"Words of Magnificence" by Andrew!

Homeward Bound!!!

2009-06-10T00:31:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this blog with great enthusiasm, for it represents a closing on this chapter of my life. My time at the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica is finally at an end! To celebrate this momentous occasion, I left the country with a gargantuan smile on my face! I guess it wasn't actually gargantuan, I just wanted to use that word. In reality, my face looked confused and extremely, extremely tired.

I don't think there's been much secret in my writing nor my stories that I was not overly impressed with Costa Rica. In fact, I wasn't impressed at all. Some would even say that I downright didn't like it (I would be one of those who made such a claim). I do feel some kind of obligation to disclaim that I arrived to Costa Rica already bitter. I was bitter about two major issues: spending one more year in another developing country, and being away from my friends and family for one more year. With that perspective, I openly admit that it would have been pretty hard for anyone to walk away from this experience saying, "Gee wiz, Costa Rica and UPeace are great!" This may explain my cynicism and negative outlook on a lot of my writings.

It wasn't all bad, though. I met some amazing people from everywhere in the world. I encountered moments of intense mental stimulation and new ideas, something for which graduate school is renowned. I saw some interesting things and places and had some very entertaining adventures. Probably the most significant thing was finally getting the chance to date my dream girl.I met Becca in a hostel in 2002 in Switzerland, and I had a crush on her immediately. She was the first girl with whom I had ever made a first move. She "tripped" as I tried to kiss her on a star-lit walk through a Swiss mountain village so I decided to try again. She tripped again, of course, before I realized she wasn't tripping... Oh well. Got her email in the morning and then left town. We stayed in e-contact for a while, during which time I found out she had had a boyfriend while we were in Switzerland.

In the summer of 2004 she sent me an email saying she was coming to Seattle for a job training and invited me to dinner with her (she thought I lived in Seattle). I said I lived in Portland, but I would be happy to make the drive (3 hours) to have dinner with her. Fully expecting that she still had a boyfriend, I didn't make a move. I also didn't make a move because I was shy as hell. We had such an amazing time together that at the end of the night, she invited me to stay. I told her I couldn't because I had to work in the morning. She asked if she could give me a kiss goodnight and I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world! Her version of this story was that I didn't kiss her back... But she was only the second girl I'd ever kissed; I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

After driving home for 30 minutes I realized how much of a dumbass I was, and called her to tell her I would ditch work the following day and come back up. It never happened, but she invited me to Arizona where she was to work for the season. I found out that she didn't have a boyfriend when we were in Seattle so I got my act together and met her in Phoenix just before Christmas, 2004. I went down there with such high expectations and it ended up being the most awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassing experience in the world. I flirted my brains out with her and she wasn't the least bit receptive. Turns out, she got back together with her boyfriend over Thanksgiving and forgot to inform me.

Bummed, I put her out of my head until fall of 2006. She sent me an email saying she was single and had just got a new job and wanted to come see me in Bulgaria during my Peace Corps service for Christmas and New Years. I was stoked out of my mind! I started building up expectations again and getting incredibly excited! A week before she was going to buy her ticket, she got fired and couldn't afford the trip. Denied!

Almost another year went by before I heard from her again. I had just finished my Peace Corps service and was zigzagging north through Eastern Europe to Moscow. In the fall of 2007, she said she needed a European vacation to sort some things out, and asked if she could meet me somewhere. I told her, "Sure, meet me in Lithuania." completely expecting to be blown off. To my surprise and delight, she sold her jeep and bought a ticket to Latvia. Close enough. Five years of sporadic emails, missed chances, and unfortunate circumstances had passed before I finally told her I'd had a crush on her since we first met. We traveled together for only three weeks, but our time together was super intense and we clicked hard!During our time together in Eastern Europe, she reciprocated my feelings and gave me grand hope for a future together, but as she had a boyfriend at this time, she ended up breaking my heart and going back to him.

I moved on, but somehow we ended up at the same university, even in the same program! It took quite a bit of effort on her part, but at long last she convinced me, and at the end of 2008 we began a relationship. We had some amazing times together - times that will forever put a smile on my face when I think of them. Tragically, our eternal curse of bad timing seems to have shown its ugly, yet consistent, face once again and our relationship ended along with our time in Costa Rica. Nevertheless, she's a super special gal, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to be with her while I was with her.The academic part of my year in Costa Rica peaked just as it was ending. My favorite scholarly moment occurred during my last class when we learned that the current-ish health craze to remove trans-fats (hydrogenated oils) from the market is, in fact, destroying the rain forest! Ha! I even laughed out loud in class at that one. Turns out, the foods we love so much that used to contain trans-fats require some kind of delicious alternative. That alternative is palm oil. All of a sudden there was a giant demand in the market for palm oil to which suppliers responded in force! Oil palm plantations are dominating land where rain forest once thrived. This is mostly so in Indonesia - but apparently it's happening to a lesser extent (though still significant) in Costa Rica as well.

Directly following my time in Costa Rica was a one week fellowship for which I had managed to qualify. The Sustainable Energy Fellowship taught a group of 40 university students the ins and outs of sustainable energy. We learned about wind and solar power, nuclear power, fuel cells, batteries, carbon emissions and their politics, and we had a great time learning about all of them! I finally shed my hippie views of nuclear power equaling the stupidest idea ever, and instead adopted the idea of energy resource diversity in terms of feasibility. I made some great contacts, and again met people from all over the country, studying a variety of different disciplines. This project started out being a free ticket home from Costa Rica, but I ended up benefiting much more from it than simply a free ticket. I hope to use this knowledge in some of my future endeavors.

While at the University of Michigan for this fellowship, I got a job offer back home! Hot damn! So in addition to coming home to friends and family, I also get to come home to a job! I'm accepting a position with Oregon Metro doing hazardous waste disposal. This is the same job I had before I left for the Peace Corps, four years ago, but I'll be at a different facility, a slower facility. This means there will be some extra time to implement some creative projects that I hope will utilize my overseas experiences to benefit my community and my new coworkers!

I'm in a good place, emotionally, physically, and mentally, to start my life over in the Pacific Northwest. Not that I necessarily need to "start over", but I've finally got a chance to plant some roots and bring a bit of stability to my life. I'm excited at the prospect of this new adventure called normalcy, and I can't wait for all the pieces to fall into place!

My picture site is ready if you want to have your mind blown with my mind-blowing photography skills. I think my subsequent posts will be on the order of my adjustment to living in the USA and reverse culture shock after being away for four years. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned!

UPeace - Responsibility and Sustainability

2009-05-25T00:47:00.000-07:00

Other than my internship proposal that was due in February and several internship write-ups that are supposed to be due whenever I find an internship - this is the last piece of writing for my graduate coursework in Costa Rica at the University for Peace! It was for a three-week class called Natural Resource Management Field Trip - the idea being that we studied natural resource management in various locations around southern Costa Rica. Many of my references in this paper are you-had-to-be-there type references, and not too many folks outside the class would fully understand the context. This is the last UPeace paper I will post, but there will be one more about Costa Rica in a week or two.

I'm off to the University of Michigan for the Sustainable Energy Fellowship, and then back home to try and start a normal life!

Responsibility and Sustainability

Just sit right back and you'll read a tale, a tale of a fateful trip; that started from a tropical forest, aboard a tiny bus. Jan was a mighty forestry man, Guntra brave and sure. 12 students began another class, on a nine day tour, a nine day tour. The weather at times was rough, rivers and hills slowed down our bus. If not for the knowledge of the fearless professors, the course would be lost, the course would be lost. The bus stopped here and there within this uncharted jungle, and we studied from dawn till dusk, here on the Osa Peninsula!

I began this adventure looking through the lenses of a couple different perspectives. I wanted to tie-up my year's experiences and use the sometimes ambiguous concept of sustainability along with a simple concept that I have come to embrace more and more - responsibility - in order to frame my observations. Within this context, I analyzed different forms of tourism, agriculture, and forestry to determine if the management of these industries, within the Osa Peninsula and Southern Costa Rica, is sustainable and responsible.

Tourism
I have spent a cumulative of nearly two years being a tourist. Of course, my ego would sooner tell you that I was a "Traveler" and not a "Tourist", but the fact remains: I have visited 52 countries and have seen many different spins on the tourism industry.

My general opinion on the tourism industry is that it destroys a community's culture. I use Prague, Czech Republic as the perfect example: the entire old town is filled with tiny shops selling the exact same souvenirs. There is no difference between any individual shop, and the most common "authentic" Czech souvenir is a plastic piece of crap that was made in China anyway. Gone are the shoe repair shops, bakeries, or whatever used to exist in the old town only 20 years ago; replaced with skill-less occupations at the mercy of foreign interest. Okay, this is a major European city, but I've seen the same thing in remote, undeveloped areas as well. Local peoples get so attracted by the thought of making a buck off a foreigner that they neglect or altogether stop whatever it was they were doing with their lives in order to cater to the whims of tourists. Our first stop, at Longo Mai, seemed to support my negative perception of tourism.

Here was a tiny village of Salvadorian refugees who appeared to have embraced something so far from anything they have ever known. What’s their motivation? Someone from a western perspective might say that they are simply developing themselves by learning new skills that allow them to be successful at a particular trade, tourism, thereby providing an adequate livelihood for their community members. Although honorable, I think this is too idealistic of a perspective. I believe the translation I received was something more to the effect of: “the people of Longo Mai are just trying to live”. That is, just trying to make their way in their world today. Surely there must be a different way for them to "live" that wouldn't be so destructive to their culture.

In contrast to my views that the community depends on tourism, we learned that many of the villagers worked for "The Company" in nearby fields. "The Company" in this case was a pineapple production company. On the other hand, an example that supports my views was seen as closely as my host family. We learned that they had directly benefited from tourism – and this was not a rare story for the village. The mother had 15 children and two of her daughters were married to Austrians that had passed through their town. They now live in Austria and send back money from time to time. Their husbands made it possible for the construction of the guest rooms in which I stayed. This family now has income potential that only depends on tourist numbers.

In the Longo Mai community, we learned that there are 40 families that host around 200 to 250 tourists per year as home stays. From the appearance of the town, I can't imagine its population being larger than those 40 families, which really illuminates the impact of 250 tourists per year in their little community. The question I have is, are these folks being responsible with the resources available to them? Is there management of their resources sustainable? My answer to both questions is no.

From my western educated perspective, these people's greatest resource is their culture; a culture that is at risk. The influence of foreign ideas and expectations corrodes whatever belief system and traditions they have held for years. I'm not saying new ideas should be shunned, but they should come from within the community as a natural development process. The tourism industry that they have incorporated into their village is not sustainable because it is so dependent on the tourism market. They're trying to grow, but as they do so, they will lose the original appeal that attracted tourists to their quaint village in the first place. Perhaps it's simply the tragedy of the noble savage, but I feel these people are being irresponsible with their most valuable resource by pursuing and implementing an unsustainable livelihood.

Agriculture
Our second destination, Tesoro Verde, had a very fortunate surprise in the form of an insightful local activist, Pedro. For me, Pedro’s stories perfectly illustrated a connection between tourism and agriculture, and indeed, even forest management.

Pedro said that before tourism arrived to Drake Bay in 1983, only a year after he himself had arrived, the local people had survived on subsistence hunting and farming, but now tourism is dominating as the main industry. Pedro had 25 years of experience in Tesoro Verde working within the tourism industry, and he had some very interesting things to say about it. I'll start with his comment about how a lack of tourism in recent years is "forcing" people to adopt agricultural livelihoods. Is there no other production in Costa Rica than that of food production? Pedro's use of the word 'forcing' made me think that no one wanted an agricultural livelihood, but that everyone could fall back on it as a last resort or in case of an emergency. This reluctance towards agriculture left me with the impression that these people also had a lack of respect for it. When respect is lacking, often responsibility is also lacking.

As Pedro continued, utilizing all his favorite English curse words, he told us about a grave problem in his life: a bureaucratic conflict between MINAET and IDA. He said that he "owned" a significant portion of land, but added that his ownership and stewardship of that land was at risk due to this conflict. He said that MINAET was telling him that he can't plant anything on his land so as to conserve the forest that exists there, but IDA told him that he had to plant something, or utilize the land agriculturally, or else he would lose the land forever! It was a complex and extremely confusing contradiction of Costa Rican governance that had left this poor soul in an unwinnable battle against stress. His conclusion was that if his primary income, tourism, should decline any more than it already has, that his only option would be to cut down two of his hectares of forest in order to implement something agricultural. This is Pedro's last resort. He almost sounded threatening as he told us this fact - that he would cut down the trees to spite the government and the wavering tourism industry. This strikes me as being extremely irresponsible with one's natural resources as well as falling way short of any kind of sustainability goals. Although, for the moment, this is only his attitude, it is a very real and likely possibility.

Another significant look at agriculture in the south of Costa Rica was at the oil palm plantation and processing facility of En Su Punto. The sustainability of this operation was a bit questionable. On the one hand, the Coop had survived devastating price drops in the market in the past. On the other hand, they are supporting a monoculture mentality, and with all their eggs in one basket, if upon the next price drop, the price stays down, then the entire community will lose.

The Greasy Palms, Friends of the Earth, article showed us that although business in the oil palm sector is an incredible booming market, along with the profits it creates, it also creates extreme deforestation. Brendan tried to address this unfortunate situation with the En Su Punto representative, but his response was that "one tree is just as good as any other" and since there were lots of oil palm trees planted on their 12,000 hectares, this means there is a lot of "forest" that wouldn't otherwise be there, as before there were only non-tree agricultural crops such as corn, rice and beans. This is definitely a point, though I'm not sure it's a good one. The sustainability of their land use practices is not questionable. In fact, the representative told us that scientific calculations suggested they could expect a yield of 25 tons of product per hectare per year. Through the manipulation of land, their actual yield was 35 tons of product per hectare per year. He disclosed this point as a positive thing, but I immediately saw it as a red flag.

I later asked him about the inputs required to keep the "fertile" soil more productive than is scientifically expected. His response was that this last year, each plant received one kilogram of fertilizer in two applications, each six months apart. I asked how that compared to last year, and 10 years ago. He said that each year, the amount of fertilizer changes and that they have scientists who do soil testing to determine how much fertilizer to apply every six months. I asked him to clarify how it "changed" - whether the amounts of fertilizer increased each year or whether the amounts were randomly fluctuating. He said, "It changes." Remembering his unrelenting positivity about the coop and palm oil, along with his insistence that a monoculture palm oil plantation is the best thing for the community and the environment, I used my superior judgment skills to determine that the inconsistent fertilizer inputs needed to maintain a consistent yield is most likely an indicator that this scenario is not a sustainable situation.

From these examples it would seem that agriculture is inherently pitted against forest conservation. It's easy to understand that people's livelihoods take priority over preserving the rain forest. How can you tell a starving family not to cut down trees in order to plant crops for their own subsistence? You can't. But you can provide reasonable amounts of land for both! Using some kind of superior land management practices with equitable distribution and a commitment to responsible land use, I believe that forests can be preserved for their own benefit and the benefit of eco-tourism, while communities can meet their needs through traditional, or even modern, agricultural practices.

Forestry
As I stated in my presentation, the anthropocentric concept of forestry for timber production was not a theme we visited on our trip. However, forestry, in terms of conservation, was a large part of the communities and industries we observed.

The idea of forestry conservation has great implications on the responsibility and sustainability of the forest. The concept generates many positive thoughts as far as the future of these forests goes, as well as the potential that lies beyond the sector of forestry. A healthy and responsibly managed forest system is the foundation for the massive eco-tourism industry in Costa Rica, which is one of its main industries. It would make sense then, if its management was a high priority. Unfortunately, from my perception, that's not what we encountered.

My most profound perception of forestry issues came to me when Marzia, from Neotropica, led us on a hike into Corcovado. The hike was wonderful and beautiful. Any nature lover would have been impressed at the species diversity we encountered and the apparent health of the forest. But when we returned from our hike to the MINAET park ranger station for a debriefing, we got a completely different picture of the park. It was a societal/bureaucratic picture that was the complete opposite of the natural beauty we experienced.

We were all appalled to hear that the problems of illegal hunting and illegal logging were actually significant problems. The hunting seemed to be minimally for food, and mostly for sport and spite. I say spite because of the stories the rangers told of finding dead animals with notes attached to their bodies insulting MINAET.

They gave a quote that only 10% of the perpetrators were local, but they were all from Costa Rica. It was a disgusting insight into three things: a lack of respect for governmental regulations that exist to protect nature; a lack of governmental capacity for controlling this situation; and blatant irresponsibility towards one's country and its natural resources, which destroys any chances of sustainability when talking about forestry conservation.

There were only seven guys that monitor and control this park. They spoke of armed conflicts and shoot-outs with illegal hunters, but my better judgment says that for the wages they earn, they probably more often lay low when they encounter perpetrators, if they even encounter them at all. They also spoke of drug runners from Colombia and Panama increasing the danger of the job, but also increasing the hopes of a "find" after one drug runner has made a drop and before the next one comes in for the "pick up". They told a story of 300 kilograms of cocaine being found on the beach, waiting for pickup. Finds like that create a much better retirement plan than whatever MINAET is offering.

In another park, La Amistad, there are only 13 park rangers who have the task of monitoring and protecting an area that is 4% of Costa Rica's total land area! How can only 13 people be given this responsibility? How can success be expected in this situation? It's simply impossible. Governmental priorities are elsewhere.

As far as forestry conservation goes, I find nearly complete disregard on the part of the government, which I interpret as being insanely irresponsible. I also find that sustainability is possible if enforcement and respect of regulations could ever be achieved. But as they are not, sustainability is currently a failure.

This dire conclusion shows signs of light, though. In the community of Coopa Buena, where Brendan's project, the Finca Project, exists, hope is being created one tree at a time. I spoke with 20 community members and gathered a perspective of positivity. Brendan's NGO is playing a crucial role in reforestation and education in a small community, which is something this country desperately needs.

The community perspective that I gathered from 20 people, showed that people have a genuine concern over deforestation and pollution of the forest. They were extremely grateful for a project in their community that aimed at reforesting the land while educating people as to why that particular goal is important and why the forest should be respected.

If we've seen that some people don't care about nature, and some people do, where do we go and what do we do? My guess is that majority of people don't care one way or another about the health of the forest as long as they have a home and a couple meals a day, but the question remains: What can be done to increase responsibility and sustainability?

The Judkins Recommendation
What could possibly tie tourism, agriculture, and forestry all together while bringing sustainability and responsibility to the forefront of each of their management priorities? I would like to propose an idea that may not seem consistent with the ideals of the University for Peace. I would like to propose the reinstatement of the Costa Rican military.

From my perspective, two of Costa Rica's largest problems are its apathetic population and its corrupt and lethargic government. The combination of these two components produces results like those discussed with MINAET in Corcovado: regulations not being respected which led to wildlife and forest destruction. This is one example. How can both of these contributing factors be mitigated? Easy, a new military! However, the definition of military is slightly altered in my proposal.

When I say military, I really mean, “some form of a forceful hand of the government focused as much on civil service as on the defense of the country's resources”. I’m suggesting the reinstatement of the military, as my assumptions tell me that the once-existing military infrastructure would make an ideal means for the formation of this non-military, civil service division of the government. Imagine the possibilities that could come from an obligatory country service program. For example, when youth graduate high school, before they move on to a university program or a job, they would be required to serve one year in the New Costa Rican Non-Conventional Military for Civil Service Projects (NCRNCMCSP), or maybe it could be called Tico Corps. Young adults would learn skills while simultaneously providing essential services to ailing communities. Proper modern roads could be constructed in addition to other forms of basic infrastructure to support the country's development and allow for the tourism industry to blossom while being kept under control for sustainability. Agricultural lands could be properly monitored for erosion control, integrated species/crop diversity, pesticide reductions through invasive/problem species control and elimination. Illegal forest dumpsites could be cleaned; even a branch of a more conventional militaristic civil service could have the numbers, resources, and potential to bring real defense to national parks and protected forests, including the animals at risk of illegal hunting, as well as the trees at risk of illegal logging.

Not only would a civil service program provide a force to protect forests and deter drug running; to provide labor for agricultural efficiency and sustainability; to assist in one of Costa Rica's biggest industries, tourism, with basic infrastructure and guest services; it would also provide Costa Rica's youth with invaluable life skills, as well as insights and perspectives on the value of their land and the risks that threaten it. Personal development of the youth participants would be ensured through the vast diversity of possible niches that a program like this would incorporate.

The problem still remaining, a corrupt government, could be mitigated through the creation of many high level positions within the NCRNCMCSP program that would provide oversight, checks and balances, and an encouragement of transparency by having more eyes seeing government actions and more voices impacting responsible governance. It is precisely the reduction in corruption that would be necessary to finance such a program in the first place. It would be nice if the amount of money being skimmed off the top at all different levels would be able to fund such a massive program, but there is the possibility of increased taxation to fill in the gaps.

Conclusion
Osa: The final frontier. This was the voyage of our Natural Resource Management Field Trip. Our nine day mission was to explore a strange new peninsula; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no UPeace student had gone before.

We had a very unique opportunity to see firsthand the problems, challenges and successes of local peoples, as well as governmental employees in different degrees of tourism, agriculture, and forestry. Although there were some success stories, like that of the Finca Project and its community, I feel Costa Rica has a long way to go in bringing responsibility and sustainability to the forefront of management practices.

I also feel that the best way to go about accomplishing this would be a civil service obligation to conquer the population's "Pura Vida" apathy problem by getting everyone involved in meaningful, productive projects for the betterment of the country and each community within. I realize how unrealistic any kind of implementation of the NCRNCMCSP as described by the Judkins Recommendation may be, as it is quite extreme, but I do feel it is within the realms of possibility that a less extreme, similar program that focused on getting citizens engaged in the development of themselves and their communities is the answer to some of Costa Rica's woes. Equitable, individual responsibility will inevitably produce sustainability in the sectors of tourism, agriculture, forestry and beyond.

Hey, We Want Some Pussy!!!

2009-04-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

Some gals on campus organized a Vagina Monologues event and it pretty much blew my mind!

Normally, when women gather to talk about how great they are, I roll my eyes just as I would any other kind of ego-stroking activity. What generally makes women's empowerment events such a turn-off to me is that they nearly always include man-bashing. From my perspective, this is dumb, but I happen to be a man and my women friends tell me that that makes me biased.

In my past experiences, femi-nazi, man-hating women are unpleasant to be around so I generally make every effort to avoid any kind of event that facilitates greater emotion against men. I prefer that a woman would hate me because of something I do, rather than hate me for being something I cannot change.

That said, when I got dragged to the V-Day presentation, and roped into helping out with it, I was extremely skeptical about how it would all go down. I sat and listened to story after story and was nothing short of blown away! This wasn't just another man-bashing seminar - this was an "I'm proud of myself" demonstration! It was amazing! They touched on topics that don't really get touched - they moved us all with their passion and performance - they convinced a skeptic of the value of the Vagina Monologues.

This event served to responsibly empower women to be proud of themselves and their vaginas, without demonizing men. It was a chance for them to celebrate their previously unmentionable underparts on a platform that allowed them safety to be proud of being a woman, while educating the audience about them and about their value. Beyond simply being moving, as a man, I found each performance to be incredibly insightful into the different aspects of a woman's life and perspective on life, that each of these women seemed to share. I learned things about women, and their vaginas, that I never would have discovered otherwise and I am so incredibly grateful to know these ladies!

I was truly moved by my friends' presentations. I think it was extra special for me, though, because I know all of them and I could see how they identified with their characters. They were all soooo great! I could go on and on, but still wouldn't do justice to their accomplishments.

Below are some low quality video files of some of the presentations. I regret that I could not post all of them due to file size and youtube limitations. Get your volume control ready - you'll need to turn it up because the sound is so poor - but hang in their, because the performances are so rich!

The gals ran this show as a fundraiser, as is typical for the Vagina Monologues. Every Vagina Monologue presentation contributes 10% of its earnings to a spotlight cause. This year, the spotlight is on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where rape and violence against women is being used as an instrument of war. The other 90% gets donated to an organization of the performers' choosing. They chose the Women's Freedom Organization in Iraq. In total, they raised over 600 USD! Nice work, ladies!!! I'm so proud of all of you!

I've Been Working On A Master's Degree!

2009-02-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

Starting this academic year, with the Canadian/American Thanksgiving celebration, students from different continents have organized a night of celebration to share their culture with the group. It's been amazing so far. Asian Night was a couple months ago and we learned so many different things about the different parts of Asia. There's been ongoing talk of African Night since October, but still no celebration. Last week, we had European Night and it blew me away! They required that all the attending students dress up as if for cocktails. It was the first chance I've had to look good down here. Well, I always look good, I just don't plan it like I did this night.They opened the European culture presentation with a play that they'd written based upon stereotypes of Europeans according to the other students. They gathered this information on large pieces of paper taped to a wall, on which other students were allowed to write their stereotypes over a couple weeks. My contribution was, "Europeans love to propagate stereoptypes." The play was offensive, extremely well done, and hilarious! They had us all laughing our heads off!

After the play we enjoyed some musical performances, european food, and then we danced - euro club style. I danced the Macarena to every single song. What a night!

In sadder news, the Department of International Peace Studies (DIPS) finished their program this week. This means that between 20 and 30 of our Asian kids are leaving us. We had a party on campus to say goodbye to them and I was filled with emotion. In fact, in the days prior to their final day, I had a nightmare of having to say goodbye to all my new friends and knowing I would not see most of them ever again. I cursed myself for not having enrolled in a two year program so I could spend extra time with everyone. And then I woke up, glad that I would finish school soon, but still sad that I will miss my dear friends. A couple of them, I've come to really respect and enjoy, and their departure really disturbs me. A giant regret I have, is that I didn't get close to many others. The University for Peace is pretty small. Only 160 students can say they'll be UPeace alumni this year, but even so, I can't hang out with and get to know all 160 students, though I regret not having tried a bit harder.

Becca finally managed to get her act together to lead me and some other university friends to climb the tallest mountain in Costa Rica: Chirripo, 3820 meters (in feet = tall!). It took us three buses, a nasty taxi ride, and 10 hours just to get to the base of the mountain. At the ranger station, where we were to register to climb, we learned that they close the mountain one weekend a year for a running race, and this happened to be that particular weekend... Wonderful. We arrived on a Thursday, wanting to climb on Friday, summit on Saturday, and return to town on Sunday. The race was only Saturday, but they would not allow us to pass. They said the soonest we could ascend was on Sunday. So we decided to wait. Half of our group went to the beach, and half stayed in the mountain town to enjoy the hot springs. I stayed in the mountains, of course. It was an amazing time, indeed, the first time I´ve actually enjoyed Costa Rica. I´ve enjoyed my friends, and on occasion the university, but I have not yet enjoyed the country. It was a pretty good feeling and I hope it will stick around for a while.The ascent up the mountain was mind blowing for an environmental nut like myself. We started out in the typical "jungle" habitat that I'm used to at lower elevations and climbed into a cloud forest. The flora and fauna were all completely different in a matter of kilometers.The cloud forest finally yielded to elevation as we entered the sub-alpine habitat. Amazing! This was perhaps my favorite ecosystem, as the species that survive, do so in extreme conditions and are so unique as compared to everything else I've seen in the rest of the country. A forest fire had raged through this part of the mountain 10 or so years before, but due to the slow ecological activity at this altitude, it looked as if it had occurred only one or two years prior. Finally, 9 hours and 14.5 km into our hike, we arrived to the lodge, at 11,132 feet. This is 1,132 feet more than all my doctors say I'm allowed to go on account of my bum lung. We checked into the lodge and popped the corks on our bottles of rum - we spent the rest of the day in celebration.

It was cold at the lodge, damn cold, but the warmth of the camaraderie that existed between hikers and climbers kept us comfortable and happy (I guess the rum may have played a bit of that role, too). We tried to go to bed early cause it had been a long day, but pulling myself away from the heavenly display of a starry night sky was too much to ask. I gandered for a while and froze my little ass off. Went to bed only to wake up at 3am in order to be on the trail at 3:30. Accomplished, albeit painfully.We got lost once on the trail - or rather, off the trail - as it was dark and I had left my navigational star map at home... An excruciating 2 hours went by before we summited, in which I stopped frequently and had some kind of persistent lightheadedness. Becca waited with me and kept asking me if I was going to die because of my lung or if I should go back. Then she went on to tell me she wasn't going to carry my body down the mountain. So of course I pushed on.Standing at the top of the mountain, 12,533 feet above the transvestite prostitute infested beach towns of Costa Rica, we watched the sun rise - slowly and majestically above the occasional smaller mountain tops, poking through the clouds. It was an amazing, amazing thing. Shaking and shivering, we watched in awe as the valleys all around us lit up. We had packed along a stove and some coffee, but no one's hands had the dexterity to function as the wind took most of our heat away from us.After some nice relaxing time near the summit, we spent the rest of the day descending, again, marveling at the extreme changes in ecosystems determined by elevation.Climbing the highest mountain in Costa Rica (and I think second highest in Central America) was a much needed break from classes. We began another class, the best class in the world, Ecological Bases for Sustainable Land Use - at long last, a science class! And then we took another break to the northwestern region of Costa Rica for some more hiking in one of Costa Rica's little explored national parks.Rincon de la Vieja (The Old Lady's Corner) scored another point for Costa Rica. I guess it only took me 6 months to figure out that the country is nice in the mountains, but shit at the beaches.Our weekend excursion in the north yielded the most beautiful waterfall I've ever seen; a super sore knee from lots of hiking; bugs that left us itchy, bleeding, and drained; encounters with 3 species of monkeys, including one that threw its feces at us; and some extremely relaxing geothermal heated hot springs that put a soothing close on our weekend.

Getting a master's degree is great!

UPeace - Organic Agriculture

2009-02-10T04:42:00.000-08:00

I just finished a class called Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Sustainable Development. It really should have just been called Organic Agriculture, as we didn't really touch on anything else. It was two intense weeks of hippie ego-stroking. The final assignment was to use our readings to create a two-page editorial. I went against the grain on this one to balance the bias of the class. If anyone's interested in reading the articles I cited, I still have them in pdf format.

Dear So and So,

I grew up, studied, and worked in and around Portland, but now I'm living in Costa Rica to attend graduate school at the United Nations Mandated University for Peace. From the name of the university, you can accurately assume that the student body is somewhat of an alternative crowd. I'm writing to address an issue that I'm currently studying at UPeace; an issue that I first felt in the unique ambiance of Portland: organic food, and the public's misconceptions of poison.

The recently popular push for organic agriculture has many motivations: avoidance of chemicals in our food, getting back to nature, reducing our impact on the environment, fairness in costs and wages for farmers, and social responsibility. The thing is, some people want more than that, and their voices are loud and influential. According to IFOAM’s Principles of Organic Agriculture (IFOAM, 2008), organic agriculture is being pushed as a lifestyle rather than a practice, a moral value rather than a system, and even as a religion rather than a method.

In fact, organic agriculture is a subset, or a type of agriculture. It is a "new" way to raise crops with particular standards that happen to be stricter, environmentally speaking, than that of techniques seen in conventional agriculture. This particular methodology requires science as a tool to validate its significance. I could tell you that the sky is green, but observation contradicts that statement. The same is true here: I could tell you that crops grown without the use of pesticides are healthier, but testing is required to verify that claim. The scientific processes of observation, testing, analyzing, and reproduction are crucial to the success and the best methodology for this type of agriculture. So what does Science say about pesticides and health?

Anyone from the state of California can tell you, just about everything on the market today can give you cancer. From where did this paranoid misconception of chemicals come? The truth is, everything is made from chemicals, even you. Chemicals are the building blocks of everything you can see and touch. When Organic Preachers talk about “chemical-free food,” they really mean man-made, synthetic, or artificial chemicals. Organic Believers have manipulated the usage of the word 'chemical' as they have done with the word 'organic', which simply means a compound that has a carbon base to its molecular structure. Organic Believers have convinced many people that chemicals in our food is a bad thing - that chemicals are poison and that if you eat them you won't be healthy.

As the father of toxicology, Paracelsus, pointed out nearly 500 years ago, “Everything is poisonous yet nothing is poisonous. The dose alone makes the poison.” (Guggenheim, 1993). Even our most precious resource, water, is a poison. If you drink too much water, it is toxic to your body and you will die. Have you ever tried to cultivate fruits and veggies without water? If you're a fan of 'crunchy', you’ll probably love it! The chemicals used in conventional agriculture are designed to be toxic to pests, not to humans. Standards set by the USDA, and the FDA regulate limits so that the amount of artificial chemicals in our food never becomes harmful. The unfortunate thing is that the Organic Believers have made you afraid of these chemicals anyway.

In my class of future world leaders (how we should think of graduate students), we spent an hour one day bantering about the toxicity of butane in french fries and concluding that we didn’t want butane anywhere near our food! The conversation originated from a passage in The Omnivore's Dilemma, in which Michael Pollan wrote:

"Then there are 'anti-foaming agents' like dimethylpolysiloxene, added to the cooking oil to keep the starches from binding to air molecules, so as to produce foam during the fry... According to the Handbook of Food Additives, dimethylpolysiloxene is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector; it's also flammable."

He adds the word 'flammable' here to drive home his poison implication, but any cooking oil and most edible foods will burn! Does that make them toxic? Pollan goes on to say,

"Perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to 'help preserve freshness.' According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e., lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food."

Lighter fluid in our food sounds horrible, but it’s not! The amount permissible is so small that it's not poisonous for human consumption. Pollan connects TBHQ to butane (a very inaccurate connection, chemically speaking) in an attempt to relate to the Organic Worrier that something toxic is going into our food. Why would McDonalds put something toxic in their food? A sick joke? No. It’s there to ‘help preserve freshness’ as is stated. All food decomposes; the purpose of adding something to subdue infectious bacteria is a health and safety supplement. The problem with Pollan’s argument is that butane is not very toxic at all. According to OSHA and the Center for Disease Control, butane is not reactive, unstable, or significantly toxic (NIOSH, 2005) (OSHA, 2004). The most likely way it could harm you is by displacing all the air in your lungs and asphyxiating you. People dying from butane are huffing it, not eating it.

If you don't make a habit or hobby out of huffing chemicals, why then should you worry about butane in your food? Because Organic Believers tell you to. What kind of implications does that have on society? Consumption habits are altered, production methods change to adapt, some businesses fail and others spring up to accommodate the new trend. While Pollan uses fear to sell a book, he convinces Orangic Believers that butane is bad. If many Organic Believers are loud enough they could have the power to get McDonalds to stop using TBHQ. The result is a less safe McNugget. Is this really the sustainability we're looking for?

The organic community’s propagation of fear is eerily reminiscent of something most Organic Believers fought so tenaciously against in recent history: the Bush administration. The Bush administration was accused, and quite rightly so, of fear mongering in an effort to generate support for a ludicrous war. How are Organic Believers' efforts so different in fear mongering for chemical-free food? Their conspiracy theories use the same methods to manipulate people into making ill-informed decisions. In the end, we're losing sight of what's right.

Science is reliable and trustworthy. It can show us what is healthy, and what is not. It can inform us of the best actions to take, and most definitely has a place in organic agriculture. Some may claim that science is inconclusive on the topic of chemical-free foods. That's ok! It just means that further research is warranted and that no conclusions should go unquestioned. Policy makers, businessmen, Organic Believers, pseudo-intellectuals, and even reputable universities need to avoid using manipulated science to support their agendas, as was seen in the Badgley/Avery debacle of 2007 (Avery, 2007).

Consumers need to be aware of the assumptions, speculations, and misconceptions that are prevalent in today's market so that educated and responsible decisions can be made. Knowledge and responsibility are the only things that will ensure sustainability, the future of all kinds of agricultural production, and our health.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it,

Andrew Judkins

Bibliography

Avery, A. (2007). ‘Organic Abundance’ report: fatally flawed. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 22(4), 321–329.

Guggenheim, K. (1993). Paracelsus and the Science of Nutrition in the Renaissance. The Journal of Nutrition, 1193. Retrieved February 11, 2009, from http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/123/7/1189.pdf.

IFOAM. (2008). Principles of Organic Agriculture. 1-3.

NIOSH. (2005). NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards: n-Butane, Retrieved February 11, 2009, from http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0068.html.

OSHA. (2004). Safety and Health Topics: Butane, Retrieved February 11, 2009, from http://www.osha.gov/dts/chemicalsampling/data/CH_222200.html.

Pollan, M. (2006). The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: Penguin Press.

Call For The Manager Ashore, Let Me Go Home!

2009-01-26T14:24:00.000-08:00

I needed a trip to the beach after my cold trip to NYC for New Years Eve. I saw snow so of course, a day in the sun and surf was required for my Costa Rican adjustment process. Plus, there's no running water in my apartment... For the last week, the water is shut off from around noon or 13:00 until near 22:00 and later! Every day! It's ridiculous! Word on the street is, that this is typical "summer time" shenanigans, which usually occurs in march and april. The local folk keep referring to this as summer time, as the days are hotter and nights are colder than in the wet season (June to October), but I'm seeing trees shed their leaves and people wearing jackets. That means winter, not summer. Silly Costa Ricans.To start this story off, I thought I'd inform you that I saved up some money and bought myself a pair of flip-flops. I think the last time I owned a pair of flip-flops, I was 12 years old, but these things were calling my name! I bought them on a weekend trip to the beach, Jaco, one of Costa Rica's main tourist destinations. It's the dirtiest, sketchiest, scariest tourist town I've ever been to. In fact, while searching for a cheap hotel room at 12:30 AM, we must have passed 20 transvestite prostitutes! We probably saw 100 throughout the whole weekend - The only thing missing was the flier that advertised, "Transvestite Convention! This Weekend Only - Put on your lipstick and short skirts, guys, it's time to have fun!" Lola was everywhere!

Back to the silly Costa Ricans... My students began their English classes again and boy, were they excited to see me! I usually spend the first few minutes of class on an introduction - "How was your weekend?", "What's new?", that sort of thing. This time, they told me about a local doctor that had committed suicide. It's super shocking that that would happen in a town of this size. They expressed anger at the doctor, saying that his son turns five in only a few days, and asking how he could be so selfish. I thought it was an interesting lesson so I probed a bit. I asked them why they thought he would kill himself, but they were completely baffled. "He had everything," one gal said, "a job, a family, money. He even bought his father a car last year! Probably he was gay."

What?!?

She continued, "Well, why else would he kill himself? He had everything to make himself happy and, you know, if he had mental problems, [like being gay] that's probably why he killed himself." I was lost. I've never been stunned by the likes of this kind of logic before. Close - but not the same. And then the story got deeper. "There was another doctor in the next town who killed himself on the same day and they worked at the same hospital so probably they were lovers." Her claim was verified by the nods of the two other students in class.

"But why?" I persisted, "Why would it mean he's gay if he killed himself? What's the logic?" My disbelief and confusion was met with shrugs and confusion as to why I was so confused. I thought it would be a good time to point out that in many other countries (the developed world) homosexuality isn't looked down upon by all of society and in some cases it's even widely accepted. In other countries (developing countries run by religion) it's a crime to be gay - a crime punishable by jail time or even death! I asked where Costa Rica fit in on that spectrum.

"It's accepted here. Guys are always patting each other on the ass in sports and stuff and making jokes so probably I think it's fine to be gay here. But in Mexico you will get killed if you're gay!"

Oh stereotypes, how you entertain me.

Class went on and one student sneezed. I said, "Bless you" and then explained why we say that in America. The blog inspiring response that followed was, "In Costa Rica, if you sneeze, it means that your wife is cheating on you."

As Costa Rica stimulates the 'I-can't-believe-this' part of my brain, the University for Peace (UPeace) is doing it's damnedest to stimulate the 'this-is-ridiculous' part.

A buddy and I are trying to stage a coup at UPeace to get the university to do something about its lacking amenities. It does some things better than any other university could do: assembling a diverse student body and facilitating discussions and culture exchanges with varying perspectives on current world issues. Unfortunately, it falls way short in important standards to which a university should hold itself. I was briefly in communication with the vice-rector of UPeace to solve some very serious student safety issues, but he stopped responding to my emails and requests for followup meetings in November. Perhaps it's his computer. The campus internet rarely works, and it's affecting classes when we're analyzing things online or referencing something. Researching anything often proves quite difficult when there are no resources with which to work.At the end of the day, I can only really say that I really like my new flip-flops. They're made of leather, which comes from one of my favorite meals, and they make me feel like I'm on vacation. With that in mind, it really can be a happy day in Costa Rica at the University for Peace!

Hail to the Chief!

2009-01-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the break in my storyline. My computer crashed, several times, and I lost all my class notes for all my classes... Bummer. So the first semester is now complete and boy, am I grateful. It's been filled with hard work, trying to stay awake, drama, worry, stress, homesickness, and I guess learning or whatever.

I had to say goodbye to some of my great new friends as their term here is finished. I look forward to completing the second and final semester with the remaining students on campus, including new students, and I'm excited for new possibilities.

This program at UPeace is not exactly what I thought it would be. I feel like I felt in third grade when I came home from school and my mom asked me, "What did you learn today?" I would reply, "Nothing" not knowing that I had actually learned something. I feel like I'm not making any significant gains in knowledge or skills as my time in Costa Rica progresses, but perhaps it's just as it was then and I simply don't recognize it. Perhaps it's just that I don't see, on a daily basis, that I am in fact making gains. I hope that's the case. I hope that my daily exposure to mind challenging conversations is actually building my capacity for greatness. Or perhaps I'm just having fun hanging out with hippies. Unfortunately, only time will tell.

I was quite happy to put my first semester of grad school to rest. One down, one to go. I'm starting to aggressively apply for jobs back home and I'm hoping to land something soon. Even if it should happen before my time here is finished. I've been away from the working world for far too long and I miss it almost as much as I miss my friends and family. It's time. I'm ready.

My winter break was great! I got to visit my good Peace Corps friend, Alex, in New York for New Years! It was sooo cold! It was my first time to New York and I loved it! I sure hope it won't be my last!I'm back in class again and the particular class I'm taking, Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector, is a major challenge to my abilities. It's nothing like anything I've ever studied. This is the "elective term" at UPeace so I thought I'd take something to broaden my horizons. Man, is it demanding! I have to write a 20 to 30 page business plan for a social enterprise from my creative mind in less than 3 weeks time! As you can imagine, I have no idea how I'll pull that off. It's no surprise that I probably won't post that one on this site. Regardless, I think it will hold promise and potential for my upcoming thesis and supplementary material.

Classes were cut short for the Obama inauguration speech the other day. UPeace has students from something like 60 countries, and they all paused their educational progress to take a gander at the current happenings of the United States. It was quite impressive. We gathered in the cafeteria to watch a projected presentation of the speech in real time... Well, with only a 15 second difference between the video and audio, until the internet cut out and we only got patches of the speech. I felt like a kid sitting around a radio broadcast 100 years ago - only a radio broadcast wouldn't have been interrupted by Costa Rican/UPeace shortcomings, I imagine.

In any case, this is really an inspiring global event. And it truly is a global event. To have representatives from 60-ish countries on the edge of their seats, clapping to great statements, is really significant in that it shows that the world is behind the new United States presidential administration. It's quite touching and it made me feel proud.

I know that a larger-than-I-care-to-admit part of my family is not excited about President Obama, but the fact is, that the rest of the world is excited. I don't think Americans recognize that we hold such a leadership position in the world, and as such, we should fulfill the part of a good leader. However, I'm waiting to be impressed by his actions and not by his reputation, but in the meantime, it should be recognized that the world really is watching. Hell, we skipped classes to watch! And large part of our discussion the following day was directly pertaining to his speech and what he stands for. It's an interesting time in history that I hope you all can appreciate.

As far as my love for Costa Rica goes, it is still non-existent and I can't wait to come home.

When You Wish Upon A Marathon!

2008-12-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

I've decided to try and inspire you to set an impressive and achievable New Year's Resolution! New Years is my favorite holiday because of the New Year's Resolution! I love setting goals, and even more, I love accomplishing them! For this New Year's Resolution, join me in resolving to run the 38th annual Portland Marathon! It will be on Sunday, October 4th, 2009! We have nearly 10 months to train, which is more than plenty!

Too old? Out of shape? Those excuses won't work this time! The Ultimate Guide to Marathons has listed the Portland Marathon as: "The best organized Marathon in North America" (That means there will be plenty of aid stations and medical assistance!) and "One of the top 3 marathons to do as a first marathon"! Plus there are options for walking, yes you can walk the marathon! The course is open for eight hours! Here are the reasons this marathon is super cool:

MP3 Player Friendly
Walker friendly
Over 70 entertainment groups on the course
Charity Oriented
High percentage of women participants!!! Woo hoo!
Fast course - over 30% of runners set personal records
Boston Marathon Qualifier

It's an event for everyone:

26 miles and 385 yards of ecstasy! C'mon, seriously, this is gonna be the best thing, ever! And it gets infinitely better with the more people you know participating! Trust me! We'll train together, motivate each other, be in pain together, succeed together and celebrate together! Oh man!

For details, inspiration, and motivation, check out www.portlandmarathon.org

To track your training process, here is a free online training journal:
Active Trainer

Keeping a journal is a huge help in seeing where you're at in your training. It also provides immeasurable motivation to see what you've been accomplishing!

Here are a couple pictures from my first marathon - one of the happiest experiences of my life!
Resolve for health! Resolve for strength! Resolve for personal betterment! Make the best New Years Resolution, ever! Anything your heart desires, will come to you... If it's a marathon! You can do it! Believe in yourself!

I Wanna Run Through This Jungle!

2008-11-30T08:28:00.000-08:00

I guess it's been a while since I've posted anything. And to be honest, I don't really have any significant stories that stand alone. So this is just a post to illustrate my life in Costa Rica as it's been happening.

I've been super, super busy with school. This last class I had, Conservation and Development was one of the toughest classes I've ever taken. It was so much theory! And no practicality! At least, that's what I found. I'm craving numbers and hard science like a crazy person. This class involved so much reading and writing - I even had to manage to study when the power went out, for more than eight hours! We even had weekend classes in the form of a three-day field trip! We visited a couple sustainable living communities or something like that. I posted pictures of our tour of a coffee plantation and digging our bus out of a mud hole here. You know, normal field trip stuff.As president of the Environmental Club at UPeace, I've also been busy trying to facilitate different environmental projects. Most notably, we set up a recycling collection center in town so that students and community members have the option of recycling their recyclable trash. At the moment, we're working hard to put together a 6.5 kilometer fundraiser run for students and community members. The idea is to raise money to implement a project in a nearby community, which is devastated from environmental effects due to being situated directly next to a landfill. Normally that wouldn't be such a problem, but this is Costa Rica - and a landfill isn't what you think it is in a place like this.I've also been spearheading a campaign for the safety and security of the students at UPeace. I've never felt such a lack of safety and security as I do in this country. It's insane. This place is so unsafe. I would like to find the logic pointing to the fact that it's just because people are so poor here that they've been driven to lives of crime. But it's not true. I've been to much poorer countries that didn't have nearly the same crime, nor feel of insecurity. I can't explain it. For some reason, crime has been increasing exponentially here, and it's just sort of acceptable. No one does anything about it. People just sort of think, oh, that sucks. Pura Vida.In the last two months, Becca's home was broken into while we were at school, and she lost everything of any value. One student was sexually assaulted. Another student's home was broken into (same story as Becca's). Another student and her boyfriend were shot at, held up at gunpoint and mugged. There have been a few picked pockets - including Becca's (Just the other day, on the bus). I even heard a story of a UPeace student from last year whose home was broken into via a hole in the wall that the thieves created with explosives! They blew a freakin hole in the wall of his home! When he got home, he asked his landlord about it and received an answer of, "Hm. I didn't hear anything." The first apartment in which I lived had a robbery about a week before I left. During the night, someone broke the gate of the apartment complex, came in and stole the three cars that were there. Come to find out, the neighbor had called the police during the robbery, but the police never showed up. Turns out, the three cops in town were busy pulling a guy out of the electrical wires who had been electrocuted while trying to steal the wires to sell at the metal recycler. In any case, there have been a few more crimes against students that I don't know the full details - and all of these pale in comparison to the stories in the news of robbers kidnapping people at ATMs, taking them to ATMs in different cities, draining their account, and then shooting them!

I often ask myself, "Where the hell am I?!" So I'm trying to pressure the university to do more in regards to safety and security. For example, the time Becca's home got broken into, was the third time it's happened. She wasn't aware of that when she moved in - but she should have been. Homes are approved by the university but are not checked with regard to safety issues. I'm pushing for them to do so. We'll see what happens. My guess is, I'll get a response along the lines of, "Hm. That sucks." But they may say it more professionally.

On a different note, my most recent budget calculations show that I will run out of money before school finishes. So... I got a job! I feel like an illegal immigrant! And if I manage to save enough money - I'll even be able to afford a ticket home! What is this magical job, you ask? I'm teaching English. It's a job I've avoided throughout my travels, as I don't know English grammar rules so well. But after giving it a go, I've found that I quite enjoy it! I'm making roughly $6.36 per hour, but I don't have to pay taxes so I'm sure my savings will add up quickly! And so will my pride after six months of hearing kids call me, 'Professor Judkins'! Although, with their accents, it sounds more like, 'Prrrofesorrr Yoodkins'.OK - last thing for now, a note from the Vice Rector of the university in regards to our Thanksgiving celebration. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I miss you guys so much!

Dear UPEACErs:

Last Friday, November 21, 2008, the UPEACE community celebrated the North American Thanksgiving. The event was fully sponsored by American students (from the US and Canada). True to the Thanksgiving traditions, the students cooked all the delicious dishes associated with the event, such as turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and of course pumpkin pies! The event attracted not only UPEACE students and staff, but also a large number of families living in El Rodeo and Ciudad Colon. The cafeteria, inside and out, was packed with happy people who came together to express Thanks. Everything was wonderful: Organization, service, food, and beautiful spirit.

This event will go down in the "UPEACE Record of Great Events" as one of the most outstanding, for several reasons: It is the first time that our North American colleagues organized such a wide-scale event; it was so organized with excellent attention to all details; it brought together one of the largest crowds in any UPEACE event; it included a significant presence of the community especially children; and, the North American students did it ALL by themselves- buying all the food, cooking, transporting a massive amount of food to UPEACE, serving everyone, and cleaning the entire place after the event!

I am sure that the entire UPEACE community joins me in thanking our North American colleagues for giving us such a wonderful evening.

THANK YOU! In peace,

Amr Abdalla, Ph.D.
Professor and Vice Rector for Academic Affairs
University for Peace
United Nations Affiliated University

There are lots more photos here with more stories! Enjoy!

UPeace - An End to Wasting Our Waste!

2008-11-27T21:05:00.000-08:00

I don't expect anyone to read this... But just in case there are a few of you out there interested in what I'm doing down here - Here is my latest essay. It's a smaller version of what my thesis will be.

An End to Wasting Our Waste
Andrew Judkins
NRD 6091: Conservation and Development
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Products and goods produced, consumed, and disposed of play an integral role in economies and development strategies of societies across the globe. There is an obvious and dangerous flaw in this system, though, when conservation and sustainability are considered. That is, waste is being created, and resources are being depleted at an alarming rate.

Are waste production and resource depletion really problems that need to be solved? There was a time when resources were abundant and their depletion was not considered an issue, as there was a consistent supply to meet demands. Unfortunately, those times are gone. We are seeing resources depleted as we scramble to find viable alternatives. A growing contingent of geologists predict that sometime between 2010 and 2020 the gush of oil from wells around the world will peak at 80 million barrels per day, then begin a steady, inevitable decline (Kerr, 1998). We are trying in vain to slow our consumption to prolong the ultimate and thorough depletion of resources. The only thing there seems to be an excess of is waste. Waste has not always been a problem, either. There was also a time when people thought we threw garbage “away”.

There are several types of waste. Waste can be created as a result of a poor process. Waste can also come in the form of leftover material from producing something. There is also waste that is a result of human consumption. It is everything we throw “away”. Of course, we know now that there is no “away” for our garbage. All of our waste – trash, garbage, unused and unwanted material possessions, dead pets, etc - everything we do not want goes somewhere. Recycling is often not an available option for many communities throughout the United States. For many communities, the most responsible course of action available is a landfill. According to some accounts more than 90 percent of materials extracted to make durable goods in the United States become waste almost immediately. What most people see in their garbage cans is just the tip of a material iceberg; the product itself contains on average only 5 percent of the raw materials involved in the process of making and delivering it (Braungart & McDonough, 2002, p. 27-28).

In this paper, I will illustrate an optimistic outlook on our future with real solutions for tomorrow instead of analyzing what went wrong yesterday. Of course, an analysis of yesterday is imperative to deduce the right course of action for tomorrow, but the focus of this paper is on humanity's resolve, rather than its plight.

Problems of Waste and Resource Depletion

In many cases, products are designed for one-time, or short-time use, to be replaced or disposed of quickly (Braungart & McDonough, 2002, p. 28). This is a simple factor of marketing called, “Planned Obsolescence”, that started catching on in the 1950s. Designers planned how fast they could make stuff break and still leave the consumer with enough faith in the product to go buy another one (Leonard, 2007). The idea is that production can increase as soon as the product needs to be replaced. Whether it is at the end of its useful life or just obsolete, there is a better financial incentive for the producer if its product is frequently purchased, thrown out, and replaced. The faster this process happens, the better profits there will be for the producer.

This practice has made many societies in today’s modern world function as disposable societies. Everything that is made, at some point or another, will be disposed of. This is a tragic phenomenon. It is linear, with a very clear end. For example, if you have a bag of chocolate chips and you’re making chocolate chip cookies – when you run out of chocolate chips, the game is over. No more cookies! When we run out of natural resources, that’s it – no more cookies. The option of going to the store to get another bag won’t exist, nor will the option of drilling another well. As Annie Leonard put it, in the Story of Stuff (2007), “The reason it [the system] is in crisis is that it is a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely.” The depletion of our natural resources is a waste-induced problem that deserves as much attention as the problem of waste itself.

How about the option of digging another hole to bury our waste? Is there anything wrong with burying our solid and toxic wastes? Well, it is certainly not the best example of environmental stewardship. Beyond stewardship: we are running out of space for landfills; landfills have a tendency to be a concentration of toxicity, which sometimes leaches into the surrounding environment causing ill health and environmental effects; and it is a costly process to pay for waste to be wasted.

The connection between waste leaching from landfill into a water table and negative impacts to the environment from landfills is obvious. This is not just the case for solid waste, but toxic waste and nuclear waste as well. Leachate is transported from a landfill into the environment via natural water flows that collect hazardous chemicals from within these landfills (Blazquez, Lema, & Mendez, 1988). The continued production of waste will only amplify the landfill leaching process. As we need and create more landfills, more incidences of chemical leaching from them will occur. This is not the only environmental problem associated with waste.

We are depleting the earth’s natural resources at an incredible rate. In the past three decades alone, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed (Leonard, 2007). We preach about renewable resources, but the lack of sustainability of renewable resources continues to hinder our responsible use of them. We are taking, taking, taking from the earth and only returning a minimal amount. We mine resources, use them, and instead of continuing to use them in another form, we set them aside and ignore them as best we can. We search for new resources, while the vast majority of our waste is locked and bound in landfills (except for the leachate, of course).

There is also an energy crisis in our modern society. We depend on foreign oil to fuel our economy. As the developing world continues to develop, there is an increasing demand for oil to fuel their economies as well. This competition for oil serves only to more severely deplete the world’s energy reserves. Alternatives are being sought, but only at a snail’s pace. Alternatives have shown great potential, but are lacking in marketability, effectiveness, efficiency, and the political influence necessary to be implemented properly. There is a huge demand for energy in today’s global society, and that demand gets bigger every day. Alternatives, so far, are not filling the tanks of the world’s energy needs. What should be the course of action?

Drilling for oil in wildlife reserves only prolongs the complete depletion of the resource. There needs to be something cyclical that will continually supply a resource that can fuel world economies. Perhaps combining a waste crisis and an energy crisis could make a recipe for success.

Waste Production and Natural Resource Depletion

The process that describes the linear transition of product from beginning to end is referred to as, “Cradle to Grave” (Braungart & McDonough, 2002, p. 27). It describes the entirety of a product’s life, from its creation to its end of life:

Acquisition of the various raw materials necessary to construct a particular product.
Material manufacturing is necessary to process the raw materials so that they may be in a useful form.
The particular product is created/assembled/constructed in the manufacturing process.
The product is marketed and sold.
The product is used or consumed.
The product’s life ends at a landfill or incinerator.

Energy is required to facilitate the processes in each of these six steps. Some products require more energy use than others do. Either way, constantly putting energy into the system, while rarely receiving energy from it, is a depleting process. Energy needs to come from somewhere – and the resources most often used for energy production are limited. Limited means there is an end.

Waste production can be seen in each of these steps, be it a byproduct or the product itself. Waste is produced in different ways and in different forms; some of it is useful, some of it is not. The good news is that much of this waste is avoidable. With better product and process design, the linear timeline of a product’s life can be effectively turned into a resource cycle.

If products are designed sustainably, that is if they are designed to be recycled, they can go directly from step six (i.e., the landfill) to step two (i.e., processing) without extra waste production, and without compromising the resource’s integrity. Currently, a product that finds its way to a recycler instead of a landfill can be sent back to either step two, or three (i.e., manufacturing). The problem with today’s methods of production, however, is that recycling does not create a resource cycle – it simply prolongs the Cradle to Grave process.

Most materials were not designed for recycling. Take, for example, a plastic product – water bottle, Tupperware, etc. Plastic products are made with plasticizers. Plasticizers are chemical additives, which give plastic a particular property or characteristic, like flexibility and durability. Once a plasticizer is introduced into the molecular structure of the polymer making up a plastic, that polymer base is altered. This method makes sense from a material usefulness standpoint, but not from a resource cycle standpoint, because the plastic takes on a new property and can no longer be used in any other form. Once this plastic takes on a modified molecular structure, the plastic is extremely difficult to use for anything else. Forcing products and their additives into the process of recycling jeopardizes the base material’s durability. This means that they can only be recycled a finite amount of times before the material is so broken down, diluted, and weak that it ends up at step six anyway (Braungart & McDonough, 2002, p. 56-59).

Product reuse is another way to prolong product arrival at step six. Reuse directs the product from step six to step five (i.e., product use). Depending on the construction of the product, reuse can significantly draw out its ultimate end. Nevertheless, the end will inevitably arrive.

In step six, the process of landfilling or incinerating waste is equivalent to wasting our own waste. This is the end of the line. This is what needs to be addressed for humanity to have a future with enough energy and resources to fuel its development ambitions. Although a product may meet the end of its intended use, its usefulness is by no means finished. Designing a process that can fully utilize the remaining product usefulness is the task at hand. New technologies are slowly being implemented that hold potential answers pertaining to our past and future waste management issues.

Real sustainable design is too idealistic of a goal for our modern society. It requires a complete overhaul of the entire manufacturing and producing industry throughout the world. It is a great goal for which to strive. It should be sought, but in the meantime, why not find a solution that will take our waste problem and create something we need? Waste is mounting and resources are depleting. Industry is producing and communities are consuming. It’s the way things work. In order to maximize energy efficiency, it is essential that someday we find a way to minimize that waste. But for now, what if we could do better than simply minimizing waste? What if we could, instead, use that waste for something we wanted, or even needed? Waste could be a great renewable resource, and even a source of energy. Disposable Societies? If we had a way of transforming waste into material or energy resource, there would be no problem with continuing our way of life in a disposable society. We have the technology to make this happen, but we need to make sure that we use only responsible technologies.

Some alternative technologies are becoming more trendy than they are responsible. The actual effectiveness of certain alternative technologies is questionable, as they compete with food resources, generate hazardous waste products, and lack appropriate efficiency to make them viable tools of progression. For example:

Solar - Solar energy technology is nearly 60 years old and extremely inefficient. The production of solar cells is very energy intensive and the use of that solar cell takes from one to four years to create the amount of energy that was used in its production. They do, however, have an estimated lifetime of 30 years (The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2004).
Wind - Energy production from windmills is a controversial alternative energy because migratory birds are being killed by the rotating blades (Gipe, 1995).
Biofuel - The controversy with biofuel is that some say there is a competition for agricultural crops between the food and fuel industry. Also, there is a debate on whether or not this is an eco-efficient technology (Mitchell, 2008).

Alternative technology is a catch phrase in today’s society. It contains the possibilities of a clean and healthy future for the development of our communities and conservation of our environment. Appropriate choices must be made for our management policies. Research is needed to identify which alternatives are responsible, and which are just marketable.

Resource Production and Waste Depletion

If it was possible to force everyone to conform their daily activities and habits to those consistent with environmentally sound practices, waste problems might not exist. Unfortunately, forcing people to adopt a new lifestyle is seldom successful. In fact, change is usually met with resistance (Holling, 2001). And in the end, the waste problem still exists. Is it even possible then, to create an atmosphere of change? We could implement methodologies of manipulation and propaganda to “convince” the masses that being responsible for their actions and their waste generation is ultimately in their best interests. We could also campaign heavily for environmental education. How can we most effectively convince the world to be responsible for their actions? Well, perhaps we do not have to.

Through new, available technologies, it is possible to transform waste directly into pure and usable resources. The products of a disposable society that plague future development and conservation could be used as fuel and many other useful products in a society that contributed to a solution rather than a problem. The best part is that citizens do not even have to be environmentally aware or change their actions! Of course, a conscious, educated society would be ideal, but environmental education has been a tactic for a long time, and there is still so much to achieve. The green agenda should not be forgotten, but while it is being pushed, let us consider more effective options to maximize the rate at which we reduce human impact to the planet.

In the United Kingdom, a system called Vantage Waste Processing (VWP) has been developed to utilize waste in the production of energy. The system can effectively prepare waste for processing, reduce its volume by more than 60%, extract raw materials for recycling, and produce biofuel from the organic waste. VWP uses a process called Thermal Hydration Steam Treatment to break down organic material into a useful form. Each waste treatment unit can process up to 10 tons per hour, totaling up to 75,000 tons of household waste per year. The breakdown of its output, which is based on a European waste norm, is 63% biomass fiber, which can be used to make building materials, biofuel or biodiesel. 18% plastics, mostly recovered from bottles, reduced in size but not melted - once sorted, they are clean and sterile and can be recycled back to plastic processors or ethanol/diesel. 4% ferrous metals from food cans - all labels have been stripped and cans are clean ready for recycling. 1% non-ferrous metals, mostly from drinks cans, paint cleaned off and metal ready for recycling. 5% textiles in the form of rags and textiles, which are sterilized and ready for sale/collection. 9% other residues, mostly glass, china and rubber – they can be sold back for aggregate (Resource Reclaim Limited, n.d.).

A United States company, Global Resource Corporation (GRC), claims their process requires only a finely tuned microwave that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials, and a mix of materials made from oil to reduce the product back to oil, a combustible gas, and a few leftovers. GRC's machine is called the Hawk-10 and an example of its output from running 9.1 kilograms of ground-up tires produces 4.54 liters of diesel oil, 1.42 cubic meters of combustible gas, 1 kg of steel and 3.40 kg of carbon black (Bio-Medicine, 2007). GRC is now manufacturing the equipment that is revolutionizing the applications of tire processing, and future applications will include: shale into diesel fuel, coal into methane and hydrogen gas, upgrading heavy oil at the wellhead, plastics into gas fuel, and many other carbon-based substances into fuels without CO or CO2 emissions (Global Resource Corporation, 2008).

Another United States company called Changing World Technologies, Inc. (CWT), developed a process called the Thermal Depolymerization Process (TDP), which it designed to create resources and energy from any kind of organic waste. Using this process, any organic material can be converted into oil, gas, minerals and carbon, as well as sterilized water. TDP accomplishes this by using extreme heat and pressure to decompose complex hydrocarbons into simple, small-chained hydrocarbons. CWT developed a demonstration facility for the TDP technology where process refinements were accomplished as the TDP evolved into a more directed Thermal Conversion Process (TCP). According to CWT, this technology is more than 80% efficient and offers a closed loop cycle (Changing World Technologies, Inc., 2008). Their stance is that organic material takes carbon from the atmosphere as it grows. We harvest that organic material whether it is trees for paper, or oil from dinosaurs, and we put it into some kind of product. We then consume and use that product until it is no longer useful. The waste, which would ultimately break down and return carbon to the atmosphere, is converted directly back into organic material. This organic material is used to create new products, completely bypassing the atmospheric phase of its existence.

It sounds like the cycle is foolproof. There is definitely a potential for organic material to be cycled completely when we are talking about solid products for it to be made into and from which it can be broken down. However, when waste is broken down through thermal depolymerization and made into non-solid products, such as fuel, it puts carbon directly back into the atmosphere through its use. Sure, in time, it will be taken back up by plant life to become organic matter once again, and so the cycle goes. Is this still a responsible cycle? Is this technology the best thing for the environment and for humanity?

These are examples of humanity’s potential – advanced technology in alternative energy and alternative resources that address a possible solution to an ever-pressing problem. In their early stages, these technologies demonstrate the potential to transform every landfill into a resource-laden mine. They are also demonstrating a potential for the future of all waste management. Imagine waste management being synonymous with alternative energy production and alternative resource acquisition.

Test runs for research will pave the path towards the implementation of these technologies. If a conclusion is made that these technologies are truly responsible in that they are clean, efficient, and productive, then all former landfills will become resource mines. Instead of waste being “thrown away”, it will be thrown into the device as a very valuable source of raw materials. If these technologies become what they have the potential to be, we need to implement drastic changes to our waste management policies and practices. Where do we start? This is a situation in which local governments and the private sector will have to work together to successfully implement a new waste management regime.

Local government participation is essential in creating policy conducive to restructuring waste management within communities. More specifically, city planners will have the task of outlining a methodology in which hazardous waste and recyclable material are separated from the solid waste load. Once the solid waste is free of inorganic and dangerous compounds, it can be treated as a raw material and then processed. Furthermore, city planners will need to contract out labor for the installation and management of the TCP, Hawk-10, and VWP technologies.

The infrastructure needed to implement a project such as this is very much in the hands of local governments. Once that is in place, the private sector should take over and facilitate its operations.

Profit is the main motivator that will ensure these technologies’ economic sustainability. Raw material, in the form of garbage, will be delivered to the facility, and the party responsible for producing the waste will be charged normal disposal fees. Nothing changes for the consumer. The disposal industry, however, is now being paid to take raw materials, which they will then process and indirectly sell back to the consumer via the manufacturing industry.

CWT claims that their TCP technology can produce 4 billion barrels of oil in a year from agricultural waste in the United States alone. This is equivalent to amount of oil that the United States imports each year, and more than half of the 7.3 billion barrels a year that it consumes (Changing World Technologies, Inc., 2008). Imagine the possibilities if we created 4 billion barrels of oil from just agricultural waste, and if landfills were used to supplement our raw material resources! CWT’s subsidiary, Renewable Environmental Resources, LLC (RES) has been created to demonstrate these claims.

In Carthage, Missouri, RES installed a plant that is currently producing 100-200 barrels of oil per day utilizing byproducts from an adjacent turkey processing facility. This facility is converting approximately 250 tons/day of turkey offal and fats into approximately 20,000 gallons of a renewable diesel fuel oil and valuable fertilizer products. And this is only 30% of the plant’s capacity (Gelfand, 2008)!

It is extremely appealing that with TCP, Hawk-10, and VWP technologies, two crises could become one grand solution. But is it feasible? Would these technologies simply further prolong the ultimate end of oil resources? After all, there is only a finite amount of waste on the planet. If we keep producing waste, and if TCP, Hawk-10, and VWP technologies are supremely successful in converting waste to resources, then it stands to reason that all waste could become products. If the technologies are what they claim, then an efficient cycling of resources may be attained, thus negating the possibility of an end of resources.

Conclusion

The nature of our societies, economies, and industries has ended up producing a significant amount of waste. This waste creation has led to a depletion of resources, inspiring questions into the future. How are we going to create more things if we don’t have any more stuff out of which to make them? Where do we find more resources and where do we put the resources that we no longer want? Other questions are directed towards the environment. What pollution implications does our waste have on the future of the environment?

Identifying how this waste is created is a good first step towards figuring out a potential solution. One potential solution is in the concept of planning and designing of products. Products can be designed for recycling and waste minimization. Another, more feasible, solution is designing and adapting a process to accommodate waste production and resource depletion. We have the technology available to adapt our waste production problem into being a solution that fills in the holes of our depleting resources.

Environmental education has told us that everyone has to do his or her part in helping to lessen the impact to our natural world. While this is absolutely true in most cases, the beautiful thing about these technologies is that they do not require the participation of every last individual. When less participation is required in achieving a goal, that goal will be achieved with greater efficiency.

Although the problems of waste and resource depletion may seem overwhelming, humanity’s ingenuity and resolve have shown us that real solutions to our problems exist. If we work toward implementing those solutions, as preliminary examples of these technologies have shown, we will succeed.

For the future of these super-decomposing technologies, the best thing that can be done would be to ramp up the scale, and increase the efficiency with which they run. Optimizing efficiency levels for these devices will optimize their economic viability. Economic viability leads to social and political support. And support leads to success!

This paper has been written with Western countries in mind. However, there are enormous positive implications in utilizing such technologies in developing countries as a means to alleviate poverty. These technologies have the capacity to reduce the stress on the availability of overburdened energy and resources. Giving developing countries energy and resource independence would be a huge gain that could facilitate further progress in the direction of eliminating poverty.

Bibliography

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Those Turtles Were Kung Fu Fighting For Their Lives!

2008-11-02T19:18:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, sea turtles can't move as fast as lightning. So I took a weekend from my busy schedule to assist them in their fight for life.

A group of UPeace students and I headed out to Punta Mala beach, a bit south of Jaco, on the Pacific side of the country, where we met up with an organization dedicated to protecting sea turtles. We volunteered for their effort for the weekend.

It is said that only one sea turtle will live to adulthood from 1000 eggs. An average female sea turtle starts laying eggs around age 20, and can lay up to 100 eggs at one time. The temperature in which they develop determines the sex of the turtle. There are natural predators, but the biggest threat that faces these amazing creatures is poaching. A poacher can get between two and four USD per egg as they're used in a popular drink and some fancy recipes and superstitions here in Costa Rica.

We started our volunteering with a night patrol of a 5km section of beach at 9PM. We were hiking along the beach without lights. Lights would give away our position to any potential poachers in waiting. They also startle the turtles. After a few stubbed toes and linking arms for our own safety, we came to a small river. We had to cross to continue our patrol, but the water was only a couple feet deep at the deepest. Easy. The hard part was that this particular river is crocodile habitat. Yes, crocodiles - the ones with big mouths that bite and don’t let go. The one guy that was leading our volunteer team pulled out a tiny AA-flashlight and scanned the water for signs of the scary snappers. Everything looked OK so we pushed on to the other side.

Finally, we came across the path that a sea turtle makes in the sand on her way up the beach to lay her eggs. We followed the path up and lo and behold, a big ole sea turtle was making her way back down to the sea. We watched her disappear into the waves and the darkness and then we went to find her nest.

I don't think I'll ever understand how she managed to dig such a hole, and cover it up as if she'd never been there. The plan was to dig up her eggs and bring them to a protected environment. So, we dug them up. She laid 84 eggs, which resembled very soft ping-pong balls. We put them in a plastic bag and reburied them in order to complete our patrol. Upon our return, we retrieved them and brought them to the hatchery where we buried them properly (without the plastic bag). The night was finished!

In the morning, we dug up old nests that were ruined by flooding. All the eggs "drowned" so our task was to dig them up and prepare the area for future nests. We dug up 22 nests of destroyed eggs. However, we found one lone survivor that had managed to hatch but couldn't manage to dig its way out of the sand. It was severely dehydrated and very weak. We put it in a bucket of water while it adjusted to life. When it was moving like healthy little sea turtles do, we decided to take it closer to the ocean and release it.As the tiny newborn turtle made it's way to the sea I reflected upon the work being done at this facility. We put so much energy into ensuring that these turtle eggs would be safe. We gave them a leg up in the struggle to be born. We focused so much effort into their lives before they're actually alive, all I could think to say in my head to this little guy as he was pummeled by wave after wave was, "OK, little guy, now go be a turtle." His entire ecological niche and significance was lost due to my focus on just making sure he'd have a chance to be born. Either way, it was a beautiful thing to witness his release and ponder his future existence.
We left Punta Mala, sore and exhausted, and made our way to Manuel Antonio National Park. We spent the afternoon protecting our lunch from extremely aggressive White Faced Capuchin monkeys and raccoons. We swam and hiked in the national park, and then we headed home. Job well done. Hi-ya!

Panama, Panama!

2008-10-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

I finished up my last class with a field trip to the northern part of the country, in a place called Sarapiquí. The class was called, Forests, Forestry, and Poverty and it focused on the dynamics of forestry practices correlating with poverty in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

It was an interesting thing to consider that the methods used to harvest forest products can be directly related to poverty stricken communities. It's not something I've ever considered. I've always focused on the element of deforestation due to the mismanagement of forests. Apparently mismanaged things can have other consequences as well.

On our field trip to Sarapiquí, we checked out a few different things. First was a forest plantation. Traditionally I had been against forest plantations because it's human's manipulation of the forest and 100% unnatural. But I quickly learned that the land area used to produce trees on a plantation was far smaller than the forest land area affected by harvesting the same amount of trees. This means that the more plantations that exist, the less natural forests are needed to provide forest products to meet society's needs! Plantations are a form of preservation! Oh, what a grand new perspective!
Our next stop was to a sustainably managed forest. Even though plantations are far better producers of wood products, they still don't produce enough to meet society's overwhelming demand. Of course, consuming less is the best answer, but it's also the hardest method of which to convince people. Because of that, forests are still being cut down to meet our needs. The best way to do that is to do it sustainably. This means that we take a minimum amount of trees from the forest so as to not affect the forest's health. Sure, there are damages to the forest, but if trees are harvested in a way that the damage is not severe, then the forest can recover and continue being a happy, healthy forest! The plot of forestland that we visited was a great example of this. There were lots of health indicators and it felt nice to hike through it. At least through most of it. Half way through our hike, the rains of the rainy season hit us hard! It was intense! I had been walking through the forest delicately so as to not get stung or bitten by any of the terminally poisonous things we were identifying such as Poison Dart Frogs and Bullet Ants. I've been attacked by Fire Ants and Army Ants during my short time here, but I hear it only takes four bites from the inch long Bullet Ants to end me! Yikes! Anyway, after the rain hit, my delicate hiking tactics went right out the window. I was grabbing trees and plants and soil, anything to get myself out of the valley in which I seemed to be stuck. I was at the end of the class so everyone that had hiked through before me destroyed all the traction I could have had. I was slipping and sliding all over the place! When I finally made it to the top and out of the forest, I was completely covered, head to toe, in mud - and soaking wet! No worries though, the intensity of the rain rinsed the mud right off of me by the time I got back to the bus...Our last stop was to a hydroelectric power plant, which has a unique relationship with the land owners of the upstream forests. The hydroelectric power plant knows that the consistency of the river flows depends on, and is influenced by, the existence of forests upstream. In order to preserve their interests, the flow of the river, they are employing a plan called Payment for Environmental Services. Through governmental money and coordination by a group called FUNDECOR, they're paying landowners to not cut down their forests. That is, the landowners are receiving money to leave the upstream forest land alone. Financial incentive for conservation! What a great spin on natural forest protection! It's been working great for the last few years with no signs of changing in the near future! It's a great example that I wish more governments would support.

So why the Van Halen title for a forestry blog? Simple - I had a five day break after this class finished and I celebrated by going to Panama! Panama! That and I needed to renew my 90 day visa...The funniest part of the whole trip happened when we crossed the border into Panama from Costa Rica.

There was some kind of fumigation chamber that the bus parks in before leaving the country. The purpose was obviously to kill any bacteria, fungi, pollen, etc. from dirty Costa Rica before entering sterile Panama. We quickly closed the windows in fear of being poisoned! The bus sat there and the temperature seemed to go through the roof! Nothing happened. Finally the bus pulled out of the fumigation chamber and crossed a rickety old bridge over a dirty brown river that serves as the border. Confused that no chemicals had hit the bus we decided to open the windows again for some much needed fresh air. Ah refreshment! On the other side of the bridge, the bus stopped in another fumigation chamber. Unfortunately we were oblivious to this action, as the excitement of being in a new country (50th for me!) was upon us! All of a sudden, we all got sprayed in the faces from something outside! Damn fumigation chamber! We scrambled to close the windows but were too late. I tried to use my lack of sense of smell and interesting work history to determine what kind of pesticide had covered us all. No dice. So Becca asked the border guard. "Oh, don't worry." He said calmly. "That's for the bus, not for you." Hahaaaa!!! We tried to explain to him that we had been sprayed and wanted to know with what we had been sprayed, but he was adamant about those chemicals being for the bus and not for us. Thanks, guy.

I was in a group of 10 other students and we traveled to some islands off the northeastern coast of Panama called Bocas Del Toro. It was beautiful there!We spent our days exploring different beaches of the islands in kayaks, hanging out at Caribbean Sea side bars, swimming our brains out, and not relaxing at all! It was a blast!I'm now back in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica and have started a new class. Research Methods. Oh boy! As you can imagine, I'm spending lots of time, glued to my computer researching. Or learning how to research, as it were. I'm using this class to get a foundation for the thesis I'll be doing at the end of the school year. Get ready for some reading and editing! I mean, if you want. Seriously - please let me know if you're willing to proof read my thesis next spring-ish when I have it ready!

XOXO

Pura Vida's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose!

2008-09-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Pura vida is a phrase endemic to Costa Rica. The literal translation is, "Pure Life" and it's used in all contexts of conversation. The symbolic meaning, from what I've been able to gather, is something to the effect of, "Hey man, it's like pure life. It's like pure. Like real life. It's like don't worry about it because we live in beautiful Costa Rica. You know, life is good, man!" Ah, if only it were true.

From an outsider's perspective, I feel that these people have been coaxed into accepting and even loving something less than mediocrity. Of course this isn't true for every Costa Rican (Tico). It's only true for the vast majority of them.

How can I make such a generalization after only having been here for two months? Easy, I have superior observational skills. Actually, the factors that influenced me to feel this way are the same ones I've seen in most other third world nations that I've visited. That is, a lack of infrastructure, piss-poor planning and development, pollution in urban areas, pollution in rural areas, poverty, alcoholism, huge disparity between rich and poor, and a general lack of interest/motivation to change/develop the community. These are just simple things I've noticed. I'm sure there are many more to be discovered if I truly delve into the matter.

What I'm implying is that Costa Rica has remained a third world country - I mean "developing country" - because of these factors. They are more indicators, really. Indicating Tico mentality. It's a mentality that is satisfied with just enough to get by.

Some could say that it's a good thing to be able to find a positive outlook on a life that some wouldn't consider positive. If indeed your world sucks, why not find something to be happy about? It keeps them content with what they haven't got. But for the people I've met in other struggling communities, being happy for the sake of being happy isn't good enough. I know there are people here who truly desire development - that is, they want to see their community become better than what it is. These people aren't satisfied with just enough to get by and it breaks my heart that they don't have opportunities to succeed. At least, not opportunities as I know them.

I fully support folks trying to inspire change and betterment in their communities. For whatever that's worth. But what to do about the rest? Humor them? Some guy accidentally stepped on my foot the other night at a bar. I turned around to see what was going on and he apologized. I told him, "No problem. Pura Vida." And the smile that overtook his face was incredible. It was like he was blown away at my understanding of Tico life. "Nothing matters, man. Take it easy. Life is great." Yeah, fine and dandy when someone steps on your foot. But what about when government corruption is stepping on your life?

Why do Ticos settle for "Pure life" when they could have so much more? By more, I mean solid infrastructure - nice roads, erosion control programs, phones for everyone, health care, better food, the ability to afford to own their own land, and so on.

There are some nice places in Costa Rica - sure. However, for the most part, this country is poverty stricken through a severe unequal distribution of resources.

I've had conversations about "pura vida" with some friends here, and some of them completely disagree with me. "I've been to a lot of small towns in Costa Rica, and the quaintness of them gives them character. I like it." It's kind of along the same lines of an argument saying that the drunk bum, who hasn't showered in forever, also has more character than just another suit walking down the street. Hmmm. Perhaps it's just a conflict of perception. One is interesting to look at and ponder about, and the other contributes to developing society. I guess it all depends on your priorities in life. Be happy with what you've got vs. Improve your world. I like to think that I'm on a path towards both. Why hasn't anyone else figured this out?Pura vida, man! Don't worry!

Amendment
Upon posting this blog, a friend of mine reminded me of a text I had sent him a while ago completely contradicting this posting. Here is the text that I pulled off of a menu from a restaurant in Amman, Jordan:

The rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find the southern fisherman lying lazily beside his boat, smoking a pipe.
"Why aren't you out fishing?" said the industrialist.
"Because I have caught enough fish for the day," said the fisherman.
"Why don't you catch some more?"
"What would I do with them?"
"You could earn more money," was the industrialist's reply. "With that you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. Then you would make enough to buy nylon nets. These would bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have enough money to own two boats . . . maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be a rich man like me."
"What would I do then?" asked the fisherman.
"Then you could really enjoy life."
"What do you think I am doing right now?"

My point is this: My hat's off to anyone that finds happiness in their life; anyone who can truly be happy with what they have or do not have. That's a rare thing, though. So in writing about "Pura Vida" it seems like I'm making a case that they are happy with their state. But observations of the their lives lead me to a conclusion to the contrary. There are complaints about being poor. I get asked for money because I'm from America. I get cheated on prices because I'm a foreigner. Theft is a huge, huge problem here. These actions are not consistent with the philosophy of "Pura Vida".

My philosophy is, if you want something, you need to work your ass off in order to achieve it. Complaining, stealing, and asking for handouts aren't acceptable. Neither is being dishonest about your life, especially to yourself.

I Wish I Was A Little Bit Smarter! I Wish I Was A Scholar!

2008-09-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

The structure of classes at the University for Peace is not exactly what I was anticipating. We have a single class for a few weeks at a time and then move on to another class. I kind of like it because I can focus everything I've got into one class at a time and then move on to something new. Thing is, it's quite intense! I've never read so much in my life!

Our first class, Foundations in Peace and Conflict Studies, finally finished last week! It was neat because for the first part of the day, all students were together for a lecture. Hearing different perspectives from people representing different cultures and backgrounds was incredibly interesting. The student diversity at UPeace is something truly amazing and it enriches everyone's experience.The second part of the day was spent in smaller groups where we had discussions over the lecture and the readings. During this course, as the title suggests, we studied concepts and theories of peace and conflict. We reviewed case studies over particular conflicts, analyzing all the various components of the conflicts, and then discussed potential solutions.

It was a pretty interesting course, however, my lack of background in this particular subject made the entire thing incredibly challenging!

In between classes was a 4 day break/weekend. To celebrate completion of our first class, some friends and I headed out to an island and then a volcano for some intense travel days of relaxation!Islita Cedros (Little Cedar Island) was an 8 hour trip away from where I live via two buses and two boats. It's a tiny island without cars or even roads. We hung out for two nights with some local folks that Becca knows.After the island we made our way to the town of La Fortuna, which sits at the base of Arenal - an active volcano. Two boats, two buses, and 10 hours of travel finally put us there. We wasted no time and hired a guide to take us to some hot springs. It was late at night, and the tourist host springs had all closed. Our guide took us to some hot river in the middle of the forest. It was awesome! The water was somewhere around 100 degrees and we hung out in it for three wonderful hours!Had to leave in the morning... We only needed two buses and seven hours to get home. Just in time to do my reading for school the next day, and then go to bed.

The class I'm taking now is Forests, Forestry, and Poverty. It's starting out great! So sorry for all the emails to which I haven't responded. Along with my struggle to keep up with school work, I equally struggle with keeping up with emails. More to come! XOXO!

I've started another online photo album of my activities in Costa Rica. If you want to see more images that go along with these stories, check out this address: http://picasaweb.google.com/00Judkins/CostaRicaUniversityForPeace!

UPeace - Save the Water!

2008-09-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

The school has done a fine job in scaring me with punishments over plagiarism. In fact, for fear of being caught plagiarizing my self, I'm posting my essays as "rough drafts" from now on, to which I welcome your critiquing on my amazing grammar skills and word choices!

Save the Water

Andrew Judkins – NRP
Foundations in Peace and Conflict Studies
Key Challenges to Peace
September 14, 2008

A flood of tensions and tempers has been flowing over the last few years on the Columbia Plateau of Washington State. Stakeholders in the conflict over water usage and management are at odds over legal water rights and morale water dilemmas. The Columbia Basin Project redistributed the waters of the Columbia River to be used for irrigation over thousands of miles of main canals, laterals, drains and wasteways. There is now an increasing human population, with increased water demands, which is not soaking up enough justification for water usage when contrasted with decimated salmon populations.

The Columbia Basin Project, usually mentioned synonymously with the capstone components of Grand Coulee Dam and Roosevelt Lake, actually consists of several dams, reservoirs, and canals. A total of 331 miles of main canals carry water siphoned off the Columbia River, stored in reservoirs, pumped and diverted onward via 1,339 miles of lateral canals; this massive diversion sprinkles the high desert with enough water to create an agricultural empire based in central and eastern Washington State. Currently just over 670,000 acres of land receive irrigation waters from the Columbia Basin Project, with nearly 1,100,000 acres classified as irrigable within its boundaries (Bloodworth & White, 2008).

The typical Pacific Northwest climate contains a 3-month summer drought, which puts a great strain on the water needs of Northwest farmers. The farmers end up wanting more water than their water rights entitle them. Their demand for water puts a heavy burden on the water flow of the river. Less water in the river means an altered hydrology, which impacts the river ecology. It’s the river ecology that the anadramous salmon depend on to complete their life cycle and fulfill their niche in the greater ecological perspective.

Peak flow of the upper Columbia River usually occurs in mid-June, and water releases are made from dams in July and August to ensure adequate water in the lower Columbia River to enhance fish migration (United States Bureau of Reclamation, n.d.). However, these are the dry months that the farmers need increased water loads for irrigation. This is a region accustomed to 6 to 10 inches of annual rainfall, and it is receiving 40 to 50 inches of excess irrigation water (Bloodworth & White, 2008). This competition has the agriculture industry and farmers pitted against local tribes, fishermen and the fishing industry, as well as environmentalists.

The key challenges to peace in this water fight are pretty cut and dry. On one hand, there is a $3.1 billion a year agricultural economy that depends on irrigation water to flow from the Columbia River (The Columbia Basin Bulletin, 2008). On the other hand, there are environmentalists who keep emphasizing the need for increased protection of 26 species of salmon and steelhead that are already listed on the Endangered Species Act (Doussard, 2007).

Which is the more important natural resource? Is it the water that is responsible for an agricultural economy, hydroelectric power, and a watering source for countless species?
Or is it the salmon, which support centuries old cultures and traditions, provide a fundamental nutrient source for riparian areas, as well as sustains industry in the forms sport and commercial fishing in addition to being a crucial element of the river ecosystem? Asking the question, salmon or water, is a very extreme course of action and will not lead to a solution over this clash of ideologies.

It is evident that this issue is an environmental security issue. Increased fresh water scarcity is an obvious problem that Rolain Borel (2008) classifies as an invisible disaster. It produces conditions for human vulnerability as is clearly seen here as a major challenge to peace.

What if a better attempt was made to think outside the box was employed to end this water dilemma? Can we use Capra’s (1982) Turning Point to solve the scarcity of water issue? In his theory we can see that everything is interconnected and that a simple solution most likely doesn’t exist based on this complexity. He also states that all problems are fragments of one single crisis: a crisis of perception. Is it possible that a balance could exist between commercial fishermen and salmon supporters? Is it possible that we’re just looking at this conflict from a flawed perspective? Perhaps the mechanical thinking that leads us to this conflict with two opposing sides is extremely inadequate. Perhaps this shortcoming could be remedied with a bit of organic thinking. Considering all points of interconnectedness should influence possibilities that work toward breaking down the dams of challenge on the river of peace.

Delving further into these challenges to peace leads us to Quantum Theory and Quantum Peace. The interconnectedness of the world implies that although there is conflict over water between two opposing sides, it’s the relationships involved that can also make peace. The key challenges of this issue, when approached from a holistic point of view, seem solvable (Fontan, 2008). One example in action of this is recent Washington State legislation aimed at satisfying these quarrelling parties. The city of Kennewick received more than $1 million this year to explore ways to capture water during the winter and store it in an underground aquifer, then reuse the water during the summer months. At least one-third of any stored water would be used to support stream flows for fish migration and spawning (The Columbia Basin Bulletin, 2008).

Beyond the concept of Quantum Theory is Systems theory, which shows us that based on the principle of interdependence each system depends on the other for life (Fontan, 2008). This is a core challenge in achieving peace from this conflict. The river is clearly the base on which the conflict floats. The salmon supporters’ argument is based on the river. The farmers’ argument is based on the river. But how do they depend on each other? Both contribute to local economies – There is the sport and commercial fishing industry as well as the agricultural industry. One surviving without the other will not stabilize the economy. In fact, it would destabilize it. Combined, in this sense, it is crucial that they both continue and prosper in order for economic security.

If both points of view are valid, and satisfying both sides of the conflict would lead to a benefited human population as well as a happy population of salmon, why can’t we seem to find a solution? Perhaps we’re focusing too much on the demands of each particular party without focusing on a means that would allow both parties to flourish. What methods, then, should be employed to work towards a satisfactory goal in which farmers and salmon supports can both feel secure in having accomplished some kind of victory? Not a victory over the other side, but a victory that solves the conflict and allows each side to be independently pleased with a solution.

Using C.R. Mitchell’s model (2008) for types of solutions to conflicts, we can begin to analyze possible options to conclude this conflict that has continued to flow. Solutions of Separation are ineffective. Separating the two quarrelling sides doesn’t satisfy either of them. There may be slightly more water allocated for farmers by telling the salmon supporters to go jump in a lake. And it’s conceivable that there may be additional salmon in the river by telling farmers to go fly a kite. But isolating these two sides of the conflict isn’t a reasonable solution for the river communities.

Solutions of Compensation could be a possibility. If both conflicting parties were to make concessions and still meet their bottom lines, potential peace could flow instead of conflict. But how could this be achieved? Are these stakeholders capable of extending an olive branch in order to secure a solution? Can farmers increase the efficiency with which they reclaim and use the water in order to consume less of it? What exactly is the minimum amount of water needed in the Columbia River to ensure a healthy salmon migration? The possibility of a solution under the realms of compensation seems unlikely when the terms of the solution are reasonably and economically unavailable and immeasurable with today’s technology.

Solutions of Division offer another possible way out. Can a compromise be reached between farmers and salmon supporters? Is there a way to divide time and usage of the Columbia River? Alternating years, perhaps – One year the farmers get the water they need and a generation of salmon suffers. Though, it’s difficult to predict the impact that would have on the entire salmon population. The next year, salmon would prosper while farmers lose crops to the summer drought. This loss could potentially be governmentally subsidized, or even subsidized by taxes to the fishing industry. Some may consider this solution as a way out of tensions and tempers, but the solution does not really generate a real solid foundation towards a future peace.

Solutions of Distribution/Disbursement are not quite applicable in this situation as it deals more with the breakdown of power in a political conflict. Neither party in the river/salmon conflict has or should have more power than the other.

Solutions of Creation offer an interesting school of opportunities to resolve conflicts. Can water from the Pacific Ocean be desalinized and used for irrigation? Can farmers select less water dependent crops – after all, irrigating the desert doesn’t seem like the wisest use of resources. Asking more in depth questions as to the source of the conflict, asking why each party wants something, could potentially illuminate a solution that satisfies the needs of both parties. Perhaps there are common goals that can be reached.

The absolute bottom line is that the Columbia River has been over manipulated by human hands to perpetuate our own development. This manipulation has meant progress in terms of the economy and human societal development. Unfortunately, it has also meant disaster in terms of salmon species and riparian area ecology. Undoing what has already been done is not a reasonable thing. It would mean the sacrifice of a booming economy and the way of life for nearly everyone in the Pacific Northwest. It’s simply not an option. Can the impact that has already been made, be further modified and manipulated towards conditions that appear a bit more natural? Is it possible, through human ingenuity and resolve, to engineer a system that has the capacity to satisfy the water needs of the agricultural industry and still meet the water needs of salmon? A positive answer to that question will directly lead to a positive solution to this conflict. Better water management is key to providing this answer.

The comprehensive irrigation district management draft plan for the South Naches district, being developed with farmers and agencies by the Bellevue office of Jones & Stokes, proposes a variety of significant changes to the way the district manages water to minimize the adverse impacts on salmon. This includes improving a 90-year-old structure that diverts water from the river, installing a pressurized irrigation distribution system in some places, removing a dysfunctional fish screen, and developing alternatives to using herbicides to manage aquatic weeds that choke the system in the summer months (Earle, 2005).

For the majority of the region, however, this conflict remains as stagnant as the water behind all the many dams of the Columbia River. Communities and stakeholders continue to wait for an all-encompassing solution to get things flowing on the river of peace.
Bibliography

Bloodworth, G. & White, J. (2008). The Columbia Basin Project: Seventy-Five Years Later. White Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, 70, 98-105.

Borel, Rolain (2008, September 02). Environmental Security. Presented at University for Peace.

Doussard, Robin. (2007 August 1). The Fight for Water. Oregon Business Magazine

Earle, Christopher. (2005). Farmers, government team up to save fish. Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce, Retrieved on September 11, 2008, from http://www.djc.com/news/en/11170266.html.

Fontan, Victoria. (2008 August 29). Quantum Peace. Presented at University for Peace.

Fritjof, Capra. (1982). The Turning Point. New York: Bantam Books.

Mitchell, C.R. (2008, September 11). From Violence to Positive Peace. Presented at University for Peace.

The Columbia Basin Bulletin. (2008). Landmark Agreement Could Open Up New Water Rights For E. Washington Irrigators. The Columbia Basin Bulletin, Retrieved on September 11, 2008, from http://www.cbbulletin.com/288968.aspx.

United States Bureau of Reclamation. (n.d.). Columbia Basin Project Washington. United States Bureau of Reclamation, Retrieved on September 11, 2008, from http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/html/columbia.html.

It's My Party and I'll Turn 30 if I Want To!

2008-09-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

My birthday celebration started out with a super sweet email from the gals I worked with in Bulgaria. They created a Happy Birthday message for me that stole my heart! They're such sweethearts!It really made me miss Bulgaria and all the people I know there. Then I got selfish and started whining about not being with my friends and family for my 30th birthday. I started being a bit depressed that I'd be with a bunch of strangers to welcome in my 30s. But I was able to use my positivitiy skills to change my attitude! I tricked myself into believing that there's nothing like celebrating your special day with a bunch of people you just met! Actually, the folks with whom I'm studying down here have really impressed me. They're a good group with lots to offer. And they're super smart! And they come from everywhere! There are 161 students from 42 different countries! And they managed to make me smile for the entire day!

At the moment, a friend is staying with me until she can find her own place. I met Becca six years ago in Switzerland. We've stayed in touch since then and have now ended up at the same grad school! She took note of me wearing my new white t-shirt, which was a gift, and devised a diabolical plan!

In the mornings, before school starts, the students hang out at this outdoor, covered cafeteria. We were sitting around chatting and Becca came up to me with a handful of pens. I asked what they were for and she told me that I'd find out. Then she took my chair away from me, stood on it, and announced to everyone that it was my 30th birthday and that I'll be carrying these damn pens around all day so that people could come up to me and write happy birthday on my new white t-shirt.

Well, it didn't take long at all for me to be surrounded by a bunch of kids writing all over me. In no time, I was covered in all kinds of colors and languages. It was a pretty cool feeling. That Becca... She's made it onto my sweetheart list, too.So the day went by, and people signed all over me. I heard a lot of, "No way, you're not 30! Wow!” which made me feel nice, I guess. It wasn't about the age, I figure, they were just telling me that I'm still pretty. I explained that it was my superior genetics that allow me to look so beautiful. Of course, at the time that explanation sounded more like, "Thanks!” You know... on account of language barriers and whatnot.

That night, some of the folks in my program let me come over to their house and make them margaritas from scratch. We spent the night singing, dancing, watching Obama's acceptance speech, and other things I apparently don't remember. It was just like a 30th birthday should be!If anyone is dying to send me a birthday card, postcard, or a big ole salami, here is my mailing address:

Andrew Judkins
Department of Academic Administration
University for Peace
P.O. Box 138-6100
San José, Costa Rica
Central America

If you're sending something my way - Thanks! Just don't use courier companies such as DHL or FEDEX! The package will incur extra taxes and fees...

UPeace - Save the Salmon!

2008-09-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Well, here is a copy of my first grad school assignment. It was a conflict mapping assignment and I chose a conflict close to home. I've decided to post my essays here in addition to my better stories because I know you're dying to read anything I write. I'll specify in the title with "UPeace" when I do this so you don't get stuck reading my homework if you're not into higher thinking. I won't feel bad if you skip these blogs.

Save the Salmon

Andrew Judkins – NRP
Foundations in Peace and Conflict Studies
Conflict Mapping
September 3, 2008

The declining salmon population has spawned a conflict between sport fishermen and sea lions in the rivers and on the west coast of the United States. For this essay, we’ll look at the conflict happening at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River.

Salmon swim from the ocean, upstream towards their place of birth to procreate. It is estimated that the numbers of these anadromous fish were around 16 million before 1550. (General Accounting Office Washington DC, 2002) Not all salmon made the complete journey to their place of origin. Predators feast upon them as their numbers were many, and their health benefits were great.

Unfortunately, around the turn of the 20th century, the salmon run began to dwindle. First, commercial operations over fished the salmon population (Oregon Public Broadcasting, n.d.) and later hydroelectric dams were built. (Northwest Power and Conservation Council, n.d.) At Bonneville Dam there is a fish ladder that is designed to help salmon pass by jumping from pool to pool. However, as the fish ladder is obviously smaller than the Columbia River, there is a bottlenecking of sorts in the salmon traffic. This results in large numbers of salmon waiting at the base of dam for a chance to continue upstream. (O’Connor, 2008)

Their brief sedentary period provides prime fishing opportunities for local sport fishermen, or anglers, who immensely enjoy fishing. All were happy until recent years when about 100 sea lions decided to leave their natural habitat and make the 150-mile journey from the ocean to the dam for an all-you-can-eat salmon buffet. (Espenson, 2003)

Fishermen are under strict limitations as to how many salmon they can take per day and per season, but the sea lions are obviously not bound by any of man’s laws. Each adult California sea lion typically eats 5 to 7 salmon a day. (Stiffler, 2008) But it’s their methods, not necessarily the quantity that escalates the conflict. The easiest fish for a sea lion to catch is one that’s already been caught.

Sea lions lay in wait while they watch the anglers go after their prize. Once a salmon is hooked, the anglers make obvious motions in order to secure the success of landing that fish. This alerts the sea lion that their next meal is ready. Before the fisherman is able to reel in the salmon, the sea lion manages to locate it on the end of the line, and steal it. All that’s left is the fishermen’s fury.

The conflict between fishermen and sea lions is the result of underlying causes, which are yet to be resolved. Breaking down this conflict according to the CR SIPABIO model of analysis (Abdalla, 2002) identifies the factors at play in order to get a better idea of how to proceed toward a resolution.

The dam at Bonneville, on the Columbia River, is a very specific ecosystem that has been altered for the benefit of human societal development. A hydroelectric dam, an unnatural construct, has been placed on the migration route of salmon. It is like a barrier to the fish that is only conquered by the salmon that are able to figure out the man-made fish ladder.

Salmon use their sense of smell to navigate the geography of Columbia River in order to locate their particular birthing location, or contributing stream from which they came. (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, n.d.) Fishermen use their knowledge of the river and area to find the spots that offer the best chance at landing a salmon. Sea lions left their saltwater habitat and made a tremendous journey to a new location to partake in a salmon feast. These aspects of the geographical factor contribute to the equivalent of “the right place at the right time” for a conflict.

On a cultural level, sport fishing in the Columbia River and its tributaries has been popular since the era of the first Euro-American settlement of the Northwest. (Northwest Power and Conservation Council, n.d.) Sport fishermen in the United States take this tradition very seriously, spending 44.5 billion dollars a year for fishing trips, equipment, licenses, stamps, tags, land leasing and ownership, membership dues and contributions, and magazines. (Dean, 2007)

We can also identify class as a contextual factor when considering the laws involved. Fishermen are stereotypically working class men who use the weekend to relax by going fishing. The law that affects them in this case is the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which states that these particular species of sea lion (California and Steller) are protected under the law. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1972) This means that fishermen are legally without options in what they see as an unfair competition for fish. When portrayed in the media, the blue-collar working class stands together and supports one another in the mentality that this is an unfair law – and being an unfair law, shouldn’t necessarily be followed. This can be seen in television interviews of local fishermen, grinning ear to ear in satisfaction at the idea that someone had recently illegally shot and killed six sea lions near the dam. (Gregoriancant, 2008)

The historical significance of salmon in this region is huge. These fish are worshiped by the indigenous tribes who have relied on salmon runs for centuries. Sport fishermen have also enjoyed the thrill of the catch for many years. In 1877, a U.S. Army lieutenant wrote about fishing for trout: “Caught 400 (cutthroat) trout, weighing two to five pounds apiece. As fast as we dropped in a hook baited with a grasshopper, we would catch a big trout. In fact, the greatest part of the work was catching the grasshopper.” (Northwest Power and Conservation Council, n.d.)

When identifying the relationship factors in this equation, we can see a bit more clearly the complexity of the event. Bonds identify the connection between sea lions and salmon. That is there is a predator prey relationship. The connection between fishermen and salmon could also be a predator prey relationship; except that anglers don’t rely on salmon for sustenance, as do the sea lions.

The conflict arises from the connection between fishermen and sea lions. This is a competition relationship that is illustrated by a breakdown of the power involved. Fishermen obviously have power over sea lions. We can see this easily by the sea lion shootings. However, sea lions have power in an indirect sense, as they are protected by the power of law. The patters that develop to escalate the conflict are that fishermen are shooting sea lions. This may stop an individual sea lion, but it doesn’t solve the conflict.

Taking a closer look still, we can see that the real source of this conflict is a depleted supply of salmon. The last 25 years of monitoring shows salmon numbers down 96% from what they once were. (General Accounting Office Washington DC, 2002) The competition between fishermen and sea lion isn’t decimating the salmon population. But had the salmon population not declined with such intensity, perhaps the issues in this conflict would not be so relevant. These issues are, of course, 1) sea lions eating salmon off the end of the anglers’ fishing lines, and 2) anglers retaliating by shooting and killing sea lions.

The primary parties involved are the fishermen, the sea lions, and the salmon. The fishermen have a direct connection to the conflict in that they are losing out on something they want – the salmon. The sea lions are directly connected to the conflict, as they are stealing fish from the fishermen. Secondary parties are the families of the fishermen who wait for their beloved ones to return home, happy, with dinner. Conservationists are also considered a secondary party that endeavors for sea lion preservation by means of trapping and relocating. Commercial fishing operations and hydroelectric companies can be considered as tertiary parties because over fishing as well as natural habitat blockading are major contributors to the salmon population decline.

The conflict that comes about through the combination of these parties and each of their roles is one that creates tremendous negative feelings in the attitudes of the fishermen. The success that comes with landing a tasty salmon is just as delicious as the fish. If they are prevented from even remotely achieving this euphoria, ill tempers develop and their subsequent reactions ensue. In this conflict, some fishermen are behaving in a way that escalates the situation and brings in third parties. The third party in this case is law enforcement who upholds the law protecting sea lions. However if you look at this from the perspective of the sea lions, you see that they are simply trying to eat. Their feeling of hunger is more than adequately satisfied by the theft of salmon on a fishing line. But their behavior is having grave consequences. They’re being killed as they fill their bellies.

There are intervening actions taking place to reduce tensions between fishermen and sea lions. Law enforcement is responsible for making sure fishermen keep their cool and don’t kill any sea lions. Though, should they falter, law enforcement has the task of preparing the fishermen for judicial punishment. Conservationists play a role to aid in calming this dilemma. They have taken on the responsibility of setting traps in the Columbia River near the Bonneville Dam. The traps lure in sea lions and hold them until they can be relocated to zoos or sea parks. (San Antonio Express News, 2008)

There are also interventions happening to increase salmon populations. Fish farms are repopulating salmon numbers by breeding salmon in fisheries.

These interventions pretty much outline the current outcome of the conflict between fishermen and sea lions. Fishermen are breaking the law. Sea lions are being killed. Conservationists are trapping and relocating sea lions. And fisheries are breeding and repopulating salmon.

Do any of these interventions or outcomes resolve the issues? No. That is an easy statement to make because the issues of the conflict are still currently very apparent.

In May of this year, six sea lions were killed and presumed shot. This killing was thought not to be merely competition-based in that a fisherman was tired of these sea lions stealing his fish. These particular sea lions had all already been caught in traps set by conservationists. They were immobile and incapacitated. It was assumed that while they pondered the confines of their entrapment, unaware that they would soon be relocated, they were killed in a hate-based reaction. In fact, a few days later they were discovered to have died of heat exhaustion.

Assumptions were quick to fly because it was entirely possible that those sea lions were shot by an angry angler as has happened before. How then, should this conflict best be resolved? Should the Marine Mammal Protection Act be rewritten or amended so that this small minority of sea lions is eliminated from the equation? It could be an easy fix, but this action seems quite inhumane. However, authorities in Washington and Oregon have recently been granted federal authorization to capture or kill as many as 85 sea lions a year for five years at the base of the dam. (Associated Press, 2008)
Is it possible to improve conservationist efforts to trap and relocate the troublesome individual sea lions that unknowingly escalate fishermen’s tempers? Can they be dissuaded from swimming up the Columbia River in the first place? Methods designed to answer these questions are being researched and implemented. The problem is, they’re not having a desired affect with respect to the magnitude and urgency needed to resolve the issues.

None of these potential interventions can be considered a viable solution to the conflict. The source of the conflict that needs to be resolved is the dwindling salmon populations.

Why are salmon disappearing? It’s easy to say that commercial fisheries are over fishing the oceans and that’s what is causing only few salmon to remain. I could also make a case that hydroelectric dams impede salmon runs to a degree that it is significantly reducing their population. Fisheries are hard at work turning out great numbers of farmed salmon to be introduced into the river and ocean ecosystems. Is this a solution? No. This is a temporary Cartesian remedy. (Fontan 2008) Yes, it does increase the number of salmon, but these farmed salmon have been produced without the fundamental ecological concept of natural selection. (Darwin, 1859) This error introduces inferior individuals. These farmed salmon pass on their inferior genetics to wild salmon, further corrupting the natural salmon population. We need further analysis using ecological, organic, and system thinking to identify a holistic approach at determining a real solution.

The answer is in every aspect of the human impact not only on the salmon species, but on the ecosystems in which they live as well. In order to resolve this conflict we must fully analyze the processes of our lives that have any kind of connection to their existence. Understanding an ecological perspective, using Systems Theory (Fontan 2008), of the continuation of salmon existence allows us to model our lives in a way that preserves our own future. Preserving salmon equally as a resource and as an essential part of the environment will ensure enough dinner for fishermen and sea lions for many years to come. Or, as George W. Bush so eloquently put it in his 2000 campaign, “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”

Bibliography

Amr Abdalla, et al. (2002). Say Peace: Conflict Resolution Training Manual for Muslim Communities. Virginia, USA: The Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences.

Associated Press. (2008). Trapped Sea Lions Shot on Columbia River, Retrieved on September 2, 2008, from http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/05/05/sea.lions.salmon.ap/index.html.

Bush, George W. (2000). Bushisms Audio Gallery, Retrieved on September 2, 2008, from http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushism-fish.htm.

Darwin, Charles. (1859). On the Origin of Species, Retrieved September 2, 2008, from http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species.

Dean, Jeff. (2007). Economic Impact Of Sportfishing. Retrieved September 2, 2008, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Economic-Impact-Of-Sportfishing&id=835942.

Espenson, Barry. (2003). Columbia Basin Bulletin: More Sea Lions at Bonneville Dam Enjoying Salmon Cuisine, Retrieved September 2, 2008, from http://www.bluefish.org/sealion4.htm.

Fontan, Victoria. (2008 August 29). Quantum Peace: Exploring a New Paradigm for Peace-Building. University for Peace.

General Accounting Office Washington DC. (2002). Columbia River Basin Salmon and Steelhead: Federal Agencies' Recovery Responsibilities, Expenditures and Actions, Retrieved September 2, 2008, from http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA405755.

Gregoriancant. (2008). Associated Content: Killing Sea Lions in the Columbia River to Save Salmon: Humane Society Vs. Fishermen, Retrieved on September 2, 2008, from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/754297/killing_sea_lions_in_the_columbia_river.html.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (1972). The Marine Mammal Protection Act, Retrieved on September 2, 2008, from http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/laws/mmpa.pdf

Northwest Power and Conservation Council. (n.d.). Sport Fishing, Retrieved September 2, 2008, from http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/SportFishing.asp.

O’Connor, Anahad. (2008). The New York Times: Trapped Sea Lions Shot Dead in Oregon, Retrieved September 2, 2008, from http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/trapped-sea-lions-shot-dead-in-oregon/.

Oregon Public Broadcasting. (n.d.). History of Fishing in Oregon, Retrieved September 2, 2008, from http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonstory/fishing/timeline.html.

San Antonio Express News. (2008). SeaWorld Welcomes Salmon-Fat Sea Lions, Retrieved September 2, 2008, from http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/MYSA050608_SeaLionRescue_EN_3c997f0_html8647.html.

Stiffler, Lisa. (2008). Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Culling Sea Lions to Save Local Salmon, Retrieved on September 2, 2008, from http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/environment/archives/134557.asp.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. (n.d.). Salmon and Steelhead Life Cycle and Habitat Information, Retrieved on September 2, 2008, from http://wdfw.wa.gov/hab/spawningbed_protection/life_cycle.htm.

Feels Like the First Impression!

2008-08-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

My few weeks home were AMAZING! It felt like the best vacation, ever! I tried my best to see everyone - and had loads of fun doing so! Sorry to those I wasn't able to visit. While home, I kinda found that I'd much rather be there than anywhere else. I've been away from home for three years - traveling, volunteering, learning. I've seen a lot, done a lot, and I've grown a lot. I've been to a lot of places, and realized my favorite of them all is home. And so with great reluctance, I boarded a plane to Vegas. And then another to Phoenix, where I slept in the airport for 11 hours before boarding my final flight to San Jose, Costa Rica for a year's worth of graduate school at the University for Peace. The things I'll put myself through to save a buck.

My first impressions of Costa Rica weren't so great. There was litter everywhere. Everywhere! I've come to determine that this is a good indicator of the type of mentality of the locals. Usually people who care about their community have a nice community. Another observation was that the air smelled like fried chicken. This, however, is a good indicator that the food should taste nice.

Of course, this was only the capital, San Jose. Usually the biggest cities don't entirely represent the rest of the population of the country. I couchsurfed my first night and was awake enough to have a mild conversation. I learned that the government owns/runs the cell phone and electrical industry. This creates problems, as demand is not met. I think this is due to infrastructure, but could also be due to a lazy government. And monopolies run rampant, such as insurance, and a bunch of others I can't remember on account of fatigue.

Found my new stomping grounds for the next year and sat and had a chat with my new landlord, Ed. He spoke pretty poorly of the local folks here. Oblivious, clueless, corrupt, thieves, and 'on the moon' were some of the personality descriptions he used. He instructed me not to drink the water and not to buy meat from the local grocer. He also said that if I go outside, I'll get mugged. Ed is a good old boy from San Diego and I figure he's probably been in Costa Rica for too long. So, I drank the water before going out for a walk to find the local grocer to buy some sausage. Cause that's how I roll.

I find the locals to not really be too friendly. That said, they're not unfriendly, either. Most of the smiles I hand out are returned, but none have been first offered to me. I've only been here a week though - I expect this observation to change a lot. I'm living in a bustling town of between 20,000 and 30,000 inhabitants called Ciudad Colon. A lot less litter on the streets here! Phew! The fried chicken smell is also gone. Now it just smells like a developing country. That is, the air is filled with the sounds and smells of low-level construction, unmuffled 2-cycle engines, and 30 to 40-year old diesel trucks. I have a small studio apartment in a 10-apartment complex that's filled with other expats, 90% from the U.S., and I'm the only student. Kinda gives a representation of how many foreigners there are in this country. My apartment is at N 9º 54.643' and W 84º 14.536' and sitting around 2800 ft above sea level. I probably won't stay in this apartment for more than my first month, as the guy in the apartment next to me snores from the moment he falls asleep to the moment he wakes up. The sound goes right though the wall. And the guy above me goes through coughing fits from 4am to 6am, every morning. I have some earplugs, which stop the sound of the snoring, but not of the coughing. Good news is, there are other options in this tiny town.The center of Ciudad Colon is constantly filled with people going to and fro. The town was built on a highway, so there is a healthy amount of traffic at all times throughout the day. It doesn't take much to escape the center, though. Rolling green hills are found close by, and in every direction. They are covered with lush vegetation consisting of flora and fauna that I've never seen before. It's a pretty place, but obvious things about it will end up getting to me: irresponsible development leading to leftover debris scattered about and intense erosion, foreigners owning half the country creating a separation as blatant as haves and have nots, as well as low/non-existing standards for environmental regulations as seen by the pollution coming from cars and trucks. Oh the developing world.

One of my hesitations in embarking on this grad school adventure is that I want a job. After my German Hippie Fiasco of 07, I decided that I want to pursue a path that leads to professional, positive, and effective societal development. Surrounding myself with uneducated hippies who try to teach the world about bongo drums, indigo children, and the benefits of marijuana probably isn't going to get me to where I want to be.

As I introduced myself to my new neighbor, Zach, I struck up a conversation with his guests. One guy, I think it was Zach's brother, was talking about cancer. Interesting.
"Your brain, like, sends signals and shit down to your body. If something happens in your past that's huge, your brain keeps sending these signals and that's how you get cancer and shit."
Hmmm... Not so interesting. But... Mildly entertaining in a bizarre, humorous sort of way so I gave him my attention.
"It's like, you know how when someone always thinks they're sick, and then their brain makes them sick? Same thing with cancer. Like when old, depressed people die and their healthy spouses die immediately after; like a year or two later. That's how that happens. It's your brain, man."

Hhhhh.... I'm hoping my fellow students have a bit more to offer on an intellectual level. Or really on any level - I'll not be too picky for fear of my brain starting to send signals and shit down to my body.

I've got high hopes for my time here. I'm trying to keep up on my running, but the terrain is intense! So many hills! And my one good lung hasn't adapted to the conditions yet. Including the weather - it's so humid here! And being that this is the rainy season, there is a two-hour deluge, complete with intense thunder and lightning, every afternoon. But every morning I wake up to beautiful blue skies and sunshine!

School starts in a week. I haven't met any other students yet - but I got here early so I could find a place to live. I'm only a year away from a masters degree! I'm also only a year away from my next vacation home! Woo hoo! I hope it's longer than three weeks this time!

University for Peace!

2008-08-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

After the Peace Corps and Supercross08, I moved to Costa Rica where I had been accepted to graduate education at the United Nations University for Peace. It's a small school, only 165 students, but very diverse: students came from 60 different countries! There are 10 different masters degree programs, but the one in which I was enrolled was: Natural Resources and Peace.

Here are my stories from my year in Costa Rica:

First Impressions

My 30th Birthday!

The University & My First Break

Costa Rican Life

Forestry & Panama

Saving Turtles

Get Me Out Of This Country!

President Obama!

Crazy Costa Rica

Goodbye DIPS. Hello Costa Rica!

Vagina Monologues

Final Paper

The End!

I also have some amazing pictures of my time in grad school, located here

It's The Final Countdown!

2008-07-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

As I look back and try to find the words to conclude my part of the Supercross08 project, I sit here speechless and dumbfounded at how to put my thoughts and memories in print. How can I sum up such a moving project? How can I close such a significant chapter of my life? How can I document how much this entire journey has meant to me? These questions leave me with a blank mind. I can't possibly put the experiences I've had into words. But like everything in my life that's brought me to this point - by heck, I'll try!

I'll start with the numbers because they're my favorite part. At the end of 201 days, my daily expenses average was $26.89! This number, in USD, includes every meal, snack, hostel, hotel, toilet, language lesson, admission, fee, visa, bribe, bus/train ticket, taxi, and four flights (Morocco to Tunisia, Tunisia to Egypt, Ukraine to Finland, and Latvia to Russia) since the start of our project! It doesn't include the flight to Europe at the beginning and the flight home at the end because I pulled a trick with those tickets. The average includes every last dime I spent on the project, because I record my expenses like a crazy man. Had the value of the dollar been a bit more stable, I really believe I could have managed the $25 per day average I was shooting for.

Supercross08 included 11 official projects in seven different countries, but it hardly stops there. I traveled through 17 countries on this trip and in each country, and in each situation, I sought an opportunity for culture exchange through dialogue. The Supercross08 mission and ideals have always been in the back of my head and seemed to come out continuously like an ever-flowing river with every person I met.

It wasn't all hippie happiness and idealism, though. To use my honesty skills completely, I had quite a few rough times on the road. Random encounters with drunk bums and other burdens on society would initiate unfortunate episodes of negative thought in my head. Bureaucratic red tape, cultural norms that were so different from my own, illogical and destructive community behavior, gender differences and religious dependence, being charged twice or more the local price because I'm white, and other encounters with discrimination took a great toll on my psyche. Regretfully, I lost my internal cool a couple times and developed a couple temporary prejudiced opinions about the people around me.

It may have seemed like a holiday vacation at times to many of the people following my adventures, but it's not the easiest thing in the world to do the things I've done. I've missed my friends and family something awful and I wasn't always able to maintain my natural positive energy as much as I would have liked. At my lowest point, I almost got myself into a fight with at least three big Mongolian guys over a "cultural misunderstanding."

By no means did the tough times sour the entirety of my trip, though. My overall experience was hugely positive and enlightening. I made so many personal gains, it will be tough to find anything else in my life that will allow me to grow so much in such a short amount of time. If I had the opportunity to change anything about these last months, it would be to have created a possibility for Tim to remain on the project with me and see it out. We worked extremely well together and offered a synergy that the people with whom we met won't soon forget.

Quite early on, I recognized how powerful of a project Tim and I had undertaken. And we accomplished our mission with greatness! Tim and I each contributed such different skills that we created a team capable of intense, in-depth bridge building between cultures often at odds. Tim is a master at engaging an audience and maintaining their attention. And beyond that, he brought the ability to control a discussion to such a degree it was like watching someone squeeze the last little drop out of a lemon, extracting every last bit of information there was to offer. I complimented his skills with my own charm. I over calculated and over thought the tiniest of details in my attempt to make sure everything was perfect. Researching, developing, outlining, formatting, organizing and implementing occupied my mind, for long hours at a time, with each individual event. But it wasn't all about project development and implementation. On a very practical and real level, Tim and I did amazing things.

I touched people like I never thought I was capable of doing. I was moved by people, who I never expected to be moved by. I met people that impressed me so incredibly much, I feel like writing about it takes away from it's significance. My respect for youth organizations and their participants grew exponentially after encountering such brilliant and refreshing minds! The potential I saw was more than anything I could have ever expected! It was inspiring! It showed a true hope for humanity. So often we hear about conflict and war, fear and unknown. It makes us feel like the world is spinning out of control, falling down a bottomless pit of despair. Of course, it's not a bottomless pit if "The End of The World" has anything to say about it. I think that's a very real message portrayed in our world society. But after my experiences with such dynamic people, I find grand relief in the thought of the next generation taking the reigns.

There is still good in this world - I can feel it! I'm not ignorant to the fact that there is also extreme conflict and problems the likes of which are beyond help through simple dialogue. But I'm a subscriber to the ideal that if everyone opened their minds a bit and tried to respect other people simply because they're human, then the misunderstandings that lead to fear and the dark side of the force would be greatly reduced. Perhaps even to an insignificant level.

We can all start with something simple: A common thought we may have about a person from another culture is that something about them or something they do is 'weird' or 'strange'. We can't separate people in terms of 'weird' and 'normal'. We must change these words in our vocabularies and internal dialogues to 'different' AND we must have the capacity to understand that 'different' is not a separatory label. It's OK that not everyone on the planet is just like us. Joe isn't weird because he eats with sticks instead of a fork - he's different, and that's fine. Sally isn't strange because she covers her head when she goes outside - she's different, and she's not hurting anyone. Sam isn't stupid because he doesn't study world politics or geography - he has different priorities, and that's his choice. But at the end of the day, we all have to live on the same planet, together.

A simple opening of the mind to be aware of other peoples' rights to make choices for themselves; an attempt at noticing the common ground we all share; an effort to respect someone different even though we may not understand them. These are the first steps towards building a sustainable and peaceful future in our world - and we all have a place at the helm, together.

Peace, love, and happiness! Thank you for reading! The End!

This may be the end of my postable Supercross08 stories, but more adventures are to come. I'm going to continue to use this blog while I'm in grad school. I'll be in Costa Rica for one year at the United Nations Mandated University for Peace studying Natural Resources and Peace! But of course, outside of study time I'll be exploring Costa Rica and neighboring countries. I'm sure something will happen that's worth a story or two. I'm flying down on the 8th of August - so check back sometime when you're bored and maybe there'll be something to read!

It's a Library in Mongolia! Don't Forget to Pack a Raincoat!

2008-07-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

For a final project, to complete the Supercross08 journey, I was to meet with The Lotus Children's Centre to learn about their organization. However, the directions I was given to meet with them, took me to an abandoned building, decorated with a 'Lotus Children's Centre' sign.

I got off the bus and it was pouring rain! It wasn't so cold and the directions I had said the building was close. So I just went for it - there wasn't really any shelter anywhere anyway. I ended up soaking wet by the time I found the abandoned "Lotus Center". I found a way around the locked gates to the property but had no luck banging on the doors of the building. OK, it was obvious that it was abandoned, but by heck, someone was expecting me - I had good email contact with them. Surely there would be someone there! Not soon after I started pounding on one of the doors, an old man emerged halfway from his yurt, behind the school, and yelled something at me. I walked over to him and asked him if he knew were Ben Rodgers was, but he didn't understand anything. I told him I was looking for 'Lotus' and pointed to the building. He motioned to me, "No." His growling dogs were getting closer so I thought I'd make a strategic exit. I left, frustrated, while his dogs followed me to the gate, barking their mad heads off! I asked a few more people in the community about 'Lotus', pointing to the building and got the same response every time, 'No. No one home.'Dripping and pissed, I made my way back to the bus stop. However, all was not lost! My host, Begzsuren, happens to be working at the Ulaanbaatar Public Library on a major project at the moment.

Begs, head of the department for information processing as well as library automation and computerization, is working on a project for the library to make it the first of it's kind in all of Mongolia. The project is to open the public library to the public! Sounds simple. Traditionally, the way the library worked was you walked up to the counter and asked the librarian for a particular book. The librarian disappeared and, if you were lucky, they returned with that book for you to check out. Not anymore.

What Begs is creating, is a more Western style library with loads of books on shelves for the public to peruse through and check out if they like. The Ulaanbaatar Public Library's slogan is "Knowledge Bank" and beyond cataloging some 80,000 books to be shelved and accessible to the public by September 1st, Begs is also trying to create an atmosphere of interest in libraries."Can you imagine," he inquired, "if a radio interviewer asked, 'Where do you read books?' Maybe no citizen answers, 'In the library.' I want to change this." And so it was that we had a brainstorming session to create public participation in the local library.

Begs has been to quite a few countries on library training programs, including the United States, where he learned different methods and designs of public libraries. He's carefully calculated what his library is capable of. Already he has designated two large rooms to be reading rooms, one separated room to be a children's reading room, and another smaller room for family reading. But still, that doesn't necessarily mean that people will come to the library.He mentioned one technique that he picked up from an American library in which each month had a theme to it. In this technique, he could, for example, promote reading about the air quality in Mongolia. Not too bad of an idea, but there's not much incentive. I suggested an addition to his idea that mimicked my Environmental Discussion Group from Bulgaria. I suggested that he promote reading topics about air quality in Mongolia and then at the end of the month, invite some kind of professional to lead a discussion or make a presentation on the topic. Perhaps the governmental official in charge of the department of air quality or the environment would enjoy a chance to meet people and share some issues he finds important.

I also pitched the idea of having a weekly poetry reading, where different folks from the community could come, once a week, and read aloud the poems they've written. It would be a way to get the community more involved with the library. It would also inspire more citizens to become active members of their community. Begs liked the idea, but there are space issues. Unfortunately, they're not space issues that the likes of Captain Kirk can solve. Begs is more thinking that there isn't enough room for something like that. I tried to imply that a well designed schedule of the smaller rooms should rectify the concern over space - kids and family rooms during the afternoon, and one room set aside for an hour a week for poems! We'll see. With their September 1st opening date, and 80,000 books to categorize, events are likely to come a bit later.The last blockbuster I had to offer was to create a comfortable reading environment for potential readers. I remembered the concept from back home that Barnes and Noble uses in cahoots with Starbucks to get folks to come in and read. I explained that maybe a cafe, offering tea, coffee, water, or juice, would be an ideal environment to invite folks from the community to come in and read!

Begs remembered that he had seen a cafeteria in the U.S. and pondered the thought a while. I think he liked the idea, but again, there's lots of work to do at the moment. And that's the thing about development - it goes in steps. Just like the traditional Mongolian games he's been teaching me, Begs has the first few steps of the opening of this library well planned out and mastered!

There are three people I've met in my life that truly inspire me to be better than I think I can be, and Begs is one of these people. I know he'll succeed, because that's what he does. If not on the first time, he'll learn from each step and eventually conquer the mountain of development.

It's a Holiday in Mongolia! It's Tough, Kid, but It's Life!

2008-07-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Couchsurfing in Mongolia proved to be quite difficult. There aren't a whole lot of participants in this area so I gambled and sent requests out to people with no references or information or anything!

My first hosts lived in a nicer house than I'll ever own, but I didn't stay with them long after they put me to work as a consultant for their blossoming tourism business. They did, however, put me in touch with my next host who wasn't even a Couchsufing participant until he met me.

Begzsuren, or Begs for short, is a software engineer working at the Ulaanbaatar Public Library. We chatted for a bit and after having cleared his decision with his wife, Mungunsoyombo, he agreed to take me in for a couple nights.

Begs, 32, and his wife, 31, have a gorgeous family consisting of one son named Tuguldur, 9, and three daughters, Manujin (her name means "our daughter"), 6, Gaadmaa (her name means "clever or smiley woman"), 3, and Mungulun, 1. The youngest child's name translates to something of an implication. It implies that she will bring the family money. And consistent with Mongolian law, that's just what another child does.

In Mongolia, at the moment, the government is giving aid to families with children under 16 and also inspiring population growth in a country the size of Alaska, but with a population of less than three million. Each month, the government gives approximately $3 per child, and each quarter, they give approximately $25 per child. This means that Begs' family of six pulls in around $550 in a year from the government for having four kids. This is a huge help considering that the average salary here is about $1500. Financial bonuses from the government are not so unheard of here.

Just before my arrival, a riot broke out over election fraud and caused a 4-day state of emergency. The "winning" party's headquarters were burned, 5 people were killed, and more than 200 were injured. Mongolia has a history similar to that of Bulgaria, occupation (instead of Turkish, it was Manchurian - Chinese), communism (good old Russia, spreading the love), and a young government still trying to figure out what democracy is. Corruption seems to fill the description of democracy at the moment. The recent discoveries of large deposits of copper, gold, and coal bring hopes of some wealth potential for the country, but the fear of loss due to politicians makes the community uneasy. The political game here makes me laugh as it's described to me. What's the difference between the parties? Begs explained that democratic party is offering every citizen approximately $1000 if elected, and the socialist party is offering $1500. The socialist party won.

This situation frustrates me, as I've spent so much time and effort working and volunteering in the development field for the last few years. These types of politics completely unravel the types of things I, and other development folks do. I'm still stuck on the opinion that a mentality change is the first step, and best way to initiate positive community development. Get people to see the future a bit and teach them to take some responsibility for their impact on society. But motivation for progress goes out the window faster than a cigarette butt in these ex-communist societies where corrupt politicians seem to be re-elected time and again.

As frustrating as it is for me, it seems like it's barely background noise to the people I'm staying with. This beautiful family of six lives in a small home on a hillside, on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. Their home was built by Begs and his brother a couple summers ago and is in the area of about 200 square feet, though there are plans for a small expansion later this summer. Their yard is too rocky to grow anything other than grass, but that suits Begs' cows just fine. Intermitently thoughout the yard are old tires in which Begs collects soil until there's enough to grow some vegetables. Their home has electricity, but no running water or any plumbing of any kind. Bent particle-boards line the ceiling and wooden planks make up the floor. There are two beds that the entire family of six shares, one double and one twin. It may sound like a tough way to live to the western ear, but these people find happiness very easily.My Mongolian hosts welcomed me with smiles and curiosity. The kids giggled and laughed when I made eye contact with them and they could barely stand it when I tried to tell them hello in their own language. The entire truth be told, though, the youngest daughter cried when I entered their home. I scared her. I don't think the kids have ever seen a foreigner before. Begs told me that when someone arrives and brings rain with them, they're good luck! I told him I must be super lucky then, because I could see a storm moving in from the mountains. About an hour later I saw a lightning bolt strike something across the valley and ignite a fire that burned for a good long while. Shortly after that we lost electricity and spent the night playing traditional Mongolian games by candlelight.On the long winter nights, Begs explained, they entertain themselves with simple and complex games designed to pass the time and develop the mind. There were several puzzles of rings and rods that you had to unlock and lock and such - but to tell the truth, I was too tired to understand them. However, before those were introduced, he showed me some games that utilize a bone found in the knee of the hind legs of sheep. My two favorite games were called, "Flicking Bones" and "Bone Guessing"! I played with the kids, but lost pretty much every time. It was lots of fun, and the kids loved me! I like to think that was because of my winning smile and heartwarming laugh... But it may have had something to do with the fact that I brought them some candy.For the last few months, I've been lugging around a big pack of my favorite kind of licorice in hope of meeting someone that would appreciate it more than I! With the smiles I was seeing, I considered my hope easily accomplished! Begs taught his family the English words, "Thank you!" as he's the only English speaker, and they took turns trying to pronounce it for me. That was good for a laugh for everyone. A while later, we all washed our feet before crawling into bed. They laid some blankets on the floor for me, and then marveled in disbelief that I insisted on using my sleeping bag. They laughed at me, as they'd never seen anyone sleep in one before and were certain I would freeze to death at night! I didn't. And I was up around 5 AM to help go get drinking water. About a kilometer away is the nearest source of water for them so every now and again they have to make trips with a 50 gallon barrel to resupply.Parting for my day in the city I asked how to say, "Have a nice day!" Begs told me that that phrase doesn't exist in Mongolian so I repeated what he says on his way out to work, "Obey your mother!"

From Россия with Love!

2008-07-02T23:01:00.001-07:00

One of the problems Tim and I encountered when searching for partner organizations, is that nothing seemed to exist in Russia. Perhaps this was due to the control and power that the Russian government enjoys over it's people? We figured that allowing a non-governmental organization probably wasn't in the cards for this country. But since Russia was on our route, and we wanted to incorporate it into our project, we were struck with a problem - How do we remain consistent to our project goals and gain insights into Russians' perspective on the world?

My whole Russian Visa Fiasco started in April when I first applied for a visa at the Russian Embassy in Moldova. Failure sent me to Ukraine, Finland, and finally to Estonia where I was able to acquire a visa! However, success didn't feel as it should have being that my 30 day visa had turned into 9 days, and my seven city itinerary had turned into two.

Despite my disappointment in the length of the Russian leg of my trip, I could not stop smiling while going through the airport song-and-dance to get to my first Siberian city, Novosibirsk.

I got to the airport in Riga, Latvia four hours early expecting problems. Just as my brilliant mind had prepared me, so I received my problems. I wasn't in the computer for the flight. I complained that I had done everything online and that there were no paper tickets, it was all electrical. I even showed her all the numbers I had written down from the confirmation email I received. "Those are billing numbers, not flight reservation numbers," she politely informed me. I had to hold in my thought of, 'Well, what the hell do you think I paid for?' Soon enough, however, she managed to locate someone on the phone who could verify that indeed I did pay for a ticket. Thanks! I arrived to Moscow at 10 pm and had four hours to find my connecting flight. Turns out, I needed all four hours.

Sitting in the Sheremetyevo airport, I stared at the flight information screen, dumbfounded at not being able to find my connection. After some time, I managed to find an information booth that still had a worker inside. She informed me that I was at the wrong terminal and that I'd have to take a bus to number 2. OK. Standing at the bus stop, I couldn't help but notice that no buses were coming. Hmmm. In super rough Russian I asked a gal standing near me if she new when the bus came. "Very rarely." she responded. Super. I went back inside and located a different information booth and asked again about my connecting flight. Banking on good old Russian inconsistency, I was rewarded with shuttle transfer information! In less than an hour, I was at terminal 2, standing in another security line.

I had forgotten to pour out my water when I got up to the x-ray machine and figured that security would simply confiscate it when I got there. Nope. My one liter water bottle was 2/3 full and the lady behind the x-ray let it slide! She said something to me, but upon seeing my patented smile-of-confusion that I gave her, she just turned to her colleague, shrugged and laughed. So I continued on to the gate.

I stood in a small room with a bunch of other people waiting for the shuttle to take us to the plane. I could see three no-smoking signs from where I stood. I could also see six people huddled around a trash can just beneath one of the signs - all of them smoking. The ticket guy walked through and said what I thought to be, "Hey, dumbasses, can't you see the signs? They say 'No Smoking!'" But perhaps he said something more to the affect of, "Hello." because the six smokers just looked up at him and then continued smoking.

After my lengthy night flight and quite a few time zones later, I found myself in Novosibirsk - the capital of Siberia and the center of Russia! I chose Novosibirsk as one of my two Russian cities because it's the hub for science in Russia. I had big dreams of setting up a discussion group with some science students or scientists to talk about the history of Russia's contributions to science. My host's brother was a PhD in physics. Her other brother, and her father were PhDs in Chemistry. My host was a fantastic gal that studied marketing, and she showed me a very unique side of Russia.

First on our agenda was a cat show. Not super scientific, but interesting in a certain light. Judges from all over Russia and one from Germany scored the cats of wacky cat-owners. I've never seen so much stress in a room over whether or not you could shake the brains out of a cat and have it not hiss or swipe at you. Pet-people are strange. Next up, was a cosmetics show.Just as bizarre as the cat show, the cosmetics show was something I've never experienced. I was one of only three guys in the crowd, which to me was cool but seeing their faces I could tell they didn't share my opinion. The show was marketed as an instructional deal that my host's friend scored tickets to. But it ended up being a big sales pitch with mild entertainment and lunch. At least the lunch was nice.

I spent my last remaining time in Novosibirsk with my host and her friends at the city's 115th birthday celebration! It was a wild event! Streets were closed down and stages were erected all over the center. On the stages were different kinds of performances - youth dance teams that competed against each other, orchestras and opera singers, as well as some pop stars singing their silly pop music! It was a high energy day that not even the rain could spoil. The dance team competitions were my favorite. Different styles of Russian dance, traditional and modern, done with such enthusiasm and grace! I could have watched them forever!

My host took me to the train station for my departure from Novosibirsk. I took a leg of the Trans Siberian Railway that lasted 32.5 hours! Upon finding my place on the train, I discovered that two people were sitting in it. This was because their beds were above mine and mine was the communal area. So I got to share!

I really didn't know how anything worked, but before long the people near my place were all engaged in conversation with me. No one, of course, spoke English. We relied on my Bulgarian skills, which were taxed to the max! I felt like I was speaking like a beginner all over again - But I guess that's because I was. I was a beginning Russian speaker!We managed to chat about all kinds of things - what I was doing there, politics, food, jokes, vodka, etc. The food thing was fun - All through Russia I was asked about cheeseburgers in America. "Is that why all Americans are fat?" and "Do you normally eat cheeseburgers for breakfast?" were common questions I received. I guess they're as blind as my question of, "Will someone please drink vodka with me?" I didn't get one single chance to try Russian vodka with Russians. I couldn't even find anyone that drank it. Sure there were stories... But no one wanted to drink with me. As the 32.5 hours of time progressed, I became "Andrewsha" to my new friends. The 'sha' ending on the name is a cute way of talking to your friends.

I arrived in Irkutsk late at night and had problems finding my host, but eventually I managed. My time in Irkutsk was largely not worth writing about, except for another festival that I happened upon. I'm lucky that way.

The Boyatski Festival celebrated the Asian tribes/people of Russia. They did all kinds of performances and blew my mind with what they could get their bodies to do! My favorite was the three person jump-rope! Dang!Finally, my visa was set to expire so I jumped on another train bound for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It lasted 34 hours, but my time was easily spent conversing with a young couple on their honeymoon. He was from Australia and she was from Ireland. They'd been living in England and were taking a few months to travel to Australia. We shared travel stories and laughs - and finally, a bottle of vodka!

I had come to Russia with only a few days to find a project. I had hoped for a discussion group about science as a means to enter the mentality here and gain a new perspective. As I sat on the train with my new friends, telling them all about my Russian experience, I realized that my visa issues, festivals, shows, hosts, and adventures spoke loads about Russia itself. I smiled at the thought of being able to learn so much from a country in such a little amount of time. And with that I mentally prepared myself for my final destination - Mongolia!

A Mongolian police officer joined us in our cabin for the border crossing. He had been a participant in the Boyatski Festival in Irkutsk. As we crossed, Mongolian customs officials boarded the train, collected our passports, opened our bags, and searched the cabin. Our new buddy, grabbed our half-finished bottle of vodka from under some blankets where we hid it. I thought he was going to rat us out! I was pissed! But before I knew it, he was bribing the head customs officer with our vodka! He poured a big glass for him and the officer sat down with us. Hell if I was gonna let him drink all our vodka so I grabbed the mug and took some down between his sips! Ha! It was the wildest thing, ever! And our cabin mate did the same thing with the next official that came in, too!

Our vodka disappeared quickly, but I didn't complain because how often do you get a chance to drink with border officials?! We figure our buddy was bribing the officials because he was transporting weapons from the festival and didn't want to have to explain them. It worked. If you can't drink vodka with Russians, by heck, you certainly can with Mongolian border officials! Mongolia ought to be an interesting place.

Catch A Couch And You're Sitting On Top Of The World!

2008-06-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

You've probably been asking this whole time, how does that Andrew kid keep finding those wonderful hosts he writes about? And if you haven't been asking, well then, you should be!

I've been participating in a project at http://www.couchsurfing.com/ that puts travelers in touch with one another. It's based on facilitating culture exchanges between travelers who want more than the typical tourist activities from their travels.

It works like this:

If you're a traveler (a person who loves to travel), but you're not currently traveling - you offer up your couch for fellow travelers. This gives them a place to stay while you both engage in cross cultural exchanges. But it's not just for lodging. Some people are uncomfortable with letting strangers stay at their homes, so they simply meet them for coffee or a drink, or show them around their city. The main idea, though, is to facilitate culture exchange through dialogue - just like our Supercross08 project!
If you're a traveler on the road, you can search a database of fellow travelers and find someone who is willing to host you!

The entire project is free on both sides, guest and host, but gifts are common and very polite. This can range from a trinket from your home town, to a bottle of wine, or even cooking a meal! Of course, none of this is necessary, but being that I'm super nice, I always try to find some way to give something of myself to my host.

You may now be asking, is that Andrew kid crazy? He's been staying with complete strangers this whole time! Ok, so it's true I've been staying at the homes of complete strangers, but it's not so crazy! It just takes a bit of openness and flexibility because each situation is completely different!

I've stayed in amazingly clean and new apartments, and I've stayed in apartments where everything inside has been salvaged from city dumpsters. I've used showers more high tech than I've ever seen, and I've had to take a bucket bath, or go without. I've slept on the floor in a hallway, and I've slept in super comfortable beds in separate rooms. I've had to share a bed with a drunk, snoring, puking guy, and I've gotten to share a bed with a beautiful woman. I've been handed keys to the flat and been told 'see ya', and I've been locked in (and out) of flats for hours at a time. I've also been accompanied, non-stop, by my host so there's no need for a key! I've had to walk miles following poor directions to find my host's home, and I've been picked up at the airport and greeted with a hug. I've stayed with hosts as old as 60, and as young as 18. I've stayed with a host for as long as two weeks, and I've stayed with a host for as little as three hours.

I've been surfing couches since before our project began, and on this trip, I haven't had to pay for a hotel or hostel since early March! I've stayed with students, doctors, nurses, journalists, writers, translators, bankers, managers, engineers, artists, psychologists, teachers, factory workers, sailors, computer programers, Peace Corps Volunteers, program coordinators, cashiers, retired folks, unemployed people, sales people, gay people, transsexual people, straight people, buddhists, and just about every type of person you could think of! I've cooked meals for my hosts, and I've received meals from my hosts. I've had conversations that challenge my mind, and I've had conversations that challenge my patience. I've been entertained by wild stories and crazy people, and I've been bored with people that I fail to click with. I've made friends for a weekend, and I've made friends for life. I've shared laughs, ideas, inspiration, motivation, stories, recipes, and my super cool jacket with various hosts along the way! Every experience is totally different, and it's an adventure each time!

Here is a typical account of couchsurfing (And when I say 'typical' I mean totally unique!):

My host met me at the bus station and we went back to her apartment to drop off my stuff. We talked about university coursework and the differences between universities in Europe and the United States. Then we went off to meet her friends. It started raining so we just hung out in their apartment, cooked dinner and drank wine! They didn't have a corkscrew so they used a screw and a pair of pliars to get the cork out of the wine bottle! Clever girls! Two nights later and one country to the south, I surfed the couch of the stage manager at The New Riga Theater, the largest theater in all of Latvia. I met my host at a landmark that we had talked about through emails. She took me to her flat and I dropped off my stuff and then we headed to the theater. It was the last performance of the season, Revizor (The Inspector General). She got me a free ticket in the second row and printed out summaries of the three acts in English. The opening scene went like this: The curtains were drawn and there were three roosters on the stage. Everything was silent. Suddenly, one cock mounted another and there was lots of unpleasant squawking! Everyone laughed! Then the actors came onto the stage, which was set up like an old Russian soup kitchen. They all did different things, working or eating, each making different noises that came together and made music! Music by kitchen utensils! I was taken, and it was intense! Then they started speaking Latvian and I had to consult my notes to figure out what was going on. Three hours later, the show finished and I became a new fan of theater performances! Since my host is connected, I got to spend the rest of the night at the after party with all the actors and managers and technicians! It was super cool! The very next night I was in a different city, a different country even, ice skating my brains out with my host and earning a quarter sized blister on the arch of my foot! Two days later, I used my sore foot to climb to the roof of a 15 story communist style apartment block that was never finished, to have donuts and tea for breakfast!Of course, it's not all smiles, laughs, and free dinners. I've been stranded by someone telling me that it was ok to come to their town, but they didn't show up to meet me, and wouldn't answer my calls. I didn't have a backup plan prepared so I was pretty much stuck. And then there was the time that a drunk guy crawled into bed with me, puked and started snoring. Cigarette smoke always kills me so I usually try to avoid smokers... but it doesn't always happen. There are also those random, nasty dogs that hump my leg...

What Couchsurfing is, though, is fantastic - every time! No matter the level of happiness I achieve as an outcome from my experiences with Couchsurfing, each experience is enlightening. And that is what the project is designed for. As with Supercross08, the ideals are based on cultural understanding through direct contact and exchange. In fact, Couchsurfing has helped a great deal with our Supercross08 project. Tim and I have organized entire discussion groups through Couchsurfing contacts! But beyond that, the project lets us facilitate our goals on an individual, and daily, basis rather than in large organized, but infrequent groups. It's a powerful tool that gives impressive insight into whichever cultures of the world you happen to find yourself in. And it allows for great opportunity to share yourself and your own culture with the world!

I have experienced the kindness of strangers, and it's a wonderful thing! And to complete the exchange, I try to give as much kindness of myself, in the role of a stranger, as I possibly can! As a final thought, I'll share a song that's been stuck in my head for a few days, "Oooh baby, baby, it's a wild world! But I can get by just upon a smile!" That's how my version of the song goes, anyway. =)

If I've captured your curiosity, sign up for, and support, this culture exchange project at http://www.couchsurfing.com/! If you're curious about my experiences with Couchsurfing, take a look at my profile and see where I've been, who've I've surfed with, and what they've said about me - just click here!

I Came To A Land Up Yonder!

2008-06-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

I started applying for a Russian visa in Moldova, about a month ago. It required that I get an invitation from a Russian travel agency so I found one online willing to sell me one. They faxed me the invitation and I headed down to the embassy with high hopes!

I met with a big, unsmiling Russian man who spoke bits and pieces of English.
"This is not acceptable", he informed me. "We need the original invitation. Not a facsimile."
I explained that I don't have a mailing address and this was all I had access to. "Isn't there anything you can do?" I implied.
"No. This is our law."
Well son of a gun. A Russian telling me bribes are out of the question. Crap.

So I headed on to my next stop - Ukraine. The Russian embassy in Ukraine accepted my faxed copy of an invitation, but would only give me a 14 day visa. This, too, was not acceptable as I had calculated that I'd need the 30 day visa in order to see everything I wanted to see. The travel agency I bought the invitation from told me that the embassy in Finland was fax friendly and issued 30 day visas! Such inconsistency! Go Russia!

I traveled to Helsinki hoping to finish this hassle and a half that it's been trying to get a Russian visa worked out! Very frustrating, having to have to travel so far out of my way... but... Hot damn! Finland is cool! I haven´t breathed air this clean since the Great Portuguese Deluge of 08, when Tim and I witnessed the cleaning of the air by torrential rain falls as we tried to sleep under the clouds! It´s an amazing thing to have clear skies, clean streets, green all around, and air that is truly refreshing! And I´m staying in a capital city! It reminds me of a magical land called America. Or at least my part of America - the good old Pacific Northwest! The bad rap America gets for leading the world in pollution is overshadowing the fact that America is leading most of the world in environmental regulations.

On my way down to the embassy to get my visa for Russia, a bird shit on me. I thought to myself, 'Some cultures believe this to be a sign of good luck!' After four frustrating hours inside the embassy, I reminded myself, 'Some cultures also believe that eating the brains of your dead relatives gives you their wisdom...' I'm gonna make an effort to stick closer to my own culture from now on. And that means bird poop is bad - just like my luck.

I handed over my application documents (plural) and passport to the smiling lady at the Russian embassy.
"Oh," she said upon seeing my nationality. "You will have to wait two weeks to get your visa."
Two weeks!?!?
"Isn't there some kind of express service or something? I mean, there has to be another way! Isn't there anything we can do that's a little faster," I pleaded.
I'm running out of time and I don't have two weeks to wait!
"It's not a question about money," she answered without feeling. "It's the policy for all American citizens."
Nooowww I get it. Thanks Mr. Bush. Your failures continue to make my life abroad an interesting challenge.
Frown.
"Go sit down over there, this is going to take a while," she said. Yeah, two freakin weeks!
I sat and waited for her to process my papers and return with a bill for a visa. Some crazy old coot sat down next to me, as he and I were the only Americans in the joint.
"Yeah, I left the U.S. back in '55 when the politics started getting bad. Lived in Sweden til eight years ago. Been livin' in St. Petersburg ever since. I think Americans are the most brainwashed people I ever met. You ever heard of that aspartame? You know, aspartame? It's got that formaldehyde in it. It's in everything, too! What do you think they put it in food for?" Slight pause - finally. "I'll tell ya." Thanks. "It's for population control. It causes 92 symptoms and one of them is brain tumors!" What an introduction! And it continued! "You know that Jacque Cousteau fella? He said that we ought to be killing 360,000 people a day to keep the earth healthy, or clean, or green, or whatever. I'm not an expert."
"Hi. I'm Andrew." My introduction was quite a bit shorter than his, as I was pretty much speechless.
"Nice ta meet ya." He continued as I tried to figure out if anyone was paying attention around us. "Ya know, this world is run by three different groups of about 12 people and I can name 'em all. One of 'em is in Europe and the other two are in America. They control economies with their wealth!"
"Is that so?" I asked. "Then why is America's economy in the dumps right now?"
"You think they care about you?" he countered. "They don't care about you. These are 200 foot yacht people. Not 100 foot yacht people."
With a smile on my face at this situation, I said, "Well don't you think that if they had the chance, they'd like to be 300 foot yacht people?"
"I see your point," he said quietly. "But it's actually the credit industry that controls the world."

He got cut off by the mean lady who told me I would have to wait two weeks as she called him up to collect his papers. I was next.

She handed everything back to me and said, "You will have to go back to your country of origin to apply for a visa."
What?!?!?! Insane!!! I asked her if there was any reason why.
"Oh, sure. Lots of reasons!" she said with a strange exclamation.
"Well can I know them?" I asked, completely dumbfounded at this situation.
"I'm sorry. I can't discuss it with you."

Hhhhh...... This is all that damned bird's fault.

I priced out a ticket back home and figured it would be cheaper to just head south to Estonia to try for a visa there. 'How Many Russian Embassies Can Andrew Find?' will be the title of my book.

I walked up to the window, now forcing a smile as natural ones have all been spent, and handed the lady my documents that I had downloaded from their website. She threw them away and handed me a couple different ones that weren't available online. I filled them out and returned them. She stamped some things and cut some others and then told me to go stand over there. I said, "OK", which in Russian translates to 'Yes ma'am!'

After only a couple hours, she returned with a bill! Woo hoo! I had to pay some guy some money and they took my passport away! That may sound like a bad combination of events, but to me, it was the pure feeling of relief! No more Russian embassies! So now I wait. 15 days. They'll let me enter Russia on June 25, but I have to leave by July 5. My 30 day Russian trip is now nine. It's a pretty big country to cross in only nine days so I've decided not to sleep while I'm there.

Although I still don't have a visa in hand (or a passport for that matter), I'm still considering myself successful! After only four embassies and five or six weeks of trying! Not bad! And I've been witness to some amazing things along the way - as I've surely written about. Though some things I haven't written about. My time in Finland, for example. In this case, I'm gonna let the pictures do the typing.

Plenty more of these pictures, with a slight description if you click here!

Now then, be happy for me! I'm going to Russia!