Blue Croatia

  

On the way along the coast of the Istra peninsula which heaved its mountains like soft breasts and bellies of red earth and white rocks we swam in the sea at Pula in the forested campsite jutting out like a medallion into the blue crashing sea in Stoja.  It was there I think I got stung by a jellyfish which produced a rash along the back of my left leg, red agitated bumps.   

The forested coast reminded me so much of California.  I felt like I had wandered into a time machine and was back in Monterey, walking through the trees to a secret cove but the delicious difference here is the water is warm.  Brilliant.

And then we traveled up to Bale inland where we searched for EIA, an eco art village planted just outside of Bale, near Krmed where a spiritual man, named Igor began growing his sacred meeting ground with a permaculture graden in the shape of a butterfly and a flower (although not very well attended to because there are only two permanent residents- Lilly his wife  and Igor who is tending to the whole organization and then one or two volunteers.) 

When we arrived we were just in the midst of a big turning of the tides.  A dance group was coming in and a group of shamans from Germany were leaving after a week of secret meetings in the forest and helping to build a giant white teepee, where we found a couple of tanned women sitting on animal skins inside. 

Igor was overwhelmed when we arrived and asked Meluka the volunteer from Amsterdam to show us around.  She generously took us through the garden showed us the water capturing system, the solar panels and humble windmill.  All their power comes from solar and wind.  She took us into the handbuilt homes from clay and hay and showed us the outdoor showers, the campground where all the shamans were lazing about or slowly packing up, washing dishes or wandering in the woods, siting in energy circles or one lucky girl up in Nona, the big tree that could cradle you up inside it in a hammock seat.  Maluka said that Igo will lead a group of children every Saturday and they go on night walks in the dark with each child holding hands in a single file line to help them appreciate the woods and not be afraid of it.   He has yoga practices, dance, permaculture workshops and more.  He welcomes volunteers to stay for free and help around the farm and with the visiting groups. 

Their food is not sustainable but hopefully in the future once they have finished building the other houses and more people can live there and help with farming. 

Everywhere felt full of magic here.  Meluka said he had a good intuition for where to buy property.  All along our path there were signs marked Fairy Cradle for a mossy cavernous tree and Fairy Forest and fairy swing and Energetic circle and Nona tree.  Everything was mossy and curved perfectly for meetings, for human enlightenment purposes. 

We came to the end, popping out where we started at Igor’s house and thanked our guide and said our goodbyes with the hope to revisit at a better time.  I could have biked right past and had no idea a whole community existed focused on a sustainable, deeper living.  Change is always just around the corner.  Revolution just beyond those trees.  

Then we continued biking for hours and hours over hill after hill through small towns surrounding castles, crumbling white stone walls lining the streets crackling like cookie crumbs.  And we made it to , Barban but it had no suitable place to stay, so we had tea and coffee, excellent pizza (pizza is great everywhere in croatia, so influenced by Italy, it seems to be the national dish there at least in Istra)  and we geared up for darkness at 9:30pm.  I had no headlight and only a tiny red back light.  Ben was better prepared but even his strong LED could hardly fill the road with light for both of us to see.   But we powered on, immediately hitting difficult gravel path  straight downhill and around sharp curves with cars coming around the bend.  And we struggled to stay upright without skidding off the side of the road. 

We managed to steer our way slowly down the dark gravely mountain, as if we were at the bottom of the ocean with Ben like a small submarine floating behind me and the racing past glowing sharks and whales of cars. 

And once we were on concrete again it was lovely for awhile.  Cruising along with a slightly warm breeze and cool night, knowing a river ran alongside us but only able to hear its low chortle but this night kindness could not last and we were stricken with the uphill that seemed to never end and my gears were messed up and I hated the world.   

 We finally found our way down a steep back and forth mountain to Rabac, a tiny inlet coast town, the moonlight welcoming us deep into the cove haven.  I zoomed down past Benjamin in almost pure darkness eager to find sanctuary which we at long last did.  The Oliva campsite where at first the man at the counter would not let us check in, but after a simple plea, he did and we found our small green plot amidst many RVs and campers and we set up as quickly as we could in the cold and took showers and slept in our cramped little orange tent, breaking one of the tent sticks in the rushed process. Nothing a little duct tape couldn’t fix.

And woke up hot and sweaty with aching backs again to jump in the cold blue water after stumbling into a hotel’s free breakfast buffet and an icecream and up the screaming mountain in the heat.  Only five kilometers that took an hour or more.  We picnicked in Labin and then on through eternal hills finally hitting a nice almost even road overlooking the coast and we stopped just before nightfall in Dragos, saturated with red, sweaty German tourists.  Every building offered rooms and camping in their yards.  Everyone got in on the tourism action.  We set up on a little plateau hill  and ate some grilled vegetables and I was nearly passing out on my plate and crashed to sleep earlier than I wanted. 

The next day we made it to our destination, which I could see in the distance the whole last leg of the trip- Rijeka seeming a stones throw away across the sea  and we sailed in after more hills and climbs in and out of beautiful sea towns with gorgeous Italian old ornate resorts and pockets of bright blue water and people laying about under their umbrellas letting the sun drain their bodies. 

 We made it to Rijeka, the third biggest town in Croatia and got our tickets for Slovenia- Ljubljana, the city of love.  

  

  

The Masters and The Mountains- Serbia

When I've been bicycling uphill for more than 30 minutes there is a rage that starts to pulse through my body and it overtakes me.  Not until I get to the top of the hill and begin the descent does it then slough off as if it never existed.  When I ride through mountains, nature is teaching me to respect her.  When I climb her majestic heights, she rewards me with a thrilling downward flight on the other side.

I am conquered by her voluptuous curves and am a ready willing student, hoping to understand.
I have had several great teachers in the last few weeks.  The mountains and the masters.
The mountains of Croatia.
The master teachers in Dah Theater Festival  in Belgrade, Serbia.

It was a humble festival, intimate, vastly different than the grand hubbub of the Sibiu Festival.  There was a small group of about 40 to a hundred people at each event.  The same people traveling between a few theater spaces together.
Two Americans with robust beards approached me at the fireworks celebration in Sibiu and told me I should go to this festival in Serbia because they were carrying on the legacy of Grotowski.  and, it turned out, Rena Mirecka, one of my holiest of holies would also be there to speak and lead a workshop.
What luck!  What a charmed path!  After Rosia Montana and the border city, Timisoara, where Benjamin had our bikes painted with sea horses, stars and a blue octopus on my helmet at an arts festival in an alley way, we arrive in Belgrade and the lungs are under attack.

But all the pollution disappears when we duck into Dah Theater housed at the back of an elementary school.  And there I find a teacher of mine from years ago at NYU, Daniel Banks!,  who uses hip hop theater to build community with young people.  He also was leading a workshop here with Roma kids and directing a solo dance theater piece of his incredible partner.  The theme of the festival was Passing the Flame and could not be more appropriate.  Within 4 days time I reconnected with Daniel whose former teacher was also in attendance, Peter Schumann of Bread and Puppet Theater and, of course, Rena Mirecka.  

I watched the force of the women from Dah carry on the flow of discussions and shows with grace and intuition.   I watched Peter Schumann play his fiddle like he was digging a hole into the heavens while he told the tragedy of a Palestinian in his rough German accent.   I watched each master ceremoniously light the candle before they spoke and wondered who I am lighting the candle for.  I watched the Women in Black who have lived through militarized rapes, murders of their children, torture and heard of their defiance to carry on.  I watched an American woman sing an old spiritual for a Woman in Black who was never able to find her children's bodies and give them proper burial.  the American had asked what songs she sings to comfort herself and the woman in black said she does not sing any more.  so the American said- I will sing for you then.  
I watched Eugenio Barba light up  a whole room as he spoke of the power of humiliation as a teacher.  I watched Violeta, a performance artist from Mexico distort her body and face like a grotesque clown and ballerina, laying the performance bare across her body as she became the corn transformed by Monsanto in her piece.   I watched Rena Mirecka speak like God pulled each word from her mouth and strung it out before us.  and then I went up to her afterwards to thank her for her workshop that has continued to have such a profound impact on me.  and i could not speak.  Again i was made dumb in the face of her power, of her truth. 
and i wept and she kissed me on the lips and embraced me.

and i feel her energy pass through me and am reminded of my responsibility.
Much of theater work may be looking inward but that is only useful if it makes you more equipped to look outward.  to make the connections.  

Burning and Bombing- romania and serbia

Benjamin and I bicycle off into rainy Romania heading north to Rosia Montana where I had learned from our guide the local community is in the middle of a battle to keep their land protected from Canadian gold miners.   The company, Gabriel Resources, plans to buy out everyone and evacuate the town, blast the mountain and dam the valley and fill it with cyanide which they use to chemically extract the gold. 

Please learn more here: http://www.nodirtygold.org/rosia_montana_romania.cfm

On our way we took an off road where the road completely disappeared and we biked on dirt, rocks, grass, through forests littered with falling yellow flower petals, through small towns where we had to avoid pigs, goats, and small children waving us in like returned war heroes.  I kept getting toppled and bruised by my bike in the slippery mud.  But finally we made it out to a big road and carried on over hills.  We stopped in a small town and asked for campsites at the cultural center and the man offered the garden behind a museum.  We set up a tent in the museum surrounded by archeological artifacts and slept hard, woken by what seemed like thousands of screaming birds at 5am and a rush of sunlight. 

As we completed our trek up the mountain along the bright orange-colored river, we came upon a small wooden house with signs reading La Gruber Hostel and Save Rosia Montana!  We knocked on the door to no answer.  An older couple passing by gestured to the side fence but there a large German Shepard was barking furiously and gnashing her teeth and on the gate was a photo of her biting a trespasser’s arm in case we didn’t get the message. 

The friendly neighbors shake their heads and come over to knock on the window.  There is a stirring and out from the fence, comes a short young woman in slippers and a t-shirt that says, appropriately, Please Stop Fucking Me.  She speaks perfect English and invites us in after tying up the dog and serves us dried fruit tea.  I ask why she needs a guard dog and she says, “Have you heard about the mining?”  well, apparently since the company has been pushing out the locals, so many houses are abandoned and people break in and steal what they want so they might think La Gruber is empty.  But it is definitely not for sale.  Ani and her boyfriend, Andrei, are there to stay, holding on for dear life. 

Rosia Montana has been based on mining for hundreds of years since the Dacians and the Romans.  They had slaves carry gold out in baskets working all hours of the day.  The government made it impossible for any other industry to exist.  There is plenty of land but hardly any farming, just small private plots.  Barely any tourism.  Maybe one restaurant.  But Andrei opened his house into a hostel and a group of activists started FanFest, a free festival on top of the mountain with music, theater, art, and the locals sell their goods and teach their trades. 

The mining company will even pay you to unbury your dead family members and move their bodies.  They will pay for a very nice plot, somewhere far away. 

Even though there used to be visible thick veins of gold, now the resources are so diminished they have to use cyanide to chemically treat the land to extract the microscopic gold deposits.  It would only last for maybe 10 years more and hundreds of people will be displaced, lose their family land, their heritage and the mountain will be bombed, water polluted with cyanide. 

         We took a tour of the Roman mine gallery with a very exuberant  tour guide who was a miner for 15 years and was clearly fascinated and in love with the process.  He described the gold like the Italian film director, Roberto Benigni accepting his Oscar, with wild hand gesticulations as if he could feel the gold again in his fingertips, lifting the pick ax in an ecstatic dance. 

We hiked up to Raven’s Peak and I gazed out across the breathtaking mountains, only one mountain visibly shattered and stripped that has been blasted to a third of its original size like a sandy open wound amidst the green and spent an afternoon with their friend, Mr. Justin, who spent his whole life there, his father built his home there and now Mr. Justin has built his family home and is building one for his sons in his spare time. He farms, tends to chickens, horses, cows, pigs.  Ani told me she helps out at the farm there and elsewhere in a bartering system- labor in exchange for cheese, milk and vegetables. 

Mr. Justin told me, “A man must do three things in his life; plant a tree, build a house and have children.”  I said I will plant many trees and hopefully that will make up for the other two.

He  kept offering me his homebrew of a wild blueberry schnapps and some other liquor made from grass that were extremely strong and pleasantly burned my throat.   After awhile as I was getting to the point where I might start rolling on the floor and dancing, he asked me if I I’d like to ride a horse.  He led me out to a field, right at the top of the valley the company wants to drown in cyanide.  He gave me his knee and I flung my body up onto Mishstra, the golden mare whose brand new colt tagged along close behind and nibbled my shoelace as we wandered through the field.  Her strong muscular body warm from the heat of the sun.  I have only ridden a horse once before but it was heavily laden with straps and gear and it was a revelation to ride bareback, to feel her body move, to feel the articulation of her muscles.  I felt like a centaur.  

Mr. Justin’s older sister sold their parents’ land to the company without consulting her 4 brothers and she took the money to live well in Sibiu.  Mr. Justin does not speak to her any more.   I asked him what he would do if the company wins.  He cannot think about that happening, he said. 

He just keeps working and preparing for the long winter months.

Benjamin met us in the valley and everyone is fascinated by his moustache because that is how miners used to wear their facial hair in the old days. 

Ani and Andrei took us to the family-owned pizza restaurant and we got cheese pies and shared jokes.  Andrei is quiet and doesn’t speak English but understands every word and will occasionally light up with an elfish grin of recognition.  Ani says its time for this generation to start thinking about the future, to consider everyone else. 

I leave Rosia Montana with a heavy heart and even though we were headed down a nice easy downhill, it felt harder than going up it, as I rushed past the blur of trees and old women tending to the gardens and the orange river I held my breath.  It will survive.  It must.  They have already won.  In the face of money, a new house, corporate power and pressure, they stood their ground.  No thank you, they have all they need right here.  And they are free. 

………………………………………………………………………………..

Serbia is burning.  My lungs are burning.  Coal is burning. 

I want to smash cars with hot pink sledgehammers.  I want to cover mines with soft moss and red tulips. 

I can barely make it up a hill.  My sensitivity to pollutants has increased greatly as I grow older and I wonder if it isn’t my body adapting a heightened defense since my father was killed by noxious fumes traveling through the air penetrating his lungs. 

I’m developing a nasty cough again.  Similar to what I had in Cairo, which apparently has the third poorest air quality in the world. 

I bike everywhere with my dirty red bandanna covering my face and Benjamin, now joining me for this leg of the trip, in his curly moustache and sinister black garb and steel-toed boots.  We must appear like strange cowboys from the old west with bikes for horses. 

Last night we attended the Dah Theater Festival in Belgrade.  We saw Peter Schumann of Bread and Puppet Theater perform solo with his violin and plastic trumpet kazoo tell the story of a Palestinian boy whose life was destroyed.  We had a beer with him afterwards and he told me his new show is Man as Carrot, because “you know we discovered that man originally evolved from the erect carrot”  Peter joked with his sparkly eyes. 

And what will I find in Serbia today?

Sibiu- Festival

Heading into Romania was a tremendous shift because suddenly I am almost indistinguishable.  Women ride bicycles.  There are even bike lanes.  No one is rushing up to me to get me to buy something.  There are trashcans all along the roads and most lights are on sensors which can create comical dance moves in dark bathrooms as you try to recover the light source. 

I met up with Benjamin in Bucharest.  It has been a new challenge to travel with another human being.  I have lost my solitude and, I feel, some of my power.  But have gained companionship and less male attention.  And now there is someone to laugh with at the absurdity of this voyage.  

Romania was good to us.  In Bucharest we stayed with friends and I would rehearse in parks during the day.  In Sibiu, I performed in the International Theatre Festival (FITS) among companies from over 70 countries including Iran, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Japan, China, Canada, France, Spain and the startlingly good company from Romania who dazzled the crowds with their spectacle production of Faust which transported the whole audience into a giant warehouse full of fire breathers, flying demons, puppet rhinos and pigs.  High-lights were Paper Cut- an imaginative one-woman object theater show from Israel coming to NY Fringe- look for it!, the surreal Beijing Opera of such precise style and artifice they seemed to be aliens from a far off planet, Spaniards flying in a rock and roll Miro-style mobile in the sky above the town square, and the greatest high-light is the people of the festival who were at ease, ready to laugh and ever so helpful.

         I performed in a bar, Oldies Pub at 10:30pm at night.  Smoking is still permitted indoors in Romania and it was a struggle to maintain a voice by the end of tech.  Benjamin excellently operated lights and sound with extreme limitations.   This is the first time I performed with giant beer logos all around the stage.  But I made it through both shows to full houses and managed to snag a good review, too. 

Half of it I got translated by a Romanian and the other half I translated on google so please forgive the strange wording:

“Whether you are a Romania, Arab, American, what we have in common is that we live on the same planet, we are all humans and we all have dreams and wishes. 

Wednesday night, Oldies Pub hosted an unconventional show, an exceptional monologue acted by Monica Hunken. 

Blondie of Arabia describes the true story of her odyssey through desert.  

Her monologue is extremely ? and it was incredibly well sustained by gestures and mimic, despite the simple décor, a bicycle and a chair. 

The artists’ show amused and amazed at the same time but it also has a deep meaning. 

Her acting suggests she followed her dream no matter what the shape is. Dreams make people human, it helps to know better and to explore their capabilities. You can not know what you can do and what you can accomplish in life if you do not unleash the adventurer in you. An ounce of courage and you can begin to materialize things you've never imagined that you're able. She is originally from California, then continued her journey in New York, where she joined a band of street theater. Over time with a team, she organized social meetings, never leaving the hope of her love, her bicycle. Cute, exuberant and May especially, possessed a contagious optimism, "typical American", as she herself confesses, Monica Hunken succeed by this unconventional performances, every spectator to ignite the flame of a dream. And because the purpose of any performances is to delight the public we can say Blondina completed her independent mission. Reports of applause that filled the room said the word.”

-Applause FITS paper

Before we left Sibiu, we stayed a couple nights at a hostel, Felinarul built lovingly by a young married couple, an Irish redhead and her husband the chef at their restaurant.  The charming redhead regaled us with stories of Ireland and the many characters that have passed through her hostel from all over the world.  She told me of the days when Ireland subsisted on coal and she would dry her clothes right on the coal stove and all of Dublin had “the permanent stench of slightly damp teenagers” covered in soot.  We arrived in Sibiu a week after they had just begun a recycling program.   But they have yet to install a pick-up process so right now only the Roma gypsies go collecting cans and this young couple at Felinarul.  On Sunday I joined them on the recycling trip.  With their 7-year-old son towing along boxes in the lead, the chef and a young Mexican man who’s doing Theater of the Oppressed work in town carrying a big stack, me carrying the glass bottles, and the lovely red head bringing along the baby, we paraded down the street as a tiny circus of sustainability!

It’s always hard to say goodbye to the kind people I meet along the way.  I just begin friendships and then in one or two days time, I fly away again.  But they all leave their stamp upon me as I walk out the door. 

        

The bellboy and the communist

from the Dead Sea

I left Turkey on a high note after bicycling along the hilly southern coast of the Sea of Marmara past windmills and farms.  When I left Istanbul, I crossed the sea on a ferryboat and arrived in a small port town at sundown where crowds of men were chanting and waving flags in the street and lighting things on fire.  At first I thought there was a protest but quickly learned it was about a soccer game.  It wasn’t safe to camp outside so I tried to find a cheap hotel but there was nothing I could afford.  Overhearing my plight, A bellboy ran out after me and said I could stay at his place and he would stay at his parents’.  I agreed since there were no other options.  I slept on the neon-flowered carpet in a small studio with nothing but a TV and couch and a horrible mold smell.   In the middle of the night the bellboy came pounding on the door crying out my name.  I answered and had a very strange conversation that began aggressively and then wound down to a young man telling me how sad and lonely he is and how he secretly writes a science fiction book but has no faith in it and no one to share it with.   Most conversations with people who try to ensnare me in someway end with their cry for help rather than my own.  There are many lonely people in this world.  

The next night I camped out on the deck of an abandoned summerhouse by the sea and showered outdoors in freezing water. 

I ran into a young man at the university.  He was planted in front on the ground with a big red flag  with painted black letters.  I smelled protest.   He said he was kicked out of school for a month for his communist views and for resisting an inspection at the university gate.  He has sat every day for 30 days protesting his treatment, refusing to leave.  This day I found him was his last day.  He will return to study law so that he can come out to try to smash the system and assist his fellow activists.
He said he gets his power in the belief that someday, the people will rise up, rise up against the police repression, the censorship, the violence.
Although most people I spoke to and saw seem very content to allow the waves to crash over their culture, to be hummed to sleep by brands and convenience.
When the action in Turkey was hot in the 60s and 70s, police came down hard and it's a tremendous effort to recover from something like that and start again.    But it only takes one spark to make a wild fire.   

         

Turkey:

what courage is

It strikes me odd that now when I have more support, financial help, and observation than ever is when I feel most disoriented and anxious.
I am not very afraid but I do have a small fear nudging at my shoulder, tugging at my ear to keep me on my toes.  The fear of being raped, of having my things stolen, of being killed.  Killed in a useless way, killed in a moment of distraction- hit by a truck, murdered in my sleep when I camp in the middle of nowhere.  Before I've gotten to create, before I've had the chance to bring back the message, to connect the dots.

but I don't really believe what I am doing is very brave.
Courage is risking everything.
Courage is when you are put down and put down and put down and you still rise up.
Courage is a tranny in a Muslim country.
Courage is when you are told a thousand times no and you still say, "Yes.  I need this."

A wonderful Dutch performer gave me a book, The Soul of Money, by Lynne Twist, a fundraiser working to end world hunger.  In it she relays the passionate and desperate stories of women who have had to break away from the core values and traditions of their societies to do what they believe is right.
Women from Tamil Nadu in India who decided to begin the difficult process of stopping the murder of newborn girls even though their husbands would beat them, even though girls were considered valueless and burdensome with expensive dowries.
They began a movement.
They took a stand, even while entrenched in a pit of shame and grief.

I am so lucky to take a step from a place of joy, from a community saying YES all around me.  I do not take for granted that the majority of women in the world do not hear a symphony of yeses.   anything but.

..................................

I wish I could tell you that I have made wonders happen in Turkey but I cannot.  I tried to get to Syria through Jordan but it was impossible.  Even going through Iraq seemed like the safer option at this point.
The last time I biked through Syria it was a dream, a river of kindness and home-cooked meals, lush forests and orange groves.  I cannot imagine this rampant bloodshed on that land.
It sickens me that a group of people swept up with the excitement of change should have their dreams and struggled obliterated so outright.  with no dignity.  as if that's the way it is.

So from Jordan, I had to fly to Istanbul which disappointed me greatly and It seemed i could could not overcome that defeat.  I continue to be just a little offstep, a little behind on everything.  I could not establish a volunteering opportunity with an organic farm until September so I wandered around Istanbul for a few days and then biked along the coast of the Sea of Marmara and dipped slightly into the Agean.
and I feel embarassed by my lack of successful research, by the troubles and misconnections that I have had.  I wish to bring only masterpieces and revelations to you but have to accept when weakness comes.  But it has also been my experience that sometimes masterpieces are buried deep within the crevices of missteps.

This time has thus been very contemplative.  Turkey has given me a lot to ponder.  Turkey, the bridge between Europe and the Middle East, headed now by a conservative government pushing for a stronger state of Islam and yet also pushing for western capitalism.   Saturated already with American chain stores, western dress, alcohol, car culture, banks, the whole mess. 
And they seem to welcome it all with open arms.  I cannot blame them.  Every nation has the right to progress but it saddens me to see what progress is defined by.

The pollution is fierce and bicycling through it is distressing my lungs but a fellow said it is so much better now than ten years ago when they relied on coal.  Now they are turning to natural gas.  Great. natural gas- the green champion imposter that poisons our water supply.

The delights of Turkey are the music. Dance seems to invade everywhere- the fishermen along Galata bridge who swing their lines like a ballet, the ice cream vendors who put on a whole show as they stab the ice cream with swords and play out the delivery of it like magicians.

I bicycled along the coast and through field after field of farms and olive trees and ecstatic red poppies and mustard flowers that i would snag for a spicy snack.  over hill after hill and bad broken up and dirt roads.  Three flat tires so far.  Not so bad.
But everything clarifies when I am on the road.  I am a simple being.


I have to go.  More later.  Photos aren't uploading properly but I will send along soon.
Thanks for reading.
-Monica

the most radical thing

Atop my bicycle bag is a bumper sticker that reads, "The most radical thing we can do is introduce people to one another."  I see this as a theme for the hope of my journey.  I will go away, learn, collect stories from foreign nations and return home to introduce you to everyone.  
I watch the world tearing at the seams by war and climate uproar and I think now is the time for us to become more intimate with our neighbors.  We're all in this together.

The journey begins on a plane, already a count against the journey, a journey about power and our misuse of it.  Next time, Dear Climate, I promise to take a boat.  A bicycle-powered boat.

I sit between two crying babies and watch Jules Verne's 80 Days Around the World.
When I arrive in  Jordan  I first find my bicycle and see the box has been ripped apart like an angry trapped cat escaped and blue tape across it saying it was chosen for inspection.
But it is there.
I walk out to a sea of strange faces and find one familiar, a blonde scruffy beard of a smiling Norwegian I met in New York city at a party and, in blind faith he invites me to his family's home in Amman.  On the drive over, he regales me with tales of his adventures throughout the Middle East, finding employment for Iraqis who have been injured by landmines, walking across Jericho, working in Palestinian refugee camps. He told me he someday would like to make a book of tattoos he has seen in  refugee camps.  A lot of them have to do with electricity.  A socket. a television.  so they have their own power source on them whenever they want.  One guy had the image of his girlfriend inked and yet it wasn't very flattering and made her look like she was in a wheelchair so she dumped him.

Early the next morning I meet my friends for coffee, a Syrian theater director and a Palestinian puppeteer, and we rap about revolution, the massacre of the Syrian people, the fear of where Egypt is heading, the not knowing of the Jordanian people for what they want keeping them paralyzed.   A sobering conversation.   And then we're off to the red dusty desert of Wadi Rum where camels race and bedouins camp under the stars.

Husam invites me to co-teach a storytelling workshop at the Women's Association in Disa.
The Association was created because of the serious lack of employment and activities for women in the region.  They are trained in ceramics which get sold to tourists in Aqaba and a beauty salon and, also now storytelling and theater.  Husam is teaching them how to tell personal stories as well collecting stories of elders in their community.   We begin with physical and vocal warm-ups and I have to think fast on my feet for how to adjust exercises for a group who have clothing and movement restrictions.  and though the girls giggle at some of the actions, they jump in bravely and one of the most physically expressive and comical girls is in a full hejab and veil.   They tell stories of death, bus incidents and mistaken identity.  One girl tells a funny story of how a young man mistook her for his aunt because of her veil and kissed her on the head.   Later on, when I was taking a moment to draw portraits of the girls, the same girl told me to draw her because it would be easy; just her eyes.   They break into song and dance in the middle of games and drill me about football, which they all follow ravenously.  They love Barcelona.  An older Bedouin man visits to tell stories and play a string instrument he built with horse tail, an old x-ray and wood.  Every 30 seconds on cue, the string pops out of its holder, striking the instrument with a big THWAP which makes us all jump and he has to readjust over and over, with a smile and only hint of frustration.   He's like a Bedouin Harpo Marx.  He says he's a hunter and has just returned from the hunt.  When we ask what, he goes out and returns with a beautiful green and red bird tied to a string.  It flies frantically in circles around the room.  He caught it so it will eat bees in his tent.   As he played, Husam secretly wandered off to set it free.

The founder of the association takes me out to dinner at a Bedouin camp and a group of local girls drag me into belly dancing around the fire pit.  The head of the camp comes to visit us and tells me how he invites Dutch companies to stay there for leadership training, climbing mountains, riding camels, building tents together.  But I find this a little ironic that he is using the ancient Bedouin lifestyle to assist corporations to be better capitalists so they can generate work which is most likely contributing to the destruction of cultures like his own.
The next day of workshop was better than the last.  I have more chances to play with the girls.  We improvise on our feet generating stories out of physical exercises and tableaux.  Fight and struggle keeps cropping up again and again in their work.   They strike poses with their fists in the air.

After the weekend workshop, I head back to Amman and the next day I bicycle out to Shuna to visit a permaculture site, the first in Jordan.  The Dead Sea is more and more living up to its name and losing water by the minute.    When Palestinian refugees immigrated into the surrounding area and began farming, they quickly adopted western ways and introduced pesticides, GMOs; monoculture.   Big, colorful, flawless crops- full of chemicals that soak up so much water the area can't sustain it.   The permaculture site, Greening the Desert project, began by Australian agriculturalist, Geoff Lawton, is only 3 years old and moves much more slowly than the Monsanto style model.
I biked through the devastatingly beautiful mountains, sailing down through waves of repressive heat and horrendous pollution but the visuals made up for my decreasing lung power.   I arrived at the site in the midday blazing sun to be met by a young Frenchman with a pile of dreadlocks stuffed back with a dirty bandana.  He is currently leading the expedition.  He had been building a haystack house all day long in preparation for the world Permaculture convention in September.   He gave me the full tour of their small plot of land, trying to bite his tongue on his frustrations with the problems in the design of the site which is really meant to be a demonstration site.   He is an anarchist and said once he learned about permaculture, he saw that was the perfect way to construct the revolution.  Plants working together to sustain life on earth, and humans just assisting nature in doing what it already knows how to do brilliantly.   He said slowly but surely it is having an effect.  Local farmers come around and see the permaculture crops survived even in the heat of summer and they see how cool and effective the straw houses are.  It takes time.  Real solid change takes time.

I biked on to the Dead Sea with children running alongside me shouting, "Barcelona!"
I found an isolated beach to take a dip and while floating perfectly in the salty bath, gazing at Palestine a few miles away, feeling totally alone, a group of six men suddenly appear from over the ridge.  They must have seen my bicycle.  
One jumps in the water and wades over to me.   I get out and start putting my clothes on over my bathing suit, they come closer to me and I clap my hands together, "HALLAS!  Yella!"  Stop!    They go together to confer and decide to walk off in a huff and leave me in peace.  I walk quickly in the other direction with a clay mask all over my face and arms and white residue of salt covering my body.
 It all seemed too perfect so far.  Something a little dangerous had to happen to ground me again.

just the first few days....