Cadaques, North East Spain

The evening sun sinks slowly behind terraced hills and terracotta roofs, gently touching the opening doors of Cadaques only church. From her perch high upon waves of golden filigree the Virgin Mary is slowly brought earthward. Slowly, conveyed by four pairs of loving hands she is gently carried outside though the already thronging crowds.

Imagine that you are this figurine, this statuette taken out to perform your sacred duty to the townsfolk. Every year you are carried down the sloping alleys and crowded streets to a tiny harbour that perches upon the south shore. From there a fishing boat conveys you around the bay from the main beach to the lighthouse that looms high on grey cliffs half a mile distant. This is your annual journey:


Out of the Church and down past a ruined house, its doors pockmarked with woodworm, cats fleeing into its caved interior.

Cadaques lies at the feet of weather-beaten mountains. Strands of olive trees grip to the hillside by way of stone terraces made long ago by locals you can glimpse in faded postcards. Those that inhabited Cadaques then depended on fish and olive oil instead of the sarongs and beach balls that their children’s children now sell in the Plaza.

Right by the clockwork toyshop, hand puppets hanging from hooks on the wall.

In the “Casino”, in reality a glorified social club empty of gamblers, one can see black and white pictures of the great frosts and snows that over fifty years ago killed thousands of olives and thus wiped out this towns livelihood until tourism was introduced.

Over the spot where craggy old women in black shawls once hawked live fish from a rusty barrow.

Past the stone mermaid set in concrete that fronts an obscure seafood restaurant.

Looking down from the eyes of an ever-wheeling gull, the town is a mass of orange roofs broken by the cracks of streets and alleys. Towards the outskirts new property leaps ever upwards, a mass of concrete oozing slowly up beige foothills.

Salvador Dali, famous for paintings of oozing clocks and warped elephants once called this town home (as is evident by his penis shaped swimming pool over the hills in Port Legat). His statue guards the square, eyes towards the heavens and moustache neatly preened. There are pictures somewhere, pictures of Kevin and myself clinging to Dali’s form, just minutes before he and Robin waved goodbye and left Spain (Kevin not Dali).


Past tourists sitting astride walls, their cameras clicking and recording in time with the music.

Through the plaza where huge crowds ebb and flow among the shady trees.

Onto a boat bobbing slowly against the quay where half the local population stands expectant, crossing themselves as you pass.

Half an hour later you bless Sasabolia and are serenaded by the squawks of sea gulls, the hoots of locals with foghorns and the crash of dark brakers hitting against the cliffs.

In a world where fishing boats can be plucked beneath the seas with all hands lost, Religion and superstition become extremely important. Thus a statue of Mary must make her annual trips to old and mostly forgotten fishing coves, blessing the grounds in the hope that no men will die at sea during the following year.


Afterwards you are returned to the church, stowed safely by the alter and forgotten until next year. From the other side of think oak doors the hoot of a trumpet and the buzz of ever-present mopeds can be heard on the breeze as town life carries on into the fading daylight


Leaving the harbor


Procession of the ships


The view from the bay


The Virgin nearing the cathedral

Cadaques, North East Spain

I am back, feet stepping upon red tiles and hands pulling random tomes from the shelf next to my bed. This is my room and yet I have not lived here or even called Es Puig my house for two years. This summer house with its stucco and ivy strewn walls, my room with the mosquito net looking like some fairies wedding dress out to dry, they exist in a time warp, their memories of me long out of date.

The pictures on the wall show a boy, either scowling sourly with contempt in his eyes or trying nervously to smile. The books on the shelf belonged to someone with small views, the toys in the corner to a virtual child, the person I once was.

Now I feel very different from the last time I was here, stepping into and retying my shoes within five minutes of arrival as I prepare to go out. My back is straighter, my movements less manic and my conversation less self centred. Unpacking my bag I pull out journal entries that I could not have dreamed of writing, an art case full of paints I am now comfortable using, a scarf that has travelled with me from a crowded market in Asia.

Not everything has changed. Even now I do not always have the drive or the willingness to improve the way I think, interact and live daily or even weekly. I can still be as selfish and mean, as stupid and clumsy, as shy and timid as I was last time I arrived at Es Puig. The difference is I have the skills and the confidence to change things, to realize my mistakes and work on putting them right, even if it takes me longer than most people.

And so I walk out the door, down past the poplars and lavender, opening the gate and waiting for Jamie, my life very different from the last time I did so.

Girona, North East Spain

The road that carries us, my family and me, that carries our bags and packs, our bagpipes and handbags, it is a road I know well. Through the window is Catalonia, the landscape at once comfortingly familiar and worryingly foreign.
The road flashing by prompts familiar images, snippets of scenery appearing like flashcards shown to me from above, there and gone within seconds.

We are on holiday, the flights made and baggage collected, the taxi given directions. Now comes the hour-long drive to Cadaques, the extracurricular pilgrimage of my life. Nearly every year we take this drive over the mountains to my holiday home in Cadaques. Travelling from either Barcelona or Girona, the road changes only slightly with each coming visit and thus the scenery is as familiar as the rolling hills and grey mountains of rural Aberdeenshire.

A recognizable grove of poplars appearing on our left makes me smile and yet my family do not notice them. Perhaps it is just I who know the stately trees, the same ones we have seen with every trip we make to Spain. I look through the grove as we speed past, their planted rows and lines so formal, resembling soldiers on parade much more than mere foliage.

The field of drooping sunflowers appear soon after, their heads sunk as if disgusted by the weather, their trunks mottled from pesticide use. Now dying in the heat they are abandoned, no farmers walking slowly among them or tractors riding over them, the wilted plants adding stillness to the land. The fields of cane are soon to follow yet I barely notice them for I am waiting for the Concrete building that is the lair of King Kong.

And there he is, the mountains looming behind his fibreglass bulk, his face set in a primeval glair. How strange really, that here in rural Spain lies a factory making fairground attractions, its grassy yard home to brightly painted dragons and guerrillas, each a slide or roller coaster carriage. King Kong of the Amusement Parks gives me a final look of fury and then we are gone, past the mini golf and into the hills towards Cadaques.

The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, Scotland

Freeze the scene at the march, just for one second allow surrealism to triumph. Police horses and riders paused, anarchist chants silenced, complete stillness as feet wait before falling to the cobblestones. Now that silence wafts though the hordes of protesters there are no distractions to keep me from talking about topics that I was at first tempted to ignore.

I admit that I was socially compelled to march, eager to show my compassion and attempt to woo members of the opposite sex with my stories. As I travelled on the train however, I thought of places I had already been, people I had already met and causes I would support by being there and I began to feel somewhat selfish for my previous motivations, although not enough to stop them I am ashamed to say. My consolation is that when I did talk about my travels and the people I had met, I did not dumb down their struggle, did not hide the more uncomfortable facts. As my mentor Steve Nelson once said “Feel Guilty”.


Children hobbling from lack of a leg, orphans dragging water from a well so I could have a drink, families that opened their doors in kindness, these people live in material “poverty”. They have harboured, befriended, relied and doted on me, people who will never know I was marching in part for them for them, for a world in which life could become slightly easier for them and slightly harder for me.

The G8 March, Edinburugh Scotland

Imagine the noise, the mess, the pure feeling of excitement created by tens of thousands of people, marching together like one massive white being around Scotland’s Capital. As they march past look at the buildings lining a route of steel barricades and traffic cones.

Romanesque architecture built with Scottish Stone, modern shops with boarded up windows to deal with rioters and yet still operational. Above Jenners apartment store and its lovely façade hovers a solitary helicopter, its camera capturing the scene bellow.

Looking closer and you are a policewoman; hand on truncheon and face emotionless. You stand to the side of Princes street, protected by a cast iron fence and Kevlar vest. From your station at the fence watch the people slide past, their faces contrasting with their white tee-shirts so they look like leaves afloat on a moving river. Look from her eyes, this police woman on the seashore and see the people walk past in a mass of difference; a red shirted socialist clutching vicious propaganda, Muslim women in traditional garb, whistle blowing hippies and society girls marching side by side.

One of those marching is Sondra, the pretty university student and sister to Alan, marching with her handbag and skirt as me and her brother carry various protest signs over our shoulders, swapping frequently:
“Make Poverty History”
“Trade Justice”
“More and Better Aid”
“Drop the Debt”
“Islamic Relief”
“Bush: Number one dictator”


. From the castle on its mound, if you looked carefully, you could see a light ribbon of white tee shirts, completely encircling the city centre. At the meadows where thousands sit, stand and sleep, one announcement booms out above all others “the goal is complete”, the message sent to the eight leaders of the worlds richest countries that “enough is enough”

Edinburgh, Scotland

“Where poverty persists there is no true freedom” Nelson Mandela

“He’s been beaten badly by at least ten policemen…. disgusting comments…do you want to make poverty history?” Alan Sheriff

The night is not yet dark as we stand in the street, two ex-schoolboys interviewing a horde of florescent-jacketed policemen, businesslike even as they restrain a raging drunk in full view of the public. We appear self-sure and professional and one could never tell that we were teenagers taking a five-minute breather from clubbing. The camera pans as Alan conducts the first interview, the constables confused by our photographic interest in their job.

Alan’s commentary, juxposed by moving sirens and muffled curses gives our own twisted insight into that night. He is the star of our two-man news show, our equipment nothing more than a camera phone and two nice shirts, our mission to report on the G8 march in Edinburgh.

Before that, before we sat eating oranges with Sondra and watched one hundred thousand people march by, and before that I was travelling. Sitting on the train, backpack straps dangling above like synthetic creepers I thought of girls, parties and protesting.

Harry calls me on the train, the ring tone irritating and electronic as I dig it out of my pocket and listen to his far away voice,
‘Hey Tom, look I’m sorry but I’ve left town and am heading home.” I groan, deprived of not only company but also a bed “Give this number a ring and speak to Alan, he can give you a place to stay”

Before that I was hunched in front of my computer reading the following:

“On Saturday 2 July, as leaders of the worlds richest countries gather in Scotland for the G8 summit, tens of thousands of campaigners will rally in Edinburgh city centre to send this message to the G8 leaders:
Enough is enough. We want trade justice, Debt cancellation, and more and better aid for the world’s poorest countries.
Be there. Make your voice heard.
MAKE HISTORY in 2005
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY”

Twelve hours after that I am in Edinburgh, beer in hand and sitting on a sofa overlooking the police blockade surrounding Scottish Parliament, chatting to Harry’s friend Alan. Tomorrow is the march and at this late stage my plan is thus: Wake up sometime before ten, put on a white tee-shirt (required) and join more than a hundred thousand people on the streets.

Drumtochty Highland Games, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Standing in the field, the grass soft under my bare feet, I get ready to run. I see my family; sitting on the fresh hay bales laid around the arena, my sister absent as she tightens the skin of her tenor drum somewhere behind the shows colourful facade.

Here at the Drumtochty Highland games in northern Scotland, everything is how it should be. The smell of wet grass overrides that of cooking meat, and the solitary bagpiper pacing the competition line drowns out the groans from the tug of war teams competing in the field.

Toss the caber, high jump, long jump, 400 metres, 800 metres, shot put. Walking through the scramble of events, the starters guns pointed to the sky and the kilt-clad judges like moth-ridden vultures, I feel very glad to be Scottish. To be part of this event that could be taking place a hundred years ago, that is special to me.


Suddenly, as I wait for my moment, the crowd’s attention is drawn, suddenly and hypnotically, to a brightly bannered entrance carved in-between the dark yellow bales.

It is not a band that emerges into the field, but a fearsome gang of kilted figures, their blood red cockades rising far above the crowd. Together dozens of pipes sing out at once, their melody haunting and ancient, the hairs on my mothers neck standing straight out. Leading the procession are the pipe majors, their batons and uniforms gilt and gaudy, epaulets and outrageous facial hair in full display. Moving smartly behind come the pipers and drummers, the latter beating staccato rhythms in time with their own marching feet.

Dotted through the procession are smaller figures in blue kilt jackets, the tops of their heads in line with the other players shoulders. My sister flits to and from my sight, occasionally lost behind massive swaths of tartan and serious pipers, concentrating as without her glasses she struggles to navigate the arena. It is something to be proud of, these twelve year olds, scowls of concentration, marching on parade, fearsome just by the sounds they create.

Bourtie House, Scotland

On a rainy Sunday afternoon in New England, sitting before a crowd of those I value as much as anyone, I watched Shackleton close. The school, which had helped me so much over the past years, could do so no longer due to a total lack of funds. I sat at the front; my face tilted upward, more the product of a starched collar than any internal discipline or “stiff upper lip” mentality.

Since then, from catching the plain to London to taking the train through Eastern Europe, I have been thinking of writing in homage to Shackleton. Yesterday I spent several hours by the computer, fingers prodding the keys half-heartedly. How could I sum up the school, the friendships forged, lost and strengthened, those days spent perched at the top of Blood Hill and desert gullies, all in a page?

The following list of “I had nevers” illustrates just some of my experiences from Shackleton. Together they are a tribute to time spent learning in four countries, over thirty American states, numerous ecosystems and several cities.

I had never climbed part of the Appalachian Trail. I remember as I scrambled to the top of a mountain and looked down upon all I had done that day, letting the sun fall down on upon my face and knowing that I had achieved something. Two weeks into the school year and one week into wilderness orientation, lying back against the rocks with my hat over my eyes I felt better than I had in years, my body was fit and my mind calmer.

I had never worked at a ski resort. Leaning head on into the door, staggering through and flopping down upon a chair, I understood what work was like. I slipped off my gloves and, slamming my hands against the counter, was almost able to defrost my fingers. The seconds passed, someone fell over and again I was up, lunch forgotten as I ran to the lift ramp, slamming my hand against the metal STOP button.

I had never taught Mexican immigrants their rights once in the U.S. I remember standing on rust and rubbish, a stack of business cards in my pocket and a few words of Spanish somewhere in the back of my head. Before me stood people, Smugglers and their human cargo, the former confident in leather jackets and oversized belt buckles, the latter worried and scared, holding bottled water and children as we stepped forward with our cards.

Now, that stage of my life is over but the sense of adventure and exploration is not. As I grab my pen and note pad, sling a backpack strap over my shoulder and head out the door I know that whatever mistakes I make, I am still very much the Student at Large of my blog.

Bratislava, Slovakia

Strobes blink convulsively and the people dance and are lost, swept away for a second under the blanket of noise, alcohol and constant flickering light. Behind the strobes darkness has triumphed, disorientating and shrinking, my horizon turned to a single room, the hold of a dingy houseboat.

Click, Flash, Pause

The photos we took that day tell more than I ever could, the digital time-pauses convey the details replaced in my memory by a cocktail of adrenalin, bravado and testosterone. Flicking through them, looking closely at each one I can attach the textures, voices and sounds that make these pictures mean something more, remind me of time I did something new and different.

Click

Tristan has sleep in his eye, our grins are lopsided and psychotic and our fleeces seem smeared by a thin sheen of filth. A clock would be paused at 5:30 AM, the few people about taking care to avoid us. Backpackers, packs and bags on the ground by our feet, boots scuffed to the point of mutilation, my “slouch” pulled down above my Cheshire- cat grin.
Tourists, his camera dangling and a guide book in the crook of his arm, my photo camera making my jean pocket bulge.
Friends for a day, we are filled with cockiness at having travelled to Slovakia with no plan in mind and no reason for going. We stand there in the relative warmth of the central bank, and as they wont except zlotys we pose with promotional cardboard
cut-outs and run when security approaches.

Click

A group photo, seven of us standing upon cobbled streets, half looking at the camera and smiling. 2:30 AM one day and several adventures later. The wind is biting and cold, our grins slightly forced, our fleeced arms holding each other tightly together. The facial expressions are those of people thrust from the warm womb of a club into the streets biting air, of people impatient with the fumbling of the camerawoman as she stairs in blank amazement at the bleeping displays and complicated buttons before her.
It doesn’t matter who they are, that half those in the picture are forgotten, their names gone for me, their roles simple footnotes in the book of my trip. For that moment, resting against me, we are all there is, all we need, these five tourists and our two unlucky female locals, seemingly amused by our comradely.
In this background the flash lights a stucco wall, the plaster hiding the viewer, shielding you from the rest of Bratislava, the high tower and murky Danube, lights on the water and trams in the street.

Click

The club, the strobe frozen between flashes and the music between beats. Anna, pupils dilated by the change in light, her hair tied back and lips parted slightly. Nails are painted, her hand carefully holding a drink, the lights reflecting off the glass and ruining the shot. Her teeth are white and her eyes dark brown, her gaze fixed straight ahead, the expression slightly mocking behind the liberal application of makeup and lipstick.

Click

5:30 again, the picture shows a paint-flecked door, the side of a scuffed train that has known thousands like me. By the door I wait, my bag wedged beneath stained jeans, the halogen lights my enemy as my eyes refuse to flutter and close. My hand holds the camera and a ticket, the thin paper yet to be stamped or inspected. Nearly out of focus is the time board, thick black letters smudged by distance, the words Wien (Vienna), 5:45 quite invisible from this far away.

Auschwitz, Poland

Through the centre of the camp is a railway, the very one from which they came, staggering not only with their belongings, but also with the fear of those who have lost everything.

Auschwitz is barren; the sky downcast and grey to the point of black, a lone deer walking stately though forests of crumbling brick and rotting wood, and in the distance wind blows Emily’s hair lightly against her cheek.


Imagine, the smell of sweat, the tears of defeat and the cries of anguish, echoing though a crowd of thousands. Through this I walk, the ghosts almost brushing against my coat, crossing the railway to the steady Click of a camera shutter behind me.

My friend is beside me, the American marine who has swapped gun for a camera and stands, near emotionless by a pond containing the ashes of thousands. Click, he brings the camera to his eye and freezes the image but not the feeling, the moment of utter hopelessness, staring ahead, unsure of what to do, feeling awful.

As I turn, looking down an avenue of ruins, past the bombed out gas chambers and the communal latrines I catch sight of her, Emily. Angel in the darkness, some life in this place of death, an Australian student, looking at me with tears in her eyes. She stands on one side of the wire, me on the other and I can see her hair fluttering lightly in the breeze, her face drawn from the effort of being here, seeing all that has been lost and that never can be found.

Later, walking hand in hand through the gate, the words “work will set you free” passing above our heads I think that maybe, just maybe some good has come out of this place.

In the square that night, in a tower far above our restaurant a trumpet player suddenly stops half way through his tune, the age-old ceremony to remember the wars Krakow has lost and recovered from. Emily sits opposite me, the candle lighting up her face as she tries to explain, to salvage something between us after my failed attempt to kiss her. We manage, sitting and eating, the thoughts of the death camps still echoing though our heads, as I pay the waiter and walk her home.

That night, fuelled with the memory of my failure and that of the world to stop a holocaust, I go out. We walk in a cluster, our whoops and yells carrying through deserted streets, the locals wise enough to leave room for this group of wild Britons. Like barbarians of old we barricade one club after another, the security chasing us back as we run off laughing, not some load of football hooligans but most of us students, transformed into these dervishes by alcohol and adrenalin. Memories now, a grinning Roland mooning the security office, the Polish-speaking blonde trying to get into a club with my library card as I.D. The beers clanking together, wild laughs and finally silence as I collapse into bed and wait for morning, glad not to be sleeping on a train.

Prague, Czech Republic

The building is painted a faded yellow, the colour custard powder turns after years in a dusty cupboard. On its worn façade, dark brooding Germanic script tries to convey something vital, its meaning lost however by my lack of Czech.

Crossing the empty street with its thin sliver of tarnished tramlines I wonder what I am doing here. Through the door and sitting down, flicking though a menu written in Czech, the feeling stays with me. After all, what do I know about Eastern Europe, its individual countries and the myriad of intricate customs attached to each one? As I get the waiters attention and nod my head vigorously in the direction of pig drawn upon the menu I know the answer: Nothing.

Why Prague, a city I knew only from picture postcards and others hazy recollections of drunken ramblings. I came here with Alex, his wife and “Jelly”, travelling through rolling plains and past sluggish windmills, retreating from the regal expenses of Vienna. The car chugged along and urban sprawl was replaced by grape orchards, Austria for the Czech republic and I started to become slightly homesick.

Prague youth hostel, a dank door sunk into a mouldering edifice of a once proud building. Alex carries my bag while Mike smokes outside and avoids this traveller’s tomb. Once inside and with Alex gone pottering down the street, old skills start to emerge and my brain begins to work double time.

Ten minutes later. I walk briskly, swerving around gothic towers and small billboards, chatting with my new friends, two sisters from Australia and an American medical student. In the hostel I had introduced myself and quickly persuaded them to let me “tag along” to better digs as we head through Prague, taking the escalators downwards into the gloom of a communist era subway. As we decent into the concrete depths they debate constantly, the student trying in vain to convince me that sliding downwards will give him the orthodontic experience he craves and is thus a necessary endeavour.

Inside the next hostel and again its almost a reflex, passport out and open to the photo page, money in hand, take the room key, test the bed and drop the backpack. This is my life, this series of actions and reactions, pure spontaneity as I sit down and look at my map. My “map” is one of the whole of Europe and shows large cities and rivers and yet it is the best I have. After dinner I meet another American and a Russian crayfish scientist and with ice cream to share we stand on a bridge and look down upon the Danube, content just to be silent and think.

Vienna, Austria

Eleven a clock at night, somewhere along the Danube, and I am standing perfectly still. Beside me the rough-hewn steps of the Canal lock are slowly rising, the water retreating from the grimy concrete. As the last step disappears so do my chances of escape and my mood is downcast as I head below decks.

I am a teenage prisoner in a middle-aged jail, this boat with its greasy buffet, 60s disco and dodgy crew. Around me are my fathers high school friends, partying it up on the end night of their reunion, most in various stages of decay. I manage to snaffle the Champaign to help ease my suffering but am unable to prise the boat doors open and escape. Finally I can doge fate no longer and end up doing the twist with my mother, waiting for the moment where the boat slides against the quay and I am running up the gangplank to safety.

Later, sitting in a bar surrounded by frightening sixteen-year-old girls I have time to think about tomorrow. As this is the last night of a three-day reunion my parents will be leaving Vienna, heading to Spain and leaving me stranded in Austria. This leaves me in a situation, the regal city of Vienna being extremely expensive. The plan is simple and one designed by Dad and myself: Go to Eastern Europe come back by Friday.

Before I can plan anything detailed my night spins out of control. Though a series of strange events I find myself in a strip club where Viennese hen partiers try and steal my underwear tags. From there I end up in a house, sipping plum vodka with some Latvians while a bearded Italian backpacker dances around in his underwear. Escaping from the suburbs I am waylaid by spiteful Croatian bus drivers and collapse in my bed (designed for Vietnamese boat people it would seem from its diminutive size) at four with no plan for the morning.

Shackleton School, Ashby, Massachusetts, U.S.A

I have a paper to write and it is raining, dark gashes of water superimposed upon the windowpane above my head. Apart from this window, with its Germanic view of brown treetops and grey skies my view is restricted by wooden partitions, my horizons shrunk to a half eaten apple core, my computer and assortments of various rubbish

“I have a paper to write” Sitting here, longing to be a Mozart of writing, I resemble more of the mad scientist, bent as I am into my workstation, hair askew with rock music blasting around me. People stream past and deep in thought I hardly notice them, fingers forming a staccato beat upon the keyboard. I want to write, to capture and release, transport the reader with every word, transform my page into an ocean, a council flat, a jungle. Instead I am forced to write, to talk about serious matters,

I Wake up; slide from the bunk and onto a floor littered with refuge, realizing all the time that I have a paper to write. Get some trousers and a tee shirt, don’t even bother to slide shoes on properly, as lurching forward I burst out of the door and into the rain. “I have a paper to write” a dull mantra repeating inside my head, following the beat of my jaw, as chewing away on a slice of buttered toast I try desperately to work out the way my individual limbs should be working this early in the morning.

I have a paper to write and yet I am not grabbed, no not want to be, by figures and facts, the staples of a good research paper. How can I even try to express love, anxiety, fear of boarding school and the romance of a Khmer temple in such a paper. Can I? Could I at once shed light on mental issues in Iraq and still present it like a story.

I can try to use words that enchant, that tell the facts without embellishment but still make it feel like you are there, standing in a hospital ward, rubbing off sweat with one hand and calming patients with the other. And in the end is that not what my blog is, real life told as if in a story, descriptions of things that matter, that I care about?

Shackleton School, Ashby, Massachusetts, U.S.A

I look out today and I see incredible beauty in a thousand forms, a land of serenity disturbed only at the horizon, where the gaunt shape of Boston looms beyond forest.
My hands on the rough wood of the balcony I can stare at an ocean of trees, waves of pastel, fiery crests where maple’s touch the hill tops and cascade down, into valleys distant and far. In these woods, these ancient temples of nature, can I feel safe, free of my fears if only for a short time.

It is my world, the one of the woods, for some a barbaric harshness, for me a place of rocky outcrops and wet leaves underfoot, of colors and textures so subtle only a deer could appreciate them fully, the rich tapestry of nature. There, as I walk over rotting logs above dappled streams, I transition, from boy to man, from burdened to free, from alone to a companied, if not by something I can see and understand then by nature itself.

There, in my eye’s I am no longer the Clown, clumsy and laughably innocent, as easy to corrupt and use as anyone. I am no longer the “Spy” or the “Rat”; choosing my morals over my friends, in their eye’s condemning people to awful lives though my actions.

Through thickets I can run, chasing animals as I vault this tree, a thin mist of dew drops cascading from above. Primeval it is, this world of magic in the deserted tree houses clinging to rough bark, their steps worn down and rotten thought years of neglect. There is nature, stamped into the ground by the hoof of a deer, the wood chips from a beaver desecrated tree.

There can my issues dissipate, disappear with the breeze along with the constant leaves, upwards and away. I can grow, relax my arms, perhaps even let out a scream and the odd tears, confident that no one is watching.

So follow me into my kingdom of anarchy, the forests that I can enter but not control. Walk with me as we make our own paths, stepping over saplings to reach a brook, see what I see, hear what I hear, and maybe then, maybe then will you see me.

Interviewing a farm manager

New England U.S.A

It takes some effort for me to sit down, lean back and start to write again.
I had consigned myself to the fact that, with my travels over, there was nothing to describe, picture and tell to other people and thus no point in writing. So my writing withered out of me with sheer lack of use, when all I had to do was look around for things to look at, find people to learn from and start up my computer.

Think about my room

The floor lies covered in crumbs, fluff, several hats and a calling card to a Cambodian guesthouse, while the posters hang lopsided from cratered walls. A fake Hawaiian lei is strung from one bedpost while a collection of maps poke dejectedly from behind the broken chest of drawers. Quietly I heft my bags and turn out the light, leaving a dirty floor and an unmade bed as I close one door and open another.

Think about my friends

Ashley, yesterday rollerblading with a pink shawl and tinted Ray Charles-esque glasses, looking like some chain-smoking French artist called Fabian or Dominique. From behind closed doors there is Chris, nursing another soda-induced bout of withdrawal. Moodily, he consoles himself with a computer game while Communist Corey sits in bed and jeers the world in general.

Think about leaving

Carry bags in one hand, laptop clenched in the other. Swing up on the ladder and climb, balancing on the roof rack and tying things down with bungee cords as from above clouds open that emit fierce bouts of snow/rain. Stalk around the bus; check the lights, the fuel, the brakes. Start the engine and remove the chocks.

Think about our bus

There is a sound, a grumble almost; the dragons roar emminating from beneath feet that are curled up, together with the rest of us, on rickety green seats. Those that sleep have slightly screwed up faces, caused I imagine by stuffing your body into a space as small as a newborn babies crib.

Past the sleeping bundles is a mass of shelf, boxes and coolers. Somewhere within this wooden tangle stooped figures bump to and fro against storage bins, knives in hand as they prepare piles of lettuce, meat and cheese. Someone grips a seat and swings themselves forward towards the front, shouts the word “Lunch” and retreats back to their lair.

Think about arrivals

Sometimes I get off the Shackleton bus and can’t help but act child-like; nearly jumping with excitement when the door slides open and I can look around our new environment, whatever and wherever that is.

Maybe a field, a thousand shades of possible green, maybe a lake, textured water, a sunset-clad afternoon fresh with the noise of birds. There could be a dirt-stain of a backpack slung over one shoulder, a laptop grasped under an arm. This is one of those times, as rumbling slowly, the bus circles a grassy knoll and I see a small whitewashed cottage ahead.



Think about changes

Bags in hand, running for the “best” bed, opinions differing with each Goldilocks like session of experimentation.

Swap a block for a house, dirty for clean, lonely for company.
Swap a dorm for a room, the difference in personality and warmth, a room a sacred thing, the dorm a necessity.
Swap cooks, from a professional conisure of asparagus and hollandaise sauce, curries and hams, salads in a dozen varieties to a student with a bowl of pasta at their disposal.
Swap A school of 35 for a crew of 9, a community for a microcosm of the later.

Think about class

A farmyard, muddy with car use and cow dung, hurried looking workers shuffle, forming a small stream of humanity which flows into a sea of bovines, cows, dozens lined like some farce of an army against the steel fences which hold them. “My sword is my pencil, my shield my notebook”, taking notes here, scribbling rants there, trying to focus on the speaker. “Be a sponge” absorb information in preparation for P.O.L’s, the time for squeezing that information out and soaking others with knowledge.

Think about an educator

Ask Nikki and Nelia, find out information from smudged reference books and photocopied sheets of paper, listen. Hear what a cow farmer is saying, don’t take things at face value and write notes. Take advantage of experts in the field; literally so at this point, find someone and speak to them with the purpose of adding to what you already know.

Think about asking questions

“How many people do you employ?” “What’s your definition of sustainable agriculture?” “What is A.I?” “How long have you been farming?” Scrawl down illegible notes, keep eye contact, try to appear like you know things when the replies come “Twenty five” “a system of growing plants that will last for our children”, “artificial insemination” “eight years”.

Think about endings

At the end there is the bus, engine humming gently in the chill air. Through a corridor of hands waiting to be shook, giving out tee shirts as I walk. Swing, up through the doors as the bus rolls forward and picks up speed. From somewhere inside there is music, the tinny kind from laptop speakers, the bus dwindles and is gone.


Getting close and personal with automatic milking


Dinner with the crew


Circle of chow


An automatic head scratcher for cows


Donated accomidation and bath, Vermont


Endings

Cloud Forest, Costa Rica

Sweating in the darkness, wandering the rain forest at six in the morning, the crew halt. Above us though the trees, faint rays of sunlight are slowly appearing. Lindsey pulls out binoculars and focuses on far away trees—our teacher lost to the wilderness for a while. Behind me, Chris is asleep on his feet, swaying slightly as we glance around.

There is a second of peace among the trees as the group spreads out with our notebooks drawn. Then, as soon as it began, a howl reverberates through the creepers. The ghostly sound forces Chris’s eyes open as binoculars swing around in search of the culprit.

Through the bush we see movement and a lone howler monkey appears and vanishes among leaves far above. These creatures, with the loudest cry of any animal on earth, are soon serenading us en mass, putting off my attempts to take notes. As Cory creeps past, camera out and ready, I jot down as much as possible.

The howler monkey is small black and racoon sized. They inhabit the upper reaches of trees in Costa Rica and other rain-forested states along the equator. They live in tribes where the younger male is made dominant by killing all the other young. To attract mates, the males have developed their roar, which now brings me back to the jungle and the end of this entry.

San Jose, Costa Rica

Today dawned as if with reluctance, the clouds opening only slightly to let the sunshine out. I climbed from my mattress, and, by moving several tons of clothes I was able to dig up those garments worth wearing. In the hallway of what must have once been a grand colonial residence I stepped loudly past sleeping bodies and to the kitchen. Corry stood with tousled hair and slowly spooned pancake mix onto a saucepan, with a very Dickensian air.

After eating and chatting up some American backpackers, I threw random objects into my bag and departed the hostel with my crew in tow. We trod to the nearest park in a tight bunch, Damian habitually grabbing at me as I veered over the pavement into oncoming traffic.

After half an hour of bus journeys we arrived in a neighborhood far removed from the grubby urbanism of downtown San Jose. The houses here were still barred but there were more trees and I felt at peace as I wondered down the leafy streets. To my left looms a bright yellow house with sloping tile roofs and an air of tranquility around it. Through the gate an elderly gardener smiles and continues to prune. The building we are ushered into is that of a small Spanish school which we are visiting for a lecture.

For two hours of learning we explored the roots of Costa Rican politics and history. Afterwards, with heads filled with conquests and coups, dictators and liberators we climbed back on our bus and headed into the smog. Looking though the window at the dusty streets I thought about the Ticas and all they have achieved. As men wearing football shirts clambered over my legs I was amazed with this country I had found myself in. A place where traditionally the ruling class worked the fields alongside peasants. A country which was given independence without wanting it, and that only found out they were free from Spanish rule several months after the agreement was signed.

Several days ago I would not have said this but truly I am happy to be here, free from the chains of Western culture.

Tranquilo Backpacker Hostel, San Jose, Costa Rica

French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Spanish and English, the accents and voices are my own exotic soundtrack. I loll in a hammock, coke in one hand, notes in the other and try to study for class. Playing dice at night, my educator Steve with his new beard and French Legion boots welcomes others to our group of merry gamblers. Soon he succeeds in getting a myriad of characters involved, most probably escaped from the pages of the Quiet American. There is:

The stocky, topless and extremely loud French man with his blonde lover on one arm and various beers, cigarettes and dice clenched in the free hand.

The lost Australian with dark tousled hair who moves from group to group with an air of intense bemusement.

A large bunch of French Canadians with exotic names and strange hairstyles. Their chief preoccupation seems to be that of tittering behind my back in unintelligible French.

The Hungarian thirty year old with his ravishing girl friend who is my age and apparently his lover and avid backgammon opponent.

Among all these I feel safe and secure for those that follow my BLOG will know that the intrigue passion and laughter (imagined or not) of a youth hostel appeal to my inner romantic and are the reasons I feel at home where others are so uncomfortable.

San José State Museum, San José, Costa Rica

Through dusty stone artifacts of exotic creatures I go on my quest. I walk forward, ready to bolt, and then I am through the door and inside, the inner sanctums of the San Jose state museum open to me. The academics and researchers I suddenly encounter there seem very surprised by my sudden presence in their office.

Looking back I can imagine that it must be quite uncommon for the workers in the department of archeology and restoration to get many tourists demanding instant tours (especially with the head of the department)

Likewise the members of the Organization for Public and Private Unions seemed surprised as we turned up unannounced at their door requesting an audience. We had found out about this organization from a taxi driver when Steve was asking his opinion on free trade agreements and he promptly took us to meet the experts.

It says a lot for Costa Rica that in both cases we gained what we wanted and that I now feel personally enlightened. The people we encountered were so passionate about their different fields that one felt bombarded by facts and enthusiasm to the point where I would exit the meetings struck dumb with what I had learned.

Now as I woefully tramp the corridors of my hostel I feel an urge to teach what I have learned. I am compelled to sit down and start conversatings with “Did you know…?” and lecture for hours. It is only with great effort that I do not tell of the mysterious stone balls on the Costa Rican hills, of CAFTA, which will destroy the superior government systems here, of shamanic rituals and Spanish conquest. And really when you get down to it, of Costa Rica its self.

San José, Costa Rica

We live in a beautiful and yet fragile world. As I start to spread my wings and explore Costa Rica, examining everything around me, I am aware of this more than ever before.

I sat and listened today and rainforests sprouted and came alive in my imagination. The woman at the Rainforest Alliance Network sat down and turned on her projector and like that I was captured. Images appeared, of water spewing outwards from gray cliffs towards the smudge of green below. Of animals caught for an instant in that moment of celluloid magic as the camera clicks and the picture is taken. Dusty workers, silent chainsaws perched on their knees as they turn, watching the camera distrustfully as the forest disappears around them, one tree at a time. As we were lectured I found myself immersed in figures:

• An area needs 100 inches of precipitation to be considered a rainforest and is generally evergreen.
• Only six percent of the world is made up out of tropical forests
• 50% of the world’s species live in rainforests and only 80% of those have been discovered.
• 70% percent of species in Costa Rica are insects.
• 43 species of ants have been discovered on one tree in Costa Rica.
• The world’s rainforests have decreased from six billion acres to two point five billion, and most of that in the past fifty years.

As I listen I become fidgety and look towards the windows, as if to escape to the forests like some character in a cheesy movie.

Tranquilo Backpacker Hostel, San José, Costa Rica

I sit here now and think of my bag. It seems strange (even to me) that my thoughts should choose to linger over my backpack but I confess I have wanted to write a piece on my luggage for a wile.

My pack is like a large, stupid but very loyal dog. From being thrown off two story buildings to having its straps melted by acid, it has stood by me through everything and everyone. Sitting here now I am reminded of the many times we spent together, some good yet most excruciatingly bad and filled with memories of departure lounges and lost bag desks. As a learned man once remarked “I have been to nearly as many places as my luggage” and I see, with little humor, his point.

Sleeping on a bench in LAX, my pack tied to my arm as announcements boom overhead.
Zooming through streets filled with crowds and frantic vehicles in a dirty tuk-tuk with the bag tied to the back. (testing the straps out) dropping it off a Bondi balcony one sunny day. Sweating in the rain as I walk miles in the dark, on a Scottish island carrying a pack so as to avoid hurting my pride and catching a taxi.

However worried I get with the places I find myself in, I am always reassured by the near constant presence my luggage. Nothing else has been so constant or durable throughout my travels, including people and all as my dusty rucksack. Now as I get ready for another frenzied bout of travel I hope with all my heart that all these trusting words will not curse my most trusted of companions.

San José, Costa Rica

The airport is safety, a fortress of first-world standards with its armory of air conditioners and snack food. I emerge from the plane into Costa Rica and have anticipated the feeling of false security such places cultivate. Instead of falling pray to this I stride quickly past and grab my bags.

Here amongst the white washed pillars and strolling police I do not linger but, head instead towards the sliding glass door that mentally marks the point of no return and the start of an adventure. I step through the exit and though the heat hits me like a wave I, as a metaphorical surfer rise above and over the mixture of warmth and culture shock.

Now a day later I am adapted, happy in the role I feel most comfortable. Though at times a student and happy family member I feel most alive at other times and places far removed from normality. When I stand on a corner, in a strange city with a backpack hanging off my shoulders nothing seems to go wrong and I feel like a prince exploring his kingdom.

Shackleton School, Ashby, Massachusetts, U.S.A

Stream of consciousness, A unedited journey into my head after fifteen minutes of free writing. I start with a thought and follow it into the next and so on, spiraling in every direction.


The end of Lord of The Flies is like a dream, nothing adds up but no one cares. Got me thinking, “What if we are all living a dream, none of this means anything, its all for nothing.

But I don’t want to think this, I have worked too hard now, gone too far. I wish I could say what I mean and what I feel, but I cant. Things move too fast, like a river, a stream, brown, the color of mediocrity, karaoke in France, tea in Austria, brains blown out in Scotland? Why? No time to think, just do, hope that changes. I pray not to head that call and do or die for a stupid cause! We are all actors in a big play, a desire to go to the next act without rehearsing!

A dog outside, dead in the sun, Next to the tree that is living! “No sir, that dog is far from dead, it is the dog in your memory that is long gone! How can you define love, death, happiness, what does it all mean? Am I happy, do I know what that feels like! Decay and life so close together, I finally appreciate art, lifting me away from the rotting stench of the destruction of culture set by AMERICA!

My Hand hurts but that assures me that I am not in a dream! My writing grows more erratic, the stars slide overhead and the telescope is broken.
WHAT THE HELL DO I WANT?
Does Love EXIST? DO I FEEL IT? OR IS IT JUST COMPASSION?

I want to be all I can be, but what is that?

POP
BANG
WIFFLE
As meaningless as most things I hear. But why do they have no real importance?

I want chains, freedom scares me as much as love does. Force thoughts out like a factory, I feel no rage, I am happy, today will be weird!

More ~more~ like some insane Mozart I write into oblivion! Onwards Friends!
More paper, I feed the economy, flies on the window, flies on the pig! Big difference, no one cares cus no one sees! Open your eyes and see what I see, beauty is there and love is close. Throw down the concrete and plant the trees. Dust specks like golden thoughts, similar to the curtain in front of Ralph’s Eyes.

Pallos Verdes, California, U.S.A

First the steam, rising from bowls of peas mixed with butter, a sign that dinner shall be served hot, the heat warming my spirit as well as my self. The feast is laid out and I feel like a Charlie in his chocolate factory, free to sample the culinary delights of another world.
The sound of laughter heralds the monarch of the feast, the 25-pound turkey, as he is laid amongst his edible court. Peas and onions, mashed potato, thick gravies oozing delightfully from the jug stand ready beside him. With a roar a electric knife is activated and cleaves through the beast like a chain saw through a forest. With the monarch defeated we fall on him with sharpened tools, stabbing and cutting to retrieve the meat below. I advance along the line of food, scooping cranberries and potato with great abandon, my plate like some miniature Pollock painting with its dark splatters of food.
It is indeed a great meal full of contradictions, morals and comparisons. I am a solitary pilgrim, alone and unsure how to handle this new and hostile country. This family have welcomed me into their midst and plied me with food and hospitality. I shall not linger too long thinking about historical similarities before I find myself evicting my family from their house and wiping out the neighborhood.
I am grateful for the food and the hospitality. This house on the other side of the country has become a oasis for me, an island in a sea of chaos. In a day or two I will awake to harsh airport lights, my spine a tangled mess from sleeping on hard government issue chairs. When this happens I shall nod my head with disgust and know there is no chance of a nice breakfast and a comfy bed that day.

Hatton Estate, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

We gather, stamping our feet in the early morning cold, our breath visible in the dim light. “Morning lads” the head keeper greets us with a smile as we walk towards him. There are forty of us gathered in the parking lot, old men with greasy beards, young girls holding a panting dog. The Keeper continues as he puffs on a large pipe “Alright, were going to be doing slaughter alley first. The guns will be along the dike; Bob will drop us off at the road up by Jackie’s croft. We’ll beat the birds forward through the plantation and over the guns. Spread out when you reach the plantation and don’t let the dogs in the bird pens” With that he nods and walks towards a tractor and trailer waiting beside us. He swings him self into the back of the old horse trailer and we follow, talking quietly as we jostle for a space near the tail gate.

Like the doors of a Nazi prison train the metal hatch cover slams shut and we are plunged into darkness. The air is rank in the trailer, what with forty of us crammed there, sitting on hay bales with the dogs and walking sticks resting between our knees. Two spaniels jump onto my grubby trousers and I take in the rank smell cow manure. I have come prepared for a day of beating and am dressed accordingly. I have dug out a worn hunting jacket, grabbed a pair of thick socks, a fleece and old shirt and scrunched a flat cap low on my head. My trousers are already stained and I have had to stop Dad from throwing them away several times.

With a roar of foul smoke the tractor lurches forward the dogs slip from my legs into the murky gloom. Through the thin light I can see a lit pipe and a large hat brim opposite me. A hand extends from the murk and offers me a piece of gum and I chew reflectively as we bounce around. I seem to lose time in the trailer for I am met suddenly with harsh sunlight as the door thuds down into the muddy ground.

It’s the smell I notice first as I walk through the woods. The air has a crispness to it and the smell of wood smoke is mixed with the chilling wind, making me clutch my walking stick as I sneeze. Walking I smell the sawdust from the freshly chopped trees and the smoke as loose branches are heaved onto large bonfires. Past the old cottage I catch a whiff of powder from the rockets that soared in celebration the day before and from the shotguns fired off from the fields near by. We walk in a long line, two abreast, dogs following their masters on the outside of the column. The road has turned to mud in the past few weeks and my boots churn up the slush as we go. It is lucky that my clothes are thick for the wind blows strongly from the thick woods ahead. The cold makes one of the boys shiver as his white knuckles clutch a large stick. I reach down and pull a pair of my mums gloves from a jacket pocket which he quickly exepts.

The line halts and my mind temporarily reels as Davie uncorks a silver hip flask and I smell the potent fumes of sloe gin used to ward off the cold. Further along the trail, leaves falling about him, Harris stops and slips his piece bag off a rumatic shoulder. George leans, and standing up against a tree he lights a reeking pipe as Paul rolls a greasy fag from his tobacco pouch. His dog has caught the aroma of pork pies and busies herself sniffing at my pockets in search of crumbs. He grabs the scruff of her neck and hauls her backwards, apologizing to me. A crackle of static from the radio and Duff has called the line forward and through the Christmas tree plantation.

We stand in our crumpled Barbour jackets and pick up the sticks and clappers that are the tools of our humble trade. As we walk into the forest the dogs are let off straining leashes and run forward barking, their handles shouting curses and commands. Within moments one of the older bitches has startled a hen from the bushes and my stick is raised to force it forward. The bird causes a stir up and down the line as we shout and wave. The hen squawks as it rises and is gone over the tops of pines toward the river. We hear the shots a moment later and a smile spreads across the head keepers bearded face. The line moves slowly downward as I give orders to the young lads tramping behind me. Through the pines we march, the thick needles falling on my shoulders as I duck under branches. The dogs are exited and through the trees I hear them whine to be allowed to follow the birds further.

I lose contact with everyone but Davie and together we troop through the forest taking about the land. I laugh as he crashes through the brush yelling “Rumble rumble I’m a tank” In a thick Scottish accent. Suddenly through a gap in the foliage I can see the valley. At the bottom of the valley lie a group of Land Rovers next to which stand the guns, firing at the birds far above. A cock is hit and its crumpled body cartwheels to the ground, blood darkening on its blue feathers. As I scare a bird from the grass with my clapper I hear the echoes of a horn call and slowly lower my stick.

The birds lie strewn over the field as I emerge from the woods and glace around. Dogs run about the legs of the guns as they eject used cartridges onto the bloody grass. I walk past the guns and I can see by their faces that to them I am just one more farm hand getting extra cash. Duff strides between a crowd of pickerupers and thrusts two dead birds into my hands. I throw them into the back of a truck and start to walk slowly back to the castle. “Cheers Tam. Thanks for the help, come next week,” Says Davie has he hands me two ten pound notes. A smile and stuff them into my breast pocket, wave to the other beaters and am gone over a fence.

As soon as I am through the back door I feel myself change. I hang up my coat, straighten my shirt and try to make my hair look presentable. After I have partially succeeded I climb the worn stairs and within minutes am
Shaking hands with the former guns, enquiring after my father and offering me glasses of wine. I am in a different world.

Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

Things we have carried

Backpacks, Bursting with loose sweaters, a myriad of brightly colored accessories tied to the side straps dangle as we walk. Sleeping bags stuffed into their sacks, still wet from the pair of moist socks stored there nights ago. Rocks that smear mud onto clean(ish) trousers and remind of far off beaches and mountains.

Hiking boots, worn down and scratched, faded and sweaty, a hikers best friend for the first day, his worst enemy for the rest of the trip. A stick that gradually gets smaller as the expedition progresses, and hampers and trips far more than it supports. The CD player, hidden and lugged across the mountains only to become redundant when the lack of headphones becomes apparent.

The canoe, which is carried like a backpack over fallen trees and across swamps, the weight pulling down and making the Sherpa like students stumble like crazed old hags. A flashlight that when turned on emits the feeblest glow then fades altogether. The wallet, brought by the unsuspecting sole who thought we would be living in cabins and that there would be something to buy.

A pair of rusty scissors found at the last campsite, used together with those from the first aid pack to form Mohawks and other outrageous hairstyles. Only half a toothbrush, to save weight but that is so small it is forever lost among the bags of toilet moss. One loose sock, carried by a different person everyday and mysteriously belonging to no one. One of our group, stumbling with pain from blistered and swollen feet, supported by friends and encouraged by educators, as me make our long journey to graduation.


Kevin


Erica


Sam


Parbez


Jake

Outward Bound Course YLT48 Armstrong, Northern Ontario, Canada

I crouch in a trench made by a fallen tree as the storm beaks around my friends. Curled up in my rain jacket I spoon food into my mouth as water pools in my bowl. Suddenly a small figure leaps down and joins me in the quest for shelter. Jason, The jacker, the boy who hates cotton more than anything else on our trip and who can find chocolate anywhere. As we sit there laughing, the wind reaches a new peak and my barrel top lifts off and journeys down stream, leaving my clothes unprotected.

That night, soon after our tarp is flattened by a tree, I lie shaking in my tent. The tree roots lift up under us with every gust of wind and Al rises with a look of terror on his face. As all this is happening I think how sad I would be to be crushed by a tree now I am so close to the end of my expedition.

Outward bound had always been a requirment for Shackleton and I had never relished the prospect. I didn’t like the idea of being in a canoe for a month and eating camp food, and I am always partial to having a toilet near me. Fortunately, however hard I tried I could not negotiate and soon found myself floating in a red canoe somewhere in Southern Canada.

Each day as we paddled in our canoes down rapids and across lakes I felt calmer and more self assured. The birds flew around above me, the forests were dark and calm and our group moved through the wilderness. For the first two weeks things were stressed and it seemed as if we would never finish the course.

During this time I was trying very hard not to get into arguments which I found a struggle. Tempers usually rise when your cold and wet, the food portions are small and the man next to you in the tent smells. I had to learn not provoke people and try not to speak as much. I find I talk alot at inappropriate times and that this annoys allot of people.

One thing the course really taught me is that sometimes I do have something to say and that people will listen. For instance people chose my motto “Silence is silver, trust is gold” which I was very happy about. And for our name we chose “The Phantoms of Spetsnaz” Which was my joint creation.

As we wake and pack up camp, closing our barrels and slinging them into the boats I realize something. How ever bad things get out here, when the wind blows and I get wet, when some seem close too tears I always have something. Eight people stand beside me through thick and thin. What ever happens and wherever I am in the world I am still a Phantom of Spetsnaz.

Todo Santos, Guatemala

As the bus roared along the road I felt my confidence dwindle away with the dust billowing away behind us. I should have been thinking about the new skills I would need and things I should learn but I remember being preoccupied with thoughts of girls I might never see again.

Guatemala lies below Mexico and is a land of mountains and jungles, hills and small villages, one of which our bus has just entered. It is the country that Simon has chosen for our next expedition and the only one Jamie will visit with us. Jamie, my 14-year-old brother who is adapting to the country by learning pick up lines in Spanish. For all my bravado and showing off with my little sibling I am really very nervous As I climb gingerly down from the bus and grab my backpack I see that I am out of my depth to a new degree.

Todo Santos lies in the mountains of Western Guatemala, a small town with a population that differs with every source. Taking a five hour ride over potholed roads in a overfilled bus, few tourists make it this far and those that do seldom stay long. The houses are made of cinderblocks or mud and are never completed to avoid tax. It is as alien to me as Asia was when I stepped into the heat of Bangkok now months ago. There are no cars here but large trucks and horses travel past on the gravely road as we first explore. How strange I must look to the people here for they are not Ladinos, the decedents of the proud conquistadors but the Maya. Small and dark their race has lived for thousands of years in these mountains where ancient rituals are still practices in dark caves.

The Maya live in a way that the first world has left behind long ago. I find this as I lug my pack into the central courtyard of a house that will be my new home for a week. Chickens run around the legs of Bobby the dog while the daughter weaves in the corner and wise Lazaru reads the bible . The kitchen has a dirt floor and a wood stove where Joanna is making fresh torteas. All my family members are dressed in the clothes of the town, them men in jackets and striped trousers of red and white, the women in blue dresses. A machete leans against the wall showing that the family owns a maize field.

As I go to sleep that first night I know that I have fallen in love. I have a feeling that one day I shall be walking yet again past unconsious drunks and wild dogs until I come to that small courtyard up a hill.


Todo Santos catholic church


Man in the market


Farming on the hills

Bourtie House, Aberdeenshire, Scotland


It took us a long time to get here. In Luang Prabang amid temples and markets, monks and opium dealers we finally started to make our way back to Bangkok. I bade goodbye to the owners of my $3 a night room and swapped my bicycle for a driver and moped. We took off along the river road watching the boats sitting on the muddy banks of the Mekong.

The fast boats moored below the ferry ticket office were not what I had been expecting. Long and wooden and very narrow, with an engine mounted on the stern that had probably been salvaged from a car wreck - the giant prop shaft that trailed behind us was nearly 15 feet long. Jetting down the river at 40 knots we made the Thai border in seven hours.

We had a brand new mini bus to ourselves as we traveled up to Chiang Mai. I sat reading Buddhist literature while Simon lay with feet up and head phones on, singing very loudly. The next day we hurried through Chiang Mai, stopping to learn how to field strip handguns at a Thai Army base. After few hours of bookshops, eating pies and prostrating ourselves in front of Buddhas, we were on the train.

As we had an overnight trip to reach Bangkok I decided to explore the carriages. Unlike most Western sleepers the beds were in a long line all the way up the car. I was slightly perturbed by the hole in the floor that I figured to be the toilet but apart from that the journey passed uneventfully. In Bangkok we had less than a day before our flight home so we spent the time having haircuts and massages and buying forged press passes.

From Bangkok we flew to Scotland via London and spent four gorgeous days enjoying family and home cooking. Compared to the sun of Aberdeen, the mists of Boston are not so thrilling but I am glad to be back and beginning the next chapter.

Luang Prabang, Lao, South East Asia

I do not really enjoy walking in cities. My feet hurt more walking on concrete than grass and I constantly forget how to safely cross roads, jumping out of the way of buses regularly. As I have the tendency to walk with my head down I miss most of what’s going on. When I take a car however, I instantly fall asleep and wake up when we stop. In Laos I miss so much that I will not see again because I look at my feet or sleep.

Walking down by the massive, brown, Mekong in Luang Prabang,
wooden boats lying along her banks, I found a bicycle rental shop. I paid a dollar and leaped onto my new bike, unworried by the inefficient brakes. I slid off the curve and wobbled away in a bizarre fashion, right in front of incoming traffic. As I turned the corner, narrowly missing several street vendors, I felt free.

Lao is a good place for bicycles as they outnumber cars and it's possible to ride down side streets that bigger vehicles can’t negotiate. All the way along the street there are ramps to roll your bike up and the drivers don’t try to run you off the road.

I shot past monks in saffron robes, exchanging nods as I turned around large piles of rubbish. Past women selling fried chicken heads, past stalls and stalls of dresses and bags, lamps and baskets. The piles of rubbish by the side of the back streets seem so odd when you notice how thoroughly the shop fronts are swept. I was soon in the mood and confident about my riding. I started using my bike for transporting anything from my big back pack to teenage girls.

As I cycle off into the distance, my checked khmer scarf flapping in the wind I ponder the aspect of communist life in South East Asia that most appeals to me: the wide spread use of the bicycle.

Siem Reap, Near Ankor Wat, Cambodia

What makes men kill and maim? What makes other men give them the means to do so? I ponder this as I turn the mine over in my hands and stare at its green shell, wondering why. This mine wasn’t made here in the jungles of Cambodia but in a factory in Germany and this is not a one off occurrence. China, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and the United States have all contributed tremendously to the three to six million mines still buried in Cambodia.

It is hard not to fell disillusioned by society when you first meet Sory. What has this ten year old done to lose his hands, what crime has he committed? I think that I would get quite depressed if I thought about this for too long, so its good I never have time.


Aki Ras Museum is more like a shed, what with chickens scratching in the dirt and naked children running past. On the walls of the shed and lying in large piles are thousands of deactivated landmines. They have become so familiar to me that I can conjure them up right now in this city thousands of miles away.

When Simon and I volunteered at the land mine museum we expected to be sweeping floors and looking after the chicken. Instead I am standing with a monkey on my shoulder and a pineapple mine in my hand as I lecture a group of worried looking tourists. Part of my job is to teach English to Sory who lost his hands playing with a detonator and lives at the museum with ten other kids. The tales from the children are tragic and often heart breaking but they make it easier to identify the kids from one another as none speak English. “ Which ones Pei?” I ask to which one of the other volunteers answers “ I think it the boy over there, wait.. Yes, he had his foot blown off an anti personal mine and his two brothers heard the screams and ran to help. They stepped on the tripwire of a pineapple mine and killed themselves and the shrapnel took out Pei’s Eye.”

After teaching I lead groups of tourists around the compound “This is the most common mine around here. Its Vietnamese and can take your leg off by the knee if you press down like this. Anyone want to press down on the explosive cap for me? No, Don’t worry its safe, but watch out for the chicken” With that the aforementioned fowl bursts from the wreck of an anti tank mine, clucking furiously.

Near the gate rests the most interesting part of our collection: The 50 ton American bomb found unexploded right next to Angkor Watt one of the worlds most priceless temples. This is a reminder of the bombings the U.S inflicted on natural Cambodia during the Vietnam conflict. As I leave the compound that night I watch Sory learning to ride a moped and am filled with hope for his future as well as that of Cambodia.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

God, I pity teachers, pity them for all they go through but mainly all I put them through. I had decided that two hours teaching seventeen year olds in Mexico qualified me in some way to teach. I was wrong. My class consisted of twenty Cambodian child orphans of different ages who had been through dozens of English teachers as they were all travelers. Some had lasted a few days, as was I, so the kids had never really picked up English.

Happiness is where you least expect it. I thought that an orphanage would resemble a Dickensian poorhouse, full of crying children and fat men with sticks. I would have thought the kids were quiet and shy had I not stayed for dinner. As I sat with a big plate of rice cabbage, meat and mango, and laughed and took pictures We warmed to each other. After the meal I helped them draw water from their well, a small price to pay for rice and perspective.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Things started to go wrong when someone lifted Simon's wallet. There were about five taxi drivers and ten locals surrounding him and leaving me well alone. That was when the car had broken down and he was negotiating transport to Siem Reap. I was watching his back. Obviously I didn't do a very good job but when you're focussed on a bunch of large scowling men talking in a language you don't understand, it's hard to see everything.

We had entered Cambodia in the dark, a direct result of my talking to girls for an hour instead of packing. It took six hours of bus and tuktuk rides before we arrived at the border, one of the most depressing places I have ever been. We walked across a bridge over the open sewer that is the Thai / Cambodian frontier, small naked children begging for money around our feet.

The road to Siem Reap was like a massive one lane motocross course with five lanes worth of traffic. We bounded and rolled, the taxi stopping to carry four plastic barrels of gasoline which sat in the boot with our backpacks, tempting cars to rear end the bumper. We kept our mouths shut as to not risk biting off our tongues, bracing ourselves over every bump.

I thought that the theft of our money was the worst thing that could possibly happen. After the second tire burst and we were running on a buckled rim, watching trees move at walking pace, I changed my mind. We gave the rim five minutes to last and for the car to stop. After twenty five I went to sleep.

I slept through the kindness of the people who lent us their spare tire. I had in fact slept through all of the tire changes and our drivers' smiling efforts to deliver us to Siem Reap. When you focus on scowling, It is hard to see everything.

Bangkok, Thailand, South East Asia

It is the rooster that wakes me first, the crowing mixed with the sound of mopeds forcing my eyes open. Looking out from my window I see the temple tops glistening in the early morning light across the street. The manic activity of last night has disappeared, the tuktuk three wheeled taxis, the rush of people, bells on the side of the food carts. The shouts of vendors, the roar of motor bikes, the sounds of a thousand people talking, all are replaced by the sound of a solitary man sweeping the streets.

In the gym around the corner, down the alley filled with stalls, the kick boxers climb from their hamolks and twist strips of white cloth around their brown hands. The smell of incense fills the room as monks across the street begin to pray, kneeling in the early morning light.
Across the river district a man drops scraps of bread into the brown water and watches as dozens of catfish slide over each other for the food. The first rocket boat of tourists motors past, cameras flashing at the swimming boys who wave at the lens.

I arrived in Bangkok three nights ago and now it is time for me to leave Thailand and continue onwards to Cambodia. I will be sorry to leave this city for I have seen but a fraction of its personality.