Home Sweet Home

Back to the routine of stoking the fire and wandering in the woods with Sanford. It's so crazy how one day I can be in a completely different country, watching pelicans dive into the warm ocean, and the next I can be back home with winter's breath at my side.

Darin met me at the airport as he had flown in from Portland to spend his week-long spring break staying with me here in Gold Bridge. It's nice to have someone to share meals with every day. A good way to ease into the first week back at work after a tropical vacation full of sun and socializing :) It might be tough getting back into the isolation part of living up here once he leaves on Sunday, but I'm starting to get the hang of how to take care of myself while I live on my own. Lots of walking, exploring, thinking. And outside time is getting much easier with the extended daylight hours!

This afternoon we are going for a horseback ride with Barrie, who called to see if I was interested in riding this weekend. Darin is coming out for his first ride EVER! Very exciting stuff. Barrie used to run a trail riding outfit and he still has a ton of calm horses that know how to handle a nervous new rider on their backs. Perfect place to introduce my man to something that is important for me to have in my life. I'll be sure to post some pictures.

Tomorrow we are heading down to do some ski touring off the Duffey, as winter is on its last legs these days and I want to get as much skiing in as possible before the big melts hit the hills. It'll be Darin's first time out in the backcountry as well, and a friend was kind enough to lend him the safety gear he needs. We'll do some drills and practice using the beacon and shovel and probe before we head out, and I think we are going with friends from Lillooet who have logged lots of time in the hills. It's a good crew and place for a first time. Darin will be on snowshoes packing his board up the hill, so at least he won't have to worry about the whole skin up (called "transitioning" where we put skins on and off skis to hike up and before skiing downhill, respectively) and switchback (making the uphill turns on skis or a splitboard with a heel that lifts freely) experience, which can take some getting used to. I was using the board/snowshoe combo last year before I invested in some amazing skis as part of my personal "I need these so that I don't go crazy living in isolation" allowance to myself.

I did some writing over the break, so perhaps this weekend I'll post a piece or two for your perusal if I can motivate myself to do the editing and reworking after the riding and ski days :) The sun is shining. Time to get outside. Happy trails!

Precaucion

I went surfing on Thursday morning, and had another surf day on Friday. Waves were great. We went to a spot a little further along the beach for some bigger surf, and it was just myself, Edgar and Cesar who I had gone with the day before. Such nice guys. Today I got battered in the ocean a bit more, and my surfboard hit me in the face. I quickly checked for blood from my nose, from my eye socket, checked for broken bones, with no success thankfully. The outer corner of my right eye is now black, but it could have been so much worse. One of the hazards of the sport, I suppose.

The entry and exits to wade into the surf were difficult as well. Rolling softball-sized rocks that crush toes, and sharp barnical spines to slice up tender winter feet. Yesterday I was ploughed over by a wave as I got out and survived with only a few cuts. They go well with my black eye.

As if the surfing was not adventure enough, in the afternoon I went to treat myself to a massage in the spa at Tracy’s condo building. Twenty minutes before my appointment I went down to get some use out of the sauna, and the woman at the front counter was kind enough to turn it on for me. As I started to relax in the dry heat I noticed that there was some white writing painted on the wood panel box underneath the dial. “Precaucion" and then something I didn't understand about 40 degrees. Well, the temperature guage was at 50, and my relaxed mind didn’t think much of it until, just as I was about to close my eyes and drift off into semi-lucidness BAM! everything shuts off and sparks start flying like a mini-firework has been set off from the electrical box with the heating dial on it. It had completely broken open like the shell of a cooked clam breaks open in the heat of boiling water! I let out a shocked scream and brushed the sparks from beside my thigh with my towel. I quickly put on my clothes, SO thankful that I had chosen to rest on the upper bench rather than the lower, which was completely sprayed in the dusting of green sparks upon detonation. Only in Mexico!

I tried to explain the situation to the lady at the desk, using my best internationally-recognizes explosion gestures and noises. Mexico is kind of an anything-goes place, and that also means that suing places for mishaps is not common practice. Tracy mentioned that the manager of the building fell into a gaping hole in her office during construction and hurt herself so badly that she was off work for three months and is still using a cane to walk. If that happened here in North America she would be awarded millions.

Because of the entrapreneurial and relaxed attitude of locals, there seems to be a freedom and lightheartedness to the way the children play here. Perhaps they are made tough by shoddy electrical jobs and the practice of avoiding open sewers and holes, which are all over the sidewalks. I’m sure playgrounds here aren’t deemed “unsafe” if they have wooden impliments with the same scrutiny they are in Canada. People aren’t bound by endless liability issues here, and this probably lends itself to lots of less-than-perfectly safe scenarios. I have to say, I do enjoy the feeling of liberation, even at the cost of a little extra danger. I'm a little black and blue, but I live to tell the tale.

As we surfed yesterday the pelicans flowed in rows back and forth beside us, scanning the walls of waves for schools of fish. It was so cool watching them fly right beside me, basically at eye-level. I could look them each in their motionless eyes as they flew by in perfect rows, gliding in unison like streamers on the tail of a kite in the wind.

From Tracy and Frank’s balcony I can see the “bird islands”, which are clumps of rock relentlessly engulfed in a swirl of birds in flight. In the dawn and dusk light they are white on the horizon, glowing with layers of excriment unleased frequently by their flighty residents.

After surfing Cesar suggested the three of us stop for a coconut on our way past the little beach village near Playa Linda. The “lady who makes the best coconuts ever” was not at her usual booth, so we bought them from the only guy around. We sat down at the bleached picnic table and drank the slightly sweet, air-warmed water from each of our coconuts. Then it was time to eat the soft flesh inside, and it was amazing because although the shells looked identical, we each had very different coconuts. Edgar’s was soft and geletenous, and he had it with lime and sea salt. Cesars was crunchy, which means that his coconut was the most mature out of the three, and he smothered it in hot sauce. Mine was basically a coconut soup, with just a thin film of water-laden, translucent meat that was mixed up with some fresh lime juice and salt. Cesar and Edgar’s could be eaten by hand as they were cut into strips, but mine had to be eaten with a spoon. All three were delicious.

The last night in Mexico saw us all at the restuaunt to watch Tracy sing. I was even called up to sing back-up for a couple of songs which was very fun. I have been becoming more and more interested in singing since I started learning the guitar, and it was nice to be able to hold a tune and feel confident enough to get up in front of a restaurant of people to sing a little bit; at least back-up is a start :)

Our trip to the airport today was quite comical; very stereotypical of the spontaneity of Mexico. There was a gigantic triathalon event taking over the road in front of our building, so we had to get a friend of Tracy’s to drive her car to his place so that we could walk to it and get out while the roads were closed. It was a sweltering 30 breezless degrees as we walked along the condo strip to the car, dodging the onslaught of pedestrian traffic crammed on the sidewalk. Frank was also wheeling a suitcase packed with his and my overnight necessities (we put our bulky bags in the car the day before) over the uneven street and sidewalk. At one point a cab drove by, and we took it a kilometer until the driver said that the road was closed. We got out and loaded our shoulders and hands up again. Another couple minutes of walking and there is a bus. “Great!” we think, and we hop on. “The road must be open.”

The bus driove a few hundred more meters before the driver starts making a u-turn. The road is still closed, and so we get off. We load up again and walk a few minutes more, swerving between finished triathalon competetors with medals around their necks and three-digit numbers painted in black on their shoulders and thighs. A man becons us to cross the road, “Taxi?”

“Sure, why not,” we say, and head over. The walking is difficult, and any little push helps. This guy, though, took the back road all the way to our destination, which is thankful because I don’t think we would have made it in time to catch Frank and my flights; it was much longer of a walk than we anticipated. We drove in the stop-start fashion characteristic of two lanes of opposing traffic trying to squish through a one-way street, passing holiday homes painted in beautiful pastels and creams, many of them for rent or for sale.

Now here I am, typing out the last entry from my little stopover in paradise next to a fellow teacher who lives in Vancouver. The interesting thing is that he is writing a book for kids beside me, and I just finished that course on writing for children and young adults yesterday. He motivates me to get out my own penned journal to type out and meddle with the scribbles within the pages. Maybe someday I’ll write a book too. Maybe. You just never know.

This tropical adventure ends and another begins, although I will be reminded of the ocean with my gift from the sea in the form of a shiner each time I look in the mirror over the next week.

Fishing Boats and a Mexican Livingroom

While I’m finishing up an after surf snack of fresh mango, a pod of dolphins swims by, brushing the breaking waves with the tips of their dorsal fins. Their wet bodies sparkle in the sun as they surface again and again, about ten of them, one after the other.

It has been quite an adventure since I arrived, leaving only traces of time to record my thoughts and update you all about my adventure over here. Tracy moved to Ixtapa right after we graduated from our teaching program. At first she was working in a Mexican private school which had no supplies for the kids and paid about $5 CAN an hour. That didn’t last long, obviously, because teaching is such a demanding profession and working for a scrap of a wage just doesn’t outweigh the emotional and professional demands of the job for a new teacher.

She’s been here for over a year now, and she sings four nights per week in local restaurants with band members on the electric guitar, on bass, and occasionally a sax player joins them. The music is amazing, her sultry voice accompanied by the instrumentals of these accomplished musicians who have been playing together for decades. Sometimes the boys even sing Spanish songs as well, which is fun.

The other night she met some boys from down under—Captian Pete from Australia, now residing in San Fransisco, and Russell and Peter (Blackie), both from New Zealand. Tracy, Frank and I were invited out on their boat for a trip over to Ixtapa Island for lunch. Little did we know we were about to board a 60 foot game fishing boat, capable of pulling half-ton sail fish and other varieties out of the water. I was happy to learn that the oceanic beasts were usually released back into the water, unless they swallow the lure, often a fist-sized hook enticingly loaded with live bait—a helpless fish dragged alive through the bubbling surface water as the boat trolls for game; nothing looks more real than a real swimming fish, I suppose.

We had a lovely lunch over on the island, a motor boat complete with chef coming to pick us up from our anchor point out in the bay. Before ordering we got to see the “menu”, a platter of freshly caught fish waiting to be picked out and barbecued up. Captain Pete picked out a snapper and another fish, and then we were brought an extra snapper after we had finished the first two. They were delicious! During the trip home I sat up on the bow and dangled my feet over the edge. It was a very choppy day so the ocean kept bucking up and spraying my legs with warm sea water. 

Once we entered the marina we caught some live bait, which I helped with. It was really fun having to quickly grab the weight at the bottom of the line and hold the line over the built-in bucket so that the skipper could unhook the three to five flapping fish, sending them headfirst into the aerated water.

In the evening I watched a movie with Frank while Tracy was out at a business meeting (she dabbles in all sorts of professions here, and condo-selling is one of them) in the complex’s movie theatre. I think I already described the rows of white leather armchairs. Not a bad way to spend an evening!

Tracy also has some teacher friends who are staying at a hotel down the beach, and they came over to our pool yesterday and I chatted with them about my posting. It was nice to get some fresh ideas from teachers who have decades of experience, and to hear them talk about how crazy of a challenge it would be to teach under my current circumstances. It certainly is a difficult situation with so few kids, all at different developmental ages, but I definitely seem to enjoy jumping into challenging situations, and it sounds like it doesn’t get more so than a teacher working on their own in a rural comminity. Thankfully I have a wide net of people who I am constantly calling on for support and encouragement. Certainly couldn’t do it without all of you!

I tried a day of surfing at the start of the week. Went down to the surf beach with Frank and rented a board off a guy who was taking a break. Everything is available for a price here, and the capatalistic initiutive of these locals is amazing J Unfortunately the board was WAY too small, and so I spent the hour being battered by the waves rather than getting much action. Today I went with the bartender, also a surf instructor, and a server from one of Tracy’s singing spots and it was MUCH more successful. Caught waves almost every time I tried and got up every time. Longboards are more my style at this stage in the game.

Last night before Tracy went on to sing Frank and I went to a little restuaraunt to eat. Part of the beauty in visiting friends who live in a foreign country is that they take you to all the local spots you would never find as a tourist on your own. We went to a spot that Frank and Tracy call “The Living Room” because it’s literally in a woman’s living room, complete with a spanish soap opera on the television in the corner, the full kitchen and refridgerator in view, and grandma pulling apart a chicken under a row of family portraits beside the china cabinet. I wanted to take a picture but felt the spot so intimate, someone’s home even, that I was too shy to ask, but Tracy chats with the lady all the time and will take one to send to me. It was so awesome. Best encheladas ever, a gigantic plate of them, for $2 Canadian dollars.

Overall I have been incredibly impressed with this side of Mexico, which is much different than the bar-scene I remember from my graduation trip over a decade ago. This spot is where the local Mexicans, many from Mexico City, come to vacation, and having friends that live here means that I have been seriously pampered this week.

MEXICO!

A swift breeze blows the curls under my sun hat against my face and strands of hair stick to my sunscreen. I pull them free and tuck the hair that's long enough behind my ears.

I'm in Mexico, and thick ocean waves against shoreline are just beyond the window. Right now I can see them churning up sand with each slap, but I can only hear them when the jackhammer below is passed from one worker to another. I'm here visiting a close friend from Teacher's college, and so far it has been full of relaxing, Jacquie style, with not too many dull moments. You've probably noticed that I don't do well doing nothing.

Jackhammer aside (it's a new edition today, and there are plenty of places to escape, none with reliable internet, so here I shall stay for a few moments) I have been living like a movie star. My friend Tracy lives in this building, complete with infinity pool, surf beach, spa, games room, movie theatre room with fifteen plush white leather chairs for easy viewing, drink holders of course. Pictures wouldn't do it justice, because then you wouldn't get to hear the Mexico--jackhammers, sprinklers, people sweeping and cleaning all over the place at all times of day, guys sprinkling chlorine into the fountain water with bare hands. Ahhh Mexico!

When I arrived off the plane on Saturday afternoon I searched for Tracy's blonde hair and sun-worthy dress in the crowd of onlookers standing outside the gate. After two drive-bys with my rolling suitcase, saying no to a dozen taxi offers, I finally gave up and decided that she was not there. Having changed my flight to a day earlier and an hour earlier, I thought she may have forgotten about the time change. Half an hour later and I am shoving peso coins into the pay phone to call the cell number she has given me. Something in Spanish on the other end. I try again. Spanish, so muffled that I can't even hear enough to repeat the words to the kind lady at the money exchange desk who wrote out the code to dial before the cell phone number.

I need to get changed. I am sweating in my jeans and thick winter socks, all necessary attire with the stopover in Calgary. I do, instantly feeling better, and I make the call again. This time it works, and the voice I know says "Hola."

"Hi Tracy," I say.

"Who is this?"

"It's Jacquie. I'm at the airport."

"Oh! Oh I'm sorry I'm just at my friend's place ten minutes away. I'll be right there!" she says, and I am so relieved that a) she answered, and b) she knew I was coming today and was ready to come get me!

Apparently she forgot about the fact that I would be arriving an hour earlier than my original Sunday flight. Oh well, I am here, and this place is AMAZING, and I'm off to the beach :)

View from the balcony...

SNOW SNOW SNOW!

My apologies to those of you who faithfully check this thing to tap into what trouble I am getting into in this tiny town. I have been feeling a little blog-mute lately, taking a break from putting my rambles out into the information cavern of the World Wide Web. I suppose that I have also been going through one of those lonely reflective times where I ask unanswerable questions and stare off into the mountains instead of writing, talking, reading or busying myself with all the other distractions of daily living. Living up here is very raw—there are no distractions, really, if you don’t hunt them down (sometimes literally). On Sunday night ,after a weekend in the isolation of my house with the exception of a few walks with Sanford, I decided to walk the 50 steps to the pub for a Sunday dinner and it was closed. Hello small town hours. So I drove up the hill to Bralorne instead. I was the only customer in the whole place. I sat right next to the fire and chatted with the new owner and his wife, who herself is from Uranium City, way up north on the border of the NWT. She experienced the boom and bust state of the mining industry when the mine shut down in her teenage years and her grade 10 class went from having twelve kids in it to having an enrollment of two the following year.

Exploring the old Haylmore mine site with sidekick Sanford.

Things are slowly turning around here, though. Last week I met a scout who works for BC Hydro, a guy up here checking out rental and hotel accommodations for a Run of the River project set to start up here as early as May. Construction would last about two years. The project could employ up to fifty people, and they are going to have a tough time finding a local workforce here because the Bralorne Gold Mine opened up this past year and has scooped up all those able-bodied enough to work the irregular mining shifts, both above and below ground. My thoughts about our hunger for power are rehashed, reopened.

All week a guy from town was burning stumps from his clear-cut that shaved bare a fresh patch of land beside the river. The blue smoke lay thick in the town streets, running down the artery of the valley towards Carpenter Lake. Apparently all the rock for the new hydro project will be blasted out of this piece of land instead of driven up the unpredictable route connecting our town to Lillooet.

It’s a strange thing, really. Without projects like these, the town dies, people move because there is no work; with the projects, more natural resources, what this place is wealthy in, are used. To keep the school open people need to have work here, and without the mine there would be no work. I would probably not be able to live here. My livelihood in this place seems inextricably linked to resource extraction, to scraping cavities in the wilderness that I so desperately love. It’s a strange predicament to be in.

Sure, people could still live here without the mine. They lived here while it was closed for a decade, after all, but it is a tough living; the growing season is short, and it costs money to have things shipped in from Lillooet. It seems that, with the way our society is structured, we are forced into becoming a part of the things we are against. It’s too late in the evening for a heartfelt ramble on this, or I’ll get all worked up before bed, so I’ll save it for a future post.

The strike last week saw me out demonstrating in front of the General Store for a single day. That was all I was willing to dedicate of my time out here on my own, and the small strike fee that I would be paid to join teachers in Lillooet would barely pay for the fuel to get there.

So, I skied, of course. What else is an out-of-work teacher to do?  Got in two of the best days of the season, by far, just minutes drive to Bralorne, a short snowmobile, a beautiful hike, and then the decent in POWDER!!!

Lunch stop with a view!

The run! My turns are the middle ones :)

Happy skier. Blue skies and powder turns with some cool people. Life is good!

No skiing this weekend though. Avalanche conditions were rated extreme in all terrain—in the alpine, at treeline, and below the treeline. No time to be in the mountains except at a ski resort.

It has snowed ALL DAY today, and I mean a constant, continuously-falling barrage of thick thumbprint snowflakes coming down hour after hour. I got one of my students to be the “official snow measurer” for the day, and he recorded a ten centimeter snowfall from 9:30 am to 12:40 pm. It appears that winter is still here after all! Hallelujah!

Living the Dream

Friday. Four hour walk with Sanford, following animal trails through the woods. It's easy to travel off-trail here, as the undergrowth is padded down by the snow and even before the first snowfall the vines and leaves tend to shrink back into the earth to hibernate for the winter months.

In the middle of our walk I found a gigantic fir tree towering above all else. It looked ill, and sap poured like wax from a candle down its side.

I hugged the tree, because I'm a tree-hugger.

Saturday. Wonderful ski day with a new friend from Bralorne. We walked all the way to the top of Sunshine Junior. It was really windy, and we had to put on our helmets and goggles before we hit the top because our faces were getting sandblasted with tiny ice pellets.

Strider running after us.

Sunday. Work. School work and writing work. Sorted out log pile for a couple of hours. Split wood. Is it spring? The snow has almost completely melted, and it was 10 degrees for most of the day. My car is sitting in my driveway right in the middle of a gigantic puddle.

Monday. Wake up to a foot of fresh powder. Teachers are on strike. The BC government has ruled that teachers can strike initially for a maximum of three days, and then can strike only one day per week after this initial three days. I made a couple of signs and went down to sit by the General Store. It was great watching a sleepy town wake up on a Monday morning. People stopped by to show their support, and I got a few honks.

Handing a leaflet to Ken.

Teacher with trusty thermos filled with tea.

I have lots more to say about all that is going on, with the strike and with my own little adventures out here, but I got a dinner invite out of my morning strike effort and must get on the way. I'll update again soon!