Back to the East Coast

Ashley and I are headed to Georgia tomorrow morning to be with our family there in the wake of Aunt Joy's death yesterday morning.

Then we are going to come back up to Charlotte for a few days, which should be on Wednesday...maybe.

Link to another blog

This is from David Khorram's blog....his explanation of the Baha'i Faithand I just wanted to share it.

woo hoo

watching Ryan sit next to Adalia, I was struck by the momentum
of life, the eternal forward motion of the reality we all take
part in...the physical aging and maturing
the mental and emotional growth
and the opening of our hearts and lives to include others
in a deeper way than we previously know.
as a four year old boy waking up to my grandmother telling me
that I had a new baby brother I was unsure of the future--
what it meant for me. Maybe I was worried I wasn't up to the
job of being a big brother-and I wasn't, for quite some time-
but I did my best, and my parents did their best-
and ryan did his best...and what that leads to-I think-
is the best lives we could have-with what we are given.
and what we make.
and today I can say that I would cross the world to be there for
him and my new sister...
of course I would have to make sure my wife was okay with it first!

Flying

So we get to do Ash's favorite thing again---flying in airplanes!

We leave here the evening of August 30th, and get to San Francisco a little after noon on....
August 30th!!!
Then we get the rest of that day to see San Fran, since our connecting flight doesn't leave until just after midnight. A one and a half layover in Cinci and we will be getting to Charlotte-Douglas around 10:48 am on the 31st.

Can't wait to see everyone and hear about what we have been missing in your lives!

perfect timing!

perfect timing!
Originally uploaded by BigBroRio

Come see some pics of us in New Zealand!

Sickly

There is definitely something going around here…people have been falling sick all around us. Ashley and I both fought through the flu in the middle of June, and it came back last week and got Ashley again. The youth conference we attended was like a flu-breeding ground, and almost every other person who attended wound up shivering and coughing for at least a couple days.

The conference started on Saturday and went through Tuesday morning, but Ashley was under the weather by Monday afternoon, and didn’t come out for the last morning. The camp started that same evening at a different venue, and I went out there on my own. It was the first time we have been apart for the night. Not sure which of us had it worse-me at the freezing-cold camp with a bunch of youth making noise, or her at home coughing up a lung and shivering…actually I guess there isn’t much comparison at all. She came out to camp for a little while the next day but headed back to the house that evening. Finally on Thursday she came out to stay.

The national youth conference was 180+ youth from New Zealand and Australia staying at a local boarding school. It was an intense experience for us, since it was up to us to prepare and facilitate three workshops for all the participants, a task which neither of us had ever tackled before. We spent a lot of time putting together the workshops, and along with a group of about five or six others, we did our best to empower these youth with a vision for service and teaching. It did not go exactly as we had planned, but it did go…

The Radiant Youth Program was very similar to the camp we attended in April-same venue, a lot of the same youth attended-but this time, Ashley and I were the “adults in-charge”. There were thirty-one of us at the camp total, including the cook, her helpers and the four study circle tutors. We were graced with the presence of a wonderful artist named Grant Hinden-Miller. He ran workshops on dramatic presentations and story-telling. And of course he played lots of songs for us-he has many albums out and I LINK TO GOOD SONGS!

Ash is still carrying around a painful, dry cough, while I am still doing my best to stay healthy. I ain’t 100%, but since I spent the past twelve days with sick youths, I feel pretty good, relatively speaking. Now we are staying at the National Baha’i Center for a couple nights, because there are some other guests staying with our host, Caroline. The center is very nice, and one of the Baha’is from South Auckland is letting us use one of his vehicles at the moment. We went to Muriwai Beach together-last time I went alone, but we decided to leave before the sun set, a decision I regretted later as the sky turned orange and purple on the way home. The nice part is that I get to see sunsets at all, right?

Read This Article Friends

A link to a very interesting essay on the financial collapse by an author who has a knack for putting things very simply…Justice St. Rain. I have read some of his books and enjoyed them all, I hope you will take five or ten minutes to read this and think about what he is saying…Go Here to Check It Out

Where we are At!

We are house-sitting for a neat family, David and his wife Nassim and their two children. David’s sister Tessa also lives with them. Our new address is 26 Benchmark in Waitakere City, Auckland. It isn’t far from Caroline’s house where we have been staying…her address is 170A Candia Road, Waitakere City.

We took a short road trip to the west coast of Auckland this weekend, to a little town/beach called Piha. I’ve got some pictures and I will get the video uploaded as well.
It is a great surf beach apparently, but wet suits are a must so who knows when I will get out there with someone.

We went to the Auckland Museum yesterday. We ran out of time upstairs in the War Memorial…Sam we saw a fighter plans…a Zero…it was given to the Royal New Zealand Air Force and it is in great shape. They craned it in to the museum when they were doing some renovations, before they finished the ceiling. The pilot and plane were scheduled for a kamikaze mission out of Indonesia near the end of the war, but the mechanics who were making the repairs stalled to save the pilots life. The pilot lives in NZ and is a Doctor at the University. I wish now we had gone to the War Memorial first, but the natural and cultural areas were neat too. Here, just like everywhere else, the Europeans/British made a bunch of treaties with the indigenous peoples (the Maori) and then broke them. It still is likely that the Maori fared better than most in this regard, but there are still a long list of atrocities committed by those early “settlers”. I need to research this history some more to even claim to know what I am talking about…

Ashley got sick last week…even though we took sulfur (homeopathic remedies) she was snotty and flu-like for about four or five days. And despite my best efforts right as it went away from her I turned it on! New Zealand cases of the h1n1 virus are starting to rise, so if it was that I wouldn’t be surprised. Our friend Hami also got sick right around the same time, then he jumped on a plane and flew to Papua New Guinea via Australia! It also might have just been a result of the intense daily pace we were keeping up with the teaching campaign…burn out.

So if your checking account balance dips below zero…I have always seen that expressed as a negative number. As in -$20.32…and so when we were waiting for a direct deposit and I checked the balance via an ATM and saw $80.10 d, I assumed that the first of the three deposits (payment from our grape-picking) had been made. I didn’t even notice the little D. The next day, when the balance had climbed to over $200, and I checked online activity to see that NO deposits had been made, I realized we had a problem. Anyways, the short story is that they don’t put negative signs in front of the balance, they put any number of random letters, but generally an O and a D, to mean overdrawn. Anyways, although I spoke with our banker on the phone, and she actually offered to remove the fees this time, they are still there almost two months later, and no phone call to the bank has gotten a response as of yet. Every so often they tack on five more dollars as fee for being overdrawn. I went in and deposited enough money to cover everything except the fees ($20 times six transactions!) and still haven’t heard back from her. BTW she is on Waiheke Island so it isn’t really possible to just pop into the branch.

We are working to create four workshops, each ninety minutes long, for the participants at the New Zealand youth conference coming up in July. There will be four main talks, and after each one the workshops will help build upon the youths understanding of their role. Just so ya’ know…the talks are titled (some of these are really long titles):
• The Current State of the World, the Process of Disintegration, and looking at the relationship between this and receptivity
• Junior Youth and the JY Empowerment Program
• The Remaining Three Core Activities (Devotionals, Study Circles & Children Classes); Direct Teaching and the role of the youth
• Process of Integration, The Future of the World w/ Regards to the New World Order; The Beauty of Baha’i Administration

So all we have to do is six hours of workshops on that! They only asked us two days ago to do it…and the conference starts on July 4th! (NOT a holiday here!) Let you know how it goes!

Job Hunting

The job search is on. In the past few weeks, Ashley and I have applied for tons of jobs, rewriting our cover letters for each one, trying to find some work here in the capital city of New Zealand. Here are a few observations for those of you back in the states…

Although New Zealand is a “western” country, it is still a relatively small country, and most of the businesses here are small-businesses. Other than the evil American fast-food chains, Blockbuster video, some retail stores and car dealers, just about everything is mom and pop style.

A lot of hiring is done here by word of mouth. Larger companies have to advertise positions to meet standards and laws, but lots of jobs are awarded because of who-ya- know.

I guess none of this is really any different from the job market in lots of places…but I just received a rejection letter yesterday from a cleaning company…apparently I am little overqualified. Ashley also heard back from a company needing staff for their restaurant-same thing. Not to mention the tons of applications that we don’t get a response on.

I have been applying for a diversity of jobs, from receptionist and office manager jobs-which I had experience with at H & S- to customer service or sales positions. I have applied for a store manager position with a natural health store-I figure I have a good experience on both sides of that one, to work as a survey taker at local events-I figure I’ll just dance and gather a crowd and then Ashley can circulate and get the surveys filled out, or pickpocket everyone…;)

If I had a little (like two years) more experience with AutoCad I could have applied for a few jobs in survey companies, but no openings have been available at my level position. A surveying position was actually the first thing I applied for way back when we first landed on Waiheke, but as it was explained to me by the local surveyor: there are only a handful of large companies. Most of the surveyors are one, two or three person companies working out of their homes. Roofing companies are similar. So no luck there yet. I guess I could put my door knocking skills to work and start visiting homes for jobs.

Ash has been putting in apps with restaurants, hotels, a neat local coffee company called Roasted Addiqtion to be a processor (read: bag filler), and customer service stuff. No doubt that this search has brought school right back to the forefront of our minds, and we have been researching that as well. First thing will be to get her residency application approved, then we will know more.

Expansion in Auckland

Early this morning...at around 1 am on the 29th of May, we will all wake up and head to the local Baha'i Center to observe a Baha'i Holy Day-the Anniversary of the Ascension of Baha'u'llah...the exact time is 3 am I believe.

We just finished day five of the nine day expansion phase here in Auckland. It has been a huge learning experience, providing both Ash and myself with tons of growth opportunities and knowledge. We have knocked on the doors of homes-which by the way isn't a whole lot of fun...so be nice to them the next time someone comes knocking! We have gathered children together and started a class in one neighborhood, and we are hoping to get some of the parents to come soon as well. We have met people who are encouraging, people who don't want to hear it, and people who invite us in to have tea and talk. Tomorrow we are going back to talk with a man some more...he has questions and he feels pain for the suffering of others...I don't know if we will have any answers but we are both looking forward to talking with him some more.

"Gird up the loins of thine endeavor, tha thaply thou mayest guide thy neighbor to the law of God, the Most Merciful. Such an act, verily, excelleth all other acts in the sight of God, the All-Possessing, the Most High."

-Baha'u'llah; Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, CLXI, p. 339

Brrrrr!

It has been raining at least once every day for almost an entire month. Today was the first day that it was a beautiful-albeit cold-day. I think the rain is back tomorrow. The home we are staying is old...poorly insulated and drafty. It stays damp in here. And boy do we feel like some whiny little kids but we can't seem to get warm. We both want to say thanks to our families for holding on to and mailing us those boxes of winter gear! It has been a lifesaver!

Also on the clothes front, I just bought my first suit. I had an interview with a company here that provided training for employees in all types of fields. Through some friends I ended up with an interview for a training program that dealt with retail sales positions. So I bought a plain black suit and had it it (well only the trousers so far) to fit. So now I have a suit. Unfortunately, I don't have the job at which I need to wear the suit. After some agonizing talks the interviewer decided that giving me the job would be like throwing me into the deep end when I didn't know how to swim...or sending me into war with only one bullet...or my favorite, it just isn't my kettle of fish. I really liked that one.

There are a plethora (I love using that word correctly!) of guide dogs being trained in Auckland, I see them all over the place. And most of 'em look like Gobi did as a pup. Also looking for a massage table and I have a contact at a local clinic who only works three half-days a week. Maybe I will give massages in my new suit. Executive massages. Yeah...I can charge more for that!

Ashley is so excited with the direct teaching we have been doing lately. We just started the outreaching full-on today, and we will be doing it intensively until the 31st. It is really neat to see her fears and insecurities at explaining the Faith fall away...and she said that today there was almost no nervousness before we went out to spread the word about some childrens classes in one of the suburbs. If you are part of our family and we have never really sat down with you and explained/talked about the Baha'i Faith and what it means to us, I hope you will let us do that at some point. From my perspective, growing up as a Baha'i, there were a lot of relatives who I wanted to talk with it about, and unfortunately most of the time all I received was prejudice and animosity--even as a child. Of course I was lucky to have parents whose Faith was in agreement with each other and with what I believed (then and now)...I cannot even imagine how hard it would be for my parents and siblings to constantly, openly pass judgments on me. (Which is a bit of a no-no in most of the religions that I have studied, but hey I'm no scholar so I guess it must be okay when you are one) I guess what I am saying is that I have seen a lot of disunity caused by religious beliefs among families...

Baha'u'llah, the prophet-founder of the Baha'i Faith says: O ye that dwell on earth! The religion of God is for love and unity; make it not the cause of enmity or dissension. (Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 220)

Makes sense...what religion is it when we use it to drive wedges and build barriers, to tear apart or hold ourselves above...? We love you all...and just want you to know that if we needed to come home for anyone we would be there in a flash. About a twenty hour flash, that is.

Leaving you with this quote: Say: O servants! Let not the means of order be made the cause of confusion and the instrument of union an occasion for discord. We fain would hope that the people of Baha may be guided by the blessed words: 'Say: all things are of God.' This exalted utterance is like unto water for quenching the fire of hate and enmity which smouldereth within the hearts and breasts of men. By this single utterance contending peoples and kindreds will attain the light of true unity. Verily He speaketh the truth and leadeth the way. He is the All-Powerful, the Exalted, the Gracious.

(Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 222)

Auckland for Now

Ever since we arrived in Auckland, and spent our time on Waiheke Island, we have been planning on leaving here and "touring" around the country, wwoofing and camping in various townships and farms, as a way of getting to see the country. Although we never made firm plans, that was the gist of it.

But we also felt that we should ask for guidance from the National Spiritual Assembly of New Zealand, since we planned to assist the Baha'i communities in whatever ways possible as we went. We were lucky enough to arrive in the country just in time for one of the forty-one world-wide conferences that the international Baha'i administration called for, in Auckland at the end of January. And we met wonderful people, many of whom told us about their homes and invited us to come to their neck of the woods. We were asked to assist with one of the sectors' children classes, and then we joined a study circle which, once we complete it this Sunday, will allow us to tutor groups of friends in the Ruhi courses which we have completed. We then took part in the youth and children's camps last month, and the number of friends and contacts has grown. Now we have even more friends scattered around this beautiful country waiting for us to come visit.

A point was made to us the other evening...that our energies would be better spent in a longer, concerted efforts of multiple weeks or even months in fewer areas, than in short bursts as we simply passed through and were essentially "sight-seers". We were given an even more specific instruction to remain in the Auckland area, and continue to participate in direct teaching projects going on here, so that we gained the experience to be able to act as resources for other areas at a later time. The mention was also made about leading a teaching team to Saipan, the island I spent time on last year, which I had hoped to go back to with Ashley someday.

We were asked by the Aotearoa Institute head to act as camp "mother and father" for the next Radiant Youth Program, which will be in the second week of July, and we gladly accepted. There is going to be another outreach teaching campaign at that time, as well as the National Youth conference the prior week, all happening in Auckland.

So after looking for campervans for a couple weeks, all this came to pass and we have realized that we don't need a van to travel the country just yet. We have been given a room at a friends home; she lives just up the hill from the National Centre in the Henderson suburb to the west of Auckland City, and there are goats and cats and cows and birds. We might find a little Toyota or Nissan really cheap if we can, and we are going to try and get some part-time work somewhere nearby. That's it in a nutshell.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping...

Is it really already May? The fifth month? Ashley and I have been in New Zealand for over three months now, all that time spent in Auckland, and our idea of hopping in a van and traveling around the country on a farm-stay experiment is on permanent hold after some consultation with the secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of New Zealand, as well as one of the Counselors of the Continental Board. But more about that later...

On the 8th of this month it will be six months since our wedding! Wow! At the Radiant Youth camp that we attended a few weeks ago, it was a surprise when the youth would come up to us and talk about what a great couple we were. Not because I don't see it, but because I can remember when I was in that position, looking at others and thinking-often enviously-of how happy they looked and how together they seemed.

Funny thing today, we saw two policemen walking on the sidewalk near the mall as we went to the supermarket, and Ashley remarked at how young they were. "Just babies," she exclaimed. I laughed, and pointed out that this was a sign we were getting old, when we looked around at people and showed surprise at how young they were! Fortunately for both of us, we still look very young, and together we get mistaken for much younger kids. Well I do at least. Lucky me to have a young, beautiful wife! I don't think that Ash gets any benefit from being seen with me. Sometimes I even think of times long ago, when I would see a pretty girl with a dorky looking guy and think, "What does she see in that guy?"...I bet I cause thoughts like that occasionally! Again, lucky me.

Camping

Not REAL camping, but just sleeping at camps on foam pallets...I don't want to perpetuate the myth that we are doing some rugged, outdoorsy stuff over here. No, the truth is that we slept indoors, wrapped up in sleeping bags and blankets, on top of foam mattresses that provided varying degrees of back pain and discomfort. We spent the first three nights at the Manakau Baha'i Center--Centre is the correct spelling over here--since we were involved in a outreach program that formed five or six new junior youth groups around the city. The first real camp was a scout camp located near a little town/village/blip called Clevedon.

The word quaint was invented to describe places like Clevedon. Although from looking at the realtors board next to the dairy, lots of city folks with big money who want "quaint" already know about the place. But the camp was two halls with multiple dormitories, into which we separated the boys and girls. Ashley and I slept in one of the main halls, along with a couple older guys, the camp father, and one other boy who was banished from his original room because his snoring kept everyone awake. Since I missed the first few nights I didn't really get any input into where he should have been banished to; apparently five feet away from me was the best spot in everyone elses minds.

After a five days there, we moved on over to Camp Morley. This camp automatically got the advantage for being located on a beach...with water stretching away towards mountains in the distance, and the outline of the SkyTower barely visible to the north. This was a methodist camp, and the Baha'is have been using it for their childrens camps for over twenty years. It is probably a little more expensive than the scout camp, but that money buys individual cabins with separate rooms and their own showers and toilets. A much nicer kitchen with newer appliances, trash and recycling service (we had to haul away our own rubbish at the other camp) and a comfy hall and dining area. This camp was flash. btw flash means flashy, only not in a gaudy, extravagant way, or maybe in that way only it isn't used with negative connotations usually)

I put a video up on flickr of the play area and my cabin. Ash and I slept apart for the first time since November. But we are back at Caroline's house near the National Baha'i Centre, and we don't have any children to look after here. Just three very large kitties.

We are...

...looking for cheap vans that have been converted into campers
...going to spend a week in an intensive Ruhi book 5 training for working with junior youth (ages 11 to 14)
...planning on leaving the Auckland area in mid-May
...thinking of going to Queenstown, a young, snow-town in the South Island, to try and find some winter work
...thinking of doing some kiwi fruit picking in either the Bay of Plenty (to the south-east of Auckland)or Kerikeri (to the North)
...going to Haifa, Israel in late April of 2010
...hopefully going to be able to stop at some other places along the way to Israel, including Australia, India, Germany and of course-Charlotte, North Carolina
...excited about learning more about gardening
...gradually lightening our travel loads as we go-although they are still some "heavy as" bags
...more than halfway through our book 7 training course
...going to the New Zealand Baha'i National Conference at the end of April
...thankful that we have such loving friends and family

Buy Here

One of our best friends, Jessica has been making her own funky jewelery for some time now.

Go to her website to check it out and order some from her.

Left...

...In two more days we will be leaving Waiheke Island and going into Auckland city, as we have been each weekend for the past few months, but this time we won’t be catching the ferry back on Sunday night. After our Ruhi book 7 on Sunday, we will be staying in the mainland and on Monday we start with the youth camp. So we will be saying goodbye to this place for a while-goodbye to the beautiful beaches and rolling hills; goodbye to the colorful sunsets and the inlets dotted with boats; goodbye to the narrow, twisting, steep roads; and goodbye with our deepest thanks to the family who has given us a home here in this new country...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I wrote this on Thursday, and it is now Sunday, and we are already gone from the island. It is the first Sunday night in ten weeks that we haven’t returned to the island, to our wonderful family there. We are in Henderson, a suburb west of Auckland in an area called the Waitakare, staying with a friend tonight and then heading to the camp tomorrow afternoon.

A few people have emailed us about our address…the one that I posted earlier is a PO Box that is paid for the minimum amount of time that we could get it-one year. That will remain as our address. After we leave the Auckland area we will have our mail forwarded to whatever post shop serves our new location. If you are sending something to us, use that address-
PO Box 106125
Auckland City Postshop
Auckland, NZ 1143
Thanks so much for the letters and cards so far. It is wonderful to get them. I have tons of ideas to write up, but little time to do it…and while we are camping I doubt we will do a lot of computer-ing, so it may be a week or two until we get logged on again.

We will be getting that card tomorrow if any stores are open…

In the Morning

We are going to be cleaning the flat that we have been enjoying for the past ten weeks...bidding our kind wwoof hosts aideu, (?) and heading to the mainland.

And purchasing a phone card so we can call our families again.

As soon as we recover our cell phone, which we left at someone's home last weekend.

News From Rarotonga

This was in the Rarotonga newspaper on January 20th of this year. It was in the personal ads....

'Found 20 Jan 2009
The Village Idiot

A Texas village has found its idiot after 8 years in the political wilderness in D.C., US of A. The rest of USA and the world are celebrating.'

The world loves us.

Earth Hour 2009

Go here
Maybe you can make a difference

Almost Over

It is Thursday evening here on Waiheke Island. I just finished the last bit of painting for the evening and washed out the brush and roller. There is still the upper set of bedroom windows to paint, and a fascia board over the garage, but that will only take a couple hours.

The sun just set behind the hill, and the distant mainland is bathed in a orangish-blue twilight, as lights start to twinkle on. Ashley is in the kitchen cooking dinner-another recipe from Karina's Kitchen-a coconut & chickpea soup that promises to be yummy!

The good news is...We got lice! Unbelievably, somehow we got infested from the two kids, while their parents didn't. Gross. So Ashley and I have been combing each other's hair each night. Yuck.

The family gets back tomorrow afternoon, and we are planning on hanging out with them for a little while after they get back, and then moving into a room that was offered by a woman named Roberta. She has been an interested seeker at Baha'i activities-which is how we met her-and she hosts WWOOFers, but we don't want to be committed to working at her home, so she has offered us a room for $100 a week. That will give us the next two weeks to continue working in the vineyards, and then we will head to the mainland for the Radiant Youth Camp that we will be attending from the 13th to the 21st.

Speaking of vineyard picking, it is pretty easy work. And there is heaps of interesting people to talk with. I spoke with a guy from Vermont for a little while-he took off to travel for a while-when he goes back he will be a freshman in college. He gave us "props on not working for the man like everyone else"...I gave him props for getting out into the world and opening his mind. Crazy kids.

Address

Just in case you want to send us some good ol' American dreams...

PO Box 106125
Auckland City Postshop
Auckland, New Zealand
1143

Thursday

And we are at the house again. No grape picking for the third day in a row.
Yesterday we went out and drove all the way around the east side of the island, stopping and taking pics at all the scenic outlooks. It was a beautiful day and I posted some of the pictures on our flickr site.
We have been cooking lots since we are on our own, just making what we want to eat and enjoying all the fresh, local ingredients available here on Waiheke Island. The night before last we made this amazing soup-pumpkin and sweet potato YUM it was so good. We didn't blend it up like she calls for in the recipe, we left it hearty and chunky and added tofu as well. We also cooked this bread which is soooo good! Ash loved it and there is still a little left. THe bread would be great with some chili. Mom (Karin!), if you have never seen her recipes check em out...but I bet you have.
Then we had some rice and black beans last night, along with chicken fiesta fried chicken tenders...Mom (Teresa!) this was something you used to whip up I guess. Plus we took some of the hummus we made earlier in the week and added pumpkin to it since it was drying out! Yum.
Then for breakfast we had apple/pumpkin/almond pancakes with something that was supposed to be like huevos migas, but was kinda like huevos rancheros...not really either but very spicy. I guess tonight is leftovers.
The sun is out, the rain is gone-time to do some painting.

A little update...

It is almost noon on Monday here, and we just got back to the house, which we have to ourselves for the next two weeks while the family is on holiday! We went to the Te Whau Vineyard for some grape picking this morning, but so many people showed up that we only worked for two hours. We did a bit of grocery shopping and now we are back at the house, getting ready to take advantage of warmer temps and a relativelye clear day to do some painting.

Note on the Maori language...Whenever there is a W followed by an H, it is sounded like the letter F...So Te Whau sounds like Te Fau. Cheers.

By-The-Way

I did the Master Cleanse for five days...I won't give you all the fun details...but it was cleansing, and I realize that I quit if before I purged myself of some of the toxins. Like for instance, I really began to crave sugar the last evening, but all I was basically consuming was sugar! Some of the stuff I read suggested that you would experience a craving for whatever it was that was being flushed, and that it would change over the course of the fast. But if you just stuck it out then the craving would be gone the next morning. I couldn't stick it out, as well as I really wanted to enjoy the feast at the Ayyami-ha party and I wanted to have a couple of days of normal eating before the Baha'i Fast started on March 2nd. I never felt hungry throughout the cleanse, and although I was a little "plugged' up the first two days-even though I did the saltwater flush-it definitely was "cleansing"! Just thought you'd like to hear that...thanks for all the support and comments.

The temple near Chicago...

Ashley...
Originally uploaded by BigBroRio

Ashley and I watched this interview with Oprah today…
Neither of us knew that this hilarious actor, Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight on ‘The Office’, is a Baha’i.
But it is a good interview, and it contains a lot of insight and explanation.
Some of the other interviews at this website look equally interesting, maybe someone else can check some out and let us know which ones are the goodies!
If you are just interested in learning a little more about the Baha’I Faith, Rainn explains a few basic ideas during his hour long interview as well.
Click here to go to the webpage

Daily Life

Our life here on Waiheke Island continues to be very eventful. I want to share our daily schedule because I think it will help give an idea of what our WWOOFing has been like up to now.

We wake up in the morning-currently around 6:30 so that we can eat breakfast before the sun rises a quarter past seven-and Pauline leaves the house around that same time to go catch the ferry in to town. Uwe gets up a little after seven and gets the kids up around 7:45. We come over and just hang out, and then half past eight Uwe leaves to go to the bank he manages here on the island. A few minutes later we drive Bridey to her home school, and then get Michael to kindy.

After that, Ashley and I are free to do what we like, from 9:30 until we pick up Michael at 1 pm. Sometimes we go to the library, or occasionally get some coffee at a café. Usually we come back to the house, clean up the kitchen, do laundry and maybe read or use the computer. Sometimes we start our outside work during that time too.

The island isn’t that big, in fact there isn’t a traffic light here. Some of the larger intersections do have round-abouts, but the farthest place we have driven to so far is less than 15 minutes away. So after coming back home with Michael around 1:15, one of us plays with him-and maybe a friend if one comes home with him-until we have to pick up Bridey at 2:30. There is a bit of a difference in the interaction we have with Michael when he is alone and the atmosphere generated by the two of them together. Pauline usually gets home a little after five and Uwe a little after six.

We were eating dinner around 6, but since we are fasting now, we don’t eat until closer to eight, which is too late for the kids. Sometimes we stay in the lounge with Pauline and Uwe and watch a TV show-they have all the American shows here. Like tonight, we will watch the new episode of South Park. Sometimes we go back to the flat and hang out there, reading, or watching tv…usually it involves eating as well.

Tomorrow though, Ashley is going to start work at a vineyard, picking grapes. She’ll have to be there at 8 am, so I will drop her off then come back and get the kids to school. This weekend, the whole family leaves for a two week holiday. So with no kids to look after, I’ll start grape picking next Monday as well. The pay is almost minimum wage, and most of the vineyards I have seen are on some pretty steep hills, but we are both looking forward to some work. In return for letting us stay in their home while they are gone, we are going to get the entire exterior of the house done-some other WWOOFers started the painting, and now all that’s left is the steep two-story hill side. So we will work the painting in during our free time….

Lemon Juice

The Master Cleanse has a lot of hype to it…it has been around since the late 1940’s, and heaps of websites offer opinions and ideas about the program. Ashley and I decided to try it, and we started on it a couple days ago. The basic idea is a cleansing/fast that lasts ten days. All I can consume during that time is water and a mixture that is made by combining two litres of water with 14 tablespoons of maple syrup and 14 tablespoons of lemon juice. Top it off with a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper and shake well. MMMM.
Love to hear anyone’s comments on it. I am on day two now-but none of the promised “innards cleaning” has happened yet. For me. Ash is off it already because it wasn’t quite working for her as expected. She is fine. I am a little bit hungry…but I think it is mostly mental and habitual hunger pangs.

Location

Maybe you can find this on Google Earth…I haven’t tried yet.
66 Burrell Road-Waiheke Island-Auckland-New Zealand-1081
The island is absolutely gorgeous-you are always only one summit away from the shore-and the views are breathtaking.
The bays and harbors are regularly dotted with anchored sailboats and small cruisers, even some fancy yachts, all of which is directly below the deck of the flat we are staying in during the week.
It is quite hilly, and as the main road curves across the island, each village blends into the next, separated by mudflats and modest homes. There are so many walks on the island that I doubt we will be able to take even half of them, but they are very well maintained and marked, as New Zealand’s Department of Conservation is quite good at protecting natural areas-at least to my eye.

Rarotonga Pictures

Pictures up at Flickr

check em out

For the children

Love these little ones…

While they are at your side, love these little ones to the uttermost. Serve them; care for them; lavish all your tenderness upon them. Value your good fortune while it is with you and let nothing of the sweetness of their babyhood go unprized. Not for long will you keep the happiness that now lies within your reach. You will not always walk in the sunshine with a little warm, soft hand nestling in each of yours, nor hear little feet pattering beside you, and eager baby voices questioning and prattling of a thousand things with ceaseless excitement. Not always will you see that trusting face upturned to yours, feel those little arms about your neck and those tender lips pressed upon your cheek, nor will you have that tiny form to kneel beside you and murmur baby prayers into your ear.

Love them and win their love and shower on them all the treasures of your heart. Fill up their days with happiness and share with them their mirth and innocent delights.

Childhood is but for a day. Ere you aware it will be gone with all its gifts forever.

George Townsend
“The Mission of Baha’u’llah” pg. 145

What's Next?

WWOOF is Willing Workers On Organic Farms, and although I believe it has changed a lot since its inception, it is fundamentally a program devised to help teach people about organic farming and growing methods. It does so by bringing together people who have a desire to learn with farmers who have a desire to host them. The trade is the work, usually four to six hours a day, provided by the wwoofers, for meals and a place to stay, provided by the hosts. It doesn’t seem to be regulated, and consequently, anyone who employs “organic” methods, even if it is only on their private garden, is able to be listed as a host. But whether that actually is detrimental to the original aim of the group—I don’t know.

When Ashley and I arrive in Auckland, New Zealand around 7:30 am on the 28th of January-as a side note we leave Rarotonga on the 27th at 3:40 am and it is only a three and a half hour flight!-we will take some form of public transport to one of the ferry stations. There we can store our luggage for the day in a locker, and go out and explore the city. That evening, we will come back to the ferry station and try to meet up with our first wwoof host as she takes the five o’clock ferry home from work. Home is Waiheke Island, about a thirty-five minute ferry ride from the Central Business District of Auckland city. (Another side note: all these times and distances are based on what I have read about Auckland, so if I am wrong I apologize) We will have that evening and the following two days to get to know the family we will be staying with.

Our hosts are a husband and a wife and their two children. They need someone to help watch after their two children and transport them to and from school. The work is for six hours a day, Monday through Friday. They also will have some carpentry work for us. They mentioned something about some flower beds and a chicken coop in one of our emails. The weekends we have free, and it is until mid-March, six weeks total. Those are the details that we have so far.

The first weekend we are there, the 31st of January and the 1st of Feb, is the Baha’i Regional Conference for all of New Zealand. So we will be heading in to the city for that and making contacts with people and getting an idea of what the country needs in terms of service from us. It’s a great chance for us-wonderful timing-to be able to meet Baha’is all over the country and get their stories and advice on places that need help and what they like about their regions. We also will learn about the study circles/Ruhi courses that are happening around the country. All in all, our first week is going to be a whirlwind, and we are really looking forward to it.

For now, we are still relaxing on Rarotonga. Nine more days of life on a tropical island and we are trying not to rush ourselves. It’s great here. A little hot for both of us. And maybe a few more bugs than we are used to. Ashley found a giant spider behind the couch cushions today…but there are no poisonous bugs, animals or plants on Raro, so don’t worry about us...;)

Coming Home

For close to thirty years I had heard of a place called the Cook Islands, with only a few family pictures and a large aerial photograph to give me an idea of the island on which I was born. I was given stories too, and a birth certificate and social security number that didn’t look like any of the others I ever saw. Along with those, I got a name that was so unique that I was eighteen before I met another person with the same one. The difficulty of my own name was matched by the difficulty of the name of my birthplace-Rarotonga. For years it has only lived in my mind, since I remember nothing from my short time here. Less than two weeks ago, on December 28th, my wife and I landed at the Rarotonga International Airport-one runway and a few small buildings-and for the first time since I was a newborn child I was back in the land of my birth.

I am not sure what I was expecting. I had joked with others about feeling some sort of connection; about rediscovering my “roots”. I can say that as I turned with Ashley and looked at the inland peaks of the island, covered with dense jungle, rising up directly behind the Air New Zealand flight we had just disembarked from, I felt a sense of awe and wonder. This was a beautiful scene, and it felt amazing to have the chance to return to it.

Having been here now for almost two weeks, I have realized something. There was nothing wrong with wanting to see my birthplace or feeling as if I was missing something because I hadn’t yet seen it. I wanted to associate myself with this tropical island paradise because it further cemented my “difference.” I really thought that maybe I needed to visit this place to somehow complete myself…

I feel at home now, but not because I returned to the Cook Islands. My home was already with me when I stepped off that flight onto the tarmac. I first found my “home” over five and a half years ago, and on November 8th of this past year Ashley and I got married. That feeling of being “at home” has been there ever since. Coming back to this island was great, but my home isn’t a place anymore…it is my wife.

Raro

Just for an update…Ashley and I are currently in the Cook Islands, on the main island of Rarotonga. We have been here since the evening of the 28th, which was actually a little strange since we left New Zealand to fly here around noon on the 29th.

We left Cambodia and traveled back to Thailand via bus where we finally arrived in Bangkok. We were both starving, and Ashley had progressed from a little hungry, to a lot hungry, to get-away-from-me-I’m-hungry, to giggling and laughing to herself and ranting about food hungry…but we made it through and got ourselves some food finally. We spent the night in the Queens Garden Hotel near the airport, the same place we spent our first night in Bangkok when we arrived with Randi & Tyra and met Jen. We were a little more thai-saavy and so we didn’t load up on weird seaweed flavored snacks at the 7-11 this time. We had a nice breakfast—actually that is an understatement-we spent almost 600 baht on the two of us, eating an omelet, stir-fried veggies and rice, spring rolls and a banana shake—but it was good after the starving we had endured on the bus the prior day. The hotel shuttled us to the airport, and we said goodbye to Thailand, and in doing so it really felt like saying goodbye to a “home” we had grown to love.

Our flight was on Royal Brunei Airlines, from Bangkok to Auckland, with a stopover in the capital of Brunei Darussalam-Bendar Seri Bengawan-and Brisbane, Australia. We arrived in the Muslim country around 6:00 pm, and after finally getting our hands on our luggage, had to take a taxi into the city since the buses stop running at six. Brunei is not a cheap country. In fact, it quite possibly is one of the most expensive places in southeast Asia. The cheapest lodging we had been able to find using the internet and guide books was a place called the K.H. Soon Resthouse for $39 Brunei dollars a night, which translates roughly to around $20 US dollars. Food was not cheap either. In fact, the sultan of Brunei is a very wealthy man, living in the largest occupied royal residence in the world. We dropped our bags off at the musty resthouse, and then headed out to explore the tiny central area of the city. Not a whole lot happening in Brunei. Alcohol sales are forbidden, so there isn’t much nightlife to speak of. A few twenty-four hour restaurants and cafes were all we found.

We stumbled across a family night party in the courtyard of one of the “malls”, complete with inflatable moon bounces and slides. An Australian family stopped us and chatted for a few minutes, giving us a little advice on where to eat and confirming that we had, in fact, seen about all there was to see. We strolled around the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, with its spires illuminated by green light in the night. The water surrounding the mosque and bordering it’s outer walkway was filled with more trash then we had seen even in Thailand. We stopped an ate ice cream and watched a football match at an outdoor café, and then we headed to bed. We went out for breakfast the next morning, and as we left the restaurant, realized that we had forgotten to adjust our clocks ahead on hour since leaving Thailand. We had only ninety minutes until our flight rather than two and a half hours. We grabbed another cab and bid adieu to the city without seeing much else of what little it had to offer.

From Brunei we flew to Brisbane, and spent about an hour stopped there, before we re-boarded and flew on to Auckland. We arrived in Auckland at about 4 am on the 29th, although to our internal clocks still accustomed to Thailand time, it was only 10 o’clock in the evening. We spent the morning in the New Zealand airport, grabbing some food, and attempting to sleep amongst large families of Maori seeing each other off and young children running around. We finally boarded our flight at 11 am and three and a half hours later we were at Rarotonga Airport.

Dusty Roads

Did I mention that it was really, really dusty in Cambodia? The main road between Bangkok and Siem Reap is a heavily traveled road by tour buses, and in Thailand, although the road is deteriorated, it is still in pretty good shape compared with its continuance in Cambodia. It starts off as a freshly paved highway, and for the first 30 or 40 kilometers I wondered what all the fuss about Cambodia’s roads had been. And then, it became apparent, when the bus hit a huge bump as our road transformed from freshly paved asphalt to recently graded gravel and dirt. Our buses speed didn’t falter much, and there was even the occasional water tanker spraying the dirt roads to keep down the dust, so it wasn’t too bad right away.

We rolled along at about 80 or 90 kilometers an hour, swerving left and right on this gravel road-to-be with no delineation or imposed order, other than the steady honking from our bus drivers horn. The rule seems to be honk when you are coming up behind someone, honk when you are passing someone, honk at the oncoming traffic when you are in their lane…Strangely enough, our driver rarely honked when he was stuck behind a slower moving vehicle, until he was about to pass them. This main highway was a straight shot, and it blasted right through the center of towns and villages. Whether they were a result of the road or the other way around I am unsure, but stalls and shops lined the dirt track that was a constant site of construction.

I began to notice that the dust from the roads layered everything. The structures along the road, made of different types of building materials-from concrete, to wood, to bamboo, to sheet metal- they all began to blend together in a mass of red-dust colored shambles. The corrugated metal roofing had long ago had its silver luster obscured by brownish-red dust. The continuous traffic even left a cover of dirt on the foliage along the road-from the low-standing brush to the tall palm fronds-everything melded in color with the dirt. Even some of the people, who spent their days sitting at a stall on the roadside, would begin to match their surroundings in color, their hats and scarves leaving only a slit for their eyes, and their clothing consisting of long pants and shirts. But these people were the exception. For everywhere along the way I saw children in brightly colored t-shirts playing with each other. I saw young men sitting on their freshly washed motor bikes waiting to offer a ride to the next person who walked by. I saw men showering by means of bucket and water in their yards in the evening, and during the day saw the same men working hard in the fields. Often a line of rice farmers would be visible in the distance as they worked the fields, their rattan hats all that was visible of them as they bent over and cut the plants near the water. The people’s color was in stark contrast to the dinginess of their surroundings, and it may just be an indication of the Khmer people’s resilience and ability to see a bright side to their plight in recent years.

The roads actually got worse, graduating from newly-graded gravel to washed-out, rutted dirt that hadn’t received any maintenance since the rainy season ended. The speed did lessen here, but the ride was still akin to taking a jeep four-wheeling-only with Cambodian music blaring in the background, accompanied by the driver’s singing and horn-honking. The bus ride in Cambodia from the border to Siem Reap took us about five hours, and it wore us out, both going and coming back. But it was real travel, among real people, sometimes without aircon or another white face anywhere in site-it was another country, and the people were quite friendly and accommodating. So if you are planning on visiting, save some money, take a land route, it’s about 100 dollars cheaper, and if you want to you can learn some Cambodian for free on the trip in.