Boulder Rocks

Three weeks after I arrived in Boulder, I am still here. My new job is great, and very close to my apartment and to downtown. That's right: I've decided to stay. It didn't take long for me to realize that this was not going to be a mere 2-week visit. Boulder is not an enormous city, but it isn't small either. With just over 100,000 residents, it has both a town-feel and city-vibe. The Flatirons rise at a precipitous angle to the southwest, almost obscuring the first Brobdingnagian* white-capped Rockies.

(*Brob•ding•nag•i•an, meaning "enormous", derives from the name of the "land of giants" in Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift. It's just such a fun word, I couldn't help myself! Anyway, back to the point...)

A few days after I arrived, I am exploring Pearl Street, the buzzing heart of the city, with my friend and getting a feel for its pulse. There never seems to be a dull moment on Pearl: A Jamaican contortionist gathers a small crowd in the plaza between an Italian Bistro and an eclectic burrito joint enigmatically named "Illegal Pete's". Nearby, a cacophonous battery of rhythm from a sweating young drummer beating on pickle drums and wooden boxes has drowned out a white-bearded folk guitarist, who is now collecting a fat wad of $1's and $5's from his open guitar case, preparing to move to a less musically-crowded area. He will have to go pretty far, as the next block is dominated by a pair of middle-aged didgeridoo players in Keens puffing away next to a long-haired hammer dulcimer player and a type-writing man with a cardboard sign boasting "Instant Poems about Anyone or Anything". Subsequent blocks are similarly flecked with jugglers, jabberers, musicians and magicians.

Spotting our meandering path, a Greenpeace canvaser has drawn a bead on us, but we evade him by ducking into a gregariously colorful kite shop, where great blue dragonflies hang in a suspended dance among fiery comets and frozen rainbow curlycue spirals and fluttering streamers. The adults in the store seem just as enchanted with the assortment of toys, kites and candy as the wide-eyed children cooing with delight. The sensory overload is almost dizzying. Peeking outside, it appears that the coast is clear, but as we walk back into the street the surreptitious canvaser catches us anyway. But unbeknownst to him I have one last trick up my sleeve: I look him furtively in the eye and utter the magic passwords: "Arctic Sunrise", and he melts away like a Himalayan glacier. My friend raises a questioning eyebrow, but my best Mona Lisa face offers no explanation.

As the day matures we decide it's sandwich time. Kat knows a good place down by 22nd Street, so we turn around and head for the East End. Along the way two words catch my eye, as they always do: fair trade. The store beneath these wonderful words is called Momentum, and reminds me greatly of East Lansing's delightful fair trade shop, Kirabo, so I decide to stop in. (And you can "click-in" as well, for I have provided links to both their webpages. Check them out!) The pretty blue-eyed girl at the counter greets me, and we strike up a conversation. We talk about fair trade, the peace corps and traveling. Impressed, she informs me that the store is actually currently hiring, and that I should apply. Well! This day just keeps getting better and better!

And so I did apply. Kat helped me write a thoughtful cover letter, and I submitted it with my resume and references. A few days later they call me in for a short personal interview, followed by a "working interview", in which they sent me out solo onto the sales floor to greet and interact with customers. Peopleing comes naturally to me, and my knowledge of the fair trade movement is substantial, so manning the floor was a breeze. (I only had one awkward moment: I tried to greet and engage a great fat man in aviator glasses, who responded to me only in bearish grunts. Ooookay, yep, that was awkward.) An hour later they offered me the position, and started me training right away. I was elated, if a bit dizzied by the quickness of all these happenings.

This all occurred just under two weeks ago, and I am really loving this job. The owners are great, and my 4 coworkers are wonderfully friendly and helpful. I am catching on quickly to the routines and rhythms of the store, though I still have a lot to learn. My very favorite thing is reading then recounting the product stories that accompany the items we sell. The multi-colored throw blankets hanging on wooden hooks along the back wall are actually recycled saris from India, hand-sewn by impoverished women rescued from Kolkata's (Calcutta's) brutal sex-trafficking industry. Embroidered baby bibs and dolls provide essential income for a group of Zimbabwean women who have been ostracized by their communities for deciding to keep and raise their handicapped children. The Women's Bean Project supports battered or economically disadvantaged women in Denver through the sale of a variety of homemade soup mixes, iced teas and candy. Cards From Africa ensures steady employment and offers vital support for Rwandan youths, orphaned by violence or disease, who have become the head of their families and must now care for their younger siblings. And there are hundreds more. It is amazing just how much buying a fairly traded product can positively impact the lives of some of the world's most marginalized people. The more I learn, the more I want to promote and support the movement.

I expect to post more good news from Boulder in the coming weeks, so check back here soon. In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful day! :)

~~~

Want to learn more about fair trade? Check out these links:

A Wikipedia overview
Fair Trade USA
Fair Trade Federation
Fair Trade International
Ten Thousand Villages, Fair Trade handicrafts
Cards from Africa, an amazing organization
Fair Trade News (via Google)

<---- Also, look for these symbols!

United Airfail

I like running. It's good cardio, and it helps relieve stress and clear my head. It's especially nice if there is a river nearby, it's warm-but-not-too-warm and maybe a bit of a breeze. I also like running in new places, as it's a fun way to get to know an area quickly. But there are some places I don't like running. Inner cities make you stop too much to wait for walk signs. In place is just dumb. The surface of the sun is too hot, and the bottom of the ocean isn't good for my lungs. But there is once place I really don't like running: airports.

My little adventure got off to a good start yesterday morning, in that I got up in time. I had sagely packed everything I needed the day before, so all I had to do was get up and go. At the bus stop a group of groggy, backpacked students were already waiting, and I stood patiently by. The bus was only about 2 minutes late, but I wasn't worried because I'd already planned on it bein– IT JUST ZOOMED RIGHT PAST!! Yep, the already-full bus decided that this group looked just a smidge too fat to fit on the bus, so he just skipped us altogether. (Of course the one time I actually don't miss the bus, the bus misses me. Irony better than Alanis Morissette.) It was only 9:40 am at this point, so I had plenty of time, but many of the students around me had 10:20 classes, so they were less pleased. Luckily, another bus rounded the corner after a few minutes to pick up the leftover riffraff.

Upon reaching campus I had about 45 minutes before I had to board my bus, enough time for coffee and bagels. I boarded the Michigan Flyer at 11:00am and arrived at Detroit Metro with plenty of time to spare. (The only minor hitch was at the brand-new self check-in states, which were just installed the previous day and full of glitches. In fact, I didn't even "self-check" at all, as a United worker did it all for me, trying to figure out how to romance the cranky machine.) Ticket in hand, I found my departure gate and boarded with my section. An aisle seat, alas, but at least I was on the plane. The engines fired up and we taxied the runway to prepare for takeoff. Then stopped.

"Ladies and gentleman, there will be experiencing a short delay while we await ground clearance information from Dulles in DC. We will receive updates in about 30 minutes."

Not a good sign, and although the plane was already 20 minutes late for takeoff, it was not an impassible death sentence on my connection in Washington DC, so I continued to read my book. When the pilot's tinny voice sprung up over the intercom again half an hour later, he announced a further 30 minute delay. That's when people started murmuring. An elderly couple behind me fretted about their connection to Moscow; I didn't envy them. With yet another delay of 20 minutes, the pilot announced that should we not receive the go-ahead from Washington Dulles, we would return to the gate and await further details. When the final delay of over an hour was announced, the engines rumbled to life again, and we taxied in slow defeat back to gate D6, and found ourselves right where we started. I was reminded of the bus affair that morning.

Time to get in line and rebook. Although I, in row 5, was one of the last people to enter the plane, I was in turn one of the first to exit, thereby near the beginning of the re-booking line. Inclement weather had grounded all DC-bound planes, so it was necessary to connect through other airports, the closest being Chicago. (To me this made much more sense anyway, since why would I want to fly east to DC just to fly west to Denver?) Indeed, when I received my new boarding pass it was for O'Hare, leaving just in just a little over half an hour, and scheduled to deliver me only a little bit late than my original arrival time. Great! Only then did I do the math and realize that my layover in Chicago would be a mere 20 minutes, if that. (Do you see where this story is going?) 'Well, que será será,' I thought to myself, and went back to the same Gate D6 where I had boarded my previous plane. I chose to ignore the possible omen.

This plane boarded on time, which was a good sign. My seat in row 14 was a middle seat, but the window seat to my left was conspicuously vacant. A few straggling passengers were still trickling onto the plane, and with each new face I held my breath until they chose a seat in the front, or passed by my row towards the back. Just when I thought the coast was clear, a stocky man with a mustache not unlike a walrus' trundled on board, and swiveled his perfectly spherical head from side to side, checking row numbers. I knew this was it, no window seat for me. And correct I was. But at least I was on the plane.

Takeoff and touchdown were as uneventful as air travel can be, but now it was go-time. My boarding pass did not list the gate from which my connection would depart, and upon entering the terminal, I cast about aimlessly for a bit, looking for the monitor showing all the arrivals and departures. When I finally found one, I located my flight number and almost swallowed my tongue. Denver 467, BOARDING, concourse C11. I was in concourse B and had about 10 minutes to make this flight. I took off at a quick jog, but was slowed to an awkward walk-trot when a security officer glared at me and took a menacing step in my direction. I don't know if you are familiar with O'Hare airport, but concourses B and C are not particularly close to each other. I took every moving walkway, still at my funny walktrot, and even broke into a full out run through some hallways where I saw no blue uniforms. I reached concourse C just in time and heaved some relieved (if labored) breaths as I checked in.

Being a transfer, my seat was WAY at the back of the plane, in row 41. When I entered the plane, the flight attendant looked at my ticket, frowned and said "This can't be right." She then plucked my boarding pass from my hand and threw it in the trash behind her. "You must be in seat 14. Do you have another boarding pass?" Stunned, I showed her my Detroit-Chicago boarding pass, which by pure luck just happened to have been, as you may recall, for seat 14. She cheerily accepted it and let me in. Though still shocked at this blatant ineptitude, a thought struk me and I turned back towards her. "Can I keep the other pass for my scrapbook?" She smiled vacuously, "Of course dear," and handed back my correct pass. I went and found my own seat in row 41 and sighed. Another aisle seat.

I was once more in the air, but this time rather relaxed. I had no more connections to make, and as long as United Air didn't accidentally deliver us to Winnipeg or Guam, I was golden. The only minor concern I had was for my luggage, which cannot run as fast as I, but there was nothing I could do about it now anyway. We touched down in Denver only a little later than scheduled, due to a mysterious re-route that took us through a corner of Wyoming to loop around Cheyenne, and I found Kat at baggage carousel 16. Even my luggage came through just fine. Despite the series of setbacks, all is well.

So it's my first day in Colorado, the new frontier! Adventure shall now commence.

"Go west, young man, go west!"

I've never seen a real mountain. Upper Michigan is rugged, but not elevated, and Paraguay is mostly flat. The Cordilleras of Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic are gorgeous, but not particularly tall. I've climbed (almost) to the highest point in the Caribbean, but at 3,098 meters (10,164 feet), Pico Duarte (Dom. Rep.) is still dwarfed by most peaks of the Colorado Rockies, which often climb above four thousand meters. Those are real mountains. Very few things have made me feel truly small lately... a clear night sky, Lake Superior and my giant friend Doug... but I'd say it's high time to be laid low by a real rocky mountain.

So I said to myself: "Go west, young man, go west!"

A quixotic piece of advice indeed, and one that I intend to follow. It was originally popularized in the mid-19th century by American newspaper editor and reformist Horace Greenley to promote Manifest Destiny. While I have no intention of claiming any land by divine right, it is not difficult to re-appropriate the phrase into a metaphor about claiming my own personal destiny. I won't, though. That would be cliché. I just want to see Colorado, and see it I shall. Tomorrow. (That is, if I don't miss my flight tomorrow afternoon. My relationship with bus and train schedules is a bit spotty, but I have never missed a flight, so I am confidant I will arrive in time to be successfully seated in a middle-seat between a fussy baby and a tiny yappy dog who doesn't like my face.) Here's to hoping!

Colorado will be a fun new adventure for me. My travel compass, you see, is severely lopsided. I've got South down, a respectable stint of East, and even a bit of North up my sleeve. But my wagon tracks to the West stop dismally short in central Iowa. The wagon (well, car) tracks won't change a bit, considering I'm flying to Boulder, Colorado tomorrow afternoon, but the idea is the same. Honorary wagon tracks, I'll call them. My one-way ticket will deposit me in Denver tomorrow in the early evening, where my good friends Kat and Jeremiah will (hopefully) find me and drive me to Boulder. I harbor no lack of faith on their reliability; I'm completely confidant that they will be there at the appointed time and place. I just hope that I, myself, arrive successfully at the appointed time and place, and not in New York, Anchorage or Gwam. Again, more news on the relative success on this point of interest shall be provided at a later date.

I also just realized that the last time I reached my personal Western Frontier it was also to visit Kat at Grinnell College several years ago. As every good friend should, she is again helping me to explore new horizons. She's like my very own Sacajawea.

So just like L&C, I shall embark Westward into an unknown land! Unknown to me that is, but only until tomorrow.

"It's always best to start at the beginning - and all you do is follow the yellow brick road." -Glinda, the Good Witch of the North

Getting to Paraguay is no easy task. Especially via Mexico. Even more so when you're not yet even in Mexico, and are, in fact, a shivering, homeless, unemployed vagabond in Northern Michigan. With no job prospects and no permanent address, the task is a greased pig at best. Some might call it a chimera, but I refuse to accept that accusation; people have achieved greater things with fewer resources in the past, so who's to say I can't travel 10,500 km* for 9ish months on a shoestring?


* That's about 6,500 miles for those of you still clinging to the crazy-system.

Every since I returned from my Peace Corps post in "El Corazón de Sudamérica" several weeks ago, I've been dreaming and scheming a way to go back there. I have people to visit, projects to follow up on, and things that I never got a chance to see while I was busy teaching. Besides, this will be my last great adventure before grad school, always looming on the horizon. (Student loans are like cement shoes for long-term traveling.) But right now the time, the conditions, are perfect.


I concede that the hurtle is set rather high. But I am prepared to rise to the challenge, armed with only a pen, a notebook, my ability to eat strange things and sleep in odd places, and my unflappable belief that I will not come crashing down in a burning pile of fail and end up broke and stranded somewhere in rural Nicaragua. It won't be easy, but struggle is the mother of strength, and I'm not afraid.

This blog will chronicle my progress on this adventure. Fall or fly, this shall be a testament to one crazy, optimistic guy's journey into the world. Stay tuned!