a different country, March 5, 2012

So this is it. I was going to say it's the ending chapter, but life doesn't come in episodes, not really- it never fades to black and credits roll. You just get to tackle a new set of lessons, maybe with a new cast of people, and the older stuff you didn't deal with comes back, and the newer stuff gets dealt with better, and etc, ad mortem.

What to say? maybe a list of people who are learning cob with us.

Taiga and Masa-aki are two Japanese dudes who have been re-teaching me the Japanese that I learnt as a young boy and never spoke. Masa comes from a small (10 person) community in Japan. He says he started cobbing a house with his friends, got to the windows, and didn't know what to do, so he took this workshop. Taiga plays didge. we met him before on the beach on Mayne Island, BC.

Mark is a reMarkable man who quit his environmental job with Esso and started walking the walk. He tells me that Calgary is becoming remarkable progressive. Did you know they have more than 100 community gardens, most of which are very recent?

Ali and Sandra are two very artful girls from Vancouver. They have turned their house into a haunted walk-through play at least once. Sandra can handle a machete and knows massage. Ali has a labyrinth tattooed into the side of her head.

Daniel is a Mexican dude from Veracruz, which he pronounces Beracruz. He tells me all sorts of good things about Spanish and Mexican food, and he swears to me that there's a really good dirt called Chojoste that you can eat in Veracruz.

Cabell is from West Virginia. She only rarely says Yall. I tell her about once or twice a week to not take the last avocado, or the wall will fall down. She still believes me for at least a second.

Kelly, Bryce, and Annabelle are all here with me. We are sticking together as a family, but we're also been absorbed into the midst of all these people.

I thought I would write about everybody but I realise now that since you don't know them, there's not a lot of point. The real point is, 14 people are here learning how to build a house that doesn't require fiberglass, concrete, putting shit into the earth or taking too much shit out. This is a powerful fact- and I recall now that I never thought activism would ever be an easy or enjoyable thing, but we make it so.

I am reading Chocolat, the book that the movie was based on, and reminding myself that a gypsy can settle down. Glory be!

It also occurs to me that I learnt French in California and now I'm learning Japanese and Spanish in Mexico. Mi cabeza is a little soupy tokidoki.

on the bright side with all this lifting watashi wa cho tsuyoii desu yo!
(I am frickin' strong!)

Bashu out!

P.s. this is where we're staying (it ain't all peaches and cream... but it's pretty peachy):