the great lakes truly have been aptly named.

Autumn on Lake Michigan has been the most beautiful fall of my memory.  The weather has been stellar and I've been learning a great deal.  Living with Jen and Tricia has been fun, and we're getting to know one another quite intimately.  I'm very appreciative they cleaned out the pantry so that I could have a space for these few months.  However, I am ready to move on. After much stress, prayer, and applications, I have found two jobs!  I went to Duluth right before Thanksgiving for a couple interviews, and they went very well.  I'll be starting at Caribou Coffee in Canal Park (right on the lake) as a shift manager very soon!  Its no Humble Bean, but at least it is a full time position with health benefits and PTO. I'm hoping to spend time volunteering at social service agencies in the area to gather some Social Worky experience and get a feel for where I may want to apply in the future.  I will also be frequently babysitting a little 2 month old boy.  In fact, I will finish my internship the Friday, bus to Minneapolis on Saturday, babysit on Sunday, and delve into Caribou on Monday.  I can't believe this has all been spoon fed to me!  (After many hours spent on craigslist and tweaking my cover letter of course.)  :) 

Although I've been located on Lake Michigan this fall, I've spent time at all the other great lakes minus Huron.  I visited Dee an Mela in Ontario over Halloween, went on a sibling camping trip in PA, and visited Ross in Duluth twice.  Here are some photos of my Great Lake fall adventure:

I went to Ontario to visit Dee and Carmela.  Dee won many awards for her great juice box costume on Halloween, and Carmela had blue hair for a while. 

Morg and I went to Grand Rapids to visit Justin.  While hiking one day, we were chased out of the woods by a vicious dog ( I pulled a muscle, butI was not previously aware that I can still sprint so fast!). We stumbled upon a blowout sale at a rural hardware store.  We bought many things- floating devices, terracotta pots, glowing UPS signs, bike locks, colored light bulbs... and I can't remember what else! 

Ross in Duluth this fall on top of the bluff birdwatching on Hawk's Ridge.  I get to live here soon!

My wonderful sister Jen- who has allowed me to sleep in the pantry all fall without paying rent.  Apparently, we have some pretty wicked pumpkin carving skills. 

eat- a- burrito

My days in Sioux Center have come to a close (at least for a while).  With a shirt on my back and some pennies to my name, I departed the beloved land and headed east. On Sunday, I took a bus from Minneapolis to get here.   I stood in line at the bus stop at 11:20 on Sunday morning, hoping they would accept my two pieces of baggage.  When I handed the conductor my ticket, he checked it over for quite some time before admitting that the reservation didn't match up because the date my ticket was scheduled for was August 22.  Bewildered, I stepped aside so others could continue.  I turned to Ross and asked, "Today isn't the 22nd?"  After some deliberation, we realized the date was August 29.  I bought my ticket for a week beforehand!  I guess my internal calendar isn't ticking as quickly as everyone else's. Megabus was generous and offered me a free seat later on that day, and I arrived in Chicago only having spent the original $34 I had planned.

Today was my first day of my semester-long internship at Casa Central La Posada in Chicago.  This morning I joined the masses on public transit while autumnal rains caused our hair to flatten and our clothes to drape.  I will be working at a transitional housing facility for homeless (mostly Hispanic) families for the next few months in a little Puerto Rican/ Mexican neighborhood known as Humboldt Park.  I'm looking forward to a semester of meeting people without homes and undocumented citizens, eating burritos for lunch, and sleeping in the pantry of my sister Jen's apartment.

beaver falls to ireton: there and back again

Monday evening my dad informed me over a dinner at La Fiesta that our family is moving to Pennsylvania this summer.  On Tuesday morning, the news became public knowledge.  He has accepted a job at Geneva College ( the same place that he was employed ten years ago).  I suppose I have always known that my parents would pick up and go back to PA, but I couldn't help but to be entirely shocked.  I am absorbing the concept, though... and ultimately I am excited to be returning to a place I once called home.  I'll certainly miss Iowa.  I have just begun to come to accept this lovely state as my home... and even proudly state that I am Iowan.  I have included a few pictures of the home that my family worked hard to build... twice.  I love the hard wood floors!

 

 

beyond the prarie where your tin roof greets the sun

My mother once advised me, "It can be determined how much you care about something(one) by how much you have missed it's absence."  I missed Sioux Center- my family, the pine trees which line the south side of Dordt's campus, the friends, formal classes, the brick house, and the wonderful music which perforates throughout every silent corner of this home. (Cd and record players don't seem to exist below the border.)  Nonetheless, in memory of a few good times, here are a few shots of Colombia.

Hair like Spanish moss (but not spaghetti hair) + slack jaw.  This was taken on a hike

we took to a few waterfalls near Venezuela. (Can you find Ghangis?)

The city square of a small, historical town in the mountainous town of Villa de Leyva (does anyone read Gabriel Garcia Marquez?).  The entire town was coated in cobblestones, and every structure was painted white- quite a stunning little place.

Countryside as we traveled north via bus.

Jen and I jumped off a cliff and went paragliding... we saw a girl crash into the canyon below :(

Luckily, we were fine.

For kicks, we also hiked up to another waterfall and went rappelling down it.  We were soaked- but it was one of the most exhilarating things I have ever done!  You can spot me near the top of the falls.

On our final day together in Bogota- Jen is walking in front of our hostel

which had no locks on the doors (scary!).

Macondo; my village.

Colombia is responsible for 80% of the cocaine produced worldwide annually.  For years, Colombia would be mentioned and the listener would most likely automatically think of drugs.  Of course- its the country with all the narcotrafficking!
My Mom is worried silly that I choose to come to the single most dangerous country is South America, but honestly from my experience I think Nicaragua was more dangerous. 
My sister Jen an I spent 9 days exploring this northern region of the Andes, and discovered a territory that is more untouched by tourists than most countries these days.  We have spent a few days exploring the capital city of Bogota, and then went north to the coutryside.  San Gil, the adventure capital of South America, provided us such excitement as jungle hiking, paragliding over the Sierra Nevadas, and rappelling down a 200 foot waterfall . 
To paragalide, we went with a tour company that came highly recommended from an Aussie we met who owns a hostel in the town.  Jen got to go before me, and as I waited for her on the top of a mountian, I enjoyed the panoramic view which stretched around me on all horizons.  Lost in the beautiful abyss of the Andes, I was startled suddenly by a few shouts, and a herd of people running towards the edge of the cliff. 

"They fell!" Everyone was yelling.  Horrified, i thought Jen had fallen out of the sky into the broccoli-esque treetops.  But it was someone else... and the crash was a lucky one.  they were safe, jen was safe, and then it was my turn.  By the way, it is relatively scary to board a flying plastic sheet after watching someone fall from the sky into the distant tree.  But it was beautiful, and worth the cold breeze.
Staying in hostels is a grand experience.  Your roomates could be the craziest European drunkards... or they could be quiet hippies from Australia.  Meeting other travelers is fun, yet sometimes hostels remind me of freshmen year of college:  everyone is staying in dorms and trying to make friends as quickly as possible.
Tomorrow morning I take off on a jet plane to Managua, and after staying the night there I am coming back to America.  I am flying into Chicago on Monday night- where I will be greeted by my siblings Jen, Melissa, and Jonathan. We are going to pull an overnight sibling roadtrip and arrive in Iowa for breakfast... to finally be together as an entire family for the first time in two years.
Friends and family make coming home really easy.  thanks guys.

hair like spanish moss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-oNUff37YE

I have listened to this album over and over again these past few months. This particular song is one that has accompanied both my desperation as I have experienced periods of lost faith in humanity, and also extreme peace while getting to know a country with an innate beauty that is sufficient to make Tolkien and Lewis' fairytale lands shudder in doubt.


I have four days remaining in Nicaragua, and how do I feel?
As though one of my feet is in North America, one is in Nicaragua, and the rest of my body is hanging flippantly from an airplane somewhere over the Yucatan. Its horrifying to realize that an event which I looked forward to for so long is almost over... yet incredibly relieving to think that soon I will be able to speak English again ALL the time, use washing machines, have personal space, go out after 6 p.m. without feeling as though I am going to be jumped, and begin eating food that is not greasy rice, beans, or fried chicken.

This past week I experienced a Nicaraguan wedding in my home- my host sister got hitched! The night beforehand, we began cooking and decorating the house for the reception and continued doing so until the early morning hours. Some people did not sleep at all! We prepared food for almost 200 people over big bonfires in our backyard. The decorations included quite a few white balloons, paper ribbons, and plastic straws attached to make pretty shapes. The following day,the bride, wedding party, and many family members and guests walked eight blocks to the church where the fiance and audience waited patiently. (We arrived 30 minutes late- truely Nica style!)

Yesterday was Purisima- the day of celebration for the immaculate conception of Mary. At nightfall, I went to the centro with Beth and Nadji to watch the events in the central park in front of the cathedral. There were thousands of people crowded together drinking beer, watching random fireworks from every which direction, and being entertained by the Gigantona dance- a whole bunch of scarecrow women built really tall dancing wildly in a group. This picture was actually taken in front of my house, but it depicts what a Gigantona is.



As we stood happily watching this grand cultural event and hoping the news channels would catch us on t.v., the outer sections of the crowd began to shift. At the western edge of the crowd, someone had put on a metal box somehow covered with fireworks that were rapidly exploding in surprising sections of the crowd every which moment. The masses split as this wild, metal "bull" began running towards the front of the cathedral. Positively horrified, most of us began running eastward. Unfortunately, another metal-bull-firework-man was lit up and running into the crowd. As you may imagine, this caused the people from the east side to run towards the west... and we all met in the middle as one frantic herd of sheep. Worried I would be hit by one of these rapidly approaching fire balls, I grabbed Nadji's hand and yelled, "RUN!" The running was more like a vicious moshpit of arms shoving towards safety. One of those shoves hit home and knocked me down to the sticky cement earth. Lying there helplessly, I could see through the thinning crowd of hurried feet to the explosion of light running towards me. I thought I was going to either die from being trampled or from a light ball or gorgeous fireworks. But I didn't. I escaped with a mere scratch on my hand.
Later last evening, we walked around Leon happily with the locals collecting loot from the homes of celebratory Catholics who had put up beautiful decorations of the Virgin Mary. The tradition is to sing a song about the immaculate conception, then yell, "who has caused so much happiness?"... and then to receive free food, candy, laundry soap, shampoo, brooms, hats... or whatever else the families give! Around 11 p.m., hoards of people left on busses to the beach to finish the party. I opted not to go. Rather, I laid in my bed listening to the fireworks that went off straight from 12 a.m. to 1 a.m. What a crazy town this is!

"hanging our shirts in the dirty breeze"

I have spent the past four weeks living in Granada, Nicaragua taking Spanish and ceramic classes. I learned how to use the wheel, use sea stones to polish the pottery, and live alone in a brand new city where I know no English speakers!


The market in Granada- I walked through here daily to catch my bus to ceramics class.

Fresh fish from Lake Nicaragua. There were some mornings when the fish were still living and flopping helplessly in the hot sunlight... poor fish.

Morg stayed with me for a night right before departing for the states. Splendid times at the market in Masaya- pic of us saying farewell.



Street life in Granada. I've learned that pedestrians absolutely never have the right-of-way.



Day 3 of class: My pot and I.







View from the convent where I had Spanish classes in the city- Volcano Mombacho and the cathedral.




Reverse view from the previous shot- on top of Volcano Mombacho looking down on Granada and Lake Nicaragua.