Monday, July 30, 2007

grubs!

If there is anything more tedious than painting for hours on end
it is scraping up paint drips with a windshield wiper and turpentine in the burning hot sun.
This I'm afraid is how I spent my morning and afternoon. Then I painted!!!!!!!!
But what doesn't kill you dead, they say will make you stronger, so I suppose by now I am a strong woman.
After all of this, I moved from the Lodge to the Brook House into my triple (my permanent room), I'm the only one there so far.
The room has amazing closet and storage space which is a plus, but it's hot and there are bugs, lot's and lot's of them.
So I'm going to attempt to upload those pictures again.

I waited seven minutes and nothing. The connection here has gotten really bad. Sorry, will try again some other time.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

pool dippin'

The week-end has been good to me.
Yesterday, I went into town for dinner. When we got back, we went to the kitchen and spontaneously a dance party occur ed. Picture an industrial sized kitchen, furniture pushed to the side, lights turned off except for the pilot light above the stove, music and six crazy people dancing around for hours. It was great!
What can I say, we have to make our own fun here.
Saturday we also rehearsed for our big song and dance number for the Open House. We are learning songs from Zimbabwe and they're beautiful, or rather, have the potential to be beautiful if we get our singing together.
Today, I went into the pool (fourth day in a row - am growing gills) and then we went into town and got mani/pedi's (I've really let myself go, so it was nice to get girly).
Here are some pics of :
-the mountain
-a snake I painted accidentally (oops...)
- the dinner I had last night with Chris (Belgium) and Valleria (Argentina)
- Maureen and I hanging out on the porch after singing songs from Zimbabwe

(OK SO IT'S TAKING FOREVER TO UPLOAD ANY IMAGES, YOU'LL HAVE TO SEE THEM LATER I'M NOT A PATIENT PERSON RIGHT NOW- CIAO...)

Thursday, July 26, 2007

breakthrough

today i had a breakthrough
that's right
an aha moment
one of those times
when i said
enough is enough
i refuse to be a victim of bug intimidation any longer
it's almost a full moon
maybe that's what did it

but today
after painting myself into delirium
i went into my room
and i took all of the nasty buggers in the cocoons off of my curtains
and then
a nasty spider was dangling on its drag line above my bed
and i
hit it with my new yorker
and then took a tissue and smashed it to death

ha!

no longer will i
sojourner walker
be a victim of the bugs!!!!!

ha!

jumped into the pool today for an hour
ate dinner outside for three hours until it became dark

good times!

paint job!

For the last two days (9am -7pm)
I have been outside in the heat
painting the Lodge (where I live and where many offices are housed).
It is such hard work. There are hornet nests everywhere, there are wasps, deer flies and snakes (the least of my worries).
I have paint permanently embedded in my nails, hair and skin. I am a mess!
(This Manhattan girl is missing padding around the village, lazy afternoon brunches, sipping wine with nothing in particular to do, movies at the Angelica and Sunshine, I think I even miss the sound of honking horns and the smell of bus fumes. Manhattan detox 101!)
Did I mention that I am exhausted and that my muscles ache severely. I can't wait until my team starts so that I can go to classes and prepare for my volunteer experience.
Manual labor is NOT my forte!

Monday, July 23, 2007

fog on the mountain

Oy!
My informal Portuguese lessons have begun. Bellini, one of the Brazilian volunteers is giving me Portuguese lessons and I am giving him English lessons. We practice in the Library after dinner. All I can say is that I have a lot of work to do. The pronunciation is extremely difficult for me.
My notes are taped to the wall around my bed so that I can practice when I wake and before I go to bed.
Something has decided to make two cocoons on the curtains near my bed. I am not excited about this. I am not at all thrilled. I am trying to remain calm, but this is not a good situation and I am afraid that if I attempt to remove them whatever is inside the cocoon will jump out at me and James my bug killer is away on a fundraising trip in Boston. I feel a panic attack approaching. I'm talking two humongous cocoons. HUGE!!!!!
I am excited about the fact that I have found my local NPR station. It's one of the only stations that works, so now I can stay connected to the world.
We have a huge television with like 500 channels, but everyone uses it and I can never catch the BBC news (i'm such a dork!), but I can watch Sex and the City reruns around 11pm, when the t.v. traffic dies down. A few of us gather around with treats, a little tradition of sorts.
Ok
Boa Noite

Sunday, July 22, 2007

quote of the day

Recently, I received a letter from my friend Alison who is in New Zealand. I would like to share a quote she included. Thanks Alison!

" The world is a book,
and those who do not travel
read only a page"
- Saint Augustine

HAPPY SUNDAY!

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

mountain mowing

Today I learned the intricate art of mowing a mountain. Believe it or not, i've never mowed a lawn before and today I learned how. We have morning chores and this was mine. It was fun at first, it was almost zen then came the hills. It's such hard work to mow up-hill, I was sweating and panting and well, I got my workout for the day. Then I hit a rock and the machine started smoking (thick billows of blue smoke) and well, that was the end of that.

No bear sightings today. I have been paranoid though. Ever since our cook-out last night, i've been paranoid about ghosts. Some former volunteers talked about how weird things have happened on the mountain. I was really scared and am now paranoid and of course the house i'm supposed to move into in a few weeks is the one that's "haunted". Hmmmmm...

A few new people have arrived and one is American, yay!!!!!! I've got someone, another girl to talk to and relate to. She is also on the promotions team and today (and this was very bizarre at first) we went door to door inviting people to our big open house event. It was interesting. We met our neighbors and got to see some beautiful houses.

We have two new dogs on the mountain, two poodles. It's great to be around so many animals. They protect us from the bears ;0) We've got five dogs and three cats now. The kittens are my favorites, I always bring them into my room to play, they remind me of my little Martha who is somewhere out there.

Monday, July 16, 2007

busy busy busy

Oy!
Yesterday was our free-day! I've returned to the mountain and have settled into my new (temporary) room.
Yesterday I attempted to walk into town with my friend James and it was 45 minutes from our mountain to the nearest anything. It was a great walk though and on the way back the sky opened up and we were completely soaked. It was fantastic. I picked a bouquet of weeds in the rain on my way back.
Yesterday after breakfast, we saw a bear. It was wandering around outside our cafeteria. I ran close to snap a few shots. It actually walked into our kitchen. Luckily one of our dogs barked at it and it went away.

Today is tiring. Taking a little work break. I'm on the promotions team, so I poster and advertise our events and for the organization (hence Rhode Island). Our work day around here is 8am-7pm.
A bunch of new people arrived last night.
I cooked lunch today and I burnt the rice. It was really gross. OOOpppppsss!!!
Tonight we're having a cook-out.
Ciao
(pictures to follow)

Friday, July 13, 2007

pics from 7/13






Apparently, I am under the impression that I am a professional photographer?????

final day in ri

Today was an extremely successful day. We are postering and advertising geniuses. We hit Brown University again, historic Provincetown and what a treat Trinity Repertory Theatre.
We were able to fund raise lunch at Teabucks, a mango lassie at an Indian restaurant and dinner at a gourmet Pizza shop, yum! Good eats, fresh air, good times.

Friday the 13th hmmmmmmmmmm...

TOP 10 REASONS I LIKE RI:
1) Foresty and green
2) Rocky coast surrounded by beaches and boardwalks
3) Fresh air
4) Friendly folks
5) Historic mansions
6) Beautiful cottages
7) Provincetown is the perfect chill city
8) Lighthouses
9) Coffee shops on every corner
10) Brown University college town

TOP 10 REASONS I HATE BUGS:
1) Beady little eyes
2) Come on...why so many legs?
3) What is a thorax anyway?
4) I don't know what they are thinking/plotting
5) One bit me on Tuesday and caused my phone to break
6) One flew into my mouth on Thursday and tried to kill me
7) A tick decided to make itself home on my left cheek...gross!
8) Why are you crawling so fast?
9) Where are you flying to ?
10) Stop it with those buzzing sounds, I can't think!

*Hmmmmmm, will I make it in Angola...time will only tell

It's been fun promoting IICD in RI. When I return tomorrow I begin working on helping out with IICD's 20th anniversary celebration.
My team officially begins training on August 6th.
Can't wait!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

hot hot hot















Today was a scorcher!
We were out in the hot hot sun postering at two universities. This is becoming redundant, I know this, but Rhode Island is so beautiful. I took more pictures today. We have handed out all of our news bulletins and have about 500 more posters to hand out. We've been really successful. The people here are so open to our postering and advertising efforts is great.
I went for a quick dip (in my clothes) in a body of water near one of the universities, it was refreshing. The bees were out in full swing :-( and of course, because i've had such great luck with the insects lately, I swallowed one while chatting it up with Krista on my phone.
Sojourner + Cell Phone + Insects = Catastrophe!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Kingston, Rhode Island is on my top ten list of the most beautiful American cities. It was an expanse of picturesque New England cottages, rolling green hills and flowers. We postered around Rhode Island University today. It was great, apparently a few inquiry calls have been placed to IICD as a result of our postering efforts. Yay! Once again we fund raised free pizza from a shop in the neighborhood. I'm getting really good at this fundraising thing.
Sorry no pictures today, having camera issues (if it's not one technological device it's another).

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Pictures from today








These are highlights from the good parts of today. Yay Newport!

frustration 101

We are in Rhode Island promoting IICD until Saturday. I'll start by saying that Rhode Island is beautiful. Yesturday we were in Providence and it's cute and funky and artsy and the Brown University college town is a blast. Today we went to Newport which is so beautiful and quaint. We have been putting up flyers and promoting the program. It's been a great experience. I'm on a team of two, myself and a Brazilian lady named Val. We have a car (i'm the driver) and a gps system and our goal is to cover Rhode Island. We've made amazing progress. We are staying at an apartment found for us on a site called globalfreeloaders.com, it's great and our food budget is five dollars a day, so we've been fundraising food. Today we were able to get lunch free from Domino's Pizza and dinner free from a wonderful Greek place.
So why you may ask is this entitled frustration 101, well here goes my rant of the hour!
Frustration 101 :
1) Am driving with a GPS system that cuts on and off and I keep getting lost
2) Was on hold with the NYC Board of Education for over 30 minutes today and I still wasn't able to speak with a human. I am trying to get ahold of almost a thousand dollars worth of missing checks from my afterschool Drama program that I directed during the school year.
3) While on hold with the Board of Ed, I was attacked by an unidentifiable beetle-like insect that bit me on my left arm causing me to drop my phone causing it to break into two parts.
I now have no phone!
4) In an attempt to fix my phone situation I asked a girl in Office Max for a phone book so I could look up Sprint stores, there was only one listed and it was and hour away.
When I finally made my way to the store, they told me that they couldn't help me, so I cancelled my service and now really have no phone and have lost everyone's contact information.
5) There are other reasons that I can't post on a public site...
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

Pics from today:

Monday, July 9, 2007

mt. greylock




On Saturday, we climbed Mt. Grelock, the highest point in Massachusetts. It was soooooo nice and very peaceful. We climbed seven miles in about four hours (we had two young children with us under the age of six). Western Mass is very beautiful!

Friday, July 6, 2007


Take a look at this bear track. We've got black bears on the mountain. I found this sucker while taking an evening stroll. It was next to our pretty pond. Now I clap my hands together to make noise when I walk around at night.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Arrival

I have arrived at the IICD training school in Williamstown MA. It's beautiful here. I'm right on top of a mountain. Now I must continue to unpack and set up my temporary room.