Travelog from the Past: Part VII

6/06/04 Punta Mona, Manzanillo, San Jose, Costa Rica

It is a good thing we are going back by boat to Manzanillo, I for one am not up for another 5 mile trek through the jungle. Little fishing boats with out board motors arrive and we wade out to them through the surf, getting mostly wet in the process. It isn't lunch time yet when we arrive in Manzillo, so everyone has free time on the beach. It the last leg of the trip and mostly everyone is well behaved and reasonable. I ask Patrick if he will keep an eye on my group with Annette so I can walk down the beach. Warm ocean to my right and rows of palm trees on the left, I walk and walk, the ocean licking feet, ankles, calves. I could go on like this forever.Wanderlust has taken over. I wonder if I would be missed if I kept walking, what would Dexter do if I failed to show for lunch? I walk and walk. I remember another time I wanted to just keep going. I had borrowed the family car for a road trip with my college housemates, my mother had given me $200, I had it in my back pocket. As I drove through the night I wondered what it would be like to just keep going and going. But I do turn back, just as I did decades ago, and arrive in time to gather for lunch. No one has noticed I was gone I think. I feel like I have been far away for hours and hours. I have a large fried fish for lunch, it is immensely satisfying. We bundle onto the bus for a last push back to San Jose and La Rosa American.

The roads we take seem more curvy than anything we have experienced yet. I get nauseous and develop a tremendous headache. All I want to do is lay down the dark and die. Somehow I get to the room and tell Annette I won't be going to dinner. I regret missing coconut flan , they are going back to that restaurant. Vaguely aware of goings and returnings I sleep fitfully and awake in the morning pain free and joyful to be alive.

6/07/04 San Jose, Costa Rica, San Francisco, California

We do return home. Though not without incident, one of the kids tried to "smuggle" food stateside and got busted by a dog. Our seats are all over the plane making actual supervision impossible, but it is not necessary, the students are intent on behaving like the seasoned travlers they have become. Mr. S, the teacher is complimented not once, but several times, on the excellent behavior of his class. One of the girls sits by me, M., she is truly a seasoned traveler, her father is Brazilian so the family often go south for the summer. She notes that I really don't like flying, then to soothe me adds "I know we act horrible, but we really do love you, all of us." And that's what I love about teenagers, full of surprises, all the time.

There is not much more to tell. The aerial view of the salt flats coming into SF is a spectacular- abstract-earth work-accidental-art piece. Do look down next time you fly in. The air back home seems dry and thin, not as lively and full of life as in the jungle. I miss being surrounded by the sounds of the jungle; that complex audio tapestry of animals, insects, and water. The feeling of life cycle being constantly played out in every nook and cranny. The jungle is strange, it gets into your blood. Despite all the bugs and difficulties, even now, five years later, I long for it......

Snug-a-buns

Moku Hanga High School

What a lot of fun it has been teaching Moku Hanga to the 9th graders at Santa Cruz Waldorf High School. At SCWHS all the students have to take art so there is a broad range of skill and experience, but all have taken to the printmaking with a certain enthusiasm. 

I have been given NO money for supplies because there simply isn't any and so been raiding my own stash and buying blocks, paper, and ink. We were given new lino cutting tools, which only just work, because of the less than adequate tools I have done some carving on the students blocks, clearing large areas with my big chisel and cleaning up blocks here and there. As for brushes I am letting them use mine and some simply have to make do with painting brushes from the school. 

For printing we have 4 barens of varying degrees of quality which are shared about the tables. This can be a bit chaotic. I tried to introduce the use of a wooden spoon, but alas they would not accept this mode of printing despite my quite decent demonstration. 

When the class is going going full steam ahead, snippets of ambient conversations heard can sound something like this: 

Miss Moll Miss Moll I need help 

this one's a keeper

I can't do this

 where's the bamboo thingy? 

it's called a baren

 i know i like to call it the bamboo thingy

Miss Moll look at my print!

can I take this one home?

this looks crappy

 you're pressing way too hard 

you need to keep the baren flat

why can't i do this?

it takes some practice, like a sport

whoa, that's too much ink, it's not ketchup

this one looks pretty good

who has the brush for the black?

where's the baren? 

etc..

etc...

etc..

You get the idea. 

The hour and 50 minutes we have twice a week flashes by as I share in both the printing problems and the triumphs. The look on a teenagers face with when they pull their first print is priceless. And to hear at the end of the day the grouchiest of students saying that printing so much fun......I tell them, yes, you are right, printing is so much fun........ Did you clean up your table?

For me this is the best class that I have taught at the school, and the last since my position has been cut next year. 

A Post In Which........

This is a post in which I describe how I single-handedly took on public health at a small high school. I've been sick most of this week with a pretty ripping cold. It is the same disease, doubtless, that flies through the air at some 300 mph every time one of my students coughs and doesn't cover his or her mouth. It is the same one that exists in the tissues they do not throw away, and the same one that they share with each other via that communal bag of potato chips. Although I have only missed one day at school I have missed enough to my other job as Acupuncturist to total over $300. (I should say that the three days I taught I had my symptoms quite controlled with herbs and supplements, so I didn't feel like I was putting anyone more at risk than they already were.) But worse than loss of income I can't pet the rabbits, or do their training because rabbits can catch colds from humans, I read this in the House Rabbit book. And BF is quite unhappy that he may be the next victim. Today I presented my 11th grade Drawing class with the following:

I should say that students are encouraged to come to school sick for the morning classes, lest they miss an important experience. This certainly doesn't help keep the healthy population unexposed. It would seem, too, that although they have had some sort of health education in terms of sex and drugs and such like, the handling of contagious diseases of the respiratory sort has been overlooked. Once they voiced their opinion that I was just mad because I got sick, they did have to concede that pretty much the whole school was sick because during morning exercise (a whole school activity) once one person coughed the whole school was coughing. A poll revealed that everyone except one girl had been sick in the 11th grade. I suspect her extended vacation in Mexico may have cooked the virus out.  I bought some very nice essential oil hand sanitizer and soap too, and some bleach wipes. Though I don't use bleach for cleaning myself I do have a certain respect for it in terms of germ extermination. Several years ago one of my brothers had a bone marrow transplant for a tricky cancer. I took care of him, post procedure, at "The Transplant House" where all the patients are walking around with someone else's parts. Caregivers had to keep the communal kitchen very, very clean and the rule was you had to wipe down all surfaces with bleach wipes. It is imprinted in my mind as something you do in an extreme circumstance; like epidemics. Although these purchased substances and my presentation brought a certain amount of mirth quite a few students used the hand sanitizer and everyone covered their cough (approximately one third of the class was coughing). I found out that another teacher was telling them to cover their mouths with their hands for coughing, this was not followed by the order to wash hands, resulting in a mass of germs on the hands that go all over desks, door knobs, etc.......(sigh......)  I put a flyer with a short explanatory note in every teacher's mail tray and invited them to follow suit. At the very least my classes will have a higher level of hygiene.......

Sydney says "Rabbits are self cleaning mammals, why can't humans follow our lead?"