Adventures of a fairy...

A retrospective

2010-05-23T22:48:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the Osaka Airport in Japan for 9 hours waiting for my flight connection back to America. Its been just 6 days shy of one year since the last time my feet touched American soil and wow what a long strange trip its been. From the mountains of Spain to the Sahara of Africa to the volcanic islands of Southeast Asia and back again. I have now lived in 5 of the 7 continents in this world. So what? WHY? Maybe for some people this life style doesn't seem logical or practical or some people say its just a matter of "getting it out of my system" so that I can one day settle down again, get a 9-5 job, get married, procreate...you know the "American Dream" right? I think its time to recreate the idea of the American Dream....completely throw everything we have conventionally thought about what it means to be happy and successful in this life time out the cosmic window of our reality and challenge ourselves to find true bliss in its purest form. This doesnt mean that we all need to become Gypsy travelers like myself...in fact I would love to be able to stay in my birth country without feeling like a serial coded robot. Without feeling like I am slipping into the depths of debt. Without feeling like a rat caught in a race. So how do I do this? How do we all do this? How can we completely recreate our reality within our twisted and tangled realm of the society that has been created for us? How can we learn to escape from the negative pathways that have been created around us? We are reaching a level of critical mass in our existence a breaking point in which we will no longer to continue living the ways that we are used to living. Change is a scary thing for all of us but its time we take action ourselves in order to offset some of the intensity that is about to consume our current consumer lifestyles. These questions I am asking are questions that I can only begin to speculate the answers for my self and my body and my experience but I can only hope to inspire each and every person who reads this to begin to apply these same inquisitions into their own lives. How do I bring consciousness into every aspect of my life? How do I begin to take back control of this auto pilot reality I have been living in for so long? Studying meditation and learning more and more about awareness and presence has helped me tremendously. Being open to new types of healing such as Emotional Freedom Technique, Theta Healing, SCIO technology, and many others have helped me begin to heal the scars of my past and my Karma's. I have also been resonating more and more with the idea of getting back to our pagan roots. I have learned so much from eastern religion but at the same time I feel that I am able to connect, learn, and relate with my roots of pagan tradition on a completely different level. Community is huge....I believe in the future we will all be teachers and healers...the time has come to break away from traditional school systems in which children spend so much time learning things that are completely irrelevant and often times completely untrue...and yet have no idea where a tomato comes from or how to feed themselves from the land. I look at my high school, for those of you who don't know I went to Columbine High School the year after the tragic shootings. I couldn't handle more than one year in that school as I was completely shocked and appalled at the way nothing changed after the killings. There where no community building activities or communications. The "jocks" where still bullying the "nerds" the only thing that changed after 14 people lost their lives in that building where the amount of cameras, metal detectors, and police officers roaming the halls harassing us skater kids and smokers. One of my dear close friends committed suicide that year because he has been caught smoking cigs so many times his dad was going to send him to military school. THIS IS NOT OK!!! We cant sit back and let things get worse because if we do its going to me much more difficult to adjust when the pole change occurs in 2012...I don't think the world is going to end anytime soon...but I do believe that it will be a huge time of transformation and we have 2 choices, we accept change and we evolve or we die. I am excited for our future and am grateful everyday to be alive in the this pivotal time in human experience. My ideas for personal, communal, and global evolution......breath and bring consciousness into every breath. Bring consciousness into every aspect of your day to day life and use tricks to remind your self to be conscious. For example every time you turn on a light switch or walk through a door way use it as a reminder to come back to the present moment and breath. When you find your self off in the past or the future with your monkey mind...compassionately remind your self to come back to the present moment and breath. Gratitude! Everyday for everything! Be in communication with your idea of higher spirit, God, the Universe....and be thankful for everything it gives you...even if that moment it appears to be a negative situation. A Balinese man told me the higher you are the harder the wind blows and you are being tested to see if you can remain strong and happy thought out the hard times. Pray over your food and water, this increases the vibrational level of what you are putting into your body. Plant a garden, learn as much as possible about seed banks and how to grow using non genetically modified seeds...without intervention we will soon only be left with genetically modified seeds WE CAN NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! Learn, teach, and share as much as possible about alternative healing practices and ways we can naturally heal ourselves. Take time every day to meditate and exercise in one form or another....no matter if its yoga, hooping, tennis, guitar, or swimming. Find something that you can do that allows you to turn off your mind chatter at least 30 min everyday. Read more. Start doing Laughter Yoga! Its amazing and we all need to laugh and smile more. Group meditations and mantra are so powerful and raise the vibrational level of the world around us. Do some form of art...even doodling on a regular basis. Create a better and closer relationship with your family and the people around you...even the "strangers" see every person you meet every day as a brother or sister. Listen to recordings of Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts, Saul Alinsky or any other mind stimulating people who get your wheels turning...the brain is a muscle use it or you loose it! Above all remember that we are all just crazy random expressions of energy just bouncing around space time interacting with each other and having this human experience. Try to make is softer and lighter and remember that love is the source of it all and we all have an inexpressibly large amount of love inside all of these molecules and that this love is completely inexhaustible no matter what happens.

Ok there is my soap box...take what works for you and leave the rest. I am going back to America for 5 months and this is now my challenge to see if I can integrate this knowledge into the Western world. I will be living and working in California for the first time and I am very excited to be immersed into a whole new culture shock! I have been so graciously given the opportunity to play with fire with the conclave which performs during the burning of the man at the Burning Man Festival this August. I have been given the amazing opportunity to design jewelry in Bali to sell this summer in California. I have been given the exciting opportunity to work for my beautiful friends at Holistic Hooping in there hoop store during the festival season. I am so blessed. I will be living around San Francisco, bouncing around with friends all over the Bay area and Golden Triangle. Home base will be in Sebastapol. I will be coming to Colorado the end of June and will stay for about 3 weeks for the exciting birth of my first niece! I am sooo looking forward to seeing all my loved ones back home!!!!
Until then...
ONE LUV!

Jambo Sana Sana Sana......

2010-03-12T07:28:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite expression in Kswahili. The direct translation is- very hello. This is a perfect example of the friendly people in Kenya. No its not just hello, its very hello! You gotta love that! You gotta love Kenyan people! One of my Kenyan friends told me she was amazed that I didn't completely write the county off after being pick pocketed so many times. Really, at first I was pretty pissed ok I admit, but I have come to realize that the people who are desperate enough to steal from me need my love just as much if not more than even my closest friends. The government in Kenya is, well lets be straight here, fucked up and corrupt as hell. (not that my countries government is that much better but at least they are better at hiding it) A government that steals directly from the people and doesn't really even try to hide it, you see drivers of buses (matatus if you will) have to stop at road blocks to pay bribes directly to cops sooo frequently its insane! Money is stolen from schools, hospitals, the poorest of the poor. When your government is robbing you blind and you can't afford to feed your family what do you do? You lead by their example, after all they are sitting pretty in some of the biggest houses you have ever seen....next door neighbors to some of the biggest slums I have ever seen. Of course their going to pick pocket me and honestly I don't blame them. Kenya is an amazing country and has soooo much potential. Only if the people can unite can they claim back the country that they deserve. In my opinion this means calls for Kswahili being the first language taught in schools, not english, not the tribal tongues. If every one can communicate the people will start to realize that they are all the same and the government can't pull the same bull shit they pulled over 2 years ago. They used the separation of the tribes as fuel to cause one of the biggest, most deadly, and extremely brutal riots we will see in our generation.
If you ask a person from Tanzania, Kenyas neighboring country where they come from they say, Tanzania. If you ask a Kenyan the same question they will spout out a huge variety of answers including; Maasi, Samburu, Meru, Kikuyu, and the beat goes on.
Tanzanian learn Swahili first, then ether their mother tongues or English second. The reason Kenyan learn English first is because of the colonization of the country by the British around 100 years ago....but thats a whole notha soap box.
So for now I leave Kenya as a country I will always know I can come back to, a county that has taught me sooo much about life, a place with smiles that go for miles, a place where everyone wants to meet you and know your name, a place that is overwhelming with possibilities for the future. Kenya is real life...uncensored, it is history in the making, it is amazing and facsinating.
Goodbye Kenya and thanks for all the fish!
Until next time....one love

Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down-and a brighter tomorrow

2010-02-21T02:19:00.000-08:00

Why they wanna see my spine mommy?
Why they wanna see my spine?
It's gonna hurt again mommy
Much worse than last time
Am I gonna see God, mommy?
Am I gonna die?
It really hurts mommy!
Am I gonna die?

Never did the words of that song make sense to me so strongly as when I was lying in the bed at Cottage Hospital. Dean or Jean must have once been through the hell that is SM. Ok so sorry if you have no idea what I am talking about that you don't know the magical wonders of Ween...

It started last Monday around 3 in the afternoon. The cursed headache. I thought it was possibly the remnants of the beer that I drank the day before at my going away party, which was not a huge rager but did involve a fair amount of hooping and Tusker (Kenya's finest brew). I start pounding the water and drinking Neem tea, which is a local tea here pretty much good for any ailment you could think of, but to no avail. The headache grows worse and I grow desperate as I have a glass of wine, then another. I head to bed at 9 even though this is that last night I am in my house with my roomies and its supposed to be this wine guzzling girls night but I can't stand the pain, or the sounds, or the lights. I doze for a short time tossing and turning when I notice the cramping taking hold of my neck. Its about 1am when I get up and take half a vicodine. The pain gets worse, I have woken up my room-mates with the sound of my tears and my roomie from Cali, Kelly, who has a doctor dad asks me if my neck is stiff. Shit. Yes. Why? How did u know that? What do you know that I don't. She calls her dad. The other roomie Siobhan calls our friend in town who is a homiopathic dr. They all say go to the hospital right now. I don't have health insurance so my instant reaction is NO, I am fine...really. I am trying to convince them and myself. Siobhan rubs my head and I fall back asleep. They take turns coming in my room every hour for the rest of the night to make sure I am still alive. Apparently the fact that I made it to the next morning is something of a miracle. The morning finally comes and I am only getting worse...fast. So I agree to go to the clinic to get checked out.
Getting up, getting dressed and getting to the hospital was so intensely painful that by the time I got there they put me straight into the emergency room. The next couple of days are a blur of the most intense pain I have ever felt in my life, blood work, pills, and vomit. I start to feel like I will never be normal again, but I am trying so hard to be strong and breath and meditate on the darkness leaving my body and being replaced by light as I inhale. Despite all the pain meds they have me on the pain won't leave...imagine a migraine or the worst headache you have ever had in your life multiply it then make it last over 5 days. Hell. The pressure in my head was so intense I couldn't move my eyes in a direction...I literally had to turn my head to the door if I wanted to see who was coming in my room. I prayed, I cried, then I woke up Thursday morning and the pain was tolerable....I mean it was still horrible but sooo much better. To the point that I thought they were slipping morphine into my drip that they had me on. I ate for the first time in 3 days. I knew at that point I was going to make it. My body was finally starting to win.
Its been a hell of a long week but I have such amazing, loving, caring friends here and they took such good care of me. As well as the nurses at Cottage Hospital who put up with me, and wow I mean I can't image what I possible could have looked like to them I was probably such a bitch. And yes there was electricity and technology in the hospital, it was very clean, there are porcelain toilets, it is a pretty modern hospital (I have really been asked these questions).
I was released Friday, they didn't want to let me leave until today, Sunday, but I begged the doctor to let me go if I promised I would stay close and take it easy. I am now staying at a friends house close to the hospital so that I can go in for my shots of super strong antibiotics...which I finish tomorrow. I am feeling much better other than the spells of dizziness from time to time, but I know I am going to be ok. So my plan to run away to the beach for a couple weeks before leaving is shot...I imagine if this happened once I was already on that little beach island, Lamu....I am lucky for many reasons. I am thankful to my friends and family in Kenya and all over who were sending me love and prayers, I am thankful to Dr Butt (I swear I am not making this up) and the supporting staff at Cottage hospital. Keep the love coming while I am still healing please....
On a muuuuuuuch much muuuuuuch brighter note....like shining star brighter, I am going to Bali!!!! I am buying my plane ticket today and will be flying out of Nairobbery on the 11th. I will be spending some days on the beach then participating in a 6 day hoop dance workshop in Ubud the cultural hub of Bali, followed by a 5 day festival called the Bali Spirit fest. Workshops on yoga, dance, movement during the days with nights of music from all over the world!!!! I am ecstatic! I have been cuddling with the Bali guide book my friend lent me. I can't sleep I am so excited. I don't know how long I will be on the island but I do have a friend to meet in India in May and I have a job offer in Goa in June so I will probably be in Bali for 2 months but who know? Go where the wind takes me and hope to stay healthy and learn something along the way.... Until next time beautiful friends....ONE LUUUUUV!

Unconditional love!

2009-12-16T12:42:00.000-08:00

Nairobi is a crazy city.... my last 24 hours in Africa made me pretty relieved to be getting a break for the next two weeks.

It started with confrontations with a big African at the matatu stage (minibus station). I arrived at the leaving point from Nanyuki to Nairobi at 12:30, my goal was to get there by 12 so for me that wasn't too bad, but I was rushing a bit because I wanted to get to the Masai Market for some Christmas presents to send back to the States. This was the whole reason for me to go to Nairobi on Tuesday when I wasn't meant to fly out until Wed late night. Anyway, as soon as I got out of my room-mates car I was completely swarmed by African men shouting city names to me, asking me where I was going, trying to "help" me with my backpack to get me on their matatu...this is completely normal for the matatu stages so its expected but it's never fun. I agree to go with the cheapest company which costs 270Ksh (a little less than 4 dollars). I buy my ticket and go to get into the matatu but there are no empty seats, I stand around while the conductor checks every ones ticket to confirm that the bus is full. I ask the conductor why he lied and told me that there was one empty seat left, he didn't like this but I didn't like that I was lied to. See the matatus only leave once they are full, there is no set schedule for the matatus going to Nairobi they are just constantly filling and leaving in a continuous cycle all day so the job of these conductors is to try to get as many heads as possible to their bus. So the full matatu leaves without me and I am directed to the empty one that takes its place, the conductor ensures me that he has a line full of people buying Nairobi tickets and the next bus will be leaving any minute.....right. I stand around waiting for like 5 minutes while random wandering vendors try to sell me everything from snacks to socks and just about everything in between. I get frustrated waiting and go to ask for my money back so I can find a new company heading south. While by this time these guys are pretty much sick of me and I of them and words where exchanged and I didn't understand the better half of what he said but as many people know cuss words are some of the first words you learn in a new language so I picked up an explicative here and there as he shouted in my face while I calmly held out my hand waiting for my money back.
I found a new company that for 350Ksh promised to be a better, smoother, faster ride....or at least that's what the conductor said for this matatu. I didn't care about the few extra shilling I just saw an almost full matatu and hoped that meant I could get the hell on the road. I gave the conductor 400 Ksh and he said he would be right back with my change, I took my seat and tried to get comfortable only to realize that the back row in which I was placed meant to seat 4 people now had 3 kids and 2 adults. Great. The conductor never came back with my 50 shilling change from the bus fare and a little girl sat on my lap for the 3 hour journey to Nairobi.......Whew and this was only the beginning!
After sitting in Nairobi traffic for an hour I finally made it to the big, hot, dirty, chaotic city. My great couch surfing buddy Sammy, who I have now stayed with many nights in Nairobi, was meant to meet me when I got off the matatu but was running on African time....which means I sat around waiting. I am normally an extremely patient person but I knew that the Masai Market was closing soon and if I did miss it, me coming down a day early was a complete waste of energy. Anyway, we made it to the market after a big of running around and Sammy and I played ninjas as he helped me purchase some awesome handcraft African goods at extremely low prices. I just went to a stand picked out what I liked, put it aside in one pile and walked away, he came up after me and did the negotiations and helped me get some amazing deals for some Christmas presents. I still spent more money than I intended (which is pretty on key for me) then I took Sammy out for pizza and beer for his help.
The night got better as we made it back to his house. It started out as a typical night heading to Sammy's shanty town of Kiole, wandering through Nairobi trying to find a matatu stand that wasn't completely full, shoving our way onto an over-crowded matatu bus (someone tried grabbing my phone out of my front pocket as I was getting on the bus) then riding an hour through Nairobi to the outskirts, getting off the Matatu somewhere I wouldn't be caught dead without my good friend, then making our way through the dark crowded streets into Sammy's neighborhood. All was going well and we where feeling good from the beers and talking and joking and singing when suddenly I stepped into a river in the middle of the path....well lets just say that this river was not made out of water and my flip flop came off and my foot was totally brown and covered in you know what.... At this point all I could do was laugh my face off as my good friend Sammy dug my flop out of the "river" and we continued through the dark neighborhood trying to find a duka (small store out of the back of someones house- like a bodega) where they would throw some water on my foot! Pretty much the most disgusting thing that has ever happened to me....no, not pretty much....most definitely the most disgusting thing that I have ever done....Bravo!
The next day we headed into Nairobi around lunch time and I went to a backpackers lodge that I know of that will store my pack safely for 24hours for about a dollar. Then we head to an Indian restaurant where I proceed to have the best meal of my life for under 3 dollars (3 course all vegan with 3 diff types of curry and endless chapati...wow). Sammy takes me to another good shopping spot and I get some great deals and finish off my shopping list with some funky carved statues, some painted tapestries, and some funny little bumper stickers for the cousins. We were in the process of walking to go check out a monkey refuge that Sammy knows of when all of a sudden we came up on a huge crowed of people in the city center. I didn't even think about it but this month is the 2 year anniversary of the post election violence that turned Kenya into a tribal clashing blood bath over some pretty crooked elections. If you don't know about this- read up and appreciate that most of us will never have to live in the middle of such gruesome and violent events. A long display of a photojournalist´s work during the violence froze us and everyone around us in our footsteps....tears streamed down my face as I gazed on the images of violence, destruction, devastation, and disaster. Houses burning, skulls crushing, woman crying....right in your face, a straight dose of the reality of the country I am living in. The realization that this can happen at the snap of the fingers of the right person, and it did as over 300,000 people where left homeless and over 1,000 killed at the hand of their fellow man during a blood bath lasting over 2 months of brutal killings in the street. Heart wrenching what can happen, how people can snap...the images of what a man can do to another man where burning in my heart as I watched the African people surrounding me, viewing these images. So many questions that may never be answered...
We didn't make it to the monkey house. We made our way through the craziness of an anti-corruption rally and found a quiet coffee shop where we spent the rest of the afternoon just talking and digesting what we had seen. For Sammy this was bringing up an experience he would rather not relive, his uncle was killed right by his side while he looked on...he was only 15.
That night we were supposed to meet up with a fellow couch-surfer who had just arrived in the country. Sammy is a very active couch surfer and is always taking me to meet the few surfers who are braving the city. We get on a matatu and spend about an hour making our way though traffic...I have no idea where we are going or what we are doing but this is normal when I hang out with Sammy so I enjoy the ride and sing along to biggie smalls and snoop dog videos that are playing on the big screen on the front of the matatu bus and look out onto the crazy scene of Nairobi traffic. We arrive and I am surrounded by like a ton of people....where the hell are we....this looks like Sammy's shanty town but with like ten times more people. We meet up with the CS from Austria and are suddenly being taken through the heart of Mathare, one of the most well known slums in Nairobi. The Austrian and his friends tell us they are members of a project called Slum TV which started off as a project which put cameras in the hands of kids in the slums and has developed into a larger project making documentaries of life for people in the slums. They told us that they do a screening of the movies once a month in the slums and this month was in commemoration of the anniversary of the post-elections violence. We passed hundreds of people on the streets, which where lit by the fires of people cooking and vending food on the sides of the road. The tiny tin constructed houses left nothing to the imagination of the peoples cramped conditions and few belongings. Children where running and playing in the dirty, people where sitting around and eating, talking, drinking, living... it was a lot to take in and I was pretty relieved when we made it to the screening just in time to miss the movie. It was all just a bit too much, but I made sure that I got a copy of the video so that I could view it once I was ready, which I still am not. I met the many members of Slum TV and they took us back to their studio and showed us around the small office space in which they work. It was a small space but they where so proud of it and it is always so heart warming to see people making something out of nothing and working their way up when they started so low in the scheme of things.
We made it back to the city center around 10 pm, my flight wasn't meant to leave until 3:30am so what left to do than hit up the Nairobi night life! Sammy and I drank and danced and ate greasy bar food until 2 when I said good bye and made my way to the airport. I was relieved for the 2nd time of the night as I arrived at the airport put some wu-tang on my mp3 and grabbed a beer while waiting for my flight to board. This feeling of relief didn't last long as Nairobi struck again one more time.... I wasn't done yet, I found out that the power on the landing strip had gone out and the plane which was supposed to take me to Istanbul had to land in Ethiopia as they couldn't see where to park the dam plane! ha! I passed out and didn't end up boarding the plane until almost 8 in the morning which caused me to miss my connection from Istanbul to Madrid.
One night in Turkey.
The hotel the airline put me up in was called the 3 seasons, haha.. it was in the middle of the huge crowded city of Istanbul. I have less than 24 hours in Turkey so I better do something and its night time so what left to do than party? I didn't really want to go out alone and luckily for me there was a girl on my Nairobi flight who missed her NYC connection. An American living in Tanzania, who turns out knows pretty much all the same people I know in Kenya....the ex-pat community in East Africa is very small. I posted a message on the Istanbul couch surfing message board saying 2 girls want to be taken out and showed a good time....so after going through the 50 or so responses I got back in about an hour during dinner, I found someone with some good references who looked like a fun and trust worthy candidate. His name was Murat and he told us to meet him in Taksim, which is the nightlife hot-spot in Istanbul. I had only the clothes on my back as my bag was still on a plane somewhere, so flip-flops and yoga pants was my attire for the evening as we headed out for the bars. The night consisted of good beer, live music, cold feet, and a taste of Turkey that left me hungry for more!!!
LONG story short I made it to Spain, safe and sound. I met up with my grandparents at the airport in Madrid, who got their laptop robbed before I got off the plane. But we all found each other and we are all alive and together and despite all the bull shit that's all that matters. We are staying in a super fancy time share condo in the south-east of Spain outside of a little coastal port town called Cartegena. We are spending a week here then a week on the west side of the Med outside of a little town called Estepona. We will be stopping off in Orgiva on the way through so I can see some friends and pick up some clothes I left and my LED hoop!
We haven't done too much other than eat, sleep, do some family yoga, and just recuperate from the journey here. I can't think of any better way to spend this time. I couldn't care less if we didn't leave the room for the whole time....and its not just because the place we are staying is so fancy and actually bigger than my house back in Kenya. I haven't gotten to spend time with family for a while and it feels so good, when I am giving treatments and working I put 100% love into the person I am working on. I give and I give and then I give more, its my work and I love it and it makes me so happy to be giving. But to receive love from your family is something that you can't replace. It's not the kind of love that you get from someone who wants something out of you. Its the kind of replenishing and extremely nourishing love that gives and gives no matter what you do. Unconditional love. The strongest and most powerful type of love. I feel like my love source is being refilled right now and I think it was due. I was feeling drained before I came and now I feel so much better and I have only been with the family for 6 days. I love what I am doing in Africa but I am doing a lot and I was beginning to ask myself if I could keep up and take care of myself. I think that as a healer and a human I give so much to others all the time and am sometimes neglectful of taking time for myself. I know that I need it and I need to keep myself charged and this is by far my biggest challenge in my life. I try to have my daily yoga practice and meditation and my healthy food....these things are so important to my existence and my body is quick to tell me when I am not getting it. The last 2 weeks I spent in Nanyuki with MORE stomach issues...as soon as I got to Spain they stopped. Its so amazing how the body is able to physically manifest when it is not being taken care of properly. Hopefully when I get back I will be recharged and ready to go. The yoga retreat that I am trying to set up will hopefully be starting the 3rd weekend in January and there is a lot of planning that needs to happen to make it happen. The hooping project with the kids has been drawing a lot of interest in the community and January will be when I put the project into full swing. I have also been asked to begin teaching and doing bodywork at some of the surrounding lodges and ranches in the area. AND I will begin training my 2nd and 3rd African mamas on some different massage theory and techniques.....2010 is the year of the Tiger....my time to shine. Now is my time for preparation!
Until next year! ONE LOVE

African haircut

2009-11-09T04:29:00.000-08:00

Round trip fare to Nairobi- 800 Ksh
Haircut with wash and style-1,000Ksh
Getting your haircut by an African mama with a wig....priceless
There are not many things money can't buy in Kenya...

"so do you um cut a lot of um... mzungu hair?" I ask nervously (mzungu is the word that Africans call whites) trying not to sound like a raciest, "Oh more than African hair," she assures me. I was told this was the spot to get a cut, cheaper than the Indians who do it in my little town of Nanyuki and they are supposed to be well versed in white hair. I try to let myself be assured by what she says, after all it is just hair and it always grows back, but the fact that she has a big ugly wig on isn't supper reassuring. I get the wash, its nice but it takes 4 applications of shampoo to get out the African hair product that I thought would make a nice deep conditioner, made my hair plaster to my head. The woman who scrubbed my hair offered to do some braids in my hair saying that I have nice hair for it. I politely decline telling her how nice the braids look on Africans but for some reason don't think I could pull the look off. She finishes up with a nice head massage and conditioner and sends me back over to Mercy, my hairdresser with the wig. I tell her not to take too much off, "just a trim" I tell her as she eyes my split ends that haven't been touched with scissor since March. Ok so she did a pretty good job and she blow dried the crap out of it until I looked like a sexy model from the 90's with a big fluffy bouncy do. She didn't take too much off, and best of all its even! Whooohoo! So the haircut when off without a hitch sure I took a 2.5 hour journey to get down to Nairobi to get it done but I bough a yoga mat and some herbal tea from a near by health food shop, things you can't find in my little town, so it made the journey worth it. It would have been better if I could have stayed the night in Nairobi and gone clubbing or something to show off the sexy style, every woman knows that your hair will never be as hot as it is right after its washed, cut, and styled by a pro, but Shobhan (my roomie) had to get home to her puppy dog.

Nanyuki is a trip. A sociologists dream town this place has an absolutely fascinating mix of ex-pats, white Kenyans (or Kenyan cowboys), tourists, and of course good old Africans. This makes for a little society that has it all, drama, gossip, parties, and of course hookers. Hahaha! My roomie and I threw a Halloween party last weekend and it was fantastic. It wasn't a rager by any means, after all this is a small town but it was a good time including fireworks, hooping, plenty of booze and a late night after party trip to the "club" here in Nanyuki. The club here is sooooo funny! This was my first trip there, I actually didn't know it existed until we pulled up to a bumpin club with tons of people and loud music. It was fantastic, I was totally trying not to have a nostalgic Halloween wishing I was back home shakin my booty to Bassnectar with my friends, and it really helped to be able to just get out and boogie! The club was hilarious totally decked out pirate themed, which wasn't a Halloween thing its always like that, with a wooden ship as the dance floor. Why didn't anyone tell me about this place earlier? The sexy African music was hot, the hookers where dressed up in their Saturday night finest, and I was lovin every second of it. Good times in Nanyuki.

Work is going pretty well here for me. I am teaching some yoga and I am doing about 3 massages a week....but this Sunday I recieved a job offer from Mt. Kenya Safari Club, which is like the Hilton of Safari Clubs here in Nanuyki. They want me to train some of their current therapist and they want to add my treatments to their current offerings. This is good new for me if I am able to really work and save some money. Finding work is tricky with the economy so bad everywhere, people are spending less and massage is something that is definitely affected. I have a meeting with the manager this coming wed to show him my proposal for training and the flyer I have created for my own services. On a fun and brighter note, I have a order of over 50 meters of hose pipe due to arrive this wed. I plan on makin over 70 hoops with this hose pipe and I plan on doing trade with the kids in Nanyuki and Likii. I want them to help me clean the trash up around the town in trade for hoops and hoop dance classes. Super exciting, I really hope to make a difference with the youth in this community. Trash is something that is a huge problem in 3rd world countries for a variety of reasons, and since I watched people throwing plastic over the edge of boat on the Amazon river. And now I have maybe found a way to do it!

I am headin to Spain in a month, I got the plane ticket I leave on the 10th of December and will spend 2 weeks hanging out with them for Christmas. I have a return trip back here to Nanyuki on the 27th of December. Looks like I will go to back to Lamu island for New Years....Christmas in Spain....New Years in Kenya....life is rough...
until next time
ONE LOVE

Learning to fly and building a nest

2009-10-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

"So it's kind of like flying then?" I ask Patrice as we make our way through the Rift Valley sitting in the back of Jamie's pickup...."It's not kind of like flying," he says, "it is flying."
Soaring in the air for almost an hour at 3000 meters above the ground really makes those dreams you have when your staring up at the sky and the clouds as a little kid, imagining dancing through those clouds and soaring through the sky with the birds.....well come true. It's like nothing I have ever experienced before, its not the HUGE burst of intense adrenaline that you get when you skydive....no its more of a sustained high as you surf the pockets of thermal air to take you into the clouds. People who para-glide are completely obsessed with it, I could see that from everyone who I have ever met who does it, and after the flight I can see why. The views from that high are like nothing you can imagine, looking down on the beautiful Rift Valley as you rise and fall with the winds. The feeling of freedom and adrenaline create that all to familiar feeling in my body that I have come to love and seek out. I have heard of people who have a really hard time dealing with real life after doing many adrenaline boosting activities for long periods of time...hmmm
After spending 4 wonderful days with the group of white Kenyans and the French man, we have to split up. Patrice and I decide to chill out and camp for a few days at Lake Baringo, which is one of the best if not the best place in the world for viewing birds it was really nice to camp, hike around the lake, and laze around by a pool. We took a boat around the lake and saw some amazing birds and watched a Fish Eagle have breakfast, which I have footage of on my Picasa page.....here-----> http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Maryjain419
I have never been a huge bird watcher or anything and it was funny to watch the tourists who where there to view and catalog these birds, but the quantity of these guys was absolutely phenomenal, I mean one after another, different colors, shapes, and sizes....so many freaking birds! We arrived at Baringo on a Sunday and left on Wed morning for Nairobi. Patrice flew back to France and I stayed in Nairobi with the same couch surfer that I stayed with my first day in Kenya. It was funny being back in Kayole I felt like I had made a big circle and I really did as this was my 4th time in Nairobi. I promised it would be my last but now I don't think it will be.
So I can back to Nanyuki with the idea of heading to Ethiopia, I stayed with the pilet, Jamie for a few days while healing my eye. I managed to get pink eye in Nairobi and couldn't open my eye one morning! I was getting ready to leave the next day to head north when I met a girl called Siobhan. She is a Scottish girl who has been living in Kenya for a couple of years, she was looking for a roommate and convinced me into believing that yoga is exactly what this town needs and would be a huge success here. SO I decided to scrap the plans to head to Ethiopia and try to post up here and make a few Shillings. We have now rented a huge 2 bedroom house on 7 acres of land in a small town on the edge of Nanyuki called Liki. I am having a massage table built and have some yoga classes up and running, sort of. I am also trying to set up a program for the local kids to learn hooping in exchange for doing some trash collection in the village. So this brings us up to date finally.
Next time in the adventures of a fairy....
will April make any money in a village in Africa?
will she make it back to Spain in time to see her family?
will the electricity at her house stay on long enough to cook dinner tonight?
Only time will tell, stay posted!
one love

Ode to Lamu and fulfilling destiny

2009-09-30T01:02:00.000-07:00

The laberynth like streets of Lamu
weaving and intersecting
never knowing where you will come out
donkeys around every corner
some small and meek others big and stout
the women cover their faces
the mosque makes its call 5 times a day
this is one of my new favorite places
the charm of your peoples
and the views from your steeples

Its been only a week since I last wrote and wow what an amazing week it has been. Kenya is situated around the equator line and this causes the illusion of the fastest sunrise and set I have ever seen. I think this creates the feeling of time absolutely flying by. Its been only 2.5 weeks now since I arrived and the things I have experiaced....mind melting. Let me start at where I left of in Malindi. The bus was due to leave at 12:30....so in Kenyan time this means we leave at 2:30. The bus is full and the mid-day sun was making my shirt stick to my skin. Our seat that we were sold where already occupied and this was only the begingin of the trip....it continued in this fashion the whole way to Lamu. Chickens under our seats, people craming in the aisle, the dust pouring in the cracked window as we tear down the dirt road, stoping in every small village along the way to pick up or drop off more people. The ladies run to the windows trying to sell everything from fruit, nuts, hot dogs to goats milk. The suposed 3 hour ride slowly turns into a 5 hour ride and this means arriving at night in a new city...never a good feeling. I am still with the English boy at this point so my tension is lessened as we arrive in the little town on the opposite side of the channel from Lamu. We find a ferry and are immersed in the darkness as we cram onto the motor boat to take us accross. As we make our way throught the channel I feel so alive I look around at the dark faces of the crowded boat....my pale skin glows in the moon light. This is why I am alive to enjoy the moments like this...this feels authentic and I am immersed in the essense of where I am. Its been years since I have traveled in a 3rd world country and today made me remember the majic of the experiance...I am truely happy. Lamu is amazing, one of the oldest cities in Africa, and almost completely Muslim. This is my first time in a Muslim city and its absoulutely incredible. Amazing palace like Mosques all over this tiny island, the call to pray echoing through the small winding streets. So peaceful I could easily spend a lot more time here. The English boy Beanie leaves on Saturday....I am not ready to leave Lamu then so we say our goodbyes and he's gone. I meet some other travelers at a resturant the night before and we all go out on a boat trip sailing around the channels and the small islands surrounding Lamu. I decided that if I am going to continue eating fish that I need to man up and catch a fish and really be involved in the process of fishing. So I try my first hand at fishing...no catch...I try a hand at scaling and cleaning the fish that the others caught, I couldn't bring myself to tear the guts from this being. I still ate the fish for lunch on the boat but I decided then and there that it was my last fish meal.
His name is Patrice, he is the craziest person I have ever met so of course we had a great attraction. He is a French man who works in festivals selling the clothes he buys in India and Nepal, where he spends 7 months a year. He is a paraglider, did I mention hes totally nuts. We left Lamu together on Monday and took a bus together to Mombassa (8 hours), then Tuesday to Nairobi (14 hours in transit).
The original idea was that we would travel to Nanuki together, the base of Mount Kenya. I was thinking about climbing Mt. Kenya and he was meeting a fellow paragliding friend, a white Kenyan called Jamie, who is a piolet. Turns out plans changed, as they almost always do. I found out that I need to go back to Spain in December to meet my grandparents who are coming out to see me there. So I need to sort out how the hell I am going to afford to get back to Spain, which means no fundin to climb Mt. Kenya, you have to do it with a guide and its costing maybe 400USD to climb for 5 days. So Patrice invites me to spend the time with him and go to Rift Valley on the west side of Kenya to paraglide.
This morning we took a 30 minute flight in his friend Jamies small taxi plane (!) from Nairobi to Nanuki. Which brings us to me sitting in this small internet cafe in the itty bitty town of Nanuki right on the Ecuator line at the base of the magestic Mt. Kenya. We are waiting for Jamie to get back from flying some tourists around Kenya then we pack up and head 5 hours over to the Rift Valley...we fly first thing tomorrow morning.
When I found out about the job at Diani going to shit, I shed one tear. But I knew there was something bringing me to Kenya. There was an important reason for me to come and working at Diani obviously was not it. Now I think I know why I was brought to Kenya....I came to learn how to fly.....

Safari satisfaction and a brighter tomorrow

2009-09-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

By far one of the most incredible experiances of my young life. To be less than 10 feet from animals I never could even imagine seeing....my mind is blown. It was animal after animal after animal....we saw all of the animals of "the big 5" which includes the lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino. I saw hippos by the herd lounging in the sunny water of the Masi River, I watched lazy lions grooming each other as the sun rose over the park, I watched the native Masi people with their big drooping earlobes and bright red cloth herding their cattle across the land, I gazed into the eyes of the prowling cheetahs as they stared me down in the safety of our car. Absolutely mind blowing. I worried about doing such a short safari of only 3 days thinking I may be missing out but after the second day I could have left...successful in viewing everything I could ever hope to see and so much more.
On the way back to Nairobi, the pain kicked in....I actually woke up to the all familiar rumble in my stomach in the middle of the night the previous night but hoped it was only a dream...but this was no dream it was the same pain I have felt both in Bolivia and then Spain...backpackers belly....great. This time it was accompanied by a fantastically high fever and chills as we made the 5 hour drive back from the Masi Mara. So what do you do when you have no travelers insurance, can't keep food down, haven't been on Malaria tablets, and have been bit by a few mosquitoes and have one of the highest fevers that you can remember? You sweat it out and hope for the best. This is your option. This is what I did and woke up early Saturday morning feeling like 100 times better. Close call.
So on the bus 8 hours and headed to Diani beach....The saga with the the hostel continues as I decide not to go to the backpackers hostel that screwed me over before I came. I decided that I don't need it, don't want it, not gonna deal with it. The only thing is the bit of fear that I had not doing it...this means traveling around, spending money, dealing with big decisions....adrenaline.
I was a little nervous before I came here I will admit, its been a while since I traveled around a 3rd world country alone and plus Africa is a completely different world than South America and I knew that. Its been over a week now and my confidence is coming back and I have decided to travel around seeing the sites, trekking the hills, and doing whatever comes my way...taking it one day at a time, trusting myself again.
After spending a couple of days relaxing at Diani beach....far from the backpackers I was meant to be...I realized that this wasn't the kind of place I really would enjoy spending the next few months...Sure its beautiful... but its very touristy. So this morning I got on another good old matatu and headed 3 hours up the coast to a town called Melindi. Where I am now, I will spend the night here then head up to a place called Lamu. That's as far as I have for plans but the rough idea may include rafting the Nile in Uganda, gorilla tracking in Rwanda, it may include Tanzania where I would love to climb Kilimanjaro, only time will tell where the wind (and the tiny bit of money I managed to save this summer) takes me. I will keep you posted. One love.

safari anyone?

2009-09-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

I arrived Sunday morning....at 4am exhausted...totally beat...knackered even...I was met at the airport by my young Kenyan host called Samuel who I found through couchsurfing.com. After taking a few matatus, like mini busses with loads of really loud American hip/hop music and big screen tvs playing old school Biggie videos...wait where I am...we arrived in the neighborhood of Samuel which is in a small shanty village called kayole on the outskirst of Nairobi...pics soon to come...I spent the half the day sleeping of my airline hangover and then the rest of the day hooping with the local kids...more pics soon to come. Nairobi is big and intense and wow really really Africa, everything you could imagine and so much more. This morning we, myself and the English couchsurfer staying in the house of Samuel, were taken to a Christian Camp if you will...the experiance of them inviting us into there camp showing us around and us politely explaning that we where in no way interested in supporting "Christian crusades" ws interesting to say the very least. Thank god, forgiving the irony, that I was with Beni as the English boy is called, who knows what I would have done without another person there to see the insanity of the whole situation. I mean I am down with eraticating poverty and all, and this is what they kept insisting was their goal, but in the tour of the place I saw no real plan other than signing people up to be Christians and open a back account in to deposit their money...in exchange for a piece of bread and a promise of salvation....hmmmm...Anyway manage to escape that one without too much embarasment or harrasment. So we came into the town center to exchange some money and to look for sunglasses and Beni and I ended up signing up for a 3 day safari in the masai mara park in East Kenya...will be back to civilazation and heading to Diani beach on Friday...one love...

I don't know why you say hello...I say goodbye...

2009-09-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how adaptable human beings can be to different situations, places, environments, and so on. It's funny how easy it is for me to start to get really comfortable in a place and start to spread my roots, maybe it's the Taurus in me. Anyway, I am so fortunate to have found Orgiva, I love it so much. It's like my home away from home. I feel like if I every fuck up or get sick or robbed or something I have a place to go back to where I can be nurtured back to health, without flying half-way across the world to Colorado. Leaving Kali 2 days ago was tough...bittersweet almost. It's good for me to keep moving or I know I could so easily get stuck in a place like Orgiva. Saying goodbye is something I am getting used to again, which doesn't make it much easier but I left a suitcase and some hoops there at a friends house so I know I will be back.
The lesions I will take away from Kali are priceless. The friends I made during my 3 months in Andalusia are friends for life. The shift in my life that occurred while in the womb-like security have given me a spark that I have never known before.
Last week after I realized it was time to go I found a Backpackers hostal in Kenya that would take me to work-trade with them for the next couple of months, on a little beach in the south of the country called Diani beach... So I bought my plane ticket, packed up and left Kali. All was running smooth until I recieved an email last night while in Granada, from the owner of the Backpackers I am supposed to be headed for on Saturday telling me that things have changed and now he can only use my assistance for 2 weeks. Ok...so I am flying really far from where I am and where I have become so safe and comfortable to work in trade for living conditions...no pay, for 2 weeks. I am really being tested right now and I have a feeling this is only the first problem. So now I go to Kenya. I have no idea what the next step will be but I am learning more and more every day and every step. I am learning to trust in the universe, I am learning to pay close attention to the step I am currently on instead of focusing on the one before me, and I am learning to use my yoga off the mat and in my life when something big happens that is not what I had planned.
More Change, curve ball, me thinking I was but a leave on the stream of life and flowing gently down the stream. Now I am more like swimming up-stream.
Scary concept for most people. Myself included. I am resistant to change and I can see it. This is why I am being forced to deal with very big changes in my life so that this resistance may melt and I can be open and accepting of change. It is all preparation for bigger changes in my life, my consciousness, and the world.
So I sit here from a computer at a friends house in Madrid, almost completely ok with the fact that I am going to Africa by myself in less that 48 hours, for a job that will only last 2 weeks, with very little money (after spending half of what I earned all summer on the plane ticket). I have something important to learn, see, do and maybe teach and heal in Africa... so I will keep you all informed along the path.

Going to Africa!

2009-08-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

Time is up here at Kali yoga....I have been feeling lately like a change was coming, the original plan was to stay here until the end of October but after lots of thinking, research, and discovery, I have come to the conclusion that the time is up. The main reason I am leaving early is due to the fact that my time allowed in Europe officially ended 2 days ago. Yep I am....illegal. I thought I could tough it out, be hard core and stay under the radar. I am making pretty good money here and since I am doing work trade for my food and lodging I have been able to save a fair chunk of change. Well I have decided that money can't buy my freedom and if I was to get caught I have too much to risk. I am not the little shit head rule breaker I once was...growing up.
Change is the only constant in life and to be adaptable to these unexpected changes is probably one of the most important qualities one can learn. The more I see and the more places I go the more I learn that everything will be ok, there is family everywhere I look, I am never truly alone, and that every moment is fleeting. I inhale the ones I enjoy and I exhale the ones that try to tempt me to be unhappy.
The plan is rough now....I am using a website called work away to try to find a work trade job similar to what I am doing now somewhere in Africa. I hope to be out of Spain in less than 2 weeks. I will post next time I know what the plan is.....

Watermelon lessons

2009-08-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

How delicious is watermelon. Taking my time I feel the little bits of water explode and tickle my tonge with the crisp taste, to really eat a watermelon I don't know if I have every really eaten one like I eat them now.
Life is teaching me a new lesson every moment over and over again. Can I be present enough to see the lesson? and remember what I am learning?
From Roman (who went back to Florida the past weekend) I learned that life is absolutely hilarious pretty much all the time and in almost every situation I seem to encounter, especially here at Kali Yoga, I just want to laugh my face off. and I do.
From the Buddha I have learned to realize and actually know that I am a collection of subatomic particles dancing and flashing in and out of existance trillions of times each second. If I sit still enough I can feel it happening.
From The China Study- I learned that as Americans we spend far more, per capita, on health care than any other society in the world, and yet 2/3 of Americans are overweight, and more than 15 million Americans have diabetes. Half of all Americans have a health problem that "requires" taking a prescription every week, and more than 100 million Americans have high cholesterol. 1/3 of the children in America are overweight or at risk of becoming...Children are now taking more prescription drugs than ever before. -T Colin Campbell. I love hard scientific proof from a big western scientics showing that the vegan diet is the healthiest.

Another of Buddhas teaching brings the word Tanha- literally thirst- the insatiable longing for what is not, which implies an equal and irremediable dissatisfaction for what is.

I am thinking about going to Plum Village in France to visit Thich Nhat Hanh.

Welcome to Spain

2009-06-22T04:20:00.000-07:00

Back on the road again and it's oh soooo sweet. To travel for me is to be alive, auto pilot is off and my soul is awakened. Spain is beautiful and has many similarities to the Latin American culture that I fell so deeply in Love with a couple years ago. The region that I am living in is quite breath taking and amazing. I am doing work trade in a yoga retreat center outside of a small town called Orgiva, in the Andulcia region of Southern Spain. I am sitting in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountian range, surrounded by olive, lemon, fig, cherry, orange, and avacado trees. Many people from other parts of Europe live around this area it is like the Costa Rica of America if you will. Tons of hippies young and old, living in communes, tipis, and tents.
The retreat that I am working for is called Kali Yoga and if you have not checked out their website it is www.kaliyoga.com, if you look under photos you can get an idea of the region and the acutal retreat (look under the yoga section and go to therapies for my pic!) I will be posting pics soon hopefully but currently have no way to connect the camera I have to the computer.

I have many roles here at Kali including teaching 2 yoga classes a week, doing massage about 4 times a week, helping clean up after meals, preparing breakfast, helping to look after the guests and make sure they have a great time, and best of all teaching them to hula hoop!
I love the people I am working with and surrounded by, everyone is so full of love and experience and life and knowledge in so many areas. The two other people who actully live here at Kali with me are Roman from Israel, and Jamie from New Zealand, both amazing guys, they have become the big brothers that I never knew I wanted but am so completely in love with (in a brother sister kind of love). The rest of the staff all live around the area in the many small villas, communes, or hill sides around Kali. They are from all over the world, although I am the only American here, which is interesting in its own.
Living in a tipi is quite the experience and I am getting used to living in nature more than I ever have before. I have befriended the big hairy spider that used to keep me up at night, I call her big mama and she hangs out by the Buddha on my little alter I have set up.
I have been healing still from the car accident that I was in on April 17, still not 100 percent yet, getting body work has proven to be a bit difficult as I am keeping busy but my body is doing a great job to heal itself.
I have managed to get out a few times, Kali is a bit of a bubble world, I have been to a free world music festival called Etno Sur it was amazing! Check out some pics of me busking with my hoop http://andreasholm.com/blog/2009/07/in-the-moment/ (I think I might go pro busking after my job is through.) I have also had the chance to backpack around the mountains around where I live and its so breathtaking. Sometimes my eyes hurt from not blinking enough in fear to miss the beauty around me. You can read the book Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart if you want a easy read to give u an idea of the region and its power.
Much love to everyone back home.....will update soon hopefully with pics!