Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Well everyone, here I go again, out into the wide open air!

Today I return to my travel roots, retracing a path I created long ago that led me on a trajectory I could never have imagined. Almost ten years ago I got on a plane as a 15 year old and flew to Brisbane, Australia to be a Rotary Youth Exchange student for a year. I'd never been overseas before. This was before September 11th, when your friends and family could walk you right up to the gate. When sometimes, without your consent you'd be put on an earlier flight so you'd be sure to make your connections. Before text messaging was even a concept in the US (though it was already pretty big in Australia.) Before Facebook and Blogger and before every time you had a question you turned to a computer. Before my sister went to MIT, before I had my driver's license. Before everything.

Since then, I have lived on five continents, traveled to six. Had numerous wonderful loves and broken hearts. Made and left friends all over the world that I still think of every day. And kept friends that I've had long before all my travels. I discovered a passion for swing dancing. I found Allah, or God, or whatever you call it. My life has changed.

Now I return to Brisbane ten years older. With Rotary, again, this time as a Rotary Peace Scholar to get my masters at the University of Queensland in International Conflict Resolution. They are paying for everything: my flights, room and board, schooling, life. I am going to see friends Sunday night when I arrive that I haven't seen for nine years. Friends that I consider some of my closest. And I hope they still are. Friends that now have babies, and jobs and husbands and wives. Older friends.

I am nervous, but know everything will be fine. I will miss my life in Austin, but I will create a new life in Brisbane.

I have a tradition. Every time I start a new adventure, the night before I read myself "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Suess. It is by far my favorite book and just about anyone who knows me has heard me quote a line or two. No one else reads it to me, and if no one else is around, I still read it aloud. I read the same copy Matt Kime gave me before I moved to Australia. I read it with Kissie, the stuffed elephant Hillary Feinstein gave me before I moved to Australia and has now traveled with me everywhere. I read it in the bed, on the sheets, that I have had since my childhood.

You should read it aloud to yourself too. It will reinvigorate you to create something with your life. Here's a pretty good youtube version if you want it to be read to you.

The other side of South America...

Well, here I am in La Paz. I had a pretty great day. I took mom to the airport at 5 am and hopefully she´s just about home now. I got to watch the sunrise over La Paz on my way back in to town. The sun illuminating the mountains and the clouds rolling off the ridiculously large city. La Paz is breathtaking. Its in a bowl and for as far as you can see there are houses and people and streets. In the background, the Andes loom over the city keeping this crazy energy inside the bowl.

I slept a couple more hours and got up to have a full hour long massage (my first ever!) complete with hot stones on the trouble spots followed by the best pedicure I´ve ever had. Two hours later I had spent $20 US and felt perfectly pampered. I had lunch with my sis before she left and then packed up and relocated to the Loki hostel on the seedier side of downtown. I wandered around a bit, ending up at the National Museum of Art. It was a wonderfully hilarious museum. The best way I can describe it is like this: An art class was given as assignment (say, the coronation of the Virgin Mary or the past rulers of Bolivia), everyone in the class painted their interpretation of the event, and then the hung all the different versions on the walls. I mean, seriously, there was an entire room of coronation of the Virgin paintings that varied only just. I kind of laughed my way through the whole thing, though there were some very interesting paintings that I stopped for a while to look at. They also had a poster exhibition, in english, about free speech in Iran. It was interesting, I admit, but the weird connections between Iran and Bolivia are kiiiind of awkward, especially in the national museum.

On a not-really-related tangent, yesterday we went to Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan site outside of La Paz. It left much to be desired. The site was basically destroyed by the Spanish, there´s a half finished museum with terrible lighting, no one has any idea why the site was there or what its significance was in the overall Tiwanakan empire, and the upkeep leaves much to be desired; there are shards of ancient pottery and bones scattered all over the site just waiting to be excavated- or taken by tourists. The best part of the half-day excursion was that next week, January 21st, Bolivia´s coca leaf chewing, agricultural, socialist leader, Evo Morales, is being sworn in Again- at Tiwanaku. So our trip coincided with the dress rehearsal for the main event which will be attended by various world leaders from as far afield as Iran (again!), Spain, Syria, Chile, etc. I didn´t hear anything about a US representative though the private security force prepping the site were all definitely american ¨mercenaries¨. The coordinators were walking past the ¨Don´t pass¨ signs and touching the thousand year old statues that have barely survived the last 700 years, and generally taking advantage of the space. There were maybe 3-400 people at this rehearsal. Next week there will be 40,000. I don´t think the archeological site stands a chance.

But back to now. I am at the Loki hostel and really experiencing the other side of south American tourism. I am so grateful my mom isn´t staying here (it reeks of smoke, there are LOUD backpackers everywhere) and I am pretty damn happy I´ll only be here tonight and when I come back to go to the airport. There is a bar and from what I can tell everyone here (mostly Australians) drink at the bar all night long, go out to clubs, snort a lot of cheap cocaine, come back and sleep all day long just to get up and do it all again. The few people I have talked to have all pretty much lost track of how many days they´ve been here, how much they´ve spent, and what day it is- or was- the last time they saw the sun. One girl said she was going to Tiwanaku tomorrow and a group of seven people all said, ¨Where? What´s that?¨even though Tiwanaku is basically the biggest tourist site around. Amazing.

So I am headed to the jungle tomorrow. Or, rather, an eco-tourism site not too far from La Paz, but in a tropical setting. I read about it on some travel blogs months ago when I was doing research and it seemed like a great place to go and relax before I go back to Austin and my life totally changes. I was looking forward to going with my mom, but I think it will be good by myself too. It´s called La Senda Verde if anyone wants to check it out: La Senda

Until then, it´s 9 pm on a Saturday night, and I´m going to shower and crash. As appealing as a night of cheap cocaine and beligerent Australians sounds, I think an early night of good sleep sounds much better. Sweet dreams, all!

Poor Fonts

We´ve left the magical (and apparently wealthy) city of Cusco for the higher regions of lake Titicaca. On the lush drive through the rain soaked Andes, we drove through towns that remarkably resembled Senegal. The wealth descrepency between Lima and Cusco was strong, but not that bad. Now we have entered a much poorer and struggling region. The street food stands, flooded streets, rebar sticking out of every building, trash strew about, farm animals roaming the streets, and the tacky cheap fonts that I have come to associate with the developing world. I can´t upload pictures here but for any of you who have traveled from Developed to Developing world, you must know what I´m talking about. The bubbly water ads, hair dresser´s signs in bright pink, billboards for all sorts of cheap food seasonings (read- MSG) with back shadows and bright orange... You know what about it. I don´t care about fonts, generally, but marketing is something I think about. We´ve got to import some savvy, sexy fonts down here, tourists aint buying the tacky stuff anymore.

Anyway, we are on our way out for a cruise on Lake Titicaca today and we are staying with host families tonight. It sounds like a kitschy experience, but I´m sure I´ll enjoy parts of it. In other news my stomach seems to have made a full recovery and I am back to my chipper self, alhamdulilahi. Buenos Dias, all!

Written from the hospital yesterday....

Friday, January 8, 2010 2:13pm

Well. Here I am writing another update. This time from the sun-shine-y room of a private clinic in Cusco where I have been since last night. Indeed, the belly button of the earth has swallowed much of me, though I am slowly regaining strength and hopefully will be ready to be a happy tourist again tomorrow. Sadly, tomorrow my mom and sister will go to Maccu Picchu without me as transport cannot be arranged for a sickly lady and my body isn't ready for another mountain climb. This trip that has been so many years in the making is, therefore, being reconstructed. I do so hope that my mom has the most incredible experience of her life and that my sister will share it with her the way I would have liked us all to share it together. Allah sometimes has interesting plans and I don't fight with him.

It was hard to admit that not only was I too sick to go paragliding in my UT shirt yesterday (sorry about the results, Texans!), but was also too sick to even get out of bed (well, the ten feet between bed and the bathroom...). After 24 hours of constant pain and two doctors coming to visit me in the hotel, it was decided I should come here to receive better treatment. I have been hooked up to an IV ever since and have been getting cipro administered as well as constant blood pressure checks, two blood tests and two stool samples. (sexy, I know)

But do not fret for me, good readers. My situation is not so terrible. I may have been the sickest I have ever been yesterday (and that's saying a lot considering my travels in China and Senegal) but things aren't so bad for a white girl with money in the developing world. I have a room all to myself with a comfy bed and warm alpaca blankets. The nurses are very kind to me despite the language barrier, we are trying our best to communicate. My sister left me her little computer and while I don't have internet access, I can type and play solitaire and look at the loving pictures sent to me by Ben (best boyfriend ever) and the crew at the Fed last night, thank you so much everyone. I found a copy of The Corrections (one of my favorite books) at our hostel and brought it with me to the clinic, I'm already 100 pages in. I don't really remember arriving here (I was in a wheel chair!) so have no idea what the rest of the clinic is like but my room is very nice. The bathroom is clean (thank god!). My window is huge and looks out (if I sit up) on to the Andes that make this town a perfect belly button shape. Our tour guide came to check on me this morning and said, “Look, you can see the cathedral out the window!” To which I replied, “Oh yea, I visited it the other day!” He was surprised. But this gives me a sense of calm. In the days I was well I saw as much of this town as my feet were able to show me and loved every bit of my explorations. The touring around the Sacred Valley left me with no need for more and greater, anything more just being icing on the cake. I can't describe the beauty of this place, and although I may not see Maccu Picchu tomorrow, I would never complain about returning to this magical mess of fault lines. And besides. I Will be better tomorrow and ready to continue my explorations to Puno, Lake Titicaca, and La Paz. Hopefully the updates will be filled with more exciting stories soon. Until then, dear friends, adios!

Something to say.

Its been about ten months since I last wrote. In that time I've had just about the best year of my life, danced hundreds of hours, met an incredible man, reconnected with old friends and loved living in the US. The only time I left the US was for two days to go to Toronto with my sister in July. Why, with all these wonderful experiences did I not feel the need to write? Well, probably because you and you and you are all having exactly the same experiences in your american locales and don't really need to read about another fun night out off 6th street or how camping in Texas in November can still have warm days and beautiful crystal clear nights. You're doing it too. Maybe you're not, but as a summary:

My year in Austin was absolutely amazing. I got pretty into the swing dance scene and met some wonderful people and had some time-stopping dances. I traveled to San Antonio, Dallas (twice), New Orleans, Rochester and Toronto to dance. I met a great guy dancing that I decided to keep named Ben. I made all my friends come out dancing and a few of them have taken it up and started taking classes. I did not fail in the dancing department.

I had two jobs, for Emancipet and the University of Texas Board of Regents. I quit working at E+ in October and moved to almost full time at UT. It was great not having to work long hours on Fridays and Saturdays and wonderful to work downtown.

I spent all summer swimming at Barton Springs and I think I visited just about every art museum/concert venue/outdoor activity available in Austin. I went to a UT game, kayaked on lake Austin, hashed through the underground drainage tunnels of the city, got on stage to dance at the Mohawk on Halloween, climbed a mountain, spun under the Zilker park Christmas tree, saw Robert Earl Keen at Stubbs, ate numerous tacos out of numerous stands, took the bus almost everywhere, went toobing for my most wonderful birthday, spent Christmas at a super manly campsite in east Texas where I ate fresh smoked ribs and ten hour brisket, spent a night at the Driskill, and danced everywhere you can- and can't- imagine.

But now that wonderful adventure is coming to an end and I am now having seriously new adventures. I am writing this long overdue entry from Cusco, Peru (otherwise known as the bellybutton of the earth). Why am I writing a blog entry instead of playing outside? Well, the gods of travel have decided to cast a spell on my tummy and instead of sleeping through the sunlight, I decided to write a blog entry from a hammock in the beautiful garden of our hotel. Suck on that, gods of travel! [just kidding, please don't cause me anymore pain, gods!]

It is January 6th, Three Kings Day. There are very colorful and loud bands/groups traipsing around the city in crazy costumes to celebrate the holiday and it is pretty exciting to see all the different outfits. From what I can tell, each village/community organization has its own group that parades from its home base to the city center playing loud loud music on various instruments and encouraging the community to follow along. Last night, in Ollantaytambo (google, please), we got to see a small-town version of the same festivities. I kept thinking the guys in masks with whips would come after us tourists (a la Senegal) but they seemed very focused. One group kept pulling individuals out of the crowd, holding them in the air and tying and burning their shoelaces together. It was all in good fun and so easily enjoyed. Not like festivals in Senegal where if a crowd is asked to move back a riot erupts. With the Andes and ancient Inca ruins in the background it really felt like a unique experience that you just can't get every day on a tour.

I guess that brings me to why I'm writing today. I should tell you about seeing two Llamas grazing by a swing set, or the two people blowing bubbles in the market place today, or getting our passport pictures for our Bolivian visas and watching the picture taker photoshop our pictures so we wouldn't look so splotchy, or the breathtaking (literally, we're at 10,000 feet above sea level) views over the sacred valley (you can google it but it won't do it any justice because its the rainy season right now and everything is bright green), or the amount of gold in the many many churches I have already visited in Peru, but I have a question for you all. And yes, I know I have lost my entire reader base since last March. I will try to entice you all back.

Today I am wondering about where in the world one can have a unique tourist experience, if thats an oxymoron, if one would know it if it happened, and what tourism means to the local economy.

I have traveled a lot in the last few years, as you all know. This is my fourth tour around countries with my mom (Scotland/Ireland/Senegal/Peru and soon Bolivia) and we have very different ideas of how to define a unique tourist experience. When I saw the llamas grazing on the playground with no owner nearby, I felt like I was having a real experience. When we stopped at a ceramics factory with huge electric kilns and llamas in pens in the back, I wasn't buying into it. When I woke up early and went down to the just-opened market and had fresh squeezed orange and mango juice while watching the sellers set up, I knew I was the only tourist that day having that experience. When I went out for pizza with the rest of our tour group to a "real" Peruvian pizzeria and the Pan Flute band demanded tips from us, I felt like I was being jipped but everyone else was over the moon with excitement. A lot of the Incan ruins we've visited are 40% old and 60% new meaning the majority of what awes you is a reconstruction of past awesomeness. Is that OK? Legit? Does it matter if its unique if you get what you were expecting? My mom expects pan flute bands, so she loves them. Other people on the tour want to go salsa dancing, is salsa dancing native to Peru? I just don't know. Is it a real experience because I say it is? Because its what I expect as opposed to what others expect? What do I know about "real Peruvian culture"? How would I know when I was experiencing it without being immersed in this culture for two years as I was in Senegal? Are my unique experiences more real than others? I think probably not...

But it is interesting to see what tourism has done to all these cultures in developing countries. People from all over the world come to Peru to see llamas and Machu Picchu. Every small town we've been in we've heard the same things: the men are all porters on the Inca trail or taxi drivers in the city. The women make handicrafts to sell to tourists. The economy here is almost completely reliant on tourism, and as a result I feel like the "real experience" is lost behind pan flute bands and para gliding over the Andes (which, btw, I intend to do in the next couple days).As a result of all this economic muscle being invested into tourism, there is no incentive to invest in new development of cultural activities. So the tourism we experience now is a look at what once-upon-a-time-may-have-been-something-like-what-we-think-Peru-might-have-been-like as opposed to what it actually was, or IS. But now the IS is tourism. That is everything. If entire villages are buying taxis and making llama fur hats, that is Peru now, despite the fact that to me it may feel like a completely false representation of this culture I came to experience. So I am perplexed and wondering where in the world one can find this unique experience and if, in fact, what I think are real experiences are Real by nature of me thinking they are. Everyone has a right and an incentive to profit from tourism here, so I really shouldn't judge if an entire community of women dresses up in silly costumes to try to sell me ugly ponchos. Watching two llamas have sex behind their stalls made it totally worth it! But its hard to know what is real, what is fake, whether or not it matters, and how you feel about it. Anyway, this trip so far has been completely amazing and I expect it to continue. But please, let me know how you feel about this tourism catch 22, por favor.

SXSW!

At 6 am on 6th street this morning I could barely tell that mere hours before the street, and all of Austin had been pulsing to the beat of over 1600 bands playing anywhere and everywhere throughout the city. The music portion of South by Southwest(SXSW) started Wednesday and life has been a little off kilter for everyone ever since. Thousands of drum sets and amps flood the city from every corner of the globe for one of the world's best known and most popular indie music events, converging on the city like the bats that live under Congress bridge, for five days of beats, breaks, and bass. Austin-ites charge anywhere from $100-500 night for out-of-towners to sleep on their FLOORS. Alcohol flows freely- and I mean for FREE. The glamorous put on their skinny jeans and line the bathrooms to do coke. Pillow fights break out randomly on the streets. Fans line up for hours to see their favorite indie bands and then drink with them later in crowded bars. Drum and bass plays across the street from gangsta rap with heavy metal and rock bands playing on either side. Tappers have showdowns in the middle of closed off streets. Everyone eats hotdogs. Credit cards are maxed out. A lot of credit cards are maxed out. Festival goers lucky enough to have badges or wristbands crowd in to all size of venues to see just about every up and coming act you can think of. Secret shows by Metallica and the Indigo Girls get whispered like top secret information. VIP is the word everywhere. People end up with 10+ wristbands and stamps on their arms from one day of walking around. And there are people. Everywhere. FROM Everywhere. And there is MUSIC. Everywhere. FROM Everywhere. It is incredible.

I have seen all different kinds of music and partied all night long and met amazing people and drank stupid amounts of free vodka and danced til I couldn't walk and been to house parties busted by the cops and I've barely done anything since I've had to work every day. Musical highlites for me so far- Kid Sister, The Egg (London), The Reagan Administration, The Heartless Bastards, and French Miami but I've found myself enjoying lots of other bands while wandering around whose names I will never know. Grizzly Bear, M Ward, The Black and White Years are all getting tons of hype.

But this morning at 6am, there were no signs of SX craziness to be found. The streets were empty save a few extra cabs. The pavement of 6th street shined having just been washed, the trash cans were all empty. I could have gone to work today never knowing that there was a festival at all. Except, of course, that I do know, and I am so very grateful to be taking part.

The Work Force

Howdy folks.

I've started a new job this week with The University of Texas System (www.utsystem.edu for some reason my links aren't working). Its pretty great. Remember those nice men I was collecting signatures for a few weeks back? Well, one of them very kindly offered me a job and I'm so grateful because so far it seems like it will be a great opportunity to learn a lot of new stuff and experience a whole other side of Austin.

Anyway, now I have two jobs and bounce back and forth between EMANCIPE+ (www.emancipet.org the spay neuter clinic) and UT Systems Board of Regents office. Its gotten me thinking about all the various jobs I've had- mostly in an administrative capacity- and the very many differences between them all. In my head, my experience separates itself between Private companies, Non Profits and Government jobs. Each category seems to have defining characteristics and that's our topic today.

Non profits:
The first thing I always notice in non profits is the level of professionalism. You can get away with wearing converse to work and almost every desk will have little sticky notes that look about two years old with flowers drawn on them. This relaxed atmosphere works very well for a lot of people. It creates an environment where the office staff is normally pretty friendly and would probably invite each other out for drinks on the weekend. It also means that there is normally a lot of gossiping behind people's backs and when someone does something wrong, formal disciplinary action is normally replaced with a slight slap on the wrist. Non profits are also always tight on money which means the phone lines suck, the copier is always broken and the cleaner does a mediocre job at best. But the best and most redeeming thing about non-profits is how much people love to work for them. They are passionate about what they do and therefore get excited about coming in to work or working way long hours for very little pay. In that kind of environment it is exciting to be productive despite obstacles and rewarding when things go well.

Government jobs:
I have the least experience with these types but this is what I've gathered. Government jobs are cushy in that, although you may not be well paid, you get good benefits and as long as you do your job well enough that nobody complains you won't get in trouble and you won't get fired. There are a lot of birthday celebrations and cubicle toys in a government office. You have to wear slacks, but you can leave the tie at home. Chances are you're not going to see a window unless you walk to it. You can take long lunch breaks. You have five supervisors and are not sure what any of them do, some days you forget what you do. There are paper trails five miles long for every decision. Coffee is a very important part of a government job. You know the security guard at the door by name and may even know his kids names. Government jobs are great because they give you a lot of personal freedom although they may not challenge you much and if you blink you may realize its 20 years later and you're still at the same desk.

Private companies...
...are generally sterile. They are well decorated, very clean, and a lot of attention is paid to details in the office. But you probably have a cubicle anyway. Something about private companies always makes me feel a little uncomfortable. They're either too quiet or too fancy and I feel a little too "non-profit" for my environment. I don't like to wear heels, which are pretty much a requirement at least some days and I hate make up and that's never an option. People work very hard, but they get compensated well for it. They have huge budgets and use them to provide awesome services that are efficient and make money. At the same time, there are strict regulations for everything and all work and correspondence is well documented for auditing purposes. But! You probably get free drinks/food on a daily basis and as long as you get your work done you can even work out flex time. Also, you get cool perks like, "family appreciation days" at the local amusement park. (Not as cool if you're paying a mortgage, but I'll take it!) But its pretty easy to get away with forgetting your co-workers birthday, even though you've worked together for ten years.

The difference between EMANCIPE+, a low-cost spay/neuter non-profit where I have a cat living on my desk (her name is Bessie I'll put pictures up sometime) and any combination of gigantic dogs and chihuahuas slobbering on my stuff, and I go home covered with animal hair but still smiling after a ten hour day AND UT System where I wear make up and feel a real responsibility to work hard and the majority of the people we work for are millionaires, but I get to drink free tea all day and go home with red eyes from the fluorescent lighting is ASTRONOMIC. They could not be more conflicting environments, but I really do love them both and I appreciate that I get to do completely different, challenging work every day.

I don't know what the point of all that was, I just like to put my observations down and see if anyone has anything to say about them. My sister is coming to visit this weekend, and I'm throwing a Beers of the World party Sunday to welcome her to Austin. Hopefully it won't get too out of control (you'd think since I just moved here I wouldn't actually know anyone but somehow that's not the case) and we'll all have fun! Happy Weekend!