Tanto Tiempo

Hello everyone, it’s been a little while, huh?

Now that I have a little break from work and I’m not exhausted, I’ll catch y’all up on what I’ve been up to.

Right now I’m in Aguascalientes, Mexico. I’ve been here for 2 1/2 weeks and will be here for another week 1/2. I left the cast in Finland to come to Mexico early cuz I was offered a PR internship here. This is a position that isn’t applied for but they choose who they think would be good at it. I think the fact that I told them 2 or 3 times that I was interested, the fact that I’m a dude (cuz there are just too many chicks doing this job) and I speak a little Spanish really helped my chances of getting this internship.

My job has consisted mostly of finding host families for all 120 of our students. My days have consisted of going to meetings, presenting in schools and clubs, stressing about finding hosting families, stressing because the two chicks I work with are very generous and love to share their abundant stress. Stressing cuz relations here have been stressed cuz the people who work here have much different ways of doing things and the two chicks here hate our sponsor and our drivers and all that. I’m glad that we’re not here for very much longer cuz I don’t think they could stand each other very much longer. I’m kind of caught in the middle a bunch of times cuz the two chicks, their names are Veronika and Kelly, complain to me about the people we’re working with, and the people we’re working with like to complain to me about Kelly and Vero… so that’s fun for me. I can see where both are coming from the people we work with are always late picking us up and boss us around and our sponsor thinks that he’s our boss. In our job we usually get our own car, set up our own meetings, and talk to the sponsor like once or twice a week to keep them filled in. So needless to say this has been a bit of an unusual setup. What’s more unusual, get this, our sponsor who thinks he’s our boss is this party animal midget who bosses us around by day and by night always wants to take us out when we’re exhausted and won’t let us leave the club or bar (cuz he always drives) until like 3 in the morning. I have stopped going out with him and have stopped interacting socially cuz the guy’s just a jerk. On the other hand one of the girls I work with really clashes with my personality and I’m looking forward to no longer working with her, the other is ok most of the time but I’m looking forward to this being over and being a regular student again. We went to like 6 church services this past Sunday and were able to get all the families we needed though so that’s a relief and we as a team feel a bit more relaxed, so tthhhaaattt”ssss gooood.

We have done some fun stuff too. The biggest fair in Latin America just ended so we got to enjoy a ton of live music, cheap drinks and food, and just a cool, lively atmosphere a lot of the time. My host family is awesome. My host brother Cristhian and I have really hit it off and have become good friends, he’s a really good dude. His mom also I spend a lot of time with and she’s very nice and lively and just fun and pleasant to be around.

I think the Mexican culture is fascinating. There is a lot about it that doesn’t fascinate me in a good way, like the machismo and sexism that is ever present. Since the houses are pretty tightly packed the sense of community here is very tight as well. All the neighbors know each other and the little kid from across the street (who actually is the little brother of our sponsor) comes over all the time to swim and play video games, so he’s a lot of fun to mess around with. He loves my Ipad, haha.

There are two things that I wanted to see coming to Mexico: A bullfight and Lucha Libre (wrestling). I went to a bullfight about a week ago and it was extremely interesting. Very conflicting emotions there because it was actually very exciting and very fun to watch. It was really a shame to watch those beautiful animals die in the end, but while it was going on the whole environment of the sport was really fun. The whole crowd shouting “Olé!” each time the bull charged, the trumpets that signal the beginning and end of each phase of each fight, the crowd yelling and heckling a torero that moved his feet or got scared… It was really a lot of fun I have to admit. One of my favorite parts was at the end when the bull was killed they removed it from the arena with two of the most gigantic, gorgeous horses that I have ever seen. I really enjoyed just watching those animals trot around the arena.

This weekend if we get enough work done I’m gonna go to San Luis Potosí where the son and daughter of my host family live. I’m gonna go to a quinciñera , which is basically a sweet sixteen party but it’s when they turn fifteen instead. And hopefully I’ll get to go to a Lucha Libre fight, gonna buy a wrestling mask, haha.

The very catholic culture is super interesting to observe as well. People don’t openly talk about it very often but everyone wears bracelets and necklaces with the different saints on them, and they always cross themselves with their hands at seemingly random times. It’s a little morbid to think that everybody here is catholic because the Spanish came and physically forced them to convert as they practically destroyed their culture…but you know, stuff happens.

This has been a good experience for me. I have worked a job that I was very curious about. All my questions about this organization have been answered. I have accomplished what I was supposed to accomplish in a job that doesn’t necessarily highlight my strengths. I have learned to work effectively with people who are either hard to work with or who I just straight don’t like. With that being said, I made the right choice not to apply for this job for next semester. I have talked to other PRs and they have said that I’m working under hard circumstances and it’s not always like this, and that if I gave it a chance I would like it, but I have my doubts. I don’t hate this work but I don’t like it either. I’m super happy I did it as I knew I would be, and I’m super stoked for the rest of the cast to get here in less than a week.

I have also realized just how good a friends I have made here. People that make me very happy. I almost wish they weren’t coming just so I don’t have to say goodbye to them again in three weeks.

That’s all for now, I know I say this every time but I’ll try and post more often… like when something interesting happens, haha.

OK people, I’ll catch y’all later,
Cona

whocaresaboutarchitecture:

“There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799) 

Image found on ffffound

I’ve noticed a very real and very fundamental change within myself. I am happy, all the time. Everything we do from education workshops, dance warmups, performing, CI… I am able to find joy in everything we’re doing. I have changed from liking this program, to loving it. I think it is rare to realize how much you love something as you’re doing it, usually, or a lot of times, you realize how much it meant after it’s gone. This week in Stockholm has made me realize and be very aware of how much fun, laughter, and just good times I am having. I have realized how close I have actually gotten to the people around me, and it’s just an awesome feeling.

Shtockholm , Shveden

So, my Scandinavian tour is coming to a close. I’m writing this from the big, warm, comfortable kitchen of my Swedish host family. Everyone else in the group left today for another city in Sweden and then onward to Finland after that, but I have been left behind. Not because of a mistake or anything but because my internship in Mexico is looming. I fly to Mexico City at 9:40 on the morning of Wednesday day after tomorrow.

As I leave Europe I have begun to reflect on my time here. In a nutshell, Belgium was cute, Denmark was very fun and really just a very pleasant time. I think that was due to the fact that my host family was so fun to be around and showed me such a good time. Norway was a bit underwhelming but I attribute that to the fact that it was raining the whole time, we hung out in a portion of the city that was undergoing a lot of construction, I got real sick for a couple of days, we didn’t have any time to actually explore the city and it was super expensive. So all of this together I think gave me an inaccurate view of Oslo. I’m sure if I went again under different circumstances I would really enjoy it. Stockholm has been by far my favorite city in Europe. The city is actually a series of islands so there are canals, boats, and large bodies of water everywhere. We got a bunch of time to explore it by ourselves and I have gotten to know it pretty well. The city seems to be a bunch of different shades of yellow. The architecture of the buildings, the cobblestone streets in the older part of the city, and all the water has really given me a very positive view of Stockholm and I would recommend it. Also, they sell MATE here, I just restocked and am happy as a clam.

I’m excited as hell to go to Mexico. Mexico is the region of the world that I was looking forward to going to most and the fact that I get to spend an extra month there doing this internship is just too awesome. I’ll be speaking spanish which I love, and just the culture and the food I am more familiar with and know that I like it already. Also, my two coworkers are tall (taller than me), beautiful blonde girls (one is Swedish and one is American) so I get to roll around Mejico lookin like an absolute boss. My internship is as a Promotions Representative, which means I am one of three people responsible for setting up the city and getting it ready for the cast to come. This entails finding all the host families, community projects to do, scheduling, finding sponsors, donations like food and transportation, creating the schedule, and all the logistics that goes into bringing a huge cast into a city. I’ve heard that the sponsors that I get to interact with are super cool, chill people (one is apparently a midget who loves to party so I’m anticipating good times there). The fact that we have so much responsibility will be a great challenge and and great relief. I have thoroughly enjoyed this trip but have been given no responsibilities and really haven’t been challenged in that capacity. It’s good to feel like what you’re doing makes a difference in the program and this internship will be exactly that, that is an understatement. I’m nervous because a lot of what this job entails involves skills that I tend to put in my “weaknesses” column, but super excited because it will be good to push myself and see what I can do under stress. I’m really just excited to be busy again. Like we do stuff all day but we do what we have to because it is prescheduled. It is a cool feeling to have a bunch to do and nobody is there to tell you when and how to do it. You just have to get it done at your own pace and how you want. If you want a break, take one, but make sure the work gets done. That’s exciting to me, to be able just to manage my own time, even though my actual free time will be much less, that’s ok.

So now I’m just enjoying Stockholm doing some prep work, and looking forward to what I expect to be the absolute highlight of my trip. Not only this internship but performing in Mexico afterward, apparently they go crazy for us.

I had to say goodbye to everybody today, and I didn’t think it would be that hard. I realized that I have made some extremely good friends, and I look forward to kickin it with them again.

But first, business for the businessman.
See y’all in Mexico
Cona

We made a cake :)

So, Happy Easter everyone! Danish Easter is indeed a day of merriment. We got to sleep in really late, which these days means about 10:00. We got up and went easter egg hunting with their two daughters and son, but it really wasn’t like American easter. We hunted but each of us only had to find one thing, and that was a tremendous plastic easter egg with all kinds of goodies inside. Mine also contained a couple presents which were a pair of goofy rainbow socks, and a book of fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson. This last thing actually is a ridiculously cool present. H.C. Anderson is one of the most famous fairy tale writers in history and I really enjoy short stories like the ones he writes.

So after that we started painting eggs. There were five of us and there were five eggs for us to decorate. After we got done with our egg, they took me outside and explained that we were gonna take sticks and hit these eggs around the pond in their backyard in a race to see who could finish first. They then told me that four of the eggs were hard-boiled, and one was left raw, lol. So we hit the eggs around with sticks and my host mom quickly found out that she was the one with the raw egg, and their 10 year old son won the race. After that they came out with two more eggs, one boiled, one raw, and we began to play catch with all the eggs, haha. We just tossed them to the person to our left as quickly as we could until the egg broke, it was actually pretty intense at times. We then proceeded to have easter lunch which they tell me is usually about four hours long. Yeah dude, four hours. Apparently they just bring out a series of small dishes like salmon and herring and pork and they put it all on sandwiches and eat it up. Today we had a shortened version though because we had plans to go play mini golf and go for a walk on the beach.

Right now we just got back from the beach and they’re preparing dinna, they got a huge fire going in their backyard and we’re about to straight chill on it, all night. Tomorrow I’m off for Norway and I’lll hit you up when I get there, lata.

Cona b

So, here I am. Actually I have been here for like 3 weeks but have had a tough time coming by a house with internet sooo writing in my blog has been difficult. That’s a little bit of a lame excuse because I have had some chances but have also just been too lazy, apologies. Anyways I’m in Denmark now and am fixin’ to go to Norway here in a couple of days, but I thought I’d just fill y’all in on what’s been goin’ on these past couple of weeks.

We flew into Brussels in Belgium and took a short bus ride to Hasselt where we spent our first couple of days. We did a couple of shows and I spent our CI days in dance workshops to improve what I was sucking at so I didn’t get to go to CI. We then went to Vise, where I did get to go on one CI that I really enjoyed. We went to a school where all the children are mentally or physically handicapped in some way, and we spent the day playing with them and getting to know them. A surprising number of them spoke English fairly well, but they all just wanted to have fun so the language wasn’t a problem even for the ones that didn’t. After that we did a show for them and they all loved it. The third city in Belgium was Gistel. Nothing too memorable happened there as far as the show or CIs went. My host family in Hasselt was one of my favorites that I’ve had. She was a single mother whose kid was with her husband that she had divorced for the week so it was just the two of us. She was awesome, though. She was all about good conversations and going out at night and was just super cool about everything. My host family in Vise was an older couple who spoke zero English, only French. That was an interesting experience spending a half hour trying to ask them how to say “you’re welcome” in French. They were nice, but we didn’t get to know them at all and that was a bit frustrating. Also, we walked to our meeting spot in the morning and on the second to last morning our host mom fell as she was walking back and broke her hip. We had to stay in another families house that night which was fine, but it just really sucked for her that that had to happen. My last family in Gistel was actually a family of another castmate that I’m traveling with. There were 5 of us staying in her mother’s house and so that was a different experience and also a lot of fun to basically just hang out only with other castmates and not worry about a separate host family life. That house was awesome too. It was in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Belgium right on the beach. As we biked around it was impressive the types of cars driving by us. It seemed like you were near the bottom of the barrel if you were driving a BMW instead of a Ferrari, haha. All in all Belgium was cool though, I think I could best describe it as cute, everything was cute but nothing was mind blowing.

Denmark has been amazing, I have been looving Denmark. I think part of it has been my host family, who is absolutely awesome. They are a young couple with three awesome kids, two daughters of 14 and 13 and a son of 10. Both of the parents are very youthful and hilarious and to see this family interact is very just… joyful. The house is always laughing and they cook like champs and the dad is the Danish fishing champion (I don’t know for what exactly just that he is), so that’s super cool.

Europe is interesting to me. It is interesting because I didn’t expect to like it as much as I do. The towns and roads and everything are cute, but I knew that they would be. What I love so much about it, and I can only speak about the places I’ve been to obviously, are the people. Belgium was nice, but the Danish people are all just so freakin friendly. Their way of life is easy and the society is just a very pleasant one to be in, I dig it. I dig Denmark.

In two days we go to Norway and I’m super stoked to get there.

I think that’s about all I have right now, I’m just in a really good place man, to be honest. I am content with the program I’m doing and everyday I’m just really happy to spend time with my people and I’m enjoying and show and all dat. Good times for Conor B.

Aight well, I’m watchin a movie with this family so I gotsta go, talk to y’all before too long, lata.

Heeelllooo

So we leave for Europe tomorrow. Goin to Belgium where we shall stay for 3 weeks or so, then on to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland (for everyone else, I’ll explain in a minute). I already know that I’m gonna be hosted by a family of one of the people in the cast, along with 5 other cast members. This means that basically we’ll just be hangin out with like 6 of us for a week on a Belgian beach (forgot to mention, it’s on a beach). So that’s not toooo shabby.

Before I look to far into the future, however, I’d like to just sit down, take a breath and fill y’all in on what has occurred in Tucson, AZ. There are really two things to talk about: Mexico and the Up With People Gala Dinner.

Five of us were chosen to go to Mexico. This was a day that everyone was out doing community projects in and around Tucson, and so the five of us were selected to do our community work in the bustling metropolis of Nogales, Mexico. Actually for the five of us this was more a day of learning rather than a day of helping. We started out by meeting with Father Shawn who has headed up this project called the Kino Border Initiative. The mission of the project is to “make the border region a humane place to be”. This is referring specifically to the waves of immigrants that pass by here as they are deported from the US. Up until 3 years ago when he started, the people who were deported there were kind of in an awkward place. They rarely had the money to go back to their families, many were in need of medical attention, and many had been separated from their husbands, wives, and children. So he created this project that provides two meals a day specifically to people who have just been deported. It provides a safehouse for women and children to stay for up to a week, and it also has a small clinic that provides immediate medical care to those who need it.

So we met up with him and spent the morning passing out food and refreshments to the people who came in. After we were finished with this we were able to sit down and talk with them. Some of them were reluctant to share their stories, some people didn’t want to talk to us at all, but most people we talked to were willing to share their experiences and their current situation. Everyone had a different story. This one guy who had lived in Houston for two years had just spent 15 days in the desert. He taught us which cactus was the best to get nourishment from when the water ran out. He taught us that the Mexican Mafia controls the border and they set up checkpoints where they demand a fee in order for the immigrants to pass. We talked to this one man who had legally moved to Arizona, but the processing of his paperwork took a long time and during that time he was in a small car accident. He was arrested and spent three months in prison where he experienced extreme racism and poor living conditions, being put together with true criminals who took advantage of his inexperience. We also met this man who had tried to cross 5 or 6 times and did it purely for the adventure of it. He was a successful business owner but wanted to write a book about his adventures in the desert so he kept coming back to cross.

Wherever you stand on the issue, regardless of who’s right and who’s wrong, these are the people that get the short end of the stick. They get screwed whether they stay or whether they go, and it was really a very powerful experience to hear these stories straight from the mouths of people who had lived them.

The second noteworthy aspect of our stay in Tucson was the gala performance we did two nights ago. There were a ton of alumni in attendance as well as many people responsible for the birth and growth of Up with People over the years. They had a traditional dance group from Mexico come in as well as some tribal drum players from Africa. The night was long and filled with… well, with old people talking about the old days, haha. It was very cool to get to meet these people though. The founder of up with people was a personal friend of Martin Luther King, as well as was on a first name basis with the king and queen of Belgium. So this dude was big time and he had an endless amount of stories to tell us. The actual performance was a shortened version of our show, with different add ons and additional people supplementing our talent… to put it nicely, haha. I wasn’t the emcee they had a local radio and television personality come in to do it, which was fine with me. All in all it was a success and I think the people enjoyed it, which is important because some of them paid up to $5000 for a table.

Other than that we have just been hangin out. We worked with a middle school set up for children from low income families to try and keep them off the streets. That was sort of our home base during our time here and we got to know some of the kids pretty well so that was fun.

uhhhh yeah, thasss bout it fa now. Next time we talk I’ll be on Belgian time, chau

Life is Good.

Here I am, kickin it in good ol’ Tucson Ay Zee. This video is of a hike that me and roommate Max went on today, which was a lot of fun and the weather was absolutely perfect, which is perfect.

Our host family is a nice old couple with two tiny little dogs and a sweet house with an incredible view of all the different kinds of cactus arizona has to offer.

We have gone on a couple of different CI sits, which is ust our community service projects’ nice little acronym which stands for Commmunity Impact. The first place I went to was a school called Second Street. This is a cool little school with sort of a different philosophy for their students. It’s basically a preschool or day care for kids aged 3-5, and the philosophy is play-based learning. So they spend most of the day outside interacting and playing with each other, which would have been sweet, thanks mom… But they learn the different preschool math and other skills by playing games that the teachers come up with and doing different arts and crafts aaannnddd, junk like that. Basically they will all grow to be nice, playful little hippies.

I asked the principal of the school, however, about the effectiveness of this kind of learning and how these kids fare in relation to their peers attending “normal” schools. She told me that as far as the academics went, these kids start somewhat behind the others. She also told me that by 1st or 2nd grade this difference has been completely made up for and they are no worse off than the other kids. Where she said the biggest differences lay are in the social skills and confidence that the kids possess from a young age. She says that the kids from this type of schgool consistently are the ones raising their hands in class, asking questions, and in general possess much stronger social and communication skills. So I thought that was very interesting to learn about.

The second CI site that I was able to go to was a school called Imago Dei (not sure about the spelling) middle school. This is another sort of alternative school that was exceedingly interesting. It was founded six years ago for kids whose parents have a very limited income. They have almost ten hour days where they go to class, have study time, and do different sports. They even have a half day on Saturday. This type of school is designed to keep these kids engaged with what is important, and that is their education. The idea is that if they are at school so long each day, then they won’t have time to get into trouble on the streets where they all come from. The vast majority of this school is hispanic with many of them being first generation Americans. So it was awesome being able to go in and talk with these kids and play some thought provoking games. We also did a dance lesson and help them out with tier garden that they have on the premises. I enjoyed this one more than the preschool because this age is the one that I feel most comfortable interacting with. 7th, 8th, 9th graders are old enough to start having opinions and all that, and I don’t have to talk down to them ,I can talk to them like a real person which is important. They are also young enough to not have experienced a ton (even though I know they have experienced way more than I did when I was their age), and are very impressionable still. There were a couple of kids that really got attached and spent the whole day just chatting with me about different stuff.

Yesterday, however, was the most interesting day so far in Arizona. In the morning we spent an hour listening to a presentation by the Border Patrol, or la Migra, who are in charge of making sure that everyone who is coming into the country is legal. So they had a lot of interesting things to say and gave me a website to search for more information on what they do and who they are and what they stand for. The point was to try and dispel some of the myths and misperceptions that people have about them.

The second group of people we listened to were actual immigrants from Mexico. They were all legal, and most were parents of children at Imago Dei middle school whose kids we had talked to just the day before. Very interesting stories. Much of what they said seemed to directly contradict what the border patrol officers had said. This upset a lot of people, however, if you just realize that the border patrol is putting it’s best foot forward and saying how things are according to theory, and that the immigrants may have left out certain details of their stories in order to make them more powerful and get people on their side, then it’s really not that hard to figure out why the disparity was so evident. So I just listened to each with equal respect and took everything I heard with a grain of salt (I learned well, father).

Today was very good times. Started off with a nice southwestern breakfast of eggs and spicy sausage with salsa. In the afternoon we went to a small acoustic concert which had a brazilian drummer who spiced up the music quite a bit. In the evening Max and I went on a hike through the Arizona bush.

Life is good right now. I’m satisfied with what we are doing and excited for what is to come.

‘Til next time, see y’all later.

Laying in bed. I’ve been without rugby for 7 months now. Is it bad that I can’t get to sleep because all I can think about is smashing some fool as hard as I can? I miss rugby dude.