Backtracking

Falling behind makes the task of catching up frighteningly impossible. Everyday I think about how I can remedy this nearly 2 month absence in communication. Where should I begin? What can actually be said that can accurately give justice to the life I wake up to everyday? I just have to start somewhere...something I'm growing to realize I should apply to my life in general.

I returned to Guadalupe for the Semana Santa (Easter Weekend)...flocking to the beach for four days with the entire population of the peruvian inland to feast on fried food snacks and locally brewed alcohol. In the nights we packed into a filthy abandoned ranch house to chat and sing by candle-light and finally calapse for sleep on matresses...me trying my best to ignore their horrid musty smell and subsequent thoughts of their life cycle. Living a second time in Guadalupe proved to be even better than the first. Daily walks through the main plaza re-confirmed how essential community and familiarity are for my sanity. I thrive on the routine of seeing and greeting and chatting and sharing time and space with the same smiling faces everyday. The traveling backpackers circuit simply can't provide that.

After two more weeks of aroebics at the Radical Gym, and spanish classes in the house of Jose Mora, it was time to embark on my cross continental trek to Brasil. For months I had vollied back and forth about attending the International Permaculture Conference in Sao Paulo, Brasil but when I recieved information with more detailed description of what it would entail, I was sold. A non-profit organization working with youth in the favelas (slums) of Sao Paulo had been granted about 45 acres of mainly forested land for their project. This type of wild space is altogether unheard of in Sao Paulo, which is, with 20 million people, the largest city in South America. These last standing trees and unencroached openspace speaks as testiment to the goodwill generated by the beautiful work of the non-profit. The first ten days of the conference would consist of a design course where the participants would develop a largescale plan for regenerating the land and creating community-based systems for sustainable food production and income generation. Even if it meant crossing the entire South American continent by land in two weeks, I wanted to be a part of this.