Email: journeyman [y**eeeat] gorustic [dh
&*^^awt] com
(I write my email address this way to avoid spam by robots which crawl the web gathering email addresses)
4725 n kerby ave Portland, OR 97217 Home 503-249-1158
March 1st, 2005 Portland, Oregon... Here is our latest news: I should be starting in two weeks as an apprentice with an eco-framing company here who does wood framing as well as a lot of work with Insulated Concrete Forms - an interesting new method of making walls that I am excited to learn about. I have together most of the tools I will need for this (you should bring your own tools to the job in this business!) and am loving the new Occidental Leather tool belt (what a joy to have a tool belt that feels good and tools can be in your hand when you need them almost without thinking about it). To get myself in shape I put up a bit of molding here in the house I'm in on 19th ave and worked two evenings under sky and stars building a chicken coop out of 100% reclaimed materials. Yup, we are soon going to give it a go with two or three hens (which we will raise from chicks). I am thinking they will be Aracanas, a breed which is said to be intellegent a produces light blue, green and red egg shells. Now, in addition to this, we a probably closing on a house on March 10th - a sweet little 1928 bungalow (only 800 sq ft!) on a hillside near the hip-ish/ ghetto-ish Mississippi "arts" district and fifteen minutes bike-ride from downtown. This house will need some serious cosmetic work (we were able to buy some pretty good looking half cans of paint) after we have contractors rebuild the SW corner of the foundation. We are also considering getting a small milk goat but are worried that the already small yard will be taken over by this animal. otherwise.. Weather has been nice and sunday we went for a hike up MT. mitchell, a 6 mi RT, 2100 ft climb from a very remote trailhead to a stony outcropping with a stunning 360 degree view of mt st. helens south flant, mt ranier, mt adams and mt hood plus the green blanket of the gifford pinchot natl forest with all its lakes like a bezel blanket for these volcanic jewels.
January 12, 2005 Oaxaca, Mexico, Happy new year! we arrived in Cancun on the 26th dec after about 35 hours of transit (paris-london-LA stopover for 7 hours-mexico city 2 hours-cancun), spent a wonderful and too short five days with all the allens, then headed to chichen, Merida for sunday festivo, uxmal, Palenque, Aqua Azul in the Chiapas jungle, San Cristobal backpackers paradise, then here- many all nighters, probably a total of 30 hours in bus over the last week. Mexico has gotten a LOT more expansive since I was last here. Most things, like a raw chicken, a cheap tee shirt etc in local places far from the tourist trail cost just the same as in the US in Portland and the normal daily wage here is 5 dollars - how can this not boil over? Voila the glorious effects of NAFTA. We fly out of DF on the 15th and will be back in Portland on the 21st. Pray for us when crossing the border.
December 4th, 2004 Portland, about to go away from Christmas.... Recap since august: we had several visitors here including my mother and father and a freind of Elodie's from Paris named Celine. All of whose minds we properly blew with volcanoes, waterfalls, rainforests and natural hot springs. We have been enjoying ourselves as Elodie's Business grows steadily. I was campaigning for Kerry as a job for three weeks and then had to face the disappointment of the election results, I worked for two weeks as an apprentice to a local carpenter doing window casings and the front door of Powell's books. We have been inproving our temporary home and hope to buy a permanent one (with my parents help of course) when we get back in January and Febuary. We are abou to take off for six weeks. We board the train here in Portland and ride 36 hours to LA then fly to Paris to meet my childhood freind Koji Otsuka. He will share our French family christmas this year and on the day after CHristmas we will fly back to the US and go on to meet my family in the Yucatan travelling afterwards by bus to Chiapas and staying in San Cristobal de las cases (I hope to find a hope stay there) flying to LA from Mexico City and then training it back up to Portland where I will NOT MOVE for the next year and just work work work to get my home renovation / plumbing thing off the ground.
August 26th, 2004 Alberta Arts District, Portland, Oregon. Man oh man have I been delinquent in updating my site! Here marks the end of the period in which I have any possible excuse not to get on line, fix any problems out there and fill in my last year of travel which I never got around to posting anything about (just too busy living it to write about it I guess!). Here is the latest: Now Elodie and I are both living in a house owned by a very cool friend of a friend in a neighborhood which is a mix of hip young artists, raw food progressive "hippies" rubbing shoulders with an old-school-ghetto meets smalltown america nostalgia vibe: this is called Portland's Alberta Arts District. Elodie's work has already gotten some local recognition and has been in the newspaper and on TV, been in four fashion shows and made several sales. Seems Portlanders are pretty happy to see a fashion designer from Paris show up in their town with her sewing machine and smile. For my own part I have been busy getting us set up with a life system here and have so far found: an excellent island only twenty minutes away where I can buy fruit and veggies direct from the farmer which I pick myself (at very reasonable prices like 80 cents per pound for sun ripened heirloom tomatoes), a beater bike for each of us which allows us to bike downtown in twenty five minutes and have no fear leaving there 10 dollar bikes out all day, a nice PC and internet, the kitchen stocked from garage sales with a serviceable tool set, a great local hardware (Parkrose Hardware), local co-ops for dry goods, built two so far successful worm composting bins, and been making real progress in baking using a great bread recipe based on a slow-fermented poolish. I am supporting elodie in getting her work out in front of the public but very soon will turn to mounting my own handyman/renovator business (which I am apprehensive about in this city of handymen). So far so good in a city full of culture, berries and abundant fruit, open minded NICE people and a stones throw form delicious virgin nature on every side. I am hoping to try crabbing in the next week or so (first run boatless costs about ten bucks and with a four hour boat rental about fifty) and would love to find a way to fish this falls salmon run on the Columbia.
July 7th, 2004 we are right now moving north up the west coast of the US in a 1979 Mercedes diesel wagon: wish us luck!!!
June 30, 2004 We are now in LA buying a used diesel car we can convert later on down the road to straight vegitable oil. My parents leave town today but we will stay on for a few more days to do car repairs and renovation probably leaving after july 4th up the coast, campground to campground the 1000 miles (1600 kilometers) to Portland, Oregon.
April 2, 2004 The site is now back up after being offline for a week. Sorry about that! I forgot to renew my domain name registration and the sky fell in. During this same week of web chaos my back was wracked with pain I aquired by abruptly lifting Elodie on my shoulders at the foot of Mont Martre - I guess my lower back was uncommonly stiff from a long bike ride I had done around the eastern suburbs of Paris a couple days before with my new freind Farid who lives just under Elodie's mother's place. On a metaphysical level I decided my back injury was something I needed to ask myself why I feel this guilt and anger against myself for not constantly making progress on my objectives (whatever they are). This began long ago and may be legacy from my father but I became aware of it as interfering with my being able to feel joy and peace on this trip back in Greece? Anyway, we have two months left here to earn money so that we can pay for our airplane tickets, a car upon arrival (plus insurance and fees), the first couple month's fuel and rent money etc. I figure we need a total of $5,700.00 to $7,000... So voila! back to making progress....
March 17, 2004 Just arrived in Paris, France and the sun has followed us: we are both hitting the ground running to work and save money for our return to the US in the first week of June.
March 3rd We are now in Los Angeles with my parents, we have extended our Franc return date back to the 16th of this month. I am looking forward to spending more time with my family here, exploring a few things with Elodie like Museums and hopefully also Joshua Tree Natl Park etc. It is brightly sunny here with fantastic sunsets. If I am lucky I will see my long lost friend Matthew McVicker Beighley during this remaining time.
Feb 23, 2004
Greetings from breathtaking Vancouver British Columbia, Canada. Elodie is dozing here by my side after we had a late dinner at a very cool, very young Japanese place here on Robeson street called Kitayana Guu (serving what are basically Japanese tapas). This is our bonus night here since we were not allowed to get on the train we had booked back to Seattle due to the Customs officer having a bad day and us haveing the bad luck of not having Elodie's LA-Paris return ticket on hand. We will go get a printout of our itinerary in ticket form from the United desk at the airport tomorrow so we can head out. So.... after leaving portland we trained straight up to Seattle on a coupon fare I printed off the internet getting us there for only 15 bucks each, spent the first five days staying with sweet Carmen the francophile cat lover, exploring the downtown, some parks with great views of the bay, trying to discover the cool neighborhoods but never quite finding the center of the action. We then rented a car for the weekend and went out to stay on the Olympic Penninsula with a lovely family (thanks Sheila and Gary Martin - we cant wait to get back and see you again!) in Port Angeles where we explored the mountains, rain forests, snow-surrounded natural hot springs by day and were treated like a long-lost member of our host's tribe by night. We then returned to Seattle, took a Free Cab ride around time with Jacob (http://freeridecabs.com
) loved a bright rainbow over the city, then beat it up to Vancouver where we hiked Stanley park eveywhichway (the hightlight being Elodie getting a squirrel to crawl up on her chest to be fed and us both having tiny birlinds flying down to eat nuts out of our hands), hiked the BCMC trail up to snowy grouse mountain, spent the day walking Lynn canyon with its suspension bridge over COLD emerald waters and then being fed like kings from the master fisherman Don and his charming wife april and daughter Coho (go Salmon Nation!). I can say from that experience that Canada Rye whisky is smoother than it smells (but I still cant drink whisky!), red spring salmon is wonderfully firm, "fan du monde" is still good and chicken nuggets with quail egg batter is superb. We explored the west end, downtown and commerical drive (the yEast siyeed Dave Billington!). Nothing beats Vancouver's proximity to nature and I love the dream of smoking my own hand-caught salmon but could I ever become Canadian? Lets see what happens in November with the Bush Election.
Feb 3rd, 2004
Hi ho from Portland, Oregon in the great Pacific Northwest. This appears to be quite a nice little city with its blend of hippie, yuppie and logger and one very large shaggy forest part. We reached Oregon about a week ago by driving Sam, a Raw eater nomad from Ashland, Oregon who had badly damaged his ankle while visiting a friend in Berkley. We squeezed into his borrowed pickup with a sweet brown dog and headed up north, Jason at the wheel. The landscape was flat and midwest-like until we finally hit the mountains just north of Redding,CA. From there things got fantastic with everything peppered with fresh snowfall, shasta lake deep and clear, its thick pine coasts and islands ringed by an outcry of bright red soil... we arrived for our planned stop in Mt Shasta town (to meet an old friend Hamid a.k.a. Raha Hastim a.k.a. Azim from the two Sierra Nevada mountaineering expeditions and one Joshua tree retreat at his new home) and low and behold as we turned one road the clouds cleared in a circular pattern in the sky revealing *gasp* the peak of Mt. Shasta, one of Americas most beautiful volcanic peaks. After that we did some scary driving through the mountains (passing through the most gorgeous wide high mountain valley near Weed), stopped and made dinner in Ashland , then three more hours of scary driving to arrive at the home of the economads in Eugene! http://www.economads.com We spent four days there learning about the �living food?or �raw?lifestyle, explored Eugene (which had a great organic food cooperative, lots of activism and not as much car-less nature access as I had expected) and shared a moment of their lives and that of another family on the richer side of town with whom we finally caught a ride up to Portland. Now we are in a house with five college girls, we have made them dinner and I baked choc chip cookies last night and it has been a joy meeting the people of Portland who have been overall very friendly, curious and kind?more than one people who we asked for directions have gone out of their way to show us around and introduce us to the city. On the news front turns out Chip and Maria are NOT coming to Seattle to meet us, I have heard nothing from Mike D and Andreas and Autumn back in San Francisco just got engaged!
January 25, 2004 Greetings from the lovely Bay Area! Autumn and Andreas (Garret turned out to be Autumn's last name!) were a cool couple (she from LA near my parents new home, he a german techology worker - vegitarians probably soon to be married if the stars are aligned) great apartment in charmingly decaying building in one of the mission district's hipper corners near Dolores Park a stone's throw from the Castro with all its colors. Yosemite was a black white and green beauty glowing gold in the afternoon, we camped three nights in the winter snow (not bad for Elodie's first time camping out of a backpack), nordic skied, snowshoed and hiked on the rocks all ending in a great ride hitchhiking back from three charming asian exchange students in their rentacar. Jon's boat turned out to be a wonderful boat, laquer peeling, full to the gills but room for us (but not our bags!) to sleep on the foredeck, rocked in the cradle of the harbor swells and creaking of the mooring lines. He rode the dotcom wave and now plans his own world trip. I am thinking that if we settled on LA I might propose to do repairs on his boat and sublet it during his absence (about three months).
I am actually at this moment writing you from a dock in the San Francisco bay but dont be jealous.. it is cold here too. I rented a car with elodie and we went up to a natural hot spring in the mountains above napa this weekend (harbin hot springs) owned by a religious community called the church of heart conciousness where everyone is nude in and around the springs and pools but again, too cold to be naked outside of the water other than to run into the changing room or between pools etc. We are getting an excellent overview of California's varied natural treasures. Now we are gearing up to ride out of here with me driving the car of a craiglist.org user from Portland who broke his foot while down here in the bay area - question is: how will he get those last miles from Eugene to Portland? So we may turn out to drive him the rest of the way and backtrack to Eugene somehow.....
January 10, 2004 Happy new year everyone! Greetings from sunny LA. Elodie and I are ridesharing up to San Francisco with a fellow named Dennis 415-244-4881 where we will be staying with a kind couple named Autumn and Garret for about five days 415-254-0805, zipping over to Yosemite with public transport and then coming back and staying with a fellow named Jon Geilhulfe (http://www.privilegedlife.org) on Pier 39 for a few days before moving on northward towards Eugene. We are having a great time with my lovely family and have both gotten over our colds (thank God).) It is a pain to leave my family so soon after not having seen them for two years but the immovable deadline of Elodie's tourist visa expiring in only ten weeks demands it.
December 26, 2003 Spent the whole time in Bretagne sick in bed, fever and now it looks like elodie might be getting the same thing. How can I not infect the whole family when I get home? Anyway, for the next two months the best way to reach me is by email. Ill be moving up the west coast and checking it all the time. When I get home I hope to call all my people and I send a special Christmas hug out to Maria and Chip the barons of spice, Mike D, Dromi down under, joyous holidays!!!!
December 19, 2003 Working like mad these last days to stock up on cash before we head to Bretagne for Christmas and then immediately after to LA and the Pacific Northwest of the US for two months to check out the terrain and see if the rain is tolerable (since we are going there at the worst weather time of the year this may be a good test). First time Elodie meets my family... first time she sees the US and the first time I visit the US in two years. I am expecting a stron culture shock around the point of all the Terrorism and Bush war machine mental programming I have missed. I am not at all going to have the same opinions or perspectives as the rest of the tribe (especially after having marinated in Frances own mental programming for almost a year!). Like most people who dont love seeing shamless plunderers in Office I am hoping anyone will beat Bush despite the boost the irrelevant Sadam capture has given him as we roll into the primary elections.
I have just been a work groove lately (installing Bang and Olefson sterios, Fontana Arte suspension lights, assembling furniture and doing electrical and plumbing work) pretty much oriented towards saving money while enjoying Paris as a background to all this as a bike around from one job to the next, warming up to the people I know here (the rumors are true - Parisians are NOT easy) and excited about just having read a 1000 page American spy novel entirely in French (the Parsifal Mosaique). That is a breakthrough and a big step up from the comic books I have been reading up to now. Tonight I am supposed to sneak into the illegal catacombs with a freind who knows the terrain - Ill let you know how that turns out! By the way London was OK, coincided with the Bush royal visit, enjoyed the Tate Modern Gallery, choked on fish and chips, bitter ales, Dan from Laos, Camden Town Cyber Dog shop!, walking the whole city in the rain and seeing my cousin Anehseh from Tehroon.
November 16, 2003 I am going to London tomorrow by bus and will stay for three days to have left the shengen area area and return to France with another three months to stay legally as a tourist (not allowed to work). this is not the best moment however, as I have been getting some nice renovation jobs and estimates from my newspaper and what I really want to do these days is work, save money etc. and not SPEND money one of the world's most expensive cities. THe upside is that I will get to take a peek at london, visit perhaps one old freind (if I can make it up to nottingham) and see one of my Iranian relatives who is studying English there.
November 6, 2003 Hallelujah! News emailed to me from California this morning: My sister at age fourtysomething just gave birth to a eight pound baby girl; Madeline Grace Attar Allen: our tribe has a new member!!!!
October 29, 2003 I am with Elodie right now in Barcelona and we are heading north over the next several days by bus and hitchhiking back to Paris by way of Marseilles and Lyon. If you know anyone in Montpelier we could stay with for a night on the way let me know!! Earlier this week I visited Granada again for the first time in six years and rediscovered my love for that city and the Alhambra. I even stayed in the same apartment I had lived in when I studied there back in 1994!
October 4, 2003 Ok, so I have been lazy by not
writing sooner? That is what happens when I get
sucked into external life for periods?the reflective
self this web page represents gets neglected. So yes,
my joy ?here it is in a nutshell (and dont doubt that
it has changed since I first mentioned it): My
plan is that by years end I will move back to the US,
visit my family for some weeks (god willing in sync
with my sisters giving birth to her first child at the
age of 40 plus) and then move up to Cascadia (north
California all the way north to British Columbia), eye
my dream city (top candidates now are Eugene, Portland
and Vancouver) and settle down to begin working as a
general do-everything man (electricity, plumbing,
breaking walls, installing kitchens, bathrooms etc),
training with masters, going to seminars, working into
a specialty of ecologic construction. I have a sense
of wonderful openness and myriad possibilities when I
think about it. I plan to do this for at least three
years and during that time identify and perhaps move
part or full time to a largish piece of land at the
foot of the mountains where I can spread out, create
large workshop areas, guest spaces, perhaps eventually
even a BB, Conference place or cafe. I want to
produce and sink in. Personally this will give me
control over my time, working with my hands and my
sweat, the opportunity to hire other people, and all
where I can have a constant and ever growing contact
with nature, the mountain and, my new lover: the
living Pacific northwest sea. Thank god for this
revelation! Until then I am working right here in
Paris installing bathrooms and building shelves, doing
electricals in private homes, reinforcing walls and
fixtures in a fancy paris mens store, catering dinners
events in a student residence outside of Paris every
few weeks. Squatting here and there, trying to save
money so that I can return home with something in my
pocket. I am doing less yoga and much more work and
experimenting with bits of chi gong and trying to get
into tai chi based on the advice of sperm retention
guru Koji Otsuka down in Houston. This hurts a little
bit as my body is fully accustomed to one and a half
hours of yoga per day (or is it the construction work
?ouch my hands!) but I am trying to channel the more
aggressive energy that remains.
August 13, 2003 Hitchhiking from Porte Puymorens in the pyrennes to Chamonix in the Alps. It is hot in the lowlands! In the mountains near Le Etang de Lanoux I discovered my joy after moving through rage, more rage, my defaults and defects, and then my dreams and loves. I was alone in this and that was destiny. I send all of you my love and thank God for grace, I thank the universe for helping me find my joy... Hallelujah!!!! This will change everything, all former plans are suspended. Get ready for big news.
August 7, 2003 I WILL BE AWAY FROM EMAIL UNTIL AUGUST 16TH. Leaving tonight with Elodie to the South of France to a high plateau called Larzac where as Elodie said this morning we will be "lost in nature with 100,000 other people." The idealists are coming to suport the Pesant's Confederation of France and many other biologic, anti GM crops (since human health effects untested), anti globalization etc etc. The less ideal are coming there to see the nature, connect with ecologic culture in France and see some free concerts includingi Manu Chao. http://www.monde-solidaire.org/larzac-2003/ Then we will try to cross the pyrennes on foot (le chemin des Bonneshommes) and see if it is possible to organize a remote trek in and out cheaply and using public transportation. We expect to be back in Paris on the 16th or 17th of August to resume our work to earn cash and find a place to live together. Other news: Dave Cygan just contacted me by email for the first time in eons and suprised me by appearing to have followed my progress all along and used several language translators or co-workers to send me messages in Spanish and French (what is next dave? Farsi?). Also we are having the hottest days here in Paris (111 degrees Fahrenheit) since WWII and a drought. Also, Elodie and I are planning to institute a thing called a PACS which is kind of like a formal government commitment together and with this in hand will try to get my carte de sejour which allows me to work here legally (right now my sister in LA is searching frantically for the key document, my certificate of birth abroad). Also my tourist visa to be in France expires Sept 19th and to get another three months as a tourist I have to exit and reenter the shengan territories (meaning most of W Europe) closest non-shengan countries are the UK and Switzerland so I will be doing one or the other the second week of March god willing.
July 29, 2003
Now getting settled in Paris: looking for work, food sources, fixing toilets and washing machines, wires, money, Iranian culture here (please send me Contacts!). Days a mix of house renovation, chocolate chip cookies baking, bargain hunting for vegitables, writing lists, calling loved one, biking to run errands on the mad streets of Paris, rainy days, sunny days with wind, Elodie, research, cooking, reflection. Send me any Iranian music you love to my address here. I am missing that. Wish I could have an invitation from somewhere for gormeh sabzi too!
July 16th, 2003
STILL IN PARIS..... A HAH!: Decided not to go to Scandinavia for several reasons including: 1) no money at all 2) not a clear program/ set of invitations to communities in Scandinavia 3) No where to stay in Stockholm 4) and most importantly, I AM FINALLY A BIT WORN OUT ON TRAVELLING and here have the opportunity to begin my "year of reflection" building up a stable living, working, writing situation here with a wonderful partner in one of the world's most beautiful & charming cities. In short: the moving part of the trip is for at least one year officially over and I am going deep in Paris instead of wide over Mother Earth. Of course I have doubts etc but I have decided to commit to this year so please wish me luck! Love, JJ
July 15th, 2003
LATEST NEWS: My flight is scheduled to leave this PM, actually I need to be at Porte Maillot in and hour and a half for the bus to Paris Bauvais Airport but I am not sure about going. I am half considering stuffing the whole thing, declairing this trip officially over and looking for stability, income, a living space etc.
July 9th, 2003
DRASTIC CHANGE OF PLANS: after reviewing transport options from Paris and time limitations produced by the weather I discovered that the most sensible way to go is to fly to Stockholm and bike south from there through Denmark, a land rich in Eco communities (or so Ive been told, please send any leads or hints you have). So I went ahead and made the rash move of buying an air ticket with Ryan Air to fly from Paris Beauvais Airport (I have no idea where this airport is) to Stockholm July 15th at night for 40 Euros plus another 25 for my bike. This way I can take my time moving south and if opportunity strikes I may get a ferry or fishing ship that could take me cheaply back to aberdeen or newcastle in the UK so I can finish with realizing a visit to Findhorn (time and weather permitting). True, Sweden does not have any big attraction like Findhorn to call me but correspondingly I expect their eco-communities to be less beaurocratic than Findhorn turned out to be and hopefully I can find with them a true "work for room and board" situation when I visit. On the personal front my connection to Elodie grows confusing as the days move on. On the business front: we are organizing a sale as part of an arts organization's quayside sale in the 4th district of Paris this Sunday where we aspire to sell APA clothes, drums and elements from Elodies artistic works. Word is that the boat full of Drums was a little delayed but is safely on its way now towards Boston. ATTENTION: if you know anything about important projects of phenomena to visit in Sweden please let me know right away.
July 1st, 2003
Still in Paris and now it looks like I may fly out solo on July 8th from Paris to Glasgow, Scotland (closest destination to Findhorn Community) for about 90 Euros one-way including taxes and charges for my bicycle. The last week here has been rough as I watched poor Elodie blow a fuse and make some dismal personal choices that kept me also in a painful agony of indecision. We are picking up the pieces now but it was not fun. The final decision is that I go on to Scandinavia alone and she stays here to persue her career as a fashion designer by preparing for a fashion show in October. We will see where we both are when I get back to Paris in the fall after exploring the northern climes and their eco-communities. Financially I have just reviewed everything and discovered that I am precisely the proud posessor of zero dollars. I currently have a bicycle and four african drums and some shirts as soft assests, a 50% stake in the AfroParAsian clothes project, a 50% stake in the InKaboom west african drum project (now at sea somewhere between Accra and Boston), and a 100% stake in the low-profit Hammam soap project which has been crippled in the US by the US Postal Customs new policy of indefinitely holding all packages from Syria. And under these conditions I embark to bike accross the worlds most expensive countries?! Madness... mais bon allors. Lets go!
June 23, 2003
Still in Paris, I am not sure what is next since Elodie is reviewing her possibilities until monday then she may come along (unlikely) or she may stay in Paris to keep her ascension as a fashion designer rolling and I will go on solo with my trusty bicycle and tent first stop: Scotland. Does anyone want to bike from Glasgow to Edinborough around July 6th or so? Email me!
June 20, 2003, BONJOUR! I have arrived safe in Paris (in Spring, not bad :) ) and am comfortably settled at the nice home of a freind in the 18ieme district (behind MonMartre) for the next two weeks while I get the AfroParAsian clothes business going here and then perhaps head north to fulfill the plan to visit eco-communities in Scandinavia by bike.
June 17, 2003, grounded in Ouagadougou (not Ouaga doo doo, you toddlers!). My Paris flight is delayed until tomorrow (I hear from france but here they are telling us we can take off at 4 PM), now waiting in Ouaga with little purpose, all baggage has been checked.
June 16th, 2003
After a thirty one hour bus ride I am back in Ouagadougou where it is not nearly as hot as last time and what once was desert has turned into vast green grassy plains under the constant shade trees with their squat umbrella forms. The last 184 kilometers from the Burkina border to the capitol took seven hours as the police stopped and searched all passangers and baggage nine times.
I have bought a last drum from Burkina here and all that remains for me to do is an itense packing session tonight before I leave for the airport at 4 Am to return back to Paris on BIE flight 912 arriving in Charles De Gaulle Airport at Terminal 3 at 4:40 PM Tuesday the 17th only seven hours after it takes off.
Good news includes word that our drum, gongs and shea butter shipment left Ghana on sunday's boat and is on its way to Boston. Also, Barry just received and is very enthusiastic about the six hours of material I recorded (and dozens of photos and quicktime movies) he will use to produce a compact disk for the Talented Youth Theatre of Accra, Ghana.
June 13th, 2003
sweet Elodie should not worry as I am safe and finally breathing again as 49 beautiful drums are on their way to Barry in Boston and all is almost settled on the money side. It looks like I might have to skip seeing Kumasi for the day unless I am suddenly hit by a second wind and a desire to brave heavily-laden travel all by my self at night to the Ashanti capital. That way I would have a sleepless day there followed by the joy of a sleepless night traversing the sahel to Burkina in time for my flight to France monday night. Who knows it may be rainy and lovely in formerly glass-furnace-like Ouagadougou by now. Here in Accra it just rains and rains lately and has actually gotten to be good to have a fleece jacket. Apparently, back in Europe, I am now the owner of a very elderly laptop donated to me by my generous big brother via a sweet pond-hopping septegenarian auntie - the possibility to be really remote and yet work on things awaits. Still not clear what the exact plan will be once back in Paris but I am going to see what happens. The default plan is visit with Elodie and France for two weeks working on contacting stores for our APA clothes project and then tune up the bike and set out with stove and tent and laptop(and freind?) to volunteer at the most innovative eco-communities in Scandinavia for as long as the cruel northern weather will allow.
June 4, 2003, Accra & Village, Ghana
Working to complete my order of fine African drums, skins and shea butter to the US and voila! comes an order out of France via Elodie for some 45 pieces of our Afro ParAsian clothing. Doubletime. Both of these have to come to a finish soon since I am now the proud owner of a Pointe Afrique air ticket from Ouagadougou to Paris on June 17th. I am hoping to be able to spend a few days near Kumasi, the yet-unvisited Ashanti kingdom's homeland in central Ghana and restless Tamali in the north for a day to connect to my Baobab roots before returning to the Burkina oven for full roasting. *wish me luck*
May 23rd, 2003
Now back in Accra, Ghana after doing that lovely 24 hour shake and bake bus ride down through the deserts of Burkina and jungles of Ghana for the second time in four days. Hit the ground running here with the persuit of shipping methods to send maybe 400, maybe 911 kilos of the finest twenebua drum kits (to make your own drums) and some assembled here to Boston where my new partner in this venture drools over the prospect of zen-like drum heading perfection. Meanwhile Elodie has turned into an electronic figment writing little lines of text and occasionally appearing around the edges of my conciousness during yoga. The weather here is also steamy hot but relative to Ouagadougou this is a treat to be back in South Ghana.
May 21st, 2003
Still in Ouaga but now revving up to again do the 24 hour bus ride down south to Accra, Ghana where I can understand the shipping situation and see if I can get a container of drum frames, rings, skins, cases sent over to my new Boston partner in this venture to sell out of his home as kits or assembled top-quality bukrabes, sogos, djembes etc. I am uncertain how long all of this will take but I want all to be finished in two weeks; Elodie left yesterday and I have been feeling very eager to go join her there in France and move on to the Scandinavia eco-communities project. If you know anyone who is looking to ship from Ghana to the US and wants to share our container please let me know.
May 19th, 2003: Greetings from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso where it is 110 degrees and everything is boiling hot and dry. You are always asking yourself here "who opened the glass furnace?" but after four months of conditioning in West Africa it doesn't hurt. MY sweat glands have never been in better working order. I am sad now in anticipation of Elodie's actual leaving tomorrow at 5 AM where she goes back home suddenly to visit her father as he goes into surgery there. The good news is I have sold a few drums to happy collectors and will use this last two weeks (god willing) to make something like 20 more drums to sell on speculation. THing is, drums take up more space than they are heavy so I will have about 9 kilos of space to fill for each drum with malian bogolon fabrics,, drum skins and other such fun things. IF you have any ideas please let me know.
ALERT!: If you want to buy and excellent djembe (goat skin doublewoven) or kpanlogo drum shipped to you in Europe, Asia or the USA for a total of 150 USD please email me before the end of May. I have made a page about the drums with pictures and a slideshow on how they are made with pictures of me and elodie at work: Click Here for West African Drum Page
April 23, 2003
Just got back to Accra after four days hiking in the Avatime hills region where we got away this Easter weekend for a break from Accra's heat and chaos. Suprisingly cool there and a totally lush green world of polite people, isolated villages and even some waterfalls. I recommend going there to anyone, especially the no-public-transportation (we walked there from Amedzofe) village of Biakpa. Now we are back to finish up the clothes making work, find a good shipping company to use going forward, buy and ship some alata soap (I hope to introduce people to this excellent fully ecological West African body soap), and perhaps if ambitious have some Djembes and panlogos made and shipped to different points along my proposed route in Scandinavia as a sort of money infusion for me along the way. After some struggling with the idea I have almost fully decided to abandon the overland back to France idea because of shortage of time (I want to be back in Paris by the first week June and it is almost May and I am still at the coast) and unfavorable weather (it is something like 45 degrees C plus in all of the Sahel and Sahara now and it is sandstorm season). This means that I will probably try to fly back from Bamako, Mali near the end of May direct to Paris using the Pointe Afrique charter plane for 325 USD.
April 13, 2003
Still in Accra, Ghana. Now there is rain that falls almost every two days and so that helps to offer bouts of respite from the humid heat here. Latest news is that I have received my camera couriered for free from the US by Chalie Schlaman, a kind fellow from Minnesota we picked up at the airport and showed around for his first two days here. Elodie and I are were working hard all this week on our clothes project here, with me making little progress on finding out about shipping options for future deliveries of clothes when (god willing) we get orders for clothes over the internet or from shops in Europe and the US. I have been taking drumming lessons all this week from a master drummer here in the mornings. I just finished learning all four parts for the Ewe rythym called "gota" and now am beginning with the Panlogo drum, the traditional drum of the Ga people. I have never been exposed to such swingng complex rythyms before so this is great fun and very challenging. Elodie was originally planning to return home to France on the 29th of April but it looks like she will be sticking around for the time being. I myself am in a quandry whether to stick to my original plan of going back overland to France by way of Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco and Spain (which at this juncture if done would have to be done in a month - impossible for me!) or just take my time here learning and producing and then try to raise money (no idea how) and fly back to France with Elodie in time to begin the Scandinavian eco-community biking journey.
March 21, 2003 Greetings from Accra, Ghana. Now in the anglophone world once again and suprised how that does not necessarily make communication with Ghanians that much easier (in terms of getting clear information about where things are, how to get there etc) but it definitely helps in terms of humor and warmth. Snap judgement on Ghanians is that they are easygoing and love to make jokes with each other and me. Also, we already came accross a school practicing a dance and drum ceremony for their upcoming awards day and we were baptised into the local Ga (the majority of Accra is the Ga people) cultures percussion. Oh my! This was fantastic and complex rhythm, it moved me in a dancing way that none of the ceremonial rhythms did in Benin. Now we are seeing who we can make contact with here in Ghana, if anyone out there knows anyone living or working on a project here please email.
As might be expected the world is abuzz with news of the American war on Iraq, no mention has been made in any major US media of the Human Sheild Convoy and their fate during this bombing (to me an obvious sign of wartime censorship), and the BBC is doing their best to present the American decision to disregard the only standing world body (the UN) and agress without apoproval as American sagacity in understanding that the Iraqi Arms violations are just a symptom of a bad regime. So, according to this logic the US is just getting to the root of things faster and better than the UN instead of the more widely held view that the US is violating every diplomatic covenant we have made for the last fifty years by acting alone (with the exception of VP Blair and the Australians) and imposing regime change from the outside to stabilize oil supplies in the region according to western interests. Message to my American brothers and sisters: we are seeing many things on TV that act in concert to convince us to have a certain perspective on events unfolding in Iraq. Please do not imagine for one second that we are hearing real dissenting voices or that the major US media channels are offering truly independant reporting. Please let us be sceptical and seek other sources of information on the internet, Short wave radio if we can and using any other language than english if we can. Gathering from those sources we may be able to balance out the information that comes to us easily from the major US media and arrive at, God willing, some sort of more balanced perspective. You can visit my list of independent reporting on the war links here
March 14, 2003
Still in Ouidah, Benin
and finally made the decision to buy the Olympus 3020 camera which with an extra 128 Meg card and 8 NiMH AAs will cost me about 430 USD. I may be able to eliminate the 100 USD courier cost by the help ofa a wonderful Minnisota man who volunteered via internet to carry it over to Accra for me for free on April 9th. This expenditure to replace the stolen camera is more than 30% of my total remaining money. I think I will soon be taking the unprecidented step soon of writing a mass mail to everyone asking that those that can donate one USD or Euro to my camera replacement do so using paypal. Who knows what the response will be (I hope positive!).
But now that this commitment has been made we are free to move west to Ghana. Probably we will head out sunday. Before we go I may borrow the SLR camera of our roomate here and go out and shoot a roll so I have some record of our six weeks here in the cradle of west african tradition.
March 9, 2003
In Ouidah, Benin hoping the worldwide nightlights Iraq war protest is a success. This little city's charms grow as I learn to eat the right things, find the ceremonies that excite me and get into the West African life rhythm a bit. I am thinking about everyone I have met on the way (and my family) during my morning meditations. Everywhere here there is decay and traditionalism mixing in a wierd dance to the ever-present sound of live ceremonial drumming, and recorded salsa, reggae traditional music in the air. No one gets tired of greeting me as "whitey" which is "yo vo" in the local language called Fon but a few people are beginning to learn my name.
I am still dealing with the problem of ordering my replacement camera and praying that someone from North America to West Africa will suddenly write me. If not I will be sending it using a not that certain method to a not that certain address from an EBay seller who is not that interested in helping me get this camera. Ah life.
February 28, 2003
Staying in Ouidah and honing in on a replacement camera to be shipped to Accra, Ghana. Final choices are the Olympus 3020 (would upgrade me to a camera with a picture quality very close to that of 35mm slides) for about 350 USD all in or the Olympus 520 (about the same as my last camera, the Olympus 460D but with a few new features) for about 250 USD all in. In both cases I would also have to buy an extra 128 mg smartmedia card. My problems are that I dont have the money (I am hoping and praying for a miracle here) to do this and I dont yet have a secure address to send the camera to.
Besides the camera reordering question I am looking to the correct moment to swoop down on Abomey, see the final situation with the theives and call this thing finished.
February 25, 2003
Ultimately Elodie decided to stay just in the last thirty seconds as the bus was pulling out for Ouagadougou. She has decided to stay here in West Africa for another month and try to mount a fashion show using local materials, local production (ideally with women tailors participating in Micro Credit Aid Programs), local models aand two sets of designs to appeal to African and European chic taste: she is a creator of fashion who mounted five fashion shows in Paris last year so I assume she knows what to do.
February 23, 2003
Quick note from Lome, Togo (much more "modern" and "Florida-esque" than any city we saw in Benin). We are here after spending the entire day yesterday in Coutonou dealing with banks in the morning so Elodie could have money for her bus ticket to Ouagadougou (where she is scheduled to fly back from at 2AM Tuesday) THEN spent six hours asking everyone in the world about busses to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Everyone sent us on wild goose chases and the end finding is there are no bus comanies going to Ouagadougou (in fact there are only two bus companies that can take one inside benin OR to very unappealing Abidjan, Cote d Ivoire. We returned the incredibly hot and slow 2 hr bush taxi ride to Ouidah, I made a dinner of Hommos and salad for Jan and her host Francois and Francois told us that we had merely been to the wrong part of Cotonou. Despite the fact that Francois is a certified source of misinformation, we got Elodie packed and up the next morning at 6 and we went back East one hour to Cotonou, basically rode around there visiting the same informationless points and discovered that we needed to be two hours West of Ouidah (our starting point) to catch any bus to Ouagadougou. So we are here, Elodie has done her absolute best (she was in charge of organizing all this) to miss her bus and thereby miss her flight so that she can stay here and feel good about it (somehow, she's French, I'm confused also) and even now she is making last ditch efforts to find if she CAN change her flights even though we have barely one hour left before her bus leaves.
On the camera front there was only one shop in all of the capitol of Benin with Digital cameras and they had one model of camera of 3 Megapixels which they wanted 1300 USD for (about 250% of the actual price of the same camera online). So I think from that we can know the situation concerning the availability of Digital Camera shopping in Benin.
February 21, 2003
Now in Ouidah near the coast and have been here for four nights so far. We just moved from being near the beach and the Point of No Retour to a house in town where we stay with a French sociologist researching Voudou funerary rituals and her Beninoise NGO worker host - much cheaper and near to everything except no beach! I was very sick the first three days we were here with a roaring fever that we had tested at the hospital blood and stool samples revealing no Malaria, no typhoid, no meningitis, no parasites - a mystery (perhaps Voudou?!). Here is a few snapshots as we reminisce over what happened back in Abomey and the subsequent course of the "investigation" by very loudly sympathetic neighbors, the cheif fetisher and cheif of the collectivity Anagoun Baba, his desciples, the drummer Paul who invited us to the ceremony, who both along with other desciples were very vocal that the perpetrators of this crime "are going to pay" "be crushed" "fall dead within three days etc"; the uncle of Paul who undertook a separate investigation on our account, a nun who told us cryptically that "here the person that you think is most in your corner, who invites you to the ceremony, who appears to be the one who hosts you is probably behind the whole thing (meaning its some sort of scam). As promised we left town despite there always being a sure chance significant progress would be made towards catching the theives just the next day, juuuust if we wait a biiiit longer. The point was, as Paul's uncle advised, with us being gone the theives would finally come out of hiding (we know there names and their home and supposedly have the cheif of their family on our side) thinking we let the whole thing drop. We are supposed to call every few days to check on things back in Abomey and so far it sounds like no action by any of the loud talkers (this is a very Abomeyan story) and the wait continues.
February 18, 2003
Double bummer! I just found out that I do not have any insurance that can cover this loss.
February 15, 2003
Disaster has struck! Disaster has struck ! My camera and minidisc player both have been stolen along with the video camera we had borrowed from the cousin of my Parisian companion Elodie. Now I am left here with no way of capturing the experience of being in West Africa other than what is written on my heart and notebook. This all happened at the end of a traditional ceremony here when a well known hoodlem in the quarter sat behind me and started speaking with me while his friend got under the bench we were sitting on and slipped away with the backpack I had between my feet. We then got to watch the local justice system work though the elders of the Quarter as they did the investigation, learned the name and address of the perpretrators just to the point of me meetiong with the head of their family and finding that they had fled the Quarter and were in hiding and would stay in hiding until they felt the coast was clear. To facilitate thier coming out of hiding we are leaving tomorrow (we are making the formal declaration to the police today) but will keep in contact with our second here by phone and then return (at least I alone should return, Elodie is scheduled to return to France on February 25th from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso) here to see if reclaiming the equipment from the hoods or the buyers is possible through family pressure (although the whole family seem to be hoods) . Obviously this plan is anything but reassuring and the chances or recouperating anything are slim at best. If anyone has any ideas on how I can replace a digital camera while in West Africa, please let me know.
February 14, 2003
Greetings from Abomey, Benin. This is the home of a very large kingdom which existed here from the 1600s until the French takeover in 1918 and the beleif in Voudou and tradition seems indeed to be very strong. They are quite familiar with Foreigners here but we have not seen many other than ourselves. One sure sign of their foreigner familiarity is that everyone
