Coincidences

What is it about the overlap of events that constitutes them being called "coincidences"?  Is it the quality and completeness of individual events leading to similar events or details, that warrants them being "coincidences"?  Or is it the frequency in which we register events or details, that makes us notice them several times, which in turn upgrades seemingly unimportant events to the status of "coincidence"?  In a recent email to my sister, I wrote:
"There have been weird coincidences happening lately, and I know coincidences just happen and maybe it's probability that makes you notice certain things a certain number of times, and disregard the non-important events as non-coincidences."


So how can I explain the spike of coincidences happening lately?  The frequency of events has been occurring at an alarming rate.


Examples will not do justice to the strength of the feelings behind the circumstances, yet merely serve to remind me of all this at a later time.


1. I went to the beach, without mentioning it to anyone back home. When I returned, I received an email from my sister saying she dreamt we were at a beach, and described the location, which was exactly laid out in her dream, the way I was there in reality.  (Hence leading to the email response about coincidences.)

2. I was in the middle of the jungle, reflecting upon my life, and I began to think about horse training.  And I mean, REALLY delve into it, as in an epiphany.  Giddy with delight at having tapped into some kind of gut feeling, we returned to the cabin where I was invited to watch a documentary about caves, and the trailer was about... you guessed it! Horse training. And not only that, but the song was off Pearl Jam's newer album that I've been needing to get, and there it was - my favorite song sung by Eddie Vedder.  (So if someone would like to help me out by obtaining both this Sundance film, and Pearl Jam's Backspacer album, I'd be happy to accept them.)


3. I met myself. My 50-something-year-old self.  Although I've met many people who remind me of me, or have had somewhat similar experiences, I don't think I've ever met mySELF.  And there I was.  After two lunch dates, I just sat back and smiled, and let the coincidences roll in. It was an overload, and we kept getting goosebumps at the same time as we talked about everything under the sun, and BOOM -- coincidence,  BOOM -- coincidence.  It got to the point where it became easier to point out events that were NOT coincidences or things we had in common.


4. Riding in a bus to work one day, I was watching the scenery go by.  My friend was in another seat across the aisle.  I witnessed a homeless man sitting under a tree, coddling something that looked like a blanket.  As the bus got closer, I saw it was a cat, and the man was hugging and kissing this cat, and it was so beautiful and touching, that I pointed it out to my friend, and went on about the human-animal bond.  She looked at me funny, and now I'm getting used to these looks from everyone around me, because she was in disbelief about the timing of my comment.  She pulled out the magazine she was reading and pointed to the article entitled "Human-Animal Bonds" in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums magazine.  


5.  I moved into my new apartment the day before yesterday.  I walked in and introduced myself to my new roommates.  The one who I'll share a room with, shares her name with the 50-year-old me in Item #3 above.  After some chatting, I find out her boyfriend is in the Peace Corps.  None of this may seem like a coincidence, but I'm not living with Peace Corps volunteers, but rather STRI fellows and interns and doctoral candidates.  


The list goes on and on.  Mostly events occurring in the last one to two weeks.


March 19, 2012: More to report.


6. Sitting in my new digs, writing this blog, I hear a knock on the door.  I open it, and there stand two Colombians looking for my Colombian roommate.  I recognize the one standing on the right, and we point fingers at each other and both say, "I know you."  Those initial moments are always entertaining, when the human brain searches through its repertoire of people and events, connecting puzzle pieces, figuring out WHAT WHERE WHEN and HOW you know the WHO.  Then I recall being briefly introduced to him last week at a STRI talk, before being whisked away to Casco Viejo where my friend is house-sitting.  [I'll add to this event, that the house-sitting is for a STRI post-doc and his wife, the house is located by a Peace Corps family owned hotel, where I met my 50-year-old Self, and by her house, which is why she was in Panama to begin with.  Also, the house-sitting friend and I both moved to our respective new digs within 1 day of each other, bringing us from opposite ends of the bus lines 2 hours away distance, to now within walking distance, or a 5 minute taxi ride.]


7. New neighbor's boyfriend's name: male version of same name of my new roommate, my 50-year-old Self, AND my Best Friend from Peace Corps, who has already booked his plane ticket to come visit me in May.  Oh yeah, AND my OLD roommate from Long Beach, who came down with her husband last year to visit me in Peru.


8. Stream-of-consciousness conversation on bus to El Valle.  [Oh yeah -- "pre-coincidence" coincidence -- our other frog project is located in El Valle, and I've been meaning to get out there, but haven't had the opportunity.  So when my new neighbor, over a celebratory Irish Car Bomb for St. Patrick's Day, mentions that he had been planning to go to El Valle the next day, I was game.]  So on the 2-hour bus ride to El Valle, we chatted away to my heart's content, and he asks me, "Why do people paint the bottoms of trees white?"  I let out an auditory scream that may have startled the Panamanian passengers.  I have been wondering that and asking random people that SAME question for over the past year, since I was working with trees in reforesting Peru, I became more aware of trees and hence, more aware of this strange world-wide behavior of painting tree trunks white.  Was it so cars see them?  Insect control?  Purely aesthetic?  Ok, we'll Google that later (and we did). And I was right.
Why do people paint trees white?


9.  The bus was navigating the curvy roads as we left the coast and entered an undulating terrain that caused me to throw my hands in the air and say, "Rollercoaster!"  I made mention of yesterday's near fender-bender in the taxi, and I'm so used to crazy South & Central American driving that not even one milligram of adrenaline was released.  I said that was a problem, that not many events release the adrenaline these days.  (Except for the loofah that fell on me during my first shower in the apartment, and with my eyes closed my initial reaction was that I was back in the village and it was some huge spider or snake.)  But I digress (as I always do)...
Looking out the bus window, I see a hawk flying in all its glory, meandering its way above the nooks and crannies of the dormant volcano we were traveling across.  I tell my new neighbor, "I've never had the desire to paraglide or hangglide, but my dad sent me this link about para-hawking in Nepal.  You are tamdem with a hawk trainer, and you are there in the air watching a hawk fly next to you, rotating its directional feathers."  I thought that might be a good activity to get some adrenaline out of me.  My neighbor pointed out the improbability of going to Nepal, and I said, "Actually...you'd be surprised at how many of my friends have mentioned Tibet/Nepal lately."  Like my English-teacher friend in Peru, and my 50-year-old Self who is formulating a business that involves a connection in Nepal.  And that was the end of that conversation.  Almost not worth mentioning in the coincidences list.  And then there's always that final clincher that is the tipping point.  Back home several hours later, I was once again researching my next career move, and Googled "equine therapy" just to see where that leads.  First entry: "Animal Therapy for Kids - The KAT Centre Brings Dogs to Schools and Orphanages in Nepal."  Hmmmm...

10. Several years ago, I had a dream.  I mean, I've had millions of dreams in my life.  But this one was so vivid that it has remained with me.  I DREW it for god's sake, like in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."  I was convinced that I would find those pointy cloud forest mountains on the slopes of Peru.  Nope, nada.  Yesterday we were running out of time after seeing the Panamanian Golden Frog and other animals at the zoo, so we were deciding between the square trees or the thermal baths, located on opposite sides of town.  We opted for the square trees.  The taxi dropped us off at a Hacienda and pointed us towards the trail that leads to the loop to see the square trees.  Stepping out of the taxi into the cool after-rain, I see my mountains.  I stop.  Wait, can it be? Wait, I was in a hotel, looking out the window, and there were those haunting mountains.  I'm in the right place, not the right view though.  Wait, can it be?  No. That was just a dream.  

11.  Walking down the path to the square trees, I have already shared this weird experience with my two friends since I stopped in the middle of our speedy tour of El Valle to look at the mountains, I had to tell them what was happening and why I looked noticeably jolted.  So, in good form, my neighbor says we better find that view that I was searching for, and we head up the trail towards the trees.  We pass a little cabina on the way back that almost frames the mountain like a window, and he says maybe it was a window in my dream, but in reality it's this little wooden viewing area.  Although I tell him it was definitely a hotel window that reveals the view of these mystical mountains, we take a picture for good measure.  He hands me my camera and says he took several. I thank him for that, since my sister is a photographer and I know you have to take lots of photos to get a good one.  I say, "Imagine you were somewhere you'll never be again, like the Eiffel Tower, and your friend takes just one photo, and when you get back to the states, and you are going through your photos, it didn't turn out well, you're stuck with that bad photo."


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, DO I EVEN NEED TO CONTINUE WRITING WITH WHAT WAS HIS RESPONSE?

Jake in Paris.  I did not KNOW he had been to France, until I made up some cliche place where you'd want a  good, once-in-a-lifetime photo.  Okay, are we getting it yet?
And the list of coincidences goes on and on and on...

Have you thanked your legs today?

Where did your legs take you today?  You know, some people don’t have legs.  I always think about that, and am grateful.  So I try to use them.  And when I’m tired, or my quads are burning, and I'm thinking, “Why am I doing this to myself?”  The answer is, “Because I can.”

Today my legs took me wading through the crystalline streams of the Panamanian rainforest, searching for endangered frogs that are succumbing to the chytrid fungus.  In heavy rubber boots, I navigated through the forest streams, trying with each step to determine the profundity of my next foot placement, to avoid a flood of water into my boot and having to suffer through a wet sock and pruny foot for the next five hours.  There were many close calls, but luckily I gauged well, even in the pitch darkness when we waited until the cover of darkness to conduct our night search of the rare amphibians.

My legs have taken me to the tops of glaciers, to volcanoes over 20,000 feet high, and through 9 days of trekking through the Huayhuash circuit of the Andes mountains.  My legs have carried me across 26.2 miles of sand and gravel for my first marathon, and have kept me in control of innumerable horses across varied terrain.  My legs have taken me on hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of hiking trails -- muddy, wet, dry, dusty, slippery, sandy, leafy, dirty, hard concrete, soft earth, vines, roots, insects, ants, watch out for snakes, I shouldn't be wearing flip-flops.  

Careful in the dark there, as you scramble over treacherous morrains, and now, put on the crampons, we're climbing the icy glacier.  Rubber boots, flip-flops, running shoes, hiking boots, crampons, Crocs, high heels, flats, Havianas.  Gaiters for the ash and yellow sulfuric powder as we sink into the side of the volcano. Blisters, black toenails, plantar fasciitis, shin-splints, IT band syndrome -- what we put our bodies through!

Okay, crossing the river now.  How many rivers, how many highlands over the ichu grass, in search of the elusive vicuña, Vicugna vicugna?  How many rivers, how many vines to trip over, spider webs to swat from the face, in search of the elusive Atelopus limosus frog? 

I've got many rivers to cross/But I can't seem to find my way over/Wandering I am lost/As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover.

Breaking the BRO-CODE

I keep catching myself forgetting to breathe.  Oops!  Breathe, breathe.

30 days left to equal 1,185 days in Peru.  Some days good, some days bad.  The first 730 days were pretty tranquil, those days spent in a rural village, taken care of by a lovely Peruvian family.  The next year -- the BIG MOVE to the BIG CITY, when in fact it has a small town gossip to it, and everyone runs in the same circles.  This is where the real culture clash comes in.  Funny I didn't experience it until I moved to civilization, something closer to what we would recognize as "home."  You know, hot showers, people who brush their teeth and know how to use their cell phones and the internet.  A larger dating population than choosing between a farmer and a donkey driver.  And so I arrived, and began to see the real machismo society I'd heard about, but never fully grasped its extent.
If anyone thinks they understand the "bro-code"... or thinks they have experienced it... you've got nothin' on Peru.  You can't crack that code between bros who cover up for their cheating and lying friends no matter if you're married, moved across the world to be with a guy, laid down ground rules about fidelity, nada.
In this culture, at least in this part of the country, it is customary and accepted to cheat on your girlfriend or wife.  And the boys lie for each other, cover up, play dumb.  And the girls are called gossips, then ostracized, and banned from certain establishments where the bros frequent, if they try to tell their female friends to keep their eyes open, that I've heard some rumors, watch out.

I simply do what I would want others to do for me, if I were the clueless girl who's man is cheating on her.  So when an acquaintance asked me if I believed her man was faithful to her, and I knew otherwise... I can not tell a lie.  I tried to dodge any real details, but saw the suffering and doubt etched on her face, and told her I'd tell her next month, when I was gone, and others involved wouldn't have repercussions.  I suppose it was enough to cast doubt on her already doubting mind, and she began an in-depth investigation to anyone and everyone, and enough stories coincided to give her the truth, and she left to her home country within 3 days.

And what becomes of the cheating man who loses yet another trusting girlfriend due to infidelity?  Well, apparently in this machismo culture, you shift the blame to a scapegoat, and let's call her a gossip to boot, and not allow her to enter the establishment where her boyfriend works, because of course this guy is her boyfriend's boss (which makes a real sticky situation), and the guy has somehow become the victim in all of this, instead of a lying cheater.  After all, in this culture, let's recall that men are expected to cheat.  Whereas it's a huge taboo to talk about other people's private lives.  I made the cultural faux pas, not the other way around.  And I've lost a lot of friends in the process, even jeopardizing my own relationship with my boyfriend.  He's a guy, so he's a part of the bro-code.  And he can't wrap his head around my actions.

So what do you do when you realize that an entire culture clashes against your personal beliefs and morals? Do you stand by and watch a woman suffer, and accept it's part of the land where you are visiting?  What if the woman is another outsider like yourself, and hasn't yet realized what are the cultural norms?  What if you are dating someone born and raised in the culture?  Do you accuse without reasonable evidence, and jump on every small red flag that could indicate infidelity?  Or do you convince yourself that you found the one, I mean the ONE man in this environment that doesn't adhere to those cultural norms?  How would that be possible?  I would consider that statistically improbable.  How could I be so lucky?  And are there other women out there, who would put themselves on the line for me if perhaps I weren't so lucky as I think I am?  Would anyone else out there be willing to break the powerful BRO-CODE, and stand up against an entire ingrained societal norm?

Caught in the Culture Clash

Not that I consider myself religious, nor self-righteous, nor radical...only slightly moral.
Not that anyone reads my blog, since nothing has warranted writing an entry since May.

But now I find myself caught in a Culture Clash. I spoke up when no one else would.  And now I'm the scapegoat for actions that people won't take responsibility for.  North versus South.  Machismo versus non-machismo.  I wouldn't even consider myself a feminist, just a woman who believes everyone is entitled to the truth.

Making Connections

My first phone call of the day came a few minutes before 7am.  I didn't recognize the number, but picked up anyway, since the person on the other end was using their phone credit to call, they must want to get through.  It was the guide who accompanied my friends on the beautiful Huayhuash circuit last month.  We got cut off twice as his credit kept running out, and I couldn't get through by dialing his number.  Finally we were able to set up a meeting time for half an hour later, to talk about sending him more clients.  He has been a long-time friend of Peace Corps volunteers, since the time a PCV was living in his town several years ago.  He had lost contact with PCV's until a couple months ago, when my reforestation project was presented in his town, and he tracked me down.

After a very nice conversation in which I promised I'd send any potential clients his way, I returned to my house to make breakfast.  As an apple pancake was turning golden-brown, my phone rang again.  Another unfamiliar number.  I answered reluctantly, and was very happy I did.  It was another guide, but this one owns the only horseback riding agency in Huaraz.  I had contacted him about supporting his agency by making it more eco-friendly, and helping out with some English translations, in exchange for some horseback riding.  He was excited about my proposal, and we set up a time to meet in half a hour.  Over a bubbilicious Inca Cola, we talked for over an hour about all the possibilities we could work on together.  I was excited about learning how to horseshoe.  He was excited about my reforestation project.  We discussed implementing tree-planting in one of the communities at the destination of one of his trail rides.  The client could ride up to the top of a look-out, take a break, eat lunch, and plant a tree.  I stressed the importance of planting native tree species, as there is already enough eucalyptus, and the client should be contributing to an environmental cause in order to ffel thye are making a difference, which they certainly would be.  At 3000' meters, quenual trees would grow well, as they do in high altitudes.  Being an important native tree species, and in danger of extinction, it would be a great draw for clients looking to offset their carbon footprint, or to have a memorable experience during their visit to Peru.  They could come back and see their tree amidst the forest!

We discussed our timeline and I told him I would be leaving in December.  When I mentioned I was considering returning to Peru one day, he made me promise to keep in touch so that we could start an NGO together.  We began talking about homestays and cultural tourism, in which a client could spend a night with a family, and learn about the traditional lifestyle.  With the tourist season already upon us, we have a lot of big plans and ideas...we'll see where the road takes us!

Reaching the top during our full-day ride.

Like many Peruvian things, I am much taller.

Safety in the Mountains

Hanging out at 36 stories high
(120 meters or 393 feet)

One of the best parts about living in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru is the accessibility of the mountains.  There are over 50 peaks of 5,700 meters (18,700 ft) or higher, including more than 30 peaks over 6,000 meters (19,685 ft).  Besides mountaineering, a multitude of other activities can be enjoyed here such as rock-climbing, ice-climbing, horseback riding, hikes, multi-day trekking, camping, bridge-jumping, birding, and glacial lake jumping (only popular amongst the Peace Corps crowd).

Upon arrival, the unsavvy tourist may be deceived into thinking they can summit a 6,000 meter peak, or scale a 30 meter ice wall, and someone will pop out of nowhere to save them if something should go awry.  What most visitors don't think about is the lack of human resources, and therefore lack of rescue capabilities, available in this 340,000 hectare (1,312 square miles) Huascaran National Park.

Last year I embarked on climbing the "beginner's peak" of Nevado Pisco with a couple of friends and a couple of (maybe) guides.  After hiking to the base camp and having a quick dinner, we went to sleep only to awake at 1am to begin the ascent to the summit.  With our headlamps and gear, we made our way across the incredibly long and torturous morraine, then strapped on our crampons at the glacier's edge and tied into each other with 60 meter ropes.  A few hours later as the sun was rising, we reached the summit and were able to see the white beauty surrounding us as we stood on top of an ancient glacier.

Then we descended.  The terrain was quite different in the daylight.  Instead of seeing the 2 foot radius of light from my headlamp, I saw huge expanses of snow and ice, icicles hanging into caves, and small cracks leading into deep crevasses that made my heart race.  As the sun rose higher, shifting and cracking snow melting noises and deep guttural sounds of the glaciar revealed a hidden underground lair that I didn't wish to acquantaince.  I was well aware that the Cordillera Blanca is the tallest tropical mountain range in the world, meaning it is subject to the slightest changes in climate.  Estimates say they will all be gone in 40-50 years time.

With my feet finally planted on solid ground, I vowed to never again act like an uninformed tourist, and would at the very least learn the basics of mountaineering.  Six months later I happened upon a high mountain rescue course put on by the mountain guide association of Peru, the Casa de Guias.  Once again weighed down with heavy gear, I arrived on day one with my friend, us being 2 out of the 4 women signed up for this course of 130 mountain guides, guides-in-training, and invitees.  For the next 5 days, we were treated with the utmost respect, and our instructor had unlimited patience as we went over the knots and rescue systems over and over again in different situations.  I learned rescue systems, self-rescue, rappel systems, ice systems, snow systems, emergency cases, first aid, and we even had time for some rock-climbing and I rappeled down two pitches of 60 meters each.

On the last day we received closing words and certificates, and everyone went their separate ways for long, hot showers.  While we were enjoying a celebratory dinner and an overdue night's sleep, one of my Park colleagues who was also one of the course instructors, had to postpone his much-deserved rest for an emergency call about a group of university students who had entered the park unauthorized.  Two of the girls were separated from the group and couldn't be located in the dark.  Coming just a month after the disappearance of two lost hikers in the Colca Canyon of Arequipa, with one still missing, the backcountry was up 4-0.  Using years of guiding and rescue experience, my colleague located the two girls walking along a river bank at 1am, after hours of search-and-rescue.  One had fallen in and was suffering from hypothermia, while the other was wet and cold from the rain; both were scared and disoriented.

While I may not be going out and rescuing someone anytime soon, I can at least rescue myself, preventing a midnight search-and-rescue in my honor and leaving the mountains in their quiet slendor.

View from our campsite

Practicing knots

Park Rescue Coordinator & Man of the Hour who found the 2 missing girls,
after teaching the 5-day Mountain Rescue Course

Me with Director of Huascaran National Park and Tourism Specialist

Our patient guide Miguel

All my gear

First Aid and case studies portion of the rescue course

Me with one of the parkguards I used to work with in Cashapampa

Puya Raimondii: Largest Bromeliad in the World