Suffolk University, Boston MA

I think a lot about Music, looking out of the window on the ninth floor with the Christmas lights playing moody patterns across the common. Mostly I imagine my life as a movie, the soundtrack to which blasts forth from Meredith’s ipod when I have the presence of mind to steal it. Though my time in university is but brief I could easily write a scrawled list of music titles that would cover most of the check-sheet book I’m so proud of. All are related to memories; the merest bar of Elton Johns Tiny Dancer conjures up hours of reminiscing, and it’s far from alone. There are some songs however that speak so vividly to me that it’s all I can do to stop myself from instantly going to Facebook and clicking quickly through the reams of photos found there. These songs form a jagged ribbon through events, through deeds done and mistakes made and eventually out the other side to reevaluation and a sullen seriousness.

The Early Days of Chaos and Plenty



When I arrived in America, in the days before my chaotic lifestyle reduced my computer screen to a dozen glistening fragments, it was Franz Ferdinand I’d listen to. Chaos was the order of the day, running from class to class with assorted papers clutched under my arm, beer pong parties amid a sea of baseball caps and t-shirts. I’d listen to Jacqueline, the anthem of confident Scottish Middle-upper-class party animals, as I’d try to iron my favorite pink shirt amid clouds of fetid steam. Speaking honestly I don’t think work was a big concern then, in my defense I’d come from a near friendless existence and found myself plunged into the opposite within minutes of setting foot off the plane. I was more concerned with finding my way through the dormitories, trying to shyly hold hands with a girl when we’d walk back across Boston common after dark.

Reality Sets In


Within the first few weeks the work had thickened, the food seemed to be even stodgier than before and I’d fallen out with my roommate. This was a time I spent sleeping on couches for fear of incurring a massive row in my room, losing my key for days on end and regularly running out of money and persuading the canteen staff in my rusty Spanish to undercharge me. Two songs spring to mind, firstly The Who’s Pinball Wizard for the time spent lying on my bed while my roommate charged frantically in and out, blasting the above song and screaming into a cell phone. The second half of my existence then, trying to stop people from throwing my clothes and homework off the sofa I was living on and having to share it with eight others can only be described with Rozorlite’s America.

Apartment 606


About a Month into school I met Roy and Danny. Listening to Me Gustas Tu, a song written by Manu Chao in French and Spanish about Sun, life, Motorbikes, love, El Salvador, planes, traveling, the sea and a great many other things always brings back memories of their small apartment and all the people who’d find their way there. I’d arrive at about midday on a Friday night, sit down to grape leaf salad, borrow a laptop off the boys and get to work. Later, glass of red wine in hand I’d rip my work from the printer with a proud flourish and begin the gruesome chore of cleaning their sink, a sure gateway to hell and pieces of forgotten food and stale beer. I first really discovered my talent for hosting at 606, juggling glasses, guests and the ever-present complaints from neighbors.

Meredith


The night I became true friends with Meredith Jones we stayed up for seven hours straight, talking in a basement shower room and listening to Coldplay’s The Hardest Part. Whatever my previous mistakes might have led you to believe, I’m not the owner of a wooden sole, who’s one interest in women whether or not their easy. I can truly say that it was Meredith who proved to me that I didn’t have to seduce a girl for her to become valuable to me. Indeed, Meredith taught me that sometimes a person is too precious to even be considered romantically, that I could have a best friend who was female. Writing this now I know what she’d say if she was proof reading over my shoulder, know she’d coo “chheeesssy” before we both erupted into fits of giggles, and for some reason that thought makes me want to show her the rough draft more urgently than I already did. In a way she’s become my redemption, soon after we first started hanging out I fell asleep and Merri was so cautious of awaking “Angry Tom” that she left me snoring for hours. Realizing things like this, I’ve started to improve, to become more organized and less vigilant, and live for the times when I catch her eye in a party and see she’s giving me a wink and pointing towards a girl, mouthing “Japan 4”, our secret code for attractive people of the opposite sex. Partly to guard against Merri’s disapproving glare I make most of my classes, do large chunks of homework and actually get some sleep.

Where I am Now.

One of the many things I always appreciate about hanging out on the ninth floor with Merri is the view for my own room looks onto a drug infested alley and hers the golden dome of the statehouse, magnificent amid Christmas trees. My life as I write this has changed since I arrived here, I have friends whom I love and who love me, though I still struggle with work I am aided so much by a dozen different people who offer their time without complaint or price. Yes, I still suffer from petty stress and constant forgetfulness and yet I have learned the power of sitting with people I actually care about, listening to Yann Tiersen’s Summer 78 and knowing that I have found something worth keeping. Hopefully next semester I will take a break towards the end, whether it be in the jungles of El Salvador or the snowy streets of Boston and look at my laptop to find out which six songs I’ve listened to most.

Glen Lyon, Scotland

On the Second night of my teaching adventure I try to write and ignore the fact that my eyes are tired, my hands callused and a thin stream of mucus hangs from my nose and fights constantly with some grubby tissues. The dusky valley reaching up around the farmhouse where I sit is wet and uninviting. Closer to us, puddles form in the muddy road that reaches across the rivers icy grip to crawl up grassy mounds and arrive gracefully at the fluttering union jack keeping watch over this house. Now though I’m inside, protected from the thin sheets of drizzle and letting the staccato beat of Immortal Techniques “Peruvian Cocaine” fill my ears as I try to sum up this day with some accuracy.

I was awoken early by the noise of camp. For those who have never slept in a tent camp noises ungulate hour to hour, from the “zzzziiiip” of someone sneaking dubiously from their bed late at night to the “oh god” of a camper discovering a lack of poles/sleeping bag/ socks in their backpack. This time though, it was the raucous and happy shouts of what sounded like the entire camp, people who I gathered must enjoy waking up early. Groggily I climbed from my disgustingly orange hued tent and stumbled gratefully into breakfast where a mug of thick tea and a sea of brown toast awaited. After eating, Alex (the deputy head) drove myself and a small pack of rowdy kids along the beautiful valley to a wooded park, gentle oaks and stocky pines all reaching towards a sky that was for once devoid of cloud.

It was in that park I was introduced to “Biscuit” a rock climbing guide who would attempt the daunting task of teaching outdoor activities to children for whom the business of everyday living is a scary and daunting experience. I spoke a lot to this Biscuit, a man who had the fortune of having both a grin and a perpetual look of merry amazement on his impish face. We talked of climbing, he taught me to fix thick nylon rope to trees, clip carabineers into harnesses and help the kids learn to belay. ‘Why are you called Biscuit’ one of the students asked him, the question we were all wondering but too tactful to ask (not that I minded him having a interesting name of course, in my time I’ve met a child called Hope, a computer geek by the name of Max Powers and the smoked ham curer Chip Conquest.)

“Well” he cleared his throat and we were dealt a flood of ridiculous stories, my favorite being “Well, you see I was in Africa as a child, and my parents left me and my sister with a tribe when I was only three.” We stand looking skeptical “So, one day I was running through the camp” he empathized this with a mad scientist-esq waving of arms “and I fell flat on my face and got a massive bruise, here on my forehead. Then the chief walked up, and he stands looking at me like this” he stood on one leg and crooked the other strangely, one arm outright as if holding a spear “and he says ‘biscotti’ which is of course Swahili for ‘egg head’ so from then on I was known simply as biscuit.” Everyone stared, eyes narrowing as the kids tried to sum him up. before they could come to a successful conclusion we were off, running down steep paths and jumping from rocks in our own interpretations of free style walking.
It was with biscuit that I really got to see how determined the kids I was minding were. Sure, some of them refused to climb the rock walls and caused trouble on a deathtrap of a rope swing and one even disappeared, but several of the girls really pushed through their fear of heights and made a go of the activities. I found myself hooked into the rope at the foot of a crag, shouting upwards with all my breath to encourage whoever was pulling themselves up the cracks and weathered ledges.
So, apart from an embarrassing show of my appalling archery skills, the nagging specter of jetlag, forgetting to take a shower and being mauled by midges it was a great day of adventure.

Butterstone, Scotland


After the revelry of Boston I needed to be out of my depth again. I’d had too much fun, partied too hard and was in danger of becoming bothersome with my manically cheery attitude. America had been a whirl of new faces, most instantly forgotten and replaced by the next in a way that left me feeling quite shallow. True, I was more popular that ever before, but the sudden recognition by my peer group was in danger of going to my head and forcing me to change into something different. I’d become arrogant with the attention of so many and Simon would have cut me down to size. What I needed to do was step outside my comfort zone and try something that scared me a little bit, experience things that showed me I still had need to grow and develop.

The chance to try something was waiting for me the minute I got off the plane in Aberdeen the day after orientation, though I’d been planning it far longer than that. Months before I’d been bored and out of work, ringing anyone I could think of to ask if they needed paid help, a volunteer even, and finding that no, they didn’t. Eventually I was saved from the monotony and offered a week of employment after orientation. I’d be working at a school for learning difficulties in Scotland that I’d once attended, a tiny Hogwarts perched on a hill, the odd tower springing from its limestone walls. The kids there struggled with learning disabilities as I once did, their stories at once both tragic and thought provoking. Protected from the outside world, I’d be entering an environment that was at once innocent and frightening, a society no bigger than fifty people.

The newly appointed headmaster was an old friend of mine and had got me the job. Once a teacher there, he’d been one of my most powerful mentors and propelled me through my first few years of boarding school. It was Andrew who had introduced me to the wonders of the English language and the powers of creative thought, who had taught me the meaning of antidisestablishmentarianism, simply “because it sounded good.” A few brief phone conversations and my employment was finalized. Id be working as a “care assistant” at a rural summer camp the school held for a week in a long green valley north of Perth. I was thrilled at the chance to pay back an institution that had been my home for four years and glad to be working with Andrew again. Overall though, I felt nervy to walk through the limestone and paneled wood of a school as a member of staff rather than a student.

So, weeks later I arrived in Butterstone with my eyes full of sleep and backpack leaking hiking boots. I hadn’t really gone back there in my six years since leaving and memories cascaded back to smother me. I felt like the ten year old who had first entered through the blue door, taking baby steps with my head lowered. I remembered running up the dingy stairs to my dorm in the old servants quarter, the dead flies on the window and the sense of happiness that seemed to override the smell of socks and B.O. For me it was a time of innocence, I was protected from the world and didn’t have to worry about a thing.

Andrew met me at the door and we saw how much we’d both changed, a boy who’d become a man and a teacher who’s once short hair now fell graying to his shoulders and who’s beard made him look like some ancient prophet. I didn’t see it then but I laugh now at the thought of my mentor being a man who could pass himself off as Jesus. Soon after our initial reintroduction he was off, running away on some errand while I was heaping my camping equipment into the back of a truck to be taken to the camp a hours ride away. At this time I still didn’t know exactly where I was going.

Boston, U.S.A

I returned to the United States of America at eleven on a cloudless summer night. Cloudless that is in Boston, in the U.K my planes were chased by bad weather and consequently delayed, the end result being me sitting sweaty and gross on a hulking 747 that refused to move until we were all ready to crucify the air traffic controllers in their air conditioned office. When I eventually landed in America the door hissed open and the passengers emerged white and clammy, gasping at the clean air in a similar state to rescued submariners. As I pushed past the mass of humanity trying to escape our aluminum prison and walked down the labyrinthine corridors common place in all airports, I felt my stomach twist itself into knots. This was (A) due to British Airways food (an oxymoron I’m sure you’ll agree) and (B) to the prospect of the dreaded customs officials that I rightly suspected were skulking around every corner.
What is it about American customs officials that make me feel like I’ve entered a totalitarian dictatorship whenever I pass through their officious grasp? According to my mother “guns and snappy uniforms” turn these mild mannered people into lecturing megalomaniacs who delight at the discomfort one shows as they read and reread your passport as if it were the bible. I half expected the customs team to begin speaking German and end each transaction with a precise “Heil.” This time however I offer customs no quarter and, as it’s nearly midnight, the poor man at his little kiosk lets me through at double time once I’ve explained my failure to fill out entry forms stems from my status as both resident and visitor.
I grabbed my bag in record time, hoisted it over my shoulder and walked slowly into the echoing arrivals hall with its glass walls and shiny metal surfaces. There I met Alexis, swaying slightly she was so tired, and was gratefully bundled into the back of her boyfriend Bobbies retro Mercedes (the sort everyone drives is Russian spy films), resisting the temptation to look behind for secret police in unmarked cars. Through Boston we were quite, the easy silence of good friends traveling together. Bobby steered us away from Logan, over the concrete spine of the big dig and down into Back Bay, a town sleepy now the students have left for the summer. We parked outside his frat, a red-bricked building with a small plaque by the front doors discreetly displaying the fraternity’s letters.
Later that night I lay slumped on a leather sofa in the wood paneled Charter Room, the lamps turned low. On the staircase outside are lined the portraits of young men who’d once lived here, the overall style waxing and waning through the decades. In one the boys are in black and white, their hair cowlicked and clothes smart, in another someone posses in 80s blues brother glasses. I laugh now and imagine the frat with a little bit of Harry Potter mixed in, the pictures talking to each other and swapping frames.

San Jose Costa Rica to Granada Nicaragua

When the boat stopped, I wrongly presumed that crossing the border would be the worst part of my journey. Waking up, gummy eyed and dehydrated, I could see the narrow cargo launch had been pulled over and that camouflaged men were waiting to come aboard. Around us the jungle seemed to simmer in the midday heat, the pea soupish river sliding slowly past, carrying its collection of black plastic bags and tour boats I knew not where.

I don’t know why I came back to Nicaragua. It wasn’t to “bag” another country; I’d already visited the state and seen its three biggest cities. It wasn’t to show off, Peru would have been the one for that and, as I was alone it wasn’t for the company. Two days after I had originally planned to leave I was woken at four by Andreas, my body angrily protesting both at the time and the presence of the four-dollar gin in my system. Hopping around in the gloom I was saved the bother of changing by the grubby jeans and tee shirt I had slept in for the past two days and was soon sneaking noisily from the room. An hour and a half later I stood in an empty bus concourse among a dozen shifty eyed Nicaraguans who were to be my companions to Los Chiles, the last town on the Costa Rican border.

I had chosen the Southern road to Nicaragua because most tourists pale from taking a river boat past rickety military checkpoints and as usual I wanted to be different. Unfortunately, I had planned out my trip the way I feel British generals must have planned out the battle of the Somme. I stood at a tiny wall map, moving my hand up massive expanses of green jungle and brown mountains, explaining how I hoped to be half way across the country by nightfall and yet not bothering to consult the guidebook. In the end it took this merry incompetence half a day to manifest itself and by the time I caught the bus and rode the boat across the boarder I thought I was doing really well.

It was a bright sunny day, the river was beautiful and small children were jumping of moss-clad trees into the water. I was still in the best of moods as we crossed the border and entered Lake Managua. The boat chugged up to a massive sprawl of decaying corrugated iron and grey concrete that appeared to be a small port town. As we entered a large ferry (the one I had intended to catch to Granada) slipped its moorings and headed out to sea trailing a thin line of smoke. Even then I wasn’t really upset, there would be other boats waiting to take me up the lake that disappeared into the smog to my left. As I exited the launch and clambered onto the immigrations services dock I could already smell the fine food waiting for me in Cordoba.

“four days”, the customs man holds up his grubby fingers to further emphasize a point I have trouble grasping. I have just discovered that, to catch the next ferry from the aforementioned grubby port I will have to wait in the infested hellhole for four days, subsiding on money that is inaccessible as the nearest ATM is on the other side of the country. Now thoroughly missing Tattie, Jamie and all other my lovely friends in the Tranquilo I ask if there is any other way to get to Granada. The man smiles and nods, “autobus” he grins in a slightly ominous manner.

Thirteen hours later and the bus ride continues like some daemon rollercoaster I have become locked onto. For the first few hours I tried to read but the excessive jolting makes my eyes skip every second word and I soon give up, deciding that the road conditions are marginally worse than in Cambodia. Sitting opposite me is a young man, a fellow refugee from the boat who wears the massive fake Rolex that seems to be the Nicaraguan national uniform. Jammed next to me in the seat are two giggly female students who find it very amusing that I cannot sit straight due to the size of my legs. Everyone seems really smiley and happy, (or they did for the first few hours) and the only person I am slightly concerned about is the mustachioed man with a cowboy hat and wrapped sack conspicuously containing a small rifle. Soon it will be my turn to sleep and I will exchange places with one of the girls and climb onto the bed of rice sacks lining the isle.

One hour after that I am jumping down from the yellow bus, pack on my back and no idea where I am. The city is not the one I remember, shuttered and dark as dogs creep through the shadows and crack whores chase me up the street, demanding either sex or something to eat. Finally avoiding them, I climb over large piles of rubble and reach Hostal Central to find it boarded up with a large For Sale sign tacked to the door. Luckily, as a drunk runs after me up the road, I find two happy policemen who chaperone me to the nearest hostel and, with hands on machetes, persuade the doorman to let me in free of charge.

Volcano Arenal, Costa Rica

Flame, bright and orange, juts from the blackness ahead and cascades downwards with the smell of burned sulfur and an odd popping noise. We stand there, transfixed as the volcano above us erupts in erratic bursts, spewing magma and smoke into the jungle. In the dark I could see Ryan smiling, the click of his camera in sync with the occasional booming roar and flash of flame. The American couple between us seemed oddly out of place up here in the cloud forest, and indeed had they had not picked up two bedraggled hitchhikers (me and Ryan) they probably would never have found this muddy path leading upwards into the crater. We all stood and stared, united by this common glimpse of natural beauty that stirred something deep within me. The romantic part of my brain tells me that maybe I gained contact with some long dead ancestor who once stood, clad in furs thousands of years ago, watching the bright flash of mysterious energy explode from the earth with the same sense of wonder.

I had not planned to go to the Volcano and was instead making far grander plans. Lying one night on my rough straw mattress in Costa Rica’s Tarrazu highlands I had decided to see my friend Rosie. She was in Peru, I knew that much, and at the time South America seemed relatively easy to get to (after all, when consulting my tiny map of the world, courtesy of the C.I.A Costa Rica and Peru seemed to almost touch they were so close together) so I packed my bags and headed for San Jose the next morning. Upon arriving at the Tranquilo, which had yet again become my base of operations in Central America, I stared dumbfounded at a full-scale map of Central and South America. There was Costa Rica, and further south (a lot further south it turned out) was Peru but in the middle was a huge chunk of mountainous land labeled COLUMBIA in ominous black writing. Later that night I was planning my trip and had come up with two possible ways to get down to Peru, which I eagerly presented them to two men who had offered to travel with me. The first, a dreadlocked tyrant who claimed to be a writer/master mariner/ former drug dealer and who carried a massive serrated killing blade wrapped up in his towel seemed none too enthusiastic about my ideas. He promptly informed me that if I was caught stowing away on a cargo boat enroot from the Panama canal the crew would either drop me off at shore, or simply put, “they wouldn’t.”
Ryan, my new Canadian friend looked very strangely at me when I told him I might go through the Darien gap. “Its idiots like you” he told me “that give Columbia a bad name.” He then informed me that in this small strip of land I would find “paramilitary, rebels, other rebels and bandits pretending to be rebels.” I must say I found his cynicism rich, coming from a man who had argued in favor of a hair brained scheme involving the use of geese as a new means of transport. In the end though, he persuaded me against South America and we set about a expedition that would take us to a small island off Costa Rica’s western coast, together with Rick the aforementioned “master mariner” who reckoned he could appropriate us a yacht somehow.


Rick


Ryan

Problems arose very early in the planning of our trip however, as it was soon apparent that the island was not on any maps. Looking at the massive wall chart of Costa Rica pinned on the grubby hostel wall we finally found it in a magnified white box but were unable to place it on the actual map. That night we asked the hostel cleaning woman if she knew where the island could be found and were amazed when she nodded and pointed at the map. ‘Here’ she said, tapping the part of the chart where the little white box was, ‘here.’ Later, after we had given up on that trip and were instead heading to Costa Rica’s only active volcano we still talked about her mysterious island, hidden somewhere off the coast and incased in a massive white box.

An average price for the trip to the volcano of Arenal, a dip in the closed off hot spring there and a night’s accommodation is close to sixty dollars. Thanks to Ryan’s sense of cunning we were able to shave off bunches of dollars in all these areas, taking the overall price to about ten. We started this bonanza of saving by living in a room reminiscent of the house in Fight Club, a squalid hole where the toilet seat slipped off the bowl without warning and there were not enough beds. While Rick and his long suffering companion Cheryl decided to pay full price for a hot spring tour and disappeared off in a bus, me and Ryan and decided to walk up the Volcano. We had Rick’s head light, together with the promise that he would “stab us” is it wasn’t returned in once piece and there was still an hour before the sun went down. Cockily we started off alone the highway, taxi’s and pickups flashing by in a blur of steel, the volcano always ahead and yet hidden for the time being by a mass of white cloud.



For several hours we walked, the sun disappearing fast and apart from a slight detour into a forest reserve (we were promptly ejected by a tiny bat who bounced along the road before swooping over our heads) we made good progress. Soon the light was completely gone and sweat and humidity had soaked the dress shirt I had stupidly chosen to wear for the hike. On we hiked, into a jungle and finally onto a barren road where the nice American couple pulled over in their rented 4x4 and let us clamber in. From there the expedition passed with surprising rapidity as our speed freak of a driver threw the car over every bump we saw at full speed, and it was not long before we had reached the hilltop observatory/hotel where our new companions had planned to stay. The gate guard, a angry man with a clip board refused us entry, even after Ryan assured him we were on the guest list, under the name Oscar, ‘Oscar with a X.’ Luckily we had received directions to a hidden area where (after jumping a few fences) we were able to swim in a free hot spring and watch the lava cascade down the mountain.
The expedition might of turned out slightly differently had we not met a nice Tico who gave us a quick lift up the road and slightly worrying directions to the volcano. ‘Turn left and you’ll get a great view of the volcano’ he told us, ‘turn right and you’ll die.’

Jaco, Costa Rica

I knew Jaco was not my type of place as soon as the bus rumbled onto smooth asphalt and I saw neon signs silhouetted against the palm trees. I had heard of this tropical gringo land before, a small sprawl of hotels, restaurants and surf shops somewhere on Costa Rica’s pacific coast. Indeed, in tranquilo I had seen wide-eyed tourists tell in exited tones that there was even a pizza hut there, to collective “ooh’s and ahh’s” from the rest of us. None of this seemed my cup of tea and, as I jumped from the bus, wrestled with my bag and strode across the street with my two companions in tow I looked awkward and slightly angry. Turning left on a palm tree sided boulevard, we carried on down a strip of gaudy souvenir shops, tourists and locals fighting pitched haggling battles in which the shopkeeper always triumphed. A little further down the dusty street and we came to our hostel, a whitewashed building who’s logo was the grotesque mural of a figure, half man, half chicken, riding a surfboard over a curling wave. Inside the rooms were large and cool, the shower the only thing cold in the whole town. As mortified as I was at paying twenty dollars for room alone, the large pile of fruit I’d bought from San Jose helped put me in better spirits as I doused it with sugar and set about making mojitos.
At that time I was traveling with two American girls. In the hostel the night before I’d seen them walk in wide eyed and open mouthed, the baggage tags on their backpack heralding their status as new arrivals to the steamy nights of San Jose. After initial introductions and a few beers we decided to travel together to Jaco where they had booked a room. Although I’d been planning to head south towards Panama and Peru I quickly changed my plans and within twelve hours we were rumbling along mountain roads and over rickety bridges that spanned alligator filled rivers. Once in Jaco, thanks to the girls I soon got over my initial misgivings. We ate gallo pinto, chatted to the locals and somewhere (on my stolen camera phone in Miami) there are pictures of us grinning and having the best of times. My favorite and the one I hope will confuse the phones new owner is of me, standing on a darkened balcony drink in one hand, wooden cane in the other, looking every inch the colonial gentleman.

A typical day in Tarrazu

Early each morning I am woken to Alian knocking noisily on my window so as to fetch me for breakfast. Leaving the confines of my bed is never a welcome prospect, especially before seven and even less when my arms are dotted by mosquito bites. After a brief struggle I throw off my woolen sheets, grab work clothes now stained with mud and dirt and walk up the dirt track to Alian’s parents house.

Living here I might as well be a character in My Family and Other Animals. Reaching the top of the little hill on whose side I live I can see the pheasant in his wire cage. He is a grand animal, as are all his kind, and with his constant strutting and grand plumage he resembles a great English Duke, imprisoned unjustly within some impregnable castle. Passing the pheasant I am greeted in no uncertain terms by the most aggressive dog I have ever seen, a small brown mongrel I have dubbed Brutus. Brutus is an evil creature who, with teeth bared, flings himself at the thick wire mesh of his cage. If his manic barks were translated to English I am certain they would read “I want to eat you, no matter how long it takes me I’m going to break out of this stupid cage and fly to Scotland to find you.”

The house in which my home-stay family lives is green. The roof is made from corrugated iron and a small garden of roses guard the front door. As I reach the mud-floored carport, the large white form of Osso runs to snap playfully at my ankles. If for some bizarre reason I was ever tempted to recruit sleigh dogs from Tazzazu I am certain that Osso would be my first choice. He is a magnificent creature, an almost husky of a dog somehow marooned in the heat of Central America. Tapping him playfully on the head I duck through the narrow door and pass into the kitchen.

My home-stay mother has adopted me. She leaps around, juggling plates, serving food and talking to me in rapid Spanish. Like all matriarchal figures she has the incredible ability to appear suddenly as soon as I enter a room, constantly offering me “cafecito” and “fresco”. Because of this I am never without sustenance and am persuaded to eat and drink my fill of rice, beans, plantains, beef, fresh orange juice and the ever present coffee. I usually eat quickly and, pulling my hat low to avoid sunburn, go outside to work.

Today there is little work to be done. Although there are always mounds of coffee to be harvested that is the job of trained pickers, a small army of whom live in the nearby woodshed. Today Alian is making some bizarre concoction out of cane sugar, a monotonous process that has taken us two days. Yesterday Alian and his friend used machetes to cut the thick canes and I helped drag them up the hill, having been cautioned against using a machete (my hand to eye coordination is not what it should be). Today the cane has been crushed and the juice drained into a giant steaming cauldron, ala Macbeth. As the mixture bubbles away our only task is to light a massive fire under the cauldron to vaporize most of the juice. I have taken the opportunity to set up my laptop on the concrete dock and am now writing my blog, my hands leaving a thick layer of soot on the keys.

In a few hours comes the part of the day I enjoy above all others. Alian drives the pick-up down the road to the coffee pickers, while I cling onto the back for dear life. Out of the think strands of coffee plants come the pickers, men and women struggling with heavy sacks over their shoulders containing the harvested beans. After Alian has recorded the amount of coffee each worker has harvested it is dumped in the rear of the pickup. Once all the sacks are empty and the truck bed is full of red and yellow beans, we set off to town.

I love going into the town in the bed of the pick-up. We surge down the asfalt, joining a crush of identical pickups, most with mounds of coffee and clumps of workers squashed into the back. There is an amazing amount of energy here in everything I see and the feeling of a good days work hangs over all of San Marcos. We go past blue shirted children leaving school, local girls pretty enough to necessitate a honk of the horn from Alian, stocky Inca workers and their tiny wives who wear bright floral dresses and always seem to be pregnant. Finally we pull into a loading dock and the coffee pours out into a massive bin. Throughout this time I grapple with Osso as he attempts to jump from the car and attack every passing farmer and mangy puppy. As we return home he finally succeeds in escaping and lopes quickly behind in the dust cloud rising from the road.

Evenings at the farm are quiet, the sun setting quickly behind the mountains. I spend a long time showering under the icy cold of the faucets pathetic drizzle and then eat early. If none of my movies catch my interest I retire before nine so as to be up and fresh for the next morning. Around me is silence, the occasional late night truck too far away to be heard, even the lights of San Marcos faint in the gloom. Before long, the sunlight invades my room again and Alian is tapping on my window, breakfast waiting at the table.


The Tarrazu Valley


Casa de familiar Roblez


Elian


Mama


Calin


Osso


Vicky the pitbull


My house


Shooting


On the way to work

San Marcos De Tarrazu

I landed in Costa Rica to the organized chaos of a Central American election. In San Jose alone there were thousands of people appearing in streets decked with party banners while flags were waved crazily from the windows of moving cars. The television, instead of showing its usual fare of car crashes and swimsuit models, was packed with terrifying mug shots of the elected as the pole results trickled in. Walking though the Moscow esc airport I was unaware of this and was focusing instead on finding my ride into the mountains. I shouldn’t have worried, for as I slung my pack over my shoulder and stumbled towards the exit I caught sight of smiling faces and a sign plastered against the window: Tom Remp “Alto Quepos.”

It is a peculiar but welcome phenomenon that foreign taxi drivers may take several friends along for company during long journeys. Such was the case here, and I soon found myself sharing a taxi with three people, one of them my new home stay brother, Alian. They seemed remarkably cheerful considering my flight was two hours late and it was now eleven and pitch black outside. Together we hoisted my gargantuan luggage into the taxi and set off, though San Jose and upwards into the darkness.

Waking up the next day in the hills above San Marcos, I could hear the cries of the Piapia birds as they darted about. Dressing, I stumbled over piles of unfolded cloths and stood silently in the doorway of my little house, looking in silence upon blue sky and dark jungle. Coffee bushes edge the rocky path, banana plants cling to the soil and a large white dog rambles though the bushes. This is not the jungle of your nightmares, not the inky black wildness of The Heart of Darkness. This is a magical world of towering
Eucalyptuses, juicy sugar canes, muddy oranges and the dark red and bright yellow of the coffee beans.

My college application essay:

I don’t really share many meals with my biological family, and those that I do are always slightly odd events, the food less important then the gossip and rumors that flit down the table. I always sit next to my brother Jamie with his absurd haircut, shoving him under the table to prevent one of the foul jokes of which he is so proud. My parents and I engage in lively, good-natured debate while my sister Tessa slips scraps of meat to the dogs hiding under the table. These dinners are rare, because I have spent most of my teens sharing meals with other families.
Meals at boarding schools in Britain were devoured rather than eaten—the dining room a scene from a Dickensian poorhouse. We were united against gross custards and strange lumps of uniform meat. Despite the hassle I received in the dorms, I could join in the laughter as the tiny Welsh boy Alex did his “grease test” on the raggedy hamburgers. After scraping our plates into the slop bucket, we would leave the hall and cast of the brotherhood that only existed around mealtimes.
I found my first real family away from home at Shackleton, an expeditionary high school whose staff and students became closer to me than I originally thought possible. I remember clutching wonderfully warm soup bowls with Andy and Luke—the wind and rain buffeting our flimsy tent perched high in the mountains of Southern Maine. My crewmate Kayla was cutting cheese with a blunt knife as our white bus tortoised along the freeway towards Mexico, both of us waving to passing motorists with hands full of cheesy crackers. These were my schoolmates, who, through the years, became my brothers and sisters.
And now things are even more spontaneous, my base camp in Boston replaced by international travel and independent learning expeditions. My family has expanded to include backpackers from Europe and educators from Outward Bound. There was my tutor Simon, teaching me to eat spicy noodles with chopsticks while a gaggle of local girls titter from behind a hut. With any meal he was the connoisseur, asking for strange concoctions with a nasal twang he had been developing in Asia. Behind us loomed the temples of Angkor, or the rice paddies of Laos stretching into oblivion. Sometimes children accompanied us as we ate, from the orphan girls who drew water at the well to amputee Sorey who could hold chopsticks with his stumps, I soon regarded them as my own.
A typical meal for me is one where I see new faces. My family has increased over the years to encompass many more people: educators and students, hills tribesmen and society girls, firemen and organic farmers. Every one of them invites me to their table and regards me as one of the family. People often ask me how I cope with seeing my family infrequently. I learned to love others and regard them as an extension of my own bloodline.

Cadaques, Spain

If I had a moped I wouldn’t have to think as hard. Walking back home from Kixa’s the world changes and the cold creeps through my jacket. The rain pooling in dark corners and the street fuzzy from darkness, both make me think. The bright lights of cars pass occasionally, illuminating the rutted track and allowing me to see. If I had a moped I could speed around the bends, clattering down the semi-paved hill with my broken muffler sending muddy dogs into frenzied barking. I could concentrate on my driving and the wind in my hair. As it is my hands are wedged into pockets and I am forced to consider things I usually try and avoid as the road stretches before me.

I want to go onwards and finish this quarter and yet everything gets harder. Steve shows it more than me, his posture slightly stooped, moods erratic, idiosyncrasies more pronounced. The truth is we had fully believed things would become less of a struggle for me, for instance that any mood swings I had would have diminished or vanished. Instead I still fly from one extreme to another and as my workload increases so does my reaction. In other areas I scrape past, my math skills still hopelessly inadequate and my physical fitness level now steadily dropping.

If I had a moped then maybe I could focus on the positive. When I ride with Yuma or Maya, legs banging against theirs, one hand jamming the tiny helmet against my head, then I feel brilliant. Flying along darkened roads I can remember that last week I completed two papers, that the week before I stayed in a library for three hours without break to get the research I needed for school. My Sat score is manageable and I have time to see my friends every other day.

Of course I don’t have a moped. Most nights then, I take the long trip home on foot with leaky Blunstones getting my socks muddy. and alone, wishing for a chance to ride into oblivion.

Fez, Morocco

The noise that wakes me is as foreign as the chants from a Bangkok temple were two years ago. The sun sits lazily on the horizon, its rays not yet warming the cobbled streets of inner Fez. From dented megaphones atop elegant green towers come noise, the tirade of a preachers voice propelled over the waking city. “God is great” they say in Arabic, the noise echoing through our broken window. However wonderful it was I would prefer that they not announce this so early, my clock reading 5:30 AM.

Waking, we make preparations for leaving the room. Laptop, passports and money are hidden under a wardrobe while I scrounge around for breakfast. Finding only stale bread and olives I suddenly remember that it is Ramadan. The month of holy fasting, Ramadan is meant to remind all who worship Islam that they are not too different from beggars and the destitute. As it is illegal for anyone to eat on the street during the day I have been struggling with this and sneaking food to our room like a naughty schoolboy hiding tuck. After my unsatisfactory meal I clamber into dirty clothes, the product of failed negotiations to get our laundry washed for less than it would take to do it ourselves.

On the street things are in full flow. Stepping out of our door and narrowly missing a pile of rubbish, I feel slightly like Indiana Jones. Around me flows a stream of people, many in weird and wonderful garb, from flowing robes to strange KKK-esq pointy hoods. Every building seems to be an open-air shop selling something random, doorknobs and electrical wires for instance. Every local, from shopkeepers to beggars seems to want us to one of the following:
(A) Buy something from their shop, usually something semi-useless or overpriced
(B) Converse with them in French about how brilliant Fez is
(C) Move Out of the way of their donkey that is carrying anything from rubbish to coke bottles on its scraggy back.

I loved Morocco. The people smiling and shouting “Bonjour” at us, the sticky Ramadan treats made from fig syrup, the artisans making pottery and the view from the rooftops onto a tanning factory. Everything was foreign and yet familiar, reminding me of Asia and Central America mixed together. Although I built up an aversion to squat toilets, fasting and creepy hostel owners with fatal coughs my first experience in Africa was extremely enjoyable.

Cordoba, Southern Spain

With every day we come closer to Africa, Cordoba shrinking behind and an unknown continent looming ahead. To be on the road again feels uncomfortable, calmly moving towns, swapping hotel rooms and generally moving on like a couple of spies. Now we are on our final train, olive plantations passing on the left and freshly plowed fields on the right. A small-whitewashed farmhouse offers visual relief from a stark environment and a hovering bird of prey makes me smile as the sun glints off its dark feathers.

I was watching Motorcycle diaries on my way to Granada and a line of Che’s struck me, “ Por esa vagar sin rumbo por nuestra mayuscula America me ha cambiado mas que queria. Yo ya no soy yo. Por lo menos, no soy el mismo yo interior.” Loosely translated by Steve it reads “But this journey lacking a fixed course through the greater America has changed me more than I intended. I am no longer I. At least I am not the same I on the inside.”

As we continue our journey down through Spain, the more I can relate to the statement you just read. Those who fret about my political stability shouldn’t worry; it is not likely that I will become a communist revolutionary any time soon, at least until I can grow a beard.
I am changing though; my ideas altering from the months spent studying with a fervent idealist like Steve. I am becoming more readily eloquent, able to express ideas in words that used to be confined solely to paper. Combine this skill with something new to say and I feel unstoppable as I turn my attention to things currently bothering me. The major vent for my scorn has been the Christian eradication of Islamic thought in Spain and the negative affect it produced.

We just seen the second of the three Islamic wonders of Spain and like the first it has been converted religiously. Standing in the many-pillared hall of the Mezquita mosque in Cordoba I felt awed at the simple continuation of the whole structure, red and white topped pillars extending like a forest of poplars in every direction. Later, walking into its center I found a church, an edifice of pink marble and candles that was at odds with the surrounding structure and that had obviously been transplanted there.

Why this massive plagiarism, building a church inside a mosque and thereby taking claim to something that is not theirs? The Islamic court in Spain welcomed people of any faith and Christians, Jews and Muslims studied side by side to achieve higher learning. The fact that this, one of histories most tolerant institutions were replaced by an Christian inquisition that would inspire fear from all of Europe for hundreds of years is purely shocking and something for anyone who reads this to think about. I am not saying that you, the reader should change your core beliefs and I am certainly not Muslim, but please do not infringe upon others, however foreign and threatening they may seem.

Granada, Southern Spain

Imagine a Spanish Palace, its towers soaring into the blue void of space. This is a place of tranquility, where the sound of trickling water greets visitors, where cats lounge on tiled floors upon which, Spain’s ruling caliphs once trod. Walking over a mottled bridge above Granada I found such a place in the Alhambra, a fortress-city and gateway to another time. Stepping through the gateway and wandering through light flecked halls, detailed patterns eye catching with every step, I have found something beautiful and calm.

Nothing like this is untouched, and as I explore, so do maybe a thousand other tourists, moving past each other to snap pictures like ants foraging through a kitchen. I may join them in their journey but I still feel shame as I stand under an arch to have my picture taken, feeling like Hitler posing before the Eiffel tower. This feeling of guilt comes not from something I did but of acts committed by others hundreds of years ago.

The Spanish did not build these halls, this palace and the university of Cordoba. These are Muslim buildings, the Arabic on the colored tiles faded but still visible. And where are they, the men who built this palace, whose creative scope flows from every wall and surface? They are gone, their mosque flattened and a monstrosity of a church built over it. They are gone, thrown out, evicted not from a town but from a country, for the simple crime of being Muslim. In today’s media driven world many tend to look at Islam as a religion of hate followed by fanatics ready to die for any cause. How can we forget the learning that5 Islamic scholars introduced into Europe? How can we forget the royal courts of the Caliphs where Jews Christians and Muslims intermingled freely?

Now I am on a bus, heading through a land of olive and palm, of wandering goats and hardened shepherds, the heart land of Spain around me. This is Andalusia and ahead is Cordoba and after that the straights of Gibraltar and all of Africa. This is a history book of terrain, a land marched by Moors and Carthaginians, roads that have seen Hannibal’s elephants and Franco’s shock troops. This then is Spain and I am traveling through it towards Morocco, following the trail of Islamic influence towards its source, keen to find some meaning in all I have already seen.

Nice, France

“Ask for the number nine” Steve presses, urging me towards the bus which is preparing to depart the underpass where we have been sheltering. “nine, I don’t know nine” I insist “Une, Deu, Twua, Cat, Sanc, Sies, ummm, Nope”. As the bus departs Steve glares at me and together we search the gloomy streets for a taxi.

Had it just been the case of a missing bus at a Nice underpass(The city was Nice, the underpass was anything but) this trip might have looked normal, but amusingly the past two days have been those of confused backpacking as we made our way to France for the ACT.

Two nights ago and we first reached France and the coastal town of Cebere aboard a battered commuter train. Our brief three hour stay was quite boring and mentionable only for the sheer dodgyness we encountered upon exiting from the darkened station. From brightly lit train it was but twenty steps before a darkness of flickering street lights and murmuring shadows took over. For ages we navigated through foul tunnels and water filled streets to the waterfront and a bench. With no sea view to speak of and the bars shooing out their last patrons we retreated. Later in the station and with my laptop offering salvation from the doldrums, we watched Good Morning Vietnam in the fringes of freight yards while Doberman pinchers looked at our shins with longing.

All this effort and the ACT exam hall looks deserted, thin sheets of rainwater forming in the carpark and no possible test takers in sight. After five minutes the rusted steel gates popped automatically open and a mousy looking teacher hurried us inside, the garish pink of the painted concrete making me feel like a child in Disney land. And it almost was for I was the only student enrolled for the ACT and enjoyed the relaxed test taking environment in which I flourish. Alone in the schools I.T room the whole production to get there seemed such a anticlimax and I felt almost relaxed with the test (until I came to the math section, of course).
Now we are heading through Italy, the sea cloudy as our train ploughs along the Riviera the test done and my stomach rumbling in time to the beat of train against track.

Barcelona, North East Spain

The minutes tick quickly out of my reach and I am still lost within the test. My hair has lengthened and hangs shaggily over the collar of the clubbing shirt recruited for the S.A.T. Surprisingly even with this unorthodox look I am not out of place, as I might be in some cold American test facility in New England. The Spanish students surrounding me wear clothes that make them look good rather than excessively formal. The atmosphere is tense (of course some things never change) but friendly and we seem more like good friends sitting down for dinner in a trendy restaurant rather than strangers in a dusty conference room taking the S.A.T.

It is the proving ground, this exam that can secure you a place within the walls of academia or bar you from the same. Steve has helped me prepare to combat this test, coached me through the many math sections until the gibberish started to make sense. Unfortunately nothing prepares for the real thing and my fingers tap restlessly against the desk, my eyes riveted to the square wall clock. Its like a starters gun, the moderator up at the front calmly saying ‘you can begin’ as we scramble to open the booklets and start writing.

Later I stand up feeling bruised and sore, finish the last tick box, hand in the paper and walk slowly down the stairs as shaky as if I had escaped Lorcas, ‘Shipwreck of blood’. In the test centre restaurant Steve sits and waits for me, then together we escape the Orwellian looking test center and exit onto the street, the trees a leafy green above us.

Cadaques, North East Spain

The cloudy grayness of last week has given way to a sun that now warms worn terracotta roofs and lazy cats lolling outside doorways. The light washes down across the bay, and makes shadows upon the water flutter and dance. In the garden, a slight wind buffets the potted palm in its outside pot, complimenting the light and demanding that a watercolor of the scene be drawn.

From the garden terrace I can really appreciate Cadaques in all its whiteness, at times when it seems ancient and a little magical. To stand on the hill and look down upon the town is like sitting in the gods at the theatre, watching some vast exquisitely propped play as time speeds by. The clouds roll in, the sun descends behind olive green peaks and the moon rises elegantly to cast its light upon the sea. The street lamps go on across the beachfront, the shops close and the bars open, one half of the populous makes room for the other half. Soon the sun rises again, casting her pink flame over the crags and rocks of Cap De Creus, hitting the lighthouse before cutting gracefully to her place high above the Casino and the olive trees.

We watch all this from our hill, binoculars and naked eyes scanning the road that snakes along the waterfront, removed by vegetation from any activity past our garden walls. A few streets distant scooters buzz through the cobbled streets, on the beach tourist boats crash against the shore, cooks and waiters take a quick cigarette break before plunging back to the steaming inferno of the kitchens dotted around town. Up here however an air of scholarly seriousness looms over everything. A cardboard box is tacked up against the window, taped calendars and timetables replacing the view of church spire and garden poplar with proof of our academia. Our math work is temporarily laid aside, SAT books replaced by reams of poetry translations for our next project, the writing of a five page paper. And outside the sun drags lower in the sky and activity trickles downwards in tempo as the night appears.


Steve on the hill above Cadaques

Cap De Creus, North East Spain

Running feet pausing briefly upon the dirt, taking off again, hurried like worried grouse fleeing death in a far away land. A shoe lands in a miniscule cloud of dust, the earth lifting skywards only to submit to harsh gravity and come down again in a puff of friction.

Running I can see. The sky is purple, heavy hues splashed lightly onto the canvas of ancient rock. My gaze swings between sky and ground, each footfall jolting my vision slightly, sweat stinging at eyes and neck. Ahead on the rocky path is Steve. With little effort my teacher turns neatly round the corner, skipping over dusty brambles before jogging onto the length of a once-used dam. I follow, feet scrambling for purchase, head starting to ache with effort, hands balled into tight fists.

Running, I feel free. The wind blowing and serenading, the sun burning brightly as it launches from the horizon, upwards above the sparkling ocean. My lungs may ache, pain may shoot from my legs, but none of that seems to matter when I run. My feet float almost gracefully and I will everything to give me speed, to hurl me forward into the next turn. Broken buildings, their shells cracked and torn appear to the left before we pass them in a second, the smell of aniseed thick around us.

Running, I forget. Memories are replaced with the present while grudges and fears slide off into the dust behind me. Any problems from the previous days are forgotten as my joints loosen and I can think clearly again. Work and stress, arguments and fights, all is forgotten as I run, the sky the limit, nothing unattainable in those brief moments.

Cadaques, North East Spain

The thunder has gone, clouds shifted from above the town, the sun revealed if only temporarily. We have been here in Spain for a week and yet I have not written before now, hopefully to the vague disappointment of my readers. Looking out of the dirt stained window I can see the hills rise away in the distance around the town, forming the stage for this expedition and looking perfect for me to sketch at some later time.

Now though, I plug in my headphones, switch on A Beautiful Day by U2 and start writing again. This week feels like years, every day intermingling then slipping slowly away like the sailing boats heading from the harbor and out to sea. Every day we work from the kitchen table, piles of schoolbooks confronting us with their serious print and boring titles. We read through these, figuring out mathematical problems that to me have no point other than to act as stepping-stones for applying to collage. Could we not, I wonder, figure out problems to deal with world hunger and racial injustice, calculate food usage in Africa instead of figuring out how many eggs Jill has if she buys five more? A thick layer of test papers lies like fresh snow upon all this and finally some are starting to be filled in with scrawled pen marks.

Sitting here, my thoughts wander to France where we went for the day to see some Matisse’s on show in the local gallery. The sun low in the sky we strolled down leafy avenues and drunk coffee after touring the art gallery. In France I saw so much to write about, both for my blog and serious reference papers. I wrote briefly on crossing the border:

France seemed an extension of the dusty Catalonian landscape as we crossed the border above a wide ravine. Continuing though the olive tree covered countryside I saw subtle differences, the French number plates of the car in front and the indecipherable signposts sliding by. Catherine was quick to point out random snippets of information ‘Here’s the pass used by Hannibal’s elephants’ or ‘Quick, look, that is where a princess used to throw her lovers out of windows and down the cliffs’ followed usually by a good natured laugh as we cruise deeper into Europe, the sun shining and thunder clouds no where to be seen.

Clapham Common, London

London is humid, the heat sickly and clinging and the rain still frustratingly absent. Even deep in the earth on the tube, rattling along inside the mysterious iron tunnels the air was warm and foul, like I had been sucked down into some giant maw. It was my first time in London since the dreadful bombings and things felt slightly different in the tube, like a cloud of mistrust was lurking underground. It was with relief then that I arrived at my stop, flung my bag onto sweaty shoulders and climbed the stairs to the street.

Being in London is a wake up call for me, my last few days in Britain and on holiday for three months. In about 48 hours I will meet my friend and tutor Steve, board a plane and be in Spain by nine a clock that night. In Spain we get to work, studying high school curriculum with the aim of graduating me by Christmas. Shackleton may have closed and, although I have not graduated I have not failed either. So instead of studying at school Steve and I will be cast loose in Spain. We will therefore set up our own place of learning in Es Puig, my families summer house that will become our school

We will be based in Cadaques, a town perched by the mountains and fronted by sea. This artistic community should provide us with a base and the chance for me to improve my writing and enrich my future posts and entries. Everyday I will learn, from cooking traditional food to riding challenging paths on my mountain bike to studying poetry to algebra.

Now I am still in London. I hear sirens and glance outside, staring at the lush green of plants and the hazy spire of some church next door. Already I have left behind my usual innocence and am ready for the change in schedule a city trip demands. Instead of walking through wheat fields I will dodge pedestrians in crowded streets, instead of eating at home I will eat out. I will have to keep doors locked and watch out for pickpockets, things rarely done in Aberdeenshire. And then in two days when I am just settling down I must swap London for Barcelona and the known for the new and frightening.

Aberdeenshire, North East Scotland

Familiar figures whirl around me, their countless shadows sprayed liberally across whitewashed walls. The light comes raining down from two immense candelabras surrounded by red coats of arms, these adorned by more finery in the form of painted wooden spears. Down below the band is about to start again, the musicians trooping back amid socialites crowding the dance floor with their Smalltalk and glasses of Champaign. The great and the good, close friends and acquaintances, hundreds of people fill the “Coo Cathedral”, that grand palace of a barn in rural Aberdeenshire, they fill it with laughter and merriment, gathered here today for the annual Abboyn Ball.

Suddenly as groups of friends eagerly scrawl on dance cards, introduce each other and try to make up for lost time a fiddle is drawn. A single fiddle yet the noise turns to a murmur and from the front comes a calm voice, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your places for the reel of the 51st division.”

White Tie and Evening wear, elegant dresses sweeping the ground as their wearers form long lines down the dance floor. Kilts in uncountable tartans and sporrans made out of unidentifiable animal heads with staring glass eyes. Both dresses and kilts move slightly as the men bow and the women curtsy, step forward….

In this last moment I walk quickly through the gathering crowd searching for the partner I have completely lost, a very sweet girl from England who I hope is also trying to find me. As the music starts and with my partner still absent, a wide eyed and slightly unnerving young woman completely unknown to me (who had seconds ago announced herself taken) decides she has been abandoned and I lead her into line.

…..The music starts and years of practice take over:

Forward step, bounce bums with my partner, cast off one (go behind the man next to me) set to my partner and quickly clap my hands before spinning her.

Mental instructions fly though my head as I look at my partner and try to remember her name. Next to me is James and further down Sam, both dancing with glamorous friends of ours clad in pashminas and expensive jewellery. As we spin each other the dancers whoop and stamp, laughter fills everything, more champagne corks are popped and I catch the faint smell of breakfast from somewhere off the dance floor.

Going back to school it is the dances I remember most. Leading girls by the arm, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, Rose’s laugh as the line disintegrates around us and dancers wheel erratically in every direction. James doing press ups in the middle of a circle to the angry stares of the older generation. We dance and flirt, laughing and making the most of this day for there are precious few times when we see each other, the youth of upper-class Aberdeenshire however much we deny it.

This time though, as the final dance ends and God Save the Queen is sung, all is not as jolly inside my head. All that I have just written about, the grandeur and the expensive tickets, it all contradicts with the way I try to live outside the U.K. I guiltily think of what Mama Mendoza in Guatemala would think of all this wasted wealth, money that could go into the community or something useful, or even what my school friends would say if they saw me here. In the end of the day of course, I am not going to renounce this life, these friends and this way of living. Instead I do my service work, visit poor countries, write my blog and keep each contradicting compartment in my life completely separate from the rest.

Corrybrough, Tomatin, Northern Scotland


Back from the highlands, washed, shaved, and reunited with the internet I finally have the opportunity to return to my writing and report on what I have seen. My time up north has left me with an urge to type reams of blog entries about beating, each featuring Dickensian characters living in a highly dramatized and equally stylized world. About the place, the rolling hills I could write much but it was the people who evoked the most emotion in me, the beaters and the keepers that I remember more than anything else.

There were two major factions working on the estates, both of which I had to interact with on a daily basis. Standing on the moors whilst we beaters were eating lunch you could see the presence of these two sides immediately. On the grass banks behind the lunch hut all those that have previously been working together immediately split in half and headed for opposite sides of the hill.

On one side, leaning against pieces of peat, talking loudly and wearing florescent rain gear are the Eastern Europeans. These are migrant workers brought in for £30 a day plus food and board, with no contract or loyalty to the estates. I live with them in an estate bunk house and am technically one of them. The following is a basic description of a average working morning in the granary.


The lower bunk beds are small, barely enough head room to even lie down on, let alone sit on the edge. Under the bunks, belongings are crammed, rumpled fleeces spilling loose change onto the floor as Eve, with her pigtails and prominent mole, yells at the occupants as she tries to hoover. The twelve in the room troop slowly down stairs to join others waiting on the long table marred with grease stains and marks as plates of dripping bacon buns are carried before them. Into such a vivid environment come characters, many straight from the pages of Orwell and Dickens.

Over by the fridge, Karel, a Czech with curly blond hair and a smile like the Joker, studies half eaten salami and bottles of orange juice. Satisfied that everything is in order he grabs a plate of soggy cornflakes and slurps them down noisily.

Sitting in the ripped chairs, Petra and several other Babushka like women are getting into waterproofs, braiding their hair and rolling sandwiches up in blue paper hand towels which they shove into coat pockets.

At the table, “Army boy” dressed in camouflage, and with his binoculars ever ready, quietly in Czech to his girlfriend as he steals orange juice for lunch.
Machek the Pole notices the theft and complains about the lack of juice due to the couple as they walk from the room. Presently a pockmarked Scottish youth with a near-shaven head named Ben comes down the narrow stairs lugging several guns and bandoliers of ammunition which the Czechs eye with worried expressions. Davie is next into the room with Bob the chef, ordering the beaters to “load up” into the backs of several land rovers already half filled with dogs.
Out side at the land rovers, beaters jostle for good position while oblivious dogs slide in between their legs to take up muddy station on the seats. We climb in, slam the doors and are soon being bumped and jolted into the hills and away to work.

Clune, The Highlands, Northern Scotland

Alone on the hill time passes slowly. Harsh winds blow cold and furious, driving thin sheets of rain into the gullies around me. Clumps of purple heather and the brown mess of peat hags carpet the ground, punctuated only by grey scree.

Minutes pass without break and the smallest change in the environment (A spider moving slowly across my leg) becomes immediately apparent. Later a sound, sharp like the crack of a whip (belonging to a waved flag), fills the void of silence and I slowly stand. Following it comes a shouted command, “Come on” rising as I clamber to my feet. Now standing it becomes apparent that I am in a line, small figures extending left and right across my vision, each clutching the plastic flag with its handle of faded wood.

This could be any number of days, the landscape almost indistinguishable from any other on the moors. In rain and sun, with biting winds at my face I have stood in line upon similar hills and waved my flag, sometimes with gusto, usually with deliberate slowness.

Stamping along, avoiding mud and rusted wire, the occasional Grouse is startled upwards into the air. These small brown birds, worth £95 per brace (for two) are our targets. Us in the line, the “beaters”, wave and snap our flags, driving the startled animals over the hills until the noise of firing shotguns looms ahead. Those with the guns have precious few seconds to fire at the frightened birds as they hurry away from the beaters and many birds fly on unhampered.

From my spot on the line I can see the guns firing, the “flankers” and the “Picker-up-ers” working dogs behind those shooting. A bird is hit and seems to freeze in midair before falling earthwards, feathers billowing over the heather. “Get back in line” screams a red faced Davie, “Stop looking at the guns”, his harsh words forcing me from my reveries and back into the monotony of my work.

Nearing the butts (dugouts for the guns to sit in) Davies radio comes alive as somewhere Susan tells the line to “Blow the horns”, signalling the guns to stop firing in front so they don’t hit the approaching beaters. Soon, after we have passed the butts and all shooting as ceased the entire line sinks to the ground and unwraps any food we have been carrying in our packs. We eat hurriedly, knowing that we will have to repeat all I have written of four more times before our daily wages are handed out.

Invernesshire, The Highlands, Northern Scotland

“Next stop Inverness, the line terminates next stop” whispers the tannoy system as the train barrels on through fields and past whiskey distilleries, their mounds of empty barrels sitting outside. Several minutes later the train hisses and stops, the doors open and I am expelled alone onto a chilly platform like some forgotten soldier, dragging my bags behind to the front of the station. I had travelled for three hours, carrying sleeping bag and boots, hats and spare clothes, intent on reaching Inverness and starting my job.

One month ago I had rung up Kallum, the Head Game Keeper of the Corrybrough Estate and asked for a summer job beating. Expecting a long interview I was very happy when after two minutes he said “See you at the estate on the 11th then, hope you don’t mind but everyone else is an Eastern European” and hung up.

It is the 11th of October, the night before the Glorious 12th which is traditionally the start of the grouse shooting season. In big houses across the country guns are laid out in their sleeves, Shoffel and Barber jackets taken off their pegs, cartridge bags filled and electronic earphones loaded with batteries.

On the estates harried keepers race across the moors in Land Rovers, on quads and clinging to the back of Argos, trying to finish last minute preparations. Flags and jugs of juice are loading into vehicles and over at Corrybrough Ben is going over the route for tomorrows drives.

In Inverness, perched like a buzzard upon my bags I catch sight of several Land Rovers parked out front near the old hotel. Taking my bags towards them I can see a large red faced man sitting in the left hand vehicle, dressed in tweeds and looking impatient. Seeing my dishevelled figure he raises one arm in greeting and motions for me to dump my bags in the back of his truck.

Later, from sitting talking with him and listening into others conversations I will learn much more about the countryside than I do about Davie. As we drive towards the estate I gather only that he works on the estate, owns a dog and is disappointed with the awful state of the shooting season. After twenty minutes (Davie being the slowest driver in the North) of uncomfortable silence and stilted conversation we reach Tomatin which I understand will be my local town for a month.

Ten seconds later we are though it, the whole place consisting of a post office, a large pub and twenty houses that leave me disappointed. The pickup truck skirts fields of bored looking sheep, drives under two road bridges and over a rickety wooden one before pulling up in a empty yard. A sign on one of the buildings reads “The Granary-Corrybrough”, and through the lighted windows I see people moving around in a sparsely decorated room. Grabbing my bags I hasten to the door and set my sights on finding a good bed and something to eat, knowing nothing about what’s in store for me over the following weeks.

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