knockoff, and therefore quite reasonable -- a 'north face' short-sleeved t-shirt made of high-tech wicking material was $7. a similarly fake 'north face' fleece zip-up jacket was $8. in no time at all, we were set.

the annapurna circuit is one of the most popular treks in nepal. it can be done in anywhere from 9 to 21 days (most people do it in 17 or 18) and, true to its name, circumambulates the famous annapurna mountain range, offering spectacular views of snowy peaks at almost every turn. it's rated 'moderate to difficult' by the guidebooks and maps, mostly due to the fact that it includes a pass crossing at 5416 meters (17,768 feet). however, one of its greatest assets is the fact that it is classified as a 'teahouse' trek, which means that instead of having to schlep a tent, thermarest, cookstove and other camping gear, trekkers can stay in lodges or guest houses in each village for just a dollar or two per night.

lodges can be quite simple, with concrete or exposed brick-and-mortar walls, or they can be on the fancier side with attached showers, flush toilets and 24-hour electricity. mattresses are sometimes thin, but after a day of trekking, most hikers would be able to sleep quite soundly on bare concrete floors. beds can be in short supply during the high season (september to october), but there are fewer trekkers in april/may -- we often got the best room in the house, which was usually on an upper floor with windows on three sides.

these lodges also house restaurants, sometimes serving just simple fare such as fried eggs and toast for breakfast and dal bhaat (lentil soup and rice) for dinner. others have quite extensive (if sometimes cryptic) menus featuring moussaka, chow mein, swiss rosti, apple crumble, spaghetti and so on. lodges are sometimes more than an hour apart in the remote areas, but if you supplement your trek in advance with such snacks as chocolate, cheese and dried fruit, you can trek quite comfortably from one village to the next with little worry about your next bed or meal.

the other attractive feature of the annapurna circuit is that it takes you, sometimes quite literally, through the front yards of everyday nepali people living in villages much as they have done for hundreds of years. often we would trek through villages populated by chickens, cows, sheep, small children playing soccer, elderly men and women chatting on stoops, women doing laundry at the village spigot, and stray dogs sleeping on sun-warmed flagstones. or we would flatten ourselves against a convenient wall when a donkey train passed by. this, to me, was the best part of the trek -- seeing everyday nepali life, or even just the small portion of it visible to us as western outsiders.

many trekkers choose to do the trek with a hired nepali guide, porter, or combination of the two. a guide is expected to speak good english, have expert knowledge of not only the trek itself but about the flora, fauna and terrain surrounding it, and to educate his clients about nepali customs and culture. he is also usually responsible for making accommodation and meal arrangements in each village (often a place he has stayed at before and knows to be a good establishment), making sure the trekkers are safe and healthy (i.e., educating them about altitude sickness), setting the pace for each trekking day and outlining the trekking schedule.

a porter may or may not speak english and is hired for one main reason: he carries most of the trekkers' stuff on his back, in addition to his own.

what may seem like a demeaning and demanding task to us is actually a respected and integral part of the nepali job market. nepali porters are legendary for their ability to carry loads of up to 75 kilograms up and down mountain valleys sometimes while wearing only plastic slippers. the load is balanced on a strap that goes across the porter's forehead (!). we saw porters, male and female, carrying monstrous items ranging from eight-foot pieces of tree trunk to rolls of corrugated steel (so wide the porter sometimes had to walk sideways) to cages carrying dozens of live chickens. to be a porter for a foreign trekking party is reputedly good money for a short-term job, and the porter can practice his or her english, which is essential if he or she is looking to someday become a guide. about half the folks we encountered had hired guides or porters, and most of them were happy with their choice.

my gear list for the trek included:

short- and long-sleeved, synthetic or wool shirt
fleece or wool thermal layer
rain- and wind-proof outer layer
long cotton skirt
quick-drying cotton/nylon cargo pants
wool socks
silk sock liners
sturdy hiking boots
trekking pole (delaney and I shared a set)
gloves and glove liners
neck gaiter
fleece hat
polarized sunglasses
bandanna
medical kit containing band-aids, tea tree oil, neosporin, painkillers, cold medicine, tweezers, diamox (altitude sickness medication), gingko biloba, homeopathic coca, cipro and norflaxin (antibiotics) for infections, anti-nausea medicine, imodium AD, ginger tea and leftover malaria medication from india
book for reading during downtimes
toilet paper
snacks
sleeping bag
fleece sleeping bag liner
plastic bags for dirty laundry
pack cover in case of rain
rubber slippers for showering and hanging out at night
matches
toiletries
antibacterial hand gel
passport
money
permit for annapurna circuit trek

some guidebooks to nepal suggest hiking in a long skirt as opposed to pants or shorts. nepali women do not wear pants. a long skirt is usually just as comfortable to hike in, makes going to the potty that much easier, and can be worn over thermals and hiking boots quite comfortably. female hikers are also encouraged not to wear revealing clothing. nepalis are extremely modest, and strappy tank tops or short shorts are looked upon with disdain.

in an effort to be culturally considerate, I wore my long wraparound skirt on the first day, with a long-sleeved thermal top. by the time we reached the town we would be staying in that night, I was ready to scream. the skirt was too narrow, limiting the length of my stride. it stuck to my sweaty legs and flew open when there was a breath of wind. I felt like a gigantic armpit. away went the skirt for the rest of the trek, only to be brought out at night, after showering, to eat dinner or stroll around the village in. so much for cultural sensitivity.

because we were only carrying two or three outfits each, we did laundry frequently on the trail. once we checked into a guest house, we would ask for a bucket in which to do washing. I was familiar with the routine after having done laundry by hand for two years in mongolia. a little water, a little washing powder. dissolve powder fully. add dirty clothes and swish. let soak for thirty minutes or an hour. scrub clothes, concentrating on crotch and armpits. rinse until water runs clear and wring out. hang up and hope they dry by morning. if not, attach to outside of pack and let sun-dry as you hike.

nepal is very big on ecotourism and conservation, not only environmental but cultural. in addition to dressing sensitively, they suggest eating simply while on the trail -- specifically, they suggest dal bhaat, which is the staple of every nepali diet. lentils are cooked into a soupy consistency and served with a mound of rice, some curried vegetables, a little dish of pickles and a papadum (thin crispy pancake). dal bhaat is (unlike western-style dishes) available everywhere, nutritious and easy to digest, and requires a minimum of fuel to prepare (usually because the family running the lodge is also eating it for dinner). and because dal bhaat is an all-you-can-eat affair, delaney and I would often order one and share it, which would be more than enough for the two of us.

we later discovered that once you've stopped eating dal bhaat on the trail and started eating more exotic fare like yak steaks and moussaka, it's next to impossible to go back. it's like your taste buds have woken up to a whole new world of delicious opportunity and refuse to do the DB again.

even in the most remote villages on the trail, we found that many people spoke or understood at least a little english, so learning nepali was not an issue. I did, however, learn how to say 'where is the toilet?' (charpi kahaa chhe?) and used it quite often. sometimes, in the rural areas, the answer was just a shrug and a general wave of the hand, which meant 'go where you like.' and often I found this option preferable to using the actual latrines, which could be downright disgusting.

nepali toilets are of the squat variety, with no flushing mechanism other than a bucket of water nearby. the water is used to wash yourself and then flush the goods down the hole.

my yarn-crafting friends will be happy to know that my knitting needles and crochet hook have not been idle since leaving the Ice. here's a hat I crocheted for delaney out of wool I bought in himachal pradesh, india:

and a hat I'd made on the Ice out of a wool/soy blend that was too little for any adult, so I carried it on the trek until I found a suitably adorable child to give it to:

as you can see from the pictures, nepal is a somewhat photogenic place. I mentioned in the previous post that it's like new zealand on crack. let me amend that statement. it's like new zealand on SPEED.

more than once I found myself walking through a pine forest, or up a craggy slope, or past a mani wall filled with prayer wheels and festooned with tattered prayer flags, or along a field of buckwheat so impossibly green it hurt my eyes, or across a raging river with incredible views of snow-capped peaks in the distance, and I would think of the navajo prayer:

beauty before me
beauty behind me
beauty above me
beauty below me
beauty all around me
everywhere I walk
I walk in beauty.

but there were also days I really just wanted to lay down and die.

I had thought my boots were broken in. I had purchased them before leaving antarctica and taken them on a couple of hikes. they seemed friendly and able to play well with others. but on Day #2 I developed blisters on both heels that were so bad the skin literally came off in my hands. Days #3 through #8 were therefore a rather interesting time involving various attempts at cures with duct tape, super glue, secondskin, neosporin, tea tree oil, electrical tape and good old band-aids. the blisters eventually healed during our acclimatisation days in manang, but there were times when every step brought pain. and just when those blisters healed, I developed the Granddaddy of All Water Blisters on my left big toe. I was actually quite amazed at how long-lived the blister was. it grew and grew over three days, until delaney got sufficiently grossed out to pop it manually with a pin. so, Sage Piece of Advice #2: never assume your boots are broken in. to be safe, run them over with an SUV a couple of times first.

to make matters worse, my period arrived unexpectedly on Day #2. what would have posed little problem back in the states suddenly became a rather interesting conundrum in a place with few flush toilets or running water. tampons are nowhere to be found on the trail. the only feminine hygiene products available were Stayfree pads so thick it felt as if I was wearing a futon strapped between my legs. eighth-grade flashbacks.

and last but not least, I developed a fun little head cold between chame and manang that had me doing farmer-blows along the trail every fifty feet or so. a song kept running through my head...snot-rockets in flight...afternoon delight...

foremost on every trekker's mind is the question of safe drinking water. in the 1990s, the Annapurna Conservation Area Project, with the assistance of the new zealand government, inducted something called the Safe Drinking Water Scheme. sixteen stations were set up at various points along the annapurna circuit trek to provide safe, affordable drinking water to trekkers and locals. the main push behind this effort was to eliminate or greatly reduce the number of plastic mineral-water bottles brought into the area by trekkers, which of course cannot be recycled or properly disposed of and pose a great ecological hazard. at the Safe Drinking Water Stations, ozonated water is available by the liter. it's a great alternative to buying bottled water or even using iodine, which can be harmful if used over a long period of time.

our daily schedule went something like this:

up at 6:00
breakfast at 6:30
hit the trail by 7:00
hike until 10:00
snack break
hike until 12:00
arrive in village we would stay in that night
do a reconnaissance of local lodges
find lodge run by friendly people, with clean toilet (attached to room if possible)
eat lunch
shower
do laundry
eat dinner
bed at 7:30

as we got closer and closer to Thorung La (the mountain pass at 5416 meters), and as we climbed higher and higher in elevation, we began to hear and think more and more about altitude sickness (also known as AMS, or acute mountain sickness). delaney had once been to 14,000 feet in colorado and been sick as a dog. I had never been higher than around 8000 feet before and so had no personal experience with AMS. I had, however, heard lots and lots about AMS while on the Ice this past season. part of my job entailed organizing talks by the physician's assistant, barbie, who would warn folks headed for the south pole about the dangers of AMS and try to make them take diamox. some of them would refuse the diamox and be fine. others would refuse the diamox and come down with AMS so bad they had to be evacuated to mcmurdo. so I knew quite a bit about the dangers and symptoms of AMS: headache, lethargy, loss of appetite, nausea, and in the later (more dangerous) stages, trouble breathing, ataxia (loss of coordination), confusion, and death. the key is acclimatize slowly by gaining no more than 400 meters of elevation per day, and to descend immediately if symptoms do not improve.

manang, at about 3500 meters, is where many people start to feel the first twinges. I developed a slight headache as we arrived in manang on the afternoon of Day #8. by that evening, the headache was so bad I could do little but lie in bed. everything made my head hurt -- the sound of delaney's spoon in the bowl of garlic soup, the harsh fluorescent light, every movement.

luckily, by the next morning the headache had passed. we bought some packets of diamox from the himalayan rescue association and resolved to take it slow for the next few days. we met hikers in various levels of distress -- some had no symptoms of AMS, others were completely miserable. we popped our diamox twice a day and didn't push ourselves too fast. nepalis said we should eat garlic soup and drink coca-cola. we did that too, and spent another acclimatisation day in manang. it wasn't difficult -- there was a german bakery in our hotel.

summit day finally arrived. we had spent the night in thorung phedi ('phedi' means 'foot of the hill' in nepali, and that is where most trekkers start their hike over thorung la). up at 3:45 am in the biting cold. breakfast -- fried egg and an apple pancake -- at 4:15 am. on the trail by 5:00 am. the sun was about to come over the edge of the eastern ridge.

I had been having trouble catching my breath for the last couple of days. and I knew summiting was going to be tough. all I could do was take it slow -- really slow, sometimes -- and just put one foot in front of the other.

it took us an hour to get to High Camp, which is a location about 600 meters from the summit where some trekkers choose to spend the night. the sun was gilding nearby peaks when we arrived, and fog was lifting in patches around the two lodges at the camp. we refilled our water bottles and kept on going.

I had never known what hiking at altitude was like. I felt a hundred years old. I was breathing raggedly, couldn't quite catch my breath until I rested for a minute or two, and as soon as I started walking again my breathing would be just as labored. it was frustrating.

luckily, we had amazing weather. it was clear and sunny, and even as we approached the pass, the temperature never dipped below about 25F. during frequent rest breaks, I looked around. trekkers before and after us were little dots in the distance. the sky was an impossible shade of blue. the sun glinted off patches of snow. and oh yeah -- I was in nepal, hiking to thorung la! hot damn!

there were several false summits before the actual pass, which made me want to sit down and cry a little. but somehow, eventually, we got there. there were about fifty people there already, sitting around, eating celebratory snacks they'd saved for the occasion, taking silly pictures of each other at the sign, and doing cartwheels in the snow. we'd done it!

the descent was nearly as grueling as the ascent. we spent five hours descending 1600 meters to muktinath. thank god for trekking poles. we got to muktinath, staggered into the first guest house we could find, and ordered steak diane -- yak steaks diane, that is -- for our celebratory dinner.

red meat is rarely served in nepal. most nepalis are hindus or tibetan buddhists, which have their own sanctions against taking the life of a cow for the sake of a filet mignon. but in muktinath and further down the mustang/jomson side of the circuit, the villagers seem to understand the trekkers' need for animal protein and accordingly serve up yak whenever it's available. here's a pic of one especially enterprising restaurant.

marpha, another village further down the trek, was full of tibetan ladies hawking tibetan handicrafts. these short, roundish, middle-aged brown-skinned women are a force to be reckoned with when they're trying to get you to buy something. just walking past one of their shops makes you fair game. they all seem to have the same general spiel: hello madam! you wish to see tibetan handicraft? just looking okay. hey, where you go? just looking okay! you come back, yes? one particularly persistent woman actually followed delaney back to our hotel.

the other thing marpha is famous for is apple brandy. 95 rupees, a little over a dollar, will get you a quarter bottle of the stuff. it was served to us in a teapot. we got through one glass. the apple brandy is powerful strong.

the one disturbing thing we experienced about nepal was heard from a trekking friend, an american woman who had done the same circuit. our friend is a largish woman, a few pounds overweight. she and her husband had hiked the not only the annapurna circuit, but the everest base camp trek (which goes even higher than thorung la). she had carried her own pack. she is not weak or willowy.

she and her husband have been traveling the world, in both developed and developing countries, for years and years. nowhere had they witnessed her being made fun of for being overweight as badly as she was in nepal.

nepalis would, according to her and her husband, ridicule her -- in english and to her face -- an average of three times a day about being fat. it got to the point where she could also understand the words for 'fat' in hindi and nepali. nepali women would touch her arm and say pityingly, 'you are fat. but I am not.' nepali men would ask her husband, 'how fat is your wife? how many kilos?' while people standing around snickered.

this was really disturbing to me. I'm still trying to figure out what's behind it. it wouldn't have been as shocking if nepalis were rude in other ways. but in our own (limited) experience, almost every interaction had been pleasant and genial.

for a little compare 'n' contrast exercise, here we are on Day #1 of the hike:

and again on Day #16, the last day:

we finished the trek in a little over 16 days. we learned a lot about ourselves and each other, and what it's like to trek with someone whose style is different from your own. the annapurna circuit trek is changing rapidly. the nepali government is building a road that is supposed to link the remote villages on the trek with larger centers such as pokhara. many days, we passed road crews breaking chunks of rock with crowbars and sledgehammers. on the last few days of the trail, we choked on dust kicked up by motorcycles and trucks and tractors, in places where the road is already functional. the completed road will signify the end of an era for nepalis who live in the annapurna area. I'm not educated enough to say whether all the changes will be good or bad. but the trek is certain to be quite different. so I'm really glad I got a chance to do it when I did.

here I am, relaxing on phewa lake in pokhara post-trek.

hope this finds everyone blister-free and happy.
much love,
cindy

2007-05-18T11:54:00.000+12:00

india, continued.

greetings from pokhara, nepal!

we've just finished 16 days of trekking the annapurna circuit. to sum it up briefly (so that I can finish blogging about india): the scenery was like new zealand on crack, nepali people are incredibly friendly and welcoming, crossing a pass at 5410 meters (17,768 feet) is just the thing to make you feel and walk like you're two hundred years old, and eating nepali food for days on end will give you a happily regular bowel-movement schedule, as well as a new appreciation for the wide assortment of tasty cuisines available in larger cities such as pokhara.

back to india.

delaney and I had had enough of varanasi by the end of our four days there. delaney had been sick almost the entire time, and the heat and filth was debilitating. we said goodbye to kumiko and her husband and took off for the train station.

next stop: udaipur, in the state of rajasthan ('land of kings'). udaipur is widely known is the most romantic city in india. anyone who has seen the james bond movie octopussy has seen udaipur -- the palace in the middle of the lake was indeed a maharaja's royal residence. it is now one of india's best hotels, the lake palace hotel. we couldn't quite afford to stay there, but we were excited to be headed to beautiful udaipur anyway.

on the night train there, we shared a first-class (the other classes were sold out) cabin with two indians named mr. gurinder and mr. singh. gurinder was a twenty-something, fresh-faced young man with glasses and a shy smile. singh was a turbaned sikh in his late thirties. they were traveling on business to rajasthan and were friendly and helpful. they suggested that, if we had time, we take in rajasthan's only hill station, mt. abu. hill stations in india are cities at higher elevations (usually in the foothills of the himalayas) that are much cooler during the hot summer months than the rest of the subcontinent. they were used by maharajas and the british government alike as summer residences or getaways, and the hill station of shimla actually served as the alternate summer location for the indian capital in the 1800s. the most famous of these hill stations is probably darjeeling, located in the region where darjeeling tea is grown for export around the world.

we arrived in udaipur at around 7:00 am, when it was still relatively cool, said goodbye to our cabinmates, and stepped out of the train station to brace ourselves for the onslaught of the autorickshaw hordes.

the way to get around in major cities is by autorickshaw. an autorickshaw is a motorized, covered three-wheeled contraption that can fit a driver in the front and anywhere from one to about a dozen (if they are slightly-built indians) passengers scattered around the rest of the vehicle. they're everywhere in delhi. quick, able to weave through traffic, equipped with the ubiquitous and useful horn (no one uses turn signals or side mirrors, it seems -- just horns). you simply stand on a corner or sidewalk for about 1.3 seconds and flag down the first autorickshaw you see. then it's a matter of negotiating the fare. they are equipped with electronic meters, but most of the time these seem to be out of order. so you name your destination and haggle away. a ride across delhi usually cost us 80 - 100 rupees, which is about $1.50 to $2.00. caroline has advised us to always flag down a moving autorickshaw instead of one that is languishing near the side of the road, usually in a group of other autorickshaws. the ones in groups always have something to prove to their buddies, it seems, and will name much higher prices than those you flag down individually.

outside the udaipur train station, there was the usual army of drivers aggressively hawking their services. one particularly energetic man came up to us and strode alongside. we had been through this routine before and were frankly quite tired of it. it goes something like this:

driver: Sir? You need ride?
delaney: (purposefully striding) No, thanks. We're good.
driver: I give you best price. Where you go?
delaney: No, thank you.
driver: Anywhere you need to go. You need guide for Udaipur?
delaney: Thanks, but we're fine.
driver: I take you to Monsoon Palace. Okay? Only five hundred rupees.
delaney: (silence, still walking)

the man kept up a patter. he would not be dissuaded, it seemed. somewhere in his spiel we caught the words 'thirty rupees.' this was about how much we were planning to spend to take an autorickshaw to the area of udaipur where we wanted to look for a hotel, so we stopped and actually talked to him.

on the ride into the city, it turned out that our driver's name was anwar and had a wonderful sense of humor. the first thing he did was to take us to an early-morning chai stand and treat us to two cups of steaming-hot, spicy-milky chai. I am never one to turn down a cup of chai, so this was a good move on his part. we chatted about his business as an autorickshaw driver and tour guide. he seemed to have a good handle on what constitutes good customer service, and he also had a great (and not pushy at all) suggestion for a place to stay. how much do you want to spend? he asked. about 800 to 1000 per night, we answered. okay, he said. I know of good place. I take you there, you see if you like. if not, I take you somewhere else, no charge. see? it is there, next to the lake, on the hill.

we could indeed see the hotel in question. it was a neatly painted yellow-and-white building, set on a small hill overlooking the lake. we buzzed up to the front door and went inside. the owner, an affable man in his forties, immediately urged us to put our packs down and had an attendant bring us two cups of steaming-hot chai. again, the gesture was not lost on Cindy the Chai Addict.

the moment he showed us the room, I was sold. immaculately appointed, with marble floors and a fully-tiled cheery yellow bathroom (with FLUSH TOILET!), gorgeous brocaded curtains, ornately carved furniture and rajasthani handicrafted puppets on the wall.

we checked in and spent the next few days wandering around udaipur, sometimes assisted by the able anwar as rickshaw-driver-and-guide, having leisurely meals on the rooftop, and browsing the local markets.

rajasthan has but one hill station: mount abu. it's a getaway for indian families looking to escape the desert heat, four hours away from udaipur and perched high up on a ridge. we decided to spend our last two nights in rajasthan there.

we booked a bus ride to mt. abu through the front desk and showed up at 8:30 the next morning. we had been told that the bus would be air-conditioned. I envisioned comfy upholstered seats, frequent chai breaks, perhaps some soothing indian music piped in as we sped along in air-conditioned comfort.

it was not to be. our bus was a rickety contraption with stained seats and broken windows...and no promised air-conditioning. we set off on what turned out to be the hottest bus ride I have ever taken. six hours, not four, and by the time we reached the green oasis of mt. abu I was a little puddle of sweat and dust and misery.

as we staggered off the bus and collected our backpacks from the roof of the bus, we were approached by a young indian man named charles. we may have been in an extremely susceptible state, but something about his non-invasive, professional manner and his excellent command of english made us listen to what he had to say. his family lived in a small house near the lake, he said, and had two rooms for rent. it was called lake view cottages. we could walk there if we wished and take a look. if it wasn't what we were looking for, no problem.

we walked there. it was exactly what we were looking for. no problem indeed. the cottage was painted lavender, set back from the road in a flower garden full of marigolds, and the room faced the lake. for 200 rupees -- about $5 -- a night.

once we had hydrated and bathed and gotten ourselves back into a somewhat normal human state, we explored mt. abu. charles very trustingly lent us his motorcycle to ride up to the famous dilwara temples up the road, one of the holiest sites for jains. we were not disappointed. there is no way to accurately or fully describe the astounding detail that went into these temples, which are literally encrusted with marble flowers, gods, animals, geometric designs, and scenes from religious literature that are so thin and delicate in some places that light shines through the stone.

as we were wandering open-mouthed among the intricately carved marble temples, someone said hello to delaney. we turned around. it was gurinder and singh, the guys from the night train to udaipur, who had suggested that we visit mt. abu in the first place. they were extremely pleased to see that we had taken them up on their suggestion.

jains, like sikhs, are an ancient offshoot from the hindu religion. you can read more about the differences in their beliefs here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism

delaney's tummy still wasn't 100% normal, so while he recuperated in the fan-cooled room I decided to go out and find myself some lunch. I stopped in at a busy lunch establishment at the main intersection and ordered a gujarat thali. thalis are all-you-can-eat meals at set prices. they come on a stainless steel dish divided up into smaller compartments, each section containing a different curry, pickle or accompaniment. as you plow your way through this assortment, a restaurant employee will come by and top you off. more rice? more papadum? more curry? more pickle? more chapati? oh dear god.

determined not to reprise our horrific bus experience, we hired a private car and driver for the five-hour drive to jodhpur, the mystical 'blue city' and our departure point by train back to delhi. we had a few hours to kill in jodhpur before the train, so our driver dropped us off at the mehrengarh fort, a lovingly maintained work of architectural and military expertise in the middle of the rajasthan desert. from the ramparts we looked out on the hundreds of houses painted a cool sky blue -- a color once reserved for the upper castes, but now widely used as a house color as it is thought to be an effective mosquito repellent.

our final stop in india: the hill station of shimla in the himalayan foothills. the journey from delhi included a ride on the famous 'toy train,' a small-gauge locomotive that winds its way from kalka up into the cool evergreen hills for which shimla is rightfully famous. we were at 7,000 feet and feeling fine.

shimla was delightful, cool and relaxed. a nice indian couple on the train, shilkmar and prem, suggested that we check out the hotel they were staying in and see if it was to our liking. and it was. no westerners about, great room service, clean and spacious room (with the Discovery Channel on TV) and close to The Mall, which is the wide promenade full of shops and restaurants that people throng in order to eat ice cream, take photos of each other in front of Christ Church (the second-oldest church in india), and people-watch to their heart's content.

back to delhi for our flight to nepal. I had had a low-grade, short-lived fever and sore, swollen joints while in shimla, and all the literature says that if you've been in an area where malaria is endemic, see a doctor at the FIRST sign of a fever. so we decided to get tested, just to have peace of mind for our trip to nepal.

caroline recommended a hospital called Max Healthcare. we took an autorickshaw to their facility and from the moment we walked in the door, we knew we were in good hands. after no more than a five-minute wait, the extremely efficient, professional and well-spoken receptionist fed our information into the computer and directed us to dr. mishra's office on the fourth floor. dr. mishra turned out to be a small, dapper indian man with a tidy mustache and a very comforting manner. no, he said, he didn't think we had malaria, but if we wished he would order the blood tests for us anyway. results would be ready after 7:00 pm. that same day. incredible.

and so it was as dr. mishra had predicted. no malaria. we were off to nepal the next day, plasmodium-free.

next posting: nepal and the annapurna circuit. and I left my USB cable for my camera in kathmandu, so hopefully photos then too.

doxycycline love,
cindy

2007-04-28T19:43:00.000+12:00

three weeks in the land of the haves and have-nots.

india has been one of the most maddening, demanding, challenging, frustrating, exhilarating and saddening experiences of my life.

in three short weeks, hardly enough to sample, let alone pass judgment on this amazing country, I have nevertheless seen things that break my heart, things that try my faith in humankind, and things that make me glad to be a member of the human race.

first of all, I had heard, like everyone else, that india evokes strong feelings of either revulsion or elation in the casual visitor. there is no way to visit india for any substantial length of time and remain unmoved or ambivalent. this was very true for Delaney. almost from the very first day, he found the heat, the filth, the crowds, the poverty, the endless haggling, the aggressive touts, and the food contrary to what he knows and enjoys. we laughed when we heard from a fellow Ice person that India stands for I'll Never Do It Again, laughter that bordered on manic tears. it's a very difficult place.

first of all, I have my own interpretation of what India stands for: Is Not Doable in April. normally I am among the most fastidious of planners. I make endless lists, consult various websites and books, and pick the brains of those who have gone before. but reason deserted me this time. had I paid close attention to any of a number of sources, I would have learned that the best time to visit india is not april, but between october and march. april is hot. blisteringly, searingly, tarzan-couldn't-take-this-kind-of-hot, H-O-T hot. not all of india is hot in april, but several of the places I was bent on visiting certainly are. and we paid for it. boy, did we pay for it. there were several occasions simply walking down the street between the hours of 10:00 am and 6:00 pm when I thought I would instantly combust. so, this is Piece of Sage Advice #1: if, like myself, you have spent the last ten years thickening your blood in such climates as seattle, mongolia and, oh, ANTARCTICA, do not visit india in april.

aside from the astounding heat index, india is challenging on many other fronts. I thought myself a seasoned traveler. I had lived in a developing country for two years, and visited several other locations as a budget-conscious backpacker. crowds don't bother me; I can glide serenely through them. touts don't bother me; I say no with a smile and keep on walking. I can stay inside during the hottest part of the day, wear sunscreen and protective layers, and patronize air-conditioned establishments to escape the worst of the heat. but the real challenges for me were the unavoidable filth and the in-your-face poverty, especially when it affected women, children and the handicapped.

the filth in india's cities is legendary. some streets are conscientiously swept by the lower castes; others are left piled high with vegetable peelings, empty bottles and plastic bags, dog shit, cow dung, and the detritus of everyday life in a country with little sanitation infrastructure. but even in areas that looked recently swept, one only had to go around a corner or take a train ride to the outer edges of the city to see what had happened to all that garbage: it was still there, encrusting streambeds, littering entire hillsides, being picked through by the less fortunate to see what they could scrounge and recycle or sell. I am certain that underneath all the garbage is a somewhat attractive country. but it's hard to tell. how do you unearth it when a billion people carry out their daily lives on top of it?

on the poverty front, india is truly a land of the haves v. the have-nots. everyone has heard of india's legendary poverty. it is staggering. beggars that drag themselves through marketplaces and alongside cars waiting at red lights, some with missing limbs, others with grotesquely swollen growths, some with fly-blown infants on their arms. children that make the rounds on train platforms, using the gesture of fingers-from-hand-to-pursed mouth to mime hunger. it was heartbreaking. how individual travelers react to beggars is really up to them. some choose to give alms, or baksheesh, to each person that asks. others donate sums to organizations such as orphanges or poorhouses that are set up to shelter and assist the homeless and destitute. still others choose their beggars according to some kind of criterium, such as: handicapped and deformed get money, healthy and able-to-work don't. women with babies on their hips are a difficult decision. is the child well-fed? does the mother face a beating by her husband if she returns home without the day's pay earned by begging? not something I can determine with a swift look as I pass her on the street.

we arrived in delhi in the wee hours of april 7. it was hot, but not as hot as I had thought it would be, even at 2:30 am. my first we're-not-in-kansas-anymore moment was in the restroom of the baggage claim area. there was a squat toilet set into the floor. not a problem -- I'd used those extensively in japan and mongolia. but instead of toilet paper, there was a spigot on the wall, with a little bucket underneath. what to do? I had read that most of india cleans themselves with water after they use the toilet. but my attempts to do so only resulted in me getting most of my clothing and shoes wet along with my nether regions.

having sufficiently drenched myself, delaney and I went outside to meet our driver. a friend from my borders days, chris, had put me in touch with a friend of his that lives in delhi and works for a catholic nonprofit. she and I had been communicating by e-mail and she had not only graciously offered her apartment as a crash pad for whenever we found ourselves in delhi, she had given us scads of useful information on how to dress, what to see and do, what to bring, the virtues of using a travel agent, and so on. in fact, she had sent the driver to pick us up and take us to her apartment. when we arrived at caroline's place in south delhi, we were stunned. she was up and waiting for us, as she promised she would be, at 3:30 am, with a cold beer. and her apartment was palatial. huge, elegantly appointed, with peacocks visible from her balcony, and fully equipped for two very hot and tired travelers. we had planned on staying one night and setting out the next day. we ended up staying for three nights.

one of the first things caroline and her friend sarah did for us was to take us shopping for indian clothes. we needed stuff that was culturally appropriate, as well as better suited to the heat. I bought two kurtas, which are like shirts that go down to the knee and have long slits up the sides. most indian women wear them over loose pants. I also bought a dupatta, or scarf, which could be draped over both shoulders from the front with the ends hanging down my back, or used to cover my head if I went into a hindu temple. delaney bought two indian-style cotton button-down shirts and a pair of drawstring pants. we were ready.

caroline told us an interesting aside about the caste system in india. there are four or five major castes, with the highest being brahmins and the lowest being the dalits, or scheduled castes (formerly known as 'untouchables'). not everyone in india ascribes to the system, but many people do, and it informs various aspects of their lives, from whom they marry to the type of employment available to them. for example, caroline's housekeeper rakesh is of a certain caste. he comes by almost every weekday to do her housework. but when she asked him if he would include cleaning her ceiling fans in his regular duties, he refused. apparently that is the work of a lower caste. and when she asked if he would mind watering her plants, he also refused. that is the work of a higher caste.

I read a newspaper article about groups of dalits having mass conversions to christianity and buddhism. they felt that the dignity that was denied them under the hindu caste system could be regained if they switched religions.

caroline's advice about using a travel agent was spot-on. we went to one she suggested, a man named vivek, and he very helpfully set up a series of train rides around india as well as a round-trip plane ticket to nepal. india's train system was inducted by the british, and in my opinion it's the best way to see the country. sleeper trains have compartments with anywhere from four to eight bunks in them, and linens are included in the price. attendants come by offering bottled water, omelette sandwiches, little cups of chai, and veg or non-veg indian meals for sale. there is a toilet at the end of the car, where your waste products go right out onto the train tracks when you flush. often you share a compartment with a family or a couple that is eager to practice their english and to ask what you think of india. and you go to sleep in one city, lulled by the swaying of the train and the whistle blowing, and wake up in another.

our first overnight train trip took us to varanasi, the holiest city in the hindu religion. varanasi sits on the ganges river and is famously visited by millions of pilgrims every year. I wanted to see and experience the city for myself.

we took a cycle-rickshaw to the old city and asked around until we found our hostel, a run-down establishment owned by a guru-like, cheerful indian man and his japanese wife. kumiko's is something of a legend among young japanese travelers. the place was full of them. kumiko is a large, slow-moving woman who seems to wear one muumuu-like outfit and speaks four languages -- japanese, english, hindi and bengali (her husband is from the bengal region) and makes a western-style breakfast and a japanese-style dinner for the guests every day (as far as we could tell, the only difference was the presence of bread at breakfast and rice at dinner). when the meal is ready to be passed, dish by dish, in a conga line up the stairs to the eating area on the third floor, kumiko stands at the bottom of the stairwell and yells gohaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! (mealtime!) a dorm bed is 50 rupees (a little over a dollar). delaney and I splurged on a double room for 120 rupees. there were three light switches in our room, labeled with the following cryptic words: fun / light / ?.

we later figured out that 'fun' was fan, and light was light, but we never did find out what ? was.

varanasi was hot. this rather obvious condition was coupled with the exciting possibility of frequent power outages, which meant our fan would slowly whir to a stop as we descended into the pit of eternal despair.

we walked the narrow, cobblestoned, shit-stained alleyways and strolled along the ghats next to the river ganges. we saw bodies being cremated and people offering puja in the form of incense, prayers and marigold blossoms. we passed dogs that were more skin and bone than actual dog, and groups of young men playing cricket. we saw strung-out hippie westerners sporting dreadlocks, loincloths and vacant looks. and poor delaney had stomach issues almost the entire time. that, along with the fearsome heat, meant that we did and saw little in varanasi. no matter. I was happy just to be there, with the pilgrims, the doubters, the seekers and the believers.

I've read a couple of very fine books while in india. the first is a must for anyone planning to visit this country. it was recommened by caroline, and, in spite of the fact that I rarely read fiction, I needed something for the train and she swore up and down it would change my life. and it actually did. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is one of those novels that is so powerful you can barely move after finishing it. it helped me understand india's turbulent caste wars, the State of Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, and the way millions and millions of people live and die in abject poverty.

I am now in the middle of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. not as life-changing, but certainly entertaining in a Freakonomics sort of way.

well, the rest of my india experience will have to wait for another blog entry. we're in kathmandu, nepal, and getting ready to head out tomorrow for three weeks of trekking around the annapurna circuit. I will almost certainly not have internet access during this time. but I'm happy and well, and nepal is amazing, and we're having mexican food tonight!

namaste and big hugs,
cindy

2007-04-13T13:25:00.000+12:00

westward to the east.

aloha from india!

but before I blog about india...prior to coming here, we spent two weeks in japan getting spoiled rotten by my mom and her family.

my mom and I flew to japan from hawaii on march 21. she's originally from okinawa, where my grandma and an aunt still live, and also has sisters and a brother in osaka and yokohama. one brother lives in LA, where he owns a sushi bar named Sushi Tsune after my grandmother.

my mom and I spent a few days in osaka, then flew to okinawa. delaney met us there. then delaney and I flew back to osaka and used it as a base for a week of travels around southern honshu.

in okinawa, we stayed with my grandmother and auntie takae in my grandma's two-story concrete home in itoman, a little fishing town on the southern side of the island. most of our days were filled with sightseeing, eating, viewing the world swimming championships on TV (go michael phelps!), and marveling over the amount of japanese food delaney could put away on a daily basis.

here we all are at my grandma's favorite restaurant, the cheerily named Hello Restaurant. she and auntie takae go there every day for lunch. L - R: auntie saechan, my mom, grandma, auntie takae, me and delaney.

my auntie saechan bought a day-long bus tour for all of us, which took us to several interesting and scenic places on okinawa island. one of these stops was at something called Ryukyu Village (okinawa used to be known as the ryukyu kingdom prior to its annexation to japan), where you could see people in old-time costume playing traditional instruments, cooking traditional foods, making pottery and other handicrafts, pressing sugarcane with an old-fashioned water buffalo press, and so forth. my mom and aunties said it reminded them a lot of their childhood. here are auntie saechan, my mom and auntie takae in front of one of the traditional stone-tiled roofs. the figure crawling over the roof at top right is a shisa, or mythical lion-dog. pairs of shisa are staged at the gate of every household in okinawa to keep away evil spirits. you would never guess it, but these lovely ladies are 55, 65 and 62 years old respectively. if genetics are to be believed, I guess I'm going to be carded until I'm about 50.

here's a picture of delaney manfully tackling a meal at a fancy new organic restaurant specializing in ryukyu cuisine. our hosts were astounded that he would eat not only the mundane stuff like raw fish, seaweed and pickled radish root, but also purely okinawan exotica such as pigs'-feet soup, stinky fermented soybeans, and bittermelon stir-fry. trust me. that's stuff I don't even eat.

a word of advice for anyone who is planning to visit japan: get the Japan Rail Pass. trust me on this one. if you're planning to spend at least a week there, the JRP is the best deal around. it's available only to foreigners, and can only be purchased prior to coming to japan. it's sold in 7, 14 and 21-day increments and allows for unlimited travel on all Japan Rail lines, including bullet trains. for $244 each, we received the seven-day pass, which we used on city trains, intercity trains and bullet trains every single day that we were based out of osaka. one bullet train ticket can cost nearly $200, so this pass was an incredible bargain. we spent many an hour sitting and taking in the views in japan's unbelievably spotless, efficiently timed, punctual and comfortable train system.

here we are in front of the okinawan peace memorial and museum, an astoundingly educational and moving experience. the battle of okinawa in 1944 pitted the american forces against the japanese imperialist army. as okinawa is an extremely strategic military location, the americans and the japanese were both hell-bent on acquiring it for use as a base in the pacific theater. the okinawan civilians (who at that time were not yet japanese citizens) were caught in the middle of intense fighting. many were massacred or forced to commit mass suicide by japanese soldiers, who told them that if they didn't, the american barbarians would run them over with their tanks and that the only way to save their honor was to die en masse for the emperor. there are memorials and shrines all over okinawa to those who died in the horrific conditions. one of the most famous, himeyuri-no-to, is a natural limestone cave where dozens of high-school aged nurses perished. they were first urged by the americans to surrender and come out, but having heard stories from the japanese soldiers about what americans were like, they stayed inside and were killed by a bomb.

the most impressive thing about all these museums and memorials is the pervasive theme of peace and harmony, and how human beings not only have the capacity to inflict grievous violence on each other, but also harbor the potential for living together peacefully. (this was also the theme at the atomic-bomb peace park in hiroshima, which delaney and I visited the following week. those pics have yet to be posted as they're stuck in delaney's camera.)

in osaka, my cousin's son keishin was about to graduate from kindergarten, so my mom and I decided to attend the ceremony. boy, were we impressed. first of all, while walking there we were passed by several moms on bicycle or in cars, kindergarteners in tow, on their way to the special event. every single mom was wearing a formal suit, usually black, with a corsage pinned to the shoulder. we started to feel a little underdressed. when we arrived, the headmaster himself greeted us at the doorway. he asked if we were there for a certain student, and we said yes, we're here to see keishin hayakawa graduate. he was very understanding and welcoming, even when he discovered that we had not brought a set of indoor slippers to wear. (everyone has a set that they keep at the kindergarten, which they change into from their street shoes to keep the place tidy.) no problem -- he instantly procured a pair for each of us, emblazed with the kindergarten's name: Akebono ("dawn") Day Care and Kindergarten. then it was time to go upstairs to the third floor auditorium, where video cameras were trained on every kid. over the next couple of hours, we were treated to songs and speeches (most of them by the kindergarteners themselves or their younger schoolmates, and all of them from memory) and pomp and circumstance and pageantry that we agreed later we had only ever seen on the collegiate level back in the states. here is my cousin's son, accepting his diploma from the headmaster. note the deep bow signifying lots of proper humility.

anyone who has been to japan has probably heard that they use squat toilets. well, yes, they do, and those deserve an entire blog entry for themselves, but nowadays they also have these rather space-age sit-down models that feature a choice of big v. little flush (see characters at right) and nowadays the best thing to come along for your bum since charmin: the built-in bidet. this control panel is on your right as you sit on the toilet. the buttons offer such post-BM goodies as a shower spray (from front or back), adjustable water temperature, adjustable strength of water stream, warm air blast, heated seats, and vacuum to whisk away offending odors. some of them will sense when you open the cubicle door and lift their lids automatically, as if to say Welcome! and enjoy! my auntie saechan has one in her house. on a visit with my dad a few years ago, we realized that had we hadn't seen dad for a while. upon investigating, he was found in the bathroom giddily trying out all the bidet choices.

finally, some silly pics of me and Tate taken in hawaii that I forgot to upload earlier. hopefully more to come soon about the rest of japan, and then india!

namaste and jaa, mata ne ~

cindy

2007-03-14T15:41:00.000+13:00

india on the brain.

greetings from hawaii, where I've been spending quality time with the fam-damily (as my friend marnie calls them) and preparing for my around-the-world travels.

just prior to arriving here, I spent some too-short time with friends belinda and doug in sydney. belinda and I worked at the same philanthropic organization in seattle, before I left to answer the call of the antarctic and she and her husband moved back to her native australia. belinda is one of those effortlessly warm, funny, gregarious and welcoming people who also manages to look entirely too cute and shine-free every single time you see her. she and her husband own two large and goofy dogs, monty and sashi, and live in a gorgeous house that seriously resembles a modern-art museum which also just happens to have dog beds in it. here we are outside the bondi icebergs swimming club at world-famous bondi beach.

I arrived two days earlier than I told my family I would, which resulted in lots of shrieking when I walked through the door. as my parents are both in their mid-sixties, I'll need to use that particular method of homecoming judiciously from now on. wouldn't want to cause an untimely episode of apoplexy or something.

a couple of antarctic friends passed through hawaii during my time here -- evan and barry.

here are evan and me at a BBQ at my uncle's farm.

and here's me and barry at sunset beach on the north shore.

the week after my arrival was suffused with details of being a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding. vicky and I went to high school together in honolulu. we weren't close then, but I always admired her sense of style -- which in the late 1980s meant not falling prey to such ill-advised fashion choices as acid-washed denim shorts, anything by the label Ocean Pacific, and things of that nature. vicky, unlike most of us, dressed as if she had just stepped off a plane from some far-off, much more sophisticated locale, like london or san francisco.

anyway, after high school we all went our separate ways, and it wasn't until 2005 that I picked up a copy of our high school quarterly bulletin and read that vicky had been living and working in seattle for the past twelve years. she and her boyfriend (now husband), matt, were president and CEO of their own very successful design firm -- right down the street from where I was working. I e-mailed her, we got together for lunch, and over the last two years we've become great friends, shopping partners, wing-men for each other's parties, and bubble-tea enthusiasts. it was great fun to be in her wedding party. L - R: our classmate jason's wife maile, jason, matt, vicky and me.

most of my spare time in hawaii has been spent preparing for my eight-month, around-the-world trip, which is proving to be something of a challenge. thoughts of visas, inoculations, train passes, travel insurance, medication, and not least of all, packing fill my every waking hour. I have seriously been having packing DREAMS lately.

for example, one of the first stops on the itinerary is india, where the temperatures will be well into the 100s. think light-colored, loose cotton pants and tops, useful not only for keeping the sun off, but for repelling mosquitoes and being culturally appropriate. following that, a jaunt to 17,000 feet in nepal, which is bound to be substantially chillier. that calls for long underwear, neck gaiters, wool socks and a down jacket. not to mention altitude-sickness medication. then a 500-mile hike across northern spain, a damp couple of months bicycling in the british isles, and backpacking in arizona. how do you pack for all of that?

trekking poses its own issues -- what kind of sleeping bag can be used in all those situations? is a pashmina shawl an unnecessary luxury, or can it double as a sleeping sheet, bedbug barrier, pillow, room divider, impromptu skirt in nepali villages where women shouldn't wear trousers? how many pairs of shoes should I take? are a pair of Chacos, rubbah slippahs, and some hiking boots enough to get me from the trail to the pub to a walking tour of town to the grotty showers in the hostel? and more importantly, how will I go for eight months without wedge-heel sandals?

the country that I've been thinking about most is india. I've always been fascinated by this teeming, chaotic, somehow strangely british-inflected country...its brilliant colors, its squalor alongside its tranquility, and its increasingly prominent role in the world village. what can you say about a country of a billion people that have lived under a constitutional democracy for the past fifty years, grow the world's best tea, sell the world's most beautiful textiles, and brush their teeth in the world's dirtiest, holiest river?

my friend marilyn has a book containing photographs of the world's funniest signs. as I flipped through it while visiting her, I couldn't help but make note of a few from india, like these two elephant-themed ones:

NOTICE. This bridge is rated for a maximum of eleven tons.

Elephants are therefore requested to cross two at a time only.

and

Complaints about elephants are to be made here.

and this one, advertising five specialties at a Jaipur restaurant:

Creams

Soups

Beast

Chicken

Fish

can't wait to get to india and try the local beast!
more to come soon.

love,
cindy

2007-02-28T12:55:00.000+13:00

you must make this fire very big, Sabu.

I'm just back from a few days visiting friends in western australia, marilyn and allen graham.

marilyn and I met ten years ago at borders books & music in redmond when I was a staff trainer and she was a new bookseller. we quickly discovered we shared a passion for drinking endless cups of tea, stimulating conversation, and quoting the classic film Out of Africa. to this day we call each other Sabu.

a few months before I left for mongolia and the peace corps in 2000, marilyn, a single grandmother who had been footloose and fancy-free for forty years, decided on a whim to post a profile of herself on a dating website. she got a hit from a fellow poster who opted not to put a picture of himself on his profile. he was an erudite, charming e-mail writer. intrigued, she wrote him back. then he wrote back. his name was allen graham, and he was a sixty-year-old widower living near perth, western australia.

soon they were e-mailing or talking on the phone every day. he sent her a charming video of himself shot by his best mate keith, in which he gave her a virtual tour of his small but tidy home. he appeared as a dapper, white-haired gentleman with a mischievous smile. then she flew to western australia to meet him. and returned with an engagement ring on her finger.

I wrote him an e-mail introducing myself, congratulating him on the fine choice of marilyn as fiancee, and cheerfully informing him that if he ever did her wrong, I would hunt him down and break his kneecaps, a memory he fondly recounts out loud and often.

a couple of months after I left for mongolia, they were married in st. margaret's church in bellevue, washington. soon thereafter, she moved to safety bay, western australia to live with her new husband.

I visited them in 2002 on my way home from mongolia. theirs is a cozy, welcoming home on a quiet suburban street, filled with beautiful handicrafts both of marilyn's own making and from her world travels. she is an accomplished craftswoman who spins and dyes wool, knits and crochets and does needlepoint and quilting and cross-stitch. she can knit with her eyes closed. on that visit, we baby-sat a working sheep farm for a week, during which there was nothing more to do than make lemonade from the giant lemons on the tree outside, walk the paddocks with the sheep on the lookout for kangaroos, and read. she taught me to knit, a pasttime I gratefully enjoy to this day.

here is a picture of me and allen trying out a new mp4 player he's just purchased on eBay.

last year, just as I was finishing my first season in antarctica, marilyn was diagnosed with breast cancer. she underwent nine months of procedures -- treatments, surgery and consultations that sapped her energy and made her hair and eyelashes fall out. allen uncomplainingly made her whatever foods she felt she could eat -- usually plain boiled potatoes with butter -- and drove her every day for six weeks to perth for her doctor's appointments.

today her hair has grown back, a lovely silvery gray, she is just as gracious and strong as I remember her.

at the end of Out of Africa, the Baroness Karen von Blixen (Meryl Streep) is getting ready to leave Kenya. her faithful servant Farah assists her in getting her house in order, selling off her assets, and ensuring that the Kikuyu natives who live on her land are relocated to an appropriate location. it is obvious that Farah is saddened and perplexed by the baroness' imminent departure. so she uses a familiar analogy to help him understand.

Karen: Farah, do you remember when we were on safari, and during the day
you would go ahead and find a camp, and build a fire?

Farah: Yes. And you would see the fire and come to this
place.

Karen: Well, it will be like that. Only this time I will go
ahead and build a fire.

Farah: (after a pause) You must make this fire very big, Sabu,
so that I can find you.

while in perth, in between long conversations and trips to the city, marilyn and allen and I watched films. it had been a while since I sat in a movie theatre and I found myself having to sit near the back of the room. the images were too large for me to take in if I sat closer to the screen.

we saw two excellent oscar winners: Babel and Letters from Iwo Jima.

and as an antidote to the grave intensity of those two films, marilyn and allen introduced me to my new personal hero, whose adventures in porta-potty plumbing are the subject of a hilarious homegrown australian mockumentary: Kenny.

seriously. I have never laughed so hard. everyone must see Kenny. this is an order. do what you have to do -- play hooky from work, bribe your local video rental clerk, commit piracy to get a copy. your life will be better for it.

I also finished two excellent books: The Places In Between, an autobiographical account of a Scotsman who walked across Afghanistan in 2002 soon after the fall of the Taliban; and The Last American Man, the story of a modern-day mountain man named Eustace Conway who lives off the land on a thousand-arce parcel called Turtle Island and tries to reconcile his rigid personal beliefs with the modern world and his own need and want for companionship.

when marilyn asked me what I would like to do on my visit, I had only one request: that we visit the pinjarrah parrot sanctuary, where we had gone in 2002. the sanctuary is home to dozens of species of australian bird, including cockatoos, cockatiels, lorikeets, and galahs.

ordinarily I would enjoy a stroll through the walk-in aviaries for its own sake, but on this particular visit I wanted to commune with feathered friends for another reason: my beloved cockatiel, Boba Fett, died last week in bellingham, washington.

my bird-sitters and friends christy and eli noticed that she was having trouble breathing. thinking that she was eggbound, they took her to the local vet, only to discover that she had a large tumor in her uterus.

Boba Fett was ten years old. she had had a great life, due in no small part to the fact that for the last few years, she was mostly under the care of two of the most fanatically healthy and bird-crazy people I've ever met.

here are a couple of pictures of her. wherever she is now, I'm sure she's happily munching on organic millet spray.

the galah in the pictures came right up to me and climbed up on my shoulder. boba fett would approve.

more to come after I arrive in hawaii.

2007-02-21T13:14:00.000+13:00

goodbye christchurch, hello sydney.

I'm at the free computer kiosk in the CDC (clothing distribution center), replying to some last-minute e-mails before I head over to the international terminal at christchurch international airport. in two and a half hours, I should be on a plane to sydney. I'll spend a few days there with belinda, a friend from the Gates Foundation, and her husband doug; and a few days out in perth with my lovely friend marilyn and her husband allen.

the past week has been a whirlwind of greeting ice friends as they come north from mcmurdo, having leisurely meals that don't come on blue trays, people-watching in cathedral square, finalizing travel details, and relaxing in the sun. I went for a short run in the botanical gardens yesterday, surely one of the most beautiful places on earth in which to run. on sunday, delaney and I went north a couple of hours to the natural hot springs at hanmer, where a park-like complex has been built on thermal springs ranging in temperature from 36C to 41C. we lounged like lizards and read our books and soaked in the springs and even took in a local soapbox car race. I also saw stars for the first time since august. in hanmer, without the light pollution of christchurch to obscure them, the stars were absolutely brilliant. delaney is something of an astronomy buff and pointed out a bunch of lovely southern-hemisphere constellations.

I'm excited to start my travels.

hope this finds everyone well and happy.

ciao for now!

2007-02-14T17:17:00.000+13:00

leaving, on a jet plane.

and like john denver, I don't know when I'll be back again.

one year ago, I left mcmurdo station fairly certain that I would be returning in a few short months. and I did. this afternoon I'm sitting in the computer kiosk of building 155, fairly certain that I will not be returning in a few short months, if ever.

the C-17 is in the air. it's scheduled to touch down at 7:42 pm. takeoff is scheduled for 8:30 pm. we'll land in christchurch in the wee hours. which isn't so bad, because that means we get paid for an extra day.

delaney couldn't leave today because of work, so he'll fly on friday. we're planning to take a road trip up the east coast of the south island of new zealand and see if we can get to some hot springs and the artists' haven of nelson before I leave for australia next wednesday.

after new zealand and australia, I'll be in my classmate vicky's wedding in honolulu on march 10. from there, my mom and I will fly to japan to visit relatives in osaka and okinawa. delaney will join us there.

yesterday I gave a travel agency in christchurch the go-ahead to charge my debit card for an around-the-world ticket originating in tokyo. *GULP* it's happening! insh'allah, I'll be on the road for most of this year, ending up back in seattle around november.

the itinerary:

tokyo, japan

delhi, india (and overland to nepal to hike the annapurna circuit)

barcelona, spain

cinque terra, italy

** this is where delaney jets off to trek in chile and bolivia before he has to attend a friend's wedding in hawaii himself **

camino de santiago, spain (an 800km pilgrimage from the french/spanish border to the atlantic ocean)

croatia

the netherlands

united kingdom

dallas

phoenix

chicago

honolulu

back to tokyo

and back to seattle.

the plan is not to return to mcmurdo for another season. but one can never say never.

it's been an amazing season. I learned more than I thought was humanly possible, and had more fun than should be legal. I met dozens of beautiful new friends and reconnected with old friends. and I fell in love with one of the old friends.

maybe I'll come back somewhere down the road, but for now, life and the real world are calling.

here are a couple of pictures from a new hiking trail that just opened this season, the ob hill loop. great seal views! yes, that's what all those little black dots are.

here are me and my roommate susie, sporting our fleece neck gaiters on our heads like all the cool kids are doing these days.

and here's a pic from the mcmurdo prom, 3 february. sometimes this place really is like high school.

left to right: amber, matt, delaney and me. matt and D look very happy together.

and finally, for my final blog entry from the ice, a glimpse into the inner sanctum of one of mcmurdo's most integral and sacred facilities: the waste water treatment plant.

the WWTP takes all the poopy, soapy, greasy water generated by the good people of mcmurdo and first runs it through something called the Muffin Monster. the Muffin Monster chews it up and makes sure that there aren't any big chunks of. . . stuff left in it. let's call the resulting liquid 'soup,' for lack of a better term. it really isn't soup, and it should not under any circumstances be eaten with a sandwich.

the soup that comes out of the Muffin Monster then goes into a basin filled with all kinds of

friendly, helpful bacteria. this is called the anoxic basin. here, the bacteria go to town on all the waste solids in the soup and break them down and process them until all the smelly stuff is gone. it's really quite amazing. I've stood on the catwalk above the anoxic basin and while the room itself is humid and warm, and smells of something, that something is most definitely not poop. it kind of smells like a greenhouse.

after that, the soup is filtered and the clean water goes back into mcmurdo sound, where orcas and seals swim happily swim around in it.

the waste solids that come out of that filtering

process, the waste solids that came out of people like you and me, are cranked between these heavy rollers, dried, and dropped into big cardboard boxes lined with heavy plastic. this dark-brown, crumbly, soil-smelling organic waste product is lovingly called 'cake.' and this room, the Cake Room, is where it lives until the boxes get taped up and sent back to the united states.

in two weeks, the WWTP produces three triwalls (large square boxes) of cake. that's a lot of poop. two weeks' worth of poop from a thousand people! and it fits in three triwalls.

if you go into the cake room toward the end of the two weeks, just before the boxes get taped up, you can see little green sprouts pushing out of the cake.

here I am, pretending to have a snack of sprouts. don't worry, I didn't actually touch the cake, much less taste it.

okay, on that note, I better go eat dinner and say goodbye to folks.

sorry this last entry was so rushed!

stay tuned for stories from my around-the-world travels.

chalet (formerly shuttle) cindy

2007-02-02T16:03:00.000+13:00

morale: up!

it's that time of season when folks are starting to get a little punchy.

we've been working long hours at the same drudging jobs, eating the same lackluster meals, sharing rooms with the same high-maintenance roommates, working out in a dilapidated gym with the same stinky offenders for months now. everyone's dreaming of their off-ice travels, or simply of home and family and good indian food. tempers are a little shorter, everyone looks a little more haggard.

but this past sunday, we got a welcome shot of emotional caffeine when approximately 450 lucky members of the mcmurdo community were treated to a rare and long-awaited event: a cruise up the sea ice channel aboard the USCGC Polar Sea.

in years past, as old mcmurdoites fondly recall, the coast guard icebreakers that make a yearly visit to mcmurdo to break open a channel through the sea ice would also take several hundred people on 'morale cruises' up and down the channel. the waters around mcmurdo teem with wildlife, and sightings of seals, penguins, minke whales, and orcas were not uncommon. these were huge morale boosts for a community that had been working at least six days a week since august or october.

for the last several years, however, a gargantuan iceberg known as B-15 blocked the currents that normally break up the sea ice surrounding mcmurdo station. the ice, instead of flowing out to sea, became thicker and thicker -- much harder to break through than single-year ice. as a result, the icebreakers that came to mcmurdo had their work cut out for them -- breaking a trail to our port. by the time the job was finished, there was no time or fuel to be had for cruises for the community.

but B-15 is no more (see link to scientific article in my earlier post about icebergs), and the sea ice edge this season is less than twenty miles from mcmurdo. for weeks, the buzz around town was: Would the Polar Sea offer morale cruises this season?

on thursday afternoon, I took a bio-break in the ladies' room. when I got back to my desk, my boss said You just got really busy. dave bresnahan, our NSF representative on station, had just approved two morale cruises for the coming sunday. the captain had agreed to take 200 people on each one. mcmurdo's population was at 932. and it was up to my office to select who got to go.
morale trips in general, and morale cruises in particular, are a tricky and controversial subject. boondoggles, as morale trips are familiarly known, are in short supply. supervisors have the ultimate level of decision-making authority when it comes to who gets to go on them, which can be an incentive to perform well at your job in order to be chosen, but can also be the cause of hate and discontent. although the Chalet is not responsible for choosing the individuals who go on the trips, it receives an inordinate share of the community's ire and frustration because it administers the program. my friend dave puts it this way:

for every person who goes on a morale trip, fifteen people whine about it.

people who administer morale trips start to hate the whole thing (see #1)

'jokes' about morale trips are not funny to people who administer them (see #1 and #2)

it's true. there IS lots of whining about morale trips. so administering this particular mass morale trip was going to be a very delicate process.

my boss and the NSF rep decided, in what was a truly inspired blast of genius, to select the lucky 400 through a random lottery. my original idea had been to give first priority to those on station who had not yet been on a morale trip this season. however, the wide variety in what is considered a morale trip, as well as the types of morale trips offered and the types of folks eliglible for morale trips, meant that the selection process would have been ungainly, messy and ultimately very difficult to put into practice. so the random lottery would have to be it. no one would be able to claim that the Chalet had played favorites or stacked the deck in favor of certain departments.

we had the recreation department (who has lots of experience with this sort of thing) post sign-up sheets outside their office. the sheets were put up at 5:30 pm on thursday. they would come down at 7:30 am on saturday. so folks would have 38 hours to get their name on the list, thereby allowing everyone -- even night workers, who often get overlooked for such activities -- to sign up.

final count at 7:30 saturday morning: 649 names. I typed the names into an Excel spreadsheet and eliminated any duplicate entries (which were more a result of friends unknowingly signing each other up than anyone's nefarious attempt to increase their own chances). our local IT trainer, bill, wrote an Excel macro which would then assign a random number to each name. better living through technology.

the lucky ones were 1 through 400. 401 through 500 were alternates. we posted the manifests in the mail hallway, where they were immediately swarmed. my boss, the station manager, groused a little that he hadn't made the list but said it proved that the process was truly fair.

on sunday morning, I went down to the ice pier at 0730 with jane from the recreation department. she was armed with her trusty bullhorn, and each of us had clipboards, pencils (pens freeze up in the cold) and copies of the manifest. the first cruise was scheduled for 0800. there were already about twenty-five people standing on the ice pier, oogling at the ship. I chased them back across the bailey bridge (a movable bridge connecting the ice pier to land) and had them line up A-K, L-Z. folks were arriving in droves, talking excitedly.

once we got the thumbs-up from our coast guard liaison, we started checking folks in. they streamed across the bailey bridge and up the gangway, where they were swallowed up by the ginormous ship. anchors aweigh at approximately 0820. bon voyage!

I went back to sleep for three hours, then woke up to have brunch and get ready to check in the second group of folks for the 1400 sailing. the dining hall was swarming with folks who had just come back from the first cruise. they were positively glowing. people stopped me left and right to express their thanks for my part in putting together the morale cruise, and several asked me if I was on the manifest myself.

I hadn't put my name into the hat because I knew if I were chosen there would be disgruntled mutterings about town, and I just didn't want to deal with the fallout. folks told me that I should have as much chance as anyone, but frankly, it wasn't that big a deal to me.

after brunch, I went back down to the pier with lisa (another recreation department person) and the bullhorn. we lined everyone up and started checking folks off. in addition to those who were actually on the manifest, and a gaggle of alternates, there were several people who had just walked up hoping that by some miracle of the universe they would get onto the ship. there were lots of no-shows, but there were also lots of alternates present, so it wasn't looking good for the hopeful walk-ons.

at about 1350, we were checking off the last alternate names. nine spots to go, and still about thirty people standing around looking less and less hopeful. lisa herself was so far down on the alternates list that it wasn't looking good, even for her.

then don, the coast guard liaison, walked over the bailey bridge and beckoned to me and lisa. I thought he was going to ask what the holdup was or something. then he leaned in and whispered, The captain just told me that we can take 250 on this sailing.

lisa and I couldn't believe our ears. we had been told for days that the '200' number was unbudgeable. and here they were telling us that it was indeed budgeable -- by fifty.

I wasn't going to question the captain, at least not then!

lisa did a quick count of everyone still standing on the pier. no one breathed. then she took a deep breath and, with great relish, yelled We're all going!

words cannot describe the gorgeousness of the floating blue chunks of frozen sea, the emperor penguins that poked their head out of the water like loons, the smell of seawater, the excitement of my fellow passengers, the gracious and helpful manner of the coasties, the minke whales that spouted and swam next to the boat, the dozens of seals lounging like so many brown slugs on the sea ice, the color of the sky as we steamed away from the station. so I'm including photos.

truly magical.

you can read more about the Polar Sea here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Polar_Sea

the icebreaker's job is to open and maintain the channel, as well as a turning basin out in front of the station (where the ice runway used to be). the channel and basin are then used extensively by other, non-icebreaker-class ships that come to mcmurdo. this season, the lineup includes:

USAP research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer, essentially a floating research station

MV Paul Buck, the fuel tanker that replenishes millions of gallons of fuel used since last february

MV American Tern, our yearly cargo vessel, carrying everything from frozen chickens to toilet paper.

approximately 90 personnel that arrived on the last C-17 from christchurch are classified as NAVCHAPs - the US Navy Cargo Handling and Port Group out of williamsburg, virginia. the NAVCHAPs have been described as 'combat stevedores,' and their sole purpose while at mcmurdo is to assist with vessel offload, a gargantuan effort involving the movement of hundreds of containers of incoming and outgoing cargo.

the arrival of the NAVCHAPs is traditionally looked upon with dread and fear by many members of the mcmurdo community. supposedly they are an unruly group of booze-swilling, woman-chasing, crotch-scratching, nose-thumbing, door-trying louts that are sent down here by the navy as sort of a last chance to prove their worth before getting kicked out. (that's the persistent rumor, anyway. I've read that it's a volunteer gig, with many more volunteers than spaces. perhaps the locals just need a scapegoat, and NAVCHAPs are a convenient seasonal target.) mcmurdoites also like to blame them for the fact that during vessel offload, the bars are closed and the store does not sell alcohol.

one of my roommates has strong-armed the rest of us into keeping the door of our room locked 24/7 while the NAVCHAPs are in town. her reasoning is that because many of them are housed in our dorm, her laptop and camera are more likely to go walkabout. I see many flaws in her argument, not the least of which is that thefts occur at mcmurdo every season when the NAVCHAPs are nowhere in sight. the rest of us in the room don't like to live behind locked doors, in distrust of our neighbors, and it rankles us to have to carry our keys around. but in the name of 'shalom in the home,' we'll do it...until the NAVCHAPs leave.

a couple of weeks ago, mcmurdo held its annual marathon. over fifty people signed up to walk, run or ski the half or full marathon, including me. I trained for several months in order to run the half, but my shinsplints kept bothering me. I quit running for the last week prior, hoping they would heal, but when it got to be a few days before and it still hurt to walk, I decided not to risk further injury. I'm planning to do a fair bit of trekking this spring and summer and it just wouldn't be worth it. I was a bit sad at not being able to say I've run a half marathon in antarctica, but it didn't bother me for long.

I did go to the finish line to wait for delaney and amber, who ran the half and full marathons respectively. go team!

here's a picture of delaney and my boss eric (in the blue hat) at the starting line, and a picture of delaney finishing with his friend lucas.

and here are a couple of pictures of a little adelie guy that wandered onto station. he toddled up next to the health & safety building and just hung out for a while. people were taking lots of pictures of and with him and he didn't bat an eyelash. someone must have been afraid that he would get hit by a vehicle, so they erected a little impromptu roadblock for him.

and here's a fairly recent pic of me and delaney up on castle rock, with mt. erebus in the background.

leaving mcmurdo in less than two weeks! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

2007-01-05T17:10:00.000+13:00

happy new year from antarctica!

here's a pic from this year's IceStock, which is an outdoor music festival held at mcmurdo around new year's day. along with a chili cookoff and a beard contest, it's one of the highlights of the season. people turn out to hear live music, sample chili, wear funny wigs or stilts or giant cardboard cutouts of cacti and peppers, or just to get drunk in the middle of the day.

we were supposed to get a big herbie (storm) that day, but mother nature was feeling generous and it was pretty nice out - just a little bit blowy.
because I am obviously such an arbiter of good taste and a connoisseur of facial hair, I was asked by our recreation department to be a judge at the IceStock beard-growing contest. (actually, all my girlfriends know what a weakness I have for the carhartt-and-facial-hair combo.) the contest kicked off six weeks ago with an official shaving. then the contestants tried mightily to grow some impressive facial hair, which would later be judged in five categories:

best mustache

best donegal (think leprechauns; i.e., a beard with no mustache)

most original

best overall

worst beard

on judgment day, about ten contestants showed up in various stages of hirsuteness. my friends matt and marty had also been asked to judge. we were all herded into the coffeehouse, where the contestants proceeded to shamelessly bribe the three of us with cans of CD (canterbury draught, the bud light of new zealand), promises of everlasting love and devotion, even a cigar. none of it had any effect on us, of course. we were not swayed from our steely single-mindedness one bit. there was a beard championship at stake, man!

here I am on stage, flanked by impressive beards right and left, and wearing the hat amber gave me for christmas.

as no contestant showed up sporting merely a mustache, we decided that the winner of that category would be the man who could run home and shave off his beard the fastest, thereby leaving him with an award-winning mustache.

the worst beard award was given to a guy who had facial hair so sparse and thin that I could have outdone him with one of my armpits.

the most original beard was given to a man who had had a beard for so long, when he shaved for the start of the contest, his own son (who also works on station) didn't recognize him. (we took the liberty of interpreting the word 'original' in the sense of 'around since the dawn of time,' not 'creative.')

and to decide on the best overall beard, we went back to the fundamentals. what is the purpose of a beard? where did the beard originate? what is the sound of one beard clapping?

and we decided that, on its most basic and integral level, facial hair is a pragmatic feature, one that is used -- for warmth, for disguise, for cushioning. and, on some particularly blessed men, for transport. of twigs, leaves, bits of food, small animals, whatever.

on that basis, we awarded 'best overall beard' to jared (above), a janitor who will never be at a loss for stir sticks. a round of stunned applause followed.

on new year's eve, delaney and I hopped a ride out to pegasus airfield, about 45 minutes outside of town on the ice shelf, with a fuelie who was driving out there to replenish the generators. we had heard that there were a few emperors hanging out near the runway, just standing around. apparently they were molting, which is so physically taxing a process the poor penguin can do little else but be miserable for a few days. which is too bad for the penguin, but makes for great photo ops.

jon dropped us off near some cargo sleds and bam - there he was. one lonely emperor penguin, who promptly shat bright green poop as soon as we came into view.

he looked like he'd been put through the indian wars, or at least some kind of masticator. there were tufts of old pinfeathers feathers sticking up out of the top of his head, giving him a rather sid vicious kind of look, and all over the top portion of his body, so it looked like he was wearing a furry vest. really, it was pretty funny. he didn't seem to care much that there were these two red-coated weirdos peering at him and taking his picture.

that was a great end to 2006.

and here are some pics I just got from one of the cooks, of me and delaney swing-dancing at the holiday party.

what this really consists of is delaney flinging me around the dance floor and dislocating most of my joints. but he's a very good dancer, and it's actually a lot of fun if I just sort of go all loosey-goosey and first make sure there are no breakable objects within a fifty-foot radius.

a friend in DC sent me a bunch of posters reading War is Not the Answer and asked if I could get some folks together to take a photo holding the posters.

here we are in front of the McMurdo Station sign. it came out a little dark, but that's okay, because we could get in trouble for taking a political picture with a piece of NSF property, and this way they can't identify us.

and finally, here are some cool shots of the first-ever C-17 airdrop over the south pole. the NSF wanted to do this as a 'proof of concept' thing where they could prove that, in case they ever needed to, they could drop pallets of food, medical supplies, back issues of Seventeen magazine, whatever, over the south pole and not kill anyone in the process.

pretty neat, huh?

more to come!