End of Year Update

Too much going on to write = now too much to write about.

Well, it's my last week in New Mexico for awhile. I have LOVED being here more than I could have fathomed. I thought I was just coming here to be a labor and delivery nurse and to hopefully meet some midwives, but of course that was just the lure I needed to get me here, since I never would have personally conjured up the real reasons I needed to come here. I needed to fall in love with mountains and the sunshine and the New Mexican culture that I didn't know existed. I needed to meet and interact with certain people. I needed to learn to drive a stick shift and to do a lot of hot spring soaking. Etc etc. Yes, I have been enchanted...and nearly entrapped by the "Land of Enchantment." (locals joke that it's the land of entrapment)

Now I am off for another grand adventure. No, not the bike trip...we decided Mexico was too dangerous right now, but the equipment is in storage for another time... Instead my sweetie Justin and I are 1st off to visit family/friends in Denver, Kansas City, Iowa, Chicago, and San Antonio, with a 10 day vipassana meditation sit in the middle of our month-long road trip. Then we are off to the Dominican Republic for a week, and then to Jacmel, Haiti, where we will volunteer until mid May. For Mother Health International, I will be a nurse and will finish up my midwifery training so that I can take my CPM boards when I return. Justin will be handy-man and gardener. And since we are quitting our jobs we are open to whatever the universe delivers us after that :)

As a matter of catch up, I should write that October was full of travel: a trip to Oakland for the acro-yoga festival and a trip to Kansas City for my grandparents' 90th bday party. And then to Iowa for Iowa City's first annual yoga festival, for which I had the honor of being the first aid person.

The only thing I can remember of November is crazy nights at work: one involving having 3 babies in 45 minutes and spending a couple weeks caring for a drug-addicted baby who was abandoned at the hospital, and whom we all fell in love with and wanted to take home (including Justin).

December flew by....and here we are!

My parents came last week to celebrate a little Christmas and to take a car load of stuff back to their house for us. For Christmas Eve I was on call, so we walked down Canyon Rd (where many of the famous galleries are) with roommate Amanda and friend/co-worker Katie Lynn. We drank wine and foamy real eggnog and ate veggie tamales and posole. There were carolers surrounding bonfires and farolitos (paper bags with candles) lining the streets. For Christmas Justin cooked me the meal he made me on our first date (BBQ black eyed peas) and I packed while I was on call again, and then went to work at 1am. Yay!!

Happy New Year all! May you manifest all your hearts desires :)

siblings in Kansas City

halloween acroyoga (i'm dorothy from the wizard of oz)

Mother Health International Clinic Wishlist

As you may have heard, I am quitting my job the end of the year, and going to Haiti to volunteer at a clinic called Mother Health International for an indefinite period of time (at least 3 months). If you are interesting in helping out, the following items are things that the clinic has asked for, and I can bring them with me if you give them to me in person or send them to my parents' home before Jan 4th. Items in bold are of more dire need. ....more to come of a real update from me.

Calender for the new year - 1

Medium gloves - with powder, using powder free in the humidity does not work well

Medium sterile gloves, extra long - 10

Newborn cloth diapers - the old fashion kind - Gerbers makes some inexpensive ones

Rechargeable batteries: D-size, 9-volt

Protein powder for mama’s and midwives

Chux pads - disposible and hospital style, washable reusable

Peri bottles

Large dry erase board with markers

Breast pumps - manual

False Unicorn - 3 bottles

Vibernum - 3 bottles

Uva Ursi capsules

Bars (Granola, fruit, cliff, power bars whatever you like you like to eat when hungry at a birth).

Thermos for tea or coffee - large kitchen size

French press - 1 large

Hibicleanse wipes or any antiseptic wipes/towles

Baby wipes - 1 case

Essential oil of peppermint - 2

Aura Cacia essential oil - Chill Pill

Essential oil burner - 2

Pill bags - 2000

Large black garbage bags

Tincture bottles - empty

Gadels - all neonatal sizes

Baskets - (6in x 12-16 in) that wont break easily

Pepper spray for yourself personally and for clinic - buy oil based spray as water based sprays clogs after first use

Small reference book/flip booklet with pics to show moms during prenatals anything that would help with education

Flipflops - for inside clinic

Incense stand - 2

Autoclave - 1

Centrifuge with tubes - 1

Sterile speculum - 3 steel

Speculum light - 1

Microscope with slides and fixative - 1

Beeswax candles with lead free wicks (long taper) - 100

Yellow Pill - lots

Yunnan Baiyao - lots

Sterile instruments packs - 500

Sarongs

Lanterns - battery powered

Headlamps

Flashlights

Pillow cases - used is fine

Maternity pads

Cifixime or Ceftrixone- gonorrhea meds 30 doses

Tums antacids

Oregon grape seed root

Cranberry capsules

Calcium

Magnesium Citrate

Prenatal vitamins

Vitamins C

Echinacea capsules

Vit D

Iron - many, ferrous gluconate or Floradix

Long protective gowns - with long sleves to protect oneself from bodily fluids

Kangaroo care wraps - stetchy material

Ink cartiridge for HP Officejet 6500 Wireless printer Model # E709n, hp ink cartiridge 920

Projector - for computer hook up

Speaker system

Walkie Talkies

Michel Odent’s books in French for our assistant midwives

French midwifery resources, educational tools, books, etc

Happy Autumn Equinox!

full moon equinox

hands like branches reach for rain

and feet root in dirt

Tonight my roommates and I took off our clothes on our front porch and ran around in the rain under the full moon. Happy equinox! It was the second time in a couple weeks that we've delighted in the joy of water in the high desert--the last time by swimming in the Pecos river. Ahhhhhh it was so. so. nice.

Life has been jam-packed recently. I joke that I "live in the future" because I'm always shocked at the passage of time, not to mention disoriented from working nights. What? It's almost October, 2010? shut up, who time-transported me?

I worked 5 out of the past 6 nights, which were all consumed in craziness. This was after nearly a week away from the hospital because I was taking a course in advanced life support in obstetrics where I learned fun things like repairing buttholes that have ripped during childbirth. This past week I took care of a girl who was on her way to jail for instigating a fight, but had to get checked out first because she'd been kicked in the stomach. A woman who was in jail for 7 months and then out for four months, and claimed she had gotten pregnant before going to jail, making her at least 11 months pregnant (umm impossible + her belly was about 6 months in size...which would mean she got pregnant in jail). We had one set of twins. I caught a baby for a woman who came in and delivered in 4 minutes. One night I assisted in a delivery and then I was the recorder at a code on the med-surge floor, for which the guy did not survive--thus experiencing someone's entrance into this world and another's exit. And last but not least: I got a tire blowout one night on the way to work, and then had a c-section where the mom went into respiratory distress on the OR table, they struggled to get the baby out and had to turn him around inside of her and then use forceps to get him out, and then the dr and I had to resuscitate the babe, as he was almost lifeless at that point. Both ended up doing well though.

There's probably more, but I'd rather not think about it....on the up side, I discovered a new breakfast burrito stop on the way home from work and I've started commuting with another spunky little nurse who works on med-surge and has a wonderful southern accent :)

In other news, I've started blues dancing, which is incredibly sexy and fun and relatively easy. There are no moves or steps per say--it's all just listening to and feeling the music and the other person's movements. And the music is wonderfully diverse--from traditional blues, to hip hop, to show tunes, to pop, etc.

The aspens are turning color here and the mountains are splashed with red and orange--soon the mountains in which Santa Fe is built will look like they're on fire. And speaking of which...Zozobra was a couple weekends ago, which is part of Santa Fe's Fiesta celebration. It involves burning an enormous marionette puppet, filled with the town's people's gloom from the past year. People drop off wedding dresses, legal documents, letters, or simply papers with what they want to free themself from written on on them. And then 50,000 people gather to watch it all go up in flames.

That's it for now. I'm looking forward to going to Oakland and Kansas City next month, but am also so excited to spend more time rolling around in the New Mexico dirt before it snows :) and learning things I almost wish I didn't know at the hospital!

xxoxoxoxoxx

home

I'm back home in New Mexico after quite the journey. I left Iquitos for Lima on Sunday. On Tuesday night I went out with my lovely clown friends--went for sushi and ceviche (or both at the same time) and dancing, and then packed and went to the airport at 3am. Flight at 6am to Miami. Stuck on the runway in Miami due to Airforce 1 landing. Missed my connection in Dallas. Stayed a night there. Shared a hotel room with a lovely lady from Lincoln, NE. Arrived yesterday at noon (Thurs.) and then I worked the overnight shift starting at 7pm....it's 6:22 am now, and I'm teetering on the point of delirium.

I'm glad to be back to the comforts of home--I must admit that my last day in Peru, I enjoyed the comforts of a manicure, pedicure, and massage by a blind guy (just the massage part...the others sound scary blind) for a grand total of $20. Granted the massage was sort of like being slapped with massage oil and groped, but it was a chance to rest (or something). Now back in NM, I am very happy to eat some corn tortillas, take a warm shower, sleep in a comfy bed, happily throw toilet paper down the toilet, drink the tap water, and kiss my boyfriend :)

clown pictures borrowed from friends:

clown bus

belen

painting

Cositas

Little bits:
On my last day of the Belen Project, I went out with a vet from Lima and a couple other curious clowns to help vaccinate dogs for parasites and mange. Next year she is hoping to come back and spay-neuter them, which would be faaaabulous. No more stray, mangy, sad looking, skinny, mean dogs roaming the streets! In the afternoon we had a massive parade of clowns and of the children´s work the the ¨streets¨of Belen. The kids paraded their puppets, masks, dances, and other art works they had created during the past 2 weeks. We ended in a large field and danced, had music, awards for the cleanest street-district, etc etc.

I went to a photo exhibition on petroleum extraction in the jungle. Everyone was rightfully horrified by the gulf disaster, but what´s worse is that this kind of oil disaster is happening unnoticed all over the world, specifically in Africa and South America. It is happening in small communities, and in hidden or forgotten parts of the junge where the media doesn´t bother to go. Entire tribes of people and vast ecosystems are being destroyed. Completlely destroyed. And nobody is doing anything about it. The photo exhibit showed people´s bodies mangled by the toxins in the water, baby´s in small boxes for coffins, lakes of petroleum pouring into the virgen jungle, and whole communties swallowed up in the destruction. Furthermore the people in the communities did not earn a thing from the exploitation of their land which they can no longer use in their traditional ways. All the profits go back to the governement and the foreign oil company. This was a very scary thing to fully see and understand...to know that this continues right now at this moment and nothing is being done about it.

On the positive note, we worked a lot this year with a group called La Restinga, which is thriving in Iquitos. It is an organization for street kids--that is the kids who work out on the streets, selling gum or cigarettes or handicrafts. They are given an opportunity to learn dance, paint murals, play, learn computer skills and other skills to help them in their life, and most importantly a community and a safe place to be and create. The group also brings to light community problems like the prevalence of child prostitution and violence in schools by the school teachers to the students. Every May 1st they do a procession through the streets with the icon of a street kid on their shoulders to show their respects to the children of the streets and to display a piece of irony in respect to the processions people do in Peru to saints, but do not do anything to help living people, the living and suffering children right before them in the streets every day.

so much more to write, but so much more to do...

iquitos iquitos iquitos, iquitos de mi corazon!

Well, I haven´t really updated since I´ve been here as I´ve been so tired/busy/enjoying things too much to sit in a sweaty internet cafe. The other morning just before I woke up, I was apparently was so tired that I slept through a small earthquake...nothing was disturbed in the tiny temblor, but you´d think I´d at least awaken for it. Too much clowning, too many meetings, too many late nights at Nikaro (a bar that we take over when we´re here), though I´m not sure if I can say too much dancing...dancing here is a cure-all for the clowns, and it´s amazing how no matter how little sleep you get, it´s really always better psychologically and physically to go out and dance a little than to sleep a couple extra hours.

Today we clowned at a prison with three parts--men, women, and young men, which was great but highly depressing. The people were all so lovely and normal, and human...it made me sick that they had done some thing in the past and were now living behind bars for some amount of time, only to be released as if nothing happened in some years....especially sad is the young men who are wasting their youth in a cell.

A couple days before I clowned at a general hospital. I had a beautiful moment with a Polish clown named Psemo. He was blowing up balloons for people to draw faces and figures on, and he came over to a guy I was talking to. The guy had only recently sat up; when we walked in, he seemed uninterested. Psemo handed him a balloon and the guy started to smile a little. He then handed him a marker to draw on it and we realized that the man didn´t have the fine motor skills to do anything but scribble fine lines, so we had him hold the marker as tightly as he could and I moved the balloon around on the marker to draw a heart, a star, a flower, and to write his name: Alejandro. The old man was beside himself with joy, smiling hugely with his near toothless mouth, and moving his treasured art work around with his hands. Sometimes I just feel like I´m wandering around dressed up in silly clothes, but that was one of those moments when I realized ahh yes, this is what we are doing here!

much more to come about the parade, vaccinating dogs, and petroleum in the jungle...

clowning in iquitos

oh my, it´s only the 4th day and I am exhuasted. Day 2 was a clown parade through the shit and trash filled streets of Belen. Day 2 we started with the dance, music, and art workshops, house painting, and clowning. So far we have been to an orphanage, market, a home for pregnant teen-agers and their babies, a home for children with HIV, an adult mental institution, and a couple other places for children. (Day 3 and 4 were more workshops, painting, and clowning which is the norm schedule)

One night I got to have dinner with Patch and 3 other clowns, which was great. At some point I thought of the old question: if you could have dinner with anyone in the past or present, who would it be? Wow, how fortunate am I to be able to fulfill the possibility of such a questio! Of course if I could pick someone out of fiction, it would probably be Zorba the Greek, who Patch and I talked about while painting a house. We also discussed how until this year no medical school in the world has taught a course on compassion--what should be the most fundamental aspect of being a doctor or healer. He has challenged medical schools in 68 countries and only one--a university in Lima--has taken him up on the challenge, so he will be helping develop the course. We also talked about a community he recently visited in Portugal called Tamera, who has been intentionally living life in a communal way and experimenting in living without jealousy for 40 years. cooooooool.

Last night we did karaoke, which was of couse hilarious. They have both english and spanish songs with words---the only problem with the english is that they don´t have the actual music, just a cheesy keyboard/synthesizer thing. So needless to say, singing Born to be Wild is just not the same without the psychedelic music behind it...I also sang Pappa Don´t Preach.

in short: making lots of good friends. Sweating lots. Eating lots of fried bananas and drinking amazing jungle juices like cocona and passionfruit. That´s it for now! xo Ro

somos piratas (pirates)

Finally our pathetic little shipwrecked souls boarded the boat: Edwaudo III on the 31st. The image of us being on a deserted island was further dramaticized by the villagers yelling ¨viene una lancha! viene una lancha!¨ (a boat is coming!) when they saw the approaching boat in order to tip off the ladies and kids who run onto the boats to sell their various food items--fried fish, crackers, cake, fried bananas, etc--to the passengers.

It was 11pm, so we boarded the boat, put up our hammocks in the dark, and went to sleep. Waking up the next day floating down a river in a boat jam-packed with people wrapped up and sleeping side by side in hammocks felt surprisingly normal and peaceful. It was like waking up in a beehive or perhaps as a bat, hanging upside down in a cozy cave nook. It really is amazing how orderly and un-anxious it feels having so many people and so much going on in a relatively small amount of space. On 2.5 floors there were at least 150 people, 16 cows, one giant dolphin-looking fish which someone had sold to the boat via their canoe one day, some turkeys, and an unknown number of chickens, (no llamas unlike our first boat). With the wind from the boat, the temperature was quite comfortable.

Three times a day, the small kitchen would bang loudly on a pipe to alert everyone that the meal was ready. Everyone would grab their bowl or plate from home (or the street market) and run to get in line. Most meals consisted of a healthy portion of rice with some chicken and a boiled banana. The food was usually sold to the boat by people in the villages along the way who would approach the boat in their canoe carved from a tree trunk and stacked full (FULL) of bananas and other staples. The voyage was really pretty incredible--for about the equivalent of $25 you got meals, ¨housing,¨ and transportation for 2.5 days. There are even showers--albiet, just a spicket with likely river water coming from the ceiling just to the side of the toilet--but the cold water felt wonderfully refreshing. One has to be creative to figure out where to hang a towel, socks, soap etc, and how to do things like squat above the seatless toilet, hold a roll of toilet paper, and hold your pants up so that they don´t get wet from the filthy floor.

My days were spent falling asleep reading in the hammock, sleeping in the hammock, and waking up from sleeping in the hammock. I also spent a good number of hours sitting on one of the benches around the perimeter of the boat, staring out at the trees of the Pacaya Reserve--fully pregnant with coconuts and aguaje. The illustrious pink dolphins swam by in packs at times. At night, we played cards and fought off the mutant jungle bugs. I was happily surprised to meet a good number of travelers on the ship with whom to share the experience, from England, France, Spain, and New Zealand.

I wish I had pictures, but alas....no camera anymore :( I felt moderately reminded of my semester at sea--storm and all one night, except of course the accomodations were slightly less comfy on this short trip. All in all, I would DEFINITELY do it again!

Laguninos somos!

I have officially arrived in Iquitos after quite an interesting journey. I am busy with clowning activities and helping out with bits of organization--you wouldn´t imagine how long it takes to print a document and then make copies of it...

Segundo and I finally got on the boat on the 29th of July at 7 am and arrived to a jungle community about 9 hours down the river called Lagunas. We decided we weren´t in too much of a hurry, so we`d stop and spend some time in the community, and hop on the next boat that went by (there`s usually a couple per day).

Well. The boat we wanted did not end up coming until about 60 hours later. So in the port of a small ¨town¨with radio phones, electricity from 6pm-midnight, and an obsorbident about of sun we sat and drank beer (Segundo) and coconuts (me...6 of them in fact), waiting like shipwrecked passengers on a deserted island for a boat to pass. One did pass during that time, but we decided not to embark because that company has recently run a boat aground and we were not looking forward to swimming at night (with the wildlife of the Amazon). That first day, my deodorant literally foamed out of my armpits, perhaps as a refusal to the futility of it´s given task. After that, I simply stopped bothering with it.

We passed the time in the day sitting in front of a store, chasing shade. That´s basically all the locals do during the day too--hang around one of the public phones, fan one´s self/swat bugs with a towel, eat aguaje and spit the shell on the ground, pick bugs out of children´s hair, and shoot the shit. The sun is strong and there isn´t much shade which seems rediculous for the jungle, but this poor little area was cut clean for this poor little town. It has dirt roads that are half full of rice drying in the sun on big tarps and homes built of thin plywood and leaves. The people look dispondent during the day--the sun seems to completely rob everyone of their mentality...at least until night falls and the music and TVs come on.

At night the people become animated and everyone hits the streets. I enjoyed the activity of peering into people´s wide open windows or standing in their doorway to catch the volleyball game or Peru´s version of American Idol on one of three channels on a snowy TV screen. The houses are very open and the people do not seem so concerned about modesty. I walked by at least 2 houses and saw people fresh from their showers lounging about in their undies or towel. There are also several soccer games being played in the streets with men of all age groups.

I felt like I was loosing my mind several times throughout the day (which stretched for hours), but then clarity would come and I´d laugh my head off at the hilariousness of reality. I couldn´t even read because it was so hot that I couldn´t wrap my brain around the words, and I frankly was not motivated to do anything but sit. Sometimes we took walks...very slowly...with with no where to be or go and the humidity creating a dense obstacle in our path. In the late afternoon on 2 of the 3 days we took dips in the river, which helped immensely. We also befriended 2 kids. One was named Milagro and she sold empanadas de yucca and fried chicken and fish outside her family´s home. The other was Gomer, whose name alone gave me reason to smile every time I saw the (truely gomery) kid. He is 8 years old and he hangs around the same store that we did. He wore a T-shirt that had clearly been passed down several times from the US, with OBGYN Associates written across the back like a jersey. Like all the kids (and many adults) he was barefoot.

At last we boarded a boat at 11pm on the 31st. My last note of Lagunas was that even the bugs are lazy there. They hardly move when you swat at them, though I did somehow acquire a fair number of mosquito bites....

more to come about the boat ride (amazing!) and the bliss of being back in Iquitos with my clowning family from around the world.

beso de payaso!

somos yurimaguinos

We tried to leave today by boat: lugging our stuff to the port and being harrassed by a bunch of men who grabbed our stuff and offered (in yelling voices) to take us to their boat. They were all trying to get us to take their boat, but in the end, none of the boats left today because there were neither enough passengers, cargo, nor workers because today is Peru´s independence day....so we sat, and swat, and grew grumpy sitting in the boat and being strangulated by the oppressive jungle air. At last we decided to lug everything back to the hostel and wait until tomorrow, when there will definitely be boats.

We decided to go meet his mom´s friend, who she had only actually met a couple of times and who he had only met once when he was 6 years old, but he was sure she would want to see us...we arrived after asking several people if they knew her, and of course were greeted with kisses. We stayed for a couple hours and were force-fed lunch. Then with nothing else to do, we went to the plaza de armas, where there´s usually good people watching if nothing else. Unfortunately today, everyone was apparently melting inside their own homes.

I have never been one to be bored, but I found myself miserable with the heat--my mind couldn´t even will myself to think of something to do, as it was too full of thick thick air. The heat uncomfortably surrounding us like the men at the port, and with nothing open and nowhere to go, we again just sat and swat . Segundo kept me laughing though by saying ¨Rachel, I got 99 problems, but a bitch aint one.¨ Finally we crashed a nice hotel´s pool, which was the answer to all problems. Being surrounded and sustained in cold water...oh my, it made all the difference in the world. Then we drank 2 cremoladas (super yummy slushy with jungle fruits like aguaje)and a beer and life couldn´t have been better.

So tomorrow...tomorrow, hopefully we are off! Today was a good opportunity though to buy another shirt for $2, since I was already getting sick of my smell and we hadn´t even started the journey, and I bought a light blanket to sleep in the hammock with at night.
One final note, is that I really really love eating in the street...I think it´s great how you can go out at any time and find someone selling something yummy to eat, and enjoy it with random enevitably friendly people....here that usually entails some form of banana and or something wrapped in banana leaves like fish, rice, and-or chicken.

PS somos yurimaguinos means that we are people who live in yurimaguas, which we indeed feel like now

no hay problemas

I´m slowly making my way into the real jungle. Tarapoto didn´t do it for me...My skin was simply was not sticky enough and there were not enough bananas and things on sticks to eat. :) Now I´m in Yurimaguas which was a moderately pleasant (despite feeling a little nauseas from the curves) 3 hour collectivo ride from Tarapoto through lush mountainous jungle.
I met up with my friend, Segundo, who took the boat from Iquitos just to accompany me back to Iquitos. We speak spanglish and he calls me his princess and says he is my guardia espina (body guard). He always makes me laugh because he asks me questions like,¨what does the song by Jay Z mean: 99 problems but a bitch ain´t one¨? hahahaha. It´ll be a fun-filled 3 days, in which we will be cruising down the river and sleeping in hammocs and hopefully eating as many jungle fruits as possible. I immediately drank a maracuya cremolada (passion fruit iced smoothie drink) upon arriving, and have since had another one of camu camu (a jungle ¨super¨ fruit).

And now I am sitting at a huge internet cafe collectively sweating with about 30 other people and listening to festive jungle cumbia music. Heading out tomorrow morning on a boat called Edwardo VIII, which seems much more regal than it is.

hasta iquitos! R

ojo: i just double updated, so look for 2 new posts below or under the july tab

beso

welcome to the jungle OR meditations on impermanence

I left Leyebamba at 7:30am yesterday and arrived in Tarapoto at 2am this morning after a combi (small van) to Yerba Buena, a collectivo van to Chachapoyas, a collectivo taxi to Pedro Ruiz and a bus to Tarapoto which had many long stops due to road work. The adventure was jam-packed with events and observations, which for simplicity purposes I will list below. The journey according the km should have only taken 7 or 8hrs, but in fact took about 18hrs.

• The door from the small combi van kept falling off, which I found exceedingly hillarious....God, I love bumping around in a tiny skeleton of a van (without seatbelts, padding, etc) with a bunch of villagers dressed in their finest recycled 80s clothes and sturdy white hats, listening to upbeat Andean music, swerving around giant rocks in the narrow one-lane road, and whipping around blind corners, blaring the horn to warn people on the other side of our impending existence. It´s one constant ongoing conscious moment--one cannot exist in it without being wildly awake--even with eyes closed because of lack of sleep from cold and the silly duration of the journey (or fear), which just keeps reminding me that the journey is life, that there is nothing else but the present moment.
• My favorite leg of the journey was the second one from Yerba Buena to Chacha, which was only about 50km, but took about 3 hours because we had to pick up and drop off various packages, drop people off at their homes, pick a dude up from a soccer game, go back for people in the road after we`d made room for them, etc. I also loved that a woman was nursing her 2 year old very openly on the packed and swerving van.
• In Yerba Buena, at the Sunday market, as I was drinking a juice at one of the many juice stalls, someone stole my camera out of my pocket, so no more pictures :( This happened early in the day, and as I continued to see picture-worthy sights, I had to return to my meditation of impermanence, knowing that all which arises passes away. I had many chances to meditate on this as I lost track of the hours and my day in the hours of waiting and being in transit, and later as I semi-feared for my life at the hostel I wound up at because of the late hour we arrived in town... I paid $5 for the room without a bathroom nor fan nor a great lock on the door, and with a window that faced the street and poured the air thick with humidity and polltion and the sound of passing mototaxis into my room all night. The bed was a thin mattress with a ripped and questionably clean sheet stretched across it, upon a cement platform. In the corner the wall had a stain on it that could only have been from vomit.
• The good news about my long journey was that I met a friend on the bus who was returning home to visit his family in Tarapoto for the national holiday (July 28th). We talked about globalization and other countries´companies coming in and stealing Peru´s resources and profits, destroying the environment and screwing over their economy. He helped me get safely to my hostel at 2am and then brought me to his house the next day to meet his family and have a great lunch of fish soup, rice, and fried bananas. Yummm.
• Another interesting interaction I had was with a taxista. When we were going up the hill to Chachapoyas, we saw other drivers coming down and giving hand signals to tip us off that the police were set up ahead. We continued (while others waited) and got stopped at the check-point, so everyone in the van had to show their IDs and the taxista had to show various papers. In the end some were hassled for not having their IDs and the taxista had to pay something for not having whatever form he was supposed to have. The whole car talked about how ineffecient and f´d up the police system is (worldwide)--how generally it serves to bother the innocent poor folk, while meanwhile real crime is happening in the markets (like cameras being stolen, drugs being sold, etc) and under the watchfull well-bribed eyes of officers...not that they are all are bad of course, but that the system as a whole is ineffecient at doing what it is built to do: serve and protect.
• A note from Leymebamba from the other day is that I got an email from my friend who lives in the UK but has land in Leyme saying that he wanted me to pass the voice to someone who lives in the village (¨near the cemetary, toward the museum¨is all I knew), so I got to go from house to house or villager to villager, asking if they knew this family. I finally found them, and gave them the message and was greeted with many kisses, which was a triumphant feeling!

Ok.......back out there!

besito! R

Leyme'ohmygod´bamba

I am in my favorite place in the world. I came here and immediately felt at home, but at the same time find myself almost in tears at the strangness of the beauty here. The air is so fresh it cuts into you and makes you breathe deeply, stopping to smell the herbs and flowers and sunshine on the dirt path. And the all encompassing green in the hills which surround the pueblo is dizzying....you feel like you´re part of a story book.

The town is small and without many tourists yet, despite the number of impressive ruins that are accessible by foot from town, hidden under trees and brush. When you meet someone along the path, you always say good morning or good afternoon and people usually ask where are you going or where are you coming from or what are you carrying? I am generally greeted affectionately as Gringita!! (little white girl!) and people are always offering to give me a ride on their horse or donkey or moto and it takes some convincing that I am just enjoying a walk in their wonderful countryside. I have also had the experience many times of being kidnapped by locals to come see their homes or children, which has been very interesting. Last night I got to see a family baking bread in their huge hansel-and-gretel-esque oven. Then I returned to La Casona, the amazing colonial home in which I´m staying and dined with some great folk from Lima.

Today I went up the hill (3hrs) to see some ruins with some friends I had met the other day. There were no signs or arrows or anything to them, so we had to ask every villager along the way if they knew where La Congona was. After passing through a gate and over a fence and cutting through some foliage, we indeed found the incredible ruins of an old Chachapoyan town, which was settled perhaps 1200years ago.

My favorite site so far: seeing a baby (literally probably less than a year old) riding a horse by himself, propped up by sacks of potatoes and grain on either side, and being lead by his father. Shortly after I saw a couple small children--maybe 3 and 6 years old--riding together on a horse and unaccompanied by adults.

en Peru

al fin, he llegado! I am so happy to be back in Peru. It was a long journey to get here to Chachapoyas--left home at 9am on the 18th, flew from Albuquerque to Dallas to Miami to Lima, arriving after some delays at 6am the 19th. Then had a nap, ate one of those amazing Peruvian salads drenched in lime juice and some ceviche (I cannot resist the Peruvian ceviche), and boarded what was supposed to be a 23hr bus ride--turned 26hr bus ride--to Chachapoyas, where I am now.

On the bus ride, I was lucky to find myself sitting next to a doctor who works for the public health dept and goes into the native communities to care for the people. He told me all sorts of disturbing things, like that the native people lie to anthropologists to make themselves appear more ¨native¨and that there is a lot of rape of young girls and domestic abuse. We exchanged contact info so that next time I return, if I can sequester a few weeks, I can go into the jungle with them and do some medical work.

Yesterday was then my first legitimate day in Peru. I woke up at 530 to go to a sweet cave, full of great cave formations, remains of human sacrifices, and ancient pottery and sculptures. Then to see a couple different sites in the cliffsides, which were full of sarcophogi (structures built from earth in the shape of people and painted as such, to house dead bodies of important people). They are the only ones apparently in the americas, and are from the Chachapoyan people, who are pre-Inca. We also saw some Chachapoyan mummies, which were bound in the fetal position to facilitate their rebirth into the next life.

I arrived around dinner time after my day of excursions and was lucky to meet and share dinner with a Swiss couple who are riding their bicycles from Ecuador to Argentina, where they are then planning to surf for a couple months. I also met a dude from San Diego who rode his motorcycle from his home all the way through Central America (took a boat from Panama to Colombia with his bike), and has made it here to Northern Peru, destined for Patagonia, and will then potentially board a cargo ship to Africa with his bike. Ah! I am completely inspired by these folk and now am even more set on biking to Southern Mexico, which Justin and I have been talking about.... I asked the bicycle couple what they did to prepare and they said nothing. They didn´t train nor bring anything special, just some tire patches. When they´re tired they stop. They get stronger every day. They eat whatever they get on the road. They camp and stay in hostels when they are available. They talk to locals about routes and take it day by day. They encouraged me to just do it. That there is nothing holding anyone back but their own fear, because truely there´s no reason not to....

So that´s what´s on my mind now, as I head for Leymebamba, where I will be for a couple days.

Con mucho amor y cariño,

Rachel

Karajia sarcophogi

cliffside tombs

our sweet guide

a Peru de nuevo

I'm heading back to Peru on Sunday, with a totally different mindset then in the two years past. This year I have a job that I have to return to, a boyfriend that I get to return to :), I'm only going for a month, and though I feel like a I have a good handle on Peru--I know the streets of Iquitos, Miraflores, and a couple other of the towns I'll be checking back in on, I've taken almost every bus company there is, I have family and friends there, and have a sort of comfort with the language and feel of Peru....I am prepared to be humbled by it again. I am also feeling nervous since it seems like so long since I've been there and my Spanish has been corrupted with New Mexican phrases like "hijole!" "pendeja" (my favorite, which means pubic hair and also idiot), and "guera" along with other words not used in SA...and truthfully, that's about all the Spanish I have been speaking since I got here, unlike in the year prior when I was living on the border and using it all the time.

I will arrive in Lima after a stupidly long journey at 430am on Monday. My dear friend Pamela is picking me up from the airport and then recuperating me at her house before my 23hr bus ride at 430pm to the northern town of Chachapoyas. There I will do some hikes to various lesser known ruins (in comparison to Machu Picchu) and to one of the tallest waterfalls in the world, and also just hang out in one of my favorite places in the world: Leymebamba, a small town south of Chacha, where I felt like I fell off the face of the earth--or rather into the center of the earth, and was filled with love and admiration for life and nature--almost 2 years ago. Ahh...I cannot wait!

Then I'm meeting my friend Segundo in Yurimaguas--that is I hope I am! Without the modern conveniences of cell phone service and reliable boat schedules, I'm not exactly sure how we'll be meeting up. The journey from Iquitos to Yuri takes 4-5 days by cargo boat. He is making that journey and then taking me back with him, acting as my bodyguard as he likes to call himself. I wanted to make my journey to Iquitos this year via water, as the only way to reach the jungle city is by boat or plane, and the appeal of sleeping in hammocks and eating fish right out of the river which takes us through a national preserve was just too irresistible. Then I will meet up with Patch Adams and the clowning crew in Iquitos for a 2 week session of loving and working and sweating...a lot. Yay!!!!

See: http://www.patchadams.org/belen-project for info on the project

mantenemos en contacto!

looooooove, Rachel

wedding in Kansas City over the 4th

Last night I stood out in the pouring rain in my socks and ate a plum and looked up at the sky, and got completely soaked. Yum.

I just returned from a trip to Colorado with Justin, which involved a cold night of camping in Questa, a meet-the-extended-family occasion, which went very well, and a lot of great walks and talks in my sister's new neighborhood (which used to be mobster and moon-shine central during the prohibition era, along with being the Little Italy of Denver).

I've only worked 2 shifts thus far this week, but the round up of Espanola drama has included a heroin addicted baby born in the ambulance and then transported here, a major postpartum hemmorhage, 3 precipitous deliveries--one occurring into a woman's sweatpants on the stretcher (the best part being that she didn't make a peep and we only knew the baby had been born when we heard some muffled whimpers coming from her pants--talk about stoic!), I held a 14wk fetus in my hands while it was still attached by a tiny umbilical cord leading inside the mom, and I successfully put a catheter in a 300+ lb lady. Now if only telling of such excitement gave me the strength/will to get through the next 4 shifts.... I scheduled myself a little whackily so that I could have time to go to Colorado and to Kansa City for my friends wedding next weekend, which means not having to actually take time off from work, but having to work 75hrs in 6 days.

...So on that note, I have to go to bed now! I'm not honestly sure why I'm still awake!

much love, Rachel

rounding it out

June? What? That means we're halfway through 2010.
That means I've worked at the hospital and lived in Santa Fe for 8 full months now. That means I'm going back to Peru next month...and that the Mayan calendar ends in a year and a half...and that more than anything: time is going really F'ng fast, and so I better be focusing on my priorities before I find myself too deep in something other than what I want to be doing. This comes down to: I want to be practicing as a healer, well more literally: one who helps facilitate the body's own natural processes, helping people be whole and well, without assaulting the body with chemicals and external forces, but acknowledging the body's wisdom and allowing it to do it's work. This is one reason I'm so drawn to midwifery, because it's about empowering a beautiful process and not getting in the way of nature. So...I want to be doing this. But I want to be spending an immense amount of time outside too, learning about the land and the insects and plants. And more concretely, I want to become a certified professional midwife, go to Guatemala and be a hiking guide there, and buy land in Peru or at least hang out on my friend Conrad's land and catch babies there for villagers.
Phew. Just had to get that out the way.

As for updates: I went back to the midwest for a long weekend to celebrate my brother's graduation from Lewis University and my cousin's wedding. I flew into Minneapolis and saw some good friends there--ate at the wonderful Birchwood Cafe with Karen, Alexis, and Kelsey, then drove down to Des Moines. My eyes loved seeing so much green and my skin felt moisturized just by existing there. As always, I had a fabulous time with my cousins and was delighted by the Iowa salsa scene. I went dancing on Sat nightat the Des Moines Embassy Club, and a girl who I met in the bathroom gave me a shot of tequila in a mouthwash cup from her flask. On another night, I enjoyed playing tennis surrounded by big trees and flood lamps that drew mosquitoes...

I was happy to come back to Santa Fe, where you don't stick to your chairs when sitting outside. My friends and I celebrated the glorious weather here, by literally taking all of the furniture out of my living room and putting in the front yard, where we grilled up some asparagus, corn on the cob, and homemade black bean burgers on the grill I bought from a police officer on craigslist earlier that day.

This past week we lost one of our travel nurses, so I had to step up and be a charge nurse twice last week, which meant it was just me on the unit with a less experienced nurse. We ended up having an emergency C-section, who later needed a blood transfusion, and a patient came up so dehydrated that the ER had to put an IV in her neck because her veins were so flat. Fun times. I am grateful for the challenge that it provided me, and that I was able to handle it all pretty smoothly! It renewed my sense of worth in doing this work for now, which I never wanted to do (be in a hospital that is), and made me feel that much more confident in my skillz. However it also strengthened my belief in the fact that for normal healthy women, hospital birthing is dangerous, and that the more we mess with the body's natural processes, the more likely we are to end up with bad outcomes (not to mention expensive!)

And last but not least, I have a boyfriend. I feel very strange using that word, as in the last 2 1/2 years I have become unaccustomed to using it with any relation to myself. But yep. I was wooed by a boy who I met in a cave on the Zia reservation, and who on our 2nd time hanging out dissected coyote poop and told me what he suspected it had eaten, pointed out some bats' hiding place under a bridge, enlightened me about bee reproductive anatomy, then made me dinner in a skillet which I convinced him should be eaten on his roof, where we looked at the stars. Que romantico :)

Well, that's it for now folks! Cheers to bbqs, summer nights, corn on the cob, and thunder storms!
xxxxoooooRO

My beautiful yard/outdoor living room and my wonderful friends

Oh yeah, and I hosted an early 90s themed skating party a couple weeks ago....and I forgot to tell Justin the theme :) see sparkly fanny pack

Recent adventures (or a more obvious title)

I have completely lost all routine and balance in my life...but it sure has been packed full of fun!
I am on my 3rd night working after nearly 2 weeks away from my unit. Last week I shadowed in the Albuquerque neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), to get some experience handling premies and really sick babies, so that in the case that we have on up in Espanola, I can be more prepared to care for him/her, as there is no NICU or even pediatric docs in house at night. Hanging out with little 1 and 2 pound babies was definitely a worthwhile and strange experience.
In Albuquerque I stayed at my friend Eric's house, which is within walking distance to the hospital--a refreshing change from a 35mile commute. Following my 3 days on the day shift, I lazed about the house all day, then went out for tapas and salsa dancing with my friend Lisa. After an amazing dance, one guy asked where I was from, and when I said Iowa, he laughed--surprised and amused--and then said: "you fine!" People always have funny reactions to Iowa...

The next day, Eric and I drove down to Las Cruces, where we couchsurfed with some PhD astronomy students who showed us Saturn, the surface of the moon, and some solar flares on the sun via their super-powered telescopes. I had forgotten all about space, being too focused on my little microcosm here, and it was a refreshing shift in thought. We also went hiking with my friend from college, Sarah, in the deserty Organ mountains.
The next day we went to White Sands, which is an incredible gypsum desert, where we camped in our very own pristine dune. We froze at night, then woke up boiling in the sun, then dragged our sunworn and sandy selves to Alamagordo, where we couchsurfed with a retired airforce couple. There we delighted in showers and fresh filipino food and toured the base, which was interesting to me, as I had never been on one...and don't feel the need to again. Patrick had met Nori when he was stationed in the Philippines and brought her home with him 40 years ago.
The next day we drove to Carlsbad, where we climbed into "lower cave," 850 feet below the surface. We got to see cave pearls, clear crickets, and an array of different types of magnificent cave formations. We ate dinner at a Chinese-Mexican restaurant, which served menudo alongside lo mein, then went to a drive-thru movie, and camped outside White's City. The next morning we returned to Carlsbad Caverns to explore the natural entrance, and then slowly made our way back to Albuquerque via the beautiful Lincoln National Forest (where Smokey the Bear is from) and the mountains surrounding Ruidoso.

The past 2 weeks have further solidified my delight in my "wait list" status for the nurse-midwifery program. I wasn't honestly disappointed for a second that I didn't get in right away, as I am not quite ready to give up my free time, which allows for such adventures. Nor am I anxious to put myself into $75k worth of debt. The more I think about it, the less I want to ever put myself in a situation again that makes me feel the need to work in a hospital (or any other such institution that does not allign with my beliefs). No...I now aspire to simply buy a piece of land, build a home out of earth and recycled materials, farm and collect honey, and attend occasional births for family and the surrounding community. :)

Happy May Day! I hope you spent your day celebrating/promoting workers and immigrats rights! I brought my little sister (big brother big sister program) to an amazing parade with giant puppets of the Dalai Lama, Emma Goldman, Cesar Chavez, etc, which ended in a protest of Arizona's new racial profiling law, and a feast of free food at the farmers market.

xo RO

Family is a bag of boiled eggs...

No really, my mom left a pre-packaged bag of peeled hard boiled eggs in my fridge when she left. I can't put my finger on why it's so weird....but a zip-topped, vacuum sealed bag of prepared eggs is just not right.

Furthermore...what the hell is up with the sudden urge to have a baby in my belly and start making and eating cookies all the time that comes from hanging out with my family? OH God. Thankfully it was just 5 days---4 really--or else the subconscious, but incredibly penetrating brainwashing may have led me to do something really nutty....thankfully were no suitable men in my life during those crucial days and the following hangover period.....It reminds me of going to Catholic Youth Camp as a youngster and singing about Jesus and having so much fun in the name of the Lord, and then getting out and being like, WOAH, what the hell just happened? Phew, that was weird! aaaaaand I'm back! haha

But all in all, I would say it was a great trip! My parents and Costa Rican foreign exchange student brother, Beto, met me in Las Vegas (NM of course) on Monday to soak in the hot springs. Then we headed into Santa Fe to get my mother the only thing she had been thinking about during her 6hr drive: a frito pie. She was unhappy with the rendition she received, so we went to the Tesuque Village Market the following day to get her the frito pie of her dreams which she had eaten last fall.

On Tuesday we played around at Tent Rocks, an amazing and unique feast for the geology nerd, and I was very proud of my mom, who made it all the way to the top. We then devoured some pizza and listened to a bluegrass jam at the local pizza place. Weds the boys climbed Atalaya and I took my mom to do something that was a little more her style: shop. Thursday the big event seemed to be going to "The" Trader Joes, while I slept off my night shift. And on Friday morning I met them for breakfast at The Maven, where we feasted on huevos rancheros and migas and watched from our bakery window side table as they made the pastries for the day.

From their trip, I received the reminder of not being attached to any expectations or desires, of maintaining my own truth no matter how loudly another idea of truth is being expressed, and to just be with people and let the magic of the mingling of spirits unfold, instead of trying to control the situation by trying to make everyone happy. My family always likes to challenge me :)

At Backroad Pizza after an afternoon of hiking

In other news, I have learned that my car has a turbo engine, haha, and I only stall/peel out about once a day now :) I definitely have fahrvergnügen.

It may be the first day of spring, but we just got a couple more inches of snow...didn't I leave the midwest for such shenanigans?

Last shift, we had 2 babies basically at the same time, so thankfully 2 drs were in the house, because we only had 2 nurses (usually it's at least 2 nurses and a doc per delivery), and of course our other patients (2 postpartum moms and babes) had to (wo)man for themselves while we ran around like crazy until 8am. Always an interesting time in Española!

my super cute dad!

tent rocks

happy birthday to me!

me in a tree, ahhhhh

I'm not shy! I love birthdays, and today is mine!!! (and my friend Daniela's, and Meher Baba's: Indian Mystic who believed in the unifying power of love....)

Today was basically the best day ever. I woke up in a sun-filled room. Ate some rice (my favorite comfort food, and I have to admit, I've been battling a cold, so despite that, it was still the best day ever and it afforded me the excuse to eat rice for breakfast).

I went to my 4th day of my yoga workshop, another beautiful day of love and connection and beauty.

I did some yoga in a tree. Ah! Combining 2 things I LOVE (being in trees, and playing with forms).

I got the birthday blessing of 37 yogis with a thai massage from all of them at once.... Oh my, it was amazing! They all placed their hands on me and inhaled when I inhaled and pressed on me as I exhaled, all at once.

Then I went out to dinner with my ol' friend from Iowa City, Genie. She treated me to a feast of wine, macadamia nut cheese stuffed dates, beautiful salads, stuffed mushrooms, and vegan chocolate cake.

Then home to my brother Ted's house to watch some Olympics and drink tea, before heading to bed with the excitement of my last day of acro-yoga workshop and my friend Amy visiting me from Reno tomorrow dancing in my head.

Ahhh, what a beautiful quarter of a century, down the hatch! I look forward to at least 3 joy-filled more!!

Love! Rachel

Genie and me at Encuentro

PS other amazing days have included Sat with Ted: my first time ever sailing, which involved his two sailing buddies ditching out on a rainy day, which meant him, a new sailor, and me a semi-open-water-phobe and completely worthless 1st mate, nearly tipping over (aka capsizing) a couple times and basically going around in circles for an hour and a half before heading back.
And Sunday which involved a day of deliciousness: Dim sum in San Francisco with Ted and Jane, then storming the puddle-filled streets of SF with my friend Alexis, and topping the day off with vegan Mexican food in the Mission.
*Note, I am not vegan, but definitely appreciate it, and most certainly appreciate the boldness of anyone who does Mexican vegan, which is basically unheard of

Ted and Jane, bro and sis-in-law

Golden February

It's the month of my golden birthday, and I am living it up!

25 on the 25th.
I just returned from the 9^th annual International Salsa Congress in Chicago (amazing). And I’m leaving Friday—using up all my PTO—and going to Oakland for a yoga workshop, to visit my brother and some good friends, and to dance one night at the salsa-rueda congress which is coincidentally happening the weekend I arrive and will be attended by many friends from Santa Fe.

I woke up this past Sunday morning after dancing until 3am and being up till 5, and suspected I was paralyzed. My body was so heavy and tired from 2 days of workshops and 3 nights of dancing, and I simply lacked the ganas to move. I got up however, and went into Chicago to see the Chinese New Year parade and hang out with my dear college friends. Without the latter two or maybe latter one, I would have had literally no reason to even leave the hotel, which had all I needed—chocolate, trail mix, and most importantly: live salsa workshops, music, performances, and dancing 24/7 from Thursday to Monday, and let’s face it, it’s February in Chicago…there’s no need to be out there.

I was inspired and renewed by the bedazzled weekend, and was happy to jump back into work—for one week—before heading off again…

In other exciting news, I wrecked my car on icy I25 a couple weeks ago, and have since bought a 2001 Jetta, which my friend Carlos had to teach me to drive, as it is a stick and I never learned to drive one. I have only stalled at about 342 stop lights/hills and gotten 1 ticket because he left reverse out of his teaching plan (which did involve dancing bachata while driving and singing “baby you can drive my car”). I did not realize this oversight in the lesson until the time came to parallel park and I had to opt to park about 4 feet away from the curb. I will be leaving my car at the dealership when I go to Oakland this weekend, because as it turns out, I don’t have a key for the trunk and cannot get into it, so they will have to somehow make me one. When I dropped by today to tell them this, they looked in the trunk via the back seat (a feature I had not yet discovered…I know, who was with me when I bought this thing? The answer: myself), I was half expecting to see a kilo of cocaine or a dead body. Alas, it was disappointingly empty.

I know I’m overloading you with excitement here, but let me just slide in one more fun fact: the air mattress I have been calling my bed for the last few months has been slowly loosing air, leaving me to awaken on the wood floor at 4 am or 1pm depending on the current sleep schedule, with the task of blowing it back up (praise theelectric thingie). So needless to say, I am in the market for a real bed, but in the meantime am sleeping on a twin that I pulled from storage in the house. I’m not sure whether it’s an upgrade or not.

Lots of love and hugs to all, Rachel

Dancing at the Chicago Salsa Congress

Fast forward

I feel like I've been living in fast-forward. As if working in a hospital wasn't enough like jumping into a vortex, working nights has completely added a new element of perpetual motion and general strangeness to my life. Ten days went by without me even noticing...my clothes and books and mail lay in the same exact places, my friends haven't been contacted, I may or may not have experienced sunshine or fresh air, and I haven't exercised in longer than I'd like to admit.

Coming back into what I would call "the real world" ie the space I've created for myself outside of work...ie the world I actually truly enjoy, seemed a little too foreign to me as I re-entered last night after 75hrs of work in the past 7 days--overnights--which makes it that much more disorienting, plus a 24 mile commute.

So on my few true days off (not including the ones where I sleep all day following a night shift), I try to cram in as much beauty and excitement as I can. I started out this past week's work stint with a bang last Thursday. I drove out to the Jemez with some of my new favorite people in SF: Susannah, Kaelie, and Evan, and hiked to the Spence hotsprings (just a little jaunt really, but we managed to get lost). There we soaked for hours, ate chocolate, and drank Turkish coffee which Evan made on a little stove he'd brought with. I had to keep laughing at how wonder-full it all was. Then I feasted on Moroccan stew at Harry's Road House and went salsa dancing at Corazón, where my friend, Patrick, was DJing. Despite being a little sleepy from the hike and the soaking, I had some of the best dancing I've had since I moved to NM. I met a man named Carlos with whom I had so much fun that we ended up going out for breakfast and chatting until they kicked us out at 3:15am. Then we drove around and continued our conversations on love, connection, dance, Peru, God and the universe, etc, etc, and when I got home I couldn't sleep because I was so energized by my connection with beautiful people and life that day. I stayed up until 6am, and slept until it was time to go to work that night.

I then had one night off between my next 3 nights on, which is usually wasted sleeping and being nocturnal by myself, but I ended up spending 9HOURS with my new friend, Carlos, which turned out to be just the medicine I needed to cure my sad little hospital-sucked soul. We went out for tea, went to my favorite yoga class, ate Vietnamese food--ran into two of his amazing friends, one of whom is a doula and volunteers for a program I admire very much, then went to see Avatar (amazing) and danced barefoot in the falling snow of the parking lot while waiting for the movie to start.

And we're back. I slept for 7 hours last night, which was wildly rejuvenating. What a beautiful thing it is to actually sleep when it's dark outside (ie when your body is supposed to).
Now I have another 2 days off, and I'm looking forward to what magic they will bring.... Today I'm taking a course at REI on how to use my hand-held GPS thingie, which my mom bought me for Christmas, because she is afraid of me getting lost in the woods (Dear mom, if only you knew the jungles I found myself wandering in South America....I plan to use the GPS thingie mainly for treasure hunting, aka geocaching). Then I have a birthday party to attend at my new friend's yurt. And tomorrow, though I am working at night, I am hoping to have another outdoors adventure, possibly involving snow-showing, as northern NM has been turned into a winter wonderland in the past week.

Carpe diem mis copos de nieve :)
love, Rachel

super sweaty and lovin' life