Thanksgiving all over again

 Ohhhh looky here....I thought I lost this post into cyberspace, but the draft was sitting here all along...just waiting for me to press 'publish'.  More thanksgiving is in order for me then. :)

It's Thanksgiving and I am in Canada giving thanks for an abundant lack of beans and tortillas,  fall colours, the sensation of feeling chilled, and many, many warm and welcoming friends and family.  After 8 months out of country, I was spurred by a bought of homesickness and a window of opportunity that presented itself after the successful completion of the Sources-Fuentes project  , to come for a visit before the snow flew in earnest.

On the Importance of Outhouses

Over the past couple of weeks I wake up and repeat the mantra, "I am calm, and at peace." a few times before I dart out of bed and start the day.  It's been a little crazy around here lately with the arrival and then departure of some Honduran volunteers for my "Sources" Canada World Youth  water project, my first experiences with Honduran financial paperwork, and scrambling to apply to the "Glimpse Correspondents' Program" by yesterday's deadline.  All this, and a boss who was travelling in Mexico and was only intermittently available by Blackberry or occasional messages from fellow ASONOG employees.  Skype, Facebook, texting...I use technology here as much or more than I did in Canada.

I am happy to report that this Canada Day is chill  for me, and I'm enjoying a little down time along with all the Canadians who are vacationing today.  If you're out camping in the British Columbia wilderness this long weekend, give Smokey the Bear a hug for me would you? 

The Advantages of Milking By Hand

A brahma/jersey cross.  Big floppy ears disperse heat and increase 'adorable' by a factor of 5.

The first, and only, time I considered becoming a vegan was the day I walked into a Canadian dairy barn and saw the cows chained in their tie stalls. One of two types of dairy barns in Canada, the tie stall allots each cow a small space to eat, stand, and lie down, atop wood shavings or staw.  They are all chained in, and can not walk around at will.  If there is no dangerous ice and snow or mud to slip around on, they may receive an hour or two of daily liberation in an outside corral. I am a meat loving ominivore, raised around beef farming and horses.  If I were ever to wear an outfit in the streets made soley out of lettuce, it would be for the pure shocking joy of it, not because I am a card carrying member of PETA.  But, when I saw that set up,  when I saw the cows living their whole lives that way, I nearly crossed the floor.  Eventually I got used to it.  I saw that the animals were well cared for and mostly comfortable, but always, it made me uneasy at some level, knowing that this was where my milk and cheese was coming from.

Contrast this to my recent stay on a mixed farm in Honduras, near my new city of residence, Santa Rosa de Copán.  When I first got here four months ago, Jesús Alvarado invited me to visit his family farm. This weekend I took him up on his offer and was not disappointed.

Where's the library?

Nearly four months into this journey, and now the more subtle differences between ¨home¨ (Canada) and here (Honduras) are becoming a little more obvious to me.

At first it´s all the not-so-subtle differences that hit you like a 2x4.  Noise at all hours, armed guards at the grocery stores, rough dirt roads in the middle of town that will require kicking it into 4-high if it rains, litter everywhere, greeting EVERYONE  you meet at the office with a kiss on the cheek upon arrival Monday morning, weekly staff meetings that are actually prayer and devotional sessions...the list goes on.  I´m finding all these things and more, are normalizing for me now.  I hardly notice all the razor wire surrounding the residences and  I kiss everyone´s cheeks like an old pro, uttering pleasantries as I do so (the trick is actually just to brush.your cheek against their cheek and make a kissy noisy simultaneously.  I´ve found that only men who are hitting on me actually full-on kiss my cheek, and usually utter something about the beautiful gringita.< I inwardly grin or groan, depending on who it is>).

Day 1 at the Ranch: Prayers and Curses.

Today I´ve invited a special guest blogger to Southern Evolution, only, it´s not really a guest blogger, it´s me, in a different time and place.  I´ve been embracing my creative side more and more lately.  Ever since I dropped out of grade 9 art class in favour of taking another science course, I´ve repressed my inner artist.  Art was risky and flaky.  Science was reliable and responsible.  This dicotomy hasn´t been serving as of late so,  I´m allowing my inner artist out of the arts supply closet.

All this repression of the Artist has resulted in some procrastination.  I´ve had a few ideas, and I´ve had not much follow-through.  After an extraordinary 3 week stay on a horse ranch in Southern Alberta last spring, I had big plans to write a series of short stories out of it.  So far, I´ve only completed this one. It was a birthday gift for a friend.  I wanted to share it here, and give myself an extra public push to finish the rest of them.  Time on that ranch was truly an experience of a lifetime.

Let the colours flow.

Day 1 at the Ranch: Prayers and Curses

In late March 2010, I arrived at Sid and Marge’s ranch near Nanton , Alberta with some trepidation. After attending a colt-starting clinic with Sid in 2008 and following that with an exhilerating day  with him and my friend Jen in December riding on the open range, I had basically invited myself to their ranch for three weeks for an intensive working “vacation” riding horses and sponging as much as I could from them about horse training and cattle ranching, and they had agreed. Catching Sid for a brief conversation at the Ray Hunt Memorial event in Texas, in February, I had had to remind him that I was going to be at his house under his direction and mercy in less than a month’s time.

When in Rome, eat the beans.

There's a scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies where he and his urban princess girlfriend experience a twist of fate and are invited to dine with a tribe of previously hostile indigenous folk.  It turns into a sticky affair rather quickly because the urban princess is completely disgusted by the fare on offer, and Indy knows that she is going to offend their hosts irreparably, possibly costing them their lives.