Thoughts after one journey and before another “Tell me,” she said, “why gringo women wear such ugly shoes.” She said it in Spanish, her tongue forming the precise syllables that I envied and still failed to produce after years of practice. Her name was Viviana, and she was my Spanish teacher. We were practicing my conversation… Continue reading A Steamy Day and a Missed Connection In Honduras
Category: Life/Self
Coffee, Baseball, and Fear of Flying
Two double espressos on top of sleep deprivation have lodged my mind in a sweet spot where what I generally consider reality is heightened and blurred and unusually imbued with meaning. At this moment it seems to me the fog outside the grimy bus windows is the result of an atmosphere saturated with metaphor instead… Continue reading Coffee, Baseball, and Fear of Flying
Thigh Highs
Short Story Ellie pulled her hip waders up over her jeans and ran the straps through her belt. “There you go, Baby,” she said to Nathan, “You wanted to see me in thigh highs.” She mock-posed and laughed, the sun reflecting off her aviator sunglasses and her thick, black braids lying on her shoulder. Behind… Continue reading Thigh Highs
Is My Iguana Dream Trying to Tell Me Something?
Rae and I pedaled as quickly as we could. Above us, the evening sky purpled toward evening. Beneath us, majestic, neon-bright iguanas serpentined through the clear water, their sinuous glowing tails trailing behind them like iridescent streamers chasing a comet. We pedaled with everything we had, fighting to maintain headway in the wide, algae-choked canal.… Continue reading Is My Iguana Dream Trying to Tell Me Something?
Three Notes from Semliki
Non-scientific field notes from a chimp tracker Semliki Note #1 — Data Up early with the bats in a soft rain, I’m walking down a steep path to the climate station we’ve set up at the river. The forest is silent except for some restless insects and one or two birds. I raise the kerosene lantern high to… Continue reading Three Notes from Semliki
Dusty Around the Eyes
Names change colors when you are dusty around the eyes. Watch a gerenuk at sunset while listening to a Walkman. These two odd sentences are mnemonics I constructed to remind myself of chains of thought that occurred to me while learning to do anthropological fieldwork in East Africa. Searching the forests of the Semliki Valley… Continue reading Dusty Around the Eyes