Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Year in review
I have gone through many changes in my life over the last year and have seen and learned many things. I have lived with some of the richest people in the world and some of the poorest. I have lived aboard a sail boat, paid rent on two islands and two countries on two different continents. I have traveled through 12 countries and am now in the airport headed to Costa Rica where I will spend the next few months. I have seen some amazing things and have been through some difficult situations.
I started 2007 with a good career in a successful business in Hawaii. Decided I was cheating myself and my dreams so I quite my job and to travel the world. A few weeks after I left my job I jumped on a sail boat and set sail for California. After many mishaps we had to throw in the towel and return to Hawaii. Once back on the paradise island I bought a one way ticket for Thailand, rented an apartment in Bangkok and quickly settled into life in the capital.
While in Thailand I dined on frogs, squirrels, and bee larva while trekking through the remote northern Thailand jungles. I commuted on long tail boats in the canals of Bangkok, practiced yoga daily with my big brother (actually smaller but he looks much older), and snorkeled the waters of the Thai islands.
I have ridden on motorcycles through the congested streets of Kathmandu dodging cars, people, buses, and cows. I have trekked the spectacular Himalayan mountains led by Sherpas I bunji jumped the worlds 2nd highest bunji jump 4 kilometers south of Tibetan border (little did I know at the time that 5 months later I would be seeing the worlds largest bunji jump in Africa).
I spent 4 months bar tending in Nantucket one of the most exclusive islands in the world. With the money I made there I jumped on a plane and headed to Africa. Once in Africa I rented a car, bought a map, and put the rubber to the road. I traversed 8,000 miles of this massive and awe inspiring continent. I walked among Zebras, listened to wild lions drinking water 15 feet from me, drove through packs of African wild dogs (one of the rarest and most endangered animals in the world), watched Hippos walk past my campsite at night, fought off jackals trying to raid my campsite, ate wildebeest, warthog, springbok and much more. I saw herds of thousands of animals migrating to watering holes in Northern Namibia. Jumped on a piece of cardboard and rode 70 KPH down the worlds largest sand dunes in the world. I tracked a 15 ft long boa constrictor in the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. I drove through the barren Kalahari desert, visited one of the most unstable countries in the world (Zimbabwe), saw the massive division between the rich and poor in South Africa and attempted to get treatment at a bullet ridden hospital in Namibia.
I returned home for Christmas where I spent an amazing month relaxing with my mom, dad, brother, and step father. I then shredded the largest ski resort in North America (Vail) with one of my best friends and my cousin and am now headed down to the tropical paradise of Costa Rica.
I have learned some invaluable lessons on these trips. Some of which I am sure I won't realize for years to come. I've learned not be judgemental. Everyone comes from a different background and holds different values. I have learned that I have no right to judge anyone based upon my values and my experiences. I have learned to be more relaxed and to not demand so much information. What I mean by this is in the culture I was raised in we always need to know the minute details regardless of their importance. We need to know things that really have no effect upon us. We worry about things that we have no control over and we try to control things which cannot be controlled.
After traveling for 2 months in Africa with only a small 'carry on' bag I learned that the less I own the better. There is nothing that I really need in life in regards to material possessions. In the culture of America we are taught that the more we have, the bigger things we own, the happier we will be. What happens however is the things we own end up owning us (Tyler Durden). We spend our lives thinking about all the material possessions that we need in order to make us happy when all we truly need can be found within ourselves. I spent three years in Hawaii spending money on things I did not need.
On my travels this year some of the happiest people I have seen have been some of the poorest. Most importantly however, I have reinforced the fact that this world is huge and the differences among the people even bigger. In order for us to really understand who we are we need to know who everyone else is. I think it is important but once again that is only my opinion which comes from my experiences. My thoughts are no better nor no worse than anyone else out there.
I started 2007 with a good career in a successful business in Hawaii. Decided I was cheating myself and my dreams so I quite my job and to travel the world. A few weeks after I left my job I jumped on a sail boat and set sail for California. After many mishaps we had to throw in the towel and return to Hawaii. Once back on the paradise island I bought a one way ticket for Thailand, rented an apartment in Bangkok and quickly settled into life in the capital.
While in Thailand I dined on frogs, squirrels, and bee larva while trekking through the remote northern Thailand jungles. I commuted on long tail boats in the canals of Bangkok, practiced yoga daily with my big brother (actually smaller but he looks much older), and snorkeled the waters of the Thai islands.
I have ridden on motorcycles through the congested streets of Kathmandu dodging cars, people, buses, and cows. I have trekked the spectacular Himalayan mountains led by Sherpas I bunji jumped the worlds 2nd highest bunji jump 4 kilometers south of Tibetan border (little did I know at the time that 5 months later I would be seeing the worlds largest bunji jump in Africa).
I spent 4 months bar tending in Nantucket one of the most exclusive islands in the world. With the money I made there I jumped on a plane and headed to Africa. Once in Africa I rented a car, bought a map, and put the rubber to the road. I traversed 8,000 miles of this massive and awe inspiring continent. I walked among Zebras, listened to wild lions drinking water 15 feet from me, drove through packs of African wild dogs (one of the rarest and most endangered animals in the world), watched Hippos walk past my campsite at night, fought off jackals trying to raid my campsite, ate wildebeest, warthog, springbok and much more. I saw herds of thousands of animals migrating to watering holes in Northern Namibia. Jumped on a piece of cardboard and rode 70 KPH down the worlds largest sand dunes in the world. I tracked a 15 ft long boa constrictor in the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. I drove through the barren Kalahari desert, visited one of the most unstable countries in the world (Zimbabwe), saw the massive division between the rich and poor in South Africa and attempted to get treatment at a bullet ridden hospital in Namibia.
I returned home for Christmas where I spent an amazing month relaxing with my mom, dad, brother, and step father. I then shredded the largest ski resort in North America (Vail) with one of my best friends and my cousin and am now headed down to the tropical paradise of Costa Rica.
I have learned some invaluable lessons on these trips. Some of which I am sure I won't realize for years to come. I've learned not be judgemental. Everyone comes from a different background and holds different values. I have learned that I have no right to judge anyone based upon my values and my experiences. I have learned to be more relaxed and to not demand so much information. What I mean by this is in the culture I was raised in we always need to know the minute details regardless of their importance. We need to know things that really have no effect upon us. We worry about things that we have no control over and we try to control things which cannot be controlled.
After traveling for 2 months in Africa with only a small 'carry on' bag I learned that the less I own the better. There is nothing that I really need in life in regards to material possessions. In the culture of America we are taught that the more we have, the bigger things we own, the happier we will be. What happens however is the things we own end up owning us (Tyler Durden). We spend our lives thinking about all the material possessions that we need in order to make us happy when all we truly need can be found within ourselves. I spent three years in Hawaii spending money on things I did not need.
On my travels this year some of the happiest people I have seen have been some of the poorest. Most importantly however, I have reinforced the fact that this world is huge and the differences among the people even bigger. In order for us to really understand who we are we need to know who everyone else is. I think it is important but once again that is only my opinion which comes from my experiences. My thoughts are no better nor no worse than anyone else out there.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
African Odyssey
This is a compilation of a few of the videos we took in Africa. Sign me up for the short film of the year award. Don't be afraid to leave a comment after you view this masterpiece. Turn the volume up and enjoy
Friday, January 4, 2008
Benny's village
One of the biggest differences I have noticed in my travels over the years between American culture and the developing world is our dealing in exacts: our need for information. What I mean by this is that in the US if you are asked why you do something you generally know the answer and you give it. We need explanations for everything. Traveling in other countries this need for answers can sometimes be very frustrating: they don't always exist. Simple questions such as, how long do we need to wait here? or What time are we going get back to camp? How long will it take us to walk to the top of the mountain?
These are all questions that really do not need to be asked because the answer will not change anything at all. What I have also noticed in certain places is that often times the answer you get will be a blatant lie. People will tell you what they think you want to hear. For instance if they think that you want it to take all day to reach the top of the mountain they will tell you exactly that. It does not matter that they know you will realize in an hour they were not telling the truth.
What I now try to do when I am about to ask a question is I think about if I really need to know the answer. For instance if I need to wait for someone it really does not matter if I know how long I need to wait or not. The fact of the matter is I need to wait and so it does not matter if I know for how long. Also when you don't always know all the minute details it adds a extra sense of adventure.
Well, when we got to Benny's village this was one of the times I did not ask any of the questions that were going through my mind. I just went along for the ride. What we saw at the village was very sad and upsetting for me.
These are all questions that really do not need to be asked because the answer will not change anything at all. What I have also noticed in certain places is that often times the answer you get will be a blatant lie. People will tell you what they think you want to hear. For instance if they think that you want it to take all day to reach the top of the mountain they will tell you exactly that. It does not matter that they know you will realize in an hour they were not telling the truth.
What I now try to do when I am about to ask a question is I think about if I really need to know the answer. For instance if I need to wait for someone it really does not matter if I know how long I need to wait or not. The fact of the matter is I need to wait and so it does not matter if I know for how long. Also when you don't always know all the minute details it adds a extra sense of adventure.
Well, when we got to Benny's village this was one of the times I did not ask any of the questions that were going through my mind. I just went along for the ride. What we saw at the village was very sad and upsetting for me.
Benny took us around the village introducing us to people and showing us how they lived. He wanted us to try some of the local beer. There were 3 or 4 types of beer that they made in the village and we went around and tasted them all. The beers were brewed in big barrels and then scooped out with a cup and passed around in this manner. The beer is made from nuts from the jungle, water, and sugar. It is served warm with the taste being varying degrees of gross. Nevertheless, it was fun to try the beer.
The houses were interesting to see. First they make a circular wooden structure with only a few pieces of thin saplings. The space between the saplings was filled with beer cans (for added stability) and mud. The houses were circular and ten feet in diameter. There was a dirt floor and families of anywhere between 4 and 8 people would live inside the one room adobe. There were a few makeshift stores in the village where the polers lucky enough to receive a good tip the day before could buy cigarettes, small candies, and cold black label beer (a beer popular throughout southern and central Africa). There were two or three bathrooms for the whole village and no electricity.
As we walked around the village I started to realize something. Everybody was drunk. It was about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and everyone was just sitting around drinking beer and booze. What happens is this: there are 170 polers in the village. They get work on a rotating basis. In the winter time (slow season) once they get a job going into the delta they have to wait about 10 days before they will have the chance to work again. All the polers go down to the water in the morning hoping that tourists will come by looking for a guide. If there is no work by 10:00 am they toss in the towel. They go back to the village and sit around getting drunk on cheap booze. When the polers receive a big tip they don't save the money but instead spend it on expensive alcohol (bottled beer and whiskey) and drugs. The children growing up in the village have these men as role models. This is the education they are given on how to be a man. There was no school in the village that I saw and if there was one I could only imagine who the teachers could have been.
I began to think about the polers and how they lived their lives. It seemed to me like they had no motivation, no desire, no urge to better themselves, to make more of their life. I thought about what I would do if I was in their situation. How I would be saving the money to start my own business. Instead of drinking my life away I would be reading and studying to make myself more knowledgeable about the world. At first it baffled me how they could not see the opportunities they could make for themselves but I quickly realized the faults of my thinking. I cannot compare how I would react in a similar situation to how they deal with it. Our backgrounds are completely different. I was raised by parents who valued education. Both my father and step father have their PhDs, my mother has her masters, I was encouraged (and often forced) to study daily while I was growing up. I was surrounded by positive role models and parents encouraging me to make the most out of my life. I was given a great education at a good University. I was taught from a young age that I could do anything I put my mind to.
The polers on the other hand had a very different upbringing in a very different part of the world. They had little education and the role models they had you have just heard me talk about. The life expectancy in Botswana is 32 by 2010 it is going to be 27 (mostly due to HIV). Children are raised by their grandparents or friends of their grandparents. Southern Africa is raising a generation of people with no parents. The education in rural Africa is a joke. The children see people dieing all around them. Why would the young polers have anymore desire than they had? They probably don't expect to live much longer seeing how no one else they know does.
Realizing this was sad for me. I had given Benny a big tip and I knew now that he was only going to spend it on drugs and alcohol (I later found out that is exactly what he did). The children I met growing up in the village had little chance to make something different of their lives. The only way they could do so was with education. I had been thinking about education being the way to help rural communities for sometime now on this trip. I often thought of the old saying "you can give a man a fish and he will eat for a day or you can teach a man to fish and he will eat for life." Without education people cannot know all their is out there in life. They cannot know they can do anything they want.
This entry did not go exactly as I wanted it to but it was the same message. We went to a wedding the following day with Benny and it was a pretty bad experience. There is no reason to tell about it because after reading the above you can pretty much guess what happened. After leaving the Okavango Delta I often think about the dire need for education of the poor and poverty stricken in this world. People need to make changes themselves and education is the key to the door of change.
The houses were interesting to see. First they make a circular wooden structure with only a few pieces of thin saplings. The space between the saplings was filled with beer cans (for added stability) and mud. The houses were circular and ten feet in diameter. There was a dirt floor and families of anywhere between 4 and 8 people would live inside the one room adobe. There were a few makeshift stores in the village where the polers lucky enough to receive a good tip the day before could buy cigarettes, small candies, and cold black label beer (a beer popular throughout southern and central Africa). There were two or three bathrooms for the whole village and no electricity.
As we walked around the village I started to realize something. Everybody was drunk. It was about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and everyone was just sitting around drinking beer and booze. What happens is this: there are 170 polers in the village. They get work on a rotating basis. In the winter time (slow season) once they get a job going into the delta they have to wait about 10 days before they will have the chance to work again. All the polers go down to the water in the morning hoping that tourists will come by looking for a guide. If there is no work by 10:00 am they toss in the towel. They go back to the village and sit around getting drunk on cheap booze. When the polers receive a big tip they don't save the money but instead spend it on expensive alcohol (bottled beer and whiskey) and drugs. The children growing up in the village have these men as role models. This is the education they are given on how to be a man. There was no school in the village that I saw and if there was one I could only imagine who the teachers could have been.
I began to think about the polers and how they lived their lives. It seemed to me like they had no motivation, no desire, no urge to better themselves, to make more of their life. I thought about what I would do if I was in their situation. How I would be saving the money to start my own business. Instead of drinking my life away I would be reading and studying to make myself more knowledgeable about the world. At first it baffled me how they could not see the opportunities they could make for themselves but I quickly realized the faults of my thinking. I cannot compare how I would react in a similar situation to how they deal with it. Our backgrounds are completely different. I was raised by parents who valued education. Both my father and step father have their PhDs, my mother has her masters, I was encouraged (and often forced) to study daily while I was growing up. I was surrounded by positive role models and parents encouraging me to make the most out of my life. I was given a great education at a good University. I was taught from a young age that I could do anything I put my mind to.
The polers on the other hand had a very different upbringing in a very different part of the world. They had little education and the role models they had you have just heard me talk about. The life expectancy in Botswana is 32 by 2010 it is going to be 27 (mostly due to HIV). Children are raised by their grandparents or friends of their grandparents. Southern Africa is raising a generation of people with no parents. The education in rural Africa is a joke. The children see people dieing all around them. Why would the young polers have anymore desire than they had? They probably don't expect to live much longer seeing how no one else they know does.
Realizing this was sad for me. I had given Benny a big tip and I knew now that he was only going to spend it on drugs and alcohol (I later found out that is exactly what he did). The children I met growing up in the village had little chance to make something different of their lives. The only way they could do so was with education. I had been thinking about education being the way to help rural communities for sometime now on this trip. I often thought of the old saying "you can give a man a fish and he will eat for a day or you can teach a man to fish and he will eat for life." Without education people cannot know all their is out there in life. They cannot know they can do anything they want.
This entry did not go exactly as I wanted it to but it was the same message. We went to a wedding the following day with Benny and it was a pretty bad experience. There is no reason to tell about it because after reading the above you can pretty much guess what happened. After leaving the Okavango Delta I often think about the dire need for education of the poor and poverty stricken in this world. People need to make changes themselves and education is the key to the door of change.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Sand Surfing
Here is a video of me sand surfing in Namibia. I hurt my back so bad that I could not walk very well for a few weeks. It was a whole lot of fun though. I made a blog entry about the surfing and here is the video. Just click play below
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