I Don't Shop at Walmart

I'm Loving it...?

It was when I was traveling with my sister that I first really started to notice an inconsistency with myself.  I truly believe in things that I don't necessarily live out.  An example at the time was McDonald's.  I'm not a fan to begin with.  At all, actually.  I'm also not entirely supportive of globalization and I think McDonald's (or, to a greater extent, KFC) is a perfect representation of all that is negative with the concept.  Still, there were a couple unfortunate times where we found ourselves with hours to waste before taking a bus/flight/taxi/ect but no hostel and we would park our over-sized backpacks on a tiled McDonald's floor and eat ninety cent sundaes that usually differentiated a little bit from one you'd buy in Detroit.

That's right. I am guilty of supporting McDonald's (but never KFC's) proliferation in third world countries.  I always felt guilty about it.  I don't even ever eat McDonald's here at home.

About a year ago I was talking to some friends and the subject of Walmart came up.  Yup, as you would imagine I don't think they're all that great either.  Now, I do realize that Walmart is not all that is evil and wrong with the world.  The just happen to be the biggest example.  My sister, who just returned from local clinic midwifery work in the slums of Manila says that shopping, especially in Walmart type institutions just feels gross.

So one of my friends said, "I don't shop there (Walmart), I just don't.  I think they do a lot of harm to small business and ethical practices.  Sometimes it's tempting to run in and scoop up the cheap 'natural' peanut butter but, you know what?  It's not worth it."

I was all, "Yeah, Allie!  Good for you.  I'm really supportive of that.  I should really do that..."  All the while feeling some nagging guilt that, even though I don't believe that supporting Walmart is a good thing I do it wholeheartedly anyway.

Before I turned twenty-five I decided to quit Walmart for at least a year.  There is no Walmart in my hometown so I figured it wouldn't be hard to avoid that six times a year that I would normally shop there.  That was before I knew I was moving to a small city with a central Walmart for my school year.  I went in there once with a friend.  The price drop signs beckoned me, but I'm extremely happy with my abstinence.  At least I don't have to feel guilty with my fifteen dollar jeans or swear at them when the zippers break after a month.

Maybe eventually I'll put even more effort into eating locally.  I'll drive less, pray more, stop procrastinating, go to bed on time...  Until then I'll just blame Walmart.

As Open as the Road Can Get

And a good time was had by all.

Here

This post will not be long. It will not have photos, it will not rhyme, and my wording will not be impeccable. I will not be telling you to vote (my ballot was cast advance) or commenting on certain political developments. This is the first full blog post I am composing via iPad, but my reasons are good.

I am in Prince George, en route in a two week back-country hard-camping road trip to the Yukon. Last night we slept under Jasper stars and watched a hint of northern lights streaking the sky.

I recently turned down a job promotion, met a boy I share a lot of mutual like with, found a room mate with a thirst for adventure and a long history of learning to appreciate each other (we're succeeding). Pre-wrote half a month of paid posts and put my car on the road after biking for a month.

It's nice to have an open road, a full tank of gas and two of the coolest brothers you can imagine to share this with. This is here.

Memes: Blogging isn't Blogging Without Them

I'm not doing a very good job of blogging here by myself these days.  Instead of fulfilling my role as pessimist I'm going to use this opportunity to complete a few of those tag thingies.  For those of you who hate memes (me, on a good day) hold on.  I'll write something better next week.  

This one, though, is really pretty cool.  A chance to check out someone's handwriting?  Yes please.  Here as I usually write (just a little bigger).  Non-perfectionist and in my notebook with a Bic ballpoint.

1. What's your name/your Blogger name?

2. What's your blog's name/URL?

3. Write "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"

4. Favorite quote?

5. Your favorite song?

6. Your favorite band/singers?

7. Anything else you want to say?

8. Tag 3-5 other people

Just realized it's crooked.  Heh, sorry.

The other tag comes from the ever-funny Coyote Rose.  She wants to know my five current loves.

1. Random adventures in general.  Road trips, more specifically.  I may be planning one now.  It may involve a camperized bus, seven friends, and the Alaska highway.  Having something to look forward to keeps me relatively sane.  Stay tuned in a couple months.  Or, like, May.

2.  Thrift stores.  Eco friendly finds that give me a double rush of endorphins.  One for cool "new" clothes.  One for saving money.  What's not to love?  Although I did go on a bad actual-new clothes bender just lately...

3.  Slippers.  I used to hate them.  Being all barefoot-tomboy and all.  But my great-aunt from England sent me some for Christmas...  And I've been wearing them every day.  Yes, I am getting old.

4.  Dancing.  Of almost every variety.  I can't wait for summer barn parties, since that's about all the opportunity I get around here.  Well, other then break dance episodes upstairs with my brothers.

5.  Sunshine!  We've only seen little bits of it, but it gives me a little high every time.  And now that I'm almost giving up on more successful snowboarding I'm 100% ready for spring.  Green, warm, lovely spring.

Again, I'm not tagging.  But this was a good no-blogging-slump remedy.  Thanks girls.

Hetzbasheket

Today I miss Silent Arrow. I miss almost everything about it. Dancing with poi in the courtyard, walking into Mitzpe to bring back grocery staples and asking for two reciepts in my best Hebrew. Laughing at absolutely everything all the time. I miss talking to Ori late at night and having him think I was insightful, despite his superior mastery of my language. I miss lighting the candles or stealing Sason's mp3 and listening to his techno because we didn't have other music. I miss the hand drums and the guitar.

I've talked about the desert before.  There's something about the silent sky, the blazing stars, the eternal aridness that calms this mountain girl. Silent arrow is where I learned this.  I'm not sure why this is so, or why I'd never learned it earlier in Mexico.  Perhaps I never needed it before.  Maybe it was being abandoned when I was vulnerable.  I miss sitting over the crater talking to Sason all night about our futures because we knew we'd never talk again.  I miss the stoners and the wanderers and being on my own.  

If you ever make it to Mitzpe Ramon say hello for me.

I miss feeling like I could be gone forever, or as long as I needed to be.  I miss walking barefoot over sun warmed stones.  I miss chopping crates for firewood and stoking the fire late at night when I should've been curled up beneath my hippi blanket.  I miss doing the dishes because my best friend cooked us dinner.  I miss endless cups of desert tea and I miss arak mixed with grapefruit juice.  I miss smoking sheesha with the kids who drove down on weekends.  

I miss the freedom and knowing everything would be alright.

All photos through Hetzbasheket on Facebook

Things To Love About Road Trips

~ The opportunity to actually get tired of driving.

~ Taking photos (see left).

~ Ice tea and ice cream from greasy gas stations.

~ Flea markets, roadside stalls and garage sales.

~ Young international hostel crowds.

~ Feeling like a rebel spending nights in the car.

~ Adventure.

~ Couchsurfing.

~ City streets and checking off a list.

~ Coast line, mountains, plains, rock formations and sunsets.

~ Hiking, swimming, stretching after sitting too long.

~ Fresh visits with old friends.

~Never feeling restless.

What's Your Happy Song?

So in Mexico, as in any third world country, you can buy bootlegs off any street corner.  They'll have crackly speakers set up blaring Ranchero, cheap American hits and general noise surrounded by displays of dollar c.d.s in plastic sheaths.  The difference between Mexico and most other countries where I've indulged my criminal side is that the Mexican vendors have a fondness for creating their own mix c.d.s.  You can buy albums called "Coca Cola Cowboy Americano."  The cover art will be a milk cow and Laura Croft Tomb Raider on a psychedelic purple background.  Got the picture?

My sister brought one of these mixes home for me once.  This one is "Exitos TAZAMANICOS 2007" and has a very mild cover with Taz ripping something to shreds.  The play list is, as always, very hit and miss.  However, there was one song that promptly jumped out at me as my happy song.

How, exactly, is a happy song defined?  Basically if it is impossible to be crabby well the song is on, it's a win.  It won't be it the same for everyone.  The first friend I knew with a happy song would proudly blast Celine Dion and declare how it made her cheerful.  I didn't find it had the same effect for me, but to each their own.

Now, this one is awesome, though.  Listen to it!  I'm sorry, but how can that not pick up your day?  It's Yofo by Molotov.  Honestly, I have no idea what sort of nonsense they're on about.  I've also never listened to anything else by them.  But I love whistling along with this one.

Tell me your personal happy song.  I will do my best to look it up.

I think I read about it in Lonely Planet first.  Those books were like lifelines to us.  All truly cool travelers abstained, but not us.  When deciding to choose a new destination you would find us fugitively flipping through our copies.  When we moved on we'd trade them up at little bookstands that were thrilled to get their own country in stock.
India was overwhelming at first.  After months in countries that could be largly transversed in a day having two months in a country this size was almost too much.  Being India, culture shock was almost unavoidable.  Even though we considered ourselves seasoned by now.
I read about Kanha.  All I really noticed is that it was the place to see a tiger in the wild, and I knew I wanted to go.  I've had a fascination with these beautiful cats for many years.  The opportunity seemed too good to pass up. 
We took a sleeper bus to Jabalpur.  Old double bunks stacked on top of each other.  We stayed in one of the cheapest hotels of our stay, and it showed.  Mosquitos came through the cracks and bell boys knocked on our door muttering in Hindi.  The next day's bus was one of the least comfortable of our trip.  The two of us crammed on a stair step, and tried to be courteous the the constant flow of Indians falling onto us.  The ride lasted for many jarring hours.
We arrived in the heat of the Indian jungle.  At the end of the line we checked in with our first hotel.  We could scarcily believe the prices they were quoting us.  When I say thirty dollars each a night it may seem low.  In India, with packs on backs it sounded ridiculous, even if it did include a morning safari and free meals.  Several hours of hiking around we returned, as the receptionist had promised we would.
Now we found out the drivers were on strike.  A little Indian guide took pains to describe to us that the tiger count in the park had been falling drastically.  A tiger retails to China for $3000 U.S.  A fortune if you're an Indian villager.  Or a park manager.  But for the drivers these animals are directly linked to their income.  In a country so desperately overcrowded the animals are of less concern then maintaining your family's ability to survive.
Two guys moved into the room next to ours.  Josh and Henric.  Well waiting for the strike to end we took long hikes in Rudyard Kipling's jungle.  This particular park is one of two that lays claim to Jungle Book.  Climbing the rickety tower we would watch the sun set and pose for pictures with rich Indians on vacation.
Our last of two mornings there we did get to go on Safari.  The four of us in an open top jeep with a driver and a useless guide.  His main concern was that we take pictures of every animal we came across. 
Chances were 1 in 3 that we see a tiger.  Had we known that this entire trek out into Kanha would've probably been nixed. 
We were lucky.  Twenty minutes into our drive we saw a cluster of three other jeeps.  Driving up we could see the 500 pounds of muscle lounging by the road.  An adult male.  I can't say that observing this animal was all I'd expected, but I can't deny it's beauty.  It stretched, strolled down the road and across.  I was stunned by this enormous cat.  It's vivid stripes blending in with the terrain.
It laid down, again, between our road and another. 
Other jeeps streamed in from no where.  By time we left Meg and I counted over thirty.  I'll always be glad we were among the first.

At night the stars seemed to pierce the entire sky. More then a little upset, I was there without my sister. My now very married cousin was having her ceremony, and I remained halfway around the world. Instead I stayed up nights talking to a dreadlocked Jewish stoner. I chopped pallets for wood and walked into town to buy oatmeal and bread, asking for "shtay kabbalot". Two reciepts. Still the extent of my Hebrew. I walked to the edge of Mtizpe Ramon's canyon-like crater and marvelled as the sun came up. I learned poi from, and made American hashbrowns for, a vegetarian hippi who camped with us.
I would wander outside the palm frond fence and sit on the old car seat.  Paco, who looksed like he should be pulling a sled through the tundra, would bark around my feet.  The landscape almost was tundra-like.  Long rolling stretches of bare land sprinkled with stone.  I rarely wore shoes around the camp. 
It wasn't my first experience with desert.  Arizona, Texas, Mexico roadtrips has left them one of my lesser favourite forms or terrain.  There was something different here.  Maybe it was slowing down that had the calming effect, but I think it was sleeping outside at night.  During the day I laughed at everything.  I wasn't high, but everything was funny.  All I had to worry about was that there was enough wood for the fire and that the bathroom sink was clean enough in case any guests showed up.  At night, wrapped in a thick sweater we would talk.  Myself and Sason and any guests staying.  Memorable characters who's names I can still recall.  Andy, the other Canadian, Mark the British preacher, the lesbian couple.
Sason was my best friend for four weeks.  I can't pronounce his last name, and I have no idea where he is now.  But for that month we talked about everything.  Maybe it's because we knew we'd never see each other again.
A left healed in so many ways I'd been waiting for.  Ready to see the rest of the world.
It was something about the desert.  Something so calming.  Something in that dry barren waste land and the raw elements.  The candle light and that wide open sky.
This concept cemented itself for me over the next month.  Eating Magoobla with Bedouin, a philosophical Phillipino American and an underage Belgian in a stunning Jordan desert.  Long desert walks where we managed not to get lost.  Smoking nargilah before the four of use would fall asleep around the fire, full of sweet Bedouin tea.  Watching the early venus sink towards the horizon.
Camping in the Egyptian white desert.  The Jeep ride out.  Arab drum beats into the dark.  Jumping off the pure white drifts to get captrued in the sunset.  A polite Japanese with infinitely cool hair and a crazy middle aged Swiss lady who was strung-out on something.  She sobered up eventually, but never quite got sane.
I love the desert now.  I'm still a Rocky Mountain girl at heart.  Home is a river, a lake, a field surrounded by white peaks.  But the idea of sleeping on sand beneath a stretched canvas of stars calms my soul like nothing else.