The road to Luangprabang

Chiang Mai:
My first day of exploring Chiang Mai started in the guest house pool as I tried to stay cool reading my guidebook and avoiding a (intoxicated?) man from Liverpool's attempts to initiate a conversation. I thought he was drunk because he kept asking me where I was from and didn't seem satisfied with the US or Seattle as a response so then he began asking me where my parents are from, Washington State and the US still wasn't enough. "no no no, I mean before that where is your family from?"

It clicked. "Oh, are you asking why I am brown?"
"yes"
"I am Native American"
blank stare
"American Indian"
"Indian?! Are you a proper Indian?"
I have no idea what this guys definition of a proper Indian is, and almost asked him to enlighten me, but instead decided that I would just store this into the memory bank of concepts of race, ethnicity and authenticity experiences on this trip and get out of there.

I was trying to make sense of a map of Chiang Mai, stopping at Wats in no particular order when I noticed several people that looked like they were on the way to a procession of some sort, and headed in the same direction. Everyone waiting for the procession was in front of the three kings statues, dancing groups, bands, people with large elaborate flower decorations/offerings. There were a couple other tourists drawn to this crowd, but I was surprised that it was only 5 or so. When the procession began I moved a little ways up the street to take a photo and the group that I took a photo of waved me over and handed me a decorated top of a young banana tree and I was part of the procession! Several people behind me in the procession poured flower water on me, which smelled sweet and cooled me off. The procession entered the Wat Luang (for some reason I am drawing a blank on the name, maybe because I have been to so many temples now) and I was in complete awe of the old chedi we walked towards and past. This was really the way to see it! Past the chedi there were people waiting with a big water hose to spray us down, so I got a taste of songkrat, the water festival that took place the three days before I arrived in thailand. Then the group I had been walking with wanted me to try this food and that food, the dance groups and musicians in the procession performed,and then there was a special blessing that my friend Lome encouraged me to take part in. He introduced me to sever other people waiting for the blessing, one was a woman who told me she has a son that studies in America. We spoke for a little while and after findng out I was staying at a guesthouse here she asked if I would like to stay in her home... I felt honored, and thinking back to the Liverpool guy this sounded even better. We stood with our cups of flower water during the talking/prayer and then went up to pour water on the two buddha figures and join a single file line that was going on their knees in front of a row of seated monks, pouring water on their hands that the monks then flicked over you, and then a row of elders that did almost the same, but would touch your shoulder and talk a little to those going through. After the blessing I went with Supasini and we decided that since I wanted to make it to Wat U Mong for the lakeside discussion with a monk that she would drop me off there and I could call her the next day (already paid for guesthouse and such) to come to her house.

I went to the lakeside discussion by a monk from England, it seemed every person who came was expecting a different thing of the experience. Some thought it was a meditation class, others had questions about getting married, a little bit of everything. I walked back into the city from here (this Wat is kind of out of town in a wooded area) and stopped in to a market along the way for some passionfruit juice and dried strawberries. I went to the sunday walking market/night market and it was wonderful, I especially enjoyed seeing the arts and crafts people had done... and having great fruit smoothies and phad thai for less than a dollar each.

The next day Supasini and her son and daughter came to pick me up and took me on a day of sightseeing, it was great to go to Wats and have someone to explain the significance of what people were doing and joining in, and to go out to eat with people that knew the best foods to order -expanding my horizons past phad thai :)
That evening when we went to their home, I realized that without this experience I wouldn't have seen a thai home with the beautifully carved furniture and doors, or the meditation room and area with family pictures, I adored my intricately carved wooden bunk beds.

After my first night in my cute bed we had a delicious breakfast and Bob and Poupee (Supa's son and daughter) translated the bizzare news on tv. They took me to Wat Ched Yad, where Bob did his monkhood for a total of 10 days. We also stopped by the museum before they dropped me off for the first day of the short meditation retreat offered by Wat Suan dok. Must give a shout out for Pun Pun, the restaraunt behind the monk-chat office. Good food and good people doing good things. I just had a smoothie, but I hear the food is great from some trusted sources. The retreat began with an intro to buddhism and overall was much less intensive than other longer and more strict retreats around. The retreat took place at a center outside of town and was lessons in meditation mixed in with some yoga, alms giving, and quiet. I liked the quiet. What was very uncomfortable to me was learning about the "bowing down to the triple gems", and then being asked to do so.

The next day strangely became what I will remember as my day in Thai beauty school, where I learned first hand what Ruth told me in Bangkok: Beauty is everything here. Supasini was concerned about my sloppy backpacker look (I wonder if she thinks I dress and look like this at home?) The full story is too funny to write here, maybe too awkward too. I'll tell you when I get home :) I can also tell you about my last night at Supasini's house, with Supa and Poupee and whatever forces there are there that open cupboards and close them right before your very eyes. I am not really a person who has many haunted house experiences. I really am still speechless on the subject.

The last morning there I helped prepare breakfast for a monk, nun, and their travel companions from Northeastern thailand, this was a great time and hearing the chanting that I had heard done only by monks with the addittional sweet voice of a nun was beautiful. I took a bus up to Chiang rei that same day, and from chiang rei rode in the back of a truck up to a bungallow guesthouse owned and run by an akha community. I spent two nights up there, I just needed to be out of the city. This was a great escape and hiking around there with the other guests to see the waterfalls. After the memory of my friend in Ecuador pointing out the face in the falls outside of Otavalo came to mind there was a remarkable face, clear as day, in these falls (must post picture). In the evening I heard some guitar playing when walking around with a guy from australia and when we found the source we were welcomed up the the house of a smiling woman that was playing music and singing out of a hymnal. I sang along, reading the words of Amazing Grace in Akha.

Going to have to end there for the moment, the computer I am on is having serious issues and I have to get back to my guesthouse before they lock-up. I am currently in Pakse, Laos and really loving traveling through Laos. I am making my way to Cambodia and can't wait to tell you about:

Bicycling through the ruins at Sukothai
Feeling like the only tourist in Kamphaeng phet and bicycling through ruins there
Going to Lopburi and having monkeys trying to get in my hotel windows
Going to the National Park outside of Pak Chong
Swimming in the waterfall from the movie the beach (with the whole place to myself!)
Camping alone at the park (not counting tigers, elephants, gibbons, deer, etc)
How camping all by myself turned into camping with 400 monks and new friends from Ayuthaya...
Giving alms (food) to 200 monks the next morning
Being given a grad tour of Ayuthaya by my friends,
Heading up to Laos
Hitchhiking (the road to luangprabang), oh the adventures go on and on...

and even more recently:
Knocking a wannabe thief and his motorcyle over while he attempted to grab my wallet
Having my fisherman trousers fall halfway down in front of a tuk tuk driver (on laundray aka no underwear day)
and donating blood in a "third world country"

Time for bed!

Thailand in a betelnut shell:

First day I set off to see the things that one must see in Bangkok, starting my day with a ride on a motorcycle taxi - pressing my right leg right up against the exhaust pipe resulting in my first and hopefully last "farong burn" The burn bubbled up later into the largest blister I have ever had in my life. I took the boat down the river to visit Wat Pho, the reclining Buddha and a wat also famous for it's long lasting role as a center for traditional thai medicine. The highlight of visiting here for me (other than being in awe of the reclining Buddhas toes) was that they had an area where the ceramic roofing shingles were piled up and you could write whatever you wanted on the underside of tile and that tile would be used in the roofing renovation... I quickly made a tribute/prayer tile... and then went back to make another donation and another tile for First Nations @ UW with the names of members and wishes of success for the graduates of last year and this coming June.

I went on to the Grand palace and to see the emerald Buddha. I had to borrow a sarong because my long shorts were not acceptable atire. Beautiful place, the mosaics that create the flowers and intricate designs, oh and the murals, I could go on and on. The clouds above had been threatening rain, and a little while after I sat down to gaze up at the emerald Buddha in his summer clothes (they change his outfits) the downpour began. A group of novice monks, young boys, had come inside and were ushered to the front where their chanting made my visit even more memorable. The picture above of the juice cooler/fridge with the chief logo is outside of the palace where I bought some chocolate milk.

I was hoping to make it to a meditation class at Wat Mahathat, but it seemed to be closed (turns out I was in totally the wrong place...and listened to the wrong person about the time that the meditation class would happen the next day) so I went to see one last Buddha, a large standing one, before taking the boat back up to Bangsue.

The next day I went and found where the meditation classes take place, but was late and really had the impulse to give up on the meditation idea, not knowing why I was there and confused about the class going on not being in English. Soon the director of Section 5 (the meditation instruction building) welcomed me in, a small smiling monk who has probably had plenty of farong come in with little to no knowledge of Buddhism. How embarrasing to me now, my assumptions that the classes I read about would be just like any other cutesy relaxation or "wandering through a beautiful forest when you come upon a clear stream, approach the stream..." -type meditation I had come across in my life, completely detached of Buddism. I needed a bubble above my head reading "oops, I think my judeo-christian upbringing is showing".

So Phra gave me a booklet to read on meditation technique. He said if I read it he would teach me more, and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to leave and read it and come back or read it right there, but he pointed out a place I could sit. I asked again, for some obnoxious reason, about group classes in English. Phra smiled and reminded me in Thailand, where the language is Thai. How horrible of me, it's part of a larger realization that I agonized over needing to learn more Spanish, but not once put any thought towards learning any Thai. Good grief.

I read the booklet, some things made sense, others were like nothing I had ever really thought about before, and when I returned to the Phra's desk expecting an immediate lecture he instead asked if I had eaten breakfast. Catching me offguard I told him no, and he took me to the kitchen for a plate of melon and sweet ginger tea. I came back to his desk again "full? happy? we have to eat to be happy!" He talked with me about Buddhism and meditation training, but mostly about America and mental health in America... Contributing factors to the mental health problems. I am not sure if this is his usual approach, but I did tell him that I study public health. ((I am trying to keep this a brief over-view, which seems impossible to me so I will speed through the following)) The Phras assistant gave me a one on one in walking and sitting meditation, and afterwards I was invited to have lunch there as well. Delicous food and a very good immersion experience. I think I'll be going back.

I did a few more sight seeing activities before going back to Bangsue to visit with Ruth and Isabelle. They have started running in the park in the 40 C heat and I decided to join them. The park was an oasis surrounded by bustling city. Running in the extreme heat was intense to say the least, and I basically walked jogged one km, walked one, jogged one. To keep on going I applied what was in the meditation booklet about "walking fast" and just focusing on the moment, the impact, the movement of right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. When I really felt like giving up on jogging I saw the fountain marking where we had began on the loop, and there is nothing like seeing the finish line to give you knew energy. Later, when I was sitting down next to the pond sweating buckets and wishing for water, I thought about how this is true for my travels as well. I know the day that I am returning to Seattle and it is coming near. I can see the finish line and it is giving me new energy in my travels. I bought my ticket for Chiang Mai that night and went out to the night bazaar because Ruth and Isabelle had a going away get together to make an appearance at (this was kind of dreadful) and I was a bit too tired and am a bit too DONE with shopping to enjoy much more of the Bazaar. It was really great for observing other tourists though.

The next day the big event was getting my hair cut -read- butchered. I had many reasons for wanting to cut my hair, it had grown very long as hair tends to do. By any standards it needed a trim, and ---wait, before I go on and on about my hair I should probably preface this information by telling you that my hair for the last 10 years or so has always been cut straight across and I have had it grown out long for a good deal of that time. Just know that for some cultural, some personal, some reasons cutting my hair is kind of a big deal to me. The last people to have cut my hair were Alyssa (miss you girl!) and my cousin Andy. I don't know how to do a proper preface with such a broad audience so I will try to work in this information a bit more. Basically, I wanted to cut my hair differently for many reasons, the one I will describe to you being one that is most pressing in my mind at the moment.

While I was in New Zealand I did a lot of thinking and talking about identity, about the ways that identity politics create divisions in our communities, especially when you have a group of students of all different backgrounds uniting under the shared identity of Native American/First Nations, sometimes coming to a loss as to what is actually shared between individuals across that grouping. I had the much enjoyed experience of going to the Auckland museum with a new friend, Malia :), a doctorate student studying education with a focus on native education, and talking with her about her undergrad experiences at stanford ((where they have a native house run by the school?!?!)). We talked about the ways that some students (selves included) feel more of a need to make their native identity more visible when coming to university and the wide range of reasons for this reaction. "The bandanas come out (okay, she's a little before my time hehe) the hair grows longer..." and in thinking about how I experienced this, and how my long hair had become more of a symbol to others of my identity than holding the meaning, the sacredness that my hair also meant to me... somewhere along this thought process I decided it was time for change. I don't know if any of that will make sense to anyone, but there are ways in which increased comfort with my identity has caused me to feel the need to let go of the ways that I have marked my identity out for others.

Never has a haircut of mine involved a razor. Great plan Emma, get your hair cut by someone you cannot communicate with. I truly had to let go, and here I am today with the results of some trimming, razor cutting and a whole lot of thinning scissor work... It's not that dramatically different to most, but it's different to me and the really huge difference is that I just had to sit down in that chair and let go.

Tempted to delete all this hair business.

Other fun events of that day include making a shirt for Ruth's boyfriend in England based off of his idea to have a shirt that reads Similar Similar instead of same same. I'll have to get a photo from her of him wearing it because I forgot to take a picture. When it was time for me to take my night train to Chiang Mai I got a motorcyle ride all the way across several tracks right up to my platform, and the train ride was a blast. Oh I loved it, my little sleeping compartment. my blanket and pillow and all. If only I had had sleeping compartments on the overnight bus rides in South America!!!



(I am in Sukhothai now and want to head back to my cute little bungalow before it gets too late, the rest of the update will be on getting invited to join in on a procession, a blessing by monks and elders, being adopted into a thai family, meditation retreat, "thai beauty school", going to Chiang Rai... time up in the hills... okay must go, but much to tell)

Transitioning to Thailand

The day I flew to Thailand (the 16th) I felt like a travel pro. I wasn't stressed, I got all of my short to do list for the day done (short to do list because I have learned to not put everything off to the day of departure), I got to the airport early, and I was flying to another country, another continent and totally calm. Airports seem like more natural places to find myself now, and are a great place for me to debrief my latest adventures and prepare for the next. I bought my first guidebook of the trip for Thailand, I had looked in second hand stores earlier that day to no avail and decided that I know so little about Thailand that I may not be able to wing it as well without a guidebook.

I had a window seat with an empty seat next to me, optimum 9 hour flight conditions, and I spent a good amount of that nine hours working on a statement of purpose for the McNair Program (http://depts.washington.edu/uwmcnair/about.htm). One of the many excuses of why my blogging has slacked is that I have been spending most of my computer time writing for various applications. In New Zealand I was applying to be a cabin-counselor for the Patsy Collins Adventure in Leadership summer camp program(http://www.seattleymca.org/page.cfm?id=leadership), for which I later did a 5am phone interview for from Sydney and am very excited to say that I will be working for them for part of this summer, orcas island here I come! While in Australia I was working on my application for the American Indian Student Commission Director position at UW for next school year, which I hope to hear back about soon.

I got off the plane dazed with sleepiness. The international airport in Bangkok is HUGE, and my feelings of being a pro traveler were slipping away as I went past an area that said "Visa upon arrival" that I ran back to from the Immigration area thinking "wait -- I thought I didn't need a visa!?!" and panicked further when the US wasn't on the the list of nationalities that could get a visa upon arrival. It wasn't on the list because persons with US passports don't need a visa, as I already knew, but had instantly doubted myself about. So I went back to immigration without filling out an entry card, went and filled it out, went back, needed to supply more information than I had on the form, then made it through worried that all the other passengers from my flight would have already collected their bags and that mine would go someplace with unclaimed bags or just dissapear in general. This was only a slight worry, somehow over the time of this trip I have become much less attached to just about everything I am traveling with, and the thought of losing my bag is kind of more of a annoyance at the idea of having to shop for things that I would need to replace. There were so many baggage claim areas that I went to the board to see which crowd I was supposed to join, but out of my tiredness I could not find my flight information and luggage belt number, the board was switching between English and Thai too fast and there were far too many flights listed. It was hopeless, I just started laughing at how impossible it would be for me to ever find out anything on that board and at how I was at a 180 from my cocky-super-traveler thoughts from earlier. I was laughing though, so little can really get to me at this point which is still kind of amazing when I stop to think about it.

So I walked along and of course found just where I needed to be, and about 40 minutes after landing the luggage still hadn't shown up so I didn't have to worry about my bag dissapearing from the luggage area. When I did get my bag I got out of the airport and into the heat. It is the hot/dry season in Thailand, I know I had planned on following summer around the world, but this might be a bit overboard. Taking a taxi from the airport to the area that I was going to stay in was much easier than I thought it would be as far as getting from point A to point B, but dificult in that I was instantly realizing I didn't know a single word in Thai, I am another farong/foreigner here being taxied around. I had arranged to stay with someone that responded to my globalfreeloaders request. I was really lucky that I could stay with her, she planned to be out of the country at the time and when I was in Canberra Australia two days before leaving for Thailand I woke up with all of my thoughts wrapped around not knowing where I would be staying in Bangkok and the fact that I would be arriving at 10pm Thailand time, so I got on the internet to look up a guesthouse Sarah Spence had told me about when I was in Omak asking her questions about thailand, and there in my inbox was a message from Ruth asking if I was still coming and saying she would be in town. Ruth met me outside of a supermarket that I was dropped off at. Sitting and waiting for her I realized again how little some things that would maybe stir a negative reaction in me (the heat, the less pleasant smells, the big rat scurrying past) don't really phase me anymore.

The one thing I have heard over and over again about Thailand is not to take a tuk tuk, and the first thing that Ruth and I did was catch a ride in one back to her place. When I was in the taxi I had this kind of strange feeling like I would be thrown from the taxi and scrape along the pavement, an irrational fear for being in a taxi, but a possible tuk tuk premonition... I made a mental note to avoid tuk tuks.

I never planned on going to Australia

And yet here I am wondering how on earth I could have ever not have come here.












Apologies: This photos loaded in a odd way so you have to click on them to see the whole thing, it would take a long time to fix this and I think I should probably spend as much time as I can on actually writing. I haven't been writing on here, mostly because I have fallen so far behing that I don't know where to start. So I am going to start very very recently in a new post, get what I have done in the last three days out there in the open and then see if any attempts at back tracking can pay any service to where I have been.

Where is Emma?!

Where to begin...



My plane landed in Aotearoa before sunrise and I very sleepily dealt with a minor immigration situation that could have been a very large one. I was unaware that in order to enter New Zealand I needed proof that I would be leaving New Zealand. From my impression these are not strictly enforced guidelines, but I have been informed by several people now that I am lucky they let me through. All I was really required was to wait for two immigration officials to come talk to me and then prove that I have enough funds to purchase an exit ticket (which I did with a wadded up atm receipt where my account balance was reported in Bolivianos, which I then needed to roughly convert for them) and promise that I would do so before my three month visa expired. After making it through immigration and agricultural inspection I received my first true culture shock: the airport bathrooms. After four months of using toilets that more often than not would flush (sometimes requiring a bucket or two of water), but under no conditions could handle toilet paper and after adjusting to the practice of throwing away used toilet paper in a bin near the toilet, I probably would have carried on and done the same in the airport bathroom if the rubbish bin wasn't the excessively technological do-dad that it was. For my convenience and guaranteed sanitary-satisfaction this rubbish bin was sensor operated to open just as I reached toward it... which scared the crap out of me (not literally, ha). Upon closer inspection this waste bin also does some kind of sterilization process within itself as well. So, I thought, wow -- I'm in New Zealand.


Karina Walters and her family had kindly invited me to stay with them in response to the "I'm coming to New Zealand and have no idea what I am doing" distress email I had sent out. At this point I knew Karina only through several meetings that we both attended and a fabulous presentation she gave on historical trauma that also included really interesting myth (more like oppressive social construct) busting facts to counter stereotypes that privilege western science. So after getting ahold of her, taking a shuttle to her home but writing down the wrong address number and taking a long walk along the shore to get back to her neighborhood, I got a chance to put down my pack and relax. I don't know how to describe my first few days in Auckland. It was a dramatic transition from the last four months of my travels, and I was pretty worn out. On my second day in New Zealand I attended a meeting that took place in the beautiful Marae that was focused on possibly policy changes at the University of Auckland that would dramatically impact Maori students. I don't really know how much I should say about this, but what I walked away from this meeting thinking about (that is not specific to the issues discussed at the meeting) is how desperately we need a Native American Center (learning house, long house) on our campus at the University of Washington. Seeing the potential for that Indigenous space, a place to be heard, understood and supported. Seeing the no-nonsense way of dealing with what was going on was refreshing as well, so often Universities are the places with the most activism, but also the places where faculty, staff, students can be broken down into inaction over time. Another aspect of this meeting that sparked my attention was the consciousness and familiarity with policies at educational institutions in the US, Canada and Australia... "good on them". These are all the beginnings of things that I would see to greater degrees in my time in New Zealand.

Karina introduced me to Mere Kepa, who then sent me on one of the most unique adventures of my travels: Tagging along on a 9 day school trip with a Maori-only speaking primary school, Te Kura Mana Maori O Maraenui. So basically, after a short time being somewhat bewildered by my opportunity to communicate in english, I was suddenly in the back of school bus immersed in te reo Maori. The group was made up of students from ages 5 to 13 or so, parent chaperones, teachers and elders. After experiencing my first Pohiri and spending the night with them on Marae Orakei, I went with the group all the way along the east coast of the North Island up to Cape Reinga and back down to Auckland on the West Coast. Along the way I got to learn about the land and history with the kids (as much as I could from the translations graciously given to me by whomever was closest to me at the time) and experienced/visited:

-The first pool with a wave machine I have ever been to, I spent most of my time as a sort of floating device/ climbing toy / diving board for some of the smaller kids in the group.
-A whole new level of eating, you could never go hungry with this group. I could not bring myself to eat the classic New Zealand breakfast of spaghetti on toast, but during the trip I was urged to try a warm fermented corn and cream (and who knows what else?) dish, and as we traveled up north along the coast there were clams, oysters and snails gathered and cooked up. I am not a shellfish person, I can imagine plenty of coastal natives (TYSON) being in heaven with all these kind Maori women working shells open and offering them for their "American" guest. I could not decline, ofcourse, but for the record I would rather eat snails over oysters.
-Learning songs and dances that the kids performed in Kapa Haka for their hosts.
-Visited and watched Nanny Blue in her Harakeke (flax) weaving, she made me a bracelet and was so good to me on the trip. My Nan away from home!
-Waitangi, where the treaty of Feb. 6th 1840 was signed.
-Hundertwasser's Kawakawa Toilets :)
-Cape Reinga, the tip of the North Island where the Pacific and Tasman sea meet and the last part of Aotearoa that Maori see before their spirit leaves this world.
-Involved in some skits too ridiculous for me to begin to describe.
-I went to a funeral, a Tangi, when we stopped to pay our respects at a Marae we had planned to stay at before the death.
-I saw the ways that missionaries impacted the Marae buildings, their strongest hold being in these northern areas we were visiting.
-Visited Tane Mahuta, the god of the forest and largest tree I have ever seen. A beautiful Kauri.
-Visited a reforestation project area, Trounson Kauri Park, which was a chance to see the dramatic difference between the way the land that is now farmland used to be. The kids loved this, and I really loved the poetic trailhead information along the paths. For example, part of a poem at the start of the park reads "-in the white wings of sailboats, whalers and sealers and sailors and saviors with family, with God and guns and liquor and lawyers, migrants and merchants with money, breaking the land"
-Visited Kaipara Harbor

I met incredible people, had great conversations, I can't possibly share them all, nor would I even if I had the time or the patience. So many of the lessons in Aotearoa were very personal. Things I struggle to put into writing, especially writing for the whole world to see. Writing in retrospect is especially difficult because now I feel more like describing the themes than the detailed acounts of how they were raised.

Traveling with this group meant being asked several times each day by students, teachers and chaperones about whether or not I speak my language. Over and over I was explaining that I only know a handful of words in my language, and at first I would even try to explain to the children's blank faces historical reasons why very few people in my family know any of the language. I began to think about how awful it would be to be giving this same explanation to my future children or little cousins when they are wanting to learn something from me. The repition of this question combined with speaking to chaperones and one of the head teachers, Robin Mohi, about learning their language as adults and their love for te reo caused me to reflect more on my relationship with and feelings about my language. I began to recognize that when I think about my language I am always caught up in thinking in terms of colonization and the depressing influences of residential schools, discrimination, genocide, alcoholism, internalized-racism, devalueing of cultural continuity, everything that has separated me from my language. This victim response is a valid one, but it is not a place that I should allow myself to stay when there are ways to learn more of my language. I feel pushed into action, and as with many of my experiences during and after the school trip, I feel more aware of the ways in which I need to connect more with home (and all that home evokes for me) than I ever have.

The students were fascinated by my journal, asking to page through it, asking questions about my drawings and gathering around whenever they caught me writing. On the last day of the trip, or what was to be the drive home and drop Emma off in Auckland day, one of the busses broke down. We spent about 7 hours in the playground of a small town waiting for the bus situation to be sorted out. I helped with talking groups of students to the store and to the bathrooms, but mostly I was feeling a bit anxious about getting back -I had a flight to wellington the next day. I was also reminded every time that a student or chaperone mentioned wanting to go home that I would be returning to Auckland, but I would not be returning home for a long long time still. It wasn't until I was in New Zealand that I fully felt how much I missed the land where I come from. I miss my family, I miss my friends, but little did I know how much I would miss the land, the dirt, the sage brush, the pine, the lakes, everything that makes up my ancestral home.

Home, I want to pull those hills close like pillows. Bury my face and soak up the scent of sagebrush. Gather up the greasewood willed by _____ into being and make them my bed.

When we found out that we wouldn't be returning to Auckland that day, I became determined to make the most of this extra time I was given (as ungrately as I was for it) with the group. I was going to find a way to do a journaling activity with the kids. I walked down to a store that I had walked past earlier and had noticed they had art supplies. They were just closing, and when I explained I was just looking for paper for the group with the broken down bus the woman behind the counter pulled out a big stack of scrap paper she had already stapled together into notebooks and handed them over to me. Could it have worked out any more perfectly? I brought back the notebooks and got pens from the other bus and back at the park I openned up my journal knowing that it would be all I needed to do to spark some interest in what I was doing. I began the first lesson I have ever given in journaling, passing out a journal to each student that was curious about what we were doing. I explained the ways that I go about journaling from the very start. Journal stratagies: writing about the "event" of the day (what happened, how it made you feel, what it made you think about) and drawing a picture to go with it. By request I showed students step by step how I would draw a bus. Soon there were beautiful journal pages, some in english, some in maori and most with illustrations of a bus breaking down and their favorite toys to play on in the park. It was so fun to see them take off in different directions with the project, we took a break for "tea time" and ate fish and chips off of newspaper (a very New Zealand experience I am told) and then journaled a bit more before we were all off to the nearest Marae to stay the night. That is the wonderful thing about traveling with a maori student group, there is always a Marae somewhere nearby for you to stay.

More soon (I hope)

Chile

To sum up the rest of my time in Chile will be a great disservice to the full stories, but I am so far behind in blogging at this point that I must be brief:

After the intensity of meeting with Armando, Jose and Alberto I realized that there is only so much I can learn at this point in my limited Spanish. I spent another day with Ines and prepared to go further south to Chiloe island.

Chiloe is beautiful. Anywhere that you have to take a ferry to get to is beautiful. The ride down to get to Chiloe was like a birding tour, I saw really unique looking birds that clearly weren't as exciting for the people sitting around me. I happened to be on the island during their Costumbrista celebrations. I was in Castro for their Costumbrista fair, food, crafts, demonstrations of basketry, weaving, wooden boat building, old machinery for making hay bails, and some rather disgusting demonstrations of killing goats (?). Really though, everyone was there for the food and I ate my way through all of the favorite foods of Chile. They were selling big plates of salmon and potatos for what would be 6 bucks US, wish all of First Nations student org was there to dig in! Image of Castro burned in my mind: Bright colored leaning houses on stilts at the waterfront. I went up to Ancud next and got to go see PENGUINS at their summer home, some islands off of Chiloe near Ancud. I went with a tour and there was a woman from Vashon Island there, great coincidence really because I got to hear a little of the traveling she did when she was my age. Delicious sea food on Chiloe.

From Ancud I went to Puerto Montt and on up to Villa Rica/Pucon where I soaked up sun on the lake. Great views of the volcano and some great inspirations for future projects. I took a night bus to Valparaiso, which is one of the greatest cities (perhaps the greatest) that I have visited. I was once again hooked on the graffiti art got to know the city by following the graffiti up and down the streets. Hostels in Chile are more expensive, just like everything else, but wow. REALLY nice places. So nice that you preted you really live there and imagine your life in Chile. Or you can go see one of Pablo Neruda's houses and pretend you live there, very interesting man with remarkable houses. I told my parents if I hadn't bought my ticket to leave Chile I would just stay, find a flat and spend the rest of my days painting in that bright colored sea port city.


And then I took a 12 hour plane ride to Aotearoa, nearly crying on arrival. I have wanted to come here for a very very long time. Now I can move on and start talking about my time in New Zealand... real soon.

The Next Day...

¨Tienes familia en Chile?¨ -Rodrigo ¨Claro, ella tiene una hermana, yo!¨ -Ines

This is my sister Ines at work in the office

Eastern Washington Anyone?

La casa de Armando

Armando explaining more about the significance of the drum symbols to me

Mapuche pride

Armando, Alberto and Jose

The next day, after spending a very comfortable evening in a very comfortable bed at Ines´ I went to Cerro Nielol park and spent the morning hiking around paths through the woods and up to a volcano research center-observatory. The Prof. working there that came out to greet me has a friend teaching at Central Washington University. I didn´t think I would have a conversation about Mt. St. Helen´s that morning, but it was interesting to talk about the countries I have visited with someone who knows so much of the world through volcano studies whereas I am learning more about the world through indigenous issues and human rights.

Trees, flowers and steep hills were abundant in Cerra Nielol along with little lizzards and birds digging at the base of the bushes lining the paths. I could have easily convinced myself I was in a park near Seattle. Cerra Nielol also features some Mapuche carvings, I saw some like them when I was learning more about Mapuche people via google a year ago and was really surprised at how much the faces look like coast salish carvings. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised by these sorts of things, but they never cease to spark my interest.

I walked back to the office and went with Alberto in his pick-up truck to run some errands, picking up Jose and his daughter and then moving books and furniture to Jose's (Jose's daughter and I spent most this time talking, she had assumed that Alberto was my grandfather). Then Jose and Alberto gave me three books that served as a great addition to the responses they were giving to the questions I had about Mapuche intercultural education, language preservation and legal positionality. A booklet of the laws concerning indigenous people in Chile, a book on intercultural education including bilingual education and my favorite: a book of poetry by school children, which really is the one that is more of my spanish language reading level. I started reading as we drove out towards Carahue which I was told was a city where Mapuche resistance had a long standing history. The Spanish started a city in the same area three times and according to Jose had planned the area to be the capitol of Chile or the main city, but each time the city was destroyed, burned to the ground. This is where Jose was born. The area is mostly agricultural *see above picture* and the wide glossy river Chol Chol was just within view when we pulled over and got out of the truck to visit with Armando.

While Jose first went down to the house to greet Armando, Alberto talked to me outside of the truck as we looked out on the valley. I would have given so much to have been able to better understand what he was telling me. I really couldn't though. Spanish in Chile is beyond difficult to understand, and became even more difficult when what he was saying became very heartfelt and emotional. I did understand that at one point he was talking about not having the professional training that someone else has (Jose?) being a campesino that has had a very different experience as a Mapuche... Earlier in the truck there was what seemed like a very light hearted comparison made by Alberto between himself and Jose. He told me that they were both Mapuche, but he was 'pure'. That you could tell that Jose was not pure because his hair was curly and Mapuche hair is thick and straight. The ways in which Indigenous identity are defined, discussed and interpretted is something that I have only been able to pick up on in bits and pieces in my travels. Language Barrier, what can I say. But this moment really sticks out to me, because it is an example of the ways that we often, even in the smallest and most light hearted ways, challenge eachothers identity, eachothers background. Whether it is based on phenotypical differences, cultural involvement, class, ect. we create "others" within our communities.

Moving on, we went down to the house to meet Armando and sat down at the table in his mostly unfurnished home. Hanging from the walls were dried bull kelp, corn (chocle), and a number of tools and instruments along with photos of him with several politicians at different gatherings. Armando was such a character, somehow I could understand him better, he had a much slower meter (possibly for dramatic emphasis) to his speech. Our greeting began with some joking, but became more serious when Alberto made an introduction for me, the story of why I was there with them. He explained how I had just been trying to go to an internet cafe when I stopped in and met him and his secretary, and that he felt that he needed to help me, that now he feels I am like a daughter to him and that he wanted to make sure I could learn more about what I came here to learn about. It was now time for me to give my talk, so a direct translation of what I said next would be: I am here because I think it is very important for indigenous people to know more about other indigenous people in the world, because we have different histories, but they are also the same, the same things, problems with the government, with rights, and also similar philosophies. That was about as good as I could get in explaining my purpose for showing up at Armando's. What followed was a heated discussion of water rights and land rights between the three men at the table. It started slowly, with the intention of explaining previous laws and ridiculous offenses made by the government, but then as the three men were swept into conversation I could no longer understand the words. Instead I saw the emotion, the fury, the loss, the impact of this topic on these three men that have been fighting for self-governance, rights and cultural preservation. When I had the opportunity, I asked a question about the Kultrun, the drum that I had seen so often associated with Mapuche culture. Armando's eyes brightened at this question. He went back into another room and brought out two drums. Carefully, he explained meanings of symbols and the different ways in which the Kultrun is used by Mache's. Jose and Alberto began pointing out other articles in the room, some of which seemed to be types of cultural property that they hadn't seen in a very long time. They taught me the names of these things and had me guess what they were for before explaining them to me. Meanwhile, Armando again went to a back room and returned with a big chest. He openned it and pulled out the regalia that he was wearing in the photos. The real surprise was that underneath these in the bottom of the chest was the full woman's regalia which my three "dad's" then helped me put on over my clothes, Alberto looked very proud when the outfit was complete.

Before leaving we talked about how good it would be for me to come back when I can speak more Spanish and understand Chilean. Alberto picked some berries for me from a boldo tree/bush while I said goodbye to Armando. The berries were very sweet despite being completely green. Alberto, Jose and I got back into the truck and went to see the town of Carahue. On the city sign it calls Carahue the city with three levels/floors, no mention of the city being destroyed three times. The river Chol Chol is runs wide and calm along this city, we didn't spend much time here though. On the drive back I realized just how much this place was like home. Like a drive home from Spokane with some uncles, is what I thought.

After dropping off Jose, Alberto and I went to his son's home to meet his family and have one of those late meals that Chile is known for. Alberto's son Luis works for the government in agricultural partnerships with Japan, so he told me a bit about his travels to Japan. Luis has clearly had a very different life than his father, something that Alberto pointed out was the result of the much more limited access to education and the higher levels of discrimation in his lifetime. I told him that my father could say the same for the differences between his school experiences and my own, and after telling them about the ways in which racism has impacted education for Native Americans Luis said (in English) "But there is supposed to always be freedom in your country, the American Dream"

"Si, La Sueno Americana, pero solo para los Blancos" I said. Alberto understood.

I went back to Ines' that night simply amazed at the odds of getting to see Chile in this way.